Page 40334
1 Tuesday, 25 June 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. Yes, please continue,
7 Ms. McKenna.
8 MS. McKENNA: Thank you, Mr. President.
9 WITNESS: CEDOMIR ZELENOVIC [Resumed]
10 [Witness answered through interpreter]
11 Cross-examination by Ms. McKenna: [Continued]
12 Q. Good morning, Mr. Zelenovic.
13 A. Good morning.
14 Q. Yesterday, you testified that it was impossible for the
15 authorities to do anything in respect of the paramilitaries but you also
16 testified that you were not a member of the government, you were no one
17 special and you didn't take part in what was going on. Now, in contrast
18 to you, the SJB was actively involved in events in municipality at the
19 time and indeed they were tasked with maintaining law and order, so I'd
20 like to look at what they said about the relationship between the
21 paramilitaries and the government at that time. Could we please have
22 P3390? And this time I'd like page 23 of the English and page 20 of the
23 B/C/S.
24 Now, Mr. Zelenovic, again, this is the SJB Zvornik annual report
25 that you'll recall we looked at yesterday. And I'm interested in the
Page 40335
1 passage beginning, "During July ...," and it states:
2 "During July, the SJB personnel worked on carrying out their
3 tasks stipulated by law. However the impact of the paramilitary
4 formations could be felt at this time. The said formations had carried
5 out their illegal activities with the knowledge and consent of some of
6 the members of the temporary government of the municipality of Zvornik."
7 And the document goes on to describe the problems the
8 paramilitaries were causing, the check-points and the theft. And then it
9 continues:
10 "On the 27th of July, 1992, the police station personnel together
11 with the military police expelled groups and individuals from the
12 check-points and resumed control of the said locations. The reason for
13 their action was that they were dissatisfied with the way they had been
14 treated and with all the misuse on the part of the paramilitary and
15 various members of the temporary government. The said members of the
16 temporary government had, in fact, brought in the paramilitary units."
17 So in fact, Mr. Zelenovic, according to the SJB at the time,
18 members of the Zvornik civilian leadership brought in the paramilitaries,
19 they were aware of their criminality and indeed they supported them in
20 that criminality; isn't that correct?
21 A. I'm sorry, can you please repeat the question?
22 Q. My question is: It's correct, isn't it, that according to the
23 SJB, the members of the Zvornik civilian leadership invited in the
24 paramilitaries and supported them in their criminal activity?
25 A. Look, there is more reference to the terror by the military --
Page 40336
1 paramilitary forces towards the legal forces. It boils down to
2 exchanging accusations between the leadership and the others and to
3 determine who actually had invited them. I, myself, cannot testify to
4 any of this. These were all rumours and there are -- there is no
5 accurate data about that and I'm not able to tell you anything more about
6 it because I don't know.
7 Q. Thank you, Mr. Zelenovic. I'll move on to one final topic. On
8 paragraph -- in paragraph 34 of your statement, you say:
9 "I am aware on the basis of what my fellow residents told me and
10 on the basis of what I learned from the media, that all the arrested
11 paramilitaries were brought to justice and convicted for their crimes and
12 offences."
13 Now, were you also aware that the paramilitaries who were
14 arrested were then released shortly after their arrest?
15 A. Look, that's my knowledge, not from authentic sources, though,
16 but what is most important in my view is that I no longer saw them in
17 Zvornik. That would be my answer. It is possible that these things that
18 you have just made reference to did happen.
19 Q. Well, Mr. Zelenovic, the then chief of the Zvornik SJB
20 Marinko Vasilic recently testified before this Court that nothing was
21 done to investigate the mass killings at either the Karakaj Technical
22 School or Gero slaughterhouse. So --
23 A. Are you asking me now is that the truth? Is that right?
24 I think -- yes. Look, I think I'm not competent, and it's not my place
25 to say whether those people were convicted or not. And I also on the
Page 40337
1 other hand cannot deny what Mr. Vasilic has said. It's difficult to say
2 anything about this issue after so many years and to confirm whether they
3 were convicted or not.
4 Q. Thank you very much, Mr. Zelenovic.
5 MS. McKENNA: Your Honours, I have no further questions for this
6 witness.
7 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Do you have any re-examination,
8 Mr. Karadzic?
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Only two or three. Good morning,
10 Your Excellencies. Good morning to everyone.
11 Re-examination by Mr. Karadzic:
12 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Zelenovic.
13 A. Good morning, Mr. President.
14 Q. Yesterday at page -- I'm sorry I failed to pause. At page 86,
15 you were asked whether the local authorities supported Arkan and other
16 groups, and you responded by saying that everyone was welcome to save you
17 from terror. Can you tell us were the authorities supportive of the
18 unlawful behaviour by Arkan and other groups?
19 A. I can say with full authority today that as far as the
20 authorities from that time, with whom I was acquainted, did not support
21 them but, rather, did their best and made every effort to - how shall
22 I put it? - annihilate these paramilitaries from the municipality who, as
23 I said, were not only for the authorities but to all citizens regardless
24 of their ethnicities -- a tremendous problem and caused difficulties.
25 Q. You wanted to say something about the photograph, and for that
Page 40338
1 purpose could the witness please be shown P6413? Can you please tell us
2 what it was that you wanted to say about respect to this photograph, if
3 you remember?
4 A. There was one photograph before this one, where the year was
5 shown. Can we see that one?
6 Q. Well, that would be, then, 6412.
7 A. Yes, yes, there were two photographs and this was the second one.
8 Q. Can I please have P6412?
9 A. Yes. First of all, one can see here the year, but this is digit
10 five which was cut in half. Madam Prosecutor said yesterday and I had to
11 intervene and to repeat that because that was immediately after the
12 unblocking of Zvornik. St. Archangel Michael is on the 21st of November
13 and these events took place on the 8th of April, as far as I know, in
14 1992. So this is not right immediately. But it is definitely the year
15 1995 here, or the day when the Dayton Accords were signed, if you will.
16 Q. Very well. Thank you. So the war was over and the peace
17 agreements were signed?
18 A. Yes, yes, that's what I meant.
19 JUDGE KWON: For the record, shall I ask the witness to read out
20 the Cyrillic letters shown in the photo?
21 MS. McKENNA: Your Honour, I believe he read them out yesterday
22 but he can read them out again.
23 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Patron Saint's Day, MUP, then you
25 can't see that it says of Republika Srpska, St. Archangel Michael,
Page 40339
1 Zvornik 95.
2 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
3 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
4 Q. I don't know whether it was interpreted properly because I'm
5 looking at yesterday's transcript, [In English] saint, patron saint,
6 patron saint. [Interpretation] In the Serbian tradition, it's
7 Patron Saint's Day. And every institution can have its own patron saint.
8 On yesterday's page 95, I'm going to read to you from line 13 to
9 be quite clear, and I'm going to read it in English:
10 [In English] "Well, all of these documents ... well, he had to
11 cover these in financial terms, but this is how it arrived. I mean, on
12 the basis of what I talked about then and when I asked them for help and
13 what do I call them, these paramilitaries -- these paramilitaries
14 threatened the factory."
15 [Interpretation] Had you invited the paramilitary or did you
16 appeal to the authorities because of the threats coming from the
17 paramilitaries?
18 A. Let me first say this. Every paper that I received at the time
19 to review signed by the local president was not a proper document, if it
20 was signed under coercion. However, these documents were signed under
21 such circumstances due to the fact that those people were there on the
22 spot. As far as the factory is concerned, I mentioned the example of the
23 locomotive and the carriages that they were asking for, after which
24 I agreed with my people to try and avoid this and give them a broken
25 locomotive. Of course, as soon as they left the office, they were told
Page 40340
1 this, he became angered and he wanted to take revenge on me. So we
2 always, without exception, asked the authorities to keep them as far from
3 the factory as possible, and this was the greatest damage that they
4 caused to us. We had to give them a new locomotive that was operational
5 and we, on our side, had to lease another one from the railways company
6 and they did all kinds of things with this engine. And all the way
7 through the 29th of July, when they were practically expelled from the
8 municipality, we did our best to prevent them from coming there because
9 we thought that it was not their place to be there.
10 Q. Thank you. On page 91, of yesterday's transcript, it was
11 suggested that there was a takeover of power in Zvornik. Who was the
12 first to take over power in Zvornik and establish their authority in the
13 town?
14 A. Well now --
15 Q. Which side, the Muslim or the Serbian side?
16 A. You mean after the lifting of the blockade?
17 Q. No, no. Before the blockade. Who was it that blocked the town?
18 A. Well, that's quite a different thing.
19 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Ms. McKenna?
20 MS. McKENNA: I object to the line of questioning that I believe
21 Mr. Karadzic is trying to get at. The scope of the cross-examination
22 related simply to the -- what Mr. Zelenovic terms the lifting of the
23 blockade and subsequently.
24 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. I tend to agree but I think
25 Mr. Karadzic's re-examination is almost over.
Page 40341
1 Yes, Mr. Robinson, would you like to add anything?
2 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. President. I think Dr. Karadzic is
3 reacting to the characterisation that the Prosecutor made of the takeover
4 of the town of Zvornik, and the witness didn't actually react to that
5 during the cross-examination so I think he's trying to clarify what was
6 meant by takeover.
7 JUDGE KWON: Let's move on. Thank you.
8 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. Mr. Zelenovic, who controlled the town as of the 5th of April
10 until the 10th, when the blockade was imposed?
11 A. The Muslim forces. And as I said yesterday, in the meantime,
12 Arkan came along, there were negotiations between the Muslim and Serbian
13 sides in Mali Zvornik, that means in Serbia. Arkan came, beat up the
14 Serbs in front of the Muslims, wanting in that manner to make a show of
15 force or what -- I don't know, to compel or -- the other side to find a
16 peaceful solution to these problems. However, whatever the Muslim side
17 agreed and made promises to do under the pressure of the extremists who
18 were practically imposing the blockade, ignored all of that, they chased
19 them away and it came to nothing, and the outcome, as we know it, was
20 inevitable.
21 Q. When you say the extremists, whose extremists are you referring
22 to, the ones that were preventing the finding of a peaceful solution?
23 A. I'm referring to the Muslim extremists of Zvornik who were
24 practically in power and ruling Zvornik.
25 Q. Thank you. On page 92, you said that the authorities called upon
Page 40342
1 the civilians to come back. Did this call refer to Muslims as well?
2 A. Well, probably you can find it in various documents that this
3 declaration applied to all citizens of Zvornik and in actual fact both
4 ethnic community members started coming back. However, since Zvornik was
5 crammed with paramilitary troops, practically violence continued against
6 both sides, probably more against the Muslims than Serbs. I can say that
7 I refrained from going back to Zvornik for two weeks for -- because of
8 all this and especially because of my experience at the factory.
9 Q. Thank you. And now my last question: After the unblocking, did
10 the Serbian side took over control over the entire territory of Zvornik,
11 and how many municipalities called Zvornik exist after the Dayton?
12 MS. McKENNA: Objection. This is outside the scope of the
13 cross-examination.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] If I may respond, we are talking
15 about taking control over the municipality of Zvornik as a whole.
16 Otherwise, I wouldn't have put that question and we all know that that
17 was not the case. Even children know that.
18 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Robinson?
19 MR. ROBINSON: Again, I think it's the same point. You told us
20 to move on, but there -- as to who controlled Zvornik and who took it
21 over, I think Dr. Karadzic has been trying to clarify that.
22 [Trial Chamber confers]
23 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we will allow the question.
24 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
25 Q. Mr. Zelenovic, do I need to repeat the question?
Page 40343
1 A. No, thank you. So, after these events, and practically until the
2 end of war in 1995, the Serbian side controlled, but I cannot tell you
3 exactly, 55 or 60 per cent of the territory of Zvornik municipality. And
4 the remaining part was under the Muslim control, and that was the
5 territory -- or the majority of territory was populated by Serbs. It's a
6 huge area; for example, the place of Rastocnica. And I believe that in
7 May 1992, all of this area was burnt down, the entire population was
8 expelled, and this situation pertains to this very date.
9 Q. Thank you. Now, can you tell me now how many municipalities of
10 Zvornik do exist today and who they belong to?
11 A. As far as I know, there are two of them. One is the Serbian
12 municipality and the other is the Bosniak one.
13 Q. Thank you, Mr. Zelenovic. I have no further questions for you.
14 Thank you for your effort.
15 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Mr. Zelenovic. That concludes your
16 evidence. On behalf of the Chamber, I thank you for your coming to
17 The Hague to give it. You're now free to go.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.
19 [The witness withdrew]
20 JUDGE KWON: While we are waiting for the next witness, I will
21 deal with two matters regarding the MFI'd documents.
22 First, the Chamber returns to the Prosecution's submission from
23 Friday, 21st of June, 2013, regarding MFI P6394 and P6395, and notes that
24 both documents were marked for identification on the 10th of June, 2013,
25 pending the provision of English translations. The Chamber has reviewed
Page 40344
1 the documents, their proposed translations and the relevant transcript
2 excerpts and is satisfied that MFI P6394 and P6395 should now be marked
3 as admitted.
4 Next, in assessing the accused's motion to admit documents
5 previously marked for identification filed on the 10th of June, 2013, the
6 Chamber has noted issues with two of the documents tendered in the
7 motion. First, regarding MFI D183, the Chamber notes that it contains
8 significant portions which are illegible, rendering the English
9 translation also incomplete. Second, a revised English translation for
10 MFI D1720 has not been uploaded into e-court, as instructed by the
11 Chamber in its decision of 7th December 2012. The Chamber therefore
12 instructs the Defence, by Monday, 1st of July, 2013, to request and
13 upload a revised translation for MFI D1720 and look into whether it has a
14 more legible copy of D183 and, if so, to upload it into e-court along
15 with a revised translation and to inform the Chamber of such. Please
16 liaise with the Prosecution in locating a copy, if necessary.
17 [The witness entered court]
18 JUDGE KWON: Would the witness make the solemn declaration,
19 please.
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will
21 speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
22 WITNESS: BRANKO GRUJIC
23 [Witness answered through interpreter]
24 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Mr. Grujic. Please be seated and make
25 yourself comfortable. Mr. Grujic, probably you are already well aware of
Page 40345
1 this, but before you commence your evidence, I must draw your attention
2 to a certain Rule of evidence that we have here at the
3 International Tribunal. That is Rule 90(E). Under this Rule, you may
4 object to answering any question from Mr. Karadzic, the Prosecution, or
5 even from the Judges, if you believe that your answer might incriminate
6 you in a criminal offence. In this context, "incriminate" means saying
7 something that might amount to an admission of guilt for a criminal
8 offence or saying something that might provide evidence that you might
9 have committed a criminal offence. However, should you think that an
10 answer might incriminate you and as a consequence you refuse to answer
11 the question, I must let you know that the Tribunal has the power to
12 compel you to answer the question, but in that situation, the Tribunal
13 would ensure that your testimony compelled in such circumstances would
14 not be used in any case that might be laid against you for any offence
15 save and except the offence of giving false testimony.
16 Do you understand what I have just told you, Mr. Grujic?
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
18 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
19 Yes, Mr. Karadzic, please proceed.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
21 Examination by Mr. Karadzic:
22 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Grujic.
23 A. Good morning, Mr. President.
24 Q. I have a request for you and I'm reminding myself at the same
25 time. Let us speak slowly and clearly and let us pause between my
Page 40346
1 questions and your answers because if we have to intervene, I mean if the
2 interpreters intervene, then we are going to use up even more time. So
3 please let us bear that in mind and you feel free to caution me too.
4 A. Thank you.
5 Q. Mr. Grujic, have you provided a statement to the Defence team?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Could we please have 1D9681 in e-court? Thank you. We have the
8 Serbian version. Please focus on the left-hand side of the screen. Do
9 you see your statement there?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Thank you. Have you read and signed this statement?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. That was a bit too fast. Could you please pause.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could the witness please be shown
15 the last page so that he could identify his signature.
16 A. Yes. That is my signature.
17 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
18 Q. Thank you. Does this statement faithfully reflect what you said
19 in your answers provided to the Defence team?
20 A. Yes. I stand by each and every word.
21 Q. Thank you. If I were to put the same questions to you today,
22 here in the courtroom, would your answers basically be the same as those
23 provided in this statement?
24 A. They certainly would.
25 Q. Thank you.
Page 40347
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I would like to tender this
2 statement into evidence according to Rule 92 ter.
3 JUDGE KWON: Can I hear from you with regard to the associated
4 exhibits, Mr. Robinson?
5 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. President. There are nine associated
6 exhibits on our witness list to be tendered. None of them are on our
7 65 ter list, so we would ask that they be added because we hadn't
8 interviewed the witness at the time we filed that list. With respect to
9 one of them, 1D15301 it's a photograph that bears some writing on it and
10 we are going to lead that live so that the writing can be understood.
11 With respect to the other eight associated exhibits we would ask that
12 they be admitted.
13 JUDGE KWON: Do you have any response to the Prosecution's
14 concerning about some of the exhibits?
15 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. President.
16 JUDGE KWON: Shall we hear from the Prosecution first? Yes,
17 Ms. Gustafson?
18 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you, Your Honour, good morning. Yes, the
19 Prosecution objects to the admission of 1D15311, 1D15314 and 1D15315
20 referenced in paragraph 45 of the statement for two reasons: First, they
21 are not sufficiently discussed. They don't meet the standard for
22 associated exhibits; and secondly, they consist of detailed evidence of
23 crimes against Serbs and don't satisfy the standard of relevance. Thank
24 you.
25 JUDGE KWON: For 65 ter 18186 referred to in paragraph 53 is,
Page 40348
1 first it's a document of a third -- is a -- that document is a third
2 party statement, and the witness merely repeats the content of the
3 statement without making any substantive comment.
4 So the Chamber is not minded to admit those four exhibits as an
5 associated exhibit. In order for the Defence to tender them the Defence
6 should lead them live as well as showing the relevance of those
7 documents, if it so wishes. So we'll admit the four associated exhibits,
8 i.e., 1D7326, 7442, 7443 and 7444.
9 Shall we assign the numbers, first to the statement?
10 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, statement document 1D9681 receives
11 number D3724.
12 JUDGE KWON: And four other associated exhibits?
13 THE REGISTRAR: Receive number D3725, D3726, D3727 and D3728,
14 Your Honours.
15 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Please proceed, Mr. Karadzic.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Now I'm going to read
17 out in the English language the summary of Mr. Branko Grujic's statement.
18 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: Could all unnecessary
19 microphones please be switched off? Thank you.
20 MR. KARADZIC: Branko Grujic was a member of the SDS since its
21 formation and was elected the first president of the SDS municipal board
22 in Zvornik on 1st September -- of September 1990. After the first
23 multi-party elections, the government was formed, local governments
24 functioned normally for half a year. In mid-1991 the coalition agreement
25 was violated by the SDA leaders in Zvornik. The violation included
Page 40349
1 obstructions and outvoting in the local assembly by SDA politicians so
2 that any agreement aimed at normalising relations was rejected from the
3 outset by Muslims.
4 They appointed people without agreement. Some who were
5 unqualified to manage position in public enterprises. All SDS efforts
6 and objections to reach an agreement were met with objection and the
7 blockage of normal political activity.
8 Mr. Branko Grujic initiated a number of discussions with leading
9 Muslims from the SDA. The SDA in Zvornik had received instructions from
10 the SDA headquarters in Sarajevo to operate politically in this way. The
11 aim was to install loyal Muslims and SDA personnel in important positions
12 in Zvornik, to strengthen their activity within the entire Muslim body in
13 Zvornik municipality.
14 Asim Jusubasic told Branko Grujic he did not agree with what was
15 coming from Sarajevo but they were monitoring him, where his own Muslim
16 colleagues were monitoring him and he had to do what was ordered. Alija
17 Izetbegovic had already conceptualised all of this in his
18 Islamic Declaration, stating that the time had come to put it into
19 action. The situation in Zvornik worsened after 15th of October, 1991,
20 when the rump Presidency of BH without the Serbs ordered that federal
21 laws no longer be complied with, that recruits and reservists were not to
22 be sent to the JNA, that financial transactions be blocked and that BH
23 move to independence be accelerated. The Patriotic League was formed in
24 Zvornik at the beginning of 1991. And Muslim soldiers formed the ranks
25 in Godus village, the Zvornik SDA placed their personnel in leading
Page 40350
1 position in the police in Zvornik, without SDS consents and began forming
2 a Muslim police force.
3 Serbs in Zvornik were helpless to do anything to prevent the
4 formation of mono-ethnic Muslim armed units. Interethnic relations
5 between Muslims and Serbs in Zvornik were badly damaged by mid-1991.
6 Several incidents occurred in Zvornik, including older Serbs
7 dressed in folk clothing being attacked, Serb women selling their wares
8 being abused and physically assaulted on JNA officer in Zvornik. The
9 Handzar Division was manned exclusively by Muslims and committed many
10 crimes against the Serbs in Podrinje and Zvornik. There was no one to
11 complain to about the incident because the police was led by Muslim
12 criminals, and Muslims in surrounding villages were well-armed and almost
13 every night they would come to the outskirts of Serbian villages and open
14 fire.
15 All of these activities were co-ordinated by Asim Alic, a Muslim
16 sent from Sarajevo pursuant to a directive from SDA leaders. These
17 caused fear and anxiety amongst the Serbs. The Serbian policemen who
18 worked at the station at that time were not allowed to go on patrol in
19 Muslim villages. Conscious of the situation and with the aim of finding
20 a solution to this situation according to the directive from
21 President Karadzic, the SDS would be persistent in holding talks and
22 reaching agreements and that conflicts should be avoided a joint
23 initiative of the SDA and SDS was given -- SDS was given, asking everyone
24 to respect each other as neighbours and overcome problems.
25 The Muslims responded to all calls for talks but they did not
Page 40351
1 respect any agreements. The Crisis Staff was formed within the Zvornik
2 SDS. The basic focus on the Crisis Staff -- of the Crisis Staff was to
3 establish contacts with the leaders of the Muslims and begin
4 negotiations, all with the aim of normalising the situation and
5 preventing further victims. The Muslims in Zvornik were under great
6 pressure from Muslims in Tuzla and Sarajevo and were -- there was much
7 talk of the -- of Bosnia becoming Muslim.
8 On 3rd and 4th of April, 1992, road and settlements in Zvornik
9 were blocked by armed members of the Patriotic League and the Muslim part
10 of MUP. The next day, the Patriotic League ambushed and opened fire on a
11 JNA vehicle, killing a JNA officer and wounding a number of soldiers.
12 This attack in Sapna was planned by the Muslims and it was a signal for
13 an all-out Muslim attack on Serbs in Zvornik. News quickly spread and
14 many Serbs and some Muslims fled Zvornik. Fear reigned among the Serbs
15 and the possibility of a reoccurrence of the Second World War and heavily
16 armed Muslim formations arrived from Tuzla and Sarajevo to aid the
17 Muslims in Zvornik. Conscious of the situation in which Muslim
18 extremists controlled the town, Branko Grujic sought to prevent the mass
19 slaughter of the Serbs by starting negotiations with Muslim leaders in
20 Zvornik.
21 On April the 6th, 1992, Arkan and Peja assumed full control of
22 the situation. Arkan personally continued negotiating with the Muslims.
23 Serbs in Zvornik no longer had any authority and all the power was in the
24 hands of Arkan. After the blockade of Zvornik was lifted, Arkan left the
25 area but individuals from his unit remained and formed paramilitary group
Page 40352
1 for the purpose of looting and carrying out criminal acts.
2 Serbs and Muslims became hostages and victims of their criminal
3 acts. The local government had absolutely no influence on the
4 paramilitaries. They made all the decisions. Policemen in uniform were
5 frequently abused. Branko Grujic and Marinko Vasilic secretly went to
6 Pale to inform President Karadzic about the problems in Zvornik. He was
7 visibly surprised and astonished by the news. He said he would undertake
8 every measure and activity for the gang to be arrested. On
9 29th of July, 1992, strong police forces from the MUP of RS in
10 co-ordinated action with the units of military police entered Zvornik
11 using force and arrested the paramilitaries. President Karadzic always
12 requested that about Branko Grujic hold talks and seek agreements for
13 peaceful solutions to problems in Zvornik.
14 He wanted maximum efforts to find a peaceful solution to problems
15 and conflicts with the aim of avoiding any conflict.
16 And that would be the short summary.
17 MR. ROBINSON: Mr. President, if we could call up that photo,
18 1D15301.
19 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Mr. Grujic, you were very kind, and I should like to thank you
21 for that. I mean for this photograph. Did you bring us this photograph?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Who took this photograph and what is written there? What does it
24 represent?
25 A. This photograph was taken during my trial in Belgrade. Already
Page 40353
1 in 1991 --
2 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not understand the end of
3 the sentence.
4 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Grujic, could you speak a bit more slowly for
5 the benefit of the interpreters? Could you repeat your answer?
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you. My people from my
7 defence and my sons brought this to me when I was tried in Belgrade. It
8 was brought as evidence that the Muslim side already in 1991, that is to
9 say almost half a year before the war started and any kind of commotion
10 in Bosnia, the Muslim side publicly lined up an armed unit fully armed in
11 uniform with slogans that amounted to threats against the Serbs, saying
12 that there was no place for them in Bosnia any longer, that their country
13 was Serbia and that they should go to Serbia.
14 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
15 Q. Thank you. For the transcript, and for the participants, could
16 you slowly read what is written on this board?
17 A. This is what they say here. This is where --
18 Q. Please start from the beginning, from the top.
19 A. "Welcome in Godus," and then it says, "the first organised
20 resistance to the aggressor." So we were aggressors already in 1991
21 until no rifles had been fired. Whose aggressors were we? Were we
22 aggressors against our own homes, our own properties, our own families?
23 Q. Thank you. At the time, did you know that they were being lined
24 up and that they were armed?
25 A. We knew straight away. We were informed by our people who
Page 40354
1 happened to be passing by and who took this picture and saw that
2 situation.
3 Q. Thank you. Could you just read the date when this took place?
4 A. The 17th of October, 1991.
5 Q. This lineup, this lineup, when did that happen? That is not
6 reflected in the transcript. How did this reflect on the situation and
7 how did people feel especially the Serbs?
8 A. There was astonishment all over. War was raging in Croatia and
9 it became clear that it would spill over into Bosnia because if somebody
10 comes out openly with a rifle, lines up and makes speeches based on
11 ethnic hatred, what else could we expect? We could only expect that the
12 next thing would be a campaign against the Serb people, against Serb
13 houses, against Serb children.
14 Q. Thank you.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I would like to tender this exhibit
16 into evidence.
17 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Grujic, where is Godus?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Godus is 20 something kilometres
19 away from Zvornik towards Lopare, up there. From Sapna, about 7,
20 8 kilometres.
21 JUDGE KWON: Any objections, Ms. Gustafson?
22 MS. GUSTAFSON: No, thank you.
23 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we will receive it.
24 THE REGISTRAR: Document 1D15301 receives number D3729,
25 Your Honours.
Page 40355
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Your Excellencies, I shall give up
2 on the other exhibits. And at this moment, I have no further questions
3 for Mr. Grujic.
4 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Mr. Grujic, as you have noted now, your
5 evidence-in-chief in this case has been admitted in most part admitted in
6 writing, in lieu of your oral testimony. Now you'll be cross-examined by
7 the representative of the Office of the Prosecutor. Yes, Ms. Gustafson?
8 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you, Your Honour. Just before I begin, if
9 I could clarify, as Your Honours noted 65 ter 1D186 in paragraph 53 --
10 paragraph 53 really, as Your Honour said, the witness merely repeats the
11 content of the statement without making any substantive comment. So if
12 this document is not being tendered I'm wondering if paragraph 53 of the
13 statement should be redacted.
14 JUDGE KWON: The Chamber is of the view the paragraph can stand
15 on its own. Shall we continue? Yes.
16 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.
17 Cross-examination by Ms. Gustafson:
18 Q. Good morning, Mr. Grujic.
19 A. Good morning.
20 Q. You have given a tape recorded interview to the Prosecution, you
21 recall that, in 2002. That's right, isn't it?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And you also gave evidence in your own trial against you and
24 Mr. Popovic at the beginning of that trial in 2005; right?
25 A. Yes, that's right.
Page 40356
1 Q. Now, at paragraph 15 of your statement, you refer to a joint
2 declaration signed by you and Asim Jusubasic. It's been admitted as
3 D3725 and you assert in your statement that this was part of your efforts
4 to reach a peaceful solution. Now, that declaration says, among other
5 things, "Let us do everything not to seek weapons." But, in fact,
6 Mr. Grujic, before the war, you yourself were personally involved in
7 arming Serbs in Zvornik through the SDS structures. You told the OTP
8 that in 2002, and it's true; right?
9 A. Yes. That did happen. May I explain?
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Transcript.
11 JUDGE KWON: Yes?
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I would not interpret it that way,
13 "that did happen." The witness said, "bilo je toga." It would have been
14 better to say "there had been things like that."
15 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
16 MS. GUSTAFSON:
17 Q. Well, Mr. Grujic, you as the head of the SDS municipal board
18 received arms and you distributed them to the local SDS boards in
19 Zvornik. That's what happened; right?
20 A. No, that is not right.
21 Q. Could we have 65 ter 25264, please? This is a transcript of the
22 interview the witness gave to the OTP in 2002 and just I'd like to inform
23 everyone in the courtroom that the English has been transcribed and we
24 have some of the B/C/S also transcribed, but I'd just like to point out
25 that it's not a translation that the English parts were transcribed and
Page 40357
1 then separately some of the B/C/S was transcribed so they don't always
2 match entirely, in particular some of what Mr. Grujic said was not picked
3 up by the audio so there are some parts in the B/C/S that are inaudible
4 but they are audible in the English. If we could go to page --
5 JUDGE KWON: Just a second, Ms. Gustafson, you asked the witness
6 whether he testified in the trial of Mr. Popovic in 2005? What case did
7 you refer to?
8 MS. GUSTAFSON: Sorry, that was his own case against -- it was
9 the trial against himself and Mr. Popovic jointly.
10 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
11 MS. GUSTAFSON: If we could go to page 58 of the English and
12 page 57 in the B/C/S.
13 Q. Mr. Grujic, this is a transcript of the interview you gave to the
14 OTP in 2002. And this is page 58 of the English. Yes. Okay, so in the
15 middle of the page in the English towards the bottom in the B/C/S, you're
16 asked:
17 "What was the role of the SDS in arming the Serbs?"
18 And you answer:
19 "One of the supply lines, to put it in this way, went through
20 Marko Pavlovic who was connected with Mr. Spasojevic who sent a certain
21 amount of arms over and these arms were distributed through the SDS local
22 boards. As they were staying in Slavonia and Baranja where war was
23 already going on, the arms was collected and this is how it was."
24 If we go to the next page in the B/C/S, you're asked:
25 "What role did you have in that?"
Page 40358
1 And you said:
2 "We have this board of ours and when we received arms we would
3 just -- we distributed a couple of these items to our local boards. That
4 was in late 1991, towards the end of 1991."
5 And then you're asked:
6 "How many weapons and what type of weapons were distributed
7 through the SDS in 1991 and the beginning of 1992?"
8 You answer:
9 "I don't know exactly but I know it was old Thompson 81 and the
10 old outdated rifles M48 which were impossible to sell even on the black
11 market."
12 And you're asked again:
13 "But how many weapons are we talking about? Are we talking 10 or
14 10.000?"
15 And you say:
16 "Well, 10.000 would be too much, we didn't even have that many --
17 much soldiers. It was rather a couple hundred items, and there might
18 have been a situation in which somebody else received the weapons and
19 distributed them subsequently. What I know about is that a couple of
20 hundred items reached us and we have distributed them further on."
21 Mr. Grujic, you told the OTP in 2002 that the SDS municipal board
22 received weapons through Marko Pavlovic and Dragan Spasojevic, and you
23 distributed them to the SDS local boards; right?
24 THE INTERPRETER: Would the counsel please slow down while
25 reading? Thank you.
Page 40359
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] One person from SDS took part in
2 all of this and that is Dragan Spasojevic who was at that time the
3 commander of the police station, and who somehow got in touch with some
4 man from Baranja, his name was Rade, something like that, I'm not quite
5 sure, who sent him to Marko Pavlovic's address, who was our commander
6 later, and they agreed together and brought in a small quantity of about
7 a thousand -- a hundred pieces of old type weapons, Thompsons, some old
8 fashioned 48s, which were some 50 or 60 years old, from the previous war,
9 and they distributed that near Dragan's house to people.
10 Dragan intended them for and whom he picked. And I was informed
11 that this was done by Dragan and distributed. I can say that at that
12 time, it was general hysteria about weapons after this unit was lined up.
13 Everybody wanted to buy anything. I bought something for myself on the
14 black market. I paid a small calibre rifle, 1800 German marks. And if
15 there was any sort of distribution of weapons I would definitely have
16 taken one for myself. I wouldn't have bought a weapon for myself and
17 given it to the others because then later when the distribution of
18 weaponry occurred, the bad weapons were distributed, so the SDS had a
19 minimal or no role in that. Dragan, as the police commander, together
20 with Marko Pavlovic, distributed that small quantity, just in case so
21 that each village could protect itself, at least a little bit, if there
22 was an attack on the village so that they could repel the attack and
23 protect the Serbian population, the Serbian women and children.
24 MS. GUSTAFSON:
25 Q. Thank you, Mr. Grujic. I'm going to ask you to try to keep your
Page 40360
1 answers focused on the specific question that I ask. You referred to
2 Dragan Spasojevic's contact in this arming activity who put him in touch
3 with Marko Pavlovic as someone by the name of Rade. That was
4 Rade Kostic; right?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Thank you. I tender these portions of the interview.
7 MR. ROBINSON: No objection.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It was not translated, the witness
9 did not get the interpretation whether it was Rade Kostic only Rade was
10 said.
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, yes, later I realised it's
12 Rade Kostic. I first managed to remember just the first name but then
13 I remembered that it is Rade Kostic.
14 JUDGE KWON: Could you identify the page numbers again,
15 Ms. Gustafson?
16 MS. GUSTAFSON: Yes it's pages 58 and 59 in the English and 57
17 and 58 in the B/C/S.
18 JUDGE KWON: Very well. We will receive them.
19 THE REGISTRAR: Document receives number P6414, Your Honours.
20 MS. GUSTAFSON:
21 Q. Mr. Grujic, you said also in your statement that you only learned
22 in court and that I presume is a reference to your own trial that
23 Marko Pavlovic's real name was Branko Popovic and that he had been
24 brought to Zvornik by the Zvornik SJB commander Dragan Spasojevic. But
25 in fact, you told the OTP back in 2002 that it was Dragan Spasojevic who
Page 40361
1 introduced to you Marko Pavlovic in 1991, and in 2002 you told the OTP
2 that Marko Pavlovic was also known as Branko Popovic. So you were aware
3 of these facts in 2002 long before your own trial; right?
4 A. No. Wrong. You did not understand me correctly. I met
5 Marko Pavlovic with Dragan Spasojevic at the Jezera hotel in Mali Zvornik
6 a couple of months before the war broke out and he was introduced to me
7 as Marko Pavlovic, and I contacted that person throughout the whole war
8 and only later, after the war, when this investigation was initiated,
9 I found out from The Hague investigators what his real name was. Until
10 The Hague investigators came, I did not know his real name, and believe
11 me, even to this day I don't believe that's that because for years
12 I operated on the premise that his name was Marko Pavlovic.
13 Q. Well, I'll show you what you said to the OTP in a moment but
14 first I'll ask you one more question about Pavlovic. In your statement
15 you said that Pavlovic presented himself to you as an officer with strong
16 ties to the JNA but you later learned that you were deceived and
17 Marko Pavlic -- Pavlovic was actually Branko Popovic someone who knew
18 Arkan. And again you told the OTP in 2002 that were you aware from the
19 very beginning that Marko Pavlovic was a close friend of Arkan's because
20 you could see that with your own eyes at the time; right?
21 A. When Arkan came to Zvornik, after a certain amount of time,
22 Marko Pavlovic popped up as well. I could see that they knew each other,
23 they greeted each other, they talked, and there was a close relationship
24 between them, so I got the impression that they knew each other. I was
25 convinced that they knew each other. And as for whether I knew that he
Page 40362
1 was Branko Popovic or not, well, you can believe me that I did not.
2 Q. Okay. And you -- as I said, you say in your statement that
3 Marko Pavlovic presented himself to you as an officer with strong ties to
4 the JNA but when you met Pavlovic, when Dragan Spasojevic introduced him
5 to you, Dragan Spasojevic told you that it was Rade Kostic, a MUP
6 operative who had introduced Marko Pavlovic to Spasojevic. That's right,
7 isn't it?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Okay. And you said a few moments ago that when Arkan came to
10 Zvornik after a certain amount of time Marko Pavlovic popped up as well.
11 But it's correct, isn't it, that Marko Pavlovic attended a number of
12 Zvornik Crisis Staff meetings and advised you on how to organise
13 yourselves? You said that in your own trial and that's correct; right?
14 A. Yes. Marko would come and join us at our meetings from time to
15 time. He asked about the situation, what it was like, were there any
16 problems, were there any incidents, and often he would advise as to how
17 to it resolve some problem, mostly it would always be advice to proceed
18 as peacefully as possible, to resolve everything with negotiations,
19 agreement, peacefully, and then sometimes if something had to be done at
20 our detriment, it would -- it should be, it ought to be done only in a
21 peaceful way in order to resolve the situation.
22 Q. Okay. And you haven't said anything in your statement or in your
23 testimony so far about how Arkan came to arrive in Zvornik but in 2002
24 you told the OTP that Dragan Spasojevic, the Zvornik SJB commander and
25 Crisis Staff member brought Arkan to Zvornik and that Spasojevic informed
Page 40363
1 you in advance that Arkan would be coming; right?
2 A. A part of what you say is correct. Spasojevic appeared together
3 with Arkan at the door of the Crisis Staff on the 6th of April at about
4 10.00 approximately, and as soon as Arkan entered the room where the
5 Crisis Staff was located, he asked, Who is the president of the
6 Crisis Staff here? I said, That's me. He replied, Not any more. You
7 have been replaced. It's now Dragan Spasojevic. And from that point on,
8 they took over, conducted meetings, agreed on further plans, everything
9 else was something that they later planned and executed, the two of them,
10 and I had the impression that Spasojevic was not asked about anything
11 either, simply Arkan took everything in his own hands and he commanded
12 everything.
13 Q. And you told the OTP that Arkan and his men arrived in Zvornik in
14 vehicles with either federal MUP or Serbian MUP licence plates; right?
15 A. Correct.
16 Q. Now, I'm going to -- because your answer is not that clear, I'm
17 going to ask you again, Mr. Grujic: You told the OTP that
18 Dragan Spasojevic told you in advance that Arkan would be coming to
19 Zvornik. Do you accept that that -- or do you deny it?
20 A. No. He did not say that to me. It must be a bad translation, if
21 that's what it says.
22 Q. If we could go to page 68 in both languages in this document,
23 this is near the bottom of the page in the B/C/S and the middle in the
24 English, and you were asked about Arkan, "Were you advised that he was
25 coming to Zvornik?" And you say, "No, but once I was advised by Dragan
Page 40364
1 that he got in touch with Arkan and that there is a possibility of his
2 arrival in Zvornik," and if we go to the next page in the B/C/S --
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could this be read in the Serbian
4 the way it sounds and could the interpreters please translate?
5 MS. GUSTAFSON: Well, the witness can read along. This is at --
6 this.
7 JUDGE KWON: It's important to read along with the transcript.
8 Yes.
9 MS. GUSTAFSON:
10 Q. And then you were asked, "When was that?" And you answered,
11 "Just before the conference," but I understand that that should read
12 "conflict" in the B/C/S, "immediately after Bijeljina, I don't know where
13 that occurred," and you're asked, "Was it -- it was between the attack on
14 Bijeljina and his arrival in Zvornik; is that correct?" And you say,
15 "Yes, exactly." And in the next page of the English, you were asked, "Do
16 you know why he was supposed to be coming to Zvornik?" And you answer,
17 "Dragan just said -- Dragan said Arkan will be coming to Zvornik and then
18 he arrived indeed and it was like this."
19 So Mr. Grujic, you made it quite clear to the OTP in 2002 that
20 Dragan Spasojevic advised you in advance that Arkan would be coming to
21 Zvornik; right?
22 A. Not correct. I already said that he arrived suddenly at the door
23 of the room where we were.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Excellencies, it's a catastrophe
25 with the translations. They are incorrect and malicious and tendentious.
Page 40365
1 Nowhere in the English version is it indicated that anything was unclear,
2 whereas the Serbian version is full of unclear things.
3 MS. GUSTAFSON: I thought I explained that. The interview was
4 being simultaneously interpreted, and the witness's -- and Mr. Karadzic
5 is welcome to review the audio tape and he will confirm this because I
6 have -- the witness's remarks are largely or many of them are inaudible
7 but the -- the interpreter's translation of the witness's remarks are
8 much clearer, and that is why there is a difference between what is
9 transcribed in B/C/S and what is transcribed in English. There is
10 nothing malicious about this.
11 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. How is this B/C/S version prepared?
12 Is it another translation of English version or is a transcription of the
13 audio taped?
14 MS. GUSTAFSON: Exactly. It's the transcription of the B/C/S of
15 this interview which was being simultaneously -- not simultaneously
16 consecutively interpreted by an interpreter. So what was said in English
17 is in the English transcript and what was said in B/C/S is in the B/C/S.
18 JUDGE KWON: My question is: Is this B/C/S version is a
19 transcription of B/C/S words or the translation of English transcription?
20 MS. GUSTAFSON: A transcription of B/C/S words.
21 JUDGE KWON: Then which could be checked against the audio tape
22 recording.
23 MS. GUSTAFSON: They can both be checked against the audio
24 because all the English and all the B/C/S is present in the audio. It's
25 just that the B/C/S -- what -- what the witness himself said in the B/C/S
Page 40366
1 is difficult to make out in the audio in many places.
2 JUDGE KWON: Now where are we? He answered the question.
3 MS. GUSTAFSON: Yes, and I'd like to tender -- add these two
4 pages to P6414, it's 68 and 69 of the English and of the B/C/S.
5 JUDGE KWON: B/C/S page number?
6 MS. GUSTAFSON: The same, 68 and 69.
7 JUDGE KWON: Very well. We'll add them. Yes, Mr. Karadzic?
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Excellencies, this is really
9 unacceptable. We cannot -- we can hear what Mr. Grujic says in the
10 Serbian, on the tape, and we can hear how that is being translated but we
11 cannot check whether it was actually interpreted correctly. What is
12 transcribed in Serbian is something that the witness would need to read
13 and then our translators here could translate it because the sense, the
14 meaning, has been changed. We don't know who the interpreter was, why he
15 embroidered and added to the sentences. Simply in that way this cannot
16 be sneaked into the transcript.
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I would like ask the president if I
18 can explain. I had a lot of problems at the trial in Belgrade as well
19 with this statement because there are many things that are mistranslated
20 here or are not translated the way they were said. So I would like you
21 to keep this in mind.
22 JUDGE KWON: We heard the explanation from Ms. Gustafson and let
23 us proceed on that basis, and if you have some specific problem you can
24 raise it. There are many ways for you to deal with it, but in the
25 meantime, let us proceed. Yes, Ms. Gustafson.
Page 40367
1 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.
2 JUDGE KWON: Please make sure that you show the relevant B/C/S
3 page to the witness as well as to the interpreters. Yes.
4 MS. GUSTAFSON:
5 Q. Mr. Grujic I would like to turn to another topic now. At
6 paragraph 18 of your statement, you state that the SDS leadership issued
7 instructions, and based on those instructions you formed an SDS
8 Crisis Staff on the 22nd of December, 1991. Those instructions you refer
9 to, those are the Variant A and B instructions; right?
10 A. Yes. Sometime in late December, I received a notification from
11 the SDS HQ which I considered to be some kind of instruction that could
12 possibly serve in our conditions, so that we could use some of that also
13 and do something on the basis of that because we were not in a better
14 situation to do something better. So we accepted that, to a degree we
15 acted upon some of the instructions, some of the parts, and to another
16 extent in keeping with the situation in our municipality, we adapted and
17 behaved the way we had to behave.
18 Q. When you testified in your own case, you stated that you
19 considered the Variant A and B instructions to have emanated directly
20 from Dr. Karadzic and that were you obliged to implement them. That's
21 right, isn't it?
22 A. I said to an extent, only partially, because we used what we
23 could adapt in our particular conditions.
24 MS GUSTAFSON: If I could have 65 --
25 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Robinson, we are hearing many times that
Page 40368
1 Mr. Grujic was tried and testified. Does his statement contain some
2 introductory part about his trial? Does it mention about it?
3 MR. ROBINSON: I don't know, Mr. President. I have to look at
4 that more careful.
5 JUDGE KWON: Otherwise probably you may let us know.
6 MS. GUSTAFSON: No, the statement doesn't mention it. I intend
7 to get into it in my cross-examination. If we could have 65 ter 24648,
8 which is Mr. Grujic's testimony in his own trial. And I'd like in
9 particular page 45 of the English and page 32 of the B/C/S. And it's at
10 the very bottom of the page in the B/C/S, the very last thing that you're
11 recorded as saying. It's also at the bottom in the English. If we could
12 scroll to the very bottom in the B/C/S, please, yes.
13 Q. And it says -- you say:
14 "On the 20-something December we also received this instruction,
15 Variants A and B. If you've read that, this was sometime around the
16 20th, so in five, six days' time we proceeded according to that
17 instruction and we formed the Serb Municipality of Zvornik."
18 If we could turn the page in the B/C/S:
19 "That is to say we elected a president, elected all the organs,
20 adopted enactments of the Serb Municipality of Zvornik which was tasked
21 with being in readiness in case it came to clashes, in case it came to
22 dissent, so that we have our own organs, that we pulled out to the Serb
23 territory and that we function independently there, so as to organise our
24 Serb people as best as possible and in order to protect it as best as
25 possible."
Page 40369
1 Then this is on the next page in the English, I'm sorry, and the
2 judge asked you:
3 "What function were you given in this division of power?"
4 And you ask [sic]:
5 "According to the instruction."
6 And the judge says:
7 "According to instruction A and B."
8 And you answer:
9 "Radovan wrote that the president of the municipal board was the
10 president of the Crisis Staff too. You could read this there."
11 I'd like to show you another passage where you discuss these
12 instructions at page 161 of the English and 108 of the B/C/S.
13 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Gustafson, why don't you break down your
14 question? If you like, the witness to answer simply.
15 MS. GUSTAFSON: It's quite a simple question. It's just that he
16 said -- he made a few different comments about it. My question at the
17 end of showing him what he said before is quite straightforward. I'm --
18 I can try to break it up if you prefer.
19 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
20 MS. GUSTAFSON:
21 Q. Mr. Grujic, that's what you said in your trial, right, that you
22 considered these instructions to have emanated directly from
23 Radovan Karadzic's pen?
24 A. Is that your question?
25 Q. Yes, it is.
Page 40370
1 A. This came from the SDS HQ which also had its own professional
2 services that drafted the materials. I don't know whether Radovan is
3 directly involved in that or not. Whether he knew about it or not is
4 something that I really could not know having been in Zvornik but
5 I received it from the central, and I believed that it should have been
6 applied depending on the situation. Our municipality had a lot of
7 Serbian population and there was a need because we could see war was
8 getting prepared so we made a decision, we formed the organs, so that in
9 case a conflict broke out, it would make it possible for us to initiate
10 those organs immediately in order to prevent anarchy.
11 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: The municipality had
12 a Serbian minority.
13 MS. GUSTAFSON:
14 Q. Thank you, Mr. Grujic. I cut you off because you were moving
15 away from my specific question. If we could go to page 161 of the
16 English and 108 of the B/C/S. And here, in the middle of both pages
17 in -- you give a relatively long answer and about halfway through that
18 answer, you say, they suggested at meeting of the Main Board which I was
19 not a member of, Jovo Mijatovic was a member of that Main Board, they
20 suggested creating an instruction for operating in extraordinary
21 circumstances if such extraordinary circumstances should arise, you see.
22 And then Radovan, and I don't know who, their expert team wrote an
23 instruction saying this is how to act in municipalities with Serbian
24 majority and this is how to act in municipalities with a Serbian
25 minority.
Page 40371
1 Now, you just said I don't know whether Radovan was directly
2 involved in that or not but this is another reflection from your prior
3 testimony that you considered Variant A and B instructions to have come
4 directly from Radovan Karadzic; right?
5 A. That is not correct.
6 Q. If we could go to page 162 and the next page in English and the
7 next page in the B/C/S? And this is near the top in the English and at
8 the very top in the B/C/S, you say:
9 "Under the Variant B, where the Serbs were in minority, we were
10 obliged to form a Crisis Staff, elect a parallel Serbian assembly which
11 would come out to the Serbian territory and immediately form a government
12 the moment the conflict breaks out," et cetera.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could the "i tako dalje," "and so
14 on and so forth," be also read out?
15 MS. GUSTAFSON:
16 Q. Mr. Grujic, this passage reflects your view that the Variant A
17 and B instructions were mandatory, doesn't it?
18 A. I already explained that. I considered this as a principled
19 direction or instruction that ought to have been applied to the extent
20 that it applied to the given situation in the municipality. All the
21 municipalities had a different situation, municipalities with a majority
22 Serb population did not have to do anything. Municipalities that were
23 half and half had a different situation, and the municipalities with
24 smaller quantity of Serbian citizens had a different way and different
25 conditions and a different situation, and they had to act according to
Page 40372
1 the conditions that prevailed and to the situation that prevailed.
2 MS. GUSTAFSON: I tender these passages. It was page 45, 46, 161
3 and 162 of the English and 32 and 33, 108 and 109 of the B/C/S.
4 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we'll receive them. Shall we assign the number
5 for that?
6 THE REGISTRAR: Number would be P6415, Your Honours.
7 JUDGE KWON: Shall we take a break if it is convenient,
8 Ms. Gustafson.
9 MS. GUSTAFSON: It is. Thank you. I didn't notice the time.
10 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we'll resume at three past 11.00.
11 --- Recess taken at 10.33 a.m.
12 --- On resuming at 11.06 a.m.
13 JUDGE KWON: Please continue, Ms. Gustafson.
14 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you, Your Honour.
15 Q. Mr. Grujic in your statement at paragraph 18 you said after you
16 received the Variant and A and B instructions that the republican organs
17 "did not control us or ask about its implementation." But you told the
18 OTP in the 2002 that the Crisis Staff in Zvornik would report back to the
19 republic level and receive and implement additional republic-level
20 instructions. That's the truth, isn't it?
21 A. In Zvornik, we heard Deputy Jovo Mijatovic who was the president
22 of the Executive Board of the party who attended our meetings and he was
23 our main source of information, and in turn, we tasked him with conveying
24 all our conclusions and decisions from our meetings to the appropriate
25 levels.
Page 40373
1 Q. Similarly, he would convey instructions from the republic level
2 to the Zvornik Crisis Staff for implementation; right?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And I'd like to ask you about one republic level instruction that
5 you personally received just before the outbreak of the conflict, if we
6 could go to 65 ter 25264, page 165 of the English and page 79, the B/C/S,
7 and this relates to your claim at paragraph 44 of your statement that in
8 all your direct contacts with Dr. Karadzic, he always requested that you
9 hold talks and seek agreement for a peaceful solution.
10 And here you told the investigators: So I remember a meeting
11 that was held in Pale immediately prior to the eruption of the conflict
12 when Radovan invited presidents of the municipalities, municipal boards,
13 different MPs, also members of the executive boards, et cetera. It was a
14 very extended meeting. To the best of my recollection it was held
15 sometime after the 20th of March, before the assembly. And the usual
16 agenda was discussed towards the end of the meeting, toward midnight.
17 Radovan told us, "Gentlemen, the conflict will probably erupt." And that
18 it would be very soon. He told us that it was up to us that were present
19 there to accept the conflict and that the first task, in case of the
20 conflict, was to protect our people, whereas the second task was to
21 create Serbian territories where Serbs were in majority, to create some
22 kind of cantons or areas with Serb population in majority. Then Radovan
23 told us when we did our best to complete these tasks, when we protected
24 our people and protected our territories, we had to be ready to be
25 actually exposed to a very ungrateful attitude by our own people and they
Page 40374
1 might spit at us, meaning they will be very ungrateful for what we did
2 for them. Who was capable of doing this and who was ready for such
3 sequence of events should stay here. Whoever is not ready to accept it
4 should leave right now. Then I remember the three people left, they
5 said, "We are unwilling to accept this kind of development." Everybody
6 else remained, and then he took a look at us and asked us if we are aware
7 of what we had to do and we are aware that we would be betrayed by our
8 own people and they would be unpleased by what we did for them.
9 Now, this is true, isn't it, Mr. Grujic? You along with a large
10 group of SDS officials attended this meeting sometime in late March prior
11 to an assembly session and received these instructions from Dr. Karadzic?
12 A. This is a lot to do with poor translation. However, this is
13 basically what I said, that is that President Karadzic, and he unlined it
14 many times, that in the municipalities that the Serbs have power and are
15 in majority, all other ethnic communities should even enjoy an
16 advantageous position and not be oppressed in any way. We have to be
17 different, we should even try to ingratiate ourselves to other
18 nationalities, we had to prove that we were good people and that we are
19 well-wishers and that we want to do good for them. Since Dr. Karadzic,
20 our president, is a psychologist, he evaluated the situation properly and
21 he told us the right thing, which is that whatever and however much our
22 people do, we cannot satisfy everybody because it is our common practice
23 to criticise every previous leadership and that happened on many
24 occasions.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Transcript, the interpretation is
Page 40375
1 completely different. Line 2 on page 40, I'm going to read what I said.
2 It says, "Do you know what I told you?" In other words, you have to do
3 your best and your people will eventually -- I didn't ask you what you
4 had to do but what I told you. Line 2 was wrongly interpreted. No, I'm
5 sorry, wrongly recorded.
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I already said that there is
7 mistranslation. Quite a lot of it.
8 MS. GUSTAFSON:
9 Q. Okay, Mr. Grujic you had an opportunity to read along what you
10 actually said during your interview in the B/C/S. Can you point to any
11 specific passage that you claim was mistranslated?
12 A. In the part of my statement given to the OTP interrogators or,
13 rather in the whole of it, there was so many mistranslations that it was
14 nearly unusable and futile and it went to such an extent that I suspect
15 it to be malevolent. I don't know if it was a bad translator who didn't
16 know his or her job or whether it was done intentionally.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] If I may, this same sentence was
18 erroneously translated in the English version, Ms. Gustafson read it
19 correctly but the translation is wrong.
20 MS. GUSTAFSON: I'm asking the witness about this very topic so
21 I'd like to ask the accused not to intervene on this at the moment.
22 Q. Mr. Grujic, do you understand that the text on the left-hand side
23 of your screen is a transcription of your words in your language during
24 the OTP interview? Do you understand that?
25 A. Look, there are places where it says, unintelligible which means
Page 40376
1 that was a poor recording. Lots of things have been either omitted or
2 badly translated.
3 Q. Or were simply inaudible on the audio tape; right?
4 MR. ROBINSON: Objection, how would he know that? He hasn't
5 listened to the audio tape.
6 MS. GUSTAFSON: How would he know that things have been either
7 omitted or badly translated either, I would say.
8 JUDGE KWON: But the B/C/S version, which we see on the left
9 side, is not a translation. Is it direct transcription from the audio
10 recording as far as it is audible?
11 MS. GUSTAFSON: That's exactly correct.
12 JUDGE KWON: There are many reasons for not being able to hear
13 the part, overlapping or whatever.
14 MS. GUSTAFSON: Yes, Your Honour, and I think --
15 JUDGE KWON: Shall we continue?
16 MS. GUSTAFSON: Yes.
17 Q. Mr. Grujic, do you recall thanking the OTP at the end of this
18 interview for "fair treatment, cultured conversation, and good
19 co-operation? Do you recall that?
20 A. Yes, I do, but that was just a display of courtesy on my part
21 because the gentlemen were at times quite rude to me, not to say brazen,
22 which made me at one point bang my fist on the table and say, I'm not
23 going to do this any longer, you should behave as human beings otherwise
24 I'm suspending the -- their boss intervened, he changed the collocutor,
25 and the conversation continued in a different tone.
Page 40377
1 Q. Thank you.
2 MS. GUSTAFSON: I tender these pages, pages 165 of the English
3 and page 79 of the B/C/S. I'd like to add them to P6414, please.
4 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we'll add them to P6414.
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I kindly ask for a revision of the
6 translation to be done.
7 JUDGE KWON: I would like you to take the steps for the revision
8 of the translation in writing.
9 MS. GUSTAFSON:
10 Q. Mr. Grujic, in your statement you make a number of assertions
11 about alleged aggressive and threatening activities carried out by the
12 Muslim side in the period leading up to the takeover on the 9th of April.
13 For example, at paragraph 13 you talk about the elderly Serbs in Zvornik
14 town being attacked, you talk about Muslims opening fire on Serbian
15 villages in paragraph 14, and then at paragraph 29 you say that when the
16 Muslims blocked the town on the 6th of April they searched Serb homes and
17 physically abused Serbs in the town, and that people were fleeing
18 Zvornik, Serbs were fleeing Zvornik to escape this mistreatment. But
19 when you testified in your own trial, you were asked if there was any
20 shooting, arrest, torture and exile of the Serbs before Arkan proclaimed
21 the liberation of Zvornik and you said there were no tortures or exiles,
22 only the atmosphere of -- was such that people were afraid and ran away
23 and that atmosphere was arming and training activities by the Muslims.
24 And that's correct, isn't it? It was the arming and training activities
25 by the Muslim side that caused the Serbs to be afraid; right?
Page 40378
1 A. Not only training. There was shooting as well, over the Serb
2 villages. So let me say it's -- it instilled fear in the Serbian
3 villagers, even my house was targeted, it's located in a valley and one
4 evening somebody fired a burst of fire with flares and I immediately
5 called Asim Jusubasic, the president of the SDA, and he said, I'm going
6 to check this and I'll get back to you, and, indeed, some ten minutes
7 later he called me back and said it is true but this will not repeat
8 again. So not only that the villages were targeted, specific leaders
9 were targeted as well, in order to slow down their activities and their
10 preparations for the defence of their people.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Microphone not activated]
12 THE INTERPRETER: Could Mr. Karadzic please repeat what he said?
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The LiveNote.
14 JUDGE KWON: Yes, personal computer. LiveNote in personal
15 computer does not work. Probably we need to restart but we can follow
16 from the public monitor.
17 MS. GUSTAFSON:
18 Q. Mr. Grujic in your statement you said that the Zvornik
19 Crisis Staff only became operational on the 6th of April, 1992. The
20 Trial Chamber has received in evidence an order you issued as
21 Crisis Staff commander on the 5th of April ordering a trial mobilisation
22 of all TO units in the Serbian Municipality of Zvornik. That's P5505.
23 And indeed you testified in your own case that this order was carried
24 out, a count of manpower was taken and as a result of that count, you had
25 4.000 to 5.000 soldiers; that's right, isn't it?
Page 40379
1 A. Madam Prosecutor, you haven't read this order to the end. That
2 was not a mobilisation order. It was a trial mobilisation order because
3 in those days, after Mustafic distributed weapons one evening to the
4 worst criminals and allowed them to walk like that around the town, which
5 caused the Serbian people to become frightened and to flee to Serbia
6 en masse together with their women and children, seeking shelter in
7 Serbia. But it's not only the Serbs, the Muslims as well, and a large
8 number of them fled and crossed over to Serbia which means that there was
9 an overwhelming fear and the sense of uncertainty and there were rumours
10 that a lot of able bodied Serbs had also fled to Serbia and in order for
11 me to check that without waiting for the conflict to erupt, which seemed
12 inevitable, I had to issue an order on trial mobilisation in order to
13 find out the level of manpower with whom I'm going to face the enemy and
14 defend the Serbian villages and Serbian people and for that reason
15 I issued such an order without waiting for a decision of the
16 Crisis Staff. I did it on my own.
17 Q. And --
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Transcript, please.
19 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Page 44, line 22, the witness said
21 the night before that the weapons were distributed, "not one evening,"
22 but the night before the event.
23 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
24 MS. GUSTAFSON:
25 Q. And, Mr. Grujic, that order was implemented, a count was taken,
Page 40380
1 and as a result you had 4.000 to 5.000 soldiers. You became aware of
2 that fact; right?
3 A. After I -- visiting all the villages and after obtaining some
4 information, I established that only a few people fled, so the
5 information that many people had fled to Serbia was not correct. All of
6 them or nearly all of them remained to defend their family homes.
7 Q. And that amounted to 4.000 to 5.000 soldiers, didn't it?
8 A. I cannot say precisely because I don't know what I said at the
9 time.
10 Q. Well, let me remind you. If we could have P -- sorry,
11 65 ter 24648. If we could have page 52 in the English and page 37 in the
12 B/C/S. This is right around the middle of the page in the B/C/S, it's
13 towards the bottom in the English, and you're asked when the decision on
14 mobilisation was taken and you say the decision on mobilisation was the
15 first test, the decision was taken on the 5th of April. And if we could
16 go to the next page in the English, and towards the bottom of the page in
17 the B/C/S, this is at the middle of the English, you were asked how many
18 men fit for military service were there? Did you take a count? And you
19 answered there were 90 per cent of all those who were otherwise then in
20 the municipality, and you were asked how many that was in terms of
21 numbers, and you said you didn't know precisely and you said once we
22 organised ourselves we had approximately 4.000 to 5.000 soldiers. And
23 the judge says when was this when you organised yourselves fully, was
24 that on the 8th of April or when? And then you answered that was
25 approximately on the 5th when we called the troop review on the 6th.
Page 40381
1 Does that remind you, Mr. Grujic, that when you [indiscernible] this
2 trial mobilisation, you became aware that you had 4.000 to 5.000 soldiers
3 in the municipality? In the TO, I should say?
4 A. There is no dispute about that but I cannot guarantee the number.
5 I may have said exactly that figure.
6 Q. Thank you, if I could add these pages to P6415, please?
7 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
8 MS. GUSTAFSON:
9 Q. Now, Mr. Grujic, you also testified in your own case that at the
10 beginning of April, a separate Serbian MUP in Zvornik was established in
11 Karakaj in the Alhos building pursuant to Momcilo Mandic's dispatch
12 ordering the Serb police to separate. That's correct, isn't it?
13 A. I wasn't aware of the dispatch. We made our own agreement that
14 our policemen must not remain in the station that was manned majority by
15 the Muslims because even before that they had been prohibited from
16 visiting and patrolling the Muslim villages and that was done by the then
17 chief, and of course we agreed as a Crisis Staff that we would take with
18 us and pull out all the Serbian organs that had been set up pursuant to
19 an assembly decision.
20 MS. GUSTAFSON: If we could go to page 73 of the English and page
21 50 of the B/C/S.
22 JUDGE KWON: Shall we take a short break in light of the
23 technical difficulties?
24 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]
25 JUDGE KWON: The Chamber will take a ten-minute break.
Page 40382
1 --- Break taken at 11.31 a.m.
2 --- On resuming at 11.43 a.m.
3 JUDGE KWON: Please continue, Ms. Gustafson.
4 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.
5 Q. Mr. Grujic, you just finished testifying that you weren't aware
6 of Momcilo Mandic's dispatch ordering the Serb police to separate and I'd
7 like to direct your attention to the very bottom of this page of your
8 previous testimony, and this is also towards the bottom in the B/C/S,
9 where you say, towards the end of a rather long answer:
10 "The only thing that was established immediately at the
11 beginning, I know, was the Ministry of the Interior. And it started
12 operating immediately already on 4 April, 3 April, pardon me, the deputy
13 minister sent a dispatch to the SUP for the Serb police to separate
14 from --"
15 And the Presiding Judge interrupts you and says:
16 "Was that where when they well to Alhos there to Karakaj?"
17 And you said:
18 "Yes, yes."
19 And the judge asked:
20 "The MUP?"
21 And you said:
22 "Yes."
23 So contrary to what you said a moment ago, you were not only
24 aware of Momcilo Mandic's dispatch but testified that that is what caused
25 the police to separate and move to Alhos; right?
Page 40383
1 A. No. I did not know about this dispatch. Quite accidentally, we
2 separated it after what happened in Zvornik, but later on I found out
3 that there was a dispatch but when we carried out the separation I did
4 not know that it existed. The dispatch arrived on the 4th and we learned
5 only one or two days later so we did not know on the 4th, we found out
6 only on the 5th or 6th, actually, on the 6th.
7 Q. Well, this testimony indicates that what you found out later on
8 was that the Zvornik Serbian MUP separated pursuant to Momcilo Mandic's
9 dispatch. That's what you learned later; right?
10 A. We learned later that there was a dispatch too, but, yes, and we
11 carried out the separation without knowing about this.
12 MS. GUSTAFSON: I tender this page. I'd like to add it to P6415,
13 please.
14 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
15 MS. GUSTAFSON:
16 Q. Now, Mr. Grujic, at paragraph 55 of your statement, you said that
17 you did not invite any paramilitary forces to Zvornik. But whether or
18 not you specifically invited a specific group or groups to Zvornik, what
19 is true is that you, and by you I mean the municipal authorities,
20 announced over the radio that you needed men and then the volunteers
21 arrived, they reported to the TO headquarters, and from there they were
22 assigned, and that's what you said in your trial, and that's correct,
23 right?
24 A. After the de-blockade of Zvornik, we announced, and said that
25 those who wanted to help us should come and they would be welcome.
Page 40384
1 However, before the de-blockade, no one had any contact with volunteers
2 and no one called anyone. Arkan came at his own initiative together with
3 Mr. Spasojevic to the Crisis Staff, I don't know now whether someone told
4 Spasojevic, Go and call Arkan, or whether Arkan came on his own and
5 reported directors of the police. I wouldn't want to comment on that.
6 Q. Okay. And I'd like to read a few comment you made in your own
7 trial about your attitude towards the arrival of these groups. So you
8 testified that you [indiscernible] Zuca on the 8th of April in Karakaj
9 headquarters and you did not ask who he was because "why would I ask?
10 Whoever comes comes voluntarily. Trust me, people, that person is
11 welcome." That's page 76. You were asked whether you inquired where the
12 volunteers were from and you said, "Well, what would I be inquiring for?
13 Any volunteer's arrival was good for us." And you were asked whether you
14 were interested in where they came from, you said, "No I was not. I saw
15 a Serb man who had come to help the Serb people. That was it, that was
16 enough for me." That's page 92.
17 Do those statements accurately reflect your attitude towards the
18 arrival of the paramilitary units to Zvornik?
19 A. We were a municipality with a minority Serb population. That is
20 to say that we were under threat in terms of the military power that the
21 opponents had and that we had, and every person who came to help us was
22 welcome. We were really happy to see everyone who came. And I thank on
23 this day as well those who were honourable and honest and who came to
24 help us. It is true that I did not ask who you were and where you came
25 from, I just said welcome. And over there you should go to the
Page 40385
1 headquarters, to the command, and you should be deployed and go and
2 protect our people. That was our position.
3 Q. Now, in your statement, you claim you had no influence on the
4 paramilitary groups, that you were at the mercy of these groups and that
5 your lives were endangered; for example, at paragraphs 37 and 38. But
6 you appear to nevertheless acknowledge that the municipal authorities
7 were paying the paramilitaries in paragraph 51. You state that Pavlovic,
8 i.e. Popovic, would send us lists for the payment of wages to all the
9 soldiers and paramilitaries as well, these lists were signed by Pavlovic,
10 and we did not dare enter into any more detailed analysis of the people
11 on this list for the reasons already stated.
12 So is it your position that you were suspicious of the names that
13 appeared on Marko Pavlovic's lists but you were too terrified of
14 paramilitaries to ask any questions about them? Is that a correct
15 understanding of your evidence?
16 A. First of all, real volunteers reported to the TO staff and then
17 they were deployed. Marko included them among the local fighters in
18 terms of fighting and also in terms of the payroll. And so we did not
19 know who was a local person and who came as a volunteer. Do you
20 understand? It was not written anywhere who was a volunteer and who
21 wasn't a volunteer. Marko signed all the payrolls so when the commander
22 would sign these lists, that was when these payments would be made, or
23 rather, he would send his man to the cashier at the Municipal Assembly
24 and he'd get enough money for a certain number of soldiers per month.
25 And it varied. So we did not have any need to -- and to tell you the
Page 40386
1 truth we didn't dare to single anyone out, even if -- well, no chance,
2 because you -- your head would fly. These were people who were
3 well-versed in warfare. Also, many of them were drunkards, carousers.
4 These were people who did not think much but who were trigger-happy.
5 I didn't ask -- I mean, they took me out for an execution three times,
6 I think. Once they kept me and the entire staff together for hours --
7 Q. You're starting to repeat things that are in your statement. I
8 just want to make this clear: Is it your evidence that you were too
9 terrified of the paramilitaries to ask any questions about who appeared
10 on these payroll lists? Is that your evidence?
11 A. That is one of the reasons.
12 Q. Okay. I'd like to go to page 159 of the English and page 106 of
13 the B/C/S. I'd like to remind you of what you said before on this topic.
14 So this is at the top of the page in the English and right at the bottom
15 of the page in the B/C/S. And you're asked by the Presiding Judge:
16 "Did you discuss those payments with Branko Popovic?"
17 And you said:
18 "No."
19 "For the army for the territorials for the volunteers who had
20 subordinated? And you said:
21 "No, no simply he would present it at the end of a meeting at the
22 meeting."
23 And you're asked:
24 "What would he say in that regard?"
25 And if we turn the page in the B/C/S, you say:
Page 40387
1 "I have this and that many soldiers on the list and I'm asking
2 for this and that many salaries, that is social benefits, so to speak.
3 These were not salaries, they were not taxed or anything, these were
4 simply paid out to people in cash to get through that period until life
5 goes back to normal."
6 And then a few lines down, you're asked:
7 "One TO and everyone under it?"
8 And you say:
9 "Those that he represented and to me he was the one making the
10 requests, the one distributing, and so on. I had full trust in him. "
11 And the judge says:
12 "All right."
13 And then another judge intervenes and he says, this is
14 Judge Krstajic:
15 "Mr. Grujic, now I have to ask you a question, you spoke about
16 the problems you were having with this unit, the city was having with
17 this unit, that you yourself were having, and also this government with
18 the members of that unit, for example, you were held there for five hours
19 locked up, and you were almost liquidated?"
20 And you say:
21 "Yes."
22 And then the judge asks:
23 "Then we have to ask you, why did you authorise the payment? Why
24 did you authorise paying out salaries to the members of this unit," and
25 if you turn the page in the English, "and this commander for the month of
Page 40388
1 May when they nearly liquidated you? When you weren't even asking for
2 Karadzic's intervention?"
3 And you said:
4 "As I said, for me, this unit did not exist as a separate unit,
5 for me there was the Territorial Defence as a Territorial Defence."
6 And the judge asks:
7 "Within that frame Pavlovic would submit requests to you even for
8 that unit?"
9 And you say:
10 "I have to be honest again, there was this economy secretary of
11 ours who had a very close relation was this unit. You see, there is even
12 a possibility that he abused his position and that perhaps he made the
13 payment without the government's knowledge" --
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Objection, please. Objection,
15 please.
16 JUDGE KWON: What is the objection?
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The objection is that it is the
18 Prosecutor who is interpreting the words of this witness. They are not
19 being quoted directly. They are being interpreted in a very long
20 question, then you said this and then you said that.
21 JUDGE KWON: The objection is overruled. She's relying on the
22 transcript from a trial in Belgrade. Please carry on.
23 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you, Your Honour.
24 Q. And you say about --
25 THE INTERPRETER: Would the counsel please provide a reference
Page 40389
1 for the interpreters?
2 MS. GUSTAFSON: This is towards the bottom of the page in the
3 B/C/S about two-thirds of the way down. It's Branko Grujic's longer
4 answer towards the bottom of the page, about two-thirds of the way down.
5 You're speaking about this --
6 JUDGE KWON: Make sure whether we are on the correct page.
7 MS. GUSTAFSON: I did check them all. I believe it's correct.
8 If it's page 107 of the B/C/S then I'm quite confident.
9 JUDGE KWON: Page 32 in hard copy?
10 MS. GUSTAFSON: Sorry, I don't understand.
11 JUDGE KWON: I'm not sure whether this is -- we could not know
12 the page number.
13 MS. GUSTAFSON: No, it's the e-court page because there are --
14 it's -- yeah -- I was just saying that for the Registrar's -- to confirm
15 with the Registrar.
16 Q. And you say there is even a possibility that he --
17 JUDGE KWON: Check with the witness he has the correct passage,
18 please.
19 MS. GUSTAFSON:
20 Q. Do you see where you're speaking here, Mr. Grujic? Are you able
21 to follow?
22 A. I can see it, and I am aware of all of this.
23 Q. Okay. And I can see it myself, in fact, because in the next line
24 the judge refers to the number 10.000 which I can see in the Cyrillic.
25 So you're referring to this economy secretary and you say there is even a
Page 40390
1 possibility that he abused his position and that perhaps he made the
2 payment without the government's knowledge or even without the command's
3 knowledge, I am saying I am not certain that he paid them but there is a
4 great possibility that he did. Now, Mr. Grujic, in your own case, one of
5 the Judges asked you directly why you were paying this unit that you
6 claimed had almost liquidated you, you said nothing about having
7 suspicions about who was on the list but being too afraid to question
8 them, to the contrary you simply responded this unit did not exist as a
9 separate unit. For me there was a Territorial Defence as a
10 Territorial Defence. You also said you had "full trust in Marko Pavlovic
11 in this regard" and you added that a member of your government had a
12 particularly close relationship with this unit. So your evidence now
13 about your government paying these units because they were too terrified
14 to ask any questions is an invention designed to distance yourself and
15 your government at the time from these paramilitaries. That's correct,
16 isn't it?
17 A. All of that is correct, that even if we wanted to, we couldn't
18 let them go because I told you a moment ago what kind of people these
19 were and what kind of unit this was and Marko, believe me, always said
20 that they were under his control and that he would take care of them and
21 that he would disband them when he felt that they were not under his
22 control. But he didn't do that for a long time. Now, whether he dared
23 or did not dare, I told you a moment ago he was also once held at
24 gunpoint by them, as I was and the entire staff, so now the question is
25 whether Marko dared intervene because he was trying to preserve his own
Page 40391
1 life too.
2 MS. GUSTAFSON: I tender these payments, I'd like to add them to
3 P6415.
4 JUDGE KWON: Yes, they will be added.
5 MS. GUSTAFSON:
6 Q. And, Mr. Grujic, it's true, isn't it, that this economy secretary
7 you referred to and that's Stevo Radic, was particularly close to Zuca
8 and his unit; that's right, isn't it?
9 A. At my trial, a document was shown about the payment of some money
10 to Zuca's unit that had not been signed by Marko Pavlovic and that's when
11 I had my doubts because I did not know this document, I was suspicious in
12 terms of Stevo paying that out without me knowing about it or Marko
13 knowing about it because he often had very close contacts with them.
14 Q. Right. And you said in your own trial that Zuco was often in
15 Stevo Radic's office visiting had him; that's right, isn't it?
16 A. That's correct.
17 Q. At paragraph 42 of your statement you said that after the
18 paramilitaries were arrested:
19 "Proceedings against all of the RSD's were held before the
20 relevant courts in Republika Srpska and Serbia. The documents support
21 this."
22 Now, the Chamber has received a great deal of evidence that the
23 paramilitaries who were arrested at the end of July were released soon
24 after that. And in fact that's what you said to the OTP in 2002, that
25 they only spent a few days in Bijeljina in prison before being released.
Page 40392
1 That's right, isn't it?
2 A. That happened in Bijeljina. That's indeed the way it is, and
3 believe me, I myself was terrified of this situation and this kind of
4 attitude towards people who disturbed the law and order and all the laws
5 of this earth. I was really taken by surprise and I thought that serious
6 proceedings should be initiated against them but that did not happen.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Objection.
8 JUDGE KWON: Yes?
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Ms. Gustafson said were released
10 soon after that. And what the witness heard was, "freed." And I would
11 prefer to have it interpreted as "released from detention."
12 JUDGE KWON: I'm sorry, I don't follow. She said they were
13 released.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] But the witness received an
15 interpretation stating that they were "freed," "oslobodjen," which is
16 different [In English] "acquitted."
17 MS. GUSTAFSON: I think the witness's answer is clear
18 nevertheless.
19 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
20 MS. GUSTAFSON:
21 Q. Now, Mr. Grujic at paragraph 71 you assert that the mosque in
22 Zvornik were damaged by the paramilitaries, but in 2002 you told the OTP
23 that the mosques in Zvornik were destroyed by the military unit in
24 Zvornik because they were the ones in possession of the explosives and
25 other materials necessary to carry this out. That's true, isn't it?
Page 40393
1 A. No one else could have except for those who had the explosives
2 and it was the volunteers and the regular army who had explosives. Now
3 which one did this I cannot --
4 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: We did not understand the
5 end of the sentence.
6 MS. GUSTAFSON:
7 Q. Can you repeat what you said after, "Now which one did this, I
8 cannot," because the interpreters didn't catch the end of your sentence.
9 A. I cannot do any kind of bidding here. I cannot guess whether it
10 was the volunteers or the regular army because they were all there and
11 they all had explosives.
12 Q. Okay. For my next question, I'd like to move into private
13 session, please.
14 JUDGE KWON: Yes, could the Chamber move into private session
15 briefly?
16 [Private session]
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 40394
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Pages 40394-40399 redacted. Private session.
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 40400
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 [Open session]
19 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we are now in open session.
20 MS. GUSTAFSON:
21 Q. Thank you, Mr. Grujic, you just referred to Arkan and being an
22 eyewitness, and you do make a number of assertions about what happened
23 during the takeover of Zvornik led by Arkan on the 9th of April. But
24 it's right, isn't it, that you didn't participate in the actual takeover
25 operation and you were in Mali Zvornik on the other side of the
Page 40401
1 Drina River while it was ongoing; right?
2 A. That is correct.
3 Q. And at paragraph 60 of your statement you were shown adjudicated
4 fact 2758 which states that on the 9th of April, 1992, you interrogated
5 and beat an individual who was a protected witness in the Krajisnik case,
6 and the evidence is that that incident took place in the Alhos building
7 sometime later in the day on the 9th of April, 1992. And that's P96,
8 pages 16 and 17, and you state in your statement that because Arkan had
9 fired you, you could not access the prisoners, in response to this
10 adjudicated fact. But it's true that you were in the Alhos building on
11 the afternoon of the 9th of April after the takeover was complete, isn't
12 it?
13 A. That is not correct. I was not there until towards evening.
14 I got there towards evening. And everything that is stated there is a
15 notorious lie. None of that is true.
16 Q. If we could go to 65 ter 24648, pages 57 of the English and 40 of
17 the B/C/S. And this is near the bottom of the page in both languages.
18 Roughly ten lines up from the bottom in the B/C/S, the judge asks you:
19 "Did you go to Alhos on the 9th?"
20 And you said:
21 "Periodically, later, I went in the afternoon when it quieted
22 down."
23 The judge says:
24 "Why?"
25 And you say:
Page 40402
1 "When Radio Zvornik announced that Zvornik was free, and so
2 forth. I went then to Alhos to see what had happened and what the
3 situation was like."
4 If we go to the next page in the B/C/S, you say -- and in
5 English:
6 "And they told me that Arkan's units had routed the Green Berets
7 and that Patriotic League and that they had taken over power in Zvornik."
8 Now, that's true, what you told the Trial Chamber in your own
9 case, you went to Alhos in the afternoon of the 9th of April; right?
10 A. Well, I just told you that it was towards evening. Late
11 afternoon, towards evening, I went for a couple of minutes to see what
12 the situation was, I informed myself a little bit, and then I came back.
13 I didn't dare allow Arkan to find me there.
14 Q. Well, if we could go to the next page in the English, and this is
15 about the middle of the page in the B/C/S, the Presiding Judge asks you,
16 and this is at the top in the English:
17 "And when was then Zvornik taken, as you put it? When was this?"
18 And you say:
19 "Well, that didn't last long, it lasted maybe a few hours.
20 Already in the morning. Before at around noon, Radio Zvornik made a
21 broadcast and a Serb presenter spoke, and so on."
22 And you're asked:
23 "And what do they say?"
24 And you answer:
25 "They say that Zvornik is free and that the people should return
Page 40403
1 to their homes, and so on."
2 That's correct, isn't it, that the announcement on Radio Zvornik
3 that the takeover was over and --
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. -- that was around noon. You can confirm that?
6 A. That's when the Zvornik blockade was lifted by the Serbian army,
7 when the Green Berets and the Patriotic League left the town.
8 MS. GUSTAFSON: I'm about to move to another topic so if this is
9 a convenient time to take the break, it's certainly convenient for me.
10 JUDGE KWON: Yes. We will resume at quarter past 1.00.
11 --- Recess taken at 12.30 p.m.
12 --- On resuming at 1.18 p.m.
13 JUDGE KWON: Yes, please continue, Ms. Gustafson.
14 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you, Your Honour.
15 Q. Mr. Grujic, I'd like to ask you now about the Muslims from
16 Kozluk. At paragraph 69 of your statement you were presented with
17 adjudicated fact 2774, which states among other things that you,
18 Marko Pavlovic and Jovo Mijatovic went to Kozluk on the
19 26th of June, 1992, and informed the Muslims that they had an hour to
20 leave or they would be killed. And you give a different version of
21 events in your statement, and in your statement you also claim that the
22 Muslims of Kozluk left voluntarily. That's at paragraph 47. We've
23 referred throughout the examination to your trial, the trial against you
24 and Mr. Popovic, and you and Mr. Popovic were ultimately convicted for a
25 number of crimes against Muslims in Zvornik, including the unlawful
Page 40404
1 imprisonment of Muslims from Divic, the unlawful imprisonment of Muslims
2 from the Djulici area, and the forcible displacement of the Muslims from
3 Kozluk. That's correct, isn't it?
4 A. It's not correct. First of all, Kozluk left on its own
5 initiative. Nobody went on the 26th out of those mentioned to Kozluk.
6 On the 22nd, but don't hold me to the date, I was called by Peja -- Arkan
7 of -- who said I was in Kozluk with my brother Fadil, they had some
8 problems there, Fadil complained to me, so, please, could you go there to
9 see what happened? Since at that point in time the president of the
10 municipality, Jovo Mijatovic, was in my office I asked him that we go
11 together. We went down there, Fadil told us that somebody was shooting
12 behind the houses, so that the children got frightened, and so on and so
13 forth, and asked us for guarantees. Could we guarantee his freedom and
14 safety? We said we were not in command of the army, that we were unable
15 to command anything, but Arkan's Pejo could guarantee because at that
16 point in time he was in charge of everything, he could things, protect
17 and do whatever else. We went to Arkan's -- we told him to go to Arkan's
18 Pejo, and then see what he said. Arkan's Pejo received only Fadil, he
19 did not even deign to receive us in the office. Later, he informed us
20 that he had agreed with Fadil that people from Kozluk could go to foreign
21 countries but only through Serbia, not through Tuzla or the Federation,
22 which was under the control of the Muslims. So only through Serbia could
23 they go out. And he asked us if we could help, if we could provide
24 transport for him. So whether we wanted to do it or not we had to do it.
25 I think that Jovo Mijatovic again went to see Fadil and agreed the day
Page 40405
1 would be the 26th. And we did provide buses, really, on that day and the
2 escort and everything passed in the best order, peacefully, no one was
3 killed, no one was abused, nothing was done to anyone, everybody went out
4 alive and well and they left for a foreign country as they wished. That
5 is the real truth, that can be spoken. Furthermore, I wanted to ask
6 Madam Prosecutor, you often use my statement before the Trial Chamber as
7 if I testified in court. You are a lawyer, I'm not a lawyer, I did not
8 testify in court. I was defending myself in court or I was testifying to
9 the best of my ability in that court, I did not say an oath, here I did
10 say an oath that I have to speak the truth, but when any kind of legal
11 proceedings are --
12 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please repeat what he's
13 saying?
14 THE WITNESS: [No interpretation]
15 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. No, no. The interpreters didn't
16 catch up with you from where you talked about the oath. Could you repeat
17 from there?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said that the Prosecutor was
19 using my statement before the Belgrade court as if I was testifying for
20 myself. I did not testify there. There, I was presenting my defence. I
21 have the right to use all available options according to our law that are
22 favourable to me. So please do not compare this with the statement that
23 I am providing here under oath. I would like you to avoid that a little
24 bit, if you understand what I mean.
25 MS. GUSTAFSON: If we could have 65 ter 25164 and while that's
Page 40406
1 coming up let me just ask you, Mr. Grujic, you said that you draw a
2 distinction between the statement you made in your own trial that we've
3 referred to numerous times where you presented your defence, and the
4 statement you are providing here under oath. So let me ask you, did you
5 tell the truth when you gave a statement in your own trial before the
6 court in Belgrade?
7 A. I was saying what was in my favour as an accused, that is
8 something that is permissible by law, and here I have to speak the truth
9 because I gave a solemn declaration to speak the truth.
10 Q. So you're saying that not everything you said when you gave a
11 statement in your own trial, the statement we have been referring to, is
12 true? You told some lies; is that right?
13 A. I'm not saying that I did not speak the whole truth, but
14 according to the law there, I am allowed to use all means available to me
15 regarding the truth. As for whether I spoke the truth or not, that is my
16 personal matter, whether I spoke the truth or not at that trial.
17 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. Let's clarify this. Ms. Gustafson,
18 you said that he testified in his own trial. Is it that he testified?
19 Do you agree with the witness that he didn't say under oath?
20 MS. GUSTAFSON: I think that's correct, Your Honour, under the
21 system that he was operating in, that he presented his defence and he was
22 not under oath. So I -- that's why I was asking the questions I was
23 asking.
24 JUDGE KWON: In some civil law jurisdictions the accused are
25 asked by the chamber or by the prosecution or by his defence counsel.
Page 40407
1 That was the case?
2 MS. GUSTAFSON: Yes. He was questioned by the judge, the
3 prosecution and his own counsel and I believe it was not under oath, as
4 he states.
5 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
6 MS. GUSTAFSON:
7 Q. So, Mr. Grujic, are you not willing the tell the Trial Chamber
8 today whether or not you told the truth --
9 JUDGE KWON: I was waiting for the translation. Just a second.
10 Sorry to interrupt you. Yes, Mr. Karadzic, did you want to say
11 something?
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Just the way it was written, he
13 says, on page 70, line 23/24: According to our laws, I have the right
14 not to tell the truth.
15 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] He did not say that he lied, but
17 not to tell the truth.
18 JUDGE KWON: Very well. Yes, Ms. Gustafson, back to you.
19 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.
20 Q. Mr. Grujic, you said that when I asked you whether you lied when
21 you gave a statement in your own trial, you said, as for whether I spoke
22 the truth or not, that is my personal matter. Are you saying that you're
23 not willing to tell the Trial Chamber today even though those proceedings
24 against you are completed, whether or not you told the truth or not?
25 A. I'm not obliged to do that and I have the right to keep that to
Page 40408
1 myself.
2 Q. This document in front of you, Mr. Grujic, is the judgement
3 against you and the first part is the --
4 JUDGE KWON: I'm -- just a second. I didn't follow the previous
5 question and answer. What was the question? Are you saying that you are
6 not willing to tell the Trial Chamber today? Was that the question?
7 MS. GUSTAFSON: Yes. I asked him whether it was correct that he
8 was not willing to tell Your Honours whether or not his statement in his
9 own trial was true or not.
10 JUDGE KWON: Now I understand the question. But you made the
11 solemn declaration, Mr. Grujic, today.
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I did make the statement, and I
13 will be speaking the truth about events. As for my conduct before the
14 chamber in Belgrade, in that court, I do not wish to speak about that.
15 MR. KARADZIC: [In English] No, no in that
16 court -- [no interpretation]
17 JUDGE KWON: Yes. Let's deal with it when a specific issue
18 arises with respect to a specific statement. Let's move on.
19 MS. GUSTAFSON:
20 Q. Mr. Grujic, this is the appeals judgement against you and if we
21 go to page 2 of the English and remaining on page 1 in the B/C/S, it
22 states that the judgement, trial judgement against you, was upheld. And
23 that's correct, isn't it? Your appeal was --
24 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. Is this document confidential?
25 MS. GUSTAFSON: No, it is not, not to my knowledge. I believe
Page 40409
1 it's a public judgement.
2 THE REGISTRAR: It is indicated in e-court that it is
3 confidential.
4 [Prosecution counsel confer]
5 JUDGE KWON: I don't understand why, Mr. Tieger?
6 MR. TIEGER: This -- I can explain it. Maybe we should move
7 briefly in private session. I don't think it needs to remain such, but
8 perhaps the explanation in private session will be simpler.
9 JUDGE KWON: Shall we go into private session, briefly?
10 [Private session]
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 40410
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 [Open session]
5 THE REGISTRAR: We are in open session, Your Honour.
6 JUDGE KWON: Yes, please proceed, Ms. Gustafson.
7 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.
8 Q. Now, Mr. Grujic, the trial judgement was upheld by the
9 appeals chamber, wasn't it?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. If we could go to page 3 in the English and page 54 in the B/C/S,
12 to the beginning of the trial judgement, you see that this is the
13 beginning of the judgement, your name appears as an accused, if we could
14 go to the next page in both languages, and it refers to Branko Popovic's
15 name and it says -- the heading says: Are guilty. And on the next page,
16 it summarises the guilty verdict taking hostage Muslims 174 persons from
17 the village of Divic, taking hostage around 700 persons from the village
18 of Djulici, Klisa and other settlements and on the 26th of June forcibly
19 displacing the Muslim population of Kozluk. If we could just scroll
20 through the next several pages until we get to page 10 of the English and
21 page 59 of the B/C/S, where the Court summarises its findings with
22 respect to these three sets of crimes. And on page 10 of the English and
23 page 59 of the B/C/S, and this starts at the very bottom of the page in
24 the B/C/S. And near the top in the English, it states that the
25 respective accused went to Kozluk, the accused Popovic to the Kozluk
Page 40411
1 Crisis Staff on the eve of the day of departure while the accused Grujic
2 and Jovo Mijatovic went to the police station on the day of the
3 departure. If we could go to the next page in the B/C/S, it says where
4 through a member of the police the accused Grujic invites the president
5 of Kozluk local commune to the police station, Fadil Banjanovic, whom he
6 verbally orders to call all the inhabitants of Muslim ethnicity to
7 prepare on short notice to leave the village of Kozluk and move out via
8 the Republic of Serbia towards other countries, following which Mijatovic
9 informed the aggrieved party in the form of an ultimatum that they were
10 surrounded and that they had to move out threatening that they would all
11 be killed, otherwise that the remark of the aggrieved party Banjanovic
12 that they do not have any transportation means, the accused Grujic
13 informed Banjanovic that the buses and trucks had already been provided.
14 You said that none of you, Pavlovic or Mijatovic, were in Kozluk on the
15 26th of June, but it's clear that the Trial Chamber found that you were.
16 That's right, isn't it?
17 A. This is not right. The Trial Chamber unfortunately believed
18 Fadil Banjanovic who was a false witness who said on day one that we had
19 come on the 26th, he mentioned some 3.000 soldiers who were expelling
20 people from their houses by force, et cetera. However, the same witness,
21 the false witness, said literally the following on the next day. We
22 stalled with our departure because we had some 50 or 60 people who did
23 not want to join us so we had to pull them out, literally, from their
24 houses to join us. Then I asked the Prosecutor who was it who drove
25 those people by force, whether it was myself or Mr. Banjanovic, and the
Page 40412
1 Chamber ruled based on his testimony on the first day, because they
2 wanted to convict me at any cost. The treacherous regime in the Serbia
3 at the time, and Mr. Tadic needed this conviction in order for him to be
4 able to go around Bosnia, offer apologies and boast about court
5 decisions, whereas, in fact, the court convicted an innocent person.
6 I behaved in my municipality in the manner that I tried to protect every
7 resident, but unfortunately the politicians of Serbia needed that at the
8 time and they acted accordingly and as a result they passed judgement as
9 they wanted.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What is missing in line 6 is
11 "around Brussels and in Bosnia."
12 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
13 THE INTERPRETER: The accused is kindly asked to wait for
14 interpretation to finish before intervening. Thank you.
15 JUDGE KWON: Yes, usual request from the interpreters to wait for
16 the interpretation to finish before the intervention, Mr. Karadzic.
17 Yes, Ms. Gustafson.
18 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.
19 Q. Mr. Grujic, at paragraph 47 of your statement you said that the
20 inhabitants of Kozluk themselves initiated their moving out because they
21 felt unsafe due to the battlefield being nearby. And again you made the
22 same claim in your defence at your trial but the court in your case
23 rejected that argument as well on the basis that the line of separation
24 was far away from the village, there was no fighting in the village,
25 Kozluk and its immediate surroundings were inside Serb-controlled
Page 40413
1 territory and that the Serb forces carried out staged attacks to try to
2 make it look like the departure was voluntary. And perhaps we should go
3 to those passages, I can show them to you, and if you want to comment you
4 can. If we go to page 42 of the English, page 214 of the B/C/S, this is
5 at the bottom in the English and at the very top in the B/C/S. It says,
6 however, as was stated above, the court has established in a manner that
7 is beyond doubt that the safety of the inhabitants of Kozluk was not in
8 danger in the manner in which the accused Grujic presents it because the
9 line of separation was far away and because there was no fighting in
10 Kozluk itself which the accused are not denying either, and that the
11 attacks on Kozluk were staged by the Serb side to the conflict.
12 And at page 45 of the English, page 218 of the B/C/S, the Court
13 goes into this in more detail, stating that the defence was that the
14 claim that the moving away was a result of the free decision by the
15 Kozluk residents and the Court concludes that the forcible transfer of
16 Kozluk residents was not justified either -- by either reasons of the
17 population security nor by imperative military reasons, states that the
18 TO had organised the handing over of -- and this is the next page in the
19 B/C/S -- handing over of the Kozluk residents' weapons long before the
20 departure. There was no fighting in Kozluk. Kozluk locals did not
21 represent a military threat. On the next page in the English it points
22 out that the line of separation was 6 kilometres from Kozluk and the
23 immediate surroundings were under the control of the Serb side. The
24 court says one cannot deny that the population was scared which is
25 completely logical but forcible transfer could in no event have been an
Page 40414
1 alternative to offering the population every sort of assistance to stay
2 on in their homes. And in the next paragraph, about halfway down, the
3 court says, the court has established that in this concrete case, this
4 force in terms of the expulsion is also reflected in the artificial
5 creation of an unbearable situation that was supposed to result in the
6 conclusion that they had moved away voluntarily which was not the case.
7 Now, that's correct, isn't it, Mr. Grujic? These people did not
8 move away because, as you said, the battlefield was nearby. This was an
9 organised, planned expulsion?
10 A. None of this is true that a separation line was less than
11 3 kilometres. Shells even fell in Serbia. They flew over Kozluk to
12 Banja Koviljaca to Mali Zvornik, there was even a casualty in
13 Mali Zvornik from a shell that came from the separation line. Now, how
14 can anyone say that they were not threatened by the proximity of the
15 battlefield? In such close proximity, 2 to 3 kilometres, people were
16 using their -- losing their brothers and fathers and other relatives.
17 People were afraid to walk around the area and nobody could guarantee
18 that a person would grab a rifle and go to avenge the deaths of their
19 relatives. Many of the inhabitants of Kozluk crossed over to the enemy
20 side and were fighting our troops, and we could not risk anyone going mad
21 and taking to weapons and killing people's randomly. Both the judges in
22 Belgrade and you here are overlooking the situation that in early May
23 Kozluk, Gornji, Sekapa [phoen] and Sotici [phoen] set off on their own
24 towards Tuzla. All of them gathered together in one place, in cars and
25 other vehicles, but Arkan's Pejo didn't allow them to travel towards
Page 40415
1 Tuzla because they said they will get hold of rifles there and they will
2 turn against them. Instead he said that he would guarantee them safety
3 and eventually an agreement was reached and all of them returned home.
4 After Arkan's Pejo gave his word, the archbishop came --
5 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please slow down.
6 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Grujic, could you speak more slowly? Could you
7 repeat from where you said, "Arkan's Pejo gave his word ..." Start from
8 "archbishop ..."
9 MR. KARADZIC: [In English] Excuse me. [Interpretation] It's a
10 mistake. He did not say that after Pejo gave his word the bishop came,
11 and the witness can explain when the bishop actually came. It is nothing
12 to do with giving the word.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I?
14 JUDGE KWON: Please continue.
15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] At the time when those three
16 villages set off of their own volition, nobody was forcing them, and they
17 all assembled in Kozluk in cars, in lorries, and other vehicles
18 available, and virtually nearly all of them were on the road. Arkan's
19 Pejo did not allow them to pass through towards Tuzla. Instead, he
20 called our bishop and the "hodza" from Tuzla. They both came to speak to
21 the people and persuade them not to leave, then he was going to guarantee
22 their safety in their own homes. People abided by this plea and went
23 back to their houses. Kozluk used to have 5.000 inhabitants; 1459 of
24 them, if I remember correctly, left on the 26th of June. Now, where were
25 the two-thirds? They had left earlier and they were in third countries
Page 40416
1 and they were calling upon those who remained behind to join them and not
2 to remain there where there was shelling on a daily basis and shooting
3 every day. This is what they wanted.
4 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please slow down.
5 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Grujic, the interpreters are not able to catch
6 up with your speed.
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm sorry, I become agitated and
8 excited and therefore I make a mistake.
9 MS. GUSTAFSON: I tender the pages that I've referred to. It's
10 pages 1 to 11, 42 to 46 in the English, and pages 154 to 60 and 214 to
11 219 in the B/C/S.
12 MR. ROBINSON: Mr. President, with respect to -- we don't have
13 any objection to the pages that the witness has actually commented on
14 being admissible for purposes of assessing his credibility, but inasmuch
15 as you normally admit documents for all purposes, I want to point out
16 that any findings of this Court would not be admissible for any other
17 purpose other than this witness's credibility, in our view.
18 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Gustafson, do you disagree with Mr. Robinson's
19 statement?
20 MS. GUSTAFSON: Yes, I do, Your Honour. These judgements have
21 been coming in with various witnesses for various purposes. This is the
22 first I've heard of this being relevant only to credibility. I think the
23 finding of another chamber beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal trial
24 upheld on appeal is certainly relevant for this Trial Chamber to consider
25 for matters going beyond credibility. Of course, it's always up to this
Page 40417
1 Trial Chamber to reach its own conclusions.
2 JUDGE KWON: Why don't you admit the Galic judgement or other
3 judgements, then?
4 MS. GUSTAFSON: Well, in fact there was a previous request to
5 tender pages of the Martic judgement with Mr. Martic, and Mr. Robinson
6 stated that the Trial Chamber could take judicial notice of that so there
7 was no need to tender it, and on that bases we declined to do so. But
8 again there was no reference to this being relevant only to credibility.
9 MR. ROBINSON: Well, Mr. President.
10 JUDGE KWON: This is the speed in which you should proceed.
11 French translation has been just now concluded.
12 Yes, Mr. Robinson?
13 MR. ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. President. It's our position that
14 Rule 94 is lex specialis for the taking of judicial notice of adjudicated
15 facts from other judgements and that in that rule does not allow for
16 adjudicated facts to be taken for judgements in other jurisdictions other
17 than this Tribunal. So then by taking those facts that are found in
18 other judgements as -- other than for credibility, would be outside of
19 that lex specialis and improper, in our view. One thing I've noticed in
20 the other judgements that we have admitted, we have basically been
21 admitting the verdict, not the reasoning. In this particular judgement
22 the verdict and the reasoning are all mixed in, and so we are admitting
23 portions of the reasoning, and that's why I thought it was particularly
24 important to bring it up in this context.
25 [Trial Chamber confers]
Page 40418
1 JUDGE KWON: I don't think the Chamber has ever admitted a
2 judgement of other trial chamber or other jurisdiction for the facts
3 contained in the judgement. We will admit it for credibility issue.
4 Shall we assign the number?
5 THE REGISTRAR: Tendered pages of document 25164 receives number
6 P6416, Your Honours.
7 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Please continue, Ms. Gustafson.
8 MS. GUSTAFSON:
9 Q. Mr. Grujic, in the last paragraph on this page, the court
10 referred to evidence that the decision to move out the Muslims of Kozluk
11 was a matter of higher politics, and the Court concluded that higher
12 authorities relative to you and Mr. Popovic were certainly involved but
13 that did not affect your own responsibility, and it's true, isn't it,
14 that higher authorities were involved in this? And in particular,
15 Dr. Karadzic was involved in this decision to move the Muslims out of
16 Kozluk and settle Serbs there, wasn't he?
17 A. Dr. Karadzic never said a word about the Muslims of Kozluk or
18 about any moving out. He even never allowed us to forcibly relocate
19 someone, God for bid. We did it on our own because we assessed the
20 situation was such that people were willing to leave voluntarily, in
21 order to save their children and their family. And we did it in order to
22 avoid that, God forbid, Zuco or some other raided Kozluk and committed
23 various things. In fact, I was convicted for not protecting people, but
24 in fact I was unable to provide protection for them. I believe that it
25 would be less painful for those people to allow to go to a safe territory
Page 40419
1 and save their families until such time as the situation became calmer
2 and, thank God, after the war the situation changed and all these people
3 came back and resettled again in Kozluk.
4 MS. GUSTAFSON: Could we have P1478, please, page 246 of the
5 English and page 244 of the B/C/S?
6 Q. Mr. Grujic, this is an extract from General Mladic's military
7 notebook on the 30th of June, 1992, reflecting a meeting held in Zvornik
8 attended by Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic. We already discussed the
9 existence of this meeting in a document we dealt with in private session.
10 And if we go to the next page, we can see that you are listed as being
11 present, as well as Mr. Pavlovic. And if we could go to page 249 of the
12 English and page 246 of the B/C/S -- I'm sorry, page 247, and under
13 number 4 at the bottom - should be page 249 of the English, please -
14 there is you listed as speaking and you state according to these notes,
15 we have 32.000 Serbs, and then you state we have successfully implemented
16 the president's decision to settle Divic and Kozluk with our children.
17 And the words "with our children" appear on the next page so we should go
18 to the next page to see the end there. Now, this is just four days after
19 the Muslims of Kozluk had been moved out. And when you say we have
20 successfully implemented the president's decision to settle Divic and
21 Kozluk with our children, you're referring to President Karadzic and his
22 decision, aren't you? That's the president you're referring to?
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can the witness be shown the next
24 page?
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Please, can I see the next page?
Page 40420
1 This doesn't tell me anything.
2 JUDGE KWON: Do you confirm having said so, Mr. Grujic?
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. This is probably an
4 abbreviation provided by the general. I don't know what he had in mind.
5 A moment ago I told you that Arkan's Pejo turned people back when they
6 wanted to leave Kozluk, that he had guaranteed safety for them. I never
7 uttered these words and I never mentioned President Karadzic at this
8 meeting and in this context. If Mr. Mladic really wrote this he was
9 either drunk or he didn't hear well, and he was often partial to good
10 drink and he may have been mistaken. And I'm telling you none of the
11 things that are written here are true.
12 MS. GUSTAFSON: If we could go to page 251 of the English and
13 page 249 of the B/C/S, and here Mr. Pavlovic is speaking, and if we could
14 go to page 253 of the English and page 251 of the B/C/S, this is still
15 Mr. Pavlovic speaking, and right at the bottom he says, and this goes
16 over to the next page:
17 "We were most active in evicting the Muslims. We had brought
18 peace to Sepak, Divic and Kozluk. Some of them wanted" --
19 JUDGE KWON: Could you wait?
20 MS. GUSTAFSON: Sorry.
21 JUDGE KWON: Next page for English as well.
22 MS. GUSTAFSON: He says:
23 "We were most active in evict being the Muslims. We had brought
24 peace to Sepak, Divic and Kozluk."
25 If we could go to the next page:
Page 40421
1 "Some of them wanted to move out while we demanded it, we had to
2 evict some of the people also for the sake of our 'heroes who fled from
3 Kovacevici.'"
4 We need the next page in the B/C/S as well.
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] While we are waiting, please, we've
6 already had this discussion about the word "evicting." It's not that,
7 it's "moving."
8 MS. GUSTAFSON: Sorry. If he wants to request an official
9 revision of this translation, we may have already been through this
10 before, then he can. But this is not the appropriate time to interrupt.
11 JUDGE KWON: Just a second.
12 [Trial Chamber confers]
13 JUDGE KWON: Chamber notes the issue. Shall we continue,
14 Ms. Gustafson?
15 MS. GUSTAFSON:
16 Q. Mr. Grujic, a moment ago you said that Dr. Karadzic never said a
17 word about the Muslims of Kozluk or about anyone moving out, he even
18 never allowed to us forcibly relocate someone, God forbid. But here,
19 Mr. Pavlovic is expressly reporting to President Karadzic and
20 General Mladic that the Zvornik authorities have been actively evicting
21 Muslims including those from Kozluk, isn't he?
22 A. I don't believe that Mr. Popovic ever uttered these words. This
23 can be some kind of mistake or forgery. I never heard this. Believe me.
24 As far as Radovan Karadzic is concerned, he always said to us that in our
25 territory, and I've already said this, we even have to give them
Page 40422
1 privileges, these other ethnic communities, not harm them in any way,
2 heaven forbid.
3 Q. If we could go to page 270 of the English, page 268 of the B/C/S,
4 there was much discussion in this meeting about Captain Dragan's training
5 centre and we can see here Dr. Karadzic says, it would be a shame to
6 abolish the centre. It would be easiest for us to put the incident
7 behind us. The men at the centre are not like Zuca and Crni. Now, at
8 paragraphs 40 and 41 of your statement, Mr. Grujic, you assert that
9 following your unpleasant contacts with Zuco in the beginning of July,
10 you and Marinko Vasilic secretly went to Pale to inform
11 President Karadzic about the problems of paramilitaries in Zvornik and
12 you state that President Karadzic was "visibly surprised and astonished
13 by what I had told him." Now, your evidence does not make sense for two
14 reasons: First, Dr. Karadzic was clearly in Zvornik on the 30th of June
15 hearing about problems with paramilitaries, so it doesn't make sense that
16 a week or so later you went to Pale to inform him about the problems that
17 he'd just heard about in Zvornik; and secondly, your evidence that he was
18 visibly surprised and astonished by your report doesn't square with the
19 notes of this meeting indicating that he was hearing all about problems
20 with paramilitaries; right?
21 A. Madam Prosecutor, you either were not listening or you do not
22 want to accept what I said. I told you clearly that on the 13th we had
23 not had any information about what was going on in Celopek, and so on.
24 And already on the 1st of July we did have information. And now I cannot
25 say to him on the 1st of June what I knew, or rather, on the 30th what
Page 40423
1 I found out on the 1st of July. Well, that is why Mr. Karadzic was not
2 informed on the 30th. That's why he was informed later when we were
3 already compelled -- I mean, I informed the organs of Serbia since they
4 were not doing anything, the situation got more difficult and continued
5 to be difficult, and therefore we had to go to see Mr. Karadzic and tell
6 him, Mr. President, I cannot take it down there anymore, the commander
7 cannot set up the army and place it under his command, they are almost
8 stronger than the rest of the TO. The police 30, 40, I don't know how
9 many of them there were, they -- there were so few of them and that's why
10 the chief of police and I went to President Karadzic to resolve this
11 matter personally with his own authority and influence, and that's what
12 he did.
13 Q. Mr. Grujic, the truth is that you and Mr. Vasilic did go to Pale
14 to meet with Dr. Karadzic, but you in fact went to Pale in May, not July,
15 and at that meeting Dr. Karadzic was not visibly surprised and astonished
16 by what you told him; to the contrary, he said he knew all about Zuco
17 already and Zuco was his problem.
18 A. Not true. Not in May. We were there in July.
19 Q. If we could go to 65 ter 25264, page 77 in the English and
20 page 74 of the B/C/S. Now, this is the interview you gave to the OTP in
21 2002, again, and I'd like to direct your attention to the middle of the
22 page in the B/C/S, this is towards the bottom in the English -- or sorry,
23 yes, it's at the bottom of the B/C/S as well, and you're asked I have to
24 say a point of extraordinary that before the war so much effort was put
25 in by you and others to create an environment where there would be a rule
Page 40424
1 of law in case of an emergency of some sort and then when that
2 effectively occurred, and if we go to the next page in the B/C/S, that is
3 to say that the --
4 A. Sorry, excuse me, but I cannot find what you are reading out now.
5 Down there; right?
6 Q. Yes. This is the question you're asked at the bottom of the
7 page, and the question continues on the next page, and you're asked that
8 is to say that there were general acts of lawlessness that you directly
9 observed yourself and you took no action to stop it. And then you see
10 your answer near the top of the page there. You say, as a matter of
11 fact, as you told you, Dragan was there and charged for -- in charge for
12 this couple of critical days upon which we asked Marko to intervene with
13 Arkan and did so, I repeatedly had to ask Arkan to introduce some order,
14 however these people were ordinary villains and ex-prisoners, drug
15 addicts, stuff like that. And then the next page in the English --
16 JUDGE KWON: But in the B/C/S I can't find the word "Dragan" at
17 all.
18 MS. GUSTAFSON: It may have been a mis -- it is the correct
19 passage. It might have been just a mistake in the interpretation. We
20 didn't have a single soldier, policeman, who could oppose them, who could
21 stand up against them. Then you're asked but as the president of the
22 original government after the 10th or 12th or whatever it was, was it
23 incumbent on you to make sure that they housed the municipal SDS, the
24 municipal, the Bosnian Serbs at Pale or wherever --
25 THE INTERPRETER: Would the counsel please provide the reference
Page 40425
1 for the interpreters?
2 MS. GUSTAFSON: This is the question that begins PB, about a
3 third of the way down the page. Were made aware that such lawlessness
4 had taken hold in Zvornik. And then you answer in the middle of the
5 page, As a matter of facts I did go to Radovan at one point together with
6 the --
7 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters think that this is not the correct
8 page in the B/C/S. We are talking about the original.
9 MS. GUSTAFSON: It should be page 75 of the B/C/S.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That cannot be seen in Serbian.
11 There is only one sentence at the bottom.
12 MS. GUSTAFSON: I believe this is --
13 [Prosecution counsel confer]
14 MS. GUSTAFSON: This is the correct part in the B/C/S but it may
15 be broken up differently. I just ask the interpreters to try their best.
16 JUDGE KWON: Probably there are many inaudible parts.
17 MS. GUSTAFSON: That may be correct as well.
18 Q. And you say, As a matter of fact I did it go to Radovan at one
19 point together with the head of TO staff Marinko Vasilic and I told him
20 that I would give up the office and leave everything if they don't help
21 us and indeed subsequently he sent a special unit of MUP and they have
22 arrested those people. And you were asked at the bottom of the page,
23 When did you report this to Karadzic? And on the next page in the B/C/S,
24 you say, I don't know the exact date but I remember on that very day the
25 army was leaving, the JNA was leaving, the Tito's military
Page 40426
1 [indiscernible] in Sarajevo. I was in Pale on that very day with
2 Radovan, with President Karadzic.
3 Now, Mr. Grujic, it's common ground that the JNA pulled out
4 around the 20th of May, 1992, and you specifically remembered that event
5 as being the day that you and Mr. Vasilic met with Dr. Karadzic in Pale,
6 so that's correct, isn't it? You actually went to Pale towards the end
7 of May?
8 A. No, that's not true. Possibly I went to Pale then for some other
9 meeting. And, you know, there are documents about the arrest of this
10 unit at the end of July and we were there a few days before that, I and
11 Marinko. Maybe I made a mistake when I made my statement, but please do
12 check. This unit was arrested at the end of July. I don't know the
13 exact date. And we were there two or three days before that, and the
14 president said that he would resolve that immediately so he just needed
15 two or three days to provide the right units for the arrest of those
16 persons so that must be a mistake. We were there in July.
17 MS. GUSTAFSON: I would ask to add these two pages to P6414 and
18 if we go to page 144 in the English.
19 JUDGE KWON: We will do so but how much more do you need,
20 Ms. Gustafson?
21 MS. GUSTAFSON: I can complete within ten minutes.
22 [Trial Chamber confers]
23 JUDGE KWON: Please continue.
24 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.
25 Q. If we could go to page 144 in the English. There is no -- there
Page 40427
1 is no B/C/S transcript in existence for this passage. And here you're
2 asked again about your efforts or lack of efforts to bring the
3 paramilitaries into order and you're asked near the top of the page, Can
4 you tell us why you didn't turn to the JNA as an available source to try
5 to bring these men into order? And you say, So there was a very small
6 JNA, Obrenovic's unit, with a couple of tanks and only 20 to 30 men
7 there, whereas the paramilitaries were stronger than anybody else. These
8 were the notorious fighters that came from Croatia, there were also
9 ex-prisoners among them, and this is why again I couldn't complain to the
10 TO commander because he was also there with a gun pointed at his head.
11 And that is why I went directly along with the head of the SUP of the
12 police to the president, Radovan Karadzic, and I told him I'll resign,
13 I'll demand to be released from the duty, and he said, don't you worry,
14 I heard about these incidents, and I will sort them out urgently, and
15 upon which the action of the special unit, and the remainder is
16 inaudible. So, Mr. Grujic, the truth is that when you went to Pale to
17 complain to Dr. Karadzic about the paramilitaries, he was not visibly
18 surprised and astonished, as you assert in your statement, but, rather,
19 he said he'd already heard about these incidents; right?
20 A. No, no. I heard, that's what he says. That means that he heard
21 it from me. So that means that he accepts what I said to him at that
22 moment. That is to say I take note of these problems. I heard, that
23 means that he heard it then. Had he heard about it earlier on, he
24 certainly would have done something about it so that this would not
25 happen.
Page 40428
1 Q. Well, let's see what you said in your own trial about this.
2 MS. GUSTAFSON: I tender this page as well to be added to P6414
3 and I'd like to go to 65 ter 24648, page 125 of the English and page 85
4 of the B/C/S.
5 JUDGE KWON: At the end of this witness's evidence, you will
6 upload only those pages admitted and that also may be -- that may also be
7 admitted during the course of re-examination.
8 MS. GUSTAFSON: Certainly, Your Honour, yes.
9 Q. This is towards the bottom of the page, Mr. Grujic, in the B/C/S
10 where you give a relatively long answer starting about 15 lines up from
11 the bottom. It's also near the bottom in the English. And in about the
12 third sentence of your answer you say, However, during the month of June,
13 there were again frequent, so to say, to put it that way, robberies,
14 provocations, firing guns in the town and so on and so on. Therefore
15 they cause havoc again. At one moment I asked the commander this chief
16 of the SUP, Mr. Vasilic, Chief, can you are you capable of restraining
17 these people, preventing this from happening again? He told me, listen,
18 and then you are interrupted and the judge says, Preventing what from
19 happening? And you say, Preventing those provocations from happening so
20 that the town could be quiet for once. There would be no guns firing in
21 the town, no break-ins, no robberies and so on. This is the next page in
22 the English, he said, Listen, I do not have such a policeman. The judge
23 asked, This Marinko, you say, Yes, I do not have such a policeman who
24 would fire at a Serb, a volunteer, be sure of that. What are we to do?
25 He said, I do not know, and then proposed that we go and see president
Page 40429
1 Radovan Karadzic. And then you talk about the road being opened. And
2 you say, So we went to see Radovan Karadzic, and you say, I informed him
3 about the whole situation about what was happening, Radovan said, I have
4 already heard many things about that Zuca. I told him, President, I am
5 not returning to Zvornik, I will not go to the town unless you resolve
6 this situation. And you're asked, Was that the first time you went to
7 see Dr. Karadzic? And you say, The first time, yes, it was. And you --
8 you're asked, When was that? You say, I do not know. Believe me it was
9 sometimes towards the end of June on the 20th and something June
10 thereabouts. I told him I will not return to Zvornik ever again, that if
11 needs be I will escape Republika Srpska entirely. He said, I have heard
12 about that Zuca. I know all about it. Go and do your job. Zuca is my
13 responsibility.
14 You said it twice here, Mr. Grujic. Although you changed your
15 story slightly and you said this was in June rather than May, as you told
16 the OTP. You said twice that Dr. Karadzic knew all about Zuca and that
17 Zuca was his responsibility. He was not visibly surprised and astonished
18 by what you told him, was he?
19 A. Madam, you have the wrong translation there. I have already
20 explained that to you. That is to say Radovan said I heard all of that
21 from you now, I take note of all of that, that is my concern, I'm going
22 to resolve it as soon as possible, so that is not a correct translation.
23 Radovan never said to me that he had heard about it earlier on. He said
24 that he heard about it from me and that he took note of that. So,
25 please, do not use something that is not right, actually maybe you're
Page 40430
1 reading something that was mistranslated so that's why I ask you kindly,
2 well, further on, find the document, when the fighters were arrested, at
3 the end of July, that is to say that we were there a few days before
4 that, a day or two before they were arrested and that was in the month of
5 July. It's not May, it's not June, it's July. Please. And don't keep
6 insisting on these dates. It's been more than 20 years now. I'm an old
7 man and please stop insisting on dates.
8 MS. GUSTAFSON: I would seek to add these two pages to P6415.
9 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
10 MS. GUSTAFSON: And I have one last document to show you,
11 Mr. Grujic, it's 65 ter 25294.
12 JUDGE KWON: Could you repeat the number?
13 MS. GUSTAFSON: Yes, apologies. It's pages 125 and 126 of the
14 English and -- sorry, the 65 ter number, it's 25294, please.
15 Q. Mr. Grujic, the document that's about to come up on your screen
16 is a "New York Times" article from the 7th of March, 1994, and it
17 describes an interview you gave to a "New York Times" reporter around
18 that time where you showed him a church you were building on a cliff
19 overlooking Zvornik. First, I'd like to ask you: Do you recall giving
20 an interview to an English speaking reporter around that time and showing
21 him the church?
22 A. I cannot remember exactly, but journalists came to see me several
23 times and I gave several interviews. Which one this was I cannot
24 remember exactly and I cannot say whether that is that.
25 Q. Okay. This is in English so I'll read some parts out to you and
Page 40431
1 maybe it will remind you. In the third paragraph it states arriving at
2 last at the summit of the cliff Grujic paused to kiss a wooden cross he
3 has had erected before declaring, "The Turks destroyed the Serbian church
4 that was here when they arrived in Zvornik in 1463. Now we are
5 rebuilding the church and reclaiming this as Serbian land forever and
6 ever." Do you recall stating something along those lines on this
7 occasion?
8 A. Possibly. At Kula Grad? It's mentioned way back in 1410. The
9 Serbian despot Stevan. I mean, actually it was Djuradj, he built a tower
10 up there and then later on there was a church. When the Turks came, real
11 Turks, not these Muslims, when they came in 14-something, when they
12 really came to Bosnia, then they destroyed it. I said Turks. I didn't
13 say Muslims. Possibly, that's the way it was, and indeed later on we
14 built a church there, and to this day there is a church up there.
15 Q. Okay. About halfway down the page, little bit further down,
16 you're quoted as saying, look at the bell tower, and pointing to the bell
17 tower on this church you're constructing. And then stating, "I am
18 praying to God to give President Clinton the wisdom to abandon the
19 Muslims and return to his true allies, the Christians." Do you recall
20 stating that?
21 A. That's a mistranslation. No church tower was there. There was
22 no church. There was just this wooden cross at the place where the
23 church used to be. All of that is written incorrectly and I do not
24 accept that as a statement.
25 Q. If we could go to the next page, in the second paragraph, it
Page 40432
1 states that the Bosnian government wants Zvornik back if a peace
2 settlement is to be reached and it says this notion makes Grujic laugh.
3 "Return to Zvornik," the mayor scoffed, "the Muslims must be joking.
4 This was a Serbian town before Islam existed in the Balkans. They better
5 not dream of things they cannot fulfil or things will just get worse.
6 Either a peace is worked out soon or we Serbs advance. We cannot stand
7 still, Kalesija is Muslim now but it may not be for long."
8 Do you recall stating that?
9 A. I don't believe I said that, and even if I did, this was a time
10 of war, a time of euphoria so it's no wonder that I said something like
11 that but I really don't recall saying something like that.
12 Q. And towards the bottom of the page, it states that the mayor
13 looked down at the deserted formerly Muslim you village of Divic on a lip
14 of land on the Drina and announced that he had renamed it Sveti Stevan
15 after the Christian Saint Stevan. Then he turned to the devastated
16 expanse behind him called Kula hill and said, it would be renamed Djuradj
17 hill after Djuradj Brankovic, the medieval Serbian ruler who built the
18 first church on this site in 1410. Now a moment ago you actually
19 spontaneously referred to this person -- Djuradj built the church in
20 1400, so I assume you acknowledge that you stated that to this report on
21 this occasion as well. That's correct, isn't it?
22 A. This was not something spontaneous. Even today it's called
23 Djurdjev Grad, Djurdjev town. Our municipality changed the name, so it's
24 not anything unusual. As for Divic, I don't know what date it was, Divic
25 was not destroyed, not a single house was damaged. All the houses that
Page 40433
1 were there before the war are still standing there today. Therefore,
2 these are either tendentious assertions or the translation is wrong.
3 Q. It doesn't say that it was destroyed, it says it was deserted,
4 and it states that you announced you would rename --
5 A. You said destroyed. You said destroyed.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The translation said that,
7 "unisten," "destroyed."
8 MS. GUSTAFSON:
9 Q. Can you confirm that you talked about renaming Divic Sveti Stevan
10 after the Christian Saint Stevan?
11 A. I don't believe that. That was definitely not said. That was
12 fabricated.
13 MS. GUSTAFSON: I tender this document.
14 MR. ROBINSON: No objection.
15 JUDGE KWON: We'll receive it.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Document 25294 receives number P6417,
17 Your Honours.
18 MS. GUSTAFSON:
19 Q. Thank you, Mr. Grujic. I have no further questions for you.
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
21 [Trial Chamber confers]
22 JUDGE KWON: Yes. Mr. Karadzic, do you have any re-examination?
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Excellencies, I believe
24 that we might have to spill over into tomorrow and I'm going to use the
25 ten minutes or so that are left for today's session.
Page 40434
1 Re-examination by Mr. Karadzic:
2 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Grujic, earlier you said, this is maybe on
3 page 69 or 70, and then you repeated it again on page 80 but it was not
4 recorded that Fadil Banjanovic needed to prove himself in Sarajevo and
5 Tadic needed to prove that he was bringing to court, and before that you
6 said the traitorous regime in Serbia then had the need to bring people to
7 trial. Can you please tell us why that was so, in the briefest possible
8 way, why do you think that they needed judgements?
9 A. In my personal opinion, these were servants of America, they
10 listened to Washington more than their own people, and they did
11 everything for the benefit of America and nothing for the benefit of
12 Serbia and the Serbian people. They were trying to prove themselves in
13 Europe, all for the sake of some sort of entry into the European Union or
14 getting some sort of date. He was capable of doing anything just to
15 prove that he was doing something. That was the reason. And as for --
16 just one more thing. As for Fadil Banjanovic, this came out. Later, he
17 was given some posts as a minister, the man is completely illiterate, but
18 he was given the office of minister, he profited well for launching the
19 charges against Arkan and so on and so forth.
20 Q. Thank you. And did this Prosecution show any interest in you and
21 in your conduct during the war? Did you have any meetings or interviews
22 and how were you treated, in what capacity?
23 A. I apologise. Which Prosecutor's office and when?
24 Q. The Prosecutor's office of this Tribunal.
25 A. I was interviewed in 2002, that was the first time I had contact
Page 40435
1 with them.
2 Q. Who interviewed you, what did they say, and what capacity was it
3 in, as a witness or a potential --
4 A. As a suspect. I was interviewed but since they saw that they did
5 not have enough proof they abandoned that.
6 Q. Do you remember which prosecutor was working on it?
7 A. Well, really, believe me, I don't know. There are documents so
8 you can find that.
9 Q. Thank you. Did you have that document in Belgrade from this
10 Prosecution?
11 A. Yes, I did.
12 Q. Thank you. Could we look at 1D25842 in e-court, please. Can we
13 now look at the following page, please. This is the rules of the road,
14 recommendation, your name, 4th of July, 2000, crime alleged, [In English]
15 Initiating and organising the ethnic cleansing of Zvornik.
16 Recommendation B, evidence is insufficient.
17 [Interpretation] Can we scroll down a little bit so that we can
18 look at the third paragraph, please. And at the end it says
19 Fadil Banjanovic. Now we will see what he says:
20 [In English] "After the population was put onto trucks, Grujic
21 wanted the able-bodied men to be separated but after the witness refused,
22 he gave up."
23 [Interpretation] Can we look at the following page. So this
24 Prosecution interviewed Banjanovic, Pasic and yourself?
25 A. I was interviewed in 2002.
Page 40436
1 Q. Thank you. And it says here Mirsad Hasanovic [In English] "Not
2 clear whether he was beaten by Grujic or if Grujic even knew what was
3 going to happen." [Interpretation] And finally the conclusion is [In
4 English] "Under accepted international standards there is insufficient
5 evidence establishing reasonable grounds to believe that Branko Grujic
6 committed serious violations of international humanitarian law."
7 [Interpretation] Did the Court in Belgrade have access to this document?
8 A. It did not.
9 Q. Thank you. I would like to tender these three pages, the cover
10 page and these two.
11 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Gustafson?
12 MS. GUSTAFSON: In light of the witness's answer that this was
13 not a document that the court in Belgrade had, in light of the fact that
14 this is a recommendation made in the year 2000 when the proceedings
15 against this witness began in 2005, and in light of the fact that the
16 Belgrade court conducted its own investigation, this document is
17 irrelevant. It should not be admitted.
18 JUDGE KWON: Whether it's relevant or irrelevant, does it not go
19 to the weight at the end of the day?
20 Yes, Mr. Robinson.
21 MR. ROBINSON: That's exactly what I was going to say,
22 Mr. President, and also a Prosecution that contends how the court should
23 be hearing everything and should be aware of all of the facts of a case
24 and that's constantly advocating for the broad admission standards,
25 I think it's really unfortunate that they would even object to this
Page 40437
1 evidence.
2 MS. GUSTAFSON: Sorry, the -- I'm in a loss to see how this
3 document could assist the Court. The Court has just said that it's not
4 interested in the reasoning of a criminal court that convicted someone
5 beyond a reasonable doubt, but yet somehow this opinion of a single
6 person in the OTP in the year 2000 based on we don't know what but
7 certainly not the body of the evidence the Belgrade court had before it,
8 I just don't see how this could possibly be helpful to this Court.
9 JUDGE KWON: I don't think the Chamber has ever said it's not
10 interested in the reasoning. We admitted it.
11 [Trial Chamber confers]
12 THE REGISTRAR: Tendered pages of document 1D25 --
13 JUDGE KWON: Just a minute.
14 [Trial Chamber confers]
15 JUDGE KWON: The Chamber will admit it by majority with
16 Judge Morrison dissenting. Shall we assign the number?
17 THE REGISTRAR: Tendered pages of document 1D25842 receives
18 number D3730, Your Honours.
19 JUDGE KWON: One more question, Mr. Karadzic?
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes.
21 Q. Mr. Grujic, can you please tell us how Zvornik got its name?
22 A. After according to the legend, there was a large tower bell that
23 it got its name from. There was a large church there that was built by
24 the Serbian despot Djuradj and that is how the town got its name.
25 Q. Thank you. So it was called Crkvani Zvornik, church Zvornik?
Page 40438
1 A. Yes, that is correct.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I ask again for the
3 translation to be revised where it says I know all about it which is not
4 what it says in the original.
5 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. And for you, Mr. Grujic, did all those who hear of Zuca at the
7 same time hear about his crimes?
8 A. No. He was considered to be a great hero and fighter among the
9 people for quite some time and later when they heard about it of course
10 everyone was horrified and they rejected him.
11 Q. Thank you. On page 93 it was suggested to you how I said that
12 I had heard of Zuco. Did I confirm that I had heard of his crimes before
13 your information?
14 A. No. You said, "I acknowledge that." So when I told you that,
15 you said, "I acknowledge that," meaning I know what is happening and I
16 will resolve the matter.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, I think we will finish
18 for today and then we can continue tomorrow.
19 JUDGE KWON: As I indicated to you, Mr. Karadzic, when it relates
20 to the revision of translation or written documents I would like you to
21 put in writing. Very well, we will adjourn for today and continue
22 tomorrow at 9.00. Mr. Grujic, I'd like to advise you not to discuss with
23 anybody else about your testimony while you're giving evidence. Do you
24 understand that, sir?
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
Page 40439
1 JUDGE KWON: The hearing is adjourned.
2 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.46 p.m.,
3 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 26th day of
4 June, 2013, at 9.00 a.m.
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