Page 12303
1 Tuesday, 11 June 2002
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 2.41 p.m.
5 JUDGE LIU: Call the case, please, Madam Registrar.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. This is case number
7 IT-98-34-T, the Prosecutor versus Naletilic and Martinovic.
8 JUDGE LIU: We are sorry for the delay, because of a possible fire
9 alarm, but now we have been told it's quite okay. Before we start, there
10 is a time schedule announcement. Next Monday and Tuesday, we will sit in
11 the afternoon session. From Wednesday, we will sit in the morning session
12 for two weeks.
13 Yes, Mr. Scott?
14 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, one procedural matter and again, in the
15 interests of not disclosing potential protected witnesses could we go to
16 private session for one moment.
17 JUDGE LIU: Yes, we will go to the private session, please.
18 [Private session]
19 [redacted]
20 [redacted]
21 [redacted]
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Page 12305
1 [redacted]
2 [redacted]
3 [Open session]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 JUDGE LIU: Good afternoon, Witness. Can you hear me?
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good afternoon. Yes, I can.
7 JUDGE LIU: Would you please make the solemn declaration in
8 accordance with the paper the usher is showing to you?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak
10 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
11 WITNESS: IVAN BAGARIC
12 [Witness answered through interpreter]
13 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. You may sit down, please.
14 THE WITNESS: Thank you very much.
15 JUDGE LIU: Mr. Krsnik, you may proceed.
16 Examined by Mr. Krsnik:
17 Q. [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Witness.
18 A. Good afternoon.
19 Q. You can look at me.
20 A. Thank you. I can see you.
21 Q. I'm going to give you some instructions, like I do to all the
22 witnesses. Let me just tell you that you have a screen, a computer in
23 front of you, and can you see the moving dot?
24 A. Yes, I can.
25 Q. Can you please pay attention to the dot. When the dot stops,
Page 12306
1 start giving your answer both to me and to my learned friend, the
2 Prosecutor. We both speak the same language, and the most important thing
3 is that my question and your answer do not overlap, and what is very
4 important is that your answers are interpreted correctly and our
5 interpreters have to have the time to do that because everything you say
6 is interpreted in two languages in English and French. If you speak too
7 fast, your answer will be lost in translation.
8 A. I understand.
9 Q. Thank you for your cooperation. My first question to you is can
10 you first tell us your name, your first name, your last name, where were
11 you born, your short CV up to 1990?
12 A. Your Honours, thank you for the opportunity that you have given me
13 to talk about the time and the events. My name is Ivan Bagaric I was born
14 in 1962 in Tomislavgrad municipality in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is where
15 I completed my elementary and secondary education. After that, I enrolled
16 at the school of medicine in Sarajevo, from which I graduated in 1986.
17 After that, I worked as a MD in Tomislavgrad in the medical centre. So
18 that was up to 1990.
19 Q. Now, can you please tell us what were your duties, the duties that
20 you discharged after 1990?
21 A. After 1990, I continued working as an MD --
22 Q. Can you please slow down, look at the dot.
23 A. So I continued working as an MD, as a general practitioner, in the
24 first free election in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a doctor, I was elected
25 as a member of parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina. That was in 1990.
Page 12307
1 Q. Why did you say as a doctor? Were you a member of a party?
2 A. What I wanted to say was that I was a member of the Croatian
3 democratic union, but I continued working as a general practitioner in the
4 medical centre until 1992. In 1992, I joined the main medical corps,
5 i.e., one of the components of the Croatian Defence Council, which was on
6 the strength of the Croatian Defence Council. Obviously, at the time, I
7 was also a member of the parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
8 Q. In 1993, what duties did you discharge?
9 A. In 1993 I was the commander of the main medical staff of the
10 Croatian Defence Council, and that was the period during which the
11 parliament stopped holding sessions because of the war events in Bosnia
12 and Herzegovina and around it.
13 Q. We will come to that later. I just wanted you to inform the
14 Chamber of the duties that you discharged. So throughout 1993, you were
15 the commander of the medical staff?
16 A. Yes, in 1992, entire 1993, and entire 1994.
17 Q. Did you discharge any other duties in 1993 and in 1994?
18 A. No.
19 Q. Let's try and clarify that. Only yesterday, we heard in this
20 courtroom that you were the Health Minister of the Croatian Republic of
21 Bosnia and Herzegovina?
22 A. I hear this for the first time. No, I never was.
23 Q. Yesterday it was alleged here in the courtroom that this was
24 published by the Croatian Radio?
25 A. When? Nowadays?
Page 12308
1 Q. No in 1993 it was published it was said on the Radio that you were
2 the Minister of Health of Bosnia-Herzegovina?
3 A. Your Honours, I told you exactly what my position was during 1993.
4 So do I --
5 Q. Can I understand that you were never the Minister of Health of
6 Herceg-Bosna?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Let's start with my first questions. We have still not had a
9 witness here who was a member of the parliament of Bosnia and
10 Herzegovina. So could you tell us in simple words about the work of the
11 parliament at that time in 1993? Who were the deputies, what decisions
12 were made, and when did it stop existing?
13 A. The parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina consisted of two
14 chambers. The Chamber of peoples -- I apologise. I made a mistake. So
15 the Chamber of citizens and the Chamber of municipalities. I was a member
16 of the Chamber of municipalities and I was there on behalf of Tomislavgrad
17 municipality. The parliament was made up of three political parties,
18 which accounted for a large majority in the parliament. These political
19 parties were ethnically based. The Croatian Democratic Union, the Serbian
20 Democratic Party and the Party of Democratic Action. I believe that there
21 were some other, little parties with just a few seats in the parliament.
22 Q. You can speed up a little. I can see that you're following the
23 transcript but you can still speed up a little.
24 A. It is very interesting to note how these parties thought at the
25 time, i.e., what were the goals they fought for. The Croatian Democratic
Page 12309
1 Union wanted a sovereign and independent Bosnia and Herzegovina. The
2 Party of Democratic Action also --
3 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Scott?
4 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me, Mr. President, I didn't want to be on my
5 feet too soon because I thought perhaps this would be just a passing
6 topic. However, on behalf of the Prosecution, I object to this testimony,
7 and any further testimony about the parliament or about political
8 matters. The only notice given by this witness under Rule 65 ter as
9 required by the Rules is that this witness would talk about medical
10 matters, he was a chief of medical headquarters, medical attention given
11 at the war hospital. It is entirely relates to the providing of medical
12 care in the city of Mostar. There was absolutely no notice given that
13 this would be a political witness, we are hearing this now for the first
14 time. Of course we don't have any prior statements because we never get
15 prior statements so we object to this testimony at this time.
16 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Krsnik, you promised us that you will get
17 over this section as soon as possible, as part of the background of this
18 witness. Let's come to the subject matter of the testimony of this
19 witness as soon as possible.
20 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Certainly, Your Honour. I already
21 announced that. I just wanted to lay a certain background because the
22 gentleman had a certain duty and I thought it would be important for this
23 Chamber to hear about the workings of the parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina
24 because that was the first and the last parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
25 and the gentleman was a deputy in the parliament and he has his own
Page 12310
1 personal knowledge and this is the only thing that he was going to tell us
2 about. And I have only one question about that and I thought this would
3 be very interesting and your learned -- my learned friend, this was not
4 too soon. I expected you to react even sooner than you actually did.
5 Q. So you heard the objection of my learned friend. I announced you
6 as a witness who would be talking on a different matter but you have
7 personal knowledge of the workings of the parliament of
8 Bosnia-Herzegovina. You were a deputy. Can you tell us in very, very
9 short outlines, about the main events in the parliament of
10 Bosnia-Herzegovina at the time? Or maybe I could lead you. Maybe that
11 would be better. Please, can you tell us whether you were in coalition,
12 whether HDZ was in coalition with the SDA in the parliament? What do you
13 know about that?
14 A. Your Honours, I believe that the events that took place in the
15 Bosnia and Herzegovina immediately, on the eve of the war, were very
16 interesting and I would like to ask you to study the transcripts and what
17 the parliament looked like, so the HDZ and SDA were two parties that were
18 fighting for the independence of Bosnia. This is corroborated by the fact
19 that we first voted for the declaration on the independence of Bosnia and
20 Herzegovina, in order to adopt that declaration, we needed a two third
21 majority of the votes in the parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina. All
22 HDZ and SDA deputies voted in favour of that declaration. This was the
23 first precondition for the referendum on the independence of Bosnia and
24 Herzegovina. When the decision was made on the referendum, all Serbian
25 deputies headed by their leaders, left the parliament and started the
Page 12311
1 war. All I wanted to say was that as a deputy in the parliament, as a
2 doctor, I contributed towards the creation of Bosnia --
3 JUDGE LIU: Mr. Scott?
4 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, I renew our objection. Mr. Krsnik
5 said he had one question. This is now going on it's clearly entitled
6 going on to political matters which this Chamber has heard weeks and
7 weeks of testimony about. In addition to being unannounced and unnoticed
8 it is also completely cumulative. I think the Chamber has heard from many
9 witnesses about the referendum in the early 1992 and as far as I know it's
10 not even a disputed matter. A majority of the population of
11 Bosnia-Herzegovina of Croats and Muslims voted for an independent Bosnia
12 and Herzegovina. It is unnoticed evidence and it is cumulative. Thank
13 you.
14 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Krsnik, shall we come to the subject matter
15 of the testimony of this witness, please?
16 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honours, certainly. I will
17 move to the subject matter, but I always believed that there is -- when it
18 comes to the time of which we were listening for six months in the
19 Prosecution's presentation of witnesses, it is never too much to hear
20 about these times and the gentleman here participated in the political
21 life of Bosnia-Herzegovina at the time in the events that determined the
22 subsequent destiny of Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, I'll move on to my
23 next question.
24 Q. Let's move on to another subject, and tell us, during the war, or
25 on the eve of the war, what were your duties, where were you, what did you
Page 12312
1 do at the time?
2 A. As a doctor, I realised that the war was inevitable, after the
3 beginning of conflicts, i.e., Serbian attacks on Croatian areas, that is
4 on Croatian villages, I started to organise the health protection of the
5 population, together with my colleagues on the ground. We established the
6 main medical corps, which -- the main medical headquarters which was one
7 of the first organised units of the Croatian Defence Council, which
8 defended the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since the structure of
9 my headquarters is not the subject matter of my testimony.
10 Q. It is, actually?
11 A. Well, I no longer know what the subject matter is.
12 Q. Doctor, please, could you follow my questions? Would you be so
13 kind and tell us about the establishment of the headquarters and what your
14 role was in that? How was it established and how did it function during
15 the war, at the beginning of the war, who were its members?
16 A. On the eve of the open conflict and during the conflict started by
17 the Serbs, we established the main medical headquarters in order to
18 protect primarily our civilians but also our soldiers. We did that
19 because the system of health protection at the beginning of 1992 in Bosnia
20 and Herzegovina, was practically non-existent. When ties with Sarajevo
21 were severed, when the central government was blocked, we who were then on
22 the ground, had to respond to that situation and protect the people. We
23 made rounds of those areas for which we considered that they would find
24 themselves in the immediate threat of the war.
25 Q. Sorry for the interruption. Would it help you if you saw the
Page 12313
1 exhibit D1/375? Can we put D1/375 on the ELMO, please.
2 A. After the inspection of the area, we decided where we would -- we
3 were going to put up our medical points. At the beginning, they were
4 usually in the medical centres, which later on were transformed into war
5 hospitals.
6 Q. Now you can turn towards the exhibit. You have a pointer or you
7 will be given a pointer. So can you tell us about the organisation on the
8 ground, municipal, county -- municipalities, counties?
9 A. On parallel with the work that we were doing at the time, we made
10 rounds of the ground and we appointed municipal medical chiefs because the
11 whole organisation was based at the municipal level. People were
12 defending their own municipalities, their own villages, and they didn't
13 move anywhere, at the time they stayed put and they defended their own
14 homes. So all of our hospitals, I believe that there were 13 of them,
15 were established during 1992. That is at the beginning of 1992, before
16 and during the conflicts with the Serbs, i.e., during the aggression on
17 the part of the Serbs. So in Tomislavgrad, the war hospital was
18 established in 1992, or in Livno also, in Mostar as well, in Grude. It is
19 very interesting to see where all these institutions were. Some of them
20 were in hotels, some of them were in medical centres, we even used even
21 churches, hotels. I can see here that one of them was in a hospital, in a
22 factory, in schools. So in all those places, that we deemed to be secure
23 and protected. They were referred to as war hospitals but they looked
24 after everybody alike, civilians and soldiers, primarily because of the
25 fact that some parts of our areas were completely cut off from the
Page 12314
1 previously existing larger institutions and bigger hospitals.
2 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Krsnik, would you please be kind enough to
3 tell us what is the source of this document? As you asked in the past
4 many times.
5 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Certainly, Your Honour.
6 Q. Can you tell us who is the author of this document?
7 A. This is my document. So the source of this document is my
8 master's thesis, the subject of which is the organisation of health
9 protection during the war, and this thesis has been published because it
10 served as the background for a paper that I have also published.
11 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.
12 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation]
13 Q. Would you be so kind as to tell us whether you created these
14 medical centres together with Muslims, with Bosniaks? Did you cooperate
15 and did that relationship change over time? Did it or did it not?
16 A. Thank you for your question. Your Honours, I would like to tell
17 you that whatever we did at the time, we did together with our Muslim
18 colleagues, doctors, and not only with them, with everybody else. In our
19 hospitals, we had Serbian, Croatian and Muslim employees.
20 Also during all of the conflicts, we stayed together and we
21 treated everybody across the board. The first problem arose with the
22 beginning of conflict between the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the
23 Croatian Defence Council. So the army that defended Bosnia but which
24 clashed eventually. It was then when we lost some of these hospitals.
25 For example, the hospital in Bugojno which we equipped, we prepared, but
Page 12315
1 when Bugojno was taken by the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina and when the
2 Croatian population was expelled from that municipality, we obviously lost
3 the hospital. The same happened in Jablanica. So the hospital in
4 Jablanica was the hospital which was an off-shoot of the Mostar war
5 hospital, and there we treated everybody during the conflict with the
6 Serbs. However, after the -- with the development of the situation in the
7 Neretva valley, we lost that hospital as well, and in some of the areas
8 across Bosnia-Herzegovina, such as Tuzla, Bosanska Bijela, so Bosanska,
9 Posavina, Tolisa, the northern parts of Bosnia, all the time we worked
10 together until the end of the war and this cooperation was never
11 interrupted or discontinued.
12 Q. Witness, could you briefly tell the Trial Chamber what the
13 principles were on which the medical headquarters based itself?
14 A. The working principles in our institutions were as follows, were
15 the following. First of all, we worked in an integrated manner, that is
16 to say we took care of everyone, we treated everyone. Women, children,
17 soldiers and civilians, old people, young people. Thousands of babies
18 were born in our hospitals. So perhaps it's not good to say -- it's not
19 good to call those hospitals war hospitals because in the medical
20 profession, a war profession refers to something entirely different.
21 However, we called them war hospitals because they were located in
22 war surroundings and secondly, the second principle which we respected in
23 those hospitals was that everyone should be treated equally. I would
24 like to inform this venerable court that our hospitals treated all
25 patients, regardless of their nationality, regardless of whether a son was
Page 12316
1 treated as a member of this army or that army, or regardless of the fact
2 that someone had perhaps even committed a crime. He would be treated and
3 in exactly the same way, and with exactly the same level of competence.
4 And as I have already said, I'm afraid that the Prosecutor might object to
5 me repeating this, I would like to repeat that in our institutions, all
6 doctors, regardless of their nationality worked together. No one was ever
7 dismissed from those institutions because he was a member of another
8 nationality. And no one was ever rejected throughout those war years
9 without being offered help because he was a member of another nationality
10 or a member of some other army. I can claim this as a fact.
11 Q. Was your medical headquarters organised on a volunteer basis or
12 was mobilisation involved or something else?
13 A. I'm glad that you have put this question to me because I would
14 like to say how our organisation was an exclusively voluntary
15 organisation. It's true to say that during the war, I did write orders
16 because I didn't know how else to address people in the course of the
17 war. I didn't write requests for something to be done but I never wrote
18 an order according to which someone had to work in a hospital or according
19 to which someone had to go here or there, except if that meant offering
20 help, except in cases when help had to be offered or when someone's life
21 had to be saved or if it meant perhaps in areas where there were no
22 doctors but many civilians and soldiers had been wounded or suffered, when
23 they needed help, we would do so, I would write orders for this. So our
24 organisation worked on an exclusively voluntary basis and no one was
25 forced to do anything.
Page 12317
1 Q. Could you be so kind as to tell us whether you had any experience
2 of organisations, headquarters, medical headquarters in those
3 extraordinary circumstances, had you had any experience prior to these
4 events or did you gain this experience in the course of the events?
5 A. As a representative in parliament I observed what was happening in
6 Croatia. So the aggression against Croatia, by the Serbian paramilitary
7 units and the Yugoslav army. I took this to be an aggression against
8 human rights and against freedom. And I was interested to see what my
9 colleagues, other doctors in Croatia were doing. Similarly, as up until
10 then we had been living in the same state, in Yugoslavia, we had
11 cooperation with Croatian doctors, with Croatian hospitals, from earlier
12 on, and I personally went to Zagreb at the beginning of the war and I
13 visited the main medical headquarters in Croatia which, at the beginning,
14 initially, was organised as a civilian institution, and later on,
15 Mr. Prodan, Commander Prodan, became its head. I told him, "As a doctor,
16 if it's necessary, I'm at your disposal." Because the casualties in
17 Croatia -- this was taking place very near my house. There is no more
18 than three kilometres, a few kilometres from my house to the border as the
19 crow flies. We partially learned from them and partially to an extent I
20 spent sometime in the hospital in Split. This hospital was about 80
21 kilometres away from Tomislavgrad or maybe 90 kilometres away from
22 Tomislavgrad.
23 Why was I there? First of all, I wanted to learn more about the
24 organisation of health care in extraordinary circumstances. And secondly,
25 many Croats from the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina and especially from
Page 12318
1 Tomislavgrad, at the beginning of the war in Croatia, they went to defend
2 Vukovar, Dubrovnik, Zadar, Sibenik and Split on a voluntary basis and I
3 was worried about their fate. They were my neighbours. So this is what I
4 had experienced. And of course, this was not sufficient. But it was
5 important for me. If I was going to develop a system which was quite
6 different from a civilian one. And now I think that I am a lot more
7 capable for such organisations.
8 JUDGE LIU: Witness, I believe this Chamber is only interested in
9 the incidents that happened in 1993, that is during the conflict between
10 the Muslims and the Croats during that period. Please concentrate your
11 testimony on that period.
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Very well. I thank you.
13 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honours.
14 Q. When you mentioned Split, the hospital in Split, can you tell us
15 what role it had in the course of 1993? Do you personally know how many
16 wounded there were, how many people were treated? Did you personally
17 cooperate with that hospital in the course of 1993?
18 A. I apologise. Sometimes I go off on a tangent, it's true, but Your
19 Honours believe me this is my first time I've been here and I'm slightly
20 nervous. So in 1993, the hospital in Split, in the course of that year,
21 and before that year as well as later on, the hospital in Split was a
22 hospital to which we would send all those who had been seriously wounded.
23 We didn't have any medical centres. We didn't have the possibility of
24 providing quality health care. And this is why we sent many patients to
25 the hospital in Split. Tens of thousands, I would say. I know as a fact
Page 12319
1 that all those from Bosnia and Herzegovina were patients in the hospital
2 in Split. I think that there were at least about 15.000 Croats there.
3 And I think almost 4.000 Muslims, either civilians or soldiers. In the
4 course of that entire period, the hospital in Split was open to us. It
5 was open to us and to the Muslims and during the conflict with the
6 Muslims. That never ceased.
7 Q. In the course of 1993 and 1994, throughout that period?
8 A. Yes, that's right, throughout 1992, 1993 and 1994. Right up until
9 the end of the war, when Sarajevo, the blockade of Sarajevo was raised as
10 well as the blockade of Tuzla which were medical centres, where there were
11 medical centres and which could then take over the role of the
12 institutions which were taking care of those who had been most seriously
13 wounded.
14 Q. Did you have enough personnel? Did you have enough medical
15 supplies and equipment? Could you briefly tell us about this, to see what
16 the situation was in the course of 1993?
17 A. There was a shortage of everything. We didn't have enough
18 doctors. Especially specialists. Surgeons, who were indispensable, in
19 order to establish such a system, such a health system in wartime
20 situation. Similarly, we didn't have enough equipment, we didn't have
21 sufficient medical supplies. And all these problems were the result of
22 the fact that three big medical centres in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Banja Luka,
23 Tuzla, and Sarajevo, and several regional centres, such as Zenica,
24 Travnik, they were outside of the other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
25 These parts were totally closed and blocked off.
Page 12320
1 Q. Could you tell me as a follow-up to this question, if we could
2 concentrate on Mostar or the surroundings, the areas that you are
3 personally familiar with in Bosnia-Herzegovina, how were the Muslims, the
4 Bosniaks, organised? And I'm referring primarily to your colleagues, to
5 other doctors.
6 A. Well, perhaps the Trial Chamber will most -- will be interested in
7 this segment most of all, in the course of 1993, which relates to the
8 organisation of health care in Mostar, that is to say the organisation of
9 health in the hospital in Mostar, which at the time was a wartime
10 hospital, a war hospital in Mostar. First of all, I would like to point
11 something out --
12 Q. Witness, if I can lead you, would you be so kind, Mostar is a
13 special subject but could you tell us how your colleagues, your other
14 doctors, Muslims, Bosniaks, how they organised, just as a sort of
15 introduction, just in general terms? I can't put suggestive questions to
16 you. My questions have been very general so please could all your answers
17 be very open but we just have to pay attention to the subject. Perhaps I
18 could show you a document. You will tell the Trial Chamber what the
19 source is. The document would be D1/376. Could you tell us what the
20 cooperation was between you? Was it organised independently or together?
21 You know what I mean.
22 A. May I start or should I wait?
23 Q. Wait to have a look at the document.
24 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, we have managed to
25 translate everything and all the documents are in English.
Page 12321
1 A. Yes. This is a document that I signed. And which refers to the
2 27th of September, to that period, so it was at the end or in the second
3 half of 1992. This is proof that we doctors started developing a health
4 system together in those parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina which were not
5 under occupation, which had not been occupied by the Serbs. So, for
6 example, here in the order they mention that it is necessary to exchange
7 the personnel, the team, in the Jablanica war hospital. At the time,
8 Croats and Muslims were being treated in that hospital, although the
9 Muslims are in the majority in Jablanica. And although most of the
10 personnel in Jablanica were Muslims. And I issued this order so that the
11 surgical team from the war hospital in Mostar should go and replace the
12 surgical team in Jablanica because there was no surgery ward in that
13 hospital before the war. So the hospital in Jablanica was a sort of
14 branch of the war hospital in Mostar. And then in the second paragraph
15 of this order, there is the second claim. I say immediately send surgical
16 team to Travnik, so it means that at the time of the defence of Travnik,
17 which was defended by Muslims and the Croats together, under the
18 leadership of the HVO, the Croatian Defence Council, it means that in that
19 hospital, there was not a sufficient number of doctors there or rather it
20 means that the doctors had no relief, they didn't have the opportunity of
21 having a rest so it was important to reassign those doctors. It was
22 important to help them. And this is proof, this is something that can
23 prove that we cooperated. Muslim doctors, colleagues, joined our
24 organisation. We worked together. As I have already said, that
25 cooperation continued, mostly, right up to the end of the war and it never
Page 12322
1 ceased.
2 Q. I thank you.
3 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours I would just like an
4 instruction from you. This was always the time for a break. Are we going
5 to adhere to that schedule or are we going to continue because it's
6 already half past three.
7 JUDGE LIU: It depends how long your direct examination will go.
8 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I think because we got
9 quite a lot of documents, that I want to go through, which I want to
10 introduce through this witness, because he is the author, I think it's
11 going to it take another hour or an hour and a half at least because of
12 the number of documents that we have. It will be less than what I said
13 in the summary. That's for sure.
14 JUDGE LIU: Yes, I quite understand. But I hope you could finish
15 your direct examination before next break. We will break now until 4.00.
16 --- Recess taken at 3.33 p.m.
17 --- On resuming at 4.02 p.m.
18 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Krsnik. Please continue.
19 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I would just like to say
20 that I am not sure that I will finish by the end of this break, because I
21 think that the testimony of this witness could be of great help to this
22 Trial Chamber because we have four major subjects, three of which refer
23 to testimony given before this Trial Chamber. We'll try to see what this
24 witness knows about that. Sovici and Doljani will be a special subject
25 because this witness has personal knowledge about it. That's quite a
Page 12323
1 major subject. And then the subject of Mostar and the Mostar war hospital
2 as well as the detention centres, or the central military prison in the
3 Heliodrom. We also have quite a lot of documents and this is the
4 beginning of this background. Perhaps you consider that it is an
5 introductory part and that we have heard a lot about this already but
6 there is always something knew that you hear from witnesses who have
7 particular information about these matters.
8 Q. So doctor, let's turn to these more important so to speak matters
9 and let's try to hear what you know with regard to the war hospital in
10 Mostar, and let me put a question to you immediately. We've heard two
11 witnesses in this -- before this Trial Chamber about that matter.
12 According to the testimony of one of the witnesses, you carried a weapon
13 in the hospital and it wasn't -- they didn't know who you were exactly.
14 Could you please comment on this? As this was a witness who gave
15 testimony, open testimony, this was Mr. Van der Grinten an observer of the
16 European Union and he said that he became acquainted Mr. Bagaric, with a
17 certain Mr. Bagaric. Was there another Mr. Bagaric in the hospital?
18 A. No.
19 Q. And he said that you were armed in the hospital. And that there
20 wasn't much cooperation. Something like that.
21 A. Your Honours, I don't know whom I could ask about my rights. If
22 this is correct, if someone made these claims, what rights do I have if
23 none of this is correct? Can I, for example, institute proceedings
24 against him or can I call him to provide an explanation about this?
25 Q. No. Just say what you have to say and the Trial Chamber shall
Page 12324
1 bring a decision.
2 JUDGE LIU: Well -- the Defence counsel put the case to you and
3 you have the full right to dispute with this allegation in this courtroom.
4 Whatever you said will be registered in the transcript. Yes, Mr. Scott?
5 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I considered objecting before and then
6 the witness's response exactly confirmed that I should have in fact
7 objected. Mr. President, I object to the manner of putting questions to
8 the witnesses, identifying other witnesses in the case, even if they were
9 p in public session. I believe it's sufficient for the counsel to put to
10 the witness quite clearly the question, when you worked in the hospital,
11 did you carry -- did you carry a firearm. There is no reason public or
12 non-public to go into these long, argumentive statements about what some
13 other witness said. I object to that, and if that then been done -- if
14 that had been done, excuse me, we hopefully would not have had the
15 personal outburst of the witness.
16 JUDGE LIU: Well, witness, you may simply answer the question,
17 whether you carried a weapon or not at that time, and then the Defence
18 counsel will ask you the follow-up questions.
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours. So I can
20 quite responsibly claim before all of you here that before you, you have a
21 man who never carried a weapon, no kind of weapon, and no kind of pistol,
22 throughout the entire period of war. And as far as I know, according to
23 the Geneva Convention medical personnel can carry weapons if they go out
24 into the field, et cetera. So it's -- there is nothing wrong if some did
25 that but I, Ivan Bagaric, I personally never had a weapon, took a weapon
Page 12325
1 in the course of the war, and no one ever saw me with a pistol hanging
2 from my belt, and especially not in the hospital. That's quite incorrect.
3 That's a lie. I was a doctor.
4 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation]
5 Q. Could you please tell us for patients of Muslim nationality, do
6 you know whether they were treated differently from members of other
7 nationalities and were there cases where someone could come to the
8 hospital and take them away where they wanted to take them to? We have
9 heard testimony to this effect, not many, but we've heard testimony from
10 one witness to this effect?
11 A. Well, I was the commander of the entire health system of the HVO
12 in Posavina in central Bosnia and in Mostar. Each war hospital had its
13 own commander, that is to say its own leadership and that is to say for
14 the Mostar as well. Circumstances were such I spent that year, the year
15 you're interested in, Your Honours, I spent that year in Mostar. So
16 throughout the year 1993, I was in Mostar. And my office was located in
17 one -- in a building which belonged to the war hospital, which was part of
18 the war hospital complex. And I claim that a patient because he was a
19 member of another peoples was never treated differently. How can I know
20 that you might say that I didn't know each patient there so how do I know
21 this? But I would like to convince you that all doctors who worked in the
22 Mostar hospital, regardless of their nationality treated every one equally
23 and I would certainly have found out if there had been cases in which
24 people were treated differently. This never took place. And I understand
25 the second part of your question and I will address it but I want to tell
Page 12326
1 the Trial Chamber how we worked, because this is being recorded for
2 history. This is important for me and for all of us.
3 With regard to this second issue, this second question, we had a
4 hospital in five locations in Mostar, in the town in which there was
5 fighting, there was a war. So in a town -- well the buildings were
6 surrounded by fighting, our surgery department was at the front line
7 almost so we had to have security and we did security. We had military
8 police, we had some kind of -- well, I can't say some kind of but we had
9 people who were not sent to the battlefield and so on. Home guards, who
10 were there and who guarded the entrance to the hospital. The hospital
11 wasn't an institution anyone could go into. Whenever anyone entered the
12 hospital he could be checked, registered, and there was one thing I would
13 like to say now. To this very day, even in peace time, many hospitals
14 have problems with relatives with patients who want to know more, who want
15 someone to be treated in this way or in that way. And during the war,
16 after someone had been killed or after someone had been wounded then his
17 colleagues would enter and I think that doctors were even threatened if
18 he's going to die I'm going to do this thing or that thing. But thank
19 God, apart from such incidents, nothing else happened. If someone had
20 been taken away from the hospital, a wounded person, because he was of a
21 different nationality I would have known about that because if there was
22 any kind of incident in the hospital or in the vicinity of the hospital I
23 would have heard this from the commander of the hospital. I would have
24 found out about it and I would have reacted. I can't remember a single
25 incident a single case of someone taking someone away. So if such a thing
Page 12327
1 had taken place, I would have known about it. And I never heard about
2 such an incident. I categorically -- I would like to categorically state
3 this.
4 Q. Witness, according to your knowledge, were the patients allowed to
5 sit around the hospital? I think that part is called Bijeli Brijeg in
6 1993, were they allowed to walk around the hospital?
7 A. I was not allowed to walk around the hospital because the
8 situation was as it was, unfortunately. I don't know what you're aiming
9 at but there were -- it was impossible for any of the patients walking
10 around the hospital, if they were hospitalised, because I repeat, if
11 somebody is hospitalised, then they are hospitalised. But during the war,
12 when the shells are falling, when sniper fire is being opened, this is
13 absolutely impossible. And I don't know of any hospital any patients
14 roaming around freely around the hospital.
15 Q. I'm again putting you this question because of some testimony that
16 we've heard in this courtroom. Can you please tell us what was the
17 longest time that a patient could spend in your hospital? Obviously I
18 understand this depended on the diagnosis. But let's say a seriously
19 wounded patient comes into your hospital, what would you do, what would
20 you as the hospital in Mostar, how would you treat the patient?
21 A. At that time, I was a GP and now I have a specialisation in
22 public health. So I wasn't a surgeon then. I still am not a surgeon,
23 and as regards the length of the treatment of certain patients, especially
24 a surgical patient, the structure of injuries is different during the war
25 than it is during the peace time. So there is a number of people who are
Page 12328
1 injured who come to the hospital during the wartime. So surgeons were in
2 charge of that and they decided how long somebody was going to spend in
3 the hospital but the key issue here that a the Mostar hospital was not a
4 safe hospital, which means that it was surrounded by fighting. It was in
5 the war zone. And it was also not safe for the patients inside because
6 the hospital was shelled and it was also not safe for the medical
7 personnel. So we were forced, after the urgent treatment and triage --
8 Q. Can you please slow down? I'm listening to you and everything is
9 being recorded in the transcript.
10 A. So after the triage and the urgent treatment these patients were
11 either discharged as fit to go home to or to their units or if their
12 condition required a longer treatment and this was any treatment that
13 extended a period of 15 to 20 days, these patients were then referred to
14 Split, for so to say final treatment which included physiotherapy and
15 other types of treatment. So our hospital was in the zone of war
16 operations and we could not provide our patients with the full treatment.
17 We could not keep them for as long as we would have wanted to.
18 Q. Do you know, in March, 1993, how would it have been possible for a
19 patient from Sarajevo to come to Mostar for a hospital treatment? Can you
20 please clarify? Do you personally know, let's say there is a patient in
21 Sarajevo, it is March, 1993 and that same patient comes to Mostar for
22 treatment. Did you ever have a case like that? Was that possible at
23 all? What do you know about that, a case like that?
24 A. Okay. March, 1993, is the time when Sarajevo was completely
25 occupied. I apologise. It was isolated. It was under a blockade. It
Page 12329
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Page 12337
1 was also the period when the communications with Mostar were interrupted.
2 So there were no routes to Mostar which were free for passage. Whether
3 anybody could have transferred with the help of UNPROFOR or some other
4 organisation, I don't know, but it was not possible in a normal way.
5 Q. Do you remember any patient that stayed in the hospital from
6 March, 1993, to July, 1993? So for four months.
7 A. I must say, and I have to be fully honest and say that I cannot --
8 I couldn't know every patient personally. We are talking about thousands
9 of people here but it would be very unusual for anybody to stay in the
10 hospital for such a long time, because by that time, they would either
11 have been cured or referred for further treatment. So I don't know why
12 would such a thing happen.
13 Q. If I understood you well, the Mostar hospital was the hospital
14 where only urgent care was provided, primary care was provided?
15 A. I have to correct you. It was not the hospital that provided
16 primary care. If you say primary care, primary care is the care that is
17 provided by general practitioners. The hospital in Mostar was an
18 institution where we had neuropsychiatric patients, surgical patients,
19 patients with internal diseases so it was at the level of the secondary
20 care, health care, but at the time, during the war, unfortunately, we
21 could not provide the full extent of that care because we did not have a
22 neurosurgeon so we could not carry out any neurosurgical procedures. So
23 that hospital was not the hospital that could provide the full extent of
24 care to all the injured persons. People were either taken care of
25 urgently and referred to another hospital or they were fully cured.
Page 12338
1 Q. Let's round up this subject and move on to Sovici and Doljani. I
2 would like to show you D1/354. Can you tell the Honourable Court what
3 this document means, who is its author and so on and so forth?
4 While we are waiting for this document, can you tell us the
5 approximate number in May, June, July, August, September, October, of
6 1993, how many patients did you treat? Who were Muslims or Bosniaks?
7 A. I apologise, I was not concentrating. Can you repeat the
8 question?
9 Q. Certainly. Can you remember or give us an approximate figure from
10 May, 1993 up to the end of 1993, how many Muslim patients did your
11 hospital treat, cured or referred to other centres? And a subquestion:
12 Did you, throughout 1993, have Muslim doctors working in the hospital? So
13 two questions.
14 A. Yes. I understand. We had as many Muslim patients as there were
15 at the time. And I can't give you the exact figure but the number was
16 rather large, several thousand, I would say. I cannot be very precise.
17 I can talk about that but I cannot give you the -- a precise figure.
18 There were many. I can't say that their number was equal as a number of
19 Croats. There was probably a fewer number of them, but we never counted
20 heads and we never counted who was who, and every patient regardless of
21 their nationality or ethnic affiliation were treated the same. I would
22 also like to say that no doctor, no member of staff, paramedic or any
23 other member of staff, was dismissed, fired, because of their religion or
24 national affiliation. I have an example that I would like to share with
25 you, Your Honours. Throughout the entire war, the two key surgeons were
Page 12339
1 two Serbs. Also, all the Muslims who stayed in Mostar remained working
2 together with us, and all these people, after the war, were proposed to
3 get ranks. Somebody asked me why should Dr. Ruzic be a colonel and my
4 answer was that that person deserves all the respect and all the ranks
5 that can be had. That was my attitude and that was the attitude of all of
6 us across the board.
7 Q. Can you please comment on this document, 354?
8 A. This document, I remember. I remember why it was written.
9 Q. What is the source?
10 A. The source is the main medical headquarters of the HVO. I signed
11 it -- this document personally, and among -- and this document served as
12 the background material which I used in my master's thesis. This is a
13 communication which was written, and issued, before the beginning of the
14 first conflict. This was on the 14th of April, for fear of a possible
15 conflict. So this document dates before the conflict with Muslims in
16 Mostar. So this document is the result of our fears of the possible
17 consequences in the city of Mostar, and as a result of a meeting that we
18 had, we doctors had, in order to organise ourselves and decide what we
19 were going to do, and the meeting was attended by Croats and Muslims, upon
20 my -- on my initiative, I chaired the meeting, together with a commander,
21 Dr. Kvesic and you can see from the text why was this meeting held, and
22 why it resulted in a press release published on the Radio Mostar which was
23 at that time controlled by the Muslim side and which brought some
24 untruthful facts. These incorrect facts were relative to the things that
25 were allegedly being done by Croats in Mostar. Unfortunately we were
Page 12340
1 aware that these incorrect facts could have resulted in a separation
2 between Muslim and Croat doctors, and that's why we wanted to support
3 fighting, the joint fighting of Muslims and Croats against the common
4 enemy. So this was the time unfortunately the time when there were
5 already sporadic incidents between the Army of BH and the Croatian Defence
6 Council. As a member of the Croatian Defence Council I was afraid that
7 within the army, within one army that was defending the state against the
8 aggression, I was afraid because that army was not under the unique
9 command. It had two commanders. I was afraid that there would be
10 conflicts. And that conflict, actually you could tell that there would be
11 conflict even before this communication. Personally, without anybody's
12 advice or about anybody's advice to the contrary, the end of 1992, I tried
13 to establish some cooperation with the Muslim side. I tried to establish
14 some cooperation with their chief of the medical staff, and I even offered
15 him some solutions. I offered him the possibility to jointly sign some
16 documents to work together.
17 JUDGE LIU: We understand that you're eager to give your testimony
18 but Defence counsel asked you a very simple question. That is what is the
19 source of this document. I think during the first few sentences, you have
20 already answered that question. If the Defence counsel would like to ask
21 more questions, he would, and you may answer his follow-up questions.
22 Yes, Mr. Krsnik.
23 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours. There may
24 have been a misunderstanding. I asked the witness to clarify the
25 circumstances under which the document was drafted, and issued, and that
Page 12341
1 is what I wanted the witness to tell us.
2 Q. We are going to go back to the 9th of May and your relationship
3 with Arif Pasalic and we are going to talk about all those whom you knew
4 personally and had contacts with, but we are now going to move on to other
5 documents. And I would like to ask you again general question, about the
6 cooperation with the international organisations and whether you attended
7 a meeting in Jablanica, whether you made rounds of Sovici and Doljani, and
8 some other places on the 4th of May, 1993. What was the occasion of that
9 visit? Who was a member of the delegation? Who was there? What was
10 discussed there?
11 A. I apologise, again, I've heard several questions.
12 Q. I apologise. I did not want to confuse you. Let's put you one
13 question at a time. The first question is: Did you attend any meetings
14 on 4th of May, 1993 in Jablanica?
15 A. Your Honours, can somebody please move this paper? Because I
16 can't see the transcript. Thank you very much.
17 This meeting was held on my initiative. This may sound
18 pretentious, because Mr. Petkovic, Mr. Halilovic, Mr. Morillon, and Mr.
19 Morales attended that meeting. So yes, the answer is I did attend that
20 meeting.
21 Q. When you speak too fast, what happens is that we end up with just
22 two names instead of four. Can you please just slowly tell us where the
23 meeting took place and who were the main participants in that meeting?
24 A. If the Honourable Court will allow me, I would first like to
25 explain why I initiated that meeting, why I wanted that meeting to take
Page 12342
1 place. We had learned that in some municipalities, to be more precise in
2 some villages, in Kostajnica and in Neretvica, some crimes had been
3 committed over the Croatian civilians, and those places were Buscak,
4 Trusina. This all --
5 Q. Can you please repeat the name of the first village?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. That's why we want you to repeat the name slowly?
8 A. The name is Buscak. Trusina. Seonica and so on and so forth.
9 Again Seonica is spelled wrongly. Seonica. Again, it is not spelled
10 correctly but let's not waste any more time. So this was on 14 April, and
11 16 April, so before any other conflicts. Unfortunately even before the
12 open conflicts in central Bosnia or at the same time, in the second case
13 it was at the same time and in the first case, it was before that. The
14 members of the BH Army stormed into the villages which were not defended
15 and they killed several civilians.
16 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Scott?
17 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour we would object to the relevance of this
18 testimony. I thought there might be a medically related meeting in
19 Jablanica. That's why I was just waiting to see where the testimony was
20 going. This is simply once again tu quoque. Unless counsel can
21 articulate a very specific other relevance for this testimony.
22 JUDGE LIU: Well, Witness, just tell us about that meeting.
23 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, allow me to address the
24 Chamber. I know that you are not familiar with this testimony and that
25 all you know about it is what it says in the summary. I believe it is not
Page 12343
1 -- it is not -- one should not be allowed to interrupt this meeting, who
2 is going to talk -- tell us about the very crucial meeting in Jablanica.
3 This has nothing to do with tu quoque. His thought -- that his train of
4 thoughts was interrupted in midway. There were some objections on --
5 regarding the BH Army, with regard to the events in Sovici and Doljani and
6 that is why the meeting took place. It is not correct it to interrupt the
7 meeting midway in the middle of his sentence and all the objections, tu
8 quoque objections, are raised every time when my learned friend finds
9 something unsuitable, he gets up and with the objection tu quoque. And it
10 is very relevant, very relevant because it is very important why the top
11 army officials of the HVO and the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina met, and then
12 they went to visit Sovici and Doljani and then you will hear what happened
13 later on. The Prosecutor had a videotape in this courtroom, showed us a
14 videotape, and I will not allow my witness to be interrupted like this.
15 I'm not allowed to say anything. I can't give you the testimony instead
16 of the witness. I don't know how to do that so let's please allow my
17 witness to explain everything.
18 JUDGE CLARK: Mr. Krsnik, if your witness as a doctor had said in
19 a number of small villages, there were Croat civilian victims, perhaps it
20 wouldn't sound like tu quoque but to it use language like, members of the
21 BH Army stormed into the villages, which were not defended and killed
22 civilians, does sound a little bit like describing events in the war.
23 Perhaps there is a different way to describe. He should be as a doctor I
24 would imagine concerned about the death of civilians rather than the
25 activities of an army.
Page 12344
1 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] I apologise, Your Honours. I
2 absolutely agree with you, Your Honour, Judge Clark, and I believe that
3 this should be so. However, people are not used to giving testimony in
4 this courtroom, and I believe that this witness has never been in any
5 courtroom before. Your Honour, there were rumours circulating and people.
6 MR. SCOTT: I object, Your Honour, once again counsel is giving
7 testimony. There is no reason for this.
8 JUDGE LIU: Well --
9 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] In that case, let's allow my witness
10 to give testimony.
11 JUDGE LIU: Yes, witness, please come to that meeting in Jablanica
12 directly.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. Your
14 Honours, allow me to tell you what I think and what I have to tell you,
15 and not what I'm being suggested or instructed to tell you. Your Honour,
16 Judge Clark, I did -- was not so much concerned about those who had been
17 killed because I couldn't help them. I was concerned about the wounded
18 because they require treatment and there was no way we could access to
19 them. And it was my duty and my task to give them help. What else could
20 I do but to be concerned, to ask questions, to beg around, who did I beg?
21 Everybody, the Red Cross, the United Nations, everybody. I wrote several
22 requests. Unfortunately, I had better information than other people.
23 That's what my doctors told me. So on several occasions, I tried to go
24 there in order to pull out those people who were wounded, in order to
25 treat them. But since all my attempts failed, even with the help of the
Page 12345
1 Red Cross, led by Mr. Mark Perot [phoen] who took us to Jablanica in ten
2 ambulance cars, and then he was returned once and then he would return for
3 a second time, and I -- unsuccessfully tried to get there. Then I asked
4 Mr. Morales, who was the commander of the Spanish Battalion and I told
5 him, "Mr. Morales, I believe it is also your task to enable me and my
6 doctors to go there and help those people." And he agreed and I'm
7 so grateful to him. So Morales invite Mr. Petkovic, Mr. Halilovic, to
8 this meeting in Sovici after several failed attempts on my part to get to
9 these places. And that is how this meeting took place, but rather late.
10 Unfortunately. But as long as it happened. Better late than never.
11 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation]
12 Q. Where was that meeting?
13 A. That meeting was organised in the area under the control of
14 UNPROFOR, the Spanish Battalion in Jablanica. So in their camp.
15 Q. Can you remember all the participants in that meeting?
16 A. No, I can't.
17 Q. Was Mr. Arif Pasalic at the meeting together with Mr. Halilovic?
18 A. Yes, he was.
19 Q. And Mr. Sulejman Budakovic also known as Tetak?
20 A. Unfortunately I spoke with Tetak before, but I cannot confirm that
21 he was at the meeting but Halilovic and Pasalic were at the meeting. I
22 can confirm that.
23 Q. Was Mr. Rasim Delic present?
24 A. I believe so.
25 Q. Can you tell the Honourable Court who these people were?
Page 12346
1 A. The host of that meeting was Colonel Morales the commander of the
2 Spanish Battalion in Medjugorje. There was Mr. Petkovic, the chief of
3 the Main Staff of the HVO. There was me as the chief of the medical
4 headquarters of the HVO. There was Mr. Halilovic, the commander of the BH
5 Army. There was Mr. Pasalic, the commander of the Mostar zone of the BH
6 Army and representatives of the red -- International Red Cross, I believe
7 were at the meeting. So this is the answer to your question, who attended
8 the meeting.
9 Q. The question now I would like to ask Madam Registrar to give you
10 the document D1/367, Exhibit 1/368, Exhibit 1/379, D1/370, and 1/359. And
11 finally, D1/381. When you get all these documents, could you examine them
12 individually. The usher will put the English original on the ELMO and
13 could you briefly tell us what the source of these documents and what each
14 document is. After that, we will move on, talk about what happened at the
15 meeting, and we'll talk about where you went and what happened.
16 A. Thank you for these documents. This is what I wanted to explain a
17 little earlier on. The first document, the International Committee of the
18 Red Cross dated the 24th of April, 1993, in that document, that document
19 states what I have just said, that in the area of Klisa --
20 Q. I think the number is?
21 A. The Court number, D1/367. So looking at this document, I know
22 Ms. Minder I'm informing her, Ms. Minder, of the situation in Konjic, that
23 is to say in Klisa, and I informed her of the fact that many civilians
24 were killed, that many were wounded, and I asked them, because there was
25 no one else to ask, I asked them whether they could help me. And I
Page 12347
1 understand that there is nothing she can do if she's not allowed to do so.
2 So this is a document with which I want to prove that crimes were being
3 perpetrated or rather with which I wanted to draw attention to the fact
4 that crimes were being perpetrated. I had to do this. Furthermore --
5 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Scott?
6 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, the witness's answer just now confirmed
7 the objection I was about to make. I object at this moment until further
8 relevance for all this line of questions is indicated. Again, there has
9 never been a question that crimes were committed by all sides during this
10 terrible war, the Prosecutor should never question that at one moment, and
11 every victim on every side has our full sympathy and our regret for what
12 happened. I mean that quite sincerely. But now we are simply going
13 through a series of meetings about correspondence apparently about this
14 doctor, and I don't question at this moment his good efforts to get
15 medical care to certain locations.
16 Now that may have been a respectable thing to do, Your Honour but
17 how is it relevant to it the issues in this case? Is it a defence against
18 the charges that are charged against Mr. Naletilic? How is this a
19 defence? How is this relevant to the issues in this case? We object.
20 JUDGE LIU: Well, Witness, counsel asked you a question about the
21 source of this document. You just answer that question. As for the
22 contents of this document, we could see by ourselves.
23 And Mr. Krsnik, I think you have to establish the relevancy of
24 this document to this very case. We do not know where you are going to
25 lead us to at this moment.
Page 12348
1 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I have to admit,
2 although I've been a professional for many years it's really necessary to
3 have patience. First of all, the Prosecutor doesn't allow me to -- he
4 should not comment on the Defence's strategy because I didn't comment on
5 his. This is very relevant because this witness is here. This witness
6 has very important information regarding Sovici and Doljani, where the
7 Prosecutor says that my client expelled people, he expelled people from
8 those places and was the overall commander. The witness, and it doesn't
9 matter whether he's a doctor or a priest or an ordinary citizen, on the
10 5th of April, he was on the site with the highest, with those in the
11 highest positions of the command and he heard and saw the most important
12 matters. I want to prove how this happened. I want to prove this before
13 this Trial Chamber, what happened on the 16th of April in Trusina is not
14 important, neither are the crimes committed against the Croats. That's
15 not important. They don't have to be important at all.
16 But that this witness should explain when he asked for help for
17 one situation they said we have another situation so that we could see how
18 all of this happened, we need to be patient. What the Prosecutor is doing
19 is nothing but obstructing the examination-in-chief. The freedom that a
20 lawyer has to conduct his defence in accordance with the Rules of this
21 Tribunal, when selecting the witness, witnesses, I selected the ones I
22 thought would be able to provide this venerable Trial Chamber with the
23 greatest number of facts and explain the overall situation. If certain
24 things perhaps need to be said, why should there be an objection? Why
25 should an objection be raised immediately, if we want to get what we want
Page 12349
1 to get to, but we can't skip over the fact that there was a meeting in
2 Jablanica and how this happened if we don't hear the entire story. We'll
3 ignore all the Croatian victims it. We will ignore all of that.
4 JUDGE CLARK: We don't want another war here but may I just say
5 personally if both of you stopped interrupting each other, we could get on
6 much better with the trial. Yesterday, it was Mr. Krsnik interrupting
7 Mr. Scott or Mr. Stringer, and today it's the other way around. I think I
8 understand where this witness is coming from and where you are taking us
9 and it's in relation to persecution. It's rebuttal evidence but let's all
10 just, as Mr. Krsnik said, be patient and Mr. Krsnik, could you try not to
11 get so excited? Now, we are all adults here and let's behave as
12 professionals and if your witness was allowed to tell his story, with
13 interruptions only from us, perhaps we would get there faster.
14 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I think that
15 you are absolutely right. I apologise. Perhaps I wasn't behaving in a
16 professional manner. It came more from the heart perhaps. It's very
17 difficult for me to get used to, to it adapt to the Anglo-Saxon system
18 because I brought in a witness and I thought that he would be allowed to
19 give testimony, and then he starts and he's interrupted. I'm not used to
20 this because the judge has the main word in our system and then the
21 defence and the prosecution present their case once the judges have
22 finished because such objections are not raised in this manner and
23 perhaps I lose my patience in such cases and I apologise for this.
24 This is because I know where the testimony -- where the witness is
25 heading and he is not allowed to do this. He is not allowed to give his
Page 12350
1 testimony. But once more I would like to it apologise, and Your Honour, I
2 think you're absolutely right.
3 Q. Witness, you heard all the objections and I would like to ask you
4 to concentrate on the matter and say briefly what these documents
5 represent. Let's turn to the meeting in Jablanica and talk about --
6 discuss what was -- what issues were addressed at that meeting and then we
7 shall carry on. Please do comment on the documents?
8 A. I fear this might not be necessary.
9 Q. Briefly, very briefly?
10 A. Well the document speaks for itself.
11 Q. Okay?
12 A. I wanted to show the chronology of events on the 24th of April, on
13 the 28th of April, and finally the request to Mr. Morales on the 5th of
14 May. That's the chronology. These are documents which I signed. Someone
15 mentioned authenticity. You can find all these documents with the Red
16 Cross, and Mr. Morales from the Spanish Battalion has them too so if they
17 have the same dates and the same signatures then the authenticity cannot
18 be contested. If they don't then that still doesn't mean that I'm lying
19 but I never do lie. So I apologise for this explanation but finally, this
20 meeting was held. So what now?
21 Q. What was discussed at the meeting?
22 A. Everything, all sorts of things.
23 JUDGE CLARK: What was the purpose?
24 A. All sorts of things. The purpose of the meeting was to visit
25 Croatian places in the Neretva valley where crimes had been committed.
Page 12351
1 That was the first thing.
2 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation]
3 Q. And number 2, the second thing?
4 A. Well, secondly all sorts of matters were discussed there because
5 Mr. Petkovic and Mr. Halilovic finally met face to face and they
6 discussed. And I -- I organised that meeting, it wasn't my -- I do not
7 regret it. They spoke about everything, about the relations between the
8 army and the HVO, and I can remember that Mr. Halilovic persistently told
9 Petkovic, he asked him, "Do we cooperate? Are we cooperating or not?"
10 And then he said, if you're interested in what happened there, he gave the
11 reasons for which the Muslims were brought into a difficult position, why
12 they were expelled, why they had been killed, and I personally asked him,
13 since Morales was there and I think that Marillon arrived later, I asked
14 him who had killed the Muslims up until then and who brought them into
15 such a situation? He never said the Serbs had done it. People might have
16 thought that we did that. And I apologise. Don't regard me just as a
17 doctor. I'm a doctor but I'm also a man. And he said at that point,
18 Halilovic told me, yes, the Serbs did that, but we now have to arrange, we
19 now have to it agree whether we are cooperating with each other or not and
20 we asked us whether we were going to cooperate or not and the crimes had
21 already been committed. So all sorts of matters were discussed at that
22 meeting and I think that there is a recording of that meeting. I think
23 people recorded it. I think perhaps the Spanish Battalion or I don't know
24 who recorded the meeting. And the conclusions of the meeting, the ones
25 that I was most interested were as follows. It was concluded that we
Page 12352
1 would visit these areas in three directions, the areas that I have
2 mentioned. And the condition on which Halilovic agreed to visit these
3 areas where I said that crimes had been committed, and visit them from
4 these three directions, the condition was that he said that we, the HVO,
5 had killed civilians, raped women, in Sovici and Doljani, in these
6 villages and he insisted that we should go there too.
7 And naturally I was in favour of any type of solution. If we
8 could clear things up as we are trying to clear things up now.
9 Mr. Petkovic was the one who would take decisions and he agreed with this
10 too. So we went out into the field and we visited these places.
11 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation]
12 Q. On the 4th of May, how did you travel and which places did you
13 visit first of all?
14 A. Well we agreed that we should visit the area from three
15 directions, first of all, number 1, it was the area that the Muslim side
16 had requested, the Doljani and Sovici area. I personally went in that
17 direction. The second direction if I'm not mistaken, was to be this
18 notorious place called Trusina and the area over there. And the third
19 direction, I think it was to be the village of Zabrdje Zaslivlje, or
20 something like that. So there were three different directions. I think
21 that we first of all -- first of all, all of us, I can't be sure, but
22 whether it was just one group that first went to Sovici and Doljani, I'm
23 not sure, or whether we all went there together, I don't know, but what I
24 do know for sure is that Petkovic, Halilovic, and Morales, and myself
25 reached Sovici. We used transport vehicles which belonged to the Spanish
Page 12353
1 Battalion. Together with them, we had an ambulance which accompanied this
2 vehicle. The purpose was to go and to collect any wounded people in the
3 villages, which I asked to go to. I'm waiting for a question.
4 Q. Be so kind, you went there in an armoured personnel carrier.
5 Those are the armoured personnel carriers which belong to the UN which we
6 have seen on video cassettes?
7 A. Yes, the standard UN armoured personnel carriers.
8 Q. From Jablanica, which village did you reach first of all?
9 A. Well, just a minute. I've got to be very precise here because
10 there might be a misunderstanding. I know both of the villages, I know
11 where they are but at the moment, I don't know which one comes first,
12 Doljani or Sovici, I have no idea but we passed through both villages.
13 Q. Did you stop in Doljani and did you speak to the people then,
14 Petkovic, Halilovic, did you visit the houses?
15 A. Yes, yes. In one of those places, I think it was Doljani, yes,
16 Doljani, we spoke to the civilian population, we spoke to soldiers or
17 rather I can't remember exactly right now. Some were in uniform, some
18 weren't. I'm not sure but I think some of them were but I know that some
19 were detained and I think that was in the school.
20 Q. We'll turn to the school but I'm asking you do you remember when
21 you were in Doljani when you spoke to people there, did you walk around
22 the Doljani - Halilovic, Petkovic, and yourself?
23 A. Unfortunately, I confused these two villages so we visited both
24 places.
25 Q. Very well. Let me ask you whether in one of the villages, let's
Page 12354
1 put it that way, did you see any houses that had been set on fire? That's
2 the first question, any burnt out houses?
3 A. Well, I didn't see any burnt houses. And I don't remember any
4 such houses because I was in the armoured personnel carrier among other
5 things. Whether there were burnt houses in those villages or in some
6 hamlets in that area, I really don't know. However, I was in an armoured
7 personnel carrier and -- well, I think this is the most important fact.
8 We went to it a location and the Muslim side had accused the Croats at
9 these locations and they insisted that we should visit them.
10 Q. Did you get out of the armoured personnel carrier then?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Did you walk around that area?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. What did you see?
15 A. I can remember the civilians we spoke to.
16 Q. What did those civilians say?
17 A. They said that, well as far as I can remember, the main thing that
18 I can remember is that a gentleman from the BH Army were very content,
19 they were very happy. Either they hadn't been civilian victims or there
20 hadn't been any victims but -- well, I don't think there were any civilian
21 victims and whether any of the soldiers had been killed or not, I know.
22 If some of them had been killed, there was a very small number, but they
23 were very happy they were very content because they didn't find what they
24 were afraid of finding and what they had accused of us of. They had
25 accused us of hiding something and when I say us I'm thinking of the HVO.
Page 12355
1 Q. Very well. Do you remember the school in Sovici?
2 A. Well, I should now say we reached the school and we saw detainees
3 in the school, they were detained there. They had been detained by, I
4 don't know who.
5 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Scott?
6 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, I'm reluctant to get on my feet after
7 Judge Clark's comments but I am concerned, just for the record, in terms
8 of what the -- where the witness was, said he was a moment ago, I would
9 object to the lack of foundation for particular locations. This was a
10 very mixed area, the evidence, the Chamber will remember from the
11 evidence and going from one hamlet to another hamlet could make a
12 tremendous difference in the thrust of the witness's testimony, where was
13 he in particular -- I asked that we be informed where was he when he had
14 this conversation specifically and if he can identify the person with whom
15 he had this conversation.
16 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Krsnik, you may ask some questions along this
17 line.
18 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, well, the break is
19 coming up very soon. I'll take all the photographs from Doljani and
20 Sovici and perhaps it will be easier to identify everything then. I
21 didn't think that would be necessary but I see that it is now. So perhaps
22 with the aid of the photographs, the witness might remember things.
23 Q. You heard the Prosecutor's objection so could you please answer
24 the question?
25 A. Well, we went to both Sovici and Doljani. This I know. We
Page 12356
1 visited civilians in both places. We went to the school. The
2 incriminated school that has been mentioned, in the sense that it has been
3 mentioned. I remember that the soldiers who were detained in that school
4 had many objections to make with regard to their commanders. They
5 objected about how they had been abandoned, betrayed, and so on. I had
6 the impression that they had been promised something but that this promise
7 hadn't been kept. They were very angry with Mr. Halilovic primarily. I
8 think that the most important thing here is the following. Mr. Halilovic
9 and Mr. Pasalic had objections about the relation of the HVO in those two
10 places and maybe with regard to some important event. After that visit,
11 they were very content and they no longer asked about civilian victims or
12 women who had been raped or any questions about issues that they gave as
13 reasons. They had been persuaded. They returned and they continued with
14 negotiations about other matters.
15 Q. Were there any women and children in that school?
16 A. I didn't see any women and children in that school. I didn't see
17 them.
18 Q. Later, when you returned to those negotiations, I don't know how
19 events developed then, but do you know what the fate of those civilians or
20 detainees from Sovici and Doljani was? Were there any negotiations about
21 these people at that meeting?
22 A. Well, when we finished visiting, when we had completed our visit
23 of those two villages which were in question, Mr. Petkovic and
24 Mr. Halilovic too I think, they continued with their discussions. I
25 personally, together with a group of people, or rather with a group of
Page 12357
1 armoured personnel carriers, we went to the other part of this direction,
2 that's Trusina and Buscak, this part which I mentioned and with regard to
3 it I said it was very important for us.
4 Q. Sorry, you said that the second direction was a visit of the
5 villages with regard to which the HVO had claimed that crimes had been
6 perpetrated there; is that correct?
7 A. Yes, that's correct. And on the way to those villages, and with
8 the UNPROFOR armoured personnel carriers and with the ambulances, these
9 vehicles escorted us, we went in that direction, in those two directions.
10 I said that I was in the -- I went in it the Trusina direction in an
11 armoured personnel carrier which belonged to UNPROFOR and the
12 participants, those who were in the armoured carriers, well these were
13 mixed teams belonging to both the army and the HVO, and when we arrived in
14 front of the village of Trusina itself we were then ordered to turn back.
15 We returned and without knowing why, the driver of the armoured personnel
16 carrier turned around and we headed back for Konjic. What we found in
17 Konjic was terrible. There were many civilians in the streets, there were
18 many BH Army soldiers there. And part of the convoy which was supposed to
19 head in the direction of the Zabrdje Zaslivlje village had been blocked.
20 Q. A little slower please.
21 A. It had been blocked and some of the ambulance drivers were
22 maltreated. And later on, I think that they even threatened with a zolja,
23 and at all costs they wanted to prevent these two villages from being
24 visited. When Mr. Morales saw that he wouldn't be able to carry out the
25 task because with the protection of us who were there and we weren't armed
Page 12358
1 naturally, he ordered the return to Mostar without having carried out the
2 task. Unfortunately, we didn't get to those places.
3 Q. Can you tell us whether at that meeting or later on you found out
4 where the -- there were any exchanges of civilian population in Konjic and
5 in those areas, so of Croats and also on the other side, in Sovici or
6 Doljani?
7 A. Well, since Mr. Petkovic and Mr. Halilovic continued with their
8 discussions, I expected, I believed that they discussed all issues, and
9 especially this new issue, taking care of the civilian population. And
10 the testimony of one of them would certainly be far more useful if we are
11 talking about this particular issue because I have no other information
12 on this matter.
13 JUDGE CLARK: Can I ask you, Dr. Bagaric, what was the date on
14 which you visited Doljani and was it the same day when you failed to visit
15 the other two villages?
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. I think so.
17 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation]
18 Q. What was the date?
19 A. I've got this written down in my report. I could have a look at
20 it. I think it was on the 5th or on the 6th of May. The 5th or 6th of
21 May. I don't know I would have to check this. But it was immediately
22 after the meeting in Jablanica.
23 JUDGE CLARK: Thank you.
24 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation]
25 Q. Doctor, could you be so kind as to have a look at this document,
Page 12359
1 381. That's why I asked you about these exchanges. So the document
2 number 381, D381. Do you have it?
3 A. No, I don't. Yes, I've got it.
4 Q. 381. Have a look at the second page. The document speaks for
5 itself. Here it's a report on the negotiations about -- getting out the
6 wounded and the exhausted in war operations in the area of Konjic and
7 Jablanica. I can see that certain commissions were established here. I'm
8 interested in Sovici and Doljani and I see that a commission was
9 established which was led by Mr. Pusic on behalf of the HVO and
10 Mr. Sihirlic on behalf of the BH Army and also Mr. Mulahasanovic. I can
11 see that presence mentioned here. So these are all mixed commissions.
12 What do you know about these personnel?
13 A. Let me just reply to your first -- to the first question put to me
14 by Judge Clark, because in the meantime, I had a look at the document, it
15 was on the 4th of May, 1993. The convoy consisted of 20 ambulance
16 vehicles and four personnel carriers they started at 8.00 from Jablanica,
17 and the commissions were established for the following directions, for
18 Sovici, General Halilovic, General Patkovic and Dr. Bagaric, Konjic,
19 Klisa, and so on and so forth. So this was on the 4th of May, 1993 and
20 I'm certain of that.
21 JUDGE CLARK: Is the document, Mr. Krsnik, D1/359? Is that the
22 document that Dr. Bagaric is referring to? His report?
23 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Yes but now I have a document 381 in
24 front of me.
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I apologise, what was your
Page 12360
1 question? You mentioned 381 and 359, I believe. 359, so these are two
2 documents signed by two different people, who went in two different
3 directions. One is Dr. Kolak and the other is Dr. Gveric but both
4 documents are referred to the journey that I was referring to which was on
5 the 5th of May, 1993, and they show exactly where we were, what we did,
6 what we accomplished, and what we failed to accomplish.
7 JUDGE CLARK: Sorry for asking you another question, Dr. Bagaric.
8 You referred a few minutes ago to your report. You said if you looked at
9 your report you'd know the exact date. And neither of these documents
10 appear to be your particular report. Do you have a copy of your report,
11 when you went to the village of Doljani and Sovici?
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I understand your question. When I
13 said that I would consult my report, I meant these two reports, because
14 these are reports by two people who were members of the main medical
15 headquarters, who were my subordinates. So these are people who attended
16 a meeting together with me and who went in different directions at the
17 same time in mixed commissions. I apologise for confusing you by my --
18 by not being precise, by saying, "My report." When I said, "My report," I
19 meant the reports that were written by my personnel and addressed to me.
20 So both of them are addressed to me. That's why I refer to them as "my
21 reports."
22 JUDGE CLARK: I was going to ask you some questions. I was
23 interested to know why there is no report on Sovici and Doljani, because
24 it looks like very properly you sent a doctor to each of the three venues
25 but there doesn't appear to be a report on Sovici and Doljani, and I was
Page 12361
1 wondering why. Did you delegate that to somebody else and they didn't do
2 it?
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. The best report from the
4 journey to Doljani and Sovici is sitting in front of you. I was the one
5 who participated in that mission, and I can tell you what happened in
6 Sovici and Doljani, so if you wish me to do so, I can go through my
7 archives and probably find that report also. I can't remember whether I
8 compiled a report personally but what I can remember is that I issued a
9 communique from that journey. I believe that now you understand me.
10 JUDGE CLARK: It's just, Dr. Bagaric, it's such a pity because
11 Sovici and Doljani are the issues that this Trial Chamber is dealing with,
12 and sad as the events were, as I have no doubt they were in the other
13 unfortunate villages, they are not part of the active accusation against
14 Mr. Naletilic. So the most important document seems to be the one that
15 isn't here, which is a great tragedy.
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I understand you completely.
17 Unfortunately, at this very moment, I can see the course of this
18 examination and I can't read these two reports in front of you, but these
19 two reports certainly telling you what happened in these villages. They
20 must do, because I believe that these two reports are very relevant and
21 they can explain what had happened there, and if we add on to these two
22 documents me personally as a witness, because I was there in these two
23 villages, if you don't mind, maybe you could give me sometime to read
24 these reports.
25 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I suggest that we
Page 12362
1 break. I have read these two reports, and these are two complete reports
2 on what had happened on that journey, including Sovici and Doljani,
3 including who was there, who was present, what they saw, and include
4 Sovici and Doljani, before the break let me ask you who was guarding that
5 school? Did you notice that and did you talk to these people?
6 A. Yes, we did.
7 Q. Who were these people?
8 A. Just a moment, let me reply to -- as to who talked. I think it
9 was Mr. -- General Petkovic and Halilovic and Marillon and myself. We all
10 talked to these people and I believe that these people were locals,
11 people, local people. However, I cannot tell you that these people
12 belonged to this or that side but I'm certain that they were local people.
13 They were -- I remember an elderly man and I thought that he was a member
14 of the home guard, that's what I thought at the time, but I can not say
15 that with certainty.
16 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I believe it is the
17 time for the second break.
18 JUDGE LIU: Yes. We'll break until ten minutes to 6.00.
19 JUDGE CLARK: Just so I don't make any mistake and I'm reading
20 something in the break time, are the documents which you say deal with the
21 three venues, 381 and 359? Or am I missing something? That's it, thank
22 you.
23 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] And the other documents show the
24 chronology which led to this, so it gives you the chronology what happened
25 before the meeting, during the meeting and after the meeting, the visit.
Page 12363
1 So that's --
2 --- Recess taken at 5.22 p.m.
3 --- On resuming at 5.51 p.m.
4 JUDGE LIU: Well, we do not see Mr. Krsnik and Mr. Meek. I think
5 we are entitled to be informed what happened. Yes, Mr. Tuta, if you want
6 to take the floor, please.
7 THE ACCUSED NALETILIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President, there has
8 been a misunderstanding with regard to the cross-examination, the
9 misunderstanding involves my counsel. So could we break for the day? I
10 think a lot more would be achieved.
11 JUDGE LIU: Thank you. You may sit down, please. I saw
12 Mr. Krsnik coming into the courtroom. Mr. Krsnik, would you please inform
13 me what happened?
14 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, we have some disputable
15 issues that I think need to be discussed, and until they are discussed, I
16 am asking for a short break in these proceedings, because if we do not
17 resolve these disputable issues, we cannot move on. So if the Honourable
18 Court would grant my request, and break for the day? Thank you very
19 much.
20 [Trial Chamber confers]
21 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Scott, do you have something to say on this
22 subject?
23 MR. SCOTT: Well, Mr. President, only -- I can --
24 JUDGE LIU: I mean, do you agree with the proposal that we have
25 for a break for the day?
Page 12364
1 MR. SCOTT: What I was about to say, Your Honour, is, if it's some
2 sort of a confidential matter that should be handled ex parte I understand
3 and would accept that on a showing that that was required. But we don't
4 know what the dispute is. We have no idea what the issue is, unless I
5 missed something. I have no idea what it's about. If it involves the
6 Prosecution, then of course we would like to be heard.
7 JUDGE LIU: Well, I think something has to be ironed out, out of
8 court. Is that my understanding?
9 Yes, Mr. Meek?. I saw you are standing.
10 MR. MEEK: Mr. President, to answer Mr. Scott's inquiry, it is an
11 issue that deals with the attorney-client relationship, and it's an issue
12 that needs to be ironed out and there needs to be some discussions, and
13 apparently, they can't happen today. It can't happen today. So we are
14 asking for this short break.
15 JUDGE CLARK: Is it what we would use in our language that you
16 need to take instructions from your client?
17 MR. MEEK: I would say partially that's correct. We need to speak
18 with the client confidentially. We need to spend some time and probably
19 he has many questions and we have some answers to give, and we have some
20 questions and he has some answers.
21 JUDGE CLARK: We would call this taking further instructions, but
22 obviously not with the witness.
23 MR. MEEK: No.
24 JUDGE LIU: Well, since both Mr. Naletilic and his counsel asked
25 for a break, and since it's a matter between the counsel and his client,
Page 12365
1 I'm afraid we have to make a break today until tomorrow afternoon.
2 I hope you could iron out any disagreement between the two. Maybe
3 you have to do some more explanations. What worries us about this is the
4 time constraint, because we have another two witnesses waiting here in The
5 Hague, ready for the testimony.
6 MR. MEEK: Mr. President, Your Honours, I believe that we are also
7 concerned about the time, and if this matter is not ironed out, it could
8 be much longer. Thank you.
9 JUDGE LIU: Yes. We will resume at 2.15 tomorrow afternoon.
10 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at
11 5.57 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday,
12 the 12th day of June, 2002, at 2.15 p.m.
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