1 Monday, 3 July 2006

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The accused Coric not present in court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 2.16 p.m.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Registrar, please call the case,

7 please.

8 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Yes. Thank you, Your Honour. I'd

9 like to say hello to you all. It's case number IT-04-74-T, the Prosecutor

10 versus Prlic et al.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] On this Monday, 3rd of July,

12 2006, I would like to greet all the people present in the courtroom: The

13 representatives of the Prosecution, Mr. Scott; and all the Defence counsel

14 present in the courtroom; the accused. I think one of them is absent

15 today and has a reason for being so. I should also like to greet all and

16 everyone here present.

17 One of the Judges is absent today pursuant to Rule 15 bis of the

18 Rules of Procedure and Evidence.

19 So we shall hear a witness today, but before bringing the witness

20 in, I would like to render an oral decision in private session. Prior to

21 that, I would like to state that last Friday the Trial Chamber rendered a

22 decision pertaining to the oral motion filed by Prlic, who wished to be

23 able to use a portable or laptop, or that the laptop be placed next to his

24 Defence counsel. On a majority basis, the Trial Chamber did not grant the

25 request. As far as I'm concerned, I filed a dissident opinion because I

1 was in favour of the request that had been made. So may I invite you to

2 read the decision as well as the dissenting opinion which has been handed

3 over to you since Friday.

4 In addition, I must render an oral decision in private session.

5 Registrar.

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25 [Open session]

1 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] We are currently back in open

2 session, Your Honour.

3 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I wish to inform the

4 Chamber first of all that the Office of the Prosecutor is again acting in

5 a way that makes it impossible for the Defence to properly prepare for its

6 cross-examination of the witness. I say "again," because we discussed

7 this prior to the arrival of the Spanish witness, BJ, and on that occasion

8 Your Honours issued a ruling that cross-examination be separated from the

9 examination-in-chief. My motion is that the Chamber should issue

10 appropriate instructions to the Office of the Prosecutor to ensure a fair

11 trial.

12 The issue is the following: The Prosecutor has given the Defence

13 erroneous information, and I believe the same information was given to the

14 Chamber with respect to the extent and scope of the testimony to be

15 expected. The initial information was disclosed through a summary. I

16 will not repeat the name of today's witness because I don't know whether

17 the witness is protected or not. This was in the viva voce chart, and the

18 Prosecutor explicitly stated that the testimony referred only to the

19 accused Slobodan Praljak. Two and a half weeks ago, however, the proofing

20 chart was disclosed to the Defence, and this again does not contain all

21 the elements Your Honours required in their ruling of the 30th of

22 November, because in this proofing chart the paragraphs of the indictment

23 are quoted, and they refer to the existence of a joint criminal

24 enterprise, to the issue of international armed conflict, and the

25 qualifications in the indictment referring to all the accused. For

1 example, in the proofing chart a reference is made to paragraphs 15, 16,

2 17, and 232 of the indictment, and then also to paragraphs referring

3 explicitly with the name mentioned to the accused Prlic, Stojic, and

4 Petkovic. I underline here that these are paragraphs 17.1, 17.2, and 17.3

5 of the indictment.

6 Therefore, the viva voce chart gives one piece of information, and

7 the proofing list provides a quite different piece of information, and

8 these are contrary to each other. This puts the Defence in a position

9 where it is hard for it to evaluate the main thrust of the witness

10 testimony. This runs contrary to the Trial Chamber's decision of the 30th

11 of November and clouds the issue not only for the Defence but also for the

12 Chamber, which will find it more difficult to carry out its analysis of

13 the evidence.

14 Another argument we wish to put forward is that the Prosecutor is

15 again disclosing the material too late. For example, on the 30th of June,

16 on Friday, 12 new, untranslated documents were added, one of which is 400

17 pages long. Furthermore, the Prosecutor informed the Defence that no oral

18 statement had been taken from that witness. This information was

19 contained in a letter dated the 28th of June and handed to the Defence at

20 the end of the sitting on that day. However, a synopsis was disclosed of

21 the expected testimony. It is unclear how the synopsis or summary

22 presented in the viva voce list in January this year could have been

23 compiled if the witness was not interviewed. The summary is either

24 therefore fabricated, which we don't believe to be the case, or it is

25 based on some other material which should have been disclosed to the

1 Defence. In any case, the Prosecutor explicitly states that there is no

2 written statement taken from the witness. There may be notes taken by the

3 Office of the Prosecutor during an interview with the witness; however, if

4 these exist, we believe that this material should be disclosed according

5 to the Rules of Evidence.

6 In any case, the Defence has not been sufficiently notified of the

7 topic of that witness's testimony, and we believe we have to draw the

8 Chamber's attention to this because it hinders us in our preparations for

9 the examination of this witness who is to testify very extensively.

10 Therefore, in my view, this is detrimental to the provisions of paragraphs

11 20.1 and 21.4 of the Statute ensuring the right to a fair trial, and we

12 move that the Office of the Prosecutor should be made to present its

13 materials in a transparent manner, specifying to which of the accused each

14 testimony refers. We believe that the material tendered along with these

15 witnesses should all be translated and disclosed in a timely manner, and

16 in view of the recess which has been planned, I move that the Chamber

17 order the Prosecutor to present to the Defence a list of the witnesses to

18 be called after the summer break, including a precise proofing chart for

19 each witness. I move that this be done before the summer recess so that

20 the Defence can properly prepare for the resumption of the trial.

21 The Defence has been unable to prepare for the cross-examination

22 of the current witness, so we move that once again, the cross-examination

23 be separated from the examination-in-chief, or the witness be postponed.

24 My colleagues are reminding me to add another point. We ask that

25 the Office of the Prosecutor disclose the notes, if any, about its

1 interview with the witness and to tell us explicitly on how many occasions

2 they contacted and interviewed the witness.

3 Thank you, Your Honours. If you have any questions as to details,

4 I'll be happy to answer. I can only add that I sent two letters over the

5 weekend to the Office of the Prosecutor concerning this issue, and we have

6 received something else from the office of the Prosecutor. I haven't had

7 a chance to look at it yet, but it is several excerpts from some newspaper

8 articles. Once again, it's not a complete text but only excerpts and in

9 an abbreviated form this seems to exist in the Croatian language, but I

10 don't see it in English anywhere. So this is again some kind of

11 incomplete material presented at the last minute, although I do have to

12 concede it's not extensive, but it may be important. We now have to

13 conduct a search through our own materials to see whether we have anything

14 that is connected to it.

15 Thank you, Your Honours.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Kovacic, just a short

17 question I'd like to put to you before summing up what you've just said

18 and before giving the floor to Mr. Scott. I read with a great deal of

19 interest these two letters which you sent to Mr. Scott, and I realise that

20 you mentioned having received the information on Friday and that you could

21 not see your client before Monday morning.

22 I want to make sure that on the Sunday -- on the Saturday and the

23 Sunday you cannot go see your client who is in the Detention Unit? Is

24 that what is being applied here?

25 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] As far as I understand it, we can

1 contact our clients on Saturdays and Sundays only with explicit approval

2 from the Trial Chamber. However, even if this is not correct, if on

3 Friday afternoon after 5.00 p.m. we receive materials, there is in the

4 Detention Unit no longer the person who arranges for these contacts, so we

5 have to wait until Saturday morning, and of course we have to look at the

6 materials before we contact our clients, and then if and when we do see

7 the client, he needs a reasonable amount of time to look through the pile

8 of materials we bring. So for all practical purposes, if something is

9 received on Friday in the late afternoon, it's useless for Monday morning.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] All right. It's important to

11 mention this, because it's very much in line with the decision that the

12 Trial Chamber took. In other words, it's important that you be able to

13 meet your client during the week, because you are in the courtroom every

14 day of the week. This is why I had felt that it was important for you to

15 be able to go and see your clients on the Friday, and this is why there is

16 no hearing on Fridays. Then, of course, if you receive the documents at

17 5.30 p.m., you have a difficult dilemma, and you can only see your client

18 on Mondays. But as the hearing resumes on Monday afternoon, you can see

19 your client on the Monday morning.

20 Mr. Ibrisimovic, you are on your feet. I shall give you the

21 floor.

22 MR. IBRISIMOVIC: [Interpretation] Very briefly, in connection with

23 what Mr. Kovacic has said. On Friday afternoon we received the list of 12

24 new documents which are not on the list presented in January of this year.

25 The adding of documents without proper reason and an appropriate request

1 is again happening, and then we have to conduct a search. At the start of

2 these proceedings we had 9.490 documents. Now we have 9.673.

3 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, if I may add something

4 to what I said about this event of Friday. My co-counsel and I saw our

5 client on Friday morning and agreed on some questions to be put during

6 this testimony and things to be put to the witness, and then in that

7 afternoon we received these 12 documents, one of which is a 400-page book.

8 Therefore, our visit of Friday morning was useless. The facts have

9 changed.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well.

11 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] My colleague has also prompted me to

12 say that new documents have also arrived for a witness planned for next

13 week. They are not translated and they are incomplete, but we have not

14 yet discussed this with the Office of the Prosecutor. However, there is a

15 possibility we will have a problem with the next witness as well.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Ms. Alaburic, you have the

17 floor.

18 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I wish to join my own

19 request to those put forward by my colleagues and present a few additional

20 arguments in connection with the exhibits or evidence we received on

21 Friday, but may we go into private session before I do so?

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Let's move into private session

23 for a few minutes, please.

24 [Private session]

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7 [Open session]

8 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] We're currently back in open

9 session, Your Honour.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Praljak.

11 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I believe I

12 can speak on behalf of all the accused. I arrived here in the hope that

13 the trial would be fair, which also means expeditious. At a Pre-Trial

14 Conference, Your Honour gave me the possibility of expressing my doubts as

15 to the way of proceeding of the Prosecutor who is using a thousand

16 fragments of a broken mirror to distort a picture and to distort the

17 responsibility of individuals.

18 I want to know when, where, and under what circumstances and in

19 what manner, through an omission or through an action, whether by word or

20 deed or thought, I did something wrong, because then I will be able to

21 receive Your Honour's verdict with a tranquil mind. However, we are

22 constantly brought into a position where the Prosecutor, whose case had to

23 be complete on the day it was submitted in detail, keeps coming up with

24 new things. And because this Tribunal also has its political dimension,

25 for several years before I was indicted people were mentioning my name as

1 a possible indictee. Years have gone by, and we are in detention contrary

2 to human rights. Before this Tribunal the trial might last at least three

3 or four years, and to this day we still don't have a clear list as to

4 when, where, how, in what way.

5 We are presented with witnesses who deal with all kinds of

6 analyses; political, historical, sociological, psychological, and I have

7 no idea where all this is heading.

8 Thank you, Your Honours, for hearing me out.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Praljak. I shall

10 pick up on what you've just said before giving the floor to Mr. Scott.

11 Admittedly, when documents are introduced at the last minute this

12 does affect the accused, and he starts wondering about it because he

13 doesn't know what he is being charged with. Any new information does

14 render the accused somewhat perplexed. And the Defence counsel have told

15 us that there are 12 new documents that the Prosecution has since the

16 month of January.

17 Why is it that it has taken six months to disclose these

18 documents? This is the first question.

19 The second question: According to what I have understood, the

20 witness in question has provided no written statement. There is no

21 written statement. The Defence counsel and the Bench would like to know

22 whether informal discussions have taken place with a view to bringing the

23 witness here.

24 Third question: On the face of document 9.673, a book, what looks

25 like a book, 1989, 1975 -- 1989, 1999. This book is written in B/C/S.

1 Unfortunately, I don't speak the language. This book is a 347-page long

2 book which is being provided at the last minute and which has not been

3 translated. So I have a string of questions.

4 The Prosecution has realised that since the proofing session and

5 the list and those items pertaining to Article 15 -- paragraph 15, 232, on

6 joint criminal enterprise and common purpose.

7 Mr. Scott, could you tell us what all this is about? This working

8 method, it surprises me all the more because I had been particularly

9 attentive, and I did spend many hours during the pre-trial phase to

10 address these questions. I had asked you quite clearly to tell us how you

11 intended to run this -- your case. Were you going to move from the facts

12 to individual responsibility of each accused pursuant to Article 7(1) and

13 7(3), and I also asked you when you intended to talk about criminal --

14 common criminal enterprise, or were you to start off by addressing joint

15 criminal enterprise before talking about individual responsibility? To be

16 quite honest with you, I don't know how you intend to proceed. We have

17 witnesses who are being called to testify. From what I understand, the

18 upcoming witness is going to address the issue of the criminal enterprise,

19 so it would be useful for us to have a common thread so that the Bench

20 know where you're going. And as part of a fair trial, it is important

21 that the Defence counsel be able to prepare their cross-examination when a

22 witness is called to testify. But it's going in all directions and we

23 have problems. When I say it's going in all directions, it's that when

24 you come to realise at the last minute that there are new exhibits or new

25 documents which have not been translated, what's to be done?

1 Mr. Scott, could you tell us, please, why it is that we still have

2 to contend with these problems at this stage.

3 MR. SCOTT: Good afternoon, Your Honours, Mr. President. One of

4 the recurring problems in these is that when the Defence raise these

5 matters, the Court is continually given an exaggerated position and also

6 incomplete information.

7 Number one, as to the summaries that have been provided, the

8 Prosecution, since January, has provided summaries for its witnesses and

9 has updated and supplemented those summaries as needed on a regular basis.

10 As at least -- at least as long ago as the 27th of March, 2006, we made

11 further disclosures concerning today's witness and provided an additional

12 summary that goes on for three pages. At that time, we indicated -- I

13 won't mention the name at the moment, but we mentioned -- this was as of

14 the 27th of March, 2006, we anticipate that this witness may be an early

15 witness in the Prosecution case in late April or the first part of May.

16 So the Defence have absolutely no basis whatsoever to claim any surprise

17 about this witness being called or to prepare. They've known about the

18 witness specifically and the additional supplementation since the 27th of

19 March, and they were told that in fact this witness might very well have

20 been called some weeks and weeks ago. So if anything, they've had more

21 time to prepare, not less. But that information apparently -- in all the

22 complaints that you've just heard from the other side, that information

23 wasn't provided to the Chamber.

24 Secondly, in terms of the documents, Your Honour, I do regret that

25 there was a small number of documents that had not previously gone out.

1 This is them. There's 29 pages. This is what we're talking about. On

2 some of these pages there is one paragraph. Some of these pages there's

3 one paragraph. This is it. They've had that since Friday. I regret that

4 it didn't go out sooner. It's a very small amount of material, extremely

5 small amount of material.

6 In terms of the book --

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The document that's 29 pages

8 long, what number is that document?

9 MR. SCOTT: I'm talking about all of them together are 29 pages.

10 Every document that's in this bundle totals 29 pages, apart from the book.

11 So what we're talking about, these complaints that have now taken the last

12 45 minutes are about 29 pages of material, some pages of which only have

13 one short paragraph on them. That's the nature of the complaint. That's

14 the material.

15 As to the book --

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] But when I asked you the number,

17 that's so I could take a look at those 29 pages myself.

18 MR. SCOTT: I'm happy to do so, Your Honour. 9639, 9640, 9641,

19 9642 --

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, but we can't find them.

21 MR. SCOTT: -- 9643, 9644, 9645, 9646, 9647, 9648, 9649.

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, fine, but if I asked you

23 the question it's because I couldn't find those documents to look through

24 them. I don't have them in hard copy form.

25 MR. SCOTT: Then I don't know why you wouldn't have them, Your

1 Honour.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I have almost half a square

3 metre -- cube metre of documents before me but I don't seem to have those

4 particular pages. Perhaps you could lend me your copy.

5 MR. SCOTT: My copy is marked, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I see.

7 MR. SCOTT: But I don't know, Your Honour. I was told -- my

8 understand was that they had gone out.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The Defence is going to lend me

10 a copy, I see. And of course I'll give the copy back to them.

11 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I -- Your Honour, I'm told that they were

12 in your bundle -- they should be in the Court's bundle that starts with

13 8012, and some of the documents, partly because of the issues that were

14 raised, some of the documents were withdrawn, so I think now the only

15 documents that are in the bundle are 9645 and 9649. But you should have

16 those, Your Honour, in the bundle that begins, on the top, Exhibit 8012.

17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Thank you. I'm

18 going to give these back to Mr. Karnavas.

19 MR. SCOTT: As to the book, Your Honour, in the -- in the

20 communication -- in the communication that we delivered on Friday, we

21 specifically indicated the pages of the book that would be referenced and

22 I think again, altogether, I think those books -- I think those pages

23 total something like 20 pages of the book. So we didn't simply hand over

24 a 400-page book and say here it is. We specifically gave the page numbers

25 that would be referenced in connection with the witness, and I have a

1 receipt on that indicating -- so indicating. So that's the situation with

2 the book.

3 All of this material, by the way, all these -- all these ones --

4 the things that have been discussed since Friday and complained about

5 since Friday are all open-source materials, as -- as all these prior

6 interviews that have been discussed this afternoon. Now, counsel has

7 indicated that there's all sorts of prior inconsistent interviews by this

8 witness that go back to 1994. Your Honour, as far as I know, the Defence

9 counsel have the same access to internet and other resources that the

10 Prosecution does. Again, this witness has been disclosed specifically

11 since the 27th of March, indicating that he might in fact be called by

12 first part of late April or early May. There has been -- it is now July.

13 I think ample time could be made to go and research prior open-source

14 interviews given by this witness. This witness is not a surprise by any

15 stretch of the imagination and there's been an abundant amount of time to

16 prepare for this witness.

17 As to the witness statement, Your Honour, there is no -- as we

18 said in our letter - I will say again - there is no witness statement for

19 this witness. As we said in our letter, indeed, the witness was met,

20 various of the transcripts, the presidential transcripts were reviewed

21 with him, but no statement was taken from this witness. To assist the

22 Defence in their preparations, at my direction a summary was prepared by

23 which to provide additional information to the Defence as to the nature of

24 this witness's testimony.

25 Beyond that, Your Honour, in terms of the more general points the

1 Court has made, I regret that the Court feels that the case does not have

2 as much structure perhaps as the Court would like. I can only give the

3 Chamber -- and we persist in our approach that we have said since last

4 November, and that is that the case would proceed after an overview

5 primarily on a chronological basis. What we have endeavoured to do, and

6 in my submission I will dare say I think we've done it quite well, is that

7 in the beginning of the case to provide the Chamber with an overview of a

8 wide spectrum of witnesses, including high-level political witnesses, some

9 victim witnesses, some experts, some witnesses from various

10 municipalities, some of which we did in anticipation of the site visit so

11 that the Chamber would have, when you went out to these various locations,

12 you might have heard at least from one witness as to a number of these

13 locations. That was absolutely done methodically. It was not by -- it

14 was not at random, it was done with a purpose, and again I submit that by

15 the time we close the case before the summer recess, adjourn for the

16 summer recess, the Chamber will indeed have been provided an excellent

17 overview of the case in various aspects at various levels, but from the

18 high political level, the overview such as today's witness down to a

19 number of victim witnesses who have given the Court a taste, a sampling of

20 the kind evidence these witnesses give.

21 Once we complete the overview of the witnesses, we will then

22 proceed, as I've indicated since last November, primarily in a

23 chronological order through the events in the indictment. Now, sprinkled

24 through there there will be other experts, there will be other political

25 witnesses, but that will be the basic nature of the presentation, will be

1 generally a chronological approach with some adjustments and some

2 additions of additional types of witnesses, as I just mentioned.

3 In our view, Your Honour, we're presenting the case in a way that

4 makes sense and to assist the Chamber. Thank you.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. Before I give the

6 floor to Mr. Karnavas, I'm going to summarise what you've already said.

7 You have brought us an important element within the overall information,

8 and you said that the witnesses presented so far had an essential purpose

9 and that was to give the Trial Chamber an overview of a chronological

10 basis for what happened. So I think that that's how we're going to have

11 to understand the witnesses that have come into the courtroom to testify

12 until next week, and after the recess we're going to start off by going

13 in-depth with the other problems.

14 Then you also told me that with respect to the 12 new documents,

15 which in fact were only 29 pages in all, that there were a few documents

16 that were very short, and I was able to note that myself, and other

17 documents that one could get through very quickly. So I take note of

18 that, and I see that you're right on that score.

19 And you have not answered the question, that is to say how, as of

20 August, you are going to schedule the witnesses and whether the Defence

21 will have the names of those witnesses well on time, and the documents, of

22 course, so that they can know and we can know how we stand and where we're

23 going.

24 Having said that, Mr. Karnavas was on his feet. Go ahead, please.

25 MR. KARNAVAS: Thank you, Mr. President, Your Honours again. I

1 can understand the Prosecutor having some problems. It's early on in the

2 case. But I think - let's be honest - if this witness was going to be

3 called earlier, why is it that this late in the day we're getting this new

4 material? The Prosecution says that it's only 28 pages. The original

5 version, the B/C/S version, was not provided. With all due respect to

6 translators, sometimes nuances are important, linguistic nuances, so we do

7 need the original versions, plus it's the accused, most of whom don't read

8 English, would obviously need to look at the B/C/S version so they could

9 know exactly what is going on, because, after all, they are entitled to

10 assist in their own defence.

11 It should be noted that normally we get notice of this just as the

12 Court has adjourned for the weekend, everybody has walked out, and it's

13 then that we get a document so it's too late to react. It would be nice,

14 if they're going to do that, to do that before we adjourn so at least, if

15 we have any problems, we can voice them early on.

16 With respect to the book, the book has 20 pages they're going to

17 make reference to. The book is in B/C/S, or Croatian. Those pages have

18 not been translated, so the question is how is it that the Prosecution --

19 as I understand it, Mr. Scott does not speak B/C/S -- how is it that those

20 20 pages were -- were identified, and how does he intend to use those 20

21 pages when in fact there is no translation?

22 Also, as the Court may well know, if you take 20 pages out of

23 context out of 500 pages or so of a book and they're out of context, it

24 might be necessary for the Defence to have the rest of the book to look it

25 over, to read it, and what have you.

1 The Prosecution claims that this is an open-source material. I

2 should remind the Prosecutor that this is not just merely an Anglo-Saxon

3 process or just a two adversarial process, because the Trial Chamber, the

4 Judges, are entitled and in fact do like to come to court prepared. They

5 do read material in advance, and so surely we cannot expect the Trial

6 Chamber to be surfing through the internet in order to look for

7 open-source material. That open-source material should be made

8 available. If the Prosecution knows, if they know they're going to use

9 open-source material, why can they not tell us that months in advance?

10 Unless the Prosecution is telling us that as of the last day or so they

11 decided -- they made that decision, or came across that information, hence

12 the reason why such late notice.

13 Lastly, I just wish to point out this issue with the witness and

14 no statement. Here I have three binders. This was my reading material

15 for the weekend in addition to all the other stuff I had to do to prepare

16 for this particular witness. These are presidential transcripts, Your

17 Honour.

18 Now, I find it hard to believe that one would sit there with a

19 witness and go through all these presidential transcripts and not generate

20 something substantial other than a summary. If they're going through the

21 presidential transcripts and the gentleman was indeed present during many,

22 if not -- not all, but most of these -- these particular meetings, I

23 assume that the gentleman was making statements or was clarifying points,

24 giving his points of view. I think that's all discoverable. It's not

25 sufficient -- it is not sufficient to have a mere summary. I think that

1 there's nothing -- nothing prevents the Prosecution, first of all, from

2 tape recording it, or from having somebody to take actual live notes. But

3 I do think that we do -- we are owed some more explanations. How many

4 times did they meet with him? What was the length of time?

5 Now, I know that I'm -- I'm in an international court and I'm

6 supposed to take everybody at their bona fides, but guess what - when my

7 client is looking at a life sentence, I'm entitled to doubt, and I doubt.

8 I'd like to know how many hours did they meet with this particular witness

9 and whether they have a tape recording, why did they choose not to record

10 everything verbatim as they went transcript-by-transcript. But I think we

11 need to know a little bit more about this. I think it's only fair.

12 Thank you.

13 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour.

14 [Trial Chamber confers]

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Counsel Kovacic, go ahead.

16 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I really don't wish to

17 take up any more time, but I just have to bring up a few small points for

18 the record and to avoid any misunderstanding.

19 My colleague of the Prosecution said that, among other things, one

20 of my objections were the fact that we hadn't received the proofing chart

21 on time. That's not true. I said that we had indeed received the

22 proofing chart on time, so I confirm that for the record. So proofing --

23 the proofing chart wasn't the problem. The problem was a different one.

24 The problem was that before that, during the pre-trial brief, we received

25 a summary and a viva voce overview of the witnesses where it was stated

1 that that witness will testify about those facts. That testimony in this

2 particular case is against your client. That is to say in this case

3 Mr. Praljak. And then two or three paragraphs were mentioned with respect

4 to the testimony. Then we received the proofing chart, as my colleague

5 said, somewhere towards the end of March, that said something quite

6 different. Because in listing the paragraphs, the proofing chart said

7 this goes to such-and-such counts in the indictment against your client.

8 Those paragraphs in the indictment.

9 So this has brought us into a position where we don't know what

10 we're being offered because we are -- have received two contradictory

11 pieces of information from the OTP. So that is why I objected.

12 Now, about the open-source material that we just heard about. We

13 can agree, and I can say that I agree with what Mr. Karnavas has said. In

14 my letter to the Prosecutor, I say very specifically that I agree that he

15 is not duty-bound to disclose these open-source materials, but in this

16 case he quite obviously is going to and is just giving us small excerpts

17 of -- snippets of translation from the document. He is obviously planning

18 to examine the witness on those portions from the book. So it's no longer

19 relevant whether we're talking about open-source material but we have to

20 be given the material on time so that we can read through it and so that

21 we can, A, follow the examination-in-chief; and B, prepare a proper

22 cross-examination. Of course, I don't have to tell you that in order to

23 be able to do that I have to read through all 400 pages and not just those

24 few excerpts that I have been provided with. So that is the correction

25 that I wish to make.

1 And if, as the Prosecutor said a moment ago, if he mentioned that

2 a witness would be coming, then he hasn't come, why didn't he provide us

3 with all those documents earlier on but had to wait until this particular

4 Friday -- or last Friday? That is why I'm objecting. This is repetitive.

5 It is tactics. It is not the circumstances that the Prosecution finds

6 himself in. I know that full well, that when the witness came again for

7 proofing before the testimony it is normal that in going through his

8 previous statement that another subject crops up and they have to find

9 another document or they find a previous statement made by the witness and

10 then disclose it to us. But it's very strange, Your Honour, that this

11 always happens on a Friday and always after 5.00 or 6.00 p.m.

12 So I don't agree with my colleague Mr. Karnavas when he showed us

13 three binders. There's a misunderstanding. We have seven or eight, my

14 colleague and I. Perhaps they copied it in double page copies. I see,

15 just one language, I've been told, just English. Whereas we have the

16 B/C/S, the Croatian and English in seven or eight binders, and then on

17 Friday we are given a ninth binder. Your Honours, that is physically

18 impossible to tend with.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. The Chamber is going

20 to give an oral ruling with respect to the problem that has just been

21 raised and which is linked to a previous problem, and I'm going to read

22 the ruling. When 19th of June, 2006, (redacted)

23 (redacted)Mr. Kovacic asked the Chamber to provide with

24 -- to disclose -- that the Prosecution should disclose to the Defence all

25 documents which were presented during the testimony of the witness in one

1 of the official languages of the Trial Chamber and in the language of the

2 accused at least three weeks before the witness arrives; and secondly,

3 that the examination-in-chief of the witness be restricted to subjects

4 which are mentioned in the 65 ter Rule and disclosure there. And Mr.

5 Kovacic indicated the fact that there were discrepancies, significant

6 ones, between the summaries and the documents which were disclosed to him

7 by the Prosecutor.

8 After having consolidated the statements of the witness and the

9 counts in the indictment for the accused, Mr. Kovacic and Ms. Alaburic

10 expressed their concern over the vast amounts of material which were

11 presented through the witness testimony, and these two counsel have

12 proposed that the Prosecution should indicate in very precise terms and

13 specific terms before a witness comes in what counts of the indictment the

14 documents that it wishes to present are going to refer to. In the opinion

15 of the Defence, this will enable us to avoid situations whereby certain

16 documents which are not needed for this case be shown the witness.

17 In response, the Prosecutor said that in general terms he was

18 fulfilling his disclosure obligations and said that the Prosecutor had

19 certain difficulties with the translations (redacted)

20 documents, because the documents were originally in Spanish, and that's

21 where the problem lay. Apart from that, Mr. Kovacic drew the attention of

22 the Trial Chamber to -- in letters of the 30th of June and 1st of July to

23 the following questions: Number one, Mr. Kovacic asked that today's

24 witness testimony be postponed, or the cross-examination be postponed

25 until a later date. As Mr. Kovacic claims, the Prosecutor failed to

1 provide him with the necessary material on time and did so just last

2 Friday when they disclosed about 400 pages of which a certain number of

3 pages, or 12 documents, were not translated. And a moment ago, the

4 Prosecutor explained to us that those 12 documents are just 29 pages long

5 and that although the bulk material was 400 pages, which is in fact a book

6 covering a certain period of time, that in fact all they would be using

7 would be some 20-odd pages from that book. Apart from that, the

8 Prosecutor indicated that he disclosed to the Defence the summaries and

9 that he did so on time. They were updated summaries and that that was

10 after the 27th of March, 2006.

11 The Trial Chamber conferred a moment ago and assessed that the --

12 and is of the opinion that the next witness will be able to be

13 examined-in-chief and also cross-examined. However, the Trial Chamber

14 would like to add the following proviso: The Trial Chamber is very much

15 concerned because of problems of this nature and which could lead to a

16 lengthy trial and unnecessary delay, and as the Prosecutor said a moment

17 ago, the -- or, rather, the Defence said, the accused have the right to an

18 expeditious trial. The Trial Chamber wishes to note that in keeping with

19 court practice, the practice of this Tribunal in case law, and in keeping

20 with Article 21.4 of the Statute, the Trial Chamber considers that the

21 Prosecutor must, in general terms, provide the Defence with all the

22 documents that it intends to present in calling witnesses, not only in one

23 of the official languages of this Tribunal but also in the language of the

24 accused. That means that when the documents appear in court, they must

25 appear in one of the working languages and in B/C/S as well.

1 The Trial Chamber would like to remind those present of the

2 following: Public documents, such as UN Security Council Resolutions, the

3 UN Secretary-General reports, and similar material need not be translated

4 into the language of the accused. The Trial Chamber would also like to

5 note that it is in the interests of an expeditious trial and fair trial

6 that brief documents should be translated because it is simpler to do so

7 and the Defence can be provided with those documents. If they are shorter

8 documents, they need not necessarily be translated into the language of

9 the accused. Of course, all this on condition that we are dealing with

10 documents of lesser importance in the sense of not being very lengthy

11 documents. But the Trial Chamber would also like to mention that this can

12 only be an exception to the rule and not the general rule in the

13 proceedings.

14 As far as the disclosure of those documents is concerned and the

15 deadlines within which they must be disclosed, the Trial Chamber considers

16 that in keeping with Article 21 of the International Tribunal's Statute,

17 the Prosecutor is duty-bound to supply the Defence with these documents on

18 time so that the Defence can prepare the cross-examination in the proper

19 way.

20 Therefore, the Trial Chamber considers that all the documents that

21 have been translated must be disclosed to the Defence at least two weeks

22 before the witness appears. Two weeks. Only in exceptional situations,

23 and if we are dealing with shorter documents and documents of lesser

24 importance, can that deadline be reduced. However, should a case of that

25 kind occur, the Prosecutor will be duty-bound expressly to ask for

1 permission and table a request to the Trial Chamber for that to be done.

2 So the principle is that disclosure of material must take place

3 two weeks before the start of testimony. And if there is any deviation

4 from that rule and principle permission must be asked of the Trial Chamber

5 or waiver granted.

6 In addition to this, the Trial Chamber considers that the

7 Prosecutor must, in the extent to which that is possible, limit the

8 examination-in-chief of the witness to the questions contained in the

9 summaries pursuant to Rule 65 ter of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence

10 of this Tribunal. From this, it would emerge that the documents which

11 were provided to the Defence and which were compiled on the basis of the

12 indictment and the counts in the indictment must correspond to the

13 summaries. The Trial Chamber accepts the possibility of allowing the

14 Prosecutor to expand the scope of the examination-in-chief and to examine

15 the witness on certain issues that are not in the summary. However, there

16 must have been mention of these topics, something that cropped up during

17 the proofing sessions of the witness. In such cases, with all the

18 technical means available, they must inform the Defence thereof so that

19 the Defence for their part could prepare in a proper manner for the

20 cross-examination of those witnesses.

21 If during a proofing session a point that has been mentioned does

22 not figure in the proofing chart and that the Prosecution would like to

23 address this particular issue, it is important that the Prosecution

24 instantly, via e-mail, telephone, or fax, contact the Defence counsel to

25 inform them about that.

1 Lastly, the Trial Chamber bids the Prosecutor to disclose to the

2 Defence counsel and to introduce at the hearing only those documents - and

3 I stress the fact - only introduce those documents which are strictly

4 relevant to the case.

5 Pursuant to the Prosecutor's motion of the 15th of June, the Trial

6 Chamber will shortly rule on this matter.

7 It is important to specify which exhibit refers to which count in

8 the indictment. The Trial Chamber would like to remind the Prosecutor

9 that it must disclose by the 4th of September at the latest a chart which

10 will meet this requirement. This should be disclosed to the Bench and to

11 the Defence counsel.

12 We have thus rendered our oral decision on this particular matter.

13 Mr. Murphy, you would like to take the floor.

14 MR. MURPHY: Your Honour, may we go into private session very

15 briefly, please?

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Let's move into private session,

17 please.

18 [Private session]

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

1 (redacted)

2 (redacted)

3 (redacted)

4 (redacted)

5 (redacted)

6 (redacted)

7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 [Open session]

14 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] We're back in open session, Your

15 Honour.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] So in open session, I turn to

17 the Prosecutor. How much time will you need for your examination-in-chief

18 of this witness?

19 MR. SCOTT: We estimate approximately six hours, Your Honour.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. You said six hours.

21 We have planned to finish on Thursday at a quarter to 2.00. Therefore,

22 once the Prosecution will have spent six hours on its cross-examination

23 [as interpreted], it will then be for the Defence team to work something

24 out. It's for you to tell us then who will be taking the floor first and

25 how much time each Defence counsel will have. You need to be well

1 disciplined. We don't wish to find ourselves in the same situation we

2 found ourselves last week where you were all getting up to ask for extra

3 time.

4 I'm eager to hear the ruling that will be made by the Appeals

5 Chamber on the length of the cross-examination. I hope this will settle a

6 number of issues.

7 In the meantime, we have addressed this issue in a fairly flexible

8 manner, so you will be able to cross-examine this witness up until

9 Thursday, quarter to 2.00, once the Prosecution has finished with this

10 witness. The Prosecution has said that it needed six hours. I don't wish

11 to intervene here, but more often than not we waste a lot of time because

12 we don't talk about what is essential. As part of an expeditious trial, I

13 think it would be important if all and everyone addressed the core of the

14 matter. We know that these are the items which, at the end of the day,

15 will be included in the Bench's judgement.

16 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.

17 With the best of will and with the hardest work on the part of the Defence

18 counsel and myself, I fail to understand what the essential issues are.

19 If a witness of this importance with whom I have been in politics since

20 1989, held the highest posts at the relevant period and comes to testify

21 against me, and his offices and posts were far higher than mine, and he

22 held far more responsibility at the time than I did, I have to bring a

23 vast amount of documents to prove that what he's saying is not correct.

24 Therefore, in order to challenge the testimony of this witness, it is

25 impossible to establish that the response can take the same amount of time

1 as the examination-in-chief.

2 I will be very happy if the major issues were clarified and then

3 they could be teased out, separated out, but sometimes you have to bring

4 here a large amount of documents to prove that there is a discrepancy

5 between what the witness is saying in response to the Prosecutor and what

6 we see as the truth. Thank you.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Kovacic.

8 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, to facilitate planning

9 of time, I must say that none of the Defence teams has finalised its

10 standpoint, but I can say with certainty that I will need at least a whole

11 day because, on the basis of the summary, I can say objectively that I

12 will certainly need at least a day, but it might take more. And I hear

13 that some of the other Defence teams will need as much time, if not more.

14 Your Honours, I ask that at the end we spend two or three minutes

15 on this proofing charge [as interpreted]. Here it says that the witness

16 will be testifying to joint criminal enterprise and international armed

17 conflict. We will agree that this is the chapeau of the whole indictment

18 and has to be clarified. Furthermore, this witness is speaking of the

19 period from 1991 to 1994, the entire time period covered by the

20 indictment, from the first to the last day. And I am grateful to my

21 client for pointing out that throughout this time, until the Washington

22 agreements in 1994, this witness held the highest posts in the Republic of

23 Croatia, and according to the Prosecution, the representatives of that

24 government were involved in the joint criminal enterprise. Therefore,

25 this is a major witness for us.

1 Thank you, Your Honours.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Ms. Nozica.

3 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] By Your Honours' leave, and I'm

4 saying this because my colleague Mr. Kovacic began saying something that I

5 thought we would be discussing after the examination-in-chief. I wish to

6 add that in any case, Mr. Stojic's Defence expects to get more than

7 one-sixth, at least two or three times more for this witness for reasons

8 of relevance and the counts in the indictment the witness's testimony

9 refers to, and also for reasons well known to the Trial Chamber, which are

10 that it is quite impossible to conduct the cross-examination within the

11 given time frame.

12 I wish to say this to avoid giving the impression that we are

13 haggling over the time period we need. I wish the Chamber to know in

14 advance that, as far as Mr. Stojic's Defence is concerned, we will be

15 asking for more time than used by the Prosecutor. I think that we will

16 not have any problems in being granted that time in view of the principles

17 that the Chamber has adhered to so far, but we wish to avoid raising this

18 issue at the last moment. Thank you.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Ms. Nozica, I thank you.

20 Mr. Scott.

21 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, a couple of things(redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted) It makes a witness very, very nervous and anxious to

1 be sitting there in a room by himself for this long period with no

2 communication of what's happening. I think we should try to avoid this

3 situation.

4 Number two, I invite the Chamber to give us further guidance,

5 then, in terms of the cross-examination length of time, because the

6 Chamber has said since the beginning of trial that it would be the same

7 time as the Prosecution, generally speaking - generally speaking - with

8 some exceptions for cause shown. But as we have said before, Your Honour,

9 we have to have some basis to make plans, and if the Chamber is going to

10 entertain at all the types of time that is being estimated by the Defence

11 this afternoon, then for one thing, we need to tell the witnesses next not

12 to come. And it will be too late by the end of the week. We have other

13 people, they have their own private lives, they are entitled to make

14 schedules, they're entitled to know, and if they can't come next week

15 because this witness is going to stay over, then we need to know that as

16 soon as possible. Thank you.

17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] That's why I'm eagerly

18 expecting, like you are, the decision that will be rendered by the Appeals

19 Chamber.

20 Let me remind you that I had indicated that in the indictment we

21 had three major areas: A, what focused on the joint criminal enterprise;

22 two, what focused on individual criminal responsibility of each accused;

23 and C, those things that occurred in the various municipalities.

24 I had indicated at the time that the Prosecution could have

25 dedicated one-third of its time on joint criminal enterprise, one-third of

1 its time on individual criminal responsibility, and one-third of its time

2 on the facts, and in the course of time all of this has vanished. And as

3 I mentioned a while ago, I would now like to go which way the Prosecution

4 is going. The Prosecution has told us that in the first part of the

5 trial, until the 13th of July, it will provide an overview on a

6 chronological basis. After that, we will see how you intend to address

7 all the other matters.

8 To respond to Ms. Nozica, who said that a lot of time would be

9 needed, something which I have just realised which I hadn't realised

10 before: This witness is 86 years old. So please be reminded of this and

11 remember, try to put yourself in the shoes of this man who has to

12 undertake a cross-examination for many hours.

13 In addition, it might well be the case that when general matters

14 are raised, I have invited the Defence to convene and to designate one

15 Defence counsel who would lead the cross-examination. The other Defence

16 counsel could then share out between them the other issues to be

17 addressed. It seems that you have not been able to come to some

18 understanding, but this is just an avenue you could follow.

19 A number of Chambers have decided, in light of the time spent by

20 cross-examination, it only amounted to 60 per cent for the person asking

21 the questions. So when you turn round to me and say you need three times

22 more than the Prosecution, this is not at all in line with the case law of

23 this Tribunal. But I hope that the Appeals Chamber will also provide its

24 ruling on this matter very quickly so that we all know, including the

25 Bench, where we stand.

1 For the time being, as I mentioned a while ago, as far as this

2 witness is concerned, we will make sure that the cross-examination is

3 completed by the end of the week. If you feel that, pursuant to the

4 ruling rendered by the Appeals Chamber a number of issues have not been

5 addressed, you can still ask for the witness to be called back.

6 Mrs. Nozica.

7 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I do apologise. My

8 colleague Mr. Murphy has pointed out a misinterpretation. I did not say

9 -- at least, I did not mean to say that we needed three more times than

10 the Prosecutor, but on behalf of the Defence of Mr. Stojic, we do need

11 more than one-sixth; at least twice as much. I did not mean to say twice

12 as long as the Prosecutor took.

13 I wish to tell Your Honours that I think I am not a rude person,

14 an impolite person, and I would certainly not maltreat an elderly

15 gentleman through my cross-examination, but this witness, elderly as he

16 is, was chosen by the Prosecutor, and the defence of my defendant, of my

17 client, must certainly override all other considerations, and I believe

18 that this witness must answer all relevant questions.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Prlic.

20 THE ACCUSED PRLIC: [Interpretation] Time has run out and the

21 witness will probably not appear before the break, so I wish to raise an

22 issue which only at first glance has -- seems to have nothing to do with

23 what has been said so far.

24 The Office of the Prosecutor, according to the Statute, has a

25 mission to restore peace and so on in the region. However, the mission of

1 the Chamber is only to judge fairly. I have been here for two months. I

2 am of average education, and it is still not clear to me where this trial

3 is leading. I would feel much better, and I don't know if this issue has

4 been regulated in the Statute - you will allow that I am not a lawyer, and

5 I have not consulted my counsel on this issue - but I would feel much

6 better if the Prosecutor would make a solemn declaration, just as the

7 witnesses do, that he will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing

8 but the truth. If this is not something that is contained in the Statute,

9 I believe it would make the minds of the accused much easier. We would

10 enter these proceedings with a lot of more bona fide feeling.

11 This, for you, for all of you here in the courtroom, is just a

12 job, business as usual, but we are talking about a day or two in detention

13 more or less for my co-accused and myself. So it is in our interest to

14 have the proceedings be as expeditious as possible.

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Be very brief, Mr. Praljak,

16 please. We're going to have the break soon.

17 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

1 If he says, "No, I never said this," how, then, when everything is

2 over, can he come with his clear Communist conscience - because he has

3 turned his coat several times in his lifetime - how can he come here and

4 say the things he's going to say? And as for relevancy, this witness

5 should go home at once if this is not so.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, it's a quarter to

7 4.00.

8 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I have to respond to that. I know the

9 Chamber has allowed the accused to get up and make certain statements.

10 This is improper. The accused has got up and insulted a witness and

11 talked about his credibility. I agree counsel are entitled to

12 cross-examination, but an accused or any other person in this courtroom is

13 not allowed to stand up and insult a witness, and also to make arguments.

14 That's completely inappropriate conduct from Mr. Praljak. That should not

15 be allowed, with all respect, Your Honour.

16 MR. KARNAVAS: Just for the record, Your Honour, just for the

17 record, Mr. Praljak, will say anything [indiscernible]. The gentleman

18 was a communist. He turned over, and then he kept turning over with every

19 particular government.

20 THE PROSECUTOR: This is again argument. Now we're arguing more.

21 MR. KARNAVAS: This is not argument; this is fact.

22 MR. SCOTT: Come on.

23 MR. KARNAVAS: The Prosecution knows that he was a member of the

24 Communist Party, and then he turned. So what is the problem?

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. It's ten minutes to

1 4.00. We shall resume in 20-minutes' time, at ten minutes past 4.00.

2 --- Recess taken at 3.47 p.m.

3 --- On resuming at 4.15 p.m.

4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The hearing is resumed. Let us

5 move into private session.

6 [Private session]

7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 [Open session]

18 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] We're in open session,

19 Mr. President.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I'd like to tell Mr. Scott that

21 we're going to certainly take a break at 5.30.

22 [The witness entered court]

23 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, while we're waiting -- while we're

24 waiting, the gentleman was, as Mr. Praljak noted, he was a member of the

25 government for -- with the Tudjman administration for the period relevant

1 to the indictment. The indictment, if you look at paragraph 15, 16, it

2 makes references to a joint criminal enterprise.

3 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I'm going to ask that the witness be

4 excused. I thought we were ready to take the witness. If we're going to

5 have a legal argument --

6 MR. KARNAVAS: I suggest --

7 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me. If we have any additional legal argument,

8 that the witness be excused.

9 MR. KARNAVAS: It's not a legal argument, Your Honour. It's my

10 suggestion that he may be subject to a warning because, under the

11 indictment, it would -- one could conclude that he would also be a member

12 of the joint criminal enterprise and therefore, as a suspect, he should be

13 warned that he has certain rights.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well.

15 WITNESS: JOSIP MANOLIC

16 [Witness answered through interpreter]

17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Sir, let me first ask you

18 whether you can hear the proceedings in your own language and the

19 translation of what I'm saying.

20 THE WITNESS: [No interpretation].

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Can you give me your first and

22 last names.

23 THE WITNESS: [No interpretation].

24 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness speak into the microphone,

25 please.

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Let me repeat my question:

2 Could you please state your name and surname.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Josip Manolic.

4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] What is your date of birth?

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The 22nd of March, 1920.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] And what is your profession

7 today?

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm retired.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Could you tell me what your

10 functions were in 1991, 1992, and 1993.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] First I was a Member of Parliament

12 in the Croatian parliament. Then I was elected to the Presidency of

13 Croatia, the highest collective organ of the Socialist Republic of

14 Croatia. Then in 1990 and 1991, I was the Prime Minister of the Socialist

15 Republic of Croatia.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. And in 1992?

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In 1992, I held the office of head

18 of the office of the president of the republic, until 1993 in March when I

19 was elected the Speaker of the Chamber of Counties, or the Upper House of

20 parliament.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. Sir, have you

22 already testified before an International Tribunal or a national court on

23 the events that took place in ex-Yugoslavia, or is this the first time

24 you're testifying?

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is the first time I am

1 testifying before the International Criminal Tribunal. I have testified

2 before a Croatian court once in a war crimes case. This was against

3 General Norac et al.

4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. So you testified in

5 the trial against General Norac as a Prosecution witness or as a Defence

6 witness?

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As a Prosecution witness.

8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I see. Thank you. Would you

9 now go ahead and read the solemn declaration, please.

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

11 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You may be seated, sir. I'm

13 just going to give you some information about the proceedings this week.

14 As you know, you have been asked by the Prosecution to appear as a

15 witness. You've just taken the solemn declaration, which means that you

16 are now a witness for justice. You're going to answer questions that are

17 going to be put to you by the Prosecution first, and they have told us

18 that they will need approximately six hours for their

19 examination-in-chief.

20 After that, the Defence counsel, sitting to your left,

21 representing the accused, one of which is absent today for medical reasons

22 but will be here tomorrow, will be asking you questions within the

23 framework of what we call in common law the cross-examination. And the

24 Judges facing you - normally there are four Judges, today there are three

25 - can ask you questions at any point in time during the proceedings.

1 You will notice that the type of questions asked are different

2 depending on who is asking them. The Prosecution will be asking questions

3 which will require a response about developments and events. The Defence

4 will ask leading questions, which usually mean that they want a yes or no

5 answer. The Judges sitting in front of you have a different approach, and

6 they're going to ask questions if they need any points clarified, points

7 that you have already raised in your answers, or because they think that

8 it is in the interests of justice for them to ask the questions.

9 If you have any difficulty in answering the questions, please let

10 us know.

11 In the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of this Tribunal there are

12 certain provisions which allow a witness to object to making -- to

13 answering questions which might tend to incriminate the witness. So that

14 is something that can happen, although we have never encountered it yet.

15 In this case, the Chamber may, however, compel the witness to answer the

16 question, and testimony compelled in this way shall not be used as

17 evidence in a subsequent prosecution against the witness.

18 I should also like to tell you, at the request of the Defence,

19 that they note that there is a general incrimination in the indictment

20 that is -- comes under the heading of joint criminal enterprise beginning

21 with 1991. Now, since you held posts in 1991, it could happen that you

22 fall into that category. So the witness -- the Defence would like us to

23 draw your attention to that matter.

24 If you don't understand a question, ask the person to restate it.

25 If you have any other difficulties, please let the Bench know.

1 I have taken note of the fact that you were born in 1920, so if

2 you need any rest, please let us know and we will take a break, because

3 I'm sure you already know that it's very tiring answering questions

4 incessantly. So if you do feel you need a rest, we'll take a break.

5 Please ask us and we'll take a break. The normal proceedings are that we

6 make breaks every hour and a half, and we take 20-minute breaks. So the

7 next break will be taken at half past 5.00, and we reconvene 20 minutes

8 later, and then go on working until 7.00 p.m. Tomorrow morning we start

9 work at 9.00 and go on to 12.30. At 12.30 we take an hour and a half

10 lunch break, and then reconvene in the afternoon at 2.00 and go on working

11 until quarter past 5.00. Wednesday will be the same thing, and on

12 Thursday we're sitting from 9.00 until 1.45.

13 So those are general pieces of information that I wanted to give

14 you before the examination-in-chief goes ahead so that we can work in the

15 best possible conditions.

16 You will also be shown documents and asked to comment.

17 Having said that, I give the floor to Mr. Scott for the next hour

18 and a half, and as I've already said, we'll be taking our break at half

19 past 5.00. And of course we're going to subtract the time from your six

20 hours. Time starts running now.

21 Examination by Mr. Scott:

22 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Manolic. Sir, I want to run through some of

23 your background fairly quickly again. Some of it's already been indicated

24 in your response to questions from the Judges but nonetheless I'll go

25 through certain parts of it quickly again.

1 Mr. Manolic, you were born in Croatia in 1920; is that correct?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. During World War II you were a soldier and participant in the

4 anti-fascist movement, the forces; is that correct?

5 A. Yes, a participant in the anti-fascist movement.

6 Q. After the war, from 1948 to 1960, you were the head of the

7 Croatian Republic's division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs; is that

8 correct?

9 A. That is correct, yes.

10 Q. Following this, for a time, from 1960 to 1965, you were the head

11 of the Secretariat of Interior Affairs in the city of Zagreb; is that

12 correct?

13 A. That's right.

14 Q. In 1965, you became a member of the parliament, the Croatian

15 Republic parliament, from which you were expelled following the

16 suppression of the 1971 Croatian spring movement. Is that right?

17 A. That's right, yes.

18 Q. You returned to politics in approximately 1989 as one of the

19 founders of the Croatian Democratic Union political party, or as it has

20 been referred to in this case already, the HDZ, and you were the first

21 president of the Executive Committee of the HDZ at that time; is that

22 right?

23 A. Yes, that's right.

24 Q. You were then elected to parliament on the HDZ ticket in 1990 and

25 1992. Correct?

1 A. That's right.

2 Q. As you've indicated, you were then -- you were Prime Minister.

3 You were the Prime Minister of Croatia in 1990 and 1991; correct?

4 A. From August, 1990, to August, 1991, yes.

5 Q. You were a member of a body called the Presidential Defence and

6 National Security Council in 1993? Is that correct? Yes?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. You were then named the president of the Upper House, or Chamber,

9 of parliament called the House of Counties, I understand, and you were in

10 that position from approximately March, 1993, to March of 1994; is that

11 correct?

12 A. Until April, 1994.

13 Q. Sir, is it correct that one of your close political associates or

14 colleagues from this time was a man named Stipe Mesic?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And since his name will feature in some of the documents and

17 testimony that we'll hear in the next day or two, during the period of

18 time 1991, 1993, you've given us your positions. Can you briefly

19 indicate, what was Mr. Mesic's position in the Croatian government? And

20 I'm using that term broadly to include the legislative, the executive, any

21 branch of the government. What were his positions in the government at

22 the time you held the positions you've told us this afternoon?

23 A. I have known Mesic since 1965, in the Sabor parliament of the

24 Socialist Republic of Croatia. He suffered in 1971 in the reformist

25 movement, just like I did, when his mandate was taken away, just as it was

1 from me.

2 Q. And what position -- if I can direct your attention particularly

3 to 1991, 1992, what positions did Mr. Mesic hold in the Croatian

4 government at that time, if you recall?

5 A. His position in 1990, he was first of all secretary of the HDZ,

6 the Croatian Democratic Union, then he was the president of the Executive

7 Council, and in 1990, when on the 30th of May the Croatian government was

8 constituted, he was appointed Prime Minister of the Croatian government.

9 Q. So he was the Prime Minister, essentially, that preceded you in

10 that position; is that correct?

11 A. Yes, that is correct. Since he was supposed to go to Belgrade to

12 become president of the federal top body, that is to say the Yugoslav

13 state Presidency, I took over the post of Prime Minister of the Croatian

14 government. So he was the Prime Minister of the Croatian government from

15 only three months before he went to Belgrade.

16 Q. And during the time period we're discussing now, did Mr. Mesic

17 hold any office or position in the parliament, in the Croatian parliament

18 or Sabor?

19 A. As a member of the Yugoslav state Presidency and later on

20 president of the Yugoslav state Presidency, he could not have been a

21 member of the parliament or Sabor in Croatia. He became Member of

22 Parliament in the subsequent elections of 1992 when he was elected to the

23 Croatian Sabor, parliament, and when he became president of the

24 parliament.

25 Q. Sir, in going forward with your testimony, I would like to in some

1 sense go to the end of the story and then we will come back and work

2 forward again. Did there come a time in approximately 1994 that you and

3 Mr. Mesic left the Tudjman government and left the HDZ political party?

4 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, before we get into this line of

5 questioning - excuse me, sir - I notice that we're only focusing on

6 Mr. Mesic, who is currently the president. Now, I assume they're either

7 going to bring Mr. Mesic here to testify, but I certainly would object to

8 having this gentleman be speaking on behalf of Mr. Mesic. I think that's

9 a whole different line of questioning. So he can speak about himself, but

10 I would object to trying to somehow use this gentleman as an opportunity

11 to talk about Mr. Mesic's state of mind.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please continue, Mr. Scott.

13 MR. SCOTT:

14 Q. I repeat the question, sir: Did there come a time in

15 approximately 1994 that you and Mr. Mesic left the Tudjman government and

16 left the HDZ political party?

17 A. Yes. That's common knowledge. It was well known that we didn't

18 agree with certain policies and therefore could no longer remain within

19 the HDZ. I was excluded. They threw me out on the basis of articles in

20 Feral Tribune, a magazine, and Globus, another journal that is accessible

21 to the public. Now, as Mr. Mesic went to join another party that he

22 established, he didn't -- he wasn't actually excluded and thrown out of

23 the HDZ, the Croatian Democratic Union.

24 Q. Can you give us an approximate date? It doesn't have to be the

25 day, I don't believe, but perhaps the month, approximately, you left the

1 HDZ?

2 A. I think I was expelled around the 20th of April, because on the

3 25th of April we had already established a new party, the Croatian

4 Independent Democrats. So it was between the 10th and 20th of April that

5 I was expelled from the HDZ.

6 Q. All right. Sir, a few moments ago you said that "It was well

7 known that we didn't agree with certain policies and therefore could no

8 longer remain within the HDZ." Could you tell the Judges what policies

9 that you disagreed with.

10 A. We did not agree, first and foremost, with respect to the policy

11 being waged towards Bosnia-Herzegovina.

12 Secondly, we did not agree on policy matters with respect to the

13 functioning of a State of Croatia based on the rule of law. That is to

14 say there were not sufficient reactions to crimes that had been committed

15 during that period of time.

16 Q. Now, if we can --

17 A. And third, the third point of discord, was inter-party divergence,

18 which isn't as essential because we objected to the authoritarian way in

19 which the party was being led.

20 Q. The authoritarian way in which the party was -- the HDZ party was

21 being led?

22 A. Yes, the HDZ, yes.

23 Q. And who was leading the party in an authoritarian way?

24 A. That means that he made decisions himself at will and that in a

25 way he excluded the other members of the party. He left them aside,

1 marginalised them.

2 Q. And when you say "he," sir, who are the individuals you are

3 talking about now?

4 A. I'm talking about President Tudjman. That was the question as far

5 as I understood it. You asked me what did I not agree with Mr. Tudjman --

6 President Tudjman with. First of all, his policy towards

7 Bosnia-Herzegovina; secondly, with respect to the functioning of Croatia

8 based on the rule of law; and an auxiliary question which had to do with

9 inter-party relations.

10 Q. All right. Let's go to your first reason that you've told us now,

11 and that was the policy -- Tudjman's policy -- President Tudjman's policy

12 towards Bosnia-Herzegovina. Can you tell us how your view and Mr. Mesic's

13 view differed from President Tudjman's policy towards Bosnia-Herzegovina.

14 MR. MURPHY: I'm sorry, but before the witness answers that

15 question, could we be precise as to the time period? I think the witness

16 testified that his leaving of the party was in 1994, but it would be

17 interesting to know the time period to which the policy of the party

18 related to which he objected.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, precisely.

20 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, we will come to that. If Mr. -- If the

21 witness can first state the disagreement, I'll ask him about the time that

22 this disagreement developed. If we can just proceed in a logical way,

23 please.

24 MR. MURPHY: Your Honour, that's the problem. We're not sure that

25 it is logical, and it may well be irrelevant unless Mr. Scott first

1 establishes the time period.

2 MR. SCOTT: Very well, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, logics will have it

4 that if there is agreement or disagreement, we must specify a date. So

5 start off with a date and then proceed to explain the differences of

6 opinion.

7 MR. SCOTT: All right.

8 Q. Sir, can you tell the Judges, when was the -- the brief history of

9 this disagreement; when it started, and how long it continued.

10 A. Well, that would be a whole book. I would have to state when

11 certain things began. We can start discussing from the time the

12 leadership was constituted that took over power on the 30th of May, 1990.

13 We were united then, pursuing a uniform policy. There were no differences

14 between us. The differences emerged later on, and our relationships with

15 Bosnia-Herzegovina and the then leadership were quite proper at the time.

16 The president or, rather, Prime Minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Pelivan,

17 and I was Prime Minister of the Croatian government, we had satisfactory

18 cooperation at that period of time. And with the Bosnian Presidency and

19 the Presidency of Croatia, those relations were very good and proper as

20 well.

21 Q. Let me -- let me stop you for one moment, please, just so the

22 record is clear. You made a reference just now to Mr. Pelivan. He was

23 the Prime Minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina at the time? Is that correct?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And he was a Croat?

1 A. Well, I didn't look to see.

2 Q. Okay. And when did you -- so you started out, things were

3 satisfactory, you've just told us, and can you tell -- in response to the

4 President's question, when did you begin to notice or that it emerged or

5 developed that there were in fact these differences or disagreements about

6 the policy or conduct toward Bosnia?

7 A. Those differences emerged with the first discussions between

8 President Tudjman and Milosevic. On the 25th, I think it was, the 25th of

9 March, 1991. That meeting was supposed to have been conducted between

10 four people; Mr. Mesic from Croatia, and the vice-president at the time of

11 the Federal Presidency of Yugoslavia -- what was his name?

12 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: Jovic.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Jovic. Yes, that's right, Jovic.

14 Very true. Mr. Jovic was supposed to attend the meeting. However, the

15 agreement that was reached in the meantime when that meeting was scheduled

16 to have it between four people, the agreement was between President

17 Tudjman and Milosevic, that they should meet tete-a-tete, which meant that

18 Jovic fell through and Mesic fell through. They no longer attended that

19 discussion.

20 MR. SCOTT:

21 Q. And then these differences or disagreements continued on from

22 approximately 1991 until you left in approximately April of 1994; is that

23 correct?

24 A. Yes, that is correct. With certain differences in the different

25 periods. And I think somebody warned us of dates, and I think it is

1 indeed very important to establish dates, to know -- to know when certain

2 events took place so we can take a realistic view of those events,

3 depending on when they occurred.

4 Now, after that meeting that was held between Milosevic and

5 President Tudjman, when the president returned, he did not make the

6 agreement public at a broader forum. All he did was to inform me. I

7 think he also informed President Mesic. Whether he informed anybody else

8 about the contents of that meeting, I don't know.

9 First of all, he said that they had agreed in principle about the

10 issue of Bosnia-Herzegovina's division, in principle, but he didn't

11 expound on that further. He was very pleased with that initial meeting he

12 had with Milosevic.

13 Q. Let me ask you, sir -- let me go back. We're going to come back

14 to this in just a moment, but the question I put to you some minutes ago

15 and then we started to talk about the time period. Before we go further

16 into the detail, let me go back to the question I put to you earlier.

17 What was the nature -- can you summarise for the Judges so they know what

18 -- some of the things you'll be talking about. What was the nature of

19 the disagreement or the differences between your views and the views, as

20 you've described them, President Tudjman's policy toward

21 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

22 A. Well, essentially it was the position that Mesic and I advocated

23 and that is that one should expect -- accept the AVNOJ borders which

24 existed between the republics in the former Yugoslavia, and that it

25 wouldn't be realistic or wise to tamper with those borders, the AVNOJ

1 borders.

2 Q. And did Mr. Tudjman hold a different view as to what borders

3 should exist?

4 A. Well, the very fact that he talked to Milosevic about the division

5 of that particular territory, that fact alone speaks that the position was

6 different at that point in time.

7 Q. And apart from borders, did you have any other disagreements with

8 the nature or direction of Mr. Tudjman's -- President Tudjman's policy?

9 A. Well, I don't think those differences gained expression at that

10 time. We're dealing with 1990, when that team that had taken over power

11 on the 30th of May, 1990, was still running in. It was the running-in

12 period, and there were no essential differences up until that point in

13 1991.

14 Q. Yes. And I'm just asking for you now to give us a summary of

15 those differences that developed from 1991 forward until you left in 1994.

16 A. If we start out from the fact that the Milosevic-Tudjman agreement

17 had as the objective the division of Bosnia-Herzegovina, then we come to

18 another important point in developments, and that is the referendum in

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina where the Croats and the Muslims and the Serbs were

20 supposed to declare themselves, whether they were in favour of an integral

21 Bosnia-Herzegovina within the frameworks of the borders, the AVNOJ

22 borders, or not. And that was an important point in relations towards

23 Bosnia-Herzegovina. On our part, that is. Some people in

24 Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in fact, thought that

25 they should not go to a referendum, that they should boycott the

1 referendum, together with the Serbs, thereby avoiding and sidestepping the

2 thesis or question at the referendum: "Are you in favour of an integral

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina?"

4 President Tudjman -- I should just like to emphasise this:

5 President Tudjman at that point in time once again opted for the course

6 that we had advocated from the very beginning; an integral

7 Bosnia-Herzegovina. We must be objective on that score. So I don't want

8 to accuse the president, or accuse President Tudjman of something he

9 didn't want to do, but I do want to testify about the policy that came to

10 the fore at a certain point in time. President Tudjman at that moment, in

11 opting, decided that the Croats should go to the referendum together with

12 the Muslims, that they should take part in the referendum, and of course

13 the Serbs were to boycott it. The results were common knowledge. There

14 was about 66 per cent in favour of an integral Bosnia-Herzegovina. I'm

15 emphasising this because that point in time and that decision made by the

16 president, President Tudjman, that the Croats should take part in the

17 referendum, is in contradiction with all the stories and rumours up until

18 that time and agreements that he had with Milosevic about the division of

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

20 Q. All right. Let's go back, because now we've jumped into 1992.

21 Let's go back earlier to -- you said something earlier about meetings at

22 Karadjordjevo. And you said that initially a number of people were

23 supposed to go. Can you just pick up again where you were on that and

24 tell us about the meeting in Karadjordjevo in March, 1991.

25 A. I don't know anything about that meeting. All I do know is what

1 the president told me after the meeting, and that is what I have told you,

2 that they had reached an agreement in principle of their attitude towards

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina and how they were to divide it, or how it was to be

4 divided.

5 We have had subsequent proof and evidence of that, but we'll come

6 to that, I do believe, in due course.

7 Q. Well, what else did President Tudjman tell you about his meeting

8 with Milosevic at that time? What were some of the other issues

9 addressed?

10 A. What I was able to conclude and observe judging by President

11 Tudjman's satisfaction after the meeting is this: I can say that most

12 probably Milosevic was also satisfied with what they had agreed, because

13 they continued to pursue that policy together, how to realise that

14 agreement of principle that they had reached.

15 Q. Was the subject of Kosovo mentioned, reported by President

16 Tudjman?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. And what was said about that?

19 A. President Tudjman said, when he returned, he told me, and he also

20 told Milosevic that, that the question of Kosovo was the internal affair

21 of the state of Serbia and that Croatia wouldn't get involved. I am not

22 sure, because Milosevic never made a public statement to that effect, that

23 it was the internal affair of the Serbs, the internal issue of the

24 Croatian state, which means if I gave way to you on one subject, it would

25 be advisable if you were to give way to me on the other issue, although at

1 the tete-a-tete meeting Milosevic probably told President Tudjman that the

2 question of Serbs in Croatia was the internal affairs of the Croatian

3 state.

4 For confirmation of this, that President Tudjman gave way to

5 Milosevic when it came to Kosovo, we have a signal, and this signal was

6 that, up until that time, on Croatian radio, there was a programme for

7 Kosovo with -- upon the return of President Tudjman, several days later,

8 that programme on Croatian radio for Kosovo was discontinued. This was a

9 sort of external signal that something must have been agreed with

10 Milosevic on the subject of Kosovo.

11 Q. When you said something was said, President Tudjman reported

12 something about the status or situation with Serbs in Croatia, people of

13 Serb ethnicity who were in Croatia at the time, what was said about that?

14 A. I don't know what they actually said about that. As I say, I

15 wasn't present. I wasn't there. But logically speaking --

16 Q. What did President Tudjman report to you when he came back about

17 what was said about that?

18 A. The fact is that we had the Serb rebellion in 1990, which lasted

19 from 1990, the month of August, up until that meeting of theirs. So most

20 probably they did discuss that issue. President Tudjman just emphasised

21 that the question of the Serbs was something that we would solve very

22 easily with Milosevic, with him, meaning Milosevic, but not with other

23 people in Croatia.

24 Q. And was anything said -- reported to you by President Tudjman

25 about what was said or discussed about Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

1 A. No. He went on to elaborate and said what was implied by that

2 agreement of principle, but of course the developments were also taken

3 into consideration, not just the meeting, and that was the establishment

4 of the commission on both sides, on the Serb side and on the Croatian

5 side, and also a commission which was set up to look at the problems that

6 would arise in a division of that kind and to possibly create a map which

7 would be acceptable to both sides.

8 Q. Did you have an understanding, sir, that a group -- such a group

9 or commission was formed for the actual purposes of proposing demarcations

10 and preparing maps for the division of Bosnia?

11 A. Yes. I think that the commission can testify to that best. I

12 people -- I personally, and I don't think president Mesic either, were

13 informed about the establishment of that commission. The commission was

14 made up of Bilandzic, Sokol, and two other men. They were all prominent

15 public figures in Croatian political life at the time, and in a way they

16 were close to President Tudjman and his politics and policies, so that he

17 appointed that commission with full confidence and trust that they would

18 work in the interests of Croatia and work parallel with the commission

19 that Milosevic was to establish in Serbia, and I think that commission did

20 its work.

21 Q. Now, talking further about the disagreements that you had with

22 President Mesic, you said to us a few moments ago that one the issues or

23 disagreements was about borders and that you and Mr. Mesic thought that

24 the AVNOJ borders should be the borders of the republics or states in the

25 former Yugoslavia. Did President Tudjman have a different view and a

1 different model as to what he thought the borders of Croatia should be?

2 A. Yes. He was rather burdened with looking at history and the

3 so-called Croatian Banovina that existed in 1939 with the Cvetkovic-Macek

4 agreement and that Banovina took over a large territory of

5 Bosnia-Herzegovina, right up to Travnik - in the east it encompassed Sid -

6 so that President Tudjman in a way was obsessed with this idea of the

7 Banovina creation which, geographically speaking, would be far more in the

8 interests of the Croatian people than the sausage shape that Croatia was

9 drawn to be on the map.

10 Q. There's a question, sir.

11 JUDGE PRANDLER: I would like to apologise to the witness for

12 interrupting him but I would like to ask you to clarify the expression

13 which you have several times used, the AVNOJ borders, A-V-N-O-J. Although

14 it is in general known, but I believe that it would be important for us,

15 for the Bench, to clarify this expression. Which kind of borders does

16 this expression mean? I thank you for your clarification.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. AVNOJ meant the borders of

18 Tito's Yugoslavia that existed then, the Anti-fascist Council of National

19 Liberation. They were the so-called administrative borders among the --

20 between the republics. Those borders were later considered to be the

21 AVNOJ borders, Anti-fascist Council of National Liberation. President

22 Tudjman adhered to that, and so did everybody else, and it was confirmed

23 by the Badinter Commission later on, which established that from that

24 moment in time they were state borders between the republics. So we

25 wanted to adhere to that, too, because by doing so we would not have upset

1 the territorial integrity, violated the territorial integrity of any of

2 the newly established states on the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

3 Is that clear enough?

4 JUDGE PRANDLER: Yes. Thank you for your clarification.

5 MR. SCOTT:

6 Q. Sir, can you tell us when President Tudjman came back from

7 Karadjordjevo, did he have a view that by his agreement with Milosevic the

8 Banovina borders could be recreated in Bosnia?

9 A. No, because President Tudjman was not very enthusiastic about

10 those borders since a new situation had arisen. Within the Croatian

11 Banovina, there was no Istria or Baranja at the time, and those were areas

12 that the Croatian state wanted preserved. They didn't want these borders

13 changed in that area. So President Tudjman did not insist on the Banovina

14 borders of Croatia.

15 Q. All right. We will come back to that in the transcripts. Did --

16 was there anything about a meeting with or talking to Izetbegovic about

17 the result of this Karadjordjevo meeting? Did President Tudjman report to

18 you that the positions of President Izetbegovic had been considered or

19 that there would be subsequent meetings with President Izetbegovic of

20 Bosnia?

21 A. The meeting between Tudjman and Milosevic we are referring to was

22 not known to Izetbegovic. Only later did he respond by asking for an

23 explanation, both from President Tudjman and from Milosevic, asking them

24 what they had discussed.

25 Q. Looking -- coming back to your question before we go forward,

1 looking at the transcript, on page 61 of -- lines 8, you made reference to

2 a new situation had arisen. What was the new situation?

3 A. I can't say exactly what time this refers to. Are you referring

4 to the new situation after the referendum held on the 29th of February,

5 1992?

6 Q. Sir, I'm referring to your question -- I'm referring to the answer

7 to your question -- excuse me, my question a few minutes ago in connection

8 with the Banovina borders, and your answer was: "No, because President

9 Tudjman was not very enthusiastic about those borders since a new

10 situation had arisen." So I'm asking you to clarify to the Judges what

11 this new situation was.

12 A. This new situation was that the borders of the Banovina of Croatia

13 were unrealistic in the newly arisen situation where Croatia had acquired

14 Istria after World War II and Baranja also became part of the Socialist

15 Republic of Yugoslavia. This was too important. The historical Banovina

16 could not be justified because of this.

17 Q. Are you saying it wasn't justified or unrealistic to you? It

18 wasn't unrealistic -- it was an unrealistic view to you or it was a view

19 not taken by President Tudjman?

20 A. I think it was simply the reality, not mine or his. It was the

21 reality whether to advocate the borders of the Banovina of Croatia, which

22 would imply changing the borders towards Istria and Baranja, or should the

23 borders of AVNOJ, the Anti-fascist Council, be accepted. And these were

24 the borders that all the republics had accepted.

25 Q. All right. Let's go forward to the referendum. You've already

1 started a couple of times to talk about the referendum for Bosnian

2 independence. What did you understand about the events leading up to

3 that?

4 A. I personally was very satisfied, and so were all those advocating

5 the AVNOJ borders. We were satisfied with the fact that President Tudjman

6 had decided that at the referendum the Croats should stick together with

7 the Muslims and establish this border. This was a turning point. Why

8 this turning point came into existence is a question people can have

9 various assessments of. This was from the 25th of March until the 29th of

10 September, 1992, less than a year, where both in public and under cover,

11 in both broad and narrow circles, all this was overshadowed by the

12 agreement between Tudjman and Milosevic concerning the changing of

13 borders.

14 Q. Well, which borders, sir, were going to change as a result of the

15 agreement between Mr. Milosevic and President Tudjman?

16 A. Certainly it was the Bosnian border that was to be changed. What

17 other border? Nobody would yield anything, although the commissions that

18 were working came up against contentious issues that were impossible to

19 solve. The Serbs demanded that Knin enter their sphere, and the Croats

20 said they would not give up a foot of Croatian territory there.

21 These were opposite standpoints which could not be transcended in

22 those negotiations.

23 Q. Well, what borders would Croatia receive in Bosnia as a result of

24 the agreement with Milosevic?

25 A. That's a purely hypothetical reply, and that's where the problem

1 lies, I believe. The issue of an internal division of Bosnia was

2 extremely complex, and the commissions would have come up against the same

3 kind of problems that the commissions on the borders towards the Serbs had

4 come up against. So it was impossible to say where that border should be.

5 MR. KARNAVAS: If I may interject, Your Honour, we haven't heard

6 about who was on the commissions on the Serb side. I understand the

7 gentleman was very tied into the security services and would have been

8 aware of that, plus he's indicated he had this tete-a-tete with Mr. --

9 with President Tudjman. So perhaps he could tell us -- name names at this

10 point in time.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, I didn't. That I was tied into

12 the security services, that's true, but I never investigated you. I

13 cannot recall them all now, but you have -- the names were published on

14 the Serb side. It was Mrs. Avramov, it was Mihajlovic, and two others.

15 Four people were appointed by Milosevic to the Serb commission. But if

16 you make an effort, you will find this in the literature and the books,

17 because the commissions were made public.

18 MR. SCOTT:

19 Q. Sir, with the assistance of the registry, I would like for you to

20 please be shown Exhibit P 00037.

21 A. If you can zoom in a little bit on the screen, please.

22 Q. If we can have the first page first, please. That's fine.

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Can you see that now, sir?

25 A. Yes. Yes, I can.

1 Q. And this makes reference to -- it says this is the "Record of the

2 7th session of the Supreme State Council of the Republic of Croatia held

3 on the 8th of June, 1991."

4 First of all, could you please tell the Judges, what was the

5 Supreme State Council?

6 A. The Supreme State Council was appointed by the president of the

7 state. According to the constitution of the Republic of Croatia, he had

8 the right to appoint various auxiliary bodies to help him in carrying out

9 his presidential duties. One such body was the Supreme State Council of

10 the Republic of Croatia. It was appointed, not elected. It was appointed

11 by the president of the republic.

12 Q. Were you a member the Supreme State Council as of June, 1991?

13 A. Yes, yes. I was a member appointed to the Supreme State Council.

14 I think you have the list and that I needn't elaborate on it.

15 Q. In this meeting, sir, you look at -- before we leave the first

16 page, you'll see that this was a session chaired by Dr. Franjo Tudjman,

17 president of the Republic of Croatia, and then the president begins to

18 speak and says: "The agenda has been handed out to you." Do you see

19 that?

20 A. Yes.

21 MR. SCOTT: If I could ask the registry to go to page 5 of the

22 document.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The letters are too small.

24 MR. SCOTT:

25 Q. Can you see it now?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Sir, if you'll look at the first paragraph that's beginning on

3 that page. I believe it says: "So now it has been spelled out and

4 acknowledged. We should discuss the manner in which to establish an

5 alliance or to break up, because as you know, in the beginning the Serbs

6 said if there was to be a confederal alliance, they could not accept the

7 current borders."

8 And then there's some additional text, and in the next paragraph

9 it says: "So this is the reality we cannot overlook. Also, gentlemen, if

10 we opt for Croatia's independence, either within an alliance or total

11 independence, Croatia's borders such as they are today are absurd. They

12 are impossible in the sense of administration and trade let alone as

13 regards any kind of protection of these borders of Croatia. Therefore,

14 from our point of view, no less than the Serbians. There is the problem

15 of -- there is a need find an essential solution to the problem. Isn't

16 that so? Because the establishment of Bosnia, the borders of

17 Bosnia-Herzegovina after World War II, are historically absurd."

18 Now, sir, is this -- this is President Tudjman talking, if you

19 look in the transcript. If the existing borders of Croatia were absurd as

20 stated by President Tudjman here, again I ask you to clarify to the

21 Judges, what borders did President Tudjman want?

22 A. The president --

23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Just a moment. Before the

24 Judges can understand the questions, this Supreme Council, how many

25 members round the table when issues were discussed? How many of you were

1 there?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think about a dozen. Ten or so.

3 It's in the minutes, maybe on the front page. I don't have the transcript

4 where you can see the names of the people who participated.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Kovacic.

6 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I wish to ascertain

7 whether the Prosecution has given the Chamber a translation into English

8 of the entire session or only parts, because it seems to me that only

9 parts of this session have been translated. This could be a problem later

10 on, because we will be putting questions about other parts, and as you

11 say, we should have the entire document.

12 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, there are only partial translations of

13 the document. Some of these documents are very long, as the Court knows,

14 and the Court also knows that we have extremely - how do I say it? - great

15 demands on the translation services in this institution, and really do not

16 have the resources and time to translate extraneous material. Now, having

17 said that, the Defence has in fact the full document, as does the Court,

18 of course, in the B/C/S, and they've had those for some many months now,

19 and anything else that they think should be translated they can ask for it

20 to be translated.

21 MR. KOVACIC: Your Honour, I understand that, of course, and I

22 understand that it was a too big demand on the interpreters of translating

23 services. However, the problem is, as you pointed out, Your Honour, that

24 the document will be tendered, if it will be tendered, as a whole, and you

25 will soon see -- you will see soon that very frequently in those

1 transcripts you have like one subject discussed in this part of the

2 meeting and then, 20 or 25 pages after, or one hour of discussion after,

3 the same subject matter is raised again. So I don't see why -- why the

4 problem is translation. And besides, the Prosecutor is having those

5 documents, as I am aware, and I was at that time in another case where the

6 documents were for the first time introduced, from sometime summer year

7 2000. So, so far, those documents should have been translated.

8 MR. SCOTT: The amount of time, Your Honour, that has existed is

9 not the point. The point is that there is no time ever, by scarce

10 translation resources, to spend their time translating material that is

11 completely irrelevant. And as you will see from some of the documents,

12 you will see some of the pages talk about completely irrelevant things.

13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. We've understood the

14 problem. Go ahead with your question. If the Defence wishes to draw the

15 Judges' attention to other parts of the document, there will be time to do

16 that during the cross-examination. So if we have 11 pages that I can see

17 here -- there are nine pages, actually. The first nine pages have been

18 translated. So go ahead and ask your questions on those first nine pages,

19 and then we'll see. And the Defence can draw our attention to what is

20 missing.

21 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President. There are also additional

22 pages further down into the document. And just to finish up on that

23 point, as Mr. Kovacic says, yes, sometimes a relevant topic comes up again

24 later in the transcript, and as the Court will see from this particular

25 example, later in the document translation begins again when it is

1 relevant material. So you will see that, Your Honour.

2 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, the question is how does Mr. --

3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Would you please sit down,

4 Mr. Karnavas, and allow the Prosecution to proceed. You'll have all the

5 time in the world to ask your own questions during the cross-examination.

6 Otherwise, we're going to waste time and it's not going to serve us

7 anything.

8 MR. SCOTT:

9 Q. All right. Sir, going back to the question, I don't know if it's

10 any longer on the screen, but if the current borders, according to

11 President Tudjman, if Croatia's then current borders as of 1991 were

12 absurd, what borders -- what different borders did President Tudjman want?

13 A. He was here merely stating that these borders were unnatural for

14 Croatia, both as regards traffic communications and everything else.

15 However, they were the reality, and we could not change them. At least,

16 not we as a whole, although there were individuals who wished that the

17 borders be changed. And the president even said that this crescent that

18 you see on the map is unnatural, that it should be made thicker, but this

19 thickening, what would it mean in practice? It would mean adding on

20 something of another territory to make this crescent look a more normal

21 shape. But these were simply wishes which were there while we were

22 considering the current borders of the Republic of Croatia. However, I

23 have been always realistic as a politician, and therefore, being

24 realistic, I said that we should not touch the existing AVNOJ borders

25 because doing so would lead to widespread conflict on the territory of the

1 former Yugoslavia.

2 Q. Sir, I think the problem that we're having is your views were they

3 were unrealistic. I'm not asking for your assessment of whether different

4 borders were unrealistic. That's your assessment. I'm asking you to tell

5 the Judges if President Tudjman thought the existing borders were absurd,

6 what alternative borders did he wish to establish, whether you viewed them

7 as unrealistic or not.

8 A. I don't think that he ever stated precisely what borders he wanted

9 anywhere in any document. What I have said about thickening the crescent

10 is something one can conclude logically, but not based on any document.

11 We cannot say precisely what borders he was seeking.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Well, this story about the

13 crescent, you were quoting an example or was Mr. Tudjman raising this

14 question of a crescent?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Tudjman, on television in

16 Croatia, spoke about the crescent shape, saying that this was an unnatural

17 shape for a border. And since then, this crescent kept cropping up in all

18 our conversations.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

20 MR. SCOTT: With the registry's assistance, if we could go to page

21 8 of the - excuse me - this document, please.

22 Q. Do you have that, sir? Can you read that? Mr. Manolic.

23 A. Yes, I see it.

24 Q. So starting at the top of the page, it makes reference to --

25 passing reference to Stipe Mesic, and then he says: "We would start talks

1 on the problem of Bosnia, that is the problem of boundary determination

2 and the borders of the Republic of Croatia. By the way, I held a meeting

3 there with Croatian representatives, the leadership of the Croatian

4 Democratic Union, ten or so people who clearly support, who

5 whole-heartedly support our position, but I also told them that Croatian

6 politicians in BH must be ready and must prepare for the coming events,

7 whatever they may be. If the events take a democratic course, as

8 previously agreed, then it goes without saying that's all right, but if

9 they take a different turn, then they would also have to be ready to make

10 decisions, Croatian decisions, just as Serbian politicians will make

11 theirs."

12 Can you assist the Judges with what is meant by the phrase

13 "Croatian decisions"?

14 A. First of all, at the outset it said that President Mesic was going

15 to take up the post of president of the Presidency of Yugoslavia. It's

16 well known that Serbia and Milosevic resisted the idea of a Croat becoming

17 president of the Presidency of Yugoslavia. Up until the point when the

18 international community exerted forceful pressure on Milosevic when he

19 agreed to have President Mesic take over according to the rules then

20 governing the work of the Presidency. So then Mesic became president of

21 the Presidency.

22 I cannot recall the date when this happened, but you can see it in

23 the materials.

24 Would you please repeat your second question now?

25 MR. SCOTT: I think we're going to have a break now, Mr. Manolic,

1 and I'll come back to the second question after the break.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We will resume in exactly 20

3 minutes' time.

4 --- Recess taken at 5.28 p.m.

5 --- On resuming at 5.49 p.m.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The hearing is resumed.

7 Mr. Manolic, as the air-conditioning isn't working very well, if

8 you're too hot or if you're tired, Mr. Manolic, don't hesitate to let us

9 know and we can shorten the proceedings. Or if you're not feeling well,

10 please let us know, because as it's very hot today and the

11 air-conditioning doesn't seem to be working very well, please tell us if

12 you're not feeling well.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.

14 MR. SCOTT:

15 Q. Sir, if we can -- if I can ask the registry to go to page 38 of

16 the document.

17 If I can direct your attention toward the bottom part of that

18 page, after it says "The president ..." There we go.

19 Toward the end of the paragraph that's now displayed on the

20 e-court system, it says -- if you can find this language, please, sir. It

21 says: "Therefore, the solution lies in what was said there in the

22 partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and if we achieve that, then we can

23 possibly look for a basis for an alliance of sovereign republics and

24 states. I think we shall achieve it, because this is equally in the

25 interest --" if the registry could go to the next page, please. "I think

1 we shall achieve it, because this is equally in the interest of Serbia and

2 Croatia, while the Muslim component has no other exit than to accept this

3 solution, although it will not be easy to find the solution, but

4 essentially that is it."

5 Now, sir, can you tell us anything more about how this statement

6 fit in with what Mr. -- President Tudjman had reported to you about his

7 meeting with Milosevic at Karadjordjevo?

8 A. I don't think that this has much to do with Karadjordjevic and

9 their meeting and agreement there. What this is about is whether we're

10 going to retain the federation or are we going to look at another model

11 that is called a confederation. There were proposals, specifically put

12 forward by Gligorov and Izetbegovic, to accept a confederation, a

13 confederal set-up for the territory of the former Yugoslavia. However,

14 that never took root, although Croatia and President Tudjman, and Slovenia

15 as well, were in favour of having a transitional period, five, ten years,

16 using a confederal model for that set-up, and therefore to avoid any

17 conflicts over borders and other internal issues that had to be resolved

18 by using this confederal model, which meant that each republic would be

19 able to make its own decisions which would then be dovetailed and

20 harmonised at the level of the confederation.

21 I don't know if I've been clear enough.

22 Q. Above that, sir, it says: "Serbia accepted it, but giving it its

23 own interpretation in regard to the creating of an effective democratic

24 federation and they are sure not to change their position in this regard."

25 What President Tudjman has just said is the proposal by

1 Izetbegovic and Gligorov is not going to -- is not going to fly. And

2 then: "Therefore, the solution lies in what was said there in the

3 partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina."

4 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, I'm going to object to this. I'll

5 wait for the translation.

6 First of all, Mr. Scott shouldn't be testifying. He can ask a

7 question. The gentleman was asked to look at something that was taken out

8 of context. I believe it might be more appropriate for the Trial Chamber

9 if the Prosecution were to ask questions with respect to who is this

10 gentleman that's being referred to speaking with Mr. Izetbegovic, and

11 perhaps to give more clarification, because this issue is going to be a

12 vital issue throughout the case, especially with respect to the so-called

13 carving up of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

14 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, all I did was refer him to the

15 preceding sentence, so in fact, as Mr. Karnavas frequently says, the

16 witness could see the fuller context of what was said.

17 Q. And in light of that question, I go back to what I said earlier,

18 and that is what role, then, how would Bosnia and Herzegovina be

19 partitioned as part of some solution? President Tudjman says, "The

20 solution lies in what was said there in the partition of

21 Bosnia-Herzegovina."

22 Can you tell us more about that?

23 A. I did not take part in that, so I can't tell you any more than it

24 says, but from the entire context, as far as I know when the discussions

25 were being held about a confederal state, it wasn't that the AVNOJ borders

1 should be changed among or between the republics. It didn't go along

2 those lines. And so this confederal proposal of Gligorov and Izetbegovic

3 was not adopted, and we'll find none of that in subsequent discussions,

4 just like the proposal of Slovenia and Croatia when they came up with the

5 confederation idea.

6 Q. Well, sir, if Bosnia and Herzegovina is partitioned, as mentioned

7 here, how would the AVNOJ borders not be changed?

8 A. Well, that's absurd. You cannot be for the AVNOJ borders and in

9 favour of changing them. This could just have been an opinion expressed

10 by someone that those borders be changed. But it was well known later on

11 that the Badinter Commission confirmed those borders and that they became

12 state borders.

13 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, thank you. I consider

14 that we're dealing with a linguistic misunderstanding here, because the

15 Prosecutor is using the term "division" or "partition" of

16 Bosnia-Herzegovina. That's interpretation we're getting, whereas the term

17 being used in the document is the delineation or demarcation of

18 Bosnia-Herzegovina. So if you read the transcript, it can be understood

19 as a delineation of three national entities within Bosnia-Herzegovina. So

20 perhaps this is a terminological discrepancy. So I'd just like to draw

21 the Chamber's attention to that, that in the transcript we're not speaking

22 about the division or partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

23 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, with your permission.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Kovacic.

25 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] I would perhaps like to make a

1 proposal which could perhaps get us out of this difficulty. I have read a

2 lot of these transcripts, and they're stenograms. You have words left

3 out. Sentences are very complicated. So perhaps it would be a good idea,

4 when the Prosecutor is highlighting excerpts from stenograms, that the

5 witness be provided with the whole page - in this case it's on one page

6 and then goes on to the next page - for the witness to see it himself,

7 because this interpretation of one sentence after another you necessarily

8 get to a situation that Ms. Alaburic described. Because sometimes we have

9 to read these decisions four times or many times before we're able to

10 understand the real meaning.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Perhaps it's easier for me to find

12 my way in the transcripts because I have had more experience with them.

13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. There seems to be an

14 important problem here, and that is that in B/C/S the term would be the

15 definition of borders where you were speaking about division or partition,

16 which isn't exactly the same thing. So could you restate your question,

17 please.

18 MR. SCOTT: Well, Your Honour, procedurally, if we're being

19 invited, or the suggestion is to give Mr. Manolic a hard copy of the

20 transcript, I certainly have no objection to that, if that's -- if that

21 will move us forward.

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. I think it would be more

23 useful if he had the B/C/S text in front of him.

24 MR. SCOTT: All right.

25 MR. KARNAVAS: And, Your Honour, while we're looking for the text,

1 I should also point out that on page 38, President Tudjman begins with,

2 "All right. Let us wrap this -- let's -- let us wrap up this item." And

3 then you look, preceding that we have a bunch of blank pages that haven't

4 been translated. And it begs the question, how can we know what happened

5 -- what preceded this discussion? That's why it's terribly important for

6 us to have the entire translation into English, or at least for you to

7 have it, because at some point we need to draw some conclusions as to what

8 exactly is taking place. So the wrap-up or the conclusion that is being

9 discussed here follows an entire discussion, and I think that's terribly

10 important. And I go -- and I go back to my earlier question that the

11 gentleman should be asked about who is Gligorov -- Gligorov, and what is

12 this discussion about, because I believe we're talking about two different

13 things here.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Sir, you've heard the

15 queries. You mentioned Mr. Gligorov. Could you tell us who Mr. Gligorov

16 was.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Gligorov was the president of

18 Macedonia during that period, one of the states of the former Yugoslavia,

19 or republics.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

21 Mr. Scott, let's try and make headway. Please proceed.

22 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour.

23 Q. If we can look -- if you -- in light of the clarification, which I

24 appreciate counsel's assistance on that, especially Ms. Alaburic, if the

25 word is "delineation," sir, if that's what's causing our -- some of our

1 problem, let's substitute for the moment the word "delineation" -- or

2 that's the word that you see in your language. It nonetheless goes on to

3 say that: "As a result of some delineation, this will be equally in the

4 interests of Serbia and Croatia while the Muslim component has no other

5 exit than to accept this solution."

6 So what delineation was being considered that would be in the

7 interests of Serbia and Croatia but not the Muslims?

8 A. Well, yes. I think that the moment came when Tudjman and

9 Milosevic agreed about certain divisions or delineations within Bosnia. I

10 think that in fact it was delineation within Bosnia that they insisted

11 upon, both President Tudjman and Milosevic. And also, I don't think that

12 Izetbegovic was outside that. Izetbegovic must have taken part in that,

13 because it related to the Muslim ethnic group mostly.

14 Q. All right. Let's go forward, please. If we can go to page 47 of

15 the document.

16 MR. KARNAVAS: Before we do that, Your Honour, I think this is

17 very important: Why can't we ask for a clarification, a follow-up on

18 this? What exactly does he mean about Izetbegovic being inside the group?

19 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I'm either going to ask the questions,

20 Your Honour, conduct my examination, or just let the Defence do the direct

21 and the cross-examination.

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Go ahead and ask it.

23 MR. SCOTT:

24 Q. If you go to page 47, please.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You say 47. Is that the English

1 version page or the B/C/S page?

2 MR. SCOTT: It should be -- it should be -- in the electronic

3 version, it should be the same, Your Honour. Page 47 should be the same

4 in both documents. That's what I understand, what I've been told.

5 Q. On the bottom half of that page, sir -- if the registry could

6 scroll down a bit and show us the bottom half of the page.

7 Sir, if you can find the language there in the -- about the middle

8 of the page now, where it says: "If we come to an agreement about this

9 important contested matter between Croatia and Serbia, that is Bosnia and

10 Herzegovina, if we achieve realistic borders for the Republic of Croatia,

11 and if this problem of the Serbs outside Serbia is solved so that Serbia

12 is satisfied, then we can work on Serbia accepting such a foundation for

13 an association which would be also acceptable to us and to others, or

14 total disassociation."

15 Do you see that, first of all, sir? Do you see the language?

16 A. Yes. This is just presentation of different wishes, how to solve

17 the problem on the territory of Yugoslavia and, more specifically, on the

18 territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Here President Tudjman is presenting his

19 own views that, before that, these relationships should be resolved, just

20 like the problem of Serbs within Croatian borders. And that's where it

21 stops. There are no further dilemmas there.

22 Q. The language that I've just shown to you says: "If we come to an

23 agreement about this important contested matter between Croatia and

24 Serbia ..." Can you tell the Judges what this important contested matter

25 was?

1 A. This contested matter was certainly the internal division or

2 delineation, if you like, within the ethnic groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

3 Q. And how did this internal delineation of borders, how would that

4 affect what's said in the next sentence, the "... realistic borders for

5 the Republic of Croatia..."?

6 A. Probably what they thought was that there should be certain

7 movements in the borders, the AVNOJ borders, towards Bosnia-Herzegovina,

8 but nobody was explicit. Nobody said that in explicit terms. We can only

9 draw that conclusion in order to arrive at a global agreement between

10 Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina that certain interests must be

11 satisfied, those of Croatia and Serbia on the territory of

12 Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was certainly in contradiction with the

13 standpoint and position of Izetbegovic, who advocated an integral

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

15 Q. All right. Sir, if the registry can assist, please, to go to

16 Exhibit P 00068. And if you have the first page of that, sir.

17 A. Yes, I can see that.

18 Q. It says it's the minutes of the 36th session of the State Supreme

19 Council held on Tuesday, the 12th of November, 1991.

20 A. That's right, yes.

21 Q. This is the same state body that we saw in the last document; is

22 that correct, sir?

23 A. Yes, that's right.

24 Q. Again presided by Dr. Franjo Tudjman, and he says: "Gentlemen, I

25 hereby open the 36th session of the State Supreme Council." And when you

1 look at item 2 of the agenda, what is item 2 of the agenda?

2 A. [No interpretation].

3 Q. I didn't get any translation.

4 A. "On the deepening of the crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina." "On the

5 deepening of the crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina." That's the second point

6 on the agenda.

7 Q. If I could ask you, sir, to look at page 5 -- or the registry to

8 assist us by going to page 5 of the document. You will see the paragraph

9 that starts with "In Slovenia ..." The next sentence says that: "All

10 Croatian politics is experiencing a breakdown and it is the time for it to

11 go because they say that Franjo Tudjman has a pen that is always prepared

12 in case some peace treaty needs to be signed instead of preparing for the

13 defence."

14 Now, this is in November of 1991. Can you tell the Judges, was

15 President Tudjman receiving public criticism at this time for not doing

16 more to stop or resist the Serb aggression or ambitions on Croatia?

17 A. Yes. President Tudjman was exposed to sharp criticism, but

18 criticism from positions which were unacceptable to us, the positions of

19 the right-wing extremists who criticised Tudjman of not taking enough care

20 of the efficaciousness of Croatian defence, that he wasn't procuring

21 weapons, et cetera, et cetera. Now, that stream within Croatian politics

22 wanted to settle relations both with Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina very

23 quickly, and that was unacceptable. It was unrealistic, and it went

24 against overall policy undertaken by the European Community, just like all

25 the other European countries vis-a-vis the former Yugoslavia.

1 Q. Well, what did these other -- what did this other group or faction

2 want President Tudjman to do? What --

3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Ms. Alaburic.

4 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. Your

5 Honour, since you don't have the translation of the transcript, I think

6 that I have to point out the following fact in relation to the question

7 and answer: The contents on page 5 relate to the first item on the

8 agenda, which is the situation around Vukovar and Dubrovnik. The

9 Prosecutor's questions, what the second item of the agenda was, and the

10 comments on 5 -- page 5 of the minutes could lead us astray, and you might

11 think that page 5 relates to item 2 on the agenda, that is to say,

12 Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is not correct. So would you bear in mind the

13 fact that you cannot cut and paste different parts of the minutes.

14 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, counsel's absolutely right that it's a

15 different -- this is a reference to item 1 on the agenda, but I'm

16 intentionally addressing that separate matter before coming back to agenda

17 item 2, for reasons that at some point I hope will be clear.

18 Q. What -- what was the criticism, sir? These other people, this

19 other faction, what did they want President Tudjman to do that he wasn't,

20 according to them, doing?

21 A. Well, that criticism went along the lines of saying that President

22 Tudjman, as the Supreme Commander, hadn't take all -- taken all steps

23 possible to defend Vukovar, because the crisis - and we're talking about

24 the 12th and 18th, it was definite - and Vukovar fell within the space of

25 six days. So six days before the fall of Vukovar we had these rumours

1 going round, we had this criticism being made of the Supreme Commander of

2 Croatian army that in the military aspect he wasn't efficacious enough and

3 hadn't done everything in his power to prevent it. However, I think that

4 we should say something now from the positions that Croatia and President

5 Tudjman had at the time, and that is that President Tudjman did have

6 certain guarantees given him by military circles which participated in the

7 action and operation against Vukovar at the time and on the front, the

8 Yugoslav army was involved, that he had certainly intimations, or had he

9 had certain -- that he had certain guarantees and intimations that the

10 army would not be bent on toppling power and authority in Croatia but that

11 what it was doing, that by the army helping the rebel Serbs from Knin to

12 Vukovar, that that only partially -- actually, that the Yugoslav army

13 could not control all these groups, because the Territorial Defence groups

14 in Vukovar and other areas had taken the initiative upon themselves in

15 that rebellion and in toppling the state authority of Croatia.

16 So faced with a situation of that kind, those criticisms were

17 being hurled against him. And President Tudjman came up against a stream

18 there of men who thought that they could solve the problem exclusively

19 militarily, the problem of Croatia and Serbia, whereas he wanted to follow

20 a diplomatic course and combine the diplomatic course with defence and

21 therefore, in a way, gain time, because time worked in his favour. It

22 worked in Croatia's favour, and did not work in -- to the advantage of the

23 other side. So that's where the misunderstanding arose with these people

24 who criticised him over Vukovar, as between President Tudjman and his

25 critics.

1 Q. Can the registry please go to page 28 of the document. And

2 there's some references to some statements made attributed to you.

3 If you can go a little bit further down on the page, please.

4 Thank you.

5 In the second paragraph there, sir, at the end you say: "We are

6 the witnesses of the beginning of development when we had only a few

7 policemen who were defending this constitutional and state border."

8 What do you mean by that?

9 A. What I meant by that was what was realistic. At that point in

10 time, taking over power and authority, we had no military component. All

11 we had was the police which could stand up to those rebellions, and they

12 were whole-heartedly supported by the JNA, from weapons to launching

13 actions of various kinds.

14 Q. Just so the record is clear, who was supported, sir, by the JNA?

15 You said "they" were supported by the JNA. Who was supported?

16 A. The rebel Serbs. And you would have to know that. You would have

17 to be clear on that point if the Judges don't know about that.

18 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I don't think that

19 we'll be able to establish any of the facts here. The Prosecutor has

20 extracted one single sentence from the middle of a paragraph. We don't

21 see the context of the discussion at all or anything else. He's just

22 extracted one sentence, and he can do that with any subject matter. He

23 can find a sentence that he finds favourable. Let's see what all this is

24 about, because we can't see what it's about.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] But I think that I laid the grounds

1 for that and explained.

2 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, we've covered this ground several times

3 now. We have a long document. Obviously we cannot sit here -- I propose

4 -- I suppose we can, and read every page of the document. The Court has

5 the entire document. The Defence certainly has the entire document.

6 They've had it for some months now. They can refer to any other part they

7 want but the only way to escape this continuous objection about context

8 means that there's no alternative but to read pages and pages of material.

9 Now, I think everyone can see the context of the statement, but if

10 the Chamber wants us to read several -- four or five pages on either side,

11 we can do that.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [No interpretation].

13 MR. SCOTT: I'm not getting any translation, Your Honour.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, I said please put a

15 question in order to put something from which something should follow.

16 Otherwise, we cannot follow your line of questioning.

17 If you are putting a question to the witness, there is probably a

18 case you want to put behind it, but we have to understand the point of

19 your question in order for you to do that.

20 Please go back to where we were a moment ago.

21 MR. SCOTT: That's what I was trying to do, Your Honour. We've

22 lost the page. We've lost the record, unfortunately.

23 Q. So at this time, sir, is it correct that as of the 12th of

24 November -- November, 1991, during this time period Croatia's military

25 resources or ability to put up an armed resistance to the JNA was quite

1 limited; is that correct?

2 A. Certainly. In relation to the opponent who had heavy weapons,

3 aviation, and so on, we were limited, the resistance was limited. We had

4 newly mobilised people, 50.000 who we had managed to mobilise in that

5 period, and they were not well armed. And this put Croatia into an

6 inferior position in relation to the aggressor, and the aggressor was

7 Serbia.

8 Q. Sir, were the people in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the government of

9 Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the same position in relation to the JNA and the

10 Serb forces as the Croatian government found itself in?

11 A. Yes. At that point in time, I think they were in the same

12 position, but I think that certain contacts were already being made in

13 Bosnia and Herzegovina between the Croatian and the Serb forces, but this

14 will certainly be better explained to you by the people who were involved

15 in that there. I was not.

16 Q. What do you understand about the contacts between the Croatian and

17 Serb forces in Bosnia during this time?

18 MR. MURPHY: Well, Your Honour, since the witness has said that he

19 wasn't involved in it, I think that it follows that his answer to that

20 must be speculation.

21 And on a broader issue, Your Honour, I -- since there have been so

22 many objections, I have not wanted to intervene, but it does seem to me

23 that the testimony of this witness so far has consisted largely of

24 speculating about what may have been in the mind of President Tudjman and

25 others, and I -- and I would ask that Mr. Scott perhaps reconsider this

1 line of questioning to confine it to matters that the witness has some

2 personal knowledge about.

3 MR. SCOTT: Well, Your Honour, he was present at these meetings

4 and I just asked him a moment ago about statements that he himself made.

5 So I think he knows about the statements that he made, and I think he can

6 testify about a meeting that he personally attended and what was said and

7 what was going on in the context at the time.

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's right. That's right. When I

9 say I was not involved, I mean I was not involved on the territory of

10 Bosnia-Herzegovina on the ground, but I did participate in the discussion

11 about the defence of Vukovar and how to counter the aggression of Serbia

12 against Croatia.

13 MR. MURPHY: The witness has made an excellent response to the

14 objection. However, it doesn't quite solve the problem. I certainly

15 don't mind him talking about whatever he heard during the meeting. That's

16 not the problem. What is the problem is when he starts to speculate about

17 what was in the minds of others.

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Thank you. The

19 problem arose because at a certain point he was reminded of the contacts

20 between the Serb and Croatian forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina. So this was

21 intellectual speculation, was it, or did you say that because you had

22 knowledge of and were aware of that type of contact taking place? You

23 were the Prime Minister, so you were somebody who was capable of answering

24 the question. So was it speculation on your part, or was it certitude on

25 your part?

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I never answer any question by

2 speculating. I am speaking only about facts of which I have personal

3 knowledge as a witness. Whether somebody will believe those facts or not

4 is a different matter. It's up to everybody to make up their own mind.

5 But at this point in time I was deeply involved in discussion of that

6 problem. Of course discussions at a high-level government forum such as

7 the VONS, the Defence and National Security Council, is one thing. What

8 happens on the ground, where there is shooting at the front line, is

9 another matter, and I was not there. However, decisions were made based

10 on the information reaching the Supreme Commander on a daily basis.

11 The criticism directed at the president that he had not taken

12 sufficiently effective measures for defence, this same criticism also

13 applied to me and the entire state leadership in power at the time in

14 Croatia.

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] And a final question: You said

16 there were criticisms of President Tudjman by the extreme right wing.

17 Now, the people who criticised him --

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, that's correct.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] -- who led these people? Was

20 there a leader? Who got them going? Were there unidentified people or a

21 leader?

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. It's a logical question. Yes,

23 there were even paramilitary units, as we called them, the units of the

24 HOS, commanded by Paraga and Djapic. These were the units that wanted a

25 military solution but there was no military strength to do that. These

1 were unrealistic assessments made by those people, that we should go

2 against the aggressor along the entire front line. Our decision was to

3 defend only certain points of the front line until we had gathered enough

4 strength and gained the assistance of the international community for

5 defence against the aggressor. That was our position at the time.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] But you mentioned the

7 paramilitaries. You quoted Paraga and Djapic. So those units,

8 paramilitary units, were they under their control or were they out of

9 control?

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They were under the control of only

11 that political party. In 1991, our Supreme Court declared their units to

12 be paramilitary units. They were causing problems by provoking the enemy,

13 causing incidents, and also causing incidents with our own regular

14 military and police forces. That's history by now.

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The interpretation has indicated

16 two elements. The first is that the principal cause led to a decision.

17 What decision? Did it declare these units illegal?

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's correct, yes. Paramilitary,

19 which means they were outside of the law. These were illegal units, yes.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] And the second element? I can't

21 see it in the English, though, although I heard this translation, that

22 those units depended upon a party, a political party. Which political

23 party?

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The Croatian Party of Rights. That

25 was the name of the party. The HSP. They still bear that name, but

1 Paraga has left. They are now led by Mr. Djapic.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you for explaining that.

3 Mr. Scott, please proceed.

4 MR. SCOTT: If the registry could go to page 31 of the document,

5 sir.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Praljak, just quickly,

7 please. What was it you wanted to say?

8 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] While we are waiting, Your

9 Honour, contacts. It seems everyone believes them to be diplomatic

10 contacts, whereas I believe he means the first military conflicts.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think I explained. One thing was

12 happening on the front line, and another thing was happening at sessions

13 of high-level forums. I think it's clear, but if it isn't, we can

14 clarify.

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. Mr. Scott.

16 MR. SCOTT:

17 Q. On page 31, sir, this is -- if you want to check, but this is you

18 continuing to talk, and you say -- on this page, you say: "So after all

19 they came down to undemocratic and a non-parliamentary method of

20 overthrowing the legal order, and that is where we have to fight a

21 decisive battle. I do not care if one is an Ustasha, a Croat, a

22 Communist, or I don't know what, if his actions and moves are directed to

23 overthrow these legally elected authorities, he has to be held responsible

24 for it."

25 Do you see that?

1 A. Yes. Those are my words too. We had to oppose those forces which

2 were trying to topple the legal order of the Republic of Croatia and the

3 legally elected government from whatever side. The rebel Serbs were doing

4 that, but so was Paraga. And he was using his Croatian patriotism as a

5 smokescreen, whereas in fact he was trying to bring down the legally

6 elected government. They were never successful - let that be clear - but

7 they caused quite a lot of problems.

8 Q. And, sir, is that a principle that you held generally, and would

9 you apply that to what you saw happening in Bosnia-Herzegovina as well, in

10 terms of the legally elected government in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

11 A. In principle and as a rule, that was the position I always

12 advocated, that the legally elected government had to be respected,

13 whether in Croatia or in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The legally elected

14 government had to be respected there, too, just as the results of the

15 referendum carried through in Bosnia-Herzegovina also had to be respected.

16 MR. SCOTT: If the usher could go forward, the registry can please

17 assist in going to page 51. And to make in clear in light of the question

18 that was raised earlier, the president says at this stage, he says: "Now,

19 gentlemen, let's start with the second item of the agenda, deepening of

20 the political crisis in Bosnia."

21 Q. Do you have that page, sir? The first -- so then it's under what

22 I just referenced, it says: "As you know, the Serbs have the referendum.

23 They have practically isolated those Serbian Krajinas, but they already

24 have six of them over there."

25 When President Tudjman says "six of them" here, what six, of what

1 is he talking about?

2 A. He's referring to certain provinces as they grouped them on that

3 territory in Bosnia-Herzegovina where they set up their government

4 authorities, thereby opposing the rest of integral Bosnia.

5 Q. Were these areas at that particular time -- do you recall the term

6 "Serb autonomous areas" or "Serbian autonomous areas," SAO's?

7 A. No, there was no autonomy. It was under the authority of Karadzic

8 and his military units that he established.

9 Q. I understand that's your assessment, but were these areas, these

10 Serb areas at that time, were they called, was the name of these areas

11 that they referred to as SAO, or S-A-O?

12 A. I don't think so. I think it was the Republika Srpska in that

13 area, and in those municipalities where the Serbs were in the majority,

14 they established those provinces. I think they referred to them as the

15 six provinces.

16 Q. All right. Let's go to the bottom of that page, please. It says:

17 "Related to that, last time we spoke about our problem and I informed you

18 that the last time I got the written request from, as they said, the

19 community of Travnik municipalities, the Travnik regional community,

20 signed by nine presidents of HDZ municipal assemblies, presidents --" go

21 to the next page, please -- "and the executive councils. Our people are

22 getting more and more impatient and yesterday I got it from 18 others,

23 signed by our Croatian representatives. I can read it to you --" and then

24 it goes on names and numbers of municipalities of a meeting held on the

25 15th of October with reference to Mate Boban. At the end of that section

1 on that page, it says: "It was unanimously concluded that the agreement

2 on this matter was made with you on 13th June, 1991, and that no one has

3 the right to achieve that goal outside of that. Only your attitude is

4 fixed."

5 Now, can you assist the Judges in terms of what communications was

6 President Tudjman referring to here from something called the Travnik

7 regional community?

8 A. I think it's quite clear. This is the threat to the Croatian

9 people in the areas he mentions: Kupres, Tomislavgrad, Rudes, and so on.

10 He's being asked to do something, to create a better organisation to

11 better protect these people who are applying to him for assistance. I

12 think this is the beginning of the creation of the Community of

13 Herceg-Bosna which had a positive role to play at that point in time in

14 linking up the interests of the Croatian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina in

15 relation to the aggressor was the Greater Serbian aggressor.

16 Q. Can you provide any further assistance to the Judges when the

17 reference is made to the agreement on this matter was made with you on the

18 13th of June, 1991? Do you know what agreement was made with President

19 Tudjman on the 13th of June, 1991?

20 A. I don't know that. I didn't participate in it, and I don't know

21 about it.

22 Q. All right.

23 A. This was probably an agreement made directly between the president

24 and the representatives of the municipalities mentioned here.

25 Q. All right. If you will look at -- go to page 53. If I can direct

1 your attention, please, to the bottom half of the page. You see the

2 language which says: "On the other side of this Croatian organisation,

3 the Croatian people in general expect the directions from us on what to do

4 if our politics wouldn't do that. We have been holding back until now.

5 We said, 'Wait, we cannot question. We cannot endanger the borders of

6 Bosnia and Herzegovina because of the defence of the Republic of Croatia

7 borders, et cetera.' But it seems to me that we have reached a phase when

8 certain steps should be taken --" excuse me, "... should be made. It

9 means this is Western Herzegovina and Western Bosnia, Travnik regional.

10 We also had a meeting with the Bosnian municipality of Posavina, Croatian

11 --" apparently it gets a bit garbled there. If we go over to the next

12 page.

13 A. The more the Greater Serbian aggression grew fiercer and fiercer

14 against these Croatian municipalities, the more threatened they felt, and

15 they asked the Croatian state and the president to protect them from that

16 aggression. This is quite normal. They were asking their mother state,

17 their neighbouring state, for assistance and protection. However, I think

18 that this drive at the same time was aimed at formally annexing that part

19 of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia, which is how they could obtain the

20 full protection of the Croatian state. And President Tudjman replies: "I

21 cannot accept this now because it would mean changing the existing

22 borders, and nobody in Europe can change existing borders by force but

23 only by mutual agreement."

24 This is where President Tudjman found himself in a quandary. He

25 felt that he had to help, but on the other hand their request could not be

1 implemented, not realised. They were trying to gain security for their

2 municipalities in this way.

3 Q. All right. Going over to the top of the next page, please, page

4 54.

5 A. Yes. In the transcript there is also mention of the HOS units.

6 They were destructive in this respect, not constructive. They were

7 destructive in this respect. They wanted to impose an unrealistic policy

8 and have it implemented.

9 Q. All right. At the top of this page that we're looking at now, sir

10 - if we have page 5 - it says: "Therefore, I believe they want us --

11 they want me to state my opinion immediately. A certain delegation should

12 come to visit me, and I think at this moment that we should tell them to

13 say that they exist as the regional community of Croatian municipalities."

14 Do you know anything about a delegation coming to see President

15 Tudjman around this time, anywhere around this time, around the 12th of

16 November, 1991?

17 A. I think this is correct. I think that the president did receive

18 those delegates from those municipalities but also from other areas; the

19 Bosanska Posavina, the Bosnian Posavina region. They were all asking for

20 protection from the Serb aggression.

21 Q. All right. Now, if we continue on down to the next section,

22 unless -- lest I be accused of taking something out of context, do you see

23 this part, sir, it says: "If the Serb isolated theirs, they should also

24 say we exist as a regional community, but they shouldn't take any

25 decisions against Bosnia-Herzegovina or decisions on joining Croatia.

1 However, we should mobilise them in that way and prevent a political

2 disorder."

3 Mr. Manolic, can you tell the Judges, did you understand this to

4 be President Tudjman's long-term view or was he communicating that the

5 time was not yet right for that to happen?

6 MR. KARNAVAS: I'm going to object again on the form of the

7 question. He can simply ask him what did he mean. Now we're injecting --

8 I mean, the question as phrased - and look at it very carefully,

9 Mr. President - suggests a potential answer, a prediction as to what is to

10 come. I think we need to take this step-by-step. The gentleman spent a

11 lot of time with President Tudjman. He certainly will be able to tell us.

12 MR. SCOTT:

13 Q. Sir, based on your meetings with President Tudjman --

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Nothing can be suggested to me. I

15 can only speak about facts that I know about, and I hope that's clear.

16 MR. KARNAVAS: Don't be angry at me, sir.

17 MR. SCOTT:

18 Q. Sir, based on your meetings and your participation in these

19 meetings at this time with President Tudjman and others, can you give us

20 any further information on what President Tudjman's views were about these

21 groups that were being established, or this group or regional community

22 being established in Bosnia, about that group joining Croatia?

23 A. I think that it was -- the situation was a very difficult one. It

24 was difficult for these people in those municipalities where the

25 aggression was exceptionally strong. And one should not reject their

1 efforts and the establishment of that community all the more so since in

2 that area of Bosnia-Herzegovina communities were formed such as the

3 Serbian community, the Muslim ethnic community - I think it was called The

4 Patriotic Front, or something like that - and then the Croats, too,

5 responded in equal measure and endeavoured to set up this community which

6 could successfully link up and join in the mobilisation to stand up to

7 that Greater Serbian aggression.

8 Q. I certainly accept that, sir, but taking that exactly at face

9 value, let me put my question back to you: Did during this time President

10 Tudjman express views to you about whether these groups in fact should, if

11 not then at some point, join the State of Croatia?

12 A. No. He expressed his view and position and said he could not

13 accept that because that would change and alter the state borders between

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina because of what stood behind that. The international

15 community was behind that, the European Community was behind that. They

16 were of the opinion that state borders could not be altered.

17 Q. Well, sir, I understand that was the international community's

18 position or view, but was that President Tudjman's view or desire?

19 A. Well, wishes are one thing, reality is another. You have to

20 realise your desires within a certain reality, and he didn't want to

21 implement the wishes and desires imposed upon him by people who were under

22 jeopardy. He couldn't do that.

23 Now, what else happened in that Herceg-Bosna of ours is another

24 matter.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Are you saying that President

1 Tudjman could not respond to the demands made by these individuals who had

2 grouped in Bosnia-Herzegovina? But specifically speaking, in concrete

3 terms, what did he do in order to respond to those desires while also

4 saying that the borders couldn't be touched? What did he do, actively

5 speaking? What action did he take?

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] He upheld the position that I, too,

7 upheld: Organise yourselves, mobilise yourselves in your environments

8 where you feel in jeopardy, and stand up to the aggression, and we will

9 help you within the frameworks and possibilities that we are allowed to

10 do, because we are also threatened by that same aggressor.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] So what you're saying, in fact,

12 is President Tudjman's doctrine with respect to these groups of Croats in

13 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the doctrine was to say, "Organise yourselves,

14 face up to the problem, and we'll help."

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's right.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott.

17 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I'm about to change topics, and I would

18 suggest that we break here for the evening.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. It's almost 7.00, so

20 we're going to adjourn the hearing for today, Mr. Manolic. Since you have

21 taken the solemn declaration, you are now a court witness, a witness of

22 justice. You're not going to make any contacts with representatives of

23 the Prosecutor or the Defence or the Judges. You'll be back tomorrow, and

24 we start off at 9.00 tomorrow in the morning. We're going to have three

25 hours of sitting, and then three and a half hours sitting in the

1 afternoon. If you experience any difficulties, please let us know.

2 So I wish you all a very pleasant evening, and we reconvene

3 tomorrow morning at 9.00.

4 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 6.54 p.m.,

5 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 4th day

6 of July, 2006, at 9.00 a.m.

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