Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 1482

 1                           Wednesday, 10 June 2009

 2                           [Prosecution Opening Statement]

 3                           [Open session]

 4                           [The accused Simatovic entered court]

 5                           [The accused Stanisic not present]

 6                           --- Upon commencing at 2.30 p.m.

 7             JUDGE ORIE:  Good afternoon to everyone.

 8             Madam Registrar, would you please call the case.

 9             THE REGISTRAR:  Good afternoon, Your Honours.  Good afternoon,

10     everyone in and around the courtroom.  This is case IT-03-69-T, the

11     Prosecutor versus Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic.

12             JUDGE ORIE:  Thank you, Madam Registrar.

13             Just to keep matters short, I establish that in the courtroom

14     appeared Ms. Brehmeier-Metz and Mr. Groome for the Prosecution.

15             You, Mr. Jordash, for the Defence of Mr. Stanisic.

16             And you, Mr. Jovanovic, for the Defence of Mr. Simatovic.

17             Mr. Simatovic is present as well; Mr. Stanisic is not present.

18             Today a report was filed signed by the assistant commanding

19     officer of the UNDU, Mr. Hansen, reporting on what he observed in his

20     communication with Mr. Stanisic.  Most important parts that Mr. Stanisic

21     indicated that he feels too unwell to attend court in person, that he was

22     not willing to waive his right to attend court in person, and that he did

23     not express a wish to use the video conference link which is available to

24     him.  Then we have a document, "Absence From Court Due to Illness," which

25     was signed by Mr. Stanisic in which he expresses that he is unable to

Page 1483

 1     attend court proceedings due to illness, that he has discussed the matter

 2     with his counsel, and he did not fill in the box that he understands that

 3     he has a right to be present at all trial proceedings and that he,

 4     however, waives that right, he has not ticked that box.

 5             Further we have just the second page of the absence in court

 6     which was filled in and signed by Dr. Eekhof and we also have received a

 7     report from Dr. Eekhof dated the 10th of June, 2009, addressed to the

 8     Registrar of the ICTY.  And if I would summarise that report it would be

 9     that it's -- the situation seems to be unchanged in essence.

10             Once we had received this report the Chamber staff has inquired

11     with the parties whether there would be any questions to be put to

12     Dr. Eekhof.  The parties expressed that they would have no questions for

13     Dr. Eekhof, and therefore the Chamber thought that it was not necessary,

14     having no questions itself, that Dr. Eekhof should be on standby.

15             Any comments in relation to this?  Not Mr. Groome, not by the

16     Stanisic Defence --

17             MR. JORDASH:  No, thank you.

18             JUDGE ORIE:  -- and not by you, Mr. Jovanovic.

19                           [Trial Chamber confers]

20             JUDGE ORIE:  The Chamber decides that it will proceed in the

21     absence of Mr. Stanisic for the same reasons as were applicable yesterday

22     and which the parties will receive in writing.  The situation being

23     unchanged, the decision is the same as well.

24             Whereas yesterday the decision of the Chamber may have come more

25     or less as a surprise to Mr. Stanisic, in which case we granted him

Page 1484

 1     15 minutes to see whether he still wanted to join the videolink.  Today

 2     it's different.  Mr. Stanisic could expect a similar decision of the

 3     Chamber, and where he expressed already that he would not want to use the

 4     videolink facilities, there's no reason to adjourn again and to send him

 5     this message and to give him an opportunity that's ...

 6             Mr. Jordash, I take it that you consider that a fair conclusion,

 7     apart from what you think about the whole situation?

 8             MR. JORDASH:  Yes, Your Honour, I do.

 9             JUDGE ORIE:  Then we will proceed.

10             Mr. Groome.

11             MR. GROOME:  Your Honour, before I turn the mike over to

12     Ms. Brehmeier-Metz, I wanted to say that the technical problem has been

13     resolved, so we will be playing the videos and the sound.  I would like

14     to express my gratitude to Dragan Randelovic who remained late last

15     evening to correct the problem with the equipment.  We've also

16     distributed digital versions of the presentation so the Chamber and the

17     Defence can look at some of the slides and the videos that were

18     malfunctioning yesterday, and look at your own convenience.  And with

19     that, Your Honour, I would ask Ms. Brehmeier-Metz to continue her

20     opening.

21             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes.  Have the booths been provided with hard copies

22     of any spoken word in any of the videos?

23             MR. GROOME:  Your Honour, they were provided with the slides --

24     so the transcript of the spoken word is on the slide.  They have the hard

25     copy of that, they'll have e-court, and they have the full text of our

Page 1485

 1     presentation.

 2             JUDGE ORIE:  May I take it that often there is an English

 3     translation of the word spoken on the slide or on the video?

 4             MR. GROOME:  That's correct, Your Honour.

 5             JUDGE ORIE:  Now, it is the task of our interpreters to translate

 6     for us what is said in the original language and not to repeat what

 7     someone else may have translated unless these are CLSS translations which

 8     meet the standards of this Tribunal.

 9             MR. GROOME:  Your Honour, the videos have the original speaker

10     speaking in B/C/S, so I'm assuming that that won't be translated.  That

11     will go out as it is.  And for the English channel, the translation of

12     that is there for the translator to see.  So I don't believe there's

13     any --

14             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, but who made those translations?

15             MR. GROOME:  Some are CLSS and some are draft translations of

16     that text.

17             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, because we work on the basis of CLSS

18     interpretation and translations.  Now I take it that the interpreters

19     would have no problems with the work of their colleagues having provided

20     translations because the same standard of quality applies.  If, however,

21     there are any -- any draft translations, then I think it's appropriate

22     that our interpreters would have the original language before them, and I

23     think yesterday I specifically asked for hard copies of any transcript to

24     be available so that, as I said yesterday, the interpreters -- that one

25     has an opportunity to verify whether the words spoken are the same as the

Page 1486

 1     words written down, the transcript of the original -- originally spoken

 2     words; and that the other interpreter can then translate from that

 3     transcript.  I would not -- some hesitation to ask them to do anything

 4     else than what they're supposed to do, that is, to translate the

 5     originally spoken words or to interpret them for us so that we have them

 6     originally spoken on the video and audio, and that we have verified

 7     translation into English and verified translation in French on the

 8     record.

 9             I think I invited you yesterday to provide hard copies of --

10     isn't it?

11             MR. GROOME:  Yes, you did, Your Honour.

12             JUDGE ORIE:  Well, then I have some difficulties in understanding

13     why what was valid yesterday is not valid today anymore.

14             MR. GROOME:  I apologise.  My focus was on trying to resolve a

15     pretty significant technical problem.  Your Honour, there is one clip of

16     Mr. Seselj where there is the translation on the clip.  Perhaps I could

17     check before it's played whether it's -- it may be one of the CLSS

18     translations.  It was played and it's been in the possession of the

19     Defence for over a year.  I don't believe there's been any dispute about

20     the accuracy of the translation.  But certainly if Your Honour's is that

21     it's CLSS, I will try to verify that it is.

22             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, that's what we rely on and that's what we are

23     so happy with, the quality of our interpretation.

24             Then let's get started.  Let's see whether -- if there's any need

25     to have a further transcript, whether you can provide it.  And if not,

Page 1487

 1     we'll try to find a solution.

 2             My concern was not primarily whether the Defence had it but of

 3     course the completeness of the record is also for purposes of, for

 4     example, an appeal if ever an appeal would be there.  It's for the

 5     Appeals Chamber to have complete information.

 6             Please proceed.

 7             Ms. Brehmeier-Metz, you will continue where you left us

 8     yesterday?

 9             MS. BREHMEIER-METZ:  I will indeed, Your Honour.

10             JUDGE ORIE:  Please proceed.

11             MS. BREHMEIER-METZ:  Good afternoon, Mr. President.  Good

12     afternoon, Your Honours.

13             Yesterday afternoon I finished off introducing the legal theory

14     of the Prosecution case in relation to incidents charged in the

15     SAO Krajina.  The second region in Croatia covered by this indictment is

16     Eastern Slavonia.  The Serb Democratic Party or SDS had been established

17     in Slavonia in 1990.  As in other regions in Croatia, tensions rose in

18     Slavonia throughout 1990 -- I apologise, in Slavonia throughout 1990, and

19     in January 1991 the Serb National Council, or SNC, of Slavonia, Baranja,

20     and Western Srem, which we will from now on refer to by its abbreviation

21     SBWS, was established.  The SNC proclaimed the Serbs in Croatia to be a

22     sovereign people with a right to autonomy in February 1991.  The area is

23     depicted on slide number 55.

24             At a meeting held at Backa Palanka just across the Danube river

25     in Serbia, representatives of all the Serb villages in the SBWS formed

Page 1488

 1     the so-called Great National Assembly of SBWS.  On 25th June, 1991, the

 2     very day that Croatia and Slovenia declared their respective independence

 3     this Great National Assembly declared secession from Croatia and

 4     established the Serb Autonomous Region or SAO SBWS.  Goran Hadzic who had

 5     been the president of the Serbian National Council was elected prime

 6     minister designate.

 7             The SAO Western Slavonia was established in August 1991.  This

 8     entity, however, will not play a prominent role in the proceedings before

 9     this Court.  Suffice it to say that in February 1992, the SAO Western

10     Slavonia along with the SAO SBWS joined the SAO Krajina and created the

11     Republic of Serb Krajina.

12             Goran Hadzic, who is depicted in slide 56, turned out to be the

13     most prominent political figure in the self-proclaimed SAO SBWS.  He had

14     been a founding member and president of the Serbian National Council and

15     was elected first prime minister designate and on 25th September 1991

16     prime minister of the SAO SBWS.

17             When the three SAOs in Croatia merged into the RSK in

18     February 1992, he became president of this newly built entity and

19     remained in that position until December 1993 when Milan Martic took

20     over.  Like the political figures in the Krajina, the leadership of the

21     newly created SAO SBWS would also refrain from doing anything without

22     first consulting with Belgrade.  Hadzic would regularly travel there to

23     meet with both Slobodan Milosevic and Jovica Stanisic.  He would receive

24     instructions on how to proceed.  When he came back to Dalj, he would

25     convene the police and TO commanders and he would frequently mention

Page 1489

 1     things he was told by Milosevic.

 2             During an intercepted telephone conversation with Karadzic on

 3     14th December 1991, Stanisic would say, among others:

 4             "I barely convinced Hadzic not to go ..."

 5             Thereby again indicating his close connection with the political

 6     leadership of SAO SBWS.

 7             Like the Krajina, the SAO SBWS also lacked money and resources,

 8     and the Government of Serbia provided the region with everything that was

 9     needed to support them.  During his regular meetings with

10     Jovica Stanisic, Hadzic would continuously address the question of

11     equipping his police force and Stanisic would see that it would be

12     provided.

13             Jovica Stanisic, however, not only exerted his influence during

14     meetings with Hadzic in Belgrade or other places in Serbia.  He also

15     personally came to Eastern Slavonia.  Around 19th or 20th September,

16     1991, he arrived in Dalj.  We will present evidence that Stanisic

17     screamed at people and berated them because Vukovar, the town that then

18     lay under siege by the JNA, had not surrendered yet.  The witness will

19     recall that Stanisic pointed out that they had all the equipment

20     necessary to take the city.  He ordered Hadzic to be brought to a meeting

21     in Dalj together with all the TO commanders.  Indeed, that meeting took

22     place with Stanisic, Hadzic, and others being present.  And in

23     October 1991, as can be seen from slide 57, Stanisic came to see

24     General Arandjelovic accompanied by two members of the Red Berets,

25     Bozovic and Ivanovic, Crnogorac.

Page 1490

 1             The person to organise this was Radovan Stojicic, also known as

 2     Badza, a member of the Serbian MUP who later became deputy minister of

 3     interior of the Republic of Serbia.  Slide number 58 summarises what we

 4     know about him.  Stojicic had been the head of the Anti-terrorist Unit,

 5     or SAJ, in the MUP Serbia since the late 1980s.

 6             He came to SAO SBWS by the end of September 1991, after

 7     Jovica Stanisic had come to Dalj and complained about Vukovar.  We will

 8     invite you to draw the inference that although according to the

 9     organisation structure of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs,

10     Stojicic was not Stanisic's subordinate.  He was sent by Stanisic in

11     order to ensure that the local police forces would function according to

12     the wishes of the leadership and in order to assist the furtherance of

13     the JCE's common plan, which included the fall of Vukovar.  Consequently,

14     Stojicic, a member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia, was

15     appointed the commander of the SAO SBWS TO in early autumn 1991.

16             Here on slide 59 we have some photos taken at Stojicic's funeral.

17     We can see Milosevic and Arkan standing close to each other paying their

18     respects, and the right frame of the slide shows Jovica Stanisic also

19     present during the same occasion.

20             Another member of the Serbian MUP who came to be of importance in

21     the SAO SBWS was Radoslav Kostic, also known as Kola or Ante.  Kostic had

22     been an agent for the DB from early 1991 onwards.  On slide number 60 you

23     see another excerpt from the video taken at Kula in 1997 at the training

24     centre that was named after Radoslav Kostic.  Jovica Stanisic pays

25     tribute to his comrade by laying down a wreath at Kostic's memorial.  The

Page 1491

 1     Serbian DB had been involved in transporting weapons from the JNA

 2     barracks at Bubanj Potok, south of Belgrade, to Borovo Selo as early as

 3     April 1991.  Kostic would oversee the transport of weapons.  We will

 4     present evidence that huge quantities were arriving from Serbia in the

 5     region in June 1991.  The weapons belonged to the JNA and the deliveries

 6     were organised by the Novi Sad DB with Kostic in charge.

 7             Kostic was also involved in forming the SAO SBWS milicija and

 8     oversaw their equipment with weapons through the Novi Sad DB.  In

 9     September 1991, he accompanied Jovica Stanisic to Dalj.  Slide 61 shows

10     the amount of financial support that came from Serbia.  It deserves to be

11     noted that it was acknowledged that all this did not have any legal

12     foundations and that one planned to continue to provide assistance

13     nevertheless.

14             Another intermediary between the political leadership in SAO SBWS

15     and Belgrade was perhaps the most notorious paramilitary leader during

16     the whole war:  Zeljko Raznjatovic, or Arkan.  He had begun his career in

17     the 1980s, committing several serious crimes throughout Europe.  Arkan

18     had been a fervent supporter of the Belgrade soccer club Red Star

19     Belgrade and had assembled a large group of violent hooligans around him.

20     In 1990, using members of this group, he set up a paramilitary unit

21     called Serbian Volunteer Guard or more notoriously, Arkan's men with its

22     elite subunit, Arkan's Tigers.  It was this group that would come to

23     terrorise the non-Serb civilians in SAO SBWS and later in Bosnia.  Arkan

24     openly advocated the commission of war crimes to the men he trained.  His

25     second in command was another person who was already introduced:

Page 1492

 1     Milorad Ulemek, Legija.  They would serve as a shock force, the strike

 2     force for the JNA that preferred that some of the more blatantly illegal

 3     crimes perpetrated against the population be committed by people like

 4     Arkan.

 5             Arkan had a very close working relationship with the Serbian MUP.

 6     His unit was supplied by the MUP and he would claim he would do nothing

 7     without Jovica Stanisic's knowledge and orders.  A few days after the

 8     take-over of Dalj, Arkan came to Borovo Selo with some of his men,

 9     introduced them as being from the Serbian DB, and showed his ID card,

10     which was a Serbian DB identity card.

11             Many members of Arkan's Tigers would eventually be transferred to

12     the Special Unit of the Serbian DB, the Red Berets or the JATD, Unit for

13     Anti-terrorist Operations, and would receive payments directly from the

14     DB.  Slide 64 shows one of these lists, covering the time-period 16th to

15     31st December, 1994, and naming well-known members of Arkan's Tigers such

16     as Milorad Ulemek, Legija; Rade Rakonjac, listed as number 3; Jugoslav

17     Gluscevic, number 13; and Vlado Vukotic, number 31.  I have redacted a

18     portion of these payment records because they contain the names of

19     protected witnesses who will testify before you.  These records will also

20     serve as corroboration of their evidence.

21             Slide number 65 has at the bottom of it an excerpt from a report

22     detailing the type of training that was being conducted in the training

23     centres of the Special Units of the Serbian DB.  I would also like to

24     play a short clip in which Arkan, speaking in English, describes his

25     unit's policy toward captured soldiers.

Page 1493

 1                           [Video-clip played]

 2              "Mr. Raznjatovic:  We don't take any more prisoners.  We're

 3     going to kill every fascist soldier we catch."

 4             MS. BREHMEIER-METZ:  There are other military reports such as the

 5     one in slide number 66 that the Prosecution will tender that show the

 6     notoriety of Arkan for brutality and criminal conduct that was not only

 7     known by the non-Serbs who fled in terror at the sound of his name, but

 8     also the JNA, Serb politicians, and most importantly for the purposes of

 9     this case, to Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic.

10             In all, the SAO SBWS was never an independent entity.  You will

11     hear evidence that Slobodan Milosevic controlled Hadzic through Arkan and

12     Stojicic, and Jovica Stanisic was the link between them and Belgrade.

13             Since late 1990, many former members of the milicija, that is,

14     the police forces, had left their office and had established their own

15     milicija groups which operated independently and without any legal bases.

16     In July 1991, Goran Hadzic, along with Radoslav Kostic tried to organise

17     them.  Kostic would remain the contact person for the milicija and supply

18     them with what was needed.

19             In the course of time, however, it became evident that Arkan had

20     become so powerful in Erdut and Dalj that those men in the milicija who

21     did not take side with him would endanger their lives.  There were many

22     who rather joined Arkan in the crimes that were later committed in the

23     area.

24             Around the summer of 1991, Hadzic set up a Special Unit that was

25     initially meant to ensure his security.  Eventually, this unit was

Page 1494

 1     renamed into the Serbian National Security, or SNB, and became a Special

 2     Unit with specific powers.  It was meant to be the equivalent to the

 3     Special Units of the Serbian DB.  Goran Hadzic was in overall command.

 4             Among those that were of importance within the SNB was

 5     Mihajlo Ulemek, Legija's uncle.  He, as a member of Arkan's Tigers, was

 6     the head of security within the SNB.  The SNB, however, did not only

 7     serve as security guards for the government.  In the course of this trial

 8     we will present evidence that will show how the SNB, together with the

 9     local TOs, the milicija, and first and foremost Arkan's men were involved

10     in the grave crimes that were committed in the region during the late

11     1991 and early 1992.

12             In August 1991, Arkan set up a training centre in Erdut that was

13     used not only to train members of his paramilitary group, but also

14     volunteers and TO members.  The training centre was well equipped.  A

15     report of late October 1991 mentions "large quantities of different

16     infantry weapons, grenade launchers, hand-grenades, Zolja hand-held

17     launchers, et cetera, that Arkan is issuing to whomever he wants."

18             Arkan's, however, was not the only training centre in the region.

19     In December 1991, the DB set up its own training centre near Ilok, just

20     across the border from Backa Palanka.  This training centre, which

21     sometimes will also be referred to as Pajzos, served as one of the

22     training camps of the DB for both Red Berets and volunteers.  And it was

23     specifically mentioned in Franko Simatovic's speech in Kula in 1997.

24     Crnogorac was in charge of the camp, with Franko Simatovic paying regular

25     visits to it.

Page 1495

 1             The Prosecution alleges Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic to

 2     be ultimately responsible for seven incidents in Erdut and Dalj between

 3     September 1991 and July 1992.  As a result of these incidents, non-Serb

 4     civilians were forcibly removed from their lawful homes and a total of

 5     107 persons were killed, merely because they were not of Serb ethnicity.

 6     Arkan's men and the local police set up makeshift detention centres where

 7     they would then hold non-Serb civilians under inhumane circumstances for

 8     the only reason of being non-Serb.  They would constantly beat the

 9     detainees and threaten to kill them while they interrogated them.

10             In the course of this opening the Prosecution will not describe

11     all seven of these incidents; two of them may serve as examples as to how

12     the events in SAO SBWS took place.

13             The first incident that the accused are charged with occurred in

14     mid-September 1991.  Goran Hadzic himself brought a number of Croat

15     civilians to the police headquarter in Dalj.  For the detainees, life

16     turned to be hell.  Every night and also during the days some of them

17     were taken out of the cells and beaten severely.  You will hear the

18     evidence of one of the detainees, who will describe to you that at one

19     point a man kicked the door of the cell, broke the lock, and entered.  He

20     told the detainees, "I want you to know I am Arkan," and looked on while

21     the three men accompanying him started beating the prisoners with iron

22     chairs.

23             Around the 23rd of September, 1991, Hadzic and Arkan came back to

24     the detention centre in Dalj.  Arkan was accompanied by some 20 of his

25     Serbian Volunteer Guard.  They selected two of the detained civilians and

Page 1496

 1     let them go.  The remaining 11 detainees were then taken out of detention

 2     and killed by Arkan and his men.  Immediately afterwards, the commander

 3     of Dalj police station, a Serb, reported the incident to the ministry.

 4     His report is shown on slide number 68.  He was removed from his post on

 5     1st October, 1991.

 6             On 9th November, 1991, members of the local TO, SAO SBWS MUP

 7     forces and members of Arkan's men arrested at least nine non-Serb

 8     civilians in and around Erdut and took them to the TO training centre in

 9     Erdut where they shot them dead the following day.  Several days later,

10     the widow of one of the men started to make inquiries about her husband.

11     Mihajlo Ulemek intervened and ordered the execution of the rest of the

12     family, whereupon members of the SNB and of Arkan's men arrested and

13     killed the widow, her son, and his wife.

14             Another widow of those men that were killed on 10th November

15     asked for their whereabouts.  On 3rd June, 1992, she was arrested by

16     members of the SNB.  They took her to Erdut, killed her, and threw the

17     body in an abandoned well in Dalj Planina.

18             It is the Prosecution's case, as summarised on slide 69, that

19     Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic participated in the joint criminal

20     enterprise to forcibly remove Croats and other non-Serbs from targeted

21     lands in the SAO SBWS through organising, training, and financing the

22     direct perpetrators of the crimes in Eastern Slavonia.  They also

23     contributed to this common plan by exerting a huge influence on and

24     directing the SAO SBWS government, and in particular Goran Hadzic who

25     would then order and direct the crimes that were committed.

Page 1497

 1             As we have seen, the storm that was intended to sweep away

 2     anything non-Serb began in the south of Croatia, the Krajina.  From there

 3     it moved to Eastern Slavonia, where it reached its climax in late 1991.

 4     Serb forces would now turn their attention to the areas in Eastern Bosnia

 5     that lie on the border to Croatia and Serbia, and the first

 6     municipalities that would suffer would be Bijeljina and Zvornik.

 7             In order to understand how the joint criminal enterprise applied

 8     its programme in Bosnia, the Chamber has to recognise why Bosnia was

 9     unique among the six former republics of Yugoslavia, why it presented

10     fundamentally different challenges to the implementation of the joint

11     criminal enterprise's objectives, and why Bosnia tragically suffered some

12     of the gravest crimes committed during the war.

13             In the simplest terms, the characteristic which made Bosnia

14     unique and which must be understood is that, unlike other former

15     republics that had large minority populations that were relatively

16     contiguous, Bosnia's pockets of large ethnic populations were

17     disconnected, spread out across the country in a polka-dot pattern, some

18     communities resembling ethnic islands in a sea dominated by some other

19     ethnic groups.  What historians and other observers rightly extolled as

20     evidence of the peaceful integration of different ethnicities and

21     cultures would prove to present a special problem for the members of the

22     joint criminal enterprise.

23             What plan did they decide upon to break up this large patchwork

24     of ethnicities and carve out an area that would be dominated by Serbs?

25     One articulation of their plan can be found in a document.

Page 1498

 1             Before describing that document and what happened in Bosnia, I

 2     would like to take a few minutes to speak about some of the central

 3     people involved in the crimes that occurred in Bosnia.

 4             Radovan Karadzic was the first president of the Bosnian Serb

 5     government which would eventually be called the Republika Srpska.  As

 6     such, he had formal authority over the Bosnian Serb Army and the Bosnian

 7     Serb police.  He has been indicted by this Tribunal and is currently

 8     awaiting trial.  He made his intentions clear in a speech given on

 9     15th October, 1999, which is before you in slide number 71.

10                           [Video-clip played]

11             THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "This is the road that you want

12     Bosnia and Herzegovina to take, the same highway of hell and suffering

13     that Slovenia and Croatia went through.  Don't think you won't take

14     Bosnia and Herzegovina to hell and Muslim people to possible extinction.

15     Because Muslim people will not be able to defend itself if it comes to

16     war here."

17             MS. BREHMEIER-METZ:  The Prosecution will establish --

18             JUDGE ORIE:  One second.

19             MS. BREHMEIER-METZ:  The Prosecution will establish with

20     intercept evidence, documents, and testimony the interaction between

21     Jovica Stanisic and Dr. Karadzic, who played a paramount role as a core

22     member of the joint criminal enterprise.  The Prosecution will introduce

23     a number of intercepts between Mr. Stanisic and Dr. Karadzic, mostly from

24     the critical period of August 1991 until February 1992.  In these

25     conversations, you will hear them discuss both political and practical

Page 1499

 1     issues related to the implementation of the joint criminal enterprise's

 2     plans, and will understand that the two men realised that what they were

 3     discussing was covert and had to remain hidden because you will hear them

 4     talk on these intercepts in guarded language, at times even reminding

 5     each other of the importance of not saying too much on the phone.

 6             In an intercept of 14th December, 1991, Jovica Stanisic tells

 7     Radovan Karadzic that he will send his men over into Bosnia to deal with

 8     specific problems.  Stanisic also refers to "his boys," whom he says he

 9     has sent in previously.  And finally, Stanisic tells Dr. Karadzic that he

10     will order Goran Hadzic, the Croatian Serb leader from Eastern Slavonia,

11     to do something.

12             Momcilo Krajisnik, shown here with Biljana Plavsic on slide

13     number 72, was a member of the Bosnian Serb leadership during the war.

14     He held a number of senior political positions, including being a member

15     of the National Security Council, the Expanded Presidency of the

16     so-called Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  He was also the

17     president of the Bosnian Serb Assembly.  He was convicted of persecutions

18     as a crime against humanity.

19             Biljana Plavsic was a leading Bosnian Serb politician from before

20     the conflict until the war's end.  She was notorious for the extremity of

21     her Serb nationalist ideology.  She was a member of the collective

22     Presidency of Bosnia, a member of the three-member Presidency of the

23     Serbian Republic, and was a member of the Supreme Command of the Bosnian

24     Serb Army.  After pleading guilty to the crime of persecution as a crime

25     against humanity, she was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment.

Page 1500

 1             Ratko Mladic was a career JNA officer who became chief of the

 2     Main Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska.  He has been indicted by this

 3     Tribunal and is currently a fugitive.  He said, and it is printed on

 4     slide number 73:

 5             "People and peoples are not pawns nor are they keys in one's

 6     pocket that can be shifted from here to there.

 7             "We cannot cleanse nor can we have a sieve to sift so that only

 8     Serbs would stay or that Serbs would fall through and the rest leave ...

 9     I do not know how Mr. Krajisnik and Mr. Karadzic would explain this to

10     the world.  People, this would be genocide."

11             A document that articulates the objective of Bosnian Serbs was

12     officially introduced at the 16th Session of the Assembly of the

13     so-called Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina on 12th May, 1992.  It lays

14     out six strategic objectives for the Bosnian Serb people.  In

15     Mr. Simatovic's speech in Kula, he tied the activities of the Special

16     Units of the Serbian DB to those six objectives.  The first objective,

17     shown here on slide number 74, is the separation of the Serbian people

18     from the other two national communities.

19             Two:  Establishment of a corridor between Semberija and the

20     Krajina.  Mr. Simatovic's remark at Kula that his units were involved in

21     the "corridor at Brcko" is a reference to the second strategic objective,

22     to connect lands the Serbs targeted in the western and eastern parts of

23     Bosnia.

24             Three, shown here on slide number 76:  Establishment of a

25     corridor in the Drina Valley, eliminating the Drina River as a boundary

Page 1501

 1     between Serbs.  This corridor was really a large expanse of territory

 2     comprising most of the eastern half of Bosnia.  Mr. Simatovic refers to

 3     his unit's presence in "the Drina."

 4             Slide number 77 shows the fourth strategic goal:  Establishing a

 5     border on the Una and Neretva Rivers.

 6             Five:  The division of Sarajevo.  When Mr. Simatovic refers to

 7     operations in Sarajevo, he is referring to this objective.

 8             And six:  The sixth strategic objective was providing the Serbs

 9     with access to the sea.

10             As we describe the crimes committed in the six Bosnian

11     municipalities in which the present indictment charges crimes, we ask the

12     Chamber to keep in mind how the locations targeted by the accused and the

13     crimes they perpetrated there advanced the objectives expressed in these

14     goals.  With respect to the joint criminal enterprise as it was applied

15     to the unique geography and demography of Bosnia, these goals are clear

16     articulations of the shared intent of the core members of the joint

17     criminal enterprise.

18             In December 1991 a document with the title:  "Instructions for

19     the Organisation and Activity of the Organs of the Serbian People in

20     Bosnia and Herzegovina in Extraordinary Circumstances" was promulgated

21     among high level representatives of the Serbian Democratic Party, the

22     SDS, of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  The document became more popularly known

23     as the Variant A and B document because of its contents.  When it

24     prescribed the actions to be taken by SDS functionaries, it distinguished

25     between municipalities in which the Serbs were the majority, this was

Page 1502

 1     Variant A; and those municipalities in which Serbs were in the minority,

 2     this was Variant B.  In essence, the document contained precise

 3     instructions regarding how local Serbs were to convene and declare a

 4     local assembly of Serbian people in the municipality which would then

 5     take upon itself the authority to take over the functions of the existing

 6     government, including the function of the existing police and security

 7     structures.

 8             Municipal take-overs proceeded in four steps.  The first step was

 9     the construction of a system of governance that paralleled the official

10     government, but was for Serbs only; second, the arming of the Serb

11     population; third, the violent armed take-over of non-Serb

12     municipalities; and fourth, the ethnic cleansing, whether through murder

13     or expulsion, of the non-Serb population.

14             Here in slide number 80 is a map of the Special Unit's training

15     facilities.  The 13 labelled in yellow are camps that the accused

16     established in Bosnia-Herzegovina.  As you can see, they are in areas

17     marked for Serbs by the second, third, and fourth strategic objectives;

18     Eastern Bosnia along the Drina, northern Bosnia, the land bridge between

19     Semberija in the Krajina, and southern Bosnia along the Una and Neretva

20     Rivers.

21             In this trial the Prosecution will confine its evidence to just

22     six of the many municipalities that were taken over in this manner.

23     These municipal areas are:

24             (A) Bijeljina, in north-western Bosnia.  Our evidence will be

25     confined to the forcible transfer of people from that municipality;

Page 1503

 1             (B) Zvornik, the label for Zvornik is in the right-hand column,

 2     number six from both the bottom and the top;

 3             (C) Bosanski Samac, the label for Bosanski Samac is in the top

 4     row, far right;

 5             (D) Sanski Most, in north-central Bosnia.  Later Mr. Groome will

 6     talk about the events in Sanski Most in 1995;

 7             (E) Doboj, the label for Doboj is in the top row, second from the

 8     left;

 9             (F) Trnovo, near Sarajevo, the Special Units were not involved in

10     the take-over of this area, but in June and July of 1995, in the

11     aftermath of Srebrenica one of the State Security Special Units, the

12     Skorpions, participated in the execution that followed the fall of

13     Srebrenica by summarily executing six Muslim males.

14             The Special Units of the Serbian DB directly participated in the

15     take-over of each of the other five municipal areas.  After the violent

16     take-over of these towns, non-Serbs, predominantly Muslims, were forcibly

17     removed from their homes and their land through the commission of the

18     crimes of murder and persecution, perpetrated with the intent to secure

19     the area for Serbs.  Many who were not killed were forced at gunpoint to

20     sign over the property rights to their lands and then placed on a bus to

21     take them out of the area.  Others were subjected to unrelenting

22     harassment and persecutory acts which took the form of arbitrary arrests,

23     illegal detention in appalling conditions, beatings, curfews, and

24     frequent, aggressively conducted searches of the homes of non-Serbs.

25             Creating an ethnically pure Serb municipality in a peaceful,

Page 1504

 1     multi-ethnic community is hard to imagine in any case.  It really

 2     stretches our capacity to imagine what such an enterprise would entail

 3     when we consider a place like the municipality of Zvornik, which prior to

 4     the war in 1991 had a population that was 54.8 per cent Muslim.  After

 5     the war, 1997 or 1998, only 0.6 per cent of the population of Zvornik was

 6     Muslim.

 7             Mr. Groome will now summarise the evidence of five municipalities

 8     in Bosnia of which the Prosecution will lead evidence.  Thank you.

 9             JUDGE ORIE:  Thank you, Ms. Brehmeier-Metz.

10             Mr. Groome, please proceed, and keep in mind the speed of speech.

11             MR. GROOME:  Yes, Your Honour.  Could I ask what time the Chamber

12     would like to break so that I can be mindful of the time.

13             JUDGE ORIE:  Usually the first break is after one and a half

14     hour, which would mean that since we had a late start that that would be

15     in approximately 15 to 20 minutes from now.

16             MR. GROOME:  Thank you.

17             Your Honours, on the 24th of March, 1992, about eight days before

18     the Bijeljina take-over, Radovan Karadzic stated, as shown in slide

19     number 81, that soon the Serbian municipalities will begin the take-over

20     process.  The take-over of Bijeljina and Zvornik was a well-planned and

21     well-executed --

22             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Jovanovic.

23             MR. JOVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I apologise for

24     interrupting my learned friend from the Prosecution, but also with the

25     previous speaker we were told that those were Bosnian municipalities and

Page 1505

 1     Bijeljina was the first one to be listed, but in the third amended

 2     indictment Bijeljina does not exist anymore, it has been excluded.  So

 3     based on the third amended indictment, the Bosnian municipalities within

 4     the crime base are Bosanski Samac, Doboj, Sanski Most, Trnovo, and

 5     Zvornik.  I don't think that we need to hear about the events in

 6     Bijeljina.

 7             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Groome, Mr. Jovanovic expresses his concerns as

 8     to whether in this opening statement you go beyond what is in the

 9     indictment.

10             MR. GROOME:  Your Honour, as Ms. Brehmeier-Metz stated, the

11     Prosecution is still -- there are still counts in the indictment related

12     to the forcible transfer of Muslims from Brioni.  While it is true that

13     in the third amended indictment the Prosecution did drop some of the

14     individual counts of murder, it never dropped the forcible transfer.  And

15     it has always been the position of the Prosecution that the events of

16     Bijeljina and Zvornik are so inextricably intertwined that the evidence

17     which is led in Bijeljina is absolutely necessary to an understanding of

18     what occurred in Zvornik.

19             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Jovanovic, is there any dispute about the

20     forcible transfer still being charged in relation to Bijeljina?

21             MR. JOVANOVIC: [Interpretation] I could understand this if in the

22     broader context of Zvornik the Prosecution speaks of Bijeljina as well;

23     however, in the third amended indictment, Bijeljina has been excluded and

24     all of the events which take -- took place there.  It was included in the

25     previous indictment but not in this one.  So the events in Bijeljina have

Page 1506

 1     been completely dropped.

 2             MR. GROOME:  Your Honour, if it might assist, Mr. Jovanovic

 3     refers to paragraph 64 and 65 of the third amended indictment.  Toward

 4     the bottom of both of those paragraphs, it will be clear that with

 5     respect to counts 4 and 5, deportation and inhumane acts, forcible

 6     transfers, that indeed Bijeljina is still very much a part of the

 7     Prosecution indictment.

 8             JUDGE ORIE:  I'll check it.

 9             Meanwhile please proceed.

10             MR. GROOME:  Your Honours, the take-over of Bijeljina and Zvornik

11     was a well-planned and well-executed campaign that occurred with

12     precision and lightning speed over the course of a few days.  The Special

13     Units of the Serbian DB, in this case Arkan's men, established a camp in

14     Serbia, just over the border from Bijeljina, poised to attack when given

15     the signal in the early morning hours of the night of March 31st into the

16     morning of the 1st of April, 1992.

17             Both Bijeljina and Zvornik fell within the first and most

18     important goal, the separation of the ethnic populations, as well as

19     within the second and third strategic goals, the establishment of a

20     corridor to areas targeted by Serbs that lie in central and Western

21     Bosnia and the establishment of a Serb corridor in the Drina River

22     Valley.

23             In an effort to shorten the length of this trial, the

24     Prosecution, as just discussed, will no longer seek to prove the killings

25     and persecutions that occurred in Bijeljina.  And while we will only

Page 1507

 1     prove the crimes against humanity of deportation and forcible transfer

 2     with respect to Bijeljina, a basic understanding of what happened there

 3     is essential in order for the Chamber to understand who Arkan was and

 4     what Mr. Simatovic and Mr. Stanisic knew about him.

 5             The brutality of Arkan in Bijeljina was even reported

 6     contemporaneously by senior officers in the Yugoslav Army, one of whom

 7     saw the awesome potential for unimaginable inter-ethnic crimes, as

 8     recorded here on slide number 83.  In this contemporaneous report a

 9     major-general in the Yugoslav Army complains that movements of his own

10     armoured units were restricted by Arkan and his men.

11             Arkan and his 50 men could hold up a JNA armoured column because

12     Arkan was a core member of the group of people who were behind these

13     crimes.  Shortly after the take-over of Bijeljina, we see Arkan and

14     Mrs. Plavsic greet each other with a kiss here shown on slide 84.

15                           [Video-clip played]

16             MR. GROOME:  It would be Bijeljina where Arkan would cement his

17     reputation for unbridled brutality.

18             Slide 85 shows two photos shot by Ron Haviv, a war photographer.

19     He introduced the world to the brutality of Arkan's men.  Shortly after

20     the pictures shocked the world, Arkan himself identified the men in the

21     picture as his to a BBC correspondent.

22             As a result of the efforts of the joint criminal enterprise and

23     relevant to the indictment now before the Chamber, many of the non-Serbs

24     of Bijeljina were forced out or fled in terror.

25             Your Honours, if there was a colourable claim that the two

Page 1508

 1     accused were unaware of Arkan's penchant for extreme violence before

 2     Bijeljina, there can be no escaping this knowledge after Bijeljina, as

 3     Arkan made his way to his next target:  Zvornik.

 4             Zvornik is one of the towns that lie on the eastern border of

 5     Bosnia, separated from Serbia by the Drina River.  Several bridges in the

 6     town connected it to Mali Zvornik, its sister town in Serbia.  You will

 7     hear witnesses describe how in the weeks before the take-over of the

 8     town, JNA artillery positions were established in Mali Zvornik with guns

 9     pointing towards Bosnia.

10             The take-overs of Bijeljina and Zvornik were the product of one

11     well-planned operation.  The Prosecution will introduce the transcript of

12     an intercepted telephone conversation, shown here in slide 88, in which

13     Plavsic speaks with Arkan's deputy and asks about how things went in

14     Zvornik and asks him to pass on her request for Arkan to come to another

15     municipality.

16             A group of responsible local Serb and Muslim leaders from Zvornik

17     tried tenaciously to keep the peace in Zvornik.  During a meeting in

18     which they had reached agreements that would have hopefully prevented

19     violence, Arkan burst into the room, slapped the Serb representative,

20     accusing them of giving away Serb lands.  This is referred to on slide

21     number 89.  Arkan turned to the Muslim negotiator and gave him an

22     ultimatum.  It is in red at the bottom of the slide.  Izet Mehinagic

23     would recount these events in a desperate telegram to the

24     Yugoslav People's Army, which is the text above the ultimatum on this

25     slide.

Page 1509

 1             On the evening of the 8th of April the take-over was underway.

 2     The adult men were separated and at least 20 civilians murdered.

 3     Following the take-over, the surviving Muslims of Zvornik were subjected

 4     to a reign of terror.

 5             Reports like this one on slide number 90 and others we have seen

 6     show Arkan's effectiveness at achieving the joint criminal enterprise's

 7     goals.  They also show notice to the JCE's core members of Arkan's

 8     ability to whip up Serbian nationalistic fervor.

 9             Kozluk was a small town on the outskirts of Zvornik.  After the

10     initial take-over, the predominantly Muslim population sought to reach a

11     peaceful settlement with the Serbs now in power.  But on the 26th of

12     June, 1992, the Muslims of Kozluk were told to leave by the Serb mayor.

13     Here is a list of those who were forced out on slide number 91.  The

14     mayor told the Muslims that if they did not leave, an all-out attack

15     would be launched which would kill all the Muslims.  The Muslims left,

16     but not before Serb authorities made them sign papers giving their homes,

17     land, and personal property to the new government in Zvornik.

18             The deportees were taken along the route shown by the blue line

19     toward Hungary on the map shown on slide number 92.  When Hungarian

20     authorities denied them entry because they did not have passports, the

21     deportees were issued Serbian passports, that is, Bosnian nationals were

22     issued with the passports of another country:  Serbia.  You will recall

23     from yesterday's discussion of the mandate of Mr. Stanisic's department

24     or Mr. Stanisic's ministry, that it included the control of passports.

25             Vojislav Seselj was a core member of the joint criminal

Page 1510

 1     enterprise, president of the Serb Radical Party, who formed the Serbian

 2     Chetnik Movement, and sent his volunteers to conflict areas of Croatia

 3     and Bosnia-Herzegovina.  In a videotaped interview with the BBC,

 4     Vojislav Seselj would describe the involvement of Simatovic in the

 5     planning of the take-over of Zvornik.  I will now ask that the video on

 6     slide number 94 be played.

 7                           [Video-clip played]

 8             THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "The Zvornik operation was planned

 9     in Belgrade too.  Bosnian Serb forces participated in it and they were

10     more numerous.  However, the Special Units and the units most eager to

11     fight came from this side.  Those were the very police units, the

12     so-called Red Berets, they are the Special Units of the Serbian State

13     Security Service.

14             "It was devised by the key people from the State Security

15     Service, among them Franko Simatovic, Frenki.  He was one of the direct

16     perpetrators."

17             MR. GROOME:  Your Honours, would that be -- would that be a

18     convenient place to break?

19             JUDGE ORIE:  It is, Mr. Groome.

20             How much time would you still need after the break?

21             MR. GROOME:  I certainly will finish within the next session,

22     Your Honour.  It's hard to judge the precise time, but I can say with

23     confidence that it wouldn't take more than the next session.

24             JUDGE ORIE:  Then we'll have a break and we'll resume at a

25     quarter past 4.00.

Page 1511

 1                           --- Recess taken at 3.50 p.m.

 2                           --- On resuming at 4.17 p.m.

 3             JUDGE ORIE:  Before you continue, Mr. Groome, I would like to

 4     invite perhaps at a later moment Ms. Brehmeier to explain to us in still

 5     number 61 what the billions of dinars are approximately in real money,

 6     because I couldn't gain any impression on how much money was really

 7     spent.  And since I think the economy at that time was mainly done in

 8     Deutschemarks, perhaps if a translation into understandable currency

 9     could be made it would be appreciated.

10             Mr. Groome, please proceed.

11             MR. GROOME:  Yes, Your Honour.  Just on that point, as it seems

12     Your Honour is already aware, that was a period of significant hyper

13     inflation where witnesses talk about the price of a quart of milk going

14     up between the time they walked into the store and the time they went to

15     pay for it, but we will make every effort to try to give an estimate of

16     what it was in Deutschemarks.

17             Your Honour, if I might return now to Zvornik.  One of the

18     reasons that Zvornik was one of the municipalities selected by the

19     Prosecution is that it clearly demonstrates the intent that the members

20     of the core group of perpetrators shared.  The excesses perpetrated

21     against the Muslim population of Zvornik had spiralled into a level of

22     chaos in which no one, not even Serbs, were safe from the criminals

23     turned loose with impunity in the municipality of Zvornik, as we can see

24     in this report on slide number 95.

25             In a report drafted by Colonel Tolimir about events all over

Page 1512

 1     Bosnia on the 28th of July, 1992, he raise the question with his

 2     superiors of the men who had perpetrated such grievous crimes in Zvornik

 3     with his superiors.  Here in slide number 96 he identifies by name

 4     Arkan's men, Captain Dragan's men, and Seselj's men.  He describes these

 5     three groups as being composed of many criminals, even pathological

 6     criminals.  He states that these formations:

 7             "... display hatred of non-Serbian peoples and one can conclude

 8     without reservations that they are the genocidal element among the

 9     Serbian people."

10             He goes on to say:

11             "War profiteering and looting are the motive for a great majority

12     of paramilitaries."

13             Here on slide number 97 Tolimir enumerates the 30 to 40 million

14     German marks' worth of booty stolen from the area of Srebrenica and

15     Skelani.  In the end of July 1992 there was a crack-down against

16     paramilitary forces in Zvornik.  In fact, the Serbian DB would itself be

17     involved in the investigation of these paramilitary units.  Two

18     paramilitary leaders, the Vukovic brothers, leaders of the Yellow Wasps,

19     would ultimately be investigated and arrested by the Serbian MUP.

20             Your Honours, the two accused contributed to the goals of the JCE

21     in the ways outlined in the box on the right-hand side of slide 98 and by

22     so doing made themselves individually, criminally liable for the crimes

23     committed in Zvornik.

24             All elements of the JCE, except those from the Republic of Serb

25     Krajina on the far left of the diagram, had some involvement in the

Page 1513

 1     take-over and ethnic cleansing of Bijeljina and Zvornik.

 2             Bosanski Samac, shown here on slide 99, located along the Sava

 3     River in north-Eastern Bosnia, had the misfortune of lying in the lands

 4     targeted to create the land bridge between land targeted by Serbs in the

 5     east of Bosnia and the land targeted by Serbs in the Krajina region.  A

 6     successful conquest and ethnic cleansing of Bosanski Samac would achieve

 7     the first and second goals, namely, separation of the ethnic communities

 8     and establishment of a corridor, the Posavina corridor as it came to be

 9     popularly known.

10             In early 1992 the Serb Crisis Staff of the Bosanski Samac

11     municipality sent 20 local men to be trained in the Red Beret Training

12     Camp in Ilok.  These men were just completing their training at the

13     Red Beret camp when the take-overs of Bijeljina and Zvornik were

14     underway.  They were airlifted back to Bosanski Samac on JNA helicopters

15     with 30 members of Seselj's men.  Before leaving, they were personally

16     briefed by Mr. Simatovic.

17             The day after Arkan announced he had finished his task in Zvornik

18     the attack on Bosanski Samac commenced.  Among these 50 men who went to

19     Bosanski Samac, there were others who were trained by the Serbian DB who

20     would work with them in the take-over of the town.  Slobodan Miljkovic,

21     also known as Lugar, was present; as were Dragan Djordjevic, also known

22     as Crni; and Srecko Radovanovic, also known as Debeli; and a group of men

23     from Serbia.

24             As this report on slide 100 indicates, Crni, one of the leaders

25     of the crimes perpetrated in Samac, was in fact arrested and what

Page 1514

 1     happened after his arrest demonstrates the role that both Simatovic and

 2     Stanisic played in the take-over of Samac.

 3             Another report shown here on slide 101 summarises the types of

 4     crimes that Crni and his men were believed to have perpetrated.  They

 5     include specific allegations including murder and the looting of

 6     expensive cars.  A local Serb leader recognising the loss of Crni to

 7     their efforts to ethnically cleanse Samac went to the Serbian MUP

 8     building in search of Franko Simatovic.  It was his intention to ask

 9     Mr. Simatovic if there was anything he could do to secure Crni's release

10     from the military police.  He was unable to find Mr. Simatovic but as he

11     walked in the parking-lot he by chance saw Jovica Stanisic, who he

12     approached and explained the problem to.  Mr. Stanisic told him that he

13     would see to the matter by sending a telex to the military.  Shortly

14     thereafter Crni was released to continue his crimes.

15             The answer to how Crni, a man whose excesses resulted in his

16     arrest by the Bosnian Serb Army he was fighting alongside of, could

17     promptly be released is perhaps best captured in a report issued by the

18     local military authorities.

19             In this document on slide 102 the author makes the observation

20     that the crimes now being committed in the name of Serbs are comparable

21     to the crimes committed against the Serbs in the Second World War.

22             The basic facts of Crni's release were set out in this Bosnian

23     police report on slide number 103.  The Prosecution charges that the two

24     accused contributed to the achievement of the JCE's goals in the ways

25     listed in the box on the right of slide number 104.  By doing so they

Page 1515

 1     made themselves individually criminally liable for the crimes committed

 2     in Bosanski Samac.  As in Bijeljina and Zvornik, all elements of the JCE,

 3     except those in the Republic of Serb Krajina, were involved.

 4             Before the war, the population of Bosanski Samac had been 29.8

 5     per cent Croat and 8.7 per cent Muslim.  After the war those figures were

 6     1.9 per cent Croatian and 1.3 per cent Muslim.

 7             Like Samac and Brcko, these municipalities not only had large

 8     non-Serb populations that needed to be removed, but they also lay in the

 9     corridor or land bridge that was to be created between the targeted lands

10     in west of Bosnia and the targeted lands in the east.

11             Over 15.000 Muslims would flee Doboj during the take-over.  When

12     the war began Doboj municipality was 30 per cent Muslim, 11 and a half

13     per cent Croat, and 50 per cent Serb; by the war's end, it was 0.6 per

14     cent Muslim, 1.5 per cent Croat, 92.5 per cent Serb.

15             Before the take-over of Doboj men from a long list of DB

16     paramilitaries began converging on Doboj including Martic's men from the

17     Krajina.  While Arkan commanded his own men and Seselj's men had their

18     own commanders, the remaining men were referred to as Red Berets and were

19     commanded by Rajo Bozovic, a colonel in the Special Units of the

20     Serbian DB.  The take-over of Doboj ended on the 3rd of May, 1992.  This

21     overwhelming force, many trained and outfitted by Mr. Stanisic and

22     Mr. Simatovic, were able to quickly and decisively seize control of a

23     municipality with a population of 102.549 people covering an area of

24     684 square kilometres.

25             When the town was firmly in Serb control, the campaign of

Page 1516

 1     persecutions against Doboj's Muslims began, mirroring what by this time

 2     had become the well-known signature of those units:  Beatings, arbitrary

 3     arrests, interrogations, and murder.  Non-Serb homes were aggressively

 4     searched and damaged, making it clear that non-Serb families who had

 5     lived in Doboj for generations had now better leave.

 6             Non-Serb civilians from Doboj were taken into custody and housed

 7     in various makeshift detention facilities in and around Doboj.  For

 8     example, nearly 200 people were imprisoned in a disco.  In these

 9     facilities the detainees were beaten and some prisoners were taken out

10     and summarily executed.  Muslim prisoners were forced to eat pork, in

11     violation of their religious beliefs.

12             In acts of almost unspeakable vulgarity prisoners were compelled

13     to perform sexual acts upon each other.

14             On the 12th of July, 1992, about 50 detainees were taken from the

15     disco and used as human shields.  These detainees were placed in front of

16     the Serbian front lines and made to walk toward the front lines of the

17     Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  When the detainees hesitated, a Serb

18     shot one detainee in the head to encourage the others.  When the Bosnian

19     soldiers began beckoning the detainees, calling them to run towards the

20     Bosnian front lines, the detainees broke into a run, the Serbs then

21     opened fire killing 27 of these human shields.

22             So decisive and absolute was the Red Berets' campaign in Doboj

23     that those in the neighbouring municipality of Teslic would look to it as

24     an example, as indicated in this report shown on slide number 106.  The

25     report mentions by name Bozovic, the same Bozovic who Milosevic

Page 1517

 1     recognises on the Kula tape.  These are but four of the many municipal

 2     areas that were taken over by Bosnian Serbs in the spring and summer of

 3     1992, take-overs that were marked by the precision of their execution and

 4     the brutality of their success.  The Prosecution charges that the two

 5     accused contributed to the achievement of the JCE goals in the ways set

 6     out in the box on the right of slide 107, and by doing so incurred

 7     personal criminal liability for the crimes committed in Doboj.

 8             Here, different from the previous municipalities, it is also the

 9     Prosecution's case that the direct involvement of Martic's men also

10     implicates the individual criminal responsibility of the accused.

11             The overall criminal plan was a success and many municipalities

12     were placed under Serb control in the spring of 1992.  To place the

13     crimes committed in these four municipalities in the context of the

14     overall plan of the joint criminal enterprise, it is helpful to look at a

15     series of maps on slides 108 to 115 that show in chronological order the

16     take-over of territory as well as the role the two accused took in this

17     process.  It is the Prosecution's case that the rapid, comprehensive, and

18     organised assertion of Serb control over territory in Bosnia-Herzegovina

19     is evidence of the existence of and the effectiveness of the joint

20     criminal enterprise.

21             The take-over process begins when Arkan enters Bijeljina on the

22     night between the 31st of March and the 1st of April.  In that first

23     week, over a dozen municipalities would be taken over and placed under

24     Serb control.  While some of those municipalities such as Titov Drvar

25     were predominantly Serb and asserting control was primarily done by

Page 1518

 1     switching allegiance from Sarajevo to Pale.  In other municipalities such

 2     as Bijeljina, these municipalities were taken by armed force and the

 3     commission of serious crimes against the civilian population.

 4             During the second week, the focus of the take-overs would remain

 5     on the Drina Valley and Serb take-overs swept over Eastern Bosnia in

 6     places like Visegrad, Foca, and Sekovici.

 7             THE INTERPRETER:  Thank you for slowing down.

 8             MR. GROOME:  As you have already heard, Mr. Stanisic and

 9     Simatovic played a direct role in the take-over of Zvornik and the

10     expulsion of its large Muslim population.

11             In Central Bosnia the municipality of Teslic fell during the

12     second week of April.

13             Here in slide 111 we see that in the third week of the take-over,

14     after Arkan would advise that his work was completed in Zvornik, the

15     Special Units of the Serbian DB would turn their attention to the

16     municipality of Bosanski Samac.  The take-overs continue along the

17     Drina River with Bratunac and in Foca's neighbour to the west, Kalinovik,

18     Vogosca, part of the greater Sarajevo area would also fall under Serb

19     control this week.  Up in the north-western part of Bosnia, in the

20     Bosnian Krajina, Serb control would be forcibly imposed with its by now

21     characteristic crimes in Bosanski Novi and Sanski Most.

22             Serb gains would continue in the Bosnian Krajina into the last

23     days of April when Prijedor, where some of the most grievous crimes of

24     the take-overs were committed.  Serb control was asserted over

25     Mrkonjic Grad and large parts of Bosanska Krupa, bringing the border of

Page 1519

 1     Serb-controlled lands to the banks of the Una River.  The campaign in the

 2     Drina Valley would continue with the take-over of Vlasenica and the

 3     encirclement of Sarajevo in preparation of its siege.

 4             By the end of April in this 30-day period, 35 municipalities

 5     would be taken over, an average of over one municipality per day.

 6             While the pace of the take-overs would slow a bit during the

 7     following months, the pace of the crimes only accelerated.  The accused

 8     would send Colonel Bozovic, along with other members of the Special

 9     Units, to spear-head the take-over of Doboj, a critical municipality in

10     the Posavina corridor.  The encirclement around Sarajevo would be

11     complete with the taking of Hadzici, Trnovo, and Ilidza in May.  With the

12     fall of Rogatica and Rudo, the take-over of the municipalities along the

13     eastern border of Bosnia would be complete with the exception of

14     Srebrenica.  Also in May, three more municipalities in the

15     Bosnian Krajina would also fall.

16             The Bosnian Krajina would be completely secured by the end of

17     June with the take-over of Prnjavor and Kotor Varos.  During June the

18     primary focus of take-overs shifted to the southern areas of Bosnia where

19     Nevesinje, Bileca, and Ljubinje would be placed under Serb control as

20     well as Trebinje with the exception of its southern area of Ravno which

21     was controlled at the time by Croatian forces.

22             By the end of the summer with the take-over of Derventa and

23     Odzak, over 50 municipalities would be placed under Serb control to

24     secure the functioning of the Posavina corridor.

25             The two maps you now see on the screen in slide 116 are

Page 1520

 1     demographic maps; one from 1991, before the ethnic cleansing campaign of

 2     1992; and one from 1997, after the campaign.  You may observe by the

 3     success -- the success of the joint criminal enterprise as measured

 4     statistically in dramatic demographic changes.

 5             If you look along the Posavina corridor, that is the horizontal

 6     oval at the top of the map, the target of the second strategic goal, you

 7     will see a dramatic shift in the population as marked by the change of

 8     colour to red.

 9             The vertical oval on the right-hand side of the map is the

10     Drina Valley, and again you can see the dramatic shift in colour

11     represents the restructuring of the demographic landscape from mixed or

12     Muslim majority municipalities into red, Serb municipalities.

13             These take-overs and subsequent crimes resulted in population

14     shift hundreds of thousands of people.  Nearly 400.000 people forcibly

15     removed from their homes.

16             The map on slide 117 shows what happened after the summer of

17     1992.  Some additional take-overs would continue.  The light blue

18     municipalities show where there will be evidence of involvement of the

19     Special Units of the Serbian DB; and the dark blue municipalities

20     indicate those locations in which the two accused are charged with the

21     commission of crimes.

22             The next charges in the indictment will concern the serious

23     crimes committed toward the end of the conflict in 1995.  It would be

24     incorrect for the Chamber to conclude that Mr. Stanisic's and

25     Mr. Simatovic's involvement in Bosnia went into a hiatus throughout this

Page 1521

 1     period -- I'm sorry, throughout this period they were very much involved

 2     in joint operations designed to hold onto the targeted lands they seized

 3     in 1992 and to resist the Bosnian government's attempts to recapture this

 4     land.

 5             You will hear summary evidence of the accused's involvement in

 6     Bosnia in the time between 1992 and 1995 primarily from a headquarters

 7     they established in Bajina Basta in Serbia, just across the border with

 8     Bosnia.

 9             I would now like to turn the attention of the Chamber to the

10     crimes charged in the indictment related to Trnovo.  The facts of what

11     occurred in Srebrenica in July 1995 have been the subject of several

12     trials in these courtrooms.  I will not repeat them here; they are well

13     known.  We all know that the slaughter of the Muslim men and boys in

14     Srebrenica marks the single, most egregious atrocity perpetrated against

15     the Bosnian Muslim people.

16             The two accused here in this trial are charged with the death of

17     three men and three boys whose murder was captured on videotape.  In

18     order for you to understand the Prosecution's case as to why Mr. Stanisic

19     and Mr. Simatovic are responsible for the deaths of the six, we must look

20     at what is occurring in another part of the country prior to Srebrenica.

21             I want to focus your attention on the north-west corner of

22     Bosnia, shown here on slide 119, a place referred to as the Bihac pocket

23     which in 1993 had a population of approximately 300.000 people, mostly

24     Muslims.  Its local leader, a Muslim man by the name of Fikret Abdic

25     sought to extricate himself from the war in Bosnia by dissociating

Page 1522

 1     himself with the Bosnian government and entering into an uneasy alliance

 2     with Milosevic in Belgrade.  So in October of 1993 Abdic traded his war

 3     with Croatia and Serbia for a war with his Bosniak brothers in Sarajevo,

 4     and shortly thereafter, the Bosnian army was engaging Abdic's poorly

 5     trained and equipped men.

 6             Abdic turned to Milosevic for help and within a short time

 7     Milosevic responded by sending Mr. Stanisic and Mr. Simatovic to the

 8     Bihac pocket to command an operation called Pauk, or the Spider.

 9             Milosevic sent the two men whom he could rely on for this task.

10     Stanisic would in turn bring with him the men who he had come to rely on

11     in his covert operations in the rest of Bosnia, the Special Units of the

12     Serbian DB led by Colonel Bozovic, Legija, Captain Dragan, and Arkan.

13     They established their headquarters in Mount Petrova Gora in the Krajina.

14             The diary depicted here on slide 120 is one of the commanders in

15     the Pauk operation and shows a number of references to Mr. Simatovic and

16     one of several references to Mr. Stanisic.  We can also find references

17     to Mr. Stanisic in the recently acquired diary of Ratko Mladic from this

18     period.

19             On the 6th of April, 1995, Mladic met with General Perisic,

20     Jovica Stanisic, and others in Belgrade to discuss the situation in

21     Bihac.  As shown here on slide 121, Jovica Stanisic described the support

22     given to both Fikret Abdic and Milan Martic and more importantly said:

23             "I sent 150 men from Slavonia through Pauk."

24             The Special Units of the Serbian DB were to join forces with the

25     Serbian Krajina army as well as Abdic's men.

Page 1523

 1                           [Video-clip played]

 2             MR. GROOME:  Two of the three tactical groups formed with these

 3     joint forces would be under the direct command of the Special Units of

 4     the Serbian DB.  The second tactical group would be placed under Legija's

 5     command.  And the third tactical group would be placed under the command

 6     of Colonel Rajo Bozovic.  The Skorpions were part of Legija's tactical

 7     group.

 8             The Skorpions were first formed after the fall of Vukovar,

 9     following a request by the Djeletovci oil company to Milan Milovanovic, a

10     minister of the SAO SBWS - its commander Slobodan Medic, also known as

11     Boca.  The unit's task was to protect the oil fields in the Djeletovci, a

12     task at times shared with Arkan's men.  The unit grew quickly to include

13     several hundred men.  The Serbian DB provided the Skorpions with

14     significant equipment and paid the salaries of its members in cash.

15     Approximately 30 per cent of its members had been trained in one of the

16     Serbian DB training camps in Kula, Mount Tara, Lipovaca, and Golubic.

17     Its members were also issued with identification papers, identifying them

18     as Serbian DB members.  Milanovic was the intermediary between Medic,

19     Simatovic, and Stanisic.  In 1996 after the war some members of the unit

20     would remain in the service of the Serbian DB and join the JSO.

21             The two men that you see in this video on slide 122 are Legija,

22     who you have already heard much about, and Slobodan Medic, the man who

23     gave the direct order to kill the six captives in Trnovo.

24             The video is long and I will not ask the Chamber to look at all

25     the relevant parts now, but in one segment you will hear Legija deciding

Page 1524

 1     what to do with captured Muslims.  His decision, as you might expect, is

 2     consistent with his treatment of non-Serbs in other areas of the

 3     conflict.  Mr. Simatovic would mention this involvement in Pauk in his

 4     May 1997 speech in Kula when he said:

 5             "In Western Bosnia, the unit was the backbone of Fikret Abdic's

 6     army."

 7             The Pauk operation lasted until August 1995.

 8             Let me now take you back to Eastern Bosnia, July of 1995.  The

 9     Bosnian Serbs decided to overtake the UN protected area of Srebrenica.

10     By the end of July, nearly 8.000 Muslim boys and men would be summarily

11     executed.  Not all of the murders were committed in the immediate

12     vicinity of Srebrenica.

13             In addition to their presence in the Bihac pocket, Special Units

14     of the Serbian DB were also present in Central Bosnia.  The story of the

15     involvement of the Serbian DB in what happened in Srebrenica began about

16     a month before the massacre.  In late June the Serbian MUP was active in

17     rounding up Serb men who were believed to be avoiding their military

18     service.  Slide 123 is a document recording this.  Morale of the Serb

19     soldiers at this stage was very low.  There was a high incidence of

20     desertion.

21             Many of these men crossed into Serbia to stay with family or to

22     hide among the crowds in Serbia's cities.  In this particular document,

23     Tomislav Kovac, the deputy minister, reports that on June 23rd he has

24     handed over to the VRS in excess of 1.500 men taken into custody in

25     Serbia and turned over to the RS MUP.  Even with this operation to compel

Page 1525

 1     able-bodied men to go to the front lines in Bosnia, Mladic and Karadzic

 2     were still woefully in need of additional troops.

 3             In late June of 1995 a meeting was held at the MUP Serbia to

 4     decide upon a response to a request for assistance that had been made by

 5     the Government of Republika Srpska.  In a meeting attended by Arkan and

 6     Slobodan Medic, the decision was taken that members of the Special Units

 7     of the Serbian DB under the command of a member, Vaso Mijovic, a senior

 8     commander in the Special Units, would go to Bosnia and help fight the

 9     Bosnian army.

10             Only a few days later on the 30th of June, 1995,

11     Slobodan Milosevic met with Ratko Mladic, Fikret Abdic, and Mile Mrksic

12     in Belgrade.  Also present was Milosevic's most trusted subordinate:

13     Jovica Stanisic.  Again, General Mladic made notes about this meeting.

14     They discussed the support to be given to the Republika Srpska and

15     Slobodan Milosevic specifically asked Stanisic to solve the logistic

16     problems.

17             In response, Jovica Stanisic proposed to send more men in

18     addition to the men he had already provided; 80 men from Erdut, namely

19     Arkan's men; and 80 men from Djeletovci, namely the Skorpions.  Slide 124

20     shows an entry from Mladic's diary regarding this.

21             I would now draw your attention to slide 125 and would like to

22     return to a portion of the Skorpion videotape that shows their arrival on

23     the 26th of June.

24                           [Video-clip played]

25             MR. GROOME:  After the religious ceremony I showed you at the

Page 1526

 1     start of this opening, a ceremony which took place in Djeletovci, this

 2     large group travelled to Pale in a Serb-controlled area just outside of

 3     Sarajevo.  As you can see in the excerpt of a report at the bottom of

 4     slide 125, an RS MUP report records their arrival and their planned

 5     deployment to the Trnovo battle-field the next day.

 6             The map on slide 126 --

 7             [French on English channel]

 8             MR. GROOME:  The map on slide 126 shows the relationship between

 9     Pale, Trnovo, Sarajevo, and Jahorina.  The ski resort in Jahorina was

10     used as the command post.  During the course of the trial you will get a

11     sense of the size of this operation by seeing the many paramilitaries

12     gathered in Jahorina.  One of the ways we can track the presence of the

13     Special Units of the Serbian DB is that they sustained significant and

14     regular casualties in the Trnovo area.  Slide number 127 shows a chart of

15     some of the documents that the Prosecution will introduce establishing

16     that throughout this period Special Units of the Serbian DB were present.

17             Another senior member of the Special Units I would like to

18     introduce you to is Vaso Mijovic.  It was him that commanded the Special

19     Units while they were operating in Trnovo.  When Srebrenica fell on the

20     11th of July, a column of 10.000 to 15.000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys

21     fled.  The column was hit by Bosnian Serb artillery on the 12th, and

22     those who survived the artillery barrage, several thousand, were

23     captured.  These prisoners were systematically executed at a variety of

24     places between the 13th and 17th of July, 1995.  Some of the captured

25     were distributed for execution outside the Srebrenica area.

Page 1527

 1     Approximately 15 captives were given to the Skorpions as their complement

 2     of detainees to be killed.  Some of these prisoners were delivered to the

 3     Skorpions at their base in Trnovo.

 4             Slide 129 shows a report of Mijovic on the official letter-head

 5     of the Special Units of the Serbian DB, at this stage officially called

 6     the Unit for Anti- Terrorist Operations or JATD.  On the 19th of July,

 7     Mijovic notifies his counterparts in the Republika Srpska Ministry of

 8     Internal Affairs that he was ordered to pull back from the zone of combat

 9     to "undertake other assignments."  What those assignments were the report

10     does not say.  We do know that this is around the period in which the six

11     captives were killed.

12             Slobodan Medic and a group of Skorpions put six of the captives

13     in a truck and drove them to an isolated area near Trnovo to kill them.

14     Medic ordered that what they were about to do be videotaped.  Slide 130

15     contains a short excerpt of that video.  It does not include the actual

16     executions.

17                           [Video-clip played]

18             MR. GROOME:  The Skorpions shouted abuse at the prisoners, kicked

19     them -- kicked them and taunted the youngest boy that he would die a

20     virgin.  The six almost certainly knew that they were about to die.  They

21     were made to wait while the truck driver went into town to get a newly

22     charged battery for the camcorder.  Once the camcorder was ready, four of

23     the prisoners were made to stand in a line while the other two were

24     forced to lay in the grass.  The four standing up were then shot one by

25     one.  After the first was shot in the back, the others were made to walk

Page 1528

 1     to the spot where the previous victim had just fallen to stand and wait.

 2     As some of the victims twitched in the grass, additional shots were fired

 3     into their heads to ensure that they would not survive.  The two who had

 4     been forced to lie in the grass were made to carry the bodies into a

 5     nearby house.  The Skorpions then shot and killed the two remaining men.

 6             In this report of the 24th of July, 1995, shown on slide 131, we

 7     can tell by this rotation report that the Skorpions returned to their

 8     regular duties.  Here the staff commanders remarks that the rotation of

 9     troops between the Banja Luka special police and the Skorpions has gone

10     smoothly.

11             It is the Prosecution's case, as summarised here on slide 132,

12     that the Skorpions were one of the units of the Serbian DB and that the

13     accused are criminally responsible for killing of the three men and three

14     boys in Trnovo.  In this case, these members of the units of the DB under

15     the command of a senior DB officer, Vaso Mijovic, were made available to

16     Karadzic, Mladic, and other core members of the joint criminal enterprise

17     to perpetrate crimes in furtherance of their common criminal purpose.

18             Around the same time-period, Arkan was in the municipality of

19     Sanski Most.  He was there primarily to frighten deserters from the

20     Bosnian Serb army into holding the front lines against the Croatian

21     forces who were by now re-taking some of the territory lost to the Serbs

22     in 1992.  We can see from this report in slide 134 that Mr. Stanisic is

23     in direct contact with Arkan on these matters.  While in the municipality

24     of Sanski Most, a place that after 1992 had a few Muslims left, Arkan

25     engaged once again in his characteristically brutal crimes.  His presence

Page 1529

 1     there was part of a larger Serbian DB operation that encompassed not only

 2     Sanski Most but Mrkonjic Grad, Kljuc, and Prijedor.  This coordinated

 3     mission involved the Special Units of the Serbian DB commanded by

 4     Rajo Bozovic; Arkan's Tigers were under his command.

 5             In mid-1995 advances by the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina threatened

 6     to re-take Sanski Most from the Serbs.  To prevent this, Arkan's Tigers

 7     were sent to Sanski Most.  On the 19th of September, Arkan's men arrived

 8     in large numbers and rounded up any remaining Muslims they could find.

 9     They were imprisoned in the Hotel Sanus in appalling conditions, 30 of

10     them were kept in the hotel's small boiler room, a room from which they

11     were occasionally removed in order to be beaten.  Two detainees died from

12     this brutality.

13             On September 20th, 1995, Arkan's Tigers took at least 12 men from

14     the Hotel Sanus to a house in the nearby village.  There the men were

15     shot two at a time in the back of the head.  The last two victims had

16     their throats slashed when Arkan's men ran out of bullets.

17             On the 21st of September, Arkan's Tigers took another group of

18     approximately 65 Muslims where they were executed in a similar manner.

19             Several days later several hundred Muslim detainees were placed

20     on a bus and expelled from Sanski Most.

21             One month later, on the 23rd of October, 1995, following the

22     events in Sanski Most, Radovan Karadzic would publicly give an award to

23     Arkan.  He was now leaving Bosnia.  His work now complete.  It is ironic

24     that his presence in Bosnia would end in front of the very town hall in

25     Bijeljina where it had begun.  I would turn your attention to slide

Page 1530

 1     number 135 while I play this video.

 2                           [Video-clip played]

 3             THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "For the guard and for you as

 4     commander of the guard.

 5             "Thank you very much, Mr. President.

 6             "With a lot of gratitude for your presence here.  It's not the

 7     end.  This is --

 8             "Thank you very much.  Would you like to address the guard."

 9             MR. GROOME:  It is the Prosecution's case -- it is the

10     Prosecution's case that the accused are criminally responsible for the

11     crimes committed in Sanski Most because Arkan was a co-member in the

12     joint criminal enterprise and a member of the Serbian DB units.  The

13     accused provided Arkan with some of the support and military supplies he

14     needed to perpetrate these crimes.  It is also the Prosecution's theory

15     that they are responsible, having made members of the Special Units of

16     the Serbian DB available to other members of the joint criminal

17     enterprise, in this case Radovan Karadzic, who directed them to

18     perpetrate crimes in furtherance of the common criminal purpose.

19             After NATO finally struck some Bosnian Serb positions, Mladic's

20     troops took UN peacekeepers hostage in June 1995 and placed them as human

21     shields on potential targets.  Milosevic, immediately recognising the

22     jeopardy this placed Serbia in before the international community sent

23     Stanisic to intervene, to go with Simatovic, and with the full authority

24     of Milosevic to return with the hostages unharmed.

25             The Prosecution does not deny Mr. Stanisic or Mr. Simatovic any

Page 1531

 1     of the honour or respect they have earned and deserve in this display of

 2     courage, freeing the hostages and perhaps even saving their lives.

 3     Should the Court find them guilty of crimes after this trial, the

 4     Prosecution will join the Defence in submitting that their deeds during

 5     the hostage crisis merits consideration by the Chamber in assessing an

 6     appropriate sentence.

 7             It is the Prosecution's case, however - and there can be no

 8     mistake regarding this - the authority Mr. Stanisic and Mr. Simatovic

 9     commanded that day, the day they decided to use their authority and their

10     ability to save lives, is tragically the very same authority and the very

11     same ability that they had used more often over the prior four years to

12     take lives, to persecute innocents, to drive people from their homes.

13             The reason Mr. Milosevic sent them there during the hostage

14     crisis, one of the most tense and volatile events during the war, when

15     all the eyes of the world were fixed on what might happen to these

16     UN peacekeepers, the reason he sent them there was because they, like no

17     one else, had the capacity to walk in among this madness and come out

18     with the hostages unharmed.

19             I would like now to turn to the indictment itself and offer a

20     brief explanation of the charges and the Prosecution's theory of the

21     case.

22             The indictment charges both accused with crimes against humanity

23     in violation of Article 5 of the Tribunal's Statute and violations of the

24     laws and customs of war, in violation of Article 3 of the Statute.

25             Slide 137 is a summary of the indictment against Mr. Stanisic and

Page 1532

 1     Mr. Simatovic.

 2             The crimes against humanity are enumerated in Counts 1, 2, 4,

 3     and 5 of the indictment and are respectively:  Count 1, the crime of

 4     persecution in violation of Article 5(h); Count 2, murder in violation of

 5     Article 5(a); Count 4, deportation in violation of 5(d); and finally

 6     forcible transfer, one of the inhumane acts prohibited under Article 5(i)

 7     of the Statute.

 8             The crime of murder is also charged as a violation of the laws

 9     and customs of war and it is charged in Count 3 which charges murder as

10     recognised by Common Article 3(1)(a) of the Geneva Conventions of 1949

11     and punishable under Article 3 of the Tribunal's Statute.

12             It is the Prosecution's case that the accused are individually

13     criminally responsible for these crimes pursuant to Article 7(1) of the

14     Tribunal's Statute in that they participated in these crimes with the

15     requisite intent in the following ways:

16             They committed the crimes as members of and participated in a

17     joint criminal enterprise whose goal and purpose was to perpetrate these

18     crimes; they participated in the planning of these crimes; they ordered

19     some of the crimes in this indictment; they aided and abetted in the

20     planning, preparation, and execution of the crimes charged in this

21     indictment.  Further, that with the requisite mens rea they aided and

22     abetted in the planning, preparation, and execution of the crimes.

23             It is the Prosecution's case that both accused were part of and

24     helped form a joint criminal enterprise, a criminal enterprise conceived

25     at the highest levels of the Government of the Republic of Serbia along

Page 1533

 1     with core members from the affected regions in Croatia and Bosnia and

 2     Herzegovina, an enterprise that conceived of and implemented a criminal

 3     plan designed to secure exclusively for Serbs land lying in Croatia and

 4     Bosnia-Herzegovina.  To acquire these targeted territories this criminal

 5     enterprise would envisage the large and rapid removal of the non-Serb

 6     population by the perpetration of the crimes of murder and persecution.

 7             Crimes of this magnitude are always the product of a collective,

 8     a large group of people who work together to realise their common

 9     criminal purpose.  The intent to commit the crimes charged in this

10     indictment can be found in all levels of the organisations that were

11     involved in their commission.  This case will focus on the highest

12     echelon of those co-perpetrators, the most senior participants.

13             It is the Prosecution's position that at all times relevant to

14     this case these core members shared the intent to remove non-Serbs from

15     designated parts of Croatia and Bosnia through murder and persecutory

16     acts.  The glue that bound them together, that harmonised their

17     individual contributions, that ensured that they worked in unison toward

18     a common goal was the shared criminal intent.

19             The jurisprudence of joint criminal enterprise has evolved to

20     recognise that such criminal enterprises may come to take several forms,

21     as shown on slide number 140.  These different forms reflect the nuances

22     between the different ways in which co-perpetrators can join, conceive

23     of, and implement their criminal plans.

24             While the actus reus of each of these forms is essentially

25     identical, they are distinguished based upon their mental element or mens

Page 1534

 1     rea.

 2             The evidence you will hear in this case is consistent with two

 3     forms of joint criminal enterprise.

 4             JCE 1, which is sometimes referred to as the basic form,

 5     conceives of criminal responsibility for members of a criminal enterprise

 6     engaged in a common criminal agreement to commit a specific crime.  While

 7     each member may carry out a different role in the commission of the

 8     crime, they nonetheless each intend for that specific crime to be

 9     committed and contribute to it.

10             This is to be contrasted with JCE 3, sometimes referred to as the

11     extended form, in which the crime charged, while not part of the

12     originally intended crime, is nonetheless a natural and foreseeable

13     consequence of the implementation of that criminal purpose.

14             With respect to this case, firstly, most importantly, and the

15     principal legal theory of the Prosecution is that Jovica Stanisic and

16     Franko Simatovic were members of the core group of co-perpetrators that

17     conceived of the crimes contained in this indictment.  At all times

18     relevant to these charges they had the shared intent to forcibly remove

19     non-Serbs from designated areas in an effort to effect fundamental

20     demographic changes in the population.  The intent that they shared was

21     not only to forcibly remove these targeted groups of non-Serbs, but they

22     shared the intent to kill them and to persecute them as a means to

23     realise their goals.

24             How do we know that they shared this intent?  There will be much

25     evidence from which the Chamber may conclude that the two accused shared

Page 1535

 1     the criminal intent of other core members such as Martic, Karadzic,

 2     Hadzic, Mladic.  I will confine myself to a single example now.

 3             In Zvornik fighters belonging to Seselj, Arkan, and a group

 4     called the Yellow Wasps, the Vukovic brothers, were all engaged in the

 5     commission of serious crimes there.  You will hear evidence that the

 6     Yellow Wasps were investigated by Mr. Stanisic, by the Serbian State

 7     Security, and subsequently arrested by the Serbian Ministry of Internal

 8     Affairs.  They were ultimately prosecuted in a Serbian court for crimes

 9     they committed in Bosnia and were sentenced to jail terms.  While it was

10     proper to investigate and arrest the Vukovic brothers, the question that

11     is raised is:  Why wasn't similar action taken against Seselj's men or

12     Arkan's men?  Not only was action not taken but you will be presented

13     with evidence that the crimes they committed after Bijeljina and Zvornik

14     were facilitated and supported by the two accused.  It is the

15     Prosecution's case that the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn

16     from this is that Arkan and Seselj were among -- that Arkan and Seselj

17     were among the core members of the JCE and that Stanisic and Simatovic

18     shared their intent to perpetrate the crimes in Zvornik.

19             The evidence is also consistent with what is commonly referred to

20     as joint criminal enterprise 3.  The two accused as well as the other

21     core members of the joint criminal enterprise shared the intent to

22     forcibly remove non-Serbs from designated areas.

23             Under this theory even absent a finding that the accused shared

24     the intent to murder and persecute Muslim and Croats, they would remain

25     liable if they shared the intent to forcibly remove these non-Serbs and

Page 1536

 1     they willingly accepted the proximate and foreseeable risk that this

 2     forcible removal of people would result in the commission of murders and

 3     persecutions.

 4             In the context of this case, the accused having joined with

 5     others possessing the shared intent of forcibly transferring people from

 6     their homes bear individual criminal responsibility for the crimes of

 7     persecution and murder which are reasonably foreseeable.

 8             The Prosecution will establish with compelling evidence that over

 9     the course of the duration of the joint criminal enterprise statements by

10     other participants in the criminal plan and reports in the media of the

11     notorious crimes made it abundantly clear to the two accused that the

12     campaign of ethnic cleansing unleashed their plan -- unleashed by their

13     plan involved the strong probability and in time the certainty that

14     murder and persecution would result from it, and with that full

15     awareness, they willingly proceeded knowingly assuming the risk that such

16     grave crimes would occur.

17             As I have previously said, the actus reus for JCE 1 and JCE 3

18     are, except for slight nuances --

19             THE INTERPRETER:  Thank you for slowing down.

20             MR. GROOME:  I'm sorry.  First, that there be a plurality of

21     persons.  Given the large collective nature of these crimes, we can in

22     practical terms only identify for you and present evidence regarding

23     those members we believe to be the core members of the joint criminal

24     enterprise.  These are the people indicated on the chart we have used

25     several times over the course of this opening.

Page 1537

 1             The second actus reus element is the existence of a common

 2     purpose which amounts to or involves the commission of a crime under this

 3     Statute.  It is the Prosecution's case that each of the crimes charged in

 4     this indictment was a purpose of the joint criminal enterprise.

 5             The third actus reus element is that the accused participate in

 6     furtherance of the common criminal design in a manner that assists in its

 7     achievement, contributes to it, materially helps its execution in a

 8     significant way.

 9             I will now in a very summary fashion using slide 143 to identify

10     the acts of participation which the Prosecution allege incur criminal

11     liability for Mr. Stanisic and Mr. Simatovic.

12             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Groome, constantly the interpreters, both French

13     and B/C/S, are approximately one or two lines behind.  Give them an

14     opportunity to take a breath now and then.  That will certainly be

15     appreciated.

16             MR. GROOME:  Yes, Your Honour.

17             JUDGE ORIE:  Please proceed.

18             MR. GROOME:  With respect to the Krajina, it is the Prosecution's

19     case that their efforts to organise, finance, train, and equip Martic's

20     men and army, thereby enabling them to perpetrate the serious crimes they

21     did against the non-Serb population of the Krajina, was an act of

22     participation in the overall joint criminal enterprise.

23             Similarly, with respect to the SAO SBWS, it is the Prosecution's

24     case that the accused's acts of participation in the joint criminal

25     enterprise were in part financing and equipping Arkan and his men who

Page 1538

 1     directly perpetrated the crimes.  With respect to both the Krajina and

 2     the SAO SBWS, Mr. Stanisic and Simatovic gave direction to the local

 3     political leaders, including Martic, Babic, and Hadzic to ensure that

 4     their political activities also advanced the goals of the common criminal

 5     purpose.

 6             Finally, even if after the conclusion of this case the Chamber

 7     has a reasonable doubt about whether Mr. Stanisic and Mr. Simatovic

 8     directly funded and equipped Arkan, you would still -- they would still

 9     be responsible for his crimes, the crimes of another co-member in a joint

10     criminal enterprise, if the Chamber was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt

11     that they were in fact part of the same joint criminal enterprise.

12             With respect to the Bosnian municipalities that Mr. Stanisic and

13     Mr. Simatovic had a role in their take-over in 1992, it is the

14     Prosecution's contention that their culpable acts of participation in the

15     JCE included:  Planning the attacks; providing training, arms, equipment,

16     and funding; and in some instances, they also arranged military transport

17     for the direct perpetrators of the crimes.

18             In the event the Chamber finds that the evidence does not permit

19     an inference that they directed immediate perpetrators of these crimes

20     and in fact that it was Bosnian Serb leaders alone who directed them to

21     commit crimes, the Prosecution's case would be that placing these men and

22     this equipment at the disposal of another core member of the JCE to use

23     to advance the criminal purpose of the JCE also incurs liability.

24             With respect to Trnovo, their acts of participation include

25     deploying the Skorpions which, it is the Prosecution's case, were part of

Page 1539

 1     the Special Units.  Also, if the evidence does not suggest that they

 2     personally knew of the killings of the six males, it is the Prosecution's

 3     case that by placing their men at the disposal of other members of the

 4     JCE, in this case Mladic and Karadzic, also incurs to them liability for

 5     the crimes they committed under the direction of these other core

 6     members.

 7             With respect to Sanski Most, as you request see on slide 145, the

 8     Prosecution's case is similar to our case with respect to other crimes

 9     perpetrated in Bosnia.

10             Finally, Your Honours, in such a large collective crime, the

11     jurisprudence of the Tribunal in the Brdjanin appeal judgement recognised

12     that those most responsible for these serious crimes are also those most

13     removed from them.  It considers that those high-level members of the

14     enterprise can and do use others to directly perpetrate the crimes they

15     intend, and as such bear individual criminal responsibility.  Under this

16     theory, the core members of the joint criminal enterprise, sharing a

17     common intent to remove non-Serbs used others to directly advance their

18     criminal goals.

19             Those they used may or may not have also shared their intent, but

20     this theory holds that even absent proof of a shared intent with these

21     perpetrators, the accused are criminally responsible because they

22     employed these people as instrumentalities of their criminal plan.

23             To give you an example from this case, I remind you about what we

24     have already said about Bosanski Samac.

25             When it became necessary, Jovica Stanisic would personally

Page 1540

 1     intervene to have one of the primary perpetrators released, a man named

 2     Crni, so that he could return to Samac and continue his crimes.

 3             Did Crni and Stanisic share the same intent?  Probably, but even

 4     absent a finding that they did share the same intent, Mr. Stanisic and

 5     Mr. Simatovic bear responsibility for the crimes of Crni if the Court

 6     finds that Crni was used as an instrumentality of the joint criminal

 7     enterprise to perpetrate its objectives.

 8             It is the Prosecution's case that Mr. Stanisic and Mr. Simatovic

 9     are responsible for and participated in the crimes charged in several

10     ways as set out in the indictment and the pre-trial brief.  It is not our

11     case that each crime relied on only one mode of participation.  Given the

12     size of the Special Units and the breadth of Stanisic's and Simatovic's

13     activities, it is most often the case that in any one criminal event

14     their involvement in these crimes can be discerned in more than one way.

15             The indictment also alleges that the two accused planned the

16     crimes charged.  It is the Prosecution's position that Stanisic's and

17     Simatovic's establishment of 26 training camps, provision of instructors,

18     supply of military weapons and logistical equipment to the direct

19     perpetrators of the crimes is evidence upon which the Chamber could

20     reasonably conclude they engaged in acts of planning as defined by the

21     jurisprudence of this Tribunal.

22             The Chamber will recall slide number 42.  In the Krajina, someone

23     by the name of Milojevic referring to things going according to "training

24     plan."  You will also recall the statement of Vojislav Seselj in which he

25     identifies Mr. Simatovic as the mastermind behind the plan for the

Page 1541

 1     take-over of Zvornik.

 2             Ordering.  According to the jurisprudence of this Tribunal,

 3     ordering concerns a person in a position of authority using that position

 4     to persuade another to commit an offence under the Statute.  The order

 5     can be explicit or implicit and can be proved with circumstantial

 6     evidence.  It is the Prosecution's case that the evidence will support a

 7     conclusion by the Chamber that Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic sent

 8     Arkan to the several municipalities in the indictment where he committed

 9     crimes.  And even if they did not explicitly tell him to commit the

10     crimes of murder and persecution, in the context of their knowledge that

11     everywhere he went he committed these crimes, the only conclusion that

12     can be drawn is that their directing him to a particular location with a

13     non-Serb population was an implied order to perpetrate the crimes of

14     murder and persecution there.

15             I will not spend any time discussing aiding and abetting at this

16     stage.  All of the acts the Prosecution attributes to Stanisic and

17     Simatovic could be the basis of participation as an aider and abettor.

18             Your Honours, in the indictment the Prosecution alleges that the

19     accused committed these crimes by their acts and omissions.  I would like

20     to take just a few minutes to expound on what is meant by that phrase.

21             The word "omission" actually has two distinct meanings according

22     to the jurisprudence of the Tribunal.  One use of omission is as a form

23     of criminal liability; the other use is a description of a factual

24     situation from which inferences can be drawn.  Omission as a legal form

25     of ideal liability imagines a situation in which an accused has a legal

Page 1542

 1     duty toward the victim.  For example, a legal duty to protect.  It is not

 2     the Prosecution's case that Mr. Stanisic or Simatovic had an affirmative

 3     legal duty to ensure the welfare of the victims of crimes in Croatia and

 4     Bosnia.

 5             Omission as it applies to a factual determination from which

 6     inferences can be drawn is how the Prosecution uses the word "omission"

 7     in this case.

 8             For example, if over the course of this case the Chamber takes a

 9     view of the evidence that despite receiving information about the crimes

10     which were being committed as a result of their contribution to the joint

11     criminal enterprise and that in the face of that knowledge they failed to

12     take any corrective measures such as instructing the members of the

13     Special Units to refrain from criminal conduct, then the Court is

14     entitled to draw the reasonable inference that such omission constituted

15     encouragement, material support to the direct perpetrators of the crimes,

16     because they were emboldened by the failure of Stanisic and Simatovic to

17     take any corrective action.

18             You have seen a video of Arkan on the veranda of his shop in the

19     middle of Belgrade state publicly that he kills his prisoners.  You will

20     hear other evidence that he and his men were a regular sight in Belgrade.

21     They moved openly, dressed in uniform, carrying military weapons, often

22     in cars with tigers painted on the hood.

23             His ability to travel freely around Belgrade under the nose of

24     Stanisic, whose legal responsibility, if you recall, included the control

25     of extremist groups; Arkan's confidence in his own impunity, a result of

Page 1543

 1     Mr. Stanisic's failure to ever take action against him, materially

 2     advanced the crimes Arkan committed in addition to the accused's positive

 3     acts of directing and supporting Arkan's crimes.

 4             Your Honours, this brings to a conclusion the Prosecution's

 5     summary of its evidence and overview of why it alleges that

 6     Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic are criminally responsible for the

 7     crimes charged in the indictment.

 8             I thank you for your time and attention.  As we prepare to call

 9     our first witness later this month, I give the Chamber as well as

10     Mr. Stanisic and Mr. Simatovic my assurance and the assurance of

11     Mr. Brammertz that the Prosecution will conduct its case according to the

12     highest standards of fairness and justice, enabling this Chamber to reach

13     a fair and just adjudication of the charges against the accused.

14             Thank you, Your Honours.

15             JUDGE ORIE:  Thank you, Mr. Groome.

16             There apparently was one contested issue.  Mr. Jovanovic, I think

17     it would be wise that -- one way or another that you agree with the

18     Prosecution on what is still part of the indictment or not, and if it

19     would assist you -- let me just have a look whether I still have it

20     somewhere.  In the decision, I think it was a decision of April 2007,

21     wherein the ten incidents were struck and not to be led any evidence,

22     there -- of course it clearly says that we still have Counts 1, 4, and 5

23     which are broader.  So therefore -- and of course we find especially

24     under 4 and 5 we have Bijeljina mentioned.  So to say nothing in

25     Bijeljina is part of the indictment anymore -- if that is your view, then

Page 1544

 1     I think we rather settle or come to conclusions in the beginning of the

 2     trial rather than at the end.  I don't know whether you want to further

 3     discuss it with Mr. Groome and Ms. Brehmeier-Metz or -- at this moment

 4     the indictment is as it is, just I encourage and urge the parties to come

 5     at least to an understanding which is not so much apart from it.

 6             So I encourage you to understand that.  And if any matter there

 7     remains, then perhaps it might be wise to address the Chamber in the

 8     early stages of the proceedings.

 9             Is there -- I was just wondering where exactly that was -- no,

10     it's not on my screen anymore, but it's the second part of the decision.

11             I don't know whether it was April or not, but the decision in

12     which it's explained what it means that the ten incidents are taken out,

13     whereas 18 remain, and there specific reference to the broader charges is

14     made in that decision.  This just as guidance for you.

15             It will be quite a while before we resume.  Is there any

16     procedural matter that we need to address at this moment before we

17     adjourn until the 29th of June?

18             MR. GROOME:  Your Honour, this was a matter I raised in an e-mail

19     to your staff earlier today, but it would be helpful for the Chamber

20     [sic] to have some idea about how the Chamber will calculate the amount

21     of time allotted for cross-examination in the scheduling of witnesses.

22     So if a witness were to take, let's say, an hour in examination-in-chief,

23     if you could give us some idea about what the cross-examination time

24     would be, it would be helpful to schedule the next witness.

25             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes.  At the same time much depends in that respect

Page 1545

 1     on whether it's a 92 bis witness, whether it's a 92 ter statement, or

 2     whether it's a viva voce witness because that makes quite a difference,

 3     but we'll pay attention to it and we'll try to give you the guidance

 4     you're asking for.  It sometimes also depends on the subject matter of

 5     the testimony.  If it's highly contested, then of course there might be a

 6     request for more time for cross-examination, whereas if it is crime base

 7     and only contested at a certain level, it might be different.  But we'll

 8     try to assist you as good as we can.

 9             Any other matter?

10             Ms. Brehmeier-Metz.

11             MS. BREHMEIER-METZ:  Yes, Your Honour had requested me to find

12     out about --

13             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, about the Deutschemarks.

14             MS. BREHMEIER-METZ:  -- the Deutschemarks of the number that was

15     mentioned on one of the slides, slide 61, and I'm happy to say that after

16     quite a bit of calculating I have come up with two numbers that I can

17     give to Your Honours.  Apparently at that point in time in late 1991,

18     there were an official currency rate and a kind of semi-official currency

19     rate.

20             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes.

21             MS. BREHMEIER-METZ:  The official one was 1 Deutschemark

22     amounting to 13 dinars, which would calculate the number given on the

23     slide to approximately 93 million Deutschemarks.  And the semi-official

24     currency rate was 33.5 dinars, which would make approximately

25     36 million Deutschemarks.  And all of that related to old Yugoslav dinars

Page 1546

 1     and not the new ones that were later established.

 2             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes.  So anything around 50 million Deutschemarks.

 3     That's -- thank you for that information.

 4             Any matter?

 5             Mr. Jordash.

 6             MR. JORDASH:  I rise really to deal with the issue of Rule 84.  I

 7     don't know if Your Honours would wish us to indicate for the record that

 8     we elect not to make an opening statement at this stage.

 9             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, that was my understanding.  From informal

10     communication with the parties, it appeared that neither Defence would

11     like to make an opening statement, which means you still have an

12     opportunity to make an opening statement after the Prosecution's case has

13     been closed.  And if there's any need to hear a Defence case.

14             MR. JORDASH:  Certainly.  And may I also for the record indicate

15     that the accused elects not a make an 84 bis statement for the same

16     reasons that he elects not to go to the video conferencing room.  I

17     thought for -- out of an abundance of caution I should put that on the

18     record.

19             JUDGE ORIE:  I would say it goes almost without saying because if

20     we have no possibility to hear him, then of course he never could address

21     the Chamber and that is the situation at this moment.

22             MR. JORDASH:  Thank you.

23             JUDGE ORIE:  If there's no other matter.

24             Mr. Jovanovic, the Chamber understood that you also would not use

25     the right to make an opening statement at this moment?

Page 1547

 1             MR. JOVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honours.  In the

 2     informal communication while we were still discussing the schedule, the

 3     Defence has informed both the OTP and the Chamber that at this point in

 4     time the accused will not be giving a statement, and there will be no

 5     opening statement either for different reasons than those given by the

 6     Defence of Mr. Stanisic.  That is our position at this point.

 7             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes.  For you, the same applies, that you can make

 8     an opening statement at a later stage.  Then still to be seen whether it

 9     would be at the same time for both Defence cases or one at the beginning

10     of the presentation of one Defence case and the other at the beginning of

11     the other, that's still to be seen.  But at this moment there is no

12     opening statement nor is there an unsworn statement under Rule 84 bis.

13             Which means that we adjourn and we will resume on Monday, the

14     29th of June, at quarter past 2.00 in this same courtroom, I.

15                           --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 5.56 p.m.,

16                           to be reconvened on Monday, the 29th day of

17                           June, 2009, at 2.15 p.m.

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