Page 14035
1 Thursday, 5 February 2009
2 [Open session]
3 --- Upon commencing at 2.15 p.m.
4 [The accused entered court]
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Registrar, can you call the
6 case, please.
7 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. This is case
8 number IT-03-67-T, the Prosecutor versus Vojislav Seselj.
9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Today is Thursday, the 5th of
10 February, 2009. I would like to greet all the people present in the
11 courtroom, the representatives of the OTP, Mr. Seselj, as well as all the
12 people assisting us in the courtroom.
13 I would like the registrar to make a correction on one of our
14 exhibits.
15 THE REGISTRAR: Thank you, Your Honour. This is a correction to
16 the document that was tendered yesterday and originally numbered P831,
17 under seal. The correct number should read Exhibit P830, under seal.
18 Thank you.
19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you, Registrar.
20 Now a housekeeping matter I'd like to deal with straight away.
21 Mr. Seselj has two hours for his cross-examination. There might be a
22 re-examination after that. Let's reckon on two to three hours. We were
23 supposed to finish at 6.30 so we will have a break at five to 4.00 until
24 20 past 4.00 and then run through until 6.00 so that we gain some time.
25 We will gain 20 minutes. This is what I wanted to announce.
Page 14036
1 Mr. Seselj, you will have two hours for your cross-examination.
2 We will bring the witness into the courtroom.
3 Let me specify, I won't give the name of the witness due to come
4 next week. I asked the witness to be there as of Wednesday onwards. I
5 hope that's not a problem.
6 Mr. Mundis.
7 MR. MUNDIS: Should be no problem, Mr. President. That's the
8 only witness we have for next week.
9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. So we will hold our
10 hearing on Wednesday.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I would just like to warn you that
12 the Prosecution has just 7 hours left, 7 hours at its disposal and a few
13 minutes plus. And I suggest that you put a suggestion to the Prosecution
14 that during those 7 hours, they should bring forward only relevant
15 witnesses which have to do with the indictment, testifying about the
16 indictment, not as witnesses from locations that don't exist in the
17 indictment at all because if after everything, the Trial Chamber is given
18 addition -- the Trial Chamber gives the OTP additional time, that will be
19 a scandal for the public, the broader public, after all this wasted time
20 to add more time to the Prosecution. And the Prosecution has 7 hours and
21 a few odd minutes left.
22 [The witness entered court]
23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] What you have said is on the
24 transcript. We are in open session. Mr. Seselj, I'll give you the floor
25 now. Please make sure that you don't say anything which would lift the
Page 14037
1 identity of the witness because I will then have to redact parts of the
2 transcript.
3 So I trust you will be careful.
4 WITNESS: WITNESS VS-2000 [Resumed]
5 [Witness answered through interpreter]
6 Cross-examination by Mr. Seselj:
7 Q. Mr. VS-1066 [as interpreted], what I'm most interested in,
8 looking at the whole of your testimony, is the meeting in Mali Zvornik,
9 and I'm sure you will understand why I'm most interested in that because
10 that is a rally that is incorporated into the indictment. Everything
11 else that you testified more or less has got nothing to do with the
12 indictment against me but that rally and the one you described to me is
13 directly quoted in the indictment, so I would like it to be clear to you
14 while you -- why I insist on that.
15 You mentioned the rally and you explained to us the attending
16 features. Now I'm not clear on one point. You said that the rally was,
17 first of all, scheduled to be held out in the open and that when we saw
18 how many people had rallied there we asked to go inside. Did you say
19 something like that, something similar?
20 A. Yes, exactly that.
21 Q. Now I'd like to remind you that several days before the meeting,
22 quite a few days before, there were posters stuck up all over Mali
23 Zvornik and some posters across the Drina River in Veliki Zvornik; isn't
24 that right?
25 A. Well, I didn't move around Mali Zvornik much so I didn't see them
Page 14038
1 all. There were a few posters right across the bridge, but in Veliki
2 Zvornik there were many posters, almost on every building.
3 Q. As far as I remember, we scheduled the meeting in the large hall
4 of the cultural centre, and I have two pieces of evidence to prove that
5 that really was the case.
6 First, that we scheduled the meeting to be held, the rally to be
7 held outside where there was a stage set up and loud speakers and
8 everything else that is done when you hold an outside rally.
9 Now, you weren't able to see the stage and weren't able to see --
10 to hear any loudspeakers or anything; right? Is that what you said?
11 A. Can I answer?
12 Q. Go ahead.
13 A. I came a little late, as I said in my testimony yesterday just
14 before the meeting began, the rally began so I saw no stage, no sound
15 systems or anything but the Serbs whom I worked with, as far as I was
16 able to gather from them and their colleagues, actually we learned that
17 the rally would be held outside. Now, I didn't enter into the details as
18 to whether that was true or not but I wanted to attend the rally and what
19 happened happened.
20 JUDGE HARHOFF: I apologise for interrupting you. My
21 recollection is slightly different and I would like you to clarify this
22 with the witness, if possible. I think I heard the witness indicate
23 yesterday that the reason why the meeting was moved to take place inside
24 was for security reasons because such a large crowd in which there would
25 be a number of persons who would be hostile to the war issue could be
Page 14039
1 dangerous for you. So that was why, if I understood the witness
2 correctly, but I would invite you to clarify this. That was why it was
3 decided ultimately to move the meeting inside, that would be safer.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Harhoff, we're going to deal
5 with that rally for at least an hour and I do wish to convince you that
6 we are going to clarify during that hour all the details concerning that
7 rally because you know the sentence that is ascribed to me is entered
8 directly into the indictment, because it's very interesting that we clear
9 up all the details in that regard.
10 Q. So let me ask you: Your information according to which the rally
11 was supposed to be outside, out in the open, was something you heard from
12 the people when you arrived but you didn't say it -- you didn't see it on
13 the poster, did you?
14 A. No, I didn't see it up on the poster. I didn't have time.
15 Q. Since there was no stage and no sound system, and loud speakers,
16 it was logical to suppose that the meeting wasn't scheduled, the rally
17 wasn't scheduled to be held outside. And let me tell you that the
18 cultural centre is right by the main road which passes through Mali
19 Zvornik, along the Drina River
20 A. Yes, for 50 metres.
21 Q. And had we held a rally there, we would have blocked the whole
22 main road, right?
23 A. No, it's a large space. You can turn off the road to go to the
24 cultural centre. There is a large parking lot so several thousand people
25 could have been there, and what I saw was, say, a little over a thousand
Page 14040
1 people.
2 Q. There might have been 2.000, I seem to remember a lot of people
3 for such a small place. Of course it's difficult to say exactly how
4 much.
5 A. Well, more than a thousand, certainly.
6 Q. The second reason which goes to show -- well, if we had scheduled
7 a meeting to be held out in the open and then go into a building, that
8 would be impossible to arrange with the cultural centre because if you
9 want to go inside, you would have to rent out the space in advance, you
10 have to pay for the hall you're going to use and ensure all the other
11 prerequisites for a rally?
12 A. Well, I don't know what you thought attended the scheduling of
13 meetings and rallies, but there were always alternatives for security
14 reasons. There was always another option and that's why you changed your
15 decision and decided to hold it inside in the hall.
16 Q. So the rules and regulations in Serbia were the same as in
17 Bosnia-Herzegovina which said that every political party had to inform
18 the police that they intended to hold a rally, inform them in advance?
19 A. I don't know. I never organised such things.
20 Q. Well, I can tell you that that was the law. If you wanted to
21 hold a rally, you had to inform the police thereof at least two days
22 before the rally, say where the rally was going to take place, how long,
23 whether security service was organised and so on and so forth, and had
24 the OTP conducted a serious investigation, they would have provided us
25 with the documents to show us where the rally was scheduled first. And I
Page 14041
1 insist that it was scheduled to take place inside.
2 Now, you gave us some facts. You said that many people turned up
3 and that many people who were hostile to us turned up too, more hostile
4 people than those who supported us. What would you say?
5 A. I never said that there were more people who were hostile towards
6 you. It was to be assumed that it might have been a 50:50 ratio. Why?
7 Because Veliki Zvornik is mostly Muslim and mali Zvornik is a 50:50 ratio
8 of percentage of the population, so we could assume that there were those
9 from both sides; those who were for you, for the rally and the things you
10 propagated and those who were opposed, against. It was difficult to
11 assess all this to see who was in favour of whom.
12 Q. Those who were against us were mostly Muslims, but there were
13 Serbs, Communists who opposed us, too, together with the Muslims, right?
14 A. How would I know that? How would I know whether someone was a
15 Communist and whether they were opposed or not?
16 Q. But you do know that there were many Serbs that took the Muslim
17 side against us?
18 A. Many honourable and decent people were against the war.
19 Q. We're not talking about who was honourable and decent and who was
20 not. Those are value arguments and not facts. Let's stick to the facts
21 for the time being. I'm not saying whether you're honest or not honest;
22 I'm not interested in that. All I want is, with your help, to clarify
23 the facts. Do we understand each other on that score?
24 Now, we arrived there and some people greeted us with ovations
25 and applause, a portion of the people there; whereas the others abused
Page 14042
1 us, swore at us. Did you see that they carried Tito's photographs, too?
2 A. I entered the hall before you. I didn't see you when you
3 arrived. I just saw you when you were in the room because I learned that
4 the rally would be held in the hall and not outside, so I couldn't see
5 those pictures or the applause or the ovations or whatever.
6 Q. Well the pictures were brought in before we arrived.
7 A. I don't know what the pictures had to do with it.
8 Q. Well, I'd like to remind you. If you remember those photographs,
9 well and good; if not -- and don't try and speed me up. I have two
10 hours. There is no need to speed up the proceedings.
11 A. Well, I was just trying to help you out.
12 Q. Well, thank you, then. Thank you for helping me on that score,
13 but some people who were opposed to us had photographs of Tito, framed
14 photographs that they'd taken off walls and they were protesting. You
15 didn't see that?
16 A. No, because I went into the hall before you, as I said.
17 Q. But you discussed the situation with some of the people after the
18 rally, right?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And the rally resounded in the public, newspapers went on writing
21 about it for days?
22 A. Why?
23 Q. Because of the incident that took place, so you had a chance of
24 talking to people and hearing of their impressions from the rally and
25 they could have told you that when we arrived there, that there were a
Page 14043
1 lot of policemen. You saw the policemen too, didn't you?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. And that police made a cordon so that we could enter the cultural
4 centre building safely and securely, me together with my associates,
5 seven or eight of us. And do you remember that there was a police line,
6 a cordon, they cordoned off the area so that we could enter?
7 A. You entered with another man and you sat down, you occupied a
8 chair that was intended for you, and I saw two or three bodyguards who
9 stayed up by the door but I didn't see anybody else. I saw you and this
10 other man who sat down at the table that you were meant to use and your
11 bodyguards state behind at the door.
12 Q. All right. Now, the rally started and do you remember that, from
13 time to time, you could hear people outside who were in opposition? Did
14 you hear that?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. How many people did you say were in the hall?
17 A. Well, it wasn't a large hall. I would say that there were up to
18 80 people, not more than 80.
19 Q. You see it's the largest cinema hall that Mali Zvornik has,
20 right?
21 A. I was never in that cultural centre, but I don't remember. I
22 would say 80 people and you could see this on the basis of your speech,
23 when you said, I'm sorry that we couldn't hold the meeting outside so
24 that everybody can hear what I have to say and hear you, and you said, I
25 hope that you are worthy representatives of your organisations and that
Page 14044
1 you will be able to convey to them what I'm going to say here.
2 Q. All right. Fine. Now you said that you were sitting in the last
3 row with some other 15 or 20 Muslims?
4 A. Right.
5 Q. If that last line has 20 seats, that last row has 20 seats, I
6 don't suppose this cinema hall had just four rows. As far as I remember,
7 it had at least 20 rows, although I can't remember exactly; isn't that
8 right?
9 A. Well, I can count them because I remember it all.
10 Q. Well, how many rows, then?
11 A. I remember every detail and I would say in my assessment there
12 were not more than 80 people in the hall.
13 Q. Well, precisely because you are reducing that number, you're
14 telling me a smaller number, that is something I find intimately
15 unacceptable. I'm trying to show you how many seats the hall had and all
16 the seats were full; right?
17 A. I don't know whether all the seats were occupied, but that's how
18 many people I thought there were.
19 Q. Now, we went outside and once again, there was this cordoned
20 offer area by the police in front of the entrance and we were moving
21 towards our cars which were parked a little further away, and stones and
22 other objects were being thrown at us; is that right? Do you remember
23 that? Do you remember that that was how it was?
24 A. In my statement yesterday, I said that in the parking lot, there
25 was a group of people and one of them opened the boot of the car --
Page 14045
1 Q. Let's take it one by one. Let's take it in order. This car and
2 the boot of the car came later.
3 A. Well, precisely as you were coming out.
4 Q. We were coming out of the hall, we were being -- stones were
5 being thrown from the crowd, there was a lot of people moving around,
6 some members of the police tried to spit at us. Was it like that?
7 A. I wasn't close to you but I saw that you were knocked down to the
8 ground and that your bodyguards were on top of you.
9 Q. And we were the target of stones. We came out to this broader
10 plateau and stones began to hit the people who were on top of me; isn't
11 that correct? Now you claim that I was hit. I actually was not hit.
12 You also claimed that the next day, you saw me on television with
13 bandages on my head. This is simply not true. I was not hit by a single
14 stone but the stone did -- stones did hit people who were around me,
15 Miladin Todosijevic was one of them who was hit by a stone. There was
16 Vineta Marinovic, journalist from Velika Serbia, she was hit by a stone
17 in the chest, and some other people also were hit by stones. Then the
18 people from our municipal committee from Mali Zvornik took out these
19 wooden bats from the trunk of the car, perhaps a metre long or something.
20 A. A little bit shorter than that.
21 Q. And you could see that these were freshly cut pieces of wood, and
22 then people started to run away, some people were running towards the
23 bridge and others were running along the road next to the cafe that was
24 opposite from the culture hall. I recall this large number of people who
25 were running in that direction. Did you se that?
Page 14046
1 A. I wasn't paying attention. I wasn't able to see where people
2 were running. I was trying to save myself so that I don't get pulled
3 into this whole game so that I pulled back, I hid myself.
4 Q. All right. So then there was a big fight that occurred, a lot of
5 people were hurt, and then after that, I with my associates left for
6 Banja Koviljaca, we had dinner there and we spent the night at the Banja
7 Koviljaca hotel. I wasn't hurt and you could not have seen my head in
8 bandages. Not then, no.
9 A. I don't recall saying yesterday that I saw you on television but
10 I saw you in the media, in the newspapers, your photograph with a
11 band-aid on the left, or I don't know what side of your face, and your
12 hand was bandaged also so this could have been something that happened
13 overnight. Were you hurt in Banja Koviljaca?
14 Q. No, it didn't happen there.
15 A. So how come had you a band aid there?
16 Q. I never had a band aid on my head. I don't know where you saw
17 that.
18 A. Well let's look at that perhaps in the newspapers. After 17
19 years it won't be so hard to find that.
20 Q. A lot of newspapers wrote about that and there was a wide, broad
21 debate about that. Do you know that the Serbian Radical Party has its
22 own newspaper, the newspaper called Velika Serbia?
23 A. I wasn't able to read that paper.
24 Q. Does it still have that newspaper?
25 A. Yes, probably.
Page 14047
1 Q. Well, regardless of the fact that those newspapers made you sick,
2 we will have to read a little bit from that newspaper.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we put on the ELMO, please,
4 this article from Velika Serbia
5 party in Mali Zvornik. I asked the registrar to provide copies, the
6 Prosecution has a copy. Do you have the whole newspaper? All right. We
7 will look at the newspaper later.
8 Now what we are going to look at is just this particular article.
9 Have you put it on ELMO, please?
10 Q. Now, can you look at the title of this article. Do you see what
11 it says here? Serbian Chetnik Movement promoted the party in Mali
12 Zvornik. So we promoted the Serbian Chetnik Movement, this is what we
13 called it. It could have been the Serbian Radical Party promotion but
14 this was a Chetnik promotion, wasn't it? Can you see that?
15 A. Yes, I can.
16 Q. You can see from the contents in the culture hall, you can see
17 the Chetnik flags, pictures of Draza Mihajlovic, and so on and so forth;
18 is that correct?
19 A. Yes, that is correct.
20 Q. We had all of that.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please can you be a little bit
22 patient. This is such an interesting discussion. Please have a little
23 bit of patience.
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Marcussen.
25 MR. MARCUSSEN: It's indeed a very interesting discussion. I'm
Page 14048
1 wondering if the accused would let us know whether he is conceding that
2 the article is about the rally that took place in Mali Zvornik in
3 March of 1992 or whether he's putting something else before the witness?
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Marcussen, I'm not going to be
5 explaining to you in advance what my goal is. Please have some patience.
6 You are directly interfering in the concept of my cross-examination.
7 Please don't do that.
8 Q. Please turn to the next page.
9 MR. MARCUSSEN: Your Honours, if the witness is being led to
10 believe that this article is about the rally that he has described in his
11 testimony, that's the way it's being presented to the witness, I think
12 it's significant that we are aware of what the accused's position is on
13 that because otherwise he is setting the witness up. So we need to know
14 what the date of this article is.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It is that rally. There is no
16 other rally where a fight broke out, only -- a fight broke out at only
17 one meeting.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, in the first line of this
19 article it says, "On the 4th of August this year, a delegation of the
20 Serbian Chetnik Movement came to Mali Zvornik." Why is the 4th of August
21 being mentioned here if this was in March? What is this?
22 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
23 Q. Well, it could be a typo. Now let us look at those photographs.
24 Do you see here two people in the hall holding up a photograph of
25 Draza Mihajlovic?
Page 14049
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Do you see the first row, the front row of the hall?
3 A. Well, it's a little bit blurred.
4 Q. So you cannot see Branko Grujic in the first row, and do you see
5 this photograph where you can the crowd outside and the police, there is
6 a policeman prominent in the front of picture?
7 A. No, I don't really see that very well.
8 Q. Well, you can see the police cap in the photograph, it's towards
9 the bottom of the photograph. The introductory part of the article talks
10 about our arrival and I'm giving an interview there for the Radio
11 Podrinje and Radio Sabac. And then you can turn to the following page.
12 On the following page, we can see how the stage is decorated, where we
13 were sitting, the podium and you can see the president of our Mali
14 Zvornik municipal board who opened this rally and you can see Vojin
15 Vuletic who at the time was our general secretary; is that correct?
16 A. I don't know these people.
17 Q. Well, you don't know these people. Anyway, turn to the next
18 page. On the next page, you can see Vojin Vuletic and then below that
19 you can see the working Presidency where I am sitting. The first to the
20 left is lawyer Milorad Vukosavljevic. At the time he was our
21 vice-president; he died a few years after that. And then we see our
22 officials from Mali Zvornik. In the middle there is myself, then next to
23 me Aleksander Stefanovic, the general secretary; and lawyer Olivera
24 Jelkic. I can recognise them all. This is a central photograph. In a
25 small photograph you can see Oliver Jelkic entering the hall and then
Page 14050
1 below you can see lawyer Milorad Vukosavljevic entering.
2 All right. And then on this page, we can see that it says that
3 the article is written by Vineta Marinovic, who was actually hit by a
4 stone at that rally. This is the central part of it. Maybe we can zoom
5 it up a little bit.
6 Then members of the central Serbian Chetnik Movement entered the
7 hall and then our president of the executive hall welcomed the speakers,
8 Glamocanin was there, who was the member of the inner leadership, and
9 then the first speaker was Aleksandar Stefanovic. Please turn to the
10 next page.
11 You can see a part of the hall here and then a part of the
12 working Presidency. You can see myself and then Aleksandar Stefanovic.
13 You can see this text on the side where he talks about Draza Mihajlovic.
14 Do you remember that the first speaker was Aleksandar Stefanovic and that
15 he talked about Draza Mihajlovic?
16 A. I don't know that man. Please don't ask me about the names, I
17 don't know any of these people by name. I was talking about your speech,
18 about your address, what you said.
19 Q. All right. Let's skip his speech because he talks about the life
20 of Draza Mihajlovic as whole here?
21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] A few seconds, if this meeting
22 was held on August 4th, we can understand that because we see that
23 Mr. Seselj is in a shirt, short-sleeved shirt, it was probably hot, so it
24 might be on August 4th. But if I understood right, in this room we saw
25 photographs and you should be at the very end of the room, at the -- in
Page 14051
1 the far -- at the very far end of the room so we should see you,
2 normally.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] You don't see the whole of the
4 hall, Mr. President.
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Just a minute. Here we see the
6 far end of the room. There's probably less than 80 people but we see
7 people sitting in all those rows; and if you are there, you should be in
8 the bottom row, in the last row; right?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm sorry. Is the question
10 addressed to me?
11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. If you actually attended
12 this meeting on August 4th, you would be at the far end of this room.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The last row where I was sitting, I
14 was sitting there with people whom I mentioned, Muslims, in the last row
15 next to the wall, and you cannot clearly see my face. You cannot see my
16 face in the back row. The photograph -- I mean, was taken, if it was
17 taken from this rally, but since this is a text that was written and
18 talks about a rally of the 4th of August, and Seselj is standing at the
19 podium in short sleeves, but in March in Bosnia, it's quite cold. You
20 cannot walk around in T-shirts.
21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Absolutely.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I apologise, these people who were
23 sitting here, they're wearing T-shirts, short-sleeved T-shirts. This
24 doesn't -- this could not be a photograph from the time that we are
25 discussing. I am definitely sure about that.
Page 14052
1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Continue. Yes,
2 proceed, Mr. Seselj. We'll see as we proceed.
3 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
4 Q. All right. Let's go to the following page, please. Now, well,
5 here you can see the front row here. On the following page, Aleksandar
6 Stefanovic finished his speech and now Srdjan Glamocanin is speaking and
7 he is a member of the government. And in the photograph, in the middle,
8 you can see the front row. In the front row we can see the journalist of
9 Velika Serbia, Vineta Marinovic, and we can see some other people and you
10 cannot see Branko Kljuic anywhere. Srdjan Glamocanin again is speaking
11 about Serbdom, about the Serbian history, the traditions of its heros,
12 and then you can see a photograph of the crowd in front of the hall, this
13 is the bottom photograph. Can you please scroll up? You can see this
14 crowd in front and now please turn to the following page.
15 You can see the police cordon in front and they are trying to
16 secure a safe passage for us, these are the first two photographs, and
17 then the third photograph was taken at some point during the meeting. In
18 front of the hall you can see police and some citizens. Please turn to
19 the following page. On the following page you can see lawyer Milorad
20 Vukosavljevic who is the vice president of the central homeland
21 administration. He gave quite a long speech. Can you please turn to the
22 next page. You've skipped a page. Look at page 30, please. This is
23 page 30.
24 There is no photograph on this page. And then here it would be
25 interesting to read what he says about Muslims. So could you please read
Page 14053
1 what I have marked here?
2 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter's note: We need to know
3 exactly where the accused is reading from in the English version.
4 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation] Perhaps your copy is not marked. I
5 marked it on my copy.
6 Q. On that page, you can see at the bottom, Tito Ustasha, get the
7 House of Flowers out. And then it says, Natasha Vukosavljevic. I am
8 having a problem with these blurred letters.
9 A. Underneath this text, Tito Ustasha, House of Flowers, I don't
10 know why you are asking me. The second reason that may be particularly
11 happy when I was called to -- when I was invited to speak to you --
12 Q. All right. Well, perhaps it will be easier for me to read. Let
13 me do it. That you people are the living proof of the brazen life that
14 the Yugoslav army committed genocide against Muslims in the fatherland.
15 I think that in your midst, more than half of Muslims might be of Serbian
16 origin. Some remember the stories of their ancestors, that once they
17 were part of the Serbian people. Draza Mihajlovic was the Defence
18 Minister of the emigre government or the government in exile in London
19 You know that, you're quite an educated man.
20 A. Well, yes, but I don't know why you are interested in that.
21 Q. Well, you don't need to know that. You're here to testify about
22 facts. Who cares why I want to know. Perhaps I went mad during the
23 night. And a lot of people think that I am mad anyway and you agree with
24 them, don't you?
25 A. Well, yes, a lot of people do think that.
Page 14054
1 Q. Well let's continue in a more jovial atmosphere. Some -- I will
2 continue. Some remember the stories of their ancestors, that once they
3 were part of the Serbian people. Some do not remember this while other
4 even think they are Turks. However, at the moment, we do not need to
5 focus on this at this time. It is very difficult to define the ethnic
6 origin of your fellow citizens. These are Serbs who lost their awareness
7 and memory. It was easy to mercilessly push them, especially the
8 so-called "fukara," scum, into a fratricidal war in 1941 as surrogates,
9 where they slaughtered their innocent neighbours and yesterday's friends
10 when they were offered Serbian property.
11 Therefore, your duty here above all --
12 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj. Mr. Seselj, I'm
13 totally confused now regarding your cross-examination. Before starting
14 to read this document, could you please stop and try and determine
15 whether this is the rally which the witness testified or whether it's
16 another rally. Just a minute. Hold on. Otherwise we're wasting time.
17 Normally, when the Prosecution is presenting documents, you always want
18 him to tell you exactly what the context is, what the date is for this
19 document, and so forth and so on, and we always say you're right and
20 grant you this opportunity. So you should do the same thing for the
21 other side.
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] For everyone, I will read this
23 quickly.
24 In the Prosecution's pre-trial brief on Zvornik, this is what the
25 Prosecution says: In March 1992, the Serbian Bosnian forces had created
Page 14055
1 their own police in Zvornik and had declared that this city was a Serbian
2 municipality and was about to -- was about to attack to -- supported by
3 the JNA. In the same month, in March, Vojislav Seselj gave a speech in
4 Mali Zvornik, a municipality in front of Zvornik, on the other side of
5 the Drina
6 would have said:
7 "My Chetnik brothers, and I am mainly to talking to those of you
8 who are on the other side of the Drina
9 we are about to cleanse Bosnia
10 that will take them back to the east, the east where they belong."
11 Mr. Seselj's words which are quoted or footnoted, footnote 291
12 and on footnote 291, it says, "VS-2000." Therefore, these words, these
13 underlying words are quoted from what the witness heard and what he heard
14 in March.
15 Mr. Marcussen.
16 MR. MARCUSSEN: If I may further address this issue,
17 Your Honours. The accused is, in my respectful submission, misleading
18 the witness. I have here the full copy of Velika Serbia in which this
19 article is drawn from and it is an issue of Velika Serbia that is dated
20 the 15th of August, 1990. And this was why I asked the accused earlier
21 on whether he agreed that this meeting was actually about the same
22 meeting that the witness has testified about. The article has nothing to
23 do with the meeting that the witness has testified about, and these
24 attempts of showing photographs and getting the witness confused about
25 the presence of various people is completely appropriate. And the
Page 14056
1 accused is laughing now, he's fully aware of what's going on. If Your
2 Honours would like to see the copy, I can hand it up to you.
3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, the indictment, in
4 the indictment, the speech was made in March.
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, how does the
6 Prosecution know what it talks about? I assume I've shown you and proved
7 that all the Prosecution witnesses were false witnesses. You didn't have
8 a single one brought in here by the Prosecution who was not a false
9 witness and tried to support the thesis in the indictment, not a single
10 one. This is a rally that took place at the beginning of August -- go
11 on, just you interrupt me. Interrupt me, go ahead.
12 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, this has nothing to
13 do with the question you were being asked. We want to you determine what
14 this refers to and then we'll see, but right now you cannot start
15 lecturing or making speeches on all the witnesses we've heard up until
16 now. You are just making fun of the Trial Chamber right now.
17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, the document we
18 have here is dated August 15, 1990
19 edited with prior articles, maybe, maybe, so what we have seen, maybe
20 that's August 4th, 1992
21 actually happened.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It seems that I have turned out to
23 be the silliest here. Mr. President, isn't it obvious the witness takes
24 the meeting from August 1990 and testifies about it, representing it to
25 be a meeting from March 1992. That's what he's doing. Am I an idiot or
Page 14057
1 is it the Prosecution? One of the sides must be. He's describing a
2 rally that took place in 1990, and I'm going to prove that to you now by
3 looking at the last page of that article, and may we look at page 36 now,
4 please.
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, we're not accusing
6 anyone, we're not accusing you, we're not accusing the witness. But we
7 have a problem. The witness told the Prosecutor that this meeting, rally
8 had been held in March 1992, and you are saying that this was in
9 August 1992.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, well, the witness
11 could have told the Prosecution that I personally killed a million
12 people. What do I care what the witness told the Prosecution. I am
13 going to overthrow his testimony here and every time you interrupt me in
14 cross-examination, you want to undermine my cross-examination. The more
15 perfect it is, the more you want to undermine it and you want to prevent
16 me from saying that these are false witnesses. From all the indices, all
17 the indicators show -- well, why don't you listen to me?
18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, don't say that
19 we're trying to undermine your cross-examination. We're doing everything
20 to try to shed light on this. I took time to read the pre-trial brief in
21 order to know what the Prosecution's case was. And the Prosecution's
22 case here is based on what this witness said. And now, I'm all ears to
23 listen to your cross-examination and your demonstration and your case, so
24 please put your case.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is the only witness through
Page 14058
1 which the Prosecution wishes to base its thesis that in March 1992, I
2 held a rally in Mali Zvornik and said what is quoted in the indictment,
3 "Dear brother Serbs, we should expel those who do not believe in God and
4 so on." There's not another one.
5 And I want to show you that the meeting in Mali Zvornik did not
6 take place in March 1992 but in August 1990 and that this witness is
7 describing that meeting and then adding false words to what he's saying.
8 Listen, we have the coordinates for this meeting. There was a
9 brawl, a physical settling of accounts. The police intervened, members
10 of my party took out poles from their cars to chase away the rabble that
11 attacked us, so we have all the right coordinates. The whole of Serbia
12 the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina knows full well that the only rally at
13 which this mass brawl broke out was in Mali Zvornik in 1990.
14 In March 1992, look at all the Serbian press, there was no
15 meeting in Mali Zvornik. What do I care what the Prosecution is writing,
16 as if that were the only silly things they wrote. We're talking about a
17 1990 rally and here is proof. The last page of the article, and we're
18 going to read it all, at least the whole of my speech or I'm not going to
19 carry on my cross-examination.
20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, one small detail
21 that you provided us with that might be interesting. This rally would
22 allegedly have been held in August 1990.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes.
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And here's proof. The last page of
Page 14059
1 the article, page 36. Can we have that page, please.
2 The rally ends. Can we scroll down, please. Scroll up. The
3 upper part. Above the photograph. And zoom in on that, please. This is
4 what Vineta Marinovic, the journalist, writes in Velika Serbia in a 3rd
5 issue in August 1990. This is what she writes:
6 "Everybody gets up and leaves the room quietly and calmly. We
7 have no idea what is waiting for us outside. In the meantime, the police
8 has arrived and formed a human shield with the aim of allegedly
9 protecting us from the mass of Muslim fundamentalists gone mad who were
10 shouting outside. We soon realised that it would be much better if the
11 police hadn't come at all, and this alleged protection of theirs
12 jeopardised us even further.
13 "The militant fundamentalists fought in their typical way.
14 Literally protected by the police, they threw big stones at us, they spat
15 at us and they yelled at the top of their voices. They were swearing at
16 us and using words like infidels and welakins [phoen], welakin mothers,"
17 and that is the term they use for the Orthodox. I'm reading it rather
18 quickly because you have the English translation.
19 "They looked like savage beasts -- ravaged beasts. However, we
20 did not run away from them and we did not respond to their barking. We
21 did not want to give them that pleasure. We did not wish to leave our
22 brothers, the Orthodox Serbs from Mali Zvornik. We did not want to run
23 away from our Serbian land. We all stood together with the Vojvoda at
24 the head. We stood there unprotected, calmly talking the insults, stones
25 and humiliations as only the Orthodox Serbs know how.
Page 14060
1 "Encouraged by the help and protection of the police, the
2 gathered Muslims became even more furious and began throwing stones at
3 the nearby parked cars of the Serbs who were parked there. Almost all
4 the windows of the cars were broken, and Miladin Todosijevic, a member of
5 the central fatherland department, was hit in the head by a stone which
6 made a huge cut on his forehead and blood gushed forth.
7 When the men from the Serbian Chetnik Movement of Mali Zvornik
8 saw this, they grabbed some wooden poles and in self-defence, charged at
9 the crowd which, small wonder -- little wonder, started fleeing as fast
10 as their legs could carry them. They showed once again that they were
11 capable of fighting only with a dagger, hammer or small knife in their
12 hand, with tied or captured Serbs, women, children, the elderly. It was
13 pathetic to see them fleeing, but that is in their blood and that will,
14 as it seems, never change.
15 "When everything calmed down, we all got into the cars and the
16 column headed towards Banja Koviljaca where the hosts prepared a small
17 feast for us, and during that feast, Vojvoda Seselj found time to talk to
18 each and every one of those brave young Serbs, to listen to their
19 problems, their difficulties, and troubles, the kind that they
20 encountered daily and to advise them. Relief was visible on their faces,
21 on their troubled faces, and a mild-note of gratitude was fell in their
22 words. In spite of everything, they will now be able to sleep more
23 calmly in the knowledge that they are not alone. The Serbian people and
24 the Serbian Chetniks are with them."
25 That was something that Vineta Marinovic wrote to describe the
Page 14061
1 rally that the witness was talking about. It's the same rally, and she
2 was bitten because she was hit by a stone too and had to seek medical
3 assistance. And that is the bitter tone of the text out of that
4 incident; but that is the sole rally, the only rally where this incident
5 happened, no other rally -- there was no other rally like that. And this
6 was published by the papers, the Muslim papers, and Radio Zvornik had
7 broadcast the whole of the following day about that. And in March 1992,
8 there was nothing in any of the papers, no trace of us having held a
9 rally in Mali Zvornik at all.
10 Why didn't the Prosecution investigate this? Because there's no
11 intelligent man in the Prosecution to find this out on time and prevent
12 them from making such stupid mistakes. That's not my fault. I'm here to
13 demolish the indictment, and I have succeeded in demolishing it. So far
14 there is not a single witness so far who had a successful piece of
15 testimony that the Prosecution can use, and the fact that you hold closed
16 sessions, that is just a sort of -- make people think that something was
17 happening here. The public has to know that at the closed sessions, the
18 false witnesses fair far worse than they do in open session, and my
19 cross-examinations are even more successful during those sessions. That
20 is something that they should know about. And this is proof and evidence
21 that this was a rally held in August 1990.
22 I wanted to do that in a calmer atmosphere, but you didn't let me
23 do that. There was no other rally where an incident like this broke out.
24 That was the only one.
25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Witness, according to this
Page 14062
1 newspaper, and the photographs that we see where there was incidents
2 which corresponds to what you said, but here the date is August 1990.
3 Why is it that you said that the rally was held in March 1992. Maybe you
4 mixed things up?
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I did not confuse or mix up
6 anything, absolutely nothing. And after all this I can provide at least
7 10 people, the names of 10 people that you can call, talk to them and
8 hear their statements. The rally was held exactly in mid-March 1992,
9 possibly there was another meeting in August, as it says in the papers,
10 because I did notice the date. It says the 4th of August, 1992
11 possibly, but at that time, there was war in Zvornik municipality and
12 there was shooting from Serbia
13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. I'm starting from
14 the assumption that you're telling the truth and that in March 1992,
15 there was a rally that was held; and in March 1992, stones were thrown,
16 Mr. Seselj was hit and injured, et cetera, et cetera. But if that's the
17 case, and if that is true, then it would just be a rerun of what actually
18 had already happened in August 1992 because in August 1992, we had
19 exactly the same problem. And the media who was very closely following
20 Mr. Seselj would have written and -- so if what you are saying is true,
21 if in March 1992, a rally was actually held, the media that was closely
22 following Mr. Seselj should have written about this saying, Just like
23 this August 1990, once again the members of the Serbian Radical Party
24 were aggressed and so forth and so on, and we have nothing. So I'm
25 really wondering whether you haven't mixed up the dates? I mean it's
Page 14063
1 easy to understand, you know, with everything that happened and all the
2 years that have gone by you might have mixed up the dates. Are you
3 absolutely 100 percent sure of the date?
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I be allowed to observe
5 something, to note something?
6 On the 4th of August, 1992, there were no Muslims in Zvornik
7 anymore.
8 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
9 Q. But who's talking about August 1992? We're talking about August
10 1990. The 4th of August, 1990, two years before the war?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] There were then, but if we are
12 talking about August 1992, then there weren't any.
13 Q. Well nobody's mentioning August 1992. This is the 4th of August,
14 1990, that we're talking about, two years before the war. That's the
15 rally we were referring to.
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Marcussen.
17 MR. MARCUSSEN: Your Honours, I'm on my feet because the accused
18 has essentially been testifying -- making submissions and so on, and he
19 has asserted with some -- that -- excuse me --
20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Marcussen, please don't
21 indulge in procedure because here we are on a very important issue. We
22 need to know whether Mr. Seselj said this in March, which is what the
23 witness is saying or whether the speech was delivered in August 1990.
24 This is crucial.
25 MR. MARCUSSEN: Your Honours, and I'm on my feet because when the
Page 14064
1 accused testified in the Milosevic case, he was asked about this meeting
2 on the 5th of September, 2005
3 had been a meeting in Mali Zvornik in March where he had made this
4 particular statement, and he confirmed this, and he corrected the
5 interpreter. And I have copies of the transcript here if you like, or it
6 is at page 43.724 and the two following pages. So he has testified under
7 oath about this in another case.
8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, Mr. Milosevic asked
9 you this question, and you said that the meeting had been held in March.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, let me see the
11 transcript.
12 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] Witness, I have a question for
13 you.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] In the transcript I have in my
15 hands, the question is as follows:
16 "Is it true that in March, I believe that in your indictment it
17 says March 1992, you delivered a speech in Mali Zvornik? Is this true?
18 Did this happen?" Et cetera. Et cetera. And there, "Dear Chetnik
19 brother, notably you who are across," blah, blah, and so forth and so on.
20 It is your answer. This is partial forgery.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] President, in my answer -- well, I
22 don't know English at all, but I can that in my answer, I deal with the
23 contents and not the date. I completely leave the date aside. I am
24 proving to Mr. Milosevic that it was impossible for me to say something
25 about pagans and so on - I'm calling the Muslims - I'm not an uneducated
Page 14065
1 man, I'm explaining that the greatest Serbian bishop of the 20th century,
2 Nikolaj Velimirovic represented Islam as the first radical variant of
3 Protestantism in Christianity, and I go on to explain that. I don't deal
4 with dates here.
5 Milosevic is reading what it says in his indictment, I assume,
6 and I can completely leave aside the date. I don't refer to that at all.
7 I'm just showing that it was impossible for me to say something like that
8 with my -- the education I have, but I don't confirm the date anywhere
9 and you can see that the Prosecution is telling lies here in front of the
10 public.
11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Let me refer to what you've
12 said, Mr. Seselj, during the Milosevic trial did not say that he agreed
13 with the months of March because when the question was put to him, he
14 doesn't answer as regards the months of March, he says that this is a
15 distortion of what he has said; and then he moves on to other topics. He
16 doesn't admit this. He doesn't admit that it was in March.
17 So you may have made a mistake, Mr. Marcussen.
18 MR. MARCUSSEN: We submit, in light of the significance of this
19 particular issue which is the subject of the indictment of the accused,
20 it is quite significant that all he corrects is -- he just addresses,
21 Well I didn't say pagan, there's a mistake in the translation, the error
22 is actually I said something that means waste or feces when he talks
23 about the Muslims. That is a correction that he made. He has no other
24 problem with the proposition that is being put to him.
25 I'm not putting it forward for any other purpose but in our
Page 14066
1 submission is the only thing he has to correct is this rather
2 [Overlapping speakers] ...of the translation.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, Mr. President, when
4 I testified in the Milosevic case, I was responding to Mr. Milosevic's
5 questions. I did not have any papers or documents in front of me in
6 order to be able to corroborate everything. What was the most important
7 thing to me at that time, to deny that it is absolutely impossible to
8 give such a definition of Muslims as pagans and Godless people from my
9 mouth and from my head. I was not concerned with the date. I did not
10 link the dates with anything at that time.
11 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Seselj and Mr. Marcussen to find out whether
12 or not there was a rally on the 7th of March, 1992, I think should be a
13 simple thing, and I would invite the Prosecution to provide further proof
14 of this because it is in the indictment and in the pre-trial brief; and
15 so when you have that proof, and if you can find it, you can bring it
16 back and from thereon, I think we should just move on now.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Let them find --
18 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] I have a question for the
19 witness, as I said a while ago.
20 Usher, could you please place on the ELMO the third page of this
21 newspaper article.
22 93, 93. Yes, Witness, we have here at the bottom far right,
23 could you scroll the page up a little bit. Yes.
24 What we have here are people who are sitting on the podium. Did
25 these people attend the rally which you have referred to, i.e., the
Page 14067
1 4th of March, 1992?
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't see the faces very well
3 here, and I didn't really try that much to notice who the people were,
4 what they looked like. I didn't know them. I came out of curiosity, as
5 I said yesterday, to see who this Seselj was.
6 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] I'm not asking you to recognise
7 these people, to give us their identity, just could you tell us whether
8 these four people sitting next to Mr. Seselj, whether, among these four
9 people, there was a woman. You might be able to remember that. I don't
10 know. Do you remember that?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] At the table where he was sitting
12 at that meeting, no women were sitting at the table. There were no women
13 sitting at the same table as Seselj at that meeting. There was a man
14 with a beard like this man in the dark jacket in the photograph, I
15 remember that, but I definitely remembered that there were no women
16 sitting next to him at that meeting when I was there.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Gentlemen, Judges, it would be the
18 best thing if the Prosecution searched all the Serbian and Bosnian press
19 from March 1990 to see if there were any rallies of the Serbian Radical
20 Party in Mali
21 the press. If this incident did take place in March 1992, then it must
22 have been written about and commented upon.
23 The witness himself said that there were many comments in the
24 press after that, but this was exclusively in August 1990 and nowhere
25 else, and after that, they refused at the Ministry of Justice in Serbia
Page 14068
1 to register our party. We thought that we had met all the requirements
2 and that we would be able to register the party, but this did not happen;
3 and we even suspected that perhaps these people were brought in by the
4 regime to create some kind of disorder as a pretext based on which they
5 would not register our party. There were no incident like this one that
6 happened in Mali Zvornik at any other of the Serbian Radical Party,
7 nothing like this ever happened before.
8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Marcussen, as my colleague
9 Judge Harhoff has said, and I agree with him on this, if the Prosecution
10 feels or holds that the rally was held on the 4th of March, 1992
11 have to adduce evidence in support of this. For the time being, we don't
12 have this evidence. There can be a lot of evidence. There can be press
13 articles as Mr. Seselj has said. There can be police reports because
14 when there is an incident, there is automatically a police report.
15 So you could lay your hands on that. Otherwise, we have one
16 rally which was held in March 1990 in -- in August, I apologise, in
17 August 1990, and there were incidents during that rally.
18 MR. MARCUSSEN: Your Honours, we will, of course, look further
19 into this. There is evidence on record obviously from this particular
20 witness, and I believe we have some other -- an intelligence report and
21 some other evidence that supports this, but we'll probably get back to
22 this later.
23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, please proceed.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, Mr. Marcussen again
25 is making things up, and this is not fitting for a Prosecutor of an
Page 14069
1 international Tribunal. Look at the file that we were given by the
2 Prosecutor. And the Prosecutor, to my surprise, did not use this in his
3 examination in chief. This is Exhibit 1021. The Prosecutor has a police
4 document of the 20th of April, 1992. I hope you found that.
5 In the first paragraph, they talk about important events because
6 the whole thing refers to a longer period of time and then the first
7 paragraph -- sub-paragraph, the last sentence, says:
8 "In Mali Zvornik on the 17th of March, 1992, was visited by the
9 people's deputy Vojislav Seselj, who after a short talk went to
10 Ljubovja."
11 I wasn't just anybody then. I was a people's deputy. You don't
12 believe then at that time, some kind of unruly crowd could lynch a
13 people's deputy. The police says, who monitored my movements, he passed
14 through Mali
15 then I went on to Ljubovja, and then after that to Bajina Basta, where I
16 had a scheduled appearance on a radio programme.
17 Here in this report, definitely it would be noted that there was
18 some kind of incident. Had there been an incident where I was at the
19 meeting, this definitely would have appeared in this report. The
20 Prosecution would have received from the Serbian police all the documents
21 where my name is mentioned.
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, what is the number
23 of that document, did you say 1021.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] 1021, I think. That is another
25 piece of evidence that there was no rally or meeting in Mali Zvornik.
Page 14070
1 Well this is not good. How can this be good for the Prosecution?
2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I have document 1021.
3 Mr. Marcussen, in this document 1021, we see that this is a
4 report stemming from the Ministry of Defence regarding --
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Interior, it's the police ministry.
6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] On my first page, it says
7 Ministry of Defence.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Of the Defence, I apologise, it's
9 my mistake, Ministry of Defence.
10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Right. Ministry of Defence.
11 Mr. Marcussen, at the time Mr. Seselj was an MP. When an MP
12 travels, the intelligence services reports on this. If he came on the
13 4th of March to Mali Zvornik, there must have been a police report. It
14 couldn't have been otherwise. Otherwise, the witness may be confused.
15 Perhaps he thinks many years later that it happened in March, whereas it
16 happened in August.
17 Witness, when you said that this had happened in March 1992, in
18 what year did you say that?
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] 1996, on the 26th and the 27th of
20 August.
21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] 1996. On a personal note, I
22 have attended a number of meetings at this Tribunal, and if you asked me
23 which meeting I attended four years ago, I would be unable to tell you
24 unless something extraordinary happened; for instance, if the President
25 of the Tribunal has a heart attack, otherwise I would find it very
Page 14071
1 difficult to remember that.
2 So it was in 1996 that you said that you mentioned what had
3 happened on -- in March 1992. This was in 1996, and you are quite sure
4 about it.
5 Mr. Seselj, you may proceed.
6 MR. MARCUSSEN: Considering that we have been discussing the
7 contents of Prosecution Exhibit 65 ter number 1021, I would suggest that
8 we admit it into evidence so that we have the document when the record is
9 to be assessed.
10 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honours, that will be --
11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] No problems let's give it an
12 exhibit number.
13 THE REGISTRAR: Your honours, that will be Exhibit P831.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: Mr.Seselj, continue with your questions, if any.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Is this an exhibit of the Defence
16 or the Prosecution because the Prosecutor didn't want to use it
17 yesterday?
18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] It's the Prosecution, it's you
19 who raised the issue so ... please proceed.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It's important to me now,
21 gentlemen, Judges, to study my entire speech from this meeting, so that
22 we can see whether this speech contains the sentence that the witness
23 asserts it contains. Now we have clarified when the meeting took place.
24 There was no other meeting except this one. There was only a fight at
25 this one, there were only poles in the trunk of the car at this meeting
Page 14072
1 and our members chased away the crowd that was throwing stones at us.
2 Again, can you scroll this up on the ELMO. We're not going --
3 [No interpretation] -- the following page, this is page 31.
4 Q. The first photograph shows us coming out of the culture hall and
5 then us walking down the street and stones flying all about us and then
6 we have Vineta Marinovic, a journalist of Velika Serbia holding her chest
7 where she was struck by a stone and Miladin Todosijevic is holding his
8 head, which was bleeding. Immediately after the meeting we took them to
9 Banja Koviljaca, to the emergency medical service.
10 Can we scroll up, we can see Vineta Marinovic, journalist of
11 Velika Serbia, holding her chest where she was hit on the head and next
12 to her is Miladin Todosijevic, whose head is bleeding. He's holding some
13 sort of handkerchief or something on his forehead. After that, we took
14 the two of them to Banja Koviljaca to the emergency room.
15 Can we now look at the next page, Vineta Marinovic ...
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, before you
17 continue.
18 Witness, assuming that in August 1990 these events occurred with
19 this woman holding her head because she's been hit by a stone, and in
20 light of the events that occurred, do you think that two years later the
21 same political party will hold a rally in exactly the same place without
22 taking the necessary measure to ensure that public law and order is
23 abided by? Do you think one could contemplate that, that people who have
24 been attacked come and hold the same rally to be attacked again? Do you
25 think this makes sense?
Page 14073
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, it seems to me that there
2 have to be precautions, and if this meeting was held in 1990, there must
3 have been precautions taken; and for that reason, it must have been held
4 inside the hall because of this number of people, the possibility of an
5 incident occurring. So because of these precautionary measures, the
6 meeting was held in the hall.
7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] [Previous translation
8 continues] ... is that if in 1990, if in August these incidents occurred
9 and these incidents were serious despite the fact that there were a
10 number of policemen around and stones were thrown and people were
11 wounded, do you think that the people who organised this rally would
12 organise it again a year and a half later. And a year and a half later,
13 when you are a Muslim person, you walk into the room, you walk into the
14 room in March of 1992, if what you are saying is true. Do you think this
15 makes any sense at all? To my mind, there is something which we need to
16 reflect upon.
17 You have told us that you were in the room.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I was in the hall, that is true.
19 And it's true that nobody checked our IDs, and there were 15 to 20
20 people.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, up to 20 days before
22 the armed conflict in Zvornik, there was so many weapons among the
23 people, had something happened like then, there would have been hundreds
24 of dead. You don't think that at a time like that, people would have
25 been using stones and wooden poles. At that time, guns were already in
Page 14074
1 play. Zvornik was full of weapons and volunteers. You don't believe for
2 a minute that Muslims from Zvornik would come to Mali Zvornik to attack
3 us with stones at that time. They -- there would have been a lot of
4 casualties if they had done that at that time. I mean this is just a
5 logical conclusion.
6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Proceed.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well I hope you managed to hear me.
8 What I was saying is had this incident taken place in March 1992, two
9 days before the armed conflict, there was so much weapons and so many
10 soldiers and volunteers, at least 100 people would have been killed.
11 There would not be an incident involving stones and wooden poles, March
12 1992 was an electrified atmosphere. It never entered our head to conduct
13 the promotion of our party because an armed conflict was looming, and
14 there was already various incident so that is why that is impossible.
15 But there we go, the Prosecutor seems to think everything is possible.
16 Let's move on.
17 Q. After Olivera Jelkic on the next page, page 32 and now a little
18 patience, bear with me, because we're going to have to look at the whole
19 of my speech to see if it contains that sentence.
20 Last paragraph, can we see that, middle of the last paragraph?
21 The president of the Serbian Chetnik Movement, Dr. Vojislav Seselj is
22 speaking, and I say: Brothers and sisters, Serbian men and women, God be
23 with us, God be with you. That's what you heard. Now would you help me
24 out here, and let's take it paragraph by paragraph. Let's move it down
25 one paragraph, please. A little more so we can see the top of the page.
Page 14075
1 And then the last paragraph. The top of the page, please. The top.
2 Well, it's the last column, my mistake. The third column. And the top
3 of the page. It would be better if it were somebody who knew Serbian.
4 Anyway. There we have it.
5 Brothers and sisters, Serbian men and women, God be with you,
6 and then the response is God be with you. That's a traditional Serb
7 meeting, right? You heard at the beginning of the rally?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Now, would you read out that first paragraph?
10 A. Brothers and sisters, Serbian men and women, God be with us, God
11 be with you.
12 Q. Next.
13 A. We are gathered here today in Serbian Mali Zvornik at the
14 promotion of the Serbian Chetnik movement party, it took almost half a
15 century to restore the Serbian Chetnik sentiments and feeling in our
16 people. The Serbian people lived for half a century in slavery akin to
17 that of the Turks, and the Serbian people suffered during that slavery.
18 During the last 50 years, the Serbian people did not --
19 Q. Shall I take over. I think I can see better:
20 The Serbian people did not resemble the Serb heros, the kind we
21 know from Serbian ethnic poems. They did not look like the Serbs that
22 fought wars with the Turks and won two Balkan wars, in the First World
23 War. The Serbian people mostly looked like the people of sycophants and
24 toadies. So I'm characterising the Serb people there under the Communist
25 dictators, if that's quite obvious. There's nothing about the Muslims
Page 14076
1 there, do you agree? Can I move on?
2 Then I go on to say why was that so. Because all that was great
3 in the Serbian people was killed in two Balkan wars and two World Wars,
4 or took refugee in the emigration after the Second World War or was
5 killed in Tito's camps and prisons.
6 Now move the text down a bit.
7 The Serbian people were biologically blemished and it took
8 several decades for new generations to grow, to start straightening up
9 and to bring back the old glory of the Serbian people, Serbian national
10 pride and dignity. And right now we are living in that period of history
11 and it is during this period of our history that the Serbian youth, in
12 particular, are finding their own two feet, standing up against Communist
13 dictatorship and all traditional Serbian enemies.
14 So this is an anti-Communist and anti-regime speech, do you
15 agree, Mr. 2000?
16 A. I don't want to make any assessments and comments as to the
17 nature of the speech.
18 Q. But you see that there is no mention of Muslims there?
19 A. Well, do you think, Mr. Seselj, that somebody would be so clever
20 as to write the blackest of what you said, and I said yesterday that you
21 said that the Drina
22 Q. That's what I think today. I don't think the Drina River
23 a border.
24 A. But in that text, is there what I said when you got up and said
25 categorically, brothers Chetniks and especially those of you across the
Page 14077
1 Drina River
2 Q. Let's take it in order. We'll come to that. But I still
3 maintain that the Drina
4 border dividing the Serbian people into two parts.
5 "Today when we are finally bringing the anti-Serbian Communist
6 dictatorship to an end we can see that as a people we really have to
7 start from scratch. Communism destroyed almost all the Serbian
8 traditional values. We have to restore our Serbian state. We, the
9 Serbian Chetniks, want neither the Communist system nor Yugoslavia
10 anymore. We realise that Yugoslavia
11 people and that the Serbian people, especially in Communist Yugoslavia,
12 lost almost everything they had."
13 Is this an ultra-Serb nationalist speech; is that right? Right?
14 Can you hear me? Is it a speech by a great Serbian nationalist?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Yes, it is. So we'll move on. I'm just asking you.
17 "The villain and criminal Josip Broz Tito did all he could to
18 disfigure Serbia
19 Vatican
20 were created out of the Serbian national being: Montenegro, Macedonia
21 and Muslim." Do you remember me saying that? Did I say that the Muslim
22 nation was an artificial nation?
23 A. You say that at all your meetings.
24 Q. Did I say that then?
25 A. I can't remember.
Page 14078
1 Q. Okay. Let's move on. "Serbian lands were divided and torn
2 apart. A large number of separate federal units were created out of the
3 Serbian countries and lands. He made the Serbs quarrel amongst
4 themselves. He introduced unrest and discord amongst the Serbian people.
5 Throughout their history, the Serbian people had never been as broken up
6 as they are today. However, the Serbian people in all Serbian states and
7 lands are waking up. We, the Serbian Chetniks, have put out the old
8 flags of glory. We are the Serbian Chetniks are fighting - turn to the
9 next page, please - for the restoration of a free and independent Serbian
10 state in the Balkans. We will never be satisfied with Serbia as it now
11 stands, as it now exists, narrowed down, almost reduced to the Belgrade
12 district pashalic [phoen]. We, the Serbian Chetniks, only recognise the
13 kind of Serbia
14 Serbian Bosnia
15 Serbian Lika, Serbian Banija, Serbian Kordun, Serbian Slavonia
16 Serbian Baranja." Did I say that at the rally?
17 A. I don't remember.
18 Q. "We, the Serbian Chetniks, will not stop" -- you have the
19 translation of the text in English. I'm being cautioned by the
20 interpreters to slow down but, well, all right. Yes, for the French
21 booth so I will slow down.
22 "We, the Serbian Chetniks, will not stop until we realise this
23 main goal of ours. We, the Serbian Chetniks, on all sides and in all
24 Serbian states and lands, develop our political activities.
25 "A while ago we saw this mob outside, this crowd outside that
Page 14079
1 came to prevent us from what we intend to do." And what is in brackets
2 is the response from the crowd so I'm not going to read it.
3 "We, the Serbian Chetniks and Serbian people as a whole, the
4 Orthodox Serbs, stretch out our hands towards our brothers, the Serbs of
5 the Muslim faith."
6 Do you remember me saying something like that?
7 A. No.
8 Q. All right. "Throughout the course of Serbian history, there have
9 always been great men of Muslim faith amongst our Serbian people. Let us
10 just remember Mesa Selimovic, one of our greatest writers. We will never
11 forget that the vice-president of the National Committee of Draza
12 Mihajlovic was the heroic Mustafa Mulalic. We will never forget that one
13 of the Chetnik military leaders, Vojvodas belonging to Draza Mihajlovic
14 was Ismet Pupovac, a hero who commanded 2.000 Serbs of Muslim faith.
15 However, we will also never forget this unruly crowd. It was people like
16 these who killed Serbs throughout Bosnia, Herzegovina, both before and
17 during the First World War and in this restricted and narrowed down
18 Serbia
19 "We will never forget that such an unruly crowd in 1941 was the
20 first to put on Ustasha uniforms and set off to slaughter the Serbs.
21 "We will also never forget that throughout the course of Serbian
22 history such an unruly crowd was always ready to serve all Serbian
23 enemies to the very end, both the Austrians and the Germans, and
24 everybody who attacked Serbia
25 crowd like that."
Page 14080
1 Do you remember me saying that?
2 A. You always delivered the same speech, almost word for word, at
3 all your meetings and rallies, and the people you mentioned, Ismet
4 Pupovac and Mustafa Mulalic and the figure of 2.000 or 3.000 Serbs, you
5 would always list those things at each of your meetings.
6 Q. Well, this was a specific meeting geared towards a specific text
7 because Muslims lived there. Where there were no Muslims I didn't say
8 things like that, so I didn't repeat the same things everywhere. It was
9 the same policy, the politics was the same and coincided in many points
10 but not the same and not identical everywhere.
11 Let me continue.
12 "We, the Serbian Chetniks, are fighting for a Serbian state which
13 will be democratic and freedom loving. A state of citizens completely
14 equal to each other, with religious tolerance. We will, however, by no
15 means allow throughout the Serbian lands the Islamic fundamentalists to
16 roam and to dream about setting up a Pan-Islam Islamist state which would
17 spread across the Balkans. They will see once again how heroic the
18 Serbian people are and how steadfast they are in their intent" -- I
19 haven't finished yet, don't move the text. "In their intent to restore
20 the Serbian state, freedom, democracy," and now the next page or next
21 column, "and their old glory.
22 "We, the Serbian Chetniks, having waved our Serbian Chetnik flag
23 and banner this year in our freedom-loving capital of Belgrade, place
24 ourselves at the service of the Serb people and we will not give up on
25 that. The Serbian Chetnik Movement is a party that enlists only the
Page 14081
1 bravest, the most resolute and the most loyal to the Serbian people. The
2 Serbian Chetnik Movement was formed as a party as early on as January of
3 this year when the Serbian Freedom Movement was formed," and now we can
4 skip that portion unless the Trial Chamber insists that we read
5 everything because I'm referring to how this was established, so we can
6 move on.
7 Now I introduce my associates, Srdjan Glamocanin, Olivera Jelkic,
8 Aleksandar Stefanovic, and so on and provide data about them. And then I
9 go on to say all these associates that I've just mentioned, you can move
10 the text down:
11 "They were never afraid of police truncheons, they were never
12 afraid of cordons and bans enforced by the regime, and it is with people
13 like these, resolute, brave, and clever, that we managed to win
14 legitimacy for our party. The communists banned at the beginning or from
15 the beginning. Recently they wanted to stop us from holding a
16 commemorative ceremony to mark the anniversary of General Draza
17 Mihajlovic's death. They did not manage to do that because we brought
18 out 10.000 people in front of the Prince Mihailo Obrenovic's monument in
19 the centre of Belgrade
20 Do you remember the 17th of June, 1990, when we held a
21 commemorative meeting for Draza Mihajlovic in Belgrade. All the papers
22 wrote about that. Do you remember that?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Do you remember that the police banned the meeting but when they
25 saw how many of us they were, they did not want to ban us. That's how it
Page 14082
1 was.
2 Now I go on to say the following. May we have the next
3 paragraph, please.
4 Our party was officially registered on a Tuesday, that's when the
5 Serbian Chetnik Movement was officially registered. However, after this
6 rally, we received a note saying that we were banned. Do you remember
7 that the regime, in August 1990, refused to register the Serbian Chetnik
8 Movement in Belgrade
9 A. Yes, the papers did write about that but I am not sure I know
10 what happened.
11 Q. All right. Now, I go on to talk about the party programme, we
12 can move through that a little faster, we can skip some methods, but we
13 say we fulfill all conditions and we just use peaceful methods of
14 political struggle, and we act in conformity with the interests and aims
15 of the Serbian people. And that is at the beginning of the third column,
16 second paragraph.
17 As such, the Serbian Chetnik Movement is at the service of its
18 people. I spoke from my head then, I didn't have any paper in front of
19 me, right? My speech was recorded and then a journalist of Velika Serbia
20 published it, put it down on paper and even put where the applause took
21 part -- took place. The Serbian Chetnik Movement is in favour of a --
22 the restoration of a democratic political system, a multi-party system,
23 the setting up of the rule of law which means legitimate authorities and
24 the legality of their decisions. It is for an independent court and
25 public attorney system and preventing any political party from recruiting
Page 14083
1 the army and police into its ranks.
2 You will remember that under the Communist regime, every
3 policeman and every officer and lower ranking officer had to be a member
4 of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia; that's true, isn't it?
5 A. Well, I'm not sure what you're asking me.
6 Q. Well, do you remember that? It's important.
7 A. Well, it's not important as far as I am concerned.
8 Q. Is that how it was, though?
9 A. Ask me something else, Mr. Seselj.
10 Q. I have a lot of time, an abundance of time. I have more than an
11 hour so I can go through all these things. And the time that the Judges
12 used up and the Prosecutor is deducted from my time so I have a lot of
13 time.
14 The Serbian Chetnik Movement supports abandoning the policy of
15 non-alignment and then I go on to condemn cooperation and alliances with
16 states led by Idi Amin, Bokassa and so on.
17 And then I made a mistake, because I'm a little more mature now
18 and [indiscernible] I say, We the Serb Chetniks promote the return of our
19 fatherland to Europe
20 and states.
21 Later on we came to realise that there were the fewest civilised
22 states precisely in Europe
23 correction I would like to make after gaining a better understanding and
24 developing my consciousness.
25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, we are not going
Page 14084
1 read out this entire speech; it's pages long.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. I'll skip over some
3 sections.
4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Witness, do you remember
5 whether a Muslim took the floor during this meeting; yes or no?
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.
7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Because Mr. Seselj, at the very
8 end, there is a person taking the floor called Sakib Kavazovic saying, "I
9 am a Muslim." It might be interesting to see what this person has to
10 say.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, let us first find if
12 this sentence that is being quoted in the indictment can be found in this
13 speech. This is what I was thinking of. If you permit me, I have time
14 and I was planning. Look, if the sentence is not in my speech then that
15 whole part of the indictment can be dropped. I don't have any further
16 reason to examine this witness.
17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] This sentence is not in the
18 document that we have in our hands. That's very obvious.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] So do you want me to just discard
20 everything that I was intending to read?
21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] If this sentence was actually
22 said on August 4th, no, it's not in the speech that you delivered on
23 August 4th, that's absolutely sure. We don't need to read the entire
24 thing just to conclude the sentence is not included.
25 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
Page 14085
1 Q. Very well. When I finished this speech then the citizens present
2 began to ask questions; isn't that right?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And the first question was put by a person who did not introduce
5 himself. He asked something about Tito's mausoleum in Dedinje, and this
6 is on the page before last and then I answered his question. And then
7 the next person is Ratko Cvetkovic who introduced himself as the Serbian
8 National Renewal member from Milici. This is a different municipality
9 next to Bratunac, isn't it?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. He asked a question so I answered him. Then another person who
12 did not give his name said that he would have complications at work
13 because of attending our meeting. And then the fourth question, a
14 citizen asks about the position of the peasants and what is our position
15 on that. And then again the fifth question is by a person who begins
16 putting the question with the words, "Comrades," and at the end when we
17 wanted to finish there was someone coming towards the lectern. And now
18 look, a person broke through, this is the 36th page, he began to speak
19 but the frenetic applause made it impossible to hear him, Vojvoda, look,
20 well, it is obvious that I am the only Vojvoda present. So then he says,
21 God be with you. Actually, I say first, "Brothers, please wait for this
22 gentleman to say what he wants to say and then we will go outside
23 together to see who is threatening us." And then the crowd replied,
24 "Hear, hear," and then this person came up to the lectern and he said,
25 "God be with us Serbian brothers and sisters." And the crowd replied,
Page 14086
1 "God be with you."
2 Then he said, "I am a Muslim, Sakib Kavazovic from Semberija. In
3 1951 I was forced to cross over to Serbia
4 since 1951. I built one house there but I couldn't say. I went amongst
5 Serbian brothers. Now I lived in Novo Selo in Macva for five years, four
6 years in Lesnica. I have lived here for 25 years now and I am not afraid
7 of anyone. I have my children here, my son got married in Valjevo, I
8 live with Valjevo people, I fight for Serbia and I will die for Serbia
9 Then the journalist comments, "Everybody rises fervently
10 greeting brother Muslim with applause. The Vojvoda goes up to him and
11 kisses him. The crowd greets this gesture with even more fervour." The
12 president of the Mali Zvornik local board of the Serbian Chetnik
13 Movement, addresses the crowd again, If there are no further questions, I
14 would like to ask us all to go out with dignity and without provocations,
15 no provocations from our side, but then when we went out, we were hit by
16 stones. That's how it was.
17 Do you remember the Muslim who came out?
18 A. Well, Mr. Seselj, I left before this happened because I was taken
19 out by your security. I wanted to say something, some people reacted but
20 you said, Let him say what he wants to say, then these two people took me
21 by the arms and without an incident, without harming me, they took me
22 outside.
23 Q. You didn't speak at this meeting in any case, why would anyone
24 throw you out no matter what you said at my meeting. I was able to hold
25 rallies before large groups of people where more than 90 per cent of the
Page 14087
1 people were against me and my sympathisers, but I still could deal with
2 them.
3 So whatever you wanted to say at this meeting, no one would have
4 taken you out of the hall. This is just pure fabrication. You were not
5 removed from the meeting, only somebody who was provoking violence or was
6 violent would have been taken out of the meeting.
7 So, since now we have finished this, are you still claiming that
8 this meeting in Mali Zvornik was held in March 1992?
9 A. Yes, you did have that meeting in March 1990.
10 Q. All right. Then by next week the Prosecutor will assemble all
11 the articles from the newspapers and then we can see it here. As you
12 know I have no associates and I have nobody who would be able to help me
13 to search for these things myself. All that I have here in front of me
14 is the things that I have received from the Prosecution.
15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, before the break,
16 the Trial Chamber has one question.
17 Is there an audiotape of the speech you delivered on August 4th,
18 1990? Is there an audiotape? An audio recording of this speech? Do you
19 know?
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is something that you would
21 need to ask journalist Vineta Marinovic, I have no contacts with her. If
22 the Prosecution is able to find her but this is not very likely. This
23 took place more than -- or almost 20 years ago, so I doubt it.
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, you identified
25 quite justly that this part of the indictment was very crucial and you
Page 14088
1 wondered whether someone really heard what was said. You knew that a
2 newspaper article had been drawn up from it. Fine.
3 Now, the news reporter who transcribed your speech might have
4 done so from an audiotape recording that she would have had. If that's
5 the case, one of your associates, and you have many, could have went to
6 see this reporter, ask her for the audiotape and that would be an
7 evidence for you, you know, to say that, Listen to this speech, you can
8 listen to the entire speech and I never said this sentence. But didn't
9 think about this, did you?
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, as -- in the same
11 way that somebody, when they publish an article can drop something, omit
12 saying something, they can also delete something from a tape. I mean it
13 never occurred to me that that would be something important. What is
14 important here is actually when the meeting was held, the date, and then
15 only after what was actually said at the meeting. I could have said the
16 worst things in the world at a meeting in 1990. This is two years before
17 the war in Bosnia
18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Seselj. But you'll
19 reckon with me, if this audiotape does exist, maybe the news reporter
20 kept it or maybe it's in the archives of the newspaper. It could be very
21 useful for you as evidence for your case.
22 Furthermore, Mr. Seselj, you have many associates, and these
23 associates should have scrutinised all the newspapers, all issues of this
24 newspaper at the time to prove that nothing had happened in March 1992.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, my collected works
Page 14089
1 already number about 104 or 105 volumes of 1.000 pages each and almost
2 all my text about myself and about the Serbian Party and about the
3 Serbian Chetnik Movement are published in those tomes. The Hague
4 Prosecution has an earlier edition of those works. They have some
5 80 volumes. So every speech from the Radical Party is in that collection
6 especially from volumes 41 to 50. Everything that was ever written about
7 the Radical party would be in that, so if there had been a meeting in
8 Mali Zvornik it would be contained there.
9 You're behaving as if I had the burden of proof. Actually this
10 burden is on the Prosecution, the very fact that the meeting did not take
11 place in March 1992 but in August 1990 is enough to overturn the whole
12 indictment.
13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Absolutely, Mr. Seselj, you're
14 right. The burden of proof is on the Prosecution, everyone knows that.
15 But you are the accused in this case and you have to defend yourself so
16 you should say, I'm being accused of something because it was something I
17 said in a speech, I would have said in a speech allegedly, I'm going to
18 prove and demonstrate that this is not the right speech and that in the
19 speech I actually gave I never said this. If you have an audiotape, an
20 audio recording that could back this, this would be crucial evidence for
21 you.
22 You're saying my speech is in my book. Fine. But your speech
23 could have been redacted, you know, you could have cut off some sensitive
24 excerpts whereas in an audiotape we have the reality of things. We can
25 know technically whether the audiotape has been tampered with or not.
Page 14090
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, this is
2 Velika Serbia issue number 3 magazine of the 15th of August, 1990, when
3 no one in the Balkans knew that war was imminent. This is August 1990.
4 The least they knew was that at some point, there would be
5 The Hague International Tribunal for War Crimes which would be
6 established and where I would be expected to defend myself against war
7 crimes, the illegal Tribunal.
8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, don't make things
9 worse. You're talking -- you're saying -- just said "illegal Tribunal."
10 You could have spared that. You could have not said this and proof of --
11 we're really trying to do our job as Judges here, full independence. But
12 now we'll break for 20 minutes.
13 --- Recess taken at 4.06 p.m.
14 --- On resuming at 4.34 p.m.
15 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Mr. VS-2000, do you consider me to be an uneducated person?
17 A. No, why?
18 Q. Do you believe that I lack some elementary theological knowledge
19 pertaining to modern religions that I have no idea what that is about?
20 A. Well, I wouldn't wish to discuss that with you, but at no point
21 did I say that you were an uneducated man. Actually, as a matter of
22 fact, and you heard me well, I said yesterday that you were the youngest
23 lawyer with a Ph.D. in Yugoslavia
24 learned something.
25 Q. In my indictment, it says that I had called Bosnian Muslims
Page 14091
1 pagans and in the pre-trial brief that I had called them Godless. Would
2 any educated person refer to Muslims as Godless at all?
3 A. Well, that is up to you.
4 Q. For example, if I know that Mohammed created a new religion based
5 on Christian and Judaic heritage and that he adopted their beliefs and
6 formed them, gave them a new form but kept the faith in the one and only
7 God, how can I then refer to them as Godless? You know that Muslims
8 recognise Christ as a prophet, you know that, you're a Muslim, aren't
9 you? How do Muslims call Jesus Christ?
10 A. Isa.
11 Q. Isa Messiah or Isa the prophet and you know that in the Koran,
12 when the day of judgement comes, it says that Isa Meremi [phoen], Jesus
13 of Mary will judge the living and the dead. Is this mentioned in the
14 Koran?
15 A. Yes, it is.
16 Q. The Muslims only do not recognise Jesus as the son of God but
17 they do recognise him as a God's prophet, Islam recognises that. And do
18 you know that in Syria
19 Pedombet [phoen]. It's a mosque that is God knows how old that is
20 dedicated to Jesus. Do you know about that?
21 A. Well I'm not that informed about it.
22 Q. Yes, but I am. What I'm trying to let you know is that it is
23 quite impossible for me to use this term and as much as my speeches are
24 quite radical and forceful, sometimes even extreme, still I do not commit
25 such stupidities in my speeches.
Page 14092
1 My speeches are logical and coherent, aren't they? Do you
2 disagree with that logic? You cannot say that my speeches have no
3 internal logic and coherence, would you agree with that? You're quiet?
4 Did you study law in Sarajevo
5 A. Yes, but I don't know what to answer other than yes or no.
6 Q. Well, you can say yes or no?
7 A. Well this is your theory. I do not want to get involved in your
8 theories and your views. I don't want to take any part in that.
9 Q. All right. Let's move to a new question and let's hope it's
10 something that is a much calmer atmosphere. Would a more calm atmosphere
11 suit you or a more turbulent one?
12 A. A more turbulent one.
13 Q. Well I'm going to proceed calmly. You gave two statements to The
14 Hague Prosecution; isn't that right?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. You gave a statement in 1996 --
17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, the Trial Chamber
18 would rather have a very smooth and quiet hearing.
19 You haven't understood. Well you're asking the witness whether
20 he'd rather have a quiet hearing. I associate myself with you and I can
21 tell you that the Trial Chamber also would rather have a very quiet
22 hearing.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. On my part, I'm going
24 to do my best but you saw what happened earlier. I had a concept of
25 cross-examination. The Prosecutor wanted to break that up right at the
Page 14093
1 beginning, disrupt that so I couldn't deal with it in the way that I
2 wished. The Prosecutor got stuck to this point what year and so on so I
3 have to go down another track. I mean the over ambition of the
4 Prosecutor spoiled things this time but now we are going to improve
5 things. We will make them better.
6 Q. You gave your first statement in 1996; is that correct?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And then you provided a statement in 2002; is that correct?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. The first statement you referred to the things that were asked of
11 you yesterday during the examination in chief and the second statement
12 was part of the preparation by the Prosecution for the Naser Oric trial
13 but then they never called you to testify; is that correct?
14 A. No.
15 Q. I see that they asked you here about some things about your war
16 experiences or work together with Naser Oric and events from 1993 but
17 we're not going to go into that. The second statement has nothing to do
18 with this case; isn't that right? Do you remember your second statement?
19 A. Yes, I do remember it but we didn't discuss the Oric trial at
20 all. What was discussed was for me to state my story and to say what I
21 knew that would make some sense.
22 Q. But you talked about some other things, they probably didn't tell
23 you why they were seeking your statement but judging by the contents of
24 that statement, I see that they insisted on that because there are names
25 here of various Muslim leaders, military leaders and so on, but we're not
Page 14094
1 going to go into that. This is not so important now.
2 In this first statement, you first talk about how you set up a
3 checkpoint at the stone quarry and arrested four Serb police officers and
4 seized their car; is that correct?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. What date was that?
7 A. The 8th of April, in the morning, in 1992.
8 Q. In the morning. So this was before this armed clash in Zvornik
9 which occurred during the day; is that correct?
10 A. Yes, during the day or a little bit earlier.
11 Q. During the morning?
12 A. Before the attack on Zvornik, the proper attack on Zvornik.
13 Q. What was your authority to stop a police vehicle, first of all?
14 Secondly, to arrest four policemen, and then to confiscate their car?
15 A. You know very well Mr. Seselj that before the beginning of the
16 war, checkpoints were set up everywhere where the Serb and the Muslim
17 populations lived close by, so these were set up to separate them. So
18 wherever it suited anyone, they would set up a checkpoint and they would
19 monitor who was moving along that particular road, what did they have in
20 the car, what was their business.
21 Q. So in Vlasenica, there were no combat actions?
22 A. As far as I know, the situation was the same as Zvornik. There
23 was some preparations but nothing was happening.
24 Q. All right. So these were policemen from Vlasenica, they wore the
25 same uniforms as any police officers in the former Yugoslavia?
Page 14095
1 A. They were in civilian clothing. Only one of them had camouflage
2 uniform with a red polo neck top.
3 Q. It doesn't say that here, only that they were police officers and
4 that you confiscated their car?
5 A. We saw that they were police officers on the basis of their IDs.
6 Three of them were wearing civilian clothing and one --
7 Q. All right. You as a group of citizens with weapons stopped a
8 police car and arrested four policemen. They showed you their IDs and
9 you looked at them and on the basis of their documents, you could see
10 that they were ethnic Serbs. They were not Serb police officers. There
11 was no Serb police in Vlasenica, the police were still one united force
12 at the time?
13 A. I don't know that. Throughout the whole territory of eastern
14 Bosnia
15 separated just as it was in Mali Zvornik so the Vlasenica police had its
16 own -- Serb police had its own direction and why we stopped them was
17 because they had weapons, they had explosives and they also had casks in
18 their car.
19 Q. And then when you stopped them, you called the Zvornik police?
20 A. Yes, correct.
21 Q. And a Muslim policeman from Zvornik told you to release them?
22 A. Yes, he checked the names of the people that we dictated to them
23 and he said that they should be returned to -- towards Vlasenica through
24 the checkpoints of Konjevic Polje which was done.
25 Q. How did you return them if you seized their vehicle, you didn't
Page 14096
1 give them the car back?
2 A. One of those people who was driving gave it back. They drove
3 them in that car to the Serb checkpoint in Vlasenica and seized the car.
4 Q. They seized the car?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. On what grounds? On the grounds of the rules of war; is that
7 right? All right. Very well.
8 So now you're taking this car and you went to Zvornik to the
9 police station and then you say, On the first floor of the police station
10 building, I saw three men who were tied or attached one to another with
11 handcuffs, they were handcuffed one to another. How many of them were,
12 three or four?
13 A. They were four.
14 Q. And that fourth one you didn't see?
15 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please repeat his answer, the
16 speakers are overlapping.
17 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Now let's deal again with those four people who were arrested,
19 who were arrested at the checkpoint at the entrance to Zvornik; is that
20 correct?
21 A. Yes, from the northern side and there's a river there called
22 Zlatica [phoen].
23 Q. You say one of them wore a camouflage uniform and the other two
24 were in civilian clothes; right?
25 A. No. When I referred to the uniforms, they were policemen. The
Page 14097
1 others all wore uniforms, all four of them.
2 Q. I see. Because on page 5 of your statement here, the last
3 paragraph, you describe them, those thee men and this is what you say,
4 One of them had a camouflage uniform and the other two were in civilian
5 clothes. That's what it says in this statement.
6 Were they all wearing uniforms?
7 A. I don't know what I said in my statement but anyway, one was in a
8 pattern camouflage uniform, the others were in regular, ordinary
9 uniforms.
10 Q. Here it says civilian clothes and that shows the lack of
11 seriousness on the part of the OTP.
12 "The fourth colleague, Repic, I saw in Fadil Mujic's office."
13 A. Right.
14 Q. And he was chief of -- a chief in the Zvornik police and he works
15 in the MUP of Tuzla today. And you say:
16 "I saw a heap of scrap wire, the kind of wire you use for
17 suffocating people. Wires and injection and some other objects with you
18 the police uncovered during the interrogation. I saw the wires in the
19 hall outside the room in which the three men were held."
20 A. 72 pieces of wire. The people counted them, and on the table
21 there were 72 pieces of wire.
22 Q. And what did Fadil Mujic say to you when you saw these people?
23 Who are they? Did he say anything about them?
24 A. He was conducting his interrogation, his questioning, and I told
25 him, I said Fadil, the shooting had already started from the northern
Page 14098
1 part of the municipality from the nearby hill, from where the Chetniks
2 started to take over the territory, this shooting, the war has started
3 officially and you're sitting here questioning people. Now if you
4 consider that they should be released then release them. Let's not make
5 any more -- any incident about this. Let's try and calm the situation
6 again and that's what he did.
7 Q. So your idea was to have the people released. That was your
8 first idea?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And were they beaten during the interrogation?
11 A. Nobody touched them.
12 Q. You didn't see any traces of blows on their body?
13 A. No, I talked to one of them, I was at a distance of say two
14 metres, and I just asked him some things.
15 Q. Do you know the names of those people today?
16 A. No, I just know that the man that Fadil was examining had the
17 nickname Repic.
18 Q. Do you know that it's Dusko Vuckovic, nicknamed Repic one of the
19 greatest criminals in the Zvornik area?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Do you know that he was taken to trial in Serbia for crimes
22 committed in the Zvornik area and that he committed suicide in prison,
23 you don't know any of that?
24 A. No, I didn't ask around.
25 Q. All right let's see what you go on to say here:
Page 14099
1 "When I saw Repic for the first time, he was sitting on a chair
2 with his back to me. He had broad shoulders, a broad neck." This is on
3 page 6, second paragraph, and he had his hair in a ponytail. The lower
4 half the his neck was shaved. He might have been 25 or 26 years old at
5 the time and although he was sitting down I think he was probably tall,
6 about 1 metre 80. He had light brown hair and when he turned towards me,
7 I saw that he had side burns. His face was red, and he didn't have a
8 beard or mustaches. He had bald patches above his ears. He turned to me
9 and he asked Fadil, what did they tell me to release the policemen from
10 Vlasenica, and Fadil said that the chief of police Osman Mustafic, who
11 lives in Germany today, knew the four men and that's why he told me to
12 release them.
13 And that refers to the Serb policemen from Vlasenica whom you
14 released; right? And this is your description of Repic, and it
15 corresponds to a great measure to what the man actually looks like. It's
16 a reliable description of Dusko Vuckovic, aka Repic so you have a very
17 good memory if I can note that.
18 Now, there's another paragraph, and I'll quote that. You say:
19 "I went back into the room in which the three men were kept. I
20 sat next to one of them who was thin and I turned to him and said, 'You
21 scum, who sent you here and what are you doing here?' And he introduced
22 himself. I don't remember what his name was," that's your comment. And
23 he said that he was from Pancevo and that the media, it was the media's
24 fault that he was there because he said that he spent a month and a half
25 with many others in quarantine because they kept saying that the Muslims
Page 14100
1 in Zvornik are slaughtering and putting Serbs on the spit and rubbing
2 salt into their wounds. He didn't say where he was in quarantine with
3 these other Serbs." So that is your statement.
4 Now on that occasion, did you have any information as to how
5 these people identified who they were, anything like that?
6 A. No, I didn't have any information on paper but people told me,
7 the people that I found in the corridor outside, they said that they were
8 Chetniks and that wires were found on them and so on, and all the other
9 objects, but I didn't ask for any identifications.
10 Q. Did you hear that some documents were found on them?
11 A. Well, some documents were found but I didn't see them.
12 Q. So you don't know what documents ID cards or anything like that?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Now I'm going to tell you who these people were. Milorad Ulemek,
15 nicknamed Legija was one; Vojin Vuckovic, nicknamed Zuca was another;
16 Dusko Vuckovic -- or Dusan Vuckovic, nicknamed Repic was another; and
17 then there was Miroslav Bogdanovic.
18 Do you know today who those people are?
19 A. No.
20 Q. Vojin Vuckovic later on, after the fall of Kula Grad, within the
21 Territorial Defence he set up a detachment called Igor Markovic and
22 afterwards, that detachment came to be known of the Yellow Wasps. Have
23 you heard of that?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. His brother Repic was well known for some atrocious crimes that
Page 14101
1 were committed there and for which he was tried. Milorad Ulemek, Legija,
2 he later became one of Arkan's men and then transferred to the police of
3 Serbia. He was the commander of a unit there, a special police unit and
4 had the rank of colonel, and then he was arrested and taken to trial
5 because of his alleged involvement in the killing Prime Minister Zoran
6 Djindjic. Did you ever link those things up on the basis of what the
7 papers wrote and so on? Did you ever bring them into contact with their
8 roles later on?
9 A. Well, I read various articles about some of them, the ones you
10 mention and the dirty things they were involved in, but I didn't enter
11 into any details.
12 Q. Miroslav Bogdanovic died in 1993. Now, my associates in June
13 last year visited Milorad Lukovic aka Legija in the central prison in
14 Belgrade, took a statement from him.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And could I ask the usher to
16 provide a copy of the statement to the Trial Chamber and the Prosecutor
17 and place one on the ELMO.
18 Q. It's a statement written over five pages by hand, it's in
19 handwritten form, so let's read it through together and see what it says
20 because Milorad Ulemek, Legija, for a time had the surname of Lukovic.
21 He explains how he came to be Zvornik, so let's see how he describes
22 those events, the events that you refer to.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we have it up on our screens,
24 the screen that the public can see, because this is a public matter.
25 Q. Now, this was sent to me on the 23rd of January this year from
Page 14102
1 Belgrade; it was faxed to me, in fact.
2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Marcussen.
3 MR. MARCUSSEN: Your Honours, you will notice that yesterday, in
4 direct examination, I led no evidence on this point whatsoever. I don't
5 know why the accused is now going to read out a long statement from
6 someone who had given no evidence about this and it is irrelevant to the
7 evidence of the witness.
8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, the
9 cross-examination is not the right you have to ask any question. You
10 should base your questions on those questions that have been put during
11 examination-in-chief. Which topic are you addressing now?
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, the witness
13 testified about the war events in Zvornik as he experienced them, and
14 from his statement I can see that he met these four men and even talked
15 to them.
16 Secondly, some other witnesses earlier on referred to these
17 people as well. We discussed them. There was a witness who claimed that
18 two of them had membership cards of the Serbian Radical Party, if you
19 recall. I'd like to remind you of those witnesses. I didn't have
20 Milorad Lukovic's statement at the time, we had Vojin Vuckovic, Zuco's
21 statement. Vojin Vuckovic, Zuco, is the one I quoted, so let's deal with
22 this matter because it's important for me.
23 What the witness testified about --
24 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] I would like to specify that the
25 fact that topics are being discussed during cross-examination which were
Page 14103
1 not addressed during examination-in-chief, this is not a problem as far
2 as I'm concerned because cross-examination deals with the defence of the
3 accused; but as far as this particular statement is concerned, I would
4 like to emit reservations and I have already done this on a number of
5 times. Every time the accused shows us statements like this one, I don't
6 need to repeat those reservations I have already made, I would just like
7 to say that I don't agree with such statements that have no probative
8 value, not even prima facie, so I cannot accept these.
9 This is my personal view, as you know, Mr. Seselj. I have
10 repeated this many a time. I just need to repeat it again today.
11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Marcussen.
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Judge Lattanzi, I'm not offering up
13 any statements into evidence here; I'm just using these statements as a
14 ground work for the cross-examination. I want to ask the witness whether
15 he has some of his own knowledge about what Milorad Ulemek aka Legija
16 speaks about in his statement, nothing more than that.
17 JUDGE LATTANZI: [Interpretation] All right, but since I have said
18 this several times before, as far as I am concerned, you may put these
19 questions but you shouldn't read this statement and you shouldn't put it
20 on the ELMO.
21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, you say to the
22 witness, right, we have this statement. In this statement, Mr. Legija
23 says such and such and then you ask the witness what he thinks about it.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Do you want me to
25 continue or Mr. Marcussen?
Page 14104
1 Q. Here, Milorad Ulemek - let's have it on the ELMO - and his
2 nickname was Legija, provides data about himself, when he was born, who
3 his parents were. The statement was certified by the prison authorities
4 and it was signed as well, it's signed at the end.
5 The statement was sent to me, to the detention unit fax machine,
6 and it's not very legible because the detention unit usually makes a
7 photocopy when a fax comes in for me and then provides me with the
8 photocopy and put the original in my file. However, I think we will be
9 able to make due with this, at least I hope so.
10 In the first paragraph he says that he was in the foreign legion
11 in Chad and when he saw what was going on in Yugoslavia, he escaped from
12 the foreign legion and in 1992, arrived in Yugoslavia to help his own
13 people out. And he says that he decided to go to Bosnia to help the
14 Serbs there and protect them, as far as he could, for them to defend
15 themselves against the Muslim terrorists.
16 Now, witness, do you know whether these four men, during the
17 interrogation, which went on for a long time because they were arrested
18 on the 7th at the barricade and spent the whole night in the police
19 station and only the next day towards evening were released; right?
20 A. On the 8th in the morning at 4.30 a.m., and the distance is one
21 kilometre and they were in the police station within 15 minutes.
22 Q. Did they say where they went and why?
23 A. Later on, talking to the people who took them in and questioned
24 them, I learned that they wanted to infiltrate the town and be a point of
25 support for other people coming in from the hills to reconnoitre.
Page 14105
1 Q. Is that what they said?
2 A. That's what I was told they had said.
3 Q. All right. Now, here Legija says that he wanted to join the
4 Vuk Draskovic Guard, first of all, commanded by the late Giska but that
5 he changed his mind because Vuk was unreliable and you couldn't count on
6 him. And then he goes on to say that before he went to the foreign
7 legion he knew Nedjo Boskovic. Do you know who Nedjo Boskovic was at the
8 time?
9 A. I have heard that but I don't know that, I don't know that very
10 well.
11 Q. Well, I'm sure you don't know him but he was the chief of the
12 military security service in the JNA; right?
13 A. Yes, but I don't know him personally.
14 Q. And he was head of the security service in the Yugoslav Army for
15 a few months, so that's the position he occupied, and he said that he
16 knew him before he went to join the foreign legion because he was the
17 father of a friend of his from primary school, a little girl. And he
18 says that when he returned in 1992 to the homeland, Nedjo Boskovic came
19 into contact with me straight away, he says. Now while these four men
20 were at the police station in Zvornik, did Nedjo Boskovic call up from
21 Belgrade to ask about them? Did you hear about that?
22 A. No, I don't know about that.
23 Q. You don't know. Very well, because we had testimony about that
24 from a witness. Did you know who Milan Petrovic, Zuda [phoen], was?
25 A. He's from your parts. Now Pusula, that nickname, I knew somebody
Page 14106
1 from his family who was a hauler but --
2 Q. He was a hauler himself, and do you know that he was well known
3 for black marketeering in weapons?
4 A. Well, one of them was a black marketeer so it must have been that
5 one.
6 Q. Yes, that's him. So you knew that he was a black marketeer in
7 weapons, dealt in weapons.
8 Now here is what Legija says. He says that Nedjo Boskovic, at
9 the beginning of April, told him that a certain Milan Petrovic, nicknamed
10 Pusula, was bringing weapons in clandestinely to Zvornik and that he
11 ought to be arrested, and that he took on this assignment as a patriotic
12 act because he found it intolerable that a Serb should supply Muslims
13 with weapons clandestinely, because they used those weapons to kill
14 Serbs. So he said that was the assignment given him by the chief of the
15 military security service whom he knew earlier on, General Nedjo Boskovic
16 to go to Zvornik and in the Zvornik area, to arrest Milan Petrovic,
17 nickname Pusula?
18 A. Did he have an address this Pusula man?
19 Q. Well, he doesn't say.
20 A. Pusula didn't live in the town of Zvornik.
21 Q. He was in the Zvornik municipality.
22 A. Correct, but not in town.
23 Q. He later on says that they lost their way. You didn't know that
24 they were criminals at the time and they weren't criminals at the time.
25 A. Well, that's something you're telling me now.
Page 14107
1 Q. When I say that this man Repic was a criminal later on, that
2 Vojin Vuckovic formed the Yellow Wasps, that Miroslav Bogdanovic died in
3 that of 1993 and wasn't involved in any criminal affairs, and that Legija
4 was first of all in Arkan's unit and then he transferred to work in the
5 police station and reach the rank of Colonel, that's what I'm saying.
6 A. Mr. Seselj, if you permit me. I will say that in your speeches,
7 and I've been following that, you keep saying that some members of some
8 other parties, some other units, the Wasps, the Wolves, that they all
9 were in the Chetniks in the area of the Zvornik municipality. The fact
10 that later they found pretty names, attractive names like Eagles, Wasps
11 and Eagles, actually, basically they were all Chetniks.
12 Q. All the Serbian fighters actually were Chetniks.
13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] [Previous translation
14 continues] ... has no value but this Legija seemingly wrote this document
15 whilst he was in prison. We can see that it says something in Italian on
16 the letterhead of the paper, [Italian spoken], 23rd of January, 2009,
17 11 hours 10. Can you explain to us how you received this document?
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, this document was
19 received by the detention unit at their fax, and this is the marking
20 that -- or the stamp that that fax machine makes recently. I don't know
21 what this means [Italian spoken], or whatever it says but it arrived at
22 the detention unit on the 23rd of January, 2009 at 1110 hours.
23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Right all the faxes you receive
24 read [Italian spoken] that's on the letterhead. Continue please.
25 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
Page 14108
1 Q. He says here that he went to Zvornik with Miroslav Bogdanovic,
2 with the two Vuckovic brothers, Zuco and Repic; and that the two of them,
3 the Vuckovics, he saw them then for the first time, probably he knew
4 Miroslav Bogdanovic from earlier, and he doesn't say that.
5 In the night, between the 7th and the 8th of April 1992, we lost
6 our way after crossing the bridge at the entrance to Zvornik. He says he
7 didn't know that area and then instead of going to the right, they turned
8 and went to the left, and they came up against an ambush of armed Muslims
9 who captured us and take us -- took us to the SUP premises. Is it true
10 that Muslims had set up barricades around Zvornik, and that there were
11 armed Muslims at those barricades?
12 A. If they had crossed the bridge, could not have gone -- they could
13 only have gone to the left, if we're talking about these two bridges,
14 there are only two bridges, there's one in Karakaj. They didn't cross
15 that bridge. If they had taken the city bridge, then they could have
16 gone to the right, and they were found, concealed in a ditch that goes
17 through there.
18 THE INTERPRETER: The speakers are overlapping.
19 THE WITNESS: [No interpretation]
20 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
21 Q. They passed by the Serbian barricade?
22 A. No, the Muslim barricade at the entrance of the town.
23 Q. If they had crossed at Karakaj they would have crossed to the --
24 turned to left and went directly to the town. Had they turned to the
25 right they would have encountered the Serb barricade.
Page 14109
1 A. They couldn't have gone to the right. It was the Karakaj
2 industrial facility, and there were no Muslims there.
3 Q. The Serbs were there. So instead of turning to the right, they
4 turned to the left.
5 A. Why would they turn right if Zvornik is to the left?
6 THE INTERPRETER: The speakers are overlapping, the interpreter
7 can no longer certify the accuracy of the interpretation.
8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please wait a few minutes
9 before you answer. Please continue.
10 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
11 Q. Look, they are going to do some confidential assignment for the
12 JNA military security service, and they probably got instructions that
13 after they crossed the Karakaj bridge if they turned left they would
14 encounter Serbian police. Instead of turning to the right, they turned
15 to the left, and they encountered a Muslim barricade. This is logical to
16 me.
17 A. It's not logical to me, Mr. Seselj, that precisely on the day of
18 the attack on Zvornik, they set off to carry out some assignment. Why
19 didn't they do it some days before if that is what they wanted to do, and
20 if the person that you are talking about happened to be in town on that
21 day, he could have been in town only before the attack on Zvornik took
22 place.
23 Q. Well, you think that the conflict was planned on the 8th of
24 April. It could have broken out on the 9th or the 11th. It was evident
25 that the conflict would occur, but it wasn't planned to take place on
Page 14110
1 that day; is that correct? Maybe this capture of theirs speeded up the
2 conflict. Did you release them afterwards? Somebody threatened, you
3 released them, or we will attack?
4 A. There were no such threats because nobody knew that they had
5 entered town.
6 Q. All right. But Nedjo Boskovic called by phone to ask about them,
7 and he sent a TV crew even requesting to speak to them; is that correct?
8 A. I don't know.
9 Q. Was there a Serbian television crew arrive?
10 A. I don't know. I don't know what happened after that.
11 Q. Well let's see what he says after that. He said that they were
12 taken to the SUP premises and then while they were being arrested, they
13 took our particulars and then he said these three immediately showed
14 their membership cards of Arkan's Serbian volunteer guards, and I had my
15 military ID with me which I presented to a Muslim senior officer; and I
16 told them I was on a special assignment. That's what he told him. Did
17 you find a military ID card on him?
18 A. I don't know if we found a military ID card on him. What I'm
19 saying is that I went had inside and I was in there perhaps for three
20 minutes at the most, while I told Fadil Mujic what I told him, that he
21 need today release these people so that we would avoid war and the worst
22 from occurring; and perhaps I asked in some 60 seconds one of those three
23 members what I asked them.
24 Q. All right. And then Legija said immediately they began to beat
25 us, and they handcuffed us, especially diligent in this was a police
Page 14111
1 officer who was addressed as Asim, as far as I can recall. This Asim
2 beat us the most and soon -- with whatever he could lay his hands on. At
3 one point, he tried to cut my ear off and precisely when he wanted to do
4 that, as he was holding my ear in one hand, and a knife in the other, a
5 senior officer entered the room where all of this was happening and then
6 stopped him from carrying this out.
7 Do you know about any policeman called Asim who happened to be
8 there at the time?
9 A. I know a man by the name of Asim, and it's true that he was one
10 of the senior figures in the police, but he wasn't there when I was
11 there.
12 Q. What is his last name?
13 A. I don't know.
14 Q. All right. After two hours of a group beating, we were locked up
15 in separate rooms. I was all bloody from the beating and later I saw
16 that the others were in the same state. This officer who saved me from
17 getting my ear cut off whispered at one point that he was going to try to
18 help us. In the end, it turned out that this was Fadil Mujic, do you
19 know him?
20 A. I do.
21 Q. Do you know that he left Zvornik with Serb aid on that day?
22 A. No, he didn't. It's not true. I have completely opposite
23 information, which is 100 percent accurate.
24 Q. Legija said that in the morning, members of the green berets
25 arrived at the SUP, and I heard that they were asking these local
Page 14112
1 policemen to hand us over to them so they could take us to Kula Grad and
2 that's where they would execute us, this is what he heard. When these
3 members of the Green Berets were talking to the policemen, were there any
4 green berets there present in the police station?
5 A. No, I didn't know about such a formation of the Green Berets.
6 Q. You never heard of the Green Berets?
7 A. Yes, I heard with them, but there was no such formation among the
8 Muslims.
9 Q. Did you hear about the Patriotic League?
10 A. Yes, it exists.
11 Q. How long had it existed in the Muslim area?
12 A. From the late 1991, perhaps just before the new year when the
13 conflicts broke out in Croatia
14 division of municipalities occurred.
15 Q. Are you aware the Green Berets are a military formation of the
16 Patriotic League?
17 A. I just heard about it, but I never saw these units and they
18 didn't have any documents or were never registered as Green Berets.
19 Q. We will talk about that later. I have some material, so it will
20 be interesting to discuss that later. Legija said that while their
21 senior officers were talking amongst themselves the others began to beat
22 us again. This lasted for a half an hour or so and I fainted from the
23 beating. When I came to, I found out that a TV crew from Serbia had
24 stopped by.
25 Do you know that a TV crew from Serbia appeared before the police
Page 14113
1 station Mali Zvornik. This was in the morning on the 8th of April before
2 the conflict broke out?
3 A. The conflict began early in the morning by very strong shelling
4 of the whole of Zvornik especially the part where perhaps some resistance
5 was being expected.
6 Q. Was the artillery being fired in the direction of Kula Grad?
7 A. It was being fired from the entrance to Zvornik towards the
8 direction of Karakaj, so Zvornik was attacked already in the morning. I
9 don't know about this TV crew, but I imagine that they could not have
10 entered because the war had already began by then.
11 Q. But we had witnesses who mentioned this. Then he said, I knew
12 that they were sent by Nedjo Boskovic so that he would protect us and he
13 saw this footage later on television when he was released, perhaps on
14 Belgrade or Novi Sad television and since he had talked with Fadil Mujic
15 he knew what was happening to us. So Legija claims that Nedjo Boskovic
16 had spoken by telephone with Fadil Mujic; do you know anything about
17 that?
18 A. No, I don't.
19 Q. When was this time because when these people were questioned, was
20 it then? When they were questioned? When they were beaten?
21 A. I don't know. I didn't really speak to Fadil about anything at
22 that time.
23 Q. Legija said that he was told that the attack on Zvornik began
24 around noon and that the number of policemen and members of the
25 Green Berets in the SUP building went down considerably, that he heard
Page 14114
1 firing, not far from the building. And then at one point he asked one of
2 the guards guarding us to unlock his hand cuffs. I told him that I had
3 unbearable pain, and that I couldn't stand it anymore since my hands were
4 hand cuffed behind my back, and that he could put the hand cuffs back on
5 but with my hands in front. He did that and he notes that those guards
6 were guarding them were all of proper behaviour, and they didn't beat
7 them or abuse them.
8 At that point in time, there were four of us in the office. Not
9 long after that, we were separated again. Zuco and his brother were
10 taken to another office and the two of us stayed in one office at one
11 point. There was an opportunity for me, and I managed to take a rifle
12 from one of the guards. While I was disarming the other guard with a
13 pointed rifle at him ...
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, the Trial Chamber
15 is really wondering what the point to this is? We're wasting time. What
16 is the point, please?
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I think that in the
18 last year you have seen that everything I do has some sense. We can see
19 that Zuco and his brother arrived as a volunteer of the Serbian Radical
20 Party to Zvornik, and I am denying that I -- I deny that in 1992, he had
21 anything to do with the Serbian Radical Party. I already presented
22 evidence that he formed the Igor Markovic Detachment only after the 26th
23 of April after Kula Grad fell. I mean, what do you mean, what does it
24 serve? This is the purpose of it. This is why I'm doing it.
25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Put the question to him. He
Page 14115
1 was at the police station. Saw the four of them. Put the question to
2 him.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, this witness who has
4 the tendency to exaggerate his wartime role said that it was his idea to
5 free these or release these four people you heard that with his own ears.
6 Well let's see what Legija says about them being released, how
7 Fadil Mujic freed them and how then he made it possible for Mujic to
8 leave and to go abroad through Serbia.
9 Why are you preventing me from doing this? I don't have anything
10 to talk about regarding the conflict in his village of birth and the
11 neighbouring villages. This is not in my indictment. I didn't research
12 that, and I have no idea what was going on there about a fight where --
13 or if there was a house where women were detained and sexually abused. I
14 was nothing to do with that. I am trying to clarify things that are
15 directly related to my indictment especially that I'm now all alone and
16 that I have no associates anymore.
17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, you need to know
18 whether these four were volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party. That's
19 the essence of it. So just put the question to him directly. He'll say
20 yes or no, these were Arkan's men, this or that. Put the question to
21 him.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, this could be so in
23 case the witness were neutral in relation to the proceedings, and if he
24 wished to testify on facts; but you saw that the witness was hostile to
25 me even during the examination in chief. I mean these direct questions
Page 14116
1 mean nothing to me. I have to ask questions in a roundabout way to drag
2 out of the witness what is relevant if that is possible. If it's not
3 possible, then forget it. You gave me two hours, then allow me to use
4 those two hours. I'm not an illiterate, uneducated person not to know
5 what I'm doing.
6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Okay, then go ahead.
7 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
8 Q. So then he said that he disarmed two guards and then Fadil Mujic
9 entered who was afraid when he saw him with a gun inside and then he said
10 that Fadil Mujic told him then that he helped them that night when he
11 came in and found one of the police officers trying to cut his ear off.
12 This was something that Fadil Mujic prevented from happening and
13 he said that they would help them to escape from Zvornik. Legija said he
14 kept that promise around 1600 hours, he managed to get them out of the
15 SUP building and to drive them towards the Zvornik barricade which was
16 held by the JNA and that on the way, Mujic asked him that he should help
17 him in turn by helping him to cross over into Serbia. This is something
18 that Legija is saying.
19 A. May I say something now?
20 Q. Go ahead, I am stating this so you could give your comments.
21 A. First of all, it's not true and does not make sense that I am
22 hostile towards you. Why would I? This is your case, and I am here a
23 witness; and I would like to honourably and honestly state what I know.
24 You are presenting some details to me here and already in my
25 statement I said that I don't know any details, but I explained all the
Page 14117
1 things that I saw when I entered the police administration and what -- I
2 saw these four people who were arrested, I didn't know their names at the
3 time. I told Fadil that he should release these people if he had no
4 evidence, but I also suggested that he should get in touch with
5 Asim Hadzic, who was at Kula Grad, and he was coordinating the defence
6 efforts there. I told him to get in touch with him and later I spoke
7 with Asim Hadzic, later, I spoke with him about it, and he said that he
8 had called Fadil Mujic on the phone and asked him to release them.
9 Fadil Mujic released those people, and they went out through the
10 hydro-electric power plants close to the police administration. He
11 didn't go to Serbia. He couldn't leave through Serbia. He passed
12 through my village and went, taking a different direction via Snagovo.
13 That's what that settlement is called, and then he went in the direction
14 of Kalesija and Tuzla
15 not true that he left through Zvornik.
16 Q. Well, gentlemen, you can see that we found out something
17 important, that Asim Hadzic intervened from Kula Grad with Fadil Mujic to
18 release these four people. Kula Grad was a Muslim fortification near
19 Zvornik. The Muslims were in a very good position there, and they were
20 prepared for combat there.
21 A. Mr. Seselj, this is a very good thing, it's a very good deed that
22 this person did.
23 Q. Well, we're not giving our value judgements here, only the facts
24 are important.
25 A. Well this is an important fact that this man released these
Page 14118
1 people.
2 Q. Now, we see that there was another man there and told Fadil Mujic
3 to have the people released. We didn't know that before. Nobody's yet
4 said that. We saw earlier on that Fadil Mujic released these men, but we
5 haven't heard so far that Asim was involved; and we didn't know about
6 your role in all that either.
7 So this is a very important question as far as I'm concerned.
8 Now, Legija goes on to say that Asim told him or rather
9 Fadil Mujic told him that his family was already in Serbia because he
10 transferred them when the conflict was imminent in Zvornik and Legija
11 says that his conduct was very proper, and he's referring to Fadil Mujic.
12 He said I helped him, and when we arrived across to Serbia, I managed to
13 find a car to have him drive to see his family. I never heard or saw him
14 after that and I sincerely hope that he's alive and well and managed
15 today meet up with his family.
16 Now, I don't want to explain the reasons why this is important
17 for me how Fadil Mujic went from Zvornik, left from Zvornik; so let's
18 hear your version, but don't mention the name of the place you live?
19 A. This is 100 percent correct. Fadil Mujic did pass through my
20 village and he spent several nights there, he slept there for several
21 nights.
22 Q. What date was that?
23 A. I'm not quite sure about the date but after the people were
24 released, he spent three or four nights in my village and I know
25 personally, I know the man personally, and he knows me. We talked and
Page 14119
1 then he left via Snagovo and a built-up area towards Kalesija and the
2 free territory of Tuzla. So it is unfounded, an unfounded fact that --
3 Q. Very well.
4 A. 100 per cent, that's 100 per cent correct.
5 Q. That's all I wanted to do, to clear that up and it's important to
6 me for certain reasons of my own to explain how Fadil Mujic came to leave
7 Zvornik.
8 Now, Legija goes on to say that the four of them went to the
9 Jezero Hotel in Mali
10 A. Perhaps some 300 metres downstream from the hydroelectric power
11 plant that you mentioned.
12 Q. Do you know that there was the JNA headquarters and Serbian
13 Territorial Defence staff was?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. In Hotel Jezero. And he says they reported to the staff there to
16 say that they were alive and well and he says despite the fact that he
17 had been beaten up, he wanted to become part and parcel of the struggle,
18 the fighting, and he explains his motives for fighting for the Serb
19 people. And he says they told me at the Territorial Defence staff, at
20 Jezero hotel that there were certain forces in the factory in Karakaj.
21 Did you know what Serb forces were in Karakaj?
22 A. I wasn't down there myself.
23 Q. But you heard about this?
24 A. Well of course but in that area from Karakaj further down, the
25 area was impopulated by a Serb majority and they were all part of
Page 14120
1 Chetnik -- the Chetnik formations. And of course in the factory they had
2 their staff and headquarters or administration or whatever.
3 Q. Let's clear one thing up. The Muslims called all Serb fighters
4 in this war Chetniks, didn't they, and the Serb fighters usually referred
5 to themselves as Chetniks. That's not contentious. You keep repeating
6 they were all Chetniks. I have nothing against that, you understand me
7 but let's just clear that up.
8 Now, this is what he says: When I arrived in Karakaj, I noticed
9 armed people in a factory there and I asked them who their commander was
10 and I learned that there were members of Arkan's guards there and members
11 of the Territorial Defence of Zvornik as well. Did you know that Arkan's
12 men were in Karakaj?
13 A. In my testimony I said that Arkan's men or the people's known as
14 Seselj's men were all over Serbia facing Karakaj and --
15 Q. Now you're taking all this together. They were volunteers of the
16 Serbian Radical Party there and you refer to them as Seselj's men, but
17 they joined the action across the bridge in Zvornik itself, whereas
18 Arkan's men started out from the direction of Karakaj. They didn't leave
19 at the same time. Do you agree with that?
20 A. Well, yes, because you are better informed.
21 Q. Yes, I am better informed. There were at least 100 volunteers of
22 the Serbian Radical Party there, and I have certain Muslim information
23 here to the effect that they estimate that there were about 2.000
24 soldiers on the Serb side. How many would you say there were, what would
25 you say the Serb forces were in the Zvornik area, how many soldiers, a
Page 14121
1 total of how many? What would you say?
2 A. Well, I really couldn't say. I couldn't give you a figure, but
3 if we know that there were 34 per cent -- that 34 per cent of the
4 population was Serb in the area and they were all involved in one way or
5 another --
6 Q. Well, don't do any guesswork if you don't know. I have a book
7 here provided me by The Hague Tribunal and it's Mirsad Hamdzic's book.
8 He wrote a book called, "Zvornik: From the elections to Dayton," and in
9 that book he says that the Serb forces numbered about 2.000 soldiers at
10 the time, including policemen. Everybody, the Territorial Defence, the
11 JNA, the volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party, Arkan's men, the White
12 Eagles and all the rest, and he enumerates them. And we'll say later on
13 some the characteristic details from that book. I have marked them if we
14 have time, but let's just finish with Legija's statements.
15 So you're not contending that it is possible that Arkan's men
16 were in Karakaj and the volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party were in
17 the town itself and that they went across the bridge into action. You're
18 not challenging, are you, although you don't know for sure?
19 A. I don't know for sure where they were deployed. That's what I
20 said.
21 Q. All right. Fine. Now, he goes on to say, I didn't know Arkan
22 personally until then but I respected him as a patriot and fighter.
23 Arkan arrived in Karakaj that night. When we got to know each other, I
24 explained who I was and everything that had happened to us and said that
25 I wanted to join the fighting, if possible as a member of his unit. So
Page 14122
1 that night was when Arkan and Legija met for the first time.
2 The next morning was the last time I saw Miki, and that was the
3 nickname for Miroslav Bogdanovic, and Zuco and Repic, they're the
4 Vuckovic brothers, I never saw them after that. They simply disappeared
5 somewhere.
6 And then Legija goes on to say, Later on I heard that Zuco formed
7 a unit of his own which was active as a paramilitary formation. With the
8 Serbian volunteer guard, I took part in the liberation of Zvornik and
9 later on Kula Grad, after which the guard withdrew because at Kula Grad
10 Major Zika was killed. He was a fighter and officer in the Guard whom
11 Arkan respected highly and loved.
12 I assume you've heard of the Yellow Wasps?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Do you know when they were formed?
15 A. No.
16 Q. Did you hear before you heard of the Yellow Wasps that there was
17 a Niko Markovic detachment attached to the Territorial Defence of
18 Zvornik?
19 A. No, this is the first time I have heard of that.
20 Q. All right. That completes this statement of Legija's. He goes
21 on to describe how he went with Arkan's men to Sarajevo and says that he
22 agrees that this statement be used in the trial at The Hague Tribunal,
23 and that he was ready to be a defence witness but not via videolink but
24 that he wanted to come in personally and testify in open session.
25 All right. That's that.
Page 14123
1 Now, before we go on to looking at some interesting details from
2 this book, let me ask you this: When you enumerated the political
3 parties active in Zvornik you mentioned the SDA party, the party of
4 Democratic Action that rallied Muslims and that was formed first; right?
5 A. Now whether it was formed first, I don't think so but they were
6 formed parallelly, the political parties.
7 Q. It was formed a little before the Serbian Democratic party?
8 A. Maybe half an hour before.
9 Q. Oh, no, let's not say things like that. You mention the Serbian
10 Democratic party, now did you mention the party of the former Communist
11 that's changed its name, the League of Communists became the SDP party,
12 the Party for Democratic Change?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. They took part in the elections?
15 A. Yes, they did.
16 Q. And they had a certain number of deputies in the municipal
17 assembly?
18 A. Two or a few, yes.
19 Q. Well, we have a list of those deputies in this book but that's
20 not important. And you said that at the time the Serbian Radical Party
21 existed too. You are the first witness who said here that the Serbian
22 Radical Party existed in Zvornik before the conflict. Where did you get
23 that piece of information from?
24 A. You formed the Serbian Radical Party far before and the fact is
25 that you spoke about meetings, rallies, and the war in Zvornik started on
Page 14124
1 the 8th of April, therefore the party existed throughout Yugoslavia a
2 long time before that.
3 Q. Well, no, it didn't. That's the problem. It didn't. The party
4 was still being organised in Serbia and you know that we were the last
5 serious party to be registered in Serbia. We held a founding assembly of
6 the unification of the Serbian Chetnik movement and most of the radical
7 party was held only on the 23rd of February, 1991, in Kragujevac. And
8 that's when the party began to branch out to different parts of Serbia
9 We had three initiation boards in the -- in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
10 Sarajevo, Bijeljina and Banja Luka, we had nothing in Zvornik. And you
11 can't name a single man from the Serbian Radical Party from Zvornik
12 before the war. I guarantee that. I guarantee that you cannot name a
13 single name.
14 A. But the deputies were from among the Serb people and they went
15 for consultations, the deputies of the SDS and the Serbian Radical Party.
16 Q. The Serb Serbian Radical Party did not have a single deputy how
17 could they have gone for consultations. It didn't even take part in the
18 elections. It's not there. It didn't exist and I have a list of parties
19 that took part in the election. We have a list of those parties here by
20 name. Lists.
21 A. But the Serbs, amongst themselves, did not agree. There were the
22 SDS men, Seselj's men, and they quarrelled amongst themselves. People
23 couldn't agree.
24 Q. Now, please, if they had -- didn't have a united stand, there was
25 far greater division amongst the Muslims?
Page 14125
1 A. They called themselves Seselj's men and the SDS.
2 Q. Who did?
3 A. Amongst themselves they did.
4 Q. The Serbian Radical Party didn't exist. It had no headquarters
5 in Zvornik at all. It didn't take part in the elections and it didn't
6 have any deputy, not a single one. The party was formed only later in
7 1993 or 1994 in Zvornik but the first deputies were in the municipal
8 assembly of Zvornik after the Dayton Accords, and then the Serbian
9 Radical Party was the ruling party in Zvornik. After the Dayton Accords,
10 did you hear that Seselj's radicals were in charge in Zvornik and in
11 control there, not only Zvornik but other municipalities too? Did you
12 hear about that?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. However, up until 1992, the party did not exist. You say that
15 the whole of Snagovo was in the hands of the Serbian Radical Party when
16 we didn't have a single member at the time.
17 A. That's how they declared themselves as Chetniks.
18 Q. Well, listen here. If somebody declares themselves a Chetnik, it
19 doesn't mean that they are Serb radicals. Not all Chetniks were Serb
20 radicals, I would like them to be but they're not, they weren't. The
21 Chetniks were Draskovic's men and members of the SDS and Jovic's men and
22 all sorts of -- you called all Serb soldiers, you Muslims, Chetniks,
23 whereas 95 per cent of the Serb soldiers referred to themselves as
24 Chetniks; isn't that right?
25 A. That is right.
Page 14126
1 Q. So this is just arbitrary. If they say they are Chetniks they
2 must be Seselj's men; is that your deduction?
3 A. Well, I don't really know. I never entered into the details of
4 all that, to see who the Chetniks were, who Seselj's men were. As far as
5 I was concerned, they were all Chetniks and Seselj's men. And this goes
6 back to the Second World War, where the Chetniks did the same in
7 World War II is you did in this war.
8 Q. Well, a serious historian would be able to explain all that to
9 you. I don't have the time to explain to you what the Chetniks did in
10 World War II, and you are susceptible to Communist propaganda. But never
11 mind, let's leave that for a moment. And now let's look at this little
12 book that the Prosecution also has.
13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, you have five
14 minutes left.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Just five minutes?
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, you have five minutes
17 left. And this question, I already dealt with it yesterday -- if you
18 want to talk about it again, fine, but this topic has already been
19 addressed yesterday. You have five minutes.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
21 Q. Now, the Muslims, did they arm themselves prior to the conflict
22 in Zvornik?
23 A. I have no information that they armed themselves because until
24 the very last day, they fought to avoid a conflict and war.
25 Q. Was there a plan for the defence of Zvornik by the Muslims?
Page 14127
1 A. A defence plan was only elaborated after Abdul Pasic [phoen]
2 returned and the Chief of Staff of the Territorial Defence Alija
3 Kapidzic, from the meeting on the 7th, when it was officially stated that
4 there was no talks or negotiations, no divisions but that we had to
5 solve -- resolve the situation through military means.
6 Q. Was there a conflict in the Muslim Crisis Staff?
7 A. No, why.
8 Q. Was there conflict in the Party of Democratic Action, the SDA?
9 A. At the time there were no conflicts but differences of opinion
10 did exist a year before that in the Serb party, but there was no conflict
11 then.
12 Q. Was there conflict as to the way in which the Muslims should be
13 armed?
14 A. I don't know. I'm not aware of that. All that was said in the
15 Crisis Staff was that all those people who had hunting weapons or --
16 Q. All right. Now, we have a quotation from Mirsad Hamdzic's book,
17 on page 71. The Patriotic Leagues were formed in the 26th of July, 1991,
18 in the youth library at Kula Grad, the 26th of July, 1991. We formed the
19 Crisis Staff but the commander was not nominated. In talks, Hadzic
20 Uzbasic [phoen] -- in the Hadzic-Uzbasic talks, Uzbasic's wing was asked
21 to provide a commander and there was a meeting at which it was decided
22 that Sakik Halilovic [phoen], Kibe [phoen], should be appointed
23 commander.
24 The organisation existed at the time, the defence plan had been
25 elaborated, the network for supplying arms was in place, weapons were
Page 14128
1 bought in Vienna and was brought in by ship where a network of the
2 Patriotic League existed. There were black marketeers who provided
3 weapons and sold them, and of the names who should be mentioned here,
4 Avdija Muratovic is one who went on several occasions to Brod and Gradac
5 to pick up the weapons and they could earn 100 German marks per barrel.
6 They tried to get firms and companies to provide them -- with
7 money to buy, to purchase weapons. There was a meeting with a major firm
8 when the Chetniks started in Karakaj and Celopek and resources were
9 sought but only Muhamed Jelkic [phoen], head of the health centre,
10 offered money for weapons to protect the population.
11 Similarly, we worked to pull out our young men who were in the
12 JNA and to prevent the mobilisation of the reserve force. And on
13 page 72, another brief quotation, despite this fact, and he is a he
14 referring to the unity among the ranks, through the Patriotic League
15 channels, the SDA managed in Zvornik municipality to bring in about 4.000
16 barrels, 4.000 pieces and at one of the municipal assembly meetings, the
17 deputies put forward the piece of information that the Bosniaks were
18 arming themselves, and then there was a extensive discussion about this.
19 Do you deny that?
20 A. I don't know about any of that. There are a lot of untruths in
21 that book as regards the number of pieces, weapons, the channels, and
22 network. I know nothing about that, nor did I discuss it with anyone.
23 Q. Well just a minute, were there Muslims armed to the extent that
24 they had 4.000 new rifles?
25 A. If the Muslims had 4.000 new rifles as you claim, and as you also
Page 14129
1 claim that the Chetniks only had about 3.000 armed persons, what would
2 the logic be of attacking somebody with 4.000 rifles if you only
3 had 2.000. You would be routed. There would be no logic in that.
4 Q. Well they were routed because they stood up to the leadership and
5 we have this in Himzo Tulic's book, have you heard of him?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. He wrote a book too. Now let's see what this Muslim author says
8 along with all the reservations that I can make and have towards him. As
9 an engaged author, he says who took part in the struggle for Zvornik on
10 the Serb side with the paramilitary units, Arkan's, and Seselj's men,
11 units of the JNA, which were made up of part of the light infantry
12 division of the JNA of Bijeljina and under the control of Colonel
13 Miletic; for the most part reinforced by local Serbs. And
14 Major Jovanovic, Zoran was in command, he was from Valjevo. There was an
15 armed battalion of the same name, Colonel Tacic and
16 Captain Dragan Obrenovic was commander of that unit and another mobilised
17 unit of the Mali Zvornik municipality in Loznica. They were armed to the
18 teeth and well-equipped, and this created an armed force for attacking
19 Zvornik, et cetera, et cetera. So that is on page 87 and this was a
20 Muslim author, Hamdzic. He describes this and says who fought on the
21 Serb side and he adds and says the following on page 92 --
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [No interpretation]
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I put one more question?
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Last question and then it's
25 finished.
Page 14130
1 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation] This is what this author says who
2 began the attack. This is according to him, and he is a Muslim author
3 who began the attack on the 8th of April. This is on page 92.
4 Q. Units of the JNA of the Tuzla, Novi Sad, and Uzice Corps enjoyed
5 coordination with the Pancevo's Specials, Arkan's men, Seselj's Chetniks,
6 and members of the White Eagles, units of the TO, of the Republic of
7 Serbia, and the TO of the municipalities of Mali Zvornik and Loznica and
8 paramilitary formations of the Serbian Democratic Party of the BiH of the
9 so-called Territorial Defences of the municipality of Zvornik.
10 Was it clear to you that throughout that whole time you were in
11 conflict with the JNA and all the forces were under the direct command of
12 the JNA?
13 A. I don't know under whose direct command they were, but you did
14 say which forces participated in the attack including your forces we're
15 discussing. You here and your ideas.
16 Q. How did you know what we are discussing here? Don't lecture.
17 I'm asking you. Did you know that all the Serbian forces were under the
18 direct control of the JNA? That is the question.
19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, it's finished. You
20 put the question to him and he answered quite clearly.
21 Mr. Marcussen, do you have any re-examination?
22 MR. MARCUSSEN: Two very brief questions, Your Honours, but
23 before that I just wish to put on record --
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Proceed.
25 MR. MARCUSSEN: -- that the accused did not, as he was supposed
Page 14131
1 to, notify of us to his intention to use Mr. Tulic's book in his
2 cross-examination. Now he has referred to this book endlessly, so I did
3 not object. I do wish to put this on the record. VS-2000 --
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I must respond to that. I received
5 this book from the Prosecution under 68(1), that rule, and the
6 Prosecution marked this book with its numbers. Every page has a number,
7 so why would I have to inform the Prosecutor about this particular
8 matter?
9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We have discussed this for
10 hours. The Prosecution is entitled to this, i.e., that he is informed
11 before the cross-examination of what documents will be used. We have
12 gone over this ground time and time again.
13 Mr. Marcussen, put your question.
14 Re-examination by Mr. Marcussen:
15 Q. I'd like to ask you about the meeting at the culture centre in
16 Mali Zvornik in March 1992, and I have two questions.
17 My first question is how long a time was there between the
18 accused, Dr. Seselj, inside the hall and you were taken out of the hall?
19 How long time do you estimate past there?
20 A. Not more than ten minutes, maybe five to ten minutes, just that
21 much.
22 Q. And how long time passed from you had been taken out of the hall
23 until you saw Seselj come out of the hall?
24 A. Exactly that, ten minutes, not more than that, probably less by a
25 minute or two, so it was maybe in eight minutes, not longer than that.
Page 14132
1 Q. So the accused was present at the meeting for 20 minutes or
2 something like that?
3 A. Very briefly, perhaps 20 minutes past until the time I went out
4 and then after I was taken out, some eight to ten minutes, so it was very
5 brief. So he could not have read all of these things just off the top of
6 his head that he had read out. He mentioned so many details, and he
7 needed two hours to do it.
8 MR. MARCUSSEN: I have no further questions, Your Honour.
9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Witness, I would like to thank
10 you for having come to testify at the request of the Prosecution. I wish
11 you a safe journey home.
12 As I mentioned a few moments ago, at 8.30 on Wednesday, we have
13 our next witness. Two hours have been scheduled for the Prosecution and
14 two hours for Mr. Seselj.
15 Mr. Seselj.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have two administrative matters.
17 First of all I understood ...
18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very briefly because the
19 audiotape is going to stop.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] First of all, I understood that you
21 gave -- issued and order for the Prosecution to obtain material evidence
22 about the date of the rally of the radical -- or the Chetniks in
23 Mali
24 we reconvene. That's one thing.
25 The other thing is I received another one in a series of requests
Page 14133
1 from the Prosecution that statements by deceased witnesses should be
2 submitted under specific rules. This is the statement by Matija Boskovic
3 under Rule 92 quater, and I absolutely oppose this because this is
4 something that cannot be done even under Anglo-Saxon law, even under the
5 modified form that is being used in this Tribunal, so I hope that you
6 will not be violating procedural rules just the way so other
7 Trial Chambers are doing. Some Chambers are doing that, some Trial
8 Chambers by admitting these types of statements, and I don't believe that
9 this can be done if the accused disagrees with it.
10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Regarding the second item,
11 the -- it's on the record now.
12 The Prosecution, for the first point, if on Wednesday morning if
13 you can tell us that after research that you have a number of documents
14 that would deal with this meeting allegedly held in March 1992, that
15 would be a really good thing. You have all weekend to do your research,
16 and on Wednesday you will tell us what you found.
17 We will reconvene on Wednesday at 8.30.
18 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 5.52 p.m.
19 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 11th day of
20 February, 2009, at 8.30 a.m.
21
22
23
24
25