090623IT

Page 6391

1 JUDGE PARKER: Can we leave it with you then, Mr. Djurdjic.

2 Thank you.

3 That's one problem. While the witness is being brought in, we

4 cannot as Judges get today's transcript on our screen. We have

5 yesterday's.

6 THE REGISTRAR: I already informed the technician. They are

7 coming to fix it.

8 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.

9 [The witness takes the stand]

10 JUDGE PARKER: Good morning.

11 THE WITNESS: Good morning, sir.

12 JUDGE PARKER: The affirmation you made yesterday to tell the

13 truth still applies.

14 THE WITNESS: Understood, sir.

15 JUDGE PARKER: Ms. Kravetz is continuing.

16 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we please have back up on the screen

17 Exhibit P1011 which was the last document we saw yesterday.

18 WITNESS: JOHN KAROL DREWIENKIEWICZ [Resumed]

19 Examination by Ms. Kravetz: [Continued]

20 Q. I would like to ask you to turn to tab 17 again of your binder.

21 Yesterday when we with left off we were looking at this document, and I

22 would ask you to turn to the last page, the almost-to-last paragraph of

23 the document. I'm just going to check if the document is there.

24 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could have the last page of it displayed.

25 Thank you.

Page 6392

1 Q. I just wanted to ask you for a clarification of what is stated in

2 the first sentence of this page where it says:

3 "6 to 8 K enter FYROM yesterday reported to be up to 50 K waiting

4 to cross in the immediate border area. This morning we have seen a

5 further 7 K arrive by train."

6 What does that refer to?

7 A. It refers to thousands of displaced persons. 6.000 to 8.000

8 entered FYROM yesterday. There were reported to be up to 50.000 waiting

9 to cross an immediate border area. This morning we've seen a further

10 7.000 arrive by train. So that was just my shorthand.

11 Q. And what would have been the source of this information?

12 A. The numbers would have come through to me from my people on the

13 ground because I had people at the border watching what was going on. I

14 will be the first to admit that the exact numbers are subject to -- were

15 the judgement of the people that were there, but they had spent quite a

16 long time there by then, and they had got quite used to seeing several

17 thousand. So I think they were very capable of knowing what 1.000 people

18 looked like milling around in a muddy field.

19 Q. And just for clarification, what does FYROM stand for?

20 A. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the country to the

21 south of Serbia and to the south of Kosovo and that area.

22 Q. Thank you.

23 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we now have up on the screen 02541.

24 Q. And this is tab 18 of your binder. And I would ask that you turn

25 to that. I see we have the document up on the screen. Sir, I would just

Page 6393

1 ask if you could tell us what this document is, if you know, and I'm

2 particularly interested in a bullet point that's dated 20 March, 2009

3 which starts with "Evacuation of OSCE KVM."

4 A. Yes, this was another version of the previous serial. This was,

5 I think, the first draft of it on the assumption that I would have to

6 brief people who were utterly unaware of the situation and therefore I

7 needed to have one page in which everything that had happened starting

8 the previous October was set out. And so the aim, the buildup, the

9 current situation, were really the three issues. And as you saw in the

10 previous serial, the buildup part of that was -- was not used in the

11 briefing that eventually took place.

12 The 20th of March, which was the day we were ordered out, and as

13 it says, "The start of unconstrained operations by MUP and VJ against

14 civilians especially in the Podujevo area." Our authority for saying

15 that or -- my authority for saying that was that as we were driving out,

16 we were already seeing VJ and MUP forces leaving their areas in columns

17 and headed out towards the areas where KLA were known to be.

18 There was also a number of agencies, particularly UNHCR, that

19 stayed an extra day after we stayed, and they didn't evacuate until the

20 next day, the 21st. And when they came out, they reported to us that the

21 moment we had left, in their words, all hell broke loose; and therefore,

22 what we saw of people leaving their barrack areas was confirmed by the

23 UNHCR in particular as they remained there throughout the next 24 hours.

24 And the level of violence went up to such a degree that the UNHCR

25 promptly left because they had -- they had felt that although we were

Page 6394

1 ordered out that they had a duty to stay, despite our having left until

2 the level of violence became so great that they too had to leave for

3 their own safety. And that took just 24 hours before that decision was

4 made by them. Thank you.

5 Q. And when you were -- received this reports that the level of

6 violence had increased, what exactly were you told was happening on the

7 ground?

8 A. Well, we were told that the areas we were all familiar with were

9 subject to attacks by the various Serb forces that had been leaving

10 barracks as we were leaving.

11 Q. Thank you.

12 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, I seek to tender this exhibit. It is

13 02541, and I ask that that be received.

14 JUDGE PARKER: It will be received.

15 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P1027, Your Honours.

16 MS. KRAVETZ: I would now like to have P840 up on the screen.

17 Q. General, we're going to have a photograph displayed on the screen

18 right before you. We are no longer going to be referring to the binder

19 that you have there, so you can just close that.

20 A. Okay. Good. Thank you.

21 Q. And I would just like to ask you if you recognise the locality

22 that's shown in the photograph and if you can provide any comments as to

23 what is seen there.

24 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could please zoom in for the witness.

25 THE WITNESS: Yes, this is the area immediately south of the

Page 6395

1 border crossing from Kosovo into Macedonia at Brezda due south of

2 Djeneral Jankovic. It's the view from the main road which runs along the

3 bottom edge of this photo. I would say it's about the 2nd of April

4 because it's not the moment that everybody arrived because you can see

5 that there are some fires that have been lit for cooking, and there have

6 been some temporary shelters put up by the people. And when we first saw

7 this about 24 hours before, there were no fires, there were no shelters.

8 It was just people stumbling around in that area.

9 And the people there are Kosovar Albanians who have just arrived

10 here by walking down the railway line which is at the top right-hand

11 corner of this picture. I think the picture was probably taken by

12 Richard Ciaglinski.

13 Q. Did you yourself travel to this area to see this field with

14 refugees that we see in the photograph?

15 A. Yes, I did.

16 Q. And when were you there?

17 A. I was there the day before this. After I -- after I was in the

18 Ministry of Defence in the UK, I was put on a plane to be taken straight

19 back to Macedonia. And I think I landed soon after lunch the next day.

20 And when I landed, the first thing that happened was I got a call on

21 mobile phone from Richard Ciaglinski who said, Hey, you need to come and

22 see this because it has got a lot worse since you left in the 36 hours or

23 so since you've been away.

24 So I went immediately to this location where I met him, and we

25 stood on this hill and saw this sort of -- this sort of scene unfolding

Page 6396

1 in front of us. It was actually Good Friday, I seem to remember that it

2 was a bit of a funny old thing to have to be seeing on Good Friday.

3 Q. And while you were at this border point with Mr. Ciaglinski, were

4 you able to obtain any information as to why these persons that we see on

5 the photograph that are in the field had crossed the border into

6 Macedonia? Why they had left Kosovo?

7 A. Yes, because among all of these people were some of our former

8 security guards who made themselves known to us, and we had interpreters

9 with us anyway, so we were able to ask various people that came up to --

10 people came up to the road because although they weren't aloud onto the

11 road, there were a number of water bowsers, and their only way of getting

12 drinking water was to get water from the water bowsers. So they would

13 come up with empty soft drinks bottles, plastic bottles, and fill their

14 water containers. And at that point we were able to ask them what their

15 situation was.

16 Many of them said that they were from Pristina, that they had

17 been rounded up at very short notice and moved down to the station where

18 they were loaded onto the train, that the train took them down to the

19 border where they were ordered off the train and were ordered to walk

20 down the train lines to this location, and further were told that the

21 area either side of the train lines was mined and therefore if they

22 strayed from the train tracks, they would doubtless be blown up.

23 The other thing we were told was that as they were leaving at

24 various moments during this process, they were systematically robbed and

25 their identification documents were taken off them, and it was certainly

Page 6397

1 the case that almost everybody that we met had no identification

2 documents because it became obviously a serious issue later when we were

3 attempting to help some of these people be taken to countries of refuge

4 and they needed new identity documents to be created for them, and we

5 were involved in that. Thank you.

6 Q. Now, you say that the -- many of these persons told you they were

7 from Pristina and they had been rounded up at very short notice. Did

8 they tell you anything as to who had been involved in rounding them up

9 and moving them to the train station?

10 A. Yes, this was largely a police operation. They said that they

11 were -- that the police entered their locality, banged on all the doors,

12 told everybody that they had 5 minutes to get out, and then herded

13 everybody down to the station. But it was largely described as a police

14 operation.

15 Q. Now, you've spoken about these persons saying that they had been

16 systematically robbed and that their identification documents had been

17 taken from them. What was, in your view, the significance of that, of

18 the removal of the identification documents?

19 A. Well, I think it was to render them stateless. Throughout --

20 throughout the Balkan wars, the issue of who someone is and where he

21 comes from and how he can establish who he is and where he comes from has

22 been raised many times, and this was the first time I had had direct

23 experience of coming across this myself. But it was a consistent

24 complaint of these people, that they had -- had had their ID taken from

25 them.

Page 6398

1 Q. Thank you. Now, moving on to the period of the end of the

2 conflict in 1999. Did you return to Kosovo after the conflict ended?

3 A. Yes, I did.

4 Q. When exactly did you return?

5 A. I arrived the day before KFOR went into Kosovo, attached to the

6 KFOR headquarters led by General Mike Jackson, and took Richard

7 Ciaglinski with me. So he and I went in as an additional liaison team to

8 assist the KFOR when it went in.

9 We arrived, as I say, the day before the -- the force went in,

10 and on the day that the force went in, I personally went in with

11 General Jackson; and then the day after that, I took -- I led the whole

12 of the UN convoy into Kosovo by road.

13 Q. Now, you say that you arrived the day before the KFOR went in and

14 that you later also went in with General Jackson. To which locality

15 specifically did you go when you returned to Kosovo?

16 A. On D day, on the day that the forces first went in, I went into

17 Pristina airport and then flew back out -- back down to Macedonia. And

18 the day, after I went with the UN convoy up to Pristina and we then

19 stayed in Pristina.

20 Q. Now, you've referred to staying in Pristina during this time.

21 Can you just very briefly tell us about your observations in the town

22 when you returned in this period to Pristina?

23 A. The day I arrived, my job was to go to the Grand Hotel and to

24 attend a meeting with the Serb military that was taking place in the

25 basement of the Grand Hotel. I did that, I suppose, about 7.00 at night.

Page 6399

1 And having finished that meeting at about half past 8.00 at night, I

2 walked around that area between -- between the Grand Hotel and where the

3 OSCE building had been because that was where many of the government

4 buildings had been. I really wanted to see what the state of the

5 building that the OSCE had been in. And in walking around there,

6 Richard Ciaglinski drew my attention to a bonfire which was burning. Do

7 you want me to describe this?

8 Q. Yes, please carry on.

9 A. And this was outside the public part of the police headquarters

10 on the opposite side of the road to the Grand Hotel. And a bonfire, a

11 conical shaped heap of stuff was smouldering about two and a -- about a

12 metre high. We warmed our hands at it because it was a chilly night, and

13 then to get a bit more flame we kicked at it. And as the bonfire sort of

14 fell apart, we realised it was actually a bonfire of identity documents.

15 And so we retrieved some of the documents and realised that the whole

16 bonfire was actually a bonfire of burning identity documents of various

17 sorts.

18 Q. And were you able to ascertain to whom these identity documents

19 belonged to?

20 A. We got several of these, I suppose about half a dozen, and put

21 the fire out. And it was clear that they were Kosovar Albanians. The

22 dates of birth varied, but I think the earliest was about 1950, and the I

23 think there was one as late at 1970. But generally they belonged to

24 Kosovar Albanians of an age where they would still be alive.

25 Q. Thank you. I would like to show you one last exhibit.

Page 6400

1 MS. KRAVETZ: And this is 65 ter 00407. If we could have that up

2 on the screen. This is a document that is called the Blue Book. OSCE

3 Blue Book.

4 Q. And while that is being brought up, just to follow up from your

5 last answer, do you know who was burning the documents outside the MUP

6 building? Were you able to find that out?

7 A. No. I mean nobody was coming out to stack up the fire and throw

8 a few more on it while we were there. I think we might have asked him

9 what in the heck he was doing. We passed the documents and that

10 information to the Royal Military Police Detachment of the headquarters

11 of the KFOR since obviously at that stage there were no civilian

12 police -- international civilian police on the scene.

13 Q. Thank you. I see we now have the document up on the screen. Do

14 you -- are you familiar with this document, General?

15 A. Yes. Absolutely.

16 Q. Can you tell us what this is, the Blue Book?

17 A. The Blue Book was a briefing document whose purpose was to

18 attempt to show where things were happening. Each morning there was a

19 daily update for the head of mission and the deputies given by -- in the

20 presence of all of the heads of the staff branches. And this began as

21 a -- a written description of what was going on. But since not all of

22 the senior members of the mission were familiar with the area outside of

23 Pristina, it became clear that we needed to present this information more

24 visually, and also to give some value to the reports that were being

25 offered.

Page 6401

1 So we tried to show where there were clusters of activity, and we

2 tried to show how authentic we felt -- how reliable we felt the

3 information was. So it was -- it was not just a straight description of

4 what had happened, but a description with a commentary which attempted to

5 say that this is rather unusual, or this is following the trend, or this

6 looks very similar to something that we saw a week ago but in another

7 location.

8 So the commentary on it was part of the value added that we

9 attempted to give to it. And it was put together by the fusion cell,

10 which was the cell which was not receiving all of the information on a

11 minute-by-minute basis, but it was what stepped back one step and was

12 trying to analyse all of this open source information that came to us

13 from all of the regional centres, from all sources. And to try to

14 collate it and make sense of it.

15 Q. You mentioned having tried to show how authentic the information

16 was and reliable you felt it was. How did you go about trying to check

17 the reliability of the information before including it in this document?

18 A. We used a system which is -- has generally been used in military

19 intelligence which is to rate it from A1 to F6 with the A to F rating

20 being the reliability of the source and 1 to 6 being the likelihood of it

21 being correct.

22 And so an A1 report would be something from a source you knew

23 very well and you trusted him and it was entirely probable that this

24 was -- that this was correct because it had maybe been checked with

25 another source and found to be correct. On the other hand, if someone

Page 6402

1 sidles up to you in a cafe and whispers something and you've never seen

2 him before in your life and it sounds most improbable, then the man with

3 the board on the street who says the world is going to end tomorrow is

4 probably F6.

5 Q. Thank you. I would like to go through some of the entries of

6 this book just so we can all understand what sort of information was

7 included there and how it was compiled.

8 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could first turn to page 247 of the English,

9 and in the B/C/S version this is page 24.

10 Q. And this is an entry that's entitled "Significant Events As

11 Reported" and the date is 15th January 1999.

12 MS. KRAVETZ: If the witness could only have the English

13 displayed for him.

14 THE WITNESS: Can we zoom it up, please. Thanks.

15 MS. KRAVETZ: And I indicated the B/C/S version was page 24 just

16 for reference for the Defence.

17 Q. So we see in this page we have six events that are indicated.

18 Could you explain what this is that we see here?

19 A. This is the visual depiction of what's been going on throughout

20 Friday the 15th of January.

21 JUDGE PARKER: If you could pause a moment, please.

22 Yes, Mr. Djurdjic.

23 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, is it possible for

24 me to have this page so that I can follow, please.

25 JUDGE PARKER: Not only possible, you should let us try and

Page 6403

1 ensure you do.

2 MS. KRAVETZ:

3 Q. General, I think if you could continue, if I could again request

4 for the witness only to display the English so he can be able to read

5 what it on the page. Thank you.

6 So, General, just if you could just continue with the answer you

7 were giving about the explanation of what we see here.

8 A. I need the font up, I'm afraid. Otherwise you're going to see me

9 half an inch away from the screen. Great.

10 Okay. Number 1, Regional Centre 3, that's Pec, report the

11 contact between the VJ and MUP and the KLA forces continued in the

12 vicinity of Gornji Ratis and Donji Ratis which as you can see is due

13 south of Pec.

14 Number 2, two of my people are wounded by small-arms fire and

15 glass fragments in approximately the same area, and we later discovered

16 that the wounds were not life threatening.

17 Q. Can I stop you there, sir. What I was -- what my question was

18 aimed at was just for you to explain how this information would have been

19 compiled by the fusion cell --

20 A. All right. Okay.

21 Q. -- more than the actual -- because we can read what is on the

22 page.

23 A. Well, I certainly couldn't when it was down half a page size.

24 Yeah. The reports came into the operations cell which was dealing with

25 the reports as they came in. They logged them, they informed people that

Page 6404

1 needed to be told; and if they needed to adjust who send people to look

2 at things or reinforce a presence, then they gave those instructions.

3 And they noted it in a written log, sort of one serial after another, so

4 it was chronological. So if something happened at midday at the

5 left-hand end of Kosovo and something happened at 12.01 at the right-hand

6 end, they would appear in the log one after the other.

7 It was all passed to the fusion centre who mapped it all on the

8 map and then attempted to say what was going on in the broader picture.

9 So the fact that Serial 1 and Serial 2 are in the same area, they could

10 well have been -- the reports to those thing could well have been four

11 hours apart, so they could have been four pages away on the log. So

12 bringing it all together on the map and showing exactly where things are

13 is an attempt to show where the hot spots are.

14 Q. Thank you.

15 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now turn to page 251 of the English and

16 this is 25 in the B/C/S. And I would again ask for the English to be

17 displayed for the witness and if we could zoom in.

18 Q. Do you have that before you, General?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. This is an entry entitled "Significant Events as Reported," and

21 it's --

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. -- number 5. We see that this is a report from RC 1 of an attack

24 by combined VJ MUP forces in thee vicinity of Stimlje, and there are

25 several localities mentioned there including the village of Racak.

Page 6405

1 Yesterday you had spoken about an incident in the village of Racak; would

2 this entry be a reference to that same incident that you referred to

3 yesterday?

4 A. Yes, it was, yes. It was -- it came from RC 5, which wasn't

5 Prizren. It was -- it was one that was further to the east and had only

6 just been set up. But yes, and again, this is a precis of obviously a

7 day's worth of events packaged together to try to put a consistent

8 narrative together. So it's really everything we knew about what had

9 gone on.

10 Q. Thank you.

11 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now have page 563 up on the screen, and

12 this is page 42 on the B/C/S.

13 Q. This is an entry that is entitled "Significant Events As

14 Reported," and it's dated 21 February, 1999. And on the top we see "RC 3

15 large VJ convoy spotted." I believe that's still not up on the screen.

16 Do you have that up on the screen?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Yes. We see that in this entry there's a reference to a large

19 convoy of -- a VJ convoy of Serbs travelling south from Belgrade heading

20 towards Nis and presumably on towards Kosovo. And it says:

21 "There is no indication that the convoy ever turned back to

22 Belgrade."

23 How were you able to obtain this sort of information, that a

24 large convoy was travelling towards Kosovo, a VJ convoy?

25 A. This was because one of my vehicles was on the main -- was going

Page 6406

1 to or from Belgrade. Obviously we went -- people went up to Belgrade for

2 various reasons. We had a liaison office in Belgrade as well which was

3 our foot on the ground in Belgrade; a point of contact in Belgrade. And

4 so for a number of reasons, people drove from Kosovo up the highway to

5 Belgrade which took about four hours. And this was a sighting that

6 was -- that was obviously made by the -- I think by a vehicle going in

7 the opposite direction. So I think that as it was going north towards

8 Belgrade, it observed this convoy, checked what was on it, and reported

9 it.

10 Q. So this would have been an observation made by one of your

11 verifiers?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Do you have further information as to what happened to this

14 convoy, if you remember?

15 A. Not off the top of my head, no.

16 Q. Thank you. Okay.

17 MS. KRAVETZ: If we can now turn to page 703 in the English; and

18 in the B/C/S this is page 74.

19 Q. This is an entry dated "Significant Events as Reported,"

20 12 March, 1999.

21 And the heading of it is "RC 2 Houses Burning Near Vucitrn."

22 Now, yesterday you spoke about a large-scale offensive in the

23 Kacanik and Vucitrn areas, and you told us how you yourself went to

24 Vucitrn to see what was happening. Does this entry relate to the same

25 operation, or is this a different incident?

Page 6407

1 A. I think it's an earlier part of the operation I then went and

2 observed. The specific location here that's indicated is to the south

3 and east of where I went; and when I went it was at least the next day.

4 But I think it was part of the same operation which was -- which was over

5 quite a large area.

6 Q. Now, we see that at the end of the first paragraph we have an A1.

7 What does that mean?

8 A. A1 means that it's been verified on the ground by people whom we

9 trust, by more than one source.

10 Q. This refers to the system that you have referred to earlier?

11 A. Yes, yes.

12 MS. KRAVETZ: Could we now have page 735 up on the screen; and in

13 the B/C/S this is page 85.

14 Q. And this is an entry for the 14th March, 1999, and the heading

15 says: "Heavy Fighting in Southern Part of Klina."

16 I wanted to ask you, this entry indicates that there's heavy

17 fighting in a number of localities and speaks about the type of fighting

18 that has been observed. And there's a comment included in there, and I

19 wanted to ask you about the source of this comment.

20 A. This would be a comment inserted by the fusion cell when they had

21 got the report and they had compared it with all the other reports they

22 had, and would wish to put it in context for the people that were being

23 briefed. So it's a comment by the fusion cell sitting in Pristina on

24 something that happened some way away that they didn't personally

25 observe, but they had got other reports from other sources which were

Page 6408

1 relevant and so they put the whole thing together with a comment. And

2 when it says "comment," it's an opinion; but it's an opinion by somebody

3 who is a professional at doing this.

4 Q. Now, we see that -- I see that in the comment it says, second

5 sentence, The MUP said that they had not been involved - and the third

6 sentence - However MUP, including PJP milicija were observed by RC 3

7 operating in the the area.

8 Why was this significant and why has -- do you know why PJP has

9 been highlighted there?

10 A. Well, PJP is rather more competent. In other words, it's not

11 your average MUP who would have been garrisoning, for instance, a fixed

12 position like Malisevo. PJP milicija are the more competent units of

13 better people, better trained, and able to be deployed throughout the

14 area, not necessarily specifically tied to a particular location, but

15 deployed to areas of greater need.

16 Q. Thank you.

17 MS. KRAVETZ: If we could now have page 851 up on the screen; and

18 this is 147 in the B/C/S.

19 Q. This is an entry for 26 March, 1999, and it's -- the heading is

20 "Djakovica Burning."

21 Now, my question about this entry is that it's dated after the

22 period that you and your verifiers left Kosovo. So I would like you to

23 explain to the Court how you were able to continue reporting what was

24 going on on the ground after you had left.

25 A. We left mobile phones -- no, we didn't leave mobile phones. The

Page 6409

1 people that worked for us all had mobile phones, all had their own mobile

2 phones, and generally we knew what those mobile phones were. And so we

3 were able to ring our former civilian employees, both Albanian and Serb,

4 and say to them, What's going on? And we received quite a lot of reports

5 that way.

6 Six days after we left, we were still in contact with quite a lot

7 of these people, and so this would be a report or a report compiled from

8 a number of reports which -- which appeared to indicate what was going on

9 on the ground. The fact that we've rated it C3 as opposed to A1 mean's

10 that we were absolutely not convinced it was all exactly as described,

11 and it was a useful way of reminding ourselves that this is not firsthand

12 knowledge.

13 Q. Now, the comment on this page says:

14 "The pattern continues in outlying towns as well as in Pristina.

15 Initially, it was thought that the major cities would be spared, however,

16 that appears not to be the case now."

17 What would have been the source of this information? Would that

18 have again been information you obtained on the ground from persons who

19 were there in the province?

20 A. Yes. And the comment "it was thought the major cities would be

21 spared" reflects the fact that in the first few days the action of the

22 Serb forces was in the areas where the KLA appeared to be concentrated,

23 i.e., not in the cities. And so to start with, we saw a pattern of

24 activity by the Serb forces in the country-side, and then we see this

25 change and they start to clear out the Albanians from the cities as well.

Page 6410

1 Q. Thank you. Just the last entry I want to show you in this

2 document is page 855; and it's 149 in the B/C/S. And this is also an

3 entry for the same date, 26 March, 1999; and it's an entry entitled

4 "Armed Serb Civilians Patrolling Pristina."

5 Now, we see that this entry says - I think it's up on the screen

6 now - it is reported that there were groups of armed Serb civilians

7 patrolling through the city of Pristina. And that there had been reports

8 of looting and burning of Albanian houses and businesses throughout the

9 city and also of these civilians participating murders of Albanian

10 civilians.

11 And we see that it has the same rating as the previous page. So

12 would the source of this information again have been from your sources on

13 the ground at the time.

14 A. Yes, yes, it would.

15 Q. Now, I want to draw your attention to the comment that's included

16 in this entry. It says:

17 "The VJ and MUP had allowed lawlessness to get out of hand."

18 What does that refer to?

19 A. I think at the time I probably chastised the author and said

20 that's a blinding glimpse of the obvious. But given that we are where we

21 are today, I think it's very apposite that they wrote it. But clearly

22 they are reporting on the fact that what is taking place is not an

23 operation by people attempting to promote the rule of law by going after

24 criminals and detaining criminals in the KLA, that the the local Serb

25 population or elements of the local Serb population have been allowed to

Page 6411

1 join in the overall lawlessness and persecution of the Albanian civilians

2 in Pristina.

3 Q. Thank you.

4 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, at this stage I have no further

5 questions for the witness. I seek to tender this exhibit into evidence.

6 This is 00407. I know that my learned colleague from the Defence had

7 raised an objection, and I would like to clarify our position regarding

8 this document. Since my learned colleague very rightly so yesterday

9 raised the issue of the lack of translations in the e-court system for

10 this exhibit, these have now been located and uploaded and the full set

11 has been provided to the Defence. It is my understanding that only a few

12 of them had been previously disclosed and the full set was provided

13 yesterday and is now in the e-court system.

14 We had made a selection of the pages we wanted to have admitted.

15 These sum up approximately to 160 pages, so this is a very lengthy

16 document. Of course, I can't go through each page with the witness and

17 have him comment on them, but I would request that based on the evidence

18 he has given on how this document was compiled and what sort of

19 information is contained within the document, I would request that

20 Your Honours receive that portion that has been translated into evidence.

21 It is our view that this document contains contemporaneous

22 reports of what was going on on the ground and that it will assist

23 Your Honours in having an overview of events for the dates that are

24 included within the document.

25 JUDGE PARKER: Ms. Kravetz, are you saying that 160 pages have

Page 6416

1 and possibly other evidence that touches upon it.

2 So at the moment, they will be marked for identification. You

3 will, of course, in your cross-examination deal with them as you think

4 appropriate, Mr. Djurdjic. Is that clear enough for your purposes?

5 Thank you.

6 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, therefore the book which is

7 65 ter 407 will become Exhibit P1028 marked for identification.

8 And the excerpt of 160 pages will become Exhibit P1029 marked for

9 identification.

10 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.

11 Are you ready to commence now, Mr. Djurdjic?

12 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

13 Cross-examination by Mr. Djurdjic:

14 Q. Good morning, General. My name is Veljko Djurdjic, I'm a member

15 of the Defence team for the accused Vlastimir Djordjevic. I am assisted

16 by Ms. Marie O'Leary, also a member of our team.

17 May I kindly ask you, since you are a fast talker, as am I, to

18 wait for the typing on the LiveNote to finish before you start answering

19 so that the interpreters and court reporters can do their job properly.

20 I would also appreciate it if you could give me precise and

21 concise answers to save time. So far you have given a number of

22 statements and I have read them all. You also testified twice. That's

23 why I will try to ask only questions that have not been asked before and

24 concentrate on points that are of special interest to us.

25 But there's one thing that intrigues me: In your 2000 statement

Page 6417

1 I have not found this point where you speak about the large number of

2 people on the border of Macedonia, the bad situation they were in,

3 et cetera. How come you as a human being did not find it important

4 enough to mention in 2000 when you were giving the statement?

5 A. I think it was so recent that it was a constant back-drop to

6 everything that was going on at the time. I certainly was deeply

7 affected by it. I have got at home photos of me actually there, if you

8 doubt whether I was there or not; but if I didn't mention it specifically

9 in 2000, it was because the question did not come up. And I think at the

10 end of the week in which I gave that statement in 2000 we felt we had

11 probably suffered enough at that stage.

12 Q. Thank you. You've just opened up another issue. How did it come

13 about that you gave a statement in 2000?

14 A. I was approached by the United Nations International Criminal

15 Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, and was asked to make a statement, so I

16 made a statement. I checked with my superiors because I was still a

17 serving officer, and they agreed it was the appropriate thing to do.

18 Q. Thank you, General. Did the UK or the UK armed forces give you a

19 waiver from the Official Secrets Act? Did you communicate absolutely

20 everything to the investigators, and are you able to share with us all

21 the information you have today without any restrictions?

22 A. I have been given no restriction from the official secrets -- no,

23 no waivers from the Official Secrets Act; and I have tried not to breach

24 the Official Secrets Act. Luckily, almost everything we did in Kosovo

25 relied on open-source information; and while at the time I grumbled that

Page 6418

1 I was getting very little background or specific intelligence material,

2 it's actually quite an advantage when it comes to moments like this.

3 Q. Thank you. I did not quite understand this, but let's move on.

4 When you were giving that first statement in 2000, what kind of

5 documentation did you use?

6 A. Over the course of a week, I sat with -- with the investigator

7 who had been sent -- sent to England who had, I seem to remember, two

8 assistants, and we sat for about six hours a day, and he -- he went

9 through everything, and it was taken down pretty much verbatim. And it

10 was then produced for me, and I went through it and agreed that that was

11 a true record of what had been stated over the course of about five days.

12 So we went through things, it was recorded, it was typed up, I

13 went through it again, agreed that was an accurate description of what I

14 had said, and we put the statement together that way. That's why it's so

15 long.

16 Q. Thank you. Was it a spontaneous account on your part, or did you

17 receive from the investigator a list of topics?

18 A. The investigator wanted to specifically focus on certain issues,

19 asked me to focus on certain issues which I did. But broadly I had -- I

20 had most of the documents that I referred to myself and offered them to

21 the investigators. The investigators were not able to offer me any

22 documents to help me, as I recall it.

23 Q. Thank you. The documents you were using, were they your own

24 private documents or were they official documents?

25 A. They were a mixture. The notebooks that I used that I made my

Page 6419

1 contemporaneous notes in were obviously my -- my notebooks. But from

2 time to time I would glue into them, as you have seen, useful briefing

3 notes that were made for me by my staff.

4 The daily updates, the Blue Book, were all documents which were

5 open documents within the headquarters; so while they were official

6 documents, they were unclassified. They were not in any way

7 confidential. They were made available to -- in the most part to Vienna,

8 to the 54 participating countries of the OSCE, and so they were pretty

9 widely available.

10 Q. I did not understand this. Weren't the reports of the

11 Kosovo Verification Mission intended for Vienna?

12 A. The reports that were sent up to Vienna, the daily reports were

13 sent up for the Permanent Council, and for the Secretariat in Vienna.

14 That's where they were prepared for, and that's where they went. And as

15 part of that, they were distributed among the 54 delegations which were

16 the participating states of the OSCE. So they were widely distributed.

17 Q. Yes. And outside that circle of users, others were or were not

18 able to get hold of those reports?

19 A. Yes. Yes, they were. We routinely passed them to the NATO

20 headquarters in Kumanovo in Macedonia because it was part of our

21 responsibility to liaise with them as well since they were -- they were

22 conducting the air Verification Mission, if you recall, so we passed our

23 reports to them. We passed them to the EU Monitoring Mission. And

24 frankly, if anybody else asked for them, we passed them to those people

25 as well, if asked. I've certainly got no doubt that they probably even

Page 6420

1 found their way to Belgrade despite the fact that at the time Serbia was

2 not in the OSCE.

3 Q. Thank you. May I then conclude that you did not forward your

4 reports to Belgrade?

5 A. I am not aware that the mission forwarded the reports to

6 Belgrade. If the mission had been asked for the reports by Belgrade,

7 then that would have been considered. It may actually have happened, but

8 I'm not aware of it. And I'm certainly not aware of any request.

9 Q. Thank you. I just want to go back to the documents you used.

10 Were these documents kept in your own private premises or in some office?

11 A. They were kept in my garage in cardboard boxes.

12 Q. Thank you. I see here in paragraph 10 you mention

13 Captain Rupert Witherow, Mr. John Harding, and the librarian of the

14 British Army Historical Branch. Did you use any of their documents?

15 A. Right, when I returned from Kosovo to the UK in April of 1999, I

16 was required to write a report which was a separate report for the UK

17 government. And to do that, I had to do it inside Ministry of Defence

18 premises. The premises used were the Army Historical Branch; and while I

19 was doing that, my notebooks were indeed secured in locked containers

20 inside the Army Historical Branch for the ten days that it took me to

21 write that report.

22 Rupert Witherow was one of my staff in Kosovo. John Harding was

23 the appropriate official of the Army Historical Branch. The report I

24 wrote is not part of the the documents that this Court has seen because

25 it is classified, and it is subject to the Official Secrets Act.

Page 6421

1 Q. Thank you. So these documents of yours, were they ever kept in

2 Whitehall or not?

3 A. The personal -- the nine personal books were in my possession the

4 entire time, apart from the period that I was writing that report, which

5 was about ten days. And during those ten days, as I have indicated, they

6 were kept within a locked safe inside Whitehall. Apart from that,

7 they've been with me all the time.

8 Q. Thank you. And when exactly were you writing that report, those

9 ten days?

10 A. It was -- it was the last week of April, 1999, immediately after

11 I had -- I had left the mission. I left the mission, I think, on the

12 24th of April. And I think it was the week immediately following that

13 and ran into I think the first couple of days of May.

14 Q. Thank you. And then those documents were returned to you?

15 A. Yes. I mean, I had access to them obviously when I was writing

16 the report. It was simply a case of them being kept secure in the --

17 inside the Ministry of Defence overnight because I was not sleeping on

18 the floor in the Ministry of Defence overnight during that period, I was

19 going home every night.

20 Q. That must be standard procedure. Why did you then mention

21 Whitehall and these assistants of yours, your staff members, when you

22 were giving the statement in 2000?

23 A. Because as part of the -- as part of the preamble as we were

24 sitting talking about the statement, this was one of the issues that was

25 thought to be possibly significant by the investigator at the time. You

Page 6422

1 will note that it's very early on in the statement, so this would have

2 been something that we discussed in the first morning probably. How

3 relevant it was to him, I don't know. It wasn't particularly relevant to

4 me. And it's not a piece of the statement that I ever dwell upon.

5 Q. Thank you. Now, during this interview with the investigators,

6 you provided a large number of documents, at least that's what's stated

7 in the statement itself, as we see in paragraphs 20 to -- in the last 20

8 to 22 paragraphs.

9 From what source did these documents come from, the documents you

10 were using or were shown during the interview?

11 A. They were my personal archive. Each day I would receive a copy

12 of these documents as part of my duties. They would come first to me

13 because it was one of my staff branches that had initiated them, and so I

14 would review them before they -- they were presented to the head of

15 mission and to the morning meeting. And I would then -- I would then

16 keep if not that copy, a copy, in one of the files.

17 I think some of them were on disk and I then printed them out.

18 But Rupert Witherow, the captain who you've referred to, was working

19 directly for me at the time; and one of his duties was to make sure that

20 we kept all of the documentation against such a moment as this.

21 Q. Excellent, you see that it was a good idea. But let me

22 understand this correctly, it was your private documentation that you

23 showed to the investigators?

24 A. There were two sets of documents. One was the official document

25 such as the daily reports, which I routinely had a copy of, which were

Page 6423

1 the public documents. The private documents were the nine booklets that

2 I retained which were my working booklets, which were my personal -- my

3 personal notes.

4 I certainly referred to those in my -- when I was making my

5 statement in 2000; and where appropriate, they took photocopies of the

6 relevant pages and they have been made available to the Court where

7 appropriate.

8 Q. Thank you. I understood that part very well. But it means you

9 were providing documents from your personal archive to the investigators,

10 and the investigators took them?

11 A. They took copies of them, yes.

12 Q. Thank you. Can you tell me, how did they make copies?

13 A. They stood at the photocopier and pressed print. That's how you

14 make copies.

15 Q. Thank you. That's about hard copies. What about computer

16 copies, electronic copies?

17 A. Where some of the reports were on disks, I printed off copies of

18 the appropriate -- I had printed off copies of the appropriate papers.

19 They simply photocopied those papers.

20 Q. Thank you.

21 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I believe it is time

22 for the break.

23 JUDGE PARKER: Very well. We will adjourn and resume at 11.00.

24 [The witness stands down]

25 --- Recess taken at 10.28 a.m.

Page 6424

1 --- On resuming at 11.01 a.m.

2 [The witness takes the stand]

3 JUDGE PARKER: Yes, Mr. Djurdjic.

4 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.

5 Q. Sir, can we begin? General, I'm looking here at your brilliant

6 professional career. What I'm interested in is to hear how it came about

7 that you became an officer in the UK army.

8 A. I was born in the UK; I am a UK citizen. I applied to join the

9 army as an officer. It required a waiver by the secretary of state

10 because my father had not been born in England. That waiver was given

11 and that enabled me to enter Sandhurst as an officer cadet in 1964.

12 Q. Thank you. I'm interested in this last part particularly. Was

13 that a secondary military school or was it a military academy, higher

14 education institution that you joined?

15 A. It was a two-year course which had six terms, the first and last

16 of which was military, and the middle four were one-third military and

17 two-thirds academic in order to help us prepare to go to university.

18 Q. Thank you. Was that a civilian university or a military

19 university?

20 A. After the two years at Sandhurst, I was commissioned and after

21 one year with soldiers went to Cambridge university, a civilian

22 university, where I studied engineering because I was a member of the

23 Royal Engineers. So the whole of my military education in effect took

24 six years.

25 Q. Thank you. When you finished your education, which rank were you

Page 6425

1 given?

2 A. A lieutenant. I was a 2nd lieutenant when I finished at

3 Sandhurst in July 1966 after two years training at what was a military

4 academy, if that's what you're asking. And then I spent one year with

5 soldiers and I then went to Cambridge university as a serving officer.

6 And during that period I took the exam to be promoted from 2nd lieutenant

7 to lieutenant and was promoted lieutenant, I think, 18 months after being

8 commissioned as 2nd lieutenant.

9 Q. Thank you. I'm not very familiar with military matters so

10 therefore don't be surprised at the questions that I'm asking you. This

11 academy that you finished, was that the army academy?

12 A. Yes, it was called the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was

13 the place of military education for officers who were granted -- who were

14 applying for a regular commission, that is, a career commission which

15 would be the start of a career to the age of 55. There was another

16 academy where a shorter course went on at the time called Mons and that

17 was for officers who were going to do short-service commissions and who

18 would have a shorter career in the army.

19 Q. Thank you. Can you tell me what is your military specialty?

20 A. I have two military specialties. One is as staff officer, and

21 the original one was as a military engineer.

22 Q. Thank you. After you finished your studies at Cambridge, you

23 were, I suppose, working as an officer. With what kind of units were you

24 working?

25 A. As a lieutenant and a captain I worked with engineer units. I

Page 6426

1 then went to the army staff college for a year, where we learned to be

2 staff officers and we learned more of all of the other pieces of the

3 army. I then -- my career then alternated between positions doing staff

4 work and positions commanding engineers.

5 Q. Thank you. Can you please tell me, did you serve all the time in

6 Great Britain?

7 A. No. I served in the Persian Gulf, in Canada, in Germany, in

8 Norway, and eventually in Bosnia, and then in Kosovo.

9 Q. I'm sorry, your mission in Kosovo and the time spent there as

10 well as in Bosnia, do you perceive that as part of your military career

11 or as part of your civilian career?

12 A. I was a serving British officer until March 2001, and so when I

13 was in Bosnia, I was a serving British officer working within a NATO

14 headquarters and later working for the civilian high representative. And

15 then in Kosovo I was a serving British officer seconded to our foreign

16 office, our ministry of Foreign Affairs; and further seconded to the

17 Vienna; and further seconded to the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission; but

18 I remained a serving officer.

19 Q. Thank you. When were you in the Persian Gulf and why were you

20 there?

21 A. That was 1971. I was commanding a unit of 44 engineers in the

22 Persian Gulf and down in Oman.

23 Q. Thank you were only British forces there where you served or were

24 there NATO force?

25 A. They were British, I was commanding a British unit; but in Oman

Page 6427

1 there were also Omani forces that were operating.

2 Q. Thank you. I think you mentioned being in Germany for a certain

3 period of time. Can you give me the time frame and in which unit or

4 formation did you serve?

5 A. From February 1967 until September 1967 I was a 2nd lieutenant in

6 the 2nd division engineer battalion. From December 1978 until -- until

7 December 1980, I was the chief operational logistics officer of the

8 headquarters third armoured division in Soest, Germany. Then for two

9 years immediately after that, I was an engineer company commander in the

10 26th engineer battalion in Soest, Germany. And then in -- from July 1995

11 until October 1996, I was a major general on the staff of the

12 headquarters allied land forces central Europe which was a NATO

13 headquarters situated in Heidelberg, Germany. At that point I deployed

14 to Sarajevo.

15 Q. Thank you. When were you promoted to the rank of major-general?

16 A. December 1994.

17 Q. Thank you. I don't know if the translation was good. Were you

18 speaking about East Germany or West Germany when you discussed your time

19 there?

20 A. In 1967 and from 1978 until 1982 I was in West Germany. By the

21 time I went back to Germany in 1995, Germany had been unified, so there

22 was only one Germany.

23 Q. Thank you. I heard in the translation on the East Germany,

24 that's why I wanted to clarify this with you. General, throughout this

25 whole period and throughout your military career were you ever in the

Page 6428

1 employ of any security service?

2 A. No.

3 Q. Thank you. With the exception of the Kosovo Verification Mission

4 and Colonel Ciaglinski, did you throughout any of the periods that you

5 mentioned --

6 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: The counsel hasn't

7 finished the question.

8 JUDGE PARKER: You appear to have stopped mid-sentence.

9 Something isn't completed.

10 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] I finished, but probably I wasn't

11 heard.

12 Q. Throughout your military career, with the exception of the Kosovo

13 Verification Mission had you ever worked with Colonel Ciaglinski?

14 A. Right. I had met him in early 1995 when he was the assistant

15 defence attache in Warsaw, Poland. And I visited Poland and the Polish

16 chief engineer as part of my duties as chief engineer of the British

17 army. So that's when I had met him before.

18 I was aware of his existence before because of his name which has

19 similar roots to mine.

20 Q. Thank you. When you said that you were the head of the

21 department for NATO support, that was in 1995; right?

22 A. Yes. I arrived there in August 1995 in a headquarters which was

23 a NATO headquarters and where there were two major-generals, one

24 responsible for operations, and one for support. I was the major-general

25 responsible for all support aspects.

Page 6429

1 Q. Thank you. And you returned to Heidelberg in 1997. Which post

2 did you hold at that time?

3 A. I held -- I went back to the same post. While I was in Sarajevo,

4 I was the Chief of Staff of the headquarters.

5 Q. Thank you. Tell me, please, from 23rd of April until

6 13th of June 1999, which posts did you hold during that period?

7 A. I was the senior army teacher at Royal College of Defence Studies

8 in London.

9 Q. Thank you. And after the 27th of June, 1999, until retirement,

10 what jobs did you perform?

11 A. I returned to that post as the senior army member of the staff at

12 the Royal College of Defence Studies.

13 Q. Thank you. Sir, can you explain to us how it happened that in

14 October 1998 you were dispatched to Vienna?

15 A. I understand that a request was made by someone in the OSCE for a

16 senior British officer with -- who was known to the OSCE to go and assist

17 them, start their planning for the mission. Two names were asked for.

18 The first one, his wife didn't let him go; and I was the second.

19 Q. Thank you. So your wife let you go. Can you please tell me

20 this: The British government actually sent you to Vienna, you didn't

21 apply for this post like some other persons might have done?

22 A. I indicated that I was happy to go if asked for. There wasn't a

23 post. On the day -- let me explain. On the day that the newspaper

24 reports said that there was possibly going to be a mission put together

25 by the OSCE, I spoke to my Ministry of Defence and said that if asked, I

Page 6430

1 was prepared to go.

2 This was not unusual since a similar process had happened a year

3 earlier when I had been asked to go back to Bosnia to be the military

4 advisor to the high rep. The reason I did this was that normally it is

5 assumed that people will not be redeployed quickly after being deployed

6 on an operation unless they are willing to be so deployed. So I needed

7 to be a volunteer.

8 Q. Thank you. If I understand you correctly, you were attached to

9 the UK delegation in the OSCE, but were you sent there by the ministry or

10 by the army? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs or by the army?

11 A. I was sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but in order to be

12 able to deploy me, they had to ask the Ministry of Defence. And so my

13 minister of defence had to formally -- was formally requested by my

14 minister of foreign affairs it he could borrow me, and he agreed to that.

15 And I was called to the Ministry of Defence and literally walked with the

16 minister of defence over to the minister of foreign affairs and, so to

17 speak, handed over to the minister of foreign affairs personally.

18 Q. Very well done. So two ministers dealt with you. Now, tell me,

19 how did you become an OSCE official?

20 A. I was, as you describe, attached to the UK delegation in Vienna,

21 and I was working to write a plan to put together the

22 Kosovo Verification Mission to get it on the ground and operating as

23 quickly as possible, because its mandate which was 12 months was already

24 running.

25 At some stage, Ambassador William Walker was nominated as the

Page 6431

1 head of the mission and at some stage he asked to see me and asked if I

2 would be prepared to join the OSCE Mission in Kosovo as one of his

3 deputies. The matter was then referred to my Ministry of Foreign

4 Affairs, and I understand that the decision was made by the OSCE

5 Permanent Council that I should be appointed a deputy head of the mission

6 on the 2nd of November, although I was not actually told until a few days

7 later.

8 Q. Thank you. After that appointment went through, did you have any

9 kind of former or legal relationship with the OSCE in terms of having a

10 contract signed with them stipulating what your duties were going to be?

11 A. I signed a normal OSCE contract, yes.

12 Q. And what were the terms and continues contained therein? What

13 were your duties and obligations?

14 A. They were -- I mean, it was a normal contract that any person who

15 is seconded by his nation to the OSCE signs which says that he will do

16 what he is told by the head of mission, that he will not do anything that

17 brings the OSCE into disrepute, and he will probably not make off with

18 any OSCE property. I think those were the three things. I would need to

19 be reminded of it, but it was a perfectly normal contract for any

20 secondee from any nation being seconded to the OSCE, as opposed to a

21 contract position where you worked directly for the OSCE without the

22 intervention of your country.

23 Q. Thank you. I understand then that thereby you became an OSCE

24 official, but you had to earn some money for a living while you were

25 working for the OSCE. Who was paying your salary at the time?

Page 6432

1 A. The British Ministry of Defence.

2 Q. Thank you. General, during the period between October and your

3 appointment, did you undergo any preparations in the interim period

4 preceding your departure and arrival in Kosovo, and what kind of

5 preparations if any you had?

6 A. Well, I had no preparation because I was -- I was rung up at

7 10.30 in the morning and asked if I was genuinely prepared to go to the

8 OSCE when I was in England, and I said yes. And two hours later at 12.30

9 I was told to please get myself from where I was to the

10 Ministry of Defence by 4.00 in afternoon so that I could be interviewed

11 by the minister of defence. And as I've described, he marched me over to

12 the minister of foreign affairs, handed me over there. And I was put in

13 a vehicle with three other members of UK staff and we were taken to

14 Royal Air Force Northolt, and we went to Vienna that night.

15 Q. Thank you, could you just be briefer in your answers. You say

16 you did not have any preparation in Britain, but did you have any

17 preparation when you arrived in the OSCE in Vienna? Yes or no?

18 A. No.

19 Q. Thank you. But if I understood you correctly even at the

20 beginning after you arrived in Vienna and the first time you were in

21 Belgrade, almost no agreement was signed. Perhaps one was signed.

22 A. The original OSCE agreement between Geremek and the Yugoslav

23 minister of foreign affairs whose name escapes me had been signed, and it

24 was on that basis that we went down to Kosovo to see what -- what the

25 situation looked like.

Page 6433

1 Q. Correct. It was signed on the 16th, but it was known a while

2 before that the agreement had been reached.

3 You say that on the 17th October, 1998, you attended a meeting in

4 Belgrade with Mr. John Sandrock; correct?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Would you tell us who John Sandrock is?

7 A. At the time he was in charge of administration and procurement as

8 a contracted OSCE official.

9 Q. Thank you. What was his occupation and what was his nationality?

10 A. He was American and he was in charge of the IT and logistics of

11 all deployed OSCE missions.

12 Q. Apart from you two, were there any other members of the

13 delegation?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Could you tell us who the other members were and something about

16 their profile?

17 A. Yes. Sorry, I was trying to be brief. The other members, the

18 key members, were a couple of the staff of John Sandrock because the

19 purpose of this trip was to find out what the requirements were for

20 support to enable the mission to operate inside Kosovo. Added to that,

21 at the request of the contact group were, I think, two members from each

22 contact group -- two people from each contact group mission.

23 Q. Thank you. And please give me brief answers, I'll ask more

24 sub-questions, that's better than having a long answer.

25 Am I right in thinking that the Yugoslav side was interested in

Page 6434

1 the contents and the method of verification that you were planning on?

2 A. I went to a meeting in Belgrade on the afternoon of the 17th with

3 Sandrock at which the question was raised, What will your method of

4 operation be?

5 Q. Did you provide an answer?

6 A. The answer that was provided was provided by Sandrock, and he

7 said this is an administrative reconnaissance. We don't yet have a clear

8 idea of how we will be operating, and we will let you know as soon as we

9 can.

10 Q. Thank you. General, in your career did you have any combat

11 experience?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Where and when?

14 A. I got shelled in the Oman, and I was deployed briefly to

15 Northern Ireland on two occasions but one mainly.

16 Q. What were your duties in Northern Ireland and when was that?

17 A. I was the adjutant of the engineering regiment that was deployed

18 to Northern Ireland in 1974 after the Maze prison was burnt down in an

19 internal riot, and I was part of that unit which among other things

20 carried out a number of operations inside the Maze prison.

21 Q. Thank you. How long did you stay in Northern Ireland?

22 A. About a week.

23 Q. I heard in the interpretation that you were an ADC. Is that a

24 command position or some other kind of position, what are the duties of

25 an ADC?

Page 6435

1 A. It's the executive officer of the battalion.

2 Q. And the engineering unit, what were its responsibilities?

3 A. Its prime responsibility was to rebuild the part of the prison

4 that had been burnt down by the rioters. It had a secondary duty to

5 carry out searches in the -- inside the compound.

6 Q. Thank you. Was there any fighting while you were building that

7 prison?

8 A. No.

9 Q. Was there any fighting while you were carrying out the searches?

10 A. Not specifically, no.

11 Q. Thank you. In your military career, have you ever taken part in

12 combat?

13 A. Not hand-to-hand combat, no.

14 Q. Thank you. Tell me about Colonel Ciaglinski, what was his

15 specialty?

16 A. I was under the mistaken impression obviously that he had already

17 testified.

18 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Djurdjic, we have listened now for a

19 considerable time to a great deal of interesting personal history of the

20 witness. We have not yet discerned what the relevance of any of this can

21 be to the issues we have to decide in the case. That is the first and

22 general concern I raise with you.

23 The more particular concern is your last question, what is it

24 that you could not have asked the previous witness, Mr. Ciaglinski, that

25 you feel you must now ask this witness about Ciaglinski? For heaven's

Page 6436

1 sake, we must get on to the issues that are material in this case. And I

2 wonder whether you might be able to direct your questions to that instead

3 of us spending more time on this, at the most, very remote background.

4 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I was

5 just going to ask about the combat experience of the people who were

6 members of the Kosovo verification members and the expertise they had

7 gained before Kosovo. And I also asked Colonel Ciaglinski what his

8 specialty was. Another witness from the KVM was not an infantry man, he

9 was also something else. That's why I wanted to ask these questions to

10 elicit those answers, but I'll move on to another topic. I just thought

11 this was interesting.

12 JUDGE PARKER: It's very interesting and we can spend a long time

13 on it, but we must watch time. And there are things that are not merely

14 interesting, but they are important to our decision. And it is those

15 that we would like you to concentrate on. Thank you.

16 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Thank you. Competency is the most

17 important thing, whatever job you are doing.

18 Q. General, you were the brain of the team that had been prepared

19 for the Kosovo Verification Mission. How did you conduct the selection

20 of the staff?

21 A. The OSCE in Vienna insisted that the members of the KVM were

22 called for as though it were a normal OSCE mission of 12 people. That

23 is, that they called for people -- they invited the participating

24 countries to send forward nominations of individuals with their CVs which

25 were then boarded and people were selected. I was part of that selection

Page 6437

1 system, but it had other members on it, mainly coming from the other

2 contact group countries.

3 Q. Thank you. I asked you about the military specialty or other

4 specialty of the people you recruited to the Verification Mission. We

5 know that it was a civilian mission, but what were the specialties that

6 you were looking for to be provided by the OSCE Secretariat?

7 A. We were hoping for a mix of civilian and in some cases military

8 and ex-military people with a broad spread of competence, so we wanted in

9 some cases lawyers, in some cases people with human rights experience, we

10 wanted policemen, and we wanted military and ex-military. And we wanted

11 them all quickly.

12 Q. Thank you. When you were appointed deputy chief of mission on

13 the 2nd of November, 1998, what steps did you take until the 29th

14 November -- 23rd November, sorry, when you left for Pristina?

15 A. I was still involved in writing the plan. I made one other trip

16 down to Kosovo between the 2nd and the 23rd of -- between the 2nd

17 of November and the 23rd of November which was about a four-day trip, and

18 the purpose of that trip was to review the locations that we had already

19 located that we could use and also to find a location for the induction

20 centre where we would bring new mission members in order to give them

21 some familiarisation training before they took up their operational

22 duties.

23 Q. Thank you. Did the OSCE Secretariat provide you with any

24 information about the situation in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,

25 and did they give you some kind of instructions or mandate?

Page 6438

1 A. We received some information about the current situation in the

2 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Some of it was from open-source media

3 and some of it was mainly telephone reports from the very small number of

4 people that were already on the ground conducting reconnaissance and

5 trying to find locations.

6 Q. Thank you. Were you familiar when you were leaving for Kosovo

7 with the constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the

8 constitution of Serbia, the Law on Defence, the Law on the Army, the

9 Law on Internal Affairs, about the organisation of the army and the

10 police? Did you have any knowledge about that?

11 A. No, I would have been delighted if that sort of knowledge had

12 been offered by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

13 Q. Thank you. Tell me, was there a document that governed the

14 internal organisation of the Kosovo Verification Mission?

15 A. Well, if there was, I probably wrote it. We received almost no

16 formal instructions beyond the original OSCE agreement. Everything

17 thereafter was created by my team working directly to Ambassador Walker.

18 Q. Thank you. So you governed the internal relations yourself. And

19 how about the relationship between Ambassador Walker, chief of the

20 mission, and the Secretariat of the OSCE, was that relationship governed

21 in some way outside the framework of this agreement?

22 A. I believe he had separate instructions as to his -- his

23 relationship with the OSCE Secretariat. The OSCE Secretariat also

24 attached a number of people to the KVM who worked directly for

25 Ambassador Walker and who were the regular link for the staff of the

Page 6439

1 OSCE Secretariat and the mission on the ground.

2 Q. Thank you. If I understood that correctly, he had a team in

3 Pristina outside of the KVM headquarters?

4 A. No, inside the KVM headquarters but who were part of his personal

5 staff, who worked directly for him.

6 Q. Thank you. Did I understand correctly that Ambassador Walker was

7 the only person able to decide whether something is to be considered as

8 an incident or not? The whole purpose of the mission was to provide him

9 material on the basis of which he would decide?

10 A. That's broadly the case, yes. And I do want to make this answer

11 longer. In a mission that was going to be 2000 people strong, and where

12 we had not been able to develop any ethos for the mission because it had

13 been put together so quickly, we got people who did not necessarily fully

14 understand the background of the mission. Therefore, the role of the

15 people on the ground was to report what they saw, not to decide whether

16 or not something was compliance with the agreement or not. That that

17 decision would be made in the OSCE headquarters, in the KVM headquarters,

18 so that consistent standards were applied. Thank you.

19 Q. Thank you. Was there anyone -- did anyone else apart from

20 Ambassador Walker had the ability to decide what constituted a violation

21 of the agreement or not in his absence?

22 A. In his absence it would have been whoever was acting head of

23 mission. It was a requirement -- you had to be the head of mission to

24 decide compliance or not. Obviously within the KVM headquarters there

25 were a lot of people who knew what the precedents were and, therefore,

Page 6440

1 were able to advise him whether this resembled something which had been

2 decided as non-compliance earlier or not.

3 Q. Thank you. Would you tell me, in what form was the decision made

4 that the rules of the agreement had been breached?

5 A. It was made in whatever the reports were -- that were sent to

6 Vienna. So whether something was compliance or non-compliance was

7 reported to Vienna. I have to say that similar procedures applied within

8 IFOR and SFOR, so this was not unique. It's quite usual in these

9 international missions not to allow every lance-corporal on the ground to

10 jump up and down and declare something compliance or non-compliance.

11 Q. Thank you. Would Ambassador Walker or the acting chief sign that

12 report to Vienna about violations of the agreement?

13 A. Normally, yes. He would certainly be aware of it, and he would

14 be the person that approved the document and agreed it should be

15 released.

16 Q. Thank you. This signed document would be submitted to the

17 Secretariat in Vienna as a report; correct?

18 A. I know that often happened. I don't know if it always happened.

19 Q. During the proceedings today and yesterday, were any such

20 protests shown to you?

21 A. I'm aware of one document which was produced in -- from the

22 mission which had a long list of incidents which were collated against

23 the different paragraphs of, I think, the Security Council --

24 UN Security Council resolution, and which showed where in the opinion of

25 the mission there had been non-compliance.

Page 6441

1 Now, what I cannot remember is whether that's been shown today,

2 yesterday, or last week, or back in December of 2005 when I was last

3 here. But I'm certainly aware of that document.

4 Q. You did not see that document, General, although it exists. I'll

5 show it to you later. I'm asking something else.

6 These reports were made to the UN Security Council at regular

7 intervals. I'm asking you about something else. Among what

8 Ambassador Walker sent to Vienna, was there any note, any report of a

9 violation of the agreement shown to you yesterday or earlier today?

10 A. No, I don't think so.

11 Q. Thank you. Now I'll be asking about your internal correspondence

12 between the headquarters and regional centres and vice-versa. Was it

13 customary for the author of the report to sign the report?

14 A. It depended. If it was coming from a branch, it would not

15 necessarily be signed. It would come -- it would be understood that it

16 was issued with the knowledge and approval of the head of that branch,

17 and if there were any questions, it would be referred back to the branch.

18 At other times if an individual signed it, it was because he had been

19 asked specifically to produce a piece of paper by me which summarised

20 something.

21 Q. Perhaps my question was not clear enough. I wasn't asking about

22 urgent operative information, but, for instance, at the end of a day when

23 a regional centre were sending a report to the headquarters, would the

24 commander of that regional centre sign what he was sending to you, and

25 would he enter that in the log-book in his regional centre?

Page 6442

1 A. No, not necessarily. I mean, we probably would have been able to

2 do this if we had spent two months putting this headquarters together and

3 having staff procedure exercises which preceded the deployment. But as

4 you have heard, it was put together at short notice on the ground with no

5 procedures. And so it was not a model of staff procedures, but we

6 weren't down there to have our staff procedures examined.

7 Q. I didn't mean staff procedures in general. I meant only personal

8 signatures on correspondence.

9 A. Well, again, I say not necessarily. And in my experience in the

10 region, I know that when a senior person issues a document, it is not

11 valid without his signature and the stamp, and that is a procedure that

12 the rest of the world stopped doing about 40 years ago.

13 Q. Thank you. Technically speaking, how did you receive reports

14 from the regional centres?

15 A. If it was routine, it came in to the operation centre where the

16 person on duty would look at it and make a decision who should get it.

17 If it was an incident that had happened and was deemed important enough,

18 then there would be what we called a spot report sent straight up

19 immediately without waiting to see what else happened that day. So it

20 was a mix of reports that were rendered at specific moments in the day

21 and spot reports that were rendered if the situation demanded it.

22 Q. Thank you. Were they sent to Pristina by courier, by fax, by

23 mail? How did they reach Pristina?

24 A. Many were sent by fax. I think there was e-mail connectivity

25 between the different regional centres, but I would need to be remind --

Page 6443

1 I think it was, but I'm not absolutely one hundred per cent sure. A lot

2 of stuff came by fax. And radio, because as the situation -- there was a

3 radio link between each regional centre and the operations centre, and so

4 if something happened, then that would be sent by radio and would be

5 entered in the log by the watch-keeper.

6 Q. Thank you. This operation centre was within your purview because

7 you were in charge of operations; right?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. How did the operations centre act once they received a report

10 regardless through which channel and in what mode?

11 A. Well, if it was routine they would send it to the branch that

12 needed it. And if it was urgent, they would tell someone.

13 Q. Thank you. Now, I'm only interested in the reports that deal

14 with verification. I'm not interested in the humanitarian aspect or the

15 political aspect. Let us focus only on what you were in charge of. Who

16 did you send these kind of reports to?

17 A. They formed -- they went to the fusion cell and to the people in

18 Walker's office who were responsible for putting the daily report

19 together. If they needed to go to anybody else, then that decision would

20 be made by the chief of the operation cell.

21 Q. Was that you?

22 A. No. I was the chief of operations for the mission. The chief of

23 the operation cell was a German former colonel.

24 Q. This operation cell for fusion, within which staff or

25 headquarters of which unit was it?

Page 6444

1 A. The pieces of the staff that answered to me were the operation

2 cell which did minute-to-minute -- which watched the situation minute to

3 minute. The fusion cell, which did analysis. The plans cell, which

4 spent most of its time writing the evacuation plan. And the liaison cell

5 from where all of the liaison duties were carried out. Those were the

6 four primary cells that -- primary staff groups that I ran.

7 Q. Thank you. So if we were to put together all the daily reports

8 from the operation cell, they would go to the office of Mr. Walker where

9 an aggregate daily report would be compiled; am I right?

10 A. Yes, but it would include other input, for instance, from the

11 media cell and from the political side, as you've mentioned.

12 Q. Thank you. Can you please tell me who was in charge of these

13 duties in Mr. Walker's office? I'm talking about compiling daily

14 reports.

15 A. For much of the time it was a Norwegian called Kaare Eltervaag.

16 The actual people down there varied because they were detached from the

17 Secretariat in Vienna, but I would say for about half of the time, the --

18 that group of report writers was led by that Norwegian.

19 Q. What special skills did these people have? What kind of

20 expertise?

21 A. I think Eltervaag was a junior Norwegian diplomat. I know that

22 one of the other members of that group was a British ex-officer who had

23 done something similar in the EUMM in Bosnia. And there were others.

24 Q. Thank you. If I understood you correctly, one copy of the daily

25 report would be sent to Vienna by Mr. Walker, and he would distribute the

Page 6445

1 other copies to his deputies for briefing purposes?

2 A. Yes, and we sent copies of the report to other addressees as

3 well.

4 Q. Tell me, what are these other individuals outside of the OSCE

5 headquarters that you as deputies send reports?

6 A. I sent that report to -- also to the NATO headquarters in

7 Macedonia, among others. I can't think of any others immediately. I

8 also sent a UK IS report many days which was through my UK channels,

9 which was classified.

10 Q. Thank you. Now, the team that we discussed today that was not

11 involved in preparing daily reports and processing raw materials, but

12 were rather involved in analysis, they were analytical team. How many

13 people were on this team and what were their professions and occupations?

14 A. Their role was analysis. Some but not all had an intelligence

15 background. And I suppose there were about 16 of them. It took time to

16 build up.

17 Q. Thank you. It seems to me that I saw somewhere, but correct me

18 if I'm wrong, that you had mentioned that there were three members in

19 this group, one from the UK, one from Germany, and one from the USA. Am

20 I wrong?

21 A. There were a lot more than that. I've certainly got a photo at

22 home of the fusion cell in, I think, late March, and I think there's at

23 least 15 people on that picture. It came and went. People came into the

24 cell and were then -- then finished their contracts and moved on. But

25 there were certainly at least 12 and there may have been as many as 20 at

Page 6446

1 some stages because they were running a 24-hour operation.

2 Q. Thank you. Can you please tell me who was in charge of that

3 fusion unit or cell?

4 A. There were three people who were in charge in succession. One

5 was a lady called Donna Phelan, one was a retired colonel called Irzuk,

6 and the third one was a retired navy captain whose name will come to me.

7 I'm not being deliberately obstructive; I just can't remember it. But it

8 will pop in, and I'll tell you it as soon as I get it. Lawrence.

9 Sorry -- his surname was Lawrence.

10 Q. Thank you, General. I was not very accurate in my question.

11 What I wanted to ask you, Who was their subordinate --

12 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: Their superior.

13 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Were they under Walker or were

14 they under any other body that was in charge of this fusion cell?

15 A. They worked direct to me.

16 Q. Thank you. As I understand, the Blue Book contains daily

17 reports. Can you tell me who were the users of these reports?

18 A. Who used the Blue Book? The deputy heads of mission and the head

19 of mission were the principal people at whom the report was aimed.

20 Because there were five or six deputy heads of mission, each of whom had

21 a particular focus, and they didn't necessarily remain up to date with

22 the minute-by-minute events that were going on. And therefore we needed

23 to keep them aware of what was going on so that as they had contact with

24 other people, they did not inadvertently adopt a view that was at odds

25 with the experience elsewhere.

Page 6447

1 Q. Thank you. While you were a part of the mission, did the size of

2 the mission change or were the number of members permanent and constant

3 throughout the whole period?

4 A. They changed dynamically from almost day-to-day but very broadly.

5 They began at naught in October of 1998, and once we had managed to get

6 the recruitment and selection process moving, we increased the size of

7 the mission by about a hundred a week until we got to 1379 on the day we

8 evacuated.

9 Q. Thank you. My question was much too broad. I'm interested in

10 deputy chiefs of mission. From the moment when you joined the mission on

11 23rd November, 1998, until 23rd of April, 1999, did the number of deputy

12 chiefs remain the same or did it change?

13 A. The number of deputy chiefs allowed for remained the same, but it

14 took some time to nominate and for them -- and for them to arrive.

15 Q. Sir, when you left Kosovo on the 20th of March, did you leave

16 behind the same number of deputy chiefs until the 23rd of April when you

17 left yourself? I'm only asking you about deputies.

18 A. The Russian deputy left in late March with all of the Russian

19 verifiers because they were recalled by Russia. And the French deputy

20 may have left just before I did in April, but I would need to check that.

21 But the Russians certainly left.

22 Q. Thank you. If my memory serves me well, from 1380 the mission

23 was down sized to 270 members after the 20th of March; am I right?

24 A. Yes, and it was then increased to 350 in the first week of April.

25 Q. Thank you. Can you tell me how many people were deployed on the

Page 6448

1 ground in Macedonia while you were still with the mission; do you know?

2 A. I would say most of them. We detached about 80 to Albania to

3 deal -- to help deal with the refugee crisis in Albania. The rest of

4 them remained in Macedonia, mainly assisting UNHCR.

5 Q. Thank you. I've noticed something relating to the Blue Book. So

6 you kept preparing the reports and giving them to the deputies, even

7 during the period after you left Kosovo, but, however, you never

8 mentioned anything about that period of time when you gave your 2000

9 statement?

10 A. Then it wasn't asked.

11 Q. Thank you. Let us now go back to your organisation that was in

12 place before the 20th of March. General, you arrived in Pristina on the

13 23rd of November, 1998; am I right?

14 A. Yes, that would have been the third time I arrived, but that was

15 the time I arrived in order to stay there as chief of operations.

16 Q. Thank you. Before you there is mention in the document of KDOM

17 which is the Kosovo Diplomatic Mission. Did you have any instructions as

18 to what should exist in terms of relationship between KDOM,

19 Kosovo Diplomatic Mission, and your Verification Mission?

20 A. Yes, we were to -- we were to include them in -- into the KVM as

21 quickly as we were able to.

22 Q. Thank you. In the light of the problems that you encountered

23 even at the time when you arrived in Pristina, and that was nearly a

24 month after the signing of all the agreements, were you aware that those

25 agreements were limited in certain times? That is to say that they

Page 6449

1 continued certain dead-lines for certain requirements to be met?

2 A. In what respect? I mean, I knew that they were dated as at the

3 date that they were signed, yes. I knew that the situation that they

4 described was the situation immediately after the moment they were

5 signed.

6 Q. Let's try to rephrase it. When you first learned about

7 Resolution 1175 --

8 THE INTERPRETER: Counsel, please repeat the number of the

9 resolution.

10 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. I am sorry, you didn't hear my question. When did you first

12 familiarise yourself with Resolution 1199, resolution of the Security

13 Council of the United Nations?

14 A. I believe we must have reviewed that while I was in Vienna in the

15 course of November, and I think we reviewed that again when we were

16 deciding and when we were drafting the document that was sent to Belgrade

17 describing how we proposed to verify.

18 Q. Thank you. And when did you become acquainted with the agreement

19 Sainovic-Djordjevic-Naumann-Clark signed on the 25th October, 1998, and

20 which included the governments of the FRY announcement?

21 A. I think it was three or four days after it was signed. There

22 seemed to be little urgency on the part of anybody to get it to the OSCE.

23 Q. I presume that you familiarized yourself with the

24 Djordjevic-Byrnes Agreement thereabout the same time?

25 A. Yes, I mean, these were the documents we were looking at as we

Page 6450

1 were working on how we would verify.

2 Q. Thank you. Well, that is why I'm asking you. Let's say this is

3 the early November, did you see that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,

4 particularly in view of these two agreements, has committed itself to

5 fulfill certain obligations within specific dead-lines?

6 A. Yes, I understood that.

7 Q. Thank you. Am I right in saying -- to say that there was an

8 executive order, a NATO executive order in late October 1998?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Thank you. Do you recall that the decision to launch an attack

11 on Yugoslavia in late October 1998 was delayed?

12 A. Well, it was postponed. The Activation Order remained active; it

13 remained in force. So it was in Sakir's [phoen] pocket.

14 Q. Thank you. Did you ever wonder why it was postponed?

15 A. No, I knew exactly why it was postponed. It was postponed

16 because the decision was made to give the authorities in Yugoslavia a

17 chance to improve their behaviour in Kosovo.

18 Q. Thank you. Were you aware of the dead-lines imposed on the FRY

19 in order for this order not to be activated?

20 A. Yes, they were broadly around about the end of October.

21 Q. Does that mean that the FRY had met all the requirements by the

22 end of October 1998?

23 A. That was my understanding, yes. That was why the act order was

24 not activated, because at that moment, the FRY was in compliance.

25 Q. Thank you. Do you know who confirmed and verified the fact that

Page 6451

1 the FRY had been in full compliance with all its obligations and that it

2 achieved that by the end of October 1998?

3 A. It would have been as a series of reports made to NATO or made

4 available to NATO which would have been a combination of air observation

5 by NATO and the KDOMs on the ground.

6 Q. Thank you.

7 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I believe this is a

8 good time for a break.

9 JUDGE PARKER: Very well. We resume at 1.00.

10 [The witness stands down]

11 --- Recess taken at 12.28 p.m.

12 --- On resuming at 1.01 p.m.

13 [The witness takes the stand]

14 JUDGE PARKER: Mr. Djurdjic.

15 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

16 Q. Can we go on, General. I'd like to show you a few documents now,

17 documents that we have referred to before.

18 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Can I first call up D160. It's

19 already an exhibit. May I ask the AV booth to display only the English

20 document, because I have the B/C/S version for myself.

21 Q. This is a resolution of the UN Security Council, 1199. Perhaps

22 you have a hard copy in your binder, perhaps not. I'm interested only in

23 some of the provisions; we won't be looking at the entire document. It's

24 para 4(a). That's page 3 in English.

25 General, would I be right in saying that para 4(a) says that

Page 6452

1 Serbia undertook -- it would cease all actions affecting the civilian

2 population and only the civilian population, not the KLA?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Thank you. In item (b), can you see that since the KVM had not

5 been established yet, there is a reference to the

6 Kosovo Diplomatic Mission as performing the functions of verification?

7 A. Yeah, got it.

8 Q. Now, would you please look at para 5 (b). The FRY undertakes not

9 to carry out any repressive actions against the peaceful population

10 alone. That's at least the translation I have.

11 A. It also at (a) said it was going to resolve existing problems by

12 political means, I note.

13 Q. And what about (d) -- sorry, (b), not to carry out any repressive

14 actions against the peaceful population. That does not include the KLA

15 or any other offenders, or those who violate the law. Do you agree with

16 me, General?

17 A. I see what it says, yes. I'm intrigued to know where the nominal

18 role is of who the KLA were and who the peaceful population were. That

19 was our big problem throughout. When you are dealing with insurgents,

20 they dress in civilian clothes for much of the time, and it's very

21 difficult to know the difference between an insurgent in civilian clothes

22 and a peaceful member of the population in civilian clothes. That's my

23 point. Thank you.

24 Q. I agree with you that the difficulty exists, but I'm telling you

25 what the resolution stipulates and what the mandate was. How, for

Page 6453

1 instance, do you decide in Northern Ireland who is a member of the

2 peaceful population and who isn't?

3 A. You carry out operations which give you proof which can be

4 offered in court, you arrest the people, you convict them, and you put

5 them in jail. A process that was sadly lacking in Kosovo.

6 Q. I agree on the condition that those you are supposed to arrest

7 surrender, but if they shoot at you what did they do in Northern Ireland?

8 They won't surrender, they shoot at you - that is, your army - in

9 Northern Ireland.

10 A. Yes, and there are moments when that happens, and when that

11 happens -- I'll slow down, sorry -- and when that happens, the incident

12 is thoroughly documented, the number of rounds are counted, careful

13 statements are taken from all of the security forces involved, a forensic

14 examination is carried out of all weapons that took place -- took part in

15 the operation, and it leads to an investigation which will decide whether

16 or not the killing was lawful. That takes quite a long time and needs

17 quite a lot of specialists, but it shows that you were carrying out your

18 duties in a way that involved the minimum application of lethal force.

19 Q. I agree with you completely. Did you have any personal

20 experience with such investigations in Northern Ireland?

21 A. I was never personally involved in such an investigation, but I

22 was part of an organisation that routinely did it that included such

23 things in the syllabus of its various military college. I attended the

24 military Staff College where that sort of instruction was carried out,

25 and I then instructed for two years at that same military college,

Page 6454

1 instructing in those subjects. Thank you.

2 Q. Thank you.

3 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] May I now call up P837.

4 Q. General, this is the Naumann-Clark Agreement of 25th October and

5 the Sainovic-Djordjevic Agreement, I believe, in fact this is the press

6 release.

7 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] So let me call up page 2 of the

8 statement.

9 Q. General, here we see eight points, undertakings of the FRY. Do

10 you agree that this was the legal framework for your verification?

11 A. Yes, and I'm perfectly willing to accept that this all happened

12 on the date that it was due to happen at the end of October. I'm

13 perfectly happy to accept that.

14 Q. Thank you. Can I draw your attention to item 5. It concerns the

15 deployment of three companies of the Army of Yugoslavia that were allowed

16 to be outside of the terrain.

17 Sorry, did you receive interpretation of what I said?

18 A. Yes, yes, I can see that at paragraph 5 it defines the three

19 locations at which company-sized teams are allowed. And again I

20 completely understand that.

21 Q. When you agree with me, please indicate yes or no for the record.

22 Do you also agree that units were exempted if they served as temporary

23 reinforcement to border units?

24 A. Can you remind me where it says that?

25 Q. "The beginning except for those VJ currently augmenting border

Page 6455

1 guards..." para 5.

2 A. Yes, I see that. Yes. We understood that to mean within the

3 5 kilometre border zone.

4 Q. Right. And then item 6 says:

5 "VJ border guards will remain in position along the international

6 border of the FRY and conduct ongoing border security operations."

7 A. Yes. Yes.

8 Q. Thank you. Now, if I may make a small digression. One of your

9 documents, the one drafted by Colonel Ciaglinski concerning the ability

10 to protect the border with Albania; do you remember that document?

11 A. Yes, I do. Yes.

12 Q. Do you remember that the evaluation of the VJ was that between

13 6-, and 7.000 troops were needed on the border; and Colonel Ciaglinski's

14 evaluation, taking into account the lack of material resources, was

15 between 5-, and 6.000?

16 A. Yes, I mean I recall that very well. That was a document which

17 was produced with a view to the future. It in no way amended the

18 agreements that were already in place. It was a document which was

19 produced for the people at Rambouillet in February. And the question

20 was: In the future, how many people will be needed? And we looked at

21 it, and we came to the conclusion that it needed about 1200 on the

22 border; and if you rotated them, it was going to need more than that

23 because of the need to have one lot on the border, one lot resting, and

24 one lot getting ready. But the other ones did not need to be inside

25 Kosovo.

Page 6456

1 But this -- that document in no way is connected with this

2 document.

3 Q. I agree about that. That was my digression. But you know, and I

4 think you were told, that at that time and while you were in

5 Kosova-Metohija, there was around 3.000 troops in the border belt;

6 correct?

7 A. Yes. Well, no, sorry -- no one ever told me there were about

8 3.000 troops in the border belt. We became aware that there were about

9 3.000 troops in the border belt, but nobody ever said it, no.

10 Q. Thank you, I did not actually say you were told. But let me go

11 back to that document. It was a preparatory document in the event that

12 an agreement should be signed in Rambouillet, then a certain amount of VJ

13 would be allowed to stay on and secure the border?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. So at that time, there was no talk about war when this document

16 was drafted; correct?

17 A. Talk by whom?

18 Q. Anyone.

19 A. Of course there was. Of course there was talk about war. We

20 were constantly ready to evacuate if the situation got any worse. The

21 first evacuation plan was written before the end of December. And so we

22 were constantly reviewing the security situation to see whether or not

23 the situation had deteriorated to such a degree that we would have to

24 leave. So there was constantly talk about war, yes. War was what was

25 going to happen if a deal didn't get done.

Page 6457

1 Q. And you drafted documents at the same time concerning securing

2 the border and implementation of a future agreement?

3 A. Yes. It's called contingency planning. It's what we do all the

4 time.

5 Q. No, I meant this planning for border security. I meant the

6 document of Mr. Ciaglinski.

7 A. Yes. We were doing two things simultaneously: We were prepared

8 to move the mission out quickly if the situation got any worse; and if

9 the situation at Rambouillet led to a peaceful resolution, as we very

10 much hoped, then they were going to need a bit of preplanning. And we

11 were doing a lot of things which were preplanning, which was working out

12 how we would operate differently in Kosovo under a different agreement,

13 possibly with a NATO force in alongside us.

14 We did a huge amount of planning in that respect because we knew

15 that the possibilities were that the talks would succeed or they would

16 fail. If they succeeded, we wanted the international community to be in

17 a better position than the flat-footed position we had found ourselves in

18 in October.

19 Q. Thank you. Why was the international community in a flat-footed

20 position in October?

21 A. Because it was told to put together an OSCE mission of 2.000

22 people at one day's notice when there had been no preparation for it.

23 And as you saw, it took a long time.

24 Q. Thank you. And whose problem was that?

25 A. It was my problem because I was given the job of finding 2.000

Page 6458

1 people and 500 vehicles, and the OSCE didn't have them stuffed in a broom

2 cupboard.

3 Q. Thank you. Could you please look at Roman numeral III. Would I

4 be right in saying that the authorities of the FRY reserved the right in

5 keeping with their right to self-defence to adequately respond to any

6 form of terrorist act and violation of law as a last resort, any

7 terrorist activity or violation of law which could jeopardise the lives

8 and safety of citizens?

9 A. You've missed out the word "proportionately" haven't you, again?

10 THE INTERPRETER: Apologies of the interpreter, I missed it.

11 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. I don't think I did.

13 A. Right, well the interpreter missed it. And my point will be now

14 and for the rest of my life that the problem that was on the ground in

15 Kosovo was the actions that took place that we saw that we testified to

16 were generally disproportionate. Highly disproportionate.

17 Q. Thank you. We'll come to specific examples and discuss them.

18 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] May I now call up P835.

19 Q. General, this is the Geremek-Jovanovic Agreement. First of all,

20 I'd like to know about Roman numeral I.

21 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Can we scroll down the B/C/S

22 version. Thank you.

23 Q. Under Roman numeral I, am I right that in item 5 it says that:

24 "KDOM will act in place of the OSCE Verification Mission pending

25 its establishment, and once OSCE is operational, KDOM will be absorbed by

Page 6459

1 the Verification Mission."

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Thank you. Now, let me ask you, since they were your

4 predecessors and you were supposed to replace them, what kind of

5 documentation and background material did you require and receive from

6 KDOM?

7 A. We got nothing.

8 Q. I have not seen here a single document showing that the KVM or

9 the Vienna headquarters had asked for anything from KDOM.

10 A. No, nor have I.

11 Q. Thank you. How, then, did you take over certain members of KDOM

12 technically? What happened with their archives, documents, vehicles,

13 equipment?

14 A. The KDOM was not a single entity. The KDOM was a number of

15 diplomatic missions each reporting through their own national chains to

16 their embassies in Belgrade. And what those reports were and where they

17 went and what they looked like, I have not the foggiest clue.

18 We did indeed absorb many of the KDOM members and their vehicles,

19 but not their archives. It is possible that the reports that they sent

20 to their national embassies were classified, but we did not get them.

21 I certainly raised this with the head of mission, and his

22 direction was not to worry because the KDOM was not a single entity. It

23 did not have a central Registry. It was five or six groups of people,

24 each operating in a different area, to the best of my knowledge, and

25 sending its reports back; I think they were sent individually by the

Page 6460

1 nations back to NATO in Mons where they were -- where they were compiled

2 and analysed. None of that went past me.

3 Another difficulty that we had was that some of the KDOMs, in

4 particular the American KDOM, changed almost all of its staff between

5 October and December. Specifically, they moved out the serving military

6 and replaced them with contract personnel. So although they were in the

7 KDOM, there were very few people who had experience of what had taken

8 place in the summer.

9 Q. Thank you. You have mentioned more than once in your statements

10 and in your prior testimony that you did not have any background

11 information for verification, and KDOM as your predecessor confirmed

12 compliance by the FRY. You as a soldier of the British army of the UK

13 which had its own monitoring mission and the European Union had its own

14 monitoring mission including representatives of Germany, Italy, France,

15 and others, were informed of all that, did have this information. And

16 KDOM stayed present in Kosovo until the 20th March or so, and yet you did

17 not ask them for that background information.

18 JUDGE PARKER: Just before you continue.

19 Yes, Ms. Kravetz.

20 MS. KRAVETZ: Your Honours, just wanted to ask for a reference

21 from my learned colleague as to the passage of this statement in prior

22 testimony that he is referring to.

23 JUDGE PARKER: A number of references, statements, and prior

24 testimony.

25 MS. KRAVETZ: Yes, thank you.

Page 6461

1 JUDGE PARKER: Can you help there, Mr. Djurdjic?

2 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Well, it's all -- it's in the all

3 the statements of this witness and in the evidence given by the witness

4 yesterday and earlier today that they had no background information for

5 verification. They asked for this information from the Yugoslav

6 authorities, and they referred him to KDOM and other agencies.

7 Q. Is that in dispute, or did you perhaps not state that?

8 A. That is what I said. We attempted to find people in the KDOMs

9 who had this information, and we were unable to find them. Many of them,

10 as I say, had changed over. They were submitting many reports that I

11 think were verbal, and I believe the case to be that the reports were

12 collated not by KDOM because it didn't have a KDOM headquarters but they

13 were sent to their embassies where they were sent on.

14 And so we very quickly realised we were not going to get a full

15 picture, and indeed that the information that the KDOMs might have was

16 not going to be as exhaustive as we believed we needed. And therefore,

17 the direction from the head of mission was that I should stop wasting my

18 time trying to track down some person in KDOM who might have this

19 treasure trove of information that was probably spread over six KDOMs in

20 the notebooks of people who had gone home and go back to the authorities

21 and ask them for it. Because what was the harm of it being supplied to

22 the KVM if it was supposed to be given to the KVM? That's what I never

23 understood.

24 I'm finished for now. I'm hoping you are going to help me with a

25 few more questions.

Page 6462

1 Q. Thank you. I'm waiting for the interpretation to be over. It

2 was a long answer.

3 Will you agree with me, General, that Mr. Dietmar Hatrik [phoen]

4 was in Pristina throughout the whole period as head of the mission of the

5 ECMM regional centre, and all of this time he was next to you, and he

6 used to send his reports to the HQ in Sarajevo?

7 A. Why would he send reports to the headquarters in Sarajevo,

8 please?

9 Q. I suppose that his HQ was in Sarajevo. And I'm telling you this

10 based on his own statement.

11 A. Okay. Well, in case you are not aware, Pristina is not an easy

12 stroll from Sarajevo. In my time in Kosovo, I did not receive any EU

13 monitoring mission reports of any sort. I begged for them. I shook the

14 people by the -- in the chest by their clothes and said, Why is it that

15 every day we give you our reports but you are unwilling to reciprocate?

16 And they said, We are terribly sorry; EU rules and regulations.

17 Q. Thank you. So they were in Pristina all the time, as I said

18 before, and they had four coordinating centres in the territory of

19 Kosovo and Metohija. But let's leave that aside for the moment.

20 General, would you be so kind as to look at item 2, that's page 2

21 in English. General, if you look at item 2 under Roman numeral II, was

22 your duty and obligation to submit reports to the UN Security Council and

23 the OSCE Permanent Council on compliance or non-compliance by the FRY of

24 its obligations?

25 A. Yes.

Page 6463

1 Q. Thank you.

2 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Can we now look at

3 Roman numeral III, item 1. It starts on page 2 and goes on to the next

4 page in English.

5 Q. So the main obligation is to monitor the cease-fire and the

6 compliance with the cease-fire agreements?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. And the KVM is supposed to report on this as well to the

9 Security Council and the United Nations?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Thank you. Now, let's look at item 3, General. Would it be fair

12 to say that the Yugoslav authorities were allowed to erect cheque-points

13 for the purpose of regulating traffic and monitoring criminal activities?

14 A. Yes. And they were specified in one of the agreements, in the

15 Byrnes-Djordjevic Agreement.

16 Q. General, we'll come to the Byrnes-Djordjevic Agreement.

17 This item 3 provides that the Verification Mission will be

18 informed about roadblocks and other emplacements that effect traffic but

19 were not intended -- but were not erected with the purpose of traffic or

20 crime control?

21 A. Well, I don't recall being give than sort of information on any

22 regular basis whatsoever. That's the sort of information we hoped we

23 were going to get, but we didn't get.

24 Q. Well, you were not supposed at all to receive any information

25 about the roadblocks and other placements that were put there for the

Page 6464

1 purpose of traffic and crime control, according to what is written here?

2 A. Well, it depends how you read it. We were -- we were told we

3 were going to get regular reports on police activity and regular reports

4 on army activity, and those reports would have been the things that would

5 have reassured us that such operations were as you describe. But since

6 we didn't get any of them, every time we saw a roadblock, we had no idea

7 what its purpose was.

8 Q. Thank you. Well, you see, you and I cannot agree on how to

9 interpret item 3. And this is normal. Wherever there is an agreement,

10 there is a dispute in how to construe it. You had similar disagreements

11 with the FRY authorities. What steps did you take in order to obtain a

12 proper interpretation of this agreement?

13 A. We wrote the letter signed by William Walker to Milosevic saying

14 this is now we intend to carry out verification and this is what we

15 require. That is what we did, and we never got an answer to it.

16 Thank you.

17 Q. General, you and I can exchange as many letters as we wish. If

18 we continue to disagree, nothing will come out of it. Neither you or I

19 drafted these agreements. Who did you address with the request, maybe

20 the Security Council, anyone else -- any third party to provide you with

21 a proper interpretation of the agreement? This shouldn't be done between

22 the parties who are in dispute over certain matters.

23 A. Well, I'm sure that the head of mission reported what he was

24 doing to the Security Council in the OSCE and they took such measures as

25 they deemed necessary. It's one of the areas I wasn't in charge of.

Page 6465

1 At my level that I can answer for, we asked every time that we

2 met with the liaison officers for the proper documentation of these

3 regular reports that we were going to receive. And we got the odd spoken

4 statement of what was happening after the event, which was not what was

5 required.

6 Q. General, your office, your position was a very high level

7 position, maybe number 2 or number 3. Did you launch any protests

8 regarding different interpretations of this agreement with the FRY, with

9 the OSCE, or the Security Council?

10 A. At my level, I was consistent in the sort of discussions that

11 I've described and this was reported to the head of mission. That was my

12 chain of command. I was not authorised to deal direct with the OSCE in

13 Vienna, nor even with the United Nations.

14 Q. Thank you. Did you see a single document in which the head of

15 mission was writing to anyone outside the KVM in Pristina stating that

16 the FRY and the KVM were in dispute when it comes to interpreting the

17 agreement?

18 A. I cannot remember seeing any specific document, but I am

19 absolutely positive that the security -- the Permanent Council in Vienna

20 and the Secretariat in Vienna were left in no doubt that this was an

21 ongoing issue for us.

22 Q. Thank you. Now, if we go further down in item 3, can you see

23 that in emergencies that have nothing to do with traffic or crime control

24 related reasons, were the organs or the authorities obliged to inform the

25 mission about this?

Page 6466

1 A. Yes, but I would say that the word emergent is not about an

2 emergency, it's about circumstances that arose, not necessarily an

3 emergency. So we were expecting a lot of information, and we got very

4 little.

5 Q. Very well. We have a couple of minutes more. Let's look at

6 item 4 dealing with the border.

7 I know that you are tired, we are all tired, if you don't mind.

8 Or would you prefer that we start with this item tomorrow morning?

9 A. No, no, I'm happy to go on. I'll do this as long as you want

10 today. I've read it, yes. Please ask your question.

11 Q. I will. It says here that there should be control or movement of

12 units outside the border area, and this offers limitless possibilities

13 for your mission. Would you agree with that?

14 A. When invited by the FRY authorities or upon its request, that's

15 not limitless, that's not full and unfettered freedom of movement, but

16 that's what it says.

17 Q. Again, we disagree in how to read it. First part -- first thing,

18 does it refer to border units or the units outside the border area? And

19 secondly, only by invitation or at the request you can enter this zone?

20 A. Our understanding of this was that the 5 kilometres immediately

21 close to the border had a different status, and therefore we normally

22 informed the authorities, the FRY authorities, when we were going into

23 it.

24 I don't believe this allowed units of the VJ or MUP to go around

25 in Kosovo without notification because that would have led to confusion

Page 6467

1 between units that were out of barracks in an unauthorised way unless

2 that information was given to us beforehand. And such information was

3 never given to us.

4 Q. Thank you. I asked you only about the border area and this

5 particular section of the agreement.

6 Unfortunately, it seems that our time is up for today.

7 MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President, Your Honour.

8 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you. We will take note of that,

9 Mr. Djurdjic.

10 Now, I understand, Ms. Kravetz, there's a matter you wish to

11 raise. Is it something we need to keep the witness here for?

12 MS. KRAVETZ: No.

13 JUDGE PARKER: Sir, you will be in part pleased to know that we

14 must now adjourn for the day to continue tomorrow at 9.00. I believe we

15 can assure you you will be free to go after tomorrow's sitting.

16 THE WITNESS: Thank you very much, sir.

17 JUDGE PARKER: Thank you.

18 [The witness stands down]

19 JUDGE PARKER: Ms. Kravetz.

20 MS. KRAVETZ: Yes, Your Honours. Just a matter concerning

21 witness scheduling for tomorrow. The witness that was scheduled to

22 follow the testimony of General DZ was Mr. Martin Pnishi. This was in

23 our notification filed on 8th June -- of this 8th June; and the witness

24 to follow was Ms. Merita Deda. We would like to switch the order and

25 call Ms. Merita Deda before Mr. Pnishi. The reason for that is that