1 Thursday, 14 December 2006

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 8.59 a.m.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Bring the witness in, please.

6 [The witness entered court]

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Good morning, Mr. Naumann.

8 THE WITNESS: Good morning, Your Honour.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Your cross-examination by Mr. Ackerman will now

10 continue.

11 Mr. Ackerman.

12 MR. ACKERMAN: Good morning, Your Honour. I hope the wasting away

13 on the Bench is not a comment on my cross-examination.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: You were warned, but we are happy to arrange a

15 special sitting until 7.00 this evening if you wish.

16 MR. ACKERMAN: I don't think there will be a necessity for that,

17 Judge.

18 WITNESS: KLAUS NAUMANN [Resumed]

19 Cross-examination by Mr. Ackerman: [Continued]

20 Q. Good morning, General.

21 A. Good morning, Mr. Ackerman.

22 Q. I told you we'd go back to this today, and here we go. Page 76,

23 line 18, yesterday I asked you this question:

24 "Why on earth then did NATO explain to persons that were

25 interested in this that the reason they bombed from 15.000 was to keep

1 their pilots from being hit by anti-aircraft and missiles."

2 Your answer was: "I don't know who you are quoting. In our

3 deliberations on the military side of NATO, this aspect that you've

4 mentioned was not a decisive element."

5 And I may not be listening to you well yesterday. You're not

6 saying that's not true just that on the military side at least it was not

7 a decisive element. Is that true?

8 A. That's correct.

9 Q. Now, the military side would have included people like you and

10 General Clark and General Short and people of that ilk; correct?

11 A. Primarily, of course, General Short who was responsible for

12 running the air operations.

13 Q. Yes. From General Clark's book at page 183, this is what he says

14 to us: "As we start working through this, there are three majors of merit

15 for the operation overall from the military standpoint. The first major

16 of merit is not to lose aircraft, minimise the loss of aircraft. This

17 addressed Mike Short's biggest concern to prevent the loss of air crews" .

18 So that loss of aircraft and air crews, according to General

19 Clark, was their number one major of merit. Do you disagree with that?

20 A. Why should I disagree with a statement of General Clark, but I

21 repeat in the deliberations at NATO headquarters it was not a priority

22 anymore.

23 Q. Do you know what the -- do you know what Defence Data Limited is?

24 A. I'm not aware of that.

25 Q. It's an organisation that publishes information for the defence

1 community. In one of their articles in December 1999, they said: "During

2 the air campaign," referring to Kosovo, "the requirement for allied manned

3 aircraft to stay above 15.000 for reasons of safety helped deconfliction."

4 The Crimes of War organisation said: "In order to evade Serbian

5 anti-aircraft defences, NATO pilots made their bombing runs at high

6 altitude, usually at or above 15.000 feet and at night."

7 Human Rights Watch in a letter to General Solana, talking about

8 rules of engagement of NATO:

9 "These rules raised questions about the conduct of NATO's bombing

10 in light of its decision to have most of its pilots fly at high altitudes

11 above 15.000 feet to avoid anti-aircraft missiles and fire. NATO would

12 appropriately conclude that because of its desire to avoid additional

13 risks to its pilots, it would refrain from attacking certain targets

14 because it could not adequately verify that they were appropriate military

15 targets or take adequate steps to avoid endangering civilians. But it is

16 troubling that some cases NATO has apparently decided to elevate the

17 protection of its pilots over all consideration to the potential harm to

18 civilians."

19 CNN: "To protect its pilots from" --

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Time for a question, Mr. Ackerman. This is not

21 your chance to give evidence. This is your chance to cross-examine the

22 witness.

23 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, I just need to confront him with these, Your

24 Honour, and ask him if that would change his view.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: What is the significance of what Human Rights Watch

1 think unless we know who were the experts were who were giving them the

2 advice, what they've assessed, what the appropriate height to bomb from

3 is, on which we've got no factual information at the moment whatsoever.

4 This is just assertion by people who may or may not be qualified to say

5 anything about it. I can't see how it would help the General to answer

6 the question, but possibly you are coming to it.

7 MR. ACKERMAN:

8 Q. How about the Army War College, would you consider that a reliable

9 source, General, United States Army War College?

10 A. Definitely, it's an authoritative source for the United States

11 armed forces.

12 Q. In an article from the Army War College talking about General

13 Clark and the operation in Kosovo: "He did not mention there was no air

14 force flying against NATO nor that the 15.000-foot limitation was set to

15 ensure there would be no damage to NATO's virtually invulnerable fleet."

16 And then I take it you know that Amnesty International was highly

17 critical of the restriction of 15.000 feet for NATO aircraft. You know

18 that, don't you?

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, what's the question, Mr. Ackerman?

20 MR. ACKERMAN: That is the question.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: That's not a question that's going to help this

22 Trial Chamber. Move on to something that's going to help it.

23 MR. ACKERMAN:

24 Q. Isn't it the case that pilots were restricted to flying above

25 15.000 feet for a significant amount of the campaign?

1 A. They had this instruction, that's true, but I think this had no

2 major impact on the accuracy of their bombing.

3 Q. Well, that was not my question, was it?

4 A. No. That was not your question, but that is the decisive point.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: What is the relevance of this height, Mr. Ackerman,

6 and if it's not related to the failure to accurately target targets.

7 MR. ACKERMAN: I'll tell you if you'd like me to.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: I would be grateful, because I'm not following the

9 purpose of the cross-examination at the moment.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: This witness says that it's disproportionate when

11 you're being fired at from a house to fire back with a tank round, but

12 it's not disproportionate to drop a bomb from 15.000 feet when you can't

13 be assured of any accuracy at all.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: So it is a question of accuracy, which you've just

15 told me it's not.

16 MR. ACKERMAN: It can be a position of accuracy, but my position

17 is it's irresponsible to do that.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: What else is it? Does the bomb cause more damage

19 from 15.000 feet than from a lower height? Is that one of the issues or

20 is it purely accuracy? Help me, because I don't know. I don't know

21 anything about this subject until you give me some facts.

22 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I think it it's two things. I think

23 it has to do with accuracy and I think it has to do with whether or not

24 you can, as a commander, take actions to protect your troops ahead of, in

25 some cases, concern for safety for civilians.

1 JUDGE BONOMY: The witness told you, yesterday, it was safer from

2 the point of accuracy to bomb from 15.000 feet than low-flying aircraft.

3 Where is the optimum height? Is that what we're going to explore?

4 MR. ACKERMAN: No, but I think that statement that it's safer to

5 bomb from a higher altitude is absolutely untrue.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: That's the answer you got and that's what we'll

7 have to deal with. No doubt you'll bring different evidence to cast

8 different light on it. You're reading comments from other organisations,

9 qualified or unqualified, about flying at 15.000 feet is of no assistance

10 to us in this trial. So please carry on with questions and not

11 submissions and argument.

12 MR. ACKERMAN:

13 Q. General, are you aware of a computer programme by the name of

14 BugSplat?

15 A. No.

16 Q. It wasn't used to your knowledge during this campaign?

17 A. I have no idea which computer programmes they used; that was not

18 my responsibility to look into computer programmes.

19 Q. Do you know anything about a computer programme that is designed

20 to predict in the targeting process designed to predict collateral damage?

21 A. I'm aware that they had computer programmes, but I'm not aware of

22 the details of such a computer programme. Again, I should say, I am not

23 the one who had to turn the little screws in this campaign. I had to make

24 sure that strategic guidance was properly observed.

25 Q. This campaign was carried out in phases, was it not?

1 A. That's correct.

2 Q. And the first active phase of the campaign, which on paper was the

3 second phase, the first active phase was to establish air superiority over

4 Kosovo and to grade, command, and control across the Federal Republic of

5 Yugoslavia?

6 A. Was that a question?

7 Q. Yeah.

8 A. That's correct.

9 Q. How long did it take for you to establish air superiority?

10 A. At the best of my recollection, Mr. Ackerman, approximately after

11 one week we had achieved it.

12 Q. And at what point would you say it was that the Yugoslav air force

13 was unable to operate in that theatre?

14 A. Well, the Yugoslav air force never made a real attempt to

15 challenge NATO aircraft, so this question has to be answered by someone

16 who was in command of the Yugoslav air force.

17 Q. To your knowledge, was the Yugoslav air force operating in Kosovo,

18 primarily the jet aircraft that they had available, fighter aircraft,

19 operating in Kosovo after that first week?

20 A. I'm not aware that they really made a serious attempt to use

21 fighter aircraft.

22 Q. All right. Now, I think you'll agree with me that, you know, once

23 you have in this targeting process gathered all the intelligence that you

24 can and decided that a target is legitimate and tack is justified, that

25 even with all that a mistake can occur and collateral damage can occur;

1 true?

2 A. That's true.

3 Q. And what it was you believed before you carried out the attack may

4 not have been the case. The intelligence may have been faulty and the

5 strength and number of forces may have been incorrect and things of that

6 nature; correct?

7 A. This could happen with all intelligence.

8 Q. Yes. And in its bombing campaign, NATO suffered from faulty

9 information at times at the expense of civilian lives, didn't it?

10 A. I would not confirm that. I think we took great pain to make sure

11 that we did not sacrifice any civilian life.

12 Q. Well, let's talk about just a few instances where these kind of

13 mistakes I think probably occurred. Do you recall the attack on a

14 civilian passenger train at Grdelica Gorge on 12 April of 1999?

15 A. Yeah.

16 Q. And that was on attempt, wasn't it, to take out the railway bridge

17 there. And the first bomb inadvertently, after it had been released

18 apparently, the pilot saw the train but it was too late to do anything and

19 the bomb hit a train carrying civilians?

20 A. That is how the pilot described the situation.

21 Q. Ten civilians were killed and 15 were injured, right?

22 A. That is what I learned as well after the incident.

23 Q. And when the pilot realised there had been a mistake and he had

24 actually hit the train instead of the bridge, instead of pulling off the

25 attack he decided to try again to hit the bridge, dropped another bomb,

1 and hit the train again, didn't he?

2 A. I remember that he released two weapons, that's correct.

3 Q. Now, I think we can probably agree that you had reliable

4 intelligence information that that railway was being used for military

5 purposes; and if you did, the bridge was a legitimate target?

6 A. The bridge was considered to be a legitimate target.

7 Q. And in the process of bombing that legitimate military target by

8 mistake, civilians were killed, weren't they?

9 A. Yeah, Mr. Ackerman. They were unfortunately killed, that's

10 correct, and we examined this event very carefully. We learned that there

11 were a couple of really unfortunate coincidences happened and for that

12 reason regrettably this loss of civilian life occurred.

13 Q. Another instance was an attack on a convoy, the Djakovica convoy,

14 on 14 April of 1999, in which 70 to 75 civilians were killed and about a

15 hundred injured. And at the time of the attack, NATO believed that this

16 was a military and not a civilian convoy; correct?

17 A. That is correct.

18 Q. And, apparently, three aircraft were involved; an F-16 and two

19 Jaguars operating from 15.000 feet or above. The bombs dropped by the

20 Jaguars both missed their targets, and one of the bombs dropped by the

21 F-16 missed its target. Are you area of that?

22 A. No. I am not familiar with the details. Again, I have to tell

23 you, it was not my task to look into every single attack. You are simply

24 confusing the responsibilities between strategic oversight and tactical

25 monitoring.

1 Q. Well, I don't expect you to answer anything you don't know. And

2 when I asked you yesterday about the ability of a pilot to distinguish a

3 target from 15.000 feet, you said that the capability they had in the

4 cockpit was quite good and that that was not a problem. In this case, the

5 cockpit video made by the pilot, the -- what he could see on his video in

6 his aeroplane, made it look like the vehicles in the convoy were

7 tractors. But when he viewed it with his naked eye, he said they looked

8 more like military vehicles so he went ahead and carried out the attack.

9 And this was at night, wasn't it?

10 A. Was that a question?

11 Q. I said this was at night, wasn't it?

12 A. Mr. Ackerman, I'm sorry. Again, I should say, I was not the air

13 controller. I don't know whether this attack occurred at day or night.

14 It didn't happen for me.

15 Q. Please understand that it's perfectly okay to just tell me I don't

16 know. I understand that some of these things you probably are not going

17 to know?

18 A. I learned, Mr. Ackerman, you tried to ask me questions of which

19 you don't understand anything, like the difference between low-level

20 flying and high-level altitude attacks. In sharp contrast to you, I've

21 been sitting in aircraft of that type, and I know what the difference is

22 and for that reason I made my statement.

23 Q. Well, I can only ask you questions, General, based on the things

24 that I learn and the things that I read, and I'm not going to get into an

25 argument with you about that?

1 A. But you told me that I did not tell the truth, and that is

2 something which I simply don't accept, Mr. Ackerman.

3 Q. I understand you wouldn't accept that. I want to talk to you

4 about the bombing of RTS television station in Belgrade. Ten -- somewhere

5 between ten and 17 civilians were killed in that attack, and you're

6 familiar with that attack, aren't you?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. And NATO claimed that that facility was being used as a radio

9 relay station to support activities of the FRY military and special police

10 forces and, therefore, was a legitimate military target; correct?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Now, one of the things that I think is curious about that: If

13 that was the justification, why is it that what was attacked was the

14 ground floor of that building and not the giant transmission tower

15 standing next to it, if you're trying to cut off the transmissions? That

16 makes no sense to me, does it to you?

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, first of all do you know the answer to that

18 question?

19 THE WITNESS: I do not know the answer to this question, since as

20 I have said again and again, Your Honour, I was not in the targeting

21 process. That was done by the responsible force people.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: There you have the answer to that, Mr. Ackerman.

23 But even if the General had known the answer to that question, what would

24 have been the relevance? There may be, but I would like you to explain to

25 me the relevance in the in this case.

1 MR. ACKERMAN: An announced justification of attacking it was to

2 cut off communications facilities, when in fact you don't attack the

3 antenna but you attack the ground floor of a building. It's more directed

4 at personnel than it is at the problem they're announcing.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: I understand that. But what is the relevance to

6 the trial about whether these men here are responsible for committing war

7 crimes, which require mens rea and don't require exploration of negligent

8 conduct by them or anyone else. Why are we exploring circumstances of

9 NATO attacks, which you yourself have suggested two were negligent rather

10 than deliberate. We might have reached a deliberate one now according to

11 your proposition, but even then what's the point in this trial?

12 MR. ACKERMAN: I think the point is it's difficult to make a

13 difference between what's negligent and what's deliberate.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: What's the point in exploring NATO's activity for

15 this trial? This type of activity? There are purposes in exploring NATO

16 conduct and NATO intentions and NATO policy in certain context in this

17 trial but not this stuff, unless you can explain to me what the relevance

18 is.

19 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, the only person I'm trying this case

20 to are you and your colleagues. So if this is not having any impact on

21 you, I'm wasting my time and I will not go forward with it.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: You're demonstrating your inability to tell me what

23 the purpose of this is.

24 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, the purpose of it is the contrast

25 between this witness on the one hand saying, You can't sit on a hill with

1 a tank and fire at a building from which you're being fired at, but we can

2 drop bombs from 15.000 feet on civilian targets on the pretext that we're

3 dropping a bomb on a communication facility, when in fact what you're

4 doing is killing civilians and leaving the antenna intact.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: But you see, Mr. Ackerman, that takes us nowhere on

6 the question whether the conduct of the forces with the tanks were acting

7 in a way which was inappropriate and, indeed, deliberate and whether the

8 NATO conduct was a deliberate attempt to cause civilian injury.

9 There doesn't seem to be any direct comparison between the two on

10 the basis on which you've presented the matter. And in any event even if

11 NATO are major war criminals, which I don't know, does it matter in this

12 trial? That's a separate issue. We're not here to judge NATO's

13 activities.

14 MR. ACKERMAN: No, I understand that. And I'm not suggesting

15 we're here to Judge NATO's activity. But I'm suggesting here that what we

16 are here to do is judge what is appropriate and inappropriate in warfare

17 of this kind, what's an appropriate and inappropriate target, what's

18 excessive and not. And to a great extent, what NATO believes is

19 appropriate and not excessive has a lot to do with what is in fact

20 appropriate and not excessive, I would suggest to you.

21 And we all know that NATO was investigated regarding its behaviour

22 during this NATO bombing campaign and was found that they had not violated

23 international humanitarian law. So the presumption is that the actions

24 NATO took are appropriate actions to take. And if that's the case, then

25 we must compare those with the actions taken by the people sitting behind

1 me.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, the judgement made by those responsible for

3 that decision is of no significance to us. We will decide this case

4 purely on the evidence. And the evidence that we should concentrate on is

5 the evidence that relates to the guilt or innocence of these accused, and

6 we would be grateful if you would now do that, Mr. Ackerman.

7 MR. ACKERMAN: Okay. Well, I would hope the evidence and the law.

8 I would have talked with the witness about the attack on the Chinese

9 Embassy and the attack on Korisa village.

10 Q. I would like to go now, General, to some things that General Clark

11 talked about in his book, and we'll get through this fairly briefly. He

12 talks about having discussions with you about possible NATO involvement in

13 Kosovo in early 1998, correct? Like maybe March or April?

14 A. It was around April, yeah.

15 Q. And he says probably April or early May: "I discussed the Kosovo

16 situation frequently with Klaus Naumann and other European military

17 leaders. We could see that NATO's involvement was practically

18 inevitable."

19 Now, how was it as early as April or May of 1998 it seemed to you

20 and General Clark and other military leaders that NATO involvement in

21 Kosovo was inevitable?

22 A. Well, what General Clark is saying in his book is his conclusion.

23 He did not say -- sometimes even the ambiguous English language is quite

24 precise. He did not say that we, the other European leaders, agreed with

25 his conclusions. And we saw that the -- we were confronted with a spiral

1 of escalation and counter-escalation, and there was a risk that innocent

2 people could lose their lives in the Kosovo situation. That was the gist

3 of our discussions.

4 But since this is the first time I got the opportunity to respond

5 to you on earlier things, I simply would like to remind you, had you tried

6 to ask me on the Chinese Embassy bombing, you would have missed your point

7 since I was no longer in charge at this point in time.

8 Q. Well, I'm glad you got to answer a question that I wasn't

9 permitted to ask you. This operation that General Clark says was

10 inevitable, NATO had never carried out such an operation in its history,

11 had it?

12 A. NATO had never used its weapons in any other operation before

13 that. If I leave aside the last -- no, it was -- I think it was primarily

14 an American operation, the last minutes of the Bosnia conflict.

15 Q. Doesn't it -- doesn't it seem strange to you when something

16 unprecedented like that is discussed, that all of a sudden it becomes

17 inevitable?

18 A. At this point in time, Mr. Ackerman, no decision had been reached,

19 no agreement had been reached. We were at the beginning of an involvement

20 of the alliance, and we all knew that the decision to use force will

21 always be a political decision, not a military one.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Naumann --

23 MR. ACKERMAN: I understand --

24 JUDGE BONOMY: -- you could perhaps help us a little more then

25 getting closer to the point here. It seems to me that there is a

1 respectable argument, based on what we heard from you yesterday, that the

2 decision to bomb had actually been taken by the a 19th of January. Now,

3 would you say anything to persuade us to the contrary?

4 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, the decision had not been taken by the

5 19th of January.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, what I didn't see in yesterday's evidence

7 what it was that happened after the 19th of January that gave rise to that

8 decision, and how it actually emerged. It seems that we leapt over the

9 activity of the International Contact Group, which you said did cause

10 unrest and confusion to the point where we have the final effort by

11 Holbrooke, which collapses and results in an immediate bombing campaign.

12 Now, what is it in there that actually occurs that pushes NATO

13 into engaging in the bombing campaign?

14 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, in January 1999, the political

15 processes in Rambouillet and Paris started. That was a hope to achieve a

16 peaceful settlement of the Kosovo conflict; that was our sincere hope at

17 the time. When these two political processes collapses, a last effort was

18 made to avoid a military action, and that was to dispatch Mr. Holbrooke to

19 Belgrade. When this also failed, there was no other option left.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: You see, the evidence -- there is evidence in the

21 case that the talks collapsed, perhaps because the goal-posts were moved,

22 that preconditions to agreement were changed at a very late stage in the

23 negotiations. Now, that may or may not be the case; there's evidence to

24 that effect.

25 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, for me it's extremely difficult --

1 JUDGE BONOMY: No, I understand. If you just hear me through.

2 And, therefore, it is arguable that there was justification on the

3 Yugoslav side for agreement not being reached. Now, let's move forward

4 from that. Just leave that hanging as a possibility. What is this

5 last-ditch effort stopping -- what's going on at that moment in reality on

6 the ground that's pushing NATO to the point where it says, We've got to

7 take action? Why was it then necessary, when it hadn't been necessary up

8 until then?

9 THE WITNESS: Well, Your Honour, we saw the failure of the

10 political processes. At the same time, and in parallel, we saw the

11 deterioration of the situation on the ground. This permanently -- well,

12 the permanent escalation which took place on the ground in form of

13 violence of both sides, I should say.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that's the bit that's missing from

15 yesterday's evidence I think. Are you saying that after Rambouillet

16 [Realtime transcript read in error "Avram bu ya"], there was an up surge

17 in violence? Because you told us there was a calm period at the time of

18 the negotiations.

19 THE WITNESS: When they both were jockeying for political

20 influence by trying to portray themselves as innocent or being victims,

21 there was a little bit of calming down. But then when it became obvious

22 that the processes were about to fail, we saw an increase of violence and

23 we had no instruments to stop it.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

25 Mr. Ackerman.

1 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, page 17, line 5, you said after

2 Rambouillet, and it says Avram bu ya.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I hope they'll manage to correct that one in

4 the course of the day.

5 MR. ACKERMAN: They will now, for sure.

6 Q. On June 16th, 1998, NATO carried out an operation called

7 Determined Falcon. You are familiar with that, aren't you?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Tell the Judges what that is?

10 A. If I recall properly, it was a demonstrative exercise.

11 Q. How was it operated? How was it carried out?

12 A. That you have to ask the commander who carried it out. I was

13 involved in designing the concept for something like this. I think I have

14 stated repeatedly in public that I was not entirely happy with the

15 decision to launch that thing, but I had to follow the political guidance

16 issued by defence ministers in this case. But it -- it was supposed to be

17 a warning signal to the Yugoslav republic not to escalate further.

18 Q. And what it was a number of NATO fighter aircraft, combat aircraft

19 that were flown across Albania up to the Serbian border just to let the

20 Serbs know that you had the capabilities to do that?

21 A. Exactly. They never entered Yugoslav air-space.

22 Q. Right. Now, in July, after that operation, are you aware of the

23 concern, especially from France and German sources, that NATO should not

24 be threatening or using force without specific authorisation from the

25 United Nations?

1 A. There was a permanent discussion going on, Mr. Ackerman, in NATO

2 headquarters on the question of legitimacy and legality of the use of

3 force.

4 Q. And NATO had never gone even as far as ACTWARN [Realtime

5 transcript read in error "ACTORD"] status before without approval from the

6 Security Council, had it?

7 A. The -- we don't -- according to NATO's procedures, nobody needs to

8 have an authority by the United Nations to take steps like activation

9 warning or activation order. The only thing for which, according to the

10 view of the majority of the nations in summer 1998, UN authorisation was

11 necessary was the real application of the use of force.

12 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, the transcript on line 17 says ACTORD

13 and what I said was ACTWARN status.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, can you tell me again the relevance of this.

15 MR. ACKERMAN: The relevance of this is the unique nature of

16 NATO's operation here. It never happened before. This is something new

17 and unique.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: And the relevance of that to the situation that we

19 are dealing with.

20 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, there certainly has been a question about the

21 legality.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: And the relevance of the legality to the situation

23 we are dealing with? See, it's all very interesting and we'd love to

24 explore it if it were appropriate, Mr. Ackerman, but what is the purpose

25 of exploring it?

1 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm finished with the question, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: And I take it no other counsel have questions if

3 you're continuing with your cross, because we're not far off your

4 suggested time for cross-examination as Defence -- a team of Defence

5 counsel.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: I wasn't aware. I thought we had until tomorrow at

7 3.30 if we needed it.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: The guide-line is you have the same time as the

9 Prosecution for live witnesses; and because of the 92 ter, you have

10 another hour.

11 MR. ACKERMAN: Maybe the Prosecution has another witness I don't

12 know about. Is that true?

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Today, I don't know. Does that matter?

14 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, you set aside all this time for this week.

15 And I know you've expressed concern about not being able to use it.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: If you want to go beyond the normal guide-lines, we

17 expect to be told and we expect to do so on relevant material. Just

18 because we have time is no basis for exploring things of no relevance to

19 the trial, and no one has suggested yet that the Defence will require

20 extra time to deal with this witness.

21 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, Your Honour, I think you must know that this

22 is one of the more important witnesses that is being called by the

23 Prosecution.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I'm struggling to see that we're benefitting

25 from this exercise at the moment. I wonder if someone else would have

1 more -- perhaps you would give way to someone else now, Mr. Ackerman, to

2 see if there are more direct issues we can deal with and then come back to

3 you if we have time.

4 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm nearly finished, Your Honour. And if you will

5 have a little patience, I will finish. And I certainly don't want to do

6 anything that's not useful to you. That's my whole purpose is to try to

7 assist you.

8 Q. Is it true, General, that by August it had become clear to General

9 Clark, and probably to you also, that what was necessary in Serbia was

10 regime change, that Milosevic had to go?

11 A. That was never a conclusion which was discussed at NATO

12 headquarters, and I can tell you that I never had a discussion with

13 General Clark about regime change, which was clearly beyond the portfolio

14 of military people.

15 Q. Okay. There are a couple of maps that I want to show you very

16 quickly and briefly. The first one is 4D88.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: And, Your Honours, I actually gave you courtesy

18 copies of the full-sized map that's hard to look at on the e-court. And I

19 want to give a copy of each of these to the usher to give to the General

20 so he can look at the full maps if he wants to.

21 Q. General, when you get these, up in the upper left-hand corner,

22 you'll see the exhibit numbers 4D88 and 4D89.

23 MR. ACKERMAN: And if we can zoom in a little bit at the lower

24 left-hand corner where the legend is just to begin. I don't know if we

25 can do that or not. Okay. We've got to get.

1 Q. Down in the lower left-hand corner there is a legend and it shows

2 what the marks on the map consist of. And this is called a mines and KFOR

3 route map, and I don't know whether you've ever seen it before or not?

4 A. Mr. Ackerman, I couldn't have seen it since when KFOR started its

5 operations, I was no longer in active military service.

6 Q. Yeah. I thought you'd seen it since then. But in any event if

7 you look down at the bottom, the legend shows that one symbol shows

8 cluster bomb unit strike sites and the other shows minefields.

9 MR. ACKERMAN: And now if we'll zoom out and look at the left side

10 along the Albanian border, just as an example.

11 Q. You'll see a number of cluster bomb drop sites. Do you see those?

12 A. I see them, Mr. Ackerman.

13 Q. All right. Let's look at 4D89. And 4D89 is another NATO-KFOR

14 map, and it's essentially the same map. It shows cluster bomb drop sites

15 and mine sites, but it also adds depleted uranium sites and they're in the

16 form of little white triangles.

17 A. Yeah, I see it.

18 Q. Now, I doubt whether you're in a position to tell us whether or

19 not that's accurate, actually I'm sure you're not. But because they are

20 maps created apparently by NATO and KFOR, I take it you would at least

21 presume their accuracy?

22 A. I simply cannot answer the question whether these maps are

23 accurate, since as I told you earlier on when KFOR started and these maps

24 had to be produced after KFOR was in the country, I was no longer in

25 military service. I see these maps today for the first time.

1 Q. All right. I'm finished with those. Thank you.

2 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I tender them.

3 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, if they're being tendered, I have an

4 objection because I'm not sure about the foundation. I see some

5 handwritten it looks like B/C/S on the bottom of the last map. I don't

6 know who put that on there or what that pertains to.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: We'll refuse to admit these, because the witness

8 has absolutely no knowledge of the content of these. If they have to come

9 in, they'll have to come in through a witness who can say something

10 relevant about them.

11 MR. ACKERMAN: All right. Thank you.

12 Q. In mid-September, General, of 1998, are you aware of Mr. Clark's

13 trip to -- General Clark's trip to Washington and his meeting with

14 Secretary of Defence Cowen where he said to the secretary, Things need to

15 move forward. We're running out of time to save NATO and our credibility?

16 A. Mr. Ackerman, I'm not aware of General Clark's statement to his

17 defence minister. He also, as you may know, had a double-headed function

18 in his command capacity. He was on the one hand NATO's Supreme Allied

19 Commander Europe, and on the other hand he had an American command

20 responsibility as the Commander-in-Chief US EUCOM. In which capacity he

21 travelled to Washington, I don't know. And I can only tell you that he

22 never made a statement like this in the NATO Council, which is the

23 appropriate body for taking decisions at NATO.

24 Q. In a meeting of the NATO defence ministers on September 23rd in

25 Vilamoura in Portugal, I assume you were at that meeting?

1 A. I was at that meeting.

2 Q. General Clark says that Javier Solana said there that he

3 determined to save NATO's reputation in the region and its credibility.

4 Do you remember that statement by Solana?

5 A. I don't remember that statement by Secretary-General Solana, and I

6 don't believe that he made a statement like this in the NATO Council.

7 Q. In Exhibit P720, which is a paper written by you, I think the

8 title of it is: "There Will Be Another Conflict," you say on page 4 of

9 that paper: "If NATO had not acted, the credibility of the alliance would

10 have suffered irreparable damage." Now, you can't deny that one, can you?

11 A. Of course, I can't. I remember that one. But this is a totally

12 different context, and it was written after the Kosovo air campaign.

13 Q. Transcript says you said you can't remember it. You remember it,

14 don't you? You remember saying that?

15 MR. HANNIS: It says "of course, I can't." I think there should

16 be a period, then it says "I can remember that one."

17 THE WITNESS: I can remember, yeah.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: Yeah.

19 Q. Now, what I'm suggesting to you is that at least by September,

20 there was concern being expressed by Clark and Solana and perhaps you that

21 failing to go forward with the bombing campaign was going to affect NATO's

22 credibility. Is that true or not?

23 A. We -- the question of credibility arose again and again, Mr.

24 Ackerman. You should never forget, NATO started to -- to influence the

25 Kosovo situation, and it issued warnings. It stated threats to use force

1 beginning in April 1998, then, nevertheless, the situation escalated. And

2 there was, indeed, a discussion of credibility whether the alliance had

3 any chance at all to influence the situation and to achieve a peaceful

4 solution of it.

5 So the question of credibility was a serious matter. But I should

6 also add having followed the discussions in the NATO Council more or less

7 day by day throughout this period, the credibility alone would never have

8 been accepted as a reason to go to the use of force by the 16 NATO

9 nations.

10 Q. Well, yesterday, you talked a little bit about the meetings

11 between Holbrooke and Milosevic on the 12th and 13th of November, and that

12 Holbrooke then came back to Brussels and reported to NATO that he had

13 entered into this agreement with Milosevic. You're aware of that, aren't

14 you?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And it's the case, isn't it, that that was a very distressing

17 piece of news to NATO? NATO didn't want to hear that a settlement had

18 been reached by Holbrooke and Milosevic?

19 A. That's an allegation which is your allegation. I cannot confirm

20 that. I can only tell you that I had never seen anything else but the

21 desire of NATO to find a solution without using force.

22 Q. Well, my only source is General Clark on this issue. General

23 Clark says that when Solana learned about this, he said to General Clark:

24 "This won't work. It means that NATO will have no role. This is

25 terrible. You must fix this." That was Solana's reaction to the

1 Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement. Aren't you aware of that?

2 A. I can tell you, Mr. Ackerman, that perhaps General Clark wrote it

3 in that way, but I can't deny. But I can tell you that Solana never

4 stated something like this in the NATO Council and never stated something

5 like this in the discussions which he and I had, and after all I was his

6 top military advisor.

7 What we saw when Holbrooke came back was that one advantage was

8 tied to Holbrooke's result and that was that the Kosovo conflict began to

9 be internationalised, and that was a major political achievement. So I

10 think Clark may have written this based on his recollections, but it

11 doesn't properly reflect what Solana thought.

12 Q. Well, Clark puts a quote in his book as to what Solana told him.

13 "This won't work, and it means that NATO will have no role. This is

14 terrible. You must fix this."

15 Now, you told us, yesterday, about some distress that you had

16 because during the whole Rambouillet process, NATO was out of the loop and

17 not involved. Now, isn't it the case that it was NATO's position at this

18 point that the OSCE verification process was a horrible mistake, that it

19 wouldn't work, that it put NATO out of the loop, and needed to be

20 undermined? Wasn't that the NATO position at that point?

21 A. Mr. Ackerman, this was not the NATO's position. That is your

22 conclusion, and I cannot confirm that something like this has ever been

23 the conclusion at which the NATO Council arrived.

24 Q. When you and Holbrooke -- when you and Clark went off to Belgrade

25 to negotiate terms after Holbrooke and Milosevic had arrived at their

1 agreement, isn't it the case that at least Clark went there with the

2 directions from Solana that he must fix this horrible situation, and isn't

3 that why those negotiations were put in such a way that it was almost

4 impossible for the Serbs to give up to them?

5 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I object to the form of the question.

6 It's compound, and it also I think inaccurately states what this witness

7 has said about what Solana and Clark may have discussed. He doesn't know.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: This question, Mr. Hannis, is about the trip, I

9 assume, on the 19th of January -- oh, no. This is the 24th and 25th of

10 October?

11 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, it is, Your Honour. It's right after Clark

12 indicates that he was instructed by Solana to fix this situation, it won't

13 work because --

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, let's ask the question in stages, Mr.

15 Ackerman. What's the first question you want to ask?

16 MR. ACKERMAN:

17 Q. After that situation had developed where it became clear that

18 Holbrooke and Milosevic had an agreement, you and Clark were sent off to

19 Belgrade to negotiate some of the agreements, to implement that agreement,

20 right?

21 A. Mr. Ackerman, we were not sent to Belgrade to fix something. We

22 were sent to Belgrade to make clear, as I stated yesterday, to Mr.

23 Milosevic that he had to withdraw forces, police and military forces,

24 which were in excess to peacetime strength and to end hostilities there.

25 That was our task.

1 And if you kindly would look into what Mr. Holbrooke discussed

2 with Mr. Milosevic or perhaps ask the -- the person sitting behind you

3 what the contents of these talks were, you will presumably arrive at the

4 same conclusion as Clark and I did at the time; namely, that the question

5 of withdrawal of additional forces had not been discussed between

6 Milosevic and Holbrooke in a way which would have contributed to the end

7 of hostilities.

8 That was our task. We had to, so to say, fill a gap which was

9 left over in the Holbrooke-Milosevic talks, and we were not sent by the

10 NATO Council to Belgrade, as you suggested, to fix something and to bring

11 NATO back into the game.

12 Q. You say it was not to bring NATO back into the game?

13 A. That was not the political objective. The objective was to get

14 the forces out and to end hostilities.

15 Q. All right. I want to go to a completely different subject now.

16 And I just want to ask you before I ask you any questions about it, do you

17 have knowledge about the surveillance capabilities of NATO during the

18 actual bombing campaign; the drones and the satellites and all of the

19 capability to surveil the ground in Kosovo?

20 A. I have seen the results, yes.

21 Q. NATO had at its disposal fairly significant air assets, including

22 A-10 Warthogs, which are designed to destroy tanks; correct?

23 A. Yeah, but they have nothing to do with surveillance.

24 Q. I know they have absolutely nothing to do with surveillance, and I

25 didn't ask you if they did. What you had for surveillance was Predator

1 drones and there was some German drones, some French drones, I think maybe

2 another one or two kinds -- maybe four or five kinds of drones that were

3 being used as surveillance at that time, weren't there?

4 A. That's correct.

5 Q. And also, there was satellite capability, satellite imagery?

6 A. Also correct.

7 Q. And was it true that that imagery enables you to pretty thoroughly

8 observe the movements of VJ assets, especially heavy weaponry tanks,

9 things of that nature?

10 A. Under fair weather conditions, almost perfectly well; under

11 adverse weather conditions, there was worse.

12 Q. The drones could fly under the cloud cover on occasion, couldn't

13 they?

14 A. Some of the drones.

15 Q. And if you were able to find a tank or artillery moving around,

16 then you could bring in the A-10s and take them out?

17 A. Theoretically, yes; again, depending to some extent on weather

18 conditions.

19 Q. You told us yesterday that in the entire NATO bombing campaign

20 that you believed that the death of only 500 civilians was a -- a fairly

21 minimal number and an acceptable number, although even one may be too many

22 at times. Is that what you told us?

23 A. I did never say that 500 civilian casualties were acceptable. I

24 said I think -- if I repeated -- if I recall it properly, I said these

25 were 500 too many.

1 Q. Mm-hmm. But not an indication, I think you told us -- I haven't

2 got the transcript in front of me. I think you told us that that wasn't

3 an indication of overreaching on NATO's part at least.

4 A. Well, if you think of a bombing campaign which lasts for 70 days,

5 using some X thousand of ammunitions and then you have 1 percent more or

6 less of the ammunition hitting the wrong targets producing collateral

7 damage, you cannot talk of an inaccurate campaign.

8 Q. And if it's the case that during that bombing campaign you

9 actually killed a little over a thousand members of the Yugoslav armed

10 forces, then would you say that a ratio of 2:1 armed forces:civilians is

11 an acceptable ratio?

12 A. I can't say that this is acceptable, if I have said earlier on

13 that 500 killed civilians are 500 too many. I'm missing the logic of your

14 point.

15 Q. Okay.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: So am I, and I think we have all that we are

17 prepared to allow from you, Mr. Ackerman.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: I have one last question and then I'm finished.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Let's hope it's got some relevance to the case.

20 MR. ACKERMAN:

21 Q. I think you expressed a concern during your testimony in Milosevic

22 that the actions of NATO may have been a bit precipitous when you said

23 this, and I think this is page 6996:

24 "I think if you were in such a conflict, you should presumably

25 talk to both sides and try to influence them to the best and the best

1 possible way. Perhaps we could have. We could have reduced difficulties

2 in this area. Whether it would have led to a peaceful solution, I cannot

3 tell you, Your Honour, but I live with the conviction one should make

4 every attempt possible to defuse a situation before one uses military

5 force to enforce peace."

6 And I take it you still accept that statement?

7 A. Of course.

8 MR. ACKERMAN: That's all I have. Thank you.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Ackerman.

10 Mr. Cepic.

11 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I have a few

12 questions for the witness.

13 Cross-examination by Mr. Cepic:

14 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Naumann. My name is Djuro

15 Cepic, attorney-at-law, and I will have a few questions for you.

16 A. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Cepic.

17 Q. [In English] -- language to reply on that language, so I will ask

18 you in B/C/S.

19 [Interpretation] Mr. Naumann, during your yesterday's testimony,

20 you answered a question put by His Honour, Judge Bonomy, pertaining your

21 report submitted to NATO pertaining to the meeting of the 19th of January,

22 1999, and the notes were mentioned pertaining to the same meeting.

23 There was a mention of Podujevo and ethnic cleansing at a number

24 of pages. And at page 39 of the transcript, you stated that the ethnic

25 cleansing was conducted by the Serbs. Do you still stand by that

1 assertion, Mr. Naumann?

2 A. That was the impression we gained at the time, yes.

3 Q. You were not in Kosovo in that time, were you, Mr. Naumann?

4 A. I was never in Kosovo.

5 Q. You received your information from the Kosovo Verification

6 Mission, that is from the OSCE mission. Is that correct, Mr. Naumann?

7 A. I stated yesterday that we received the information from the OSCE

8 mission, from the remnants of the KDOM mission, and of course from

9 intelligence which we gained.

10 Q. Mr. Naumann, before this Bench, some high officials of the Kosovo

11 Verification Mission appeared, and they were in the field at the time and

12 they participated in the resolution of the crisis which ensued concerning

13 Podujevo. And Mr. Ciaglinski was even honoured by the UK for his

14 participation in the mission. Everything points to the fact that within

15 the given period, the ethnic cleansing at Podujevo was carried out by the

16 KLA and that all Serbs and other non-Albanians were driven out from the

17 villages you specified.

18 Therefore, everything you said is correct, apart from the fact

19 that the ethnic cleansing was conducted by the Serbs, rather, it was done

20 by the so-called KLA. Everything I've said so far, would any of it change

21 your position on the matter?

22 A. Well, if the people who were on the ground gave you the evidence

23 which you just described, I am not in a position to say that they are not

24 telling the truth. The only thing that I could tell you was the

25 information which I got at the time at NATO headquarters.

1 Q. Thank you, Mr. Naumann.

2 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, the basis was Mr.

3 Ciaglinski's evidence, first of all, as well as some other witnesses who

4 testified on it, and I have in mind General Drewienkiewicz and General

5 Loncar. Thank you.

6 Q. Mr. Naumann, at the meeting of the 15th of October, 1998, General

7 Perisic was present as well, as you stated. Inter alia, there were

8 requests made to withdraw part of the VJ units, specifically the 211th

9 Armoured Brigade was mentioned. My question is: Did you know that

10 pursuant to General Perisic's orders on the 16th that unit was withdrawn,

11 and all the other units pursuant to your request were withdrawn and it was

12 done during that day?

13 A. We always had the impression and the discussion, Mr. Cepic, that

14 General Perisic really tried to keep the VJ out of this emerging conflict.

15 Q. Thank you, Mr. Naumann. Mr. Perisic also participated in the

16 agreement, and I believe you met him subsequently on the 25th of October,

17 1998. It was defined that the units were to return to their garrisons,

18 apart from three or four companies which were used to protect certain

19 roads, as well as the border units which were to stay to secure the state

20 border. As opposed to the special agreement which defined the exact

21 number of the police, this agreement, as well as some other agreements,

22 did not define any exact figure of military personnel. Isn't that

23 correct, Mr. Naumann?

24 A. I think the agreement is in front of the Court, and I can only

25 repeat what I have said also in the Milosevic case, that the Serb side

1 honoured their agreement.

2 Q. Thank you, Mr. Naumann. We've touched upon another question, that

3 is to say winter exercises. Mr. Naumann, do you perhaps know that all

4 exercises carried out by the Army of Yugoslavia took place outside

5 barracks. All unit movements were monitored by the Kosovo Verification

6 Mission. And as for planned training that took place outside barracks of

7 the Army of Yugoslavia, the Army of Yugoslavia actually provided documents

8 to the Kosovo Verification Mission, that is to say provided documents to

9 the OSCE about this. Do you know about that, Mr. Naumann?

10 A. I did not know that it provided information in great detail to the

11 Kosovo Verification Mission. That exercises are carried out outside the

12 barracks is normal proceedings, and I think that in -- we are talking

13 presumably about the January/February 1999 time-frame. At this time,

14 according to my recollection, the VJ cooperated relatively smoothly with

15 the Kosovo -- with the KVM.

16 Q. Thank you, Mr. Naumann. Now that we're on the subject of

17 exercises, I would like to ask you for your own assessment. A tank column

18 of only a few tanks is on the move along a road on which it had been

19 carrying exercises for the past 20 or 30 years. This is an exercise for

20 training young recruits, young soldiers. This is something that the

21 Kosovo Verification Mission had been informed upon; however, this column

22 is fired at. The column is being targeted by hand-held rocket-launchers,

23 and burst ones at that. One tank is damaged, three soldiers are injured.

24 The army responds to this attack from its own tanks. Is that a legitimate

25 response, Mr. Naumann?

1 A. In my view, yes.

2 Q. Thank you. As far as I understood your CV, you have considerable

3 artillery experience, too. If a battery of the so-called KLA targets the

4 positions of the army with 120-millimetre mortars, is it legitimate to

5 respond with artillery against those positions from which the firing had

6 taken place?

7 A. Without any doubt, and this would be covered by what we said in

8 the last paragraph of the statement which we signed with Mr. Milosevic.

9 Q. Thank you, Mr. Naumann. Judge Bonomy, the Honourable Presiding

10 Judge, asked you yesterday about the name of the village that had been

11 shelled, and you mentioned that in the context of your arrival at the

12 meeting on the 24th of October, 1998. And you did not know the name of

13 that village.

14 I made a considerable effort trying to find in the documentation

15 of the Kosovo Verification Mission and of KDOM and of the Serb side what

16 the name of this village is, or at least of the region, but I didn't

17 manage to find it. I didn't manage to find a single bit of information

18 about a single village being shelled in that period. Do you allow for the

19 possibility that you were perhaps misinformed, Mr. Naumann?

20 A. Well, the only thing, Mr. Cepic, I can tell you about this is that

21 I got this piece of information on the flight to Belgrade from the NATO

22 intelligence division. I do not know which source they had, but I trust

23 if they really make the effort to inform me on the flight that they had a

24 solid piece of information, otherwise they wouldn't do it.

25 Q. Thank you, Mr. Naumann. You mentioned the presence of Shaun

1 Byrnes at one of the meetings you had in Belgrade. As you know, he was

2 the representative of KDOM, the American department. Just one question:

3 Do you perhaps know whether Mr. Byrnes, in these talks and later, informed

4 you about all the verifications carried out by KDOM. There were 30 of

5 them that took place without any objections and in the best possible

6 order. This is the verification of anti-aircraft systems of the Army of

7 Yugoslavia.

8 A. I remember that Mr. Byrnes informed us about what he is doing with

9 the KDOM mission.

10 Q. Thank you. Mr. Naumann, since you held one of the most important

11 positions in the NATO alliance, are you aware of the exact number of

12 members of NATO forces who were deployed during the spring in Albania and

13 Macedonia while NATO was operating in Kosovo, Serbia, the Federal Republic

14 of Yugoslavia; NATO air force, that is?

15 A. NATO air forces were not deployed in Macedonia and in Albania at

16 the time. We had some -- we had some NATO ground forces --

17 Q. [In English] Excuse me. [Interpretation] I think this is a

18 mistake. I am asking about ground forces, the number of ground troops in

19 Macedonia and Albania.

20 A. Yeah. We had a relatively small component in Macedonia, which was

21 a part of the -- well, the team which was there to act in case that the

22 Kosovo Verification Mission should come under attack. It was very limited

23 in number. I don't -- I don't remember the precise figures. I knew it at

24 the time, but you may forgive me now with eight years' distance I do not

25 remember the precise figures. But it was approximately brigade sized, I

1 think. And in Albania, we had also a couple of forces, but they were

2 there to help the UNHCR to establish refugee camps. So they were really

3 there for humanitarian purposes.

4 Q. Now that we're on the subject of Albania and the NATO presence in

5 Albania, General Clark in his book stated that there was an operations

6 group in Albania in order to support KLA forces. Are you aware of the

7 existence of such a group that was supporting KLA?

8 A. I can only tell you, Mr. Cepic, that NATO never authorised anyone

9 to support the KLA.

10 Q. Thank you, Mr. Naumann. As for the personnel levels of the ground

11 forces in Macedonia and Albania, as the operation of NATO forces started,

12 it went up, didn't it, the personnel levels?

13 A. It may be that the levels increased a little bit, but it was not

14 significant. And this increase, I think, was to some extent a response to

15 the influx of refugees which took place also in Macedonia.

16 Q. Mr. Naumann, in this courtroom we heard about certain fighting and

17 actions that took place along the border between Albania and Kosmat. You

18 should know about the use of strategic bombers, B-52 during the month of

19 May 1999 in the Pastrik area in support of ground forces of the KLA in

20 order to penetrate the border. General Clark wrote about that as well.

21 A. It depends very much which time in May you refer to, Mr. Cepic.

22 May I remind you that I left my job on the 6th of May, 1999. So when B-52

23 attacks two places after that time, I may have read about it in the press

24 at that time but I was no longer in charge.

25 Q. Thank you, Mr. Naumann.

1 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, could I please just have

2 a moment to look at my notes to see whether I have any more questions.

3 Q. Mr. Naumann, yesterday you said that you took part in planning the

4 targeting of the police building in Belgrade. It is a generally-known

5 fact that this building you talked about and that was hit was an

6 administrative building of the Ministry of the Interior and that it had

7 been fully vacated before the NATO bombing started. Could you tell me

8 what the reason was to bomb an empty administrative building in the

9 immediate vicinity of the biggest hospital in Serbia?

10 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I object. That's compound and he hasn't

11 established from this witness whether or not he knew it was empty, if

12 indeed it was.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: I think what I've learned in listening to this

14 cross-examination is that Mr. Naumann is perfectly able to deal with

15 compound questions. And, indeed, when we try to break them down for him,

16 he insists on answering the compound question. So we'll let him deal with

17 that.

18 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honour.

19 I had no information, Mr. Cepic, that the building was vacant. We

20 were -- when we talked about this, we were told that this was a

21 headquarters of the police and a building of the Ministry of the Interior.

22 The evacuation of the building was not mentioned. And whether it really

23 was used as a headquarters of the police, whether it's administrative or

24 not, I would regard it as a legitimate target.

25 And what I did, I stated yesterday, and I'm glad that you just

1 confirmed that the hospital was there. And, obviously, despite the fact

2 that I think some six cruise missiles went into the building, no

3 collateral damage occurred to the hospital.

4 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation].

5 Q. Mr. Naumann, there was great damage. All the glass paneling had

6 been broken. The patients were considerably disturbed. A few hundred

7 metres away the General Staff headquarters had been hit, and that was a

8 building that was empty, too. A few civilians who were near that building

9 got killed. Are you aware of that, Mr. Naumann?

10 A. I'm not aware of any killings of civilians, and I was -- having

11 listened to quite a lot of broadcasts of more or less based on Tanjug

12 reporting, I would be really surprised if they hadn't mentioned the

13 killing of civilians with -- in their daily news casts -- news reports

14 where they anyway enjoyed that considerable advantage over NATO since they

15 reported in the morning at 6.00, where we weren't allowed to state

16 anything until 3.00 in the afternoon.

17 Q. Mr. Naumann, what would you say to this; if many reports about

18 this had been broadcast on television - there is numerous evidence on

19 this - would you change your position concerning your own knowledge?

20 A. Mr. Cepic, to the best of my knowledge, I have not heard anything

21 about the incident which you just mentioned that civilians were killed

22 when the building of the General Staff was attacked.

23 Q. Thank you, Mr. Naumann. Thank you, Mr. Naumann.

24 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Just one more questions, Your Honours,

25 by your leave. My last question.

1 Q. Mr. Naumann, do you know about the proportion of forces, or

2 rather, the balance of forces between NATO forces and Serbian forces at

3 the time of the action that you took on the territory of the Federal

4 Republic of Yugoslavia?

5 A. You mean the overall balance?

6 Q. [In English] Exactly.

7 A. Yeah. Well, that NATO was superior to the Serb armed forces, that

8 is something I think which need not be mentioned. Mr. Milosevic himself

9 said that he was pretty well aware that NATO could easily defeat

10 Yugoslavia militarily.

11 Q. [Interpretation] What would you say to me if I were to give you

12 the ratio of 600:1? This is an assertion made by analysts from American

13 and France.

14 A. If -- I would accept it. It is not -- that's not an issue which I

15 think is important for the proceedings in this court.

16 Q. Thank you.

17 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

18 Q. Thank you, Mr. Naumann.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Cepic.

20 Mr. Fila.

21 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I have some questions.

22 Cross-examination by Mr. Fila:

23 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Naumann. I would like to put a

24 few questions to you that are somewhat different from the other ones. My

25 first question is as follows. I don't know whether you have your

1 statement, or rather, the first question has to do with your testimony

2 during the Milosevic case. The page reference is 77 --

3 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters did not catch the exact page

4 reference.

5 MR. FILA: [Interpretation].

6 Q. You said that the KLA did --

7 MR. HANNIS: I'm sorry, Your Honour, the interpreter didn't catch

8 the page number. Could we have the page number again, please.

9 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I will repeat it. No problem

10 whatsoever. 7074, lines 1, or rather, 9 to 14.

11 Q. You were asked and you said that you noticed that the KLA was

12 being supplied with weapons from abroad. And you said that you proposed a

13 few measures that the NATO Council was supposed to consider, but that you

14 were not given approval to take measure to stop the influx of weapons,

15 which is where it all started from, and that is to say where money was

16 being collected to purchase these weapons.

17 I quoted your statement, and I assume that you stand by it. So my

18 question is as follows: Do you have any knowledge about the money that

19 was collected for the purchase of weapons, that this took place in the

20 countries of western Europe and the United States of America?

21 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I object on grounds of relevance.

22 [Trial Chamber confers]

23 JUDGE BONOMY: It's plain that issues relating to the supply of

24 weapons to the KLA could be relevant. I take the point -- the rather

25 narrow point you make about the strict relevancy of that particular

1 question. But I think the line is relevant and we're not inclined to

2 interfere with Mr. Fila proceeding in this way. I doubt if the source of

3 the weapons is terribly important unless it has something to do with the

4 inability to cut off the source, and that may be the case. So let's hear

5 what you have to ask.

6 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] That is one matter. Another is

7 testimony given by a witness, before, who complained why Mr. Sainovic was

8 saying why western countries wouldn't stop providing money for the

9 purchase of weapons. If Mr. Hannis remembers what Drewienkiewicz said

10 that would be it, so that is why I am putting the question. So there are

11 two reason, you see?

12 Q. Mr. Naumann, do you have any knowledge about the collection of

13 money in western countries for weapons supplies? And my second question

14 is: Why did you not get approval to stop that or prevent it?

15 A. When we discussed the issue of arms smuggling and weapons supply,

16 we had a presentation in NATO headquarters on what was going on, and part

17 of this information was also that money was collected. So I fully stick

18 to what I stated in the Milosevic case. The number two of your

19 question -- well, part two of your question was, Mr. Fila, why we were not

20 given the authority to do something about it.

21 Well, there is one point which I think is in the meantime

22 obvious -- obvious knowledge and general knowledge for everyone. There is

23 one nation in NATO who believes that all steps which are not military

24 nature cannot be actions taken by NATO. This is definitely an outdated

25 point of view, since you cannot cope with today's dangers and risks by

1 simply limiting your activities on military aspects. But this one nation

2 is rather --

3 Q. Thank you.

4 A. -- reluctant.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Which nation is it?

6 THE WITNESS: Do I have to answer? It's a violation of NATO's

7 rules.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, sorry. I would not have asked that unless

9 you said it's obvious knowledge and general knowledge for everyone.

10 THE WITNESS: Then, Your Honour --

11 JUDGE BONOMY: It's not general knowledge for me, I have to tell

12 you, and if you want me to know you have to tell me.

13 THE WITNESS: Of course, Your Honour, I will respond. It's France

14 which is permanently blocking anything which is not military in NATO -- in

15 nature.

16 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] That's correct.

17 Q. During the meetings that you had, did anyone from the Yugoslav

18 authorities, at any of the meetings, the three that you mentioned and

19 others, did anyone complain about that to you? Did anyone ask you from

20 the side of the Yugoslav authorities to stop this flow of money for the

21 purchase of weapons? For example, Mr. Sainovic, since you mentioned him

22 and he's sitting here.

23 A. I'm not entirely sure, at least I do not recall that anyone

24 mentioned precisely the flow of money or something like this. There

25 was -- and I think it was -- it was Mr. Sainovic who repeatedly stated

1 that there was an outside support to the KLA insurgents.

2 Q. Yes. Thank you. That has exhausted the subject. Our time is a

3 bit limited, so I'll try to move faster. And it's going to be easier for

4 you as a soldier as well. Another thing that I would like to draw your

5 attention to is paragraph 46 in your statement. If you found it, let us

6 go on.

7 A. Yeah.

8 Q. Yes. I assume that you stand by what is written here, right?

9 A. Correct.

10 Q. Now, my question reads as follows: What is your source of

11 information? What is the source of information that led you to conclude

12 that this centre for the coordination of forces was in Nis and then in

13 Belgrade, as you said here? This is an oversimplification, and may I tell

14 you straight away that my military knowledge is zilch. I reached the

15 level of corporal and that was it in the army?

16 A. Well, you are much better off, Mr. Fila, than my son. He only

17 made it to private first class in the navy, but that doesn't matter. Now,

18 the source of this statement which I made was what the agreed intelligence

19 at NATO headquarters in the days of the Kosovo air campaign.

20 Q. So this was centralised control over the army and police in

21 operations in Kosovo, that that had to be in Nis and Belgrade, not lower

22 down, right?

23 A. We came to this conclusion, yes.

24 Q. Thank you. Now I would like to focus on my client, Mr. Sainovic.

25 Mr. Naumann, when you came to Belgrade, at the first meeting Sainovic was

1 not there - that was our understanding - and at the second meeting on the

2 24th and 25th of October he was there. Mr. Milosevic introduced him and

3 said he was in charge of Kosovo, whatever his formulation was at the time.

4 Now I would like the usher to show you Defence Exhibit 2D8 in

5 English, of course, because the Serbian version won't mean much to you.

6 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Can we see that on the screen.

7 Q. While we're waiting for this document, you know that the agreement

8 between the FRY and the OSCE was actually concluded between those two

9 meetings sometimes around the 16th of October. You were there on the 15th

10 and this took place on the 16, is that right? If you still remember

11 that.

12 A. Yeah, I think that's correct.

13 Q. Now, when you see this document, you will see that this is a

14 decision of the Government of Yugoslavia in relation to cooperation with

15 the OSCE mission in Kosovo. Now, I would like you to look at this

16 document. Please look at paragraph 3 of the document. You can see from

17 paragraph 3 that Mr. Sainovic was Deputy Prime Minister in the Federal

18 Government and that he was appointed President of the Commission for

19 Cooperation with the OSCE. Do you agree -- is that what you see there?

20 And now could I have a look at page 2 of this document.

21 Do you agree with me that that is what is written in this

22 document? Do you actually see it yourself?

23 A. I have not seen page 2.

24 Q. Now, on page 2, you will see that it says Zivadin Jovanovic, the

25 Minister of Foreign Affairs, is the Deputy of the President of the

1 Commission, that's Sainovic. And this decision was signed by the

2 Government of Yugoslavia. It was signed by the Prime Minister of

3 Yugoslavia, Momir Bulatovic. Have you seen this document, or rather, did

4 you see it earlier on? I guess you have seen it before?

5 A. I have seen it before.

6 Q. I'm showing this to you for one simple reason. I want to show you

7 the reason, if you agree with me that Milosevic introduced Mr. Sainovic to

8 you the way he did, is because of this appointment that you can see that

9 he is really in charge of cooperation with the OSCE in Kosovo. Was that

10 Mr. Milosevic's wording, or can you simply not remember after eight years?

11 I can barely remember what happened eight days ago, but never mind that.

12 Eight years later, do you remember that?

13 A. As far as I remember, Mr. Fila, Mr. Milosevic introduced

14 Mr. Sainovic as Vice-president of Serbia and as being responsible for

15 Kosovo.

16 Q. [In English] Yugoslavia.

17 A. Yugoslavia, sorry.

18 Q. [Interpretation] Does this look like the document specifying his

19 duties in Kosovo?

20 A. It's pretty similar, yeah.

21 Q. Thank you.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: I think it's time for a break, Mr. Fila.

23 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I apologise, Your Honour. I will

24 continue after the break.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Can you help me with the likely length of your

1 cross-examination.

2 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Some ten minutes, but certainly you can

3 interrupt me as soon as you find my questions to be irrelevant.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic.

5 MR. IVETIC: I've got about 34 questions, so under 30 minutes I

6 would think.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. O'Sullivan.

8 All right. In that case we'll break for half an hour, so we'll be

9 resuming at 11.00. Could you leave with the usher again, Mr. Naumann, and

10 we'll see you at 11.00.

11 THE WITNESS: Of course, Your Honour.

12 [The witness stands down]

13 --- Recess taken at 10.32 a.m.

14 --- On resuming at 11.00 a.m.

15 [The witness takes the stand]

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila.

17 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Thank you. I will continue.

18 Q. Mr. Naumann, at the meeting on the 24th and the 25th, because it

19 is difficult to separate exactly what happened on which day so I suggest

20 we treat it as a single meeting, you mentioned there was some talk of the

21 Milosevic-Holbrooke agreement. You also spoke about the presence of Mr.

22 Durkee, and that there was a mention of one of the preconditions for the

23 Kosovo problem solution is to achieve the balance of the two ethnic

24 groups. As far as I understand, you didn't see the actual agreement, the

25 Milosevic-Holbrooke agreement?

1 A. No. I didn't see the actual agreement. No, I did not see it.

2 Q. I wanted to show that agreement to you. It is Exhibit 2D12. It's

3 a communique by the Serbian government pertaining to the document we've

4 been discussing. It is item 16. Could you please focus on item 4.

5 It says: "The solution has to be based," item 4 within that

6 paragraph. "The solution has to be based on the full respect of equality

7 of all citizens and national communities in Kosovo and Metohija. Full

8 affirmation and equal treatment of their national, confessional, cultural

9 values, and historic patrimony should be guaranteed."

10 Can we please move on to item 8 now.

11 It is stated that: "Members of the national communities shall

12 have additional rights, in order to preserve and express their national,

13 cultural, religious, and linguistic identities in accordance with

14 international standards and the Helsinki Final Act. The national

15 communities shall be legally equal and shall not use their additional

16 rights so as to endanger the rights of other national communities or other

17 rights of citizens."

18 I wanted to show you this so as to be able to ask you a question.

19 The spirit of the talks on the 24th and the 25th of October, among the

20 members of the delegation, specifically Mr. Sainovic, whom I represent,

21 was along the lines of trying to find a solution in order to achieve this.

22 Of course we are discussing Kosovo, and all that is pertaining to the

23 mention of the two ethnic groups.

24 At least those who followed it in the papers who were not members

25 of the government were under the impression that the wish on the part of

1 the Serbian government while you were there on the 24th and the 25th. And

2 otherwise was that a part of their political programme was to find a

3 peaceful solution for Kosovo by establishing equal rights for all ethnic

4 communities, irrespective of their size, and I believe it also had to do

5 with the discussions of the contact group.

6 A. What is the question now?

7 Q. Was that the spirit of the talks? Was it also along the lines of

8 how Mr. Sainovic addressed you? When he spoke, did he mention the

9 peaceful solution?

10 A. Mr. Fila, my recollection is slightly different. I do not want to

11 accuse anyone, but I do not have the impression that the spirit of the

12 lines, which you just showed me on this communique, was the governing

13 spirit at the meeting on which we had on the 24th and the 25th of October,

14 1998. I had the impression -- to say it quite sincerely and openly, I had

15 the impression that the Yugoslav side failed to be wounded, to be

16 attacked, that injustice was done to them, and that they had to respond to

17 defend the sovereignty of their state.

18 And they saw that their actions were legitimate, that they were

19 right to do so as they did. And they wanted to preserve as much as they

20 could of, I should say, Yugoslav influence in the province of Kosovo.

21 Q. I agree. But we have a separate Balkan slang, just like you have

22 your jargon in the military. But, for example, you come from Germany

23 where there is a single nation. There are various ethnic groups in our

24 part of the world, at least a dozen in Kosovo alone. That's why this

25 notion of ethnic communities or ethnic groups bears a somewhat different

1 meaning. And I was trying to get to that, but I guess you come from a

2 different background.

3 I am going to continue. In your first statement, that is the

4 notes from 2002, you stated that at that meeting Sainovic, as you put it,

5 participated only in technical discussions. It is in your statement. I

6 don't know whether you recall that. If you don't, I will try and locate

7 it in the statement itself.

8 MR. HANNIS: I believe it's the last sentence in paragraph 26,

9 Your Honour.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Hannis.

11 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Precisely. Thank you, Mr. Hannis.

12 Q. He only participated in technical discussions. That is the last

13 sentence of paragraph 26.

14 MR. HANNIS: It said he had some involvement in technical

15 discussions.

16 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Yes.

17 Q. Do you still abide by that?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Thank you. Very well. Concerning the meeting in January in your

20 statement --

21 JUDGE BONOMY: There's no answer to that question either I think

22 given or recorded. Did you answer it, Mr. Naumann?

23 THE WITNESS: I answered, and I said yes. I still believe this

24 para 26 reflects what I took with me as an impression.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Which is rather different from the version of the

1 paragraph that Mr. Fila actually gave you.

2 THE WITNESS: It is different.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: All right.

4 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]

5 Q. He had some involvement in the technical discussions. You

6 confirmed that indeed it was as stated in paragraph 26, its last sentence?

7 A. Yeah, I confirmed that.

8 Q. In paragraph 29 of the same document, you state that Milosevic or

9 Sainovic stated in one of the meetings, either on the 24th or the 25th,

10 that if they did not solve the Albanian problem now, the Yugoslavs would

11 have the same problem in 20 years because the Albanians repopulated at a

12 far greater rate. First of all, do you know that their birth rate is the

13 highest in Europe. It was at that time as it is today. Are you familiar

14 with that?

15 A. You mean the Albanians?

16 Q. Yes.

17 A. I didn't know about that.

18 Q. And there was much discussion about whether it was just Milosevic

19 or just Sainovic or both of them, and you were examined about that on a

20 few occasions, even in the Milosevic trial. I wanted to ask you this:

21 Was your recollection better in 2002 when you were undecided as to who

22 said what than today, eight years ago? Are you still uncertain who spoke,

23 who of the two?

24 A. Mr. Fila, I think I'm still uncertain. To the best of my

25 recollection, I do not know precisely who said it. I know there was a

1 discussion about the -- the ethnic relationship.

2 Q. Thank you. That's all I wanted to hear.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: When the discussion took place, do you know whether

4 both Mr. Milosevic and Mr. Sainovic were present?

5 THE WITNESS: I think at this occasion they both were present. It

6 was in the full plenary meeting I believe.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

8 MR. FILA: [Interpretation]

9 Q. But you are uncertain which of the two said that and you're not

10 certain of it today?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Could we please have the reply noted in the transcript, it was

13 yes?

14 JUDGE BONOMY: That's noted, Mr. Fila, please carry on.

15 MR. FILA: [Interpretation].

16 Q. I am approaching the end of my examination. You mentioned the

17 story Milosevic told you about Drenica. It was mentioned a few times. I

18 want to know something else. Did you feel the need, after you met

19 Milosevic for the last time at the trial, to really do some research, to

20 gain some insight as to what really happened in Drenica. If you recall,

21 he said what we were taught in our history lessons as well, that there was

22 a show-down between the Partisans and the so-called Balisti or the Bali

23 Komentar [phoen] Organisation.

24 And we were taught that they were supported by the fascist

25 Germany. They were trained, financed, and equipped by the Germans. They

1 were a symbol of fascism there, and the Balistas had pretty much the same

2 meaning to us as the expression mentioned to you yesterday and in the

3 meaning it had to the Germans. Did you ever try and find out what indeed

4 happened back in 1946 there?

5 A. Well, I listened with great interest what Mr. Milosevic stated in

6 the proceedings then. I tried to get hold of some applications in German

7 language to learn a little more about the history in the Balkans, but I

8 didn't succeed in finding sufficient, clear evidence in -- written in

9 German language. And, unfortunately, I'm not able to read Serbo-Croatian.

10 Q. And you didn't attend the same class as I did. Thank you, this

11 concludes my cross-examination.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Fila.

13 Mr. Ivetic.

14 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

15 Cross-examination by Mr. Ivetic:

16 Q. Good day, sir, my name is Dan Ivetic and, today, I have some

17 questions for you on behalf of Sreten Lukic. Now, first of all, General,

18 when NATO gave you 48 hours in October of 1998 to go to Belgrade and to

19 try and obtain a last-minute agreement with the Serb side, am I correct

20 that you had pretty good intel or intelligence at that time as to military

21 units and formations, but that you lacked such solid intelligence for the

22 number of police units and personnel?

23 A. That's correct.

24 Q. Okay. And am I further correct that during this particular series

25 of meetings and negotiations in Belgrade in October 1998, were you and

1 other NATO personnel and KDOM officials met with Serb and Yugoslav

2 authorities that at that time a very comprehensive written document

3 produced by the Serbian MUP relating to the number of police personnel and

4 police stations in Kosovo and Metohija was provided to both the NATO

5 officials and the KDOM officials?

6 A. I remember that such a document was provided, yes.

7 Q. Okay. And based upon that information that was provided by the

8 Serbian MUP, am I correct that it was agreed by all the sides to the

9 negotiations that the "peacetime 1998 base-line level for the police was

10 to be around 10.000, precisely 10.021 personnel in Kosovo and Metohija."

11 Do you recall that?

12 A. It's correct, Mr. Ivetic, that we accepted 10.000 -- I do not --

13 don't name it down to 21 or 46; somewhere a little above 10.000 was

14 accepted.

15 Q. That's fine, that's fine. And then immediately after the

16 conclusion of these agreements, the Serbian MUP withdrew the excess police

17 units from Kosovo and Metohija and brought themselves within compliance of

18 this number, whether it was 10.000 or 10.021 or 10.045?

19 A. We had the impression that they really withdrew the additional

20 personnel and that they tried to comply with the agreement.

21 Q. Okay.

22 A. It's difficult to verify the withdrawal of police forces.

23 Q. I agree. You can -- you described some of the discussions

24 undertaken with various personnel as part of these negotiations at

25 paragraph 16 of your -- it's not a statement, but the summary of the -- of

1 your proofing notes. And at that paragraph, you talk about how General

2 Djordjevic, who did most of the talking, outlined a concern about reducing

3 the police forces because of the threat posed by terrorists.

4 Now, the question I want to ask you is: At that time, did NATO

5 have intel or intelligence about the activities of the KLA and how the KLA

6 was going to react as a result of these October accords and the reduction

7 of Serb forces in Kosovo and Metohija?

8 A. At the time when we negotiated this agreement, Mr. Ivetic, we did

9 of course not have any intelligence on how the KLA might react after an

10 agreement. We had intelligence on the activities of both sides before we

11 started to negotiate.

12 Q. And focus --

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Can I just to clarify something in my mind own at

14 the moment.

15 Was Mr. Lukic present at any of these meetings?

16 THE WITNESS: I don't remember. To the best of my knowledge, Your

17 Honour, I don't remember.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: The only two of the accused here that you remember

19 seeing are Mr. Milutinovic, Mr. Sainovic.

20 THE WITNESS: Mr. Milutinovic, Mr. Sainovic. But you should also

21 understand our situation. We were confronted with a -- with quite a huge

22 crowd. And so you may forgive me, I don't remember the names.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: I suppose they would have featured if they had.

24 THE WITNESS: And some of them, Your Honour, were wearing a

25 uniform, as I did. And it is a common -- I think really common knowledge

1 that people look different wearing uniform or civilian clothes.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

3 Mr. Ivetic.

4 MR. IVETIC: Same thing for robes, I would think.

5 Q. Thank you, General. Now, at the time of the negotiations, let's

6 focus on the KLA. You said that you did have intel about what the various

7 parties were doing leading up to the negotiations. With respect to the

8 KLA, did NATO have intelligence confirming that the KLA was constantly

9 active or increasing their operations at that time leading up to the

10 October 1998 meetings?

11 A. Well, the -- Mr. Ivetic, the information we had or the general

12 assessment at which we had arrived was that the KLA had - if I should say

13 it in my ex-military parlance - had suffered a defeat in summer 1998 and

14 was about to re-organise, re-group. It didn't seem to be too impressive

15 in its capability at this time, but they were re-building their

16 capabilities.

17 Q. Okay. And after the agreements were reached in October 1998 and

18 after the Yugoslavs withdrew their forces from Kosovo-Metohija and began

19 implementing the agreement, it was only then that the OSCE-KVM came to the

20 ground to monitor compliance of the parties. Is that correct?

21 A. Yeah, the OVM -- the KVM, yes. Before that, as you -- as we have

22 discussed repeatedly in these proceedings, the KDOM was present.

23 Q. KDOM. And am I correct that NATO on its part and the KDOM on its

24 part fully cooperated with the KVM and provided to the KVM all the

25 information and documents received from the Serb side, particularly with

1 respect to the base-line of the 10.000 or so police personnel that were

2 permitted in Kosovo-Metohija?

3 A. I think from -- from our side, from NATO's side, I can confirm to

4 you that NATO provided all the relevant information to the OSCE, and I

5 suspect that the OSCE and KDOM cooperated smoothly.

6 Q. Okay. Thank you. Now, at paragraph 35 of your -- again, I call

7 it a statement, but it's the -- we agree that it's the notes taken from

8 the proofing session that you had, so it's technically not a statement.

9 But at paragraph 35, you indicate that the Yugoslavs had at least 500

10 excess police, most of whom were coming from MUP detachments outside of

11 Kosovo. Now, first of all, when you say "500 excess," are we talking

12 about 500 more than this 10.000 give or take?

13 A. Correct.

14 Q. Okay. And with respect to the number of this 500-excess police,

15 where exactly had you gotten this information? Was it perhaps from the

16 OSCE-KVM that was on the ground at the time?

17 A. Well, again, Mr. Ivetic, I should say when -- when we stated -- or

18 when I or Clark stated something as NATO intelligence, we did in most

19 cases not have the precise source. So I think it was a compilation of

20 various informations provided by OSCE, by KDOM, and other sources.

21 Q. Okay. The reason I ask, sir, is that we had testimony from

22 General Drewienkiewicz or DZ, who was the Deputy Head of Mission for the

23 KVM, who testified the other week that in fact he claimed that the KVM did

24 not have access to information relating to the base-line of the police

25 forces; and that in fact he told me at page 21, I believe, lines -- lines

1 4 through 16, approximately, he seemed to indicate that the first time he

2 had heard any reference of a number of approximately 10.000 policemen was

3 this year, in 2006, when I presented the number to him. How would you

4 react to that? Is there any possibility that he's correct in that

5 assertion?

6 A. Well, Mr. Ivetic, we went with this piece of information to

7 Belgrade on the 19th of January, 1999, and we believed I think that we

8 were given the correct figures based on intelligence sources. But as I

9 told you, I do not know which sources they were.

10 Q. Okay. Now, you go on to say in that section of your -- of the

11 exhibit that I've been referring to, that special police forces were

12 deployed in Kosovo, which was not acceptable. Now, I presume you're

13 talking about the PJP and the SAJ units of the MUP.

14 I want to ask you, sir, are you aware of the fact that there are

15 detachments of these units which are indigenous to Kosovo and Metohija,

16 that is to say that the Kosovo secretariats of police have their own PJP

17 detachments from their own personnel and that the SAJ actually has a

18 detachment that has always been permanently based in Kosovo?

19 Were you aware of that at the time that you made your statement

20 that special police forces were deployed in Kosovo, which was not

21 acceptable?

22 A. We were aware that there were so to say indigenous special police

23 elements in Kosovo. But when we stated this in January 1999, the

24 intelligence we had in our hands was that there had been forces poured

25 into Kosovo which were not based in Kosovo but had been brought in from

1 elsewhere.

2 Q. Now, at paragraph 17 of this statement, you describe -- you begin

3 talking about Malisevo, a village within Kosovo-Metohija. Do you remember

4 why Malisevo and that entire region surrounding that town was important,

5 and why it featured so much in the negotiations to the point where even

6 the Byrnes-Djordjevic agreement specifically deals with that particular

7 area of Kosovo-Metohija?

8 A. When we went to Belgrade, Mr. Ivetic, I was not aware of the

9 centrality of Malisevo for both sides. And I learned in the proceedings

10 that at this place, obviously, a KLA headquarters had been.

11 Q. Okay. And had you also hear or learn that Malisevo had been one

12 of the bases from which arms and munitions had been smuggled in across the

13 border?

14 A. I think that was mentioned in these talks that we had in this

15 night, 24 to 25th.

16 Q. Okay. And was KDOM, the US-KDOM mission, was it eager to address

17 Malisevo and retain a reduction of the police forces situated there?

18 A. I do not remember that KDOM had more or less drawn our attention

19 to the centrality of Malisevo before we started the talks. So to Clark

20 and me, this -- this insistence on Malisevo came a little bit as a

21 surprise I should say.

22 Q. Okay. And I presume that since it came as a surprise to you, your

23 knowledge of the KLA presence in Malisevo, that came -- that would have

24 come from KDOM as well. Is that correct?

25 A. Well -- and most of the information we had came from KDOM.

1 Q. Did it appear to you, sir, that KDOM was feeling pressure from the

2 KLA to obtain a reduction of the police force in Malisevo?

3 A. I did not have the impression that KDOM -- the only one I talked

4 to was Shaun Byrnes, that he was under pressure from the side of the KLA.

5 I had the impression that Byrnes was a rather, I should say, impartial

6 player.

7 Q. Okay. And based upon the knowledge that you have -- that you

8 obtained from Mr. Byrnes relating to Malisevo during these discussions,

9 would -- would you say that due to the concerns over the presence of a KLA

10 base and the smuggling of KLA weapons into Malisevo, that in fact the

11 Serbs would have a legitimate concern and a justified reason for

12 maintaining a police presence in that area?

13 A. Well, as we -- if you look at the general gist of the 25th October

14 agreement, we acknowledged the principle that the Serbian police should

15 execute its rights in a lawful and proportionate way. So we never

16 challenged the legality of Serbian sovereignty for this part of Serbia.

17 Q. Now, you testified the other day relating to the period following

18 the conclusion of these agreements when you -- when you and NATO, I should

19 say -- when NATO received information from sources, various sources, as to

20 what was transpiring on the ground. I'd like to know if you are privy to

21 the information that from the 16th of October, 1998, through the end of

22 the year, December 31st, 1998, the KLA actually committed 155 distinct

23 attacks, criminal attacks or terrorist attacks, against various persons in

24 the territory of Kosovo-Metohija?

25 A. Well, I'm not aware of the precise number, and I do not remember

1 whether we counted the incidents. But I think I stated repeatedly that I

2 had the impression that the KLA was trying to take advantage of the

3 Serbian withdrawal as a consequence of the 25th October agreement.

4 Q. Okay. And I believe you mentioned that often the KLA would

5 instigate incidents and then the police or Serb forces would go out in

6 response to that, thus creating more targets for the KLA to attack. The

7 question I have for you, sir, is if we take into account that these KLA

8 attacks included attacks that resulted in 17 killed civilians, 31

9 kidnapped individuals of all ethnicities, including Serb, Albanian, Roma,

10 and 15 wounded civilians and 15 hijacked cars, is it correct, sir, that in

11 reality the KLA looked for targets wherever they could find them so that

12 unless all the police and all the civilians who didn't support the KLA

13 were removed from Kosovo, the KLA would still continue in its activities?

14 A. That is a conclusion which in -- based on the information I had at

15 the time would have gone too far. But I stated repeatedly in the NATO

16 Council that the KLA is increasingly jumping into the role of the bad guy.

17 Q. Okay. Thank you. Now, I'd like to move on just briefly to touch

18 on another fact you testified about, Racak. Now, as far as the incident

19 in Racak in January 1999 is concerned, are you aware of the fact that the

20 OSCE-KVM was informed prior to the commencement of the operation pursuant

21 to the terms of the KVM agreement?

22 A. I'm -- I'm not entirely sure whether I was informed that they

23 were -- that they got the information before that. Please forgive me, I

24 don't know it precisely.

25 Q. No problem. I understand that time has passed --

1 A. Yeah, unfortunately.

2 Q. -- and one fact out of many can sometimes get lost in the -- in

3 the totality of the situation. Now, irrespective of that fact, following

4 the -- the completion of the operation, are you aware that the KLA that

5 was present fired upon several investigative teams that were trying to get

6 into the scene; and, therefore, the investigative teams were not able to

7 get to the scene until January the 18th, some two days after the

8 operation, after the bodies had been moved several times, meaning that

9 material evidence from the -- from the on-site inspection were lost or

10 unpreserved?

11 A. I do not --

12 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.

14 MR. HANNIS: I have an objection to this because we've been told

15 we're not going to lead evidence on Racak. This is getting quite

16 detailed. I think Mr. Ivetic is opening the door now for us to make an

17 application to present evidence about Racak. This goes beyond the scope

18 of what we've been trying to do in the few times that we've been to Racak.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Perhaps that would suit him.

20 MR. IVETIC: Your Honour, they called a witness which testified

21 for several hours that talked only about Racak. And this statement here

22 talks about going to meetings in January as a result of Racak and as a

23 result of what Mr. Walker concluded and that is specifically what I am

24 focusing upon.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: I expected the objection to be a different one,

1 which was that the factual situation is a bit more complex than you have

2 presented. Well, let's hear what, if anything, the witness can say on

3 this first of all; and then I'll decide whether we should explore it any

4 further.

5 Mr. Naumann, can you deal with that at all?

6 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honour. The one thing which I

7 recall for sure is that Ambassador Walker did not mention to us that the

8 KLA had fired at the KVM teams. That he did not mention in the briefing.

9 MR. IVETIC:

10 Q. Did -- am I correct that the information you obtained from Mr.

11 Walker was essentially his own conclusions prior to the completion of any

12 investigations, either by the Serb authorities or by any other groups?

13 A. Well, he presented to us, Mr. Ivetic, his observations, his

14 conclusions, as he had obtained them by 19th of January. And he clearly

15 stated that these were his conclusions.

16 Q. Okay. Fair enough. I'd like to -- I'm done with Racak. I'd like

17 to move on now to one final point, which just closes the issue of the

18 October meetings again. At that point in time when you attended meetings

19 where police officials or generals were involved, am I correct that the

20 police officials were -- that the justifications given by the police

21 officials and the concerns expressed by the police officials relating to

22 Kosovo-Metohija focused primarily and solely upon the criminal activities

23 of the KLA and other such groups?

24 A. That is correct, yes.

25 Q. And we've heard testimony from this Commander Bislim Zyrapi during

1 these proceedings that the KLA had approximately 17.000 to 18.000 active

2 armed members in March of 1999. Do you recall whether such intel was

3 available to NATO at that time?

4 A. I do not recall that we had precise figures on the KLA. Since in

5 contrast to some statements, we never regarded the KLA more or less as an

6 ally to NATO.

7 Q. Thank you, General. That's all the questions I have for you.

8 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honours.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

10 Mr. O'Sullivan.

11 MR. O'SULLIVAN: No questions.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

13 Mr. Hannis, re-examination.

14 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.

15 Re-examination by Mr. Hannis:

16 Q. General, there were a couple of matters in the transcript

17 yesterday that I'm not clear on that I wanted to go back and confirm with

18 you whether or not it's accurately recorded. At page 81, line 7, you were

19 asked a question about -- by Mr. Ackerman. And the question was -- he was

20 giving you an example of a military barracks housing soldiers of the

21 enemy, even though there are numerous noncombatants there. It doesn't

22 become a nontarget just noncombatants are present, does it?

23 Your answer was: "A military facility -- a military barrack is, I

24 think, a target which can be attacked. Again, the principle of avoiding

25 unnecessary collateral damage has to be applied."

1 And then Mr. Ackerman started to ask a question and said: "And."

2 And then you continued your answer and said: "And we did this, Mr.

3 Ackerman."

4 When you say "we did this," were you referring to you attempted to

5 avoid unnecessary collateral damage --?

6 A. That's correct.

7 Q. -- when attacking such targets?

8 A. That's correct, Mr. Hannis.

9 Q. Okay. Page 86, line 10, you were asked a question -- well, let me

10 see if I can get this. Oh, yes, you were talking about your training when

11 you were at the Royal College of Defence Studies, and you said:

12 "Every one of us doing individual patrolling with a live firing

13 rifle. Every one of us who hit a civilian target passed the course." And

14 then you said, "so did not pass the course." Did you mean if someone hit

15 a civilian target they failed?

16 A. Yes, that's what I meant.

17 Q. Thank you. At page 77, line 17, Mr. Ackerman raised the point to

18 you whether or not it -- you consider it legitimate for a military

19 commander to try and protect his own personnel when responding to hostile

20 fire on his people. What about -- does the military commander also have

21 an obligation to protect civilians that might be within that zone of

22 combat?

23 A. Mr. Hannis, I think I stated this clearly that he has a

24 responsibility, and I think I went even beyond that and said that in most

25 of our deliberations we also tried to reduce damage to opposing forces.

1 Q. I believe you did say that. Thank you. I hesitate to go into

2 this, but I do want to ask you a couple of questions about the issue Mr.

3 Ackerman raised about bombing from 15.000 feet. You mentioned -- well,

4 first of all, can targeting at 15.000 feet versus at 1500 feet or 150

5 feet, can you be as accurate from 15.000 feet with the equipment that NATO

6 had at that time?

7 A. If you use precision-guided ammunition, yes, you can be precise.

8 It doesn't -- it really doesn't matter, Mr. Hannis.

9 Q. Can you explain for us why that is.

10 A. Yeah. Well, if I take the example of a cruise missile being

11 launched from a ship at a distance from 2.000 miles, you can programme the

12 warhead in such a way that it will take a decision inflight whether it

13 will hit this window on the left or the window to the right; and with 95

14 percent probability, it will hit the proper window. So I think the

15 accuracy is mind-boggling which modern ammunitions achieved in the

16 meantime.

17 Q. And you mentioned that a pilot flying at 15.000 feet wouldn't

18 necessarily be using his eyes to look at a target on the ground.

19 A. The pilot flying at 150 feet would use primarily his eyes; but in

20 all other cases, I think he would use radars and other technical devices

21 to identify and hit the proper target.

22 Q. Including overhead imagery?

23 A. Only a few aircraft have this capability. They all are American.

24 The data linking is, first of all, technically too sophisticated for many

25 Europeans and also too expensive.

1 Q. Okay. Thank you. One other transcript matter I wanted to be

2 clear on. At page 86, line 19 from yesterday, there was a question about

3 the shelling of the MUP headquarters in Belgrade.

4 And you said: "Since it would have been one of the first attacks

5 on down-town Belgrade, the secretary-general of NATO had to agree to

6 that."

7 Judge Bonomy said: "So that must have been agreed?"

8 You said: "At the political level."

9 And then Judge Bonomy said: "But agreed contrary to your advice?"

10 And your answer was: "Based upon my advice, yes."

11 Can you tell us how that went. I understand that General Clark

12 first proposed it to you, you asked him to go back and be sure, then what

13 happened?

14 A. Again, the story -- I hope not to bore Your Honours, the Court. I

15 got the information that this headquarters should be bombed, and I first

16 got it when -- by a colonel who was dispatched to NATO headquarters in

17 Brussels by General Clark. And this colonel presented me with an overhead

18 imagery of the building and its immediate surroundings, not much more than

19 let's say 500 metres. When I saw it, I said to the colonel, Sorry, this

20 is no basis on which I can formulate a recommendation to the

21 secretary-general. I need additional information.

22 I picked up the phone, called General Clark, told him what I

23 needed, and sent the colonel back. After an hour, he came back with a

24 bigger imagery and a map on which the surrounding -- and in particular

25 this centre hospital was clearly visible. Then again I asked the colonel

1 what is the -- what is the targeting? What is the amount of ammunition

2 you want to spend on it? Got the information that I think more than a

3 dozen cruise missiles were intended to hit this building.

4 And when I learned this figure, I again picked up the phone,

5 called General Clark, said, Listen, Wes, with more than a dozen cruise

6 missiles into that building, that is presumably something which will cause

7 a lot of collateral damage and I'm not inclined to recommend to the

8 secretary-general to authorise such a strike. Please go back to your

9 targeteers and look into alternative options.

10 He called me again, this colonel still being there with the

11 classified imagery at hand. And said, Okay, we'll change it. The -- I

12 think he mentioned the figure six cruise missiles would be launched, and

13 we changed the angle of attack so that collateral damage can be avoided.

14 With that -- based on that information, I went to the secretary-general

15 and said, This is a request of Supreme Allied Commander Europe; and based

16 upon the modifications we discussed, I think you can go along and I would

17 recommend you to authorise the strike. That's the full story.

18 Q. Okay. Related --

19 JUDGE BONOMY: One matter for the transcript which may or may not

20 be important, 67, line 6, did I correctly hear you say that you called

21 General Clark and said, "Listen, Wes?"

22 THE WITNESS: I said, "Listen, Wes."

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

24 Mr. Hannis.

25 MR. HANNIS:

1 Q. One more matter related to that Mr. Cepic asked you some questions

2 about that. And at page 39, line 2, today your answer you said: "When the

3 building of the General Staff," and I think all along we had been talking

4 about the MUP headquarters.

5 A. Mr. Cepic, Mr. Hannis, asked me two questions. One was the police

6 headquarters, and the other one was the General Staff. Both were targets

7 in central Belgrade, and in both cases Mr. Cepic alleged that the

8 buildings have been evacuated.

9 Q. Thank you.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Were these two buildings close to each other?

11 THE WITNESS: Oh, Your Honour, now you're catching me on the wrong

12 foot.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: No, no.

14 THE WITNESS: I was Belgrade down-town only once in my life and

15 that was in the middle of the night.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: I understand that. But from what you recollect of

17 the diagrams or the plans you were shown, can I ask you separately. You

18 perhaps can't relate these two buildings to each other, but can I ask you

19 separately whether the hospital was located close to the MUP headquarters

20 or were there other buildings between them?

21 THE WITNESS: As far as I recall the imagery, the hospital was

22 pretty close and there were no major buildings between the two.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

24 Mr. Hannis.

25 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.

1 Could we show the witness Exhibit P2560 at page 14 of the English,

2 please.

3 Q. General, this concerns a question about the issue of collateral

4 damage and mistakes made in the bombing campaign. This is a report by

5 Lord Robertson that was done one year after Kosovo that summarised what

6 happened, and if you could look at that page.

7 MR. HANNIS: If we could go down just slightly. Yeah, that's

8 good.

9 Q. The paragraph that starts above the picture. If you could start

10 with the line that begins with the word "strikes." Could you just read

11 that for us. Could you read that out loud?

12 A. Yeah, I should read it out?

13 Q. Yes, please.

14 A. "Strikes were also complicated by the cynical Serb use of civilian

15 homes and buildings to hide weapons and vehicles, the intermixing of

16 military vehicles with civilian convoys, and sometimes the use of human

17 shields."

18 Continue?

19 Q. One more, please.

20 A. "In this way, NATO's concern to avoid civilian casualties was

21 exploited by the Serbs."

22 Q. Based on your time while you were there during the NATO air

23 campaign, is that consistent with some of the things that happened?

24 A. To hide military vehicles in civilian buildings, correct; to

25 inter -- to mix civilian vehicles and military vehicles in convoys,

1 correct as well; human shields, I do not remember.

2 Q. Okay. Thank you. Now, I had wanted to ask you about something

3 that Mr. Fila asked you about today. At page 44, line 10, he showed you

4 the exhibit that regarded the appointment of Mr. Sainovic as President of

5 the Yugoslav Commission for Cooperating with OSCE. When he was introduced

6 to you at that meeting on the 24th of October, I think you said in your

7 prior evidence that he was introduced as the man responsible for Kosovo.

8 A. Right.

9 Q. And you described that he did have some participation in the

10 technical agreements that were worked out over the weekend of the 24th and

11 25th. Was it your understanding that his role regarding Kosovo was

12 limited to cooperation with OSCE?

13 A. My understanding when Mr. Milosevic introduced Mr. Sainovic was

14 not that it was as limited as I read it today in this decree which I saw

15 on the display. But I would admit, Mr. Hannis, that a head of state

16 introducing some of his collaborators will not always use precise wording.

17 That I have seen in many other cases as well.

18 Q. Mr. Milosevic -- I'm sorry, Mr. Ivetic asked you a question about

19 Mr. Walker's observations regarding Racak at page 62, lines 17 and 18

20 today. When you and Mr. -- You and General Clark met with Mr. Milosevic

21 on the 19th of January, did Mr. Milosevic give you some of his

22 observations and opinions about the events of Racak?

23 A. Well, Mr. Milosevic -- and I think I stated this in what -- in the

24 general statement which I made earlier on to the Milosevic case. Mr.

25 Milosevic reacted very angrily at our allegation that Racak had been a

1 type of a massacre. And he repeatedly stated and claimed that Serb police

2 and military forces had acted in full accordance with Serbian law and with

3 international law and that there was no justification whatsoever for any

4 crime.

5 Q. And did he indicate to you -- I think it's in your written

6 evidence. He indicated that no Serb police or military would do that

7 crime?

8 A. That he said.

9 Q. Even though there was an investigation supposedly still ongoing?

10 A. There was an investigation going on by Serb authorities, and later

11 on, as we learned during the day, a Finnish autopsy team was called in.

12 Q. Finally, I want to go to a couple of matters that Mr. Sepenuk

13 asked you about yesterday at the very beginning of your cross-examination.

14 He showed you a number of things from what has been referred to as the

15 blue book that OSCE had regarding activities in Kosovo.

16 For you in NATO, was your only sources of information about what

17 was happening in Kosovo based on what you heard from OSCE and KDOM, or did

18 you have other source?

19 A. We had other sources as well. And for that reason, it shouldn't

20 come to the Court as a surprise that some of the comprehensive assessments

21 which were put on the screen yesterday did not pop up in NATO intelligence

22 in a verbatim form. They were brought together with other pieces of

23 information and condensed to a NATO intelligence.

24 Q. And what you and NATO determined as being corroborated information

25 came from at least two member states?

1 A. More, more. I think in -- in most cases, we had information of --

2 by approximately five to six member nations. And, occasionally, when I

3 had to present the military assessment in the council, the one or the

4 other ambassador who had not revealed its information through the

5 intelligence channels provided additional information.

6 Q. Yesterday, Mr. Sepenuk at page 45 line 11 in sort of summing up

7 the review of some of these documents from the blue book, said:

8 "Okay. Then, General, as the year 1998 drew to a close, is it

9 fair to say that neither the OSCE nor NATO nor Ambassador Hill nor anybody

10 else for that matter had been successful in successfully stopping KLA

11 provocations?"

12 And your answer was: "Yeah, that was my impression at the time."

13 General, at the end of 1998, had anyone been successful in

14 stopping the Serbs from responding with disproportionate forces to those

15 provocations?

16 A. In our assessment, not. And as I think I have stated repeatedly

17 also in yesterday's proceedings, that we were confronted with a spiral of

18 escalation and counter-escalation.

19 Q. Yes. And you did talk about that spiral of escalation and

20 counter-escalation. My last question, and I would like to show you a

21 document.

22 MR. HANNIS: This is Exhibit 928. Your Honours, this was not a

23 document that was on the list of exhibits to show to the witness, but I

24 bring it to your attention in light of what has been asked in

25 cross-examination and the challenges made. I think it is pertinent.

1 These are minutes of the VJ collegium from the 30th of December, 1998, and

2 there's a specific paragraph that talks about Podujevo that I would like

3 to bring to your attention and ask General Naumann about. It's page 14 in

4 the English.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.

6 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] May I say -- may I say that in my

7 modest view, the Prosecution cannot present documents like this in

8 re-direct, because they haven't announced any such thing during the direct

9 examination.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila.

11 MR. FILA: [Microphone not activated]

12 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

13 MR. FILA: [Microphone not activated]

14 JUDGE BONOMY: We're not hearing you because of the microphone.

15 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] We're just being given part of a

16 document, and I don't know what the point of the entire document is. Why

17 wasn't it shown in good time? This document is not derived from the

18 cross-examination really. I really don't know what this is all about. I

19 wish I could have seen it.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: This is important to you, Mr. Hannis, is it?

21 MR. HANNIS: It is, Your Honour.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: All right.

23 Mr. Naumann, I wonder if you could briefly leave the room with the

24 usher while we deal with this.

25 [The witness stands down]

1 JUDGE BONOMY: What is the issue that this relates to, Mr. Hannis?

2 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, this relates to the Podujevo incident

3 you heard Colonel Ciaglinski and General DZ speak about, which was viewed

4 as a violation of the October agreements. The Serb side presented it as

5 they were engaged in winter exercises with some of their armoured units,

6 that they were then fired upon by the KLA, and they were only responding

7 to that.

8 General Naumann has been asked about that in cross-examination

9 about disproportionate use of force, about who initiated all the contacts.

10 And here we have in the VJ collegium, of which General Ojdanic was the

11 head, there is a discussion about this. General Dimitrijevic is the one

12 speaking here. He was the head of the intelligence service for the

13 General Staff. And he is describing what appears to be that this was

14 genuinely not a planned exercise, but rather a means of drawing the KLA

15 into firing upon them so the MUP could go in and take action.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: What is your question for this witness?

17 MR. HANNIS: I want to ask him if -- well, Your Honour, basically

18 I just want to put this document in to you.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that's not appropriate.

20 MR. HANNIS: From the Bench.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: That's not appropriate in this way, Mr. Hannis. If

22 there is a witness who is going to introduce this document or going to be

23 introduced in some other way, fine. But you're going to put a proposition

24 from a document to the witness who has already said he has no knowledge of

25 Podujevo.

1 MR. HANNIS: Well, that's correct, Your Honour. He did indicate

2 that he believed Podujevo was one of the ten incidents that was described

3 in the list that they gave to Mr. Milosevic when they went on the 19th of

4 January.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Indeed, but he's got no knowledge of what happened

6 there.

7 [Trial Chamber confers]

8 JUDGE BONOMY: This doesn't comply with any rule that had been

9 followed in this case. It's a document that will have to be introduced in

10 an appropriate way and not simply by asking a witness, who's got no

11 connection with it and no particular knowledge of the events, a question

12 which is designed just to introduce the statement in the document itself.

13 So that's not the right way to deal with this, Mr. Hannis.

14 MR. HANNIS: All right, Your Honour. I'll accept that. I would

15 indicate, though, that we think it's appropriate as a contextual document

16 at this time to consider this witness's evidence as to who was initiating

17 and responding to armed conflict and as a contextual document for Colonel

18 Ciaglinski and General DZ and their evidence about Podujevo.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, you're going to have to re-consider how you

20 will introduce the document, because we will not allow this witness to be

21 asked about it.

22 MR. HANNIS: Well, we would offer it from the bench, Your Honour,

23 because this is something we received in response to an RFA from the

24 Government of Serbia.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Oh, I wasn't aware you just received it. When did

1 you receive it?

2 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I'm not sure of the date we received

3 it. I can find that out.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: I don't doubt that it may be a relevant document,

5 but I don't think this moment at the end of this witness's evidence is the

6 time and context for the introduction of this document. You will have to

7 consider, again. Sorry, Mr. Visnjic, do you want to say something?

8 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, let us just clarify two

9 matters. First of all, the Prosecution has this documentation. They have

10 had it for at least a year as far as I know. Secondly --

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you want to persuade us to allow it?

12 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] No. No, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, you'd be well advised to sit down now.

14 You will have to find an appropriate witness to deal with this,

15 Mr. Hannis, or make an appropriate submission about it, and that I think

16 in view of the nature of this document would be a written submission. But

17 this is not the -- you have not identified in relation to this witness

18 something that he could from his own experience deal with in relation to

19 this document.

20 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, I understand. I think -- I'll check but

21 I believe this document was part of a prior submission, a written

22 submission, of evidence to the Court which was initially denied. We feel

23 that it is something which does not necessarily need to come in through a

24 particular witness. The VJ collegium minutes are a collection we received

25 pursuant to an RFA. They're relevant to a number of matters, and we -- I

1 propose to bring this one up at this time, because I think it related to

2 Ciaglinski, DZ, and this witness and the Podujevo incident.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: But are you saying that this document was among the

4 documents you invited us to admit as stand-alone documents?

5 MR. HANNIS: Yes, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: And did that decision not refuse to admit them

7 without prejudice?

8 MR. HANNIS: Yes, it did.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: And, therefore, a circumstance has developed

10 plainly it may turn out to be appropriate to admit something. And I think

11 that you ought to reflect on whether simply presenting it orally is the

12 right way to try to do that now that you can contextualise the elements in

13 this document that you seek to rely on and perhaps establish its

14 authenticity, then the position may well be quite different from what it

15 was before. But it needs to be done in an orderly fashion and notice

16 needs to be given to the Defence to enable them to respond appropriate so

17 that we get full submissions on something that could turn out to be pretty

18 important.

19 MR. HANNIS: All right, Your Honour.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: So in the present circumstances we will refuse to

21 allow the question that you intended to ask, since it does not appear to

22 us to be a question that the witness could provide us with an informed

23 answer on.

24 MR. HANNIS: Okay. Before we have the witness back in, I just

25 want to indicate with some of these collections what I would call

1 all-encompassing collections that pertain to a number of matters and a

2 number of witnesses, it is a dilemma for us somewhat to try to put in a

3 part of a document or one document of many when there is a witness that

4 touches on some particular aspect, or try and put the whole collection in

5 at the end and then try to relate back to Your Honours things that have

6 happened.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I hope we've tried to give guidance on that

8 already. The motion to which you've referred was a motion inviting us to

9 admit material without really seeing how it would fit into the case, and

10 we admitted what was obvious to us as relevant material and also authentic

11 material. In making any further submission for the admission of documents

12 standing alone, you should be directing the Trial Chamber's attention to

13 the passages that are relevant to the case and to the question how they

14 are relevant to the case.

15 Now, it's for you in making that submission to judge in your own

16 mind whether the whole of the document also needs to be admitted to enable

17 a full understanding of the situation to be given to the trial. But

18 please bear in mind that we -- I don't know whether it's been the practice

19 in the past or not, but we are not prepared to accept large volumes of

20 material that might later feature in an argument that has later been put

21 together.

22 This case has been on the go so long that the parties ought to

23 know exactly what their case is and where documents fit into it, and we

24 expect to be assisted in that way. Now, that's the best guidance I can

25 give you. If you take the view that you will throw material at us because

1 it might be relevant in view of the heading, then you're making a big

2 mistake. And, indeed, we will reject it and may in fact as a result of

3 that miss the nuggets that are in it.

4 MR. HANNIS: If I may take one more minute of your time, Your

5 Honour, because this is difficult. In another case I was on, there was an

6 accused who was head of the legislature, and we put in Assembly sessions

7 which had a lot of stuff which was of no interest. But to try and present

8 a fair picture of the parts that we wanted to argue about and to deal with

9 what was probably a legitimate Defence complaint if we select that

10 paragraph or that page, we may not be giving you a fair picture.

11 I know it then falls upon the Court to perhaps have to wade

12 through some stuff that is not relevant, but it is really difficult to

13 single out a page or a paragraph from a large collection like that. And

14 sometimes it's the tone of the entire meeting and the participants that

15 take on some importance.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, you may be right about that, but you would

17 have to in your submission say that that's the case and give examples of

18 why that's the case.

19 MR. HANNIS: Okay.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: It is not the job of this Trial Chamber to simply

21 receive material and decide for itself where there might be something

22 relevant to the case. The parties should be making submissions about the

23 relevance of the material for the Trial Chamber to consider before

24 deciding the quantity that requires to be admitted.

25 MR. HANNIS: Okay. Thank you for your patience and your guidance.

1 JUDGE BONOMY: No, it is helpful to have these discussions in an

2 appropriate context, and I'm grateful to you for explaining your position.

3 But I do think that it sounds as though a lot of work has to be done by

4 you on material which could turn out to be of some importance.

5 MR. HANNIS: Thank you. Then we can have the witness back in, and

6 I'll have no further questions.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Unless anyone wishes to comment that our approach

8 that we've indicated ought to be modified in some way. All right.

9 Let's have the witness back, please.

10 [The witness takes the stand]

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Naumann, we've disallowed that question.

12 Mr. Hannis.

13 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.

14 Q. General Naumann, I have no further questions for you. Thank you

15 for coming.

16 A. Thank you.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.

18 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] I apologise for interrupting, Your

19 Honour. It is my impression that in the re-direct, a new topic was

20 opened. My learned friend, Mr. Hannis, made use of a document by Lord

21 Robertson, marked P2560. And he used it to put a question concerning the

22 use of civilian facilities and columns of vehicles and the use of the Serb

23 forces of the aforementioned instances. It is at page 69.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, it was a matter that arose out of

25 cross-examination. It's an issue of collateral damage. Now, what is

1 your concern?

2 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Even the two buildings that I

3 mentioned, gathering from the witness's answer and the way the question

4 was put, I gathered from it that there was some military vehicles hidden

5 there in the MUP and the General Staff building; therefore, it remains

6 open.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: So you understood the witness to be saying there

8 were military vehicles in the MUP and General Staff buildings. Is that

9 right? But they are military -- well, they are police and General Staff

10 buildings.

11 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] I stated something to the contrary

12 during cross-examination, and the witness said that he wasn't familiar

13 with the fact that all -- that both buildings had been evacuated. There

14 were no people or vehicles in them. But if the Bench is happy with such

15 an answer, then I will withdraw.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, you know our position is to refer to

17 documents only to the extent that they've been introduced into the

18 evidence, and silence might have been your appropriate course of action.

19 But now you've raised something in the document that we could hardly

20 ignore, which we probably would not have paid any attention to. But now

21 that you've raised it, I suppose we have no alternative but to allow you

22 to ask questions, so please do so.

23 MR. CEPIC: Thank you very much, Your Honour.

24 Further cross-examination by Mr. Cepic:

25 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Naumann, it is I, again. I have already

1 introduced myself to you. My learned friend, Mr. Hannis, asked you

2 something about the targeting of facilities including a MUP building and a

3 General Staff building. You said you were not familiar with the

4 information that these two buildings had been targeted.

5 My interest here is the use of civilian facilities and columns of

6 vehicles by the MUP and the VJ. During the bombing, you gained such

7 information via satellite pictures, since you did not have people in the

8 field. You did not have any observers on the ground, did you, Mr.

9 Naumann?

10 A. Well, first of all, Mr. Cepic, I think I need to clarify a slight

11 confusion which obviously occurred. The question which I got from Mr.

12 Hannis did not refer to the VJ -- or to the VJ General Staff or the police

13 headquarters. In the -- with regard to these two targets, I remain with

14 my statement which I made earlier on.

15 I was not aware of the evacuation, and I did not allege in these

16 proceedings that any military vehicles or something like this were hidden

17 in these two buildings. I think it would also physically have been

18 impossible, unless there was an underground garage of which I do not know.

19 What Mr. Hannis was referring to is that Lord Robertson stated in his

20 report one year after the Kosovo air campaign that during the campaign,

21 the VJ used civilian buildings to hide military vehicles and also mixed

22 civilian and military vehicles in convoys.

23 That is something which I have seen and I confirmed. And I

24 clearly said I do not know -- I do not remember any use of human beings as

25 human shields. So I think we should keep these two things separate. What

1 you asked me about was the two targets in down-town Belgrade and what Mr.

2 Hannis talked about was the conduct of the operations in the Kosovo

3 province.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Are you saying, Mr. Cepic, that in the document

5 P2560, there is reference to vehicles being hidden in the MUP and General

6 Staff building?

7 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] No. Perhaps I misunderstood the

8 answer, and I may have been wrong. Nonetheless, I wanted to seek this

9 clarification. My further question would be, although it might be too

10 complex, but it pertains to the assertion from the document that NATO

11 gained information about the situation on the ground via satellites. That

12 was the question I posed.

13 THE WITNESS: Well, I'm happy to answer that question. Well, of

14 course we gained information via satellite, Mr. Cepic, satellite imagery,

15 but we have also other instruments to gain pictures. The drones were

16 already mentioned. There were other manned aircraft who were taking

17 photographs. So I think we had a number of instruments which allowed us

18 to get some pictorial evidence.

19 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. Thank you, Mr. Naumann. With His Honour's leave, I have one more

21 question. There were mistakes in conclusions made from such pictures,

22 such as was the case of the two convoys mentioned by Mr. Ackerman in

23 Bistrazin and Korisa. In total, almost 200 civilians were killed in those

24 actions. That would be my last question?

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Don't answer that question.

1 That goes beyond the scope of what you were permitted to do, Mr.

2 Cepic.

3 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I apologise

4 for having interrupted and I thank you for this possibility to pose

5 additional questions.

6 Q. [In English] Thank you, Mr. Naumann.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

8 Questioned by the Court:

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Naumann, how common is the writing of books by

10 senior military officers involved in modern-day conflict?

11 A. Obviously, it's getting increasingly popular, Your Honour.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Is there a reason for it that you can detect?

13 A. Well, I think it depends very much on personalities and on the

14 situation in the individual country. If I -- if I had to do something

15 like this, I would not write a book about an individual campaign. I've

16 written a book which reflects my experience in the situation after the

17 Cold War, and I tried to formulate an assessment of the situation as I see

18 it in order to contribute to the strategic discussion in my country. But

19 I would never do something like this on, let's say, on the experiences

20 gained in operations like such in the Balkans.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: Do they sell well, these books?

22 A. I don't know. But, again, this is different from country to

23 country. And in the United States of America, you can presumably sell

24 such books. In Europe, I think if you write books about stories

25 concerning so-called celebrities in the public life, you will get a lot of

1 money, but not if you talk about military or security policies.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: It's also increasingly common among politicians.

3 A. There is something special about it, and I have -- fortunately, I

4 was -- or unfortunately during the last ten years of my military career, I

5 witnessed a couple of traumatic changes in European history. And when I

6 now read some of the memoirs written by well-known German politicians, I

7 can state that my recollection of some details is quite different.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: It's not been a feature of this case, but in other

9 cases of course before this Tribunal the books written by various people

10 in former Yugoslavia have been of a similar nature where both political

11 and military combat issues are addressed.

12 Anyway, I think that completes your evidence. Thank you for

13 coming again to the Tribunal to give it. You can rest assured that we

14 will consider carefully all you've said and also everything you've said in

15 the past in the Tribunal, which has been presented to us. You're now free

16 to leave. That may complete your involvement in the Tribunal; I'm not

17 sure.

18 THE WITNESS: Thank you.

19 [The witness withdrew]

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Any surprises, Mr. Hannis?

21 MR. HANNIS: Well, it depends on what surprises, Your Honour, but

22 we have no further witnesses to call before the winter recess, Your

23 Honour. We -- we will be filing our updated witness list I think later

24 today or tomorrow. I think you'll see that our total number of witnesses

25 is less than it was when we first filed our witness list back in May or in

1 July. So I think we're on course to hopefully finish with our case in

2 chief sometime in March or April.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that's encouraging.

4 MR. HANNIS: I can't guarantee that, Your Honour, because I don't

5 know exactly how long cross-exam will go and sometimes other matters that

6 will come up, but I think we have something in the neighbourhood of 35 new

7 witnesses in the new year.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: The sitting schedule we have for the new year, I

9 can outline just now. When we come back and recommence on the 16th of

10 January, we'll be sitting mornings for that week. The week of the 22nd,

11 we aim to sit according to the schedule we would have had this week but

12 for all five days. That's a 9.00 to 3.30 schedule. That's followed by a

13 routine week. I can't tell you whether it's mornings or afternoons the

14 29th of January.

15 The 5th of February, we will not sit. But on the week the 6th of

16 February, we'll be sitting for full days; that's the 9.00 to 3.30 slot on

17 the Wednesday to the Friday. The final arrangement for the 6th is not yet

18 made; and we'll, as we did on one previous occasion, we'll run the longer

19 sitting over into the Monday of the following week, that's the 12th of

20 February. The rest of that week we'll be sitting half days.

21 The 19th of February, week beginning the 19th, will be the

22 full-day schedule, the 9.00 to 3.30. The 26th will be the half-day

23 schedule. The 5th of March we will not sit. And from the 6th until the

24 12th, that's the 12th, the Monday, we will sit on the longer schedule from

25 9.00 to 3.30.

1 Of course, that's subject to adjustment, and indeed may be impeded

2 by other cases that get underway in the interim. The programme for the

3 overall Tribunal is uncertain. All I'm indicating is our plans so we can

4 avoid what happened this week. The events of today rather confirm that

5 the recess is arriving at an opportune time.

6 The Chamber has appreciated counsels' efforts in recent weeks to

7 maintain focus on the significant relevant issues, and, indeed, we were

8 discussing the matter only yesterday. And that effort seems to have been

9 led by the senior members of the Defence teams and responded to by the

10 others. So we welcome that. We hope that over the recess you will all

11 find peaceful time, and we hope also that the recess will allow you to

12 recharge your batteries and return refreshed for the next leg, which may

13 not be as arduous as the first one in light of what Mr. Hannis has said.

14 But there again, you never know in this place.

15 So we will adjourn now, and we will resume at 9.00 on the 16th of

16 January.

17 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 12.27 p.m.,

18 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 16th day of

19 January, 2007, at 9.00 a.m.

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