Page 47148
1 Thursday, 8 December 2005
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.03 a.m.
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, you are to continue your
7 cross-examination.
8 WITNESS: KRSMAN JELIC [Resumed]
9 [Witness answered through interpreter]
10 Cross-examined by Mr. Nice: [Continued]
11 Q. We were dealing yesterday with Kotlina, and there was an
12 outstanding query raised by His Honour Judge Bonomy, and I'll just
13 conclude what I want to deal with so far as Kotlina is concerned and tidy
14 up that question.
15 Mr. Jelic, I asked you some questions yesterday. You'll remember
16 that the allegations include that 17 people were killed in places
17 described as wells by the use of explosives. May we just have a look,
18 please, at Exhibits 54, 55, and then 57A, just to remind ourselves of what
19 the evidence is about.
20 The Chamber may recall this object, this picture. If I can put
21 that on the overhead projector.
22 It was holes in a wood, large holes in a wood in which the bodies
23 were deposited. Do you have any record or recollection of these holes,
24 Mr. Jelic?
25 A. No record about any holes, or these caves, rather, because I
Page 47149
1 wasn't there, in the first place, with my units.
2 Q. Observations have been made about whether the men concerned were
3 KLA. That's never been challenged that there was an element of KLA
4 involved or that people who were killed included people who had a KLA
5 interest. And if we just look at -- I think it's this exhibit, 59A.
6 Again to remind the Chamber, the appearance of the people who were killed.
7 Very rapidly, just so that we can make the point. They are indeed young
8 men, a lot of them. One by -- and the next one, please. Next. And then
9 the next one. Thank you very much. Okay. If I can have those back,
10 please.
11 If we can now put on the overhead projector Exhibit 1 -- or give
12 me Exhibit 163, tab -- that's fine. Thank you very much. We can have
13 them all back now.
14 Exhibit 163, tab 4 -- well, tab 3 and tab 4, but, Your Honour,
15 this deals with His Honour Judge Bonomy's point and concern. 163, tab 4,
16 is a report of the Austrian Kosovo crime scene, and, Your Honours, without
17 going through it in detail, if I can just put one passage on the overhead
18 projector.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: That wasn't my concern, Mr. Nice, to hear again
20 what the Prosecution case was. My concern was that the witness made a
21 distinction between Kacanik and Kotlina and it wasn't clear to me what he
22 was answering and I wanted that cleared up. I don't want a regurgitation
23 of the Prosecution evidence on the point, because we just don't have time
24 for that.
25 MR. NICE: No, no. I thought Your Honour was concerned because he
Page 47150
1 said I don't understand why it's Kotlina and Kacanik, and the answer to
2 that is clearly contained. What happened -- just lay that on the overhead
3 projector. To settle the witness's concern, and I thought maybe Your
4 Honour's, it doesn't matter -- it does matter, but it's the Austrians
5 examined the scene, and this is part of what they dealt with, and if the
6 Court will take it from me, the Austrians went to the scene, they
7 discovered the bodies, and then they explain that it was the Swiss autopsy
8 team that conducted the detailed examination, but they conducted the
9 examination at Kacanik, which is five kilometres away. So that -- so that
10 that's the reason that a Kotlina death was actually finally explored.
11 If I could have that piece of paper back. We've dealt with that.
12 And finally, on the question of whether these people were members
13 of the KLA or not, in addition to the evidence that we've called where I
14 think the witness denied KLA activity, we'll look at just one very short
15 passage from "As Seen, As Told," which is page -- well, it appears in both
16 books and I'll just put it on. "As Seen, As Told," page 219, so that
17 there's no doubt about how this has always been made absolutely clear.
18 This is --
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.
20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Nice says that the witness
22 denied KLA activity. That's not true at all. He never denied KLA
23 activity. On the contrary; he spoke about KLA activity in the area.
24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Milosevic.
25 MR. NICE: On this -- to the extent that -- we'll just deal with
Page 47151
1 that. To the extent there was any denial of activity by those who died,
2 it's dealt with in several places, and if we just look at this passage
3 here, we see that -- this is in "As Seen, As Told," and I'll read it to
4 you, the material parts, in English. It deals with the fact that - at the
5 top of the page 22 - people were allegedly killed, sets out a detailed
6 account, sets out reservations of the OSCE on a follow-up investigation;
7 how they found corroboration broadly of the accounts that were given,
8 deals with the allocation of the bodies in the well, and then says: "Of
9 the whole group of 22 men --" this is right at the foot of the page -- "11
10 were apparently unarmed UCK soldiers in civilian clothes, selected and
11 taken to the area close to the 'wells' --" right at the bottom of the page
12 -- "where they were beaten, shots (probably of an execution) were later
13 heard, and finally there was the noise of a loud explosion ..."
14 Q. So that, Mr. Jelic, I come back to the question that I was asking
15 you about right at the beginning. This is a quick summary of the
16 evidence, it deals with the point you were raising about Kotlina and
17 Kacanik, and I'm asking you, finally, having thought about it overnight,
18 can you give any explanation for why these men, found in the wells in a
19 place where your troops were active in the area, were dead, for the most
20 part as a result of explosions consistent with grenade explosions?
21 A. The area that you mentioned, Kotlina, is about 15 kilometres away
22 from Kacanik, not three to five kilometres. Kotlina is in the border
23 belt, within five kilometres. I mentioned during my testimony so far that
24 from Kotlina there were constant attacks on the in-depth security units.
25 The units was practically engaged in weekly fighting with the terrorists
Page 47152
1 from the region. Not from the village but from the region
2 Ivaja-Kotlina-Pustenik. So that is the concentration of the terrorist
3 forces. We had an order. I think that I presented it here, that ever
4 since 1998 the army was banned from entering inhabited areas, particularly
5 with heavy equipment, and we strictly observed that.
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: General, do you have an answer to the question or
7 don't you, which is whether you have an explanation as to why these men,
8 found in wells in places where your troops were active, were dead for the
9 most part as a result of explosions, which explosions are consistent with
10 grenade explosions.
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have no explanation because my
12 units did not enter the village nor do I know of such a pit, and I've
13 never heard of that or, rather, I never heard of it until the end of the
14 war. It was only later, here in court, that I heard about such victims
15 and that they are allegedly civilians.
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: General, what could conceivably have happened to
18 these people other than that they were attacked in some way? Maybe
19 justifiably, but all the signs are that they died through some form of
20 attack. Now, you just know nothing about that?
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I did not have any information about
22 these people, because in that period the army did not enter the village of
23 Kotlina.
24 MR. NICE:
25 Q. And I take it, Mr. Jelic, that you're suggesting that in an area
Page 47153
1 which provided the -- well, covered the route down to the Djeneral
2 Jankovic crossing and which was known to have KLA activists in it, you're
3 saying that your army was simply driving up and down the road, because it
4 wouldn't go into the villages, and being attacked, simply, by the KLA. Is
5 that what you're really saying?
6 A. I don't know what you mean by "driving up and down." Is that some
7 kind of a stroll? I don't understand this. The units were moving
8 along --
9 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... saying that your army never
10 went into the villages where it's known that there was KLA activity.
11 Well, if you didn't go into the villages, how could the KLA ever attack
12 you? What they were doing? We haven't got your logbooks, we haven't got
13 the unit's records; we don't know what you're suggesting. How could the
14 KLA attack you if you didn't go to their villages?
15 A. I think that five or six times before this Court I stated what KLA
16 tactics were. You say that they're civilians. These are armed civilians
17 that did not attack from villages but they attack along roads north-south,
18 that is to say towards Djeneral Jankovic and Globocica. They never used
19 villages for protection. On the contrary, since this is a highly forested
20 area - you cannot see this on this map because it is a photocopy - the
21 altitude is about 1.000 metres, there's lots of woods there, and it is
22 highly inaccessible. They would walk, they would fire a few bursts of
23 gunfire, and then, when there was gunfire response, then they would flee
24 through the woods, probably to their homes or to their bases. We don't
25 know from what villages they came and where they were from. We could
Page 47154
1 never obtain accurate information on that, but we assumed that they were
2 people from the neighbouring villages.
3 As you can see, there are no such problems to the east and west,
4 on both sides. It is all in the areas where the combat disposition of the
5 units is, which in itself indicates that they were incessantly attacking
6 our units.
7 Q. Are you really saying you never went to a village to try and take
8 out the KLA, in the vernacular? You never did that?
9 A. We did not go into any village to neutralise KLA members. As for
10 the area of the villages, yes, but there's a world of difference between
11 the two.
12 Q. Well, let's move to the next topic I was going to ask you about of
13 the other two that I'm going to deal with very briefly. Ivaja. It's
14 mentioned at paragraph 63(k) of the indictment, where it is said that
15 between March and May of 1999, forces of the FRY and Serbia attacked
16 villages in Kacanik municipality and the town of Kacanik itself. This
17 attack resulted in the destruction of houses and religious sites including
18 but not limited to the mosques of Kotlina and Ivaja.
19 Can we just look, please, at a couple of entries in the blue book,
20 which is Exhibit 321. Mr. Jelic, these are records. The format is
21 familiar to the Court, but it may not be to yourself - I'll have to read
22 it to you in English in any event - of the OSCE mission, and this entry is
23 for the 9th of March, so before any question of a declaration of state of
24 emergency or war. And the representatives, the observers recorded that,
25 "The VJ/MUP operation to clear the KLA from the Djeneral Jankovic area
Page 47155
1 continues."
2 Well, first of all, were the OSCE wrong in saying that there was a
3 joint exercise by the VJ and the MUP to clear this area, this area leading
4 to Djeneral Jankovic, of the KLA?
5 A. The area of Djeneral Jankovic is highly populated, and it's a big
6 area. There was no plan for that kind of cleaning. The plan was to
7 defend units from terrorist attacks.
8 Q. So you were down there with the MUP, and you were doing something
9 but it wasn't to clean the area.
10 A. If you're asking about me myself, me personally, no. My units
11 were in that area for over a year, and from the secession of the former
12 Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, because that is where there is a border
13 crossing.
14 Q. You see, I'm asking about your units, not about you personally.
15 So I'll ask the question again: Were your units there with the MUP to do
16 something against the KLA but not to clean the area? Yes or no.
17 A. The units were there all the time. That could be seen on the
18 diagram here and on the decision of the federal government. There was no
19 police at the border crossing except for Djeneral Jankovic.
20 Q. Well, let's just read on. How OSCE or KVM reported it was:
21 "Their patrols were initially blocked from proceeding to the affected
22 villages. MUP and VJ forces then followed their pattern of surrounding
23 the local villages, forcing the inhabitants to flee through the use of
24 direct and indirect fire. By mid-afternoon, houses were burning in Gajre,
25 Ivaja, Straza, Alil Mahala. MUP units appeared intent on destroying those
Page 47156
1 villages."
2 Is there any reason to doubt the accuracy of what the OSCE
3 recorded then, including what it recorded about Ivaja?
4 A. You mentioned several villages here, practically the entire
5 territory of the municipality. The army did not leave its own areas. It
6 did not leave them. I don't know what patrols you mean were stopped and
7 blocked. Are you referring to MUP patrols, because they are the official
8 ones, or are you referring to some other patrols? I don't understand the
9 way you phrased your question. Which patrols? Are you referring to KLA
10 patrols?
11 Q. I'll give you one more chance --
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't understand whether Mr. Nice
14 is citing a specific OSCE document, an OSCE report. I have no such
15 document.
16 MR. NICE: It's Exhibit 321. The accused's memory will remind him
17 that we've looked at this document on many occasions. It's a compilation
18 of daily reports from the OSCE observers in the field.
19 Q. And, Mr. Jelic, if you really didn't understand what I said, I'll
20 repeat it but I'll make it simpler.
21 JUDGE KWON: It's now on the ELMO.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.
23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, it's on the ELMO.
24 MR. NICE:
25 Q. The OSCE report --
Page 47157
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, just a minute.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That's not an OSCE document. That
3 is from that book "As Seen, As Told." It's not a document. It's that
4 book where all sorts of things are written.
5 MR. NICE: May I get on with the questioning, Your Honours? This
6 is the blue --
7 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for Mr. Nice, please.
8 JUDGE ROBINSON: In any event this is the document to which
9 Mr. Nice is referring. It's on the ELMO.
10 Please proceed.
11 MR. NICE: Yes.
12 Q. I'll make the proposition even simpler: The OSCE observers in the
13 field reported that MUP and VJ forces surrounded villages, forced
14 inhabitants to flee by direct and indirect fire, and set light to houses
15 including houses, just make it really narrow, including houses at Ivaja.
16 Is that true? May that be true?
17 A. This is not true at all. The army never entered the villages. It
18 never set houses on fire, and it never expelled the population. It's our
19 own population. Why would they expel them?
20 Q. So would you say that there was any question of a joint operation
21 by you and the MUP on the villages of Straza, Ivaja, Gajre, Kotlina? Any
22 question of such a joint operation? Yes or no.
23 A. There was no joint operation. There was only fighting against
24 terrorists when they would appear.
25 Q. Can I have the document back. We'll have another look at what is
Page 47158
1 reported on the following day and then we'll be nearly done with Ivaja but
2 not quite. You see, on the following day the same OSCE mission reported
3 this in respect of Ivaja, that -- their reconnaissance patrol, I think
4 number 5 -- no, forget that. The KVM escorted a UNHCR convoy in the heart
5 of the salient. They were stopped by VJ and MUP but eventually allowed to
6 proceed and three bodies in civilian clothes were found in Ivaja, which is
7 totally deserted, as is Gajre.
8 Then the observers commented that the VJ was maintaining a small
9 garrison of soldiers and equipment, at least four BOVs and four cargo
10 trucks, in Djeneral Jankovic.
11 Can you account for three bodies in civilian clothes - dead bodies
12 - in Ivaja?
13 A. I cannot give an explanation for these three corpses in Ivaja
14 because you're saying that they're in civilian clothes. Not a single
15 terrorist was wearing any kind of uniform as a member of some army.
16 Throughout the war and in 1998, they wore civilian clothing and they
17 carried rifles in their hands. Most probably these three fought against
18 the soldiers and got killed. If this is related to Djeneral Jankovic.
19 Q. It's related --
20 A. And you said --
21 Q. It's related to Ivaja. You were asked questions by the accused
22 about Ivaja, so presumably you knew Ivaja was going to come up. We have
23 seen no documents showing what your troops were doing on any day, let
24 alone the 9th and 10th. Can you account, please, for these three men
25 being killed in Ivaja on the 9th or 10th?
Page 47159
1 A. I don't know how they got killed, but you mentioned that the army
2 was in the Djeneral Jankovic garrison. So it's not by accident that I
3 mentioned it.
4 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters note: Could the witness's other
5 microphone please be turned on. We have difficulty hearing him when he's
6 talking to Mr. Nice. Thank you.
7 MR. NICE: If the usher could very kindly turn on -- thank you.
8 And that for the witness, that for the overhead projector.
9 Q. Just look at this document, please. It's coming to you in B/C/S,
10 and we'll put the English version on the overhead projector.
11 Now, this is dated the 9th of March, and this is what it says: It
12 says: "Starting at 0530 on the 8th of March ... members of the Urosevac
13 SUP and Gnjilane SUP special police units, together with members of the
14 VJ, launched an operation to clear the villages of Straza, Ivaja, Gajre
15 and Kotlina, Kacanik municipality, of the terrorist gangs which have
16 carried out terrorist operations in this area with attacks on members ..."
17 and so on.
18 So what do you say about this document? You've denied the
19 accuracy -- the suggestion that there was any joint operation, so what do
20 you say about this document?
21 A. I have to read the document first in order to say anything about
22 it. Not for a single moment did I deny that there was a joint struggle
23 against terrorism. You said before this that the army entered villages
24 together with the police in order to expel the population. That's not the
25 same thing. This is the area where the units were. This is where the
Page 47160
1 combat disposition of the units was, and I explained that there were units
2 for the fight against terrorism of battalion size or artillery battalion
3 size. If there was an attack on the army of Yugoslavia, we took measures.
4 Q. Just let me remind you of a question and answer that happened a
5 couple of minutes ago. I said to you in these terms: "Was there any
6 question of a joint operation by you and the MUP on the villages of
7 Straza, Ivaja, Gajre? Any suggestion of a joint operation?" Your answer:
8 "There was no joint operation. There was only fighting against
9 terrorists when they would appear."
10 On a simple reading, Mr. Jelic, your answers would appear to be
11 inconsistent. Now, why did you say the first thing and now why have you
12 changed your mind? Is it because you've been caught by that document?
13 A. On the contrary. I abide by what I said the first time, but you
14 didn't say here what you said before, that there were expulsions and
15 cleansing of the terrain. You left this out on purpose to prove that we
16 did what you're trying to prove.
17 Q. I'm sorry --
18 A. Read your entire question. You have it in the transcript and
19 you'll see.
20 Q. Mr. Jelic, just listen to the questions and answer them. Look at
21 this paragraph. It makes it clear that there was a joint operation to --
22 with the MUP to clear the villages. Now, ten or 15 minutes ago you were
23 saying you never went into the villages. Well, which is it?
24 A. Never did the army enter villages. I repeat again: Never did the
25 army enter the villages.
Page 47161
1 Q. Tell us -- tell us what you did in this joint operation that you
2 didn't remember five minutes ago. What was your part in the joint
3 operation?
4 A. I remembered it very well five minutes ago and five days ago, and
5 now I remember it very well several years later. That's what you say.
6 When the terrorists turned up, the task of the army was to block
7 them. If they were in inhabited places, they left them to the MUP. If
8 they were out in the open, there was a fight to the death.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.
10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Perhaps there is a misunderstanding
12 here. General Jelic is a professional soldier --
13 MR. NICE: Normally when the accused starts doing this he's trying
14 to rehearse the witness and my questions are entirely clear and the
15 accused should not be allowed --
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, if you're making a comment, I'll
17 not allow it. If you have an objection to make, then you can make it.
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I didn't want to comment but to help
19 understanding.
20 JUDGE ROBINSON: No, it's not for you. You can raise that in
21 re-examination. It's not for you to help us to understand. You can ask
22 the question in re-examination.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm helping you to understand what
24 this is about.
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, but you're not giving evidence. You're not
Page 47162
1 in the box. You don't understand these proceedings.
2 MR. NICE: With Your Honours' leave.
3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.
4 MR. NICE:
5 Q. Mr. Jelic - and I'm going to move on to my last area in a second -
6 but what the OSCE records about you working together with the MUP,
7 softening up the villages by attacking them, letting the MUP go in and do
8 whatever they had to do, is completely accurate, isn't it? This is -- and
9 remember, this is --
10 A. The army did not attack villages. That's not correct. Wherever
11 members of the KLA turned up, they blocked those areas. It says here in
12 the village of Ivaja. You didn't let me read it through to the end.
13 Every document has to be analysed and yet you're asking me to comment on
14 it before I've had a chance to do that.
15 Look what it says about the village of Ivaja.
16 THE INTERPRETER: The witness is reading much too fast.
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This confirms what I said
18 previously. In principle, that's what was done in each inhabited place.
19 MR. NICE:
20 Q. By all means read it. It says in the bottom paragraph on the
21 screen --
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. -- "In the village of Ivaja, the PJPs smashed a large group of
24 terrorists and destroyed the staff of the so-called KLA 162nd Brigade. In
25 the process, a large amount of mines and explosives, hand-held rocket
Page 47163
1 launchers," and so on was captured.
2 And if we could have it a little higher up, please.
3 Now, this was a joint -- let's see how it goes on: "A large amount
4 of medical material was also seized and destroyed, and documentation
5 indicating the organisation of the terrorist groups and their operations
6 were seized too. The operation to clear the terrorist groups in these
7 villages was completed at 1730 ..."
8 Now, I'm not in a position one way or another to make an assertion
9 about the accuracy of how the conduct -- how the combat in the village
10 occurred and how people died, but it makes it clear that the operation was
11 concluded. Now, this was a joint operation. So you, as one of the
12 parties to the joint operation, will have kept a record of what happened.
13 Why when I asked you not so long ago if you had no -- if you had any
14 explanation for how three people were killed in Ivaja, why didn't you tell
15 us it was the result, one way or the other, of a joint operation?
16 A. You said that three persons were killed there. I don't know when,
17 at what time they were killed. You can say any time, but without a
18 document I cannot recall because six years have elapsed. It's absurd for
19 someone to remember details on the ground.
20 Q. Of course without a document you can't recall a thing. Do you not
21 think it's an insult to intelligence, Mr. Jelic, to have come to this
22 court without making any effort to look at any one of the range of
23 contemporaneous documents that existed? Do you not think that's an insult
24 to intelligence?
25 A. I don't know why it would be an insult. What documents are you
Page 47164
1 referring to? If I don't have the documents I cannot comment on them nor
2 can I evaluate them.
3 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Jelic, just a few minutes ago you said that you
4 remember this whole matter and the answers you gave five minutes ago, "and
5 I remember the incident well five years ago," you used the expression.
6 And you were asked some time ago if you could explain why there would be
7 three bodies in Ivaja, and you put the shutters up completely to that.
8 You didn't even suggest to us, "Well, maybe it was because of a police
9 action that I know was going on between the 8th and 10th of March."
10 Now, why is it you do that? Why don't you try to assist the Bench
11 to get to the truth of these matters?
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I cannot help this Chamber, nor can
13 I give general responses. I said that I remembered the questions that
14 were put to me and my responses and the general content of the documents,
15 but where someone was killed and under what conditions, it would be absurd
16 for somebody to recall that without looking at a document in that entire
17 situation.
18 You're now trying to discuss this particular area, and before that
19 you discussed the cleansing of Djeneral Jankovic and the joint operation
20 of the police and army. It's not the same thing.
21 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Jelic, the question was: "Tell us what you did
22 in this joint operation that you didn't remember five minutes ago. What
23 was your part in the joint operation?" And the answer was, "I remembered
24 it very well five minutes ago and five days ago, and now I remember it
25 very well several years later."
Page 47165
1 Now, do you want to take that answer back now?
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, I don't want to take it back.
3 The army was securing its flanks and wings from the places where the
4 terrorists were emerging, and it was fighting the terrorists. That was
5 the army's main task.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
7 MR. NICE:
8 Q. Before I move on to the last topic, which I can deal with very
9 briefly, just confirm this: To your knowledge, are you the only person
10 from your brigade who is coming here to give evidence on behalf of this
11 accused?
12 A. As far as I know, yes.
13 Q. So that by coming here without any contemporaneous records
14 yourself and just giving generalised answers, if we don't get hold of the
15 records, we'll never be able to find from anyone else what it is said your
16 troops were doing on, for example, the 9th and 10th of March of 1999; is
17 that --
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: I don't think that's for the witness to answer.
19 Move on, Mr. Nice.
20 MR. NICE: As Your Honour pleases. The Court will want to know
21 that the document we were looking at was Defence Exhibit 312, tab 24.
22 JUDGE KWON: Janicevic.
23 MR. NICE: Janicevic, yes.
24 Q. Can we move now to the third area I'll deal with, very briefly.
25 Stagovo, once again you dealt with in evidence yourself, we can see where
Page 47166
1 it is on the map there, for the assistance of the Trial Chamber. What's
2 said about Stagovo in the indictment is at 63(k)(ii) and 66(l)(iii). I'll
3 deal just with 66(l)(iii).
4 "On or about the 21st of May of 1999, the village of Stagovo, or
5 Stagove, was surrounded by the forces of the FRY and Serbia. The
6 population tried to escape towards the mountains east of the village.
7 During the action, at least 12 persons were killed. Most of the village
8 was looted and burnt down."
9 What do you know about this? Let me help you with the date so
10 that you can give us your best recollection. 21st of May of 1999.
11 A. I said that the village of Stagovo is a case in point because,
12 from the general area of the village, not the village itself, there were
13 constant attacks towards Kamena Glava and towards our positions. The
14 attacks took place by night, and on three or four occasions the terrorists
15 entered a minefield. The troops could not abandon their artillery pieces
16 to enter into the village. The troops did not enter the village of
17 Stagovo, they only fought the terrorists in the area to the north of the
18 village. There was no joint operation and no entry into the village of
19 Stagovo.
20 If defence is to be considered an operation, then, yes, that's
21 what it was.
22 Q. Well, the evidence before the Court about Stagovo includes that on
23 that particular day VJ soldiers were seen in the area by a witness, Dashi.
24 People retreated. Mortars and gunfire could be heard, and after Serb
25 forces left, bodies were found in the village.
Page 47167
1 Can you please explain how bodies -- how people came to be killed
2 in that village?
3 A. First of all, this unit does not have mortars. It has anti-army
4 artillery. How those people lost their lives, I really don't know. I can
5 only assume that they participated in fighting. The army was there, but
6 they could have been seen between Stari Kacanik and Stagovo, where their
7 positions were.
8 Q. So these people who were fighting may have lost their lives, and
9 as I think you told us, when there's a loss of life there has to be a
10 record made, so somewhere in the army's record there will be a record of
11 how these people lost their lives, will there? In general or specific
12 terms there will be some kind of record?
13 A. In clearing up the terrain, whenever corpses were found, any of --
14 any provenance - because there was crime there as well - any body that was
15 found was dealt with in the way prescribed by law and according to
16 international law, which means that every body was collected, humanely
17 buried, the grave was marked, and the documentation was handed over to the
18 local authorities, in this case in Kacanik.
19 Q. So we can be confident, can we, that the material handed over in
20 respect of the Stagovo killings to the authorities in Kacanik will reveal
21 how, in all probability, those who died were armed and engaged in battle
22 at the time; is that right?
23 A. I couldn't say exactly what is contained in those documents, first
24 of all. Secondly, it depends on who found them. If they were found by
25 the MUP or the army, there would have been an investigating judge. They
Page 47168
1 would have had to be humanely buried, the graves marked, and there had to
2 be proper documentation.
3 MR. NICE: With the Court's assistance.
4 Q. We'll just lay this on the overhead projector. This is part of
5 Exhibit 163, tab 11. It's in English but I can read what's material to
6 you. It comes from the Swiss forensic report, and their investigation
7 happened on the 24th to the 25th of September of 1999 where they dealt
8 with a communal grave in Stagovo. And you can see, because this much will
9 be apparent to you, that included in those killed were a 74-year-old
10 woman, a 7-year-old boy, a woman born in 1954, therefore 45 at the time, a
11 woman born in 1916, another woman born in 1943.
12 Would you care to help us from your memory, Mr. Jelic, with how
13 any operation of which you were a party in this place killed those people?
14 Because their -- everyone who has a remaining interest in them would like
15 to know. Tell us.
16 A. You say that the army took part in an operation. I have repeated
17 several times that the army did not participate in any operation or enter
18 the village of Stagovo.
19 As for the death of these people, I have no reason to doubt that
20 they were actually killed, but I don't know where. I don't know who gave
21 this information.
22 I can doubt it. Maybe they died of natural causes. I don't know
23 what this is about. Please remember that elderly people might have died
24 of natural causes.
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, General. Let's move on.
Page 47169
1 MR. NICE: It was gunshot and knife wounds, Your Honours, by which
2 they were killed.
3 Q. Just last point on Stagovo and then I'll be done apart from two
4 other questions. Apart from the evidence we've laid before the Court,
5 another collection of material deals with the same point, and since it's
6 -- page 221 on the overhead projector. Bottom left-hand corner of that
7 page, please. And it deals with: "On the 30th of April, Stagovo east of
8 highway 2 and just below Stari Kacanik, beside the main railway line, was
9 shelled. Police took up positions around the village but didn't enter
10 it," and there was fighting.
11 Then it says this: "In May the UCK had a 'stronghold' close to
12 the village, and on the 21st of May Stagovo was attacked again. VJ and
13 police shelled the village from a distance and the villages -- villagers
14 started to flee towards the mountains."
15 Now, this specifically identifies the VJ. Do you have any
16 recollection of what they did on the 21st of May?
17 A. You're confirming what I just said; the army was fighting the
18 terrorists. Terrorists were in the village of Stagovo. When you say
19 "village," you're probably referring to the centre of the village, but you
20 shoot at the army from the centre of the village. Wherever there were
21 terrorists, the army fought them fiercely. The village of Stagovo -- I
22 don't really understand this in translation. You say the MUP was
23 searching the village of Stagovo, chasing this gang that you just
24 mentioned.
25 Q. You may --
Page 47170
1 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, I have to express concern that, being
2 pushed for time as you are, you're resorting in cross-examination to
3 material which is not even part of the evidence in the case.
4 MR. NICE: This book is an exhibit in the case.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: You've just said it is a collection of material
6 which you haven't so far presented to the Court.
7 MR. NICE: If I said that, I didn't mean to say that. This is
8 material that is indeed in the case, and indeed it's very much part of the
9 evidence, and I'm sorry about that. But you see, the reason I mention it
10 is for this, and this is the last reason, something I want the witness's
11 assistance with.
12 Q. This says specifically -- and I've just now lost my place, but --
13 there we are.
14 This says that the killings were done by paramilitaries. We can
15 see it there. It says -- deals with the interviews, Mr. Jelic, describes
16 how people, including women and paralysed grandmother, were executed by
17 paramilitaries and how houses were set on fire.
18 Do your recollections of what you the military were doing with the
19 police include recollections that paramilitaries were involved as well?
20 Yes or no.
21 A. They're lying, absolutely.
22 Q. I see. So these people who give an account of the death of women
23 and children are either -- is there any chance, do you think, from
24 uniforms, that the military might be confused for paramilitary?
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Could you put it back on the ELMO for me.
Page 47171
1 Mr. Nice, where is the passage that you read saying that the village was
2 shelled from a distance -- from a distance?
3 MR. NICE: "... on the 21st of May Stagovo was attacked again. VJ
4 and police shelled --" top right-hand corner "-- the village from a
5 distance, and the villagers started to flee towards the mountains."
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. I wanted to ask the general something about
7 that, because he has said consistently that the army never entered the
8 villages.
9 Is this consistent with what you're saying, that the shelling took
10 place from a distance?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. The army never
12 attacks villages or enters villages. We are not authorised to search
13 villages. If from an inhabited, a built-up area, a fortification is
14 created, the army breaks it up. Everything else, every other populated
15 area is left to the MUP, which fights the terrorists in built-up areas,
16 searches houses and does whatever they're authorised to do.
17 In this case there was a group of terrorists near Stagovo. If the
18 army did not respond to that, it would not have been carrying out its
19 task.
20 As for the last question, how can a person, an ordinary citizen,
21 know enough to talk about paramilitaries in some distant, faraway village?
22 Please bear in mind the level of education of these people. Bear in mind
23 their background and their culture. When they see a person in uniform,
24 they call him either a policeman or a soldier. They don't use the term
25 "paramilitary." This is absurd. You're giving a list, and if you tell me
Page 47172
1 of one single soldier of mine who is said to be a paramilitary, and I will
2 take responsibility for everything that happened.
3 JUDGE ROBINSON: So the general strategy is that the army operated
4 from a distance and the MUP would enter the villages to deal with the --
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes, that's the general
6 principle.
7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.
8 MR. NICE:
9 Q. My last question on this --
10 JUDGE KWON: General. General, do you exclude the possibility
11 that there exists a person or persons who were armed separate from
12 military or police, be it legal or illegal?
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't exclude that possibility.
14 There may have been criminal gangs, just as there might be in peacetime.
15 Under ordinary conditions there are criminals, and their numbers may have
16 increased. They may have been linked together more under conditions of
17 wartime.
18 JUDGE KWON: Some ordinary people call them paramilitaries.
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In our language, I do apologise,
20 this is a term introduced recently. I would call it an imported term.
21 You talk either of rebels or renegades or of policemen or soldiers. As
22 for the term "paramilitary," it's something that has been imposed.
23 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. And the --
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm referring to organised things.
25 JUDGE KWON: And turning back to Stagovo, is it true that the army
Page 47173
1 shelled the village?
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The army did not shell the village.
3 The terrorist group to the north of Stagovo pushed back by the police --
4 the MUP had been attacked in Kacanik previously and pushed them back, and
5 they attempted to cross the positions of the anti-armour detachment, and
6 that's where the armoured forces were.
7 JUDGE KWON: Are you saying that army never shelled at any point?
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They never shelled the village.
9 They never shelled the village itself. I would have had a report had it
10 been done.
11 There was a report that there was fighting above Stagovo and that
12 they even entered a minefield, probably attempting to approach the
13 positions or attempting to flee the MUP forces.
14 JUDGE KWON: I'm sorry. My question was wrong. The army shelled
15 the firing point. That's correct, then?
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's correct, yes.
17 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
18 MR. NICE:
19 Q. My last question, which in a sense follows on from His Honour
20 Judge Kwon's, is this: You say that -- you said to me that there was no
21 question of your soldiers being mistaken for people described as
22 paramilitaries. It's right, isn't it, certainly that in the 26th of March
23 order you were commanding not only the army but also armed non-Siptar
24 people. That would be Serbs who had been provided with arms.
25 Now, could such people be, in your judgement, confused by those
Page 47174
1 using the term "paramilitaries"?
2 A. Now, how people could have used different expressions is something
3 that I cannot answer, and probably no one can answer what somebody would
4 have said for those men then.
5 As for what it says in that document that you refer to, in
6 addition to the army of Yugoslavia, we had the Ministry of Defence which
7 armed people in order to protect vital facilities, namely post offices,
8 banks, telephone exchanges, transformer stations, and other key facilities
9 that are within the area of responsibility.
10 All these people who were organised, who were placed under the
11 command either of the ministry or the army or the MUP cannot be called
12 paramilitaries because it's not that they're doing something apart from
13 the army. They are, within the scope of their activities, soldiers too,
14 doing a certain job.
15 JUDGE ROBINSON: General, you say the general strategy was that
16 the army would operate from a distance while the police would go into the
17 villages to deal with the rebels or whatever you call them. Was the
18 reason for that merely tactical or -- or were there constitutional, legal
19 reasons?
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You see, when terrorist groups
21 appear in an open space, then it is very clear and simple. Then they are
22 surrounded and destroyed. However, if these groups flee into inhabited
23 areas, then the military blocks the village from the side where they are
24 and the MUP enters the village, searches the buildings, and engages in
25 fighting in built-up areas. The army does not enter the village, and the
Page 47175
1 army does not fire because then you would be firing at random. You don't
2 have a front. You don't have an army in front of you. These were usually
3 groups of ten or 15, up to 50 people at the most.
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Just one other question. How old is the usage of
5 the term "paramilitary" in your country? You said it was of just recent
6 usage.
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I must admit that this term
8 "paramilitary" has been used, say, from the 1990s onwards. Unfortunately,
9 these are terms that came into being during the disintegration of
10 Yugoslavia when certain political parties, not only in Serbia but
11 throughout Yugoslavia, used them. All of them used them for their own
12 interests.
13 JUDGE ROBINSON: You're finished?
14 MR. NICE: Finished on those three topics, Your Honours, yes. And
15 I was going to ask two other questions of a general nature. They are
16 these, with the Court's leave:
17 Q. Are there any records that you can remember, point us to that
18 detail the taking of any prisoners of war?
19 A. If this question is for me --
20 Q. Yes.
21 A. -- then prisoners of war are usually recorded by the MUP and the
22 security organs, if there are any. I had no prisoners of war, nor did we
23 have any records. There were people who would be detained in custody for
24 a day or two, as you saw from the report of the corps commander, but we
25 did not have any prisoners of war.
Page 47176
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Your last question, Mr. Nice.
2 MR. NICE:
3 Q. Did you ever go to the Obilic electric plant in Prizren?
4 A. I did not understand your question. As far as I know, there are
5 no electric plants in Prizren.
6 MR. NICE: That's all I wish to ask this witness. Your Honours --
7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic --
8 MR. NICE: Your Honours, may I make one point, please, in private
9 session? I'll explain my position, with Your Honour's leave.
10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Private session, yes.
11 [Private session]
12 (redacted)
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Page 47177
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16 [Open session]
17 THE REGISTRAR: We are in open session, Your Honours.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honours, there is no electric
19 plant in Pristina. Like in Prizren, in Pristina there is no electric
20 plant.
21 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, is there any reason why the transcript of
22 the exchanges that have just taken place should remain confidential?
23 MR. NICE: Yes.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: All right.
25 MR. KAY: Why? Let's -- too much is assumed here by the
Page 47180
1 Prosecution that when they make these applications. In my submission,
2 absolutely nothing in what was said that remotely impinges upon the
3 interests of justice in this case. No names are mentioned.
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Not the interests of justice; security.
5 MR. KAY: Where? It's simply not identified in any way. The
6 short answer is given, yes, without any explanation. It may well be a
7 knee-jerk reaction by Mr. Nice not getting his way on something. In our
8 submission, no details were given and the Prosecution should identify what
9 sensitivities there were about the matters in closed session, and point to
10 how --
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Mr. Nice, justify it. I think Mr. Kay is
12 right.
13 MR. NICE: Well, the suggestion of knee-jerk reaction is, if I may
14 say so, unhelpful. Of course I thought about this matter in considerable
15 detail, and if you would be good enough -- do you have the facility to
16 wind back the LiveNote? Page 31, lines 12 to 14, and then if you go back
17 to the first part, to line -- lines 22 and 3.
18 JUDGE BONOMY: Is this in private session or not now?
19 THE REGISTRAR: We're in public session, Your Honour.
20 JUDGE ROBINSON: We should be in private session for this.
21 [Private session]
22 (redacted)
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24 (redacted)
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Page 47181
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17 [Open session]
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic. Let's not have an unnecessary
19 comment. It's your time to re-examine, and I want to tell you that -- or
20 to remind you about the purposes of re-examination. You need not be
21 overly long. Just concentrate on the issues in respect of which you think
22 the witness needs some kind of rehabilitation. Please begin.
23 Re-examined by Mr. Milosevic:
24 Q. [Interpretation] General, was there a tank in operation in Racak?
25 A. Not a single tank was operating in Racak.
Page 47182
1 Q. Does anybody there have tanks except for you?
2 A. No; just my brigade, my tanks.
3 Q. Can you assert with 100 per cent certainty that a tank was not
4 firing?
5 A. I assert with 100 per cent certainty that on the 15th a tank was
6 not firing. I'm not talking about the 17th, 18th or 19th. I'm only
7 talking about the 15th.
8 Q. All right. Could it happen that a tank would be operating and
9 that you would not know about it?
10 A. It's absolutely impossible.
11 Q. Why is it absolutely impossible?
12 A. It's impossible because of the command and because of the
13 explosion that could be heard and --
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: I can hear the difficulty the interpreter is
15 having. You must observe a pause between question and answer.
16 JUDGE KWON: Did the tank not shell to the direction of Belince on
17 15th?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Fire was not open -- I'm sorry.
19 Fire was not opened in the direction of Belince, hardly ever. The PAM and
20 the Praga fired in the direction of the Belince, that is to say south of
21 Belince, that's where fire was opened from at the army, that elevation
22 without a name, the one that I showed you here.
23 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
24 Q. So even then, when fire was opened, a tank was not used?
25 A. A tank was not used.
Page 47183
1 JUDGE KWON: If you could tell me what PAM is.
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] An anti-aircraft machine-gun, but
3 that is an abbreviation.
4 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The calibre is 12.7 millimetres.
6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. General, you're a professional soldier. What does the word
8 "operation" mean from a military point of view?
9 A. An operation means something that is done at highest level; at
10 corps level or even larger units.
11 Q. All right. Can any of the activities that were conducted there be
12 called an operation?
13 A. Not a single one of these activities.
14 Q. All right. So why are you using the word "operation"?
15 A. An operation denotes --
16 Q. No. I'm asking you why are you using the word "operation" when
17 you're answering Mr. Nice's questions?
18 A. An operation means an activity aimed at taking care of a problem.
19 Q. All right. This activity that you described, is that the only
20 activity? So if a terrorist group jeopardises a unit by opening fire,
21 then you open fire at that group.
22 A. Yes, that's right, but that's not an operation. This is combat
23 activity.
24 Q. All right. Did you have joint combat activities with the MUP
25 regarding some group, some terrorist groups in that area, and when?
Page 47184
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Page 47185
1 A. As for individual groups, we never had plans because we never knew
2 and we could not assess when things would happen. At the moment when
3 things would happen, the army would carry out a blockade and the MUP would
4 search the inhabited areas.
5 Q. All right. It is the terrorists who are attacking who are
6 dictating when attacks will take place?
7 A. Precisely. And, Mr. Milosevic, do not forget one thing: This map
8 and the order we have encompasses everything. There are no additional
9 orders. It regulates everything. Unfortunately, we haven't gone through
10 it completely here, but everything is stated there; how fighting is
11 conducted and against who. If you can, look at the last points, who is
12 engaged in anti-terrorist action.
13 Q. All right. Well, open the order now and please read what it says.
14 It's very important for you, General, to explain that, because this is
15 probably the only place in the world where they are trying to say that it
16 is a crime when terrorists get killed when fighting against an army.
17 THE INTERPRETER: Could the interpreters please have an exact
18 reference of what will be read out. Thank you.
19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, the interpreter is asking for a
20 precise reference --
21 THE INTERPRETER: Tab number.
22 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- reading from.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'll find it now. It's in one of
24 the tabs.
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I found it. It's in tab 19.
Page 47186
1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
2 Q. So tab 19. That is the order that was written by the witness,
3 General Jelic.
4 So, General, we are not going to go through this order. We did
5 not do it during the examination-in-chief either, but just in relation to
6 this explanation that was provided to you during the cross-examination,
7 fighting against terrorists and everything. So what did you write here?
8 A. Page 8, paragraph 8.3, what the focus of the activity will be.
9 "During sabotage and terrorist operations, security support must be
10 focussed on detecting, monitoring, crushing and destroying DTG, sabotage
11 and terrorist groups, and insurgent forces in the brigade's zone of
12 responsibility.
13 "a), for combat against DTG, special forces and insurgent forces
14 attacking military facilities and housing facilities of brigade members.
15 The military police is to be primarily engaged in these tasks."
16 Q. What does it say, "Engaged 2 VP"?
17 A. The 2nd platoon of the military police. That is there for that.
18 Q. So you're talking about engaging a platoon of the military police?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Is it important to see - how should I put this? - how big the unit
21 that you're engaging for this is.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. So you're engaging a platoon of the military police to react if
24 this happens?
25 A. That's that. In view of the specific nature of the activity
Page 47187
1 involved, and they are trained and equipped to fight against smaller
2 terrorist groups.
3 Q. How many soldiers are in this platoon?
4 A. 45 to 50 soldiers.
5 Q. All right. And what does it say here? The 1st Platoon of the
6 military police shall act as reserve?
7 A. Yes. That is in accordance with my order. So these are the exact
8 tasks, who was doing what in which area. But what is important is
9 subparagraph A, the one that I referred to.
10 Then there is traffic control and so on --
11 Q. There's no need to explain this any further. So what is stated
12 here in your order is that which actually covers your reaction, your
13 intention, and the point of this kind of behaviour?
14 A. Yes, precisely. That's it. These are units that are trained and
15 ready to take momentary action against the terrorists. The terrorists are
16 not engaged in frontal fighting. They attack, they carry out sabotage,
17 and they try to run away as fast as possible.
18 Q. All right. It was stated here that you do not know how to answer
19 the question what your units were doing on the 9th and 10th of March.
20 A. Of course I know what my units were doing, Mr. Milosevic. We were
21 engaged in fighting in this area all the time. I will give you an
22 example. On the 9th of March there was an attack on Combat Group 3. That
23 is in the area of Globocica. That's when two of our soldiers got wounded.
24 They lost their legs. I know what my losses were but I don't know about
25 the terrorist losses because they certainly got their casualties out,
Page 47188
1 their wounded and dead.
2 Q. We've dealt with that as a question. It was said here --
3 Mr. Robinson asked you whether your strategy was to fight from a distance
4 and for the police to enter certain areas. What kind of strategy is this,
5 General? Let me understand, because I don't understand it.
6 A. Strategy is a broad notion.
7 Q. You don't have to tell us what a strategy is, but in what sense
8 did you use the word strategy? That is what I would like to have
9 explained.
10 A. If there is a terrorist group in any area and they mostly appeared
11 in open areas vis-a-vis the army, the army immediately reacts with the
12 forces that are there for anti-terrorist fighting. If the terrorists flee
13 into inhabited areas, regardless of whether they are from these inhabited
14 areas or not, the army blocks that region where the -- they came. North,
15 south, east, west; it doesn't matter. They immediately report to the MUP
16 organs, they inform them about this. Then the MUP comes in and then they
17 search or, rather, control the houses, the facilities there, whatever was
18 used. Perhaps it was a socially owned facility or a private house or
19 whatever.
20 Q. That means that, as a rule, the army does not enter villages.
21 A. As a rule and also in accordance with the order of the chief of
22 General Staff from 1998, we were forbidden from doing that kind of thing.
23 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speakers please slow down.
24 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Milosevic, could you repeat your question. The
25 interpreters couldn't follow you because both of you spoke too fast.
Page 47189
1 THE INTERPRETER: And at the same time, Your Honour.
2 JUDGE KWON: And please speak one at a time.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I shall bear that in mind, Mr. Kwon.
4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. So is this some kind of strategy or is there an order from top
6 levels that the army cannot enter villages?
7 A. It comes from the chief of General Staff, this order, and it went
8 all the way to battalion commanders that the army cannot enter populated
9 areas to engage in fighting, that fighting can be engaged in only outside
10 populated areas and that populated areas can only be blocked. And also in
11 that order it says that they cannot use heavy equipment, especially for
12 fighting in built-up areas, in order not to have housing facilities
13 destroyed and in order to prevent civilians from being killed.
14 Q. All right. In response to Mr. Robinson's question, you said that
15 you shelled from a distance. Now, could you explain this, please. What
16 was it that you were shelling from a distance? What was it that you were
17 shelling from a distance? Explain what you said. I'm not asking you a
18 different question, I'm asking you what he asked you. You said, yes, we
19 were firing from a distance. What were you shelling from a distance?
20 A. Stagovo, where a terrorist group was, as the Prosecutor said here,
21 was above Stagovo. And the army automatically responded to the gunfire of
22 that terrorist group. They used artillery pieces to fire at them, and
23 mortars.
24 Q. Wait a moment. Were you shelling Stagovo from a distance?
25 A. No, a group --
Page 47190
1 Q. Wait a minute, General. You have to bear in mind what you're
2 doing, what you're saying by way of response. If Judge Robinson asked you
3 whether you were shelling Stagovo from a distance, you are shelling a
4 village from a distance.
5 A. I'm sorry.
6 Q. I am saying --
7 A. This was a combat group.
8 Q. Wait a minute, I'm not interested in your combat group. I'm
9 interested in whether your combat group was firing at a village from a
10 distance.
11 A. No, not a village but the area where the combat group was. Not
12 the village.
13 Q. What was it that you were firing at?
14 A. The terrorists who were expelled from Kacanik.
15 Q. What were you firing at? Leave the history aside. What were you
16 firing at?
17 A. Terrorists, military objectives, KLA, armed people.
18 Q. Where were they?
19 A. To the north of Stagovo.
20 Q. How much to the north?
21 A. About 400 to 500 metres, right by our combat positions.
22 Q. All right. And where were you firing from at them?
23 A. Below old Kacanik. You have this here on the map.
24 Q. Show it on the map.
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let him show it, yes.
Page 47191
1 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters cannot hear the speaker.
2 JUDGE ROBINSON: We didn't hear. We didn't hear you, General.
3 Please repeat it.
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Once again I'm repeating it. This
5 is where the unit took up its positions. This is the village of Stagovo,
6 right here, and the group that appeared was here, to the east of this
7 anti-armour detachment here.
8 JUDGE ROBINSON: And that, you say, is 400 metres to the north of
9 Stagovo.
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. 400 metres east of the combat
11 position. 400 or 500 metres. If you can see, it's in this forested area,
12 on the rim of the forest, that is. There is an elevation here 400, 500
13 metres, approximately.
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, we'll have to adjourn now for 20
15 minutes. We'll take the break. We are adjourned.
16 --- Recess taken at 10.34 a.m.
17 --- On resuming at 10.59 a.m.
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. General, the term "shelling" is often used here. I assume this
21 refers to targeting something with artillery weapons. Is that how you
22 understand the term?
23 A. Yes. Literally translated, that's right.
24 Q. Did your units which had artillery weapons -- is that correct?
25 A. Yes.
Page 47192
1 Q. Did they ever shell any village at all?
2 A. Not a single village was shelled by a single unit. The units were
3 not allowed to do this. As I've already said, they had orders from the
4 superior command, and my own order and these orders were strictly complied
5 with.
6 Q. Very well. When firing from artillery pieces, does there have to
7 be a clear target or just a general target?
8 A. The target, first of all, has to be visible with all the
9 measurements, the distance, the size, the resistance of the target, and on
10 this basis the kind of weapon is chosen.
11 Q. What could have been and what was the target of your artillery in
12 any situation?
13 A. Artillery weapons and tanks can only be used to target facilities
14 such as buildings made of stone or brick or concrete, and possibly other
15 facilities which can be misused for military purposes, such as houses of
16 worship even.
17 Q. And when are all these buildings targets for the army? Let's say
18 a house or any other kind of building or facility. When does it become a
19 target?
20 A. Well, first of all you have to do reconnaissance and know what was
21 in the house, whether there are armed terrorists there, whether they are
22 opening fire on members of the army of Yugoslavia, and so on.
23 Q. Very well. Does that mean that the target can only be a building
24 from which fire is opened or any building?
25 A. A building that is fired from and its surrounding area, that is a
Page 47193
1 target.
2 Q. Very well. Was there ever a case in your experience when fire was
3 opened on an unclear target; a village, for example?
4 A. No. Fire was never opened at random. It was opened primarily in
5 open areas from smaller calibre weapons, such as mortars, in various areas
6 of broken terrain where the terrorists were fleeing or hiding.
7 Q. Very well. Let's go back to Kotlina. Mr. Nice read from the book
8 "As Seen, As Told" a letter from some people from Kotlina, as he said.
9 Would you please put on the ELMO these photographs. I wish to
10 mention that these are photographs from an on-site investigation of the
11 24th of March, as is evident from the accompanying report in the text.
12 There are several houses visible here.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. There's one in the upper right-hand corner.
15 A. Yes, I see three houses here.
16 Q. Well, three in the top part and at least two in the bottom part.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Have any of these houses been destroyed?
19 A. No, not a single one. They're even in excellent condition. You
20 can see there are windows, doors, even a satellite dish. It's not a ruin.
21 Q. Please proceed and look at the next photograph.
22 A. Well, this first photograph shows whole houses, complete houses.
23 There are three here, and they are in good order.
24 Q. Very well.
25 JUDGE KWON: What is the exhibit number of this? It may be part
Page 47194
1 of Stevanovic.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is part of Stevanovic's
3 exhibit. I don't have the tab number with me here. I do now. It's tab
4 212.
5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. Let's go on looking at the photographs, very briefly.
7 A. Yes. The third house you can see the entrance.
8 Q. Very well. You don't have to explain in detail. It says here
9 that this was the KLA staff. Does it say that underneath in the caption?
10 A. Yes. "The headquarters of the so-called KLA in the village of
11 Kotlina."
12 Q. Please proceed to look at the next photograph. What is visible
13 here?
14 A. The first photograph shows a room from the entrance.
15 Q. Please move on.
16 A. Here you can see equipment, or you can seen furniture, rather.
17 You can see a stove, a TV set.
18 Q. Let's proceed. Will you turn the page, please.
19 A. You can see some weapons and equipment here in the room.
20 Q. Please proceed. Move on.
21 A. You can see weapons and equipment here.
22 Q. Very well. So all this shows the equipment and weapons found.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. This is all in Kotlina, photo documentation.
25 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... rising from. I've
Page 47195
1 made it clear on several occasions throughout the case that there's a
2 presence of KLA here and that's one of the reasons I reminded you what was
3 on "As Seen, As Told." So, I mean, if he wants to spend the time in this
4 way, it's a matter for him, but it seems rather a waste.
5 JUDGE KWON: And it was not the witness who conducted this
6 investigation.
7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Move on to another matter, Mr. Milosevic.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I only wish to ask him
9 as there are photographs here of Mr. Nice's constantly referring to as
10 wells. However, these are not wells but shelters. You can see there are
11 ladders there, that there's no water in those wells. He kept asking the
12 witness what he knew about wells. He couldn't know anything about wells
13 because there were no wells. These were actually dugouts.
14 JUDGE KWON: We have that in evidence already.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. We won't proceed then.
16 On the photographs you can also see terrorists who lost their
17 lives, with weapons, next to the shelters. You've had a chance to see
18 this.
19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. General, you were asked how somebody could be killed by a hand
21 grenade in such close fighting. Is both -- are the weapons used, both
22 firearms and hand grenades?
23 A. Yes, hand grenades actually are weapons used in close combat, and
24 they're used primarily for defence. It can also be an offensive weapon,
25 but as a rule they're used for defence, and you can throw it some 30 to 50
Page 47196
1 metres away.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: Is the suggestion that the three -- or that some of
3 the victims were killed by close combat activity in which grenades were
4 used? Is that the proposition?
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is an on-site investigation,
6 and this is the photographic documentation of what was found. The on-site
7 investigation was carried out on the same day as the anti-terrorist
8 action. This is the forensic documentation from the on-site
9 investigation. I don't have the entire report with me, but a group of
10 terrorists was killed in the village of Kotlina, and they had two dugouts
11 which resembled wells.
12 JUDGE BONOMY: There's no point in these questions unless the
13 witness can then tell us who might have been involved in the close combat
14 confrontation. Now, what does the witness know about that?
15 What do you know about the use of grenades in close contact combat
16 in Kotlina? Do you know anything about that?
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Most probably hand grenades were
18 used for direct defence. They're thrown by hand, and you can't throw them
19 further away than 50 metres.
20 JUDGE BONOMY: But who would be using them for defence?
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Primarily the terrorists.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: So they killed themselves, is your theory.
23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] For defence. For offence they're
24 used by the MUP and the army. There are two uses for hand grenades: In
25 attack it's an offensive use, and in defence it's a defensive use.
Page 47197
1 JUDGE BONOMY: But the army weren't there. They weren't involved.
2 So who would be using the grenades?
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In a built-up area, only the MUP and
4 the terrorists could have used them.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. Very well. Let's move on to the next topic. At the outset,
8 Mr. Nice showed you a telegram sent by you, dating from 1994.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have received a copy. I don't
10 know whether the witness can be given a copy of the telegram presented by
11 Mr. Nice.
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let that be done.
13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
14 Q. You have this before you?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. You don't have to look at both pages because I'm not going to be
17 asking about details, just a general question. Would you please read the
18 first sentence.
19 A. Yes. It's about the command of the Pristina Corps, to whom it's
20 addressed. "Pursuant to your telegram number --"
21 Q. The number don't matter.
22 A. "-- of the 26th of July, 1994, I hereby submit the requested
23 data."
24 Q. So does it say you're sending them the information they asked for?
25 A. Yes.
Page 47198
1 Q. Does this imply that their telegram that you referred to is a
2 telegram requesting information?
3 MR. NICE: It sounds a bit like a leading question coming.
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: "Does it imply ..." You're leading,
5 Mr. Milosevic.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] How can I be leading? It says here,
7 "Pursuant to your telegram number so-and-so of the 26th ..." That's what
8 it says here. "... we hereby submit the data requested." Does this imply
9 that in a telegram number such-and-such there is a request for
10 information?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. They requested information.
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] So it's not a leading question.
13 JUDGE BONOMY: It is a leading question. You've given him the
14 answer. You may have asked him what it implied, you're perfectly entitled
15 to do that, but you're not entitled to say to him, Did this imply X, Y,
16 and Z. That's a leading question. After four years, one would have
17 thought you would have got to grips with the idea of leading questions.
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, we've been through this so many
19 times. It's bordering on being abusive.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I truly wonder why Mr. Nice raised
21 this issue. You should have said that to him.
22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Move on to the next question.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
25 Q. Mr. Nice put a question to you in connection with this map showing
Page 47199
1 the disposition of the 243rd Brigade.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. And you explained that it was part of an order from the command of
4 the Pristina Corps and that this was an excerpt pertaining to your
5 brigade.
6 A. Yes, that's what it says in the heading.
7 Q. And he asked you whether all your units had been entered in the
8 map, and they were; is that right?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And he asked you why the other units had not been entered into the
11 map. Could you please clarify your answer. Your response was that in
12 your extract your disposition is shown in detail whereas the disposition
13 of other units is shown only in general, and what does that actually mean?
14 The 549th Brigade is not depicted in detail but only in general. What
15 does that actually mean?
16 A. This is probably specific terminology and not quite clear, so I
17 will clarify. This kind of map is also accompanied by a written order, so
18 a decision is entered into the map. The map for the entire corps is not
19 sent to every unit because it would be too large. Each unit is provided
20 with an extract pertaining to them, and they see who is in front of them,
21 who is behind them, and who their neighbours are and what their
22 fundamental tasks are. That's why the 549th is depicted here with only
23 part of its units, only so that we would know they were there.
24 Q. So your task is depicted in detail, and you're also provided with
25 information as to who is your neighbour.
Page 47200
1 A. Yes. The 549th and the 175th.
2 Q. Very well. You were asked what some of the symbols on the map
3 mean. The map which was shown - I don't have it here, Mr. Nice produced
4 some sort of map - and you said that something is indicated in blue. Can
5 you clarify what you meant by that.
6 A. Well, you see, on this map, everything that is in red refers to
7 our forces, the forces of the army of Yugoslavia.
8 Q. All right.
9 A. Blue depicts the enemy, according to our rules of combat.
10 Q. Very well.
11 A. That means that apart from my brigade, which is marked in red, and
12 our neighbours, there are also blue markings. These are units grouped on
13 the border of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. These are the brigades
14 of the Siptar terrorist forces - there are five of them - and a tactical
15 group comprising one armoured brigade, two mechanised brigades.
16 Q. Whose brigades?
17 A. The multi-national forces in Macedonia.
18 Q. NATO?
19 A. Yes, a NATO brigade. There was one in Tetovo, more to the south;
20 there was another brigade near Skopje; and there was one in Titov Veles.
21 The Dutch brigade, the assault brigade, was at the airport in Petrovac,
22 and 40 or 50 helicopters were stationed at the airport. They are
23 depicted, this Tactical Group, and their intention was to enter the
24 territory of Kosovo and Metohija. The main axis is shown on the map here.
25 It's Debelbel-Kacanik. That's where the main forces were to go on this
Page 47201
1 Kosovo axis.
2 Q. So could you explain this, General: What is depicted in blue,
3 those forces are not there, it's only the assumed direction of their
4 breakthrough.
5 A. Yes, their goal, their target in phases 1 and 2.
6 Q. Very well. I hope we've clarified the map now.
7 Mr. Nice gave you a document here, a document of yours, the
8 commander of the 243rd Brigade. Let me just have a look. The 8th of
9 August, 1998. The 8th of August, 1998. Have you got that document?
10 JUDGE KWON: Exhibit 933.
11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. I'm not going to quote what Mr. Nice quoted. I'm going to quote
13 the end of the first paragraph. Look at what it says: "The combat
14 equipment of the army of Yugoslavia." What does it say there? Can you
15 read it out?
16 A. Just a moment, please.
17 Q. This is your report. It is signed by Krsman Jelic. On page 1,
18 the one-but-last paragraph before number 2, before paragraph 2.
19 A. "The combat equipment of the army of Yugoslavia is engaged
20 according to all --"
21 JUDGE KWON: [Previous translation continues] ... English.
22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. Just a moment, please. Let us see the English text on the ELMO.
24 It should be lower down, lower down. Lower down. Here it is: "VJ
25 hardware was used in full accordance with ..." So read it out.
Page 47202
1 A. "VJ hardware was used in full accordance with the rules of combat.
2 It was fired only in cases of extreme necessity --" it's very hard to read
3 this -- "at shelters, routes, bunkers and fortified elements of the Siptar
4 terrorists."
5 Q. So only at fortified elements of the Siptar terrorists.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. For this kind of action, General, was it necessary to proclaim a
8 state of emergency?
9 A. No. No. A state of emergency is proclaimed --
10 Q. That's not what I'm asking you. I'm just asking you about this
11 particular thing.
12 A. The chief of General Staff and the corps commander issues
13 orders --
14 Q. All right.
15 A. If a unit is attacked, then we report to our superior command what
16 was done and what was used.
17 Q. What does it say on page 3?
18 A. You mean: "Members of the MUP and the army of Yugoslavia treated
19 the civilian population properly, as well as their property, without
20 looting or crime. And in individual situations, women and children got
21 help in clothing and food."
22 Q. And towards the end, it says that a tank was hit on the 25th of
23 July and that a soldier was wounded. And on the 26th of July, another
24 tank was hit, killing two members of the unit and wounding two more.
25 A. Yes, that's right. A major was killed.
Page 47203
1 Q. Could you please tell me whether this tank that was hit, killing
2 two members of the unit and wounding two more and on the following day,
3 was that a consequence of the behaviour of the civilian population towards
4 you or the consequence of a terrorist attack?
5 A. All these consequences suffered by the military, and as you see
6 here, the terrorist organisation was very well organised, armed, and
7 equipped, and they could destroy or, rather, damage this major kind of
8 equipment, and it's only Armbrust hand-held rocket launchers that could
9 inflict that kind of harm. He could wear civilian clothing and lie in the
10 grass and fire from that kind of rocket launcher, and once he gets up,
11 he's a civilian again.
12 Q. All right. We're just briefly going to deal with tab 17.
13 Mr. Nice kept pointing out that these reports of yours are marked
14 "strictly confidential." Have you heard me, General?
15 A. Yes, I've heard you.
16 Q. Please, in this binder, is there a single report of yours that is
17 not marked "Strictly confidential"?
18 A. As far as I know, all documents in my binder are marked as
19 strictly confidential. I think that only one was just "confidential."
20 The rest are "strictly confidential."
21 Q. Is this the regular regimen of providing military reports --
22 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... all confidential.
23 I was only interested in knowing whether we had the incoming documents.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In response to your question, may I
25 say that the system of strictly confidential is classified according to
Page 47204
1 the level of confidentiality of the document concerned. "Strictly
2 confidential" is the highest level of confidentiality so that the
3 documents would not go where they're not supposed to go.
4 Q. All right. Are most military documents categorised as such?
5 A. They are categorised in different ways. There is "internal,"
6 "confidential," and "strictly confidential," and the highest level of
7 confidentiality is "state secret."
8 Q. All right.
9 A. This is the level of confidentiality according to the rules and
10 appropriate acts.
11 Q. Your reports here are mostly strictly confidential.
12 A. Yes, that's right, because that is how the superior command
13 defined them.
14 Q. Mr. Nice said there is nothing here about Racak, and it says here
15 that on the 15th the forces of the MUP blocked, and so on and so forth.
16 Is that everything that you have on Racak?
17 A. This is only thing that I had and that I sent to my superior
18 command.
19 Q. All right.
20 A. I seen it to the corps command, and the corps command further on,
21 probably to the army command.
22 Q. Does this report show on page 2 what you testified about? It says
23 from the area, the region of the village of Belince. I think you
24 explained very nicely what the village is and what the area is.
25 A. Yes.
Page 47205
1 Q. You say to the south about 700 metres. Is that 700 metres to the
2 south of the village of Belince?
3 A. Yes. Fire was opened from a Browning 12.7 millimetre and a mortar
4 82 millimetres on the combat deployment of the combat group, and after
5 fire was returned from a Praga and a 12.7 PAM, after firing back at the
6 sector south of Belince the shooting stopped. The operations end there
7 after about two hours.
8 Q. Is that what you testified about and which is contained in your
9 report?
10 A. Yes, that's right.
11 Q. Mr. Nice then -- a daily operative report, which the 1st
12 administration of the General Staff provides every day. Do you see how
13 many pages it has, this report?
14 JUDGE KWON: Exhibit 934.
15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Do you see how many pages it has, this entire daily operative
17 report?
18 A. Yes. There's three pages here.
19 Q. Three pages.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Three pages covering the entire army of Yugoslavia?
22 A. The entire army of Yugoslavia.
23 Q. And does it include the navy too?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. The state -- the situation on the state border?
Page 47206
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Also regarding foreign forces?
3 A. Yes. Paragraph 5, important events, the situation in the
4 territory, then logistical support, cooperation.
5 Q. All right. And what pertains to the 3rd Army here? That is one
6 paragraph -- two paragraphs. Is that right?
7 A. Yes, that's right; two paragraphs.
8 Q. All right. And in the first paragraph there's reference to Dara
9 Glava and the fire opened there. Mr. Nice quoted the second paragraph to
10 you. Can you please read out the second paragraph --
11 JUDGE KWON: [Previous translation continues] ... in English.
12 Further down. Yes.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] On the 24th of January, is that what
14 you mean?
15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. No, no. The 3rd Army, second paragraph. Do you see where it says
17 3rd Army, and then the second paragraph there. You see the 3rd Army?
18 It's at the bottom of the second page. There's a total of three pages.
19 Before the logistical support.
20 A. Just a moment. I'm sorry. It's not --
21 Q. On page 2 you have logistical support, towards the bottom of the
22 page, and then above it you have three paragraphs that pertain to the 3rd
23 Army.
24 A. I've found it.
25 Q. Read out the middle paragraph.
Page 47207
1 A. "During the tactical exercise --"
2 Q. I said the middle one. I'm not interested in this. He didn't
3 quote it either. The middle paragraph, "Some of the forces ..." Can you
4 see this?
5 A. "Some of the forces of BG-243-1 were deployed to block the village
6 of Racak --"
7 Q. Municipality of Stimlje?
8 A. "-- municipality of Stimlje ..."
9 Q. Let's stop there now. Are those the forces that we explained here
10 in detail that were here from April the previous year?
11 A. These were the forces that were checked by the verifiers when they
12 came.
13 Q. So we had exhibits about that too. They came and they checked
14 them. Did those forces go anywhere to a blockade?
15 A. No, they didn't go anywhere. They simply took up positions in
16 their own area.
17 Q. So they did not go into a blockade, but the anti-terrorist action
18 is taking place in their neighbourhood and that is why they are the
19 blockade of that particular axis. Is that right or is that not right?
20 A. That's right. On the northern side, practically by their very
21 existence they are a blockade. Otherwise, they did not set out in order
22 to carry out a blockade. The Prosecutor asked about the same thing on a
23 map, and he asked me whether it was a blockade. From a certain point of
24 view, it is.
25 Q. All right. You've just said that by their very existence. They
Page 47208
1 existed there from April 1998?
2 A. That's right.
3 Q. They didn't move anywhere?
4 A. They didn't move anywhere except when they would take up positions
5 in their own area, within that area.
6 Q. All right. And now tell me, what does it say here further on, in
7 the next line? Of course it has to do with Racak, and then it says,
8 "Where --" Read it out.
9 A. "... where members of the MUP conducted an action against Siptar
10 terrorists who had killed a MUP member."
11 Q. All right. What does it say? Who was carrying out this action in
12 Racak?
13 A. It says here that the MUP members were carrying it out.
14 Q. All right. So it was the MUP members that were carrying that out.
15 That's what it says in the operative report as well.
16 A. You have that in the corps too. If you've got that, then you can
17 see it.
18 Q. There's no denying that. But I just wanted to see this since it
19 does say here that it was the members of the MUP who were carrying this
20 out.
21 Now, Mr. Nice gave you D395. I jotted that down. A handwritten
22 diary of your commander of combat group Cafa Dulje.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Have you got that in front of you?
25 A. No, I don't.
Page 47209
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could it please be given to the
2 witness. 395.
3 JUDGE KWON: 935.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, what I wrote down was 395. It
5 was probably misinterpreted.
6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. Do you have the second page? What is this? It says Dragan
8 Todorovic signed it.
9 A. Yes, he's a lieutenant colonel.
10 Q. Is that the commander of that combat group of yours which, in
11 accordance with the agreement reached with the OSCE, was in that area?
12 A. He was acting on behalf of Lieutenant Colonel Djordjevic who was
13 the commander of the group, so at that time he was the commander of that
14 group.
15 Q. All right. It says there that indeed that is a contemporaneous
16 document from that date, the 15th.
17 A. I think that this is the original.
18 Q. Well, Mr. Nice obtained it, as you can see. Please, Mr. Nice said
19 that there's nothing about Racak here. And what does it say here? Cafa
20 Dulje, the 15th of January, 1989 [sic]. And then what does it say?
21 A. The combat position of the unit is unchanged, if I can see it
22 right.
23 Q. So that's what written there, the combat disposition of the unit
24 is unchanged. Could the units be engaged somewhere without the combat
25 disposition being changed?
Page 47210
1 A. It's impossible because he'd give an order and then it would have
2 to be written down here.
3 Q. That's why I'm saying it is shown here, and how. When it says the
4 combat disposition of the unit is unchanged, does that mean that the unit
5 did not have anything except for its usual tasks?
6 A. The disposition is very important. The disposition remained the
7 same.
8 Q. All right. On the 16th the same thing. What is written there,
9 the next page, number 2, the 16th. "Combat disposition --"
10 A. Unchanged, in number 2.
11 Q. General, I'm asking you, had they participated in anything, would
12 it have to be written down here?
13 A. They would have to write it down here. As I saw -- as I see on
14 the next page, according to my order that I received from the corps
15 commander, he was engaged and he wrote that down. He would have to write
16 that down had there been any changes in the combat disposition.
17 Q. All right. You explained on the map the deployment, and you
18 mentioned the village of Kostanje and so on.
19 Please. You said that one 30/2 was there.
20 A. One Praga.
21 Q. All right, one 30/2?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. So one vehicle.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. When that point was attacked, when fire was opened at it, what
Page 47211
1 happened then? Do they take up their combat positions or do they remain
2 sitting under tents?
3 A. The anti-aircraft units are the first ones to take up combat
4 positions.
5 Q. All right. So are their combat positions marked here for months?
6 A. Also since April, from the top of Canovica hill. So the green
7 pine wood forest, one goes to Kostanje, and the other one goes down to the
8 road that I showed.
9 Q. That is their combat disposition every day?
10 A. That's the one that was done.
11 Q. Are you trying to say that that's the one that was dug out,
12 fortified, et cetera?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. For -- and how long were they there, prepared that way?
15 A. From the month of April, when the entire unit went out there.
16 Q. So from April 1998?
17 A. Yes, that's right.
18 Q. In this handwritten material, the commander of the working group,
19 it says unchanged on the 15th and on the 16th.
20 A. That's right.
21 Q. So the combat disposition of the unit remains unchanged. Thank
22 you, General.
23 JUDGE KWON: I'm not clear when the position in Kostanje was
24 attacked. Were the troops in Kostanje position attacked ever? Do you
25 mean on 15th of January?
Page 47212
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The positions at Kostanje elevation
2 were never attacked. The positions were not in a village, they were on a
3 hill. These were positions for anti-aircraft weapons. They have to be
4 viewed individually, because in the report it says that the unit took up
5 positions at Canovica hill, elevation -- you can't see it here. It's 700
6 and something -- overlooking Stimlje, about a kilometre and a half a way.
7 And there's one at Kostanjevo, and the next one is at a point near the
8 road.
9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
10 Q. Very well. This unit was attacked then?
11 A. This unit was attacked and --
12 Q. And then they took up their combat disposition?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And the reason they did that was because they were attacked?
15 A. Yes, to preserve their men and their equipment.
16 Q. So they had to disperse to previously established positions?
17 A. Yes, previously established positions and precisely defined tasks.
18 Q. All right. Very well.
19 JUDGE KWON: Can I clarify one thing in terms of the language.
20 While the other witnesses and the accused are saying "Kostanje," but,
21 General, you are saying "Kostanjevo." Are you referring to the same
22 thing?
23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's the same, but this is a hill.
24 On the map it's very hard to distinguish these two points because it's
25 such a small-scale map.
Page 47213
1 JUDGE KWON: When you are saying "Kostanjevo" it means "Kostanje
2 hill."
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Kostanje is 691. I found it here
4 now, although it's not clearly visible. It's to the south-east of
5 Stimlje, parallel to the road going to Urosevac.
6 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. Let's look now at this conversation of the 4th of February, 1999,
9 shown to you yesterday by Mr. Nice. Brigadier General Maisonneuve and his
10 associates conducted an interview with you, and I see that Colonel Kotur,
11 who was the chief liaison officer of the corps, was also present. He was
12 your liaison officer and so on. Let me just check what you said and what
13 took place there, because Mr. Nice --
14 JUDGE KWON: [Previous translation continues] ... 78, but it's
15 also part of Racak binder.
16 MR. NICE: We'll try and find a copy to place on the overhead
17 projector.
18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone for
19 Mr. Milosevic, please.
20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
21 Q. They can put the English on the ELMO to see if what I'm reading is
22 correct.
23 General, in several places here, and when General Maisonneuve
24 testified, he also said that you didn't want to see him and then he made
25 Kotur convince you, but we'll skip over that. And you say here on page 2
Page 47214
1 of his minutes - so these are his notes, not yours - that's him quoting
2 you: "[In English] Regarding delaying the meeting, we have our daily
3 tasks training soldiers."
4 A. I can't hear.
5 Q. "You have come many times unannounced ..."
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Try again, Mr. Milosevic. Are you hearing now,
7 General? Are you hearing?
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, it's better now.
9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
10 Q. I'm asking you is that what you said to him, more or less? In
11 connection with postponing the meeting, you had your regular duties in the
12 army, and that he had arrived unannounced. "[In English] [Previous
13 translation continues] ... through liaison officer. You asked several
14 questions, most answered by (K) --" [Interpretation] That's probably
15 Kotur. I assume that's Kotur. "[In English] I wouldn't like to add to
16 his answers but can if required. I do as directed for duty and to save
17 the lives of soldiers. I'm very sorry, but that is the case here. I'm
18 sorry you are focused on the results not the cause here. Unit at Stimlje
19 was training and was fired upon. During the summer we lost three soldiers
20 there marching in column. We were fired upon from 500 to 600 metres. I
21 claim that no soldier hit any target closer than 500 metres."
22 JUDGE ROBINSON: What's the question now, Mr. Milosevic?
23 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
24 Q. The question is: Did he say this and what it's about. "It is
25 incredible you say these things." That's what he says. And before that,
Page 47215
1 he says --
2 JUDGE ROBINSON: You're asking him to confirm whether he actually
3 said those things?
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes.
5 JUDGE ROBINSON: General, what is your answer to that?
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. There are several questions
7 here. First of all, about the meeting I would like to say that this
8 meeting was unannounced on the 16th. It was with the liaison officer.
9 That was the usual form of communication with the OSCE, through the
10 liaison officer from our units and through the command of the Pristina
11 Corps.
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Just answer the question: Did you actually say
13 those things?
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, there are several questions
15 here. There are things I didn't say here as they are written down, but I
16 have to analyse this document first.
17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, what of the -- of the statements read by
18 Mr. Milosevic, tell us which ones you did not say.
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't say that I didn't want to
20 meet him and that I was forced by Colonel Kotur. On the contrary.
21 At the next meeting that was scheduled, I had to delay it because
22 I was out on the ground and the situation was very difficult.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: [Previous translation continues] ... pass over that
24 and get on to the issue itself. Please do so.
25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Page 47216
1 Q. Please, what did you say was incredible of the things that he
2 said? What was incredible? I'm not reading it out on purpose. Do you
3 remember what the incredible thing was that he said to you?
4 A. I can't remember the details, but it's incredible that the army
5 entered and did what he said.
6 Q. Very well. I'll read what he said. On page 1 here, he says: "[In
7 English] - on the 15th of January my forces saw VJ tanks firing on houses
8 with civilians who were not firing back."
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Are you asking him whether that was one of the
10 incredible things?
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. That's what I'm asking him.
12 It's the only thing that's said here. Maisonneuve says this before that.
13 I wanted to hear what the incredible thing was that he said, and the
14 general answered very well; he said the army wasn't there. That's why
15 it's incredible. So he --
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let's move on. Let's move on. We have covered
17 that point then.
18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. You go on to say: "[In English] VJ did not conduct this operation
20 but were in a position to defend themselves from their own position."
21 A. That's right.
22 Q. "[In English] So you surrounded village while the MUP operated in
23 the village. Maybe the interpretation is not good. The military defended
24 its position. If you were in Racak, you could see that the hills and
25 mountains with trees are not good for tanks."
Page 47217
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: What is the question now, Mr. Milosevic?
2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. Is this correct? Is that what was said at the meeting, and did
4 you tell him what you're testifying about now?
5 A. Yes. First of all, I didn't understand the interpretation. Not
6 your interpretation here but the interpretation at the meeting. It was
7 quite incredible what was said. Then he said that we were on the hills,
8 but if you look at the topography, not a single combat vehicle could have
9 even reached that area, not even in the summer let alone in the winter.
10 Q. And he goes on to ask you, because you said only between Racak and
11 Belince, he says you did not give support to the MUP operation, and you
12 said no.
13 A. That's correct.
14 Q. Where were you on the 16th of January, a day after the operation,
15 and you said what you said here: "We had a meeting in Pristina
16 headquarters."
17 A. Yes. It was a planning meeting in the corps command.
18 Q. Is that what you said here?
19 A. Yes. I was absent that day because I was attending the meeting in
20 the command of the Pristina Corps.
21 Q. Very well. Thank you. In tab 19, there is an order issued by you
22 which, according to Mr. Nice, is something we have already seen, so we
23 won't dwell on it, simply an aspect of this. That's what you understood
24 because that's how it was interpreted. My question is: Is this an order
25 pertaining to the 26th of March, or is it a standing order beginning on
Page 47218
1 the 26th of March?
2 A. The commander can issue a new order rendering null and void the
3 previous order. This order entering into force on the 26th of March is a
4 standing order.
5 Q. That's all I'm interested in. So it's a standing order until a
6 new order is issued.
7 A. Yes, until a new order is issued.
8 Q. Very well. So for how long was this brigade [as interpreted]
9 acted upon in your brigade?
10 A. About 90 per cent of this was until the end of the war. A part
11 referred only to part of the units which later came as reinforcements,
12 after mobilisation.
13 Q. Just a few more questions. Did you ever receive an order from
14 anyone apart from your immediate superior commander, that is the commander
15 of the Pristina Corps?
16 A. I think that's well defined in all the rules.
17 Q. I'm not interested in the rules. I'm asking you did you receive
18 any such orders?
19 A. No. No one else could have issued an order to me.
20 Q. Very well. Now, just tell me, what in military terminology does
21 the word "destruction of terrorist groups" mean, "cleansing the terrain of
22 terrorists," and similar expressions? I want to know whether that means
23 their physical destruction, their killing, or breaking down their military
24 strength and eliminating them as a source of danger in the military sense.
25 What in military terminology does "destruction of terrorist groups, and
Page 47219
1 "cleansing the terrain of terrorist groups" mean?
2 A. In our rules, these are rules for the lower levels of command, and
3 it refers to companies, battalions, and units and artillery battalions
4 which fight terrorist groups in certain areas and regions. You said this
5 mentions destruction, imprisoning, and so on.
6 "Destruction" means that unless an enemy unit surrenders, it
7 should be destroyed. If they surrender, if they put aside their weapons,
8 then they undergo criminal prosecution under the law.
9 Q. What about "cleansing of the terrain"? Have you answered that?
10 A. Yes, I said that it's cleansing of remaining terrorist groups.
11 You can find this in battalion rules, artillery battalion rules.
12 Q. Very well. Thank you, General.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I've finished with my examination,
14 Mr. Robinson.
15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Judge Kwon has one question.
16 Questioned by the Court:
17 JUDGE KWON: General Jelic, you said to us that Colonel Petrovic,
18 Pero Petrovic, had shown you a copy of his record after he had a meeting
19 with Mr. Maisonneuve on the 16th of January, and you alluded to the
20 possibility that we can find that record right now. Is it true? Do you
21 think we can find the -- we can see the document?
22 A. I'm sorry, I cannot give you a complete reply. After every
23 meeting - that's what I said, if I recall - minutes were drawn up and a
24 report compiled. The liaison officer, Mr. Petrovic, read this to me and
25 then he registered it in the documentation and sent it on to the superior
Page 47220
1 command, and this was sent at the time it was happening. It had to be
2 done on the same day for operational purposes.
3 JUDGE KWON: If that document exists today, where do you think we
4 can find it?
5 A. The order regulates that all documents, workbooks, targeting logs,
6 lists, literally all documents had to be handed over to the command of the
7 Pristina Corps in the Pristina garrison. That's where they all had to be
8 handed over. I don't know what happened to them afterwards.
9 JUDGE KWON: Speaking for myself, I'm very much interested in
10 seeing this document, so I would encourage either party, the Prosecutor or
11 the associate of the accused, to locate this document as well. Thank you.
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: General, that concludes your evidence. Thank you
13 for attending at the Tribunal to give it. You may now leave.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
15 [The witness withdrew]
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. We will take the adjournment now for 20
17 minutes, and then we'll move into the session where we'll hear submissions
18 on the question that I have identified, and we'll start with the accused.
19 MR. NICE: Your Honour, on the question raised by His Honour Judge
20 Kwon, if you'll give us leave to rely on His Honour Judge Kwon's
21 observations in a request to the authorities, we'll see if that works,
22 rather than a formal order.
23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. You have our authorisation to do that.
24 We are adjourned.
25 --- Recess taken at 11.59 a.m.
Page 47221
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Page 47222
1 --- On resuming at 12.23 p.m.
2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, as indicated before, we're going
3 to hear submissions on the question of extension of the time allocated to
4 you for the presentation of your Defence. Do you have any submissions?
5 Fifteen minutes for each party.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I thought it was on. Thank you,
7 Mr. Robinson.
8 I am not going to use up the kindly allotted 15 minutes. I need
9 much less time than that. I just want to remind you of Article 14 of the
10 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights speaks in paragraph 3
11 of the minimum rights, and in subparagraph (b) it says to have adequate
12 time and facilities for the preparation of his defence, inter alia. And
13 (e) "[In English] to examine or have examined the witnesses against him
14 and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf
15 under the same conditions as witnesses against him."
16 [Interpretation] There is no need for me to quote Article 6 of the
17 European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights, because it says the
18 same thing. I just want to remind you of the fact that Mr. Kay last time
19 familiarised you with that enormous number of documents. He mentioned a
20 figure of 1.200.000 pages. May I remind you of the fact that I never had
21 the time to read that.
22 So my rights have seriously been impaired already. Although you
23 and Mr. Kwon - I'm not going to say Mr. Bonomy because he wasn't here -
24 but the two of you remember that Mr. May would always say to me that that
25 would be looked into, and it never was, as you know. In the meantime, as
Page 47223
1 you know, I have shortened my witness list down to a minimum, so now it is
2 about 190 witnesses altogether, which is truly the smallest possible
3 number I need to call. I think that for that I need about 380 hours,
4 counting on two hours on average for the examination-in-chief. Of course,
5 some will require a lot more time, others a lot less, so I think that that
6 would be a fair average.
7 So let me be quite specific: I'm asking you for another 380 hours
8 of time for questioning witnesses. That's what I had to say. Nothing
9 else to add to that.
10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, why do you say that your right to
11 examine witnesses under the same conditions as witnesses against you has
12 been infringed, if you have been given the same time in terms of actual
13 working hours as the Prosecution, to present your Defence?
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] First and foremost, Mr. Robinson, I
15 quoted these two paragraphs from the International Covenant on the Civil
16 and Political Rights cumulatively. It also refers to time for
17 preparation, which was never given to me.
18 Also, as far as the preparation of witnesses is concerned, I know
19 full well that various witnesses who testified for the other side there
20 spent weeks and weeks here in preparation. My preparation time is very
21 limited and it is boiled town to an hour and a half on working days and
22 several hours on days that you consider non-working days or, rather, that
23 are non-working for you.
24 So from that point of view, there is hardly a trace of equality of
25 rights. And even as far as the actual number of hours is concerned,
Page 47224
1 that's not right either. When I added up my hours and Mr. Nice's hours,
2 out of the 300 days of the Prosecution case, there is 70 days lacking.
3 That was certainly not used up by witnesses coming into the courtroom,
4 walking out, taking the solemn declaration and so on. So all of it is
5 rather questionable, I think I should put it that way. You have the same
6 information available, you can look at it. If you add up all the hours
7 and divide it by the number of working hours per day, you get somewhat
8 less than 200 says. So I'm saying that I have the right to adequate --
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, your claim that you have 70 days
10 less you had mentioned before, and I did ask you to put that in writing.
11 Do you have anything to substantiate that that you can present to us now?
12 It's not consistent with our records.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, you have the records
14 of the hours that were spent during the first half time when the
15 Prosecution witnesses were called. Those were the hours used by Mr. Nice
16 and the hours used by me. When you add that up together, it is not 300
17 days, it's 200 something. So that's a document that you have available.
18 The Registrar has it. There's no need for me to submit it to you. You
19 have it. So you cannot say that you have not been informed.
20 Secondly, the fact that Mr. Nice used a great many 92 bis
21 witnesses has to be taken into account. I could not avail myself of that
22 possibility at all because I had no time for preparation. That's
23 impossible.
24 So if you say, well, you have something made available to you and
25 you don't give me any time for availing myself of that opportunity, then
Page 47225
1 it boils down to nothing. So this is a distortion. And I'm saying I have
2 the right to adequate time, and that is estimated in accordance with the
3 objective needs to present the Defence case.
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, that's not a candid submission.
5 You have available to you --
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't understand.
7 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- to help you. You have assistance available to
8 you, and you could have relied on that in relation to the preparation of
9 92 bis statements.
10 Those are your submissions?
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, several times you've
12 said that I'm privileged because I have a room, a telephone, and so on and
13 so forth. I wish to remind you of the following: That I did not get any
14 of that until last year when I was supposed to begin. Throughout the
15 first period of 300 days, I had none of that. I couldn't even meet up
16 with my associates more than once or twice a week, because the area for
17 receiving visitors was restricted, and that was treated like any other
18 visit although all of this was going on here.
19 Secondly, if you're saying privilege, for the time being I'm the
20 only one who is handling his own case and represents himself. I'm the
21 only one. I heard that Mr. Seselj has the intention to do that, that he
22 -- and I think that he will avail himself of that possibility, too, and I
23 think that's possible.
24 So this is no privilege. On the contrary. It was not made
25 possible for me to prepare my Defence in normal circumstances. So all of
Page 47226
1 that was substituted for by one room and one telephone when it was finally
2 given to me. So there can be no mention of equality.
3 JUDGE BONOMY: So can we take it that your position is to
4 stubbornly refuse to modify or alter your way of proceeding? You will
5 continue to refuse to use the facilities which are available to present
6 evidence more speedily by refusing to use counsel, your associates, in a
7 productive way to gather together the statements which could be presented?
8 You will intend, can we take it, to continue as you have done so far, with
9 this unrealistic attitude that representing yourself means that you're
10 entitled to do absolutely everything in the biggest case imaginable
11 single-handedly? That remains your position?
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I am not saying at all that
13 I'm doing everything single-handedly. My associates gather documents. I
14 cannot even get to documents, as you know. They look through these
15 documents. They see what can be used. They have enormous problems in
16 obtaining documents. They have a very big job in this regard.
17 As for the questioning of witnesses, I don't know if somebody else
18 would question them faster than I'm questioning them here, so it's not a
19 question of me doing whatever comes to my mind. On the contrary. I just
20 examine witnesses. Everybody has to use time to examine witnesses. The
21 associates cannot do that instead of me or parallel to me. Aren't
22 witnesses supposed to testify here?
23 JUDGE BONOMY: But we've had many examples of witness's whose
24 evidence could have been presented far more effectively in writing than it
25 has been by the oral examination that's taken place. You are, in fact,
Page 47227
1 prejudicing your own case in the way in which you present it because of
2 your inability to present and focus on the important issues, and you
3 should be aware of that, that there are facilities available of
4 experienced lawyers who would be able to put material together for you.
5 But I take it from your answer you will continue to refuse to invite them
6 to do that on your behalf.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, I hope that you, like I,
8 understand what my right to self-representation is. It is an effective
9 right, not a declarative right. So if I represent myself, then I should
10 effectively be in a position to use that right, not for you to suggest now
11 that somebody else should represent me in order to shorten time.
12 [Trial Chamber confers]
13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay, would you want to say anything in
14 addition to the accused?
15 MR. KAY: I won't repeat his argument, Your Honours, I'll just add
16 a few extra features that it occurs to me he could have prayed in aid on
17 his own behalf.
18 All the Defence teams find it very difficult, in relation to the
19 resources they have available to them, to employ Rule 89(F) and Rule 92
20 bis as a procedure for the presentation of evidence. They don't have as
21 wide a range of professional investigators or people capable of taking a
22 statement in a professional way. Some of the statements that may, say,
23 take 20 or 40 pages could involve some two, three, or four days' work of a
24 lawyer, and all Defence teams at the Tribunal have found it very difficult
25 to employ counsel in that way, and the support staff available to them
Page 47228
1 isn't really of the standard capable of producing effectively such
2 material for a trial.
3 The Prosecution have a different allocation of resources and
4 set-up, and they're more easily able to draw down staff who are able to
5 devote such time and resources to the creation of such statements.
6 Notwithstanding that, one appreciates that they are Rules and
7 decisions of the Tribunal that are within the jurisprudence of the
8 Tribunal and they have to be acknowledged as being there. The point that
9 I would make is that it is harder on the Defence to say, "Well, you can
10 use the same Rules as them," when the reality is that it is a procedure
11 more suited to the Prosecution and their establishment than any Defence
12 team. And whilst it may be there, it is more suited to them. It was a
13 request for a change in the Rules that emanated from the Prosecution. The
14 Defence have never backed that approach in relation to the Rules and
15 jurisprudence, being aware of their own limitations.
16 As I take it at this stage, we're dealing with the issue of not an
17 extended case in relation to a severed indictment of just Kosovo alone but
18 of the whole three indictments and the situation of the accused generally
19 in relation to the indictments that he currently faces. Our concern for
20 the three indictments has been, as I said in the argument in relation to
21 severance, that he has sufficient time to be able to put an effective
22 defence in place as he has asserted there is one in relation to the
23 Croatia and Bosnia indictments, and he has sufficient time available for
24 that. We have only, in the Defence case to date, largely - 85 per cent,
25 90 per cent of the time - concentrated on the Kosovo indictment. My
Page 47229
1 concern is that he has sufficient time for Kosovo as well as sufficient
2 time for Croatia and Bosnia.
3 In relation to the overall time that is sought by the accused, I
4 haven't had an opportunity to translate that into any days or temporal
5 figure as to what it works out --
6 JUDGE BONOMY: I think it's actually quite easy, because it's not
7 a million miles away from the original allocation in the trial, which is
8 it's taking roughly 18 months to present the evidence for the 360 hours
9 that were allocated. So if he seeks another 380, it's roughly another
10 year and a half and a bit more. But we already know that his estimates
11 for leading evidence in chief are way out and often more than twice the
12 length of time that he projects. So the prospects are that the suggestion
13 he's making would involve evidence being led for three years longer than
14 is anticipated at the moment.
15 MR. KAY: Right, Your Honour. I hadn't factored in the
16 Prosecution element within that --
17 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm assuming that has to be factored into any
18 evidence that's led. I mean, if it's led, it will be cross-examined no
19 doubt.
20 MR. KAY: Yes. I think the history, and I have to concede that,
21 shows that the Prosecution will take issue with virtually everything that
22 is put forward by the Defence, so there's no scope here for narrowing of
23 issues on any agreed basis.
24 The -- the question of the fairness of the time allocated to him,
25 in our submission, should be to enable him to present an effective
Page 47230
1 Defence. The Trial Chamber doesn't have to consider the parties as being
2 on an equality of strength, because that would not be appropriate, in my
3 submission. We are dealing with unequal professional and resource
4 allocations. No matter what the Prosecution say about their resources and
5 claim this, that, and the other, it is apparent there is a vast body of
6 technical expertise out there that is able to produce matters during
7 proceedings and produce filings, research that is beyond the scope and
8 resources of any Defence team.
9 So there is an inequality in strength. That has to be taken into
10 account in relation to time for the accused to present his Defence on the
11 indictments, that that has to be factored in in meeting the challenge
12 mounted against him. And I say that as a general matter.
13 I don't know if I can assist you any further.
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Kay.
15 Mr. Nice.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, may I just add a
17 sentence?
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, in relation to this slowness,
20 please, I wish to remind you of the following, precisely this Article 14
21 of the International Covenant, paragraph 1, which I did not quote:
22 "[In English] Everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing."
23 [Interpretation] Public. I'm doing that by questioning the witnesses in
24 public, orally, and that is perfectly in line with the Rules as stipulated
25 here.
Page 47231
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: It's not, Mr. Milosevic. It's a question of how
2 you interpret it. You very well know that the right to a public hearing
3 is not absolute and that it can be derogated from in the interests of
4 protection of victims and witnesses, and our Statute does that.
5 Mr. Nice.
6 MR. NICE: Your Honours, on the question of calculation, I think
7 I'm probably broadly in agreement with the figures estimated by His Honour
8 Judge Bonomy. The accused's calculation of two hours per witness is about
9 a third of our average to date. It's probably about 6 hours per witness.
10 Two hours per witness, I think, would make about 30 weeks for
11 examination-in-chief, so his average to date would be about 90 weeks in
12 examination-in-chief. And then if you put in 60 per cent for
13 cross-examination, you achieve about three years.
14 The Prosecution's position is that there should be no extension of
15 time and that the accused hasn't put up any argument to justify one. The
16 Chamber carefully calculated the amount of time that we used and has
17 allocated the same amount of time to him and has been, from first to last,
18 courteous in two ways in dealing with him. I mean courteous, of course,
19 in the ordinary sense of manners, but courteous in the sense of respecting
20 him as a man of intelligence, and that's been a very proper -- a very
21 proper course to take. It's said to him, This is what you're doing, these
22 will be the consequences of your doing what you're doing.
23 Now, there is -- there is no reason to deviate from that line
24 unless the Chamber takes the view that he has been incapable
25 intellectually of receiving the advice and information you have so
Page 47232
1 regularly been giving him about what he must do if he is to bring this
2 trial to a safe and satisfactory conclusion on his own behalf. Now, he
3 has steadfastly refused to listen to that advice. Often, as we can see,
4 he actually looks away when procedural matters are raised, as if to say he
5 has no interest in them. But the fact remains that this Chamber gave him
6 always the best advice and told him what he had to do.
7 Now, he not having done that and having, on any view of a
8 professional lawyer, simply wasted his time, he's in no position to say
9 what additional time he might have required had he acted sensibly and
10 economically. Things might be different. If he'd acted -- done all he
11 could to achieve a satisfactory result in the time allowed to him and then
12 at the end of it said, "Well, look, I've done my best but I still need a
13 bit more time," well, then, of course the Court could consider it and
14 indeed it might be people wouldn't oppose it, but we simply have no idea
15 what position he would have reached had he behaved in that sensible and
16 logical way.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: That is the problem I have with this, Mr. Nice,
18 precisely. But can I ask you about these figures you gave. You're
19 working on the basis of 190 witnesses, are you?
20 MR. NICE: I think he said two hours examination-in-chief, so
21 that's --
22 JUDGE BONOMY: But just from what -- is it 190 witnesses; is that
23 right?
24 MR. NICE: That's what he said.
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: But six hours for 190 witnesses, if that's what
Page 47233
1 you estimate the time would be, will be roughly -- yes, 3 --
2 MR. NICE: About a thousand hours and a bit.
3 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.
4 MR. NICE: And then a thousand hours and a bit divided by four,
5 250 days --
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Nearer 300.
7 MR. NICE: Nearer 300, so it's a huge amount of time.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: And at three days a week over 40 weeks in the year,
9 or whatever is actually achieved, I think it's a significantly longer
10 period than -- I wasn't using that sort of calculation, but that comes to
11 much longer than the period I was envisaging; a lot longer than the three
12 years.
13 MR. NICE: It may well be. My arithmetic is very rapidly done.
14 And, Your Honours, the -- one is bound to observe that since the
15 Chamber's hearing a couple weeks ago on severance, there has been no
16 reduction of time taken in examination by the accused or in re-examination
17 save for one instance. Indeed, there has been clearly an extension or
18 certainly a cleaving to the original practice if not an extension of it.
19 I must mention the one exception. The Chamber will remember that,
20 for whatever reason, there was a very settled determination that the
21 witness Farkas should leave on a particular day, and there was a very
22 efficient re-examination conducted of that witness, I think about 20
23 minutes, showing that this accused well knows how to deal with matters
24 efficiently when he wishes to.
25 So that it's our firm and respectful position that the Chamber
Page 47234
1 must have the courage to stand by its decision which was made with the
2 accused's interested in mind, which has been put into effect at all times
3 respectful of his intelligence and of his ability, and that would simply
4 reflect the fact that he has chosen to put himself into a corner or, in
5 reality, to attempt to put the Chamber into a corner, and that is
6 something that, of course, would be inappropriate.
7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, the accused has been given the same
8 number of working hours as the Prosecution had in presenting its case.
9 What would you say to the argument that equality in these circumstances
10 doesn't necessarily add up to fairness?
11 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: Could Mr. Nice's other
12 microphone please be turned on because the booths have problems hearing
13 him. Thank you.
14 MR. NICE: The same point I was making earlier, I think: We'll
15 never know. It may well be that an accused doing his best to make use of
16 the procedures available to him to present his case in a proper way to
17 Court would come to the end of his case either shorter than the
18 Prosecution took, and the Chamber would see that time is being wasted on
19 unnecessary witnesses and would bring it to a close, or would exhaust the
20 time and then say, "Please can I have some more," and be granted it. But
21 there is nothing in the different services or resources available to one
22 side or the other automatically to say that there is inequality.
23 Now, Mr. Kay's arguments, I'll deal with just a couple of them,
24 but his arguments that the Defence find it difficult to use 89(F) or 92
25 bis because counsel won't or can't do the work of preparing witness
Page 47235
1 statements is something that simply can't affect this trial at this stage.
2 The practice of using written evidence for examination-in-chief is
3 widespread around the world and established for all civil cases in the
4 United Kingdom, as an example, and has been for many years. The
5 experience how to deal with it is therefore experience available to all.
6 If the accused had decided to follow the Chamber's advice and
7 indeed to emulate the Prosecution's practice once 89(F) was permitted as a
8 method of saving time and he was finding it difficult because he had
9 inadequate resources, why, he need only have drawn the matter to the
10 Court's attention and no doubt something would have been done because this
11 Court has been absolutely determined to ensure that when the accused wants
12 something by way of resources, he gets it. So that I'm afraid that
13 argument simply can't do. But it's very important to bear in mind that
14 the argument about resources is a new development in the accused's armoury
15 by which he confronts these proceedings.
16 I drew to your attention - I can't remember how many weeks ago it
17 was but it was only a few weeks ago - that this was a new part of what he
18 was saying. Up until then it was not practical matter. He simply
19 expressed an absolute determination to deny the advice he was receiving,
20 to thwart the Chamber by saying, thank you very much, he would have
21 everything in writing. Then suddenly, about -- I think probably about a
22 month ago, maybe five weeks, we first heard some suggestion about the
23 difficulties.
24 It is -- there are no difficulties. We've seen him with his
25 witnesses with sheets of points. Sometimes, when they've been looking at
Page 47236
1 notes, knowing exactly what question is coming and what document's going
2 to be dealt with. Of course it's within his capability, given that he
3 must use associates and lawyers, so his proposition that he's got to do
4 everything himself is fanciful. Of course it would be within his ability.
5 After all, neither Mrs. Del Ponte nor I see every witness ourselves. She
6 sees none. Of course I see some but not all of them before evidence is
7 given. I prepare or supervise the preparation of witnesses, but I don't
8 do it all myself. How could I?
9 The proposition of the accused, if ever taken seriously, for a
10 Tribunal like this would be, of course, to make its work completely
11 impossible. And if he had wanted to, contrary to his absolute
12 determination to call everything orally, he could have put in place a
13 system for calling witnesses - 89(F) or 92 bis - a year and more ago, and
14 he should have done that.
15 Now, Your Honour, I'm not sure that that specifically deals with
16 or sufficiently deals with Your Honour's point about inequality. As to
17 the inequality of resources, yes, of course a Prosecution office, here as
18 in any other jurisdiction, is likely to have immediately to hand more
19 resources of certain kinds than will be available to a Defence lawyer,
20 solicitor, or counsel. That may not make any form of inequality. At this
21 stage of the trial, an accused is meeting allegations where the burden of
22 proof is not on him. He meets those allegations by identifying witnesses
23 to be called and then identifying the exhibits he wants those witnesses to
24 produce.
25 And we've seen with the last witness a striking example of
Page 47237
1 inequality, on this occasion the inequality going the other way. It's
2 clear that the last witness, Jelic, or, rather, the accused or his
3 associates, so far as Jelic was concerned, had ready access to a range of
4 documents that we've been trying to -- that's the orders in the file, that
5 we've been trying to get hold of for three years. We've seen earlier
6 examples of him being able to produce overnight war diaries when we've
7 been trying to get them for years. So the inequalities are not always the
8 same way, and indeed, though -- I won't say that.
9 So inequality is in no way to be taken as an assumed reality. It
10 may exist, but we don't know. It hasn't been established as something
11 that requires more time, and even so, if there was any suggestion that it
12 might establish, for some reason, more time, we simply don't know how much
13 more time because of the way the accused has wasted the opportunities
14 given him by this Court.
15 Your Honours, the only basis upon which we could envisage that the
16 Chamber might allow the accused more time than that presently allowed is
17 if the Chamber, looking back, says to itself: "Well, we treated him as an
18 intelligent person capable of responding to advice, applying his brain to
19 the problems at hand, but we see we were wrong to do that. We should have
20 treated him in some way as incapable or disabled." In the absence of
21 making such a finding that he was simply incapable of responding to Court
22 orders and advice given from the Bench, and no doubt advice available to
23 him from my learned friends, then the proper course is to grant him no
24 extension of time and to work on the basis, as I said in a recent
25 pleading, that by pushing everyone, as he's been seeking to do, into a
Page 47238
1 corner that will extend and delay the trial to unacceptable lengths, by
2 doing that, he should in fact be treated as someone who has made a
3 voluntary, informed, and intelligent decision to call no evidence beyond
4 that or beyond the issues that he has covered by the time his time runs
5 out. And if that means dealing with him as somebody who has made an
6 informed decision to call no evidence for Croatia or no evidence for
7 Bosnia, so be it.
8 I should add, I think, this: If one looks back at the history of
9 attempts to deal with various problems of delay in this case, when this
10 Chamber decided to assign counsel, it was very careful to do so solely on
11 the basis of health. Again, it showed the accused courtesy in making no
12 other adverse findings against him. When the Appeals Chamber changed the
13 order of modalities, which inevitably had an effect on the time that the
14 accused's evidence would take, this Chamber respected that decision
15 absolutely. And if it is to any extent the modalities order that leads to
16 the present position, then the Chamber can be confident that reflecting
17 and respecting that order is something that should find favour elsewhere,
18 but that's a matter for another time and another place.
19 The only other matter I might refer to is this: The volume of
20 paper issue. It comes up time and again and is, I fear, a
21 misrepresentation of reality, but I must deal with it.
22 The volume of paper that has to be served on a person in the
23 position of this accused is always going to be enormous given our duty to
24 help him wherever we can with exculpatory material. It's a problem of a
25 particular scale for a case like this but it's a major problem for all
Page 47239
1 trials. It's a problem that it may be helpful if everyone knows this - by
2 that I don't mean the Chamber but I mean the public as well - it's a
3 problem that's been addressed by making to a greater extent or the
4 greatest extent possible material available electronically so that people
5 can search it themselves, but it -- it is not within our power to reduce
6 the quantity of material it's our duty to make available to the accused
7 save and insofar as the accused would agree to narrower parameters that we
8 have identified as appropriate to search on his behalf. And I think
9 uniquely to this Trial Chamber, from the beginning I set out our
10 parameters and what we were doing on searching, and I asked the parties to
11 -- not the parties, I asked all others in court, including the Bench, to
12 make observations if they had reservations about the way we were searching
13 it, and save for one increase in breadth of parameters, stimulated, I
14 think, by a discussion with Mr. Kay, nothing else has come. So there's
15 nothing that can be done, and of course the vast majority -- not the vast
16 majority, a very large amount of the paper that's been served on the
17 accused has been repeat serving done by Ms. Dicklich, frequently unasked,
18 simply to make it clear that -- make it possible for the accused to have
19 material related to a particular witness.
20 [Trial Chamber confers]
21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.
22 MR. NICE: One of the things that's been done to help this accused
23 is that Ms. Dicklich has always repeated service of material on him before
24 witnesses were called in order to save him having to go and search for it.
25 He knows that.
Page 47240
1 We also know that he uses the Rule 68 disclosure material, and
2 efficiently, in drawing it out in examination of his own witnesses and
3 earlier in cross-examination of ours.
4 [Trial Chamber confers]
5 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I'm reminded that - this is in paragraph
6 13 of our recent filing - in February of this year it was His Honour Judge
7 Robinson who cautioned the accused that he shouldn't expect leniency or
8 accommodation on account of matters relating to time when he didn't
9 authorise the services which was -- which were available to him, and
10 that's --
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: That should have been "utilise," I'm sure.
12 MR. NICE: There is an absolute unreality on the part of the
13 accused which would lead to the trial either never ending or almost never
14 ending, and that may be what he wants, and it has to be resisted.
15 The Chamber has acted - I repeat this - with consummate fairness
16 and courtesy in all broad senses of that word to the accused and his
17 intelligence and the time has come when the Chamber should say to him:
18 "No more. You will bring this case to a conclusion on the time we
19 allowed you."
20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.
21 [Trial Chamber confers]
22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, do you have anything to say on the
23 recent medical reports? These reports have been passed on to you, I'm
24 sure.
25 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, for Mr. Milosevic.
Page 47241
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Maybe it was delivered to Mr. Rakic.
2 Maybe. But I have not seen any reports in the last few days.
3 JUDGE ROBINSON: How could that be?
4 Mr. Legal officer.
5 [Trial Chamber and legal officer confer]
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay, have you received these reports?
7 MR. KAY: Yes, we've had a copy from the ear expert, is how I
8 described it in my notes.
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: That's the last one.
10 MR. KAY: Yes. I think it was the 6 --
11 JUDGE BONOMY: There's also a report from Dr. van Dijkman.
12 MR. KAY: Which date is Your Honour talking about?
13 JUDGE BONOMY: The 2nd, perhaps.
14 MR. KAY: If I can --
15 JUDGE BONOMY: The 2nd of December.
16 MR. KAY: [Microphone not activated].
17 JUDGE ROBINSON: I can't comprehend, Mr. Milosevic, the
18 circumstances in which you would not have received these reports.
19 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
20 MR. KAY: -- is 6th of December, 2005, from the ear expert, which
21 we received on the 7th, and I wasn't had any other in December.
22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Do you have one from the neuroradiologist?
23 MR. KAY: We've got Dr. Dijkman's of the 1st of December. That's
24 the first, yes. But no others last -- this week.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: But you've said you got one dated the 6th, which is
Page 47242
1 Dr. -- that's Dr. Delarts [phoen]; is that correct?
2 MR. KAY: Yes, Delarts is on the 29th of November, and then
3 there's the other --
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, Dr. Delarts largely confirmed what Professor
5 Andric said, I think, about the hearing problem and the nature of it, and
6 the other reports were more connected with whether there's a link between
7 that and the cardiovascular difficulties, and I think the one from the
8 neuroradiologist deals with the six points that are made by Dr. Shumilina,
9 and there is also one that suggests a method of coping. Dr. Dalal, I
10 think, coping with the hearing difficulties Mr. Milosevic experiences in
11 court.
12 MR. KAY: That was the technical one, which contained --
13 JUDGE ROBINSON: I think you've got everything.
14 MR. KAY: Yes, we've got all those.
15 [Trial Chamber confers]
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay, just clarify, have you received the
17 neuroradiologist's report, Dr. Aart?
18 MR. KAY: Aart?
19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, that's the last one.
20 MR. KAY: Yes. That's the 6th of December. That happens not to
21 be in this file. That is waiting to be filed and is in the pile in the
22 other room, but yes, that's the one that we received on the 6th.
23 JUDGE ROBINSON: I can't understand why the accused would not have
24 received it.
25 MR. KAY: We've had it. Dr. Rakic -- sorry, I shouldn't call him
Page 47243
1 Dr. Rakic. Professor Rakic is certainly here and would have received it;
2 he's on the mailing list.
3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.
4 MR. KAY: We'll make sure that a copy is provided.
5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, the submission that you made for
6 another 380 hours would work out to something in the region of another
7 three years' extension of the case. Can you tell me why, if that is so,
8 it would not be reasonable for me to assume that you did not make that
9 submission seriously and responsibly and why should I not be in a position
10 to assume that it reflects a cynical disregard for the duty of this Court
11 to ensure a fair and expeditious conclusion of these proceedings?
12 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, for Mr. Milosevic.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, first of all, I cannot
14 understand how you transformed 380 hours into three years. That means
15 you're counting on a hundred hours a year. It's probably a problem with
16 your intelligence.
17 JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ...
18 Mr. Milosevic. Mr. Nice worked it out. It is for you to say why it
19 should not amount to that.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, in my efforts to
21 shorten as much as possible all necessary times and the list of witnesses,
22 I have reduced this to 380 hours. As you know, that's not so much. It
23 must be clear to you how long 380 hours is. I'm pointing out the fact
24 that 380 hours are calculated on the basis of two hours per witness on the
25 average.
Page 47244
1 I want you to know that not for a moment have I tried to prolong
2 the time. On the contrary, I've been trying to make the most rational use
3 of time.
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Bear in mind that your actual use of time is
5 about twice your estimated time. That's borne out by what has actually
6 happened. That's not a matter of guessing, of conjecture.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That's another matter. These
8 estimates of the time required have not always been correct, I have to
9 say. Sometimes a witness requires more time, more questions. There are
10 more responses. Various other circumstances arise which slow down the
11 examination. However, I am calculating on the efficient use of this time.
12 Every working day here has four hours and 15 minutes. Let's say
13 it's only four hours. Therefore, 380 hours is less than a hundred working
14 days, much less. How Mr. Nice turned this into three years is something I
15 fail to understand. Four hundred hours would amount to a hundred working
16 days. But this is less. Ninety, let's say, or something on those lines.
17 You can't say it's a year.
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: You haven't included cross-examination,
19 Mr. Milosevic.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. If that's 90, then with
21 cross-examination it would be 150. That's 150 days. It's not a year let
22 alone three years. Some elementary mathematics are in question here.
23 It's not higher mathematics.
24 [Trial Chamber confers]
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: This concludes the hearing. Let the witness Sel
Page 47245
1 be brought in.
2 MR. NICE: Just before the witness comes in, can I raise a
3 procedural matter concerning him but in private session.
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, private session.
5 [Private session]
6 (redacted)
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Page 47246
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Page 47249
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23 (redacted)
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25 [Open session]
Page 47250
1 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I fear I shan't be able to conclude the
2 cross-examination today.
3 JUDGE ROBINSON: What is your estimate?
4 MR. NICE: Subject to the way that our propositions are dealt
5 with, I would have thought it take a session, and although that will -- it
6 would extend --
7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Just one session.
8 MR. NICE: I would hope so but we'll see how he deals with the
9 points that I raise.
10 [The witness entered court]
11 WITNESS: JANOS SEL [Resumed]
12 [Witness answered through interpreter]
13 JUDGE ROBINSON: You may sit, Mr. Sel. Sit, be seated.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
15 JUDGE ROBINSON: And you remain under the declaration that you
16 made.
17 Cross-examined by Mr. Nice: [Continued]
18 Q. Mr. Sel, you will recall that questioning of you, based on
19 propositions coming to the Prosecution from two men who had spoken to
20 investigators, giving the names Colovic, led to your identifying the
21 existence of diaries. Those diaries were ordered to be produced to the
22 Court, and they were provided. They're handwritten diaries. We have only
23 photocopies of them. The originals have been retained in Belgrade.
24 However --
25 MR. NICE: Your Honours, we've had a certain limited number of
Page 47251
1 pages translated in part only, very small parts. The bundles that I will
2 distribute, if I may, have the translated pages at the beginning and the
3 limited number of pages that have been translated in part following, this
4 to accord with the Chamber's practice for such documents of not producing
5 as an exhibit anything other than is referred to in court.
6 We have a full version for the witness to look at because he may
7 wish to satisfy himself that what he sees is complete.
8 The page numbers of both diaries -- or pages of both diaries are
9 numbered, although the numbers are often faint and sometimes illegibly
10 faint. The Chamber will see, if it casts its eyes to the back of the
11 selection it has, that the pages have been photocopied in open-page format
12 so that you can see frequently one or both numbers. I'm looking at 67,
13 68, 69 -- 68 and 69, for example, where the numbers are clearly seen. And
14 at the beginning, the Court has the same page numbering used.
15 The Court may be content in the first stages, and for speed,
16 simply to go to the pages in English being referred to the original pages,
17 if necessary.
18 Q. Mr. Sel, have you looked at the -- can you just have a look at the
19 full copy, please. This is not going to be produced as an exhibit, but
20 it's available for you to refer to. This has been provided from Belgrade,
21 from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the army. Just look at it and
22 satisfy yourself that this would appear to be a copy of your two diaries,
23 please.
24 A. Mr. Nice, I would like to correct you on this point. This is not
25 a diary. This is not a diary. This is a work notebook. I as company
Page 47252
1 commander did not keep a diary.
2 Q. Very well. It's a notebook. Is it your notebook?
3 A. Yes, yes, it's my notebook. It's from the period of 1998, 1999.
4 Q. I'm going to run through pages as quickly as I can by topic, and
5 the first topic, which I'd like to deal with very swiftly, is your saying
6 on the last occasion you knew nothing of either an Ersad or a Semso
7 Colovic. Would you please go to page 33, bottom right-hand corner. And
8 on the right-hand page, immediately under the entry for the 25th of June,
9 1998, do you see the name --
10 A. Just a moment, please. I don't have that page.
11 Q. We'll make sure that the pages are brought to you directly. After
12 33, it will be --
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The interpretation said another
14 number and I see in the transcript that Nice said 33. It must have been a
15 misinterpretation because the interpretation said 43 and that's why the
16 witness cannot find it.
17 JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] Page 33, Mr.
18 Sel, and the date 25/06/98.
19 MR. NICE:
20 Q. And in your hand, is it, the reference in search of Colovic?
21 A. Yes, Mr. Nice, it is written in my hand. Colovic Ersad - let me
22 just explain - was permitted to go on medical leave to be examined by a
23 doctor. It was on the 15th or 16th of June that we got up there and he
24 was allowed to go to the military hospital in Nis to be examined by a
25 doctor. He did not report to the military hospital in Nis and since then
Page 47253
1 he was seen in the unit.
2 Q. You remembered nothing about Colovic on the last occasion. What
3 is it that has stimulated your memory on this occasion?
4 A. Mr. Nice, this is 1998. Without notes -- I mean, that's what I
5 said, I would like to have my own notes, my work notebook, so that I could
6 check things out so that it wouldn't seem that I were not telling the
7 truth or something like that. So I did have Ersad Colovic, who was a
8 young soldier, the 1998 generation -- just a moment, let me finish. He
9 was transferred to my unit around the 15th of June. He was allowed to
10 leave camp to go to see a doctor on account of his illness, but then from
11 then on he never reported back to the unit.
12 Q. The detail --
13 JUDGE BONOMY: That doesn't answer the question.
14 MR. NICE:
15 Q. You see, on the last occasion you knew nothing about Colovic. We
16 can't decipher everything on the page that you've been looking at, the
17 single first page of the diary, but just tell us, can you read there this
18 account of his going to a hospital and then being -- and not returning?
19 We can only read "In search of Colovic." It doesn't say anything about
20 going to a hospital.
21 A. Mr. Nice, on the camp premises we had no doctors, so the soldier
22 was taken down to Djakovica, along with an escort, to be examined by a
23 physician. That is the main reason -- that is the main reason why
24 soldiers went to barracks --
25 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...
Page 47254
1 A. -- from the camping premises.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: You're being asked why it was you couldn't remember
3 anything about this person the last time and now you can remember all this
4 detail when the only thing in the book is the name. Now, do you
5 understand that question, first of all? And if you understand it, would
6 you please try to answer it.
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, I understand the
8 question very well but it seems that you don't understand me. On the
9 basis of the note I have here, I remembered the soldier. Without the
10 notes -- I told you very nicely during my last testimony, without notes I
11 cannot confirm whether this is correct or not. That's why I ordered, on
12 the 25th of June, 1998, that the search for Colovic start.
13 JUDGE KWON: So what you're saying is that, having seen this name,
14 you remembered everything. That's what you're saying?
15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: It's not just the name, it's what is written
17 here. It's "In search of Colovic."
18 MR. NICE: Shall we go on to -- I don't want to trouble you with
19 this, but page 37, please, just to complete this exercise of four entries.
20 Q. On page 37 you will see, on the left-hand side of you, you'll see
21 a further reference to --
22 JUDGE KWON: Page?
23 MR. NICE: Page 36, I beg your pardon.
24 Q. It hasn't, I think, been translated but it doesn't matter. You
25 can see, I think -- and this has only just been identified by me, we can
Page 47255
1 add it in -- you can see on the left of page 36 another entry, "Still
2 looking for Colovic." Yes? Can you see that there, middle of the page?
3 A. No. No, Mr. Nice. What it says here Colovic, Ersad. We received
4 a report that he's in hospital, and it says "Hospital." That's what it
5 says here.
6 Q. Can you just read out the entry. Is it in your hand?
7 A. "Colovic." I cannot see the name now. Then it says "Hospital."
8 Sorry, no. I'm sorry, he was wanted at that time. An APB was issued
9 because he left of his own free will. He was on the run, and that's why
10 he became a wanted person.
11 Q. If we go to the next page, which is at 56 for you, we see his name
12 again in a list of names of people. Number 2 on the list: Ersad Colovic.
13 A. It says up here, Mr. Nice, it says "Fugitive." So he is a
14 fugitive. He's on the run. Legally, an APB was issued through the
15 security organs or, rather, through the relevant services. So from then
16 onwards he was no longer in the unit. That is 1998, Mr. Nice.
17 Q. Page 68, please. You see, what I want to know, Mr. Sel, where you
18 may have answered the point already, is -- just one moment. We'll move on
19 to -- don't worry about 68.
20 JUDGE ROBINSON: We can't go beyond 1.43.
21 MR. NICE:
22 Q. We'll go on, then, to page -- no, not 35. 170, I think. If it's
23 not there I'll ask the question I want to ask in any event. No, don't
24 worry about 170. It's not there. For the time being, it doesn't matter.
25 We've already seen three references, and there may be two or three
Page 47256
1 others, to Colovic Ersad. When I put allegations to you that I told you
2 had come from the mouth of Ersad Colovic last time, you completely denied
3 his existence in your unit. Is that because you knew that this man was
4 likely to be able to tell the truth about you?
5 A. Mr. Nice, it's been a long time. If you listen to me carefully
6 and if you understood me, I said very nicely that without my work
7 notebooks I cannot establish whether that soldier was in my unit or not.
8 So in fact from the 20th of June, 1998, this soldier was a fugitive. And
9 how can he make a statement about me from 1999 when he was not in the unit
10 at that time at all?
11 Q. Develop, with one question, His Honour Judge Kwon's point. Is
12 your brain one where you see a single word, like "Colovic," there is --
13 even though you'd heard the word, seeing the word on the page stimulates
14 the whole recollection of events surrounding him? Is that what happens
15 with your brain?
16 A. Mr. Nice, let's not go into how everybody's brain functions. I
17 said that I needed notebooks in order to see whether that soldier was in
18 my unit or not. As you can see, this soldier came to my unit around the
19 15th of June, but on the 20th of June, 1998, he himself became a fugitive
20 from the unit. From then onwards, he was a fugitive. So as for any
21 statements that he could give about me, they could only pertain to
22 training in camp. In that period of time, the unit did not take part in
23 any kind of activity.
24 JUDGE ROBINSON: I just want to note it's not the single word
25 "Colovic." There were three or four "In search of Colovic," and that
Page 47257
1 might have triggered --
2 MR. NICE: I didn't think there was any reference in there to the
3 hospital or anything else, but Your Honour, I see that I have my work cut
4 out to finish in the time allotted, if the answers are going to be
5 similar, on the next week.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What I was saying was, Mr. Robinson,
7 there is a phenomenon called visual memory. So isn't it normal that a
8 witness may remember things once he's seen his notebook?
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: That's a comment you can make at another time.
10 MR. NICE: We'll see how he does with other words next week.
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: We are going to adjourn, Mr. Sel. You will have
12 to return -- you will have to return on Monday at 9.00 a.m.
13 We are adjourned.
14 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.45 p.m.,
15 to be reconvened on Monday, the 12th day
16 of December, 2005, at 9.00 a.m.
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