Page 22240
1 Thursday, 1 December 2011
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.00 a.m.
6 JUDGE KWON: Good morning, everyone. Judge Morrison is
7 indisposed today, so therefore we are sitting pursuant to Rule 15 bis.
8 Probably Dr. Karadzic needs to introduce his -- or Mr. Robinson,
9 please.
10 MR. ROBINSON: Yes. Good morning, Mr. President. We have with
11 us Dr. Dusan Dunjic who's an expert being allowed by the Court to assist
12 us during the testimony of this witness.
13 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. If the witness could take the solemn
14 declaration, please.
15 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the
16 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
17 WITNESS: RICHARD WRIGHT
18 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Doctor. Please make yourself
19 comfortable.
20 Yes, Mr. Mitchell.
21 MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. President. Good morning.
22 Examination by Mr. Mitchell:
23 Q. Good morning, professor.
24 A. Good morning.
25 Q. Can you please state your full name.
Page 22241
1 A. Richard Vernon Stafford Wright, with a W.
2 Q. Okay, just two things before we start. Could you tell the Court
3 what the papers are that you've got in front of you.
4 A. The papers I have in front of me are reports that I wrote for
5 ICTY on the exhumations that I did.
6 Q. Thank you.
7 MR. MITCHELL: Can I please have 65 ter number 3452 in e-court.
8 THE INTERPRETER: Could we ask the witness to speak closer to the
9 mike. Thank you.
10 MR. MITCHELL:
11 Q. And, professor, you provided a current copy of your CV to the OTP
12 in November. Is this the CV on the screen in front of you?
13 A. Yes, but I'd have to see the date at the end to be sure.
14 MR. MITCHELL: Go to the last page.
15 THE WITNESS: Yes, that's the one.
16 MR. MITCHELL:
17 Q. Thank you. Now, you've talked about your background at length in
18 the Krstic trial, and that's the transcript that we are going to be
19 tendering later, but I do want to ask you a couple of questions about
20 your background.
21 MR. MITCHELL: If we can go back to the first page of the CV.
22 Q. Professor, we see that you're an Emeritus Professor of
23 Anthropology from the University of Sydney, but you're actually an
24 archaeologist; is that correct?
25 A. Yes, I'm an archaeologist.
Page 22242
1 Q. Can you explain how that works, the difference between your title
2 and your profession?
3 A. Well, there really isn't any difference, because in those days
4 the University of Sydney had a Department of Anthropology that included
5 physical anthropology and archaeology and cultural anthropology. So
6 there was -- anthropology was an umbrella title, and I was in charge of
7 the archaeological side of that department.
8 Q. Thank you. Can you explain briefly to the Trial Chamber what
9 exactly archaeology is and how it's relevant to the exhumation of mass
10 graves?
11 A. Well, archaeology is essentially the examination of the earth, of
12 soils, for past relics, either for human remains or for artefacts, and
13 these are then excavated and interpreted.
14 Q. You started work for the ICTY in 1997; is that correct?
15 A. Yes, that's correct.
16 Q. Did you have any prior experience in exhuming mass graves?
17 A. Yes. In 1990 I was asked by the Attorney General of the
18 Commonwealth government in Australia to go to the Ukraine, which was then
19 part of the Soviet Union, to investigate three mass graves of Jews who
20 had been murdered in 1942. There were three graves, and I was working
21 there in 1990 and 1991 and made reports back to the Australian government
22 on the existence of these graves, which contained something like
23 800 bodies between the three of them, and that material went to court.
24 The reason why an Australian would be going over there was that there
25 were three men in Adelaide, in South Australia, of whom it was said that
Page 22243
1 they had participated in Nazi killings in the Ukraine in 1942 and had
2 then emigrated to Australia after the Second World War.
3 Q. Thank you. Now, when you were at the ICTY you worked with
4 forensic anthropologists or in co-ordination with forensic
5 anthropologists and pathologists. Can you briefly describe to the
6 Chamber what those jobs do and how their work relates to yours as an
7 archaeologist?
8 A. The anthropologists that I had on my team, on my excavation team,
9 were also experienced in archaeology. The reason for having them there
10 is that they know their human bones inside-out and are therefore able to
11 follow in muddy deposits. They're able to follow the way in which a body
12 is disposed. There were also anthropologists at the morgue, which was
13 not part of my operation, who were doing an analysis of the remains. But
14 the anthropologists I had working with me were there because of their
15 knowledge of the human body and skeleton and, because of this knowledge,
16 were able to retrieve the bodies in a more complete and undamaged way.
17 Q. And what about the pathologists?
18 A. No, we had no pathologists on the team.
19 Q. But at the morgue --
20 A. Oh.
21 Q. -- you know, how -- how did their job relate to yours as part of
22 the process of exhuming and analysing the remains?
23 A. Well, the process that was set up was that the morgue was in
24 Visoko, which is close to -- close to Sarajevo, and we would periodically
25 send the bodies that we had exhumed in chiller vans down to the morgue in
Page 22244
1 Visoko. And there standard analyses were done of the biological profiles
2 of the individuals, their age, sex, cause and manner of death, and that
3 was done by anthropologists and pathologists but they were not part of my
4 team. So the operation was divided into the exhumation team, of which I
5 was in charge, and the anthropologists and pathologists at the morgue.
6 Q. Thank you. The last exhumation you did for the ICTY was in 2000;
7 is that correct?
8 A. Yes. It would have been September/October 2000.
9 Q. Have you participated in any exhumations since then?
10 A. Not with ICTY, but I have participated in the exhumation of
11 World War I Australian -- mostly Australian but some British soldiers who
12 were killed in the First World War at a place called Fromelles in
13 north-east France, and I was the senior forensic advisor to the Oxford
14 archaeology team that had the contract to do this work, that is, to
15 recover the bodies and to recover the uniforms and artefacts associated
16 with the bodies which had been buried by the Germans after a disastrous
17 battle. And then they were analysed on -- on the spot, DNA samples
18 taken. And so, yes, I was the senior advisor for that project, but I
19 didn't have an executive role.
20 Q. Thank you. Was there anything of significance or of interest
21 about the disposition of those bodies?
22 A. The bodies were collected, I'm not sure, two or three days after
23 the battle, and they were in various disarranged -- the bodies were
24 disarranged because many had been killed by shell blast, and the Germans
25 buried them - it was a Bavarian regiment, in fact - the Germans buried
Page 22245
1 them respectfully, side by side, alternately heads to the west and heads
2 to the east and in two rows separated by a small quantity of soil, and
3 altogether there were five graves that were full and contained
4 250 soldiers buried in their uniforms.
5 Q. Were any of the people worked for you in Bosnia involved in that
6 particular exhumation?
7 A. Yes. The two graves were excavated at one time, and two of the
8 people who had worked for me in Bosnia over a period of some weeks or
9 months, one -- Oxford archaeology is a very experienced consulting firm
10 in the UK, but they did not have experts in mass graves so they employed
11 two people to be in charge of the excavations of each grave as it was
12 done. Another person, Caroline Barker, who worked for me and was in
13 charge of the anthropology at the anthropological laboratory at
14 Fromelles, a -- the forensic photographer who took the photographs that
15 are in my reports was the photographer for that project. So, yes, the
16 people who worked for me in Bosnia went on to their own careers, but they
17 were -- were captured, as it were, for the work at Fromelles, four of
18 them.
19 Q. Thank you. Just one last very brief question about your
20 background. We can see on your CV at the top it's Richard Wright AM, and
21 this is different from your previous CVs. Can you explain very briefly
22 what the AM means?
23 A. Yeah, very briefly, I was made a member of the order of Australia
24 in the Queen's honours list in May and it stands for Member of the Order
25 of Australia, and that was awarded to me for my work in forensic
Page 22246
1 archaeology, among other things.
2 Q. Thank you. Turning now to your work for the ICTY. You wrote two
3 reports: "Exhumations in Eastern Bosnia in 1998" and "Excavations and
4 Exhumations at Kozluk in 1999." Do you recall testifying about those two
5 reports in the Krstic trial?
6 A. Yes, I do.
7 Q. Have you had an opportunity to review your testimony in the
8 Krstic trial?
9 A. Yes, I have.
10 Q. And I understand you have one correction to that testimony. At
11 transcript page 3633, at lines 19 and 21, there are two references to the
12 word "objectives." That should read "objects"; is that correct?
13 A. Yes, that is correct. The context of what I was saying was that
14 archaeologists specialise in recovering objects from the soil but that
15 got written down as objectives.
16 Q. Thank you. Now, can you confirm that with that correction, the
17 transcript of your testimony in Krstic, it accurately reflects your
18 evidence in that case?
19 A. Yes, it does.
20 Q. And if you were asked the same questions on the same topics
21 today, would you give the same answers?
22 A. Yes, I would.
23 MR. MITCHELL: Mr. President, I'd like to tender the Krstic
24 testimony, which is 65 ter number 03227.
25 JUDGE KWON: You are minded to tender Dr. Wright's CV as well?
Page 22247
1 MR. MITCHELL: Yes, my apologies.
2 JUDGE KWON: We'll admit that first.
3 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. 65 ter number 03452 will be
4 Exhibit P3998.
5 JUDGE KWON: And Professor Wright's testimony in Krstic will be
6 admitted as Exhibit P3999.
7 MR. MITCHELL: Mr. President, I'd also like to tender at this
8 point the associated exhibits and also the two reports that I mentioned.
9 The first report, "Exhumations in Eastern Bosnia in 1998," is
10 65 ter number 2496; and the second report, "Excavations and Exhumations
11 at Kozluk in 1999," is 65 ter number 2495.
12 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
13 Mr. Robinson.
14 MR. ROBINSON: No objection, Mr. President.
15 JUDGE KWON: Those two reports will be admitted as Exhibit 4000
16 and Exhibit P4001.
17 MR. MITCHELL: I'd now like to read a summary of
18 Professor Wright's testimony in the Krstic case.
19 Professor Wright started work for the ICTY in 1997. In 1998 he
20 led the exhumations at the mass grave-sites at the Red Dam;
21 Cancari Road 3; Cancari Road 12; Hodzici Road 3, 4, and 5; Liplje 2; and
22 Zeleni Jadar 5. In 1999 he exhumed a primary mass grave at Kozluk. And
23 at the time of his testimony in the Krstic case he was working at sites
24 in Prijedor.
25 Professor Wright described how an excavation would start, with
Page 22248
1 him being taken by ICTY investigators to a suspected mass grave-site. It
2 was then his job to find the actual location of the grave within that
3 suspect area.
4 First the site was checked for mines and booby-traps and a
5 surveying team was set up to record the content -- sorry, to record the
6 grave and its contents. A backhoe would then be used to scrape off the
7 surface of the soil until Professor Wright was satisfied that the
8 complete outline of the grave had been uncovered.
9 Each of the bodies within the grave were surveyed with a
10 three-dimensional recording system, and each body or body part was
11 assigned a unique number and photograph.
12 Where a virtually complete body was removed, the experts also
13 filled out a form called a "body sheet" which described the properties of
14 the body. Once the bodies and body parts had been exhumed, they were
15 sent to the morgue for anthropological and pathological analysis.
16 The details of the eight graves exhumed by Professor Wright in
17 1998 are as follows: The first site, known as the Red Dam, was a large
18 primary grave dug into a dam wall made of limestone blocks. It had been
19 robbed and contained no complete bodies. However, it contained many
20 highly fragmented human remains, which according to the morgue accounted
21 for a minimum number of 46 individuals.
22 The remaining seven sites he exhumed that year - Cancari Road 3;
23 Cancari Road 12; Hodzici Road 3, 4, and 5; Zeleni Jadar 5; and Liplje 2 -
24 were all secondary graves. He concluded that the Liplje 2 secondary
25 grave was connected to the Red Dam primary grave based on the presence of
Page 22249
1 angular non-naturally occurring limestone blocks at both sites.
2 In 1998, Professor Wright also probed an additional 21 sites that
3 proved to be graves. He estimated that those 21 sites contained an
4 additional 2.571 bodies.
5 In 1999, Professor Wright exhumed a partially robbed primary mass
6 grave-site at Kozluk. He concluded that this site was linked to the
7 Cancari 3 secondary grave he had exhumed the previous year based on the
8 presence of fragments of green glass present throughout both sites.
9 He also concluded that the Kozluk site was an execution site as
10 well as a burial site where some individuals had been simply covered with
11 soil and left undisturbed. This conclusion was based on the lack of any
12 disturbance to the limbs of those bodies and the recovery of bullets
13 embedded in the clay underneath the bodies.
14 Professor Wright observed that 42 per cent of the 280 individuals
15 at the Kozluk site had their hands tied behind their back, while
16 16 per cent of the bodies were blindfolded.
17 Professor Wright also noted that he saw only civilian clothing in
18 the graves he exhumed in 1998 and 1999.
19 I now have some additional questions.
20 Q. Professor, you've spoken about primary and secondary graves in
21 your prior testimony. Can you define for us what these are?
22 A. Yes. I think before doing that I need to also introduce a first
23 category which is an execution site. A primary grave is where the bodies
24 from an execution site are first buried. That in many cases, one might
25 imagine, was the end of the matter, but these graves were dug up in most
Page 22250
1 cases and the bodies were taken away to secondary graves. And so we
2 distinguish between primary graves, the place of initial disposal, and
3 secondary graves, which are the places to which the bodies were taken
4 from the primary graves.
5 Q. In your reports you use the term "rob" to describe the process of
6 removal from a primary to a secondary grave. Can you explain in a little
7 bit more detail what you mean by this tern "rob"?
8 A. Yes, the word "rob" or "robbed" is commonly used in archaeology
9 to mean that when you excavate a site you see areas where things have
10 been taken away. It may seem to -- in common usage that I'm talking
11 about some type of a criminal act, but the word is used not necessarily
12 to mean that. And there's a section in the Oxford English Dictionary
13 devoted to the archaeological -- special archaeological use of the word
14 robbed. So when I was using that term, I was using it as an
15 archaeologist.
16 Q. I'd like to ask you to -- if you can, to give us an example of
17 what you've been talking about, an execution primary grave and secondary
18 grave. Can you tell us using the Kozluk site as an example about this
19 process? Can you tell us how you first came to learn of the site at
20 Kozluk?
21 A. In 1998, we were excavating at a site called Cancari Road 3, and
22 as the excavator was marking out the limits of the grave, that is, the
23 machine, the machine, the backhoe, if you like, as it was marking out the
24 boundaries of the grave, we saw hundreds if not thousands of pieces of
25 broken green glass, and they were all of the same type of glass, from
Page 22251
1 bottles, many of which had still got their crown seals on them even
2 though they were broken, and we found a pile of labels, maybe 3- or
3 400 labels, which mentioned the Vitinka bottling factory at Kozluk. Now,
4 this site was in a fairly desolate part of -- Cancari Road 3 was in an a
5 fairly desolate part of Bosnia and there was no settlement around it, so
6 I concluded that these bodies had been brought, together with the broken
7 glass, from a primary site or an execution site, I didn't know which, but
8 primary grave or an execution site that was at a place where the bottling
9 factory dumped its broken bottles.
10 So I got in touch with ICTY about this. And initially they were
11 unaware of such an execution site or a primary grave in that area, but
12 they immediately came down and we went to -- but we went behind the
13 bottling factory and we found an area of -- by the Drina River that was
14 grossly disturbed, and I think a couple of legs or it was a leg and an
15 arm lying out below what looked like a loading ramp for trucks to pull up
16 against. We hadn't found a grave by then, and in -- sorry, end of 1998,
17 but in 1999 my team went back there and we found the primary grave which
18 had been robbed and from which I conclude the bodies that were at
19 Cancari 3 had been taken. They'd been taken from Kozluk to Cancari 3
20 transferring the evidence of the bottles and the labels, and Cancari 3
21 was certainly a secondary grave by the standards of the incompleteness of
22 many of the bodies which had come apart in the -- while they were
23 transferred.
24 Q. Okay. I'd like to show you a few photos of this site and get you
25 to explain them to us.
Page 22252
1 A. Can I ask which site?
2 Q. Kozluk.
3 MR. MITCHELL: 65 ter number 2495. Page 27 in e-court.
4 JUDGE KWON: 2495 or 59?
5 MR. MITCHELL: I believe it's 2495.
6 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
7 MR. MITCHELL: My apologies.
8 JUDGE KWON: Is this what we admitted as one of his expert
9 report?
10 MR. MITCHELL: Correct, Mr. President. If we can go to the next
11 page in B/C/S so we can get the description.
12 Q. Okay. Professor, starting with the top photo, photo number 4,
13 can you tell us what we're looking at here?
14 A. Yes. We're at -- we're at the site --
15 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. If the Defence is okay, we can
16 collapse the B/C/S and can zoom in to the picture.
17 Would that be okay, Mr. Karadzic?
18 Yes, we'll do that.
19 THE WITNESS: This is the area of the Kozluk site that we called
20 KK2. It's a distinct area from the main mass of bodies. But the reason
21 why this was seen as important by us is that here you're looking down
22 from some high ground onto a flat surface on which these bodies lie, and
23 we found many of them visibly, that we then analysed them, visibly had
24 gunshot wounds, and they -- and bullets were embedded up to about
25 10 centimetres -- I seem to have done some damage.
Page 22253
1 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Mitchell, would you -- would you like the doctor
2 to mark on the picture?
3 MR. MITCHELL: Yes, Mr. President. That might be helpful.
4 JUDGE KWON: Could you wait a second until our usher could assist
5 you. Yes, you can mark it.
6 THE WITNESS: Yes. This is the flat surface here. And here are
7 the bodies, obviously, lying down. Many of them had their hands tied
8 behind their backs and/or were blindfolded, but I can't remember the
9 numbers. But we found bullets embedded in the soil underneath these
10 bodies down to a depth of 10 centimetres.
11 These bodies were then covered up with soil after they had
12 been -- died there, and later an attempt was made, not by us but
13 previously, to recover the bodies, and you're beginning to see here an
14 old trench that cut through the edge of these bodies.
15 MR. MITCHELL:
16 Q. If we can scroll down and have a look at photograph 5.
17 JUDGE KWON: Do we need to preserve this one? Or we can --
18 MR. MITCHELL: It's all the same page, Mr. President.
19 JUDGE KWON: No, I wanted -- I wanted to ask you whether you
20 wanted to keep doctor's marking on this picture. At this moment it won't
21 be necessary.
22 MR. MITCHELL: Yeah, not yet.
23 JUDGE KWON: So we can -- yes, we can move on then.
24 MR. MITCHELL: Thank you.
25 If we can scroll down to the next photo, photo number 5.
Page 22254
1 THE WITNESS: You would want me to talk now?
2 MR. MITCHELL:
3 Q. Yeah. You said we could see the edges of a trench.
4 A. Yes.
5 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. Would you like the doctor to mark it
6 again?
7 MR. MITCHELL: Yes, please.
8 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
9 THE WITNESS: This is the surface we were looking at --
10 JUDGE KWON: Oh, no, just -- could you wait. Probably you need
11 to push some pencil click first. Could you wait till assisted by our --
12 by our usher.
13 THE WITNESS: This is the flat surface that I was talking about
14 previously. If it will help the proceedings, I can point but not touch.
15 MR. MITCHELL:
16 Q. If you can just, yeah, describe it to us.
17 A. Yes, okay. Well, we can see at the top of the photograph the
18 same flat surface and the bodies lying on the flat surface. And right
19 across the picture is a trench which, as you can see on the edges here,
20 has -- has cut -- hmm. Anyway, the -- there is a cut right across the
21 bodies that's taken away the leg of one of them, and this is done by an
22 excavator with teeth. And the excavator that dug this trench and took
23 away we don't know what but presumably some bodies, some from the edge
24 here, this -- these marks are left by the excavator, because it
25 compresses the soil in such a manner that when looser soil is thrown over
Page 22255
1 the top the actual compressed grooves of the teeth are not obliterated.
2 Q. Okay.
3 A. And the archaeologists just take out the soft material. So my
4 interpretation of this is that there was [Realtime transcript read in
5 error "wasn't"] an execution there and that the attempt was made then to
6 recover the bodies.
7 JUDGE KWON: I think we can zoom in further at those parts. Yes.
8 Once again. Further. Further, yes. We can see a bit clearer. Is this
9 what you're -- what you're referring to, Doctor?
10 THE WITNESS: Yes. I'm referring to the two critical parts of
11 this photograph, are -- at the top, are undisturbed bodies. On the edge,
12 some limbs have been taken away. And on the bottom you see the trench
13 that cut through the mass of bodies.
14 MR. MITCHELL: Can we please go to page 30 in e-court.
15 Q. And just looking at the top photo, which is photo number 9, is
16 that the green glass that you were talking about, Professor?
17 A. Yes. At the top of the screen you can see the green glass of
18 which we have removed for sending down to the morgue many -- many bodies.
19 In fact, at this particular area of the site, which is KK3, we found some
20 280 complete bodies, and these are the ones that are left down the slope,
21 and that is the green glass.
22 Q. Was it part of your protocol to keep the artefacts that were
23 recovered from a site?
24 A. In general, yes. And certainly any artefacts that were -- would
25 bear on the cause and manner of death and the identification of the
Page 22256
1 individuals. But an exception made at Kozluk and at Cancari 3 was that
2 we did not collect all the glass because we considered it as background
3 waste material that didn't bear on the case.
4 Q. Professor, can I just clarify something in the transcript at
5 page 15, line 13. It says my interpretation of this site is there wasn't
6 an execution there. Is that what you said?
7 A. No. There was an execution there.
8 Q. Thank you.
9 MR. MITCHELL: If we can now scroll down to look at photo
10 number 10.
11 Q. Now, in your report at page 13 you estimated that there were some
12 16 per cent of the bodies had blindfolds and 43 per cent, or 124 bodies,
13 had ligatures. Now, using this particular photo as an example, can you
14 explain to us how you interpreted an artefact as a ligature or as a
15 blindfold?
16 A. I'm afraid of touching the screen, and I really do need to mark
17 at this point.
18 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
19 THE WITNESS: Let me just explain the layout of this body. Here
20 is a head with hair. Here are the shoulder blades. And the -- and here
21 are the ribs.
22 JUDGE KWON: Thank you for your patience.
23 Another way we can do it is put that picture on the ELMO and then
24 doctor can point to the picture.
25 We seem to have some problem with the --
Page 22257
1 MR. MITCHELL: That's fine with me, Mr. President. I don't have
2 a colour version of that photo.
3 JUDGE KWON: Why don't we use the -- your report, even in black
4 and white.
5 MR. NICHOLLS: Good morning, Your Honours. I don't mean to
6 interrupt. I just wonder if this is a problem that can be fixed if we
7 need a five-minute break. I think it would be worth it so that the
8 expert can mark as necessary.
9 JUDGE KWON: I agree. But before we take a break, short break:
10 Mr. Tieger, we are seized of the motion from the Defence to either
11 postpone or -- postpone/adjourn Mr. Jean-Rene Ruez's testimony or order
12 him to testify live. Can -- when do you think you can give your response
13 to this?
14 MR. TIEGER: I'll get back to the Court. I gather that's a
15 request for a response as expedited as possible, and I'll report back on
16 what we can manage as soon as possible.
17 JUDGE KWON: So I'd like to hear from you before the end of
18 business tomorrow. Thank you.
19 Then we'll take a break for five minutes. So if you could tell
20 us when it's ready.
21 --- Break taken at 9.39 a.m.
22 --- On resuming at 9.47 a.m.
23 JUDGE KWON: Thank you for your patience, Doctor.
24 Let's, continue, Mr. Mitchell.
25 MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. President.
Page 22258
1 Q. Okay. We should be -- should be up and running, Professor. The
2 question was: How do you interpret an artefact as a ligature or a
3 blindfold?
4 A. Yes. I was, before the screen failed, I was pointing to the
5 layout of this body. Here is the hair. We seem to have the same
6 troubles.
7 JUDGE KWON: Just wait. Wait a minute.
8 THE WITNESS: Here is the --
9 JUDGE KWON: No, no, no.
10 THE WITNESS: What am I doing wrong? Or is the machine wrong?
11 JUDGE KWON: Just -- could you wait till ... yes.
12 MR. MITCHELL:
13 Q. Sir, can we go down. It's the bottom photo we're looking at.
14 MR. MITCHELL: Mr. President. We do have colour copies here.
15 JUDGE KWON: I don't understand this. Let's put the colour copy
16 on the ELMO.
17 THE WITNESS: Now it's working.
18 JUDGE KWON: Oh, it is work-- now it works. Yes.
19 THE WITNESS: The head, the hair, the shoulder blades, the spine.
20 And here we see the two arms meeting behind the back, and there is this
21 cloth tied round the arms. This is the cloth holding them together
22 behind the back. And this individual, although we're looking at the back
23 of the skull and it's a bit obscured, but this is the blindfold here. So
24 I would interpret those bits of cloth as not background waste from a
25 rubbish dump but as so intimately related to the body that they are
Page 22259
1 artefacts that must be recovered.
2 JUDGE KWON: Could you kindly, Doctor, put your -- put the date
3 and your signature at the right bottom of the picture. Today is
4 1st of December.
5 THE WITNESS: [Marks]
6 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. This page will be admitted as separate
7 exhibit.
8 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P4002, Your Honours.
9 MR. MITCHELL: Thank you. Can I please go to page 32 now.
10 Q. And just briefly, Professor, once this comes up I want to ask you
11 if you recall what material the ligatures were made of at this site,
12 whether they were made of the same material or something different.
13 A. I can't answer that question as to whether they were all made of
14 the same material. It wasn't something that was within my brief. But I
15 seem to -- at Kozluk, most of the ligatures, I think all of them that are
16 in that picture, are of cloth, but they were in -- except for these
17 specially taken illustrations for our records, in general we were not
18 analysing the nature of the material.
19 Q. Mm-hmm. Okay.
20 MR. MITCHELL: Can we go back to page 29 now.
21 Q. And you said earlier, Professor, that you interpreted that
22 previous picture as a ligature because both hands were tied behind the
23 back. How did you interpret this one as a ligature when it's only around
24 one wrist?
25 MR. MITCHELL: If we can maybe zoom in photo number 8.
Page 22260
1 A. Yes. In the case of this individual, the ligature is around this
2 arm, then there's a knot, and then there's a loop of cloth in this area,
3 and I concluded that this individual had broken loose in his left arm
4 from the ligature but had not broken loose on his right arm. So he's
5 carried with the -- with it, with his right arm, the loop from which he's
6 broken loose.
7 Q. Thank you.
8 MR. MITCHELL: Can I tender that, Mr. President.
9 Q. Professor, if you could write your initials and the date.
10 A. [Marks]
11 JUDGE KWON: That will be Exhibit P4003.
12 MR. MITCHELL: Thank you.
13 Q. Professor, I want to move to a different area now, and just a few
14 questions about who you reported to at the ICTY during these exhumations.
15 Can you tell us who you reported to?
16 A. Yes. I -- in -- in terms of the structure of ICTY as it was
17 then, I reported to the Chief of Operations.
18 Q. Did the Chief of Operations direct you how to do your
19 professional work at these sites?
20 A. No. The Chief of Operations was very rarely at the sites but did
21 make visits.
22 Q. Okay. What about the investigators who came to the site; did
23 they direct your work, issue instructions on how to do the work?
24 A. No, they didn't.
25 Q. Okay. Now, I have a few questions about the protocols that you
Page 22261
1 had in place at the site as well. Who developed these protocols?
2 A. I developed them together with my team, and you're referring to a
3 document which has a series of paragraphs.
4 Q. Correct.
5 A. Is it possible to show one on the screen so that I know --
6 Q. Yes.
7 MR. MITCHELL: If we could have 65 ter 2495. That's the Kozluk
8 report.
9 Q. And it should be around page 6, starting with the heading
10 "Exhumation Procedures."
11 A. Yes, that's fine.
12 Q. Okay, so these are the protocols that you developed?
13 A. Yes. And these were printed and given to each member of the
14 team, and I took each member of the team through the protocols to explain
15 what they mean. Essentially they describe who's responsible for doing
16 what during the exhumation.
17 Q. And were these protocols put in place at all the
18 Srebrenica-related sites and the three Prijedor sites that you exhumed at
19 Redak, Pasinac cemetery, and Kevljani?
20 A. Yes, they were, and they were essentially the same for each site
21 but with some differences that depended on the nature of the site. But
22 they were -- they are essentially the same in 1997 -- sorry, in 1998,
23 1999, and 2000.
24 Q. And have these protocols received peer recognition or been
25 followed at other sites other than the ICTY?
Page 22262
1 A. They were certainly used. They're not published. The principles
2 behind them were incorporated into a book, "The Scientific Investigation
3 of Mass Graves," which was published by Dr. Cox, and to which people who
4 worked for me contributed. And I can see the influence of these
5 protocols which were developed, and not by me personally but in
6 conjunction with my team of surveyors, photographers, and scene-of-crime
7 officers. Yes, they do have -- have had some influence.
8 Q. Okay. When we were talking about Kozluk, I asked you about
9 whether you preserved the green glass and you said no. Was there any
10 other occasion where you didn't preserve an artefact at a site?
11 A. Yes. At the -- at the Red Dam that you've referred to, which we
12 worked on in April maybe to May 1998, there were no complete bodies.
13 There were isolated bones. And in the filling of the -- the refilling of
14 that grave at the Red Dam, there were isolated pieces of clothing that
15 were not associated with any bones and which were industrially
16 manufactured clothing that would not have led to the identification of
17 individuals, and so they were put back -- some of those were put back in
18 the grave. But what was retained were things like knitted sweaters which
19 somebody might recognise as their own handiwork. That is the only
20 occasion on which I discarded artefacts, but that was after photography.
21 Q. Thank you. Now, just one question about the 21 sites that were
22 probed in 1998, and you estimate that had these sites contained 2.571
23 bodies. Have you subsequently come into any information that would cause
24 you to revise that estimation?
25 A. Yes. If I -- if I could just expand on that a bit. We -- we
Page 22263
1 had -- I had information from the morgue of -- about the number of bodies
2 in seven of the secondary graves that we had excavated. There were
3 21 graves that we had probed, and the principles of probing were to
4 define the outline of the grave and show there were more than two
5 individuals in the grave but not exhume them, and I did some
6 calculations, which are estimates, and came up with that number that you
7 mentioned. More particularly, I came up with an average number, which I
8 think was about 122 in each grave. So I put in my report that if you
9 accept certain assumptions there, then -- I'm bad on remembering numbers.
10 If I could consult my notes, Mr. President on this. Could I
11 consult my notes on the numbers that I --
12 JUDGE KWON: By all means, Doctor.
13 THE WITNESS: Yes. From the -- in the report on the 1998 season,
14 where we had seven secondary graves and I was asked to estimate how many
15 bodies there might be in the 21, I came up, as you said, with an estimate
16 of 2.571, which was an average of 120 -- based on the average of 122.4
17 bodies that we actually found. I was concerned that my estimate --
18 whether -- were my estimates widely out, so I have kept up with people
19 who have worked since on the exhumation of these probed secondary graves
20 that I didn't exhume, and in particular Mr. Jon Sterenberg who worked for
21 ICMP told me of the number of individuals in ten of those probed graves
22 and the -- that was an average of greater than 151, which meant that my
23 estimate back in -- in 1999 was an underestimate.
24 Q. Okay.
25 A. I also consulted a much later report by Dusan Janc, which is an
Page 22264
1 official ICTY document, and he had information at that point, that was
2 last year, of the number of individuals in 19 of the 21 probed graves and
3 they had an average of 137.6. So, say, 138 bodies actually recovered.
4 So my estimates in that report you're referring to were a slight
5 underestimate. There were more bodies in those probed graves than I had
6 estimated.
7 Q. Thank you.
8 JUDGE KWON: Just a second, Mr. Mitchell.
9 Do you have any problem, Mr. Karadzic?
10 THE ACCUSED: I think it's colder than it should be.
11 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
12 MR. MITCHELL:
13 Q. Just to clarify: Professor, you were shown the report by
14 Dusan Janc when you came here for your testimony in the Tolimir case last
15 year?
16 A. I can't remember whether I was shown it before or afterwards.
17 Q. Okay. Now, I want to move to a different area now, which is your
18 exhumation at the Glogova 1 site.
19 MR. MITCHELL: And if I can bring up 65 ter 2504.
20 Q. And just while that's coming up: Professor, were the same
21 protocols in place at this site that were in place at your 1998 and 1999
22 excavations?
23 A. Not the same in the sense of identical, but the principles were
24 the same, yes. I think by 2000 we decided we would not -- in 1999 at
25 Kozluk where there were some hundreds if not thousands of shell cases
Page 22265
1 from bullets, we decided we would not survey each one. We did survey
2 each one, but we didn't photograph each one, as we would have done
3 before. So that's explicit in our 2000 -- protocols for the year 2000,
4 but if there's artefacts like AK-47 shell cases exceeds a certain number,
5 we won't photograph every one.
6 Q. Okay.
7 A. But that's the sort of difference.
8 Q. And is this the report that you wrote on that exhumation?
9 A. Yes, it is.
10 MR. MITCHELL: Can we please go to page 26 in e-court.
11 Q. Can you describe to us what we're looking at in this photo.
12 MR. MITCHELL: Maybe we can blow it up.
13 THE WITNESS: Yes.
14 JUDGE KWON: I think we can safely collapse the B/C/S part.
15 THE WITNESS: Yes. We're looking at -- at the site which is
16 called Glogova 1. I hardly dare touch the screen, but I will risk it.
17 MR. MITCHELL:
18 Q. Just -- just wait one moment, Professor.
19 A. Yes. This is essentially the area of Glogova 1, which I
20 excavated. And over the road here is Glogova 2, which I was not
21 responsible for that excavation.
22 Q. And just -- just to orient us, the road that we can see --
23 JUDGE KWON: Could you kindly put 1 and 2 for the future
24 reference.
25 THE WITNESS: Yes.
Page 22266
1 MR. MITCHELL:
2 Q. Thank you. Can you just orient us, the road that we see running
3 along the top half of the picture?
4 A. Yes. Essentially it's running on the left to Kravica and the
5 warehouse, which I think is about 6 kilometres, and to the right this
6 main road is running to Bratunac.
7 Q. Okay.
8 A. And then there is a side road here which is a track, which leads
9 up to the two Glogova sites.
10 Q. Thank you. And can you please put your initials and date that.
11 A. [Marks]
12 MR. MITCHELL: If that can be admitted, Mr. President.
13 JUDGE KWON: Exhibit P4004.
14 MR. MITCHELL: If we can go to page 28 next.
15 Q. Now, this is a complex site, Professor, so if -- when the next
16 image comes up, if you can just briefly describe the site and the various
17 sub-graves within it.
18 MR. MITCHELL: Actually, maybe page 29 may be better.
19 Q. So there are six separate deposits here; is that correct?
20 A. There are six separate surviving deposits. The -- I divide the
21 site into two areas. There is this area that I'm drawing a red line
22 around, which I'll mark as 1, and then there are three discrete small
23 graves on the left-hand side of the picture marked as grave E, K, and L.
24 This area to the right, which I've labelled 1, was probably once a very
25 much large area of mass graves, and these marks on -- that we have put on
Page 22267
1 and called grave H, grave F, and grave C, are surviving patches of
2 body -- of bodies. It -- from a grave that was robbed in October 1995.
3 And so this is what was left behind that we found. On the left are
4 graves that were not disturbed in October 1995 and so they are intact.
5 Q. And how do you know that these graves were robbed in
6 October 1995?
7 A. Because we see signs of excavators having cut through the bodies,
8 and there are these dismembered limbs left behind after a -- after an
9 attempt was made to remove the bodies.
10 Q. And what about the specific time period that you gave,
11 October 1995; how did you conclude that that's when the robbing occurred?
12 A. I was shown aerial images which are included in my report which
13 allows me to see first of all when the original burials were made, which
14 was in July 1995. That's all the burials were made.
15 Q. Mm-hmm.
16 A. And then in October 1995, these aerial images show the
17 disturbance of the area I've marked 1? And there's -- one of the aerial
18 images shows a large excavator working in this area, mechanical excavator
19 working in this area, which I'll call 2.
20 Q. Okay. If you can initial and date that.
21 A. [Marks]
22 JUDGE KWON: Professor, did you include that -- those aerial
23 images you saw at the time into your report?
24 THE WITNESS: I did, Mr. President.
25 JUDGE KWON: Where can we see them, Mr. Mitchell? We'll mark --
Page 22268
1 we'll admit this as Exhibit P4005. Do you have your report in front of
2 you?
3 MR. MITCHELL: I do, Mr. President. I think it's, Mr. President,
4 at page 27. It's an aerial image dated the 27th of July for three --
5 sorry, four aerial images, 5th of July, 17th of July, 27th of July, and
6 then 30th of October.
7 JUDGE KWON: After having kept this image, we'll move to page 27
8 to take a brief look.
9 I think it's in front of you at the monitor, Doctor.
10 THE WITNESS: Yes.
11 JUDGE KWON: If you could give us some brief explanation.
12 THE WITNESS: Yes, Mr. President. This is the area which we
13 investigated. And on the 5th of July, in this aerial photograph, it's an
14 undisturbed area. On the 17th of July, this photograph to the right,
15 there's a lot of disturbed soil showing up. We recognised this in
16 photograph after photograph. You can't dig graves without disturbing
17 soil. And this area here is the area within which burials were made.
18 These letters in blue are the labels we gave to patches of surviving
19 bodies for our own notes, and they remain unchanged in all of the four
20 photographs.
21 The -- on the 27th of July you can see that the area is smoothed
22 over. And this area down at the bottom of the picture, K and L, has got
23 graves which were not there on the 17th of July, this area which I'll
24 mark as 2, in both cases on the 17th of July it actually has one of the
25 graves, but the -- the -- there are two graves here which were -- there
Page 22269
1 are two graves here which appear after, that is E and L.
2 And the disturbance of the site that took place on the
3 30th of October, where you can see big areas of new disturbed soil which
4 are not present here, this type of robbing did not extend to these graves
5 down here, K, E, and L.
6 The photograph of the excavator at work was not available to me
7 when I wrote this report, and so it's not included in the report, the
8 aerial image.
9 MR. MITCHELL:
10 Q. Can you initial that and date it, Professor.
11 A. [Marks]
12 JUDGE KWON: Exhibit P4006.
13 Yes, Mr. Mitchell.
14 MR. MITCHELL: Thank you.
15 Q. Were you able to establish any links between this grave at
16 Glogova 1 and a secondary grave-site?
17 A. Yes. Rather in the same way as the link between Cancari Road 3
18 and Kozluk, we in fact found one of the secondary graves for the Glogova
19 site before we found the primary grave. The secondary grave we found in
20 1998, at the end of the season, is Zeleni Jadar 5. And Zeleni Jadar 5
21 had certain peculiar properties compared with the other graves we had
22 dug. For instance, there were a lot of motorcar parts, barbed wire, hay.
23 This was mixed up with the bodies. And even an unripe apple, which,
24 although it might seem of little consequence, at least allows one to
25 judge approximately the season at which these bodies were buried.
Page 22270
1 Then in 2000 when we excavated the Glogova site, we consistently
2 found -- well, there are orchards, trees overhanging the graves, and we
3 were finding motorcar parts, parts of buildings, barbed wire.
4 Q. Did you find hay Glogova 1?
5 A. We found hay. We found hay in Glogova 1. There's a picture in
6 my report of the hay. And we found, more particularly and which was of
7 great interest to the investigators, we were finding parts of --
8 broken-off parts of what was clearly a building. And Mr. Mike Hedley,
9 who was a British police officer, was commissioned to write a report on
10 the relationship between these bits of building that we were finding at
11 Glogova with the Kravica warehouse. And I personally went down there and
12 saw the Kravica warehouse, that the door had been -- that the arch above
13 the door had been broken. And in the graves at Glogova 1 we were able to
14 assemble virtually the complete door from -- which we recovered from
15 various parts of the site mixed in with the bodies, the frame, the
16 joists, the door itself, pieces of cement which were painted white and
17 some painted red, and polystyrene which was used. You could see at the
18 warehouse itself polystyrene was used as an insulator between the cement
19 panels that formed the wall. But I didn't do an analysis of that
20 material. I formed an impression. But there is a separate analysis
21 done.
22 Q. Okay. There's one other artefact, or type of artefact, that you
23 describe in that grave, which is shrapnel- and grenade-related artefacts.
24 MR. MITCHELL: If we can go to page 37 in e-court.
25 Q. If you can just explain what it is that we're looking at in these
Page 22271
1 five photographs, starting with the one at the top of the page, 56763_15?
2 A. Yes. There we're looking at a pellet of metal embedded in --
3 JUDGE KWON: Why don't you zoom in, just for the first picture.
4 MR. MITCHELL: Thank you.
5 THE WITNESS: Here we're looking at a very shattered skull. And
6 embedded in the skull is this pellet. And the unexploded ordnance
7 officer that we had with us explained, for our own safety, explained to
8 me that this is a pellet from a grenade.
9 Q. Thank you.
10 MR. MITCHELL: Do we need to save this page now or scroll down
11 and --
12 JUDGE KWON: Why don't we --
13 MR. MITCHELL: We can save it now.
14 Q. You can initial and date it, Professor.
15 JUDGE KWON: Exhibit P4007.
16 MR. MITCHELL: And if we can scroll down and look at the next two
17 photos down on that page.
18 Q. And, Professor, if you can just describe what we're looking at in
19 these two photos.
20 A. Well -- sorry.
21 Q. Please go ahead.
22 A. We're looking at some flesh, I don't know what, maybe the
23 shoulder, the skin. And the one on the left is a general photograph and
24 the one on the right is a close-up of the same effect, but here a piece
25 of metal embedded in the flesh.
Page 22272
1 MR. MITCHELL: Just for the record -- sorry. Just for the
2 record, we're looking at photo 56715_04a. And if we can just scroll
3 across so I can get the number of the second one.
4 If we can save that, Mr. President.
5 Q. Professor, if you can initial and date that.
6 A. [Marks]
7 Q. Just for the record, the second photo we were looking at was
8 56715_05a. And now if we can scroll down and look at the bottom two
9 photos on that page, which are 56726_25.
10 JUDGE KWON: The previous one was admitted as Exhibit P4008;
11 correct?
12 THE REGISTRAR: That's correct, Your Honours.
13 MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. President.
14 Q. And the second photo we're looking at here on the right is
15 56757_24. And again, Professor, if you can just explain what it is we're
16 looking at here.
17 A. Here we're looking at a piece of bent metal which is found with
18 the bodies. And I was told again by the unexploded ordnance officer that
19 this is the fly-off, I believe that's the name, the fly-off lever of a
20 grenade which is lifted and causes the grenade to explode. And the one
21 on the left is a second one of those but not bent.
22 MR. MITCHELL: Okay. If I can now go to page 17 in e-court, 17
23 in the English, 16 in the B/C/S.
24 Q. Professor, that's page 16 in your hard copy, if you'd like to
25 take a look.
Page 22273
1 A. Do you want me to initial it?
2 Q. Yes, please. No, you haven't marked it --
3 JUDGE KWON: No, you don't have to because you didn't mark
4 anything.
5 MR. MITCHELL:
6 Q. Okay. Now, at this part of your report you talk about how the
7 bodies in this site are -- you describe them as unusually fragmented, and
8 you conclude that some of this is due to blast injuries as well as the
9 burial process itself. Can you just briefly expand on this conclusion.
10 A. Well, the bones were more broken up within the clothing than at
11 any of the other sites we examined, and the association with the bodies
12 of grenades and flesh -- and metal embedded in the flesh led me to
13 conclude that we were looking at blast damage. But, but, these bodies go
14 to the morgue. These are the impressions -- contingency impressions that
15 I form at the site, but I have no doubt that these bodies suffered blast
16 damage.
17 JUDGE KWON: What paragraph are we looking at on this page?
18 MR. MITCHELL: That's the very bottom of the page. My apologies.
19 It's over on page 16, the paragraph that starts with "In the light of
20 this unusual fragmentation, I consider it significant that Glogova 1 is
21 the only primary site where I have found remains of explosive devices in
22 the form of grenades and shrapnel."
23 JUDGE KWON: Where is it?
24 MR. MITCHELL: Paragraph 3.
25 JUDGE KWON: Oh, yes. In -- yes. Thank you.
Page 22274
1 MR. MITCHELL:
2 Q. Okay. I want to take you to one last area and that's a video --
3 JUDGE KWON: Would you like to tender doctor's report it testify?
4 MR. MITCHELL: Yes, please.
5 JUDGE KWON: Yes. You are not tendering his interim report, are
6 you?
7 MR. MITCHELL: No, Mr. President.
8 JUDGE KWON: Yes. Exhibit -- the 65 ter 2504 will be admitted as
9 Exhibit P4009.
10 I take it there's no opposition.
11 MR. ROBINSON: That's correct, Mr. President.
12 MR. MITCHELL: Mr. President, the only thing I have left is some
13 video footage of about 10 minutes, but with breaks and explanations it
14 could be 20, 25 minutes.
15 JUDGE KWON: Very well. We will take a break in a few minutes.
16 But before that shall we deal with associated exhibits --
17 MR. MITCHELL: Certainly.
18 JUDGE KWON: -- with this transcript you tender.
19 Two -- just, first question is: Two expert reports which have
20 been already tendered are listed as one -- as one of those associated
21 exhibits, but we're not minder to tender them separately?
22 MR. MITCHELL: They should be tendered separately under Rule 94,
23 not as associated exhibits.
24 JUDGE KWON: 65 ter number 20576. And, before that, 65 ter 2494.
25 Can we upload it? This is just one-page diagram. But according to the
Page 22275
1 transcript, doctor identifies certain parts of the -- this diagram by
2 colour, but I see only black and white. Can we upload 2494? Do we have
3 original in colour?
4 MR. MITCHELL: I have looked. I don't believe that we have the
5 original in colour, but Professor Wright does, so we may be able to
6 rescan --
7 JUDGE KWON: Could you look during the break.
8 MR. MITCHELL: -- rescan his report in colour.
9 JUDGE KWON: And then further: 25 -- 20576, doctor also explains
10 in colour red, but I see only yellow colour in that picture. 20576.
11 Could you take a look during the break.
12 MR. MITCHELL: Yes, Mr. President.
13 JUDGE KWON: Then we'll take a break now for half an hour and
14 resume at 11.00.
15 --- Recess taken at 10.28 a.m.
16 --- On resuming at 11.01 a.m.
17 JUDGE KWON: Is it now okay with you, Mr. Karadzic?
18 THE ACCUSED: I don't feel yet, but I hope. I hope it will be.
19 JUDGE KWON: Okay. Let's continue, Mr. Mitchell.
20 MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. President. Just in respect of the
21 two associated exhibits you asked me about: 2495, the Kozluk report,
22 where that schematic is taken from, we're in the process of getting and
23 uploading the colour version. In relation to 20576, that's the incorrect
24 photo. The right photo that Professor Wright was talking about is
25 already admitted as P216, and that was admitted as part of a
Page 22276
1 92 bis decision with KDZ069. So that's the appropriate exhibit at that
2 transcript reference.
3 JUDGE KWON: Very well. And the last item in the associated
4 exhibit is a video. Is this what we are going to see now?
5 MR. MITCHELL: Yes, it is.
6 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
7 Are there any objection otherwise?
8 MR. ROBINSON: No, Mr. President.
9 JUDGE KWON: Very well. Then, with those caveats, all the other
10 associated exhibits will be admitted into evidence and be given number in
11 due course.
12 Yes. Let's continue, Mr. Mitchell.
13 MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. President.
14 Q. Professor, we're going to look now at a video of the Cancari 12
15 site that you exhumed in 1998. But before we start, I just wonder if you
16 could give the Trial Chamber a bit of background about this site. Just
17 describe where it is and some of the general properties.
18 A. Yes. The Cancari 12 site was the first site that we excavated
19 that was a secondary grave in 1998. It's at one extreme end of what we
20 call the Cancari Road, that is, the end of the Cancari Road that's
21 furthest away from the Drina River. It was shown to us by -- or, rather,
22 we were taken to it by investigators, and I had to see whether it was
23 feasible to excavate the site and we were able to get all our transport
24 in and all the necessary buildings that would have to go up to do the
25 work, and, well, that's it.
Page 22277
1 Q. Okay. That might be an appropriate point to start the film. And
2 I'll -- rather than talking during the footage, we'll just watch a bit
3 and then I'll stop and get you to explain what it is that we've just
4 seen.
5 MR. MITCHELL: So if we can start.
6 [Video-clip played]
7 MR. MITCHELL: Okay. If we can stop there. The time is 00:25
8 seconds.
9 Q. And if you can describe what we just saw in that image,
10 Professor.
11 A. Yes, what we saw in that image was the grave before any
12 excavation started. And the people responsible for the surveying that
13 was going to take place were -- were -- were setting up their equipment,
14 establishing a baseline and so on.
15 Q. Okay.
16 MR. MITCHELL: If we can start again.
17 [Video-clip played]
18 MR. MITCHELL: If we can just stop there. That's 01:05 seconds.
19 Q. And if you can describe this.
20 A. What we've seen there is the initial search for the boundaries of
21 the grave. The archaeological principle is that you find the grave
22 outlines before you disturb any of the bodies. And how do you find the
23 grave outlines? Well, excavation in this sort of soil brings up
24 mineralised material from down below and mixes it up with the organic
25 material on top that this backhoe that you saw in the film is scraping
Page 22278
1 through. So when the grave is refilled, there's a mottled soil in the
2 filling of the grave, it contains top-soil and subsoil, and the boundary
3 of the grave therefore can show up when you have a decent scrape across
4 the surface, a nice smooth scrape. And that's what this backhoe is
5 doing, searching for the boundaries of the grave.
6 Q. Sir, what are the specific things that are being looked for, the
7 specific signs? Like, is there change in texture of the soil, colour of
8 the soil? Like, what are the things that -- the specific indicia that
9 they're looking for?
10 A. Well, exactly as I've described. Because a grave is dug through
11 a developed soil profile, it mixes it all up. And so the archaeologists
12 are looking, where this excavator is working, for a change in texture or
13 colour and then tracking that to see if it makes sense in terms of the
14 outline of a grave.
15 Q. Okay.
16 MR. MITCHELL: If we can keep going.
17 [Video-clip played]
18 MR. MITCHELL: Okay. If I can just stop there.
19 Q. Two questions. First, what -- what are the orange flags that we
20 saw you -- or we saw being put in place a few seconds ago?
21 A. The orange flags are temporary markers of what the archaeologist
22 thinks is the boundary of the grave as it's being developed.
23 Q. Okay. And second: Can you explain the colour of the soil here,
24 what we're looking at, at this particular shot?
25 MR. MITCHELL: And I'll just -- the time we stopped the video at
Page 22279
1 is 01 minutes and 47 seconds.
2 THE WITNESS: Yes. The natural colour of the soil is black at
3 the organic horizon at the top and then it changes to a reddish colour
4 and then it changes to a much paler colour with a natural deposit. When
5 bodies have been put into a grave and the grave has been refilled, the
6 soil around the bodies changes colour. This is because the ferric oxide
7 in the soil, which -- if you'd like to think of it as rust, the ferric
8 oxide in the soil is changed by the bacteria that putrefy the bodies.
9 This is an -- these are anaerobic bacteria, and the world over this is a
10 phenomenon that's observed, where iron is in the soil. The -- an oxygen
11 atom from the ferric oxide is taken by these bacteria to keep them alive
12 and the soil changes to the ferrous state because of the loss of that
13 oxygen molecule. So this a -- these blueish-green soils is a very useful
14 indicator that bodies, not necessarily human bodies, but organic bodies
15 have been in -- been in that spot.
16 MR. MITCHELL: Can we restart.
17 [Video-clip played]
18 MR. MITCHELL: Okay. If I can just stop there.
19 THE WITNESS: What are we -- sorry.
20 MR. MITCHELL:
21 Q. Sorry, yeah, what stage of the process are we at here now?
22 A. Well, the previous stage that we saw, people with picks and
23 trowels, were not digging up bodies but they were following on from the
24 mechanical excavator by using picks, mattocks, and trowels to define the
25 grave precisely. Then the next step is to put in a sounding within the
Page 22280
1 area of the -- of what is thought to be the grave to see if there are
2 indeed bodies in the grave, and so this is the sounding that's put in to
3 check that.
4 MR. MITCHELL: And that's at 2 minutes and 49 seconds. And if we
5 can start again.
6 [Video-clip played]
7 MR. MITCHELL: [Microphone not activated] Stop there.
8 Q. Now --
9 JUDGE KWON: Microphone, please.
10 MR. MITCHELL: Sorry.
11 Q. We can see a dig trench now. Can you explain what stage of the
12 process the excavation is at now?
13 A. Well, once the sounding that we saw in the previous -- the
14 previous part of the video, once the sounding is established that there
15 are bodies, then the filling of the grave above those bodies has to be
16 removed. And if there's danger of flooding of the grave during the
17 course of work, a sump is put in to catch the water by the side. So
18 you're seeing a mixture of the removal of the filling of the grave down
19 to the level of the bodies and the digging of a deeper trench along the
20 side which would catch the water if it should -- there should be
21 torrential rain.
22 Q. Now, we saw the backhoe working at the start. We're now starting
23 to see work being done by hand. How much of the excavation is done by
24 hand from this point onwards?
25 A. All the work around bodies is done by hand. The excavator is for
Page 22281
1 the removal of -- the mechanical excavator is for the removal of material
2 that is not containing bodies.
3 MR. MITCHELL: Okay. If we can start the video again.
4 [Video-clip played]
5 MR. MITCHELL: Stop there. Stop there.
6 Q. Okay. What are we looking at here?
7 A. Well, we jumped forward several days from the previous point
8 where you stopped the video, and the -- the side trench had been, as you
9 notice, had put boards there, and the bodies were now being exposed.
10 The -- and taken away in body bags to the chiller van where they were
11 then taken to the morgue in Visoko. So there's a big gap in time between
12 the two sets of shots.
13 Q. But this specifically, what's the machine that we're looking at
14 in the centre of the shot?
15 MR. MITCHELL: And that shot is at 4 minutes and 22 seconds.
16 A. Now, this is a -- what we call a total station, a surveying
17 instrument for measuring the -- for any particular artefact or point on a
18 body, it measures the number of metres east, the number of metres north,
19 and the elevation of the point in relation to our datum. And from that,
20 then we can reconstruct in three dimensions the location of a particular
21 artefact or particular body and generate stick figures to represent the
22 human skeletons that were in the -- in the excavation. So this is the
23 surveying instrument which allows us to reconstruct the three-dimensional
24 patterns within the grave.
25 Q. And you survey these 12 points on the body; is that correct?
Page 22282
1 A. Yes. Then we were using 12 points on the body. We're using the
2 head, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists, the pelvis, the knees, and
3 ankles, and from that it was possible to construct a three-dimensional
4 map of the grave in stick figures. And then you can, on the computer,
5 rotate those images so that you can see, perhaps, piles of bodies from
6 the side. Yeah.
7 Q. Okay. Can we start again, please.
8 [Video-clip played]
9 MR. MITCHELL: [Microphone not activated]
10 JUDGE KWON: Microphone.
11 MR. MITCHELL: We've stopped at 5 minutes and 2 seconds.
12 Q. Can you describe what -- what we see on the screen here,
13 Professor?
14 A. Yes. Well, just as background, the Cancari 12 grave was a
15 secondary grave, and the bodies had been removed from a site that I'm
16 told is the Branjevo Farm. And in the course of removing the bodies from
17 that primary grave at Branjevo Farm, many of them were broken up so that
18 we had some isolated hands and limbs. I can't recall the details of this
19 particular individual, but I know what we're looking at. We're looking
20 at a hand and a knot of cloth in what would be the area of the wrist, so
21 a ligature.
22 MR. MITCHELL: And can we start again.
23 [Video-clip played]
24 MR. MITCHELL: Okay. If we can just stop there.
25 Q. What's the code that we're looking at there?
Page 22283
1 A. The code -- the C is obscured by the block of soil on the left,
2 but that would be CR12 that designates the site, and the code A046
3 indicates that it's the 46th -- it's an artefact with the number 046. I
4 don't know what the artefact is, I can't see, but these would be probably
5 the ligature that we saw in the previous shot, but I'm not sure. And
6 the -- these entries are then made into a log so that each of these
7 items -- item A046 would be an item in the log that was kept for the
8 site.
9 MR. MITCHELL: And just for the record, that was at 5 minutes and
10 31 seconds. And we can restart.
11 [Video-clip played]
12 MR. MITCHELL: Just stop there. Six minutes, 22 seconds.
13 Q. Can you describe what this, the white object we see on the screen
14 now?
15 A. Yes, this is one of the plastic body bags that we used, zipped
16 from top to bottom -- or from all along the top, rather, I should say.
17 And the label on it is CR12, and it's B095. I think it's a 9. And so
18 that signifies that this bag is going to include a whole body. Now, the
19 body may not be removable in its complete state so that bits may have to
20 be removed bit by bit, but into that bag, that body bag, would have gone
21 a body which was virtually complete. And then these body bags are
22 transferred to the chiller van.
23 Q. How would the code for a body part be different?
24 A. If that had been a body part, it would be BP092, BP standing for
25 body part.
Page 22284
1 Q. Thank you.
2 MR. MITCHELL: We can restart.
3 [Video-clip played]
4 MR. MITCHELL: Can we stop there.
5 Q. What's this, the sheet that we're looking at here?
6 A. This is one of the body sheets. So when a body was complete or
7 nearly complete, the person responsible for uncovering that body would
8 fill out some summary details which would include the -- the -- the
9 lay -- layout of the body, whether it showed any puncture marks, whether
10 it was -- what kind of clothing it was wearing, any associate artefacts
11 would be listed on; what is really a checklist to remind the excavator to
12 make certain observations. And at the very bottom you see a schematic
13 diagram of how the body was laid out, together with some notes.
14 MR. MITCHELL: And that was at 6 minutes and 40 seconds. And we
15 can restart.
16 [Video-clip played]
17 MR. MITCHELL: Just stop there. That's 7 minutes and 52 seconds.
18 Q. Now, there's several parts going into a body bag here. Can you
19 describe -- well, just describe what we're seeing.
20 A. Yes, earlier on we just saw for a flashing moment the label,
21 which was a B label, so it's a body, but the body is being removed in
22 bits and pieces, although these were together in the grave, and they're
23 now being removed as bits and pieces and reassembled, as it were, in the
24 body bag.
25 MR. MITCHELL: Can we restart.
Page 22285
1 [Video-clip played]
2 MR. MITCHELL: If we can just stop there.
3 Q. Where's this body being taken to now, Professor?
4 A. Well, that -- just at the beginning of the sequence you saw the
5 excavators putting plastic bags over the hands, and they would also put
6 them over the feet so the various parts of the hand don't fall off in
7 transport. They stay together. And now the body is being taken to the
8 chiller van on a stretcher.
9 MR. MITCHELL: And that was at 8 minutes and 38 seconds. And we
10 can restart.
11 [Video-clip played]
12 MR. MITCHELL: If we can just stop there. Nine minutes and
13 8 seconds.
14 Q. Can you describe what's going on here, Professor?
15 A. Yes, two things. The -- well, one -- one thing in this case.
16 They are looking for wallets or any other form of identification, such as
17 a necklace, which we could photograph. Not because it's the final study
18 of any documents that might be found with this body but because we were
19 afraid that documents would perish in the interval between their removal
20 from the grave and their arrival at the morgue where they were studied in
21 more detail by investigators. So it was our custom to see if there was a
22 wallet in a pocket and, if so, to open it up, because when you open up a
23 wallet you're normally seeing a primary identification document, and then
24 that's photograph, and the wallet is then closed and put back.
25 And minimum -- there's minimum -- there are two reasons why
Page 22286
1 there's minimum decay from this point on. One is that the bag is sealed
2 so there's little oxygen, and oxygen is very damaging to paper documents.
3 And the second thing is that it's kept under cold conditions which again
4 slows down the fungal and bacterial decay that would take place in
5 documents. So they're looking for any document that would -- could be
6 opened up and photographed, and then that could be recorded.
7 Q. You probably can't give us an exact answer, but how -- how
8 quickly would a piece of paper degrade after coming out of site like
9 this? Is it hours or days or weeks?
10 A. I don't know. We were not -- we had no -- apart from the general
11 principles that it's bad for a document to be re-oxygenated, as it were,
12 and being allowed to dry out in particular, we -- I don't know. This was
13 a precaution.
14 Q. Okay. Thank you.
15 MR. MITCHELL: We can restart.
16 [Video-clip played]
17 MR. MITCHELL: And stop there. Ten minutes, 10 seconds.
18 Q. Was that the chiller van that we just saw in the picture?
19 A. It was. And you saw the scene-of-crime officers who were
20 responsible for formally handing over the bodies and the artefacts doing
21 that part of the job, putting them in the chiller van and closing the
22 door.
23 Q. And from there the bodies go to the morgue?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And that's where the anthropologists and the pathologists start
Page 22287
1 their examination of the remains?
2 A. Yes. And the investigators would -- the investigators would
3 start their examination of the artefacts.
4 MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Professor. I have no further
5 questions.
6 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
7 Yes, it's now time for Mr. Karadzic to start his
8 cross-examination. Just a second. I think this video is a part of the
9 associated exhibit, but shall we give the number separately now.
10 THE REGISTRAR: That's Exhibit P4027, Your Honours.
11 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
12 Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Excellencies, good
14 afternoon to all.
15 Cross-examination by Mr. Karadzic:
16 Q. [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Professor.
17 A. Good afternoon, Mr. Karadzic.
18 Q. At the very outset I would like to say to you that I highly
19 appreciate the impressive work that you did, and I would like to ask you
20 for your understanding, namely the Defence has to establish which part of
21 your work can be considered established beyond reasonable doubt in terms
22 of criminal law, that is to say, what has actually been established or,
23 on the other hand, what can be disputed or challenged. On the whole,
24 this is an impressive body of work. I'm not attacking it in any way.
25 I'm just saying that we should find out what it is that has been
Page 22288
1 established, actually.
2 Do you agree with that.
3 A. Yes, I agree with that.
4 Q. I would like to ask you something. At the very outset you said
5 that you worked for the international criminal court. Am I right if I
6 specify this by saying that you were engaged by the Office of the
7 Prosecutor?
8 A. Yes, I was, under contract.
9 Q. I'm asking you that because in our legal system there is an
10 investigative judge who can be engaged and that judge has to be
11 impartial, where someone working for the Office of the Prosecutor need
12 not be.
13 So who is your employer from the side of the Office of the
14 Prosecutor.
15 A. I was answerable to the Chief of Operations of whom there were
16 three different people during the time I worked in the four years. That
17 was the person that I was answerable to, who had, I suppose, the right of
18 hire and fire, the right to hire me or fire me.
19 Q. When you say Chief of Operations, was he in charge of anything
20 else or was it only these operations? What kind of a particular post is
21 that? Can you help us with that? What did these operations include?
22 A. Mr. Karadzic, I don't know. I can't answer that. I was not
23 employed within the whole system of ICTY, so I'm not familiar with the
24 structure or the responsibilities of that person other than to provide my
25 support for me.
Page 22289
1 Q. Thank you. The second sentence here in your introduction in
2 Glogova 1, you say:
3 "I was asked to identify and exhume graveyards -- or, rather,
4 the graves of persons who were allegedly killed after the taking of
5 Srebrenica."
6 Is that right?
7 A. Yes, that is right.
8 Q. Can we consider, then, that all the bodies that were accessible
9 to you, that your team had exhumed, that is -- actually, that you
10 established that these people died after the taking of Srebrenica?
11 A. Can you clarify, please? Do you mean just at Glogova or are you
12 talking about all these sites we've heard about today?
13 Q. Well, is this the assignment that you were given for all the
14 locations or only for Glogova?
15 A. No. I asked the question because a lot of the work I did was not
16 related to the Srebrenica case. I worked in Prijedor. But for the sites
17 that we've heard about today, yes, it was my understanding that the ICTY
18 believed that these were people who were killed after the fall of
19 Srebrenica.
20 Q. Thank you. My interest is in Eastern Bosnia, not Prijedor, what
21 is part of this case.
22 Professor, did you obtain any other information from someone?
23 Were you informed about what it was that had been going on there and what
24 you would be up against, as it were?
25 A. Do you mean what is -- what had -- what happened at Srebrenica
Page 22290
1 and what I could expect to find? I'm not quite sure what the question
2 means.
3 Q. Let me put it in simple terms. The war started there in
4 April 1992. The war went on all the way up until October 1995.
5 Srebrenica was declared a safe haven, a protected area, in May 1993.
6 Before July 1993, about 2.000 fighters lost their lives from Srebrenica
7 only. And not only in Srebrenica itself, but as they were going out into
8 Serb-held territory. Could you differentiate as to who had lost their
9 lives before the take-over of Srebrenica and who lost their lives after
10 the take-over of Srebrenica?
11 A. No. I -- I -- I don't see how I could have established that, and
12 I can't answer your question there.
13 Q. Thank you, Professor. You have given an answer, and I'm not
14 attacking your findings at all. You have done a great deal of work.
15 Do you know that people were dying every day in that area? Serbs
16 and Muslims were dying every day. Have you received that information at
17 all?
18 A. Not in my official capacity as an independent investigator of the
19 graves, no, but I have read newspapers and heard news about events. But
20 I was not officially told very much about the background to the fall of
21 Srebrenica. I was asked to investigate certain graves and to determine
22 how the people -- how many people were in them, what the properties of
23 these bodies were, what associated artefacts were, but I'm -- I'm not an
24 expert in the history of the -- of the war.
25 JUDGE KWON: Let us put it simply, in simple terms. Professor,
Page 22291
1 you stated on page 47, line 18, it was -- line 19, 20: "It was my
2 understanding that the ICTY," I take it to be the OTP, "ICTY believed
3 that these were people who were killed after the fall of Srebrenica."
4 But it was not for you to establish that fact.
5 THE WITNESS: I think it was for me to establish that fact, yes,
6 but --
7 JUDGE KWON: But, I mean, they were killed after the fall of
8 Srebrenica or -- or may have been killed before the fall of Srebrenica.
9 THE WITNESS: Oh, I see what you mean. My understanding was that
10 they had fallen -- that they had died after the fall of Srebrenica.
11 JUDGE KWON: But did you establish that fact?
12 THE WITNESS: I'd say my -- yes, I believe I established that
13 fact, that they were people who had died after the fall of Srebrenica. I
14 don't -- I didn't work -- I mean, I imagine the people who died before
15 the fall of Srebrenica, say within Srebrenica itself, would have been
16 buried there, but I didn't work around Srebrenica. We worked in areas to
17 which bodies had been taken. Now, my understanding of the history is
18 that people were taken away from Srebrenica, and all the people that I
19 excavated were taken away from Srebrenica, and I don't think for that
20 reason that they died before the fall of Srebrenica.
21 JUDGE KWON: So one -- was one of your mandates to establish the
22 timing of the death of those bodies?
23 THE WITNESS: Yes, Mr. President. I -- it would have been. Or I
24 was asked to advise whether it was reasonable to think that these people
25 had died after the fall of Srebrenica.
Page 22292
1 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
2 Yes, Mr. -- back to you, Mr. Karadzic.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
4 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. Did you establish and did they show you graves -- or, rather, was
6 it your obligation to investigate all the accessible mass graves?
7 A. No, Mr. Karadzic. I was shown aerial images that the -- that had
8 fresh patches of soil on them dating from October 1995, and I was shown
9 photographs that, on my analysis, had about 28 of these patches of soil
10 that appeared, you know, over a period of a couple of days in
11 October 1995, and I went to all of these and decided which of them we
12 could excavate in the season that was available, in the season that was
13 available which was about six months. And so my advice was sought as to
14 how many we could reasonably excavate in that time. It was not possible
15 to excavate more than seven of those in that time. But as I said earlier
16 in my testimony, we probed the other sites it showed on the aerial
17 photographs to establish that they were -- that they had multiple human
18 remains in them, but we didn't exhume them.
19 So in answer to your question was it my obligation to investigate
20 all the accessible mass graves, yes, to investigate, but not to excavate.
21 Excavation was restricted to seven.
22 Q. Thank you. Which method did you apply, and in which way did you
23 establish the time of death?
24 A. Well, we -- we -- we established that the watches that were worn
25 by some of the individuals were consistent with the date of the
Page 22293
1 executions, and that analysis is in my report. They're consistent.
2 The -- we also found artefacts of a sort, which, again, are in my report,
3 such as Dutch newspaper that was cut up into cigarette papers and was in
4 the pockets of the victims. But the main way in which we established the
5 age of those graves was that they -- that is, the secondary graves of the
6 1998 season, is that they do not appear before October 1995. We have
7 images of the ground before October 1995 and then suddenly these graves
8 appear. So that is the best way of determining the age of the graves.
9 Q. The age of the graves. But the time of death is something
10 different. That's not the age of the graves. How did you establish when
11 a man had died?
12 A. I was not able to establish when a man had died other than by the
13 context of the artefacts that came out of the grave.
14 Q. Thank you. Are you trying to say that a watch would show the
15 hour, day, month, and year of execution?
16 A. The particular watches that I'm talking and which are in my
17 report are Seiko mechanical or automatic watches that stop within 24 to
18 48 hours of the last movement of the watch. Now, I'm told that the
19 executions took place on Friday, the 14th of July, and eight out of the
20 ten watches that we found in the 1998 season showed a day and a date,
21 that is, Saturday 15 or Sunday 16, which is consistent with the
22 information I received about the date of executions. But apart from
23 that, apart from that I have evidence of the age of the graves. But if I
24 look at an individual, I can't tell you when that individual died, no.
25 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Mitchell.
Page 22294
1 MR. MITCHELL: Mr. President, just -- if there's going to be more
2 questions on the topic of watches, I think the report in question is --
3 it's -- it had 65 ter 2496, and it might be helpful to bring it up if
4 there's going to be further questions on this. And it starts -- there's
5 a section on this topic that starts at around page 28.
6 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
7 Yes, Mr. Karadzic. Please continue.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
9 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
10 Q. So all of these watches were automatic mechanical ones? There
11 were no battery operated watches? Electronic ones?
12 A. There were windup watches and there were electronic watches, but
13 they do -- the windup watches do not show day and date in the window. I
14 really believe at this stage I should have a picture of the watch -- of
15 one of the watches to explain what I'm talking about.
16 JUDGE KWON: I think it's the penultimate page of the first
17 report. Exhibit P4000. Page 181. E-court page.
18 Did you refer to this?
19 THE WITNESS: I referred to this type of watch, yes.
20 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
21 Q. And this is not a windup watch; right? This is an electronic or
22 an automatic mechanical watch. Oh, it says automatic, doesn't it?
23 A. Yes, it's an automatic mechanical watch that is self-winding but
24 stops after no movement within 24 or 48 hours. And this watch is showing
25 in its window the day Sab, which is either Italian or Spanish for
Page 22295
1 Saturday, 15. And this is one of the watches that I'm talking about
2 where eight out of ten were consistent with an execution on Thursday --
3 on Friday the 14th. And I argue in my report that the probabilities of
4 eight out of ten watches showing these day/dates that are consistent with
5 the supposed execution date is trillions to one. Some special event
6 happened that made these watches stop, not at random, but in a pattern.
7 Now, you asked about the electronic watches and the -- well, you
8 asked about electronic watches, and they, of course, continued to go on
9 until the battery runs out. So they are of no forensic use. Windup
10 watches tend not to have the day/date window. They may show a day -- a
11 date, but not a day. The power of these watches for forensic purpose
12 lies in the fact that they show a day and a date.
13 Q. Of course we agree, don't we, that neither the month nor the year
14 is displayed; right?
15 A. No. Neither the -- the year and the month aren't displayed. So
16 they're not as good as they might be.
17 Q. Thank you. Professor, did you get any information about the
18 customs involved or even legal regulations, namely that detainees in our
19 country cannot have watches, money, IDs, that is to say that persons who
20 are arrested or detained cannot have any valuables on them until they are
21 proven innocent in a court of law?
22 A. No, Mr. Karadzic. I'm completely unaware of that.
23 Q. Would you believe me if I were to say to you that our people of
24 any religious background are very reluctant to take anything from a dead
25 person, whereas anything can be taken off a living person?
Page 22296
1 A. It's -- it's a custom that I would not disbelieve, but I don't
2 know anything about it.
3 Q. Thank you. Were you informed that around those days, during the
4 fall of Srebrenica and after the fall of Srebrenica, there was a great
5 deal of fighting around Srebrenica and that many people lost their lives?
6 On both sides.
7 A. When you say "informed," I wasn't specifically briefed on this by
8 officers of ICTY, but it's something that I have read about, certainly.
9 Q. Thank you. So was your task to establish who had lost their
10 lives after the -- the fall of Srebrenica in an unlawful way, by
11 execution, or just to establish how these person had lost their lives?
12 A. No. My -- my specific task was to investigate these graves
13 which, as I've said, in 1998 were the secondary graves that -- turned out
14 to be secondary graves, and to collect together the sort of evidence that
15 I've already given testimony on. It was -- obviously I could see that
16 many of these people had gunshot wounds, but it wasn't my job to
17 determine how they'd lost their lives. That was the responsibility of
18 the anthropologists and the pathologists in the morgue to give an
19 official statement. But I have seen, particularly in my Ukrainian work,
20 hundreds of people who had been shot, and I know what gunshot wounds look
21 like, so I formed an opinion that these people had lost their lives in a
22 violent way, but it wasn't my job to establish how these persons lost
23 their lives.
24 Q. Thank you. Let me ask you a general question. If you were to be
25 given this very same task again in that same area, in view of this
Page 22297
1 experience would you change anything in this other investigation that
2 you'd carried out -- that you would carry out? Would you improve
3 anything? Would you make things any different? Would you change
4 anything?
5 A. I would not change any of the major procedures that we used,
6 which is the discovery of the grave with the least amount of damage to
7 the bodies, the recovery of the bodies with records of surveying so that
8 we could work out where they came from in the grave, the photography of
9 each of the bodies and artefacts before they were moved. No, I wouldn't
10 change any of those procedures, and they're ones that I continue to use,
11 which were -- well, when I say "I continue to use," I mean which continue
12 to be used at the excavation of soldiers at the Fromelles site that's
13 already been mentioned from World War I. I wouldn't -- I wouldn't make
14 major changes at all.
15 Q. Thank you. Would you change anything as a result of remarks or
16 objections that were made on your final report, some of which you replied
17 to and some of which you accepted? And what would those changes be that
18 you would make when taking into account the objections that were made?
19 A. Well, I'm afraid I don't know what the remarks or objections that
20 were made on my final report are. You'd have -- you'd have to specify
21 what they were before I could answer that question. I mean, I don't know
22 in which context these objections were made other than in my courtroom
23 testimony in the previous three cases, of Krstic and the Popovic seven
24 and Tolimir.
25 Q. Well, I will try to narrow that down. Is it correct that
Page 22298
1 Dr. Zoran Stankovic remarked that pursuant to Article 19 of the
2 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, or some other document,
3 each interested party has the right to participate or to have an observer
4 during the inspection? And I think that you said that that perhaps was
5 the case but that that was not your job, actually, to allow for this.
6 A. Yes. That is the answer I would give now. I was not responsible
7 for the logistics and security of the work. I don't remember that
8 particular question being asked of me. That would have been in the
9 Krstic case, I imagine. But I -- it's still not my responsibility to
10 determine who should be allowed or not allowed at the site.
11 Q. Thank you. However, when you stated which personnel took part in
12 the exhumation, you said that no citizen of former Yugoslavia took part
13 in this examination work. Did any such citizen attend the work that was
14 being carried out?
15 A. No. That statement is correct. And, no citizen of the former
16 Yugoslavia was allowed to come to the sites in the four years that I
17 excavated. And the -- at night the sites were under armed guard to
18 prevent anyone coming in.
19 Had ICTY said to me that they wished me to admit such a person, I
20 would have, of course, admitted them, but the general rule was that no
21 citizen of the former Yugoslavia was allowed near the work.
22 To the extent, for instance, at the Red Dam where we needed a
23 heavier excavator, an owner driver, somebody who owned the heavier
24 excavator and drove the excavator, was not allowed into the site to use
25 it. Our engineer drove the vehicle. So it was a strict policy.
Page 22299
1 Q. Thank you. If I understood you correctly, this was not that was
2 established by you. This was a ban that was articulated or placed by
3 somebody else; is that right?
4 A. It was a policy that was -- a ban, in English, has a
5 particularly -- a particular meaning, but it was a policy that we were
6 not to allow such people into the site, yes. And I had a project manager
7 for the site who dealt with such matters. It was not for me to -- I was
8 there strictly to do the forensic work, not to engage in policy
9 discussions.
10 Q. Thank you. I'm not attacking you in any way. I just want to
11 determine who violated the right of Republika Srpska pursuant to
12 Article 19 of the Additional Protocols to be present and to take part in
13 the exhumations. You were not the one responsible for that, but this
14 right was violated, wasn't it?
15 A. I'm not aware of the rights and so I can't comment on that.
16 Q. Thank you. I think that you did see and comment on the fact that
17 you agreed with the objection of Dr. Zoran Stankovic, a forensics expert
18 from Belgrade, that perhaps that was so but that that was not your job.
19 So we will find that reference and we will establish that in a different
20 way.
21 So you did allow for the possibility that this article of the
22 Additional Protocols does exist?
23 JUDGE KWON: The doctor said he is not aware of it. Let us
24 proceed.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
Page 22300
1 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
2 Q. You said earlier, if this was translated correctly to me, that
3 you did the forensic work, and you did not deal with the policies. Are
4 you a forensic expert, sir?
5 A. I'm an archeologist that specialised in forensic archaeology. So
6 I am an expert not in all forensic matters, but I am an expert in
7 forensic archaeology and to a certain extent in forensic anthropology.
8 But when you ask am I a forensic expert in the broad sense, no. I don't
9 know anything about DNA analysis. I don't know anything about
10 finger-print analysis. But I do know how to excavate and apply it in the
11 forensic scene.
12 Q. Thank you. Do we agree that it is also not a part of your work
13 to conduct autopsies and to establish the time and cause of death?
14 A. It's certainly not -- it would not be counted as acceptable to
15 me -- it would not be counted as acceptable in a court that I offered
16 expert opinion on autopsies and time and cause of death. Yes, it's not
17 part of my expertise.
18 Q. Thank you. Well, in view of the time that I have, I'm just going
19 to take one example, and this is your example of Glogova 1 from 2000. So
20 where the description of the locality is, and this is the description of
21 Glogova 1, that site, you stated that you noticed six areas where human
22 remains were placed, as well as places where there were attempts of
23 unauthorised re-digging in order to remove the bodies. Are you able to
24 tell us anything else about these attempts? Were these just attempts or
25 was this actually done?
Page 22301
1 A. It was an attempt, but it wasn't a completed job. It was done,
2 according to the aerial images, in October 1995. And a lot of bodies
3 were taken away, judged by empty parts of graves we found. But also a
4 lot of bodies were missed. So, yes, it was an attempt. Whether it was
5 an attempt to remove all the bodies, I don't know, but they certainly
6 didn't succeed in removing all the bodies. A lot were left. And a lot
7 of body parts that had fallen off the bodies that were taken away were
8 left.
9 Q. Thank you. What I would like to know, however, is what would
10 have happened with the conclusion regarding grave E had you dug deeper?
11 Your first impression was that that grave was robbed and looted. It
12 doesn't say looted, but it says that a number of the bodies were taken
13 away. However, luckily, you said, "As we dug deeper, we concluded that
14 that was not the case." Is that correct?
15 JUDGE KWON: Can we see the page?
16 Doctor, if you found the page, let us know so that we can
17 upload it.
18 THE WITNESS: What is the page number, Mr. President?
19 JUDGE KWON: No, it's your report, and it's Exhibit P4009.
20 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
21 Q. It's page 6.
22 A. Page 6.
23 Q. I think it's page 6, and the heading of that chapter is -- or
24 section is "Description of Glogova 1 site."
25 A. Yes. Now, in the case of -- I understand what you're talking
Page 22302
1 about. In the case of grave E, that was not a grave --
2 JUDGE KWON: Next page in English. Just a second. Grave E.
3 THE WITNESS: Grave E was a cave that -- a cave. Grave E was a
4 grave that was not disturbed in October 1995. And the reason for saying
5 that is both what we found in the excavations and also what the aerial
6 images showed. The disturbance did not remove -- the disturbance did not
7 touch grave E.
8 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. However, you established that only after you dug deeper. Your
10 first conclusion was that there was unauthorised digging and that the
11 grave was robbed; is that correct?
12 A. Yes, that's correct. Within the top parts of the grave we didn't
13 find any bodies, but as we dug deeper we did find some bodies.
14 Q. Thank you. Did anything prevent you from digging deeper at all
15 the other graves?
16 A. No. My responsibility was, having starting the excavations at a
17 grave, to ensure that every single body had been removed. To ensure that
18 we did not leave any bodies behind, we always excavated below the graves
19 until we got into natural soil. So even though, to go back to grave E,
20 we didn't find any bodies in the top, we went down to the natural soil at
21 the bottom of the grave, and that was when we found the bodies in
22 grave E.
23 But after we've finished emptying out a grave, we think it's the
24 bottom, but we always remove soil to make sure that we are in the natural
25 sail. And in my report on Glogova, I present as -- excuse me and minute,
Page 22303
1 Mr. President. I present, on what is page 7 of the report, the natural
2 soil that existed at --
3 JUDGE KWON: Let's go -- move two pages forward. Is this the
4 page, Professor?
5 THE WITNESS: Yes, Mr. President, it is. And that is my
6 reconstruction of what the soil was like before any graves were dug. And
7 so we knew, therefore -- well, I say it's my reconstruction. We put in
8 an excavation that was outside the area where the graves were to see what
9 the natural soil was like. So in all those areas that are on my map of
10 excavation of Glogova, we would have gone down to the natural soil to
11 ensure that no bodies were left behind.
12 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
13 Q. Thank you. May I draw your attention to the next section where
14 you talk about the digging and the robbing of the graves. This is the
15 last-but-one paragraph where you state that you conclude that there is no
16 reason for thinking that the bodies at Glogova 1 had been originally
17 buried elsewhere, dug up, and then brought to Glogova. And you also then
18 state:
19 "On the contrary. The indications are that bodies were dug out
20 of Glogova 1 and taken elsewhere."
21 Were you able to establish that Glogova 1 was the actual site of
22 execution?
23 A. No. I didn't conclude that it was a place of execution, because
24 unlike Kozluk, there were no shell cases lying around. There were some
25 bullets with the bodies and I think possibly a shell case or two with the
Page 22304
1 bodies, but they did not show -- there was not enough in the way of shell
2 cases from rifles, pistols, to suggest that the bodies were executed at
3 Glogova itself and then pushed into the grave. So I didn't think it was
4 an execution site. On the other hand, there were no signs that the --
5 there were no signs, as there were at Cancari 12 and other sites, of
6 soil -- of lumps of soil that were foreign to the area.
7 What an archaeologist would look for, if you ask them, Are you
8 sure these bodies were not buried in place A, dug up, and then taken to
9 place B, such as Glogova? Then soil travels with the bodies. Soil is
10 different from the local soil. We never saw that at Glogova, though we
11 did see artefacts that were consistent with the -- anyway, bits of
12 plaster and bits of the door frames, and so on, that were consistent with
13 the bodies having been brought from somewhere else. And that somewhere
14 else was, I concluded, the Kravica warehouse. But they had not been
15 buried anywhere before.
16 Mr. President, the transcript says that they had been buried
17 anywhere before. I concluded it is that they had not been buried
18 anywhere before, I said, I believe.
19 Q. I kindly ask for your understanding. I'm just waiting for the
20 Serbian translation to be completed before I put my next question to you.
21 I would now like us to be more specific. How many primary gives did you
22 find?
23 A. In connection with those thought to be related to Srebrenica, I
24 found -- or I worked at the Red Dam site, but that had been robbed. The
25 only -- the next primary site was Kozluk, which we discovered because of
Page 22305
1 the glass at Cancari 3. And the third primary burial site was Glogova.
2 So in connection with these particular investigations there were three
3 primary sites.
4 Q. Thank you. But only at one location, at Red Dam, you established
5 that the primary gave was also the execution site; is that correct?
6 A. At the Red Dam there were enormous numbers of shell cases and
7 bits of bone lying around on the surface of the -- of the area in which
8 the grave was dug so that it appeared to me to be an execution site, and
9 the bodies, I assumed, in the grave had come from that execution. But,
10 of course, the bodies had been removed from the grave and only a few
11 bones left.
12 You ask -- yes, at the Red -- but it wasn't only one location
13 that I established as a primary grave was also the execution site,
14 because that is the core of my interpretation of Kozluk, that it was an
15 execution site and a burial site. But Glogova was not an execution site.
16 It was a place where people had been put as a first place of burial.
17 Q. They were killed somewhere else, thus; is that correct?
18 A. The people at Glogova were killed at -- not at the Glogova site,
19 yes.
20 Q. Thank you. How did you rule out that Glogova was a place of
21 assanation [as interpreted]? How could you conclude -- how could you
22 rule out the possibility that these were the bodies that were collected
23 during the clearing of the terrain of soldiers who were killed in other
24 places and that they were buried in that grave following the sanitation
25 and hygiene measures?
Page 22306
1 A. Well, I couldn't completely rule that out. My observations were
2 that the -- not a single item of military clothing was found at Glogova.
3 The bodies were buried in a -- a fresh condition and did not show signs
4 of insect attack. Bodies that had been left out and then collected are
5 normally attacked by blow flies, and the chitinous material of their
6 bodies and wings survives well with the bodies. So these were not bodies
7 that had been left out on a terrain, as it were, and then collected
8 later. So I had no reason to suspect that there were -- there was a
9 mixture of bodies that had come from various places.
10 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Mitchell.
11 MR. MITCHELL: Mr. President, sorry to interrupt, but there's one
12 transcript correction at -- on the previous page at line 16. The word
13 "assignation," I believe, was meant to be the B/C/S "asanacija."
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. You're correct. Thank
15 you.
16 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. Professor, all I'm trying to do now is establish the following:
18 Are you saying that all the corpses in Glogova 1 were of the same degree
19 of decomposition? Or were there any differences in the stage of
20 decomposition of the bodies?
21 A. Well, there were certainly differences in the stage of
22 decomposition of the bodies, and that depended on where they -- where an
23 individual lay in the mass of bodies. If you're buried in a mass grave
24 on the very edge of the bodies, then you putrefy much faster and you're
25 reduced to a skeletal stage much faster than the individuals in the
Page 22307
1 middle of the mass of bodies. So they're not all in the same stage of
2 decomposition, but the differences in the stages of decomposition are --
3 can be interpreted in terms of where the body lies in the body mass when
4 excavated.
5 The reason why I referred to the lack of any insect cases is
6 because they are clues to -- if some bodies have insect cases and others
7 don't, then that is a sign that these bodies have come from different
8 places at different times. But we did not see anything like that. I saw
9 nothing that required me to suppose that there had been several events
10 behind these killings of the bodies at Glogova. I -- to my mind, they
11 could be explained as from a single killing.
12 Q. Thank you. Let's look at what you said in the chapter
13 "Characteristics of the Graves and the Bodies." That is page 15 in my
14 copy. And then you said:
15 [As read] "The state of the preservation of the bodies varies
16 from skeletonised to virtually fully fleshed. Figure 8. These
17 differences in state of preservation are not to be taken as indicating
18 different periods of burial."
19 I don't know if in English it states "should not be or must not
20 be taken." In Serbian what it says is "must not be."
21 Are you able to tell us why these differences must or should not
22 be taken to indicate that?
23 A. Yes, I understand the difficulty of translation. What I mean
24 there is that one shouldn't jump to the conclusion that these bodies were
25 killed at different times, because we noted that these differences in
Page 22308
1 state of preservation were due to the location of the bodies in relation
2 to the main mass.
3 I was not instructing people that they -- that this could not be
4 the case, but that we didn't need to explain these differences in
5 preservation other than in -- other than being due to location of the
6 bodies within the mass graves.
7 Q. With your permission, I'm going to read that in English. I
8 believe that it is translated correctly:
9 [In English] "These differences it state of preservation are not
10 to be taken as indicating different periods of burial."
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. [Interpretation] Is that possibility ruled out, that they were
13 brought in from different locations and at different times? And why
14 would, in that case, such a possibility be excluded or ruled out?
15 A. This is what I said earlier, that I agree that a second -- a
16 different interpretation could be put on it but that it's not necessary
17 to put that interpretation on the differential state of preservation.
18 That's all I mean by that. In other words, I'm following a principle
19 that you don't introduce new factors to explain what you're seeing unless
20 you have to. In England we call -- in English we call it Occam's razor.
21 But indeed I might -- for instance, if we found at the bottom of a grave
22 skeletons and on the top of those complete bodies I would then say, I
23 believe these bodies that had become skeletons were brought from
24 somewhere else, it's a different event, because it is not possible, in
25 terms of disintegration of bodies, for fresher bodies to be on top. But
Page 22309
1 we didn't find anything like that.
2 Q. Thank you. However, were you told where the grave was in which
3 people who were killed in May of 1992 in Glogova were buried as a result
4 of major fighting and apparently there were some unlawful executions?
5 Were you told about this?
6 A. No, I was not told. I was not told to look for a grave that was
7 believed to date from 1992, no.
8 Q. Do you rule out the possibility that this grave that was formed
9 in 1992, dead bodies were later buried in the process of sanitation and
10 hygiene measures application?
11 A. Do you mean, Mr. Karadzic, that all the bodies were buried? Or
12 that some bodies were buried later on top of other bodies?
13 Q. Can you tell us, how many bodies did you find at Glogova 1?
14 A. Two hundred and -- no, 191 complete bodies and 249 body parts, in
15 my report.
16 Q. Thank you. However, we do know that about 4 -- 64 people were
17 killed in May in 1992. Did anyone draw your attention to that fact?
18 A. No. I don't remember anyone telling me that at all.
19 Q. You were also never told about the fact that there was fighting
20 over those three and a half years, but also about the fighting in July.
21 Those fightings took place in that area and lasted for about ten days.
22 So that was an ongoing process.
23 A. Can I ask, do you mean July 1995 or 1992?
24 Q. 1995, before and after the fall of Srebrenica. I'm talking about
25 combat operations, not executions. So did you know that there was
Page 22310
1 fighting in that period and that a large number of Muslim combatants used
2 combat methods to achieve a breakthrough to Tuzla and that many of them
3 were killed in the process?
4 A. No, I'm not aware of the history of those events.
5 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, I note the time. It's time for a
6 break. If you have more, then we'll take a break now.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, yes. Certainly, Excellency.
8 This is a very important witness. The Prosecution spent two hours
9 examining him, and I hope I will be given at least six hours.
10 JUDGE KWON: We'll have a break for an hour and resume at 1.35.
11 Yes, Mr. Nicholls.
12 MR. NICHOLLS: Sorry, Your Honours, I'm not sure if you know,
13 just to make clear: Unfortunately we do not have another witness for
14 today, for the Court's information.
15 JUDGE KWON: And that's our understanding.
16 MR. NICHOLLS: Okay. I just wanted to be clear. Thank you.
17 JUDGE KWON: 1.35.
18 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.35 p.m.
19 --- On resuming at 1.36 p.m.
20 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
22 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. Professor, you pointed out that in the case of Glogova 1 you
24 found that quite a few people got killed by explosions or by explosive
25 devices; is that correct?
Page 22311
1 A. I noticed two things at Glogova. And the answer is yes. But if
2 I can just say, we noticed the -- why I said that, the bones were more
3 broken than at other sites, and we also found explosive devices and bits
4 of grenade and other metal embedded in some of the bodies.
5 Q. Thank you. I quite understand that you are reluctant to offer
6 any forensic estimations as to the time and cause of death, but did you
7 establish the age of the grave itself, i.e., the time when the grave was
8 formed, as it were?
9 A. I didn't establish it by my forensic investigations, but the
10 aerial images show that the ground was not disturbed on the
11 5th of July, 1995, but that the ground had been disturbed by the
12 20th of July, 1995. So for those reasons I think that the age of the
13 graves is established.
14 Q. Is it possible to determine that at that same location no grave
15 existed before and that new bodies were added which would lead you to
16 believe that it was established in July? And I'm talking particularly
17 about Glogova, for which we know for certain that there were killings in
18 1992 and 1993.
19 A. There are two points I want to make in answering that question.
20 Firstly, bits of the Kravica warehouse were mixed up with the bodies.
21 There is no lower layer of bodies that doesn't have a mixture of bodies
22 and bits of the warehouse. Furthermore, I'm familiar with graves, not at
23 Glogova but elsewhere, where burials were made and then there was an
24 interval of time and additional bodies were added. Now, the way we
25 recognise that in the archaeological -- using archaeological methods is
Page 22312
1 that if the grave is left open with the earlier bodies exposed, then
2 there are insects that attack the bodies, and as I explained before, the
3 chitinous material of insects is very durable and gives an indication
4 that the bodies were exposed.
5 Secondly, bodies that were left exposed get damaged very fast by
6 the elements, the natural elements of climate. The bones begin to crack.
7 On the surface, you get lines developing on the surface. Not breakage,
8 but lines developing on the surface.
9 At Glogova we never saw any sign of damage to an earlier layer of
10 bodies. We never saw an earlier layer of bodies. Just to repeat, the
11 bits of the warehouse were mixed up with these bodies. There was no
12 earth, no soil, thrown over an earlier layer of bodies, and no sign of
13 weathering or damage to the bone of any earlier bodies. I formed the
14 conclusion, in the light of any other evidence, that we were looking at a
15 singular incident of burial.
16 JUDGE KWON: Professor, you talked about the potential --
17 THE WITNESS: Sorry.
18 JUDGE KWON: -- the potential link between the Glogova site and
19 the Kravica warehouse. Would you exclude the possibility of the --
20 bringing some part -- some bodies from the other -- other site, for
21 example, so to speak, other killing site?
22 THE WITNESS: No, I wouldn't exclude that, but what I would say,
23 Mr. President, is they were included with the bodies from -- with the
24 other bodies at the same time.
25 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
Page 22313
1 THE WITNESS: Yes.
2 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
3 Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
5 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. You said that -- if you allow me, I would introduce this new term
7 that you mentioned, "robbed," such as the Red Dam, but can we call some
8 other graves enriched? So did you find any graves that were enriched, so
9 to speak, later on as opposed to those who you say were robbed?
10 A. No. I did not see any -- I understand the question and what you
11 mean by "enriched." I did not see any graves which I interpreted as
12 having been opened up for the purpose of depositing more bodies.
13 Q. But a while ago you said that you saw such graves where
14 additional burials had been carried out. Was that only the Red Dam, or
15 were any similar cases?
16 A. No, I'm sorry, I didn't make myself plain. The graves that I saw
17 were not to do with the case that we're talking about. None of the
18 graves that I'm talking about fall into that category of graves to which
19 bodies were added later. The graves in question, one of them is in the
20 Ukraine and one was in the Prijedor area, which is not the subject of
21 this -- of my testimony. I did not see any graves of this -- of the --
22 none of the graves that we're talking about now had bodies added to them,
23 so far as my observations went.
24 JUDGE KWON: Professor, it may have been the interpretation
25 issue. Previously you said that you are familiar about graves, "not at
Page 22314
1 Glogova but elsewhere, where burials were made and then there was an
2 interval of time and additional bodies were added." But you don't see
3 such examples in -- in Bosnia?
4 THE WITNESS: No, I'm sorry, Mr. President, I didn't make myself
5 plain. I didn't see it at Glogova. I didn't see it at any of the graves
6 that are attributed to the Srebrenica event. But one of those graves
7 that we're talking about I did see in Bosnia, but it was from the -- from
8 1992 killings.
9 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
10 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
11 Q. Thank you. We'll get back to this. I remember you mentioning
12 this in the context of the Red Dam.
13 Now, let's finish with the issue of insects. Do you agree that
14 on page 15 in the Serbian version you said that one should take into
15 account the fact that the bodies were removed from the graves and that
16 they were covered with mud which prevented one from seeing clearly all
17 the characteristics of the bodies. Some of the entries in the body
18 sheets were, therefore, provisional. In other words, the process of
19 identification of dead bodies was finally completed in the morgue,
20 because the final conclusions could only have come from the morgue. Is
21 that correct?
22 A. Yes, that is correct.
23 Q. Thank you. We saw that it was mid May when we watched the
24 video-clip. Can you tell us what was the temperature in those
25 refrigerators?
Page 22315
1 A. I don't know the temperature, but it would have been above the
2 freezing point. And the ideal temperature would be about 5 degrees. But
3 I don't know what temperature was actually achieved by the engineers. I
4 should say 5 degrees Celsius.
5 Q. Thank you. And then you said earlier today that at times bodies
6 were transported to the Visoko morgue. Can you tell us what were the
7 intervals between those trips, when bodies were transferred?
8 A. I should say an average time would be one week between the
9 exhumation and their accumulation in the chiller van, and then they were
10 taken down to Visoko and ... about a week, maybe less sometimes.
11 Q. Thank you. Did you have any feedback information how long after
12 the arrival the post-mortem was conducted?
13 A. That I don't know, Mr. Karadzic. I went down to the morgue on a
14 couple of occasions, but I didn't take part in their proceedings, and I
15 don't know the interval between the arrival of the bodies and the
16 carrying out of the post-mortem examination by the anthropologists and
17 the pathologists. I can't comment on that.
18 Q. Thank you. Is it true that some of the graves, for example
19 Cancari, were spotted in the images in 1995 and were only exhumed in
20 1998?
21 A. Yes. That -- that is the -- that is the case.
22 Q. Thank you. Is there a method of calculating the age of each
23 particular grave or do we have to rely solely on the aerial images?
24 A. To get any precision, yes, we have to rely on the aerial images.
25 There are methods such as radiocarbon dating of the bodies would now, but
Page 22316
1 not then, give us a rough idea of when the person died, but it would not
2 have the precision of those aerial photographs. I perhaps should
3 elaborate. The radiocarbon dating has been used for many years, but
4 there's a particular form of radiocarbon dating that detects the
5 radioactive carbon that was created by the hydrogen bombs that were let
6 off in the early 1990s. And forensic scientists make use of the decline
7 of this high level of radiocarbon to date bodies, and I've used this
8 method myself in -- with the police in determining roughly when someone
9 died and is found in the forest outside Sydney, and the radiocarbon labs
10 were able to tell me it was between 1985 and 1992, but that's not very
11 precise.
12 Q. Thank you. You said that there were intact bullets in pockets,
13 but what I'm interested in is the Dutch newspaper that you mentioned.
14 Was it possible to determine when those newspapers were dated? Or,
15 actually, you said that there were pieces or strips of Dutch paper that
16 were used to roll cigarettes. Was it possible for anyone to determine
17 the date that those newspapers bore?
18 A. I'm sure that would have been possible, but we -- I don't
19 remember seeing a piece of that newspaper that actually carried the date
20 of the newspaper, but presumably it would be possible, by reading the
21 text, for somebody to determine when that newspaper was published, but I
22 can't say.
23 Q. Have these artefacts been preserved?
24 A. You would have to ask the investigators of the ICTY, because once
25 I handed them over, I'm not responsible for them. I don't know.
Page 22317
1 Q. Thank you.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can I ask my learned friend
3 Mr. Mitchell, our -- since our printer is not working, I would appreciate
4 if it would be possible to have the following documents printed:
5 R108-63-9798, and this is at the same time my notification to the OTP
6 that I'm going to use these documents.
7 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. Thank you, Professor, for your answer.
9 JUDGE KWON: Do you have a 65 ter number for that?
10 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
11 Q. While this is being resolved, may I remind you of page 17 where
12 you said that wounds were caused by shrapnel, by bullets, by hand
13 grenades, and some other missile pieces. Also discovered were intact
14 bullets in the pockets of those victims. Does this fact indicate that
15 the person in question was actually a combatant?
16 A. Two things. Firstly, there was only one individual who had these
17 rounds in his pocket, and that's illustrated on figure 17 of my report,
18 and it was found with other personal possessions. But the fact that
19 somebody has bullets in their pocket does not indicate to me that that
20 person is necessarily a combatant, no. But I -- I can't -- I don't know
21 anything about this person beyond that.
22 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Mitchell.
23 MR. MITCHELL: Mr. President, that's the document.
24 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
25 MR. MITCHELL: Is it to be given to the witness?
Page 22318
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Two pages; is that right?
2 MR. MITCHELL: Correct.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I would appreciate if this be put
4 on the ELMO, please. Oh, it seems that our printer is now working. It's
5 been out of operation for about an hour.
6 All right. Can this be put on ELMO, please.
7 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. If I understand correctly, this is a letter of yours addressed to
9 Mr. McCloskey.
10 JUDGE KWON: Let us put that on the ELMO, yes.
11 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. Do you recall this letter?
13 A. Can I, Mr. President, just read the letter?
14 JUDGE KWON: By all means, Professor.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Maybe we can put the other copy on
16 ELMO for all the parties to see it.
17 You can keep one hard copy for yourself, and let's put the other
18 one on the ELMO.
19 THE WITNESS: Yes. I didn't remember the details of the letter,
20 but I acknowledge it is my letter, and I --
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we have the next page, please.
22 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. In paragraph 3 there is mention of Article 90 of the
24 Additional Protocols, and you said that had you been asked to apply that,
25 you wouldn't have refused it.
Page 22319
1 A. That's right. And I replied in that way earlier on to your
2 questioning. But that's not because of my knowledge of Article 90. I
3 don't -- I don't know what that Protocol says. I'm just saying there
4 that had I been asked to allow an expert to the examination on mass
5 graves, I would not have had any objection.
6 Q. Thank you.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
8 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
9 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1974, Your Honours.
10 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
11 Q. In relation to this paragraph that starts with the words "I agree
12 that the exact number can only be determined by actual exhumations,"
13 would you agree that bearing into account -- bearing in mind four years
14 of war and many people losing their lives, that that makes it even more
15 complicated to estimate the number of cases that would involve deaths
16 after the fall of Srebrenica? Maybe I made this way too complicated.
17 There was a war going on and Srebrenica fell. Now, the question
18 of making an estimate, hasn't it been made even more complicated? I
19 mean, an estimate relating to the fall of Srebrenica. I mean, estimating
20 the number of cases or the number of bodies, if you will.
21 A. In dealing with the estimate of the number of bodies in the
22 graves that were on those aerial images, I dealt with that in my answer
23 to the prosecuting barrister. I said that I had checked later to find
24 that those graves had been excavated and that my estimate of the number
25 of bodies in the other graves was a bit of an underestimate. So that in
Page 22320
1 dealing with the graves that were on the aerial images, I would stick by
2 the method that I used in the report in 19 -- the report I made in 1999
3 on the 1998 season. Those estimates that are being criticised in this
4 letter have since been shown to be reasonable estimates of the numbers of
5 the bodies in the remaining secondary graves.
6 Q. I'm not challenging that. This is what I'm interested in now:
7 All of these bodies estimated to be in un-exhumed graves on the basis of
8 average numbers, should they all be linked to the fall of Srebrenica,
9 disregarding totally that there were four years of war before that?
10 A. I can only comment, Mr. Karadzic, on the graves that I personally
11 excavated. What I was talking about in terms of the estimates are graves
12 that I was not -- I did not excavate, and so I can't comment on the --
13 whether those graves bear on the question of Srebrenica other than by
14 noting that they appear on the aerial imagery that was dating from
15 July 1995. I -- I did not go back to Bosnia after the year 2000 when we
16 finished at Glogova, and these other graves were excavated by other
17 people.
18 Q. Thank you. However, you do agree, don't you, that a far more
19 accurate time of death can be established by way of a post-mortem rather
20 than aerial images?
21 A. I -- I doubt that, no. I think that even with people who have
22 died in the last week there's considerable debate about the time at which
23 they died. I think in this case if there are bodies and they're in
24 graves and those graves are dated by the aerial images, as I understand
25 what pathologists do, that would be a far better indication about the
Page 22321
1 time of death of these people than anything that the pathologist could
2 determine.
3 Q. But what shall we do with secondary graves? How do we establish
4 when the people buried in secondary graves had died?
5 A. We can only identify, as we did in many cases, the primary graves
6 from which they came, such as Branjevo Farm, from the Red Dam, and the
7 age of those graves is also known from aerial imagery. So the fact that
8 they are in secondary graves does not mean that we can't date the primary
9 graves from which they came. And I haven't made a detailed study of the
10 aerial imagery at the time, but I've seen pictures of dated aerial images
11 that are consistent with death in July of 1995.
12 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Mitchell.
13 MR. MITCHELL: I'm sorry to interrupt again, Mr. President.
14 Just, there was a suggestion a few minutes ago that the exhumations were
15 somehow noncompliant with the Geneva Conventions. I'm just wondering if
16 Mr. Karadzic could point to the exact provision that's being relied on
17 there, because Article 90 has got nothing to do with the exhumation of
18 mass graves. Article 120 of the third Geneva Convention does talk about
19 the procedures to be followed after the death of POWs, but it doesn't
20 mention anything about experts. So perhaps Dr. Karadzic would look into
21 that and perhaps consider withdrawing that.
22 JUDGE KWON: Judge Lattanzi found Article 34, but I'm not sure
23 whether it is the correct --
24 JUDGE LATTANZI: And 90 also, 90 is fact finding.
25 JUDGE KWON: Rule 90 as well, Article 90.
Page 22322
1 [Trial Chamber confers]
2 JUDGE KWON: Article 90, international fact finding commission --
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Are these the Additional Protocols?
4 Are we talking about the Additional Protocols?
5 [Trial Chamber confers]
6 JUDGE KWON: I take it Mr. Karadzic will come up with a more
7 precise argument.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
9 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
10 Q. In principle, in the case of Markale and everything else, we
11 asked for the Serb side to be present. However, we were always denied
12 that. Perhaps this is a typographical error here in terms of how this
13 article was copied.
14 Can I just finish with Glogova now. You found -- you found
15 12 victims there with their hands tied, with ligatures on their hands;
16 right?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Somewhere else you found a few of those too. In Kozluk,
19 somewhere like that; right?
20 A. Yes, we did, and many in the secondary graves too.
21 Q. Thank you. When you were asked about what these were made of,
22 you said cloth. Was it uniform or did it vary?
23 A. No. I answered that I couldn't remember that, whether the cloth
24 varied or not.
25 Q. But you certainly did not notice that this was a uniform matter,
Page 22323
1 as it were.
2 A. Are we talking about Kozluk or about this grave at Glogova?
3 Q. Professor, all the photographs we've seen that had to do with
4 ligatures are different, and all of this seems to be makeshift. Whatever
5 was at hand, they use it to tie these people's hands. It wasn't that
6 some kind of uniform thing was manufactured for all cases.
7 A. I didn't study the cloth, but I was told by one of the
8 investigators who had studied the cloth that they - that's after the
9 bodies had gone to the morgue - that there was -- there were many that
10 were made of the same -- exactly the same cloth, but I can't speak to
11 that point from my own personal examination of the cloth.
12 I should also say that at grave L, at Glogova, which is the grave
13 you're referring to where people had ligatures, that that was a
14 polyethylene string and not cloth.
15 Q. Thank you. You did deal with the number, didn't you? Not only
16 establishing the exact number of bodies exhumed, but also you dealt with
17 estimating the number of bodies in all the graves; right?
18 A. Yes, I did give estimates of the number of bodies in all the
19 graves in my reports, and also said that the final number would have to
20 be determined at the morgue.
21 Q. Thank you. And do you know that in different graves connections
22 were being established on the basis of DNA?
23 A. Yes, I know that that was being done because I read about it, but
24 none of that was started before I left Bosnia. It was all much more
25 recent.
Page 22324
1 Q. Thank you. I'm not looking for any culprits here. I just want
2 us to establish the following: If you agree that in Cancari 3 out of
3 138 bodies only 40 are connected with Kozluk, we cannot consider the rest
4 to have been related to Kozluk; right?
5 A. Well, you -- Mr. Karadzic, you're drawing on information there
6 that I don't have, presumably from the DNA studies.
7 Q. Yes, yes. On the basis of DNA studies, the connections were
8 being established between secondary graves, partial bodies, and so on.
9 This connection was being established on the basis of DNA analysis. So,
10 for example, in Cancari, 3 out of 138 bodies, only --
11 JUDGE KWON: Why don't you reserve that question for another
12 witness. Dr. -- the professor said he's not aware of that analysis.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
14 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
15 Q. Professor, I am satisfied with your answer in terms of
16 establishing the total number, but I'd still like to call up
17 65 ter 21024, a letter written by an investigator, Mr. Dusan Janc. 2009
18 or -- March 2009. There's also a Serbian translation here, but that's
19 not it.
20 Could I ask you to take a look at this text. Is it in line with
21 what you said a moment ago, that this is no way to establish the number?
22 A. I must have some time to read it, please.
23 Yes, I've read it now. Could you ask me the question again.
24 Q. Is this in line with what you said a moment ago, that these
25 estimates cannot yield a number? The number has to come from the
Page 22325
1 morgue -- rather, all the exhumations, and then ultimately the morgue.
2 A. Yes, I -- I think, though, that this correction by Mr. Janc
3 relates to where the individuals in the graves came from rather than how
4 the numbers are actually -- the numbers within the graves are actually
5 calculated. It relates to origin of the bodies rather than the numbers
6 of bodies that are in the graves. But perhaps I'm not understanding your
7 question.
8 Q. However, in the penultimate paragraph it says:
9 "Nevertheless, the exact number cannot be provided."
10 Do you agree that if we're dealing with different locations, we
11 cannot say that it's the same cause? Cause of death, I mean.
12 A. Certainly. If the DNA analysis has shown that most of the bodies
13 in the Glogova mass graves came from the Kravica warehouse but some
14 didn't, then I would expect them to maybe, maybe not, show different
15 properties.
16 Q. Thank you.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
18 JUDGE KWON: This is going to be -- I understood to be tendered
19 by the Prosecution. I would take it there's no position.
20 MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Janc is coming as a witness, so we could do it
21 now or then.
22 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, why don't you reserve it when Mr. Janc
23 is coming? I have no difficulty in reserving or admitting it as Defence
24 exhibit, but this is --
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Your Excellency, I'll tell you why.
Page 22326
1 I offered part of Karavelic's statement here. The Prosecutor offered all
2 of Karavelic's statement, thinking that they would call him as a witness.
3 And I agreed to that because I thought that he would appear here.
4 However, it was not fair, because they ultimately did not call him, so I
5 will have to call him, and that is why I'm doing this now.
6 JUDGE KWON: I see no problem. We'll admit it. Exhibit D1975.
7 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. Do you agree, Professor, that the Serbs buried their own dead on
9 their own territory through family arrangements, whereas victims from the
10 other side were buried in mass graves, and the other way around? The
11 Muslims buried their own victims with dignity, involving family
12 arrangements, and they buried Serb soldiers in mass graves. Does this
13 sound like a customary thing to you, and was that the way it was?
14 A. I have no idea about the statement you're making to me, and I can
15 neither agree or disagree.
16 Q. If I were to tell you that part of Podrinje was under Muslim
17 control for a while and about 50 mass Serb graves were found there and
18 then when we liberated that area they were exhumed and these people were
19 buried involving family arrangements, General Morillon attended some of
20 these exhumations, does this piece of information shed more light on my
21 previous question put to you?
22 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Mitchell.
23 MR. MITCHELL: Could we have a date on this, just to put it into
24 context?
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It was in 1993, the spring of 1993,
Page 22327
1 when we liberated Serb areas that were held by the Muslims until then.
2 This is a generally known thing, that there were about 50 mass graves,
3 and that afterwards they had family funerals. And it was the other way
4 around. Muslims buried Serb soldiers and Serb civilians in mass graves,
5 and they buried their own by way of family arrangements. So it was the
6 other way around as well.
7 THE WITNESS: Well, Mr. Karadzic, I never like to hear of
8 atrocities that have been committed, but -- and I have no reasons to
9 disbelieve what you're saying, but I must point out that I'm here as an
10 expert witness about mass graves that I actually exhumed, and not to be
11 an expert or give an opinion on historical events that I didn't
12 investigate. I have investigated, under ICTY arrangements, the killing
13 of Serb civilians in -- near Gospic, and that was a dreadful event, but I
14 know about that, but I don't know anything about Eastern Bosnia, what was
15 happening with mass graves there, other than those that I have been asked
16 to investigate by ICTY.
17 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Thank you, Professor. My intention is for us to have a look at
19 this. You made a statement on the basis of 121 or 151, whatever, of the
20 total number of bodies buried in mass graves in Podrinje, the
21 Drina valley. Does all of this have to be linked to the fall of
22 Srebrenica? How do we make a distinction in terms of those who have
23 nothing to do with Srebrenica?
24 A. I assume that by the Podrinje valley you mean Glogova, the site
25 of Glogova. I'm not familiar with the geography in the geographical
Page 22328
1 terms, but you do mean Glogova; yes?
2 Q. Podrinje is the Drina River valley from Kozluk to Bratunac. The
3 left bank of the Drina. All of that is the Podrinje. However, we call
4 the area right by the Drina river "Podrinje." That is Kozluk as well,
5 where you worked.
6 A. Well, I certainly made a statement that I found more than 121 or
7 151 bodies in the area that you're talking about. I found several
8 hundred. How -- whether I can -- whether they relate to the fall of
9 Srebrenica is, to my mind, fundamentally determined by the interpretation
10 of the aerial images and, secondly, by the artefacts that we found within
11 the grave. But they are, in my opinion, secondary to the aerial images
12 which give dates for when those people were buried.
13 Q. Yes, Professor, but how can we know that the people who were
14 killed in July 1995 were moved from a primary grave to a secondary grave?
15 How do we know that they did not lose their lives before that?
16 A. Because, as I said before, the primary graves themselves that
17 we're concerned with are dated by aerial imagery, and so of course they
18 lost their lives before they were put in the secondary graves, but I'm
19 not aware of any primary graves that have yielded bodies in secondary
20 graves and date from before 1995, before July 1995. I don't know of any.
21 Q. Thank you. I'm not talking about the graves that you opened
22 only. I'm talking about the method of providing this estimate. Do you
23 allow for the possibility or do you rule out the possibility that in the
24 secondary graves there were also bodies for which this was a primary
25 grave?
Page 22329
1 A. I interpreted the putting of bodies into the secondary graves as
2 single events, and we saw no sign of executions around the secondary
3 graves.
4 Q. So this was not the execution site; right? However, do you rule
5 out this possibility or do you allow for this possibility: that some
6 bodies were added to certain graves? So for some bodies these are
7 primary graves and for other bodies these are secondary graves.
8 A. I don't think anything can be ruled out in these circumstances,
9 but it would mean that we were very careless in our examination of the
10 stratigraphy of the graves and the relationships between the bodies and
11 differential decay and those other matters I mentioned before. The
12 people -- members of my team are experienced in stratigraphic archaeology
13 and in the effects on bodies of -- of damage to the bodies due to
14 exposure and then other fresh bodies being added on top. So you asked me
15 to rule out, but that is something which from the scientific point of
16 view one is reluctant to say, but in fact I think it is beyond -- from my
17 point of view, beyond a shadow of a doubt. I just do not believe that
18 these were graves that -- that have been misinterpreted.
19 Q. Tell us this: You exhumed seven graves; right?
20 A. The seven secondary graves, yes.
21 Q. What about the primary ones; nobody exhumed them, right? Your
22 estimate, to how many graves did it actually pertain? You established
23 certain things in relation to the bodies that you exhumed; however, you
24 made estimates on the basis of this in relation to how many graves?
25 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Mitchell.
Page 22330
1 MR. MITCHELL: Mr. President, this is starting to get a bit
2 confused, I think. Are we talking about the estimate of 2.571 from the
3 21 probed graves? Is that the issue that we're talking about?
4 JUDGE KWON: I don't follow either.
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, here it is. I think that the
6 professor will know what I'm talking about. Some were exhumed, whereas
7 for others estimates were made on the basis of the assumed average.
8 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. How many graves were left to have that done, that is to say, to
10 have estimates made?
11 A. I have explained before that I have checked -- well, can I go
12 back to your original question, "What about the primary graves; nobody
13 exhumed them; right?" The primary graves were exhumed. For instance,
14 Branjevo Farm was exhumed in 1996, but not by my team. The primary
15 graves to the south in the Nova Kasaba region were also exhumed in 1996,
16 and I myself exhumed the major primary grave of Kozluk. So primary
17 graves were examined -- exhumed.
18 Now, as to the question of the estimates, I made an estimate in
19 1999 based on the 1998 work which you referred to. But as I have already
20 told the Court, I have checked on the numbers of bodies that were in the
21 graves that I didn't exhume, 21 secondary graves, and it turns out now in
22 the light of actual exhumation of those secondary graves, those 21, that
23 I slightly underestimated the number of bodies that might be in the
24 graves that I didn't exhume.
25 Q. Thank you. Well, this is what I was counting on, these
Page 22331
1 estimates. So the rest were exhumed by somebody else. Are you able to
2 stand by the findings of these other experts who worked on the graves
3 that you made assessments on but that you did not exhume yourself? Are
4 you in a position or did you perhaps review their work and are you able
5 to stand behind the results of their work?
6 A. Well, I certainly know the work of Jon Sterenberg. He worked for
7 my team for four years and I've known him since, and he stayed on in
8 Bosnia afterwards and worked for ICMP. I've always found him to be a
9 person whose conclusions I could stand by. I don't know Mr. Dusan Janc,
10 so I can't comment on his reliability. But I have no particular -- no
11 reason to think that he's an unreliable observer, but then I don't know
12 him, never met him.
13 Q. Fair enough, as they say. Is this a signal that it's time, that
14 the time has run out? We still have a little time, doesn't we?
15 JUDGE KWON: As long as you stick to relevant issues, I would
16 allow you to continue as far as you can.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
18 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. Are you familiar or do you know what happened to the artefacts?
20 What happened to the artefacts that you selected, as well as the
21 artefacts in general that were exhumed during the exhumations?
22 A. I didn't select any artefacts. There may be a bit of
23 mistranslation. I found all the artefacts, and all -- I found the
24 artefacts, and all of them are entered into the logs which were then
25 given to ICTY, but the artefacts themselves were all sent down to the
Page 22332
1 morgue, where, I understood, investigators carried out further analysis.
2 As to what's happened to those artefacts, I have no idea in the sense of
3 where they are now. I don't know.
4 Q. Thank you. You found some ID documents, personal IDs, isn't that
5 right?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Do you know that it's a custom in our area that a prisoner of war
8 or anybody who is captured would not be allowed to keep their documents,
9 but they are forced to hand them over, otherwise they could escape?
10 A. No, I have no idea about what the rules are in Republika Srpska.
11 What they were, I don't know.
12 Q. And in your country is it possible for a prisoner to keep his
13 passport?
14 A. To tell you the truth, Mr. Karadzic, never having been arrested
15 myself, I don't know whether I would be allowed to keep my passport or
16 not.
17 Q. Thank you. It's my assumption that you're unable to answer the
18 question that the person on whom personal ID is found would not have been
19 previously arrested, but anyway, are you able to tell us whether
20 Glogova 1 and 2 were mixed and whether the DNA that was found in those
21 graves was also found in other graves? In six cases, for instance, it
22 was proved that one body part was found there and another body part was
23 found in a different location.
24 A. I don't know the facts of the particular case you're talking
25 about, but it doesn't surprise me, given the way in which the bodies were
Page 22333
1 handled, that a limb might fall off and be taken away in another truck
2 which went to a different grave. So I don't find that surprising. But I
3 must refer -- return to the question of Glogova 1 and 2. I only know
4 about Glogova 1. Glogova 2 was excavated after I had stopped working for
5 ICTY.
6 Q. But look how it was found. For example, in Glogova 1 there were
7 links of 11 with Budak 1, three with Budak 3, 13 with Bilic 3, three
8 connections with Zeleni Jadar 6, 13 with Zeleni Jadar 5, six with
9 Zeleni Jadar 4, and so on and so forth. So this is absolutely a question
10 of a mixture being found in Glogova 1. But I understand that you would
11 not have been in a position to know that because the DNA tests were not
12 conducted then. But do you agree now that things seem much more complex
13 than they seemed then?
14 A. I don't know the -- whether I had anything to do with the Budak
15 graves, but I certainly had things to do the Zeleni Jadar graves, and
16 they were secondary graves which contained body parts and which we
17 interpreted as having come from the robbing at Glogova. So in
18 October 1995 bodies why were taken away from Glogova but parts were left
19 behind. Bodies parts were taken away from Glogova and buried in -- at
20 Zeleni Jadar, I've forgotten the number of the grave. We only
21 investigated one. 5, I think. And so I would expect that some body
22 parts from some individuals would be found both in the Glogova and in
23 Zeleni Jadar. But I can't talk about the other sites, Budak 3 and 13
24 that you mention, because I don't know about them.
25 Q. Professor, sir, do you know that some artefacts and some forensic
Page 22334
1 matter was destroyed after they reached this prosecutor's office?
2 A. No. As I said to you, I don't know what happened to the
3 artefacts after I handed them over. I was not in the employment of ICTY.
4 I was under contract to do the graves. So I haven't been following what
5 happened after that.
6 Q. Professor, sir, thank you very much for your kindness. Thank you
7 very much for your answers. I apologise if I was not precise. I myself
8 seek to be as precise as possible, and precision is what I'm after, but I
9 would like to thank you very much for your help. I have no more
10 questions for you, sir, because I did not study other documents. I
11 didn't have enough time. But I even think that the ones that I did
12 provide as examples are of use and are instructive. Thank you.
13 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Mitchell, do you have any re-examination?
14 MR. MITCHELL: No, Mr. President.
15 JUDGE KWON: Well, that concludes your evidence,
16 Professor Wright. On behalf of this Chamber and the Tribunal as a whole,
17 I would like to thank you for your coming yet again to the Tribunal to
18 give it.
19 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Mr. President.
20 JUDGE KWON: We'll rise all together. Yes, Mr. -- then,
21 Professor, you're free to go.
22 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
23 [The witness withdrew]
24 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Nicholls.
25 MR. NICHOLLS: Sorry, Your Honours, just as we haven't quite run
Page 22335
1 out of time, I wanted to make a brief oral motion which is not opposed.
2 I would tender the errata sheet that Mr. Brown spoke about on the
3 24th of November at the end of his testimony. We've received an ERN, and
4 it was disclosed a few days ago. It is 65 ter number 90303. And that's
5 the errata sheet prepared based on the questions put to Mr. Brown during
6 his cross-examination.
7 JUDGE KWON: Should we admit it as a separate Prosecution
8 exhibit?
9 MR. NICHOLLS: Yes, please, Your Honour.
10 JUDGE KWON: Yes. That will be done.
11 THE REGISTRAR: That will be Exhibit P4028, Your Honours.
12 JUDGE KWON: Are there any matters to deal with? Yes.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] If I may just talk about the pace.
14 I am sure for myself that I have not been 25 years old for quite some
15 time now, so this pace, I believe, is quite taxing for everybody in this
16 courtroom, in my opinion.
17 JUDGE KWON: Yes. We are sitting five days a week this week, but
18 we have less than a month until the winter break.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And long days.
20 JUDGE KWON: Tomorrow, 9.00.
21 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.42 p.m.,
22 to be reconvened on Friday, the 2nd day
23 of December, 2011, at 9.00 a.m.
24
25