Page 16249
1 Thursday, 9
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.07 a.m.
5 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, I'm sorry to have kept
6 you this morning, but there were matters I had to
7 attend to.
8 MR. NICE: Of course. Your Honour, the
9 position on the witnesses is there are three witnesses
10 today, two short ones and one much more substantial
11 one. The two short ones are, I hope, each in the
12 process of reviewing in order to approve and initial,
13 or whatever, their summaries in order that they may be
14 taken more swiftly than formally, and I'm not sure
15 either is yet immediately ready. So there may be other
16 matters we can conveniently deal with straight away.
17 First, Mr. Sayers tells me that when I told
18 you yesterday the map that Mr. Hamill produced was in
19 the Zenica binder, I was wrong. It was indexed but not
20 in the binder. Naturally, I apologise for that. I'm
21 sorry that that was incorrect when stated by me.
22 The second thing that we might conveniently
23 deal with, I suppose, straight away, is the question of
24 the statements of the Witness AO that were produced,
25 and you've seen the letter that was produced
Page 16250
1 yesterday.
2 The position on all that is, I suppose, as
3 follows, at least the recent history of that is as
4 follows: In cross-examination, it became quite clear
5 that the witness had given another statement or
6 statements. Indeed, I think right at the beginning, he
7 spoke of a statement either to the OTP or to the
8 village or to the town. Then later on, he was
9 cross-examined really in quite a focused way by
10 Mr. Naumovski, being pretty apparent to us and I think
11 to the witness, as he subsequently confirmed when
12 speaking to the investigator after evidence, it became
13 pretty obvious that they had information on him. And
14 there was some focused cross-examination on other
15 earlier statements. It rather looked as though they
16 might actually have had information upon the detail of
17 one of those statements, an impression which, when the
18 statement eventually came to light, may have been
19 confirmed, because there was a match of detail put with
20 detail in the statement.
21 In any event, after he had concluded his
22 evidence, Ms. Taylor spoke to him and confirmed that
23 which appeared, that he had spoken to other people.
24 Not something that he ever kept back from us; just
25 something that hadn't emerged. And I think he
Page 16251
1 explained to you how he'd given answers to lots of
2 people, maybe couldn't remember the circumstances or
3 how he came to sign them, at a time shortly before, I
4 think, Your Honour cut short his cross-examination and
5 said you'd had enough on that.
6 In any event, a further search was conducted
7 by Ms. Taylor and then by others. The statements were
8 found, they being the sort of statement that, knowing
9 of their existence, we would look for again. They were
10 immediately handed over. One of them exists in English
11 and in B/C/S; and the other one, at the moment, only in
12 B/C/S. A proper translation is being sought for it.
13 So that's the history of that. Of course,
14 I'm sorry they weren't found before, but as soon as
15 they were found, they were handed over.
16 JUDGE MAY: I think the matter of importance
17 is this: Why weren't they found before?
18 MR. NICE: Well, they weren't found before
19 because they didn't turn up in the searches before.
20 Indeed I understand that the same search duplicated
21 since doesn't turn -- or a search duplicated since
22 doesn't turn the document up again. These things are
23 not perfect.
24 Also, the original search found the
25 material -- I think finds it in a bulk of material;
Page 16252
1 that is, it's not searched under the name and turns up
2 immediately under the name. It turns up in a bulk of
3 other material. So that's the reason for it. There's
4 every effort made to find material that's relevant.
5 It's only because of the redoubled efforts that I'm
6 happy to say we found it this time.
7 It seems, in any event, that the Defence had
8 some knowledge from some source of that statement or
9 some account of it. They have now been handed over and
10 there it is.
11 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Sayers.
12 MR. SAYERS: Mr. President, let me just say
13 at this stage of the case we're sort of resigned to
14 this kind of treatment by the Prosecution, without
15 meaning any aspersions on anyone.
16 The map incident yesterday, the delivery of
17 statements of two of the witnesses today at 9.00 a.m.
18 We still haven't got a statement from the third
19 witness.
20 JUDGE MAY: Well, to be fair about the
21 statements, those are the summaries you're referring
22 to.
23 MR. SAYERS: Yes.
24 JUDGE MAY: This is a slightly different
25 point. You've had the statements of the witnesses, no
Page 16253
1 doubt, in the proper time. The difficulty about the
2 summaries, of course, is they can only be compiled when
3 the witnesses are here. So I think it's not fair to
4 criticise the Prosecution on that ground. However, of
5 course, the matter we're dealing with is totally
6 different.
7 MR. SAYERS: The Court will no doubt recall
8 that an application was made to add this witness to the
9 witness list. I believe it was on January the 31st,
10 but I may be wrong on the date. That's my
11 recollection.
12 The reason for the addition of this witness
13 to the witness list was that the identity of this
14 witness was supposedly unknown to the Prosecution,
15 unknown to the Prosecution, and they had only recently
16 come into possession, we were told, of a statement
17 apparently from NordBat. I will say, parenthetically,
18 we have requested the statement -- the entire statement
19 from NordBat, as the Court knows, and treaties in that
20 regard have simply been ignored.
21 Now, it turns out that the statements from
22 this witness existed in the Prosecution's databases all
23 the time. That's a very significant matter of concern
24 for us, but it's not nearly as significant as
25 disclosing these materials to us after the witness has
Page 16254
1 already testified, because the statements -- I'm sure
2 the Court has had the chance to review them -- display
3 a level of mendacity which is pretty self-evident.
4 JUDGE MAY: I can say I have merely looked at
5 those cursorily, and it may be of assistance if you
6 point to the matters you used in cross-examination,
7 because that, of course, is the matter we are going to
8 have to consider.
9 MR. SAYERS: On page 1 it is said by this
10 witness that various forms of cooperation with parts of
11 the so-called Republika Srpska were quite normal. The
12 Court will recall that he said something completely
13 different in his direct-examination and
14 cross-examination.
15 On page 3, Your Honour, this witness says:
16 "My subsequent involvement in the HVO Special Purpose
17 Unit" --
18 JUDGE MAY: Just let me find it.
19 MR. SAYERS: Yes, sir. It's about two inches
20 down from the top of the typed matter.
21 JUDGE MAY: I have it.
22 MR. SAYERS: "... so-called Specijalka in
23 Vares was prompted by purely personal interests."
24 Now, the Court will recall that the witness
25 completely abjured any connection with the HVO in
Page 16255
1 unequivocal, undiluted terms.
2 He then goes on, approximately three inches
3 up from the bottom of that paragraph, Your Honour, to
4 say, "When I joined the Specijalka, my war duties
5 allowed me to observe all the illegal activities
6 carried out by current officials and institutions in
7 Vares ..." and then goes on to talk about those
8 black-market activities --
9 JUDGE MAY: Let me find that. Which
10 paragraph?
11 MR. SAYERS: Well, the pages are not
12 numbered, Your Honour, but at the bottom of the page --
13 JUDGE MAY: You've got the Prosecution
14 numbers, or at least I have.
15 MR. SAYERS: Number 00323996, that's the page
16 number, and then the first full paragraph on the page,
17 about three inches up from the bottom of the paragraph,
18 or two inches, he says: "When I joined the Specijalka,
19 my war duties ..." and goes on to describe them. He
20 then goes on to say, at the bottom of that paragraph,
21 Your Honour, that he carried out certain transactions
22 in relation to these illegal activities for his own
23 personal benefit.
24 Then, Your Honour, about one inch up from the
25 bottom of the last paragraph, I want to draw the
Page 16256
1 Court's attention to something, and admittedly, I
2 haven't had a considerable opportunity to scrutinise
3 this because I've been busy preparing for other
4 witnesses, but let me just say, my recollection of what
5 the witness said was as follows: He said, "As an HOS
6 member, I was a trusted confidante of Ivica Rajic, and
7 that's why I was included in these planning sessions,
8 and I was able to hear a telephone conversation and see
9 an order that was signed by Boban, Kordic, and/or
10 Praljak."
11 Here he says he was taken out of bed by the
12 HVO military police on the orders of Rajic, shown a
13 document from General Praljak, not from Mr. Kordic, and
14 then he goes on, at the top of the next page, to say
15 that he was kept in some kind of detention until the
16 morning. An absolutely completely different story from
17 that which he told to the Court in direct examination
18 and cross-examination.
19 JUDGE MAY: Well, he does say: "I think
20 these facts help to explain his trust in me."
21 MR. SAYERS: Having been arrested, Your
22 Honour, I -- well, I understand what the witness says.
23 JUDGE MAY: Very well.
24 MR. SAYERS: He says that he was kept in
25 detention; he made no mention of that, of course,
Page 16257
1 during his examination-in-chief or cross-examination.
2 And then, of course, one thing that I do want
3 to emphasise is that the name Kordic doesn't appear, as
4 far as I'm aware, in either of these two statements,
5 not one of them, and I will defer to my colleague
6 Mr. Naumovski with respect to the Croatian statements
7 since I do not read that language.
8 THE INTERPRETER: Will you slow down,
9 Mr. Sayers, please.
10 MR. SAYERS: Right. He also says, on page
11 00323997, that during the night, while he was staying
12 in the headquarters, he learned during the night that
13 Ivica Rajic's extremists, who made up the formations of
14 Maturice, Sijuski, and Apostoli, had been ordered to
15 take Stupni Do. That is completely different from what
16 he said relating to a meeting that occurred, by his
17 account, completely vallecularly, three days early, on
18 October the 20th.
19 Needless to say, Your Honour -- and I will,
20 as I say, defer to my colleague Mr. Naumovski -- the
21 possession of these statements, which, I want to
22 emphasise, I've never seen before and have never even
23 heard about before, they were disclosed to us by the
24 Prosecution. We think that the only --
25 JUDGE MAY: You say you haven't. Have the
Page 16258
1 Defence generally known of these matters?
2 MR. SAYERS: No, sir.
3 MR. KOVACIC: Absolutely not.
4 MR. SAYERS: As I said, I will yield the
5 floor to Mr. Naumovski so he can tell you for himself.
6 But I can tell you that our databases, and we try to
7 keep these fairly carefully, have absolutely no copies
8 of these, or even references to them or even
9 intimations that they existed.
10 Under these circumstances, I would submit
11 that the only possible course for the Court to take
12 would be to strike the testimony of this witness
13 altogether.
14 With that said, let me hand over the floor to
15 Mr. --
16 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Sayers, before you do that,
17 let's consider the position. Effectively it is this:
18 that there is material here which should have been
19 disclosed to you before you cross-examined the witness,
20 and it wasn't, the witness having given evidence, and
21 this is material which you say goes very much to his
22 credibility.
23 That being so, the question is what should be
24 done? One course, as you suggest or submit, is that we
25 should simply disregard all his evidence. Another
Page 16259
1 course is, of course, that we now have this material
2 and we can take it into consideration when considering
3 what weight, if any, to give his evidence. The third
4 course, I suppose, is that he is brought back at some
5 stage for cross-examination on these statements. That
6 would probably have to be in the rebuttal stage of the
7 case. I'm thinking aloud. I don't know if there are
8 any other courses which suggest themselves to the
9 Court.
10 [Trial Chamber confers]
11 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Sayers.
12 Mr. Naumovski, we've heard what Mr. Sayers
13 has said. You need not repeat that; I'm sure you
14 wouldn't. It's suggested that you may have had some
15 knowledge of these statements. If you want to deal
16 with that suggestion, of course you may.
17 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Your Honour,
18 thank you for allowing me to say a few words as well.
19 I can only confirm that I had absolutely no
20 knowledge of these statements, neither I nor any member
21 of our team. Since he spent some time in the NordBat,
22 it was only natural that he was questioned subsequently
23 by the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that is why he
24 confirmed these statements before this Honourable
25 Court. I don't want to repeat what my colleague
Page 16260
1 Mr. Sayers said.
2 The other statement will be translated for
3 you as well, and I believe that you will see for
4 yourselves what I tried to show to the Court throughout
5 the cross-examination, and that is what kind of a
6 person we are dealing with. It is the credibility of
7 this witness that is questionable, and this statement
8 shows it best of all. He admits here that he was
9 involved in private business for his own benefit, and
10 then also for that firm Jakici, which he denied here
11 when testifying before you. So this was his private
12 interest.
13 Just a detail. You may recall the question I
14 put in connection with something that the priest
15 Piplica asked him to do, and you asked me why I was
16 putting that question, you asked me why I was putting
17 this question. He abused this priest. He did not
18 deliver the goods he was supposed to deliver, he denied
19 that, and he also gave himself credit for certain
20 things. This is page --
21 THE INTERPRETER: Mr. Naumovski has to slow
22 down.
23 JUDGE MAY: Could you slow down.
24 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] I do
25 apologise.
Page 16261
1 So, Your Honours, on page 00323998, in the
2 middle paragraph, in the lower half of the page, it is
3 obvious that he was told that he was supposed to
4 deliver 67 tonnes of goods to the priest in Vares, and
5 those goods never arrived. So he actually confirms
6 this, although he denied it while testifying here.
7 I don't want to go into other details. Your
8 Honours will see this for yourselves, but there are two
9 things I wish to say.
10 First of all, we had absolutely no knowledge
11 whatsoever concerning his statements. These were
12 statements that were made to the authorities of the
13 army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, regrettably, we have
14 no access to these sources.
15 Secondly, my opinion is, and the Defence
16 proposal is, that as far as we are concerned, the
17 testimony of this witness can simply, and should simply
18 be rejected, because you will see this for yourselves
19 and you will see how questionable his credibility is,
20 and thereby everything that he said is questionable.
21 Thank you.
22 MR. KOVACIC: Your Honour.
23 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Kovacic.
24 MR. KOVACIC: Just for the record, since it
25 was somehow implied that the Defence might have had
Page 16262
1 such statements of this witness, the Cerkez Defence
2 also have never seen such statements, and as a matter
3 of principle, we do support the point of view of the
4 other Defence. Thank you, Your Honour.
5 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, I tell you what we have
6 in mind.
7 MR. NICE: Yes.
8 JUDGE MAY: The justice of the case requires
9 that this witness, in due course, return to be tested
10 on those matters.
11 MR. NICE: I entirely agree.
12 JUDGE MAY: It may be the simplest if that is
13 done during the course of the rebuttal case. He should
14 be brought back.
15 MR. NICE: Your Honour, we'll make
16 arrangements.
17 I was going to say that it would be quite
18 wrong to strike the witness's evidence, he having come
19 here and he not having a chance to deal with these
20 matters. He left. Of course, he was concerned,
21 incidentally, because his name had been used in court.
22 That didn't emerge to us because it doesn't come
23 through on the transcript. But we've monitored or had
24 monitored -- or somebody has monitored the press and it
25 appears that his name hasn't gone out so far. So with
Page 16263
1 luck that won't affect his willingness to attend. Of
2 course, he left with the intention of finding some of
3 the documents he said he was going to try and find for
4 us. So his being recalled is an entirely proper course
5 and we'll make arrangements in due course.
6 JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll make that
7 order, that the Prosecution -- it's your
8 responsibility, Mr. Nice, to recall him.
9 MR. NICE: What I was hoping for today was
10 that we would be able to fit in all the administrative
11 matters as soon as possible, leaving a clear period of
12 time for the substantial witness, but I gather
13 Mr. Scott's witness is now ready to give evidence, and
14 it may be prudent for that witness to be taken now,
15 sensible for that witness to be taken now.
16 I'll go and check on the position of the
17 second short witness whom I'm taking. It's possible
18 that if we can dispose of both of those witnesses in, I
19 don't know, an hour or thereabouts, that will give the
20 balance of the morning, but for other administrative
21 matters, to the substantial witness.
22 JUDGE MAY: Very well. There is one matter
23 which -- the affidavits on which we're having some work
24 done and research done, and we're not in a position to
25 take them yet. If necessary, we shall have to sit
Page 16264
1 tomorrow morning, but we'll see how it goes.
2 MR. KOVACIC: Your Honour, I don't know
3 whether it is a proper moment, but just in case, I
4 would like to stay with the objections that I raised
5 yesterday to have a witness earlier listed under
6 number 10 of the list of the transcripts, to have him
7 today as a witness. It is, by my opinion -- I will not
8 repeat myself basically on the arguments I had
9 yesterday. I just checked how much material it is. I
10 did my best, but that is still not fair to bring a
11 witness -- to announce to the Defence in the afternoon,
12 on the eve of the testimony of such a voluminous
13 testimony, and in such a difficult moment when we are
14 really fighting with tonnes of documents and many, many
15 issues which should be discussed with this Chamber on
16 the last day of the Prosecution case.
17 JUDGE MAY: Well, Mr. Kovacic, as I said
18 yesterday when dealing with the application, if you
19 haven't had time to prepare for cross-examination, then
20 we will consider postponing your cross-examination
21 until tomorrow morning.
22 MR. KOVACIC: I appreciate that. That will
23 give me at least some additional time.
24 JUDGE MAY: Let's see how we get on.
25 MR. KOVACIC: Thank you, sir.
Page 16265
1 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Is there an application in
2 relation to the next witness?
3 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour, there is.
4 JUDGE MAY: It was handed in.
5 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, yes. May it please
6 the Court. There is an application. If we could go
7 into private session for a moment. Perhaps it's not
8 necessary, to mention the witness's name. The Court
9 has the papers and knows who is being discussed,
10 although it would probably be preferable if it were.
11 JUDGE MAY: We should go into private session
12 for this purpose.
13 [Private session]
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 16266
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13 page 16266 redacted – private session
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Page 16267
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 [Open session]
21 THE REGISTRAR: Pseudonym for this witness is
22 Witness AQ.
23 [The witness entered court]
24 WITNESS: WITNESS AQ
25 [Witness answered through interpreter]
Page 16268
1 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness take the
2 declaration.
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly
4 declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth,
5 and nothing but the truth.
6 JUDGE MAY: If you'd like to take a seat.
7 Examined by Mr. Scott:
8 Q. Witness, the usher is putting in front of you
9 a paper with your name on it. For purposes of
10 affording you protection, we do not want you to state
11 your name out loud in court, but will you simply, for
12 purposes of identification, look at that paper and
13 answer yes or no: Is that your name?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. All right. Witness, your request for
16 protection has been granted, just so you know and can
17 know that at the outset. You will be referred to in
18 court today as Witness AQ. So if I refer to you as
19 Witness AQ, you'll know that's why, not out of any
20 discourtesy. Do you understand?
21 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness speak up,
22 please? We cannot hear her at all.
23 MR. SCOTT:
24 Q. Witness, you'll have to speak a little
25 louder, please, for the purposes of the record. Maybe
Page 16269
1 you can -- let me ask for purposes of translation, let
2 me ask my last question.
3 Did you understand, Witness AQ, that I'll be
4 referring to you this morning as Witness AQ?
5 A. Yes.
6 MR. SCOTT: Usher, if you could possibly move
7 this big microphone.
8 Sorry, Your Honour. It's a bit disconcerting
9 to look at the witness and have her -- that's fine. I
10 would like to be able to see the witness.
11 Thank you, usher.
12 Q. Witness AQ, first I would like for you to
13 confirm for the record, in the course of coming to The
14 Hague and having been in The Hague for the last few
15 days, were you provided a proposed outline or summary,
16 if you will, of your anticipated testimony today, and
17 did you have a chance to review and sign that?
18 A. Yes.
19 MR. SCOTT: Mr. Usher, if you could put this
20 before the witness, please.
21 For purposes of the record, Your Honour, we
22 would have this identified as Z2817.
23 JUDGE MAY: I think there's an objection to
24 this particular summary being --
25 MR. SCOTT: I --
Page 16270
1 JUDGE MAY: Just a moment.
2 MR. SCOTT: I'm sorry.
3 JUDGE MAY: There is an objection to this
4 summary being admitted. The witness can have it in
5 front of her. If necessary, we'll review the position
6 at the end.
7 MR. SCOTT: That's fine, Your Honour. I
8 wasn't moving it other than to identify it for purposes
9 of the record. A document has been placed in front of
10 her that has been tentatively identified as 2817. I
11 understand at this point it's not admitted.
12 Q. Witness AQ, if you could please turn to the
13 last page of that item, the page 7. Does that page 7
14 have your signature and today's date, indicating that
15 the statement -- this statement is true and correct to
16 the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. All right. Thank you. Now, Witness AQ, is
19 it correct that in October 1992, you and your family
20 moved to Ahmici? You lived in about the middle of the
21 village, between the upper and lower mosque?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Around June or July of 1992, the HVO
24 established a checkpoint on the road going into Ahmici,
25 and an anti-aircraft machine-gun was placed there which
Page 16271
1 was aimed at Ahmici. Is that correct, please?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. The first attack on Ahmici was on the 20th of
4 October, 1992. It was primarily an artillery attack
5 meant to scare the Muslims or to see how they would
6 react. There were also HVO soldiers in the lower part
7 of the village who set some houses on fire. Is that
8 true?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. During the shelling on 20th of October, the
11 minaret on the lower mosque in Ahmici was hit. There
12 were later statements on Croat and Bosnian Croat
13 television to the effect that the mosque was shelled
14 because Muslim snipers were firing from the mosque.
15 First of all, do you recall that, that information up
16 to that point?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Did you believe, or to your knowledge, as a
19 resident of the village, that there were snipers or had
20 been snipers posted, if you will, on the minaret?
21 A. No, there were not.
22 Q. At no time during your residence in the
23 village were you aware, had seen, or heard of any
24 Bosniak snipers being positioned on the mosque, on the
25 minaret?
Page 16272
1 A. No.
2 Q. There were no ABiH or TO units, formations,
3 or positions in Ahmici in October 1992 when it was
4 attacked; is that true?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. In fact, can you confirm, Witness AQ, that on
7 that day or about that day, you also had occasion to
8 travel in the area, that you and your husband travelled
9 to Poculica, and during that travel, if you will,
10 neither your husband nor you saw any gatherings or
11 formations of ABiH or TO soldiers in the area?
12 A. We did not.
13 Q. You did not?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Is it correct, Witness, that you understood,
16 around the time of this first attack on Ahmici, that
17 is, October 1992, that the HVO had been very angry
18 around that time because some HVO vehicles had been
19 stopped by the Bosniaks near Ahmici on their way to --
20 I think it was actually Novi Travnik. Is that
21 correct?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. As a result of this attack in October, one
24 Bosniak man was killed, about seven houses were burned,
25 and approximately ten barns destroyed; is that
Page 16273
1 correct?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Witness AQ, for the next series of questions,
4 I'm going to ask you if you can speak to the Court more
5 in your own words. I want to direct your attention to
6 the 15th of April, 1993. This was a time of Easter
7 that year; is that correct?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Can you relate to the Court any thing or
10 person that you saw on television on the 15th of April,
11 1993? Just describe what you saw, who you were with at
12 the time, and any thoughts or reactions you may have
13 had to what you saw on TV.
14 A. That day I, my husband, his sister, and my
15 three-year-old son were at home. All the day on
16 Busovaca Television, the Busovaca Television was
17 transmitting the Easter celebrations in Busovaca. When
18 the programme would be finished on Busovaca Television,
19 the Vitez Television would take it over and then
20 transmit it again.
21 Dario Kordic spoke on that occasion. He
22 invited the Croat people to an uprising, to rally to
23 the defence against Muslim forces. The units of the BH
24 army were not called by him the army of
25 Bosnia-Herzegovina; they called them Muslim forces.
Page 16274
1 From what he said, it was evident that he was
2 inviting to an armed insurgence. He said that they
3 were better armed than the Muslims, and that meant that
4 he was proclaiming war.
5 My husband believed what he had said, that
6 something was really in the offing, but I could not
7 believe it, because I had grown up in an environment
8 where there were many Croats, and we've never had any
9 problem.
10 So I believe that it wasn't all that simple,
11 to call people, to rise and go to war, because we were
12 already at war with the Serbs. Unfortunately, it did,
13 indeed, come true, and after the 16th of April, I knew
14 that all that Kordic had stated that day was true.
15 Q. Witness AQ, you saw this speech, or similar
16 speeches throughout the course of the 15th of April; is
17 that correct?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. So it was essentially repeatedly broadcast
20 throughout the day.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Let me direct you, please. During your time
23 in The Hague --
24 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, perhaps you'll let
25 me approach it this way. Let me first inform the
Page 16275
1 Court, and then I'll ask the witness. In the course of
2 her being here, Your Honour, she was shown Prosecution
3 Exhibit Z665, which is admitted in evidence and was the
4 press conference showing Dario Kordic, Tihomir Blaskic,
5 and Kostroman on the 15th of April, 1993. The Court
6 may recall having seen that on at least one occasion
7 during the trial.
8 Q. Witness AQ, let me ask you, when you were
9 shown a tape of a speech involving Mr. Kordic on the
10 15th of April, 1993, was that the same speech that
11 you've related to the Court just a moment ago, or was
12 there a different speech?
13 A. It was that very speech.
14 Q. Of all the speeches you heard during the
15 course of that day, was it the same broadcast, or were
16 there different speeches by Mr. Kordic being broadcast,
17 if you recall?
18 A. Different speeches. It was a live
19 transmission from the Easter festival, and then there
20 was this other speech. When I saw the tape, I just
21 remembered.
22 Q. During the speech, did Mr. Kordic say
23 something to the effect that Busovaca was the heart of
24 Herceg-Bosna?
25 A. Yes.
Page 16276
1 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] I did ask
2 that my learned colleague not ask leading questions in
3 this matter. That was one of the things.
4 MR. SCOTT: That's fine, Your Honour. I
5 think we've covered most things down through paragraph
6 13, I think, or at least 12.
7 Q. Let's go on to paragraph 13. Before this
8 occasion, on the 15th of April, had you seen any of
9 these men -- Dario Kordic, Ignac Kostroman, Tihomir
10 Blaskic -- on television before?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Did you have any particular understanding of
13 the relationship between those three men? I don't
14 necessarily mean a personal relationship, but the
15 relationship as part of a political or military group.
16 A. From what one could see in these recordings
17 of their press conferences, one could see that they
18 were very closely linked and that they were cooperating
19 very well amongst themselves.
20 Q. After Ahmici, did you form any conclusions as
21 to how the attack on Ahmici had come about, in terms of
22 the organisation and execution of that attack?
23 A. I think that it had all been -- that it was
24 all planned in advance, well organised and well
25 prepared.
Page 16277
1 Q. Who did you understand Dario Kordic to be in
2 terms of his position or role, if you will, in the
3 community, in Central Bosnia at that time, in April
4 1993?
5 A. I know he was the president of the HDZ. The
6 Croat people saw their god in him.
7 Q. Did you understand him to have any particular
8 relationship with Mate Boban? Again, I don't
9 necessarily mean a personal or family relationship, but
10 any other association that you were aware of with
11 Mr. Boban.
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. What did you understand about that?
14 A. I think that they cooperated, pursued the HDZ
15 policy in that area.
16 Q. Had you heard about, around this time,
17 something called the Croatian Community of
18 Herceg-Bosna?
19 A. I did. It was an organised community of
20 Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
21 Q. Where did you understand Mr. Kordic and
22 Mr. Boban to fit into any structure, if you will,
23 related to Herceg-Bosna? What role did they have?
24 A. I think they were right at the top, amongst
25 the leadership.
Page 16278
1 Q. All right. Moving on, then.
2 Witness AQ, do you recall that throughout the
3 Easter time period there was electricity or power, if
4 you will, available?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. And can you tell the Court whether that was
7 different than what had been the situation during the
8 Muslim holidays of Ramadan?
9 A. During Ramadan, we had shortages in the
10 supply of power.
11 Q. Can you confirm for the Court, Witness AQ,
12 that there were times, to your knowledge, when the
13 power to the Bosniak or Muslim villages would be cut
14 off, but the power, electricity, to the Croat villages
15 would continue?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Directing your attention, then, still on the
18 15th of April, the same day as what you saw on
19 television, is it correct, Witness, that your husband
20 was on guard duty in Ahmici, and that the village guard
21 consisted of two men each on two-hour shifts?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. On the 15th of April, your husband was on
24 guard duty with an 18-year-old man named Kermo Elvedin;
25 is that correct?
Page 16279
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. They had the shift from approximately 10.00
3 that evening until midnight; is that correct?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Your husband, and, to your knowledge, the
6 other Muslim men involved with guard duty, did not
7 carry a gun while on guard duty; is that true?
8 A. Yes, it is.
9 Q. In the main, the village guard was nothing
10 very organised, but essentially would be two Muslim men
11 walking through the village; is that correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Your husband and Kermo came back to the
14 house, that is, your house, at about 11.30 that evening
15 to smoke a cigarette with you. After the three of you
16 had smoked about half a cigarette, you heard a sound
17 that sounded like something between a gunshot and a
18 hand grenade exploding; is that correct?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. You and your husband and Kermo knew that
21 there were no BiH soldiers in the area, so you
22 suspected that the sound must have come from an HVO
23 dugout or trench in the area of Sutra. Your husband
24 and Kermo left the house, went in the direction of
25 Sutra, again, where the sound seemed to have come from;
Page 16280
1 is that correct?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. After that, there was a changing of the
4 guards from one shift to the next. Kermo went home and
5 your husband returned to your home; is that correct?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. You asked your husband about the sound. He
8 said he didn't know what it was, but he had seen a
9 large number of HVO soldiers in the dugout, which, he
10 indicated to you, based on his previous guard duty
11 experience, was unusual; is that correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. He also reported to you about that time, when
14 he returned to the house, that he had been able to see
15 through a window into the basement of Ivica Kupreskic's
16 house, and in the basement, there were a lot of HVO
17 soldiers gathered there with weapons and in uniform.
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. I'm going to ask the usher to hand to you and
20 distribute Exhibit Z1553.1, which won't take very --
21 again, quite quickly.
22 MR. SCOTT: Perhaps for purposes of
23 identification, since it shows a particular location,
24 it should not be on the ELMO. We'd ask ultimately,
25 Your Honour, that these exhibits be under seal, because
Page 16281
1 they do tend to identify the witness.
2 Q. If you'll allow me, Witness AQ, in the
3 interests of time, there is a key or legend attached as
4 part of this exhibit -- again, 1553.1 -- and the item
5 marked as number 3 on the map, or aerial, can you
6 confirm to the Court that that is your house where you
7 lived on the 15th and morning of the 16th of April,
8 1993?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Item number 1 is Ivica Kupreskic's house,
11 where your husband indicated he had seen a number of
12 HVO soldiers gathered in the basement.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Item number 2 is the area of a dugout where,
15 again, he said he had seen more HVO soldiers than
16 usual; is that correct?
17 A. Yes.
18 MR. SCOTT: I think, Your Honour, the rest of
19 the exhibit basically speaks for itself, with the
20 legend attached, unless there's some further question
21 about it.
22 Q. Witness AQ, can you confirm to the Court that
23 there were no BiH army or Territorial Defence
24 formations, units, or positions in Ahmici on the 15th
25 and 16th of April, 1993?
Page 16282
1 A. There were none.
2 Q. There were no attacks by any BiH or TO forces
3 in the area, to the best of your knowledge, and in
4 fact, the area was peaceful up to the moment of the HVO
5 attack. Is that fair to say?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Your husband, however, continued to have
8 misgivings that something bad was going to happen,
9 perhaps not that night, but that trouble was, in fact,
10 building to some bad point. You talked about, in fact,
11 the two of you that night, what to do if something
12 happened or if one of you was killed. Is that correct?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And you told your husband that, really, it
15 was crazy to talk of such things.
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Is it correct, Witness, that you then went to
18 bed, you and your husband went to bed about 12.30 a.m.
19 on now the 16th of April, turned on the television?
20 You fell asleep at that point, perhaps both of you
21 did. You woke up some time later. The television was
22 still on. Is that correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. As you woke up and looked at the television
25 that was still on, what did you see on television?
Page 16283
1 A. When I looked at the TV, I saw the same
2 programme that was being broadcast and rebroadcast all
3 day, where Kordic was.
4 Q. This was when Mr. Kordic was making the
5 speech.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. After another several hours, you and your
8 husband woke up and heard someone in the yard or garden
9 of the house. You could hear gunshots and people
10 cursing the Muslims and shouting obscenities; is that
11 correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Your husband went to the front door to go
14 outside, but as soon as he touched the doorknob, there
15 was an explosion at the door. You could see your
16 husband then holding his stomach and his hands covered
17 in blood. Is that right?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Witness, I'll try to move through this quite
20 quickly, but if you do feel that you have to take a
21 pause, please indicate.
22 Then there was a lot of shooting, and
23 somebody apparently shot through the door and hit your
24 husband in the chest. You were later able to see that
25 he had been shot in the chest, and there was actually
Page 16284
1 an exit wound in his back; is that correct?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. About that time, you looked at the clock, and
4 it was 5.30 in the morning on the 16th of April, 1993.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. At that point you gathered your son, aged
7 three and a half at the time, your sister-in-law, who
8 was about 20 or 21 years old, who was also living with
9 you in the house; you gathered them together with you
10 in the house. The house continued to be attacked with
11 shooting and hand grenades being thrown into the house;
12 is that correct?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. You tried to tend to your husband but,
15 unfortunately, really there was nothing you could do
16 except wash his face; is that right?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And he died a short time later?
19 A. Yes.
20 MR. SCOTT: Usher, if I could have your
21 assistance, please, for a moment. If I could tender
22 Exhibit Z1553.2.
23 Q. Witness AQ, is that a photograph of your
24 husband who was killed the night or morning of April
25 16th?
Page 16285
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Except for a pistol, is it true, ma'am, that
3 there were no guns or military weapons in your house?
4 A. That's right.
5 Q. Can you tell the Court -- at any time during
6 the attack on your house that evening and the murder of
7 your husband, please tell the Court whether there was
8 any shooting or military or defensive action coming
9 from your house at any time.
10 A. No.
11 Q. There was not?
12 A. There was none.
13 Q. At one point, the shooting into the house was
14 so intense that your sister-in-law lay on the floor,
15 covering your three-and-a-half-year-old son to protect
16 him from being hit. You then proceeded, yourself, to
17 lay your body over two of them in an attempt to protect
18 both of them, and at that point, is it fair to say,
19 Witness, that you were sure that all of you would be
20 killed?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. However, you and your son and your
23 sister-in-law were able to escape from the house, out
24 the window. You then encountered several groups of HVO
25 soldiers. At one point, you and, actually, I should
Page 16286
1 say, your son and sister-in-law were forced to run in
2 front of a group of HVO soldiers in the direction of
3 where the HVO soldiers claimed there were BiH soldiers;
4 is that true?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. In effect, they were putting you, your son,
7 and your sister-in-law between them and what they
8 claimed again to be the position of BiH soldiers as
9 they moved along; is that correct?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. During this time, once you had escaped from
12 the house and were making your way at various points,
13 you saw two HVO soldiers throw hand grenades into Suad
14 Ahmic's house. The HVO soldiers then took a cow out of
15 his stable and set the stable on fire; is that
16 correct?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Is it true, Witness AQ, that on the 16th of
19 April, only the Muslim houses in Ahmici were destroyed
20 or substantially damaged; all of them, in fact, were on
21 fire?
22 A. Yes, totally destroyed, all of them.
23 Q. What did you observe that day about the
24 status or condition of the Croat homes in the village?
25 A. All the Croat houses were intact. They were
Page 16287
1 not damaged.
2 Q. Is it correct, Witness, that no Bosniaks were
3 left in Ahmici after the HVO attack on the 16th, and in
4 fact, as of at least November 1997 -- perhaps later but
5 at least as of November 1997 -- there were still, to
6 your knowledge, no Bosniaks living in the village and
7 all the Bosniak houses remained essentially destroyed?
8 Is that right?
9 A. Yes, that's right.
10 Q. Final question, Witness. By the end of the
11 day on the 16th of April, 1993, what did you think then
12 of the broadcast that you'd seen by Mr. Kordic on the
13 15th of April?
14 A. I concluded that indeed all his threats came
15 true. His call to an uprising to destroy the Muslims,
16 unfortunately all this was true. I could not believe
17 that this would happen, but it proved to happen all
18 after.
19 MR. SCOTT: No further questions. Thank you,
20 Your Honour.
21 Q. Thank you, witness.
22 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Thank you,
23 Your Honour. The witness is a victim in terms of what
24 happened on that critical day, and there is no need for
25 the Defence to remind her of that. Since the Court
Page 16288
1 already had ample opportunity to hear what happened to
2 this witness, the Defence of Mr. Kordic will not have
3 any questions for her unless, of course, the Court has
4 some questions to address to the Defence in this
5 connection.
6 JUDGE MAY: The one matter which it may be
7 right for you to put to the witness is if you challenge
8 that the accused Dario Kordic made the television
9 broadcast inviting the Croat people to rise against the
10 Muslim forces. If that's challenged, she should have
11 the opportunity of dealing with it.
12 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Your Honour,
13 may I just remind you of the fact that you had the
14 opportunity of seeing Z665. That is a videotape.
15 There's also its transcript that has been admitted into
16 evidence. I did not want to challenge it now, because
17 it's quite evident from this transcript, which is quite
18 comprehensive, what Mr. Kordic actually meant and
19 said. However, if it is necessary, I'm going to put it
20 to the witness too.
21 JUDGE MAY: It may be that the simplest way
22 to deal with it is this: Witness AQ, is it your
23 recollection that this is what Dario Kordic said on
24 television on that occasion, that he was inviting the
25 Croat people to rise up?
Page 16289
1 A. Yes, quite, quite clearly.
2 JUDGE MAY: Thank you very much.
3 Yes, that's sufficient.
4 Cross-examined by Mr. Mikulicic:
5 Q. Good day, Witness AQ. I'm sorry we cannot
6 see each other properly. My name is Goran Mikulicic,
7 and I am Defence counsel for the second accused,
8 together with Mr. Kovacic. I'm going to put a few
9 questions to you, and I'd kindly ask you to answer them
10 to the best of your recollection.
11 First of all, please accept my sincere
12 condolences for everything that happened to you in the
13 village of Ahmici in 1993.
14 Witness AQ, you said that in September 1992,
15 you came to the witness and lived in it. Is that
16 right?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Before that day did you come to the village?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. So you knew the villagers from Ahmici mostly,
21 didn't you?
22 A. Yes, in part.
23 Q. Until April 1993 and everything that happened
24 then, did you get to know them a bit better perhaps?
25 A. Yes.
Page 16290
1 Q. Tell us, madam, when were village guards
2 first organised in that village?
3 A. I'm not sure. I really cannot remember
4 exactly.
5 Q. Let us try to orient ourselves in time.
6 There was a conflict in October 1992 in Ahmici. Do you
7 know that there was a roadblock by the village of
8 Ahmici at the time?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Do you know that the placement of that
11 roadblock was the immediate cause of the conflict?
12 A. I wouldn't say that.
13 Q. Did your husband have anything to do with the
14 placement of that roadblock?
15 A. No.
16 Q. Do you know whether there were any military
17 weapons and military units in the village in October
18 1992?
19 A. No. I'm not aware of that. Throughout that
20 day of the attack we were at home, and in the evening
21 when we tried to pull out towards the village when the
22 shooting subsided, we did not meet anyone on the road.
23 Q. Very well. Do you know that in the village
24 there was a company that belonged to the Territorial
25 Defence otherwise?
Page 16291
1 A. No.
2 Q. You're sure that it didn't exist?
3 A. Yes, I'm sure.
4 Q. Witness AQ, if I were to tell you that during
5 this trial, before this Court several dozen persons
6 testified before this Court, villagers from Ahmici and
7 Territorial Defence commanders from the BH army who
8 said there was a Territorial Defence company in Ahmici,
9 and that they also gave the name of the commander of
10 that company, what would you say to that?
11 A. I don't want to go into all of that.
12 Q. Witness AQ, are you familiar with the
13 military structure of the HVO at that time in the Vitez
14 pocket?
15 A. The only thing I know is that Blaskic was the
16 commander-in-chief.
17 Q. Do you know anything about the military units
18 that operated in the area at the time?
19 A. [No audible response]
20 Q. I imagine you also do not know which units
21 participated in the attack of Ahmici in April 1993.
22 A. In April? On the 16th of April when this
23 happened, afterwards I found out that the unit called
24 Jokeri took part in it, I think. I don't know about
25 the rest.
Page 16292
1 Q. Did you personally manage to recognise any
2 one of the attackers or did you see the insignia on
3 their uniforms?
4 A. No, I did not recognise anyone. All of them
5 were masked. Their faces were masked.
6 Q. You said in your statement to the
7 investigators of the Office of the Prosecutor that some
8 of the attackers asked whose house was which house in
9 Ahmici.
10 A. They asked me personally.
11 Q. Did you conclude, on that basis, that these
12 were persons who were not familiar with the local
13 situation in the village of Ahmici?
14 A. I don't think that it was someone who came
15 from the outside. I think they were being led by
16 persons who knew Ahmici very well.
17 Q. If that is correct, why would they ask you
18 then whose house is which house?
19 A. For camouflage purposes.
20 Q. That evening, before the attack on the
21 15th of April, you said that you watched television.
22 That means that there was electricity all night in the
23 village, wasn't there?
24 A. Yes, as opposed to other days, which was
25 unusual. Four or six hours a week.
Page 16293
1 Q. All right. Let's leave that aside. I'm
2 sorry. Were telephones also operating?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. You said that your late husband was --
5 A. I'm sorry. I would like to correct myself.
6 You didn't use the right word for my "late husband."
7 You're supposed to say "rahmetli." If I say that the
8 Croat died, I use the word "pokojni," "May God rest his
9 soul." I think that you shouldn't say "pokojni" when
10 you refer to my late husband; you should say "rahmetli"
11 as for Muslims.
12 Q. Madam, I apologise. I meant no disrespect
13 whatsoever, but this is the first time I hear of this
14 word.
15 A. The first time?
16 Q. Yes, the first time. How did I hear of the
17 "late" in the respect of "pokojni"?
18 JUDGE MAY: I know this is very difficult,
19 but I think we'll get on more quickly if we don't
20 argue.
21 Mr. Mikulicic, have you got much more for
22 this witness?
23 MR. MIKULICIC: [Interpretation]
24 Q. Witness AQ, is it true that your husband was
25 a member of the BH army?
Page 16294
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Can you tell us from which date?
3 A. From the beginning of the aggression against
4 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
5 Q. Do you know which unit he belonged to?
6 A. The 325th Mountain Brigade.
7 Q. You said that he was on guard duty that
8 night.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. I'm not sure whether I understood you
11 correctly. Did he have weapons or did he not have
12 weapons?
13 A. No.
14 Q. So your husband did not have any weapons in
15 the house where he lived with you.
16 A. Well, he had a pistol, the one that we had
17 before too.
18 Q. When he went on guard duty, he did not even
19 take that pistol?
20 A. No. No, he did not. He wore civilian
21 clothes.
22 Q. Witness AQ, who ordered your husband to go on
23 guard duty that evening?
24 A. I think they were organised in some way,
25 after those events in Zenica, I think. However, I
Page 16295
1 don't know for sure.
2 Q. Witness AQ, do you know a person called
3 Midhat Berbic?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Is it true that he was commander of the TO
6 company in Ahmici?
7 A. I really don't know that.
8 Q. Do you know Hazrudin Bilic?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Do you know that he was commander of the
11 platoon that was down at the main road by Ahmici?
12 A. I don't know. I lived in the middle part of
13 the village.
14 Q. You say that you lived in the middle part of
15 the village, between Upper and Lower Ahmici.
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. I understand. So do you perhaps know Nermin
18 Kermo, then?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Is it true that he was commander of the
21 platoon in the middle part of the village where you
22 lived?
23 A. I doubt it. I really don't know.
24 JUDGE MAY: The witness has said that she
25 knows nothing about the Territorial Defence in the
Page 16296
1 village, if there was one. So there's really no point
2 going on.
3 MR. MIKULICIC: [Interpretation] Indeed, Your
4 Honour.
5 Q. Witness AQ, let us finish with this subject.
6 Let us just clarify. You don't know anything about the
7 structure of the HVO army or the structure of the BH
8 army in Ahmici at that time.
9 A. No, nothing.
10 Q. Witness AQ, I have no further questions for
11 you.
12 MR. MIKULICIC: [Interpretation] Thank you,
13 Your Honours. Just for the purposes of the transcript,
14 I would like to draw your attention to D190/1, which
15 speaks of the units of the BH army in Ahmici. Thank
16 you.
17 MR. SCOTT: Very briefly, Your Honour, if I
18 could, in light of the Court's questions and
19 Mr. Naumovski's questions about the broadcast. I'm
20 looking at specifically, for the LiveNote purposes,
21 page 26, starting at line 11.
22 Re-examined by Mr. Scott:
23 Q. Let me ask you these follow-up questions, if
24 I could, Witness AQ.
25 You testified that you saw different speeches
Page 16297
1 by Mr. Kordic on the 15th of April, 1993; is that
2 correct?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Throughout the course of the day, just so we
5 understand it correctly, throughout the course of the
6 day, there appeared to you to be two or more speeches
7 by Mr. Kordic which were being broadcast --
8 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Your Honour,
9 I apologise.
10 JUDGE MAY: You know, we can't get on with
11 this constant interruption. Now, we will get clarified
12 what the witness said. As I understood it, Mr. Scott,
13 the witness said that she identified the speech which
14 she had heard as that which is shown on the tape,
15 Z665. Now, we can't really go behind that.
16 MR. SCOTT: Well, Your Honour -- I'm sorry.
17 If the Court allows. Your Honour, she also said,
18 however, she said -- I asked the follow-up question
19 about were there different speeches by Mr. Kordic being
20 broadcast that day, and she said at line 21, "Different
21 speeches."
22 JUDGE MAY: Well, then, are we saying that
23 the speech which she is talking about is the speech on
24 665, or are we saying it's a different one? It places
25 the Court in an impossible position with evidence of
Page 16298
1 this nature.
2 MR. SCOTT: That's exactly the reason for my
3 preceding clarification, Your Honour.
4 JUDGE MAY: Let me try and understand.
5 Witness AQ, you were shown or you listened to
6 a tape when you were here. As I understood it, that
7 was the tape to which you were referring when you gave
8 evidence about this broadcast that you had seen on the
9 15th of April. Is that right?
10 A. Yes.
11 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Any more questions?
12 MR. SCOTT: No, Your Honour. I thank the
13 Court for that clarification.
14 JUDGE MAY: Witness AQ, that concludes your
15 evidence. Thank you for coming to the International
16 Tribunal to give it. You are free to go. Just wait
17 until the blinds have come down.
18 Mr. Nice, it's about the time for our break,
19 but have you got an application in respect of the next
20 witness?
21 MR. NICE: I have.
22 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for Mr. Nice,
23 please.
24 [The witness withdrew]
25 MR. NICE: I have. It is set up at the
Page 16299
1 beginning of his summary, and as the Court will
2 appreciate, this is a witness who has, in fact, given
3 evidence before --
4 JUDGE MAY: We better make sure that we're
5 talking about the same witness.
6 MR. NICE: He's a witness who did give
7 evidence earlier in open session, and he explains in
8 paragraph 1 of the summary why his position is
9 changed.
10 JUDGE MAY: I haven't got this. Are we in
11 private session yet?
12 [Private session]
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 16300
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4
5
6
7
8
9
10
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18 --- Recess taken at 10.34 a.m.
19 --- On resuming at 11.09 a.m.
20 [Open session]
21 [The witness entered court]
22 THE REGISTRAR: Pseudonym for this witness
23 is AS. Sorry, AR.
24 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness take the
25 declaration.
Page 16302
1 WITNESS: WITNESS AR
2 [Witness answered through interpreter]
3 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will
4 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
5 truth.
6 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Take a seat.
7 Examined by Mr. Nice:
8 Q. You have been granted protection by the
9 Chamber so that your name will not be revealed, and you
10 will be known throughout your testimony as Witness AR.
11 Will you look at this piece of paper.
12 Without reading the name on it, just simply say, "Yes"
13 if it is your name.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Resident in Busovaca, did you mobilise in the
16 Territorial Defence in April 1992?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Before the JNA left the Busovaca barracks, I
19 think at Kaonik, in May 1992, to whom did they want to
20 hand those barracks over?
21 A. The TO.
22 Q. Did the HVO agree with that plan and
23 proposal?
24 A. No.
25 Q. Were negotiations attempted by, amongst
Page 16303
1 others, Hadzimejlic and Merdan?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Who for the HVO was making the decisions?
4 A. May I -- may I offer an explanation to
5 clarify this question or, rather, my answer?
6 Q. Yes.
7 A. Florijan Glavocevic came to negotiate on
8 behalf of the Croats, because he said that Dario Kordic
9 was not there and that they could not take any decision
10 without him, and they invited him to the negotiations
11 in Busovaca, to the crisis staff.
12 Q. I think that Hadzimejlic and Merdan were
13 arrested. Is that correct?
14 A. That was the information we received when
15 Hadzimejlic returned.
16 Q. Whereabouts did you understand they'd been
17 detained?
18 A. They were to conduct the negotiations at the
19 crisis staff in Busovaca, but according to him, the HVO
20 police met him in front of the crisis staff in Busovaca
21 and took them to Tisovac, which is a outing area near
22 Busovaca.
23 Q. Was there, subsequently, a position taken by
24 the HVO about the weapons of those in the Territorial
25 Defence?
Page 16304
1 A. Yes. Before that, they were asking the
2 Territorial Defence to hand down their weapons and
3 withdraw from Busovaca, but when Hadzimejlic came from
4 those so-called negotiations, they allowed the
5 Territorial Defence to withdraw with their armament but
6 to withdraw from Busovaca.
7 MR. NICE: Your Honour, we've heard a lot
8 about paragraph 4, so I haven't deal with it, save to
9 say to the witness:
10 Q. You could, if asked, deal with the
11 destruction of shops in Busovaca with the loss of jobs
12 and with the limited movement of Muslims in that area?
13 You could, if asked, deal with those topics?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. On the 27th of October of 1992, were you on
16 your way to a command post in Kacuni, to which the
17 Territorial Defence had been moved, when you were
18 stopped in front of the Hotel Tisa?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. What happened to you, your car, and your
21 weapons?
22 A. In front of the Tisa hotel we were stopped by
23 two members of the HVO police, and they wanted to
24 search our vehicle and us. They saw that I had an
25 official handgun, a pistol. I had all the papers from
Page 16305
1 the Territorial Defence. They requested that I hand
2 them over that weapon and said that it will be returned
3 back to me the next day. However, they did not give me
4 any paper or any document that they had seized it.
5 So the next day I went to their commander,
6 Pasko Ljubicic, in the Vitez Hotel, and he issued me a
7 certificate, but I was not returned my weapon.
8 Q. Did you understand that what happened to your
9 weapon had happened to other people's weapons in a
10 similar way?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Paragraph 6 has been covered elsewhere.
13 Paragraph 7 of the summary and down to the end of the
14 witness's personal treatment I'll deal with by leading,
15 unless I'm told otherwise.
16 On the 24th of January, were you and your
17 father arrested by the HVO military close to the
18 UNPROFOR base when you were in civilian clothes?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Indeed, Territorial Defence had been
21 forbidden to wear uniforms at that time?
22 A. Both uniforms and weapons. We did not wear
23 them in Busovaca.
24 Q. Were you taken first to the bus station where
25 you were detained, and your requests to speak to the
Page 16306
1 police chief Vlado Cosic were denied?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. With some 10 to 15 other men, were you taken
4 to Kaonik camp where there were already some 250 people
5 at the time of your arrival, with more coming in
6 following days, so that the total number was about
7 430?
8 A. I was taken to the Kaonik camp, but that
9 figure of 250 is not correct. There were about 20 of
10 us, but within the next day or two they were bringing
11 in people, so that it rose to 250, and by the end of
12 that fortnight there were 430 of them. There were not
13 250 of them when we were brought there, because we were
14 amongst the first to be taken there.
15 Q. Were most of the men at Kaonik civilians and
16 certainly in civilian clothing?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Were they all of Muslim ethnicity?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Were you compelled to go and dig trenches?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Including at the front lines at Kula?
23 A. Yes. Kula, Podjele, Solakovici. Those are
24 the places they took me, but other people were taken
25 other places as well.
Page 16307
1 Q. When digging trenches, you were denied water
2 for 36 hours and food. You were beaten, your ribs were
3 broken, your property was confiscated, you were forced
4 to eat dinars because they hadn't been taken from you;
5 is that correct?
6 A. Yes. It happened at Kula.
7 Q. Did you see Faik Sarajlic struck with a rifle
8 butt and his hat set on fire and replaced on his head?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. In addition to Podjele, did you also go to
11 Prosje?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Was that to dig trenches?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Did you see a man called Mehmed Beslic and
16 another man called Zehrudin Dzafic, both of whom had
17 serious head wounds after beatings?
18 A. I'm sorry, but that happened at Kula. We
19 were all badly beaten at Kula, about 20 of us; however,
20 Zehrudin Dzafic and Mehmed Beslic fared the worst.
21 Q. Did you hear of the death, while digging
22 trenches, of two men, Nermin Elezovic and Jasmin
23 Sehovic?
24 A. It wasn't while we were digging. They came
25 to replace us at Kula, and we were taken back to our
Page 16308
1 cells, and the next day we learned that they had been
2 killed at that same place where we had dug trenches at
3 Kula.
4 Q. Paragraph 15. Did you know a man called Anto
5 Sliskovic?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Were you in a position to recognise his
8 voice?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Did you recognise his voice when you were at
11 the camp?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. What was Sliskovic's attitude to politics of
14 the time? Was he liberal, moderate, or what?
15 A. I knew him from before the war. He was
16 rather nationalistic, chauvinistically-minded.
17 Q. Doing such things as what?
18 A. Well, for instance, when intoxicated, he
19 would sing Ustasha songs in coffee shops, insult,
20 verbally abuse various people, and things like that.
21 Q. At the time that he was doing this, what were
22 the relations between Muslims and Croats generally?
23 A. They were flexible at the time because
24 Busovaca is a mixed environment, so that we looked
25 after one another. And, of course, one could keep in
Page 16309
1 touch with normal people, talk to them, socialise with
2 them, work with them. It was a couple of years before
3 the war, perhaps a year or two before the war.
4 Q. What was, if anything, known by you of
5 Sliskovic's relationship with Kordic?
6 A. The relationship between the two of them, it
7 is difficult to define it, but it is evident that
8 Sliskovic also worked for that same Herceg-Bosna, which
9 was headed by Dario Kordic, and he must have held some
10 important post, but I couldn't tell you which one
11 exactly.
12 Q. Do you mean Sliskovic must have held an
13 important post or Kordic must have held an important
14 post?
15 A. Kordic held a more important post. But
16 Sliskovic also must have been rather high up; one could
17 deduce that from his status.
18 Q. Now, you'd recognised the voice of Sliskovic
19 at the camp. Were there reports -- paragraph 15 -- in
20 relation to a man called Senad Lusija?
21 A. I didn't quite understand.
22 Q. Yes. Did you hear of something that happened
23 to a man called Senad Lusija at the camp?
24 A. Yes. Yes. One night, as my cell was next to
25 the front door to the camp, I heard how they
Page 16310
1 interrogated Senad Lusija and how they beat him, and it
2 was then that I recognised Ante Sliskovic's voice.
3 Q. Yes. Apart from Kordic, was there anyone
4 superior to Kordic, to your knowledge, in the area in
5 Croat affairs?
6 A. No.
7 Q. Were you acquainted with -- did you see
8 Kordic wearing a uniform at any time?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. From roughly when, can you say?
11 A. As of the proclamation of the Croatian
12 Republic of Herceg-Bosna onwards. I could not give you
13 the exact date, but on various occasions, yes, I saw
14 him.
15 Q. Did he have or give himself any rank, that
16 you can remember?
17 A. I don't know who conferred the rank upon
18 him. However, in the media, and from some Croats --
19 or, rather, Catholics who had begun calling themselves
20 Croats, I heard that he had been promoted to the rank
21 of General. But who was it that promoted him, I don't
22 know.
23 Q. At the time of the disarming of the Muslims
24 and the separation of the communities, was there any
25 need for that to happen in the town in which you lived?
Page 16311
1 A. Well, depends on how you look at it. In my
2 view, there was no need for that because there were no
3 military operations there; this was deep in the
4 country, and there was no danger from the Serb or
5 Chetnik aggressor.
6 Q. Can you wait there, please. You may be asked
7 some further questions.
8 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Thank you,
9 Your Honours.
10 Cross-examined by Mr. Naumovski:
11 Q. Witness AR, allow me to introduce myself.
12 I'm Mitko Naumovski, a lawyer from Zagreb, and with my
13 colleague Steven Sayers, we represent Dario Kordic.
14 I shall ask you several questions. I make
15 the same mistake, so will you help me and please wait
16 for a while after my questions so as to allow time for
17 the interpreters to interpret it into the official
18 languages of the Tribunal? Do you understand me?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. A few introductory questions, Witness AR.
21 You used to work for the Mediapan factory in Busovaca,
22 didn't you?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. When new political parties were founded, you
25 actively participated in the foundation of the Party
Page 16312
1 for Democratic Action in Busovaca, didn't you?
2 A. No.
3 Q. But you were a member of the SDA, weren't
4 you?
5 A. Yes, but I joined it only after a certain
6 period of time.
7 Q. Thank you. After the TO staff for the
8 municipality of Busovaca was founded, and we know that
9 Husein Hadzimejlic was its commander, would you agree
10 that you were appointed the commander of the company?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Shall we agree that it was the 3rd Company of
13 the Busovaca detachment?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And the commander of that Busovaca detachment
16 was Jasmin Nejsic, wasn't it?
17 A. Yes. But afterwards he was replaced and
18 another man came to take that post.
19 Q. Incidentally, is that Jasmin Nejsic the man
20 who subsequently became the commander of the prison in
21 the music school in Zenica? Is that one and the same
22 man?
23 A. I wouldn't know.
24 Q. And the detachment that I'm referring to, it
25 covered the territory of the town of Busovaca, didn't
Page 16313
1 it?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Since we are referring to the TO, we shall
4 agree that the Territorial Defence was never placed
5 under the command of the HVO, was it?
6 A. The TO was a regular formation and the HVO
7 wasn't.
8 Q. Right. We won't go into that, because the
9 Chamber already knows what the position of the HVO was,
10 but we agree they were active in the municipality of
11 Busovaca, and the Territorial Defence was one thing and
12 the HVO was a different matter, but they were both
13 active there.
14 A. May I explain and clarify that point?
15 Q. No. I thought to cut it shorter, if
16 possible, but if you wish, of course.
17 A. Also it had to be like that because the HVO
18 was trying to obstruct the authorities in Busovaca, and
19 the Territorial Defence could not really operate
20 properly in Busovaca. After all the excesses and
21 incidents, the Territorial Defence and its command
22 personnel moved to Kacuni.
23 Q. We agree that in the territory of the
24 municipality of Busovaca, there was the HVO and the
25 Territorial Defence, and then they both acted in their
Page 16314
1 own right?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. We also agree that members of the Territorial
4 Defence who lived in the town of Busovaca commuted to
5 Kacuni every day to perform their duties?
6 A. Not every day, because members of the
7 Busovaca Territorial Defence were sent to parts of the
8 front where the Serb or Chetnik aggressor was active
9 and engaged in aggression, and our forces were
10 concentrated there. The members of the Territorial
11 Defence who were in Busovaca, and who were on their
12 leave, that is, when they were in Busovaca, they were
13 not on duty.
14 Q. Very well. Thank you. Only one or two
15 questions about the Territorial Defence more. Would
16 you agree with me that the 3rd Company, which was under
17 your command, was stationed in Donja Kula and Donja
18 Carica, wasn't it?
19 A. Yes, by and large.
20 Q. And we shall agree that these are the
21 predominant facilities as regards the Busovaca-Kiseljak
22 main road?
23 THE INTERPRETER: We did not get the answer
24 because it overlapped with the question.
25 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation]
Page 16315
1 Q. And with regard to this basic information, a
2 couple of short questions.
3 Will you agree with me that in February 1993,
4 in your house or, rather, to the left from the front
5 door, three hand grenades were found and something
6 which is called RUP 33 or something like that, on the
7 20th of February, 1993, and that your father turned it
8 over to the police station?
9 A. Yes. I had RUP 3 in order to be able to
10 communicate with the headquarters at Kacuni, and those
11 hand grenades or explosive devices were planted on my
12 father so as to use as an excuse to take him under
13 custody in the police station, because that is
14 something that happened several times.
15 Q. Very well. Thank you. Now, a few questions
16 about developments in the former JNA barracks at
17 Kaonik. The Chamber has already heard the testimony of
18 people who were there, so there is no need to go into
19 it, but just two or three questions about it.
20 You personally did not take part in any talks
21 between the Territorial Defence and HVO about the
22 distribution of JNA armament at Kaonik?
23 A. No.
24 Q. So we shall agree that you do not have any
25 direct knowledge as to what preceded that very short
Page 16316
1 conflict related to the distribution of weapons?
2 A. Can I expand on my answer?
3 Q. No, I do not think so, because the Chamber
4 does know it.
5 A. What I do know is that the officer who was in
6 the barracks requested the armaments because those
7 armaments belonged to the Territorial Defence, and the
8 officer there said he wanted to return those armaments
9 to the Territorial Defence. I was present at the
10 meeting or, rather, at the negotiations attended by
11 Florijan Glavocevic, when he invited Hadzimejlic and
12 Dzemal Merdan to come to the negotiations Busovaca.
13 Q. Witness AR, since you were not involved in
14 these negotiations, the Chamber is already informed
15 about this, so perhaps we could move on, because I do
16 not want you to tell us something which you do not have
17 direct knowledge of, and I don't think you would want
18 to do that either. So just a couple of short
19 questions.
20 So would you agree with me that in January
21 1993, many Muslims evacuated their wives and children
22 and elderly from the town of Busovaca?
23 A. Well, yes, and it was only natural,
24 considering the situation in Busovaca at the time.
25 They did it for reasons of safety.
Page 16317
1 Q. And we can also agree that you personally
2 took your family away -- and I'm not going to list all
3 the names of your members -- sometime around the
4 15th of January, 1993?
5 A. Yes, of course, for safety reasons.
6 Q. And we shall also agree that male members of
7 these Muslim families that we are talking about stayed
8 behind in the town of Busovaca?
9 A. Some of them but not all of them. Quite a
10 number of men also left Busovaca because the HVO was
11 applying repressive measures against Muslims.
12 Q. Today you told us that TO members in the town
13 of Busovaca were not allowed to wear their uniforms and
14 their weapons, but you were forbidden to do that by
15 your command, didn't it?
16 A. Yes, because illegal confiscation by the HVO
17 was growing in frequency. There were quite a number of
18 instances when they seized the weapons of the TO. So
19 our command, yes, ordered us that, in order to avoid
20 conflict.
21 Q. Very well. Very well. Thank you. Do you
22 have any direct knowledge about what happened on the
23 24th of January, 1993, in Kacuni?
24 A. No.
25 Q. Thank you.
Page 16318
1 A. I've heard something, but --
2 Q. No, no, no. If you don't know it, then let's
3 not go into it.
4 I did not quite understand. What was the
5 date of your arrest?
6 A. The 24th of January.
7 Q. Which day of the week was it? Do you
8 remember it?
9 A. I don't, believe me.
10 Q. Let me try it this way: That day, was there
11 a conflict in Busovaca?
12 A. No, not in Busovaca.
13 Q. At the time of your arrest you were a member
14 of the BH army, weren't you?
15 A. Yes, on leave and in civilian clothes.
16 Q. And another -- I shall give his first name,
17 one Mirza, he was a member of the military police of
18 the BH army, and he was arrested at the same time when
19 you were?
20 A. Yes, in civilian clothes.
21 Q. A few brief questions about Kaonik, because
22 the Chamber knows a great deal about it.
23 You will agree that only men were arrested,
24 and most of them were members of the Territorial
25 Defence, weren't they?
Page 16319
1 A. Yes, they were its members, but they all were
2 civilians; that is, they were on their leave. At the
3 time when they were arrested, they were not on duty.
4 Q. Yes, yes, yes. I see. I know that. But we
5 agree that they were members of the Territorial
6 Defence, and that was my question. We will also agree
7 that elderly prisoners were released three or four days
8 later?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. We can also agree that you're allowed to
11 perform religious rituals in prison?
12 A. Well, yes, for a while.
13 Q. Very well. And just to geographically
14 determine that better, you said that you were taken to
15 dig trenches at Kula, and Kula is very near the town of
16 Busovaca, isn't it?
17 A. Well, not all that near.
18 Q. But -- right. I mean -- I thought we could
19 agree about that, but perhaps it's not important.
20 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Your Honours,
21 several subjects were brought up and then abandoned. I
22 should like to remind you of witness Dzemal Merdan,
23 then Witness J, who also spoke about certain things,
24 and there is no need to go into that because they
25 already testified about that.
Page 16320
1 As for the murder of Jasmin Sehovic and the
2 other one, the other gentlemen, Elezovic, I should
3 merely like to remind you of D38/1. So as to not waste
4 time here, I should like to refer to that particular
5 exhibit of the Defence.
6 Q. Witness AR, I noticed today that you
7 basically do not recognise the word "Croat." You use a
8 different word.
9 A. It's not that I do not recognise it. If
10 somebody has opted for that, of course I respect it,
11 but those people were Bosnians. They were Bosnian
12 Catholics.
13 Q. That is what you think.
14 A. No. If somebody perceives himself as a
15 Croat, then of course I'll accept that, but not
16 everybody accepted to be a Croat.
17 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Your Honours,
18 I have no further questions. Thank you very much.
19 Q. Thank you, Witness AR.
20 Cross-examined by Mr. Mikulicic:
21 Q. Good day, Witness. My name is Goran
22 Mikulicic, I am an attorney at law from Zagreb, and in
23 this case I represent the second accused, together with
24 my colleague Mr. Bozidar Kovacic. I would like to put
25 a few questions to you, and I should also be very
Page 16321
1 brief. So could you please answer them to the best of
2 your recollection.
3 You said that on the 16th of April, 1992, you
4 were mobilised in the Territorial Defence in order to
5 oppose the Serb aggression against the Republic of
6 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Is that correct?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Where were you at the front line? Where were
9 you performing these duties?
10 A. Mostly in the area of Visoko and Vlasic.
11 Q. You mentioned Vlasic. Do you know that
12 certain units of the Croatian Defence Council were also
13 there at Vlasic for the same purpose?
14 A. Yes, smaller units.
15 Q. Do you know that there were HVO units from
16 Vitez there at well?
17 A. Well, let me tell you. They were taking
18 turns just like we were. However, this was a smaller
19 formation and it was exclusively in the Croat village.
20 Q. When you mentioned these shifts, we already
21 heard something about this, but could you please
22 clarify something for me? When you were at the front
23 line, you were in uniform and you had weapons; is that
24 correct?
25 A. Yes. The rank-and-file soldiers, yes.
Page 16322
1 Q. When you returned to Busovaca, when you would
2 go back to your own places of residence, then you would
3 wear civilian clothes; is that right?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. I don't know what the situation was in your
6 particular case, but some people had regular jobs too.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. During that time when these people were
9 civilians, as you say, were they actually working at
10 their regular jobs or did somebody prevent them from
11 doing so?
12 A. No. There was work duty, and who had to
13 work, worked.
14 Q. Very well. I'm not going to put any more
15 questions about that.
16 Let us go back now to the situation that you
17 described on the 27th of October, 1992, when you went
18 towards the command post in Kacuni and when you were
19 stopped at the Hotel Tisa.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. In order to clarify this, the Hotel Tisa is
22 near Busovaca, in the territory of the municipality of
23 Busovaca; right?
24 A. Yes. It belongs to the territory of the town
25 of Busovaca.
Page 16323
1 Q. You said that you were stopped by Dusko
2 Prusac and Darko Marusic, members of the regional
3 military police of the HVO?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Witness AR, did you personally know these two
6 soldiers who stopped you, these two military policemen?
7 A. More or less, yes.
8 Q. Where were they from? From Busovaca?
9 A. One was from Busovaca and the other one was
10 from Draga.
11 Q. Draga is also a part of Busovaca, isn't it?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. You said that they took away your personal
14 weapons that you had legally, and on the next day you
15 went to the Hotel Vitez in Vitez?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. There you talked to Mr. Pasko Ljubicic?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Did you know him from before?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Which post did Pasko Ljubicic hold at the
22 time you went to talk to him?
23 A. He introduced himself as the commander of the
24 regional police.
25 Q. So you understood unequivocally that Pasko
Page 16324
1 Ljubicic was the commander of the military police and
2 the immediate commander of these two military policemen
3 in Busovaca who took your weapons?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And he issued some kind of a certificate to
6 you, didn't he?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. What did this certificate say? Do you
9 recall?
10 A. It said what the date was, and it was to
11 certify that a weapon was taken away and at what time
12 and who took it away.
13 Q. So you understood unequivocally that he, as
14 commander of the two military policemen who took away
15 your weapons, issued a certificate to that effect and
16 that he was commander for those two policemen?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Thank you, Witness AR. I have no further
19 questions.
20 MR. MIKULICIC: Your Honours, I have no
21 further questions. Thank you.
22 MR. NICE: No re-examination. Thank you.
23 JUDGE MAY: Witness AR, that concludes your
24 evidence. Thank you for coming to the International
25 Tribunal to give it. You are released.
Page 16325
1 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
2 [The witness withdrew]
3 MR. NICE: Your Honour, Mr. Lopez-Terres is
4 taking the next witness, and there are summaries now
5 available and an application to be made.
6 JUDGE MAY: The legal officer, please.
7 [Judge May confers with legal officer]
8 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Lopez-Terres.
9 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation]
10 Mr. President, the next witness asked for protective
11 measures. He asked for a pseudonym to be assigned to
12 him and also he asked for facial distortion, as well as
13 all other customary additional measures.
14 His request is motivated by the fact that he
15 is of Muslim origin, that his family, or at least part
16 of his family, still lives in Central Bosnia, partly in
17 the region of Vitez and partly in the region of
18 Travnik, and that he is therefore afraid of retaliation
19 because of what he might say before the Trial Chamber.
20 Nowadays the witness lives in Denmark, where he has the
21 status of a refugee.
22 I would also like to say that this witness
23 already testified in the Blaskic and Kupreskic cases
24 respectively, and that during these two testimonies, he
25 had similar protective measures.
Page 16326
1 JUDGE MAY: Any objection?
2 MR. NAUMOVSKI: [Interpretation] Your Honour,
3 as I already said, let us make things as short as
4 possible, and you know our position of principle, but
5 we have no objections.
6 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours,
7 I'm actually opposed to this proposal, for a simple
8 reason: Not in a single case were we told, at least,
9 that any witness ultimately had any kind of trouble on
10 account of having testified. Notably, it has never
11 been said that the witness's family or distant
12 relatives would have any trouble. As my learned friend
13 said, this witness lives in Denmark, and we believe
14 that there is not even the smallest probability of any
15 kind of revenge being taken against his family on
16 account of his testimony. So in principle, we, indeed,
17 oppose this.
18 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Kovacic, there has been
19 allegations of witnesses who have suffered as a result
20 of giving evidence. I can't remember precisely which
21 ones, but there have been allegations in one case, I
22 think, that their house was burnt down. It's not true
23 that there haven't been such allegations.
24 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] As far as I can
25 recall, it has never been said that witnesses in our
Page 16327
1 trial, that is to say, since we started working, that
2 any witness said that he was threatened or whatever on
3 account of giving testimony here. Previously, in
4 earlier cases, I agree, yes, there have been such
5 problems.
6 [Trial Chamber confers]
7 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll make the order.
8 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation] Thank
9 you.
10 THE REGISTRAR: The pseudonym for this
11 witness will be Witness AS.
12 [The witness entered court]
13 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation]
14 Mr. President, before the witness comes, I'm told, and
15 I could also see myself, that he has some speech
16 difficulties, and especially when he's under stress.
17 So I should like to apologise for him in advance before
18 he begins his testimony.
19 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Lopez-Terres, there's no need
20 to apologise for that sort of difficulty.
21 Let the witness take the declaration.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly
23 declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth,
24 and nothing but the truth.
25 WITNESS: WITNESS AS
Page 16328
1 [Witness answered through interpreter]
2 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Take a seat. Yes.
3 Examined by Mr. Lopez-Terres:
4 Q. Witness AS, could you tell us if the name on
5 this piece of paper is your name.
6 A. Yes, it is.
7 MR. SAYERS: Mr. President, while logistical
8 arrangements are being made, let me just indicate those
9 paragraphs which we would appreciate the Prosecution
10 not leading on. Just scanning over this document, 17,
11 18, and 23, and paragraphs 79 to 91.
12 MR. KOVACIC: Your Honours, if I may add a
13 similar suggestion. I would like the Prosecutor not to
14 lead on issues 4, 5, 8, 13, 14, 27, 28, 32, 33, 36, and
15 if I may later add one or two points on the beginning,
16 because we've just got this material.
17 MR. SAYERS: In addition to the previous
18 paragraphs, Your Honour, paragraph 86 we'd appreciate
19 no leading on as well. Thank you.
20 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Yes.
21 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation]
22 Q. Witness AS, I shall be addressing you as
23 "AS," because that is the pseudonym that was given you
24 by the Court.
25 A. Very well.
Page 16329
1 Q. You are of Muslim ethnicity, but you belonged
2 to several HVO units in the municipality of Vitez
3 between 1992 and 1993: first, the Vitez Brigade; then
4 the 4th Battalion of the military police; and finally
5 you became a member of the special unit of the military
6 police, which was called the Jokers, isn't it?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. In March 1992, after, for a while, being a
9 supporter of HOS, and for only a few days a member of
10 the Muslim Patriotic League, one of your neighbours,
11 Karlo Grabovac, invited you to join the HDZ party in
12 Vitez, and also to join the armed wing of that party,
13 which, at that time, was called the Croatian army, HV.
14 A. Yes, that is correct.
15 Q. All the members of this armed wing were also
16 members of the political party called the HDZ, weren't
17 they?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. On the evening when you joined the HDZ and
20 became part of that Croatian army, where did you go
21 then?
22 A. That night, when I first went out for guard
23 duty, together with the other members of the HV,
24 Grabovac and I went to the Konoba restaurant in
25 Kruscica, not in the village but on the outskirts of
Page 16330
1 that village. Before it was owned by Mr. Mario Cerkez,
2 and all HV officers would meet there. It was some kind
3 of headquarters, if we can use that word.
4 Q. Did Mario Cerkez live in that house?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. What did this building look like?
7 A. On the ground floor was this restaurant, and
8 he lived on the first floor. It was a house, like a
9 half-private house.
10 Q. In May 1992, the Croatian army, that name,
11 HV, was changed and your unit became a unit of the
12 HVO.
13 A. Yes. It became the Croatian Defence Council
14 in May 1992.
15 Q. You were a member of the Vitez Brigade until
16 September, end of September, early October 1992, and
17 following that, you were seconded to the 4th Battalion
18 of the military police, weren't you?
19 A. Yes, that's right.
20 Q. In the early days of your membership in the
21 Croatian army and that brigade, who was the commander
22 of that brigade?
23 A. In the beginning, as far as I know, Skopljak,
24 Marijan Skopljak, was the person in charge; however,
25 later the commander was Mr. Mario Cerkez.
Page 16331
1 Q. Did Marijan Skopljak give you to assume --
2 was he a commander for a very long time after you
3 became a member of that unit? Was he the commander for
4 a long time?
5 A. No. No, for a short time. However, he was
6 not a military person. I think he was something in the
7 HDZ, and I think that later he had an office in Vitez.
8 Q. Marijan Skopljak, who we are talking about,
9 at the time when you saw him, did he wear a uniform or
10 was he in civilian clothes?
11 A. I can't recall now. I don't think he was in
12 uniform. I don't know.
13 Q. You told us that Mario Cerkez very quickly
14 became the commander of that unit that you were a
15 member of, and Marko Lujic, was he responsible for the
16 artillery weapons of that unit?
17 A. Yes, that's what I heard, that he was the
18 only one who knew how to handle explosives, since he
19 was an engineer for explosives, and he worked in the
20 Slobodan Princip Seljo factory in Vitez, or in Vitezit,
21 as they also called it.
22 Q. According to what you were able to see or
23 hear, the brigade artillery had a howitzer of 2- or
24 5-millimetre calibre, which was called Nora?
25 A. Yes, that's right. Yes, a few mortars and
Page 16332
1 two so-called VBR multiple rocket-launchers. But I
2 cannot remember exactly the calibres of the others.
3 Q. The brigade that you were a member of had
4 four battalions of active-duty soldiers, and they were
5 deployed around the municipality of Vitez.
6 A. Yes, but they were in the part of town where
7 we would live. For example, in Vitez, in the centre of
8 town, there was one, and then there was Rijeka and
9 Krizancevo Selo, and Kruscica is the other one, for
10 example. And then Krizancevo Selo -- or, rather,
11 Krcevine perhaps, and Zabilje, for example, and these
12 other villages, and then Veceriska and Mosunj was, for
13 example, yet another one, the fourth one.
14 So it all depended on the part of town
15 concerned. People would live there, and that's also
16 where these units were.
17 Q. And you were assigned to the 2nd Battalion of
18 that brigade, weren't you?
19 A. Yes, practically the 1st or the 2nd. It's
20 not important. The important thing was that I was a
21 battalion member, regardless of whether it was the 1st
22 or 2nd. I think it was the 2nd.
23 Q. And your commander was Karlo Grabovac at the
24 time, wasn't it?
25 A. Yes. At first, it was Slavko Milicevic, and
Page 16333
1 Karlo was his deputy, this Karlo Grabovac, and then
2 later there was a change. Karlo became commander,
3 Karlo Grabovac.
4 Q. Was your assignment changed within the Vitez
5 Brigade; that is, did you leave your battalion in order
6 to be assigned to a special unit?
7 A. Yes. I don't understand. Could you repeat
8 your question once again?
9 Q. During your service with the Vitez Brigade,
10 did you change the unit that you were in and did you
11 join a special unit?
12 A. Actually, this was the so-called Intervention
13 Platoon, and it was always supposed to be made
14 available. There are 15 or 20 young men who were the
15 first to go to Kaonik, Slimena, Travnik, to the
16 barracks. It was the so-called Intervention Platoon.
17 Q. It was a strike unit, if I may call it that
18 way.
19 A. We were not professionals. We were simply
20 young, healthy, and we were ready to fight; that's
21 all. We did not have any special kind of training. We
22 were not in any special kind of unit, no.
23 Q. Do you remember the names of some other
24 members of that Intervention Unit that you belonged
25 to? Do you remember? Could you give us two or three
Page 16334
1 names, perhaps?
2 A. Miroslav Bobas. We called him Miro. Then
3 Males Josip. Matkovic; I think his name was Branko.
4 Stipo Krizanac. Those are some of the names I know.
5 Then this Josip Baresic. I don't know any others. I
6 forget, to tell you the truth.
7 Q. Do you know somebody called Kico?
8 A. Yes. His name was Bonic. He was a young
9 man.
10 Q. Was he also a member of your unit?
11 A. Yes, for a short period of time. However, he
12 was young at the time, but he was with us.
13 Q. During that period of time, the pay that you
14 received as a member of the brigade, you were paid in
15 Croatian currency, weren't you?
16 A. Yes, in Croatian dinars. We were paid in
17 Croatian dinars.
18 Q. You were also getting food supplies from
19 Croatia, weren't you?
20 A. Yes. I know, for example, when we got
21 uniforms, we usually got them from the Karlovac
22 Brigade, because one of our neighbours was in the
23 Karlovac Brigade. I know once, because Srecko Petrovic
24 and Zoran Rajic would go to Karlovac and bring
25 uniforms, weapons, and things like that, boots,
Page 16335
1 equipment.
2 Q. The headquarters of the brigade, you told us
3 a moment ago that at the outset, it was at the Konoba
4 coffee shop in Kruscica, but then headquarters moved to
5 another site and was set up at the Vitez Hotel, and
6 Mario Cerkez also opened his office in that hotel,
7 didn't he?
8 A. Yes. Then later we moved to the cinema
9 again, to the first floor. But then we moved from
10 Konoba to the Hotel Vitez in Vitez.
11 Q. You just told us that this headquarters moved
12 at a later date. Did this change of office come at
13 about the same time when Colonel Blaskic also set up
14 his headquarters in Vitez?
15 A. No. It was before that.
16 Q. So Cerkez went then to set up his offices at
17 the cinema?
18 A. Actually, Mr. Mario Cerkez and his
19 headquarters were in Vitez, in the hotel. However,
20 when headquarters or, rather, the staff for Central
21 Bosnia was moved, then the Viteska Brigade moved to the
22 offices in the cinema, on the first floor, where
23 beforehand the HDZ and SDA offices, as well as those of
24 some other parties that were there -- I can't remember
25 -- but, actually, this was the headquarters of the
Page 16336
1 Viteska Brigade.
2 Q. In summer 1992, did you and other members of
3 your brigade take part in an oath-taking ceremony?
4 A. Yes. We took this oath at the stadium of the
5 soccer-football club of Vitez. I know that before we
6 came to the stadium, our battalion was lined up in
7 front of Srecko Petrovic's house, and then we went in a
8 column, two by two, to the stadium to take this oath.
9 In my opinion, this was sometime before the
10 summer. I can't remember. I can't remember. But I
11 think it was May or June. I can't say. I can't say
12 for sure, but there were several hundred of us who were
13 repeating the text of this oath.
14 Q. You mean that a text was read out to you and
15 that you all repeated it, all those members who were
16 there?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. I should like to show you a document now. It
19 is Z2814. Could you take a look at this document and
20 tell us if the text that was read out to you is that
21 one or perhaps very similar to that one?
22 MR. SAYERS: Your Honour, according to our
23 records, this document has not been provided to us
24 before today. I'd just like the Prosecution to verify
25 that this is one of the documents that has already been
Page 16337
1 produced, or whether it's brand new.
2 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation] It is
3 possible that this is a new document but, as Mr. Nice
4 indicated a few days ago, that we still can produce
5 documents through witnesses who seem to us important
6 witnesses and who can tell us about that.
7 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Lopez-Terres, this is a very
8 important witness. How does it come about that at the
9 very last moment of the Prosecution case, 11 months
10 after the start, the witness being called?
11 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation]
12 Mr. President, I should like to avail myself of this
13 opportunity to tell you about all the steps that we had
14 to take for months on end in order to prevail upon the
15 witness to come here and testify. As you know, we
16 already ran into that kind of difficulties.
17 JUDGE MAY: Very well.
18 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation] The
19 witness accepted to come to The Hague last weekend. We
20 have been trying the last-minute steps, because he was
21 refusing to come and --
22 JUDGE MAY: Let's say no more about that,
23 except for this --
24 THE INTERPRETER: Your microphone, Your
25 Honour.
Page 16338
1 JUDGE MAY: Except for this: We must try to
2 get through the evidence as soon as we can.
3 This document is admissible. Perhaps you
4 could, over the adjournment, try and shorten his
5 evidence as far as possible so that we have time for
6 cross-examination.
7 Yes. Let's move on.
8 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation]
9 Q. This document, Witness AS, could you have a
10 look at it and tell us if this was the text that was
11 read out to you or where you read out a similar text?
12 A. I'm not sure that this is the text. I can't
13 remember. But approximately -- approximately this was
14 it, but I don't remember. It was a long time ago.
15 It's been eight years or whatever. That's quite a bit
16 of time.
17 Q. You had to sign it at the end of the
18 ceremony, a text which was similar to this one, didn't
19 you?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Could you tell us who represented the HVO or
22 the HDZ at this ceremony in Vitez?
23 A. There were many people there, from Mr. Karlo
24 Grabovac, to Mr. Mario Cerkez, Mr. Dario Kordic, Ignjac
25 Kostroman. I think that Marijan Skopljak was there,
Page 16339
1 Pero Skopljak, Ivica Santic. There were some from the
2 Bosnian Territorial Defence, the TO. I think that
3 among them was Sefkija Dzidic. I think Munib Kajmovic
4 was there. I can't remember now.
5 Q. Did the accused Dario Kordic take the floor
6 at some point during the ceremony?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Could you tell us what did he say or tell us
9 perhaps something about the gist of his address.
10 A. When Mr. Dario Kordic spoke, he made a speech
11 of a political nature. However, then euphoria broke
12 out, in the truest sense of the word. That's how I
13 felt too. We were so glad when he addressed us. It
14 was about us always defending Herceg-Bosna, defending
15 the Croat people, and we were prepared to do that.
16 Q. In the following months, you took part in
17 different operations against either JNA forces or to
18 face the Serb army; that is, you went to the depots in
19 Slimena, in Kaonik, in Draga, in Busovaca?
20 A. Not in Draga. I was not there.
21 Q. But at Bugojno, Jajce?
22 A. Yes, I was there. And also and at Galica,
23 Vlasic, Turbe.
24 Q. In the course of all these operations, for
25 most of it, if not all of the time, members of the
Page 16340
1 Vitezovi unit also took part in these operations,
2 didn't they?
3 A. Yes, but I do not remember whether at the
4 time -- whether it was the Vitezovi then or HOS, but
5 they were under the command of Mr. Darko Kraljevic.
6 Q. Could you tell us about what happened at the
7 Kaonik depot?
8 A. One day we were asked to go to Kaonik -- how
9 should I put this? I can't really explain
10 this -- in order to seal off these depots and seize
11 whatever was there. I just know that this action was
12 led by Mr. Kordic. That's what we were told, because
13 negotiations had to be conducted with this former
14 Yugoslav army.
15 Excuse me for a moment.
16 Q. Yes, of course. Would you like a glass of
17 water?
18 A. Yes, please. On that day, we were asked to
19 go to Kaonik. That is where the depot of the former
20 JNA was. We left, this Intervention Platoon from my
21 battalion or from the entire brigade, and we were
22 together with the Vitezovi. Mr. Kraljevic was there,
23 then Niko Krizanac, and we were told that Mr. Kordic
24 was negotiating with an officer of this former JNA so
25 that they would surrender and that they could avoid
Page 16341
1 fighting in this way. That is what ultimately
2 happened. They surrendered without a fight, and they
3 were taken all the way to Kiseljak and that is where
4 they were released.
5 Q. Before we move on to the next point, I think
6 there is a small error. The witness just said that
7 Dario Kordic delivered a speech, and it says in the
8 transcript that it was the witness who delivered a
9 speech. It was simply an error. Don't worry,
10 Witness.
11 In October 1992, Mr. Pasko Ljubicic offered
12 you to join the military police of the HVO, didn't he?
13 A. Yes, that is correct. I was attacked and
14 even beaten up a few times by the Bosnian army, the
15 so-called TO. The last time, when I got back from
16 Jajce, from the front line, I was attacked again. When
17 I arrived in front of the hotel in Vitez -- it was, I
18 think, in September -- Mr. Pasko Ljubicic said that I
19 would be a member of the 4th Active Battalion, so that
20 he could protect me from this Muslim army, this Bosnian
21 army, but that I had to wait until the others returned
22 from Neum.
23 Q. Could you tell us something about the
24 organisation of this military police? Were there
25 different types of military police in Vitez?
Page 16342
1 A. Yes, there were three, practically four.
2 There was the civilian police of Herceg-Bosna; then
3 there was the brigade military police that was under
4 the command of the brigade, this brigade. Every
5 brigade had its own military police. The Vitez
6 military police, I mean, of the brigade, was under the
7 control of the brigade. We were in the hotel in Vitez,
8 and we were subordinate to Pasko Ljubicic, Mr. Pasko
9 Ljubicic, but the commander of this company was Zvonko
10 Vukovic, he was commander of this unit. And then there
11 was also this fourth one, if we may call it so, it was
12 the SIS, the Security and Information Service; however,
13 they were a secret service.
14 Q. This military police unit, it was part of the
15 Vitez brigade, wasn't it? How strong was it?
16 A. Perhaps 30, 40 -- 30 at least, I think, as
17 far as I can remember.
18 Q. And this military police of the brigade, was
19 it the commander of the brigade itself?
20 A. Actually, the commander of the military
21 police was subordinate to the brigade commander; that
22 is to say, the brigade commander issued orders to the
23 commander of the military police of the brigade.
24 Q. In mid October 1992, you participated in some
25 other operations in Novi Travnik with other soldiers of
Page 16343
1 the Vitez Brigade and with the Vitezovi.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. On that occasion, you could see that the
4 Muslim part of the town had been shelled.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Around the 20th of October, 1992, sometime
7 around 4.00 in the morning, you and other members of
8 the 2nd Battalion of the Vitez Brigade were called to
9 appear before the headquarters of this unit at Rijeka.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And then Karlo Grabovac, the commander of
12 that battalion, asked you to stay at the headquarters,
13 to take care of the radio and to receive orders with
14 all the incoming messages.
15 A. I was not there by myself, that's right,
16 but -- I mean, I was there, but he said that I should
17 not go to Ahmici together with the others, that I
18 should remain there at headquarters. The Intervention
19 Platoon then went to Ahmici, because then it started,
20 the shooting, the skirmishes, the war, whatever.
21 Q. Before they left, did Karlo Grabovac say what
22 was happening and why they had to go?
23 A. It was only said that it had started and that
24 they were stopped in Ahmici, and they said, "Now we are
25 going against Ahmici."
Page 16344
1 Q. So you were responsible for the radio
2 station. Did you hear Mario Cerkez speak on that
3 radio?
4 A. I do not recall. Later I went to the hotel,
5 and I specifically talked to Mr. Cerkez. And later,
6 perhaps a few hours later, Mr. Grabovac came and he
7 said that I and Zoran Rajic should go to the hotel in
8 Vitez to ask Mr. Mario to give us some ammunition.
9 We arrived in front of the Municipality of
10 Vitez, and since it had already started -- there was a
11 bit of shooting that started from Stari Vitez -- so we
12 had to run. And when I arrived in the office, there
13 was Mario Cerkez and there was Mimo. I just remember
14 his nickname, not his name and surname; he took care of
15 the warehouse. And then there was Vlado, Vlado Cerkez,
16 I think, and he was also in charge of this warehouse, I
17 think, logistics, that is.
18 Then when we got in, Mr. Cerkez asked us what
19 we needed and we said that we needed ammunition. He
20 then said that I should tell Mr. Grabovac -- how should
21 I explain this now? He said something like, "Expel
22 them or kill them. What do I care about them?" Well,
23 this can be said in many different ways, but that was
24 the gist of it. This was in the morning, perhaps 5.00
25 or 6.00, I don't know.
Page 16345
1 Q. But before that meeting with the accused
2 Mario Cerkez in his office, did you hear Mario Cerkez
3 issue instructions or orders? Did you hear that on the
4 radio?
5 JUDGE MAY: No. The witness has already said
6 in relation to Mario Cerkez that he doesn't remember
7 anything said on the radio. He's not to be led.
8 That may be a convenient moment. We'll
9 adjourn now for an hour and a half.
10 Witness AS, we're going to adjourn now for
11 the luncheon adjournment for one hour and a half, so
12 would you be back, please, at five past two, and we'll
13 go on with your evidence. Don't speak to anybody,
14 please, about your evidence until it's over, and of
15 course don't let anybody speak to you about it. If you
16 could be back at five past two.
17 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.37 p.m.
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 16346
1 --- On resuming at 2.10 p.m.
2 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Lopez-Terres.
3 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation]
4 Q. Witness AS, before we go on, I would like a
5 clarification in respect of what's on the transcript.
6 When you went to ask for ammunition for Karlo Grabovac,
7 you said that you met Mario Cerkez and someone named
8 Vlado Cerkez, who was responsible for logistics. Do
9 you remember that?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. You then said that Cerkez stated something
12 like, "Tell Grabovac to throw them out or to kill
13 them. I've got nothing to do with that." What Cerkez
14 was that? Which Cerkez said that? Was it Mario or
15 Vlado?
16 A. Mr. Mario Cerkez, but may I say that it was
17 in that sense; it wasn't that verbatim, but it was that
18 sense.
19 Q. When Mario Cerkez said that, "Tell them to
20 kill them or expel them," who was he thinking about?
21 Who were those people who were to be expelled or
22 perhaps killed?
23 A. Perhaps the Bosnian army, most probably,
24 those in Ahmici and against who they fought later. I
25 cannot say that it was against civilians. That I
Page 16347
1 cannot say.
2 Q. During that meeting, do you remember whether
3 Mario Cerkez used a pejorative word about the Bosnian
4 Muslims?
5 A. Most of them did say what most everybody
6 said, and that was "balija."
7 Q. Did you hear Cerkez using that word on that
8 day when you went to his office?
9 A. I think I heard that.
10 Q. How many munitions trucks were you able to
11 bring to Karlo Grabovac on that day?
12 A. There were two trucks. How should I put
13 this? One kombi van and the other one was a truck.
14 Q. What type of munitions were they?
15 A. It was the so-called incendiary type and this
16 other type that we called anti-incendiary, those two
17 types. I actually gave it to Mr. Karlo. We took this
18 to the factory Impregnacia. That was near Dubravica,
19 on the road to Busovaca.
20 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation]
21 Mr. President, insofar as apparently there was
22 objection for the next part of the statement, objection
23 by the Defence, do you allow me to ask the questions to
24 answer a simple yes or no to the next paragraph?
25 JUDGE MAY: I'm sorry, Mr. Lopez-Terres.
Page 16348
1 Which paragraph, please?
2 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation] Starting
3 with paragraph 37 and --
4 JUDGE MAY: There is apparently no objection
5 there. Came out on the transcript as being an
6 objection. If there is no objection to the evidence,
7 as far as I understand it, up until 79. I will be
8 reminded if I'm wrong about that.
9 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation] Yes.
10 That's correct, Mr. President.
11 MR. KOVACIC: I quite agree, Your Honour, but
12 perhaps, in order to avoid wasting time on cross, just
13 paragraph 50, where certain names are mentioned, just
14 to confirm at what time was that.
15 JUDGE MAY: Very well. That can be done.
16 Yes, Mr. Lopez-Terres. Take it as quickly as
17 you can up to 79.
18 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation] Thank
19 you.
20 Q. Did you understand, Witness? I will give you
21 some information, you simply say yes or no, and we can
22 move on to the next paragraph.
23 When you went with those two trucks to
24 Dubravica, you noticed that there were Muslim residents
25 from the village of Novaci who had been arrested by the
Page 16349
1 Vitezovi and were being taken to the Dubravica school?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. At the time that we're speaking about, that
4 is, around the 20th of October, 1992, you participated
5 in the attack on the building which had been used as a
6 logistics hangar for the Bosnian army; that is, there
7 was a yellow building, as it was called, in Vitez, and
8 the attack was carried out by your unit, the
9 4th Military Police Battalion, and also members of the
10 Vitez Brigade. In any case, members of the -- Military
11 Police Brigade members?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. While you were there, that is, at the HVO,
14 you noticed that supplies and uniforms and munitions
15 and food and vehicles, fuel which had been provided for
16 the HVO in Central Bosnia, came from Croatia, and that
17 was being transported by trucks and sometimes even by
18 helicopters?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Did you yourself personally escort trucks
21 between Grude in Herzegovina to Vitez approximately ten
22 times?
23 A. Approximately. I do not recall. Perhaps I
24 could say yes.
25 Q. While you were a member of the 4th Military
Page 16350
1 Police Battalion, on several occasions Pasko Ljubicic,
2 your commander of the unit, asked you to steal some
3 vehicles during checks on the roads. The vehicles were
4 then stocked in a garage in Nova Bila, where they were
5 repainted, and then they were given HVO registration
6 number plates; is that correct?
7 A. Yes, sometimes.
8 Q. At the end of 1992, there were several
9 businesses and properties that belonged to Muslims in
10 Vitez which were destroyed by Croats in Vitez. There
11 were several stores, the Borovo store, the Cafe 9,
12 which belonged to Galib Mujicic, and a restaurant as
13 well. Do you remember that?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. You said that some of those attacks were
16 carried out by individuals, but you also know that some
17 of the destruction was caused by members of the
18 military police of the Vitez Brigade, which was the
19 case for Mr. Galib Mujicic's cafe; is that correct?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. As far as you know, no Croat from Vitez was
22 arrested for those attacks or for committing that
23 destruction; is that right?
24 A. As far as I know, no.
25 Q. During that time when you were a guard at the
Page 16351
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Page 16352
1 Hotel Vitez as a member of the military police, you
2 regularly would see officers from the army of the
3 Republic of Croatia who would come to the headquarters
4 at the Hotel Vitez or would move about on the ground
5 around Vitez. These people could be recognised by
6 their uniforms and also by the insignia -- or, rather,
7 the number plates on their vehicles.
8 A. Yes. They would come from time to time,
9 though. Not every day, not all that often, but they
10 would come.
11 Q. Do you remember specifically one of them,
12 because you escorted him in December of 1992 and
13 January 1993, in Usora, Zepce? I'm speaking about a
14 Colonel from the 4th Split Brigade whose name was
15 Vidosevic. Is that correct?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Do you know that many senior officers of the
18 Croatian army were transferred to the HVO?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Could you remember the names of some of the
21 officers, high-ranking officers, who came to Vitez
22 during the time that you were on guard at the Hotel
23 Vitez?
24 A. Yes. Those were General Milivoj Petkovic, I
25 think he was there once; then General Slobodan Praljak,
Page 16353
1 he was five or six times, maybe, perhaps,
2 approximately, I can't say for sure; then General Ante
3 Roso; then General Ante Prkacin. Those were the
4 individuals who came.
5 Q. When those people came to the Vitez Hotel,
6 ordinarily, would the accused Dario Kordic be present
7 at the meetings?
8 A. For the most part, yes.
9 Q. Since you worked at the Hotel Vitez, you were
10 able to see that in that same building were the Vitez
11 television officials -- that is, the newscasters, the
12 cameramen -- and that the control of that television
13 was the propaganda officers of the Central Bosnia
14 headquarters. Is that right?
15 A. Yes, but the television was not in the hotel;
16 it was in the cinema. But the IPD, as we called it,
17 this information on political activity, was in the
18 hotel in Vitez.
19 Q. As far as you know, since you saw that the
20 scripts of the news that was to be broadcast on radio
21 and television were prepared by the propaganda
22 information unit; is that correct?
23 A. For the most part, yes.
24 Q. As far as you know, Witness, Dario Kordic's
25 sister was a journalist in Busovaca.
Page 16354
1 A. Yes, she was a presenter on Radio Busovaca.
2 I remember when I was in Busovaca, we would listen to
3 those broadcasts. I didn't know her personally, but
4 everybody said it was her, her voice.
5 Q. The presentation of that information, was it
6 directed at anything?
7 A. Well, that's what was going on, and then we
8 would defend ourselves. It was very difficult to
9 remember all of this, but mostly it was about politics
10 and fighting.
11 Q. Was this a neutral or objective journalist,
12 or was it somebody who had a bias?
13 A. On both sides, on both one side and the other
14 side, there were journalists -- I mean, there were
15 journalists who were working for the HVO and then there
16 were journalists who were working for the Bosnian army
17 and then there were journalists who were working for
18 the Serb army. But in Busovaca, they were on the side
19 of the HVO.
20 Q. In January 1993, Witness AS, you participated
21 in cleansing operations in the Busovaca region and in
22 the surrounding villages, such as Brdo, Kovacevac,
23 Strane, and Rovna.
24 A. Yes, and some others. Gavrine Kuce, Merdani,
25 Putis, I was there, because I believed in that, what I
Page 16355
1 fought for, and that's why I did it.
2 Q. Were these operations carried out by several
3 units? There was the military police, of which you
4 were a member; there were also members of the Vitez
5 Brigade, the military police brigade; also members of
6 the Ludvig Pavlovic Brigade in Herzegovina; as well as
7 the Vitezovi.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Before this campaign could be launched, there
10 was a great deal of logistical preparation, and do you
11 remember that there were many trucks transporting
12 armaments, ammunitions, from the Tornica depot in the
13 municipality of Novi Travnik which were being sent to
14 Busovaca. Is that right?
15 A. I'm sorry, but I didn't understand.
16 Q. Do you remember whether before the launching
17 of that operation a large amount of munitions and
18 armaments were being sent by truck to Busovaca, and the
19 armaments and ammunition came from a depot which was in
20 the municipality of Novi Travnik?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. The day before the start of the campaign, you
23 yourself and other members of the military police were
24 called to a meeting by your unit commander, Pasko
25 Ljubicic, and he said to you, "It's begun in Busovaca.
Page 16356
1 Our guys from Busovaca are already there, but we need
2 more people."
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Did you yourself and the members of your unit
5 go to the Kaonik depot, and while you were on your way
6 there to Busovaca, on the road, you saw that there was
7 several houses burning, specifically in the area of
8 Rovna?
9 A. Yes, but not only in Rovna; also in
10 Kovacevac.
11 Q. Before the time you spent in Busovaca, that
12 is, about two weeks, did you notice that vehicles
13 belonging to Muslims were being taken away and that
14 Muslim businesses, shops, and cafes were destroyed?
15 And did you also receive specific permission from your
16 unit commander, Pasko Ljubicic, to carry out looting in
17 the village? Is that correct?
18 A. Yes. Everybody took whatever they needed.
19 There was no problem whatsoever. A car, a motorcycle,
20 whatever anybody wanted to take. For example, we took
21 TV sets, billiard sets, washing machines. Whatever we
22 needed for the Bungalow, we took from houses. We
23 didn't have to ask anyone; we'd just go and get it.
24 Q. And all the property belonged exclusively to
25 the Busovaca Muslims; is that correct?
Page 16357
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Did you notice, during that same period, that
3 many Muslims had been arrested and taken to the
4 Busovaca police station, then transferred and detained
5 at Kaonik, which had become a prisoners' camp? Is that
6 correct?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Did you see, since you were in that camp,
9 that there were prisoners in four or five hangars, and
10 that the camp commander would put on lists the names of
11 the prisoners -- the camp commander's name was
12 Aleksovski, and some people called him Angelovski --
13 and to do that he had a computer; is that correct?
14 A. Yes. That's right.
15 Q. Did you also see in that camp that detainees
16 were mistreated, beaten, ridiculed, that people would
17 make fun of them?
18 A. Yes, that is correct.
19 Q. Many prisoners at the Kaonik camp were forced
20 to dig trenches in the region; is that correct?
21 A. Yes, every day.
22 Q. You were able to see how the system operated
23 for sending the prisoners to dig trenches; that is,
24 that there was a requisition done by the local
25 commander indicating where the trenches were to be dug,
Page 16358
1 and that requisition was then sent to the brigade
2 commander, and then the brigade commander would
3 transfer the request for prisoners to the SIS chief,
4 who would then transmit them to the Kaonik camp
5 commander.
6 A. Yes. In that sense, yes.
7 Q. There were trucks to transport prisoners
8 sometimes to the location where they were supposed to
9 dig trenches, but most of the time the prisoners had to
10 go on foot to where they would be forced to work?
11 A. Yes, for the most part.
12 Q. Were you able to see that some of the
13 prisoners had to dig trenches near or right on the
14 front line?
15 A. Yes, most of them.
16 Q. Specifically in the area of Strane and
17 Merdani?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Did you see the prisoners digging trenches
20 day and night over long distances, from Strane and
21 Putis?
22 A. Yes. I was there, and I saw them.
23 Q. Some of the prisoners were used sometimes as
24 human shields; is that correct?
25 A. Yes. That is something that I heard but did
Page 16359
1 not see.
2 Q. During your stay in Busovaca in January 1993,
3 did you go several times to Tisovac, and on one
4 occasion did you go to Dario Kordic's office?
5 A. Could you repeat the question, please?
6 Q. During the time that you were in Busovaca,
7 did you go several times to what was known as the Hotel
8 Tisovac, but only one time did you go into Dario
9 Kordic's office?
10 A. I don't think there could have been
11 confusion, but that must have been before the conflict
12 in Busovaca, not during the conflict in Busovaca.
13 Q. How much time before the conflict did you go
14 to Busovaca? About.
15 A. Two or three times. Outside, however,
16 without entering the hotel. Once I did go into
17 Mr. Kordic's office.
18 Q. How much time before January did you go to
19 Tisovac?
20 A. Well, that was it; two or three times.
21 Q. When you went into Kordic's office, did you
22 see that in the office there was a big table with a lot
23 of maps and three telephones on it? Is that correct?
24 A. I said three. There could have been two,
25 perhaps three.
Page 16360
1 Q. Well, several.
2 A. It could be an error.
3 Q. In any case, several?
4 A. Possibly. Well, let's say three. I say
5 three.
6 Q. The Hotel Tisovac was in a location which was
7 very protected. It was near a hill.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. It was a location where there were many
10 weapons that had been placed in order to protect it; is
11 that correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. On the day that you entered Kordic's office,
14 your superior, Pasko Ljubicic, was also present. You
15 noticed that apparently Pasko and Dario Kordic had good
16 relations, and Kordic gave to Ljubicic two envelopes,
17 one addressed to Bruno Stojic and the other to Pero
18 Gruic, who was the chief logistics officer for the
19 HZ HB in Grude?
20 A. Yes. Mr. Pero Petar Gruic, whether he was a
21 leader, commander of something; but yes, it is quite
22 true that he provided those letters.
23 Q. He was one of the logistics officers in
24 Grude, perhaps not the chief but one of the officers;
25 is that right?
Page 16361
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Did Dario Kordic personally ask you to give
3 the two envelopes to those that it was addressed to in
4 Grude and then to escort the four trucks of logistics
5 back?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. You went to Grude and you gave the person the
8 two letters, and then you went back with four trucks
9 carrying materiel?
10 A. Yes. And we fetched up before the Vitez
11 Hotel those trucks, then later on went to a factory in
12 Novi Travnik. That is where the warehouses were.
13 Whether from there it went on further, I don't know.
14 Q. Were you able to find out what kind of
15 materiel it was that you were bringing back from Grude?
16 A. It was military materiel. That was military
17 equipment. Yes. We did not really look inside to see
18 what it was, but it was military equipment, because our
19 orders were not to lose it, that we simply had to bring
20 it back, and we managed to do that.
21 Q. During that period when you were on guard at
22 the Hotel Vitez as a member of the military police, did
23 you notice whether or not the accused Dario Kordic
24 would go to the Central Bosnia headquarters?
25 A. Yes, very often.
Page 16362
1 Q. What kind of clothes was he wearing when he
2 would go to the headquarters?
3 A. A uniform, for the most part. From time to
4 time he would wear civilian clothing. That was only at
5 times. For the most part he was in a uniform.
6 Q. When he was wearing a uniform, did he have
7 insignia showing his rank?
8 A. Well, Mr. Dario Kordic, at that time, was
9 conferred upon the rank of a Colonel.
10 Q. How did Dario Kordic move from Busovaca and
11 to Vitez?
12 A. Mr. Kordic had his men who took care of his
13 safety, but they -- as a rule, they came by cars. I
14 should say that those were the latest makes of cars,
15 good cars. Where they came from, I don't know. There
16 would be at least one or two cars escorting
17 Mr. Kordic.
18 Q. You're speaking to us about men who were
19 responsible for his security. Were those men members
20 of the military police or any special HVO unit?
21 A. That is something -- how shall I put it? I
22 know, I know that they had military police badges, but
23 whether they were on our payroll or not, that is
24 something that I do not know, but they indeed had the
25 badges of the military police.
Page 16363
1 Q. You don't know who their superior was?
2 A. No.
3 Q. As far as you know, would he report directly
4 to -- would they report directly to Dario Kordic only,
5 or other people as well?
6 A. I think -- I believe they were under the
7 command of Mr. Kordic, because they were always with
8 him.
9 Q. Did those bodyguards have any kind of
10 reputation or any kind of nickname?
11 A. A particular name. Well, no, but we, amongst
12 ourselves -- and now I'm saying this -- not officers,
13 not anybody else, just other private soldiers or
14 policeman, rank-and-file soldiers, we could always see
15 that they had good weapons, lots of money, and
16 everything else, so we used some derogatory names for
17 them, such as "vultures," for instance, and things like
18 that.
19 Q. From what you could see, since you were
20 frequently at the Hotel Vitez, what did you notice in
21 Colonel Blaskic's behaviour and the members of the
22 headquarters when Kordic would come to that
23 headquarters? What kind of behaviour did they
24 demonstrate?
25 A. Well, how shall I put it? They seemed to be
Page 16364
1 afraid of him too in a way. I don't know if that was
2 true or not, but there was also some sign of panic when
3 Mr. Kordic would come to the hotel.
4 Q. Did you have the opportunity to witness any
5 disputes or sharp discussions between Colonel Blaskic
6 and Dario Kordic?
7 A. Well, once perhaps, but in the office for the
8 most part. Naturally, they wouldn't be talking in the
9 hallway. That was seldom. One was not present at
10 those conversations. But once I did hear, and there
11 were some problems.
12 Q. Could you speak to us about that?
13 Ordinarily, Colonel Blaskic, would he go down to greet
14 Kordic when he would come to the hotel?
15 A. Yes. As a rule, he would come out of the
16 office and greet him and -- would greet Mr. Kordic.
17 Once, Mr. Kordic was angry with Colonel Blaskic.
18 Q. Were you able to hear the reasons Kordic was
19 angry at Blaskic that day?
20 A. Well, that had to do with the convoy of the
21 Bosnian army, which was allowed to go through Vitez,
22 and Mr. Kordic -- I repeat, I'm not quoting him
23 verbatim, but such as, "How dare you let balijas go
24 through Vitez." It was something like that. This is
25 not a quote.
Page 16365
1 Q. The expression "balija," had you already
2 heard that said under different circumstances by the
3 accused Dario Kordic?
4 A. I don't remember.
5 Q. Did you sometimes --
6 A. Excuse me. May I?
7 Q. Yes, please.
8 A. Well, most people, policemen and soldiers,
9 people, they always said they were balijas and that
10 balijas were Turks. Everybody said that because that's
11 how it was when they referred to Muslims.
12 Q. Did you have the opportunity, when you were
13 in the Vitez region or Busovaca, have the opportunity
14 to see the accused Dario Kordic on television?
15 A. I don't remember. I simply can't recall
16 that. Sorry.
17 Q. When Dario Kordic went to the Hotel Vitez and
18 would meet with Colonel Blaskic, did the two men say to
19 you -- or use the familiar form of address rather than
20 the formal form?
21 A. Yes. It was quite informal. They used
22 "Ti".
23 Q. When there were meetings organised at the
24 Hotel Vitez, specifically with the Bosnian -- the ABiH
25 army representatives, were they held without Dario
Page 16366
1 Kordic or would they wait for Kordic to come to the
2 Hotel Vitez?
3 A. Well, mostly they would wait for Mr. Dario
4 Kordic to arrive in the hotel, and sometimes it took
5 one hour or two. They simply had to wait. I think
6 they did. Yes, they did, because they did wait.
7 Q. Did you notice that Dario Kordic would
8 participate in meetings in which there were only
9 members of the Central Bosnian headquarters?
10 A. Yes, from time to time.
11 Q. Was Dario Kordic always awaited for at the
12 Hotel Vitez, or would you sometimes come just like
13 that, impromptu?
14 A. I cannot really give you an exact answer to
15 that question. Well, at times he would descend just
16 out of the blue and sometimes his visit would be
17 announced. Well, I mean, we did not really know it.
18 We would simply see him in the doorway, on the steps.
19 Q. Would it sometimes happen that the accused
20 Dario Kordic would arrive at the Hotel Vitez in the
21 middle of the night?
22 A. Yes, but it was only a few times, except I
23 don't remember when.
24 Q. And with whom would he meet during those
25 nights?
Page 16367
1 A. Well, Mr. Blaskic, Colonel Blaskic.
2 Q. Do you know Franjo Nakic?
3 A. Yes. He was deputy commander for Central
4 Bosnia, that is, the deputy of Colonel Blaskic.
5 Q. As far as you know, this deputy, Mr. Nakic,
6 would he go to Tisovac under certain circumstances when
7 Blaskic himself was not in the region?
8 A. Yes, from time to time.
9 Q. I have another question, Witness AS. In
10 general, how did the Central Bosnian Croats behave
11 vis-a-vis Dario Kordic when he would appear in public
12 or when he would make a statement?
13 A. Euphoria, that's the only word, and I think
14 it suffices. Everybody loved him, everybody revered
15 him, everybody trusted him, like I did. As a matter of
16 fact, they were saying that he would become a saint.
17 Q. During the time you were still in Busovaca,
18 you were pointed out as a member of the special
19 military police known as the anti-terrorist unit, that
20 is, the ATP.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Anto Furundzija became the chief of that
23 unit, which was given the name "Jokers" and which set
24 up in the Nadioci Bungalow; is that correct?
25 A. Not chief. We just elected him to head us.
Page 16368
1 Q. You stayed in that unit for about 20 days,
2 and you remember that Darko Kraljevic would come rather
3 frequently to the Bungalow.
4 A. Darko Kraljevic? Yes?
5 Q. Would he come regularly to see you?
6 A. Well, not regularly, but he would drop by.
7 Q. You never saw Mr. Kordic or Mr. Blaskic
8 coming to the Bungalow.
9 A. No.
10 Q. Is it true that when you saw Kordic or
11 Blaskic go by on the road, they would wave to you in a
12 friendly manner?
13 A. Yes, [indicates] wave their hands, not only
14 at us; at everybody, I'd say.
15 Q. At the beginning of 1993, you lost your
16 weapon after you had been attacked in a cafe by a
17 Muslim, and then on 12 March 1993, you were punished
18 for having lost that weapon and you were sent to prison
19 for seven days, a sentence which you served in Kaonik;
20 is that correct?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. I would like to show you a document. This is
23 Z537, which refers to that punishment. I would simply
24 ask you to tell us that it does, in fact, concern you.
25 It's a document dated 12 March 1993.
Page 16369
1 A. Yes, that is correct.
2 Q. When you were detained in Kaonik for those
3 reasons, you were put into a cell with three other
4 people, and one of those three people was Miroslav
5 Bralo, who was also known as Cicko, who at that time
6 was being detained for the murder of Esad Salkic, a
7 murder which took place at the beginning of February
8 1993.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. With other members of your unit, you
11 participated in the attempt to arrest Bralo, but that
12 didn't work, and from what you heard at the time, Mario
13 Cerkez himself had to go to Nadioci and effect that
14 arrest. Is that correct?
15 A. That is something that I heard but did not
16 see personally.
17 Q. During the time that you were detained with
18 that person named Bralo, he complained on several
19 occasions and let his anger be known, his anger against
20 Cerkez and other members of the Vitez headquarters,
21 because he was being detained unjustly.
22 A. Yes, that is true. He raged against
23 Mr. Cerkez and Mr. Pasko Ljubicic. He really was very
24 angry because he had been told that he would be there
25 only until rumours abated. But he was not released
Page 16370
1 then, and that is why he was so angry.
2 Q. The promise of early release, who made that
3 promise? Was it Ljubicic or Cerkez?
4 A. He told me that both had promised him that,
5 and that is why he was angry. He was very angry.
6 Q. That person named Bralo, as far as you know,
7 had belonged to a unit known as the Scorpions, and
8 while he was being detained at Kaonik, some of the
9 members of that unit would come to visit him on a
10 regular basis.
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. The Scorpion unit was a diversion unit, to
13 infiltrate the enemy lines and to sabotage.
14 A. In that sense, yes.
15 Q. As far as you know, that unit was one which
16 was part of the Vitez Brigade and had been trained by a
17 British national whose name was Chris Wilson.
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Krunoslav Bonic, about whom you've already
20 spoken, and someone named Sanja Buha, who was an
21 interpreter. Is that right?
22 A. Yes. At the outset, there was somebody
23 called Charlie. As a matter of fact, that is what he
24 called me, but his name is Miroslav Jurcevic, and he's
25 from Poculica. I think that is his name. But in late
Page 16371
1 1992, he left Vitez, and then Sanja Buha came and she
2 was an interpreter. But then she also married Chris.
3 Q. During the time that you were at Kaonik, at
4 that time you realised that Bralo was not really being
5 detained. He could go home, he could go out at night,
6 he could go to cafes, he could then come back, and, as
7 we said, other members of the Scorpions would regularly
8 visit him.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Did you yourself enjoy that special regime?
11 A. Yes, but I never went home. I was free, and
12 we had all that we needed.
13 Q. You could leave the camp?
14 A. Well, not quite. But from there, we could go
15 out, no problem at all.
16 Q. And the other soldiers in the camp, could
17 they also come and go as they pleased?
18 A. If they were of the HVO, then yes.
19 Q. On the 23rd of March, 1993, you were punished
20 for the second time by the head of your unit for having
21 abandoned your guard duty, and then you had again to
22 spend seven days at the Kaonik centre.
23 I'd like to show you the next document, which
24 is reference Z566.
25 A. Yes, that's right.
Page 16372
1 Q. Does this document, in fact, apply to you?
2 A. Yes.
3 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation]
4 Mr. President, these two documents show the identity of
5 the witness; therefore, I'd like them to be under
6 seal.
7 Q. When you went back for the second time to the
8 Kaonik camp because of that further punishment, that
9 man named Bralo was still there; is that right?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And he was constantly complaining that he had
12 still not been released.
13 A. Yes. Excuse me. May I say something else?
14 This man was hysterical, in the true sense of the
15 word. He was cursing, and he said, "When trouble
16 erupts again, I'm not going to fight for them anymore,"
17 in that sense of the word. He was very, very, very,
18 very angry.
19 Q. At that time, did Bralo receive any
20 assurances that he would soon be released?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And was it Pasko Ljubicic who told him that?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. You don't know when or under what
25 circumstances Bralo finally was released.
Page 16373
1 A. No.
2 Q. As far as you know, did Bralo participate in
3 the crimes committed after the 16th of April in the
4 Vitez region?
5 A. As far as I heard, but this was only later,
6 perhaps only two or three years later, I found out that
7 Cicko was also in Ahmici on that day, or, rather, that
8 morning, because they recognised him; many people
9 recognised him. In prison, he said that if ever he
10 could, he would find a pair of dimije. Do you know
11 what that is? Muslim women wear that, wear that kind
12 of attire, these pantaloons, and that they would be
13 tied at the bottom, and he would fill it with Muslim
14 heads. That is what he personally said to myself and
15 to other people, Miroslav Cicko Bralo.
16 Q. At the time that you spent in Kaonik on those
17 two occasions for the two punishments that you
18 received, did you deduce that within the HVO, it was
19 more serious to be a deserter than it was to commit a
20 murder?
21 A. In a way, yes.
22 Q. When you were finally released from Kaonik,
23 you decided to leave the Vitez region, that was a
24 little before the attack of the 16th of April. You
25 went to see the accused Mario Cerkez so that he would
Page 16374
1 prepare a recommendation for you.
2 A. Yes. But may I say why I did this?
3 Q. Yes, please.
4 JUDGE MAY: No. Just deal with the question,
5 unless it's relevant. Did you go and see Mario
6 Cerkez? That's the question.
7 A. Yes.
8 JUDGE MAY: Yes.
9 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation]
10 Q. And Mario Cerkez, did he prepare that
11 document for you, as you wished?
12 A. When I arrived, he wrote a recommendation for
13 me, one that I could use in other units in
14 Herzegovina.
15 Q. And, in fact, you did leave for Herzegovina,
16 for Capljina; is that correct?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Where you joined the military police brigade
19 of the local brigade?
20 A. Yes. The brigade Knez Domagoj from Capljina.
21 Q. In light of your ethnic origins, in order to
22 be able to join that unit, you had to use a false
23 identity, I believe.
24 A. Yes. Some HVO officers helped me do that. I
25 changed my name. I have to say what that name is?
Page 16375
1 Q. Not at all. It isn't necessary.
2 A. So you remained some time in that brigade
3 until that point that you were identified, and then on
4 the 7th of July, 1993, you were arrested and you were
5 transferred as a prisoner to the Gabela camp; is that
6 right?
7 A. Yes. I was taken to the concentration camp
8 in Gabela, Capljina. I was still a member of the HVO.
9 Q. The people who were in that camp, what was
10 their nationality?
11 A. All of them were Muslims, and most of them,
12 over 80 per cent, had been in the HVO, because we were
13 all in uniform. Actually, the age range was from 12 to
14 100. There were also women and children there. Then
15 ultimately they would take the women and children to
16 Mostar and even further than that. I don't know what
17 ultimately happened to them.
18 Q. I think you remained in that camp until the
19 20th of December, 1993. Is that correct?
20 A. Yes. I then went to the state that I live in
21 now.
22 Q. Thank you very much.
23 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation]
24 Mr. President, I have no further questions.
25 JUDGE MAY: Thank you, Mr. Lopez-Terres.
Page 16376
1 MR. SAYERS: Thank you, Mr. President.
2 Cross-examined by Mr. Sayers:
3 Q. Good afternoon, Witness AS. Let me introduce
4 myself. My name is Stephen Sayers. With my colleague
5 Mr. Naumovski right here, we represent Mr. Kordic.
6 Let me start off, sir, by asking you: You
7 testified for three days in the case against
8 General Blaskic in February of 1998; is that right?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And in the Kupreskic case for two days in
11 October of 1998. Do you remember that?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Then in April and May 1997, over the space of
14 about a week and a half or so, you gave a 70-page
15 statement to the investigators for the Prosecution. Do
16 you remember that, sir?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. All right. On the first page of your witness
19 statement, the statement that you signed three years
20 ago, you said that your memory for dates had grown
21 dim. There's nothing wrong with that, Witness AS, but
22 is that still the case today?
23 A. Yes. For the most part, I want to forget
24 what happened.
25 Q. Now, testifying in this, your third case, are
Page 16377
1 you testifying purely from memory or did you keep some
2 kind of a diary or notes which you've used to refresh
3 your recollection of events that occurred seven or
4 eight years ago?
5 A. I only rely on memory. I did not write
6 anything, nor will I ever write anything.
7 Q. All right. Now, before the war began, sir,
8 you used to steal explosives from the SPS factory in
9 Vitez. In fact, I think you said on page two of your
10 statement: "We would grease the palms of the guards at
11 the Slobodan Princip Selo factory in Vitez so that we
12 could steal the explosives." Is that accurate?
13 A. Yes, but I can say that there was a relative
14 of mine there whom we paid -- I paid him, rather, so
15 that we could go home every now and then. Let me say
16 this once again. I left the former JNA in September
17 1990, and even then I knew there would be a war between
18 us and the former JNA, and that is why I supported the
19 Croat cause.
20 Q. Yes, sir, I understand, but I was just asking
21 you about the explosives that were stolen from the SPS
22 factory.
23 JUDGE MAY: Who did you steal the explosives
24 for?
25 A. For the HV, Croatia. They needed help, all
Page 16378
1 kinds of assistance.
2 MR. SAYERS:
3 Q. All right. Isn't it true, sir, that you
4 threw two grenades at your commander's kiosk in Vitez,
5 the kiosk that belonged to Vladimir Santic?
6 A. Yes, but I was not alone.
7 Q. Right. Obviously, Mr. Santic was a Croat who
8 owned a kiosk in Vitez which you blew up; correct?
9 A. Yes. That was not because he was a Croat but
10 because of personal reasons.
11 Q. Yes, sir. On page 3 of your statement three
12 years ago, you said: "At the beginning of 1992,
13 everyone in your country could smell an inevitable war
14 in the wind." That's true, is it not?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. You saw on television once President
17 Izetbegovic leading a peace demonstration, and that so
18 angered you that you produced an automatic pistol which
19 you used to blow the television to pieces; is that
20 right?
21 A. Yes. Yes, at my own home.
22 Q. Well, are you sure it was in your own home or
23 was it in Mr. Darko Kraljevic's home, sir? I'll just
24 read to you page 3 of your statement. You said: "I
25 was watching the scene on the TV at Darko Kraljevic's
Page 16379
1 place, and it revolted me so much that I shot at the
2 television, turning the TV screen to pieces." Is that
3 correct?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Now, you testified that you were sent to
6 military prison on two separate occasions, the first
7 time being on March the 12th, 1993; correct?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. In the document that has been produced, it
10 describes your disciplinary punishment, sir, Z537. You
11 were accused of having lost a Makarov pistol in the
12 Aphrodite Cafe and failing to report the pistol's
13 disappearance; right?
14 A. That I did not report this. I did not report
15 the loss of it. Yes, that is correct. Yes, that's
16 what it says there.
17 Q. All right. It wasn't a rifle that was stolen
18 from you, as you stated on page 54 of your statement
19 three years ago; it was actually a pistol. Right?
20 JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. Does it matter
21 very much whether it was a rifle or a pistol?
22 MR. SAYERS: Not really, Your Honour, no.
23 Q. Let me just ask you, sir: The punishment
24 that was imposed on you was imposed under the Rules of
25 Military Discipline of the HVO. Were you familiar with
Page 16380
1 that document?
2 MR. SAYERS: Your Honour, I just refer to
3 paragraph 4 of Exhibit Z537/A in the English.
4 A. May I just add something, something else?
5 When I was sent to prison for the second time in
6 Kaonik, but it doesn't say so here, when I was
7 dismissed from the active police unit in Vitez, I had
8 to leave town. I had to leave the town of Vitez.
9 MR. SAYERS:
10 Q. Why was that? Who told you you had to leave
11 town?
12 A. Everybody, because Mr. Santic actually said
13 to me that it was better for me to go to the Bosnian
14 army. But I didn't dare go there, not until the
15 present day. Therefore, I had to leave. But
16 Mr. Santic, or whoever wrote this, left it out on
17 purpose. However, it doesn't say so in the document.
18 He said Vlado Cosic, Marijan Skopljak, Petar Lujic, for
19 example, they said it would be better for me to leave.
20 So that's why I left.
21 Q. Let me turn to just a chronological approach
22 here, Witness AS, if I may, starting initially with
23 your involvement in the H-O-S, the HOS. I believe that
24 you joined the HOS in 1992, and its commander at that
25 time was Darko Kraljevic; is that right?
Page 16381
1 A. Supporter, yes; member, no.
2 Q. You were asked in the Blaskic case, sir, at
3 page 6773:
4 "Q In 1992 did you join or did you begin to
5 associate yourself with an organisation
6 known as HOS?"
7 The answer was:
8 "A Yes.
9 "Q Who was the commander of HOS at that
10 time?"
11 "A That was Darko Kraljevic."
12 Do you remember that testimony or is that
13 accurate to say?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Now, after your brief time with or
16 association with HOS, you left and joined the Patriotic
17 League; correct?
18 A. Yes, but that was very short.
19 Q. Yes. I believe you were only in that
20 organisation for a total of ten days. Is that correct,
21 Witness AS?
22 A. At the most.
23 Q. This was an organisation set up by the SDA,
24 the Party for Democratic Action, to which only Muslims
25 belonged; is that right?
Page 16382
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. One of the reasons that you left the
3 Patriotic League was you tried to get a gun. You were
4 told that you had to buy one and that made you angry.
5 So you tore up your SDA membership card and went to
6 join the HDZ in the same building that same day. Is
7 that fair to say?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. All right. Now, you gave some testimony
10 concerning an event that you thought may have occurred
11 in May or June of 1992, the oath-taking ceremony at the
12 Vitez stadium, at which you've described there were
13 many leading military and political figures present;
14 correct?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. As you've said, from both sides, the Croat
17 side and the Muslim side.
18 A. Yes, that's right.
19 Q. Do you recall, sir, that the oath that was
20 administered to you told you that, if necessary, you
21 soldiers would have to lay down your lives to protect
22 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna in the Republic
23 of Bosnia-Herzegovina? That's the form of oath that
24 you recall you were required to swear, in your
25 statement three years ago. And I just refer you to
Page 16383
1 page 47, right at the bottom of the page. Is that
2 consistent with your recollection today?
3 A. I don't remember. If you can, read it to me,
4 and then I may remember.
5 Q. Certainly. You were told that the oath was
6 about "sacrificing our lives for the Croatian Community
7 of Herceg-Bosna in the Republic of BiH," and that
8 Mr. Kordic administered the oath. Is that your
9 recollection today?
10 A. Yes. "BiH" was always said. But, first of
11 all, we did not fight for Bosnia-Herzegovina; we were
12 fighting for Herceg-Bosna, and that is the truth.
13 Q. I understand, sir. You were shown a document
14 that was marked Z2814, and this came from Vares,
15 apparently, at some point. You do not -- I think you
16 said you do not recall whether the oath that you were
17 required --
18 JUDGE MAY: That was his evidence.
19 MR. SAYERS: Very well. I'll move on, Your
20 Honour.
21 Q. Now, prior to joining the military police,
22 you have given some testimony, sir, that you actually
23 fought the forces of the Bosnian Serb army at Jajce; is
24 that right?
25 A. Yes.
Page 16384
1 Q. And I think you went to the front lines to
2 fight the Bosnian Serb army on five separate occasions
3 at Jajce, sir; is that right?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. When Jajce fell to the Serbs or the Bosnian
6 Serbs on October the 31st, there were many thousands of
7 Croat refugees who flooded eastwards and turned up in
8 Vitez, amongst other places; isn't that so?
9 A. Yes, but not only Croat but also Muslim, even
10 some Serb. But mostly Muslims were passing through
11 Vitez on their way to Zenica and other towns. Then
12 there were Croats who spent two or three days in Vitez,
13 and then for the most part to Tomislavgrad or Livno or
14 somewhere in Herzegovina.
15 Q. I think I may have misspoke, Witness AS. I
16 said "many Croat refugees." What I meant was many
17 refugees -- Croats, Muslims and others -- and that's
18 what you've just said.
19 By the way, if you want, just take a brief
20 break between my question and the answer. Just compose
21 yourself, take a glass of water if you want. It's
22 important to get accurate testimony here.
23 Now, you gave some testimony, sir,
24 surrounding the negotiations at the Draga barracks.
25 You were not there yourself during those negotiations,
Page 16385
1 were you?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Do you know who was there conducting the
4 investigations? Let me suggest two names to you:
5 Florijan Glavocevic and Huso Hadzimejlic. Or do you
6 just not know?
7 A. No. The Draga barracks, no. I don't know
8 about that.
9 Q. All right.
10 MR. SAYERS: I was just referring,
11 Mr. President, to paragraph 22.
12 Q. Witness AS, in fairness, you said the JAN
13 depot at Kaonik and Draga barracks were attacked to
14 take possession of arms and ammunition, but all you
15 know about that situation or the negotiations that led
16 to the resolution of that situation is really what
17 you've been told by other people; isn't that so?
18 JUDGE MAY: That's what the witness has
19 said. Let's move on.
20 MR. SAYERS: Yes.
21 Q. Now, the 4th Battalion of military police,
22 sir, you joined, I believe, in the summer, late summer
23 of 1992; is that right?
24 A. Summer/autumn, approximately.
25 Q. Yes. The 4th Battalion had authority, police
Page 16386
1 authority over all of Central Bosnia, as opposed to,
2 for example, brigade military police, which only had
3 authority limited to the area of responsibility of the
4 particular brigade; is that fair to say?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. The military police commander initially was
7 Zvonko Vukovic, I believe, later to be replaced by
8 Pasko Ljubicic, and these commanders would appear at
9 the daily meetings that Colonel Blaskic held with his
10 staff at the Hotel Vitez typically every morning; isn't
11 that right?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Along with all of the other department heads,
14 such as the heads of the Department of Logistics,
15 Information and Propaganda Department, artillery, and
16 other departments. Is that fair to say, sir?
17 A. Yes, but I would not see them there every
18 day, but they were there.
19 Q. Now, you gave some testimony about the events
20 surrounding the October 1992 blockade at Ahmici. It's
21 true, is it not, that Ahmici occupied an extremely
22 favourable position right next to a main supply route,
23 which made it a perfect place to erect a blockade?
24 JUDGE MAY: I don't think you need to ask the
25 witness about this. We've had a great deal of evidence
Page 16387
1 from soldiers about it.
2 MR. SAYERS: I take your point, Your Honour,
3 and I'll move on.
4 Q. Let me talk to you about an important
5 subject, Witness AS; that's the military organisation
6 in the Central Bosnia Operative Zone and the chain of
7 command.
8 As I understand it, the commander of the
9 Central Bosnia Operative Zone, and the uncontested
10 military commander, was Colonel Tihomir Blaskic; is
11 that correct?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. It's also true that Colonel Blaskic had
14 command over a number of municipality-based brigades,
15 which themselves were organised into companies
16 or satnijas; is that right?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And then the lowest level of organisation or
19 separation, the unit of organisation in a satnija, they
20 were organised into various groups of soldiers
21 called vods, is that correct, or platoons?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And so when you first joined the HVO, you
24 were a soldier in the 1st Vod of the 2nd Satnija of the
25 Kralj Tomislav Brigade; is that correct?
Page 16388
1 A. I said that, but that does not mean that I
2 was in the 1st Battalion or the 2nd Battalion. But I
3 was there.
4 Q. All right. Now, you have testified in
5 previous cases that there was a clear chain of command,
6 that your commander, military police commander, was
7 Pasko Ljubicic at the relevant times; is that right,
8 sir?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And his superior officer was Colonel Blaskic;
11 is that true?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. All right. Attached to your statement was an
14 organisational chart of how the headquarters of the
15 Central Bosnia HVO was set up, and you've signed this.
16 MR. SAYERS: I'd just like to have this
17 marked as an exhibit, but it will have to be under
18 seal, Mr. President, as it bears the witness's
19 signature.
20 Q. Witness AS, I wonder if you would just
21 confirm that that is, indeed, your signature at the
22 bottom right-hand corner of the page.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Just so it's absolutely clear, the top
25 commander in the Central Bosnia Operative Zone is
Page 16389
1 Colonel Blaskic, with Franjo Nakic as his deputy
2 commander; is that right?
3 A. Yes.
4 THE REGISTRAR: The document will be marked
5 D203/1.
6 MR. SAYERS: Thank you.
7 Q. Under Mr. Nakic was a duty officer to whom
8 the various departments reported, including the 4th
9 Bojna of military police; is that right, sir?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. As you can see, and as you've stated,
12 Mr. Pasko Ljubicic was the commander of the 4th
13 Battalion of military police, and one of his
14 subordinates, I believe the commander of the 1st
15 Company of the 4th Battalion, was Vladimir Santic;
16 correct?
17 A. Yes, but of the 1st Company in the 4th
18 Battalion.
19 Q. Quite so, Witness AS. But the only point I
20 was trying to get at is Vladimir Santic, the commander
21 of the 1st Company of the 4th Battalion, was obviously
22 the commander of the company, but he was the
23 subordinate of Pasko Ljubicic; correct?
24 A. Yes, that is correct. Yes.
25 Q. All right. Good. Let me ask you a few
Page 16390
1 questions, if I may, about Colonel Blaskic.
2 As the commander of the Central Bosnia
3 Operative Zone, he had his headquarters in the Hotel
4 Vitez, as we know. It's true, sir, that when he
5 assumed command of the Central Bosnia Operative Zone,
6 he brought much more discipline and structure to the
7 HVO than it had had before; isn't that fair to say?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. For example, one of the things that soldiers
10 in the HVO were not permitted to do after he became the
11 commanding officer was to walk around town with
12 long-barreled weapons; is that right?
13 A. Yes, but they did nevertheless.
14 Q. All right. Now, you always referred to
15 Colonel Blaskic as "the Colonel," didn't you?
16 A. Yes. That is how we addressed him, yes, for
17 the most part.
18 Q. So when the term "the Colonel" was mentioned,
19 it always referred to Colonel Blaskic; isn't that
20 correct?
21 A. Well, I thought so, we thought so.
22 Q. All right. And neither you nor any of your
23 colleagues in the military police ever once referred to
24 Mr. Kordic as "the Colonel," did you, sir? I think you
25 said that on page 47 of your statement three years
Page 16391
1 ago.
2 Let me just read it to you and just ask you
3 to agree whether this is still your view today:
4 "Pukovnik, Colonel, has ordered this.
5 Colonel has ordered that. 'Pukovnik' was invariably
6 meant to refer to Colonel Blaskic and never to Kordic.
7 I never heard Kordic being referred to by anybody as
8 Pukovnik. Kordic was either referred to as 'Dario' or
9 simply 'Kordic'." And that's true, isn't it, sir?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. It's also true, sir, that the only person who
12 could order the deployment of units into battle, units
13 belonging to the 4th Battalion of the military police,
14 or any of its subunits, such as the Jokers, was "the
15 Colonel," Colonel Blaskic; right?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. It's true, sir, in fairness, that you viewed,
18 and perhaps you still view Colonel Blaskic as a hero;
19 isn't that right?
20 A. Then, yes. Not now.
21 Q. All right. You always found him to be
22 hard-working, though, didn't you?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. My final question on this subject is in
25 response to a question from Judge Shahabuddeen two
Page 16392
1 years ago, page 7023, for the Prosecution. You
2 testified that Colonel Blaskic was the person who was
3 in uncontested command of all fighting forces on the
4 side of the HZ HB, and that's still your view today,
5 isn't it?
6 A. Yes. But may I add something?
7 Q. Yes.
8 A. To begin with, insofar as the army is
9 concerned, Colonel Blaskic was the commander, but he
10 could have never started the war without the consent of
11 the politicians. And when I say "politicians," that
12 means the HDZ. It was impossible otherwise.
13 Q. You never sat in on any meetings with Colonel
14 Blaskic or any of the politicians, did you? That was
15 above your level; isn't that right, sir?
16 A. It is, but it was enough to give it just a
17 little thought and to understand that, because we had
18 to be members of the HDZ if we wanted to be in the HVO,
19 and that is proof enough.
20 Q. Colonel Blaskic never addressed you at length
21 at any time, did he, sir?
22 A. No.
23 Q. All right. Now, let's turn to the next level
24 down, your overall commander, Pasko Ljubicic.
25 It's true, isn't it, that Mr. Ljubicic told
Page 16393
1 you that he had no authority to give orders without the
2 authority of Colonel Blaskic.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Just as you never attended any meetings
5 between Colonel Blaskic and the political
6 representatives that you've referred to, you never
7 attended any meetings between Colonel Blaskic and
8 Mr. Ljubicic either, did you, sir?
9 A. No.
10 Q. All right. It's true that Mr. Ljubicic, once
11 he assumed command of the 4th Battalion of military
12 police, became the immediate subordinate of Colonel
13 Blaskic; isn't that right?
14 A. It is.
15 Q. You are not aware of a single instance in
16 which Colonel Blaskic's orders were ever disobeyed by
17 anyone in the military police, including Mr. Ljubicic;
18 is that right?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. All right. The next level down, sir, at the
21 company command level, let me address a few questions
22 about Mr. Vladimir Santic.
23 He was the commander of the 1st Company of
24 military police in the 4th Battalion and reported
25 directly to Mr. Ljubicic, as you said. Now, he came to
Page 16394
1 the Bungalow when you were stationed there, at least
2 every day, sometimes twice or three times a day; isn't
3 that right?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And Mr. Santic treated all of the members of
6 the subunit of which you were a member, the Jokers,
7 equally, didn't he?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. All right.
10 JUDGE MAY: Are you going on to another topic
11 now, Mr. Sayers?
12 MR. SAYERS: Yes, Your Honour.
13 JUDGE MAY: How much longer do you anticipate
14 being with this witness?
15 MR. SAYERS: We've actually made more
16 progress than I anticipated. I would think if we
17 resume at 4.00, I could be through by perhaps a quarter
18 to five. Maybe earlier.
19 JUDGE MAY: Very well.
20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Witness, I'd like to ask you
21 a question. You told us earlier that you stole
22 explosives for the HVO. Were you asked to do this, or
23 did you do it entirely on your own?
24 THE WITNESS: We did it on our own, without
25 any orders or anything.
Page 16395
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: All right.
2 JUDGE MAY: We'll adjourn now until 4.00.
3 --- Recess taken at 3.40 p.m.
4 --- On resuming at 4.05 p.m.
5 MR. KOVACIC: Your Honours, if you allow me,
6 just for planning of the rest of the day. I think I'm
7 ready as soon as Mr. Sayers finishes his
8 cross-examination, since he said that he might be
9 finishing before quarter to 5.00. I guess I don't need
10 more than half an hour, 45 minutes maximum. I can
11 continue immediately. Does that suit you?
12 JUDGE MAY: Very well.
13 Yes, Mr. Sayers.
14 MR. SAYERS: Thank you, Mr. President.
15 Q. Witness AS, just a few final questions in
16 connection with the chain of command insofar as the
17 military police were concern. It's a fact, isn't it,
18 that you were directed to carry out all orders issued
19 by Colonel Blaskic without question?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. In fact, on one occasion, sir, I believe
22 Colonel Blaskic actually issued a disciplinary
23 punishment against your entire military police unit,
24 ordering a 5-per-cent reduction in pay as a result of a
25 failure to carry out your guard duties properly. Is
Page 16396
1 that accurate?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. In fact, your commander, Mr. Ljubicic, told
4 you that this pay reduction had been imposed on the
5 direct orders of Colonel Blaskic, didn't he?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Let me move on quickly, Witness AS, in the
8 interests of time, and I'll try to be through as
9 quickly as possible. The next topic I'd like to
10 address is the fighting in Busovaca that you described,
11 in January of 1993. You said, I believe, that after
12 you had been in the military police for approximately
13 three months, you were sent to Busovaca or to the
14 Busovaca municipality to fight on the front lines with
15 the ABiH. Is that correct?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. All right. I think, just so that I
18 understand it, after your arrival, your first orders
19 were to go to Gavrine Kuce, which is between Merdani
20 and Kaonik, on the front lines with the ABiH troops; is
21 that right?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. The reason is that the ABiH had attacked that
24 location at about 5.00 or 6.00 in the morning, and the
25 fighting in which you were engaged there lasted all
Page 16397
1 day, correct, on the first day of your detachment
2 there?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. I believe that you saw two of the
5 Domobranstvo, or home guards, killed and one of your
6 military policemen was wounded; correct?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And it's true, isn't it, that the ABiH were
9 carrying out attacks at several places all along the
10 front lines?
11 A. Well, in some places, yes; in other places
12 not on that day, when the HVO was attacking Merdani,
13 for instance.
14 Q. But initially, when you went to Gravine Kuce,
15 your orders were to push back the ABiH to its earlier
16 positions as far as you were able to, and that was your
17 duty to do that; right?
18 A. In a way, yes. As a matter of fact, to pull
19 out those people from Gavrine Kuce, because there were
20 still some civilians left there.
21 Q. Yes, sir. I think that you said, on page 39
22 of your statement, that your instructions were to
23 evacuate the women and the children from Gavrine Kuce
24 and then to try to hold the front line; right?
25 A. Yes.
Page 16398
1 Q. And if that was impossible, then you were
2 given orders to withdraw from your positions to
3 defensive positions further back; correct?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. These instructions, once again, came from
6 your commander, Pasko Ljubicic; right?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. It's true that you were later sent, I
9 believe, to the south of Busovaca, to another front
10 line that was at Donje Polje. Is that right, sir?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Where you found total panic amongst the HVO
13 forces there before you reinforced them; but after you
14 had reinforced them, and miraculously, in your view,
15 you were able to halt and ultimately repulse the ABiH
16 assault. Is that a fair synopsis?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. It's your conclusion that the Busovaca
19 operations were personally commanded by
20 Colonel Blaskic, and I believe you said that on page 47
21 of your statement; correct?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. All right. Now, the reason that you were
24 evacuating civilians at Gavrine Kuce was to stop them
25 from being killed or injured; is that right?
Page 16399
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. You would agree, sir, that it's not a good
3 idea for civilians to stay in villages on the front
4 lines, wouldn't you?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Were you aware that Croat civilians had
7 actually been tortured and killed at Dusina and Lasva
8 on January the 26th of 1993?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. All right. Just a few questions, sir,
11 relating to some topics that were covered in your
12 direct-examination about attacks on civilians.
13 Throughout the Busovaca campaign in January
14 1993, you carried out purely defensive operations,
15 didn't you?
16 A. Yes, quite. We'd attack and then we would
17 defend ourselves.
18 Q. But you did not actually witness, yourself,
19 any offensive operations in the Busovaca municipality,
20 did you, before you left?
21 A. Well, I could say no, but there were. I know
22 that.
23 Q. Well, on page 6974, sir, of your testimony in
24 the Blaskic case, let me just remind you of what you
25 said and ask you to agree with it. You were asked a
Page 16400
1 question:
2 "Q In the municipality of Busovaca, while
3 you participated in the fighting in
4 January and the beginning of
5 February ..."
6 It says "1992" here, but I think it means 1993.
7 "... you did not engage in offensive
8 operations?
9 "A No.
10 "Q Who were you defending yourselves from?
11 "A From the Bosnian army."
12 And that's true, isn't it, Witness AS?
13 A. Yes, but I am saying that it referred to the
14 police, not to the military.
15 Q. All right. Throughout your service in the
16 Busovaca skirmishes and fighting in January and
17 February of 1993, the military police never once
18 attacked civilians deliberately, did they, Witness AS?
19 A. They did not.
20 Q. They confined their military engagements to
21 the armed forces of the ABiH; is that fair to say?
22 A. It is.
23 Q. You were never given any orders to attack
24 defenceless civilians, and there was never any talk in
25 your ranks about doing so, was there, sir?
Page 16401
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3
4
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7
8
9
10
11
12
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14 English and French transcripts.
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 16402
1 A. No, there wasn't.
2 Q. While you were in the Busovaca municipality
3 in that time, sir, the military police were never
4 ordered to attack or set fire to Muslim villages, were
5 they?
6 A. They were not. The police, not talking about
7 the army. All I know is the police.
8 Q. Let me ask you some limited questions about
9 the Jokeri or Jokers subunit of the 1st Company of the
10 4th Battalion of military police. My understanding,
11 sir, is -- and I think you're the first witness to
12 testify about this -- that the Jokers were actually
13 founded or this unit called the Jokers was actually
14 founded after the end of the fighting in early February
15 1993. Is that correct?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And initially there were 20 or 30 of you;
18 correct?
19 A. More or less, yes.
20 Q. And you were ordered to station yourself in a
21 building that was known as the Bungalow, in the village
22 of Nadioci; correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And it was there that you selected your own
25 leader, as you've described, Mr. Furundzija; correct?
Page 16403
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And he was directly subordinated to the
3 commander of the 1st Satnija, or company, Vladimir
4 Santic; yes?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. After this ATP unit had been established,
7 Mr. Danijel Kristo came up with the name "Jokeri," a
8 name that was ultimately approved by Mr. Santic and
9 then by Mr. Ljubicic; is that right?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Thank you. With respect to the Security and
12 Information Service, or SIS, this service was engaged
13 in anti-espionage operations, wasn't it?
14 A. Yes. That was its job.
15 Q. Yes.
16 A. And had it done only that ...
17 Q. The SIS never gave orders to the military
18 police, did they -- or did it, as far as you're aware?
19 A. No, as far as I know; that is, as far as we
20 are concerned. But in Busovaca, in Kaonik, they did
21 interrogate prisoners in our presence, and they had
22 more power than we did.
23 Q. It's a very narrow point that I was asking,
24 Witness AS. As far as you're aware, the SIS never gave
25 orders to any of the military police, you included;
Page 16404
1 isn't that right?
2 A. As far as I know, not to me.
3 Q. Let me turn to one of my final subjects,
4 Mr. Darko Kraljevic, about whom you were asked some
5 questions. He became commander of the special purpose
6 unit known as the Vitezovi in Vitez; correct?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And you had occasion to witness an incident
9 in which Mr. Kraljevic had actually put the deputy
10 commander of the 3rd Corps, Dzemal Merdan, under
11 arrest; correct? And you witnessed an encounter
12 between Colonel Blaskic and Mr. Kraljevic related to
13 that incident.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Colonel Blaskic basically yelled at
16 Mr. Kraljevic and ordered him to release Colonel
17 Merdan, and that's exactly what happened; correct?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. All right. Now, let me turn to one of my
20 final subjects, Mr. Kordic. You never heard Mr. Kordic
21 in any of his speeches or statements say that he or his
22 party wanted to break down the Republic of
23 Bosnia-Herzegovina as a country, did you?
24 A. No, but we were fighting for Herceg-Bosna
25 because it was always Herceg-Bosna in the first place.
Page 16405
1 Q. Yes, sir, I fully understand that. But the
2 only point that I was making is that you never heard
3 Mr. Kordic advocate the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina
4 or its destruction, did you?
5 A. No, but -- no.
6 Q. Okay. Now, you've testified about
7 Mr. Kordic's reputation and you've testified about how
8 popular he was. Is it fair to say that he was popular
9 even in your own eyes, sir?
10 JUDGE MAY: I don't know what that means.
11 A. Yes.
12 MR. SAYERS: You're right, Mr. President;
13 that was an inartful question.
14 Q. Isn't it true, sir, that you had a good view
15 of Mr. Kordic, you had a high opinion of him?
16 A. Yes. Then.
17 Q. Right. And it's true that in his presence,
18 sir, whenever there would be a gathering of people, the
19 crowd would normally go into chants of "Dario, Dario,
20 Dario," like fans at a rock concert, as you said in
21 your statement three years ago, on page 48; isn't that
22 right?
23 A. It is in a way, yes.
24 Q. You knew that Mr. Kordic was a politician,
25 that he was the vice-president of the presidency of
Page 16406
1 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, I guess; is that
2 right?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And the president of that community was Mate
5 Boban; right?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. You were also aware that Mr. Kordic had no
8 kind of professional military background himself,
9 unlike Colonel Blaskic, for example; is that right?
10 A. I thought so, and I said so, yes.
11 Q. Yes. And, in fact, you never referred to
12 Mr. Kordic as "Colonel" yourself, did you?
13 A. No, I did not.
14 Q. Final question for you, sir. I don't mean to
15 bring up unpleasant memories, but when you were
16 incarcerated in the Gabela camp, that was in
17 Herzegovina; correct?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Thank you very much.
20 MR. SAYERS: I have no further questions,
21 Mr. President.
22 MR. KOVACIC: Thank you, Your Honours.
23 Cross-examined by Mr. Kovacic:
24 Q. Good afternoon, Witness AS --
25 JUDGE MAY: I'm sorry. There's a matter
Page 16407
1 which I should have mentioned to Mr. Sayers.
2 Mr. Sayers, the witness's evidence was that
3 Dario Kordic got angry with Blaskic on one occasion
4 about an ABiH convoy and said, "How dare you let the
5 balijas go through Vitez." Now, is that disputed or
6 not?
7 MR. SAYERS: It is disputed, Your Honour.
8 Mr. Kordic did not use language like that, and I think
9 that Witness AS stated that himself when he said that
10 that was not a verbatim quote. But I can say that we
11 believe -- or at least -- actually, let me be more
12 clear. My client has no recollection of any incident
13 like that.
14 JUDGE MAY: Very well.
15 JUDGE BENNOUNA: [Interpretation] Mr. Sayers,
16 apart from the term as such, that attitude which is
17 attributed to your client, to the accused Kordic, that
18 is, his disagreement as to the manner in which Colonel
19 Blaskic allowed this convoy -- that is, organised
20 matters that allowed the convoy to go through, is that
21 challenged? Kordic's disagreement, is that challenged,
22 whatever the words he used?
23 MR. SAYERS: All I can say, Your Honour, is
24 that my client recalls no such incident and believes
25 that no such incident occurred. I don't know precisely
Page 16408
1 when this convoy was supposed to have been travelling
2 through the Vitez pocket, so the time is a little
3 indistinct. But even if it weren't indistinct, my
4 client's recollection is that there were no such
5 disagreements of that variety with Colonel Blaskic.
6 JUDGE BENNOUNA: [Interpretation] Thank you.
7 MR. KOVACIC: Thank you, Your Honours.
8 Q. Good afternoon, Witness AS. I'm sorry we
9 have to address you only with such initials, but you
10 must be used it. I'm Bozidar Kovacic, a lawyer from
11 Rijeka, and my colleague Mikulicic, we represent the
12 defence of Mario Cerkez. I do hope that this will not
13 take too long.
14 Of course, I have to bear this in mind more
15 than you, but please make a pause between the question
16 and answer for the sake of the interpreters, because
17 we, of course, understand one another easily, we speak
18 the same language, but the interpreters need it for
19 other people. So thank you very much. And of course
20 if you think that any of my questions are not clear
21 enough, please tell me so. Thank you in advance.
22 Sometime in the beginning of today's
23 testimony, you mentioned the headquarters of the
24 so-called HV at a pub called Konoba, I believe it was
25 in Kruscica. You said that you were with Grabovac,
Page 16409
1 and, as a point in fact, it was Mario Cerkez's house,
2 and that this pub, this coffee shop was downstairs, and
3 that practically that was the seat of what at that time
4 was called the HV. Is that correct?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Would you recognise that house today?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Then I should like to ask you -- I will show
9 you first -- will you please have a look and tell us if
10 you recognise it as that particular house.
11 A. Yes, that's it.
12 Q. Is that the house?
13 A. Yes.
14 JUDGE MAY: Which is the house, Mr. Kovacic?
15 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Could you please point the house out. Please
17 use the pointer. Yes, on the ELMO.
18 A. [Indicates]
19 Q. So that is the house in the middle, opposite
20 the cemetery; is that right?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. It is on the road down there, off the main
23 road, towards Kruscica?
24 A. Yes.
25 MR. KOVACIC: I would kindly ask the usher to
Page 16410
1 show another one, and a number for this one.
2 THE REGISTRAR: This document is numbered
3 D66/2.
4 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. Witness AS, can you perhaps recognise this
6 house?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Oh, you cannot.
9 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Could I please
10 have a numbers assigned to this house? Thank you.
11 JUDGE MAY: He hasn't recognised it. There's
12 no point having a number attached.
13 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] I'm going to
14 bring in a Defence witness who is going to recognise
15 this house, and I will explain that that is Mario
16 Cerkez's house, this one.
17 JUDGE MAY: When that happens, we'll give it
18 a number, but for the moment, no number.
19 Yes, let it go back to counsel, please.
20 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation]
21 Q. Can we proceed. You told us that Marijan
22 Skopljak and Mario Cerkez were commanders of the unit
23 that you called the brigade. Witness, during 1992, did
24 you ever hear of the municipal staff of the HVO in
25 Vitez?
Page 16411
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Wasn't Marijan Skopljak and then Mario Cerkez
3 in charge of this institution?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Have you ever heard of the institution of the
6 defence department?
7 A. Yes, but that -- that was all in the
8 municipality in Vitez.
9 Q. So these institutions were mentioned in Vitez
10 within the HVO?
11 A. Yes. I heard about it.
12 Q. Did you ever see the name "brigade" appear on
13 a document, on a building, would a sign say so, in any
14 written form?
15 A. I do not recall.
16 Q. When Cerkez had his office at the hotel, was
17 there a sign saying that?
18 A. I do not recall. I cannot say yes or no. I
19 simply cannot remember.
20 Q. Thank you. Witness, the house that you
21 recognised in the picture, if I jog your memory, you
22 said that that was the house -- that Marijan Skopljak's
23 house?
24 A. Possibly. I don't know.
25 Q. All right. Thank you. This term
Page 16412
1 "brigade" -- we are talking about 1992, until the end
2 of 1992 -- was used by people or, rather, HVO soldiers
3 amongst themselves; is that right?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. As for this unit you called the brigade, you
6 joined it voluntarily in 1992?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And as you told us, at that time you were
9 only involved in actions against the JNA, or the VRS,
10 rather, the local Serbs, in their efforts to seize more
11 territory; is that right?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. The smaller units that you mentioned in
14 relation to the HVO in 1992 were related to villages;
15 right?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. So they belonged to the village that the
18 soldiers were from, conditionally speaking?
19 A. Yes, but these were not village guards. Let
20 me explain this. Rijeka, Kruscica, and Krizancevo
21 Selo, for example, that would encompass that.
22 Q. All right. So a few villages were brought
23 together. So when the shift -- when a shift would be
24 made in order to send people out to Vlasic against the
25 Serbs, then they would come from those villages;
Page 16413
1 right?
2 A. Yes, but the composition was mixed. First
3 volunteers were sought.
4 Q. You were at Vlasic personally?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. At least at Galica, right?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Did you spend a shift anywhere else? I mean
9 up there.
10 A. No. No. We were there one day. We went in
11 the morning, and we returned in the afternoon because
12 we didn't have any food or ammunition.
13 Q. Thank you. Tell me, at one point in time you
14 said -- let us clarify this -- you said that you were
15 transferred from the brigade to a special intervention
16 platoon, as it was called.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. No one transferred you. You volunteered,
19 didn't you?
20 A. No. We -- we were chosen. You could not
21 have an old man of 50 there. Younger, unmarried men
22 were selected to fight.
23 Q. Did anybody ask you whether you wanted to do
24 it or not?
25 A. Yes. I was asked by Karlo Grabovac.
Page 16414
1 Q. Oh, I see. So you could have refused.
2 A. Yes, I could have, but I didn't.
3 Q. Thank you. This platoon was involved in
4 these same activities that we mentioned?
5 A. Yes. But we were also at Slimena. We were
6 in Travnik when the barracks of the former JNA was
7 being handed over. We were there, together with
8 Colonel Filip Filipovic, because he was involved in
9 these negotiations then with the officers.
10 Q. You are referring to Slimena?
11 A. No. I'm referring to Travnik. I'm referring
12 to the Travnik barracks.
13 Q. Let us clarify this for the other people,
14 because you and I know what this is about. This is JNA
15 barracks; right?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. All these three locations that we mentioned
18 are JNA barracks; right?
19 A. In Slimena there were depots.
20 Q. Depots of the former JNA?
21 A. Yes, of the former JNA.
22 Q. Apropos, I think that you must have known
23 that the JNA had stored weapons there that they had
24 illegally taken from the Territorial Defence?
25 A. Yes. Ammunition, grenades, et cetera.
Page 16415
1 Q. Witness AS, you mentioned a young man, Kico
2 Bonic. Do you agree that this was a minor?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Can we agree that he was actually tagging
5 along and that he wanted to be with you, the big guys?
6 A. Well, yes, and he managed to later.
7 Q. When was this later?
8 A. In 1993, perhaps, because I saw him a few
9 times with weapons.
10 Q. Was it true that there were quite a few
11 persons who bought weapons on their own?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. You do not know of anyone having given Kico
14 Bonic weapons, anyone from any formation?
15 A. No, I'm not aware of that.
16 Q. You said to us that Mario Cerkez had an
17 office at some later stage, and I'm asking you when, in
18 the hotel building.
19 A. It was sometime in September, October.
20 Q. Will you agree that that is this municipal
21 staff of the HVO in Vitez that we spoke of?
22 A. The municipal staff of the HVO in Vitez; is
23 that what you're saying?
24 Q. Yes.
25 A. On that day, when I was in the office,
Page 16416
1 Mr. Cerkez was in that office.
2 Q. No. We're talking about 1992.
3 A. Yes, about 1992.
4 Q. Very well. So he was there, but what was the
5 name of this place? Was it the municipal staff of the
6 HVO in Vitez?
7 A. Possibly. I don't know.
8 Q. When Blaskic, as commander of the Operative
9 Zone, came to the hotel, Cerkez and his offices were
10 moved to the cinema building; is that right?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. They were never in the hotel at the same
13 time, Cerkez's office and Blaskic's headquarters of the
14 Operative Zone?
15 A. I do not recall.
16 Q. Very well. As for the stadium and the
17 ceremony that you mentioned, it was a public ceremony,
18 wasn't it?
19 A. Yes, an oath-taking ceremony.
20 Q. Do you recall a similar ceremony having been
21 conducted by the BH army before that?
22 A. Yes. But that was the army of the State of
23 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
24 Q. Yes, of course. But that was also held in
25 public; right?
Page 16417
1 A. Yes, possibly.
2 Q. Thank you. As for the oath you mentioned,
3 the word "protect" was used in the oath. Protect from
4 whom? We are talking about the summer of 1992. At
5 that time, the only aggressor is the JNA, supported by
6 the local Serbs; is that correct?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Thank you. Now, what were the motives -- or
9 perhaps I misspoke. The soldiers, the members of the
10 Territorial Defence or the BH army that beat you up on
11 that one occasion that you mentioned to us, they beat
12 you up because they did not want an ethnic Muslim to be
13 in the HVO; is that right?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. So the army of the BiH and the Territorial
16 Defence were opposed to Muslims joining the HVO?
17 A. No. I can say no, but these were just
18 individuals that I knew very well.
19 Q. Oh. So it was only on their part.
20 A. Yes. May I just say something?
21 Q. Please go ahead.
22 A. There was a man called Franjo from Cajdras
23 near Zenica, and he worked for Mr. Merdan in the
24 BH army. He was a kind of bodyguard of his. That
25 shows the Bosnian army took all in their ranks.
Page 16418
1 Q. You will agree with me that in 1992, you were
2 not the only Muslim from Vitez who was in the HVO?
3 A. No. There was another person who was there
4 with me too, Adis Cosic, as well.
5 Q. Was there anybody else?
6 A. Yes. Yes, there was. Edo. Edo. I forgot
7 his last name. Was it Herceg? Yes, Edo Herceg. I
8 think the three of us.
9 Q. Now that you mentioned Adis Cosic, he
10 actually became Blaskic's bodyguard; is that correct?
11 A. I don't know.
12 Q. That was after you left?
13 A. I don't know.
14 Q. All right. So you don't know. A few times
15 you mentioned something that you call the brigade
16 police.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. That was a platoon-sized unit, wasn't it?
19 You said some 30-odd men; right?
20 A. Yes, approximately.
21 Q. Can you tell us what the name of the
22 commander of that group was?
23 A. I cannot recall.
24 Q. Did you know anyone there?
25 A. Yes, individuals, some of them. Nino Zabac,
Page 16419
1 Ivankovic, Zlatko, Nuka. Just individuals.
2 Q. All right. Let us bear the time in mind. Do
3 you know that the Stjepan Tomasevic Brigade was a mixed
4 municipal brigade of two municipalities?
5 A. Novi Travnik and Vitez.
6 Q. Yes. You agree, then, that this was from
7 December 1992 until March 1993?
8 A. The Zenica Brigade of -- this joint brigade
9 of Novi Travnik and Vitez, no, I don't think so.
10 Q. Do you think that this was some other time
11 period?
12 A. Yes, before that.
13 Q. You mean even before that?
14 A. Yes. Yes, at the very beginning.
15 Q. But do you agree, Witness, that the command
16 of this Stjepan Tomasevic Brigade, regardless of a
17 different time period, that it was in Novi Travnik?
18 A. I don't know.
19 Q. You don't know? Do you know that only one
20 battalion from that Brigade had its headquarters in
21 Vitez?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Have you ever heard of Anto Bertovic,
24 commander of an HVO battalion?
25 A. Yes. He was the deputy of Mr. Mario Cerkez.
Page 16420
1 Q. You said a few minutes ago that you think
2 that -- well, never mind.
3 A. I can say that I know this because we were in
4 the Rubikon cafe very often. Mr. Ante Bertovic came
5 there, Karlo Grabovac, many officers from the Viteska
6 Brigade, and it was said that he was Mr. Mario Cerkez's
7 deputy.
8 Q. Can you put this in a certain time frame?
9 Mid 1992, late 1992?
10 A. Well, this was when I was in the police. It
11 must have been November, December 1992.
12 Q. Very well. This so-called police brigade was
13 quite noticeable in terms of guarding the cinema
14 building where Cerkez's offices were; is that right?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Did you ever see Cerkez or any one of his
17 men, his officers, issue some kind of an order?
18 A. No. I was not there, so how could I know?
19 Q. You said that you socialised with these
20 colleagues of yours, so to speak.
21 A. Well, we are not talking about commanders and
22 politics all the time. There are other things that we
23 can talk about as well.
24 Q. These people, this platoon that was in Vitez
25 in front of the cinema, those who were guarding the
Page 16421
1 cinema, they were on the same payroll as the 4th
2 Battalion; right?
3 A. That, I don't know. This is the first time I
4 hear of it.
5 Q. You never saw them getting their salaries
6 there?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Apropos, how regularly were you given your
9 salary?
10 A. I have no idea. I do not remember at all.
11 Q. Did you ever learn anything definite as to
12 when the Vitez Brigade was founded, which originated
13 after the Stjepan Tomasevic?
14 A. No.
15 Q. But you will agree that the Vitez Brigade was
16 formally set up after the Stjepan Tomasevic Brigade.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And if I tell you that it was sometime in
19 March 1993, will that jog your memory?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Very well. You went to see Cerkez, to his
22 office, at the time of fighting around the roadblock in
23 Ahmici. And he then said something which sounded like,
24 "Well, expel them or kill them," and that there was a
25 third person present there whose nickname was Mimo.
Page 16422
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Marijan Mlakic, does that name ring a bell?
3 Was his nickname Mimo?
4 A. Perhaps.
5 Q. Was he a deputy for logistics?
6 A. He was in the -- he worked in the depot all
7 the time.
8 Q. I'm sorry. I was too fast. But if I tell
9 you that Marijan Mlakic's superior was Stipo Ceko, does
10 that ring a bell?
11 A. Yes, because I know him as well. He's from
12 Kruscica.
13 Q. And Mimo was his man in the depot?
14 A. Possibly. I know that they were at the hotel
15 at Lovac, Mimo and Vlado and Cerkez and Ceko and
16 Sero -- Sero, I can't remember his first name.
17 Q. But who was present at that location, those
18 four?
19 A. No, it was Vlado and Mimo. I think the three
20 of them were in the office sitting there. Me and
21 Zoran.
22 Q. Who is Vlado? What is his last name?
23 A. Vlado -- Vlado, I think it's Vlado Cerkez. I
24 believe he used to be the driver in the logistics.
25 Q. But Witness AS, Vlado Cerkez couldn't have
Page 16423
1 been, because there is no Vlado Cerkez in Vitez.
2 A. Then it is my mistake, and it is not Vlado
3 Cerkez. But it is Vlado, and he was from Kruscica, and
4 I'm positive about that.
5 Q. So at this conversation, at least three
6 persons were present: a certain Vlado, Mimo, and we've
7 established that it was Vlado Mlakic and Stipo Ceko.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Thank you. You know that in this attack on
10 the barricade at Ahmici, on the 20th of October, only
11 one person was killed, I mean, amongst the ABiH ranks.
12 A. I don't know.
13 Q. Oh, you don't. Do you know how many HVO
14 soldiers were killed?
15 A. I know that one from Kiseljak was killed, and
16 perhaps another one or two. I don't know. I don't
17 exactly remember, but --
18 Q. So one came from Kiseljak?
19 A. Yes. I know him because we were in Jajce
20 together, on the front line there.
21 Q. Very well. At the time that you escorted
22 that ammunition that you told us about and that you
23 turned over to Grabovac, near Impregnacija, and
24 beginning from that time when Grabovac called you in
25 the morning, the fighting, the fire at the roadblock,
Page 16424
1 which was about seven or eight kilometres away from
2 you, it had started long before that, hadn't it?
3 A. Yes, but it was less intensive than around
4 5.00 or 6.00.
5 Q. But you personally, or your colleagues with
6 whom you were on that day, never came even near the
7 place of conflict.
8 A. They were, but I wasn't.
9 Q. But they were at Bilova, where there was the
10 roadblock, but not at -- or were they at Ahmici?
11 A. At Ahmici.
12 Q. Are you quite sure that they were involved in
13 that fighting over the reserve down there on the road?
14 A. They went to Ahmici with weapons and
15 ammunition, and they went -- they left that morning and
16 came back in the afternoon.
17 Q. Very well. But you will agree that other
18 units were down there, that is, those who wanted to
19 advance toward Jajce.
20 A. Yes, that is what we were told, in the
21 direction of Jajce.
22 Q. And those were units which did not come from
23 Vitez itself.
24 A. Quite. They were from Busovaca and
25 Kiseljak.
Page 16425
1 Q. Very well. I am not going to go into the
2 disturbances in the town at the end of 1993, when
3 various restaurants and houses and businesses were
4 blown up. I will ask you about one of them only, if
5 you perhaps know. One of those which was blown up was
6 the restaurant called Kamin. Its owner was Jukic.
7 Kamin was the name of the place. Do you remember that?
8 A. You mean the restaurant called Kamin?
9 Q. Yes, I do.
10 A. And where was it?
11 Q. It was in the centre of that town, as you go
12 from the cinema towards the pharmacy, where there are
13 those shops on a higher level. Well, it doesn't really
14 matter if you remember or you don't remember. It
15 doesn't really matter.
16 A. I can't really remember.
17 Q. All right. Thank you. You confirmed that at
18 that time the unit called Ludvig Pavlovic was active in
19 the town.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. They came from Capljina.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. That is, from Bosnia-Herzegovina.
24 A. Yes. But there were also members of the
25 Croatian army there, and then finally they joined the
Page 16426
1 HVO. I am positive about that.
2 Q. Very well. Incidentally, when you went to
3 Capljina, after you left Vitez, you again joined that
4 unit for a while, didn't you?
5 A. Yes, I was with them.
6 Q. So you must have known them very well.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. So Witness AS, isn't it true that those were
9 Herzegovinians who fought in the HVO in Croatia, when
10 there was aggression in Croatia? So in 1991 and 1992,
11 they volunteered and fought in Croatia with HV, and
12 then they came back to Bosnia when the war broke out in
13 Bosnia; is that true?
14 A. Well, they fought in Croatia as members of
15 the HV, not the HVO; HV. And they all came to Bosnia
16 and were getting their salaries from the Republic of
17 Croatia. They were all members of the Croatian army,
18 and they were also given ranks by the Croatian army.
19 Q. Just to make it completely clear. I'm asking
20 you about the very beginning. There were people from
21 Bosnia [Realtime transcript read in error "Croatia"]
22 who went to fight in Croatia when the war broke out in
23 Croatia; is that so?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Thank you. As a member of the military
Page 16427
1 police --
2 MR. KOVACIC: It seems that there's an error
3 in the transcript. At line 10, it should be "from
4 Bosnia," not "from Croatia who went ..." "... from
5 Bosnia who went to fight in Croatia ..."
6 Q. [Interpretation] When you joined the military
7 police, the military police was put up in the hotel,
8 and there was a detachment, a platoon, which was
9 responsible for criminal investigations against a crime
10 that had happened somewhere and the like. Had you ever
11 had an opportunity to see criminal files that they were
12 working on and sending to the Prosecutor and so on and
13 so forth?
14 A. No.
15 Q. While you worked for the military police, did
16 you ever see their disciplinary files which were also
17 prepared by the military police --
18 A. No.
19 Q. -- regarding disciplinary infractions?
20 A. No.
21 Q. So you are not -- you did not know for sure
22 whether a criminal investigation was conducted against
23 somebody?
24 A. That happened very seldom. That happened
25 very seldom.
Page 16428
1 Q. Thank you. You mentioned, during your
2 testimony, General Prkacin.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. I believe you will agree with me that he
5 earned the rank of the General, that he acquired by the
6 decision of the president of the presidency of Bosnia,
7 Izetbegovic; is that right?
8 A. He was a HOS General, and that was why Blaz
9 Kraljevic was assassinated, because he wanted to fight
10 together with the Bosnian army.
11 MR. KOVACIC: Again for the record, let's
12 repeat that.
13 Q. [Interpretation] Witness, you repeated that
14 you knew that Prkacin was given the rank of General by
15 Izetbegovic.
16 A. That is quite possible.
17 Q. And you agree that Prkacin was a Croat?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Thank you. Just some minor explanation.
20 When the Prosecutor asked you, you said, and you also
21 speak about this in your statement, that the IPDs in
22 the hotel were doing their job and so on and so forth,
23 and that their headquarters was in the hotel, wasn't
24 it?
25 A. Yes.
Page 16429
1 Q. And only the television studio was in the
2 cinema?
3 A. In Pero Gudelj's house.
4 Q. In other words, this IPD in the hotel had
5 nothing to do with the cinema?
6 A. Well, he was sending letters there or things.
7 Q. Thank you. Just one question about the
8 attack on the logistic department of the TO staff in
9 Vitez, the yellow building, as you called it. I do not
10 want to waste too much time, but in your earlier
11 statement to the Prosecutor, you did not say that the
12 brigade was there.
13 A. No, not the brigade. I never mentioned the
14 brigade. I did say the police, though.
15 Q. Right. But let us try to simplify matters.
16 This operation was performed by the Vitezovi and some
17 military policemen?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. But the operation was led by the Vitezovi,
20 wasn't it?
21 A. I wouldn't say so, because I said that with
22 us, we had Zoran Ljubic, Pasko Ljubicic's deputy.
23 Q. Right. You also said something about the
24 looting of Muslim houses and businesses, and that in
25 that way, you participated in those unlawful actions as
Page 16430
1 a member of the military police. Your military police
2 commander, your immediate superior or somebody above
3 him, did they promise you any protection in case of
4 criminal charges brought against you for that looting?
5 A. No, but we simply knew that nothing would
6 happen to us.
7 Q. So you expected that?
8 A. Oh, yes. All down to the last one.
9 Q. You said something today, and in your earlier
10 statement you spoke more about it, Marko & Lujic,
11 namely, who was an artillery officer with Blaskic. He
12 was in the hotel with Blaskic.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Thank you. That rifle that you said Haskic
15 seized from you, that was in 09. That was a coffee
16 shop.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Is that the coffee shop that you military
19 police members destroyed?
20 A. Not our military police but the brigade's
21 military police.
22 Q. That unit you spoke about, the Scorpions,
23 some people also called it Alfa Force?
24 A. Yes. Its headquarters were on the road to
25 Zabilje in Kruscica, in summer cottages of various
Page 16431
1 Zenica residents.
2 Q. Do you know when was that?
3 A. It was -- it could have been April/May 1992.
4 Q. But do you know that that unit ceased to
5 exist in late 1992?
6 A. No. Cicko told me that he had been replaced
7 after that and that is the truth.
8 Q. But you did not hear about that from anybody
9 else?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Very well. Did you ever, in any document,
12 see what the name of that unit was? Perhaps a
13 document, combat order, or something?
14 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter believes
15 the witness said "no."
16 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. But you believe that Chris Wilson and its
18 leader and other people, as you mentioned before, one
19 Charlie, on various occasions would come to see Pasko
20 at the hotel?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And that that was where they would be issued
23 with weapons and ammunition and presumably other
24 things?
25 A. No. But that was before 1993. That was in
Page 16432
1 January and February when I saw them. No, first it was
2 Chris, Sanja, Dugi [phoen], or Josip, and then he moved
3 over to Jokers, and then Cicko. They were there and
4 they would go there. And Charlie had gone to Germany.
5 Q. Right. Never mind that. In your earlier
6 statement, you said once that you had personally heard
7 Chris enter Pasko's office and ask for -- you said 20
8 uniforms, 10 rifles, ammunition, diesel fuel, et
9 cetera. Is that right?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Do you know if he got all that?
12 A. I believe he did.
13 Q. I also think that in your earlier statement,
14 you said that you also worked together with the
15 Scorpions in an operation against the JNA or, rather,
16 the ARS?
17 A. I think it was in Jajce. It was just
18 assistance. We only came to help. We were all helping
19 each other at the time.
20 Q. In Jajce were the HVO and the BH army on one
21 side and the Serbs on the other and the latter were
22 trying to take Jajce; is that correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And to conclude, only a few questions related
25 to your departure from Vitez. Do you think that Cerkez
Page 16433
1 was under any formal obligation to issue a
2 certificate? I mean, in view of the regulations, was
3 he, or was it just a plea for help?
4 A. It was a plea for help. I applied for help.
5 In the end, when I was thrown out from the police, I
6 simply had nowhere to go. I did not join the BH army,
7 nor would I do it now.
8 Q. And then you went to the defence department
9 to see Marijan Skopljak or, rather, a clerk of his,
10 who, in view of the laws in effect, had to issue a
11 certificate, otherwise you could not leave the
12 territory of Vitez, because you were a military
13 conscript; isn't that so?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Any military conscript, any man of military
16 age who wanted to leave Vitez, had to have a
17 certificate of the defence department?
18 A. Not only military conscripts; anyone. Women
19 or children or men had to pay for the certificate. I
20 believe it was 50 German marks per certificate.
21 Q. But be that as it may, with such a
22 certificate you could leave; nobody could stop you.
23 A. I could leave without it, but then --
24 Q. And I believe that Cerkez, when he gave you
25 that certificate so that you could use it when you left
Page 16434
1 elsewhere, so that you could join somebody else, he
2 also gave you 50 marks from his own pocket?
3 A. I don't remember that. Excuse me. I'm
4 sorry. Maybe that was -- there must have been some
5 confusion or something. Yes, I did say that, but I
6 simply do not recall that event.
7 Q. But you remember that other people whom you
8 met that morning also told you that they were quite
9 ready and willing to help you?
10 A. Yes. Yes.
11 MR. KOVACIC: Thank you very much. I have no
12 further questions.
13 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Kovacic, just deal with this,
14 would you? The witness's evidence was that when he
15 went in October to see your client, told by Grabovac to
16 go and get some ammunition, your client said, "Expel
17 them or kill them. What do I care about them?"
18 referring to the ABiH. Is that disputed or not?
19 MR. KOVACIC: Yes, Your Honour. My client
20 does not have recollection to tell that. Indeed, that
21 is not his style, and that is exactly why I was trying
22 to establish who were exactly present during that
23 occasion, and as you remember, the witness did identify
24 at least two persons which were present.
25 Re-examined by Mr. Lopez-Terres:
Page 16435
1 Q. Witness AS, you were asked about the date
2 when the Vitez Brigade was founded, and you said that
3 some soldiers spoke about the brigade in 1992. That is
4 at the time when the Vitez Brigade did not yet exist as
5 such.
6 Could you please look at the document which I
7 am going to show you, with Mario Cerkez's signature,
8 which is a military card, and we said that the holder
9 of this card belonged to the 1st Vitez Brigade. This
10 document is the 26th of June, 1992. This is a military
11 card issued to Zoran Sero.
12 JUDGE MAY: It's already been produced; is
13 that right?
14 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation] Yes. It
15 is in the binder which Carry Spork introduced. It is
16 Z142, and that is part of the binder Z2813/2, I think.
17 A. Well, most of us have this, IDs.
18 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation]
19 Q. And this card says the "Vitez Brigade,"
20 doesn't it?
21 A. Yes, the Vitez Brigade, the 26th of June,
22 1992.
23 Q. And to the right is Mario Cerkez's signature,
24 isn't it?
25 A. I cannot say that.
Page 16436
1 Q. You spoke about the Military Police Platoon
2 of that brigade, and the task of this platoon of the
3 military police wasn't only to ensure they provide the
4 security and stand guard around the building; it had
5 also other tasks, didn't it?
6 A. Yes.
7 THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please
8 wait for the end of it.
9 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation]
10 Q. It participated in various military
11 operations, just as you did with the 4th Battalion of
12 the military police?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. I should like to make things particularly
15 clear. Some members of this platoon of the military
16 police of the brigade participated indeed in the
17 operation against a logistic depot in Vitez, that is,
18 in the attack on the building called the yellow
19 building.
20 A. Yes, but they were on the other side, on the
21 opposite side from us. They were on the side. We were
22 not mixed. How should I put this?
23 Q. And according to the information that you
24 had, or conversations with Bralo or Chris Wilson or
25 somebody else, your interpretation was that it was the
Page 16437
1 Scorpions -- or, rather, the Alfa Force was a unit
2 which was a part, an integral part, of the Vitez
3 Brigade, wasn't it?
4 A. Yes, from the beginning. Then it fell
5 apart. But at the beginning, yes, it was in the Vitez
6 Brigade.
7 Q. You participated in an an ethnic cleansing
8 campaign in Busovaca, didn't you, in January 1993, and
9 you said that your immediate commander, Pasko Ljubicic,
10 regularly went to the Tisovac Hotel during that period
11 of time, didn't he?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Are you sure that it was during that period
14 of time that Colonel Blaskic was invariably present at
15 the Tisovac Hotel when Ljubicic went there?
16 A. May I explain this? In the morning, we would
17 come in front of the Boss Cafe, and Mr. Pasko would
18 tell us, "The Colonel ordered this," or, "The Colonel
19 ordered that." We thought this was Colonel Blaskic. I
20 cannot say for sure now. Possibly it was and possibly
21 it wasn't. But we only called Blaskic the Colonel, but
22 possibly he was referring to someone else.
23 Q. Did you know that Colonel Blaskic was in
24 Kiseljak as of the 25th of January, 1993? He simply
25 could not come to Busovaca. He was stuck there.
Page 16438
1 Didn't you know that?
2 A. As far as I know, the UNPROFOR people took
3 him from the Hotel Vitez to Kiseljak. Whether they
4 brought him back, that I don't know, because I saw them
5 get into the APC; that is to say, the Colonel and his
6 two bodyguards. I don't know if it was anyone else.
7 Q. Simply the UNPROFOR vehicle took
8 Colonel Blaskic from Kiseljak to Vitez. Did the
9 UNPROFOR vehicle take Colonel Blaskic to Busovaca?
10 A. No. They took him from Vitez to
11 Busovaca-Kiseljak. Whether they returned him, I don't
12 know.
13 Q. That was in January 1993 or later?
14 A. That time. Roughly some time around that.
15 Q. You took part in various military operations
16 while you were with the HVO. Would you agree that the
17 official doctrine of the HVO in those military
18 operations was always -- to say always that they were
19 defensive operations, that these were never attacks or
20 offensive operations, where in point of fact they were
21 offensive operations?
22 A. That's right.
23 Q. And a question about Mr. Marko Lujic. The
24 question was whether he was indeed at the headquarters
25 of Colonel Blaskic in the Vitez Hotel at a particular
Page 16439
1 point in time.
2 A. Yes, later, sometime from 1992, October,
3 November. But before that, at first, I would see him
4 in front of the Konoba. I saw him there and he was in
5 charge.
6 Q. So at that moment, he was responsible for
7 artillery in the Vitez Brigade for the operation in
8 Central Bosnia.
9 A. Yes. Later he went to the Operative Zone of
10 Central Bosnia.
11 Q. And my last question about the Busovaca
12 campaign. Before this campaign was conducted by the
13 HVO, of course, certain preparations were made, and you
14 spoke about Busovaca. I believe there were also
15 trenches which were dug by the HVO.
16 A. Yes. Yes, in some places.
17 Q. Witness AS, according to you, because you
18 were with the HVO authorities for a while, who was the
19 principal authority of the HVO or HDZ in Central Bosnia
20 in 1992/1993?
21 A. The HDZ?
22 Q. HVO/HDZ.
23 A. As for the HVO, the military, that was
24 Colonel Blaskic, but as for political responsibility,
25 in the HDZ, there is no doubt that that was Mr. Dario
Page 16440
1 Kordic.
2 Q. In your mind, was the HVO only a military
3 structure, or was it a mixed political-military
4 structure?
5 A. The HVO, this is my opinion, it was the
6 military structure of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and of
7 Croatia, of course.
8 Q. Thank you.
9 MR. LOPEZ-TERRES: [Interpretation] I have no
10 further questions.
11 JUDGE MAY: Witness AS, that concludes your
12 evidence. Thank you for coming to the International
13 Tribunal to give it. You are now free to go.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you.
15 JUDGE MAY: Just wait one moment.
16 [The witness withdrew]
17 JUDGE MAY: Yes. That concludes the
18 Prosecution evidence, I take it.
19 MR. NICE: Yes, subject to all outstanding
20 matters that we have yet to dispose of. There's a
21 little list of things I've got, which I've managed to
22 misplace.
23 JUDGE MAY: Well, it's now twenty-five past.
24 We've got five minutes.
25 MR. NICE: Unless we can extend matters and
Page 16441
1 conclude matters this evening.
2 JUDGE MAY: I don't think that's realistic.
3 There's a great deal to cover.
4 MR. NICE: I'm not going to be here tomorrow,
5 as I think the Chamber knows. Can I just outline the
6 topics to be covered as assistance?
7 There's affidavits to be dealt with, and
8 they've been dealt with by pleadings or by skeleton
9 arguments on both sides. That covers the general
10 affidavits. There's two other additional ones, I
11 think, not specifically covered: one from a witness in
12 America, whose affidavit arrived earlier this week, and
13 the affidavit from Mr. Morsink, requested by the
14 Chamber.
15 In addition to that, the Chamber will recall
16 that there's an outstanding application through the
17 system in Bosnia for several affidavits in respect of
18 recorded crimes in Novi Travnik, and they couldn't be
19 obtained earlier because it was only recently that we
20 had found the system acceptable to the authorities.
21 Those affidavits have not been processed yet, those
22 matters are substantially out of our control, although
23 we're acting swiftly, and we'll be seeking leave for
24 them to be put in late, as it were, but when they are
25 processed. That, I think, deals with affidavits.
Page 16442
1 There's the Kiseljak binder, which won't take
2 very long.
3 There's the videos which have been the
4 subject of a list and, I'm happy to say, a further
5 updated and further corrected list, which, if I can't
6 explain it tonight, is easy enough to be explained
7 tomorrow, and I would ask the Chamber to say is now
8 quite clear. The problem with videos, frankly, was
9 that we get so many videos in compilation form,
10 different compilations frequently covering the same
11 event, it's very difficult -- and then they might have
12 different translations at different times. Sometimes
13 one thinks a particular course is wildly extravagant,
14 later to decide that it might have been more prudent,
15 and the extravagant course would have been to have
16 taken each and every composition video and break it
17 down into a massive library of many videos. We didn't
18 do that. A huge exercise though it might have been, it
19 might have saved the problems we've had since. But
20 videos can be dealt with shortly, I hope.
21 There's the issue of transcripts. Now, on
22 transcripts, there are only two outstanding issues, I
23 think; one is the confidential witness about whom no
24 argument has yet been addressed one way or the other;
25 the second goes back to a transcript witness that was
Page 16443
1 refused, Kaiser --
2 JUDGE MAY: Well, now, how on earth are we
3 going to reconsider that? Why should we? We make
4 rulings in this Chamber and then further applications
5 come in. I'm not in the practice of reconsidering
6 earlier decisions.
7 MR. NICE: Well, can I just explain? It's my
8 responsibility, and can I explain why we're going to
9 invite you to say you should?
10 MR. NICE: It's now half past five. In a few
11 words.
12 MR. NICE: Yes, certainly. In fact, I
13 reserved our position, so far as I could, on Kaiser at
14 the time on the grounds that I might not have explained
15 it sufficiently. It was objected to on the grounds of
16 him being an expert. It was, in fact, rejected on a
17 different ground of cumulative, which hadn't been
18 addressed by us, and I think that Mr. Scott will be
19 able to show you tomorrow that just a few passages of
20 that are important and non-cumulative, and it may well
21 have been relied on substantially in Blaskic. And
22 although I'll come to the question of adjudicated facts
23 in a second, although adjudicated facts is always a
24 possibility, if there's material --
25 JUDGE MAY: I shall have that ruling looked
Page 16444
1 at. It's not my recollection that it was purely on
2 that ground alone. We also, I think, said as far as
3 it's a matter of opinion, it was irrelevant.
4 MR. NICE: Absolutely, yes, and I think that
5 what we're seeking to put in that is non-cumulative is
6 factual findings, particular buildings.
7 JUDGE MAY: Well, we'll consider whether
8 we'll hear any further argument on this topic or not.
9 MR. NICE: And then in addition to that,
10 there's the outstanding request of His Honour Judge
11 Bennouna and the rest of the Chamber for the
12 transcripts to be marked. For want of time, it hasn't
13 yet allowed that to be completed. It's an exercise
14 that is taking some time. You'll need to know the
15 progress on that.
16 In relation to Cigar, you said something
17 about, if there were one or two documents to be put in,
18 you'd consider the application. I can tell you the
19 position there is that save in respect of, I think,
20 newspaper articles, all bar a limited number of
21 documents had already been produced by other witnesses,
22 and of those limited number of documents, all bar one
23 had been accepted as admissible by the Defence, either
24 in relation to core documents, one of them being core
25 documents, or as part of the outstanding exhibit
Page 16445
1 exercise. If I'm correct in my interpretation of what
2 you said about "a few documents," then Ms. Somers will
3 address you about a very limited number of newspaper
4 articles that we would invite you to consider under
5 that provision.
6 Finally, can I simply draw to your attention
7 this: Adjudicated facts is always a problem,
8 particularly where outstanding cases have not gone
9 through the appeal process. Nevertheless, this is a
10 case where, at some stage -- this or a later stage --
11 we might necessarily seek to rely on adjudicated facts
12 or might seek to do so.
13 With that in mind, we've filed today a
14 general motion, because I'm advised that a motion has
15 to be filed, seeking to rely on adjudicated facts in
16 both the Kupreskic and in the Blaskic cases. It's in
17 entirely general form and, indeed, hasn't yet been
18 possible to consider in the greatest detail all the
19 facts in Blaskic. But it seems to us, with the
20 unfolding of case decisions and appeal hearings, it's
21 necessary that we should make that application now.
22 Whether we return to it on the 30th of March when there
23 may or will be an oral hearing in relation to the
24 Defence motion or not remains to be seen. But it's
25 necessary for us to make our position clear at the
Page 16446
1 moment.
2 So subject to those matters, then, yes, the
3 evidence is concluded.
4 JUDGE MAY: There is one matter which is
5 outstanding, and that is that in the ex parte matter,
6 we asked for some information. I think that has not
7 been formally passed to us. No doubt that can be done
8 in written form.
9 MR. NICE: I think it has been provided in
10 written form. I think it came the following day, or
11 two days afterwards.
12 [Judge May confers with legal officer]
13 JUDGE MAY: I gather there's been an informal
14 response which we will convert into a formal one.
15 [Trial Chamber confers]
16 MR. NICE: And then one other thing I am
17 reminded of, which I hadn't touched on, and I must, I
18 mentioned it before, but the binding order litigation
19 always has within it the prospects of some further
20 material coming available. I mentioned this before,
21 and I know that Your Honours' reaction then was to say
22 that there's always the possibility of matters being
23 dealt with by way of the rebuttal case. We have to be
24 alive, given the particular circumstances in which
25 Croatia and Bosnia find themselves, particularly
Page 16447
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3
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5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the
14 English and French transcripts.
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 16448
1 Croatia, to the possibility that there will be more
2 material available.
3 MR. SAYERS: Mr. President, we will have
4 three extremely short matters to raise tomorrow. Two,
5 I think, will be ex parte and shouldn't take more than
6 two minutes, and the third matter should not take more
7 than one minute.
8 JUDGE MAY: Well, the ex parte matters we'll
9 hear at the end of the morning, as I hope it will be.
10 MR. SAYERS: Yes.
11 JUDGE MAY: Very well. So 9, and we'll
12 try and get through as expeditiously as we can
13 tomorrow.
14 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at
15 5.39 p.m., to be reconvened on Friday,
16 the 10th day of March, 2000, at
17 9 a.m.
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