Page 44204
1 Friday, 29 November 2013
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.03 a.m.
5 JUDGE KWON: Good morning, everyone. Yes, Mr. Tieger?
6 MR. TIEGER: Good morning, Mr. President, Your Honours, may we
7 move quickly into private session?
8 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
9 [Private session]
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Page 44209
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3 [Open session]
4 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, we are back in open session.
5 JUDGE KWON: Yes. Let us bring in the witness as well as counsel
6 assisting the witness.
7 Good morning, Mr. Harvey.
8 MR. HARVEY: Good morning, Mr. President, Your Honours. May
9 I take this opportunity to introduce Ms. Silvana Asparuhova from Bulgaria
10 who is studying at The Hague University Institute of European studies.
11 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
12 [The witness entered court]
13 JUDGE KWON: Good morning, Mr. Mejakic.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good morning. Good morning,
15 Your Honours.
16 JUDGE KWON: We are waiting for Mr. Zivanovic to enter the
17 courtroom. Very well.
18 Would you make the solemn declaration, please.
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will
20 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
21 WITNESS: ZELJKO MEJAKIC
22 [Witness answered through interpreter]
23 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Please be seated and make yourself
24 comfortable.
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
Page 44210
1 JUDGE KWON: Good morning, Mr. Zivanovic. I don't think you have
2 to introduce yourself again.
3 Mr. Mejakic, before you commence your evidence, although you know
4 very well already, I must draw your attention to a certain rule that we
5 have here at the International Tribunal, that is Rule 90(E). Under this
6 rule, you may object to answering any question from Mr. Karadzic, the
7 Prosecutor, or even from the Judges if you believe that your answer might
8 incriminate you in a criminal offence. In this context, "Incriminate"
9 means saying something that might amount to an admission of guilt for a
10 criminal offence or saying something that might provide evidence that you
11 might have committed a criminal offence.
12 However, should you think that an answer might incriminate you
13 and, as a consequence, you refuse to answer the question, I must let you
14 know that the Tribunal has the power to compel you to answer the
15 question. But in that situation, the Tribunal would ensure that your
16 testimony compelled under such circumstances would not be used in any
17 case that might be laid against you for any offence save and except the
18 offence of giving false testimony.
19 Do you understand that, Mr. Mejakic?
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
21 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Karadzic, please proceed.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Good morning,
23 Excellencies, good morning to everybody.
24 Examination by Mr. Karadzic:
25 Q. Good morning, Mr. Mejakic.
Page 44211
1 A. Good morning.
2 Q. Please be mindful of the interpretation. We both need to wait
3 for it to finish. Did you give a statement to my Defence team?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Thank you.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I would like to call up 1D09535 in
7 e-court.
8 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. Do you see that statement before you on the screen?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Thank you. Did you read it and did you sign it?
12 A. Yes.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could the witness please be shown
14 the last page to identify his signature?
15 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation].
16 Q. Is this your signature?
17 A. Yes, this is my signature. I signed the document on 26 November
18 2013.
19 Q. Thank you. Could you please tell us whether this statement
20 accurately reflects what you said to my Defence team?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. If I were to put the same questions to you today in this
23 courtroom, would your answers be the same as in this statement?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Thank you.
Page 44212
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'd like to tender this statement
2 into evidence pursuant to Rule 92 ter.
3 JUDGE KWON: The added part hasn't been redacted, Mr. Robinson.
4 MR. ROBINSON: That's correct, Mr. President. We are tendering
5 paragraphs 1 through 51 and we will redact the others.
6 JUDGE KWON: Yes. With that understanding, we'll admit it.
7 I take it there would be no objection, Ms. Sutherland?
8 MS. SUTHERLAND: Good morning, Mr. President and Your Honours.
9 There is no objection but I make the following observation: That the
10 question and answer statement has a number of leading questions and some
11 legal characterisations, and in my submission the evidential value of the
12 answers are limited by the questions' formulation and goes to the weight
13 of the evidence.
14 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. We'll admit it.
15 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit D4138, Your Honours.
16 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Please continue, Mr. Karadzic.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, and now I'm going to
18 read, in English, a short summary of Mr. Mejakic's statement. After that
19 I will have a couple of questions for the witness.
20 [In English] Mejakic is the former commander of the Omarska
21 Police Station. He is currently serving a sentence in the Banja Luka
22 penal and correctional institution. On March -- on 24 May 1992, there
23 was a clash between the Muslim extremists and the legal forces of the
24 army and police of Republika Srpska which were supposed to establish free
25 passage through Kozarac, Prijedor, and Banja Luka. On that occasion,
Page 44213
1 about 3.500 armed Muslim extremists put up resistance and the fighting
2 lasted three days. A majority of peaceful Muslim citizens, women and
3 children, sought refuge in the town of Prijedor where the political
4 authorities tried to provide them with accommodation. Those authorities
5 were Serbian authorities. All persons were given medical treatment at
6 the Prijedor hospital and the non-Serb population of Kozarac was not
7 prevented from going back to their houses after the attack.
8 Many Muslim extremists who had taken part in the killing of
9 Serbian soldiers and policemen managed to change to civilian clothes and
10 mixed with the civilians. In order to establish the responsibility of
11 the persons who took part in paramilitary organisations, the chief of the
12 Prijedor public security station, SJB, Simo Drljaca, ordered to set up a
13 temporary collection centre on the premises of the Omarska iron mine.
14 The situation was very chaotic. In one period in Prijedor
15 municipality. The corridor to Serbia was closed, the telephone lines in
16 Republika Srpska were cut off. There was no electricity or water and
17 medicines were in short supply and this inevitably affected the civilian
18 population of all ethnic backgrounds as well as the persons brought to
19 the Omarska collection centre.
20 On the ground, Mr. Mejakic never heard or witnessed that anyone
21 from the Serbian leadership planned the ethnic cleansing of the
22 non-Serbian population. All loyal people of Prijedor who accepted the
23 Republika Srpska and its organs of authority could remain in their homes
24 and posts. Nevertheless, a large number of the civilians, not only
25 Muslims and Croats but also Serbs, wanted to leave the area of Prijedor
Page 44214
1 municipality. Non-Serbs who wanted to leave the area because of war,
2 poverty, unemployment, or security reasons were enabled to do so and they
3 could sell, exchange, or leave their property to the municipal
4 authorities, neighbours, or friends. Most of the prisoners of the
5 Omarska collection centre were brought in from the area of Kozarac and
6 the surrounding villages. These persons were captured in case there were
7 reasonable grounds to suspect that they were extremists members of
8 paramilitary units. Among the prisoners, there were also 20 Serbs who
9 had committed certain crimes and posed a threat to the safety of all
10 people. All persons brought in were taken over and assigned to the
11 premises by the persons responsible for the reception. Mr. Mejakic's
12 responsibility was to escort the persons who were to be questioned from
13 the place where they were accommodated to the office of the inspector.
14 The mine administration never fenced off or protected the complex
15 with the other obstacles, and Mr. Mejakic did not have enough police
16 members to seal off the whole mine complex. Mr. Mejakic and his
17 subordinates tried to adhere to the legal regulations and rules of
18 service as much as possible. If there were individual cases of
19 unauthorised treatment of the detained persons, it could have been only
20 individual and not planned and targeted. As a matter of fact, there was
21 a case of a member of security who abused his duty and tried to obtain
22 illegal material and money from the detained person. Disciplinary
23 proceedings were conducted against him and he was expelled from the
24 police. Nobody ever ordered Mr. Mejakic or his subordinates to maltreat,
25 rape, or kill people in the collection centre, and the civilian
Page 44215
1 authorities at the local level never planned or implemented the permanent
2 removal of Bosnian Croats and Muslims from Bosnian Serb-claimed territory
3 of BH concerning Prijedor. The first visit to the Omarska collection
4 centre was made by a delegation from the ARK in mid-July 1992. On that
5 occasion, Stojan Zupljanin, the chief of the Banja Luka Security Service
6 Centre, asked for the immediate dismantlement of the centre. The first
7 visit by journalists was by the ITN from the [Indiscernible], and
8 although they stressed that Mr. Karadzic himself gave them the approval
9 to visit the whole camp, they could only access what Simo Drljaca decided
10 to show them. In August 1992, representatives of the ICRC went to visit
11 the Omarska collection centre and they were enabled to access the whole
12 complex.
13 And that is a short summary. I would like to ask several -- pose
14 several questions to Mr. Mejakic before I hand him over to the
15 Prosecution.
16 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. Mr. Mejakic, you were the commander of the police station in
18 Omarska. Were you also the commander of the camp in Omarska?
19 A. No, I wasn't.
20 Q. What was Omarska at the time?
21 A. By definition provided by the chief of the public security
22 station Simo Drljaca, it was a collection centre which was temporary in
23 nature.
24 Q. Thank you. Why was the centre needed? Was it possible
25 accommodate and interrogate those people at the police station?
Page 44216
1 A. It was not possible to accommodate such a huge number of people
2 in a standard detention unit, and I assume that for that reason it was
3 decided that that complex, that was a former mine, to be reappointed as a
4 temporary accommodation for centre for people who were taken prisoners
5 either during combat or based on intelligence that they had participated
6 in hostilities or that they were members of the enemy forces, extremists,
7 and so on and so forth.
8 Q. Thank you. Can you remind the Chamber how many Serbs and Muslims
9 used to live in Prijedor on the eve of the war?
10 A. I know that in total there was 112.000 inhabitants but at the
11 moment I'm not able to give you the proportion with respect to ethnicity.
12 I cannot remember that information.
13 Q. If the ratio was close to 50/50, does that mean that over 50.000
14 Muslims used to live in Prijedor?
15 A. Yes, roughly speaking.
16 Q. Thank you. Can you tell the Chamber how many of them were
17 detained after the conflict?
18 A. While the collection and interrogation centre was in existence,
19 about 3.400 people were processed.
20 Q. Thank you. How many of them were released and how many of them
21 were sent to Manjaca?
22 A. I believe that the ratio is again half/half. I'm not sure.
23 Maybe there were even more of those who were released and were sent to
24 the collection centre in Trnovo [As interpreted].
25 Q. Thank you. At that time, were you aware of any irregularities
Page 44217
1 and maltreatment of the prisoners?
2 A. Generally speaking, there was no such attitude. It was neither
3 designed or devised or agreed. I repeat, as I said in my statement, but
4 I do not rule out the possibility, and I even know that there were
5 instances of irregularities and crimes committed against the detainees.
6 Q. Transcript, in line 11, it should read "Trnopolje" not "Trnovo."
7 The open collection centre Trnopolje which was not recorded. Would you
8 be so kind to speak slowly. Thank you.
9 A. I'll do my best.
10 Q. According to your knowledge, who occasioned and caused these
11 irregularities that occurred?
12 A. Primarily those were members of paramilitary formations, criminal
13 groups, but there were also instances, albeit very rarely, that it was
14 done by members from the security service.
15 Q. Thank you. Did you or did anyone undertake any measures against
16 these paramilitaries and unauthorised individuals who committed those
17 deeds?
18 A. Not at the time. Later on, something was done about it but at
19 the time, as far as I know, no measures were undertaken to establish
20 their responsibility and to bring them to justice. As far as members of
21 the police are concerned, who were involved, I acted in accordance with
22 the order and in accordance with the rules of service, which means that
23 whenever I gathered information about any irregularity, I would inform
24 Chief Drljaca, who was my direct superior.
25 Q. Thank you. Were any efforts made to prevent such a practice of
Page 44218
1 unauthorised access and illegal conduct?
2 A. Yes. I can only speak about what was done by the security
3 services from the police. However, there were other services involved as
4 well, that is to say units that provided security of the facility, who
5 did not perform their tasks as they should have done. I'm primarily
6 referring to the outer perimeter of security who was supposed to be the
7 first filter of preventing the unauthorised personnel from entering.
8 Q. Thank you.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can the witness be shown 1D18424 in
10 e-court? 65 ter 18242. 424. [In English] 18424. [Interpretation]
11 Thank you.
12 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation].
13 Q. Mr. Mejakic, can you help us to determine who is the sender of
14 this document, who is the recipient, and what the date is?
15 A. This is document of 13 June 1992. It is addressed to the
16 Security Service Centre, to the chief, who at the time was Mr. Zupljanin.
17 It is signed by the public security station Simo Drljaca. I'm familiar
18 with this document. It has been used as the prosecution document as well
19 as the defence document before the court in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
20 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please slow down? Thank you.
21 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Mejakic, could you speak more slowly? Please
22 repeat from where you said it has been used as Prosecution document as
23 well as Defence document.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. I'll try to speak more
25 slowly. So it was used in my trial both as the defence and the
Page 44219
1 prosecution exhibit. This is a report about the conduct of members of
2 the special detachment of the CSB Banja Luka. This is, in fact, a
3 detachment that was set up in April 1992, and it took part in various
4 combat operations. Concerning their stay in the collection and
5 interrogation centre, I believe that what is stated here is more than
6 sufficient, what is stated here by Chief Simo Drljaca.
7 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. Thank you. How did Mr. Drljaca obtain this information, from
9 whom?
10 A. Simo Drljaca received this kind of information from me on a daily
11 basis. However, since this concerns the conduct of police officers,
12 which was contrary to the regulations, they were designated and sent to
13 Omarska to help us prevent access by various paramilitary units, gangs,
14 et cetera. However, they turned into something quite opposite. It was
15 actually them who started creating immense problems. First of all for
16 the detainees, and then later for us in the security. I informed
17 Mr. Drljaca on their behaviour on a regular basis. However, most often
18 he ignored that. When he was finally informed about this by
19 Lieutenant-Colonel Majstorovic and requested him to take certain action,
20 he sent this letter, this report, to the centre chief and the chief of
21 the centre withdrew this unit.
22 Q. Thank you. Do you know what eventually happened with this
23 special unit?
24 A. As far as I know, in the autumn of 1992, this detachment, as well
25 as all the other detachments, were disbanded pursuant to an order of the
Page 44220
1 Minister of the Interior of Republika Srpska.
2 Q. Who was that at the time?
3 A. If I'm not mistaken, that was Mr. Mico Stanisic.
4 Q. Thank you.
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I tender this document into
6 evidence.
7 JUDGE KWON: We will receive it.
8 THE REGISTRAR: 65 ter number 18424 is admitted as Exhibit D4139,
9 Your Honours.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
11 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. Can you tell us in the process in Bosnia how was the issue of the
13 camp commander or a security commander was treated? What was established
14 by the court regarding your role?
15 A. I was indicted by this court as the camp commander. The court of
16 Bosnia-Herzegovina, in addition to this indictment as the camp commander,
17 it was expanded to include the function of the chief of security. The
18 trial chamber convicted me as the camp commander and the chief of
19 security. However, the appeals chamber, by accepting partially my appeal
20 arguments, determined that I was neither the camp commander nor the chief
21 of security but that I was, rather, at the head of the security service
22 but only the portion that involved the police forces in that compound.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can the witness please be shown
24 65 ter 10970?
25 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
Page 44221
1 Q. This contents from the previous document, was that an exception
2 or was the attitude of the entire police Prijedor consistent with this
3 document? Can you tell us more about the document which is on the
4 screen? Who is the person who submitted this official note?
5 A. This official note was compiled and submitted by Dusko Sikirica,
6 commander of Keraterm security, and it's dated 4th of July 1992. It
7 pertains to criminal conduct of specific individuals.
8 Q. Thank you.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'd like to tender this document
10 and at this point I have no further questions.
11 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. I'm sorry, these individuals mentioned here, have they been
13 prosecuted?
14 A. As far as I know, two of them were prosecuted.
15 JUDGE KWON: Very well. Now we will receive this.
16 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit D4140, Your Honours.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
18 JUDGE KWON: Yes. Mr. Mejakic, your evidence-in-chief in this
19 case has been admitted in its most part in writing; that is, through your
20 written statement. Now you will be cross-examined by the representative
21 of the Office of the Prosecutor.
22 Yes, Ms. Sutherland.
23 Cross-examination by Ms. Sutherland:
24 Q. Mr. Mejakic, you've come here to testify about your role in the
25 functioning of the Omarska camp in 1992. You were tried and convicted in
Page 44222
1 2008 by the Bosnia-Herzegovina state court of crimes committed against
2 non-Serbs in the Omarska camp, correct?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. You were convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to a
5 long-term imprisonment of 21 years?
6 A. Yes, yes.
7 Q. Specifically that was crimes of murder; imprisonment, which was
8 the arbitrary and unlawful confinement of camp detainees; torture,
9 including beatings and other physical assaults; sexual violence, which
10 was rapes and other forms of sexual abuse; persecution; and other
11 inhumane acts, including confinement of the detainees in inhuman
12 conditions, harassment, humiliation, and other psychological abuse.
13 That's right, isn't it?
14 A. Yes. That's the legal qualification contained in article 172 of
15 the criminal code of Bosnia-Herzegovina, crimes against humanity.
16 Q. And you gave evidence in your own trial for five days, did you
17 not?
18 A. Yes, I did.
19 Q. You mentioned a moment ago that you appealed the verdict but your
20 sentence was upheld, wasn't it?
21 A. Yes. My appeal was partially accepted, but as regards the
22 sentence, it wasn't changed.
23 Q. In paragraph 14 of the statement you've signed in the last few
24 days, you said that there was enough drinking water but conditions for
25 personal hygiene couldn't be at the required level in the given
Page 44223
1 situation. In fact, the accommodation of the detainees was well below
2 any level of decency, the rooms were overcrowded, and hygiene was
3 non-existent since the detainees could have no bath and they had no
4 access to toiletries, right? That was something that you said that the
5 court noted that you had said?
6 A. Concerning drinking water, this issue, if I'm not wrong, was
7 resolved before this Tribunal in the Kvocka case. It was established
8 that the water used by detainees was drinkable. The access to water
9 sources was there. I have no intention of disputing the fact that the
10 conditions were below standard. I'm talking about this as a professional
11 policeman. These conditions were not suitable for keeping people in
12 detention. However, it was war. An order for issued for them to be
13 detained there. So there was nothing else I could have done.
14 Q. The toilet facilities were in an extremely poor condition and a
15 terrible stench pervaded throughout the hangar building throughout these
16 facilities and you testified to that, right? That's what you said in
17 your evidence.
18 A. Yes, yes.
19 Q. And the court noted that you also said that the food was of low
20 quality, that the detainees were only given one meal a day, and that
21 sometimes some detainees would have no meal at all? You recall saying
22 that?
23 A. I recall saying that in the first couple of days, there was no
24 organised preparation and distribution of one single meal. Later on, the
25 system was established, they received one meal a day, but that was
Page 44224
1 insufficient, and I stand by it to this date when I say that there was
2 not enough food.
3 Q. And the Bosnian court found that the conditions of the camp were
4 brutal and degrading, which resulted in an atmosphere of terror with the
5 detainees, and the court found that detainees were kept without basic
6 necessities of life such as adequate food, which we've just discussed;
7 drinking water, they said was inadequate; medicines and medical care; and
8 the detainees were kept in an unhygienic and in cramped conditions. The
9 court also found that the detainees were subjected to interrogations,
10 beatings, torture, harassment, humiliations, and psychological abuse on a
11 daily basis, and they were living -- and the detainees were living in
12 constant fear for their own lives. And the court found that at least 100
13 detainees were killed or died as a result of those conditions. You're
14 aware of that finding? "Yes" or "no"?
15 A. Yes. I am aware of the court findings. I know for what I was
16 sentenced, but as I said, I came here to tell the truth, and I will do,
17 to the best of my knowledge and memory, to tell the truth about
18 everything. I know very well why I was convicted and I know very well
19 what the trial chamber judgement is and what the appeal judgement is in
20 terms of their contents.
21 Q. I want to move now to your statement. In paragraph 10, you said
22 that detainees would be taken by guards for questioning by operative
23 inspectors. You make no mention, though, in that paragraph as to what
24 happened to the detainees during interrogation. And it's right that you
25 heard raised voices and derogatory ethnic terms being used in the
Page 44225
1 interrogation rooms. You admitted that, didn't you, during your
2 testimony?
3 A. When I was explaining how the security service functioned --
4 Q. Mr. Mejakic, if can get you to pause there. My question was very
5 simple. I said you said when you were giving your evidence that you
6 heard raised voices and derogatory ethnic terms being used in the
7 interrogation rooms. "Yes" or "no"? That's what you said.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. You also heard the screaming of detainees being beaten, yes?
10 A. Yes, yes.
11 Q. You testified that many detainees were physically assaulted
12 during their interrogations.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. You said people would leave the interrogation offices covered
15 with blood, both lightly and seriously injured. That's correct, isn't
16 it? You said that?
17 A. Yes, that was my testimony.
18 Q. And there were also cases where people, after the interrogation,
19 would die soon after. You testified to that, didn't you?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And you were telling the truth when you said that?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. In fact, almost every day somebody would be beaten up, one day it
24 would be five or six, another day seven or eight, and then it would
25 happen that nobody would be beaten up, but this was very seldom. You
Page 44226
1 testified about that too, didn't you?
2 A. I'm not sure that I put it that way exactly, but it is possible.
3 It has been about five years since I gave evidence.
4 Q. This is on day 4 of your testimony at pages 84 and 85. I will
5 read the full quote for you.
6 "I mean, when a person comes out beaten up from their office and
7 what I heard from the others, I can claim that almost on a daily basis
8 they would be beaten up. Almost every day somebody would be beaten up.
9 Only once in a while there would be a day when nobody was beaten up, but
10 it was very rarely."
11 And then you were asked:
12 "When it did happen, was it the case that many detainees were
13 beaten up during the course of the day's interrogations? On any given
14 day, is it the case that usually was more than -- was more than one just
15 one detainee who was beaten by the interrogators?"
16 And you said:
17 "More than one is 100 or so, but it wasn't 100. It's a relative
18 thing. One day it would be five or six, another day seven or eight, and
19 then it would happen that nobody would be beaten up. But as I said, it
20 was very seldom."
21 Do you remember that testimony?
22 THE ACCUSED: Could it be uploaded so that the witness see his
23 own words?
24 JUDGE KWON: And also only in English.
25 MS. SUTHERLAND: [Overlapping speakers]
Page 44227
1 JUDGE KWON: And maybe in B/C/S, but let's see whether the
2 witness can remember or not.
3 MS. SUTHERLAND:
4 Q. Mr. Mejakic, do you recall that passage of testimony that I just
5 read to you?
6 A. I cannot remember that portion at the moment. Listen: Last time
7 when I met Mr. Karadzic and his advisers in the presence of my Defence
8 counsel, it was the first time that I found out that there was a written
9 transcript of my testimony because it was not the practice in the court
10 of Bosnia-Herzegovina, at least in my trial, to have a transcript. I had
11 never received this transcript. It was only last night that I heard
12 about this -- its existence and I suppose that it has been compiled
13 subsequently.
14 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Sutherland, I would like you to put a pause on
15 yourself -- on your part as well. I think witness answered yes after
16 your first question in line 13 on page 22, but it was not noted in the
17 transcript. And you've just overlapped with your second question.
18 MS. SUTHERLAND: I do apologise, Your Honour.
19 Q. Mr. Mejakic, so far --
20 JUDGE KWON: I'd like the court reporters to take a look into the
21 audio recording where the witness said yes to the first question.
22 MS. SUTHERLAND: We can actually ask Mr. Mejakic.
23 Q. You have so far for all the propositions that I've put to you,
24 you have answered in the affirmative that that's what you actually said,
25 didn't -- haven't you? Except for this last one that you were saying you
Page 44228
1 can't remember.
2 A. Apart from the last one, yes.
3 Q. M'hm.
4 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
5 MS. SUTHERLAND:
6 Q. But getting back to the level of beatings that were occurring,
7 you don't remember saying this. We can call it up.
8 MS. SUTHERLAND: It's page 65 ter 25703D. Each of the five days
9 of testimony have been broken into A, B, C, D, of that 65 ter exhibit,
10 Your Honour. Page 85. Okay, we see at the top of the page where you
11 said that there were all sorts of injuries both light and serious and
12 there were also cases that people after the interrogation would die
13 soon afterwards. And then towards the bottom of the
14 page --
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could we see the original in
16 Serbian?
17 MS. SUTHERLAND: Just a moment, Your Honour, the pages aren't
18 synced.
19 JUDGE KWON: Do we have a B/C/S version, Ms. Sutherland.
20 MS. SUTHERLAND: Yes, Your Honour. I've been informed it hasn't
21 been uploaded just at the moment. I'm sorry, can we go to the top of
22 that page again, please? This is the -- this is in chief. I'm wanting
23 the cross-examination. It's -- it's tape number 3896. I'm sorry, Your
24 Honour, I'll move on. I'll come back to that when I can get the
25 transcript correct.
Page 44229
1 Q. Mr. Mejakic, you said in paragraph 17 of your statement that
2 there was a need for additional accomodation, so all free rooms in the
3 mine complex were used including the famous white house. Now, there was
4 a categorisation system in the camp, wasn't there? You explained it
5 briefly in your evidence-in-chief where category 1 were people who
6 were -- the first category of people were those where it was alleged who
7 had no involvement in any activity whatsoever, and then there was another
8 category of people where it was alleged too that they had provided
9 assistance to other persons who may have been involved in armed
10 rebellion, and it was those people that were in this third category.
11 That's right, isn't it, the three categories?
12 A. Correct. That categorisation was in terms of the description as
13 you stated was the same but the number was reversed. The first category,
14 as far as I know, although it's better to ask one of those who did the
15 interrogations and classification, as far as I know the first category
16 were extremists. You just need to reverse the order.
17 Q. You're right. I was simply saying the three different categories
18 that there were, but those that were involved in the armed rebellion were
19 classed as the first category.
20 And individuals in this category were accommodated in the white
21 house, weren't they?
22 A. No, no, not exclusively in the white house.
23 Q. Predominantly?
24 A. It's a very small space, so you couldn't put up there such a
25 number of people. As far as I know, you couldn't put up there the number
Page 44230
1 of people who were in the first category. At the beginning, that
2 notorious white house was not used at all.
3 Q. How many people do you think were in the white house on a -- on a
4 good day?
5 A. It's hard to tell. From 70 to 80, perhaps less.
6 Q. You --
7 A. But it's difficult after all this time to make an estimate.
8 Q. You in fact said that the white house was crammed full of people.
9 You went there on two or three occasions and that's what you saw, isn't
10 it, that that's what you said?
11 A. Yes, yes.
12 Q. And you also said that there was no toilet facility in the
13 building?
14 A. Correct, that's what I said.
15 Q. And for the majority of detainees who were detained in the white
16 house, you could see visible traces of injuries, correct?
17 A. The majority? Some of them, yes, but I'm not sure I said the
18 majority. Indisputably there were people, even before, who had been
19 brought there and kept there.
20 Q. You said that they appeared to be more beaten up than the
21 detainees accommodated elsewhere in the camp, didn't you?
22 A. That's correct, that's true. But again, I repeat: I'm talking
23 about the category of people who were classified by inspectors as group
24 1, and it was according to their orders that they were placed in the
25 white house.
Page 44231
1 Q. And there were also other prominent people in the white house,
2 including some politicians; is that right?
3 A. Let me tell you, I knew only a very small number of these people.
4 I had worked before in Omarska, 25 kilometres from Prijedor, and I knew
5 very few of these prominent people, politicians and others. I learned
6 some things only much later, after all that happened, and some things
7 I learned only in 2003 from the material you showed me, both inculpatory
8 and exculpatory. I learned some details only then such as the names of
9 those people and the posts they had held. I couldn't know it then.
10 Q. Chief of police, Simo Drljaca, he was at the camp every day --
11 every other day or approximately every other day, wasn't he, that's what
12 you said when you testified?
13 A. Correct, that's true.
14 Q. You said that he stopped by the room where you were?
15 A. Yes. Very seldom, he didn't really stop by. He usually went to
16 the room where two or three people sat who coordinated the entire service
17 of inspectors.
18 Q. And that's Mirko Jesic, Ranko Mijic and
19 Lieutenant-Colonel Majstorovic?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. You reported to Drljaca though every day either orally and in
22 writing and sometimes both, about events that were going on in the camp?
23 A. Not every other day. Every day.
24 Q. That's what I said.
25 A. I seem to have heard every other day in interpretation.
Page 44232
1 Q. Mirko Jesic and Ranko Mijic were also reporting to Drljaca on a
2 daily basis?
3 A. I suppose so, because I know that in the mornings, before leaving
4 and in the afternoon, after returning from Omarska, they had meetings
5 with Drljaca.
6 Q. Now, you mentioned these layers of security earlier today. You
7 had the VRS on the most extreme ring of the camp. You've also got the TO
8 manning a number of guard posts. And you've got active and reserve
9 police manning the guard posts on the innermost circle near the -- near
10 the camp compound, that's right?
11 A. Yes. The outer ring.
12 Q. I'm sorry. And you also have the TO manning, for example, in
13 front of and behind the white house?
14 A. Yes. There were members of the TO.
15 Q. And there were three shifts of active and reserve police, weren't
16 there?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And you also had the 12 -- how many -- how many people were in
19 each of those shifts?
20 A. If I remember well, from 22 to 25 policemen.
21 Q. And then you had another 12 policemen working directly to the
22 inspectors who would go and get the detainees from wherever they were
23 staying and take them for interrogation, yes?
24 A. Yes. That was a group of 12 members, mainly of the reserve
25 police, who, on the orders of Simo Drljaca, had been assigned to
Page 44233
1 inspectors to serve them which means on the inspectors' orders they would
2 go to a certain room, find the person who needs to be brought for
3 interrogation, and then take that person back wherever the inspector
4 says.
5 Q. And all these people that were involved in security, securing the
6 camp, they were all armed with automatic or long-barrel weapons, weren't
7 they, or pistols?
8 A. Most of them had automatic rifles, a small number had
9 semi-automatic rifles, and there were some members of the
10 Territorial Defence who had old M48 rifles.
11 Q. And there were two light machine-guns located on the roof of the
12 administration building, yes?
13 A. Not two. There was one.
14 Q. You spoke earlier today about these groups coming into the
15 Omarska camp to commit crimes. And you spoke about that in paragraph 15
16 of your statement, unauthorised persons came to the camp. You testified
17 that groups and individuals who came also killed and were beating
18 detainees. That was what you said?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And you said that Zoran Zigic was the most frequent visitor, for
21 want of a better word, who came to the camp. You testified to that?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And you said that Zigic and his group would more frequently visit
24 the white house than other parts of the camp, yes?
25 A. Correct.
Page 44234
1 Q. And men who came with Zoran Zigic included Dusan, otherwise known
2 as Duca Knezevic, you said that?
3 A. Please.
4 Q. Sorry, Dusko Knezevic?
5 A. Dusko Knezevic, yes, but what I said then was that I don't want
6 to go into the identity of that person, the question of his identity,
7 because we are talking about Dusko Knezevic who had been tried before the
8 court of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the same case as myself.
9 Q. Yes. And he was sentenced to 31 years imprisonment, right?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. For crimes he committed in the Omarska camp and Keraterm camp?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Zigic's group also included Dragomir Saponja, Nikola Janjic, and
14 Zeljko Timarac, correct?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Now, we saw an exhibit a moment ago, I think it's D4140, where it
17 was about Zigic and Timarac and there was one other, you said that two of
18 them had been prosecuted. But that wasn't by the Serbian authorities
19 during the war or even after the war, was it? Dusko Knezevic was
20 indicted here and his case was transferred along with yours to Bosnia in
21 2006, correct?
22 A. Yes. But I didn't make a mistake when I said they were
23 prosecuted in the end.
24 Q. Yes. In the end. Who was the other person -- and Zigic, again,
25 he was the other person of the three that you were referring to, and he
Page 44235
1 was in fact convicted and sentenced by a court at the ICTY to 25 years'
2 imprisonment, wasn't he, for crimes that he committed in Keraterm and
3 Omarska camps? For the record you have to speak louder, I think, so that
4 your answer is on the transcript. You said yes?
5 A. Yes, yes.
6 Q. Your trial chamber found that this group of visitors was a
7 synonym for the beating of detainees, especially in the white house.
8 These people weren't stopped by either the VRS, the TO, or the police.
9 And there was no willingness on your part or the Serb authorities in
10 Prijedor to stop these people from entering the camp, was there? To stop
11 them from entering and committing murder and brutal beatings of the
12 detainees.
13 A. The question is too broad but I'll try to answer. It's not that
14 there was no will, no obligation, to stop these people from doing that.
15 And I don't mean only these groups. I mean some other groups as well.
16 It's quite simply that it was a temporary facility without a fence around
17 it, without any physical barrier between those visitors, quote/unquote,
18 as we call them, and the detainees. There was no physical obstacle.
19 When they pass through the first ring of security, they are already
20 inside, and I did not have either enough personnel or enough resources or
21 any way to stop them. They were well-armed groups.
22 Q. If -- if the authorities had wanted to stop this group from --
23 and other groups from coming into the camp, they had the whole of the
24 1KK Corps, the 1st Krajina Corps, sorry, the RS MUP. What's to stop them
25 getting reinforcements to stop these people from coming into the camp?
Page 44236
1 They came in because everyone was happy for them to do it.
2 A. No. Nobody, starting with me, and the majority of the policemen
3 and inspectors there, nobody was happy that they were coming in and doing
4 what they were doing. God forbid. A normal person could not be happy
5 about that, about watching people maltreating other people.
6 Q. So --
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Transcript.
8 JUDGE KWON: Yes?
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't know whether I'm right,
10 because I'm not sure about double negatives in English and in Serbian,
11 but on page 31, lines 10 and 11, the witness said it's not that there was
12 no will or obligation. I don't know how that is understood in English.
13 Maybe we should clear up with the witness. Was there a will and
14 obligation?
15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Certainly, there was a will and
16 obligation to stop it, and we did all we could do to stop such
17 occurrences.
18 MS. SUTHERLAND:
19 Q. But you did nothing. They were never stopped from coming into
20 the Omarska camp.
21 A. Some evidence that was led in court say the opposite. There were
22 examples of witnesses who testified that some people had been stopped in
23 the attempt to mistreat them, extort money, et cetera. There were
24 prosecution witnesses who --
25 Q. I'm talking about Zigic's group. Nothing was done to stop them
Page 44237
1 from coming into the camp, and you said that they came into the camp
2 through June and July of 1992.
3 A. I said they were coming throughout June. I don't know about
4 July. But if, with all his authority, Lieutenant-Colonel Majstorovic who
5 had means to organise people to stop them, how could I be expected to
6 stop them?
7 Q. You were in charge of security. It was your job to protect the
8 detainees. Mr. Mejakic, I'll just read what you said in -- when you were
9 asked to clarify whether you said June or July, you said -- the question
10 was from Defence counsel:
11 "When asked by the Prosecutor you mentioned, if I am not
12 mistaken, with regard to Zoran Zigic, the prosecutor asked you if he
13 would come both in June and July, and you confirmed that he would come to
14 the Omarska camp in both these months; is that correct?"
15 And you said:
16 "I was sure about June and I said I think he also came in July.
17 This is how I said it."
18 Do you agree with that?
19 A. Yes, yes. I'm sure he came in June, and I don't rule out the
20 possibility that he was coming also in July. That was my answer.
21 Q. You said in paragraph 16 of your statement that two people tried
22 to escape from the camp and were killed. Now, that's the only mention of
23 killings in your statement. You omitted to mention the number of
24 individuals that you know were killed in the camp either because you were
25 in the camp at the time or you were told by Kvocka or Prcac about them
Page 44238
1 being killed, and you actually gave examples and you named around 15
2 individuals and the circumstances surrounding their death when you
3 testified in Bosnia, but you didn't think it was relevant to include --
4 to include that you were aware of a number of deaths in the camp?
5 A. When I gave that statement, I was answering questions,
6 specifically about two cases when firearms were used by members of the
7 security. There were only three cases when firearms were used by the
8 police security service. I talked about those two cases where two
9 persons were killed, and I spoke about one case where one person was
10 injured, wounded, transferred to the Prijedor hospital, and survived.
11 Q. Mr. Mejakic, you're a policeman, and you have been up until 1992,
12 you were a policeman for at least nine years, and you continued on after
13 as a policeman until at least 1996. When you were being -- when you were
14 giving this statement to the Defence and you mentioned that two people
15 had -- you were asked about the two people that had been killed, didn't
16 you think to mention, well, there was a lot of other people killed and
17 let me tell you about that?
18 A. Yes. We discussed it.
19 Q. That's not in your statement. The only thing that's in your
20 statement is about the two people, the two escapees.
21 A. I don't know why it's not in the statement. I said that I can
22 speak in a qualified way only about the police aspect of the work, about
23 the police security service. About the other services down there, I can
24 speak from my own personal knowledge and perhaps hearsay.
25 Q. You said at least four individuals died from natural causes, yes?
Page 44239
1 When you testified.
2 A. Yes, yes. That's true.
3 Q. And you said that one of them, Safet Ramadanovic -- Ramadanovic,
4 died a natural death; however, your trial chamber found that he died as a
5 result of injuries sustained during the beating he received from guards
6 Predojevic and Popovic; that's right, isn't it, that's how he died, not
7 of natural causes?
8 A. No. That's not correct. First of all, his name was not
9 Rafah Ramadanovic but Safet Ramadanovic, who died of natural causes. His
10 body was handed over to his family. His mortal remains were handed over
11 to the family who buried the body.
12 Q. Well, I'm not disputing whether they were handed over. I'm
13 disputing how he was -- how he died.
14 A. I repeat: I am telling you only what I know about the case.
15 This is what my immediate knowledge is. I repeat: I know why I was
16 convicted. I know what it says in my court decision. But I'm here to
17 tell the truth.
18 Q. If you know -- if you know what it says in your court decision,
19 then you'll know that the court found that he was killed by being beaten
20 to death by two guards. That's correct, isn't it? That's the court
21 finding.
22 A. This is what the court established.
23 Q. Thank you.
24 A. And it would never even occur to me to discuss the contents of
25 the court's finding or to comment upon it. I am a law professional. The
Page 44240
1 court found one thing. I tried to prove that it was differently. Well,
2 what can I say?
3 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, I note the time.
4 JUDGE KWON: Yes. We will have a break and resume at five past
5 11.00.
6 --- Recess taken at 10.33 a.m.
7 --- On resuming at 11.07 a.m.
8 JUDGE KWON: Please continue.
9 MS. SUTHERLAND:
10 Q. Mr. Mejakic, I want to just quickly take you back to the issue we
11 were dealing with when we had the problem with the transcript page coming
12 up on the screen.
13 MS. SUTHERLAND: If I could have 65 ter number 25703D. Now,
14 Your Honour, there was glitch in that it was the right exhibit number but
15 the wrong document was attached to the number in e-court.
16 Q. And on page 85, you see your answer there, Mr. Mejakic,
17 starting --
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. -- halfway through that paragraph, I can claim that almost on a
20 daily basis, they would be beaten up. Almost every day somebody would be
21 beaten. Only once in a while there would be a day when nobody was beaten
22 up, but it was very rarely.
23 Now, you said that there, didn't you, when you testified in -- in
24 your trial?
25 A. Yes.
Page 44241
1 Q. Thank you. I want to move on now --
2 JUDGE KWON: This is what witness confirmed earlier on. What
3 witness said he couldn't remember is the five or six, or six, seven, so
4 you're not going to show that page?
5 MS. SUTHERLAND: Yes, Your Honour. If we could go further
6 over -- further down, sorry.
7 Q. The last --
8 MS. SUTHERLAND: Thank you very much, Your Honour.
9 Q. Mr. Mejakic, the last notation on this page with ZM --
10 JUDGE KWON: Could you read the question as well?
11 MS. SUTHERLAND:
12 Q. The question was:
13 "And when did it happen? Was it the case that many detainees
14 were beaten up during the course of the day's interrogations? On any
15 given day, is it the case that usually it was more than just one detainee
16 who was beaten by the interrogators?"
17 And you replied:
18 "More than one is 100 or so, but it wasn't 100. It's a relative
19 thing. One day it would be five or six, another day seven or eight. And
20 then it would happen that nobody would be beaten up, but as I said it was
21 very seldom."
22 Now, you said that when you testified?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Thank you.
25 MS. SUTHERLAND: I don't need that exhibit any more, thank you.
Page 44242
1 Q. Mr. Mejakic, on an almost daily basis, several dead bodies would
2 be seen by witnesses in the camp which would be loaded on to a yellow TAM
3 or Tamic truck and taken away, and that's what your trial chamber found,
4 didn't they?
5 A. It is correct that the Trial Chamber found that but I repeat:
6 This does not tally with the truth. That's not how the situation was in
7 reality.
8 Q. Mr. Mejakic, numerous witnesses have testified that dead bodies
9 were seen piled up outside the white house on a daily basis. Are you
10 disputing -- are you disputing that?
11 A. Yes, I disputed that during my trial. You are referring to the
12 witnesses who confirmed that. I, however, referred to the equally
13 numerous witnesses who denied that. The trial chamber found what they
14 did, and I don't have the right to proffer any comments on their final
15 judgement.
16 Q. Well, you saw a number of dead bodies in the camp including three
17 the morning you first arrived in the camp, yes?
18 A. Yes, yes. This is the truth. As I've told you, I'm here to tell
19 the truth to the best of my knowledge and recollection. However, if we
20 are talking about those three bodies, then we have to be very open and we
21 have to tell the whole truth. Those bodies --
22 Q. You --
23 JUDGE KWON: Let him continue.
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] When I spoke about that, I said
25 that the -- I found those three bodies when I first arrived at the
Page 44243
1 collection centre or camp, call it what you will. However, none of the
2 security guards from the police ranks was present there during the night
3 when the camp was being established. Those dead bodies were a
4 consequence of what was going on during that first night. As far as I
5 know, nobody dealt with the issue of establishing the responsibility of
6 the perpetrators. Nobody bothered to find out whether those people had
7 tried to escape during transport, how they were killed, who they were,
8 nobody dealt with that. On that same day when I saw those bodies, within
9 the next 45 minutes I informed Chief Drljaca of what I'd seen and what
10 had happened to my knowledge.
11 MS. SUTHERLAND:
12 Q. Okay, what about on the one occasion, the only one occasion that
13 you saw a TAM truck stop outside the white house where two bodies were
14 loaded and transported off? You said that in your trial. Do you
15 remember saying that?
16 A. Could you please be more precise and tell me in what part of my
17 testimony or what dead bodies you are talking about? If at all possible.
18 Because I really did not see the transcript from my trial.
19 Q. It was in cross-examination. It was on the -- on the last day of
20 your testimony.
21 MS. SUTHERLAND: If we could bring up, please, 65 ter 257101E,
22 please.
23 Q. And you were asked about the TAM trucks coming to the camp.
24 JUDGE KWON: 65 ter number again?
25 MS. SUTHERLAND: 25701E.
Page 44244
1 Q. And you were asked on page 7, and did you ever see them taking
2 bodies out of the camp --
3 JUDGE KWON: Was it released?
4 MS. SUTHERLAND: One moment, Your Honour.
5 [Prosecution counsel confer]
6 MS. SUTHERLAND: 25703E. My apologies.
7 THE ACCUSED: Please, if it is possible to have the Serbian
8 version.
9 JUDGE KWON: She said unfortunately it was not uploaded or it
10 wasn't.
11 MS. SUTHERLAND:
12 Q. And we see there on page 7, halfway down the page:
13 "And did you ever see them taking bodies out of the camp?"
14 And you said:
15 "The TAM truck that drives a dead body, actually not one but two
16 dead bodies on one occasion."
17 And then you said -- you mentioned the two dead bodies and you
18 believed it was the same situation. So you remember this evidence that
19 you gave?
20 And if we can just go over the page, I'm sorry, to just finish
21 the proposition that I put to you, halfway down the page, the prosecutor
22 says: Did you ever see them stop at the white house, still talking about
23 the TAM truck. Apart from this case where they took two bodies, I didn't
24 see them stopping.
25 Now, you said that in your testimony, didn't you? You can see it
Page 44245
1 there.
2 A. This is the English version. Honestly I don't read English.
3 I would love to see it in a language I understand. I'm not clear on some
4 things here. It is true that in my testimony when I testified before the
5 court, I confirmed the fact that the dead bodies were taken from Omarska
6 in a TAM lorry. I saw that with my own two eyes. I also stated that
7 either two or three dead bodies, including the dead body of
8 Becir Medunjanin, were taken away by the vehicles of the utility company;
9 i.e., they were taken away in a funeral truck.
10 Q. You actually limited it to only Becir Medunjanin's body. You
11 said, and this is in your evidence-in-chief, other transport was used to
12 take dead bodies out of the camp. Becir Medunjanin's body was taken away
13 by a vehicle owned by the Prijedor utilities company. You remember
14 saying that, yes? And because of that you surmised that his murder must
15 have been reported to the authorities. You said that, didn't you?
16 A. Yes, yes. I said that. As far as his murder is concerned, like
17 in any other incident, my superior Simo Drljaca was informed. Pursuant
18 to the decision on the setting up of the camp, I was duty-bound to report
19 to him on all the issues concerning security.
20 Q. Now, you also said, when the Prosecutor was questioning you about
21 the number of persons or bodies that you saw in Omarska, and he had
22 actually counted up in -- as you gave your evidence-in-chief, he came to
23 a figure of around 12 killings. I mentioned 15 this morning. That
24 was -- that was my count on the evidence that you had given in chief.
25 And he was asking you about, you know, he said now the number of
Page 44246
1 bodies that you saw in Omarska, and you gave evidence about the
2 circumstances of each of the killings, and he said to you, how many
3 people, how many detainees, were killed in Omarska? Is that list
4 exhaustive? And you said, to your response, to your question, I cannot
5 give specific answer about the exact number. What -- what's the --
6 what's the issue on -- on not being able to give an exact number of the
7 number of people that were killed? Was it that there were so many killed
8 that that's why you can't specify a number?
9 A. No. No. It's not about that. It's about a very sensitive issue
10 in my humble view, an issue that had not been dealt with in any of the
11 proceedings conducted either before this Court or the court in
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Many speculations exist there. The first figure
13 that was mentioned was 3.800 who were killed, and then 1.000 or 900 or
14 700. These are terrible things because these are lies that still persist
15 to this very day. It was made impossible to my defence team to
16 cross-examine the prosecution expert who drafted all those reports about
17 all the deaths that occurred in Prijedor municipality. If I'm not
18 mistaken, his name is Nikola Sebauer [phon]. His report was admitted
19 from bar table and he was not cross-examined. I believe that the
20 cross-examination of that witness in my case would have resulted in an
21 approximate number of those who were killed in Omarska.
22 There is yet another thing that needs to be emphasised. Many
23 individuals were last seen alive in Omarska. They left Omarska. And --
24 and their whereabouts are known from then. However, it is still believed
25 that they were killed in Omarska. You have to take into account the fact
Page 44247
1 that there were cases when the list which was signed by the chief was
2 used by the guards to call up the names of the individuals and the
3 explanation was that they were to be exchanged. I arrived here in 1993
4 and I learned that those individuals were found dead in Lisac
5 [indiscernible] bit 100 kilometres away from Omarska. That's why I'm
6 saying that I'm not sure about any of that. I spoke about those things
7 that I know, that I saw and experienced myself. I don't want to
8 speculate because the issue is really very sensitive.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Transcript.
10 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Mejakic, I take it you arrived here in 2003?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In 2003, yes.
12 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Karadzic?
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] On page 41, line 17, the witness
14 said that the issue was not dealt with so far but, rather, that no
15 correct answer was ever provided as to the number of deaths. Yes, people
16 were dealing with that issue but the number was never established. This
17 is what the witness stated.
18 JUDGE KWON: Do you confirm, Mr. Mejakic, having said so?
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, this is what I said.
20 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Please continue, Ms. Sutherland.
21 MS. SUTHERLAND:
22 Q. Mr. Mejakic, the night you saw the three dead bodies in the camp,
23 you had additional information that more were dead, correct? And
24 I simply want a yes or a no to the answer to my question, "yes" or "no,"
25 you had additional information that more were dead?
Page 44248
1 A. Let me correct you. It was not during that night but in the
2 morning. In the morning when I saw those dead bodies. I did receive
3 some additional information about people who had been killed but not in
4 Omarska but further afield.
5 Q. You said it is possible that seven who were taken away, some
6 seven or eight or 15 kilometres away from the Omarska camp, you recall
7 saying that?
8 A. Yes. This is what I have just stated.
9 Q. Now, the Tomasica mine is 15 kilometres away from the Omarska
10 camp. Is that what you were referring to?
11 A. No, no, I did not refer to that. I meant the areas of Kozarac
12 and Kamicani.
13 Q. So where were these dead bodies taken, some 7, or 8, or 15
14 kilometres away, I mean in the places that you've just said? Where
15 specifically were they taken?
16 A. I'm not saying that the bodies were taken somewhere. I'm saying
17 that people had been taken away, and as far as I heard, they were killed
18 in that place. I don't know where the bodies were subsequently buried.
19 Q. Mr. Mejakic, you spoke about four people being taken to Kozarac
20 and being killed. What location are you referring to when you are
21 referring to 15 kilometres away?
22 A. I don't understand your question. What four people do you have
23 in mind? What four people are you referring to?
24 Q. The day after the 30th of May, when you -- when you saw the three
25 dead bodies in the camp, you -- you gave evidence that an additional four
Page 44249
1 people were taken and they were taken out of the camp to Kozarac and
2 killed. You gave that evidence. Do you recall saying that?
3 A. Are you implying that I said that in Sarajevo?
4 Q. Yes.
5 A. I'm not sure that I ever put it that way. I said, and I repeat,
6 that I learned from other people that during that night in addition to
7 the three dead bodies that I subsequently found there, that some other
8 individuals had been taken away from the camp in the direction of Kozarac
9 or Kamicani where they were killed. This is what I said and this is what
10 I am repeating here.
11 Q. So of the -- of the dead bodies that were in the camp, where were
12 they taken? Now you mentioned, for example, that you saw the TAM truck
13 stop by the white house, pick up two dead bodies, and go out of the camp.
14 Where were those two bodies taken?
15 A. I don't know. I don't know that.
16 Q. You didn't -- you didn't ask any questions about where they were
17 being taken?
18 A. Why was it worthwhile to ask anyone, since no one could provide
19 an answer? We in the police were told to stick to what our job was.
20 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please move closer to the
21 mike and could all the mikes not in use please be switched off while the
22 witness is speaking? Thank you.
23 MS. SUTHERLAND:
24 Q. In paragraph 5 of your statement, you said --
25 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Mejakic, could you come closer to the
Page 44250
1 microphone, please? Thank you.
2 MS. SUTHERLAND:
3 Q. In paragraph 5 of your statement, you state that they fabricated
4 a massacre of 250 detainees who were brought from the Brdo area. When
5 you say "they," I presume you're meaning the non-Serb witnesses, no?
6 A. Are you referring to my statement given to Mr. Karadzic's
7 investigators?
8 Q. Here.
9 A. Yes, here. If it is no problem, can I be shown?
10 THE ACCUSED: I could probably give a hard copy with your
11 permission.
12 JUDGE KWON: Yes. Or we can upload it as well. Show it to the
13 Prosecutor first.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Sorry, which paragraph?
15 MS. SUTHERLAND:
16 Q. Paragraph 5.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. So -- and I don't want to go into the details, Mr. Mejakic,
19 simply I want to know who the "they" are that you're referring to.
20 You're talking about non-Serb witnesses who testified about that
21 particular massacre of people brought from the Brdo? Is that right?
22 A. Can I have a moment to read it, please? As far as I can see, it
23 reads the following: A massacre of about 250 detainees was fabricated,
24 the detainees brought from Brdo which was also not corroborated by
25 evidence. There is a series of other things attributed to Omarska camp.
Page 44251
1 I don't see any personal pronoun here.
2 Q. Okay. It must be the translation. Your trial chamber found
3 beyond any reasonable doubt that the event took place and determined that
4 at least 50 detained inhabitants of the village of Hambarine were killed
5 at the critical time. That's right, isn't it?
6 A. Allow me to answer this question. I will to have give you an
7 extensive answer, but I won't take too much of your time.
8 Q. No, Mr. Mejakic. The question is your trial chamber found beyond
9 reasonable doubt that at least 50 detained inhabitants of the village of
10 Hambarine were killed. That's a finding of the trial chamber, isn't it?
11 "Yes" or "no"?
12 A. Yes, that was established by the trial chamber, but, please,
13 please --
14 Q. Yes. The allegation -- sorry, the allegation was between 100 and
15 150 people were killed. Your trial chamber found at least 50 were
16 killed. So you're not saying it didn't happen, you're just quibbling
17 about the numbers; is that right? Is that right, Mr. Mejakic?
18 A. There was a dispute during the trial whether that happened at all
19 or not. It was also disputable that in the judgement findings about the
20 50 persons, there was not a single information providing details of these
21 individuals. As far as I know, every individual has a first name and a
22 last name. You won't find that either in the indictment, in the annex to
23 the indictment, or any other documents. You won't find their full names.
24 This is what took place during the trial.
25 Q. You're aware of a group of around 15 people who were liquidated
Page 44252
1 by a police guard on one of the inspector's say-so, aren't you?
2 A. I believe that this relates to the testimony of Mr. Jesic in the
3 Kvocka trial when he spoke about the execution of 15 or 18 individuals.
4 But this is not about --
5 Q. Well, actually, it's your evidence. It's your evidence that you
6 gave at the state court.
7 A. Yes. But during my testimony, I invoked Mr. Jesic's testimony,
8 and I explained what that was actually about; that is to say, that those
9 people were not killed in Omarska and not by the guards, the police
10 guards. These individuals had been taken away from the Omarska camp and
11 thereon they disappeared without a trace.
12 Q. In your evidence, and this is in your evidence-in-chief, on the
13 third day -- second day, you said:
14 [As read] "On the following day I talked to Jesic Mirko who told
15 me that there is a possibility that the previous day around 15 people
16 were taken away from the camp, and then he started naming the people --
17 the persons.
18 "And since they requested lists for interrogation, I remember he
19 mentioned Avo Sadikovic, and he was the person I knew. He used to be a
20 crime department inspector. Generally, around 15 days... around," sorry,
21 "15 people were taken away."
22 Now, you remember saying that in your evidence? And then --
23 A. I recall.
24 Q. Do you remember saying that?
25 A. I recall now, since you mentioned Inspector Sadikovic's name,
Page 44253
1 I remember talking about this in the court of Bosnia-Herzegovina and
2 I remember what I said and I stay by it. Of course, on condition that
3 what I said is accurately interpreted in the transcript.
4 Q. Now, you said that:
5 [As read] "Mirko Jesic never told me the name of that particular
6 inspector. And I know that since I was trying to find out he told me
7 don't talk about this too much, it can give you a headache, cause a
8 headache to you. This is our job. We'll check it up with Simo.
9 Somebody should be held responsible sooner or later."
10 You remember saying that?
11 A. Yes, that is true.
12 Q. Now, when Mirko Jesic testified in the Kvocka case he actually
13 said, and this is at transcript page 11753 to 11754, he said:
14 [As read] "Soon after his arrival in the first half of July, when
15 he came to the investigation centre, soon after his arrival he heard that
16 the night before there had been a grave incident and immediately went to
17 see our leader or commander, Zeljko Mejakic. I asked him what happened
18 last night, and he said that several Muslims or rather detainees had been
19 killed in Omarska camp."
20 Then further on:
21 [As read] "After that he told me that it had been done upon a
22 request -- upon the request of an inspector, and Mr. Jesic inferred it
23 must have been Rade Knezevic."
24 Is that right? Was that the inspector that -- that, on -- upon
25 whose orders these 15 or 18, 15 to 18 people were liquidated?
Page 44254
1 A. I cannot confirm that. I think that Mirko Jesic, during his
2 testimony, mixed up two incidents. The incident where
3 Inspector Sadikovic is mentioned, that incident took place during
4 day-time, whereas another incident, when people were taken from Omarska,
5 18 of them, under the pretext that they were being taken to the prison,
6 I think that is where he got it mixed up. There was a confusion in his
7 perception.
8 Q. So now we've got two groups of 15 being taken away?
9 A. Yes. We have a group of 15 to 18 individuals who were taken away
10 towards Gradiska or to the Gradiska prison, whereas the other incident
11 which took place during day-time involved the taking away of 15
12 individuals from the collection and interrogation centre and that is the
13 incident that Mirko Jesic and I discussed.
14 Q. Mirko Jesic said that he asked you what Rade had done and he said
15 that -- and you said that he'd given a guard a list of names which in his
16 judgement and according to his demand valuables should be taken and after
17 that they should be liquidated. So who was this guard that got this list
18 of the people by the inspector?
19 A. I'm not aware of that. I don't know who this guard was.
20 Q. He's one of your guards. He's one of your guards. You were the
21 one that told Mirko Jesic about the incident when Mirko Jesic turned up
22 for work the next day and you said that this inspector had given one of
23 your guards a list of the people who needed to be liquidated, so I'm
24 asking you who was the name of the guard?
25 A. No. It's not true that Mirko Jesic and I discussed the name of
Page 44255
1 the guard at all. Even more, Mirko Jesic never said that he was talking
2 about a specific inspector.
3 Q. You may not have discussed the name of the guard with
4 Mirko Jesic, but in you telling Mirko Jesic about it, you must know who
5 the name of the guard is. Who was the guard that took the names of the
6 15 people to be liquidated?
7 A. I don't know. I really don't know.
8 Q. Apart from the large number of people that you saw or heard
9 having been killed in the camp, there were also a large number of people
10 that were taken away from the camp and never seen again, and you've just
11 alluded to this -- or two groups, actually, being taken away. So you say
12 that a group in your -- in your evidence in the -- in your own trial, you
13 say a group of about 20 people including, nine or ten people with the
14 surname Garibovic and also Slavko Ecimovic, you say --
15 A. It's Garibovic, I'm sorry.
16 Q. That's what I thought I said, Mr. Mejakic. You say these people
17 were taken away around the 20th of June, according to you, for exchange.
18 Do you remember saying that?
19 A. Yes. I remember talking about that. I received in translation
20 the name Garibovic whereas the name is Garibovic.
21 Q. Those people were killed, weren't they?
22 A. I cannot talk about that because I am not aware of that.
23 I assume that they were killed, but the point is that when they left
24 Omarska they were alive.
25 Q. Mr. Mejakic, your Trial Chamber found that Slavko Ecimovic was
Page 44256
1 beaten to death by Dusko Knezovic and Zigic around the 10th of June in
2 the camp. You're aware of that finding of the Trial Chamber? "Yes" or
3 "no"?
4 A. I don't remember entirely, but I do remember that in the course
5 of the trial it was proven that Slavko Ecimovic was beaten up in the
6 barracks prior to him being brought to Omarska. And Slavko Ecimovic, to
7 my knowledge, was taken with the group where the majority of people had
8 the last name of Garibovic.
9 Q. We have evidence in this case that a number of individuals named
10 Garibovic who were last seen in the Omarska camp in June were exhumed
11 from three mass graves, and that's at Jakarina [phon] Kosa,
12 Stari Kevljani [phon], and Kevljani [phon], and that's at P4855. So
13 there's no dispute that they were killed, is there?
14 A. There is obviously nothing disputable there. The only issue at
15 dispute is that whether they were in Omarska or outside Omarska, and what
16 I'm saying is that they were alive when they left Omarska.
17 Q. You are saying nobody left the camp either in groups or
18 individually without a list, didn't you?
19 A. Correct.
20 Q. You said even if it meant that there was only four people or one
21 person on the list?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And you said that detainees started to be taken away in small and
24 large groups but that it intensified in the last five or six days of
25 July, correct?
Page 44257
1 A. Well, let's say in the last 10 days of the month, of the month of
2 July to be precise.
3 Q. And you said sometimes there would be three or four transports of
4 people that one or two buses would come two or three times a day to take
5 people away, and that this started from mid-July. You remember that?
6 A. Yes, yes. Those were the people who were mainly driven to
7 Trnopolje, if they were taken by buses and put up in an open admissions
8 centre.
9 Q. Well, in fact, you were present in the camp when a group of
10 around 45 men and two women were taken out of the camp, weren't you?
11 A. Forty four men and two women.
12 Q. Drljaca's driver brought the list to the camp and then the men
13 and the two women were called out and put on the bus which then left the
14 camp. You said that when you testified, didn't you?
15 A. Correct.
16 Q. And you also said that all these detainees were exhumed from a
17 mass grave in Jama Lisac in the Bosanska Krupa municipality. That's what
18 you said when you testified, didn't you?
19 A. Yes. That's what I said, and I repeated it a minute ago that
20 Grjvlisac [as interpreted] near Bosanska Krupa 100 kilometres, at least
21 100 kilometres from Omarska.
22 Q. And the two women that were taken were Edna Dautovic and
23 Sadeta Medunjanin; that's right? Sadeta Medunjanin was a teacher and the
24 wife of Becir Medunjanin who was killed by Zigic and Knezevic and the
25 rest of his group in the white house.
Page 44258
1 A. Yes, Safeta Medunjanin and Edna Dautovic.
2 Q. Now these people were officially being taken out of the camp,
3 weren't they? You've just said that nobody left the camp without lists,
4 without a list being provided?
5 A. Yes, yes, that is correct.
6 Q. You were also present in the camp in the afternoon of the 5th of
7 August when two busloads of detainees were brought from the Keraterm camp
8 weren't you?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And were you told that they wouldn't stay there for long, yes?
11 A. Correct.
12 Q. Who told you that?
13 A. The escort who drove them there told me that.
14 Q. And later that night, after you'd left the camp, but you were
15 told the following day what had occurred: Drljaca's driver brought a
16 list which said that Dr. Esad Sadikovic, otherwise known as Eso, had to
17 join the Keraterm detainees on the bus, and that Prcac called him out and
18 he boarded the bus and it left. That's what Prcac told you the following
19 day, didn't he?
20 A. Yes, and that is the evidence that I gave.
21 Q. And the two busloads of men from the Keraterm camp and
22 Dr. Sadikovic from the Omarska camp didn't survive, did they?
23 A. Correct.
24 Q. You know because you said it in your testimony they were exhumed
25 from a mass grave in Hrastova Glavica and that some of the bodies
Page 44259
1 recovered were identified? That's what you said, didn't you?
2 A. Yes, but I explained that that was the knowledge that I acquired
3 long after the war, that is to say that these people had been executed at
4 Hrastova Glavica.
5 Q. Which is located in the Sanski Most municipality, is it not?
6 A. Yes, yes.
7 Q. I want to turn now to a document entitled: "Omarska SC, First
8 Category Persons."
9 MS. SUTHERLAND: If we could bring up 65 ter -- sorry,
10 Exhibit P5519, please. Mr. Mejakic, we spoke earlier today about the
11 categorisation and you said that the first category were the -- were the
12 people that were alleged to have participated in armed rebellion. Now,
13 this document is dated 28 July 1992, so around a week before the majority
14 of people in the Omarska detention facility is shipped off to Manjaca and
15 Trnopolje, yes?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Now, these -- if we do a comparison between the names on this
18 list and the names on Exhibit P4855, which is an exhumation document,
19 it's clear that 29 of the -- these people on the list have been exhumed
20 and 27 of which were all exhumed from the mass grave in Jama Lisac in the
21 Bosanska Krupa municipality. So when were these 27 people taken out of
22 the camp and buried -- and taken to Jama Lisac?
23 A. The people who were taken away and subsequently exhumed in
24 Jama Lisac were 44 men and 2 women, not 27, 44 men and 2 women. If I'm
25 not wrong, that took place in June, not July.
Page 44260
1 Q. Mr. Mejakic, there is a lot of people that are buried in that
2 mass grave in Jama Lisac, two different things, yes, the 44 and the 2
3 women were exhumed there, but 27 of 29 people on this list were also
4 exhumed from Jama Lisac. Now, do you know anything about these 27 from
5 the category 1 list?
6 A. No. I really don't know anything about this. This is the first
7 time I hear this information.
8 JUDGE KWON: Ms. Sutherland, this list has 174 persons. I don't
9 follow, 27 of 29 in your question?
10 MS. SUTHERLAND: Oh, I'm sorry, Your Honour, I misspoke. There
11 are two other names which are very, very close to with -- in relation to
12 father's name and location which could put the number at 29, but at a
13 minimum, there is 27 of these 174, although I thought there was 176. So
14 that's where the figure of 29 comes because there is two other names that
15 are -- have a misspelling in one of either the first name or some other
16 detail.
17 JUDGE KWON: Very well. Please continue.
18 MS. SUTHERLAND:
19 Q. We also know that there was two other people on this list, one of
20 who was exhumed in a mass grave -- in a grave outside Banja Luka, and
21 that's because he was transferred and killed on his arrival at the
22 Omarska camp on 6 August 1992. Now, this Trial Chamber has received
23 evidence on the reported dead and missing who were last seen in Omarska
24 camp, and you referred to that earlier on today when you gave an
25 extraordinarily long answer to a question about how many dead bodies had
Page 44261
1 you seen in the camp. The evidence that the Trial Chamber has is
2 Exhibit P4855, and included in that exhibit are the names of people where
3 they have been reported as last seen in places other than Omarska Logor,
4 for example, Kozarac. But where we have evidence, there's evidence been
5 admitted in this case where they were last seen in Omarska Logor. And
6 I'll just read out these figures for you and then I'll ask you a
7 question.
8 So the number of people that were last seen in Omarska Logia and
9 exhumed are 211 people. The number of people last seen in Omarska Logia
10 where no remains have been found is one person. And in addition to that
11 detail about the exhumations, there is also additional victims who were
12 named in our scheduled incidents, and you know from your own case here
13 that the Prosecution appends to their indictment the scheduled incidents
14 that occur, and so in relation to the victims that are named in schedules
15 B15.2, which is the Omarska camp, and B15.3, which is the killing of a
16 number of men and women taken from the Omarska camp in the area called
17 Hrastova Glavica which we discussed a moment ago, so the number of people
18 from that that have been exhumed are 86 that were last seen in the camp,
19 and then --
20 JUDGE KWON: Let's stop here. I'm not sure whether the witness
21 is following your question. Could you make your question a bit simpler?
22 MS. SUTHERLAND: I'm sorry, Your Honour, I was trying to do my
23 best.
24 Q. There is four categories of people Mr. Mejakic; the ones that
25 were last seen in Omarska Logia and exhumed, 211; last seen in
Page 44262
1 Omarska Logia where no remains have been found yet, 1; and then the other
2 category are where they're named in our schedules who have reported as
3 being last seen in places other than Omarska Logia, but we have
4 information that puts them as last seen in the camp. That category of
5 people. So, for example, their family member may say, Right I last saw
6 him in Kozarac when he was taken away -- when he was arrested and taken
7 away. But we have information where somebody in the camp, for example,
8 has seen that person after the family member has seen that person, and so
9 then that category of people, there has been 86 people that have been
10 exhumed, last seen in Omarska. And the fourth category was where you
11 have these named people who were reported seen in places other than
12 Omarska, but we have evidence to show that they were -- they were -- they
13 were reported by the family as being found elsewhere, but we have
14 evidence that they were last seen in Omarska, and that category of people
15 is 40 people.
16 So the bottom line is, the evidence in this case is 211 and 86
17 and 40 and 1, all last seen in Omarska, either dead or missing. 297
18 exhumed and 41 missing.
19 So that doesn't square very well, Mr. Mejakic, does it, with you
20 saying that nobody was killed in the camp, there were no dead bodies in
21 the camp, does it? This is an extraordinarily high number of people.
22 You've got over 300 people.
23 A. I agree with you that it's a large number of people, but I don't
24 agree with you that I had denied the murders in that room. Never, before
25 the court in Bosnia-Herzegovina or here, have I ever denied that there
Page 44263
1 were killings in Omarska, and you said a moment ago that I did.
2 Q. The only thing in your statement about killings is in relation to
3 two escapees. That's the only mention of any killings whatsoever.
4 A. I was talking about two murders, two incidents, with which
5 members of the police security service are associated. I was not talking
6 about the killings committed by the so-called visitors. I wasn't talking
7 about the murders or how else could you qualify it if during
8 interrogations somebody is beaten up so badly that they die ten minutes
9 later. I wasn't talking about these things. I was talking about two
10 incidents in which members of the security service were directly
11 involved.
12 In one of these incidents, in the Kvocka trial, a man testified
13 who was involved in that incident as a member of the security detail.
14 During an attempt to escape, he used his gun, and killed the person who
15 had tried to escape. That also happened in the other incident when I was
16 there.
17 Q. So now that I've put all these figures to you, you don't -- you
18 don't deny -- or you will agree, won't you, that there were an extremely
19 large number of people that were killed in the Omarska camp?
20 A. I cannot agree with that. If we are talking, let's say, about
21 these 40 plus 2. They were not killed in Omarska.
22 Q. Mr. Mejakic, you just -- you just mentioned that people died
23 having succumbed from their injuries after they were beaten in
24 interrogations. You also mentioned that people were killed by these
25 groups that were coming into the camp, not least of all Knezevic and
Page 44264
1 Zigic. There were also instances where people were killed by the police
2 security. So you're not denying that -- that there were a large number
3 of people killed in the Omarska camp, are you?
4 A. It's too many if only one person were killed. I don't know what
5 you mean by "a large number of people."
6 Q. Dozens, dozens.
7 A. How many dozens?
8 Q. Mr. Mejakic, I've just gone through the figures with you, there
9 is over 300 people. There is over 211 people that have been exhumed last
10 seen in Omarska camp.
11 A. I have no intention of refuting the accuracy of these figures,
12 but I do dispute that these 120 people who were brought to Omarska and
13 who were joined by Esad Sadikovic, I do deny that they were liquidated in
14 Omarska. They spent only four or five hours in Omarska except
15 Mr. Sadikovic who had been there for a while. So they were not
16 liquidated at Omarska. The members of the security service and all the
17 other people are not involved in these killings.
18 Q. Those two buses from Keraterm certainly aren't included in these
19 figures because they're different figures. That's for the Keraterm camp.
20 That's something else. I'm talking about Omarska at the moment. But
21 let's move on.
22 You -- I want to turn now to some visits of certain delegations
23 that came to the Omarska camp. You said in paragraph 25 of your
24 statement that the first visit to the camp was by a delegation from the
25 Autonomous Region of Krajina in mid-July 1992 and they were led by
Page 44265
1 Zupljanin, Brdjanin, Vukic, and Radic. And you said the delegation was
2 met by Drljaca and that they had a meeting in the administrative building
3 of the mine, correct?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. You said in your statement that you heard one of the inspectors
6 who attended the meeting that Zupljanin spoke angrily to Drljaca and
7 allegedly asked that this collection centre be dismantled immediately?
8 A. Yes, correct.
9 Q. We have evidence in this case that Exhibit P01097 that not five
10 days later, Zupljanin wrote to the RS MUP and told Mico Stanisic that he
11 had a large number of men of no security interest who can be treated as
12 hostages. So it doesn't appear to be the position of a man who is
13 urgently wanting to dismantle the camp, does it?
14 A. I don't know that Mr. Zupljanin wrote such a letter to Stanisic.
15 I am just saying what I heard from the inspector who attended that
16 meeting.
17 Q. The only reason you're saying this is to push your view that
18 Drljaca is independent, isn't it?
19 A. It's not my intention to speak of Drljaca with a lot of
20 speculation. I know who Simo Drljaca was. I know that he is a man -- he
21 was a man who didn't brook any authority, and he did mostly as he
22 pleased.
23 Q. Well, not two weeks -- not two weeks later, Zupljanin
24 retroactively appointed Drljaca as the chief of the Prijedor police. So
25 he can't have been too displeased with him, can he? And that's
Page 44266
1 Exhibit P06379. I mean, if he's so displeased with him, why appoint him?
2 Retroactively, I might add.
3 A. I don't know that. I don't know about that letter of
4 appointment. I only know that between Drljaca and Zupljanin, there was
5 not much cooperation and they didn't see eye to eye on many things.
6 Q. Mr. Mejakic, that is not true. The evidence in this case shows
7 that there was continual reporting backwards and forwards between the CSB
8 Banja Luka and the Prijedor SJB. Drljaca was filing quarterly,
9 six-monthly, yearly reports, responding to dispatches.
10 A. Well, that was an obligation. The public security station is
11 under the purview of the Security Services Centre, so it was their
12 obligation to report.
13 Q. You just said a moment ago that he did mostly as he pleased. He
14 didn't. He was actually toeing the line.
15 A. Whether he was toeing the line or not, I don't know. All I know
16 is what his attitude was to the management, to the leadership, of the
17 Autonomous Region of Krajina, for instance.
18 Q. You mention in paragraph 25 of your statement the first visit by
19 the foreign media, and you said that the delegation said that they had
20 approval from Karadzic to accession the whole mine complex that Drljaca
21 responded: "I don't care about that approval. You will visit what
22 I tell you and you can complain to Karadzic." You remember putting that
23 in your statement?
24 A. Yes. I was there when it was said.
25 Q. I want to show you the video footage of the visit, and -- and
Page 44267
1 what was actually said to the delegation.
2 MS. SUTHERLAND: If we could play P03785, please, from 00.39
3 through to 02.12.
4 [Videotape played]
5 MS. SUTHERLAND:
6 Q. [Microphone not activated] Sorry. That's one of the shift
7 commanders, Mladjo Radic, isn't it?
8 A. [No interpretation]
9 MS. SUTHERLAND: [Microphone not activated]
10 [Videotape played]
11 MS. SUTHERLAND: [Microphone not activated]
12 JUDGE KWON: Microphone, please.
13 MS. SUTHERLAND: Sorry.
14 JUDGE KWON: And witness's answer was not recorded to your
15 previous answer.
16 MS. SUTHERLAND:
17 Q. Mr. Mejakic, you agreed with me that that was Mladjo Radic in the
18 frame standing in the --
19 A. Yes, yes.
20 Q. Now, we see here in front of us -- who is the person on the left
21 of the screen?
22 A. On the left is major or lieutenant colonel of the Army of
23 Republika Srpska, Milutinovic, head of the press centre of the
24 1st Krajina Corps.
25 Q. And the one on the right?
Page 44268
1 A. On the right is Simo Drljaca, chief of the public security
2 station Prijedor.
3 Q. And if we can keep playing, please?
4 [Videotape played]
5 "Interpreter: They say this is an investigation centre, so if
6 they prove that they are guilty or not guilty and there is also the
7 procedure, so this is a centre for investigation.
8 "Penny Marshal: Yes, why can't we see?...
9 "Interpreter: So that's -- you cannot see that.
10 "Penny Marshal: They just said upstairs that anyone could see it,
11 the Red Cross couldn't come and now they're stopping us. We've seen
12 nothing. We've seen one dinning hall and 80 prisoners."
13 "Male Reporter: But we have a promise from Dr. Karadzic and now
14 they're telling us something else.
15 "Interpreter: All of them are going.
16 "Guard: Here they are waiting.
17 "Male Reporter: We cannot, we cannot make a proper judgement
18 about this camp until we see the way they live."
19 JUDGE KWON: Just a second, shall we stop it. Would you like the
20 witness to hear this portion?
21 MS. SUTHERLAND: Yes.
22 JUDGE KWON: I don't think there is any translation.
23 MS. SUTHERLAND: [Microphone not activated]
24 JUDGE KWON: Microphone, please.
25 MS. SUTHERLAND: Sorry, Your Honour.
Page 44269
1 Q. Just while we have this still on the screen, Mr. Mejakic, who
2 is -- who is - that's you in the centre of the frame, isn't it, with the
3 blue beret?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Now, if we can keep playing the footage is at the -- I will go to
6 another clip in a moment. If we can keep playing --
7 [Videotape played]
8 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, I'm sorry. For the benefit of the
9 [Microphone not activated] Court I ask the interpreters.
10 JUDGE KWON: Microphone, please.
11 MS. SUTHERLAND: For the benefit of the Court, perhaps the
12 interpreters could interpret this conversation if we can rewind it a
13 little.
14 THE INTERPRETER: We can try but we don't have the transcript.
15 JUDGE KWON: So this part was not transcribed. We have 15 page
16 transcription. But the transcription does not cover this part.
17 MS. SUTHERLAND: No, that's correct, Your Honour. If the
18 interpreters can do their best. If we can just go back a frame, a few
19 frames.
20 [Videotape played]
21 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] You could see, this is one part, you
22 could see what's there, well, you've seen where they are and under what
23 circumstances, it is what it is. [In English] We will have no other
24 choice but to say in our report that they did not fulfil Dr. Karadzic's
25 promises and allow us [overlapping speakers on the videotape]
Page 44270
1 [Interpretation] Well, tell Karadzic it's not allowed for you to see it
2 for security reasons except for one part. You see, the war is being
3 waged nearby. Well, then we won't be able to say that this is not a
4 concentration camp.
5 "The man in uniform: Have you seen women, have you seen children?
6 No, you haven't. All these men are those who participated in the
7 fighting with a gun. They had 2.500 people under arms. Only Kozarac had
8 3.000."
9 MS. SUTHERLAND: If we could go to the second clip and that's at
10 3.22, please. And we stopped at 3 -- 2.37, I'm sorry.
11 [Videotape played]
12 "Male Reporter: [Some English] Why are you not fulfilling
13 Dr. Karadzic's promises to us?
14 "Red Cross Rep: He promised something else and said you can do
15 this and this and that and not that. If they say this is a protocol of
16 your stay here --"
17 MS. SUTHERLAND: Sorry, is that getting interpreted?
18 THE INTERPRETER: But the woman is talking in English. You mean
19 interpreted into B/C/S?
20 MS. SUTHERLAND: Yes, please. If we can just go back again to
21 start it at 3.22, and if you can please interpret for Mr. Mejakic what
22 Mrs. Balaban is saying after the gentleman reporter says about
23 Mr. Karadzic's -- fulfilling Dr. Karadzic's wish.
24 Q. And then, Mr. Mejakic, I want you to listen very carefully to
25 what she says in relation to his question about Mr. Karadzic. So that's
Page 44271
1 who he's talking about when he she responds.
2 MS. SUTHERLAND: If we can play it now, please.
3 [Videotape played]
4 "Male Reporter: Okay. So why, why...
5 "Penny Marshal: What's your reason?
6 "Red Cross Rep: Just trying to do my best here.
7 "[Overlapping speakers on videotape]
8 "Red Cross Rep: Oh well...
9 "Male Reporter: Why are you not fulfilling Dr. Karadzic's
10 promise to us?
11 "Red Cross Rep: He promised us something else and said you can
12 do this and this and that and not that. If they say this is a protocol
13 of your stay here..."
14 MS. SUTHERLAND: Thank you.
15 Q. So, Mr. Mejakic, he says why can't we do what Mr. Karadzic said,
16 and Mrs. Balaban says, he told us something else. He said you can see
17 this and this but not that. Now, that's the reality of it, isn't it,
18 that it was agreed that these journalists wouldn't get in to see all of
19 the detainees who were in all the other parts of the camp and the only
20 thing that they were allowed to see was a couple of dozen men running
21 over to get some food in the canteen. Because it was agreed that they
22 wouldn't be allowed to see all of the detainees. That's correct, isn't
23 it?
24 A. That's not the impression that I gained, that it had been agreed
25 before, because you saw earlier on in the footage, a moment before, when
Page 44272
1 Simo Drljaca is saying something like what I said in my statement, that
2 they were complaining to Karadzic -- or rather that they should complain
3 to Karadzic, and then there is a part of the footage where he says -- or
4 Milutinovic says, We are going to Trnopolje. This here is over. That's
5 the bit that the cameras filmed. But there were things said outside of
6 the range of the camera. Because Simo Drljaca did not allow them to
7 visit the rest of the compound, specifically the area called the hangar,
8 where these detainees coming in for lunch were running from.
9 Q. That was on the first clip. We saw that and we heard what --
10 what Simo Drljaca was saying.
11 JUDGE KWON: That was not reflected in the transcript, was it,
12 when Drljaca said tell Karadzic.
13 MS. SUTHERLAND: Just a moment, Your Honour. [Microphone not
14 activated].
15 JUDGE KWON: Yes, it's there, 64, line 1. Yes, please continue.
16 MS. SUTHERLAND:
17 Q. Mr. Mejakic, so that was what we saw in that first clip and then
18 the second clip was when the specific question was why can't we see what
19 Mr. Karadzic says, that he had told them that they could see, and she
20 specifically says, he told us something else. He said you can see this,
21 and this, but not that. Words to that effect. We heard it.
22 A. I would not like to comment. I'm really not qualified to comment
23 or to speculate whether this visit had been arranged and agreed in
24 advance or not. You see what my role was, what I knew was that Karadzic
25 had allowed them to visit but the circumstances of the visit were
Page 44273
1 dictated by Simo Drljaca, and if I'm not mistaken this male journalist, I
2 don't know his name, was particularly angry, and this young lady is
3 called Penny Marshal, I believe, this male journalist was especially
4 angry that they were not allowed to visit the hangar. I'm not sure
5 whether the camera has recorded it but he was very, very angry.
6 Q. The Trial Chamber has seen that footage, Mr. Mejakic.
7 You testified that you had received lists on 5 August as to who
8 was going to be transferred to Manjaca and Trnopolje, and -- and that the
9 next day, on 6 August, was when they were all transferred either to
10 Manjaca or Trnopolje. It's right, isn't it, that once the vast majority
11 of detainees were moved off to Manjaca and Trnopolje, that a few hundred
12 military bunk beds or army cots were shipped in, weren't they? This
13 occurred between the night of the 6th and 7th of August. You said that,
14 didn't you?
15 A. Yes, yes. That's what I said but I didn't say several hundred.
16 I said 170 to 180 approximately. Not several hundred.
17 Q. No. There was 175 to 180 detainees that were kept back that
18 weren't sent to Manjaca or Trnopolje, but I'm saying that there were a
19 few hundred military beds that were delivered to the Omarska camp the
20 night in between the night of the 6th and the 7th of August; that's
21 right, isn't it?
22 A. Yes. But again, it's not a few hundred, it's up to 200 at most.
23 Q. And then from that point on, the remaining detainees got two
24 meals a day, you say that were better more nutritious, and from that day,
25 as far as you were aware, nobody was maltreated in any way whatsoever.
Page 44274
1 You recall that?
2 A. Yes. I remember that part of my testimony and I can affirm that
3 what I said was true.
4 Q. And so who -- who worked at the camp then between 7 and 21
5 August?
6 A. The security service from the ranks of the police, inspectors,
7 their coordinators, and all the other services, but their volumes were
8 reduced.
9 Q. And besides the foreign media visiting again on 7 August with
10 Ostojic, you said in your statement that you also had a visit from ICRC
11 and there was also a republic-level-appointed commission visit, wasn't
12 there, to your very pristine camp with its -- with the new military beds?
13 A. If I'm not mistaken, on 12 August, a delegation of the
14 International Committee of the Red Cross paid us a visit, and the
15 commission was not from the republican level. It was a commission that
16 was established pursuant to a decision by the chief of the regional
17 centre of the Security Services Centre in Banja Luka,
18 Mr. Stojan Zupljanin, but it was not an official visit from anybody at
19 the level of the republic.
20 Q. If we pause there, we will get on to that after lunch.
21 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, I notice the time.
22 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we will -- yes, Mr. Robinson?
23 MR. ROBINSON: Before we rise for lunch I neglected to introduce
24 our legal intern Romina Arnaudova who is from Bulgaria and today is her
25 last day with our team. She has been with us quite a while. We
Page 44275
1 appreciate her work very, very much. Thank you.
2 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. We resume at 1.23.
3 --- Recess taken at 12.32 p.m.
4 --- On resuming at 1.23 p.m.
5 JUDGE KWON: Yes, please continue, Ms. Sutherland.
6 MS. SUTHERLAND:
7 Q. We left off before lunch discussing the visit by the -- you said
8 there was a commission set up by CSB Banja Luka.
9 MS. SUTHERLAND: If I could call up D01814, please.
10 Q. You mentioned before we broke that Zupljanin set up this
11 commission. And we can see here that -- in the first paragraph who he
12 appointed. Number 1, Vojin Bera. He was the deputy chief of the centre
13 for state security in the CSB Banja Luka, yes?
14 A. You are right. He was chief of the state security department, as
15 far as I can remember.
16 Q. And he was Mirko Jesic's immediate supervisor, wasn't he?
17 A. I think so.
18 Q. And that's the Mirko Jesic, the SMB operative who worked at the
19 camp. We are talking about the same person?
20 A. Yes, yes.
21 Q. Did you see Bera who he visited the Omarska camp? I'm talking
22 about earlier when it was established. I'm not talking about in August.
23 I'm talking about when he came to the camp before. Did you ever see him
24 in the camp?
25 A. No, never.
Page 44276
1 Q. The second one is Vaso Skondric. He's from Banja Luka too, isn't
2 he?
3 A. I don't know where he is from. I believe that at the time he was
4 a police inspector, he was an inspector in the police. I believe that he
5 is a native of Banja Luka but I'm not sure.
6 Q. Okay. The third member is Ranko Mijic. Now this is the same
7 Ranko Mijic who actually worked in the camp as one of the operative
8 coordinators like Mirko Jesic, wasn't he? He was he was working for the
9 public security interrogators, in charge of coordinating them?
10 A. Yes, yes.
11 Q. And the fourth person is a person called Jugoslav Rodic. Now, is
12 this the same Jugoslav Rodic from Sanski Most who worked in the Omarska
13 and Keraterm camps as one of the state security interrogators?
14 A. Believe me, I don't know. There were two Rodic's and I really
15 can't tell them apart. There is Radomir Rodic and also Jugoslav Rodic
16 and I was never able to tell the two of them apart. I never knew which
17 one of them was Rado and which was one was Jugoslav. I know they both
18 worked for the State Security Service but I don't know which one was
19 which.
20 MS. SUTHERLAND: If we can have 65 ter number 18410, please.
21 Q. Before that document leaves the screen, we see that they have to
22 comply by the 17th of August with their report into the detention
23 facilities in three municipalities: Prijedor, Sanski Most and Bosanski
24 Novi -- Bosanski Novi. I'm sorry, that document that we saw a moment ago
25 on the screen was dated the 14th of August 1992, the one that set up the
Page 44277
1 commission. So what we are looking at now is a document dated 20 January
2 1993, and it's a report on the activities of Prijedor SMB for the period
3 between 1st of January and 31st of December 1992. If we could go to page
4 2, please, it lists there in the second paragraph -- I'm sorry, the
5 Sanski Most SMB war section had 12 employees at the beginning of the
6 year, and then if we go about eight lines down it says: Jugoslav Rodic.
7 Do you see there, the following employees remained at the end of 1992,
8 Jugoslav Rodic?
9 A. I can't see that on the screen because I have only the first page
10 on the screen still.
11 MS. SUTHERLAND: Sorry, if we can go to page 2 in the B/C/S.
12 Q. No, it's gone too far. But in any event you can see here on this
13 page, page 3, it talks about these people being operatives in the Omarska
14 and Keraterm camps. Do you see that?
15 A. I can see here, and I don't know what page this is, where it
16 says: On the 25th of May 1992, in cooperation with the workers of the
17 SJB Prijedor, and so on and so forth.
18 MS. SUTHERLAND: If we can go to page 3 of the English, please.
19 Q. And we can see there it's the same as what you're reading, on the
20 15th of May 1992, reserve members of the Prijedor and Sanski Most war
21 sections were mobilised and they worked in investigation centres such as
22 Omarska, Keraterm, and Krings. So we've established that the
23 Jugoslav Rodic that we are talking about is actually the same one from
24 Sanski Most who actually worked in the Omarska camp that's been appointed
25 to this commission. You agree with me?
Page 44278
1 A. I agree with you. I'm just saying that there are two men by the
2 name of Rodic and I could never tell the two of them apart. I actually
3 never bothered to try and tell the two of them apart.
4 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, I seek to tender this document.
5 Q. So, Mr. Mejakic, we can see here --
6 JUDGE KWON: Just a second, sorry.
7 MS. SUTHERLAND: Sorry, my apologies.
8 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Robinson?
9 MR. ROBINSON: No objection, Mr. President.
10 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we will admit it.
11 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit P6536, Your Honours.
12 MS. SUTHERLAND:
13 Q. So we can see here, Mr. Mejakic, that two of the four -- at least
14 two of the four members of this commission are actually investigating
15 what -- their actual function or what they were doing for the last three
16 months. Isn't it? That's correct, isn't it? It's a bit like putting
17 the fox in charge of the hen house, isn't it? You're asking Mr. Mijic
18 and Mr. Rodic to investigate what they've actually been involved in
19 doing.
20 A. This is correct. This is correct. They were appointed as
21 members of that commission.
22 Q. And so you said a moment -- you said before --
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Transcript.
24 JUDGE KWON: Yes?
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The witness said this is correct,
Page 44279
1 this is correct, that they were appointed as members of that commission.
2 [In English] That's different than what is in transcript as if -- as if
3 he agreed with the qualification.
4 MS. SUTHERLAND:
5 Q. Mr. Mejakic, do you agree with my qualification that -- that
6 you -- what Mr. Zupljanin is doing is actually putting people --
7 appointing them to actually investigate themselves? You -- you agree
8 with that, don't you?
9 A. I really would refrain from making such judgements. He had his
10 own reasons and I really don't want to go there.
11 Q. Before lunch you said that the -- that this commission visited
12 Omarska; is that right?
13 A. No. I didn't say that they visited Omarska. I didn't say that
14 they visited Omarska. As far as I know, they did it in Prijedor. They
15 did it in Prijedor. They -- some of them didn't need to visit Omarska
16 because they were already there. And as for that report, as far as I
17 know, and the report appeared in my case as well, they actually drafted
18 the report in Prijedor. Mr. Skondric and Ms. Kobero [phon], while I was
19 in Omarska I never saw the two of them.
20 Q. Now, I mentioned before lunch a republic-level visit.
21 Mr. Lalai [phon] and Mr. Irkic [phon], do you remember them visiting the
22 Omarska camp? Between the 10th and 15th of August?
23 A. I don't remember that visit. I heard that the visit had taken
24 place. It is possible that I wasn't there on that day, but I really
25 can't remember that I met them in Omarska, ever. I suppose that they may
Page 44280
1 have been in Prijedor, but I didn't see them. I know that they did come
2 and I know what the occasion was but I didn't see them myself.
3 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, just for Your Honour's reference,
4 the CSB commission report is Exhibit D470.
5 Q. Mr. Mejakic, so then you wouldn't have read their report,
6 Mr. Lalai and Mr. Irkic's report, and that's Exhibit P3549, dated the
7 17th of August 1992. In that report, they talk about a self-service
8 canteen and beds and nurses. This is completely inapposite to the
9 conditions in the camp a week before, isn't it, when you had 3.000 people
10 in the camp?
11 A. Yes. Correct. This is opposite to the situation that existed
12 before. There were fewer prisoners, the conditions were much improved,
13 and when you mentioned the figure of 3.000 detainees, I have to share a
14 truth with you: There was never a time when Omarska held 3.000 people at
15 any one time. According to the official data that was accepted by the
16 court here and in Sarajevo, a total number of people who were detained in
17 Omarska is 3400 but not 3.000 of them at any one time. People came and
18 went and came and went.
19 Q. Okay. So on the 6th of August you transfer something like 1.331
20 to Manjaca. So that's 1300. And then you've got -- you've got 175 that
21 stay behind, so that's over 1500. And of course there is other evidence
22 that there is a figure of 1500 being transferred to Manjaca. But leaving
23 that aside, the figure of I think 1.773 go to Trnopolje. Now, how
24 many -- how many of those people went to Trnopolje? The women went
25 early, they went on the 3rd of August, and then the men went later on the
Page 44281
1 6th of August, and there is evidence that there was buses going backwards
2 and forwards and backwards and forwards between Omarska and Trnopolje.
3 So on your estimate, how many people were transferred out of Omarska to
4 Trnopolje on the 6th of August?
5 A. Certainly not as many as you say. Your figure is 1700 but it was
6 much less. The transfer to Trnopolje started earlier. Transfers to
7 Trnopolje started in early June, and I believe that the figure that is
8 mentioned with regard to Trnopolje is the total number of those who were
9 gradually transferred from the very beginning. It is true that most of
10 them were transferred on 6 August. That is a fact. I really can't give
11 you any numbers, but the number would be much lower than the 1700 that is
12 referred as the official figure. They did go to Trnopolje, sometimes 50
13 on one occasion, 120 on the other, 160. On the 3rd of August, around 140
14 or 150 were transferred. So, yes, they may all have been transferred to
15 Trnopolje but not as all of them or as many of them in just one go.
16 Q. Okay. And then you escorted the last group of inmates from the
17 Omarska camp to Manjaca on the 21st of August or thereabouts, didn't you?
18 A. [Non-verbal response]
19 Q. I want to just now come back to something that you spoke of
20 earlier when you said --
21 JUDGE KWON: Would you like to hear his answer?
22 MS. SUTHERLAND: Oh, I'm sorry. He did -- he said yes,
23 Your Honour. It's not in the transcript. I'm sorry, Mr. Mejakic, your
24 "yes" wasn't picked up.
25 JUDGE KWON: Please bear in mind there is a gap between your
Page 44282
1 answer and the moment he hears you -- he hears you out. Okay, did you
2 answer yes, Mr. Mejakic? Did you escort the last group on 21st of
3 August?
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't say anything. I just
5 nodded. I just nodded by way of saying yes, it is correct, on the 21st
6 of August the last group was transferred to Manjaca.
7 MS. SUTHERLAND:
8 Q. So earlier today, you -- it's your position that crimes were
9 infrequently committed by the security service, the security guards from
10 the police, the active and reserve police force that were working in the
11 Omarska camp. What your trial chamber found in -- in Bosnia in relation
12 to Momcilo Gruban who was one of the shift leaders -- shift commanders,
13 they found that there were killings of detainees directly and personally
14 committed by persons during Gruban's shift and over whom he had effective
15 control, and that there were beatings and physical assaults on the
16 detainees directly and personally committed by persons during his shift
17 and over whom he had control. And in relation to Milica Kos who was one
18 of the other shift commanders, the Kvocka trial chamber here at this
19 Tribunal found that [As read] "evidence establishes beyond reasonable
20 doubt that Kos was directly and personally involved in beatings of
21 detainees around mid-July 1992," and it also found that [As read] "Kos
22 was involved in the extortion of detainees and stealing money from
23 detainees in Omarska camp. And in that context, it can be characterised
24 as part of the harassment inflicted upon the detainees in the camp. They
25 also said that he was aware of the abusive treatment and conditions
Page 44283
1 prevailing in the camp.
2 And in relation to the third shift leader, Mladjo Radic, the same
3 trial chamber, they were tried together, found that [As read] "Radic in
4 his role as a guard shift leader was exposed on a daily basis to
5 killings, tortures, and other abuses committed in the camp against the
6 non-Serb detainees" and that [As read] "He knew that crimes of extreme
7 physical and mental violence were being routinely committed in the camp
8 for discriminatory purposes." And they also found or they also received
9 [As read] "a substantial amount of credible and consistent evidence that
10 a large number of crimes were committed by guards on Radic's shift and
11 that [As read] "These guards perpetrated abuses of and mistreatment
12 against the detainees including murder and torture." Now, Radic was also
13 charged with rapes, as you know. Did you ever do anything in relation to
14 these three shift commanders in relation to the crimes that they and
15 their guards were committing?
16 A. Well, you see, in my evidence before the court of
17 Bosnia-Herzegovina, I spoke about that, and by chance I had several
18 pieces of physical evidence on the crimes that were committed on both
19 sides, and I knew who they were committed by.
20 Q. Pause there. You said in your trial in Bosnia that you wrote a
21 number of official notes to Simo Drljaca, but did you ever try and do
22 anything about having these people removed?
23 A. In view of my position, I was not able to undertake measures such
24 as removal from work, suspension, or some other things. It was in the
25 hands of the chief of the public security station and higher levels.
Page 44284
1 What I could do was to draft an official note to forward it to the chief,
2 and he was the one who decided what to do with the individuals in
3 question. There were some examples where we intervened personally on our
4 own in order to prevent abuses by those whom I wouldn't call policemen
5 but irresponsible people who got to wear police uniforms by accident. A
6 person, a reserve police officer, was arrested when he tried to extort
7 money from a detainee. In general terms, what I can say is that things
8 did happen. However, those were all acts committed by irresponsible
9 individuals, by the people who were opportunists, when there was a war
10 going on, there was a state of lawlessness, and they benefitted from that
11 in order to come to their personal material gain or to settle scores,
12 previous scores with some of the detainees.
13 Q. I want to move on now, Mr. Mejakic. You -- you participated in a
14 cover-up, didn't you? You lied publicly when giving interviews to the
15 media, and you lied when you testified about many incidents and the fate
16 of these individuals.
17 A. No, I did not lie.
18 Q. So you were -- you gave an interview to Monika Gras in 1993, and
19 in that interview you said that, as well as going on about the detainees
20 getting two cooked meals a day and beds to lay on and a doctor and a
21 medicine chest, which we know full well that may have been the case after
22 the 6th of August, but it wasn't for the majority of the duration of the
23 camp's existence. But you also said to her that no one was killed, only
24 two died of natural causes, didn't you? You said that? And --
25 MR. ROBINSON: Excuse me, Mr. President, I think it would be good
Page 44285
1 if she would just give the witness a chance hear the interpretation and
2 give his answer before launching into the next question.
3 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
4 MS. SUTHERLAND:
5 Q. Mr. Mejakic, did you say that to Monika Gras?
6 A. This is partly true. I had an opportunity in my own case to look
7 at one excerpt from that interview, and it is true that I said about two
8 individuals that they died of natural causes. Since I was not in charge
9 of providing such information, I referred Monika Gras to my superiors at
10 the public security station in Prijedor, but you can't see that in the
11 transcript or in the recording.
12 Second of all, when I spoke about health services that we
13 provided, I didn't lie at all. From the very beginning until mid-July,
14 we had a military doctor present, Slobodan Gajic was his name, I believe,
15 and there was also an ambulance on the grounds. Services were provided
16 to the extent possible. The situation was what it was. There were no
17 medicines, there was no electricity. There was no food. And when
18 I spoke to Monika Gras and when I told her about beds I told her the
19 truth. From 6th of --
20 Q. August.
21 A. From the 6th of August onwards, beds were installed and in place.
22 Q. But she was -- she was basically asking you what the camp was
23 like and you -- you came up with this. But just getting back to the
24 doctor that you said that was in the camp, there was evidence in your
25 trial that he didn't -- that he left the camp and it was -- and it was
Page 44286
1 actually Dr. Eso Sadikovic, the Muslim doctor who was detained in the
2 camp, that was actually one that was helping the detainees most in
3 relation to any medical needs they had, wasn't it? Not Dr. Gajic.
4 A. May I answer? Dr. Gajic left in mid-July. After that, Dr. Ivic
5 was the doctor who went to Omarska every day. The health practitioners
6 arrived from the outpatient's clinic in Omarska. It is true that there
7 was a detainee, Esad Sadikovic, who administered aid to the detainees,
8 and he's not the only one. There were other doctors who did the same.
9 Q. You were -- I'm sorry.
10 A. We managed to obtain some medicines which we placed at the
11 disposal of Dr. Sadikovic and the other one whose name was possibly
12 Dr. Begic, but I'm not sure, and there was another younger doctor who was
13 there whose name I cannot recall at all.
14 Q. Jusuf Pasic from Kozarac?
15 A. No, no.
16 Q. And Dr. Begic died, didn't he? He was killed in Omarska or he
17 was taken away?
18 A. Dr. Begic was taken from Omarska.
19 Q. Mr. Mejakic, you were cross-examined about this Monika Gras
20 interview at your trial, and you said that you didn't tell the truth
21 because this was the official version and that nobody dared change
22 anything to that when talking to the media. And when prosecutor
23 Peter Kidd asked you whether you were concerned that if the truth came
24 out you might be held accountable for your role in the Omarska camp and
25 that's why you were continuing to say the line that you were saying, you
Page 44287
1 responded that you weren't concerned in that regard at all. You said:
2 [As read] "Why would I be concerned about some things that were done in
3 that way, some things are being kept secrets from public. Nothing can be
4 concealed. There is nothing that can be concealed in this world." Do
5 you remember saying that?
6 A. I don't remember having said it in that way. I only said that
7 after such a long time, there were no secrets any more. I don't think
8 that there are any secrets about the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, including
9 Prijedor. You know people who were killed on the firing line by name,
10 although it will still take a lot of time to untangle all that.
11 Q. You happily went along with it and participated in this cover-up
12 so that the truth didn't come out and so that you and others involved in
13 these barbaric events were never prosecuted. That's what you were
14 hoping.
15 A. No. I never hoped that I would be able to avoid court process.
16 I surrendered voluntarily to this Tribunal, having been aware of that and
17 on one occasion --
18 Q. We will get to that but I just have one other area that I want to
19 deal with you?
20 MR. ROBINSON: Excuse me, Mr. President, may he be allowed to
21 complete his answer?
22 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, it wasn't in -- it wasn't
23 responsive to my question. He was going into another area.
24 MR. ROBINSON: Maybe he was getting to the responsive part.
25 JUDGE KWON: Did he not answer the question?
Page 44288
1 MS. SUTHERLAND: He said I had never hoped that I would be able
2 to avoid court process. And then he wanted to go on and talk about his
3 surrender. I'm not interested just for the moment in his surrender.
4 JUDGE BAIRD: The question involved, did it not, whether he
5 participated in this cover-up. He didn't get a chance to answer that,
6 did he?
7 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Mejakic, please continue, if you would like
8 to answer that question.
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It was never my intention to
10 participate in the cover-up of anything that would be illegal or could be
11 incriminated. Never. I was not duty-bound to do so but I testified
12 before the court of Bosnia-Herzegovina for five days. At the end of the
13 day, it suffices to look at the final court decision which took into
14 account my evidence to understand how sincere and honest I was in what
15 I said before the court.
16 MS. SUTHERLAND:
17 Q. Mr. Mejakic, you kept a number of documents in -- related to the
18 Omarska camp and the events there in your locker at the Omarska Police
19 Station, didn't you, and you testified about that in your trial?
20 A. Yes, that's how it was.
21 Q. And you said that -- just a moment.
22 [Prosecution counsel confer]
23 MS. SUTHERLAND:
24 Q. [Microphone not activated]
25 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
Page 44289
1 MS. SUTHERLAND:
2 Q. Mr. Mejakic, just going back to when I said to you that the
3 Prosecutor had questioned you about whether were you concerned if the
4 truth came out.
5 MS. SUTHERLAND: If we could have that on the screen, please,
6 if -- that's 25703E, and if we could go to page 47.
7 Q. So just there, Mr. Prosecutor says were you concerned,
8 Mr. Mejakic, if the truth came out you might be held accountable for your
9 role at the Omarska camp, and you said no, no I was not concerned in that
10 regard at that time, nor I thought of it. Why would I be concerned about
11 some things that were done in that way, some things that have been kept
12 secrets from public. Nothing can be concealed. There is no thing that
13 can be concealed in this world. So you said that, didn't you?
14 A. May I answer?
15 Q. [Microphone not activated]
16 JUDGE KWON: Microphone.
17 MS. SUTHERLAND: Sorry, Your Honour.
18 Q. You recall saying that?
19 A. Yes, I do. This is part of my answer and I don't see anything
20 disputable. Nothing from my answer indicates the fact that I was trying
21 to conceal anything. This is how I understand it.
22 Q. I understood you to say you answered it a little bit differently.
23 But anyway, we will get back to what we were dealing with about the
24 documents that you kept in your locker. You said in 1996 at the time
25 IFOR troops and the international police started arriving in the area,
Page 44290
1 that upon an order of the head of the centre for public security,
2 Simo Drljaca, who was back in his old post by that stage, that he ordered
3 that all documentation pertaining to the wartime period in 1992 was
4 collected and burnt including the documents you referred to earlier that
5 you'd kept in the police branch office in Omarska. Do you remember
6 saying that?
7 A. Yes, I do. That's how it was.
8 Q. You were indicted by ICTY in February 1995 for your participation
9 in crimes in the Omarska camp in 1992, correct?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. One moment.
12 And you testified in cross-examination that in November 1996, you
13 were told by Kijac, who was the then Minister of the Interior,
14 Dragan Kijac, through Mijic, that's Ranko Mijic, the then-Prijedor SJB
15 head, to step down from your position in the Omarska Police Station,
16 weren't you?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And you were provided a false ID by the RS MUP and you went to
19 Serbia, didn't you?
20 A. I did go to Serbia, but without any false documentation issued by
21 Republika Srpska.
22 MS. SUTHERLAND: If we could have 25703 -- sorry, 25703C, please.
23 If we can go to page 32. Is that exhibit coming up?
24 Q. So, Mr. Mejakic, we can see here that your defence counsel said
25 you ceased working in the police, when and why, and then you said in
Page 44291
1 November 1996, and then you go on to talk about Kijac. He sent you a
2 message that you should step down. What happened, what did you do. Well
3 for a while I was at home. In the meantime, all my personal document was
4 taken away, my ID card, my driver's licence, and I was told I should step
5 aside. And then if we can go to the next page: I simply sat on a bus
6 with a falsified ID card. It was not a falsified ID card with respect to
7 the authenticity and the stamp. I was issued by the Ministry of the
8 Interior card to a false name, and I went to Serbia and I stayed there
9 until surrendering to the Tribunal.
10 A. This is not clear to me. It was not 1996. I left in 1998.
11 I never said that I went with a false ID to Serbia.
12 Q. Well, this is what it says here, you sat on a bus with a
13 falsified ID, not in relation to the stamp but an ID card with a false
14 name that was given to you by the Ministry of Interior. That's what it
15 says on those top four lines. You can see in front of you. I've just
16 read it -- the text to you.
17 A. This simply does not correspond to what I said to the court of
18 Bosnia-Herzegovina, if I can remember correctly. First of all, I did not
19 leave by bus.
20 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, I seek to tender that page and the
21 previous page. Starting in November 1996, the then Minister of Interior
22 Kijac.
23 THE ACCUSED: That's why I would like to see the original. No
24 matter it is uploaded or not. And even if there is an audio. If there
25 is an audio, because witness did not agree with this assertion.
Page 44292
1 JUDGE KWON: We'll receive this, two pages.
2 THE REGISTRAR: It's Exhibit P6537, Your Honours.
3 MS. SUTHERLAND:
4 Q. Now, Mr. Mejakic, I'm sorry, I called up the wrong page a moment
5 ago when I was dealing with Monika Gras, and so I would like to go back
6 to the answer that you gave when were you interviewed by her.
7 MS. SUTHERLAND: And that's at 65 ter number 25703E.
8 Q. When I asked you a moment ago when you were cross-examined at
9 your trial and you said that you didn't tell the truth because there was
10 this -- the official version, you didn't -- you didn't answer my question
11 in relation to that. You did say that, didn't you?
12 A. This is how it was: Regarding all my addresses to members of the
13 media, and after September 1992, there was a report provided by the
14 commission that you mentioned a while ago and presented evidence about.
15 Q. But, Mr. Mejakic, I'm sorry to interrupt you, my question was did
16 you say what I -- what I read to you, that you didn't tell the truth
17 because this was the official version? Is that what you said? Do you
18 remember saying that in -- when you -- when you were cross-examined in
19 Bosnia?
20 MS. SUTHERLAND: If we can have page 46, please.
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. I don't remember saying that
22 in that way.
23 MS. SUTHERLAND:
24 Q. So the Prosecutor said, why did you not tell the truth?
25 JUDGE KWON: Shall we start from the previous page?
Page 44293
1 MS. SUTHERLAND: Yes, we can do that, Your Honour.
2 Q. Now, this is -- this is the Prosecutor putting to you the -- what
3 you said on the tape about the prisoners, there were no killings here.
4 Two men have died here of natural death. You may check it up at
5 Prijedor. And then he asks you did you give that answer, Mr. Mejakic.
6 MS. SUTHERLAND: And then if we go to the next page.
7 Q. Yes, yes, and was --
8 THE ACCUSED: Please, could it be read verbatim and translated?
9 JUDGE KWON: Yes, let's go back to the previous page. Please
10 read out the question.
11 MS. SUTHERLAND:
12 Q. Mr. Prosecutor says:
13 [As read] "Did you go on to say this, Mr. Mejakic, I'll give you
14 the question first, and then I'll give you the answer:
15 'The prisoners,' this is the question, 'The prisoners with whom
16 I talked have told me of torture and murder. What do you have to say to
17 that?'
18 "And did you give this answer:
19 "'No. I mean, this is not the first time I am asked this
20 question, myself and my boss. There were no killings here. Two men have
21 died here of a natural death. You may check it up at Prijedor.'
22 "Did you give that answer, Mr. Mejakic?
23 "You replied:
24 "Yes, yes."
25 Mr. Prosecutor:
Page 44294
1 "Q. And was that the truth?"
2 Your response:
3 "No, it wasn't."
4 Mr. Prosecutor:
5 "Why did you not tell the truth?"
6 Your answer:
7 "In the part ... the response to your question, in the part of my
8 response, when I mention that my boss was asked that question, this was
9 the official version that Simo Drljaca informed the journalist about all
10 the time, one could see it in the newspapers and on TV. And finally,
11 there was an official report of the commission ... of a commission which
12 investigated these issues, and this was an official information and
13 nobody dared to change anything to that when talking to media, let alone
14 myself to be ... to dare change anything. You are right, it was not
15 truth what I've stated and now I explained you why this was the case."
16 Did you say that?
17 A. I did say that. A moment ago I didn't understand you properly.
18 I'm sorry, but your questions are long, long, long. So I find myself in
19 a situation not knowing exactly what you're asking me about. This is
20 true. This is what I said. And I think that it happened during
21 cross-examination by Prosecutor Peter kid. And that is the truth, that
22 it happened this way, because I had an order just like everybody else who
23 communicated with the journalists were ordered to provide an official
24 version, which actually meant that they were relating and paraphrasing
25 the commission report. It did not apply to me only. Drljaca gave a lot
Page 44295
1 of statements to the media as did many other officials from the public
2 security station et cetera.
3 Q. And this commission report is the CSB Banja Luka commission
4 report, yes?
5 A. Precisely so.
6 Q. Thank you. Just a moment, Your Honour.
7 [Prosecution counsel confer]
8 MS. SUTHERLAND: I have no further questions, Mr. Mejakic.
9 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Ms. Sutherland. Do you have any
10 re-examination, Mr. Karadzic?
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, your Excellency. I'll start
12 with the most recent one.
13 Re-examination by Mr. Karadzic:
14 Q. Mr. Mejakic, did you give a statement to this journalist under
15 oath?
16 A. No, I didn't.
17 Q. Thank you. On page 76 of today's transcript, there was mention
18 of Gruban's shift, this was happening on this shift, the other things
19 were happening on that shift. Were there any differences in the way
20 detainees were treated by different shifts?
21 A. The differences were evident. The trial conducted in Sarajevo
22 has proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and it is contained in the
23 judgement, according to witness statement was that this shift was an
24 exemplary one and that when they were on duty, all the prisoners felt
25 most relaxed. I am just quoting their words.
Page 44296
1 Q. Which shift are you talking about?
2 A. Gruban's shift.
3 Q. Thank you. Does that mean that there were shifts that were not
4 exemplary and what did it depend on?
5 A. Let me tell you this: The selection of people for the reserve
6 police force, and a very small number of professional policemen, was the
7 root of the problem. We were able to influence the selection of people
8 to be admitted into reserve force up until one point, that is to say when
9 the conflict broke out, but in the aftermath of the conflict, the
10 situation became chaotic. The system was in the process of inception,
11 and it so happened that people with criminal past happened to find
12 themselves in the reserve police force.
13 JUDGE KWON: Please, both Mr. Karadzic and Mr. Mejakic put a
14 pause between the question and answers. Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
16 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. Can you describe the conduct during certain shifts as a kind of
18 desirable one in view of the chief of the station and in your view as the
19 chief of security?
20 A. If all in the security service, starting from the police to
21 members of the TO, were like the people from Gruban's shift, I believe
22 that nobody from the police ranks would end up in a court of law.
23 Q. Thank you. On page 51, you were shown Prosecution Exhibit P4855,
24 which indicates that people who were taken away in one group were later
25 found in three different graves. Was there any investigation conducted
Page 44297
1 on that matter to find out how they met their death, whether somebody
2 were exchanged, and whether they resumed the fighting?
3 A. My knowledge is limited concerning this matter. I know that
4 there were cases when people were supposed to be exchanged. However, the
5 exchange never took place. Instead, they were being shifted from one
6 location to another. All kinds of things were happening, maybe that is
7 one of the explanations. As for the fact that people from one group were
8 later found in three different locations, and I'm talking about their
9 remains, believe me I have no clue as how it happened.
10 Q. Thank you. On page 50, it was said that some people were taken
11 away and were never seen again. Can you tell us what was a possible
12 outcome if a person is taken away and never returned?
13 THE INTERPRETER: Can the speakers please pause between questions
14 and answers?
15 JUDGE KWON: Could you please repeat your question? Please wait
16 for some time after Mr. Karadzic's answer. Yes, if you could repeat your
17 answer, Mr. Mejakic.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours. I'll try
19 to abide by your warning. There was a possibility for a person or a
20 group to be transferred to a remand prison in Tunica, the military remand
21 prison in Stari Gradiska or to Trnopolje or to Manjaca. So these were
22 the options that were available.
23 Q. Were there any instances when there were private exchanges or
24 individual exchanges?
25 A. I have no specific knowledge about that. I have some indirect
Page 44298
1 indications and knowledge that certain individuals were involved in
2 private exchanges, such as my former colleagues from the
3 Yugoslav People's Army who happened to find themselves in the opposite
4 side, and they reached some kind of mutual agreements and arrangements to
5 do that. But this is second-hand knowledge.
6 Q. Thank you. Do you know that it happened sometimes that people
7 who were once taken prisoner then exchanged and then taken prisoner
8 again?
9 A. Yes. That happened very often, specifically with regard to
10 certain individuals from the Kozarac area. I clearly remember that some
11 people were taken prisoners twice as members of the army of BH.
12 Q. Thank you. Investigator Ago Sadikovic was mentioned. Can you
13 tell the Chamber what his ethnicity was?
14 A. He was a Bosniak or a Muslim.
15 Q. Thank you. On page 30 onwards, you were asked about the
16 Prosecutions of perpetrators of certain crimes and you, yourself, said
17 that eventually they were prosecuted. Can you tell us whether the
18 documentation collected at the time was used in those trials against
19 them?
20 A. Yes, yes. On a couple occasions, as far as I know, and probably
21 in other cases as well, the documentation compiled in 1992 was used both
22 by this Tribunal and national courts as well. People tend to forget that
23 some people were even tried during the war for crimes committed against
24 not only against Serbs but also against Muslims and Croats.
25 Q. Thank you. Some of your associates, Jesic or whoever, told you
Page 44299
1 that somebody would be liable for that sooner or later. How did you
2 construe that?
3 A. Well, it's very difficult how I understood that at that
4 particular moment. I realised that this person was talking about
5 something that he had no detailed knowledge of. I was more prone to
6 understand this as his attempt to evade his responsibility, possible
7 responsibility, for the commission of deeds.
8 Q. Thank you. It has been suggested or, rather, it was read to you
9 from the judgement handed down by the Bosnian court that people were
10 detained arbitrarily, that is on page 18, line 12. You agreed that this
11 is what is written in the judgement, but did you agree with the assertion
12 that people were brought in arbitrarily and without any grounds
13 whatsoever, the majority of the people?
14 A. I said that what is written in the judgement is something that I
15 cannot alter. The truth is the following: I don't believe that more
16 than five to ten people -- per cent of people were arrested arbitrarily
17 in this first wave of arrests. All the arrests that followed later on
18 were the result of intelligence work of inspectors, and there is a large
19 number of cases containing the list of people that need to be brought to
20 the remand prison in Omarska, there is a list of people who made these
21 recommendations, and there is the signature of the person who approved
22 that, and then it also states who conducted the arrests and who brought
23 the individuals to Omarska. So the arrests took place on the basis of
24 intelligence inquiries in most cases.
25 Q. Thank you. P05519 was shown to you. It's a list of 76 people in
Page 44300
1 the first category. In keeping with your previous answer, can you tell
2 us how operative work resulted in a list of people who needed to be
3 brought in and investigated?
4 A. I did not participate in the investigations, but from what I
5 know, from talking to one of the detainees, you come to the name of
6 another one and then another one. By talking to people you get other
7 names.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can I show the witness 1D9523?
9 It's possible there is no translation for it. Thank you.
10 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation].
11 Q. Can you tell the Trial Chamber what kind of document this is and
12 who made it?
13 A. This is an Official Note done in the unit for crime prevention
14 and detection in Banja Luka, dated 25th March 1993, and it relates to an
15 interview done with Hamdija Beslagic from Kozarosani [phon] Prijedor.
16 Q. In the third paragraph, what is it said he had done with his wife
17 and daughter before the outbreak of the war? This sentence that begins
18 with "in February, I..."?
19 A. I'll read it out. "In February 1992, I sent my wife Jasminka and
20 daughter Marina born 1970 --"
21 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Ms. Sutherland?
22 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, I'm just wondering how this arises
23 from cross-examination, going into a -- the operative note.
24 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Karadzic?
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Your Excellency, we will now see
Page 44301
1 that this statement abounds in names of people from that list that the
2 witness calls accomplices, and it's clear that this contradicts the
3 allegation that people were brought in and arrested arbitrarily. This is
4 an Official Note. This is not a statement. It's an official document of
5 the police and can be tendered.
6 JUDGE KWON: Could you not put the question without putting the
7 document first?
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I already have, your
9 Excellencies. I asked on what basis people were arrested, and the
10 witness said that one arrested person talks about others and then the
11 others are brought in. This Official Note is a perfect example of that
12 procedure.
13 JUDGE KWON: Please continue, Mr. Karadzic.
14 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
15 Q. All right. Never mind where he sent his family. Let's look at
16 the next page. And without reading the whole text, please just look at
17 the names he mentions of people who were his accomplices, policemen:
18 Besim Mirkic, Nihad Sivac, Hamdija Kahrimanovic, Hamdija A Lukic,
19 Mirsad Susic. The whole page is filled with names, correct?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Can we see the next page?
22 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Ms. Sutherland?
23 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, this document is dated March 1993.
24 I don't see the relevance to the questions. This witness has said he was
25 in security, he wasn't an operative, so I just think it's irrelevant.
Page 44302
1 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic?
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, he was caught several times
3 and escaped several times, and he's talking here about events from before
4 the war. He begins with February 1992 and enumerates a large number of
5 names, and here we see the names of the most prominent people who were
6 arrested later on these grounds.
7 JUDGE KWON: Just a minute.
8 [Trial Chamber confers]
9 JUDGE KWON: I think the Chamber agrees with Ms. Sutherland.
10 Please move on to another topic.
11 MR. ROBINSON: Excuse me, Mr. President, maybe Dr. Karadzic
12 hasn't said exactly what the object is. But it seems to me that if you
13 understood it, you would see that it's relevant and arises from the
14 examination. So Dr. Karadzic is charged, with among other things,
15 unlawful detentions of people who are in that camp, and he's attempting
16 to show that people in that camp -- in fact, people who are registered
17 as --
18 JUDGE KWON: No, he should have done that in his direct
19 examination. It does not arise from her cross-examination.
20 MR. ROBINSON: Well, in her cross-examination, as I think
21 Dr. Karadzic already picked up on, she indicated that there was some
22 question as to whether people were arbitrarily arrested and put in that
23 camp. Now Dr. Karadzic is addressing that by showing that the very
24 people who were supposed to have been arbitrarily arrested, they had
25 information on.
Page 44303
1 JUDGE KWON: Would you like to add anything, Ms. Sutherland?
2 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, that was just in relation to
3 summarising what he was convicted of. I didn't go into it in any detail
4 at all.
5 JUDGE KWON: Did his indictment cover the period of this, March
6 of 1993, Ms. Sutherland?
7 MS. SUTHERLAND: No, Your Honour. It's certainly not the case
8 that was Rule 11 bis'd from here. It was from April till December 1992.
9 MR. ROBINSON: This note speaks of -- you can see the date of
10 February 1992, March -- excuse me, May 19th 1992, so the fact that the
11 statement was taken in March of 1993 doesn't make any difference.
12 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, it's from the 30th of April 1992 to
13 the end of 1992, the Bosnian indictment.
14 JUDGE KWON: Do you have separate point, Mr. Tieger?
15 MR. TIEGER: I do, Mr. President, I'm sorry, in response to what
16 Mr. Robinson said, as long as we are all on our feet. This document
17 was -- there's a bait and switch going on. Now, Mr. Karadzic offered
18 this to show the nature, the allegedly not arbitrary nature of the
19 procedures involved that resulted in the incarceration of people in 1992.
20 Now he's -- wants to apparently use a 1993 document that obviously can't
21 bear on the procedures used in 1992, it couldn't have been part of that
22 procedure at the time and rendered it non-arbitrary, but he wants to use
23 some of the substance of that to justify, belatedly justify any
24 incarceration which has nothing to do with the arbitrariness of the
25 procedure at the time which was the original point for its purported
Page 44304
1 admission.
2 MR. ROBINSON: Mr. President, if I could just respond to that.
3 If this document was dated 2013, it would still -- and it said that the
4 people were in that camp had been arrested for good reason, that would
5 still be relevant. It's just a question of the weight. So I don't
6 understand Mr. Tieger's point, actually.
7 JUDGE KWON: Could we see the first page again of this document?
8 THE ACCUSED: If it could be lifted, I would like to --
9 JUDGE KWON: Just a second.
10 [Trial Chamber confers]
11 JUDGE KWON: Yes. Would you like to add anything?
12 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, just to make the point, I didn't
13 question in cross-examination any questions about the arbitrariness or
14 not of people coming to the camp.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I respond?
16 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Learned Madam Sutherland asked on
18 page 18, line 12, whether the witness, Mr. Mejakic, agrees or confirms
19 that the court in Bosnia had found that, among other things, people had
20 been brought in arbitrarily. He agreed that was written in the
21 judgement. He didn't agree that that's the way it happened. But he
22 declined to comment on the judgement. I think it would be prejudicial to
23 leave things as they are currently in the record.
24 JUDGE KWON: Yes, I see the imprisonment which was the arbitrary
25 and unlawful confinement of camp detainees, that passage. But I will
Page 44305
1 consult my colleagues.
2 [Trial Chamber confers]
3 JUDGE KWON: Very well. We will allow the question.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
5 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. Here on the first page, does it say what they did on 19th May,
7 23rd May? Can we scroll up a bit?
8 A. May I answer?
9 Q. Please.
10 A. I'd like to help clear up one thing. In the second paragraph of
11 this Official Note, it says the interview was conducted concerning the
12 circumstances of the commission of crimes in the area of Prijedor
13 municipality in the course of 1992, and the interviewee states the
14 following, then he speaks about how he sent his family into safety and
15 then --
16 JUDGE KWON: Can we find here when this interview was conducted?
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, your Excellencies. On 12th of
18 March 1993, but it talks about 1992.
19 JUDGE KWON: Well, the Chamber has given its ruling. Please
20 continue.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we see the next page?
22 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. Can you tell us how many names are mentioned here, are these
24 names familiar to you, and was this sufficient reason for these people to
25 be brought in and interrogated?
Page 44306
1 A. There are really a lot of names here, some are familiar, others
2 are not, but judging by the experience of police operatives, these were
3 sufficient grounds to bring in and question these people.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we see the next page? Can we
5 see the box?
6 Q. Do you know about this captain, Cerkez Sead?
7 A. That's a former JNA officer, if I'm not mistaken. He was the
8 commander of all the armed forces in the area of Kozarac and the
9 surrounding villages.
10 Q. In this box, do you see any names of people who were brought in
11 and interrogated in the investigating centres of Prijedor? Do you know
12 any of these names?
13 A. Give me a moment. I know a lot of these surnames and some people
14 with these surnames were detained down there, but I cannot be completely
15 sure that any of these had been brought to Omarska and then released.
16 But there is evidence, and even video footage, showing people who managed
17 to get hold of weapons and flee to Croatia, gave statements there,
18 claimed that they had been in Omarska, then transferred to Trnopolje,
19 from Trnopolje they travelled to Croatia, et cetera. That's what I know.
20 Q. Can we see the last page? It says the previous page towards the
21 bottom, I'll read it out. It says:
22 [As read] "Hamdija decided to take the road Prijedor-Banja Luka,
23 the old road, to wait for the first passing vehicle and kill whoever is
24 in it. Everybody went except Ismet and I. The two of us remained among
25 the plum trees 100 metres away. I had a rifle, Ismet had none. I hear
Page 44307
1 the car coming but I can't see it. And then we heard volleys of fire."
2 We see later from the text that the car had burned. And then it
3 says:
4 [As read] "After this, we went home to Ismet Besic, and then
5 Hamdija suggested that we torch Bozo Indzic's house." Do you know this
6 man, Bozo Indzic, and what happened to him?
7 A. Bozo Indzic, who was an elderly man at the time, and his family,
8 one of the few Serbian families who lived in that area overlooking
9 Kozarac, from what I know, from other people, I don't know it directly,
10 that house was burnt and the family of Bozo Indzic was killed. There was
11 a series of similar incidents where people got killed.
12 Q. At the end of this paragraph, it says he had heard from
13 Mustafa Haliphagic [phon], his son, and somebody called Zilho [phon] that
14 in Kamicani they had assaulted a tractor and killed one man. Can you
15 tell the Chamber until what time and what kind of danger such groups
16 posed to the citizens?
17 A. I happened to know the victim in this incident. It's not one
18 man. It's two people, one of them is Marko Dakic, a civilian, and all
19 the way up to mid-1993, similar groups around Mount Kozara were a great
20 danger to the citizenry, not only to the Serbs but the Muslims as well.
21 And these renegade groups or extremists, what shall I call them, were
22 operative all the way up to the end of 1995.
23 Q. Thank you. Can I tender this document for identification while
24 we await for translation?
25 JUDGE KWON: Yes, we will mark it for identification.
Page 44308
1 THE REGISTRAR: It receives MFI number D4141, Your Honours.
2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we just show one more document
3 on the ELMO and that would be the end. Thank you.
4 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. Can you tell us what this document is and when it was done?
6 A. This is an Official Note of the public security station
7 Bosanski Novi, dated 9 June 1992, done on the same day, 9 June, on the
8 basis of an interview conducted with Sead Halagic [phon] from Prijedor
9 who was arrested and brought in to the public security station of
10 Bosanski Novi on 8 June 1992.
11 Q. For the parties in the list, number 05519, Sead Halagic is the
12 first name on the list?
13 A. Yes, I noticed that on the list of people in the first category.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we see the next page?
15 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Can you assist us with this? He mentions Hambarine, Carakovo,
17 Kurjevo Brdo, and the groups that were there. Is this consistent with
18 what you knew about these localities and the groups active there?
19 A. Yes. This is his account of everything that preceded the war,
20 people organising themselves, Jama is mentioned here, Kotska,
21 Slavko Ecimovic, some groups like Garavi Sokak, Kemo Divljak is mentioned
22 although his last name is really Alagic, Kurjevo forest is mentioned, and
23 I think this is about the preparation for the attack of 31st May 1992.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we see the last page?
25 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
Page 44309
1 Q. Biscani is mentioned also, Ljubija, Kurjevo, Biscani. Let's see
2 the last page. Did you know anything about Brisevo village? Were there
3 any groups there? Was Brisevo attacked without any reason or was there
4 perhaps a reason?
5 A. Brisevo is a bit further away from Omarska, quite a way, and I
6 have no particular knowledge about that village. I believe it was
7 populated mainly by Croats. I think. But I have no knowledge really.
8 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Ms. Sutherland?
9 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, this doesn't arise from my
10 cross-examination, Brisevo.
11 JUDGE KWON: Yes, yes. Please move on, Mr. Karadzic.
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Leave it.
13 Q. Do you know this Boro Bukva, who is he, the person who drafted
14 this Official Note?
15 A. Boro Bukva is a policeman in the public security station of
16 Novi Grad, that is Bosanski Novi.
17 Q. I also tender this document. I have more but I won't use them
18 because we have no more time.
19 JUDGE KWON: At the moment it does not have a 65 ter number, does
20 it?
21 MR. ROBINSON: No, Mr. President.
22 JUDGE KWON: We will mark it for identification.
23 THE REGISTRAR: MFI D4142, Your Honours.
24 JUDGE KWON: Very well.
25 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
Page 44310
1 Q. Thank you, Mr. Mejakic for your testimony and for the efforts you
2 made here. On behalf of the Defence. I suppose the other parties will
3 thank you, too.
4 MS. SUTHERLAND: Mr. Reid informs me it's 1D02974.
5 JUDGE KWON: Does it have an English translation? No.
6 On behalf of the Chamber, Mr. Mejakic, I would like to thank you
7 for your coming to The Hague to give it. You are free to go.
8 Thank for your assistance, Mr. Zivanovic.
9 MR. ZIVANOVIC: You're welcome, Your Honour. Thank you.
10 JUDGE KWON: Could the Chamber move into private session briefly?
11 [Private session]
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Page 44311
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5 [Open session]
6 THE REGISTRAR: We are in open session, Your Honours.
7 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Unless there is anything, we will
8 adjourn until Tuesday morning. The hearing is adjourned.
9 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 3.00 p.m.,
10 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 3rd day of
11 December 2013, at 9.00 a.m.
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