Page 8168
1 Monday, 5 March 2007
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness enters court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.
6 JUDGE AGIUS: So, good morning to you Madam Registrar. Could you
7 call the case, please.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. This is the case
9 number IT-05-88-T, the Prosecutor versus Vujadin Popovic et al.
10 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, ma'am. All the accused are here.
11 Prosecution, Defence teams are all here, with the exception of Mr. Bourgon
12 for Nikolic. Prosecution, it's Mr. McCloskey and Mr. Vanderpuye.
13 Ms. Frease is already present in the courtroom, so I suppose,
14 Ms. Nikolic, you will take over from where Mr. Bourgon left, and then
15 we'll continue.
16 Yes, Ms. Nikolic.
17 WITNESS: STEFANIE FREASE [Resumed]
18 MS. NIKOLIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. Good
19 morning, Your Honours.
20 Cross-examination by Ms. Nikolic:
21 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Ms. Frease. Good morning to my
22 learned friends. I would like to put just a few more questions from tab
23 11 of the binder proving the authenticity and reliability of the
24 intercepts. And I think that my colleague will help you because he will
25 give you the documents so then you will be able to follow my questions.
Page 8169
1 In order for the others to be able to follow the documents, I would like
2 the assistance of e-court. These are documents P01250B. That's B/C/S,
3 and P1250D. That's in English. That's an intercept. The document that
4 the witness used to analyse this intercept is P00334, and it's a combat
5 report of the 18th of July, 1995.
6 Ms. Frease, we just want to see the intercept in English in
7 e-court. I assume that you were able to see this intercept which,
8 according to the information that we have, was intercepted on the 18th of
9 July at 1458 hours between unidentified speakers?
10 A. If I can just refer to the index to double-check that time. Yes.
11 Q. And you also have the document that you referred to in the
12 analysis of this intercept, and that's the interim combat report of the
13 18th of July, 1995.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. If we look at the intercept, the transcript of it, the last
16 sentence of item 2 from one of the interim combat reports is mentioned,
17 the one that is in front of you now; is that correct?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Locations are mentioned, Petkovici, Baljkovica, Memici.
20 A. Right.
21 Q. And the speakers are unidentified. They're marked as X and Y.
22 And in this intercept, in line eight it says Petkovici, Baljkovica,
23 Memici, referring to the interim combat report P00334; is that correct?
24 And that it's the last sentence of item 2 of the document that was
25 attached to this intercept?
Page 8170
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And those are the contents of the intercept. If we turn to the
3 document which was used to confirm the intercept in your analysis now,
4 it's combat report of the 18th of July, 1995, which, if we look at the
5 contents, it refers to only one sentence from the intercept, one sole
6 sentence.
7 A. Yes. I mean, I probably shouldn't agree so quickly. I -- do you
8 want to give me a minute to read through the whole intercept? Okay.
9 Q. Of course. Of course.
10 A. Okay.
11 Q. If we analyse the material that was used to confirm the intercept,
12 you -- when you look at the document again, it's not possible to establish
13 the identity of the participants; is that correct?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. It's not possible to establish where the speakers were?
16 A. No.
17 Q. And you don't know which units they belonged to?
18 A. I don't know, no.
19 Q. And does it fit the general time frame if we look at the report
20 and the intercept? According to the information, the report was issued at
21 1317 hours, and the intercept was caught at 1458 hours. So then we can
22 talk about the same time frame more or less; is that correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. The contents of the document -- the words in the document are not
25 identical to the words used in the intercept; is that correct?
Page 8171
1 A. Right. Not at all. In fact, there's a lot of clarification
2 mostly going on in the intercept between the location of Petkovci and
3 Petkovici and so it's going back and forth about where the front line is,
4 and that's the -- the content, the primary content of the intercepted
5 conversation.
6 Q. And what about the point and the objective of this intercept? Is
7 that known?
8 A. I would say trying to identify, you know, more specifically the
9 difference between Petkovci and Petkovici and the front line area.
10 Baljkovica, Memici.
11 Q. And towards the end of the conversation one of the speaker's notes
12 that there is a mistake, a typo, while the report was being typed out, a
13 teleprinter typo.
14 A. Yes, that's what they said, that there must have been a mistake on
15 the teleprinter when it came out, yes.
16 Q. But you will agree with me that this intercept does not provide
17 anything more than is already contained in the attached report or
18 document?
19 A. Right. I mean -- yes.
20 Q. Did you ever talk with any of the users of the information that
21 was coming from the intercepts or, rather, did you ever have contact with
22 members of the 2nd Corps or other units of the B and H army that used
23 these intercepts?
24 A. Could you be more specific about what you -- who you mean
25 by "users"?
Page 8172
1 Q. I mean those persons or those units to whom reports of intercepts
2 were sent to and who received the information from the conversation. I'm
3 not referring to any specific person. I can refer to units of the B and H
4 army whose members intercepted these conversations. Did you ever contact
5 any persons who received reports of these intercepts, units, the end users
6 of this information in terms of checking the authenticity or veracity of
7 the documents?
8 A. I remember speaking with one commander, yes. I don't remember
9 whether we had a specific conversation about him having received
10 information from the 2 Corps about communication that was intercepted.
11 Q. And could those conversations be defined as checking on the
12 authenticity of the intercepts as one of the additional ways of checking
13 on the source documents that you used?
14 A. I could give you an example of -- of something like that, but then
15 I would need to mention the name of the commander, and I think probably
16 closed session.
17 JUDGE AGIUS: We will go into private session.
18 [Private session]
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 8173
1 (redacted)
2 [Open session]
3 JUDGE AGIUS: We are back in open session.
4 MS. NIKOLIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.
5 Q. And that was the point in time when you checked on the reliability
6 of the information with one of the end users of that information?
7 A. That's an example, yes.
8 MS. NIKOLIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours. I have no
9 further questions.
10 Thank you, Ms. Frease.
11 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you so much, Madam Nikolic.
12 Who is going next? Madam Fauveau. You've asked for two and a
13 half hours.
14 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. President.
15 JUDGE AGIUS: There are still another two Defence teams that wish
16 to cross-examine the witness. Let me just check with them. The Gvero
17 team, you asked for 20 minutes. Do you stand by that?
18 MR. JOSSE: We'll need that, Your Honour.
19 JUDGE AGIUS: And the Popovic team?
20 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Yes, Your Honour.
21 JUDGE AGIUS: 30 minutes. So that would bring us, if you stick to
22 your two hours 30 minutes to three hours 40 minutes, and we'll barely make
23 it.
24 [Trial Chamber confers]
25 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Zivanovic, do you need 30 minutes?
Page 8174
1 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honours. My
2 cross-examination will refer only to documents that were given to me in
3 the meantime by the Prosecution.
4 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. Yes, Madam Fauveau.
5 Cross-examination by Ms. Fauveau:
6 Q. [Interpretation] Witness, when you were working you were listening
7 to -- you were talking to many people who were intercepting conversations.
8 When you got in touch with interceptors that with operators who were
9 members of the army of the BiH, did the officer of the army have to be
10 present at the -- at the interview?
11 A. Do you mean a commanding officer, a superior to the operator?
12 Q. What I would like to know is, an officer of the army of BiH,
13 independently of the fact if it was a superior officer, did they require
14 that somebody from the army be present during that interview?
15 A. Whether anyone was present during the very first interview, I
16 don't recall. But I do recall, very clearly, a conversation that we had
17 with the commanding officer of the 2 Corps when we were discussing having
18 access to the operators, and that the -- the general answer to your
19 question is no, there were no -- no officers of the ABiH present during
20 the interviews with the operators. And when we inquired, asked, whether
21 there were any areas that were off limits, in our questioning, we were
22 told no, that they had full -- had been given full authority to tell us
23 everything that they knew.
24 Q. However, there were situations where officers of the BiH were
25 present at interviews or during those interviews that you had.
Page 8175
1 A. If you could provide me with specific examples of when they were
2 present, I would be happy to look at them. As I said, it's possible that
3 during the first interview, when we were getting going with the process,
4 to understand the process, that someone other than the interviewee was
5 present.
6 Q. Do you agree with me that the presence of an officer of the BiH,
7 during an interview, could have had some kind of influence on what the
8 operator would tell you?
9 A. I would say, given the circumstances and given the fact that we
10 were told by a commanding officer that there were no -- that there was not
11 subject a matter that was off limits to us with respect to what we were
12 inquiring about, without you giving me a very specific example, I would
13 disagree.
14 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could the witness be shown P2337,
15 and I would like to go into private session for a few questions, please.
16 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's do that. Let's go into private session,
17 please.
18 [Private session]
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 8176
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Pages 8176-8177 redacted. Private session
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 8178
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 [Open session]
5 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session.
6 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
7 Q. Witness, if you were to read the statement today, eight years
8 after this interview, would you be able to remember what the interviewee
9 told you and what his superior told you?
10 A. I don't know.
11 Q. During the interview of the 25th of January, 2007, this is on
12 transcript page 38 -- 6388 and 6389, you stated that during the interviews
13 you had with the operator you said that certain procedures needed to be
14 applied, i.e., the name -- the way in which the conversation were being
15 recorded. Do you know whether the ABiH army had such a procedure, which
16 was to regulate the way in which the recordings were conducted?
17 A. Could you be more specific with your question, please?
18 Q. Do you know whether a specific rule existed with -- within the
19 ABiH army, if there was a particular way of recording the conversations,
20 the recordings, the transcripts, the way the reports were being sent, and
21 so on and so forth?
22 A. There was certainly a procedure with respect to how the operator
23 sat down at the tables where the UHER recording machines were, how they
24 scanned the various channels with their headphones on. When they came
25 across something, a conversation that sounded interesting, they would
Page 8179
1 record it. At a certain point when they found the time then -- sorry,
2 before -- at the time that they started to record the conversation they
3 would note the time, and as I've explained before, often also the channel
4 and the frequency but not always those three things.
5 Q. I don't wish to interrupt you. I think there was a
6 misunderstanding here. What I'm interested in is as follows: Do you know
7 whether rules and regulations existed in writing whether such a recording
8 needed to apply and comply with the procedure of the ABiH army?
9 A. I'm not aware of specific regulations. What I do recall is that
10 they followed the standard procedures that the JNA, the Yugoslav national
11 army, had previously used. But I don't know whether that -- whether that
12 applies to the recording, the capturing of that information, or the
13 processing of the information.
14 Q. Do you know that the JNA had written a regulation as regards the
15 recording of conversations?
16 A. And when you say recording of conversations, you mean when they
17 sat down at the desk to ...
18 Q. What I have in mind is comprehensive regulation, the way in which
19 the recording needed to be conducted, the way in which the transcript
20 needed to be taken, and the way in which the reports were being forwarded?
21 A. I don't know that.
22 Q. And you didn't reckon it was necessary to say whether such
23 regulations existed when you heard that the ABiH army was by and large
24 adopting the same procedures as the JNA?
25 A. When you put the question like that I can't say that I didn't
Page 8180
1 reckon it was necessary, but I -- I'm not aware of such documents.
2 Q. You said -- this was on the 25th of January, 2007, on page 2374.
3 You stated that sometimes the time that was shown in the book didn't quite
4 tally with the time that was mentioned in the report, and you said that
5 sometimes the person who typing up the report changed the times. Did you
6 ask why the person who was typing up the conversation had changed the
7 time?
8 A. To be very specific, I would need to look at that typist's
9 statement.
10 Q. Ma'am, I don't think you referred to a particular statement when
11 you said that the person who was typing up the conversation changed the
12 time?
13 JUDGE KWON: If you could give the page number again. 25th of
14 January.
15 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] 34 -- 6394. 25th of January, 2007.
16 JUDGE AGIUS: Still, we are where we -- where the witness left it.
17 You are being specific, and she is telling you that in order to give you a
18 specific answer she would have to consult the statement of the witness
19 relating to that particular document, if there is one.
20 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] That's a question I'm asking. I
21 don't now which statement we're talking about, because in the report no
22 particular statement is mentioned.
23 JUDGE AGIUS: Sir. Mr. Vanderpuye.
24 MR. VANDERPUYE: Perhaps it might be more useful if my learned
25 friend could read back to the witness the precise context in the statement
Page 8181
1 that she made.
2 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. I think that's a good suggestion.
3 Madam Fauveau, could you do that, please?
4 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Yes, of course, Your Honour.
5 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.
6 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
7 Q. So you talked about the time discrepancies, and the question, that
8 was put to you by the Prosecutor and put to you again by Your Honour, ran
9 as follows: "In preparation for such discrepancies, as Mr. Vanderpuye has
10 referred to them, which was acceptable enough to you to reach certain
11 conclusions?"
12 [Interpretation] And you -- your question was yes. And after that
13 Your Honour put the following question to you: [In English] "And what
14 were these explanations, if you could remember?" [Interpretation] And you
15 answered: [In English] "Well, simply that that -- and it was one -- it
16 was one typist in particular who -- who changed the times a little bit
17 from the time of the actual recording to the time that he actually typed
18 it up."
19 [Interpretation] What I would like to know is this: Do you
20 remember the name of this person? Without giving us the name, just
21 whether you remember the name of this person? Did this person provide any
22 plausible explanation for the change?
23 A. Yes, I remember the name of the person.
24 Q. And if we were to move into private session, could you give us
25 this name, please?
Page 8182
1 A. Yes.
2 JUDGE AGIUS: So let's go into private session for a short time,
3 please. And you haven't answered the second part of the question, whether
4 this person provided you with any plausible explanation for the change.
5 [Private session]
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 [Open session]
14 JUDGE AGIUS: We are back in open session.
15 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.
16 Q. You have just said that the time difference was due to the
17 difference in time of the recording and the time at which the conversation
18 was typed up, but if we turn to the report of the 25th of January, 2007,
19 that is to page 6394, the time differential is one minute or five minutes?
20 Are you saying that one or five minutes is enough time for the operator to
21 record the conversation, to listen to it several times over, and to write
22 it down in the book or the logbook?
23 A. I gave that as an example of some of the discrepancies, as some of
24 the differences that one could find between them. I think to further
25 clarify that, it would be best to speak with the person who was
Page 8183
1 responsible for doing that work.
2 Q. Isn't it fair to say that the person who was typing up the report
3 had to type out exactly what the operator had written down word-for-word?
4 A. That was the procedure, yes.
5 Q. So the operator who was changing the time was breaching the rules
6 and regulations, wasn't he?
7 A. I suppose. You know, I mean it didn't happen all the time. There
8 were examples -- there are examples where it did happen, but yes.
9 Q. When you conducted your investigation, did you ever discover what
10 happened to the reports when they reached the 2nd Corps? Were they
11 printed out? Were they recorded? What happened to them?
12 A. They went to the intelligence section for analysis, and then ones
13 that analysts considered to be relevant they moved on -- or they forwarded
14 to other units, for example.
15 Q. Do you know whether these reports were recorded in a logbook when
16 they reached the command?
17 A. No, I don't.
18 Q. As part of your job, in 1998, you had an opportunity to visit
19 Sector North and Sector South.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. When you were on Sector North, this is what I'm interested in for
22 the moment, you were able to say what kind of technical equipment was
23 available there at the time you went there; is that right?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And this equipment was photographed; is that right?
Page 8184
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And this equipment was described to you as the type of equipment
3 that had been used during the war, i.e., in July 1995; is that correct?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Did you have a way of checking whether this equipment had been
6 used in July 1995?
7 A. This is the information that we received from the ABiH personnel
8 who accompanied us, and in Mr. Hunter's reports, he talks about the
9 equipment, and I think it's best to refer to his report.
10 Q. Yes, I'm sure, but what I'm interested in is how he was able to
11 establish that this was the same equipment as the equipment that had been
12 used in 1995, because that is in effect what he says in his report.
13 Notwithstanding the information you got from the army personnel of the
14 ABiH army, were you able to confirm this information any other way?
15 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Vanderpuye.
16 MR. VANDERPUYE: It's okay. I was going to object. I withdraw
17 the objection.
18 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. Yes, you can answer the question,
19 please.
20 THE WITNESS: Exemplars were taken from the various UHER machines
21 that were up there. Beyond that, I can't comment on the technical aspects
22 of the machinery.
23 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
24 Q. Would you agree to say that nothing enables you to establish that
25 the equipment that was photographed was the same equipment that was used
Page 8185
1 in Sector North in July 1995?
2 A. That's right. If I could add one -- one thing, which is that
3 taking exemplars off of machines, well, they're apparently like
4 fingerprints, but I don't have the technical capability of commenting on
5 them further.
6 Q. During this on-site visit in Sector North, did you check this out?
7 Did you try to listen to the conversation that came from the same
8 direction as the conversations that were being intercepted by the ABiH
9 army in 1995?
10 A. No.
11 Q. So as far as Sector South is concerned, you discovered, when you
12 conducted your investigation, that after the Dayton Accords, this had been
13 closed down and the equipment had been transferred to Sector North; is
14 that right?
15 A. Yes. I believe the site was closed down in December of 1995.
16 Q. And do you remember that at the time you visited Sector South, an
17 ABiH army officer told you there was no equipment left in Sector South?
18 Do you remember that?
19 A. No, I don't -- I don't remember that specifically. I remember him
20 saying that a lot of the equipment -- I think he said that the equipment
21 had been transferred to the north but that also, I think, that some of the
22 equipment had been returned to people because it had been requisitioned
23 from them during the war. But I believe that we took photographs of
24 equipment there. I don't have a firm memory of it.
25 Q. Yes. You did see some of the equipment, the UHER equipment in
Page 8186
1 Sector South. What I'm interested is this: These UHER equipment, how
2 come they were all of a sudden in Sector South at the time you were there?
3 A. I don't know.
4 Q. We're able to have a look at this equipment, UHER equipment, which
5 is the same type of equipment that the operators used during the war, and
6 you said at the hearing of the 25th of January, 2007, that this UHER
7 equipment could wind the tape back and could record over old recordings;
8 is that right? What I'm interested in is this: Could you wind the tape
9 back, and could you simply wipe out the old conversations?
10 A. Are you asking whether there's a distinction between erasing the
11 type and recording over it?
12 Q. I'm asking you whether one can -- whether the recording machine
13 could establish this distinction?
14 A. I don't know.
15 Q. So at any rate, you said that a new recording could be made over
16 an old recording. Do you know that in certain cases -- or there were some
17 cases in which the new recording wasn't good enough and, therefore, some
18 of the old conversations could be heard, that two conversations were
19 overlapping, in other words?
20 A. It's been a while since I've listened to a bunch of recordings,
21 and not being a technical person, I hesitate to answer your question. I'm
22 just not sure.
23 Q. Can we show witness Exhibit 5D172, please. [In English] It's the
24 document 5D172.
25 [Interpretation] Could we see the beginning of the last sentence
Page 8187
1 on this document. The first sentence before the conversation, the short
2 introduction that the members of the police were always. Can you read
3 this. [In English] "Did not erase the last conversation properly so this
4 one was almost inaudible."
5 A. Okay.
6 Q. When you -- when you analysed the intercepts, did you bear this in
7 mind? Did you account for the fact that there were -- there could be two
8 overlapping conversations?
9 A. No, I don't remember that it -- it factored in to -- to the
10 analysis. I would just point out at the top of this document, I think it
11 was a document that was taken over from 2 Corps, if you could scroll back
12 up to the top of the document. It's not right -- it's not an SDB
13 document. It's a 2 Corps -- it's a 2 Corps document that was taken over
14 from the SDB -- or -- that was taken over by the SDB. I mean, it's just a
15 detail, but ...
16 Q. Thank you for having clarified this. Could we now turn to
17 document 5D150, please.
18 A. I guess I would also just point out that when there were sort of
19 discrepancies like this where it wasn't possible to hear one of the
20 participants very well or that the rest of the conversation wasn't
21 recorded or that the operators considered that a certain part of the
22 conversation wasn't important, they made notations like that.
23 Q. Yes. This is true, but how can one be sure that when this should
24 have been noted down it wasn't noted down? Perhaps sometimes these
25 annotations were missing.
Page 8188
1 A. Right. But they really are present on --
2 JUDGE AGIUS: Don't answer that question.
3 Move to the next question, Madam Fauveau, please.
4 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
5 Q. As far as document 5D150 is concerned, which you have before you,
6 this document mentions steel battery. There's a mistake in the English
7 text, so please look at the B/C/S text. This text mentions a steel
8 battery that prior to that time had belonged to the United Nations and
9 which was used in Sector South. At the time you visited Sector South,
10 were you able to see the batteries on this site and whether they were
11 still there?
12 A. I haven't read the whole document, but I wouldn't have known
13 what -- I'm not sure I would have known what I was looking at.
14 Q. It's the fourth sentence. Second sentence in the second
15 paragraph.
16 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Vanderpuye.
17 MR. VANDERPUYE: Your Honour, I would object at this point. I
18 think the witness has already answered the question. She has indicated
19 she doesn't have any familiarity with the batteries or what they would
20 appear to be or ...
21 JUDGE AGIUS: In a way I think she has, Madam Fauveau, because
22 previously she said, "I wouldn't have known -- I'm not sure I would have
23 known what I was looking at." Yes, but irrespective of reading. In other
24 words, reading the document was not going to educate her more there.
25 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
Page 8189
1 Q. In the course of the interviews you had with the operator or
2 during your on-site visit, did you understand what the various jobs of the
3 units were, those who were intercepting the conversations? Did they have
4 to do anything else other than intercept the conversations?
5 A. Their primary job was to intercept conversations, but they also
6 had to cook and clean and take care of the facility.
7 Q. I'm sure they did that, but that was not the purpose of my
8 question. Did you realise that they were also in charge of scrambling and
9 interfering with the enemy transmissions?
10 A. No.
11 Q. When you took charge of the logbooks or these second logbooks, 135
12 onwards, did you not notice that some of these books had nothing to do
13 with intercepts but had to do with information on scrambling of the
14 conversations?
15 A. No, I don't have a memory of that.
16 Q. Could we now -- could the witness be shown Exhibit number 5D193,
17 please.
18 This is a logbook which you prepared, isn't it?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Could we move to page 4, please.
21 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could we have numbers 185 and 186,
22 please.
23 Q. Is it fair to say that the two notebooks refer to the scrambling
24 of the conversations?
25 A. Yes. They both say "jamming unit."
Page 8190
1 Q. And do you know from what site these two notebooks came?
2 A. Not without looking at the notebooks, no.
3 Q. And do you know whether the unit to which the notebooks referred
4 was a separate unit or was it part of the unit that intercepted the
5 conversations?
6 A. That's the right question. I don't know the answer to that
7 question, but I -- I mean, I could guess, but without --
8 JUDGE AGIUS: Don't guess.
9 THE WITNESS: Don't guess, yes. I'd have to look at the
10 notebooks.
11 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
12 Q. And do you know, and I don't ask you to guess but really to refer
13 to what you know, is it possible to scramble conversations on a site and
14 to listen to those same conversations on the same site?
15 A. I think you should ask -- I'm sure there are other people who are
16 more competent than I to answer that question.
17 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] I would like to show to the witness
18 Exhibit 5D189.
19 JUDGE AGIUS: Again, no broadcast, please.
20 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] And I would request that the
21 document not be broadcast.
22 Q. Witness, is this a report that you drafted?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Could we look at page 4 of the document, please. It's the
25 penultimate paragraph, and I will read out part of the report. It's
Page 8191
1 fairly technical terminology, but perhaps you might be of assistance.
2 "[In English] As explained, when the JNA withdrew in May 1992,
3 they took with them the most modern tactical communication equipment and
4 in essence left the VRS with early 1950's technology equipment. At the
5 same time, the VRS did not have the capability to 'manufacture' encipher
6 fills for the equipment, and apparently Belgrade was unwilling or unable
7 to provide the necessary fills to allow the multi-channel network to
8 operate in a secure mode."
9 [Interpretation] I must admit that I do not understand a thing. I
10 mean, I don't understand a thing to this technical language. So I would
11 like to ask you, does this mean that the person who communicated this
12 information to you thought that the army of the Republika Srpska did not
13 have the possibility or did not use secure communication methods?
14 A. May I take a minute and just read the full paragraph and maybe
15 even the preceding paragraph, if you wouldn't mind moving it up just a
16 little.
17 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Vanderpuye.
18 MR. VANDERPUYE: I'm own going to object to the question insofar
19 as it calls for what was -- what someone else thought. I don't know the
20 witness's capacity is to answer that. As to what they said, that's a
21 different issue all together.
22 JUDGE AGIUS: You would have been right if this had not been the
23 report that Ms. Frease had prepared. This is a report that Ms. Frease
24 prepared, so the question is perfectly legitimate.
25 THE WITNESS: Okay. If I can now just go back to your question.
Page 8192
1 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
2 Q. Well, come back to the paragraph that you read in detail. Does
3 this mean that the army of Republika Srpska did not have the means to use
4 secure communication methods?
5 A. What it means to me is that they had a problem with secure
6 methods. However, when looking at the intercepted communication, there
7 are many references to the fact that the lines, that they were
8 communicating on, were not secure and that certain conversations needed to
9 be transmitted on secure lines. So I don't know for what period of time
10 this information, the information that was given to me by this particular
11 person, would have held.
12 Q. But did you check with the various units of the Republika Srpska,
13 namely with the army of the Republika Srpska, what communication methods
14 they had and whether they had a secure mode of communication or not?
15 A. No, I didn't have that opportunity.
16 Q. So you don't know whether the information communicated to you by
17 the officer of the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina was exact, was correct?
18 A. Yes. I was reporting what he had told me.
19 Q. On the 27th of February, on page 11 of the transcript, you said
20 that you only know where the documents containing the intercepted
21 conversations were found. Does this mean that you did not know where the
22 diskettes, the -- the notebooks, the printed matter, the audiotapes were
23 stored during three years as of July 1995 till March, April, or even
24 later, when they were passed on to you?
25 A. No. I have some sense of what we were told about where the
Page 8193
1 documents, in particular, the notebooks, had been kept in the intervening
2 time.
3 Q. Very well. I will come back to the notebooks a little bit later,
4 but I'd like to ask you whether it is true that you received all of this
5 material in Tuzla?
6 A. Well, the notebooks -- depends a little bit what you -- exactly
7 what you mean. It's where we took possession of the material, but it's
8 not where the material -- specifically with respect to the notebooks, it's
9 not where they were found.
10 Q. Let me specify my question. Is it true that you took possession
11 of all the material in Tuzla?
12 A. No, that's also not quite -- quite accurate. Some of the tapes we
13 took possession of in Sarajevo.
14 Q. Thank you for specifying that. With regard to the written
15 documents, the printed documents, the report and the notebooks, and
16 perhaps also the floppy disks, were those documents handed over to the OTP
17 in Tuzla?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And do you know whether all the official documents of the army of
20 BiH were archived in Sarajevo in 1996?
21 A. I don't know that.
22 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Your Honour, could we again move to
23 private session for a couple of questions?
24 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's do that. Let's move into private session for
25 a couple of questions and then revert back to open session.
Page 8194
1 [Private session]
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 [Open session]
15 JUDGE AGIUS: We are back in open session.
16 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
17 Q. Is it fair to say that before you -- well, in fact you already
18 answered that question, so I'll reformulate it. When the notebooks were
19 found in the northern sector, is it fair to say that they were found in
20 a -- in a warehouse where other goods were stored and weapons as well?
21 A. I'm not sure whether it's a translation issue or not. I wouldn't
22 call it a warehouse. It was their facility. I wasn't present, but what I
23 recall is that it was -- they were found in a basement office of that
24 facility, of the northern facility. And it's possible that there were
25 other things there that you mention.
Page 8195
1 Q. Did you carry out an investigation to know who might have had
2 access to the notebooks during the period between 1995 and 1998?
3 A. My recollection of the path that the notebooks took was that when
4 the -- when they were picked up from the various sites, they were taken to
5 the location where the commander at the time had his office. And then
6 when he moved offices, they were taken with him there, which is where they
7 were found at the northern site.
8 Q. With regard to the room in which the notebooks were found, do you
9 know who had access to that room?
10 A. I believe it was the site commander. Or I don't know to the room
11 specifically, actually. I think that to the -- to the locker where they
12 were found, that it was the commander, the site commander, who had had
13 access to it.
14 Q. Is it fair to say that when the members of the OTP saw the
15 notebooks for the first time, and I'm referring to the time when the
16 notebooks were in no particular order, is it true that at that time the
17 representatives of the OTP did not study the notebooks?
18 A. That's my understanding. Again, I wasn't there, but right. I
19 believe they skimmed through them enough to -- to see what the contents
20 were generally.
21 Q. And when the representatives of the OTP arrived on site a few days
22 later, those notebooks were in a good order?
23 A. They weren't [realtime transcript read in error "were"] in the
24 same shape that they had been found in, right.
25 Q. And when the representatives of the OTP saw the notebooks for the
Page 8196
1 first time, they did not take any pictures of them. They did not annotate
2 them in any way, they did not mark them in any way. Is that fair to say?
3 A. Yes, I believe that's correct.
4 Q. How did you know, and I'm referring not to you personally but
5 referring to the OTP, that the notebooks that were found, in a very neat
6 order, on -- the second time were the same notebooks that had been seen
7 the first time in disorder?
8 MR. LAZAREVIC: [Interpretation] I apologise to interrupt Madam
9 Fauveau, but I believe the answer of the witness was misinterpreted. It's
10 on page 29, line 4. The answer of the witness was they were not in the
11 same shape that they had been found in.
12 JUDGE AGIUS: You're hundred per cent right and I heard her say
13 that. Thank you. The transcript will be corrected accordingly,
14 Mr. Lazarevic.
15 So, Ms. Frease, do you need the question to be put to you again,
16 or I suppose you can answer. You have the transcript in front of you.
17 You can answer it.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] When members of the OTP came back
19 the second time and found the notebooks and asked why they had been sort
20 of tidied up, the commander said that he had been embarrassed that they
21 had been found in so much disorder, and therefore he tried to make some
22 order out of them. But to your question of how do we know that they were
23 exactly the same notebooks, we don't other than the commander of the site
24 said so and gave the reason for trying to organise them.
25 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
Page 8197
1 Q. When you received, personally, these notebooks, were they dusty?
2 A. I don't remember.
3 Q. Were they damaged by moisture?
4 A. I don't remember them being musty, but I don't -- yeah, I don't
5 remember.
6 Q. Do you not find that notebooks that were stored for three years in
7 a basement should have been dusty and musty and, at any rate, damaged to
8 some extent?
9 JUDGE AGIUS: Don't answer that question, please, Ms. Frease.
10 Next question, Madam Fauveau.
11 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
12 Q. You said during the hearing of the 19th of January, 2007, that the
13 OTP first received the printed matter, then the notebooks, and finally the
14 audiotapes in the electronic versions. The 19th of January, page 6088.
15 When you referred to the printed matter or printed material, were
16 you referring to the binders containing 550 pages?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And you received those binders in April 1998?
19 A. Yes. I believe we received those -- I had thought that we had
20 received them in March, but we received them in April along with the
21 notebooks and along with the tapes, because we hadn't -- I think what
22 happened was that we didn't have the authorisation from the ministry --
23 from the defence ministry of the ABiH in March, which is why we weren't
24 allowed to take possession of those items until our next mission in April.
25 Q. During the hearing of January 25, 2007, at page 6360, you said
Page 8198
1 that the printed matter was an analytic tool used by the ABiH army and
2 that the army had withdrawn some information in order to analyse the
3 material with greater ease. Do you remember making that statement?
4 A. Withdrawn some of the information, I assume you mean the headers
5 and that sort of -- that sort of information. Correct?
6 Q. Yes, indeed.
7 A. Yes. I -- go ahead.
8 Q. Do you know who was the person who created the printed matter in
9 the form in which you received it? Was this a member of the police or a
10 member of the army?
11 A. It was the army, a member of the army.
12 Q. Do you know who that person was?
13 A. No.
14 Q. And do you know when those documents were, in fact, established in
15 the form in which you saw them, were they the documents that were prepared
16 to be submitted to the OTP, or had they already been prepared beforehand?
17 A. I believe those were documents that had been prepared for the OTP.
18 The cover sheet that -- I believe it was Mr. Zivanovic showed me -- I
19 think had a date of the 3rd of March or something like that on it.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: Any time it's convenient for you, we can have a
21 25-minute break, but you've still got another two minutes, but I don't
22 know if --
23 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Very well. I'll just finish off
24 with this particular matter. Thank you, Your Honour.
25 Q. If you know that they were not the documents that were prepared
Page 8199
1 during the war, those documents in the form that you received them, and if
2 you know that some information in fact was withdrawn, was taken out, even
3 if you know that it was just, let's say, formal information that was taken
4 out, how can you be sure that the content of the conversations was not
5 modified by the person who prepared these printouts for you?
6 A. Well, we couldn't be, and that's why it was important that we
7 process every -- every version of the conversations that we were given.
8 So we first took the information that we were given in the printouts --
9 I've explain this before, and I -- but we first took that information,
10 those 550 pages and processed every conversation in it. And that material
11 dated from, I believe, the 9th of July to the 31st of July, and there were
12 close to 1.200 conversations there. After we had processed that and we
13 had the notebooks, then we took the notebooks and we processed the
14 notebooks, comparing the notebooks, the conversations and the information
15 that was contained within the notebooks and compared it to the information
16 that was contained within the printouts. And then subsequently, when we
17 received all of these diskettes and now with the electronic versions of
18 these conversations, we were further able to cross-reference. So it
19 really was a -- was a process of cross-referencing, cross-referencing,
20 cross-referencing.
21 Q. You said earlier that you think the printed matter, the printouts,
22 were prepared for you after the war then, I assume. Do you then today
23 consider that these printouts were not authentic material dating from
24 1995?
25 A. No.
Page 8200
1 Q. Can you explain to me how you can at the same time state that --
2 at the same time that it was material prepared specifically for you and
3 yet at the same time that it dated from 1995?
4 A. If you look at only that material and you took only that, then --
5 then, yes. You know, I agree one would have a lot of questions. But I
6 think it's really important to take all of this material together, and
7 then not only taking the various versions of the material, the printed,
8 the notebooks, the electronic versions, but then going through and further
9 establishing and corroborating the contents of those conversations with
10 other sources.
11 Q. I just have one last question before the break. I agree with you
12 that of course you have to look at the whole, but before analysing all of
13 the material comprehensively, do you not have to be sure that each element
14 in itself is authentic?
15 A. We had many doubts about this material when we first picked it up.
16 We didn't know whether -- whether it was authentic. And it was only
17 through going through the process over and over and over again and
18 cross-referencing it and cross-referencing it over a period of years that
19 we gained the confidence of the contents, the authenticity, and the
20 reliability of the material.
21 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Your Honour, could we now take the
22 break?
23 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Madam Fauveau. We'll have a 25-minute break
24 starting from now.
25 --- Recess taken at 10.33 a.m.
Page 8201
1 --- On resuming at 11.00 a.m.
2 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Madam Fauveau.
3 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.
4 Q. Just before the break, Witness, we were talking about the measures
5 that you took in order to obtain the documents. You explained us that you
6 doubted the authenticity of that material. Since you had doubts, wasn't
7 it simpler to send the material, and I'm talking about notebooks, to an
8 expert who would be able to trace back the ink and the paper?
9 A. We first wanted to know what the contents of that material was,
10 and that was our primary focus. Whether -- if the material didn't contain
11 anything that was of relevance, you know, then taking the step that you
12 suggest probably would have been premature. But we did not, in fact, to
13 my knowledge, send the notebooks to a handwriting or an ink analyst.
14 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's make this clear. That was during your time
15 here. You don't know what could have happened afterwards; is that
16 correct?
17 THE WITNESS: That's correct.
18 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you.
19 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
20 Q. During the hearing of the 2nd of March, 2007, you mentioned some
21 dates, and you told us that it was very important for you to date the
22 intercepted conversations. Is it exact to say that when you received
23 those notebooks, you tried to put a date on those intercepts?
24 A. Yes. We tried to date the intercepts, whether it was through the
25 printed material we first received or through the notebooks.
Page 8202
1 Q. During the 2nd March, 2007 hearing, on page 63 of the transcript,
2 you said that the intercepts were not transcribed in their chronological
3 order. I would like to know, when did you conclude that those intercepts
4 were not transcribed in their chronological order?
5 A. I believe that that would have become clear once we started taking
6 interviews from the operators. So about a year later.
7 Q. But when you testified in the Krstic trial on the 22nd of March,
8 2001, page 8947, you've stated that those transcripts were written in
9 their chronological order. Can you now explain to us what this
10 discrepancy means?
11 A. I think it would be helpful if it were possible for us to take
12 specific examples, but I can -- I can give you a sort of general example
13 of -- of how that kind of a discrepancy might have occurred, which is that
14 in the -- with the reference that you make to my statement in the Krstic
15 trial in 2001, it's possible that the conversations that were contained
16 within the printed material, that is the 550 pages, were in an order, a
17 more chronological order, than the order that was found within the
18 notebooks.
19 Q. Again, in the Krstic trial you mentioned notebooks, and you stated
20 on page 8947: [In English] "these were recorded chronologically from the
21 morning to the evening. In most cases where it changed over from night to
22 morning we considered that to be the beginning of a new day."
23 [Interpretation] Can you explain that statement, since Friday
24 you've told us that those intercepts were not necessarily transcribed in
25 their chronological order?
Page 8203
1 A. Yes. It's as I explained it on Friday, that when the intercept
2 operators sat down at the table -- at their tables, they noted the time,
3 the frequency, and the channel that the conversation was coming in on.
4 Sometimes there were many conversations that were coming in, so they had
5 their headphones on. They were listening. They were noting down those
6 pieces of information that I just mentioned, again not always all three of
7 them, and they would continue to record conversations. Once there was a
8 lull, they would then go back and begin to transcribed the conversations.
9 So it wasn't necessarily the case that they would start from the first
10 conversation that they had noted and work down through to the end, the
11 last conversation that they had noted. Sometimes they considered that a
12 particular conversation was more -- of more importance, so they would
13 transcribe that conversation first. They might even send it separately,
14 in a separate report, as we've seen marked urgent or priority, and then
15 they would go through and they would transcribe those other conversations.
16 And that's how it's possible to account for some jumping around, I guess,
17 in times within a day.
18 Q. Very well. But my first question is why didn't you say that when
19 you testified in the Krstic trial?
20 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Vanderpuye.
21 MR. VANDERPUYE: I think it might be useful if my learned
22 colleague could put to the witness the question and the response in the
23 Krstic case.
24 JUDGE AGIUS: In the Krstic case. I fully agree.
25 Do you have the reference handy, Ms. Fauveau?
Page 8204
1 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I just read the
2 entire portion that I referred to. It's page 8947 of the transcript of
3 the 27th of March, 2001. If you would like it, I could re-read the
4 portion that I just read.
5 JUDGE AGIUS: Could you also read the question that was put to the
6 witness in the Krstic trial, please.
7 MS. FAUVEAU: "And could you tell the Trial Chamber who assisted
8 or not, who assisted you, how long it took you to fully analyse and date
9 these particular intercepts and the methodology that you used in doing
10 so?"
11 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Are you in a position to answer the question
12 now, Ms. Frease?
13 THE WITNESS: No. I feel like I'm still missing some context.
14 JUDGE AGIUS: Is there anything else in the transcript from the
15 Krstic trial that the witness said in relation to this point, either
16 questions before or after that is relevant? We don't have the text, the
17 transcript here in front of us, so -- unless -- unless --
18 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Of course, Mr. President.
19 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.
20 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Of course, Mr. President, but it's
21 an answer that's more than two pages long, and I'll start another -- I'll
22 ask another question, because the only portion that was referring to the
23 notebook, I just read it to her.
24 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. I think you better move to your next
25 question. Thank you.
Page 8205
1 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Certainly, Mr. President.
2 Q. Is it right to say that when you would find a date in the notebook
3 you would consider that a date to be a confirmed date, a correct date?
4 A. Yes. Now, whether there is an exception to that, that's a
5 possibility, but in general, yes, we did consider those firm dates.
6 Q. Did you ever consider the possibility that the person who wrote
7 down a date may have made a mistake?
8 JUDGE AGIUS: This question has been asked and been asked. Do you
9 wish to answer if again, Ms. Frease? I think everyone has asked you this
10 question.
11 THE WITNESS: I can answer it again if you'd like me to.
12 JUDGE AGIUS: Go ahead and try to go through it as fast as you
13 can, please.
14 THE WITNESS: Yes.
15 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
16 Q. And did you put down the conversations, the intercepts for which
17 you thought there was a date -- mistake in the date?
18 A. Yes. When we had a doubt about a date, we recorded it in normal
19 font on the index that we created initially to process these intercepts.
20 Once we considered that the date was a firm date, then we bolded that
21 date.
22 Q. Yes, I agree with you. But isn't it right that when you would
23 find a date that was written down in the notebook, because you also had
24 intercepts without a date, you would consider that date whenever you would
25 find a date to be a firm date?
Page 8206
1 A. Yes. Again, you know, unless there was -- unless there was some
2 reason or there was some -- some other -- you know, some discrepancy or
3 something that made us unsure about that, but, yes. In most cases, yes,
4 that's true.
5 Q. During your deposition of the 27th of February, 2007, page 4750,
6 that the captain who was in charge of putting the dates at the beginning
7 of a conversation in the notebook told you not to take into account the
8 dates that are written down in the notebook -- notebooks. Did the captain
9 explain to you why you were not to trust those dates?
10 A. Let me just clarify a little bit what you say in -- in your
11 statement, in your question. We're referring -- when I -- when I
12 mentioned the captain, I was referring to the registration numbers that he
13 recorded at the front of the notebook, and then he would record a date
14 there. So that's the date that we're talking about. We're not talking
15 about the dates inside the notebooks that the operators wrote down. Is
16 that correct?
17 Q. Yes, that's right, exactly. That's what I'm asking you.
18 A. Okay. The reason that he told us -- told me not to -- well, to --
19 let me rephrase it. The reason that he said that those dates were not
20 necessarily relevant to the conversations that were contained within the
21 notebook was that those were -- they're internal registration numbers and
22 dates that he would have recorded that notebook as being a notebook that
23 would be used at one of the sites where the operators were working.
24 Q. Yes, I understand the meaning of those dates, but I do not
25 understand why did he tell you not to trust those dates.
Page 8207
1 A. I wasn't that we weren't supposed to trust the dates. It's that
2 those were his dates. For example, that would have been the date that he
3 would have recorded in his records that that notebook maybe was going to
4 go to a particular site. It didn't mean that that was the day that the
5 operators at that site would begin to use that notebook.
6 Q. But the dates that he would put in, the registration dates, were
7 those the right dates? Were those dates accurate? Did they really
8 reflect the dates when those notebooks were registered?
9 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Vanderpuye? Okay.
10 Go ahead. Answer the question, please.
11 THE WITNESS: I guess I feel like that's a question that should be
12 put to him. I don't know. Those were the dates that he wrote down in his
13 registration log. I don't recall seeing his log and making a comparison
14 between those dates and his log, if he had a log.
15 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could the witness be shown notebook
16 22, please. It's the notebook with the ERN number 00804523. And for the
17 transcript, in e-court, it's Exhibit P2336.
18 Could the witness be shown the page which ends with 4537, please.
19 JUDGE AGIUS: And no broadcast, please.
20 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could the witness be shown the
21 transcript on the 16th of July, 16th of July, 1995.
22 Q. Do you know who put that date down?
23 A. No.
24 Q. And when you talked to the operators, you never tried to find out
25 who wrote that date down?
Page 8208
1 A. I don't have a specific recollection about that date, no.
2 Q. And do you know when that date was put down?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Do you know why it was circled?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Could we take the page which ends with 4610, please. Could the --
7 could the page be scrolled down, please - thank you - to see the
8 crossed-out section. Good.
9 Do you agree that the portion that's crossed out is in fact a
10 date?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And do you know who put that date on that page?
13 A. No.
14 Q. You also don't know who crossed it out?
15 A. No.
16 Q. Can you read, however, the date that's there?
17 A. Yes. It says the 23/7/1995.
18 Q. Could it be -- would it be possible to see 4707, please, the last
19 page.
20 THE INTERPRETER: 4607; correction.
21 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
22 Q. Do you see on that page the date 23rd of July, 1995?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And you do not know who put that date down or when it was written
25 down?
Page 8209
1 A. No. No.
2 Q. Would you agree with me that that date and the date of the 16th of
3 July, as well as the date of the 23rd of July that had been crossed out,
4 could have been written down once the notebooks were in the possession of
5 the OTP?
6 A. No.
7 Q. How can you say that with such certainty?
8 A. Because members of the Office of the Prosecutor did not write in
9 these notebooks.
10 Q. But you do know that representatives of the OTP can make mistakes,
11 and there was an OTP representative that put a teleprinter number in one
12 of the pages of the notebook?
13 JUDGE AGIUS: She's answered that question. Let's move to the
14 next, Madam Fauveau, please.
15 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Very well.
16 Q. Witness, can you confirm with absolute certainty that those dates
17 were not written down after 1995 and before the OTP took possession of
18 those notebooks? So between March 1995 and the time when the OTP took
19 possession of those notebooks.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Vanderpuye.
21 MR. VANDERPUYE: The question's been put, and the witness has
22 already answered that she doesn't know when the dates were put in the
23 book, who put them in, or who circled them, or anything of that nature.
24 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. We agree with that, Mr. Vanderpuye.
25 So your next question, please.
Page 8210
1 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
2 Q. You told us that the electronic version that you received later
3 helped you to date conversations, and you said that on the 27th of
4 February, on the transcript page 52. Is it right that what helped you to
5 date conversations is reports that bore a number and a date?
6 A. Are you referring to the electronic versions of those
7 conversations?
8 Q. I'm referring to reports that were complete. So reports that have
9 the name of the person, who sent them, who received them, the dates, et
10 cetera. I'm not really interested in the electronic versions or the other
11 types of versions, but those kinds of reports.
12 A. I didn't have the transcript up, so I'm just going to re-read your
13 question.
14 I think it's probably better if you quote back to me exactly what
15 I said. But in principle, the electronic versions further confirmed the
16 dates that we had confirmed earlier. So it was a sort of triple check to
17 dates that we had had before.
18 Q. Very well. Thank you for that answer. But I would like to know
19 is it not right to say that the first report, so I'm talking about the
20 reports that had the name of the person who was to get it, the name of the
21 person who sent the report, the date, et cetera, you received them first
22 in March of 1998?
23 A. I'm sorry, I don't understand your question.
24 Q. I would like to know, if you can recall, if the first documents
25 containing intercepts, if those were the June and July reports of 1995,
Page 8211
1 but that the complete reports on paper containing the name of the sender,
2 the name of the recipient, the date, the number, and the intercept with
3 all the data that go with it?
4 A. I'm still not sure I understand. The first reports we received
5 were in July of 1995, those 550 pages from the 9th of July through the
6 31st of July. Some of those reports contained initials at the bottom of
7 the reports, I believe. They didn't mean a lot to us at that point.
8 Certainly not all of the conversations in those reports contained dates.
9 With respect to the name of the recipient, the number, and the
10 intercept with all the data that goes with it, there I assume you're
11 talking about the electronic versions of the reports which were then
12 received later after I had left the OTP with the exception of those two
13 diskettes that we had received in April of 1999 that we were unable to
14 open.
15 Q. The binder of 550 documents, you received it in April 1998.
16 That's what you said. Is that correct?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And those printouts did not contain any additional information
19 with regard to the conversations that are written down in the notebooks?
20 A. Well, they did contain a bit of additional information in that the
21 police, the SDB reports were included within those 550 pages.
22 Q. Could we please stick to the reports of the army.
23 A. I believe that's correct, with the exception of the fact that I
24 think that there -- that some of the initials of the operators and the
25 typists might have been included in some of those reports, and they might
Page 8212
1 also have included some additional dates, but I'm not -- I'm not certain
2 about that.
3 Q. And the notebooks also sometimes contained the initials of the
4 person, either who had typed them up or who had recorded the conversation;
5 is that correct?
6 A. Yes.
7 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could we now show the witness
8 Exhibit 5D189.
9 JUDGE AGIUS: We are not -- at least I speak for myself, but Judge
10 Prost, I think, and Judge Kwon, are not receiving any interpretation. I'm
11 sorry, Madam Fauveau, but I suppose you need to repeat a little bit.
12 Thank you.
13 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] First of all, I would like to
14 request that the document not be broadcast.
15 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. And I would appreciate if all of you,
16 you do that, because you alert us beforehand. I appreciate that very
17 much, Madam Fauveau.
18 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
19 Q. So it is the report that you drafted or note that you drafted in
20 April 1998. Could we move to page 3 of the document. Could we show the
21 part that starts with e-court, the entire paragraph, please.
22 You see that you wrote in this note the following: "[In English]
23 A complete record of messages can be found in the 'reports' which were
24 sent to the 2nd Corps on a daily basis. These reports include all
25 intercepts from those sites and not simply those relating to the
Page 8213
1 Srebrenica investigation. Such reports covering June and July 1995 were
2 given to ICTY team 6 during their March 1998 mission."
3 [Interpretation] Do you belong to the sixth team?
4 A. Yes, I did.
5 Q. And in this note you speak about daily reports. I'm sure that you
6 had the opportunity while you were working for the OTP, that you had the
7 opportunity to know what daily reports are within an army. Can you
8 explain to me where those daily reports are today, because I have not seen
9 a single one.
10 A. I assume that what is meant by "daily reports" are the reports --
11 or the electronic versions of the transcribed conversations that were sent
12 on a daily basis.
13 Q. However, with regard to the electronic versions, did you not say
14 that they were received far later by the OTP?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. And where are the reports that you received in March 1995 -- 1998?
17 A. I think there's a problem with the dates.
18 Q. But it's a note from April 1998, so apparently the reports were
19 received before you drafted the note.
20 A. And that could have been a mistake on my part. It would have been
21 a reference to the -- the binder of 550 pages that -- again, I believe the
22 cover sheet of that binder is dated the 3rd of March, 1998, but I don't
23 believe that we actually received that binder, that the OTP actually took
24 it into possession until the 24th of April, 1998.
25 Q. No, I don't think that it refers to that binder, because look at
Page 8214
1 the next page, what is written on the next page. I'm sorry, the next
2 sentence. It was my mistake.
3 "[In English] 2nd Corps personnel took it upon themselves to
4 extract the intercepts relating to the Srebrenica and compiled them in a
5 binder totaling more than 300 pages. This binder was also given to ICTY
6 personnel during the same mission."
7 A. I think it's a mistake.
8 Q. [Interpretation] What mistake are you referring to?
9 A. I think -- I think it's a mistake that -- I mean, totaling more
10 than 300 pages at the time. I don't think we knew that there were 550
11 pages. I think that both of these comments refer to the same body of
12 material, and that in this will note, that this is incorrect.
13 Q. Very well. That's what you think, and I understand that you can't
14 remember. So reading the note today, quite clearly there are two
15 different things, the reports and the binder containing a selection made
16 by the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
17 A. Yeah, though I think here the reports refer to the -- how can I
18 explain this? The reports that were sent on a daily basis were the ones
19 that we now know of as having headers, where when the army of
20 Bosnia-Herzegovina compiled these reports, I think they're -- I think they
21 were referring to the same reports. For them, it was the same -- it
22 contained the same information, and that I used the language that they
23 were using.
24 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could we show the witness Exhibit
25 5D191.
Page 8215
1 Q. If I'm not mistaken, this is a note that you also drafted. Is
2 that correct?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Could we move to page 3 of that note. I will not read out
5 paragraph 2 again. It contains exactly the same sentence as the one that
6 I already read out in the other note. What I'm interested in is what
7 comes after that paragraph, and you wrote the following:
8 "[In English] However, it must be noted that due to large volume,
9 not all intercepted conversations were sent to 2nd Corps each day. During
10 a conversation with 2nd Corps personnel in March, Rick Butler was told
11 that some messages from July may not have been sent in the form of a
12 report until months later (in September, October or November). Therefore,
13 we must eventually request reports from these later months as well."
14 [Interpretation] What I'm interested in is if some reports were
15 sent later, how can one be sure today that the date written on those
16 reports is an exact date, a correct date?
17 A. I think, to be most certain, that you would need to go back to the
18 system and the process that the military used in order to send -- to send
19 their reports, to number their reports, encrypt them and to send them.
20 This is -- this was intended as an internal document based on information
21 that one person had told another member of the team that I thought was
22 worth recording, but it -- it looks like it was, you know, based on a
23 memory of someone who had worked for 2 Corps that was speculating that
24 such a thing was possible, three years after the dates had been sent -- or
25 three days after the -- three years after the conversations had been
Page 8216
1 recorded.
2 Q. You interviewed or attended the interviews of a number of
3 operators, interceptors. Do you remember any operator who said to you
4 that the reports were not sent on the very same day upon which the
5 conversations were intercepted?
6 A. I don't recall that with the exception of the possibility being
7 presented that if a conversation had been recorded late in a day that it
8 might be sent the next morning.
9 Q. It's fairly logical that if a conversation is intercepted at 1159
10 the report would be sent the next day. However, on the basis of these
11 notes, the conversations were sometimes sent months later. I have a
12 question; I don't know whether you can answer it. But I'm wondering what
13 was the usefulness of the work done by the interceptors intercepting those
14 conversations if they stayed for months on the northern or the southern
15 site and the command of the 2nd Corps could not see them or analyse them?
16 A. In fact, I mean this is -- this is kind of a speculative comment,
17 and the purpose of intercepting the communication was for operational
18 purposes. So time was of the essence.
19 Q. Earlier you were speaking about the floppy disks or the diskettes.
20 You mentioned them several times. And you said that at the outset you
21 were not able to open them, but finally they were opened and the OTP was
22 able to take advantage of the information on those disks. Is that true?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Do you know if those disks were the originals that were made at
25 the time in 1995, or were they recordings of files that were made after
Page 8217
1 the war?
2 A. My understanding is that they were copies of files that were --
3 the copies were made after the war of files that were made during the war.
4 Q. Did you analyse the disks to know whether the content of the files
5 had been modified? Did you carry out an expertise to that end?
6 A. From a technical standpoint, no. In the last couple of months,
7 when I've been working with this material again and I was introduced to
8 the electronic versions of the printed material that we had received in
9 1998, I did have a chance to compare the content of those two bodies of
10 material, if you want to call them that, and I didn't find any differences
11 between them other than the fact that the electronic copies were more
12 complete because they contained the headers and the dates and names
13 and ...
14 Q. You referred to the printed matter. Are you referring to the
15 material that was in those binders or the binder of 550 pages? Is that
16 what you're referring to?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And you said earlier that indeed that material was compiled after
19 the war by the members of the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was prepared
20 specifically for the OTP.
21 A. Yes, that is what my notes say.
22 Q. And if we take each disk individually, you don't know whether it
23 was modified after the war. And if you take each printout individually,
24 you don't know if it was manipulated or modified after the war either.
25 A. No.
Page 8218
1 Q. When you say no, does that mean you agree with what I just said?
2 A. Yes.
3 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could we show the witness the
4 Exhibit 5D158. I think it would be preferable not to broadcast this
5 exhibit.
6 JUDGE AGIUS: Please attend to that, Madam Registrar.
7 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Could we show the B/C/S version as
8 well so that we can see the whole seal.
9 Q. Do you agree that it is a printed version of reports similar to
10 those that you saw on the disk, the electronic version?
11 A. Yes. Of course without all of the handwritten notes and the
12 stamp.
13 Q. Do you know that for the whole year of 1994 for the northern site
14 there are lists, existing lists, of archived material, of reports similar
15 to this one with a seal.
16 A. No.
17 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Can we show the witness Exhibit
18 5D182.
19 Q. Did you ever have the opportunity to see the list of archived
20 material, material such as this list here?
21 A. No.
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 8219
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 Mr. Vanderpuye.
5 MR. VANDERPUYE: I agree with the -- with the Chamber's
6 recommendation to redact the sentence. I did want to point out, though,
7 that I think if my learned colleague could be more specific with respect
8 to the list that she's referring to, because I do notice that the ones
9 that are displayed pertain to a period of time in 1994. I know that the
10 witness is testifying about material received in 1995. I don't know if
11 it's her contention that such lists were maintained during that period of
12 time, but I thought she could put that question to the witness.
13 JUDGE AGIUS: Yeah, but in answer to her previous question and the
14 stamp there, which was a stamp which goes back to 1994, in any case. So
15 let's redact from line 12 on page 52, please, to line 17.
16 Did you follow, Madam Frease, did you follow the exchange at that
17 took place between Mr. Vanderpuye -- okay. All right.
18 THE WITNESS: Yes.
19 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay, fine. Go ahead, Madam Fauveau.
20 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Yes. I apologise. I really forgot
21 about the unit that I mentioned.
22 Q. So you never saw such a list for 1994, neither for the northern
23 site nor for the southern site, nor for the unit that belonged to the 2nd
24 Corps and the other unit of the northern site?
25 A. No, I don't recall seeing such lists.
Page 8220
1 Q. And you did not see either reports bearing a seal. However, I
2 would like to ask you to look at Exhibit 5D194. I would request that this
3 exhibit not be broadcast.
4 You can see on the exhibit that it refers to the month of May,
5 1995, and it does bear a seal.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Could we call up the last page of the document. And you see the
8 date on this page, on the seal, is the 20th of May, 1995; is that correct?
9 A. Yes.
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 Yes, I'm sorry, Mr. President.
16 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. We need to redact -- we need to redact that,
17 please.
18 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Perhaps could we move to private
19 session, because I'm having too much difficulty here.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Okay. Let's move to private session.
21 [Private session]
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 8221
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 [Open session]
22 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
23 Q. This report is dated the 1st of May, 1995, and has a seal, and it
24 comes from Sector South. Is that right?
25 A. Yes.
Page 8222
1 Q. And if you look at the last page. Could we turn to the last page,
2 please. Is it fair to say that this report is dated 22nd of May, 1995?
3 A. Yes, though the "5" in the handwritten stamped version is not
4 terribly clear. But certainly the typed version from the southern site
5 does say 22 May 1995.
6 Q. Is it fair to say that at the time you scrutinised the material
7 you had, including the printouts and the electronic versions, you did not
8 know that this version of the reports existed? These hard copies
9 containing a seal I mean.
10 A. That's correct. And also the time period. I mean, we were really
11 focused on July of 1995. We started off looking at a week in particular.
12 You know, somewhere from around the 9th of July to the 16th of July. And
13 then as we worked through that material, then we expanded the dates a
14 little bit more until we were able to finally cover all of July. And then
15 we started to work a bit into August. And then the priority, as I recall,
16 was to work back to June and then to September. So, yeah, May wasn't a
17 real priority. But it is correct that I was not aware of these types of
18 documents with stamps on them.
19 Q. Don't you find it strange that reports that are dated the month of
20 May contain a seal, whereas those documents dated in the month of July
21 contain no seal?
22 A. Well, not necessarily. I think there can be different
23 explanations.
24 JUDGE AGIUS: We don't want you to speculate. If you are aware of
25 explanations, then please go ahead, but if you are just speculating on
Page 8223
1 what the explanations could be, then I don't think we need to hear that.
2 THE WITNESS: My understanding is that we have electronic reports
3 from July -- sorry, January 1995 through December, and perhaps more, and
4 those that electronic copies would be the same versions of material that
5 we've been referring to in this case.
6 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.
7 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
8 Q. As you focused on June and July, more specifically July 1995, how
9 come you had the electronic version in January?
10 A. I think there was a misunderstanding. I believe we have the
11 electronic versions of the conversations from January through December
12 1995, the seven diskettes that were received by the Office of the
13 Prosecutor in December 2000.
14 Q. I feel that a hard copy which contains a seal, and particularly if
15 you were entitled to consult archive -- archived material, don't you
16 believe that this is more authentic than material that had been recorded
17 after the war?
18 A. I don't agree with the second part of your statement.
19 Q. You said a while ago that the diskettes you got were copies of the
20 files that had been created during the war. Do you know when these copies
21 were made?
22 A. No, I don't know specifically when they were made, but the first
23 two diskettes were given to me in May of 1999.
24 Q. In other words, these diskettes could have been created any time
25 between July 1995 and May 1999?
Page 8224
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Do you know that there was an SDB document that also contained a
3 seal?
4 A. I don't recall that, no.
5 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Can the witness be shown Exhibit
6 number 5D160, please.
7 JUDGE AGIUS: Let me see the document before it is broadcast, if
8 at all.
9 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
10 Q. This is a seal which largely resembles the seals we've seen in the
11 other documents; is that right?
12 JUDGE AGIUS: No broadcast, please.
13 THE WITNESS: Yes.
14 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
15 Q. The only thing is it's a -- first line in this seal is
16 handwritten, SDB. It could be a 2 because this document comes from the
17 SDB. So that's more likely, isn't it?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. You mentioned on the 2nd of March, 2007, on page 19, you said that
20 in certain areas Italian words were used instead of B/C/S in certain
21 areas. Are you able to establish distinction between various B/C/S
22 dialects?
23 A. It depends. I'm certainly no expert, but --
24 JUDGE AGIUS: Are you familiar with the Dalmatian, in so-called --
25 you described it that way, Dalmatian dialect?
Page 8225
1 THE WITNESS: Yes, and the Serbian/Croatian.
2 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.
3 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
4 Q. Can you establish -- are you able to recognise specific Croatian
5 words which were introduced again in the 1990s?
6 A. One comes to mind. A couple come to mind.
7 Q. Very well. I think the best would be to show you the conversation
8 I'm interested in. It's Exhibit number P1195, 1195B. 1195B.
9 Can the witness be shown the entire B/C/S version, please.
10 Can you see after the third hyphen there's a word here,
11 "Bojovnici." Do you know what this means?
12 A. No.
13 Q. You didn't hear that this word is used solely by Croatian soldiers
14 belonging to the Croatian army?
15 A. I don't know that.
16 Q. When you analysed the intercepts, you were helped by interpreters
17 and translators, were you not?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And nobody drew your attention to the fact that it is highly
20 unlikely that a VRS officer would have used such a word, which is only
21 used by Croatian army soldiers, and all the more, this word has a
22 particular meaning?
23 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Vanderpuye.
24 MR. VANDERPUYE: First, I don't think there's been any testimony
25 in the record that that is language that's specifically used by Croatian
Page 8226
1 military.
2 JUDGE AGIUS: Ms. Fauveau is suggesting that, and --
3 MR. VANDERPUYE: I'll agree with that.
4 JUDGE AGIUS: -- and not knowing any of the words except "Da" and
5 "Ne," "Dobro." I cannot confirm or deny what she's suggesting.
6 MR. VANDERPUYE: The second half of that is that she's already
7 answered the question, and that is that she's not heard the word before.
8 She's unfamiliar with the word, and therefore, obviously nobody's brought
9 that --
10 JUDGE AGIUS: No, not --
11 MR. VANDERPUYE: Okay. Maybe not so obvious.
12 JUDGE AGIUS: Not necessarily consequential. Maybe it was
13 mentioned in the course of her consultations, but let's see what she has
14 to answer.
15 THE WITNESS: Could you repeat the question again?
16 JUDGE AGIUS: The question -- I'll go faster than Madam Fauveau.
17 It's been suggested to you that during your consultations nobody drew your
18 attention to the fact that it's highly unlikely that a VRS officer would
19 have used such a word, which is only used by Croatian army soldiers, and
20 all the more, this word -- that this word has a particular meaning.
21 THE WITNESS: No.
22 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Madam Fauveau.
23 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
24 Q. Could we now turn to Exhibit P2443, please. And to move on
25 faster, this is a list of coded names that would have been use by the
Page 8227
1 Republika Srpska army.
2 You said on the 26th of February, 2007, on page 42 of the
3 transcript, that this list was established on the basis of information
4 that had been provided by other people. Did you use this list when you
5 analysed the intercepts?
6 A. Yes, sometimes I referred to it.
7 Q. You said it was always on -- still on the 27th of February, on
8 page 30 of the transcript, that you did not use the army of
9 Bosnia-Herzegovina as a source when you analysed the intercepts. Do you
10 remember having said this?
11 A. I think it was in the context of a question that Mr. Zivanovic
12 asked me about the authentication binder and whether -- why I didn't use
13 information from the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina to confirm information
14 contained within the intercepts. Is that the right context?
15 Q. Is it fair to say that the specific list was compiled together
16 with members of the ABiH army?
17 A. No, I don't believe it is.
18 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Can the witness be shown Exhibit
19 5D191, please. Can we show the bottom of the first page, please.
20 I would like the document not to be broadcast, please.
21 Q. Is it fair to say that in this note which was written by you, you
22 wrote what -- what is about to follow: [Previous translation
23 continues]... "[In English] Although a complete list was requested, none
24 was provided. An officer from the Bosnian army," I will not call the
25 name, "provided the following call signs as he recalled them."
Page 8228
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Is it fair to say that members of the ABiH army helped you in
3 establishing this list?
4 A. The list and the memo to which you are referring, yes.
5 JUDGE AGIUS: I want to make sure that this page is not being
6 broadcast. Okay. Thank you.
7 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
8 Q. The four names which are on this list are also to be found on the
9 other list in Exhibit P2443, Panorama, Zlatar. Would you like me to show
10 you the exhibit again, P2443?
11 A. That's the list of code-names?
12 Q. Yes.
13 A. No, you don't need to show it to me again. I can explain this
14 very easily.
15 When we were starting this project and this memo that you -- that
16 you bring up of mine, maybe we could go to the first page to confirm the
17 date, but I believe it was probably April of 1998, we had just received
18 this material. It was all completely new to us, and so we asked whether
19 they had any recollection of who some of the participants would have been
20 or what these code-names meant and what locations they would have referred
21 to. However, in the meantime, we received quite a large amount of
22 captured VRS documents that confirmed this -- these code-names and the
23 locations that pertained to the code-names, as well as having spoken with
24 witnesses, cooperating witnesses, who were able to confirm this kind of
25 information. So I don't think there's a contradiction between what I had
Page 8229
1 said before and your question now.
2 JUDGE AGIUS: Madam Fauveau, your two hours, 30 minutes are up.
3 We've got two more Defence teams, and between them, they have required 50
4 minutes.
5 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I fully agree, but when
6 I said that I needed two and a half hours, I had not received the
7 documents we received on Wednesday and Thursday. My initial estimate was
8 based on this time. I gave two and a half hours. In the meantime, we've
9 received a great number of documents.
10 JUDGE AGIUS: This is a revised estimate you have given to the
11 staff.
12 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Your Honour, but --
13 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm not used to arguing with counsel. I'm going to
14 give you five minutes, and you have to finish in five minutes, please.
15 Thank you.
16 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] Very well. Thank you. Could the
17 witness be shown Exhibit P1182B, please and also Exhibit 2367B. Maybe it
18 will be better to place it on the ELMO because these are conversations.
19 Can we show the conversation which starts at 25 minutes past 10.00
20 p.m.? And the other document is a conversation which starts at 26 minutes
21 past 10 p.m.
22 THE WITNESS: I have a better copy of this conversation that
23 starts at 22.26 in the material that I had with me from the first day. Is
24 it -- may I refer to it instead of this other copy, because the last line
25 and the first line of the next page are -- I'm just not sure that they're
Page 8230
1 complete.
2 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
3 Q. No problem. You can refer to your own material. Could you tell
4 me, looking at these two conversations, how come the conversation which
5 starts at 22.25 starts, in fact, much later than the conversation which
6 starts at 22.26? In fact, the page which is the first page in the 22.25
7 conversation, you will be able to find it on the second page of the
8 conversation which starts at 22.26.
9 A. That's correct. And the reason for that is that these two
10 conversations were recorded at the two different sites. The one that you
11 reference at 22.25 was recorded at the northern site, and the one that you
12 reference at 22.26 was recorded at the southern site.
13 In this -- this is an example of where a -- the -- the --
14 Q. Ma'am, I believe that the two conversations come from the northern
15 site. Are you quite sure that one comes from the southern site? I'm not
16 at all sure. I believe that both conversations come from the northern
17 site.
18 A. I would have to double-check. You might be right. But I don't
19 think it changes the -- the substance of what I was going to say, which is
20 that the reason -- the reason for this difference is that the person, the
21 operator who began to record the conversation at 22.26 captured the
22 conversation earlier than the operator who captured it at 22.25. So in
23 fact it's only -- it's actually on the bottom of page 00804649 where you
24 begin to see similarities between the two conversations. The last line of
25 that conversation says, "Sto je prosli put to davao tamo", and that is the
Page 8231
1 first sentence of the conversation that begins at 22.25 on 00779721. Does
2 that answer your question?
3 Q. Not really, because I don't understand how the conversation which
4 started at 22.26, which is a minute later, could have started before the
5 conversation which started at 22.25. I shall move on to another question.
6 This conversation --
7 A. It's just a matter of if you look at your watch and I look at my
8 watch and we both say what time it is right now, we might be off by a
9 minute or two.
10 Q. Isn't it fair to say that the equipment records the time
11 automatically, that the recording machines have a time indicator on them,
12 don't they?
13 JUDGE AGIUS: Madam Fauveau, please stop -- refrain from asking
14 such questions. We're not talking about the equipment here. We're
15 talking of the notebooks, and the notebooks did not have an automatic
16 clocking system.
17 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Was this particular conversation confirmed by any other piece of
19 equipment?
20 A. I don't understand your question.
21 Q. Do you have independent equipment which would enable you to
22 corroborate this? In other words, did you find any other documents which
23 might corroborate this conversation?
24 A. Off of the top of my head, I don't.
25 Q. Do you remember which kind of material this refers to? This is my
Page 8232
1 last question. Do you remember what material this conversation refers
2 to? When you look at the 22.25 conversation, it's X and X who speaks on
3 the fourth sentence and then X who speaks on the fifth sentence?
4 A. Yes. I believe that this refers to Josipovic, who I believe was a
5 member of the Sarajevo Romanija corps, that it was a piece of equipment
6 that was shared among the units. I don't remember the specific piece. It
7 could have been a multiple rocket launcher or something to that effect.
8 JUDGE AGIUS: This brings your cross-examination to an end, Madam
9 Fauveau.
10 JUDGE KWON: A quick question to Ms. Frease before we break. I'm
11 not sure whether we had that evidence before, but you're saying that most
12 of the intercept operators relied on their personal watches to note down
13 the time?
14 THE WITNESS: Yes.
15 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
16 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. We'll have -- do you wish to start now,
17 Mr. Josse, or after the break?
18 MR. JOSSE: I don't mind, Your Honour.
19 JUDGE AGIUS: So let's have a 25-minute -- is that sufficient,
20 Madam Registrar? A 25-minute break starting from now. Thank you.
21 --- Recess taken at 12.28 p.m.
22 --- On resuming at 12.57 p.m.
23 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Josse.
24 Cross-examination by Mr. Josse:
25 Q. May it please Your Honours.
Page 8233
1 Ms. Frease, I want to take you back, if I may, to the 25th of
2 January of this year when you were giving your evidence, and to
3 approximately page 6399 of the transcript. And at that point in time, you
4 were commenting on tab 1 of the authentication binder, and you were
5 describing how you had compared two different accounts of a conversation
6 that took place on the 11th of July of 1995 between Generals Gvero and
7 Gobilliard. I take it you remember that.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And if I may be permitted, I'm going to summarise what you said
10 because it was quite a long time ago. Basically, you had two different
11 sources for this particular intercept. The first was the conversation
12 that had been recorded by the SDB, and it consisted solely of what General
13 Gvero was saying, they being unable to hear what General Gobilliard was
14 saying. That's correct, isn't it?
15 A. If I may just refer to my index. Do you -- it was the 1610
16 conversation, right, on the 11th of July? Yes, that's correct.
17 Q. And you also had a second account from a Major Fortin who was
18 working with General Gobilliard and he had summarised the conversation on
19 behalf of General Gobilliard. That's also correct, isn't it?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. What I'm a little curious about, Ms. Frease, is why didn't you go
22 to the horse's mouth and confirm the conversation via General Gobilliard?
23 A. I don't remember, though time was always a factor, but I don't
24 remember.
25 Q. Would you accept that in fact General Gobilliard was asked about
Page 8234
1 the conversation on the 8th of February of 1999 in a formal interview
2 carried out in the Paris Court of Appeal at the behest of this Tribunal?
3 Does that ring any bell at all?
4 A. No.
5 Q. And it's a fact that General Gobilliard is not on the list of
6 witnesses in this particular case. My question is simple. Did you have
7 any part in the decision as to whether or not he should give evidence in
8 this trial, you personally?
9 A. No.
10 Q. Thank you. Let's, if we may, look, please, at that particular
11 conversation and see how else it could perhaps be verified.
12 Could P1074 be put up on e-court, please. And it's the third
13 page in English, and I'm going to take the witness and the Court to the
14 summary that Major Fortin provided. That's it.
15 We see, Ms. Frease, at approximately the point that you have
16 marked 2 --
17 JUDGE AGIUS: I think we need the third page according to the
18 transcript.
19 MR. JOSSE: That's the page, Your Honour. It's the third page of
20 P1074. That's the page I want anyway.
21 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you.
22 MR. JOSSE:
23 Q. We see it says: "If UNPROFOR troops were really targeted, then it
24 was the BiH who fired on to them according to their old scenario."
25 So that is obviously General Gvero speaking, isn't it?
Page 8235
1 A. Yes. I would appreciate it if the document could be shrunk down a
2 little bit so I could see the numbers.
3 Q. Yes. The numbers in the left-hand margin, please.
4 A. Thank you.
5 Q. It's number 2 or 3. It's -- you see what I'm referring to anyway.
6 A. Right. I would say it's number 3.
7 Q. My apologies, and I accept that. It's right, isn't it, that this
8 assertion by General Gvero can be supported by other documentation,
9 thereby further verifying the intercept, and to this end, before you
10 answer the question, perhaps you'd have a look at 6D45.
11 This is a document that comes from a Lieutenant General Janvier
12 dated the 10th of July of 1995. It's addressed, the Court will perhaps
13 take it from me at the bottom of the page, to General Rasim Delic. And if
14 we look at the first and the third paragraphs, we see that General Janvier
15 is saying: "I was deeply shocked to learn of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian
16 army hostile action against an UNPROFOR Armoured Personnel Carrier on the
17 8th of July in the afternoon, and I have to express my deepest indignation
18 with regard to the murder of a Dutch soldier in the area of Srebrenica."
19 Then for reasons of time I'll go on to the third paragraph.
20 "Later on, the Dutch APC encountered a BiH barricade across the
21 road and while driving over an obstruction, it was fired on and hit by a
22 BiH grenade. One Dutch soldier was seriously injured and he was evacuated
23 to Potocari but died of his wounds at 1625B."
24 So if we go back to the note of the intercept that I'm asking you
25 about taken by Major Fortin, does this document that's still on the screen
Page 8236
1 help your verification of the intercept between Messrs. Gobilliard and
2 Gvero?
3 A. May I see the original document, please?
4 Q. I'm not clear what you're referring to. I'm sorry.
5 A. The letter, the notes that Major Fortin took.
6 Q. Yes, back to P1074, please.
7 JUDGE AGIUS: Which page?
8 MR. JOSSE: The same as before.
9 JUDGE AGIUS: The same as before.
10 THE WITNESS: I think it's inconclusive.
11 MR. JOSSE:
12 Q. Why do you say that?
13 A. Well, because a number of things could have happened between the
14 8th of July when General Janvier wrote that letter and the 11th of July
15 when this conversation took place between General Gobilliard and General
16 Gvero.
17 Q. Okay. It was the 10th of July for what it's worth that General
18 Janvier wrote the letter?
19 A. That he wrote the letter but it referred to events of the 8th of
20 July, I believe.
21 Q. Let me try in relation to another passage of this document. If we
22 could go down same page to approximately number 6. We see it
23 says: "UNPROFOR troops were most welcome on the BSA territory where they
24 would be treated comfortably and would be completely safe."
25 Could the witness please be shown 6D22. This, unlike the last
Page 8237
1 document, is an original B/C/S document. If -- I'm working from a
2 translation, Ms. Frease, because I don't read the language, and it's in
3 fact -- this is a document, if I can summarise, from General Krstic to the
4 VRS Main Staff and the Drina command corps dated the 9th of July, 1995.
5 It's number 4 that I'd like to ask you to look at. Conduct of UNPROFOR
6 forces. I'll read the translation I've got, slowly.
7 "The UNPROFOR forces at the check-points in Slapovici village and
8 Buci village surrendered fully to our forces with all their weapons and
9 equipment and asked for our protection. Ten UNPROFOR soldiers from the
10 UNPROFOR check-point in Buci village have been probably sent to and
11 accommodated in Milici, while five soldiers from the check-point in
12 Slapovici have been accommodated in Bratunac. UNPROFOR forces from the
13 base in Potocari village did not intervene at the check-points or attack
14 our forces."
15 So my question is the same again. Does that document shed any
16 light or support your verification of the conversation between Gobilliard
17 and Gvero?
18 A. Again, not necessarily.
19 Q. Explain, please.
20 A. Well, I mean it could, but the dates here too are -- they're two
21 days off. So --
22 Q. Sorry, do go on.
23 A. If we could have the original notes again from -- that Major
24 Fortin took juxtaposed against this document in English, the English
25 version of the document that's currently on the --
Page 8238
1 JUDGE AGIUS: That I don't know if it is possible, but if it is
2 possible, then I don't know what the accused are going to be able to look
3 at, because if we have the two English text on the screen, there will be
4 none in B/C/S.
5 MR. JOSSE: It's a slight failing, if I may put it like this, of
6 the e-court system, Your Honour. There's no way round it as far as I can
7 see.
8 JUDGE AGIUS: Don't look at me much more because I'm not to blame
9 for it.
10 MR. JOSSE: Well, I said that with some trepidation, not blaming
11 Your Honour, because simply, out of respect, you're the person to look at
12 in this courtroom.
13 Q. Do you need the translation of Major General Krstic's document?
14 A. No. I would just -- I would just note the same -- you know, the
15 same issue. And I don't have a detailed knowledge or recollection of the
16 events of the 9th of July and how and where UN forces surrendered to Serb
17 forces, but a lot of things certainly could have happened and did happen
18 between the 9th of July and the 11th of July.
19 Q. Am I -- am I barking up the right tree in these questions that I'm
20 asking you? Was it part of your job to look at these documents and see if
21 they in some way fit in to these conversations that you've been telling us
22 about for many days now?
23 A. I wouldn't like to say that you're barking up the wrong tree, but
24 in the two examples that you've provided, they don't contain the type of
25 information that I would have relied upon in order to confirm the material
Page 8239
1 that was contained within the intercepts, because I don't believe that the
2 material there is -- is really strong enough. I think I always tried to
3 provide documentation that related very closely to the events that were
4 being communicated in the intercepted material.
5 Q. Let me try once again, then I'll move to another topic. Can we go
6 to the second page now of Major Fortin's note. Yes. Between really 9 and
7 10, again we're back to General Gvero. It says: "He claimed that a great
8 number of UN vehicles stolen by the BiH and still painted white were used
9 against the BSA. He said he had no absolute knowledge of who the troops
10 in the vehicles belonged to but drew the general's attention to the BSA
11 reliable information that those were the BiH."
12 And to that end, could you have a look, please, at 6D23, which
13 whilst it's being got up on the screen, is a document not dissimilar to
14 the last one from General Krstic to the Drina Corps command, Pribicevac
15 forward command post dated the 10th of July, 1995, headed "Very urgent."
16 There we have it in the B/C/S. It's number 3, Ms. Frease, that I'd like
17 us to look at. Again, I will read it slowly. We now have the English
18 up.
19 "UNPROFOR conduct in the Srebrenica enclave from observation and
20 surveillance of the situation in the Srebrenica enclave. We concluded
21 that a number of UNPROFOR check-points on enemy territory have been taken
22 by the Muslims who are using some of the weapons and other military
23 hardware in operation against our forces."
24 Same question: Wearing your analytical hat, are you able to
25 comment on how that fits in with the passage from Major Fortin's note that
Page 8240
1 I read to you a few moments ago?
2 A. Could you scroll to the -- well, first, the bottom of this
3 document it says that it was received on the 10th of July, 1995; is that
4 correct? Yes.
5 Q. It does at 2315.
6 A. And the top of the document is dated --
7 Q. The 10th of July.
8 A. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I -- I don't have any specific information that the
9 ABiH captured vehicles, and so when you refer to paragraph 3, the last
10 sentence that says, "weapons or other military hardware," it's not clear
11 to me that there's a direct connection between weapons and military
12 hardware and the phrase that you referred to in the notes that Major
13 Fortin took. But if we could again have the page of Major Fortin's notes
14 that would be helpful.
15 Q. So this is the second page of his notes, please. Between 9 and
16 10.
17 A. I can't -- I can't make a link between those two points.
18 Q. All right. Let me move on briefly to one other thing I want to
19 ask you about, and that's this -- could we have P1096A put up on the
20 screen, please.
21 Whilst this is being done, Ms. Frease, this is a note prepared by
22 a MUP intercept operator of an alleged conversation between General Gvero
23 and Radovan Karadzic on the 11th of July of 1995. Could I ask you, first
24 of all, in general terms, what work, if any, you did in terms of analysis
25 in relation to this particular intercept?
Page 8241
1 A. Aside from reading it and understanding the contents?
2 Q. Yes.
3 A. I don't believe that I included it in the authentication binder,
4 but it's a -- it's a -- General Gvero is reporting to President Karadzic
5 on a conversation that you had just had with General Nikolai that is --
6 reflects a conversation, as far as I remember, that General Gvero had with
7 General Nikolai.
8 Q. I accept that General Gvero had this conversation with General
9 Nikolai. My specific question is: You did no work which would verify
10 that this conversation was in fact between General Gvero and Radovan
11 Karadzic, did you?
12 A. No.
13 Q. And for completeness sake, perhaps you could have a look at -- I
14 think it's P1096B. Is that it? I may have the wrong number here. Scroll
15 down, please. No, my fault. Perhaps it's P2374.
16 A. And may I just refer to my index?
17 Q. Yes, of course, I've got no problem with that.
18 THE REGISTRAR: Sorry, 2374A, has it a letter?
19 MR. JOSSE: Yes. A, I think, is the English. Next page, please.
20 Yes, I'm sorry. I can see what I've done here, and it's my fault
21 entirely. I think it would be more helpful if we went back to P1096A and
22 scrolled on a couple of pages.
23 JUDGE AGIUS: Do you have a re-examination, Mr. Vanderpuye?
24 MR. VANDERPUYE: I anticipate a relatively brief one.
25 JUDGE AGIUS: Is Ms. Frease going to be available tomorrow?
Page 8242
1 MR. VANDERPUYE: I haven't spoken with her.
2 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, but I'm putting the question.
3 MR. JOSSE: Scroll on, please. It's number 536 that we're after
4 on this.
5 THE WITNESS: Yes.
6 MR. JOSSE: I beg your pardon. I do beg your pardon, Your Honour.
7 I cut across a rather important conversation you were having.
8 JUDGE AGIUS: I'm used to that, Mr. Josse.
9 MR. JOSSE: I was concentrating very hard on this screen.
10 THE WITNESS: Yes, I am available.
11 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Ms. Frease. It will only be for a few
12 minutes.
13 MR. JOSSE: Could you scroll on, please.
14 THE REGISTRAR: This document has only one page.
15 MR. JOSSE:
16 Q. There is -- you've probably got it there, Ms. Frease, and we can
17 do this a different way. There is a conversation about 20 minutes later
18 which also is allegedly between General Gvero and President Karadzic on
19 the same day. It's headed 536 in the -- by the MUP operator. Do you have
20 that there?
21 A. Yes, but just to clarify, it's about -- you're referring to the
22 1610 conversation between General Gvero and Nikolai and then the one that
23 follows it on the screen is the 1623, so 13 minutes later.
24 Q. My question referred to the 1623 conversation between Gvero and
25 Karadzic and you dealt with that and said that you did no work to confirm
Page 8243
1 one way or the other whether the person, my client, was speaking to was in
2 fact Karadzic. And my last question is in relation to the same
3 intercept -- beg your pardon, the intercept 20 minutes later, allegedly
4 between the same two participants and my question is the same, any work in
5 relation to that as to who General Gvero might have been speaking to?
6 A. No.
7 MR. JOSSE: Thank you very much.
8 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you very much, Mr. Josse.
9 Mr. Zivanovic. Please don't repeat any questions that you have
10 already put during your 1 hour 42 minute cross-examination.
11 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] I am going to limit my questions
12 to the documents that I received in the meantime.
13 Further cross-examination by Mr. Zivanovic:
14 Q. Good day, Ms. Frease. I'm going to ask you to look at document
15 5D191, actually, that my colleague Ms. Fauveau has already shown to you.
16 These are your personal notes from the 21st and 22nd of April, 1998,
17 during your visit to the northern and to the southern location, and
18 conversation with the staff of the B and H. Do you recognise this
19 document?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. I would like you to look at the subtitle which says: "Summary of
22 records relating to intercept traffic," and to look at item 2 there which
23 begins with: "Took it upon themselves to extract the intercepts relating
24 to the Srebrenica and compile them in a binder totaling more than 500
25 pages."
Page 8244
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. [Interpretation] I would like to ask you to clarify one thing in
3 the B/C/S language that you also understand, the word "kompilirati"
4 indicates to take a large number of things or parts of a large number of
5 things and putting them together into one whole. In that sense, was it --
6 was it how you used this word "kompilirati" in that sense in this
7 document?
8 A. That's how I would interpret it here, yes.
9 Q. Applied to the intercepts, I understand that the staff of the 2nd
10 Corps took it upon themselves to take the existing reports on the
11 intercepts, to separate them partially or completely, and to put them
12 together in one document and then to make a binder of that numbering more
13 than 500 pages. Is that how it was?
14 A. That's how I understood it, yes.
15 Q. Thank you. Based on this and having looked at this binder, I saw,
16 and you also said that in your testimony, that it was all printed on
17 perforated paper. So it was one piece of paper that was coming out of the
18 printer, and later it was cut, and then they had problems with copying
19 because the last line was usually dark. Do you remember that?
20 A. Yes, I remember that. Not that the last line was dark, but that
21 it was usually missing in the photocopying process.
22 Q. Precisely. So looking at this binder, I saw that they're in one
23 and the same place, on the same page even. There is an overlap of
24 conversations from different places. To summarise, we had two locations,
25 the northern and the southern one. There was one unit at the southern
Page 8245
1 unit. At the northern one there were three units that were doing this
2 work. Do you agree with that?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And now I see in this binder that you gave to us that on one page,
5 for example, there are interlapping conversations between those units
6 amongst themselves. Did you notice that?
7 A. If you could let me look at those pages, I'd be happy to try to
8 clarify that.
9 Q. Yes. Can I just ask that the witness be shown precisely that.
10 And now I'm going to let you know which. That is document -- that binder
11 is there. I mean, we're not going to be able to look at it through the
12 e-court or the electronic version, but we can only look at it on the ELMO.
13 So I can just ask that you be given the binder, and I'm going to tell you
14 which pages of the binder you would need to look at.
15 A. Okay.
16 Q. This is 1D235. The pages where the intercepts are are marked by
17 hand. You will see that. There's a small number in the upper right-hand
18 corner. I think you know that.
19 A. Right. Mm-hmm.
20 Q. I would like you to look at the page marked with the number 2, for
21 example.
22 A. Okay.
23 Q. Two conversations are overlapping there. That one conversation is
24 characteristic because it's written in block letters. We said whose
25 conversations were transcribed exclusively and only in block letters as
Page 8246
1 compared to other intercepts that were transcribed by some other units.
2 Do you agree that here, on the same page, these two conversations are
3 overlapping?
4 Can I ask to have this page put on the ELMO, please. Then it will
5 be -- so that it can be seen what I'm trying to say.
6 You can see at the top of the page there is a conversation written
7 in small letters, and beneath that there is a conversation transcribed in
8 block letters, and it's characteristic for a specific organisation that
9 also was doing that work. Can you confirm that?
10 Here we have compiled various conversations, and one unique
11 document was made compiling all of these conversations. Do you agree with
12 that?
13 A. Yes. I wouldn't say that they're overlapping, and it may be a
14 question of interpretation, but, yes, that there are two different sources
15 contained within this binder, that's correct.
16 Q. But -- but it's not the same, you know. If the conversations were
17 separate, that would be clear, but because they were taken from different
18 locations. But in this situation, they were put together. They were all
19 put together in one document which we can see precisely by these printed
20 pages. For example, the conversation of one unit was put together with
21 the conversation of some other unit even though they are not the same in
22 their original authentic version. Do you agree with that?
23 A. That's right, and that's part of what made it difficult to
24 understand the process, because we didn't -- we didn't understand all of
25 these more subtle differences.
Page 8247
1 Q. I noticed this on other pages as well, and I don't want to burden
2 the Trial Chamber by enumerating all those pages that are done in the same
3 or similar manner, that are compiled in that way, but I have noticed
4 something else. Perhaps you can look at this previous document again,
5 5D191.
6 Thank you. For now, we will not be needing the binder.
7 A. If I could --
8 Q. No, no, no. Your personal notes. And you will see that on the
9 screen.
10 JUDGE AGIUS: Let her finish what she was about to say.
11 THE WITNESS: Well, it's just that the information was shared
12 among the units. So that would be an explanation as to why these types of
13 conversations would have been included in -- in this binder. If that
14 helps.
15 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. But did you get notice? Were you told that this is how they put
17 together the conversations but only the conversations that they shared
18 amongst themselves? Surely they didn't tell you that that's what they
19 did, so you needn't bother.
20 A. Well, I remember it being a source of confusion for us that was
21 clarified then later in interviews with the operators. The existence of
22 this third unit at the site was something that we didn't know at the time.
23 Q. Thank you. But I wanted to ask you something else. On the basis
24 of this paragraph, that would be 5D191, your personal notes, I reached
25 another conclusion on the basis of this and that is that the personnel of
Page 8248
1 2 Corps did this in an agreement with you, that they did the compilation
2 and the binder that contained the compiled conversation made of bits and
3 pieces of conversations in agreement with you.
4 A. I don't believe it would have been specifically in agreement with
5 me. I wasn't present during the March mission.
6 Q. On the basis of this paragraph, again, I don't know if you have it
7 on your screen or not, but in the second sentence says that this binder
8 was given to ICTY personnel during the March mission. You say that you
9 were not there, but this means that it had been requested earlier so that
10 this could be compiled, put together in a binder and then handed over to
11 you during the March mission. Do you agree with me?
12 A. I believe that there is an error in that note, that the binder was
13 given to us in March. I believe it was given to us actually in April.
14 Prior to the March mission, there was a mission to the area, I believe in
15 January, the end of January, beginning of February 1998, in which we first
16 made contact with the authorities of 2 Corps, the deputy commander, I
17 believe, and we had meetings with them, and I believe it was the first
18 time that we had contact with them, and I was present then. And it was at
19 that time that we talked about our desire to have access to the
20 intercepted material, other material that they had, and then it was at
21 that point that a further mission was discussed.
22 Q. Thank you. I will ask you some specific questions about that,
23 because you did not tell us about the January mission. But let me just
24 remind you of an exhibit, 1D222. That's a certificate of the delivery of
25 the establishment chart of the Drina Corps that was handed over to
Page 8249
1 Mr. Ruez on the 3rd of March, 1998. And then the problem was because in
2 that document we only had the organisational chart of the Drina Corps, and
3 we did not have the radio report, and in the meantime, the Prosecution has
4 been able to locate the radio reports, and they were indeed handed over to
5 us. So it was handed over on the 3rd of March, 1998.
6 In this binder that contains more than 500 pages, I found a
7 document that is designated as 1D234. I'm sure you remember about this,
8 because you've already seen this when I -- when I showed it to you on the
9 26th of February.
10 Could you please look at 1D234.
11 A. Is there anything in particular you'd like me to look at?
12 Q. Well, here it is. That's precisely what I had in mind. This is
13 the page that I wanted to look at. That's the same date, 3rd of March,
14 1998, and it is entitled "Report -- reports compiled through radio
15 surveillance in the period between the 9th of July, 1995, and 31st of
16 July, 1995." That document is contained in the binder that was shown to
17 you.
18 So can we then agree that this was not a mistake and that this
19 binder had already been handed over to you in March 1998?
20 A. I'm just really not sure. I think that we need to -- my -- my
21 recollection is that -- that the binder was actually given over to the
22 Office of the Prosecutor in April. It's possible that members of the
23 Office of the Prosecutor saw the binder during the March mission the same
24 way that they saw the notebooks and they saw the tapes, but I don't
25 believe that we took possession of the binder at that time.
Page 8250
1 Q. I showed you the signature of Mr. Ruez who received both the radio
2 reports and the documents on that day, but if you were right that on the
3 26th of April, that that was the date when the Tribunal received the
4 documents, that is correct, and this is corroborated by a document that is
5 designated 1D233. That is also contained in this binder.
6 So Mr. Ruez took receipt of the documents on the 3rd of March.
7 The Tribunal took receipt on the 24th of April. And you can see this
8 right here on this list.
9 A. I'm just -- I'm just not -- I'm not sure. Because if we could go
10 back to the preceding document and see exactly what it says, because just
11 before we change documents, the one that we're looking at right now dated
12 the 3rd of March, 1998, says: "Reports of captured radio communications
13 from -- during the period from 9 July 1995 to the 31st of July, 1995." So
14 it is pretty specific. "RI" there stands for radio intercepts; right?
15 So if we could go now to the previous document, I'm not sure that
16 that document is that specific where Jean-Rene Ruez signed -- where his
17 signature is at the bottom.
18 Q. Well, let us read it then. Does it say here in this text, does it
19 say "radio reports"? Do you see that?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. On the basis of -- so he did take receipt of them on the 3rd of
22 March.
23 A. That is what it says.
24 Q. So that is correct. Let us move on to the document 1D233,
25 document 1D233. That's not the one. I can give you the hard copy since
Page 8251
1 there seems to be an error here. So perhaps you can put it on the ELMO.
2 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's go through this quickly, otherwise we'll leave
3 it until tomorrow.
4 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. Well, this is the document. You can see here it's the date that
6 you noted, the 24th of April, 1998, right here at the beginning of the
7 document. You can see that for sure.
8 It's the same ERN number. This document is also contained in this
9 binder that has 550 pages.
10 So can you confirm that this is indeed correct --
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Could you please -- my question to you is, do you know where this
13 binder containing 550 pages was between the 3rd of March, 1998, until the
14 24th of April, 1998?
15 A. I can't account for the difference.
16 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. I think we have to leave it there because
17 there is another Chamber who needs -- which needs to start at 2.15. We'll
18 continue tomorrow. I anticipate that you will only be here for a few
19 minutes tomorrow, Ms. Frease, and I thank you for bearing with us. Thank
20 you.
21 Have a nice afternoon, all of you. We stand adjourned until
22 tomorrow morning.
23 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.46 p.m.,
24 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 6th day
25 of March, 2007, at 9.00 a.m.