1 Wednesday, 12 June 2002

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.33 a.m.

6 MR. NICE: Before we return to the ambassador's evidence, can I

7 just deal with two things? First can I request that we have half an hour

8 this afternoon, perhaps at half past 3.00, to deal with the Rule 70

9 issue? The representatives concerned are available and the matter has got

10 to be sorted out for the timetabling of the witness. That shouldn't

11 interfere with cross-examination of this witness, either because by then

12 there would have been enough time for cross-examination or because I

13 understand the witness is prepared to stay on tomorrow if that's

14 necessary.

15 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, let us deal with that first. What will be

16 the application in relation to it?

17 MR. NICE: It will be for the government concerned to come and

18 make its position clear in a way that I simply can't make clear.

19 JUDGE MAY: We had notification that there may be such an

20 application, so we've had a chance to consider it, and we are not in

21 favour of it. We don't think it appropriate. If counsel cannot make the

22 matter plain, then we don't think it appropriate for governments to

23 appear.

24 MR. NICE: Well, Your Honour, may I nevertheless have time at the

25 end of the day to deal with it because I will be provided with more

1 information --

2 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

3 MR. NICE: -- and I will have the representative to assist me.

4 And these are difficult matters, and indeed I've taken a course of dealing

5 with them far more openly than they're typically dealt with. Because to

6 date I think they've typically been dealt with in other Chambers on an

7 entirely ex parte basis, and I've avoided doing that.

8 JUDGE MAY: Quite right, too, if I may say. Clearly, matters of

9 this sort should, as far as possible, be dealt with openly. But you've

10 heard our views.

11 MR. NICE: Certainly. I'll convey those to the government

12 concerned. But in any event, if we may provisionally have half past 3.00

13 as the time for dealing with that.

14 Second, I want to be in a position to make a final decision about

15 Vllasi, as well as to have a decision made about the other witness.

16 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

17 MR. NICE: I know you've had a summary. I've provided the fuller

18 document.

19 JUDGE MAY: We have it.

20 MR. NICE: It's not a statement. It's called investigator's

21 notes, but it's effectively a draft summary. And it may be that we can

22 have a few minutes in that half-hour session this afternoon.

23 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll read it during the adjournment.

24 MR. NICE: I'm grateful. And I believe you've already had a copy

25 of the statement of the witness to whom the Rule 70 application relates so

1 that you can consider him.

2 And with that, we'll turn, if we may, to the evidence of the

3 ambassador.

4 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

5 WITNESS: WILLIAM WALKER [Resumed]

6 Examined by Mr. Nice: [Continued]

7 Q. Ambassador, I've been given an indication, really by sign

8 language, I think, but I understand it to mean that can you and I leave a

9 gap between question and answer, if we're not to incur the wrath of the

10 interpreters.

11 A. I will try.

12 Q. We reached the stage yesterday where you were about, in your

13 narrative, to leave Racak. You've given us your general conclusions, and

14 you can be asked further questions about those. But one thing I hadn't

15 asked you is this: One of the propositions that has been advanced since

16 the discovery of the bodies at Racak was that the bodies had been in some

17 way redressed, that their clothes had been taken off, and perhaps uniforms

18 had been taken off, and they had been redressed as civilians. Of course,

19 you're a layman, you don't have forensic scientific skills or medical

20 skills, but nevertheless, from what you saw?

21 A. My firm layman's conclusion from what I saw on the ground, the

22 positions of the bodies, the clothes worn, the bullet holes and the blood,

23 the fact that it was in the middle of winter up a very slippery, steep

24 slope, and any changing of clothes and that sort of thing would have to

25 have been done in the darkness of night, in the middle of the night, and I

1 consider that story, that version, that interpretation that somehow these

2 bodies were redressed to be ludicrous.

3 Q. Now, you've dealt in your statements in detail with what precisely

4 happened as you returned from Racak, and I don't need to take you through

5 that in any detail at all, but there is one proposition that's been raised

6 and that has been the subject of evidence and that I'd like your help with

7 and that's this: Telephone calls, if any, made either to OSCE officials,

8 to NATO, or to United States officials between the time of your leaving

9 Racak, or indeed while you were at Racak, and the time that you delivered

10 the press statement in Pristina.

11 What summary can you give us of your recollection of making phone

12 calls and your explanation, if any, for what's been said about them?

13 A. I've been asked many times that question, and I sincerely have no

14 recollection of myself talking to some of the people who have later said

15 they talked to me. This would include people in Vienna with the OSCE and

16 others.

17 I have no doubt that I did tell others to make sure the news of

18 what had happened that morning was conveyed to as many people as we could

19 get it to. I certainly wanted OSCE headquarters, I wanted the capitals of

20 the OSCE Member States to know what had happened. So I'm sure I told

21 people to inform as many people as they wanted to.

22 If people claim I spoke to them either while I was at Racak or on

23 the way back or before the press conference, I have no doubt. I don't

24 question that. I probably did. But there was so much happening at the

25 time, I was so involved in the events that I saw on the ground, trying to

1 figure out what it all meant and then, when I got back to the office,

2 trying to construct what I was going to say at the press conference, I

3 frankly have no memory, no recollection of -- of talking to any of these

4 people. But this does not mean I did not. If they say I did, I'm quite

5 sure they are not lying.

6 Q. Thank you. Back in Pristina, you eventually -- not eventually.

7 You in due course made a press statement.

8 A. That is correct.

9 Q. And first of all, give us of your account of that statement and

10 then we'll look at the printed document itself.

11 A. As I might have mentioned yesterday, when I was at Racak, a number

12 of journalists asked me questions about what I had seen and what I thought

13 of it, and I believe I made comments that I would try to recollect my

14 thoughts and when I got back to Pristina, I promised to hold a press

15 conference.

16 When I got back to Pristina, I told my staff to put together a

17 press conference, and that was done.

18 Between my arrival and when the press conference started, I spent

19 most of the time, if not all of it, in my office with my computer, trying

20 to collect my thoughts and put it into a statement. The statement was

21 essentially a description of what I had seen, a description of how the

22 news came to the KVM the night before from General Loncar's office, and

23 then my conclusions as to whether or not what we had been told by the

24 government and what we had seen coincided, and my conclusion was they did

25 not coincide.

1 I said that on what I had seen -- again, I emphasise that I was

2 not a specialist, I was not a crime scene investigator, but from what I

3 had seen, the stories did not jibe. From what I have seen, it appeared to

4 me to have been a number, perhaps as many as 40 or more, men and boys had

5 been taken away, unarmed, and later turned up dead. I described it as a

6 massacre. I said that I would hope that the government in Belgrade, if it

7 disagreed with my conclusions, would admit trained criminal investigators

8 so that they could go to the scene and determine what had in fact

9 happened. I specifically mentioned investigators from this Tribunal. And

10 I opened it up for questions.

11 I think some of what I'm saying now, as my words that afternoon,

12 came out in the questions and answers rather than in my formal

13 introductory statement.

14 Q. Thank you.

15 MR. NICE: May we now look at the exhibit, please, which is in the

16 bundle before the Judges at page 14, but here comes the exhibit itself to

17 be separately produced. Sorry, not page 14, Your Honours. I gave you the

18 wrong page. It's -- and it will become exhibit -- I think it's going to

19 be Exhibit 229. No?

20 THE REGISTRAR: That should be the Exhibit 230.

21 MR. NICE: 230. Thank you. And if the Chamber's happy to work

22 with the exhibit just produced, this is the -- can we put a copy on the

23 overhead projector, please, so that those viewing may see it?

24 I'm sorry, I don't think it is in the bundle. It should have

25 been. There it is.

1 Q. Headed "Massacre of Civilians in Racak." It reads:

2 "On the 15th of January, the KVM reported a serious deterioration

3 of the situation in the Stimlje area. Racak, Malopoljce, Petrovo and

4 Belince villages (south and west of Stimlje) were all affected. VJ and

5 police forces prevented KVM patrols from entering the area but late in the

6 afternoon the KVM patrol did get to the village of Racak. Verifiers saw

7 one dead Albanian civilian and five injured civilians, including a woman

8 and a boy, suffering from gunshot wounds. The KVM also received

9 unconfirmed reports of other deaths in the area. Residents of Racak

10 claimed that men had been segregated from women and children and that 20

11 males had been arrested and taken away. The verifiers took the details

12 and evacuated the casualties before the onset of darkness."

13 And had casualties been evacuated?

14 A. Yes, they had.

15 Q. The next paragraph, in summary, asserts a wholesale violation of

16 the cease-fire.

17 The next paragraph speaks of verifiers - of teams, including

18 verifiers, going to the village, and KDOM units sending patrols.

19 The next paragraph sets out the accounts of surviving residents

20 speaking of the killings taking place on the 15th of January and giving an

21 account of the VJ and the police and security forces being involved.

22 The next paragraph dealt with the arrival of the first KVM teams

23 on the 16th of January and finding bodies in the houses and then the 23

24 male victims on high ground.

25 The next paragraph touches on initial reports that led to your

1 going to the village and your writing the following:

2 "On arrival, villagers guided me to a site where I saw, much to

3 my horror and shock, the bodies of over 20 men who had obviously been

4 executed where they lay. I do not have the words to describe my personal

5 revulsion, or that of all those who were with me, at the sight of what can

6 only be described as an unspeakable atrocity. Although I only saw the

7 bodies of 20, mostly elderly men, many shot at extremely close range, most

8 shot in the front, back, and top of the head, KVM verifiers moved about

9 and counted an additional number.

10 "In all, 45 bodies were observed, including three women and one

11 child. They were all in civilian clothes. All looked like humble village

12 inhabitants. Although I am not a lawyer, from what I personally saw, I do

13 not hesitate to describe the event as a massacre, a crime against

14 humanity, nor do I hesitate to accuse the government security forces of

15 responsibility.

16 "The FRY government must produce the names of all involved in the

17 police and VJ operations around Stimlje, who gave the orders, who executed

18 those orders. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former

19 Yugoslavia must come in, with visas, at the invitation of the FRY

20 government, or without, to investigate this atrocity, and this must be

21 accomplished in the next 24 hours."

22 And the press release goes on to say further about the facts as

23 verified by the KVM, and how that was violations of international

24 humanitarian law, and how, in the last paragraph, you met with - or the

25 last substantial paragraph - how you met with KLA representatives, who

1 articulated their frustration and anger and indeed expressed their desire

2 for revenge, although orders in the KLA headquarters were for continued

3 restraint.

4 Mentioning there of this Tribunal, what was the position of the

5 then Prosecutor, Justice Louise Arbour, at about that time?

6 A. I believe it was the following day I received a call from Judge

7 Arbour, and we discussed what I had seen briefly and what I had said

8 briefly, and I told her I thought it was very important that either she or

9 people from this Tribunal, investigators, criminal investigators, come to

10 Kosovo and do a thorough investigation. Judge Arbour reminded me that she

11 had not been able to obtain a visa to enter the former Yugoslavia. She

12 asked me if I thought it advisable for her to try to enter. I told her I

13 thought that would be the best thing. I told her that if she was denied

14 entry or her people were denied entry, that that would indicate that the

15 government was not terribly serious about finding out what had happened at

16 Racak. She said that she would personally get on a plane the following

17 day, I believe it was, on the 18th, and try to enter via Skopje,

18 Macedonia, in other words, the southern border.

19 I told her I would send people down. I had something to do the

20 following day. I can't remember what it was. I told her I would send

21 some of my people down to try and facilitate her entry. I sent my French

22 deputy, Mr. Keller. They went down, and I later received word that she

23 had tried to make entry at the border, had been denied entry, and had been

24 told she did not have the proper documentation.

25 Q. Before we turn from the press statement: The words used, did

1 anybody else contribute to or cause you to use any of the words, or were

2 they your choice?

3 A. My statement was totally my creation. These were all my words.

4 Q. Then can we move from the statement and the events at Racak to the

5 fallout from it, which the Chamber can find at paragraph 64 and 65 of the

6 second witness statement.

7 What was the effect of your statement in Belgrade and indeed

8 elsewhere?

9 A. It had immediate and, I would describe, dramatic impact. I had

10 not anticipated as much impact as it seemed to have. But the following

11 day we were receiving newspaper accounts and telephone calls from all over

12 Europe, and elsewhere, talking about the events at Racak, asking about the

13 events at Racak. There was a tremendous reaction to it.

14 Q. The effect eventually on you was what, your status in Yugoslavia?

15 A. Given the reaction, I decided to drive to Belgrade and asked to

16 see President Milosevic. Government representatives were already coming

17 out with very critical comments on my statement, and I thought it best

18 that I go and speak to Mr. Milosevic directly. My people asked for an

19 appointment. We were told he's busy, so we sat in the hotel for I think

20 most of the day, maybe longer. And at night, when I was going out to

21 dinner, some journalists, some Serb journalists, came to the hotel and

22 they asked me what I thought of having been declared persona non grata.

23 And that was how I learned that the government had, in fact, issued a

24 statement over the radio, over the media, without informing me that I had

25 been given 48 hours to leave the country, that I was persona non grata.

1 Q. In fact, were you forced out as quickly as that or were you able

2 to stay with what was called frozen status or something?

3 A. The OSCE chairman in office went to President Milosevic. In

4 various conversations, as I understand it, including a face-to-face

5 discussion, at first my 48 hours was extended to, I think, 72 hours, and

6 at the very last minute I was informed that an agreement had been reached

7 that I was in something called a frozen persona non grata status, which I

8 never quite heard defined and had never heard of before.

9 Q. In the event, you didn't see the accused again?

10 A. I'm sorry?

11 Q. You didn't see the accused again?

12 A. No.

13 Q. You did, however, stay in Kosova until the withdrawal of the OSCE

14 generally?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Perhaps in a sentence or so, just explain that withdrawal and your

17 part in it.

18 A. After Racak, the level of cooperation from government authorities,

19 what little we had before Racak, disappeared. Our verifiers, our people,

20 found themselves in increasingly difficult and dangerous situations when

21 they were out and about patrolling. The chairman in office of the OSCE,

22 after what he said were lengthy discussions with the principal players in

23 the capitals of Europe and North America, called me and said, "Since you

24 are finding it increasingly difficult to fulfil the mandate of the

25 mission, and since things appear to be getting increasingly difficult in

1 terms of security for your people," at first he asked me if I thought it

2 would be wise to withdraw, and later he -- and I agreed that I thought it

3 would be, and later he ordered me to withdraw the mission, in mid-March,

4 late March.

5 Q. And as we've heard from other witnesses, everyone on the mission

6 was got out, and I think that you stayed until the end and were the last

7 person across the line, with General Drewienkiewicz.

8 A. That is essentially correct. We thought we had gotten all 1.400

9 and some people out. A few days later, we discovered that two or three

10 verifiers who had been on vacation or on leave and had not gotten the word

11 that the mission had been withdrawn showed up in Belgrade. But

12 essentially, we got everyone out under our evacuation plan, via Skopje;

13 not only the people, but almost all of our equipment.

14 Q. I think I will ask you to look at a couple of other documents

15 before we turn to a couple of events after your withdrawal. First of all,

16 can we look at what's already been produced as Exhibit 94, tab 33, which

17 is a statement I've just handed in. Then it can go straight on the

18 overhead projector. 94, tab 33.

19 This is a statement for the press issued by Milutinovic, the

20 president. Do you remember that?

21 A. I remember reading it, yes, when it came out.

22 Q. We can follow it on the screen to save time.

23 "In the wake of the statement of Ambassador William Walker, head

24 of the OSCE Verification Mission in Kosovo ... the President of the

25 Republic ... made the following statement:

1 "When yesterday ... police undertook to arrest terrorists who

2 killed a police officer ... in a terrorist attack, in the vicinity of

3 Racak...," and I'm skipping some words, "... terrorists attacked them from

4 automatic weapons, portable launchers and mortars. The police had to

5 respond to such terrorist savagery in line with their powers. The OSCE

6 mission and Ambassador Walker were duly informed of undertaking the

7 arrests. Immediately after the clash, an investigating team arrived at

8 the scene headed by an investigating judge ... Danica Marinkovic and the

9 Deputy District Prosecutor ... the terrorists, who took positions on the

10 neighbouring hills, opened fire and prevented the investigation."

11 Did you yourself see anything of Judge Marinkovic?

12 A. I've never met the lady.

13 Q. Did you hear about her involvement at Racak?

14 A. I subsequently heard that she was the investigative judge in the

15 case.

16 Q. Move on: "... on the 16th of January," in the statement, "the

17 on-site investigation was once again prevented because William Walker

18 demanded the investigating judge to go there without police protection,

19 thereby preventing the competent judicial authorities from carrying out

20 their legal obligations."

21 Any truth in that?

22 A. No.

23 Q. "However, at the same time, Ambassador Walker, accompanied by

24 foreign and journalists of Albanian separatist newspapers whom he

25 personally invited, visited the scene and took advantage of the absence of

1 judicial and other state authorities so as to make the statement

2 containing falsehoods and personal assessments which are totally

3 baseless."

4 Any truth in the particular assertions there about you inviting

5 Albanian separatist newspaper journalists?

6 A. No.

7 Q. It goes on to make the following observations and I'll deal with

8 them in a block to save time so far as we can.

9 "He even went on so far as to personally assess what happened, to

10 pass judgements and even to give orders what should be done next - and all

11 that in a sovereign country.

12 "In this act of deceiving the world opinion, according to

13 well-known recipes attempting to stage some kind of new "Markale,"

14 Ambassador Walker secured the full protection of his proteges from the

15 terrorist so-called "KLA." The series of lies and fabrications he accused

16 our state authorities in an obvious attempt to divert the attention from

17 terrorists, murderers and kidnappers and to once again protect them the

18 way he had been protecting them all along. Ever since he came, he turned

19 a blind eye only to the crimes of the terrorists. Security of citizens,

20 security and responsibility of the police does not interest him, and in

21 his today's statement he has passed judgements on the authorities of

22 Serbia and Yugoslavia, their competent authorities, and accused them of

23 "violating the cease-fire" - for what if not for protection of terrorists

24 to whose crimes has remained silent."

25 There's an assertion of bias and prejudice. What do you say to

1 that, Ambassador?

2 A. I say it's an incorrect interpretation of my actions and words. I

3 tried to be as neutral and evenhanded as possible. I tried to denounce

4 violence, kidnappings, assassinations wherever they occurred from what

5 side they occurred.

6 Q. Just go to the end of last passages -- thank you very much.

7 "The attacks on terrorists, even when launched from mortars and

8 other heavy weapons he does not consider to be illegal. Such an attitude

9 does not come for the first time to the fore in his statement and in his

10 preventing that the investigating judge carry out her duty according to

11 the oaths of her -- the laws of her own country. He probably forgot that

12 he is not Governor or a Prosecutor or a Judge in Serbia or in the FRY but

13 the representative of the organisation of 54 equal states and the head of

14 the mission whose task is not to rule the country of a sovereign country

15 but to observe and report accurately. By his statement of today, he

16 forgot himself because he seems to favour the role of the prosecutor and

17 the judge at the same time."

18 Were you assuming such a role or were you, in your judgement,

19 performing your duties as commissioned to do?

20 A. I was charged with telling the OSCE what was happening in Kosovo,

21 and what I was doing was trying to discharge that responsibility.

22 Q. And then, finally, I'll just deal with the first sentence of the

23 next paragraph.

24 "Even though it is indisputably clear that the police was

25 provoked and compelled to defend itself from terrorist attacks, Mr. Walker

1 ignored that fact and proclaimed the event as a conflict with the civilian

2 population."

3 Remind us again. Had the Serb forces taken any opportunity, in

4 your visit to Racak, to explain the position or to get witnesses to talk

5 to you, to explain the position? Or soldiers or policemen?

6 A. Not to my knowledge. As I mentioned yesterday, we invited

7 General Loncar to accompany us, and he declined. That was the only effort

8 I saw to reach out and find out what the government was saying other than

9 what we had heard from General Loncar the night before, the 16th.

10 Q. And was there any evidence before you, suggested to be

11 indisputably clear, that the police were provoked and compelled to defend

12 themselves?

13 A. Not before me, no.

14 Q. Was there any evidence before you at any time of Serb casualties

15 arising at Racak?

16 A. As I said in my statement, when the purported clash was described

17 to us by General Loncar's office on the evening of the 15th, we had been

18 told there were no government casualties.

19 Q. Thank you very much.

20 MR. NICE: You can take that document off the overhead projector

21 and replace it with 94, Exhibit 94, tab 36, again to save time, and we'll

22 see how your change of status was documented, or we'll look at part of

23 this document. Starting at the top, please.

24 Q. This is a statement from the federal government and it's dated --

25 I haven't got the date. We'll see --

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1 "At today's extraordinary session chaired by the Prime Minister

2 Momir Bulatovic, the Federal Government considered the latest events in

3 Kosovo and Metohija and the pressure put on the Federal Republic of

4 Yugoslavia. The government thinks it is a new campaign of the

5 international community and decisively refused the groundless, false and

6 malevolent assertions on events that took place in the village of Racak.

7 "The federal government considered the activities of William

8 Walker, Director of OSCE ... and concluded they are in flagrant --"

9 THE INTERPRETER: Mr. Nice, please slow down when reading. Thank

10 you.

11 MR. NICE:

12 Q. "-- OSCE mission. Mr. Walker's activities went far beyond his

13 mandate ...."

14 Next paragraph. And move up one paragraph, please. It then

15 says:

16 "... Mr. Walker is to leave the Yugoslav territory within 48

17 hours," and then says this:

18 "Regarding cooperation with The Hague Tribunal, the government --

19 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Nice, you are being asked to slow down.

20 MR. NICE: Sorry.

21 Q. "Regarding cooperation with The Hague Tribunal, the government

22 confirmed Yugoslavia's readiness to fully implement the agreement signed

23 with the Tribunal. However, The Hague Tribunal has no jurisdiction in

24 Kosovo and Metohija whatsoever since the war is -- since the issue is not

25 war but terrorism and our state's legitimacy to fight it.

1 "The representatives of the Tribunal may come into our country --

2 in our country and negotiate on the realisation of the Agreement, but they

3 can't inspect and investigate in Kosovo and Metohija."

4 And you can read the rest. Just one thing, Ambassador, arising

5 from that. It suggests here that there was no recognition of the right of

6 this country to deal with terrorism. What do you say about that?

7 A. My personal opinion would be that a government certainly has a

8 sovereign right to deal with terrorism but in a rational and reasonable

9 fashion, not going in and essentially executing unarmed civilians in a

10 village such as Racak, which is what was done.

11 Q. Thank you. There are just two remaining topics, each of which

12 I'll ask you to deal with succinctly but in your own manner, without my

13 interruption, because I think it will be quicker.

14 At Rambouillet, the Kosovo Albanian representatives did not sign.

15 There was an adjournment, as it were. You took part or were present. Can

16 you just explain why, in your judgement, they weren't prepared to sign at

17 that first opportunity?

18 A. I only attended the opening session of Rambouillet, having

19 completed what was the KVM's mission, which was to get the Albanian

20 delegation, including the KLA members, to Paris for the talks. I then

21 returned to Pristina.

22 At the conclusion of the first round of the Rambouillet talks, as

23 you said, the Albanian delegation said it was ready to sign but was not

24 going to sign and asked for a two-week break in the talks. When the

25 Albanian delegation returned to Kosovo, I was asked to try to determine

1 what had been on their minds, why they made this, "We are ready to sign

2 but we're not going to sign at this moment. "

3 So I went and talked to a number of the delegates who were in

4 Rambouillet, and I talked to at least three KLA commanders and asked them

5 to tell me why they had asked for the two-week delay. Their answer was

6 something along the lines that while at Rambouillet, the delegation

7 recognised that they were dealing with a historic moment for their people,

8 for their constituents, and that what they signed their names to would be

9 of incredible importance to their people.

10 They also said that this was the first time in their memory that

11 Albanians from Kosovo had been at a negotiating session in person,

12 negotiating for their own future, and in their first encounter in

13 international negotiations, they found they were dealing with Madeleine

14 Albright, Robin Cook, the foreign ministers of Europe and North America,

15 and they were somewhat overwhelmed with their own lack of experience in

16 negotiations.

17 They said that although they read the document they thought they

18 could sign many times, they were worried, they were concerned that there

19 might be some things in there that, with their inexperience, they were not

20 totally grasping, and therefore they wanted to take some time out to go

21 over this document. And they also wanted to touch base with their various

22 constituencies to make sure that the Albanian population that they

23 represented was truly in favour of their signing it. They told me that

24 they had conducted whatever sort of survey they could do and had come to

25 the conclusion that the Albanian population wanted peace, wanted their

1 delegation to sign on their behalf. So they returned to Rambouillet, to

2 France, and indicated their willingness now to sign.

3 Q. The second topic, different: The book or books "As Seen, As

4 Told," prepared by the OSCE, just explain what triggered their

5 preparation, bearing in mind that it may be the Chamber will be hearing in

6 due course from Sandra Mitchell, who will be able to deal with

7 methodology.

8 A. When the mission terminated in Kosovo, we moved into Macedonia.

9 Shortly after our exit, the NATO bombing campaign began, and also began an

10 exodus from Kosovo of tens of thousands of refugees. This exodus

11 overwhelmed the Macedonian government, the Albanian government. The

12 people were put into very hastily constructed camps. Since I had 1.400

13 people who had recently been in Kosovo, who had worked with the Albanian

14 population, we were asked by Mrs. Ogata from UNHCR, we were asked by the

15 Macedonian authorities, by others, to help in the initial days of the

16 camps.

17 I visited, I think, most of the camps in Macedonia, and later

18 visited some of them in Albania. The conditions were horrendous, and

19 everywhere I went, people in the camps, not only in the camps - sometimes

20 I visited villages where the people were living outside the camps, the

21 refugees - people approached me and I heard story after story after story

22 about what had happened in their villages while they were being driven

23 out, et cetera.

24 Sandra Mitchell was an officer on my staff in Kosovo who I had

25 come to respect. I had given her the task of dealing with the human

1 rights situation in Kosovo, and in our Macedonian exile, I asked her to

2 put together a team to go to the camps and to collect as many of these

3 stories of what had happened to these refugees. I told her that we wanted

4 only first-person accounts. We didn't want hearsay; we didn't want people

5 talking about things they had heard about, but only things that they had

6 witnessed.

7 Sandra put together a team of five or six people. I think some of

8 them were lawyers. I remember specifically there was a Danish lady, a

9 German lawyer, several other people from various nationalities. And they

10 spent the remaining time that we were there as a mission in the camps

11 compiling depositions, sworn depositions, as I say, of these tales of

12 abuse, and that was eventually compiled into -- I'm sorry. I didn't know

13 the title of the document, but what we call the OSCE Human Rights Report.

14 Q. Thank you, Ambassador. You will be asked further questions.

15 MR. NICE: My further apologies for going too fast in the reading,

16 to the interpreters.

17 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Mr. Milosevic. Microphone,

19 please.

20 JUDGE MAY: Microphone.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The microphone is on. The light is

22 on. My question was: How long are you going to limit my

23 cross-examination to?

24 JUDGE MAY: Three hours, no more. If you refrain from arguing

25 with the witness, if you refrain from repeating the questions, if you ask

1 short questions, you will be able for get much more done. So you follow

2 that line.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I don't know that I've argued

4 with witnesses. But let me say before I start that I expected that you

5 would shorten the time for my cross-examination, in view of yesterday's

6 proclamations with respect to Rule 92 bis, because Drewienkiewicz

7 testified for two days, Maisonneuve also took two days, and their chief,

8 according to you, should be exposed to cross-examination for three hours

9 only, and I think that that is --

10 JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation continues]... further time,

11 which is taken off your time for cross-examination. Now, move on.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Very well, Mr. May. I

13 just said this for it to come out in the record, and not to waste time.

14 The opposite side began its examination-in-chief yesterday with

15 the diplomatic career of the witness, as a career diplomat.

16 Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

17 Q. [Interpretation] Is it true that, by Clinton, in June 1993, you

18 were nominated and appointed ambassador to Panama, and that it was on the

19 basis of the position of the senate, and on that grounds, that he

20 refrained from actually sending you there?

21 JUDGE MAY: Do you understand the question?

22 THE WITNESS: Yes.

23 A. My "nomination" is a bit overstating it. The Clinton White House

24 was thinking about nominating me to go to Panama, but one senator

25 objected. And in our system, one senator has the ability to impede a

1 nomination and confirmation, so I did not go to Panama.

2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. And was the reason for this, for impeding this, as you termed it,

4 amongst other things, your false testimony with respect to the deaths in

5 Salvador, where you were ambassador?

6 A. The senator's reasons for opposing my nomination have never been

7 made clear, either to me, nor to the State Department.

8 Q. Let me remind you of "It's Official." That is the title of the

9 Washington Post of the 16th of June, 1993, where it says:

10 [In English] "[Previous translation continues]... officer William

11 Walker, former ambassador to El Salvador and before that a diplomat in

12 Bolivia, Honduras, Brazil and Peru, to replace Deane Hinton in Panama."

13 [Interpretation] And then, two days later, also in the Washington

14 Post, on the 18th of June, we have the following correction:

15 [In English] "[Previous translation continues]... on the

16 nomination of career diplomat William Walker to be ambassador to Panama,

17 as was reported here on Wednesday. There are hints of some Senate

18 unhappiness with Walker, formerly ambassador to El Salvador..."

19 [Interpretation] Did that have anything to do with the reactions

20 of the Panama public and church?

21 A. I have no idea why the Washington Post said that, nor what the

22 reaction of the Panamanian people and church might have been.

23 Q. All right, then. Let me remind you of this, in connection with

24 the fact that this challenging was linked to your previous work in El

25 Salvador and the writings of the New York Times, for instance, on the 24th

1 of April, 1990. Only the portions which make reference to you, so I'm not

2 going to quote the entire newspaper article:

3 [In English] "[Previous translation continues]... Walker said

4 there was no evidence the military was involved in the Jesuits' murder;

5 rebels dressed in Government uniforms might have done it, he suggested.

6 Those preposterous propositions were exploded five days later by President

7 Cristiani's statement."

8 JUDGE MAY: What's the question?

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The question is -- may I just finish

10 my quotation from this New York Times article, which I was quoting,

11 because it talks about the Roman Catholic archbishop:

12 [In English] "Four church women from the United States were

13 murdered. Two US labour representatives were shot in the Sheraton Hotel

14 as they met a land reform leader ... The murder of six Jesuit priests last

15 November has brought the issue forward again. There is no doubt that the

16 killers were in the armed forces; President Alfredo Cristiani said so on

17 January 7... What is at stake is not just a minimum level of decency in

18 El Salvador. It is our own honour."

19 Q. [Interpretation] Is it true that you made a false representation

20 of the events in El Salvador?

21 A. No. Your Honour, might I explain the --

22 JUDGE MAY: Certainly.

23 A. I was ambassador in El Salvador from 1988 until 1992. The murder

24 of the nuns, the killing of the two labour leaders, both of whom were my

25 friends, occurred well before I got there. During my period as

1 ambassador, the guerrillas launched a final offensive in November of 1989,

2 in which, as you say, and as the Washington Post and New York Times

3 describe, six Jesuit priests were killed.

4 When I made the statement that we did not know who had killed

5 them, that men in uniforms with ski masks could have been either from the

6 government military or from the guerrillas, this was before it was

7 discovered who had actually done the killings. You say President

8 Cristiani announced and took responsibility for his military in killing

9 the Jesuits on the 6th or 7th of January. The embassy had already stated

10 that on the -- I believe the 2nd of January.

11 I have with me a letter, if you're interested, from the Congress

12 of the United States, indicating what I did, what my embassy did, to

13 investigate, determine who had killed the Jesuits, and then insist that

14 those responsible - a colonel, several lieutenants, and soldiers - be

15 brought to justice, and they were brought to justice and they were

16 convicted. And as I say, it was with the full cooperation of Bill Walker,

17 the ambassador, as well as his staff, as well as the US government, that

18 that was the end of the Jesuit case.

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. Well, that's precisely where I wanted to continue. Again I'm

21 going to quote the Washington Post on the 21st of March, 1993, the Sunday

22 edition. It carried a long article:

23 [In English] " ... Walker told a news conference after the

24 murders. 'And it's not a management control problem that would lend

25 itself to a Harvard Business School analysis.' On January 2nd, 1990,

1 Walker told representative Joseph Moakley, Democrat Massachusetts in

2 Washington that 'anyone can get uniforms... The fact that they [the

3 killers] were dressed in military uniforms was not proof that they were

4 military.' The same day that he met with Moakley, US Army Major Eric

5 Buckland, a military advisor in San Salvador, told his superiors that a

6 Salvadoran army officer had named Military Academy chief Colonel Guillermo

7 Alfredo Benavides Moreno as the ringleader in the Jesuits' killing."

8 [Interpretation] Therefore, this confirms that you gave an

9 inaccurate statement, and later Cristiani dealt with it too. But what is

10 of particular significance to me is --

11 JUDGE MAY: Before we go any further, let's find out who wrote

12 this article that you've been quoting.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This article was carried by the

14 Washington Post.

15 JUDGE MAY: You've told us that. Who was it who wrote it so we

16 may know who makes these allegations.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I can hand it over to you as an

18 exhibit. The length, 2.976 words. "Twelve Years of Torture..." is the

19 headline.

20 JUDGE MAY: I'm asking for the reporter's name.

21 THE ACCUSED: [In English] Byline: Guy Gugliotta, Douglas Farah,

22 Washington Post Foreign Service Body.

23 JUDGE MAY: Do you know who he is?

24 THE WITNESS: I know Douglas Farah very well. He's a friend of

25 mine, yes.

1 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Comment, if you can, on what is suggested

2 here. It is said you made an inaccurate statement.

3 THE WITNESS: I made an inaccurate statement, in hindsight. At

4 the time I made it, it was what we knew, which was uniformed men had

5 killed the priest. We did not know from whence they came; that on the 2nd

6 of January I was in Washington speaking to Congressman Joe Moakley, also a

7 friend, who was in charge of a committee of the Congress of the United

8 States trying to get to the bottom of the Jesuit case. He asked me if we

9 had uncovered the culprits. I told him we had not, that it could have

10 been one side or the other.

11 That same day, unbeknownst to me, in El Salvador, the case broke

12 open when a major on my staff came forward and recounted a conversation he

13 had with an El Salvadoran colonel, his counterpart, and it was revealed in

14 that conversation that a unit of the Salvadoran army had killed the

15 Jesuits.

16 So what I am saying is that my statements throughout this were as

17 accurate as I could make them at the time, but later, when it was

18 discovered who had killed the Jesuits, as I say, I was then in the

19 forefront of those trying to bring justice in the case, to bring military

20 officers to justice, which was unprecedented in El Salvador. But the

21 colonel, the two lieutenants, and some soldiers were in fact convicted

22 after the United States government put incredible pressure on the

23 Salvadoran government to bring these officers before a tribunal.

24 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, we've now spent the best part of

25 quarter of an hour to 20 minutes on events in another continent a decade

1 before. If it was an attempt to attack in some way the witness's

2 credibility, you've had the opportunity of putting your case and the

3 witness has dealt with it. Now, move on to some other topic more related

4 to the indictment.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, since you have limited my

6 time, please allow me to use it the way I consider best. This is a

7 witness who was obviously in charge of carrying out - how should I put

8 this? - some sort of covert operations.

9 JUDGE MAY: Yes, when we come to that, you can put all that. But

10 you're not wasting the time of the Court with events so long ago and of

11 such little relevance. Now, let's move on.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. On the 11th of December, 1989, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in a long

14 article -- I'm going to quote only a short excerpt: [In English]

15 "[Previous translation continues]... Jesuit colleges in the United

16 States, accused the US Ambassador in El Salvador of trying to discredit

17 the witness. In --"

18 JUDGE MAY: No. Your attempt to discredit this witness with

19 events so long ago the Trial Chamber has ruled as irrelevant. Now, move

20 on from El Salvador. You've been given your clear instructions. If you

21 want to continue with the cross-examination, you must follow them, because

22 the time of the Court is limited, and it cannot be taken up with

23 irrelevant matters such as this.

24 Now, move on to events closer to the indictment.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is directly related to the

1 continuity of the witness's activities.

2 I'm going to move on from El Salvador. I'm just going to refer to

3 yet another case which points to continuity in terms of such activities of

4 the witness. It relates to Nicaragua. [In English] "[Previous

5 translation continues]... filed in US district court by independent

6 counsel Lawrence Walsh. Walker was responsible for setting up a phony

7 humanitarian operation at an air base in Ilopango, El Salvador. That

8 'humanitarian' air base was used to run guns, ammunitions, and supplies

9 to the fascist Contra mercenaries attacking the Nicaraguan Revolution.

10 Walker was also the US ambassador to El Salvador from 1988 to -- from 1988

11 to 1992," and so on.

12 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness deal with the allegation.

13 Mr. Walker, have you followed what the allegation is?

14 THE WITNESS: I believe so, Your Honour. During my 40-year career

15 as an American diplomat but especially during my -- the later years of my

16 career as ambassador to El Salvador, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of

17 State for Central America and Panama during the 1980s, you know, I, as

18 well as the policy -- policies that I was implementing, have come in for a

19 great amount of criticism in the free press of the United States and the

20 press of the world, as a matter of fact. It is not surprising to me that

21 you can bring articles up that make allegations like that. All I can say

22 is this is, you know, water off my back, press criticism of US policies

23 and the person who was implementing them, Bill Walker.

24 JUDGE MAY: The allegation appears to be that in Nicaragua or in

25 El Salvador, it's not clear, a humanitarian base was used to run guns,

1 ammunition, and supplies, et cetera. Is it a matter on which you could

2 comment?

3 THE WITNESS: Yes, it is, Your Honour. The -- as Deputy Assistant

4 Secretary of State for Central America during the late 1980s, this was

5 later condensed into the word "Contragate," I was responsible for bringing

6 humanitarian assistance to the Contras, which was a policy that had been

7 confirmed by the US Congress several times.

8 Unbeknownst to me, unbeknownst to the State Department,

9 unbeknownst essentially to the world, a colonel, Oliver North, in the

10 National Security Council was doing things that were eventually determined

11 by Judge Walsh and his commission to be illegal, and that had to do with

12 the supply of armaments to the Contras.

13 The base, the air base that was mentioned, Ilopango, is in El

14 Salvador. That is where we were bringing in humanitarian supplies, as I

15 said, that I was responsible for, and sending them on to the Contras.

16 Oliver North and some other people were using that same air base to bring

17 in illegal supplies, i.e., armaments. The Walsh report noted this, that

18 the same air base had been used for both types of supplies, legal and

19 illegal.

20 The Walsh report, as I said, did not in any way imply that the

21 supply of humanitarian material to the Contras was either illegal or, you

22 know, should not have taken place. That was, as I said, a policy that had

23 been approved by the Congress several times.

24 Does that explain it, Your Honour?

25 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let's go on to the next topic.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. So the policy was humanitarian assistance. Please comment on

3 this: It relates to you. [In English] "[Previous translation

4 continues]... "in Kosovo. This time his actions give backing to different

5 Contra army, the Contra Kosovo Liberation Army."

6 [Interpretation] Is that right?

7 JUDGE MAY: Who again? What are you quoting from, Mr. Milosevic?

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I put a question. So I'll

9 tell you what I've quoted. Never mind. That's no problem.

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. Is that right or is that not right? The question is -- I'm

12 quoting myself. Let's put it that way. Is that right or is that not

13 right? I'm quoting Gary Wilson. I'm quoting an article by Gary Wilson.

14 Is this right or is this not right?

15 A. I'm not sure I understood the question. If the question is was

16 either I or were the people of the KVM supplying the KLA, the Albanian

17 population, with assistance during my tenure as head of the KVM, the

18 answer is no, we were not.

19 THE WITNESS: Was that the question, Your Honour?

20 JUDGE MAY: The question was: Did you -- you were giving your

21 backing to a different Contra army, the KLA. I think you've answered the

22 point. Would you -- I suppose, put it this way: Did you back the KLA

23 during your time?

24 THE WITNESS: No, we did not. We often condemned the KLA for acts

25 of violence.

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1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. We'll get precisely to that. And now in relation to this, this

3 linkage in respect of such activities, in relation to Racak, it says: [In

4 English] "[Previous translation continues]... the site of the alleged

5 massacre and declared that he knew all the facts. He was the judge, jury,

6 and executioner all in one. Not even a district attorney in any United

7 States city could so boldly make such a declaration: Guilty first,

8 evidence later."

9 And then --

10 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness deal with that allegation.

11 THE WITNESS: Again, I'm not sure what the quotation is from or

12 what I'm dealing with. If the question is did I consider myself judge,

13 jury, and executioner all in one, my answer is no, I did not.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. Well, tell me, Mr. Walker, since it is claimed: [In English]

16 "[Previous translation continues]... Walker? Is he the Richard Butler of

17 Kosovo, as many in the Balkans now believe?"

18 [No translation] [In English]... "[Previous translation

19 continues]... Kosovo team was a spy team like the UNSCOM group in Iraq,

20 Walker replied, `I hope everyone on my mission is trying to gather as much

21 intelligence as they possibly can.' Questioned again, 'Are you reporting

22 it back to Washington?' Walker reported -- Walker replied, 'A lot of it

23 comes back to Washington, but it goes to all capitals" and so on.

24 JUDGE MAY: Let us hear -- let us hear where this quotation is

25 from.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is a quotation from Gary

2 Wilson's article too. But I assume that he is not challenging --

3 JUDGE MAY: When and where did Gary Wilson write this article?

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Unfortunately, I haven't got that

5 here now, but you can take it from a website that I'm going to give you.

6 This is the website: [In English] US-Kosovo Policy -- [Interpretation]

7 Here's the website so you can check it exactly, the date and everything

8 else. Unfortunately, I do not have everything I need here so that I could

9 know all that.

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. Now, were you really involved in these activities, Mr. Walker?

12 Was this the main thrust of your activities, parallel to the official

13 mission that you were conducting?

14 A. I was pursuing my official mission, which was to try to tell the

15 OSCE and the capitals of the member states of the OSCE as much as we could

16 possibly gather in terms of the reality of what was happening in Kosovo.

17 That was our job. We were verifiers, which implies gathering information

18 and telling people about it.

19 Q. Only that?

20 A. No. As the mission progressed from the beginning, we took on

21 other tasks, a number of which were at your direction. You might recall

22 when you told me that two journalists had been kidnapped by, as you call

23 them, the so-called KLA, and you told me that you expected my mission to

24 get them released. So that started a process in which we tried to do that

25 several times, including the release later of some VJ soldiers who were

1 captured by the KLA as well as some people from the KLA that your forces

2 had taken prisoner. So we -- we got involved in that sort of activity.

3 I was also asked by the Serb community in Kosovo to try and

4 determine what had happened to members of their families who had

5 disappeared.

6 So what I am saying is that, over time, the mission took on other

7 tasks besides the collection of information and the dissemination of that

8 information to the OSCE and beyond.

9 Q. I put a question not only in relation to the information that you

10 have been speaking about but also in relation to intelligence

11 information. I'm going to quote the Sunday Times for you, London, the

12 12th of March, 2000: [In English] "[Previous translation continues]...

13 "Kosovo guerrilla army. American intelligence agents have admitted they

14 helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army before NATO's bombing of

15 Yugoslavia. ... Central Intelligence Agency officers were cease-fire

16 monitors in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, developing ties with the KLA and

17 giving American military training manuals and field advice," et cetera, et

18 cetera. "Many of its satellite telephones and global positioning systems

19 were secretly handed to KLA... Several KLA leaders had the mobile phone

20 number of General Wesley Clark, the NATO Commander. ... The American

21 agenda consisted of their --"

22 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness deal with these allegations, series of

23 allegations here being made and quoted by you.

24 The first suggestion is that, Ambassador --

25 Let the witness deal with these allegations.

1 What's suggested is there were cease-fire monitors who were CIA

2 officers developing ties with the KLA and giving American military

3 training, et cetera.

4 First of all, is there any truth in that suggestion?

5 THE WITNESS: If there is, it's not to my knowledge. I knew of no

6 personnel on KVM staff who were either with the CIA nor who were giving

7 training to the KLA.

8 JUDGE MAY: And it's said that many telephone and global

9 positioning systems were handed to the KLA and the leaders had the

10 telephone number of General Clark. Do you know anything about that?

11 THE WITNESS: No, I do not. I know that the KLA did do most of

12 its communications via cell phones and that sort of thing. Where they got

13 them, how they acquired them, who they communicated with, I have no

14 personal knowledge of that.

15 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. In that same article, precisely in relation to what you have been

18 saying now, that you know nothing about this, it says -- this is the

19 Sunday Times that I have been quoting: [In English] "[Previous

20 translation continues]... dismissed suggestions that he had wanted war in

21 Kosovo, but admitted the CIA was almost certainly involved in the

22 countdown to airstrikes."

23 So that's inaccurate. Is that right, Mr. Walker?

24 A. If I -- let me reread your quote here. I do dismiss --

25 MR. NICE: While he's doing it, might we know the author of this

1 document and if this is allegation against the witness directly but the

2 text --

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] By all means. Sunday Times, 12th of

4 March, 2000, Tom Walker, [In English] Aidan Laverty. A-i-d-a-n, Aidan

5 Laverty. Tom Walker and Aidan Laverty, from Sunday Times, London, 12th of

6 March, 2000. "CIA aided Kosovo guerrilla army."

7 [Interpretation] All right. Can we proceed?

8 JUDGE MAY: No. Let the witness just deal with that.

9 THE WITNESS: I do dismiss suggestions that I wanted war in

10 Kosovo. I have probably said numerous times that I'm sure the CIA was

11 interested in what was happening in Kosovo, as I'm sure the intelligence

12 services of a number of countries, including your own, were interested in

13 what was happening in Kosovo.

14 I am not with the CIA. I have never been with the CIA. I have

15 worked with members of the CIA, but as I said, not in connection with

16 Kosovo.

17 So I -- as I say, I'm sure the CIA was interested in knowing what

18 was going on. I'm sure they read our reports, OSCE reports. What Tom

19 Walker of the London Times derived from this, I know not.

20 THE ACCUSED [Interpretation] All right. Before I move on to my

21 next question, I would like to -- I've been trying to communicate with

22 that lady by sign language but apparently she can't see me. I have a

23 video cassette here, and I would like to have it played, please. The

24 footage is very short. Very short video clips. And I kindly ask the

25 technical service to play the video clips one by one and that is what I

1 shall request. I don't know whether the technical people can actually

2 hear me as I say this. So it's a series of different video clips.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. While they arrange this, Mr. Walker, do you know a Canadian

5 officer, historian, Roly Keith? He has several diplomas. He has served

6 with the Canadian military for 30 years, also with NATO, an historian. He

7 was head of your office in Kosovo Polje, of the Verification Mission in

8 Kosovo Polje. Do you remember him?

9 A. I have no recollection of that name whatsoever.

10 Q. All right. You'll probably remember him. Mr. Walker, in your

11 statement, you say on page -- well, let me not quote it now. I'll quote

12 it if you think it's not that way.

13 You talk about the NATO aggression. Is it correct that NATO

14 bombed Yugoslavia because America and its Secretary of State, Madeleine

15 Albright, wanted war?

16 A. That is not my understanding of why NATO began the bombing.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Please, could you play

18 the first video clip. I hope that you will recognise -- well, could we

19 also have the sound track, please.

20 [Videotape played]

21 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] America, headed by Madeleine

22 Albright, Secretary of State, judging by various sources like Time

23 Magazine, wanted war, and Yugoslavia was a sacrificed lamb or a target.

24 And this was a way of rallying Europe together in the twenty-first

25 century. It is clear that President Milosevic - I have no intention of

1 defending him or attacking him - was elected president three times.

2 Yugoslavia has been a democratic country for quite some time now, and it's

3 quite irrelevant whether you like him or not. And that cannot be a

4 justification or an excuse."

5 JUDGE MAY: Now, Mr. Milosevic, who was that?

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That is a member of the Verification

7 Mission, head of the office of the Verification Mission in Kosovo Polje,

8 an officer of the Canadian army.

9 JUDGE MAY: We will ask the witness whether he recognises the

10 gentleman or not.

11 THE WITNESS: No, I do not, Your Honour.

12 JUDGE MAY: Yes. The gentleman's views are quite irrelevant. If

13 you want to call him as a witness, you can, but you're not going to

14 examine this witness about him. It's merely his views.

15 Now, do you want to play any more of your tape?

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] By all means. You'll see more.

17 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] But I think --

19 JUDGE MAY: We'll do it after the adjournment. And you're not to

20 ask any questions about that. That was merely the views of that man, and

21 he can give evidence in due course if he wants.

22 Mr. Walker, could you be back, please, in half an hour.

23 --- Recess taken at 11.00 a.m.

24 --- On resuming at 11.33 a.m.

25 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I don't understand how you

2 can limit my right to ask the witness to comment on the statements made by

3 an officer who was a member of his mission and upon whose findings his

4 report was in fact based. I don't understand that at all.

5 JUDGE MAY: He does not know the man who was on the television.

6 The comments relate to the very issues which we're going to have to

7 decide, and it's not a matter for the man on the television or for this

8 witness; it's a matter for this Trial Chamber, which is going to have to

9 decide these issues.

10 Yes. Now, continue, please.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Very well. I shall

12 endeavour to get an answer. But does that mean that we have noted that

13 Mr. Walker claims that this particular officer was not a member of the

14 mission and was not an authentic person?

15 JUDGE MAY: No. He said -- what the witness said was that he

16 didn't recognise the man.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What does that mean, that he didn't

18 recognise him? It means that he cannot comment on his positions, if it is

19 an officer who was head of a department in the mission.

20 JUDGE KWON: You can put the question to the witness.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. Is it true that during your stay at the head of the KVM, the

23 police was a professional police force and that cooperation with the

24 police force was good?

25 A. If you're asking me about the Serb police, there was a certain

1 amount of cooperation; however, there were a number of incidents,

2 including one that I was personally involved in, where I would have to say

3 it was as unprofessional, as uncooperative as anything I've seen in my

4 career with a purportedly professional police force.

5 Q. Well, your member - precisely, the one that they won't let me

6 quote here - says that they got on very well and that they performed their

7 duties professionally, and he was in the field, and not you. Is that so

8 or not?

9 A. As I said, Mr. Milosevic, I do not recognise the person that was

10 on the screen. We had over 1.400 members of the mission. I certainly

11 knew only a small portion of that. I did not know this gentleman. He

12 might have had very good relations with the police. As I said, I had at

13 least one incident involving me personally in which a policeman came at me

14 with a hand grenade, and I would hardly consider that to be professional

15 police behaviour.

16 Q. Mr. Walker, in your statement, you devote two whole pages to the

17 fact that a drunken policeman had an argument with the members of your

18 security detail and that he apologised to you, in fact, and that you never

19 saw the hand grenade yourself. And I don't see that this incident

20 deserves this kind of attention that you are attributing to it. Is that

21 right or not?

22 A. I personally thought it was a very serious incident. My security

23 and the security of a number of people from the mission were involved. As

24 you say, he was drunk, he was armed, and members of my security detail saw

25 the grenade and whisked me away from his presence. When I returned, in

1 very broken and drunken English, I believe he was trying to apologise. I

2 thought the incident was serious enough to ask for an investigation by

3 General Loncar. He promised to do so. He came back within a few hours

4 and told me essentially that we had imagined the whole thing, that it was

5 the fault of my unarmed security detail and that they had provoked this

6 drunken, armed, grenade-carrying policeman; in other words, just the exact

7 opposite of what had occurred.

8 Q. All right. Not to dwell on that point, you yourself said that it

9 was established that he wasn't on duty and no weapons were used, as it

10 says in your statement. That's right, isn't it?

11 A. General Loncar told me that he was an off-duty policeman from

12 Belgrade. He said that the man was not drunk. He said the man was not

13 armed. I personally saw a Kalashnikov rifle in his car, which the police

14 put in the police car when they took him away, wearing a ski mask, shortly

15 after the incident had occurred. I thought that was also fairly

16 unprofessional police behaviour, to put a man who was supposedly in

17 detention in the back seat of a police car, with a weapon at his side, and

18 allowing him to go away with a mask over his face. But I am not a

19 professional policeman myself. Maybe this is professional behaviour.

20 Q. All right. Let's not waste time, because I have many more

21 important topics to cover.

22 You talk about ethnic cleansing in your statement. Do you

23 know -- or rather, could you comment on, for example, a statement made by

24 the member of your mission, who says:

25 "I can testify to the fact that in February and March 1999 there

1 was no genocide. When it comes to ethnic cleansing, I was not present nor

2 did I see events which could be characterised as ethnic cleansing. In

3 connection to my previous answer, I wish to state that I was witness to a

4 series of incidents, and most of them were caused by the KLA, for which

5 the security forces, aided by the army, reacted."

6 Is that correct or not?

7 JUDGE MAY: Before the witness answers, we need to know who has

8 made this statement and when he made it.

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This same officer made this

10 statement, and I have this on the tape too, which you won't allow me to

11 play.

12 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

13 Yes. The officer, whose name was given, the Canadian, apparently

14 said at some stage that he didn't see any ethnic cleansing. You can see,

15 Mr. Walker, on the screen what it is alleged. Perhaps you can then

16 comment on it.

17 THE WITNESS: I can't comment on what he saw or didn't see. Any

18 comments I've made about evidence of ethnic cleansing was based on my own

19 observations and those of other members of my staff. Who this gentleman

20 was and why he made those statements, I have absolutely no idea.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. You speak about refugees. Could you comment on the following

23 statement, made by this officer of yours:

24 "In the past weeks or ten days in Kosovo, we continued receiving

25 reports on hundreds and sometimes thousands of refugees from our area of

1 responsibility. However, when my observers and I went to these locations,

2 we would come across just several tens of refugees. This does not mean

3 that there were not a hundred people on the move, but they were taken in

4 very quickly by their relatives from Pristina or they took to the hills or

5 somewhere else. And it was not ethnic cleansing - at least, that is not

6 what I imply by that term - and even less was it a genocide. I was not

7 witness to mass human rights violations. What I did see, and the things I

8 did attend, were events which turned into a civil war very quickly, a

9 burgeoning one, between the rebels, terrorists, as they were called by the

10 security forces, and the security forces themselves, who were trying to

11 protect and defend the communication devices throughout Kosovo."

12 Was that so or not? Is that correct or not?

13 A. I again have no idea what this man was referring to, whether he's

14 referring to refugees before the bombing, during the bombing. I certainly

15 saw tens of thousands of refugees in the refugee camps that I referred to

16 earlier, in Macedonia and Albania. They were all Albanians. Again, this

17 gentleman, I have no idea where he was, what he was doing, who he was

18 talking to, so I can hardly comment on his words.

19 Q. Well, I informed you a moment ago that he was the head of your

20 office, the head of your bureau in Kosovo Polje.

21 JUDGE MAY: The witness has responded that he cannot comment on

22 what the man claims to have seen. As I've said, if you want to call him

23 as a witness, it's open to you to do so.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Is it true --

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] My question wasn't whether he knew

2 him. He said he didn't know him, but I asked him to comment what the man

3 had stated. But we can move on.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Is it correct that the army and MUP recognised the agreement and

6 abided by the agreement and that the KLA did not, the one that was

7 achieved between Holbrooke and myself?

8 A. As I've said, in our meeting in November, I reported to you that

9 there was non-compliance on both sides; i.e., the MUP, the VJ, and the KLA

10 were all doing things that were specifically prohibited by the agreements.

11 Q. And can you comment on this: It is the statement where the

12 officer claims that he was in villages in Kosovo, and, as you know, the

13 KLA controlled for one year 50 per cent of the territory, a year before

14 that. The security forces did not enter those areas, in keeping with the

15 Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement, but the KLA did not stop at its own

16 territory. They would keep effective skirmishes and moving into that

17 territory, and so on and so forth.

18 Now, asked whether they supported the KLA, the answers were

19 unclear, when the population was asked, in fact. Can I have your comments

20 to that, please.

21 A. I'm not again entirely sure what the question is, Mr. Milosevic.

22 I will repeat: The KVM, neither I nor any person on the mission who was

23 doing what they were supposed to be doing, was in any way helping one side

24 or the other. We were there to determine what the sides were doing and

25 whether or not they were in compliance with the agreements that your

1 government signed.

2 I would have to comment on your bringing up the question of

3 whether or not the KLA controlled territory. I specifically remember you

4 telling me when I asked you about what we thought was our need to bring in

5 a helicopter ambulance capability, with a Swiss helicopter, and I

6 explained that we would need this if any of our people were injured,

7 either deliberately or accidentally, while in territory controlled by the

8 KLA, and you were offering a government helicopter to do that extraction,

9 and you told me quite categorically that the KLA controlled no territory

10 in Kosovo.

11 Q. The point was that the KLA was attacking, and not that it was

12 controlling the territory. He mentioned one year previously, that they

13 were in control one year previously, but it was the attacking that I was

14 asking about. But let's move on.

15 Your cooperation, did it have to do with helping separatism? Is

16 that true? How can you comment, for example, on this assertion:

17 "On the basis of everything we know, I think that we in fact

18 assisted the separatist movement and that the idea of a multicultural

19 Kosovo was disappearing, just like the Serbs, the Romas, and Jews which

20 were killed and forced to flee to save their own skins."

21 Is that observation correct or not?

22 A. The observation that the KVM somehow was trying to promote

23 separatism is ludicrous. It is not true. If there were individuals,

24 again, who felt one way or the other about separatism, that I cannot

25 comment on, but the mission, as I was instructed, had nothing to do with

1 encouraging, promoting, advocating separatism.

2 Q. Very well. Now, you claim that all the people you talked to said

3 that they had fled from Kosovo because of the threats that were being made

4 to them by the police and not NATO. Could you comment on that statement

5 made by your officer? And it was the following:

6 "A justification for war which can also be brought into question

7 was the alleged ethnic cleansing and jeopardising of human rights which

8 were allegedly committed when my colleagues and I were in Kosovo. This

9 did not happen. The refugees were not fleeing Kosovo in the spring, while

10 we were there, up until the time that NATO started the war on the 24th of

11 March. According to my information, the UN Refugee Committee informed us

12 that the first wave of refugees crossed the border only on the 27th of

13 March, in large numbers. As you mentioned, hundreds of thousands of

14 refugees and displaced persons are the results of the civil war, but first

15 and foremost are the results of the NATO bombing."

16 That is what your officer claims. Is that true or is it not?

17 A. Again, Mr. Milosevic, you are asking me to comment on statements

18 made by a member of the KVM, for whatever reason he made those, and on the

19 basis of what evidence he made those, I have no information. If you're

20 asking me, you know, what provoked the exodus of refugees, massive exodus

21 of refugees during the NATO bombing campaign, I spoke to hundreds and

22 hundreds of refugees in the camps. I did not find a single one who said

23 they had fled the bombing; on the contrary, some of them said they wished

24 there had been more bombing. They all said they had fled the horrors, the

25 mistreatment, the killings they saw, at the hands of your security forces.

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1 Q. Yes. That's quite clear to me. But this man is not speaking on

2 the basis of I don't know what facts which he read somewhere, but on the

3 basis of his immediate involvement and work in Kosovo and Metohija, and

4 that's why I asked for your comments.

5 My next question is the following: Is it correct that the KLA was

6 the armed road to realising the idea of a Greater Albania?

7 A. I have no basis for answering that question. I do not know what

8 the agenda of the KLA was at any point during the conflict, other than to

9 protect the Albanian population, that they thought were their

10 constituents, from harm.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I should now like to ask that we

12 take a look at Exhibit 11 from this tape. It is not the officer, Mr. May;

13 it is a clip from Albanian television. And I'd like to ask the technical

14 booth to pinpoint that particular section. It is number 11. You have got

15 one over. You have 9, and then we come to 11, and it is a speech by KLA

16 officers talking about what I have just been referring to. So it is

17 number 11 on the tape. The tape has 20 clips and it takes no more than 20

18 minutes, Mr. May. But it doesn't matter. We skipped the one you didn't

19 want to hear, and may we go on with this next one, then?

20 He is speaking here about the goals of realising a Greater

21 Albania, goals that were determined in 1912.

22 I don't think that's the footage. It is Exhibit number 11. It is

23 footage that has been marked number 11. The speaker is wearing a uniform

24 of the KLA, with all the insignia, the cap. There are quite a number of

25 other KLA members standing round about.

1 All right. While we're finding that number 11 exhibit, could you

2 answer me this: Is it true that KLA was a terrorist group or terrorist

3 organisation?

4 A. I am certainly aware that members of the KLA committed acts that I

5 condemned that were violent acts, that were what I would have considered

6 criminal acts; kidnappings, assassinations, that sort of thing. Whether

7 you define this, you know, as a terrorist organisation, I never called

8 them that, but I certainly denounced them any time they committed a

9 criminal act such as I've just described.

10 Q. All right. You are well-informed of the 1160 and 1169 UN Security

11 Resolutions, and 1203, all those Security Council Resolutions which were

12 adopted, as you well know, in 1998.

13 A. I am aware of the Security Council Resolutions, and I was once

14 very familiar with them. I have, you know, a relatively meager memory of

15 them except in their -- in the broadest sense, as we sit here today.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. I think we can see the

17 clip. May we have the sound track with it as well, please.

18 [Videotape played]

19 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "The fate of Kosovo was decided at

20 the conference of ambassadors in London. More than half of Albanian lands

21 and more than half of the Albanian people were severed from independent

22 Albania, and ever since onwards, the Albanian people of Kosovo have

23 conducted and keep conducting a war of liberation. And the Kosovo

24 Liberation Army in itself constitutes all the tradition of liberation war

25 ever since."

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. So my question was: Was the KLA an armed part to realising a

3 Greater Albania, whose goals were set --

4 JUDGE MAY: I'm going to stop this. All you'll be asking,

5 Mr. Milosevic, is this witness to comment on something an unidentified man

6 is saying on television. Now, it's pointless asking him about it. You

7 can play it to us in due course as part of your case and ask us to draw

8 conclusions from it, but it's a waste of time to ask the witness about it.

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, all right, Mr. May.

10 Let's not waste time.

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. As you vaguely remember the Resolutions, let me remind you that in

13 1160, it says that all acts of terrorism should be condemned by the KLA,

14 committed by the KLA, and that all elements of the Albanian community

15 should realise their goals through political means alone and that weapons

16 and armament must be prevented with an aim to terrorist activities in

17 Kosovo and Metohija.

18 And in 1199, this Resolution repeats the condemnation of terrorism

19 for the realisation of any political goals on the part of individuals and

20 groups. It condemns every outside support to activities of this kind in

21 Kosovo, including weapons supplies, and insists upon the fact that the

22 leadership of the Kosovo Albanians condemn all terrorist actions, and so

23 on and so forth and calls for the member states to prevent the collection

24 of money contributions on their territory which are used for the violation

25 of Resolution 1160 and 1203. Terrorism is condemned again, and so on and

1 so forth. And insistence is made upon the fact that the leadership of the

2 Kosovo Albanians should condemn all terrorist activities and demand that

3 such activities cease immediately.

4 Therefore, I am repeating my question of a moment ago. Are they a

5 terrorist organisation or not, in your opinion, Mr. Walker?

6 JUDGE MAY: The witness has dealt with that. This is what I mean

7 about your arguing with witnesses. Again, this is a point you can make to

8 us, but it is pointless to continually ask the same question of a

9 witness.

10 Now, ask some other questions. Get on to something else.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Now, in view of the fact that in this courtroom we very often

14 heard mention of some kind of Serb paramilitary formations and units and

15 the so-called Tigers, some so-called Tigers, and it was claimed that Serb

16 forces wore black caps and that they had some units that were called the

17 Tigers. Now, please, could you answer me this question: During your stay

18 in Kosovo, were you informed of -- did you know of any Black Tigers within

19 the frameworks of the KLA terrorist organisation?

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And may we see the next bit of

21 footage, please, the next clip.

22 [Videotape played]

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] As you can see, black caps, black

24 uniforms.

25 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "... of the KLA, the Black Tigers.

1 We are specialised for guerrilla warfare and lightning strikes. On my

2 left you can see the snipers. Eagle is a scout. He works close into the

3 Serbs. The sniper's name is "Grape." He reckons he's sweet. Here they

4 are. We also have this man who prefers to use an anti-tank bazooka. The

5 others have Kalashnikovs in their hands."

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Let's save time. Let's

7 move on to the next video clip, please.

8 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Tell me, did you meet with the

9 commanders of the KLA? For example, Hill did. And did Hill report to you

10 about your [sic] meetings with the KLA?

11 THE ACCUSED: Could we please see the next clip?

12 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Well, while we're waiting --

13 [Videotape played]

14 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "They had the right to involve

15 representatives of the international community. The meeting with American

16 diplomats as well as -- and representatives of the KLA during this

17 meeting, important elements and important points in national history were

18 remembered."

19 [Audio quality poor] "UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: This is commander --

20 which one. The officer standing in the door. He's the military

21 commander. Okay."

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thaci and Hill.

23 [Audio quality poor] "UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: Did she ask you

24 difficult questions?" "No."

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

1 Q. All right. My question is: Did Hill inform you about these

2 meetings and about their contents? As head of the Verification Mission,

3 what kind of information did you receive in this regard?

4 A. Ambassador Hill and his colleague the ambassador -- the Austrian

5 ambassador to, I believe, Belgrade, was he? They both came often to

6 Kosovo while I was there. They did have meetings with the KLA as well as

7 with your people. They told me occasionally what had happened, and I'm

8 sure there were meetings when they didn't tell me much about it. It

9 depended on when we got together.

10 That particular meeting, I have no idea whether I was told about

11 what had happened at it. As I say, they had any number of meetings with

12 the KLA.

13 Q. All right. But, Mr. Walker, you were not elected by the OSCE.

14 You were chosen by Albright to that particular position; is that right?

15 A. That is incorrect. I'm sure that Secretary Albright was asked to

16 put someone forward for the position. I don't know who asked her. My

17 name was put before the leadership of the OSCE at a conference in -- at a

18 meeting in Oslo, and then I assume it was confirmed by the full

19 membership. As you probably know, Mr. Milosevic, the OSCE works by full

20 consensus. That means full consensus among the 54 member states. So my

21 nomination was put forward by this -- by the State Department, but it was

22 accepted by and passed on by the full membership of the OSCE.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Please could you have

24 the next video clip played.

25 [Videotape played]

1 "NARRATOR: And made the choice herself."

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I hope you heard this.

3 [Videotape played]

4 "NARRATOR: Was working for the OSCE. He was part of the

5 American --"

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No. This is different. No.

7 [Videotape played]

8 "NARRATOR: Which vilified Slobodan Milosevic, demonised the

9 Serbian administration, and generally was providing diplomatic support to

10 the UCK or the KLA leadership."

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. There were two clips

12 that were played.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. You saw Holbrooke who made an assertion that was contrary to what

15 you said, that you were directly and personally appointed by Madeleine

16 Albright. In the second video clip, we heard Roland --

17 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness deal with that. Is there anything you

18 can usefully add to that, Ambassador?

19 THE WITNESS: As I stated, Ambassador Holbrooke was correct in

20 saying I was chosen by the Secretary of State, meaning I was chosen among

21 State Department people to put forward as a nominee to head the OSCE

22 mission. So she chose me among her people to put forward. That choice

23 was accepted and confirmed by the OSCE leadership, the Chairman in Office,

24 the Polish Foreign Minister, Mr. Geremek, as well as by the permanent

25 council of the OSCE in unanimous consensus.

1 JUDGE MAY: Yes. As to the gentleman on the tape who I think

2 we've seen before, and I think he's the man whose views we've heard a

3 great deal of, is there anything you want to say about this particular

4 assertion?

5 THE WITNESS: Nothing other than these are his views. I don't

6 know who he is or where he acquired his information, so I really can't

7 comment on it.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It's not the same person. You saw

9 that this was a completely different person.

10 JUDGE MAY: It's another one, is it? It's another KVM man, is

11 it? I thought it was Roland Keith.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Roland Keith from the KVM, that

13 Walker gave diplomatic support to the KLA.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. My next question is the following: Neither you nor Drewienkiewicz

16 registered all violations of the agreement that were committed by the KLA;

17 is that right?

18 A. Anything that came to our attention that appeared to be a

19 violation of the agreement were duly reported to Vienna, to the OSCE in

20 Vienna. I'm sure we missed some, but all those that came to our attention

21 we tried very methodically to put in our reports that went forward to the

22 OSCE in Vienna.

23 Q. And you personally, did you believe that it was the KLA that

24 committed most of the violations of the agreement?

25 A. I would say in terms of numbers, the KLA probably committed a

1 greater number of violations. But in terms of the scale of the

2 violations, my personal opinion would be that the government forces

3 burning down villages and, in the case of Racak, executing 45 civilians,

4 that the -- the response by the government to whatever the provocation by

5 the KLA was, was excessive. So in terms of numbers, if you're talking of

6 numbers, I would say probably the KLA committed more. If you're talking

7 about the scale, I think you're talking about the government far exceeding

8 the KLA in terms of the violence.

9 Q. Well, when I say most violations of the agreement, this is a

10 synthetic definition. You cannot distinguish between numbers on the one

11 hand and the scale involved on the other hand.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could I please have the next video

13 clip played.

14 [Videotape played]

15 "NARRATOR: William Walker's deputy was a British general. He

16 and his colleagues could see what the KLA was doing but had no means of

17 stopping or even discouraging it."

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And the next one. The next one,

19 please.

20 [Videotape played]

21 "MR. NAUMANN: This is how William Walker himself reported the

22 situation then in private."

23 "MR. NAUMANN: Ambassador Walker stated that the majority of

24 violations was caused by the KLA."

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

1 Q. That was Klaus Naumann, president of the council of NATO, the one

2 who said that you had discussed this mutually.

3 Mr. Walker, you're a member --

4 JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. You're not going to move over these

5 things.

6 Can you remember saying anything to Mr. Naumann, Ambassador?

7 THE WITNESS: General Naumann was not the president of the council

8 of NATO. He was the head of the military commission of NATO. He worked

9 very closely with General Wesley Clark. As I say, I could have referred

10 to the numbers of violations being on the side of the KLA, but I'm sure I

11 also told him that the more massive violations were committed by the

12 government forces.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. You're a member of the organisation called Hands of Hope, the

15 National American Albanian Council; is that right?

16 A. I was asked if I would be an honourary member of the board of

17 directors not of Hands of Hope, which is a subsidiary organisation that

18 brings scholarship students to the United States, but I'm -- if you're

19 talking about the National Albanian American Council, yes. In the

20 aftermath of my experience in Kosovo, I accepted to be an honourary member

21 of their board of directors.

22 Q. All right. Do you remember the events that took place on the 10th

23 of June, 2002? No. No. No. The 10th of June, 2002, the world today in

24 Albanian, the Albanian American National Council conferred a decoration on

25 the former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, Hands of Hope.

1 In your speech, you said:

2 "It was my honour and pleasure to work under the umbrella and

3 directives of Mrs. Albright, who is one of the most deserving persons for

4 the entrance of NATO in Kosovo," et cetera, et cetera. "You have the

5 greatest merit for getting Kosovo out of the grasp of the Milosevic

6 regime," et cetera, et cetera.

7 Do you remember that, Mr. Walker?

8 A. I remember it very well. It's about a week ago, yes. I

9 introduced Madeleine Albright, and in the speech I expressed my respect

10 for her, and I did express that she was one of the key players in bringing

11 about the eventual outcome in Kosovo.

12 Q. Who brought about NATO's entry into Kosovo. That's what you

13 said. One of the most deserving persons in that regard. Is that right?

14 A. That is correct.

15 Q. You also gave information in connection with which you were not

16 quite sure; is that right or is that not right?

17 A. I'm not sure I understand.

18 JUDGE MAY: Yes. What is the question?

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. All right. Well, the question was very clear: Did you provide

21 information for which you were not sure -- about which you were not sure;

22 you were not sure whether this information was accurate or not?

23 JUDGE MAY: In connection with what?

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, look at this BBC clip, or

25 rather, Mr. Walker's statement for the BBC. Could you please have the

1 next video clip played.

2 [Videotape played]

3 "WILLIAM WALKER: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for

4 coming. I know --

5 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Walker condemned both the ambush on the

6 border and the killings in the bar in equal measure.

7 WILLIAM WALKER: I would certainly call upon --"

8 "WILLIAM WALKER: It really looked like it was a tit for tat,

9 again, KLA hearing about their people being killed up on the border had

10 done this in Pec.

11 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There is a huge difference, isn't there,

12 between people killed in a legitimate military exchange and a bunch of

13 hooded unknowns walking into a bar and killing some teenagers.

14 WILLIAM WALKER: I think the point is: One, we really didn't

15 know what had happened in Pec. Yes, the government was saying it was KLA

16 gangsters who had come in and sprayed this bar. When you don't know what

17 has happened, it's a lot more difficult to sort of pronounce yourself."

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. So in relation to my question, what is your comment with regard to

20 this statement of yours, Mr. Walker: legitimate defence of the border, and

21 you equate that to killing a young man, and your explanation is that you

22 don't know and that you cannot exactly ascertain what this is all about.

23 And the question was: Did you provide information that you were not sure

24 of; you weren't sure whether it was accurate or inaccurate?

25 A. If the question is do I stand by what I said in that clip, I

1 certainly do. I condemned both events, both the ambush and killing of KLA

2 forces that were bringing weapons across the border from Albania into

3 Kosovo. That was something that your government took immediate credit

4 for, so I knew what had happened there. I knew who had done the killing.

5 I condemned that as an act of violence. Not that I denied that a

6 government had a right to protect its borders, but I said it was tragic

7 that this had occurred. And it was certainly tragic that in the immediate

8 aftermath there had been an incident in Peje, in Pec, in which some young

9 male Serbs had been killed in a bar. I condemned that also as violence.

10 What I said was I was going to condemn violence from whatever source. In

11 the case of the bar incident in Peje, in Pec, no one took credit for that,

12 and to this day we do not know who committed that act. You assumed, and I

13 guess many people assumed, and maybe even I assumed that it was the KLA,

14 but we did not know for a fact. Did I equate the two incidents? No, I

15 did not. I was just saying they were both violent acts, and I expressed

16 sorrow that they had occurred and condemned violence from whatever

17 quarter.

18 Q. Please. The defence of a border, where a number of KLA numbers

19 were killed, who were armed, and a number of them were taken prisoner as

20 well, the OSCE, or rather, your mission, qualified this as legitimate

21 action taken on the part of the Yugoslav authorities. So what was there

22 to be condemned?

23 A. I was saying that I was against violence. I was hoping things

24 like this would not happen again. One act of violence, one act of killing

25 on one side usually provoked a reciprocal act from the other side. My

1 quotation about tit-for-tat violence in another circumstance has already

2 been mentioned. This is what the problem was when I was addressing the

3 press conference in the immediate aftermath of both these incidents. I

4 was trying to get people to calm down and not provoke further violence.

5 Q. All right. So the clash at the border with an armed column of KLA

6 members and the operation of the Yugoslav forces is something that you

7 qualify as killing, murder?

8 A. I think you've already said that the KVM mission conceded that a

9 nation had a right to defend its borders against armed intruders. At the

10 same time, I was saying it was a shame that people had been killed, that

11 there had been a loss of life, and that there had also been the loss of

12 life in the bar in Peje, and this was what I was trying to get across as a

13 call for less violence. Certainly, as I've said, violence by one side

14 seemed to provoke violence from the other.

15 Q. Well, that is the problem, this symmetry. But please, your

16 reports about the KLA, in relation to the KLA, and the relations between

17 the KLA and the peasants themselves, are a result of insufficient

18 information; is that right or is that not right?

19 A. Our reports about the KLA, in relation to their relations with the

20 peasants themselves, you know, we did not have total information ever. We

21 had the information that came to us, that we were able to see with our own

22 eyes. That is what we reported. Was this the total amount of

23 information? No, it wasn't, but it was the best we could do.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Could we have the next

25 video clip, please. It's very short.

1 [Videotape played]

2 "UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We encountered many villages where the

3 villagers themselves told us, in very clear terms, that they would prefer

4 to be left completely alone. Often times they felt that if a KLA group

5 were to come into their village, that would actually put them under

6 greater threat."

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] So it says that people were leaving

8 villages because they were afraid of the KLA.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. In connection with Rogovo, just one question --

11 JUDGE MAY: It didn't say that. It's merely somebody who has come

12 along and said that the villagers occasionally wanted to be left alone.

13 That's all. Now, can we have another question, or another piece of tape.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Of course. Of course. Left alone,

15 not dragged into --

16 JUDGE MAY: You should not misrepresent what's said.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. All right, Mr. May.

18 Let's move on.

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. In connection with Rogovo, just one more question. Is it true

21 that you found out that on the 29th of January, 1999, in Rogovo, more than

22 29 Albanians had been killed and that most of them were KLA fighters who

23 had previously tried to evade an army ambush and they were killed in the

24 clash? Is that correct?

25 A. That is correct.

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1 Q. Thank God something is correct. Now that we are talking about

2 Racak, in your statement, you say the following:

3 "As I was watching these bodies, I noticed a few things. First of

4 all, judging by the wounds and the blood around them, and also the pools

5 of dried blood on the land around the bodies, it was obvious that these

6 were the clothes that the people wore when they were killed. There was no

7 doubt in my mind that they died where they were lying. The quantity and

8 the location of the blood on the soil in front of them, each and every one

9 of them, was a clear indication of that."

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In order to save time, could the

11 usher please show these photographs in the proper order. They come from

12 the documentation of the other side. They come from Mr. Nice. So could

13 they please be shown on the overhead projector. I have questions in

14 relation to all these photographs: Where is this blood by the bodies or

15 by individual bodies? These photographs come from Mr. Nice's

16 documentation, not mine.

17 JUDGE MAY: Let's do this now. Put the photographs one by one, if

18 you would, please, on the ELMO. Let the witness see them. They are, I

19 take it, the photographs that were shown of the various bodies.

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes. Please put them on

21 the --

22 JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation continues]... so we can see

23 them.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] One by one, in the proper order, the

25 way I gave them to you.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. Where did you see traces of blood there?

3 A. On that picture?

4 JUDGE MAY: Go on to the next one.

5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. Are there any traces of blood here anywhere?

7 A. I assume that's blood.

8 Q. You're talking about pools of blood on the soil, and on the soil

9 there is no blood at all.

10 A. Not in this picture.

11 Q. Not on the previous picture either.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please go on.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. Is there any blood, any traces of blood, any pools of blood here

15 on the soil either?

16 A. Not on that picture, no.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please go on.

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. Where is blood here?

20 A. I see none.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Let us go on.

22 JUDGE MAY: Yes. The next one, please.

23 Yes, the next one.

24 Yes, the next one.

25 And the next one. Yes.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Not even here, there is no trace of

2 blood anywhere on the ground, and we see that there are rocks all around.

3 Let's go on.

4 Could you now please show this photograph.

5 JUDGE MAY: Yes. If the usher would hand back the photographs to

6 the accused and collect the new one.

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. The whole photograph,

8 please.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Please take a careful look at it.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could you please keep the photograph

12 there, and could you please come, Mr. Usher, so I can give you yet another

13 photograph which you can show after this one. But keep this one on the

14 ELMO.

15 As you can see, there are no traces of blood here.

16 And now, could you please show this photograph on the overhead

17 projector. Bear in mind that it is the same person. There's no doubt

18 about that. There are no traces of blood whatsoever.

19 And now please take a look at the other photograph. Please show

20 the other photograph now.

21 As you can see, the same person, and now all of a sudden by this

22 person there are traces of blood. Now the cap is moved --

23 JUDGE MAY: Pause there. Can you assist, Mr. Ambassador, as to

24 those photographs at all? Does it look anything like what you saw?

25 THE WITNESS: It looks very much like what I saw, but these are

1 only a few photographs out of the thousands of photographs that were taken

2 that day. And I can assure the Court that in many of the photographs

3 there is blood, as I described it, on the ground, around the wounds. And

4 I think this latest photograph does attest to the fact that it's an

5 elderly gentleman with the peasant skullcap in the vicinity of his head.

6 All of the bodies, I would note, were in civilian clothes, as earlier

7 described by me.

8 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. Please. This particular photograph, just like you have a big door

10 revolving on a small hinge, this photograph shows that the whole scene has

11 been rigged, although there were a lot of photographs, so a selection

12 wasn't made. On one photograph you see the same individual, without any

13 traces of blood, lying there, lying down; on the second photograph you see

14 the same individual with traces of blood on the stone next to him. Take a

15 look for yourselves. We can see blood here, whereas --

16 JUDGE MAY: You'll have to call the photographer about this. The

17 witness has said what he saw. He can't assist any further. If you make

18 allegations of that sort, you'll have to provide some substance for them.

19 Now, have you got any other questions you want to ask?

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Of course. I have many more

21 questions.

22 And as on the overhead projector -- you can't see this very well,

23 but be so kind as to give Mr. Robinson, Mr. May, and Mr. Kwon a chance of

24 seeing the photographs live on the paper in front of them so that they can

25 see the difference. And can we clearly see that this scene has been

1 staged or rigged.

2 JUDGE MAY: Oh, yes. Hand up -- sorry. Can you hand up the

3 photographs, please.

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Take a look at that man in the two

5 variations, where there is blood and where there isn't blood, as

6 Mr. Walker had occasion to see them.

7 [Trial Chamber confers]

8 JUDGE MAY: Yes, we've seen the photographs. I don't think the

9 witness can help any further. He's described what he saw. No doubt you

10 can call your own evidence about it in due course.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It's about, Mr. May --

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. My question is: Is this an obvious rigging of this scene,

14 Mr. Walker?

15 JUDGE MAY: We have dealt with this. Those are simply your

16 allegations, and if you make allegations of that sort, you must support

17 them with evidence.

18 MR. NICE: Can I just inform the Court, so we don't lose track of

19 it, these were photographs taken by Ian Hendrie. He's, of course, now

20 finished his evidence. I don't think these allegations were put to him.

21 JUDGE MAY: I don't recollect that.

22 MR. NICE: I'm sure they weren't put to him.

23 JUDGE MAY: It can be dealt with in due course.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Mr. Walker, were the bodies brought into that location or not, or

1 do you consider that that spot is where the killing took place?

2 A. My own opinion is that I am absolutely convinced that those people

3 died where I saw them. My own opinion is that - and this was shared by

4 everyone who was with me on the hill that day, with whom I discussed

5 it - that none of these bodies were brought from elsewhere, and, as I say,

6 they had died at that spot.

7 Q. So even this photograph, which quite obviously shows the rigging

8 of this scene, you don't consider that these scenes have in fact been

9 rigged, even with these photographs?

10 A. As I've said, I do not consider, from everything I saw, nor from

11 those photographs, that any rigging had been done of the scene.

12 Q. All right, Mr. Walker. You said during your examination-in-chief

13 that the Yugoslav authorities did not take the necessary steps to conduct

14 an investigation and that you know that an official investigation did take

15 place, led by Judge Danica Marinkovic. You also know that the forensic

16 experts conducted an investigation, and you are well aware of the findings

17 of the Prosecution, so all the findings of the official Yugoslav

18 authorities and organs. Now, did the Yugoslav side conduct an

19 investigation or did it not?

20 A. My understanding is the Yugoslav authorities, with the judge that

21 you just named, did conduct an official investigation. Excuse me. I'm

22 also aware that there was an official government forensic team that came

23 to Kosovo, to Pristina, and conducted autopsies on the bodies from Racak.

24 Q. All right. And in view of the fact that the ground was as you

25 described it, to an experienced man, didn't you find it suspicious that in

1 addition to these serious injuries and wounds, and all the rest of it,

2 that there should be so little trace of blood on the ground, on the soil?

3 A. As I've already answered and as I think I said in my statement, I

4 did observe blood on the ground in the vicinity of a number of the

5 bodies. Did I see it in terms of every body or could photographs be taken

6 from an angle that showed no blood? That I cannot question. But I saw

7 blood on the ground. I saw blood near the wounds. Yes, these were

8 horrific sites to look at, and there was a lot of blood present.

9 Q. In your statement, you say the following: "I did not receive any

10 warning or information that an attack was being prepared on Racak." Is

11 that correct?

12 A. That is correct.

13 Q. And is it also correct that exhaustive information about Racak was

14 received by you already on the afternoon of the 15th of January, 1999?

15 A. That is incorrect. I was in -- in Montenegro for most of that

16 day, trying -- well, not trying to but talking to the president of

17 Montenegro. I returned late in the afternoon to Pristina, at which point

18 General DZ came to me and told me what had been communicated to him by

19 Loncar's office, that is, that a clash had occurred with the KLA, that 15

20 had been killed, with no casualties on the government side. That was the

21 first time that I remember that I believe the word "Racak" came to my

22 notice.

23 Q. Well, all right. Do you know, Mr. Walker, that your verifiers

24 were present from the very morning and observed Racak and the hill above

25 Racak?

1 A. I was told that -- by General DZ that when we heard about a

2 problem in the vicinity of Racak, that our Regional Centre in Prizren,

3 which was commanded by General Maisonneuve - who I believe has been a

4 witness here - he dispatched several vehicles, several of our verifier

5 vehicles, to the Racak area to try and see what was going on. They were

6 told that for their safety's sake they should not go forward by -- at some

7 roadblocks of your security forces, so they were compelled to stand off

8 and, through binoculars, I assume, try to determine what was happening to

9 the village of Racak.

10 Q. Well, I'm not going to waste time here. We saw a videotape on

11 which we saw your verifiers observing Racak, and all I want to do is

12 remind you at this point that General Drewienkiewicz, towards the end or

13 perhaps at the very end of his testimony here during the

14 cross-examination, even indicated the hill on the map where the observers

15 were located, exactly above Racak and from which vantage point they were

16 looking down at Racak and seeing what was going on. Are you aware of

17 that? This was during all those events on the 15th.

18 JUDGE MAY: The witness will not be aware of what other witnesses

19 said.

20 As for the evidence about the verifiers, as I recollect it, the

21 video showed them during the course of that afternoon on the hill,

22 observing.

23 Ambassador, I think the point is to suggest that you were better

24 informed than you've said. When was the first time that you really got

25 any firm information as to Racak? Can you help us as to that?

1 THE WITNESS: When I returned from Montenegro late in the

2 afternoon of the 15th, General DZ came and told me that he had been

3 informed by Loncar or Loncar's office that this -- that a clash had

4 occurred, an armed clash between the security forces of the government and

5 the KLA, that 15 KLA had been killed, that no one had been killed on the

6 side -- no one had been injured on the side of the government forces.

7 General DZ told me that we had gotten some of our people close

8 in. In fact, late in the afternoon, at least one of our vehicles, maybe

9 more, had gotten into the village, had seen the results of the artillery

10 bombardment of the village, had found at least, I think -- my memory was

11 of three. I think maybe there was more wounded. Their first thought was

12 to get the wounded out of Racak and to medical attention. I was also told

13 that this had all happened in the -- as daylight was disappearing. We had

14 a standing operating procedure within the mission which was that our

15 patrols should not be out after dark, that it was very dangerous to be out

16 after dark, that either side could see our vehicles as being from the

17 opposite side and taking a shot at them.

18 So because they had people to get to hospitals, to medical

19 attention, because they had daylight disappearing, they gathered up the

20 wounded and took them away. That was what I heard the night of the

21 incident.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. All right. Mr. Walker, are you acquainted with the fact that the

24 verifiers were there from the very morning, that they were by Racak from

25 early morning and that they observed Racak from the morning?

1 A. I am not sure what time they got there. I just know that our

2 office in Prizren would have gotten there as fast as they possibly could

3 have. They wanted to go into the village but were stopped from going into

4 the village and did have to observe from a distance. And everything I was

5 told subsequent to -- to my going to the village and my press conference,

6 everything I was told by the people who were observing was that the

7 interpretation I had been given of the incident by the villagers of Racak

8 was essentially correct, that is, bombardment by artillery and then

9 entering into the village by special police forces who took the men away.

10 Q. I'm going to quote just one sentence from the statement by

11 General Maisonneuve, who testified in this courtroom. It is to be found

12 on page 9 of Maisonneuve's statement, the penultimate paragraph, one

13 sentence.

14 "The verifiers saw smoke coming out of the chimneys in the

15 village, which spoke of the fact that the civilian population, or at least

16 those who had remained, were going about their usual morning daily

17 duties."

18 JUDGE MAY: Now, what is the question for the witness? He can

19 only repeat what he was told, and he's given his evidence about it.

20 Quotations from statements of other witnesses isn't going to assist. Now,

21 can we move on?

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, we clarified this point

23 with General Maisonneuve, that as his verifiers saw the villagers going

24 about their regular morning duties and that the regular morning duties

25 were something that they were able to see in the morning and not in the

1 afternoon, because your daily morning routines are done in the morning and

2 not in the afternoon. And allow me to assume that the Head of Mission was

3 quite certainly informed with what the verifiers had seen. Like my

4 assumption --

5 JUDGE MAY: No assumptions. We will are dealing with the

6 witness's evidence, and he's given it as to what he knew and when.

7 Now, rather than continuing this argument, you would be sensible

8 to move on. Your time is limited. What is your question for the

9 witness?

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, my question to the witness is

11 whether he was informed about that or not.

12 JUDGE MAY: No. He's given his evidence as to what he was

13 informed of.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. You say in your statement that you received information from the

17 office of General Loncar, a member of the Yugoslav army, that early on

18 that day there was an armed conflict and so on and so forth. That is all

19 on page 3. And you say: "General DZ told me that the VJ, as he was told

20 by Loncar, from Racak," the unit, et cetera, et cetera.

21 General Loncar, as you know, Mr. Walker - and this is my question

22 to you - was a retired general and not a member of the Yugoslav army when

23 he performed that duty of his in the mission. Is that correct or not?

24 A. You told me when I met you in the first meeting as head of the KVM

25 that -- and I asked about General Loncar, you told me that the general had

1 retired. But we still call him "General," as I in retirement am still

2 called "Ambassador." I did not know his status in terms of the army when

3 I met him in Kosovo.

4 Q. Well, I assume you knew that he was the deputy of the president of

5 the Commission for Cooperation with the OSCE, and you represented the

6 OSCE. And his seat was in Pristina, while Nikola Sainovic, the

7 vice-president of the federal government, vice-Premier, was, on behalf of

8 the Federal Government, nominated as president of the Commission for

9 Cooperation with the OSCE, that is to say, with you yourself. And I

10 assume that the commission numbered 16 members from different departments

11 so that altogether they could cover the problems and issues and have good

12 relations with your mission.

13 Were you informed of that? Were you aware of that or not?

14 A. As I mentioned yesterday, I was first told that Mr. Andjelkovic

15 was the head of the commission I was supposed to deal with. Then I later

16 met General Loncar at the bottom of the steps of my aeroplane when I

17 arrived officially as the head of the KVM. Mr. Sainovic I met subsequent

18 to that, I think first in your office in Belgrade and then later we had

19 dinner and he informed me of his position. I didn't get full titles in

20 terms of the commission you mentioned with the 16 members. The first time

21 I met Mr. Andjelkovic, he had a number of other people there who he

22 introduced to me. I never saw them again, and I certainly never met with

23 the commission again.

24 Q. Mr. Walker, you asked me, if possible, to include General Loncar -

25 I did not know at the time whether he was retired or not when we saw each

1 other the first time - because you had good cooperation with him. And

2 yesterday you said that that was not the case.

3 Now, think again. Was it at your request that I asked

4 General Loncar to come out of retirement and work in the mission or not?

5 A. It was not.

6 Q. You even said yesterday that he worked in Slavonia for you and

7 that he was appointed here for reasons you were not aware of, although you

8 asked about him, and none of that is correct. He worked in Slavonia for

9 his own people, and he worked here as the government representative.

10 So --

11 JUDGE MAY: No. The witness did not say that Loncar worked for

12 him in Slavonia. That was not the evidence.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That's what it was interpreted as,

14 and I was rather taken aback by it. But if you say he didn't, then --

15 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let's move on.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. So Loncar was Head of Mission in Pristina, and the president of

19 the Commission for Cooperation was Sainovic, and in that capacity you

20 would meet both of them. Isn't that so?

21 A. I met a number of times with Mr. Loncar outside the presence of

22 Sainovic. I met with Sainovic several times outside the presence of

23 Loncar. I met with the two of them together several times.

24 Q. How do you explain the fact that Racak, for which nobody knew

25 about, and you knew nothing about it on that morning, as it says in your

1 statement, suddenly, even before anybody knew about it, became a

2 sensation? And as you yourself say, "Lots of papers and journalists went

3 to follow us, came after us." So it became a sort of sensation, a

4 sensation that had been prepared. Yes or no, Mr. Walker.

5 A. I would question your description of my testimony. I said before

6 January 15th, I had never heard of Racak. In the late afternoon of

7 January 15th, I was told certain information about Racak. The following

8 day, I went to Racak. The following afternoon, I gave a press

9 conference. It was before journalists from Albanian media, Serb media,

10 European media, North American media. My words were covered, I believe,

11 in all of that media, and that is what caused -- that's what caused the

12 attention of the world going towards this village of Racak.

13 I think your description of those -- that sequence is a bit

14 flawed.

15 Q. That, Mr. Walker, is your own description, and may I draw your

16 attention to page 4 of your statement when Drewienkiewicz told you perhaps

17 you personally should go to Racak because it seems that something bad

18 happened there. I'm reading this from your own statement. And, "We have

19 received" -- "We haven't received the full story from the government

20 yet." And then I said, "Let's do that." And in the following paragraph,

21 you said, "I noticed that there were a lot of journalists rushing around

22 to get into their cars and follow us."

23 So before anybody knew anything, everybody tried to follow. You

24 were expecting a sensation. Is that so or not?

25 A. With the possible exception of your last words "expecting a

1 sensation," I'm not sure either I or anyone in my mission or the

2 journalists themselves knew what to expect when we got to Racak.

3 Q. Nobody knew, and yet on page 6 when you describe all this, you

4 say: "While I was watching this pile of bodies --" this was your first

5 meeting with them -- "I was looking at the pile of bodies, a female

6 American journalist, I believe, with either ABC or CBS, approached and

7 said that she was about to broadcast live to the USA."

8 So nobody knew what happened in Racak, whereas they had prepared

9 all the technology necessary to broadcast live to the USA. What they did

10 not know in advance, what had not been reported to them in advance because

11 they had not expected a sensation of this kind.

12 Does that seem to you to be logical or not, Mr. Walker?

13 A. Logical or not, I think what happened was journalists that morning

14 had already gotten -- some journalists had already gotten to Racak and

15 perhaps had informed their colleagues back in Pristina that something

16 was -- something fishy had happened. When I exited the building that

17 morning to head for Racak, as usual there were a number of media cameras,

18 that sort of thing, reporters, outside our headquarters, and they jumped

19 into their cars and followed us to Racak. The American TV companies as

20 well as the European TV companies quite often brought along their cameras

21 and the facilities that were needed to broadcast live or not live, and ABC

22 or CBS, whichever it was, did set up quickly and she did do a live

23 interview with me.

24 Q. Mr. Walker, you know full well that the journalists who were in

25 Racak, according to their own statements, say they didn't see anything

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1 special going on the previous day, and, therefore, that they did not

2 expect a sensation to take place, the sensation that occurred when you

3 left. But --

4 JUDGE MAY: That's not a matter for the witness. He can't comment

5 on what journalists knew or didn't know.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. My next question then: You say that on that particular morning,

8 you were late to work in your office. That's what it says in your

9 statement here. Were you late to your office because you had previously

10 to take care of this sensational event and to take all the organisational

11 measures necessary? Was that why you were late?

12 A. No. I was late to my office because it was a Saturday morning.

13 The previous day I'd been flying and meeting the president of Montenegro.

14 It had been a long and exhausting day, and I decided I would sleep in a

15 bit late, but I got to the office around 9.00 a.m., which I considered

16 late, but it was strictly because, as I say, it was a Saturday. I was not

17 expecting anything unusual to occur, and it wasn't until I got to the

18 office that General DZ came and informed me that, as I said earlier,

19 something is fishy in Racak.

20 Q. You also say on page 6: "I had an interpreter for Serbian, but he

21 wasn't with me on that particular morning." Why wasn't the interpreter

22 for Serbian with you in Racak if you had in fact gone to see, as you say,

23 the effects of the Serb forces? And I assume you expected to talk to one

24 of the functionaries of the police force in the field. Why didn't you

25 have a Serbian interpreter with you? Didn't you intend to talk to the

1 Serbs?

2 A. I don't remember specifically, but I know my Serb interpreter was

3 very timid when it came to going into a situation where Albanians had been

4 harmed. When we were negotiating the release of the Tanjug journalist,

5 for instance, with the KLA, he remained in the car, unwilling to get out

6 of the car because he feared for his life, I guess. So my memory is

7 unclear as to whether or not he was invited to go that morning, but all I

8 can say is he was not with us.

9 Q. You say that the villagers, the farmers, when your people were

10 there on the 15th, didn't know what had happened. And here we

11 established, in fact, that the police withdrew before 1600 hours. So how

12 do you mean? What do you mean that they didn't know what had happened if

13 the police left Racak before 1600 hours and that from 1600 hours Racak was

14 in the hands of the KLA again? Are you aware of that fact? Do you know

15 about it?

16 A. I'm not sure what you have described is a fact, for instance, that

17 the KLA was in charge again of the village. The monitors that we had in

18 there found a traumatised village. They found women and children who had

19 seen their men captured and taken off unarmed by your forces. As I said

20 earlier, our people reported that this all occurred just before the sun

21 went down and they had to leave the village. At that point in time, our

22 monitors were not told about what was discovered the following morning,

23 that is the bodies up this ravine that were some distance off from the

24 village.

25 JUDGE MAY: Yes. It's now 1.00, time to adjourn.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, please, for

2 cross-examination could you tell me how much time I have left?

3 JUDGE MAY: We will consider the position.

4 Mr. Kay, is there any cross-examination anticipated for the

5 amicus? If so, how long, please?

6 MR. KAY: There will be cross-examination but no more than 20

7 minutes.

8 JUDGE MAY: Thank you. We will think about the position.

9 Mr. Walker, would you be back, please, at half past two.

10 --- Luncheon recess taken at 1.00 p.m.

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1 --- On resuming at 2.30 p.m.

2 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, we've considered your cross-examination

3 and its potential length. We will give you until a quarter to 4.00. That

4 is an hour and a quarter, which will be considerably more than the three

5 hours which I originally laid down. We will then hear cross-examination

6 from the amicus, re-examination. We'll break for a short period, very

7 short, and then we'll deal with the administrative matters, one of which,

8 Mr. Kay, is to do with your terms and conditions.

9 MR. KAY: That's right.

10 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. As for the rest of the questions that I put to you concerning the

13 scene in Racak, or rather, its rigging, I'm going to read something out to

14 you: BBC summary of world broadcasts. It relates to reports of the French

15 who were there, Associated Press, and the rest who were there. I can

16 present the entire report, but I'm just going to read a few things.

17 [In English] "[Previous translation continues]... is the

18 question. In actual fact, the police surrounded an empty village that

19 morning, walking around the walls. There was gunfire, because they were

20 fired at by UCK troops entrenched on the hill. The combat redoubles in

21 the intensity in the high ground around the village. The way the

22 Associated Press journalists, who were at the bottom of the hill, saw it,

23 the encircled UCK guerrillas desperately tried to break out in force.

24 Supposedly, around 20 of them succeeded in doing so. Even the police

25 admit this. So what really happened? Did UCK gather up the corpses of

1 the people actually killed by Serb bullets during the night to stage a

2 scene of cold-blooded execution? The trouble, in fact, here is that on

3 Saturday morning, the journalists only found a very small number of spent

4 cartridges around the ditch of the apparent massacre. Did UCK

5 intelligently seek to turn a military defeat into a political victory?"

6 JUDGE MAY: Where does that come from? You say it's the

7 Associated Press, BBC summary of world broadcasts. What day is that,

8 Mr. Milosevic?

9 THE ACCUSED: January 23rd, 1999, Saturday.

10 JUDGE MAY: Very well. And who is the journalist who provided

11 this information to Associated Press?

12 THE ACCUSED: They are referring to the source Le Figaro, Paris,

13 in French, 20th of January.

14 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Well, you can call them. You can call them to

15 give evidence. I don't imagine there's much point putting it to this

16 witness. He's given his evidence about what happened.

17 Can you comment at all, do you think, usefully, Ambassador, on

18 what's been read out?

19 THE WITNESS: No, I can't. I've already testified to what I knew

20 and when I knew it.

21 JUDGE MAY: Is it just the opinion of some journalist?

22 THE WITNESS: I don't know who the French who were there -- or

23 that are being referred to. I don't know of any French that were on my

24 party when we went up to Racak.

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

1 Q. Well, in your mission, your deputy was a Frenchman, for example.

2 And since you're referring to the French anyway, in your statement you say

3 that perhaps the French government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was

4 unwilling to accuse Milosevic's government of any kind of misdeeds,

5 including Racak. That's what you said; right?

6 A. Referring to my French deputy, he was not with me in my party that

7 went to Racak the day after the massacre. I have questioned some reports

8 that were in the French newspapers after Racak in terms of their

9 interpretation of what had taken place.

10 Q. I'm not asking you about your deputy. I'm not asking whether he

11 was in Racak. I am asking you about the assertion you made in your

12 written statement that the French government or, rather, its ministry was

13 not willing to accuse the Milosevic government of any wrongdoings as in

14 Racak. That's what you wrote. Can you explain that? What does that

15 mean?

16 A. It means exactly what it said. I had some problems in terms of

17 reporting that appeared in French newspapers questioning, on the basis of

18 whose words I know not, my version of what had happened in Racak. Whether

19 that emanated from the French Foreign Ministry or not, I don't know. My

20 deputy, Mr. Keller, later denied that he was the source of it and in fact

21 said that he was in agreement with my interpretation of what happened at

22 Racak, that it was in fact a massacre.

23 Q. Yes. But you claim on this same page, number 10, when referring

24 to Keller, who you mentioned awhile ago -- I'm going to read the entire

25 sentence to you. It's very short. "Few in the mission believed him."

1 Why do you say that?

2 A. Because that's a statement of fact.

3 Q. So you didn't trust Keller?

4 A. I'm saying when the articles appeared in the French newspapers

5 saying that someone in the mission did not agree with Walker's

6 interpretation, many people in the mission, or at least those who came and

7 talked to me, ascribed the quotes to Ambassador Keller. A few days later,

8 Ambassador Keller denied categorically that he was the source of those

9 quotes in the French press. Many of those people who came to see me in

10 the aftermath of that, commenting on the French press accounts and

11 Mr. Keller's denial, told me that they did not believe him in his denial

12 that he was the source of the quotes.

13 Q. You say that on that day when you were in Racak, that is to say on

14 the 16th, you just have faint memories. That's what you said, that you

15 talked to two or three men who wore KLA uniforms. And towards the end of

16 the paragraph, you say - I don't want to waste time - "I do not recall

17 that I ever saw any one of them again later."

18 Is that right? Is that what you assert?

19 A. I stand by my statement in my deposition, yes.

20 Q. However, Buja Shukri, a witness who was a commander of that area,

21 he testified here a few days ago, he said that he did see you that day.

22 He said that a meeting was scheduled with you through Mujota, their

23 representative, who was in Racak on the same day and that the next day, in

24 the village of Petrovo with Buja Shukri, near Racak, you had a meeting at

25 12.00 and that that meeting was held at 12.00. Is that right or is that

1 not right?

2 A. If you're asking me if it was at 12.00, I have no recollection.

3 Did I have a meeting with this gentleman? Yes, I did.

4 Q. So you did meet that gentleman the next day. It doesn't matter

5 whether it's at 12.00 or not. I just gave you the exact time so that I

6 would refresh your memory.

7 You met him the next day. You had a meeting with him the next

8 day, isn't that right, in Petrovo?

9 A. I'm not sure it was the next day. I thought it was the same day.

10 But I did have a meeting with him, yes.

11 Q. All right. But then this what you said, that you do not remember

12 ever having seen any one of these people again, that cannot be true

13 because you did go to another meeting.

14 A. I'm confused. Let me tell you what my memory is of the events. I

15 went to Racak. I saw what I saw. Sometime in the village or on the way

16 to my cars, someone came up and said that there was someone from the KLA -

17 I think he was described as a regional area commander - would be willing

18 to see me. We went to a nearby village, as you say. What the name of it

19 is I'm not familiar with it, but we went elsewhere. It is not in Racak.

20 He explained to me how -- how emotional he and his men were over

21 what had happened in Racak and that he promised me that he was going to

22 take retribution for it. I told him that that would be very unwise, that

23 again this would only lead to tit-for-tat retaliation by your forces and

24 that it would be much better if he could try to calm his people down and

25 not do what he was threatening to do. When I say I never saw him again

1 or, as far as I know, any of the people who were with him, that's exactly

2 true. To my knowledge, I never met that man again. I had one

3 conversation with him.

4 Q. You mentioned in your statement that one of the indicators of them

5 not being members of the KLA was the fact that they were some elderly

6 men. Buja Shukri, that same commander of theirs that you met, admitted

7 here that two men, and he said what their names and surnames were, were

8 aged 60 and 62 respectively, and they were KLA fighters, KLA members.

9 JUDGE MAY: The witness can't comment --

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. Does that mean anything to you?

12 JUDGE MAY: The witness can't comment on what other people said

13 here. He's made his point. It doesn't seem to me that your question is

14 going to add anything to it.

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, whether he's going to add

16 something to it or not is a matter of assessment, but you know this full

17 well.

18 JUDGE MAY: I know what full well? Yes. Let's rephrase the

19 question.

20 Is it possible that the members of the KLA could have been over

21 60? Perhaps, Ambassador, you could tell us.

22 THE WITNESS: Among the KLA soldiers, fighting men that I saw

23 during my time in Kosovo, there were some who appeared elderly. Whether

24 they were over 60, I know not. But the vast majority were youngish men, I

25 would say in their 20s, some in their 30s. Were there individual members

1 who were over 60? Certainly it's possible, but my distinct impression was

2 that most of them were well below that. These were fighting men under --

3 who were out under very harsh conditions. I don't think a life for the

4 elderly.

5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. All right. Let's go on in order to be as expeditious as

7 possible. You objected to Danica Marinkovic, Judge Danica Marinkovic.

8 You say here on page 11 -- you call her a prosecutor here, but never

9 mind. Investigating judge, prosecutor; it's similar. She insisted on

10 going with the Finnish team to Albanian villages that were under KLA

11 control. Marinkovic insisted that the team go with a strong escort of the

12 MUP and the army.

13 Tell me, why would the investigating judge not go? Isn't it her

14 duty to go? That is her risk. She is obviously a brave woman when she

15 asked to go there where the KLA were. It's her job. That should be a

16 reason for giving her recognition. And why, in your opinion, is that a

17 reason to criticise Mrs. Marinkovic?

18 A. I am aware of two instances in which I was told of the judge's

19 efforts to get to a site where something bad had happened. The first time

20 the Finnish forensic team came to Kosovo while I was there, Dr. Helena

21 Ranko [sic] - was that her name? - the head of the mission, was there to

22 exhume some gravesites. I went out to see the team that was about to dig

23 up a burial site. This was well before the Racak incident.

24 Dr. Ranta and her team told me they were going to actually do the

25 exhumation the following day. This was out in the middle of nowhere in

1 very heavy snowy conditions, very cold. She told me they were going to do

2 the exhumation the following day.

3 The next day, she came to the office and told me that she had

4 cancelled the exhumation. Why? Because the judge had insisted on going

5 in to that village with a very full security force behind her, and

6 Dr. Ranta judged that this would put her people in danger, and, therefore,

7 she cancelled the exhumation.

8 The second time I heard the judge's name was in the aftermath of

9 Racak when she wanted to go into Racak with full force behind her, VJ,

10 MUP. We had verifiers, I believe including General Maisonneuve, in the

11 village. General DZ went up to where the judge was when she was standing

12 off, about to go in with her full force. General DZ came and told me that

13 he tried to talk her out of it, not out of going into the village but out

14 of going in with such a full military and security force. He told her

15 that for her to do so would probably only provoke something from the KLA,

16 which was still in the vicinity.

17 General DZ told me that his request to her was denied. He told

18 her that he would take her personally into the village, with a small unit

19 of police or VJ. She turned that down as well. He finally, in his story

20 to me, told the judge that if she was determined to go forward with a full

21 military and police force, he asked that she give him at least time to get

22 our people out of the village, because they would be in serious harm's

23 way.

24 He thought he had her agreement to that. When he went off to

25 communicate with our people in the village, she immediately started

1 advancing --

2 Q. Mr. Walker, we've heard that story. My question was: Isn't it

3 the job of an investigating judge to go? You've explained that. Towards

4 the end of page 11, you say again that she insisted, saying that she had

5 that kind of authority. Doesn't an investigating judge have that kind of

6 authority? Isn't that the job of an investigating judge? You say that

7 she rejected DZ's offer --

8 JUDGE MAY: The witness, when he was interrupted, was giving his

9 account of what had occurred. Now, he can only repeat that account in

10 response to what the investigating judge should or should not do. It is

11 not going to be of assistance to us to hear more argument about these

12 matters.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. All right.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. You presented here the statement of the president of the Republic

16 of Serbia, President Milutinovic, and you say that he accused you of being

17 against the Serbian people, or rather, that you want to destroy the Serb

18 people. I cannot recall the exact wording, but I think that his statement

19 was a good one. Isn't it accurate, Mr. Walker? Isn't his statement

20 accurate?

21 A. It is very inaccurate. As you well know, in my experience in

22 Croatia, I was there protecting Serb people, trying to get them the

23 protection they would need when that became formally a part of Croatia.

24 At that point you thought I was a protector of the Serb people. I have

25 absolutely nothing against the Serb people.

1 Q. Judging by what you did, that is not the conclusion that can be

2 drawn. But please, let us see the next video clip. It is TV footage, and

3 I think that it refutes your claims concerning Racak considerably, that

4 the police attacked and killed, in cold blood, unprotected civilians.

5 [Videotape played]

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. So they saw the police coming up, and even Thaci is refuting what

8 you said. He said that there was heavy fighting and that they had

9 sustained heavy losses and that the Serbs sustained losses. He explains

10 it there.

11 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, this is a waste of time. The witness

12 has given his account of what he saw and heard. If you want to get this

13 evidence in front of us, you can call the witnesses, but it's a waste of

14 time to go on putting this kind of thing. These are the opinions of

15 people who appear on television.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What was that you said about the

17 people who appear on television?

18 JUDGE MAY: Move on to the next question.

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. My question was whether what Hashim Thaci says and what the KLA

21 fighter from Racak says - and Hill used to meet with Thaci as well -

22 doesn't all of this refute what you have been saying, Mr. Walker? Yes or

23 no.

24 JUDGE MAY: You are wasting time. You are arguing with the

25 witness, which you've been told not to do. It's just a waste of time.

1 Now, move on to something else.

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I put a question, Mr. May: Does

3 this refute what he has been saying? That's no quarrel or argument.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. All right. You say that you do not recall when you looked at the

6 ditch -- it's not that you don't remember; you claim that there were no

7 members of the KLA there. Right? When you examined these bodies, you

8 were there with your verifiers, and you claim that there were no KLA

9 there; right?

10 A. My claim is that I did not see anyone who I recognised as a member

11 of the KLA while on the hill.

12 Q. All right. Thank you very much for this statement.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could I please have the next video

14 clip played.

15 [Videotape played]

16 "UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: At the time Walker arrived, the KLA had

17 retaken control of Racak."

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And the next one, please. One

19 more.

20 [Videotape played]

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. As you can see, there is a red circle around KLA insignia. You'll

23 see that now. Here's one more encircled. Here's a third one. As you are

24 touring this site. Here's a fourth one, up there, on the left-hand side.

25 Now I'm putting a direct question to you. Let us go back to this

1 direct question. The OSCE followed the events in Racak on the 15th of

2 January; is that right or is that not right?

3 A. They followed them, as I have tried to describe in previous

4 answers, yes.

5 Q. At that time, you had the report of your associate and you also

6 had an opportunity to talk to your associates who had had discussions with

7 the local people. So on the 15th of January, nobody had told you that

8 there was a large number of persons who had been killed; is that right or

9 is that not right?

10 A. The only report I had on the 15th was what I described being

11 communicated to me by General DZ, his report from Loncar that 15

12 guerrillas had been killed in a clash with your troops.

13 Q. Yes, but you presented the information of the Verification Mission

14 not in relation to General Loncar. I have already presented this. I am

15 not going to present it again. It is dated the 16th, the day when you had

16 your press conference. This is a document that was disclosed by the

17 Prosecutor, "The Role of the Regional Centre," 03035952, B/C/S version,

18 last paragraph, and then there's a part called "Assessment." In the

19 English version it is K0075771. It says: A number of KLA members were

20 killed, (eight), in parentheses, and some were wounded. This document was

21 submitted earlier on. This is a document of your Verification Mission.

22 On the 16th, when you spoke about the killing of innocent civilians in

23 Racak, you already knew that a number of KLA members had been killed in

24 Racak; is that right or is that not right?

25 A. I'm not sure what sort of a document you're referring to here.

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1 Did I know that some KLA members had probably been killed in the vicinity

2 of Racak? I probably did. My reference to the people that I saw on the

3 hill was that to me they appeared to be -- the evidence appeared to mean

4 that these were civilians, and there were no signs of what had been

5 described by Loncar as a military battle. As I say, I don't know what all

6 these numbers in this document is and whether or not it was something sent

7 in by my people or not. My people did know that there had been skirmishes

8 in the Stimlje area in the days preceding Racak, but this, in my opinion,

9 did not excuse the killing of over 40 civilians in Racak on the 15th.

10 Q. Well, the point is, Mr. Walker: As far as you can remember - and

11 I hope that you remember well - on the 16th of January, when this report

12 already existed, this official report of the mission that you headed, you

13 said that innocent civilians were killed in Racak, only innocent

14 civilians. You did not mention at any point that this was a KLA

15 stronghold and that there was fighting going on there and that members of

16 the KLA were killed. Is that right or is that not right?

17 A. Did I know there were KLA in the vicinity of Racak? Yes. Did I

18 know there had been skirmishes with some elements of the KLA in the

19 vicinity of Stimlje? Yes. Did I believe that that was what I had seen on

20 the hill near Racak on the day of the 16th? No. I thought I was looking

21 at, and I still believe to this day I was looking at, the bodies of over

22 40, perhaps 45, villagers who had been taken away, unarmed, and turned up

23 dead the following morning.

24 Q. Mr. Walker, my direct question to you was: Why didn't you, if you

25 held that press conference, why didn't you mention -- or rather, why did

1 you keep quiet about the fact that a number of the KLA had been killed, if

2 you believe that the other people were civilians and that there was

3 fighting in Racak?

4 A. I used the press conference to describe what I personally saw when

5 I went to Racak. I did not put before that things I had heard in previous

6 days. As I said, the only time -- the first time I heard about the

7 village of Racak was maybe 14 hours before the night of the 15th, when I

8 had that preliminary report from General DZ.

9 Q. Mr. Walker, you were Head of Mission, as you yourself said, that

10 numbered 1.400 people. Therefore, it is to be assumed that you talk about

11 what the mission knows and not only about what you personally saw.

12 Because if it were what you personally saw, then you wouldn't need all

13 these people, these 1.400 people, working for you. Isn't that so?

14 A. That's absurd.

15 Q. Do you deny the fact that you knew, when you made the statement,

16 that a number of members of the KLA were killed in Racak?

17 A. I did not know that. As I'm saying, I heard there were skirmishes

18 in and around Stimlje in the preceding days. I knew that three or four

19 days before, I think three policemen had been killed in that vicinity. I

20 did not connect that in my mind with what I had seen in Racak on the

21 morning of January 16th.

22 Q. All right. There's no point on insisting on that, because your

23 mission provided this report the same day that you gave your press

24 conference.

25 Now tell me this, please: As you are an experienced man and react

1 in several places, in El Salvador, you explained that the fact that they

2 were in uniform did not mean that they were members of the army, although

3 a uniform does denote the army. Now, here civilian clothing in Racak was

4 the criterion you used to say that they were civilians, although it is

5 common knowledge that terrorists wear civilian clothing and that they need

6 not be wearing uniforms. How, then, is it possible that one and the same

7 man is using different criteria?

8 JUDGE MAY: This is an absurd question, absolutely absurd. Now,

9 you're wasting everybody's time with this. Have you got any other

10 questions? In particular, Mr. Milosevic, may I remind you that you made a

11 number of allegations to other witnesses that this incident was to be used

12 as a pretext for what happened thereafter and that Ambassador Walker was

13 involved in that. So if you're going to put it to him, make sure you do

14 before your time is up so he has a chance to answer it.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. In your statement, you say that you do not remember having talked

17 to Clark, Holbrooke, Albright, or the OSCE prior to the press conference

18 in Racak. You say, "I cannot exclude the fact that my memory is lacking

19 on that score."

20 Let me remind you.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we see some footage? Can we

22 have the video played, please?

23 [Videotape played]

24 "MR. HOLBROOKE: Walker, the head of the Kosovo Verification

25 Mission, called me on a cell phone from Racak.

1 "INTERVIEWER: So you don't remember calling Washington at all?

2 "GENERAL CLARK: I got a call from Bill Walker. He said, 'There's

3 a massacre. I'm standing here. I can see the bodies.'

4 "INTERVIEWER: And you didn't speak to General Clark or anybody

5 like that?"

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. Do you need to comment this at all? I leave it to you to decide.

8 A. I stick by my statement. When I had that interview with BBC, I

9 had no recollection whatsoever of having talked to either of those two

10 gentlemen. As I said yesterday, there were tremendous -- there was

11 tremendous commotion and activity going on in the immediate aftermath of

12 my visit to Racak and before I made the press conference.

13 Did I talk to those people? Are they telling the truth when they

14 say they talked to me? I have no reason to doubt it. I believe they are

15 both very honourable and truthful people. So I just have to plead a

16 faulty memory when I was talking to BBC. But I'm quite positive I didn't

17 talk to Madeleine Albright, but I have no doubt that people on my staff

18 were calling the various capitals of the OSCE member states to tell them

19 what had been seen on Racak that day. Whether I made some of the calls or

20 whether other people on my staff did, at this point in time, I have

21 absolutely no recollection.

22 Q. All right, Mr. Walker. You do not know that. You did not know

23 about the report of the 16th by your mission and about many other things

24 you say that you cannot --

25 JUDGE MAY: No. This is all comment, Mr. Milosevic. What is your

1 question?

2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. My question is: How then do you know and claim that I had to have

4 been informed about each and every detail which took place in Kosovo? How

5 can you say that, then? How can you claim that? How do you know what I

6 did when you don't know what you did yourself?

7 A. I'm not sure I ever stated what I thought you knew or didn't know

8 or said or didn't say in the aftermath of Racak. All I know is that from

9 everything that was presented to me in my meetings with you, in my

10 meetings with your subordinate, you were the Supreme Commander of the

11 former Yugoslavia as a nation, that this -- these people in your chain of

12 command reported up to you. They asked your permission to do things. So

13 I assumed you tried to become as aware of what happened in Racak as you

14 possibly could. I think that's all I've ever stated.

15 Q. Well, all right. Can you assume that any Supreme Commander --

16 let's forget about Supreme Commanders at all.

17 Can you assume that a corps commander, for example, holding a

18 territory the size of Kosovo and Metohija must necessarily know about each

19 and every detail going on in his village, in his area? Or even a brigade

20 commander, to go even lower down the line, let alone the Supreme Command?

21 So how do you draw these conclusions then and make your assumptions?

22 A. As I believe I stated in my first deposition, I do not believe any

23 army commander, subcommander, soldier in the Yugoslav army or any member

24 of the special police of the Ministry of the Interior would have done

25 anything that they thought was in contradiction to your policies and your

1 orders. I believe from everything I saw when I was in Kosovo that that

2 was the culture of your military and police. I'm going on the assumption

3 that a military operation such as took place in Racak would not have been

4 ordered by a local commander or a regional commander or an army commander

5 without knowing full well that you were in agreement with that operation.

6 Q. Now, as you were in Kosovo throughout that time, do you know that

7 there was a strict order that the operations could be against the KLA only

8 and that protection for all the civilian population, regardless of

9 ethnicity, was to be respected? Was that something that you were made

10 aware of? Was it the subject of what you were informed about?

11 A. I was probably informed about that, but if that was an order, it

12 was consistently disobeyed by some of your subordinates.

13 Q. The Prosecution has presented here the original report which came

14 about from the police on the events in Racak. It was sent -- I don't

15 remember any more, but the Prosecution has that document, whether it was

16 on the 15th in the evening or the 16th in the morning, but it is a

17 collective report for that region, and it says there that there was a

18 clash between the police and the terrorist band of Shiptar terrorists in

19 Racak and that a large number of them were liquidated and that there were

20 no civilian fatalities, casualities. That is the original report written

21 on the same day. Do you consider that the commander in charge was lying

22 to his superior command to whom he was sending this report? And it is the

23 Prosecution which presented that report here.

24 A. I'm sorry, I'm confused.

25 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Put the question again so it's clear to the

1 witness.

2 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I also think that the accused might

3 rephrase his question. The document wasn't advanced by the Prosecution as

4 a document of truth, and he knows that --

5 JUDGE KWON: I think it's Exhibit 177 or something like that.

6 It's a MUP referred --

7 MR. NICE: It was adduced entirely to show its falsity, not its

8 accuracy.

9 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Did you see the -- Ambassador, did you see the

10 report of the Ministry of the Interior Police on Racak at any stage?

11 THE WITNESS: I don't recall if I did or not, sir.

12 JUDGE MAY: No. There's no point asking the witness about it.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. Now, you claim that the Yugoslav side - and when you say that you

16 mean me personally - that we didn't respect the agreement that Holbrooke

17 and I drew up with respect to the reduction of the police and army in

18 Kosovo. Is that so or not?

19 A. What I brought to you on the November meeting was a charge that

20 your forces were in many ways in non-compliance with your agreement with

21 Milosevic [sic], later written down in your agreement with the OSCE, yes.

22 Q. I don't understand that, because you see here we have a report by

23 the BBC where -- and it relates to the time that you're talking about, and

24 they quote General Klaus Naumann, who says, and I'm quoting: [In English]

25 "[Previous translation continues]... what he was asked -- what we had

1 asked him to do. He withdrew within 48 hours some 6.000 police officers

2 from Kosovo and the military back into the barracks. This was also

3 confirmed," and so on.

4 [Interpretation] Therefore, he was abreast of these negotiations

5 together with Clark. He confirmed that in keeping with the agreement, we

6 did reduce our forces to the number that was required, that the army was

7 withdrawn to the barracks except for the three companies that you know how

8 they were deployed, and that we did comply with the agreement. Is that

9 true or is it not?

10 A. It is not true. As I testified yesterday and as the letter I sent

11 to you that was displayed yesterday, in accord with that, we were

12 constantly asking you and your commanders for baseline information as to

13 how many police, how many military, how many weapons, how many tanks, how

14 many artillery pieces you had in Kosovo at the time of the agreement so we

15 could determine whether the numbers were going up or down or sideways.

16 When I'm talking about non-compliance with the agreement, I could

17 mention things such as you were supposed to notify the KVM verifiers when

18 your tanks, for instance, left cantonment. We often came across tanks on

19 the streets going in different directions to different places, which you

20 had not notified us about. Artillery pieces, that sort of thing.

21 We came to the conclusion, and this was mostly General DZ and his

22 people that were working under him in relation to your military, that

23 there were flagrant violations of the agreements. As I say, maybe you did

24 withdraw 6.000, but we were never able to confirm that because we had no

25 baseline information from which to determine whether the numbers were

1 going up or down, although we repeatedly, repeatedly asked for those

2 baseline figures.

3 Q. Mr. Walker, even the birds in the trees know that there was a

4 total of 10.024 policemen which was made note of when those 6.000

5 withdrew. The normal state of affairs and the normal law and order

6 enforcements, which meant that they could have been two to two and a half

7 thousand on duty in Kosovo, because you know they were in five shifts, and

8 all of them who are in Kosovo cannot work round the clock 24 hours. You

9 knew about this figure, and this figure was sent in to you just like the

10 figure on the Kosovo, rather, the Pristina Corps and its regular units and

11 formations which did exercises and training and nothing else except for

12 those three companies that worked those three points. Is that correct or

13 not?

14 A. That is not correct.

15 Q. All right. I don't want to waste any more of my time on that

16 because we've cleared that up with Drewienkiewicz. We went into it in

17 considerable detail. Otherwise, when he was heard on the 11th of April

18 this year, he said that a part of KDOM had remained independent and that

19 it was not the US KDOM who stayed in Kosovo throughout -- the US KDOM who

20 did stay in Kosovo throughout. Is that correct?

21 A. I'm confused.

22 THE INTERPRETER: The US KDOM stayed in Kosovo throughout.

23 JUDGE MAY: Did you hear that final translation, Ambassador?

24 THE WITNESS: Yes. When the KVM was set up, the original proposal

25 was that over time, as quickly as possible, KVM would absorb the KDOMs.

1 There were KDOMs from the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany,

2 Russia, the EC. That's the ones I can remember. We started to absorb

3 them as soon as we were set up.

4 The American, the US KDOM was by far the largest, having well over

5 a hundred people when we first got there. We absorbed a certain number of

6 them. We absorbed a certain amount of their equipment, but it was a

7 process that required moving personnel around, et cetera, from one to

8 another institution. It took time. And by the time we left Kosovo, there

9 were still a small number of US KDOM who remained as US KDOM. I believe

10 we had absorbed all the rest with the possible exception of the EC, where

11 they said they would prefer to stay separate from my mission.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. And what about the fact that part of the KDOM remained outside the

14 KVM? Was [microphone not activated] informed about that?

15 A. I'm sorry, I missed a part of the question.

16 Q. The fact that a part of KDOM stayed outside the KVM, was that

17 something that Vollebaek was informed of? Your official head, chief,

18 boss.

19 A. I believe that the OSCE was aware that we had not absorbed all of

20 the US KDOM by the time we'd departed, yes. Whether Knut Vollebaek was

21 himself personally aware of this, I don't know, but certainly the OSCE

22 knew that we had not absorbed all of the KDOM.

23 Q. All right. What you have just said implies that you didn't inform

24 him about it. Isn't that so? Yes or no.

25 A. I have no recollection of informing Knut Vollebaek, the Chairman

1 in Office of the OSCE, about either the presence or absence of the KDOMs.

2 Q. All right. And this American KDOM, was it directly linked with

3 NATO command or not? Just say yes or no.

4 A. I have no idea.

5 Q. And did the KVM, from the time you arrived in Kosovo, undertake

6 any action for training the KLA?

7 THE INTERPRETER: I'm sorry. Verifying KLA training sites.

8 Interpreter's correction.

9 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, what? The question is undertake any

10 action to verify KLA training sites? Not to my knowledge.

11 JUDGE MAY: No, no.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes.

13 JUDGE MAY: No. Did you undertake any action for training the

14 KLA, it appears to say. Now, that was corrected.

15 THE WITNESS: It was corrected, I believe.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. To verify the places for the training of the KLA.

18 JUDGE MAY: Yes, we have it.

19 THE WITNESS: As I've said, I know of no verification of KLA

20 training sites conducted by members of the KVM mission.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. Drewienkiewicz answered to that same question, that it was right,

23 correct. But we can look into that later on.

24 Now, did you make up any kind of report as to the sites for

25 training? If not all of them, did you make up any kind of report at all

1 on this, on training sites?

2 A. I'm sorry, but, you know, I do not have total knowledge of

3 everything that was reported from the KVM mission to Vienna. This was a

4 constant flow of information from our Fusion Centre which is where the

5 information came in. Whether or not something was mentioned about KLA

6 training sites or not, I don't know. I'm solely saying that nothing was

7 brought to my attention that would indicate we were trying to verify or

8 had verified or had reported on KLA training sites.

9 Q. And is it true that it was only you, you alone, you personally in

10 the whole mission who was authorised to decide as to what was a violation

11 of the agreement and what was not a violation of the agreement?

12 A. No, that is not true. I mean, you know, the agreements had been

13 reached by other persons, and when we heard of something or saw something

14 or reported on something, if someone in Vienna told us this looked like a

15 violation, you know, we would look into it. I certainly, you know, did

16 not unilaterally or with my immediate staff determine, you know, what we

17 thought was non-compliance. It was a process of gathering information,

18 vetting that information.

19 Q. All right. That's the answer I wanted to hear. Now, is it true

20 that in your mission experts were engaged of the MPRI company, the MPRI

21 company. M-P-R-I.

22 A. The MPRI I know is a company that worked in Zagreb when I was in

23 Eastern Slavonia. In -- in Kosovo, I don't remember coming across MPRI,

24 but this is not to say that they weren't there. That is a private

25 company, US company.

1 Q. All right. And when did you receive members of the families of

2 the abducted Serbs for the first time?

3 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, may I refer to my chronology?

4 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

5 THE WITNESS: I -- the second meeting was on December the 26th.

6 So the first meeting was several weeks before that. I'm not sure I have

7 it here. I met with the families of the disappeared -- the families of

8 the disappeared Serbs twice, and the second one was in December. I'm not

9 sure of the date of the first.

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. And did the family members give you the names of the 111 abducted

12 persons?

13 A. I think some of our people received -- what my plea was at both

14 these meetings was that they give us as much information as they had about

15 who had disappeared and the circumstances under which they had disappeared

16 and anything you might know about where they were. The families thought

17 we had total knowledge of everything going on and that we certainly knew

18 where they were. The truth of the matter was we didn't. Those were both

19 very, very difficult, very emotional, very heated meetings in which

20 essentially we were unable to satisfy the demands of these people because

21 we had no idea where their relatives or disappeared relatives were.

22 Q. And is it true that it was precisely the members of the families

23 that they -- who told you that it was Dragobilje and Malisevo where all

24 traces of these people were lost, where you had your representatives and

25 the US KDOM had their representatives, both in Dragobilje and Malisevo?

1 Did they tell you that? Did they inform you of that?

2 A. No, that's not what they told me at all. Some people got up and

3 said, "We think we know where our father is, where our brother is, where

4 our children are." That village might have been mentioned along with

5 other places where they seemed to think their people were being held or

6 where they had disappeared.

7 It was -- it was very difficult. As I say, these were people who

8 were terribly emotional. Some of them made very little sense. Some of

9 them were making demands that obviously my verifiers could not meet. Many

10 of these disappearances had happened years before. So what I said was,

11 "If you have any information about where your people might be, you let us

12 know, and I will go with you to anyplace you designate to look for your

13 relatives." My offer was never taken up.

14 Q. Please just answer me this: Is it correct that they informed you

15 about their suspicions that all the abducted persons were in Dragobilje?

16 A. No. That is not correct.

17 Q. And is it correct -- or rather, do you remember the event where

18 the members of the families of the abducted Serbs launched a peace march

19 towards Dragobilje? Do you remember that particular event?

20 A. No, I do not.

21 Q. And how many times were you in Dragobilje?

22 A. The first time I went to Dragobilje was the first time I met with

23 KLA soldiers, and as I said yesterday, I went there in accordance to your

24 instruction to me to try and get the release of these two Tanjug

25 journalists. That was the first time I went there. The meeting had been

1 arranged by Shaun Byrnes of the KDOM, the American KDOM. I went there

2 maybe two more times, three more times. Again, this was a place where the

3 KLA apparently was in control and we could meet them to discuss such

4 things as the release of people they had captured.

5 Q. All right. So therefore you were informed that it was in

6 Dragobilje, where the KLA had their camps, where they kept these Serbs,

7 and it was from that camp that you managed to have these two journalists

8 released; isn't that so?

9 A. No, that is not correct. The day that we arranged for the

10 release, I went to Dragobilje with some of my people, and the two Tanjug

11 journalists who had been held captive were brought into the town by two

12 vehicles from somewhere outside the town. I have absolutely no idea if

13 there were others held in Dragobilje, and as I've already testified, the

14 families did not tell me that this was an area in which prisoners were

15 kept.

16 Q. All right. And when visiting Dragobilje with Sadako Ogata in

17 December 1998, did you try to ascertain then whether the allegations made

18 by the members of the abducted Serb families, did you manage to see

19 whether that was the truth or not?

20 A. I'm sorry. When I went to Dragobilje with who?

21 Q. Sadako Ogata, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

22 A. No, I do not recall any conversation whatsoever about disappeared

23 Serbs during that visit by Madam Ogata. We went first to Malisevo with

24 Madam Ogata, and then she somehow indicated that she would like to go on

25 to Dragobilje. So we took her there and we did a sort of a walk-through

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1 of the town. We talked to some of the people there. As I recall, we were

2 not in contact with KLA types. It was mostly with the people of the

3 village, their families, et cetera. But we did not discuss whether or not

4 there were KLA prisoners in the area.

5 Q. All right. Please, just give me yes or no answers, because I have

6 very little time left.

7 And do you know, with regard to all the crimes committed in

8 Dragobilje and Glodjane, there are records from the actual crime scenes,

9 police records as well? Yes or no.

10 A. I'm sorry. The question -- let me read the question.

11 Q. Do you know that with regard to all the crimes that were committed

12 in Dragobilje and Glodjane, there are records from the actual crime scenes

13 and also police records and court records?

14 A. No.

15 Q. And do you know anything about these crimes being committed by

16 Ramush Haradinaj, Rasim Haradinaj, Daut Haradinaj, Kuci Haremi [phoen],

17 and Dodek Erik, that they are the perpetrators of these crimes? Do you

18 know anything about that? Just yes or no.

19 A. No.

20 Q. And do you know that all these civilians were tortured and then

21 killed and thrown into a canal that feeds into the Radonjic [phoen] Lake?

22 A. No.

23 Q. And is it correct that the killing of the vice-president of the

24 Municipal Assembly of Kosovo Polje, Zvonko Bojanic, is something that you

25 characterised as a terrorist act?

1 A. That is correct.

2 Q. Did you ask the Albanian leaders to find the perpetrators of this

3 terrorist act?

4 A. I asked them if they knew anything about it, if they took

5 responsibility for it.

6 Q. Let me just skip a few questions. I have several questions here,

7 but I'm going to put a compounded question to you. Do you know anything

8 about the crimes committed by the KLA, while you were head of the mission,

9 against the Albanians themselves, about their crimes against the Albanians

10 themselves?

11 A. I know that there were crimes, there were things that happened to

12 Albanians which were never solved, and there were people who thought they

13 had been committed by other Albanians. I did hear those stories, yes.

14 Q. But you do not have any reliable information about this, if I

15 understand you well.

16 A. I could mention one thing that goes back to the release of the two

17 Tanjug journalists. At the time I was in the village of Dragobilje,

18 waiting for the two prisoners to be brought forward. When these two cars

19 came into the village with the two journalists, we noticed in the back

20 seat there were two gentlemen who apparently were, if I remember

21 correctly, blindfolded, and I asked the KLA leader there - I think his

22 name was Bashota - who were the other two prisoners. He told me they were

23 two Albanians who the KLA thought were informers, and they remained their

24 prisoners. He told me also that they were not involved with the

25 journalists and they were going to release them, but they were going to

1 drive them back to their villages. I took that to be

2 Albanians-on-Albanians sort of activity.

3 So yes, I have -- as I say, I heard a number of stories, a number

4 of rumours, a number of interpretations that some of the events that

5 brought harm to Albanians was in fact committed by other Albanians.

6 Q. And do you know that when Hizri Tala and Afrim Maliqi were killed,

7 Ilir Dyrmishi was also killed, and Tefta Isaj was also wounded, but I hope

8 he survived. Do you know of that case?

9 A. No.

10 Q. All right. I'm not going to ask you about individual cases.

11 Could you please respond to the following question: Did you ever ask me

12 for assistance in destroying terrorist bases of the KLA?

13 A. No.

14 Q. Did you know about these bases, since you visited some of them?

15 A. Did I know that the KLA had places where they had concentrations

16 of their people? Yes, I did. If those were bases, I guess I know about

17 KLA bases.

18 Q. And do you know that members of Al Qaeda were among the ranks of

19 the KLA?

20 A. I believe that is not true.

21 Q. And did you see the congress report of the FBI, which confirms

22 that Al Qaeda had its presence in Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia, et cetera?

23 A. I am not aware that the FBI has so declared.

24 Q. All right. And do you know that, for example, Al Qaeda within the

25 KLA, that this fact was presented in the report of the American --

1 JUDGE MAY: He says he's not aware -- the witness has given his

2 answer about these matters, as far as he knows. It's as far as he knows.

3 Now, Mr. Milosevic, there is a bigger question: You put to other

4 witnesses that this incident at Racak was used as a pretext for NATO

5 intervention. Now, if that is your suggestion, you want to make that

6 suggestion, you must make it to this witness so that he can deal with it,

7 because he was the one who raised Racak as an incident. Now, is it your

8 case that this was used as a pretext for NATO intervention or not? If it

9 is, you must put it to the witness so he can deal with it.

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Of course that is what I assert, and

11 I assume that that can be derived from all my questions, that Racak was

12 used and that it was rigged and that it was used as a trigger to start

13 NATO aggression against Yugoslavia.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. Is that right, Mr. Walker?

16 A. That is not my interpretation of what happened, no.

17 JUDGE MAY: Were you involved in any such conspiracy or plan?

18 THE WITNESS: No, sir, I was not.

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. Mr. Walker, you claim in your statement that -- towards the end,

21 you said to the members of the mission that they carried out their task

22 very well. Did you mean by that that you carried out your task, that you

23 rigged this and created a pretext for a NATO attack against Yugoslavia?

24 A. I think that my verifiers, on the whole, performed the tasks that

25 were assigned to them very well. That's what I told them. I would like

1 to think that I performed the tasks that were assigned to me - which were

2 the same tasks - very well, which was the verification of the agreements.

3 I categorically deny that either I or anyone on my mission, that I know

4 of, was involved in any conspiracy to bring NATO into the game.

5 JUDGE MAY: What is being suggested goes further than that, that

6 this whole incident, this execution of 40-odd civilians, was in some way

7 manipulated and rigged, is the interpretation we have from the accused, as

8 a pretext for NATO to intervene, which means, if it were true, that you

9 would have to be one of the organisers of such a plot. Is there any truth

10 in the suggestion that this incident was rigged in some way or

11 manipulated?

12 THE WITNESS: No, Your Honour.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. And what does Madeleine Albright's statement have to do with that,

15 then? I had it here, and I interpreted it already, that it was necessary

16 to keep up the tension in relation to Racak in order to mobilise the

17 European allies. I quoted it. I gave an exact quote. But I assume that

18 you know which statement of hers I'm referring to.

19 A. I believe I do, and I believe she was, in the aftermath of Racak,

20 seeing the despicable things that your security forces had done to the

21 civilian population. She felt that Racak was an example of what was

22 occurring in Kosovo and that something had to be done to stop that sort of

23 activity.

24 Q. All right, Mr. Walker. In addition to all the evidence that was

25 put forth, and TV footage, and testimonies by journalists, and proof that

1 I presented to you here, don't you allow for the possibility that this

2 scene in Racak had been rigged and staged? And you claim that you did not

3 take any part in that.

4 A. I categorically deny that I saw anything indicative of a rigging,

5 and therefore I did not take part in any rigging. I think that, in light

6 of what I saw that day and what every other person that was on the hill

7 with me, that spoke to me about it, everyone came to the same conclusion:

8 that this was not a set-up, that this was the site of a real execution of

9 over 40 civilians.

10 Q. And do you accept the fact, at least, that at 4.00 in the

11 afternoon on the 15th, when the police left, and when Buja Shukri also

12 said that they re-took Racak, this commander of theirs, and then until the

13 morning of the next day, all that time the territory of Racak was under

14 the control of the KLA? Is that an undeniable fact?

15 JUDGE MAY: It's not for the witness to say that. It's part of

16 the evidence and we will have to assess it. All the witness can say is

17 what he saw and did and the opinions which he formed at the time. He's

18 now told us about that. Your time is now finished.

19 Mr. Kay.

20 Questioned by Mr. Kay:

21 Q. Ambassador Walker, you've given evidence about your contacts with

22 the Yugoslav government. I want to ask you about your contacts with the

23 KLA and look at that aspect of your dealings with the OSCE. First of all,

24 you personally, did you have dealings with the High Command of the KLA?

25 A. I had dealings with a number of people who I assume were

1 high-level officials of the KLA, yes.

2 Q. And by that you mean they appear to have power and control over

3 their organisation?

4 A. I've mentioned the first time I met them. It was in the context

5 of trying to free the two journalists. The person I talked to was

6 Sokol Bashota. I have no idea exactly what level he was. He was not a

7 decision maker. It took him some time to be able to determine that he

8 could release those two journalists. They communicated, I think, by radio

9 or by cellular phones or something. He had to get authority from higher

10 up. He was the person I saw maybe on three or four occasions.

11 I also met in the Podujevo area, just before Christmas,

12 Commander Rremi, I believe was his name, trying to get him to stand down,

13 as we tried to get the VJ to stand down, and not to go into battle with

14 each other.

15 I also met a Commander Drini, who I believe was in the Peje

16 region, if I remember correctly.

17 Again, these were local commanders. Where they sat in the

18 hierarchy of the KLA, neither I know, nor, I think, did anyone know at the

19 time.

20 Q. We saw a video clip, and we saw Hashim Thaci, for instance, within

21 that video clip, and he's probably the best known of the KLA High

22 Command. Have you met him, or did you meet him, first of all, pre the

23 conflict?

24 A. I only met Mr. Thaci in November of 1999, when I went back to

25 Kosovo. That was well after the NATO bombing had stopped. I did not meet

1 him during my time as head of the KVM.

2 Q. And for clarification, what event did you meet him at in November

3 1999?

4 A. I was invited back to Kosovo to be declared an honorary citizen.

5 Q. We've dealt with your dealings with the so-called High Command of

6 the KLA, if I use that as an expression. Other senior members within the

7 OSCE, what were their contacts with the KLA at a high level?

8 A. I think some of my military lieutenant-colonel-level types had

9 dealings with some of the regional commanders in the Podujevo area. I

10 believe the colonel whose name I can never pronounce, who has been a

11 witness here, had some dealings with that commander.

12 JUDGE MAY: Ciaglinski.

13 THE WITNESS: That's the name. Sorry.

14 JUDGE MAY: Spelled very differently.

15 THE WITNESS: Sorry. I know General Maisonneuve, my Canadian

16 commander or chief of the Regional Centre in Prizren, had meetings with

17 the regional military commanders. There was a quite constant

18 communication to try and calm things down when things were coming apart.

19 MR. KAY:

20 Q. For clarification: Dealings in this way by the OSCE with the KLA,

21 what was the basis of your authority for dealing with that particular

22 group?

23 A. As I mentioned several times, the first time I went to deal with

24 them was in response to a request from the accused that I try and win the

25 release of two journalists. The same was necessary -- those sort of

1 contacts were necessary when we were trying to stop the two sides from

2 engaging in battle. We had to talk with the leadership, obviously, or as

3 close to the leadership as we could get, in terms of trying to win the

4 release of the eight VJ soldiers that had been captured. We felt -- and,

5 you know, no one -- we reported all of our contacts to Vienna, and no one

6 ever came back and said, "It is inappropriate that you deal with the

7 leadership of the KLA." After all, we were trying to tell both sides when

8 we thought they were in non-compliance or when we were trying to arrange a

9 deal, such as the release of prisoners.

10 Q. You are obviously aware of the issue concerning the Yugoslav

11 authorities and the KLA, who they viewed as being a terrorist

12 organisation. That goes without saying, doesn't it?

13 A. Yes, it does.

14 Q. In relation to your dealings, then, with the KLA, did that

15 compromise you in any particular way concerning information that you knew

16 about an organisation that was viewed by the legal authorities as being a

17 terrorist organisation?

18 A. I'm not sure what you mean by "compromise me in any way."

19 Q. Well, the information that you had about this particular group,

20 the KLA, was that something that you had any duty to pass on to the

21 Yugoslav authorities, or what?

22 A. I did not pass on information about the KLA to the Yugoslav

23 authorities, nor did I pass on information about the Yugoslav security

24 forces to the KLA.

25 Q. Within the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission agreement, which is

1 21st of April, 1999, behind tab 2 of Exhibit 1994 [sic], the KLA isn't

2 mentioned in the document that was your mandate, and was there any

3 particular reason for that?

4 A. I believe the reason is that there was no formally arranged or

5 secured agreement with the KLA, but there had been, I assume, verbal

6 assurances by the KLA that they would abide by a cease-fire as long as the

7 government abided by the cease-fire. So we felt we were there to enforce

8 and tell about non-compliance with an agreement for a cease-fire.

9 Q. Taking a step back now and going back to that issue where I said:

10 Did you think that you were compromised in any way because you would have

11 known information about the KLA, which you say you weren't passing on to

12 the Yugoslav authorities, would it be right to say that because of that,

13 the Yugoslavs were suspicious of the OSCE and your mission, being aware

14 that you had dealings with both parties?

15 A. I believe both sides, certainly at the beginning, had suspicions

16 about the KVM. To me it was obvious that if we passed on information

17 about the KLA to the government, that would have most certainly have ended

18 our ability to go and talk to them to try and get prisoners released or

19 try and get other things -- to get them to do other things. So it really

20 never occurred to me to carry tales from one side to the other.

21 Q. You've described what would be a poor working relationship between

22 you and the Yugoslav authorities on occasions, and I don't take it that

23 you mean that the whole of your working relationships were blighted by

24 uncooperation. I'd be right in making that comment, wouldn't I?

25 A. Yes, that's correct.

1 Q. But on the occasions that there were difficulties for you, this

2 element of being suspicious over the OSCE and your motives was something

3 you were presumably well aware of.

4 A. I was certainly well aware that the government in Belgrade thought

5 that we were protecting, assisting, fronting for the KLA, because

6 President Milosevic, Mr. Milutinovic in the statement that was read

7 earlier, you know, openly accused us of these things, notwithstanding the

8 fact that it was not true. So yes, I was aware of suspicions.

9 Q. And then moving on to that press conference concerning Racak on

10 the 16th of January, it's right to say at that particular press conference

11 you made no mention of the KLA as having been in a battle; is that right?

12 A. The press conference was not just my statement, but it was a

13 series of questions that were thrown at me by journalists, some of whom

14 were taking the Serb position, some taking the Albanian. The

15 international journalists were, of course, just trying to make sure they

16 had heard what I said. Was the KLA mentioned? I'm sure it was mentioned

17 quite often. I recall vaguely some of the Serb journalists asking very

18 provocative questions: if this wasn't all the fault or the manipulation or

19 the rigging by the KLA of the scene. So that was brought up. All I

20 described at the press conference was what I had seen and what I had

21 concluded, and then suggesting that if anyone wanted to challenge my

22 conclusions, that they should bring in trained criminal investigators,

23 specifically from this body, to determine what had happened.

24 Q. You stress there that it was what you had seen with your own

25 eyes. I take it you mean that. But you were also acting at this time

1 upon information received by your officers within the OSCE, within the

2 KVM?

3 A. Obviously, I was talking to General DZ, I was talking to

4 Maisonneuve, I was talking to other people, and we all came to the same

5 conclusion, which was the one I expressed at the press conference.

6 Q. Just taking this to another part of the information that could

7 have been available at that time - one doesn't know whether it was or not

8 to you - but the issue of nine KLA having been killed in some sort of

9 battle, was that something known to you at the time?

10 A. No.

11 Q. Was that something that anyone told you about or put you in a

12 position to understand that that may have been the case?

13 A. The only thing I can think of is what we got from Loncar the night

14 before, which was that 15 KLA had been killed in a battle at Racak.

15 Neither then nor later was I told that in Racak, as you say, nine KLA had

16 been killed.

17 Q. I used that figure because we heard it from the commander of the

18 particular group there, so it's in evidence in this Court.

19 In relation to what Loncar had told you then, and he used a figure

20 of 15, was that something that you used in your press conference as a way

21 of trying to achieve a balance from the other side?

22 A. Loncar didn't tell me. He told DZ, who told me. I think I told

23 the press conference that the government story that we had heard the night

24 before, of a military clash in which 15 KLA were killed and no casualties

25 on the government side, I mentioned that in the press conference, and I

1 said what I saw was not in accord with that, that there were over 45

2 people killed -- over 40 people killed, excuse me, maybe 45, and that they

3 did not appear to me to be uniformed or armed representatives of the KLA.

4 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Kay --

5 MR. KAY: I'm literally winding it up now.

6 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Mr. Kay, please. Microphone for

7 Mr. Kay, please.

8 MR. KAY:

9 Q. You mentioned the particular fact that you said there was a duty

10 to investigate this matter, that you stressed that at the press

11 conference. In relation to the KVM, were you in any position or were you

12 under any obligation or duty to investigate, take exhibits from the scene

13 of crime, that sort of thing? Do anything in a meaningful way in relation

14 to an investigation?

15 A. Well, we were certainly interested in trying to determine what had

16 occurred there. As I said yesterday, I told my people that remained

17 behind when I left Racak that they should go around and take as many

18 pictures as they possibly could of the scene so that we would have some

19 record of what we had seen on the ground. You know, I suggested that

20 trained criminal investigators come in because, as far as I know, we did

21 not have any on our staff. I told people that -- I think I told the press

22 conference that, you know, if the government did an investigation by

23 themselves, they would probably not be believed by the international

24 community. Therefore, I recommended strongly that they bring in

25 objective, trained criminal investigators, as I said, from this

1 organisation.

2 I guess the answer to your question is, you know, some of my

3 people might have picked things up, cartridge shells, that sort of thing,

4 to show to me, but no, I did not encourage them to do much beyond that.

5 MR. KAY: No further questions.

6 JUDGE MAY: I understand this court is required at half past four

7 for another case. I had overlooked it. So we're required to finish at

8 4.00.

9 MR. NICE: I do have some re-examination.

10 JUDGE MAY: We'll have to ask the ambassador to come back.

11 MR. NICE: Not very much. Probably five minutes, ten minutes, but

12 it's only proper in the light of what's been said.

13 JUDGE MAY: Right. Five minutes.

14 MR. NICE: Thank you very much.

15 Re-examined by Mr. Nice:

16 Q. The time of your press conference? What time was is?

17 A. Oh, the time. I think it was 5.00 p.m.

18 Q. So if the report that's been read from by the accused setting out

19 the deaths of KLA soldiers was prepared by Maisonneuve in the evening,

20 which is his evidence, do you know one way or another whether that was

21 done before or after your press conference?

22 A. I do not know for a fact.

23 Q. Very well. Deal with that --

24 A. It was done in the evening, and it was probably done after my

25 press conference.

1 Q. Next point, and I'll take as few as I can. You've been asked

2 about this being rigged. The whole thing being rigged. First of all,

3 what was your reception when you got back to Washington, from the powers

4 that be?

5 A. I'm not sure who I take "the powers to be" to be. My reception

6 back in Washington, I would say, was mixed. As usual within an

7 organisation like the State Department, there were people who thanked me

8 and congratulated me on what I had done and there were others who, I

9 think, were less enthusiastic about what I had done.

10 MR. NICE: A quick exercise with two photographs, Usher, please.

11 We're pressed for time, sorry.

12 Q. You've been shown two photographs of a sequence of three under the

13 suggestion of a rigging. It wasn't raised with the witness concerned.

14 Let's look more carefully. The first one, please, shows two photographs.

15 Look at them together. If the audiovisual will withdraw a little bit.

16 Look at them both together. Thank you very much.

17 THE INTERPRETER: Mr. Nice, please speak into the microphone.

18 MR. NICE: Sorry. Shows the same man, thank you very much. One

19 apparently with blood on it, one without. Can you leave it so that we can

20 see both of them together, please. One can line up the black shadows and

21 see they match, possibly taking a different view about the white shadows

22 on the man's face.

23 Q. Do you notice, Ambassador, that the hat is in a different position

24 and the rock immediately to the top left of the man's head in the top

25 picture is missing in the lower one? Is that so?

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1 A. It looks like that. It might just be behind his head but --

2 Q. Very well. Now, let's go to the next picture. It would appear to

3 be the same man. If you can look at it, please. It's a little hard to

4 see. Would appear to be the same man now with his head turned on the

5 left-hand side, exposing a bloody wound. So his head had been turned to

6 the left, it would have been turned in the area of the blood.

7 Two questions and they're these: While you were looking at these

8 bodies from a distance, were people examining them to see where their

9 wounds were?

10 A. There were many people on the hill. There were family members

11 from the village, some of whom were moving parts of the body, moving

12 heads, that sort of thing, trying to recognise relatives. There were

13 journalists who occasionally were sort of setting up pictures, that sort

14 of thing, to try and --

15 Q. That's all I need for that.

16 A. Okay.

17 Q. The second thing is this: Implicit in the accused's suggestion in

18 relation to those photographs basically was that people were wandering

19 around, either with containers of blood to make the thing look that which

20 it wasn't or moving bodies around in order to release blood to make it

21 look that which it wasn't. Is there any truth in that as an implied

22 suggestion?

23 A. None that I am aware of.

24 Q. Perhaps last -- or second to last question. One more on rigging.

25 Have you ever been told of or heard any suggestion of the existence of

1 evidence of these 40 bodies being carried, presumably in some kind of

2 procession or by some group of people, and placed in the position they

3 were in in this ravine?

4 A. Have I heard such allegations? I have heard such allegations,

5 yes. I consider those allegations, again, to be ludicrous.

6 Q. You've heard the allegations in general. Have you ever heard of a

7 witness who is said to support it?

8 A. No, sir, I have not.

9 Q. You were asked about the KLA having retaken control. You were

10 shown a clip with some KLA soldiers in it and then you were asked no

11 question about it. As a matter of fact, were there KLA people present at

12 the time that you examined the bodies?

13 A. I cannot say there were or were not KLA people in and around Racak

14 when I was there with my group. What I can say is that I did not come in

15 contact with them nor see them.

16 Q. Until the moment when you spoke to the man, wherever it was, who

17 you persuaded not to take revenge afterwards.

18 A. Correct.

19 MR. NICE: That's all I can ask in five minutes. Thank you very

20 much.

21 JUDGE MAY: Ambassador, thank you for coming to the Tribunal to

22 give your evidence. It is concluded. You are free to go.

23 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honours.

24 MR. NICE: Your Honour, the other matters, we can't deal with them

25 today.

1 JUDGE MAY: Tomorrow morning.

2 MR. NICE: May we deal with them first thing in the morning?

3 JUDGE MAY: First thing tomorrow morning, yes.

4 And Mr. Kay, could I say we have a copy of the letter and the

5 matters raised therein, and we will be taking it up.

6 MR. KAY: Yes. Shall we have two amicus or -- here tomorrow?

7 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

8 MR. KAY: You know why I ask the question.

9 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Two amicus tomorrow.

10 We will adjourn now. Half past nine tomorrow morning.

11 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 4.06 p.m.,

12 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 13th day of June,

13 2002, at 9.30 a.m.

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