Page 34330
1 Wednesday, 27 February 2013
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness takes the stand]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.
6 JUDGE KWON: Good morning, everyone.
7 Mr. Tieger, please continue.
8 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Mr. President. And good morning to all
9 in the courtroom.
10 WITNESS: VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC [Resumed]
11 [Witness answered through interpreter]
12 Cross-examination by Mr. Tieger: [Continued]
13 Q. Mr. Jovanovic, as we began before we adjourned yesterday, I want
14 to draw your attention and the Court's attention to D03019, the letter
15 you sent on 18 December 1995 to Mr. Lavrov. Now, first of all, let's
16 confirm a few details. You have indicated in your statement at
17 paragraph 71 that the letter was sent inadvertently to the
18 Security Council instead of Lavrov, so you mentioned him in your
19 statement. Mr. Lavrov at the time was the president of the
20 Security Council, correct, in addition to being head of the Russian
21 mission?
22 A. I think there were two letters. One was the letter, or rather,
23 the report from the president of the municipality of Srebrenica and the
24 other is the letter you referred to, namely the letter addressed to
25 Ambassador Lavrov, as chairman of the Security Council. I think these
Page 34331
1 are two different matters, because in this letter which is shorter, just
2 a page and a half or so, there are certain allusions to the Srebrenica
3 case but not in so much detail as the letter that I received from the
4 president of Srebrenica municipality --
5 Q. Mr. -- Mr. Jovanovic --
6 A. -- so that the letter --
7 Q. -- the letter is in front of you right now. Let's turn to the
8 next page so the witness can see it, please. This is D3019, which was
9 appended to your statement and admitted to this Court. So that's the
10 letter we're talking about; correct?
11 A. This is one of the letters. This letter was correctly addressed
12 to the president of the Security Council and the other letter was
13 supposed to be sent to Lavrov, but by mistake also went to the
14 Security Council and that created both confusion and dissatisfaction at
15 the Security Council. It is my mistake that it ended up in the
16 Security Council instead of just in the hands of Mr. Lavrov as chairman
17 of the Russian delegation.
18 Q. Well, what you purposely sent to Mr. Lavrov, as we see on the
19 screen before you --
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. -- states in part, as we turn to the next page, that before the
22 forces of Republika Srpska entered Srebrenica there was merciless killing
23 within the Bosnian army and, in essence, states that the Muslim victims
24 were responsible for their own deaths; correct? That is what you
25 submitted to Mr. Lavrov.
Page 34332
1 A. Yes. I should like to be more precise here because this is a
2 longer text than the one I had in mind. This text was supposed to go
3 only to Lavrov as Russia's permanent representative at the
4 United Nations. But my mistake it was addressed to Lavrov as head of the
5 Security Council, and that caused confusion and my personal
6 dissatisfaction over that faux pas, but that was only my mistake and
7 nobody else's.
8 Q. This was submitted in anticipation of a Security Council session
9 that would be dedicated to the issue of Srebrenica; correct? And that's
10 what you testified to in the Milosevic case?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Okay. I'd like to --
13 A. Yes, that is correct.
14 Q. All right.
15 A. I believe that was the day before the meeting of the
16 Security Council that this letter was sent.
17 Q. I'd like to look at some of the things -- some of the things you
18 have said about Srebrenica and ask you if you confirm or deny those
19 things. You testified in the Milosevic case in 2005 that with regard --
20 well:
21 "If you're referring to Srebrenica in 1995, then that was an
22 atrocious massacre."
23 That's at 36333 through 34; correct? You stated that?
24 A. Yes, and that is still my opinion today.
25 Q. Okay. And you were interviewed by a representative of the
Page 34333
1 Office of the Prosecutor in 2009 in April and you stated at that time
2 that Srebrenica was a massive massacre, not acceptable at all; correct?
3 A. That's correct.
4 Q. You stated that it was very sad:
5 "Very sad that Serbs were involved in that kind of crime.
6 It's -- it's terrible. Once this prisoner or enemy he should be
7 respected. It has always been the custom of Serbian armed forces
8 throughout the history so it was very bad thing which happened there."
9 Correct? That's what you told the Office -- the representative
10 of the Office of the Prosecutor in 2009.
11 A. Yes, that's true.
12 Q. Then when asked who was responsible, you stated:
13 "Those who made such a crime - and I don't know whether they did
14 it with the knowledge of their superiors or not ..."
15 And when asked who "they" were, that is, the superiors, you
16 stated "Mladic and Karadzic." And that's also what you stated to the
17 representative of the Office of the Prosecutor in 2009; correct?
18 A. Yes, that's correct insofar as both President Karadzic and
19 General Mladic were two personalities at the top of Republika Srpska, one
20 in the military, one in the political sense. But that doesn't mean that
21 those who committed those crimes received their approval to commit them.
22 Q. You also gave an interview to "Slobodna Bosna" in 2008, that is,
23 in November 2008, and that's 65 ter 24669, if we can call that up. It
24 may be under 24669A. I'm not sure.
25 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Tieger.
Page 34334
1 MR. TIEGER: Yes, Mr. President.
2 JUDGE KWON: I'm told that the document --
3 MR. TIEGER: 24669A --
4 JUDGE KWON: -- hasn't been released yet. 24669A.
5 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Mr. President.
6 Q. This is a portion of that interview, sir. It begins with your
7 comments about Sarajevo, indicating you could not understand about
8 Sarajevo at all, why keep a city under siege for so long, for three and a
9 half years, why subject it to all those snipers and misfortunes? You go
10 on to indicate that you did ask Karadzic a few times, explained that this
11 was causing a great deal of damage to their legitimate goals and to us
12 all. And then you follow with his -- what he said, that the enemy must
13 be prevented from having free hands and from free actions. And then you
14 stated:
15 "As far as Srebrenica is concerned, that was a dreadful crime,
16 unjustified. It cannot be justified by any ... even if just a single
17 captured soldier was executed - the crime was dreadful, but so many of
18 them - even it is not 8.000 but 1.000, 2.000, 3.000, or 4.000 - that is a
19 dreadful crime that does not diminish this. I just think that all those
20 who are responsible for those crimes as well as for all the others, the
21 criminals, should be held responsible."
22 And that is also a reflection of the positions that you've taken
23 over the years about Srebrenica; correct?
24 A. That is correct, but that does not still reveal the full truth
25 about who in addition to Serbs, if there were any or others, was involved
Page 34335
1 in those crimes because that --
2 Q. Mr. Jovanovic --
3 A. -- side of it has not been shed any light on yet.
4 Q. I'm asking you about what you stated and that's the -- I'm not
5 asking -- I'm not entering into a debate with you about all the details
6 of Srebrenica.
7 MR. TIEGER: Mr. President, I tender 24669A.
8 MR. ROBINSON: No objection, Mr. President. But I would just
9 note that when Mr. Tieger asked a question such as that which he did,
10 that still does not reveal the truth about who ... you know: This is a
11 reflection of the positions that you've taken over the years about
12 Srebrenica; correct? I think the witness should be given a chance to
13 explain his views about Srebrenica when a question like that is asked and
14 I think Mr. Tieger was wrong to cut the witness off and expect some kind
15 of yes or no answer to that.
16 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Robinson, I think the witness has answered the
17 question. And if necessary, Mr. Karadzic may take up that issue in his
18 re-examination.
19 MR. TIEGER: Mr. -- thank you, Mr. President.
20 JUDGE KWON: Do you need more -- do you still have further
21 questions?
22 MR. TIEGER: Just following up on this, yes.
23 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
24 MR. TIEGER:
25 Q. Now --
Page 34336
1 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we'll give the number for that document.
2 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P6150, Your Honours.
3 JUDGE KWON: Please continue, Mr. Tieger.
4 MR. TIEGER:
5 Q. Mr. Jovanovic, when you submitted your letter to Mr. Lavrov in
6 December of 1995, you didn't indicate to him any of the views or
7 information contained in the excerpts that I've just drawn your attention
8 to; that is, you didn't indicate to him what you've told the
9 Milosevic Trial Chamber, what you said in 2009 to the representative of
10 the Office of the Prosecutor, or what you told the interviewer from
11 "Slobodna Bosna," did you?
12 A. The letter that I sent, or rather, that my deputy was supposed to
13 send to Ambassador Lavrov contains some of the points from the report of
14 the president of Srebrenica municipality, and this paper was supposed to
15 be useful to Ambassador Lavrov in his speech to the Security Council. My
16 objective was not to share my opinion with him, nor was my opinion then
17 sufficient, nor was I in the know about all the details of the atrocity
18 committed there. I just sent that paper without going into which part of
19 that was true or not. At that time, I did not even have a full opinion.
20 I did not have enough information.
21 Q. And now, nearly 20 years later, you draw the Trial Chamber's --
22 this Trial Chamber's attention to that same report, a report which
23 alleges that the victims of Srebrenica killed themselves, and you don't
24 provide any information to the Trial Chamber whatsoever in your statement
25 about what you said to the Trial Chamber in Milosevic in 2005, about what
Page 34337
1 you said to the Office of the Prosecutor in 2009, about what you said to
2 "Slobodna Bosna" in 2008 about the fact that you consider that it was the
3 forces of Republika Srpska that executed unarmed prisoners. That's the
4 fact, isn't it, sir? There's nothing of that in your statement, is
5 there?
6 A. It is not in my statement because the only two weeks before
7 Mustafic, a representative of the political bodies of Bosnian Muslims,
8 had given a statement where he claimed --
9 Q. Sir --
10 A. -- that Bosnian Muslims under Naser Oric -- please allow me to
11 explain.
12 JUDGE KWON: Yes, let's hear him out and then ...
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That Naser Oric is directly
14 responsible for the death of 500 to 1.000 Bosnian Muslims from
15 Srebrenica, and that allegedly that number of Muslim soldiers were
16 executed on their way from Srebrenica to Tuzla. That is the claim of
17 that man and that can be easily checked because he is one of the more
18 prominent Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina who deals with this subject in a
19 expert way. Certain details about the full truth of what happened in
20 Srebrenica came only later, subsequently. And then on the
21 18th December 2005, I was not in a position to find out anything more
22 than I could read from the press.
23 MR. TIEGER: I have nothing further, Mr. President.
24 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Mr. Tieger.
25 Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
Page 34338
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Good morning,
2 Your Excellencies. Good morning, everyone.
3 Re-examination by Mr. Karadzic:
4 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Excellency, Mr. Jovanovic.
5 I'll start with the freshest point: Did my Defence team ask you about
6 your knowledge from 1995 or from 2005 or now 2013 regarding Srebrenica?
7 A. If I understood correctly, they asked me what I knew at that time
8 when it was all happening, in 2005 [sic]. The knowledge I gained later,
9 like everybody else, is a combination of what I learned from various
10 sides and could or could not be relevant. But it is certainly not the
11 same as what I knew in 1995.
12 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. I take it you meant 1995, not 2005?
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, yes, I misspoke. I meant
14 1995. I'm sorry.
15 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
17 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
18 Q. You were asked a short time ago whether you shared with the
19 Defence team the knowledge you gained later subsequently. Has there been
20 an investigation that you'd had access to regarding events in Srebrenica
21 so that you would have been able to gain that knowledge at the time of
22 the interview?
23 A. Like everyone else in the past 15, 20 years, I tried to read more
24 and find out more, both from the work of this Tribunal and the work of
25 others and provided contributions based on fact or facts that were not
Page 34339
1 completely consistent with what this Court has found in its various
2 judgements. But I still do not have a precise enough picture about how
3 many of those unfortunate people were killed there. I have the
4 impression that it is overblown and exaggerated, and it's not clear
5 whether only those local Serbs were to blame or perhaps part of the blame
6 lies on the Bosnian Muslims, as Mr. Mustafic claimed recently. I cannot
7 completely trust anyone. I can only read and listen and try to make my
8 own judgement, and that judgement is not definitive yet, especially if we
9 compare the massacre in Srebrenica with the massacre in the Katin forest
10 where 22.000 officers and soldiers were killed. And nobody has been
11 charged for that crime yet, not Stalin and not Russia have been charged
12 for the crime, only the massacre. That is what makes me still hesitant
13 to make a final qualification of that crime. Nobody in Russia has been
14 charged with genocide.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In line 11, the word "genocide" was
16 omitted -- now it has been corrected.
17 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Your Excellency, regarding that letter dated 18 December 1995,
19 did you or your government try or did you gain the impression that my
20 government was trying to conceal anything regarding the events in
21 Srebrenica?
22 A. I requested information as soon as Lavrov requested it from me
23 because I had no contacts whatsoever, and several times I insisted and
24 for a long time I did not receive that answer. But I finally received
25 the answer in the form of a copy of the report from the president of
Page 34340
1 Srebrenica municipality, and that reply was several times longer than the
2 letter I eventually sent there. Because not all the elements contained
3 in the Srebrenica report seemed relevant to me for the debate the
4 Security Council and Ambassador Lavrov. I asked my deputy to excerpt
5 those points that were the most relevant and he did that and I signed it
6 by mistake. So that was the result. I glanced through the report very
7 quickly because I didn't have much time. This needed to be sent very
8 quickly. The meeting of the Security Council was already scheduled for
9 the next day. But I could see that it was made up of elements that were
10 not very coherent and did not look very convincing at first glance. As
11 far as the leadership of Republika Srpska is concerned, my impression was
12 that they were not involved, that they did not know about that letter,
13 and that President wrote it alone. Nobody but him was in a position to
14 provide a more global view of the events in that area at the time so that
15 if Republika Srpska had been in the know, I suppose that they would have
16 sent some sort of report themselves. However, we didn't receive any
17 reports from them, only from the president of the municipality of
18 Srebrenica. And as I later found out, the leadership of Republika Srpska
19 was not aware of that report. I don't know if they still are. It seemed
20 to me just a report from the local level, not what I requested.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could we see that letter again in
22 e-court, D3019.
23 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
24 Q. Your Excellency, did you plead that what you conveyed from that
25 letter be taken for granted or be subjected to further inquiry?
Page 34341
1 A. You mean my letter to Lavrov? At that point I was not in a
2 position to assess the significance or the accuracy of what we received
3 from Srebrenica. And that's why we forwarded it all, I mean the usable
4 part, to Lavrov for him to judge for himself whether there was anything
5 useful in that or not. However, through my mistake it was made available
6 to all members of the Security Council and created confusion. I really
7 had no precise idea of what had happened there really. During my tenure
8 as a minister, telegrams arrived from --
9 Q. Your Excellency, I'm only interested in this letter. Could we
10 see the last page. Let us see if this is accurate. Item 4, the second
11 paragraph.
12 A. Second paragraph?
13 Q. Yes. "In view of the foregoing ..." was that your position, that
14 an investigation needed to be carried out?
15 A. Certainly. The Security Council session was also aimed at
16 finding out what was going on. You cannot find out everything at a
17 single meeting. There have to be several -- there has to be more
18 information about what happened there. So that meeting was just supposed
19 to be the beginning of an investigation that would lead to the full
20 truth. I do not remember exactly whether the meeting of the
21 Security Council acted that way or whether they condemned the crime in
22 Srebrenica immediately, taking a position that basically remained
23 unchanged throughout. I don't remember whether it happened then already
24 or not.
25 Q. Thank you. Excellency, I don't need to tender this, but could
Page 34342
1 the usher please show on the ELMO a few recent clips from the media
2 where official representatives of the Muslims of Srebrenica are speaking
3 about what you found strange in that letter of the president of the
4 municipality of Srebrenica. So I just really want to ask you whether
5 that's that.
6 A. I do apologise, but what is it that you actually mean by this?
7 Q. What you said a moment ago, what this -- what one of them stated
8 now and -- I mean it was Ibran Mustafic.
9 A. Ah, yes, Ibran Mustafic was the last one and before that there
10 was this other historian, Mehulic, Mihulic, a Muslim. He claimed -- he
11 presented the assertion that in 1993 President Clinton proposed to the
12 late Izetbegovic that they provoked the Serbs around Srebrenica so that
13 5.000 Muslims would go missing and that would suffice for NATO
14 intervention. He claims in that book - and no one's denied it yet, I
15 don't know to what extent this is true or not. But Mustafic repeated
16 that idea in relation to 1995 and he claimed something that I found hard
17 to believe in 1995. However, when he asserted now that Naser Oric was
18 directly responsible for the death of 500 to 1.000 Muslim soldiers, which
19 was later ascribed to the Serbs as a crime of theirs, then a person has
20 to remain confused, wondering what is true, like Pontius Pilot almost. I
21 personally would like to find out the entire truth, not only part of the
22 truth, regardless of whether it is pleasant or not. And I think it is in
23 everybody's interest to find out the truth. Now information is coming
24 from other sides as well, indicating that the full truth regarding
25 Srebrenica has not been established yet.
Page 34343
1 Q. Thank you.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we just show the first pages
3 with the headings so that we will see whether that is what you meant when
4 you spoke of recent news.
5 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Tieger.
6 MR. TIEGER: It's in B/C/S. I presume it's meant to be some kind
7 of confirmation of or reflection of what the witness was referring to,
8 but in my submission I don't -- he can show it on the ELMO if he wants,
9 if that is what it purports to be. But the issue really is what this
10 witness purported to know at any given time. So any document that strays
11 beyond that is obviously inappropriate. But this is a direct reference
12 to what the witness was talking about. I don't have any objection.
13 JUDGE KWON: Yes, I was about to ask you and Mr. Karadzic whether
14 we had that part of evidence in our evidence already, i.e., Mustafic's
15 claim or something like that.
16 MR. TIEGER: I think it's a general matter. We do. I understand
17 this to be a kind of direct follow-up to what the witness just said, that
18 is -- and it could have been done in the way the Court just indicated.
19 It appears it's being done in a slightly different manner, but I think
20 it's at this moment restricted to that so I don't object to that. But in
21 terms of expedition, we could just -- if he -- if Dr. Karadzic could cite
22 the previous evidence, that would suffice also.
23 JUDGE KWON: Very well. Let's proceed. Is the ELMO working?
24 No.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Then I can ask.
Page 34344
1 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
2 Q. Excellency, what was unusual and unconvincing? What was it that
3 made you uncomfortable with regard to that letter of the president of the
4 municipality of Srebrenica, that Serb?
5 A. I can't remember, but the first thing that led to my confusion
6 was that at the very beginning of the letter he claimed that the Muslims
7 in Srebrenica killed each other. There were some who wanted to stay on
8 and fight and others who did not want to do that. So allegedly those who
9 wanted to fight fired at those who did not want to. That seemed somehow
10 unconvincing to me, and I simply could not take it that way until only a
11 couple of weeks ago when I heard Mustafic, what he had to say, and then I
12 remembered that dilemma of mine and then it became even deeper; namely,
13 it seemed that that kind of thing had been possible after all. Now,
14 whether it was to the extent that has been suggested or not, that I
15 cannot judge.
16 Q. Thank you, Excellency. Could we please display now what we have
17 from the media, the second half of February, only recently, two weeks
18 ago. So does that cast a bit more light on what it was that you held
19 against that report at the time, what made you uncomfortable, and what
20 you found strange in that report?
21 JUDGE KWON: At the moment, the ELMO doesn't seem to be
22 functioning. How many photocopies do you have with you now?
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] One each, Excellency, but copies
24 can be made.
25 JUDGE KWON: Do you have other topics to deal with? A technician
Page 34345
1 is on his way to --
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, yes. We can move on.
3 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
4 Q. Just one more question in relation to that letter of the
5 18th of December. Excellency, was the wish of your government granted,
6 that is to say to have this investigation carried out? Was an
7 investigation ever carried out that would lead to full evidence in terms
8 of what had happened there?
9 A. I was in New York at the time. I don't know about all the things
10 that the government in Belgrade was doing on that score; however, I do
11 know - and I repeated that beforehand - that Milosevic insisted all the
12 time that the safe zones do not be touched, do not be attacked, and some
13 kind of danger of that kind was looming. Now, our authorities in
14 Belgrade, to what extent they asked for a full investigation to be
15 carried out, I don't know. Probably there were some initiatives, some
16 requests, but I cannot assert anything in this situation.
17 Q. Thank you. On page 34304 it was stated to you that at a session
18 held on the 9th of January, 1993 -- that is 65 ter 06145 on page 68 in
19 English and 67 in Serbian.
20 A. Sixty-eight.
21 Q. It has to do with the topic of Greater Serbia, and it was stated
22 what I said:
23 [In English] "It is a long-term aim which could be achieved only
24 step by step or gradually."
25 [Interpretation] I would like to show you the part that had not
Page 34346
1 been quoted to you. Do you remember that? 65 ter 6145, could we have
2 that, please. Page 12 in both Serbian and English and then page 13. So
3 this is where Karadzic's remarks start and -- ah, yes, please. I recall
4 the Atlantic Charter here, the USA and the UK and this is what it says:
5 "These states respect the rights of all nations to choose the
6 form of government under which they wish to live. Sovereign rights and
7 the rights of governing themselves should be returned to those from whom
8 they had been taken by force. That is to say that they do not wish to
9 deprive us of our rights by force. They are asking for our co-operation
10 in our own destruction."
11 And then it says:
12 "All our attempts to make a compromising -- a document that would
13 be based on compromise were rejected ..."
14 And then further on it says:
15 "All our attempts to open the door in terms of terminology that
16 this would be a community of nations, even a unitary state or even a
17 single unitary state gives us the -- all of that was rejected and
18 avoided."
19 Excellency, is this in line with your own understanding of our
20 position about the nature of our staying in Yugoslavia --
21 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: Bosnia.
22 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. What was it that we had asked for and that we had been deprived
24 of?
25 A. I fully understand that and I don't think it is difficult to draw
Page 34347
1 a conclusion on the basis of all of this, that your objective was that
2 within Bosnia there be a very loose relationship between and among the
3 three peoples, that this be some kind of confederacy union or whatever.
4 This is something that the Croat side accepted but the Muslim side did
5 not want to accept that at any cost. They wanted a unitary Bosnia.
6 The international mediators did not deal with that question at
7 that level, as you had requested. All the way up until June or July 1993
8 when Owen for the first time came up with the idea of this union of
9 Bosnia, a confederation in Bosnia, it was only then that this idea grew
10 its roots, eventually growing into a tree that ended in the
11 Dayton Accords.
12 This has nothing to do with the Greater Serbia. It would have
13 something to do with the Greater Serbia had you been fighting for
14 annexing that part of Bosnia that you populate to Serbia. But that's not
15 what you wanted to do. Your first objective was to be loyal to the
16 common state and not to leave that common state. That was a natural and
17 legitimate right of all who lived in the country, to be loyal to that
18 country. When that was no longer possible after the international
19 recognition of Bosnia, your objectives were related to the framework of
20 that state, Bosnia. But you went much further and the Muslim side did
21 not even want to accept that as a topic for discussion, let alone to
22 agree to it all together. All the way up to mid-1993, this idea of an
23 ethnically regulated union according to an ethnic principle, that was not
24 being bandied about, but then it became stronger and to this day it is
25 there. This idea of a Greater Serbia which was un -- which was untrue
Page 34348
1 from the very beginning, and I think that the Court was even misled into
2 thinking that. What does a Greater Serbia mean? Is it something that is
3 in the mind of certain people or is it a project that exists? There
4 never was such a project and there isn't one now. What is Risorgimento?
5 What is the unification of Germany? What is the megalo-idea of Germany?
6 All of them have the idea of national unification. I am sorry.
7 So all of these states that were not put together, I mean their
8 peoples were not put together, they all have this dream, they even have
9 these projects to live all together in one state. That, in itself, is
10 not a reason for condemning them. Why would the Serb people be apart
11 from all others and why would they be stigmatised in a negative sense
12 just because they also have this natural aspiration to live in a single
13 state? Even more so because all Serbs had already lived in a single
14 state, the socialist Yugoslavia; that was broken up and they were
15 forcibly taken out of that state. So this part about a Greater Serbia,
16 this idea of a Greater Serbia was abandoned by this court also, rightly
17 so I believe, and I think that there is no point in bringing it up again
18 because this is not part of political or national reality of any of the
19 Serbs living in the Balkans today.
20 Q. Thank you, Excellency. Now we get to the question that was
21 raised by Mr. Tieger as well in relation to dreams, no matter how
22 legitimate or illegitimate they may be. Did you see for yourself that I
23 was prepared to sacrifice peace for any idea or any dream? Did you ever
24 see anything like that?
25 A. You are a poet, first and foremost, and you let your imagination
Page 34349
1 go and then people who have been deprived of that kind of gift cannot
2 understand that. It is a fact that you never wrote any such thing or
3 uttered any such thing that for obtaining your political objective you
4 were prepared to sacrifice peace. You never stated that. You never
5 worked in that direction; however, others did. The late
6 Alija Izetbegovic said that quite openly, and on the other side Tudjman
7 said that too. After all, in the eastern declaration, that is the alpha
8 and the omega, that is the doctrine of the Bosnian Muslims, and it is
9 explicitly stated that there is no peace between the fateful and the
10 unfaithful, the Muslims and the infidels. After that Alija Izetbegovic
11 did not want to discuss that but, after all, that is his Bible, the
12 Islamic Declaration. When the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina heard about
13 that and they were such victims during the Second World War, of course it
14 made their hairs stand on end, and of course they didn't want to be in
15 that situation again. So this Bosnian situation, this Bosnian caldron,
16 consisting of various rational and irrational elements, it is hard, it is
17 perhaps irresponsible to simplify this in terms of one side only or the
18 guilt of one side only. Simply, this is not a path that leads to the
19 truth, but this is a path that leads us astray, away from the truth.
20 Q. Thank you. Could we see page 27 of this document, please. You
21 were quoted back your words, but not in their entirety or not to a
22 sufficient degree. What was quoted to you was on transcript page 34304,
23 and now I would like to show you the part where you allegedly said that
24 the international community and the conditions do not permit for the
25 dreams to come true, the dreams on Serbian state, Serbian country. In
Page 34350
1 the first paragraph it says:
2 "We had heard from Mr. Karadzic that Americans called parts of
3 their country states the same as done by Switzerland and Germany and many
4 other countries. How come they do not want the word 'state' to be the
5 word which would denote the unified Serbian ethnical territory in Bosnia?
6 It is obvious that they have some ulterior motives and by eliminating
7 that word they want to predetermine the future self-determination of
8 Serbs in Bosnia. If they give up on that now, in the future they would
9 not be able to invoke that. So this fear from the change of our
10 constitutional status" --
11 JUDGE KWON: What is the point of question, Mr. -- just ask the
12 question.
13 Yes, Mr. Tieger.
14 MR. TIEGER: Yeah, that's exactly right and it's very clear a
15 leading question is about to unfold.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. I just wanted to quote
17 fully what Minister Jovanovic stated at the time. It wasn't quoted in
18 its entirety on the page that I quoted from the transcript. And I wanted
19 to hear from His Excellency whether this was a more complete quotation of
20 his words and whether that truly reflected his position at the time and
21 our views on that subject.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think that this is the condensed
23 version of the reality in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time and the
24 greatest fears of the Serbs in Bosnia at the time. They did not want to
25 be pushed out as the constituent nation. They didn't want to be sucked
Page 34351
1 into some kind of a unitary state. And this fear of theirs had its
2 historical basis, and occasionally it may have received some irrational
3 forms in these poetical moments, but in reality it was realistically
4 grounded. The Bosnian Muslims did not want to remain in the
5 Socialist Yugoslavia any longer, and the Serbs in Bosnia were wondering
6 whether they could remain in Bosnia which was a miniature version of
7 Yugoslavia itself. So I'm coming back to what I said earlier, that the
8 destruction of the Socialist Yugoslavia was a crime which pushed the
9 situation into a series of new crimes which continued to this day. The
10 responsibility of those who had destroyed Yugoslavia has not been
11 evaluated in court yet. No investigation was launched against those who
12 initiated this destruction of Yugoslavia.
13 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
14 Q. Thank you. What the Prosecutor did not quote to you, speaking
15 about the unitary state, I will quote now. Perhaps in parallel with that
16 insistence and with those explanations, legal, political, and moral, we
17 should also offer guarantees that such statehood within Bosnia does not
18 in any way represent an expansion of Serbia towards Bosnia nor does it
19 represent the creation of the Greater Serbia, nor does it create basis
20 for future or indirect secession of that Serbian state from Bosnia. This
21 could be achieved by providing guarantees, international, ours, and
22 Croatian. How does this relate to allegations that there were stories
23 about joining up Serbian expansionism?
24 A. Those stories were constantly planted by Bosnian Muslims to the
25 international community in order to scare, to create fear, in the
Page 34352
1 international community of this monster called Serbia who couldn't wait
2 to swallow up smaller countries around it. This was their platform for
3 leaving Yugoslavia and creating their independent states, falsely
4 representing the situation as a danger of them being swallowed up by
5 Serbia. Because had this -- or argument really been solid, then the same
6 danger would have existed for Croats and Bosnian Serbs of them being
7 swallowed up by Bosnian Muslims. So that was not the valid logic. The
8 proper way was to establish proper relations within a multi-ethnic state,
9 not to stir up these fears. What I explained here is nothing new. The
10 state entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina was something that would have
11 calmed down the fears of both Serbs and Croats in Bosnia, their fear of
12 Muslims, and would have prevent the Muslim from carrying out the
13 unitarisation by force.
14 So the problems that we mentioned concerning Bavaria in Germany
15 and various cantons in Switzerland and the republics in Yugoslavia which
16 were organised as states within the country. All of that was not a
17 sufficient reason for the international community to scream around that
18 that was the way to disintegrate a state. The Dayton Agreement confirmed
19 these two state entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina and that was a
20 precondition for a peaceful coexistence and further continuation of
21 Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state.
22 Q. Thank you, Your Excellency. On page 34318 it was suggested to
23 you that you spoke about ethnic homogeneity and the ethnical principle as
24 a strategic objective. Not everything was quoted back to you, not all of
25 your words were quoted back to you as you uttered them at the time.
Page 34353
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could we now see P794, please.
2 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. So in that question it was suggested to you that you supported
4 the idea of them being founded on an ethnic principle, of them being
5 ethnic cantons.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could we see page 5, please.
7 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. Would you please look at the second paragraph, Your Excellency.
9 You say there:
10 "It would be bad if we insisted on the national, it needs to come
11 on its own ..."
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I think that it's page 5 in the
13 English as well -- no, page 4 in the English version, second paragraph in
14 the address by Minister Jovanovic beginning with the words "it would
15 be ..."
16 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. "It should simply happen naturally, on its own, because they have
18 already accepted it. We should insist on the economic principle and use
19 it to improve the territorial appearance of things, while the national
20 principle should be insisted upon only to the extent which is needed for
21 providing life-lines, in other words, to link it with the zones within
22 the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."
23 A. This holds. This holds to this day. I see things the same way
24 nowadays too. Muslims and Croats had already opted for the national
25 principle in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in the name of that national
Page 34354
1 principle they had seceded. They left Yugoslavia. So why would that
2 national principle be denied only to the Serbs in Bosnia? Because all of
3 those three communities in a kind of way had their own territories, and
4 unfortunately that was also the result of the war, the consequence of the
5 war. But even prior to that they started creating their own territories
6 on the national basis. For me, much more important than the national
7 principle was the economic sustainability because that was the
8 precondition for everything, and I kept warning them that they shouldn't
9 be obsessed with the national principle but should rather worry about
10 what is in the source of life which was the economic principle. It was
11 important for the Serbs in Bosnia to be a direct contact, to be able to
12 lean on Serbia in order to continue the co-operation, cultural, economic,
13 spiritual co-operation between two parts of the same nation. And this is
14 something that the Contact Group had already enabled the Bosnian Croats
15 to have with the Croats in Croatia. And Dayton later enabled that to the
16 Serbs in Bosnia to have those kind of ties with Serbia, and so I stand by
17 these words now as well.
18 Q. Thank you. In your interview given to "Slobodna Bosna" you said
19 that I had said that in a war one should prevent the enemy from doing
20 what they wanted. Did you know, Excellency, that in Sarajevo there were
21 armed formations and armed forces of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina
22 or was it some kind of an urban --
23 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Tieger.
24 MR. TIEGER: Okay, I mean I think that's ...
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It's the interpretation.
Page 34355
1 [In English] Whether you knew about what was in Sarajevo.
2 MR. TIEGER: Well, it -- I think Dr. Karadzic can try as hard as
3 he wants to polish this question, but it remains a leading question even
4 as he tries to tinker with the precise formulation. He's providing --
5 he's directing the witness's attention to aspects of the answer that he
6 ultimately seeks.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I will try to reformulate.
8 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. Your Excellency, did you know that or were there in Sarajevo any
10 enemy forces whom we should have kept tied, whose hands we should have
11 kept tied?
12 A. If I --
13 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Tieger.
14 MR. TIEGER: Ask a question of relevance. I mean, the issue
15 is -- begins with what was related to him by the accused, which doesn't
16 open the door to an explanation of the -- what the witness may or may not
17 consider to be the overall rationale or justification behind any actions
18 taken by the accused.
19 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, the witness was not there. Consider
20 how much value, probative value, it will have. Let's proceed. Move --
21 please move on. The document is on the ELMO.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
23 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
24 Q. Could I now ask you to look at the date, please, on this internet
25 announcement -- this text that appeared on the internet, could you now
Page 34356
1 tell us what it is about?
2 A. This is a statement or a book by Mr. Mustafic. We created a
3 sensation a couple of weeks ago, if I remember well, stating that
4 Naser Oric was directly responsible for the death of 500 to 1.000
5 Bosniaks from Srebrenica whom he killed on as they travelled from
6 Srebrenica to Tuzla. Apparently he had been dissatisfied with them
7 because they did not want to remain and continue defending Srebrenica,
8 but I will not go into that.
9 I would like to remind you also of another instance which was
10 recently uncovered, namely, the killing of the two young people on the
11 demarcation line between the Muslim and the Serbian part of Sarajevo. It
12 was then discovered, it was discovered just now, that they had been
13 killed by Muslim sniper and that it was attributed to the Serbs. That
14 was a young couple, a Serb and a young Muslim woman, who had been killed.
15 So these things are coming out now and perhaps they cannot give you the
16 entire picture, but they definitely show that there are things that were
17 suppressed, that we didn't know about, and that nobody wanted to discuss.
18 For me, these are revelations, revelations that confuse me because all of
19 a sudden I see that this assertion that the Muslims killed each other is
20 less likely than -- less improbable [Realtime transcript read in
21 error "probable"] than I had thought 15 or 18 years ago. There was a
22 young Muslim woman who came to me and who spoke to me openly, and she
23 was -- she interviewed me and she was supposed to send me the text later
24 on to authorise it. She didn't do it properly. She obviously wanted to
25 adapt that text to the needs, to the political needs, of the Muslim side.
Page 34357
1 Q. In line 12 it should say "less unbelievable," not "less
2 probable." "Less improbable," that's how it should be. The witness said
3 that it is now less improbable than it had seemed to him 18 years ago.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could we now put the cover pages of
5 these additional two documents, please, on the ELMO.
6 MR. TIEGER: I object to that. The witness is -- the Court is
7 aware of why.
8 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We will retract this. We will give
10 up on this.
11 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. You asked on page 73 yesterday -- you were asked on page 73
13 yesterday -- or rather, on page 93 you were asked about the ethnic
14 cleansing. Excellency, Your Excellency, were you familiar with our
15 position on the right to return and was this -- did we ever challenge
16 that right to return?
17 A. As far as I know, that was your position and when I once conveyed
18 the objections of international mediators, stating that in the
19 Republika Srpska organs there had not been sufficient representation by
20 Serbs and Muslims in Bosnia -- by Croats and Muslims in Bosnia, you in
21 response said that there were a lot of them in the army. And that was
22 your official position which I remembered as such.
23 Q. Thank you, Your Excellency. I have no further questions, some
24 minor ones which are not that important. Thank you very much.
25 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Tieger.
Page 34358
1 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Mr. President. With the Court's leave
2 could I address just one issue that arose twice that can be clarified, I
3 trust, quickly.
4 JUDGE KWON: With respect to that internet clipping?
5 MR. TIEGER: With -- well, with respect to that -- to that issue
6 that was raised, yes.
7 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
8 MR. TIEGER: Thank you.
9 Further cross-examination by Mr. Tieger:
10 Q. Mr. Jovanovic, there's been some discussion during the re-direct
11 examination about information that you received two weeks ago in relation
12 to your statement. Now, is it correct, sir, that you signed your
13 statement on February 20 -- your final statement on February 22nd of this
14 year, you just recently signed it?
15 A. Yes. It signed it. I don't remember which date it was, but I
16 did sign it.
17 Q. And you made certain limited modifications to an earlier
18 statement that you had provided to the Defence; correct? So the
19 statement you signed was the -- was a reflection of the earlier statement
20 you had given the Defence with certain corrections or additions that
21 made -- made this month?
22 A. What exactly do you have in mind? I can't reply.
23 Q. The statement that you signed was not created completely on the
24 date you signed it. You came here for proofing, you made certain
25 modifications to a statement you had given much earlier, and then you
Page 34359
1 signed that; correct?
2 A. I think those were minor changes, minor modifications, that did
3 not affect the essence of the matters that I discussed.
4 Q. And the earlier statement was given sometime last year, correct,
5 or even earlier?
6 A. You mean the statement that I signed?
7 Q. I mean the statement that you looked at and made corrections to
8 this month. That statement was given last year or earlier; correct?
9 A. Probably at the end of last year. I don't remember exactly. On
10 the other hand, I don't see why I shouldn't have made modifications or
11 given additional clarifications. All of that is part of ...
12 Q. And the only modification you made to paragraph 71 was to
13 indicate that Ambassador -- that you prepared a letter for
14 Ambassador Lavrov and you added "in his capacity as the Russian
15 representative to the Security Council and not in his capacity of the
16 Presidency of the Security Council."
17 Correct?
18 A. Yes. I was convinced that the letter was addressed to
19 Ambassador Lavrov as the Russian representative at the UN, and as I have
20 explained --
21 Q. Sir, you don't have to --
22 A. -- it was sent --
23 Q. You have explained it and I just wanted to note the chronology.
24 Thank you.
25 MR. TIEGER: That's all I have, Mr. President.
Page 34360
1 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
2 Unless my colleagues have questions for you, Mr. Jovanovic, that
3 concludes your evidence. On behalf of the Chamber, I'd like to thank you
4 for your coming to The Hague to give it. Now you're free to go.
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you very much.
6 [The witness withdrew]
7 JUDGE KWON: So I take it the next witness is Mr. Lelek?
8 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. President. He's ready to go.
9 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
10 MR. TIEGER: I was -- this system is slow today so I wanted to be
11 completely logged off so Ms. Gustafson will take the next witness. It
12 could make the transition quickly. I still think that will be possible,
13 so I'm not seeking a break.
14 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Mr. Tieger.
15 [The witness entered court]
16 JUDGE KWON: Would the witness make the solemn declaration,
17 please.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will
19 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
20 WITNESS: MILOVAN LELEK
21 [Witness answered through interpreter]
22 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Mr. Lelek. Please be seated and make
23 yourself comfortable.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
25 JUDGE KWON: Before you commence your evidence, Mr. Lelek, I must
Page 34361
1 draw your attention to a certain Rule of Procedure and Evidence that we
2 have here at the International Tribunal, that is, Rule 90(E). Under this
3 Rule you may object to answering any question from Mr. Karadzic, the
4 Prosecution, or even from the Judges if you believe that your answer
5 might incriminate you in a criminal offence. In this context,
6 "incriminate" means saying something that might amount to an admission of
7 guilt for a criminal offence or saying something that might provide
8 evidence that you might have committed a criminal offence. However,
9 should you think that an answer might incriminate you and as a
10 consequence you refuse to answer the question, I must let you know that
11 the Tribunal has the power to compel you to answer the question. But in
12 that situation, the Tribunal would ensure that your testimony compelled
13 under such circumstances would not be used in any case that might be laid
14 against you for any offence, save and except the offence of giving false
15 testimony. Do you understand what I have just told you, sir?
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have.
17 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Mr. Lelek.
18 Mr. Karadzic, please proceed.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
20 Examination by Mr. Karadzic:
21 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Lelek.
22 A. Good morning, Mr. President.
23 Q. Did you give a statement to my Defence team?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. I should like to ask you and remind myself to make pauses between
Page 34362
1 questions and answers and speak more slowly so that everything would be
2 recorded properly and interpreted correctly. Could we see in e-court
3 1D7812. Please look at the screen. Can you see your statement on the
4 display?
5 A. I can.
6 Q. Thank you. Have you read and signed that statement?
7 A. I have read it and signed it.
8 Q. Is this your signature?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Thank you. Does this statement accurately reflect what you
11 stated to the Defence team in your answers to their questions?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. If I were to put to you here in the courtroom the same questions,
14 would your answers be essentially the same?
15 A. Essentially, yes.
16 Q. Thank you.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Your Excellencies, may I tender
18 this 92 ter package.
19 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Robinson.
20 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. President, we're tendering five
21 associated exhibits and for each of them we ask permission to add them to
22 our 65 ter list, as we hadn't interviewed this witness at the time that
23 list was filed.
24 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Gustafson, any objections?
25 MS. GUSTAFSON: To the exhibits, Your Honour, no. Except I note
Page 34363
1 that 1D06837 referenced at paragraph 24 has been admitted as P4769. And
2 we do have a partial objection to the admission of the statement. We had
3 communicated that in general terms on Monday. It was the additional
4 seven paragraphs added to the end of the statement that in our submission
5 go beyond the minor changes permitted to be made at the 48-hour stage.
6 There are seven new paragraphs on new topics going to the core of the
7 case in this municipality that weren't raised before in the statement.
8 So I believe this is outside the minor changes or corrections provided in
9 the Chamber's earlier guidance.
10 In addition, although that's reason enough alone for those
11 paragraphs to be led live, I note that the manner in which the
12 information in these paragraphs was elicited was done by way of putting a
13 series of adjudicated facts to the witness and asking for his comments.
14 Those comments have then been provided in a -- rather conclusory
15 assertive terms, and there is no foundation provided for the witness's
16 purported knowledge and none is apparent from the rest of the statement.
17 So that, in my submission, is another reason for this information to be
18 led live; otherwise, in cross-examination I will be required to first
19 elicit the foundation for these claims that should have been elicited in
20 the statement or in direct before I'm able to confront them which causes
21 two problems. First, a time issue because I just simply don't have the
22 time to do and that; and, secondly, a notice issue because I'll have to
23 spontaneously respond to the witness's answers. And I don't think that's
24 fair in the circumstances, given that this is really something that
25 should be elicited by the party calling the witness. So for those two
Page 34364
1 reasons together, these paragraphs, in our submission, should be led
2 live. Thank you.
3 JUDGE KWON: To confirm, those seven paragraphs are paras from 26
4 to the end?
5 MS. GUSTAFSON: Yes, Your Honour, thank you.
6 JUDGE KWON: Would you like to respond, Mr. Robinson?
7 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. President. I think there's a number of
8 misconceptions that underline this objection. The first is that we would
9 only be entitled to make minor adjustments to the statement. I think
10 that -- while we do try to make the adjustments to the statement as
11 unobtrusive as possible so that the trial can proceed without delay or
12 interruption, Dr. Karadzic is representing himself, he's in custody, and
13 he doesn't have the same freedom that the Prosecution has to obtain the
14 information from its witnesses at an earlier stage. So in order to
15 effect that right, sometimes he -- we have to add information --
16 JUDGE KWON: He could be represented then if it obstructs his
17 Defence.
18 MR. ROBINSON: Well then the right to self-representation
19 wouldn't exist at this Tribunal. And this Appeals Chamber has said
20 clearly that it does exist, that it's a right that goes back to many
21 international instruments and not only the Statute but --
22 JUDGE KWON: Let's leave it there.
23 MR. ROBINSON: Okay. So if I could also indicate that --
24 JUDGE KWON: But what we referred to was one of notice.
25 MR. ROBINSON: Exactly, which is what my next point is, and that
Page 34365
1 is the remedy for notice. When the Prosecution is disadvantaged by late
2 notice of additional material, we're always willing to postpone the
3 testimony of the witness or the cross-examination so that they can have
4 enough time to adjust. And we're happy to do that even at this stage, to
5 call the next witness in, give Ms. Gustafson as much time as she thinks
6 she needs to adjust to this information.
7 And finally with respect to her point that there's inadequate
8 foundation for the material in the statement: First of all, I do agree
9 that it would be much better if we had actually set forth the adjudicated
10 fact in the statement so that the Chamber can see exactly what the
11 witness was referring to, and we're going to do that in the future. But
12 nevertheless, Rule 92 ter statements are not objectionable because they
13 haven't been -- the witness's position isn't explained in enough detail.
14 The remedy for that is for the Prosecution to ask the witness questions
15 about that, not to tell us how to reformulate the statement. And we
16 didn't ask the Prosecutor to reformulate their Rule 92 ter statements.
17 And again, if Ms. Gustafson needs more time than the Chamber allotted for
18 her cross-examination in which to do that, then she could have that. But
19 leading live is a remedy that's incongruous to the situation. It just
20 wastes the Chamber's time and it has no benefit to the Prosecution or to
21 the Chamber. Thank you.
22 JUDGE KWON: Probably I have to ask you again, Mr. Robinson, what
23 prejudice would there be if the accused is to be ordered to lead live
24 some part of the evidence.
25 MR. ROBINSON: None at all, Mr. President, so long as you add the
Page 34366
1 hours or don't subtract that time from the hours. So any time you would
2 like to hear something live, we're happy to do that, so long as it
3 doesn't prevent us from calling other witnesses by reducing the time that
4 we have.
5 JUDGE KWON: Would you like to add anything, Ms. Gustafson?
6 MS. GUSTAFSON: Maybe I can just clear up a misconception, and I
7 apologise if I was unclear. The foundation issue wasn't that the
8 adjudicated facts were just stated by number. I just note that that's a
9 somewhat odd way to proceed when a witness hasn't provided any
10 information about an event to put to him Prosecution evidence and ask him
11 for his comment and the result in this case has been these sweeping
12 assertions negating those -- negating that evidence without any apparent
13 foundation or certainly none that was provided. So I just noted the way
14 the evidence was elicited. It didn't seem to me to be something for
15 which there was any real forensic need to elicit the evidence in this
16 way. And it is a rather more leading and suggestive way to get the
17 witness's evidence. But it's really the result of that that caused me
18 concern. So I just wanted to clear that up.
19 JUDGE KWON: Given the time, the Chamber will have a break now
20 for half an hour and resume at 11.00. We'll give a ruling when we
21 resume.
22 --- Recess taken at 10.26 a.m.
23 --- On resuming at 11.05 a.m.
24 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Tieger.
25 MR. TIEGER: I'm sorry, Mr. President, just very quickly, it
Page 34367
1 occurred to me that I should perhaps make explicit of what is essentially
2 implicit through our practice, and that is that I will be providing to
3 Mr. Robinson, and we've discussed this in relationship to the last
4 witnesses even before his testimony concluded, the excerpts referred to
5 during the testimony, at least those that were not confirmed by the
6 witness to see if there is any dispute about which ones those represent
7 and then tendering those for admission. I had discussed that with
8 Mr. Robinson I think even before the witness's -- the witness examination
9 began, but I failed to state it specifically when his evidence concluded.
10 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Robinson.
11 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. President. We'll look at that and try to
12 come to some agreement.
13 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
14 We'll now issue an oral ruling on the Prosecution's partial
15 objection to the admission of Mr. Lelek's witness statement in light of
16 the late addition of seven paragraphs to the statement. The Chamber
17 recalls its practice exercised during both the Prosecution and Defence
18 case to order that a witness be led live regarding evidence that is added
19 within 48 hours to a witness's Rule 92 ter statement and thus does not
20 provide appropriate notice to the opposing party. In the present case
21 the Chamber considers that the seven paragraphs added to Mr. Lelek's
22 statement constitute a significant enough amendment to provide inadequate
23 notice to the Prosecution and thus orders that these portions be led
24 live.
25 In addition, as regards one of the associated exhibits, i.e.,
Page 34368
1 1D6833, while the statement suggests that this document confirms "lies
2 and fabrication" with respect to Bosnian Serbs, it's not clear how this
3 document demonstrates this. So I would like the accused to lead live if
4 he's minded to tender this document.
5 That said, we'll admit the Rule 92 ter statement as well as the
6 other -- the three remaining associated exhibits, i.e., from 6834 to
7 6836.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, they will be admitted as
9 Exhibits D3031 through D3034 respectively.
10 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
11 Please continue, Mr. Karadzic.
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
13 I will now read the summary of Mr. Milovan Lelek's statement in
14 English.
15 [In English] As a reserve army officer, Mr. Milovan Lelek was
16 assistant commander of the Rogatica Territorial Defence prior to war --
17 to the war. After the outbreak of the war, he became Chief of Staff of
18 the Rogatica 1st Light Infantry Brigade.
19 Mr. Milovan Lelek noted that Muslims erected barricades in the
20 villages in March 1992, and at this time the political and security
21 situation in Rogatica was becoming increasingly more complex. He was
22 informed that the situation in the town was very bad and that ethnic
23 relations had totally deteriorated. There were preparations to divide
24 the municipality into Serbian and Muslim areas and the
25 Territorial Defence be split up. He was also informed that the Muslims
Page 34369
1 were creating paramilitary units. A Serb Territorial Defence had been
2 formed to protect the local Serbian villages; however, there were only
3 about 20 people and were mostly armed with their own weapons.
4 Milovan Lelek was called up towards the end of May 1992, and when
5 he was stationed in Borike he noticed that the unit frequently came under
6 attack from all kinds of modern infantry weapons which also occurred
7 during the cease-fire period. The Serb forces respected the periods of
8 cease-fire, and if they came under fire in this period they sought
9 permission to return fire.
10 The unit listened to the Radio BH which broadcasted the reports
11 from Fadil Heljic about the Muslims being shelled by Chetniks, freezing
12 and starving to death. Milovan Lelek is aware that Fadil Heljic received
13 orders to bombard the public with such statements and further that he was
14 ordered to dig graves by the sides of the road used by the humanitarian
15 convoys to imply that more people were being killed than they actually
16 were, presenting the Muslims as martyrs.
17 The killing of Drazenko Mihajlovic marked the beginning of war in
18 Rogatica, when Muslim forces would not allow his body to be recovered.
19 Communications with other units and higher commands were maintained
20 around Rogatica throughout the fighting and daily combat reports were
21 sent. The lines of defence established at the beginning of the fighting
22 were held until the end of the war. During the fighting, terrorist
23 groups often killed local civilians and mined the roads around.
24 When the VRS was formed, the Territorial Defence was reformed,
25 the unit of which Milovan Lelek was a member, was manned only by
Page 34370
1 personnel from the area of Rogatica. There were no professional soldiers
2 or professional officers present. The unit was armed only with weapons
3 that the Territorial Defence had held previously. Milovan Lelek was
4 aware of the military detention facility which he visited on a number of
5 occasions. He had no information that any of the detainees were subject
6 to physical torture. Both military and civilian authorities took
7 measures to enable Muslim civilians to charge -- to change their own
8 place of residence temporarily if they wished.
9 Milovan Lelek saw humanitarian aid convoys passing in the
10 direction of Zepa and Gorazde. These convoys were escorted by UNPROFOR
11 and were inspected at check-points. There were a number of incidents at
12 check-points as the convoys carried assets that were not on the cargo
13 manifest, including ammunition, radio devices, satellite navigation
14 systems, rifles, sniper rifles, and so on. Helicopters would often pass
15 over Borike who, it was later established, brought humanitarian aid into
16 individual regions; however, the contents of the cargo could not be
17 monitored and Muslim forces used this system to arm the villages.
18 Milovan Lelek also discovered that members of the convoys found a
19 better situation on the ground than described by the Muslim media and
20 foreign reporters. In particular, there was a discrepancy in the
21 reported size of the population. He considers that this was done to
22 allow the inhabitants of Zepa to receive more humanitarian aid.
23 The brigade command in Rogatica frequently issued authorisations
24 for the seriously ill or wounded, especially children to be evacuated
25 through Rogatica and some received medical care in the Rogatica health
Page 34371
1 centre.
2 And now I would ask the witness few questions in accordance with
3 the decision of the Chamber.
4 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. Mr. Lelek, in keeping with the decision of the Chamber, I have to
6 put a few questions to you relating to adjudicated facts, the adjudicated
7 facts that you commented on in your statements, but we have to lead this
8 live. I will ask my advisor to read them and then I will put my
9 questions to you.
10 MR. ROBINSON: Mr. President, with -- either --
11 JUDGE KWON: Yes, shall I hear from you first or -- yes.
12 MR. ROBINSON: Maybe you could hear from me first and that would
13 make it easier. We could either maybe take about a five-minute break in
14 which we could print out for Dr. Karadzic the text of the adjudicated
15 facts so he could put them to the witness, or I could from my computer
16 put those texts to the witness. So whichever you prefer.
17 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Ms. Gustafson.
18 MS. GUSTAFSON: As I alluded to before, I just don't think this
19 is an appropriate way to elicit the evidence. The witness was in the
20 municipality at the time, had a position in the army, should simply be
21 asked what he knows about certain events. He should not be presented
22 with evidence for his comment. It's just a leading and suggestive way of
23 eliciting the evidence, and there's just no need to do it this way. He
24 should just simply be asked what he knows and how.
25 JUDGE KWON: After eliciting the evidence from the witness, do
Page 34372
1 you oppose to putting the adjudicated fact to the witness?
2 MS. GUSTAFSON: Well, depending on the answer of the witness
3 there may be something that arises that would require some specific piece
4 of evidence to be put to him for clarification, but in general I just
5 don't -- I mean, it's really a matter of ultimately argument for the
6 accused at the end of the -- at the end of the case to argue that the
7 adjudicated facts should be rejected. This seems to be a -- sort of an
8 argumentative way of eliciting the evidence and I just don't see any need
9 for it to be done.
10 JUDGE KWON: Would you like to add anything, Mr. Robinson?
11 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. President. There's nothing leading or
12 suggestive about asking a witness, for example: By the beginning of 1992
13 Rajko Kusic, a prominent SDS leader in Rogatica and a member of the SDS
14 Main Board, had formed a paramilitary unit composed of 45 to 50 Serbs,
15 among them SDS supporters from Rogatica municipality; is that true? I
16 don't see anything wrong with doing it that way and that will be the most
17 efficient and clear way. And if the witness wants to elaborate on -- if
18 we want to ask him further questions as to how he knows or what he says
19 when he gives an answer, we can do that; and if the Prosecutor wants to
20 pursue that, they can do that. But there's simply nothing wrong with
21 putting questions like that to the witness and that's the most efficient
22 way of doing it.
23 JUDGE KWON: Do you wish to add anything, Ms. Gustafson?
24 MS. GUSTAFSON: No. Thank you, Your Honour.
25 [Trial Chamber confers]
Page 34373
1 JUDGE KWON: The Chamber sees no difficulty with the way
2 Mr. Robinson suggests.
3 Please proceed.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
5 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. Mr. Lelek, in a different trial it was established that in the
7 beginning of 1992 Rajko Kusic, as a prominent SDS leader, along with
8 being a member of the SDS Main Board, formed a paramilitary unit made up
9 of 45 to 50 Serbs, including SDS followers from Rogatica. Can you tell
10 us which part, if any, of this is true and what exactly Rajko Kusic
11 formed?
12 A. Mr. President, I worked in the Territorial Defence staff until
13 1992, and I know well that the TO staff at the time had eight employees.
14 Out of the eight, six were Muslim and two were Serb. In March 1992, the
15 decision was made for the staff to be divided into the Serb and Muslim
16 parts. The Muslim part remained in the hitherto premises of the TO
17 staff, whereas the Serbian staff, including Rajko Kusic and the two Serb
18 members, went to Borike village and set up the Serbian TO staff there.
19 There were around 20 members of that staff but also some volunteers
20 arrived from Serbia, people whose parents lived in the area of Borike,
21 and they came deciding to join the Territorial Defence. I maintain it
22 was not a paramilitary unit. It was a legally established
23 Territorial Defence unit. That's all I have, Mr. President.
24 Q. How did this division of the TO staff occur? Was it a unilateral
25 decision or by agreement?
Page 34374
1 A. By agreement. The TO staff as it existed then decided to divide
2 into the Serbian and the Muslim parts.
3 Q. And what was the task, the purpose of the Serbian part?
4 A. The task of the Serbian part was to protect the civilian
5 population in the villages populated by Serbs.
6 Q. And what was the task of the Muslim part?
7 A. Muslims immediately began setting up their own
8 Territorial Defence because earlier, as I said in my statement, they had
9 already set up the Green Berets; and later Mehmed Agic formed a TO staff
10 for the Muslim part and they also rallied a certain number of Muslims,
11 armed them, and protected their villages.
12 Q. Thank you.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] If it is of assistance to the
14 parties, it was adjudicated fact 2994.
15 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. I want to ask you this --
17 JUDGE KWON: 2494.
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
19 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. It is also held to be established in a different case that
21 Rajko Kusic and Svetozar Selinovic, president of the municipal SDS,
22 wanted a division of the municipality as well as a division of the police
23 force in the Territorial Defence in Rogatica and that in March 1992
24 Muslim negotiators agreed to that, intending to prevent a war. What
25 would you have to say about that?
Page 34375
1 A. I was not in Rogatica then, but I know that in Srevgrad [phoen]
2 in February the police station was divided into Muslim and Serbs -- Serb
3 parts and the TO staff was divided in March.
4 Q. Was it consensual or did the Serb side force the Muslims?
5 A. No, it was done by agreement. Both sides agreed of their own
6 free will to divide both the police station and the TO staff.
7 Q. Thank you. That is the next adjudicated fact, 2495.
8 MS. GUSTAFSON: While the Defence is conferring I'd just like to
9 point out that adjudicated facts 2495 does not appear to be among the
10 facts that was covered in the statement. I think this exercise should be
11 limited to only what facts we have notice of in the statement, so only
12 those facts should count.
13 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, that's what I was just telling Dr. Karadzic.
14 JUDGE KWON: Please continue, Mr. Karadzic.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. I'm sorry, I thought it
16 was between 94, or rather, 494 and 500. I will stick to those that have
17 been mentioned.
18 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. Also another adjudicated fact reads that sometime on the 4th or
20 5th March around 50 men in camouflage uniforms armed with automatic
21 rifles including six members of the reserve police gathered in the
22 Serbian village of Borike, proclaimed themselves to be the Serbian
23 police, and continued to tour majority Serb villages in the municipality,
24 shoot in the air, and intimidate the Muslim population. What can you say
25 about that?
Page 34376
1 A. No police was formed. Those were just members of the
2 Territorial Defence formed by the Serbian municipality of Rogatica. As I
3 said, those 20 men from Rogatica and those who came from Serbia, and
4 there was no intimidation.
5 Q. When you say there was no intimidation, what do you mean?
6 A. I mean there was no intimidation of the Muslim population, that
7 did not happen.
8 Q. In a different trial --
9 JUDGE KWON: Probably you also may ask the witness how he knew.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
11 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. How come you know that there was no intimidation of Muslims and
13 can you say where it was that they were and how they could intimidate
14 Muslims?
15 A. At that time they were only in Borike. Borike is predominantly
16 Serb populated.
17 Q. How could you know where they were? What was your position then?
18 Were you in the municipal structures?
19 A. No. I've already said while I was staying with my parents in the
20 village, from Borike couriers often came to tell us what the situation
21 was, whether we needed any help, because my village was also surrounded
22 by Muslims. And I was in the village together with my parents and I
23 stood guard together with the locals from that village.
24 Q. Thank you. In some other trial there was this adjudicated
25 fact --
Page 34377
1 JUDGE KWON: Probably for record you -- maybe I thought mention
2 the number of the adjudicated fact, for future reference.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. The previous one was 2500,
4 the one about intimidation and weapons. And now we are talking about
5 adjudicated fact 2499, where it says that it was established that Kusic
6 and the SDS ordered all Muslims in the municipality of Rogatica to hand
7 over their weapons as they were threatened with arrest and expulsion.
8 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. Can you tell us what you know about this and what the situation
10 was and who was where and who could disarm who?
11 A. Rajko Kusic didn't threaten anyone then. There were villages,
12 Muslim villages, that had declared their loyalty to the Serb side, like,
13 for example, Berkovici, Gucevo, Satorovici, Okruglo, Strmac, Burati.
14 They were not carrying out any hostile activities against the Serb side.
15 They were not firing at the Serb side. There was no problem coming from
16 them. They remained loyal.
17 Q. What was your attitude, the attitude of the Serbs and the Serb
18 authorities towards them?
19 A. For as long as these villages were loyal, for as long as there
20 weren't any problems regarding these villages, our attitude was good.
21 Our authorities regularly brought supplies to these villages, food
22 supplies. I'll just give you one example, some of these villages that I
23 mentioned here, that I see have been mentioned here, for example, Gucevo,
24 the village and local commune of Gucevo. It's a village nearby Zakomo
25 and Berkovici. These are two neighbouring villages. Between these two
Page 34378
1 neighbouring villages there was a Muslim village, Oskoplje. The
2 residents of Oskoplje often threatened Zakomo and Berkovici, and they
3 attacked them by saying that they co-operated with the Serbs.
4 On one occasion a resident of Zakomo came to the house of
5 Luko Planojevic and asked him to try to provide transportation from there
6 with the -- from the civilian authorities because they didn't dare live
7 there any longer. They worried about their safety because of the Muslim
8 threats. Then Radoje Planojevic, Luka's son, called the then-president
9 of the Serb municipality and asked him to send a bus to that village so
10 that the population of the village could leave. Even before the bus
11 arrived, Muslims had gathered around Luka's house and then they
12 disappeared together with the Serbs. They thanked them for their
13 support, and they asked them to take care of their property, their houses
14 and everything else, and they thanked them. From there they were moved
15 to the collection centre, and after that at their own wish they changed
16 the place where they were staying. After the war they started returning
17 to the village of Zakomo because their houses hadn't been looted or
18 anything.
19 May I just say something else? Maybe this will take a bit
20 longer. I would like to respond in terms of all the villages that are
21 mentioned here. For example, we had the village of Strmac. It was loyal
22 up until on one occasion near their village Rajak Ljubinac was killed
23 from an ambush. One day before that they brought food supplies to that
24 village, and the next day near that village on the road between Strmac
25 and Rogatica they were killed from an ambush, then the villagers
Page 34379
1 themselves asked to leave that village. That's what they asked the
2 village guards and the Serb authorities to do. They didn't want to go to
3 other villages, Kopljevici, Pokrivenik, and further on towards Gorazde.
4 We also have the villages --
5 Q. Sorry, was this a Serb or a Muslim village?
6 A. Strmac was a Muslim village.
7 Q. Thank you. Perhaps we'll go back to that but let's finish with
8 this. In line 22 the witness said they embraced with the Serbs not
9 disappeared.
10 A. They embraced the Serbs.
11 JUDGE KWON: Yes, please continue.
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Maybe we'll get to that
13 question in some other way.
14 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
15 Q. I'd just like to ask you this, these villages that remained loyal
16 and handed over their weapons were in which territory, Serb or Muslim, in
17 terms of the municipality of Rogatica?
18 A. Well, I don't know, Mr. President. I don't know how this
19 territory was divided, where it was the Muslim municipality and where it
20 was the Serb municipality --
21 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: We did not hear the end of
22 the answer.
23 JUDGE KWON: Pause, please.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
25 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
Page 34380
1 Q. Were there any villages that were Muslim villages which were not
2 asked to hand over weapons and which did not give any weapons? What
3 happened there? Which villages are these? And what was their situation?
4 A. There's the village of Madjer. They were never asked to hand
5 over their weapons and they did not. They lived next door to a Serb
6 village. They lived there all the time and they received regular food
7 supplies and they even got more food supplies than the Serb population.
8 They stayed there all the way up until -- well, I can't remember exactly
9 the month, but until the conflict broke out in the area of Dobromirovici
10 when Ristic, Vojin and Ristic, Dusan were slaughtered by Muslims. These
11 were two old men who were 80 then. And Radenko was killed at his
12 door-step.
13 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: This is too fast for
14 interpretation of each and every word. Thank you.
15 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Lelek, can I advise you to put a pause between
16 the question and the answer and speak slow for the benefit of the
17 interprets. They are saying you are speaking a bit too fast. Can you
18 repeat from where you mentioned door-step, Radenko.
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said that this Muslim population
20 lived there safely up until the Muslim extremists slaughtered
21 Ristic, Vojin and Ristic, Dusanka. They were 80 years old. Ristic,
22 Radenko was killed on his door-step. Soon after that in the village of
23 Pesurici, that is about 6 or 7 kilometres away from there, they killed
24 12 civilians. At the time they were involved in agricultural work. Two
25 elderly women were locked up in their houses and they torched these
Page 34381
1 houses and these women burned together with their houses. After that,
2 the Muslim population of the village of Madjer did not feel safe there
3 any longer and they told our village guards who were there and who saw
4 them every day, right, they said that they wanted to leave Madjer.
5 However, since Madjer is only, say, 3 or 4 kilometres away from
6 Kopljevici and Pokrivenik, I don't know exactly how many kilometres, they
7 also asked that they move further on towards Kopljevici and Pokrivenik
8 and further on towards Gorazde. And their wish was granted all the time
9 their houses remained intact. They were not torched. I heard the
10 testimony of a witness --
11 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters did not hear the name.
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] -- who testified here, and he said
13 afterwards they went to their village to bring food because the Muslims
14 in Pokrivenik and further on in Ustipraca did not give him any food
15 because they were accused of co-operating with the Serb side. The
16 village was torched later when a Serb village was torched too, a Serb
17 village that was in the neighbourhood, and I've already said they took
18 care of each other. But when this Serb village was torched, later on the
19 Muslim village of Madjer was torched as well.
20 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Lelek, could you repeat the name of the witness
21 you referred to.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Hurko Sefik. I read his father's
23 statement. I don't know whether he testified here, but he did best. He
24 explained how they took care of each other, the Muslims and the Serbs
25 there in these neighbouring villages Leleci and Madjer, that they took
Page 34382
1 care of the locals in the other village. And when the municipality gave
2 food they gave more food; the Serb municipality gave more food to the
3 Muslims than to the Serbs there.
4 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. In relation to Vragolovi and Muslim concentrations, was anybody
6 issuing any threats there? Was anybody trying to disarm them?
7 A. No one threatened them there in Madjer. They lived there
8 normally until these two incidents happened, the ones that I already
9 mentioned, Ristic and Pesurici, those two incidents.
10 Q. Thank you. Now I would like to draw your attention to 1971.
11 That's the number of the adjudicated fact. It says here that it was
12 established that with the intention of --
13 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, what's the number of the adjudicated
14 fact?
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] 1971 [In English] 1971.
16 JUDGE KWON: This should be -- this seems to be some mistake.
17 [Defence counsel confer]
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm sorry, my mistake. I do
19 apologise. I'd like to draw your attention to 2503, adjudicated fact
20 2503, and now I'd like to put that to you. I'd like to tell you what is
21 considered adjudicated there. In the night between the 12th and
22 13th of May, 1992, in the area of Zivaljevina, in the municipality of
23 Rogatica, the zone of Zivaljevina was shelled by mortar fire and
24 anti-aircraft weapons. Artillery shells from Pljesivica and Seljani --
25 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: We do not have the
Page 34383
1 adjudicated facts, the original text.
2 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. What can you tell us, when did the fighting start in the
4 municipality of Rogatica --
5 A. The fighting in the --
6 JUDGE KWON: Let's continue. Yes.
7 Yes, please continue, Mr. Lelek.
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The fighting in the municipality of
9 Rogatica started on the 22nd of May. That is to say that was two or
10 three days -- two days after the killing of our first soldier,
11 Mihajlovic Drazenko. Before the fighting there was none of that, but the
12 date mentioned by the President now is the date that was taken from
13 Mehmet Agic's statement that you have here in this court. Mehmet Agic
14 says that the first clashes in Rogatica broke out on the 9th of May. And
15 he says exactly when an aggressor soldier was killed in the area of Laza,
16 he says on the 9th of May. Now, was this a typo or it was a mistake
17 anyway. And now these ten days. So the date, the 12th and 13th, that is
18 not right. There couldn't have been any armed conflict before the
19 22nd -- actually, this is what Mehmet Agic also confirmed on the
20 9th of May when the first enemy soldier was killed.
21 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
22 Q. Thank you. What was the practice there? Did it ever happen that
23 the Serb side would shell a village, a Muslim village, from which fire
24 should not be opened or was not opened?
25 A. Mehmet Agic said in his statement the 12th or 13th, but I am
Page 34384
1 saying for sure that it is the 22nd of May when we tried to get our dead
2 soldier's body out and the only road through which we could get there to
3 get the soldier's body out was from Rudo towards Zlatni Do and further to
4 Laze. From Rudo to Laze it's about 2 or 3 kilometres, and the area of
5 Zlatni Do there was a large concentration of Muslim forces. When they
6 were leaving Zlatni Do we found fuel, water tanks, and some vehicles and
7 they went further on from there, and of course we did not fire at a
8 populated area. We had to liberate the road in order to get
9 Drazenko Mihajlovic's body out. When we tried to get the body out, there
10 was fighting on both sides, and it's just if they consider that to be
11 shelling. But as for anything else I really have nothing more to say.
12 Q. Thank you. Now I'd like us to see what is adjudicated fact 2505
13 and it says there that the Serb police and others in olive-green-grey
14 camouflage uniforms moved from their houses, those who did not obey the
15 orders to leave and go to the high school centre, and they separated men
16 from women and they beat the men. What can you say about the high school
17 centre and about this allegation and the way in which people got to the
18 high school centre and how they were treated?
19 A. People came to the high school centre of their own free will from
20 the town when the town was -- after the events with Mihajlovic happened.
21 When there was fighting in the town, later those who did not want any
22 fighting would voluntarily surrender to the building. From the villages
23 which were loyal, the citizens also expressed their desire to come to the
24 collection centre because they were afraid of the revenge by Muslim
25 extremists because they kept threatening them that they were providing
Page 34385
1 data to the Serbian army, that they were collaborating with them and of
2 their own free will they expressed the desire to come to the collection
3 centre, to the high school centre, because they were able to then select
4 their place of residence of their own free will. They were not forced
5 there by anybody.
6 Q. Thank you. And who controlled that part of town from which
7 people transferred to the high school centre and under whose control was
8 the rest of Rogatica?
9 A. The centre of the town throughout the whole time belonged to --
10 MS. GUSTAFSON: Sorry, I just ask for a time-frame for this
11 question.
12 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
13 Q. Are you able to tell us when the high school centre was formed --
14 I mean, when did it start receiving these people?
15 JUDGE KWON: Just a second, I'm not sure if the entire answer of
16 the witness to the previous question was fully reflected. The centre of
17 the town throughout the whole time belonged to who, Mr. Lelek?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The whole time the centre of town
19 up until the 23rd of July, 1992, when Rogatica was liberated was under
20 the control of the Muslims. The northern and the southern parts belonged
21 to the Serbs, that is, the Donje Polje and the Karanfil neighbourhoods.
22 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
23 Please continue, Mr. Karadzic.
24 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
25 Q. Are you able to tell us when was the high school centre set up?
Page 34386
1 When was it turned into this collection centre and how long did this go
2 on for?
3 A. I cannot know the exact date because I wasn't in Rogatica then.
4 I cannot really know the exact date when the centre was opened, this
5 collection centre in the high school, but I know that it was operating
6 until August 1992, end of August 1992.
7 Q. Thank you. And are you able to tell the Trial Chamber what
8 happened with the civilians who had been in the high school centre up
9 until that time? What happened after the liberation of Rogatica? Where
10 did they go?
11 A. They expressed their wish where they wanted to go, in which
12 direction they wanted to go. Up until that time, they were treated
13 there. They had the same three meals that our troops had on the lines,
14 it was the same food. There was civilian police standing in front of the
15 high school centre, in front of the collection centre. The centre was
16 secured or guarded by the civilian police. Afterwards, when a sufficient
17 number of civilians had gathered there, when they said where they wanted
18 to go, transport would be organised for them and then they would leave
19 the high school centre in -- under escort by the civilian police and they
20 would go in the direction where they wanted to go.
21 Q. Thank you. And did anybody else return to these villages where
22 there was no fighting which were loyal?
23 A. There was no return to those villages. At the time they did not
24 wish to return to villages because they were afraid of revenge from
25 Muslims because they had allegedly co-operated with the Turks -- no, with
Page 34387
1 the Serbs, I apologise, and while they were staying in the high school
2 centre when the town was liberated they were able to go to their houses
3 freely, take something that was left in their apartments, food and things
4 like that. But before Rogatica was liberated, they did not dare to do
5 that because of the Muslim forces. Other than Muslim families, there was
6 the Neskovic family, the Gavric family, and there were three or four Serb
7 families there also at this collection centre --
8 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not understand the last
9 sentence.
10 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
11 Q. All right. Well, the other participants cannot tell by the
12 surnames which ethnic group a family belongs to.
13 A. There were the Gavric, Neskovic and Brusin families of Serb
14 ethnicity. These were families who were Serbian.
15 Q. Thank you. And so what would have happened --
16 JUDGE KWON: Witness -- I'm sorry, interpreters noted that they
17 did not understand the last sentence of the witness's previous answer.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Does that refer to the families
19 that I mentioned? Is that the last sentence?
20 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Other than the Muslim inhabitants
22 which responded to the summons to report to the collection centre because
23 they would be provided with all safety there, that nobody would be abused
24 there, there were also three Serbian families that reported in: The
25 Neskovic family, the Gavric family and the Brusin family.
Page 34388
1 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
2 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. Thank you. Can I ask you now to look at adjudicated fact 2506
4 which states that later local Serbs under the leadership of Rajko Kusic
5 captured up to 1100 Muslims from Rogatica and held them at the high
6 school centre in that same centre thus. Are you able to tell us what was
7 the nature and status of the people who were in the centre?
8 A. After the conflict broke out, after the first armed conflicts
9 broke out, a few days after that most of the population, Serb and Muslim,
10 left Rogatica. A part of the Muslim population went in the direction of
11 Madjer, Kopljevici, Pokrivenik and on towards Gorazde, and one column of
12 Muslims then went towards the village or Vragolovi. The Serb population
13 left the town at the time. They went to their families and nearby
14 villages which were under Serb control and which were close by and they
15 were safer. Women and children also went to relatives in Serbia if they
16 had any there.
17 Q. Thank you. And these people who came to the high school centre,
18 were they detainees or prisoners in any sense of the word?
19 A. They were not prisoners or detainees. One knows how you treat
20 prisoners and how you treat the civilian population. They received food
21 three times a day, the same food that our troops on the line received.
22 It means that they were treated as civilians and not as prisoners. We
23 know what a prisoner looks like when he's released and we know what
24 civilians look like when they come out.
25 Q. Thank you. And are you able to tell us if there were 1100 of
Page 34389
1 them there as it is stated in the adjudicated fact?
2 A. I cannot give you the exact number, but I state with full
3 responsibility that there were no more than 200 to 250, that is the
4 number of them that passed through the centre up to the period in
5 August 1992.
6 Q. Thank you. And adjudicated fact 2510 says that the Serbian
7 forces detained up to 1100 Muslim civilians in the Rogatica secondary
8 school where they mistreated them, beat them, raped them in the period
9 from June to August 1992. What are you able to say about this assertion?
10 A. I did not come. I never entered to the collection centre -- I
11 never entered the collection centre throughout that period. I know there
12 was the civilian police there so that they would prevent anyone from
13 entering the compound and mistreating the civilian population because
14 frequently Serbs, Arkan, Seselj's men would come to Rogatica. We were
15 afraid that they would go in. But whenever we found out that these men
16 came to Rogatica, we would arrest them and expel them from Rogatica. So
17 the police was there to guard the civilians so that nobody from outside
18 would enter and mistreat them.
19 Q. Thank you. And was it established or talked about any beatings
20 and rapes in the high school centre and could the Muslims who were
21 walking around the town bring this information?
22 A. There were no rapes. I couldn't go in to see if there were any
23 or not, but the Muslims who would come out to walk around the town could
24 not disseminate such information because they couldn't walk around until
25 the town was liberated. They didn't dare come out because of the
Page 34390
1 Muslims, the local Muslims. They could not, those who surrendered, go
2 out and walk around Rogatica until it was liberated in 1992.
3 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not hear the whole date.
4 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. Thank you. Earlier you mentioned security --
6 JUDGE KWON: Still both of you are talking a bit too fast without
7 giving a pause. The interpreters couldn't hear the last part of the
8 answer, in particular the date.
9 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
10 Q. The date when it was liberated.
11 A. Yes, I will repeat. The civilian population, both Serbs and
12 Muslims, who were in the collection centre in the high school were able
13 to go out freely to walk around the town only after the 27th of July when
14 Rogatica was liberated. Before that date, they did not dare come out,
15 neither of them, because they were afraid of Muslim extremists who could
16 have attacked them.
17 Q. Thank you. Earlier you mentioned the police who were providing
18 security. So I would like to ask you about what you know regarding
19 adjudicated fact 2507 which states that it was established that guards
20 with machine-guns, with machine-gun nests -- and machine-gun nests were
21 placed around the school and that the detainees were informed that the
22 surrounding area was mined. Are you able to tell us who and in which way
23 guarded the centre and from whom? Was it to prevent people from going in
24 and out or from people coming in?
25 A. The civilian police was there posted. There were no machine-gun
Page 34391
1 nests there or anything like that and there were no mines that were laid
2 around the school.
3 JUDGE KWON: How do you know that? You told us you didn't enter
4 there.
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said that I didn't enter the
6 premises of the high school. They couldn't have placed the mines inside
7 the school, but around the school.
8 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. Did you walk around town and close to the high school centre at
10 that time?
11 A. I passed perhaps once or twice around the -- or by the high
12 school centre and then I couldn't go any further, I didn't dare, because
13 there were Muslim forces there. I didn't notice any machine-gun nests.
14 I would have noticed them if there were any. I would have also noticed
15 the minefield if there was one.
16 Q. Thank you. Now, you mentioned the village of Vragolovi. And
17 adjudicated fact 2513 states that by the end of 1992 more than ten
18 mosques in the Rogatica municipality were destroyed by mines. That
19 includes the Rogatica mosque, Arnaudija mosque, three mosques in
20 Vragolovi in that area west of Rogatica, including the mosque in
21 Vragolovi itself. Are you able to tell us who controlled those sectors
22 where allegedly Serbs blew up these mosques?
23 A. I know about two mosques that were in Rogatica, both of them were
24 in the centre of town and both of them were under the control of the
25 Muslim forces. I don't know which mosque it was, Muhadija [phoen], I
Page 34392
1 know one mosque was hit by a tank shell because it was hit by a tank
2 shell. There was a -- somebody going behind Karanfil in Donje Polje to
3 pull out a wounded fighter and then right next to the mosque, some 5, 6,
4 or 10 metres at the most a tank went over an anti-personnel mine and a
5 person was killed, Radisa something, and then we found out that there was
6 a sniper nest on the minaret of the mosque. The Green Berets in Rogatica
7 would assemble around the mosque and then what was noticed was that they
8 were bringing out anti-tank mines from the mosque. And when our driver
9 was killed we eliminated the mosque in order to get rid of the anti-tank
10 artillery or ordnance. Then 10 to 15 metres away from a machine-gun nest
11 in the course of the fighting we saw that there was one there, and it's
12 possible that when we were hitting it we also struck the mosque.
13 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not hear the last sentence.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In Vragolovi there was a greater
15 concentration of Muslim forces. I don't know what happened in the
16 village itself, but I know that throughout the whole time we did draw the
17 attention of our fighters to the fact that they should not destroy any
18 religious facilities. As for the places that were under the control of
19 the Serbian forces in Rogatica there was the Catholic church which
20 remained intact throughout the fighting and it's still standing there.
21 In the parts of town controlled by the Muslim forces, there was a
22 synagogue and that was knocked down by the Muslim forces.
23 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
24 Q. Thank you. And these two mosques that were hit --
25 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, I will leave it to you as to the
Page 34393
1 intervention from the interpreter, saying that they didn't hear the last
2 sentence before their intervention.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I hope that everything was recorded
4 in the transcript. The witness said that the synagogue which was under
5 the control of the Muslims was destroyed.
6 [Defence counsel confer]
7 JUDGE KWON: Then let's continue, but please speak slowly,
8 Mr. Lelek.
9 Yes, please proceed.
10 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
11 Q. And the second mosque that you mentioned that you said that it
12 was hit by a shell that fell short, was this in Rogatica? Which mosque
13 were you talking about?
14 A. I'm talking about both of the mosques. This one, I don't know
15 how you named it, Muhadija or something, one of them was hit by a tank
16 and this other one was hit by a mortar shell because some 10 metres away
17 from it there was the machine-gun nests of theirs. Both of them were in
18 the centre of town, in that sector of town, which was under the control
19 of the Muslim forces and that was an area where combat was going on.
20 There was combat in that area.
21 Q. Thank you. And the Serbian forces, did they control Vragolovi
22 and these villages around Vragolovi where allegedly these mosques were
23 destroyed; and if they did, in which period was that that they were
24 controlling those sectors?
25 A. I don't know when they were knocked down. I said that one-third
Page 34394
1 of the population, soldiers and regular people, went to the village of
2 Vragolovi. I had the opportunity to read the statement of
3 Meho Mehargic [phoen]. I mentioned that a number of times. And there he
4 says that from the village of Vragolovi where there were a large
5 concentration of Muslim forces he brought about 80 people from there to
6 the centre of town and he joined them to the forces that were defending
7 town, some 120 men, that he brought them to town, that he deployed them
8 to the Ljun [phoen] hill which is a hill right in the centre of town.
9 Q. Thank you. When you say there were quite a few people, regular
10 people and soldiers, what kind of population are you talking about?
11 A. Vragolovi village was a Muslim village and all the population
12 from Rogatica villages went in the direction of Kopljevici, some went to
13 Vragolovi, others continued towards Gorazde. And over there, there were
14 armed Muslim units.
15 Q. That was adjudicated fact 2513. Just one more last question:
16 Which places of worship or cultural buildings were destroyed in that
17 area?
18 A. I've already told you about the two mosques destroyed in
19 Rogatica. I know that the Catholic church which was in the area of
20 responsibility of our forces remained intact, and I don't know about the
21 other mosques really.
22 Q. I'm not sure the question was interpreted correctly. I'm
23 interested, what, if anything, was destroyed in the Serb-controlled zone?
24 Did Serbs destroy any places of worship or cultural buildings?
25 A. No. There were only two mosques in town but that area was
Page 34395
1 controlled by the Muslim forces. There were two mosques in town, in the
2 centre of town, and they were destroyed while the Muslim forces were
3 there and they were probably destroyed in the exchange of fire in combat.
4 For the rest, all I know that our troops were regularly warned that they
5 must not destroy it -- destroy places of worship and they obeyed and we
6 know that from the fact that the Catholic church remained standing and
7 intact in our area.
8 Q. Thank you.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have no further questions,
10 Your Excellencies, regarding adjudicated facts. I have no questions
11 until re-direct.
12 JUDGE KWON: I take it the Defence is not tendering 1D6833
13 referred to in para 12?
14 MR. ROBINSON: That's correct, Mr. President.
15 JUDGE KWON: So I would like you to redact that part, the last
16 part of para 12 starting from the part "that these were lies and
17 fabrications" as well as paras 27 to 32 be redacted.
18 Yes, Mr. Lelek --
19 MR. ROBINSON: Mr. President, we'll do that and before we start
20 the cross-examination if I could just make one statement just so it's
21 clear to everyone as an issue of notice, since this is the first time
22 we've dealt exclusively with adjudicated facts and that is that as the
23 Chamber in the Mladic case held: Once evidence is introduced to rebut an
24 adjudicated fact, the Prosecution can no longer rely on the presumption
25 and must introduce evidence in support of that fact either in its case in
Page 34396
1 chief or in its rebuttal case. So it's our position with respect to
2 these adjudicated facts that once evidence has been offered, such as has
3 been done today, that the presumption no longer applies. And I just
4 wanted to alert the Prosecution and the Chamber of that so that it
5 doesn't hear that for the first time in our closing submissions.
6 JUDGE KWON: That's your submission. Yes, Mr. Robinson.
7 Yes, as you have noted, Mr. Lelek, your evidence in chief in this
8 case has been admitted in most part in the form of writing, i.e., your
9 written statement in lieu of your oral testimony. Now you will be
10 cross-examined by the representative of the Office of the Prosecutor,
11 Ms. Gustafson.
12 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you, Your Honour. And just one minor note
13 before I commence if I could ask the Defence to provide us - it doesn't
14 have to be at this moment - with a citation to the Mladic reference
15 because obviously that submission is something we will have to take into
16 consideration. Thank you.
17 Cross-examination by Ms. Gustafson:
18 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Lelek.
19 A. [No interpretation]
20 Q. Now just as a preliminary matter in the course of your evidence
21 today I noticed you referred to quite a number of witness statements that
22 people have given about these events, and I take it from that that you
23 have followed legal proceedings here and in Bosnia in relation to events
24 in Rogatica during the war. Is that a correct understanding?
25 THE ACCUSED: May I just? I would appreciate if we would be
Page 34397
1 notified or given the documents that are going to be used during the
2 cross.
3 MS. GUSTAFSON: We're having some technical problems here. We'll
4 get them out as soon as we possibly can.
5 JUDGE KWON: Very well. Let's proceed. Or if it is convenient
6 we can take an early break.
7 MS. GUSTAFSON: Well, it will take us a few moments to get the
8 cross-examination documents out, so it's up to the Defence.
9 JUDGE KWON: Please proceed.
10 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, as long as they don't use any of the
11 documents we can continue up until that point.
12 MS. GUSTAFSON: Well, I can say in the next few minutes I may use
13 P3265, but that's an associated exhibit so it shouldn't cause any
14 problems.
15 Q. Mr. Lelek, would you like me to repeat my question or can you
16 answer it?
17 A. I do.
18 Q. My question was whether you've been following legal proceedings
19 here and/or in Bosnia in relation to events in Rogatica during the war?
20 A. I followed while in Rogatica the trials taking place here at this
21 Tribunal.
22 Q. Okay. Now, it's clear from your statement that you were the
23 assistant commander for operations and training in the Rogatica Brigade
24 from late May 1992 until early 1994 and then you became Chief of Staff, a
25 position you held until the Dayton Accords. Now, as far -- to the best
Page 34398
1 of your knowledge, during the war were any members of the
2 Rogatica Brigade punished for any crimes committed against non-Serbs?
3 A. I know two were convicted, Spiro, I can't remember his first
4 name, Spiro is his nickname, and I know that --
5 Q. Mr. Lelek, I think you're referring to a case in Bosnia that was
6 some years after the war. I'm talking about during the war. Between
7 1992 and 1995 were any members of the Rogatica Brigade punished for any
8 crimes against non-Serbs during that time?
9 A. I don't know. I can't remember that. At the beginning you said
10 yourself I was assistant commander for operations and training, and there
11 was an investigating judge who questioned suspects. So I can't answer
12 that question.
13 Q. Okay. And in your statement you explained that around the end of
14 May you left your village of Dobromirovici and at that point you joined
15 the Serb TO in Borike, and that's at paragraphs 8 and 9. And then you
16 talked in your statement and today about the attack carried out by Serb
17 forces on the 22nd of May. On the 22nd of May, were you still in your
18 village in Dobromirovici or had you gone to Borike to join the TO by that
19 time?
20 A. I went to Borike and joined the Territorial Defence.
21 Q. So on the 22nd of May were you physically in Borike?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Okay. And at paragraph 10 of your statement you said that when
24 you arrived in Borike part of the command moved to the Sladara building
25 in Rogatica, but that you stayed in Borike and you were tasked with
Page 34399
1 organising the defence towards Zepa. So I take it from that that you
2 were not involved in operations in Rogatica town and the surrounding
3 villages because you were involved in defensive activities towards Zepa;
4 is that correct?
5 A. Well, I, as a member of the brigade command, naturally had to
6 attend meetings of the brigade that were held sometimes in Rogatica,
7 sometimes in Borike, because I had to take part in preparing the combat
8 documentation and all the activities of the brigade. So if I was in
9 Borike that doesn't mean I couldn't participate in the work of the
10 brigade command because there was the assistant commander for operations
11 and training, assistant commanders for other affairs, and it was
12 desirable for all members of the command to be present at the meetings
13 unless somebody was absolutely unable to due to other commitments.
14 THE INTERPRETER: Could we kindly ask the witness to speak into
15 the microphone. Thank you.
16 MS. GUSTAFSON:
17 Q. Now, Mr. Lelek, you've been asked to speak a little -- move a
18 little more closely towards the microphone. Thank you.
19 So -- but in terms of your practical involvement in operations,
20 did you have any hands-on practical involvement in operations in Rogatica
21 town and the surrounding villages during the summer of 1992?
22 A. No, I did not take part in operations. As I said, I took part in
23 the evening meetings and I would take part in debates at these meetings,
24 but I did not take part in combat operations.
25 Q. Okay. Now, I think in your evidence today you made clear that
Page 34400
1 there was no shelling of populated areas and you made clear that this --
2 any shelling that took place occurred during exchanges of fire and
3 ongoing fighting. Is that a correct understanding of your evidence?
4 A. I've said that we, when we had to pull out the body of the late
5 Mihajlovic, there occurred an exchange of fire. There was no shelling.
6 And since you're asking, when we were pulling out the body of the late
7 Mihajlovic we opened fire in the direction of Kopljevici and Trnovo
8 because we had received intelligence that one Serbian family had been
9 left behind alone encircled by the Muslims. And unfortunately, since we
10 were short of personnel, a lot of men were engaged as village guards, we
11 were unable to reach that family. And after a while that family was
12 practically butchered. It's the family of Mico Obradovic. He was
13 killed, his wife was killed, his son, his brother-in-law, and late
14 Danijela, 17 year old, she was raped before she was murdered. We tried
15 to move towards that village but we did not have enough forces and we
16 just failed in saving that family.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The details of the woman being
18 disembowelled did not find their way into the record.
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I repeat, Mr. President?
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] You just confirm, it said here in
21 the record that the 17-year-old girl was raped and then killed, but you
22 said more.
23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said it was a real massacre over
24 that family. The father, the mother, son, brother-in-law, and daughter
25 were killed, daughter Danijela, 17 year old, she was first raped and then
Page 34401
1 she was eviscerated. The others were massacred. So if your record says
2 they were murdered, it's not murdered because that would be killed from a
3 fire-arm. They were massacred.
4 MS. GUSTAFSON:
5 Q. Mr. Lelek --
6 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Lelek, if you could concentrate on questions.
7 The question was whether the shelling took place during the exchange of
8 fire. Do you understand that, sir?
9 Please continue, Ms. Gustafson. Just one more question and then
10 we'll have a lunch break.
11 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.
12 Q. Mr. Lelek, just so I'm clear, you said in the operation to pull
13 out Mihajlovic's body that there was no shelling. Is it your evidence
14 that there was no shelling by Serb forces on the 22nd of May?
15 A. At that time we had one anti-aircraft gun and, of course, when we
16 set out to pull out the body of the late Mihajlovic and met with
17 resistance we opened fire but not in the populated area, only in that
18 segment of the road. We targeted not the populated area. We fired in
19 order to open the way to the infantry. The infantry couldn't pass
20 because it was met with fire and you know that every infantry attack is
21 preceded by the artillery preparation of the terrain but not against
22 populated areas. There was no shelling that means. We just had one
23 anti-aircraft gun that we fired in order to get out the body of the late
24 Mihajlovic.
25 MS. GUSTAFSON: If I could just follow-up, Your Honours.
Page 34402
1 Q. Mr. Lelek, witness after witness in this case, including Defence
2 witness Mile Ujic, who was the Chief of Staff of the brigade at the time,
3 testified to a major shelling attack on the 22nd of May; Sefik Hurko
4 testified that on the 22nd of May fire was opened on all the Muslim
5 villages in Rogatica municipality, that's at T 18223; Elvir Pasic gave
6 evidence that on the 22nd of May Rogatica was attacked with artillery,
7 anti [overlapping speakers]
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could we get a reference, please --
9 MS. GUSTAFSON: I'm giving the reference.
10 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. She is giving references. But could
11 you speak slow.
12 MS. GUSTAFSON: Elvir Pasic gave evidence that beginning on the
13 22nd of May Rogatica was attacked with artillery, anti-aircraft weaponry
14 and infantry weapons; that's P59 at T 857 to 860. KDZ051 testified that
15 the shelling of Rogatica town began at noon on the 21st or 22nd of May;
16 P3405 paragraph 30. KDZ607 described the shelling of Zlatni Do, an
17 exclusively Muslim settlement of a hundred houses on the 22nd of May;
18 P3289, paragraph 11. Alija Isakovic gave evidence that Rogatica town was
19 first shelled on the 22nd of May with mortars anti-aircraft guns, tanks,
20 artillery, and heavy machine-guns; P127 and P128. KDZ606 described an
21 all-out shelling attack on Rogatica town and villages that were populated
22 mainly by Muslims on the 22nd of May, 1992; P3279, paragraph 90. And as
23 I mentioned, when Mile Ujic was shown the document P3265, which is a
24 combat report for the 22nd of May, he described this as a shelling as
25 well as an infantry attack. It was a combined operation. That's at
Page 34403
1 transcript page 33460.
2 Q. Now, Mr. Lelek, your evidence that you had one anti-aircraft gun
3 that you used on one occasion on one part of the road just doesn't stand
4 up next to the weight of all of this contrary evidence, does it?
5 A. There's no way we could have opened artillery fire on the town on
6 the 22nd because at that time there was still Serb population in the
7 centre of the town. Only a day or two after that event both the Serb and
8 Muslim population was seized with fear and then they started to pull out.
9 I told you that in response to the previous question. So we couldn't
10 have shelled the town on the 22nd because in the centre of the town there
11 was still Serb civilians. Only a day or two after the 22nd did the
12 civilian population pull out. There was no shelling then. At that time
13 we had that anti-aircraft gun and perhaps some mortars, but we did not
14 shell the centre of the town because there was Serb population there
15 still. We did open fire from the anti-aircraft gun but not on the
16 populated area. That was an area with a great concentration of Muslim
17 forces and that was the axis of Rudo-Zlatni Do where the body of late
18 Mihajlovic was. And of course if we wanted to pull it out of course we
19 had to open up that road using infantry, and in order to use infantry we
20 had to first open fire from the anti-aircraft gun and perhaps
21 60-millimetre mortars because every infantry attack has to be prepared
22 before that by artillery. But there was certainly no shelling of the
23 town then.
24 Q. Thank you.
25 MS. GUSTAFSON: I assume Your Honours would like to take the
Page 34404
1 lunch break now.
2 JUDGE KWON: Yes. We'll take a break for 45 minutes and resume
3 at 20 past 1.00.
4 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.32 p.m.
5 --- On resuming at 1.23 p.m.
6 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Ms. Gustafson, please continue.
7 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you, Your Honours. And just before I start
8 I should have mentioned this at the outset, the 45 minutes that I was
9 granted was given to me before the additional information was provided in
10 the statement that we've now heard live, and before that information was
11 included in the witness's evidence I was confident I could complete in
12 45 minutes. Now I'm quite confident that I can't and I hope the Chamber
13 will grant me more than the normal level --
14 JUDGE KWON: So you're confident you could conclude in an hour?
15 MS. GUSTAFSON: That's my aim.
16 JUDGE KWON: Okay. Let's continue.
17 MS. GUSTAFSON:
18 Q. Mr. Lelek, just before we broke for lunch you said that on the
19 22nd of May the brigade had only one anti-aircraft gun. A few moments
20 later you clarified that slightly then; you said you may have had one or
21 two 60-millimetre mortars. My question for you is: When, if ever, did
22 the brigade obtain larger-calibre mortars, 82-millimetres or
23 120-millimetre mortars?
24 A. In the Territorial Defence before the war we had infantry
25 weapons. We had these anti-aircraft guns. We had 82-millimetre mortars
Page 34405
1 and 60-millimetre mortars. When the Army of Republika Srpska was founded
2 on the 19th of May, 1992, then from Uzamnica near Visegrad we brought
3 some infantry weapons, some 82-millimetre and 60-millimetre mortars and
4 an anti-aircraft gun because the commander of the republican territorial
5 defence staff before the war issued an order to the effect that for
6 safety reasons all the weapons of the Territorial Defence be relocated to
7 storage facilities. We moved ours to Uzamnica near Visegrad, and it was
8 only --
9 Q. I'm sorry to interrupt you. My time is very limited. I asked
10 you a very precise question which was: When did the Rogatica Brigade
11 obtain larger-calibre mortars, 82-millimetre or 120-millimetres. I'm not
12 interested in all the background and all the reasons. I just want to
13 know the date, if possible.
14 A. End of April, 82-millimetre and 60-millimetre, end of April when
15 Visegrad was liberated. As for 120-millimetres, I'm not sure.
16 Q. That's fine. That's very clear. Thank you. I'd like to now ask
17 you about -- some questions about the secondary school. Now, you made
18 clear that you didn't actually enter the secondary school. You said that
19 you passed by it a few times when the Muslims were located there. Did
20 you ever speak to any of the Muslims who were held at the secondary
21 school centre?
22 A. I never saw anyone and never talked to anyone.
23 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: Could the witness please
24 come closer to the microphone and speak slower.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In line 11 the witness side: I'm
Page 34406
1 not sure when.
2 JUDGE KWON: Probably you didn't hear, Mr. Lelek, you are
3 requested again by the interpreters to speak much slower and come to the
4 microphone a little bit closer.
5 MS. GUSTAFSON:
6 Q. Okay. Your answer is clear that you never spoke to any of the
7 Muslims held there. Now, you gave substantial amount of evidence about
8 what happened there. You said the Muslims came of their own free will,
9 they came from loyal villages because they were afraid of revenge by
10 Muslims. You said from the school they expressed their wish of where
11 they wanted to go and transport was arranged for them under escort by
12 civilian police. You said there were no more than 250 people there.
13 There was a fear that Arkan or Seselj's men would mistreat people there,
14 but they were arrested and expelled. Nobody was raped. And when you
15 went by the high school once or twice you saw that there were no
16 machine-gun nests there.
17 Now, in 2004 you were asked about the secondary school by the
18 Rogatica police and you gave them a very different version of events than
19 you gave the Court today. You told them you'd never been to the school
20 when the Muslims were kept there, as you did today, but you said you'd
21 also never been to that area. And you said that all you knew about what
22 happened at the school was what you heard from some people you didn't
23 know, and that was that it was used as a collection centre for Bosniaks
24 where Bosniaks were kept and from where they were transported to
25 territory under ABiH control. Now, that's what you told the Rogatica
Page 34407
1 police in 2004 was all you knew -- that was all you knew about the
2 secondary school; right?
3 A. Well, I say to this day that I never entered the secondary
4 school. I came to the forestry buildings, that is opposite the secondary
5 school. As for the area where the school is, I never entered the
6 compound. I never entered the school building.
7 MS. GUSTAFSON: Okay if we could have 65 ter 24652, please.
8 MR. ROBINSON: Excuse me, Mr. President, while that's being
9 called up, this is a document that was not disclosed to us previously and
10 we have had an order from the Chamber with respect to prior statements
11 from witnesses from the municipalities that have been ordered to
12 redisclose to us. But that order applied to a certain number of
13 witnesses that were associated with Crisis Staffs and this witness is not
14 one of them, so there's no violation of that order. But the Prosecution
15 has been endeavouring to provide us with the statements and documents
16 authored by our other witnesses from the municipalities who were not
17 subject to that order, and we refrained from asking for any supplemental
18 order covering those people based on the Prosecution's practice and
19 undertaking to disclose those statements to us. And Mr. Tieger has
20 advised me that this was not disclosed to us by oversight and not by any
21 design or any change in that policy. So we're not asking for any remedy
22 at this point, but we just wanted to make a record of the fact that this
23 document had not previously been disclosed to us and we wouldn't expect
24 that this would recur.
25 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
Page 34408
1 Let's continue. Thank you, Mr. Robinson.
2 MS. GUSTAFSON: If we could go to the second page in the B/C/S --
3 sorry, the second page in the English, first page in the B/C/S and about
4 halfway down the large paragraph in the middle of the B/C/S and at the
5 top of the English.
6 Q. This is the note of your interview with the police in 2004. It
7 says:
8 "He also did not know anything about the activities of
9 establishing collection centres in the territory of the municipality
10 referring to Sladara, Rasadnik, Parohijski Dom elementary school and
11 secondary school before he came to Borike ..."
12 And then the next sentence it says:
13 "He heard from some persons he did not know that there were
14 collection centres in the town area in the above-mentioned facilities
15 where citizens of Bosniak nationality were kept and from where they were
16 later transported by buses to the territory under ABiH control.
17 "He also said he did not know that the persons in the collection
18 centres were mistreated or tortured in any way. During the time the
19 above-mentioned centres existed, he did not come into the areas where
20 they were located."
21 So, basically, Mr. Lelek, although you've given very detailed
22 evidence about what happened at the Rogatica secondary school today, in
23 2004 you said you didn't know anything about it except that it was where
24 citizens of Bosniak nationality were kept and later transferred to
25 ABiH-controlled territory and that you didn't even go into the area where
Page 34409
1 the high school was located, contrary to what you've told the Chamber
2 today. Now, this is what you told the police in 2004; right?
3 A. When I say to this day I say now that I did not enter the
4 premises of the sedentary school and I did not enter the area where that
5 school is, I didn't enter the compound. I only came to the building
6 opposite the school where the forestry organisation was.
7 Q. And you agree that all the information you provided to the police
8 in 2004 about the secondary school centre is reflected in the passage I
9 just read to you?
10 A. I didn't understand what you were saying. Which paragraph is
11 that?
12 Q. I just read out to you what you told the police in 2004 - if we
13 could go to the previous page in the B/C/S - that all you knew about the
14 school was from people you didn't know and that was that citizens of
15 Bosniak nationality were kept there and they were transported to
16 ABiH-controlled territory from there. You didn't tell the police in 2004
17 anything else about the secondary school, did you?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. That's correct, that this note reflects what you told the police?
20 A. I said to the police then that I did not come there, there where
21 the school is located, that I never entered that school. And of course
22 later, as I was preparing for this, I knew that I came opposite the
23 school building. But when they asked whether I came exactly to where the
24 school is I said I did not enter that area, the school area, and I did
25 not enter the building or the compound.
Page 34410
1 Q. Thank you.
2 MS. GUSTAFSON: I'd like to tender this document, please.
3 MR. ROBINSON: No objection.
4 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we'll admit it.
5 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P6151, Your Honours.
6 MS. GUSTAFSON:
7 Q. Now, Mr. Lelek, you insisted today that the Muslims at the
8 secondary school centre came there of their own free will. A unit
9 commander in your brigade, Radosav Ljubinac, was convicted in 2007 for
10 forcibly transferring Muslims from Seljani village to the secondary
11 school and from there to Sarajevo, wasn't he?
12 A. I was not aware of that event. Later on I found out that he was
13 tried and convicted, but then I did not know that he brought anyone from
14 Seljani, although in my personal opinion -- maybe it's better if he
15 brought them, unless it was forcibly, to the secondary school because the
16 late Mihajlovic whom we've mentioned several times during this trial,
17 he's from the village of Seljani. It's perhaps only a kilometre or two
18 away from the Muslim part and perhaps there could have been revenge,
19 perhaps there could have been revenge on the part of the father of the
20 boy who was only 20 years old and who was killed. So then maybe that is
21 the reason why they were brought to the secondary school.
22 Q. Well, in that -- in relation to your last comment let's go to
23 P6106, page 26. This is the judgement that convicted Mr. Ljubinac and he
24 was convicted for a number of different crimes. If we could go to
25 page 26, one of them was the one I mentioned to you. This is where the
Page 34411
1 discussion begins and if we could go to the next page. This is only in
2 English so I will read the relevant passage to you, begins near the end
3 of the first large paragraph. It says:
4 "So on 3rd and 4th August ... they," and this refers to the
5 Muslim residents of Seljani "were gathered ... when under the excuse that
6 they should be transferred in order to be protected from shelling soon to
7 come, they were addressed by the soldiers and ordered to get onto the bus
8 which belonged to their neighbour Radosav Ljubinac, the accused. That
9 bus took them to the secondary school centre in Rogatica."
10 The next paragraph says that all the witnesses identified
11 Ljubinac as the driver.
12 And in the next paragraph it says:
13 "All the above mentioned witnesses agree that their forcible
14 transfer commenced with arrival of a group of soldiers, including also
15 some soldiers familiar to them, who informed them that due to a great
16 attack being prepared on Seljani they all had to be transferred to a safe
17 place. That transfer took place in the manner that they were loaded on
18 the bus driven by their neighbour, Radosav Ljubinac, who also took them
19 to the secondary school centre, Veljko Vlahovic, in Rogatica. There they
20 were informed that they should stay two days until the shelling was over.
21 "The fact is that in the secondary school centre they stayed for
22 one or two days, that is until 5 August 1992 when instead of being
23 returned to their homes because the 'shelling' should have been over at
24 the time, they were separated. A number of them were loaded on buses and
25 trucks and transferred to Hresa locality in Sarajevo and others including
Page 34412
1 men and not only adult men were kept in the secondary school centre."
2 Now, that is what happened to the Muslim residents of Seljani:
3 They were taken by force to the secondary school centre, lied to, told
4 that they would be able to return to their village, and instead were
5 expelled to Sarajevo, except the men who continued to be detained; right?
6 A. I don't know. I cannot comment upon that because I'm not aware
7 of those facts and I would not be in a position to give any comments on
8 this. I know that Ljubinac was convicted. I don't know why. This is
9 the first time I see this judgement and I don't know.
10 Q. Okay.
11 MS. GUSTAFSON: Your Honours, the first two pages of this
12 document have been admitted. I'd like to add pages 26 and 27 to
13 Exhibit P6106.
14 MR. ROBINSON: No objection.
15 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. That will be done.
16 MS. GUSTAFSON:
17 Q. Now, Mr. Lelek, at paragraph 19 of your statement you said there
18 was a military detention facility in Rasadnik which you visited several
19 times, and you said that you saw some Muslims who you knew from before
20 who were detained there and that you know that investigations were being
21 conducted against them on various grounds. This is paragraph 19 of your
22 statement. Could you please name the Muslims you saw at Rasadnik who you
23 knew from before.
24 A. I wanted -- Hurko Fejzo, Hurko Sefik, that's the witness who
25 testified here. I saw Suceska Sajin from Berkovici. I also saw from
Page 34413
1 Berkovici two or three Kustores [phoen] but I cannot remember the names.
2 Q. Okay. And you said that you know that investigations were being
3 conducted against the Muslims held at Rasadnik. What were these
4 investigations for? What were they being investigated for?
5 A. Because they were suspects. They had weapons when some of the
6 Muslim villages were searched. They said that they did not have any
7 weapons. However, then weapons were found during the search. So
8 investigations were therefore carried out against them.
9 Q. Do you know any Muslim held at Rasadnik who was ever formally
10 charged with crime?
11 A. Well, I don't. I know only the ones I mentioned and none of them
12 were there. I mean, I gave the four or five names of the persons I saw
13 up there.
14 Q. Okay. Now, Mr. Lelek, it's true, is it not, that ordinary Muslim
15 civilians were being held at Rasadnik; right?
16 A. Only those who were suspects were detained in Rasadnik. After
17 the secondary school was closed, then I think only people from Berkovici
18 were brought to Rasadnik and also those from the local commune of Gucevo
19 because the collection centre of the secondary school was closed and we
20 had to put them next door to our military detention. It wasn't one and
21 the same thing because there is this other building right next to our
22 military detention facility.
23 Q. Okay. There were women among the detainees, right, Muslim women?
24 A. I didn't see any. I didn't enter the collection centre when it
25 was in the school or in Rasadnik. I only went to speak with our fighters
Page 34414
1 who were escaping from the line and I went to talk to them. I didn't
2 talk to anyone from Berkovici who were brought to the reception centre or
3 the collection centre in Rasadnik except for these four that I mentioned.
4 MS. GUSTAFSON: Okay if we could go to P4867, please.
5 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters kindly ask the counsel to slow
6 down when reading.
7 MS. GUSTAFSON:
8 Q. Mr. Lelek, this document is a report from October 1994 on a
9 prisoner exchange that took place between the 5th and
10 10th of October, 1994. And if we could go to page 4 of the English and
11 the B/C/S. This is a -- the report is from the Federation side. And at
12 the top of this list, the list which is at the bottom of the page in the
13 B/C/S, it says:
14 "The other side did not free all the persons from the signed
15 list, namely ..."
16 And the last name on the list, number 11 is Hanka Kustura.
17 According to the Serbian side she died at the age of 101 while in
18 Rogatica-Rasadnik prison.
19 MS. GUSTAFSON: And if we could go to 65 ter 24647.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we please be informed as to who
21 signed this?
22 MS. GUSTAFSON: This report was admitted through Mr. Masovic. He
23 gave extensive evidence on it. I don't think that's necessary right now.
24 If we could go to 65 ter 24647. This is a report of an exhumation
25 conducted in 1998 by the Sarajevo cantonal court of various sites in
Page 34415
1 Rogatica, including Rasadnik. And if we could go to page 9 of the
2 English and page 7 of the B/C/S, the first name under heading K, which is
3 the Rasadnik site, is Hanka Kustura, the person whose name we just saw in
4 the previous report, although according to this document she would have
5 been 99 in 1994 and not 101. It appears to be the same person. If we
6 could go to the next page in the English, page 8 in the B/C/S, another
7 body exhumed is that of Aisa Osmanovic who would have been 95 years old
8 at the time of the war who had been residing in Citici [phoen]. The next
9 name is Halil Vatres who would have been in his mid-60s who had been
10 residing in Rogatica. If we could go to the next page in both languages,
11 number 16, Ibrahim Karaman. Sefik Hurko testified that a person by the
12 name of Ibro Karaman was killed in December 1992 at Rasadnik. He would
13 have been 76 at the time. The next page in the English and B/C/S number
14 18, Himzo Brankovic, another person that Sefik Hurko testified was killed
15 in December 1992 in Rasadnik. He would have been 62. And if we could go
16 to number 20, which is the next page in the English and same page in the
17 B/C/S, Hajra Hodzic, a woman who would have been in her 70s who had been
18 living in Kovanja. And the next page in both languages we have a couple,
19 Sema and Bajro Colic, who would have been in their 60s, from Kovanja.
20 All these bodies were exhumed at Rasadnik, several of whom we know from
21 other evidence were detained at Rasadnik and/or killed there.
22 Q. It's clear, is it not, Mr. Lelek, that ordinary civilians were
23 being detained at Rasadnik and indeed some of them met their end there?
24 A. There was civilians detained when the high school centre was
25 closed, but it doesn't make sense for somebody to kill a 101-year-old
Page 34416
1 elderly woman as it appears from this document.
2 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not hear the rest of the
3 answer of the witness.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could we please ask the witness to
5 speak slower because it's not registered that he said: I had already
6 told that there were civilians there. A lot is lost from the transcript,
7 although I wanted to ask my colleague, Ms. Gustafson, where does it say
8 that they were killed? If it says that they died, it does not
9 necessarily mean that they were killed. And I'm afraid that this is
10 misleading the witness. The witness is being misdirected.
11 MS. GUSTAFSON: Just to clarify, I didn't say that that's what
12 this document said. I said that there was other evidence that some of
13 these people were killed there.
14 JUDGE KWON: But shall we ask the witness to repeat what he said
15 at the end of his answer? Did you say something else after having said,
16 "... it doesn't make sense for someone to kill a 101-year-old elderly
17 woman as it appears from this document"?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said I don't see any reason for
19 killing old women of 80 or of 90 or for killing civilians at all. I
20 don't know if all of that was at Rasadnik. How do I know? Perhaps they
21 were buried in some Muslim village and then later it was said that the
22 body was exhumed in Rasadnik. I don't believe what it says on the face
23 of this document.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Excellencies, if I may, precisely
25 what you asked is the result of the misleading. The witness was told
Page 34417
1 that it is written in the document that they were killed.
2 MS. GUSTAFSON: I'd like to tender this document, please.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] On what grounds, may we please be
4 told?
5 MS. GUSTAFSON: On the grounds that this witness asserted that
6 Rasadnik was a military detention facility and I don't think the Defence
7 has any concerns about the authenticity of this record. If they do, I'm
8 sure they'll inform the Court.
9 MR. ROBINSON: Mr. President, the witness hasn't confirmed
10 anything about the document, so I don't believe it can be admitted
11 through this witness.
12 [Trial Chamber confers]
13 JUDGE KWON: The Chamber agrees with Mr. Robinson. Unless it is
14 contradictory to what he said, I think it's difficult to admit this
15 document through this witness.
16 MS. GUSTAFSON: Sorry, Your Honours, I should have been clearer.
17 That's what I meant when I said that the witness said that this -- that
18 Rasadnik was a military detention facility. This document contradicts
19 the witness. It shows that there were people who only could have been
20 civilians at the time who were exhumed at the Rasadnik site, and the
21 other evidence in this case connects these names or a number of these
22 names to people who were detained at Rasadnik and indeed killed there.
23 So certainly together with other evidence in this case it contradicts
24 what the witness said.
25 JUDGE KWON: At the moment the Chamber has not been presented
Page 34418
1 with the evidence which links this report to those who were detained in
2 that detention unit.
3 MS. GUSTAFSON: One of the documents was the first document I
4 showed to the witness which was the exchange report -- reporting that
5 Hanka Kustura had died at Rasadnik prison. She's one of the names in
6 this. And Sefik Hurko testified at 18235 and 18236 that Ibro Karaman and
7 Himzo Brankovic were killed at Rasadnik.
8 JUDGE KWON: I think I saw only Hanka Kustura's name in the
9 previous report.
10 MS. GUSTAFSON: Yes, and then -- but Sefik Hurko testified about
11 three other names in this report: Ibrahim Karaman, Himzo Brankovic, and
12 Becir Catahija [phoen]. He gave evidence that all of those people were
13 killed while detained at Rasadnik. And that's at transcript 18235 to
14 18236 and P3267, paragraph 38.
15 JUDGE KWON: Having heard this, would you like to add anything,
16 Mr. Robinson?
17 MR. ROBINSON: Well, Mr. President, I think those facts are
18 already in the record without the admission of the document, so I don't
19 think it's necessary to admit the document. It doesn't add anything to
20 the evidence and they can argue from what has already been testified to
21 that certain portions of this document are inconsistent with the
22 witness's testimony.
23 [Trial Chamber confers]
24 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we are satisfied with your explanation as
25 regards the contradiction. The Chamber will receive those pages shown to
Page 34419
1 the witness.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Excellencies, again I would just
3 seek this clarification. The Prosecutor said that it was being tendered
4 on the basis of the fact that the witness said that it was just for
5 military personnel. The witness said only that after the school was
6 closed there were civilians there. So it's incomplete.
7 MS. GUSTAFSON: Yes, well, after I showed him the document he did
8 say that, but that's not a reason to exclude the document.
9 JUDGE KWON: No. The Chamber has explained its reason for
10 admitting this. Let's proceed.
11 Let's give the number first.
12 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P6152, Your Honours.
13 MS. GUSTAFSON:
14 Q. Mr. Lelek, you mentioned the village of Berkovici a few times.
15 It was earlier in your evidence you said it was one of the loyal villages
16 where the Serb authorities had a good relationship with the inhabitants,
17 but then just a few moments ago you explained that there were some people
18 from Berkovici detained at Rasadnik. Can you reconcile those two claims,
19 on the one hand these villagers were loyal and on the other hand some of
20 them were detained at Rasadnik?
21 A. I said already three or four times that in Rasadnik it was --
22 this was a military detention and the collection centre was in the high
23 school. When the high school closed, that collection centre was
24 transferred to Rasadnik and it was next to the facility where the
25 military detention was so that in Rasadnik there was the same collection
Page 34420
1 centre as there -- as the one in the high school. When the high school
2 one closed, then the Muslims from Berkovici and Bucani were then received
3 in Rasadnik in August. And you can see that people from Berkovici were
4 brought to the collection centre in November. How could they have been
5 taken to the high school when the high school was closed? We took them
6 to the reception centre or they were taken to the reception centre in
7 Rasadnik, which was next to the military detention. So they were not
8 brought to the military detention centre but to the collection centre
9 there.
10 Q. And how long were these civilians detained at Rasadnik?
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't know if it's the
12 interpretation that's incorrect. How can they be detained when the man
13 said that they were not detained?
14 MS. GUSTAFSON: I don't see that anywhere.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] He said that they were brought to
16 the reception centre, next building to the detention.
17 MS. GUSTAFSON:
18 Q. Mr. Lelek, is it your evidence that these civilians were detained
19 at Rasadnik or not?
20 A. These people were not detained in Rasadnik. They were in the
21 collection centre, in the reception centre because they didn't have any
22 reception centre after August except the one in Rasadnik. And you can
23 see by the date that the high school was closed in August and that they
24 were brought there in November.
25 Q. Okay.
Page 34421
1 MS. GUSTAFSON: Could we have 65 ter 24478, please.
2 Q. Mr. Lelek, this is a Drina Corps report from April 1993 and it's
3 titled: List of captured persons of Muslim ethnicity in Rogatica,
4 Visegrad, Rudo, Cajnice, and Foca. If we go to numbers 14, 15, and 16,
5 you can see that there are three female Muslim names - Fata Kepes, Fatima
6 Kepes, and Esma Kepes - women from Berkovici, one of who was 80 years
7 old. And on the next page in the English number 24 and 25 two males from
8 Berkovici, one of who would have been 14. And another name from
9 Berkovici is at number 36. These people are being referred to as
10 captured persons of Muslim ethnicity. They were prisoners; right?
11 A. No, that is not right. They were placed in the reception centre
12 in Rasadnik because the high school was closed.
13 MS. GUSTAFSON: I tender this document.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] First let us establish whether this
15 is Rasadnik here. Secondly, were they captured in Berkovici or are these
16 some people who were at the front and not in Berkovici? There's
17 confusion, total confusion.
18 MS. GUSTAFSON: If the accused wants to ask further questions on
19 redirect, he can.
20 [Trial Chamber confers]
21 JUDGE KWON: We'll admit it.
22 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit P6153, Your Honours.
23 MS. GUSTAFSON:
24 Q. Mr. Lelek, I just have one last area to cover with you. At
25 paragraph 24 of your statement you said:
Page 34422
1 "I know that captured personnel of the Muslim army from Zepa and
2 Srebrenica were not brought to Rogatica."
3 Now, that is stated in categorical terms, so I take it that if
4 Muslim prisoners had been brought to Rogatica from Zepa or Srebrenica
5 that is something that you would have been aware of, being the
6 Chief of Staff at the time?
7 A. I did not say that. I said that I did not see anyone from Zepa
8 being brought to Rasadnik.
9 Q. So would you like to change your evidence, whereas before you
10 said categorically: I know that captured personnel from the Muslim army
11 from Zepa and Srebrenica were not brought to Rogatica. Is it your
12 evidence now that that's not something that you know for sure, it's just
13 that you didn't see anyone from Zepa being brought to Rasadnik?
14 A. May I just read this for a moment, please. I said here that I
15 was aware that Muslim soldiers from Zepa and Srebrenica were not brought
16 to Rogatica nor were they detained in the Agrokombinat and Sumarstvo
17 facilities. Is that what you're asking me?
18 Q. Yes, and I'm asking you whether it is your evidence that you
19 categorically know that no captured personnel from Zepa or Srebrenica
20 were brought to Rogatica?
21 A. I state with full responsibility that the -- they were not
22 brought to the Sumarstvo and the other facilities because they're in a
23 populated place. There is a building there where two families lived
24 throughout the whole war --
25 Q. I wasn't talking specifically about those locations. I was
Page 34423
1 talking about anywhere in Rogatica. I take it that you actually don't
2 know whether or not Zepa prisoners were brought to Rasadnik. That's
3 something you don't know one way or another; is that right?
4 A. I don't know that they were brought. Had they been brought in by
5 force, I would have known but I didn't see that so I assert that they
6 were not brought there.
7 Q. Okay. I'd just like to ask you one last question and that's from
8 65 ter 24651. I'd just like to read to you an extract from a statement
9 you gave to the Prosecution in 2011. It was quite recent so I'm sure you
10 recall giving that statement. And the passage I'd like to read to you is
11 at page 33 of the English and page 49 of the B/C/S. And this is in
12 connection with your evidence earlier today that there was no
13 intimidation of the Muslim population. So this is from the very end of
14 your interview where you say you'd just like to add a few sentences. And
15 about halfway down the large passage at the bottom of the page you're
16 talking about March or April 1992 when you were at your village with your
17 parents you said:
18 "When it was obvious from the media that the war was inevitable I
19 put their children in a car," and you're talking about the children of a
20 Muslim colleague from the TO, "I took them down to Rogatica although I
21 came upon Serb barricade and I had to hide the children because I was
22 afraid for their security and my colleague and his wife went on foot to
23 Rogatica, on shortcut. We all met in Rogatica, I gave him the children;
24 we sat in a bar that was just down here. We had five or six drinks
25 maybe, said good-bye, and departed. I wanted to say that I wasn't for
Page 34424
1 this but I had to be part of ... and I had to be with my people."
2 Now, first, I'd just like to ask you, this is accurate? This
3 happened the way you said, the way you told the Prosecution it happened?
4 A. I said that that's how it happened. May I be allowed to clarify.
5 I went to Dobromirovici to see my parents, as I said. After a certain
6 amount of time my friend came who used to work with me at the defence and
7 he brought his wife and two children. And then he stayed with me in the
8 village. And then through the media when it was evident that war was
9 coming, I advised them and they said themselves, "Milovan, we have to
10 separate. You have to go with your people. We have to go with our
11 people." And he went on foot from my village to Rogatica, some 4 or
12 5 kilometres away. The children were small. I put his children in my
13 car and I took them to Rogatica via Seljani. There was a Serb barricade.
14 On the halfway point from Seljani to Rogatica it was in a Serb village.
15 It wasn't even a barricade. I mean, people were standing on the road,
16 they put some blockage across the road and I took the children safely to
17 Rogatica. I handed them over to his parents. We sat down. We had a few
18 drinks. We exchanged. We embraced each other and took our leave, and
19 that's what happened. And I said then that I was not in favour of war,
20 but when I saw that war was inevitable it's a normal thing that I would
21 stand by my people and he would stand by his.
22 Q. Okay. Just one question. You said you hid the children at the
23 barricade because you were afraid for their security. Is the reason that
24 the parents of the children didn't come with you in the car and they went
25 on foot, is that because you didn't consider it safe for them to be
Page 34425
1 travelling with you in your car?
2 A. I don't know that I said that I concealed them. The children
3 could not go on foot. These were small children. They could not go on
4 foot with their parents. I put them in my car and I drove them to
5 Rogatica.
6 MS. GUSTAFSON: I have no further questions. I'd just like to
7 tender this page of the witness's interview.
8 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
9 MR. ROBINSON: Mr. President, there's nothing inconsistent in the
10 page. The witness said that's how it happened so I don't believe there
11 is any need to tender it.
12 MS. GUSTAFSON: I thought so too until his last answer when he
13 said, I don't know that I concealed them, when he said that he had to
14 hide the children because he was afraid for their security.
15 JUDGE KWON: We'll receive it.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P6154, Your Honours.
17 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, do you have re-examination?
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Excellency. We'll begin
19 with the latest point.
20 Re-examination by Mr. Karadzic:
21 Q. [Interpretation] This page from a document was shown to you,
22 Mr. Lelek, regarding your assertion that Muslims had not been intimidated
23 and it has to do with that claim that there was shooting around Muslim
24 villages to intimidate them. Tell me, what intimidated this colleague of
25 yours so that he came to stay with you?
Page 34426
1 A. I don't know, Mr. President, who scared him. He was afraid of
2 the situation in Rogatica because by that time there was talk already
3 about the division of the MUP, of the Territorial Defence, of the
4 Municipal Assembly, and since we were on good terms he saw me as a
5 savior, so to speak, and he came to me to help him save his family.
6 Q. Thank you. What attitude did the authorities, the Serb
7 authorities, take towards the intimidation of Muslims?
8 A. Nobody intimidated anybody. Until that event of the 22nd of May,
9 it was quiet until then. There was no conflict. It's true that tensions
10 rose all the time, listening to all sorts of media. And as soon as talks
11 started about division it was clear that it was not good. Until then we
12 had lived shoulder to shoulder, Muslim and Serb neighbours. There had
13 never been any problems.
14 Q. Thank you. On pages 82 and 83 you were asked about
15 investigations against Muslims in Rasadnik. Can you tell me, first of
16 all, what is the difference between those who were placed in the
17 secondary school centre and those who were placed in the detention unit
18 in Rasadnik?
19 A. Those placed in the secondary school were Muslims who had not
20 displayed any extremism. The others who were placed in the remand prison
21 had weapons on them and they were suspect in some way. They had fired at
22 Serb villages or something like that, and the former group never
23 displayed any extremism against the Serbian people.
24 Q. Thank you. In your evidence you said that you visited some of
25 your own soldiers in Rasadnik. Tell me about all the people who were
Page 34427
1 detained in Rasadnik.
2 A. Those who deserted from the lines, those who drank excessively.
3 We were there to conduct interviews with them. There were several of
4 them. You know there has to be discipline in the army. You know how
5 troops have to behave in keeping with the rules of the service that
6 applied before the war and that we --
7 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not catch the last part of
8 the answer. The witness has to be asked to speak more slowly and
9 distinctly.
10 JUDGE KWON: I should ask you again to speak very slowly and
11 distinctly. The interpreters missed the last part of your answer with
12 regards to rules of service. Could you repeat it.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We detained our own soldiers there,
14 those who deserted from the front line or drank in excess or were
15 responsible for any other violation of discipline. We brought them to
16 the remand prison. We interrogated them there before returning them to
17 their units.
18 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. Thank you. You were asked on page 68 whether any Serb soldier
20 had been punished for any act committed against a Muslim. I am asking
21 you, though, whether it was established that a soldier was responsible
22 for a criminal offence and that was then covered up.
23 A. We had no information that any soldier was guilty of a crime.
24 Q. Thank you. As a reserve officer and the assistant commander of
25 the Territorial Defence before the war, were you familiar with the
Page 34428
1 provisions of the Law on All People's Defence and social self-protection,
2 especially as far as civilians in combat zones are concerned?
3 A. I was aware of those provisions. I and all the commanding
4 officers of all units, whenever we came to the front line and whenever
5 commands were given, those commands included caution that we have to
6 treat civilians in keeping with the Geneva Convention.
7 Q. On page 81 a quotation was given to you, namely, that due to the
8 attack on Seljani everybody had to go to the high school centre. Can you
9 tell us, is it the duty of the army to evacuate people from a village
10 about to be attacked?
11 A. I did not understand you, Mr. President. Can you repeat.
12 Q. Were -- was the village of Seljani attacked? Because it was said
13 that due to the attack on Seljani that was about to start they had to go
14 to the high school centre?
15 A. Seljani village was not attacked. It was a majority Serb village
16 with only a few Muslim houses. It was not possible for us to shell that
17 village, and that village was never shelled nor threatened. There were
18 just a few Muslim houses all the rest was Serb population. There was
19 never an attack on Seljani village.
20 Q. In villages that were threatened by an attack, what did you do
21 with their Muslim civilians?
22 A. We placed them in collection centres for their own safety. If
23 they were threatened by Muslims from Oskoplje, Berkovici and Gucevo, we
24 took them to collection centres.
25 Q. Can we look at 65 ter 7272. I'm not sure we have a translation.
Page 34429
1 Please look at this. On 12 June there's this regular combat report and
2 the first sentence reads:
3 "In the area of the municipality the enemy manifested itself in
4 several places, infiltrating sabotage terrorist groups ..." et cetera.
5 Further below it says:
6 "In the town a large concentration of Muslim population is noted.
7 They are moving into the high school centre. Most of them are women and
8 children and there are also unarmed men. Around the town also visible
9 are snipers who fired on the town as a motorcade, a convoy of vehicles,
10 was passing through the town going towards Gorazde."
11 First of all, how does this relate to your awareness of the
12 presence of this -- of these civilians in the high school centre? Does
13 it follow that they were brought there by force?
14 A. They were not brought by force. Those were Muslim people who
15 stayed behind in the town. And we called upon the Muslim population that
16 was loyal, expressed its loyalty, and was not willing to fight to move to
17 the high school.
18 Q. What kind of convoy was it that it was moving through the town
19 towards Gorazde and subjected to sniping?
20 A. According to the statement of Meho Alagic there were about 120
21 remaining armed Muslims and later he brought another 80 armed fighters.
22 That's confirmed by the fact that when Pribosevic [phoen] village was
23 attacked two of our men who were village guards were killed and then
24 later a group of armed men from Rogatica moved towards Kupljace [phoen].
25 And we all know about the massacre committed against the population from
Page 34430
1 Gorazde that was supposed to come to Rogatica. We know that in the area
2 of Kukavice 25 civilians were ambushed and killed, 80 were wounded, and
3 in that convoy there were about 1.000 civilians. Only thanks to the
4 rapid intervention of our brigade were these civilians liberated from
5 encirclement.
6 Q. Thank you. It says here that a convoy of vehicles was going
7 through -- towards the town and some towards Gorazde. How were these two
8 columns moving and how did the Muslim snipers fire at them?
9 A. It's certain that they wanted as much population to stay in town
10 as possible because they didn't want to surrender the town. They wanted
11 to fight. They wanted to keep the town in their hands.
12 Q. But we don't understand, who was going towards Gorazde, Serbs or
13 Muslims?
14 A. Only Muslims because Serbs had no way of going towards Gorazde,
15 no reason.
16 Q. We will leave this subject. This interview in 2004, how long was
17 it?
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this document be admitted,
19 Your Excellencies?
20 JUDGE KWON: We'll mark it for identification.
21 THE REGISTRAR: As MFI D3035, Your Honours.
22 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. A note from that interview was shown to you; that's 65 ter 6151.
24 How long was your interview with police of Republika Srpska?
25 A. Which one? With which interview? I can't see anything on the
Page 34431
1 screen.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we show the witness P6151.
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's clear only now. You don't
4 have to show it now. I remember. That interview was just 10,
5 15 minutes, not longer.
6 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. Thank you. Did you read and sign this?
8 A. I don't think I signed this. I know they talked to me, but there
9 is no indication that I signed it here. And it didn't even take part on
10 the official premises of the Ministry of the Interior.
11 Q. Earlier today you heard a quotation from Mr. Ujic that was on
12 page 33460. The quotation was incomplete. I'll read now to you in
13 English that quotation so it can be more accurately interpreted:
14 [In English] "Q. Now, Mr. Ujic, is it your position that the
15 Rogatica Territorial Defence, Rogatica Brigade never -- whatever you want
16 to call it, shelled five Muslim villages and part of the town and carried
17 out an infantry attack all in order to create a corridor to move -- to
18 remove the body of the killed Serb. Is that your position?"
19 [Interpretation] And the answer:
20 [In English] "A. No, I need to explain that. The aforementioned
21 villages of Pokrivenik and others, Cadovi and others, parts of Kozici and
22 Cadovina were mixed, although there were more Muslims than Serbs there.
23 The village of Trnovo is in the area too where the Serbs were
24 100 per cent of the population. On the other hand, there was the village
25 of Pokrivenik which was 100 per cent Muslims. From such villages there
Page 34432
1 were attacks on the other villages where there were many civilian
2 casualties. For example, the Obradovic family from Trnovo was killed,
3 all of them, the husband, wife, and underaged daughter who had also been
4 raped. And in order to extract their body we had to engage and
5 neutralise the fire coming from such villages that was directed to us. "
6 [Interpretation] And further below it says -- I won't read
7 everything. Witness Ujic says on the previous page 33460:
8 [In English] "We opened fire on the enemy strongholds of Dub,
9 Pokrivenik, Kopljevici, Kozeici, Cadovi, as well as on Pasic Kula,
10 Rajs Laze and Rudo 2 settlement. In the town an infantry attack was
11 carried out on the area of Rajs Laze and Rudo."
12 [Interpretation] And you told us here that there was an infantry
13 in town. You said the attack on Rajs Laze and Rudo 2?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Does it sound more complete and clearer now what Mr. Ujic said
16 and was it true what he said, that those were strongholds and you were
17 exposed to fire from them?
18 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. The part you read out in the last --
19 at the end is a part of question.
20 MS. GUSTAFSON: Sorry, also, Your Honour, the only evidence of
21 Mr. Ujic that I put to this witness was in relation to this witness's
22 claim that there was no shelling on the 22nd of May, and I put to him --
23 JUDGE KWON: I'm going to read out the relevant part. That's the
24 summary of the document after reading out that part the Prosecutor asked
25 this question:
Page 34433
1 "Now, this reference to opening fire on these locations, that's a
2 reference to a shelling attack; right?"
3 Answer, Mr. Ujic:
4 "Well, shelling as well as an infantry attack. It was a combined
5 operation."
6 That's the evidence we received.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] But this, Your Excellency, is a
8 question that quotes from a Serb document that Mr. Ujic was confronted
9 with and it follows from it that there was no shelling in town. There
10 was an infantry attack. However, there was artillery fire opened on
11 villages that were strongholds and that's what this witness said, that
12 there was fire from anti-aircraft guns.
13 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Ms. Gustafson.
14 MS. GUSTAFSON: Well, the witness said various things. Now
15 Mr. Karadzic is providing his own interpretation to a document that's not
16 been shown to the witness. It's just -- this is just confusing and I
17 don't think it's getting us anywhere.
18 JUDGE KWON: So what is your question, Mr. Karadzic?
19 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. My question is: Was Rogatica shelled on 22nd May, as the
21 Prosecution suggests?
22 A. I was asked about that by the Prosecution, I think, and I said
23 that after -- on 22nd May Rogatica was not shelled because at that time
24 there was both Serb and Muslim population in town. There was one part of
25 the road from Rudo towards Zlatni Do, where there was a stronghold of
Page 34434
1 Muslims up to Laze, where the body of late Mihajlovic was. We could not
2 pull that body out without using the anti-aircraft gun only in a limited
3 area around the road only to prepare the terrain for pulling out the
4 body. We couldn't shell the town, of course, because there were Serbs
5 and Muslims there still. We couldn't shell our own people.
6 Q. Now, Mr. Lelek, I will read to you from P3265, it's a combat
7 report of 23rd May, a day later. It says:
8 "Above the Serbian municipality of Rogatica on 22nd May we opened
9 fire at the enemy stronghold Dub, Kopljevici, Kozici as well as
10 Pasina Kula and Rudo 2. In Rajs Laze and Rudo 2 there was an infantry
11 attack, the enemy was crushed and suffered losses."
12 Is this report accurate and does it make a distinction between
13 the town and these strongholds?
14 A. Yes, it does. And I repeat, we didn't shell the town. We
15 shelled above Rudo 2, that's when you exit Rogatica to go to Zlatni Do.
16 That's to say we only used the anti-aircraft gun along the roads so as to
17 be able to go to Zlatni Do and pull out the body of the late Mihajlovic.
18 We did not open fire on Rudo, which I consider a part of the town
19 although there were no houses there. There's a meadow. There is a
20 clearing next to the road 15, 20 metres from the road. We fired only
21 there to be able to get in and get the body out.
22 Q. Thank you.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we now have 65 ter 7220 of the
24 24th of June. Regular combat report of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps.
25 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
Page 34435
1 Q. When you speak of this attempt to get the body out and so on and
2 so forth, was there any fighting going on or was this a one-sided
3 activity by you? Did you come up against any kind of resistance? Well,
4 this question has nothing to do with the document whatsoever, sir. Was
5 there any fighting there or was this one-sided from your side?
6 A. Had there not been fighting, we wouldn't have used the
7 anti-aircraft gun, Mr. President, had we been able to get in and get the
8 body out. So from Rudo to Zlatni Do to where the body was, the body of
9 the late Mihajlovic because Zlatni Do was a major stronghold. There were
10 lots of enemy forces there.
11 Q. Can you please take a look at this, this report of the commander
12 of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps. So let us disregard this Sovrle and then
13 it says:
14 "In the area of Kramer Selo, Golubovici, Vragolovi and
15 Gornja Kukavica, enemy forces have been observed to be concentrating.
16 The commander of the Rogatica Brigade said that enemy losses in the
17 course of yesterday's battles amount to ten enemy soldiers killed and one
18 captured."
19 Are you familiar with this period and is this correct?
20 A. I can't see these villages here. What are the villages?
21 Q. Kramer Selo, Golubovici, Vragolovi, and Gornja Kukavica.
22 A. Yes, the area of Vragolovi, that's where the enemy was, major
23 enemy concentrations in the area of Vragolovi.
24 Q. Thank you.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can this be admitted?
Page 34436
1 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we'll receive it.
2 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit D3036, Your Honours.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Just one more document.
4 Can we please call up 65 ter 7791.
5 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. Well, we see the signature. Did somebody sign on Rajko Kusic's
7 behalf? It looks like that. Could we have the first page, please. The
8 first page, please. This is a report of the Rogatica Brigade for the
9 9th of June, 1992. And now these two lines. It says here:
10 "In town there was noticeable activity in the return of the enemy
11 to town. Snipers are active on several locations in town."
12 Does this correspond to your knowledge, that they returned to
13 town, that their fighters returned to the town of Rogatica, that is?
14 A. It does correspond to that because for a while they were deployed
15 in Ljun, this is a hill above town, and then Zivaljevina is over there,
16 it's a Serb village, but then there is more of the hill of Ljun behind
17 that village. And that's probably where they sought shelter in
18 basements, or rather, in basements in town or some shelters or something.
19 Q. Thank you. It says here in the last paragraph towards the bottom
20 it says:
21 "Parts of the brigade are engaged in town in combat with the
22 enemy who is retreating into town. There were no casualties on our side,
23 one soldier was wounded in town while the enemy has 20 dead and several
24 wounded soldiers."
25 Can you explain this to us, what does this mean that the enemy is
Page 34437
1 withdrawing into town?
2 A. Well, they tried to attack our villages and then the outskirts of
3 town too, the neighbourhood of Karanfil and Donje Polje. And when fire
4 was opened at them then they withdrew due to the losses they had. They
5 withdrew into town and sought shelter in safe locations.
6 Q. Thank you. Just one more question in relation to that list of
7 persons where it says persons who were taken prisoner from Berkovici,
8 that was the question, 6153, that's it. P6153.
9 Now, does that indicate that these people were in Rasadnik and
10 that they died in Rasadnik and that they had been staying in Rasadnik?
11 Did you notice that? Actually, let's call up the document. Let's have
12 the document and you take a look at it. 6152 -- or no, 53, yes, that's
13 right. Now let us zoom in and let us see what is written there exactly.
14 It says here persons of Muslim ethnicity from the areas of Rogatica,
15 Visegrad, Rudo, Cajnice, and Foca.
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Does it say anywhere where these people were put up?
18 A. No, it just says list of captured persons of Muslim ethnicity in
19 the areas of Rogatica, Visegrad, Rudo, Cajnice, and Foca. It doesn't say
20 anywhere that they were put up at Rasadnik. No, no, it's not written
21 anywhere.
22 Q. Do you know anything about this group of captured persons?
23 A. I don't know anything. Most probably it was at the municipality
24 then because it was the municipality that made lists of civilian and
25 persons who were taken prisoner, and then they were taken further on to
Page 34438
1 the places where they wanted to go or where they would be staying. Now I
2 know that in Rasadnik at the time there were some villagers from
3 Berkovici and Gucevo but I don't know whether it was these persons
4 because I had no contact with them. I had not seen them. I quite
5 simply --
6 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not hear the end.
7 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, again the witness -- the interpreter
8 didn't hear the witness. He spoke too fast.
9 What did you say, Mr. Lelek, after asking said "I had not seen
10 them"?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said that from this list I cannot
12 conclude whether these persons were at Rasadnik or not. I did not see
13 them. Only the lists could be checked of persons -- I mean, the lists
14 that the civilian authorities of the municipality had because they kept
15 lists of the Muslim population that was at the collection centres and
16 that were taken there to where they wanted to go in order to change their
17 place of residence. I don't know about these persons. And then I said I
18 saw Sahin Suceska from Berkovici and Kustur [phoen]. By sight I cannot
19 remember the first names now, but I did know them.
20 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
21 Q. Did all the villagers of Berkovici stay on in Berkovici, or could
22 somebody have been in a Muslim unit outside Berkovici? Did that happen?
23 Do you know?
24 A. Well, Berkovici and Oskoplje are two neighbouring villages and
25 it's certain that there were extremists from Berkovici that joined those
Page 34439
1 in Oskoplje, and that is why they threatened the local population of
2 Berkovici, that they would kill them because they were co-operating with
3 the Serbs. It is certain that there were persons from Berkovici who left
4 Berkovici and joined some other villages.
5 Q. The last question: Did you know whether in the
6 Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina there were any women?
7 A. I didn't know that, Mr. President.
8 Q. Thank you.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I tender this previous
10 document, 7791?
11 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we'll receive it.
12 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit D3037, Your Honours.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Excellencies. No
14 further questions for this witness.
15 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
16 Mr. Lelek, now that concludes your evidence. Thank you for your
17 coming to The Hague to give it. You are now free to go.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
19 JUDGE KWON: We'll rise all together. We'll resume tomorrow
20 morning at 9.00. The hearing is adjourned.
21 [The witness withdrew]
22 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.48 p.m.,
23 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 28th day of
24 February, 2013, at 9.00 a.m.
25