Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 10453

1 Thursday, 2nd April 1998

2 (10.05am)

3 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Good morning, ladies

4 and gentlemen. Can we have the appearances?

5 MR. NIEMANN: Good morning, your Honours. My

6 name is Niemann and I appear with my colleagues,

7 Ms. McHenry, Mr. Turone and Ms. Udo for the Prosecution.

8 MS. RESIDOVIC: Good morning, your Honours.

9 My name is Edina Residovic, Defence counsel for

10 Mr. Zejnil Delalic, along with my colleague, Eugene

11 O'Sullivan, professor from Canada

12 MR. OLUJIC: Good morning, your Honours. My

13 name is Zeljko Olujic, representing the defence for

14 Mr. Zdravko Mucic, along with my colleague, Mr. Michael

15 Greaves.

16 MR. KARABDIC: Good morning, your Honours.

17 I am Salih Karabdic, attorney from Sarajevo, Defence

18 counsel for Mr. Hazim Delic, along with Mr. Thomas Moran,

19 attorney from Houston, Texas.

20 MS. McMURREY: Good morning, your Honours.

21 I am Cynthia McMurrey and, along with Ms. Nancy Boler,

22 we represent Esad Landzo. Ms. Boler will be in the

23 courtroom momentarily.

24 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, may the witness

25 be brought in?

Page 10454

1 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Yes.

2 (The witness entered court)

3 .

4 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Please remind the

5 witness that he is still on his oath.

6 THE REGISTRAR: I remind you Sir, that you

7 are still under oath.

8 THE WITNESS: I understand that.

9 MUHAMED VEJZAGIC (continued)

10 Examined by MS. RESIDOVIC (continued)

11 Q. Brigadier, good morning.

12 A. Good morning.

13 Q. Have you had a rest?

14 A. Yes, thank you.

15 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, before

16 I continue with my examination of this witness,

17 I should like us to place our Exhibit D74/1, the map of

18 Bosnia-Herzegovina -- if that could be placed on the

19 easel so that he could use it, if necessary.

20 THE REGISTRAR: It will be in the courtroom

21 as soon as the usher brings it in.

22 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you.

23 Brigadier, towards the end of the afternoon

24 yesterday, we had discussed the transformation of the

25 former Yugoslav People's Army. So as to be able to

Page 10455

1 continue with the questions, could you please remind us

2 how the Yugoslav People's Army was transformed into

3 army districts?

4 A. The Yugoslav People's Army was transformed

5 towards the end of 1985 and, instead of armies based in

6 the republics, each army was based in the capitals of

7 the republics. Out of those armies, four military

8 districts were formed, so that, after that

9 transformation, we had the Zagreb, Belgrade, Split and

10 Skopje military districts. There were no substantive

11 reasons for this transformation. The aim was for the

12 headquarters of army commands to be removed from under

13 the influence of the republican authorities.

14 Q. Brigadier, parallel with the reorganisation

15 of the army, did certain changes occur in the

16 Territorial Defence, or, rather, did it strengthen or

17 was it weakened after that?

18 A. Parallel with the reorganisation of the

19 operative army, measures were taken to transform the

20 Territorial Defence as well. The Territorial Defence,

21 as of 1985, the aim was to reduce it gradually every

22 year so that I should like to show you, with the help

23 of a table, this process of reduction in size of the

24 Territorial Defence of Bosnia-Herzegovina. A parallel

25 process went on in all the other republics, so I would

Page 10456

1 like to show you what the situation was at the

2 beginning, that is, in 1985, and how it appeared at the

3 end, that is, in 1991.

4 MS. RESIDOVIC: Could the witness now be given

5 his expert report and this folder V1? (Handed).

6 You are referring to your review contained in

7 annex 1/4; is that not so?

8 A. (Pause).

9 Q. For us all to be able to follow, could this

10 chart be placed under the ELMO, please? Could you

11 explain it to us, please, Brigadier?

12 A. I do not know whether this is functioning now

13 -- can you see it? Here we see the numbers of the

14 Territorial Defence forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the

15 period from 1985 to 1991. We see what the situation

16 was on 31 December 1985. The Territorial Defence of

17 Bosnia-Herzegovina had, or should have had, 310,530

18 soldiers. The actual number present was 313,990. That

19 was the situation on 31 December 1985. With the steps

20 that were taken by Belgrade, the order was issued that

21 the Territorial Defence should be reduced in size

22 gradually every year so that, at the end, on

23 31 December 1991, the Territorial Defence was reduced

24 -- sorry, in 1986 to 297,000; in 1987 to 292,000; in

25 1988 to 202,000; in 1989 to 298,000; in 1990 to 138,000

Page 10457

1 and, at the end, on 31 December 1991, the Territorial

2 Defence had 86,000 soldiers, which means, in a period

3 of five years, the number had been reduced from 313,900

4 to 86,164, which is a total reduction of 73 per cent,

5 so the strength of the Territorial Defence was reduced

6 by 73 per cent during this five-year period. May I

7 proceed?

8 Q. Let me ask you the next question, if this

9 ends your answer to my previous question?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Please go on to say what you had in

12 connection with the weakening of the Territorial

13 Defence -- have you anything else to add in that

14 connection?

15 A. This was just one aspect of the weakening of

16 the Territorial Defence. Other measures were also

17 taken, so that, by decision of the general staff of 14

18 May 1990, the order was issued to take away the

19 armaments from the Territorial Defence under the excuse

20 that the warehouse in which the equipment was housed

21 were not safe, but that was not the real reason. The

22 real reason was that simultaneously with the reduction

23 in the numbers of the Territorial Defence, it should

24 also be disarmed, so that, by order of the supreme

25 command, the total armaments of the Territorial Defence

Page 10458

1 was collected and placed in the warehouses of the

2 army. A part of the weaponry was left in the TO

3 warehouses, but mostly in areas where the Serbs were in

4 a majority, which meant that the Territorial Defence

5 was virtually left without any weapons.

6 Other measures were also taken to reduce the

7 strength of the Territorial Defence and its efficiency.

8 The first step taken was to reduce it in size, then to

9 disarm it, then other measures were also taken. Its

10 continued supply with up-to-date weaponry and equipment

11 was also reduced. The intensity of the training of

12 staff was also reduced, both of units and commands and

13 staffs. Then, just before the war, a large quantity of

14 documents was collected from TO staffs, so that war

15 plans, mobilisation plans, contingency plans, all of

16 these were taken away and they existed in the event

17 that the Territorial Defence needed to be activated.

18 Also, the plans for decoding were also collected, so

19 that the original intention of using the Territorial

20 Defence in the defence of the country was undermined.

21 Q. Brigadier, before I continue with my

22 questions, let me repeat an observation that I made

23 yesterday, because my colleagues are telling me that we

24 should slow down a little for the interpreters to be

25 able to keep up, and, secondly, after my question, will

Page 10459

1 you wait for a minute and hear the English

2 interpretation -- so could the usher give the witness

3 another pair of headphones -- and only once you hear

4 that the interpretation has been completed will you

5 continue with your answer. I think it is a better idea

6 to make this remark at the beginning than for our

7 colleagues not to be able to follow. Thank you.

8 You have been telling us about the

9 reorganisation of the army and the weakening of the

10 Territorial Defence. General, do you connect these

11 facts to the preparations for what happened just before

12 the outbreak of the crisis in Yugoslavia?

13 A. Certainly. These measures to reorganise the

14 army and what was done to weaken the Territorial

15 Defence corresponded to a political situation, a

16 crisis, in the country, which came to a peak on 14 and

17 15 March and I will come back to that, when the general

18 staff proposed the introduction of a state of

19 emergency, but we will be coming back to that.

20 Q. General, or, rather Brigadier, I am sorry,

21 how did the military leadership in Belgrade act when it

22 had already become obvious that the dissolution of the

23 former SFRY was ongoing, especially after the

24 independence of Slovenia and Croatia?

25 A. In that period of time the Presidency was

Page 10460

1 convened -- that was on 13 March 1991, the aim being

2 that the Minister of the Army as you call it here in

3 the west, the Federal Secretary for Defence in our

4 case, General Kadijevic, was to propose the

5 introduction of a state of emergency and the

6 mobilisation of the reserve force. That proposal was

7 reviewed by the presidency on that day, 13 March, and

8 no consensus could be reached to adopt that proposal of

9 the Federal Secretary, General Kadijevic. The

10 representatives of Slovenia and then also of Croatia

11 walked out of the presidency, because they did not

12 agree with the enforcement of a state of emergency in

13 the country, because no external threat existed to the

14 country. Throughout that time, our doctrine was that

15 the army should prepare itself to defend the country

16 from external aggression and, since no such danger

17 existed, but the intentions were different altogether,

18 the representative of Slovenia did not agree with that

19 proposal of the Federal Secretary and he walked out of

20 the session -- of the meeting.

21 Then another way was sought. The Presidency

22 did not meet on the 13th but on the 14th and the 15th,

23 in order to try and achieve that consensus, one way or

24 another. At that session, again, a decision could not

25 be taken, because there was no consensus. The

Page 10461

1 representative of Bosnia-Herzegovina, even though he

2 was a Serb by ethnicity, and they had counted on him

3 100 per cent, that he would agree to the introduction

4 of a state of emergency, Bogicevic, the representative

5 of Bosnia-Herzegovina, as a participant of those

6 events, has reported in detail how these meetings

7 evolved. In effect, this was an announcement of the

8 future war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

9 Q. Brigadier, after all those events, was the

10 Yugoslav People's Army used against the republics of

11 Slovenia and Croatia?

12 A. Since the proposal of the Federal Secretary

13 was not adopted, the Presidency, which was not fully

14 represented at the meeting, it did everything to use

15 the army, allegedly to protect Yugoslavia and to ensure

16 its survival, but that was not what it was -- it was in

17 fact the aim to create a Greater Serbia, so they

18 decided to capture the borders, which they wanted to be

19 the borders of Greater Serbia, so the army was deployed

20 on 25 June, without the Slovenian leadership being

21 informed. The army set its mechanisms in motion under

22 the excuse that it was protecting its borders with

23 Austria and Italy in the north. The Slovenes

24 considered this to be an attack on a regular State

25 which had already been recognised on Slovenia.

Page 10462

1 The deployment of the army in the war in

2 Slovenia lasted for about one month. After that, after

3 the 752 Resolution of the Security Council, the forces

4 were withdrawn from Slovenia. The real reason for the

5 deployment of the army in Slovenia was a calculated

6 move so that, with a fictitious war with no major

7 destruction or casualties, all this was reduced to a

8 minimum, the only thing was to find an excuse for the

9 army among Yugoslav public opinion -- the aim was to

10 withdraw two corps -- the Maribor and Ljubljana Corps

11 -- from Slovenia and while this war lasted, the

12 equipment, the officers, the command structure, the

13 civilians -- they were all withdrawn.

14 Q. Let us not go into the war in Slovenia in

15 detail. Will you please tell us whether, after that,

16 the army was used in the Republic of Croatia?

17 A. Yes. Parallel with the war in Slovenia,

18 combat operations started in Croatia as well.

19 Actually, the Yugoslav People's Army was used in combat

20 in Croatia so that, in the initial stages already, a

21 major massacre was carried out against the population.

22 By way of an example, Vukovar -- the world public

23 opinion is already familiar with the casualties -- they

24 were able to see columns of refugees and the suffering

25 of the Croatian people at the hands of the army, which

Page 10463

1 used all its force and all its state-of-the-art

2 equipment to ensure the borders of a Greater Serbia.

3 The border which would run along the coast to Karlovac,

4 Karlobag, Virovitica -- that was the frontier of the

5 imagined Greater Serbia.

6 Q. Brigadier, after the events in Slovenia and

7 Croatia, where did the military leadership in Belgrade

8 move the effectives of the Yugoslav People's Army to?

9 A. The first document about that was signed by

10 the Federal Secretary, General Kadijevic, the order

11 being to move from Slovenia the 31st Corps of Maribor

12 and the 14th Ljubljana Corps to Bosnia and Serbia.

13 However, we have information, according to which those

14 two Corps, or, rather, a part of the Ljubljana Corps,

15 was intended to stay in Bosnia, but since the 17th

16 Corps of Tuzla and the 10th Banja Luka Corps had

17 already suffered losses in the fighting in Slavonia,

18 these Corps were mainly used to reinforce the Banja

19 Luka Corps in the fighting in Croatia.

20 A second order envisaged the final withdrawal

21 of forces from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, but this

22 happened after the Resolution 572 of the Security

23 Council.

24 Q. Brigadier --

25 A. I am sorry, I have not yet finished.

Page 10464

1 Q. Then perhaps you could use the map and show

2 us where the military effectives of the Yugoslav army

3 were moved to, from Croatia and Slovenia to the

4 territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. There is a pointer

5 and I think there is a pair of headphones with a longer

6 cord that you could use?

7 A. This is a map of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Can you

8 hear me?

9 Q. Yes, I can.

10 A. This is Sarajevo, this is Banja Luka, Bihac,

11 this is Herzegovina, Mostar, Bileca, Zenica, Tuzla

12 (indicates). In the territory of the former

13 Bosnia-Herzegovina, the following forces were withdrawn

14 -- the Rijeka Corps was moved by boat along the

15 Adriatic to Herzegovina and it was actually deployed in

16 Herzegovina.

17 The 31st Corps was moved from Maribor to the

18 areas of Banja Luka, Zenica, Tuzla. Parts of the 14th

19 Ljubljana Corps were transferred to Mrkonjic, Kupres

20 and Sipovo. The 5th Corps was moved from Zagreb to the

21 Bihac district. The educational institutions were

22 moved from Zagreb to Sarajevo, the artillery

23 educational centre and the anti-aircraft defence

24 centre, so that, in effect, four Corps were brought to

25 this territory, and from before we already had in

Page 10465

1 Bosnia the Sarajevo, Tuzla and Banja Luka Corps, so

2 three already existed and four were brought in, which

3 meant seven Corps -- they may not have all been fully

4 manned -- of the Yugoslavia army, not counting the

5 Territorial Defence forces that we shall be coming back

6 to later.

7 Q. Brigadier, in addition to these effectives of

8 the Yugoslavia army coming from Slovenia and Croatia,

9 did other forces come to the territory of

10 Bosnia-Herzegovina from other parts of the former

11 Yugoslavia?

12 A. We have information that, in addition to

13 these Corps of the Yugoslav army, forces came from

14 Serbia to Bosnia-Herzegovina, so that, a part of the

15 Novi Sad Corps was moved to the region of Bijeljina, a

16 part of the Valjevo Corps to the region of Zvornik , a

17 part of the Uzice Corps to the region of Visegrad and

18 Gorazde, a part of the Podgorica Corps and from Kosovo

19 came to the area of Foca and Kalinovik.

20 Q. Brigadier, was not Bosnia totally covered by

21 JNA forces before it proclaimed its independence?

22 A. Probably there is no precedent of such a

23 great concentration of manpower in such a small area.

24 If we consider the actual numbers of soldiers in this

25 area, there were about 100,000 soldiers, about 800

Page 10466

1 tanks, about 1,000 armoured personnel carriers, about

2 4,000 artillery pieces, 100 planes and 50 helicopters,

3 so those were the total effectives covering the

4 territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in addition to the

5 Territorial Defence forces, which in Serb parts had

6 organised themselves.

7 Q. Brigadier, in 1991, going on to 1992, did the

8 Yugoslav army collaborate with the SDS of

9 Bosnia-Herzegovina in the preparations for the war,

10 which was to come?

11 A. According to documents and available

12 information, the Yugoslav People's Army was

13 participating in the preparations for the war in the

14 territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Those preparations

15 consisted mainly of a distribution of weapons, to

16 citizens of Serb ethnicity. The officers -- army

17 officers were engaged in intensive training of

18 Territorial Defence units and evidence of that is a

19 report of the command of the second military district

20 to the general staff written in March 1992, saying

21 that, on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, there are

22 69,190 volunteers, which means that already, by then,

23 they had organised unit forming companies, detachment

24 and battalions, that is, 69,000 of them.

25 Q. When did the first combat operations begin in

Page 10467

1 the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

2 A. The first combat operations started with

3 incidents in 1991 in the area of Srebrenica, Bratunac

4 and Bijeljina. I cannot really call them combat, but

5 incidents -- people were ambushed and killed -- so that

6 we immediately took these incidents to be a prelude to

7 provocation for combat operations. As early as

8 20 October 1991, in the area of Mostar, units of the

9 Yugoslav army appeared without any reason, allegedly to

10 protect the airport. The question was from whom were

11 they protecting it and why were they there? In Mostar,

12 they caused incidents, they looked for excuses in the

13 dissatisfaction of the citizens of Mostar in order to

14 complicate matters.

15 Actually, units of the Yugoslav People's Army

16 that came to Mostar were an introduction to the

17 Dubrovnik operation. It is common knowledge that the

18 Yugoslav People's Army, by its aggression against

19 Croatia, carried out destructive operations in

20 Dubrovnik and the forces that came to Herzegovina were

21 a prelude to the Dubrovnik operation until a resolution

22 of the Security Council was passed, when those

23 operations in the area of Dubrovnik had to be

24 discontinued.

25 I am talking about 1991 now.

Page 10468

1 Q. What happened in 1992, Brigadier?

2 A. I have to make a brief introduction. In the

3 course of the fighting, or, rather, when the Yugoslav

4 People's Army came to the territory of Herzegovina,

5 already then intensive fight preparations had begun of

6 volunteers, their training, their arming, their supply

7 with equipment, the formation of units, and in 1992

8 already, or rather, at the end of 1991 and the

9 beginning of 1992, those units were organised to be

10 able to engage in combat.

11 Q. Brigadier, tell me, please, when did the

12 Yugoslav general staff take the decision on the

13 withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from the territory of

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina and by what date was that to have

15 been completed?

16 A. After the Resolution of the Security Council,

17 752, the general staff took the decision to withdraw

18 forces also from the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

19 I cannot recall the date, but that withdrawal -- in any

20 event, there is a document in my expert report from

21 which it can be seen from which garrisons forces were

22 withdrawn to Serbia. However, I wish to say something

23 else. How that withdrawal took place -- perhaps you

24 have another question about that?

25 Q. Since in your expert report you have

Page 10469

1 indicated that, in mid May 1992, the decision was taken

2 on the withdrawal of the JNA from Bosnia-Herzegovina

3 and from the documents we see that the deadline was 19

4 May, could you please tell us what was the substance of

5 that decision -- who was supposed to be withdrawn, who

6 was supposed to stay on, and what was supposed to stay

7 on, if you could tell us that in greater detail?

8 A. Yes. I had an original document from which

9 one can see that such orders were issued, that is, for

10 the army to withdraw from Bosnia-Herzegovina by 19

11 May. This document says that, first of all, the

12 manpower that does not come from the territory of

13 Bosnia-Herzegovina had to be withdrawn, which meant

14 that soldiers who were born in Bosnia would stay on in

15 Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as the officers, and, as for

16 the equipment, the order says, if it cannot be

17 withdrawn, then it should be left behind, whereas the

18 effectives should be transported by plane and it is

19 specified from which airports this should be done.

20 However, it is also well known that that

21 document also stipulated the following: depending on

22 personnel decisions, other people could stay on. It

23 was not explicitly said that all people who were not

24 from Bosnia had to go. It depended on the personnel

25 decisions, from which one could conclude that people

Page 10470

1 who were not Bosnians could also stay behind in that

2 part of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

3 In addition, it is also well known that

4 soldiers were imported -- people who were doing their

5 military service in the former Yugoslavia in the

6 territory of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, the

7 principle was that a soldier could not serve in his own

8 town, so that quite a large number of Bosnian citizens

9 were recruited as conscripts to garrisons in Serbia,

10 Macedonia and Montenegro and the order was given that

11 those soldiers should be transferred to the territory

12 of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

13 Q. Brigadier, pursuant to this order, as you

14 have just said, the soldiers and officers who were born

15 in Bosnia-Herzegovina stayed behind and, also, soldiers

16 and officers who were at that moment in time in the

17 territory of the new Yugoslavia came to Bosnia to

18 continue to do their military service in the territory

19 of Bosnia-Herzegovina; is that what you said?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Brigadier, tell me, please, at that time, in

22 Bosnia-Herzegovina, was there the creation of a

23 military power of the Serbian people?

24 A. I already said earlier on that, during 1991,

25 the SDS Party intensively worked towards the

Page 10471

1 organisation of the citizens of the Serb ethnicity to

2 make them an armed force, to turn them into an armed

3 force. The document that -- I mentioned that General

4 Kukanjac sent a document, a report to the head of the

5 general staff which states that, before 20 March, he

6 had in Bosnia 69,190 volunteers, organised volunteers

7 in units, and the document furthermore stipulates that

8 the army armed them, equipped these units, the

9 50,000-odd of them, that is to say, 70 per cent,

10 whereas the Serbian Party, the SDS Party, armed the

11 rest -- the remaining 17 per cent, which makes up the

12 69,000 personnel.

13 This shows that the army was included into

14 the process of forming, organising, training and

15 equipping with arms as well as was the SDS Party, they

16 worked hand in hand to create Serbian forces, which

17 might, once the Yugoslav People's Army was withdrawn,

18 make a new military power, a new military force of the

19 Serbian republic.

20 Q. Could you please tell us whether you know who

21 was chosen as commander of that army of the Serbian

22 republic -- the Republika Srpska?

23 A. The commander of the Republika Srpska army

24 was General Ratko Mladic. He was the former commander

25 of the 9th Corps in Knin. He was transferred to

Page 10472

1 Bosnia, he was promoted to the rank of general and he

2 became the commander there. We have information and

3 facts and figures according to which we know the

4 composition of that general staff of the command there.

5 Q. Brigadier, within the frameworks of your

6 documents -- of the documents you submitted -- you gave

7 us a diagram of the composition of the army of the

8 Republika Srpska, so would you now put that on the ELMO

9 -- it is to be found in annex 3/5, and could you

10 please clarify what this breakdown that you have made

11 in fact signifies?

12 Brigadier, you can take up the pointer and --

13 we do not have the chart on our screens as yet. The

14 chart is not on the screen yet. Here we have it. If

15 you show us on the ELMO what took place, we will be

16 able to see on our screens, so would you now take up

17 your pointer and show us what happened on the map

18 itself? You can look at the map and we will know what

19 you are pointing to. What does this chart show? It

20 was composed by you; could you tell us what it

21 represents?

22 A. This chart or diagram represents the

23 distribution of Serb forces after the withdrawal of the

24 Yugoslav People's Army, so that we have the following

25 formations -- the 1st Krajina Corps and this is its

Page 10473

1 responsibility zone; it worked within that zone. Then

2 we have the 2nd Krajina Corps with its headquarters in

3 Banja Luka -- the 2nd Corps has this second zone of

4 responsibility with its command in Drvar. Furthermore,

5 we have the East Bosnian Corps with its headquarters

6 Bijeljina -- the Drina Corps, which was formed a little

7 later on, with its headquarters in Vlasenica. The

8 Srajevo Romanija corps with its headquarters in

9 Lukavica, which is near Sarajevo -- the environs of

10 Sarajevo.

11 Then we have the Herzegovina Corps with

12 headquarters -- it was in Trebinje and then moved on to

13 Belavice, but the main headquarters were in Han Pijesak

14 on Gromanje for the supreme command, in the case of an

15 aggression against Bosnia-Herzegovina.

16 Q. Brigadier, would you tell me of the forces

17 that the corps had -- what was placed at their

18 disposal?

19 A. The first Krajina Corps had in its

20 composition a motorised brigade, the 7th Light Brigade

21 and the 19th Light Brigade. In addition to this, it

22 had special units, mixed artillery battalions, a light

23 brigade, artillery brigade -- the overall force of the

24 1st Krajina Corps was 55,000 men, 180 tanks, 150

25 armoured transporters, and 360 artillery pieces. The

Page 10474

1 2nd Krajina Corps had 14,000 men, 60 --

2 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Ms. Residovic, do you

3 really need all this? At least you know your defence.

4 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you. I would just like

5 to ask you to tell us what the manpower forces in the

6 Sarajevo and Herzegovina Corps, not to mention the

7 other parts of the republic that did not have any vital

8 effect on what we are talking about now?

9 A. The Sarajevo Corps in its composition had

10 12,000 men, 60 tanks, 30 armoured transporters and 200

11 artillery pieces. The Herzegovina Corps had 22,000

12 men, 100 tanks, 100 armoured transporters, or APCs, and

13 260 artillery pieces.

14 Q. Can you tell us, Brigadier, what were the

15 basic characteristics of the combat effectives of the

16 Serbian forces at the beginning -- the initial stages

17 of the war and, in the course of the war, in

18 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

19 A. The basic characters of the initial

20 operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina were the following:

21 first, the Serbian forces, the Serb forces during

22 peacetime, under so-called "manoeuvres", were placed at

23 dominant positions. All the key points throughout the

24 country -- the cross-roads, the bridges, and what is

25 essential for the defence and so, for example, in

Page 10475

1 Sarajevo, as early on as March 1992, the city of

2 Sarajevo was surrounded by Serb forces -- they had

3 taken up their positions, the artillery, the rocket

4 systems, and, when the citizens asked what was

5 happening, they said that these were regular

6 manoeuvres, and that the army -- this was in the army's

7 plan and that nobody should fear these manoeuvres.

8 Of course, this was all prepared in advance,

9 to have an encirclement around the city of Sarajevo --

10 it was in fact a blockade of Sarajevo -- and, later on,

11 with the development of events, we were able to see the

12 true purpose of these manoeuvres and of why these

13 particular positions were taken up and manned.

14 On 6 April, there was a serious attack on the

15 city of Sarajevo itself, using the artillery, along all

16 points. Both civilian and other institutions --

17 departments, hospitals -- the attacks came from all

18 sides and attacked all institutions and buildings.

19 Q. Brigadier, when Professor Hadzibegovic gave

20 his testimony, we showed the court what happened on

21 that particular date. I should like to ask you to

22 dwell on questions on which you are an expert and can

23 help the court. After this terrible attack on the town

24 of Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and after the attack

25 on the proclaimed recognised State of

Page 10476

1 Bosnia-Herzegovina, what were the reactions of the

2 legal Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and what

3 measures were undertaken to defend the integrity of the

4 country?

5 A. Well, faced with this kind of danger, the

6 legal Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina undertook the

7 first initial steps to defend the country. First of

8 all, there was a proclamation by which the Territorial

9 Defence headquarters were replaced and a new

10 Territorial Defence headquarters was set up and this

11 was a decree of 8 April.

12 On the same day, a decision was made. The

13 decision was called, "The decree on the threat of war"

14 and on the basis of these decisions, the Defence

15 Ministry and the new headquarters, the new general

16 staff of the Territorial Defence for the Republic of

17 Bosnia-Herzegovina, elaborated instructions -- drew up

18 instructions for a reorganisation of the Territorial

19 Defence units, which underwent significant changes with

20 the decree of introducing a new general staff. A new

21 Ministry of Defence was in fact formed on the occasion,

22 it did not previously exist, and it now came under the

23 competency of this Ministry, the Territorial Defence

24 forces, so the Ministry was responsible to the

25 Presidency of the republic for security in the country.

Page 10477

1 Q. The decree of 8 April, which we have tendered

2 as evidence to the court, did the Ministry of Defence

3 become the supreme command for the defence of

4 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

5 A. Yes, it took control with regard to the

6 control and command of Territorial Defence -- the

7 commanding of the units themselves came under the

8 headquarters of the Territorial Defence units.

9 Q. Brigadier, you said that the Defence

10 Minister, in keeping with this decree and together with

11 the commander, brought in instructions -- and, as

12 I say, this has been tendered into evidence in the

13 court -- could you tell us whether these instructions

14 determined the responsibility of the municipal

15 headquarters to the republican staff -- was

16 subordination regulated in that way?

17 A. Yes, it was, so that all the headquarters who

18 had declared themselves loyal to the State of

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina were organised in this fashion.

20 There were five headquarters, five staff -- not in

21 Mostar, Livno and Gorazde -- whereas the others

22 declared their loyalty, although a part of the Serbs

23 had left their responsibilities and went to -- crossed

24 into the Serbian side, but these other staff

25 headquarters expressed their loyalty to the Ministry

Page 10478

1 and they continued to command their command and to

2 perform their duties.

3 Within the frameworks of these regional

4 headquarters, there were also Territorial Defence

5 headquarters, and they, too, declared their loyalty to

6 the State of Bosnia-Herzegovina and in subordination,

7 they were responsible for their work to the district

8 staff.

9 Q. Brigadier, in a situation in which there were

10 no district staff, as you said, in Mostar, Livno and

11 Gorazde, to whom were the municipal staff subordinated?

12 A. The municipal staff, which was not able to

13 link their subordination to the district -- which were

14 not in function, were directly linked to the supreme

15 command.

16 Q. How long did this relationship last?

17 A. It lasted until the Corps was formed in that

18 particular district -- in that particular territory.

19 That was the case with the 4th Corps, which means that,

20 in November, the 4th Corps was set up in November --

21 some time in November.

22 Q. Brigadier, could you tell us what the key

23 problems and difficulties were in this initial stage of

24 building up an army for Bosnia-Herzegovina?

25 A. The basic problem was to create an armed

Page 10479

1 force in Bosnia-Herzegovina, such as it was. The

2 Territorial Defence had no weapons, it did not have

3 enough officers. The officers were recruited from the

4 Serbs and, as the Territorial Defence was left without

5 these officers, the situation was very complex. It was

6 difficult to organise an armed force -- it had no

7 armaments, no weaponry, that was the basic problem. It

8 did not have the necessary officers and Cadets --

9 professional men to command the units, and a major

10 problem was because it had no material basis for an

11 army, because the army does not only use equipment, it

12 needs ammunition, it needs communications, it needs

13 workshops, it needs a whole lot of other things -- it

14 needs a quartermaster, and the army was left without

15 all this equipment and without all these effectives.

16 Q. Brigadier, let us now go to the narrower

17 district of Konjic. Using the map once again, can you

18 tell the court which were the basic characteristics of

19 the municipality of Konjic?

20 A. The municipality of Konjic is about 50

21 kilometres away from Sarajevo. It is on the main road

22 number 17. There is also a railway line which links

23 Sarajevo via Ploce to the sea, to the coast. The size

24 of the municipality of Konjic is 1,100 square

25 kilometres and it is the largest municipality in

Page 10480

1 Bosnia-Herzegovina. There are about 43,000 inhabitants

2 according to the 1991 census and in percentages,

3 54 per cent are Bosniaks, 25 per cent are Croats, and

4 15 per cent are Serbs of the population -- the

5 remaining 5 per cent were miscellaneous.

6 These are the geographic characteristics of

7 this area, let us look at them. Konjic is situated

8 between the Bitovnja mountain, the Breskovica mountain,

9 Visocica and Prenj -- these are the mountains that

10 surround Konjic -- it is a municipality in a valley

11 surrounded by hills and mountains, with very small --

12 very few planes, but the municipality is generally in a

13 valley, situated in a valley surrounded by hills and

14 mountains.

15 It is a very difficult area for the use of

16 large-scale forces and armoured forces -- the

17 manoeuvres are difficult around Konjic, because you

18 cannot have an armoured battalion or any large armoured

19 units in that configuration.

20 Along this railway line and the roads, there

21 are many tunnels -- a lot of stone walls, and it is a

22 very difficult area, but it is easy to isolate these

23 areas and passes and to isolate the town itself. The

24 surrounding hills around the town of Konjic are very

25 easy -- it is easy to fire on the town from the

Page 10481

1 surrounding hills -- the Lake Jablanica, on the

2 north-west, cuts off the population, the Croatian and

3 Bosnian population from the centre, so communications

4 do not exist here, because there is a natural barrier

5 in the form of the lake and the inhabitants cannot

6 communicate with the centre, they are cut off.

7 Therefore, this is a very good area for the

8 -- a small group, small units, which would -- so,

9 there is not a great deal of motor vehicles here and so

10 the manoeuvring space is very restricted.

11 Q. Thank you, Brigadier. I think that we all

12 have a much clearer picture of the position of the town

13 of Konjic and we will go back to that later on in your

14 testimony.

15 Can you tell me now, Brigadier, whether,

16 according to your investigation, whether you were able

17 to draw conclusions as to whether the Yugoslav People's

18 Army in the previous period, that is to say, 1991 and

19 at the beginning of 1992, before it withdrew and the

20 SDS, did they make preparations for war in Konjic?

21 A. Yes, it is characteristic for this situation

22 that the Yugoslav People's Army wielded great influence

23 in this area, together with the SDS Party -- in

24 preparing and arming and training the citizens of the

25 Serb ethnicity for the coming combats. At the

Page 10482

1 beginning, with the operation, a battalion -- it was

2 the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Combat Brigade -- was

3 transported to the village of Borci. This is a high

4 area around the Boracko Lake and there was a training

5 centre there, which was where the battalion was

6 located. That formed the nucleus for further

7 information and training of the Serb units of the

8 volunteers who had left the town of Konjic and worked

9 intensively in this area. They were trained, they were

10 armed, and equipped, and they prepared the Serb

11 population, who had left the town of Konjic.

12 In addition to this locality, there was

13 another one -- shall I go on?

14 Q. I will go back and ask you some questions as

15 to the armament that took place, but I would now like

16 to ask you, Brigadier, whether the legal authorities in

17 Konjic, and does your research point to that, did the

18 legal authorities in Konjic try to prevent any kind of

19 conflict and to ask the people to return those weapons

20 peaceably?

21 A. There were intensive political negotiations

22 at that time for the return of the equipment and

23 weaponry, and the president of the municipality took

24 part in these negotiations with the Minister, with

25 Petrovic, and there were discussions, but they were --

Page 10483

1 and one of the conditions was that the Serbs be allowed

2 to leave Konjic, but this was a failure. They returned

3 and they did everything to stop the Serbs leaving the

4 town, whereas the other side knew why the Serbs should

5 leave the town, so that it could be grenaded.

6 Q. Did your research show in this area around

7 Konjic there were cases where the Serb population

8 responded to the call of the legitimate Government not

9 to rise up against its own country?

10 A. Yes, military investigations did show that in

11 one of the villages where the Serbs lived -- where the

12 Serbs were given weaponry, and arms, this is an area

13 which belongs to the Jablanica municipality -- it is

14 outside Konjic, but the SDS armed the Serbs in

15 Jablanica and as Jablanica did not have a majority Serb

16 population, then the Serbs from Konjic saw fit to

17 supply them with arms.

18 However, when the police learnt of this,

19 learnt that the Serbs had received weaponry, it started

20 negotiations for this weaponry to be returned. The

21 entire population, that is to say, the people who had

22 received these arms, understood the situation in a

23 normal fashion and they lay down their arms -- they

24 surrendered them and they were given receipts for the

25 weapons they had turned in and surrendered. None of

Page 10484

1 the Serbs who had acted in this way were ever called to

2 task.

3 So, in addition to all this, they were not

4 taken prisoner or persecuted -- they surrendered their

5 arms and responded to the call from the legal

6 Government.

7 Q. Brigadier, did your research lead you to

8 conclude when the combat operations started in Konjic?

9 A. The combat operations in Konjic started

10 around 20 April -- I do not recall the exact date --

11 I think it was 20 April, with an infantry attack on the

12 village of Ljubljana. The attack was repulsed but more

13 serious operations, such as shelling of the town with

14 the help of the air force and the artillery, I think

15 started on 4 May. I am not quite sure about the dates

16 -- I think it is 4 May. That was the beginning of

17 combat operations -- actually it was 20 April, even

18 though there were incidents before that. A citizen

19 from Konjic was wounded, the population was driven out

20 of the surrounding villages -- it was already clear

21 that things were not good -- checkpoints were formed,

22 persecutions started -- all these are indications that

23 combat operations were to follow.

24 Q. Brigadier, when you were describing the

25 characteristics of Konjic, you did not tell us whether

Page 10485

1 there were any military facilities in Konjic?

2 A. Yes, you did not ask me that, but I can tell

3 you that, from the military aspect, from the military

4 standpoint, Konjic was an important strategic target,

5 which the Serbs wanted to keep control of at all costs,

6 because Konjic has a factory of ammunition. It was

7 probably one of the largest in the Balkans, if not the

8 largest -- it manufactured up-to-date ammunition.

9 Secondly, there was a facility in the area

10 for the accommodation of the State and military

11 leadership of Belgrade, which means of Yugoslavia -- it

12 was known as "Ark", or the code was DO. This facility

13 was underground, it was prepared for control and

14 command and even in the event of the use of nuclear

15 weapons. It had complete infrastructure, halls for

16 meetings, debates and so on.

17 Q. Perhaps we do not need to go into the

18 details. Were there any other facilities, because if

19 this was for the supreme command, it must have been

20 well equipped?

21 A. There were other facilities where houses,

22 depots, barracks -- let me mention Celebici, which is a

23 barracks close to the M17 road, 50 metres from it. It

24 was a special-purpose depot for army oil reserves and

25 some weapons, but the main purpose was for oil reserves

Page 10486

1 and for troops. Then there was a barracks at Zlatije

2 -- that was a communications centre from which the

3 leadership in Ark could control operations .

4 Q. Brigadier, did the legal authorities of

5 Konjic, according to your research and in accordance

6 with the intentions of the new State of

7 Bosnia-Herzegovina, to place under its control all

8 facilities in its territory, did the legal authorities

9 of Konjic try, by peaceful means, to take control of

10 the military facilities in its territory?

11 A. Yes, the legal authorities asked -- required

12 that those facilities be taken over from the army,

13 particularly the facility Ljuta that I have not

14 mentioned -- it is an arms depot -- this was a depot

15 guarded by the army, and the entire weaponry for three

16 municipalities was housed there -- the municipalities

17 of Konjic, Jablanica and Prozor.

18 Then there was also army weaponry for a

19 brigade which was envisaged as a formation in the

20 region of Konjic -- an army brigade.

21 All the attempts for these facilities to be

22 taken over, negotiations were conducted with

23 Lieutenant-Colonel Velickovic, they went on for a long

24 time -- he made promises, they wanted their own weapons

25 back, but all these negotiations failed. The aim was

Page 10487

1 to gain time, so that the army was not prepared to

2 surrender those weapons, or those facilities, even

3 though those weapons legally belonged to the citizens,

4 or rather the municipalities, because, in the

5 preparatory period prior to the war, all the weapons of

6 the Territorial Defence were purchased with funds out

7 of the budget of the republic and this budget was

8 collected through taxation of citizens.

9 Q. Brigadier, tell me, after the failed

10 negotiations with representatives of the army, did the

11 legal authorities of Konjic, nevertheless, take over

12 all those facilities in the town?

13 A. They did. They took over the facilities in

14 the town -- some of them without battle, some with

15 minor operations, without casualties so that, for

16 instance, the Celebici warehouse was captured without

17 resistance by agreement between the head of the guards

18 -- there were about 20 or 30 soldiers there -- and he

19 promised to surrendered it on condition that none of

20 his soldiers were to be killed and that they should be

21 allowed to go and that is how it was taken over,

22 without combat. The soldiers were released home, some

23 of them were from Serbia and they were allowed to

24 leave.

25 Other facilities involved some minor

Page 10488

1 battles. For example, the factory was surrendered

2 without battle, but the facility Ark, and the depot

3 Ljuta, entailed battle on 25 and 26 -- I think -- and,

4 after a short battle, the TO forces, the MUP and the

5 HVO captured these facilities as well as a part of the

6 armaments. However, the air force immediately shelled

7 the town.

8 Q. Brigadier, since you have given a date which

9 differs slightly from the one found in your expert

10 report -- in your report it says that these facilities

11 were taken over between 8 and 12 May. Is this date

12 correct? Was it a slip of the tongue when you said

13 25th and 26th?

14 A. I am sorry, I cannot remember all those

15 dates. There are two volumes of documents, so I cannot

16 remember everything.

17 Q. But you are free to consult your documents --

18 that is why they are there before you. So I see, that

19 was a slip, an error.

20 So, after these facilities were taken over,

21 which these operations ended on 12 May, did members of

22 the JNA, who had been in Konjic until then, did they

23 all leave the town of Konjic?

24 A. Yes, the last to leave were those from the

25 Zlatije communications centre above Konjic -- after a

Page 10489

1 short battle, according to the data that I have managed

2 to find, they were taken home, taken away by

3 helicopter, and so their presence in the area of Konjic

4 was terminated.

5 Q. So let me go back to the point where

6 I interrupted you a while ago. Will you tell me, the

7 locality of Donje Selo, a local community of the Konjic

8 municipality, did it have any military significance?

9 A. I did not go into that a moment ago --

10 regarding the way Serb inhabitants grouped themselves

11 under the influence of SDS propaganda, they abandoned

12 the town, and rallied in certain areas where they had a

13 majority. One of those was Donje Selo, Bradina, Borci,

14 Zagorice, these were areas in which the Serb population

15 rallied under the influence of the SDS Party

16 propaganda. As for this village of Donje Selo, it is

17 south or south-west of Konjic -- it was an area in

18 which the Serbs blocked the way towards the coast and

19 towards the population on the other side of the lake.

20 They set up a checkpoint there, and prevented

21 communication -- the use of roads -- and the movement

22 of inhabitants towards Konjic. From the military

23 aspect, this meant that the road between Jablanica and

24 Konjic was blocked.

25 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, my colleagues

Page 10490

1 are reminding me that you yesterday granted Mr. Landzo

2 permission to see a dentist and this was planned for

3 11.30. My question is: is it now time for us to

4 adjourn and we can continue with this testimony after

5 the break? If it is convenient.

6 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: We will do that. We

7 will adjourn at 11.30.

8 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you, your Honours.

9 Brigadier, will you tell us, please, whether

10 the village of Bradina had any military significance?

11 A. Bradina is a village situated just above

12 Konjic in the direction of Sarajevo on Mount Ivan.

13 This pass is known as Ivan Sedlo. It is very important

14 from the military aspect point of view. If we take

15 into consideration military considerations, offensive

16 operations from the south towards Sarajevo, then this

17 village was very important for the defence of that

18 communication line. Should this feature, this Ivan

19 Sedlo pass fall, it is easier for forces to speed up

20 their advance towards Sarajevo. Therefore, who

21 controls Ivan Sedlo from the direction of Konjic, which

22 means who controls positions south-west of it, that

23 party, by holding those positions, can prevent

24 offensive operations against Sarajevo.

25 Also, in the event of offensive operations

Page 10491

1 from the direction of Sarajevo, again, it is important

2 for preventing penetration of forces towards Konjic.

3 It is also important because whoever controls this pass

4 can shell Konjic from there, because the distance is

5 not large -- it is all within the range of artillery.

6 Furthermore, this pass, there is a tunnel,

7 there are bridges, and they can all be destroyed. So,

8 who controls this area can prevent communication

9 between Konjic and Sarajevo -- by controlling this

10 feature, that is, the village of Bradina, there is no

11 other way to reach Sarajevo, the centre of the

12 republic.

13 The communication line is such that it can be

14 destroyed, whereby obstacles can be formed and thereby

15 Defence improved.

16 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I think we can now

17 adjourn.

18 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you, your Honours.

19 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: We will reassemble at

20 2.00pm.

21 (11.30am)

22 (Luncheon adjournment)

23

24

25

Page 10492

1 (2.00pm)

2 (The witness entered the courtroom)

3 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Please remind the

4 witness he is still on his oath.

5 THE REGISTRAR: I remind you, Sir, that you

6 are still under oath.

7 THE WITNESS: Yes.

8 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: You may proceed,

9 Ms. Residovic.

10 MS. RESIDOVIC: Before I go to my next

11 question for the witness, could he be shown the second

12 folder, with the number V2 so that I can continue with

13 my examination? (Handed).

14 Brigadier, before the break, in answer to one

15 of my questions, you said that the Serb population in

16 the local community of Ostrozac had been armed and how

17 they had surrendered those arms. I should like to ask

18 you now to open your folder, chapter IV/4. Have you

19 found it?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. In this chapter, there is an official report

22 attached by you as well as a list of persons who were

23 illegally armed, and several certificates on objects

24 seized. Brigadier, did you obtain these documents for

25 the means of this testimony and are these the documents

Page 10493

1 on the basis of which you expressed an opinion

2 regarding the arming of this population?

3 A. Yes, this annex of IV/4 shows that this is a

4 list of persons and the public security station of

5 Jablanica seized weapons from these persons, of which

6 they were in possession illegally. They were the

7 inhabitants of the locality of Ostrozac in the

8 Jablanica municipality.

9 Q. Thank you. I was just asking whether your

10 opinion and what you said about this population was

11 based on the documents that you have enclosed in this

12 folder. Brigadier, in your report, you say that in

13 quite small settlements parts of the Serb population

14 were armed, in chapter IV/3 of this same volume?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. We find some documents -- as far as I can

17 see, they bear a stamp. Could you tell me the source

18 of these documents, which are mostly hand-written?

19 A. I obtained this document from the Institute

20 for the Investigation of Crimes. It is hand-written and

21 it comes from a small locality called Glavaticevo,

22 Topalovic Strahinja -- Borislav is addressing

23 Strahinja, the person who was arming the population.

24 Q. I apologise for interrupting, you do not have

25 to interpret this document, because it has been

Page 10494

1 enclosed. My question is: was this document one of

2 those that you had collected and on which you relied in

3 your report, saying that the inhabitants of Ostrozac

4 were armed prior to the beginning of the war?

5 A. Yes, it can clearly be seen from these

6 documents that there were armed civilians with 10

7 rifles, and this individual, Topalovic is addressing

8 this other man who was providing the arms, saying that

9 he has 44 able-bodied men who can join in the combat

10 operations and asking him for more weapons. In this

11 connection, from the following document, we can see

12 that he received automatic rifles -- nine such rifles,

13 so Glavaticevo earlier on had 10 rifles and received

14 another nine new ones, which means 19 rifles.

15 Q. Before the break we discussed the importance

16 of the locality of Bradina both in terms of the defence

17 of Sarajevo and the defence of Konjic. In your report,

18 Brigadier, you also say that the population there was

19 armed. Would you please look at your annex IV/9 9?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Could you tell me what this is?

22 A. This enclosure IV/9 was also verified by the

23 Institute for the Investigation of War Crimes. It is

24 an excerpt from statements by soldiers captured, or

25 rather citizens of Serb ethnicity, who had been

Page 10495

1 captured during combat operations in Bradina.

2 Q. Brigadier, did you rely on this report among

3 the other documents that you had when expressing your

4 opinion that this population was also illegally armed?

5 A. It can be seen from this excerpt and from the

6 interrogation of these people, according to their own

7 statements, what kind of arms they had been issued, how

8 many bullets they had been issued, who was the

9 commander, and who gave him the weapons. In more or

10 less all of these cases -- and we can see from their

11 original statements there are 136 men from Bradina, and

12 we see that they were armed, that they were organised,

13 because they talk about their leaders, et cetera --

14 Q. Thank you, all that can be found in your

15 report. My question was simply whether this was a

16 document that you relied on among others for expressing

17 your opinion.

18 Brigadier, will you please put on the ELMO

19 the table showing the strength of the Serb forces --

20 I think it is, according to your documents, annexe

21 IV/8, and could you please explain this table for us.

22 As far as I am able to see, you made it yourself?

23 A. Can we sharpen this table a little bit? Can

24 we focus on it a little, please? It should be reduced

25 in size -- no -- not so much, please -- a little less

Page 10496

1 -- thank you.

2 Q. Could you, very briefly, Brigadier, tell us

3 what does this table show?

4 A. This table shows a list of Serb forces in the

5 territory of Konjic in the period April/May 1992. In

6 the first column, we have information for parts of the

7 second JNA brigade located in the village of Borci --

8 total strength about 1,000 men.

9 Q. It is not necessary, Brigadier, to go into

10 the details but would you tell us in general terms,

11 because we have the data in the table?

12 A. It can be seen that, in several locations,

13 there was an army that was armed, Borci, Ljuta,

14 Celebici, Donje Selo, Blaca, Zagorica, Bradina,

15 Borasnica, Teritorija Opstine and Ostrozac and special

16 units totalling 2,516 men.

17 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you. We can remove the

18 table now.

19 MR. KARABDIC: Your Honours, I apologise for

20 my delay. I had to have my PC repaired, so I do

21 apologise. I beg for your indulgence.

22 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much.

23 MS. RESIDOVIC: Brigadier, did your research

24 show that in 1992 parts of the Serb population in the

25 settlement called Bradina blocked the town of Konjic

Page 10497

1 from their side?

2 A. Due to the deployment of Serb forces,

3 together with parts of the JNA in the village of Borci,

4 shows that parts of the town of Konjic were encircled.

5 The deployment of forces in Bradina, and further on, to

6 the south and the west, as far as Donje Selo, Serb

7 forces were deployed in such a way that the town was

8 under total blockade.

9 Q. Brigadier, as you spoke this morning about

10 the shelling of the town from the beginning of May, was

11 this that you have just told us sufficient reason, in

12 military terms, for the situation in Bradina to be

13 dealt with by force of arms?

14 A. In view of the conditions that the town of

15 Konjic found itself in, lacking the elementary

16 conditions for normal life, without any contact with

17 the capital of the State, without the possibility of

18 communication with the south, there was no possibility

19 of supplies -- vital supplies to be brought in to the

20 town from the south -- it was necessary, through

21 negotiation, or by force of arms to deal with the

22 problem of the siege of Konjic. Efforts were made to

23 deal with the problem through negotiation with the Serb

24 side and to persuade them to surrender their weapons.

25 However, the case was not the same as in

Page 10498

1 Ostrozac. The forces in this case were far stronger

2 and their task was to prevent at all cost any

3 communication with the centre of the country, that is,

4 with Sarajevo. As those negotiations were

5 unsuccessful, it was normal that the problem should be

6 dealt with by force.

7 Q. Thank you. Brigadier, will you please tell

8 me, as we have just discussed how part of the Serb

9 population had prepared itself for the war, tell me,

10 did your research show whether a part of the Croat

11 population had also engaged in preparations for the

12 forthcoming events -- in Konjic, of course?

13 A. With regard to the situation in Croatia where

14 the war was already ongoing, a part of the population

15 of Croat ethnicity in the territory of Konjic

16 municipality was prepared so as not to be caught

17 off guard and the fighters from this area, that is, the

18 soldiers of the Croatian Defence Council, the HVO,

19 participated in the fighting in Croatia. They went

20 under arms to -- and, with the help of Republic of

21 Croatia, Croatian armed forces were organised, so that,

22 in this period, about 750 men of Croatian ethnicity

23 were under arms.

24 Q. Thank you. Tell me, in view of the fact that

25 Bosnia-Herzegovina had become an independent State on

Page 10499

1 6 April, was there a constitutional obligation for the

2 citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina to defend their country,

3 should it be under threat?

4 A. There was a constitutional right and duty of

5 all nationals of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the event of war

6 to defend their country, so I wish to

7 underline, "a right and duty".

8 Q. Brigadier, in that period, that is, in April

9 1992, did the armed Croatian people, or, rather, the

10 HVO, voice its readiness to carry out its

11 constitutional obligation and to defend the

12 independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

13 A. Yes, in the initial stages of the war

14 citizens -- Croats -- organised, and better trained and

15 better armed, did participate in the defence of

16 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

17 Q. Brigadier, could you tell me how the

18 preparations actually started -- the preparations of

19 the legal authorities in Konjic -- for defence and when

20 did they start?

21 A. The first beginnings of the organisation of

22 the Defence forces of Konjic date back to the last

23 assembly session of the Konjic municipality, which was

24 held on 17 April, when a decision was taken to organise

25 the Territorial Defence, or, rather, a proposal was

Page 10500

1 made to appoint the commander of the TO staff.

2 Q. Brigadier, did your research provide an

3 answer to the question whether, as early as 17 April --

4 did that municipal assembly meeting implement the new

5 regulations of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina

6 regarding the reorganisation of the Territorial Defence

7 and their subordination to the republican staff?

8 A. Yes, as a decree issued by the presidency

9 dated 8 April, reorganised the defence, that is, the

10 old system of Territorial Defence organisation, which

11 was in force until the dissolution of Yugoslavia had to

12 be revised and the Territorial Defence had to be

13 reorganised. A Defence Ministry was set up as part of

14 that reorganisation -- as I have already said -- and

15 below the Defence Ministry was the republican TO staff

16 and then subordinated to that staff were the district

17 staffs.

18 Q. In view of the fact, Brigadier, that you said

19 that the district staff in Mostar, to which the Konjic

20 municipal staff should have been normally subordinated

21 did not exist, who was the municipal staff of Konjic

22 subordinated to?

23 A. The Konjic municipal staff, in view of the

24 situation in Mostar, was directly accountable to the

25 supreme command in Sarajevo, which means that it was

Page 10501

1 directly subordinate to Sarajevo.

2 MS. RESIDOVIC: Brigadier, the TO staff and

3 its organisation, as you have indicated in your report,

4 had its own developed structure. I would like to know

5 now, Brigadier, whether you could tell us how the

6 Territorial Defence staff was organised after its

7 reorganisation pursuant to the regulations passed by

8 Bosnia and Herzegovina? Was it a staff with a

9 developed organisational structure as befits staff of

10 this kind?

11 To facilitate your explanation, I would ask

12 you to put under the ELMO the diagram enclosed in your

13 documents and this is in the third volume and I would

14 like to ask it to be given to the witness. (Handed).

15 It is chapter 5/D5.

16 Tell me, please, Brigadier, who made this

17 diagram?

18 A. This diagram was done by Midhat Cerovac, who

19 was the chief of staff in the municipal staff

20 throughout.

21 Q. Thank you. Could you please answer my

22 question, linked to this diagram, whether there was a

23 developed organisational structure of the TO staff?

24 A. One can see from this diagram that the staff

25 was established from the very beginning of the war that

Page 10502

1 was similar to what we had before the war, but under

2 changed conditions, and adjusted to the law on the

3 armed forces. We cannot see very well here. May I use

4 it like this, please?

5 Q. The interpreters do not have a diagram. It

6 depends on you, witness.

7 A. I cannot see the letters very well if I place

8 it under the ELMO. Can I use a microphone?

9 MR. NIEMANN: Your Honours, on the basis of

10 the foundation of what has been said about this

11 document so far, it is difficult to understand how this

12 witness can speak of the truth of the contents of this

13 document in his evidence, considering it is a document

14 that is said to be or stated to be drawn up by Midhat

15 Cerovac. One would expect Cerovac could come along and

16 tell us about it and we would then know whether what he

17 says is correct or not. Presumably if he drew it up he

18 knows all about it. If this witness says, "This is

19 something I have received and I have relied on it,"

20 then I do not object to that, but I do object to it if

21 he is going to assert that what is contained in here is

22 correct, on the basis of what he said so far.

23 All he has told us so far is that this is a

24 document drawn up by somebody else and he appears to be

25 going on to assert the truth of the contents of it. In

Page 10503

1 view of its author, then I object to that, particularly

2 on the basis of the foundation that has been laid so

3 far.

4 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much.

5 I think Ms. Residovic can reply to that.

6 MS. RESIDOVIC: Your Honours, you know that

7 I have not asked the witness to authenticate the truth

8 of the contents, but, since he has, by relying on this

9 diagram of the municipal staff, expressed his opinion

10 whether this was a developed structure or not, I would

11 like to ask him to be allowed to explain it to us. As

12 for the truth of the contents of this document, we will

13 authenticate it through another witness, but I want the

14 expert witness to be able to use it as he relied upon

15 it in making his expert opinion.

16 MR. NIEMANN: In that case, I have no

17 objection.

18 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Actually he is not

19 making any claims about it, other than his ability to

20 explain it. I think that is all he is doing. He can

21 do that.

22 MS. RESIDOVIC: Brigadier, without entering

23 into whether or not the facts in this table are correct

24 or not, could you explain to the court, as an expert

25 witness, what this diagram represents as regards the

Page 10504

1 municipal staff?

2 A. I did not maintain that this document was a

3 truthful document; I was just told to explain the

4 development and structure of the staff of the

5 headquarters and, therefore, I will try, in that

6 connection, to explain this and --

7 MS. RESIDOVIC: Brigadier, you need not go

8 into those matters. The Defence will decide whether it

9 will call extra witnesses or not.

10 Now, I apologise, I cannot hear the Bosnian

11 translation but the French. I am hearing the French

12 over the earphones. Could that be put right, please?

13 Yes, thank you, that is better.

14 Brigadier --

15 A. The structure of the staff of the Territorial

16 Defence, from this document, you can see that at the

17 head of the staff of Territorial Defence you have the

18 commander. Under his command, directly under his

19 command, he had the staff, the commanders in charge of

20 morale -- morals -- security, logistics, and the

21 headquarters.

22 Q. Brigadier, are we talking about a highly

23 ramified diagram for the staff or not?

24 A. From this document, we are able to conclude

25 that this is a well developed staff, that it was able

Page 10505

1 to perform all its functions, starting out from the

2 commander -- the chief of staff. The chief of staff

3 has an assistant for operative and educational tasks

4 and he is the deputy chief of staff at the same time.

5 Then we have the intelligence branch. Then

6 we have operative and educational tasks once again --

7 training -- and officers. Then we have a service or

8 branch for organisational and mobilisational purposes,

9 an informative and computer centre, and the different

10 branches of the army. We have the head of the

11 artillery and his subordinates, the head of the

12 engineering department and his subordinates, we have

13 the engineers, the artillery and the armoured units,

14 the anti-aircraft units, air force and air defence

15 units and the communications unit, so that is more or

16 less the structure which comes under the chief of

17 staff.

18 The morale department body have their own

19 offices and we have offices for information and

20 propaganda activities. The security body also has its

21 offices. The logistics department body has a backbone

22 with the different services, which, on the basis of

23 logistics, determined combat effectiveness, so let us

24 take that in order.

25 Q. I do not think we need to go into all these

Page 10506

1 details, as we have the chart in front of us -- you

2 have given us enough information so far, and you did

3 say that it was a highly ramified staff with all its

4 members, and was it the head of some combat units --

5 did it stand at the head of combat units?

6 A. The municipal staff and the commander in

7 chief, he was the commander in chief -- the commander

8 in chief was the supreme organ and he was in charge of

9 issuing commands, so it is only the commander in chief

10 and the commanders who had the right to make decisions

11 on the use of the different units within the staff and

12 they were there to command those units.

13 Everybody else, regardless of their function

14 within this staff, did not have the right to command.

15 They did not enjoy the right of command; it was only

16 the commander in chief and the deputy commander who had

17 the right and duty to do so, and to see to the stated

18 use of these units.

19 Q. Brigadier, may I interrupt you? We shall be

20 going back to the question of command later on.

21 I apologise, but let us look at the structure of the

22 staff after the session of 17 April. In your document

23 or report, under V-D/4 you give a list of the members

24 of that staff. May we take a look at that list under

25 V-D/4? Would it be correct to say, Brigadier, that

Page 10507

1 this contribution -- this list -- was drawn up by the

2 head of the municipal staff at the time, Midhat

3 Cerovac?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. Is it true that you received this list from

6 Mr. Cerovac and that you relied on this when you gave

7 your expert opinions?

8 A. Yes, I did.

9 Q. Brigadier, from the research you performed,

10 as you said, on the spot in the localities and via your

11 documents, could you tell us what the organisation of

12 the Territorial Defence of Konjic was like on the spot

13 -- on the locality -- what did it look like, that is,

14 during 1992 from the onset of 1992 -- on the ground,

15 what did the Konjic Territorial Defence in actual fact

16 look like?

17 A. To begin with, Territorial Defence of Konjic

18 consisted of parts of the Territorial Defence of the

19 HVO, the Croatian Defence Council, and the police. For

20 some time, the HOS forces were active, too, but these

21 were symbolic -- there were very few members of HOS,

22 but these were the basic three structures which made up

23 the defence of Konjic.

24 Q. I should like to ask you, Brigadier, now, if

25 I may, to answer my next questions by first looking at

Page 10508

1 the diagram of the overall defence force, which, in

2 your annex, V-D/2, you submitted in your documents.

3 V-D/2, that is the number of the document?

4 A. There is an error here.

5 Q. D/2 or D-2?

6 A. I have a list of active military personnel

7 engaged in the work at the time.

8 Q. I apologise, the defence forces of Konjic,

9 that is a different document. Maybe I have the wrong

10 numbers. Let me check that. Perhaps it was V-D/5 --

11 that is the document I have in mind, because it was

12 Xeroxed again, so I apologise for that?

13 A. No, D/5 is the structure of the municipal

14 staff, which I have already explained.

15 Q. Shall we leave that for the moment? I am

16 going to ask you some more questions and then, during

17 the break, I will go and check those numbers. Have you

18 found the diagram?

19 A. It is V-D/8, the defence forces of Konjic, a

20 review of the organisation of the defence of Konjic.

21 Here we have a ratio of forces, on the one I have

22 before me.

23 Q. Brigadier, there seems to be a mix-up there.

24 So, may I ask you to proceed? I would like to ask you

25 some more questions and then, after the break, we will

Page 10509

1 go back, once this matter of numbers and documents has

2 been clarified.

3 Tell me, please, Brigadier, in view of the

4 fact that you have just spoken of the overall forces of

5 the Konjic defence, whether the system of subordination

6 for all these forces of the defence of Konjic was

7 uniform -- was it a uniform system of subordination?

8 A. In this case, there was a specific feature,

9 which, in the system of a command was not known, and

10 that is that we had three structures, and each of the

11 three structures were subordinated vertically from top

12 to bottom. So, for example, the Territorial Defence

13 staff was directly under the command of the supreme

14 command, the commander in chief, in Sarajevo. The HVO

15 or Croatian Defence Council was subordinated to the

16 Grude headquarters, the police was subordinated to its

17 Ministry of Internal Affairs in Sarajevo, and each of

18 these three structures received its orders from its

19 superiors.

20 Q. Did your research show, Brigadier, that there

21 was a basis for you to come here to this court today

22 and testify and say whether there were endeavours for

23 the defence forces of Konjic to make them more compact

24 in view of the fact that they had the same defence

25 goals?

Page 10510

1 A. Yes, that is true. This was done

2 immediately, so that these three structures could work

3 in a way -- as a single body in the combat operations

4 and that is why an attempt was made to form a body,

5 which would unify the planning and use of those forces.

6 Q. In your report, Brigadier, you state that, on

7 12 May, that certain joint bodies were formed. Could

8 you tell us about those bodies -- what were they?

9 A. On the basis of previous agreements and in

10 view of the existing situation in Konjic, in the aim of

11 using the defence forces as effectively and efficiently

12 as possible towards the town's defence, an agreement

13 was made to set up, to form a joint command, which

14 would be composed of the Territorial Defence forces,

15 which were later called the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

16 the Croatian Defence Council, the HVO --

17 Q. Tell me, please, Brigadier, was the formation

18 of this joint command of Territorial Defence and the

19 Croatian Defence Council, was it foreseen by the rules

20 or was it an expression of their defence activities and

21 the way they worked together, or was it on the basis of

22 a set of regulations?

23 A. I think that this was a specific situation

24 for Konjic itself, because it was not the usual kind of

25 plan and diagram in the system of command and control.

Page 10511

1 It is possible that a similar system existed in certain

2 other parts and that the problem was similar elsewhere,

3 that is to say, that a compromise had to be sought and

4 found in view of subordination, because the forces of

5 the HVO, the Croatian Defence Council, never fulfilled

6 their orders coming from the staff of the Territorial

7 Defence of Bosnia-Herzegovina, whereas, in that

8 respect, the police showed greater solidarity and did

9 perform its decisions -- acted on its decisions, so

10 this is a specific feature which was an expression of

11 prevailing conditions, so that the forces were to be

12 used as effectively as possible to defend the town.

13 Q. Brigadier, let us verify, first, whether, in

14 annex V-D/10, whether that is the diagram, the chart

15 for the joint command, and, if it is, then I would like

16 to go on and ask you several questions. Is this chart

17 -- was this chart drawn up by Midhat Cerovac, who was

18 the commander of the staff of Konjic's Territorial

19 Defence?

20 A. Yes, this was also a chart which was drawn up

21 by the chief of staff, Mr. Midhat Cerovac.

22 Q. Brigadier, did you, in addition to the other

23 documents in drawing up your report, did you rely on

24 that chart?

25 A. Yes, I did. Do you want me to explain the

Page 10512

1 chart?

2 Q. Well, I am going to ask you questions and we

3 will do it that way. Tell me, please, who, according

4 to your investigations, was the chief of staff for the

5 joint command -- the commander for --

6 A. The function of the commander of the joint

7 staff was the commander of the municipal staff of

8 Konjic, Mr. Ramic Esad -- Esad Ramic and as he was ill

9 Boric Omer was his deputy, and the chief of staff was a

10 Croat, he was in this particular case Zebic, Dinko

11 Zebic. All the other bodies were mixed body, but it is

12 essential to note one particular fact here, and that is

13 why do we call it the "joint staff" -- "joint

14 command". They harmonised, they dovetailed their

15 decisions, they decided together on the use of the

16 forces. Without both signatures, nothing could be

17 done, so they had to have both signatures for

18 operations to take place.

19 The commander of the joint staff issued

20 commands to the Territorial Defence units, whereas the

21 head of staff, Zebic, would issue commands to his own

22 units.

23 Q. Brigadier, did this mean, in practice, that

24 the joint command had two equal commanders --

25 commanders of equal footing, of equal standing?

Page 10513

1 A. Yes, and that is a unique example. As

2 I said, this was through force of necessity --

3 conditions necessitated this in order to use the forces

4 as effectively and efficiently as possible, but, in

5 military theory and practice, no such similar example

6 has been heard of, because, in the system of command

7 and control, there is always one sole commander -- that

8 is the basic principle -- one superior, one commander,

9 who makes the decisions, and who then is responsible

10 for the use of his units.

11 This was an exception, as I say, and so, in

12 this case, and for everything that took place within

13 the Territorial Defence units, it would have been the

14 commander of the municipal staff, whereas everything

15 that took place with the HVO units, the commander there

16 would be the chief of staff in the joint command -- in

17 the joint staff.

18 Q. Brigadier, were these two commanders equal --

19 commanders of an equal standing, as you called them,

20 did they sign all the commands issued together -- the

21 ones they had decided on?

22 A. Looking at the many documents that I had

23 before me, I saw the signatures -- both signatures.

24 However, without both signatures, the document would

25 not be fully in force -- valid.

Page 10514

1 Q. When this joint staff functioned, were the

2 nominations signed by both commanders, that is, the

3 Territorial Defence and the HVO forces?

4 A. Yes, they both signed the nominations.

5 Q. Brigadier, could you tell me, please, in view

6 of the war situation in May and June of 1992, whether,

7 in the defence sense, this function of joint command,

8 did it give off certain results?

9 A. Yes, it did, because the results of the

10 initial operations, where they acted together, where

11 the Territorial Defence forces and the Croatian Defence

12 Council's forces acted jointly, better results were

13 achieved, because they joined forces, which meant that

14 they were not only numerically stronger, but the

15 command was stronger and more successful -- control and

16 command and coordination between the two forces went

17 via the joint staff, the joint command, so that the

18 forces knew their zones of activity, their concrete

19 tasks at that particular stage and the goals they were

20 to achieve.

21 Q. Thank you, Brigadier. You said at the

22 beginning that the HVO and part of the Croatian people

23 organised within the Croatian Defence Council had a

24 certain amount of legitimacy, because they were ready

25 and willing to defend their State, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Page 10515

1 Tell me now, please, Brigadier, whether, later on, with

2 the adoption of new regulations in Bosnia-Herzegovina,

3 the HVO became part of the armed forces of

4 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

5 A. Yes, with the enactment of the law on armed

6 forces in May 1992, the armed forces were made up of

7 the Territorial Defence units and the BiH Army, and the

8 HVO forces.

9 Q. Let us go back now to the questions we

10 mentioned earlier on in connection with Konjic. Could

11 you tell me, please, regardless of the joint goals and

12 interests which they had in the country's defence,

13 whether the joint command, during 1992, ceased to

14 function in actual practice?

15 A. According to developments in Konjic, and

16 according to my own research, I was able to see that

17 the joint command functioned successfully, especially

18 in parts where the location had to be cleared up in

19 Donje Selo, but when the Operation Oganj was resorted

20 to, although they worked jointly to plan this

21 operation, Operation Oganj, before the actual

22 commencement of the attack, before the attack was

23 actually launched, the representative of the HVO, the

24 head of chief of staff, said he was not going to take

25 part in the execution of that particular Operation, and

Page 10516

1 I would like to stress here what happened.

2 Q. Brigadier, before we go on to this

3 explanation, I should like to ask you first to look at

4 your document, V-D/11 -- is that the order in question,

5 which was signed by the commander Omer Boric and Dinko

6 Zebic?

7 A. Yes, it is.

8 Q. Is that one of the documents on the basis of

9 which you present your views here in court and your

10 opinions of how the orders were issued in the joint

11 staff?

12 A. From this document you can see that they were

13 co-signatories, Commander Zebic and Omer Boric signed

14 the document jointly and they were authorised to do so,

15 to sign this joint document.

16 Q. Brigadier, did you check this document in the

17 archives of the Bosnia-Herzegovina army, or in Konjic?

18 A. Yes, in Konjic. I did in Konjic.

19 Q. Thank you. May we now, Brigadier, take a

20 look at your contribution V-D/12. Is that, Brigadier,

21 an example of a nomination signed by the commanders of

22 the HVO and the joint staff?

23 A. This is an authorisation, not a nomination.

24 It authorises Goran Lokas, for purposes of the HVO and

25 the municipality of Konjic, to perform security work,

Page 10517

1 and it was signed by Dinko Zebic of the HVO and Boric,

2 the commander.

3 Q. Tell me whether this is one of the documents

4 on which you base your assessments that authorisations

5 and other acts in the joint staff were signed jointly

6 by the two commanders?

7 A. Yes, I said earlier on that none of the

8 documents which were not signed by both the commanders

9 would hold water, so both signatures were needed.

10 Q. Brigadier, you were just about to explain the

11 virtual discontinuation of the functioning of the joint

12 command, even though those forces continued to engage

13 in defensive activities. Could you tell me, what did

14 your research show as to why this occurred?

15 A. It is my view that the Croatian forces did

16 not receive permission from Grude, because they had

17 planned the joint operation until the very last moment,

18 and this could be linked to politics, because the

19 Croatian Defence Council had its own interests and aims

20 regarding the territories that they proclaimed to be

21 Croatian, or, rather in the Croatian interests.

22 Q. Brigadier, in order to avoid further

23 elaboration of that thesis, let me ask: if a joint

24 operation had been engaged in, in the direction of

25 Borci, would that order have had to have been signed by

Page 10518

1 both commanders, that is, both the TO commander and the

2 HVO commander?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. I should like to ask you, Brigadier, to look

5 at V-D/15. Is this an order dated 27 May, Brigadier?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Could you tell us whether this is a

8 supplementary order for the battle in Bradina, and is

9 it visible from this very text that such an order had

10 to be signed by the commander of the TO and of the HVO?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Did you find this order in the archives of

13 the BiH Army, or, rather of the army in Konjic?

14 A. In Konjic.

15 Q. So this is an order that has already been

16 admitted into evidence by this Trial Chamber, but

17 I just wanted to know whether you had verified its

18 authenticity.

19 Brigadier, which assumptions did you use, or,

20 rather, were there any military orders for the defence

21 forces of Konjic to undertake the liberation of

22 temporarily occupied areas in the south eastern part of

23 Konjic near the Boracko Lake?

24 A. Yes, it is a document of the supreme command

25 instructing an offensive to liberate the areas of

Page 10519

1 Konjic via Borac, Nevesinje and Kalnovik -- there is

2 such an order issued by the supreme command.

3 Q. Shall we examine your annex, D/24 in the same

4 volume?

5 A. Yes, that is the document.

6 Q. Did you verify this document in the archives?

7 A. Yes, I did. I found it in the supreme

8 commander archives, or, rather the general staff now.

9 This document exists.

10 Q. In view of the fact that the Croatian Defence

11 Council, at the time, was under the law a part of the

12 armed forces of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was

13 it also obligatory and binding on the units of the HVO?

14 A. As I said earlier on, the Croatian Defence

15 Council could receive orders according to the chain of

16 command only from Grude, because the top leadership of

17 the two forces was not united. Each of these forces

18 were separate. There was not a body that would unite

19 these two headquarters -- in Grude and in Sarajevo.

20 So, this order could be binding on the municipal staff

21 -- it is addressed to the municipal staff -- and, as

22 this was not in the interests of the Croatian Defence

23 Council, because Nevesinje and the entire area of

24 western Herzegovina was not in the sphere of interest

25 of the Croatian Defence Council and that is why they

Page 10520

1 did not wish to engage in battle in those areas, even

2 though they all belonged to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

3 Q. Does that actually mean that somewhere around

4 this time the Croatian Defence Council, in practice,

5 began to obstruct certain activities?

6 A. Already, as early as the end of June, by

7 cancelling its participation in the Operation Oganj,

8 the HVO began its obstruction, even though they

9 continued to constitute part of the defence forces of

10 Konjic. Until the Corps was formed they held on to

11 their positions, they had control of the defence lines,

12 they sought in the town of Konjic to organise their own

13 authority -- in a sense to appoint their own people to

14 executive posts in the economy -- there is a document

15 to that effect, but, in any event, they discontinued to

16 engage in conflict with the Serb forces.

17 Q. Brigadier, can we now look at your annex

18 D/25? Is it a document dated 25 June 1992?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. Did you verify this document?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. In the archives of the army?

23 A. In the archives of Konjic.

24 Q. Thank you. As a military expert, would you

25 say that this document is a description of preparatory

Page 10521

1 activities by the municipal staff and the HVO before

2 the beginning of the Operation, which they were ordered

3 to engage in on 20 June?

4 A. The commander of the municipal TO staff has

5 addressed this document to the HVO staff in Konjic.

6 The subject is, "Coordination of Combat Operations

7 within the Territory of Konjic Municipality" and this

8 is a document linked to the order to the command of the

9 municipal staff of Konjic to prepare an operation

10 against Borci, Nevesinje and Kalinovik. That is the

11 document. The commander of the TO staff proposes to

12 the HVO how far they should go, and where they should

13 fight, so, in a sense, this is the proposal of the

14 commander planning an operation against Borci using

15 joint forces and this was a document from the period

16 when the first signs were evident that they were

17 reluctant and unwilling to participate in the Operation

18 Oganj.

19 Q. Can it be seen from this document that the

20 municipal staff, in its preparations for this

21 operation, which according to this document was called

22 Operation Oganj, or "fire", did the municipal staff

23 specify the lines of action, the Tactical Groups for

24 individual directions of combat, while at the same time

25 determining an operative officer, Mr. Cerovac, as the

Page 10522

1 person who was supposed to coordinate these

2 activities. Could you please elaborate on this from

3 the military standpoint?

4 A. The municipal staff here elaborated a plan

5 from which we can see that it is requiring the Croatian

6 defence forces to keep control of a particular area,

7 and to take action in another direction. I do not have

8 the maps to show you all this. Then, it also says that

9 the rest of the forces in this Operation Oganj would

10 form Tactical Groups and each of those Tactical Groups

11 had its own direction of action and the staff is asked

12 to respond to this proposal of the municipal staff and,

13 if they have any counter proposals, to make them, or,

14 if they have any objections, that they should be made,

15 after which they should meet again to discuss the

16 operation.

17 Q. Brigadier, can you adduce from this document

18 who was the commander of Operation Oganj?

19 A. It can be seen from this that the commander

20 of Operation Oganj was the commander of the municipal

21 staff, Captain Esad Ramic. He planned the operation

22 and was in command of the operation.

23 Q. I should now like to ask you, Brigadier, that

24 we move on to another subject which you have discussed

25 in your expert report. Could you please tell us,

Page 10523

1 Brigadier, after the municipal assembly meeting of 17

2 April, did the municipal assembly have the necessary

3 conditions for continuing to work regularly?

4 A. As the war had already started, the municipal

5 assembly was unable to meet normally and, in accordance

6 with the regulations of the republic, it set up a

7 presidency, which had all the jurisdiction of the

8 assembly, and its obligation was, when the necessary

9 conditions set in, to convene a meeting of the

10 assembly, and to verify the decisions taken in the

11 meantime, but, in any event, it was the presidency who

12 had the authority to take all decisions in the name of

13 the assembly, if that was your question.

14 Q. Thank you. In view of your considerable

15 professional and personal experience from the past

16 period, could you please tell us whether the

17 regulations of the former SFRY and Bosnia-Herzegovina,

18 prior to the adoption of new regulations in April 1992,

19 in the case of a state of emergency, was a body

20 envisaged for such circumstances?

21 A. During the former Yugoslavia, there was a

22 crisis staff. This will take a little time for me to

23 elaborate, if I may, because it may remind -- be

24 reminiscent of something else. We have to go back to

25 1972, when a group of saboteurs, of extremist Ustashe

Page 10524

1 forces trained and prepared outside the forces of

2 Yugoslavia. There were 22 men in all in that group, if

3 I recall well, who were fully armed, they were elite

4 troops who were trained for a long time and they were

5 infiltrated into Yugoslavia via Slovenia to

6 Bosnia-Herzegovina, where, because it was a wooded and

7 mountainous country, they thought it would be a

8 suitable place for starting an uprising.

9 Q. But, Brigadier, the reason was the

10 infiltration of this group from abroad. What then

11 happened with the regulations?

12 A. Having acquired such experiences, as there

13 were no plans for such contingencies, we only had a war

14 plan that is set in motion in the event of an external

15 aggression. However, this situation made it necessary

16 to elaborate fresh plans for action in such

17 contingencies and these bodies were named crisis staffs

18 and each municipality had such a plan of action for

19 emergencies. This was necessary, because, under such

20 conditions, it was essential to act very expeditiously

21 and to take all steps for such a group to be liquidated

22 as soon as possible, or, in the event of any other such

23 contingency, but in any event, there were forces and a

24 crisis staff that had to deal with the crisis that

25 occurred so suddenly and this was in force until the

Page 10525

1 dissolution of Yugoslavia.

2 With the new regulations covering the field

3 of defence, the law and the armed forces, the law and

4 defence, such laws did not make provision for such

5 crisis staffs, nor do they exist.

6 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you, Brigadier.

7 Your Honours, since I do indeed appreciate

8 the excellent presentation of the Brigadier, and, also,

9 in view of his age --

10 A. Do not mention my age please.

11 MS. RESIDOVIC: Very well, mine then, because

12 I am standing, you see, all the time, so I would ask

13 you, if possible, if we could have the break now.

14 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you,

15 Ms. Residovic. I think we can break now and come back

16 at 4 o'clock.

17 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you very much.

18 (3.30pm)

19 (A short break)

20 (4.00pm)

21 (The witness entered court)

22 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: You may continue,

23 Ms. Residovic.

24 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you, your Honours.

25 THE REGISTRAR: I remind you, Sir, that you

Page 10526

1 are still under oath.

2 MS. RESIDOVIC: I would like, your Honours,

3 to take my witness back to the chart that was in

4 question a moment ago, Brigadier. It was your

5 contribution V-D/2?

6 A. Yes, that is right.

7 Q. As you can see from the chart, this review of

8 the organisation of the defence units of Konjic from

9 April to October in 1992 was composed by the chief of

10 staff at the time, Mr. Midhat Cerovac. Brigadier, did

11 you base your opinions on this chart -- were your

12 assessments based on that chart, in your expert report,

13 of course, taking into account all the other documents

14 and your own experience in that regard?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Brigadier, would you tell us briefly what the

17 chart in fact represents?

18 A. It is a review of the organisation of the

19 defence forces of Konjic. The Ministry of Defence of

20 the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina is subordinated,

21 according to the Territorial Defence staff, that is the

22 line of command, and from that we can see that the

23 Territorial Defence staff of the Republic of

24 Bosnia-Herzegovina commands directly the municipal

25 staff of Konjic, and from thence we go further down the

Page 10527

1 line, and the Territorial Defence staff of Konjic and

2 its commander has, under him, his subordinates -- they

3 are the following units, combat units. You can see the

4 combat units there -- Konjic 1, Konjic 2, the Zebcanik

5 Unit, the Gracanica Unit -- it is a bit faded there.

6 Q. Yes, we see all that on the chart. Let us go

7 to the second structure, the HVO Croatian Defence

8 Council structure?

9 A. According to the lines of subordination, we

10 see that the Croatian Defence Council and the Grude HQ

11 has the Croatian Defence Council of Konjic under it,

12 and the Croatian Defence Council then has the HVO units

13 further subordinated. Then the third structure was the

14 police, and we can see that the republican Internal

15 Affairs Ministry is directly superior to the public

16 security service of Konjic, and the public security

17 service has, under it, the police forces, and the

18 structure is as follows: the commander of the

19 municipal staff with dotted line cooperates with the

20 public security service on the left, and on the right,

21 once again, the dotted line, and its relationship

22 towards the HVO -- the Croatian Defence Council. These

23 are the lines of cooperation, and not command -- lines

24 of cooperation along the dotted line.

25 Q. Thank you, Brigadier. May we now have a look

Page 10528

1 at the chart that you yourself drew up, and it is to be

2 found under V-D/8?

3 A. Just a moment, please, let me find it.

4 Q. Would you please briefly explain what this

5 chart signifies?

6 A. This chart, once again, depicts the defence

7 forces of Konjic and the relationships that exist, so

8 let us go from the top -- the municipality of Konjic at

9 the top, and the war presidency of the municipality of

10 Konjic, then from the dotted lines we can see that it

11 cooperates with the joint command, so the dotted line

12 of the war presidency of the municipality of Konjic

13 shows that the joint command of the Territorial Defence

14 of the HVO of Konjic is not subordinate to the

15 presidency, but merely cooperates with it.

16 Second, the Ministry of Defence is at the top

17 and under that we have the staff of the Territorial

18 Defence of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and it commands the

19 staff -- the full lines indicate subordination and the

20 dotted line is the line of cooperation.

21 The Internal Affairs Ministry of the Republic

22 of Bosnia-Herzegovina, if we look at the straight line,

23 full line, it shows that we have the public security

24 service, to which it is -- which is subordinate and

25 then cooperation with the presidency of the

Page 10529

1 municipality of Konjic.

2 Then we come to the joint command. The war

3 presidency of the municipality of Konjic, with the

4 dotted line indicates that it is not subordinated to

5 the joint command of the TO and HVO -- the joint

6 command is shown here and is shown as commander of the

7 TO, he is commander of the joint staff and on the

8 right-hand side the HVO commander, and, at the bottom,

9 with the joint command, we have the organs of the staff

10 of the joint command -- we already explained that a

11 moment ago and, under the ministry, the Croatian

12 Defence Council, we see that there is the HQ of Konjic

13 and this is a direct line from Grude, and then, at the

14 bottom, the HVO Konjic units, which shows that the

15 chief of staff commands the HQ of Konjic, and the

16 command goes downwards -- the commander of the

17 municipal defence of Konjic with a straight line goes

18 down to Konjic, and the units there.

19 Q. Thank you. You have now shown us the line of

20 cooperation from the presidency to the defence forces.

21 Would you now tell us of the lines of cooperation

22 towards the defence units and what they are composed

23 of? Let me phrase that another way. What rights and

24 responsibilities does the war presidency have towards

25 the defence forces?

Page 10530

1 A. According to the law, the war presidency of

2 the municipality is responsible for the preparation of

3 the units of Territorial Defence and its forces in the

4 municipality -- it is responsible for their

5 organisation, for equipping them, and for everything

6 else that comes under the sphere of logistics for

7 combat operations. From the chart you can see that the

8 war presidency is not authorised to command the units.

9 That is under the competency of the republican staff --

10 defence staff.

11 Then we have other complex problems, because

12 the war presidency of the municipality, in addition to

13 the support given to the defence forces, has a lot of

14 work to do with regard to the management of the

15 municipality itself and its organs to supply the

16 population, to organise military production -- wartime

17 production, to organise Civilian Defence and to save

18 the population -- protect the population and all the

19 problems that are not directly linked to the war, and

20 command -- there is no exclusive responsibility on the

21 part of the war presidency.

22 Therefore, the war presidency has other --

23 deals with other affairs -- not the command of the

24 units and the use of units. Those are not rights which

25 the war presidency enjoys.

Page 10531

1 Q. Thank you, Brigadier. I should now like to

2 ask you to answer the following question: in May --

3 and you write this in your report -- was there a joint

4 session, a joint meeting, of the military command and

5 the war presidency of the municipality of Konjic -- did

6 they hold a joint meeting?

7 A. Yes. Conclusions of this kind exist, but

8 tell me the annex -- remind me of the annex so

9 that I can recall the responsibilities of the

10 presidency towards the defence forces.

11 Q. As far as I can see in your review -- in your

12 report, the conclusions that you are talking about now

13 can be found in annex V-A/7. It is in the second

14 volume -- not the one you have before you, but volume

15 number 2 -- dossier number 2?

16 A. What was the number you mentioned -- V?

17 Q. It is A/7?

18 A. No.

19 Q. Yes, V-A/7?

20 A. That is annex IV.

21 Q. I think you will find it at the end -- V-A at

22 the end of volume 2. Have you found it?

23 A. What was the number again?

24 Q. A/7?

25 A. I have found it now -- I have it before me.

Page 10532

1 Q. You said, Brigadier, that those were the

2 conclusions from the joint meeting held between the war

3 presidency and the command of the forces. Tell me,

4 please, whether you relied on that document when you

5 made your assessments and whether, in keeping with the

6 other documents, you based your expertise and what you

7 are saying here today on the basis of that?

8 A. Yes, that document exists and that is why

9 I based my conclusions on it as a true document, and

10 I present my views in my expert report. Part of the

11 conclusions refer to the defence forces. I would like

12 to dwell on that for a moment. The document speaks of

13 the civilian sector and the tasks in that regard, and

14 as it was a joint meeting, a joint session with the

15 defence forces, they were charged with the following

16 tasks: the report of the staff was adopted as to the

17 situation with regard to preparations and the problems

18 that exist, and it was stated that the bodies should be

19 informed of the situation on the spot; that the war

20 presidency must have information from the locality

21 itself -- up-to-date information, because if the war

22 presidency does not know the actual situation, it can

23 take measures which would be inappropriate, to send its

24 organs to territories which are not under the control

25 of the army and that is why they require up-to-date

Page 10533

1 information and reporting on the situation in the

2 locality where there is the danger of an enemy

3 breakthrough, whether the population should be taken to

4 safety.

5 So, this system of reporting and information,

6 in order to inform the civilian population of the

7 defence on the given territory -- there were other

8 important matters, do you want me to comment?

9 Q. I would just like to ask you some questions?

10 A. Well, briefly --

11 Q. Do these conclusions precisely define the

12 defence forces of Konjic?

13 A. Yes, the defence forces of Konjic are the

14 forces I mentioned earlier on -- Territorial Defence of

15 the HVO and the police, and this document determines

16 certain measures to be undertaken. The document

17 testifies to an organisation which requires

18 organisation of the armed forces, and that the

19 regulations and rules of the military police be adhered

20 to and all soldiers not included into the defence

21 structures should be placed within the system so that

22 there is no voluntariness on the part of these soldiers

23 or other individuals. The defence forces of Konjic,

24 the HVO and the police must have the necessary insignia

25 so that can be recognised as representatives -- that

Page 10534

1 their uniforms should have insignia, and commanders of

2 units, so this document is a preparation -- a basis for

3 the army's organisation, so that the army takes on the

4 form of an organised force without any self-appointed

5 units or commanders.

6 So, it is an act, a document, which requires

7 a modern organisation for the army -- organisation

8 based on modern principles.

9 Q. Brigadier, in view of the fact that this

10 document determines the existing fact that the defence

11 forces of Konjic are the HVO, the TO and the police, is

12 it correct to say that, on 18 May 1992, the most

13 responsible subjects of Konjic, that is to say, the war

14 presidency and the military staff, determined that

15 accounts must be settled with any individuals who might

16 be carrying arms in an unorganised fashion?

17 A. Yes, that is true. This was a document to

18 prevent all voluntariness on the part of individuals,

19 that everything must be organised and within a system,

20 that there are no separate units or commanders with any

21 responsibilities, and to prevent crimes, voluntary

22 action and so on, so this is an act on the organisation

23 -- a document specifying the organisation of the army.

24 Q. Do these conclusion -- on the basis of these

25 conclusions, do all the authorities in Konjic call for

Page 10535

1 the rule of law on the part of all the authorities and

2 individuals concerned and no arbitrariness?

3 A. Yes, that is the first part of the document

4 which relates to the civilian sector. These are the

5 tasks for all the structures of power and authority at

6 the municipal level, stipulating how they are to

7 function -- the economic unit and everything else

8 within the area of Konjic.

9 Q. Does your research show that, after this

10 meeting, the military organs took certain steps within

11 their competence and that the war presidency, on the

12 other hand, took steps within the frameworks of its

13 competencies to put these conclusions into practice?

14 A. The war organs saw to the restructuring of

15 the units, and that everything that is stipulated in

16 the document be translated into practice with regard to

17 the defence forces; that the tasks stipulated by the

18 presidency should be fulfilled under given conditions.

19 It was not always possible in a short space of time to

20 deal with all those matters such as uniforms, insignia

21 and so forth, but the process was started, and this

22 type of organisation was unleashed.

23 Q. I should like to ask you, Brigadier, to look

24 at another document V-A/9, by which a committee for

25 funerals is set up, which is evidence in this case. Is

Page 10536

1 this an example that the war presidency immediately

2 began the execution of tasks, which were stipulated for

3 the war presidency as a civilian body?

4 A. Yes, I did not refer to the tasks relating to

5 the civilian sector, but one proof of this is the

6 stipulation of a commission for funerals in the

7 following composition and it is the task -- this

8 document provides for the commission's work and tasks.

9 Q. In view of the fact that, in what you have

10 said so far, you indicated the many difficulties facing

11 the defence forces and the war presidency, and that you

12 stressed that the supply question was an important one,

13 that is, from the supply of arms to the supply of food,

14 that this was a major problem, is it true, Brigadier --

15 would you tell me, please, Brigadier, whether your

16 research showed that the defence forces and the war

17 presidency at that time tried, in different ways, to

18 solve the problem of supplies and of overall logistics?

19 A. Well, there was an important problem for the

20 Konjic region, as was the problem for Bosnia as a whole

21 and that was the logistics problem and I stressed

22 earlier on that Territorial Defence was without arms,

23 without uniforms, without communications, without

24 sufficient food supplies, whereas it had to take on the

25 tasks of Defence, so these were very complex conditions

Page 10537

1 and the greatest problem occurred in the sphere of

2 logistics. There were not enough weaponry, not enough

3 communications, and uniforms, and everything else

4 necessary for waging a war, and satisfying the needs of

5 the commanding units and the needs of the soldiers

6 themselves and we had to find a way out of this, a way

7 of solving the problem, so that we had to transcend the

8 problem.

9 Q. Brigadier, in your report, and document

10 V-A/21, A/22, A/23, A/24, and concluding with A/24, you

11 propose a series of documents under the title

12 of "authorisations". Would you look at these documents

13 now, please?

14 A. There are several documents which testify to

15 how the war presidency of Konjic endeavoured to solve

16 the problems that stood before it and --

17 Q. Let me ask you, Brigadier, did you verify the

18 authenticity of these documents in the archives of the

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina army?

20 A. This was verified in the archives in the

21 municipality of Konjic.

22 Q. Thank you. Tell me now what these documents

23 represent?

24 A. These documents mostly represent permissions

25 and authorisations granting permission for travel or

Page 10538

1 envisaging resources for supplies and there are quite a

2 number of these documents signed jointly by the joint

3 command and the president of the presidency. These are

4 various permits and authorisations having to do with

5 the procurement of supplies for the armed forces.

6 Q. Brigadier, in view of the conditions and

7 circumstances under which the defence in Konjic took

8 place, was it normal for people to receive such permits

9 so that the war presidency could fulfil its tasks as

10 stipulated by law? Was this something typical of the

11 times?

12 A. These were specific circumstances under which

13 the war presidency was operating. Without such

14 permits, it would not be possible to pass through

15 Herceg-Bosna or through the territory of the Republic

16 of Croatia from which mostly this logistical support

17 was provided. Therefore, any officer who had such an

18 authorisation was able to travel through Herceg-Bosna

19 to Croatia, on which we relied for logistic support for

20 the forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

21 Q. Brigadier, since you are familiar with the

22 situation in the whole republic, if I may say so,

23 because your personal experience and research covered

24 that whole area and, in this particular case, you

25 focused on the municipality of Konjic, my question is

Page 10539

1 whether the problem of logistic support and supplies

2 was a major problem for the defence of the whole

3 republic?

4 A. I have already pointed out that the greatest

5 problem of the armed forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina was

6 the problem of supply with materiel, weaponry,

7 ammunition, medical supplies, communications resources,

8 so that, without production of the same, which did not

9 exist in Bosnia, even though factories did exist, like

10 the one in Konjic, for example, there were no

11 manufacturing components and raw materials for our own

12 manufacturing facilities, so these had to be procured

13 from other places, via the Republic of Croatia.

14 This applied to the whole territory of

15 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

16 Q. The authorisations, permits, special permits

17 and the like, which were issued to people for them to

18 be able to engage in such procurement in order to

19 mitigate this problem, did these authorisations give

20 the people to whom they were issued any command

21 authority?

22 A. These documents do not have the validity of

23 an order. These are not documents that can be equated

24 with orders. These are authorisations issued in the

25 name of a particular person permitting him to obtain,

Page 10540

1 for the needs, in this case of the municipality of

2 Konjic, certain supplies.

3 Q. Thank you. Tell me, please, Brigadier,

4 whether, while preparing yourself for this testimony,

5 did you see a decision of the war presidency dated 18

6 May 1992, whereby Mr. Zejnil Delalic was appointed

7 coordinator between the war presidency and the defence

8 forces?

9 A. Yes, I have that decision. It is a document

10 that has also been verified. The decision was issued

11 on 18 May whereby the war presidency of the

12 municipality of Konjic appoints as coordinator of the

13 defence forces of the municipality of Konjic Mr. Zejnil

14 Delalic. The coordinator of defence forces will

15 directly coordinate work between the defence forces of

16 the Konjic municipality and the war presidency.

17 Q. Brigadier, do you have that document before

18 you, which is a document that has been admitted into

19 evidence as a Prosecution exhibit. Do you have it now?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Will you please tell me, Brigadier, whether

22 this decision, in your opinion, was passed by a

23 civilian or a military body?

24 A. A civilian body.

25 Q. Tell me, please, does such a decision come

Page 10541

1 under the competencies of that civilian body in defence

2 preparations?

3 A. Yes, this is something a civilian body could

4 issue, because the decision does not relate to any kind

5 of control or command function in the armed forces. It

6 is purely a question of coordinating activities between

7 the armed forces and the civilian bodies.

8 Q. Brigadier, could you please tell me whether

9 this coordinator, as appointed by the presidency, on

10 the basis of your expertise and your experience as a

11 professional officer, does this person have any command

12 or control functions as a military commander or a

13 person in superior authority in the army?

14 A. I must elaborate in answering this question.

15 In the armed forces, there is no such concept of a

16 coordinator in any formations. If we look at the

17 platoon company, regiment, division, et cetera, there

18 are no persons who are appointed to a post that would

19 be called a "coordinator". All the other posts are

20 regulated -- commander, assistant commander for this

21 and that, the staff consists of such and such -- there

22 is no such concept of a coordinator in the armed

23 forces.

24 There is another expression and that is the

25 expression "coordination". "Coordination" is a

Page 10542

1 function within the system of control and command and

2 it implies coordination of effort of all participants

3 engaged on a common task, so if there are several

4 factors participating in dealing with a particular

5 problem, then this concept of coordination comes into

6 play, implying that all the participants should focus

7 on a particular task so that that task may be achieved

8 with a minimum of losses. In military literature, to

9 be more specific in a text book on control and command,

10 this is in our language called "sadejstvo"

11 or "coordination". This is just a definition.

12 To make myself clearer, I would like to try

13 and show this visually to indicate what that

14 "coordination" implies, or "sadejstvo" as the military

15 term is in our language. If I may be permitted, may

16 I try and illustrate this?

17 Q. Before you do that, Brigadier, could you tell

18 us whether we are talking about the coordination of

19 combat units, or of other factors?

20 A. This coordination applies exclusively to

21 combat operations -- "coordination" is a concept in

22 combat, and there is no particular individual who

23 performs that coordination. It is the most senior

24 commander in his zone of responsibility. When a

25 commander implements a decision, or when he conveys it

Page 10543

1 to his subordinates, when he gives them specific tasks

2 or assignments, "The first battalion must do this and

3 the other one that," and so on, in that period of time

4 this most senior commander performs coordination, so

5 that each of these participants knows by way of an

6 example.

7 By way of an example, a brigade has the task

8 of eliminating a battalion in defence. The attack is

9 carried out by the brigade against the battalion. The

10 forces in that regiment consist of various branches,

11 infantry, artillery, communications, et cetera. In

12 this organisation of coordination, when giving them

13 assignments -- let us take as an example in the case of

14 an offensive, the artillery preparation of the attack

15 shall last 30 minutes, the attack shall start at 0600

16 hours. Therefore, this commander of the infantry

17 battalion, the commander of the artillery unit, the

18 head of the engineers and all the other participants

19 must know that the attack will start at 0600 hours;

20 that the artillery or the fire preparation for that

21 offensive will last 30 minutes to neutralise the enemy

22 defences.

23 In the meantime, the infantry must reach the

24 line of the security zone, so the infantry must reach

25 that particular line, which is 150 or 200 metres

Page 10544

1 removed from the enemy positions -- this is the

2 security zone -- so the infantry should not suffer

3 casualties from the artillery fire. It must not stay

4 there long. Through coordination, the infantry is told

5 to start the assault at such and such an hour.

6 The artillery would cease-fire at 0630

7 hours. At 0630 the infantry will start its assault.

8 The tanking units are somewhere in the rear. The tanks

9 are primarily to support the infantry in the case of an

10 offensive. They lead the infantry -- they may be two

11 or three kilometres removed from that line. The

12 commander of the tank unit must calculate exactly how

13 long he will need to reach this assault position and,

14 as soon as the artillery transfers the fire into the

15 rear, he must start with his march forward.

16 Therefore all the participants in such an

17 operation must know exactly what their assignments are

18 in terms of time, because otherwise there will be

19 losses.

20 Q. Thank you, Brigadier. I think you have

21 described very vividly to all of us this coordination

22 of military forces. May I ask you now whether, as you

23 just said, that means that coordination in battle is

24 done by the military commander, that is, the person

25 with a senior military position?

Page 10545

1 A. This coordination or "sadejstvo" is the

2 exclusive task of the commander, who, after a decision

3 has been taken, goes on the ground with his other

4 commanders -- this is not done in offices, this is on

5 the ground. When this coordination is organised, there

6 is no other person who could organise it -- or control

7 or command it -- there is no special body to do that.

8 Q. Brigadier, having told us all that, can you

9 answer the following question: can such a coordination

10 be carried out at all by a civilian entity?

11 A. There is no need to ask such a question. A

12 civilian entity cannot interfere in military affairs.

13 A civilian body cannot have any role in the army in

14 terms of the organisation of combat and control and

15 command -- that is out of the question. For that

16 purpose, we have commanders, senior officers, leaders

17 whose exclusive responsibility is the result of the

18 battle and no civilian bodies can issue commands or

19 orders in that case.

20 Q. Let us now go back to the decision of the war

21 presidency on the appointment of Mr. Zejnil Delalic as

22 coordinator. This coordinator, who is there to

23 coordinate between the civilian and military bodies,

24 does he have anything to do with this coordination

25 known to military science and military practice?

Page 10546

1 A. No. In this particular case, when we are

2 referring to this decision, this coordinator needs to

3 coordinate not with combat units, combat forces --

4 maybe this is a misuse of terms -- perhaps it is not

5 the best term to be used -- this term is not a good

6 one. The municipality appointed this coordinator to

7 assist the presidency. He is in the service of the

8 presidency -- of a civilian body and he has to ensure

9 logistic support. He has a logistic role, to assist

10 the presidency, which is also responsible for logistic

11 support of the army.

12 Therefore, his function is to assist the

13 army, to convey the needs to the presidency, the needs

14 in terms of logistic support for each operation and to

15 deal with all logistic problems, and not to influence

16 the way in which battles are organised, to plan the

17 battles, because, after all, in this particular case,

18 in this particular individual, I think the only way we

19 can understand it as a function in the service of the

20 war presidency and the war presidency has no authority

21 to impose commanders who have command and control

22 responsibility. That is not the jurisdiction of the

23 presidency.

24 Q. Thank you, Brigadier. As you have obviously

25 studied in detail, in some detail, the things that

Page 10547

1 happened in Konjic, could you please tell me whether

2 this complicated situation required this coordination

3 and cooperation in other areas, too, and did you come

4 across certain documents in which mention was again

5 made of the coordinator and coordination? Looking

6 through your documentation, I saw documents marked

7 V-A/18. Shall we please examine that document?

8 A. What document did you say?

9 Q. V-A/18?

10 A. Yes, there is such a document on the use of

11 communications in wartime.

12 Q. Did you verify this document in the archives?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. The army archives? Is this one of the

15 documents that you relied upon when you said that, in

16 other areas, too, the need arose for coordination?

17 A. Yes. For instance, the use of communications

18 in wartime and this document was jointly signed by the

19 joint staff, by the commanders Zebic and Ramic and

20 another person, Delic, I think. It deals with the need

21 to organise communication. This is also a kind of

22 coordination in the area of communications. There was

23 also an economic staff. They called it a staff, but

24 its role was also to coordinate things in the economy.

25 That applied to all these bodies appointed by the

Page 10548

1 municipality for civilian matters.

2 Q. Brigadier, I should now like to ask you, in

3 this third volume of your documents, in annex IX/9, if

4 we could look at a document from that period.

5 Before I proceed with questions about this

6 document, I should like to ask you, Brigadier, whether

7 you could tell us, within the system of control and

8 command in the army, who is the person who commands --

9 who is the person who issues orders and bears

10 responsibility?

11 A. The first principle in the system of control

12 and command is that there must be one commander. This

13 means that one person must issue the order -- the

14 commander for lower units we call them commandeers and

15 from battalion and upwards they are called commanders.

16 Therefore, the commander is authorised to command -- to

17 control -- and he is -- he suffers all the consequences

18 of his decisions. He may transfer a part of his

19 competencies and powers to his associates, but he

20 cannot transfer responsibility for the situation and

21 the results.

22 Therefore, if he does transfer certain powers

23 to his associates, should anything happen, it is the

24 commander who is responsible.

25 For instance, we cannot allow two people to

Page 10549

1 be responsible for a regiment. It must always be the

2 regiment commander -- even though the chief of staff

3 may have given some orders, in the areas for which he

4 was authorised by the commander, but the responsibility

5 still falls on the commander. That is quite clearly

6 stated in the system of control and command as regards

7 who is responsible.

8 Q. Will you please look at this order, or let me

9 ask you, first, whether you found it in the army

10 archives?

11 A. Which one are we talking about?

12 Q. The one we were looking at -- IX/9, dated

13 3 June. Do you have it?

14 A. IX/9? This is the one I was talking about.

15 It has to do with the establishment of railway

16 communications.

17 Q. Did you check this order, too, in the

18 archives?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. Tell me, please, could you comment on this

21 order, since it was signed by the military commanders

22 and a coordinator?

23 A. Yes. When I found this order, I saw that it

24 had to do with civilian affairs and the needs of the

25 armed forces as well as the needs of civilians. In

Page 10550

1 terms of the army, the aim is to establish

2 communication, so that this railway line could be used

3 for military materiel and units to be transported to

4 certain regions, so that the railway line would be used

5 both by the armed forces and by the civilians.

6 Q. Brigadier, when in an order you see the

7 signature of a military commander, whose order is it

8 then?

9 A. If it is stated in an order that a commander

10 issued it, then it is his responsibility. The fact

11 that the coordinator has signed it means that he is

12 aware that he has to cooperate with them, because this

13 has to do with his responsibilities regarding

14 materials, manpower, electric power, so the

15 establishment of the railway line itself is more a

16 civilian undertaking, and the coordinator will have to

17 provide the manpower, the production elements and

18 everything else that is required and that is why he is

19 signing it. But the commander has ordered it, because

20 this was required by the armed forces.

21 Q. Brigadier, this order leads me to some

22 general questions. Can you, as a military expert, say,

23 regardless of what question we are dealing with, if

24 somebody issues an order, or a nomination, if it is

25 signed by military commanders -- a military commander

Page 10551

1 or military commanders -- whose order is this?

2 A. It is the order of the commander who signed

3 the order. Orders can be issued only by commanders.

4 Q. If, for example, irrespective of this

5 document, there is an order signed by a commander with

6 the signature of a third party, does it change the

7 character of that order by the commander? Is it still

8 the order of the commander, or not?

9 A. The commander who has signed the order is not

10 rid of the responsibility of signing the order. Any

11 third party can be a witness, or somebody who is taking

12 part in logistics or some other function, but the

13 commander is always responsible. It is the commander

14 who has signed the order. There is no -- we must not

15 mix up competencies.

16 The other point is subordination -- the

17 principle of subordination, which states that a

18 superior officer has the right to issue orders to

19 individuals. That is the second principle and it is

20 also stated that the subordinates are duty bound to

21 perform all commands, unless they are criminal acts, so

22 I can be ordered to do something which the commander

23 above me, superior to me, has asked me to do

24 additionally. If this is not a criminal act, I am duty

25 bound to perform what he has commanded me to do.

Page 10552

1 Q. Brigadier, in your documents I came across

2 several other documents in which several individuals,

3 that is to say, other signatures exist in addition to

4 the signature of the commander. Tell me whether the

5 coordinator who signed this particular order received a

6 military function, or is he superior to a commander --

7 is that at all possible and is that in keeping with the

8 knowledge you have as a military man?

9 A. Well, I do not think we need comment on

10 military rules and regulations. The system of command

11 is quite decisive on that point. The individual who is

12 here as coordinator is only taking part in this to have

13 it effected quicker, but there is no superior. The

14 commander is the responsible individual and he performs

15 coordination -- if you are talking about that

16 particular order, to ensure everything, to ensure

17 railway traffic. I see that his name is stipulated

18 here, but he has no responsibility -- no, absolutely

19 not. It is the two commanders who signed the order who

20 are exclusively responsible.

21 Q. Thank you. Brigadier, within your reports

22 you included a document by the commander of the army,

23 General Delic, and it is evidence in this case, and it

24 bears out the fact that the coordinator was not an

25 individual in the military hierarchy. Can you tell us,

Page 10553

1 once again, as this is an important question,

2 Brigadier, whether your expert knowledge testifies to

3 the fact that a coordinator is an individual that

4 exists in military hierarchy, and whether such an

5 individual can be named by a municipal or civilian

6 organ?

7 A. I have seen the document by the commander of

8 the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he states what

9 I in fact say what a coordinator means. That is, it is

10 not a military function and that he does not have the

11 right to issue orders and this kind of individual in

12 the army is not determined. Under given circumstances,

13 for example, if there is a fire and the army comes in

14 to deal with that, and to coordinate the civilian

15 sector with the army sector, then the army might be

16 brought in to extinguish the fire and the police may be

17 called in to see to law and order, but there are no

18 coordinators within the army.

19 Q. So, in the situations you mentioned by way of

20 an example as extraordinary situations, does the

21 coordinator issue orders, or does he only coordinate?

22 A. The civilian sector designates him. If the

23 army takes part in a task of this kind, if there is a

24 natural catastrophe or something of that kind, then the

25 commander can be an officer, can name an officer to

Page 10554

1 coordinate those activities. If there are no army

2 forces taking part, then it will be members or the

3 organs of the power in authority, but these are the

4 specific tasks performed by a coordinator under given

5 circumstances to solve a given problem, who is to do

6 what, you know, when there is a natural disaster, then

7 you need the medical corps, you need the police, you

8 need the civilian protection forces, but that is

9 something quite different and the role of coordinators

10 is done by the civilian sector.

11 Q. Thank you, Brigadier. Having heard in

12 greater detail questions related to nominations and so

13 on and so forth, and having heard your opinions as to

14 what is meant by "coordinator", I should like to ask

15 you the following: having studied all the documents

16 that were placed at your disposal, and after using all

17 your expert professional and military knowledge, were

18 you able to conclude that this particular coordinator

19 that was nominated by the war presidency was superior

20 to the staff of the Territorial Defence of Konjic?

21 A. The coordinator in question had no

22 inherence vis-à-vis the armed forces. He could not

23 issue any orders whatsoever with respect to the use of

24 those forces. He was not authorised to do so, because,

25 in the system of control and command, it is only

Page 10555

1 superior officers who can issue orders to the staff --

2 nobody else.

3 Q. In your opinion, once again based on your

4 research, was this coordinator a superior to the staff

5 of the HQ of Konjic?

6 A. No. The HVO is subordinated to Grude, so the

7 line of command goes down from Grude.

8 Q. Brigadier, is this command -- was this

9 command on the basis of your research -- coordinator,

10 sorry, on the basis of your research, was he superior

11 to the police of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Konjic?

12 A. That structure, too, has its line of command

13 -- superior to it is only the ministry, so the

14 commander of the municipal staff was not able to issue

15 these orders. It gets its orders from the ministry --

16 directly from the Defence Ministry.

17 Q. Brigadier, on the basis of your overall

18 knowledge of this subject-matter, was this coordinator

19 superior to the war presidency, which nominated it --

20 appointed him?

21 A. I do not think that I need comment on that

22 question at all, because he cannot be superior to the

23 war presidency who appointed him. The presidency is a

24 civilian organ at the head of combat preparations and

25 everything -- all logistics, whereas a coordinator is

Page 10556

1 the executor of what the presidency decides. That is

2 how this matter should be understood. There is no

3 superiority vis-à-vis the war presidency of the

4 municipality.

5 Q. Thank you, Brigadier. May we now go on to

6 quite a different matter altogether -- a new field?

7 When we looked at the preparatory information for the

8 command of the Territorial Defence units, Mr. Esad Ramic

9 for the Operation Oganj, we saw that the document set

10 up five Tactical Groups. Brigadier, were these

11 Tactical Groups completely separate from the Tactical

12 Groups which were to be formed by the supreme command

13 for other military purposes?

14 A. What the staff of the Territorial Defence of

15 Konjic did to form Tactical Groups was the result of

16 poor knowledge as to what a Tactical Group in fact

17 means. A Tactical Group is something quite different.

18 You cannot form a Tactical Group from small units --

19 small-scale units, and this has nothing to do with the

20 Tactical Group that was formed later on for the

21 deblocation of Sarajevo for example, so these five

22 Tactical Groups were very small-scale units -- each

23 sent in a particular direction, so they were not in

24 fact Tactical Groups, but, on the basis of that

25 commander's knowledge, he thought he was setting up

Page 10557

1 Tactical Groups. It was an officer who did not have

2 the necessary military background and did not know

3 better.

4 Q. May we, Brigadier, return to something that

5 I would like to talk to you about for a few moments

6 now? When we heard Professor Hadzibegovic and your own

7 testimony, we saw that the city of Sarajevo, from 6

8 April, was under a blockade and was subjected to

9 killings and destruction. Could you please tell me

10 whether, for you as a military man, from the military

11 aspects, was the siege of Sarajevo a problem?

12 A. Sarajevo was the greatest problem that the

13 State of Bosnia-Herzegovina had to confront, because

14 Sarajevo was the centre in which the State organs

15 functioned, and that is why the Serbian side prepared

16 forces for the attack -- to attack Sarajevo, so that if

17 Sarajevo were taken, it would be questionable as to

18 what would happen to the remains of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

19 and as the situation was such, as there were no

20 elementary means of livelihood, no electricity, no

21 food, no fuel, no water, no medicines, no water, there

22 was a shortage of all this, Sarajevo lived through a

23 terrible trauma and it was bombed, there were sniper

24 fires, there was grenade fire, and all this was aimed

25 at introducing panic to reduce the morale of the

Page 10558

1 population and a message to give up and surrender, and

2 that is why we had to seek a way out of this situation,

3 to deblock Sarajevo and to open the paths to

4 humanitarian aid and assistance, the necessary food,

5 and the bare essentials for life to be able to

6 continue. That is why the military leadership made

7 every effort to deblock Sarajevo.

8 These efforts were planned on the basis of

9 internal forces, and what ammunition and arms we had

10 and from the encirclement to bring in the forces

11 necessary and to try to deblock Sarajevo. It was to

12 this goal that plans were devised to set up on the

13 basis of these small units in the municipalities and

14 communes, to determine the various platoons, to make

15 our forces larger, and to combine forces and to try and

16 effect the deblocation of the city of Sarajevo.

17 It was for this reason that, in mid May, the

18 first Tactical Groups were formed.

19 Q. May I ask you something at this point? What

20 Tactical Groups were first formed in mid May?

21 A. Let me explain what I mean by a "Tactical

22 Group", because we cannot speak of Tactical Groups

23 without knowing what they in fact are. A Tactical

24 Group, according to regulations of the brigades and

25 military encyclopaedia that we used in the war, Tactical

Page 10559

1 Groups imply what a combat group is, what an operative

2 group is, and what a Tactical Group is. Let me say

3 what we mean by a "tactical group". It is of a

4 temporary composition, which will be selected from

5 units, and these are set up when a formation unit

6 cannot solve the problem in hand -- whether we are --

7 so it is a temporary formation -- whether it is on the

8 front or elsewhere.

9 If we have to liquidate a battalion or a

10 company -- if we send one battalion to do this, it is

11 not enough. We cannot solve the problem by a

12 formational unit and then our regulations provide for

13 the setting up of a Tactical Group, which is stronger

14 than a battalion -- as the commander of a division, or

15 a regiment, I say that I think two battalions will be

16 able to solve this problem, and I resort to the

17 different branches to be able to solve this problem by

18 setting up a Tactical Group, so it is only a temporary

19 formation. It is not a permanent formation. We know

20 what we mean by permanent formations, platoons,

21 companies, batteries, battalions, regiments and so on,

22 but this is a temporary formation which is incorporated

23 into our formations in order to solve a given problem.

24 As outside Sarajevo we had these fragmented

25 forces, fragmented battalions -- the staff tried to

Page 10560

1 conjoin our forces so that the command composition be

2 formed so as to be able to function separately and to

3 have the necessary impact and so this Tactical Group

4 was given a concrete task. We decide who the commander

5 is to be, and who the members of this temporary

6 formation, the officers, are to be, the amount of units

7 which are to form that temporary formation, what the

8 logistics will be and what will be the task that that

9 temporary formation will have to perform, and it is

10 active until the task is fulfilled.

11 Once the task is fulfilled, the formation is

12 dissolved and the units go back to their organic

13 units. So, that is what is meant by a "Tactical Group"

14 as a temporary formation.

15 Q. Brigadier, you said that, to solve that

16 particular combat operation, the deblocking of

17 Sarajevo, that these Tactical Groups were formed in the

18 middle of May. Can you tell us what Tactical Groups

19 were formed in mid May -- what particular Tactical

20 Groups?

21 A. The staff of the supreme command set up two

22 Tactical Groups -- Tactical Group 1, and Tactical Group

23 Visoko. They were forces which were to try to deblock

24 the city of Sarajevo, together with the forces of the

25 town's defence -- the town's defence forces.

Page 10561

1 Q. Tell me, please, who was the first commander

2 of Tactical Group number 1 -- do you know who the

3 commander was?

4 A. Yes, I do -- the commander was Mustafa

5 Polutak -- he was the commander from the very beginning

6 of Tactical Group 1 and the chief of staff was Major

7 Sucro Pilica.

8 Q. Could you tell us where the HQ of the

9 Tactical Group was located?

10 A. The headquarters of the Tactical Group was in

11 Pazaric. It is some 30 kilometres away from Sarajevo.

12 Q. Tell us, please, Brigadier, whether at that

13 time, after the formation of Tactical Group 1 and

14 Tactical Group Visoko, were there any attempts to

15 deblock the city of Sarajevo by combining the

16 activities of these tactical units and the outside

17 units as well, and those inside Sarajevo?

18 A. Yes, as soon as the order was given to form

19 these groups in mid May, they started preparations --

20 units from the Pazaric region arrived. This lasted for

21 several days. They were equipped with armaments and

22 ammunition and food, and everything had to be in place

23 for the soldiers to be able to perform their tasks.

24 The fighting lasted from 12 to 18 June, so from May,

25 which was the time that they were formed, about one

Page 10562

1 month elapsed, so there was a month of preparation,

2 whereas the combat operations began on 12 June and went

3 on up to 18 June.

4 Q. Brigadier, who made up the composition of a

5 Tactical Group 1, whose commander was Colonel Mustafa

6 Polutak?

7 A. Let me refer back to the chart.

8 Q. Let us look at the chart together. It is

9 annex VI/2. That is the diagram. Have you found it?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Can you explain on the basis of the chart

12 which forces made up the composition of Tactical

13 Group 1 when it came into existence, after it was

14 formed?

15 A. The composition of Tactical Group 1 was as

16 follows -- in November 1992, it was directly under the

17 command of the staff of the supreme command of

18 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

19 MS. RESIDOVIC: My colleague has an objection

20 to make.

21 MR. NIEMANN: Yes, your Honour, I make the

22 same objection as I did before, that I have no

23 objection to the Brigadier saying that this is a

24 document which he relied on, but I object to him

25 asserting that the document is correct or asserting the

Page 10563

1 document is true as to its contents, because it was

2 drawn up and prepared by Mr. Polutak. I think there was

3 an attempt once before to tender this document, if

4 I remember correctly, and your Honours ruled it was

5 inadmissible unless the author, Mustafa Polutak,

6 appeared and gave evidence.

7 MS. RESIDOVIC: I think, your Honours, that

8 it is quite clear that the documents that the Brigadier

9 did not take part in personally -- we are not offering

10 up from the aspects of truthfulness, but from the

11 aspects of factual evidence, that is, that these

12 documents were used by the Brigadier and relied on by

13 him when he drew up his report and in presenting his

14 testimony. Therefore, I just ask that the Brigadier

15 tell us what he thinks about this chart and whether he

16 based his assumptions as to the composition of those

17 Tactical Groups on that chart. That is all we wish to

18 ascertain in this way.

19 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I think you are both

20 saying the same thing, so there is no disagreement

21 here. It is not -- he is not making any claim about

22 the truth of it. I think the objection is right.

23 MS. RESIDOVIC: Will you please tell me

24 whether this document, too, was one of those that you

25 relied upon when expressing your expert opinion?

Page 10564

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Brigadier, I should like to ask you, without

3 entering into the truth of the contents of this

4 document compiled by Brigadier Mustafa Polutak, will

5 you please tell us whether your research, during which

6 you came across this diagram that you rely on, were

7 these a basis for you to be able to testify in court as

8 to the way in which Tactical Group 1 was formed?

9 Actually, which forces came under Tactical Group 1, in

10 your expert opinion?

11 A. I think that this diagram is an objective

12 presentation of the way in which Tactical Groups are

13 formed. The total forces indicated in black consisted

14 of 1,200 men. I wish to say that these smaller columns

15 are the municipalities from which units were taken to

16 form the Tactical Group. It all depended on what the

17 position of a particular municipality was -- how great

18 the danger it was exposed to, should all its forces,

19 all the forces from that territory be sent to join the

20 Tactical Group. In that case, it would have no units

21 to defend itself. So, it was decided, for instance,

22 that the part of the forces that were on Igman, or

23 Trnovo, there was a total of 600 soldiers in those

24 positions -- 300 were transferred to the Tactical Group

25 and 300 remained to defend that location.

Page 10565

1 This is even more visible in the case of

2 Hadzici and Pazaric, where the lines between the army

3 forces and the Serb army were even closer so that this

4 territory could not be abandoned and out of a total of

5 1,500 fighters, only 400 were taken to join the

6 Tactical Group, whereas the rest remained within the

7 territory of the municipality of Hadzici to protect its

8 positions. The same applies to the other

9 municipalities.

10 Q. Brigadier, does such a chart correspond to

11 your professional knowledge as to the way in which

12 units or parts of units are subordinated to a Tactical

13 Group?

14 A. According to the rules of control and

15 command, all parts of units sent to form a Tactical

16 Group are placed under the command of the commander of

17 the Tactical Group and that commander is the one who

18 has the power to issue commands. The commanders from

19 the previous units from which the forces were drawn has

20 no jurisdiction over the forces that have been joined

21 to the Tactical Group. Therefore, to command the

22 unified forces in a Tactical Group is exclusively the

23 responsibility of the Tactical Group commander.

24 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you. Your Honours, is

25 it now time for us to adjourn for today?

Page 10566

1 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Yes, I think so. We

2 will adjourn the proceedings until 10.00am tomorrow.

3 Before we adjourn, the Trial Chamber has

4 received some communication from Mr. Olujic suggesting

5 that he is having another co-counsel instead of the

6 present co-counsel, so I do not know what the position

7 still is. We want to be very clear as to what it is.

8 MR. OLUJIC: Yes.

9 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: You may sit down,

10 Ms. Residovic.

11 MS. RESIDOVIC: Thank you, your Honours.

12 MR. OLUJIC: Yes, your Honours, a change of

13 co-counsel is under way. We have already notified the

14 Registry of the Tribunal of this, and shortly, as soon

15 as the necessary decisions have been taken, a colleague

16 from the United States will be joining me as

17 co-counsel. Of course, the Defence will not suffer as

18 a result, because this colleague is very well

19 familiarised with the case, so that this Trial Chamber,

20 or the trial itself will not be slowed down as a result

21 of this, and my colleague, as soon as the formalities

22 have been resolved, will assume his duties.

23 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much.

24 I think we have been with Mr. Greaves for a very long

25 time and we really do not know why he has changed his

Page 10567

1 mind in continuing with the Defence of Mr. Mucic. As

2 you have fairly indicated, when the normal hearing has

3 concluded, we will hear Mr. Greaves on the issue.

4 Mr. Greaves, do you have anything to say about

5 this.

6 MR. GREAVES: Nothing I wish to say in open

7 court.

8 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: Thank you very much.

9 I am very grateful about that.

10 JUDGE JAN: Mr. Greaves has been a great

11 help. Of course, the defendant has the right to be

12 defended by counsel of his own choice.

13 MR. GREAVES: I am grateful to that.

14 JUDGE KARIBI-WHYTE: I think it will be a

15 personal loss. In any event, we will go further into

16 it later. The Trial Chamber will now rise. We will

17 reassemble tomorrow at 10.

18 (At 5.33pm the matter adjourned

19 until Friday, 3 April 1998, at 10am)

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