1 Monday, 7 October 200

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.06 a.m.

5 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

6 MR. NICE: I trust that the Court has been informed briefly that

7 there was a problem -- is a problem with the witness schedule for today.

8 Mr. Samardzic, as obvious to those of us dealing with him yesterday, that

9 although he was resolute about his willingness to give evidence as soon as

10 possibly required, he was suffering some ill health, and on his return to

11 his hotel it became absolutely clear that he was indeed unwell. Various

12 domestic arrangements have to be made for him. I expect he will be fit --

13 well, it's in the nature of the man to say that he's fit -- as soon as

14 possible. I expect that he actually will be fit comparatively soon - one

15 would hope tomorrow - but nothing can be certain, and we'll have more

16 information later this morning or probably later today.

17 Once it became obvious to us that he shouldn't try to give

18 evidence today, we made arrangements to see whether Mr. Matovina could be

19 available, and he could. I was unable to contact the accused by any means

20 other than ultimately direct contact through the head of the Detention

21 Unit, and I understand that he will have told the accused at probably

22 sometime after 7.00 last night that this change was a possibility.

23 Accordingly, we would ask that Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff takes

24 Mr. Matovina next. As to Samardzic, as the Chamber knows, I'm not going

25 to be back until probably quarter to ten or 10.00 tomorrow morning. I

1 would prefer, if he's fit tomorrow morning, and we shan't know that of

2 course until this afternoon, to take him if the Chamber's prepared to

3 accommodate us.

4 Apart from him, there are two other witnesses available for some

5 time this week although neither of them is going to be available first

6 thing tomorrow morning because they will not have arrived until just about

7 then.

8 I'm not sure whether Mr. Matovina will take all of today's hearing

9 time or not.

10 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Matovina deals with Slatina. Again, a map would

11 be helpful.

12 MR. NICE: Can I just intervene on the topic of the map?

13 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

14 MR. NICE: So far we have provided someone, and I can't remember

15 where it is now, with a road atlas. I don't know if it found its way to

16 the Bench. It's got a lot of other material in it other than a road atlas

17 and was rather heavier and thicker than the similar document in Kosovo.

18 Have you seen that?

19 JUDGE MAY: It had been shown to me. I don't know whether anybody

20 else has seen it.

21 MR. NICE: I don't know if that's the sort of document, in the

22 absence of anything more focused, that would be helpful. If it is, we

23 will -- we will --

24 JUDGE MAY: We'll look at it.

25 MR. NICE: We'll go and get some more so the Chamber can have one

1 each, along with everybody else.

2 JUDGE MAY: That would be available, would it?

3 MR. NICE: I think so. I think that or something similar. There

4 must be road atlases. Frankly, I'd prefer to try to find a road atlas

5 that covered both Croatia and Bosnia in the same volume because I think

6 that would be pretty helpful, and the combined geographical area is not so

7 large as to make that improbable.

8 It's an index which is, of course, most useful for the Chamber, I

9 suspect, amongst other things.

10 [Trial Chamber confers]

11 JUDGE MAY: We will have this, if it is available, that is.

12 MR. NICE: I'll check on its availability. And if it or something

13 broadly similar to it is, I'll acquire enough copies for everybody to have

14 one.

15 JUDGE MAY: Thank you. Now, how long do you approximate Mr.

16 Matovina will be in chief?

17 MR. NICE: Two hours in chief is Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff's calculation.

18 JUDGE MAY: He produces quite a lot of exhibits, I see.

19 MR. NICE: Yes.

20 JUDGE MAY: I notice for some reason that mine begins -- seems to

21 begin at tab -- I may be wrong about that. Tab 1. Yes, I see.

22 Yes. And the accused would not have found out about the change

23 until last evening.

24 MR. NICE: No.

25 JUDGE MAY: So he really won't have had any time to prepare his

1 cross-examination, or very little.

2 MR. NICE: No.

3 JUDGE MAY: On the other hand, the hope is that Mr. Samardzic

4 should be ready tomorrow morning.

5 MR. NICE: That's the hope, and we'll wait -- simply have to wait

6 and see. We've prevailed on him to see a doctor. He's, again, the sort

7 of person who, despite all his problems, is minded just to press on, but

8 we've prevailed on him to see a doctor today.

9 JUDGE MAY: And you would have available the next two witnesses -

10 I'm looking at the list - K-1 and Trbojevic.

11 MR. NICE: But not first thing tomorrow morning. Later on;

12 Wednesday.

13 JUDGE MAY: Wednesday.

14 JUDGE KWON: When was the accused given the statement of

15 Mr. Matovina?

16 MR. NICE: A long time ago. Oh, Thursday.

17 JUDGE KWON: Last Thursday.

18 MR. NICE: Yes.

19 JUDGE MAY: It had been disclosed before.

20 MR. NICE: It had been disclosed before but it was redisclosed

21 because he was maintaining he couldn't find it.

22 JUDGE MAY: So as far as the order is concerned, the statement was

23 disclosed some time ago and you're in compliance.

24 MR. NICE: Yes, absolutely.

25 JUDGE MAY: But the more immediate problem, of course, is his

1 preparation. Well, there seems to be no objection to hearing Mr. Matovina

2 at least in chief or in direct. He seems now to be called. We'll hear

3 Mr. Milosevic about cross-examination.

4 Mr. Milosevic, you've heard the position that the first witness is

5 ill. He clearly can't be ready today. Are you in a position to

6 cross-examine Mr. Matovina this morning or are you going to ask for more

7 time? It may be simplest, in fact, to hear Mr. Matovina and then to

8 consider the position as to whether you need more time to cross-examine

9 him.

10 [Trial Chamber confers]

11 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic, what do you say?

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have no requests or demands,

13 Mr. May.

14 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Thank you.

15 Yes. Let's call the witness.

16 [The witness entered court]

17 WITNESS: DZURO MATOVINA

18 [Witness answered through interpreter]

19 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the witness take the declaration.

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

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

22 JUDGE MAY: If you would like to take a seat.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.

24 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.

25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Thank you, Your Honour.

1 Examined by Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff:

2 Q. Good morning, sir.

3 A. Good morning to you too.

4 Q. Please state your name, age, and place of birth.

5 A. My name is Dzuro Matovina. I was born on the 22nd of March, 1949,

6 in Slatina.

7 Q. What is your ethnicity?

8 A. I'm a Croat.

9 Q. What is your profession?

10 A. I am a criminal investigator.

11 Q. For how long did you work as a police officer?

12 A. Thirty years.

13 Q. Where did you work during the years 1990 to 1992?

14 A. In Podravska Slatina.

15 Q. Where is it situated? Is that in Western Slavonia?

16 A. Podravska Slatina is located on the main road from Virovitica to

17 Osijek. It's 100 kilometres away from Osijek and 30 from Virovitica. It

18 is in the Bishopric of Podravska.

19 Q. We do not need so detailed information. I just wanted to know, it

20 is in Western Slavonia?

21 A. Yes, in the area of Western Slavonia, bordering on Eastern

22 Slavonia.

23 Q. What was your rank in the years 1990 to 1992?

24 A. I was a police inspector.

25 Q. Were you in fact the acting chief of police in Slatina?

1 A. Yes, until 1989. Until just before the war.

2 Q. During the events, did you continue to be in the police? I mean

3 the war.

4 A. Yes. I remained on the police force, and I was assistant chief of

5 the police station.

6 Q. Did you get involved in the fighting?

7 A. No. My job was in Slatina, and I coordinated the work of the

8 police in law enforcement in the area of Slatina and further afield. I

9 did not take any part in the fighting.

10 Q. What was the ethnic composition of Podravska Slatina in 1990,

11 before the outbreak of the war?

12 A. On the territory of the former municipality of Podravska Slatina,

13 there were 56 or, rather, 57 percent of Croats, 36 per cent of Serbs, and

14 the rest was a mixture of other ethnic groups.

15 Q. Was the relationship between the ethnic groups good before the

16 war?

17 A. Relations among ethnic groups before the war were tolerable.

18 However, after the first multi-party elections were held following 45

19 years of communist rule, when the first multi-party Croat parliament was

20 elected, inter-ethnic relations became very complicated.

21 Q. Was a branch of the SDS party founded at some point in time in

22 Slatina?

23 A. That is correct. A branch of the Serbian Democratic Party was

24 founded in Slatina on the 9th of June, 1990. However, just before the

25 party was established, there was a series of provocations in Slatina

1 leading to ethnic tensions, and the leadership and the founding committee

2 of the SDS carried out propaganda and psychological activities which

3 contributed to these ethnic tensions. That happened on the 31st of May,

4 the night between the 31st of May and the 1st of June, 1990, when in

5 Batici, Donji Melani, Spanat, Medinci, Sladojevci and a number of other

6 neighbouring villages, the facades of many buildings were marked by

7 graffiti which were actually slogans expressing ethnic slurs and hatred.

8 Some of this graffiti said, "We will kill Tudjman," and others said,

9 "Serbia is from here to Karlobag," or "Serbia all the way to the Una

10 River." There were also drawings of four Cyrillic "S" symbols. Vuk

11 Draskovic's name written on buildings.

12 Q. Witness, let me stop you here. We would not need so many details.

13 Therefore, I would ask you to just answer my questions briefly. Was there

14 a founding rally in -- of the SDS in Slatina?

15 A. Yes. The rally was held on the 9th of June, 1990, in a clearing,

16 from 4.00 to 7.00 p.m., and it was attended by about 5.000 Serbs from

17 Slatina and the neighbouring settlements.

18 Q. At this rally were there also people from outside of Western

19 Slavonia or Slatina?

20 A. Yes. There was a number of people from the neighbouring villages,

21 and there were also people with strange appearance who were not familiar

22 to us in Slatina. There were Jovan Raskovic, Mr. Opacic, and other

23 speakers invited to the rally.

24 Q. Jovan Raskovic and Jovan Opacic, who were they? Where did they

25 come from?

1 A. They were leaders of the Serbian Democratic Party. They had come

2 at the invitation of the founding committee of the SDS for Slatina, and

3 they were the main speakers at that rally.

4 Q. Turning to Mr. Raskovic, you said he was the main -- one of the

5 main speakers. During his speech, did he speak about the situation of the

6 Serbs in Croatia? And if so, what did he say?

7 A. Jovan Raskovic's speech was another speech of hatred, inciting

8 hatred between the Serbs and Croats living in that area. Among other

9 things he said, I remember one. He said that there is no future for Serbs

10 in the Independent State of Croatia, that another Ustasha government is in

11 power, that if Serbs want autonomy and ask for it, they should have it.

12 And he ended his speech with the words, "Serb brothers, see you in

13 Krajina. You will have no happiness in the Ustasha state."

14 Q. What does that mean, "See you in Krajina"? What did he refer to?

15 A. Well, according to what followed later, this was supposed to mean

16 in an area that would secede from the Republic of Croatia and that would

17 later be annexed - the way it turned out, according to the referenda that

18 were held - that would be annexed to Serbia and Montenegro.

19 Q. Did he address that already in the speech?

20 A. His speech and the speeches of the members of the initiative

21 committee showed it quite clearly what this was all about and what the

22 intention was of that particular rally and all other activities.

23 Q. Did any of the speakers mention whether the Serbs and the Croats

24 would live together in the future? Was that addressed at all?

25 A. It was mentioned that Serbs could no longer live together with

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1 Croats in an Independent State of Croatia.

2 Q. During the speech, did he -- did Mr. Raskovic or other people, did

3 they refer to the position of Slatina, what Slatina would be in the

4 future?

5 A. President of SDS of Slatina, Milun Karadzic, who was elected

6 there, he also spoke at this rally. After the rally, members of the SDS

7 were spreading a feeling of fear among the population that Slatina should

8 actually become the Slavonian Knin, the centre of the rebellion in

9 Slavonia.

10 Q. You mentioned Mr. Karadzic, Milun Karadzic. Who else was a

11 leading figure in the SDS, the local SDS in Western Slavonia?

12 A. Well, there was Ilija Sasic, then Simpraga Vladimir, Rajko Bojcic,

13 Jovan Bojcic.

14 Q. Let me stop you there. That should be enough. The speakers, did

15 they make any references to Mr. Milosevic?

16 A. Mr. Milosevic was not mentioned, as far as I can remember.

17 However, what was dominant was the paraphernalia, including pictures of

18 Mr. Milosevic and several persons unknown. Actually, several unknown

19 persons were wearing the flags of the Republic of Serbia like scarves, and

20 others were wearing cockades on their caps, and that was reminiscent of

21 the Second World War.

22 Q. In the time period following this founding rally, were referenda

23 organised?

24 A. Yes. Three referenda were organised in the second half of 1990.

25 All three were organised whenever the Croatian parliament organised

1 referenda with regard to the status of the Republic of Croatia within the

2 former Yugoslavia. That is to say that these referenda were held before

3 the other referenda, which additionally complicated things for the public

4 or, rather, inter-ethnic relations.

5 The first referendum was held on the 26th of August --

6 Q. Let me stop you here. We do not go into the details of the -- of

7 this because it was already addressed with another witness, but can you

8 tell me, could the Croat population participate in these referenda that

9 were held by the Serbs?

10 A. No. Croats did not take part in these referenda because they were

11 illegal. Because the first referendum was held in the following way:

12 Activists of the SDS went to various houses, and the others were held in

13 public places, that is to say in offices.

14 Q. Does it -- what -- I would like to know, were the Croats not

15 interested in voting or were they not allowed to vote?

16 A. They were not even invited to vote in the referendum. As I've

17 already said, the referenda were illegal. Croats and other Serbs who

18 accepted the government in the Republic of Croatia went to the referenda

19 that were organised by the Croatian parliament.

20 Q. Did the police or any Croatian institution try to prevent or

21 interfere with the referenda that were held?

22 A. No. The Croatian police did not intervene because it had

23 instructions not to aggravate inter-ethnic tensions, because these

24 referenda were illegal anyway and did not carry any force of law.

25 Q. Did the police disturb the work of the SDS party before the war?

1 A. Never, either of the SDS or other parties.

2 Q. Did your police station ever receive an instruction to arrest or

3 even kill radical Serbs?

4 A. On the contrary. Instructions always came in to act in a

5 pacifying manner, in a tolerant manner, to engage in conversation rather

6 than any other means, because the expectation was that the situation would

7 calm down.

8 Q. Are you aware that such an order, that means to arrest or kill

9 radical Serbs, was given to any other police station?

10 A. I don't think so. I'm not aware of any such thing, and I did not

11 go any further. I did not go out of Slatina. As far as I know, no, there

12 were no such instructions.

13 Q. Did anything happen on the 2nd of October, 1990?

14 A. That was the first attack against the police station. That was

15 carried out around 1900 hours by about 800 to 1.000 militant Serbs who

16 were armed and who had assembled in Slatina.

17 Q. Do you know who organised this gathering in Slatina?

18 A. According to what we saw, it was the top people of the Serb

19 Democratic Party that brought the masses there. They were headed by Milun

20 Karadzic, then Ilija Sasic, Momcilo Subotic, and other top people from

21 those ranks.

22 Q. You said that it was an attack on the police station. What did

23 those gathering there want to do? What did they want?

24 A. They wanted to enter the police station at any cost, to obtain the

25 weapons from there and to establish their own government in Slatina. This

1 attack took place after the police station in Knin had been taken over.

2 Also, some police stations in Banija. The station in Petrinja had already

3 been attacked. Also in Pakrac. And right after the attack on the police

4 station in Pakrac, this attack on the police station in Slatina took

5 place.

6 So the objective was to take over the police station, to seize the

7 weapons, and to establish government there. And the ultimate objective

8 was to cut the Podravina road and also to cut off Eastern Slavonia in this

9 way from Croatia.

10 Q. How do you know that? Did they actually say such things or how do

11 you know?

12 A. Well, that was quite clear from the actual chronology of the

13 events concerned. Knin, Banija, Petrinja, Pakrac, all of this was along

14 this imagined corridor of Karlobag-Karlovac-Virovitica where the border

15 was actually supposed to be, the border of a Greater Serbia, or as it was

16 said then, of Yugoslavia.

17 Q. Were you present when this happened in the police station?

18 A. Yes. I led the defence of the police station. I engaged about 20

19 policemen who were ethnic Croats, there were also Serbs who at that time

20 still accepted Croatian authority, and with a great deal of effort, we did

21 manage to defend the police station.

22 Q. Did you speak with these Serbian -- the leaders of the SDS that

23 were present? And if so, what did they say?

24 A. The leaders of the SDS did have contact with me because I was at

25 the entrance into the police station. However, they went to speak to the

1 chief of the police station, Kresimir Libl. Afterwards, I found out that

2 they had come to stop weapons from being taken from the police station

3 because they were afraid that the weapons would not be taken. And at that

4 time at the police station, we had 150 rifles for the reserve force and

5 for the active force. All the weapons were there, and there was no need

6 to attack the police station.

7 Q. Maybe you can explain something to me. From the transcript, I see

8 that you said, "I found out that they had come to stop weapons from being

9 taken from the police station." Who came to stop weapons being taken from

10 the police station?

11 A. Well, according to the claims of the leadership of the SDS, they

12 came to do that, and citizens did, although we did not expect an attack on

13 the police station. I don't see why 1.000 armed citizens would attack the

14 police station and ask for weapons from the police station. And of

15 course, according to the actual establishment, these weapons belonged to

16 the police station.

17 Q. You said you -- you could defend the police station. Was there

18 actually a fight, or how did you defend the police station?

19 A. We placed a cordon of policemen in front of the police station,

20 and they prevented the masses from entering the police station. At that

21 moment, Mato Mesaros came through this crowd. He was in his own car and

22 the masses were beating his car and shouting at him, and it was very hard

23 for him to get through this crowd because he was in a hurry to pick up his

24 wife from the health centre.

25 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, please.

1 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Story.

2 Q. We do not need so many details. Was anyone hurt? Was anyone hurt

3 while this incident took place? And don't describe all the details,

4 please.

5 A. When this citizen was returning with his car again through the

6 crowd, his car was overturned. He was stabbed. He was wounded. His

7 stomach was cut so his intestines spilled out onto the road. We made an

8 ultimate effort to save his life.

9 Q. This violent incident, did it actually bring the matter to an end?

10 A. No. After we escorted the wounded man to hospital, in front of

11 the building, the top people of the SDS were making speeches. Again they

12 were flagrantly insulting the Croatian state, the Croatian people, they

13 were inciting violence. And as the masses were dispersing, they fired

14 hundreds of gunshots into the air and in this way disturbed law and order.

15 Q. Was there a JNA barracks in Slatina?

16 A. Yes, right by the police station. And it was about 50 metres

17 away.

18 Q. While this incident occurred while there was this attacking, did

19 the JNA ever intervene and try to stop the crowd?

20 A. At that time, the JNA did not intervene. On the 4th of August,

21 1991, they attacked us, though, with heavy weapons.

22 Q. We come to this later. At -- you mentioned already that at that

23 time the police force in Slatina was mixed Croats and Serbs. Did this

24 composition change after the events that you just described?

25 A. Well, until that event at the police station in Slatina, about 80

1 to 85 per cent were Serbs and the rest were Croats. Immediately after

2 this event, part of the policemen who were ethnic Serbs started leaving

3 the Croatian police. The Ministry of the Interior, of course, started

4 manning the station with other people.

5 Q. Did the Serb policemen leave on their own or were they dismissed?

6 A. Quite voluntarily. Nobody was dismissed.

7 Q. Where did these policemen go? What did they do afterwards?

8 A. At first they went to their homes; and later on, when reservists

9 who were ethnic Serbs were getting weapons - and that started in April

10 1991 in the area where the insurgency was - then everybody joined these

11 paramilitary formations.

12 Q. Did you make any observations regarding the arming of these -- of

13 the Serb population?

14 A. We noticed, as I've already said, that as of April 1991, the Serb

15 Democratic Party or, rather, the JNA, started training and arming the Serb

16 population or, rather, the reservists. They called them up into the

17 barracks in Slatina and Nasice.

18 Q. Were all males called in for military training or only Serbs?

19 A. Only Serbs were called up. Mostly those who had undergone reserve

20 officers' training in the former JNA, those who had a commission and those

21 who could organise and man units. Not a single Croat was called up.

22 Q. You said the JNA also armed Serbs. What -- what did you notice to

23 this effect? How did they do that?

24 A. Those who completed their training at the barracks in Slatina and

25 Nasice immediately went to the area where the insurgency was, with their

1 weapons, and in the month of June, from the barracks in Nasice, the police

2 had received instructions to escort a convoy of over 40 trucks that were

3 loaded with weapons from Nasice to Mikleus. And then further on, the

4 police could not go any further, they could only take the highway. After

5 that, the convoy of the JNA with weapons went to where the insurgency was,

6 towards Vocin.

7 Q. Let me clarify. This convoy with weapons, did this convoy come

8 from a barracks or where did it come from?

9 A. From the barracks.

10 Q. And did it go to another barracks or where?

11 A. No. It headed to the area where the insurgency was that was later

12 organised by the Serbs. That is to say, towards Vocin and towards

13 Sekulinci, where the weapons were unloaded. And the same night, they

14 started distributing weapons to the Serb population.

15 Q. When was that?

16 A. That was in the month of June 1991. A Serb who did not want to

17 accept a weapon, when he went to Slatina, when he tried to report that to

18 the police, he was killed by the cemetery in Ceralije, and the police from

19 Slatina was there to carry out the on-site investigation.

20 Q. You said that you, the police, had to escort this weapon convoy,

21 and you said you only were on the road and later could not follow. Why

22 not?

23 A. Well, this convoy was escorted by the police from Nasice, by a

24 police escort from Nasice. And they were in a position to do so only to

25 the petrol station in Mikleus where the road starts that leads to the area

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1 that was occupied later. The policemen who were in this escort reported

2 to us later that members of the JNA stopped them there and gave them the

3 following orders: That they would not be allowed to escort the convoy any

4 further.

5 Q. Did the -- did you see the convoy return?

6 A. I did not see the convoy return. However, I did see the report

7 that said that the convoy returned the same evening and that the load

8 remained at the area where the insurgency was?

9 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: With the help of the usher, I would like to

10 put to the witness the Exhibit 327, tab 13.

11 JUDGE MAY: What is this? Is this a --

12 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: This is an exhibit that we used already with

13 the Witness C-037, and this witness will be asked a few additional

14 questions that the previous witness was not able to answer.

15 JUDGE MAY: If we have exhibits in these large bundles, given the

16 logistics here, it's very difficult for us to get to them. So -- it's

17 difficult for us to get them, so we need copies if you're going to refer

18 backwards and forwards out of the bundle.

19 Is it in a new bundle, do I understand?

20 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. Yes, it is.

21 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: You have it in the witness binder. Just use

23 the Exhibit number that it has now been assigned.

24 JUDGE MAY: Let us not get into a muddle. This is in -- you have

25 exhibited, re-exhibited here. It will be removed in due course from this

1 particular binder. In due course, we will get on to the witness -- the

2 binder of this particular witness, but let's deal with the exhibit now.

3 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.

4 Q. Witness, after you -- these documents -- these documents, do you

5 know them? Have you seen that before?

6 A. Yes, I know these documents. They were found at the command of

7 the paramilitary units at Zvecevo after the units withdrew between the

8 12th and the 13th -- or, rather, on the 14th of December, 1991. I think

9 that these documents were found there, as well as other documents, and

10 they show the entire establishment of the so-called Territorial Defence,

11 all the units involved, the Papuk detachment, and the lower-level units

12 within.

13 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I think that this is becoming

15 totally senseless. We've crossed the line of absurdity with these

16 exhibits. An attempt is being made to tender a document here that was

17 compiled in the Virovitica Podravina police administration, the third

18 police station of the Croatian authorities, and it says "List of

19 Serbo-terrorist Unit Members." This is not a document at all. It cannot

20 be treated as a document. It is not a list that could have been found at

21 some places, let's put it this way, where these Chetniks that he's

22 referring to left them.

23 JUDGE MAY: You can make these points when you come to

24 cross-examine. We've dealt before with this particular issue of

25 documents, and in fact we've dealt with this document or, rather, the

1 binder this document came out of, when we dealt with the last witness.

2 As we've told you, we admit documents here as hearsay. We decide

3 what weight to give them.

4 Now, the point which you appear to be making about this one is

5 that it refers to members of a Serbo or something terrorist units. Is

6 that the point?

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, isn't it clear to you that

8 this kind of document could not be found any Serb office, as the witness

9 put it and the way this is being introduced here? Can't you see that this

10 is a Croatian document? After all, this is no document. Even a police

11 document would have to have a date and a signature. It is not a document

12 at all. This is no document. These are simply two sheets of paper.

13 JUDGE MAY: This is a challenge to the authenticity of the

14 documents. It's already been admitted, of course, by the last witness.

15 Just -- don't interrupt. It's already been admitted.

16 You've heard the challenge, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff. It's a matter for

17 you to deal with it. It's said it's plainly a Croat document from the

18 heading, and, therefore, it may be not of particular use to us.

19 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, I intend to speak about this

20 document with the witness because he dealt with this.

21 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: And he can explain.

23 JUDGE MAY: Let us hear about that.

24 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

25 Q. Witness, you said that these documents were found in Zvecevo, and

1 you said it was on the -- after the withdrawal. When were these documents

2 found; in which year?

3 A. Well, let's settle the dilemma. The first two pieces of paper are

4 merely a list, a list of documents and units. The rest are photocopies of

5 original documents. Therefore, it is true that this is a list which was

6 compiled by the police, and all the rest are original documents or,

7 rather, photocopies of them. Those and numerous other documents were

8 found, as I've already said, in the command, the headquarters of Zvecevo,

9 after the area was placed under the control of the Croatian army. And

10 from this, it is clearly evident how the Papuk detachment was set up and

11 all the others were established, with their concrete duties, assignments,

12 names - first names, last names - the types and numbers of the weapons.

13 And in addition to these documents, I've already said we also found many

14 others.

15 Let me also mention that the command headquarters and the entire

16 recreational centre, once these units had withdrawn, were set fire to and

17 completely destroyed.

18 Q. Who found the documents, the police or another body?

19 A. Members of the Croatian army found them. And then later on, they

20 were handed over to the police.

21 Q. And in your work as a police officer, did you have to handle these

22 documents? What did you do with it?

23 A. All those documents, along with the notifications sent to the

24 District Court and public prosecutor were sent as reports, files.

25 Q. And when you look at the first --

1 A. They were attachments to criminal reports.

2 Q. When you look at the first two pages, who compiled these pages?

3 A. I can't see from this because there's no signature. Probably

4 somebody in the third police station, which later on processed these

5 documents and looked into the case and sent in the documents to the

6 Ministry of the Interior or, rather, to the Tribunal.

7 Q. And when you look at the then following documents, they all have a

8 stamp on there, a Croatian stamp. Do you know who made this stamp?

9 A. The stamp was placed by the officer completing the case in the

10 files and it was placed there in order to authenticate it because they

11 were photocopies. So to show that they corresponded to the original.

12 Q. You mentioned the place Zvecevo. What -- what kind of a place was

13 it? Was it a headquarters? Was it a JNA post? What was it?

14 A. The Zvecevo location was made up of a number of hotels owned by

15 the Rade Koncar enterprise from Zagreb, and it had all the necessary

16 attending facilities for sport and recreation. The members of the

17 paramilitary units and the Papuk detachment took it over and set up its

18 command headquarters there.

19 Q. When you say "paramilitary units," what do you mean exactly?

20 A. Well, I mean the Papuk detachment which was established following

21 the 12th Slavonia Shock Brigade that was a participant of the war --

22 during World War II, and all the subsequent units that were under the

23 Papuk detachment and which made up the so-called Territorial Defence,

24 which was not actually Territorial Defence because the Republic of Croatia

25 had its own Territorial Defence and the established formations that were

1 inherited from the former Yugoslavia and whose weapons it had -- whose

2 weapons had been confiscated by the JNA because that -- those weapons were

3 stored in the warehouses of the JNA, and the army gave the weapons to the

4 rebel Serbs.

5 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Where can we find this Zvecevo headquarters,

6 please?

7 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: With the help of the usher, I would like to

8 show the witness -- it's actually the map Exhibit C338.

9 JUDGE MAY: Exhibit 325.

10 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: This is already -- it's already in --

11 JUDGE MAY: 325.

12 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF.

13 Q. Can you put it on the ELMO and actually point out where Zvecevo

14 is? You have to look at the map, not on the screen, sir.

15 A. [Indicates]

16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honours, the witness is pointing at the

17 place with his finger.

18 JUDGE MAY: It's described as Novo Zvecevo on the map.

19 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.

20 Q. As we are already with the map, can you point out where Vocin is.

21 A. [Indicates]

22 Q. Yes. Thank you. And what is the distance between Zvecevo and

23 Vocin, approximately?

24 A. About 15 kilometres.

25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Thank you. That is enough with the map.

1 Q. Witness, do you recall when this Zvecevo place, when it started to

2 function as a post of the Serbian TO?

3 A. While that area was under the control of the rebel Serbs,

4 throughout that time, Zvecevo was the centre of the command and the

5 headquarters, right up until the 14th of December, 1991, until it was

6 placed under the control of the Croatian army. Otherwise, this area was

7 under the temporary occupation, that is to say from the 18th of August,

8 1991.

9 Q. We do not need to go into all the details of the structure of the

10 TO because there is no time to do that. I would like to address just a

11 few documents from this exhibit.

12 The first one is actually document number 57 in the index list and

13 also marked accordingly on the document.

14 JUDGE MAY: Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, can I just go through this. We

15 must produce these exhibits in an orderly way. Yes. You must introduce

16 them to us. Invite us to -- you want us to look at this bundle.

17 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. And there is an index on top of it, and

18 the index actually has numbers, number 1 to --

19 JUDGE KWON: Attachment numbers.

20 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes, attachment numbers. And you'll find

21 those same numbers in the documents, both in the translation and in the

22 B/C/S. So if you follow simply those numbers which are in -- which are on

23 top --

24 JUDGE MAY: Yes, we have that, of course. We can see that. But

25 in each case, when you produce a new bundle or a new exhibit, we must

1 pause while a number is assigned to it. You have your numbers, your

2 Prosecution reference numbers. These are of no use to the Court. They

3 may be of use to you and helpful for you to find your way around, but

4 obviously, once a document is exhibited, it must be referred to by the

5 court number.

6 Now, we'll have an exhibit number for this particular bundle now.

7 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

8 JUDGE MAY: The registrar seems to think we have given this an

9 exhibit number.

10 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.

11 JUDGE MAY: If so, then it has completely eluded me. When did we

12 give this a number? What was it?

13 [Trial Chamber confers]

14 JUDGE MAY: Kindly explain the position to us.

15 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. Your Honour, this document was

16 discussed already with the witness 37 and on this occasion got Exhibit

17 number, the court Exhibit number 372, tab 13.

18 JUDGE KWON: 327.

19 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We've dealt with that one.

20 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. And this document contains a lot of

21 documents, and internally this document has got an index number according

22 to the index on top of the document. And when I refer to a number 57 or

23 58, it's meant just the order of this document. It's not another exhibit

24 or not another exhibit number to be assigned, just help to find your way

25 through that extensive document.

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1 JUDGE MAY: So is this all Exhibit 327, tab 13?

2 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE MAY: Again. Right. Now we have it. Could you, before you

4 begin with this sort of exhibit, just explain to the Court what you're up

5 to and then we will be able to follow.

6 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.

7 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Now we have it.

8 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, in the index list, if you find

9 the -- mentioned the attachment 57, and in the index, it says, "Unit

10 command and members of the Zvecevo unit." It's the English translation of

11 the index list.

12 MR. KAY: For my part, I can't find an attachment 57 or where it

13 is. I just have a single sheet.

14 JUDGE MAY: You'll find it. Just keep going through the bundle,

15 you'll come to it.

16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: It's after the extensive list of names. To

17 assist you --

18 JUDGE MAY: You know, we're in early days of this part of the case

19 so we need to get these things right. For a start, it is misleading to

20 say it's exhibit to be tendered through Mr. Matovina, as it's headed here,

21 when in fact it's an old exhibit, as it transpires. So once we have an

22 exhibit, refer to it always by the exhibit designation.

23 The other point is that in the other parts of the case, we've had

24 numbered dividers, I suppose you would call them, as opposed to these

25 attachments, which is very difficult to see as you go through. I mean,

1 you can find 57 simply by going through it, but if you can have the

2 dividers with the numbers, it would be much easier for us to find our way

3 round it. And as I say, once you've got an exhibit number for it, always

4 refer to it by that exhibit number and then there will be less confusion.

5 Mr. Kay, have you got 57?

6 MR. KAY: Yes. I've worked it out.

7 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

8 Q. Witness, if you look at this document -- the document 57, it

9 refers here to the municipal staff of Slovanska Pozega, Zvecevo

10 detachment, and it refers to -- it says here: "For your further use,

11 attached find a list of fighters, detachment Slovanska Pozega municipal

12 staff, support technical staff in the Zvecevo facility." Who signs it, do

13 you know, for the commander?

14 A. The signature is the commander's, Commander Munja, and on the list

15 it says that it is Commander Borivoj Lukic, Captain First Class.

16 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Witness, are you recognising the name by his

17 signature in B/C/S?

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Judging by the signature on the

19 attached document, no, but this document clearly shows that the

20 accompanying document and the principal document were signed by one and

21 the same person.

22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

23 Q. And by saying that, you refer to the list attached to this

24 document which is also signed, or what do you mean?

25 A. Yes. On the list, we see the same signature as we do on the

1 attached document.

2 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the witness is referring to the

3 list attached to this cover letter.

4 Q. Do you know who is Munja? Is that a proper name?

5 A. It's a pseudonym, and I think that under the name Munja was the

6 person of Commander Borivoj Lukic.

7 Q. Why do you think that?

8 A. Well, I think that through the other lists, although 11 years has

9 gone by since that time, that pseudonym cropped up. However, in some

10 other documents, we also found that Veljko Vukelic would sign himself

11 using the nickname Munja, or pseudonym.

12 Q. Did you know that at that time or how did you learn about this

13 fact that Mr. Vukelic also operated under "Munja"?

14 A. Later on, from the numerous witness statements that were given

15 after that area was placed under the control of the Croatian authorities

16 and when this whole case of the armed uprising was discussed, then people

17 in their statements did mention Veljko Vukelic and he was to be found in

18 the documents as well. He was one of the leaders of the Serbian

19 Democratic Party for Western Slavonia.

20 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, I think I've found the name Munja

21 on page 12 of 17 in the English translation, and I could find it in the

22 B/C/S version. Thank you.

23 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

24 Q. Witness, looking at the list of fighters, you have as the first

25 person here Commander Borivoj Lukic, Captain First Class. Is that the Mr.

1 Lukic that you refer to?

2 A. Yes, that's right. That's the captain. He was in command of that

3 detachment, the Zvecevo detachment.

4 Q. Boro Lukic, who was he? Was he a JNA person? Was he a local

5 person? Can you tell us something about him?

6 A. He was born in Vocin. After the -- before the war, he was a

7 maintenance man for the machinery in the Gaj Slatina enterprise. He

8 completed the school for reserve officers and had the rank of captain

9 first class.

10 Q. Was he an SDS member? Do you know that?

11 A. He joined the SDS in its very first days.

12 Q. Do you know him personally?

13 A. Yes, I do. I've known -- I've worked with him -- I worked with

14 him for a number of years in the Gaj enterprise, and I know him personally

15 from our day-to-day meetings. We would see each other on a daily basis.

16 Q. What was his attitude towards Croats? Can you tell us?

17 A. He was an Orthodox. He was intolerant, and he was among the first

18 to leave Slatina. First of all, he went to the Sekulinci stock where the

19 infrastructure existed for training the reserve members of the army,

20 reserve soldiers. We knew about that because he was out of town for quite

21 some time. And whenever a reservist would leave, we knew that they were

22 leaving in fact to join his detachment.

23 Q. When did you -- what information did you get that he was the

24 commander? Did you know it at that time already or just through these

25 documents?

1 A. We knew this straight away, as soon as he left. And at that time

2 -- I think it was May 1991, in fact. As I say, at that time, we still

3 communicated with that area which was later under provisional occupation

4 so that we learnt that he was training people up there. They said he was

5 training the Territorial Defence members.

6 Q. These other people that are listed on -- as fighters and -- on

7 this list attached to the document we are discussing, were you aware at

8 that time that they had these positions? Could you help us if that is a

9 correct picture of the TO structure?

10 A. Yes, that was the correct picture of the TO structure. We knew

11 about some of the people and we learnt of others later on, once the

12 documents had been uncovered. But quite a number of people from this list

13 I know personally.

14 Q. I would like now to turn to the last document that is in this

15 bundle named 57. If you just turn the pages, you come to a document dated

16 5 November 1991.

17 JUDGE MAY: Is it in attachment 57, is it, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff?

18 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Oh, sorry. I just heard that this is

19 actually a document related -- it's numbered 58. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

20 I had it misplaced in my version. It's a document with the number 58 on

21 it.

22 Q. Witness, this is a document, an authorisation dated the 5th

23 November 1991, signed by Munja, and there is a handwritten remark on it

24 saying, "Veljko Vukelic is the one hiding behind Munja." Do you know how

25 this handwritten note came onto the document?

1 A. That's what I was talking about a moment ago, that I had seen

2 somewhere in the documents this kind of note. And this was probably

3 written in by one of the duty officers because there were a number of

4 officers working on the case, and when in talking to the witnesses and

5 those who had taken part in the uprising, they learnt that behind "Munja"

6 was the person whose name was Veljko Vukelic.

7 Q. So this handwritten note was then written, if I understand you

8 correctly, by a Croat policeman and was not on the original when it was

9 found.

10 A. No. This was written after the knowledge that we had amassed, the

11 information that we -- had been collected.

12 Q. Veljko Vukelic, is he from Slatina?

13 A. Yes, he's also from Slatina. He was the secretary of the

14 committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, and just before the

15 war, he was Secretary for National Defence in Slatina.

16 Q. The duties of the Secretary of National Defence, what was it?

17 What did that include?

18 A. Well, the Secretary of National Defence keeps the records of all

19 recruits and sends out newcomers to do their military training.

20 Reservists are called up. That is one of the duties of the secretariat,

21 to call them up for additional training - they are sent to schools for

22 reserve officers - and they have an overall insight into matters of this

23 kind, all the civil matters with respect to defence.

24 JUDGE MAY: The time is now half past; time for the adjournment.

25 We're going to adjourn now for 20 minutes. Mr. Matovina, would

1 you please bear in mind not to speak to anyone about your evidence until

2 it's over during these adjournments, and that does include the members of

3 the Prosecution team. Would you be back, please, in 20 minutes.

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.

5 --- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.

6 --- On resuming at 10.55 a.m.

7 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.

8 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Thank you, Your Honour.

9 Q. Witness, before the break, we were speaking about Mr. Vukelic and

10 actually about his position as the Secretary of the Defence -- the

11 National Defence department in Slatina. As a secretary in this position,

12 would he have to work with -- closely with the JNA?

13 A. Well, he had very close ties to the JNA and cooperated with them

14 very closely.

15 Q. Because of this position or -- I mean, what do you mean? The

16 duty, the duties of a Secretary of Defence, National Defence, does that

17 include close work and cooperation with the JNA or not?

18 A. Precisely. His duties included this cooperation, and as far as I

19 could see, his ties with them were very close and his cooperation was on a

20 daily basis.

21 Q. The Secretary of National Defence in a municipality, would he have

22 working relations with federal organs or republican organs in his work?

23 A. Well, the secretary had ties strictly with the republican organs

24 and through them received instructions from the federal organs and carried

25 out the policies of the Federal Secretariat for National Defence.

1 Q. You said that Mr. Vukelic was in this position as secretary before

2 the war. When did he leave this position? Do you know that?

3 A. I think it was sometime in April 1991, in the very first days of

4 armed insurgency or, rather, the distribution of weapons to the Serbian

5 population.

6 Q. And do you know what position he took after he left Slatina?

7 A. I don't know. All I know is that he went to Western Slavonia and

8 that he was one of the leaders of the Serbian Democratic Party, which was

9 in charge of all these affairs, including the arming of the population,

10 establishment of units, and the entire armed insurgency.

11 Q. This document that we just discussed where there is this

12 handwritten remark on it referring to Mr. Vukelic, it is a document, as we

13 saw, from the municipal staff Slavonska Pozega. Is this place Zvecevo in

14 the municipality of Slovanska Pozega?

15 A. Yes. It is part of Slavonska Pozega in territorial terms, but

16 this area is closely interlinked by communications.

17 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: I want to put the geographic data more

18 visible to you. We have a municipality map. The problem with this

19 municipality map - we have copies for everyone - but we have reduced it to

20 a format that you can see the municipalities clearly but not so much --

21 you have to have eagle eyes to see the villages. We have the huge map for

22 purposes here in the courtroom, and we will also provide you all with a

23 huge map but we don't have it yet.

24 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: At the moment, we have only the small one,

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1 for you to see the municipalities.

2 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let's see those. Let's give it an exhibit

3 number before we move on. This is both Croatia, is it right, and also

4 Bosnia and Herzegovina?

5 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes, Your Honour.

6 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this will be marked Prosecutor's

7 Exhibit 333.

8 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Actually, the big -- for the usher, the huge

9 format has to be put on the ELMO. And I can fold it for you so that you

10 have the right part in it.

11 Q. Witness, can you point out to us the two municipalities we spoke

12 about, that is, Slatina and Pozega. On the map, please, not on the

13 screen.

14 A. [Indicates]

15 Q. The witness is pointing at the municipality Pozega. And now can

16 you turn the map a little bit down. Yes. And now the witness is pointing

17 at the municipality Slatina.

18 A. [Indicates].

19 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: And could the focus be so that we can more

20 clear -- see more clearly. Focusing on the two municipalities, please.

21 Yes.

22 And can you now point out to us -- yes. That's fine. Thank you.

23 Q. Can you now point out to us where Zvecevo was? Zvecevo where we

24 spoke about.

25 A. [Indicates]

1 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. The witness is pointing at the --

2 almost at the border between the two municipalities.

3 Q. And now Vocin. Vocin, please.

4 A. [Indicates]

5 Q. The witness is pointing at Vocin. And you also mentioned a place

6 Sekulinci. Could you show us Sekulinci?

7 A. [Indicates]

8 Q. Yes, thank you. That's enough. Thank you.

9 Witness, speaking of Sekulinci, do you know what was in Sekulinci

10 during the war?

11 A. During the war and during the temporary occupation of that area,

12 in this depot of Sekulinci, in this area of Sekulinci, there was a camp

13 through which dozens of Croats passed. They were tortured there,

14 mistreated, and two of them were killed, their corpses later found in a

15 clearing.

16 Q. How do you know that? What is your information on this?

17 A. There are witness statements from people who had been kept there,

18 tortured, detained for ten days to two months, and we have a statement

19 from one female witness who had been kept there in a metal container,

20 tortured and raped repeatedly.

21 Q. Did you get this information in your work as a police officer?

22 Were you involved in this investigation?

23 A. Yes, through the interviews conducted with people who had been

24 detained in those camps and who had managed to survive and reach the free

25 territory. And there were also people who had been exchanged during that

1 temporary occupation. They were exchanged for people from territories

2 under the control of Croatian authorities. Those were mainly kinsmen of

3 high-ranking commanders, and they were exchanged for people, detainees,

4 from the Sekulinci camp.

5 Q. At what time did this Sekulinci camp exist?

6 A. From the very beginning of the occupation of that area, that is

7 from the 18th of August, 1991, until the territory came under the control

8 of Croatian authorities. The commander was Zoran Miscevic.

9 Q. And when did you speak to witnesses and when did you conduct the

10 investigation? At what time?

11 A. Back in the time when this territory was not under Croatian

12 control, we talked to people who had come from the area of Vocin after an

13 exchange. And after the liberation of this area, all the surviving

14 detainees gave statements, and they are still on record, on file.

15 Q. And if I understand you, that's December 1991?

16 A. Yes, December 1991. But not only. There are statements dating

17 back to earlier times.

18 Q. Turning back to the document that -- the exhibit that we are

19 discussing, I would like to move to the exhibits belonging to attachment

20 58. It's a list of volunteers of Serbian Radical Party going on leave

21 from the 9th of December, 1991.

22 JUDGE KWON: And in terms of the proofing summary, what paragraph

23 are we in, please?

24 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: We are in the document -- in the paragraph 21

25 and 22, actually. TO formations. It's all TO formations, and we are

1 speaking about the Papuk detachment.

2 JUDGE KWON: So we haven't gone far, to paragraph 29 --

3 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for Judge Kwon, please.

4 JUDGE KWON: We haven't gone far, to paragraph 29, which the

5 witness stated just a moment ago.

6 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: No, Your Honour.

7 JUDGE KWON: Okay. Sekulinci. Thank you.

8 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: We're still dealing with the TO formation, as

9 it is in 20 to 23.

10 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

11 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

12 Q. Witness, this list of -- this list of volunteers of the Serbian

13 Radical Party is signed by a person, Rajko Bojcic. Do you know this

14 person and his position during the war?

15 A. I know Rajko Bojcic personally. He was assistant to Boro Lukic.

16 He has signed here as the commander of the municipal staff of Territorial

17 Defence. Otherwise, he used to be a teacher by occupation who worked in

18 Slatina. However, in the first days of the insurgency, he left for the

19 area where the units of the so-called Territorial Defence were set up, and

20 he served as assistant to Boro Lukic, commander of the unit.

21 Q. Were you aware that volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party were

22 in the region of Podravska Slatina?

23 A. We became aware of that towards the end of October 1991 when some

24 persons were exchanged from the territory under occupation. More

25 precisely, they came to Slatina after being exchanged. Those people were

1 Croats who had remained up there when the area was cut off from Slatina,

2 and the other territory under Croatian control. These persons confirmed

3 for us that towards the end of October, volunteers of the Serbian Radical

4 Party arrived in Vocin. They were so-called White Eagles. There were

5 about 300 to 400 of them. Some witness statements even mentioned a figure

6 of 600. Several people said, however, that they were 300 to 400.

7 Q. Did you personally see those volunteers arrive or leave or in

8 between?

9 A. That was 25 kilometres away from Slatina. We had no way of

10 knowing what was going on in the area. However, eyewitnesses confirmed

11 that these volunteers left the area on six buses towards the end of

12 occupation, and these 300 or 400 volunteers were the last to leave after

13 that massacre in Vocin.

14 Q. And was there -- are you aware that any other volunteer groups

15 than those from the Serbian Radical Party were in Slatina? Any other

16 volunteers from Serbia than those?

17 A. I know nothing about any other groups. I know only about this one

18 for which I have a partial list which was found together with other

19 documents in the command headquarters in Zvecevo.

20 Q. And as the last document from this row of -- from this exhibit, I

21 would like to turn to the exhibit that is marked as attachment 60.

22 Witness, I just want you to have a look at the person signing this

23 document. Do you know this person? Can you tell us who signs it and what

24 his position was?

25 A. We see here the signature of the command of the area staff of

1 Territorial Defence, and judging by some other signatures, I believe this

2 is the signature of Boro Radosavljevic, who was also one of the SDS

3 leaders and at the very top of the military chain of command.

4 Q. Was he a professional soldier?

5 A. No. He too was a reserve officer of the JNA.

6 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: We can now leave this document, Your Honour.

7 This is actually all I wanted to discuss in relation to this document with

8 the witness. Just for your reference, when you look at number 62, the

9 attachment number 62, you see actually the same -- one of the documents

10 shows the full name of the person we just discussed, Boro Radosavljevic.

11 With the help of the usher, I would like to address with the

12 witness briefly the exhibit - and this is now a new exhibit not yet

13 introduced - it's Exhibit 2775, and it would need -- it's tab 2 in your

14 binder.

15 JUDGE MAY: How are we going to exhibit the remainder of this

16 witness's exhibits? There seem to be, is it right, another ten exhibits

17 to go --

18 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE MAY: -- Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff? Would you like those

20 exhibited together as a separate number and then various tabs within it?

21 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.

22 JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll get the next number.

23 THE REGISTRAR: That will be Prosecutor's Exhibit 334.

24 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

25 Q. Witness, this document is a note of the Virovitica Podravina

1 police administration listing several documents, and if you look at the

2 last two items, they refer to documents -- refer to volunteers from

3 Serbia, a list of volunteers from Serbia. Those documents are signed by

4 police officers. Do you know whether these police officers were working

5 in the police station and dealt with these particular items?

6 A. Yes. We see the signatures of police officers Miroslav Gumbarevic

7 and commander Mirko Kostelac. The former was on this case from the very

8 beginning, and the list contains an overview of all documents that were

9 made available to the investigators of this Tribunal. The date indicated

10 is the 22nd February 2001, when I was no longer working in the police.

11 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, we just submit this document to

12 show how we got it, actually.

13 Q. Let's now move to the next document in the binder, and it is the

14 Prosecution Exhibit C4328, and it's tab 3 in the binder.

15 Witness, this is a report on the TO staff of Western Slavonia, and

16 I would like you to look at the entries related to the municipal staff of

17 Podravska Slatina. And we find here Boro Radosavljevic, whom you just

18 mentioned, and there is also another person. Do you know -- can you tell

19 us the name -- the correct spelling of this person, this second person

20 listed as commander?

21 A. The name of this second person is Dragomir Keleuva, K-E-L-E-U-V-A.

22 He worked in the defence secretariat of Slatina, and he too left for the

23 insurgent area at the very outset and carried out various duties, such as

24 commander of the battalion, as we see here. Generally speaking, he was an

25 expert in communications, radio devices.

1 Q. Thank you. That's all in relation to this document. And we would

2 have to have a -- oh, it's part of the bundle. Sorry.

3 Witness, did -- do you -- do you know a person, an officer,

4 Trbojevic?

5 A. No, I don't know him. I know he is a colonel of the JNA who

6 arrived in the insurgent area from Novi Sad accompanied by an officer by

7 the name of Simic with a task of consolidating the defence and, as a

8 military expert, strengthening the military component of the units that

9 had been established.

10 Q. And how -- what information did you get in this regard? How do

11 you know that?

12 A. Again, through interviews with people from Vocin who know Colonel

13 Trbojevic personally because he is originally from that area.

14 Q. Witness, you mentioned earlier, in the beginning, actually, of

15 your testimony, you mentioned that the JNA attacked the Slatina police

16 station. When did that happen and what happened?

17 A. That second attack on the police station in Slatina happened on

18 the 4th of August, 1991, around 2300 hours. From the barracks, 50

19 kilometres away from the police station, the JNA used heavy weaponry and

20 two BOV armoured vehicles to attack the premises where a transition of

21 duties was being carried out. However, this ceremony took part a little

22 earlier, thus avoiding a catastrophe, because there would have been dozens

23 of dead policemen if the transition of duties took place just a little

24 later.

25 Q. Did the police officers or -- yes. Did the police officers

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1 provoke this JNA attack? Had they done something before that could have

2 provoked them?

3 A. The attack was not provoked. The attack was not expected either,

4 although for days the guns of the armoured vehicles were aimed at the

5 police station from inside the barracks. The policemen from the police

6 station went to their regular preventive duties in town, and from the

7 nearby hill that was already under the control of the insurgents, several

8 shells were fired at the police station and the military barracks. So in

9 that way, the attack was provoked.

10 The objective of this attack was for it to take place exactly at

11 2300 hours when the transition of duty takes place, and --

12 JUDGE MAY: You've told us that.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] -- when the largest number of

14 policemen are present.

15 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

16 Q. Let me just clarify something. You said that from the nearby hill

17 there was firing at the police station and the military barracks. Who did

18 that; Croats?

19 A. No. This was done by the rebel Serbs who came to that area.

20 Later on, we obtained the exact names of the persons who had done that,

21 because --

22 Q. We would not need the details. Thank you. Did the JNA ever take

23 over Slatina?

24 A. No, never.

25 Q. What happened to the JNA barracks in Slatina? Was it taken over

1 by the Croats at some point in time?

2 A. After this incident, it became clear that the JNA did not have

3 good intentions vis-a-vis the police and the people in town, the town

4 where they had lived until then without any problems whatsoever.

5 As for the members of the Croatian army, a few days later, they

6 carried out a blockade of the military barracks. And on the 16th of

7 September, the military barracks were handed over to the Croatian army

8 without any fighting and without any casualties or anything. This was

9 done in a peaceful way.

10 Q. And did the JNA then leave Slatina, those in the barracks?

11 A. Well, members of the JNA who were doing their military service

12 were allowed to go home. The officers were also released. One of them

13 actually returned on the following day and said that he had forgotten his

14 pistol, and he went looking for it in the barracks. After that day, there

15 was no more JNA in Slatina.

16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: With the help of the usher, I would like to

17 have put to the witness again the Exhibit 338, the map with the red zone.

18 Witness, this region -- this part of the map that is indicated in

19 red, is that the territory that the Serbs controlled during the war?

20 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, we don't follow the number 338.

21 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that's Prosecutor's Exhibit 326, tab

22 2.

23 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Sorry. I used the old --

24 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

1 Q. If you look at this red zone, is that the territory that was

2 controlled by the Serbs during the war at some point in time?

3 A. The area is properly marked on the map. That is the area

4 concerned.

5 Q. How did the Serbs take over this territory? Did they really fight

6 their way into it?

7 A. No. After they armed the population, after they made sure that

8 they had a proper military establishment, they placed roadblocks on all

9 the roads leading to that area. Quite simply, they did not allow the

10 institutions of Croatian government to function there any longer.

11 Q. Did the Croatian authorities try to get it back with force?

12 A. In the period during which the area was under temporary

13 occupation, there were several initiatives of the Croatian authorities for

14 this area to be integrated peacefully into the constitutional system of

15 the Republic of Croatia. Certain people went there, messages were

16 dispatched, and every effort was made to resolve the problem by peaceful

17 means. However, the Serb insurgents did not agree to this at all,

18 although people were aware that most of the population would have agreed

19 to it. However, military groups and the military establishment did not

20 allow this at all.

21 So after the massacres in Cetekovac and Vocin were carried out and

22 after all the crimes they had committed between the 12th and the 13th of

23 December, 1991, these units indeed forced the population to act according

24 to their wishes. So together with the population, they withdrew to the

25 Pozega-Kamensko-Pakrac line where, afterwards, the UN protected area was

1 established. So this was the area in the direction of the Pakrac.

2 Q. Let me stop you here, and let's turn to the Exhibit C2685, and it

3 is tab 4 in the binder.

4 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that's Prosecution Exhibit 334.

5 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

6 Q. Witness, this is an investigative file related to a massacre that

7 you just referred to. You mentioned already Cetekovac, and I would like

8 to discuss a few details from this file. Did you yourself deal with this

9 incident in Cetekovac, Balinci, and Cojlug?

10 A. Yes. I personally coordinated the activities of the officials who

11 worked on collecting the information and evidence connected to this first

12 major massacre that was carried out at the very outset of the insurgency

13 of a certain portion of the Serb population. I was at the actual scene of

14 the massacre. I saw the victims. I took part in retrieving their bodies

15 and compiling all the information needed for this case.

16 Q. Were these villages Cetekovac, Balinci and Cojlug, were these

17 Croatian villages?

18 A. Cetekovac was purely a Croat village. As for Cojlug and Balinci,

19 the population was mixed. All three villages are practically

20 interconnected and they are all along the road that leads to Vocin.

21 Q. When did the massacre happen?

22 A. The massacre happened on the 4th of September, 1991, around 9.00,

23 in all three of these villages.

24 Q. Were Croatian military forces in these villages?

25 A. No. There were only civilians there. As for the persons killed,

1 there were two policemen who happened to be in the village then because it

2 was their day off, and they were from that village.

3 Q. How many people were killed?

4 A. Twenty-two civilians were killed and two policemen. This number

5 includes three women.

6 Q. How were they killed?

7 A. They were killed by firearms from close range. There were victims

8 who were stabbed by knives as well. Most of the corpses were massacred

9 later, and two bodies were set on fire.

10 Q. In your investigative file, you have listed the 24 victims, and

11 you also list a lot of perpetrators. To which unit did those identified

12 perpetrators belong? Do you know that?

13 A. This was the first charge sheet that was filed after the massacre.

14 These are members of a special platoon that operated within the Papuk

15 detachment. It is actually -- the number involved is actually larger, but

16 this was the first information that we had obtained when talking to

17 witnesses.

18 Q. You said that you were actually on the scene and present and saw

19 bodies. Were the villages also destroyed? Do you know that? Could you

20 see that?

21 A. Most of the houses were torched and blown up. Houses were shot at

22 from heavy weapons, mortars. In Cetekovac, practically half of the

23 village and even more was destroyed.

24 Q. Do you know whether JNA soldiers were involved in this attack?

25 A. No. As far as we know, the JNA did not take part in this attack.

1 It was only the local people, including those from the surrounding area.

2 Q. Let's now move on to Vocin. Did you investigate the -- what

3 happened in Vocin as well?

4 A. Yes. Again, I was involved in the coordination of the activities

5 of some 20 officials who were engaged in this case, because this was a

6 rather large-scale task, and it came just after the area was brought under

7 Croatian control.

8 Q. Was it a Croatian village or was it a mixed village?

9 A. Vocin was a mixed village.

10 Q. Did Croats leave this village when it came under control, under

11 Serb control?

12 A. A smaller number of Croats were forced to stay up there.

13 Actually, they could not leave the area. During the occupation, a number

14 left the area either illegally or through exchanges. Otherwise, for the

15 most part, there were Serbs there.

16 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, before going too far, it's about

17 the events in Cetekovac.

18 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: No. This is --

19 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we are in Vocin, but before we go too far. Are

20 those events included in the indictment? You said -- according to the

21 summary, it's crime base, but could you clarify that matter.

22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Cetekovac is not included in the indictment

23 as a charge, I only refer to this incident with the witness to describe

24 that there was a widespread systematic attack occurring in various places.

25 Therefore, I also did not go into many details. The crime base is

1 actually Vocin, and we will speak now about Vocin and then can actually

2 conclude this testimony.

3 JUDGE KWON: That's very helpful. Thank you.

4 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

5 Q. You said that Croats were forced to stay. How were they forced to

6 stay?

7 A. Well, they couldn't leave the area because all communications were

8 under the control of armed Serbs.

9 Q. Were they not allowed to leave? Did someone force them to stay

10 and not let them out?

11 A. Yes. On the day when the police station in Vocin was taken by the

12 rebel Serbs, that is to say the 19th of August, 1991, all Croats were

13 gathered in one place from the streets where they predominantly lived in

14 Vocin and beyond, and they were told that from then on, they had to

15 recognise the authority of the SAO Krajina, that the regulations of the

16 Croatian state were no longer in force and that they had to remain in the

17 area of Vocin, where they were given work duty. Because in addition to

18 the military authorities there, there was also the civilian authorities

19 that had been established too.

20 Q. You said that some Croats left illegally. What do you mean by

21 they left "illegally"?

22 A. Well, during the night, they got into the woods and came to

23 Slatina where they testified about all the terrible things that happened

24 up there during the temporary occupation.

25 Q. What happened up there? What did -- what was done to the Croatian

1 population?

2 A. The day the police station was taken, all Croats who had weapons

3 with permits, that is to say hunting guns, pistols that they had had from

4 earlier on, all these weapons were taken away from them. Their houses

5 were searched. They were looking for about 50 rifles with which they had

6 allegedly been armed by the Croatian authorities. They were shooting at

7 these people's houses. They were intimidated, and there was systematic

8 mistreatment. Individuals were taken to Sekulinci camp. They were

9 mistreated there, beaten. Some persons even went missing. Until the

10 present day, six persons from that area are missing. No one knows where

11 they are.

12 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: With the help of the usher, I would like to

13 put to the witness the Exhibit C2684, and it is tab 6 in the binder.

14 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that's Prosecutor's Exhibit 334.

15 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

16 Q. You just mentioned -- you just mentioned Sekulinci camp, and this

17 is a document related to a person -- medical document, actually, related

18 to a victim Mr. Zdravko Volf. Did you have dealings with this victim Mr.

19 Volf?

20 A. No. I have a document of Darko Bozickovic, a policeman, that's

21 what I have here in front of me.

22 JUDGE KWON: He was an accompanying person.

23 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. Oh, sorry. Yes. Yes. Sorry.

24 Q. Do you know about this case, that the patient was beaten on the

25 22nd of August in Sekulinci and Macute?

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1 A. Yes, this is policeman Darko Bozickovic. Zoran Miscevic took him

2 to Sekulinci, and over there he was beaten up, tortured, and then

3 released. Subsequently, he joined the Croatian police in Slatina. He is

4 one of the four policemen who were Croats who, when the police station in

5 Vocin was taken over, was disarmed and then they were expelled from the

6 police.

7 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Want the help of the usher, I would like now

8 to put to the witness the Exhibit C2687.

9 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In tab 6, I only have a list with

11 four names on it, of four local persons from Slatina and who were sent to

12 the JNA. I don't have any of the documents that the other side is

13 referring to.

14 In the case of the previous witness, I had some documents that

15 were completely different, not the ones that the other side was referring

16 to.

17 JUDGE MAY: We'll make sure you got a copy.

18 Between now and the adjournment, between now and the adjournment,

19 Mrs. Uertz-Retzlaff, could you make sure the accused has a copy of tab 6.

20 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Mr. Milosevic has, actually, the documents

21 but they are, unfortunately, in a different order given to him. So I'm

22 sorry. I just hear that. He has -- the reason for this is that the -- he

23 got the exhibits in advance, and actually when I prepared for this

24 testimony, I slightly changed the order and it was, unfortunately, not

25 reflected.

1 The accused actually has it, but we can --

2 JUDGE MAY: He can't find it if it's in a wrong place. Could you

3 make sure he gets a copy in the same order as we have.

4 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes, Your Honour.

5 JUDGE MAY: And if on any occasion you give us exhibits in a

6 different order, you might as well give him a copy too.

7 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: The problem arose actually on the weekend

8 when we found out that Mr. Samardzic could not come, and therefore we

9 could not adjust the documents for the accused. So today is a little bit

10 out of the usual.

11 However, I would like now to turn to the document C2687, and it's

12 tab 7. And to assist Mr. Milosevic, we are actually speaking about three

13 medical documents related to Vocin. They should be one after the other.

14 Q. We have here a document related to a victim Antun Simic, and it

15 says that he was beaten on the 19th of August, 1991, in Vocin. Are you

16 aware of this incident?

17 A. I know Antun Simic personally, and I know exactly when this

18 incident took place. He was one of the people who managed to get away

19 from the occupied area by taking to the woods, and he saved his life in

20 that way. But he has serious and lasting adverse effects from the

21 beating, and he now feels all those adverse effects from everything that

22 he lived through at the Sekulinci camp.

23 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: With the help of the usher, I would like now

24 to put the document 2688, and that's tab number 8, to the witness. And it

25 refers to a victim, Kresimir Doric, who, as it says on the document, was

1 beaten up on the 29th of August, 1991.

2 Q. Are you aware of this incident?

3 A. Yes, I am. There is a statement by Kresimir Doric pertaining to

4 the event which took place on the 29th of August, 1991. And here we have

5 the medical records as well. He is in Slatina today. He's working there

6 as a driver, and he also suffered adverse effects.

7 Q. You mentioned the Vocin massacre. When did it happen?

8 A. The massacre happened between the 12th and 13th of December, 1991,

9 which is to say the last day that the rebel Serbs held the area under

10 their control, as well as the paramilitary units.

11 Q. Who -- what happened and who did it?

12 A. Well, when the withdrawal took place, the special purposes unit of

13 the most extreme group of men, and according to the witnesses they say

14 between 60 and 80 of the White Eagle members were with them, and they

15 perpetrated the massacre of the civilian population. And to all intents

16 and purposes, they destroyed the whole of Vocin.

17 Q. When you mention "White Eagles," what does it mean? Is that the

18 unit -- is that what we spoke about before, volunteers of the SRS party,

19 or is this another group?

20 A. Yes. They were the volunteers that we mentioned earlier on. It

21 was a group of men which was set up together with the special purposes

22 unit, and they carried out that massacre in Vocin. Another larger group

23 one day -- one or two days before that, had left the area.

24 Q. How many persons were killed?

25 A. According to what we were able to establish on the basis of

1 documents, because the massacre was not carried out only in Vocin but

2 there were massacres in a number of localities around Vocin, the total

3 number of people killed was 45, and most of them or, rather, all of them

4 were civilians.

5 Q. Did you bring your investigative file with you when you came to

6 The Hague?

7 A. Yes. I brought my notes with me, and I can explain the other

8 localities where massacres took place apart from the one in Vocin.

9 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, we did not have this

10 investigative file beforehand. The witness brought it with him. And we

11 do not intend to tender it because it's not translated, but I think it

12 would be helpful if the witness could use his file so that we just can go

13 through the names of the victims as they are in the indictment. It

14 would --

15 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: -- probably assist him if he could do that.

17 JUDGE MAY: Yes. And do we have it exhibited at tab 9 of whatever

18 it is, Exhibit 334?

19 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: No, Your Honour, because we didn't have it.

20 JUDGE MAY: What have we got at tab 9, since I've got it open?

21 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Tab 9 is actually the people who were

22 expelled from Vocin.

23 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Thank you.

24 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: We do not have the file and also not the list

25 of victims. What we want to exhibit here is actually the annex to the

1 indictment. This is what we would like to become an exhibit, because we

2 have on this -- in this annex, we have the names of the victims.

3 JUDGE MAY: Very well. If the witness can confirm it, of course.

4 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.

5 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Could we have the copy, please.

6 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: I would like to be put to the witness the

7 Annex I of the indictment with the list of victims from Vocin. And at the

8 same time, I would ask Your Honours to allow him to consult his notes.

9 JUDGE MAY: Yes, of course, if they were notes made at the time.

10 Were these notes part of the investigation, Mr. Matovina?

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes, they were.

12 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Those notes were part.

14 JUDGE MAY: You can refer to them when you're giving this part of

15 the evidence.

16 And Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, we must have a copy, please, in due

17 course, of this exhibit for our files.

18 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes, Your Honour. And we actually have

19 provided a copy of this investigative file to Mr. Milosevic so that he can

20 follow. We just didn't want to enter it because it's not translated.

21 Q. You can use your file, sir. Mr. Matovina, you can use your

22 investigative file that you have with you.

23 A. Thank you very much.

24 Q. On number -- on pages 20 to 22, you have a list of victims. Just

25 look at this. And it's also a help for Mr. Milosevic, it's on page 20 and

1 the following two.

2 And let us look at Annex I of the indictment. Could you confirm

3 that those listed in the Prosecution annex, if you go through the names,

4 are these names --

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please. In what you've just

6 provided me with, I have under this tab just seven pages with a list of

7 individuals.

8 JUDGE MAY: Coming up is the list.

9 Yes.

10 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

11 Q. If you go through the list from the first name, Simic, Jaga,

12 through to Ivankovic, Drago, were these people killed during the Vocin

13 massacre in December 1991?

14 A. Yes. As far as I was able to count them, there are 31 victims

15 here, 31 people who were killed in Vocin. However, when we dealt with the

16 Vocin case, our final numbers were -- that is to say between the 12th and

17 the 13th of December, 1991, when this massacre took place, our final count

18 included several other locations one or two days before or perhaps on the

19 same day when a number of people were also killed. So that in the village

20 of Hum, for example, which is four kilometres away from Vocin, Marko

21 Vukovic was killed, born in 1934. And then there was Djuzel Marijan.

22 1931 was his date of birth. Roman Ridl, born in 1932. And that body was

23 burnt. And Ivo Banovac, born in 1934.

24 In the village of Kraskovic on that same day when the withdrawal

25 took place, the Kovac family was liquidated. Zlatko Kovac, born in 1966;

1 in Djuro Kovac, born in 1922; Ana Kovac, born in 1927; and Pista Kovac,

2 born in 1953.

3 Then we come to Zvecevo, which is where the Slavko Perisic family

4 was killed. He was born in 1914. And Ana Perisic, born in 1920.

5 Q. What about -- what about a Bokane?

6 A. In Bokane, three bodies were found. Stojan Nenadovic was killed.

7 He was born in 1914. He was a Serb who did not wish to leave when the

8 rebels wanted force him to leave. And then the married couple, Tomislav

9 Martinkovic, he was born in 1939, and Katica, his wife, was born in 1936.

10 Their bodies were found buried in Vocina. The bodies had been buried but

11 the heads were found in fertiliser bags and were brought to the

12 headquarters Tutavalije [phoen] by the White Eagles, and they were handed

13 over to the duty officer at the headquarters. His name was Ninko

14 Djukanovic later on he testified, or rather, he's mentioned in the witness

15 statements.

16 Q. And let's turn to the annex, this annex of the indictment. When

17 you compare this, your investigation, the list of the victims with the

18 annex of the indictment, is the annex correct?

19 A. Yes, the annex is correct. All I wish to mention is that the

20 unidentified individual was thought to be like Zeljko. And later on,

21 through the witness statements, he was in fact identified. He was a

22 member of the Croatian army who was imprisoned at the police station in

23 Vocin. He was held in detention there, and his body was found with

24 handcuffs on his hands and the body was partially -- had partially been

25 burnt.

1 JUDGE MAY: Let the list be exhibited. We have a copy now.

2 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that's Prosecutor's Exhibit 335.

3 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

4 Q. Just -- I'd like to ask you about two persons on the list. The

5 first person is Branko Medic. Is that the correct spelling?

6 A. Yes. I think it is Branko Medic, yes.

7 Q. I ask you, would you please check your own investigative file on

8 page 20. There is a Branko Nedic, born 1959.

9 A. It is Medic with an "M". I think it was Medic, "M," Branko and

10 not Nedic "N."

11 Q. And if you also have a look at Marija Matanci. Is that correct?

12 A. Matanci, Franjo, and Matanci, Marija.

13 Q. I ask because in your investigative file you have Marija

14 Majdancic, born 1990. I just want to confirm, what is the correct name of

15 the victim Marija?

16 A. Majdancic. M-A-J-D-A-N-C-I-C.

17 Q. Yes. Thank you. That would -- this is, then, correct in the

18 list, in the annex. Thank you.

19 These people listed in the annex, were they civilians or are there

20 any soldiers among them?

21 A. All of them were civilians except Zeljko Laik who had been held in

22 detention in Vocin.

23 Q. And that is, as you said, the unidentified person on the annex.

24 A. Yes, at the time the list was completed, but he was identified

25 later on as being Zeljko Laik.

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1 Q. Thank you. The bodies, were you involved in the finding of the

2 bodies?

3 A. After we learnt of the massacre and when the Croatian army arrived

4 in the area, that is to say when the rebel Serbs and their units had

5 retreated, the day after that happened, we started pulling out the dead

6 bodies, and most of the corpses were in the houses, although some of them

7 were outside in the open, and eyewitness identification on the spot was

8 carried out and then post-mortems were conducted. The bodies were

9 transferred to Slatina. Some of the bodies were taken to Osijek for the

10 post-mortem to be held there, and I think that some of them -- for some of

11 them, the hospital in Virovitica conducted the post-mortem examinations.

12 Q. Moving on --

13 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

14 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

15 Q. Moving on from what happened in Vocin, you said in the beginning

16 that the municipality -- you told us about the ethnic composition in the

17 municipality. How did it change after the war?

18 A. Well, the war quite certainly caused migratory processes, not only

19 in the locality of the former Slatina municipality but further afield as

20 well. In the Slatina municipality in the throes of the war, when we were

21 systematically bombed by JNA planes and when more than 400 shells were

22 dropped, quite a number of refugees came into the area, about 4.000

23 refugees from Kosovo, expelled Croats from there, over 5.000 refugees who

24 came in from Bosanska Posavina, and then also in Slatina a convoy of

25 refugees were stopped which was expelled by the JNA from Ilok. Part of

1 the refugees from Vukovar as well had to be put up in Slatina, and to add

2 to all this, refugees from Vojvodina and Serbia turned up, Croats which

3 were -- who were exposed to pressure there so they came to seek

4 accommodation in Croatia.

5 So this enormous influx, this column of refugees, remained largely

6 in the Slatina area. And it was at that time, if I may say so, that it

7 created a humanitarian catastrophe. This was an enormous problem, how to

8 put up all the refugees that had come in and how to ensure that they all

9 had a roof over their heads.

10 After the war --

11 JUDGE MAY: Now, just pausing there so we can understand this.

12 These refugees were Croats; is that right?

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Exclusively Croats, yes. After the

14 war, some of the Serbs who had taken part in the armed uprising exchanged

15 their houses for the houses of Croats who had come in from Vojvodina

16 province. Some of them had come in from Bosnia and the Republika Srpska.

17 Some of them sold out their properties to state agencies, and this process

18 is still ongoing, this process of selling one's property or exchanging

19 one's property for somebody else's, depending on where the people finally

20 decided to stay.

21 So these were migrations that were taking place as a result of the

22 events that had come to pass and the war, and they without a doubt

23 influenced the ethnic composition not only of Slatina but in the district

24 and further afield as well.

25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

1 Q. I actually forgot to put one exhibit to you, and I would like to

2 now. This is Exhibit C2691, and it is tab 9 in the binder.

3 If you please have a look at this exhibit and tell us what it

4 refers to.

5 A. This document refers to Croats who were refugees and had come from

6 Vocin after the massacre was committed up there, after almost the whole of

7 Vocin had been destroyed so that they had nowhere to live. And they came

8 to Slatina, and this list tells us which families they were put up with

9 until the infrastructure was set up to accommodate them and until they

10 were able to go back to their own homes.

11 Q. Does that mean that Vocin was destroyed, the Croatian homes were

12 destroyed?

13 A. Almost entirely. The church was shelled of Our Lady of Vocin.

14 That was shelled to the ground. And there were several tonnes of

15 explosives released. This enormous explosion led to the destruction of

16 hundreds of other houses where the roofs were shattered. And for example,

17 the roof of that church was thrown two kilometres from the church itself

18 as a result of the explosion. The whole infrastructure was destroyed; the

19 health centre, the bus station, the fire engine department, and many, many

20 other buildings, and Vocin resembled Hiroshima.

21 JUDGE MAY: Just help us with one matter which I would like

22 clarified, Mr. Matovina. You're dealing with Vocin. You said that after

23 the Serbs withdrew, "We pulled out the bodies," and most, you said, were

24 in the houses. Who did you mean by "we," and did it include you?

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. I was in Vocin the second day.

1 But when I said "we," I meant the police officers, workers in the police

2 force who went out to conduct an on-site investigation. And also the

3 members of the Croatian army who assisted them when these bodies were

4 found.

5 JUDGE MAY: Thank you. Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, are you coming to an

6 end with this witness? It's almost time for the adjournment.

7 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. I actually only have one question

8 left.

9 Q. And it refers to your investigations. Did you file charges

10 against persons suspected to have committed the crimes in the Vocin area

11 and Cetekovac? And if so, what became of the charges?

12 A. After the crime processing had been conducted and all information

13 collected, criminal reports were filed with the District Court and

14 prosecutor's office in Osijek, and the prosecutions in question undertook

15 an investigation. However, most of the individuals, especially those who

16 were involved in organising the armed uprising and indeed those who were

17 the ringleaders of all the events that took place, were not accessible,

18 either then or now to the Croatian courts because they are located on the

19 territory of Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, et cetera. And a small number, a

20 far smaller number of individuals who played a peripheral role in the

21 armed uprising have been held accountable and punished, however, some of

22 these were exchanged. So that to all intents and purposes, nobody was

23 actually held responsible for these events.

24 In the meantime, the Croatian Sabor, or parliament, and the

25 Croatian state passed a law forgiving them. And most of these crimes were

1 qualified -- they were amnestied and most of these crimes were classed as

2 an armed uprising, and this was incorporated by the amnesty that was

3 proclaimed. So that it was only from the area of Slatina, the former

4 municipality of Slatina that over 1.600 people were amnestied by the law

5 that was passed.

6 Q. And those amnestied, were the soldiers actually the TO members or

7 were they higher ranking?

8 A. Well, they were members of the TO from the lists that we have just

9 been looking at, and many of them did hold higher ranks as well. All this

10 was shown to be a more mitigating form for purposes of tolerance. It was

11 a gesture on the part of the state, in fact, to amnesty --

12 JUDGE MAY: We really don't want any political comment of this

13 sort. It's not going to assist the trial. If Mr. Milosevic chooses to

14 ask you about it, then you can answer, but it doesn't assist at the

15 moment.

16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: These are all the questions of the

17 Prosecution.

18 JUDGE MAY: Thank you. We will adjourn now and sit again in 20

19 minutes.

20 --- Recess taken at 12.22 p.m.

21 --- On resuming at 12.45 p.m.

22 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

23 Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

24 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Matovina, is it true that in -- until 1990s

25 you were one of the prominent members of the League of Communists in your

1 area?

2 A. No, that is not correct. I was a member of the League of

3 Communists or, rather, the Social Democratic Party just as the majority of

4 those who were on the police force at the time. It was then called the

5 militia, of course.

6 I was not a leading member.

7 Q. All right. But you were a member of the League of Communists.

8 For how long?

9 A. Well, perhaps for 15 years.

10 Q. Fifteen years. In your statement, you said that you were acting

11 chief of the Secretariat for Internal Affairs in Slatina in 1989 and 1990.

12 A. From 1988 to 1990 when the former chief was appointed president of

13 the municipality, and the same Communist Party did not give me approval on

14 moral grounds to become chief.

15 Q. As far as I understand, you were replaced by the HDZ, not the

16 Communist Party.

17 A. They did not replace me because I had never been appointed. I was

18 acting chief very briefly before the new chief that we discussed was

19 appointed.

20 Q. All right, then. This new chief who took your place, was that

21 Stjepan Gujmerac?

22 A. Yes. He took the job in 1990, and his predecessor was Kresimir

23 Libl.

24 Q. So Stjepan Gujmerac, who was a member of the HDZ, took your job?

25 A. I don't know if he was a member of the HDZ.

1 Q. While you were chief, you were engaged in public security jobs.

2 A. That's correct.

3 Q. Tell me, how many Serbs were there in 1989 and 1990 in Slatina?

4 A. I have already said something about the ethnic composition in the

5 former municipality of Slatina. It was 57 per cent of Croats, 36 per cent

6 of Serbs.

7 Q. I'm not -- I'm talking about the town itself.

8 A. Well, in the town of Slatina, I believe the ratio was a bit

9 different, something like 48 per cent of Croats and 40 -- I can't really

10 remember how many Serbs there were in the town itself.

11 Q. They were in the majority in town, weren't they?

12 A. No, they were not.

13 Q. And what was the security situation while you were chief?

14 A. I have discussed that too. I said that with the first democratic

15 elections, the security situation became more complex with every day,

16 mainly in terms of propaganda and psychological activities that emanated

17 primarily from the leadership of the SDS and some of the insurgent Serbs

18 who refused to accept the results of the election and the introduction of

19 the democracy because, under communist rule, they used to have the upper

20 hand in politics, defence, economy, and occupied all the leading

21 positions, although they were in the minority in the area of Slatina.

22 Q. You said it became more and more complex. Do you mean to say that

23 after the elections, the situation deteriorated?

24 A. Yes. Yes.

25 Q. All right. Is it true that after the HDZ came into power, you

1 became one of the vehicles of violence against the Serbs; illegal arrests,

2 violence, seizure of property, expulsions, et cetera?

3 A. That is not true. Back then, and today as well, I had many

4 friends among the Serbs, and they could always find in me a good

5 collaborator on the job, a good colleague, and a friend. If you are

6 talking about tolerance and broad-mindedness, I believe I have these

7 qualities, and I believe hundreds of Serbs from where I come from can

8 testify to that.

9 Q. All right. Tell me, is it true that you played a prominent role

10 in the arrests of over 400 Serbs and their detention in the investigative

11 prison in Osijek? Those were mostly prominent intellectuals and renowned

12 people who were arrested for the only reason that they were Serbs. Do you

13 know that there are witnesses who can testify to that, that you --

14 JUDGE MAY: Remain on the point.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. -- tied them --

17 JUDGE MAY: The question you were asked was, first of all, this:

18 It says you played a prominent role in the arrest of over 400 Serbs and

19 their detention in prison in Osijek. Can you help us with that as to

20 whether that's right or not.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, that's not true. Over the past

22 few years, when work was done on investigation of the armed insurgency, I

23 didn't do all the work. A lot of material was gathered in the

24 investigative centre. Sixty to 70 persons were detained, and after being

25 processed, they were either released or exchanged. I don't know exactly

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1 what happened to them, but they were turned over to the judiciary, and I

2 didn't handle these investigations myself. I didn't touch the hair of one

3 single Serb's head.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. When you say "taken into custody," that means arrested, doesn't

6 it?

7 A. I mean persons who participated in armed insurgency and about whom

8 we had evidence that they had been members of the units that we have

9 already mentioned.

10 Q. I asked you whether "taken into custody" means arrested.

11 A. They were brought before the investigative judge in order to give

12 a statement, following regular procedure. There are documents about that

13 compiled by the police, again following procedure.

14 Q. All right. Is it true that among those people who were detained,

15 there was Milan Jorgic, who is now director of the elementary school in

16 Backi Brijeg, Tine Jorgic, and Mica Bozo Jovic and others? Is that true?

17 A. I'm not familiar with these names, although as far as this Jorgic

18 is concerned, I know him, but I don't know that he had ever been arrested

19 or taken into custody. But if it had been done, it was done according to

20 procedure, legal procedure, and this must be on record in the Prosecutor's

21 office. There is appropriate evidence.

22 Q. Is it true that Ivan Fekete also took part in this violence

23 against the Serbs? This man frequently beat Serbs who were tied up in a

24 lavatory that was turned into a prison.

25 A. That's not true. Ivan Fekete is a police inspector who simply

1 doesn't behave in that way. I know that man personally.

2 Q. All right. Is it true that Milan Jorgic used to work in the

3 elementary school in Slatina but due to being beaten up and attacks by

4 your group, he had to leave Croatia although he wished to stay?

5 A. I'm not aware that Milan Jorgic was ever beaten up or that any

6 pressure at all was brought to bear upon him.

7 Q. Fine. Is it true, according to statements of refugees from

8 Slatina, that you were one of the organisers of the ethnic cleansing

9 against Serbs in that area?

10 A. Of course not. If I had any say in it, there would never have

11 been a war in the first place. My world views are entirely different from

12 what you are trying to suggest.

13 Q. All right. You are claiming that Serbs in the area of Podravska

14 Slatina did not have much education. Is that what you're saying?

15 A. No, it is not. I was only saying that the extremist wing of the

16 SDS skilfully indoctrinated and used some Serbs - not all of them - for

17 their own purposes and made their actions so radical that it had an impact

18 on the further course of armed insurgency.

19 Q. So you are saying that they manipulated these people who were

20 mostly poorly educated?

21 A. They did manipulate a certain number of people. I never

22 generalised anything, and I never spoke about collective responsibility or

23 anything else in collective terms in relation to any nation at all.

24 Q. Do you know that it was precisely in Slatina, speaking of

25 intellectuals, there were many more intellectuals among Serbs than among

1 Croats?

2 A. Well, I never counted intellectuals in either group, but it is a

3 fact that all managers in larger enterprises were Serbs. For 45 years

4 after the previous war, the chief of the police station in Slatina could

5 not be a Croat. Heads of departments in the national defence secretariat

6 were always Serbs. All the key positions in the town and in the territory

7 of the former municipality of Slatina were occupied by Serbs.

8 Furthermore, Croats could not be officers except for very few in

9 the JNA. You get my drift, I believe.

10 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. Do you mean to say that after the new government came into power,

13 the key positions continued to be occupied by Serbs, including the police,

14 the army, public services?

15 A. Yes. And there is evidence of that. In all key positions and in

16 the majority of state organs in the economy and government, you only had

17 Serbs. For instance, in Krapina, for 30 to 40 years a Serb was the chief

18 of police. Customs officers and the head of the customs office, all of

19 them were Serbs.

20 Q. Do you know about other places except Krapina? Do you know how

21 many Slovenes held such positions on boarder crossings?

22 A. I didn't count. It is a matter of common knowledge. These issues

23 were widely written about in the press in Croatia, in Bosnia, in Slovenia.

24 That was common knowledge all those years. And as the years went by, the

25 issue came to the fore.

1 Q. When you say "the press," you mean propaganda.

2 A. Well, not all of the press is propaganda.

3 Q. All right. Let us not engage in a general debate. Tell me, do

4 you know a prominent citizen of Slatina, a Serb, a lawyer by profession,

5 Milan Vukovic?

6 A. I don't know the man personally. I believe he's from Orahovica,

7 but I never had any personal contact with him. I don't know where he is

8 nowadays.

9 Q. All right. But is it true -- you were in the police, after all,

10 at the time; is it true that before the war he was president of the

11 Municipal Court in Orahovica and, after that, president of the District

12 Court in Slavonska Pozega?

13 A. I don't know the positions he occupied because he came from the

14 area of Orahovica and I never had any contact with him.

15 Q. Do you know that in 1991, after the HDZ came into power, he was

16 replaced from the position of president of the District Court in Slavonska

17 Pozega and opened his own law office returning to Slatina where you were

18 chief of the SUP?

19 A. I told you what position I occupied before the war and for how

20 long. But that doesn't matter now. I have already answered that I had no

21 contact with Milan Vukovic, and I don't even know that he is in Slatina

22 today.

23 Q. Do you remember that in August 1991, by a group from the ZNG and a

24 group of citizens from Rostas, he was arrested and taken to your police

25 station?

1 A. No. I don't know about that. I never heard about the event, nor

2 did I ever see him on the premises of the police station.

3 Q. Is it true that it was precisely you who attended his torture in

4 the SUP when he was threatened with a knife, left to lie on the bare

5 concrete floor and cigarette butts were thrown onto his body? Is that

6 true?

7 A. No, and I can swear to that. It never happened. I never

8 witnessed anything like that, nor did I do anything like that, nor could I

9 have done anything like that, and I am prepared to swear to it on my life.

10 Q. According to my information, it was precisely in your police

11 station that he as a peace-loving citizen, a lawyer, former president of a

12 court, a model citizen --

13 JUDGE MAY: The witness has said it is not true. Let's move on.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. So do you know that he was systematically beaten and that he could

16 not walk for months? From his toes up to the top of his head, he was

17 beaten up all over.

18 A. I don't know about that. And I certainly do not know anything

19 about this. In my life, I did not even torture an animal, let alone a

20 human being.

21 Q. All right. Is it correct that Ante Simara was president of the

22 municipal committee of the HDZ in the period that you referred to in your

23 statement?

24 A. Yes. He was in charge of the government and he was president of

25 the HDZ.

1 Q. All right. Since you held the position that you did, I assume

2 that you have to know that this man was the main protagonist of systematic

3 intimidations and an entire series of crimes against the Serbs in the area

4 of Slatina. Is that correct or is that not correct?

5 A. I don't know what you mean. I know that he was an MP, that he was

6 the deputy of the government when six members of the Executive Council who

7 were Serbs walked out of the Executive Council and in this way blocked the

8 work of the Assembly and the Executive Council. At that time, the

9 government had to appoint a special deputy to be in charge and he was the

10 one. I don't know about what you've been referring to, these

11 intimidations, tortures, and I can't remember what else you said. I don't

12 know about that. I cannot confirm that. That certainly is not true,

13 though.

14 Q. All right. Do you know what happened to a local Serb, Nikola

15 Kosic, who was then employed at the Jugobanka branch office in Slatina?

16 You'd have to know in all probability that this man was killed in the

17 autumn of 1991.

18 A. Yes. And this crime was investigated. Persons were brought in

19 for questioning and were even convicted subsequently. Court proceedings

20 were initiated and carried out. That is to say, both the police and the

21 court acted.

22 Q. Are you trying to say that the perpetrators of his murder were

23 actually sentenced?

24 A. They were, and there are also valid legal judgements to prove

25 that.

1 Q. Give me the names of the perpetrators who were actually convicted

2 and sentenced.

3 A. I don't know exactly. There are several persons who were tried,

4 and later on, when there was abolition or, rather, when a large number of

5 citizens who were ethnic Serbs were abolitioned for the crimes they had

6 committed, then a number of members of the Croatian army were also

7 included in this abolition by the Croat authorities. But for a while they

8 were in prison, and they had been convicted.

9 Q. All right. Does that mean that --

10 JUDGE MAY: Your reference to "abolition," is that to amnesty?

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

12 JUDGE MAY: So the murderers of Mr. Kostic you say were convicted

13 but in due course they were amnestied. Is that the point?

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] After having been in prison for a

15 while, their sentences were reduced or, rather, they did not serve their

16 entire sentences, the ones from the judgement that had been passed.

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. All right. Since you were in the top echelons of the police, I

19 assume that you would have to know about the killing of Milutin Gunjevic,

20 which was committed in September 1991.

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. Were his murderers ever brought to justice?

23 A. In that period, as I already said, it is true that several murders

24 were committed. The Croatian authorities condemned this rigorously, and

25 this was done during this general turmoil when the town was full of

1 refugees, when massacres took place, killings, shellings, and when during

2 this general commotion during the war the police could not prevent all

3 these cases. However, as far as all these cases are concerned, there are

4 relevant files, on-site investigations were carried out, and all these

5 files were submitted to the public prosecutor's office. So some

6 investigations are under way until the present day, and some perpetrators

7 were brought to justice.

8 Q. All right. But the killers of Milutin Gunjevic were never brought

9 before a court of law; is that right?

10 A. They were not found.

11 Q. Oh, they were not found?

12 A. They were not identified.

13 Q. All right. Tell me who killed -- or, rather, was the killer of

14 Gojko Oljaca ever captured?

15 JUDGE MAY: We cannot go through every single event, serious as

16 though they may be, and murder cases. We are dealing with a much broader

17 spectrum here of events. What the witness has said is that there were

18 murders, he accepted that, during the turmoil, as he put it, and the

19 police couldn't prevent all the cases. Now, we cannot deal with every

20 single incident in Slatina during this time.

21 If you want to put it, put it in a general way.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. May, what I mean is that

23 if we're talking about a very small place like Slatina, if this witness

24 was chief of police, he would really have to know about an entire series

25 of murders of prominent Serbs from his town.

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1 JUDGE MAY: Very well. How many Serbs are you suggesting,

2 prominent Serbs in Slatina, were murdered? Just give us the overall

3 figure and we'll put it to the witness.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Mr. Matovina, how many Serbs were killed, then, in Slatina?

6 A. I don't know the exact number. There were killings of both Serbs

7 and Croats. All of this happened, as I already described, during this

8 general turmoil that prevailed during war. And I said that had the police

9 not acted to the extent it had acted, it is certain that there would have

10 been even more murders, primarily because all these people who came to the

11 area without a thing in their hands came with all their frustrations as

12 well. They were outsiders. They were refugees from Vukovar and Ilok.

13 They were ex-police from Kosovo and Vojvodina, not to mention the fury

14 that was escalating day after day because of all the massacres and

15 killings that were taking place in the occupied area.

16 Q. Tell me, please; you claim that somebody was expelled from Serbia.

17 Do you know that that is not correct and that no one was expelled from

18 Serbia? From Kosovo to Vojvodina, nobody was expelled from Serbia.

19 A. I don't know, then, why all these refugees came from Kosovo, why

20 they all came to Croatia. Also, I don't know why Croats from Vojvodina,

21 from Hrtkovci and from the other villages there, those people who came

22 with tears in their eyes and little shopping bags in their hands, why did

23 they come to look for houses in Slavonia so that they could exchange their

24 own? Why did they talk about pressures that were exerted against them in

25 Serbia? Grenades were thrown into their yards, they were threatened with

1 murder, and there were other forms of exerting force that can actually be

2 carried out.

3 Q. Do you know of a single case of a murder? Are you aware of any

4 murder of any Croat in Serbia? Were any of their houses torched or were

5 they beaten up or any such thing?

6 A. There were thousands of refugees, hundreds of them that were

7 coming in. I did not carry out all the investigations on my own. I did

8 not summarise all this information by myself, but all the information is

9 there, and it is certain that they did not come of their own free will.

10 And how did this happen to occur during the war and during the armed

11 rebellion that Croats came from Vojvodina --

12 JUDGE MAY: This is all a matter of argument, Mr. Matovina, and in

13 due course, we're going to have to decide. As far as you're concerned,

14 you can go no further than saying that these refugees arrived in Slatina,

15 and no doubt this is what they told you.

16 Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. Tell me, do you have an explanation as to why the well-known

19 anti-fascist Stanko Garaca was killed in Slatina, a holder of the 1941

20 Partizan Memorial Medal. I'm sure that you knew him.

21 A. I assumed that he was killed by perpetrators unknown during those

22 first days of the conflict. We carried out an extensive investigation,

23 however, the perpetrators were never found. This case is still being

24 dealt with by the public prosecutor's office.

25 Q. However, Mr. Matovina, all these killings of Serbs who were

1 residents of Slatina is something that you do know about, being chief of

2 police there. Do you claim that you could not have done a thing in order

3 to establish who the perpetrators of the killings were and to bring them

4 to justice?

5 A. As for certain murders, we did find the perpetrators, and also for

6 certain incidents that were a safety and security problem, namely the

7 burning of houses, damaging houses, et cetera. We certainly didn't

8 resolve all the cases, but for those that we did know about, we did not

9 conceal anything, and we did take measures.

10 Q. But without any results; is that right, Mr. Matovina?

11 A. You are talking about murders that took place during the war. Do

12 you think -- I mean, I think that as the architect of this war, you would

13 have had to know that --

14 JUDGE MAY: No. Mr. Matovina, we can't really go into this

15 argument. Just deal with the matters that you can give evidence about,

16 please.

17 Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. Mr. Matovina, are you trying to say that Slatina was a theatre of

20 war and that in this war that was waged in Slatina, there were killings of

21 these Serbs?

22 A. It is certain that Slatina was a theatre of war because

23 systematically from the occupied area, it was shelled. I said already

24 that there were over 400 artillery attacks, also aircraft attacks. Also

25 there were infiltrations of persons from the occupied area. Then also

1 there was a case when a railway was blown up, a railroad, when a train was

2 supposed to pass through there during the night.

3 All these killings and massacres that I have referred to, I think

4 that at that time a person had to be in Slatina in any position in order

5 to realise what war really meant and what wars brought along with them.

6 Q. All right. Do you know precisely in Slatina that these Ustasha

7 group of Tugomir Benes and Sinisa Kosutic carried out many torchings and

8 expulsions of Serb houses precisely in the territory of your municipality

9 where you headed the police. Is that right or is that not right?

10 A. It is certain that various localities were blown up and we tried

11 to prevent this from happening. And if it did happen, we brought the

12 perpetrators to justice. Also with this small number of policemen that we

13 had, we made a maximum preventive effort in order to reduce the number of

14 such cases to the greatest possible degree.

15 Q. How many such cases that you referred to, and there were few of

16 them according to your records, how many of them were there actually, Mr.

17 Matovina?

18 A. I told you that I did not carry out all the investigations by

19 myself. And as you say -- I mean, I told you that I held a particular

20 position, but I did carry it out with full responsibility and with all my

21 other co-workers to the extent possible during a war.

22 Q. Are you saying that you do not know how many houses were blown up,

23 torched in the area where you were chief of police and so on and so forth,

24 in addition to the murders that you did not manage to resolve?

25 A. I cannot give you the exact number, but there are precise figures

1 at the police station. That is to say that these cases were dealt with.

2 Q. Give us an approximate number.

3 A. I cannot, because I would be misquoting the figure involved.

4 Q. Is it three houses or 300 houses or 3.000 houses?

5 A. It's not three, it's not 300, it's not 3.000.

6 Q. So approximately we're talking about which order of magnitude?

7 A. I said I cannot tell you the number. I would be giving you wrong

8 information.

9 Q. All right. Can you deny the fact that entire Serb villages, for

10 example, Gornji Miholjac, Somborje, Greda, Medinci, Aleksandrovac [phoen]

11 were totally destroyed, levelled to the ground?

12 JUDGE MAY: When? When, Mr. Milosevic, are you putting that this

13 happened so that we may understand your case? Did this happen before or

14 after the war, as it's been called? Before or after December 1991?

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It is precisely in the time that

16 this witness is talking about, Mr. May. That is to say, the year is 1991.

17 That's the year that we're talking about.

18 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Let the witness deal with that.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It is not correct. These villages

20 still exist. People live there and one can go and take a look.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. So it's not correct that these villages were levelled to the

23 ground? These are Serb villages. Who lives there now?

24 A. They're not levelled to the ground. People live there. The same

25 people who lived there, or those who exchanged houses or bought houses

1 depending on the circumstances involved how people resolved questions

2 pertaining to their status.

3 Q. How many Serbs are there in these villages now, Mr. Matovina?

4 A. I don't know exactly. You're asking me too much. I did not keep

5 such records.

6 Q. All right. Do you know who is behind these crimes of destroying

7 these Serb villages?

8 A. The perpetrators --

9 JUDGE MAY: No. Just a moment. You cannot misrepresent the

10 evidence, Mr. Milosevic, something you're guilty of frequently. The

11 witness just said the villages weren't destroyed, so you can't then put a

12 question saying that they were.

13 But one of the things which the accused put earlier, Mr. Matovina,

14 was this, that there was what he called a Ustasha band who was responsible

15 for crimes. Against Serbs, that is. Was there such a band or something

16 like it? Were there people going around committing these crimes?

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's not correct. Sinisa Kosutic,

18 that Mr. Milosevic mentioned, was in the military police. He's an ethnic

19 Serb. How could he go around blowing up Serb houses?

20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. What about this other group of Tugomir Benes?

22 A. Tugomir Benes was also on the reserve police force. He was never

23 involved in such things, as far as I know.

24 Q. So neither Kosutic nor Benes. And you claim on the basis of what

25 Mr. May just said due to the best of his understanding, that the villages

1 I mentioned to you were not destroyed. That's how he understood you.

2 A. The villages were not destroyed. Some houses were blown up in

3 some of these villages.

4 Q. All right. And am I mistaken if I say that in none of these

5 villages was there ever a single member of the TO or was a single bullet

6 fired or were there any war operations, these villages that I referred

7 to? Is that right or is that not right, Mr. Matovina?

8 A. Some members of the TO were precisely from these villages, and

9 after these massacres were carried out, there was the possibility of

10 revenge, of retaliation by certain persons, and everybody was fully aware

11 of it. So we acted in a preventive fashion so that such things would not

12 happen in these villages, or at least to the least extent possible. That

13 is the instructions on which the police operated.

14 Q. All right. But you did not answer my question. But is it true

15 that there were no war operations in these villages or that there were no

16 armed formations of any kind in these villages? Is that right or is that

17 not right?

18 A. That's right. There were no operations in these villages.

19 Q. But there was this destruction, and you say that it was only

20 partial, not complete throughout these villages. Was this out of revenge,

21 or how do you explain this?

22 A. Well, probably it was out of revenge. I spoke about all the

23 atrocities that took place, and it is quite possible and true that there

24 were individual radicals and that it was difficult to leash them in,

25 radicals against whom the police and the authorities were energetic in

1 combatting.

2 Q. All right. Tell me this: Do you know about the fate of the

3 villages Djurji [phoen], Sekulinci, Kometnik, Lisicine, Drenovac, Pusina,

4 Krasovic? These are all Serb villages. Do you know what happened to

5 them?

6 A. These villages, just like all the other ones, when the

7 paramilitary units withdrew, the villages were damaged. As I've already

8 said, the village of Cetekovac, Vocin, Hum, et cetera, Zvecevo and all the

9 other villages in that area.

10 Q. And who were the perpetrators who did this?

11 A. Who did it? Well, this was done by the paramilitary units, the

12 ones which were withdrawing. And quite certainly there were individuals

13 as well on the Croatian side against whom we were struggling against and

14 trying to prevent them from doing things like that.

15 Q. Now, do you claim that it was the Serbian paramilitaries who

16 destroyed all the Serbian villages that I just enumerated, that I just

17 read out?

18 A. Well, in part, yes. Who destroyed Vocin, for example, Hum,

19 Cetekovac, Zvecevo, those villages?

20 Q. Well, that's what I'm asking you. Who did do that?

21 A. Well, I've given you an answer.

22 Q. So it was the Serbian paramilitary units which destroyed the

23 Serbian villages; is that what you're saying?

24 A. Well, they destroyed everything in their path. They set fire to

25 everything and killed the people who didn't want to join them and leave

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1 with them.

2 Q. Yes. I heard you say a moment ago -- you mention the name of a

3 Serb a moment ago who had allegedly been killed because he refused to go

4 with them. Is that what you're claiming?

5 A. Yes, it is.

6 Q. Now, tell me this, in view of the fact that this is a very

7 specific question: How many attacks on the JNA barracks were launched?

8 The JNA barracks were right beside your police station, weren't they, in

9 Slatina? So you can tell us that.

10 A. There was not a single attack, and for our part, we had very good

11 relations with them and didn't expect an attack at all. We didn't expect

12 the attack that was to come to pass on the 4th of August, 1991. We

13 considered that there were no grounds for that, no reason for an attack of

14 that kind, because we thought that the army was going about its business

15 and that there was no danger coming from the barracks, from that quarter.

16 However, as I have already said, the intention was that when the

17 transference of duty took place, that both the police shifts were to be

18 destroyed, both those people going to take up their duties and take over.

19 Q. All right, Mr. Matovina. From what you have said with respect to

20 these actions, it would seem that only one policeman was injured in all

21 that melee. Is that true?

22 A. Yes, that's right.

23 Q. Why, then, are you talking about destruction and two shifts of the

24 police force if only one policeman was wounded?

25 A. I've already said that on that particular occasion, the shift took

1 place half an hour before the usual time of 2300 hours, and the gunfire

2 from the heavy weapons and the armoured vehicles were directed to the

3 premises where this takeover of duty was taking place, and this -- there

4 were no policemen there, but this particular police officer, the one who

5 was injured, was providing security for the building. The other policemen

6 had left to perform their duty elsewhere.

7 Q. Well, from what you've just said, it would appear that they

8 weren't informed. Were they inside? Were they not inside? How could

9 they not have been informed if you yourself say that they were 50 metres

10 away from the police station? And now say that the policemen had left the

11 police station to carry out their duties on the ground. Do you really

12 imagine that they weren't able to see from a distance of 50 metres that

13 the policemen had left the station?

14 A. Well, the building was in darkness, and during the attack, they

15 probably were not aware of the facts. As the attack was conducted

16 precisely at that time when this shift taking over was to be conducted,

17 the intention was clear.

18 Q. All right. So what you're saying is that from a distance of 50

19 metres, they weren't able to see that the policemen had in fact left.

20 Tell me this now: How long were the soldiers kept in the barracks under

21 siege without food or water?

22 A. The soldiers had food and water the whole time they were kept

23 there. The siege of the barracks followed on from the attack. It came

24 after the attack launched at the police station or, rather, after the

25 massacre had been committed in Cetekovac, because that particular

1 massacre, the one we talked about a moment ago, was perpetrated on the 4th

2 of September and the barracks were taken over on the 16th of September.

3 So this was one week prior to the takeover of the barracks when the

4 blockade was effected, because it was clear what the intentions were of

5 the army. It was quite clear that in the barracks, preparations of the

6 reservists had been conducted and that the weapons of the Territorial

7 Defence which was in the warehouses within the compound --

8 JUDGE MAY: You're going a long way from the point, Mr. Matovina.

9 Yes, Mr. Milosevic. Your next question.

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. Mr. Matovina, you say that the siege went on for a week, until you

12 took over the barracks. Just one week; right? So you kept the soldiers

13 there without any electricity or water in those barracks; is that correct?

14 A. The soldiers did have electric power, water. Food was brought in

15 to them at regular intervals. They had everything they required except

16 for the fact that the telephone communications had been cut.

17 Q. All right. Mr. Matovina, didn't you say during your

18 examination-in-chief a moment ago that there was no JNA near that place

19 called Cetekovci and everything that happened there, that you did not have

20 any information with respect to a clash with the JNA?

21 A. I told the truth, and I am telling the truth. I said what the

22 role of the JNA was in the training of the reservists and the distribution

23 of weapons, and I also talked about the attack on the police station and

24 how this course of events took place and how it -- the barracks came to be

25 taken over.

1 Q. Didn't you yourself say that there was no fighting, that the

2 soldiers left the barracks when you took it over? Isn't that right?

3 A. Well, the soldiers went to their own houses, the rank and file,

4 whereas the officers were allowed to leave. They were taken to Bjelovar,

5 in fact, and they gave back what they were issued. And I said that one of

6 the officers came in his own car. He was able to move around freely, and

7 he came to pick up the pistol that he had left in the barracks. So

8 nothing happened to any of them.

9 Q. So there was no clash with the army, and the army left; right?

10 And the fact that they opened fire on that particular day, that was to

11 caution you, in fact, to warn you not to keep them in a blockade and that

12 they didn't kill anybody. Is that so or not, Mr. Matovina?

13 A. No, Mr. Milosevic. That was on the 4th of August, and the

14 blockade followed after the 4th of September, that is to say after the

15 massacre in Cetekovac had taken place.

16 Q. And the army had nothing to do with that. You said that too,

17 didn't you?

18 A. What I said was that it took part in the training of the

19 reservists, that it distributed weapons, transported the convoy, and took

20 the weapons around.

21 Q. So you personally, Mr. Matovina, know nothing except the fact that

22 all the recruits were trained from all parts of Yugoslavia, all those who

23 were doing their military service; isn't that so?

24 A. Yes, recruits are trained. However, it was unusual that it was

25 precisely from the Slatina area and the area around Slatina that the

1 reservists were called up, reservists of the Territorial Defence who were

2 exclusively Serbs. They were called up for training in the barracks.

3 That was unusual. And after the training had been completed, they took

4 weapons off with them and went to the insurgent areas.

5 Q. And how do you come to know that?

6 A. Well, why wouldn't I? There was testimony from those officers or,

7 rather, members of the TO who later returned and lived quite freely. They

8 returned to their own houses and lived in their homes. I spoke about the

9 law on amnesty as well, I mentioned that. And the return of the people

10 who had previously left the region. So of course, all that later on

11 became evident.

12 Q. All right. Let's cut this short. Is it true that the attacks

13 launched on the Serbs, against the Serbs and members of the army were

14 conducted in general by paramilitary units of Ivica Belami and the other

15 man Dzuro Decak? You must have known that as the chief of police, chief

16 of SUP.

17 A. No, they are not from Slatina and they have nothing to do with

18 that.

19 Q. Well, you're talking about things that don't concern Slatina

20 alone. I'm not only asking you about that case in point, the one that

21 took place in Slatina, but I'm asking you whether these units, the Belami

22 and Decak units, whether you knew what they were engaged in, involved in.

23 A. Well, I said that I spent the entire war in Slatina. I said that

24 a moment ago. And I also said loud and clear what jobs I performed during

25 that time. So the Croatian army, at that time, was being established, and

1 units, each in its own region, were responsible for the state of affairs,

2 no doubt, and the assignments they were issued.

3 Q. All right, then. So you know nothing about the activities of

4 these paramilitary formations of Belami and Decak; is that what you're

5 claiming?

6 A. What do you mean "paramilitary"?

7 Q. Well, call them whatever you like. What I'm asking is do you know

8 anything about the activities of those units? You say you know nothing.

9 Is that what you're saying?

10 A. I don't know what you're referring to. I don't know of any

11 specific case in concrete terms.

12 Q. I'm asking you in quite concrete terms what you know about the

13 activities of the Belami and Decak units.

14 A. All I know is that in Virovitica, the problem there was the

15 occupation of the barracks. The barracks were taken over by the National

16 Guards Corps. That's all I know.

17 Q. Well, was this perpetrated by the two of them?

18 A. Not only the two of them but others as well. Other officers too.

19 The Home Guard Corps, the ZNG, when the armed conflict broke out in

20 Croatia with the JNA and when the JNA was threatened, then these units

21 quite certainly blocked the JNA barracks and prevented them from going

22 into action.

23 Q. Well, all right. But you know when the order was given to block

24 all the JNA barracks, that the JNA did not attack anybody and that it was

25 in its own barracks on the Croatian section of its territory. Isn't that

1 right, Mr. Matovina?

2 A. Well, I don't know. All I do know is that the JNA took the side

3 of part of the insurgent Serbs. It armed them. It bombed and shelled

4 towns from the sea and from the air. And another thing I know is that,

5 during that time, the entire Croatian people were proclaimed as the

6 aggressor people.

7 Q. Do you know how many Croats were members of the JNA at the time

8 and how many Croatian generals were in the JNA and other high-ranking

9 officers from Croatia? How many of them were members of the JNA, the JNA

10 being composed of all the ethnic groups living in Yugoslavia, all the

11 nations and nationalities?

12 A. Well, I don't know how many Croats there were. All I do know is

13 that the ethnic composition was not proportionate to the population in the

14 area of the former Yugoslavia, and I know who played the dominant role

15 therein.

16 Q. In your statement, you mention that according to the memorandum

17 issued by the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, there was some

18 fabricated border of a Greater Serbia, that this is something that cropped

19 up and stretched along the Karlobag-Karlovac-Virovitica line.

20 JUDGE MAY: He's not given evidence about this. We've heard a

21 great deal about this line from other witnesses, so I don't think we're

22 going to be assisted by asking something he has not given evidence about.

23 He hasn't mentioned it in his evidence.

24 Now, what is the point of going on about something -- just a

25 moment -- something which he hasn't given evidence about? What are you

1 trying to prove by this?

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm not trying to prove anything,

3 Mr. May. All I'm trying to do is to demonstrate to you here that the

4 witnesses have learnt their little songs very well by heart, taught them

5 by the other side, and this is absurd. Now, whether he testified to this

6 or not, this is what he says on page 2 of his statement. "According to

7 the memorandum --"

8 JUDGE MAY: No. I'm not going to let you give evidence about

9 something in his statement unless there's some relevance to it. Now, he

10 hasn't given evidence about this, and it's his evidence you should

11 concentrate on, not something in his statement.

12 Now, what is the point of this question? You say it's to

13 demonstrate something or other, using terms and making wild allegations

14 against the Prosecution.

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Are you forbidding me to ask the

16 witness something that he wrote down in his statement?

17 JUDGE MAY: Yes, unless you tell us the reason for it. What is

18 the reason?

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, my reasons are to show that

20 the witness is not telling the truth, A; and B, that the witness doesn't

21 know what's talking about. That's my second point.

22 JUDGE MAY: You claim that it is showing bias. Is that the point?

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I don't even need to emphasise

24 that. That is so blatantly obvious.

25 JUDGE MAY: Very well, you could put the point, but explain in

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1 future, shortly, why you're doing it. You don't have carte blanche to ask

2 any question you want. Now, go on. Ask the question shortly.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, despite all your bias and

4 prejudice, you did not succeed in preventing me from asking the witness --

5 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you will not make those sort of wild

6 allegations. I've told you before. Now, if you want to conduct this

7 cross-examination and not waste any further time, ask the question you

8 want to.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Mr. Matovina, in your statement, on page 2, you claim that:

11 According to the memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Art and Science, the

12 imaginary border of a Greater Serbia stretched along the line of

13 Karlobag-Karlovac-Virovitica, which was an unfortunate circumstance for

14 the Croatian population living in the region. Those are your words. For

15 this idea of a Greater Serbia to be put into practice, this area was

16 populated with rural Serbs from Bosnia, the rural Serb population from

17 Bosnia. The Yugoslav central government through local politicians would

18 implement the population of these areas. There were a lot of empty houses

19 for these rural Serbs in this area, and that's what you say in your

20 statement. Isn't that so?

21 Therefore, you are claiming that these ideas were ones that you

22 had seen in the memorandum put out by the Serbian Academy of Science.

23 Have you read the memorandum that you're talking about? And which portion

24 of the memorandum speaks about the Greater Serbia that you're talking

25 about?

1 A. Well, this is a generally known point and platform when the armed

2 uprising began of part of the Serb population in Croatia. That was common

3 knowledge. And in all the -- all the leaders of the SDS refers to the

4 Historical Border of Karlobag-Karlovac-Virovitica, that particular line.

5 And even Dr. Raskovic on one occasion said that if the Croats wanted to

6 have a state of their own, they would have to -- they would be able to see

7 it from the top of the cathedral in Zagreb or that it would be a state

8 which you would be able to tour in half a day on your bicycle.

9 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. All right. You claim that it's what it says in the memorandum of

12 the Serbian Academy of Arts and Science; is that right?

13 A. No, that's not what it says in the memorandum. Rather, the

14 memorandum was carried out in such a way as to change the ethnic

15 composition of the population. Once upon a time, there was a Croat

16 majority in Ceralije and Bokane, for instance. As Croats resettled ever

17 since the previous war, Serbs were brought in in larger numbers. As far

18 as I know, that's also what happened in this corridor that we mentioned.

19 Q. All right. Since it doesn't say so in the memorandum, do you know

20 when this memorandum was written at all, in which year?

21 A. Well, I never dealt with it in great detail.

22 Q. But you are testifying about it.

23 A. I read it, and I know that the entire platform was in fact based

24 upon it.

25 Q. Are you sure you've read it?

1 A. I have.

2 Q. All right. I'll ask you tomorrow to show me the quotations from

3 which you derived these conclusions.

4 JUDGE MAY: We won't be going into that. We're not playing some

5 complicated game like that.

6 Now, move on to something else.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Please tell me, what do you imply when you say "rural Serb

9 population from Bosnia," as I just quoted to you from your statement? Who

10 do you mean? What is "rural population from Bosnia"?

11 A. The people who were resettled were mainly peasants from villages

12 in Bosnia, and they were moved into villages which stood vacant, into

13 houses which were empty, with sale signs in front of them. That was the

14 general intention.

15 Q. Tell me, since you say that the central Yugoslav government

16 populated this area via their local politicians, how was it done? In

17 which way, and who headed this central government? Who composed this

18 government and when did this resettlement programme begin?

19 A. Perhaps this formulation in the statement is not quite correct. I

20 allow for that possibility. But it is well known who did this, and it is

21 also well known that the process took part gradually ever since the

22 previous war.

23 Q. So you're talking about the time following the Second World War;

24 1945, 1946 onwards?

25 A. Yes. That's the time period we're talking about. From the World

1 War to until the armed insurgency.

2 Q. So from 1945 to 1990, the Yugoslav government resettled peasants

3 from Bosnia in that area?

4 A. Well, not all the time. You are trying to twist my statement in a

5 different way.

6 Q. So what time are we talking about since you say it's not all the

7 time?

8 A. Well, we can say that the process never really stopped throughout

9 the time, but it was more pronounced from 1980 onwards when it was already

10 clear that Yugoslavia would disintegrate.

11 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. So from 1980, there was intensive resettlement of people, in

14 accordance with the policy of the central government, of peasants from

15 Bosnia, Serb peasants from Bosnia?

16 A. Yes, partly Serbs from Bosnia. For instance, certain villages

17 were populated only by them.

18 Q. From 1980 onwards.

19 A. Yes. Before 1980 and after 1980.

20 Q. All right. All right. You say it was a strategic plan using

21 rural population from Bosnia, a plan of the central government of

22 Yugoslavia, who found it easier to manipulate these --

23 JUDGE MAY: No need to repeat it. Now, let's move on to something

24 which is more relevant than what we've been dealing with.

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

1 Q. All right. Tell me, then, what government are we talking about?

2 Let us at least establish that much. Could you at least tell me who the

3 Prime Minister was or the name of any cabinet member?

4 JUDGE MAY: No. We're not going into this sort of game. Yes.

5 Let's move on.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. All right. Mr. Matovina, would you be so kind as to tell me who

8 explained to you all these things about the memorandum, the Yugoslav

9 government who had this fatal plan, this demonic plan they carried out

10 after the Second World War and especially after 1980? Who explained all

11 this to you in the first place?

12 A. Well, I suppose that even as a man in the street, let alone a

13 person who was personally involved in all these events, I was able to work

14 out for myself what was going on and what the objective of the memorandum

15 was.

16 Q. All right. Mr. Matovina, do you have any idea at all when Serbs

17 came to settle in these areas that you mention? Do you know that they --

18 JUDGE MAY: No. We're not going into a history lesson here.

19 Mr. Milosevic, deal with something more immediate.

20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. All right. Mr. Matovina, are you aware, for instance, of the fact

22 that after the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia and

23 Slavonia -- correction, from Slavonia 105.000 Serbs were expelled, people

24 who had lived there since 1900? One hundred five thousand of them, and

25 most of the them were from the district --

1 JUDGE MAY: The question is: Are you aware that 105.000 -- or is

2 it the case, to be fair -- it's being put in a thoroughly tendentious

3 way. Is it the case that 105.000 Serbs were expelled from Slavonia when

4 the Independent State was declared? Can you deal with that? And then we

5 shall adjourn.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. I'm not aware of this figure,

7 and I don't even know which Independent State of Croatia Mr. Milosevic is

8 aiming at. Does he mean the one established in 1990 after the

9 disintegration of Yugoslavia, or he means the one which existed during the

10 World War II?

11 JUDGE MAY: This will be the last we question. We're dealing with

12 the modern, up-to-date, relatively up-to-date matters. In the period that

13 we're dealing with or afterwards, were any Serbs expelled from this area,

14 that you know of, the area of Slavonia?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As far as I know, they were not

16 expelled, and I don't know about this figure.

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. All right, Mr. Matovina --

19 JUDGE MAY: All right. We're now getting --

20 [Trial Chamber confers]

21 JUDGE MAY: Can I remind everybody that we're sitting tomorrow at

22 9.30 until 4.00 or so. The same hours on Wednesday. The

23 cross-examination, Mr. Milosevic, you will have the first session, if you

24 need it, to continue your cross-examination of this witness. We'll then

25 go on to the next witness. I gather that he's better; is that right?

1 MR. NICE: The prospects are very good. He's better today, and we

2 have every reason to believe he'll be here tomorrow.

3 JUDGE MAY: Is that the view of the Prosecution or the view of the

4 doctors?

5 MR. NICE: The view of the witness and with whom the Prosecution

6 has spoken. The doctor is being seen just to check.

7 JUDGE MAY: All right. Very well. Mr. Matovina, would you be

8 back, please, at half past nine tomorrow morning.

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you. I will.

10 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.57 p.m.,

11 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 8th day of October,

12 2002, at 9.30 a.m.

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