Page 3885
1 Tuesday, 13 July 2010
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 2.19 p.m.
5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Good afternoon to everybody. The witness should
6 be brought in.
7 [The witness takes the stand]
8 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Good afternoon, sir. Welcome back.
9 THE WITNESS: Good afternoon, sir.
10 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I would like to remind you that the affirmation
11 to tell the truth still applies. I hope you receive Dutch
12 interpretation.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I'm receiving it.
14 JUDGE FLUEGGE: And I think Mr. Thayer has some additional
15 questions for you.
16 Mr. Thayer.
17 MR. THAYER: Good afternoon, Mr. President. Good afternoon to
18 Your Honours. Good afternoon General Tolimir, my learned friends. Good
19 afternoon, everyone.
20 WITNESS: CORNELIS NICOLAI [Resumed]
21 [Witness answered through interpreter]
22 Examination by Mr. Thayer: [Continued]
23 Q. Good afternoon, General. We left off yesterday looking at an
24 intercept taken by the Bosnian MUP of a conversation which you recalled
25 you had with General Tolimir in the afternoon of 8 July. You recall
Page 3886
1 that, sir?
2 A. Yes, I can remember that.
3 Q. What I'd like to do next and for the next series of questions and
4 documents is review with you some reports of other telephone
5 conversations that occurred subsequent to that. These reports were
6 admitted during your testimony in the last trial so we won't dwell on
7 those much at all, but what I want to do is show you, as you and I did
8 together on Sunday, some intercepts as well as some transcripts of
9 cassette tapes which were seized during a search, and ask you whether you
10 can draw any conclusions about what you are reading with respect to the
11 conversations you had. So that's what I want to do with you for a little
12 bit of time now.
13 MR. THAYER: And if we may have P679 on e-court, please.
14 Q. Now, you spoke about this yesterday and I note that this
15 conversation occurred at 1945 hours. The OP Foxtrot is the OP from which
16 the Dutch peacekeepers were withdrawing and Private van Renssen was
17 subsequently killed, just to set the background. Is that correct, sir?
18 A. That's correct.
19 Q. And we see here that you refer to General Tolimir's promise that
20 UNPROFOR in UN positions would not be attacked and that there are two
21 other UNPROFOR positions that have been surrounded. When you refer to
22 two other UNPROFOR positions, what are you talking about?
23 A. Well, I don't remember the letters used to designate them, but
24 there were two other observation posts that were attacked.
25 Q. Okay. So we are talking about static positions in any event; is
Page 3887
1 that correct?
2 A. [In English] Yeah, that's correct. [Interpretation] Yes, that's
3 correct.
4 Q. Okay. And again I'm going to try to slow down a little bit and
5 leave a pause after your answer so we have the double interpretation
6 eased up a little bit.
7 MR. THAYER: What I'd like to look at now is P309, please. And
8 this should be under seal and not broadcast, please, Mr. President.
9 Q. Okay. We have here a Bosnian MUP intercept dated 8 July, and it
10 starts off with report number 513 at 1725 hours.
11 MR. THAYER: What I'd like to do is go to page 3 of this document
12 in e-court, which is page 2 of the B/C/S, and look at another report or
13 another intercept which was contained in this report. Thank you.
14 Q. We see here report number 515, and this reports on a conversation
15 intercepted at 1950 hours which is a five-minute difference from the
16 report that your military assistant made. If you would take a moment and
17 read what we have here in English, and when you are ready to go to the
18 second page, just let us know, please.
19 A. Yes, I'm ready. Yes, I've read it.
20 Q. Okay. On the previous page you just read, there's a reference to
21 the observation post and an attack, and then here we see X who is
22 identified as a VRS officer, according to the intercept, writing down
23 what is being said to him. And he says, "It's happening again," and then
24 later, a couple of lines down, we see him writing down a fax number and
25 noting it as fax number 5-Pirot and then 195.
Page 3888
1 General, based on your recollection of these events, can you
2 relate this intercept to any prior conversation -- or any conversations
3 you had with General Tolimir; and if so, what is this intercept about?
4 A. Yes, the first part, in my view, clearly corresponds with the
5 notes taken from the telephone conversation conducted around that time,
6 which was about the follow-up to the attack on the Foxtrot observation
7 post. The last part of the message, that doesn't relate to the notes
8 from the telephone conversation. That apparently concerns a request to
9 General Tolimir to -- to be willing to let us evacuate the remains of
10 Private Renssen, but I don't see that in the notes of the telephone
11 conversation conducted at that time.
12 Q. Okay. And for the purposes of your military assistant, what was
13 the more important information to record; the message that you
14 communicated to the VRS Main Staff about General Tolimir's promise that
15 there would be no further attack and that there was a further attack, or
16 the information about arranging for the repatriation of Private
17 van Renssen's remains?
18 A. That's a difficult question. The first, regarding the cessation
19 of hostilities, is unquestionably the most important, but in my view, we
20 also attribute tremendous importance to evacuating the remains. So if
21 that surfaced in the conversation, it would certainly have figured in the
22 notes.
23 Q. Okay. Thank you, General.
24 MR. THAYER: May we have P697, please.
25 Q. What we have here, General, and the Trial Chamber will hear more
Page 3889
1 direct testimony about these intercepts after the summer recess, is an
2 intercept taken by Croatian units at the time, and we see here a report
3 of an intercept dated 8 July at 1941 hours. Again, a few minutes
4 difference from the report done by your military assistant.
5 Would you just take a moment to read what is on the screen, and
6 when you are ready to turn the page, let us know.
7 A. Yes, I've read this page. Yes, I'm done with that.
8 Q. Okay, General. And we see that the speakers are identified here
9 as General Miciliai, and an interpreter named Svetlana. And do you
10 recall during your time at the UNPROFOR command utilising the services of
11 an interpreter named Svetlana?
12 A. Yes, very well. That was my personal interpreter who did my
13 translating in 90 per cent of the cases.
14 Q. So we see here in this intercept report Svetlana translating for
15 you; is that correct?
16 A. Yes, that's correct.
17 Q. That General Nicolai spoke to General Tolimir this afternoon
18 about the attack on the observation post.
19 MR. THAYER: If we could go back to page 1 for this, please.
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I make a brief correction to my
21 previous answer. I said that there were two permanent observation posts
22 that were attacked and that that was what the complaint was about, but
23 now I remember that Observation Post Foxtrot had been attacked, and then
24 two positions were taken nearby Observation Post Foxtrot and then they
25 were attacked afterwards. So they weren't recognisable as observation
Page 3890
1 posts, but they were positions adopted with white UN armoured vehicles.
2 MR. THAYER:
3 Q. Okay. So you have positions taken up by the APCs, and could you
4 just describe what those -- physically what those APCs look like and how
5 they are marked?
6 A. Yes, excuse me. They are armoured personnel carriers. I guess
7 they are about 10 metres long and they are big enough to transport
8 ten people. And on top, ordinarily in the Netherlands you would have a
9 25-millimetre cannon, in the Netherlands, but this was replaced with a
10 lighter weapon and these were the heavy point 50 machine-guns that I
11 mentioned yesterday, so one point 5 machine-gun was attached and the
12 gunner usually protruded above the vehicle.
13 Q. And typically what is a gunner going to be wearing on his or her
14 head, sir, when they are UN peacekeeper? Or what did the UN peacekeepers
15 in Srebrenica wear on their heads when they were in an APC?
16 A. Blue helmets.
17 Q. So now we see a reference again to encircling two UNPROFOR
18 positions, this reference to "it's happening again" that we saw earlier
19 in the MUP intercept.
20 MR. THAYER: And if we go to page 2 again, please.
21 Q. We see the VRS officer saying, "I have something for you," and
22 then taking down this fax number, P Pirot 195. Again, sir, how does this
23 correspond with your recollection of this conversation?
24 A. Well, I don't remember a request -- I don't remember a new
25 request for that evacuation but I can't exclude that there was one, I
Page 3891
1 just don't remember it.
2 Q. Okay. Let me ask you this --
3 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. The
5 Prosecutor is persistently endeavouring to portray this conversation
6 between me and General Nicolai as some conditions, but in line 14 of the
7 telegram it says, "Please inform your superiors straightaway." So this
8 was information that Nicolai gave me and not any orders or my
9 relationship because I just serve to convey information to where his
10 forces and our forces were. Now the Prosecutor is trying to portray this
11 as if I was making decisions here. Thank you.
12 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Thayer.
13 MR. THAYER: I think the document and General Nicolai's answers
14 speak for themselves, and if I may continue, Mr. President, with my
15 examination.
16 JUDGE FLUEGGE: But perhaps you can take into account what
17 Mr. Tolimir said and try to put this to the witness. Clarify the
18 situation.
19 MR. THAYER: Well, I'm not sure from General Tolimir's
20 intervention exactly where he is talking about when he asserts that at
21 line 14 it says, "Please inform your superiors straightaway." It may be
22 an issue of interpretation --
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I apologise, line 15, I meant to
24 say. Line 15.
25 MR. THAYER: I see a reference to General Nicolai, through his
Page 3892
1 interpreter, stating that:
2 "It's happening again, and I strongly protest and ask you to
3 withdraw your forces from there immediately."
4 If that's what General Tolimir is asking about, I can certainly
5 ask General Nicolai what he is referring to there.
6 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Could you please indicate where we can read it on
7 the document?
8 MR. THAYER: Sure, that's on page 1 of the English. We'll have
9 to go back to the first page. And if we -- it's probably easier just to
10 look it at the Ss, and it's the third S up from the bottom, where
11 Svetlana is translating from General Nicolai:
12 "It's happening again, and I strongly protest and ask you to
13 withdraw your forces from there immediately."
14 Q. If that's the question General Tolimir has I can certainly ask
15 General Nicolai, what were you communicating there?
16 A. Well, I was speaking about the attack on the Foxtrot Observation
17 Post and the subsequent attack on the new positions taken in the area of
18 the observation post that was attacked when I protested against the
19 attacks carried out. It made no difference, in my view, whether my
20 request or question or demand or objection was directed at
21 General Tolimir or a different spokesman at headquarters. Of course it's
22 a request I'm directing to the Bosnian Serb military headquarters and I
23 expected the person on the line to convey that to the person authorised
24 to take decisions, and I assume that to have been General Mladic. So it
25 didn't -- it wasn't that I expected General Tolimir to bring about a
Page 3893
1 cessation of these circumstances personally, I expected him to convey the
2 message to the General.
3 JUDGE FLUEGGE: General Mladic?
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I assume now in retrospect, I
5 assume that that was General Mladic at all times.
6 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Your last sentence ended with the words "to the
7 General," but we are dealing with many generals at the moment, therefore
8 I just wanted to clarify you were referring to General Mladic in that
9 case. Thank you very much for this answer and clarification.
10 Mr. Thayer, please carry on.
11 MR. THAYER:
12 Q. Now, we see here a couple of lines below that where Svetlana
13 says:
14 "The General said that this is the end of the message. Could you
15 please inform immediately your proper authorities."
16 Do you see that, General, on the screen?
17 A. Yes, I see that.
18 Q. And after one of your prior answers it occurs to me, and I'll
19 just throw this out to you, was it likely that after you delivered this
20 message you were no longer a part of this conversation and that the
21 second part having to do with the fax number was handled by somebody
22 else, or is your recollection that no, in fact you stayed for this entire
23 conversation and for some reason your MA just didn't include the second
24 part about the fax in his report?
25 A. That could be an explanation because the requests for evacuations
Page 3894
1 transmitted by fax were compiled by a different section of my staff and
2 not by me personally, so it's perfectly possible that my MA,
3 Colonel De Ruiter, went to the section concerned with the last part of
4 the message and requested that a new fax be drafted corresponding with
5 the instructions issued in this part of the conversation.
6 Q. Okay.
7 MR. THAYER: Your Honour, the Prosecution would tender 697 at
8 this time.
9 JUDGE FLUEGGE: It will be received. Mr. Thayer, are you
10 tendering 679 you used at the beginning?
11 MR. THAYER: I think 679 is already admitted as one of the
12 associated exhibits, Mr. President.
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Yes. Correct, yes, we did it yesterday. Thank
14 you.
15 MR. THAYER: May we have P696, please.
16 Q. Okay, sir, what we have here is a transcript made from a cassette
17 that was seized during searches of locations related to the search for
18 General Mladic. And we can see there's no date or time on this
19 transcript, but if you would just take a look and re-familiarise yourself
20 with the contents and when you are ready to move on, just let us know.
21 A. Yes, I've read it.
22 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. The
24 committee co-operation of Serbia with the ICTY sought that all
25 information connected with these diaries and transcripts and notebooks be
Page 3895
1 discussed in closed session. My Defence counsel and I are both citizens
2 of Serbia and I would like you to observe. This was the case in the
3 Perisic case, which has dealt with this already. Thank you.
4 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Thayer.
5 MR. THAYER: Mr. President, again my understanding and that
6 shared by Mr. McCloskey is that there have been no such conditions placed
7 on this material that was obtained during the searches, so we are ready
8 to proceed. There are no individuals identified during the -- in terms
9 of anybody that took the recordings or made the recordings. The only
10 individuals identified are people mentioned during the recordings and
11 that's General Nicolai, and here we have the other participant identified
12 as an unidentified man. So I think unless there's some specific
13 reference to a transmittal letter or some other conditions that were
14 placed on these materials that we are not aware of, we are prepared to
15 proceed because, again, I've not seen anything that has placed any
16 restrictions, Rule 70 or otherwise, on the use of this material.
17 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, can you provide the Chamber with
18 some specific information and the sources of your allegation that there
19 were some restrictions by the Serb government? It would be helpful.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The committee on the co-operation
21 between Serbia and the ICTY are the source of my statement. And in the
22 Perisic case there was a seven-day session on these documents. These
23 were held in closed session, and my source is the case law of this
24 Tribunal. If this is the case, I would like these documents not to be
25 adduced through me or my Defence counsel. Thank you.
Page 3896
1 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, that's not the source. I would like
2 to know which specific document you have in your possession which
3 contends restriction by the Serb government by using these documents? Is
4 there any specific document you have and can give to the other party and
5 to the Chamber?
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I do not receive such
7 documents as the Defence. These documents are received only by the OTP.
8 If I had some, I would have disclosed them. If the Defence counsel in
9 the case of Perisic received a document which he received from the
10 national co-operation committee, then I would make sure that my
11 assistants get one too and then I will provide you with one. That's all
12 I can say. Thank you.
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: This Chamber doesn't know anything about the
14 procedure and the background of closed session in the Perisic case. We
15 have no information of that.
16 Mr. Thayer, do you have any information in this regard?
17 MR. THAYER: I do not. Mr. McCloskey may have some he can share.
18 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. McCloskey.
19 MR. McCLOSKEY: Just briefly, Mr. President. I am sorry,
20 Judge Nyambe, I'll try to stand right here. General Perisic, as you
21 know, is a VJ general. My understanding is that there are many documents
22 that were provided by Serbia in -- to the OTP pursuant to that case and
23 they have some restrictions on some of those documents and those
24 restrictions are in place in some of the Perisic presentations by both
25 sides. These particular intercepts came with a very large group of
Page 3897
1 information from these recent searches. Different teams in different
2 cases have, as this is developed between -- the relationship between the
3 ICTY and Serbia have treated some of these documents slightly differently
4 as the situation was developing, but I'm not aware of any request on this
5 particular information. And I will, of course, again look into it, but
6 I'm not aware of any in place right now on this particular information.
7 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Perhaps that is possible while we are proceeding
8 to inquire by e-mail with other members of the OTP to find out if there
9 are any restrictions we have to follow, Mr. McCloskey.
10 MR. McCLOSKEY: Mr. President, I will check for perhaps
11 another -- I'll go right now and just double-check because it's obviously
12 a matter of concern. Thank you.
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much. That would be extremely
14 helpful. We should now proceed perhaps without broadcasting the
15 documents at the moment and we will decide later on that matter.
16 Please carry on, Mr. Thayer.
17 MR. THAYER:
18 Q. Okay. So we see from the first page here the person identified
19 as the interpreter, who is identified as calling on behalf of yourself,
20 and then passing a message that: "This afternoon I spoke to
21 General Tolimir regarding the attack on OP Foxtrot."
22 MR. THAYER: Let's turn to the second page.
23 Q. And we see at the very top, again the interpreter repeats, "This
24 afternoon I spoke with General Tolimir regarding the attack you carried
25 out at the OP near Zeleni Jadar." And if we go down to the bottom of the
Page 3898
1 page, and this will be page 2 in the B/C/S, there's a reference to you
2 saying that your forces surrounded two UNPROFOR positions located, again,
3 500 metres to the west - and if we go up to the next page in the
4 English - although General Tolimir promised that UNPROFOR will not be
5 attacked.
6 Do you see all that, sir?
7 A. Yes, I see that.
8 Q. Okay. Then in the middle of the page we see this language again,
9 "It's happening again" and a little further down the interpreter saying,
10 "The General says that this is the end of your message," or "this is the
11 end of the message," and then this language again, "I have something for
12 you" and the fax number P Pirot 195.
13 Do you see all that, sir?
14 A. Yes, I see that.
15 Q. So again how does this correspond to your recollection of your
16 conversation that day and what occurred?
17 A. What strikes me is that again this intercept basically
18 corresponds perfectly with the other intercepted message and that it
19 corresponds in part with the report that my MA compiled from the
20 telephone conversation, but my memory is the way it is. And at the start
21 of the conversation I said that the last part of the conversation about
22 submitting a new request for evacuation doesn't ring a bell, but I
23 definitely don't exclude that it took place.
24 MR. THAYER: Okay. And again just for the record, this last
25 document is not an intercept, it is a transcription of a recorded
Page 3899
1 conversation that was seized from the Mladic search. How it was created,
2 I don't want to testify, but I can tell the Trial Chamber we still don't
3 know whether this was an actual intercept or somebody just pressing
4 record in the same room with a tape recorder. We just don't know. All
5 we have is a cassette and we've made a transcript.
6 The Prosecution, Mr. President, would offer P696.
7 JUDGE FLUEGGE: It will be received.
8 MR. THAYER:
9 Q. Now, General, you've referred a few times to the, I guess for
10 lack of a better word, the logistical arrangements that needed to be made
11 to repatriate Private van Renssen's remains.
12 MR. THAYER: Let's look at P307, please. And this should be --
13 this is under seal and should not be broadcast, please.
14 Q. We have here a MUP intercept report, again dated the 8th of July.
15 This is report number 513, so it's a couple of reports before the ones we
16 looked at a moment ago. So this conversation is timed at 1725 hours and
17 if you would just take a look at this.
18 MR. THAYER: If we could scroll down just a little bit so we get
19 the whole -- there we go. Thank you very much.
20 [Prosecution counsel confer]
21 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Shall we come back to the matter Mr. Tolimir has
22 raised about how to deal with these documents.
23 Mr. McCloskey.
24 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President, as I'm sure you are aware,
25 the Prosecution's relationship with Serbia is -- can change from
Page 3900
1 day-to-day about certain issues so I thought it was a good idea, as did
2 the Court, to double-check, but I was able to confirm through both the
3 senior trial attorney of the Perisic team and through our deputy
4 Prosecutor and our main liaison with Belgrade that this particular
5 material there are no restrictions in place.
6 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much for this check and the
7 information.
8 Please carry on, Mr. Thayer.
9 MR. THAYER:
10 Q. Okay, General, you've had a chance to look at this first page.
11 We see here there's a reference to, "I wrote it down, van Renssen, with
12 two S." And a number is being written down. And if we see towards the
13 bottom, "if you could call and at 1840." And there's a reference right
14 before that, "it is now 1840" and "if you could call and at 1840." A
15 little bit of a mystery but maybe that will be clarified a little bit
16 later why somebody is saying it's now 1840 and if you could call at 1840.
17 Again we note that the time here is 1725.
18 MR. THAYER: If we just take a quick look at page 2 of the
19 English. We can stay with the first page of the original.
20 Q. We see that there is a reference here to, "Let's talk again at
21 1840 hours."
22 General, my first question to you is, do you know what this
23 conversation is about?
24 A. Yes, based on the text I infer that this was about the details of
25 the evacuation of Private Renssen, but to the extent -- I see now these
Page 3901
1 are conversations conducted not by me but by somebody who, together with
2 a representative of the Bosnian Serb Army, was arranging the details of
3 the evacuation.
4 Q. Okay. And that was my second question, was whether you were --
5 you personally were a participant in this conversation, and you've told
6 us that you were not.
7 MR. THAYER: Okay. We are done with that document which has
8 already been admitted, so I won't tender it. If we could look at P695
9 now, please.
10 Q. And again this is a transcript of one of Mladic search tapes
11 where the participants are simply identified as an interpreter, and an
12 unidentified man.
13 MR. THAYER: If we can scroll down a little bit, please.
14 Q. We can see there's a reference to, "I wrote it down van and again
15 van Renssen."
16 MR. THAYER: If we go to the next page in English, we can stay on
17 page 1 in the B/C/S. Thank you.
18 Q. We can see again there's an attempt to spell van Renssen as
19 van Renssen with two S, and then the number is given. Now, again, sir,
20 do you recall whether you were a participant in this conversation?
21 A. As far as I can judge now, this concerns the same conversation as
22 the previous one and my response is likewise, I was not a participant in
23 this conversation.
24 Q. Okay. And, sir, is there any doubt in your mind that this
25 conversation occurred in the course of trying to arrange for
Page 3902
1 Private van Renssen's remains to be repatriated?
2 A. No, it's most probable that this occurred because one of those
3 air repatriations requires extremely detailed agreements to prevent the
4 helicopter from mistakenly being shot down while in flight, so the
5 details about routes, times, and landing sites and the need to agree on
6 those, that's obvious, but it was done by others in the staff, not by me.
7 MR. THAYER: Okay. We are done with this document. The
8 Prosecution would tender P695, please.
9 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Yes, it will be received.
10 MR. THAYER: Okay. I had another similar one, but I think to
11 save time we can skip that. I don't know if that's going to create
12 problems for the whole internal Registry numbering system, but we can
13 deal with that later.
14 Q. What I'd like to do now, General, is turn to another conversation
15 you had on the 9th of July.
16 MR. THAYER: And if we could look at P682, please.
17 Q. Now, this is a document that came in an as exhibit associated
18 with your prior testimony so I don't want to spend too much time on it.
19 If you could just tell Trial Chamber what this document is about. And I
20 note for the record it's 9 July, 1230 hours.
21 A. Would you please give me time to read the bottom part of the
22 message.
23 Q. Absolutely.
24 A. Yes, I've read the entire message and I can answer your question.
25 The message opens with my expression of appreciation for the fact that
Page 3903
1 the Bosnian Serb army has -- I offered my soldiers that left the area
2 safe withdrawal to Bratunac so that the -- to prevent the recurrence of
3 an incident such as the day before the death of Raviv van Renssen, but I
4 added that I did expect my soldiers to have an opportunity to return to
5 the compound in Potocari.
6 Next General Tolimir expressed condolences regarding the death of
7 Private Renssen. At the end of the message we spoke about the removal of
8 the remains and I said that it was agreed that the body would be
9 transferred by road to Zvornik and would be picked up by helicopter
10 there, but that the transit -- that transport by local troops was
11 obstructed, and I requested General Tolimir to take measures about that.
12 And General Tolimir responded that he was not aware of the fact
13 that the transport had been obstructed and indicated that we should set
14 off again for Bratunac to Zvornik and that he would have his troops
15 notified that the convoy was allowed to pass.
16 Q. Okay. Do you remember on Sunday looking at a Bosnian MUP
17 intercept that was taken at about the same time as reflected on this
18 document?
19 A. Yes, I remember that.
20 Q. And do you remember whether you were able to conclude based on
21 reading that intercept whether that bore any relationship to this report
22 that we see on the screen?
23 A. Yes. It was virtually an exact reflection of what is indicated
24 in this report as well.
25 Q. And do you recall also reviewing a transcript of a cassette
Page 3904
1 recording that was seized during the Mladic searches of a conversation,
2 and were you able to conclude whether that transcript bore any
3 relationship to the report we see on the screen right now?
4 A. Yes, the same holds true for that as for the previous intercept.
5 MR. THAYER: Okay. Mr. President, just to save a little bit of
6 time, rather than going through those two documents, I'll just leave that
7 for another witness down the line and submissions. I don't think we need
8 to necessarily go through that exercise for those exhibits.
9 Now may we take a look at P680, please.
10 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Thayer, are you tendering P682?
11 MR. THAYER: 682, I believe, is already an associated exhibit
12 that is -- has been received already. If not, then I would tender it.
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: You are perfectly right as always. Thank you.
14 MR. THAYER: I'll make sure my wife hears that, Mr. President.
15 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I was only referring to exhibit numbers. I don't
16 want to interfere with family matters.
17 MR. THAYER: If we may have P -- I see it's there on the screen.
18 Okay.
19 Q. General, again we have a report of a telephone conversation,
20 9 July at 1750 hours. If you would just take a moment.
21 MR. THAYER: And if we could scroll down just a little bit so the
22 whole document can be read. Thank you very much.
23 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. This
25 document has two different dates. On the left-hand side it says the
Page 3905
1 9th of July, and in my native tongue, Serbian, it says the 20th of
2 August, 1995. Thank you. 12th of August. Was this a fax document or
3 what? Because it says the 9th of July, 1995, at the bottom, whereas at
4 the top on the right-hand side it says the 12th of August.
5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Can we please have the top --
6 MR. THAYER: Just need to scroll up a little bit.
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I could explain the difference.
8 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Please scroll up. Scroll up.
9 MR. THAYER: The other way, thank you. Perfect.
10 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Also in B/C/S, please.
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The date 9 July refers to the date
12 of the telephone conversation. The date 12 August is the date that this
13 message at the request of my Ministry of Defence was transmitted from
14 Sarajevo to the Ministry of Defence in The Hague. They were busy
15 gathering documents concerning the fall of Srebrenica at that point.
16 MR. THAYER:
17 Q. Okay. Now, we can see in the first paragraph here that you
18 expressed your deep concern about the situation which was developing in
19 the enclave of Srebrenica, and that you told General Tolimir that the
20 VRS troops had penetrated through the demilitarised zone for more than
21 4 kilometres and that the front troops were only 1 kilometre away from
22 the town of Srebrenica.
23 What was the purpose of your telephone call at this time, sir?
24 A. The purpose was to my -- and when I say "my," I mean to express
25 the concern of my superiors regarding the constantly deteriorating
Page 3906
1 circumstances in the Srebrenica enclave. The Bosnian Serb troops kept
2 penetrating further into the enclave and were attacking more and more
3 observation posts and had approached to 1 kilometre away from Srebrenica,
4 which was about to fall. The BiH troops were certainly not in a position
5 to stop this. Any heavy weaponry in the enclave of their army was still
6 stored in the weapons collection point, so the situation that had arisen
7 was particularly threatening also for the local population, and I've
8 indicated that at this point DutchBat was forced to act to protect the
9 population in the enclave.
10 I basically demanded that General Tolimir had the troops ordered
11 to withdraw to the borders of the enclave, and General Tolimir promised
12 that he would check that information. In my view, that basically means
13 that he denied that that situation existed or at the very least that he
14 was unaware of it when we are talking about an attack that already
15 started on 8 July -- wait a minute, earlier, on 6 July the first acts of
16 violence started, and from that Wednesday up until Sunday, 9 July, they
17 had been in progress. With the information means available to that army
18 and routines they have for submitting reports, it sounded most improbable
19 to me that General Tolimir was unaware of the situation.
20 Q. And if we look at the last paragraph here on the first page, what
21 did -- what else did General Tolimir tell you?
22 A. He would transmit the information to his people in the field
23 although he didn't believe it was true. He asked me to ring back in half
24 an hour, and in the meantime, he indicated that, as far as he knew, the
25 withdrawal of -- it says here Casevac mission, which is basically
Page 3907
1 withdrawing injured, but in this case it was withdrawal of human remains,
2 he indicated that that had been completed because the body was in Zvornik
3 or had been transported to Zvornik, had been transported to the stadium
4 in Zvornik, and the helicopter was already en route from Tuzla to
5 Zvornik.
6 General Tolimir would have his people instructed not to use their
7 anti-aircraft systems while the helicopter was in flight.
8 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir.
9 THE ACCUSED: [No interpretation]
10 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Once again the witness is being
12 asked to confirm something that it doesn't say in the text. In
13 paragraph 3, General Nicolai says very clearly -- it says General Nicolai
14 requested once against that the situation be checked with his subordinate
15 commanders on the ground, so he asked me to check this out. And in
16 paragraph 4 it says General Tolimir promised he would check this
17 information directly on the ground. So I kindly ask that the contents of
18 the telegram be properly interpreted and not to lead the witness to make
19 conclusions that are not based on fact.
20 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, please look at page 22, line 12 and
21 13. Mr. Thayer just said:
22 "And if you look at the last paragraph here on the first page,
23 what did -- what else did General Tolimir tell you?"
24 That was not at all a leading question. It was just a question
25 to tell the Chamber what the witness is reading from the text.
Page 3908
1 Everything else was the answer of the witness, and you may deal with this
2 during cross-examination.
3 Please carry on, Mr. Thayer.
4 MR. THAYER:
5 Q. And, General, I'm going to try to save a little bit of time, do
6 you recall looking at Bosnian MUP intercept from the same day which --
7 about which you made some conclusions?
8 A. Yes, I remember seeing a text that once again corresponded very
9 closely to the transcript of this telephone conversation being projected
10 on the screen.
11 MR. THAYER: And just for the record, and this will be linked up
12 later on, that's P311 I'm referring to. The other two documents I tried
13 to save time with, just for the record, and this will be linked up with
14 other testimony, were P310 and P698.
15 Q. General, do you recall also looking at an intercept report taken
16 on 9 July by Croatian units at 1755 hours, just five minutes difference
17 from what is shown here on this document? And if so, did you make any
18 conclusions after reading that report?
19 A. Yes, once again many of the same phrases appear that are in this
20 report of the telephone conversation.
21 MR. THAYER: And that's P699 for the record.
22 Q. And finally, do you recall also reviewing a transcript of an
23 audio cassette conversation received through the Mladic searches and were
24 you able to draw any conclusions or any relationship between what you
25 read and this conversation that's listed here, sir?
Page 3909
1 A. Yes, that transcription corresponded entirely with this text.
2 MR. THAYER: And let's just spend a quick minute and look at
3 P700, please.
4 Q. Again we have here a transcript of an audio cassette seized
5 during the Mladic searches. The participants are identified as Svetlana,
6 interpreting for you, and General Tolimir. If you would just take a
7 moment to look at the text here.
8 MR. THAYER: And if we could scroll down just a little bit so we
9 capture the whole -- thank you very much.
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I've read it.
11 MR. THAYER: Now, if we could just for a moment, could we replace
12 the B/C/S of this with the English of P680, please. So we can just look
13 at the two English side by side. This will just be for a quick
14 comparison.
15 Q. My first question is: Is this transcript the one that you recall
16 looking at on Sunday with me, sir?
17 A. Yes, that's correct.
18 Q. And when you read it, how did it correspond with your
19 recollection of this conversation?
20 A. As I've said previously, the text corresponds virtually literally
21 with what my MA set forth in the report of the telephone conversation.
22 Q. And we can see here on the left, the transcript of the
23 conversation has you saying:
24 "I'm concerned about the development of the situation in the
25 Srebrenica enclave."
Page 3910
1 And the first line of your MA's report says that General Nicolai
2 expressed his deep concern about the situation which was developing in
3 the enclave of Srebrenica. And I think we can all look at these side by
4 side to see the similar language. There's your reference to the
5 penetrating of demilitarised zone for more than 4 kilometres.
6 Then if we look down to the last entry here under the attribution
7 to General Tolimir, it reads:
8 "I don't have such information regarding the situation in that
9 part, considering that I have just entered my office. I conveyed the" --
10 MR. THAYER: And if we can go to page 2 in the transcript.
11 Q. -- "the General's previous message to the field. There's no
12 threat for UNPROFOR forces." And if we go all the way down on this --
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Please again, the English version of the -- on
14 the right side of the screen -- of the other document in order to compare
15 it.
16 MR. THAYER: Thank you, Mr. President.
17 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Is it the right page?
18 MR. THAYER: Yes, Mr. President, thank you.
19 Q. We see General Tolimir saying:
20 "I'm going to check your information. I don't believe it's true.
21 I'll have to check it and we can get in touch after the check-up. We'll
22 be in touch in 30 minutes until I check with my forces directly in the
23 field. Is that what General Nicolai demanded."
24 And then if we look at your MA's report at the last paragraph, we
25 can see him reporting that:
Page 3911
1 "General Tolimir promised he would check this information
2 directly on the ground, although he did not believe this was true. He
3 asked General Nicolai to telephone him in 30 minutes."
4 Now, why was it necessary for General Tolimir to call back in
5 30 minutes? What prompted this -- this subsequent phone call that was
6 supposed to happen?
7 A. Well, there could be two. Possibly he needed 30 minutes to check
8 the information he'd received from me about the situation on the ground.
9 It could also have had something to do with warning the ground troops not
10 to use any anti-aircraft devices, although it seems like that would have
11 been awfully late to me because the helicopter was already en route and
12 the agreements had been made earlier. So the first sounds more likely,
13 that he wanted to check the ground situation.
14 Q. And at this point in the conversation, sir, had there been any
15 discussion about the repatriation of Private van Renssen's remains and
16 the required air corridor and logistics preparation, or had the
17 conversation up to that point focused on something else?
18 A. No, basically the agreements about the repatriation had been made
19 previously and we'd seen in a previously intercept, I told about efforts
20 to transport the body along to road to Zvornik were being obstructed by
21 Bosnian Serb ground troops despite the agreements in place, and at the
22 time of this conversation that repatriation was virtually complete. Only
23 the air transport still had yet to take place.
24 Q. So here when General Tolimir says:
25 "I'm going to check your information, I don't believe it is true.
Page 3912
1 I'll have to check it and we can get in touch after the check-up. We'll
2 be in touch in 30 minutes ..." What information is he talking about?
3 A. I repeat what I said previously. I consider it most likely that
4 he needed those 30 minutes to inquire as to whether my allegations about
5 the infiltration of Bosnian Serb troops in the enclave to 1 kilometre
6 away from Srebrenica was correct.
7 Q. And did you believe him --
8 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, there's nothing
10 strange here. I said I just went into the General's office, according to
11 this transcript, and asked him to call me up in 30 minutes' time. Now, I
12 don't know what the Prosecutor wants to say with that. I would have to
13 use the 30 minutes to check out what was happening in the field. It was
14 night-time, it was after 12 midnight, so how could I know -- be expected
15 to know what had happened? I had to check it out. So please bear that
16 in mind.
17 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, I see your difficult position. You
18 are the accused and your are defending and representing yourself, but
19 this objection was kind of giving evidence. This is not the situation to
20 give evidence about the content of such a document. You may deal with
21 this in cross-examination or give in -- you may give evidence at a later
22 stage of this trial, but now Mr. -- the witness is giving evidence.
23 Please carry on, Mr. Thayer.
24 MR. THAYER:
25 Q. Okay. General, when General Tolimir indicated that his
Page 3913
1 information about the situation was different as reflected in this
2 report, and that he did not believe that it was true and that he would
3 have to contact his field commanders, did you believe him?
4 A. The answer is no. I've said previously it's particularly
5 unlikely. We are referring to actions that had started four days before
6 and that had been the subject of explicit complaints the day before, so
7 it was particularly unlikely that the headquarters was unaware of where
8 their front troops were.
9 MR. THAYER: Mr. President, the Prosecution would tender P700.
10 P680 [Realtime transcript read in error "P688"] has already been
11 received.
12 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you. P700 will be received.
13 MR. THAYER: And forgive me if I've already stated this for the
14 record, but the other two documents that I did not show General Nicolai
15 but to which I referred were P311 and P699.
16 Q. Now, General, during this period of time on the 9th of July,
17 towards the end of the day and into the evening, were you aware of any
18 efforts by the UNPF command, that is General Janvier's command in Zagreb,
19 related to the events in Srebrenica?
20 A. Yes. General Janvier had returned from a conference that
21 weekend. I believe the conference was in Geneva. He was particularly
22 concerned about the situation that had materialised. He had serious
23 concerns and he was worried that a situation would arise that would
24 require the use of air support, but he didn't want to do this until
25 violence had been used at a lower level of escalation. So basically, he
Page 3914
1 believed that the attempts should be made to stop the Bosnian Serbs first
2 with lower-level weapons, and afterwards he would use air force. And the
3 reason concerned one of the documents in view of the Court as well, the
4 post air-strike guidance, which explicitly states that air force should
5 be used only as the extreme weapon, and he feared that it would now be
6 used without deployment of other means first. That was one of his
7 concerns, and extensive consultation about this took place as to how we
8 could bring about a situation where, first of all, it would become clear
9 for the entire international community that a situation had arisen where
10 that extreme measure should be used, and a situation where in any case
11 UNPROFOR had the means to use less invasive resources than air force to
12 demonstrate that they wanted to stop the Bosnian Serbs from penetrating
13 further into the enclave.
14 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Thayer, perhaps there occurred a mistake or
15 I've lost something. In page 29, line 20, you said: "P688 has already
16 been received." Was that the correct number?
17 MR. THAYER: No, Mr. President, that's P680. P680.
18 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you. That clarifies the situation.
19 Please carry on.
20 MR. THAYER:
21 Q. General, you referred in your answer to post-air-strike guidance.
22 I'm not sure the Trial Chamber has heard that much testimony about this
23 post-air-strike guidance. Can you just briefly tell the Trial Chamber
24 what that refers to?
25 A. Yes. In late May, to be specific 25 and 26 May, at UNPROFOR's
Page 3915
1 request, air-strikes were carried out on targets on Bosnian Serb
2 territory because there had been no compliance with the ultimatum set by
3 General Smith for heavy weapons taken from a weapon collection point,
4 that they needed to be returned before a certain time. Because this
5 violated several Security Council resolutions, 824 and 836, and because
6 it was a violation of all agreements, it was decided that these
7 air-strikes would be carried out.
8 Those air-strikes were retaliate -- the Bosnian Serbs troops
9 retaliated by shelling virtually all enclaves. And during those
10 shellings there were many victims, especially the bloodbath in Tuzla is a
11 very compelling example, over 80 people were killed including innocent
12 civilians. Next, the Bosnian Serbs took many hostages comprising UN
13 personnel on Bosnian Serb territory, UNMOs as well as all kinds of other
14 officials. Altogether over 300 hostages. Most of those hostages were
15 tied to possible targets that might be the target of air-strikes, and it
16 was threatened that if we were to attack those targets, then the hostages
17 would suffer the same fate, or in any case, they would be killed at the
18 same time there.
19 Afterwards, the UN was basically blackmailed. Our hands were
20 tied. If we wanted to continue air-strikes, then those hostages would
21 suffer a terrible fate, and that led to intensive consultation between
22 General Smith and General Janvier, and that led to cessation of the
23 air-strikes. First the authority to carry out close air support and the
24 authority to carry out air-strikes was raised to a higher level and
25 guidance was issued. That's the post air-strike guidance stating that
Page 3916
1 given this situation, air-strikes would be used only as an extreme
2 measure, and that the safety of the troops on the ground took precedent
3 over all else, and that negotiations that would be started. At that
4 point Mr. Bildt was supposed to start as a negotiator to resolve this
5 impasse, that these negotiations should not be disrupted in any way by
6 excessive violence.
7 MR. THAYER: Okay. Thank you, General. I see we are at the
8 break time.
9 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Indeed we are. We have our first break now and
10 resume quarter past 4.00.
11 --- Recess taken at 3.49 p.m.
12 --- On resuming at 4.18 p.m.
13 JUDGE FLUEGGE: During the remainder of today's sitting,
14 Judge Mindua is unable to attend due to another urgent commitment, so the
15 remaining Judges decided to sit pursuant to Rule 15 bis.
16 Mr. Thayer, please carry on your examination.
17 MR. THAYER: Thank you, Mr. President.
18 Q. Where we left off, General, you were telling the Trial Chamber
19 about General Janvier's involvement during this period of time on the
20 9th of July. Did you have contact yourself with Zagreb during this
21 period of time?
22 A. Yes. On Saturday, 8 July, I reported at length to
23 General Janvier's deputy about how the situation in the enclave was
24 developing. Afterwards consultation continued on 9 July, but those
25 conversations took place primarily with General Gobillard who was acting
Page 3917
1 commander in UNPROFOR at that time, and General Janvier himself.
2 Q. And on the 9th of July, particularly in the evening, were you
3 aware of any attempts by General Janvier or his office to contact
4 General Mladic or the Main Staff?
5 A. Yes. I was aware of that because despite the fact that there
6 were conversations between General Gobillard and General Janvier, I was
7 consistently present or at least I was present at those telephone
8 conversations. There was lengthy discussion of a serious warning that we
9 wanted to send to the Bosnian Serb army, warning them that if they went
10 still further we would be forced to use air force. And because that text
11 was worded very specifically, there were extensive telephone calls about
12 how that text should read and when it was finished, General Janvier
13 wanted to contact General Mladic. Apparently he didn't succeed, and he
14 then requested the UNPROFOR staff or the staff of General Gobillard for
15 that warning to be transmitted to Pale via our headquarters. And Pale
16 was where our contact was with the Bosnian Serb army. And we did that
17 ultimately at the end of the evening of 9 July.
18 Q. Okay. And just, again, try to save a little bit of time, do you
19 recall during our proofing session seeing a Croatian intercept as well as
20 two Bosnian MUP intercepts concerning efforts by General Janvier or
21 somebody on his behalf attempting to contact General Mladic?
22 A. Yes, I remember that.
23 Q. And how did those three reports correspond to your recollection
24 of efforts that were underway at the time from Zagreb to contact the
25 Main Staff?
Page 3918
1 A. Well, because I was in Sarajevo, I don't know how often
2 General Janvier tried to contact General Mladic. All I know is that he
3 did try. And the fact that he was unsuccessful led to his request to us
4 in Sarajevo to get the message to the right place.
5 Q. Okay. Thank you, General.
6 MR. THAYER: Just for the record, the three documents we will
7 save for another witness are P701, P314, and P312. The latter two of
8 which are already received in evidence.
9 May we have P -- before we do -- look at another document.
10 Q. The last conversation that we looked at that you had with
11 General Tolimir was at 1750 hours. Do you recall having another
12 conversation later that evening with General Tolimir, sir?
13 A. Yes, as far as I remember, but that would need to be confirmed in
14 a report from a telephone conversation. I had already warned
15 General Tolimir in a telephone conversation that there was a danger that
16 a situation would arise where UNPROFOR might be forced to deploy extreme
17 measures and you should infer from that air force -- air support to end
18 the situation that had materialised. That was in anticipation of the
19 written warning that General Janvier had drafted.
20 MR. THAYER: Okay. May we look at P683, please. And if we could
21 scroll down just a little bit so we can catch the full document in both
22 versions, please, so General Tolimir can see all of page 1 as well.
23 Q. General, just please take a moment, this is a dense document, to
24 re-familiarise yourself with it.
25 A. Yes, I've read it.
Page 3919
1 Q. And let's go to page 2 to give you a chance to re-familiarise
2 yourself with that as well. It's another dense page.
3 A. Yes, I've read the entire piece.
4 MR. THAYER: Let's go back to page 1, please, of both versions.
5 Q. Focusing now on the first couple of paragraphs, can you tell the
6 Trial Chamber what this call was about, why you called General Tolimir
7 and what's your interest, what's going on here in these first couple of
8 paragraphs in particular?
9 A. Well, first, please note that between this telephone conversation
10 and the previous one, more time elapsed than the agreed 30 minutes.
11 During the interim I tried to make contact, but those efforts were in
12 vain. When I finally reached General Tolimir by phone again, my first
13 question was obviously whether he could confirm that the accusations we
14 had expressed or whether he, by that time, had the same information, and
15 basically General Tolimir denied that and moreover added that he, or at
16 least the Bosnian Serb army, did not have any special problems with
17 UNPROFOR nor did they have with the civilian population, that the
18 UNPROFOR soldiers were being treated properly.
19 That's how it reads here. So that was the opinion he shared
20 which, of course, did not correspond with our impression at UNPROFOR.
21 Q. Okay. And again, what kind of -- just briefly, what were these
22 reports that you were receiving at UNPROFOR tell you was happening in a
23 nutshell?
24 A. First, the daily reports about reports of continuation of
25 hostilities taking place in the enclave. In addition, all interim
Page 3920
1 reports from observation posts being attacked and you don't wait until
2 the end of the day to file that with the daily report, you report that
3 when it happens. And then there was also the information I received from
4 direct telephone conversations with Colonel Karremans, and they indicated
5 that the attacks by the Bosnian Serb troops had continued almost to
6 Srebrenica, and in the meantime, additional observation posts had been
7 attacked. So the hostilities continued and UNPROFOR observation posts
8 were attacked.
9 I think that the UNPROFOR soldiers that were being treated
10 properly, that General Tolimir was referring to, were the soldiers that
11 had been transported to Bratunac. I don't have any information about
12 them. But the enclave was shelled, the civilian population was shelled,
13 and various observation posts had been attacked by then.
14 Q. Now, moving into that third paragraph, you reiterate what we saw
15 in the prior conversation, that VRS penetrated to at least 4 kilometres.
16 And let's focus on what is reported here, that you:
17 "Further emphasise that this could cause a counter-reaction from
18 UNPROFOR which was disproportional to the benefit they could have by
19 their actions."
20 What does that mean, sir?
21 A. Well, in brief that means that a situation was in danger of
22 materialising in which UNPROFOR would be forced to use air support, and I
23 had -- I've anticipated on this based on the serious warning that was to
24 be dispatched in writing by General Janvier and Mr. Akashi.
25 Q. And we see a reference here at this same paragraph to a strong
Page 3921
1 warning. Is that what you are referring to, sir?
2 A. Yes, that's the strong warning I'm referring to, is the written
3 warning from General Janvier.
4 Q. And was a written warning in fact issued at some point on
5 July 9th, sir, to the VRS?
6 A. Yes, that's correct. The moment the telephone conversation was
7 taking place, the notice had not yet been sent. I think General Janvier
8 was still trying to send that at the time, but in this conversation by
9 phone I anticipated this. And later on that evening, when
10 General Janvier's efforts proved futile, we sent that notice by fax to
11 Pale.
12 MR. THAYER: May we go to page 2 of the English, please. And
13 this will also be page 2 of the B/C/S.
14 Q. Now, on the previous page we saw that General Tolimir told you
15 that there was no conflict between the VRS and UNPROFOR or the civilian
16 population, and basically that the only problems the VRS had were with
17 the Muslim Army in that area. We see at the top of this document that
18 your response was that that "had no relation at all to the BiH attempt to
19 link the two eastern enclaves." And that if we look down at the very
20 last paragraph you stress that the "VRS was directly attacking the safe
21 area, which was far beyond their self-defence."
22 What were you trying to communicate to General Tolimir here, sir?
23 A. First, that this was an isolated action, not a reaction to what
24 was presumed to have been undertaken by the BiH, and that it had nothing
25 whatsoever to do with self-defence, and that it exceeded all proportions
Page 3922
1 and that the only possible measure was to withdraw his troops.
2 Q. And we see here in the middle of the page that General Tolimir
3 reacted that the BiH were using the heavy weapons which had never been
4 handed over to UNPROFOR, and that the BiH were also using six APCs either
5 given by or taken from UNPROFOR. Can you comment on that, sir?
6 A. Well, I can certainly comment on that. This was such an
7 impertinent accusation that at that point I had difficulty remaining
8 calm. I said immediately that the remark about not disarming the BiH in
9 the enclave was incorrect as far as heavy weapons were concerned. Those
10 weapons had indeed been taken away and had not been returned at that
11 point. I do not mean to deny that the Muslim soldiers still had handguns
12 at that point, but the remarks about the six -- the six vehicles issued
13 to the BiH or stolen by the BiH, six APCs, that was so impertinent that
14 it would have qualified as a lie. But I said that it was absolutely
15 incorrect and I could simply confirm that because the only vehicles that
16 we had lost up to that point were the vehicles of the soldiers who had
17 abandoned the observation posts, and those were in the hands of the
18 Bosnian Serb army. So this accusation was basically turning the world
19 inside-out.
20 MR. THAYER: Let's go back to page 1 of both versions, please.
21 Q. When we see in the second paragraph when General Tolimir says
22 that the VRS had no particular problems with UNPROFOR or the civilian
23 population in Srebrenica, how would you characterise that statement,
24 General?
25 A. Well, I could give a cynical response by saying that admittedly
Page 3923
1 he didn't have any problems with UNPROFOR, the civilian population, but
2 the reverse was certainly true. The civilian population was being
3 shelled and UNPROFOR was also being shelled and attacked, so the opposite
4 was absolutely the case.
5 Q. And when you just said that it would be cynical to say that
6 General Tolimir didn't have any problems with UNPROFOR or the civilian
7 population, what do you mean by that, sir?
8 A. What I mean to say is that it was indeed the case that he wasn't
9 being bothered by the civilian population up to that point, not by
10 UNPROFOR either. That's what I mean by cynical. But I don't understand
11 that if you say you don't have any problems with the civilian population
12 or with UNPROFOR, that you nonetheless accept that your troops carry out
13 attacks on those target groups.
14 Q. And when you say that he wasn't being bothered by the civilian
15 population, what do you mean to say by that, General? If we can just
16 break it down, please.
17 A. Well, that the civilian population was not attacking the
18 Bosnian Serb army. The only nuisance that the Bosnian Serb army may have
19 experienced at that point might have been caused, but I don't have any
20 direct evidence of this, that there were Muslim soldiers that
21 ex-filtrated, so left the enclave and carried out attacks on Bosnian Serb
22 territory. But I don't -- didn't receive -- I hadn't received any
23 specific reports of that at that time, neither from UNPROFOR nor from the
24 Bosnian Serb army.
25 Q. And at the bottom of this page when General Tolimir repeated that
Page 3924
1 there was no conflict between UNPROFOR, the VRS, and the Bosnian civilian
2 population in Srebrenica, how would you characterise that statement by
3 General Tolimir?
4 A. Well, euphemistically I would call that misleading information,
5 and in harsher terms it's an outright lie.
6 Q. General, do you recall on Sunday again being shown Bosnian MUP --
7 a Bosnian MUP intercept from 9 July at approximately the same times, at
8 1915 hours was the time on the Bosnian MUP intercept, as well as a
9 transcript from the cassette of the Mladic searches as we've been
10 referring to them? Do you remember seeing both of those documents and
11 reviewing them, sir?
12 A. Yes, I remember that.
13 Q. And how did they correspond to your recollection as well as the
14 actual report that is on the screen before us?
15 A. Yes, the content corresponds perfectly with the report from this
16 telephone conversation.
17 MR. THAYER: Mr. President, the two documents, just for the
18 record, I'm referring to are P313 and P702. The former is already
19 received; the latter we'll save for another witness.
20 May we have P703, please.
21 Q. I want to focus on the middle report here. It's dated July 9th
22 at 2125 hours, so this purports to have occurred a couple hours after the
23 last conversation we just saw. Just take a moment and have a look at
24 this, please, and then tell us whether you recall, in fact, having such a
25 conversation at this reported time.
Page 3925
1 A. No, I can't remember that.
2 Q. And, in fact, when I showed this to you on Sunday, did you have
3 some questions about whether this, in fact, happened at this particular
4 time as reported here?
5 A. I can't recall any other conversations that would have taken
6 place besides the ones from which reports were presented previously here.
7 Q. Okay. Thank you, General.
8 MR. THAYER: Your Honour, the Prosecution would tender P703 even
9 though General Nicolai has clearly stated he has got no recollection of
10 this conversation, but I think it's important, nevertheless, to have it
11 in the record as something he did, in fact, look at. Clearly he doesn't
12 have a recollection of this and I don't think we are going to be relying
13 on this document substantively for its contents, but I did want him to
14 look at it and let you know that he looked at an example of a Croatian
15 intercept and said he doesn't remember such a conversation. I think it's
16 important for the Trial Chamber to hear that from the witness, and we
17 would therefore tender it with that said about the document and our
18 intentions.
19 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Judge Nyambe. Mr. Tolimir.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, through this witness
21 who says that he doesn't remember the document, therefore they cannot be
22 tendered into evidence through this witness. Perhaps documents of this
23 kind can be introduced through the people that wrote them, the
24 transcripts, et cetera, but not in this way.
25 MR. THAYER: Mr. President, we have no problem waiting as well.
Page 3926
1 As you've already heard, we will have the Croatian -- at least one
2 Croatian intercept operator. So we can save time and if the Court
3 prefers, we can MFI it in the meantime, but I did want to just let the
4 Court know how we felt about the document while we had it here fresh.
5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: The Chamber doesn't want to discuss this
6 extensively and therefore it will be marked for identification. It may
7 be admitted at a later stage with another witness.
8 Mr. Thayer, please carry on.
9 MR. THAYER: Thank you, Mr. President. I'm going to skip over
10 another document. Just for the record, if anybody is just keeping track
11 of the exhibit list, it's P704. We'll take that up with another witness.
12 May we have P684 on e-court, please.
13 Q. We have here a fax cover sheet, 9 July 1995 at 2200 hours, and we
14 see that its drafter is Lieutenant-Colonel RJR Baxter, MA to commander.
15 Who was Lieutenant-Colonel Baxter, sir?
16 A. Colonel Baxter was the military assistant to General Smith, just
17 as Colonel De Ruiter was my military assistant. General Smith also had a
18 personal staff officer who sent this message on his behalf. Although, at
19 this time General Smith was not personally present at headquarters, but
20 at that moment, Colonel Baxter was operating as MA for the acting
21 commander, General Gobillard.
22 Q. And while we are on this topic, General, during this period of
23 time, 8 July, 9 July, continuing on 10, 11 July, was General Smith
24 incommunicado or was he in touch with the BH command?
25 A. Well, as far as I know, but you would have to ask Colonel Baxter,
Page 3927
1 he was informed from time to time by Colonel Baxter, as far as I know,
2 through British communication channels about how the situation was
3 developing, but at that point he didn't interfere with the
4 decision-making at the headquarters in any way whatsoever. And
5 ultimately, General Smith returned only on Wednesday, 12 July, to the
6 headquarters, in the evening of 12 July.
7 Q. Okay. Back to the document, we see that its subject is:
8 "Warning to the Bosnian Serbs." And the message here is that attached is
9 the final version of the warning and we have sent it as a CapSat. What
10 is CapSat, sir?
11 A. Well, you could compare it to a fax message.
12 Q. Okay. They've sent it as a CapSat to General Mladic.
13 MR. THAYER: Let's go straight to the second page.
14 Q. Just take a moment to read it, sir, and --
15 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Can you enlarge it a little bit more. Too much.
16 Yes.
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I'm ready.
18 MR. THAYER:
19 Q. I think we can all read what it says and I just want to ask two
20 questions about it. First, how does this relate to the strong warning
21 that we saw referenced in the prior conversations and documents you've
22 testified about?
23 A. This is the serious warning that I referred to earlier.
24 Q. And briefly, is it an accurate reflection based on the reports
25 that you were receiving of the events of the prior days and what it
Page 3928
1 states?
2 A. Yes, as might be apparent from everything I mentioned in the
3 previous telephone conversations about that situation.
4 MR. THAYER: Let's go to P293, please. This is under seal and
5 should not be broadcast, please, Mr. President.
6 Q. What we have here is a Bosnian MUP intercept dated 9 July 1995.
7 For the record it's report number 526, taken at 2310 hours. And the
8 participants are identified as General Tolimir and General Janvier.
9 MR. THAYER: Now, if we could go to page 2 of the -- actually,
10 I'm sorry, let's stay -- if we could go down to the very bottom of
11 page 1, we can see the intercept report has General Tolimir stating, it's
12 the last two words in fact on this page:
13 "Next, our."
14 And if we go to page 2.
15 "Our army has very good relations with all the members of
16 UNPROFOR as well as with the Muslim civilian population."
17 Q. How would you characterise that statement based on the reports
18 that you were receiving at the time, General?
19 A. Well, shelling groups with which good relations are presumed is,
20 to put it mildly, a very curious expression of maintaining good terms and
21 maintaining good relations, so basically it really takes the cake.
22 Q. Okay. I think I understand what you are saying, but how would
23 you characterise it? I hear you saying it takes the cake, but what does
24 that mean? How would you characterise this statement?
25 A. If you have spent days shelling the UNPROFOR soldiers and the
Page 3929
1 civilian population in the Muslim enclave, that can't be described as
2 maintaining good relations with these groups. It's too ridiculous for
3 words.
4 Q. We see here further on that General Tolimir says:
5 "I gave the details to General Nicolai. I believe that he has
6 passed them to General Janvier and told him about the conversations which
7 we had yesterday and today."
8 Now, with respect to that statement there, is that accurate?
9 A. I just want to ensure that I understood your question properly.
10 Do you mean or do you want me to confirm that we conveyed the information
11 that General Tolimir passed on to us, that we transmitted that to the
12 headquarters in Zagreb, or do you mean something different?
13 Q. No, that is my question. You understood me well, General.
14 A. Yes, of course General Gobillard reported our contacts or the
15 contacts between me and General Tolimir and he reported the accusations
16 raised in the process without dwelling on them because it was also
17 automatically clear to General Janvier that they lacked all sense of
18 reality.
19 Q. You've already told us what you thought about the statement from
20 General Tolimir earlier about the six APCs. How about this statement
21 that:
22 "The UN soldiers who came over to RS territory are not our
23 prisoners, nor did we capture them."
24 How would you characterise that statement from General Tolimir,
25 sir?
Page 3930
1 A. Well, that gets us into words that DutchBat soldiers surrendered
2 to the Bosnian Serbs because they expected to be treated better there
3 than if they tried to flee back to their compound. Whether they were
4 indeed prisoners of war, that's for the lawyers to debate. In any case,
5 they did not return immediately to the compound across Serb territory. I
6 can't judge whether the Bosnian Serb army blocked that or whether they
7 were afraid to take that risk. I have to admit that during the time they
8 were under the control of the Bosnian Serb army, they were treated
9 properly.
10 Q. Now, based on the reports that you were receiving, General, were
11 those DutchBat soldiers who were in the custody of the VRS, were they
12 free to leave any time they wished?
13 A. Well, that was asserted in various telephone conversations, but
14 nothing that materialised in practice. They were released only later on
15 or in any case, returned to -- well, I think they even returned directly
16 to Zagreb. I don't remember exactly how that came about. In any case,
17 at those moments on those days, they were still in the hands of the
18 Bosnian Serb army. They were also disarmed, which, as a professional
19 member of the military, I can understand that when you gain control over
20 others, you disarm them. So there's some similarities to the treatment
21 of prisoners of war, but they were not treated badly. And whether they
22 were free at that point to leave, I have certain doubts about it, but I
23 can't prove that.
24 Q. How about the reference to or the claim that "nor did we capture
25 them," you testified a moment ago about DutchBat soldiers who had a
Page 3931
1 choice of withdrawing, I suppose as Private van Renssen did, and risk
2 what might happen at the hands of the BiH, so they chose to turn
3 themselves over to the Serbs. Were there other circumstances that were
4 being reported to you under which DutchBat soldiers came into the custody
5 of the VRS?
6 A. Yes, after the air-strikes in late May, the hostages included
7 UN soldiers that were taken hostage at that time. Those are previous
8 examples more than a month earlier than that. And afterwards, some
9 problems arose where soldiers were not captured but were in any case
10 stripped of their possessions, and in this situation, if there had truly
11 been good faith, then these soldiers could have been sent via a detour,
12 via Bratunac back to the enclave. And the distance from Bratunac and
13 Potocari to the compound is so minimal that that certainly could have
14 happened. So that voluntary aspect or the opportunity given to them to
15 return raises questions in my mind.
16 Q. Okay. General, what I am -- what I want to focus on is during
17 the VRS attack on the 6th, the 7th, the 8th, and 9th, when the VRS was,
18 as you've testified, was attacking the individual OPs, shelling and
19 firing at the UN positions and the OPs, can you describe the
20 circumstances of, in those cases, how the peacekeepers came into the
21 custody of the VRS?
22 A. Well, basically the pattern was the same throughout that period.
23 Observation posts were shelled and shot at not only with guns or mortars,
24 but even by tanks, until the situation was such that nothing -- no other
25 option was left than to abandon the observation posts and then you either
Page 3932
1 choose to flee back to the compound or you surrender to the attacking
2 party. And in some cases the individuals opted for the latter, and
3 basically when you surrender and you come into their custody, then you
4 can describe that as being a prisoner of war, but throughout all those
5 days, the same pattern applied.
6 Q. And you testified that the peacekeepers were disarmed. Was
7 anything else taken from the peacekeepers by the VRS when the OPs were
8 taken over or overrun by the VRS, other than their individual armaments?
9 A. Yes, we didn't get back an armoured personnel carrier either, not
10 even when DutchBat left the enclave, despite the fact that it figured in
11 the agreement between General Mladic and General Smith. So both the
12 handguns and the armoured personnel carriers of the troops that
13 surrendered were not returned to us at that point.
14 Q. Do you have any idea how many APCs fell into the custody of the
15 VRS, sir?
16 A. I'd have to check the exact number, but I think around 6 to
17 8 APCs.
18 Q. Okay.
19 MR. THAYER: Let's go to page 3 quickly, please. And we can stay
20 on page 2 for the B/C/S.
21 Q. Here General Tolimir tells General Janvier that:
22 "You probably know that your soldiers left their weapons at some
23 positions which were taken over by the Muslims and that they came to us
24 with their side-arms only. I'm sure that you are aware that your
25 soldiers came to our side from the observation posts only with their
Page 3933
1 personal weapons and that the Muslims took their heavy weapons."
2 How would you characterise this statement from General Tolimir,
3 sir?
4 A. Entirely inaccurate. And if he stated this deliberately, then
5 it's a lie.
6 Q. Well, General, in all your conversations with General Tolimir,
7 did you ever have any suggestion that he was saying anything in any way
8 other than deliberately?
9 A. Well, let me put it this way: Each time we confronted him with a
10 certain situation or protested about something, his first response was to
11 deny that situation or to indicate that he was not aware of the
12 situation, that he had to verify it, and in some cases he went still
13 further by levying all kind of absurd, untrue accusations in response.
14 That was consistently the pattern, either saying I'm not aware of this or
15 it's not true at all, and we are not doing anything against UNPROFOR or
16 that we are not doing anything against the civilian population. And if
17 that was not enough, then accusations would be forthcoming that the BiH
18 was doing all kinds of things and was, moreover, being assisted by
19 UNPROFOR in the process. That was the consistently recurring pattern,
20 and if I say that this caused increasing irritation, then I'm putting it
21 very mildly.
22 Q. Okay. Well, let's -- again let's break that down a little bit,
23 General. Based on your observation of the operation of the VRS, based on
24 the reports that you were receiving during the VRS attack on the
25 Srebrenica enclave, did you come to any conclusions about whether these
Page 3934
1 statements from General Tolimir were deliberate, whether they were in the
2 innocent misstatements, whether he was uninformed or something else?
3 What was your conclusion during the course of these conversations with
4 General Tolimir about his state of knowledge, his actual state of
5 knowledge and what he was -- versus what he was telling you?
6 A. What I'm going to say now is an assumption, but I'll tell you the
7 basis for the assumption. The Bosnian Serb army has demonstrated that it
8 operated very professionally and that the army had material and in any
9 case all conceivably necessary communication channels that are necessary
10 for proper command, especially since they were carrying out their
11 operations on their own territories.
12 So I believe that they had a plethora of communication channels
13 compared to, for example, UNPROFOR. A professional army continuously
14 issues reports when fighting is taking place aside from the ordinary set
15 of reports. It's completely inconceivable to me that with such an
16 important operation such as an attack on a safe area, the headquarters of
17 the Bosnian Serb army at the time was not aware of the situation that was
18 occurring at that point, especially since the attack had been in progress
19 for at least four days.
20 Based on that assumption, I'm saying it's impossible that
21 General Tolimir was not deliberately providing me with misleading
22 answers.
23 Q. And you told the Trial Chamber, General, that I think you said,
24 to put it mildly, this caused you irritation. Can you describe the
25 effect it had on you personally and also on UNPROFOR in terms of time and
Page 3935
1 other factors of these deliberate statements from General Tolimir, these
2 lies as you've called them, on your response and your ability to respond
3 to the VRS attack on the Srebrenica enclave?
4 A. Well, I learned that you always need to try to keep your feelings
5 from influencing rational actions and that's what we did here as well.
6 You've also noticed that in the telephone conversations, I consistently
7 tried to provide an appropriate response and to avoid being provacative
8 and I didn't use harsh words. At most, I said that the information was
9 pertinently inaccurate.
10 In the meantime we did try, and that is clear from the serious
11 warning we issued, we tried to see what measures we could take to resolve
12 this situation. So we made preparations for setting up a blocking
13 position south of Srebrenica to bring about a situation where we could
14 try to use ground troops to stop the attack. And at the same time we
15 also started preparing to carry out air-strikes because we said if
16 fighting materialises between UNPROFOR and the Bosnian Serb army, then
17 use of close air support will undoubtedly ensue. Despite the fact that
18 the Security Council's 824 and 836 allowed that measure far earlier, as a
19 consequences of the post-air strike guidance I mentioned earlier, we had
20 become very conscious about that. But if the blocking positions were
21 attacked now, then use of air support would be inevitable. And the fact
22 that we continued this planning and had basically prepared the entire
23 request for an air-strike to ensure that if that situation materialised,
24 all that would be necessary would be a signature to commence
25 implementation, that meant that in our actions, in our ideas, we had gone
Page 3936
1 considerably further than what we disclosed in our conversations with the
2 Bosnian Serb army.
3 Q. Now, during these conversations that you had with General Tolimir
4 on the 8th and 9th, and going into the 10th of July, when General Tolimir
5 was telling you that he had to check what was happening on the ground and
6 didn't have the same information you did and was asking you to call back
7 or telling you that he would call you back, what was happening on the
8 ground in Srebrenica?
9 A. Well, basically it kept going further. I'm not sure exactly what
10 you are referring to now, but what happened on the 8th and the 9th, I've
11 elaborated on that previously. On 10 July, the day started out fairly
12 quiet but during the course of the day the Bosnian Serbs resumed attack,
13 and there were shellings back and forth between UNPROFOR and the Bosnian
14 Serb troops, which ultimately resulted in a request for air support which
15 was granted immediately at UNPROFOR headquarters and transmitted to
16 Zagreb because that was the level that was authorised to approve
17 air-strikes.
18 And to everybody in Sarajevo's regret, the decision-making took
19 longer that we had expected. As a consequences night fell, and General
20 Janvier decided that it was too risky to carry out those air-strikes that
21 evening because the troops were very dense and the terrain was fairly
22 obscure, and as dusk fell it -- there was too much of a risk that our own
23 troops would be hit. That's about the 10th. He did say that he would
24 ensure that from Tuesday, the 11th, early in the morning, those airplanes
25 would be available for deployment if necessary.
Page 3937
1 Q. Now, during these conversations on the 8th and the 9th, when
2 General Tolimir was denying that the UN was being attacked by the VRS or
3 the civilians were being attacked by the VRS, did you communicate those
4 statements from General Tolimir to General Janvier or Zagreb?
5 A. Yes, undoubtedly. There were so many conversations. We reported
6 about the situation daily, and one thing I know for certain is that in
7 the extensive conversation on Saturday afternoon, 8 July, with the acting
8 force commander, these subjects figured in the conversation. He asked
9 what did you do, I presented those accusations and protested about what
10 was happening and also indicated the response from the Bosnian Serb army.
11 And I'm convinced, although I wasn't present at all conversations, that
12 General Gobillard also raised this subject in his conversations with
13 General Janvier.
14 Q. And what, if anything, did General Janvier or his staff tell you
15 or General Gobillard to do with respect to following up regarding
16 General Tolimir's statements to you that -- and denials to you that the
17 UN was not being attacked, nor the civilian population was being
18 attacked, by the VRS? What, if anything, did General Janvier or his
19 staff tell you or General Gobillard in terms of following up or trying to
20 verify that information when you reported that to him?
21 A. No, that would have been very strange. That would have been an
22 expression of no confidence in the reports issued by his troops at lower
23 levels, so neither at the Sector South north-east level, nor at the
24 UNPROFOR level, nor at the UNPF level was there ever any doubt about the
25 accuracy of the reports by DutchBat from the enclave. So a question to
Page 3938
1 verify this -- a request to verify this would have been completely out of
2 order.
3 What he did do, what bothered him was that UNPROFOR had not
4 previously responded to the Bosnian Serb attacks with gun-fire, and
5 before he agreed to deploy air force, he wanted a response to the
6 fighting at a lower level, and that's why he instructed that the blocking
7 positions be set up so that a confrontation between UNPROFOR and the
8 Bosnian Serb army would be inevitable. And he had indeed issued
9 instructions that there be response fighting with the available weapons
10 there and that's what happened.
11 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Thayer, would this be a convenient time for
12 the second break?
13 MR. THAYER: Yes, thank you, Mr. President. I apologise for
14 keeping my eye off the clock.
15 JUDGE FLUEGGE: We have our second break now and resume at 6.00.
16 --- Recess taken at 5.34 p.m.
17 --- On resuming at 6.03 p.m.
18 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Yes, Mr. Thayer.
19 MR. THAYER: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. If we could
20 scroll down to the bottom of the document that we see here, please.
21 Q. General, we can see the last two statements from General Tolimir
22 to Janvier are:
23 "We are doing our best to stabilise the situation, as soon as
24 possible, and as much as it's possible, but you have to bear in mind how
25 complicated the situation is, very complicated."
Page 3939
1 Then again:
2 "I thank the General and also wish to give him a personal message
3 that we will do everything we can to calm down the situation and to find
4 a reasonable solution."
5 Now, this intercept was recorded at 2310 hours on 9 July. Based
6 on the reports that you were receiving and your recollection of the
7 subsequent events, what happened to the situation on the ground that
8 General Tolimir promised to calm down in this conversation?
9 A. Nothing indicated that those efforts to stabilise the situation
10 actually took place, as I've stated earlier. The date of Monday,
11 10 July, started quietly, but in the course of the day the hostilities
12 resumed and ultimately resulted in the confrontation or the clashes
13 between the UNPROFOR troops in the blocking position and the approaching
14 troops of the Bosnian Serb army.
15 MR. THAYER: Okay. And to save some time we can skip over P704.
16 And if we may have P700 back up on e-court, I think this has been
17 received in evidence.
18 Q. General, what we are going to see is the transcript of one of
19 the -- of the Mladic audio cassette from the search. You testified that
20 this was the same conversation as that contained in P680, your
21 9 July 1995 conversation at 1750 hours.
22 Do you recall on Sunday, in my office, listening to the actual
23 audiotape of this conversation and following along with the B/C/S
24 transcript that we see here so that you could actually hear the words and
25 follow the words in the original language of the interpreter? Do you
Page 3940
1 recall doing that with this conversation, General?
2 A. Yes, I remember that well.
3 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. There's
5 no date anywhere here or the time at which the conversation was
6 conducted, either in the English version or in the Serbian transcript, so
7 I'm wondering how come Mr. Thayer is able to ask when this happened?
8 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Thayer.
9 MR. THAYER: Mr. President, I believe that's been established by
10 the witness's testimony concerning this transcript earlier in his
11 testimony where we went through the related report taken by his MA and I
12 asked him about the transcript of the cassette and whether it had an
13 opportunity to compare that and whether it corresponded with anything,
14 and he confirmed that that was the case, that in fact it corresponded
15 with the report contained in P680.
16 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Indeed we heard a lot of answers related to dates
17 of intercepts. Please carry on.
18 MR. THAYER:
19 Q. General, were you able to recognise the voice of the interpreter
20 from listening to that audio cassette?
21 A. Yes, I was able to. And to be perfectly clear, it was the voice
22 of my personal interpreter, Svetlana.
23 Q. And would you say that she has in any respect a distinct or a
24 memorable voice for you when you heard it?
25 A. Not a very distinctive voice, but when day after day for six
Page 3941
1 months you've worked closely with somebody, you would expect to recognise
2 the voice of that person.
3 Q. Okay, General.
4 MR. THAYER: I think we can skip over P705. We'll take that up
5 with a different witness.
6 Q. Just a couple of final questions, General. You testified in the
7 Popovic case that - and this is at transcript page 18496, just for the
8 record - that based on your contacts with General Gvero on the 11th and
9 12th of July, that you concluded that he was in charge of the VRS
10 headquarters at that time. Do you remember that testimony?
11 A. Well, I might be very specific about the formulation. I don't
12 know whether he was in charge of the headquarters concerned, but he was
13 the officer in charge, the general in charge, that maintained contact
14 with us.
15 Q. And I believe your testimony in the Popovic case was that that
16 was an assumption that you made, and can you tell us upon what facts that
17 assumption was based?
18 A. Yes, based on the fact that each time a contact was initiated,
19 either from our side or from the side of the Bosnian Serb army,
20 General Gvero would come on the line.
21 Q. And did you form any conclusion about General Tolimir's role on
22 the 8th, 9th, and 10th of July?
23 A. Yes. I think that was comparable to the role of General Gvero.
24 Apparently on the 9th and the 10th, no. On the 10th and 11th of July,
25 General Gvero assumed the duties previously performed by General Tolimir.
Page 3942
1 The first days I would get General Tolimir on the line and afterwards
2 General Gvero, so I regarded them as nothing but intermediaries between
3 the UNPROFOR staff and General Mladic.
4 Q. And you said in your OTP statement that you believe that
5 General Tolimir was the number three officer in the VRS hierarchy. Can
6 you tell the Trial Chamber upon what you based that statement, that it
7 was your assessment that General Tolimir was the number three, and can
8 you just tell us who was number one and number two first, and tell us why
9 you assess that General Tolimir was the number three.
10 A. Well, clearly there's no doubt that General Mladic was the
11 commander and the commander of the Bosnian Serb army. General Milanovic
12 was introduced to me as his Chief of Staff, and I understand that in that
13 capacity he was the second man. What I heard both from my predecessor
14 and what I experienced myself was that when those -- if those two were
15 not the person for us to contact, we almost always had contact with
16 General Tolimir. I didn't negotiate much with General Tolimir, but my
17 predecessor certainly did that. In negotiating all kind of treaties, it
18 was consistently General Tolimir who was present, and from that we
19 inferred that he was important.
20 I met General Gvero only during these final days on the 10th and
21 11th of July. Before that I had never had any dealings with him, and in
22 my view, he was apparently subordinate in the hierarchy, although I can't
23 prove that.
24 Q. Okay. Just to follow up on one thing, the transcript indicates
25 that you met General Gvero during these final days on the 10th and
Page 3943
1 11th of July. Did you ever meet General Gvero in person, General?
2 A. No, that's incorrect. If that's your conclusion, then I wasn't
3 clear enough. I exclusively had telephone contact.
4 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's specification: Witness said "was
5 introduced."
6 MR. THAYER: Okay. Thank you.
7 Q. And, General, can you describe for the Trial Chamber, based on
8 your observation of the VRS and your interactions with these Main Staff
9 officers, the decision-making authority that appeared to you to be
10 invested in these subordinate assistant commanders and in the Chief of
11 Staff, General Milovanovic?
12 A. Yes, generally, but looking back on my entire period as
13 Chief of Staff in Bosnia, if any requests came from the UNPROFOR staff to
14 the staff of the Bosnian Serb army and I got General Milovanovic on the
15 line, I would immediately receive a response to my request. It would be
16 granted or rejected, but he wouldn't say, "I'll convey the message and
17 you'll be hearing from me," so that made it clear that he was certainly
18 authorised to take decisions.
19 And in my dealings with General Tolimir, that did happen, but
20 then I'm talking about the period prior to these final days. And you'll
21 have noticed from the telephone conversations, and this held true both
22 for General Tolimir and for General Gvero, each time assertions would be
23 made and the message would be received, but it was always said that the
24 information needed to be verified and there were no direct answers along
25 the lines of "I'll take measures now."
Page 3944
1 So everything indicates that during those final days,
2 General Mladic was in full control.
3 MR. THAYER: Thank you, General. I have no further questions at
4 this time.
5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much. I notice that the time you
6 used during examination-in-chief was double or triple time than indicated
7 earlier. No complaint, I just wanted to state that for the record.
8 Mr. Tolimir, the last 40 minutes before -- during the last
9 hearing before the summer recess, do you want to start now your
10 cross-examination or would you like to use the summer recess for
11 preparation of the cross-examination? You indicated that you need 10 to
12 11 hours?
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President, that's
14 right, I'd like to greet General Nicolai and everybody else. And I would
15 like peace to reign in this courtroom, and that God's will be done and
16 not my own will. I don't think that I could start today and start a
17 topic and then interrupt it and take it up 21 days later. All I can do
18 now, perhaps, is to ask a few questions about some -- well, to ask the
19 General some general questions without entering into any specific areas,
20 perhaps that's what I could do now. Thank you.
21 JUDGE FLUEGGE: It is up to you how to deal with that. Please go
22 ahead.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
24 Cross-examination by Mr. Tolimir:
25 Q. [Interpretation] The whole day today and yesterday we heard about
Page 3945
1 the fact that Tolimir is the main person to blame for the events in
2 Srebrenica. I want to ask you this, that's my question, is Tolimir the
3 main culprit and to blame for everything that happened in Srebrenica or
4 not?
5 A. Is that a question to me? Yes, I think I do have an opinion
6 about that, although I think it's up to the Court to judge, not me. But
7 as I said at the end of my statement previously, everything indicates
8 that the overall control during these final days was under the aegis of
9 General Mladic.
10 Q. Thank you. My next question is this: On several occasions you
11 were asked whether I lied when I said something, whether I lied and
12 fabricated things. But let's look at 1D207, and then I'd like to ask you
13 some questions about it. Thank you.
14 Thank you. Now, General, would you just read through point 1 or
15 the first paragraph of this interview given by Mr. Franken, whom you know
16 well, and he testified here before you, and he confirmed this in his
17 testimony and we are going to discuss that in due course. But read the
18 first point or paragraph and tell us what you know about it. Thank you.
19 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Thayer.
20 MR. THAYER: If I could ask that General Nicolai take his --
21 well, he understands English perfectly, so I'm reluctant to lodge this
22 objection in the presence of the witness, Mr. President.
23 JUDGE FLUEGGE: I see the Chamber in the same situation.
24 MR. THAYER: The -- let me see if I can get around it without
25 having to take up more time and have General Nicolai taken out of the
Page 3946
1 courtroom. I would object to the formulation of that question, the
2 characterisation of Colonel Franken's adaptation or adoption of this
3 interview. I think what Colonel Franken said about the interview is
4 clear on the record, about the circumstances of this transcript that we
5 are looking at, and in particular what he said about question 1. And I
6 can cite the transcript record later, I don't have it before me, but I
7 recall some specific testimony from Colonel Franken that belies the
8 representation made by General Tolimir in his question.
9 JUDGE FLUEGGE: We can deal with that perhaps in the following
10 way: Before you respond, I would like -- just like to note that the
11 first line of this document is: "The tape recording failed. The text
12 below is a reconstruction of that discussed." In fact that means this is
13 not an interview, this is a note somebody took after having discussed
14 certain topics with Colonel Franken.
15 If you want to put this document to the witness, Mr. Tolimir,
16 then you should be very careful to quote parts of the testimony of
17 Colonel Franken. The witness might read -- may read item 1 and then you
18 put a question without quotation -- without citing parts of the testimony
19 of Colonel Franken. That would be an appropriate way to deal with that,
20 I think.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. I'll
22 rephrase my question. I think that Mr. Thayer could have said this to
23 Mr. Nicolai, since he examined Mr. Franken as well. But this is what I
24 have to say: In this interview -- well, we looked at transcripts earlier
25 on, people who recounted conversations because all the documents we
Page 3947
1 looked at were interpreted, so I didn't make any objections.
2 Q. I am just -- I would just like to ask Mr. Nicolai the following.
3 Mr. Franken allegedly said that:
4 "The BH Army smuggled two BTR armoured cars into the enclave via
5 the north. This was notified by a Dutch observation post. They were
6 never found. Later it became clear that the Ukrainians in Zepa were
7 missing a total of five."
8 So on the basis of what I've just read out, I would like to ask
9 the following question: Did you know, were you aware of that, that the
10 Ukrainians in Zepa were missing five armoured cars and that the Dutch OP
11 never mentioned seeing two armoured vehicles coming in via the north,
12 into the enclave via the north?
13 A. I can answer that very briefly. I'm not aware of any report
14 indicating that two BTR vehicles entered the enclave. And as for the
15 fact that Ukrainian troops in Zepa were missing five APCs, I don't know
16 anything about that either. Certainly not at that moment. I don't know
17 what the situation was when the evacuation was taking place from Zepa, as
18 that operation happened while I was on leave.
19 But I'd like to add something to that, if you allow me. Given
20 the relations, and I know that UNPROFOR is expected to be impartial of
21 the terms between the Ukrainian and the Bosnian Serb troops, it seems
22 extremely unlikely that of all parties they would have handed over five
23 APCs to the ABH unless they were stolen, but I can't imagine how that
24 could have happened, and I never heard any report or read any
25 announcement to that effect.
Page 3948
1 Q. [No interpretation]
2 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
3 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
4 Q. Thank you, General, sir. We will look into this when we have
5 more time. We can confront you with what Mr. Franken said and which was
6 recorded in the transcript.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Let's take a look at P17.
8 Q. But before that, let me wrap up this general topic. If I had
9 information and General Gvero had information and your deputy battalion
10 commander in Srebrenica, is it then a lie what I'm saying or a fact which
11 is based on statements made by UNPROFOR command?
12 A. If there were any manner of reports that BTR vehicles painted in
13 UN colours were perceived coming into the enclave from outside, then I
14 would have been more cautious about using words such as using lies, but
15 because no such report was ever made and such a serious fact would
16 certainly have warranted a report, I have consistently assumed that the
17 information was deliberately misleading.
18 Q. Thank you, General, sir, for your frank answer. You will say,
19 when I resume my examination, that a deputy of Colonel Karremans were
20 seen and that they drove so far that some -- nothing could be done at
21 those check-points, and the Chamber is going to hear about that as well.
22 But, General, I would like to say that it is not good practice
23 that things are concluded on the basis of such assumptions. It is said
24 to you today that Tolimir lied when -- on the 8th of July, when he said
25 that he would be checking the status of Srebrenica and the situation
Page 3949
1 there after having received a report on that from you. I would like to
2 tell --
3 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, I think that you should correct your
4 words. Not Mr. Thayer used the word "lie," but the witness used the word
5 "lie," if I recall that correctly. It was the word of the witness.
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] With your permission,
7 Mr. President, I'd like to respond to that. One example is being
8 presented now where, according to General Tolimir, is a subject of doubt.
9 On the other hand, I would like to make clear that General Tolimir
10 repeatedly denied that he attacked the civilian population, that UNPROFOR
11 was attacked by the Bosnian Serb troops, although the facts were
12 certainly different. If one denies that so vehemently, it's
13 understandable that I take an allegation about UN vehicles that did not
14 belong to DutchBat -- not belonging to DutchBat being in the enclave,
15 that I also consider such an allegation to be a lie.
16 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Please carry on, Mr. Tolimir.
17 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Thank you, Mr. Nicolai. We will continue discussing this topic
19 later on. I would like to ask you another question. There was talk of
20 you telling me on the 8th what you answered to Mr. Thayer and that you
21 said the BSA attacked your position and your check-point in the
22 Srebrenica enclave.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] There is a document, D69, please.
24 Let's take a look at it.
25 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
Page 3950
1 Q. We can see this in Serbian and in English. I'm going to read out
2 for the benefit of the transcript how I relayed your telephone protest.
3 "The UNPROFOR command in Sarajevo has filed a protest note with
4 the Main Staff of the VRS over operations against UNPROFOR observation
5 point 652808 (UNPROFOR map, near Zeleni Jadar)," as you call that
6 position then.
7 "They emphasised that their point was captured by artillery and
8 tank action. The Main Staff of the VRS answered that the Drina Corps
9 command had informed it that the Muslims were using six armoured
10 personnel carriers, painted white and bearing UNPROFOR markings, and that
11 the Muslims had started offensive operations from Srebrenica in order to
12 join up the enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa.
13 "The VRS Main Staff demanded that UNPROFOR warn the Muslim forces
14 to withdraw to within the borders of the demilitarised zones and stay
15 marked on the map, in accordance with the agreement, and to disarm them
16 in accordance with the agreement. The Main Staff also demanded that
17 UNPROFOR not set up observation points outside the marked demilitarised
18 zones.
19 "The Main Staff has ordered you not to attack UNPROFOR, but to
20 prevent any surprises and stop the Muslims in their intentions to join up
21 Srebrenica and Zepa.
22 "Good luck in war and best regards from General Tolimir."
23 This is a telegram that was sent on the 8th of July, 1995, after
24 my conversation with you, and it's stated here who are the addressees of
25 the units that were engaged around Srebrenica.
Page 3951
1 My question to you is: Did I lie in this, when I relayed your
2 protest? I also noted that you sent a protest note without mentioning
3 that it was orally. My question to you is: Did I relay everything that
4 you told me to my units? Thank you.
5 A. I'm not saying that you were lying when you conveyed these data
6 to your units, but I very much doubt the accuracy of this information.
7 First, it's highly remarkable that there would not have been any report
8 by UNPROFOR regarding six UN vehicles said to have been used during an
9 attack on troops by the Bosnian Serb army. And second, the suggestion --
10 if I compare what you could do with six UN vehicles against the
11 overpowering force of the troops concentrated by the Bosnian Serb army
12 around the enclave, then it's utopian to think that those six UN vehicles
13 could make a connection between the Zepa enclave and another enclave, so
14 it's a highly implausible depiction of the course of events. And I'm
15 saying that in euphemistic terms.
16 Q. Thank you, General, sir. Please, take a look at the fifth row in
17 the first paragraph. I did not say that you reported. I, rather, said
18 on behalf of the Drina Corps Command, we were informed that the Muslims
19 were using six armoured personnel carriers. I did not relay what they
20 reported to me. In this telegram I state to them what I said to you,
21 because I received reports on six APCs. I did not say that UNPROFOR
22 reported that. Maybe it was a mistranslation.
23 A. Yes, I was indeed referring to what you stated in the telegram
24 and you undoubtedly conveyed it this way, but I very much question the
25 accuracy of this information for the two reasons that I said. There was
Page 3952
1 never any report by UNPROFOR, and they would certainly have noticed
2 something of that. Second, the only thing you could do with such a small
3 force of six vehicles would be to provoke, hoping that UNPROFOR would
4 become involved and deploy air support. But the suggestion that they
5 were used to connect two enclaves, that's patently beyond any sense of
6 realism.
7 Q. Thank you, General, sir. Such a suggestion does not exist here,
8 I'm just relaying information to the Drina Corps what I had told you. I
9 mentioned to you those six APCs because I had received reports from them
10 about that. I'm not out in the field, I do not know what the situation
11 was. I even asked you about the co-ordinates of the OP that was
12 attacked. I was not in the Drina Corps, I was in the staff command. I
13 relayed your protest and I acted in good faith, with good intentions. I
14 wanted this to reach all the commanders. I simply did not lie. I
15 relayed what you had told me, and the co-ordinates, of course, because I
16 did not know the lay of the land or that area. Thank you.
17 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, you are not in the position to give
18 evidence. This is the problem of this trial, of course. Just put
19 questions to the witness. He is here for answering questions.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
21 Q. General, sir, since we have to be mindful of every word, did I
22 insinuate anything in what we see to the fact that the Drina Corps had
23 reported that the Muslims were using six APCs painted white with UNPROFOR
24 markings? Did I, in our conversation, mention those six APCs that were
25 used by the Muslims or not? Thank you.
Page 3953
1 A. Yes, in the different conversations that we had you have
2 indicated them, indeed.
3 Q. Thank you, General, sir. You will understand me as a general
4 since I'm not a general who took part in combat in a unit. As you said,
5 I was in charge of negotiations, just as my counter-part in your command.
6 I cannot trust a soldier or anybody else if I do not give them true and
7 genuine information.
8 Can you find out from your soldiers, for instance, from your
9 deputy battalion commander or battalion commander, that there were any
10 APCs in Srebrenica? Could you have found that out had you asked about
11 that at the relevant time? Thank you.
12 A. Well, if this had occurred, then I assume that, one way or the
13 other, this would have been observed by the DutchBat troops, either by
14 them or by other UN troops present on the grounds, and also by the
15 military observers, the UNMOs, present on the ground. And never there
16 has been any report that indicated in this direction.
17 Q. Thank you, General, sir. My first question would be: Did
18 anybody check the information that I gave you repeatedly, as you said,
19 and Gvero did, about the six APCs? Did the Sarajevo command verify that
20 with their troops on the ground in Srebrenica and Zepa? Thank you.
21 A. No, they have not because it never occurred to me that this would
22 concern APCs that could originate from the Zepa enclave, and because I
23 was certain that these were no DutchBat APCs. And therefore there was no
24 reason for me to verify whether possibly APCs could be missing in Zepa,
25 what at the same time still seemed very unlikely to me.
Page 3954
1 Q. Thank you for your answer. So, nobody verified the information
2 provided by two generals from the Main Staff concerning six APCs that
3 were missing from the Ukrainian battalion in Zepa. Maybe you thought
4 that we were trying to mislead you, but you will see in the transcript
5 what the deputy battalion commander has to say about that when the time
6 comes. Thank you.
7 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, the witness said, "therefore there
8 was no reason for me to verify." This is a difference to your statement,
9 "nobody verified the information." Please be careful by putting such a
10 statement to the witness. And now your next question, please.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
12 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
13 Q. Witness, sir, for me not to be misunderstood, let me repeat this
14 question. Did anybody from the UNPROFOR command in Sarajevo verify the
15 information that had been provided by Generals Tolimir and Gvero that
16 there were six APCs missing in Zepa? Thank you. And that those six APCs
17 were in Srebrenica during the combat? Thank you.
18 A. The answer can be very clear. If it would have been reported to
19 me that APCs were missing in the Zepa enclave, then certainly I would
20 have verified this. However, this has not been communicated to me with
21 so many words. There only has been reference to six UN APCs and the
22 assumption that these could be from Zepa never come to my mind, and
23 therefore there was no reason to verify these allegations.
24 Q. Thank you. Did I tell you this and did General Gvero tell you
25 this in conversations? Thank you.
Page 3955
1 A. Well, earlier during this session we have looked at this
2 transcript of a telephone conversation in which you state that six white
3 APCs were being used by the ABiH forces. I can confirm that.
4 Q. Thank you, General, sir.
5 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, Judge Nyambe has a question.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
7 JUDGE NYAMBE: Thank you, Mr. President. I have a question for
8 the General who is the witness, just to make sure that I don't confuse.
9 At page 69 of our transcript, lines 5 to 10, you have stated that:
10 "If it would have been reported to me that APCs were missing in
11 the Zepa enclave, then certainly I would have verified this. However,
12 this has not been communicated to me with," I think you mean in so many
13 words. "There only has been references to six UN APCs, and the
14 assumption that this could have come from Zepa never came to my mind."
15 I want -- just can you clarify for me, did you receive any report
16 of UN six or any number of UN APCs missing during the relevant period?
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have never received reports on
18 any missing UNPROFOR APCs. The only reports I have received were from
19 General Tolimir and the conversation by telephone that we have seen
20 earlier today. Given the fact that I knew DutchBat was not missing any
21 armed personnel carrier, they were the unit on the ground in Srebrenica,
22 I knew that this could not possibly be any APCs of DutchBat. And when
23 General Tolimir now says that these could be possibly APCs from UN troops
24 in Zepa is new to me. I have never received any reports about APCs from
25 the UN missing from Zepa and this seems so unlikely to me, given the fact
Page 3956
1 that the Srebrenica enclave was completely surrounded by Serb Bosnian
2 troops. It's inconceivable to me how they could have reached the
3 Srebrenica enclave, and even more, how these APCs could have ended up in
4 the hands of the Muslim forces. And this is something I cannot even
5 picture in my mind.
6 JUDGE NYAMBE: Thank you.
7 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Please carry on, Mr. Tolimir. Some minutes left.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Please, since I have
9 several minutes left, let's take a look at D41 on the e-court, please.
10 MR. TOLIMIR: [Interpretation]
11 Q. And before it's retrieved, I'd like to ask you a question. You
12 told me on the 8th that UNPROFOR soldiers should not be attacked, didn't
13 you? Did you tell me that the BSA should not attack UNPROFOR soldiers?
14 Did you say that to me on the 8th? Thank you.
15 A. Yes, that is correct.
16 Q. Thank you. My meagre authority over the combat unit was
17 confirmed by or reaffirmed by the commanders or the president's authority
18 as can be seen in paragraph 4.
19 "In accordance with the order of the president of Republika
20 Srpska, you must issue an order to all combat units participating in
21 combat operations around Srebrenica to offer maximum protection and
22 safety to all UNPROFOR members and the civilian Muslim population. You
23 must order subordinate units to refrain from destroying civilian targets
24 unless forced to do so because of strong enemy resistance. Ban the
25 torching of residential buildings and treat the civilian population and
Page 3957
1 war prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Conventions of the
2 12th of August, 1949. Assistant commander, Major-General
3 Zdravko Tolimir."
4 I sent this on the 9th of July, after our conversation on the
5 8th, and that's confirmed here on the document. My question to you is:
6 Did I do everything you requested from me to protect UNPROFOR members?
7 As you see, very urgent conduct of combat operations around Srebrenica
8 addressed to the Drina Corps Command, did I invent things or did I just
9 relay what you had requested of me? Thank you.
10 A. Indeed I can read what is written in these orders. However,
11 commanders are accountable, first and foremost, about their deeds and not
12 about their words. And let me repeat that I am not speaking about you as
13 a person. I consider you to be the intermediate between UNPROFOR and the
14 command of the Bosnian Serb forces.
15 It is a fact that we have demanded from you that the attacks on
16 UNPROFOR should cease. It is also a fact that reality has shown that
17 this has not materialised. Whether orders have been given to stop this
18 is one, but it's something else whether this actually happened and they
19 did not stop.
20 Q. Thank you, General, sir. I've been told that we are nearing the
21 end of the day so just one more question. The person who commands
22 forces, who is in command of the forces, he issues his orders. Does he
23 issue his orders to the forces expecting them to comply, since he asked
24 nothing more than for them to act upon his orders; is that right or not?
25 A. No, that's something that I cannot affirm. A commanding officer
Page 3958
1 is not freed from his responsibility from the moment when he issues an
2 order. He is only freed from the responsibility when he ensures that
3 these orders are executed, and he should see to this. And a commanding
4 officer is not freed from certain responsibility by simply issuing an
5 order.
6 Q. Thank you, General. I wasn't the commander, I just conveyed your
7 orders to the Drina Corps command. That's all. I couldn't issue orders
8 to the Drina Corps and I said quite clearly that I conveyed your message.
9 So I'm asking you now, did I convey your message as you told it to me or
10 not?
11 A. Yes, reading this document then that is the case. I assumed that
12 the message that I had conveyed would be conveyed by you to
13 General Mladic, and that General Mladic would see to it that these orders
14 would be carried out. And I assume that at that point in time
15 General Mladic was the commanding officer on the grounds, but whoever was
16 on the grounds should have seen to this. However, simply issuing orders
17 on paper does not free the commanding officer from the responsibility he
18 bears, which does not mean that I am assuming that you were that
19 commanding officer.
20 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Mr. Tolimir, we are approaching the end of
21 today's hearing.
22 Mr. Thayer.
23 MR. THAYER: Mr. President, we can take up my intervention when
24 we return. We don't need to stay longer for that.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. And I'd
Page 3959
1 like to thank the witness for his sincere answers and proper conduct.
2 I'd like to thank the interpreters and everybody else who helped us
3 understand each other. Since I just asked general questions in the start
4 of my cross-examination and I didn't put any documents to the witness
5 which I shall be using in due course, I used the documents we've already
6 been through. Thank you.
7 JUDGE FLUEGGE: Thank you very much.
8 Sir, this doesn't conclude the questioning for you, but for today
9 you are free to return to your normal activities, but I have to remind
10 you it is not allowed to get in contact to either party on the content of
11 your examination during the break.
12 Before we break and adjourn, I have to mention one detail. We
13 have admitted three documents during the evidence of Mr. Blaszczyk. The
14 documents P132, P143, and P140 have not a translation yet and therefore
15 they will be marked for identification only.
16 At this point in time I would like to thank you, the staff, the
17 whole staff who is supporting us, but also the parties for the proper
18 conduct of this trial and I think we appreciate the progress we were able
19 to make all together. This was the last day of hearing before the summer
20 recess. I'm not in a position to wish everybody nice holidays because
21 not everybody will have holidays, at least not the whole time of the
22 summer recess, but all the best for everybody present in the courtroom.
23 We will resume on the 13th of August, in the afternoon,
24 2.15 p.m., in this courtroom number III. Or perhaps I misspoke, it is
25 the 17th of August. No, no, we won't have a hearing during the summer.
Page 3960
1 So the 17th of August.
2 We adjourn.
3 [The witness stands down]
4 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.06 p.m.,
5 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 17th day of
6 August, 2010, at 2.15 p.m.
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