1 Thursday, 25 May 2006

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.37 a.m.

6 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Good morning to you all. I'm afraid we

7 will have to sit another day without Judge Parker this morning. So

8 pursuant to the Rules, Judge Thelin and myself are going to hold this

9 session.

10 Mr. Moore.

11 MR. MOORE: Good morning. Our next witness is Florence Hartmann.

12 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Thank you. Mrs. Hartmann, will you

13 please stand and read the affirmation that is put before you.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

15 the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

16 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: You may sit down.

17 Mr. Moore.

18 MR. MOORE: Thank you very much.

19 WITNESS: FLORENCE HARTMANN

20 [Witness answered through interpreter]

21 Examination by Mr. Moore:

22 Q. What is your full name, please?

23 A. Florence Hartmann.

24 Q. I think it's right to say that you were born 17th of February,

25 1963; is that correct?

1 A. Yes, that's true.

2 Q. It's also right to say that you would wish to give your evidence

3 in French?

4 A. That's correct.

5 Q. May we deal, please, with your background. I think it's right to

6 say that you are a journalist by occupation; is that right?

7 A. That's correct.

8 Q. If I may deal with personal matters in fairly short order. Is it

9 right that you are a graduate, that you graduated in 1985 with a masters

10 degree in literature and foreign civilisation at the University of Paris?

11 A. That's correct.

12 Q. You married, I believe, in 1986. You were married in Belgrade.

13 Is that right?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Your husband, what languages did he speak?

16 A. My husband is from the former Yugoslavia. His mother tongue is

17 the B/C/S language.

18 Q. In 1988 you had a boy and in 1989 a young girl; you have two

19 children?

20 A. Yes, that's correct.

21 Q. And were they both born in the former Yugoslavia?

22 A. No, they were born in France.

23 Q. Can we deal then with the period between, let us say, 1986 and

24 1990. Where were you living at that time?

25 A. Mostly in the former Yugoslavia. But I wanted my children to be

1 born in France.

2 Q. If one was estimating the amount of time that you spent in the

3 former Yugoslavia between 1986 and 1990, what proportion of your time

4 would have been in the former Yugoslavia, living there?

5 A. About three quarters of the year in the former Yugoslavia.

6 Q. What language did you speak at home with your husband?

7 A. We spoke B/C/S. Mostly.

8 Q. May we deal then with your work through that period. What was

9 your employment between 1986 and 1990?

10 A. I was a free-lancer; I did not have an employer. I was working on

11 the events in the former Yugoslavia for various persons on press matters.

12 Q. And when you say "various persons," can you please indicate the

13 role and the function that you did for those various persons?

14 A. I was monitoring the press -- I was monitoring the events in the

15 former Yugoslavia through the press for ambassadors, for various

16 ambassadors, and also for the special correspondent of the Le Monde

17 newspapers, and later I would be working also for Le Monde newspaper.

18 Q. During that time did you, as a free-lance journalist, interview

19 political individuals in the performance of your task?

20 A. During that specific period, no.

21 Q. In what way did you then have free-lance work?

22 A. I was a free-lancer in the sense that I was not working for a

23 specific newspaper. When living in the former Yugoslavia, I was reading

24 the press regularly, so I was assisting newspapers from all over the world

25 to brief them about the events in the former Yugoslavia, to help them

1 cover these events, to monitor the coverage of these events in the press.

2 And I was also doing the same work for various embassies. I was outlining

3 the most salient events, and also I was pointing to the most important

4 interviews in various public sources of information.

5 Q. Thank you very much. I would like to deal, if I may, please, with

6 the period of 1992. I think it's right to say that you became aware in

7 October that there had been a press conference in Zagreb where there was

8 the announcement that an alleged mass grave was found in the Vukovar area;

9 is that right?

10 A. Yes, that's right.

11 Q. At that time did you compile notes to assist you in your job as a

12 journalist?

13 A. Could you please repeat the question?

14 Q. Yes. Did you compile notes, or did you have a notebook to assist

15 you in your job as a journalist?

16 A. Yes, of course. But I'd like to stress that I became the

17 permanent staff member of Le Monde in 1990. And as part of my work for

18 this newspaper, I kept notes systematically of the interviews I conducted,

19 all the reports I was working on.

20 Q. We will deal with Le Monde and your participation with Le Monde,

21 but I just want to deal, first of all, about your notebook.

22 A. Mm-hmm.

23 Q. Now I think it's right to say that you have been given by myself a

24 folder with photocopies of various documents inside; is that right?

25 A. Yes, that's right.

1 Q. To assist the Court, we have files for the Bench and for my

2 learned friends. Although obviously we only need two files for the Bench

3 rather than three. And we -- soft copies, please.

4 Can we just -- Ms. Hartmann, can we just set aside your books for

5 a moment, please, and listen to my questions. Would you be kind enough,

6 please, to turn to the file that you have in front of you, because I want

7 to deal with the way the file is structured so there is no

8 misunderstanding. All of the documents should have an index which

9 basically is in six tabs. Perhaps the best way to assist all parties is

10 at tab 1 clearly we've got the handwritten notes, the document date, and

11 then it moves down sequentially. And perhaps it might be of assistance to

12 all parties if they put a line between tabs 3 and 4. Because they deal

13 with two specific time periods.

14 With regard to -- if we deal with tab 1, first of all, please.

15 And to assist the Court again, the way that the matter has been

16 constructed is that there is the photocopy of the handwritten note. Then

17 as one goes over, there should be the translation of the notebook in

18 English and the translation in B/C/S. So that all parties are aware of

19 its content. These are documents my learned friends have seen.

20 Now, can we deal, please, Ms. Hartmann, with the creation of the

21 document or the compilation of the document. If we deal with tab 1,

22 please. Have you got that? Can we --

23 A. [In English] Yes.

24 Q. -- turn to -- I'm going refer to the numbers. On tab 1, you'll

25 see 0469-2369. Do you see that? It's on the side?

1 A. [In English] Yes.

2 Q. Now, is that -- is it correct to say that that is the first page

3 of your notebook in relation to this date, the 27th of October?

4 A. Yes, that's right.

5 Q. All right. May we just deal then, please, with the actual

6 notebook and the sequence of events arising from it. So can we deal with

7 October. Did you then attend the Vukovar area?

8 A. Yes, I did.

9 Q. And why was it you went to the Vukovar area?

10 A. [In English] When or why?

11 Q. Why.

12 A. In October 1992, I went there because the commission in charge of

13 human rights at the United Nations announced that a mass grave had been

14 discovered in the region of Vukovar but without providing any more

15 details.

16 Q. May we deal, please, -- could someone please try and stop

17 switching off my mic, I can't speak.

18 Can we deal, please, with your first entry, the 27th of October,

19 1992?

20 A. [No interpretation].

21 Q. Would you be kind enough, please, to read out from the photocopy,

22 or if you've got your originals there, if you wish to use the original

23 document. Can you turn up that page, please.

24 A. Mm-hmm.

25 Q. Would you be kind enough please to read out your first entry for

1 the 27th of October, 1992?

2 A. "The UN commission for investigation headed by Mazowiecki, two

3 forensic pathologists and an expert on summary executions. Dr. Clyde Snow

4 said on Thursday in Zagreb that several skeletons were discovered, and

5 this seems to indicate that there is a mass grave. Not touched before the

6 arrival of an international commission of experts. UNPROFOR was tasked

7 with putting in place a 24-hour guard."

8 "22nd of October, Thursday, official announcement. Refused to say

9 where it was," in quotation marks, "for obvious reasons."

10 "We followed the trail of the testimony alleging extra-judicial

11 executions in 1991."

12 Q. May I deal, please, with -- may I deal, please, with that entry.

13 When did you actually compile that entry, when did you write it in the

14 book?

15 A. I wrote this on the 27th of October, 1992 whilst travelling from

16 Belgrade to Vukovar.

17 Q. When --

18 MR. MOORE: May it please the Court, I'm having difficulty with my

19 microphone, because I'm asking the question, I'm only getting half of the

20 question in, I don't know whether the question is being heard completely

21 or not. I don't know if there is a problem.

22 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: No problem on my side. So the problem

23 seems to be with you.

24 MR. MOORE: With my mic, I think.

25 Q. May we deal then, please, with the entry in relation to the

1 following the trail of the testimony alleging extra-judicial executions.

2 Now, what trail did you follow when you went to Vukovar? How did that

3 arise?

4 A. I was working on the basis of a testimony of a survivor,

5 apparently. The testimony had been published in Vjesnik on the 2nd of

6 October. It's a Croatian newspaper. It was very, very specific

7 testimony. And later in October Mazowiecki and the members of the UN

8 commission announced that they had found a mass grave in the Vukovar

9 region.

10 It appeared that there might be a link between these two pieces of

11 information, and that is the reason why I went there to work, and to check

12 whether the link established by Vjesnik between the mass grave and the

13 people who disappeared in the hospital, if that link was -- was confirmed.

14 If -- because the UN commission had refused to give any details about the

15 mass grave.

16 Therefore, I was going there in order to shed some light on what

17 had happened to the people who had -- went missing from the Vukovar

18 Hospital.

19 Q. Thank you very much. When you went to Vukovar, did you go alone

20 or did you go with anyone?

21 A. I was travelling with a colleague of mine from the

22 Agence France-Presse, AFP, and she was also living in Belgrade, and she

23 was also a B/C/S speaker, she could speak B/C/S.

24 Q. And could you tell us her name, please?

25 A. Helene Despic-Popovic, was her name.

1 Q. Let us deal then, please, with the time that you get to Vukovar

2 itself and the route that you took. Can we deal then with the page entry

3 0469-2371. Have you got that page?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. Would you be kind enough, please, to read out the entry there and

6 then it deal -- I'll ask you some questions which deal with the

7 conclusions that you came to.

8 A. "There must be many more underneath."

9 The sentence is not -- it's not a real sentence; these are notes.

10 Q. Would you be kind enough, please, to turn to the previous page.

11 It should really commence with the phrase, "In November 1991." Is that

12 right or not?

13 A. Yes, that's the sentence at the beginning of the page, but that's

14 the end of the page -- of the sentence from the previous page. This has

15 to do with the dates of the alleged extra-judicial execution.

16 Q. I'm aware of that. I'm just trying to deal with the sequence so

17 we have the account. So clearly November 1991 in Vukovar relates to the

18 previous page following the trail. Is that right?

19 A. [No interpretation].

20 Q. And then I think it's right to say on the original there is a line

21 drawn underneath?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. Why is the line drawn?

24 A. Because the previous part has to do with the background, some

25 public information available to everyone. But what's underneath this

1 line, that's the information I am in the process of collecting whilst

2 reporting on the spot.

3 Q. Can we deal then, please, with that page, 2370, commencing "on the

4 way out of Vukovar." Do you see that?

5 A. Yes, I can.

6 Q. Could you read that passage for us, please?

7 A. "On the way out of Vukovar in the direction of the barracks past

8 the place named Ovcara Grabovo, after the depression in the road to the

9 left a forested area, at the end of the forested area on the edge of a

10 field which was plowed. It is guarded by six UNPROFOR Russian soldiers

11 who do not allow access to it. They saw skulls and body parts sticking

12 out of the ground soaked with rain."

13 Q. And can we just turn the page, please, 71, so we conclude that

14 particular passage.

15 A. "There must be many more underneath."

16 Q. Are you able to read your writing in relation to the part below

17 that?

18 A. "The experts have concluded that there is a mass grave, but there

19 should be no exhumation team before spring." That's a quotation

20 too. "From now until then it must be guarded. From the depression one

21 cannot see anything. One cannot see the UN trucks."

22 Q. Now, may I deal with this particular entry. Again, when was this

23 entry compiled? Can you remember?

24 A. Whilst reporting on the 27th of October, 1992.

25 Q. Thank you. And why did you go to the area where you have

1 mentioned it, Ovcara Grabovo?

2 A. Because there was this testimony from this survivor that had been

3 published in Vjesnik on the 2nd of October, 1992. And in that testimony

4 of this Ivan, that was his pseudonym, there were a number of details

5 given. So we had this article with us, and we were following all the

6 information provided in the article. There was a mention of Ovcara, among

7 other things. He remembered that he had been taken from Ovcara by truck

8 towards the pond of Grabovo. And the testimony of Ivan gave a number of

9 details. He stated that they turned left before the pond, so we were

10 basic following the itinerary described by the witness.

11 Q. I would like, please, for you to look at Exhibit 256/20. Can we

12 see that, please? There we are. Unfortunately, my screen, as per normal,

13 is fairly poor.

14 This is a photograph we know of the Ovcara hangar. Just to give

15 bearings, there are what I will call three silver roofs, and there is a

16 road running from left to right. Now, do you recognise this particular

17 photograph and this particular route?

18 A. [No interpretation].

19 Q. And when you talk --

20 A. Yes, I can, yes.

21 Q. -- about going towards -- or going to Ovcara Grabovo and going

22 down a road towards a forested area, is this photograph able to assist you

23 in that process?

24 A. Yes, indeed.

25 Q. What I'd like you to do, if you would be kind enough, we have a

1 magic pen and a magic screen which allows you to touch it and it leaves an

2 impression. You'll be shown how to work it.

3 A. [In English] Okay.

4 Q. Now, what I'd like you to do, please, is to slowly draw the line,

5 the route that you took as far as you can remember, and to explain, as you

6 proceed, exactly what it was you saw and what it was you did. Do you

7 understand?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. So can you please draw a line, it should come out in red, of the

10 road that you took?

11 A. When we arrived at Ovcara, we looked for the road which could take

12 us towards the pond of Grabovo, and this road had quite a special

13 environment because there were trees along the road. So you can easily

14 recognise it on the photo. Here [marks] were a lot of dead leaves on the

15 wet road, so you could see that there were some cars that used the road

16 because -- it was some kind of reassurance for us because we were thinking

17 that maybe the road was mined.

18 I don't think we see the pond of Grabovo here on the photograph,

19 but it must be somewhere around here.

20 Q. Thank you very much.

21 A. Here on the right, at the end of the road. [Marks].

22 Q. Can you tell us or can you see on the map where it was you turned

23 and where you ended up?

24 A. Well, we were following the statement of this Ivan, and we tried

25 to turn left, because according to his statement that's where he turned.

1 And using the hints that he gave, this -- a group of trees, we took a

2 muddy track through fields, and we could see tracks of trucks along this

3 group of trees. And as he had explained in his statement, we reached the

4 end of that grove, if you see what I mean.

5 Q. Would you be kind enough to draw another red line showing where it

6 was you went and where it was you found the grave site?

7 A. The fields were not green back then because that was the end of

8 October, so they were all muddy and ... [marks]. I can't really tell you

9 exactly if we turned left before the grove or just after, but we reached

10 the end of it, and there was a UN tent.

11 Q. Would you be kind enough to put a G, please, and put a circle

12 around it.

13 A. [In English] A circle.

14 Q. Yes. So you put a G and then a circle around it. Can you do that

15 where the grave is. Or you can do an X, I don't mind. G tends to suggest

16 grave.

17 A. At the very end of the grove, so it must be somewhere around here.

18 Q. Would you be kind enough to put a G. I have a reason for doing

19 that.

20 A. [Marks].

21 Q. Thank you very much.

22 MR. MOORE: Your Honour, I would seek to make that an exhibit in

23 this case.

24 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: It will be received.

25 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, the marked picture will become

1 Exhibit 520.

2 MR. MOORE:

3 Q. Ms. Hartmann, I would like to return, if I may, please, to part of

4 the evidence you've already given. I will just wait until all matters

5 have concluded. Thank you very much.

6 In your notes you refer to six Russian soldiers who did not allow

7 access to it. That being the case, if they did not allow access to it,

8 how was it you managed to get there?

9 A. When using the statement of the witness, we were trying to find

10 this way where -- this place where we should be turning left. We were not

11 entirely sure, because in different places in the fields there were tracks

12 to the left, and of course we were scared for mines in the fields.

13 So I think we reached the pond of Grabovo, and it was too far

14 because we knew we had to turn before, so we stopped there. And when we

15 stopped on the right-hand side of the road, on the very edge of the road

16 there was a small hangar. Then a small boat reached one of the side of

17 the pond; the pond was just beneath us. And local people came out of this

18 small boat. They asked for ID, and they asked what we were doing here.

19 They asked a few questions. And a few minutes later, a UN truck arrived

20 with two UN soldiers, peacekeeping forces; they were Russian. And they

21 didn't ask us to leave. We, in fact, attended this meeting between them

22 and the local Serbs, the local Serbs who came out of the boat.

23 They talked together, they had a sandwich, I believe, they had a

24 drink. And then the Russians gave petrol cans to -- Gerry cans to the

25 local Serbs. The local Serbs left with the petrol. And once they were

1 gone, my colleague and I were ready to leave again in the car, and the

2 Russians were then ready to sort of turn back and then leave this place

3 where we'd stopped. And that's when we saw the licence plate of the UN

4 truck, and we told them that if they refused to tell us where they were

5 working, we would report them and we would report this petrol trafficking.

6 So they offered to -- us to follow them and that's how we managed

7 to find the right place where we were supposed to turn.

8 Q. Thank you very much. Can we just try and keep our answers just a

9 little shorter, if it's possible. I know it's difficult.

10 Now, can we just move on in time with regard to your note. You

11 said that you saw skulls and body parts; that's self-explanatory. The

12 phrase, "There must be many more underneath," and it's in quotation marks,

13 who said that, please?

14 A. The Russian soldier said that. The one who took us to the mass

15 grave.

16 Q. Thank you. And then finally, if you look at your notes you will

17 see the entry which says: "From the depression one cannot see anything.

18 One cannot see the UN trucks."

19 What exactly does that entry refer to?

20 A. From the road you couldn't see the UN truck or the UN tent,

21 because the field, there's some kind of an elevation and from the road you

22 were in some kind of a depression, and you can't see what -- what's

23 happening or what is in the field.

24 Q. Thank you very much. Now, here is a situation where you find

25 yourself, you believe that you've located a mass grave, allegedly linking

1 to the people taken from the hospital at Vukovar. To verify that, did you

2 do anything?

3 A. Yes. The location and the statement clearly showed a link between

4 the person who went missing from the hospital and this mass grave, but it

5 was not enough. It was a first hint, so to speak. So we went to the UN

6 headquarters for the region. It was in Erdut; it was not so far from

7 where we were. And we spoke to the representative for civil affairs who

8 was in charge of this matter.

9 Q. Thank you very much. Now, I want to move on in your notes,

10 please, to the -- it's the end of the page 92371, and a continuation,

11 2372, 2373, and right through to 2377. Now, I don't want to go through

12 every single entry here, but I think it's right to say that these notes

13 refer to a discussion that you had with a lady called Blandine Negga. Is

14 that correct?

15 A. That's correct.

16 Q. Just tell us, please, who Blandine Negga is?

17 A. Blandine Negga was the representative in charge of civil affairs

18 for the UN in the eastern area.

19 Q. And why did you speak to her?

20 A. To tell her that we'd found the mass grave. And we wanted her to

21 confirm where it was because we knew where it was.

22 Q. And in general terms -- if I need to clarify certain matters I

23 will do so with later questions. But in general terms, what did you say

24 to her?

25 A. We told her we have found the mass grave. The person missing from

1 the hospital are there, the mass grave is there. And she was very

2 surprised that they'd managed to discover ourselves the mass grave. We

3 told her that we managed on the basis of a report, of a news report. And

4 she made a photocopy of this report that we had with us, this article.

5 Q. And when you compiled these notes of this discussion with that

6 person, when did you compile those notes?

7 A. On the same day. Because right away, after being in Ovcara, in

8 Ovcara Grabovo, we went straight to Erdut. So it was on the same day, on

9 the 27th of October, 1992.

10 Q. Thank you very much. Why was it necessary, if it is necessary, to

11 go and speak to her about your finding?

12 A. Because we needed to corroborate our findings and to hear the

13 information from an official source. We need an official source of

14 information.

15 Q. We will move on in time and we will see an article that you wrote

16 for Le Monde; we will do that in a moment. But why is it as a journalist

17 necessary to have an official source or confirmation of something like

18 this?

19 A. Well, this is the first mass grave in Europe that you're

20 discovering since the Second World War. Of course your newspaper may not

21 believe you, may question your findings in your report. So for the

22 readers and in order to convince your own editors, you need -- this is a

23 very serious business, so you need, of course, to corroborate your

24 findings through different sources. And on matters such as this one, you

25 need an official confirmation. The UN had already said that there was a

1 mass grave, so we needed from the UN to hear that, yes, this was this mass

2 grave.

3 Q. Thank you very much. I would like to move, if I may, very briefly

4 on to tab 2 and to tab 3, because I think it's right to say that you still

5 had your colleague, she was also a journalist, Helene Despic-Popovic, and

6 I suppose in journalistic terms you had the misfortune of her story being

7 published on AFP on the 28th of October and yours unfortunately was the

8 29th of October.

9 A. No, no, no. The issue of Le Monde is dated 29th, but in Paris

10 it's published on -- well, it's released on the 28th. So there was a

11 one-hour difference between the release from AFP and Le Monde, but this is

12 an agreement we had together. So both articles were published on the 28th

13 of October, but of course the date of Le Monde is the day after because it

14 is not sold everywhere on the 28th, but sometimes on the 29th.

15 Q. Well, I think it's right to say that she got her story out one

16 hour before yours, so shall we --

17 A. [In English] Yes.

18 Q. -- rectify the balance and deal with your particular account.

19 Can we deal with tab 3. It is the -- should be a photocopy of the

20 article that you then wrote. When one looks behind that photocopy, there

21 is the -- as I say, the English translation and the B/C/S translation.

22 Again, I don't really want to go into enormous detail about it, but if I

23 summarise it in this way, is it right that there is -- it refers to

24 atrocities in the former Yugoslavia, the United Nations investigate the

25 Vukovar mass grave, and you then proceed in the core of the story, to deal

1 with the testimony of Ivan, as he's been called. And then we have the

2 phrase, "From our special correspondent." Now, I want to deal with that,

3 because I haven't taken your employment past 1990.

4 A. Mm-hmm.

5 Q. "Special correspondent" meant what?

6 A. A correspondent is somebody who, for a particular newspaper, lives

7 in one country. As far as I was concerned, I was the permanent

8 correspondent for Le Monde in former Yugoslavia.

9 A special envoy, which is the term used, is the term used when you

10 send somebody from the headquarters. My headquarters, for instance, was

11 Belgrade. I was the permanent correspondent based in Belgrade, and when I

12 go somewhere else for a report, then I become a special envoy.

13 Q. So just returning to the employment issue. Between 1990, I think

14 it's right to say you had become the correspondent for Le Monde; is that

15 right?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. And then here -- and between 1990 and 1992 that was your title; is

18 that right?

19 A. That's correct.

20 Q. But here, with regard to this document or article, you become

21 special correspondent?

22 A. Because I'm not at the headquarters, yes.

23 Q. Thank you. Now, I'm not going to go into the details of the

24 article, as I say. But is it right -- is it equally right to say that

25 when you compile this document you are using your notes and your

1 recollection; is that right?

2 A. Yes, indeed.

3 Q. Thank you very much.

4 MR. MOORE: Your Honours, I was not going to deal with the

5 document in toto. I was going to move on to other topics. It may well be

6 there's some cross-examination, and I can come back and deal with it, if

7 needs be. And I will also make application for exhibits, if I may, at the

8 end; or if you wish, I can do it at the moment.

9 Q. Let us move on in time. Here is the article, it goes out in

10 Le Monde, we see 28/29th of October. Did you receive any communication

11 from other journalists in relation to this article?

12 A. What do you mean by "communication"? Calls? Once the article had

13 been published or ...

14 Q. Yes. Did anybody phone up to praise you or criticise you?

15 A. Yes, yes. When the article was published, as of the 28th of

16 October in the evening and then the next day on the 29th, I received a lot

17 of telephone calls in Belgrade from colleagues congratulating me on the

18 work that I had done. Using journalistic terms, even it's not very

19 appropriate because it's a serious business, we call it a scoop.

20 Q. Well, dealing with the scoop, did you receive any telephone calls

21 or contact or visit from anyone within an official capacity to inquire

22 about this grave site?

23 A. Never.

24 Q. Did you receive or were you aware of any criticism or praise in

25 official circles?

1 A. "Official circles," you mean local circles or foreign circles.

2 Q. I meant within Belgrade, any contact at all.

3 A. No. Complete silence.

4 Q. Do you know if, at that time, whether what I will call the foreign

5 press, I will use for my terms the European press, was being looked at

6 within Belgrade by either journalists or official parties?

7 A. Yes, of course. The articles written by foreign journalists were

8 monitored by the authorities almost systematically, yes.

9 Q. And how do you know that?

10 A. Because when my colleagues or myself interviewed officials,

11 usually the thing we got was a five- to 10-minute monologue on what we

12 were writing, comments, usually criticisms. So of course they were

13 monitoring accurately what we were writing, the articles we were writing.

14 Q. Thank you very much. That is the first time-span I wish to deal

15 with. I want to now move on to the month of November 1992. I would like

16 to deal with the 18th of November, one year after the liberation of

17 Vukovar. Now, did you actually attend that ceremony in Vukovar itself?

18 A. On the 18th of November, 1992, yes.

19 Q. And in relation to that anniversary, did you compile notes at the

20 time or not?

21 A. Yes, I did.

22 Q. And if we look at tab 4, do we find the photocopy of notes that

23 you compiled?

24 A. Yes, that's correct.

25 Q. May I just deal, please, with one or two aspects of your visit to

1 Vukovar at that time? Now, were you the only journalist there, or were

2 there a large number of journalists?

3 A. A lot of them.

4 Q. And before going to the ceremony on the 18th of November, were you

5 aware of the name of Mr. Sljivancanin?

6 A. Of course, like everybody else.

7 Q. And what was your belief at that time vis-a-vis Mr. Sljivancanin's

8 participation or activities in Vukovar in 1991?

9 A. He was one of the main commanders. He was the symbol of the

10 evacuation of the Vukovar Hospital because it being -- he had been filmed

11 and we had seen the pictures for days on the Belgrade TV when he prevented

12 the ICRC representative to access the hospital. He had expressed himself

13 publicly and in front of the cameras of the media at the fall of Vukovar.

14 He did it repeatedly. He was the public character during the fall of

15 Vukovar.

16 Q. At that time, and I just want to deal with belief. Was there any

17 belief that Mr. Sljivancanin was linked with the mass grave or killings of

18 the people from the Vukovar Hospital?

19 A. Of course everybody was wondering about it because he was there

20 when the Vukovar Hospital was evacuated and the person who had been

21 evacuated went missing, so of course that was the question.

22 Q. May we deal then, please, with an incident that occurred when you

23 were there. Did you see Sljivancanin when he was there?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And where did you see him, at what location?

1 A. In different places, because of course the ceremony was organised

2 in different phases. The first time I saw him at the Vukovar cemetery.

3 And then I saw him on the main square of Vukovar where a few speeches were

4 given.

5 Q. Were you able to have any conversation with Major Sljivancanin

6 when you were in Vukovar on this day?

7 A. Yes. At the beginning of the day, yes. At the Vukovar cemetery.

8 Q. Would you be very kind, please, to tell the Court how it was you

9 ended up having a conversation with Sljivancanin?

10 A. The journalists arrived at the cemetery because there was a very

11 specific schedule for the ceremony. We were already there, and

12 Sljivancanin arrived at the cemetery. I saw him coming. And I went

13 towards him, when I saw him, to ask him a question.

14 Q. And can you tell us, please, the way you did that?

15 A. I left the other journalists and I walked towards him, because the

16 question I wanted to ask him was not a question that you could ask with a

17 lot of people around. It was a -- quite a specific question. I wanted

18 him to tell me what Ovcara represented for him. So I got closer to him

19 and right away I asked him the question.

20 Q. Well, can you tell us, please, what it was you said to him and

21 what was his reply, if any?

22 A. I remember the question in Serbian; I remember the response in

23 French. His response was, "Well, you do have to bury bodies somewhere."

24 Q. Before we get to the answer, could we have the question?

25 A. "What happened at Ovcara?"

1 Q. And what was the reply?

2 A. "One has to bury bodies somewhere."

3 Q. And when he said that to you, what was your reaction?

4 A. I was very upset.

5 Q. Again, when one speaks to a person one can ask a question, and

6 there often can be a short period of reflection by the person who answers.

7 Was that the case here or was it an immediate response?

8 A. No, it was a spontaneous answer, because probably I caught him off

9 guard a little, so he gave me that spontaneous answer. He could have told

10 me -- [indiscernible] I don't know about it, but he gave me that very

11 spontaneous answer.

12 Q. I want to deal with one or two other aspects of your notebook.

13 Because it is correct to say that that particular entry is not in your

14 notebook; isn't that right?

15 A. Of course not.

16 Q. I'll deal with why not in a moment, but I want to deal, if I may,

17 with just other things that are in the notebook.

18 Would you be kind enough, please, to turn up -- it's page -- or

19 turn to, perhaps better English, 2400. I hope that that's the right page.

20 Now, before -- have you got it? Have you managed to locate the

21 original?

22 Let's deal, first of all, if I may, with the -- the notes

23 themselves and the generality of them. You have compiled notes of hearing

24 various speeches from individuals at various times. Is that right?

25 A. Yes, that's right.

1 Q. I'd like you to deal with that page that I've already referred to,

2 and a gentleman who is at the very bottom of the page. Vujovic. Do you

3 see it? Miroljub Vujovic?

4 A. Mm-hmm.

5 Q. Now --

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. -- there is a handwritten entry. When was that compiled in

8 relation to the gentleman called Vujovic?

9 A. On the 18th of November, 1992, like the rest of these notes that

10 are in this part of my notebook.

11 Q. And can you tell the Court what that man was saying?

12 A. Vukovar, a second Hiroshima -- [B/C/S on English channel]

13 We shall build it up again. The important thing is that the air

14 is now clear and one can actually breathe.

15 Q. Well, we have had the word translated as "clear." Is that the

16 meaning that you understood it?

17 A. No. Because underneath the B/C/S word I wrote pure and healthier.

18 [In English] Which would be pure and more sane.

19 Q. The word -- interpretation is healthier.

20 A. Yes, that's correct. Yes. It's good.

21 Q. How would you describe the tone, and the general atmosphere of

22 many of the speeches that day at Vukovar one year on?

23 A. It was a time for celebration. People were celebrating what they

24 believe was -- or they felt was a liberation. All these speeches

25 legitimised war, legitimised destruction and crimes as well. So there are

1 a lot of quotations. They were talking about Serbia. They were proud to

2 be there. They conquered the territory.

3 Q. May we move on, please, to page 2404. Is it not there?

4 A. [Indiscernible].

5 Q. Let us look to your book. It's certainly in the book. And look

6 at the name, Sljivancanin; it's just two pages on.

7 A. [In English] I have 402.

8 Q. Yes, 2402. Thank you very much. So it's 0469-02402. Would you

9 be kind enough to refer to the entry for Mr. Sljivancanin. Have you got

10 it there?

11 A. Mm-hmm.

12 Q. Again --

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. -- comments are linked to it, in adverted commas. What exactly

15 was Sljivancanin saying on this day?

16 A. The first word is in B/C/S and the rest in French. "Ovo je

17 Yugoslavia." This is Yugoslavia, this is Serbia, this is Montenegro, I

18 came here without a passport.

19 Q. May we deal then with your notes themselves. Clearly there are

20 entries there of speeches being made. But here you had a conversation,

21 short, with Sljivancanin, where he basically had said, "Well, you have to

22 bury the bodies somewhere." Why is it not in the notebook?

23 A. Because of course you are not expecting a spontaneous answer, and

24 you don't have a notebook and a pen ready, because if they see that you

25 have the notebook, then they won't talk to you.

1 Q. But of course you always have the ability to write it in

2 afterwards, don't you?

3 A. It was not necessary. The sentence remained engraved in my

4 memory. And the other few sentences that he said at the Vukovar cemetery

5 were not written either in my notebook. However, they are paraphrased, so

6 to speak, in my article.

7 Q. And just for completeness, I think it's right to say if we look at

8 tab 5, we have an article, again here in Le Monde, in relation to Vukovar

9 itself. Is that right? Vukovar one year later?

10 A. Mm-hmm.

11 Q. I won't go into that. Again, it's -- speaks for itself. And I

12 won't deal with any specifics. But why did you not enter into Le Monde at

13 that article the phrase that Sljivancanin had made to you about the burial

14 of the bodies?

15 A. Because the way I interpreted things, my interpretation of what he

16 said accused him, and this was a very serious accusation, and I could not,

17 on the basis of this one sentence, I could not write an article accusing

18 him. The criteria applied by Le Monde are very specific, and it's not

19 only of course with Le Monde, but with many newspapers. We were very

20 cautious. And a newspaper cannot accuse somebody without further evidence

21 to corroborate such accusation. That's the reason why I paraphrased his

22 sentence, because implicitly, if I hadn't done that, I would have accused

23 him if I'd quoted him.

24 Q. If we move to tab 5 and we look at your article for Le Monde.

25 You've told us about the strict criteria.

1 A. Mm-hmm.

2 Q. I'd like to deal with the reference to Sljivancanin in that

3 article. I will read it out, and we'll deal with that, if we may. Have

4 you got the article at tab 5?

5 A. [In English] Yeah.

6 Q. Thank you very much. I'll read it thankfully for everybody in

7 English rather than French.

8 "Mr. Sljivancanin categorically stated that the army performed no

9 summary executions. At the time, however, all paramilitary formations and

10 volunteers fighting on the front line were under the command of the

11 federal army. One year after the siege of Vukovar ended, 3.000 people are

12 still reported missing."

13 Why did -- I see Mr. Lukic has a concern. I hope it's not for my

14 English, as opposed to the French.

15 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, perhaps we could leave

16 this for the cross-examination, but perhaps the entire sentence should be

17 read out to give the proper context, particularly since this concerns my

18 client directly.

19 MR. MOORE: If it helps the Defence, I will be glad to do so.

20 Does Mr. Lukic wish the whole paragraph, because of course it deals

21 with -- well, I for my part only need the last part. In fairness, I'm

22 quite happy to read the whole paragraph or just half the paragraph.

23 Perhaps Mr. Lukic can help me with what concerns him.

24 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] I would kindly ask you to read out the

25 entire sentence and not just one half of it.

1 MR. MOORE: Reading as follows: "A few hours later, Veselin

2 Sljivancanin took over the city and entered the hospital. According to

3 the UN special rapporteur" -- who is then named -- "175 patients were

4 evacuated and executed. Their bodies are most certainly to be found in

5 the mass grave outside Vukovar. Remarking that there must be many mass

6 graves in Vukovar where the victims of the clashes were buried,

7 Mr. Sljivancanin categorically stated that the army performed no summary

8 executions. At the time, however, all paramilitary formations and

9 volunteers fighting on the front line were under the command of the

10 federal army. One year after the siege of Vukovar ended, 3.000 people are

11 still reported missing."

12 Now, I hope that's sufficient.

13 Q. Why did you phrase it in that way, please, rather than a direct

14 quotation?

15 A. As I said before, because quoting him would have accused him

16 without any further evidence, so that's why I had to paraphrase what he

17 said.

18 Ovcara was a symbol of a crime, and Mr. Sljivancanin could have

19 told me, "I don't know what Ovcara is." Because when my article was

20 published, the entire world heard about it. There was of course the AFP

21 report, but there was complete silence in Belgrade on that issue, so he

22 could have ignored, not known what was happening in Ovcara. He could have

23 told me, "What is Ovcara? I don't know. I don't know what happened in

24 Ovcara." But instead of that, he talks about bodies. And of course this

25 was accusing him, so that's why I decided to paraphrase what he said. And

1 in conformity with what he said to me, I added a few elements, because he

2 denied executions, mass executions in the area of Vukovar which would have

3 been under the responsibility of the JNA. But when I pronounced Ovcara,

4 he said bodies.

5 Q. Thank you very much. May we deal, please, with -- I'm getting,

6 again, problems with my microphone and headset. I'm getting French coming

7 through.

8 Between 1992 and 1994, were you still working in Belgrade?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Throughout that period, did you interview what I will call

11 prominent politicians or persons who would be newsworthy?

12 A. Yes, many.

13 Q. And as far as you are aware, and as far as you can recollect, did

14 you interview them in French, Spanish, English or B/C/S?

15 A. Always in B/C/S.

16 Q. When you had those interviews, did you do it personally or with an

17 interpreter?

18 A. Never with an interpreter. Sometimes officials came with their

19 own interpreter, but the person would leave. They checked from the very

20 beginning of the conversation that the interpretation was not required.

21 Q. Did you have any complaint at all that your linguistic skills were

22 inadequate and, for example, you required an interpreter or there was any

23 complaint about your ability to speak B/C/S?

24 A. No. No. Of course I make a few grammatical mistakes, but I do

25 understand fully and I never -- never -- I never received any criticism

1 on -- on the conversations reported in articles published by my newspaper.

2 Q. Thank you. Let us move again forward in time. 1994, is it right

3 you were then -- I will use the appropriate phrase, you ceased to work in

4 Belgrade. Is that right?

5 A. Yeah, well, as some 15 other journalists, foreign journalists, my

6 accreditation was withdrawn, cancelled. Because we needed an official

7 authorisation to work as journalists, so, in fact, I was not allowed to

8 work as a journalist from then. We were some 15 foreign correspondents in

9 the situation.

10 Q. 1994, did you then leave Belgrade?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. And between 1994 and 2000, I choose that date for a reason which

13 will become obvious in a minute, what was your job?

14 A. I went back to Paris. I worked for the newspaper in Paris. I

15 continued travelling to the Balkans, except of course to Serbia.

16 Q. May we deal with 2000. I think it's right to say that you applied

17 for and indeed became appointed as a spokesperson for the Prosecutor here

18 in the Office of the Prosecutor; is that right?

19 A. Yes, that's true. In October 2000.

20 Q. You have performed that task until 2006. And is it right to say

21 that you are still employed by OTP, but you are reassigned doing other

22 work. Is that correct?

23 A. Yes.

24 MR. MOORE: I have no further questions to ask you. May I now

25 deal with exhibits, if that is permissible. Thank you very much.

1 In relation to the handwritten notes under tab 1, I will call out

2 the ERN, if it's required. In French, original, it's 0469-2368, finishing

3 in 2377. I'd ask for that to be made an exhibit, please.

4 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: It will be received.

5 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit 521, Your Honours.

6 MR. MOORE: I am not going to ask for the article at this time in

7 relation to tab 2, for it to be made an exhibit. It may well be in due

8 course.

9 In relation to tab 3, which is the Le Monde article, it is the ERN

10 in French, 0469-2380. I would ask for that to be made an exhibit, please.

11 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: It will be received.

12 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit 522, Your Honours.

13 MR. MOORE: Because of the extraction, and I seek the Court's

14 guidance on this, I would ask for these to be made an exhibit under a

15 different exhibit number. I am entirely in the Court's hands on that, it

16 could also be 521, but it may be for convenience for comparison that that

17 really should be the next exhibit, 523. The ERN number is 0469-2381,

18 concluding at 2402.

19 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: I think it should have a different

20 exhibit number.

21 MR. MOORE: Thank you very much.

22 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, it will be Exhibit 523.

23 MR. MOORE: And then the Le Monde article, I was not -- well,

24 perhaps I should, as there's going to be cross-examination on it.

25 0469-2403, I would ask for that to be made an exhibit.

1 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: It will be received.

2 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours this will be Exhibit 524.

3 MR. MOORE: It's the kiss of death for any barrister to say I have

4 no further questions. Can I just ask this one question.

5 Q. It relates to tab 6. It's an extract from a book that you wrote

6 for Mr. Milosevic. I think it's right to say, isn't it, that you wrote a

7 book I think in 1999?

8 A. [In English] Yes.

9 MR. MOORE: I will not ask for that to be made an exhibit at this

10 time.

11 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Thank you. Did I understand a book for

12 Mr. Milosevic?

13 MR. MOORE: In relation to Mr. Milosevic.

14 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Thank you very much.

15 MR. MOORE: Not for him. Thank you very much.

16 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Thank you.

17 I'm looking at the clock. Mr. Vasic, Mr. Domazet, shall we start

18 with cross-examination now or do you want to have the break? Would you

19 prefer us to ...

20 MR. DOMAZET: [Indiscernible] Only 10 minutes, about. That's

21 okay.

22 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Okay. Then we shall -- you want to have

23 the break now, is that -- or do you want to proceed?

24 MR. DOMAZET: Yes.

25 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: [Interpretation] We will now proceed to

1 cross-examination. The Defence counsel will ask you a few questions.

2 Cross-examination by Mr. Domazet:

3 Q. [Interpretation] Madam Hartmann, good morning. I'm Vladimir

4 Domazet. I'm Mr. Mrksic's counsel. I speak a bit of French, so I will

5 try to ask my questions in French for this cross-examination, in your

6 language, which was also the mother tongue of my mother. But I do

7 apologise because of course I'm not fluent; however, I hope we can

8 understand each other.

9 You've said to Mr. Moore that you had a masters degree in

10 civilisation and literature in Paris, yes? Before you went to Serbia, did

11 you study the history of Serbia or maybe the history of Yugoslavia?

12 A. Before 1985, no. Of course I knew a bit about culture and I knew

13 what happened in the former Yugoslavia under Tito and what happened in the

14 Second World War, so things that you can read in the newspapers.

15 Q. So, in fact, you didn't have in-depth knowledge of the history,

16 the Second World War and the creation, so to speak, of this second

17 Yugoslavia as we call it sometimes?

18 A. I had general knowledge.

19 Q. And did you know what happened during the war on the so-called

20 Croat territory, the Croat independent state during the Second World War?

21 A. Yes, this is part of the things that I knew. Which I studied

22 in-depth at a later stage, since it was going to be useful in my work.

23 Q. Maybe we can talk at a later stage on this issue as well, but you

24 said in your testimony that since 1990 you had been a correspondent in

25 Belgrade for the Le Monde newspaper?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Did you arrive in Serbia at that time or were you already there?

3 A. I was already in Serbia. I had been in Serbia since 1986 almost

4 full time.

5 Q. And you started to learn the language, you say B/C/S, but at the

6 time we called it Serbo-Croat. Did you start to learn the language once

7 you arrived in Belgrade or did you already know the language before?

8 A. No I -- I started learning the language there. From 1985 when I

9 started travelling to the area, and then of course after when I was there.

10 Q. Yes. Because in your notebooks, as of 1991, you used that

11 language. So is it fair to say that at that time you spoke that language

12 quite fluently?

13 A. Yes, I guess so. Because in 1988 I became an official member of

14 the professional translators' association in Serbia for Serbo-Croat,

15 French and Spanish.

16 Q. You knew Cyrillic writing, yes?

17 A. I can read it, but I -- I write it like a child really, but -- a

18 young child, but I can read it. Yes, I can read it, because of course I

19 needed it in order to read some articles in the newspapers.

20 Q. And back then already you were able to read in Cyrillic? We're

21 talking about 1991.

22 A. Yes. 1991. But not handwritten Cyrillic.

23 Q. In your answers to Mr. Moore's questions you spoke about the fact

24 that you'd married in Serbia. Could you tell us what the occupation of

25 Mr. Hartmann is?

1 A. I use my maiden name. My husband has another family name. And my

2 husband is an engineer, civil engineer.

3 Q. Do you mind my asking the ethnic background of your husband?

4 A. If it has anything to do with the case.

5 Q. Could you answer then?

6 A. He was a citizen of the former Yugoslavia, of mixed origin, like

7 many others. So I have to tell you what was the ethnic background of his

8 mother and his father, if you want me to answer.

9 Q. No, you said he is of mixed origin. I assume it was a mixed

10 marriage between a Croat and a Serb or ...

11 A. Yeah.

12 Q. That's fine. So he didn't have the same occupation as you. It's

13 another occupation entirely?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Thank you. You said that at the beginning of October 1992 you

16 read this article in Vjesnik and you found information which then helped

17 you to find the location of -- or where bodies were found in Ovcara. Once

18 there, you said that you could see that some trucks had been there, and

19 you then found that there had been some vehicles going between this farm

20 and then the place where the soldiers were.

21 A. No, there was a -- hardly any vehicle there. There was nothing,

22 but you could see some tracks of tyres on wet leaves which showed that

23 somebody had been there and that there was no mine. But I'm talking about

24 the road; I'm not talking about the dirt tracks in the fields.

25 Q. Mrs. Hartmann, you are talking about the area, you are talking

1 about Grabovo. But isn't it true that there is another Grabovo in the

2 area of Vukovar, but that's -- that was not the place where you were? I

3 think Grabovo is a --

4 A. No, Grabovo is a pond. According to the statement, it was at the

5 end of Ovcara towards the Grabovo pond. And indeed we found a pond at

6 that particular place, and we found the mass grave is Grabovo the name.

7 Well, as far as I know, yes, because we found the right direction. Maybe

8 there are other places, other areas called Grabovo in the region.

9 Q. In your book you spoke about a Grabovo lake. Was there a lake

10 besides the mass grave?

11 A. No, no. I didn't use the term "lake." I spoke of a pond.

12 Q. Well, maybe it was a translation problem, but -- so there was --

13 next to the mass grave there wasn't --

14 A. On the right-hand side of the road, and there was the landmark

15 that we used not to miss the place, but the mass grave was not next to the

16 pond. The mass grave was on the left-hand side, the pond was on the

17 right-hand side, and the mass grave was at the end of the grove where the

18 trees were.

19 Q. One last question. I think it is time for a break, the first

20 break.

21 You mentioned soldiers. Was their vehicle there? Could you

22 identify the vehicle or did you just come across the soldiers when you

23 arrived there?

24 A. Who are you talking about, the UN soldiers?

25 Q. Yes. The UN soldiers, the Russian soldiers that you found there.

1 A. They had a tent and their vehicle. Small trucks, vans, were there

2 where the mass grave was. But we found them because two of them were

3 actually next to the pond in the truck.

4 Q. Thank you, Mrs. Hartmann.

5 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: [Interpretation] Thank you very much,

6 Mr. Domazet.

7 We'll have a 20-minute break, and we'll resume in 20 minutes.

8 Thank you.

9 --- Recess taken at 11.02 a.m.

10 --- On resuming at 11.25 a.m.

11 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: [Interpretation] Mr. Domazet, you can

12 proceed.

13 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

14 Q. Mrs. Hartmann, we'll continue our cross-examination.

15 With regard to the mass grave, you stated what you saw on the

16 spot. Isn't it the case that six days before there was a press conference

17 in Zagreb where Dr. Snow announced that a mass grave had possibly been

18 found. At the time it was not certain. But the site, the location was

19 still secret, but I don't think the entire thing was a secret?

20 A. Well, the location was a secret, but what had been announced

21 publicly is that a mass grave, a possible mass grave had been found in the

22 region of Vukovar, but we had no other information about the victims, for

23 example.

24 Q. Yes, very well. But reading this in conjunction with the Vjesnik

25 article with the account of this witness who described everything in

1 detail, then you had some sort of idea about the location?

2 A. After it was announced officially that a mass grave had been

3 discovered next to Vukovar, then the article became really interesting.

4 And my colleague and myself thought that there might be a link between

5 these two things, and the aim of our trip was to see, was to check whether

6 there was indeed a link.

7 Q. Talking about your notes, Mr. Moore asked you to read a passage of

8 these notes. I would like you to look at this document. It's page 2400,

9 I believe. And you read a passage of this, of your notes in your

10 notebook. Have you managed to found this specific passage? You remember

11 that Mr. Moore asked you to read two passages?

12 A. Yes. Some of my notes from the 27th of October, 1992.

13 Q. Let me check that it's the right page.

14 Yes, that's right. It's about something a certain Miroljub

15 Vujovic stated?

16 A. This is the 18th of November, 1992.

17 Q. Yes, exactly. You read out the passage where he states that it's

18 a second Hiroshima, we will rebuild it, et cetera. But I would like you

19 to read a further sentence where it says -- I would like to know what you

20 read just after what you read before?

21 A. It's on the next page and it is stated: "We will live and we will

22 never again let them abuse us."

23 Q. Abused by whom and how? How did you interpret this? Did you ask

24 questions? Did you ask Mr. Vujovic what he was complaining about?

25 A. I didn't put the question to him because he was making a speech on

1 the main square of Vukovar. That took place during the ceremony to

2 commemorate the anniversary of the liberation. That's how they way they

3 termed it, the liberation of Vukovar.

4 Q. Yes, fine. But how did you understand it as a journalist? You

5 were familiar with the situation before, you were familiar with all the

6 events in Yugoslavia at the time because you had lived there for about 10

7 years before. So what did you understand by this?

8 A. I suppose that he meant abuse by the Croats.

9 Q. As a journalist, did you have access to sources according to which

10 the Serbs in Croatia, in the 1990s, in the previous period before -- after

11 the arrival of Tudjman in power, the Serbs starting complaining, started

12 being afraid of possible abuse of similar things?

13 A. Yes, that was the line taken by Serb officials at the time.

14 Q. Yes, very -- yes, I remember all this very well. I remember the

15 official speeches from that period. But my question is if, as a

16 journalist, you had contacts or -- with the ordinary people, the man on

17 the street in Croatia. I'm not talking about politician officials. Did

18 you then get an impression about what was going on, what the Serbs were

19 afraid of in Croatia after the approval of Tudjman?

20 A. Yes. Of course I met with officials, and I met with the man on

21 the street. And in my notes you can see that I report the speeches of a

22 number of Serbs in Vukovar in 1992. Some of them recall the way they were

23 living before the town was shelled, some of them talking about their fear

24 regarding the Croats, some of them stressing that they were living in --

25 in harmony with all the other communities.

1 Q. Yes. Yes, there were a lot of people from all communities stating

2 that before the war people were living together without any problems.

3 Because you know very well that if you look at the town of Vukovar and the

4 entire region, it was a region where you had not only Croats or Serbs but

5 other minorities; Hungarians, Ruthenians, et cetera.

6 But what I would like to know is whether you were in a position to

7 have contact not with officials but whether you had discussions with

8 people who talked to you about the fears of the Serbs following the change

9 of -- in the regime in Croatia and following the amendment, the change of

10 the Croatian constitution. Do you remember that?

11 A. Yes, I do. Of course.

12 Q. Do you remember that -- I believe in December 1990 Croatia amended

13 its constitution. Can you tell me if that's one of the factors that was a

14 worry to the Serbs in Croatia, because from then on there were not -- they

15 had -- people with the same statute in the constitution. They were not a

16 constituent nation, a constituent people of the Republic of Croatia

17 following the change in the constitution?

18 A. Yes. The Serbs in their public pronouncements or even if you talk

19 to ordinary people stated that they were treated as second-class citizens

20 following the changes in the constitution.

21 Q. You might remember that, for example, in Croatia the uniforms of

22 the police had changed and some Serbs were concerned about new symbols

23 that appeared because for some Serbs these symbols dated back to the

24 Karadzic [as interpreted] regime, to the Second World War in Croatia, so

25 they were afraid because of all that happened at the time in Croatia?

1 A. Yes, that's some part of -- some of the things they said at the

2 time.

3 Q. Another question. Did you go to Vukovar before the visits you

4 described, the visits in October, 1992? Did you ever go to Vukovar before

5 that time?

6 A. Yes, several times. But that depends on the -- the dates of --

7 the date of the war according to you, because I went to Vukovar several

8 times in July 1991.

9 Q. Yes. July 1991. We were already in a state not really of war,

10 but that was the beginning of the hostilities, if we decide to describe

11 them that way.

12 A. Absolutely.

13 Q. There was undeniably a high degree of tension. Can you describe

14 that tension between the Croats and the Serbs and tell us what happened at

15 the time?

16 A. There was a high level of tension. There were military

17 barricades -- or at least barricades manned by people in arm -- in arms

18 in the region of Vukovar, depending on the ethnicity, on the majority of

19 the population. All the villages around Vukovar were controlled by Serb

20 militias wearing various kinds of insignias. Some roads had been blocked

21 because anti-tank mines had been laid there by the JNA. It was very

22 difficult to travel sometimes. It took one day and a half to cover just

23 20 kilometres. There were also Croatian forces in the city of Vukovar.

24 Q. Okay. You are saying that there Croatian forces in Vukovar; you

25 saw it yourself. What sort of forces are you talking about?

1 A. If memory serves me right, there were --

2 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter has not understood the word.

3 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation]

4 Q. But you noticed more -- did you see a lot of regular soldiers

5 or -- than before or ...

6 A. The ZNG and the Croat soldiers, I saw them in the headquarters in

7 town, because we went to see them, to interview them, to ask about the

8 situation. I saw the other soldiers were more numerous. They were

9 members of various militias in general and they were in the villages, and

10 those people were Serbs.

11 Q. Were there also Croatian militias in the Croatian villages

12 surrounding Vukovar?

13 A. In July the tension was very high. The hostilities had started.

14 Everybody was wondering has the war started or not. So the villages I

15 went to were Serb villages, the villages around Vukovar. In Ilok maybe

16 there might have been Croatian soldiers.

17 Q. So if I understand you well, you were interested in the Serb

18 villages with Serb militias, so that's what you know, but you do not know

19 anything about the Croatian villages because you didn't go to these

20 villages, if I understand you right?

21 A. Yes. When I went to -- there in July 1991, I went from Belgrade

22 to Vukovar in order to monitor the situation. We went up to Vinkovci, and

23 in Vinkovci I saw Croatian soldiers in Vinkovci. Between Vinkovci and

24 Vukovar, we went through villages that were controlled by barricades set

25 up by Serb militias. And then in Vukovar itself, again there were

1 Croatian soldiers. It all depended on who was controlling which village

2 along the main roads.

3 Q. Very well, Ms. Hartmann. Vinkovci was a Croatian town throughout

4 the period; isn't that right? So you saw Croatian soldiers in Vinkovci.

5 But when you travelled from Vinkovci to Vukovar, I am sure that you saw

6 Croatian soldiers and then Serb soldiers. Do you remember the specific

7 locations where you saw, for the first time, the soldiers who you describe

8 as Serbs?

9 A. I don't know if it is the first village, but the one I remember is

10 the one that is just as -- when you leave Vukovar in the direction of

11 Borovo Selo, and there there was a roadblock, and we couldn't go through.

12 So there was a roadblock, we were not allowed to go through. We spoke to

13 them, so I know who was a Croat, who was a Serb, depending on their

14 insignias and depending on the territory we were. But the war had not

15 been declared yet, but the hostilities were undeniable because there were

16 armed forces in various locations.

17 Q. Yes, but if I remember properly, you -- Borovo is at the north of

18 Vukovar; Vinkovci is in the south. So I don't know if you went through

19 the north, but you're talking about the entrance into Vukovar. How did

20 you enter Vukovar? That's my question.

21 A. I would like to refer, to consult my notes at the time, the

22 articles I wrote, because we travelled throughout the region at the time.

23 This was following an incident next to Erdut. We went to get a picture of

24 the situation in order to tell the world that this was a situation

25 preceding a war. So many years after the fact I cannot remember

1 specifically all the village we went through, but I could check that in my

2 notes.

3 Q. Yes, but if -- just before that were you in Erdut. Erdut is in

4 the north. So, yes, it is indeed quite possible that from Erdut you went

5 to Borovo Selo.

6 A. No. We went -- we didn't go to Erdut. We couldn't go there

7 because the roads were blocked.

8 Q. But between Borovo Selo and Vukovar, was there a place called

9 Borovo Naselje with a Croatian population and controlled by the Croats?

10 A. Yes. As journalists we were usually able to go through, to go

11 from one zone to the next, except for certain areas where the villages

12 were completely sealed off. Where the Croats controlled the territory,

13 you had Croatian soldiers. And at the entrance to Serb villages you had

14 roadblocks with members of militia and anti-mine -- anti-tank mines to

15 prevent people from passing. As early as May there had been clashes.

16 Q. You mentioned the soldiers in Vukovar. Did you personally go to

17 the Danube Hotel in Vukovar or visit it?

18 A. Yes, I did.

19 Q. Did some of these soldiers or all of these soldiers stay there,

20 were they stationed there at the hotel; do you remember?

21 A. At that time, no. But I went to see them at their headquarters.

22 It was a building located next to the town hall of Vukovar.

23 Q. According to what you saw, were these soldiers from other regions

24 of Croatia, were they local people, or were they ZNG soldiers, or -- do

25 you know or not?

1 A. Yes, well, I don't know because their commander was a local man.

2 As for the others, I don't know.

3 Q. Were they wearing uniforms?

4 A. Yes, they did. As for the commander, I don't remember if he was

5 wearing a uniform when we interviewed him, but I saw soldiers in uniform,

6 indeed.

7 Q. Mrs. Hartmann, do you remember what type of uniform it was?

8 A. I remember the insignia or the patch.

9 Q. Do you remember any markings, any specific markings on the

10 uniforms?

11 A. Yes, I do.

12 Q. What did it look like?

13 A. It was the Croatian flag, the chequer-board.

14 Q. Do you remember anything else?

15 A. No.

16 Q. If I say HOS to you, does it ring any bell? Does it mean anything

17 to you?

18 A. Yes, it does.

19 Q. At the time did you know who was at the head of HOS, the HOS?

20 A. I believe I do. I think it was Mr. Paraga.

21 Q. Yes. Talking about him, do you know that they had forces? I

22 don't want to talk about paramilitary forces. Was this a paramilitary

23 unit or not? These HOS soldiers, did you have the opportunity to see them

24 in Vukovar?

25 A. Not in Vukovar, but I believe I saw them in a village outside of

1 Vukovar.

2 Q. Could you please explain to me how you were able -- that they were

3 different from the ZNG soldiers?

4 A. Because their uniforms were black. They had an overall, black

5 overall. And we came to the conclusion, right or wrong, I don't know,

6 that these people were members of the HOS.

7 Q. You gave us your impressions about Vukovar in July 1991. Was it

8 your last visit before --

9 A. No.

10 Q. You returned to Vukovar afterwards?

11 A. Yes. As part of an official visit organised by the army, by the

12 JNA, and by the -- by General Gvero; I think he was a general.

13 It was a trip organised by the press on the 20th or the 21st of

14 November, 1991, in the days that followed the fall of Vukovar. And the

15 army took press representatives from Belgrade. The international press

16 that was in Belgrade, they took them to Vukovar.

17 Q. Thank you. What I am mostly interested in is the previous period.

18 So it was your last visit until the end of the war in Vukovar in July,

19 that was the last time you went to Vukovar?

20 A. Yes. Because the shellings started then, and then it became very

21 difficult to get there.

22 Q. In your notebook or in your book you spoke about Mr. Sinisa

23 Glavasevic?

24 A. Yes, I did.

25 Q. What can you tell us about him? Did you know him personally, or

1 did you know him just because of his profession, of his professional

2 activities?

3 A. Yes, I knew him because of his profession. I did not know him

4 personally.

5 Q. Can you tell us what sort of information you obtained about him

6 and how you knew what he was doing?

7 A. He was the journalist who was providing information from Vukovar.

8 He was informing the outside world about what was going on in the town, in

9 Vukovar, because Vukovar was completely sealed off, and his name was very

10 famous in press circles. And as a journalist, when a journalist, another

11 journalist goes missing, there is a great deal of solidarity

12 amongst us. People want to know what happened to their fellow journalist.

13 Q. Did you know of the calls he made at the time towards Mr. Tudjman,

14 the president of Croatia?

15 A. No, I was not listening to his reports from Vukovar. I heard

16 about them. I read articles about them, but I could not follow because I

17 was not in a position to listen to Radio Vukovar, being in Belgrade.

18 Q. But did you hear that he had criticised the politics of Vukovar

19 in -- of Tudjman in Vukovar and he took Tudjman to task for not helping

20 Vukovar defend itself?

21 A. Yes, I -- I believe I knew it. But he was not the only one.

22 Other people criticised them in the same way. That's something all

23 journalists knew about Vukovar as for what was happening on the Croatian

24 side.

25 Q. If I understand your answer correctly, you are telling us that you

1 know from other sources that the Tudjman government was criticised for not

2 helping Vukovar sufficiently?

3 A. Yes. There was a disproportion between the forces in presence and

4 they felt that they had been abandoned. They would have liked to have --

5 to receive reinforcement.

6 Q. Talking about these same sources of information, did you obtain

7 information about why the Croatian government, why President Tudjman did

8 not help Vukovar defend itself?

9 A. There were a number of speculations going around, but I can't say

10 anything about their value.

11 Q. Wasn't there speculation that maybe this was in the interest of

12 Tudjman because it helped him obtain the international recognition of

13 Croatia, thanks to this martyr city of Vukovar? Well, you described the

14 city thus, but you were not the only one.

15 A. One of the main speculations I remember is that some people said

16 that there was an agreement between Milosevic and Tudjman.

17 Q. Do you remember something that took place in October 1991 in

18 Gospic, the massacre of Serb civilians that -- was that widely reported in

19 the media and in political circles?

20 A. Yes, I remember it very clearly.

21 Q. What do you know about this event?

22 A. I received a lot of detailed information, but I was not able to

23 establish truthfulness, but I received a lot of details through the

24 articles mainly of Feral Tribune, because there were a lot of articles

25 about this event, very factual based and not -- no propaganda. There were

1 very specific facts in these articles.

2 Q. Specific facts about the murder of Serb civilians in Gospic?

3 A. Yes. Crimes committed by Croatian forces against the Serbs in

4 Gospic; yes, indeed.

5 Q. Do you remember what was the reaction of the Croatian government

6 at the time of -- Tudjman government at the time following the events in

7 Gospic?

8 A. All governments at the time denied that any crimes were being

9 committed by their own forces.

10 Q. So that was the case as well for the Croatian government, the

11 Tudjman government with regards to Gospic?

12 A. Yes. Everybody was saying that this was just something invented

13 by the international press.

14 Q. But could we agree that the events in Gospic had an impact or

15 could hamper the efforts of Croatia to obtain international recognition at

16 the time?

17 A. I suppose so.

18 MR. MOORE: With the utmost respect, I object in the politest

19 possible way to this cross-examination. It does not deal with the central

20 issues of the matters before the Court, and the witness is being asked to

21 speculate, firstly, about the incident itself and to draw political

22 conclusions. And in my submission, that's beyond her remit.

23 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: I think I can agree with that, Mr. Moore.

24 So I would ask Mr. Domazet to focus more on the subject matter of

25 this evidence.

1 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] Your Honour, this was the last

2 question on this particular topic, but I wanted to know what was the

3 opinion of a journalist who was on the spot at the time, who was a witness

4 to all the events in Croatia, and I thought that it could prove useful.

5 But in any case, I have completed my part of this -- of my

6 cross-examination on this topic.

7 Q. You mentioned the commanders of Vukovar. Do you remember who were

8 the Croatian commanders?

9 A. The one I met was not the commander, because I think it was

10 Mercep, and he had left Vukovar in mid-July, it was his second in command.

11 I believe his name was Gagro, something of the kind. And he was killed

12 later on.

13 Q. Very well. Mrs. Hartmann, do you remember having heard that the

14 commander of the Croat forces was Jastreb, small or big Jastreb, as he was

15 called at the time?

16 A. Yes, of course. Because one of Jastreb was a Serb. He was the

17 commander of the Croat defence of -- Croatian defence of Vukovar.

18 Q. As a journalist, were you aware of what happened after the fall of

19 Vukovar? In the following months, what happened with these commanders of

20 Vukovar?

21 A. Some of them had problems with the Croatian authorities. I

22 believe there were criticisms and differences of opinion.

23 Q. Do you remember that some of them were even arrested and an

24 investigation was conducted?

25 A. I do not remember this very specifically, but indeed I remember

1 that some of them were arrested.

2 Q. You mentioned a few names, people who had gone missing. You also

3 spoke about Mr. Glavasevic, your colleague journalist. You gave another

4 name which hasn't been, up to now, included in the list of identified

5 people. I'm talking about Mr. Jean-Michel Nicolier. You know him better,

6 I'm sure. He was not a Croat, right?

7 A. He was French.

8 Q. And a soldier for the Croats; do you know about that?

9 A. He was fighting for the Croat side, Croatian side, yeah.

10 Q. Do you know that he was a HOS member, this formation that we

11 mentioned a moment ago?

12 A. No. I didn't know. I didn't know which unit he belonged to. I

13 knew he was fighting for the Croats, that's all.

14 Q. You also spoke of a Slavko Dokmanovic. Isn't it true?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And if I remember correctly, you said he was a former Communist, a

17 member of the democratic party, Serb Democratic Party. Do you remember if

18 Mr. Dokmanovic was the mayor or the chairman of the municipal assembly

19 just before the war in Vukovar?

20 A. Yes, I remember. But I know about that because he was indicted,

21 and all the details are included in the indictment. However, I did not

22 meet him in Vukovar in July 1991. The position was held by Mr. Didic,

23 Bili, I think. And he spoke to me about Dokmanovic, but I didn't know

24 this man.

25 Q. Yes, he was not mayor anymore at the time. But do you know that

1 it was because of a decision taken by the Croatian government that he was

2 dismissed as the mayor and that he was replaced by Mr. Didic or Bilic who

3 became his successor?

4 A. Yes, there was a decree.

5 Q. Mr. Didic, Bili, did you hear or -- Mr. Vidic, that's his name,

6 Mr. Vidic. As the highest civil representative in Vukovar at the time, do

7 you remember having been informed on the 17th of November that in --

8 Mr. Vidic may take part in negotiation with Goran Hadzic. Have you heard

9 about this possibility?

10 A. Well, at the time of course I was in charge of Yugoslavia as a

11 whole. I was not aware of all the negotiations which took place; however,

12 I do not recollect anything about it.

13 Q. Up to 1994, you were in Belgrade?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And later on you were in Paris but you continued to travel to the

16 Balkans, but if I remember correctly you said but not to Serbia. Was the

17 access to Serbia forbidden, or was it a personal decision not to go to

18 Belgrade at the time?

19 A. No. In spite of my repeated requests to the embassy of the FRY in

20 Paris, I never obtained a visa, not in a personal capacity nor in a

21 professional capacity, up to January 2001.

22 Q. But after October 2000 you were allowed to travel to Serbia?

23 A. Yes. And in the meantime I went to Montenegro, which applied

24 another visa policy as far as foreign journalists were concerned.

25 Q. Do you remember that particular period of time, Mrs. Hartmann,

1 1991, up to the fight for Vukovar. Something was happening, and I'm sure

2 there were reports about it in the press, an -- or operations called Opera

3 and Labrador. Do you remember these operations?

4 A. Yes, I know these names.

5 Q. What kind of information did you have at the time on the Opera

6 operation, what was it as far as you knew?

7 A. Well, I tried to sum up what I knew in the book that I wrote in

8 1999. At the time we didn't know precisely. I believe that we thought

9 that it was an operation organised by KOS, K-O-S, KOS. But it was not

10 entirely clear for us what was happening inside with the army, the new

11 republic, the new republics.

12 Q. And the other operation, the Labrador operation what has to do

13 with the territory of Croatia, do you remember what it was?

14 A. Probably the same thing, but of course we didn't have much

15 information at the time. I believe a few articles were written. I think

16 the newspaper Vreme was the most accurate, but it was difficult to

17 corroborate the information through different sources.

18 Q. Do you remember that at the time arrests took place in Croatia,

19 the so-called Labrador members were arrested. They were members of

20 different units of the Yugoslav army and arrested by the Tudjman

21 government?

22 A. Possibly.

23 Q. Let me refresh your memory. There was an exchange of prisoners,

24 Serbs and Croats. The Croats exchanged those people who had been arrested

25 in this Labrador operation. I believe that at the time journalists

1 covered the topic.

2 A. I have very vague memories about that, because we had no idea

3 about the ins and outs of what was happening. Of course we were -- we

4 couldn't investigate the issue because there were very secret,

5 confidential information, and I only have a vague recollection of it all

6 because I was never in a position to confirm the facts and find the

7 sources that would have helped me to work on this case.

8 Q. Thank you, Mrs. Hartmann. I would like to ask you a few questions

9 about your notebook. I have here number DVR 01. The first page I believe

10 is 2368.

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. This is on the first page, I believe. And on that page you

13 mention Vukovar and Sandzak. Sandzak is an entirely different area, isn't

14 it? So why are you mentioning Sandzak here on this page, because I didn't

15 find it anywhere else in your notebook?

16 A. Well, because on the same notebook I was working on two different

17 periods. However, in the year 1992 the first part was used for the trip

18 made to Vukovar on the 27th of October, 1992, and then later on I went to

19 the Sandzak area, and the part dealing with the Vukovar was photocopied

20 and not the other one.

21 Q. The first date that's mentioned here is the 27th of October, 1992,

22 isn't it?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Can you now go to page 2372? A few pages on. However, in your

25 notebook I saw another date, but an earlier date; that is, the date of the

1 18th of October, 1992. Even in the translation it showed it was a Sunday

2 but, in fact, I believe that in your note you're talking about a Saturday.

3 Saturday, the 18th of October, 1992. Now, why are you talking about the

4 18th of October after the 27th?

5 A. I'm sure you can explain it by looking at the earlier page. I am

6 here taking down the information given to me by Blandine Negga who is in

7 charge of civilian affairs for the eastern part in Erdut, and she is

8 giving me an account of what happened from September 1992 up to the 18th

9 of October, 1992, when the mass grave was found by the services of the

10 rapporteur of the Human Rights Commission of the UN. So this is

11 background information that she's giving me there.

12 Q. Ah, I do understand. That's why the date of the 18th appears

13 after the 27th. But you're right, the 18th was a Sunday and not a

14 Saturday [as interpreted].

15 THE INTERPRETER: Says the witness.

16 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation]

17 Q. Yeah, it doesn't matter. I believe that in the B/C/S translation

18 this is a Sunday, but you are saying that it was a Saturday. Never mind.

19 Now talking about this book about Milosevic that we mentioned

20 briefly, I believe you wrote this book in 1999?

21 A. It was published in October 1999.

22 Q. Where for the first time?

23 A. In France.

24 Q. And the title of the book?

25 A. Milosevic: The Bishop's Diagonal Move, "la diagonale du fou" in

1 French.

2 Q. But in 2002 the book was published in Belgrade as well, wasn't it?

3 A. That's correct.

4 Q. What was the title in Belgrade? It was not the same, right?

5 A. Well, yes and no.

6 Q. What do you mean by that? Can you explain?

7 A. The title in French, "la diagonale du fou," is a term that is used

8 by chess-players. That's a particular move in the strategy that you can

9 use. Of course I did not control the translation into Serbian and then

10 later on in Croatian. And the title distorted -- the title I mean in the

11 Serbian version distorted the meaning of the title in French. In France

12 there was this reference to chess, but of course you know in French the

13 word "fou" also means something else. And there is a pun if you see in

14 the French title which of course is a bit difficult to translate. But the

15 term, the chess term is "laufer," and it was translated in different ways

16 in the different titles.

17 Q. I see. Because when I saw the -- when I read the title in French,

18 I read this "fou" reference and I was having doubts.

19 A. But if you know French, there is hardly any doubt because the same

20 word or the same expression was already used in the title of a film, so we

21 check copyright issues, but "la diagonale du fou" in French is a clear

22 reference to chess.

23 Q. And was the book published in Croatia or in Slovenia?

24 A. In Croatia.

25 Q. Under what title? The same title that was used in Belgrade or

1 another one?

2 A. Milosevic: Dijagonala Ludjaka. That was the title used in

3 Croatia. And in Serb, it was diagonal laufer. But as I said, I had no

4 control over the translation of the book or of the title. Then I was

5 already working at ICTY.

6 Q. There seems to be some mistakes in the transcript. First of all,

7 when the title was mentioned, but in French it was Milosevic: La

8 diagonale du fou. But if I understood correctly in Croatia they used the

9 word which means crazy, mad, "fou" in French; "ludjak," somebody who is

10 out of his mind. I don't know how to explain it, but I believe you

11 understand what it means?

12 A. Well, this is not my interpretation. The book has to do with

13 Milosevic strategy and in French, "la diagonale du fou," is a reference to

14 a strategy when you're playing chess.

15 Q. But you had the possibility to say something in Zagreb or in

16 Belgrade if you were not happy with the title, because the title is

17 something important.

18 A. I didn't have the ability to take care of anything that has to do

19 with things that I had done before I became a staff member of the ICTY.

20 And the translation was not submitted to me, translation of the book or of

21 the title. There are other mistakes that were made, major mistakes in the

22 translation, and I did not have the opportunity to revise or have it

23 revised.

24 Q. But you -- you haven't changed anything in the text that was

25 published?

1 A. I did nothing in the publication process, and I waived my rights

2 at the time of the publication, so I had nothing to do with this process.

3 Q. Thank you very much.

4 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] I have no more questions.

5 Q. Thank you very much for answering my questions.

6 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] Thank you very much, Your Honours.

7 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: [Interpretation] Thank you very much,

8 Mr. Domazet.

9 MR. BOROVIC: [Interpretation] I think maybe it would be best for

10 us to take our lunch break now, Your Honours, since I only have about 10

11 minutes to go. Or perhaps you think it might be best for me to start.

12 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: [Previous translation continues] ... on

13 the issues and hopefully we can finish this witness this afternoon.

14 That's what the Trial Chamber would expect to happen today.

15 So we will have a break now and then we will resume at a quarter

16 to 2.00.

17 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.19 p.m.

18 --- On resuming at 1.48 p.m.

19 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] There is just a thing -- Your

20 Honour, there is one thing. Have you received the document about

21 Karadzic? Yes?

22 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: [No interpretation].

23 MR. BOROVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

24 Cross-examination by Mr. Borovic:

25 Q. My name is Borivoje Borovic, attorney-at-law from Belgrade. My

1 first question: Concerning your arrival to Ovcara back in 1991, were you

2 provide an interview to a magazine based in Belgrade, back in 1997?

3 A. That's quite possible. I remember having given an interview to

4 this newspaper, but I can't remember exactly which one.

5 Q. Thank you. Did you describe your arrival when you came to Ovcara

6 and discovered the grave?

7 A. I would have to see the text.

8 Q. Thank you. On that occasion, by what means did you reach the

9 hangars at Ovcara, and did you have a pass to move about the area?

10 A. I did not go to the hangar.

11 Q. What about the location of the mass grave. Was any restriction of

12 movement in place there, and were you required to have a pass?

13 A. With a special accreditation from Belgrade, as a journalist at the

14 time I could come and go without a different permit on the territories

15 controlled by the Serbs in Croatia.

16 Q. Thank you. Does that mean that you managed to reach the location

17 without any problem and you found the soldiers you mentioned there?

18 A. Without difficulties, not much, except when we were checked

19 control, there were no more difficulties than that.

20 Q. Thank you. In your book you stated that at the time of the

21 massacre at Ovcara there was a headquarters of the guards mechanised units

22 in existence; is that correct? That's what one can read in your book.

23 A. The book was written in 1999 and published in 1999. It's

24 possible, but I would like you to quote the passage. What army are you

25 speaking of? What army are you speaking about?

1 Q. The JNA. On page 185. Is that correct?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Thank you. What sort of headquarters did you have in mind? Did

4 you mean a command, some sort of a staff? What did you have in mind when

5 you mentioned in your book that there were headquarters there at Ovcara?

6 Was that a command post by the JNA?

7 A. I did not use the word "stozer." I wrote in French. Therefore,

8 in English this would be command.

9 Q. Thank you. In the translation for which you said you didn't

10 bother to check, it says headquarters rather than command?

11 A. I spoke of the mechanised guard, yes.

12 Q. Do you have any knowledge of that command, what sort of command

13 was it in Ovcara that belonged to the JNA? What was the extent of your

14 knowledge before you wrote that down in your book? And who was the

15 commander of Ovcara?

16 A. The information which is in my book published in 1999 are based on

17 data which [indiscernible] which are public knowledge; in particular,

18 newspapers, public information, and even the indictments of the Tribunal.

19 And also references are given in the book in general.

20 Q. Thank you. As a research journalist who investigated the crime at

21 Ovcara, at the time of the crime did you know who was the commander of

22 Ovcara, since you mentioned that command post in your book?

23 A. In 1992 I didn't know who was a commander of this place in

24 particular. Neither at the time of the executions. This was among the

25 questions I was asking myself, all the questions I wanted to ask.

1 Q. Thank you. Having spent quite a while as a member of the OTP, are

2 you in possession of such information today? Do you know that today?

3 A. I have read the indictments, who was commanding here or there and

4 of whom. I may make mistakes. My role in 1992 as a journalist was to

5 check whether there was indeed a mass grave, where did the victims come

6 from, and who was responsible for the killings. But I am not a lawyer, a

7 jurist. I was only a journalist. I was reporting on facts as well as I

8 could, if I could establish them. It wasn't my role to identify who was

9 in the chain of command.

10 Q. Thank you. So as not to press any further we will move on, since

11 you said you don't know. We are quite familiar with the entire case and

12 there is no mention of any such a command on the part of the JNA at Ovcara

13 at the time. This was a part of your journalistic tasks, so I won't press

14 any further.

15 Was the mass grave discovered by you and your colleague or

16 Mr. Mazowiecki?

17 A. Discovery of the site I -- there was the members of the commission

18 and -- who were told, and I only went later by my own means to this mass

19 grave in order to obtain confirmation of the link which could be

20 established between the place and those who had disappeared from -- those

21 missing from the hospital in Vukovar.

22 Q. Thank you. The book that we are discussing currently was

23 published in Zagreb; isn't that correct?

24 A. My book was published in French, it was translated in Serbia, in

25 Belgrade, and in Croatia.

1 THE INTERPRETER: The witness is kindly requested to pause before

2 answering questions.

3 MR. BOROVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. I found a piece of information that another person who was witness

5 to the Vukovar events published his or her book in the very same place.

6 Hence, my question is: Have you ever heard of Dr. Jure Njavro?

7 A. Excuse me. If I've already heard that name, have I? I don't

8 remember.

9 Q. Perhaps I can jog your memory. He was a surgeon in Vukovar and he

10 wrote a book concerning the Vukovar events. Does that help?

11 A. Yes, but I haven't read his book.

12 Q. Thank you. You wrote that you knew that around 600 Croats were

13 the casualties of the events in Vukovar, and that the number pertaining to

14 the JNA is unknown, that such data is being kept secret or at least it was

15 at the time?

16 A. There was no publicity made about the victims, the casualties in

17 general on the Serbian side. Neither in Vukovar nor in other places at

18 that. Perhaps they have become public, but at the time we had

19 difficulties in obtaining figures.

20 Q. If I were to tell you that it was Dr. Njavro who wrote in his book

21 that some 600 Ustashas -- I apologise, some 600 Croatians were killed, and

22 that he knows of 8.000 Serbs, be it civilians or members of the JNA, who

23 have been killed, does that ring a bell? Did you do any research

24 concerning those killed on the JNA side?

25 A. A journalist cannot attempt to speculate on figures. He may cite

1 official sources if they're made public. But this is not my role, to

2 confirm or to disprove a figure in particular with -- if you look at a

3 fairly long period. In general, we use the figures for the missing

4 persons which are preferably given by international organisations like the

5 ICRC or figures given by United Nations, by the ICRC, and United Nations.

6 But all the figures are doubtful, so ...

7 Q. Thank you. But still you did that concerning the Croatian side.

8 You mentioned a specific figure, although it wasn't the official number at

9 the time. What was your basis for including that figure in your book? If

10 you remember at all; if not, let us move on.

11 A. When I have quoted a figure, because one needs official figures,

12 associations for missing people, or figures, if we're talking about the

13 book, figures mentioned in documents such as those of the Tribunal, for

14 instance. ICTR -- ICTY.

15 Q. Thank you. During your testimony in chief at the beginning of the

16 cross-examination you mentioned the Croatian forces in Croatian villages,

17 whereas when you referred to the Serb forces you used the

18 term "paramilitary" units. Hence my question: In those Croatian

19 villages, were there regular Croatian troops there, or the paramilitaries?

20 A. I did not use the term "paramilitaries." I said militias;

21 "milices" in French. It was difficult to identify precisely in 1991 what

22 was the nature of those militias. In general, they were what is called

23 the TO, Territorial Defence.

24 Q. Thank you. You made an interview with Mercep's deputy. Is his

25 name Blago Zadro?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Thank you. Did you know that Mercep's units were actually the

3 paramilitaries in Vukovar at the time? The ZNG was at the time a

4 paramilitary formation. Did you know that?

5 A. I did not give any qualifications about this unit. I just gave it

6 its name.

7 Q. Thank you. Since we are particularly interested in that, and you

8 have extensive experience as a war correspondent, were those units

9 paramilitaries, the ZNG?

10 A. All depends on the legal point of view you're standing at. For

11 the ex-Yugoslavia, anything which wasn't police, regular police or JNA was

12 para-something. Therefore, it's difficult to answer when we consider that

13 the Serbian militias or Croatian militias were all paramilitaries. But it

14 is a question of a legal analysis, which is not in my competence. This is

15 not within my province.

16 Q. HOS, this is also something you've testified about. Was that

17 another paramilitary or parallel armed formation in Croatia at time,

18 Paraga's men.

19 A. We all tended to call it paramilitary because it was militia which

20 is independent from a political party which had a very precise ideology.

21 Very specific.

22 Q. Thank you. The ideology you've mentioned, might that perhaps be

23 the Ustasha ideology? Do you know what that term means? And my second

24 question: Did they adopt the political platform of the Ustasha movement

25 from World War II in terms of their policies, in terms of their uniforms

1 and so on?

2 A. It was a militia of an extremist party, indeed.

3 Q. Fair enough, thank you. In July 1991 in Vukovar concerning the

4 Croatian forces, was there a unit referred to as Croatian civil

5 protection? Is this something you heard at the time?

6 A. I'm not sure. I don't think I knew this word. But I was in the

7 field, I was there. Precisely to see with my own eyes that there were

8 different units present which did not exist in the structures of the

9 ex-Yugoslavia, former Yugoslavia, and which were all linked to ethnical

10 groups.

11 Q. Thank you. Did you ever have any indication that in Vukovar the

12 Croatian side had enlisted the help of a great number of foreigners or

13 foreign mercenaries who were actually paid to fight in Vukovar? Did you

14 ever receive any information to indicate anything like that?

15 A. I heard about such allegations during the war in Croatia, as in

16 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Allegations which had to do with all parties.

17 Q. Thank you. I was asking about during your actual visit to

18 Vukovar. Did you perhaps meet someone? There might have been people

19 there who had arrived in order to fight alongside the Croatian units?

20 A. In July 1991 I did not meet any foreigner. Combatant, fighter.

21 Q. When you interviewed ZNG officers or, rather, officers of those

22 paramilitary units, or at least that's the position of our Defence teams,

23 were those units in the process of booby-trapping the whole town, laying

24 mines? Did you actually need help in order to avoid, bypass the

25 minefields and eventually reach the headquarters of the Croatian units?

1 A. The only mines I saw were on the road, and they were just by

2 military trucks belonging to the JNA. And those were mines, anti-armoured

3 cars or tanks, and they were there to block the possibility of getting out

4 of Vukovar so that the inhabitants or citizens of Vukovar couldn't go

5 towards the village, the Serbian village, which was a bit further.

6 Q. Does that mean that the JNA members themselves were unable to

7 proceed past the minefields? They must have stayed behind in that case.

8 A. The mines and the military truck were there, but I didn't see any

9 soldiers in that place at that check-point, and I didn't see any soldiers

10 of the JNA. On the other side there were Serbian militias to whom we

11 spoke, we were able to speak.

12 Q. Thank you. Let us just complete this topic. You said these mines

13 were meant to keep the Croats from penetrating any Serb villages. Would

14 that be a fair assessment? I don't know what another reason might have

15 been for this friendly visit, since there was actually a war on.

16 A. I didn't say "prodru."

17 Q. Attack then.

18 A. The passage was blocked, people couldn't pass, people couldn't

19 come and go freely. The precise reasons, I don't know them. But

20 everybody was afraid of everybody, indeed.

21 Q. All right. Thank you. In July in your capacity as a journalist,

22 did you actually visit the JNA barracks in Vukovar in order to obtain

23 information on the army's position in the town? I suppose you were

24 familiar with their role, weren't you?

25 A. Indeed.

1 Q. Thank you. Were you perhaps told at the time by any of the JNA

2 members about the situation in Vukovar, since you claim to have visited

3 the barracks? Were you the soldiers free to move around Vukovar at the

4 time? When I say "soldiers," I mean JNA soldiers.

5 A. I think I may have made a mistake about the barracks. The

6 barracks I visited was at Vinkovci.

7 Q. Thank you.

8 A. But I spoke with the military, and in the area, and in Belgrade

9 about the situation, and the position of the army was clear.

10 Q. Thank you. In July 1991 you visited the headquarters of the staff

11 of the ZNG. On that occasion how did you get into Vukovar? Were you free

12 to just drive into Vukovar or was an escort required? Did anyone actually

13 have to escort you all the way to the ZNG units that were there?

14 A. There was one way to get there until Vukovar -- to Vukovar, which

15 was going -- Ilok, if I'm not mistaken. I would have to see the map. And

16 which was -- well, there was no Serbian village or no check-point, no

17 Serbian check-point on the road. So from Serbia, following this road, and

18 not by other roads, we managed to go in without problems into Vukovar.

19 But as journalists we could also have gone through Serbian villages. The

20 check-points were for the local population, local citizens. Therefore, in

21 Vukovar we went to see the officials, the mayor, and the HQ of the

22 Croatian forces, which was just nearby, in order to take stock of the

23 situation.

24 Q. Thank you. Who set up that appointment for you with members of

25 the Croatian staff?

1 A. Nobody. We arrived in Vukovar, we went to the town hall to see

2 the mayor or the person who had been asked for by Zagreb who was the head

3 of the civilian authorities in Vukovar, and then we requested -- well, we

4 went on the spot. Maybe there was a phone call, I don't remember, but

5 maybe the mayor phoned so that we could go and see the headquarters. But

6 when you are reporting, you don't always take appointments in advance, you

7 can't always. You try and see what the situation is on the ground.

8 Q. But you didn't actually visit the JNA barracks in Vukovar on that

9 occasion, nor were you familiar with the JNA situation inside Vukovar at

10 the time?

11 A. My base was in Belgrade, so the official position of the army,

12 well, I knew about it, I went to report in order to observe what the

13 situation was and see for myself about the presence of several armed

14 groups and of the real, genuine risks of armed conflict, which was just

15 incipient, which was just beginning, and this was the goal of my trip

16 there. I was supposed to go -- I wanted to go beyond speeches, which were

17 most often propaganda.

18 Q. Thank you. Did you ascertain that the JNA barracks at the time

19 was surrounded by various Croatian paramilitary units?

20 A. Not in that form. In the area there was -- there were armed

21 forces present, several sorts of armed forces, numerous. But there wasn't

22 actually a siege or the place was not circled, nor particular traffic

23 difficulties for the local people.

24 Q. Thank you. Were you aware of the fact that Tomislav Mercep was

25 committing crimes against the civilian population at the time, or do you

1 perhaps know about that now?

2 A. There were rumours of that kind, just as there were a lot of

3 rumours about crimes being committed by one party against another one.

4 That was dependent upon what ethnic group you were asking questions from.

5 Many stories from the press were written since about alleged crimes of

6 Mercep, but I am not an investigator and I cannot confirm whether this

7 happened, but he is a suspect in many stories, [indiscernible] as such.

8 Q. And finally, did you ever in any of your pieces report on crimes

9 committed against Serb civilians? When?

10 A. Yes, of course. In newspaper Le Monde.

11 Q. Thank you very much.

12 A. In my book.

13 Q. Do you remember -- or, rather, do you know who Markica Rebic is?

14 A. I know the name, yes.

15 Q. What if I told you that he was the Croatian assistant defence

16 minister at the time? Would we have the same person in mind?

17 A. Yes.

18 MR. BOROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, can we please have

19 Exhibit 299 run up on our screens. The B/C/S is 2D08-0064, and the

20 English reference is 2D08-0084.

21 Q. Can you see that on your screen, madam?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. This is a document that was sent to the defence ministry and

24 President Franjo Tudjman, the president of the Republic of Croatia at the

25 time. At the bottom of the page you can see that it was signed by Markica

1 Rebic, assistant minister, right? Can you see that?

2 A. Yes, yes.

3 Q. Now if the court officer could please show the page that I

4 requested, 2D08-0064. If we could please zoom in slightly. Thank you.

5 Can you see the Roman numeral V there? The heading

6 reads: "Proofing witnesses for other trials at the international criminal

7 court."

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. The reference here is to the secret service of the defence

10 ministry because they produced this document, and we tendered this into

11 evidence. It reads that this service was involved in proofing Prosecution

12 witnesses for the eventuality that an indictment might be raised against

13 Mrksic, Radic and Sljivancanin, as well as for the Dokmanovic trial.

14 There are the names of witnesses listed here. I don't need to give you

15 those because I suppose you must have read them, haven't you.

16 Item 2, paragraph 6, elements of intelligence and

17 counter-intelligence activities carried out by this service. You see

18 that, right?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. Thank you.

21 MR. BOROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I will later explain

22 why I'm taking this one step at a time before I finally ask the more

23 detailed question.

24 Q. Item 2 says: "After various counter-intelligence activities were

25 carried out, the service ascertained that seven other secret indictments

1 have been raised or are about to be raised against Croats from Central

2 Bosnia."

3 Do you see that?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. Finally, I will read to you the last item, just not to tire you

6 any further: "It is possible that since there was intelligence support,

7 the service carried out their own analysis and studies in order to

8 penetrate the system of the international criminal court."

9 Can you see that?

10 A. No, I don't see that.

11 Q. Thank you. And just to wrap this up, the last three lines of

12 item 3 -- item 5 read: "It is through this cooperation that the service

13 has so far collected a significant number of documents from the

14 international criminal courts (about 70 files of original documents).

15 "Through our associates we have also been receiving our current

16 information on secret indictments as well as the intentions of the

17 Prosecutor and the involvement of any witnesses. "

18 That's what it says, item 5 of the document, doesn't it?

19 THE INTERPRETER: The witness had said yes the second time. Not

20 the last sentence.

21 MR. BOROVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. Let's try to do this again. The last sentence is on your screen

23 now; the first sentence is now. Can you see that?

24 A. Mm-hmm.

25 Q. Thank you. So you confirm that what I've read out to you is

1 accurate, don't you?

2 A. Yes, it was an accurate reading.

3 Q. My question: Since when have you been working with the OTP?

4 A. Since October.

5 MR. MOORE: [Previous translation continues] ... I have not

6 interfered in any way at all because I waited to see exactly what the

7 point was. This is a document created prior to Ms. Hartmann participating

8 in OTP or being employed by OTP. This document I seem to remember is the

9 4th of June, 1998. So that is the first objection.

10 The second objection is, to what issue does this go to? Vis-a-vis

11 the source of the indictment, the contact points of the indictment and the

12 evidence that she has given. It's two years prior to her employment.

13 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Mr. Borovic.

14 MR. BOROVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you. The first objection is

15 unfounded. I tried to be fair to the witness, and I wanted to ask her

16 when she began working here so that she wouldn't put in a situation as if

17 I were trying to portray her as one of the people who was helping out

18 Croatians. I believe the witness had no objections to my first question.

19 Q. Am I correct?

20 A. [No interpretation].

21 Q. As regards the other matter, I am examining a witness who used to

22 be a spokesperson for the OTP. I asked her whether the OTP conducted any

23 investigation to verify the authenticity of this report. Is that a

24 problem to ask?

25 A. I haven't got the slightest idea. It is not the sort of

1 information which was in my possession.

2 Q. Thank you. What are your current duties within the OTP?

3 MR. MOORE: Again, what relevance is that to the trial? I would

4 submit.

5 MR. BOROVIC: [Interpretation] I will try to be fair yet again. At

6 the moment she was proposed to appear as an OTP witness she was still the

7 spokesperson, and suddenly she moved on to another position. It may be

8 related to this case. That's why I wanted to pursue this line of

9 questioning.

10 Therefore, I will insist on posing this question, what are her

11 current duties, so as to be able to run a check on some other information

12 that I have on the current activities of the OTP.

13 [Trial Chamber confers]

14 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: The Chamber feels, Mr. Borovic, that you

15 have sufficiently explored the question and that you have to move forward

16 to the next question.

17 MR. BOROVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you. That was quite elegant,

18 if I may add.

19 The witness testified she worked for several embassies at

20 the time when she was reporting from the area that was at war in the then

21 Yugoslavia. She stated that she sent out reports and notified various

22 ambassadors regarding her journalistic work in Yugoslavia.

23 Q. Am I correct?

24 A. No, this is untrue.

25 Q. Would you please clarify then? Perhaps I didn't hear you

1 correctly when you stated that you worked for various embassies. That's

2 what you stated today.

3 A. You are mistaken. For the period in particular, I did press

4 reviews during the period which was before my work as a correspondent of

5 Le Monde, so before 1990. Press reviews for foreigners and, in

6 particular, embassies, and I wasn't writing any stories or articles in

7 Le Monde at the time, and I was not covering the events of the war, as you

8 have said. So this was before 1990. I have never had any more contacts

9 except to ask journalists questions with any embassy whatever. From the

10 moment I became a journalist for Le Monde.

11 Q. Thank you. Fair enough. Do you know of a general by the name a

12 Domankusic?

13 A. [No interpretation].

14 Q. Thank you. Is he a Croat?

15 A. Of course. Ethnically speaking, yes.

16 Q. The witness's answer hasn't been recorded in the transcript. I

17 believe the witness said "yes."

18 This general, as far as you know, did he used to be a KOS general

19 of the counter-intelligence service?

20 A. Yes, between 1971 and 1974. And I met my husband in 1982. When

21 my stepfather, father-in-law, was already retired for many years.

22 Q. You've just stated that this person is your husband's father. Is

23 that correct?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Thank you. As a spokesperson, have you ever suggested that

1 sanctions be reimposed on Serbia because they were in place for a while

2 and then removed, but did you ask for the reinstallment for those same

3 measures?

4 MR. MOORE: I'm sorry, again I object to that. The phrase "as a

5 spokesperson" seems to refer to her capacity by the OTP. It has no

6 relevance in our submission in relation to the trial that is before us

7 today.

8 MR. BOROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I believe this is

9 quite relevant. This goes to the credibility of the witness. I didn't

10 intend to pursue this line of questioning, but the witness provided some

11 answers during the examination-in-chief. My question is quite simple.

12 She appear -- she is appearing here as an OTP witness while she was still

13 employed by the OTP. Did she propose the reintroduction of sanctions

14 against Serbia.

15 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: I sustain the objection, so please

16 proceed with your next question, Mr. Borovic.

17 MR. BOROVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I will

18 follow your instructions and I tried to be as best as I could, and this

19 concludes my line of questioning.

20 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Mr. Lukic.

21 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honours. Good

22 afternoon to everyone present in the courtroom.

23 Cross-examination by Mr. Lukic:

24 Q. Good afternoon to Ms. Hartmann. My name is Novak Lukic, and I

25 appear here on behalf of Mr. Sljivancanin. I will focus on the period

1 material to your testimony; that is, while you were a Le Monde

2 correspondent from Belgrade and the two articles that were discussed

3 during the examination-in-chief, as well as your two visits to Vukovar.

4 As you said yourself, you were a Le Monde correspondent in

5 Belgrade between 1990 and 1994. I presume your office covered the entire

6 Yugoslavia, the one in Belgrade. Is that correct?

7 A. Quite so.

8 Q. I know you understand my language, but the interpreters are having

9 difficulties, and I am being warned yet again to tell you to make pause

10 between question and answer, or perhaps you can switch to my language, if

11 that makes things easier for you.

12 I presume, as a Belgrade correspondent, you were tasked with

13 monitoring or following all important political events of which there were

14 many in Belgrade and all over Yugoslavia at the time. Is that correct?

15 A. It's true.

16 Q. Am I mistaken if I say that Le Monde was a reputable newspaper,

17 particularly at the time?

18 A. Correct.

19 Q. I didn't receive the interpretation in B/C/S, but I did understand

20 the answer.

21 In your texts, when you sent out your reports, there was no

22 pressure exerted upon you by your editors in terms of contents or any sort

23 of censorship on what you wrote?

24 A. No censorship at all. Just a caution and checking facts.

25 Q. In writing your pieces, and I'm trying to focus on 1990, 1991, and

1 1992, was there any sort of censorship in the classical sense or, rather,

2 was there any opposition on the part of the Yugoslav authorities for you

3 to include something in your pieces? Did they try to check on your pieces

4 before you sent them to Le Monde?

5 A. It's impossible. A newspaper would have no correspondent in a

6 country if the local authorities demanded to read the stories before

7 they're sent. It's possible that on certain interviews a high personality

8 or official may ask for right to authorise the text. That happens in the

9 world, but no western newspaper would have had a correspondent in

10 Yugoslavia if the authorities had had a right to read the text before it

11 was sent. Therefore, to your question, precisely, I answer no.

12 Q. Perhaps my question seemed a bit naive, but I simply wanted to

13 rule out any possibility of any sort of pressure by the local authorities

14 on you.

15 A. Pressures might come later after the publication, or criticisms.

16 Q. The way I understood your answers to Mr. Moore's question, that

17 you made quite a lot of interviews with public figures in the former

18 Yugoslavia. Could you perhaps mention some of those prominent political

19 figures with whom you have conducted interviews, and also explain how you

20 contacted such people?

21 A. I'm going to choose some names which have to do with the period

22 we're talking about today, 1991 and 1992. These interviews were all done

23 in B/C/S, conducted in B/C/S. Borisav Jovic, Momir Bulatovic, Vladislav

24 Jovanovic, Franjo Tudjman, Radovan Karadzic, Vinko Pandurevic, Vojislav

25 Kostunica, Vuk Draskovic, Dobrica Cosic, [indiscernible].

1 Q. Did you try to have an interview with my client ever?

2 A. Sljivancanin, sorry. I spoke to him on the 18th of November, 1992

3 at the Vukovar cemetery without having previously made an appointment to

4 do so. I spoke to him during various press conferences at the Vukovar

5 barracks during the trip organised for press representatives by the army.

6 That was around the 20th or the 21st of November, 1991. I can't remember

7 the precise date. And then he spoke to the rest of the journalists in

8 Vukovar, the cemetery on the 18th of November, 1992. But as for personal,

9 one-to-one interview, no.

10 Q. That was the gist of my question. During your testimony in chief

11 you have described the contact you had with him. While you were in

12 Belgrade between 1990 and 1994, as a Le Monde journalist, did you ask to

13 interview him? The things you have mentioned here, I believe those were

14 journalistic events with many journalists present, but my question

15 specifically is did you ever try to have an interview with him,

16 tete-a-tete?

17 A. No, I didn't.

18 Q. Thank you. You have testified here that in 1994 you were declared

19 a persona non grata in Serbia. In 1990, 1991 and 1992, did you have any

20 similar information that at that moment you were a persona non grata, a

21 journalist who wasn't welcome in Yugoslavia; or to put it simpler, did you

22 have any problems extending your stay there at the time as relates to --

23 regarding the attitude of the authorities to your being there?

24 A. My accreditation as a journalist, my -- has been reviewed --

25 renewed every year until April 1994 when suddenly it was not renewed.

1 Q. Thank you. In the answers you provided to Mr. Moore's questions

2 when you tried to explain the type of your journalistic activities there,

3 and you also tried to explain the role of a specialist correspondent, the

4 way I understood the gist of your work was correspondence with your

5 newspaper, passing on comments on the events. Is my interpretation

6 correct, or would you clarify for me, please?

7 A. The work of a permanent correspondent in a country, whatever the

8 country, is to cover the events in that country. It is also to analyse

9 the situation, but not to make comments, not particularly to make any

10 comments, because this is more the work of an editor. Our work is -- has

11 to do with reporting facts.

12 Q. However, having looked at your articles, I realise that this is

13 not text-book reporting, such as that done by France Presse, for example.

14 You also provide descriptions and impressions. Even comments of your

15 own. It wasn't just facts, was it?

16 A. I am not working for a press agency. At the time I was working

17 for a daily newspaper, and in a daily newspaper some of the articles are

18 more -- are richer, if I may say so, than with a simple press report

19 released by a press agency. You have to describe the events in a lively

20 manner in order to shed light on the facts.

21 Q. In actual fact, let me say, you were a correspondent to a

22 publishing house, not to a magazine, so you have more freedom in your

23 reporting than you would if you had been attached to a press agency, for

24 example?

25 A. It's not a matter of freedom, it's a matter of form. The

1 criteria, professional criteria of the same, you have to verify the

2 information you collect. But in a press article you have more space, more

3 room than in a press agency's release. And my work was very similar to

4 that of all correspondents of international newspapers.

5 Q. Your October 1992 visit, if I may call it that, your first visit,

6 since we see that you had been to the area before, but I'm talking about

7 that press conference in Zagreb, the one organised by Clyde Snow and

8 Mr. Mazowiecki. Is that a text-book example of investigative journalism,

9 your decision to go there and try to discover the exact grave site?

10 A. I do not wish to put that work, that report in a specific

11 category. It was part and parcel of the work of a journalist who has to

12 try and report the facts and try to find out the truth about a specific

13 situation. So sometimes in that process you have to conduct an

14 investigation that indeed looks like investigative work. But the idea

15 there was to try to establish a number of facts and to try to solve this

16 puzzle, the enigma of the missing persons from the Vukovar Hospital, but

17 we had no idea about the outcome of all this.

18 Q. Would I be wrong in stating that if you, as a foreign

19 correspondent, if wanting to check that sort of information, you should

20 have talked to Clyde Snow or to Mazowiecki. You should have been there at

21 that press conference, and yet you opted for a different solution. You

22 operated to go on your own and check this information elsewhere. That's

23 why I define your work as investigative journalism.

24 A. It's vital that I should explain to you that the colleague I went

25 on this report with, Helene Despic-Popovic, she attended the press

1 conference in Zagreb, and she had read the article published on the 2nd of

2 October in Vjesnik with the witness account of the -- of Ivan, that was a

3 pseudonym, and she put the question to Mazowiecki and to his teams and

4 they refused to answer. So when she came back from Zagreb, when she came

5 back to Belgrade where she was based, she said, "Let's go there together,"

6 let's check if there is a link there, because they refused to give any

7 answers.

8 Q. In your piece you wrote that the UN refused to comment on this for

9 perfectly understandable reasons. I mean the site and whatever was

10 discovered. You wrote that in your piece, didn't you? You got nothing

11 from them, so you tried to give it your best shot, go on your own, and

12 look for answers, didn't you?

13 A. The United Nations did not wish to say where the mass grave was

14 located for obvious reasons, as they said it was to protect this site.

15 They did not want any evidence to be removed, they did not wish for the

16 press to go on site, and they did not want who -- to say who were the

17 victims and who were the suspects. Who -- what party, what side was

18 suspect of this -- of these crimes.

19 Q. On that day when you interviewed the civilian representative in

20 Erdut -- I think that's where it was, wasn't it? And you asked for an

21 official confirmation of what you previously shared with Mr. Moore, she

22 was surprised. What were you about to do about what you had just

23 discovered? Did you tell her that you would soon be publishing that and

24 what was her reaction to that, if indeed you disclosed that to her?

25 A. She was surprised by the fact that we'd found the location of the

1 mass grave, because the team in charge had difficulties finding it.

2 They'd been looking for it since September. But she didn't know that we

3 had this account. She was probably not informed that this account had

4 been published in the -- this Croat newspaper. And when we showed the

5 article to her, then she understood how we'd managed to find the location.

6 And she then confirmed the background of all this, and she knew that we

7 were going to publish our article.

8 Q. Did she authorise that, did she say it's okay for you to go ahead

9 and publish this article; or did she perhaps say I don't think it's in the

10 best interests of the UN to have this published right now?

11 A. Well, we didn't wait for any authorisation or permission on her

12 part. But, however, she didn't say that for the protection of evidence we

13 should not publish it. So she left us free to do our work, which is quite

14 a common attitude. We were not surprised by it, and we didn't ask for

15 permission.

16 Q. But she did let on that this was not in the best interests of the

17 UN at the time for this sort of information to come out into the open, as

18 it were, at the time?

19 A. No. No. She didn't say anything. She didn't say this. She

20 didn't say anything about it. The medias are independent. She has the

21 information. The only option for her was either not to confirm the

22 information and just close the door basically, or to confirm, yes, that's

23 true. And when -- an hour before my article was published in Le Monde,

24 the AFP dispatch was released, Mr. Mazowiecki himself, I don't know where

25 he was then, I can't remember, confirmed that the mass grave discovered a

1 few days before by the commission was indeed the Ovcara mass grave.

2 Q. I think my interpretation was not correct. I'm looking at the

3 English on page 82, line 22, that she didn't -- or, rather, I got what I

4 received. I do understand your next answer though. My interpretation

5 wasn't accurate. I see the English, and it looks all right to me. What

6 we see on page 82, line 23. Line 22. "[In English] [Previous translation

7 continues] ... for the protection of the evidence we should not publish

8 it."

9 Was that your statement, madam? If I look at this, it seems that

10 she opposed it, didn't she?

11 At any rate, my next question: Mazowiecki's reaction an hour

12 after France press went ahead and published the news, after your

13 colleague's work was published --

14 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: [Previous translation continues] ...

15 because it's not very clear now what the answer was, so can you please ask

16 the question again, Mr. --

17 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. Once again, I think I was the one who was having some difficulty,

19 not the witness.

20 What about the UNPROFOR representative for civil affairs? You

21 shared your information with her, and you told her that you would be

22 getting that published. Did she object to that, although she knew full

23 well that she was in no position to influence you?

24 A. No. No, no. She didn't say anything about it. No. She didn't

25 say that we shouldn't, or that we should, for that matter. The question

1 was not even raised.

2 Q. Just another question, and then it's time for our break, what I

3 asked you a while ago. Did you get the impression that Mazowiecki only

4 released that statement because your colleague had previously broken the

5 news that day confirming your discovery --

6 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters did not get the last part of

7 counsel's question.

8 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. The last part of my question: Your article provided more

10 information than was disclosed at the press conference in Zagreb. You and

11 your colleague, by publishing the news, in a way, left Mazowiecki no

12 choice but to officially and publicly confirm the discovery. Was that

13 your impression at the time?

14 A. It has nothing to do with impressions. The fact is that

15 Mazowiecki, talking about the AFP news release, confirmed that the mass

16 grave found on the 18th of October, 1992 in the Vukovar area was indeed

17 the mass grave of Ovcara. That's where he was, in Ovcara.

18 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, this might be a

19 convenient time for our break.

20 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Okay. We will have a break of 20 minutes

21 and resume at just before 25 past.

22 --- Recess taken at 3.04 p.m.

23 --- On resuming at 3.25 p.m.

24 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Mr. Lukic.

25 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]. Before we continue, there is a

1 suggestion that would I like to make, a proposal, if you like. Mr. Moore

2 has just informed me that there is no witness scheduled for tomorrow. I

3 can't quite promise that I will be concluding my cross-examination today.

4 It might be best to see at 4.30 what exactly happens. Perhaps we might

5 stretch a little today and continue past our mark.

6 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: We would seriously encourage you,

7 Mr. Lukic, to finish by 4.30. We will see where we get. So please

8 proceed.

9 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Madam, can you please now look at tab 3, this is the excerpt from

11 your newspaper article published in Le Monde on the 29th of October. This

12 heading "Ivan's testimony." This is something that you signed. Was all

13 of this obtained from Vjesnik, or does this piece contain anything that

14 you found elsewhere? Do you remember that?

15 A. The Vjesnik article and Ivan's account was used by me as the basis

16 for my work for my article. That's why I do mention it in my article.

17 However, the article is the result of the work I carried out on the

18 ground. But of course Ivan's testimony was the starting point of the work

19 I then carried out, which led to the publication of this article.

20 Q. Since you are the person who wrote this article, the heading in

21 B/C/S "They were beating them for hours." Can you please read out loud

22 the paragraph which begins: "From the 18th to the 19th of November."

23 This is the second passage of the piece. Can you please read that how

24 the?

25 A. Since the end of the war in Croatia?

1 Q. In B/C/S the heading is "They were beating them for hours." The

2 caption. And then the next passage begins: "From the 18th to the 19th of

3 November in the afternoon, the Yugoslav army" and so on and so on, all the

4 way to the reference to the International Committee of the Red Cross. In

5 the original piece this is the second column, and then the last paragraph

6 on that page.

7 A. I don't know.

8 Q. The ERN number is 0469-2380.

9 A. I see. Sorry. Because I have both pages, so ...

10 Q. That paragraph, the 18th and the 19th.

11 A. "The Yugoslav army had forbidden access to the Vukovar, preventing

12 them to draw a list of wounded people and prisoners. Up to this afternoon

13 on the 19th of November, the ICRC attended to the comings and goings of

14 trucks without being able to intervene. There were only some 50 persons

15 left when finally the ICRC was in a position to enter the building."

16 Q. Do you remember whether this was part of Ivan's testimony as

17 published in the Vjesnik, the newspaper, or is this something that you

18 added?

19 A. I don't think it was in the Vjesnik article. Because this

20 information about the outside were part of public knowledge. Seen it on

21 TV. TV footage showed the ICRC being present in front of the hospital.

22 Q. Why does it say here - this is something I don't understand - to

23 compile a list of the wounded and those captured, or detainees? What

24 detainees are you talking about here exactly?

25 A. These -- this was the information we had at the time. I believe

1 that these people didn't enjoy freedom of movement. So we knew that they

2 were prisoners and that some people had been wounded. People in the

3 hospital were not free to go.

4 Q. You termed those people detainees, didn't you? Is that right?

5 A. Yes, yes.

6 Q. Did you ever try to interview Mrs. Vesna Bosanac? Did you try to

7 ask her whether she had provided any lists to the ICRC? Briefly, please.

8 A. Personal interview, no.

9 Q. When your piece was eventually published, did your editors back in

10 Paris ask you to pursue this line of investigation, to get new

11 information? Did they encourage you to go on and try to find out more

12 about that?

13 A. Not particularly. If a journalist has information, then he or she

14 is free to do it but we are not investigators, and if we do not have more

15 information, well, we just work on the basis of the information that have

16 been verified. Going further would be getting into the realm of

17 allegations and speculations.

18 Q. When you decided to go and try to find the grave site, the only

19 two sources available to you were the Vjesnik article and the press

20 conference in Zagreb, right?

21 A. Yes. Because I wanted to know if the mass grave in the area of

22 Vukovar was not the one where the people from the hospital had not been

23 buried, so I wanted to see if there was a link between those two events.

24 Q. Let us now move on to the 18th of November, 1991. In your

25 statement to the OTP, you described first interviewing Assistant Defence

1 Minister Milan Milanovic at the fortress in Erdut. Do you remember if

2 there was a rally being held there, people from the SAO Krajina when you

3 found them there? Was there some sort of celebration going on?

4 A. Yes, there were many personalities there, not only from the RSK,

5 but also from Belgrade, like Brana Crncevic and other people who came

6 there.

7 Q. But in terms of your time-line, this would be the first entry?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Your meeting with my client occurred at the Vukovar graveyard. My

10 question to you: Was that the first time you clapped eyes on him that

11 day?

12 A. Yes. At the Vukovar cemetery, yes, it was the first time.

13 Q. What about your conversation with my client? Was this before

14 Sljivancanin addressed the crowd there that you took the notes?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Did you introduce yourself to him?

17 A. I don't think so. Because I wanted everything to be very

18 spontaneous, so I immediately put my question to him, so I don't remember

19 introducing myself. Everything happened very quickly.

20 Q. You say you split off from the remaining journalists there in

21 order to approach him. Was he alone?

22 A. I believe so.

23 Q. I have to say my client claims that he was not alone at any time

24 in Vukovar on that day. There were always guards with him, people

25 providing escort for him?

1 A. But I spoke to him.

2 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters ask the witness to wait before

3 answering the questions.

4 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Your dialogue might have been witnessed by somebody else, right?

6 A. I don't think so. There would not have been any dialogue if

7 people had been around.

8 Q. Did you take him to one side to speak alone?

9 A. No. I left the group of journalists, and I moved towards him

10 whilst he was entering the cemetery. And he was walking towards the place

11 where all the journalists were standing. So on the way we met, I asked my

12 question, he answered. And then we both -- I don't remember how, but we

13 both went towards the group of journalists. We joined them. And they

14 were not very far away. They were a few dozen metres away. It was not

15 very far away. I didn't -- I just moved towards him.

16 Q. But you still claim that nobody could possibly have witnessed your

17 conversation?

18 A. I don't remember. There were probably people not very far away,

19 so somebody else might have listened in, but I don't remember, because

20 this exchange was very short, and it took place because we were a bit away

21 from the rest. But we were not far away. Two of my colleagues joined us

22 then, but Mr. Sljivancanin kept walking towards the other journalists at

23 the place where part of a ceremony was supposed to take place, and

24 Mr. Sljivancanin at the time was somebody you could very easily access.

25 He would very easily talk to the media.

1 Q. We're about to look at your notes. You appear to be quoting him.

2 Do you remember where he said this? In your notes, this is tab 4, I'm

3 referring to page 0469-2394. That is the first page. What you wrote on

4 those three pages in your notes. Do you remember where he uttered these

5 words that you noted?

6 A. If memory serves me right, he delivered a speech on the main

7 square, delivered at least one speech, but I don't remember if he gave a

8 speech at the cemetery as well. But that took place during that day,

9 that's for sure. And since it was right at the beginning, I suppose it

10 was at the cemetery, but I can't say it with absolute certainty.

11 Q. The reason I'm asking this is the town square and the speeches in

12 the town square get their first reference on page which bears the ERN

13 number 400- and onwards.

14 A. Probably the first speech he made, and the speeches on the main

15 square were delivered early in the afternoon, whereas -- as for what took

16 place at the cemetery was during the day.

17 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters would request again the witness

18 to wait before answering because we can't catch some of the answers.

19 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. In relation to the claims in your notes, my client believes this

21 is part of his interview to Radio Vukovar which was reported a lot in a

22 wide variety of media on those days. Was this perhaps something you heard

23 on Radio Vukovar? Because they were airing this all the time.

24 A. I don't see how -- when travelling and being on the spot on that

25 specific day, I don't see how I could have listened to the radio. It

1 might be a statement rather than a speech given to the press at the

2 cemetery, but in any case I wrote this down in my notes, and

3 Mr. Sljivancanin took place -- took part in a number of events during that

4 commemoration day on the 18th of November, 1992.

5 Q. I look at many pages here, and what I see is that you recorded

6 your presence there in much detail. This stretches from ERN 94 -- 394 all

7 the way up to ERN 402.

8 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not understand the last part

9 of what Mr. Lukic said.

10 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. I suppose you weren't using a Dictaphone at the time, were you?

12 A. No, because I work for the written press, and in Le Monde they

13 don't publish interviews, or very occasionally. So as a journalist for

14 Le Monde you take notes and you write an article where you only reproduce

15 parts of what was said to you during the interview.

16 Q. I also notice that wherever you could you wrote down the name of

17 your collocutor. There are several names throughout your stay in Vukovar

18 being mentioned, right?

19 A. Yes, of course. In order to be as specific as possible.

20 Q. I even notice by looking at your original notes that you made

21 entries in B/C/S, in the original language, followed by your own

22 interpretation. There may be a few grammatical errors there, but you did

23 try hard obviously to faithfully reflect the original words uttered by

24 whoever you were talking to, right?

25 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please again be asked to wait

1 for interpretation to finish.

2 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. Can we please look at your on notes, your notebook.

4 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: While Mr. Lukic is conferring,

5 Mrs. Hartmann, can I ask you to pause between question and answer for

6 interpreters. Thank you.

7 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. I will try to read out the way I interpreted your notes which were

9 made in B/C/S. On page bearing the ERN number 06 -- 0469-2394 it states

10 SL at the beginning. You stated that was short for Sljivancanin?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. I will skip over some parts, because we found the English

13 translation, whereas the B/C/S one wasn't as good. You wanted to insist

14 on the very words of my client, and then immediately under you

15 stated: "It is nice that the Serbian people have their pride. The

16 Serbian people never liked to wage war, and they always wanted to live in

17 YUG." Meaning Yugoslavia, if I'm not mistaken.

18 Is my interpretation correct?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. On page 0469-2395, which is the next page, it says: "Veselin

21 Sljivancanin, major-colonel." Underneath there is a line. Was that a

22 mark used by you to distinguish between what he had said and the

23 continuation of your text which did not belong to Mr. Sljivancanin?

24 A. When I wrote Veselin Sljivancanin, I wrote that at the top of the

25 page with a line underneath. It's a sort of parenthesis. I wrote that in

1 order to know exactly how his name was spelt, in case I needed to use that

2 name when writing my article.

3 So what's underneath, it's not what Sljivancanin said. So that's

4 the reason why I drew a line underneath. And in the same way you will

5 find an arrow on the left page of the same document and that means that it

6 is a different passage of my notes.

7 Q. To move on to your article in Le Monde, the subtitle is "The

8 Empire of Death." I presume you wrote the second paragraph, and there you

9 quoted my client. I believe you quoted him when he said: "Europe and the

10 world need to know that we will not betray the cause our soldiers have

11 fought for and died." Is that correct?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Before that we see your comment in which you state that Veselin

14 Sljivancanin was mocking the plan and principles set out by the

15 international community at the peace conference for the former Yugoslavia.

16 That was your comment. And the quote you provided was supposed to

17 reinforce your comment. Am I correct?

18 A. Not necessarily in order to reinforce what I had said before.

19 This comment is linked to the first quotation of Mr. Sljivancanin's

20 statement at the beginning of the article when he said here: "This is

21 Yugoslavia, this is Serbia." This is what he said at the beginning.

22 Whereas the international documents stated that the borders were

23 intangible.

24 Q. At that time, back in 1992, the border issues concerning the

25 Republic of Croatia were still not resolved; is that correct?

1 A. If memory serves me right, Croatia was recognised by the

2 international community in January 1992 at the latest. And the

3 territories in question or -- were controlled by the United Nations. So

4 the question of the borders was not topical. The topical question was

5 that of some of the territories and some of -- and of their control.

6 Q. Based on what was stated at the beginning of the article when he

7 said: "This is Yugoslavia and this is Serbia," you thought that he was

8 ridiculing the international community. Is that correct?

9 A. The protected area of the United Nations in Eastern Slavonia was

10 not part of Serbia at the time. This was a political statement that went

11 against the decisions taken internationally.

12 Q. All you have testified about here today concerning your contacts

13 with Mr. Sljivancanin and your discussions with him and when you explained

14 to Mr. Moore why you failed to enter some portions of it in your article,

15 as you have explained to Mr. Moore, I was about to analyse that, but the

16 discussion between you and my client is not part of your article but

17 rather, as you yourself stated, you paraphrased that discussion?

18 A. Yes, it was a paraphrase. When you write an article, it's not

19 only quotations you include. I used a paraphrase because if I had quoted

20 him I would have accused him, and I did not have enough information,

21 enough evidence, to accuse him of being responsible, guilty of what had

22 happened in Ovcara. Therefore, I was being cautious, according to the

23 regulations prevailing at Le Monde.

24 Q. Caution is one thing; paraphrasing or changing one's statement is

25 another. It's something completely different. And it goes as follows, if

1 you deem that to be a paraphrase. With the addition that there are

2 probably many mass graves with the victims of the conflict,

3 Mr. Sljivancanin's comment to that was that the JNA did not carry out mass

4 murders. Is that the way you believe you paraphrased my -- your

5 discussion with my client?

6 A. Yes, I can explain it.

7 I asked Mr. Sljivancanin what had happened to Ovcara. Ovcara was

8 a symbol of a crime, of a massacre. And he tells me, "You have to bury

9 the bodies somewhere." He didn't say I don't know or how should I know,

10 why would I know. He could have answered that. And then he stated that

11 there were many mass graves. He did not recognise that these bodies were

12 those of victims of the crimes. People had died in Vukovar. And later on

13 you will see that he mentioned the victims of various clashes.

14 So his admission was partial. He linked Ovcara to bodies, to

15 human bodies, but he did not admit that these bodies were those of the

16 victims of a massacre. That's why I chose to paraphrase his statement

17 because it was only a partial admission on his part, and I could not

18 quote -- or I could not quote something that was too uncertain.

19 Q. In this article, you never mention him linking Ovcara to the

20 bodies. In this part you mention the mass graves in Vukovar. And that

21 was apparently Mr. Sljivancanin's answer to you. First of all, you don't

22 even mention you had a conversation with him, which is not disputed. And

23 you made no mention of Mr. Sljivancanin saying anything about Ovcara to

24 you. In this sentence he wasn't talking about Ovcara specifically, but he

25 referred to mass graves containing bodies of war victims. Is that

1 correct?

2 A. Yes, the way I mentioned it in my article, because I was not

3 trying to accuse him of anything, I had information that I used as part of

4 my analysis, and this is included in the next sentence, "At the time all

5 the paramilitary formations were under the command of the army." And

6 there is -- it's -- here we talk about the implication of the federal army

7 in part of the crimes. My role as a correspondent was to understand

8 these things. My role was not to identify, as an investigator would do,

9 as a judicial instance would do. My role was not to identify the

10 culprits.

11 Q. I have to interrupt you.

12 A. I remained within my role as a journalist.

13 Q. You said you didn't want to accuse him in your article because you

14 didn't have such facts at your disposal to corroborate that. Did I

15 understand you correctly?

16 A. His statement was an accusation against him, but I did not have

17 enough evidence to corroborate the acquisition. If I had quoted as such,

18 because it was incriminating him without any context, so I tried to

19 distance myself from this.

20 Q. In your article did you accuse him in the following

21 sentence: "Several hours later, Mr. Sljivancanin took over the control of

22 the town and entered the hospital. According to a UN special report and

23 its rapporteur, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, 145 Croatian patients were taken out

24 of the hospital and executed."

25 Did you accuse him by this sentence, yes or no?

1 A. No. "Accused" would be too strong a term. But yes, I agree.

2 Insidiously I made it understood that there could be a link between the

3 military person who was the symbol of the hospital evacuation. So I

4 established the link between the -- these people who had gone missing, the

5 mass graves, and the fact that the paramilitary formations were under the

6 command of the JNA, but I didn't go any further because I didn't have any

7 data, any information that was confirming this accusation against an

8 individual person. Because my newspaper would not have allowed me to go

9 that far, considering the type of information that was available to me at

10 the time.

11 Q. Today you stated that you were stunned to hear his answer; is that

12 correct?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. You didn't include that in your notes anywhere, did you? Yes or

15 no.

16 A. No. Because I did not have my notebook with me whilst asking the

17 question.

18 Q. Nor did you want to write that down later that day when you

19 returned to Belgrade to have it etched in your memory. Yes or no?

20 A. No, because this was imprinted in my memory. Neither did I take

21 any notes of all the other information included in my article about the

22 fact that he stated that these people were probably the victims of

23 clashes. So all this part of our discussion, I did not include it in my

24 notes, although it was included in my article.

25 Q. Therefore, we will agree that this piece of information which

1 stunned you was etched in your memory, but you never wrote that down, not

2 until you provided your statement to the OTP. Or rather, to be more

3 precise: Did you ever, in an article, a book or a statement, repeat what

4 Sljivancanin told you? Did you describe that dialogue ever?

5 A. I mentioned it to friends, but in 1999 I did not include that in

6 my book because it was outdated. The link between the Ovcara mass grave

7 and Mr. Sljivancanin had been established by an indictment. The book was

8 published in 1999; therefore, I used more specific and up-to-date

9 information, comprehensive information that was available to me in the

10 documents prepared by the OTP. But I mentioned that to friends when

11 talking about my memories about the former Yugoslavia. I am sure I

12 mentioned it several times.

13 Q. We'll discuss that information in your book later. I apologise to

14 the interpreters.

15 In your book you mentioned my client, and you also cited some

16 sources, including himself in parts of your book. Therefore, when you

17 were writing the book you found it necessary to mention my client's

18 statements and interviews, for example such as the one given to the

19 Monitor magazine, but you didn't find it necessary to mention in your book

20 what he had told you himself. Is that correct?

21 A. My book is based on public sources. It is a book that is written

22 with hindsight, and I do not play a role in this book myself. There are

23 thousands or hundreds of interviews and statements I read that were given

24 by different personalities on the events which took place in former

25 Yugoslavia, some of them being indicted people here by the ICTY. But I

1 did not put myself on stage in this book, if you -- if you see what I

2 mean, because I wanted to show information that were available publicly

3 but I just wanted to gather in my book. I have, of course, a lot of

4 interviews with Radovan Karadzic and other people which are not mentioned

5 in this book.

6 Q. Would you agree with me that in your book you didn't only cite

7 facts or book excerpts or interviews, but rather you provided your own

8 point of view of Milosevic's rule. In your book you didn't put forth

9 things the way you're trying to explain them to me now, but rather you

10 stated your opinions?

11 A. No. I disagree. What is in this book is my analysis, that's the

12 role I'm playing in this book. I give an analysis with hindsight of all

13 the facts and events which are known publicly in order to try and explain

14 the strategy and the succession of events which took place in order to

15 help the readers understand one part of the events which took place in the

16 former Yugoslavia, talking more specifically about Mr. Milosevic's policy.

17 But I hardly used my notes, the notes that I took while reporting the

18 facts in this book.

19 Q. You wrote your book in 1999, roughly speaking, that's when it was

20 first published, right? From 1992 onwards until the moment you actually

21 wrote your book, since this is not something that you wrote in your book,

22 this is beyond dispute, but it's not there in the notes. Before this

23 became an obsolete topic, before the indictment was raised, in 1991 did

24 you ever describe the conversation that you had with my client to anyone

25 at all except your friends?

1 A. In writing, no. Maybe we should check. I'd given an interview to

2 a Croatian journalist, and she'd asked me to tell her about this work that

3 I had carried out when I discovered the Ovcara mass grave. She was called

4 Jasna Babic, I think. But I can't remember whether or not I mentioned

5 this sentence.

6 Q. I hope you can retrieve that and forward it to the OTP.

7 So much for that, and aside from that, for example you were with

8 Le Monde until 1994. Did you publish any other articles on Serbia, on the

9 JNA, all those years? I'm just trying to ask you a simple question. I

10 see that you are very good at answering questions. It's something you do

11 for a living, isn't it?

12 Just briefly, please. Do you ever remember publicly telling

13 anyone what you have testified here today in court? Just that one thing,

14 please.

15 MR. MOORE: She has answered that question probably three or four

16 times, with the utmost respect.

17 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Well, it happens to be my opinion that

18 I have not been successful in receiving a clear-cut answer, which is

19 precisely what I want. If the answer is generally considered to be clear,

20 I will be happy to move on.

21 A. Yes. I already said that I had mentioned it with other people,

22 but I did not publish it at the time. Or later on. I did not cover the

23 issue of responsibility up to the time when Mr. Sljivancanin was indicted.

24 However, this contributes to the analysis and to some criticisms

25 that I received from the authorities or from other people in Serbia. I

1 was criticised because they considered that I had accused the army, the

2 JNA, without any foundation. They had accused me to take sides and to

3 having mentioned crimes. So these of course was integrated into my

4 analysis, but I didn't do and say to people, yeah, Mr. Sljivancanin says

5 yes, there were corpses and there were bodies that were buried. No, I

6 didn't say that every day.

7 Q. You never said that in public, did you? Outside the circle of

8 your closest friends?

9 A. There's been a slight translation problem. I said that I didn't

10 self-promote myself every single moment to say that in any article, every

11 article, Mr. Sljivancanin said "Ovcara," et cetera. Link these two

12 things, Ovcara and the bodies. But this confession was only partial, let

13 me repeat this.

14 Q. Mrs. Hartmann, perhaps Mr. Moore believes this to be an

15 unequivocal answer. But I'm trying very hard, and I can't seem to get

16 there. It's an important answer from where I stand. You know full well

17 what I'm asking you. It's a simple question, isn't it. You criticised

18 the army; that's okay as far as I'm concerned. Your articles were about

19 the crimes at Ovcara, your articles were against the JNA. What I want to

20 know is: Did you ever at any time in any place publicly, openly state

21 what you told us here today? I have to be adamant about this one answer

22 in particular.

23 A. What is difficult in this dialogue is that you don't understand

24 the work carried out by a journalist. A journalist collects thousands of

25 information that is not going to use especially when they are not complete

1 and they need some corroboration. You cannot incriminate somebody. I'm

2 not talking about a structure. I'm talking about an individual person

3 without further evidence. What I had was not enough, and if I had

4 proceeded on the basis of what I had, I would have been accused of

5 slander.

6 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: [Microphone not activated].

7 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for the President, please.

8 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: [Interpretation] So is your answer no?

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Publicly, yes, my answer is no. For

10 the given reasons. Privately, yes.

11 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. Thank you. Mrs. Hartmann, I don't have that much to go. In

13 relation to your book, how would you define that book in terms of genre?

14 Is that journalism, is that a piece of journalism, what sort of a book is

15 it? I mean your book, the bishop moves across, or the madman moves

16 across?

17 A. This is a book, a document book as we could call it in French.

18 This is the result of the work carried out by somebody who has a

19 journalistic experience on the ground. And somebody who is trying with

20 the information that he or she has, all available information, try to shed

21 a more comprehensive light on international, recent international events.

22 So this is a documentary book, so to speak, and by the way it was

23 published as a document book.

24 Q. When you wrote the French original, you were not working for the

25 OTP yet at the time, were you?

1 A. No, that's true. I was not working for the OTP yet, for the

2 Tribunal.

3 Q. You must be aware of the fact, however, that both the Serbian

4 translation and the Croatian translation were published in 2001 and 2002

5 respectively when you worked here as a spokesperson. At the time the book

6 was finally released in Croatia and Serbia. You are aware of that, aren't

7 you, madam?

8 A. Yes, indeed. We've already mentioned that a moment ago.

9 Q. Furthermore, I assume that when you first started working with the

10 OTP, given your position, although you have a degree in literature, you

11 were more than familiar with both the Rules and the Statute of the ICTY.

12 Would I be right in assuming that, madam?

13 A. Yes, I knew them.

14 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Can we please go into private session

15 briefly, Your Honours.

16 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Private.

17 [Private session]

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15 [Open session]

16 THE REGISTRAR: We are in open session, Your Honours.

17 MR. MOORE: And I have no re-examination.

18 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Thank you very much, Mr. Moore.

19 Mrs. Hartmann, this brings your evidence to an end. Thank you

20 very much for your cooperation, and you are now free to go and to return

21 to your activities.

22 THE WITNESS: Thank you.

23 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Mr. Moore, I don't think we have another

24 witness for today.

25 MR. MOORE: Your Honour, we have no witness for today. We have an

1 expert coming on Monday.

2 Perhaps if the microphone could just be turned off. Thank you

3 very much.

4 [The witness withdrew]

5 MR. MOORE: We have an expert coming on Monday. We actually

6 believed that it would not be necessary to call Mrs. Hartmann, as it were,

7 today; we have used her as a fill-in. I use that rather vulgar phrase.

8 And Dr. Grujic will be continuing the evidence in relation to the grave

9 itself.

10 So I apologise that we have no witness tomorrow. But we have

11 already put one witness in, we have no others available. I always -- I

12 never cease to be amazed the precision of my learned friend Mr. Lukic

13 being able to say quite simply that we are unable to call another witness.

14 But we try put all witnesses in a way that there is a continuity of topic.

15 JUDGE VAN DEN WYNGAERT: Thank you for that, Mr. Moore.

16 So then we shall adjourn for -- so we shall adjourn for today and

17 tomorrow, and we shall reconvene next Monday at 12.30.

18 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 4.34 p.m.,

19 to be reconvened on Monday, the 29th day of May,

20 2006, at 12.30 p.m.

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