080521IT

Page 28351

1 were arriving from a different state, in this particular case,

2 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and came to us to request refugee status. We were

3 the only office that was able and allowed to grant that status to them.

4 JUDGE MINDUA: [Interpretation] Thank you very much.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine. Mr. Scott, you have the

6 floor for your cross-examination.

7 MR. SCOTT: We'll be distributing some papers, Your Honour.

8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You have the floor.

9 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon, Your

10 Honours, to counsel, to all those in and around the courtroom, and

11 especially Dr. Rebic.

12 Cross-examination by Mr. Scott:

13 Q. Good afternoon to you.

14 A. Thank you, and good afternoon to you, too, Mr. Scott.

15 Q. Doctor, I'm not sure, I've been thinking back over the last

16 couple of days and I'm not -- I cannot recall whether I've ever

17 cross-examined a priest before. I'm just wondering, do I need to have

18 any sort of special dispensation or any special permission to do that?

19 A. It's not necessary, no.

20 Q. Good.

21 A. Because this is not a confession, is it.

22 Q. No. We'll see. We will see. If we can just touch a bit on -- a

23 little bit more on your agency and, in fact, to follow up on some of the

24 questions that Judge Mindua put to you, and some of them may be similar,

25 but perhaps we can capture as much of this information in one spot. It

Page 28352

1 may ultimately assist.

2 You became involved with the Office for Displaced Persons and

3 Refugees in Croatia essentially at its inception; is that right?

4 A. That's right, yes.

5 Q. And we're just touching on the relationship with the Croatian

6 government. Do I understand correctly, sir, that in terms of a superior,

7 if the person who we might consider in colloquial terms your boss, is it

8 correct that that would have been Mate Granic who, at that time, I

9 believe was both the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime

10 Minister of the Republic of Croatia?

11 A. That is correct, but at the time, at the very beginning, he was

12 not the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was only deputy prime minister

13 responsible for social issues. And since the office was basically

14 concerned with social issues, he would have been our boss, as you put it,

15 and through him we would also be reporting to the government. It would

16 not have been fair for me to contact the prime minister directly,

17 bypassing Mr. Granic's authority. That would not have been fair, in

18 other words.

19 Q. All right. Sir, you're absolutely correct. Later -- at a point

20 later in time Mr. Granic also became -- or became the deputy prime

21 minister during the time you were still at ODPR; is that correct?

22 A. Actually, what you were going to ask me I believe is that he

23 later on became the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He already was a deputy

24 prime minister. Am I right in correcting you there?

25 Q. You're absolutely right. How often did you have dealings with

Page 28353

1 Mate Granic as your boss? Did you have any sort of regular weekly

2 meeting with him? Did you have to report to him your schedule, your work

3 plan? What sort of relationship did you have with Mr. Granic?

4 A. Mr. Scott, the OTP are meaning either me personally as the head

5 of the office or together with my deputy or secretary or some other

6 person who was in charge of the issues that we wanted to brief Mr. Granic

7 about. We would go to meet him. Those briefings of ours would take

8 place several times a week. There were times when we would meet on a

9 daily basis because that's what the situation called for.

10 Q. Very well. And during the period -- we're going to be focusing

11 primarily on 1992 into -- into 1994. During that time period at the

12 ODPR, who was your principal deputy or right hand, if you will?

13 A. Mr. Cepin.

14 Q. And what was the position held by Dr. Zoric?

15 A. Mr. Damir Zoric was the Secretary-General.

16 Q. Were the three of you, you, Dr. Rebic, Mr. Cepin, and

17 Mr. Zoric -- Dr. Zoric, can we accurately understand then that the three

18 of you were considered the three senior officials in the agency?

19 A. One would say the most involved in the work of the office, but

20 Mr. Cepin, my deputy, joined us a bit later when the job outgrew the

21 current personnel, and that's why the government offered me to take on a

22 deputy who helped in dealing with the issues concerning the main office,

23 the regional offices, and all the issues that concerned refugees and

24 displaced persons.

25 Q. All right. Now, building on that in terms of your dealing with

Page 28354

1 other offices, let me ask you. As you know, there came to be an office

2 for displaced persons and refugees, an agency by the same name in

3 Herceg-Bosna, and can you tell us who in your office, perhaps you, but

4 who in your office had the principal contacts or dealings with the ODPR

5 outside the ODPR HVO?

6 A. From the beginning of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the ODPR had

7 contacts with Sarajevo through Mrs. Omersoftic. Mrs. Omersoftic arrived

8 in mid-1992 in Zagreb and asked me to brief her about the job of taking

9 in displaced persons and refugees.

10 Q. Thank you. Doctor, just as Mr. Karnavas did, with my apology in

11 advance, there may be times when I will unfortunately interrupt you

12 because of the time limitations that we have to operate under. Let me

13 restate my question. Perhaps it wasn't clear.

14 I was not talking about the agency to deal with displaced persons

15 of the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina. My question to you

16 concerned the Office of Displaced Persons and Refugees that was set up by

17 the HVO, the Croatian Defence Council, in Mostar, and my question to you,

18 who among your office in Zagreb, who had most of the dealings and contact

19 with the ODPR HVO?

20 A. That office, the one on the territory of the Republic of Bosnia

21 and Herzegovina where the Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna was set up,

22 started operating a little later than the similar office in Sarajevo.

23 Consequently, pursuant to an agreement between the Republic of Croatia

24 and Bosnia-Herzegovina, it was determined that the Republic of Croatia

25 should provide logistical support to Bosnia-Herzegovina, to Sarajevo, to

Page 28355

1 the Bosniak Muslim side, and also to the Bosnian Croatian side. At that

2 time it was decided that the Republic of Croatia would help to organise

3 such an office on the territory controlled by the HVO. This was done,

4 and they just like Mrs. Omersoftic came to obtain the basic information

5 and instructions on how to go about setting up such an office and then

6 they set one up in Herceg-Bosna.

7 Q. Excuse me, sir. Let me thank you for that. Let me ask my

8 question again a third time. Who, who -- the people in your office,

9 yourself perhaps, Mr. Cepin, Dr. Zoric, who in your office in ODPR

10 Croatia, who had the dealing -- principal dealings with ODPR HVO, and who

11 did you deal with -- who was the person or persons that the ODPR HVO that

12 you had your dealings with?

13 A. All three of us participated in that. Most often I as the head

14 of the office. They would come to see me and inform me about the

15 situation, just as Mrs. Omersoftic did to inform me about the situation

16 in Sarajevo. When necessary, Zoric or Boris Cepin had contacts with

17 them.

18 Q. All right. And the other part of my question, sir, is who - at

19 the end other, if you will - who were the persons, who were the officials

20 at ODPR HVO, the Herceg-Bosna agency? Who were you dealing with there?

21 A. The first person who we cooperated with was Mr. Tadic. After

22 him, the second person, the head of the Office for Displaced Persons in

23 Herceg-Bosna was Mr. Martin Raguz. I'm not sure when exactly he

24 succeeded Mr. Tadic.

25 Q. All right. And Mr. Tadic, that was Darinko Tadic, and I take it

Page 28356

1 he was the head of ODPR HVO --

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. -- prior to Mr. Rebic. You'll have to give a --

4 A. That's correct, yes.

5 Q. Thank you. Now let me ask you a somewhat different question,

6 sir. You've mentioned a couple of occasions perhaps since you began

7 testifying earlier this week, but can you tell the Judges

8 approximately -- during the period, let's say from the middle of 1992,

9 roughly July 1992, until mid-1994, perhaps we can say again July 1994,

10 during that approximate two-year period how often did you go to,

11 physically, Herceg-Bosna?

12 A. As Herceg-Bosna was not within my remit in any way, it was very

13 rarely, I think maybe only once or, if my memory serves me well, twice,

14 that I visited that office in Herceg-Bosna. There was no need for our

15 office or members of our office to go there, because they were quite

16 independent in their activities. They were not our extended arm, so

17 there was no reason for us to go there, because we had no competence over

18 that office.

19 Q. All right. Can I ask you if you can be provided -- this will be

20 in one of the Defence binders I believe you were shown the document by

21 Mr. Karnavas, we may need the assistance of the usher, if you can please

22 look at Exhibit 1D 02008.

23 I'm told -- I don't know this, but I'm told by my very good

24 colleague that that could be number 12 in the binder, one of the binders

25 that people have been using.

Page 28357

1 Do you have it, Doctor?

2 A. No, no.

3 Q. We'll have it for you in just a moment.

4 A. I'll get it now, yes.

5 Q. Thank you, Counsel.

6 A. [In English] Thank you.

7 Q. Now, this is a document that we saw previously, that you looked

8 at the other day. According to the information that we were provided,

9 Dr. Rebic, this is a document that you're familiar with. You had

10 indicated that Dr. Granic, who you identified as your boss, he informed

11 you about this document and talked to you about it. There had been a

12 meeting between Mr. Granic and Mr. Prlic because Mr. Granic indeed wanted

13 to define the relations between Croatia and Herceg-Bosna, and Dr. Granic

14 and Dr. Prlic agreed that the Croatian ODPR would cooperate with

15 establishing a similar office in Herceg-Bosna and to essentially, if you

16 will, set that office up and get it running. That's what we've been

17 told. Is that correct?

18 A. [Interpretation] Yes, that's correct. At that time we didn't

19 have time, Granic and I, that is, to discuss in detail all the aspects of

20 the conclusions he had reached with other officials, but I was informed

21 of this in general terms.

22 Q. All right. Now, there's several aspects of this document we will

23 come back to because there's -- hopefully we'll approach our questions

24 and answers in a topical way, and there are some things that I will come

25 back to when it's perhaps more appropriate further into the examination,

Page 28358

1 but on the current point, if I could ask you -- if I could direct your

2 attention, for example, to paragraph number 2, paragraph number 5. You

3 can just cast your eyes on those.

4 This is consistent, is it not, with what you told us just a few

5 moments ago that there would be efforts, ongoing efforts, between the

6 ODPR Croatia and ODPR HVO to get the latter established and running and

7 that there would be close coordination, cooperation, between those two

8 agencies; is that correct?

9 A. Yes, but not just that, Mr. Scott. It was necessary to organise

10 on the territory of Herceg-Bosna accommodation for displaced persons

11 within that area. That was what the Republic of Croatia had requested.

12 It was not necessary for everyone to cross over into Croatia. Sarajevo

13 and Mostar both, and this was one of the conclusions of the friendship

14 agreement between Tudjman and Izetbegovic, it was necessary for both the

15 Bosniak Muslim side and the Croatian side in cooperation with Croatia to

16 take measures themselves to look after their displaced persons, and we

17 would help them where they were unable to do this on their own if they

18 were overwhelmed by the numbers of displaced persons.

19 Q. Thank you, Doctor. If you'd look at point number 7. Perhaps you

20 can help us with this since you were the head of the agency in Croatia

21 and working closely with Mr. Granic. Perhaps you can assist us.

22 Point 7 says: "When contacting the Office of the UN High

23 Commissioner for Refugees, ensure centralised access. The contact should

24 be made only at the HVO HZ HB level, in other words, through an office

25 set up by the HVO."

Page 28359

1 Now, why in your experience, drawing on your experience as head

2 of the ODPR Croatia, why would you want access centralised and limited

3 only at a senior level?

4 A. As I understand point 7, the Croatian side insisted that in

5 Herceg-Bosna also conditions should be put in place assisted by the High

6 Commissioner for Refugees, and Croatia would also assist in that respect.

7 The ODPR was in daily contact with the High Commissioner, with the UNHCR,

8 and there was some information, because I think the UNHCR did not have

9 its own office in Mostar, so some contacts between the UNHCR and them

10 went through us, but these contacts were not so numerous. Sometimes the

11 UNHCR got involved in solving the problems of the ODPR in Mostar

12 directly.

13 Q. All right. Well, perhaps we'll come to some of those instances.

14 If I can just ask you to look briefly at one other part of the document

15 before we finish with this document, at least for now.

16 MR. SCOTT: And then, perhaps, Your Honour, it might be time for

17 a break.

18 Q. If you can look at point 11, same document. If you can look at

19 point 11, just in passing, so perhaps we don't have to come back to the

20 document, at least in this respect. Another thing that Dr. Granic and

21 Dr. Prlic apparently discussed at this meeting was the assistance of

22 Croatia in operating the Mostar university; is that correct?

23 A. That is correct. The Republic of Croatia gave logistical

24 assistance for the founding of Mostar university so that both Croats and

25 Bosniaks in Mostar could become independent in this respect also rather

Page 28360

1 than arriving in Zagreb or Sarajevo so that they could have and

2 university in their own town, and that university still exists to this

3 day, and our professors from Zagreb, especially from the medical school,

4 still go to teach in Mostar.

5 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, it may be a good time for the break.

6 Thank you.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Let's take a

8 20-minute break, and we will resume in 20 minutes' time.

9 --- Recess taken at 3.45 p.m.

10 --- On resuming at 4.08 p.m.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. The Prosecution has

12 the floor again.

13 MR. SCOTT:

14 Q. Dr. Rebic, just on the topic of one of the accused in this case,

15 Mr. Prlic, if you could just confirm my understanding, and again this is

16 based on what I -- the information I've been given, if I can just confirm

17 that with you for purposes of the record, you believe that you -- that

18 Dr. Prlic visited Dr. Granic about a month before the fighting began in

19 the Posavina, sometime after the war started with the JNA; is that

20 correct?

21 A. Yes. That was when I first met Mr. Prlic in Mr. Granic 's

22 office. Mr. Granic was then the deputy prime minister.

23 Q. Can you assist us, please, with any other -- I know it's some

24 time ago, but if you can, can you give us any further information about

25 the approximate date of that, your first meeting with Mr. Prlic?

Page 28361

1 A. I can't recall the date. It might have been in the summer of

2 1992, maybe even a bit later in the autumn, towards the autumn. It was

3 not an official meeting between me and Mr. Prlic. I happened to be in

4 Mr. Granic's office. I had come to see the deputy prime minister about

5 something we needed. I can't remember what. And in the break I met

6 Mr. Prlic and had a brief conversation with him.

7 Q. Let me, in the interests of time, let me just indicate that again

8 the information that I've been given is that during the time -- if we can

9 say before or during the war, I'm not talking about -- I'm not talking

10 about 1995 or anytime after that, but before and during the war you can

11 recall meeting Dr. Prlic twice; is that correct?

12 A. Once I'm certain about. Whether it was twice I can't be

13 absolutely sure. I did attend some meetings which were held between

14 representatives of the government of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina

15 and Croatia and Prlic was there, but he was in a crowd.

16 Q. All right. And just to finish on this, again I understand that

17 you do not recall having any what might be described as substantive

18 conversations or communications with Dr. Prlic during the war, which

19 again for these purposes we'll say 1992 to 1994; is that correct?

20 A. I had a conversation by telephone with Mr. Prlic. That I know.

21 That was when there were about a hundred and fifty Bosnian Herzegovinian

22 Muslims in the Zagreb mosque. On that occasion Mr. Mouchet called me up.

23 He was very sad. He said, Professor, why are you no longer receiving

24 Muslims? I said to Mr. Mouchet, this is the first I've heard of it,

25 because we are receiving everyone who comes every day regardless of

Page 28362

1 whether they are Bosnian Muslims or Bosnian Croats. He said to me that

2 there were -- well, he said there were 800 of them in the mosque. There

3 weren't that many, actually, as far as I can recall, and then I sent

4 Mrs. Bozena Les who was then the head of the regional office to go to the

5 mosque urgently and take a look and inform me of this.

6 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, I would insist on the gentleman being

7 allowed to complete his answer. It is part of the question that was

8 being asked of him, and so I think he's entitled to give a full answer.

9 MR. SCOTT: No, Your Honour I'm entitled to a responsive answer

10 and that is the conversation with Mr. Prlic. If the Chamber wants to

11 give me more time then I'll be happy to do that, but my time is very

12 limited. My question was very specific. I don't need the whole story.

13 I want to know about his dealings. He mentioned he volunteered a

14 phone conversation with Mr. Prlic concerning 150 Bosnian Muslims at the

15 Zagreb mosque and I want to go straight to -- we understand that. I let

16 the witness go on, but let's go straight now to the conversation with

17 Mr. Prlic.

18 Q. Please, Witness. You said you had a conversation with Mr. Prlic

19 in this regard. Can you tell us what the nature of your conversation was

20 with Mr. Prlic in connection with these Muslims being at the Zagreb

21 mosque?

22 A. When together with Mr. Mouchet I went to the mosque and saw those

23 people there, I asked them what they wanted. I asked them whether they

24 wanted to go back to Bosnia-Herzegovina or whether they wanted to ask for

25 refugee status. They were in two minds. Mouchet advised me to receive

Page 28363

1 them all and give them all refugee status, which is what we did. Then I

2 called up Mr. Prlic, told him what had happened. I told him about a

3 hundred and fifty refugees had arrived from Bosnia-Herzegovina and that

4 we had not been previously informed, so they had to spend three days in

5 the mosque, and they had not even applied to us, but it was only after

6 the UNHCR intervened. Then Mr. Prlic said that he would examine the case

7 and let me know.

8 He called me back soon after that. He told me that he had

9 investigated the case. He hadn't known anything about it previously, and

10 that these were people who wanted to leave and go to Croatia to be

11 somewhere safe. They were all people who had left the HVO, the Croatian

12 Defence Council, the Croatian army in Herceg-Bosna. He said to me that

13 they had paid for their transport and left because they felt they would

14 be safer, their lives would be safer in Croatia.

15 Q. All right.

16 A. That was my contact with him. That's what it amounted to.

17 Q. And on that occasion, sir, and this actually goes back to what we

18 were talking about before the break, and I asked you about your dealings

19 with the ODPR HVO, the head of that agency I believe -- I believe around

20 this time would have been Darinko Tadic. Why did you call Mr. Prlic?

21 What caused you to think that Mr. Prlic was the person that you should

22 contact to deal with this matter?

23 A. I thought he would provide me with the best information, better

24 than the ODPR, and also we didn't communicate by telephone very often

25 with that ODPR.

Page 28364

1 Q. All right. Let me -- let me go further on that. You say you

2 thought he would provide you with the best information. Why? Why did

3 you think that? Why did you think that it would be Mr. Prlic that would

4 provide you with the best information in this situation?

5 A. Well, firstly because I had already met him personally, so I knew

6 him. And secondly, because he was a high-ranking HVO official.

7 Therefore, he was a person who could give me the best information about

8 those people. I wanted to know what sort of people they were and how

9 they had left Bosnia-Herzegovina.

10 His first reply was that he didn't know anything about it but

11 that he would investigate. After he had investigated he called me up

12 again and he told me what I just told you.

13 Q. All right. I just want to clarify a couple of dates with you if

14 we can. You mentioned in the course of your testimony that I think

15 between 1992 -- well, no. I believe between 1993 and 1994 there were

16 three times when there was a survey or a census of the persons who had

17 come to Croatia from other countries during the war. We can use -- we

18 can use the term "refugee" or "displaced person" generally, not

19 necessarily in a technical sense but people who had moved, travelled to

20 Croatia during that time, and you indicated at one point that the first

21 census was in April, May, and June of 1992, and can I suggest to you,

22 sir, that that would have been -- that would have been the second census

23 in 1993, not in 1992?

24 A. That's correct. That's what I said. In 1992, that was the first

25 census, and it concerned displaced persons in Croatia. In 1993 there was

Page 28365

1 the second census -- or, rather, it was the first census of refugees from

2 Bosnia-Herzegovina, whereas the third census concerned both displaced

3 persons and refugees and it took place in 1994. If I'm correct, it was

4 sometime in June or July. So there were three censuses in all, one after

5 the other.

6 Q. Sir, there was a census in February 1993. Isn't at that correct?

7 And in fact, wasn't that the first census? That was the first census,

8 wasn't it?

9 A. That's correct, yes. No, no. In -- there was a later one in

10 February. The first one in 1992 was in April and May and it ended in

11 June. I'm using the Croatian language. I'm not looking at the

12 transcript to see what the interpreter said. It was April, May, and

13 June.

14 Q. So April, June, 1992 was the first survey -- or census. Then in

15 February 1993 was the second?

16 A. That's correct. At about the same time, yes. The same months

17 that is. A little later. I think it was completed in June, because the

18 logistics were better, and the people knew better how to do it. It was

19 done faster.

20 Q. Well, sir, the document, sir, the documentation and Dr. Zoric who

21 testified here said that that survey took place in February of 1993.

22 February. So might you be mistaken?

23 A. I don't think so. You can check it in the documents. It's easy

24 to check. I don't think I'm wrong. In 1993 there couldn't have been a

25 census in February. In 1993, the census could have been taken in April,

Page 28366

1 May, and June, the same months as the first one more or less. February,

2 I think, is a little too early as far as I can recall. However, it can

3 be checked in the documents.

4 Q. Now, moving to another date that I would just like to correct if

5 we can, or clarify. You also mentioned in your testimony on Monday a

6 meeting with, I think, Azra Krajsek and Mr. Tadic and perhaps Mr. Raguz

7 as well, said there was a meeting to sit down and discuss a number of

8 things and you said that meeting had taken place on the 11th of April,

9 1993. Can I suggest to you -- would you recall that in fact that

10 meeting -- if you think about that particular meeting, that actually was

11 in April 1994?

12 A. That's correct. That's what I said, unless there was some

13 confusion.

14 Q. Perhaps it was -- perhaps it was some of our confusion. That's

15 why I needed to ask and clarify.

16 A. Yes, yes. So it might have been a misinterpretation.

17 Q. All right. April 1994. All right. Thank you for that.

18 Let me ask you about some relationships with Franjo Tudjman since

19 you were asked some questions about him. Again if I can focus your

20 attention primarily on the period -- well, for this -- for this purpose

21 1991, 1994.

22 Can you tell the Judges, please, how many times do you think you

23 had any sort of face-to-face dealings, conversations, meetings with

24 President Tudjman?

25 A. Not as often as one might expect, because with reference to the

Page 28367

1 refugee and displaced person situation, the president of the Republic of

2 Croatia received direct briefings from Dr. Granic, who was my superior.

3 However, I attended a meeting, for example, between representatives of

4 Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia when relations between the two countries

5 were being discussed and when the friendship agreement was signed. I

6 shook hands with Tudjman on that occasion. Once I went to see the

7 president together with the community of displaced persons from Croatia

8 who were having certain problems regarding accommodation, food, and so

9 on. These were Croatian citizens.

10 And then the president invited me to attend the meeting, to hear

11 their complaints and comment on them. That was a meeting when I was

12 there in an official capacity, and before that I had a face-to-face

13 meeting with the president and I told him that he should know that these

14 were persons who could not be completely objective in their reports on

15 their accommodation and food because they were stressed out, and he told

16 me he knew that.

17 Q. All right. Well, again, sir, I need to have -- I need to move

18 forward, and I apologise for that, but again, as everyone knows, our time

19 is limited, and you've already told us about your engagement this weekend

20 which we would like to, of course, accommodate you.

21 So so far you've told us about two meetings. So during 1991 to

22 1994, you had two meetings with President Tudjman?

23 A. There were others. I was interrupted.

24 Q. Well, sir, how many? I just -- please answer my question. I'm

25 going to become increasingly -- I'm going to interrupt you because I

Page 28368

1 don't need all your belong answers all the time, with my apology. My

2 question is how many. You don't need to describe them. Do you

3 understand? Two, four, ten? How many times did you meet with President

4 Tudjman?

5 A. Well, face-to-face only with once -- or twice. Excuse me, twice.

6 Once with reference to refugees and their accommodation, and secondly

7 when I resigned and he asked me to come and see him to try to -- and he

8 tried to persuade me to remain at the head of the ODPR, and I told him

9 no, I was definitely resigning.

10 If you have questions about these two meetings, I will answer.

11 Q. Did you ever during this 1991 to 1994 time period meet with

12 Mr. Susak, the Minister of Defence?

13 A. Yes, I did. Not face-to-face, but together with other persons in

14 connection with accommodating and securing displaced persons. Once I

15 went to see him with the minister of health, Dr. Hebrang, and

16 Dr. Kostovic, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Doctor -- what was his name?

17 He was a Doctor too. I can't recall his last name right now. That was

18 just before Operation Storm.

19 Q. So let me ask you, sir, how many times, how many times, a

20 number -- what I'm asking you for is a number. How many times did you --

21 A. Once.

22 MR. KARNAVAS: Just for the record, Your Honour, we're talking

23 face-to-face, four eyes, four ears. That's what the gentleman is talking

24 about, so we don't have confusion about how many times he was in the room

25 where discussions were being help.

Page 28369

1 MR. SCOTT: I'm not saying that.

2 MR. KARNAVAS: I want to make sure that we're clear on the

3 record.

4 MR. SCOTT: Well, thank you for that, Counsel.

5 Q. I'm not talking about just one-on-one meetings where it was just

6 and Mr. Tudjman or you and Mr. Susak, but times when you had face-to-face

7 dealings, there may have been other people in the meeting. So so far

8 you've had two with President Tudjman and one with Dr. Susak?

9 MR. KARNAVAS: That's incorrect. Again he's using "face-to-face

10 meetings," and I'm saying that the way you -- you're shaking your head,

11 Judge Trechsel, but hear me out, please. When the gentleman is saying

12 face-to-face, he's talking one to one, nobody else in the room.

13 MR. SCOTT: How does Mr. Karnavas know that?

14 MR. KARNAVAS: I do know that. Because I do know that. Now --

15 now -- now.

16 MR. STEWART: Michael, Michael.

17 MR. KARNAVAS: Part of it has to do with the language. Now, the

18 question needs to be rephrased. When he's talking about face-to-face,

19 that's what's throwing the gentleman off.

20 MR. STEWART: Michael. Michael. I'm going to make a genuine

21 attempt to calm things down.

22 MR. KARNAVAS: I apologise, but you don't need to calm things

23 down.

24 MR. STEWART: Michael --

25 MR. KARNAVAS: We need precision in the courtroom, and the

Page 28370

1 gentleman is entitled to have precise questions. I appreciate your

2 candour and you want to help, but the issue here is: In his own language

3 what does face-to-face mean, and it's interpreted differently in Croatian

4 than it is, say, in English. So he's talking about meetings. I think we

5 need to make a distinction.

6 MR. STEWART: Mr. Karnavas, don't start on me.

7 Ms. Alaburic and I discussed exactly this point. This is

8 precisely what we were trying to help with. Ms. Alaburic has explained

9 to me what the witness has been saying in his own language. There is a

10 very simple but repeated and understandable issue which comes up in the

11 interpretation which is that face-to-face in English is less apt than the

12 phrase one to one or one on one. Face-to-face in English doesn't just

13 mean just two people together, it means as opposed to on the telephone,

14 for example. It means physically present. Probably, and I'm as

15 complimentary as anybody about the interpretation here, but probably

16 whatever phrase the witness is using in his own language, as explained by

17 my learned leading counsel, is better translated as one-to-one rather

18 than face-to-face and that would avoid the confusion.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. This is obviously a

20 semantical problem. Mr. Stewart thinks it's better to say one to one

21 while the interpreters were saying face-to-face. And Mr. Scott, please

22 try to perhaps be a little bit more precise.

23 MR. SCOTT: Well, Your Honour --

24 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Just for the clarity, if you look at page 45,

25 line 6, the witness in answering the question of the Prosecutor, which

Page 28371

1 was to the meetings said, "I did meet Mr. Susak not face-to-face but

2 together with other persons." So he gave a clear answer, I think. And

3 then the question was whether this was more than once.

4 MR. STEWART: Your Honour is absolutely right. That's what

5 alerted us to the fact that there was clearly this confusion which we've

6 tried to help clear up.

7 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Thank you, it's appreciated.

8 MR. KARNAVAS: But the issue goes to President Tudjman as well,

9 and you have to look at page 43, 44, and then if you look at the way the

10 question is being phrased, and there's no ill-intention on the part of

11 the Prosecution. However, something is being lost in translation. And I

12 understand the line of questioning. In other words, you haven't met him

13 therefore you can't opine on what the gentleman was thinking. That's the

14 line of questioning, but I think we need to be fair because the gentleman

15 indicated that he was present in the room. So the follow-up question

16 might be, Well, how often were you present in the room where things were

17 being discussed?

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The French language may perhaps

19 come to the rescue and solve this issue. In French the right way of

20 putting the question would be, "When did you see personally Mr. Tudjman

21 or Mr. Susak or individually," and the word individually or personally

22 means that there were only two persons present. So in other words it

23 goes back to what Mr. Stewart was saying, one to one. But the French

24 language is a very precise language.

25 So, Mr. Scott, please put your question.

Page 28372

1 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour. And just for the record I'm

2 not excited about any of this. If there has been in fact -- if there is

3 a cultural or translation issue, then I appreciate being alerted to it,

4 but I have to agree with Judge Trechsel. I heard the same thing and it

5 seemed to me, listening to witness's answer, that he perfectly

6 understood - it appeared to me - what was translated and what came on the

7 screen, that he perfectly well understood, so I had no reason to think

8 otherwise.

9 Q. Let me, Witness, we'll have to take this a bit longer, which is

10 fine, I suppose, as long as the Chamber allows us to move in this way.

11 I'm not limiting my question to you in terms of one to one, and that's

12 not my understanding. You know a one to one meeting is if you and I were

13 in the room somewhere and it was just the two of us. Nobody else.

14 That's not what I'm talking, you understand. That's not what I'm talking

15 about.

16 But I'm talking about times where you were in a meeting, it could

17 be just the two of you, but it also could be -- Susak could have been

18 there, Sarinic could have been there, anybody could have been, and I want

19 you to tell us how many times between 1991 and 1994 were you physically

20 present with President Tudjman in that sort of a way. And I don't mean

21 in a conference hall with 5.000 people, but in a meeting, personal

22 dealings, direct dealings with him that way.

23 Now, I hope -- you're an extremely well-educated man, you speak a

24 number of languages including English, so I hope you understand what I

25 mean. Can you assist us? Does that change your answer? Was it those

Page 28373

1 two times or is it -- would you like to add or change, modify your

2 answer?

3 A. I repeat and this may assist you. I met Mr. President Tudjman

4 only twice, face-to-face, individually, tete-a-tete. There were other

5 meetings, for example a meeting between the two parties when the

6 agreement on friendship was discussed. There may have been maybe five

7 such meetings that I attended.

8 As for Susak, I never met him face-to-face or individually or

9 tete-a-tete. There was always another person or two more persons present

10 who were dealing with some topical issues at the time.

11 Q. So, the answer is no -- as you say, no individual meetings, no

12 personal meetings with Mr. Susak. Going back to President Tudjman, then,

13 so hopefully we can move forward, have you now indicated then, based on

14 everything you've heard in the courtroom over the last 15 minutes, that

15 during this time period you may have had five physical interventions, if

16 you will, occasions to be with President Tudjman between 1991 and 1994?

17 A. I said that there were such occasions, but as I sit here today, I

18 can't recall them all. One of them was definitely the friendship meeting

19 that I mentioned and the next one.

20 Q. We know about that. We have a transcript of that meeting. Sir,

21 we have a transcript of that meeting. Everyone knows about that one.

22 A. Yes. The other meetings were the one when he was at the session

23 of the government of the Republic of Croatia. I was there, and that was

24 in 1995. I was there together with other persons. I was also with him

25 when I was decorated. Again there were other people present. And I

Page 28374

1 really can't recall any other particular occasions when that happened.

2 Q. We'll move forward sir. Now, you're familiar, are you not, there

3 was a body in the Croatian government or at the time, and maybe there

4 still is, something called the Council for Defence and National Security,

5 I understand sometimes called the VONS for short, abbreviation. Is that

6 correct? Is that correct?

7 A. VOS. I never attended VOS meetings.

8 Q. All right. Well, thank you for correcting me if I was wrong.

9 That's not the information that I was provided. But in any event you've

10 seen -- you've gone straight to my question, sir. Thank you. You never

11 attended any of those meetings. And so the Judges know, that was an

12 extreme important body that was primarily involved in the -- setting the

13 defence and national security strategy for Croatia during that time

14 period; correct?

15 A. That's correct, but I as the head of the of ODPR was not

16 requested as a member of that body or at its meetings. It was just not

17 necessary for me to be there.

18 Q. You said on Monday, sir, that --

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Praljak.

20 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] I apologise, Your Honours,

21 but in order to avoid any future confusion, the abbreviation VOS stands

22 for military and security intelligence service, and what the Prosecutor

23 is talking about is actually VONS which is the council for defence and

24 national security, whereas VOS is the intelligence military service.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I agree. You're right there,

Page 28375

1 sir.

2 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Dr. Praljak. We can agree on that. I was

3 right the first time. It was the VONS.

4 Q. So moving forward then, and we know that you did not attend any

5 of the meetings of that body.

6 Now, when you testified on Monday, you said that Tudjman busied

7 himself with the idea of reviving the old agreement between the Serbs and

8 Croats. Now, when you say he busied himself, what did you mean to say by

9 that? How do -- number one, how do you know, and number two, assuming

10 you do know something about it, what do you mean he busied himself with

11 the idea of reviving the old agreement?

12 A. Mr. Scott, when I said he was dealing with the idea of Banovina

13 Croatia, I primarily referred to him as the candidate of the HDZ and as a

14 politician, and at the same time as a historian, as a person who was

15 quite familiar with not only the history of Croatia after the Second

16 World War but also the history before the war, and he was familiar with

17 the agreement between Serbs and Croats dating back to 1939 dealing with

18 the autonomy of Croatia. This autonomy also comprised parts of the

19 current territory of today's Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

20 As the political candidate, in his speeches I remember that as a

21 citizen who listened to those speeches, he would he occasionally mention

22 that idea and he would say that this Banovina of Croatia could be

23 re-established. However, from the moment when Bosnia-Herzegovina was

24 seceded from Yugoslavia and became an independent state, and Croatia was

25 the first to recognise it as an independent state, and Croatia was also

Page 28376

1 among the first states that established diplomatic contacts with the

2 newly created state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as of that moment on

3 Tudjman stopped insisting [as interpreted] on the re-establishment of

4 Banovina, because at the moment when Bosnia-Herzegovina was established

5 as an independent state within the borders of the former Republic of

6 Yugoslavia, the issue of Banovina for him became moot and history.

7 MR. KARNAVAS: There's a clarification. I'm told that the

8 gentleman did not say that Tudjman stopped insisting, that he never

9 insisted. And so I would ask that the gentleman be -- look at the screen

10 and be given an opportunity to correct the record.

11 Page 52, line 12. It says that, "At that moment Tudjman stopped

12 insisting." He's saying that he never insisted. This is what my

13 colleague tells me, who is a B/C/S speaker.

14 MR. SCOTT:

15 Q. Sir, you spent the last few minutes telling us that indeed, you

16 confirmed for us, that as a politician, as an HDZ politician, Tudjman did

17 speak about re-establishing the 1939 Banovina. So apparently he did talk

18 about it at some point. So did he stop -- did he stop at some point

19 pushing that idea and, if so, when and how do you know?

20 MR. KARNAVAS: Again I'm going to object to the form of the

21 question. He never said he pushed the idea. It's one thing as a

22 politician to express ideas. This is why I'm going to be on my feet and

23 I'm going to be extremely aggressive at this point.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Witness, you speak many

25 languages, starting with your mother tongue, and you're perfectly able to

Page 28377

1 express yourself in that language, but you also speak English. Can you

2 please tell us again what happened with Tudjman and the Banovina? You

3 see that it's a very important matter here and that tensions are ripe

4 when we deal with this matter, so can you repeat what your feeling was in

5 terms of Tudjman and the Banovina?

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said and I will repeat, as a

7 citizen who was listening --

8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please slow down for the

9 interpreters to properly translate what you have to tell us.

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As a citizen I was listening to the

11 candidate of the Croatian Democratic Union running for elections in 1990,

12 and I heard him mentioning the fact of Banovina Croatia, which was

13 established in 1939.

14 When the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was established, when

15 it was recognised by Croatia, which also included him, when diplomatic

16 relations were established with the state, i.e., the Republic of Bosnia

17 and Herzegovina, after that I did not hear him insisting on this idea.

18 On the contrary, he had recognised the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina

19 within the borders that it had before, and as of that time on this issue

20 for him was history. I personally never discussed the issue with him.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Witness, in French we have a

22 word, the word "insist," and I see that in English, in the English

23 transcript, the word "insisting" has been used. In your own language did

24 you use that word? Did you use the word "insist," or did you use another

25 word, because from a linguistic point of view if you use the word

Page 28378

1 "insist" it implies that you mentioned the issue in the past but at some

2 point you stop dealing with it. So I'd like to know whether it's indeed

3 the word "insist" that you used in your language.

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No longer insisted, which means

5 that he no longer pondered upon the idea of re-establishing Banovina

6 Croatia. I repeat, he was totally clear on the fact that by having

7 recognised the new state of Republic of Croatia -- of Bosnia, he as a

8 politician, he could only talk about something that used to exist but no

9 longer existed, nor did he want the idea to come to fruition, because

10 that possibility no longer existed. That happened once he recognised the

11 state of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a newly independent state.

12 MR. SCOTT:

13 Q. Sir, you just said a moment ago that you never personally

14 discussed it with him, and when you say he no longer insisted, what

15 you're telling the Chamber is you no longer heard him say it publicly,

16 and he didn't say it to you. Now, that's what you're really telling us;

17 right? He wasn't saying it publicly, and he didn't say it to you

18 personally. That's all you can really tell us; correct?

19 A. I can tell you that he never personally spoke about that to me,

20 and I did not hear him speak about that in public after that.

21 Q. Moving forward then, sir, I've seen somewhere where you've

22 expressed the view that you -- perhaps you and other people in Croatia at

23 the time thought that the Serbs or the JNA were using refugees and

24 displaced persons essentially as a weapon against Croatia, that is by

25 flooding Croatia with refugees it would be a burden on the Croatian

Page 28379

1 government and economy. Is that correct? Do I understand that

2 correctly?

3 A. You understood me well, and this indeed is correct.

4 Q. Now, if I could ask you to go to, please, Exhibit 1D 02277. It

5 should be next to you I'm told. 1 -- 1D 2277.

6 This is a document that I believe Mr. Karnavas showed to you. It

7 is a letter from a group of refugees --

8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott.

9 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We have a number of binders

11 here. We have your own binder. We have exhibits, other exhibits that

12 are loose, and we have another binder, a blue binder. So can you specify

13 what binder we're talking about here?

14 MR. SCOTT: I'll try to help as much as I can, Your Honour. The

15 problem is --

16 MR. KARNAVAS: It should be in one.

17 JUDGE TRECHSEL: The blue one.

18 MR. KARNAVAS: Yes.

19 MR. SCOTT: Thank you.

20 MR. KARNAVAS: It should be the number one from ours.

21 MR. SCOTT: If we refer to a Defence exhibit, it will, perhaps

22 with very limited exceptions, be in the Defence binder. Obviously we

23 didn't want to copy it yet another time, but we do understand the burden

24 on everyone in the courtroom with juggling these materials.

25 I think perhaps most people have found it.

Page 28380

1 Q. Sir, if you can look at that document which again Mr. Karnavas

2 showed you a letter dated the 7th of March, 1994 to Jadranko Prlic. Just

3 a couple of brief questions hopefully.

4 You've had extensive dealings with the -- with refugee issues and

5 displaced persons issues, and you've told us in the last few days that

6 these people -- it's a very unhappy situation for everyone. They often

7 have complaints. I suppose who wouldn't? But in the middle --

8 approximately the middle of this letter, and I don't know if the

9 paragraphs are the same in the Croatian language it would be about -- if

10 I can ask you to look at the fifth paragraph that starts with the words

11 "One school year." If you see that. I'll give you that --

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. All right. Thank you. Skipping -- we'll come back to something

14 else in a moment, but skipping towards the end of that paragraph, you

15 talk about such -- oh excuse me. I'm sorry. The letter talks about such

16 things as insecurity, frustration, anxiety, various neuroses, trauma,

17 shock. I mean, you would agree would you not these are serious matters

18 or not, or are they frivolous?

19 A. Yes, they are. You're correct there.

20 Q. And that would be true no matter if the refugee is a Croat or a

21 Serb or a Muslim?

22 A. Absolutely.

23 Q. Now, going back earlier in the paragraph, you mention -- I

24 apologise. I don't want to keep doing that. The letter mentions a

25 school year being lost because the children were not able to attend

Page 28381

1 classes "in their mother tongue," bracket, end bracket.

2 Now, I'm sure you touched on this during your earlier

3 examinations. Can you assist the Judges further? I mean, how much of a

4 distinction was there at that time in 1993, 1994, between the Croatian

5 language, what -- the language that Croats spoke and the language that

6 the Bosniaks spoke? As I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, but as

7 I understand it they could understand and communicate perfectly well with

8 each other, for the most part. Is that correct?

9 A. You're right. They could perfectly understand each other. In

10 Bosnia-Herzegovina the language spoken there is predominantly Croatian.

11 Actually, the language -- the Croatian language spoken in Herzegovina is

12 what we base our standard Croatian variant on.

13 When I arrived as a student in grammar school, I didn't

14 understand my teachers, but when it comes to the differences between

15 Croats and Muslims, they understand each other perfectly, but let me

16 clarify. Both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Croatian -- in Croatia

17 Croats have a variant of Croatian which we called "received

18 pronunciation," which is somewhat different from the Bosniak language

19 which, during the times of the former Yugoslavia, was under the influence

20 of the Serb language.

21 Now, when it comes to a situation where people are under a lot of

22 stress, even one Serbian word would not go down well with them. It would

23 not have the same effect on me or my friends, but these are people who

24 were under a lot of stress and even a single word could have annoyed

25 them.

Page 28382

1 Q. Well, let me ask you that then, and that's -- it would be

2 interesting to have a much longer linguistic discussion if we had the

3 time, but I asked you earlier about these other concerns that were

4 later -- expressed later in the paragraph, frustration, anxiety, but can

5 you tell the Judges, how -- was that a serious issue that these people

6 were not receiving -- children were not receiving classes in their mother

7 tongue (Croatian). Was that a serious issue or really it's trivial?

8 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, I'm going to object. How can this

9 gentleman opine on whether it was serious to those individuals or not?

10 It might be serious to Dr. Rebic, it may not. You know, it all depends

11 on the individuals and the circumstances. I don't believe that this

12 gentleman is competent to answer that question. I think it's -- it's

13 improperly phrased and it's unfair to ask a question of that dimension.

14 MR. SCOTT: I'll rephrase. I'll rephrase.

15 Q. In your dealings with refugees or groups of refugees during the

16 time 1992 to 1994, is this sort of things -- is this something you heard

17 only once or did you hear it on a number of occasions, that is,

18 complaints about not being able to use one's own language? Or is this a

19 one time -- kind of a one-time situation?

20 A. One has to be able to understand the text. The lost year here

21 and the education in the Bosniak language refers to their stay in Central

22 Bosnia, probably in Vares or in Kakanj, under the Muslim control. When

23 they arrived in Pineta, they had education in their own Croatian

24 language, the language that they had been brought up on in Central

25 Bosnia, Posavina, and Herzegovina. Even to this day Croats can follow

Page 28383

1 Croatian television, newspaper, and they speak is the so-called Croatian

2 proper.

3 Q. I appreciate that, sir, and it's like with English. There are

4 various dialects, I suppose, and accents of English. I'm sure

5 Mr. Stewart thinks that I speak English terribly, but in any event, let

6 me just -- my point is this: The point is these children went to

7 school -- apparently they went to classes. The classes used a language

8 that they -- is perfectly well understood. So what difference did it

9 make that it was not in "Croatian"? Was this just a made-up issue?

10 A. One has to read what these people say in the text. They say a

11 year was lost because they were -- it was intentionally made impossible

12 for them to attend classes in their mother tongue, Croatian. The Muslims

13 in Kakanj or Vares were asking of these children who spoke the pure

14 Croatian language at home to suddenly have imposed on them a language

15 which we in Croatia and the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina that had for

16 a long time considered to represent Serbisation of the Croatian language,

17 which got on our nerves both in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Croatia. And

18 it still does, because they used to talk about the Serbo-Croatian

19 language which does not exist. There is the Serbian language and the

20 Croatian language.

21 In Bosnia-Herzegovina there are areas which are more under the

22 influence the Serbian language and other areas which are more under the

23 influence of the Croatian language and that's where the Croatians and the

24 Muslims mostly live.

25 Q. All right. Well, let's move forward, and for better or worse I

Page 28384

1 think that's as much time we can spend on that topic unless the Judges

2 have questions.

3 Sir, you've mentioned I think perhaps more than once in the

4 course of your testimony that the Croatian border, that is the border

5 between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, was never closed to Muslims

6 during the -- during the war, and again let's say 1992, 1994. But you've

7 also -- let me just tell you, sir, you've also indicated on a number of

8 occasions that various paperwork, transit visa, permits, approval,

9 permission, some sort of documentation was required or the border police

10 or what have you would not allow people to come across the border. Is

11 that correct?

12 A. Both are correct. It's correct that when the refugees were

13 crossing the official border crossings between the Republic of

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia they had to have documents. If they took

15 other routes where there was no control of the border, and they did, then

16 they would arrive without being stopped by anyone and find themselves in

17 Zagreb, and somebody would call me up and say, "Hey, wait a minute."

18 Q. Very well. All right. We all understand that in every country

19 people can enter illegal little not going through regulated check-points

20 but if a person were to enter Croatia during this period legally through

21 an established custom point or what he would call it, an immigration

22 point, they would require some sort of paperwork to cross the border; is

23 that correct?

24 A. Yes, yes. I would say -- well, I would not say they would have

25 to have paperwork but that they should have had paperwork, if you

Page 28385

1 understand me.

2 Q. All right. Just a couple of other questions. I'm just trying to

3 touch on a few things before we move into some specific topics.

4 Mr. Karnavas, I believe, showed you document -- I don't think you

5 necessarily need to look at it. If you want to I certainly won't prevent

6 you, but it was 1D 02634, which was a document about the steering

7 committee of the ODPR for Croatia, and I just -- my question to you about

8 that, sir, is it correct, that, at least as far as I could tell, there

9 was -- was there any Muslim member on that steering committee or were

10 there any Islamic charities or humanitarian organisations who were

11 represented on the steering committee?

12 A. In that committee, Mr. Scott, there was no one of the Muslim

13 faith, because in Croatia there is not a significant number of Muslims.

14 I think they amount to 1 or 1.5 per cent of the population. But there

15 were very good relations between the ODPR and Merhamet in Zagreb, and

16 there were frequent meetings between Aganovic, who was the head of that

17 Merhamet office, or was legally responsible for that office. We met very

18 often both in Merhamet and in my own office, especially in relation to

19 humanitarian convoys and humanitarian aid for Muslims. We were on very

20 good terms.

21 Q. And in connection with the financing of these efforts, and let me

22 say that no one -- well, I won't speak for everyone in the courtroom, of

23 course, I don't question, I never have questioned, that the Republic of

24 Croatia spent a great deal of money dealing with refugees and

25 humanitarian issues, but just so the record is clear, based on the

Page 28386

1 information again that I was provided in connection with your evidence,

2 can you confirm for us for the purposes of the trial record that the

3 establishment of the Croatian refugee centres, and by that I mean centres

4 that were operated in the Republic of Croatia supported by the Croatian

5 government, were paid approximately 80 per cent funded -- funded, if you

6 will, 80 per cent by the Croatian government with the rest coming either

7 from the UN or the -- well, what we would now call the EU; is that

8 correct?

9 A. That's correct.

10 Q. Touching on Ms. Turkovic, she came up a number of times. Again,

11 and my understanding, sir, is that you met with Ms. Turkovic on a number

12 of occasions. She would come and visit your office or visit you in your

13 office. You had good relations with her. When there were problems she

14 raised them with you. She may have on occasion had problems with local

15 centres when those centres did not follow your instructions. Is that a

16 correct statement?

17 A. Yes, that's correct.

18 Q. Can you recall and provide to the Judges any information about

19 instances where people in the local centres did not follow your

20 instructions? Your instruction might be to do A, but the people out

21 there on the ground, so to speak, were not doing what you told them to

22 do. Can you give us some examples of that?

23 A. An example of that, Mr. Scott, might be the revocation of refugee

24 status, for example. Although instructions were sent out from the office

25 to everyone, evidently not everyone read them through with the same care.

Page 28387

1 There was an overall decision to revoke the status, but there were

2 certain conditions under which the status would not be revoked but would,

3 rather, be extended. I may not need to repeat this, but it concerned

4 people's whose house had been destroyed, who were ill, who had children

5 in school, or who lived in areas where there was still tension.

6 Q. If I can paraphrase another witness that the Chamber will recall,

7 is it fair to say, sir, that it's one thing to give directions and

8 another thing to have them carried out.

9 A. That's correct, which is why we decided that these instructions

10 had to be respected. And we had a meeting with Ms. Turkovic and Krajsek

11 and Ms. Hratokovic [phoen] and Darinko Tadic and Martin Raguz, because

12 when the status was revoked, Mr. Prlic also complained about this as did

13 the Bosnian-Herzegovinian embassy. Everyone from his own standpoint, of

14 course. Mr. Prlic was unable to receive large numbers of people who

15 would be welfare cases, and evidently the Bosnian embassy had its reasons

16 also. Their problem was where to -- where to receive the Muslims, where

17 to accommodate them. So they were in a more sensitive situation.

18 Q. Sir, you raised again Mr. Prlic. Now, is this the same -- is

19 this the same one conversation you referred to earlier, or are you now

20 telling us about another conversation with Dr. Prlic about refugees?

21 A. Mr. Scott, it's not a conversation. It's a document, a letter

22 sent by Mr. Prlic to the government of the Republic of Croatia and the

23 prime minister, that is, and then the prime minister forwarded the letter

24 to me for my information. He probably also copied it to the office. I'm

25 not sure.

Page 28388

1 Q. All right. Thank you for that. Sir, in looking at your report,

2 the document that we were provided which is 1D 02921, titled "My Work at

3 the Office for Displaced Persons and Refugees," just a couple of

4 questions on that.

5 You have an entry for the 13th of November, and I'll have to rely

6 on everyone to proceed chronologically through the document, but if you

7 can find your entry for the 13th of November, 1992. You make reference

8 to travelling to Belgrade "for a secret meeting with representatives of

9 Yugoslav authorities. President Granic was there and some other

10 ministers." I wonder if you might tell us what that secret meeting was

11 about.

12 A. This was a secret meeting that was never spoken about in the

13 Croatian media. It was an attempt to solve some pressing issues which,

14 as regards my office, the ODPR, were refugees, people expelled from their

15 homes. There were others who were representing the economy or the

16 educational system. There were several of us who tried in this way to

17 mitigate the consequences of the aggression --

18 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

19 A. -- and to make some shifts --

20 Q. Sorry. But why was it secret?

21 A. Well, if you about back to that time, it was war. There was

22 aggression, and to speak in public about it would have caused an uproar

23 both in Serbia and Croatia. It would have had bad consequences, and the

24 meeting would not have been possible at all. That's why it was secret.

25 If I recall, if I'm not wrong, the prime minister at the time was

Page 28389

1 a gentleman who had arrived from America. Mr. Praljak will help me.

2 What was his name? Tadic? Oh, yes, Panic, Panic. That's right, Panic.

3 Q. All right. All right.

4 A. He spoke and lot. He talked a lot.

5 Q. We know a lot of people like that. If I can still stay in your

6 report, in early April -- my apology. In early February 1993, you refer

7 to the registration of refugees. It says: "In early February 1993,

8 together with UNHCR, we started registering all refugees from

9 Bosnia-Herzegovina in Croatia."

10 And I just wonder sir, that might refresh your recollection to

11 the questions I put to you earlier this afternoon. Wasn't that census or

12 survey in 1993 in February? It's in your report.

13 A. If it says February, that's an error.

14 Q. All right. The report is in error. So you still --

15 A. Yes. It's an error in the report, yes, because the census of

16 1993 was in the months of April, May, and June.

17 Q. All right.

18 A. Those three months. Such errors are always possible when reports

19 are compiled, but we do have documents, precise documents on the census.

20 Q. And you say in your report: "UNHCR would cover the expenses of

21 registering as had been the case with the Croatian displaced persons the

22 year before. We had an excellent experience from that project." Is that

23 correct?

24 A. Yes, that's correct.

25 Q. And if I can jump all the way to February of 1994, you have an

Page 28390

1 entry which says for the 7th of February --

2 MR. KARNAVAS: Could we have page numbers? It's easier for us to

3 kind of track.

4 MR. SCOTT: Page 20. Page 20 at least in the English version.

5 I'm sorry, that's the best I can do.

6 Q. But proceeding chronologically through the document, if you can

7 go -- if you can find -- there's an entry, sir, in your report on the 7th

8 of February 1994 and it says: "I went to see Professor Mate Granic. He

9 advised me how to behave in Livno where I was going the following day to

10 the all-Croatian Assembly of BiH Croats."

11 First of all, do you recall what this meeting, this all-Croatian

12 Assembly in Livno was in February 1994?

13 A. This was a meeting of Croats of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a meeting

14 which did not have primarily political connotations but, rather, cultural

15 connotations. It was a meeting of all Croats together to consider

16 issues, and I can't recall in detail today what these issues were. I'm

17 sure it had to do with independence.

18 Q. But, sir, you are again a highly educated man. Now -- you had

19 now been in your post for some years. You certainly were very

20 experienced in what you were doing. How is it that it was necessary for

21 Mr. Granic to advise you how to behave at the meeting in Livno? What did

22 he tell you? What instructions did he give you about attending and

23 participating in that meeting?

24 A. He gave me advice. He said if I was asked to speak at that

25 meeting that I should speak on behalf of the ODPR in a way that would

Page 28391

1 avoid any political implications following from my speech.

2 Q. Now, February 1994 was right around the time of -- that the

3 Washington Agreement was beginning to get some traction. It was signed

4 later in March, I believe. Do you recall whether Mr. Granic gave you any

5 particular instructions on what your position should be at that time in

6 case the topic of the Washington Agreement came up at this meeting in

7 Livno?

8 A. Excuse me, I didn't understand your question very well. In

9 connection with what, the Washington Agreement?

10 Q. I'll repeat it. Sorry if I wasn't clear. Around this time the

11 Chamber has heard extensive evidence that around early 1994 there began

12 to be discussions -- or continued to be discussions, lest there be any

13 objection, about something that came to be known as the Washington

14 Agreement, which I believe was signed in either late February or March of

15 1994. And I just wondered do you recall any of Dr. Granic's instructions

16 to you touched upon the Washington Agreement, how that should be

17 presented or what stance you should take about that?

18 A. No. No, sir.

19 Q. All right. Now, moving to the specific questions about refugees

20 in Croatia, which obviously we've talked a great deal about, we

21 understand, sir, and there's already been evidence in the case that in --

22 on or about the 13th of July, 1992, there was a decision by the Croatian

23 government or an announcement not to accept any more refugees from Bosnia

24 and Herzegovina, that essentially Croatia was, we might say, full. Do

25 you recall that?

Page 28392

1 A. Yes, I do recall that, but that was more a cry for help to third

2 countries rather than a threat.

3 Q. And do you recall how long that situation continued; that is, for

4 how long did Croatia stop receiving additional refugees, and did the

5 reception of refugees by Croatia then start again at some point and, if

6 so, can you give us the dates?

7 A. Croatia never stopped receiving refugees. It simply couldn't do

8 that. What you say the government decided, I don't remember the decision

9 in detail or with precision, but I would interpret it now more as an

10 expression of distress, the distress in which the country found itself,

11 and a possible stopping of taking in refugees, but in fact the reception

12 of refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina never stopped. We continued taking

13 in refugees every day.

14 Q. All right. Well, we'll come back to that in the course of the

15 examination.

16 Let me just ask more general questions about refugees and

17 displaced persons. Would you agree, sir, that there was a difference --

18 other witnesses and evidence have told us that there was a difference

19 between someone who had -- and I'm now talking in a very technical sense,

20 refugee status, who had been given the legal status of refugee. That had

21 significance as opposed to someone who did not have refugee status; is

22 that correct?

23 A. The difference between a person who had refugee status and a

24 person who was not a refugee either because they were not a refugee de

25 facto and didn't need the refugee status because they were well

Page 28393

1 accommodated and didn't want to be socially branded as a refugee or

2 perhaps simply did not wish to have that status for reasons of their own,

3 that was the only difference, but everyone who did have the status of a

4 refugee or displaced persons had all the rights they were entitled to,

5 and they were all protected.

6 May I explain that according to our censuses, about 6 per cent of

7 the persons who had arrived from Bosnia-Herzegovina had not requested

8 refugee status. These were intellectuals, people who were well off,

9 people who had houses in Croatia, weekend cottages or villas by the sea.

10 They didn't ask for those and there were about 6 per cent of those.

11 Q. Very well. But there was an entire legal system, if you will,

12 sir, there were laws, statutes, legislation, there was a bureaucracy to

13 deal with the granting of refugee status, and you either -- at one point

14 in time you either had it -- you either had it under the law or you

15 didn't have it. And if you had refugee status under the law, that gave

16 rise to certain rights that you did not have if you did not have that

17 legal status; correct?

18 A. That is correct, but the reason these people didn't have that

19 status was that they simply didn't need to be assisted. They didn't need

20 the kind of care that refugee status would provide them with.

21 Q. Sir, I'm not talking -- I don't know exactly what you're

22 referring to, but I'm not talking about this 6 per cent. I'm -- you're

23 saying that the only people -- are you telling the Chamber that the only

24 people who didn't get refugee status in Croatia, the only people who

25 didn't get it are the ones who didn't ask for it?

Page 28394

1 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, that's not what he stated, and I

2 suggest that perhaps Mr. Scott go back and rephrase his questions,

3 because I think now we're getting into some murky areas.

4 MR. SCOTT: I --

5 MR. KARNAVAS: I believe what Mr. Scott wishes to get from the

6 witness is the benefits that one enjoyed being a refugee versus somebody

7 who was not a refugee or was not a declared refugee, what sort of

8 benefits or lack thereof. I think that's what he's trying to get at. So

9 perhaps he could rephrase the questions, but I think now he's putting

10 words into the witness's mouth.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Mr. Scott, please

12 try to reformulate the question since it seems to raise a problem. I do

13 not share that point of view. If there's a problem, let's try to solve

14 it.

15 MR. SCOTT: Nor do I, Your Honour, so I won't use my time to

16 pursue it further. The witness seems to understand, and I think everyone

17 in the courtroom has understood perhaps.

18 Q. Let me move on to a specific law. If I can ask you to look,

19 please, at 1D 02588. It will be in one of the Defence binders. First

20 binder I'm told.

21 Actually, we're probably all spending more time finding the

22 document than we really need, but just so everyone knows what we're

23 talking about, that is decree dated the 27th of October, 1992, which

24 Mr. Karnavas showed you, I believe, and you've indicated, I believe, that

25 this -- you consider this to be the law that your agency was applying,

Page 28395

1 following, in connection with displaced persons and refugees; correct?

2 A. Correct.

3 Q. And that is your understanding despite the fact that the decree

4 on its face only applies to internally displaced persons in Croatia and

5 says nothing about persons coming from outside Croatia? You agree that

6 that's what the Statute says on its face? It says nothing about people

7 coming from outside.

8 A. I did not find an article that would directly mention refugees

9 from Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the definition of a refugee

10 implies everybody who was expelled from Bosnia and Herzegovina and

11 arrived in Croatia. This decree provided a definition that a refugee is

12 the person who had been expelled from a neighbouring state and arrived in

13 Croatia, and the neighbouring state could have been Bosnia and

14 Herzegovina, Serbia, Vojvodina, or Kosovo.

15 Q. I apologise for -- I'd rather not have to cut you off. I'm not

16 trying to be rude, but you say that, sir, but you're saying that's your

17 interpretation, but that's not what the law says. That's not -- there's

18 no language, I'll represent to you -- everyone in the courtroom can read

19 it ten times. That's not what the statute says -- the decree says. Now,

20 let me ask you to go next to 1D 02368 -- excuse me my apology, 1D 02638.

21 It's either, I'm told, in the second or third binder.

22 And once again I'm not really going to go through the details of

23 the statute or the decision or the law, but this is a law on the status

24 of displaced persons and refugees which we understand went into effect

25 sometime around the 18th of October, 1993, and we can see on the page or

Page 28396

1 in the document, and it's my understanding, sir, that it's your position

2 or it's the position of the ODPR Croatia that this again -- when this law

3 went into effect that this was the law that your agency followed and

4 applied in connection with displaced persons and refugees; is that

5 correct?

6 A. Correct, but we in the office, in keeping with the 1951 Geneva

7 Conventions, regarded as refugees all those persons who arrived from a

8 different state of the former Yugoslavia in the territory of the Republic

9 of Croatia. If this is not contained in the law, and I didn't have the

10 time to study it, this was still the practice of our office and the

11 practice was clear. We followed that practice -- practice in our work,

12 and this was the practice that the government had to adopt in adopting my

13 reports, and my reports contained the clear definitions of displaced

14 person as a person who was displaced from their place of origin in

15 Croatia, and refugee was a person who arrived from Bosnia and Herzegovina

16 because they were expelled from there and was received by the Republic of

17 Croatia. That's why we made this distinction and nobody ever objected to

18 any of my reports saying that I was doing something contrary to the

19 decision or to the law for that matter.

20 Q. Well, sir, I'm not being critical of you. Please don't -- please

21 don't misunderstand. I'm not being critical of what you did. I'm just

22 trying to --

23 A. I absolutely understand I'm just trying to clarify things and

24 tell you how we worked, in any case you know that legislation is never

25 perfect, and especially when it's applied in war situations when we had

Page 28397

1 other things on our minds.

2 Q. I understand that, sir. But the point -- the only point for now,

3 and I want just to confirm that is the law in fact that you considered to

4 apply, but once again, and I think that everyone in the courtroom has

5 already seen that we've gone over this with another -- at least one other

6 witness. The statute on its face, the words of the law are only limited

7 to persons within the Republic of Croatia or people from Croatia who did

8 flee abroad but from the Republic of Croatia, and it says nothing about

9 people coming into the Republic of Croatia as refugees from outside the

10 country. So there again -- what you've told us there's an interpretation

11 that was put on the statute according to you but even though that's not

12 what the statute says on its face; correct?

13 A. May I be even more specific? I worked with people, not with

14 papers. I worked with people under certain circumstances and in certain

15 situations, and those situations were such that people were either

16 displaced within Croatia or had been refugees from the Republic of Bosnia

17 and Herzegovina. Through my contacts with UNHCR, through my own work, I

18 can tell you that we had -- we established a practice that was quite

19 clear and that reflected in all of our documents and in all of our

20 reports. If the law was different, then I was governed by

21 humanitarianism, bearing in mind that I was dealing with people rather

22 than with papers, laws, and documents.

23 Q. All right. Now, if I could ask you to turn next to 4D 01232,

24 which is the -- I think it's a document that Ms. Alaburic has shown to

25 you. It's the law on the movement and residence of foreigners.

Page 28398

1 4D 01232. And -- I understand that there is a loose hard copy of this

2 document because there's been at least a partial translation of the

3 various -- some the various relevant articles.

4 Sir, this is a law which you've seen before, shown to you and

5 discussed previously, but this is indeed a law that appears on its face

6 to, in fact, apply to refugees coming from outside the Republic of

7 Croatia, and yet if I understand correctly you're saying you did not

8 consider this law applied; is that right?

9 A. That's right, yes.

10 Q. So what we have here is we have two laws, the 1992 law and the

11 1993 law, who don't apply on their face but you say apply. And then we

12 have another law, the law on foreigners, who does apply on its face but

13 you say it doesn't apply. Now why -- can you tell us, can you help the

14 Judges why that is the case? What explains this situation? Why doesn't

15 the law on foreigners apply? By its terms it would appear to.

16 A. I've already said that once Yugoslavia disappeared a new

17 situation was put in place. When Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia

18 became independent states, new circumstances arose for our Ministry of

19 the Interior, and they had to adopt a certain behaviour towards

20 foreigners who arrived from different countries, Slovenia, Hungary,

21 Germany, to mention but a few.

22 It is my impression that this is a decision that applied to those

23 citizens. On the other hand, there was a separate law that applied to

24 the movement of refugees, because refugees could not have been

25 encompassed within a law --

Page 28399

1 Q. Let me stop you there for a moment. We have the law, for

2 example, the second law, the law from 1993, and you've told us for some

3 days now, and Dr. Zoric told us also for some days, that by -- by the

4 middle of 1993 there was a huge refugee problem in Croatia, and clearly

5 it must have been something considered by the Croatian parliament, and --

6 is the Chamber to believe that the legislators in Croatia didn't know how

7 to write a law that would apply to people coming into Croatia from

8 outside the country? They made exactly the same mistake not once but

9 twice in writing legislation to deal with this issue?

10 A. I can't answer your question, because at the time I did not deal

11 with these documents. The ODPR dealt with looking after refugees and

12 displaced persons rather than with documents about the movement of

13 foreigners. In any case, in our office for refugees and displaced

14 persons we had a legal department as well.

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Witness, precisely I was going

16 to put this question to you since the status of refugees is a very

17 complex legal issue. I was going to ask you the question if -- precisely

18 this, if within your office you had somebody who was able to bring up the

19 Geneva Conventions of 1951. Those conventions are very clear. Did

20 somebody show you various texts of internal law that could be applied to

21 foreigners and to refugees, and that service or that department or that

22 person, were they able to bring you a legal expertise in order to help

23 you to head this office?

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, in the ODPR there was

25 a legal service or a legal department, and this legal service dealt with

Page 28400

1 all those various documents. At the beginning of our work in the office

2 we had joint meetings where we analysed things, particularly the Geneva

3 Conventions and laws that concerned refugees and displaced persons.

4 This was a time, and I'm particularly referring to the year 1992,

5 when we actually learned on the job. We learned the definitions of

6 displaced persons, refugees. There were many people in Zagreb who could

7 not make a distinction. We learned on the job. We even invited a lawyer

8 from UNHCR. I can't remember the gentleman's name. I believe it was

9 either Heinemann or somebody else and this gentleman delivered a lecture

10 on the Geneva Conventions and what it says about looking after refugees.

11 In other words, we embarked on a learning process on how to deal with the

12 issue. And once when we managed to muster the international law we

13 passed the knowledge on to others, when we were able to fully apply these

14 laws that the Republic of Croatia inherited from the former Yugoslavia

15 and adopted all of them by text that we already saw earlier today. All

16 these laws, particularly those that concerned DPs and refugees, could be

17 found in our office and they were the foundation of our work.

18 One thing is sure. Some things arose from the law and from the

19 decree, and even more things arose from -- from our everyday, day-to-day

20 contact with the real situation, with the problems that arose day in and

21 day out. And this was another source of learning for us.

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine. I'm being told by the

23 registrar that we need to break. We'll break for 20 minutes. The

24 Prosecutor has used one hour and 37 minutes so far.

25 --- Recess taken at 5.42 p.m.

Page 28401

1 --- On resuming at 6.04 p.m.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The hearing is resumed.

3 MR. SCOTT:

4 Q. Sir, if you -- if you still have 4D -- the law on foreigners,

5 4D 01232 available to you. Do you still have it there?

6 A. No. I have 233 though. Oh, yes, I do. 232. I have it, yes.

7 Q. Very well. Sir, just one final question on this. A final

8 question on this topic before moving to some other exhibits, but let me

9 ask you to go to Article 31 of the law on foreigners. I'm abbreviating

10 that, but movement and residence of foreigners. If you go to Article 31,

11 it says that, if you have that, it says: "A foreigner who has left the

12 country whose citizen he is or in which he was permanently residing as a

13 stateless person in order to avoid persecution for his political views or

14 national origin, racial or religious affiliation, may be awarded the

15 status after refugee."

16 And based on discussions we've had over the past hour or so, sir,

17 given that the status of the legislation in applying a law that doesn't

18 apply on its face, that does not apply on its face, and not applying

19 another law that appears to apply on its face, was there a studied effort

20 by your agency and the Croatian government not to apply the law on

21 foreigners because to do so would recognise that these people were

22 religious, racial, or political persecuted persons?

23 A. Well, this Article 31 in one way or another also applies to

24 refugees that we worked with, although originally it applies to

25 foreigners who were persecuted in their own countries for their

Page 28402

1 political, racial, or religious affiliations. In our situation, however,

2 when this comes to the ODPR, this law could have only been a framework

3 law in a certain sense, but it was not a law on which our work could have

4 been based, on which the recognition of the refugee status would be

5 granted to persons who had fled from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

6 Q. Sir, excuse me. Why? You say this was not a law on which our

7 work could have been based." It's a law. It's a law in the Republic of

8 Croatia adopted by, as far as we know -- duly adopted by the appropriate

9 authorities, the Sabor or whoever, and it's a law. It's on the books.

10 Your agency, your legal duty, your obligation is to enforce Croatian law.

11 Now, when you say, "This was not law that we could enforce," why not? Or

12 did your agency pick and choose which Croatian law to apply and those you

13 wanted to apply and the ones you didn't want to apply?

14 A. Well, I may have been misunderstood. I said that this law was

15 broader and that it concerned the movement and stay of foreigners in the

16 Republic of Croatia, and that this law was applied by the Ministry of the

17 Interior. It was enforced by them, and it was not in conflict with the

18 law and the decree that the ODPR applied, and that office primarily

19 received recognised refugee status and cared for refugees. In any case,

20 this law was primarily applied by the Ministry of the Interior. It did

21 not contradict what we were doing, but it was primarily applied by the

22 Ministry of the Interior.

23 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, if I may. I know from

24 experience where this is going. I know -- I know it primarily because

25 Dr. Rebic is not a legal expert as we know from his CV, and I really

Page 28403

1 don't know what is the foundation of the all the Prosecutor's questions,

2 but what I'm saying is that we have wasted over 15 minutes after the

3 Prosecution's question on page 72 when he first arrived at the decree on

4 refugees, which is 1D 02638.

5 In the first answer provided by the witness, which is on record

6 on page 72, line 8, the witness started his answer in the following way,

7 and I have to quote: "[In English] Correct. That we in the office in

8 keeping with the 1951 Geneva Conventions regarding -- regarded as

9 refugees all those persons who arrived from different state," et cetera,

10 et cetera. And then the witness provided additional understanding of the

11 law. And then the questions, answers, questions, answers. The

12 Prosecution obviously disregard the fact that by this answer, maybe not

13 put as a lawyer would do, but this sentence clearly shows for a person

14 who is like in this, that it was implementation of international

15 convention.

16 Now, I can talk about qualified lawyer and knowing the domestic

17 law. The Croatian constitution at that time before that time and today

18 as many constitutions in Europe, and I understand in United States, also

19 says that international conventions are obligatory. They should be

20 implemented directly regardless of the domestic law. And the witness,

21 not being lawyer, is having obviously some problem to explain us. But he

22 did mention, and by the way, what is more important particularly having

23 in mind the position of this witness, is de facto, not de jure because

24 he's not a lawyer, de facto, and de facto situation he told us about

25 cooperation with UNHCR, UNHCR sitting in his own office, UNHCR giving him

Page 28404

1 advice so obviously --

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. I get the point. I get

3 the point.

4 Witness, when Mr. Scott asked you an excellent question, I

5 wondered if you understood the meaning of that question, and Mr. Kovacic

6 realised the same thing. Mr. Scott also asked you a number of questions

7 about the same things.

8 You know without being a legal expert that there is a Geneva

9 Convention of 1951, and the former Yugoslavia was a signatory. There are

10 specific references to the Geneva Conventions in the Civil Code and the

11 Penal Code of the former Yugoslavia. When Croatia became an independent

12 state it adopted the entire corpus of international law and legislation.

13 That's one thing.

14 So first you have the domestic laws, the Croatian laws, including

15 the law that Mr. Scott showed you. Article 1 of this law is extremely

16 similar to what we find in the Geneva Convention from 1951. It is stated

17 in that convention that someone may be granted refugee status if he is

18 persecuted for political, racial reasons. And Mr. Scott is telling you

19 quite rightly that this law applies to the office, to the ODPR. It

20 applies to everyone in Croatia. That was the meaning of his question.

21 And listening to all this I wondered if you had grasped the meaning of

22 the question.

23 Now that you've heard my explanation, do you get the meaning of

24 the question that Mr. Scott put to you?

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Although I'm not a lawyer, I

Page 28405

1 understand what all of you are talking about, but this is precisely how I

2 answered. I replied that the law on movement and residence of foreigners

3 in the Republic of Croatia did not contradict what we were doing. On the

4 contrary. The article that was quoted, and I believe it was Article 31,

5 was practised in our office as well. But on top of that, our office

6 abided by the Geneva Conventions on looking after refugees and

7 recognising the refugee status for all the persons arriving from a

8 neighbouring country. And I've already told you that that's why we

9 learned about the Geneva Conventions, that we had seminars together with

10 UNHCR, that we had a legal office in our office which was very familiar

11 with all these laws and conventions, and when we had our joint meetings

12 it was present to brief us about any legal problems that we might have

13 had.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine. I believe I understand

15 what you're saying. Not only did you apply the Geneva Conventions at the

16 office, but you also stated that on top of that you took care of these

17 people.

18 If I understand correctly, not only did your office grant refugee

19 status to a number of individuals, but your office also provided

20 material, health-related assistance, to all these people who arrived in

21 the country. Is that the way I should interpret your answer?

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's how my answer should be

23 understood. And let me just clarify. If these refugees had arrived in

24 Pakistan, they were not within the purview of my office. They -- our

25 office would not have been charged with them.

Page 28406

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine. I understand what you

2 are telling us.

3 Mr. Scott, you have the floor. We've tried to shed some light on

4 this matter.

5 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President. I'm -- I'm finished with

6 the topic. I think the record will speak for itself at this point. Just

7 to respond very briefing to Mr. Kovacic.

8 First off, I didn't show the witness a single document that

9 wasn't shown to him by the Defence. I didn't raise it. I didn't --

10 these are all documents the Defence put to the witness, so I simply came

11 back across on cross-examination to the same exhibits.

12 We can all agree, of course, that Mr. -- Dr. Rebic is not a

13 lawyer, but he's, again, a highly educated man who from 1991 to 1996 was

14 the head of an agency whose very job was to apply Croatian law in

15 reference -- and international law, and international law, to the subject

16 of refugees and displaced persons. So I give him the benefit of the

17 doubt that he knew -- knew that what -- what his job was and the laws

18 that did apply, including all the laws on the books of Croatia, including

19 the ones that applied on their face as opposed to the ones which didn't.

20 Q. Now, sir, if I can direct your attention to P 10406. P 10406.

21 And that should be in the Prosecution's exhibits, I believe. P 10 -- I

22 apologise if I misspoke. P 10406. All right. Well, it's in my -- if we

23 could have it on -- if we could possibly have it on e-court, please.

24 Sir, in the interest of time if you will --

25 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Maybe I can be mistaken, but I

Page 28407

1 don't think so. It is not a problem we don't have it in the binder, the

2 problem is it is not on the chart. So it was not planned.

3 MR. SCOTT:

4 Q. Well, sir, if you can look on the screen and assist us. This is

5 a -- this is a press article dated the 13th of July, 1992, and it goes

6 back to topic that we touched on briefly earlier this afternoon, and that

7 is that as of the 13th of July, 1992, and I'll just read the first

8 sentence of the article: "Croatia said on Monday that it would not

9 accept any more refugees from war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina."

10 And what can you tell us about that decision -- how that decision

11 was made? And I will just indicate to you that at the top of the second

12 page, at least in the English version, Mr. Zoric is quoted in this regard

13 about this: "It is unbearable. Its not a question of goodwill. We

14 don't have anywhere to put these people."

15 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, I believe it's been asked and

16 answered. We already covered this ground.

17 MR. SCOTT: With who?

18 MR. KARNAVAS: Earlier, earlier today. Earlier today he was

19 asked about the decision. He commented. He commented the reason, and he

20 indicated that this was a plea but that the borders were never closed.

21 That was during the first session.

22 Now, we can go over it again, but I just want to make sure that

23 the Trial Chamber understands that this was asked and answered. Not this

24 particular document but the essence of it.

25 MR. SCOTT: Well, that's the point, Your Honour. I'm coming back

Page 28408

1 to a particular document on point.

2 Q. Sir, what more can you tell us looking at this document about the

3 decision on the 13th of July, 1992, not to accept any more refugees from

4 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

5 A. Mr. Scott, I really can't remember that the Republic of Croatia

6 was ever in a situation to decide to close its borders with Bosnia and

7 Herzegovina because it no longer wanted to receive refugees from that

8 country. I did mention that that must have been a statement --

9 Q. I didn't say whether you wanted to or whether Croatia wanted to

10 or not. The motivation is a separate issue at the moment. We have an

11 article here and we have other testimony in the case that indeed there

12 was a time when Croatia stopped accepting refugees from

13 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Now, can you tell us more about that -- did you make

14 that decision? Was that a decision that you made, or who in the

15 government made that decision?

16 MR. KARNAVAS: Again, I point to the earlier testimony of the

17 gentleman. He indicated that the border was never closed, that they

18 never refused refugees. He indicated that clearly in relation to this

19 particular decision. Now he's being pointed -- he's being pointed an

20 article.

21 MR. SCOTT: Yes I am. I'm challenging the witness, Your Honour.

22 I don't have to accept his first answer. I can challenge the witness.

23 This is cross-examination. That's what cross-examination is about. I

24 put documents in front of him. I have other documents to put in front of

25 him.

Page 28409

1 MR. KARNAVAS: Yes, but we have a press clipping. That's the

2 point. The press clipping is hearsay first of all. We don't have access

3 to this particular individual. We don't know what this individual had in

4 mind when he wrote this.

5 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, press clippings have been coming into

6 for the last two years. Now, are we changing the rules here now, again?

7 MR. KARNAVAS: So am I understanding that what Mr. Scott is

8 doing, he's putting his case to the witness that the witness indeed is a

9 liar? Is that what Mr. Scott is doing because the answer has been

10 answered -- the question has been answered earlier.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas, please stop

12 conducting legal or judicial guerrilla here in this courtroom. We have a

13 press statement coming from Reuters, a very famous agency that does not

14 just publish any -- anything.

15 This relates to a statement made by the senior secretary of the

16 office, and Mr. Zoric mentions financial problems. It might be relevant

17 to find out why he made that statement. This will not cause any

18 prejudice to your case. Furthermore, this is taking place in Croatia,

19 not in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

20 Mr. Scott, please proceed if you believe that we should expand

21 some portion of -- a portion of this document.

22 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour.

23 Q. Well, let me -- let me see if I can move us forward and then

24 maybe put additional questions to you, but in light of the comments that

25 have been made, if I can direct your attention back to 1D 02008, the

Page 28410

1 first exhibit we looked at this afternoon in the Prosecution's

2 cross-examination. 1D 02008. Binder 1 of the Defence documents. I

3 don't have them. I don't have -- my documents aren't organised in the

4 same way as the Defence.

5 Do you have it now, sir? Dr. Rebic?

6 A. The second, please.

7 Q. If I can ask you to look on the screen. This is the document

8 that we looked at. This is the record -- the letter that Mr. Prlic had

9 sent to Dr. Granic about their meeting, the letter dated the 21st of

10 November, 1992, which we've already looked at. And if I can direct your

11 attention to the text of the enclosure, item number 1, item number 1 and

12 mindful that this is written in November 1992: "In connection with

13 refugees, it was stressed that Croatia does not have the physical,

14 social, or material capabilities to receive a new wave of refugees from

15 Bosnia and Herzegovina that is expected. The only possibility is transit

16 to other countries."

17 Now, do you see that?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And is that an accurate statement as of November 1992?

20 A. It is an accurate statement. The Republic of Croatia at the time

21 had been exhausted. It did not have the physical, social, and material

22 capabilities to receive a new wave of refugees. However, despite all

23 that, we still received them because we made do as best as we could. I

24 mentioned on several occasions that we asked from the Ministry of Defence

25 to provide us with new capabilities that he had used to belong to the

Page 28411

1 JNA. That's where we accommodated refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

2 Your Honours, there's one thing when is somebody on behalf of the

3 Republic of Croatia talks in order to raise awareness amongst the others

4 and tell them about physical incapabilities of accommodating refugees

5 from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and it's a totally different thing that de facto

6 we never turned down refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina when they

7 crossed the Croatian border and arrived in Croatia.

8 I don't remember a single event in which the ODPR turned down a

9 refugee who came for help from the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I

10 simply cannot remember any such event. And this is something that I

11 understand as a cry out to the general public to sense -- to raise their

12 awareness and to try and look to Bosnia and Herzegovina and see whether

13 they themselves could deal with the problem of refugees.

14 Q. Taking for purposes of argument that additional persons were

15 physically allowed into Croatia, across its border, assuming that for the

16 moment, we can debate that later, but assuming that was the case, was it

17 nonetheless the position of the Croatian government if those people did

18 come in after the 13th of July, 1992, they were not being given refugee

19 status?

20 They may have been physically there and they may have been good

21 people who tried to assist them, but they were not given legal refugee

22 status after the 13th of July, 1992. Now, is that what you're saying?

23 Is that what this decision was saying?

24 A. In my view, no. According to the talks in Grude, if I understand

25 you correctly, on the 20th of November, 1992, these were talks in which

Page 28412

1 Granic pointed out the impossibility or the difficulties --

2 Q. Sorry, I'm going to ask you now to go 1D 02608. It's in the

3 Prosecution bundle I'm told. 1D 02608.

4 Sorry, it's in the Defence exhibits.

5 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I'm sorry. We're in the same situation

6 as everybody else, I'm afraid. There are so many binders.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] "One time financial assistance"?

8 MR. SCOTT:

9 Q. Yes. If I can ask you please to look to paragraph numbered 1 of

10 your letter dated the -- or report or what have you dated 29th of

11 October, 1992. In number one: "To strictly obey the stipulations of the

12 Government of the Republic of Croatia as regards approving or

13 non-approving the refugee status to those refugees who have arrived to

14 Croatia before July 13, 1992. It is because there have been some

15 irregularities."

16 Now, you're writing this document some months later on the 29th

17 of October, 1992. You're nonetheless referring to 13th of July, 1992, as

18 the -- as a date having some significance. So why are you referring --

19 why in October 1992 are you referring back to -- why is it significant

20 whether they have arrived before 13 July 1992?

21 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, by your leave I think

22 there is a mistranslation of this document, because in the Croatian text

23 it speaks of refugees who arrived in Croatia after the 13th of July,

24 1992, and it says in the translation "before the 13th of July, 1992."

25 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, if our -- I'm sorry. I apologise. If

Page 28413

1 our interpreters can assist us, I'll certainly be -- I will be governed

2 by that.

3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. So, Ms. Alaburic,

4 the best way to proceed is that you read that paragraph in your own

5 language, paragraph 1, and the interpreters will be able to tell us if it

6 was after or before. Go ahead, please.

7 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] The sentence begins, I quote: "We

8 asked the regional offices to request all centres for social work to:

9 "1. To strictly obey the stipulations of the government of the

10 Republic of Croatia as regards approving or non-approving of refugee

11 status to those refugees who arrived in Croatia after the 13th of July,

12 1992. There have been some irregularities, that is."

13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. So this text should

14 read after and not before.

15 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I fully accept that, and I -- just for

16 the record, this is a Defence exhibit and apparently a translation is in

17 error, but really doesn't in fact -- but doesn't dramatically change my

18 question.

19 Q. You still refer, sir, to a decision on the 13th of July 1992,

20 whether having a significance, maybe it was significant because something

21 happened before that date or it was significant because something

22 happened after that date, but you still tie this to the July 13, 1992.

23 Why was that?

24 A. Today after all this time I cannot recall the significance of the

25 13th of July. However, I see from this document, which I believe I

Page 28414

1 signed, although I don't see my signature here, and it has to do with a

2 one-time financial assistance to hosts of refugees from

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina. In this document, the regional offices are asked to

4 deliver to the office a list of all the hosts and the number of

5 Bosnian-Herzegovinian refugees they are taking in so that we can provide

6 them with one-time financial assistance of a certain sum per person, and

7 also requests of the families taking in refugees and refugees asking for

8 one-time financial assistance should be given this assistance only if

9 they show the requisite documents.

10 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... I'd like to move forward

11 unless the Chamber has --

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Mr. Scott, before you

13 move on to something else, I once again read paragraph 1, and I also

14 wondered, just like yourself, about the same things, but if you read

15 paragraph 1, one is under the impression that the witness sends an order

16 to regional offices regarding this issue, and he asks them to strictly

17 obey the stipulations or orders issued by the government of the Republic

18 of Croatia as regards approving or non-approving the refugee status to

19 those refugees who have arrived after the 13th of July.

20 So when one reads this sentence, one is under the impression that

21 on behalf of the government of the Republic of Croatia there is not a

22 total refusal with regard to the people who arrived after the 13th of

23 July, because there is this issue of approving or non-approving the

24 refugee status. In other words, both options seem to exist.

25 So, Witness, is this how we should interpret this paragraph,

Page 28415

1 because this seems to stem from your own office.

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I agree with you.

3 That is how it should be interpreted, because at that time there were

4 false cards showing refugee status, just as there were forged documents

5 testifying to displaced person status. That's why I'm saying that the

6 provisions should be respected as to who had the right and who did not

7 have the right to that status, because this has to do with financial

8 assistance which is not small.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Witness, but the end of the

10 sentence seems to indicate that you discovered that there were some false

11 refugees, in brackets, and that's why you're telling regional centres

12 there have been some irregularities, but you've told us already, and we'd

13 just like you to confirm.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, that's correct.

15 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I would like to -- to continue on this issue.

16 If we look at the sentence, I think that it is difficult not to

17 understand it in the way that it makes a distinction of refugees

18 arriving. It does not say from where, but after 13 of July, obviously

19 certain refugees fall to be approved and other fall not to be approved.

20 That is not the question of forged documents. I could -- it would be

21 difficult to understand it in that way. There must be a criterion then

22 by which is certain persons coming into the country are recognised as

23 refugees and others are not recognised.

24 Can you remember what the difference is, what the criterion is

25 and explain it to us?

Page 28416

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This was a situation when in

2 Herceg-Bosna many areas were absolutely safe for refugees, and they were

3 able to go back. However, there were quite a few cases where some

4 persons living with refugee cards, in spite of the fact that they were

5 able to go back and had partly been able to go back, I'll give you

6 specific examples because I remember these cases.

7 There were members of a family who resided in one of those towns,

8 Ljubuski, Capljina, or elsewhere, and they had relatives living at -- by

9 the seaside, and the government was quite strict there because those who

10 were really able to go back to those areas, and Herceg-Bosna is mentioned

11 here, these were Croats then, if they were able to abandon their refugee

12 status and return to their homes and not needlessly burden the budget of

13 the Republic of Croatia, they should go back. If I explain myself well.

14 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Yes, that's quite clear and also quite

15 plausible. Thank you.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Witness, I would still like to

17 clarify this question, because it could have important consequences. It

18 would seem that on the 13th of July, 1992, is something happened. Maybe

19 something happened, and what happened is maybe that the Croatian

20 government discovered that there are some refugees who had false

21 documents, who said that they were refugees but they were not refugees,

22 and from that moment on the Croatian government decided to take new

23 measures, and you yourself, you apply these measures, and these new

24 measures do not deal with refugees who have arrived prior to the month of

25 July 1992, the 13th of July, 1992, but it concerns only the people who

Page 28417

1 arrived after that date. And you gave your own instructions on the 29th

2 of October.

3 Now, this first paragraph is problematic. There are some --

4 there's irregularities, there's some abuse, but in the second paragraph

5 you ask your regional centres, regional offices, to send to your own

6 office lists with very clear information on families and so on and so

7 forth, because all of this, of course, has financial consequences.

8 Now, when we read the second paragraph, doesn't it say that the

9 way to eliminate these irregularities is by requesting precise

10 information on the refugees? I see, for instance, that they are

11 requested to give their names, their first names, their last names, et

12 cetera, et cetera, their addresses, et cetera, et cetera.

13 Now, tell us, please, doesn't the second paragraph help to

14 alleviate the irregularities that exist in the first paragraph?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, that's one of the ways

16 in which this was done. It's one of the ways in which we attempted to

17 check, to monitor the refugees to see whether they had their refugee

18 status in a justified way or in an unjustified way, because there were

19 some instances. I'm referring to some instances where there were people

20 who were de facto already living in the liberated areas, but they had not

21 given back their refugee status. They continued using it in order to

22 spend part of their time at the seaside. That was the case in point.

23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Mr. Scott, please

24 proceed.

25 Ms. Alaburic first.

Page 28418

1 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] [Previous translation continues]

2 ... but if I may say a sentence as a lawyer hailing from the country in

3 which this document was compiled. I only wish to draw the Chamber's

4 attention to the fact that in this document there is an appeal to the

5 regional offices to comply with existing regulations in order to avoid

6 irregularities being repeated. So there is no new decision or new

7 regulation. There is only insistence on compliance with already existing

8 regulations.

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's correct.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Mr. Scott, please

11 proceed.

12 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour.

13 Q. Sir, if we could next go to P 10407, which is in the Prosecution

14 binder, I believe. 10407.

15 If you have that, sir -- sorry to the interpreters for being so

16 far away from the microphone.

17 Sir, if you have that, this is a document coming from your

18 agency, dated the 9th of April, 1993. So again now after November some

19 additional, I don't know, five months, something like that, and

20 concerning entry and temporary residence for the following persons, and

21 toward the end of the letter in English on the second page, the top of

22 the second page, there it says: "Pursuant to the decision of the

23 government of the Republic of Croatia of 13 July 1992, the

24 above-mentioned persons cannot request or be granted a refugee status in

25 the Republic of Croatia."

Page 28419

1 So, sir, once again, some nine or ten months after July 1992,

2 you're still referring to this decision in July 1992 as a basis for these

3 persons not being granted refugee status.

4 Now, please tell us why these months later -- if it was a dead

5 letter, if it was a decision but it really didn't mean anything, it was

6 ignored, people came in any way, whatever, you seem to be suggesting that

7 well, there was something in July but it really didn't mean much, with

8 all due respect. It was nothing. But that date keeps coming up, and in

9 this letter that you wrote, or someone wrote over your name, on the 9th

10 of April, 1993, you cite this as the basis of the decision. "Pursuant to

11 the decision ... of the 13th of July, 1992, the above-mentioned persons

12 cannot request or be granted refugee status ..."

13 Now, please tell us why in April 1993 are you still referring to

14 the decision of 13 July 1992 as a basis for denying refugee status?

15 A. Because, Mr. Scott, in that law, to the best of my recollection,

16 it said that persons requesting transit or passage through the Republic

17 of Croatia on their way to third countries do not have the right to be

18 granted refugee status. They could only be granted what they had

19 requested, and in this particular case Anja Puce and Ramiz Puce from

20 Bosnia-Herzegovina were travelling to a third country, and they were

21 asking for permission to enter the country and for temporary residence in

22 the Republic of Croatia. They were going on. They had to pass through

23 the Republic of Croatia, but they did not need refugee status. They may

24 have been travelling to Germany, to Austria, or to Slovenia. The office

25 therefore issued them with this permission saying that they could transit

Page 28420

1 through Croatia and that during the time of their transit through the

2 Republic of Croatia their costs would be borne by Zlatko Fadljevic. This

3 was the person.

4 Q. We all have the document. We can read. You don't need to read

5 that.

6 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honours, I point to the place: It's Mostar.

7 And I point to the date: We're talking April 1993.

8 MR. SCOTT: So?

9 MR. KARNAVAS: Nothing was happening in Mostar that would make

10 these individuals refugees unless Mr. Scott knows that to be a fact.

11 MR. SCOTT: Totally beside the point.

12 MR. KARNAVAS: It's not totally beside the point.

13 MR. SCOTT:

14 Q. Totally beside the point. The point is, and Dr. Rebic on this

15 one I'm not going to cut you quite so much slack, perhaps. You say,

16 "Well, they didn't ask for it," and they got what they asked for. Sir,

17 the letter says the "above-mentioned persons cannot request or be

18 granted," so they couldn't request and even if they had requested it

19 couldn't be granted. That's what it says.

20 A. Yes, that's correct because the law of the 13th of July, 1992, is

21 referred to here. Based on that law those persons didn't want refugee

22 status they were travelling on. They were going to live with their

23 relatives perhaps. This clause is here in order to comply with the law

24 because otherwise someone might try to bypass the law or to find

25 loopholes in the law. I am saying that these were persons from Mostar

Page 28421

1 who were the mediation of Zlatko Fadljevic, were travelling to a third

2 country, and who had asked for permission to transit through the

3 territory of the Republic of Croatia saying they would not be requesting

4 refugee status. Had these same persons said they wanted refugee status

5 through Fadljevic, they would have been granted it.

6 Q. I'm sorry that's not what the letter says. It says they cannot

7 ask for it and if they asked for it, it would not be granted.

8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Just a moment. Is there a

9 problem, Ms. Alaburic?

10 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I really don't know

11 if at this stage of cross-examination I may rise to my feet at all, but

12 as this document in its legal essence is identical to the document that I

13 based my cross-examination on, P 10048, and secondly because we know that

14 Dr. Rebic is not lawyer, I only wish to draw attention to the fact that

15 in the preamble to this document it's evident that these are persons to

16 whom the status of foreign nationals in the Republic of Croatia has been

17 granted. Their status is temporary residence which is one of the five

18 possible legal grounds for persons staying in the Republic of Croatia.

19 One legal ground excludes all the others. Therefore, because they have

20 this status of temporary residence, these persons cannot be granted the

21 status of refugees. I think it will be easier for Their Honours to

22 follow the documents if we look at them -- if we look together at

23 documents of the same nature.

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you for your assistance.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Witness, this is a couple.

Page 28422

1 They were born in 1936 and 1937 in Mostar. But let's suppose that these

2 people are Mexicans who would want to transit through Croatia to go to,

3 let's say, to Denmark? Why Mexicans? Well, because maybe Mexicans came

4 from Belgrade, I don't know where from, but let's say that we're talking

5 about Mexicans. In order to stay temporarily in Croatia they would have

6 to have somebody, a sponsor, who would financially take care of them. In

7 order to cross the border you would have to give them your approval to

8 transit through your country and that would be the subject of the

9 document; is that right? And this type document, would it be applied to

10 all nationals?

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, because it was the Ministry of

12 the Interior that would be in charge of Mexicans. I mentioned Pakistan,

13 for example, previously. When referring to Mostar in Bosnia and

14 Herzegovina, these people applied to the ODPR because very often when

15 they applied to the Ministry of the Interior they said to them, "You

16 should apply to the ODPR and they will solve your problem."

17 It may assist if I tell you that the ODPR was faster and quicker

18 and more expeditious in solving these applications for transit than the

19 Ministry of the Interior simply because these people came from

20 Bosnia-Herzegovina. I can give you plenty of examples of people calling

21 me from Belgrade and asking me if they could transit through the Republic

22 of Croatia. They applied to the ODPR because they thought it would be

23 quicker and easier for them to get their documents through the ODPR than

24 through the Ministry of Interior. That was the situation. It was

25 wartime and there are specific circumstances in every war.

Page 28423

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Since I see that

2 some references are made to a file, because I imagine that some

3 references are made regarding family Puce, because we see some numbers

4 here, 010-04, et cetera, et cetera. So we only have one part of the

5 file, but maybe you had another document maybe that was a guarantee given

6 by a third country, a letter, for instance, telling you that these people

7 are only asking you to transit your country because they were going

8 somewhere else.

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, yes. It's absolutely

10 possible. And that's not the only such case. There were many such

11 cases, and for every one of them our office in its archives has full

12 documentation, all the documents needed.

13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Yesterday we saw a

14 photograph of the office with all the binders, and I suppose if we looked

15 inside those binders and if we checked that number one would be able to

16 find the document in question?

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, certainly.

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. I am not going to

19 do that work because this is something that the Defence and the

20 Prosecution should have done or could have done, but, yes, go on, please,

21 Mr. Scott.

22 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour.

23 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for Mr. Scott, please.

24 MR. SCOTT: Thank you. I'm just looking, Your Honour, if there's

25 anything I can finish in the next couple of minutes, and I don't -- Your

Page 28424

1 Honour, I might suggest we stop there.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Go on, please,

3 until five past 7.00, and tomorrow we will catch up and stop at 25 past.

4 Please go ahead in order to finish this topic.

5 MR. SCOTT: All right. Thank you, Mr. President.

6 Q. Staying on this topic then, can I ask that the witness go to in

7 the Prosecution binder P 00757. If you have that, sir, 757. This is a

8 report by the Special Rapporteur Mazowiecki, dated the 17th of November,

9 1992, a report to the United Nations, and if I can please direct your

10 attention and the courtroom's attention, please, to paragraph number 74.

11 In the English document it will be on page 24. I'm afraid I can't help

12 you with the page number on the translation, sir, although you may be

13 able to read the English, but you should be able to find paragraph 74.

14 The report there is talking about refugees at Varazdin, which has

15 I think been discussed in the courtroom before, another refugee centre in

16 Croatia. Going toward the second half of the -- about halfway down

17 through the paragraph 74 it says: "Many refugees complained that they

18 lacked official refugee status. In this respect, UNHCR confirmed that

19 the refugees in the centre fall into the category of 'not registered,'

20 following the decision of Croatia of 13 July 1992 not to register

21 refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina. This had implications on the

22 assistance side, but also raised protection concerns."

23 Now, sir, once again we have a reference with apparent -- some

24 significance to a decision of the Croatian government on the 13th of

25 July, 1992, not to register refugees, at least not to give them refugee

Page 28425

1 status. As you've said earlier today, maybe they were still coming into

2 the country. I don't know. You say they were, but we'll accept that for

3 the moment, but they weren't being given refugee status, were they?

4 A. Mr. Scott, the fact is that these refugees were in a refugee

5 centre and Mr. Mazowiecki's report speaks about this refugee centre. I

6 was aware of that centre. It is true that it was overcrowded. It is

7 true that it did not have sanitary facilities as it should have had, as

8 some other centres had, because this was a former barracks, a military

9 barracks. However, despite the dire financial and physical straits, we

10 provided them with whatever we could. De facto they were in a refugee

11 centre.

12 As I sit here today, I can't remember whether these people were

13 indeed not registered or maybe they were actually registered. In other

14 words, I can't remember whether they were not registered because of the

15 law, the 13th of July, 1993, which is very hard for me to believe today,

16 or maybe UNHCR wanted to take these people under their own protection

17 because that also sometimes happened and then transported them or helped

18 them to go to third countries.

19 If I may say, I know Mr. Mazowiecki personally. I met with him

20 two or three times, once before the war in a different capacity in

21 Warsaw, and during the war Mr. Mazowiecki visited me in the ODPR, and I

22 remember very well that we discussed the issues of refugees but he never

23 mentioned this particular problem to me. Since Mr. Mazowiecki had known

24 me from before, he invited me to a hotel and then face-to-face,

25 individually, tete-a-tete, he spoke to me as a priest, as a Christian,

Page 28426

1 and he inquired about any violation of human rights, to the extent I know

2 about those, either in Croatia or in the neighbouring state of Bosnia and

3 Herzegovina, and then Mr. Mr. Mazowiecki --

4 MR. KARNAVAS: Excuse me, Your Honour, I'm going to insist on the

5 answer because we have a report from the particular individual that the

6 witness knew prior the war and now he's being shown a report. Obviously,

7 because of their personal relationship, Mr. Mazowiecki would have brought

8 the issue up and now he's giving a full explanation.

9 MR. SCOTT: We don't need Mr. Karnavas to say that.

10 MR. KARNAVAS: The meeting took place in Zagreb. That's why I

11 did not object initially when he brought up the issue.

12 JUDGE TRECHSEL: We've heard this.

13 MR. KARNAVAS: We need a full answer. I don't recall an

14 instance, Judge Trechsel, when you -- when you would not allow a witness

15 for the Prosecution to answer fully a question. Now he's entitled to

16 give a full explanation because he knows the drafter of this report and

17 because of the relationship. I don't see why all the reaction.

18 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Well, your reaction mostly, Mr. Karnavas. I did

19 not stop the witness nor did I intend to, but you seem to like Trechsel

20 bashing. That has become very clear.

21 MR. KARNAVAS: No. I apologise if that seems to be the case, but

22 it seems that you're pounding things.

23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Witness, you know

24 Mr. Mazowiecki. You had a conversation with him about human rights

25 abuse. It's interesting. What did you tell him, but please be brief

Page 28427

1 because otherwise we'll go over. What did you tell him?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In a nutshell, I drew his attention

3 to the aggression that had been committed on the part of the JNA or

4 today's Serbia in the territory of the Republic of Croatia and Bosnia and

5 Herzegovina. I also drew his attention to the numerous violations of

6 human rights, the expulsion of people from their own homes, the killings

7 of fathers, brothers, and mothers before the eyes of those very same

8 refugees in similar cases.

9 As for the Republic of Croatia, he never expressly asked me

10 whether human rights were being violated in the Republic of Croatia or at

11 least I don't remember that. Our conversation mostly dealt with the JNA

12 and aggression against the Croatian Bosnia and Herzegovina.

13 I am not surprised by the report that he drafted, because he also

14 had to provide reports about the de facto situation in Varazdin, in the

15 former barracks. I also didn't find it easy to see these people in such

16 poor accommodation, but there was no other possibilities, and that is why

17 the government had issued this decision to be more strict in applying the

18 refugee status, because the Republic of Croatia and our office wanted to

19 avoid situations in which the refugees would be provided with

20 accommodation below any standards.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine. We need to stop here for

22 today. We'll resume tomorrow at a quarter past 2.00. Barring any

23 procedural incidents we should be able to complete the witness's

24 testimony tomorrow. If it so happens that we can't complete your

25 testimony, you would have to come back, Witness, but let's be hopeful.

Page 28428

1 Let's hope that you'll be able to complete your testimony tomorrow. Have

2 a pleasant evening and I'll see all of you tomorrow.

3 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.08 p.m.,

4 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 22nd day

5 of May, 2008, at 2.15 p.m.