1 Tuesday, 21 March 2006

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.06 a.m.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Good morning to everyone. Mr. Registrar, would you

7 please call the case.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. There is case number

9 IT-00-39-T, the Prosecutor versus Momcilo Krajisnik.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.

11 Mr. Josse from the fact that the witness has already been brought

12 in I take it there are no procedural issues at this very moment.

13 MR. JOSSE: None that I need to raise with the Court.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Then I may take it that you're ready to call

15 Mr. Maricic as your next witness.

16 MR. JOSSE: Yes, I am.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Maricic, before you start giving evidence in this

18 Court, let me first ask you whether you hear me in a language you

19 understand. Yes. And let me say "Dobro jutro" to you as well.

20 Mr. Maricic before you give evidence in this Court, the Rules of

21 Procedure and Evidence require to you make a solemn declaration that

22 you'll speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The

23 text is now handed out to you by Madam Usher. May I invite you to make

24 that solemn declaration.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

1 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

2 WITNESS: BOSKO MARICIC

3 [Witness answered through interpreter]

4 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Maricic. Please be seated.

5 Mr. Josse, looking at the 65 ter summary, I wondered to what

6 extent leave it at this moment to you, to what extent some of the evidence

7 was repetitious. I mean power-sharing agreements, et cetera, et cetera.

8 We heard that very often and I never understood this to be disputed by the

9 Prosecution. Of course, if there are certain details --

10 MR. JOSSE: I honestly think Your Honour can rest assured that I'm

11 aware of that.

12 Your Honour, perhaps when the witness is out of court, I am more

13 than willing to tell the Court the process of the production of the 65

14 ters. What's contained within the 65 ter has far more to do with what

15 material is available at the time we prepare them rather than necessarily

16 what we actually want to ask the witness.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

18 MR. JOSSE: As I say, I'm more than happy to examine that process

19 at another juncture.

20 JUDGE ORIE: I do understand that. Sometimes it's perhaps a bit

21 of a gamble. Sometimes what is in 65 ter is not the subject of the

22 examination and sometimes I hear complaints about matters raised during

23 the examination but do not appear in the 65 ter.

24 MR. JOSSE: That's right. We've been quite frank about that.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Let's get started.

1 Examination by Mr. Josse:

2 Q. Now, your name is Bosko Maricic?

3 A. Bosko Maricic, yes.

4 Q. You'll have to excuse my pronunciation on occasions, Mr. Maricic.

5 It's very poor but feel free to correct me if it's apparent that I'm

6 mispronouncing something. You're from the Brcko area?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. You were educated there and --

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. So far as relevance to this case is concerned, sometime prior to

11 the war, you became a restaurateur in a place called Brka in the

12 municipality of Brcko?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. We'll look at the geography in a few moments' time. Just tell the

15 Chamber when you first owned that restaurant in Brka?

16 A. I think it was in 1983.

17 Q. You sold that restaurant in 1991 and went to live in Brcko town

18 itself?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. You were vice-president of the local SDS?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. You had been in the League of Communists up until --

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. You stood unsuccessfully in the 1990 multi-party elections?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. You were mobilised very soon after the war began, at the beginning

2 of May of 1992?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. And on the 16th of May you were badly injured, wounded, in fact,

5 and then spent many months in Serbia. Again we'll turn to that in more

6 detail in due course.

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. You returned in September of 1992 to the Brcko area?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. And after the war, you became the director of a local furniture

11 factory and continued to be involved in municipal affairs?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. That's a very brief overview, Mr. Maricic. Let's go back and

14 examine your restaurant in Brka.

15 MR. JOSSE: I'm grateful to my learned friend's case manager, Your

16 Honour. He's provided a number of copies of the Brcko coloured map.

17 Perhaps one could go on the ELMO. I don't know whether this needs a

18 specific number. It's, of course, part of a -- batch?

19 JUDGE ORIE: If there will be no marking, I don't think it needs a

20 separate number.

21 MR. JOSSE: Thank you.

22 MR. HARMON: For the record, Your Honour, this is part of 527,

23 Prosecution Exhibit 527.

24 JUDGE ORIE: I think it's -- yes.

25 MR. JOSSE:

1 Q. Would you point to Brka, please, Mr. Maricic, on the map that is

2 on the ELMO, which is the machine to the right of you.

3 A. [Witness points]

4 Q. In fact, there are two Brkas on this map, aren't there?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. And on the map they're both described with exactly the same name,

7 Brka, B-r-k-a, why is that, please?

8 A. This Brka that I showed is populated exclusively by Muslims,

9 whereas the other Brka more to the right is called Serb Brka, although

10 it's not officially the title, it's not written on the map, but it's

11 populated solely by Serbs.

12 Q. Which of these two places was your restaurant situated in?

13 A. In the Muslim Brka.

14 Q. Very approximately, what was the proportion of Serbs to Muslims in

15 that place?

16 A. In Brka? I was the only Serb in the Brka where I had my eatery.

17 Q. And what about your customers? What ethnicity were they in

18 general?

19 A. They were 90 per cent Muslims, local Muslims, and people from the

20 surrounding area.

21 Q. And can you tell the Chamber what the population of Muslim Brka

22 was? I'll call it that for ease of reference.

23 A. Well, I don't know exactly but around 4.000.

24 Q. Did the ethnic tensions, which as the learned Judge has already

25 observed this Court is well aware of, affect your business at all?

1 A. Yes, certainly.

2 Q. Would you tell the Chamber how it affected your business?

3 A. Brka village, which is exclusively populated by Muslims is halfway

4 to Bukvik village where I was born. I used that road very often to travel

5 to my home village, but in Brka, since I used to play football, there were

6 other football players with whom I was friends, very good friends. I

7 continued to have friends in that Brka and that's one of the reasons why I

8 bought land there and opened a catering establishment and moved there to

9 live.

10 Q. Could you just show the Chamber again, using the machine to your

11 right, where Bukvik village is?

12 A. I'm sorry, I have to change my glasses.

13 Q. We see you pointed to something which, as I read, it says Bukvik

14 Gornji. Is that the place you had in mind?

15 A. No. I showed Donji Bukvik, and there is another, Gornji Bukvik

16 right above that. I was born in Donji Bukvik.

17 Q. Right. We can see the area. Thank you. And you've told the

18 Chamber that you bought this business in Brka, and you were explaining how

19 things started to go wrong. Go on, please.

20 A. I bought a parcel of land, built a house. I opened a complex

21 establishment, including a catering establishment, but not only that, and

22 moved there to live with my wife and child. I had a rather successful

23 business. However, as years passed, interethnic tensions rose in the

24 entire Bosnia-Herzegovina including the area of Brcko, and one day I woke

25 up to the fact that I was a Serb and people held a grudge against me

1 because I was a Serb, and had a successful business in a Muslim place.

2 There were other catering establishments owned by some Muslims and one

3 Croat woman who were less successful but I was a Serb, a member of the

4 Serbian Democratic Party, and never made any bones about it. I publicly

5 stated that I was a member of that party and that's when problems began.

6 Q. And how, Mr. Maricic, did these problems manifest themselves?

7 A. It was a long time ago, but I still remember the hardest things.

8 First of all, my Muslim friends started saying hello to me in an icy way.

9 Then guests pretending to be drunk started to break things in my

10 establishment. I had a TV aerial on my building, which was cut every

11 night. On another occasion, somebody broke the windows and the glass on

12 my entrance door, and all the leading positions in the police force in

13 Brcko were Muslims and Croats -- were occupied by Muslims and Croats.

14 They charged a man but did nothing about it later. This man continued to

15 vandalise other places and bragged that he had vandalised mine. It was

16 perhaps in January or maybe the end of 1991, one local Muslim, a thug,

17 came into my establishment, Mehmed Vidinovic [phoen]. He asked me if I

18 had any family. I said I had a wife and two children and he said that

19 both his children and mine would be orphans because he was going to kill

20 me. I told him that killing each other made no sense and let's have a

21 drink instead together. He left. And afterwards, he bragged that during

22 the war, he had killed a lot of my relatives.

23 It's not just that. In my house, I had an apartment where I spent

24 nights and I had wooden blinds on my windows, and they regularly threw

25 stones at those blinds, shrieked and screamed all around me, so I decided

1 I couldn't live there any more. One day, because I have to say the

2 authorities in Brka were also replaced by some extremists and they decided

3 that the young people from the area were no longer allowed to frequent my

4 establishment, and they charged some people to enforce it. One day, a man

5 approached two or three guests in my establishment and asked them what

6 they were doing there. I'm just giving you a few examples that I can

7 recall at the moment but there were lots of others.

8 Q. So how did you resolve the problem?

9 A. My establishment was a new one, had a new, good building. It was

10 perhaps the nicest building in the centre of town, and I had a lot of

11 prospective buyers. Mostly people originally from the village who worked

12 abroad and who wanted me to sell it to them. I had offers of about

13 150.000 [Realtime transcript read in error "1150.000"] Deutschmark, maybe

14 more. I didn't feel like selling it. However, when the situation became

15 as I described it, I changed my mind and wanted to sell but the

16 prospective buyers suddenly vanished. In the village, there was a married

17 couple, Muslims, who had a business in the village and who had said once

18 that they were willing to buy my establishment. And I went to see them.

19 However, they were aware of the situation as well, and they wanted me to

20 sell the place now for peanuts and I had to agree.

21 After that, I moved to Brcko to live. At the same time in my home

22 village, Bukvik, in a very busy place downtown, I opened an office

23 building, not an office building but a building that can be used for

24 businesses, intending to open a new business, a new eatery, but that idea

25 never came through either because of the war.

1 Q. So can you give the Chamber as exact a date as possible that you

2 sold your business in Brka and moved to Brcko?

3 A. I can't tell you that because it was a long time ago and we were

4 all victims of a psychosis. It no longer matters to me anyway. I think

5 it was in the end of 1991, around that time.

6 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Josse, I see on the transcript what in my memory

7 was 150.000 Deutschmarks appears as 1150.000. So that should be

8 corrected.

9 And perhaps could you tell us, Mr. Maricic, what finally was the

10 price you got for your eatery?

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] 47.000 Deutschmark was the price I

12 sold it for.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And about the date, you said it doesn't matter

14 that much for you any more, but it may matter for the Chamber. Was it

15 before Orthodox Christmas, was it after Orthodox Christmas? Do you

16 remember?

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The Orthodox Christmas is in

18 January. That would have made it already 1992. I think I sold my

19 establishment earlier, but please don't ask me to be more accurate.

20 JUDGE ORIE: No. But I'm just trying to give you some assistance

21 in finding out whether it was late 1991 or early 1992. Please proceed,

22 Mr. Josse.

23 MR. JOSSE:

24 Q. Let's, if we may, Mr. Maricic, put this into some sort of

25 perspective in terms of your political involvement. You've already told

1 the Chamber that you stood in the 1990 elections. You stood for the BiH

2 assembly. That's right, isn't it?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. As is apparent from what you've already said, you were a candidate

5 on behalf of the SDS?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. You were not elected but, in fact, perhaps we should have dealt

8 with this earlier, you became a deputy in the assembly of the Serbian

9 people or the Republika Srpska as it was by then in 1994?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. And that was because in effect you were a reserve, the person who

12 was elected above you, so to speak, on the SDS list was someone called

13 Dr. Beli and he died and you replaced him; is that correct?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Dr. Beli is an individual we may here a little bit about during

16 the course of your evidence. What was his real name, please?

17 A. Milenko Vojinovic, and his nickname was Beli. He was also known

18 as Beli.

19 Q. I think you explained that the reason for that was to do with his

20 pale appearance and he was called doctor because he was a physician; is

21 that correct?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. At the point that you moved to Brcko, you were vice-president of

24 the Brcko SDS, what did that involve? What type of political commitment

25 did that involve on your part?

1 A. Since Dr. Beli was a very strong person, he had a strong

2 personality, I had to be a, so to say, go-for. I had to do everything. I

3 was in charge of operations. He held all the strings in his hands and it

4 was very rarely that I was able to stand in for him. That was only very

5 rarely.

6 Q. Because he was also president of the local SDS, as well as being a

7 deputy?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. When you moved to Brcko, what did you do in terms of your

10 livelihood, a job, that type of thing?

11 A. I had some savings. I got some money that I invested into the

12 facility that I was building, and the balance I spent on my day-to-day

13 living.

14 Q. And what about your political involvement when you arrived in

15 Brcko? Did that grow? Did you do more for the party?

16 A. A little bit more because I had more time on my hands, but not

17 that much. I was very active.

18 Q. Very active in what sense?

19 A. In the work of the party, generally speaking.

20 Q. And how did that activity manifest itself?

21 A. Dr. Beli was a deputy, and I believe that he still worked as a

22 physician in the hospital, and very often he would send me to go to this

23 or that village to talk to the president of the local board there. He

24 would ask me to go and do this or that. I loved to travel. I had a car.

25 I had some money. So whenever he asked me to do something, I would gladly

1 go, I would gladly travel around.

2 Q. I'd next like to ask you about the type of ethnic tensions you

3 encountered in Brcko itself when you moved there.

4 A. When I moved to Brcko, the ethnic tensions had already increased.

5 In Brcko, Croats and Muslims formed a majority, and Brcko borders on

6 Croatia in the north and, in the south, it borders on Tuzla which is also

7 a town with a majority Muslim and Croat population. I believe that both

8 Muslims and Croats deemed that Brcko belonged to them because they formed

9 a majority and, of course, they were very active there, especially members

10 of the SDA were active. The SDA being a Muslim party and also the HDZ was

11 very active. Tensions grew and the Serbs in Brcko felt more and more

12 intimidated and more and more threatened by the day. There were a lot of

13 examples of pressure being put on Serbs and Serbs being intimidated. I

14 believe that you already know that the Muslims established their party,

15 the SDA, before the SDS was formed and Croats also formed the HDZ before

16 the SDS was formed. A lot more.

17 Q. I'm going to stop you. The Chamber is aware of that, and that's,

18 I think, exactly the type of thing that the learned Presiding Judge was

19 alluding to earlier so far as material that we don't need to go over again

20 is concerned.

21 Could you give specific examples of what you say were provocations

22 in 1991, early 1992, by Muslims against Serbs in Brcko town?

23 A. I can. If you'll allow me I would like to finish my previous

24 thought and share a few words with you on that.

25 Q. As far as I'm concerned, go ahead. I'm looking at the learned --

1 the learned Judge says go ahead as well.

2 A. I believe - I believe - that the SDS would not have been

3 established if the two ethnically based parties that directly threatened

4 the Serb people had not been established first. I apologise. Can you now

5 repeat your next question?

6 Q. Yes. My question is: Could you give specific examples of what

7 you say were provocations in 1991 and early 1992 by Muslims against the

8 Serbs in the town of Brcko?

9 A. I've already said that there were -- there were daily

10 provocations. For example, since the managements and leaderships of all

11 organisations consisted of all of Muslims and Croats only, in the police

12 building, they placed a long desk, and they put up for sale videotapes and

13 other things that are used in Islamic countries, and they played very loud

14 ethnic, religious, Islamic music through very strong loudspeakers and we

15 know very well over there that those are called valahi [phoen] and kasida

16 [phoen]. Those lads that sold those things had red caps on their heads as

17 a symbol of Islam and they were very aggressive to all of us who were

18 Serbs and also members of the SDS. At that time, it was very difficult to

19 be a Serb in Brcko. That is just one example.

20 In one building, in the part of the town called Srpska Varos, with

21 a majority Serb population, the Muslim Youth Association had been

22 established by the SDA. That was a -- one part of the SDA party for the

23 young. They opened an office in that part of the building and they also

24 installed very strong loudspeakers and they played very loud Islam music

25 until late in the night.

1 One day, in the evening, at the beginning of 1992, I entered the

2 Galeb hotel in Brcko. It was between 10 and 11.00 in the evening. In one

3 part of the hotel, at a long table, ten Muslims were seated. As I was

4 passing by, one of them whose nickname was "Car" told me, Bosko, why don't

5 you treat us to a drink? Since I knew him, I told him, Car, I have paid

6 enough. I stayed on. I expected a comment, and I did hear the comment

7 although I turned my back on them, and I heard Car mentioning my mother

8 and swearing, and then he said, "We will take him to the bridge and put a

9 bullet through his head."

10 Let me explain. During the Second World War, the Muslim and Croat

11 extremists, together with the Germans almost completely destroyed the

12 Jewish and Serb body in Brcko. There were a lot of execution sites. One

13 of them being the bridge. They would take people to the bridge and they

14 would kill them on that bridge and throw their bodies into the river.

15 They killed them by hitting them with a hammer and that's what he was

16 hinting when he commented on my words.

17 Q. I've asked you to pause simply so that you could tell the Chamber

18 the real name of Car if you know it?

19 A. No. He was a well-known thug in Brcko. I don't know what his

20 name was but everybody knew him by his nickname, Car.

21 Q. All right. After he had said that to you, how did you react and

22 what happened?

23 A. Nothing. I left. And that was over for me. And I can share

24 another interesting case with you, if you will.

25 Q. Yes, please.

1 A. I still had a bar in Brka in 1991, and one evening, around

2 midnight, I went to a pub called Westphalia in the suburb of Brcko. It

3 was owned by a Muslim. I knew the people then but I can't remember their

4 names. I entered the pub. There was a band playing. There were a lot of

5 people. I was standing at a bar close to an aquarium with fish. I took

6 my drink and close to me, at a table, some people were sitting, mostly

7 Muslims. One of them stood up. His name is Hame. I believe that his

8 family name is Slomic but I'm not sure. He was also a well known person

9 in Brcko. He came up to me and he whispered into my here and I'll try to

10 quote him. He said -- first he used an "F" word. And he said, "We 'F'

11 you for 500 years and we will continue for the next 500 years." I don't

12 know whether you have understood what I was trying to say.

13 I complained to the owner, who was also a Muslim. The owner asked

14 him to go back to his table, which he did, but returned to me after a few

15 minutes and then I left the pub. These are just two examples of the

16 things that were happening constantly and I just shared with you what

17 happened to me but I was not an only Serb in Brcko. There were a lot of

18 Serbs who experienced similar things and, as a result of that, people were

19 getting more and more scared.

20 Q. I only want to ask you about one other specific example. Did you

21 have an encounter with a Dr. Ramic at a political meeting?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. What was the name, what was the full name of Dr. Ramic, please?

24 A. Ibrahim Ramic, also known as Ibro. We called him Ibro but I

25 believe that his full name was Ibrahim. May I continue?

1 Q. I just want to ask you one other thing for clarification. Was he

2 related in any way to someone called Mustafa Ramic?

3 A. They were brothers.

4 Q. Go on, please. Tell us about your encounter with Ibrahim Ramic?

5 A. This was an occasion when I stood in for Dr. Beli who was away on

6 business. He called me and asked me to head an SDS delegation at

7 negotiations between the SDS, the HDZ, and the SDA. I don't know when

8 this took place. I don't know whether it was the end of 1991 or the

9 beginning of 1992. The pressure on the Serb people had come to a head,

10 and the assembly of Brcko at the time was a multi-ethnic assembly but the

11 Muslims and the Croats had a majority and they made all the decisions,

12 although the SDS had partnership relations with the SDA and the HDZ and

13 they were supposed to participate in power sharing. However, the Muslims

14 and the Croats were more numerous and they outvoted the Serb

15 representatives, and one of their decisions was to review the employment

16 policy in Brcko and then they made a decision that all Serbs should be

17 sacked regardless of their skill or experience. They started firing

18 everybody from company guards to management. And this was the topic of

19 our conversation when I stood in for Dr. Beli.

20 I told them that this was not fair, and Ibro Ramic who was

21 Mustafa's brother but unlike Mustafa he was very edgy. Although he was a

22 physician by profession, he reacted very stormily and he told me that it

23 was not my place to talk. I said something else and then he stood up very

24 angrily and said, "According to the last census there are 46 of us in

25 Brcko. At the next census, God willing, we will be 51 per cent and you

1 will no longer be able to live here." I reacted to that but this is an

2 episode that had -- has direct connection with the Islamic Declaration of

3 Alija Izetbegovic because it says there that wherever Muslims held a

4 majority of over 51 per cent, they could create their state there and they

5 could create their own laws. Ibrahim Ramic was a proven Islamist and I

6 believe that he was familiar with the Islamic Declaration, and that's why

7 he said that. But I also believe that this is exactly what he was

8 thinking at the time, and this is the episode that happened during that

9 meeting.

10 Q. You mentioned in the course of that last answer that it was

11 decided that all Serbs should be sacked regardless of their skill or

12 experience. Was that put into effect, and if so, how?

13 A. I apologise and I would like to correct you. Not all Serbs, but

14 there was a large-scale firing of Serbs under the pretext that there was a

15 surplus of manpower, and that's when Serbs were being fired on a large

16 scale. Since they had already taken over the police and their people were

17 in all the leading positions, and at that time although still there was --

18 there were authorities on paper, but in practice, there was nobody to

19 complain to.

20 Q. Could you give us some specific examples of how you say Serbs were

21 discriminated against in terms of employment? Go ahead.

22 A. It was a long time ago, and this happened on such a large scale

23 that I did not take stock of all the people, but I remember from

24 conversations that the Serbs were being fired on a large scale and that

25 Muslims and Catholics were brought to work instead of them. Even though

1 they were less skillful. Sometimes they were semi-literate.

2 Q. Let me ask you specifically, then, about the police force. Were

3 there signs of discrimination in the police force, as far as you could

4 see?

5 A. I will tell you what I personally experienced, and there were

6 complaints coming from all sides. Since my restaurant was in Brka, my

7 restaurant was often thrashed and I would report that to the police.

8 However, I did not enjoy any protection. When my restaurant was thrashed

9 once, the police discovered who the perpetrators there, they asked me to

10 raise a civil suit but nobody did anything although the perpetrator was

11 known. He was a local Muslim. As I was walking through the corridors of

12 the police building I could see that Muslims and Croats occupied all the

13 leading and managerial positions. There were no Serbs in any of those

14 positions. In such a situation I could not expect any protection from the

15 institution that was led by extreme Muslims and Croats. And this is just

16 one example.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Josse, we are shifting from discrimination in

18 appointments, people being fired, to discriminatory functioning of bodies

19 which is not the same.

20 Could you give us one example of someone who was fired because of

21 being a Serb?

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Unfortunately, nobody asked me that.

23 I really cannot come up with any names. I can't give you any names,

24 unfortunately. I really can't give you any -- any names, but it shouldn't

25 be difficult to check.

1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but if you say that on a large scale, Serbs were

2 fired and replaced by less competent others, you must know of one example

3 in the hospital, in one of the companies, or --

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] When you mentioned the hospital, I

5 believe that I remember that the chief administrator of the hospital was

6 fired and that Ibro Ramic was employed in his stead. But I can't be sure

7 of that. I just told you what I know personally. It was a long time ago

8 and it's very difficult for me to remember any names. At that time I knew

9 a lot of people. Some people even came directly to me to complain. I

10 remember a guy from the municipal building. He was from Grbovica. He

11 came to me in tears. He said I have a wife and children but I'm being

12 fired. However, I couldn't help him.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Do you remember the name of this chief administrator

14 of the hospital?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said that Dr. Ibrahim Ramic was

16 appointed, the president of the SDA.

17 JUDGE ORIE: But I was asking for the name of the one who was

18 fired.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, no. No.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed, Mr. Josse.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Unfortunately, no. I never

22 registered that.

23 MR. JOSSE:

24 Q. In terms of the questions asked by the learned presiding Judge,

25 can you assist at all with specific examples from the SUP, of

1 discrimination against the Serbs?

2 A. Well, I believe that blatant case of discrimination is the facts

3 that out of the seven managerial positions in the SUP, in the police, none

4 of them were occupied by a Serb. The chief of SUP was Safet Suljagic.

5 The head of the crime police was a Muslim, and the head of the state

6 security was his -- one of the well known brothers in Brcko. The

7 commander of the police, again, was Zlatko Jasarevic, a Muslim; the

8 commander of the traffic police was another Muslim. The head of the crime

9 police was a Muslim.

10 In any case, the -- all the seven managerial positions in the MUP

11 were occupied by Muslims and Croats. There were no Serbs. And since I

12 had a lot of hardships with my restaurant, I sent a letter to the chief of

13 police, Safet Suljagic, asking for an explanation as to why I was not

14 being protected by the police. And then I asked him how come that he

15 allowed for all the managerial positions to be taken over by Muslims and

16 Croats, and not a single Serb, and I implied his communist past and his

17 honesty. He never replied to me. He -- this Safet Suljagic spent the

18 entire time of war in Brcko and I used to see him in the Serbian part of

19 Brcko throughout the war.

20 JUDGE ORIE: May I ask one clarification? This Muslims and Croats

21 exclusively in managerial positions, was that since the multi-party

22 elections or was this the result of any Serbs having been in such

23 positions being fired? So I want you -- I would like to know whether this

24 was -- well, let's say, what one might consider as an abuse of power on

25 from the beginning or whether this was the result of an earlier sharing of

1 power and then subsequently firing of Serbs who had such positions?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That situation, where all the

3 high-ranking people in the police were Muslims and Croats. No Serbs

4 prevailed before the multi-party elections and before the power-sharing

5 agreement among the three parties. So in my judgement it was done

6 deliberately in anticipation of future events. When the partnership

7 agreement between the three parties was made and I don't remember when

8 that was, there were still a couple of examples at the very outset when

9 Serbs did get a few positions. Such an example was the president of

10 municipality, who was a Serb, and Pero Markovic occupied another leading

11 position. But they had to abide by this agreement only before the war.

12 Afterwards, the gloves were off.

13 JUDGE ORIE: But the power sharing --

14 MR. JOSSE: Your Honour, could I just for a moment? Did you just

15 mention the name Mustafa Ramic in the answer you gave?

16 A. Yes.

17 MR. JOSSE: It doesn't come out in the translation.

18 JUDGE ORIE: It doesn't. Could you tell us in what context you

19 mentioned Mr. Ramic?

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said Mustafa Ramic became

21 president of the municipal assembly of Brcko through partnership

22 negotiations. He was brother of Ibrahim Ramic who was president of the

23 SDA. Mustafa was more moderate person than his brother Ibrahim.

24 JUDGE ORIE: But I did understand you well that under the

25 power-sharing agreement, that all managerial police functions had been and

1 remained in the hands of Muslims and Croats; is that a correct

2 understanding?

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm not sure. After these

4 partnership talks, I cannot really remember, but it is a possibility that

5 this structure was improved a little but only at the very top. Thus in

6 the municipal assembly, the president was a Muslim.

7 JUDGE ORIE: I'm exclusively at this moment asking you about the

8 police force.

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said that before the partnership

10 talks, all the leading positions were occupied by Muslims and Croats. I

11 can only assume that it was from 1987 until 1990. That's my assumption.

12 But after the partnership talks after the elections, it's possible,

13 although I can't recall precisely, that the Serbs were represented by a

14 few persons, but most certainly only at a very low level because a Croat

15 became head of the SUP, head of the investigations became a Muslim,

16 another Jasarevic occupied another leading position in the police. So

17 that these partnership talks brought only very small improvements in the

18 police and in the municipality, whereas lower down, on lower levels, a

19 purge was effected.

20 JUDGE ORIE: What was the highest-level Serb in the police force

21 after the partnership talks? Who was it and what was his position?

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I remember one man who had come to

23 Brcko, a Serb. He was a native from Brcko and he said that he was a

24 commander somewhere in Croatia, Split or Zadar, and he said that in

25 Croatia, Serbs could not survive in senior positions because the

1 interethnic tensions had brought about massive dismissals.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Was he the highest Serb, highest-level Serb in the

3 police force?

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. I think he was.

5 JUDGE ORIE: What was his position?

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think he was a commander of the

7 traffic police.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Please proceed, Mr. Josse. For the Chamber,

9 it's important to have a clear view on such matters. It was not very

10 clear and the time also, what changed, when it changed. Please proceed.

11 MR. JOSSE:

12 Q. Could you clarify this, please, Mr. Maricic? Earlier, when you

13 mentioned Mustafa Ramic and his name did not come out in the translation,

14 you said, didn't you, that Pero Markovic was the leading Serb and he was

15 president of the executive committee?

16 A. I don't think he was the leading Serb. I don't know what you

17 understand that to mean. If you mean positions in the municipal

18 authorities, then he was, but he was a Serb deputy occupying the position

19 of the president of the executive council, which means municipal

20 government.

21 Q. We were simply trying to sort out here the answer that you had

22 previously given but that clarifies it.

23 Are you able to name any Serbs in the SUP, whom you say were

24 dismissed because they were Serbs?

25 A. I can't. I don't remember any names. It was a long time ago. It

1 got all mixed up in my head. And I'm not very good at remembering names.

2 That's the best I can tell you. They were dismissed gradually already

3 before the multi-party elections there were no Serbs in senior positions.

4 And later on, they continued to be dismissed, phased out. I cannot

5 describe that entire period in terms of names. I just happen to remember

6 the names of the leading Croats and Muslims in top positions in the SUP.

7 Q. I'd like now to move on to a completely different topic, and that

8 is the arming of the various ethnic groups within the municipality in the

9 lead-up to the war.

10 I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but there is a general allegation,

11 certainly as far as Brcko is concerned, that Serbs were being armed by the

12 JNA in the lead-up to the war in the spring of 1992. What do you say

13 about that?

14 A. The JNA was made up of all ethnicities. However, in the lead-up

15 to the crisis, the JNA was abandoned by both Muslims and Croats, and

16 mainly Serbs remained in it. Since the SDS, where I was vice-president,

17 was anticommunist and rightist, it was on bad terms with communists and

18 all the leading people in the JNA were communists, so that they had their

19 reservations in relation to the SDS, and even made some problems for the

20 SDS. However, when the war began, or, rather, just prior to that, it was

21 well known that Muslims and Croats were getting armed and some explosions

22 had already happened around Vukovar, and the Serb people were living in a

23 psychosis of fear, in panic. It was already the beginning of 1992. There

24 was no longer any talk of who belonged to which party except perhaps for

25 the communists. The SDS and all the other parties of democratic

1 orientation gathered to discuss what needs to be done to save the people,

2 because the memories from the Second World War were fresh. Brcko had a

3 large body of Serb intellectuals. Let me just remember, a lawyer, Rizda

4 Zelenovic [phoen], Dr. Beli, and many other professors and Ph.D.s, and I

5 was one of them.

6 JUDGE ORIE: You take a lot of time to tell us a lot of details

7 but could you perhaps start with answering the question? It might be that

8 at the very end, that you come to an answer, but we would like to you

9 answer the question, if we would like to know more details then we -- the

10 question was: What you say about a general allegation, certainly as far

11 as Brcko is concerned, that Serbs were being armed by the JNA. Did this

12 take place? Yes or no? And then perhaps reasons why or -- could be

13 further explored, but did that take place?

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] There was a certain quantity of arms

15 that Serbs did receive from the JNA just before the war. Not much. Not

16 enough. But they did get something.

17 JUDGE ORIE: Please, Mr. Josse, if you would like to, of course,

18 if you would like to know further details but I would like to focus the

19 witness, first of all, answering the question and then come with the

20 details and the whys and the whens, et cetera. Please proceed.

21 MR. JOSSE:

22 Q. How and when did you become aware of what you just stated?

23 A. Well, I was privy to a lot of things that were happening in Brcko,

24 and it couldn't pass me by, something like this. I was vice-president of

25 the party and I was concerned over the matter, and I was informed.

1 Q. In what way were you informed? What was your source of

2 information?

3 A. Well, I know because my home village of Bukvik was already

4 encircled, people were in great danger, and around 50 rifles had been

5 taken there in one consignment, the old-fashioned kind of rifle. I

6 visited my family in Bukvik when I heard from people that they had

7 received those rifles from the JNA. Of course, very few and very bad

8 quality. If you allow me to say the JNA was a communists and they

9 primarily armed what they called proletarians so they distributed the

10 automatic rifles they had to the proletarians, and for the rest of the

11 people, they had only the M-41s.

12 Q. What do you mean by the word proletarians in this context?

13 A. Well, communists, and the term proletarian dates back to the

14 Second World War. They were fighters called proletarians, or maybe

15 communist politicians. You know the slogan invented by Lenin, I believe,

16 proletarians of all countries unite.

17 Q. At the time or subsequently, did you become aware or have you

18 become aware of the supply of arms to Serbs, again in 1991-1992, from

19 sources other than the JNA?

20 A. I think I've answered that question already. I said that I had

21 visited my home village of Bukvik and some villagers told me that they had

22 received rifles. I believe in 1991 there was very little arms' supply,

23 but just before the war and before the escalation of combat, it did

24 happen, not only in my home village of Bukvik but in other Serb villages

25 too.

1 Q. May have been my misunderstanding, Mr. Maricic, but this supply

2 that you have just mentioned came from where? What was the source of the

3 supply?

4 A. I didn't understand the question. I don't know, what purchases --

5 what supply do you mean?

6 Q. I've asked you initially about the supply of arms from the JNA.

7 You've answered that. I'm now asking you to focus your attention, if

8 you're able to help, on arms that were supplied from sources other than

9 the JNA.

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Can you help with that?

12 A. I don't know if you can hear me. I think something is not

13 switched on. Can you hear me?

14 Q. I can hear you, sir.

15 A. I'm sorry, then. In this general panic, Serbs were looking for a

16 way out, for a way to save themselves, to defend themselves. This rifle

17 was priceless because everybody knows you can defend yourself only with a

18 rifle. And I remember that it was a Serb living in Vienna who purchased

19 perhaps around 40 trophy rifles, the M-41, and brought them to Brcko. I

20 personally bought myself a rifle for 1600 Deutschmark from a man who lived

21 in Switzerland. It was the shotgun kind. And I know that everybody was

22 looking to buy a gun, just to defend themselves.

23 Q. This supply of 40 trophy rifles from Vienna, how did you learn

24 about that? We don't need detail, just an idea.

25 A. Well, I had friends everywhere, including Brcko, and one of these

1 friends used to livable in Vienna and was friends with that man, whose

2 name is Luka Pekic. He had an establishment in Vienna and he was standing

3 with this Luka person outside the Galeb hotel and this friend told me that

4 Luka had provided 50 rifles, that he would pay for in Vienna. Those were

5 trophy rifles, and as I understood he bought them for 2 or 3 Deutschmarks

6 each. And those rifles were indeed brought -- I saw them, they were

7 really museum pieces. I even heard the details of how they were shipped

8 in the back of a passenger car, driven by a Hungarian. Then this man went

9 to collect them.

10 Q. Whilst it might be obvious, the Chamber might so consider your

11 answer that you bought a gun to defend yourself as important. And perhaps

12 you could explain your motives in a little bit more detail.

13 A. I'm a man of the people, close to the people, and what the people

14 were feeling I felt myself. The people were feeling in great danger. I'm

15 also well-read, and I read a lot about history and geography. I knew a

16 lot about our history and it was clear to me that we were in for a great

17 tragedy unless we find a way to save ourselves. I am not a huntsman but

18 still I bought that hunting rifle for self-defence, if something happens.

19 That was my motive. Generally speaking, people in Brcko were very afraid

20 by that time already. They had sent their wives and children to Serbia to

21 safety and it was mainly able-bodied men who stayed lined to defend

22 themselves.

23 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Josse, have you dealt with the JNA arming?

24 Because I would like to know a few more details on arms coming from the

25 JNA.

1 Mr. Maricic, you told us that the JNA was communist and that they

2 primarily armed what they called proletarians. I'm trying to understand

3 how this happened. How would they know who would be a proletarian, to

4 deliver a weapon to?

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, as far as I'm concerned,

6 that's very clear. In the former Yugoslavia, including Bosnia, the

7 Communist Party had all the power and all the officers were communists.

8 Before the war, and generally speaking the army had its intelligence

9 service, they knew everything about everybody. They knew how people

10 breathed, let alone to which party they belonged. They were completely

11 informed about everything. It was not just the JNA in Bosnia and

12 Yugoslavia. There were a lot of semi-military organisations, the civilian

13 defence, the TO, and all these people in all these military agencies had

14 to know.

15 JUDGE ORIE: You also told us that the JNA was, the Croats and the

16 Muslims had left the JNA. So what remained in the JNA was mainly Serbs

17 then, is that a correct understanding?

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Now, how did they distribute those weapons?

20 Would they go from door to door to proletarians or how was that done?

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The arming of proletarians was held

22 a big secret. It had been done a bit earlier and I found about it from my

23 own villagers who told me about volleys of automatic fire in the night.

24 But what they brought to the regular people, they brought to the village,

25 they had their own men there, representatives who distributed, and they

1 distributed to regular people the lower quality weapons.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Now, could you -- could you be a bit more

3 specific? You said they had their own men there. Could you tell us, for

4 example, in the village where you came from, who would receive the weapons

5 and further distribute them? Let's concentrate on Bukvik because I do

6 understand that that's what you consider your village.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The list of proletarians, quote

8 unquote, who received the weapons, through some channels reached the

9 Muslim side in the war and they read it over the radio, including the

10 number of weapons these people had received, including for Bukvik. I

11 cannot give you the details about Bukvik because I no longer lived there

12 at the time. I just visited.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Who had that list?

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That list was read over the radio by

15 the Muslims. It was read on the Muslim radio once they took over the area

16 of Bukvik.

17 JUDGE ORIE: I'm totally confused now because your earlier answers

18 were about -- but let me check that. Mr. Josse, please correct me when

19 I'm wrong. The question was about Serbs being armed by the JNA. So --

20 MR. JOSSE: That was the basis of the question certainly.

21 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And now you're talking about Muslims. But we

22 were talking about Serbs being armed by the JNA. So I do not understand

23 how Muslims started reading the lists of the proletarians who received

24 those arms, because --

25 MR. JOSSE: I'll let the witness deal with it but that is logical,

1 Your Honour.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. Tell us how this -- or was it once they had

3 taken over the area that they read that list?

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Now, before Bukvik was taken over, I mean, you

6 said you were told how this distribution of arms happened. Who received

7 them? Or did they go door by door and deliver individual rifles?

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Since the war had practically

9 already started, everybody knew there would be a war, and I've already

10 told you that the JNA was represented somehow in every village and there

11 was also the Territorial Defence and the civilian defence. Those lists of

12 TO and civilian defence were activated. They included able-bodied men and

13 there were even some women in the civilian defence, although I don't

14 believe that they were armed, and I think the distribution of weapons was

15 done according to those lists, village by village.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Now, you earlier said that weapons were distributed

17 to proletarians. Now you are, at least from what I understand, suggesting

18 that it was TO members and civilian defence that were given arms. Were

19 they all proletarians or how should I understand this?

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They were not all proletarians in

21 the civilian protection and the Territorial Defence. All the able-bodied

22 civilians were members of the TO and the CZ, and proletarians were a

23 secret organisation, and I believe that most of these proletarians were

24 associates of the military secret services.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but at the same time you said so, apart from

1 proletarians being armed the TO members and civilians were -- civilian

2 defence members were also armed.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

4 JUDGE ORIE: Also by the JNA?

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. But we are talking small

6 quantities. For example, a village of 150 or 200 villagers were given

7 maybe 15 rifles. That's what I heard. That's what I knew.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And were these arms, that was no secret, that

9 they were distributed, if I understand you well?

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It was not exactly in the open. It

11 was semi-secret, so to speak.

12 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And now, semi-secret. Who was involved in this

13 semi-secret distribution of arms? So I do understand proletarians was

14 fully secret, then we have the semi-secret distribution of arms to TO

15 members and civilian defence members. Who organised this? I mean, who --

16 if you have 15 arms -- 15 rifles on a population of 150 or 200, who would

17 say, you get a rifle, you get a rifle?

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know exactly but I suppose

19 that the TO had its management and that the -- those who were in charge of

20 the TO had the main say in the distribution of those weapons.

21 JUDGE ORIE: And civilian defence as well? Or is there -- you

22 used the two terms.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. The civilian defence is a very

24 broad term, and I believe that once it was dismantled, and this was

25 happening slowly, all that remained was the TO, and the communists held

1 the entire population under -- under their control. They formed this

2 civilian protection to involve everybody, even the elderly women in it.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Now, were these arms distributed in Serb villages

4 only or -- I mean, was the JNA, because that was the start of the

5 questions, was the JNA arming Serbs or would they arm Muslim villages as

6 well?

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm talking about the Serb villages.

8 I don't know about the Muslim villages. Since they had abandoned the JNA,

9 and that at the time the JNA in Brcko was reduced to some 20 people, only

10 officers there. I wouldn't know anything about the Muslim villages,

11 although I'm aware of the information that in the Muslim village called

12 Brezevo Polje, the TO had been established on the eve of the war, that it

13 consisted of 90 per cent Muslims and that they were also given weapons and

14 they even participated in fighting at the very beginning of the war.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Now, in the Serb villages, TO management was in whose

16 hands?

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This was semi-military structure

18 and, of course, that the JNA had the main say in the appointment of

19 commanders because in that structure, the command staff had to be theirs,

20 exclusively theirs.

21 JUDGE ORIE: Now in your village, let's concentrate on Bukvik.

22 Who was in command of the TO in Bukvik?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I wouldn't know. It was a

24 semi-secret for me. I was against communists, and no such information was

25 available to me, and I suppose I wasn't really interested in all that.

1 JUDGE ORIE: But the TO was not a communist or a specifically

2 communist organisation, was it?

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

4 JUDGE ORIE: Was it or was it not?

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, no, no. It wasn't. It wasn't.

6 It was a mass organisation. There were people in it who were not

7 communists but the leading -- the commanding staff were all communists,

8 close to the JNA, and nothing could happen without their knowledge. Let

9 me just say that the TO commander would always hold a very high military

10 rank in the municipality.

11 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Now, as far as TO command is concerned, you

12 were a member of the SDS. Was -- were SDS members in the municipality,

13 not specifically in Bukvik, from what you said you wouldn't know, but were

14 SDS members in command positions in the TO in the municipality of Brcko?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. They were anticommunists. The

16 SDS was mainly an anticommunist, right-wing organisation, and none of them

17 could ever be appointed to any of those positions. I'm not talking about

18 the beginning of the war. At that time it was all already All People's

19 Defence but that was not the case before the war.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. But your last answer is not entirely clear to

21 me. Are you saying that SDS members would be in command positions at the

22 beginning of the war but not before? Is that what you're saying?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] When the war started, then some

24 members of the SDS who had some military knowledge were appointed to

25 command positions but this was no longer known as the Territorial Defence

1 but rather as All People's Defence.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And I do therefore understand that even in Serb

3 villages, SDS members -- well, let's say prior to the war, let's say prior

4 to what -- should I say, April 1992, were not in command positions in the

5 TO. Is that a correct understanding?

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. That's a correct

7 understanding.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you for these clarifications.

9 Mr. Josse, I'm looking at the clock. At the same time, I -- well,

10 I thought you had dealt with the arming through the JNA, only intervened

11 at a stage where I thought you had finished with that.

12 MR. JOSSE: Thank you, Your Honour. I'm going to move on after

13 the break to what the witness knows about the arming of Muslims.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

15 MR. JOSSE: And then I'll deal with the arming of Croats.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. We'll have a break and we'll resume at 10

17 minutes past 11.

18 --- Recess taken at 10.41 a.m.

19 --- On resuming at 11.22 a.m.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Before we continue, I have received an urgent request

21 from one of the other Trial Chambers, who has difficulties in finalising a

22 videolink. The request would be that we would sit tomorrow instead of

23 during the morning, in the afternoon, in Courtroom I instead of in the

24 morning in Courtroom II. Is there any -- I'm not asking whether there is

25 any objection. I'm asking whether there is any insurmountable problem

1 involved in that. I can tell you that the Judges had to reschedule their

2 own programmes as well.

3 MR. JOSSE: Could I have a minute, please?

4 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

5 MR. HARMON: Not for the Prosecution.

6 [Defence counsel confer]

7 MR. JOSSE: Your Honour, I am getting Mr. Karganovic to check but

8 the next witness is arriving tomorrow. I'm due to call him. I am unclear

9 when he's arriving. If he's arriving -- we'll know in a minute.

10 Mr. Karganovic is checking. If he's arriving in the morning as I had

11 thought, then I had planned to see him tomorrow afternoon, take him to the

12 prison on Thursday morning and call him on Thursday afternoon. Therefore,

13 if we are sitting tomorrow afternoon, it would make a significant amount

14 of difference.

15 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I do understand. On the other hand, you may be

16 aware, Mr. Josse, that the Trial Chamber always tries to accommodate as

17 best as it can and sometimes even would not make any changes in the

18 programme but here there is an important videolink involved.

19 MR. JOSSE: Your Honour, all I can do is tell the Court. If this

20 be the position, just how difficult -- basically, I won't have enough time

21 to proof the next witness if I'm right about his time of arrival. It's as

22 plain and simple as that.

23 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. We'll see whether there are any other possible

24 solutions as well. But one second, please.

25 [Trial chamber and legal officer confer]

1 MR. JOSSE: He is due here at lunchtime tomorrow. So what was

2 going through my mind is correct. The only thing I would say, in

3 fairness, putting all cards on the table, of course, there is a

4 possibility that Mr. Maricic will still be in the witness box on Thursday

5 and therefore I won't need to call Mr. Krsman until Friday. But,

6 Your Honour, if I'm going to call Mr. Krsman at all on Thursday, then

7 realistically I need to spend some of tomorrow afternoon with him so it

8 would make a significant difference to our preparations. That's all I can

9 fairly say.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Josse, having listened to you, I instructed the

11 Chamber staff to see whether there are any alternative solutions. If not,

12 the Chamber might decide that we would nevertheless sit tomorrow in the

13 afternoon.

14 Please proceed.

15 Mr. Maricic, this was a procedural issue. You're not involved in

16 it in any way but Mr. Josse will now continue to examine you. Please

17 proceed.

18 MR. JOSSE:

19 Q. As I indicated, Mr. Maricic, before the break, I next want to ask

20 you about your state of knowledge so far as the arming of Muslims are

21 concerned prior to the outbreak of the war.

22 A. I don't have detailed information on that. After the war, I

23 learned that they had done that before. At the time the Muslims and the

24 Croats had been armed through their Patriotic Leagues and some other

25 semi-military organisations, even before their parties were established,

1 and all that had installed panic into the Serbian people.

2 Q. The source of the information, vague as it may be, that you have

3 just told the Chamber about?

4 A. After the war, in Brcko, some Muslims bragged that they had

5 transported the weapons across the Sava from Croatia and armed their

6 people. They spoke about that publicly. They never hid the fact. We had

7 information, but no source of it. I personally believe that the military

8 intelligence service was aware of all that, and all that reached us was

9 some information without any precise details. But all this was aimed at

10 creating panic and fear.

11 Q. Did you know of the existence of either the Patriotic League or

12 the Green Berets prior to the outbreak of the war?

13 A. Yes. This was a notorious fact, especially the Patriotic League,

14 which was very strong in Tuzla. But this was a secret organisation

15 whereas the Green Berets were a semi-secret organisation. I can't say

16 that I saw them anywhere lined up but it was well known to everybody that

17 the Green Berets existed. Later on, the Patriotic League committed a

18 massacre against a column of the JNA that was withdrawing from Tuzla

19 towards Serbia according to an agreement.

20 Q. Again, Mr. Maricic, can you be more specific? Perhaps we should

21 break the two organisations down. So far as the Patriotic League is

22 concerned, I repeat, this is your knowledge prior to the outbreak of the

23 war, where did it come from, and what did you understand about that

24 organisation?

25 A. I had information that the Patriotic League is a Muslim

1 organisation. And that it was some sort of a secret armed formation,

2 organisation, which in my view was under the control and command of the

3 SDA. And the Green Berets, bearing in mind that the word "green" is in

4 their name, the green being a symbol of Muslims, was also an organisation

5 under the control of the Muslims or to the SDA, and both these

6 organisations were semi-military and, needless to say, secret

7 organisations.

8 Q. Why were you of the view that the Patriotic League was under the

9 control and command of the SDA?

10 A. This is the information I received and there was no reason for me

11 not to believe it because I was already familiar with the events in Brcko

12 and in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was information that came from all sides

13 and it was no longer a big unknown.

14 Q. Can you be more specific as to the source of the information?

15 A. No, no.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Judge Hanoteau has a question.

17 JUDGE HANOTEAU: [Interpretation] I would like you to specify

18 something, please. Before the outbreak of the war, in those days that

19 preceded the first war operations, did you meet any Green Berets? In

20 other words, did you realise that there were Muslim fighters whom you

21 could see in the street? Or all this -- or was all of this kept secret?

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't see them, and it was kept a

23 secret. Only after the war have we learned that they were established and

24 we now know where they were trained, in what camps, where their

25 checkpoints were, where their instructors were, and we now know that their

1 instructors had come from Arabic countries and that these people trained

2 them.

3 JUDGE HANOTEAU: [Interpretation] Thank you.

4 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I have one follow-up question as well.

5 You told us that the military intelligence service was aware of

6 all that, talking about weapons smuggled from Croatia. What military

7 intelligence service you were referring to?

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think that there was a single

9 military intelligence service within the JNA and I believe that it had

10 eyes and ears everywhere. It was a very organised organisation.

11 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Now, so it is military intelligence within the

12 JNA. How did they report? How did you get to know about this knowledge

13 within the JNA?

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't know that. But there were

15 rumours and every now and then a secret leaked. Those officers,

16 intelligence officers, had wives, had neighbours, so sometime secrets

17 would leak and reach us common people, and I was a curious person and I

18 wanted to know, and that's how I learned.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Well, to blame wives and neighbours only for

20 leaking, Mr. Maricic, is -- but thank you for your answer.

21 Please proceed, Mr. Josse.

22 MR. JOSSE:

23 Q. I'd next like to ask you about whether you had any knowledge of

24 the arming of Croats. Again, before the war, please.

25 A. Given the fact that the chief of police, although Croats were less

1 numerous than Muslims, they had a prominent role, and whatever they did,

2 they could cover it up because the chief of police belonged to them. We

3 received information that young lads were crossing the Sava from Croatia

4 and elsewhere, and that they carried in their bags uniforms for both

5 Muslim and Croat military units. This was no longer a secret. And also

6 there were rumours that were confirmed after the war, they transported

7 weapons for both Muslims and Croats across the Sava. These weapons were

8 under the control of Croats because it came from Croatia.

9 There is a notorious affair, Spegelj, and Croatia had influence on

10 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and it is no wonder that Croat-Muslim brigade which

11 was billeted in Brcko, was the -- called the HVO Brigade, although

12 two-thirds of its strength were Muslims. There was no obstacle to the

13 transport of weapons from Croatia into Brcko. This was a well-known fact

14 which was -- was kept a secret but now this secret has been confirmed

15 after the war. I don't have any more details, nothing more precise to say

16 about it.

17 Q. The next topic I would like to turn to --

18 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Josse, it may be clear to you that what was known

19 already, whether through wives or neighbours, and what has been confirmed

20 after the war, and what they could have done in covering up, et cetera, et

21 cetera. He does not give a lot of, as we say in our language, hands and

22 feet, to the testimony.

23 So I take it that you're aware that without further exploring

24 these matters, that it's -- I'm note saying it's of no assistance but at

25 least this is information which is relatively vague and at least not as

1 precise in the statement which would as easily allow us to find

2 corroboration in details.

3 MR. JOSSE: If I could be allowed to comment on the evidence,

4 Your Honour, the witness is being what the Court may think is disarmingly

5 frank.

6 JUDGE ORIE: I'm not saying that he's not frank.

7 MR. JOSSE: His source of information, his lack of information,

8 and how he learned a lot of this subsequently, and therefore from the

9 Defence point of view, how productive it will be in trying to break this

10 down, I don't know, and I'm more inclined to move on.

11 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. Please proceed.

12 Mr. Maricic would like to say something, I think. Mr. Maricic?

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I wanted to say -- I see that people

14 are saying what I'm saying is imprecise, and it is. But I remember a case

15 when an ambulance driver in January 1992, a Serb, told me that Muslims and

16 Croats from the hospital, and the hospital had some weapons for defence,

17 including machine-guns, any way he told me that Muslims and Croats stole

18 all those weapons that only seven or eight pistols remained. Somebody was

19 caught selling those pistols later. But I remember this man, and he's

20 still alive. I remember now that he told me that Muslims and Croats had

21 stolen the weapons for the security of the hospital. And since Croats and

22 Muslims were in leading positions in Brcko, all the archives were taken by

23 them and given to the Muslim or Croat side.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you for this clarification.

25 Mr. Josse?

1 Do you remember the name of the driver of this ambulance?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Dusan Tadic.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Do you know whether he's still alive or --

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. He is a taxi driver in Brcko.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

6 Mr. Josse?

7 MR. JOSSE: Excuse me, Your Honour, I'm still trying to sort out

8 the logistical matter that Your Honour had referred to at the beginning of

9 the session.

10 Q. The next topic I would like to ask you about, again in the pre-war

11 period, is the SDS. It's right, and perhaps we didn't say this because I

12 didn't ask you earlier, that you were on the main board of the SDS in the

13 first year of its existence, 1990 to 1991?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. In 1991, do you recall any visits to Brcko from prominent members

16 of the SDS?

17 A. It was a long time ago. I can't remember all those details now.

18 I suppose somebody came. A year couldn't have passed without anybody

19 coming, but I can't give you a name. You probably are not interested in

20 small fry, and as for bigger names I can't remember them. I suppose they

21 did come, though. One year is a long time.

22 Q. I want to ask you specifically, then, about a meeting of an

23 organisation called Prosveta, in 1991. I may have completely

24 mispronounced that. It's P-r-o-s-v-e-t-a.

25 A. Yes, I understood what you mean. This founding meeting or not

1 really founding assembly but restoration assembly, because Prosveta did

2 not exist among the Serb people after the Second World War, it was

3 forbidden, so after the first free elections the Serbian people restored

4 this cultural and enlightening organisation, Prosveta, including for the

5 town of Brcko. However, I did not attend that assembly.

6 Q. Have you any idea, from second hand sources, therefore, whether

7 either Mr. Krajisnik or Dr. Karadzic attended that assembly, as you

8 described it?

9 A. Since both Dr. Karadzic and Mr. Krajisnik were already very famous

10 people, I would have remembered if one of them had attended. Brcko is not

11 such a big town that I could have missed it. I would have certainly been

12 aware if one of them had come to that assembly. I heard later that some

13 other people attended, famous writers, poets, but that's completely

14 different. None of the two were present.

15 Q. Do you recall meeting Mr. Krajisnik at all prior to the war?

16 A. No. No. I met up with Mr. Krajisnik for the first time very

17 late, by force of circumstance. I didn't see him at meetings of the

18 executive council. He kept a low profile and I also kept to the

19 backbenches. But I saw him on television, when he was speaker of the

20 assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and I watched him on TV at assembly

21 meetings. Those were hard times and I saw that he led the assembly very

22 successfully, and managed to deal with many tricky situations. That's

23 when I first saw Mr. Krajisnik, that is, on the television. And it was

24 only a long time later, in 1994, that I met him personally.

25 Q. When you referred in your last answer to the executive council,

1 you were referring, I presume, to the main board of the SDS?

2 A. I meant to say the main board of the party. I was a member of the

3 main board of the SDS as it was founded, and I said he kept a low profile

4 on the main board. I didn't ever see him asked to speak at sessions of

5 the main board while I was a member. I was surprised to find out that he

6 had been a member of the main board, ever since it was founded, because I

7 never saw him in those meetings or maybe I didn't notice him. Maybe he

8 was there.

9 Q. I'd like you, please, to have a look at this map.

10 MR. JOSSE: Your Honour, what I'm about to hand out, I think is

11 reflected in P21. P21 is quite heavily marked. I have taken this map

12 from an exhibit which I think wasn't used, a potential Prosecution exhibit

13 much earlier in the case. Literally at its start, in fact. I received it

14 on a CD in colour. Unfortunately I've been unable to reproduce that but I

15 think this will do. I have a lighter copy for the ELMO so perhaps this

16 one could be put on the ELMO and plenty of other copies for everyone in

17 the courtroom.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Do you want the witness to mark that?

19 MR. JOSSE: I will.

20 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, then let's have a look at it and then let's

21 proceed.

22 Mr. Josse, if any marking will be needed, black is the colour for

23 the Defence. Blue is the colour for the Prosecution. And I think red is

24 the colour for the Chamber.

25 MR. JOSSE: Black is going to be not very satisfactory on this map

1 but let's see how we get on. I don't want to upset a well-tried

2 and-trusted system.

3 Q. This, Mr. Maricic, is Brcko, and we can see two bridges, one on

4 the right of the map is clearly a railway bridge, and the one in the

5 middle of the map is a road bridge. Is that correct?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. It is not in dispute that on the 30th of April, there were

8 explosions at and around those bridges, is it? You accept that?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. All I want to ask you about is whether there were any explosions

11 at or around either of those bridges prior to the 30th of April.

12 A. Yes. Croats from the Croatian side, because those bridges lead to

13 Croatia, and there was already fighting going on around Vukovar. It could

14 have been maybe a month into the war in Brcko. So the Croats had laid

15 mines and explosives to both those bridges from their side. The railway

16 bridge was completely disabled for railway traffic. And this other bridge

17 for passenger cars and pedestrians was also damaged, bombed from the

18 Croatian side, but the Croats then put up planks so that pedestrians could

19 still get across. Of course, that caused even greater concern among Serbs

20 in Brcko because they felt they were being surrounded, encircled.

21 Q. For clarification, you have just used the expression, "A month

22 into the war in Brcko." When do you say, bearing in mind that expression,

23 that the war in Brcko started?

24 A. Well, I think there is no dispute about that. The war started in

25 Brcko on the 1st of May, or maybe the evening of the -- 2nd May, the

1 night.

2 Q. If I may comment, I think there is no dispute about that. What I

3 want to ask you about is -- what I have been asking you about, perhaps I

4 should say, is the attacks on these bridges. The attack that you say was

5 carried out by Croatians, when did that occur in relation to the 1st of

6 May? Before? After? How long? That sort of thing.

7 A. I think a month before the 1st of May, roughly speaking. I think

8 that happened rather a long time, let's say a month, before the beginning

9 of the war.

10 Q. And the answer you've just given a moment or two ago clarifies the

11 damage that you say was carried out in the course of that attack. Why did

12 you understand -- let me rephrase that.

13 What was the perception among Serbs at the time as to the reason

14 the Croats had attempted to disable both these bridges?

15 A. Already then, a month before the war started, Serbs were seized by

16 panic. Every new incident increased their fear. It wasn't understood why

17 the Croats destroyed those bridges but it certainly had a negative impact

18 on the Serbs.

19 Q. Was there any shooting in Brcko prior to the second attack on the

20 bridges on the 30th of April?

21 A. There was no shooting in Brcko before the war began, except that

22 when the war was going on in Croatia, Brcko is very close by, and people

23 who fought around Vukovar would come to Brcko. We called them ZNGs, Home

24 Guards Corps, members. They would come to Brcko and create incidents in

25 the bars and pubs of Brcko, and one person in the uniform of the Home

1 Guards Corps of Croatia lost his life at the entrance to the casino.

2 Q. When was that?

3 A. I can't remember the date but I passed by with my son and I saw

4 that man outside the casino. He had gotten killed the previous night, and

5 his body lay there for almost one whole day. The tensions were already

6 high. Muslims and Croats were passing by. Serbs by that time didn't dare

7 be around very much. That boy was a native of Drenovac, a village from

8 the other side.

9 Q. When the -- let me start again. When do you say the second attack

10 on the bridges occurred? Can you give us a precise date?

11 A. The second attack on the bridges, from the Brcko side, was on the

12 30th of April, I believe. I believe that's the last month -- that's the

13 last day before the 1st of May. I heard a terrible explosion.

14 Q. Where were you when you heard a terrible explosion?

15 A. I went to a village named Stanovi, about five or six kilometres

16 east of Brcko to see a friend, and in view of the tensions I decided to

17 stay the night. And around 5.00 in the morning, I heard terrible

18 explosions. If they were heard five or six kilometres away, I can imagine

19 how horribly they resounded in Brcko.

20 Q. Would you have a look at the map of Brcko and perhaps you could

21 show the Chamber - it will need to be put back on the ELMO - where it was

22 you were spending the night when you heard these terrible explosions?

23 A. Well, if this is the centre of the town, there are no villages

24 shown here.

25 Q. Wrong map. That's why. It's the wrong map. Sorry, I didn't make

1 that clear enough. I'm grateful to Madam Usher.

2 A. I can't find my way around this map. Well, I was here somewhere.

3 I see Brezik village and Stanovi is not far away. Those are neighbouring

4 village. I can't see Stanovi itself but they must be around here since

5 Brezik is here. Right, here they are. Stanovi village, where I spent

6 that night.

7 Q. Could you mark that with a black pen, please?

8 A. Shall I mark it?

9 Q. Yes. Yes. It's you that needs to mark it, Mr. Maricic.

10 A. Sorry.

11 Q. Just put a circle around it.

12 A. [Marks].

13 Q. And we will give it some other form of identification, if the map

14 needs to be marked in some other way. I suspect it will, in fact, in due

15 course.

16 Did you have any idea that this attack on the bridges was going to

17 take place?

18 A. No. No, absolutely no clue. I think only the perpetrators could

19 have known. And even though I was a rather well informed and moved around

20 all sorts of circles, I had no clue.

21 Q. When did you return to Brcko after the explosions?

22 A. I think around 9 or 10.00 the next day, I drove back in my own

23 car, and I went to see what happened to the bridges, out of curiosity. I

24 didn't go to see the railway bridge because it was too far away. The

25 other, the passenger bridge, was in the centre. It was surrounded by the

1 police so I couldn't get close. But I saw from a distance of about 40

2 metres that the bridge was damaged.

3 Q. Was it either obvious or were there any rumours, information, at

4 that point, as to who had done this and why they had done it?

5 A. It is not obvious, not even today. We Serbs were thinking that

6 maybe some divers had come from Croatia on a boat and did it. I can't

7 tell you even now with any certainty.

8 Q. You had mentioned that after the first attack, the road bridge was

9 incapable of carrying vehicular traffic but was still able to take

10 pedestrians. What was the effect on the bridge of the second attack?

11 A. Communications were absolutely broken.

12 Q. How did matters progress in the town at that point?

13 A. Panic in town was complete. Everybody was running to their own

14 side. Large numbers of Muslims were running southeast, Croats together

15 with them, or perhaps more to the south, and Serbs were running east

16 towards Bijeljina because the psychosis of war had already been complete

17 and that was the last drop to set off the panic and make people run. A

18 lot of people escaped then and only the more courageous, able-bodied men

19 remained, Muslims, Serbs and Croats, each in their own zone.

20 Q. Do you know how the fighting actually began in the town?

21 A. At that time, I was again visiting with this friend in Stanovi

22 village and I just heard shooting in the night coming from Grcica, a

23 suburb populated mostly by Serbs. There, in the part of the suburb

24 bordering on Muslims and Croat areas, Muslims and Croats had put up their

25 barricades, I don't know if there were any Serb barricades but I know that

1 from what I heard, the Muslims and Croats started shooting from those

2 barricades at Serbs, and that's what started the war in Brcko, from what I

3 heard.

4 Q. From whom did you hear that that is how the war started in Brcko?

5 A. As I said, complete panic reigned and the fever of war had

6 overtaken everybody. Only some able-bodied men were there and it didn't

7 seem a strange thing to happen under the circumstances. There were all

8 sorts of rumours. Nobody came to inform me in particular. It was just

9 common knowledge.

10 Q. What did you do when you learned that the shooting had started?

11 A. Nothing. I just stayed where I was because I had lived in Brka

12 for a while. I wasn't really mobilised into this Territorial Defence so

13 that they could assign me somewhere.

14 Q. At what point did you move back into the centre of Brcko, to your

15 home?

16 A. I didn't go downtown to my house. While I was still at Stanovi

17 village, a group of soldiers found me there. They told me they were

18 Mauzer's men and they were collecting whoever they found outside the town,

19 and they took me to a front line on the bank of the Brka river. I got a

20 weapon and I became a soldier of the Territorial Defence.

21 Q. Using either map, show us where Mauzer's men took you.

22 A. I believe that this is the Brka river, and I was taken somewhere

23 around here, across the Brka river, because Muslims had established a

24 Defence line somewhere here, and on this side here, there were Serbs.

25 Q. Please mark that with a black pen.

1 A. [Marks]. I would just like to say that the war operations had

2 already started, and that the line was somewhere around here. A whole day

3 and night before I was taken to the line, there were already combat

4 activities going on.

5 Q. Do you remember the day you arrived at the line? The date, rather

6 than the day, the date.

7 A. I believe that this was on the 2nd of May, or maybe on the 3rd.

8 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Josse, for the position of the transcript, I

9 think we should ask the witness to add an M to the vertical line close to

10 the Sava River, close to the most northerly bridge on the map.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't quite understand where I

12 have to put this M.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Next to the marking you just made.

14 THE WITNESS: [Marks]

15 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

16 MR. JOSSE:

17 Q. At the point that you went to this front line and you begun combat

18 activities, are you able to help the Chamber as to the degree to which the

19 JNA had become involved in the dispute?

20 A. I've said that the JNA in Brcko was reduced to some 20 officers

21 and non-commissioned officers. The recruits that already abandoned the

22 JNA. I never saw them. On the line where I was taken there was the

23 Territorial Defence consisting of the Serbian people of Brcko and I didn't

24 see a single JNA officer there at all. Throughout all that time that I

25 spent on that front line, I didn't see a single JNA officer there.

1 Q. I think it might help if next you described how long you spent at

2 that position over the next two weeks or so. You've already told the

3 Chamber and, as I say we'll deal with this in more detail in due course,

4 that you were badly wounded on the 16th of May. So between the 3rd of May

5 and the 16th of May, how much time did you spend in the position that you

6 have marked M on the map?

7 A. I spent maybe a day and a half in this position. The line moved

8 forward and, having been recruited, I had to move with the line.

9 Q. What happened after the day and a half?

10 A. The front line was moved westwards along the Sava River, and

11 together with the rest of the Serbian army, I had to move as well. I was

12 not a weakling, I was a good fighter, and we moved forward. I suppose

13 you're going to ask me some more questions about that.

14 Q. Well, in fact, Mr. Maricic, for my part, I'm less concerned with

15 operational details. Others may be interested in that. I'm more

16 concerned as to whether you physically remained at the front or whether

17 you were able to go to the town centre and see what was happening, or

18 whether you went to your home, that type of thing.

19 A. Throughout all that time, I was on the front line. I did have an

20 opportunity, and not only I, since the front line was very stable. So

21 every soldier could be given an hour or so to go home. Not always but

22 sometimes you could have that. And since I was not a member of the corps

23 strength, I had some privileges and although I was in a position to go, I

24 didn't go that often. I was not recruited with the first wave but with

25 the second wave. So I did have an opportunity to go home, but I think I

1 went only once or twice. Once I went to have a bath and I don't know

2 whether I went a second time or not.

3 Q. Could you mark your home on the map, please?

4 A. I can give you just an approximation. This map is not very

5 precise. I can give you a rough idea, if you want me to do that.

6 Q. That will be fine, as far as I'm concerned, Mr. Maricic.

7 A. [Marks]. Can you see that?

8 JUDGE ORIE: Could you add an H to that as for your home?

9 THE WITNESS: [Marks]

10 MR. JOSSE:

11 Q. On the occasions that you were able to leave the line and return

12 to your home, I want to ask you about your awareness of various events.

13 For the purpose of this question, I'm including the whole period from the

14 start of the war to the point that you were invalided out of it.

15 Paramilitary units, were you aware of their presence in Brcko at that

16 time?

17 A. All the strings of the military shoes in Brcko were pulled by the

18 leftists, i.e. people who were members of the League of Communists and who

19 were in good relations with the JNA. I was on the exactly opposite side

20 so that many events escaped me. They were hidden from me. And as for the

21 paramilitary units and their arrival, I know very little about that

22 because of my very different political affiliation and those things were

23 kept secret from me. That is my explanation why I don't know how they

24 came. I only know that I saw them in town, in small numbers.

25 Q. Perhaps I could deal with this a slightly different way. You have

1 mentioned that you were taken to the front line by Mauzer's men. Which

2 army, if any, did you regard yourself a member of at that point?

3 A. At the time I was taken there, this was not a classical military.

4 All the able-bodied Serbian people had been gathered, they were given

5 weapons, organised into some sort of units, to defend themselves. The

6 organisation was very poor and it would be very far-fetched to call all

7 that an army. This is my view of the situation at the time.

8 Q. Doesn't -- that's useful information, as far as the Defence are

9 concerned, Mr. Maricic, but it doesn't actually answer the question. As

10 far as you were concerned, were you the member of an army, and if so, at

11 that time, under what title did it go?

12 A. It didn't have a name. I can say that I was a member of the army

13 of the Serbian people but that army did not have a name. There is no

14 single document in which it is referred to as the Serbian army. Maybe the

15 closest description would be the people's Territorial Defence. There was

16 no other official name. And I belonged to those formations of the Serbian

17 people that defended the Serbian people.

18 Q. Just to clarify that, did your battalion or brigade have any

19 epithet attached or given to it?

20 A. No. When combat operations started, I remember that there were

21 only three squads in Brcko and they had not even been united into a

22 battalion. And when I was taken there, I was taken to the so-called third

23 squad. There were only three squads.

24 Q. So how had it got -- was it known as the 3rd squad?

25 A. I believe so. It was known as a third squad or company. There

1 were the 1st Company, the 2nd Company and the 3rd Company. I don't know

2 whether the third company was in the middle of the front line but this is

3 where I was taken. I was given a rifle and that was that.

4 Q. The 3rd Company of what, please?

5 A. I can't answer because I don't know. I know that there were the

6 1st, the 2nd and the 3rd companies, but I don't know that they were

7 segments of a battalion or any other higher-ranking unit. If you want me

8 to talk about the JNA, I can say that there was no JNA to speak of. There

9 were just some 20 officers and a -- non-commissioned officers who left on

10 the 19th of May, save for those who hailed from Bosnia.

11 Q. I'm going to move on and deal with some specific questions in

12 relation to paramilitaries. I'm happy to do that now or later. I'm in

13 Your Honour's hands.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Perhaps it's better to have a break first.

15 We'll have a break until 10 minutes to one.

16 --- Recess taken at 12.27 p.m.

17 [The witness stands down]

18 --- On resuming at 1.01 p.m.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Josse, before we continue with the examination of

20 Mr. Maricic, I'd like to deliver a few -- make a few statements. I will

21 start with a request for re-translation of Exhibit P824, and the

22 submission of the Official Gazette of the Serb assembly 11, 92. There are

23 two matters the Chamber would like to address regarding Exhibit P824, tab

24 1. This is a decision on, and I quote, "Determination of acquired rights

25 based on tenancy rights and labour relations" taken by the Serb assembly

1 of Hadzici municipality. The Chamber has reasons to believe that the

2 translation of Article 1 of the decision might be imprecise. Therefore,

3 the Chamber requests the Prosecution to resubmit the whole decision to

4 CLSS and to provide the Chamber with a new translation.

5 Furthermore, the preamble of the decision refers to the Official

6 Gazette number 11 of 1992 and the Chamber requests the Prosecution to

7 inquire whether the issue of the Official Gazette is available and to

8 submit it to the Chamber by the 30th of March.

9 This concludes this request.

10 Then I'd like to make a statement on the admission of exhibits and

11 translations.

12 The first matter the Chamber would like to address is the fact

13 that several exhibits still require either translation or, in the case of

14 audio exhibits, accompanying CDs. In addition to those previously

15 addressed by the Chamber, the Chamber awaits translation of items P1077,

16 P1079, P1081, P1082, P1084, P1090, and the written text of P1092.

17 We also await CDs of items P1083 and P1088, up to and including

18 P1091.

19 Additionally the Prosecution tendered item P1092, and here I refer

20 to transcript pages 21119 to 21121, as both a written press report and a

21 video segment. The Chamber asks the Prosecution to submit the video

22 footage as P1092A, the English transcript of the video as P1092A.1 and the

23 B/C/S transcript of the video as P1092A.2.

24 The Defence tendered items D144, an extract from a newspaper, and

25 D145, consisting of four pages of an interview with Jovo Radojko in

1 English, specifically pages 27, 28, 29, and 30. The Chamber asks the

2 Defence to provide the Registry with the translations of these documents.

3 The Chamber asks the parties to submit to the Registrar all of the

4 above-mentioned items by the 5th of April 2006.

5 The second matter the Chamber would like to address relates to two

6 items introduced during the testimony of Witness Savkic. With respect to

7 P1065, a daily report dated the 7th of June 1992, and P1066, an order

8 dated the 7th of June 1992, the Chamber recalls that they have been

9 subject to substantial disagreement between the parties. I specifically

10 refer to transcript pages 20.679 to 20.701, 20.703 to 20.704, 20.813 to

11 20.815, 20.825 to 20.827, 20.975, 20.978 to 20.984, as well as the

12 submissions of the parties last Friday the 17th of March 2006.

13 The Defence has argued that the witness had no knowledge of the

14 contents or provenance of these two documents and that the witness stated

15 or implied that they were forgeries. The Prosecution submitted that these

16 items were proper impeachment documents.

17 The party introducing evidence need not prove that a document is

18 not a forgery in order to -- for it to be admitted into evidence. Unless

19 it is conclusively shown in court that a document is falsified, its

20 reliability may depend on the totality of the evidence and may only be

21 capable of definitive determination at a later stage of the proceedings.

22 Reliability should be left for assessment when considering the

23 weight a piece of evidence will be given. When a witness and a document

24 appear to contradict each other, it may be appropriate to admit both

25 pieces of evidence into the trial record. This may be the only way for

1 the Chamber to be able at a later stage to assess the reliability of both

2 the witness and the document. The Chamber therefore admits both P1065 and

3 P1066 into evidence.

4 The third matter the Chamber would like to address is the

5 admission of item P1104. The Chamber has considered the arguments of the

6 parties, especially at transcript pages 21.497 to 21.498. This is a news

7 agency report that was presented to the witness. The Chamber notes that

8 many similar documents have been admitted during these proceedings. D62

9 is an example of a news agency report admitted into evidence at a request

10 of the Accused even though the witness confronted with it clearly stated

11 that he did not have any access to the television or newspapers during the

12 relevant period. Once again, the Chamber considers the matter raised by

13 the Defence to be properly dealt with when considering the weight of this

14 document and not at the admission stage. Therefore, the Chamber admits

15 the document into evidence.

16 The fourth and final matter the Chamber would like to attend to is

17 the admission of Exhibits tendered by both parties. The following

18 exhibits were submitted during the testimony of previous witnesses and

19 await entry into evidence: For the Prosecution, P1055 to P1057, P1059,

20 P1060, P1074 to P1076, P1078, P1080, and P1085 to P1087, P1097 to P1103,

21 and P1105 to P1108. For the Defence, D142 and D143.

22 The Chamber requests the parties to submit any objections to these

23 exhibits right away. I do understand that the parties have been informed

24 by the staff of Chambers that this issue would be raised. So therefore if

25 there are any objections the Chamber would like to hear them.

1 MR. JOSSE: What, now?

2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, well, I was informed.

3 MR. JOSSE: My papers are in the Defence room in relation to

4 Poplasen. That wasn't made sufficiently clear to me.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Then let's then say that latest by tomorrow, any

6 objections.

7 MR. JOSSE: I've done the work so far as Mr. Poplasen is

8 concerned. I simply need to physically bring my notes into court.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Then you'll get time for that and next time you

10 appear in court we'll hear any objections.

11 Mr. Harmon any objections from the Prosecution?

12 MR. HARMON: No, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Then with a final decision, we will await, Mr. Josse,

14 until we have heard from you.

15 I would like to express my admiration at this moment for the

16 transcribers who so successfully put into the transcript all those numbers

17 read out by me. I admire the job they are doing where we very often

18 address the translators -- the interpreters and the technicians, I would

19 take this opportunity to express the -- our appreciation for the excellent

20 work done by the transcribers as well.

21 Then, Mr. Josse, then we could continue, I take it, with the

22 witness.

23 MR. JOSSE: I'm ready, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, Madam Usher. I also take the opportunity,

25 Mr. Josse, I am aware that you're concerned about tomorrow's session. We

1 are still looking whether an alternative would be possible, and I hope to

2 receive additional information still during this hearing.

3 MR. JOSSE: We are trying as best we can to make any contingency

4 plans, if the Chamber is aware of the results at the time of rising I

5 would be grateful because it involves matters to do with the UNDU.

6 [The witness entered court]

7 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

8 [Trial Chamber confers]

9 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Josse, the Chamber will try and see whether it

10 would be possible to sit tomorrow in the afternoon, but we are then

11 certain the only possibility is to do that after the Stakic judgement has

12 been delivered. And then, of course, we would need sometime for the

13 change of the tapes so we would lose, most likely, approximately two hours

14 of the afternoon session.

15 MR. JOSSE: Sorry, Your Honour, I --

16 JUDGE ORIE: We would move -- I mean --

17 MR. JOSSE: I thought we were going to sit all tomorrow afternoon

18 under the plan that Your Honour was mooting originally.

19 JUDGE ORIE: Let me see if I'm making a mistake here.

20 MR. JOSSE: Not originally, the plan Your Honour was mooting after

21 the last break.

22 JUDGE ORIE: We are talking about moving from morning to the

23 afternoon. And, yes, that caused you the problem so, yes, but Stakic is

24 in the morning, I think it is planned in the morning.

25 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. There is a -- they moved the delivery of the

2 Stakic judgement from morning to afternoon. That caused some confusion.

3 So that is not a solution at this moment. Let's first start with the

4 witness. We'll deal with the matter at the very end of this session.

5 WITNESS: Bosko Maricic [Resumed]

6 [Witness answered through interpretation]

7 Examination by Mr. Josse: [Continued]

8 MR. JOSSE:

9 Q. Mr. Maricic, I said at the commencement of the last break that I

10 was at this juncture going to ask you some more questions about your

11 knowledge of paramilitary activity in Brcko in the two weeks or so after

12 the war broke out and before you were wounded. Rather than ask you

13 generally, let me ask you about your state of knowledge very specific

14 groups. Firstly, the White Eagles.

15 A. I know nothing about White Eagles. I never heard or saw those

16 people in Brcko.

17 Q. What about forces under the command of Captain Dragan?

18 A. Well, I don't think they were White Eagles. That was something

19 different.

20 Q. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm not suggesting that Captain Dragan had

21 anything to do with the White Eagles. You've given your answer about the

22 White Eagles. I'm now asking you about Captain Dragan and his men.

23 A. I heard sometime at the beginning of the war, and I even ran into

24 three or four young men who I was told were under Captain Dragan but I

25 only ran into, like, three or four of them, not more.

1 Q. Any other information, knowledge, about Captain Dragan's forces?

2 A. No. While I was wounded, I was in hospital in Belgrade, and once

3 captain Dragan came to visit wounded men, including me. That's the only

4 time I saw him. I didn't see any other fighting men around him.

5 Q. What about Arkan and his forces?

6 A. I have never seen Arkan in person. I don't think he ever came to

7 Brcko. As for Arkan's men, I believe there were fewer of them than

8 Captain Dragan's men, but they were strong, in terms of influence, and

9 their influence far exceeded their numbers.

10 Q. How did their influence manifest itself?

11 A. First of all, they all had some sort of pseudonyms. They had

12 ranks like colonels, Lieutenant colonels, all of them seemed to have some

13 sort of high rank. They were rather arrogant and they simply imposed

14 themselves and issued commands. I'm talking about the period after the

15 war just began.

16 Q. Let's move on to Mauzer and his forces. What can you tell the

17 Chamber about him and his men?

18 A. Mauzer brought this Territorial Defence to Brcko, and those units

19 he brought numbered several hundred. Within them was a smaller unit

20 called Mauzer's guard. At that time, this Mauzer person made the weather

21 and he had no commander above him.

22 Q. The expression "made the weather" is not one that I understand.

23 Could you explain what that means, please?

24 A. You asking me?

25 Q. Absolutely, Mr. Maricic. You're the man in the hot spot at the

1 moment.

2 A. I didn't understand the question.

3 Q. You said a few moments ago that Mauzer "made the weather" and had

4 no commander above him. I didn't understand what you meant by the

5 expression "made the weather." Can you explain that phraseology?

6 A. Mauzer was a man who is full of himself. He commanded his own men

7 but also everybody else. He simply imposed himself as the commander.

8 Nobody dared oppose him. The only thing I noticed is that he sort of

9 appreciated and respected those Red Berets of Captain Dragan. As for the

10 locals, he didn't care for them much.

11 Q. When you refer to locals, what exactly do you mean?

12 A. I meant the troops or rather the armed men among whom I was, those

13 two or three companies, and the company commanders. To them, Mauzer was

14 the highest authority. Not in formal terms but it's simply that he

15 imposed himself on them.

16 Q. So to be clear by locals you mean local Serbs, don't you?

17 A. Yes. Armed local Serbs and civilians as well.

18 Q. In the first two weeks of the war, who was commanding the local

19 Serb war effort, as far as you were concerned?

20 A. Well, there were some men like company commanders, I can't

21 remember their names. One was Boro Borislav, he was commanding the unit

22 to which I belonged. But I can't remember the others. All of them were

23 absolutely obedient to Mauzer. Mauzer decided on the deployment of those

24 forces on the front line and decided all such things.

25 Q. Did you see Mauzer in the two-week period that we are --

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Where?

3 A. I was on the part of the front line that I described earlier and

4 that I marked on the map, when a man came who said he was Mauzer's deputy,

5 and said that my unit, my part of the troops, should move towards the

6 hospital. Then some sort of confusion occurred. That man left. Mauzer

7 himself arrived, gathered as many people as he wished, and took them

8 towards the hospital. That's one occasion when I saw him and I saw him

9 two or three times after that, and I saw him again after the war.

10 Q. I want to go back, if I may, to the JNA. Who was the JNA

11 commander, as far as you were aware?

12 A. At that time, the commander in Brcko was Pavle Milenkovic. He was

13 commander of the barracks.

14 Q. And how was he involved in the fighting, if at all?

15 A. No. I didn't see him. He was in the barracks. What he did and

16 how, I don't know. It's certain that he was not an unimportant person but

17 Mauzer was far more important.

18 Q. Does the name Captain Petrovic mean anything in relation to that

19 period?

20 A. Yes. I knew captain Petrovic and I met him once or twice in town

21 before the war. He was chief of security at the barracks in Brcko, chief

22 of military security.

23 Q. Do you recall him being on the television at the start of the war

24 with a local Muslim leader?

25 A. Rumour had it that he appeared on television together with Mustafa

1 Ramic, but I didn't see that myself. I only heard about it.

2 Q. Did you have any contact with Mustafa Ramic in the first two weeks

3 of the war?

4 A. In one of my statements, I said that I had gone out to town to

5 take a shower, and just out of curiosity, I toured the town to see what

6 things were like and I was passing by the barracks. There was one room in

7 the barracks just next to the street, and I heard a man shouting from that

8 room, "Come, Bosko, come. And report." I said, "Report to who?" And the

9 man said, "Mustafa Ramic is calling you." I noticed that it was a

10 military person and I didn't want to report but eventually I did come to

11 Mustafa Ramic. When the combat began in Brcko, he was their chief

12 military commander under the nickname Babo. So they put me on and he

13 asked me, "Can I do something to stop the war?" And I said

14 spontaneously, "Look, we need -- we need to do something. Your people

15 will get killed but so will ours." And Mustafa Ramic said, "Go and talk it

16 through with your people. I'll talk it through with mine and let's talk

17 again in half an hour." But he didn't call back and later I went back to

18 my unit. That's all I have to say about that incident.

19 Q. In the fortnight period that you are presently describing, what

20 was your understanding as to what was happening to Muslims who were living

21 in Serb-held parts of Brcko?

22 A. Well, that's a long story. As the front line moved, one number of

23 Muslims got captured. From what I know, but I only heard about it, there

24 were some people, Serbs, from the police, who were interrogated. Anyone

25 who was established to have taken part in the fighting was singled out,

1 put on one side, and all the others were released. That's what I know

2 about captives and the treatment of captives. When I went from the front

3 line to town, I noticed a few dead bodies along the road. I even

4 recognised one or two. They were local Muslims, people I used to know,

5 and it was a harrowing experience. If I had to go -- if I had somewhere

6 to go, I would have deserted the front line then. But after that, I gave

7 it some thought. I realised it was wartime, and war does not spare

8 anyone, innocent or not.

9 Q. Have a look, please, firstly at the map of Brcko town that you

10 have marked. Using the pointer, perhaps you can describe how the front

11 line moved. Describe is the wrong word. Demonstrate, please.

12 A. Well, I can only guess. I was not involved in any organisational

13 work or map drawing but I can tell you how the front line moved in the

14 area where I was. I marked already the spot where I found myself when I

15 first came to the front line. This is the line held by Muslims and Croats

16 in the place where I was. The front line moved along the Sava River and

17 there is a road going towards Banja Luka here. Around here should be the

18 hospital. And the front line went there. All along the edges of the

19 town. When the town was behind, the front line curved and continued over

20 here somewhere.

21 Q. Have a look, if you would, Mr. Maricic, at the other map.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Josse, I leave it to you to make it clear for

23 anyone who will look at the transcript at a later stage to understand what

24 the witness just pointed out.

25 MR. JOSSE: What I'm going to do, Your Honour, is give him perhaps

1 another one of these maps of the Brcko municipality and ask him to mark it

2 overnight. That might be a time-consuming way of dealing with the matter.

3 JUDGE ORIE: Until now, of course, we are dealing only with the

4 city, the town, rather than what the witness just said was about how the

5 front line moved in the town.

6 MR. JOSSE: The problem, of course, was he went well outside

7 through no fault of his own the bounds of the map. He was pointing to the

8 area that borders the map.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And at the same time, there is some ambiguity

10 into what he actually knows, what he has seen, at least it -- he started

11 his answer by saying, "Well, I can only guess," which, of course, is

12 not --

13 MR. JOSSE: Not encouraging.

14 JUDGE ORIE: Well, those are your words but I would not contradict

15 them.

16 MR. JOSSE:

17 Q. Mr. Maricic --

18 JUDGE ORIE: So I leave it to you what request we will put to the

19 witness to do overnight with the maps.

20 MR. JOSSE:

21 Q. Looking at the larger map the front line was somewhere near Ivici

22 is that right?

23 A. Ivik. That's where the front line was when I was wounded at

24 Ivik -- Ivici.

25 Q. Yes, it is Ivici on the map, isn't it?

1 A. Actually, it's Ivici. Ivici with a diacritic on the C.

2 JUDGE ORIE: On the map it appears northwestern part is the town.

3 MR. JOSSE:

4 Q. It's a moment I will cherish where I more or less pronounced it

5 right the first time.

6 Would you be able to, using this map of the municipality, draw a

7 line as to where you understood the front line to be at the point that

8 you were invalided out of the war?

9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Mr. Josse, before the witness answers the

10 question, how important, relevant, is it to know where it is? Are you

11 going to give this any follow-up or would it be enough to say, well, it

12 moved to the west or it moved to the east?

13 MR. JOSSE: That would undoubtedly be enough. I was only asking

14 him to mark it as a result of Your Honour's request.

15 JUDGE ORIE: The only thing I said, as a matter of fact, what he

16 explained to us before, that it's not easy to follow that on the

17 transcript without any marking but we could ask the witness, this front

18 line, Mr. Maricic, which as you indicated earlier, went somewhere through

19 town in the beginning, did this move to the west or to the east or did it

20 not move at all? Could you tell us?

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. It moved. It shifted.

22 JUDGE ORIE: It shifted. What direction, west, east?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] West and then also to southwest, and

24 later south.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And finally, was the front line still within

1 town or moved in such a way that front line left the town, so to say?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The front line remained within the

3 town all the way until end 1994. It remained within the town.

4 JUDGE ORIE: And then I see, for example, on the map, Kalanac

5 [phoen], Ivici. Was it finally in that area that the front line was?

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, yes.

7 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Josse? It seems that the front line moved to the

8 most western part of town.

9 MR. JOSSE: I'm content with that, if Your Honour is.

10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Please proceed.

11 Yes, Mr. Maricic, you would like to add something?

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I would like to add that to the west

13 side, there was also the main road to Banja Luka, and this part of the

14 front line that went along that road practically connected with the front

15 line in Posavina, so the corridor towards Banja Luka was established.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That's clear.

17 MR. JOSSE:

18 Q. And perhaps finally on this, the -- no. I'll deal with that

19 tomorrow, if I may?

20 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Mr. Josse, I'm looking at the clock and since I

21 said that we would leave the -- tomorrow's session to the end of today,

22 perhaps this would be a time.

23 MR. JOSSE: It would be convenient, Your Honour. Perhaps these

24 two maps should be numbered.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

1 MR. JOSSE: At this juncture.

2 JUDGE ORIE: Because they have not yet received a number.

3 Let's first start with the black and white map of the town marked

4 by the witness. That would be?

5 THE REGISTRAR: D150, Your Honours.

6 JUDGE ORIE: D150. Then you say the other map. The other map was

7 not marked by the --

8 MR. JOSSE: It was.

9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And that would be -- yes, Mr. Registrar that

10 would be?

11 THE REGISTRAR: That would be D151, Your Honours, with the ERN

12 number 03646512.

13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Marked by the witness.

14 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

15 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Josse, the coloured map was not marked by the

16 witness, was it? I see -- I've got it in front of me, here.

17 MR. JOSSE: It was. He circled where he spent the night.

18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, Stanovi. I fully agree with you. It's Stanovi

19 which is marked, yes. I had forgotten that. That would then be D151.

20 Yes.

21 Then, Mr. Maricic, we have a practical problem on our hearing for

22 tomorrow. We are scheduled to sit in the morning. Then we received a

23 request to move to the afternoon. We have not finally decided yet what to

24 do because there were some other problems involved as well. So therefore,

25 we will adjourn until tomorrow, but unfortunately I can't tell you yet

1 whether we'll sit in the morning or in the afternoon. You'll be informed

2 about that by the victims and witnesses section and I apologise for the

3 inconvenience it may cause but we hope to inform you as soon as possible.

4 Then could you please follow Madam Usher and -- but not -- but

5 not -- one second. But not until I have instructed you not to speak with

6 anyone about the testimony you have already given and you're still about

7 to give. So you should not speak with anyone about it. Then please

8 follow Madam Usher and we would like to see you back tomorrow, whether

9 morning or afternoon.

10 THE WITNESS: Thank you.

11 [The witness stands down]

12 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Josse, first of all, how much time you would

13 still need for your examination-in-chief with this witness, approximately?

14 MR. JOSSE: Another session, frankly, I would have thought

15 maximum.

16 JUDGE ORIE: Another session maximum.

17 Mr. Harmon, any idea already on time your cross-examination will

18 take?

19 MR. HARMON: I don't, Your Honour. I can't assist you. At least

20 a session, possibly more. But it depends on my analysis of his evidence

21 this evening and tomorrow's evidence as well.

22 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And the limits the Chamber will --

23 MR. HARMON: Of course, being very careful with the 60 per cent

24 rule, thank you, Your Honour.

25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

1 MR. JOSSE: Your Honour, now is as good a time to -- not to

2 grapple with this but to alert the Chamber to the fact, if the Chamber has

3 looked closely at our most recent filings we are in real difficulty as to

4 evidence for Friday, frankly.

5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

6 MR. JOSSE: To what extent that affects the thinking for tomorrow,

7 I don't know, probably not at all, but I do mention that in passing.

8 JUDGE ORIE: That's in your fourth request, you would say. Well,

9 let's say today it's Tuesday. We would certainly not start the next

10 witness tomorrow because he will arrive only in the afternoon from what I

11 understand.

12 MR. JOSSE: Correct. There was no possibility of starting him

13 tomorrow.

14 JUDGE ORIE: No. That means that we, at earliest if you were in a

15 position to properly prepare, that you could perhaps start on Thursday,

16 depending on how matters go tomorrow. What, then, would be your problem

17 for Friday?

18 MR. JOSSE: He may have finished.

19 JUDGE ORIE: He may have finished within one day?

20 MR. JOSSE: Though I personally have not spent a great deal of

21 time considering his evidence, we anticipate as a general proposition him

22 being shorter than some of the witnesses -- well, the last few witnesses.

23 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And the time estimate is including cross, isn't

24 it, on your -- the fourth of --

25 MR. JOSSE: I think that is right.

1 JUDGE ORIE: So you would say that -- and the witness who is now

2 scheduled for Monday would not arrive until?

3 MR. JOSSE: Friday at the earliest, and he remains unwell,

4 frankly. We are in not just daily I think twice daily contact with him,

5 and the prognosis literally vacillates from morning to evening.

6 JUDGE ORIE: So you expect the witness to come after Mr. Maricic

7 will most likely not take more than one day in total?

8 MR. JOSSE: He may not. That's the best I can say. I'm perhaps

9 being unduly pessimistic here.

10 JUDGE ORIE: We will take that into consideration when we will

11 give a decision. We'll let you know as soon as possible because I do

12 understand your problems. I hope you understand that other Chambers have

13 problems as well and that we are only trying to accommodate everyone as

14 good as possible but sometimes it's not possible to make everyone happy.

15 So whether it would be you, whether it would be the Defence or the other

16 Chamber.

17 MR. JOSSE: Your Honour I've spoken to Mr. Stewart and he says we

18 will cope as best we can with, of course, whatever order the court makes

19 in this regard. I've simply made some observations about the practical

20 difficulties involved. There is nothing more I can usefully add.

21 JUDGE ORIE: We will carefully consider them and we will inform

22 the parties on shortest notice whether we'll sit in the morning or the

23 afternoon.

24 Then we will adjourn until Wednesday.

25 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.52 p.m.,

1 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 22nd day of

2 March, 2006.

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