140909ED

Page 11149

1 testimony, compelled in such circumstances, would not be used in the case

2 against you or in any case that might be laid against you for any

3 offence, save and except the offence of giving false testimony.

4 To help you to assess weather a question or the answer to a

5 question could have the potential of self-incrimination, the Court

6 granted you at your request to be assisted in Court by your legal

7 advisor, Mr. Milan Terzic, whom I welcome in the courtroom.

8 Mr. Zivanovic, your witness.

9 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Thank you, Mr. President.

10 Examination by Mr. Zivanovic:

11 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, although we've met already, I will

12 introduce myself for the record. My name is Zoran Zivanovic. I am the

13 Defence counsel of Goran Hadzic in these proceedings.

14 First of all, let me ask you which schools have you completed?

15 A. Primary school, high school, the faculty of law, post-graduate

16 studies, earning first the degree of master and then doctor, Ph.D.

17 Q. Would you tell us where have you been employed in your life?

18 A. First of all, I worked at the faculty of law at the University of

19 Sarajevo. I was assistant professor in the Department of International

20 Relations, but after being expelled from the League of Communists and

21 pronounced unfit to work with students, I was removed from the chair and

22 I was moved to the Institute for Social Studies in a status equal to

23 assistant professor.

24 In 1991, I was elected lecturer at the law faculty in Pristina

25 and in 1999, I became full-time professor at the law school of the

Page 11150

1 University of Belgrade, when the mafia regime of Zoran Djindjic expelled

2 me from that position on the 5th of October, 2000.

3 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic, just one moment.

4 Mr. Seselj, could I ask you to observe a pause between the

5 question and your answer. That's the time the interpreters need to

6 finish the interpretation of the question. Thank you very much.

7 Yes, Mr. Zivanovic.

8 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. I have noticed a mistake in the transcript. At the beginning,

10 you said you were at the faculty of law in Sarajevo as assistant

11 professor.

12 A. No, it was the faculty of political science. I graduated from

13 the faculty of law in Sarajevo. First I was assistant on a trial period

14 and then I was assistant professor at the faculty of political science.

15 Q. Would you kindly describe your political career.

16 A. After being expelled from the then-only ruling party, which was

17 in 1971, I gradually grew into an anti-Communist dissident and that

18 process lasted until 1984, when I was arrested. And because of an

19 unpublished paper, a study called "What To Do," I was convicted to eight

20 years imprisonment. The supreme court reduced that sentence to four

21 years, and the federal court reduced it to one year and four months,

22 which I served. First of all, I was convicted for jeopardizing the

23 socio-political order, and later, the conviction was requalified into a

24 conviction for hostile propaganda.

25 Q. Would you just repeat once again, how did the federal court

Page 11151

1 reduce the initial sentence meted out by the appellate court?

2 A. In 1976, the federal court reduced my sentence to one year and

3 four months, which I served.

4 THE INTERPRETER: Correction: One year and ten months.

5 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. You said you became an anti-Communist dissident. Could you

7 describe the circumstances under which it happened. What was the

8 situation in the country that led you to those convictions?

9 A. It was still the regime of an open Tito's -- Titoist

10 dictatorship. There was no freedom of thought. There was no freedom of

11 press. There was no parliamentary/political system. It was impossible

12 to establish political parties. And there was not even free association

13 of citizens. Everybody who opposed that regime, who was idealogically in

14 a different position, anybody who was opposed to that system, to that

15 regime, was persecuted.

16 Q. Tell us briefly before you came to this Tribunal, were you ever

17 convicted; and, if so, why?

18 A. I was convicted several times but never for dishonourable

19 criminal acts. When I say that, I mean I was convicted exclusively for

20 political reasons, the first time in Sarajevo over an unpublished text

21 that the secret police seized from me on a train; later, during the

22 Milosevic regime in Serbia, I was convicted another four times before

23 Milosevic came to power. In 1984, I was arrested along with a group of

24 people who attended a lecture of Milan Djilas at the illegal law school

25 of the university in Belgrade. The police arrested us, kept us for a few

Page 11152

1 days, and then released us.

2 Q. Could you please speak a little more slowly so it can all be

3 correctly recorded and interpreted.

4 A. I have been trying already.

5 Milosevic's regime arrested me and convicted me another four or

6 five times. The first two times -- in fact, the first time, it was in

7 September 1990 for organising the signing of a petition to remove the

8 mausoleum of Josip Broz Tito from Belgrade and for signing up volunteers

9 for departure to Knin where they would defend the Serbian Krajina. Then

10 I was convicted to 15 days in prison. Then over some protests dispersed

11 by the police, I was convicted to another 25 days imprisonment and I

12 served those two sentences together. My party was outlawed. I can't say

13 it was illegal, but the regime had refused to register it. So a group of

14 citizens, my closest assistants, nominated me for president of the

15 republic, so the regime released me early.

16 And there were some minor offences, misdemeanours, where I was

17 tried by misdemeanour courts which belonged to the executive branch of

18 government. In 1984 [as interpreted], I was arrested over an incident in

19 the federal parliament for which I was not responsible. It was the

20 speaker of the parliament who was responsible, but based on false

21 testimony, I was again convicted by a misdemeanour court to one month's

22 imprisonment.

23 I was a federal MP, and you know in the civilised world the

24 executive branch of government does not have the right to judge members

25 of the legislative branch. So an executive court cannot try a member of

Page 11153

1 parliament; only regular courts could do that. However, this rule was

2 violated at that time.

3 After that, while I was still serving my prison sentence, one

4 suspended sentence was reversed into one month's imprisonment again over

5 an incident in the federal parliament when the security detail of the

6 parliament tried forcibly to remove a member of the Serbian Radical Party

7 and we, the other members, opposed them. Since I was the leader of that

8 group, they convicted only me. I served those sentences together, four

9 months in total.

10 And the last time I was arrested in the beginning of June 1994

11 where the police in Gnjline prohibited a rally of the Serbian Radical

12 Party without any legal basis. And then they staged an incident. One

13 policemen dressed in mufti provoked an incident and then the police

14 arrested all those present. Again, I was convicted over a misdemeanour

15 to two months in prison, and I served that sentence in Gnjline which is

16 in Serbian Kosovo.

17 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic, just a moment, please. At page 7,

18 line 2, there is mention of a year at the beginning of line 12. In the

19 following sentence: "And there were some minor offences, misdemeanours,

20 where I was tried by misdemeanour courts which belonged to the executive

21 branch of government. In" -- and there is the year: "I was arrested

22 over an incident in the federal parliament ..."

23 Mr. Seselj, what was the year?

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] 1994.

25 JUDGE DELVOIE: That's what I thought I heard. On the record it

Page 11154

1 is 1984, so the record has to be corrected.

2 Please continue, Mr. Zivanovic.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] 1984 is the year when I was

4 convicted in Sarajevo to four years in prison.

5 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. Would you tell us, proceedings are ongoing before this Tribunal

7 against you. On what charges?

8 A. Before this Tribunal, I'm on trial on false charges. It's been

9 going on for 12 years. They tried in umpteen ways to judge me, to

10 convict me, but they have failed. And I am expecting very soon an

11 acquittal and indemnity to the tune of $12 million. I was on trial for

12 war crimes that I had nothing to do with. I was charged based on the

13 fabrications of various false witnesses who had been coached to accuse

14 me.

15 However, my Defence was so successful that the Trial Chamber

16 simply has no basis to convict me. I have been waiting for this

17 acquittal for 12 years. I cannot be allowed to go to Belgrade because I

18 am dangerous to the traitor authorities that are in power there, and they

19 cannot convict me because they have no reason to. That's why they are

20 holding me in suspense. I am now in the courtroom for the first time

21 after two and a half years. Such things never happen anywhere in the

22 civilised world.

23 Here in the Hague Tribunal, I was convicted three times for the

24 completely invented offence of contempt of court. In the civilised

25 world, such an offence is usually punished by a fine or a disciplinary

Page 11155

1 punishment. It never happened in the civilised world that an accused

2 charged with the most serious crimes could be convicted during the trial

3 three times for contempt of court. That could happen only at the Hague

4 Tribunal.

5 Q. Can you also tell us how did you end up in the Detention Unit of

6 ICTY?

7 A. On the 24th of February, 2003, I left Belgrade to arrive to

8 The Hague on a regular plane. I bought the ticket myself, and I planned

9 to finish some business with the Dutch queen. When the aeroplane landed

10 at the Amsterdam airport, the Dutch police insisted that I be the first

11 to get off the plane.

12 I ended expecting to be welcomed, and the police took me directly

13 to the runway instead of taking the corridor like other passengers. I

14 thought that perhaps there would be a welcome with the guards, but

15 instead of that, they put me in a police car and they brought me to

16 Scheveningen, and they are still not letting me go since that time when

17 they brought me here. Actually, they wanted to set me free but to have

18 me sit under house arrest in Belgrade.

19 I've been here for 12 years in detention, and it would be another

20 seven or eight years in Belgrade under house arrest and then they

21 wouldn't have to make the judgement ever. They would send me away from

22 here. I would no longer be a problem in The Hague, and at home the

23 regime would have to keep me under house arrest, with no end in sight

24 until I die. That was the idea, but I discerned what the idea was and I

25 refused to leave with any limitations whatsoever being imposed on me.

Page 11156

1 Q. On that occasion, the 24th of February, 2003, when you arrived

2 here to The Hague, did you know that there was an indictment that was

3 issued by ICTY against you?

4 A. Yes, I learned that the indictment was there even before it was

5 made public. I learned that on the 25th of January. One of my men who

6 was working for the Prosecutor's office at ICTY at the time told me that.

7 He used to supply me with information at the time. And I immediately

8 held a press conference at which I made it public. And the indictment

9 was unpacked only about 20 days later.

10 And when after my press conference the journalists officially

11 asked ICTY representatives whether it was true that there has been an

12 indictment against me, they received answers that were imprecise and

13 indefinite, "We don't know, there's nothing yet," and so on. So I had

14 been informed almost 20 days before the OTP officially made this public.

15 Q. Have you testified in any other case before ICTY until now?

16 A. I testified in the case against Slobodan Milosevic for 14 days,

17 and I testified in the proceedings against Radovan Karadzic. That was

18 two days, if I remember properly.

19 Q. Today you have said inter alia that you were a member of a party

20 which was not illegal but which the regime had refused to register.

21 Would you please tell us what was the name of that party?

22 A. The name of that party was the Serbian Chetnik Movement,

23 actually. Our first name in January 1990 was the Serbian Freedom

24 Movement. Then, when Vuk Draskovic was excluded from the Serbian

25 National Renewal, with the Draskovic-led wing, we united into a party

Page 11157

1 which was called the Serbian Renewal Movement. Draskovic was then

2 removed from his position as president, but he did not acknowledge this

3 removal. He rallied his supporters and he acted as if they were the

4 Serbian Renewal Movement. And that lasted for almost a month.

5 There were two parties with the same name, and the registration

6 of political parties had not yet begun at the time. We believed that it

7 made no sense to focus all our energy on competing with Draskovic in

8 order to determine which party was the original one, especially as

9 Draskovic was supported by the regime at the time and by the regime-run

10 media.

11 So we decided to change the party's name into the Serbian Chetnik

12 Movement. The then-Communist regime had much ideological prejudice

13 against the Chetnik movement from the Second World War which used to be

14 anti-Communist, but it was a liberation movement anyway led by Draza

15 Mihajlovic. That was the first anti-Fascist movement in the occupied

16 Europe. The Communists only appeared later once Hitler had attacked the

17 Soviet Union, and it was under Stalin's instructions that they began the

18 uprising whereas Draza Mihajlovic began the uprising spontaneously and

19 was acknowledged by the exiled government in London.

20 Because of the ideological prejudice the then-Communist regime

21 refused to register the Serbian Chetnik Movement. However, we continued

22 to be active as an unregistered party and we had quite a number of

23 members and supporters. And then in February 1991, we united with most

24 of the Municipal Boards of the National Radical Party to form the Serbian

25 Radical Party.

Page 11158

1 That Serbian Radical Party soon became one of the major political

2 parties in Serbia. Unfortunately, after being attacked viciously by

3 western intelligence services and the pro-western mafia regime led by

4 Boris Tadic in Belgrade, there was an attempted coup within the Serbian

5 Radical Party. Those who had attempted to lead the coup failed but then

6 they left the party, formed a new one. They formed the Progressive Party

7 and were then financially and politically supported by the regime, which

8 has weakened the Serbian Radical Party to a significant degree.

9 And today we are not a parliamentary party any longer. However,

10 I hope that as soon as in a few days' time I'll return to Belgrade. Once

11 I am acquitted before this Tribunal, I hope that the party will soon

12 recover and will again be among the strongest political parties there.

13 Q. I think that in the transcript something has been left out. You

14 have mentioned Draza Mihajlovic and you also mentioned London, but it was

15 not recorded in which context you mentioned London.

16 A. Colonel Draza Mihajlovic started an uprising against the German

17 occupiers in Serbia in May 1941 by forming the Serbian Chetnik Movement

18 and by launching the first attacks against the Germans. A relative of

19 mine, Veselin Misita, was one of Draza's commanders holding the rank of

20 lieutenant-colonel. He liberated on the 31st of August 1941 the town of

21 Loznica. He liberated it from the Germans. That was the first major

22 allied victory over the Germans in the entire territory of occupied

23 Europe.

24 Of course, the Communists at dusk on the same day killed

25 Lieutenant-Colonel Misita from behind his back. As for Draza Mihajlovic,

Page 11159

1 as soon as he started fighting the Germans, he was acknowledged,

2 recognised by the Yugoslav exiled government seated in London at the

3 time. They awarded him the rank of army general, appointed him as

4 defence minister, and he was then actually one of the key commanders of

5 the anti-Hitler coalition.

6 But due to various Churchill's tricks and the deals he had made

7 with Stalin, the western allies withdrew their support for Draza

8 Mihajlovic in 1943 and began to assist the Communists openly. So

9 Churchill's treason of Draza Mihajlovic brought us in a situation in

10 which we had to spend 50 years under a bloody Communist dictatorship from

11 which we haven't recovered to this day.

12 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic, when I look back to the

13 clarification question you put to Mr. Seselj and the answer he gave to

14 that, I would like to -- "warn" is too harsh a word, but to tell you that

15 how interesting these lessons in history and Serb history may be, as long

16 as you know that it is on your time with this witness and you don't have

17 a problem with it, I won't make a problem of it. But it is on your time.

18 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Yes. Yes, Your Honour, thank you for that

19 warning.

20 Q. [Interpretation] I will only ask you another thing regarding your

21 last answer. If you can tell us as briefly as possible whether General

22 Mihajlovic, as the leader of this movement, was ever awarded by the

23 western allies for his contribution to the victory in the Second World

24 War?

25 A. General Mihajlovic received the highest US medals, the Medal of

Page 11160

1 Honour from the US Congress. It was only after 40 years or so that the

2 US ambassador in Belgrade delivered this medal to General Mihajlovic's

3 daughter. After the war, by a trick, the Communists managed to capture

4 Draza Mihajlovic. There was a staged trial and he was shot. And to this

5 day, it's not known where his grave is.

6 Q. And another question. Do you know whether, after the war, a

7 significant number of the members of this movement, that is to say, a

8 great number of Chetniks, found refuge in western countries?

9 A. A number of Chetniks found refuge in France, England, the United

10 States of America, Canada, Australia, and some other countries, but that

11 was a smaller number. However, a greater number of Chetniks were shot by

12 Communists at the end of the war, in the first days after the end of the

13 war. There are mass graves of Chetniks who had been shot in Serbia, in

14 practically every town.

15 Even though Boris Tadic's regime was traitorist, he began digging

16 up those mass graves. When Tomislav Nikolic and Aleksandar Vucic came to

17 power, the digging of mass graves was immediately stopped and the process

18 of legal rehabilitation of Draza Mihajlovic was slowed down. This is all

19 in accordance with Tomislav Nikolic's announcement that he would continue

20 his policy along Tito's path.

21 Q. Just another question with regard to this and we will move to

22 another topic.

23 Do you know whether any of the people from the Chetnik movement

24 who were granted asylum in western countries were ever prosecuted for any

25 crimes they had committed in the Second World War?

Page 11161

1 A. No, never. They were respected in these countries. They were

2 honoured. They were entitled to form their own veterans' organisations,

3 and these organisations were active up until the time when the Chetniks

4 died out. I'm not sure whether there are any left living. In the

5 meantime they all died.

6 Q. You have said that eventually the Serbian Radical Party was

7 formed. Have you been its president all along?

8 A. Yes, and I continue to be the president of the Serbian Radical

9 Party to this very day.

10 Q. Will you please tell us, what was the substance of the Serbian

11 Radical Party's programme?

12 A. The Serbian Radical Party advocated the unification. We wanted

13 Yugoslavia to survive, of course, but when we realised that this wouldn't

14 work when the Slovenians and the Croats had started their separatist

15 uprising, we then advocated the formation of Greater Serbia that would

16 include all the Serbian lands, which means today's Serbia, including

17 Kosovo and Metohija, whose independence we shall never acknowledge. Then

18 Macedonian, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Dubrovnik, Dalmatia,

19 Lika, Banja, Kordun, Slavonia and Baranja.

20 Q. And this concept of Greater Serbia, did it include the idea of

21 ethnic cleansing, cleaning the territories from members of other ethnic

22 or religious groups?

23 A. Absolutely not. We did not come out with a new idea of

24 Greater Serbia. That idea has existed for several hundred years in the

25 Serbian people. The first who had this project to unify all Serbian

Page 11162

1 lands was the last Serbian despot that was Count Djordje Brankovic. At

2 the time of the siege of Vienna, when the Turks were defeated in Vienna,

3 Count Djordje Brankovic addressed the Austro-Hungarian tsar with the

4 proposal that all the Serbian lands be liberated from the Turks, that a

5 Serbian despot be established, and that in a way it would be a part of

6 the Austrian empire.

7 The Austrian emperor agreed. He confirmed the title of despot

8 for Djordje Brankovic. He also awarded him the title of Austrian count,

9 which was an aristocratic title, and helped the realisation of this plan.

10 Everything was successful initially. The Austrian army, greatly helped

11 by the Serbs who had started the uprising, and with the help of the Serbs

12 who were living within the Austrian borders at the time, this army

13 reached as far as Skopje.

14 Famous General Pikolomini was leading the Austrian army in

15 Skopje. He fell ill. He contracted the plague. He was taken to

16 Prizren, to the military hospital, where he died. The new commander of

17 the Austrian army was unable to battle the Turks any longer, and the

18 Austrians had to withdraw all the way to the Danube.

19 And then if you're interested about Greater Serbia, I wanted to

20 tell you how old this project was.

21 Q. Just a moment. You need to slow down because your words cannot

22 be recorded faithfully if you speak fast.

23 You have already told us how old the project is. I'm interested

24 in something else. The idea of the Greater Serbia, was it advocated by

25 another political party in Serbia in the 1990s of last century?

Page 11163

1 A. Absolutely not. Only the Serbian Radical Party advocated that

2 project. The project encompassed the territories that I have already

3 mentioned. All of our documents from the Serbian Freedom Movement to the

4 Serbian Radical Party, we directly and clearly advocate the unity and

5 brotherhood of the Serbs of Orthodox faith, the Serbs of the Catholic

6 faith, and the Serbs of Muslim faith, as well as the Serbs of the

7 Protestant faith.

8 And you know, in the entire territory that I have mentioned, only

9 Serbian language is spoken. For decades the Croats have tried to corrupt

10 the language but inventing new words, but they can't change it

11 completely. Bosnian Muslims also speak Serbian. I know that the Hague

12 Tribunal created a very vile term, "B/C/S," but this is Serbian. The

13 global linguistics recognises the language as exclusively Serb language.

14 There were Croats, however. There was a Croatian nation and the

15 language in question is Cakavian. However, in 1850, Croatian

16 intellectuals, in agreement with Vuk Karadzic and Djuro Danicic, decided

17 that Serbian would also become their official language. That was the

18 foundation for all the Serb Catholics to become part of the Croatian

19 body. And the war in the Balkans was the war amongst the Serbs

20 themselves, the Serbs of Orthodox faith, the Serbs of Catholic faith, and

21 Serbs of Muslim faith. We are all one and the same people. We are all

22 Serbs, but the western powers sow the seeds of evil amongst us. We bled.

23 We lost a lot of life in order to support America and western Europe, who

24 are our traditional enemies. That was all to their own good.

25 Q. Can you now tell us in the 1990s of last century, what was the

Page 11164

1 position of the Socialist Party of Serbia, the SPS?

2 A. The Socialist Party of Serbia literally inherited power from the

3 League of Communists. Overnight, they just changed their name. They

4 pretended that the League of Communists had united with the Socialist

5 Alliance of Working People and became the Socialist Party. Only the name

6 was changed. Everything else remained the same. Milosevic was still the

7 leader of the party. They still held power in their hands. And in

8 December, they ran in the presidential and parliamentary elections and

9 they were victorious. There were also local elections and they were

10 victorious almost everywhere.

11 Q. In December of what year?

12 A. 1990. The Serbian Radical Party was not allowed to run in those

13 elections. I was a presidential candidate on behalf of a group of

14 citizens. I did not record significant results, but I became very

15 popular through my television appearances because that was the only time

16 ever that I could ever appear on TV during the pre-election campaign.

17 Before that, television could only smear my name, and I was not allowed

18 to say anything on TV.

19 Q. What was the relationship between the Serbian Radical Party on

20 the one hand and the Socialist Party of Serbia on the other hand?

21 A. We were extremely opposed to each other. We were in constant

22 conflict with Milosevic's regime. When you look at some other opposition

23 parties, save for Vuk Draskovic, Milosevic absolutely didn't arrest

24 anybody. Draskovic was arrested on two occasions when he caused

25 bloodshed and death on the streets of Belgrade. There was never any

Page 11165

1 blood at our rallies. But I was always targeted by that regime as its

2 most serious enemy and opponent.

3 Q. You said that inter alia on one occasion you were arrested

4 because you were in charge of an action to register volunteers who were

5 going to be sent to Croatia, i.e., Krajina.

6 A. No.

7 Q. Then I didn't understand you.

8 A. We didn't -- didn't want to send volunteers to Croatia ever.

9 Although that was part of my propaganda, I used to say, "I'm going to

10 send Chetniks to capture Tudjman," and so on and so forth. But as a

11 matter of fact, we never sent anybody to Croatia. We sent our volunteers

12 exclusively to the territory of Serbian Krajina to defend the Serbian

13 people and not to attack the Croatian people. They just went to defend

14 what was Serbian. That's all.

15 Q. Could you please tell us, at that time when you rallied

16 volunteers, the state system of Yugoslavia was still functioning. There

17 were institutions that were responsible for defending all citizens

18 irrespective of their religion and faith. Can you please tell us why you

19 did what you did, in view of the fact that there were the police, the

20 military and other institutions who were in charge of that?

21 A. When Tudjman took over in Croatia and immediately expelled or

22 removed the Serbian people from the constitution, although the Serbian

23 people was a constituent people in Croatia and equal to the Croatian

24 people but Tudjman wanted to transform them into a national minority, a

25 lot of confrontations started happening. The Croats started prosecuting

Page 11166

1 Serbs. Already in 1990, Serb refugees started arriving in Serbia. There

2 were clashes in the field because Croats wanted to disarm forcibly the

3 Serb police stations. Many Serbs were arrested, beaten, and many were

4 killed as well.

5 The Yugoslav People's Army which was duty-bound to protect the

6 territorial integrity, sovereignty and integrity, of the state as

7 prescribed by the constitution, was not able to do that. At first the

8 JNA was neutral and passive. And the Serbs in Serbian Krajina were

9 simply helpless.

10 And then we started volunteers from Serbia illegally, starting

11 with April 1991 until the end of August 1991. It was only sometime at

12 the beginning of September 1991, when the JNA got involved in armed

13 activities, we made an agreement with the General Staff of the JNA to

14 send our volunteers into JNA units.

15 Before the 1st of September, we did have paramilitary formations;

16 we did have our own armed forces that fought to defend the Serbian

17 villages in Eastern Slavonia and Western Srem. Our volunteers won a huge

18 victory in Borovo Selo on the 2nd of May, 1991, fighting against the

19 Croatian special police, for example. We did send those volunteers but

20 we hid the fact from the regime in Belgrade.

21 The JNA and the Serb police tried to prevent us from doing that.

22 The Hague OTP has a large number of documents which show how the police

23 reacted to our attempts. However, since the volunteers were very good

24 warriors and since the JNA finally realised that they were between the

25 rock and the hard place and that they had to come to the Ustasha regime

Page 11167

1 in Croatia since the Croats had already blockaded the JNA barracks in

2 many places and jeopardized the lives of officers and their families,

3 when a direct clash was already present between the Croatian

4 paramilitaries and the JNA, we reached an agreement with the JNA that

5 there would be no paramilitary formations but, rather, that our

6 volunteers would be sent under the command of the JNA. In other words,

7 before the 1st of September, I was the number one man, the commander, as

8 it were, but obviously I was not the effective commander in the field but

9 I was the leader of those paramilitary formations.

10 After that, we sent all of them to JNA units, and after that, we

11 never had any paramilitary unit. Not in Serbian Krajina, not in

12 Republika Srpska. Nowhere.

13 Q. Could you please tell us when did you first meet Milan Babic?

14 A. I first met Milan Babic in 1990.

15 Q. And when did you meet Milan Martic?

16 A. At the same time as Milan Babic. Milan Babic was the president

17 of Knin municipality. He was also the president of the association of

18 municipalities of Southern Dalmatia and Lika, if my memory served me

19 right, but it's neither here nor there, whereas Milan Martic was the

20 chief of the police station in Knin. That was before the setting up of

21 Serbian Krajina which was later to become the Republic of Serbian

22 Krajina.

23 Q. Do you know when the Serbian Democratic Party was set up?

24 A. It was established sometime in the beginning of 1990 or perhaps

25 before that. I'm not sure. However, a majority of the Serbian

Page 11168

1 population in the then-Federal Republic of Croatia did not vote for the

2 Serbian Democratic Party. They voted for a Croat, Ivica Racan, and his

3 Party of Democratic Changes. That's what it was known as. It was the

4 former League of Communists. They thought that if Racan won, Croatia

5 would remain part of Yugoslavia. The Serb people would remain equal.

6 They were against Tudjman, but they did not want to support the Serbian

7 National Party.

8 It was only when they realised that everything was staged in

9 Croatia, that the Roman Catholic church got involved as well as Ivica

10 Racan and many other factors, all with a view to securing Tudjman's

11 victory, and when they realised what Tudjman's regime was all about, the

12 Serbian people turned towards the Serbian Democratic Party and that's

13 when its establishment started in all Serbian lands, in all the

14 territories inhabited by the Serbs.

15 For example, the mayor of Vukovar, Slavko Dokmanovic, was elected

16 in 1990 as Racan's party candidate, not as a candidate of the Serbian

17 Democratic Party, because he also thought that that party guaranteed the

18 state unity and equality. But it was a deception, it was all a big lie.

19 Q. Do you know when the Serbian National Council was established?

20 A. The Serbian National Council of Slavonia, Baranja, and Western

21 Srem, is that what you mean?

22 Q. No, I mean the Serbian National Council of Krajina.

23 A. I wouldn't be able to tell you that, not with precision. I know

24 when the Serbian National Council of Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Srem

25 was established. If you will believe me, I don't even know that the

Page 11169

1 Serbian National Council of Serbian Krajina ever existed.

2 The head of the Serbian National Council of Slavonia, Baranja,

3 and Western Srem was Koncarevic and the other one was Petkovic. One of

4 them was the president of the assembly and the other one was the

5 president of the executive board. And that could have been sometime in

6 mid 1991 or perhaps in the first half of 1991. I knew both very well,

7 Ilija Koncarevic and Ilija Petkovic.

8 Q. Do you remember your first visit to Eastern Slavonia? When was

9 that?

10 A. That was on 9 March 1991. I remember the date because on that

11 same day, Vuk Draskovic, leading pro-western political parties, created

12 chaos and caused bloodshed in Belgrade. I visited Eastern Slavonia and

13 Western Srem. I toured seven villages and I held political rallies in

14 all of them - Trpinje, Bobota, Borovo Selo, Mirkovci, perhaps Tenja,

15 Negoslavci. I can't remember -- Sodolovci as well. I really can't

16 remember all of their names because later on I went to many other

17 villages. So I really can't be sure of that particular visit.

18 Q. Do you remember whom you met in 1991? I'm speaking about the

19 political leaders of Eastern Slavonia.

20 A. I met Ilija Koncarevic, Ilija Petkovic, somewhat later Suskocanin

21 who was the commander of the Territorial Defence of Borovo Selo. You

22 know, I met a lot of people. I really can't remember all of them. I'm a

23 politician. I meet thousands of people, and if I don't meet certain

24 people several times on special occasions, I lose sight of them and I

25 forget them.

Page 11170

1 Q. You mentioned during your testimony that your volunteers were in

2 Borovo Selo. Could you please tell us why? Who was it who wanted their

3 presence there?

4 A. Sometime in April or in the first half of April 1991, I visited

5 Borovo Selo and I met Vukasin Suskocanin there. He was the commander of

6 the Territorial Defence of that village. He asked me to send volunteers

7 of the Serbian Radical Party. I appointed one of my escorts - one was

8 already there, Mladen Todosijevic and Oliver Denis Baret, who was there

9 of his own will - to be the commander and the deputy commander of those

10 volunteers, to put in place conditions for their accommodation. And as

11 soon as I returned to Belgrade, we sent a large group of volunteers

12 there.

13 There were a lot of tensions there between Tudjman's regime and

14 the Serbian villagers. There were barricades on the roads. There was

15 shooting. And sometime before the 2nd of May an agreement was reached

16 between the local Serbs and Croats to reduce tensions, to normalise the

17 situation, to remove the barricades, and to create a peaceful atmosphere

18 which would be conducive to political negotiations. The Serbs believed

19 that. Barricades were removed. Lots of the volunteers returned to

20 Serbia and only 16 or 17 of them remained. One or two were from the

21 Serbian Renewal Movement and the rest were from the Serbian Radical

22 Party.

23 Knowing full well that the Serbs relaxed, that they went back to

24 their field-work because it was the beginning of May, the sowing season

25 and all the sowing was done manually, the Serbs were mainly in their

Page 11171

1 fields. We're talking about a rural area. The volunteers returned to

2 Serbia. Only a small group remained.

3 The Croats organised themselves. They got on a bus and onto

4 cars. And on the 2nd of May, sometime around noon, they stormed into

5 Borovo Selo and started shooting from automatic weapons. On that

6 occasion, they killed an unarmed person, Vojislav Milic, who was a

7 volunteer of the Serbian Renewal Movement from Valjevo. He was sitting

8 in front of the cultural hall. He was reading his newspaper. He didn't

9 have any weapons. The Croats opened fire and killed him there and then.

10 The rest of the volunteers were taken by surprise; however, they

11 grabbed their weapons and they returned fire. Croats were

12 panic-stricken. As a result there was a lot of casualties. They

13 admitted that 12 of their policemen were killed; according to our

14 information, many more were killed. They never counted among the victims

15 the bodies of the policemen who lay strewn in the cornfields and the

16 foreign mercenaries. There were already Kurds as members of their

17 paramilitary formations.

18 Q. Just one more question regarding these visits of yours. Do you

19 remember when you visited Baranja?

20 A. I visited Baranja for the first time also in April 1991, a couple

21 of days after visiting Borovo Selo. I returned to Belgrade from

22 Borovo Selo, spent a few days there and then went to Baranja. I can't

23 remember the exact date but the OTP has all this information. They have

24 the entire text of the speech I held in Jagodnjak near Beli Manastir.

25 Because of that speech, the Croatian regime, led by Tudjman, convicted me

Page 11172

1 to four years in prison in absentia, and when an amnesty was proclaimed,

2 I was amnestied as well. Four and a half years was that sentence.

3 Q. Was there an a particular place, in those early days before that

4 agreement you reached with the JNA, where the volunteers were trained?

5 A. Yes. In Prigrevica, near the Danube riverbank at an abandoned

6 farm, we got hold of some facilities where the volunteers were put up.

7 We set up a training camp led by Jovo Ostojic. Later on I proclaimed him

8 a Chetnik Vojvoda, duke.

9 We sent up that centre together with the association of Serbs

10 from Croatia. Those were Serbs from various parts of the then-Federal

11 Republic -- federative part of Yugoslavia that Croatia was, and they were

12 mainly officers led by General Dusan Pekic.

13 Sometime in summer 1991, we agreed that volunteers from

14 individual political parties would not go separately to the front line.

15 Instead, we agreed that we should unite jointly, send the volunteers who

16 would have the same insignia. We introduced the insignia with a Serbian

17 flag then because we knew we had to remove the five-pointed star which

18 was the insignia before, because they would not fight under the emblems

19 of Yugoslavia. Some political parties accepted but didn't do anything.

20 Some refused but we, the Radical Party, started to send volunteers

21 intensively in that way, and initially illegally we trained them in

22 Prigrevica.

23 During the first months, the police failed to detect it. Our

24 volunteers crossed the Danube illegally in civilian clothes and then, on

25 the other side, they would receive uniforms or parts of uniforms, but

Page 11173

1 they earned a very good reputation as fighters on the front line. The

2 Serbian people held them in high esteem and respected them.

3 The Yugoslav People's Army realised that, and when they had no

4 choice any longer, they addressed the Serbian Radical Party and in

5 August 1991, many high-ranking officers of the JNA from the General Staff

6 passed through my office and we agreed about everything. And from the

7 1st of September that year, we started sending our volunteers exclusively

8 through the JNA.

9 We even decided to return the volunteers who had already been

10 sent back to Serbia, and the order was given that the volunteers should

11 return to Serbia and then redeployed through the JNA. We observed this

12 agreement strictly and we no longer from that point on had any unit that

13 could be called paramilitary. They were under the command of the state

14 army.

15 Q. Could we just clarify because the record doesn't reflect

16 everything precisely. You mentioned the name of a person who was then, I

17 believe, the commander of your staff, or Chief of Staff.

18 A. The Chief of Staff.

19 Q. Could you repeat the name. What did he ask from the volunteers

20 who were already on the ground?

21 A. It was Ljubisa Petkovic. And he demanded in a letter that the

22 OTP has that all volunteers immediately return to Belgrade. There may

23 have been even been a deadline for their return. There were some

24 volunteers who refused to go back, for instance, a group from Trpinja

25 refused and that created some problems.

Page 11174

1 The deputy of Ljubisa Petkovic went there. Was it Zoran Rankic

2 or somebody else? Anyway, he submitted a report about lack of

3 discipline, et cetera. However, we collected them all, disciplined them,

4 and from then on, we integrated them into JNA units. It required some

5 diplomatic effort, some persuasion, and most importantly I personally

6 persuaded them that it was not any more the Communist army. It was the

7 only army we had.

8 Q. Were people who had not served their regular military service

9 accepted as volunteers?

10 A. No. We admitted only persons over 18 who had done their military

11 service, who had no convictions, and were not drinking or doing drugs.

12 The only exception to the military service rule were women. We admitted

13 them as nurses, but there were also very good women fighters, very

14 capable ones.

15 Q. Were your volunteers ever sent to a training centre at Tara?

16 A. That could have been only in 1992 or 1993. Certainly not

17 earlier. At the time of the fighting for the Republic of Serbian

18 Krajina, I don't believe that centre even existed. I believe Laki went

19 there with one group, but when he saw that the Serbian police was trying

20 to integrate our volunteers into their active-duty complement, they gave

21 up.

22 Q. Were you able to see for what reasons did those high-ranking JNA

23 officers want your volunteers?

24 A. They had no choice. The mobilisation drive was unsuccessful. In

25 Montenegro, the response was 100 per cent but in Serbia, much less. Why?

Page 11175

1 Slobodan Milosevic, in fact, his regime, tried to prevent this

2 mobilisation, tried to stand in the way because there was still the

3 danger of the Communist generals staging a putch, sweeping out both

4 Milosevic and Tudjman and establishing their own government with the

5 support of the west in order to preserve the integrity of Yugoslavia.

6 That was in their minds.

7 This is best shown by the book of Branko Mamula, which was

8 recently republished. Mamula supplemented it just before his death, and

9 I read some excerpts in the newspapers. And he admits to this intention

10 of toppling both Milosevic and Tudjman at the same time. Milosevic was

11 aware of this and he didn't allow them to carry out the necessary

12 mobilisation. However, on the other hand, Milosevic was supporting the

13 sending of volunteers, of course, after our agreement with the JNA, not

14 earlier. Before that, his police persecuted us. He knew that the JNA

15 could never use our volunteers for their efforts to overthrow the

16 government, to stage a putch, especially since Branko Mamula was leading

17 this movement for Yugoslavia and that included Kadijevic, Blagoje Adzic,

18 Aleksandar Kadijevic, Petar Simic, and so many of them.

19 The top echelons of the army, after the League of Communists was

20 no longer, so steeped in their own idealogy, formed their own party of

21 generals and forced all the officers and NCOs of the JNA to become

22 members. It was called the League of Communists - Movement for

23 Yugoslavia. And when we reached that agreement with the JNA, my

24 animosity towards the generals did not stop. We were sending volunteers

25 to defend the Serbian people. However, at the same time, in the federal

Page 11176

1 parliament, I was speaking openly and very vociferously against Veljko

2 Kadijevic and the other JNA generals. I even asked for his execution in

3 one of my speeches. If necessary, you have all these speeches in the

4 Office of the Prosecutor.

5 Q. When you were talking about this party of generals, the League of

6 Communists - Movement for Yugoslavia, you mentioned certain names and I

7 believe one of them is missing. So I will repeat them.

8 A. Aleksandar Vasiljevic is missing from the transcript, if I can

9 see well.

10 Q. You said that agreement was reached with the JNA about the

11 participation of your volunteers, the volunteers of the Serbian Radical

12 Party within the JNA. Was this agreement really implemented?

13 A. It was strictly implemented. And regardless of how much the army

14 generals hated us, the top leaders of this party of generals, they still

15 observed our agreement to the letter. Our volunteers received

16 immediately the latest, the most modern uniforms. They were trained in

17 the Belgrade barracks called Bubanj Potok and sometimes in other barracks

18 too. There, they were supplied with weapons and uniformed and armed.

19 They left Belgrade to go to the front line. They received soldiers'

20 wages. They were not much but they received them. Their military

21 service was written into their military service books.

22 When a volunteer would get killed, the army would pay some small

23 pension to the family. The army paid for the funerals. At the funeral,

24 the army would appoint a guard of honour and army officers with bayonets

25 on their rifles would accompany the caskets. The army sent a unit for

Page 11177

1 the fire from cannons in honour of the fallen fighter. And the army also

2 paid medical costs at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade.

3 So the army observed this agreement. Milosevic was also

4 compliant. Milosevic's regime supported the sending of volunteers. Even

5 some professional policemen from the Milosevic regime went to the front

6 line, including Badza, for instance.

7 Speaking of our volunteers, I can tell you for a fact about our

8 volunteers. I wouldn't go into the issue of the other volunteers. Our

9 volunteers got paid leave from their jobs, even a higher salary while

10 they were on the front line. Sometimes we would supply aid to their

11 family, winter supplies. Sometimes we provided support to the families

12 and allowances. So when it comes to the sending of volunteers, we had

13 the support of both of army leadership and the Milosevic regime.

14 Q. Just one more thing. The volunteers who were sent to the units

15 of the Yugoslav People's Army, to whom were they answerable in case they

16 committed a crime?

17 A. They had to be held responsible before military courts. In the

18 state of immediate state -- immediate danger of war, the military courts

19 were the only competent. And even in peacetime, the military courts were

20 the only competent to judge professional military men or men who were

21 doing their regular military service. These military courts were

22 abolished only sometime after 2000.

23 However, we never received any report from the JNA. There is no

24 such document saying that any of our volunteers had ever committed a

25 crime anywhere. Army officers had only praise for them as courageous,

Page 11178

1 disciplined and very capable. At every step, I heard only such praise.

2 In 20 years, not even the OTP did not -- managed to find a single

3 volunteer, to identify a single volunteer sent by me to the front line,

4 who had committed any criminal act, any offence. It just didn't exist.

5 Q. And one more thing. Under what insignia did your volunteers

6 fight? Because the Yugoslav People's Army wore the five-pointed star for

7 a while.

8 A. At some point - I can't remember exactly when - the JNA renounced

9 the five-point star and introduced insignia with the Yugoslav flag.

10 However, after our agreement with the JNA, we also agreed that they would

11 not insist on the five-pointed star. We said our volunteers would rather

12 die than put the red Communist five-pointed star on their caps. And the

13 army agreed. The JNA agreed that our volunteers would put the Chetnik

14 kokarde on their caps. When they got the star insignia, they would

15 scrape it off and put our coat of arms instead. And, by the same token,

16 our volunteers stopped accusing and attacking the officers with a

17 five-pointed star as Commies, traitors, et cetera. So we left all our

18 disagreements aside and joined efforts to defend Serbian people.

19 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Your Honours, I think it is the appropriate time

20 for the break.

21 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you, Mr. Zivanovic.

22 Mr. Seselj, the Court will take its first 30-minutes' break.

23 We'll be back at 11.00.

24 Court adjourned.

25 [The witness stands down]

Page 11179

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

2 [The witness takes the stand]

3 --- On resuming at 11.02 a.m.

4 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic, please proceed.

5 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Thank you, Mr. President.

6 Q. [Interpretation] Before the break, Mr. Seselj, we talked about

7 the replacement of the five-pointed stars with tricolour on the uniforms

8 of the Yugoslav People's Army. I will now show you a document or,

9 rather, a newspaper article from the time. 1D579 is the document.

10 A. I still don't have it on my screen.

11 Q. It will appear now.

12 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic, as you know, it is helpful if you

13 could mention the tab number of the documents you are calling.

14 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Sorry, tab number is 4.

15 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.

16 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] If we could perhaps zoom in on

17 the original text.

18 Q. This article talks precisely about the new insignia that would

19 replace the five-pointed red star. It is clearly stated in the last

20 sentence. One can see that it's a decision that was adopted by the SFRY

21 Presidency on the 16th of October. As we haven't mentioned this body so

22 far, can you tell us what was the relation between the Presidency of the

23 SFRY and the JNA?

24 A. The Presidency of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia

25 was the Supreme Command of the Yugoslav People's Army. It made such

Page 11180

1 decisions as this independently after an imminent threat of war had been

2 declared. Without such a state of emergency being declared, then the

3 insignia of the army would have been changed by a federal law. But under

4 the conditions of an imminent threat of war, the Presidency was

5 authorised to issue such decrees that had the power of law.

6 MR. ZIVANOVIC: I would tender this document, Your Honours.

7 JUDGE DELVOIE: Admitted and marked.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D186, Your Honours.

9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.

10 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. Mr. Seselj, you have said that volunteers which the Serbian

12 Radical Party sent to the front lines to the ranks of the Yugoslav

13 People's Army were present there. I would like us to be precise and say

14 under whose command were they?

15 A. Well, they were under the command of the commanders of the units

16 in whose ranks they fought. For example, in Vukovar, in the Operative

17 Group South, they were part of the Motorised Guards Brigade, and in

18 Operations Group North, they were a part of the Novi Sad Corps, so

19 depending on where they were sent and the conditions there. In Western

20 Slavonia, for example, they were under the command of the active-duty

21 Colonel Trbojevic, who was the commander of Territorial Defence of

22 Western Slavonia, and so on.

23 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic, just one moment.

24 Mr. Seselj, could I ask you once again to observe a pause between

25 Mr. Zivanovic's question and your answer. It could be helpful to count

Page 11181

1 until ten before you start answering. That gives the interpreters the

2 opportunity to finish their interpretation. If not, parts of your answer

3 will be lost. Thank you.

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I really try sincerely to make the

5 pauses and to speak as slow as possible, but sometimes I forget it and I

6 start speaking immediately. I guess it's a sign of old age.

7 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Does that mean that volunteers who were dispatched by the Serbian

9 Radical Party were under the command of active-duty officers of the JNA?

10 A. Yes. As of the 1st of September and onward, they were only under

11 the command of the active-duty JNA officers.

12 Q. Did it last throughout the time that they spent at the fronts or

13 the time that was recorded in their military booklets?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And do you remember if any of the high-ranking military officers

16 said that the Serbian Radical Party volunteers were under his command?

17 A. I received an official document from the OTP showing that the

18 commander of the 1st Military District, General Zivota Panic, stated that

19 Serbian Radical Party volunteers were in the JNA units; that is to say,

20 under their command. I received that document, though I don't have it on

21 me.

22 Q. We'll look at it now.

23 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] It's P2715, tab 2. In the

24 English translation, it's page 25, and in the original, page 26, moving

25 onto page 27. If we could show the bottom of the page and zoom in on the

Page 11182

1 original, because I think that's the section that we need.

2 Q. Could you see the part where it says --

3 A. I don't know what document this is. I suppose it's Panic's

4 statement. I can see in English that it says "Panic." But one can see a

5 bit of it in Serbian, too.

6 Q. If we could move the original text to the right a little bit,

7 please, then you will see the abbreviation.

8 A. Yes. That's probably the Prosecution's interview with General

9 Zivota Panic. That's what I suppose, I suppose from the form of the

10 text.

11 Q. It's actually an interview given to the foreign media but,

12 nevertheless, we shall focus on the contents of the words.

13 At the very bottom of the page in Serbian, where it reads that:

14 "The volunteers were Arkan's Tigers and Seselj's Chetniks. Those weren't

15 big groups." And then it reads, if we could please move onto the next

16 page in the original. "However, I placed all these formations under my

17 command and they carried out the tasks of the units in which they were."

18 Are these words of General Zivota Panic correct?

19 A. Quite correct. And I would also note that we had volunteers in

20 formations numbering 100 to 120 men, more or less the size of a company.

21 The volunteers were headed or led by one of them who had become prominent

22 in fighting earlier, showed himself as capable, and so on. We didn't

23 have bigger formations because for them it was necessary to have educated

24 officers. So our most prominent volunteers were capable of commanding

25 units up to the size of a company.

Page 11183

1 Q. Could you please tell us whether the Serbian Radical Party

2 volunteers participated in the Vukovar operation in 1991?

3 A. Yes, they took a very active part in it, and much credit is to be

4 given to them that Vukovar was liberated. They participated in the

5 activities of Operations Group South and Operations Group North.

6 Q. Could you tell us about Serbian Radical Party volunteers who

7 participated in the Operations Group South? What was the unit they were

8 deployed in?

9 A. By command of the commander of the Motorised Guards Brigade, then

10 Colonel and later General Mile Mrksic, all Serbian Radical Party

11 volunteers were included in the Territorial Defence detachment

12 Leva Supoderica, which then became part of the composition of the Guards

13 Brigade. These were not only our volunteers; volunteers from other

14 parties, those who appeared of their own initiative and enlisted as

15 volunteers, and so on. Most of the members of the unit had been sent by

16 the Serbian Radical Party.

17 Q. Can you tell us who was the commander of that unit,

18 Leva Supoderica?

19 A. The commander was a reserve captain Milan Lancuzanin, called

20 Kameni.

21 Q. Was he a member of the Serbian Radical Party at the time?

22 A. Not at that time. Milan Lancuzanin, called Kameni, was not a

23 member of the Serbian Radical Party but he joined it later. First, he

24 became our sympathiser when he saw what our volunteers were like when

25 they were in action, and then he joined the party. I think it was in the

Page 11184

1 early months of 1992. And he remains a member to this day.

2 Q. During the Vukovar operation, did you come to the Vukovar area;

3 and, if so --

4 A. Yes. I did from both sides. Twice from the south; once in

5 October and the last time on the 8th of November. But I also showed up

6 in Trpinja and in Borovo Selo which is to the north of Vukovar. I went

7 to tour Tenja where there were some forward positions with our volunteers

8 who were engaged in the fighting, and so on.

9 Q. To start from your first visit to Vukovar, could you tell us, how

10 long did you stay there?

11 A. Well, the first time I came in the morning and I left late in the

12 evening. I toured all the forward front lines, and in the evening, the

13 commander of the Guards Brigade, Colonel Mrksic, organised a dinner for

14 me at his staff in Negoslavci. And I remember well that we ate beans

15 with sausages and I remember also the helmet that I wore on my head was

16 too small, and then there were some jokes about it. And the Chief of

17 Staff of the Guards Brigade, then-Lieutenant-Colonel and now General

18 Panic, presented me with his helmet which fitted me well.

19 Why am I telling you all this? To let you know that these things

20 remain etched deep in my memory.

21 Q. Did you meet anyone else on that occasion, for example, any

22 political figures or civilian authorities, on the occasion of your first

23 visit to Vukovar when you visited the Guards Brigade?

24 A. I don't remember a single political figure that I may have met.

25 I was only in company with military personnel - officers, soldiers,

Page 11185

1 volunteers, the territorials. Just major Borivoje Trajkovic accompanied

2 me to tour the forward front lines. There's a photograph of us walking

3 along a wide Vukovar street that was later on published in many

4 newspapers. Major Trajkovic, who remained a general and a commander of

5 the gendarmerie in Serbia, complained later on that this photograph where

6 he accompanied me embittered his life quite a lot. Once we, the

7 radicals, started our violent fight against the Milosevic regime, then

8 that was a hindrance in his otherwise very successful military career.

9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Ms. Biersay.

10 MS. BIERSAY: I'm sorry to interrupt. It's just to correct

11 something on the transcript. I believe it is page 36, line 9-10, I think

12 the answer has gotten merged with the question. So it's just to alert

13 that the answer needs to be separated from the question at that line. I

14 think the answer begins at: "By command of the commander of the

15 Motorised Brigade ..."

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. There's also a written order

17 issued by Colonel Mrksic pursuant to which the volunteers of the Serbian

18 Radical Party were to be incorporated into the Leva Supoderica

19 detachment. The OTP, I'm sure, has that order.

20 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic, would you agree with Ms. Biersay's

21 suggestion?

22 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Yes, Mr. President, I agree with Prosecution that

23 here both question and answer were joined and should be separated.

24 JUDGE DELVOIE: Do you also agree with her suggested solution?

25 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Yeah.

Page 11186

1 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay. Thank you. Noted.

2 Please proceed.

3 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. Could you please describe your second arrival in Vukovar during

5 Operation Vukovar.

6 A. The second time I arrived in Vukovar, it was perhaps on the 8th

7 of November. I wouldn't remember the date if I hadn't found it in the

8 documents of the OTP. I spent two days there. I spent the night there.

9 I toured all the forward lines. I talked to the volunteers there and

10 their commander Lancuzanin as well as some officers that I met on the

11 front line.

12 On that occasion, I didn't go to Negoslavci to meet with Mrksic.

13 I didn't want him to think that I got used to him wining and dining me.

14 And I remember well that I spent the night in Mile Lancuzanin's,

15 Kameni's, house. And during the night an aeroplane of the Croatian

16 agricultural aviation in a very close vicinity towards the house threw

17 explosives. The explosion was very powerful. It woke me up and I shared

18 a room with Michel Binic, who was the then-president of Serbian National

19 Association from Pristina. We were both awoken and he could not sleep

20 after that. I just turned around and went back to sleep.

21 In the morning, I left the house sometime around 6.00 or 7.00.

22 One of the volunteers -- I had stripped down to the waist, and one of the

23 volunteers poured water on me to wash my face. The reputable Serbian

24 photographer Tomislav Peternek came by. He took my photo and later

25 published it in the Nin magazine, and that was later on reproduced in a

Page 11187

1 number of other publications.

2 Q. Once the operation for the liberation of Vukovar ended, after the

3 18th of November, 1991, did you attend a celebration under a tent in

4 Vukovar? Together with you there were also officers of the Guards

5 Brigade there. For example, General Adzic was there, Petar Gracanin,

6 Mihajl Kertes, Franko Simatovic, Goran Hadzic?

7 A. It is a pure fabrication. When Vukovar was liberated, I was in

8 Knin. The OTP even has a video-clip dating back to that time, my

9 conflict with Captain Dragan on the front line near Benkovac and my

10 subsequent conversation with the volunteers. I was 400 or 500 kilometres

11 away from Vukovar at that time.

12 However, I visited Vukovar on the first anniversary of the

13 liberation, or rather, on the second anniversary. I went there together

14 with my wife Jadranka. There were several officers there at the time,

15 but none of the people that you have mentioned in your question. Zivota

16 Panic wasn't there. I didn't even know him then. Veljko Kadijevic or

17 Adzic were not there. Kertes was also not there. Franko Simatovic,

18 Frenki, wasn't there. I was the -- I met Franko Simatovic, Frenki, for

19 the first time here in the Detention Unit of the Hague Tribunal. I had

20 never seen him before. I never knew for a fact what he looked like, as a

21 matter of fact.

22 Q. In 1991, did you ever meet Goran Hadzic in Vukovar?

23 A. No, I did not. Perhaps he was around but I don't remember a

24 single meeting that might have taken place in 1991 and that would have

25 involved him.

Page 11188

1 Q. Although you have already answered that question, I suppose that

2 I should have asked you what contacts you had in the course of 1991, but

3 you have already answered that.

4 A. Absolutely none whatsoever.

5 Q. Could you please tell us whether and when the Serbian Radical

6 Party was established in the Republic of Serbian Krajina?

7 A. A few months after the war. I can't tell you exactly when, but

8 it was duly registered in the Republic of Serbian Krajina, so the

9 information can be easily checked. The first president was Rade

10 Leskovac.

11 Q. When you say "a few months after the war," what do you have in

12 mind? What do you mean?

13 A. After the liberation of Vukovar, after the Vance-Owen Plan was

14 passed, after the implementation of the Vance-Owen Plan. To all intents

15 and purposes, the war was over by then and then Croatians launched

16 several armed aggressions with the help of Americans, and they occupied

17 the territory of the Republic of Serbian Krajina. However, we, Serbs as

18 a people, on the whole will never give up on the liberation of the

19 Republic of Serbian Krajina. Some day, our sons, our grandsons, will

20 certainly liberate the Republic of Serbian Krajina and all the other Serb

21 territories.

22 Q. Can you please tell us something about the relationship between

23 the SDS in the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the Serbian Radical Party?

24 Did they share power? Who was in power? Who was the opposition at that

25 time?

Page 11189

1 A. In 1991, there was no inter-party relationship. There were very

2 few contacts. However, in 1993 --

3 Q. I apologise. I may have not been precise in my question. I am

4 talking about the relationship between the Serbian Radical Party in the

5 Republic of Serbian Krajina on the one hand and the SDS in the Republic

6 of Serbian Krajina, and I'm referring to the year 1992.

7 A. In 1992, the Serbian Democratic Party, as far as I can remember,

8 was all ready split. One wing had separated from the rest of the party.

9 The Serbian Democratic Party in the Federal Republic of Croatia had been

10 set up by Jovan Raskovic and that was in 1990. However, that party was

11 later divided. One wing seceded from the party and set up the Serbian

12 Democratic Party of Krajina, with its seat in Knin, and it was headed by

13 Ljubica Solaja. Subsequently, she joined the Serbian Radical Party.

14 I don't know how things transpired in the east. I wouldn't be

15 able to tell you. However, I believe that only after the Vance Plan --

16 the Vance-Owen Plan was adopted, the Serbian Democratic Party spread onto

17 the entire territory. Before that, the eastern world remained loyal to

18 Jovan Raskovic, but I'm not even sure about that.

19 Q. Could you please tell us, what comes to mind first when we're

20 talking about Goran Hadzic? How do you remember him?

21 A. In May 1993, at the initiative of the regime that was in power in

22 Serbia, a General Serbian Assembly was called to take place in the large

23 hall of the Sava centre in Belgrade. It was not the largest of the

24 halls; it was the second largest. And all the MPs were invited from the

25 Federal Assembly, the Republican Assembly of Serbia, the Assembly of

Page 11190

1 Montenegro, the Assembly of Republika Srpska, and the Assembly of the

2 Republic of Serbian Krajina.

3 Since Slobodan Milosevic could not convince the leadership of the

4 Republika Srpska to adopt the Vance-Owen Plan for the division of Bosnia

5 and Herzegovina, he called the joint assembly to invite people to vote.

6 He was hoping that a majority would be voted over. The pro-west and

7 opposition parties in Serbia boycotted that meeting, and the People's

8 Assembly of Republika Srpska and the Federal Assembly of the Federal

9 Republic of Yugoslavia, without the MPs of the Serbian Radical Party,

10 could not achieve a quorum.

11 In the keynote address, the proposal was put forth to adopt the

12 Vance-Owen Plan as the best, if not the only, solution, and so on and so

13 forth. One of the first speakers was Goran Hadzic who was adamant. He

14 wanted everybody to adopt the Vance-Owen Plan. He was already then the

15 president of the Republic of Serbian Krajina.

16 Since I thought it was already too early to embark on this size

17 of showdown with Milosevic, I took the floor and I used all sorts of

18 arguments to attack Goran Hadzic, and then the Serbian Radical MPs stood

19 up and walked out of the meeting. After our departure, the General

20 Serbian Assembly could no longer decide on anything. In other words, I

21 used Goran Hadzic's words as a good opportunity to speak and to use that

22 as an excuse for walking out. It was too early for me to attack

23 Milosevic, but our relationship by then was already very tense.

24 Q. As a matter of fact, Milosevic was in favour of that option. He

25 wanted to adopt the Vance-Owen Plan.

Page 11191

1 A. Yes. Milosevic was in favour. The president of Montenegro,

2 Momir Bulatovic, and the entire leadership of the Federal Republic of

3 Yugoslavia, headed by Dobrica Cosic, they were all in favour.

4 Goran Hadzic as well. There was no voting. I don't know how the MPs of

5 the Republic of Serbian Krajina would have voted. We thwarted that.

6 However, Goran Hadzic was very much in favour. We, the Serbian Radicals,

7 and the leadership of Republika Srpska prevented that vote, prevented

8 that from happening.

9 Q. Just one more thing I wanted to ask you about that. After that,

10 what was your relationship with Goran Hadzic?

11 A. There was no relationship at all. The relationship was bad, if

12 anything. I often attacked him; he sometimes attacked me. On the eve of

13 the elections in 1993, when we embarked on a fierce showdown with

14 Slobodan Milosevic and the Socialist Party, he signed a proclamation

15 saying that we were criminals. I don't know what else was there.

16 However, we did not use words. There was no love lost between us --

17 between us. We lay charges against him.

18 So our relationship was very hostile until the moment the two of

19 us met here in The Hague. And here in The Hague, you know, as much as I

20 fought against Milosevic here, we struck a very sincere friendship.

21 However much I fought against Goran Hadzic, our relationship here is

22 normal. And the same applies to some other people with whom I had

23 conflicted before. We are all here in the same boat, as people would

24 say, and our joint enemy is the Hague Tribunal. There's no two ways

25 around it.

Page 11192

1 Q. When was the first time that you heard of the crime that was

2 committed in Ovcara?

3 A. Much later than the crime itself happened. Perhaps a year later,

4 or maybe a few months later, or perhaps even more than a year. I really

5 couldn't be -- I couldn't tell you for a fact.

6 However, as soon as I heard of the crime, I called Milan

7 Lancuzanin, Kameni. He was not very talkative. To be honest, he didn't

8 tell me much. He swore to me that he had not participated in that and

9 that none of the volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party had.

10 After the exhumation which took place in 1993, I believe, a lot

11 was written about that in the Serbian press, and the version that was

12 pushed by the Serbian press was that the Guards Brigade handed over the

13 prisoners to the civilian authorities and that the territorials then

14 executed those prisoners. Subsequently, I learned that the situation was

15 entirely different, and that was only when I found myself here at the

16 Hague Tribunal.

17 Q. You say that inter alia in the Milosevic case you testified or,

18 rather, one part of your testimony was about the crime committed in

19 Ovcara. Do you remember what you said at that time?

20 A. I remember things more or less well. But, at that time, I really

21 believed that the prisoners had been handed over to the civilian

22 authorities. That was my state of mind at the time. At the time I

23 didn't have privileged contacts with my legal advisors and the team that

24 assisted me in my defence.

25 Later, my investigators in the field arrived at the truth, and

Page 11193

1 that truth was corroborated by the documentation that the OTP has at its

2 disposal. I knew then that during the relevant time, General

3 Aleksandar Vasiljevic was also in Vukovar. However, the point of my

4 accusations was the theft of several million German marks from the

5 Vukovar bank and not the execution at Ovcara, although I had my doubts

6 about that as well. I believe that I said that and you will probably

7 found it in the record. I think that this is more or less what I said,

8 but I can't say -- remember things word for word because it was nine

9 years ago.

10 Q. I can jog your memory by reading from the paragraph in question.

11 It's tab 19, 120805, and the page number is 61 and also 62.

12 I'm going to read the original transcript to you and you will

13 receive interpretation --

14 MS. BIERSAY: Excuse me.

15 JUDGE DELVOIE: Ms. Biersay.

16 MS. BIERSAY: I don't quite understand where counsel is going

17 with this. I believe he asked Mr. Seselj what his recollection was about

18 testimony, so I'm not sure of the purpose of now showing him this

19 document. I ...

20 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic.

21 MR. ZIVANOVIC: I'd like to remind the witness what he said

22 during his testimony in Milosevic, and I think that it is quite

23 legitimate.

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have lost the interpretation

25 completely.

Page 11194

1 JUDGE DELVOIE: I see --

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The words of Ms. Biersay have not

3 been interpreted. I'm sure that she said something really smart because

4 that's what she always does. But I don't know what and I suppose I

5 should know what she said.

6 JUDGE DELVOIE: Of course, Mr. Seselj, you should get

7 interpretation of everything that is said in the courtroom. Do you get

8 interpretation of what I'm saying? Yes.

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, now I can hear.

10 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay.

11 Ms. Biersay, would you please repeat your objection or your --

12 no, your question.

13 MS. BIERSAY: My question was there's no indication that

14 Mr. Seselj did not remember, in essence, what he testified about. What

15 he said he didn't remember word for word, and there's no requirement that

16 he remember word for word and there's no need to show him these

17 transcript pages.

18 MR. ZIVANOVIC: As far as I recall, Mr. Seselj said that he

19 doesn't know exactly what was said but just some -- some -- some main

20 features of his evidence.

21 JUDGE DELVOIE: I do think he said "word for word."

22 Please try to explore Mr. Seselj's memory without the text, to

23 start with, and we'll see what happens.

24 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Mr. Seselj, do you remember whether, on that occasion when you

Page 11195

1 testified, you mentioned that your inquiries into the Ovcara case were

2 underway?

3 A. I said that my knowledge is conditional because my investigators

4 were still working on the ground. I believe that's what I said then.

5 But I would really like you to read out that passage. I cannot interpret

6 differently all the things that I said on that occasion. I don't know

7 who would be able to.

8 MS. BIERSAY: I'm glad that Mr. Zivanovic and Mr. Seselj are so

9 in sync, but I still have the same objection to it.

10 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic --

11 MR. ZIVANOVIC: I don't know what objection is. I understood

12 that the objection was accepted by the Chamber.

13 JUDGE DELVOIE: Not really, Mr. Zivanovic. We asked you to

14 explore whether Mr. Seselj does remember what his testimony was in the

15 other case. Now you asked him, and his answer, in sync, as Ms. Biersay

16 says, is "I have difficulty in remembering." So the ball is in your

17 camp.

18 MR. ZIVANOVIC: In that case, I would remind Mr. Seselj and read

19 one passage of -- a relevant passage of his testimony.

20 JUDGE DELVOIE: To which Ms. Biersay objects. One moment.

21 [Trial Chamber confers]

22 JUDGE DELVOIE: The objection is sustained, Mr. Zivanovic. We

23 are of the view that it is not of importance what Mr. Seselj's memory is

24 on what he said in the other case. The important thing is what he

25 remembers from the facts you want to question him about.

Page 11196

1 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Thank you.

2 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, you also remember that two and a

3 half years ago in your own trial you made closing remarks.

4 A. It was not really a closing argument. They did not allow me

5 to make my opening statement in defence otherwise.

6 Q. Do you remember, for the most part, what you said in those final

7 arguments regarding the events at Ovcara?

8 A. In that case, at the very beginning, I made the statement of the

9 accused, and at the end I had ten hours to make my closing remarks, my

10 final arguments. My final arguments, my closing arguments, are very

11 different from the statement I made at the beginning, the statement of

12 the accused, because in the meantime, with the help of my investigators

13 on the ground, I had gained a lot of new knowledge. And what I said in

14 the closing remarks reflects that definitive knowledge, and that is based

15 on all that I found out in the meantime and all the evidence in the case

16 file.

17 Q. Can you remember what you said in your closing argument about the

18 execution of the prisoners at Ovcara? What knowledge did you have about

19 that event?

20 A. I established all this very precisely through my own work, the

21 work of my investigators, and by reviewing a huge amount of documents.

22 The execution at Ovcara was organised by General Aleksandar Vasiljevic,

23 chief of the security service of the JNA, and the entire execution was

24 carried out by officers of the security service with the participation of

25 some members of the Guards Brigade and members of the Territorial Defence

Page 11197

1 as direct executioners.

2 I have acquired information that General Aleksandar Vasiljevic

3 had pulled out three colonels from retirement. They were no longer

4 active-duty officers. They were in the reserve. He reactivated them -

5 Bogdan Vujic, Bogoljub Kijanovic, and Slavko Tomic - whom he sent to

6 Ovcara to do the execution. Nowhere in the documentation is it said that

7 they were reactivated. Nothing was marked in their military service

8 booklets concerning those days. They had received no remuneration,

9 et cetera, et cetera.

10 They arrived at Vukovar at the same time as Vasiljevic, which

11 means on the 19th of November, the evening of 19 November. They were

12 accommodated at the command of the Motorised Brigade in Negoslavci. And

13 from the 18th until the evening of the 19th, for two full days, none of

14 the soldiers or the officers of the JNA entered the Vukovar Hospital.

15 There were some patients in the Vukovar Hospital. There were wounded

16 men. But there was also a large number of Croatian soldiers who had put

17 on patients' pajamas to avoid capture. That in itself was strange. If

18 Vukovar had fallen, the Vukovar Hospital should be taken over immediately

19 by military regulation.

20 Two days later, when Vasiljevic came with his assistant, Colonel

21 Tumanov, who later became a general, Dr. Vesna Bosanac was brought from

22 the Vukovar Hospital and a special emissary of the Croatian government,

23 Marin Vidic, known as Bili. Vesna Bosanac, together with JNA officers

24 Bogoljub Kijanovic, Slavko Tomic, and Bogdan Vujic, made a list of people

25 from the Vukovar Hospital who were to be executed. Exactly 200 were

Page 11198

1 executed because it had been arranged with General Vasiljevic and the

2 Croatian government to execute 200. I don't know what interests lay

3 behind that. I'm just stating the facts.

4 The next morning, the JNA entered the hospital, led by Veselin

5 Sljivancanin. All the prisoners from Vukovar, from Mitnica and other

6 places, were transported by buses to Sremska Mitrovica. In Sremska

7 Mitrovica, there is a large civilian prison and one section of that

8 prison was turned into a camp for POWs.

9 All of them were moved there, apart from 207 of them who were

10 first brought by Sljivancanin to the Vukovar barracks, and from there he

11 transported them to Ovcara. I cannot claim that Sljivancanin, too,

12 participated in the execution, but he is the one who brought them there.

13 And he didn't turn them over. He didn't hand them over to anyone. There

14 are no documents showing that they were handed over to civilian

15 authorities or anyone else. He just brought them there and left them to

16 the other officers who were there on the spot.

17 When all this had been arranged in that way, then the JNA

18 organised the digging of the grave. A military excavator was used to do

19 that. In fact, it was an excavator from some company in Vukovar that the

20 army had commandeered. One officer personally oversaw the digging of the

21 grave while it was still daylight, that is to say, the afternoon of the

22 20th. The execution by firing squad began that night.

23 Statements turned up that prisoners were brought there by

24 tractor-trailers, but according to my information, trucks were used. I

25 don't know which vehicle it was exactly, but it was covered by tarpaulin.

Page 11199

1 Tractor-trailers usually don't have tarpaulin. And they were brought in

2 groups.

3 Before the beginning of the execution, lists were compared. It

4 was established that 207 prisoners were there. Seven were separated and

5 released. Among those released were Emil Cakalic, Dragutin Berghoffer,

6 and five more whose names I don't remember but the Prosecution knows well

7 who I am talking about. They were released for the sole reason that they

8 were above the figure of 200 because 200 was arranged. Why would anybody

9 execute 202 or 207 when the arrangement was only for 200?

10 And the whole time while they were taken for execution, the

11 security officers were on the spot, the security officers that had been

12 brought by Aleksandar Vasiljevic. Only towards the end of the execution

13 those officers returned to Belgrade.

14 Now, look at one thing. 200 people were executed and the next

15 day, silence. Everybody keeps quiet. I cannot accuse Sljivancanin of

16 having participated in the execution, but what did he do the next day as

17 the responsible officer of the Motorised Guards Brigade and the security

18 officer of the Operations Group South to find out what had happened to

19 those 200 prisoners that he had taken to Ovcara? Everybody keeps silent.

20 Two days later, the Guards Brigade goes back to Belgrade.

21 Colonel Vojnovic is appointed commander of defence of Vukovar. He was

22 the commander of the 19th Motorised Brigade. And during the execution at

23 Ovcara, this Colonel Vojnovic was the local commander for a place that

24 encompassed three villages in Ovcara. What did he, as the commander of

25 Vukovar, do to inquire about the fate of those prisoners? What did the

Page 11200

1 military security service do? What did General Vasiljevic do? All they

2 did was to cover up the crime.

3 After the liberation of Vukovar, a large special team arrived

4 consisting of pathologists and forensics from the Military Medical

5 Academy in Belgrade. Colonel Stankovic was one of them. He later became

6 a general. He was even Yugoslavia's minister of defence for a while.

7 This group of officers, medics, mainly pathologists, autopsied all the

8 corpses. Exhumations were done wherever bodies were found. There were

9 people who died of natural causes. There were people who died of

10 shelling; people who died in combat. You know, when there is an armed

11 conflict going on, nobody has time to take corpses to the cemetery. They

12 are buried in the first place possible.

13 They exhumed all these bodies, and after post-mortems - there is

14 an autopsy report for each body and documentation - they were properly

15 buried at the Vukovar cemetery. Only Ovcara wasn't touched. The

16 exhumations at Ovcara happened only in 1993.

17 A Croatian pathologist, Davor Strinovic, who testified in my

18 case, confirmed when I asked him directly that exactly 200 bodies were

19 exhumed, in fact skeletons. Exactly 200. The Croats managed to identify

20 193. Those were, in fact, Croatian prisoners. Seven remain unidentified

21 to this day. Why? Because obviously they were foreigners and nobody

22 looked for them. I suppose they were all Kurds because many Kurds were

23 recruited into Croatian paramilitary formations for money.

24 Now, as to how they were paid exactly is another long story. If

25 you want me, I can tell you. But I believe we should focus on the facts

Page 11201

1 relating to the execution itself.

2 JUDGE DELVOIE: Just one moment, Mr. Zivanovic. I would like to

3 Mr. Seselj repeat for the record slowly the names of the three retired

4 colonels he was talking about in the beginning of his answer. You see

5 what I'm aiming at, Mr. Seselj? Three names.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Those are Colonel Bogdan Vujic,

7 Colonel Bogoljub Kijanovic, and Colonel Slavko Tomic. Slavko Tomic was

8 so old that he had even served as an officer in the partisans. When he

9 became the commander of the Guards Brigade, when he came to the Guards

10 Brigade, he said that he already had good experience in how to deal with

11 the Croats, and there were even some witnesses here who confirmed it.

12 My investigators --

13 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you, Mr. Seselj. I just wanted to have the

14 names on the record.

15 Please proceed, Mr. Zivanovic.

16 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. I will ask you just to clarify two things from your answer. I

18 think that one is on page 50 of today's transcript where you said that

19 the execution was arranged by General Vasiljevic and the Croatian

20 authorities. Could you tell us, where did you get that information from?

21 A. From the work of my investigators. My investigators contacted

22 many security officers, military security officers who were retired, many

23 other people who were also connected with it. I discussed that with

24 General Mrksic here on several occasions because he was prosecuted here

25 for Ovcara. He was intimidated in Belgrade and told that he mustn't say

Page 11202

1 a word or else they would liquidate his entire family. That is what

2 General Mrksic told me.

3 What was the reason? I believe that General Vasiljevic was

4 blackmailed. All the indicia seems to indicate that, and the evidence.

5 As soon as Tudjman came into power, he had his operations groups, Opera

6 and Labrada, and he organised that a bomb be planted on the building of

7 the Jewish municipality in Zagreb. And he also organised the mining of

8 the Jewish cemetery at Mirogoj, in Zagreb, so that the international

9 public would ascribe that to Tudjman's regime.

10 However, Tudjman's state security or secret police managed to

11 find both the Labrada and Opera groups, and many security officers who

12 were involved were then arrested, many Croats among them. Tudjman kept

13 them in prison. With their help, he blackmailed Vasiljevic. Vasiljevic

14 personally flew with a group of Croatian prisoners to the Zagreb airport

15 to exchange them for his officers who had been arrested.

16 This is reliable information that I also got through the work of

17 my investigators. In a contact with the Croats, it was around that 200

18 Croatian prisoners would be executed by firing squad so that Croatia

19 would have powerful argument in front of the European Union against SFRY,

20 the Croats being the victims of the war, especially as previously the

21 Croatian paramilitary had killed many Serbian civilians near Gospic,

22 around 150 Serbs. That was the information at the time.

23 The role of Vesna Bosanac was to select who would be executed.

24 And who was executed? Only those people who were not valuable in any way

25 for Tudjman's regime. So that was the riff-raff of Vukovar, petty

Page 11203

1 criminals, the Lumpenproletarijat, the poor people, and those who were

2 well-known opponents of Tudjman's Croatian Democratic Union. These

3 people were executed because that was the easiest way for the Croats to

4 get rid of them, to sacrifice them, and that was the role that Vesna

5 Bosanac played.

6 I was willing to question Vesna Bosanac about this, and Colonel

7 Vojnovic as well; however, they were 92 bis or ter witnesses in my own

8 case and they did not testify in the courtroom. But the statement which

9 was compiled by OTP on their behalf was included in the record as their

10 statement. And as a matter of principle, I did not want to question

11 witnesses where there was no examination-in-chief in the courtroom

12 because such procedure is opposite to all elementary norms of the

13 criminal law and criminal procedure. This is why I didn't pluck their

14 feathers out, but the evidence is so striking that one cannot escape from

15 them.

16 Vasiljevic did this dirty job. He went back to Belgrade, and he

17 was soon replaced from his position and retired by the Presidency of

18 SFRY. Various arguments were used. One of them was that money was

19 looted from the Vukovar Hospital. I suppose that the execution was also

20 in the background.

21 The new head of military security was the then-Colonel,

22 later-General Nedjo Boskovic. He ordered the arrest of Vasiljevic and

23 his prosecution, but Vasiljevic's influence on the regime structures was

24 so huge that the process fell through and Nedjo Boskovic was also soon

25 replaced. He then fled from Serbia to Montenegro. To this day,

Page 11204

1 Aleksandar Vasiljevic has a powerful influence on the military security

2 structures in Serbia.

3 Many times I pointed my finger at the regime because of Ovcara.

4 A trial was held in Belgrade, several trials as a matter of fact, where

5 the executioners were prosecuted but also some completely innocent

6 people. Some of those innocent people were convicted, like Dragan

7 Milivojevic, Kimez, for example. Some were acquitted. Three members of

8 the Serbian Radical Party also stood trial but they were all acquitted -

9 Marko Ljuboja, Slobodan Katic, one Ceca, and so on. They were acquitted.

10 Vojislav Kostunica's regime organised the trial in order to protect

11 Aleksandra Vasiljevic and the military security service.

12 When my team, which helped with the defence, requested the State

13 Security Service of Serbia and the military security service to submit to

14 it all documents mentioning my name, the state security service submitted

15 some documents. Whether it was everything, I don't know. Maybe they hid

16 something, concealed something, destroyed something. But there were so

17 many documents that I published four books totalling 4.000 pages of small

18 print, and the military security service told me that there was not a

19 single document that mentioned my name. That was an outright lie because

20 the OTP has a certain number of military documents including my name. Of

21 course, they're all confidential documents produced by the military

22 security service.

23 What were other reasons and motives for this crime to be

24 committed? The League of Communists - Movement for Yugoslavia had an

25 additional motive. They were still expecting foreign intervention and

Page 11205

1 support to topple both Milosevic and Tudjman to restore the Yugoslav

2 Federation and for the army to do all this. They were hoping to receive

3 such assistance from the west, just as the west vigilantly tried to

4 preserve Yugoslavia up until the fall of the Berlin wall.

5 So they were planning to topple both Tudjman and Milosevic, and

6 they wanted to accuse both the Ustashas and the Chetniks parallelly of

7 all war crimes. And the war crime in Ovcara was to be pinned down on the

8 Chetniks, whether they were volunteers or the territorials from Vukovar,

9 but it was a very perfidious idea which was partly applied during the

10 trial in Belgrade. Nobody from the regime that was in power in Belgrade

11 at the time was interested in the truth, and to this day General

12 Aleksandar Vasiljevic remains protected.

13 When I talked about what I know about General Vasiljevic during

14 my trial, the then-minister of justice in Serbia told some MPs for the

15 Serbian Radical Party that Seselj was completely right but it was

16 impossible to prosecute anyone for this here, and it remains so. It's

17 still not possible to prosecute him. Aleksandar Vasiljevic still has

18 control of some people from the political and military ranks. Sometimes

19 he has actual documents; sometimes there are false documents. You know

20 that the military security service in the Communist era was considered by

21 the dissidents as much more dangerous and much more perfidious than the

22 civilian State Security Service. What the military security service was

23 capable of planting on people surpasses Orwellian visions, anything that

24 we ever read about totalitarian regimes anywhere.

25 Q. As you have mentioned General Vasiljevic many times, would you

Page 11206

1 tell us, since when did you know him and what were your relations with

2 him before those events?

3 A. I know him very poorly. I examined him and questioned him in the

4 federal assembly when I was the president of the inquiry board that was

5 in charge of doing the inquest of Pavle Bulatovic, who was the defence

6 minister, and I published all the information in the book of the same

7 title.

8 I heard many bad things about him even before, and I began to

9 attack him very early on. And he, for his part, returned that as

10 perfidiously as he could. For example, through Draskovic's magazine

11 Srpska Rec, he launched the piece of information that I had been raped in

12 the Zenica prison and similar disgusting details. And then I realised

13 that Vuk Draskovic had close links with Aleksandar Vasiljevic in 1990,

14 and that Aleksandar Vasiljevic took him in his car to a meeting with

15 General Blagoje Adzic. Vuk Draskovic published that in his book, "The

16 Target," "Meta" in Serbian. I think that's the title of his book. So he

17 confessed to that himself.

18 As early as at that time, Vuk Draskovic had links with the

19 military security service. That's where his anger at Milosevic came from

20 because the military security service attempted to topple Milosevic up

21 until May 1992. It was only when around 40 generals were sent into

22 retirement, with General Blagoje Adzic first among them, could Milosevic

23 feel some relief for the first time and begin to think that there was no

24 danger for him from the army. Up until that time, that was -- the army

25 was the Damocles sword hanging over his head.

Page 11207

1 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic, it is that time. But I do want to

2 tell you again that the witness, Mr. Seselj, is going way beyond your

3 question, in particular, with regard to this last question of yours and

4 the answer he gave. Way beyond his relation -- the witness's relation

5 with the general. But, again, it's your time.

6 Mr. Seselj, we'll go for the second break, 30 minutes, and we

7 will be back at 12.45.

8 Court adjourned.

9 [The witness stands down]

10 --- Recess taken at 12.15 p.m.

11 [The witness takes the stand]

12 --- On resuming at 12.48 p.m.

13 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic, you may proceed. I think you have

14 40 minutes left.

15 MR. ZIVANOVIC: As far as I understood, it is 45.

16 JUDGE DELVOIE: We will not discuss five minute, Mr. Zivanovic;

17 45, it is.

18 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Thank you.

19 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, could you tell us, when did you meet

20 Radovan Stojicic, Badza?

21 A. I met Radovan Stojicic, Badza, in 1991 in Erdut. At the time he

22 was the commander of the Territorial Defence of SBWS under the command of

23 Novi Sad Corps. He held a training centre in Erdut. In one period that

24 was where we sent our volunteers after we had started co-operating with

25 the JNA. The volunteers would stay there for a few days for basic

Page 11208

1 training and were then deployed to various sections of the front. I once

2 visited this place. I was present when a group of our volunteers arrived

3 in several buses. I stayed there for dinner, and I stayed for the night.

4 That was the first time in my life I met Radovan Stojicic, Badza.

5 Q. Do you know where he had worked before he became the commander of

6 the SBWS Territorial Defence?

7 A. He worked in the Serbian police. I think he was a commander of

8 some special unit. He then enlisted as a volunteer. He went to the

9 front. He kept his status rights in the police just like everyone else.

10 He became a prominent person there, and when he returned to Serbia, he

11 very quickly was promoted to the deputy minister. He was a very capable

12 man. He was courageous and later on he showed some other tendencies

13 because of which I publicly attacked him. It's unimportant now because

14 we are discussing 1991.

15 Q. Do you know whether at the centre in Erdut Zeljko Raznjatovic,

16 Arkan, was also present? Did you ever have a chance to see him there as

17 well when you visited?

18 A. Yes, he was there with his unit then, and we met at the time. I

19 was astonished, for example, when Badza took me and some other people to

20 dinner. Arkan's men had already had dinner and Arkan interrupted them in

21 the middle. He commanded them to stand up and ordered them to pray,

22 which I found astonishing because in the former JNA it was unusual to

23 interrupt soldiers while eating unless an alert was given. But he wanted

24 to boast and show that his unit was religious so he arranged this, which

25 we all found to be strange, and some of us even laughed at it.

Page 11209

1 JUDGE DELVOIE: Ms. Biersay.

2 MS. BIERSAY: I'm sorry to interrupt and this could wait until

3 cross, but I didn't want to lose the transcript while we had it. He said

4 he commanded them to stand up, and it wasn't clear from the transcript

5 who the "he" is referring to, so I wondered if we could clear it up while

6 we were here.

7 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Yes, I will clarify it with the witness.

8 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you, Mr. Zivanovic.

9 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. When you said that he ordered them to interrupt their dinner and

11 to pray, who did you mean?

12 A. I meant his unit. I'm not sure if it was the whole unit, but

13 there were many of them in the hall. It was a big hall where the

14 soldiers mess was. I'm not sure what exact facility it was, but I

15 remember it was a big room. So he ordered his soldiers -- he couldn't

16 order anyone else. And we were standing in line and waiting to help

17 ourselves, you know, because it was self-service. We were carrying trays

18 and we would help ourselves to dinner, like all other soldiers. We were

19 not treated specially. We would never have asked that, nor would we have

20 accepted anything that would make us different in any way from the

21 soldiers.

22 Q. Just to clarify because you mentioned both Zeljko Raznjatovic,

23 Arkan, and Radovan Stojicic, Badza. I think it remains unclear in the

24 transcript who was the one who ordered the soldiers to stop eating and to

25 pray? Was that Radovan Stojicic, Badza, or Zeljko Raznjatovic, Arkan?

Page 11210

1 A. I said that it was Zeljko Raznjatovic, Arkan, who commanded his

2 unit or the part of his unit that was present. I didn't count them but

3 there were quite few of them there. Even Badza commented with us that

4 this was improper and the like. You know, Arkan is a man with no

5 schooling, no education at all, but he was quite intelligent and very

6 dangerous.

7 Q. I will ask you some questions about him as well a bit later.

8 Could you now tell us this: When you were in Erdut this time,

9 did you gain an impression and could you tell us what was the relation

10 between Radovan Stojicic and Arkan? Was one of them subordinated to

11 anybody else?

12 A. Radovan Stojicic, Badza, was the main man and Arkan had to listen

13 to him. There was also a private aspect of their relations. They could

14 joke between themselves and so on. Badza's command position was

15 unquestioned, but Arkan was somewhere there close to his level.

16 Q. Can you remember approximately the time when you visited Erdut?

17 A. It was in the fall of 1991. I cannot remember the exact date.

18 It may have been recorded somewhere, but I really cannot remember. We

19 spent the night there and on the following day I was in Borovo Selo and

20 in Trpinja; I went to Tenja. And I had to be transported on a tractor

21 trailer through a cornfield that had been harvested all the way to Tenja

22 because the Croats targeted the regular road by sniper fire, and the corn

23 had been cut in summer. But it's difficult for me to tell you the exact

24 date, really.

25 Q. And can you tell us, though it seems to me that it follows from

Page 11211

1 your answer, if fighting was still ongoing at the time or if it had

2 ended?

3 A. No, no, there was still fighting going on. It must have been

4 before my visit to Vukovar, so the fighting was in full swing. I was at

5 the forward front line in Tenja and I even shot from a Browning

6 machine-gun in the direction of the enemy positions. I cannot guarantee

7 that I hit anyone but I did my best.

8 Q. Could you now please tell us, since when did you know

9 Zeljko Raznjatovic, Arkan?

10 A. I met him personally in 1990. However, I publicly attacked him

11 as early as 1996. I wrote criminal reports to the federal prosecutor

12 against Stane Dolanc, who was a member of the Presidency -- no, he was

13 then the head of all secret police intelligence and counter-intelligence

14 services as a member of the SFRY Presidency.

15 And I accused Stane Dolanc with arguments of the murder of the

16 emigre Stjepan Djurekovic and the head of the federal security service,

17 Zdravko Mustac. I heard that he was recently extradited to Germany from

18 Croatia because of the murder of Djurekovic. I had information that

19 Arkan was one of the executors and that Stane Dolanc gave him a pistol as

20 a gift which had an inscription, "To Zeljko from Stane." So that was in

21 the 1980s. And I was waging a real war against Stane Dolanc at the time.

22 In 1990, all the supporters of the football club Red Star joined

23 the Serbian Chetnik movement, and at some point in October 1990, through

24 mediators, Arkan requested to meet me. I said, "We can do that at the

25 Ruski Tsar restaurant." I didn't want to go to any secret place where

Page 11212

1 someone could kill me so easily. Arkan came with another man who was as

2 tall as me but much stronger. It was -- there was one Suca who was our

3 member but then joined Arkan's group, and he was a colonel in Arkan's

4 Serb Volunteer Guard.

5 Arkan was very polite at the beginning of the conversation. He

6 told me, "I respect you as a man and as a politician. I'm not interested

7 in politics, but I won't let anyone take over Zvezda and Delija." Those

8 were the supporters, the fan club of the football club Red Star. "And

9 I'm asking you to leave the Delija be." But I told him, "They have

10 joined the Serbian Chetnik movement. They stay there. You cannot change

11 it." And then he said, "Look, I have killed many people. You haven't

12 killed anyone yet. So take care what you do." I quipped by saying that

13 it was true that I hadn't killed anyone yet, "But you would be the

14 first," I told him.

15 On the following day, the daily press, the daily newspaper

16 Novosti Plus, published a report covering one whole page in their report

17 about this incident. Arkan was armed. I also had a 7.65-millimetre

18 Browning on me. If it came to settling accounts, I wonder what it would

19 look like. Probably I would stand no chance, but at least I showed him

20 that he wouldn't treat me so easily.

21 I'm not boasting, but it is realistic. I wanted to show you how

22 much power Arkan had. I was the only man in Serbia who was capable of

23 publicly, directly and openly opposing Arkan. No one else dared to do

24 that, including Milosevic himself. That's how dangerous Arkan was.

25 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic, just one moment to have a correct

Page 11213

1 record.

2 At the beginning of page 63, line 1, Mr. Seselj answers, "I met

3 him," and it's Arkan, "I met him personally in 1990. However, I publicly

4 attacked him as early as," and then it says "1996" but we heard 1986.

5 Mr. Seselj, is that right? Did you say: "However, I publicly

6 attacked him as early as ..."?

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] 1986, four years before we actually

8 met for the first time.

9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you. Now it's clear on the record.

10 Thank you, Mr. Zivanovic. You may proceed.

11 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. Could you please tell me, you said that in 1986 you filed a

13 criminal report for the murder of Stjepan Djurekovic against Stane Dolanc

14 and others. Was that criminal report also against Zeljko Raznjatovic,

15 Arkan?

16 A. The criminal report was not against him but he was part of that

17 content, because Arkan's participation and his attitude towards Stane

18 Dolanc emphasised the responsibility of Stane Dolanc. Arkan was not my

19 target but Dolanc was. Arkan was just an illustration to prove that

20 Dolanc committed crimes. However, even then Arkan was very dangerous and

21 the police couldn't do anything against him. He opened fire on the

22 police. He beat them. On one occasion he was even arrested, but he was

23 immediately released upon the order of the federal security service.

24 Q. In other words, in that criminal report, you did mention his name

25 as somebody who participated in that murder?

Page 11214

1 A. The first name, the last name, and the nickname,

2 Zeljko Raznjatovic, Arkan. I published that in a book of mine which was

3 reprinted several times, and the Prosecution has copies of those criminal

4 reports that I filed.

5 Q. You've mentioned the name of a person whose nickname was Suca. I

6 don't think that this was recorded. However, would you please repeat the

7 context in which you mentioned him?

8 A. His name was Nebojsa. His family name escapes me. His nickname

9 was Suca. And he was one of the principal leaders of Red Star fans. He

10 joined the Chetnik movement in the summer of 1990. When I conflicted

11 with Arkan, he moved Under Arkan's reign.

12 Let me just say that in October 1990, I was arrested and spent 23

13 days in jail, and then Arkan managed to snatch the Delijas from me.

14 Perhaps in cahoots with somebody from the regime, he bribed them by

15 giving them jobs and paying them for those jobs. That's how he managed

16 to win almost all of them over, including Suca. This Nebojsa, Suca,

17 later became and colonel in Arkan's volunteer guards. Arkan himself

18 bestowed the rank upon him. And even later than that, he was killed in a

19 showdown and that murder was never solved.

20 Q. Can you please tell us something that was mentioned in your case

21 and in our case. This is a formation known as the Red Berets. What do

22 you know about that formation or those formations?

23 A. There were many formations which the people called the Red

24 Berets. However, that was not the official name of any of them. As far

25 as I can remember, the first group that was known as the Red Berets were

Page 11215

1 those who were trained in the training centre Golubic, near Knin, headed

2 by Kapetan Dragan.

3 And then during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in

4 Republika Srpska, there were also the Red Berets which represented the

5 military police of the Army of Republika Srpska or its scout detachments.

6 For example, the Bratunac Brigade had a unit of scouts which all the

7 soldiers and the people there used to call the Red Berets because that's

8 what they sported on their heads.

9 In the Light Cavalry Brigade there was also a unit that wore that

10 name, and then the OTP of the Hague Tribunal started claiming that those

11 were the Red Berets of the Serbian MUP. They put their foot in their

12 mouth because those were locals who sported red caps.

13 And then sometime in 1996, a unit was officially formed in

14 Serbia. It was a special purpose unit belonging to the Serbian state

15 security and that unit was also popularly known as the Red Berets.

16 So when one says "the Red Berets," it doesn't mean anything on

17 its own. It begs a clear definition as to what unit is being referred

18 to.

19 Q. You mentioned Kapetan Dragan. Could you please tell us about the

20 relationship between you and Kapetan Dragan?

21 A. In 1991, I met Kapetan Dragan only once on the front line near

22 Benkovac. I toured the Serbian positions there. He turned up out of the

23 blue. He started talking to me and we clashed right there and then in

24 front of the soldiers.

25 How come I was there in mid-November? I went there to tour the

Page 11216

1 volunteers and the front line in Western Slavonia. I took a JNA

2 helicopter which was assigned to me with two officer pilots. It was the

3 commander of the air force, General Bozidar Stefanovic, who assigned it

4 to me.

5 I arrived in Banja Luka, and from Banja Luka, I took a car to

6 Western Slavonia. After I had toured all the front lines and our

7 volunteers, I returned to Banja Luka. I had a rally there, and the hall

8 was full of soldiers. After the rally I went to the Hotel Bosna to spend

9 the night there, and I fully expected that on the following day the

10 helicopter would take me back to Belgrade.

11 And then two officials of the Serbian Democratic Party from Banja

12 Luka came; one was Vukic and the other one's name I can't remember. They

13 told me that they had spoken to Milan Babic and that Milan Babic was

14 begging me to come to Knin as soon as possible because Kapetan Dragan had

15 appeared, that he is wreaking havoc among the soldiers on the front line,

16 and that his intention was to organise a putch.

17 That same night I sat in a car with the two of them. I went to

18 Knin. I was in a military uniform because in Western Slavonia I had

19 toured our soldiers on the front line. When I arrived in Knin, I first

20 met with Milan Babic and then I toured the army on various front lines.

21 And I also appeared in a radio show on Radio Knin and on the youth radio.

22 Both those shows lasted for a couple of hours. And I denounced the role

23 of Kapetan Dragan fully. His objective was to topple Milan Babic and his

24 government because there were many people who did not like Milan Babic.

25 The regime in Serbian didn't, Kapetan Dragan didn't. Many didn't like

Page 11217

1 Milan Babic.

2 I successfully completed my mission and I had a final verbal

3 skirmish with Kapetan Dragan in Benkovac. And that was recorded by a

4 camera and, as part of their war booty, when Croatians carried out

5 aggression against the Republic of Serbian Krajina, got hold of that clip

6 and The Hague OTP has it. I saw it for the first time when it was shown

7 to me in the courtroom by the OTP of this Tribunal. That was at the same

8 time when Vukovar was liberated. It coincided with the liberation of

9 Vukovar.

10 I returned to Belgrade by helicopter via Mostar, and then from

11 there on to Podgorica, and then I took a regular flight to Belgrade from

12 there, because the small Gazelle helicopter could not fly the stretch

13 from Knin to Belgrade. That's why I had to change helicopters. I landed

14 at Mostar airport, and from there I flew to Podgorica in another

15 helicopter with a different crew.

16 Q. In my view -- or, rather, you mentioned Western Slavonia in your

17 previous answer and you did so before, and you said that there were your

18 volunteers there as well. Can you just briefly tell us what was going on

19 in Western Slavonia? How were your volunteers involved there? How long

20 were they deployed there?

21 A. We had a couple hundred volunteers there. I can't remember the

22 exact name -- number, but the most numerous volunteers from Serbia, they

23 were on the forward front lines. That's where they were deployed. They

24 were under the command of Colonel Trbojevic. And when I toured their

25 lines there, I met up with Trbojevic in –- on mount Zvecevo a month later,

Page 11218

1 and he had only words of praise for their discipline and valour.

2 Western Slavonia was defended by the Territorial Defence, but

3 that Territorial Defence was under the authority of the Banja Luka Corps

4 of the JNA. I don't know the official name of the Banja Luka Corps, but

5 it was the Banja Luka Corps.

6 And since I'm in November or, rather, the beginning of December,

7 Aleksandar Vasiljevic appeared there. Wherever he appeared, he wreaked

8 havoc, he caused problems --

9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Can you look at the court reporter's note.

10 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [In English] Yes, I didn't notice it.

11 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, the court reporter is kindly asking

12 you to slow down for the purposes of the record because they cannot

13 record all your words.

14 A. I'll do my best. I believe that from time to time I do manage to

15 slow down, but then I go back to my own old ways.

16 Sometime in the month of December, Aleksandar Vasiljevic came to

17 Western Slavonia. Wherever he appeared, the units started withdrawing

18 with no reason whatsoever. There was panic among the people and the

19 people started withdrawing with the troops, and finally it was all pure

20 chaos. There was no military reason for the chaos. Obviously, the

21 Croats launched an offensive with their military and police forces, and

22 the Banja Luka Corps didn't do anything. They were twiddling their

23 thumbs.

24 And volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party put up a decisive

25 defence in Maseva Vusavela [phoen] village. In just one day, 11

Page 11219

1 volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party were killed. Some were wounded

2 and taken prisoners. They were later exchanged after having been

3 ill-treated in prison. The Serbs managed to consolidate their forces

4 only in Okucani and in Pakrac. The rest of the territory fell.

5 Vasiljevic had arrived with the intention of wreaking havoc among

6 the Serb soldiers and in that way to hand over Western Slavonia into the

7 Croatian hands.

8 Q. Do you remember what happened with the Serbian civilians who

9 resided in Slavonia?

10 A. A lot of Serb civilians were killed. I don't know how many, but

11 the number is huge. Croatians pounded from all sorts of weapons. They

12 targeted columns of refugees with the intention of killing them on the

13 streets, through which the civilians who were withdrawing were awash with

14 blood.

15 Q. Can you tell us something about the police of the Republic of

16 Serbian Krajina, i.e., the police which was also known as Martic's

17 police? Do you know anything about them?

18 A. It was the municipal police of Knin. That's who they called

19 Martic's police. And then when the Autonomous Province of Krajina was

20 proclaimed, then the authority of that police stretched all over Krajina.

21 That Martic's police never encompassed all of the territories of the

22 Republic of Serbian Krajina, until 1992 when the Republic of Serbian

23 Krajina was proclaimed and united the western parts, Dalmatia, Lika,

24 Kordun, there remaining western -- Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem.

25 During combat, those police units were completely independent and divided

Page 11220

1 into various forces.

2 Q. Did you have any contacts at the time of combat, did you have any

3 contacts with Milan Martic and those police units of his?

4 A. When I toured their positions, I also talked to the policemen,

5 soldiers, volunteers. I made no distinction among them. I was on good

6 terms with both Milan Babic and Milan Martic at that time.

7 Later on, the relationship with Martic deteriorated because

8 together with Goran Hadzic, Martic assigned that proclamation against me

9 and the Serbian Radical Party in the autumn of 1993. However, in 1994,

10 at Martic's initiative, we met secretly in Beli Manastir. He apologised

11 for having done what he did, he said he regretted that he did it, and so

12 on and so forth.

13 Q. Do you remember that towards the end of 1993 in the Republic of

14 Serbian Krajina elections for president were held?

15 A. Yes. If I'm not mistaken, there were four candidates: One was

16 Milan Babic, representing the SDS of Krajina; there was Goran Hadzic on

17 the ticket of the Party of Serbian Lands; Milan Martic and Rade Leskovac

18 from the Serbian Radical Party of the Serbian Krajina.

19 Milan Babic and Milan Martic went into the second round. We, the

20 Radicals, supported Milan Babic in the second round in the runoff, but

21 many other Serbian political parties supported Milan Martic. I believe

22 Karadzic did, Milosevic did, groups of Belgrade intellectuals and

23 academicians who even participated in his election campaign. Martic had

24 a lot more support than Babic and still, in the runoff, Babic won.

25 Q. And in the initial round of the elections, whom did the Serbian

Page 11221

1 Radical Party support?

2 A. We had our candidate in the first round, Rade Leskovac.

3 Q. As a deputy to the Republic of Serbia parliament and the federal

4 parliament, do you remember, do you know if the Federation or the

5 Republic of Serbia provided any financial assistance to the Republic of

6 Serbian Krajina?

7 A. The Republic of Serbia assisted both the RSK and

8 Republika Srpska. They helped financially. They helped in kind in every

9 way. It's no secret. Serbia has to help Serbs wherever they are. And

10 the federal state also helped, provided aid and funds.

11 Q. Was it done through the budget, through some official cash flows,

12 or was it some kind of illegal financing?

13 A. It went through official channels. Maybe there was some illegal

14 financing, too. I don't know. I was not directly involved. But

15 everybody in Serbia knew that assistance was being provided to

16 Republika Srpska and the Republic of Serbian Krajina, and nobody

17 objected. Not even the pro-western opposition dared to attack the regime

18 over that. Some opposition parties even blamed Milosevic for not helping

19 enough.

20 Q. I'll ask you just one more question. Sorry, it's not going to be

21 just one more question. There will be two.

22 You must have heard in your own trial, and we have heard here,

23 that many crimes --

24 MS. BIERSAY: Objection. It's leading.

25 MR. ZIVANOVIC: I'll rephrase my question.

Page 11222

1 JUDGE DELVOIE: Please do, Mr. Zivanovic.

2 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. Have you ever heard in the course of your trial --

4 MS. BIERSAY: The same objection, Your Honour. Mr. Zivanovic

5 should simply put a question to the witness which he will answer, but

6 asking him whether he's heard something is leading.

7 MR. ZIVANOVIC: In my understanding, it is not leading at all. I

8 ask him to say whether he heard something or not.

9 [Trial Chamber confers]

10 JUDGE DELVOIE: The objection is overruled.

11 Please continue, Mr. Zivanovic.

12 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Have you heard in the course of your trial that Chetniks,

14 Seselj's Men, or the volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party, had

15 committed any crimes on the territory of the Serbian Krajina?

16 A. The OTP tried at the beginning to label all Seselj's Men as

17 criminals, and after the Prosecution case, they gave up. In the evidence

18 of the Prosecution, the Chetniks were clearly separated from Seselj's

19 Men. Yes, all the Chetniks were Seselj's Men but not vice versa.

20 And the Prosecution referred to Serbian forces, including

21 Seselj's Men, and Seselj's Men were not clearly identified anywhere as

22 perpetrators of crimes. They did try to ascribe to us various

23 individuals and groups as Seselj's Men, but they had absolutely no proof

24 of that. Thus, the Prosecution does not have a shred evidence that any

25 volunteer of the Serbian Radical Party sent by us from Belgrade to the

Page 11223

1 front line ever committed any crime. It simply does not exist. There

2 is, of course, the formulation of JCE --

3 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Zivanovic, could you bring the witness back

4 to your question.

5 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Yes, Your Honour.

6 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, if you could just tell us if you

7 have any knowledge that any of the volunteers of the Serbian Radical

8 Party ever committed any crimes in the area of Slavonia, Baranja, and

9 Western Srem, or the Republic of Serbian Krajina?

10 A. No, not a single report. Because if that had happened, I would

11 have been the first one to react. I could not bring them to justice but

12 I could stigmatise them publicly, and I never shied away from

13 stigmatising certain types of behaviour, regardless of who was

14 responsible.

15 There were no such things among the volunteers of the Serbian

16 Radical Party, but you have to bare in mind one more thing. There was

17 quite a lot of turnover among the volunteers. For instance, one man

18 would go to the front line as a volunteer of our party. He would serve

19 one tour of duty, come back, and then he would go on his next tour of

20 duty on behalf of another group of volunteers. For instance, sometimes

21 Arkan and I would meet at a funeral of somebody who initially was our

22 volunteer and later joined Arkan's Men and died as a member of the

23 Arkan's guard. But since we knew the man and he was initially our

24 volunteer, it was only a matter of decency for me to go attend his

25 funeral.