Page 4544
1 Monday, 5 July 2010
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.01 a.m.
6 JUDGE KWON: Good morning to everyone.
7 Before you begin, Mr. Mandic, I hope you have enjoyed the summer
8 in the Netherlands
9 Recalling your statement that you had difficulty when you entered
10 the Netherlands
11 you for about an hour, the Chamber asked the Registry to look into the
12 matter, and I believe the VWS, the Victim and Witnesses Section, will
13 explain the situation to you in due course.
14 Yes, Mr. Tieger.
15 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Mr. President.
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.
17 WITNESS: MOMCILO MANDIC [Resumed]
18 [Witness answered through interpreter]
19 Cross-examination by Mr. Tieger: [Continued]
20 Q. Good morning, Mr. Mandic.
21 A. Good morning, Mr. Tieger.
22 Q. Mr. Mandic, just before we adjourned on Thursday, you were asked
23 about the report on the activities in the Ministry of Justice and
24 Administration in the period May through October 1992, and you indicated
25 that you had -- you said:
Page 4545
1 "I cannot give answers in relation to something that happened
2 before me, that is to say, before the Ministry of Justice was
3 established."
4 And you've previously indicated you were appointed on or about
5 the 12th of May, 1992; correct?
6 A. Correct, Mr. Tieger.
7 Q. I'd like to look at, actually, when you first became aware that
8 you would be minister of justice and how quickly you or other
9 representatives of the Ministry of Justice began to work. And in that
10 connection, I wanted to turn your attention to page 9366 of your
11 testimony in Krajisnik.
12 A. Mr. Tieger, I can answer your question straight away. I was
13 invited to one of the meetings of the Security Council. It was a
14 co-ordinating body. I don't know what its function was. It was the end
15 of April. I think it was the 24th or the 26th of April. And during that
16 part of the session when nominations were being made, that is to say,
17 when information was being provided to certain physical persons, I was
18 called in, too, and I was informed that Rajko Nikolic, the first minister
19 of justice of the Republika Srpska, or, rather, the Republic of the Serb
20 people of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who was appointed to the
21 Ministerial Council, had not reported to his job, and then I was informed
22 that I would be minister of justice and that I should prepare everything
23 and take all necessary action in order to prepare for that job or,
24 rather, to take over that ministry; that is to say that on the 24th and
25 26th of April, I was informed about that.
Page 4546
1 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: Could all other
2 microphones please be switched off while the witness is speaking. Thank
3 you.
4 MR. TIEGER:
5 Q. And during the course of your testimony in the Krajisnik case, at
6 pages, approximately, 8727 through 8730, you had an opportunity to look
7 at a May 1st, 1992
8 which you indicated was your effort to begin the establishment of the
9 organs of the Ministry of Justice. Do you recall that, Mr. Mandic?
10 A. Yes, yes, exactly.
11 Q. So shortly after you were advised that you were to assume the
12 position of minister of justice, you began undertaking efforts to
13 establish the ministry?
14 A. As far as that written communication was concerned, 15 days -- it
15 happened 15 days after I was informed that I would be minister of
16 justice.
17 Q. Thank you, Mr. Mandic. Now, on Friday we had looked at a session
18 of the National Security Council on April 24th, 1992. We had looked at
19 the establishment of the Exchange Commission on 8 May, 1992, and the
20 document signed by Mr. Markovic on the 14th of May, reflecting the work
21 of the Exchange Commission.
22 I'd like to turn next to a document dated 6 June 1992. That's
23 65 ter 11024.
24 As the English version of this document is coming up, Mr. Mandic,
25 let me indicate to the Court that this is an order from the
Page 4547
1 Central Commission of the Serbian Republic
2 prisoners of War, Detainees, and Bodies of the killed that are on the
3 territory of the opposite side. And it's signed by the president of the
4 commission, Rajko Colovic. Now, Mr. Mandic, first of all, you're
5 familiar with this document; correct? You've had an opportunity to see
6 it before and discuss it before?
7 A. I first saw this order when I spoke to you and during the trial
8 of Mr. Momo Krajisnik.
9 Q. Let's look at a few provisions of that order, if we can. The
10 first part of the order indicates that the employees of the Public
11 Security Services, engaged in safe-guarding facilities where prisoners of
12 war or detainees are located, shall keep evidence; right?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And if we look down to the third paragraph, there's a reference
15 to the fact that municipal commissions for exchange shall submit lists to
16 regional commissions for exchange, if any, or to the central commission.
17 And that's a reflection of the parametal structure of the Exchange
18 Commission that you explained in the Krajisnik case; is that right? That
19 is, that there were exchange commissions in municipalities at regional
20 levels and a central commission at the republic level; is that correct?
21 A. Yes, yes, that's correct. Actually, Mr. Tieger, during the
22 beginning of the war, as far as I know, first it was municipal
23 commissions that were set up, that is to say, for the exchange of
24 prisoners of war and others mentioned in this order. This was done on
25 the basis of crisis staffs and municipal authorities on the ground. In
Page 4548
1 the effort made by the government to centralise this commission and to
2 establish law and order, a central commission was set up for the exchange
3 of prisoners of war at the level of the government, and it was the
4 government that passed a decision to establish this commission. It
5 consisted of representatives of individual ministries who were
6 professionally eligible for that job.
7 Q. Mr. Mandic, can I ask you to turn to the second page in B/C/S,
8 and that would be approximately the third paragraph on your page. And at
9 page 3 in English, Your Honours, the fourth paragraph, we find the
10 reference I wanted to draw Mr. Mandic's attention to. That provides as
11 follows, Mr. Mandic:
12 "All women whose detention or deprivation of liberty is not
13 related to the war or war activities, all the children and minors up to
14 16 years of age, old and helpless persons, shall be released immediately
15 and ensure their return according to their own free will without setting
16 any conditions to them or exchanging them."
17 Now, again, Mr. Mandic, you had an opportunity both to see and
18 provide feedback on that provision in the course of the Krajisnik case,
19 and is it, therefore, correct that the provision providing that women
20 whose deprivation of liberty is not related to the war or war activities
21 does the not apply to men of military age; that is, the release of people
22 whose activities are not related to the war applies only to women,
23 children, minors, old, and helpless persons; is that right?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And, indeed, as you indicated to the Court during the course of
Page 4549
1 the Krajisnik case, the Exchange Commission was involved in the exchange
2 of civilians?
3 A. As far as I know, the commission was involved in the exchange of
4 persons who had been taken prisoner, not civilians, all persons who were
5 in specific facilities of the territory of Republika Srpska or the
6 federation. So a mutual exchange was carried out on the basis of an
7 agreement reached between political and state leaderships of the republic
8 or, rather, the federation.
9 Q. Well, at page 8758 of the Krajisnik testimony, Mr. Mandic, you
10 were asked about that issue. You indicated, at page 8757, as the
11 discussion began with questions from the Court about persons who had been
12 detained, either taken into custody as combatants and so on, whereas the
13 others might be civilians or whatever -- that's at page 8757 through
14 8758. Then you were asked:
15 "If you say 'civilians,' what civilians do you have in mind?"
16 This is at page 8758:
17 " ... civilians under suspicion of having committed offences or
18 just civilians?"
19 And you said: "Both."
20 Then you were asked by the Judge:
21 "And they were deprived --"
22 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. --
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could we please ask the
24 distinguished Mr. Tieger to read the entire paragraph to the witness so
25 that things are not taken into -- out of context yet again and presented
Page 4550
1 in a piecemeal fashion?
2 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, I'm obviously reading extensively. If
3 there's any context to be provided beyond that, it can either be provided
4 by Mr. Mandic or by the accused during his examination. But I don't
5 think there's any problem with context in this case, as I'm explaining it
6 and reading it.
7 JUDGE KWON: Could you read some other parts? I haven't -- do we
8 have that paragraph before us, 8757? No, not yet.
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, Your Honour, I
10 remember very well the conversation I had with His Honour Judge Orie, to
11 whom I tried to explain certain things and I tried to analyse certain
12 things, although I was not familiar with the work of that commission and
13 I did not take part in the work of that commission in any way.
14 This interpretation of what a civilian person is and who a
15 prisoner of war is and who a prisoner is, that is clearly specified in
16 the instructions provided by the minister of defence in June 1992, on the
17 basis of the order issued by the president of the republic,
18 Dr. Radovan Karadzic.
19 Now, this order, this order issued by that commission, why does
20 it in a way confuse laws and regulations in that area? Because until
21 then there was no written document that provided for the treatment of
22 such persons and how they should be treated; that is to say, the state
23 authorities of Republika Srpska had not believed until then that there
24 would be a war and that persons of non-Serb ethnicity would be taken
25 prisoner. From this -- from this order, that is, we can see that
Page 4551
1 Mr. Colovic, who was assistant minister, assistant minister of justice,
2 so he was assistant minister to Mr. Ranko Nikolic, as far as criminal
3 sanctions are concerned, he applied the provisions of the Law on Criminal
4 Procedure of the former SFRY and also the Law on Regular Courts that
5 prescribed how persons who are detained should be treated. It's not
6 prisoners of war, but detainees. That is where there is this clash
7 between certain provisions of the two respective laws. That was
8 regulated during the month of June by the order mentioned a few moments
9 ago and also the instructions provided by the minister of defence.
10 JUDGE KWON: You answered before you heard the question put by
11 Mr. Tieger. But was that answer satisfactory to you?
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, may I add something,
13 because I'm a Court witness.
14 Mr. Rajko Colovic was never an employee of the Ministry of
15 Justice of Republika Srpska. By applying the provisions of the Law on
16 Regular Courts that stipulate that the president of a relevant court, or
17 a judge authorised by him, are duty-bound to visit all persons who are
18 detained every 14 days to see how their condition is, how they're being
19 treated, and in certain cases they should inform the Ministry of Justice
20 about that. Mr. Rajko Colovic took over those previsions from the
21 pre-war laws and he wrote them up in this order. Obviously, this order
22 is not adequate in relation to these laws or, rather, the Law on Criminal
23 Procedure of the SFRY and the Law on Regular Courts. For wont of certain
24 provisions, Mr. Colovic wrote up this order.
25 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Tieger.
Page 4552
1 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Your Honour.
2 Q. And just to clarify further, Mr. Mandic, I was referring to your
3 testimony in the Krajisnik case. Again, Judge Orie asked:
4 "If you say 'civilians,' what civilians do you have in mind;
5 civilians under suspicion of having committed offences or just
6 civilians?"
7 And your answer was:
8 "Both, as long as they weren't involved in any armed conflict, in
9 armed combat, and so on in the war, that they weren't apprehended with
10 weapons, that they hadn't taken part in armed conflicts, in fighting, or
11 anything like that."
12 And then the Judge asked:
13 "And they were deprived their liberty on the basis of what?"
14 And you answered:
15 "I really can't say, Your Honour, because this was done by the
16 Security Services employees and the army."
17 And the Judge asked:
18 "Yes, but it was part of the exchange, I think. As far as I
19 understood, representatives of your ministry were involved in the
20 exchange of prisoners, of the exchange of detained persons?"
21 And you answered:
22 "Yes, detained civilians."
23 That's correct, isn't it? That's what you explained to the Judge
24 at the time he was asking you about the Exchange Commission?
25 A. Mr. Tieger, I tried, on the basis of my own knowledge, to explain
Page 4553
1 to His Honour Judge Orie, from my own point of view, what the definition
2 of a civilian person is, also my knowledge as to how these persons had
3 reached premises that were envisaged for detention. Now, whether they
4 were taken prisoner by the army or some other armed formations, that is
5 something I did not know, or whether these were persons who were being
6 taken away from places where there was an armed conflict, as was the case
7 with Dobrinja. It's not a question of taking persons prisoner, but
8 giving them shelter while there is an armed conflict going on, so that
9 they could be taken back or taken somewhere else later.
10 I tried to explain, on the basis of my own experience, what the
11 definition of a civilian was. I did not participate in this, and I did
12 not have any knowledge as to how these persons had reached these premises
13 that crisis staffs or other authorities had appointed as detention
14 facilities for these persons. After all, those who interrogated and
15 detained these persons knew whether they were civilians or participants
16 in armed conflict. That's the Territorial Defence, the army, and the
17 police.
18 Q. Mr. Mandic, let's turn next to a session of the government on the
19 9th of June, 1992. That's 65 ter 00172. And this reflects a session of
20 the government just a few days after the Colovic order. And if you'll
21 cast your eye on agenda item number 1(a), it states that the government
22 has supported order of the Central Commission for the exchange of
23 prisoners. And that would be a reference to the 6 June Colovic order;
24 correct?
25 A. Yes, Mr. Tieger.
Page 4554
1 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Mr. Mandic.
2 And, Your Honour, before I get too far behind, I should note that
3 I need to tender this document as well as the previous two, which would
4 include 65 ter 16249, the May through October Ministry of Justice report.
5 JUDGE KWON: I'm sorry, 65 ter number, is it not 11024 that you
6 used previously?
7 MR. TIEGER: Sorry, and that's my fault for letting us get
8 behind. So the three documents that need to be tendered at this point
9 are the document currently before us, the 9 June government session --
10 JUDGE KWON: I noted 16249 was the one which was used in the
11 previous session last week.
12 MR. TIEGER: That's correct, yes.
13 JUDGE KWON: You haven't tendered that?
14 MR. TIEGER: I believe that's right. So it would be that
15 document, then, the 6 June Exchange Commission order we just looked at a
16 moment ago, and now the 9 June government session.
17 JUDGE KWON: Yes. Unless they are objected to, they will be
18 admitted.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No objections.
20 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, 65 ter 16249 will be Exhibit P1089.
21 65 ter 11024 will be Exhibit P1090. And 65 ter 00172 will be
22 Exhibit P1091.
23 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
24 MR. TIEGER:
25 Q. Mr. Mandic, if we can next turn to a government session the very
Page 4555
1 next day, 10 June 1992, and that's 65 ter 00173.
2 And with the assistance of the Registry, if we could turn to
3 page 3 of the English and page 2 of the B/C/S.
4 A. Sorry, Mr. Tieger. This is a different document. This is
5 minutes from a different government session, not the one that you had
6 showed earlier on. Have we finished dealing with that government session
7 where the order of the Central Commission was adopted?
8 Q. Yes, I've moved on to the session the next day, Mr. Mandic. It
9 sounds like you want to make a comment on the 9th June session.
10 A. You didn't let me allow -- you didn't let me explain. Yes, yes,
11 yes, I did not attend that government session. No one from the Ministry
12 of Justice attended that session. So I became aware of these government
13 decisions during June 1992, a couple of days later. If you go back to
14 the beginning of this document, you will see that I did not attend this
15 session, and no one else from the Ministry of Justice did, and that is
16 where the nominations took place as far as members of the
17 Central Commission are concerned. That was the session of the 9th of
18 June.
19 Q. Well, let's focus our attention, as I suggested, for the moment
20 on the 10th of June session, which I believe is still before you. And
21 you were in attendance at that session; correct, Mr. Mandic?
22 A. Yes, Mr. Tieger.
23 Q. Now, if we look at agenda item 7 under "Current Issues," the
24 following conclusions were made:
25 "That the Ministry of Justice should make a report about
Page 4556
1 prisoners. This report should pay special attention on treatment of
2 civilian population, prisoners of war, accommodation, food, et cetera.
3 The report would be considered by the government, after which it would be
4 submitted to the Presidency of the republic."
5 Now, Mr. Mandic, you were asked about this government session
6 during the course of your testimony in the Stanisic/Zupljanin case, and
7 at page 9492 you indicated -- or you testified that this situation, that
8 is, the conclusion that a report should be made, arose because there had
9 been complaints about the treatment of the civilian population, in
10 particular:
11 "Q. We see here that the Ministry of Justice should make a
12 report about prisoners, the report should pay special attention on the
13 treatment of the civilian population, prisoners of war, accommodation,
14 food, et cetera, and the report would be considered by the government,
15 after which it would be submitted to the Presidency. Now, did that arise
16 because there had been complaints about the treatment of the civilian
17 population in particular?"
18 And your answer: "Yes, yes."
19 A. Information reached us from the field about certain instances of
20 the inhuman treatment of detained persons. Whether they were POWs or
21 civilians, I cannot remember. In an attempt to establish the rule of
22 law, the government took steps to co-ordinate the work of the commissions
23 and to have some specialists from the Ministry of Justice, from the
24 Ministry of the Police, of the Interior, and from other departments to go
25 out in the field to report to the government about the actual situation
Page 4557
1 in the field, and the government was to inform all the competent
2 institutions, the Presidency, the Assembly, and, of course, the
3 government about that situation so that urgent steps could be taken to
4 overcome the situation and to prevent any further violations of the 1949
5 Geneva
6 the ministry. A commission was set up. It went out in the field, it
7 surveyed the situation, it wrote up a report, and informed the government
8 and the competent institutions about the situation as found.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It would have been helpful if we
10 heard the whole paragraph. I should just like to say that we should read
11 the entire paragraph, because just a part of it was quoted.
12 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, the witness remembered the situation
13 clearly, and he had no difficulty at all in answering the question. Then
14 it is for you to supplement during your cross-examination. Please
15 refrain from intervening in such a way during the Prosecution's
16 examination.
17 Mr. Tieger.
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I was asked, in cross-examination,
19 when I quoted something, that I should quote it in full rather than
20 interpret or summarise text, so I'm just following the instructions given
21 me when I was doing the examining.
22 JUDGE KWON: Well, I agree with that principle, but I didn't see
23 any problem with Mr. Tieger examination. Let's proceed.
24 MR. TIEGER: And furthermore, Your Honour, the entirety of this
25 transcript is in evidence.
Page 4558
1 JUDGE KWON: I beg your pardon. We have, as evidence, the
2 Stanisic transcript?
3 MR. TIEGER: This is from the -- oh, I apologise, Your Honour.
4 You're right.
5 JUDGE KWON: Okay.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We have nothing against its
7 admission.
8 JUDGE KWON: Let's proceed.
9 MR. TIEGER:
10 Q. Mr. Mandic, the conclusion that we've just looked at indicates
11 that the report would be considered by the government, after which it
12 would be submitted to the Presidency of the republic. Do you recall who
13 or which body initiated the inquiry about the issue of the treatment of
14 civilian population, prisoners of war, accommodation, food, et cetera?
15 A. I cannot remember who it was. I know that Mr. Djeric informed us
16 about the information that he had received, and the prime minister, of
17 course, and these conclusions were adopted at his initiative, at his
18 proposal. Who the actual proponent was, I cannot recall.
19 Mr. Branko Djeric would be able to clarify that.
20 Q. I want to look at another official record of an official body on
21 that same date of 10 June 1992
22 of the Presidency of the Serbian Republic
23 during an imminent threat of war on 10 June 1992. And that's 65 ter
24 00115. And I want to look, in particular, at two portions of those
25 minutes, both at the beginning and the end.
Page 4559
1 As you'll see, Mr. Mandic, at the beginning of the session, just
2 below the indication of the persons who were present, the minutes
3 indicate that at the beginning of the session, the Presidency reviewed
4 information received during night on the situation at the front and
5 reports of the international public or foreign press. Do you see that?
6 A. Yes. Yes, I do.
7 Q. And then if we turn to the second page of the English and also
8 the second page of the B/C/S, in the second-to-last paragraph it
9 indicates, with respect to Dr. Branko Djeric, that:
10 "The government submit a report on prisoners, with proposed
11 measures."
12 A. That is exactly consistent with what I just said, that
13 Branko Djeric conveyed this information to us and charged specific
14 persons to go out in the field and to inspect the situation, in the field
15 and in the facilities where non-Serbs were being detained, and to submit
16 a report on that. So non-Serbs. As a rule, the members of the
17 government got all their information from Mr. Djeric, who was both a
18 member of the Supreme Command and of the Presidency, and he was one of
19 the best-informed people in 1992 in Republika Srpska.
20 MR. TIEGER: I tender that document, Your Honour.
21 JUDGE KWON: Together with the previous document?
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honours, this is the first
23 time in my life that I see this document. I have not had occasion to see
24 it before.
25 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
Page 4560
1 I don't think there's any objection to this document.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No objection.
3 JUDGE KWON: Both documents will be admitted.
4 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, 65 ter 00173 will be Exhibit P1092,
5 and 65 ter 00115 will be P1093.
6 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
7 MR. TIEGER:
8 Q. Mr. Mandic, as noted a moment ago, at the beginning of the
9 session, according to the minutes, the Presidency reviewed reports of the
10 international public or foreign press. Were you aware at that time of
11 allegations from the international community or international media about
12 the detention of non-Serb civilians by Bosnian Serb authorities?
13 A. All my information derived from the information imparted to us at
14 government sessions by the prime minister, Mr. Djeric.
15 Q. And in that connection, did Mr. Djeric advise you and the other
16 members of government of allegations by the international community, the
17 international media, or others from -- connected with the international
18 public about the detention of non-Serbs by Bosnian Serb authorities?
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have an objection. This is
20 information about the positions of the international community. It is
21 not stated anywhere that their positions were on prisons, which
22 Mr. Tieger is implying. We assist everything which was happening in the
23 international community regarding the conference, the end of the war,
24 et cetera.
25 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, the question was put to the witness.
Page 4561
1 If you wish to give testimony, we will welcome you. The witness will
2 answer the question as far as he knows and as far as he remembers. It's
3 not for you to intervene, Mr. Karadzic. I find it very unhelpful,
4 Mr. Karadzic.
5 Yes. Have you finished your question?
6 MR. TIEGER: Yes. I can recap it, Your Honour.
7 JUDGE KWON: Yes, please.
8 MR. TIEGER:
9 Q. Mr. Mandic, I had asked you if you were aware of allegations by
10 the international community whether -- international organisations,
11 international public, international media, concerning the detention of
12 non-Serbs by Bosnian Serb authorities. I believe you answered that you
13 got your information from Mr. Djeric, so I asked you if Mr. Djeric
14 imparted to you such information; that is --
15 A. Not about that, no, Mr. Tieger. I didn't say that he informed us
16 about that. He informed us about the situation in the field, and the
17 events in the field were reported to us by Mr. Djeric at government
18 sessions. I had no contact whatsoever, nor any information did I receive
19 from the international public or the media. All the information from the
20 sessions of the Presidency or any body in the leadership of the
21 Republika Srpska were conveyed to us at government sessions by
22 Mr. Djeric; not only on this issue, but on any problems which cropped up
23 in the course of the creation of the state, i.e., Republika Srpska.
24 As you can see from the minutes here, the government reacted to
25 such information, i.e., to proposals by Mr. Djeric for steps to be taken
Page 4562
1 in order to establish the rule of law and ensure the safety -- the
2 security of those people who were of non-Serb ethnicity.
3 MR. TIEGER: And we can take a quick look, then, at 65 ter 05991.
4 Mr. Mandic, I'm going to ask you to look at a letter from Dr. Djeric,
5 dated, I believe, the 24th of May, 1992, to Mr. James Baker, the US
6 secretary of state.
7 Q. And in it, as we can see at the very beginning of the document,
8 Mr. Djeric appears to be responding to what he calls the most disturbing
9 news, suggesting the possible use of force against what he calls the
10 Serbian population in Bosnia-Herzegovina. And then he proceeds, in the
11 course of that letter, to address a number of issues.
12 And if you'll look, please, at the fifth paragraph in English,
13 which is located on the first page of your document as well, Dr. Djeric
14 states:
15 "You can rest assured that Serbian side is holding no hostages,
16 operating no concentration camps, and is not killing unarmed civilians in
17 Bosnia
18 elsewhere, are not based on facts."
19 And then he continues discussing demographics, entitlement to
20 land, the genocide of World War II, and so on.
21 Now, Mr. Mandic, I take it that you'll agree that this is a
22 reflection of the fact that there were allegations or Dr. Djeric's
23 concern about allegations in the international press and by the
24 international community concerning, among other issues, the existence of
25 concentration camps in which non-Serb civilians were detained?
Page 4563
1 A. This is the first time, Mr. Tieger, that I see this letter. I'm
2 not a court expert. I cannot comment on Mr. Djeric's letter from the
3 expert side. I do not agree with you that Mr. Djeric was concerned about
4 a possible NATO attack on the Serb people, but I think that he wrote a
5 letter which fell within his competence, as it were, to the international
6 mediator, Mr. Baker, to present to him his view of the war in May 1992.
7 I don't know anything about the content of this letter. I'm not an
8 analysis expert, so I cannot comment on the letter, itself.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Excuse me. Is the 65 ter number
10 correct?
11 JUDGE KWON: I was told it's 951. Oh, yes, thank you. Just 5991
12 instead of 951.
13 MR. TIEGER: If I misspoke, Your Honour, I apologise, but it
14 seemed to come under the number I indicated previously. But maybe
15 there's a slip between the reading and the enunciation. But you're
16 correct about the number, and the correct document is on the screen.
17 Q. Mr. Mandic, I'm not asking you to analyse the document. The
18 document speaks for itself. I'm asking you whether or not you claim you
19 were completely unaware of any concern among the members of the
20 Bosnian Serb leadership about reports or allegations from the
21 international community concerning concentration camps or detention
22 facilities maintained by the Bosnian Serb authorities.
23 A. No, no, that's not the way it is, Mr. Tieger. All his concerns
24 that Mr. Djeric presented at the government sessions, and the information
25 which came from the field, was something that the government reacted to
Page 4564
1 by setting up these commissions which would go out in the field to
2 inspect the situation and to remedy the situation, to have the existing
3 camps comply with the International Convention -- with the provisions of
4 the International Convention on Human Rights.
5 Q. We've just looked a moment ago at -- and, sorry, Your Honour. If
6 I haven't tendered that letter, I'd like to do so now.
7 JUDGE KWON: If we are to follow a principle, the witness
8 confirmed nothing about the document, so we'll admit it at a later stage
9 if you use it with the proper witnesses.
10 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, I don't -- I'm going to say -- okay,
11 let me reiterate the concern I expressed on Thursday about documents and
12 document admissibility and falling within the guide-lines.
13 I think this document naturally arises from what was raised by
14 the previous documents. This is not an intent to import an issue into an
15 examination artificially. It arises naturally. I don't believe there's
16 any question about the authenticity of this document. The issue of
17 what --
18 JUDGE KWON: Just a second.
19 Do you have any observation, Mr. Karadzic, on this document?
20 MR. ROBINSON: Frankly, Mr. President, we also think it should be
21 admitted, but we would like to have the same rules applied to many of the
22 documents that we've offered. Thank you.
23 [Trial Chamber confers]
24 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Mr. Tieger.
25 It's clearly related to the document we admitted before, and as
Page 4565
1 such, in particular given the accused's position, we'll admit it.
2 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Mr. President.
3 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P1094, Your Honours.
4 MR. TIEGER:
5 Q. Mr. Mandic, we looked a moment ago at the government session of
6 the 10th of June, 1992, at which the conclusion that the Ministry of
7 Justice should make a report about prisoners was made.
8 If we could turn next to the government session of the 15th of
9 June, 1992
10 assistance of the Registry, to page 4 of the English and page 4 of the
11 B/C/S. And it would be item number 10.
12 That indicates as follows:
13 "The government has considered the proposed report. It has been
14 concluded that the issue of prisoners exchange is extremely important,
15 complex and delicate, and that, if sufficient attention is not paid to
16 it, it can cause a number of negative consequences for the whole
17 republic.
18 "It has been agreed that working group consisting of
19 Professor Branko Djeric, Milan
20 Mico Stanisic, Bogdan Subotic, and Momcilo Mandic should consider all the
21 aspects of the prisoner exchange problem and that they should proposal
22 systematic and other solutions, taking into account our and international
23 regulations. It is obvious that solving this problem is urgent and that
24 the regulations and concrete measures for solving of this issue should be
25 proposed as soon as possible."
Page 4566
1 Now, first of all, Mr. Mandic, just to clarify for the benefit of
2 the Court the persons mentioned in item number 10, we already know who
3 Mr. Djeric is. Milan Trbojevic was the vice-president of the government;
4 is that correct?
5 A. Dragan Kalinic was minister of health and social welfare,
6 Mico Stanisic was the minister of the interior, Bogdan Subotic was the
7 minister of defence, and I was the minister of justice.
8 If I can be of assistance, Mr. Tieger?
9 Q. Yes, Mr. Mandic. What?
10 A. I have given you all the offices held by the members of this
11 commission: Branko Djeric, the prime minister; Trbojevic, vice premier,
12 in charge of internal policy; Kalinic, minister of health and social
13 welfare; Mico Stanisic, minister of the interior; Bogdan Subotic,
14 minister of defence; and I, minister of justice.
15 Q. And during the course of your testimony in the Stanisic/Zupljanin
16 case, you were asked about this particular government session and this
17 particular conclusion in the government session. Do you recall that?
18 A. If you can help me, Mr. Tieger, to recall.
19 Q. Well, after -- this is on page 9494, after that agenda item
20 number 10 was read out. You were asked the following:
21 "I know you weren't there, Mr. Mandic, but I assume Mr. Lale
22 reported to you," Mr. Lale being a representative of the Ministry of
23 Justice. Is that right?
24 A. Yes, Mr. Lale was the assistant minister.
25 Q. So just to continue:
Page 4567
1 "I know you weren't there, Mr. Mandic, but I assume Mr. Lale
2 reported to you. What was it that caused negative consequences?"
3 And your answer was:
4 "Since we were receiving bad news about ill-treatment of detained
5 people in individual municipalities, the government decided to set up a
6 very strong group consisting of the Prime Minister Djeric,
7 Milan Trbojevic, Dragan Kalinic, health minister, Mico Stanisic, chief of
8 police, Bogdan Subotic, defence minister, and myself, as the minister of
9 justice, in order to consider all these problems and find quick
10 solutions. That was a major problem for Republika Srpska and also for
11 the people who were held in municipal detention units and prisons. That
12 had to be given immediate attention and solved, and since this commission
13 was not able to solve this issue, we had to include and involve the
14 highest officials in order to prevent any unlawful arrests and detention
15 of civilians."
16 A. I did not participate in the work of this commission, but I do
17 know its objective, and it included health issues, defence issues,
18 justice issues in its mandate, its basic task was to establish legal
19 regulations for the work of the Central Commission and for the treatment
20 of detained persons of non-Serb ethnicity. I explained a while ago that
21 this was not done at government level, which I also confirmed when I
22 testified in the Stanisic case, but I did mention that since the
23 political leadership of Republika Srpska had been informed about it,
24 Mr. Karadzic, the president of Republika Srpska, issued an order and
25 instructed the minister of defence to issue, on his part, instructions on
Page 4568
1 the treatment of detained persons of non-Serb ethnicity. In that way,
2 the status of such persons, of detained persons or of prisoners of
3 non-Serb ethnicity, was legally regulated and the way they should be
4 treated. The regulations spelled out the treatment of such persons in
5 full compliance with the 1949 Geneva Conventions on Human Rights.
6 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have -- I have a translation
8 issue. The witness said "captured persons," persons taken prisoners. I
9 don't think that is reflected. It should be "captured." It should not
10 be "detained." That is not a proper translation. What he meant was
11 "taken prisoner in battle," so can we have that clarified?
12 JUDGE KWON: I don't think that's purely a matter of
13 interpretation. "In that way, the status of such a person, of detained
14 persons or prisoners" -- I think that's a subject you can explore further
15 during the course of your cross-examination.
16 Let's proceed, Mr. Tieger.
17 In the meantime, do you confirm that you said so during the
18 course of the Stanisic/Zupljanin trial, Mr. Mandic?
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I confirm what is in the
20 transcript, that that is what I said in the Stanisic trial.
21 JUDGE KWON: In that answer, you said, I quote:
22 "We were receiving bad news about detained people in the
23 municipalities."
24 Could you expand on that a bit further? What kind of bad news
25 were you hearing, and from whom?
Page 4569
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We received all our information
2 from the prime minister, Mr. Djeric. Now, whether Mr. Djeric received
3 information at the Presidency or in some other way, that I don't know.
4 However, the disturbing news was that local authorities were not treating
5 captured non-Serbs in the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and that they
6 were violating human rights. The central government, that is to say, the
7 Government of Republika Srpska and the Presidency, through these
8 regulations and legislation, were trying to centralise matters, that is
9 to say, to take over, to take over care and authority in the
10 municipalities, in the regions, and in the centre, as it were. Perhaps I
11 got a bit confused while explaining this, but we were trying to
12 centralise authority, and we wanted these persons who had been taken
13 prisoner to be treated in the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and human
14 rights. That is why commissions were established. That is why an order
15 was issued by the president of Republika Srpska. That is why
16 instructions with the force of law were promulgated in the
17 "Official Gazette," stating exactly how non-Serbs who were taken prisoner
18 should be treated. That is what I meant, Your Honours.
19 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Mr. Mandic.
20 Mr. Tieger.
21 MR. TIEGER:
22 Q. Mr. Mandic, I believe you indicated that notwithstanding the
23 emphasis on the importance and urgency of this problem as raised in
24 agenda item number 10, you did not participate in the commission.
25 A. No, because I was probably busy with other urgent matters,
Page 4570
1 because we were creating the judiciary. And this commission -- well, how
2 the commission carried this through -- or perhaps I was out somewhere in
3 the field, setting up prosecutors' offices and courts. Now, whether
4 somebody was standing in for me or not, I really cannot recall. It's
5 been a long time, and I cannot remember that particular detail.
6 Q. And just to recap, before moving on to the next document: So on
7 June 10th, the government called for a report. On June 15th, it received
8 the report. The report indicated that the problem of prisoners exchange
9 was extremely important and so on, and a working group was formed, or at
10 least there was an agreement that a working group should consider all the
11 aspects of prisoner exchange; is that right?
12 A. Exactly, Mr. Tieger. People worked day in and day out.
13 Q. Let's jump ahead one month to 65 ter --
14 JUDGE KWON: This will be admitted.
15 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Your Honour.
16 JUDGE KWON: Exhibit P1095.
17 MR. TIEGER: Let's move forward now to --
18 THE WITNESS: [No interpretation]
19 MR. TIEGER: -- 65 ter 01587.
20 Q. 01587, Mr. Mandic, is entitled "Report on some aspects of the
21 work done to date and the tasks ahead," dated 17 July 1992, and coming
22 from the Serbian Republic
23 And it is -- the handwritten notation on the top -- on the cover page
24 indicates: "To president of the Presidency and prime minister."
25 Now, Mr. Mandic, you had a chance to see this document previously
Page 4571
1 during the course of your testimony during the Krajisnik case?
2 A. Probably in one of these courtrooms.
3 Q. Well, just to refresh your memory, let's look at a couple of the
4 excerpts from that document. And you're more than welcome to take your
5 time and look at the entirety of the document, if you need to.
6 First of all, Mr. Mandic, let me direct your attention to the top
7 of page 3 of the English, and in the B/C/S, page 4, also at the top of
8 the page. And the report indicates as follows:
9 "The army, crisis staffs and war presidencies have requested that
10 the army round up or capture as many Muslim civilians as possible, and
11 they leave such undefined camps to internal affairs organs. The
12 conditions in some of these camps are poor; there is no food, individuals
13 sometimes do not observe international norms, et cetera."
14 Now, Mr. Mandic, did this document reflect generally the kind of
15 information which was available to the government about what was
16 happening in the field in connection with the detention of non-Serbs?
17 A. This document is dated the 17th of July, and it was submitted to
18 the prime minister and the president of the Presidency or, rather, to the
19 Presidency. Now, whether the government discussed this document, that is
20 something I cannot recall. You probably have the minutes, and we can see
21 whether it was discussed at all.
22 Q. Well, as I did in the course of the Krajisnik case, I attempted
23 to ask you here not about a report specifically about this document, but
24 about the information contained in the document. And as I asked in the
25 Krajisnik case at 8944, directing your attention to this specific
Page 4572
1 document and to this specific paragraph:
2 "Mr. Mandic, you spoke earlier about irregularities and inhumane
3 treatment in camp. Does this document, sent by the Ministry of Interior
4 to the president of the Presidency and the prime minister on July 17th
5 reflect generally the kind of information available to the government to
6 which you were referring earlier?"
7 And your answer was: "Yes."
8 That's correct, isn't it, Mr. Mandic?
9 A. I cannot recall what I testified to six years ago. However, at
10 this moment I cannot remember whether the government discussed this
11 information. Obviously, concerning all information that reached the
12 government and that the government discussed, the government would take
13 measures in relation to such information and reports of the Ministry of
14 Justice, of the Ministry of Police. I believe that this report is
15 correct as well and that it reflects the situation on the ground. So
16 there was concern on the part of the minister of police and the
17 government that human rights were being violated in certain
18 municipalities and in certain places where people acted unlawfully and
19 against the Geneva Conventions and held prisoners. There is no reason
20 for me to doubt this report of the Ministry of the Police. After all, it
21 was compiled in order to overcome such situations and in order to
22 establish rule of law, as I often say, and observe human rights, because
23 all the documents until then had not provided for a situation when there
24 would be war and when non-Serbs would be taken prisoner.
25 Q. If I can direct your attention to a portion of the document
Page 4573
1 approximately four paragraphs below that one, and that will be at page 4
2 of the B/C/S again and again on page 3 of the English. That indicates as
3 follows:
4 "It should also be noted that new territories are being liberated
5 in combat activity and that even some Serbs are committing crimes, mainly
6 all types of looting, in addition to the crimes previously committed by
7 the enemy."
8 And then it goes on to describe:
9 "Looting, as the most serious crime against property, mostly
10 occurs during mopping-up operations, on which occasions paramilitary
11 formations, military formations and police engage in looting."
12 And you were asked again about this document, and that particular
13 provision was brought to your attention in the Krajisnik case, and you
14 were asked in what manner were the new territories being liberated at the
15 time the document was prepared and disseminated in the middle of July
16 1992. Do you recall that, Mr. Mandic?
17 A. No, no, I don't recall such details. However, you can help me,
18 can't you?
19 Q. Certainly. This is at page 8945:
20 "Let me ask you this, then: What was the -- let me ask you: In
21 what manners were new territories being liberated, if you know, at the
22 time this document was being prepared in the middle of July 1992?"
23 And you said:
24 "As far as I knew, these were combat operations carried on by the
25 army, police, and these crisis staffs. I was not very much familiar with
Page 4574
1 that. I suppose these were combat operations and ethnic cleansing of the
2 non-Serb population in some areas."
3 And that was your testimony about that particular provision in
4 the document; correct, Mr. Mandic?
5 A. Well, Mr. Tieger, you say that I said "I assume." That means
6 that I was not familiar with these combat activities. I could assume
7 what was going on in the armed conflict; ethnic cleansing, combat. I was
8 not a participant. I was not directly informed about that. This is
9 basically an assumption, which is what I said when I testified in the
10 Krajisnik case.
11 Q. Well, let's turn to another portion of the document that you also
12 commented on, Mr. Mandic, and that can be found at page 6 of the English
13 and page 11 of the B/C/S.
14 This paragraph found -- it's the last full paragraph at page 6 of
15 the English, and I believe it's the last paragraph of the document in
16 B/C/S as well, Mr. Mandic. And moving down to the last sentence of that
17 paragraph, it states:
18 "Special emphasis should be placed on the issue of relocating
19 certain citizens, villages, et cetera, because this does not fall within
20 the competence of the MUP, although efforts are being made to link it to
21 the MUP."
22 And, again, you were asked about that provision, Mr. Mandic. I
23 take it it would be of some assistance for me to direct your attention to
24 those portions.
25 A. Mr. Tieger, you keep putting documents to me about which I
Page 4575
1 presented my opinion and views in the Krajisnik trial. I accepted and
2 confirmed that I still stand by everything I had said. That is to say, I
3 confirm all the words I uttered by way of testimony in the Krajisnik
4 trial. And now you're confusing me. You take out a few words or
5 sentences, out of 12 typewritten pages, and you take them out of context,
6 and I'm supposed to interpret that; problems between the police and the
7 military. And at that time, I was head of the Civilian Sector of the
8 Ministry of Justice, that is to say, a ministry that has nothing to do
9 whatsoever with the military or with the police, especially not in
10 relation to war operations.
11 My effort to help the Court or you, Mr. Tieger, bring me in a
12 position of confusion. You keep showing me these sentences and words
13 that are extracted out of a larger context, and now I'm supposed to
14 interpret them. I testified in Krajisnik six years ago in 2004, and I
15 accept fully everything that --
16 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Mandic, do you see that paragraph before you,
17 starting with: "With a view to resolving existing problems ..."?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I see that, Your Honour. It's
19 the last one down there in B/C/S.
20 JUDGE KWON: That concerns the functions of the Justice Ministry,
21 doesn't it?
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, there was a military
23 judiciary and a civilian judiciary. These problems fall under the
24 military judiciary. So there was dual -- a dual judiciary, and I was
25 head of the civilian judiciary. At that time, there was a military
Page 4576
1 Ministry of Justice as well, that is to say, military prosecutors offices
2 and prosecution organs. Obviously, these are problems between the
3 military and the police, and there is an overlapping of powers.
4 JUDGE KWON: I don't think I understand your statement.
5 So the Ministry of Justice -- "Justice Ministry" in this
6 paragraph refers to an organ in the army; is that what you're saying?
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, there was a military
8 judiciary and a civilian judiciary. These are two completely separate
9 judiciaries. I was head of the civilian judiciary, and I carried out the
10 organisation of the civilian judiciary; courts, misdemeanor courts,
11 prosecution offices, and institutions of correction, and they pertained
12 to civilians only, or civilian institutions, rather. At the same time,
13 there were military judiciary organs that --
14 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Mandic, I understand there should be a military
15 judiciary, but is there a separate ministry for military judiciary?
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, within the Ministry of
17 Defence. It would be that ministry. They are a separate organ that has
18 no points in common with the civilian judiciary. They have their own
19 prosecutors, their own misdemeanor judges, and their own judges attached
20 to the Main Staff, and the Main Staff of the army is the superior organ
21 that organised the military judiciary.
22 You will see, Your Honours, that several times I tried to bring
23 that together and to create a single judiciary during the course of 1992.
24 I think it was July and August 1992 when I asked that the Assembly amend
25 the law and that there be a single judiciary. However, that did not
Page 4577
1 happen while I was minister.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I be of assistance?
3 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I believe that again it would
5 be of assistance if the entire paragraph would be read out and if the
6 witness would see the entire paragraph in Serbian. There is just --
7 JUDGE KWON: That's what I suggested.
8 We can continue, Mr. Tieger.
9 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Your Honour.
10 Q. Mr. Mandic, in response to my questions about the information
11 contained in the document, you, among other things, indicated that your
12 ministry had nothing to do with the military or the police. It's true,
13 isn't it, that -- however, that you met quite often --
14 A. Problems between the army and police, problems and
15 misunderstanding, operative ones, between the army and the police. That
16 is what Mr. Stanisic said here, as far as I understand this document.
17 Q. Well, I'm less interested --
18 A. Inter alia, of course.
19 Q. I'm less interested at the moment in the tensions between the
20 military police than I am in the kinds of issues and crimes that are
21 raised by the document. So let me ask you: It's correct, isn't it, that
22 you met quite often with Mr. Stanisic, the minister of the interior, and
23 of course this is a Ministry of Interior document, during which you
24 discussed all these issues, including the criminality -- the crimes that
25 were on the increase in the war-struck areas? And that can be found, in
Page 4578
1 fact, at page 8951 of your Krajisnik testimony.
2 A. Mr. Tieger, I met Stanisic as often as necessary, and that was
3 basically at government sessions. The man was minister of police, and
4 they were involved in armed operations together with the military, the
5 army, and I was creating the judiciary. At my -- at the time of my
6 appointment, there was no Ministry of Justice. At that point in time,
7 Republika Srpska did not have a single judge, a single prosecutor, a
8 single corrections institution. There was nothing that a ministry of
9 justice could have in that respect.
10 Q. Well, Mr. Mandic, again, I'm not asking you about what you may or
11 may not have been in a position to do about it. I'm simply referring to
12 your previous testimony that you met with Mr. Stanisic and that was one
13 of the sources from which you were aware of these types of problems. And
14 that's correct; right?
15 A. That's not correct.
16 Q. Is it not correct that you met with Mr. Stanisic or not correct
17 that you spoke about the problems of crimes?
18 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Mandic, several times you cut off in the middle
19 of Mr. Tieger's questioning. Please hear him out and then start
20 answering after you heard his answer [sic], please.
21 Now, can you answer the question, Mr. Mandic?
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I do not remember what I discussed
23 with Stanisic and whether we dealt with these topics, that is to say,
24 problems on the ground in relations between the army and the police or,
25 rather, the commission of crimes at the front-line. I'm explaining this
Page 4579
1 for the purposes of the Court. All crimes that were committed in combat
2 operations, in relation to the war, belonged to the military judiciary.
3 All military conscripts from age 16 to 50 or 60 - I cannot remember the
4 exact provision of the Law on National Defence - fall under military
5 courts when there is an imminent threat of war, and that was declared in
6 mid-April.
7 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, if I move on to the next question, I'm
8 sure it will intrude into the time beyond which the Court indicated
9 earlier.
10 JUDGE KWON: Do you like to tender this document?
11 MR. TIEGER: Yes, Your Honour.
12 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Robinson or Mr. Karadzic?
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No problem.
14 JUDGE KWON: Yes. Although the witness is not aware of the
15 content of this document or the existence of it, it was read out during
16 the course of the Krajisnik trial, and so he confirmed the situation in
17 general. So, as such, it can be admitted as an inseparable and an
18 indispensable part of the associated exhibit. It will be admitted.
19 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P1096, Your Honour.
20 JUDGE KWON: We'll have a break, and we'll resume at --
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We are counting on reciprocity.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I apologise to Mr. Tieger for
23 having interrupted him. Please do accept my apology. I was just making
24 an effort to say what I was thinking, so that my thoughts do not escape,
25 as it were. So I do apologise, once again.
Page 4580
1 JUDGE KWON: We'll resume at 11.00.
2 --- Recess taken at 10.32 a.m.
3 --- On resuming at 11.01 a.m.
4 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Tieger.
5 MR. TIEGER:
6 Q. Mr. Mandic, let's move on to another document shortly after the
7 date of the document we just looked at, which was 17 July 1992, and this
8 document is dated 20 July 1992
9 Mr. Mandic, as you now see on the screen before you, this a
10 document from the Security Services Centre, Banja Luka, to the Serbian
11 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina MUP, for the minister. And although you
12 can't see on this page, it's signed by the head of the centre,
13 Stojan Zupljanin.
14 Looking at the first paragraph, it indicates that:
15 "During the months of April, May, June and July of 1992, in the
16 wider area of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, there were armed
17 conflicts between the forces of the Serbian Republic
18 Herzegovina
19 and the results of those conflicts on a regular basis."
20 And then if we can turn to the second paragraph, it refers to the
21 arrest of a great number of citizens of Muslim and Croat nationality who
22 were, depending on the number and the circumstances in the field, sent to
23 various buildings, like schools, centres, factory facilities, open spaces
24 and so on. The document then goes on to describe categories, and if you
25 look at the bottom of the English on page 3, and I believe that's just at
Page 4581
1 the top of page 2 of the B/C/S, it indicates that:
2 "The third category is composed of adult men, about whom the
3 service does not have any information of security for us so far.
4 Therefore, they can be treated as hostages."
5 Now, Mr. Mandic, you had the opportunity to see this document
6 during the course of your testimony in the Krajisnik case; correct?
7 A. I do not recall this document, Mr. Tieger. I think that I see it
8 for the first time right now.
9 Q. Mr. Mandic, beginning at page 8956 of your testimony, this
10 document was displayed as follows:
11 "Can we turn next to a document dated July 20th, 1992, from the
12 Security Service Centre of Banja Luka and directed to the MUP of Serbian
13 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, for the minister."
14 And your attention was thereafter directed to, initially, the
15 first paragraph, which states:
16 "We have informed you about the progress and the results of those
17 conflicts on a regular basis," and then to the second paragraph,
18 including the reference that I just read to you about the third category:
19 "While the third category is made of adult men, about which the
20 Security Service Centre does not have information of a security interest
21 so that they can be treated as hostages."
22 And, Mr. Mandic, I asked you at that time about a comment you had
23 made earlier in your testimony, which was that -- and now I'm referring
24 to page 8958 of the transcript, that you had said earlier in your
25 Krajisnik testimony that:
Page 4582
1 "The entire government, led by Mr. Djeric, requested that people
2 not be detained, that civilians not be detained or deprived of liberty
3 who had been incorporated into the war?"
4 And you said:
5 "Yes, that's correct."
6 Now, that's with respect to Mr. Djeric's request that civilians
7 not be detained?
8 A. That was the government's position, with Mr. Djeric at the helm,
9 and I confirm that now.
10 Q. And then I asked you:
11 "With respect to this document, Mr. Mandic, and was he referring
12 to the civilians who are -- non-Serb civilians who are indicated in
13 Mr. Zupljanin's letter of July 20th and in the previous report we saw
14 from the Ministry of the Interior on the 17th of July?"
15 And you said:
16 "Yes, I think that's the case, yes."
17 That was your testimony in the Krajisnik case, Mr. Mandic;
18 correct?
19 A. I stand by this. I confirm all my assertions which I made in
20 testifying in the Krajisnik case. Is it necessary for me to repeat that?
21 MR. TIEGER: No. I just wanted to bring this document to the
22 Court's attention and tender the document, Your Honours.
23 JUDGE KWON: Yes. It was tendered originally as an associated
24 exhibit --
25 MR. TIEGER: That's correct.
Page 4583
1 JUDGE KWON: -- and during the course of the Krajisnik trial it
2 was read out, and the witness confirmed it at the time. As such, it
3 forms an indispensable or inseparable document from the transcript we
4 admitted, so, as such, we'll admit it.
5 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P1097, Your Honours.
6 MR. TIEGER:
7 Q. Now, Mr. Mandic, the situation described in both of those
8 documents refer to a period a month or longer after the formation of the
9 working group at the government session on the 15th of June. Do you know
10 what steps, if any, the working group took to resolve the kinds of
11 problems that are described in the two documents we've just looked at;
12 that is, the July 17th, 1992
13 A. Mr. Tieger, this commission, i.e., working group, was formed on
14 the 15th of July, and the reports are from the 17th and the 20th, so they
15 were made after the setting up of the working group. I cannot recall
16 whether they took any steps and, if so, what steps were taken, but
17 obviously these reports were received a couple of days after the group
18 had been set up.
19 Q. Just to clarify, Mr. Mandic, the working group, according to the
20 minutes of the session of the government that we looked at, was set up on
21 the 15th of June, not the 15th of July. Would you like to check the
22 document again?
23 A. No -- yes, I believe you. It is okay. I do not remember that
24 anything had been undertaken or in what scope.
25 Q. Mr. Mandic, can we turn next to 65 ter 00184. That's a session
Page 4584
1 of the government on the 4th of July, 1992. And if I can direct your
2 attention to agenda item number 8, found on page 4 of the English, and I
3 believe you'll find it at the bottom of page 4 in the B/C/S as well.
4 That the provides as follows:
5 "The question has been raised whether there are agreed criteria
6 regarding the moving out of the Muslims population from the territory of
7 the Serb Republic
8 "It has been concluded that the government has not until now had
9 a point of view on this matter. The Ministry of the Interior is
10 entrusted with preparing information on this issue that the government
11 would consider and take the appropriate standpoint."
12 Now, first of all, Mr. Mandic, this was one of the reactions by
13 the government to information of the type that was coming in to the
14 government, and as we've seen in the documents we've just looked at; that
15 is, information about the detention of non-Serb civilians and their
16 treatment; is that correct?
17 A. Mr. Tieger, I, myself, did not attend this government session,
18 and obviously it was held before the 17th and 20th of July reports, so
19 that I'm unable to state an opinion on that issue.
20 Q. Well, Mr. Mandic, I wasn't suggesting that this was a reaction to
21 those reports, specifically, but to the kind of information that was --
22 that existed and the kind of circumstances that prevailed around that
23 time. So by the 10th of June, as you've indicated, the government was
24 aware of the problem, and in the middle of June we've seen two reports
25 indicating that the problem persisted. So I'm asking you now, as I asked
Page 4585
1 you during the course of the Krajisnik case, whether the conclusion made
2 by the government on 4 July 1992
3 government to information of that type.
4 A. I have to repeat that I, myself, was not at that government
5 session, that I'm unable to say anything on the issue.
6 Q. Well, perhaps it's the passage of time, Mr. Mandic. Let me
7 direct your attention to page 8959 and 8960 of your Krajisnik testimony.
8 And on page 8959, you were presented with this document, that is, the
9 minutes of the session of the government conducted on July 4, 1992, and
10 you were asked about agenda item number 8 as follows:
11 "Can I ask you to turn, Mr. Mandic, to agenda item number 8, that
12 is, the last agenda item of the session, and it states as follows ..."
13 And then the provision that we just looked at was read out. And
14 then the question continued:
15 "First of all, Mr. Mandic, was this one of the responses by the
16 government or reactions by the government to information of the type
17 we've just been looking at, reflected in the July 20th, 1992, document,
18 or the July 17th, 1992
19 And your answer was: "Yes, it was."
20 A. I cannot say anything now. Really, I was not at that session. I
21 cannot adopt any stance.
22 Q. Mr. Mandic, with respect to the -- with respect to the criteria
23 for Muslims moving out, what discussions took place about what acceptable
24 criteria were for moving out Muslims?
25 A. I do not know anything about that topic, Mr. Tieger. In fact, I
Page 4586
1 do not know that that topic was discussed at all, as such. What moving
2 out of Muslims are we talking about? I'm unfamiliar with the topic, as
3 such.
4 Q. Mr. Mandic, you testified repeatedly during the course of the
5 Krajisnik case about the detention of non-Serb civilians, their treatment
6 in various detention facilities, the fact that that arose out of either
7 collecting people from war zones or ethnic cleansing, and the
8 government's -- and the government's expressed dissatisfaction with that
9 situation?
10 A. Mr. Tieger, in my testimony in the Krajisnik case, I merely talk
11 about the penal/correctional facility in Butmir at Ilidza, where there
12 was a lower court and a senior court on the premises of which I often
13 was, and that is what I talked about and was familiar with. And I also
14 talk about the positions and the conclusions of the government that I had
15 contributed to. I believe that I have confirmed this in my past
16 testimony, including that of today.
17 On the other hand, I certainly do not know what happened in the
18 autonomous province of Krajina, nor was I familiar with any element of
19 the detention or, as you put it, moving out of Muslims. I really do not
20 know anything about that.
21 Q. Mr. Mandic, you suggested that the Ministry of Justice was not
22 consulted in connection with the criteria for moving out of Muslims. Can
23 you tell us why the Ministry of the Interior was tasked with
24 responsibility in connection with the creation of appropriate criteria
25 for moving Muslims out?
Page 4587
1 A. I cannot give you an answer to that question. I don't know
2 anything about it.
3 MR. TIEGER: Let me turn next, then, to another July -- and I
4 tender that document, Your Honour.
5 JUDGE KWON: Again, given his answer in transcript page 8959 in
6 the Krajisnik trial, I'm of the opinion that it also forms -- it forms an
7 inseparable and indispensable part of that transcript. So, as such,
8 we'll admit it.
9 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P1098, Your Honours.
10 MR. TIEGER: Excuse me just a moment, Your Honour.
11 [Prosecution counsel confer]
12 MR. TIEGER: Sorry. Mr. President, I think a transcription
13 problem with the numbers, but I think we'd like to turn next to 65 ter
14 40077.
15 Q. Mr. Mandic, what I'm going to turn your attention to, as soon as
16 it comes up on the screen, is a transcript of a television interview with
17 Mrs. Plavsic in July of 1992.
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Excuse me. Could we see the date
19 of this document?
20 MR. TIEGER: There's no date on the document, Your Honour. It
21 was contextually dated in the Krajisnik case, and that's the -- it
22 continues to be the basis for the date of the document, which is why I
23 indicated by month rather than specific date.
24 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Mr. Tieger.
25 MR. TIEGER:
Page 4588
1 Q. Mr. Mandic, as you can see here, and I'll give you an opportunity
2 to cast an eye on that document, although I believe you had an
3 opportunity to see that during the course of your Krajisnik testimony as
4 well, Mrs. Plavsic is directing her attention to allegations about
5 concentration camps, maintained by Bosnian Serb authorities, holding
6 non-Serbs. And in the course of her interview, she's providing
7 information about facilities that she indicates she was informed exist.
8 And if you see in the middle of the first page in English, and that's
9 also approximately the same place you'll find it in the B/C/S version,
10 you'll see that she asked the official organs of the MUP of the Serbian
11 Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to comment on the list that was
12 provided from Muslim authorities via UNPROFOR.
13 And then if I can turn your attention to the bottom of
14 page English -- the page 1 in English and in the middle of the first
15 paragraph on page 2 in B/C/S, Mrs. Plavsic indicates as follows:
16 "Here in Prijedor, there are actually 3.000 prisoners, and the
17 location is Omarska. And those in detention are people who were
18 sentenced by a judge, in accordance with the law and by regular
19 procedure, to detention for a certain period of time."
20 And then she goes on to talk about how those persons are
21 categorised into -- and divided into three categories.
22 Mr. Mandic, with respect to Mrs. Plavsic's assertion that the
23 prisoners or detainees in the Omarska Camp were persons who were
24 sentenced by a judge, in accordance with the law and by regular
25 procedure, was that possible or impossible at that time?
Page 4589
1 A. First of all, I should like to inform you that Biljana Plavsic
2 was in charge of resolving the problems of detained non-Serbs on behalf
3 of the Presidency of the Republika Srpska. One of her basic tasks was
4 actually in that domain.
5 Secondly, as far as I know, Omarska was a military prison, to the
6 best of my knowledge.
7 Q. So I'll ask you again. Mr. Mandic, is it possible or impossible
8 that the judiciary could have brought that number of people to Omarska
9 through its procedures?
10 A. Omarska was a military prison, and if anyone was sent there, they
11 were sent there by the military judiciary. It seems impossible to me
12 that under the circumstances which obtained, such a large number of
13 people were convicted and sent there. Actually, I have no comment on
14 this. That will have to be seen with Mrs. Plavsic.
15 As regards the civilian judiciary, it was in the offing, it was
16 nascent in July.
17 Q. Well, a couple of things, first of all, Mr. Mandic. First of
18 all, if you look at the document, Mrs. Plavsic asserts that these were
19 not concentration camps, and again I'm looking at page 1 of the English
20 and, again, page 1 of the B/C/S, approximately the middle of the
21 paragraph:
22 "These were not concentration camps at all, but regular prisons,
23 and it is completely normal that prisons exist in peacetime, but
24 especially in wartime."
25 And then she goes on to provide information that she says she
Page 4590
1 received from the MUP, not from the military authorities.
2 So I'm interested, first of all, Mr. Mandic, in how you know that
3 Omarska was a military prison. When were you advised of that?
4 A. I cannot recall. Probably after the war or perhaps during these
5 events. I cannot remember when I learned. But I did hear that Omarska
6 was a military prison.
7 Q. So when Mrs. Plavsic refers to it as a regular prison in which
8 there are judicial procedures, she was wrong; is that correct?
9 A. I have nothing to say there. Of course she wasn't right. In
10 Omarska, I don't think there's even a municipality. I don't even know
11 what this place looks like, whether there's a court or prison or
12 whatever. In the area of Omarska, a correctional facility was never
13 established, even after I was minister. Obviously, Mrs. Plavsic is not
14 really very well versed in the judiciary. You know, she got a doctorate
15 in the field of snails. You know what snails are. She's a doctor of
16 biology. She has no idea whatsoever about any of this.
17 Q. She wasn't speaking as an expert in the field of snails, however,
18 Mr. Mandic, was she? She was speaking as a member of the Presidency of
19 the Serbian Republic
20 A. Well, how can she say that in such a short period of time, 8.000
21 persons can be prosecuted, tried, and sentenced? That is impossible. No
22 one can say that, regardless of professional background. Obviously, she
23 was saying it, I don't know, on the basis of propaganda or for the
24 purposes of saying that to the public. It was the Muslim side that was
25 accusing the Serb side, and then she was sort of wondering what that was
Page 4591
1 all about and trying to give a professional explanation with regard to
2 that, and we see how professional she is. I mean, you are an eminent
3 lawyer, Mr. Tieger. You know how many trial chambers, prosecutors,
4 judges, et cetera, you need in order to try 8.000 persons. I cannot say
5 that this is sheer foolishness, but it's something along those lines. I
6 really have no comment.
7 MR. TIEGER: And, Your Honour, again I tender that document.
8 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. President. I think we're going to be
9 objecting to this one.
10 Under your guide-lines, you've indicated when the parties are
11 confronting a witness with the statement of another witness, then unless
12 the witness adopts the content, it has to be introduced through, as
13 you've termed, Witness A, the person who made the statement. And we feel
14 this is an instance in which it is not admissible and it should be
15 tendered through Mrs. Plavsic, who's also on the Prosecution's witness
16 list. Thank you.
17 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour --
18 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Tieger, what did he say when asked about this
19 during the course of the Krajisnik trial?
20 MR. TIEGER: Mr. Mandic indicated that it was impossible that the
21 judiciary could have brought such a large number of people to Omarska
22 through its procedures.
23 If I may also add, this is not a statement in the sense that was
24 raised with respect to the guide-lines. It's not a statement prepared
25 for the course of this litigation. It's a contemporaneous statement by a
Page 4592
1 member of the Presidency of Republika Srpska.
2 JUDGE KWON: Could you give us the page number in the Krajisnik
3 trial transcript, Mr. Mandic's answer?
4 MR. TIEGER: 9129, Your Honour.
5 JUDGE KWON: 9121?
6 MR. TIEGER: 9129. And -- sorry, Your Honour, and it was
7 admitted as an exhibit during the course of Mr. Mandic's testimony.
8 JUDGE KWON: Yes, I know it is a part of the documents tendered
9 as associated exhibits in relation to this transcript.
10 [Trial Chamber confers]
11 JUDGE KWON: Separate from the issue of how much weight should be
12 given to this document, it forms an inseparable and indispensable part of
13 Mr. Mandic's previous transcript. It will be admitted.
14 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P1099, Your Honours.
15 MR. TIEGER:
16 Q. Now, Mr. Mandic, with respect to Omarska, were you aware that the
17 Omarska Camp was the focus of international attention after the
18 international media gained access to the camp on approximately the 5th of
19 August, 1992? First of all, do you recall the international outcry that
20 resulted from the newspaper accounts and videos that emerged from that
21 visit?
22 A. I do not remember, Mr. Tieger.
23 Q. And does that mean that, in addition, at no time do you recall
24 Omarska, in particular, being the focus of either attention by the
25 international community or concern by the Bosnian Serb authorities about
Page 4593
1 the international awareness of Omarska's existence and conditions?
2 A. I do not recall, Mr. Tieger.
3 Q. Well, in any event, let me turn your attention, then, next to
4 65 ter 18413.
5 Now, this document, 65 ter 18413, is a letter or some similar
6 document dated 8 August 1992
7 Herzegovina
8 prime minister. And I'll take you through the document, but I'll
9 indicate that it's signed by the deputy minister for police affairs and
10 tasks, Tomo Kovac.
11 Now, Mr. Mandic, I've indicated earlier that the Omarska Camp and
12 other facilities were the subject of international attention commencing
13 August 5th. I understand that you have no recollection of that. But
14 this document is dated 8 August, and if we look at the first paragraph,
15 Mr. Kovac states in his document to the president and the prime minister
16 as follows:
17 "With the aim to resolve problems arising from the detention of
18 other peoples - nations in certain facilities and collection centres in
19 the zones of war activities, apart from the measures already taken by the
20 government and its authorised ministries, I propose the following: that
21 the status of these people be legally changed in compliance with
22 international conventions on refugees, prisoners of war, et cetera."
23 And continuing on to the second paragraph, Mr. Kovac refers to
24 cases where MUP members accept or, in some cases, even take part in
25 capturing people in the war zones. And after that, arrange accommodation
Page 4594
1 and a way of life, and determine the duration of their attention and
2 their entire destiny.
3 And, finally, in that first page he refers to a much more
4 important problem in the field is that people are not properly
5 categorised in the facilities or collection centres:
6 "We mean civilians and that category of prisoners of war who have
7 committed criminal acts."
8 And it goes on to discuss how those categories are to be treated.
9 And, finally, I want to turn your attention to a couple of
10 passages on the second page of the English, and that's exactly where
11 you'll find them in the B/C/S as well. Mr. Kovac wrote to the president,
12 the prime minister:
13 "The civilian population, regardless of whether they belong to an
14 ethnic group, extremist members of which are at war with the Serb
15 Republic of BiH
16 control of the Serb MUP."
17 And he goes on to discuss what sorts of conditions of life they
18 should be provided, and then in the second-to-last paragraph states:
19 "I am putting forward this problem in this manner because the
20 international institutions will not recognise any other attitude towards
21 members of other ethnic groups, regardless of the current situation our
22 people are in, under the government of Muslim or Croat authorities."
23 Now, Mr. Mandic, your attention was directed to this document
24 during the course of the Krajisnik case; correct?
25 A. Yes, Mr. Tieger.
Page 4595
1 Q. And you did not dispute the circumstances that Mr. Kovac referred
2 to, but you did dispute the sincerity of his letter in expressing concern
3 about that; is that also correct?
4 A. Mr. Tieger, I did not challenge or dispute or confirm what
5 Mr. Kovac was saying. He was in charge of the uniformed police as
6 assistant minister. What he wrote here on the 8th of August, as we've
7 seen so far during my testimony, the government passed such conclusions
8 several times. I think that this is an insincere letter written by
9 Mr. Tomo Kovac. I cannot understand what it was that he wanted. I've
10 already said this in the Krajisnik trial. He could not address the
11 president of Republika Srpska and the prime minister directly. He had
12 his own minister, his own deputy minister. He was supposed to resolve
13 these problems within his own ministry. Now, why he did all this? This
14 was mere repetition of these problems, and there were positions taken by
15 his minister, too, so I don't know. I think this is simply insincere
16 behaviour on his part. At that point in time, I do not know. I cannot
17 use the term I would like to use, out of respect for the Judges and
18 everyone else present here.
19 Q. And, Mr. Mandic, in addition to the fact that this was directed
20 to the president and prime minister directly, rather than via his own
21 minister, it's also correct that you challenge the sincerity of this
22 letter because this was the kind of information that the government had
23 for a long time, and Mr. Kovac's belated expressions of concern appeared
24 to you to be hypocritical; is that right?
25 A. Mr. Tieger, so far we have seen that the government on several
Page 4596
1 occasions established a commission and expressed its concern over the
2 information that was relayed by Mr. Djeric at government sessions.
3 Certain measures were taken and commissions were established. Now, why
4 does an assistant minister address the president of the republic and the
5 prime minister directly in this way in relation to something that is
6 already well known, in relation to which measures were already taken?
7 And these local prisons, these illegal local prisons, were already being
8 closed down. I think that during July and August, they had already been
9 shut down on the basis of the order of the president of the republic, so
10 I really cannot comment on this.
11 Q. Well, Mr. Mandic, Mr. Kovac's letter was written on August 8th,
12 immediately on the heels of the entry of the international media into the
13 Omarska Camp. It wasn't shut down at that point. It wasn't shut down in
14 July, was it?
15 A. Mr. Tieger, I really don't know anything about Omarska. As far
16 as I know, it was a military prison. When it was established, when it
17 was closed down, I simply do not know. I do know, though, that in July
18 and August, the government and the Presidency took a series of measures
19 to shut down similar local prisons and military prisons that were not in
20 the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and respect for human rights.
21 You see, from April/May up until -- when the war broke out, until
22 the 8th of July, it was only three months that had elapsed. You will see
23 that many things -- many measures were taken by the Presidency, by the
24 government, in order to prevent unlawful behaviour on the part of local
25 staffs, paramilitaries, et cetera, and to regulate that area, in a way,
Page 4597
1 because it had not been regulated up until the beginning of the war.
2 Actually, war, itself, had not been envisaged or the detention of
3 non-Serbs in the territory.
4 Q. Well, Mr. Mandic, in your answer you appeared to conflate the
5 period July and August. So do I take it, by your earlier answer, that
6 you are not aware that measures -- that any measures taken after the
7 beginning of August were taken after an international outcry about the
8 existence of detention facilities in which non-Serb civilians were held?
9 A. I know, Mr. Tieger, that Lord Paddy Ashdown, together with
10 Dr. Karadzic, in the beginning of August visited the Butmir correctional
11 facility in Sarajevo
12 other visits, and the outcry you are referring to, I know nothing about
13 that, or, rather, I know very little. I was just informed to the extent
14 to which Mr. Djeric spoke of these problems at government sessions. I
15 believe that other institutions, military or any other, discussed
16 military prisons and places where non-Serbs were kept by the military.
17 Q. Mr. Mandic, I want to -- we've discussed the Exchange Commission
18 and the process of exchange to some extent. I'd like to turn now to some
19 contemporary conversations that took place in the summer of 1992 and look
20 at the extent to which they reflect the existence of the exchange
21 process.
22 Could we turn first to 65 ter 30847.
23 JUDGE KWON: Are you tendering that letter, Mr. --
24 MR. TIEGER: Yes, Your Honour, thank you.
25 JUDGE KWON: On the same basis, i.e., as an associated exhibit,
Page 4598
1 we'll admit this.
2 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P1100, Your Honours.
3 MR. TIEGER:
4 Q. Mr. Mandic, I don't know if you still have the binder of
5 intercepts with you, but in this case I'm going to ask you to turn to the
6 transcript of that particular conversation, because this is an intercept
7 you've already listened to and authenticated during the course of your
8 Krajisnik testimony. It's found at tab 18 of your binder, Mr. Mandic,
9 and is a conversation between you and Mr. Krajisnik on the 26th of June,
10 1992. So I'll give you a moment to take a look at that and
11 re-familiarise yourself with it.
12 A. I remember this text.
13 Q. And, Mr. Mandic, the first page indicates the commencement of the
14 conversation and some greetings exchanged. Turning to page 2 of the
15 English, and I believe that's page 3 of the B/C/S, the numbers at the top
16 of the page would be 0322-0983, Mr. Krajisnik asks, the passage that
17 begins:
18 "Yes, that has -- that is. Has he made it down there or not?
19 It's all over now. Secondly, have you released the one I've told you
20 about, by any chance?"
21 "A. Yes, I have."
22 That's your answer.
23 Mr. Krajisnik: "Yes?
24 You, Mr. Mandic: "He left for Vrbanja one hour ago."
25 Mr. Krajisnik: "Thanks God."
Page 4599
1 You say: "Karamehmedovic; right?"
2 Mr. Krajisnik: "Yes, that's him."
3 You say: "Well, he is gone."
4 And we'll continue in a moment, but that's a reference to a
5 Muslim who is released?
6 A. Mr. Krajisnik asked me to find down there in Sarajevo, either in
7 Butmir or in Lukavica, in one of the correctional facilities, a friend of
8 his who was at that moment detained in Serb territory. In Lukavica, I
9 found the man. I asked the military commander to release him, and I saw
10 him off. Of course, I explained that this was a personal friend of the
11 president of the Assembly. And I saw the man off to Vrbanja Most, where
12 there was a line between Muslim and Serb-held territories, because I was
13 there very often and I was there in the premises of the District Court in
14 the Serb part of Sarajevo
15 Q. And during the course of the Krajisnik case, Mr. Menja [phoen]
16 asked you if Karamehmedovic was somebody who had taken up arms against
17 the Serbs or was suspected of being involved in criminal activity and, in
18 general, why he was detained. And I believe you indicated you didn't
19 know; you simply did what Mr. Krajisnik asked you.
20 A. Exactly. I think that it was from the military authorities, from
21 the commander of the corps down there, that I asked that the man be
22 released. Now, how come this had happened in the first place, I don't
23 know.
24 Q. Now, if we continue with this conversation, Mr. Krajisnik then
25 asks you:
Page 4600
1 "Let me also ask you what about this Savic, Milos, since it's his
2 brother that is really ..."
3 And then you say:
4 "President, I put it on the list, the first next exchange and it
5 will be finished."
6 Now, Mr. Savic, this is a Serb who was detained by the Muslim
7 authorities; is that right?
8 A. The president of the Assembly, Mr. Krajisnik, informed me, as far
9 as I can remember, that the brother of his secretary or the head of his
10 office, Milos Savic, was arrested with his entire family in the Muslim
11 part of Sarajevo
12 District Court that was on the premises of the former correctional
13 facility of Butmir, I insisted that the commission, the people who were
14 working on exchanges, that they put on their list that entire family or
15 another family, because he was very worried about his brother and his
16 sister-in-law and two children, I think. That's what Mr. Krajisnik
17 insisted upon. And I asked these people who worked down there -- I think
18 it was some Eles [phoen] on behalf of the military and Vanovac [phoen] on
19 behalf of Ilidza municipality. I can't remember now, but I know there
20 was this inter-ethnic commission that made up these lists and that
21 exchanges were carried out of persons who had been detained. I think
22 that this Savic was exchanged for someone else who was held prisoner, and
23 then he came to Serb-held territory. That was at the time when we were
24 looking for a new president of the Central Commission for the Exchange of
25 Prisoners of War.
Page 4601
1 Q. And then, Mr. Mandic, as the conversation continues, there's a
2 more general discussion about exchange. So after you say, at the bottom
3 of page 2 of the English, and then continuing on into page 3 of the
4 English, and it's page 3 of the B/C/S as well, after you say:
5 "President, I put it on the list, the first next exchange and it
6 will be finished."
7 Mr. Krajisnik says:
8 "Check it down there. Do you have anyone there? Can you contact
9 someone?"
10 I'll let the siren stop. This is the --
11 JUDGE KWON: First Monday.
12 MR. TIEGER: -- first-Monday-of-the-month siren.
13 I think we can proceed.
14 Q. And then, Mr. Mandic, you say:
15 "There is this Vukovic, a member of the youth organisation, a
16 Serb who is criticising us because we er ... have 400 prisoners here, you
17 know?"
18 Mr. Krajisnik says: "Who is criticising?"
19 And you say: "I've got 400."
20 And Mr. Krajisnik says: "And who is criticising?"
21 Mr. Mandic: "This Vukovic, Filip, the member of this youth
22 organisation, Serb. He says - clean it, but er ... for them they
23 are ..."
24 Mr. Krajisnik: "Filip Vukovic?"
25 Mr. Mandic: "Yes."
Page 4602
1 Mr. Krajisnik: "Communist?"
2 Mr. Mandic: "Yes, yes."
3 Mr. Krajisnik: "What does he want?"
4 Mr. Mandic: "He is the president of that Exchange Commission."
5 Mr. Krajisnik: "Their commission?"
6 And then you, Mr. Mandic: "Yes."
7 And Mr. Krajisnik says: "And what is it that he wants?"
8 And you say:
9 "War prisoners, no, they are ex for them. They are hardly
10 interested in people, they are interested in ammunition and meat, and now
11 we let those women and children go to Vrbanja, to go to their own people,
12 he says that's ethnic cleansing what we do ..."
13 Mr. Krajisnik: "He does."
14 Mr. Mandic: "... here ... when ... I will fucking ..."
15 Mr. Krajisnik: "And where is he now?"
16 Mr. Mandic: "Somewhere there, I do not know."
17 Mr. Krajisnik: "With them, isn't he?"
18 Mr. Mandic: "Yes:
19 Mr. Krajisnik: "That means he is theirs?"
20 Mr. Mandic: "Yes, yes, yes."
21 Mr. Krajisnik: "God, traitors are all around."
22 And then you continue. You say: "Yes, yes."
23 Mr. Krajisnik says: "Good, Momo, look, please do call him. I
24 would like to help Savic, it's his brother in stake ..."
25 And you say: "Fist exchange, I will take care of that."
Page 4603
1 And, Mr. Mandic, this portion of the conversation is a reflection
2 of the awareness of Mr. Krajisnik, and yourself, and the Bosnian Serb
3 leadership generally, of the Exchange Commission and its work; correct?
4 A. Mr. Krajisnik did not know anything about the work of the
5 Exchange Commission. It is obvious from this conversation that he
6 doesn't know who Filip Vukovic was and what he did, whether the man
7 remained in federal Sarajevo
8 was actually the head of the Commission of the Federation of B and H, of
9 the Muslim side. So Momo Krajisnik, the president of the Assembly, was
10 not at all familiar with the work of any of the commissions for the
11 exchange of war prisoners.
12 I was in Sarajevo
13 instructions of the government, to find a new president to appoint as
14 president of the Central Commission for the Exchange of Prisoners of War
15 because Rajko Colovic has resigned and went to Vlasenica to be the
16 president of either the regular court or to Han Pijesak as a judge of the
17 Military Court
18 Q. It wasn't necessary for to you explain to Mr. Krajisnik what the
19 Exchange Commission was, was it?
20 A. Momo Krajisnik didn't know anything about the work of the
21 commission, to the best of my knowledge and in my opinion. He did not
22 know at all what the role of this Filip Vukovic was or where this person
23 was, and that person was the president of the Commission for the Exchange
24 of POWs. It is obvious from this text that he didn't know anything, but
25 I did. I knew because the government had authorised me to find a future
Page 4604
1 president of the commission following the resignation of Colovic. This
2 was a governmental body. It answered to the government. And,
3 Mr. Tieger, its task was to co-ordinate the work of all the local
4 commissions, the municipal and the regional ones, and to centralise their
5 work, their lists, the exchange process, to liaise with UNPROFOR and the
6 international community, as such, as well as with the federation. When I
7 refer to the federation, I mean the Muslim side. Those days, that is
8 what I did. I did my best to finish that specific job, in addition to my
9 regular duties.
10 Q. Let's turn next to another conversation about exchange. This one
11 is 65 ter 30849.
12 JUDGE KWON: The previous intercept --
13 MR. TIEGER: Yes, Your Honour, please.
14 JUDGE KWON: -- to be admitted. Yes.
15 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit 1101, Your Honours.
16 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
17 MR. TIEGER:
18 Q. This is dated July 1, 1992
19 binder, Mr. Mandic. It's a transcript of a --
20 A. The 18th, I believe.
21 Q. And this is another conversation which you had an opportunity to
22 hear earlier and authenticate, so I'm showing you the transcript rather
23 than replaying the entirety of the intercept.
24 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Mandic, did you find the portion?
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour, yes.
Page 4605
1 MR. TIEGER:
2 Q. And, Mr. Mandic, if you recall that conversation. Generally,
3 I'll direct your attention to particular portion of it, but I don't want
4 to rush you in looking at the transcript.
5 A. Yes, I do recall this conversation, Mr. Tieger. Please go ahead.
6 Q. Thank you. If we can turn to the second page in English, and I
7 believe that's the second page in B/C/S as well.
8 There is an exchange of greetings towards the top of the page.
9 Mr. Karadzic asks you: "What's up, Momo?"
10 You say: "Well, not much. I've just been to a government
11 session, and I'm here now."
12 And, in fact, Mr. Mandic, you recall that there was a government
13 session on the 1st of July, 1992, that you did attend?
14 A. I do not remember that. It was really a long, long time ago.
15 Q. I think the official minutes of that session will confirm that,
16 but we'll move on.
17 And then you say -- after Mr. Karadzic has asked you what's up,
18 you say:
19 "We're working on an exchange now. We're evacuating some Serbs
20 from Hrasnica and Sokolovic Kolonija."
21 And Mr. Karadzic says: "Oh, that's very important."
22 And you say: "Yes."
23 Mr. Karadzic: "We'll immediately," and then in slashes
24 "mobilise," un-slash, "those fit for combat and the rest of them ..."
25 And you say: "Yes, yes, we're evacuating them."
Page 4606
1 Mr. Karadzic: "How many will there be?"
2 Mr. Mandic: "Well, I don't really know. We have many on the
3 list. There are 300 people from Hadzici, Muslims, who have been kept
4 here for seven days. No one's inquired about them, no one seems to care.
5 I don't know what do."
6 Mr. Karadzic: "Why don't ..."
7 Mr. Mandic: "No one's interested in them, these Muslims ..."
8 Mr. Karadzic: "Yeah."
9 Mr. Mandic: "So we'll try to exchange them for these, umm ...
10 people from Hrasnica and ..."
11 And then I'll go on to the remainder in just a moment --
12 remainder of that particular passage in just a moment.
13 So is it correct, Mr. Mandic, that this conversation reflects
14 Mr. Karadzic's awareness of the exchange process and the availability of
15 the exchange process?
16 A. To the best of my recollection, Mr. Tieger, Mr. Karadzic called
17 me at the time on account of a friend of his, a certain Tomic, to check
18 whether we had managed to return him to Sarajevo. Namely, sometime
19 before that Mr. Karadzic called me and asked me to find -- whether in the
20 military prison or in the prison which was then administered by the
21 police, to find this person whose name I believe was Tomic. He was a
22 Croat by ethnicity. I tried, through the police and through the army, to
23 find the whereabouts of this person, and through these various persons
24 who dealt with POWs I did not manage to find him. And I was informing
25 Mr. Karadzic of that and [indiscernible] of the problems which had been
Page 4607
1 relayed to me by members of the Exchange Commission. I liaised with the
2 civilian president of the Exchange Commission and the staff in charge of
3 Ilidza and Mr. Ellis. They had informed me, inter alia, that somebody
4 had come from Hadzici or perhaps the army had brought them there, these
5 people, and these people wanted to go via Vrbanja to federal Sarajevo
6 but the Muslim side would not admit them because they had no
7 accommodation, no food for them, and they didn't want them there.
8 So that was the problem, the exchange problem that these people
9 who worked on the exchange process had informed me about, and I was
10 informing in this conversation Dr. Karadzic about it. I was also
11 informing him about whole families of Serbs detained by the Muslim forces
12 in a school in Hrasnica. And they proposed to me, if they didn't want to
13 admit these people from Hadzici, to admit them to Sarajevo, that they be
14 exchanged for these Serbs from Hrasnica. And this is what I was
15 informing Mr. Karadzic about, and I was telling him what I knew
16 specifically about these problems.
17 Q. And what was it that Tomic had done to find himself in detention
18 and subject to exchange?
19 A. I really don't know. I never found this person, I never
20 established contact with him, nor do I have any idea what he might have
21 done. I looked for him in the military prison and in this other prison,
22 but I was unable to find him. I never found the man. To my knowledge,
23 he had been released. Whether he lived on Dobrinja because of the war
24 operations or what, I really don't know.
25 Q. Now, carrying on with the conversation, there is a discussion
Page 4608
1 about Tomic, and you say:
2 "President, he's definitely not there. All Croats are gone.
3 There are no more Croats in Kula."
4 And then you go on shortly thereafter to say:
5 "President, all Croats have been exchanged. Here, let me check
6 again. I'll call you back in five minutes."
7 So at that time, there was an awareness of who was detained by
8 ethnicity, so that you were in a position to say that all Croats had been
9 exchanged?
10 A. No. I asked the representatives of the police and the army to
11 find whether they had a person by the surname of Tomic. I didn't know
12 his name. President Karadzic had told me that this was a Croat and a
13 friend of his. So I asked these people again, these people who had these
14 exchange lists. On the list, there was no Tomic, so that means that he
15 just wasn't there. So I inquired, through the police and the army and
16 members of the Exchange Commission, I inquired about this person, and I
17 never found him. And I did that because I was assigned this task by the
18 president of the republic; namely, to find this friend of his.
19 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, I tender this document.
20 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
21 THE REGISTRAR: That will be Exhibit P1102.
22 MR. TIEGER:
23 Q. Mr. Mandic, I'd like to take a look at what was happening at the
24 time, as reflected in other contemporaneous conversations. And perhaps
25 we can take that chronologically, and we'll look at approximately three
Page 4609
1 conversations. The first is from the 5th of May, 1992. That's found at
2 tab 22 in your binder, and it's 65 ter 30734.
3 Now, again, Mr. Mandic, this is a conversation you had an
4 opportunity to hear and authenticate before. It's relatively long, so I
5 don't want to play it in its entirety again and then refer you back to
6 particular passages. So perhaps you can take a moment to re-familiarise
7 yourself with it, and I'll direct your attention to particular portions.
8 A. I'm familiar with this conversation, Mr. Tieger. You can ask me
9 your questions.
10 Q. Thank you. So this is a conversation between you and
11 Mr. Branko Kvesic and Mr. Bruno Stojic. And they were both former
12 members of the joint MUP?
13 A. That is correct.
14 Q. The first portion I want to direct your attention to is found on
15 page 4 of the English and the page marked "0109" in B/C/S, which is the
16 fourth page or fifth page, I believe. I think you'll see the numbers at
17 the top of that page, "0322-0109." And there it appears that you and
18 Mr. Kvesic are talking about positions in Sarajevo.
19 Mr. Kvesic asks: "So are right there in Pale, are you?"
20 And you say: "Well, we are not. We came down to the city."
21 And Mr. Kvesic says: "Yes, yes."
22 You say: "We came down and cleaned Grbavica ..."
23 Kvesic says: "Is that so?"
24 And you say: "There, we hold Ilidza, Dobrinja and Nedzarici, all
25 the way to student campus and so on."
Page 4610
1 And is that -- Mr. Mandic, is that generally a description of at
2 least some of the positions held by the Bosnian Serbs at the beginning of
3 May 1992?
4 A. As you can see, Mr. Tieger, I told Kvesic and Bruno Stojic -- we
5 knew that Mr. Munir Alibabic was having this conversation recorded, it
6 was being intercepted, so we mocked him in a specific Bosnian or, shall I
7 say, Serbian way. We were trying to, yeah, joke about the advancing of
8 the 182nd and the 3rd Armies. This was more like a jocular conversation
9 of former associates, some of whom had gone to be with their people, the
10 Croats, and others with their people, the Serbs. And I did everything on
11 purpose. I exaggerated everything on purpose. I was ridiculing
12 Munir Alibabic and his staff, who were listening in on our conversation
13 and making these reports, because a couple of days before that they had
14 aired some of our conversations on television and had spoken in very bad
15 terms about some of my associates. So I believe that this was a flippant
16 conversation on our part. It wasn't something reflecting the actual
17 situation in the battle-field or something which was consistent with our
18 actual mood at the time. This is what it was about.
19 Q. All right. I understand, Mr. Mandic, that your -- your assertion
20 that you're attempting to tweak Mr. Alibabic. So when you refer to
21 holding Ilidza, Dobrinja and Nedzarici, all the way to the student
22 campus, is that generally accurate and is there, therefore, an attempt to
23 rub his nose in that, or is that not accurate?
24 A. Mr. Tieger, we knew that Mr. Munir Alibabic was having the
25 conversation recorded. I knew it, and I told Branko so. At that moment,
Page 4611
1 we were -- I mean, myself and Munir Alibabic were at opposite sides, on
2 opposite sides, because all these intercepts that you have are by
3 Munir Alibabic, who made them a year before the war, and during 1992 he
4 was actually obsessed with me and recorded all my conversations and then
5 combined them also. Why? Because in 1991, we had had a falling-out, a
6 conflict, because he, as the chief of the Sarajevo State Security Centre,
7 had started to record -- intercept everything that was Serbian in the
8 police, in the political circles, and he would take those intercepts to
9 the Party of Democratic Action, the president of which he was, who was
10 president. He had locked up in the 1980s -- sorry, in the 1980s, and
11 also convicted to eight years of prison. Now what he was doing, he was
12 seeking to ingratiate himself, to curry favour with those very same
13 persons and that very same person.
14 You know, Mr. Tieger, how well he co-operated with you. He
15 brought you just the recordings of one side, not of the other side, and
16 he didn't bring you the recordings of the other side's conversations
17 because he spoke in very foul language about me, my family, et cetera.
18 At the end, at the proposal of your former boss, Mr. Tieger,
19 Madam Carla Del Ponte, Munir Alibabic was prohibited to work in
20 Bosnia-Herzegovina in the police, in police organs, until the end of his
21 life. That kind of a person -- that kind of a man, who was my personal
22 enemy or opponent or rival, a person who built his career on this kind of
23 exercise, was the person I was up against, and in this way I was trying,
24 actually, to mock his behaviour and to rub his nose in it, to tweak him,
25 as you say.
Page 4612
1 Q. Well, let's look at some of the subjects that you chose to use to
2 rub his nose in it.
3 If we could turn to page 5 of the English, and that would be
4 page 0110, at least as marked at the top of the page, in B/C/S. And
5 there, Mr. Kvesic asks:
6 "Yeah, what else is going on?"
7 And you say:
8 "Well, we're holding Turks under siege. We'll starve them a bit,
9 you know."
10 Kvesic: "Are you?"
11 And then you say:
12 "And then we'll give them everything from the Eternal Flame to
13 Vratnik, everything up there."
14 And then both you and Mr. Kvesic laugh.
15 Mr. Mandic, the reference to holding the Turks under siege and
16 starving them a bit is a reference to the encirclement of Sarajevo by the
17 Bosnian Serb military authorities; correct?
18 A. No. At the moment, I wasn't referring to that. I was not aware
19 of that. I explained a bit ago I was trying to actually mock this person
20 who was recording us and then would rush that recording to
21 Mr. Izetbegovic.
22 Q. So maybe I didn't understand you perfectly, Mr. Mandic. Does
23 that -- you said you weren't aware of that. Does that mean that you just
24 made up the concept of holding Turks under siege out of old cloth and had
25 no previous awareness of it?
Page 4613
1 A. No, no, no. I was aware, I had an idea, but the Muslim public
2 insisted on it, on the encirclement of Sarajevo, on everything else, and
3 they insisted that the Serbs had fled to the woods up there; that these
4 were forest people, wood people, as they called them. So we chose
5 another way to mock them. We said that they were the army of the
6 federation that had reached the Eternal Flame, the Eternal Flame being
7 the center of Sarajevo
8 You are too serious a man, Mr. Tieger, to understand the kind of
9 haggling in the Sarajevo
10 to those people there, irrespective of their ethnicity, whether Serbs,
11 Croats, or Muslims.
12 Prior to the war, there was a show -- there was a programme,
13 The Theatre of the No-Smoking Group, which divided Sarajevo
14 morning, they would smuggle goods; in the evening, they would fight.
15 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, we'll be continuing with this, but I
16 know we're already slightly past the time and I don't want to impose on
17 the Court.
18 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Mr. Tieger.
19 We'll have a break for an hour, resuming at 1.30.
20 --- Recess taken at 12.32 p.m.
21 --- On resuming at 1.32 p.m.
22 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Tieger.
23 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Mr. President.
24 Q. Mr. Mandic, before we adjourned, we were looking at some of the
25 passages from the 5 May 1992
Page 4614
1 Mr. Stojic. I just want to turn your attention to two or three more of
2 those portions.
3 If I could ask you to turn to page 7 of the English and to the
4 page that is marked "0322-0112" in the B/C/S. And those portions are
5 also depicted on screen at the moment.
6 At this point, Mr. Stojic comes into the conversation, and the
7 conversation begins:
8 "Where have you been, my Serb brother?"
9 You say:
10 "Where have you been, my free Croat brother?"
11 There's laughter.
12 Then Mr. Stojic says:
13 "What is this that you are doing, you mother-fucker?"
14 And you say:
15 "We want to build a new and nice Sarajevo."
16 And Mr. Stojic says: "New and nice Sarajevo?"
17 And you say:
18 "Yes. We don't like this old synagogues and mosques. We have to
19 change architecture and everything."
20 Now, Mr. Mandic, I know you've explained that, in part, you were
21 attempting to tweak or rub Mr. Alibabic's nose in this, but this
22 reference to changing the architecture and building a new and nice
23 Sarajevo
24 correct?
25 A. No. That was the 5th of May. That was a conflict between the
Page 4615
1 Serb and Muslim police at Vrace. There was no shelling of Sarajevo
2 Q. And what was the reference to changing the architecture of
3 synagogues and mosques about, then?
4 A. I think that there's only one synagogue in Sarajevo. It was a
5 joke, Mr. Tieger. I don't know if you can appreciate that, as a serious
6 lawyer, that kind of joking in the Sarajevo
7 of May, there was no bombardment of Sarajevo. There was only a clash
8 between the Serb special police and the reserve police force at Vrace.
9 Q. Was the bombardment anticipated at that time?
10 A. I cannot answer that question of yours. These are assumptions.
11 I'm a witness here. I'm not an expert. Robert Dolip [phoen], in his
12 findings in the Galic case, stated that on the 6th of April, the attack
13 started -- or, rather, the shelling of Sarajevo started when the
14 Police Academy
15 course, that's not correct, because then, on the 6th of April, it was the
16 Serb police that was at Vrace, and it wasn't on the 5th. If you
17 remember, after the clash at Vrace at the School of the Interior -- the
18 Ministry of the Interior, it was the Serb police that stayed there and
19 there was no shelling.
20 Q. You referred earlier to mocking the Muslims about reaching the
21 Eternal Flame, the Eternal Flame being the center of Sarajevo, I believe
22 you said. And I want to turn next --
23 A. That's right, Mr. Tieger.
24 Q. So I want to turn next to a couple of references to that. First,
25 on page 8 of the English, and in B/C/S, Mr. Mandic, that would be at the
Page 4616
1 page marked "0322-0113."
2 First, in that passage, this is a continuation of you and
3 Mr. Stojic, and together the two of you, toward the top of the page in
4 English, are laughing about Muslims having pushed you Serbs all the way
5 to Skenderija. And then this passage:
6 Stojic asks: "Listen, is there any way to resolve this
7 peacefully?"
8 And you say: "What?"
9 And Stojic says: "Well, this in Sarajevo."
10 And then you say:
11 "Only when they give up everything from Skenderija and around
12 there, then we will accept, and leave for them everything from the
13 Eternal Flame all the way up."
14 And Stojic says:
15 "But they are left with nothing then."
16 And you say:
17 "Fuck them. They didn't want to do it nicely through
18 negotiations. Well, now they'll get nothing."
19 So is it correct, Mr. Mandic, that the earlier reference to the
20 Eternal Flame, that is, leaving the Muslims to the Muslim Army at the
21 Eternal Flame, the joke there is they are being pushed into a very small
22 part of Sarajevo
23 this point, that the Muslims are doing badly, you're saying that the
24 Bosnian Serbs will only accept leaving them everything from the Eternal
25 Flame, and Stojic and you make clear that leaves the Muslims with very
Page 4617
1 little?
2 A. I'm a bit confused, once again, by your going back to this
3 conversation. Mr. Tieger, I had explained in detail what kind of
4 conversations I had with the Croats. Of course, we have to establish
5 together that the Croats were also a warring party, and mainly against
6 the Serbs. Bearing in mind that our conversation was being intercepted
7 by Munir Alibabic in Sarajevo
8 serious. This was bragging so that the Muslims, Alibabic, would hear
9 this; that Mujahedin units had reached Pale, Romanija, that
10 Radovan Karadzic had fled to Switzerland
11 there, with loads of valuables and so on. So if you take that out of
12 context, it doesn't work, whereas the Eternal Flame is in Tito Street
13 it was called at the time, in the center of Sarajevo.
14 Q. All right. Last reference in this conversation, Mr. Mandic, this
15 time to a portion of the conversation where Mr. Stanisic picks up the
16 line and is speaking to Mr. Kvesic. And that's found at page 23 of the
17 English, and in B/C/S at the page marked "0322-0129." And the reference
18 I'm drawing your attention to, at the top of the page in English on 23,
19 is Mr. Stanisic speaking, saying:
20 "We are trying to drive them out without losses, but it seems
21 that they don't want to go away."
22 And Kvesic says:
23 "Where? Where the hell do you want to drive them to? Up to
24 Bascarsija, down to Pale? Where? They have no place to go."
25 And then Mr. Stanisic laughs.
Page 4618
1 Sorry, Mr. Mandic, I see you're still looking for it. If you
2 look at the top of the page, you'll see that the ERN numbers that are
3 marked, the first four numbers are usually 0322, and then the particular
4 page is 0129. In any event, it's on the screen.
5 Mr. Mandic, is that another joke based on the fact that the
6 Muslims are being driven into smaller parts of Sarajevo?
7 A. Mr. Tieger, according to Munir Alibabic, this conversation took
8 place on the 5th of May. I don't know what Mico Stanisic knew about
9 driving the Muslims into smaller parts of Sarajevo or not, or perhaps it
10 was based on the same knowledge that I had spoken of a moment ago.
11 Q. All right. I started with a conversation in early May. Let me
12 turn you a couple of months ahead to the beginning of July, and
13 specifically July 10th. That's -- and, Your Honour, I would tender the
14 previous document, 30734.
15 JUDGE KWON: Yes, it will be admitted.
16 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P1103, Your Honour.
17 MR. TIEGER:
18 Q. Mr. Mandic, you're going to find this next document in tab 24 of
19 your binder, and that's, again, a conversation of the 10th of July, 1992
20 with Mr. Mandic, Mr. Rezo, and then Mr. Mandic and Mr. Kvesic.
21 JUDGE KWON: The 65 ter number, Mr. Tieger?
22 MR. TIEGER: 32672, Your Honour.
23 Q. Again, Mr. Mandic, looking at this, this is a conversation you
24 had a chance to hear in its entirety and then authenticate in the
25 Krajisnik case. Looking at it again today, do you recall it? And,
Page 4619
1 again, it's relatively long, so if you need a moment or two to look at
2 it, please let me know.
3 A. Just go ahead and put your question to me, Mr. Tieger.
4 Q. Mr. Mandic, let me ask you to turn to what is contained in page 7
5 of the English, and in the B/C/S that's found at the page marked
6 "0328-2472." And here, on July 10th, you say to Mr. Kvesic, who asks:
7 "Tell me when this is going to finish, to hell with it."
8 You say:
9 "I don't know. Believe me, I don't know. It probably depends on
10 those three men. Actually, it depends on your boss and mine. I think
11 that they could exert a lot of influence in order to get this finished as
12 soon as possible."
13 Kvesic says: "Yes."
14 You say:
15 "There is no sense to wage a war now, you know."
16 Kvesic says: "No fucking way."
17 You say:
18 "Counties and national communities have already taken everything
19 that was supposed to be taken. I don't know. Sarajevo is disputable,
20 the area down there in Herzegovina
21 There is nothing left."
22 Mr. Mandic, is that portion of the conversation a reflection of
23 the fact that by July, much of the area or territory sought by the
24 Bosnian Serbs that was considered supposed to have been taken had already
25 been taken?
Page 4620
1 A. I think the answer is yes.
2 Q. And if I could turn your attention, in that connection, to 65 ter
3 00028. That's a session of the Bosnian Serb Assembly, the 17th session,
4 held on July 24th through 26th, 1992, which I believe you attended,
5 Mr. Mandic. And I would direct your attention to the English at page 18,
6 and in B/C/S it's page 16.
7 If we go one more page forward, please, in English. Thank you.
8 This is Dr. Karadzic speaking, and he says on that date:
9 "Militarily, we are in an excellent position. Our foreign
10 political position is terrible. Our domestic political situation is very
11 good, being that our people are fully in favour of fighting, that is,
12 peace, because we don't have any more reason to fight. We have liberated
13 almost everything that is ours. In final talks, we could even return
14 some territories, villages that do not belong to us."
15 And, Mr. Mandic, was that the position that you were reflecting
16 when you were speaking with Mr. Kvesic in July, that -- or was it
17 consistent with the position that you took, that everything that had been
18 taken -- that was supposed to be taken had been taken, for the most part?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Mr. Mandic, if I could ask you to turn next to what appears on
21 page 8 of the English, and the page marked "0328-2472" of the B/C/S.
22 In the middle of the page in English, Kvesic is talking about
23 some of the alternatives and organisation according to counties, and you
24 stop him and say:
25 "Wait a minute. But they are a minority now, man."
Page 4621
1 He says: "What?"
2 You say:
3 "They are a minor now, fuck."
4 And he says:
5 "There's no way to build a military --"
6 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. Are we following the -- you're
7 referring to page 8 of that intercept?
8 MR. TIEGER: Correct, Your Honour. I'm sorry, my apologies to
9 the Registrar. I did not assist the Registrar in moving back and forth.
10 So with that understood, can we move back, please, to 32672 and
11 to page 8 of the English, and page 0328-2472 of the B/C/S.
12 Q. Mr. Mandic, it is, again, the July 10th conversation at tab 24 of
13 your binder, and --
14 A. Number?
15 Q. The page number would be -- if you look up at the top, you should
16 see it at 0328-2472. I believe it's the fifth page in sequence. And it
17 is shown on screen.
18 And, again, I was directing your attention to the portion where
19 you say:
20 "Wait a minute. But they are a minority now, man."
21 Kvesic says: "What?"
22 You say:
23 "They are a minority now, fuck."
24 Kvesic says:
25 "There is no way to build a unitary country, either Serbian or
Page 4622
1 Croatian, any more."
2 And you say:
3 "They are the smallest nation in number now."
4 Mr. Mandic, we looked at a similar sentiment expressed by
5 Mr. Kupresanin earlier in your examination. Is that a reflection of the
6 awareness that -- of the demographic change that has occurred -- and I
7 see you nodding -- the demographic change that has occurred and the
8 reduction of the Muslim population in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
9 A. No, Mr. Tieger. In Bosnia
10 that were held by the Bosnian Serbs. Obviously, at that point in time,
11 the Bosnian Serbs held the larger part of Bosnia-Herzegovina under their
12 control. That's what Mr. Karadzic said to the Assembly as well.
13 MR. TIEGER: Excuse me just a moment. I'm just fixing the
14 technical capacity here.
15 Q. And, Mr. Mandic, if I could next direct your attention to page 11
16 of the English, and that would be at page 0328-2474 in the B/C/S. And
17 I'm looking at the bottom of the page in English, and I think you'll find
18 that in approximately the middle of the page in B/C/S.
19 So Kvesic begins:
20 "There are some of our men in Manjaca, man."
21 And you say: "In Krajina, right?"
22 And he says: "Yes."
23 And you say: "We can do it."
24 He says: "What can you do about it?"
25 You say: "A lot."
Page 4623
1 Kvesic says:
2 "Listen, fuck, let's find out. Listen, it is because of
3 relations in general."
4 You say: "Naturally, man."
5 Kvesic says: "There is ..."
6 And then you say:
7 "All right, I'll tell it to my main boss."
8 And Kvesic says: "Check it, please."
9 You say: "Where are they placed?"
10 Kvesic says: "You know where I am?"
11 You say:
12 "I know it, but where are they placed over there?"
13 He says:
14 "They are placed somewhere in Manjaca."
15 And you say:
16 "Over there in the military camp in Manjaca?"
17 And that's a reference to the Manjaca camp in the Krajina;
18 correct?
19 A. Mr. Tieger, first of all I'm asking whether this Manjaca is in
20 Krajina, and then Kvesic confirms that for me, because I didn't know
21 where this Manjaca was at all. Just read what I said in the Stanisic
22 case. Try to remember what I said there. You take it out of context,
23 and then it gets a completely different meaning.
24 Branko Kvesic asked me about this Medjarevic [phoen], who was
25 from the same area that he was from, and he claimed that he was in
Page 4624
1 Manjaca as well. And I asked him, Is that in Krajina? I mean, I'm
2 asking whether Manjaca is in Krajina. And he says to me, Yes. And then
3 I tell him that through my main boss, I would see what could be done for
4 that Croat. I did not know at all where Manjaca was.
5 Q. Well, Mr. Mandic, I did read your Stanisic/Zupljanin testimony.
6 I think that position was challenged there as well. It's correct, and I
7 don't want to quibble about this point unnecessarily, but Kvesic simply
8 says, They're in Manjaca, and you say, In Krajina; right? So you're the
9 one who raised the fact that it's in Krajina.
10 A. Yes, I'm asking. You can see the question mark. I'm asking, Is
11 it in Krajina, is it in Krajina at all? And I fully stand by my
12 statement in the Stanisic case in this regard.
13 Q. All right. Mr. Mandic, in the interests of time, I want to move
14 on to a somewhat different topic, and that is the issue of
15 paramilitaries, if I may. And I think you discussed that to some extent
16 also in your Stanisic/Zupljanin testimony.
17 So let me first direct your attention to a quote from the
18 22nd Assembly -- Bosnian Serb Assembly held toward the end of November
19 1992. That's 65 ter 00035.
20 JUDGE KWON: In the meantime, we'll admit that intercept, 32673,
21 as Exhibit --
22 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
23 JUDGE KWON: 32672 will be admitted as Exhibit P1104. And for
24 the record, 65 ter number 28 has been already admitted as Defence
25 Exhibit 92.
Page 4625
1 MR. TIEGER:
2 Q. Now, let me just ask you a couple questions about the
3 22nd Assembly session, Mr. Mandic.
4 That was the session at which there was considerable discussion
5 involving Mrs. Plavsic, Mr. Djeric, yourself, Mr. Stanisic, about the --
6 about a number of issues related to the government, including who you and
7 Mr. Stanisic reported to, the extent to which there was conflict between
8 you and Mr. Stanisic, on the one hand, and Mr. Djeric, on the other, and
9 other issues; correct? And it's the session at which that current
10 government of Mr. Djeric's fell? Is that all right?
11 A. I remember that session, Mr. Tieger. Please go ahead with your
12 questions.
13 Q. Now, during the course of your Stanisic/Zupljanin testimony, when
14 you were asked about the relationship between Mr. Stanisic and Mr. Djeric
15 at page 9724, you pointed to what you refer to as a clash between them on
16 the issue of paramilitary formations. Do you recall that, generally?
17 I'll direct your attention to the specific portion in a moment.
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And you said that Mr. Djeric followed Mrs. Plavsic and that she
20 said at the Assembly -- or she explained at that particular Assembly
21 session how she invited Arkan, and his Tigers, and the White Eagles, and
22 what you referred to as other animals and beasts, into Republika Srpska?
23 That's at 9724 through 9725.
24 A. That is correct. Ms. Biljana Plavsic was an advocate of having
25 all paramilitary units from territories where Serbs lived outside Bosnia
Page 4626
1 and Herzegovina
2 Bosnia-Herzegovina in the religious war being waged there.
3 Mico Stanisic, the chief of the police and the legalist, was against it,
4 and I supported him, and Mr. Djeric supported Biljana Plavsic.
5 At that session, she said, I have people called
6 Zeljko Raznatovic, Arkan, his Tigers, the White Eagles, the Ducks, the
7 Crows, et cetera, the Magpies, to come and fight on the Serbian side, and
8 our minister of the police is arresting those people, which he did with
9 the Yellow Wasps, and he's preventing our brethren coming to our
10 assistance. That was the culmination of the clash between
11 Biljana Plavsic and Mico Stanisic; i.e., Djeric and Biljana on the one
12 hand and me and Mico Stanisic, on the other hand, because these para
13 groups, in the territory where control was held by the Serbs, when they
14 had nothing to loot anymore from the non-Serbs, they would then proceed
15 to loot the Serbs, the property of the Serbs. That is what the minister
16 of the interior tried to put an end to. He informed this government
17 session about this, Mr. Djeric at government sessions, and he asked for
18 Ms. Plavsic not to conduct such a policy. But professors being
19 professors, they took it personally, and the conflict, in terms of how
20 the state should be led, was transferred to the personal plane, to a
21 personal conflict. So they looked for a reason to remove
22 Ministers Mandic and Stanisic because their course was on a collision
23 course with their own.
24 The political party in power then respected the stance of
25 Biljana Plavsic rather than -- after she had said at that government
Page 4627
1 session -- at that Assembly session that she had invited explicitly
2 paramilitary units to come to Bosnia
3 she should have been relieved from her office, and in that case and had
4 that been done, there would be far fewer representatives of the former
5 authorities of Bosnia-Herzegovina sitting right here. That was the
6 mistake. In my view, those who abided by the law, who created the law,
7 who were legalists, should have been respected rather than those who
8 pleaded the Serbian case, saying that out of 12 million Serbs, 6 million
9 should perish in order for the other 6 million to live in liberty.
10 So Mrs. Plavsic was not a nationalist. She was an evil person
11 who said these things out of her own personal motives. She portrayed
12 herself as the Serbian mother, but I, myself, and some other people know
13 that she was actually a jilted woman. She had been jilted by her
14 lover of Muslim nationality, and this was the way she was exacting
15 revenge on everybody else, by the stances which she adopted in these
16 assemblies.
17 Q. And did you also explain in the Stanisic/Zupljanin case,
18 Mr. Mandic, that at that particular session Djeric singled you and
19 Stanisic out, claiming that you had, and you in particular, had ties with
20 Karadzic, and you pointed out how unfair that was, in your view, because:
21 "I wouldn't exchange a word with Karadzic for half a year because
22 he allowed Plavsic and others to do this."
23 That is, to call in the paramilitaries?
24 A. I was not at all close to Mr. Karadzic. Ours were only official
25 contacts, and ours were only official conversations. From that time in
Page 4628
1 early 1992, when some of the Serbian sycophants went and told to the
2 president of the republic that it had been my idea and Alija Mustafic's
3 idea that we should see to it that Radovan and Alija should cool down a
4 bit and for tensions to ease some, that was an expression of mistrust in
5 me, as a person, as a man who was prepared to do many things that others
6 were not prepared to do. I had no privileges whatsoever in respect of
7 the treatment accorded me by the president of the Republika Srpska. In
8 fact, on several occasions, Biljana Plavsic and Professor Koljevic
9 showered lies on Mr. Karadzic regarding my activities and actions and
10 those of Mico Stanisic, and actually the late Dr. Koljevic admitted to
11 that in the Villa Bosanka at a certain point in the past, and that was
12 for the first time in my life that I heard Dr. Radovan Karadzic cursing
13 God, swearing at God.
14 It is a fallacious view, Mr. Tieger, that I had been in any way
15 the favourite of Mr. Karadzic's. In fact, he had reservations --
16 unjustified reservations towards me, although I did my hardest to do
17 everything honorably, decently, complying with the law, et cetera. You
18 will see that the Ministry of Justice, over the period of a year or
19 perhaps 10 months, was created, and it still functions to this very day
20 upon those very foundations in the republic. I did have the support of
21 Dr. Karadzic at that time, especially in the selection of non-Serb
22 personnel, both in the prosecutorial and the judicature offices in
23 general, but Mrs. Plavsic was against this. She was always saying that I
24 was, you know, fishing in murky waters, or this and that, which was
25 totally unfair in my regards.
Page 4629
1 Mr. Tieger, I was practically driven away to Belgrade in that
2 session.
3 Q. And, Mr. --
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Just an intervention. Not only
5 prosecutorial, but also support for the court organs.
6 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter believes she said "judicature."
7 THE ACCUSED: [In English] Probably "judicial."
8 [Interpretation] It should be "judicial."
9 [In English] Prosecutorial and judicial.
10 [Interpretation] Because the ministry proposed the prosecutors
11 and the court staff, the judicial staff too.
12 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. It should be corrected.
13 MR. TIEGER:
14 Q. Mr. Mandic, thank you for that information, some of which you had
15 alluded to earlier. But I had asked you about something you said in the
16 Stanisic/Zupljanin case in connection with Plavsic's invitation to
17 paramilitaries to come to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and you had said the
18 following at page 9726, referring to Mr. Djeric:
19 "He singled out me and Stanisic, and he said I had ties with
20 Karadzic, and yet I wouldn't exchange a word with Karadzic for half a
21 year because he allowed Plavsic and others to do this."
22 And that's a quote. That's what you said in Stanisic/Zupljanin;
23 is that correct, Mr. Mandic?
24 A. I can say that what is in the record is quite correct. I was not
25 angry with President Karadzic because I had been sent to Belgrade
Page 4630
1 because I had intended to go there in autumn 1992, in agreement with
2 Djeric. And that was not much of a problem to me, personally, because my
3 family was in Belgrade
4 cadet at the Military Academy
5 my wife were there. But the way in which, actually, conditions were
6 placed on this by Biljana Plavsic, in contravention of the International
7 Law and the legislation of Republika Srpska, the way in which she
8 violated these was something that angered me and was the cause of my
9 dissatisfaction. But she was a great authority there, in some segments
10 even a greater authority than the president of Republika Srpska, and
11 evidently now we can see what some of her positions have led to, totally
12 without reason. The Serbs had a good army. We had a good organisation,
13 we created a judiciary, the police force. We did not want not to live
14 side by side with our Muslims. We were afraid of some new Muslims who
15 were differently inclined, who wanted to introduce religious laws into
16 state institutions, the Shiite laws, et cetera.
17 Mr. Tieger, let me just finish my sentence.
18 We were afraid of these new Muslims who were not turned towards
19 Turkey
20 to Iran
21 state. You can see that now these self-same Muslims are blowing up
22 police stations in their own federation, in the federation, because it is
23 a state of the kind that it is. We didn't have any problem with our own
24 Muslims, so to speak. We wanted to live together with them side by side.
25 Q. And, Mr. Mandic, just so I'm clear and the Court is clear about
Page 4631
1 your position about the paramilitaries that Mrs. Plavsic invited in: In
2 the course of your Stanisic/Zupljanin testimony, you refer to them as
3 people who torch, rob, kill, kill children, and is that an accurate
4 reflection of your view about those paramilitaries?
5 A. Mr. Tieger, you have again extracted my testimony, a part of it,
6 from the context. I said that some of the paramilitary units, which came
7 from other countries other than from Bosnia-Herzegovina, were criminals
8 and did not want to subject themselves to the control of the army and the
9 police, and it is true they did kill non-Serbs and loot their property.
10 But once there were no more non-Serbs to kill or loot, they did the same
11 to the Serb population. They killed Serbs, they looted their property,
12 they raped their women. They were criminals, and those of their ilk were
13 arrested by Mico Stanisic, to my knowledge. But Ms. Biljana Plavsic was
14 opposed to all that.
15 Q. Let me direct your attention to some contemporaneous
16 conversations or documents related to the paramilitaries and see if they
17 are consistent with your information or if you know something
18 independently about them as well.
19 The first one would be 65 ter 30712.
20 JUDGE KWON: By the way, have we looked at any paragraph in that
21 22nd session?
22 MR. TIEGER: Oh, I'm sorry, Your Honour, right.
23 JUDGE KWON: I don't remember we looked at a specific paragraph
24 in the minute, because the witness said he knew.
25 MR. TIEGER: Right. We moved on pretty -- to some other issues.
Page 4632
1 It's at pages 19 and 20 of both the English and the B/C/S, and it might
2 be useful to look at an excerpt --
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I've re-told it all
4 to you.
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Perhaps we could admit the first
6 page, as we saw the first page.
7 JUDGE KWON: So you're minded to tender that?
8 MR. TIEGER: Yes, Your Honour, and I'm --
9 JUDGE KWON: The transcript or the minute of that 22nd Session?
10 MR. TIEGER: Yeah, I had intend to do look at the particular
11 excerpt. I think that -- I think we were in agreement that that session,
12 along with the others, will be admitted over time. I'm more than happy
13 to look at the particular portion of that session at which Mrs. -- during
14 which Mrs. Plavsic is speaking.
15 JUDGE KWON: It's up to you, Mr. Tieger.
16 MR. TIEGER: Well, if the Assembly session is tendered, we can
17 look at it at leisure. I don't think it's going to change the witness's
18 mind about what was said, particularly, but I'm -- again, it won't take
19 long to look at it, if the Court is minded to do so.
20 JUDGE KWON: Unless it is objected to, that session transcript
21 will be admitted as ...?
22 THE REGISTRAR: P1105, Your Honours.
23 JUDGE KWON: P1105?
24 THE REGISTRAR: That's correct, Your Honour.
25 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
Page 4633
1 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Your Honour.
2 JUDGE KWON: And at the end of today's session, if you could tell
3 us where we are, in terms of your intention to tender those session
4 transcripts or the like. We'll come to that later on.
5 MR. TIEGER: Sure, Your Honour, I'll be happy to.
6 Q. Mr. Mandic, I had just been about to play for you and the Court
7 30712. We have to go to Sanction to do that.
8 [Audio-clip played]
9 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "Good morning. It's
10 Biljana Plavsic. Is Zeljko there?"
11 "No, he's not up yet. Mr. Rus is here. Do you want to speak to
12 him?"
13 "All right, put him on."
14 "Hello."
15 "Good morning."
16 "Good morning. My deepest respect, madam. How are you?"
17 "I'm the commander's batman."
18 "I know, I know."
19 "Just getting ready for the raising of the flag."
20 "Ah, the raising of the flag. I won't hold you very long."
21 "No, no, no problem at all."
22 "Let me ask you something. Zeljko is not there; right?"
23 "Well, you know what? I would like to ask you if you wouldn't
24 mind telling me, if you can, that is, when you would call again so that
25 I can tell him."
Page 4634
1 "You know why ... I'm ..."
2 "Well, he's got to bed. He was in the field, and ..."
3 "All right, all right, never mind. This is what it is about. I
4 have returned to my base, the one where I am from."
5 "Hold on ... all right."
6 "Yes, but I haven't arrived home yet. One small part was
7 blocked. But I wanted -- ask him if we asked him to come here, if that
8 was possible in theory."
9 "Look, ma'am ..."
10 "So then I'll -- from whom -- I don't have the authorisation to
11 speak on his behalf."
12 "I know, of course."
13 "But in any case, I'll give him your message immediately."
14 "Yes, give him the message. When I get to my apartment,
15 I'll ..."
16 " ... call him."
17 "Yes, and then I won't ask this. I'll just ask if you can
18 possibly bring the merchandise."
19 "Understood, understood."
20 "Sure?"
21 "Yes, bravo, very clever."
22 "Right. Look, ma'am."
23 "Yes."
24 "If you can call him ... just let me check the time. It's 8.00
25 now. So if you can call him in about two hours, I'll tell him that --"
Page 4635
1 "All right."
2 "In an hour or ..."
3 "All right, all right."
4 "So you won't worry about that."
5 "Right, give him my regards."
6 "I'm really sorry that the situation is like this now ... he
7 really is not up ... you know, he's always there from the raising of the
8 flag, but he went -- for the raising of the flag, but he went to bed very
9 late."
10 "All right. Tell me, how are things in Zvornik?"
11 "Sorry?"
12 "How are things in Zvornik? Did Pejo go there?"
13 "Well, I don't know. He's supposed to go there as well to
14 visit ..."
15 "Yes, yes, I know."
16 " ... the entire situation, because there are all sorts of
17 rumours ..."
18 "Yes, yes, uh-huh."
19 "He has to be here ... poor him. He really has the least time
20 for himself. I'll tell him all that."
21 "All right. If I call you from a different phone, then I'll just
22 ask if he can bring that to me here so that we'd know theoretically if it
23 is possible. And then we should agree about things."
24 "Excellent."
25 "Right. Give him my regards."
Page 4636
1 "It was an honour speaking to you, madam."
2 "Thank you very much."
3 MR. TIEGER:
4 Q. Mr. Mandic, did you recognise any of the voices and the
5 participants in that conversation?
6 A. I just recognised Biljana Plavsic's voice.
7 Q. Okay. And were you able to follow the conversation?
8 A. [No interpretation]
9 Q. And, first of all --
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Were you aware, at the time of this conversation on the 23rd of
12 April, 1992, that Mrs. Plavsic was in direct contact with Arkan or
13 Arkan's men?
14 A. No, I was not. I do not recall that.
15 Q. And let me ask you two things. Is that -- is the timing of the
16 intercept generally familiar with your information about whether and when
17 Arkan's men showed up in Sarajevo
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can I just say this: Did the
19 witness at all identify that this was Arkan? Do we know whom
20 Mrs. Plavsic is talking to?
21 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, the witness only said he recognised
22 the voice of Biljana Plavsic. Just --
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] But we are going on as if he had
24 identified that she was talking to one of Arkan's men.
25 JUDGE KWON: The other man, i.e., Rus, identified Arkan's first
Page 4637
1 name during the course of conversation, did he not? Who is Zeljko,
2 Mr. Mandic? Do you know Zeljko? Was it not the first name of Mr. Arkan?
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, it was. Yes, Your Honour.
4 JUDGE KWON: So do you confirm, then, Mrs. Plavsic was talking to
5 one of the men of Arkan or not?
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I cannot, Your Honours. I had not
7 heard -- I have not heard this conversation before this. I can only
8 confirm that this is the voice of Biljana Plavsic.
9 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
10 Let's continue, Mr. Tieger.
11 MR. TIEGER:
12 Q. And do you know approximately when -- whether -- first of all, do
13 you know whether or not Arkan's men appeared in Sarajevo to fight on
14 behalf of the Bosnian Serbs?
15 A. I don't know about that, Mr. Tieger.
16 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, can this document be marked for
17 identification before I move on to the next one, please?
18 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. --
19 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Robinson.
20 MR. ROBINSON: Mr. President, if marking it for identification
21 indicates that this witness has been able to make any foundation for
22 this, we would object.
23 MR. TIEGER: Well, Your Honour, the witness has been able to make
24 some identification, but I specifically asked for it to be marked for
25 identification because I think there will be further evidence concerning
Page 4638
1 this particular intercept, and I anticipate precisely that, in terms of
2 its authentication. So I take Mr. Robinson's objection to some extent,
3 but clearly the witness has provided information which will be part of
4 that ultimate tendering for admissibility.
5 JUDGE KWON: And, furthermore, the witness identified the voice
6 of Mrs. Plavsic.
7 MR. TIEGER: Correct.
8 MR. ROBINSON: Yes. So, Mr. President, sometimes I'm a little
9 confused, when we mark something for identification, whether that's some
10 step where simply once intercept evidence is found to be reliable, all of
11 the intercepts will come in without any further proof, and I don't think
12 this should fall into that category. So to the -- maybe we're just
13 agreeing. I don't understand exactly, but I just wanted to make the
14 point that there would be some further evidence, in our view, necessary
15 before this should be admissible, regardless of the question of
16 authenticity of intercept evidence.
17 [Trial Chamber confers]
18 JUDGE KWON: The content of the conversation is related to a
19 certain part of the witness's evidence, and the witness identified one of
20 the voices, and the Prosecution is going to call a witness who will be
21 filling up the gap. And what else? And when we -- at the end of the
22 day, when we admit the marked exhibit for identification, we will
23 consider all its circumstances comprehensively. On that basis, we see no
24 problem in marking this exhibit for identification.
25 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, that will be MFI P1106, MFI.
Page 4639
1 MR. TIEGER: If we could turn next -- thank you, Mr. President.
2 If we could turn next to 65 ter 31679. This is a conversation
3 between Mr. Prstojevic and Mr. Gagovic on the 14th of May, 1992. We may
4 need to recommence that.
5 [Audio-clip played]
6 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "Well, fuck, mistakes, you should
7 not have made mistakes."
8 "I know, but the men did not make mistakes. They were not
9 ordered to--"
10 "Leader?"
11 "Hey!"
12 "It is Prstojevic."
13 "How are you?"
14 "Thank God, I'm fine. If it weren't for this one mistake, I
15 could be singing at the top of my voice."
16 "Well, fuck, mistakes, you should not have made mistakes."
17 "I know. We did not, but the men made mistakes. They were not
18 ordered to do what they did."
19 "Well ..."
20 "Our movement is now a bit ... we cannot move with complete ...
21 with that staff."
22 "Sorry?"
23 "Complete hardware is practically immovable right now."
24 "Well, it is not my fault."
25 "That means that is practically crossed out."
Page 4640
1 "It is not ..."
2 "Please, I have manpower, but I do not have the hardware now."
3 "There is no ... he has manpower, but he does not have hardware.
4 That hardware should not have been wasted, that is ..."
5 "Where is that commander?"
6 "Commander Popadic is there on the terrain, on the spot. At
7 least two vehicles, two armoured personnel carriers should be replaced at
8 this check-point."
9 "Fuck it."
10 "No crew, I do not need crew. I have the crew, I have
11 everything. I have surplus manpower. That means ..."
12 "Are APCs that arrived yesterday all right?"
13 "Yes, the ones that arrived yesterday."
14 "Is there a tank that is in working order? You should pull out
15 those APCs. You should not let them fall into enemy's hands."
16 "I do not know for sure if anything is in working order here.
17 Two tanks, three APCs, and so on. I'm not sure for this check-point."
18 "Fuck."
19 "And those two yesterday are with Arkan's men?"
20 "Where are they?"
21 "They are probably -- there is no ammunition for one of them,
22 probably ..."
23 "Well, fuck, everything ... and where is that commander? I want
24 to speak to him."
25 "Okay. I will call him to get in touch with you. Let me just
Page 4641
1 find him."
2 "Have him call me."
3 "Please."
4 "Okay, bye."
5 MR. TIEGER:
6 Q. First of all, Mr. Mandic, I think you've already indicated to us
7 who Mr. Prstojevic is. Did you know who Mr. Gagovic was?
8 A. No, I did not know who Gagovic is.
9 Q. And if I refer to him as Colonel Gagovic, would that assist in
10 any way?
11 A. No.
12 Q. By this time, mid-May 1992, were you aware that Arkan's men were
13 in Sarajevo
14 A. No, Mr. Tieger, this is the first time I see this conversation.
15 I'm not sure. I cannot recognise any one of the participants.
16 Q. Okay. Just to be clear, are you disputing that it's Prstojevic's
17 voice or you just don't happen to recognise it as you hear it in this
18 conversation?
19 A. No, Mr. Tieger, I'm not disputing it, but I cannot recognise
20 either one of the two voices.
21 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Mr. Mandic.
22 And, Your Honour, I'd like that marked for identification.
23 MR. ROBINSON: Mr. President, again, I maybe should just note at
24 this point that we don't think there has been any foundation whatsoever
25 for its admissibility. But if you want to mark it for identification for
Page 4642
1 some other purpose, you can do that. But following my understanding of
2 the way we are proceeding, it shouldn't be marked for identification.
3 JUDGE KWON: I don't think any question was put to the witness as
4 to the content of it, so let's admit it later on with another witness,
5 Mr. Tieger.
6 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, just to be clear on that, I think there
7 was -- the conversation clearly refers to the presence of Arkan's men in
8 Sarajevo
9 of that. This is clearly -- clearly arises from the subject-matter at
10 hand, the invitation for Arkan's forces and other paramilitaries to come
11 in, contemporaneous evidence of that, and I wanted -- so I'm not
12 suggesting that this particular witness provides the specific
13 authentication of the intercept via the conventional means of recognising
14 the voices or participating in the conversation, but that when that
15 happens, this will clearly be relevant to this examination.
16 [Trial Chamber confers]
17 JUDGE KWON: You could have put that question without the
18 document, and I don't think we need to admit this at this time. So we'll
19 not admit this, Mr. Tieger.
20 MR. TIEGER: Well, okay. And, Your Honour, I'm not going to
21 spend time -- I appreciate that. I have alluded to the possibility of
22 discussing the nature of admissibility with respect to that.
23 To give you an example -- well, let me just move on, and we can
24 hopefully talk about that later. Thank you.
25 If we could move on to the next document, 30724.
Page 4643
1 This, Mr. Mandic, is a conversation conducted on the 15th of May,
2 1992, involving Mr. Stanisic and Mr. Zugic.
3 [Audio-clip played]
4 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "Hello."
5 "Yes?"
6 "Mico speaking. Who is that?"
7 "I beg your pardon?"
8 "Well, the Serbian MUP is calling."
9 "Mico Stanisic?"
10 "Yes."
11 "Veljko Zugic speaking."
12 "What's up, Zugic?"
13 "SAO Romanija. How are you, Mico?"
14 "What are you doing?"
15 "Here I am."
16 "I've been here for a month. Do send it from down there. I've
17 just come from Sokolac, from the radio and television. Shut down."
18 "Good."
19 "Today we've been through, well, a lot of trouble."
20 "Good. And where are you now?"
21 "I'm in the Serb municipality of Ilidza
22 "Tell me what the situation is like ..."
23 "With Vuk and Mlaco, with Prstojevic."
24 "Tell me, what is the situation like over there?"
25 "Well, we got reinforcement from Gagovic, some Arkan's and
Page 4644
1 Seselj's men came, I don't know ..."
2 "Good."
3 MR. TIEGER:
4 Q. Mr. Mandic, do you recognise the voices of any of the
5 participants in that conversation, either of the participants in that
6 conversation?
7 A. I recognise the voice of Mico Stanisic, minister of the police.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I ask whether this is the
9 entire conversation, or is there more?
10 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Tieger, are you in the position to answer that
11 question?
12 MR. TIEGER: Well, this is the entirety of the conversation
13 that's ERN'd as the conversation on -- so the answer is, yes,
14 Your Honour, in its entirety, in so far as I'm aware.
15 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It doesn't look like a finished
17 conversation to me. It seems to have been edited, because the ending is
18 not very logical.
19 JUDGE KWON: It's not a proper intervention, Mr. Karadzic.
20 Let's continue, Mr. Tieger. What is your question?
21 MR. TIEGER:
22 Q. Mr. Mandic, you indicated in your Krajisnik testimony that you
23 were aware of the presence of some Seseljevci in Sarajevo in April and
24 May 1992; correct?
25 A. Mr. Tieger, in April -- or, rather, May, there were members of
Page 4645
1 the Territorial Defence in Grbavica, the Territorial Defence of
2 Nova Sarajevo
3 were inhabitants of Sarajevo
4 Sarajevo
5 to the TO, the Territorial Defence of Nova Sarajevo. I knew of these men
6 who were in Grbavica at the time. However, they are from Sarajevo,
7 itself. From the point of view of their party affiliation, they are
8 Radicals, but territorially they were from Novo Sarajevo. Gavrilovic was
9 the leader of that small group. I can't remember his first name. His
10 nickname was Brne, and he was born in Sarajevo.
11 Q. By mid-May -- did Mr. Stanisic expression concern to you in
12 mid-May about the presence of Arkan's forces or Seselj's forces in
13 Sarajevo
14 A. I can't recall, Mr. Tieger. There weren't any men of Seselj's.
15 Vojislav Seselj was just bragging. He was turning his political party
16 into an army. However, all of these people were from Bosnia-Herzegovina,
17 and they fought in the units of the Territorial Defence or the army. And
18 he was claiming that these people belonged to them.
19 Let me give you another example from New Sarajevo. At the Jewish
20 cemetery, there was this man Aleksic. I can't remember his first name.
21 Seselj kept saying that he was one of his men, but he was actually there
22 providing security for the Jewish cemetery, and he was a resident of
23 Sarajevo
24 Herzegovina
25 Q. Well, Mr. Mandic, are you disputing Mr. Zugic's comment as
Page 4646
1 reflected in this intercept, that some Arkanovci and Seseljevci came and
2 provided reinforcement along with Gagovic?
3 A. I don't know that, Mr. Tieger. I'm not disputing it. Perhaps
4 Munir Alibabic doctored this conversation somewhat. I don't know. In
5 fact, I do not at all know who Nedeljko Zugic is.
6 Q. You were aware that when Seselj's men were encircled on the 21st
7 of April, 1992, that Seselj called to ensure that they be assisted in
8 getting removed from that encirclement; correct? That's reflected in an
9 intercept that you listened to, authenticated, and discussed in the
10 Krajisnik case.
11 A. Mr. Tieger, those were members of the Territorial Defence of
12 New Sarajevo
13 to the delimitation spot which divided the Sarajevo into the Muslim and
14 the Serb part. They were members of Vojislav Seselj's Radical Party, but
15 they were all Sarajevans, inhabitants of Vrace and Grbavica, and members
16 of the TO of Nova Sarajevo
17 that they had a party leader which they all recognised, but I do know
18 that Brne Gavrilovic was from Nova Sarajevo. He did not come there from
19 Belgrade
20 Q. Let me turn next to 65 ter 01601.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Actually, it should be -- what the
22 witness said, he didn't say -- he was by his home there, not he came
23 there from his own house in Sarajevo
24 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. That will be looked into while editing
25 the transcript. Thank you.
Page 4647
1 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, if I may just -- I'm not suggesting
2 it's a particular problem in this instance, but maybe a more prudent
3 protocol can be adopted for translation interventions. I think in
4 previous cases, the protocol has been for counsel to identify the
5 particular portion that's at issue and ask for some review by the
6 translation unit, rather than, in the presence of the witness, provide a
7 revised translation on the spot. Again, I'm not suggesting a particular
8 problem in this instance, but I think it's probably a more prudent course
9 adopt in the future.
10 JUDGE KWON: Points taken. Bear that in mind, Mr. Karadzic.
11 MR. TIEGER:
12 Q. Mr. Mandic, 65 ter 01606. My apologies. It says "01601" in the
13 transcript, and perhaps I misspoke.
14 JUDGE KWON: Return to e-court from Sanction?
15 MR. TIEGER: Yes, we should return to e-court. My apologies.
16 Q. Mr. Mandic, we'll be looking at a report to the minister of the
17 Ministry of the Interior, dated the 10th of August, 1992, and I want to
18 direct your attention to a brief passage on both page 3 in English and
19 B/C/S, and at the top of both pages, which provide as follows:
20 "It was stated, while inspecting the Pale Public Security
21 Station, that a group of Arkanovci/Arkan's men/are still present at the
22 Panorama Hotel. Chief Koroman presents that as a solved problem, because
23 he is expecting their commander in a couple of days, with whom he would
24 solve it without a problem."
25 First, Mr. Mandic, let me ask you to identify for the Court what
Page 4648
1 the Panorama Hotel was and who was generally present in the
2 Panorama Hotel, what function it served during that period of time.
3 A. The Hotel Panorama at Pale was a hotel which is at Pale. I don't
4 quite understand the question, in fact.
5 Q. Was it used for any official function? Did members of the
6 Republika Srpska political or military authorities use that facility?
7 A. To my knowledge, no, Mr. Tieger. The government used the
8 Hotel Bistrica at Mount Jahorina
9 Republika Srpska and the president of the Assembly were in a separate
10 facility, the so-called Karadjordje's Inn. It is the so-called king's
11 house, the royal mansion. On the ground floor was the president of
12 Republika Srpska, to the best of my recollection. I don't know the exact
13 layout. I know that President Karadzic later moved to the premises of
14 the former Famos, and the Assembly members and the Presidency members
15 were there for a time. And it used to be the king's house in a section
16 of Pale towards Mount Jahorina
17 Q. We've seen previous references in both May and now here in August
18 to the presence of Arkan within Sarajevo
19 recollection at all, Mr. Mandic, about your awareness of Arkan's -- or
20 the presence of Arkan's forces in Sarajevo in the spring and summer of
21 1992?
22 A. Mr. Tieger, I did not know that members of that paramilitary
23 unit, the so-called Arkan's Tigers, came to the area of Sarajevo. I
24 didn't know about that at all.
25 As regards the so-called Seselj's men and Brne Gavrilovic, these
Page 4649
1 were a group of Sarajevans from the Territorial Defence who were Radicals
2 only in the political sense, but they had not come there from Serbia
3 They lived in Sarajevo
4 Sarajevan. He was saved by the special police when he was encircled at
5 Grbavica, and I had sent this special police to extract him from the
6 encirclement. He had met several friends of his. Now, what they called
7 themselves, whether they called themselves Seselj's men or something
8 else, or -- I don't know, but Seselj is only associated with them
9 politically, rather they with Seselj.
10 Q. There's a limited amount of time left. So rather than get into
11 something else, let me ask you one quick question and show you something
12 very quickly.
13 You said, in the course of your Stanisic/Zupljanin case, that it
14 was -- referring to Mrs. Plavsic and, I gather, Dr. Djeric, and this is
15 at page 9725, that these vain professor types did not realise what it
16 means for people to go unchecked into villages, robbing and killing
17 people and children. It seemed important for them "to have photographs
18 taken with them." First of all, do you recall saying that?
19 A. Yes, yes, I held that opinion then, and I still do. I knew that
20 General Mladic, the commander of the Army of the Republika Srpska,
21 arrested these paramilitary units, and Mico Stanisic also arrested such
22 paramilitary members, but Biljana Plavsic would intercede on their behalf
23 and have them released, and then at Assembly sessions she should say how
24 they did not allow our brethren over the -- across the Drina River
25 from Serbia
Page 4650
1 task. She was an authority, especially among the folk, among the plain
2 people, but she created these problems.
3 MR. TIEGER: And I just want to show you one video-clip and ask
4 you --
5 JUDGE KWON: Can we do that tomorrow, Mr. Tieger? There are a
6 couple of matters.
7 MR. TIEGER: Yes, Your Honour, of course.
8 JUDGE KWON: Are you going to tender that 1606 MUP report?
9 MR. TIEGER: Yes, Your Honour.
10 MR. ROBINSON: Yes. We would object to that. We don't believe
11 the witness has spoken to that at all.
12 JUDGE KWON: To a certain extent, the witness confirmed the
13 existence of some Seselj's men or Arkan's men, albeit in a qualified
14 sense, did he not; Gavrilovic, et cetera?
15 MR. ROBINSON: Just looking at the part of the document that's on
16 the screen, I don't see any reference to Seselj, but I do see a reference
17 to Arkan, and I think he disavowed any knowledge of Arkan's men inside --
18 so for that particular document, I don't think he's confirmed any part of
19 it.
20 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, I'm a little confused by the position
21 taken by the Defence, which is certainly contrary to what I thought was
22 being urged before.
23 Again, I distinguish this situation where --
24 JUDGE KWON: Just a second.
25 Mr. Mandic, you are free to go now. I'll see you tomorrow
Page 4651
1 morning at 9.00.
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I just ask you, Your Honours,
3 to be informed at least, in general terms, how much time I need to spend
4 here more, I have to stay here? I've been here for seven days now, so
5 how much more time is required by the Court, by the Prosecutor? If you
6 could be so kind as to give me an indication, if that is possible, so
7 that I can plan my own time. Thank you.
8 JUDGE KWON: Let's try to find that out right now, to the best of
9 my ability.
10 Mr. Tieger, how much longer do you expect to have for your
11 examination for this witness?
12 MR. TIEGER: I'll certainly be completing it in the first session
13 tomorrow, and probably well within the first -- in the first part of the
14 first session, I anticipate, but within the first session.
15 JUDGE KWON: At most, about an hour, two hours. And we allowed
16 about 20 hours at first, and so you can gather how much longer you have
17 to stay here. But it may be subject to further changes.
18 See you tomorrow morning. Thank you, Mr. Mandic.
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.
20 [The witness stands down]
21 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Tieger, I cut it off in the middle, but have you
22 completed your statement?
23 MR. TIEGER: No. I just wanted to distinguish between
24 circumstances where documents are brought to witnesses that don't arise
25 from the examination, itself, or from the evidence provided by the
Page 4652
1 witness.
2 In this case, the witness talked about paramilitaries being
3 invited in. I'm presenting him with official documents in this case
4 reflecting the presence of those same paramilitaries. I think that's
5 exactly the kind of position Mr. Robinson was urging on the Court
6 previously. I appreciate the fact that he's trying to be consistent with
7 what he understands to be some of the rulings that took place before. I
8 actually think they are distinguishable on the basis of the fact that
9 those were rulings made on documents that were presented to witnesses who
10 weren't talking about those particular subjects, who were then presented
11 with those subjects, and essentially being educated on those subjects.
12 But I think, as a matter of principle, Mr. Robinson and Mr. Karadzic
13 would prefer to see official documents come in in this fashion when they
14 are raised in an appropriate context, as I believe they were here.
15 [Trial Chamber confers]
16 JUDGE KWON: As I alluded to that effect to a certain extent, the
17 witness certainly commented upon the content of the document. As such,
18 that can be admitted. So we'll admit that document.
19 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit P1107.
20 JUDGE KWON: With the indulgence --
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I say something, just a word?
22 The Defence was in a similar position when it dealt with
23 documents speaking about the same phenomena that the witness spoke about.
24 They were trying to refute what the witness was saying, and they were not
25 admitted into evidence just because the documents were secret ones.
Page 4653
1 Well, I have to express my dissatisfaction.
2 JUDGE KWON: The Chamber will do its utmost to apply the rule
3 consistently and evenly.
4 There are a couple of other matters. We'll come back to that
5 Assembly session transcript later on.
6 On 30th June, Mr. Robinson advised the Chamber that MFI D195 has
7 been translated into English, and requested that it be admitted into
8 evidence. Having reviewed the transcript of the 20th May 2010, when this
9 document was used with Witness van Lynden, the Chamber is satisfied that
10 it should be admitted, and orders that it now be marked as an admitted
11 exhibit.
12 Can we go back -- can we go into private session briefly.
13 [Private session]
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 4654
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 [Open session]
16 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. That's it for today. We'll rise until
17 tomorrow morning at 9.00.
18 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 3.08 p.m.
19 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 6th day of July,
20 2010, at 9.00 a.m.
21
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