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Page 1493

1 defendants briefly, and latterly, against Milomir Stakic.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Thank you. Can you

3 please read out the text of the solemn declaration.

4 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the

5 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] All right. You may sit down.

7 WITNESS: EDWARD VULLIAMY

8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I will be very brief in my

9 introductory remarks because you are not the first time here before the

10 International Tribunal.

11 First you will be asked -- answering questions put to you by the

12 Prosecution. Then following that you will be examined by the Defence

13 counsel and perhaps even some of the accused if there is a need for that.

14 They might also put some questions to you during cross-examination.

15 I have to remind you that you just swore to tell the truth, which

16 means that you have to tell the truth and not lie.

17 So your testimony is scheduled to proceed in the following way:

18 Your examination-in-chief will take place today and then cross-examination

19 tomorrow. And now I turn the floor to Mr. Mundis who will be putting

20 questions to you on behalf of the Prosecution.

21 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honour.

22 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President.

23 Examination by Mr. Mundis:

24 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, can you briefly tell the Trial Chamber your

25 professional background.

Page 1494

1 A. Yes. I -- briefly. I became a journalist properly in the late

2 1970s on a programme called World In Action for Granada television, a

3 documentary programme working in all parts of the world, specialising in

4 the conflict in Northern Ireland in my case. I moved to the Guardian in

5 1986, and as of 1989, was working mainly overseas as what I suppose one

6 could call an international reporter, starting off in Eastern Europe,

7 proceeding to work, in theory, from Italy but also across Yugoslavia,

8 former Yugoslavia, and then to the United States, then back in Yugoslavia,

9 and now back in London -- sorry, back to the United States again and now

10 back in London. Forgive me.

11 Q. And, Mr. Vulliamy, just for clarification purpose, the Guardian is

12 a newspaper based in the United Kingdom; is that correct?

13 A. It's a daily paper based in London, yes.

14 Q. Sir, can you tell us what awards, if any, you have won for your

15 reporting and writing.

16 A. 1985, I think, the Royal Television Society award for something in

17 Northern Ireland; 1992/3 I won International Reporter of the Year; and

18 Amnesty International Reporter of the Year; a thing called Granada, What

19 the Papers Say; Reporter of the Year for work on Bosnia. In 1994 I won

20 something called the James Cameron Award, pompously called the "British

21 Pulitzer," for work on Bosnia and on some aspects of Italian violence in

22 Italy. 1997 I won the International Reporter of the Year for work on

23 Bosnia, and latterly I was runner-up for a couple of awards for work on

24 trafficking in young women and Iraq.

25 Q. Sir, in addition to your newspaper writing, have you done any

Page 1495

1 other published writing?

2 A. I wrote a book about the first year or so of the war in Bosnia

3 called "Seasons In Hell." I wrote another book about corruption in

4 British politics, and I've done various bits of television and radio

5 broadcasting.

6 Q. Sir, you alluded to the time that you were in Northern Ireland.

7 Can you tell us about any -- and the former Yugoslavia. Can you tell us

8 about any reporting that you've done from conflict zones.

9 A. Well, Northern Ireland was my speciality as a student. I returned

10 there professionally many times. That was urban warfare, terrorism, urban

11 warfare. Then I went to Lebanon briefly in 1982, to Beirut. I covered

12 the immediate lead-up to and aftermath of the 1991 war in Iraq. I was

13 there for a long time after that. And before the conflict in Bosnia I had

14 been in Slovenia and in Croatia during 1991, and I have been to Iraq twice

15 during the current whatever it is, conflict, and I have also worked in

16 sort of places that one would regard as unsafe if not at war, like Haiti,

17 Central America, and other places of that kind.

18 Q. Let me turn the focus of your attention now, sir, to Bosnia. Can

19 you tell us the first time during the conflict in Bosnia that you went to

20 that country.

21 A. Yes. This would be the -- well, briefly in the spring of 1992,

22 but my first serious work there was in August of 1992 in the Prijedor

23 region and pertaining mostly -- although I was also in Sarajevo around

24 that time, my work pertained mostly to the attempt to expose and get into

25 camps run by the Bosnian Serbs for Muslim and Croat inmates, and we did

Page 1496

1 manage to find a way in to those at Omarska and Trnopolje, and my work

2 also involved, when I arrived in Bosnia, the whole question of enforced

3 deportations from that region of mostly Muslims but a number of Croats

4 into Central Bosnia at gunpoint. I walked with them, followed them on

5 those enforced deportation convoys.

6 Q. And again, Mr. Vulliamy, for purposes of clarification, at this

7 period of time in the middle of 1992 or into the autumn of 1992, who was

8 the perpetrator of the crimes that you were covering that you just

9 mentioned to us?

10 A. In the north-west, the Bosnian Serbs.

11 Q. In how long following these incidents that you've told us about in

12 August of 1992 in Prijedor, after that how long did you remain in Bosnia?

13 A. Well, I was on a rota of reporters assigned to cover the war, so I

14 was there on and off between that period and February, 1994, when, against

15 my wishes, actually, I was transferred, or promoted, to Washington, and I

16 returned at my own request - I demoted myself, I suppose - to go back in

17 the summer of 1995, and I stayed there for the end of the war and then

18 went back during 1996 to do a retrospective series. So on and off, summer

19 1991 -- in the former Yugoslavia, summer 1991 to spring 1996.

20 Q. Let's go back, sir, to the period after late summer, 1992, when

21 you told us about the camps in Prijedor. Can you give us a brief

22 chronology of where your reporting duties in Bosnia took you after the

23 autumn of 1992 or during the autumn of 1992.

24 A. Yes. They took me immediately to Herzegovina. Do you want me to

25 give an overview or to go --

Page 1497

1 Q. Perhaps --

2 A. I'm sorry.

3 Q. -- if you could just give us an overview first and we'll go back

4 and ask some follow-up questions.

5 A. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. I was working across Herzegovina, up in

6 Central Bosnia, in Mostar. That would cover the autumn, the summer into

7 the fall, yes.

8 Q. Let's -- let's focus now on Herzegovina. You told us at line 20,

9 "they took me immediately to Herzegovina." Your travels that took you to

10 Herzegovina, can you tell us approximately when you went there in the

11 autumn of 1992?

12 A. Our exposure of the camps at Omarska and Trnopolje created quite a

13 lot of impact, and a sort of media circus descended on those places. A

14 challenge came from the Serbs that there were camps in which their people

15 were being held on the other side, and I thought it fair enough to, you

16 know, in the interests of, I suppose balance if not pushing the agenda, to

17 investigate those, and Capljina was a name given. I had never heard of

18 the place. So via Hungary and Zagreb, I would have left Belgrade about

19 the 8th or 9th of August, and via Zagreb down to Capljina, would have

20 arrived there sometime -- I wouldn't want to put an exact date on it,

21 probably around the 10th to 11th of August.

22 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, you just told us that the challenge came from the

23 Serbs that there were camps in which their people were being held on the

24 other side. Can you tell us what you mean or what you interpreted that to

25 mean when you were told that they were being held on "the other side"?

Page 1498

1 A. Well, I mean -- what Nikola Koljevic the then deputy head of the

2 Bosnian Serbs meant, I think, was we had just uncovered horrific, horrific

3 places in which Muslims and Croats were being held by the Bosnian Serbs.

4 Their allegation was that we would find similar on the other side. By

5 "the other side," he meant the alliance between the Bosnian army and the

6 HVO, Bosnian Croatian -- Bosnian Croat militia, army.

7 Q. Sir, if you could continue with what you experienced or witnessed

8 when you went down into Capljina approximately the 10th or 11th of August,

9 1992.

10 A. Well, we arrived in Capljina -- we did actually go and see a

11 leading politician before we went to Capljina, but in Capljina itself, we

12 -- and this is me myself and a woman from the Associated Press, and of

13 course a translator, but we went to Capljina to the headquarters of the

14 organisation that we were told ran this particular camp, which was the

15 HOS, a -- not the HVO. The -- the military wing of a party called the

16 Croatian Party of Rights, and we went to their headquarters and met with

17 their commander, in pursuit of permission to go to this camp.

18 Q. Did -- can you tell us who that person was?

19 A. His name was Milan Dedakovic.

20 Q. What, if anything, did Mr. Milan Dedakovic do for you?

21 A. Well, he was a swashbuckling fellow, not ashamed of his own -- I'm

22 not sure "charisma" is quite the word, but he was a confident man, and we

23 talked about a recent apparent execution of one of his -- one of his

24 commanders, HOS commanders, in the area by the HVO, and we talked a lot

25 about the politics of the rivalry between those two militias which

Page 1499

1 pertained to his allegation that the HVO and the president of the Croatian

2 Union of Herceg-Bosna, as it was called, Mate Boban, who we'd seen the

3 previous evening, I think, he accused them of wanting to carve up Bosnia

4 with the Serbs while he and his militia and its party insisted that all of

5 Bosnia was Croatian and that that was the background for the internecine,

6 well, argument, and indeed violent argument between them, and in his

7 words, the execution of his commander.

8 What we wanted from him -- and there was a lot of banter as well.

9 What we wanted from him was permission to go into this camp and inspect

10 it, and that he granted us, I have to say more easily and more readily

11 than I'd expected.

12 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, I'll ask you some follow-up questions about that in

13 just a moment, but I'd like to return to something that you just told us,

14 and that is as reflected on line 22 of the transcript, where you made

15 reference to Mate Boban and you said "who we'd seen the previous evening."

16 Do you recall any of the events that happened when you met with

17 Mr. Mate Boban?

18 A. Yes. I recall -- I recall the meeting well. It was at his office

19 in a town called Grude, a small town and quite a menacing place although

20 there was no actual fighting there. We knew who he was. Each community

21 or people, if you like, in Bosnia had a leading figure, and Karadzic in

22 the case -- Radovan Karadzic in the case of the Bosnian Serbs, the

23 President Alija Izetbegovic in the case of the -- of the Bosnian Muslims,

24 and Mate Boban was very much the name that one associated with the apex of

25 power among the Bosnian Croats. He was not, and I'll say just this at

Page 1500

1 this point unless you want to pursue, he was not actually the president of

2 the main Croatian -- Bosnian Croat party, which was the HDZ and a Bosnian

3 wing of the ruling party in Zagreb of President Franjo Tudjman, but he was

4 the president of something called the Croatian Union of Herceg-Bosna or

5 the Croatian - what did they call it? - Croatian Community of

6 Herceg-Bosna. And he talked to us at that meeting about his plans for

7 that entity and how he was going to achieve it.

8 Q. Okay. Before I ask you about the plans, sir, do you recall the

9 approximate date that you had this meeting with Mr. Boban?

10 A. Well, it will have to be approximate, I'm afraid. It's --

11 travelled on the 12th. It's the -- it's -- it's just before the middle of

12 August. If I can guess it, it's 12, 13, 14th of August, something of that

13 area.

14 Q. Of which year?

15 A. 1992.

16 Q. Can you tell us now about what you recall from this meeting where

17 plans for the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna were discussed with

18 Mr. Boban.

19 A. Yes, he made it clear -- and he was, incidentally, willing and

20 wanting to have this conversation. He made it clear that he did not and

21 could not recognise the constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina nor could he

22 recognise Sarajevo as its capital. The reason he gave was that the

23 constitution guaranteed the rights of individuals but not of people, and

24 the word he used for people was "narod" which is an important word because

25 it means people as an ethnicity or it is -- it is -- it doesn't mean

Page 1501

1 people going shopping, it means a people, the "Hrvatski Narod," the

2 Croatian people.

3 He then went on to describe in some detail how he wanted the

4 various "narod" Serbian Muslims and Croatians to be divided within Bosnia

5 by a system of what he called cantons or provinces, which he likened, I

6 think for sort of public relations reasons, to Switzerland and the

7 European Union, and how one group of these cantons or provinces would be

8 specifically Croatian. He talked about how Herceg-Bosna was connected to

9 Croatia, and the words he used were culturally, spiritually, and

10 economically, and he said that it -- that Herceg-Bosna had been separated

11 from Croatia by what he called "unfortunate historical circumstances."

12 And he then talked about the HVO as specifically -- he -- he didn't -- he

13 didn't talk about the HVO in relation to the HDZ, to his party, but he

14 talked about them as the legitimate military force on what he called the

15 free territory, and went on to make some remark that -- of a nature that

16 the Croatian people were ready to arm to defend this freedom, as he put

17 it, which was language which my experience told me was not always

18 defensive.

19 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, did you ask Mr. Boban to elaborate upon the

20 unfortunate historical circumstances that he referred to?

21 A. I think we did.

22 MR. KARNAVAS: Again, if I may intervene for a second,

23 Mr. President, and I can understand the difficulties that Mr. Mundis may

24 be having, but it is leading in nature. I can see and I can sense that

25 Mr. Vulliamy is struggling to remember what he wrote in his -- in his

Page 1502

1 statement. I don't object to him having his statement present. If he

2 doesn't recall exactly, he may look at it to refresh his memory if that

3 may assist, but I would object to any leading questions.

4 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, page 28, line 6 and 7, the witness

5 just testified that "Herceg-Bosna had been separated from Croatia by what

6 he called unfortunate historical circumstances." Those are the words that

7 came from the witness. I have simply asked him if he asked Mr. Boban to

8 elaborate upon or explain what he meant by the use of that term. That's

9 not something that I created; it came right from the mouth of the witness.

10 MR. KARNAVAS: I will withdraw the objection. I stand corrected.

11 THE WITNESS: I -- sorry, after all that I don't actually remember

12 the exact nature of the conversation. I think we did the -- I think

13 initially I took it to mean something to do with the Second World War or

14 the end of the Second World War. On reflection, I think it might have had

15 something to do with the fact that Croatia had fought for and secured its

16 independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, whereas Bosnia had come on behind

17 and had secured its independence only in the spring of 1992. But I don't

18 know if that's what he meant, but that was a discussion we had afterwards,

19 trying to infer what he meant by that.

20 Q. Sir, do you recall any of the other issues or specific things that

21 were discussed during this meeting, this initial meeting that you had with

22 Mr. Boban in -- on or about the 13th, 14th of August, 1992?

23 A. Well, it was a long conversation, and the conversation about

24 provinces and cantons went on -- you know, it was a long time. The other

25 thing that was of interest was that there were -- there were reports,

Page 1503

1 although they were in the back of one's mind, of a sort of a deal, a

2 carve-up of Bosnia - and these are not reports that I had written; I had

3 read them - between President Tudjman and President Milosevic of Serbia at

4 a meeting they'd had somewhere in the Vojvodina area. I can't remember

5 the name of the place, I think it began with K. And there had also been

6 reports of a meeting between Mate Boban and Radovan Karadzic in Graz in

7 Austria. We asked him if he'd ever met Radovan Karadzic, and he said no.

8 I don't recall any particular details of that conversation in --

9 specifically.

10 Q. Do you recall approximately how long this meeting with Mr. Boban

11 lasted?

12 A. I would say between an hour and two.

13 Q. What, sir, were your -- as a professional reporter, what

14 impressions did you leave this meeting with?

15 A. Well, two: One, I was and we were, and we discussed this

16 afterwards in the car, surprised at how the sort of -- that it had all

17 been directed by implication and -- and overtly against the government in

18 Sarajevo and against his allies on the Bosnian government side and indeed

19 the Bosnian government army, by implication, because -- and it was all the

20 stranger because only a matter of weeks beforehand, when I wasn't in the

21 area, I think in late July, the alliance between the armija of BH, the

22 Bosnian army, and the HVO had enjoyed perhaps its greatest moment by

23 successfully pushing the Serbian positions, the Bosnian Serb positions

24 back out of Mostar and uphill into the mountains, and they'd done that

25 together, and that was a famous and much celebrated victory. And it

Page 1504

1 seemed to me odd that Boban -- there didn't seem to be any -- I mean, he

2 didn't seem to be revelling in that as I'd expected him to, nor did he

3 seemed -- he didn't want to talk about it much. He seemed to want to be

4 concerned with carving out this -- this Herceg-Bosna and its -- and its --

5 and establishing its relationship with Croatia. And I was surprised

6 because his -- his remarks were sort of targeted much more at his own

7 side, his ally, if you like, than at the people over whom he and his

8 allies had just won a very major victory.

9 Q. Do you recall, sir, if you had any discussions with Mr. Boban at

10 this point in time concerning the scope of Herceg-Bosna, the geographic

11 scope of Herceg-Bosna?

12 A. I don't think -- I'm afraid I don't recall asking -- I mean, I

13 knew Central Bosnia by then, but I don't recall asking him how far up into

14 Central Bosnia he considered Herceg-Bosna to go, but I mean I took it to

15 mean that the cantons did not just restrict the area he was talking about

16 to Herzegovina itself, but I don't recall asking him for any map or

17 border.

18 Q. Let me return to something that you said a few moments ago. This

19 is reflected on page 26, lines 13 and 14 of the transcript. You told us

20 that this meeting was "at his office in a town called Grude, a small town

21 and quite a menacing place." Again, that's lines 13 and 14 of page 26 of

22 today's transcript.

23 Can you elaborate, sir, upon what you meant by "a menacing place"?

24 A. Well, I mean, both in -- both in this war and in previous wars I'd

25 got used to places where I didn't feel comfortable. I didn't feel

Page 1505

1 threatened, but let's put it that although there was no fighting, there

2 was the odd rasp of machine-gun fire into the sky. There were some very

3 heavy lads around who weren't giving us very welcoming looks. The -- I

4 didn't particularly like the fact that the portrait of Ante Pavelic, who

5 was the Ustasha dictator in the Second World War, was in the windows of

6 some of the shops, nor did I find it very tasteful that the U - a sort of

7 capped U - of that movement had been painted on some of the walls.

8 I didn't feel that I -- that I was at risk, but it was an

9 uncomfortable place to be, and it was an intimidating place and a heavily

10 militarised one although it was nowhere near any front line.

11 Q. What do you mean by "heavily militarised"?

12 A. Well, there was -- there were -- there were a lot of soldiers, not

13 -- not drilling or anything but sort of hanging around from both -- well,

14 mostly from -- most of the number plates were HVO white number plates but

15 there are a few HV number plates there as well, which are yellow.

16 Q. And can you just tell us how you came to know that HV number

17 plates were yellow.

18 A. Well, I'd spent a lot of time in Croatia, and even before there

19 was such a thing as the HV, but all around the Dalmatian coast, I mean

20 there is -- there are a lot of military -- there's still military movement

21 going on. You -- you drive down from Zagreb or from Sibenik and you see

22 -- you see HV as a yellow number plate. HVO was a white number plate.

23 Q. Do you recall, sir, what types of clothing these people that you

24 told us were in the military were wearing?

25 A. At this point, actually, various sorts of clothing. I mean, the

Page 1506

1 HVO would have a uniform, but there were sort of lots of boys with, say,

2 maybe a black T-shirt and a pair of camouflage trousers. I mean, some

3 were in uniform, others were in semi-uniform. I didn't in Grude actually

4 see any people in a HOS uniform, which is an all black uniform.

5 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, I note the time. I'm about to move

6 into a different subject. Perhaps this would be an appropriate time for

7 the first break.

8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. We'll have a

9 20-minute break now, and we will resume in 20 minutes' time.

10 --- Recess taken at 3.31 p.m.

11 --- On resuming at 3.55 p.m.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The hearing will now resume.

13 Mr. Mundis, please take the floor.

14 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President.

15 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, during the break I was asked, as I anticipated that

16 I would be, to ask you to slow down a little bit in your answers for the

17 sake of the court reporter.

18 Let me --

19 A. Yes, I will. My apologies.

20 Q. Let me turn your attention now to something that you spoke about

21 earlier this afternoon and that is when you obtained permission from

22 Mr. Dedakovic to visit a camp in Capljina. Can you tell us a little bit

23 more about what happened.

24 A. Certainly. We left -- he didn't come with us. We left his -- his

25 office, his headquarters, and arrived at a gate of a camp. I don't think

Page 1507

1 word had been sent forward, or I didn't get the impression that it had

2 been sent forward that we were to come because the commander of the camp,

3 whose name was Hrstic, major, I think, was surprised and not that happy

4 that we'd come in, but the order paper was clear. There may have been

5 some telephone communication, I don't know. There was a Bosnian army

6 sentry on the gate, which I could tell from the patch on his arm, but all

7 the other guards were HOS, in the all-black HOS uniform. And we began

8 after, I think, quite a long conversation with Hrstic, which I don't

9 particularly recall details of, a sort of tour of the camp.

10 Q. And again, Mr. Vulliamy, for the record can you tell us the

11 approximate date and time that you arrived at this camp.

12 A. It will have to be approximate. We're talking mid-August; 14, 15,

13 something like that.

14 Q. And, sir, was it before or after the meeting that you had with

15 Mr. Boban?

16 A. I think it was the day after.

17 Q. Do you recall the approximate time of day that you arrived there?

18 A. It would have been I imagine mid -- late morning through midday to

19 early afternoon, that kind of time. No, maybe afternoon, because we did

20 spend quite a long time with Dedakovic.

21 Q. Can you tell us approximately how long you remained in the camp on

22 that day?

23 A. I should think in total two hours, most of which was talking to --

24 I mean a lot of which was talking to Hrstic.

25 Q. Did there ever come a time, sir, when you learned the name of this

Page 1508

1 camp or location that you were at?

2 A. At the time I didn't know the name. With hindsight, I do because

3 I found myself back there at some other time on another -- on another

4 occasion. I didn't know the name of the camp, no. It was listed on the

5 list in Belgrade as Capljina.

6 Q. And, sir, when you later, as you put it, found yourself back

7 there, at that point in time, did you know the name of this camp?

8 A. Yes. I returned there in September 1993, and the name of the camp

9 was Dretelj.

10 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, can you describe for the Trial Chamber what you

11 observed during the time period that you were in this camp in mid-August,

12 1992.

13 A. Yes. There were -- the prisoners were Serbs, and those that we

14 were allowed to talk to in Major Hrstic's presence were all male Serbs of

15 varying ages. There was -- there was a particular -- I mean, we'd just

16 been in Omarska -- or I had just in Omarska and Trnopolje, and with that

17 -- and with them in mind, I would say that the -- the -- what was

18 saddening and distressing about this place was more to do with subjugation

19 and extreme neglect rather than systematic killing or beating. The men

20 were in bad condition, some in very bad condition, but not -- not through

21 signs of beating or anything of that nature. There was a humiliating

22 ritual of "rise," "sit," "thank you, Mr. Commandant," and there were some

23 interviews with people of -- of -- I don't recall any greatly significant

24 interview. What -- I mean in a way it was the high point -- the shock of

25 the visit was as we were about to leave, we walked across a sort of yard

Page 1509

1 or back towards the exit from where we'd conducted the interviews and past

2 a shed on the right where a door was slightly ajar, a sort of sliding

3 metal door. We could see clearly that the -- the -- that shed was full of

4 large numbers of women, and we asked if we could go in there. We were

5 told we couldn't. We were told in a fairly threatening way that we

6 couldn't, elected not to insist, probably wrongly, and had a conversation

7 about this with Major Hrstic afterwards during which I was threatened in a

8 rather sort of bravado kind of way not to write or reveal the presence of

9 these women in the camp. He made some joke about - what is it? - the less

10 you know, the longer you live, or something, and he wasn't going to

11 discuss it, but that was -- that was the thing that disturbed me most

12 about that camp.

13 And later on, back in Zagreb, we were talking about this to the

14 Party of Rights, and there they were unable to enlighten me any further.

15 But it was the presence of these women in the camp that alarmed me then

16 and, with hindsight, alarms me even more.

17 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, at this point in time I'm going to ask you if you

18 can take the narrative a little bit further in terms of what happened

19 after you visited Dretelj. We will return, as you've told us, to the time

20 in September, 1993, later in your testimony, but can you tell us where you

21 went in -- towards the end of August or after you were in this Dretelj

22 camp in August, 1993.

23 A. Yes. I went back up to Travnik, and this was after quite a

24 serious incident on Mt. Vlasic, which is a -- not part of perhaps what's

25 relevant here. So that would have been towards the end of August. And on

Page 1510

1 that visit I was very much sort of a guest of the HVO, because - excuse me

2 - because my translator was a Croatian, a Bosnian Croat. She had friends

3 in Travnik, and we stayed in -- I mean the system was -- it was called the

4 Hotel Orient, and the system was that the hotels were militarised inasmuch

5 as soldiers -- they were using the rooms and they were run by, in this

6 case, the HVO, and the rooms were used by soldiers but, you know, for a

7 few Deutschmarks they would let you stay while the soldier was out on

8 night duty or something.

9 So I got -- got to spend a lot of time on that visit talking to

10 HVO people, and -- and a commander or deputy commander, I can't remember,

11 called Pokrajcic, and we were sitting with him and somebody from the

12 Bosnian army, a Muslim from the Bosnian army, and that was the first time

13 I heard any discussion of problems between the two militias. And this man

14 Pokrajcic, who was an estimable man, said I'm fighting for the victim

15 peoples of this war, as he put it, and he actually even said over my dead

16 body will I -- will I rupture the alliance, and he gave the impression,

17 although I can't remember his exact words, that the pressure he was

18 talking about was coming up from Herzegovina.

19 Q. Do you recall, sir, the identity of the person that you've

20 identified as a Muslim from the Bosnian army? Sorry.

21 MR. KOVACIC: I'm sorry to interrupt. Actually, I hate to

22 interrupt but as we all saw we are here now discussing events in Travnik.

23 Travnik is not one of the locations where any crimes happened charged in

24 this indictment we are dealing with here. So actually I don't see the

25 relevance, but if the Prosecutor is again charging us for something that

Page 1511

1 is not specifically charged, then probably some more charges. I don't

2 know really.

3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Mr. Mundis, is this issue

4 of any relevance, the issue of Travnik that you are discussing?

5 MR. MUNDIS: Well, Mr. President, the witness has spent a

6 significant period of time in Bosnia. It's a chronological story that

7 will allow us to go from one point to the next point. There are

8 references in the indictment and in the maps and material that Your

9 Honours have before you to events in Central Bosnia. Of course, Travnik

10 is part of Central Bosnia.

11 We would contend that this is also relevant to taking us in terms

12 of a logical time line in progression through the events during the time

13 period when this witness was in Bosnia. I'm not going to be dwelling on

14 any significant -- for any significant period of time.

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Please continue.

16 MR. KOVACIC: If I may, Your Honour. The locations where crimes

17 happened, and the crimes which are charged by the indictment are

18 specifically defined in paragraphs 43 to 217 of the indictment, and it is

19 not Travnik. It is definitely not Travnik. And by the way, the witness

20 was talking about Omarska and some other places he visited in

21 Bosnia-Herzegovina related to those about which he testified in other

22 cases --

23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Kovacic, that's not what

24 Mr. Mundis said. Mr. Mundis said that we have a witness who was in that

25 part of Bosnia during the period referred to in the indictment, and for

Page 1512

1 the sake of historical context, it might be interesting to have a few

2 guidelines. We're not talking about any crimes in this case, we are

3 dealing with context.

4 Please continue.

5 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President.

6 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, this period in August, 1992, how long did you remain

7 in Travnik?

8 A. That visit, I should think three to four days.

9 Q. And where did you go after you left Travnik in August, 1992?

10 A. I think I went back home, which, by the way, was in Italy at the

11 time, and returned a couple of weeks later. I think.

12 Q. When was the next time following this trip to Italy that you were

13 in Bosnia, and what part of Bosnia were you in?

14 A. It would have been September, and again I went up to Central

15 Bosnia, Vitez, Travnik, around that time. I'm just trying to -- sorry,

16 I'm just -- I'm finding the time line. Yes. I think I went up to Central

17 Bosnia again in September.

18 Q. And how long did you remain in Central Bosnia at that point in

19 time?

20 A. I don't recall, I'm afraid, I'm sorry.

21 Q. Sir, when was the next time you were in Herzegovina?

22 A. I think the next time I was in Herzegovina was probably in

23 October, towards the end of October, to the best of my recollection.

24 Middle to end of October.

25 Q. Can you describe for us the circumstances which took you back to

Page 1513

1 Herzegovina in October, 1992.

2 A. Yes. And that's -- that's a day I can remember, because I got to

3 Split in the middle of October, and somewhere around 19th, 20th, the

4 translator and/or my colleague from Reuters, who is a former Yugoslav

5 himself, was reading in the paper that Mate Boban had been in Travnik, at

6 the time which I already had relationships and quite good contacts in both

7 the two allied armies, and he'd been there and pronounced it part of

8 Herceg-Bosna. And that surprised me because Travnik is a majority --

9 although it had a strong HVO presence and a thriving Croatian community,

10 it's predominantly a Muslim town. And I think we were still in Split, and

11 I wish we'd hit the road immediately because we were still in Split when

12 news came of a shoot-out at a gas station in Novi Travnik or Pucarevo, as

13 it was called at the time, just to the south at a gas station and someone,

14 a Muslim, had been killed. And it seemed that this was now a serious

15 story and needed examining, and I hit the road I think on the 22nd to go

16 to Travnik.

17 Q. And when you heard this news, you were in Split?

18 A. Either in Split or on the way up.

19 Q. Do you recall, sir, the route that you travelled in October, 1992?

20 A. Yes, I do, well, because it was through Kiseljak and up the Lasva

21 Valley, through Busovaca, and then you turn left towards Vitez. And I

22 remember it because there was a fair -- there was a substantial

23 mobilisation going on, a movement of troops north, particularly from

24 Kiseljak, and roadblocks, HVO roadblocks, coming up on -- onto that road

25 both from Kiseljak up to the T-junction, and particularly towards Vitez.

Page 1514

1 I'm talking about trucks and buses and there were other troops moving from

2 the south, south of Kiseljak towards Central Bosnia.

3 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, where during this specific trip in October, 1992,

4 where did you end up on that day? Where did you go?

5 A. We ended up in Vitez, hoping to stay the night. Again, hoping

6 that the same system I described in Travnik at the Hotel Orient would

7 pertain again; i.e., that even though the hotel had been taken over by the

8 HVO, you could still get a room there if you paid them some money. Sorry,

9 that sounds wrong; made a contribution.

10 And the -- but at this time there was a marked difference. At the

11 hotel, there were people there in -- bedding down in the bar area, in the

12 reception area, to sleep. All the rooms were full. There was no deal to

13 be done about staying there. This was now a militarised -- a completely

14 militarised place. But we decided to stay around in Vitez. There was

15 some small-arms fire going on, and I think through the HVO people at the

16 hotel we ended up in a sort of makeshift radio studio listening to a

17 debate in a small block of flats on the west side of the town.

18 Q. And, sir, at that point in time, and that is in October, 1992,

19 were you aware of what party or parties were involved in this conflict

20 whereby you heard small-arms fire?

21 A. Oh, yeah. Yes. I mean, as a follow-up of the news of the

22 shoot-out in Novi Travnik. There was -- it was the HVO and the armija BH,

23 or at least, if it wasn't the HVO and the armija BH, it was Muslims

24 against Croats.

25 Q. And, sir, how long do you remain in Vitez in October, 1992?

Page 1515

1 A. Our plan to remain there -- we wanted to stay but we couldn't

2 because after the radio broadcast I think we tried again at the hotel and

3 again thought not, but the atmosphere was getting quite menacing because

4 during this radio programme being recorded there was quite a lot of

5 fighting around the edge of the Stari Vitez, Old Vitez area, which is the

6 mainly Muslim bit. There was some fire coming out, and the fire going in

7 accelerated during the radio debate because we could see it from the

8 window. By then -- well, I easily knew the sound of an anti-aircraft

9 weapon being fired ground to ground - it's a deeper sound - and that's

10 what was being used.

11 Q. And again, Mr. Vulliamy, how long did you remain in Vitez in

12 mid-October, 1992?

13 A. Well, we left that night, unable to sleep, went to place called

14 Fojnica, and then came back up at -- attempted to come back up to Vitez

15 again the next day but we couldn't because we got stuck in some quite

16 fierce fighting on the edge of Novi Travnik.

17 Q. And, sir, where did you then go after this incident where you were

18 stuck on the edge of Novi Travnik?

19 A. Well, we were stuck there for quite a long time with a group of

20 HVO soldiers in an exchange of fire, and then we did finally get through

21 Vitez to Travnik and went to the hospital in Travnik where the victims of

22 this new embryonic, and I have to say rather shocking, confrontation were,

23 many of them children.

24 Q. And where did you go next, sir?

25 A. Back down to Split to file the story. I should explain: There

Page 1516

1 were no telephones available to us at that point in Central Bosnia, and

2 you had to drive back to Split or a border town - there's one called

3 Imotski - to file stories. There was a story to file, not least the

4 fighting that we'd seen in Vitez and indeed been part of and pinned by

5 quite -- and very frightened by in Novi Travnik.

6 Q. And on this occasion when you travelled to Split to file your

7 story, can you tell us what route you took.

8 A. We went through Konjic that -- that night. Why, I don't know. I

9 wasn't driving. I'd hooked up with someone from the Sunday Times who had

10 a vehicle by then. Why we went through Konjic I don't know, because it

11 was being shelled by the Serbs, but we got back to Split okay. I don't

12 know why we went that way.

13 Q. And again, when did you then leave Split and where did you go

14 next?

15 A. Well, almost immediately, because either on the way back, on the

16 radio or when we got to Split, or a mixture of both, we heard that there

17 was reason to go to Mostar, that an ultimatum had been made whereby the --

18 well, there were actually -- there were -- there were confused reports.

19 There was one report that the Bosnian army was -- that the HVO no longer

20 recognise the authority of the Bosnian army. There was another report

21 that, quotes, Muslim extremists would no longer be tolerated on the free

22 territory, and then there was a specific ultimatum from Mostar. Now,

23 whether or not it meant within Mostar or from Mostar for the whole

24 territory, I didn't know, but there was an ultimatum from Mostar that the

25 Bosnian army had to either disarm or come under HVO authority. So the

Page 1517

1 next morning we set off for Mostar. That -- that's the 24th or maybe the

2 25th.

3 Q. Of which month and year, please?

4 A. October.

5 Q. 1992?

6 A. Yeah. I think it's the 24th, counting.

7 Q. And did you in fact go to Mostar on that day?

8 A. We did.

9 Q. And can you tell the Trial Chamber what events you witnessed in

10 Mostar on that day?

11 A. It was quite dramatic and impactful. The HVO had indeed put out

12 their ultimatum. They had taken over important buildings in the city.

13 The PTT - that's the telephone building - the court -- courts, the town

14 hall. They put a guard outside the BH army headquarters. I should

15 explain that at that time, because the alliance had been such a close and

16 effective one, the two headquarters of the two armies were, if not next

17 door, they were close neighbours on the west side of the city. And we got

18 there, were told this -- well, you could see a lot of HVO activity on the

19 streets. Went first to see the Bosnian army commander, whose name was

20 Pasalic, and asked him about this ultimatum, and he said something to the

21 effect of how can I disarm? I'm supposed to be fighting a war. That's

22 not a direct quote. And something to the effect - again not a direct

23 quote - that this is plan, that this is coming from the top. This is

24 coming -- I think he did mention Grude specifically. And warned, and this

25 is very early on, with hindsight, that if this plan was seen through to

Page 1518

1 its professed conclusion, it would mean, and he said "war in Mostar."

2 He told us that the HVO had come in and taken his radio system,

3 and it was actually one of his aides who was a Croat from Zagreb, a

4 student fighting in the Bosnian army, who showed us that -- the wires

5 pulled out and everything from their radio communications room. He was

6 very angry, this young Croat, at what had happened.

7 And I think we then had a long conversation with -- with -- I

8 think it must be the deputy commander. His name is Tetak. He was angry,

9 afraid at what was going on. And said, We want to fight with these people

10 together. Tetak said something to that effect: We want to fight for a

11 united country.

12 Q. Did you have any other meetings while you were in Mostar during

13 this period of time on or about the 24th of October, 1992?

14 A. Yes, several meetings that day, the next of which was next door

15 with the commander of the HVO. If he wasn't the commander, that's -- he

16 was the deputy or at least a senior figure. His name was Lasic. I don't

17 know his first -- I mean, I did and somewhere written, probably, his first

18 name, but I can't recall it. And his headquarters was buzzing with

19 troops, weapons. He produced a rather good -- good scotch whisky, and

20 made his -- yes. He outlined what -- to us what was going on in his

21 terms. He called the HVO the civilian military authority in Mostar and

22 gave the impression that so far as representation was concerned in the

23 civilian military, coupling the words together, authorities in the town,

24 no, as he put it, Muslim, I don't think he actually mentioned the army in

25 that point, would be represented.

Page 1519

1 He said that the armija BH should be disarmed and said that he --

2 I think he -- he didn't say he demanded. He said, you know, I'm inviting

3 them, or something, to come off the front line, the front line being to

4 the east of the city at that point. We talked a lot about that remark

5 afterwards because it has extreme military significance. That's all I can

6 remember from that meeting.

7 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, at that point in time do you know what front line

8 was being referred to?

9 A. I presumed, and I think rightly, it meant the front line held by

10 the Bosnian army and the HVO to the east of Mostar against the Serbs, but

11 information talking to the Bosnian soldier -- soldiers later in the day

12 informed us, rightly or wrongly, I have to say this is what we were told,

13 was that the BH lines were further forward than the HVO lines, and by

14 taking them off the front line, the HVO were actually retreating by some

15 -- by some small distance. I mean, retreating the common front line,

16 which militarily doesn't make sense.

17 Q. Do you recall, sir, at this point in time - again 24 October, 1992

18 - what the conditions in Mostar were like for the residents of the city?

19 A. The city had been under Serbian shell-fire ever since they were

20 pushed out in July. We didn't talk much to residents that day but we did

21 talk to refugees. Refugees, Muslim and Croat, from Serbian-held territory

22 to the east and south-east, most of them. And the interesting thing about

23 that, those conversations, was that they were all going to have to

24 re-register with the HVO if they wanted to stay, that their papers,

25 whatever those papers were, were no longer valid, and -- I think they must

Page 1520

1 have been Bosnian government papers of some kind, were no longer valid,

2 and they were all going to have to individually re-register with the HVO

3 and get a newly stamped document to retain their status. I recall that.

4 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, did you notice anything that had changed from the

5 last time you had been in Mostar in 1992?

6 A. Well, a lot more troops on the streets for sure. And let's see.

7 I mean -- well, and -- and the cost of the Serbian shelling which had

8 continued. There were, I think, even when I was there in -- in August

9 there were graveyards in the parks and that sort of thing. I mean, the

10 marks of war. But I did, on my previous visit, go over to the east side

11 just basically because I wanted to see the bridge, and there was

12 marginally more destruction from the shelling but not -- not markedly.

13 What you noticed is the HVO had taken over and that everything that they

14 had been talking about in Vitez was happening in Mostar.

15 Q. Did you have any other meetings on that day in October, 1992?

16 A. Yes, one with a Muslim political figure whose name I can't

17 remember, I'm afraid. He might have been in the SDA. The -- the -- the

18 main Muslim party led by President Izetbegovic. I don't remember much

19 about the conversation, but I remember him being very distressed and

20 worried for the city and for -- and for the next few months.

21 You know, I ought to say that it was still quite a shock despite

22 all the warnings and despite what one perhaps should -- one should have

23 made more of what Mate Boban had said back in August and heeded it as more

24 of a threat to bring this about, but it was still quite a shock after, you

25 know, one's work in the north-west, given what the Bosnian Serbs were

Page 1521

1 meting out to both Serbs and Croats together, and given one's experience

2 of the way in which they were allied elsewhere in the country, it was

3 still quite a shock that this had happened so quickly, so efficiently, and

4 so determinedly.

5 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, how long did you remain in Mostar during this visit

6 on or about the 24th of August?

7 A. No, we left that day, because we went to see Mate Boban. Left at

8 dusk, went straight to Grude.

9 Q. And can you tell us about this meeting that you had with Mr. Boban

10 in Grude on the 24th of October, 1992.

11 A. Yes. He'd moved across the road. He was now in a hotel, Hotel

12 Grude. And we were sent down into the cellar, into the basement, to wait

13 for him. He was having a meeting behind a curtain. It was some sort of

14 dining or -- area that I think they'd turned into his headquarters in this

15 hotel. We were told to wait. It was indicated that he would see us. We

16 waited. This meeting broke up. The meeting was all with uniformed

17 people. He was in a very good mood and welcomed us in and he was in a

18 good mood because he said, I've just been made president of the HDZ. And

19 we congratulated him and he congratulated us on the exclusive first

20 interview with the party's new president in Bosnia.

21 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, when you say, as you just did, that the meeting was

22 all with uniformed people, can you tell us what kind of uniforms --

23 A. HVO.

24 Q. -- these people wore? What can you tell us about your knowledge

25 at this point in time, that is October, 1992, about the HDZ party?

Page 1522

1 A. Well, as I said before, to repeat briefly, the HDZ was the ruling

2 party in Croatia, led by the president, Dr. Franjo Tudjman. It had a wing

3 in Bosnia, which was -- in theory it was semi-autonomous but it was very

4 close to Zagreb. But the quirk was that its leader was a man who I had

5 not at that point met but later met and talked a lot with but of whose

6 existence I knew, called Stjepan Kljuic. Kljuic was the leader of the

7 party I think by necessity because he lived in Sarajevo. And although a

8 very loyal Croat, he was also loyal to the alliance and to the Bosnian

9 government, which he recognised. He thought that the HDZ was the best way

10 to represent Croatian interests within a unified Bosnia, and certainly

11 within the alliance.

12 He -- I don't want to go into -- I don't want to jump the gun

13 chronologically, but he later said that what happened to him that day we

14 met Mate Boban was a putsch, and Mate Boban told us he was now the

15 president. This, in one's mind, was perfectly coherent with all that we

16 had seen and heard over the last couple of days, and so we were very

17 anxious to talk to him and also talk to him about what was going on in

18 Mostar.

19 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, do you recall any of the specific subjects that were

20 discussed with Mr. Boban in Grude on 24 October, 1992?

21 A. Yes, I do. We returned to this matter of cantons and provinces

22 because I now wanted to know more about them. Again, I'm sorry to jump

23 around chronologically, but we're a couple of months, I can't remember

24 exactly how many, away from the Vance-Owen Plan, the peace plan drawn up

25 by Lord David Owen and Cyrus Vance. And it, with hindsight, is

Page 1523

1 extraordinary to look back on that conversation now because what Mate

2 Boban said to us that night in developing his idea of a Herceg-Bosna made

3 up of cantons almost exactly prologued the Vance-Owen Plan. In fact, when

4 the Vance-Owen came around there was a joke it stood for "Hvala

5 Vance-Owen," which means, "Thank you Vance-0wen." So he elaborated on

6 that. He said that HVO was now the only effective army on the free

7 territory, which-- well, might have been true of some parts of it if the

8 free territory is to mean all that not controlled by the Serbs but is not

9 true of other parts of it. But what also was going on at the time was the

10 Geneva peace talks were either in progress or about to happen, I can't

11 remember which, and he made it perfectly clear that he was now going to

12 call the shots on behalf of the Bosnian Croats at Geneva, he used fairly

13 threatening language with regard to anyone who would disagree with him,

14 and I think he -- he said the HVO is now ready to assume supreme military

15 authority in this area. He talked about that when we talked about Mostar

16 and he used similar language when we did asked him specifically about

17 Mostar. He was talking about Mostar and the territory of Herceg-Bosna.

18 He called the army a purely Muslim militia. I remember that. Which

19 actually was not true at that time. It was almost true later on in the

20 war but at that time it was not true.

21 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, let me interrupt you there and put to you a couple

22 of follow-on questions. First, you just told us, page 50, line 6, that

23 Mr. Boban made it perfectly clear that he was now going to call the shots.

24 What -- what do you mean by that?

25 A. Well, I mean I -- yes, I remember what he said. He said what he

Page 1524

1 meant by that. He said something to the effect of no one is going to

2 represent the Bosnian -- the Bosnian Croats at Geneva unless authorised by

3 me or -- or following my policy.

4 Q. You also told us that --

5 A. Yeah. Sorry. And his policy, as we understood it, that -- that

6 -- at that meeting was -- and I think he singled out Karadzic as well. I

7 mean, he said no dealing with Karadzic but he also said no dealing with

8 Izetbegovic, no dealing with the Presidency in Sarajevo. I mean, it was

9 -- it was a declaration of independence and implicitly of war at the same

10 time.

11 You must, Your Honours, remember that we'd had a lot of these

12 conversations, if you will, from the Serbs in Croatia in 1991, from the

13 Bosnian Serbs in early summer 1992. They invariably led to violence.

14 They were invariably the prologue to violence, this kind of language.

15 Q. Let me ask you, sir: You told us -- again this is lines 8, 9 and

16 10 of page 50, you -- Mr. Boban said "the HVO is now ready to have supreme

17 military authority in this area. He talked about that when he talked

18 about Mostar." Do you recall in any more specifics the discussion on 24

19 October, 1992, with Mr. Boban concerning Mostar?

20 A. He did make some reference that there will be no Muslims in the

21 authority, that the Muslims will not be part of running this city any

22 more. He had always insisted that Mostar was the capital of Herceg-Bosna

23 and gave non-military reasons for that. We have to have a big city, I

24 remember him saying, it's got a university; this kind of argument. On

25 that occasion he did say in some way, and I cannot, I'm afraid, remember

Page 1525

1 the exact words, that the Muslims will not be -- will not be taking part

2 in the running of Mostar militarily or politically. And it is -- it is

3 the capital of Herceg-Bosna.

4 Q. Approximately how long did this meeting on this day with Mr. Boban

5 last?

6 A. Again, I don't recall. I would say again between an hour and two.

7 Q. And as you left the meeting that evening, do you recall what

8 impression stuck in your mind from this discussion that you'd had with

9 Mr. Boban?

10 A. Yes. My colleague from Reuters and I discussed it on the way back

11 to wherever we were staying that night. I can't remember, I think we did

12 go all the way back to Split, actually. We -- we discussed the speed at

13 which all this had happened, the efficiency with all -- with all this --

14 with which all this had happened, the -- now getting quite worried about

15 what Boban and the HVO meant by such terms as used before, "to defend our

16 freedom," "to become the supreme authority." As I said, you know, I'd had

17 experience, well, in other places too but specifically in former

18 Yugoslavia I'd had experience talking to the Serbs about Eastern Croatia

19 and about -- with the Serbs about the Muslims in north-west Bosnia, and

20 that kind of language tended to be, as I said, prefaced -- tended to

21 preface violence, and there was no reason not to suppose it wouldn't do so

22 again, because this was bellicose talk, and it was -- and it was sad, in a

23 way, because it seemed that the alliance was now ruptured and deliberately

24 so.

25 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, on lines 9 and 10 of page 52, you're quoted as

Page 1526

1 saying, "We discussed the speed at which all this had happened, the

2 efficiency with all -- with all this -- with which all this had happened."

3 When you make reference to what had happened, what exactly are you

4 referring to?

5 A. Well, I'm referring, I think, to the -- to the HVO and -- and

6 Boban stamping their authority on a territory they -- they were calling

7 Herceg-Bosna, which apparently extended all the way up as far as Travnik

8 and included Travnik, and -- and the -- the overt attempt to subjugate

9 both -- well, they talked about Muslims, but certainly their allies within

10 that territory and to effectively declare at least a degree of

11 independence from -- from the country as -- as was with Sarajevo as a

12 capital, which we had thought they were fighting to -- to -- to maintain,

13 at least. Not any more we didn't, but that was the idea originally.

14 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, can you tell the Trial Chamber where you went in the

15 days immediately after this meeting with Mr. Boban on the 24th of October,

16 1992.

17 A. On the days immediately after, there was a -- there was an outing

18 with the British army from Split when they were trying to work out routes

19 into Sarajevo, aid routes, and they were trying one which went up through

20 Mostar and a place called Tarcin, as I recall, and they were turned back

21 by the HVO, which was surprising, because one might have expected to get

22 turned back by the Serbs further up the line, as often happened, but not

23 by the HVO.

24 I went up into Central Bosnia and on to Vitez and Travnik to do

25 something else connected with the -- with the -- with an attempt to get to

Page 1527

1 Jajce, I think it was, and to cover the attempt to hold Jajce, which was a

2 town north of Travnik held by the Bosnian army and the HVO against a

3 Serbian siege, and then drove down towards Tomislavgrad and Split, I think

4 to file a story on that, and went through the town of Prozor.

5 Q. Now, Mr. Vulliamy, let me ask you, as you were going north from

6 Mostar up to the Central Bosnia area, what route did you take on that

7 occasion, travelling northbound?

8 A. I think we went back -- the British convoy turned round, went

9 back, but I don't recall which route we took up into Central Bosnia, I'm

10 afraid. But when we came back down, back down south, it was through

11 Prozor.

12 Q. Do you recall approximately what the date was when you went back

13 down south through Prozor?

14 A. It would have been a weekend. I'm afraid I can't give you the

15 date. I would have written it somewhere. It can be worked out from

16 published articles. It was either a Friday evening or a Saturday. A lot

17 of people -- possibly even a Sunday, but I think a Friday evening or a

18 Saturday. A lot of people out on the streets.

19 Q. And can you describe the mood of the people you saw out on the

20 streets on this occasion?

21 A. It was complete -- life was completely normal. In fact, shortly

22 after going through the town we stopped for coffee. People on the

23 streets, a weekend either beginning or about to begin, kids chatting.

24 Prozor was a fair distance from any front lines. It was -- it was -- it

25 was unshelled unless some Serbs had got some shells a very long way, and

Page 1528

1 life was perfectly normal.

2 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, after that occasion, did you ever return to the town

3 of Prozor?

4 A. Indeed. We headed back up into -- filed whatever we were filing

5 on -- from Central Bosnia, went back up, heading for -- to -- I can't

6 remember where we were going. And this would be two, possibly three days

7 later. And a group of us, and were astonished by what we found as we

8 approached let alone arrived in Prozor.

9 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, can you please tell us the approximate date - day,

10 month, and year - when you returned to Prozor on this occasion?

11 A. I'm afraid -- I don't want to give you an exact date. We're

12 talking end October.

13 Q. And the year?

14 A. 1992.

15 Q. And approximately what time did you arrive in Prozor on this day

16 towards the end --

17 A. Late afternoon.

18 Q. Can you tell us what you saw on that occasion.

19 A. Yes. The first thing we saw before we got to the town were a lot

20 of soldiers, and between Prozor and -- between there is a village called

21 Rumboci, and between there and Prozor, and especially on the high ground

22 as you come into Prozor were a lot of artillery and, in English, a lot of

23 graffiti, new graffiti, which read "Cro territory." Going down into the

24 town, saying nothing other than Oh, my God, and things that shouldn't be

25 repeated in a courtroom, let me say that the main street had been gutted,

Page 1529

1 or most had been gutted. Rows of buildings, in some places every other

2 building, in some places every fifth building, had been incinerated and

3 were empty. There were signs of shelling, there were signs of small-arms

4 fire. There were soldiers going through the shops, looting.

5 In the area which I had took, rightly or wrongly, to be the

6 Croatian area, which was fairly untouched, life was seemed to be -- I

7 mean, the children were sort of hanging around on the streets, we stopped

8 and talked only very briefly to one group of soldiers. I can't remember

9 what they said. We were not anxious to hang around. The atmosphere was

10 very frightening indeed, and we proceeded out of town, what I presumed to

11 be the Muslim quarter of town, or at least the concentration of Muslims

12 because they're mostly mixed in, is to the left as you leave the town and

13 climb a hill. A lot of the houses in that area were damaged. There was

14 some incineration although less than on the high street. The minaret was

15 damaged although not blown down, as one had seen so often. I recall a

16 dead horse lying in the road, for what that's worth. Otherwise, very

17 little sign of any life of at all once you left the town until you got to

18 the top of the hill, and there was a sort of mountain chalet or

19 installation of some kind teeming with soldiers, heavy weaponry rivetting

20 in, and the beginning a series of new roadblocks.

21 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, when you tell us that you saw soldiers in Prozor on

22 this day, what type of clothing were these soldiers wearing?

23 A. They were almost all in fatigues of one kind or another, and I

24 noted - and I'm still not quite clear why - that a lot of them had red

25 ribbons on their epaulettes, but they were mostly in military -- military

Page 1530

1 uniform or -- I have actually since seen a picture of somebody in -- which

2 I didn't see on the ground, in a sort of neo-Nazi uniform, but that

3 doesn't really count for much. They were mostly in military uniform.

4 Q. Did you, Mr. Vulliamy, at any point subsequent to this file any

5 type of stories concerning events in Prozor on this day?

6 A. Yes, that night. This was -- this was a shocking new development.

7 I think it's fair to say that we knew by now that this alliance had

8 ruptured because we'd seen what we'd seen in Vitez, and we'd seen what

9 we'd seen in Mostar, and the roadblocks, plus the mobilisations, et

10 cetera. But this was, and I dislike the word but it's in the vocabulary,

11 this was ethnic cleansing. This bore all the hallmarks of that which I'd

12 seen so much of by the Serbs in Eastern Croatia, by the Bosnian Serbs in

13 the north-west of the country. I say all the hallmarks; it didn't look

14 like some of those areas, or as bad as some of those areas I've just

15 mentioned, but it was the same -- it -- it -- it had the same flavour to

16 it. It didn't feel that there had been a battle between militias in

17 Prozor, it felt as though the Muslims had been burned out.

18 We got as far as Travnik that night with some difficulty because

19 there was some fighting, or at least there was some distant shooting in

20 Novi Travnik, and it turned out that the headquarters of the Bosnian army

21 had all that time had a land-line and in this extremity allowed us to use

22 it.

23 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, were you ever at any point in time involved in

24 making a film production about the events in Prozor in 1992?

25 A. No, I made a film later.

Page 1531

1 Q. When did you make that film?

2 A. I first went to make -- went to Bosnia to make it in January 1993,

3 and stayed there I think it was into February.

4 Q. And what was the -- what was the basis for producing this film?

5 How did you actually go about making the film?

6 A. It was -- it was actually for a -- a religious affairs programme

7 for the BBC, and the idea was -- it was called "Bosnia's Last Testament,"

8 and it was a sort of lament for what I saw at the time as being the end of

9 a way of life in the town of Travnik, the end of a -- well, in a -- sorry,

10 it was two things: It was the potential end of a way of life in Travnik.

11 I mean, we can talk about this a bit more if it's permissible, but you

12 know I felt that this was a country in which people had for so long

13 learned to live together and wanted -- and so many of them still wanted to

14 live together so the film was a sort of an aspiration that that may still

15 happen and a lament for the fact it seemed to be falling apart.

16 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, what was your role in the production of this film?

17 A. I was to write and present it.

18 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, with the assistance of the registry,

19 I'd ask that the video marked as P1784 be shown to the witness by way of

20 Sanction.

21 [Videotape played]

22 "... state within Bosnia calling itself Herceg-Bosna."

23 "To the south of Travnik one night in October I stopped for

24 coffee in the busy main street. A few days later I returned to find

25 Croatian MUPs roaming through town and 5.000 Muslims driven into the

Page 1532

1 mountains, looking for caves in which to hide. The pillage and killing in

2 Prozor was the start of a new Bosnian war and a bitter betrayal for the

3 Muslims. This is the consolidation of a hard-line Croatian mini state

4 within Bosnia calling itself Herceg-Bosna. This territory flies a

5 Croatian flag, has a Croatian puppet government, uses Croatian money, and

6 even has special Croatian number plates, and it must say its rulers, come

7 under a Croatian army. Bosnian who refuse that authority are dealt with

8 in the time honoured way."

9 MR. MUNDIS:

10 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, the clip that we just have just seen, can you tell

11 us what your role in producing that clip was.

12 A. No. That's a library clip. I recognise it from the film but it

13 was put in by the producer of the programme. I wasn't involved in the

14 editing.

15 Q. And we noticed, sir, on the top of that clip a date in April,

16 1993. Can you explain that?

17 A. I can't, I'm afraid. I have no idea. It could -- it could be the

18 date of the transmission, it could be the date that the BBC recorded it, I

19 don't know. But if that's Prozor, which it looks like, that's not the

20 date.

21 Q. Now, Mr. Vulliamy, on this day that you've been telling us about,

22 how long did you remain in Prozor on that day?

23 A. Oh, very little time indeed. I mean, apart from a very cursory

24 conversation with some of the soldiers, we drove straight out. It was

25 frightening.

Page 1533

1 Q. Sir, I neglected to ask you in terms of that video clip, at the

2 end when you make reference to "the time honoured way," what were you

3 referring to?

4 A. I was referring to that which I'd mentioned earlier on, the time

5 honoured way in which Croats had been expelled from eastern parts of their

6 country in 1991, in which Muslims had been expelled from the Prijedor area

7 in 1992. It was an attempt at a dry -- a dry reference to the -- yes, the

8 time honoured way. It was by then a time honoured way. What I meant was

9 you get them out, you burn them out, you bus them out; get them out.

10 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, can you tell us how that scene we just saw on the

11 videotape compared with the events that you personally witnessed in Prozor

12 at the end of October 1992?

13 A. The streets look the same. The -- the lads look a bit sort of

14 more like ruffians than the ones we saw, and I noticed that they didn't

15 have these red ribbons on their soldiers, which for -- which stayed in my

16 mind.

17 Q. On this day after you left Prozor, can you please tell us where

18 you went.

19 A. We went to Travnik -- oh, we went to Travnik to file the story.

20 Q. And how long did you remain on that occasion in Travnik?

21 A. Oh, one night and left early in the morning to answer the question

22 where -- where are -- where are the Muslims?

23 Q. And, sir, how did that question come to be formulated in your --

24 in your mind?

25 A. The commander of the Bosnian army who -- who offered us the phone

Page 1534

1 line -- I shouldn't. Anyway, he said, "All I know is that he -- is that

2 the --" we were telling him as much as he could tell us. And what he said

3 to us is that 500 -- all I know is that 5000 Muslims are missing from

4 Prozor and we don't know where they are.

5 Q. Where did you go the following day?

6 A. We got up and went down back towards Prozor, but before we got to

7 Prozor, on a junction we saw some women straggling - it was raining - up a

8 road turning off to the left, and stopped to talk to them.

9 Q. Do you recall the approximate time that you arrived at this

10 junction near Prozor?

11 A. I suppose it would have been late morning coming up midday-ish. I

12 mean, it's not -- it's not an easy drive. Some -- something around that

13 time.

14 Q. And can you please describe for us what happened when you

15 encountered these people that you -- or these women straggling, as you

16 told us and stopped to talk to them. Would you describe for us what

17 happened.

18 A. Yes. We asked them what had happened. One of them, I noticed,

19 was wearing bedroom slippers. They looked frightened, they looked

20 bedraggled, and one of them said that they'd spent the night looking for

21 caves, that soldiers were out killing people and looking for them. And as

22 we were having this conversation, a mini cab pulled up. That sounds

23 strange. He wasn't touting for business. He was a driver whose car

24 happened to -- you know, he was a mini cab driver using his car in this

25 emergency. And he told the women to get into his car, and those that

Page 1535

1 wouldn't fit got into ours, and he told us to follow him, which we did, a

2 little way up this road, and then turning off to the right up a track

3 mountain track, and the track rose up through I think some wooded country

4 and then opened out onto open -- open country, and there was this amazing

5 sight of large numbers of people wandering the fields in groups or

6 standing, looking to get away. Looking for somewhere. I don't know what

7 they were looking for. They were wandering the open country.

8 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, can you give us a rough approximation as to how many

9 people you saw wandering the country on that day?

10 A. It's difficult. I don't -- I hate numbers. Hundreds. Scores if

11 not hundreds.

12 Q. And which direction were these people wandering?

13 A. In the direction of Jablanica, which I knew to be a government

14 army-held town.

15 Q. And approximately how far from the town of Prozor were you at the

16 point in time when you saw these people?

17 A. I'm not really sure. It's -- it's not far. Five to 10 kilometres

18 max.

19 Q. Did you, sir, at that occasion have the opportunity to speak to

20 any of those people?

21 A. Yes, we did. We spoke to quite a lot of them to try and get a

22 picture of what had happened.

23 Q. Do you recall any of the information that any of these people

24 conveyed to you?

25 A. Yes. I will have written somewhere but cannot recall direct

Page 1536

1 quotes, and I can remember some details.

2 In essence, it seemed that -- that shelling had -- well, one man

3 did say that his Croatian neighbours suddenly left the neighbourhood the

4 day before this happened. It seems that shelling began during the night

5 or towards dawn. At dawn, soldiers moved into the town. It's -- it's a

6 pattern I by this time knew well. It's the latter bit called -- it's

7 called flushing out. Interviewees, I can't remember their names, I'm

8 afraid. One woman told me that she had spent the night hiding in the

9 cellar before escaping along a gutter or some kind of sewage trench. And

10 one of the militarymen, men in military uniform up there, because there

11 were a few ushering them about, said that he had seen bodies towed away on

12 a trailer by a tractor, and others talked about having seen columns of men

13 being marched out of the town. This is what -- what they were saying.

14 The conclusion was that -- or my inference was that the town had

15 been shelled first, that the soldiers had then gone in, and that these

16 people had fled.

17 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, you mentioned men in military uniforms ushering the

18 people about. Approximately how many uniformed men did you see in this

19 area?

20 A. A few, not that many.

21 Q. What type of --

22 A. But they were there.

23 Q. What type of arms did they have, if any?

24 A. I don't even know if they had any weapons. They might have done.

25 I can't remember. I mean, they might have. I don't recall any rifles.

Page 1537

1 They might have had revolvers. I don't recall any machine-guns or

2 Kalashnikovs.

3 Q. Sir, how long did you remain in this area where these people were

4 straggling, as you put it?

5 A. Couple of hours or so. Oh, three -- three or four hours.

6 Q. Can you describe the weather conditions at the time?

7 A. At first wet and becoming drizzly. I mean difficult.

8 Q. What type of belongings, if any, did these people have with them?

9 A. Hardly anything at all, although I think a few may have had some

10 plastic -- plastic bags full of things. I don't recall that they had much

11 with them.

12 Q. And how were these people dressed?

13 A. Oh, in -- in -- I mean -- I mentioned the bedroom slippers. They

14 were people who had left in a hurry. They hadn't packed.

15 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, at any point in time did you have any discussions

16 with any soldiers concerning Prozor and its significance?

17 A. Yes. I mean, especially afterwards, given what had happened. And

18 these were mostly soldiers from the United Nations, British soldiers from

19 the so-called UNPROFOR. And -- well, actually, soldiers from both of the

20 armies as well, but mostly British soldiers.

21 Q. Can you tell us what these discussions with UNPROFOR soldiers

22 revealed to you?

23 A. Yes. And this is later, and it made absolute sense, and although

24 not a soldier myself, we had, as reporters, understood similar ourselves.

25 Prozor -- the word "Prozor" means window, and the town of Prozor is the

Page 1538

1 window, or perhaps better put, the gateway from Herzegovina into Central

2 Bosnia up a road which, because of the situation regarding the conflict

3 with the Serbs initially, was the lifeline -- one of the two lifelines for

4 the delivery of aid into Central Bosnia, and for periods of time, because

5 of risks to another route into Sarajevo, also the lifeline of aid into

6 Sarajevo through Kiseljak and a Serbian checkpoint called Ilidza. So that

7 was the significance of Prozor in terms of aid. Control Prozor, and you

8 control, as it were, the portal of the aid route into Central Bosnia.

9 When the UNPROFOR arrived, they tried to enhance some pieces of

10 mountain track into proper and usable road in order to facilitate this --

11 this route, skirting properly metalled roads that were exposed to Serbian

12 guns, and they called it Route Diamond. So we can think of Prozor as a

13 kind of pivot on Route Diamond into Central Bosnia. And the other point,

14 as I think we all knew anyway but which the British soldiers were quick to

15 grasp, is that one man's aid route is another man's military supply route,

16 and that Route Diamond was, of course, the HVO's, or one of the HVO's two

17 - the other one through Kiseljak - two main military supply routes up

18 into Central Bosnia. And it also meant that by controlling them, the

19 Bosnian army in Central Bosnia was landlocked and had no access to the --

20 the -- because they used these same supply routes during the alliance, not

21 just for whatever weaponry they could get but for gasoline supplies and so

22 on. So it made absolute sense. If you wanted to start a putsch, a

23 military putsch in Central Bosnia, you begin with Prozor.

24 Civilian-wise, if I'm not wrong, it was one of the southernmost

25 Muslim populations in Central Bosnia.

Page 1539

1 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, line 19 of page 64 you told us the word "Prozor"

2 means window. I would ask you if you know what language the word "Prozor"

3 means window.

4 A. I have to confess I've never looked it up; I was told that.

5 Serbo-Croat, or B/C/S as it's called now.

6 Q. Let me then ask you, sir, again, what steps, if any, you took to

7 file a story following what you'd observed in this valley or this area

8 near Prozor.

9 A. We headed for the nearest telephone, which was in Tomislavgrad.

10 Not a public phone, actually. There was a European Union Monitoring

11 Mission man we knew there who -- and we thought we'd ask if we could use

12 his phone.

13 Q. Can you describe for us who you had meetings with or discussions

14 with in Tomislavgrad on that day, on that evening?

15 A. Yes, briefly with this aforementioned Monitoring Mission man, but

16 the -- the atmosphere in Tomislavgrad was one of jubilation, rasping

17 machine-guns into the air. We'd actually followed a lot of the soldiers

18 back in their trucks along the -- there's a track that runs from Prozor to

19 Tomislavgrad, which may appear on maps as Duvno sometimes. They changed

20 the name.

21 The EU man was very insistent that we meet with a man who was

22 introduced as the HVO commander in Tomislavgrad. Whether he was or not I

23 don't know but he was introduced as such and invited to join us for dinner

24 and we had a long -- tediously long conversation with him.

25 Q. Let me interrupt you there, Mr. Vulliamy. Do you recall the name

Page 1540

1 of this person to whom you were introduced as the HVO commander in

2 Tomislavgrad?

3 A. Shiljeg or Siljeg, and I can't remember his first name.

4 Q. Do you recall any of the details of this tediously long

5 conversation that you had with him?

6 A. I can recall a few details. Well, I can recall one important

7 detail: He said that Prozor was now clean. He made a reference to the --

8 the rather drunken celebrations outside as night games, as boys will sort

9 of way. And then he got out a -- he got out a series of maps of Croatia

10 down the centuries, 1 to 12, as I recall. Arduously went through each map

11 as Croatia expanded and shrunk, and the last one I remember was labelled

12 "Future Croatian Federation," and had Croatia extending all the way to

13 almost to Belgrade, to a place called Zume. And it was the 1941 so-called

14 Banovina Croatia. That was not actually HVO policy at all. It was, if

15 anything, that of its old rival HOS. But it was a long, long lecture

16 about history, as one had got quite used to.

17 Q. Do you recall approximately how long this lecture lasted?

18 A. I don't recall how long, but way beyond exhaustion.

19 Q. And how long did you remain in Tomislavgrad?

20 A. I think we left the next morning.

21 Q. Do you recall again the approximate date that this would be?

22 A. No, but I remember why. Because I think I mentioned the siege of

23 Jajce up in Central Bosnia. Word reached us if not that -- I think word

24 reached us that night that Jajce was about to go, and by the time we woke

25 up we heard that it had fallen.

Page 1541

1 Q. And again, sir, I understand you might not recall the date, but do

2 you recall the month and/or year when you were in Tomislavgrad and learned

3 that Jajce had fallen?

4 A. Unbelievably, I think we're still at the end of October. I think

5 all this is happening at the end of October in rapid succession.

6 Q. And, Mr. Vulliamy, upon hearing that Jajce had fallen, what did

7 you do?

8 A. Headed for Jajce. Jajce, not Vitez.

9 Q. Did you in fact make it to Jajce on that occasion?

10 A. No. We tried to get into Jajce on previous occasions along a

11 narrow corridor that linked Jajce to Travnik. The HVO and the Bosnian

12 army used it to try and service the defence of the town from a heavy

13 Serbian siege, Bosnian Serb siege. We tried to get up it a couple of

14 times, it was terrifyingly dangerous, and abandoned our attempts on

15 various occasions. And so we only got as far as a place called Turbe that

16 night, which is a little bit far up the line from Travnik towards Jajce.

17 Q. And did you spend the night in Turbe?

18 A. No, we didn't. We went back to Travnik. There was some people

19 coming in already, and we figured we'd get some sleep and get to work on

20 this story the following day. We did talk to some of them and did

21 interview a few people coming in, and they all told the same distressing

22 story, that the siege had become unbearable, they'd been living in

23 cellars, they hadn't been able to eat. But we went to sleep before we

24 started doing our serious interviewing.

25 Q. And the following day when you awoke, can you tell us what you

Page 1542

1 discovered.

2 A. I say this against myself: We discovered that we'd been wrong to

3 go to sleep, because overnight the entire population of Jajce had arrived

4 in Travnik, and it was an extraordinary sight of people sitting all over

5 every bit of street with their broilers, their animals, their families,

6 maybe a few possessions. So we quickly started up the road towards --

7 that was coming into town against the tide of this procession, this

8 wretched procession, and started doing interviews with the -- with the

9 people. Among them, by the way, were wounded soldiers, non-wounded

10 straggling soldiers, what was left of each of these two armies, and they

11 were coming by cart, on foot, horse-drawn cart if they had them.

12 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, when you say you started doing interviews with the

13 people, did that include these soldiers?

14 A. No. We didn't talk to any military people until later in the day,

15 towards the evening time. We were trying to get a -- as vivid a sense as

16 we could of the conditions under which Jajce had fallen.

17 Q. Can you tell us, please, Mr. Vulliamy, what you learned from any

18 of the soldiers that you spoke to later on that day.

19 A. Well, there was an oddity and a curiosity. The soldiers were told

20 -- I didn't see this happen, but I understood that their orders were to

21 report to the respective headquarters of their armies in Travnik, and

22 there were -- when we went and -- we went to see this, didn't -- didn't

23 talk to many people, but when we got to the Bosnian army headquarters,

24 there were some Croatians there, Bosnian Croats there, and along with some

25 of the other soldiers they were wearing a patch that I hadn't seen before

Page 1543

1 which had the Bosnian lilies in the top left corner and the Grb, the

2 Croatian red and white chequerboard icon symbol in the lower right-hand

3 half. You know, very obviously a symbol of the alliance. These were

4 young soldiers, except one of them's father was there, and they wanted to

5 register with the Bosnian army. They were talking about a sellout, they

6 were talking about a deal, they said that we could have defended the town,

7 and one of them said -- in fact, one actually mentioned Boban by name,

8 said we're not going to fight Mate Boban's war against the Muslims.

9 I should add that conversations with -- with the Bosnian army

10 commander and one of the senior HVO officers in town that night did not

11 bear out what they said. They said simply that Jajce -- that the defence

12 had become untenable.

13 Q. Do you recall, Mr. Vulliamy, the identity of either the Bosnian

14 army commander or the senior HVO officers in town that you spoke to on

15 that occasion?

16 A. The Bosnian army commander was -- was a man who I'd met a few

17 times called Haso Ribo, and the HVO man's name I don't recall. I don't

18 think he was the commander. I think -- no. It wasn't Pokrajcic, it

19 wasn't the man I'd met before, nor was it, I don't think, the commander

20 whom I would come to know later when I went back to Travnik in January.

21 Q. Okay. But just so we're clear, sir, at this occasion how long did

22 you remain in Travnik at the end of October, 1992?

23 A. I think we -- I don't recall, but I think we must have left to

24 file the story on the fall of Jajce. I can't -- that needed getting to

25 London. I can't see that we'd have stayed around more than another night.

Page 1544

1 Q. And to file the story in London, where did you go?

2 A. You had to go down to, if not Split, you had to go to one of the

3 Croatian border towns where the phones worked.

4 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, noting the time, I would suggest this

5 is perhaps the appropriate point for the next recess.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] It's about 5.20. We'll have a

7 20-minute break and resume in 20 minutes' time.

8 --- Recess taken at 5.18 p.m.

9 --- On resuming at 5.43 p.m.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis, you have another

11 hour and 20 minutes.

12 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President.

13 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, right before the break we were talking about the

14 events at the end of October, 1992, and you went to file your story on the

15 fall of Jajce. Can you tell us how long you remained in Bosnia after you

16 filed that story at the end of October, 1992?

17 A. I think I left pretty soon afterwards. One of my friends, a

18 Croatian cameraman for the BBC, was killed that night. We had to arrange

19 for his body to come back. I was disinclined to stay around. I didn't

20 come back until January, 1993.

21 Q. And can you tell us, Mr. Vulliamy, when you first came back in

22 January, 1993, where you entered Bosnia-Herzegovina.

23 A. In through Split, as usual. This is with the BBC now, to make

24 this film. And we went up -- ah, yes. Well, we had to go through

25 Kiseljak this time because we were told that Route Diamond was effectively

Page 1545

1 shut, and we didn't have guaranteed use of an armoured vehicle.

2 At some point around this time, I think a little later in the

3 year, the -- the British wouldn't actually let you go up Route Diamond

4 unless you had an armoured vehicle, which I didn't, I was just driving a

5 red Citroen, so it was necessary to go through Kiseljak. Then up the

6 Lasva Valley towards what I'll call the Vitez T-junction, and that was a

7 memorable drive.

8 Q. And at this point in time, that is January, 1993, how long did you

9 remain in Central Bosnia?

10 A. I think a couple of weeks.

11 Q. And where did you go next, sir?

12 A. It was all -- the film was about Travnik. It was centred around

13 Travnik. But for some reason, and it must have been accommodation, the --

14 the stay involved a lot of driving, sometimes by night, between Travnik

15 and Kiseljak, and that's -- that's why -- the scene along that road had

16 been transformed and my car took a bullet. There was a lot of shooting.

17 Few cars. Those that were on that road, a lot were being shot at and shot

18 off it. So I was between Travnik and Kiseljak.

19 Q. Following this time period where you were in Travnik and Kiseljak,

20 where did you go next in Bosnia?

21 A. I was out of Bosnia. I was in other parts of former Yugoslavia.

22 I returned in the summer of 1993.

23 Q. And to which part of Bosnia did you return in the summer of 1993?

24 A. Initially Central Bosnia again, but only briefly because there

25 were other pressing matters to see to around Mostar and Eastern

Page 1546

1 Herzegovina.

2 Q. Before turning our attention to Mostar, can you briefly tell us

3 what changes, if any, you'd noticed in Central Bosnia in the summer of

4 1993 compared to when you had spent time there in January of 1993 or in

5 the autumn of 1992.

6 A. Compared to the autumn of 1992, the Lasva Valley, for a start, had

7 completely transformed because the road from Kiseljak to the Vitez

8 junction had already by January become a jigsaw of roadblocks, HVO, HVO,

9 BH, HVO again, with each army staking out, as it were, chunks of road,

10 mostly HVO, and then BH as you got towards Travnik and certainly if you

11 turned right towards Zenica. And then a lot of the houses along that road

12 had been burned out in what was by now a sort of tit-for-tat ethnic

13 cleansing by both sides. And in July, the -- I mean the -- the amount of

14 damage was far more extensive to the point at which I think the road was

15 almost, almost uninhabited.

16 Gornji Vakuf had become a battlefield with the front line going

17 right -- the front line was the main road. Again, one couldn't go through

18 unless one had a armoured vehicle, which I didn't. I had to hitch a ride.

19 But the situation in Central Bosnia had deteriorated into -- I mean, apart

20 from -- sorry, the one difference that had happened is that -- while I was

21 away, is that when I was in Travnik in January, I spent a lot of time with

22 the commander of the HVO, Filipovic, who had gone out of his way to stage

23 a sort of public relations exercise on Mt. Vlasic in which he took a risk

24 to himself and us, I may say, and others with the Bosnian army commander,

25 his counterpart, a man called Kulilovic, up to the Serbian guns together

Page 1547

1 to demonstrate their joint plans to take this post, this antenna together.

2 He talked about, again rather like one of his predecessors, about

3 pressures on him. He said he was walking the edge of a knife, he didn't

4 want the alliance to rupture. By the time I came back, he had gone. In

5 fact, I think the HVO had been -- had been seen out of Travnik by then. I

6 think they'd retreated from Travnik.

7 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, I'd like to now turn to Mostar. You indicated a few

8 moments ago in July, 1993, you left Central Bosnia and went to Mostar.

9 Can you tell us, sir, on this occasion approximately how long you remained

10 in Mostar.

11 A. I didn't go to Mostar in July, 1993. I went to Grude to try to

12 get to Mostar in 1993. The -- there had been since May reports of serious

13 fighting within Mostar between the armija BH and the HVO, and by July what

14 became later known as the siege of East Mostar was effectively mounted.

15 I went to Grude to try and get permission or to get some kind of

16 -- find out if there was, you know, a way into East Mostar to what was by

17 then a surrounded pocket effectively under siege by the HVO on three sides

18 and the Serbs to the east, but the permission -- the request was declined.

19 The other reports we heard were about violence and events in Capljina and

20 Stolac, so we asked if we could go to Capljina.

21 Q. Sir, before -- before we discuss this request to go to Capljina,

22 let me ask you, why was it necessary to get permission to go into Mostar

23 in July, 1993?

24 A. I think you still needed permission to go into West Mostar,

25 because there was a war going on there. I don't know about that. Our

Page 1548

1 interest was to try and into East Mostar because, as I say, it was

2 effectively cut off and under siege. Well, you couldn't get anywhere near

3 the place without going through large numbers of HVO checkpoints, and I

4 imagine that papers would be necessary. As it turned out, I don't think

5 anybody had got into East Mostar and wasn't going to for a long time. In

6 fact, I can remember a spokesman for Mr. Boban, who declined to see us on

7 that occasion, if he was informed, but we were told he wouldn't see us,

8 said that -- I think -- yes, I remember him saying no one's going to get

9 there for two months, and he was almost right, as it happened.

10 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, let's return, then, to this instance where you

11 requested permission to go to Capljina. Do you recall the approximate

12 date when you made this request and to whom?

13 A. The request was made to a Canadian spokesman for Mate Boban, whose

14 name was George. I don't have a surname, I'm afraid. He'll just have to

15 be called George the Canadian.

16 Date, this is -- it must be mid-July. Again, I'm sorry about

17 these dates. They're traceable because of what I wrote. And if I -- if I

18 had a date for an article, I could then work out the exact date, but

19 we're, I think, middle to back end of July.

20 Q. Again, 1993?

21 A. 1993 for sure, yes.

22 Q. And George the Canadian, what -- did George the Canadian speak

23 Serbo-Croatian?

24 A. Yes, he did, but we spoke to him in English. I mean, he was from

25 Canada.

Page 1549

1 Q. And where did you have this discussion with George the Canadian?

2 A. This was at Mate Boban's new headquarters. He'd moved again.

3 Still in Grude but now somewhere on the outskirts in a sort of -- I think

4 it must be an industrial complex. He had a much bigger, bigger premises.

5 Q. Can you relate to us what the conversation was that you had with

6 George the Canadian.

7 A. We wanted to go to Capljina because I heard -- had heard that --

8 there were reports that Muslim men were being taken missing from Capljina

9 and Stolac and that Capljina was the worst and we wanted to get there, and

10 George said no, we couldn't because it's an action zone, a military action

11 zone, I think he even said. And I retorted that that's absurd, it's far

12 away from any kind of front line. And he said you can't go anyway, which

13 made one obviously all the more inclined to go, because that means they've

14 got something to hide, which they had.

15 Q. And how long did this discussion with George the Canadian last on

16 this occasion?

17 A. I think it was fairly long because there was a lot of -- because

18 there was the Mostar -- Mostar request, but he didn't -- he did leave us

19 for a bit, went back. An hour or so perhaps.

20 Q. And following this discussion, what steps, if any, did you take?

21 A. We took steps to try to get to Capljina, and we were turned back,

22 and then we had an idea that the translator -- I was working with a man

23 from the Washington Post. The translator lived nearby so instead of using

24 the Washington Post car, we went and got his beat-up old car and he drove

25 and my journalist colleague and I just sort of lounged around in the back.

Page 1550

1 I remember spitting out of the window, reading a newspaper I didn't

2 understand. I think my colleague put his feet out of the window and we

3 got waved through. The car had Croatian plates.

4 Q. Do you recall approximately where this checkpoint was that you got

5 waved through?

6 A. It was quite close to Capljina because we -- there wasn't -- there

7 wasn't a long drive between the checkpoint and the town.

8 Q. Can you describe for the Trial Chamber what you saw when you

9 arrived in the town of Capljina on that day.

10 A. Yes. It was a different sort of menacing atmosphere. The streets

11 had very few civilians on them, a few soldiers, not many. There was

12 selective damage. What I've described in Prozor was not the case. But we

13 first asked an old man about these reports that the -- that -- what had

14 been going on, and he said his son had been taken away. A woman we spoke

15 to, I can't remember what she said, but she said go to the mosque, so we

16 did. It seemed like a good idea. The mosque, by the way, was standing,

17 and as I recall, unharmed. The imam was there, so we didn't have a Prozor

18 on our hands but we had another -- another very distressing situation.

19 There were women with the imam, and other women joined him and us as we

20 talked, and the pattern was -- well, because of what I'd been doing up in

21 other parts of Bosnia around Prijedor, was spine chilling because the men

22 had been, it seemed, over the past -- let's see, I do remember them saying

23 it started on the 4th of July because that's a date one remembers. So I

24 remember thinking it's about 10 days. So we're probably 12th 13th-ish

25 July, to try and answer your previous question.

Page 1551

1 The men had been apprehended. One woman told us about how her

2 husband or son had been apprehended while practising football, but what

3 astonished me was that another woman said that her husband had actually

4 been taken - or son, I forget which - on the front lines themselves. In

5 this area, there was no effective Bosnian army. The HVO was the only

6 militia that -- or army that would -- would have been fighting against the

7 Serbs on a front towards the east, and the Muslims would have joined that.

8 I'd come to know a lot about the ethos of the front line and the

9 collegiality of the front line by now and the way that soldiers who fight

10 together think and bond and suffer together and laugh together, and to me

11 it was astonishing, this notion that men in the HVO were being arrested by

12 men in the HVO, having fought together. So I thought this is -- this is

13 -- this is a very important story.

14 But the even more important story was where have they gone? And

15 these women said that they'd gone to camps, and they gave us two names and

16 the names were Dretelj and Gabela. And Gabela was actually on a map.

17 It's near the Croatian border. Dretelj I couldn't find on my map. And we

18 left shortly after this conversation.

19 The imam did talk. I don't remember much about what he said. I

20 must have written it somewhere. And we returned as a matter of urgency on

21 hearing about this word -- hearing this word "camps," which sent a shiver

22 up my spine, to Grude.

23 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, let me ask you a couple of follow-on questions to

24 what you've just told us. Do you recall, sir, the name of the imam in

25 Capljina that you met with on at that day?

Page 1552

1 A. Palic, but I don't remember his first name.

2 Q. Do you remember, sir, if prior to this day you had ever heard of

3 Dretelj or Gabela?

4 A. No, I don't -- no, I hadn't. We -- as I testified earlier, I did

5 not know at that point that I had been to the place the name of which I'd

6 just heard. I had not heard of Dretelj. It just so happens -- I found

7 out another time, later, that I had been there but I hadn't heard the

8 name, no.

9 Q. Now, sir, when I interrupted you, you told us you had gone back to

10 Grude upon hearing the word "camps." Can you tell us approximately what

11 time you arrived back in Grude on this day in mid-July, 1993?

12 A. It would have been late afternoon, early evening.

13 Q. Did you have any meetings or discussions with anyone in Grude when

14 you arrived back in late afternoon, early evening?

15 A. Yes, Canadian George again. And we wanted to ask him about

16 Capljina and what had happened there. I omitted some of the other

17 unpleasant things we wanted to talk about. The treatment of women was

18 particularly unpleasant, apparently. A woman tried to hide some valuables

19 inside her underwear and said shamefacedly that they had found it. We

20 wanted to talk about Capljina, but most of all we wanted to ask him where

21 these men had gone, that we'd heard the names Dretelj and Gabela and we

22 wanted to go there, and he said no. But he did know what we were talking

23 about.

24 Q. And when you --

25 A. He also said you can't have been to Capljina because we didn't

Page 1553

1 give you permission. We said, well, we did.

2 Q. And what was his reaction at that point in time?

3 A. He was visibly, visibly not necessarily angry, but I think

4 unnerved because he knew we weren't supposed to.

5 Q. And how long did you have a discussion with Canadian George on the

6 late afternoon on this day?

7 A. Well, with hindsight, it probably should have been longer, we

8 should have pushed harder on Dretelj, but it can't have been more than 20

9 minutes or so because we ended up, I think, that night at Medjugorje

10 before dark, so it would have been half hour or so.

11 Q. Why did you go to Medjugorje on that day?

12 A. Sorry.

13 Q. On that day why did you go to Medjugorje?

14 A. Because it was place to stay. But there was also a UNHCR mission

15 in Medjugorje, a United Nations High Commission for Refugees. And in my

16 experience although camps and prisoner registration is the business of the

17 International Committee of the Red Cross, the UNHCR was often a more

18 profitable, at least, source to talk to. So we went in pursuit of the

19 UNHCR office where it so happened that two English speaking people worked,

20 American and/or Australian, I can't remember. I may have written their

21 names in an article, but I can't remember them now.

22 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, did you speak to these two English-speaking

23 people --

24 A. Yes --

25 Q. -- that day?

Page 1554

1 A. -- at length.

2 Q. Do you recall or can you recount for us the topics of

3 conversation?

4 A. Yes. First of all, the existence of these camps Dretelj and

5 Gabela, which the existence of which they confirmed, they had heard of

6 these places, and they added a third, called Rodoch, or Rodoc, which was

7 some sort of Heliodrom near Mostar. They said that they had tried to get

8 access and been refused, as had the ICRC.

9 We also talked about the man who -- whose name we'd heard in

10 Capljina, the mayor, and who we had attempted to see but who either wasn't

11 there, as we were told, or didn't want to see us. His name was Markovic.

12 And we actually had quite a long conversation about Markovic and his

13 views. He was described as very extreme by the UNHCR. And then we had a

14 third sort of bit of the conversation which was perhaps the most

15 interesting and alarming. The two people whose names I could probably

16 get, and indeed might have written, told us about a meeting that they had

17 had with local Bosnian Croat authorities and the foreign minister of

18 Croatia proper, a man called Granic, Mate Granic, and they had been

19 invited to this meeting to discuss the possibility of mass deportation of

20 some 50.000 people, men, from this area through a transit camp in -- I

21 think it was intended to be in Ljubuski, where I had actually visited,

22 another internment place, to third-party countries. An astonishing but

23 horribly familiar piece of blackmail, because the people like the UNHCR

24 had been put in a similar position in north-western Bosnia by the Bosnian

25 Serbs, namely that you either cooperate in the grotesque process of ethnic

Page 1555

1 cleansing or you don't and the men remain festering in camps. We had come

2 across that before and here -- here they were -- here was the UNHCR

3 talking about this dilemma again. They had said that they would not

4 cooperate. But I think they reported Mr. -- Minister Granic as saying

5 that the government in Croatia was prepared to cooperate.

6 Q. Do you recall, Mr. Vulliamy, any of the specifics that were

7 related to you by the UNHCR people concerning when and where this meeting

8 had taken place?

9 A. I think it was Makarska, on the coast, but I may be wrong. I

10 think it was Makarska.

11 Q. Do you have any recollection of when that meeting had been held?

12 A. I'm afraid I don't, no. But I had been given to understand by the

13 women in Capljina, and I'm thinking -- I'm thinking -- I'm improvising

14 here, the women in Capljina had said that the roundup had begun on July

15 the 4th. I remember the date for obvious reasons. Nothing to do with the

16 war, of course. And so I suppose it must have been fairly recently, but I

17 don't remember them telling us when it was.

18 Q. Now, sir, on page 80, lines 24, 25, and into the first line of

19 page 81, you indicated that the UNHCR people confirmed Dretelj and Gabela?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. And told you about a place Rodoc. You said, "They said that they

22 had tried to get access but were refused, as had the ICRC." Do you know

23 which of those three locations they were referring to when they said they

24 had been denied access?

25 A. I don't, I'm afraid, and I'm not sure they specified. If they

Page 1556

1 did, I can't remember.

2 Q. Now, you mentioned a person by the name of Markovic. Can you

3 recall any of the specifics about what you discussed concerning this

4 person?

5 A. Yes, it was a conversation -- I mean, the tenor of the

6 conversation was almost of sick humour. The man of the two who was

7 American talked about a document that apparently Markovic had issued or

8 that he'd seen but did not have in Capljina. I'm talking about a breeding

9 programme for the Muslims whose womenfolk were to be refused entry into

10 maternity hospitals because they tended to breed -- I can't remember the

11 exact words but something about anti-authoritarian individuals. I mean,

12 vile stuff. But I hasten to say I didn't see the document.

13 Q. During July, 1993, did you remain in Bosnia throughout that entire

14 month?

15 A. No. No. I left because by this time I was in discussions about

16 having to write a book and to write it fairly quickly. And I did leave to

17 at least begin writing this thing. I have to say pretty dissatisfied with

18 myself that we'd failed to get into Dretelj and failed to get into East

19 Mostar.

20 Q. When you say, sir, that you were in discussions to write a book,

21 did those discussions come to fruition?

22 A. Yes. They wanted to -- they wanted it before the autumn. That's

23 why I left, to start trying to organise this thing.

24 Q. And when you say you left, to what location did you go?

25 A. Great Britain.

Page 1557

1 Q. How long did you remain in Great Britain?

2 A. Not as long as I'd planned because, well, two things happened

3 during August. The first was that a colleague of mine, Maggie O'Cane,

4 wrote a story for my paper about the first prisoners being released from

5 -- now, I think it was Gabela and Rodoc, but I'm not sure, but that can

6 be checked in the article. The report was that by "release" they meant

7 making men run naked across territory towards Jablanica while they fired

8 guns over their heads. So that was -- you know, I felt that the camp

9 story was about to move and that whatever work I was work -- doing would

10 not be up-to-date unless I went back. But more importantly, or at least I

11 thought at the time, a man from the BBC had finally got into East Mostar,

12 as had the first aid convoys, and this was now a calamitous situation.

13 His report was unforgettable and clearly my work on this book was not

14 going to be up-to-date until I had got into East Mostar and tried again to

15 get into Dretelj, Gabela, or Rodoc.

16 Q. And, sir, what steps, if any, did you take at that point in time

17 to try to get to these locations?

18 A. Well, my intention had been to make East Mostar the priority

19 because it was so much in the news, although I'm not sure many people were

20 getting in yet, many other people. But the plan changed because a letter

21 appeared -- soon after arriving in Split, if not that day or the day

22 after, a letter and an article appeared in a newspaper which I recall as

23 being Slobodna Dalmacija, and it was a letter from President Franjo

24 Tudjman to Mate Boban about the camps, and I forget the -- the actual

25 wording, but it was all about complying with international law, complying

Page 1558

1 with the Geneva Conventions, and I think I should explain that the

2 backdrop to this is that by now there was talk of sanctions against

3 Croatia, particularly from the Americans and the British unless something

4 was done, or at least pressure was put on by Zagreb to ameliorate the

5 situation in the camps and with regard to the siege of East Mostar and

6 other matters. And anyway, in a very unusual move, President Tudjman --

7 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, I hate to object at this point and

8 interrupt. I've been waiting patiently, but all this afternoon we've

9 heard a lot of speculation, a lot of reading into events, and now the

10 gentleman here is about to do the same thing, and I've been waiting

11 patiently. He's very colourful, wonderful usage of the English language,

12 but I don't think this is proper testimony. If he has specific

13 information, he can give it to us. There may be other witnesses that

14 might be able to tell us what exactly President Franjo Tudjman had in mind

15 when he issued this letter, but now we're going to -- way into

16 speculation. Perhaps historians can write about it but I don't think this

17 is proper testimony from this particular witness unless a proper

18 foundation can be laid, and I dare say one has not been laid for this sort

19 of speculation at this point in time. Thank you.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. The objection stands.

21 This letter from Tudjman, is it a letter that the witness has seen or

22 read? Because we are now entering into pure speculation.

23 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, I can explain a little bit about this,

24 either in the presence of the witness or we can ask the witness to leave

25 the courtroom. I believe, however, the witness was about to get to that

Page 1559

1 point at the -- shortly after -- or would have gotten to that point

2 shortly after my learned colleague objected.

3 MR. KARNAVAS: I have no problems with having a conversation, for

4 the record, outside the presence of the witness. I'm not suggesting that

5 he may not be able to have some information, but I haven't heard a

6 foundation at this point in time.

7 There's one thing: The letter. He might have written -- read the

8 letter or read the article, but now we're going into a psychoanalysis as

9 to what exactly was motivating President Tudjman, and so on and so forth.

10 If they want to lay out the foundation and then the Trial Chamber can draw

11 whatever conclusions it wishes, that's fine. But here now he's delving

12 into -- delving into President Tudjman's psyche as to what motivated him

13 at this particular point in time, and he's done this over and over again.

14 I haven't objected, but at this point I think this is a little bit -- way

15 too much.

16 MR. MUNDIS: Again, Mr. President, very, very briefly in the

17 presence of the witness, what we'll say is that he's laying out the

18 context in which this article appeared and when he saw this -- or what he

19 will testify about this material, he's simply putting it into a context of

20 other events that were going on at that time, and that's precisely what

21 the witness was explaining at the point when the objection occurred. And

22 again if you take a look at lines 18 through 24 of page 84, you will see

23 that the witness was explaining the context in which this article

24 appeared.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I'll take up this question

Page 1560

1 myself.

2 Sir, you mentioned a letter from President Tudjman. My question

3 is a very simple one: If you are familiar with this letter, did you

4 include the contents of the letter in an article drafted by yourself?

5 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, the letter was read to me in

6 translation. I've since seen it in English but not at the time it was

7 read to me in translation, and I only mentioned it because it changed our

8 plans and priorities and -- and was a reason to attempt, as soon as

9 possible - in fact at that day - to get access to one of these camps. It

10 had currency.

11 Did I quote it? I certainly referred to it. I probably quoted

12 it, but I'm afraid I can't answer you, Your Honour. It was -- I just

13 don't remember the specific article, but it would certainly have been

14 referred to in the article, yes.

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] So you are saying that someone

16 translated this letter for you, and the translation of the letter is the

17 reason for which you decided that you should go and visit the camps. Is

18 that what you are telling us now?

19 THE WITNESS: Yes, because quite apart from --

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Who translated this letter for

21 you, and how is it that this person came to know about the letter?

22 THE WITNESS: The letter was in a newspaper called Slobodna

23 Dalmacija, which -- which we read almost every day we could. And the

24 person who translated it was a correspondent for a newspaper, The Daily

25 Telegraph, who had lived many years in Belgrade and read and spoke the

Page 1561

1 language fluently.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Which means that given the

3 contents of the letter, you as a journalist decided to examine the issue

4 of the camps. That's correct, is it not?

5 THE WITNESS: To return -- to return to the issue of the camps

6 which had now become almost a diplomatic matter as well as a humanitarian

7 one.

8 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President.

9 Q. Witness Vulliamy, do you recall the substance of the letter that

10 was translated to you by your colleague from The Daily Telegraph?

11 A. In essence, it was a -- an urging from President Tudjman to Mate

12 Boban to ensure that conditions in the camps be brought within

13 international law and -- and within the Geneva Convention.

14 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, you mentioned at page 86, line 23 and 24, "I've

15 since seen it in English." Do you recall when you saw it in English?

16 A. On Sunday.

17 Q. On do you recall the format in which you saw the letter in

18 English?

19 A. It was in a -- in a press release, as I recall.

20 Q. Okay.

21 A. Or attached to a press release.

22 Q. And the document that you saw on Sunday, who showed you that

23 document?

24 A. One of your colleagues.

25 Q. And did you have an opportunity to read that document?

Page 1562

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Did that document, to the best of your recollection, reflect the

3 material that was published in Slobodna Dalmacija in 1993?

4 A. I -- I -- I mean, all -- no reason to suppose that it wasn't the

5 same letter. I mean, it ...

6 Q. And again, what was the contents of that letter that you saw on

7 Sunday?

8 A. Well, a -- an urging to Mate Boban to ensure that the camps were

9 within the international law and comply with the Geneva Convention.

10 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, I'd ask that the witness be shown

11 what's been marked as P9497, and we do have this in e-court.

12 If we could please -- if we could please go, on the English

13 version, to page 5.

14 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, do you see a document in front you on the screen?

15 A. Yes, in Croatian.

16 Q. In Croatian.

17 MR. MUNDIS: Could we have that perhaps, for the benefit of the

18 witness ... If we could please go to page 5 of this document.

19 Mr. President, it appears that page 5 is not --

20 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, do you now see a document before you in English?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And, sir, is this the document that you were shown on Sunday?

23 A. Yes, it is. As -- and the press release is the cover. It's --

24 it's a continuation. It's attached to that, stapled to it.

25 Q. And you had an opportunity to read this document on Sunday?

Page 1563

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Thank you, Mr. Vulliamy. I'd like to return now to the events

3 that you were discussing for us. Do you recall approximately the date at

4 which your colleague read this letter that was published in Slobodna

5 Dalmacija to you?

6 A. I think it's the 20th -- where are we? No, I don't. I can't give

7 you an exact date, I'm sorry.

8 Q. Do you recall the month and year?

9 A. It's certainly September, and it's certainly 1993.

10 Q. Did you at that point in time, sir, see the article in Slobodna

11 Dalmacija?

12 A. Oh, yes. We had it in Split.

13 Q. Let me ask you, sir, what steps, if any, you took in September,

14 1993, to visit any of the camps that we were discussing a few moments ago;

15 that is, Dretelj, Gabela, or Rodoc.

16 A. We drove straight to Grude to find -- or to try and meet Mate

17 Boban and ask him if we could go. Dretelj was the one that I think we

18 chose. I think the UNHCR had said it was the one they were most worried

19 about, and it was the one we tried last time so why not try again.

20 Q. Did you have any discussions with anyone at Grude concerning entry

21 to this camp?

22 A. Yes. Canadian George again. And we asked to see Mate Boban. I'm

23 not sure he was there when we got there about late morning. We were told

24 to come back that afternoon, and Canadian George then said, "No, you can't

25 go to Dretelj."

Page 1564

1 Q. Do you recall the approximate date or -- and time that you had

2 this discussion with Canadian George?

3 A. The last one was during the afternoon.

4 Q. And the approximate time period in terms of dates; month, year?

5 A. This is September, 1993.

6 Q. And, sir, what --

7 A. I think we're in early -- early-ish September, 1993.

8 Q. What steps did you take after you were told by Canadian George

9 that you can't go to Dretelj?

10 A. We decided that this was pressing matter now and we stayed in

11 Grude and thought that we'd try again the following day.

12 Q. Did you in fact try again the following day?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Where?

15 A. Same place, back to Mr. Boban's office.

16 Q. Who did you encounter on that day?

17 A. Well, we met Canadian George again first. He -- I think maybe he

18 did go to ask Mate Boban if we could go to Dretelj, and we were -- I think

19 he told us no again and we asked him to go and try again. We were sitting

20 in an office attached to this complex, whatever it was, I don't know what

21 it was, on the outskirts of Grude, and then somebody came into the room or

22 passed us whom all three of us recognised although it wasn't me who

23 recognised him first, and it was one of my two colleagues, I think from

24 the BBC. He said, Oh, there's General Praljak, why don't we ask him?

25 Q. And what happened next?

Page 1565

1 A. We did ask him. And I can't remember exactly whether he left us

2 for a while. I think he did and came back but not that long afterwards,

3 and said, I have to say to my surprise, Yes, so far as I'm concerned, you

4 can. Or I paraphrase those words. I wasn't taking notes.

5 Q. And after this discussion with General Praljak, what did you do?

6 A. An order paper, "odobrenje," was drawn up. I honestly don't

7 recall whether General Praljak returned into the room with it or whether

8 it was typed up. I think it was typed up in our presence. It was stamped

9 and signed, and with surprisingly little ado, and I don't think we talked

10 to General Praljak very much after that. We set off to Dretelj.

11 Q. How did you know where to go?

12 A. Our translator guide knew where to go. And it was -- it was

13 towards Capljina. I think by then we'd found it on the map, actually.

14 Q. This document that you were provided with, whose signature

15 appeared on it?

16 A. To the best of my recollection, it was General Praljak.

17 Q. Can you please describe for us what you did after you set off for

18 Dretelj.

19 A. We got there, and -- yes, I think the translator did know where to

20 go. Well, for me it was very strange, because it was -- you know, I'd

21 been there before, and I said to my colleagues, I've been here before. As

22 I said, I didn't know the name of the place. So far as I was concerned,

23 it was called Capljina, for Serbian prisoners. And we presented our paper

24 to a visibly surprised guard who then disappeared to a building behind the

25 gate. The gate remained shut and we were told to wait.

Page 1566

1 Q. What was this guard wearing?

2 A. HVO uniform.

3 Q. How long did you wait?

4 A. I think about 20 minutes to half an hour.

5 Q. And approximately what time of day was it?

6 A. This would be late morning, mid to late morning.

7 Q. Can you tell us what happened after the guard returned?

8 A. I don't remember whether he returned with the commander of the

9 camp or whether he brought us in to a sort of office block where the

10 commander of the camp was - I think it was the latter - but we were

11 introduced.

12 He was cordial but, I think, surprised. I didn't get the

13 impression that any forward call had been made from Grude to tell him of

14 our -- that we were coming. And as I say, it was all very sudden.

15 Q. Do you recall the name of this person who was the commander of the

16 camp?

17 A. Shakota or Sakota.

18 Q. Please continue.

19 A. We had initial discussion, which I don't recall very much of. We

20 were anxious to get on because we were now in. And we began a tour of the

21 camp, after he'd outlined various, as it were, rules of operation, rules

22 of engagement for interviews, which were that he would be -- he would have

23 to be -- he wanted to be present at them and that they would be done

24 through the translator and that we weren't supposed to speak to the

25 prisoners out of his earshot.

Page 1567

1 Q. How many of you were with your group?

2 A. It was translator, whose name I'm afraid I don't have, a woman

3 called Cathy Evans from the BBC, Mike Montgomery from The Daily Telegraph,

4 of London, and a man called John Landy from a news organisation in America

5 called Knight Ridder.

6 Q. And who accompanied you as you entered the Dretelj camp?

7 A. As we went from the administrative block for the tour, if that's

8 the right word, Commander Sakota himself -- if it's Sakota. I'm sorry, I

9 can't remember which it was. And a couple of armed guards.

10 Q. Could you please describe for the Trial Chamber what you observed

11 as you went into the camp from the administrative block.

12 A. The first port of call was a medical facility, a small to medium

13 sized building with beds, military-style iron beds, quite tight -- quite

14 closely -- I wouldn't say packed, quite closely organised so that the

15 doctors could only just pass through between them. Two to a bed, dirty

16 blankets, dirty mattresses, very, very hot, and we began -- well, the men

17 -- they were all men, were in varying states. They were skin very, very

18 dry, skin problems, they looked malnourished, vacant stares. It was a

19 distressing sight.

20 Q. Approximately how many men were in this medical facility, if you

21 recall?

22 A. Again, I -- I -- I don't like making these estimates. Perhaps 20,

23 25. Of that order, but it could have been less, it could have been more.

24 Q. Did you have any discussions with any of the persons who were in

25 this medical facility?

Page 1568

1 A. If we did, they were pretty cursory because the men were not

2 really in a -- in a fit condition to talk very much. But we did talk to

3 one or more of the three doctors who were tending to them, and they were,

4 as is always the system in these camps, they were themselves prisoners who

5 happened to be of the medical profession.

6 Q. Can you tell us where you went after the medical facility?

7 A. We went up past -- forgive me if I refer back to the previous

8 visit. Up past a shed on the right where the women had been to a part of

9 the camp, and I now realise that the HOS hadn't showed us -- well, they

10 showed us very little, never mind the women, because we started to go up

11 past an area that I -- we later came back to where some men were eating,

12 to turning right to two hangars, two sort of tunnels like aircraft hangars

13 or bomb shelter-type places dug into two hills opposite, with the

14 entrances opposite each other, two mounds. We headed up there.

15 Q. And as you went along this -- these buildings that you've

16 described for us, did you see any people?

17 A. Well, guards. I don't -- I mean, yes, there was -- well, there

18 was another building to the left where there were prisoners and a sliding

19 door half open or a third open, but we didn't go in there. We went -- we

20 went up to these tunnels.

21 Q. And what did you do when you arrived up by the tunnels?

22 A. Well, it was -- it was quite a shocking thing to find, because the

23 doors were open but the tunnels were -- well, I won't say packed, but

24 there were a lot of men in each one, and -- oh, sorry. Just a second.

25 I've actually left out the -- we did go into the -- to the shed on the

Page 1569

1 right where the women had been in 1992. Forgive me. We did that before

2 we went to the tunnels.

3 Q. Well, what did you see, sir? What did you see in the building

4 where the women had been in in 1992?

5 A. Right. In there were prisoners either sitting -- for the most

6 part sitting or crouching on the floor with not much space between them,

7 with their -- I mean, sufficiently little space between them so that they

8 -- if they had any belongings with them, they hung them in plastic bags

9 from rafters across the top of the shed.

10 Q. Did you speak with any of the people that were in this building?

11 A. Yes, we spoke to a number of those because I don't actually

12 remember where the commander was at this point, but the -- the translator

13 was doing some interviews. Mike spoke the language, Cathy spoke some

14 German, I think, which she used. I found a DJ, a disk jockey who spoke

15 some quite good English. We agreed -- we had whispered out on the tarmac

16 that we would share stuff if we split up and talked privately to people.

17 I found somebody who spoke good English from -- I think he was from

18 Stolac, and he told me that things had been much worse in July, he said.

19 The doors of this thing had been shut. They had been shut in for some 72

20 hours at one point if not repetitively. I was struck by him saying that

21 they had had to get their excretion out of -- throw their excretion out of

22 a window because of the stench and they'd had to drink their own urine to

23 hydrate themselves during those periods that the doors were kept tight

24 shut. I don't remember what he said about feeding during that times,

25 those 72-hour periods, but my inference was that they were not fed.

Page 1570

1 This wasn't recent to our visit, this was back in July.

2 Q. Can you now, sir, go forward to the point in time where you went

3 to the structures you described as the tunnels and tell us what you saw

4 there.

5 A. Yes. Forgive me, Your Honours, for leaving out that important

6 detail.

7 When we got to the tunnels, this was, you know, the most

8 distressing bit, because these men were -- were in these tunnels. The

9 doors were open but they were still quite dark at the back. And although

10 the doors were open, as I recall, the commander stayed outside as did the

11 guards, and -- although one or two guards might have come in. I went into

12 the first, into the one on my right, which I think makes it the

13 southernmost, I'm not sure of the directions, and started to talk actually

14 through the translator but unsupervised at first and then joined my

15 colleague who spoke Serbo-Croat who was talking to some other people and

16 translated and we began to talk to the prisoners in there.

17 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, what, if anything, can you recall about your

18 discussions that you had with the prisoners who were in the tunnel?

19 A. Well, I recall what they looked like first of all. They were in

20 -- in bad condition. They were pale. They had -- their eyes were

21 watery. There was no sign of beating, I have to say, although someone at

22 some point said someone had been killed with a plank of wood not so long

23 ago, but they showed signs of extreme, extreme neglect in terms of

24 nutrition, hydration, skin and such.

25 They talked again about July. They mentioned one particular

Page 1571

1 episode when the guards had got drunk outside and were singing songs and

2 opened fire through the doors and against this hangar, this tunnel, and

3 they told us that bullets had come through the doors and that people had

4 been killed.

5 To back up that narrative, there were pockmarks on the back wall,

6 and there were also piercings in the doors, in the metal doors with metal

7 gnarled inwards to indicate a shot. They told me that people had died

8 that night.

9 They also talked about conditions. Again, they said that back in

10 July, those -- even those doors had been shut for 72 hours, for 72-hour

11 periods, with so far as I can remember with, this time, no windows through

12 which excretia could be got rid of, and again they repeated that they

13 needed to drink their own urine in order to hydrate. It was an appalling

14 narrative.

15 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, did you ask anyone why they had been locked into

16 these rooms for 72 hours?

17 A. No, I didn't. I think one of my colleagues might have done. And

18 -- and -- but this is a conversation I would have had later, that it

19 might have coincided with military events outside, perhaps an advance by

20 the Bosnian army or something. But what we did ask was about what had

21 happened recently since Commander Sakota had arrived, and there was some

22 dispute between the inmates about this.

23 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, I know you've told us several times you dislike

24 numbers, but can you give us a rough approximation as to how many people

25 were in either these two tunnels or in one of those tunnels?

Page 1572

1 A. Three figures apiece, I'd say. Low hundreds. We did actually ask

2 Commander Sakota how many men were in the camp, and he gave us a figure

3 around 1.400. The UNHCR later informed us that the number had been very

4 much higher earlier in the summer.

5 Inside those tunnels, I'd say low hundreds in each. I --

6 Q. And in the shed, the first building that you entered, how many --

7 A. The one on the right, with the plastic bags hanging.

8 Q. Yes.

9 A. More. Again -- again must have been hundreds. And as I say we

10 passed another building on the left that we didn't go into that was less

11 full, actually. Say scores for that one. In the back of my mind there's

12 a figure of 1.400. I had no reason to disbelieve Commander Sakota, but I

13 would say low hundreds, but warily.

14 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, you told us that many of these people appeared to be

15 malnourished. Did you ask anyone about nourishment that they received?

16 A. I don't think we did ask people about nourishment, although back

17 in the medical facility, if that's the right word for it, which it

18 probably isn't, the doctor did say that along with treating broken ribs -

19 I think you can probably work out what that means - he did indicate that

20 some men had died from what he called natural causes, and made a gesture

21 like this and like that which suggested either -- I mean heat and lack of

22 food and/or water.

23 Q. In total, Mr. Vulliamy, how long did you remain in Dretelj on this

24 occasion?

25 A. Probably about two hours if not a little more, because we were

Page 1573

1 talking periodically with the commander as we made the tour. And some of

2 these conversations went on quite a long time. I mean, there was an

3 incident when one man actually got up, gave his name and origin and wanted

4 to say that since Commander Sakota arrived, things had got much better.

5 And there was a lot of hissing and booing going on.

6 We also wanted to find out about the ICRC, the Red Cross visit,

7 and there was quite a long conversation about that, both with the

8 commander and with the prisoners.

9 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, during the two hours if not a little more that you

10 were in the camp, what did you observe the detainees doing?

11 A. Well, I mean nothing, and that's the point really. I think one of

12 the things that struck me was that although these doors of the hangars

13 were now open and it was a hot, sunny day, a lot of the prisoners, inmates

14 in the tunnels, just wanted to remain in the tunnels if not sit up against

15 the back wall. They -- they were doing nothing. I presumed, actually,

16 whether the doors were opened regularly or for our benefit I don't -- I

17 don't know, but I presume that there was a daily opening of these doors,

18 but what interested me was that none of them seemed to want to go outside

19 despite the opportunity for -- for some fresh air.

20 I didn't take heart from that. You know, I thought it showed

21 signs of either fear of going out or -- or something. And indeed one

22 prisoner did say, "We're not really allowed out anyway. It's too

23 frightening to go outside."

24 Q. Did you observe any prisoners outside?

25 A. Yes, oh, yes, yes. A few went out to hang about outside the

Page 1574

1 tunnels. And by the time we came back down the very gentle slope from the

2 tunnels, there was a mealtime going on at the top of a sort of track,

3 where some grass is on a corner.

4 Q. Can you describe for us what this mealtime looked like to you.

5 A. Yes, and I'd seen similar in other places. It was a sort of drill

6 of refreshment and humiliation at the same time. You line up in organised

7 groups and, marshalled by men with guns, you jog, in this case, from the

8 shed where the women were before, as I said where the plastic bags were,

9 over for your meal. In this case it was eaten in complete silence as

10 regards us because -- I don't know. They were eating and I didn't want to

11 interrupt them, but there were guards around, anyway, with guns, and they

12 -- and I have reason from previous experience to be wary of -- of this --

13 of the consequences of talking to people in these circumstances, and --

14 but they were sort of -- I don't know whether they were made or wanted to

15 but they were sort of crouching and eating a meal -- a meal of watery stew

16 which had been cooked outside, in fact, and then they would finish and

17 return to their quarters and be replaced by another shift.

18 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, do you remember any of the topics that you discussed

19 with these detainees?

20 A. Well, we asked who they were, and some of them were civilians. A

21 lot of them had been members of the HVO. They'd been fighting. They had

22 been fighting with the -- with the people who -- for the organisation

23 which was incarcerating them.

24 Q. What ethnicity were these people?

25 A. Muslim.

Page 1575

1 Q. Did you ask them what geographic areas they were from?

2 A. Yes. They came from Stolac, Capljina - which answered the

3 question from July, Where have the men gone? - the villages around the

4 area, and a few were from Mostar. One young boy was from Sarajevo, in

5 fact.

6 Q. Did you ask any of the detainees how long they'd been there?

7 A. I didn't, but they all -- or at least I don't recall having done

8 so. Some looked as if they'd come more recently than others, for sure.

9 They were in better condition than others. Yet others were talking about

10 sufferings that they -- that they recalled from July, early to mid-July.

11 So they'd been there -- to look at them I think different lengths of time

12 but some had been there from the early weeks of July.

13 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, you referred on page 101, line 16, to a young boy

14 from Sarajevo. Do you have idea approximately how old this person was?

15 A. When I say "young boy," I don't mean a child. He was a teenager,

16 maybe 14, 15.

17 Q. Did you ask any of the detainees if they had had any visitors?

18 A. Well, we talked about the visit of the International Committee of

19 the Red Cross, and we talked about that with Commander Sakota as well.

20 Q. What was the discussion? What was the subject of the discussion

21 concerning the visit of the International Committee of the Red Cross?

22 A. Well, they were very different. Commander Sakota told us they'd

23 been - I think they'd been the previous day, or the day that we'd first

24 asked to go into the camp, and -- and Commander Sakota, who -- who implied

25 that he did -- in his body language, his language, in fact, he did not

Page 1576

1 actually enjoy this job he had, to be honest, told us that he'd got a

2 phone call from again the Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic sometime

3 previous to the ICRC visit, asking him to ameliorate the conditions in the

4 camp, and he told us that, and -- and he did say something which I wish I

5 could remember, but it was, you know, something to the effect that he

6 would actually quite like all these people just to be able to go home.

7 The discourse with the prisoners about the visit of the ICRC was

8 very different. I have no way of corroborating this, but some of them,

9 two of them in particular back in the tunnels, said that 120 men in -- in

10 the worst condition in the camp had been removed before the ICRC arrived.

11 I don't know whether that's true or not.

12 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, did you meet with an investigator or an analyst of

13 this Tribunal in 1997?

14 A. 1997. Yes.

15 Q. And did you give a statement at that point in time?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Did you attach anything to your statement?

18 A. If this is the statement that I gave during the trial of Colonel,

19 later General, Blaskic, yes, I did.

20 Q. What did you attach --

21 A. Two -- sorry.

22 Q. What did you --

23 A. Two drawings of the -- a very rough recollection of the layout of

24 Dretelj.

25 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, I'd ask the witness be shown these two

Page 1577

1 sketches prior to recessing for the evening. The first one has been

2 marked as P8761.

3 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, do you see a document or a sketch in front of you?

4 A. Yep.

5 Q. Can you tell us what that is?

6 A. It's -- it's -- yes, it's my attempt to recreate the layout of the

7 places I went to in Dretelj.

8 Q. And again, do you recall the approximate date that you made this

9 sketch?

10 A. It would be, I suppose, 1997 -- springtime, 1997.

11 MR. MUNDIS: I would ask that the witness now be shown 8762,

12 P8762.

13 Q. Do you recognise this document, Mr. Vulliamy?

14 A. Yes, I do. This is my attempt, I presume on the same day, to give

15 a sort of elevation of how the two tunnels, as we've called them, were dug

16 into the mounds, into the hills.

17 Q. And towards the bottom on the right-hand side, can you describe

18 for us what you were attempting to draw.

19 A. Yes, that's an attempt to again give a sort of dissection of how

20 the -- the -- the bullet holes, as it says, in the doors, gnarled inwards

21 to support the narrative that there'd been that shooting that night when

22 the men were locked into the camp after the -- after the booze-up.

23 Q. Thank you, Mr. Vulliamy.

24 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, I note the time. The next thing we'll

25 be doing is showing the witness some photographs and clearly, given the

Page 1578

1 late hour, it would perhaps be best to recess now and resume in the

2 morning.

3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] How much time do you need

4 tomorrow?

5 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, I believe that at this point we're

6 just under three hours in terms of the direct examination. We had

7 indicated a revised estimate of about four hours for the direct

8 examination. I anticipate about one hour remaining, perhaps a little bit

9 more than that, but I certainly would expect that by the first break

10 tomorrow we would be complete with the direct examination.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. I will ask our legal

12 officer to count the exact amount of time. It seems to me that it's been

13 more than three hours, however, we'll verify this. We shall resume

14 tomorrow. It's almost 7.00 p.m. Thank you, everyone, we continue

15 tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.

16 MR. MURPHY: Excuse me, Your Honours. Under the Court's decision

17 of earlier today, Mr. Stojic's Defence team will be the first to

18 cross-examine this witness. In listening to the witness's testimony

19 today, it has become clear that he must have transmitted to the Guardian

20 newspaper material which resulted in a considerable number of published

21 articles during the period between August 19 -- or earlier in 1992 and

22 September, 1993. I am, as Your Honour knows, fairly new in this case, but

23 I checked with colleagues, and I believe that these articles have not been

24 the subject of any disclosure from the Prosecution.

25 Your Honour, it seems to me that -- and Mr. Karnavas also mentions

Page 1579

1 that there may be handwritten notes of some -- some relevance.

2 Your Honour, I can't imagine that it would be difficult to obtain

3 these materials if a phone call were to be placed to London to the

4 Guardian newspaper, and it seems to me that this is material that should

5 be provided to the Defence, and I would ask the Prosecution to make an

6 effort to obtain these documents.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Mundis. Have you

8 disclosed to the Defence all the articles written by the witness, all the

9 articles that you have, or is it, as the Defence has said, that you have

10 only disclosed some of the witness's articles written as a journalist in

11 the field? What can you tell us about this?

12 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President and Your Honours. We have

13 disclosed those articles which are in our possession. The remainder of

14 the articles are, as would be the case with all the articles, are

15 open-source material. We do not go out and search for material for the

16 purpose of disclosing it to the Defence. Those articles during the course

17 of our work we have come across or downloaded or printed out, my

18 understanding is those have been disclosed, but again, everything else

19 which is in the public domain we do not actively search for for the

20 purpose of downloading or researching the material in order to provide it

21 to the Defence.

22 With respect to the notebooks, that's a subject which the witness

23 could be asked about, and we will certainly be doing that tomorrow morning

24 prior to his testimony, but if Your Honours would like, we could very

25 briefly explore that issue with the witness right now so that this issue

Page 1580

1 can be explained to everyone. I believe the witness has testified about

2 this in prior cases and I would believe that the Defence probably know the

3 story about the notebooks, but we can certainly ask the witness about that

4 at this point, if that would be helpful.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Put some very brief

6 questions to the witness with regard to the notebooks.

7 MR. MUNDIS:

8 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, you've heard the discussion that's happened here

9 today. I know you've testified about this in other cases. Would you

10 please tell the Trial Chamber whether you maintained notebooks; and if so,

11 what has happened to those notebooks?

12 A. Yes. Of course I maintained notebooks, and they've been very

13 thoroughly scrutinised and severally photocopied over the years. I don't

14 have them. They were last in -- and I may be -- they may not be now, they

15 were last in possession of the Tribunal.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Mundis, the witness has just

17 told us that he would not rule out the possibility that these notebooks

18 might be in the hands of the Prosecution.

19 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, we have undertaken a complete search

20 for these notebooks within the Office of the Prosecution. We have not

21 been able to locate these notebooks. I believe some of the notebooks were

22 delivered to the Registry for photocopying and became in fact exhibits in

23 another case. I'm not sure to what extent those are the notebooks that

24 have apparently gone missing. The -- again, I don't want to testify here,

25 but the attorney that Mr. Vulliamy has dealt with in the past concerning