1 Monday, 19 March 2001

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.33 a.m.

6 JUDGE HUNT: Call the case, please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. This is the case number

8 IT-97-25-T, the Prosecutor versus Krnojelac.

9 JUDGE HUNT: Now, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, there is somebody from the

10 Office of the Prosecutor who was attempting to come into court somehow in

11 the public gallery, if you could call it a public gallery in this funny

12 little shoe box.

13 The Rule is that when we have a protected witness, as we have

14 now, nobody is permitted into the public gallery because there is no way

15 in which we can have screens put around the witness because the

16 interpreters are all cut off. Now, if you want to have somebody that you

17 can identify as a person from the OTP sitting in there, that's perfectly

18 all right, but it has to be made as an application and have it recorded in

19 the transcript, I'm afraid.

20 Do you know who we're talking about?

21 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. We're talking about an intern who

22 actually has a make to summary of this witness's testimony but she can do

23 it also in our rooms with the monitor.

24 JUDGE HUNT: Well, it's a matter for you. I would certainly say

25 that she could do so in those circumstances because it's rather like the

1 one we had in the other courtroom the other day during the closed court,

2 but you can understand that this tiny little room over there that they

3 call the public gallery has full view of the witness, so it is shut and

4 nobody is entitled to go in there without permission, you see.

5 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, given the fact that this

6 courtroom is very small and we have not much space here, I rather think

7 she should do it in our rooms and just watch the proceedings on the

8 monitor.

9 JUDGE HUNT: All right. If that's all right from your point of

10 view.

11 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.

12 JUDGE HUNT: Now, this new witness, FWS-69.

13 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes, Your Honour. Thank you.

14 JUDGE HUNT: I'm sorry. Before you go on, I'm afraid that we are

15 caught, we are going to be in this courtroom for a week or so. It's

16 because the other two trials have multiple accused and neither of them can

17 come into this tiny little room. I'm sorry about that, but we have indeed

18 been discriminated against. I don't think there's any Article in the

19 statute that would permit us to charge the registrar, but nevertheless, we

20 are being discriminated against.

21 Yes, now, sir, will you please take the solemn declaration that

22 you are being shown by the court usher.

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

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

25 JUDGE HUNT: Will you please sit down, sir.

1 WITNESS: FWS-69

2 [Witness answered through interpreter]

3 JUDGE HUNT: The pseudonym document will be Exhibit P439, and it

4 will be under seal.

5 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Thank you, Your Honour.

6 Examined by Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff:

7 Q. Good morning, Witness.

8 A. Good morning.

9 Q. Witness, in front of you you have a sheet of paper with the

10 witness number 69 on it, and below this number there is a name. Is it

11 your name?

12 A. Yes, it is.

13 Q. And below your name there is a date. Is it your date of birth?

14 A. Yes, it is.

15 Q. Underneath your date of birth there is a reference to a

16 profession. Is it your profession and your working place from before the

17 war?

18 A. Yes, it is.

19 Q. Underneath your profession there is a name. Is it the name of

20 your cousin who was later detained at KP Dom together with you?

21 A. Yes, it is.

22 Q. Below this name there is another name. Is it the name of your

23 uncle?

24 A. Yes, it is.

25 Q. Whenever you want to refer to these persons during your testimony,

1 do not call them by their names because that would reveal your identity.

2 Simply call them "uncle" or "cousin."

3 Below, you will find some more names of protected persons, and

4 when you want to refer to these persons, do not use their names, just use

5 their pseudonym, their number, or their initials. Do you understand

6 that?

7 A. Yes, I understand.

8 Q. Where were you born?

9 A. I was born in the village of Jelec, the municipality of Foca.

10 Q. And what is your ethnicity?

11 A. By ethnicity, I'm a Bosniak, a Muslim, and my religion is Muslim.

12 Q. Do you have children? Are you married and do you have children?

13 A. Yes, I am, and I do.

14 Q. Where did you live before the war?

15 A. In Foca.

16 Q. And where did you live in Foca, in which neighbourhood?

17 A. I live in the centre of the town.

18 Q. When the war broke out in Foca in April 1992, where were you?

19 A. In April 1992, in fact, before April 1992, I don't know the exact

20 date but I know it was Bajram, I went with my children and my family to

21 the village of Jelec.

22 Q. And where is Jelec situated in relation to Foca?

23 A. Its a 20 kilometres away from Foca, along the road to Miljevina.

24 Q. Is it a Muslim settlement?

25 A. I don't know exactly, but it's 95 to 98 per cent Muslim.

1 Q. How many people lived in Foca at that time? Do you know?

2 A. In Foca --

3 Q. In the village, and we are talking about Jelec.

4 A. As far as I remember, according to the census of 1990 or 1995 and

5 the electoral lists, there were about 890 or so members with voting

6 rights.

7 Q. And what would that mean? Do you know how many people lived there

8 altogether, including the children? Approximately. Not the exact number,

9 of course.

10 A. If there were 890 to 900, according to the census, that must mean

11 that a half of this number were other members, other family members.

12 Q. And how many houses belonged to Jelec? Approximately, not the

13 exact number of, of course.

14 A. I don't know precisely, but it can be 400 to 450 houses, including

15 surrounding hamlets.

16 Q. When was the last time that you went to work?

17 A. The last time I went to work was Monday, in the month of April. I

18 was to report to work then, but I didn't go then. I went on Tuesday, and

19 it was the 1st or the 2nd of April, the day after Bajram.

20 Q. And why did you stop to work?

21 A. I came to work that day - it was the Tuesday after Bajram. It

22 must have been the second or the third day of Bajram. When I arrived at

23 work in the school centre outside Aladza, there were very few pupils

24 outside the school. When I came inside, I asked why there were no

25 students, and the director told me that they hadn't come. I asked what we

1 were supposed to do, and they said, "Wait. Wait for the students to

2 come."

3 I waited for a while, for a couple of hours, and then the director

4 said we should go home. I asked, "What are we going to do tomorrow?" He

5 said, "Report to work."

6 So I went home, and when I came home, a friend of mine who worked

7 at the hospital called me around 1.00 p.m. and told me to get ready

8 quickly and come to fetch her in order for us to go together to my village

9 in Jelec.

10 I picked her up from the hospital. We came back home. She told

11 me that the situation wasn't good, that she had been told by a colleague

12 of hers, her friend with whom she worked by the name of Milojka. This

13 woman told her, "Take your children and get away from Foca quickly."

14 So my wife and I came back home. There were barricades around,

15 roadblocks around the town. We picked up the minimum of things we

16 could and we went to my village, to Jelec, and we arrived there without

17 encountering any problems or roadblocks. That's how I came to Jelec.

18 We spent the night there, but I was supposed to report to work

19 again the next day and she was too. From my home, the town centre was

20 about a kilometre away or perhaps 800 metres, and when we came to the

21 centre, buses were leaving, taking workers to Maglic, to Foca, but the

22 buses hadn't arrived. Many citizens were there waiting for the buses. I

23 wanted to continue in my own car, but I was told I could not. They told

24 me that beginning with Miljevina, there were roadblocks on the roads.

25 A man coming from Miljevina said that we couldn't go there, that

1 that night, in his warehouses and on the premises of Maglic, army troops

2 had arrived, raided the premises. They were commanded by a man called

3 Zeka. They told the employees to go home and that the premises were taken

4 over by the Serbian army. And they installed a roadblock, in fact, they

5 put a bulldozer on the road, across the road. So he arrived to Jelec

6 frightened --

7 Q. Witness, let me interrupt you. We would not need all the details

8 of what happened here and there. Just answer my questions and do not give

9 us all these details.

10 What I would like to know from you is why did you go to Jelec?

11 Did you feel safer there?

12 A. I shall reply to that question based on my experience from the

13 Second World War, Foca was an unstable place, unsafe. I know the history

14 very well, and I know the stories from the war. In Foca, I don't know

15 which year in the Second World War, Foca saw a genocide, a massacre of the

16 Muslim population. Two or 3.000 people were killed in one day on the

17 bridge on the Drina. Based on the same experience, no one in my village

18 got killed in the same war. The neighbours were good, tolerant, friendly,

19 and that's why I felt safe there. That's why I decided to be in Jelec.

20 Q. Did you own a house in Jelec?

21 A. I had an old house, inherited from my father, my parents, and

22 together with my brother, I built another big house. I had finished it

23 that year. So I stayed in my house.

24 Q. And you said already that you and your wife and your children went

25 to Jelec and that you actually wanted to go to work from there and you

1 were stopped at the barricade.

2 This barricade, who operated it? Do you know that?

3 A. I personally never reached the roadblocks. The roadblocks were

4 about a kilometre away, and it was at the exit from Miljevina in the

5 village of Rataja, and at the roadblock, according to these stories from

6 this Haso Suljevic, it was manned from locals from Miljevina, Serbian

7 soldiers wearing camouflage uniforms. They were manning the roadblock.

8 Q. How long did you stay in Jelec following this block?

9 A. We stayed in Jelec until the 4th of May, when I was captured and

10 transferred to the camp of the KP Dom in Foca.

11 Q. Did the Muslims in Jelec continue to live their normal life or did

12 they organise themselves to protect themselves?

13 A. Afterwards in Jelec - that was on the 6th or the 7th of April - we

14 were listening to the news. We had telephone connection was Miljevina, we

15 had telephone contacts and we listened to the radio. It was quiet in

16 Jelec. Combat had started already in Foca on the 7th or the 8th of

17 April. I don't know exactly. The news we heard was that fighting was

18 going on, that the health centre had been captured, that there was

19 fighting in Aladza and that the situation was difficult in Foca. We could

20 hear the sound of shelling from mortars and other weapons.

21 Q. What did you, you the residents in Jelec, what did you do to

22 protect yourselves?

23 A. The inhabitants of Jelec were confused and frightened. We watched

24 tanks going towards Miljevina from Kalinovik through Mladi Gaj, in Budanj,

25 earth was being bulldozed in order to install cannons and other

1 weapons, and the situation was generally difficult. We could hear

2 shooting. We can see Budanj from Jelec and other villages beyond Budanj.

3 We could see houses burning, we could see the smoke rising high, and hear

4 the shooting.

5 Q. Did you set up guard posts? I mean not you personally but the

6 villagers in Jelec.

7 A. Yes, we did. The inhabitants of Foca -- of Jelec did, because I

8 was from Foca and I spent only the weekends in Jelec. I spent most of my

9 time in Foca. Those sentry posts were at the entrance to Jelec, below a

10 place called Stavanj, the former railway station. That's where some

11 sentry posts were. Others were below Gradina towards Miljevina, and

12 another sentry post, third one, was even closer to Jelec.

13 There was a primary school there where I was summoned one day,

14 because my house is 800 metres away from the centre, and I was told, "You

15 have been summoned to stand guard here." I had no weapons. There were

16 people from the Party of Democratic Action, the SDA of Jelec. There was

17 Ibro, Tano, Sljivo --

18 Q. Witness, we do not need all the details. Please wait for my

19 questions and answer the questions.

20 What were the persons on the guard posts supposed to do? Why did

21 they stand guard?

22 A. When I was summoned and told that I am to stand guard, they told

23 me that my assignment was to stand guard for two hours, and my

24 duty was if somebody came from the direction of Miljevina or if I see a

25 personnel carrier, to fire one shot to warn the population of Jelec that

1 they should flee their houses, and they were ready to withdraw to nearby

2 woods.

3 Q. What did the villagers and what did you fear what would happen if

4 soldiers came into Jelec? Why did you organise this kind of alarm?

5 A. Well, people were afraid. Everybody was afraid for their lives,

6 the lives of their children. They were experiencing normal fear. We

7 could also hear the news of what was going on in Sarajevo and in other

8 places.

9 Electricity was cut off, the radio wasn't working, but we could

10 hear news on small battery-fed radios. We could hear on the news that

11 houses were burning, that people were being killed, and of course people

12 were frightened.

13 Q. And you said you were summoned once. Did you actually then stand

14 guard?

15 A. When I was summoned, I was told that I was to stand guard for two

16 hours. They told me it was my obligation, and I agreed. I had no weapon,

17 although I did have a pistol and a licence for it, but they told me I

18 didn't need a gun. They told me, "You'll receive a rifle when you get

19 there."

20 Q. How often did you stand guard in this kind of manner, only

21 once or several times?

22 A. Two or three times.

23 Q. In this period, did you actually observe burning villages,

24 other villages burning?

25 A. Yes, we could see that. Not Jelec, but only the villages beyond

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1 Miljevina, Danicici, Hrmalusa, Kozja, Luka, Budanj, and so on.

2 Q. Are these Muslim villages? Do you know?

3 A. I don't know precisely because I wasn't there, but we supposed

4 those were the villages.

5 Q. Did the Serbs and the Muslims in Jelec negotiate at some point in

6 time, and if so, when?

7 A. Yes, they did negotiate. Delegations came from Miljevina two or

8 three times. I wasn't present and I couldn't hear what the negotiations

9 were about because the negotiations were with the people from Jelec who

10 were permanent residents, but I only heard what other people said.

11 Q. And do you know who the people were that came from Miljevina to

12 negotiate? Do you know -- not the names. Do you know their positions?

13 Were they soldiers or were they connected to whatever authority?

14 A. Can I mention their names?

15 Q. If you know them, yes.

16 A. I cannot say chronologically who came the first time, who the

17 second time or the third time, but I know that once the delegation from

18 Miljevina included Colonel Stankovic, Mr. Elez, Cico Gojko, Cedo Zelovic,

19 and I don't remember the others.

20 Q. You said Colonel Stankovic, a Colonel from where? Do you know

21 where he came from? Was he a JNA officer or what?

22 A. I cannot say precisely. I know he was born in Miljevina. I don't

23 know whether he was a reserve Colonel or an active-duty colonel, but I

24 think in all probability he was a reserve, a Colonel in reserve forces, or

25 perhaps he was retired.

1 Q. What were the Muslims -- you said you were not present during the

2 negotiation. Did you, nevertheless, learn what the Muslims were requested

3 to do?

4 A. From the Muslims who had been there and from what they told me, I

5 know that they had insisted that we surrender the weapons we had, that we

6 do not fight, do not make war. They wanted peace to continue, the sowing

7 season to go on, and that's the first version of negotiations.

8 The second time when they came, an ultimatum was set, together

9 with a deadline for surrendering hunting and other weapons. All weapons

10 were to be surrendered in order for peace to be maintained.

11 Q. And what was the deadline? Do you know what date?

12 A. People were given one day to surrender weapons and the deadline

13 was a Friday. I think it was the 28th or the 29th of April or perhaps the

14 1st of May. The weapons were to be surrendered until noon. My neighbours

15 told me, "You have a pistol. Prepare your pistol and all the ammunition

16 you have and come before noon to turn it in."

17 Q. Did the Muslims in Jelec ever call the JNA for help? Do you

18 know?

19 A. I found out about that. I was not present there, but I found

20 out from other people that sometime around the 25th of April or the 20th

21 of April, I don't know exactly, in Jelec, within this delegation from

22 Miljevina, there was Colonel Pavlovic from Miljevina. When they talked,

23 the people of Jelec lived in fear. There was an ultimatum to surrender

24 their weapons. Dzemal Hadzic from Jelec wanted the arms to be

25 surrendered, but Colonel Pavlovic should send 20 to 25 to 30 soldiers to

1 be stationed in Jelec, I don't know the exact number, and that they would

2 be provided with ample food and that in Jelec they should have the

3 Yugoslav army. Pavlovic did not meet that request he said that that was

4 not within his domain, and that he would not do that and then he said if

5 anything bothered you, if anything was difficult for you,

6 escape to Kalinovik. Kalinovik is Turkey for you. You should feel

7 very safe up there.

8 Q. And this Colonel Pavlovic, was he from the JNA?

9 A. He was an active officer in Kalinovik. From the JNA. Yes, from

10 the JNA.

11 Q. When this ultimatum was issued, what did the villagers of Jelec

12 decide to do? Did you intend to hand over your weapons?

13 A. The ultimatum was on that Friday that I mentioned, at 12.00.

14 Before that Friday, people were told to come to Jelec, everybody, all the

15 locals. That was the afternoon or, rather, sometime in the evening hours

16 to the former carpet factory, the big hall there.

17 I came to this meeting. I wanted to tell them something at that

18 meeting. I was present there, but there were people also in the street

19 and on the road. Must have been 150 men. There were men mostly but there

20 were some women as well.

21 At these -- at this meeting, many people took part in the

22 discussion, and they were wondering whether they would hand over their

23 weapons, whether they would not hand over their weapons, and it was

24 decided that on the next day, weapons should be handed over for the sake

25 of peace, for the sake of stability. Jelec did not have any weapons,

1 Jelec did not have any army. Jelec decided to hand over its weapons in

2 order to leave in peace.

3 Q. Did you actually hand over the weapons the following day?

4 A. The next day, Friday, I had been sleeping at my house. When I got

5 up, it might have been around 7.00 in the morning, I don't know exactly,

6 there were people in front of my house, people who went to town and were

7 coming back. They said, "Guess what's up?" That day we were supposed to

8 hand in our weapons at 12.00, and they told me that some kind of military

9 had arrived in Jelec. So with them, I returned to town again to see what

10 was going on over there.

11 Q. What kind of army had arrived in Jelec, or soldiers?

12 A. I came to the restaurant down in the centre of town. There

13 weren't any. There were lots of locals from Jelec. I did not see them.

14 I said, "Where are they"? And they said, "They are over there in the

15 carpet factory." In the meantime, I got they got there from the carpet

16 factory. I saw two or three soldiers in uniform. They had camouflage

17 uniforms. It was the first time that I had seen insignia of that kind.

18 There were two or three soldiers in uniform and six or seven soldiers who

19 were carrying hunting weapons, rifles. He Did not introduce himself to

20 me, but they told me that that was Major Besovic who had arrived, I don't

21 know where from.

22 At that moment, some people asked him, "What are you doing here?

23 Are you guaranteeing security to these people here? What is going to

24 happen to all these people?" He replied -- I mean, they were getting into

25 the restaurant and they wanted to sit in the restaurant. And he said,

1 "Who's going to guarantee my security? Everybody guarantees his own

2 security."

3 Again when people insisted, saying that there were so many women

4 and children there, that all of this population was unprotected, and he

5 said everybody guarantees his own security. He came -- he said, "I'm not

6 here to protect Jelec. I am protecting Bosnia-Herzegovina."

7 Q. And these soldiers that had arrived, were they Muslims or what

8 were they?

9 A. I don't know their names and surnames. I found out there were

10 people there from Visegrad. It was as if Visegrad had been occupied and

11 that they got out of Visegrad, having taken some weapons. Besovic was

12 there. They told me that that was him, but he hadn't introduced himself.

13 I don't know about the others; Muslims most probably.

14 Q. Did the villagers of Jelec join the Muslim soldiers?

15 A. In terms of who guaranteed whose security, his answer was, "I'm

16 not asking you to join us. We're not forcing you to do that. It's a

17 matter of everyone's own free will. Who wants to join us may but who

18 doesn't want to doesn't have to." That was his answer, and some people

19 from Jelec did join him. I don't know who they are.

20 And he left. He got going. As they were leaving our people, they

21 passed by the former barracks. They crossed the bridge, and they came to

22 the hill of Stavanj. With him were perhaps about ten people, and then

23 they were joined perhaps by a few locals from Jelec. I don't know exactly

24 how many. He said that he also had another platoon of some ten men and

25 that they were going up to Gradina. So they left, and I went back home.

1 Q. How far is this hill that you just mentioned away from the

2 residential areas of Jelec?

3 A. Well, as the crow flies, perhaps about one kilometre. I don't

4 know whether this is very accurate, but there is nearby. This is a hill

5 above Jelec which you can see very well. It is basically right above

6 Jelec. You can put it that way.

7 Q. Was Jelec attacked on that day?

8 A. On that day when I arrived home, people were upset. People were

9 terrified. When I got home, together with my neighbours, we decided to

10 leave our homes, to flee from our homes. We decided to flee to the forest

11 below the mountain of Husac. So we left with our children, our wives. In

12 the meantime, from the village of Jelec, we saw people fleeing to the

13 hills even before we had left.

14 I left my house on the 1st of May. It was a sunny day. We took

15 some things, as many as we could carry in our hands. We went uphill. We

16 were walking through the woods and along the meadows. When we got about

17 one kilometre away from my house, the first shells already started hitting

18 Jelec from the direction of Miljevina.

19 As we continued our journey, 200 or 300 metres later then we heard

20 sounds from the direction of Kalinovik. We thought that these were jet

21 planes. After that, very loud explosions were heard in Jelec. The earth

22 was shaking. We were really scared. We tried to run away as far as we

23 could from Jelec, as far as into the forest as we could.

24 Q. How many villagers were fleeing with you? Can you give us a

25 proximate number?

1 A. The village of Jelec is a centre -- I don't know how they were

2 actually running away. However, they all got out of Jelec. On the other

3 hand, the right bank of the river, you could see people escaping there

4 from Sokolina, Cilec [phoen], Vis. People were leaving their houses and

5 running into the forest. I could notice that.

6 As for Jelec specifically, I don't know exactly. It depended on

7 how fast people could move. There were grandmothers, grandfathers,

8 children. So it was the entire population of the village running away.

9 It was an exodus, so you can't really say.

10 Q. Did residents remain in Jelec? Did people remain in the town

11 itself?

12 A. I forgot to tell you something. In the meantime, from my house, I

13 came up to my uncle's house, [redacted]

14 We asked him to join us. He counselled us to flee; however, he said that

15 he didn't want to leave, that he wasn't healthy enough to go, and that he

16 was unwilling to leave his home and that he was staying home no matter

17 what. That is what I know about him. He stayed at home.

18 Q. How long did you stay in the woods? Was it until your arrest

19 that you already mentioned?

20 A. I got into the woods on the 1st of May, and up there in the woods,

21 we arranged for a place to sleep behind a rock. There were shells that

22 were still falling, so we were afraid that we would get hit by a shell.

23 So we tried to arrange this place behind a big rock. We used evergreen

24 branches, we put that on the ground, and then we had taken some blankets.

25 In the evening it rained, so we tried to cover ourselves with plastic. My

1 children were still underaged. They had a small tent for two persons.

2 There were lots of us from the village there. We were all together in a

3 group. However, I can't tell you how many people were there exactly.

4 Then we lit a fire, but we didn't want the smoke to be seen. So that's

5 why we did it only during the night. We tried to prepare some food there

6 but --

7 Q. Witness, let me interrupt you. We do not need all these details.

8 My question was, actually: How long did you stay in the woods? Please

9 answer this question and focus on my questions, please.

10 A. I stayed in the woods until the 4th of May. That's when I was

11 arrested.

12 Q. And during these days, was Jelec shelled all the time?

13 A. All the time, from two directions, Miljevina and Kalinovik. Every

14 three minutes, three shells. It was shelled all the time. It was being

15 hit all the time. In those days, we would go out to a meadow and watch

16 these shells falling on Jelec. Most of them fell around Relji [phoen],

17 Gradina, the centre of Jelec. You could see explosions and places where

18 shells fell.

19 Q. Was Jelec taken over by Serb soldiers at a point in time?

20 A. The Serb soldiers did not come to Jelec. They took over Jelec on

21 the 4th of May. They took Jelec over on the 4th of May, when Jelec was

22 attacked from all sides by soldiers.

23 Q. Did they remain, the people, in Jelec, or did the people in

24 woods fight back? Did they ever fight back again these Serb soldiers?

25 A. To tell you the truth, I don't know. Let's go back to some of

1 these details. On the 4th of May, we heard shells. Shells were falling.

2 We were there. Sometime around 11.00, a man came to this place where we

3 were and said, "Let's get going from here. The Serb army, the Chetniks,

4 have arrived to the village of Palez. There are ten buses there and they

5 are coming from behind our backs." Then we started fleeing further into

6 the woods, higher up, into the rocky areas. There was panic, there was

7 fear. As we were running uphill, say, 500 metres later, my older daughter

8 was not there. She got lost somewhere. I returned to that place in order

9 to find my daughter. Some people who were passing by were there, and I

10 asked whether they had seen my daughter. They said that she had gone in

11 the direction of Palez. I went in that direction, 300 or 400 metres, and

12 then I came across the Serb soldiers and that's when I was taken

13 prisoner.

14 Q. Before we continue with what happened to you after you had been

15 taken prisoner, what happened to your uncle? And please do not repeat his

16 name. Just call him your uncle. We know his name now.

17 A. In the meantime, that is to say, in the period between the 1st and

18 the 4th of May, my uncle was at home. His son went every day or every

19 other day and gave him food to eat at home. So he went to see him. He

20 went down surreptitiously, but he was home alive and well. What happened

21 on that day, I don't know. I found out about that only later.

22 Q. What did you find out?

23 A. I found out about that at the camp in KP Dom. I was brought to

24 the camp on the 5th of May, and ten days later, I found out from people

25 who were being brought in from town that my uncle had been killed.

1 Q. Did your wife confirm this after your release?

2 A. No. Let me add something else. People who were brought in told

3 me that Jelec had been totally burned down, that everything had been

4 burned down and that 35 people were killed in Jelec and among these people

5 was my uncle as well.

6 Q. Did your wife confirm this later on when you saw her again after

7 your release?

8 A. Yes. My wife spent the night of the 6th of May in the forest.

9 They took us away, and she stayed in the woods with the children and some

10 other women, 10, 12, I don't know how many. The next morning she went

11 down to the village. She came to my uncle's house. She found him dead

12 there in front of the house. He was lying on the ground, and apparently

13 somebody had come before she came. He had a red rag on his face. He was

14 lying on the back. There was a gunshot wound in his chest. This was an

15 exit/entry wound. It went through his back. One of his legs had burned

16 down since the house had burned and he was at the threshold, and then one

17 leg had burned, that side of his trousers, and one sock. So she left him

18 there. She left. She didn't even go to my house because there was smoke

19 coming out of it. She was afraid to go.

20 Q. Your wife, how was she able to make out what kind of a wound it

21 was your uncle had? What did she do?

22 A. She came up to him and she looked. She saw these gunshot wounds

23 in the chest, as she said. These were exit/entry wounds. They had gone

24 through the back. You could see this on the back, how these bullets got

25 out. She was not afraid to turn him and to look.

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1 Q. What kind of profession does your wife have that she dared to turn

2 your uncle around?

3 A. She didn't know that my uncle was dead. She went to see the

4 house, to have a look. She came across him and he was lying there dead.

5 But she was, by profession, a medical technician, a nurse. [redacted]

6 [redacted]. So she took

7 care of a lot of patients during those years. So she wasn't afraid of

8 such things.

9 Q. Yes. You said that you were arrested on the 4th of May. Who

10 arrested you?

11 A. I told you already. I went through the woods to look for my

12 daughter. I was calling out her name. I was calling it out loud. In the

13 meantime, as I was walking, on the ground five metres away from me there

14 was a line of soldiers lying on the ground. They were lying down a slope,

15 10 or 15 of them, and then 10 or 15 of them on the other side, and they

16 all pointed their rifles at me and said, "Here comes a scout. Hands up."

17 And I put my hands up. One of them -- one of them held me at gunpoint and

18 walked up to me. I kept my hands up. He searched me from the head

19 downwards. Then he took off my trousers, he took off my boots. He asked

20 me where my grenades were, where my weapons were. I didn't have anything

21 on me. I just had my hunting knife. He took it off and threw it to the

22 side. I put on my trousers. The one who was holding me at gunpoint

23 walked up to me and put his hands round my neck, moved me about three or

24 four metres, pushed me up a tree and said that he would shoot me there.

25 Would you like me to go on?

1 Q. I would rather you answer my questions and not to hear all these

2 details.

3 These soldiers, were they Serb soldiers?

4 A. These were soldiers who had olive-green/grey uniforms on. They

5 were not camouflage military uniforms. They were olive-green/grey

6 soldiers' uniforms, those that NCOs usually wore. They all wore

7 the same kind of clothes. They were carrying automatic weapons. There

8 were machine-guns, there were also semi-automatic rifles. There was the

9 insignia of the Yugoslav People's Army. It was the military, all right.

10 Q. But I asked you if they were Serb soldiers.

11 A. Serb soldiers. Serb

12 soldiers.

13 Q. Did these soldiers threaten you or insult you?

14 A. The one who grabbed me by the neck and who pushed me up that tree,

15 he said also that he would shoot me there. He said to me, "What are you

16 doing here? Why did you come here? To organise an uprising?" And he was

17 cursing my Ustasha mother. He said that he would nail me to that tree.

18 He pointed his rifle to my heart. I could see those yellow bullets in the

19 rifle. I was really terrified then. My legs went numb. I felt my entire

20 body quivering. It went all the way up to my head, and then, all of a

21 sudden, all fear was lost.

22 At that moment, the man who was holding me at gunpoint introduced

23 himself to me. He said, "Do you know me?" I said that I did know him.

24 He introduced himself though. He said that his name was Jasmin Beckovic,

25 the son of Bego Beckovic. He said, "Why are you so terrified? Your

1 daughter is there. We found her with two old women. There's nothing

2 wrong with her." Then the one who was holding me up to the tree let go of

3 me and said, "What's wrong with you? You had a house, you had an

4 apartment, you had a car. You don't like Yugoslavia. You want a

5 sovereign Bosnia, and now I'm going to give Pijesak, the SDA and Alija to

6 you. Where is your commander? How many machine-guns do you have? How

7 many weapons do you have?" I said that we haven't even got a Colonel

8 there, that there is no military, no soldiers, no weapons, no

9 nothing.

10 Q. Witness, let me interrupt you. I would like you to answer my

11 questions and not give that many details.

12 JUDGE HUNT: I'm going to emphasise that, sir. I know that you

13 want to tell us all of this, but we are limited to issues beyond which you

14 are going. We are not here to determine these sorts of matters. What we

15 are very interested in is the evidence which you can give in relation to

16 the matters we do have to determine. So please just answer the questions

17 without going on to tell us everything you know about what happened at the

18 time.

19 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

20 Q. Were other villagers detained on the same day by the same group of

21 soldiers?

22 A. On the same day, another six men were detained with me. I was the

23 seventh. On the same day, we were transported to the KP Dom in Foca, the

24 camp in Foca.

25 Q. When you and these other six men were arrested, were women

1 arrested, women and children arrested as well?

2 A. Together with us, I don't know exactly. There was my wife, my

3 children, and many other children, women, and elderly people. We were all

4 transported together beyond the village of Jelec and the hamlet of Zelasi

5 [phoen]. They stayed somewhere behind, and the seven of use taken on.

6 They said they were taking us to the commander to be interrogated.

7 When we arrived at Jelec, there were buses waiting there, and then

8 we were transported to Foca, and we arrived there in the evening.

9 Q. Where were the women and children separated from the men, at which

10 place?

11 A. That was in the village of Laza. In fact, beyond the village of

12 Laza, about 100 metres away, there is the former railway which is now

13 abandoned. There was a crevice there, and we were separated there from

14 the women. They remained up there, and we were taken from the village of

15 Laza to Jelec and onwards from Jelec.

16 Q. How did you get to Laza and later on to Jelec? Did you all

17 have to walk from the place of arrest to Laza?

18 A. We walked all the way to the village of Laza, and from then on, we

19 took the so-called upper railway. They drove us down the rails for a

20 couple of hundred metres, the seven of us, and in a spot where there was a

21 deep crevice, they told us to sit down. They were wondering what to do

22 with us. There were 20 or 30 soldiers there. We were wondering what they

23 were going to do with us and they told us they were waiting for Vojo, the

24 commander. Then Vojo came, accompanied by this seventh man. They put him

25 together with us and three machine-guns and rifles were pointed at us.

1 When Vojo arrived -- he had the rank of captain. He had three

2 stars on his sleeve. He climbed down to this hole with us. There were

3 children among us. He said the children are completely innocent. He was

4 looking at a child, and he told us, "What have you done? What do you want

5 a sovereign Bosnia for? Why are you unhappy with Yugoslavia? You have no

6 weapons to fight with." He told us to shut up and to go in front of

7 them. That's how we arrived at Ravna Seoca

8 Q. Witness, let me interrupt you. Please do not give us all these

9 details. Just answer my questions.

10 On your way on foot to Jelec, did you see Muslim villages

11 burning?

12 A. When we passed the village of Seoca, we came to a height,

13 so-called Gajei from which we could see the village of Jelec, Govze,

14 Podgaj, Ratina, Podgaj. Everything was burning, and the houses were

15 already burnt down. We could see crows in the air and other birds. It

16 was eerie. All the houses were burned down by that time. I could see my

17 own house, my old house in flames and many other houses. There was a lot

18 of shooting with submachine-guns and all kinds of weapons, and everything

19 was burnt down: Ratine, Banjine, Gradac and so forth

20 Q. These villages that you just mentioned, are these Muslim

21 villages?

22 A. All of these were Muslim villages. Above the village of Govze,

23 near the woods, there were about ten Serbian houses. They were not on

24 fire and they were never burnt down.

25 Q. While you were walking and while you saw these burning houses,

1 did you or anyone else in your group refer to the houses? Did a soldier

2 make remarks about the burning houses?

3 A. They didn't say anything, but somewhere by the village of Laza, we

4 climbed down to the first village and a soldier asked me, "Are these

5 Muslim houses?" I said, "Yes, they are." We were walking in front and

6 those houses were being set on fire behind us by the soldiers who were

7 walking behind. However, in front of us, there were also houses on fire,

8 but we didn't come near them.

9 Q. Did a woman ask a soldier what she should do now that her house

10 was burning?

11 A. That happened before, in the place called Gaj. A woman asked,

12 "Where are you driving us? Where are we going to go now that our houses

13 have burnt down?" A soldier said, "You won't need any where we're taking

14 you."

15 Q. You said that you saw Jelec burning. Does Jelec have a mosque and

16 was it burning too?

17 A. We didn't see it then from the smoke. We couldn't see what was

18 going on in Jelec, but when we came to the village of Laza and there was a

19 place called have a Vranica or Glavica near Jelec, houses were burning by

20 the road. We couldn't pass through and they told us to sit

21 down. There was shooting from the houses, and they said, "You keep saying

22 you have no weapons, and just look at this shooting from the houses."

23 They were looking for two men, and they said if they didn't find them,

24 they would shoot us.

25 Then we continued on our way. A transmission pole fell, an

1 electricity transmission pole, and blocked the road. We arrived at the

2 place called Glavica, near Jelec. When we arrived there, I could see that

3 the mosque had burnt down and the tower was gone. The carpet factory was

4 burning, the whole centre was burning. I couldn't even see the carpet

5 factory from the smoke. In the meantime these two soldiers who were

6 setting houses on fire were found. They were black with soot. I

7 actually knew these two soldiers. Guns were pointed at us, and they

8 wanted to shoot us straight away, but the soldiers who were escorting us

9 didn't let them.

10 Q. Witness, when you reached Jelec, and you mentioned already the

11 buses that were waiting, where were the buses waiting and what happened at

12 the buses?

13 A. We couldn't pass through the centre of Jelec. We passed by the

14 mosque, by the river of Govze, and we passed by the sawmill. We went

15 across the bridge to the other bank of the river of Govze where the former

16 railway station was. The road widened in that place. There were about 50

17 military vehicles, some buses, jeeps, and we were driven in front of them

18 along the road.

19 As we came closer to the troops, they were taking off the knives

20 from their rifles. They lined us up, and behind our backs they put

21 the knives in the back of our necks. These soldiers did not -- were not

22 wearing olive-grey, drab uniforms. They were dressed in various clothes.

23 They were dirty. They had long beards. And they started beating people.

24 Q. Did they even start -- try to kill you or did they intend to

25 kill you? Did they say anything?

1 A. To tell you the truth, I was on the verge of a breakdown. I could

2 only feel this knife on the skin of my neck. The people who were next

3 to me were being beaten. One soldier was carrying a big photo of Tito

4 and hit a man next to me on the head. He broke his nose. He was saying,

5 "I found this in your house, and there is no more Tito to defend you."

6 But nobody hit me at that moment.

7 Then there was the defence of the village of Jajkovici beyond that

8 railway station. From up there, the troops were carrying something in

9 white sheets. The sheets were covered with blood. I was afraid they

10 might be carrying bodies. I had a feeling they were going to kill us. By

11 the road where we

12 were sitting, there were a lot of goods just thrown on the ground from

13 various shops, wrapped in sheets. But what they were carrying in those

14 sheets were actually calves. They were going to a --

15 Q. Witness --

16 A. -- an assembly place.

17 Q. Witness, let me interrupt you, and please do not give me all these

18 details. Simply answer my questions.

19 Did you board the buses or did you board vehicles that took you to

20 the KP Dom?

21 A. Locals from various places came to the assembly place. Soldiers

22 were already on board these buses. As we were getting on, we were

23 beaten.

24 I remember at one point we fell on our knees, and they told us not

25 to look at the soldiers. They beat us then. And as we were to board a

1 bus, one driver said, "I'm not going to take these people in until this

2 stops." So they stopped beating us. Then we boarded the bus, and the bus

3 started towards Miljevina.

4 Q. The bus driver who actually prevented further beating and

5 mistreatment, was he a civilian or was he a soldier?

6 A. I cannot say exactly. He wasn't wearing an uniform. I know that

7 much.

8 Q. From Jelec, where were you taken, straight to the KP Dom or

9 somewhere else first?

10 A. They took us to Miljevina. We stopped in front of a motel in

11 Miljevina. As far as we could see from the back windows, there was a

12 welcome party made up of the locals. They got off the buses. They

13 fired shots into the air. They hugged and kissed with the local people.

14 Then they got on the bus again, and we started towards Foca.

15 Q. Where did you go in Foca?

16 A. On the bus, on our way to Foca, they forced us to sing certain

17 songs. I won't say which. On the intersection at the road near Kopilovo,

18 on wait to Tjentiste, we stopped. There was an awning and a sort of

19 podium near the road. We got off the bus there with our hands behind our

20 heads. There were a lot of soldiers there in parade uniforms and in

21 camouflage uniforms. There was a man there called Cosa, and besides him

22 there was Zoran Vukovic. Cosa ordered us to kiss the Serbian flag which

23 was put up high, and he told us to kiss that flag and to make the sign of

24 the cross, and we failed to do that, they would cut off two of our

25 fingers.

1 Since that was the threat, Cosa told someone to get pliers to make

2 the threat more real. So people from the bus stepped out and kissed the

3 flag, and when it was my turn, I did the same.

4 Then we went to the primary school, which was 20 or 30 metres away

5 from that place, and we entered the staff room of that school.

6 Q. Did you see Boro Ivanovic in the school or near the school?

7 A. I saw him in the staff room of that school but not before.

8 Q. Who was he? What was his position, if you know?

9 A. I don't know what his position was. In the staff room, we sat on

10 the floor, one or two metres away from each other, and they brought a

11 Serbian soldier into that room, by the name of Majdof. I had worked in

12 Focatrans before. He beat that soldier and slapped him on the face. It

13 was so horrible that we were frighten. He justified himself mentioning

14 some papers. They asked him why he didn't take part in that action in

15 Jelec. He was showing some papers to justify himself and the person who

16 was beating him did not believe him and continued slapping him and beating

17 him.

18 Then he went from one to another of us, and I put my hands on my

19 stomach to protect myself. He kicked me on the face and broke two of my

20 teeth. Then he left that room, and he didn't come back.

21 Q. You said you did not know what position he had. Did he wear a

22 uniform, a military uniform? I mean Boro Ivanovic.

23 A. He had a military uniform, and what his position was, I don't

24 know. This soldier who was beaten was being punished for failing to

25 report to that unit, which went -- which attacked Jelec.

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1 Q. You said that you, afterwards, were also kicked, and the others as

2 well, the other Muslims present as well. Who did that, Boro Ivanovic or

3 someone else?

4 A. No. Boro only kicked each of the seven of us once and slapped us

5 once on the face each, and then he left the room and he didn't come back.

6 Q. Were you beaten by other soldiers as well on that occasion?

7 A. There were no soldiers. There were three men in camouflage

8 uniforms. I know two of them, and I don't know the third one. There was

9 also a fourth one wearing a police uniform and a beret on his head. That

10 man didn't touch us and didn't beat us, whereas the three others did beat

11 us. They went from one to another, beating us, and the most violent one

12 was Jankovic and another one, Zelenovic, nicknamed Zelja. I don't know

13 the third man. I would recognise him, but I don't know who he is. He was

14 wearing a reserve police uniform.

15 Q. Did anyone intervene and stop these beatings at a point in

16 time?

17 A. It got a little better after that. Two of our people were taken

18 out for ten minutes, and then they would come back to that room. After

19 that, Radivoje Jegdic came to that room in civilian clothes. He had

20 jeans, some sort of jacket, and a pistol in his belt. When he arrived,

21 all beating stopped. He asked me, "How are you?" We knew each other. He

22 asked after my children. He was very nice and decent. All beating

23 stopped, as I said. Nobody beat us any more.

24 Q. Were you taken to the KP Dom then?

25 A. Then we were ordered to clean that room and tidy it up. Shall I

1 tell you the details?

2 Q. No. Please tell us where were you taken.

3 A. Then we were taken out of that room. Night had fallen already.

4 We were taken outside the building. Above the road there was a wall. We

5 were lined up against that wall, and somebody, behind our backs, said we

6 should all be executed. A soldier came up to me. He put his bayonet, the

7 knife on his rifle, to my neck, and while this was happening, somebody was

8 making a list. He was putting our names -- taking our names down,

9 including my name. He said that we should be executed then and there.

10 But then he changed his mind, and he said, "Take them to the Drina

11 bridge. Kill them and throw them off the bridge." Then he changed his

12 mind again, and he said, "They're not worth the ammunition. Put them on

13 the bus again, take them to Kopilovo, kill them with clubs and throw them

14 into Potocina [phoen]." Until Then I was afraid that they would kill me

15 but I was scared that the club wouldn't hit me the right way and I

16 wouldn't be killed straight away.

17 Then a vehicle came and they put us into that vehicle. Three of

18 us sat in the back. There was a driver, and there was a man sitting

19 across from us. He kept us at gunpoint. He told us to look at the roof

20 of the vehicle. We started towards Kopilovo, but then they made an

21 U-turn, and because I knew the place and knew the road, I understood we

22 were going towards Foca. At some point we arrived at a place that was

23 lit. There was light outside. Then I recognised the KP Dom. We had

24 arrived there.

25 Q. Do you know what time it was? Approximately.

1 A. I don't know exactly. It might have been 10.00 p.m., maybe 9.00

2 p.m. It was night, in any case.

3 Q. Were all seven of you taken to the KP Dom? On the 4th of May.

4 A. Yes, all seven of us.

5 Q. How long did you stay at the KP Dom until then?

6 A. I was taken away from the KP Dom on the 8th of December, 1992.

7 Q. When you arrived at the KP Dom, who received you?

8 A. We got off that vehicle. We put our hands behind our heads. I

9 recognised, in front of the KP Dom, people who worked there before the

10 war, policemen wearing police uniforms. There were several people in

11 camouflage uniforms. There was one man named Prodanovic in a soldier's

12 olive-grey uniform, and they took us to a room right next to the entrance

13 to the KP Dom. There they searched us. They searched our pockets. I had

14 a comb. I had a handkerchief. I had a watch on my hand. Risto Ivanovic

15 frisked me and then I was also searched by the man in the uniform,

16 Prodanovic. He took away my comb and my handkerchief and he left my watch.

17 Then they took us inside the KP Dom. Risto took us through the compound,

18 through the yard, and we were taken to the building on the right-hand

19 side. We climbed three stone steps. We went upstairs and were taken to a

20 room where Risto left us.

21 The rooms were empty. There was no write there. We could see

22 only the street lights outside. He left us in that room. He said, "You

23 have no blankets. You have nothing. You just have a carpet here," and he

24 showed a carpet in the hall and he said, "Try to use this as a blanket."

25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: With the help of the usher, I like to show

1 the witness the photograph Exhibit 18, photograph 7512.

2 Q. Would you please show us in which room you were taken?

3 You have to show us on the ELMO, not on the monitor.

4 A. I came this way. I climbed the stairs, and I came to this room

5 here. These two windows overlook the yard. Those windows belong to

6 another room, and I was in this room. That was Room 18.

7 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: The witness has just pointed out the floor

8 above the ground floor in the building number 2. We refer to this room

9 actually as Room 18.

10 JUDGE HUNT: That's right. That is Room 18 that he's pointing to,

11 the one on the corner.

12 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.

13 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

14 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. Thank you. That's enough. And I think

15 it's time to stop.

16 JUDGE HUNT: Very well. We'll adjourn now until 11.30.

17 --- Recess taken at 11.00 a.m.

18 --- On resuming at 11.30 a.m.

19 Q. And did he come in a group of detainees from Jelec?

20 A. You mean the camp of the KP Dom?

21 Q. Yes. When he came to the KP Dom, was he in a group of villagers

22 from Jelec?

23 A. Yes. He was in a group of 47 people.

24 Q. Witness, before the war and during your confinement, did you

25 suffer from a heart condition?

1 A. Yes. I had angina pectoris.

2 Q. And did you get treatment and the necessary medication for your

3 heart condition while you were detained?

4 A. I did not get any medication. After I came to the camp, 10 or 15

5 days later - I don't know exactly - Gojko, the male nurse from the

6 prison -- no, not Gojko. Well, a guard came and said, "Who has a problem

7 can go to see a doctor." Several of us in the room reported sick, but he

8 chose only three, and I was one of the three to go to see the doctor.

9 Q. Did you actually see a doctor, or did you see this nurse that you

10 just mentioned?

11 A. We were taken to that building number 1. That was on the second

12 or third floor, I don't know exactly. We were taken by guards. Gojko

13 received us there. I was seen by Dr. Cedo Dragovic. He examined me. He

14 didn't really examine me because I was blue in the face. He didn't even

15 ask me what was wrong or, rather, he did ask me what was wrong. I said I

16 had pain in the chest. He prescribed some kind of medicine for me. He

17 sent me to another room telling me that Gojko should give it to me. When

18 I came to Gojko's, that medicine wasn't there.

19 Then I returned to his room again, although I was not supposed to

20 do that. I did that at my own initiative. Drago, the doctor, received me

21 again. He got up from his chair, and he took from his cupboard a cream

22 that was manufactured by Galenika from Belgrade, and it was a cream that

23 sportsmen were supposed to use when they would get injured in any way, so

24 then -- it was also supposed to be used for massage. So that's what I

25 took.

1 Q. Did you ever get medication for your angina pectoris?

2 A. I never got medicine for my angina pectoris. In the meantime,

3 people who were with Gojko when lice appeared, people from my room, that

4 is, Gojko went with people from my room to spray something round the beds,

5 and then from that man I got two or three tablets. I asked for

6 nitroglycerine. I got Trinidil, something like that. That was the name.

7 I don't know whether I'm pronouncing it right.

8 So I got three or two Trinadils, and I used them from time to

9 time. That's the only medicine I got for angina pectoris.

10 Q. Was the person with the name Ibrahim Sandal in your room, or do

11 you know this person?

12 A. I know that person. He came after me, I think in the month of

13 May. He was put up in a room opposite mine on the left-hand side. That's

14 where he was.

15 Q. Do you mean a room in the set of rooms where you were in so that

16 you could see him?

17 A. He was on the same floor. I just had to cross through the

18 anteroom of my room to get to his room. On that floor there were four

19 rooms with a big anteroom between these four rooms. So I would go to his

20 room, and he would come to my room.

21 He was so sick. I did not know him. He was brought from the

22 village of Kunovo. He was sick. He was lying on a blanket on the floor

23 behind the door, and he was all blue from his eyes to the waist. He was

24 all black and blue when he undressed to show me. He told me that he could

25 hardly breathe, that he couldn't turn as he lay there. So I used the

1 cream I got, and then I put that cream on his chest and on his back a few

2 times. He said that that did him well, and he thanked me for it.

3 Q. And did Mr. Sandal get treatment for his sickness?

4 A. I don't know. I don't know about that. I can't say. I can't say

5 whether he was taken somewhere, treated somewhere. I don't know about

6 that. Most probably not. Nobody went for treatment.

7 Q. Did he ever recover?

8 A. While I was there, he was in my room. He was very nervous. After

9 that, he got all yellow. He was all yellow in the face and in the body.

10 He could hardly breathe. He would choke as he was breathing. We would

11 see him smoking as we were coming back from lunch. He would take grass,

12 pluck grass and clover, and he'd smoke this grass and clover. That's not

13 a good thing.

14 Q. Witness, let me interrupt you. My question was: Did he ever

15 recover while you were there? You hadn't answered that.

16 A. No, he did not recover. I think that he was one of the more

17 serious patients.

18 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the witness has just described

19 -- Ibrahim Sandal in 5.25 of the indictment.

20 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

21 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

22 Q. Were Serb prisoners detained in the KP Dom, and if so, where were

23 they?

24 A. In the KP Dom, there were Serb detainees as well. They kept them

25 opposite our building on the left. They were on the second or the third

1 floor. I don't know. There were some former convicts from the KP Dom,

2 and there were also some Serb detainees in camouflage uniforms, in

3 olive-green/grey uniforms, in civilian uniforms. I don't know how many

4 there were. There were always ten, 15, or 20. I can't say exactly.

5 Q. Where did you meet or see them?

6 A. They were moving around the compound as we were in our rooms.

7 They were playing soccer in the compound. They were moving about. They

8 were going out for lunch. We could hear the television and radio in our

9 room. We heard the sounds from their room. Also, we could hear Serb

10 news, the musical instrument called gusle on television and also, things

11 like that.

12 Q. Witness, we do not have to talk about the living conditions

13 because we have heard that evidence already from other witnesses. I just

14 want to know something very particular. When did you have opportunity

15 to shower or to wash properly while you were detained, for the first

16 time?

17 A. I don't know the exact date. I think it was July, the end of July

18 or the beginning of August. I don't know exactly. Until then, we hadn't

19 taken any baths or we hadn't shaved. We didn't have any soap. We had

20 grown big beards. We were dirty. We were awful.

21 In the meantime, guards came and told us to clean our rooms, to

22 sweep them clean. At that moment, a barber came, too. This barber was

23 from Foca. His name was Halim Dedovic. Then he started giving us all

24 haircuts. Then he ordered us to put soap on our faces by ourselves, and

25 then he would shave us, too. Then we went to take baths in groups for the

1 very first time.

2 Q. And what happened afterwards? Did you see journalists afterwards,

3 after that had happened?

4 A. A day or two or three days later, in the compound one morning we

5 saw the warden of the camp together with four or five people, civilians.

6 They wore blue suits. I think there were two women there. They crossed

7 the compound, went to the carpentry shop toward the compound, and then in

8 building number 1, in the yard, as you enter that building, they put up a

9 camera. They took pictures of that building there. On that building, the

10 convicts showed up at the windows looking through bars. They offered

11 them cigarettes. This woman did. They tried to take pictures of that.

12 In the meantime, Rasevic -- there was a girl from the hospital

13 there who was an interpreter. She had long hair. I don't know her name.

14 She spoke English.

15 We watched this on the sly from our rooms, and then Rasevic said

16 that these cameramen could take pictures no longer. He took them away,

17 and he did not allow them to do that kind of work any more. He did not

18 allow any filming, either.

19 Q. You said the warden was with these people. What was he wearing;

20 do you recall?

21 A. The warden wore an olive-green/grey military uniform, and on the

22 left side of his belt he carried a gun. That's how he was dressed.

23 A pistol. Actually, on the right-hand side he wore a pistol, I remember

24 that well. Olive-green/grey uniform.

25 Q. Yes. We will come to the warden later in your testimony. Just

1 another question related to the living conditions. Did the living

2 conditions, especially the lack of food, affect your health?

3 A. The living conditions were difficult. Food was poor. There was

4 very little food, exceptionally little. The hygienic conditions were

5 hard. If there was water, there wasn't soap. It was even difficult to go

6 to the toilet. There wasn't anything that we could wash and bathe with

7 and shave with. The conditions were horrible.

8 Q. Witness, I'm not asking you about the conditions. As I said, we

9 have already heard this evidence.

10 Did they affect your physical health? If so, what did you suffer?

11 A. I had pain from the blows I had sustained at Brod. I had pain in

12 my back and in my ribcage. When I would lie down, it would be difficult

13 for me to get up. That really troubled me. I had trouble with my angina

14 pectoris.

15 I weighed 95 kilogrammes when I came to the camp, and I got out

16 with 54 kilogrammes. I was supposed to lose weight because of my angina

17 pectoris. I had lost a lot of weight, so perhaps it was easier for me to

18 bear the angina pectoris since I had lost all that weight, although I did

19 have crises. My right shoulder, my right arm, would go numb. When I

20 had these crises, this Trinidil that I got, those two or three tablets,

21 were of crucial importance at these moments. I would lie still, I would

22 take this Trinidil, and that's how it would pass.

23 Q. Thank you. Were you interrogated while you were detained?

24 A. Yes, I was. I don't know the exact date. I think it was June or

25 July. I cannot confirm that. I was not interrogated soon after my

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1 arrival, but I was interrogated.

2 Q. Where were you interrogated?

3 A. One day, one morning as I was in my room, number 18, a guard named

4 Dobriljo Pljevaljcic came. He called out my name, read it out from a

5 little piece of paper, and also read out the name of a certain Dedovic. I

6 forgot his first name. He was walking in front of me. I walked behind

7 him, and then he escorted us to the gate, and from the gate he told us to

8 go to the right, to walk upstairs.

9 We walked up a flight of stairs in the administration building of

10 the KP Dom. I stood in front of one office and the other one stood in

11 front of the other office, and that's where we waited for our

12 interrogation. It was in that office that I was interrogated.

13 Q. And on your way to the interrogation room, were you beaten?

14 A. Nobody beat me until I got to the very entrance from the external

15 side of the KP Dom. There were two or three civilians there. Among these

16 civilians was an acquaintance of mine who set out towards me. He was

17 proffering his hand. He wanted to shake hands. Then Dobriljo hit me

18 with his rifle in the back, and he said, "To the left." And that's the

19 only thing I managed to say to this man. I said, "Hello," and then I was

20 hit very badly, and then I went upstairs. Nobody beat me after that.

21 Q. The three civilians that you just mentioned, you mean detainees or

22 who were they?

23 A. They were civilians from town. If necessary, I can mention the

24 name of that person. I know this one man but I don't know the other two.

25 Q. And what is the name of this man?

1 A. That man was a colleague of mine from the school. His name was

2 Vide Filipovic.

3 Q. What was he doing there? Do you know that?

4 A. He was a teacher at the school centre. He had the same kind of

5 job as I did. He was involved in vocational training.

6 Q. What was he doing there? Do you know that?

7 A. You mean there at the KP Dom when I saw him?

8 Q. Yes. Yes.

9 A. I don't know. I never saw him again. I never saw him at the

10 KP Dom after that. And what he was doing there then, I really don't know.

11 It was just a moment.

12 He saw me, and he just proffered his hand because he wanted to

13 shake hands with me, nothing else. That's all. I don't know.

14 Q. Yes. Thank you. Who interrogated you?

15 A. We waited a bit and then I got into the room. Paprica

16 interrogated me. I can't remember his first name. I used to know his

17 first name. And there was also Vojo Starovic and yet another man who was

18 sitting in a chair. He wore a leather jacket. Later on, I found out that

19 that was the deputy warden of the camp. His name was Gagovic. Also,

20 there was Mico Rasevic, Mitar Rasevic, there from time to time.

21 Q. Paprica, who was he? What kind of function did he have? Was he a

22 policeman or a military person?

23 A. He wore a police uniform, the kind they wore before the KP Dom.

24 And Vojo had the same kind. However, the one who was sitting at the chair

25 had a yellow jacket, and he kept staring at me. I didn't know who that

1 was, but later on I found out that was Gagovic. I don't know his first

2 name. Whereas Rasevic had a police uniform.

3 Q. Starovic, what did he wear, and who was he?

4 A. Vojo Starovic? I know the man. He used to work at the school

5 centre before he had a degree in economics. He worked after that in

6 Maglic as an economist. He had a police uniform. He was an interrogator

7 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, this person Gagovic that the

8 witness just mentioned is listed in P-3, on the list of employees, under

9 number 79.

10 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

11 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

12 Q. What were you asked during the interrogation? What was it focused

13 on?

14 A. Paprica was sitting at the desk. Vojo was walking about. Gagovic

15 was just sitting there. He didn't ask me anything. Mr. Vojo was quite

16 fair to me. He asked me how I was, where my children were, where my wife

17 was. He offered me a cigarette. He treated me fairly. It was very hard

18 for me.

19 Paprica took a big yellow piece of paper in front of the drawer.

20 He put it in front of himself. First he looked for me there, and then

21 apparently he asked me about all my details, my name, surname, whether I

22 did any military service, whether I had any children, what I was doing,

23 where I worked, things like that, and then he looked at this yellow piece

24 of paper again. These were some kind of notes. He asked me where I was

25 engaged in Foca. He said that when my apartment was searched in the

1 [redacted], he said they found a box where a machine-gun had

2 been in my apartment, and also they found that kind of rope that was used

3 for cleaning machine-guns. And also I was in the company of Salko Borcak.

4 That's what he said to me. I said to him that I knew Salko Borcak only by

5 sight, that I was never in that company, that I did not have a

6 machine-gun, that I did not have this thing to clean rifles with. But

7 then I did have a box where a machine-gun would be stored, because I

8 bought that at a dump in Sarajevo many years before that. That's where I

9 kept my very own pistol. That's where I kept it locked, because I was

10 afraid that my children might touch it and that there could be an

11 accident.

12 Q. Were you threatened during the interrogations?

13 A. At that moment, nobody threatened me, none of them, that is. Then

14 they continued to interrogate me. They were asking me why I had gone to

15 my village of Jelec, why was I there, why was I not in Foca, how was I

16 captured there. They asked me about all of that, how that happened, who

17 captured me, do I know these people, who are these people, who took my

18 pistol up there, where is my pistol. That's what the

19 interrogation was all about.

20 Q. Did the interrogators draft a written statement?

21 A. They wrote an entire sheet of paper, and then on the other page

22 they almost filled out that one too. And Then Paprica was typing this at

23 the typewriter, at the desk. When Paprica finished this, he said to me:

24 "This statement of yours is no good. You haven't said a thing.

25 This has been written in five or six copies, and you are going to sign

1 this statement for me. This statement of yours is no good. One copy will

2 go to the Crisis Staff, another one will go to some other place." I have

3 no idea. I can't remember where all these copies were supposed to be sent

4 to. "Now, what the Crisis Staff says will remain to be seen. This is not

5 good. If the Crisis Staff returns you for another interrogation, you will

6 be beaten pretty badly."

7 Do you want me to go on?

8 Q. What else did he tell you, yes, in relation to your statement and

9 the Crisis Staff, if anything?

10 A. Then he said to me, "In the Crisis Staff, there is your Cedo

11 Zelovic, Vojo Maksimovic ..." And he said "your Cedo Zelovic" because we

12 were friends. We were great friends. We were colleagues. We held each

13 other in high regard. We were close. He said, "In the Crisis Staff is

14 your Cedo Zelovic, then also Vojo Maksimovic, Ostojic, Cancar, Radovan

15 Mandic, Miro, Miro Stanic, and the warden of the KP Dom."

16 They told me that there were seven people there. I don't know

17 whether I mentioned all of them. And he said, "If the Crisis Staff

18 returns this, things will not go well for you." At that moment, Vojo

19 said, "I know this man." Oh, yes. They asked me whether I was a member

20 of the Party of Democratic Action. I said that I was not a member of that

21 party, of any party. Vojo said, "I know this man. This man was only

22 engaged in his own work," things like that.

23 Q. And these people that you just listed and that you said that they

24 were, according to Paprica, in the Crisis Staff, did you know these

25 people, all of them?

1 A. The people he enumerated, yes, I knew them all personally, all of

2 them. I knew them well.

3 Q. And were they politicians in Foca?

4 A. Politicians from Foca were Vojo Maksimovic, Ostojic, whose first

5 name I forget. Petko Cancar was a politician. Radovan Mandic was a

6 doctor in a hospital. I don't know if he was a politician. Cedo Zelovic.

7 That one surprised me. I didn't know he was a politician. Then this one,

8 Krnojelac, the warden, had never been a politician; at least, I never knew

9 anything about it. Miro Stanic was a politician. He was a well-known

10 politician, actually.

11 Q. What was his position, Miro Stanic's position as a politician?

12 What was he?

13 A. I don't know that, but he was a prominent figure at those

14 meetings, in that organisation, in the making of some Serbian maps where

15 Eastern Herzegovina was depicted. He was among those first people who

16 made those maps.

17 Q. And these politicians that you mentioned, in which party were

18 they?

19 A. I don't know exactly whether they were all in the SDS, because

20 there was also the Serbian Renewal Party in Foca. Some of them may have

21 been in the SDS, Some of them may have been members of the Serbian

22 Renewal Movement. That I don't know.

23 Q. Were you ever interrogated again or was that the only

24 interrogation you experienced?

25 A. They never interrogated me after that.

1 Q. Except for the one blow that you got from Burilo, as you said, on

2 your way to the interrogation, were you yourself beaten on other occasions

3 during your detention?

4 A. I didn't get that blow from Burilo. I got it from Dobrilo

5 Pljevaljcic. And nobody ever beat me after that, at least, not until the

6 exchange, when I got some more blows. But I wasn't beaten down there at

7 the camp.

8 Q. Witness, let me just clarify a matter. You said Dobrilo

9 Pljevaljcic.

10 A. Correct.

11 Q. Is Dobrilo a nickname, and what would be the name of this person,

12 the proper first name? Do you know that?

13 A. I knew that man even before I got there, and I think his last name

14 is Pljevaljcic and his first name is Dobrilo. That's at least as much as

15 I know.

16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, we do not have a Dobrilo

17 Pljevaljcic on the list of employees. We have instead a Vlatko and a

18 Vaso, and 35, and 120. And we don't know --

19 A. Vlatko. I'm sorry. That's it. Vlatko.

20 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: I think that clarifies the matter. It's

21 number --

22 A. May I please clarify one thing?

23 Q. Yes, please.

24 A. Vlatko Pljevaljcic. I confused the names. I knew the man very

25 well. I also knew his brother by the name of Hakara, and I knew him

1 well because I fished with him on the Drina. I said at first that his

2 name is Dobrilo, but actually his name is Vlatko. I'm a little confused

3 about this

4 JUDGE HUNT: And that's 35, is it?

5 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: It's 35, yes.

6 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

7 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

8 Q. Why other detainees beaten during your confinement?

9 A. Yes, they did beat them.

10 Q. Witness, we do not need to go -- to speak about beatings in

11 general, because we have already heard a lot of this evidence. Let us

12 instead speak about the fate of some detainees that you have referred

13 to in previous statements.

14 Do you know a person with the name Ibrahim Kafedzic?

15 A. Yes, I do.

16 Q. Who was he?

17 A. He was brought to my room on the 6th or the 7th of May, that is,

18 after me. He came from the village of Potpec, above Dracocova. He was

19 brought together with Almas Krohur [phoen], an old, grey-haired man, and

20 an underaged boy. Amir, I think, was his name. He had a sling. He had

21 an arm in a sling. They were brought together, the three of them.

22 This Ibro Kafedzic, was brought in all black and blue from

23 beatings.

24 Q. Was he in your room or any of the other bedrooms of the set number

25 18?

1 A. Opposite my room, from the upper side, facing my room directly,

2 that is.

3 Q. How did he get to your room? Do you recall?

4 A. When we were free, he would come to my room. We could visit each

5 other. There were four rooms on that floor separated by an anteroom, and

6 nobody prevented us from moving from one room to another.

7 Q. Was he beaten during his detention?

8 A. They only beat him when he was taken out for interrogations. He

9 would come back from those interrogations black and blue or red in the

10 face, and he was terribly frightened. He was beaten.

11 Q. And when he was taken to interrogation, do you know where he was

12 interrogated and beaten on this occasion?

13 A. He told me that he had been interrogated by Vladicic, and that is

14 where he was beaten.

15 Q. Could you actually hear him being beaten or is it just that he

16 told you about it?

17 A. I know that from him, but we didn't hear it.

18 Q. And what kind of injuries did you see on him?

19 A. He said he had been slapped on the face, beaten on his back, on

20 his face, and you could see redness on his face from the blows and bruises

21 under his eyes, and he was blue in the face.

22 Q. When did this happen? When was he taken for interrogation and

23 beaten? Do you know that?

24 A. He was taken out for interrogations before me, in the period when

25 most people from our room were taken for interrogation. I don't know the

1 exact time.

2 Q. And what time of the day was it? Was it during daytime or

3 evening?

4 A. That was in the morning, before lunch, around 11.00 or 12.00. I

5 don't know. That is when the interrogations took place. It was not after

6 lunch, it was in the morning.

7 Q. Yes. Did he -- did Mr. Kafedzic survive the KP Dom? Do you know

8 that?

9 A. He stayed behind after I left, and he was transferred to another

10 room upstairs. I don't know the number of that room, and when I was

11 released, he stayed behind. I don't know that he survived. He didn't

12 survive. He wasn't heard of. He hasn't been heard of since.

13 I forgot to say that he was taken away from the KP Dom of Foca on

14 the 20th of December -- sorry, 12th of December, in a group with Kafedzic,

15 Ekrem Cengic, Fahrudin, nicknamed Baron, Aziz Fahrudin. I also found out

16 from a woman who called me on the phone from Foca to inquire about some

17 other people that they had been taken to Zebina Suma, that they took them

18 out in a mine filed and that all of them were killed.

19 Q. If I understand you correctly, that is what you heard afterwards,

20 after your release, from this woman who called you?

21 A. Yes, later.

22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the Ibrahim Kafedzic is in the

23 schedule B under number 31.

24 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

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1 Q. Do you know a Dzemo Balic?

2 A. Yes, I know Dzemo Balic.

3 Q. Who was he?

4 A. Dzemo Balic was a resident of Foca. He worked in the Sumadija

5 Promet enterprise, in that shop, in a skyscraper in the centre of town.

6 He was a car dealer and a spare parts dealer for the Kragujevac Zastava

7 factory. He was a dealer for the factory and he sold those parts and

8 cars.

9 Q. Did you see him in the KP Dom?

10 A. He was brought to my room when I was already there. I don't know

11 remember the exact date. He was in my room. When he was brought in, he

12 had calloused skin on his hands and wrists from the handcuffs.

13 Q. Was he beaten while he was detained in the KP Dom?

14 A. Yes, he was beaten.

15 Q. When was he beaten?

16 A. I don't know the exact date. I think it was in June or July, when

17 one day when we were coming from lunch, in the yard when we would come

18 down the stairs, we would line up to go to our rooms. One of the guards

19 called out the name of Balic, but he didn't say Dzemo. He mentioned

20 another name. In any case, he didn't respond. On that day we went to our

21 rooms. The same thing happened the next day. One of the guards called

22 out "Dzemo Balic, is he here?" He said yes and he went to the gate and we

23 went to our rooms. When we got to our room, number 18, we heard his cries

24 from down there at the gate. We heard knocking and screams, and after a

25 couple of days, we heard he was taken to the solitary confinement cell in

1 our building.

2 He came back to our room several days later. He was yellow

3 in the face. He was badly beaten. In the beginning, he wouldn't tell us

4 what had happened to him, but several days later, he told us he was deaf

5 in one ear. His ribs were painful, and he told us that down there at

6 the -- in the administrative building, he was beaten by one, Cicmil, I

7 don't know the first name, but he was the son of the guard from the

8 hospital gate. When Cicmil brought him there, he told me, "You are the

9 one who had promised to Alija eight kilos worth of Serbian eyes," and he

10 beat him badly. Then he told Burilo who was also there,"What are you

11 waiting for? Why don't you go on, beat him," but Burilo didn't. So the

12 first one continued beating him.

13 After that, he locked him up in the solitary cell near the

14 entrance. He didn't remember any more. He just remembered the solitary

15 cell. It was dark there. He lay down on the floor. He was happy to be

16 there. That same evening, they brought another man to the cell. He

17 didn't dare say a word to the other man. And the other man just lay down

18 and fell asleep, snoring.

19 At dawn, the door opened. The guards came in. They turned over

20 the other man who had been lying on his stomach, and the man turned out to

21 be dead. They turned him over. It was a young man. He was dressed in

22 jeans, a white shirt. They put him on a blanket. They dragged him by his

23 legs out of the cell.

24 Then they released him from that solitary confinement cell and put

25 him back in our room upstairs. He had spent a month in the solitary

1 confinement cell before being brought back to our room.

2 Q. You mentioned that you heard actually after he was taken from your

3 line in the yard, you said you heard the sounds of screaming and beating.

4 Where did the sounds come from? Are you able to say?

5 A. Those sounds were coming from the gate to the reception building,

6 from that room which was used formerly for visits and as a waiting room.

7 That's where the sounds, the cries, the screams, the sounds of beatings

8 came from.

9 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: With the help of the usher I would like to

10 show the witness the photograph 7472.

11 Q. Witness, the room that you just spoke about, can you see it on

12 this photo, and if so, can you point it out to us?

13 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter didn't hear the answer.

14 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

15 Q. Witness, can you tell us what you just said?

16 THE INTERPRETER: Can the witness please come closer to the

17 microphone if possible?

18 A. I see the room. If this is the entrance to the KP Dom from the

19 yard, then it is one of these two rooms, and it can be seen from my

20 window.

21 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

22 Q. No, not -- yes. Thank you. That's enough.

23 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: The witness has first pointed --

24 Q. Witness, wait.

25 A. This one or that one.

1 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: The witness has first pointed at the metal

2 door with the number 1, the yellow number 1 on it, and he pointed to the

3 two windows to the left of this door on the ground floor.

4 Thank you. That's enough.

5 Q. You also said that the victim told you that Burilo was

6 present on this occasion but did not beat him. Did this witness know

7 Burilo? Do you know that?

8 A. That witness did know Burilo, and on one occasion when we were

9 walking across the yard, Burilo asked him, "How are you, Dzemo?" when

10 they met. They used to be neighbours down there when they met. Burilo

11 lived in the same village where Dzemo had a weekend cottage. In any case,

12 they knew each other. That was the village of Pilipovici [phoen] near

13 Ustikolina, I don't know exactly. They knew each other, they were

14 neighbours. Dzemo had a weekend cottage or a house there and they knew

15 each other as neighbours.

16 Q. Was it ever found out who the young man was who died in the cell,

17 in the isolation cell?

18 A. In the isolation cell. I didn't see that. We found out that Juso

19 Dzamalija had died in an isolation cell. He was from the village of

20 Tjentiste. He had a shop in Tabaci. He was a trader.

21 Q. Witness, let me interrupt you. We are talking about this young

22 man. Mr. Dzamalija we'll speak about later. Let's stick to the young man

23 first. Did you find out who was the young man who died?

24 A. No, I never learnt that. I know only what I know.

25 Q. Yes. Thank you. What became of Balic? Was he taken away

1 from the KP Dom while you were still there?

2 A. Yes, they did, while I was there.

3 Q. How was he taken away and when?

4 A. I think it was in the month of September, in mid-September, but I

5 couldn't tell you the date. One day, we were in our room, number 18.

6 Around 9.00 there arrived a guard, a policeman by the name of Vukovic.

7 Perhaps his name is Slavko. All I know is he graduated from the secondary

8 catering school. He was a waiter, and he came originally from a village

9 called Vastaha [phoen]. He came to our room and he asked us something like

10 this: "There is a difficult job to be done. Are there any volunteers?"

11 And some people volunteered. He told some of them, "You are not fit for

12 this job." He took down the names of some of them. He refused to take

13 down the names of others. He made a list. I did not volunteer for that

14 job.

15 Then this Pljevaljcic, whom I had already mentioned, his name is

16 either Dobrilo or Vlatko, probably Vlatko, he also came to our room and he

17 told the guard, "Leave that list alone. Come with me. We'll make a list

18 ourselves, and they left our room. After that, around 12.00 this

19 Pljevaljcic came back and read out the names of people from our room who

20 would go to do the work. He read out the names of a lot of people. I

21 cannot remember all of them. I remember that Dzemo was on the list, Samir

22 Mujezinovic was on the list, and also an engineer named Crneta, Sulejman

23 Soro, Esad Murtodelajot [phoen], a tall man, and so on and so forth. I

24 cannot enumerate all of them. There was also a man named Cengic. And the

25 people who were called out, they left the room and were lined up in front

1 of the gate down there in the yard and were taken away.

2 We followed them with our -- looking from the window. We counted

3 about 25 people in that line who were later taken away. After that, they

4 lined up some other people, a smaller group, about 15 men, and in that

5 line, I recognised Rasim Kajgana and many other people from other rooms.

6 All of them proceeded to the gate.

7 When they were leaving their rooms, they told them to leave all

8 their things behind, not to take their jackets or coats, et cetera. They

9 told them they wouldn't need them. They were taken to the gate in a

10 haste.

11 Q. Did they ever come back?

12 A. They never came back to the camp. They never did.

13 Q. Did you ever hear of them again or see any of them again after

14 your release?

15 A. No. I have never seen anyone. I did make inquiries, and I

16 never heard of any one of them being alive.

17 Q. What kind of inquiries did you make? Did you speak with relatives

18 or what did you do?

19 A. I didn't make the inquiries myself. Their families called me.

20 Dzemal Balic's wife who was in [redacted] or somewhere abroad called me. I

21 don't know how they knew I had been released but they called me on the

22 phone. Various people did. They inquired about their relatives, saying

23 what became of them. They never sent a word to their families.

24 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the person Dzemo Balic is listed

25 in the incident 5.15 in the indictment.

1 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

2 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

3 Q. Sir, was there another Balic, another detainee with the last name

4 Balic in the KP Dom?

5 A. About Balic, I know he was brought in, I think, in May or June in

6 a group from the village of Marinkovici. These people were badly beaten

7 and they cried and screamed loudly down at the gate. Somebody said these

8 people were from Marinkovici, and there was one Balic among them who was

9 completely black and blue, and there was also an Albanian whose name I

10 don't know. There was Hasanbegovic, there was Deleut. That's the other

11 Balic. That's all I know about the other Balic.

12 Q. When did you hear the screams coming from, what did you say, from

13 the gate? When was that incident involving Balic and Hasanbegovic and the

14 Albanian?

15 A. They came during the day sometime. It was daytime. It was

16 definitely not evening. And when they arrived, we who were inside the

17 KP Dom, we always knew when somebody was coming. We knew when we heard

18 beatings.

19 There was a vehicle with a faulty exhaust pipe which made a lot of

20 noise, and whenever that happened, there would be beatings on the ground

21 floor of that building and we would hear the screams. After that, these

22 people were taken across the yard to isolation cells. They would rarely

23 be taken straight to prisoners' quarters.

24 Q. Did any of these people involved in this beating, did any of them

25 come to your room afterwards?

1 A. Out of those people who were beaten, nobody was brought except

2 this Dzemo Balic. I don't remember that anybody came to my room after a

3 beating. All I know is that some people from Miljevina, like Mujo Durgut,

4 who was badly beaten up, Redzib Bablija, people who were badly beaten up

5 were brought to my room.

6 Q. Witness, let us always stick to certain victims and certain groups

7 of victims at a time and not get confused with other incidents.

8 Of these people who were beaten on that day where this other Balic

9 was also beaten, did any of them come to your room later on? Were you

10 ever detained with any of these four or five men together?

11 A. No, no. Nobody came. No, they didn't come to my room.

12 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, we have actually two Balics

13 listed in Schedule B. It's B-3 or B-4. And we have Hasanbegovic listed

14 under B-25.

15 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

17 Q. Do you know a person Edhem Gradisic?

18 A. I know Edhem Gradisic well.

19 Q. Who was he?

20 A. When I came to the camp in the KP Dom, I found him there. Edhem

21 Gradisic was an old man. He was sick. He had epilepsy. Also, he had an

22 arm that was no good, and he had a leg that was shorter. He wore boots.

23 He was in Room 18 all the time. I found him there. He was lying all by

24 himself, not in the room but in that anteroom. He would scream during the

25 night because of his epilepsy. He would scream during the night. He was

1 an abnormal person. He did not go in -- he did not go to the toilet. He

2 would relieve himself in his trousers, and he would smell badly. It would

3 even be a problem to pass by him. He was there all the time, Edhem

4 Gradisic was.

5 Q. Did nobody take care of him from the guards or the medical staff

6 in the KP Dom?

7 A. As far as I know, nobody took care of him. If necessary, I can

8 give you an example. When I tried to help him, I got a negative answer.

9 Q. What do you mean by that? In which way did you try to help him

10 and in what way did you get a negative answer?

11 A. As we were lining up for lunch and for dinner, we would always

12 be queued up two by two. And once we were coming back from lunch, we

13 were lining up two by two, and it so happened he was standing in front of

14 me. As we were standing in that queue, we would all try to move away from

15 this man, three or four metres away. And the guard Obrenovic said, "Get

16 closer all of you. I want you to be lined up properly." And he smelled

17 badly, as I said. At that moment, I said to Obrenovic, "Why don't you

18 give this man some kind of tablets? He has epilepsy. He screams during

19 the night. He's a sick man." His simple reply to me was to raise his

20 automatic rifle, point it at me and say, "These are tablets for you." I

21 remained speechless. I was also scolded by the other detainees who were

22 in my room because I said that at all, and then I never spoke a word after

23 that.

24 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the guard Obrenovic is listed

25 under number 46.

1 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

2 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

3 Q. Was Mr. Gradisic beaten in the KP Dom?

4 A. One day, they did beat him. That was a day when we were at the

5 canteen, when we were passing by that area where you can get food. And

6 he came there to the counter to get food and he said he didn't want to

7 take any food. There were male cooks there in white uniforms, and he

8 said, "Those women don't give me enough bread, enough food, and I'm not

9 going to eat it at all." And he demonstratively went to an empty table

10 where we would usually sit.

11 There was a guard there, Gradisic. He returned him and told him

12 to take food. He said, "These women are not giving me enough food. They

13 only give me a small slice of bread. That's no good for me." He didn't

14 want to return there to get his food. He hit him, and he fell across the

15 canteen. As he fell on his stomach, guard Perisic came to help him, and a

16 skinny guard, Kunarac. They took him by his feet. They dragged him out

17 of the room. They dragged him down those rickety stairs to the yard.

18 They took him to the solitary confinement cell where I had been [as

19 interpreted]. He spent the night there in that cell and then he came back

20 to our room.

21 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honours, the guard Vladicic is

22 number 65. The guard Perisic, we actually have two Perisics there. It's

23 either Vasilije, number 20, or Milan, number 50.

24 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: And we also have a guard Kunarac, who is

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2 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

3 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

4 Q. You said that they took him to the solitary confinement cell where

5 I had been. What do you mean by that? Have you been in a solitary

6 confinement cell, or what do you mean?

7 A. I was not in a solitary confinement cell. I was in building

8 number 2. I had actually never been to that solitary confinement cell.

9 However, that building was in the same building where we would enter that

10 building, but it was on the right-hand side.

11 Q. Yes. Thank you. What became of Mr. Gradisic? Was he taken away

12 or did he remain behind when you left?

13 A. He was taken before me. He was taken to the gate on his own, and

14 he was not returned.

15 Q. When was he taken? Do you know what month?

16 A. I think that was July, August, in the summer. Something like

17 that. I don't know the exact date.

18 Q. I also forgot to ask you: When did this incident in the

19 canteen happen, when he was beaten? When was that?

20 A. I don't know the exact date of that either. After that, he was

21 taken, two months later, a month and a half later, I don't know exactly,

22 when this happened in the canteen. I don't really know. I don't know the

23 date, that is. In the canteen that is.

24 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes. Your Honours, the incident is listed

25 under 5.9 in the indictment.

1 Q. Do you know a person, Pace Pasovic?

2 A. His last name is Pasovic, and his nickname is Pace. I don't know

3 his real name. Pace. Pasovic nicknamed Pace. I know him well.

4 Q. And who was he?

5 A. He's from Foca. He had a house near Ribarsko. Ibro Pasovic is

6 his father. I think he had a cafe of his own. I never went there. He

7 had a cafe or restaurant of his own. I never went there.

8 Q. Was he detained in the KP Dom?

9 A. He was brought to the KP Dom after me and he was in my room. He

10 was brought together with Dzenan Karabegovic to my room.

11 Q. Was he beaten while he was in the KP Dom?

12 A. I did not see. Actually, they did beat him. One day in the

13 compound in front of the canteen, but I did not see the other beating. I

14 mean, I don't know.

15 Q. Let us speak first about the beating that you saw. What did you

16 see? When did this happen?

17 A. That happened one day when we were having lunch, when he took that

18 tablet with tea or with that food. He was carrying the tablet in one hand

19 as he was going to the table. He was warned by a guard, Stefanovic, I

20 think his real name was Predrag, his name was Preda. We also called him

21 Kestenasti. He asked him why he was carrying the tablet in one hand. He

22 came to the table. He didn't perhaps even listen to him, to take the

23 tablet with both hands, and then he told him to wait for him out in the

24 compound when we would get outside.

25 We went out to the compound. We were lining up two

1 by two, and to the right there was a walnut tree and there were some

2 chairs there, and there were four or five guards sitting there. Among

3 them was Predo Stefanovic. He called him to step out of the line and he

4 did come up to him, and then he slapped him in the face there. He slapped

5 him around. He beat him, and he told us that we should not watch, that we

6 should bow our heads and not watch, look into the ground. And he was

7 slapping him in the face before our very own eyes. And all the rest, the

8 other guards, I mean, were just sitting there. And that's how he returned

9 to the room.

10 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honours, the guard Predo Stefanovic is

11 listed under number 22.

12 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

13 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

14 Q. Do you recall when this happened, what you saw him being

15 slapped and beaten?

16 A. I don't know the date. It was after lunch, in broad daylight.

17 When we went to lunch, around 2.00, whatever. I don't know the date

18 though.

19 Q. You said that he was beaten another time but you did not see it.

20 When was he beaten another time?

21 A. I didn't see it. I don't know about that.

22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: The incident that the witness just talked

23 about is listed under 5.10 in the indictment.

24 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

1 Q. What became of Mr. Pasovic? Did -- was he taken away while you

2 were there or did he remain behind when you left?

3 A. He left before me. He went for an exchange. They called him out

4 of the room. They said that he was supposed to be exchanged, and he left

5 with that group of 55 men. When they called them out for an exchange, I

6 think it was around the 20th or the 1st of September. I don't know the

7 exact date when they called their names out in different rooms and when

8 the guards were walking about the compound with lists. Then the guard

9 Obrenovic said, "You're going home. You have been pardoned by Radovan

10 Karadzic, and you are going to free territory."

11 All of us were happy. We were all hoping that we would be called

12 out personally too. They came to my room and they called out Pace and

13 many other people, not to mention all of them now. They were escorted out

14 of the rooms. Then 55 men were lined up in front of the gate in order

15 to go out for an exchange, and that's when Pace also left.

16 Q. Did you ever see him again or did you hear of him? Is he

17 missing?

18 A. When these people were taken for exchange on that day, in the

19 evening they returned again to the camp. I do not know exactly whether I

20 saw him then. I can't say that for sure when I did see him or I did

21 not see him, but I did see other people. They all returned. I don't know

22 if it was all of them, but 55 is quite a group. It was evening when they

23 returned and they were put into building number 1 and that's where they

24 spent the night.

25 The next day, sometime around 8.00 or 9.00, I don't know exactly,

1 they were all taken for an exchange. They were taken in front of the

2 gate. I found out that those who were alive, who got out, were divided

3 into two groups the next day, that one group of 25 or 35 men were set free

4 in Rozaje, and another group has never been heard from since, 25 or 35 of

5 them, and Pace is in this group.

6 Q. Yes. Do you recall any incident involving the detainees Avdo

7 Muratovic, Fahrudin Malkic, and Sacic?

8 A. Malkic, Fahrudin Malkic, Malic? Malic? There is no Malic. There

9 is only a Malkic.

10 Yes. I am very familiar with that case. Sacic, a prisoner whose

11 first name I don't know, was throwing a rope down from one of the windows,

12 and there was a letter tied to that rope, because somebody was listening

13 to the radio, listening to news. Then the guard Elcic caught him. The

14 guard Elcic brought him to the isolation cell, to the building where I

15 was.

16 Then there's that police room, the policeman's room there, and

17 they took Avdo Malkic, Fahrudin, and also they took upstairs - I

18 recognised his voice - Music Muradif, and they beat them there. Triva was

19 personally beating them. You could hear his voice. He has a very strong

20 voice. And He was beating them because they were transmitting news from

21 one room to another. Avdo Malkic was returned to my room.

22 Q. Let me ask you a few more details. You said that Sacic was

23 passing a message. Was he above your room or where was this detainee

24 Sacic?

25 A. Yes. No, not above my room. Building numbering 1. Not above my

1 room. Building number 1. The one over there.

2 Q. And Avdo Muratovic, Fahrudin Malkic, and Music Muradif, in which

3 room were they?

4 A. In my room, number 18, were Avdo Muratovic and Malkic, Music was

5 in the room above me. I don't know which one, though, but on the floor

6 above.

7 Q. And when did this happen, this incident?

8 A. This happened sometime in the beginning of June or in -- beginning

9 or during that month. It was the summer of 1992.

10 Q. You said that they were beaten in the same building where you

11 were. Where exactly were they beaten? On which floor?

12 A. On the ground floor. When you enter the building, on the

13 right-hand side there was a small room there on the ground floor. This

14 was the guards' room, the policemen's room.

15 Q. And you mentioned that the guard Elcic was involved in the

16 beating, and you mentioned another person, but I actually did not really

17 understand the name. You mentioned a Driva or a Riva. Maybe I misheard

18 that.

19 A. The guard brought Sacic to that room, but Triva's voice could be

20 heard very well during the beatings, but I'm not sure whether Elcic

21 actually administered the beatings.

22 Q. And Tviva, was he a guard?

23 A. He was a guard all the time down there, and perhaps he was some

24 kind of a head guard, a sort of a senior guard, a bit above the rest. He

25 was a guard. He was a guard. He wore a police uniform. He always carried

1 an automatic rifle around. He carried a baton. He would carry two

2 grenades on his belt, and he had a knife on his boot, and he was the only

3 one guard who carried around a big wooden club, and it was made at the

4 carpentry shop out of some very hard wood, oak or beech. He also carried

5 a rope in his hand. He really like to dress up that way, to have all

6 these clubs and sticks and grenades, whatever.

7 Q. Triva, is that a nickname or is that the proper name of this

8 person?

9 A. His real name is Obren Obrenovic.

10 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the guard Elcic is listed under

11 34, and Obrenovic we just had, Obrenovic is number 46.

12 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

13 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

14 Q. With those who were from your room, when they returned, did you

15 see any injuries on them?

16 A. Well, they were red in their faces. They were slapped. They were

17 hit. They did not take off their shirts, so I don't know what was

18 underneath them.

19 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the indent is 5.19 in the

20 indictment.

21 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

23 Q. Your cousin, whose name is on the sheet of paper and whose name we

24 do not want to mention, was he involved in this passing messages?

25 A. I don't know.

1 Q. Was he beaten while he was in the KP Dom?

2 A. Yes. Yes, he was beaten. He spent one night in the isolation

3 cell in the building where I was.

4 Q. How do you know that? Did he tell you?

5 A. He never said that to me. I never met up with him, actually.

6 One evening, a man was taken from our room to the isolation cell.

7 His name was Delic, and we called him Stela. I don't know his real first

8 name. He came from Kozja Luka. He was a troublemaker, a young

9 troublemaker from Miljevina. He was taken to the isolation cell because

10 he was looking through the window and we were forbidden to do that. We

11 could only watch surreptitiously so that nobody would see you from the

12 yard. Or sometimes when there was paper pasted on the windows, we

13 could look through small holes. We had been warned that whoever looked

14 through the window would be taken to solitary confinement and would be

15 whipped, that that was forbidden. And if somebody -- if somebody were to

16 watch through the window, then Triva would even hit him from a sling. He

17 used to carry a sling even.

18 Then I was once told that a relative of mine was taken to the

19 solitary confinement cell because he was watching through the

20 window, and then I was told that he really wasn't harmed in any bad way,

21 he was just beaten a bit, that he was beaten in the solitary confinement

22 cell, that is.

23 Q. And is that your cousin that -- who is listed on this piece of

24 paper in front of you?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. And who told you that he was beaten?

2 A. Stela. That Stela who was in my room and who was in the same

3 solitary confinement cell as he was in. He also said to me that in that

4 isolation cell there was a Slovenia, a Slovenia journalist who was

5 whistling all the time. He did not give them any peace, that he said that

6 he whistled throughout the night, and that he worked for a French agency.

7 Q. Yes. Thank you.

8 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the cousin is also listed in the

9 indictment under 5.19, but it looks that it is not actually connected.

10 His beating is not connected to the other three persons.

11 JUDGE HUNT: I think we would need to redact that statement,

12 though, would we not, because he would be named in the indictment?

13 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes.

14 JUDGE HUNT: It's all right. I mean we've got the reference

15 now.

16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: In the indictment there are only the

17 initials.

18 JUDGE HUNT: Are there? That's all right. Thank you. I haven't

19 got it open in front of me.

20 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: There are only the initials and that is

21 actually the reason why we put the initials in the indictment.

22 JUDGE HUNT: I see. Thank you very much.

23 Well, now, my attention has been drawn to an error which I

24 made on Thursday at the very end of the day when we were anxious to get

25 away. We were running overtime with the court reporter and the

1 interpreters, and I have to say it was a somewhat stressful week for

2 various reasons.

3 Exhibits P326, 326A, 327, and 327A were in fact tendered

4 by Mr. Bakrac on behalf of the Defence. So they should be given letters,

5 accordingly, "D" rather than "P". The next exhibit, P329 was indeed

6 tendered by the Prosecution, so it can keep that number. But we'll keep

7 the numbers which are given as the identification numbers in the files for

8 convenience.

9 I don't think or at least I hope that the defendant's list of

10 exhibits will not reach 325.

11 We'll adjourn now until 2.30.

12 --- Luncheon recess taken at 1.00 p.m.

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1 --- On resuming at 2.30 p.m.

2 JUDGE HUNT: Yes, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.

3 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

4 Q. Good afternoon, witness?

5 A. Good afternoon.

6 Q. Sir, I would like to clarify something in relation to Stela

7 Delic. You mentioned Stela Delic before, and you said that it was a young

8 man. Do you know his first name?

9 A. I don't know his first name. Stela is his nickname. His last

10 name is Delic. I found out he was born in Kozja Luka, and he lives in

11 Miljevina.

12 Q. When did he come to the KP Dom?

13 A. He was in my room, and I don't know when he arrived.

14 Q. Does that mean he came before you? He was already in the room

15 when you came?

16 A. I don't know exactly. I cannot claim one way or another. It's

17 either before or after.

18 Q. Was he beaten in the KP Dom?

19 A. I didn't see. I don't know whether he was beaten, except for the

20 time when he was in the isolation cell. He said that he had been slapped

21 then.

22 Q. Did he tell you who slapped him?

23 A. He didn't tell me.

24 Q. Do you know a person with the first name Remzija Delic?

25 A. I know that man. He was in my room.

1 Q. Is he a different Delic from Stela or is it the same person?

2 A. No, it's not Stela, an it's another man. Remzija Delic, is from

3 Josanica. He was in my room when I arrived.

4 Q. Remzija Delic, was he beaten in the KP Dom?

5 A. One day when we were coming back from lunch, while we were lining

6 up in the yard, he was called out from the line and taken to the gate.

7 When we got back to our room, he had already started screaming down there

8 at the gate, and he was being beaten. After the beating, he was brought

9 back directly to our room without going to the isolation cell first.

10 Q. Did you see injuries on him when he returned to your room?

11 A. When he came back to the room, his face was red, and you could see

12 that he was beaten on the face. But he wouldn't say that to anyone. It

13 was only after five or six days that he told us about the beating and he

14 showed us the scars on his back. We asked him who had beat him, and he

15 said it was his former schoolmates from his village. They had fights back

16 at school. They were stronger than he was at the time. Two young men had

17 taken him out and beat him and reminded him of the time when he used to

18 beat them. They also told him he would never go hunting again where they

19 lived, above their houses.

20 He took off his shirt. He was all black and blue. He showed us

21 his back.

22 Q. Yes. You said that he was beaten at the gate. Do you mean

23 the same place where you have already indicated others were beaten?

24 A. That was the same place where all the beatings took place, most of

25 them at least.

1 Q. Do you recall when this incident with Remzija Delic occurred, which

2 month?

3 A. It could have been June or July, but I don't know the date. I

4 could not remember these things.

5 Q. Remzija Delic, did he survive the KP Dom? Do you know?

6 A. I don't remember how I found out and whom I had asked, but nobody

7 told me that he was alive. He probably isn't.

8 Q. Do you know when he was taken away?

9 A. He was taken away from my room. I remember him well. He was

10 tall, slender, and young. But where he was taken, I don't know.

11 Q. When was he taken from your room?

12 A. He was taken away at the time of exchanges, when they collected

13 people from various rooms to take them to exchanges. The guards would

14 call them out, telling them they would be exchanged. They would tell

15 them, "Pick up your things and get out." That happened in daytime.

16 He left before I did.

17 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the person, Remzija Delic, is

18 listed under B-14.

19 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

20 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

21 Q. Sir, do you know a Nedzad Delic?

22 A. Nedzad Delic. I don't remember that one, or maybe his name was

23 confused with Nedzad. I don't know any other man by that name. Maybe he

24 was Remzija, maybe he was Nedzad.

25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the person Stela Delic is not

1 listed in the schedules.

2 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

3 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

4 Q. Do you know Halim -- you have already mentioned a barber that cut

5 your hair and shaved you. Do you know his name?

6 A. Halim, Halim Dedovic, well-known barber from Foca. He lived in

7 Gornje Polje. Of course I know him well.

8 Q. Was he beaten while in the KP Dom?

9 A. He wasn't brought to my room. He was in some other building. I

10 don't know where. All I know is that when he was brought to the camp, we

11 could hear distinctly that car with the faulty exhaust pipe. It was some

12 kind of van, a Land Rover or a jeep. We heard the sound of that vehicle,

13 and we knew that somebody would be beaten and somebody would be

14 screaming. We did hear the screams near the gate. He cried very

15 loudly. He was saying, "For goodness sake. Dear mother, help me."

16 We knew it was one of the inmates. It was Halim.

17 Q. How did you know it was Halim's voice? Could you clearly

18 recognise the voice?

19 A. At that moment, we did not know it was Halim's voice. I didn't

20 know that nor did I think it was Halim Dedovic. But four or five days

21 later, inmates told me that Halim Dedovic had been brought to the camp

22 and that it had been him who screamed down by the gate.

23 Q. Did you actually see injuries on Mr. Dedovic when you saw him

24 for the first time in the camp?

25 A. I saw him for the first time across the yard, when he was going

1 out to lunch or to dinner. I didn't see him from close quarters. But the

2 first time I saw him well was when he came to give us a haircut and shave

3 us. On that occasion, he had no injuries. That's when I saw him from

4 close quarters.

5 Q. Thank you.

6 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, this person, Halim Dedovic, is

7 listed under B-13 and also in the indictment itself under 5.23.

8 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

9 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

10 Q. You have already mentioned in your testimony just before the break

11 Mujo Durgut. Who was he?

12 A. That is a young man who came two or three days after me. He was

13 brought from Miljevina. He came alone to my room. He was badly beaten on

14 the face. He was black and blue. He took off his shirt so we could see

15 his back.

16 He came from Miljevina, and he said that he had been beaten up

17 there in Miljevina. Originally he came from the village of Kozja Luka.

18 Q. Was Mr. Durgut also beaten at the KP Dom? Do you know?

19 A. I don't know about that. Nobody ever told me, and he didn't tell

20 me either.

21 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, this person is listed under

22 B-16.

23 Q. Do you know Nedzib Babalija?

24 A. I know Nedzib Babalija. He was brought to my room, as well from

25 Miljevina, at the same time as Mujo Durgut. I don't know which one came

1 earlier, he or Durgut. Babalija too was beaten. He was black and blue.

2 He told me he had come from Miljevina and his entire back was covered with

3 bruises and up to the waist. They -- he said he had been beaten with

4 cokas. We asked what that meant, coka, and he said something like --

5 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter doesn't really know. It's

6 either truncheons or chains.

7 JUDGE HUNT: Do you want to sort this out?

8 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: The witness didn't see this.

9 Q. Did Mr. Babalija describe to you what this coka is or do you

10 know what it is?

11 A. When he described it to me, he said that there were three chains

12 locked onto a wooden club, and that's the first time I heard about this

13 thing called a coka.

14 Q. Was Mr. Babalija beaten while he was in the KP Dom? Do you know

15 that?

16 A. I don't know. Not that I heard about or that I heard personally.

17 I think he wasn't.

18 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, this person is referred to in

19 B-2.

20 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

21 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

22 Q. Would you please have a look at the list in front of you, and the

23 name next to the code number FWS-162.

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Was this person in the KP Dom and was he beaten?

1 A. Yes. He was in the KP Dom and he was beaten there.

2 Q. Do you know when he was beaten and where -- who beat him?

3 A. I don't know the exact date, but he came to my room from a

4 different building, from building number 1. In the beginning, he was not

5 in my room. I think he was beaten in the month of July or later. I

6 couldn't say precisely. But he was transferred to my room from building

7 number 1. He was beaten one day when we were having lunch, and after

8 that, we were lining up in the yard. A guard called out the name of

9 person 162 and took him to the gate. When we got back to our room, we

10 could hear his screams and cries for help and moaning from down there at

11 the gate. From that room, he was brought back directly to our room where

12 he had been before. Half an hour later, he was very badly beaten on his

13 face and elsewhere, and he was very frightened. I couldn't see any

14 injuries on his back, but I saw the ones on his face. He was beaten

15 badly.

16 Q. Did you ever learn from him or from others who beat him?

17 A. I didn't hear directly from him who had beat him, but I heard from

18 other people that he had told them who the persons were who beat him.

19 Q. Who were the persons?

20 A. The man who beat him, shall I say his name?

21 Q. Yes, please.

22 A. He said he had been beaten by Drakul, whose first name I don't

23 know. That man had worked in a dealer's shop of Sumadija Promet. He had

24 worked before in that company, together with him, but he was dismissed at

25 some point. When he was brought to the beating, the man, Drakul, told

1 him that he would pay for the fact that he was left without a job, and

2 that man Drakul beat him, the man whose first name I don't know.

3 Q. If I understand you correctly, these beatings that you had just

4 described to us in detail happened during daytime. Is that correct?

5 A. Yes, that is correct. In daytime, after lunch, this beating of

6 the person 162.

7 Q. Were detainees beaten in the evenings as well? Do you know

8 anything about that?

9 A. Yes. They beat people also in the afternoon and in the evenings

10 mostly.

11 Q. When the people were taken out in the afternoon or the evenings,

12 were they -- did you hear the sounds of beatings?

13 A. We could hear them distinctly. We heard loud screaming, but we

14 could also hear the blows inflicted by truncheons. They were hitting very

15 hard, as if the surface was wood or something.

16 Q. When you heard the sounds of beatings, did they always come

17 from this room that you had already indicated to us previously, left from

18 the metal door, or did these sounds also come from other parts?

19 A. Only from that room, the room I mentioned.

20 Q. I will now refer you to certain persons that you have mentioned

21 previously. Do you know Halim Konjo?

22 A. Yes, I do.

23 Q. Was he taken out for beatings?

24 A. I remember Halim Konjo well. He was the first to be taken out for

25 a beating. That was on the 12th of June, over the night of the 13th of

1 June. It was not dark. It may have been 8.00 or 9.00 p.m., but it was

2 still light. He was taken out to the gate, and he was taken out with some

3 other men. He was the first one to be beaten, and we heard his screams.

4 Q. In which room -- do you know in which room or in which building he

5 was? Not when he was beaten, but in which room he was detained?

6 A. I don't know that, but he wasn't in my room.

7 Q. Was he in your building or was he in building number 1?

8 A. In building number 1. He wasn't in my building.

9 Q. When he was beaten, did you hear anything particular? Did you

10 hear what he said or the beaters said?

11 A. I cannot maintain that it was he who was being beaten at that

12 moment, but the people who were beating him were hitting him hard. You

13 could hear the blows, the sound of the blows, and he was crying, "Dear

14 mother, help me. Please don't, Zoka." And somebody was saying, "We'll

15 show you how Serbs beat." These cries went on for a long time, and

16 they would stop only when the man who was being beaten was hushed.

17 Q. Zoka, do you know who that would be?

18 A. Zoka was Zoka Matovic, a guard in the camp. I know him.

19 Q. Did Halim Konjo come back to the room? Did you see him go back to

20 the building 1?

21 A. He didn't come back. We were watching through a hole in the paper

22 covering the window facing the entrance door to the administrative

23 building, and those people did not come back into the compound.

24 Q. You said that it was on the 12th of June. How do you know this

25 date so well? Is there a particular reason to remember this date?

1 A. I have a major reason to remember that day. The 12th of June is a

2 day I will remember for the fear and the beating, the horrible beating of

3 those people. I'll never forget that night between the 12th and the 13th

4 of June. We were up in those rooms where we were detained, and our blood

5 froze in our veins.

6 Q. You said he was not the only one taken on this occasion. Do you

7 remember who was taken also on the 12th of June?

8 A. I don't know precisely whether he was -- whether another man was

9 taken away at the same time as he was, but there was a man named Sain, but

10 several people were taken out each day until St. Vitus' Day in the end of

11 June, and I remember a lot of people were taken out until that time, until

12 the 28th of June.

13 Q. Did you ever hear what happened to Halim Konjo? Did you get any

14 news of him, about him?

15 A. I got news of him on the 18th of June. I found out that Halim

16 Konjo had died in a solitary cell.

17 Q. How did you find out?

18 A. A man from my room, denoted here as RJ, I remember well that it

19 was the 18th of June. Whether it was before or after 12.00, I don't

20 remember, but a guard came into our room and told this person to go to the

21 gate. After he was taken to the gate, I don't know where he was taken

22 from then on. An hour or two later, the person came back to my room, and

23 I asked him where he had been. He said, "I'll tell you that in the

24 strictest confidence," and he didn't want the other inmates to hear what

25 he was telling me.

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1 He told me that he had been at the warden's and had coffee there.

2 He said the warden had invited him for coffee. I asked, "Did you ask him

3 what would happen to us?" He replied that he did and that the warden had

4 answered that the KP Dom would be closed down and disbanded, that some

5 people would be released to the free territory, that others would be

6 exchanged, and yet others would be transferred to other camps where the

7 regime was even stricter, whereas this camp would be closed down and taken

8 over by the army.

9 He also said that at the warden's there had also been a colleague

10 of his with whom he had worked together, and he said that Halim Konjo had

11 died in solitary confinement.

12 When he had told me all of this, he asked me not to tell anyone

13 and said that other people in the camp should not hear about it, and that

14 was all he said.

15 Q. Did he tell you which colleague of his was there as well? And if

16 you know the name and it's on the list here, do not tell us the name but,

17 rather, the initial or the pseudonym.

18 A. I don't know the name, and his last name begins with a D". His

19 last name is "D". I used to know his first name, but I can't remember it

20 now.

21 JUDGE HUNT: The name is not on the list in other words.

22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

23 Q. I just wanted to clarify. The name is not on the list, the name

24 of this colleague? If you look at the list, is the name of this colleague

25 on the list or not?

1 A. It's not on the list.

2 Q. What is the name? If you know the name, please tell us the

3 name.

4 A. His surname is Dostic. I don't know his first name. He used to

5 be a manager at the place where the warden had worked. He used to be the

6 director at the place where the warden had worked. I don't know the man.

7 Q. Just to clarify a matter, you said that he said that Halim

8 Konjo had died. To whom was the person RJ referring? Who told him

9 actually that Halim Konjo had died?

10 A. This person who was together with him and the warden said this

11 very softly so that the warden would not hear him saying it, that

12 Halim Konjo had died in solitary confinement. And the person who was

13 having coffee with them was called RJ.

14 Q. Yes. Yes. When RJ was talking to you, did he actually say -- did

15 he refer to the "warden," or did he refer to "Mr. Krnojelac"? What did he

16 use?

17 A. I don't know exactly. I don't know, to tell you the truth. He

18 either said "warden" or the name. I can't maintain that it was either

19 this way or that way. I really don't know.

20 Q. You mentioned what the warden had told RJ about the groups of

21 detainees, what would happen to them. Did this actually happen?

22 A. What happened was that people were exchanged. What happened was

23 that a group of people was set free in Rozaje, Montenegro. As far as I

24 know, the camp stayed there, where it was. It was never disbanded, and

25 the army never came.

1 Q. Let us now talk about some other detainees, and please tell us

2 what you know about them. I just need to clarify one matter in relation

3 to Mr. Halim Konjo. Was he only beaten once in the KP Dom or several

4 times?

5 A. I don't know whether he was ever beaten at the KP Dom until then,

6 until the night of the 12th and the 13th of June. Before that, I did not

7 see any such thing or hear of any such thing.

8 Q. Yes. Thank you.

9 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the person Halim Konjo is

10 mentioned under B-33 and C-13.

11 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

12 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

13 Q. Nurko Nisic. Did you see him being beaten or hear him being

14 beaten?

15 A. I also saw Nurko when he was taken to the gate. I don't know

16 which day this was, but chronologically speaking, it was sometime from the

17 12th of June onwards. I saw when he was taken to the gate. Nurko was

18 beaten, and his voice was heard, that he was screaming a lot. I don't

19 know whether it was him personally or those other others. I cannot say

20 that for sure, but they were all beaten. They were all screaming. Other

21 detainees told me, and I came to the same conclusion, Nurko Nisic was

22 hollering all the time, "Oh, mother, help me." And everybody, for the

23 most part, whoever went to that gate was screaming and hollering.

24 Q. Did you see him return?

25 A. No one returned, no.

1 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, Nurko Nisic is C-19.

2 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

3 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

4 Q. Do you know the Rikalo brothers? Were they also beaten during

5 this period that you mentioned?

6 A. All who were taken to the gate in the evening hours were beaten

7 and none of them returned.

8 Q. Did you see the Rikalo brothers being taken?

9 A. I saw Rikalo when they took him to the gate. That day when they

10 were taken out, as we were coming back from lunch, on the building where I

11 was standing, they were drilling in the walls. They were putting cables

12 into the walls, and they wanted to bring electricity there. Both brothers

13 were together. They were taken to the gate. They were beaten that night,

14 and they never returned again. I don't know the exact date. It was

15 sometime after the 13th of June. I don't know the exact date.

16 Q. You said the Rikalo brothers. How many brothers were taken?

17 A. Two brothers. Their last name is Rikalo. I don't know their

18 father. I found out that they worked in Valter Peric, that they were

19 electricians. Actually, I do know the father. Ramo Rikalo. They were

20 his sons, and they all lived in Cohodar Mahala.

21 Q. And do you know their first names?

22 A. I don't know.

23 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, it's C-21 to 23.

24 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

25 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

1 Q. Do you know any detainees with the last name Cankusic?

2 A. I do.

3 Q. Yes. What are their first names?

4 A. I don't know Cankusic's name, but when we talked amongst

5 ourselves, I was told -- actually, this was a young man. I saw him only

6 by -- I knew him only by sight. I saw him in the compound. They told me

7 that he was doing something with computers at Maglic. I don't know his

8 first name.

9 Q. Did you see him being taken to the gate and beaten? Did you hear

10 the sound of beatings afterwards?

11 A. No. I saw them taking him to the gate. All who were taken to the

12 gate at that hour were beaten.

13 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, it's either C-3 or C-4. That's

14 still open.

15 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

17 Q. Nail Hodzic. Do you know this person, and was he also beaten?

18 A. I know Nail Hodzic. I know when he was taken to the gate. He was

19 fighting back hard. He was quarrelling for a long time. But he was not

20 returned. He was taken to the gate. Beating could be heard from there,

21 moaning. But they were not taken individually. Sometimes it was two,

22 sometimes it was three. And how much each one of them was beaten

23 individually, that I can't say, but at any rate, they were all beaten.

24 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, it's number C-10.

25 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

1 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

2 Q. Do you know a detainee Selimovic, nicknamed Spona?

3 A. I know Selimovic. I think he was a mechanic. He worked in

4 Tabaci. His first name was Spona. I don't know his first name. He was

5 also taken to the gate in the evening hours.

6 Q. Did you hear the sound of beatings afterwards?

7 A. Not a single night when people were taken out was anyone taken

8 without being beaten and without us hearing screams, never.

9 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, it's the person B-50.

10 JUDGE HUNT: B?

11 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Fifty, 50, 5-0.

12 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

13 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

14 Q. Do you know a detainee Izet Grosonja?

15 A. I know that person very well. He was brought to my room after I

16 came. He was taken from hospital. He had been wounded in the chest. He

17 was wounded. He was sick. He was in the room. After that, he

18 recovered.

19 That was a difficult moment for me. When we were lying down

20 or when we were standing, we would hear a key getting into the lock. They

21 needed to open two doors before they would get to our room. The blood

22 would freeze in our veins, and in my veins too, because we all thought

23 that every one of us would be the one who would be taken out. Then they

24 called out Izet Grosonja, and he was taken to the gate and he never

25 returned. Grole is his nickname.

1 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, it's the person B-23.

2 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

3 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

4 Q. Do you know Adil Granov?

5 A. Adil Granov? I know him by sight. I know his father. I know

6 that he was an electrical engineer by profession. He was taken to the

7 gate. I don't know from which room. I don't know where he had been. He

8 was taken to the gate, and he was also taken to the place where these

9 people were beaten. He never returned.

10 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, it's C-9.

11 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

12 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

13 Q. Do you know Adil Krajcin?

14 A. I do.

15 Q. Who was he?

16 A. I knew him before. He was in the mine in Miljevina. I know that

17 he was a member of the committee, that he was some party activist. I know

18 that he had an apartment in a new high-rise in Ribarska street, and I know

19 that he was in building number 1 opposite our building. That's where I

20 saw him. He was not in my room.

21 Q. Was he taken one evening for beating? Do you know that?

22 A. I did not see that. I did not see that.

23 Q. Do you know persons with the last name Aljukic? Did you see any

24 Aljukic in the camp?

25 A. Aljukic? In my room there were three men by the last name of

1 Aljukic, Aljukic Suljo, who was the father of Aljukic Cener, who we

2 called Cener. That was Fehim Aljukic, and yet another one, another

3 Aljukic. This was some family from Miljevina, actually. They were in my

4 room. Munib, Munib Aljukic. Munib, Fehim, Suljo, and Suljo's son. Cener

5 is what we called him. I don't know his first name. He was a young man.

6 Q. Were any of the Aljukics beaten? Do you know that?

7 A. They were in my room. I don't know whether they had beaten them.

8 I did not see that.

9 Q. Were the Aljukics taken away at some point in time?

10 A. I know when they were taken out.

11 Q. When?

12 A. May I proceed?

13 Q. Yes, please.

14 A. One day a guard came to the room, and from my room he called out

15 Aljukic, this young man, this son of Suljo Aljukic. I don't know his

16 name. His nickname was Cener. They called him out. Then they called out

17 a Jankovic, who was from some other room, not my room. At any rate, I saw

18 them in the compound when they took them out. And from building number 1,

19 they took Adil Krajcin. They took all three of them to the gate one

20 afternoon in broad daylight. Suljo Aljukic, the father, asked where

21 they're going, and they said that there was to be some exchange. So they

22 took them to gate, but they never returned.

23 Q. And did the father inquire what happened to his son, the father,

24 Suljo?

25 A. Yes. Yes. One day - I don't know exactly when - the deputy

1 warden of the camp came to our room to visit us. He introduced himself as

2 Gagovic, and indeed it was Gagovic. I don't know his first name.

3 We all sat there, all of us. He passed by all of us and talked to

4 us. Gagovic said to us that there was a war going on, that things were

5 going very well for us, that we all looked well. Then he said that we

6 were not to be blamed for everything that was going on, that we were

7 taking out the sins of Alija Izetbegovic and that it was all the fault of

8 people who got us into this kind of trouble. And he said to me that

9 Alija's leadership started fleeing Sarajevo; that Cengic fled to Turkey,

10 that Alija's soldiers were thieves and criminals; that Prazina was killing

11 people, stealing cars, Mercedeses and that he was also supposed to run

12 away; that he was going abroad; and that Alija Izetbegovic was getting

13 ready to go abroad. Then Suljo asked him, "Has my son been exchanged?

14 Has he left?" He said to him -- he said that he had not been exchanged,

15 he's in Miljevina. He's digging trenches.

16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the person Adil Krajcin is

17 listed under C-14. The person Aljukic -- actually, two persons Aljukic,

18 no first names, are listed under B-1.

19 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

20 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: This Jankovic is not listed at all.

21 Gagovic - I have already said so - is listed under 79 on the employee list

22 and is listed with the remark "Security, worked in KP Dom, Zenica."

23 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

24 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

25 Q. Witness, Hamed, nicknamed Salim, Bico. Was he taken away and

1 beaten? Do you know that?

2 A. He was taken to the gate between the 12th and the 13th of June.

3 He was taken to the gate. I don't know exactly in which order, but I know

4 the young man. He was a policeman.

5 Q. Did he return?

6 A. He did not return.

7 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, this person is listed under

8 C-2.

9 Q. Did you see Zulfo Veiz in the KP Dom, and can you tell us what

10 happened to him?

11 A. Zulfo was in building number 1. He went there for breakfast and

12 for lunch. He was also taken to the gate in the evening hours, and he did

13 not return. He was taken away.

14 I know Zulfo Veiz and another Veiz too. Zulfo Veiz was a policeman

15 but also another Veiz was taken out, Munib Veiz, a salesperson.

16 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honours, Zulfo Veiz is under C-29, and

17 Munib Veiz is under C-28.

18 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

19 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

20 Q. Do you know Kemal Dzelilovic? Was he taken as well and beaten and

21 disappeared?

22 A. I know Kemal Dzelilovic very well. He was a teacher of

23 engineering at the secondary school. He was taken out of a room. I don't

24 know which one. This was towards the end of June, on the 25th or 27th or

25 28th, something like that, chronologically speaking. He was taken to the

1 gate then, and he never returned.

2 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, it's C-7.

3 Q. Mustafa Kuloglija. What can you tell us about him?

4 A. Mustafa Kuloglija was a teacher. I don't know in which school

5 though. He was also taken out of some other room. He was not taken out

6 of my room. He was taken to the gate, and he never returned. This was

7 the period between the 12th of June and the 30th of June. That was that

8 horrible period.

9 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, this person is listed under

10 C-15.

11 Q. Do you know Enes Uzunovic?

12 A. I know Enes Uzunovic very well. He's a medical technician, a

13 nurse, from the hospital in Foca. He was also president of the youth

14 organisation in Foca. He was taken, I think -- this doesn't have to be

15 correct. He was taken from Room 16, which was below where I was staying,

16 and he was taken sometime around the 13th or 14th, among the first people

17 who were taken out to the gate and who never returned. I think it was the

18 13th or 14th, something like that. I don't know for sure.

19 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, it's C-26.

20 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

21 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

22 Q. Do you know the person Ramo Dzendusic?

23 A. I do. Ramo Dzendusic was taken out in June, in the same period.

24 I don't know the exact date. He was taken from building number 1. He

25 worked at the military department. He was pretty old, about 50 or 60.

1 I'm not sure. He had some kind of job there as a desk clerk. I don't

2 know where he was taken.

3 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Sorry.

4 JUDGE HUNT: I have never regarded 50 or 60 as very old,

5 Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff. I was surprised by the answer, that's all.

6 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: This person is under C-8, Your Honour.

7 Q. Meho Pasalic. Was he also detained in the KP Dom and was he

8 beaten?

9 A. Yes. He was a salesperson from Cohodar Mahala. He was called

10 Meho Pasalic or Pasovic. I'm not sure. He was also taken to the gate,

11 and he never returned.

12 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, the Prosecution believes that

13 it's B-43.

14 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

15 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

16 Q. How did -- these beatings that you described, how long did they

17 usually last in the evenings? When did it stop?

18 A. Usually they happened after dinner. Night would fall around 9.00

19 or 9.30. It went on until 11.00 or 12.00, something like that, 11.00 or

20 12.00 at night. We can't really tell, but it lasted a long time.

21 Q. Did you ever hear shots in relation to such beatings?

22 A. Shots were heard after these beatings almost every night when this

23 happened. The shots could be heard in our room. These were individual

24 shots, either from a pistol or an automatic rifle, but it was never a

25 burst of gunfire, only individual gunshots.

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1 Q. These detainees who did not return and who disappeared after such

2 beatings, did you ever hear what happened to them? Did you have contact

3 with their relatives? Do you know if they are still alive?

4 A. I didn't hear that any of these people were still alive. In that

5 period -- I mean after that, a person was brought to my room, the father

6 of that Veiz. Not Zulfo, the other Veiz. The salesperson, I mean.

7 Munib. Munib. He was in my room, and he was asking about -- wondering

8 where his son was. We did not want to tell him that he was taken to the

9 gate and beaten. We wanted to make it easier for him.

10 After I got out of the camp -- I don't know whether this is

11 correct or not. I don't want to say whether it is true or not true, but

12 some people said that this person, Munib Veiz, that his body showed up

13 somewhere around Gorazde, that it had floated down the Drina River and

14 that they found it on a bank by Gorazde. I'm not sure whether this is

15 rumour or fact.

16 Q. Who told you that? Do you remember who told you?

17 A. I can't remember who said that, but these were stories that were

18 told by different people. I can't say who said that. These were stories

19 that went around.

20 Q. Witness, rather early during your testimony, you mentioned already

21 Juso Dzamilija, a salesman from Tabaci. Was he detained in the KP Dom?

22 A. Yes, he was detained at the KP Dom. I did not see him in solitary

23 confinement, but they told me that he was in solitary confinement. I

24 found out only when he had hanged himself there. We were told that Juso

25 Dzamalija had hanged himself in the solitary confinement cell. And I saw

1 when, from my building where the solitary confinement cells were, a lady

2 doctor went out in white uniform, followed by a nurse. They said that

3 they were the ones who determined death in the case of Juso Dzamalija who

4 had hanged himself in the solitary confinement cell.

5 After that, the guards brought Juso Dzamalija out or, rather, they

6 dragged his body in a white sheet. They were dragging him downstairs, and

7 then they dragged his body all the way to the gate.

8 We were told that he had hanged himself there. That's how we

9 heard about this.

10 Q. Who told you that he hanged himself there?

11 A. I don't know who told me. Rumour had it amongst us, the inmates,

12 that is.

13 Q. You said that a doctor and a nurse were coming. How did you

14 recognise or who told you that they were a doctor on a nurse?

15 A. Nobody said it. We assumed they were. The lady doctor was an

16 older woman. They were dressed in doctors' white uniforms.

17 Q. Did you see them go into the building where the isolation cell

18 was?

19 A. We didn't see them coming in. We just saw them coming out. After

20 they came out of the building and climbed down the stairs, the guards came

21 out dragging the body wrapped in a blanket and dragged it all the way to

22 the administrative building.

23 Q. Were you able to recognise Juso Dzamalija in this blanket.

24 A. I cannot claim that I recognised it, but rumour had it that it was

25 Juso Dzamalija.

1 Q. You said "rumour of it." Who told you? Do you recall that?

2 A. Who told me, I don't remember, but there was another story

3 circulating that Juso Dzamilija's son was a member of the special unit of

4 the police in Sarajevo and that he came to Foca as part of a special unit

5 and that that was probably the reason why the father was placed in

6 solitary confinement.

7 Q. When you say -- did the guards actually speak about Juso

8 Dzamilija's hanging himself or were the detainees?

9 A. Inmates were telling this story in their rooms, and how the story

10 spread, I don't know.

11 Q. You were arrested together with six other villagers from Jelec.

12 What happened to these other villagers?

13 A. All of the villagers who were arrested with me all survived the

14 camp and were released.

15 Q. Let us now talk about some members of the prison staff. Who was

16 the warden?

17 A. Milorad Krnojelac was the warden, nicknamed Mico.

18 Q. When did you learn this fact for the first time? Who told you?

19 A. I learnt that as soon as I was brought to the camp. I was told in

20 that room upstairs, Room 18, the people who were already there told me

21 that the warden of the camp was Milorad Krnojelac. And he was around. We

22 saw him.

23 Q. Did staff members ever confirm the fact that he was the warden?

24 A. Everybody knew he was the warden. We were all there, and we all

25 knew that there was no other warden. There was only him. He had a deputy

1 by the name of Gagovic, and there was a commander of the guard or

2 something, Mitar Rasevic.

3 Q. When did you see Mr. Krnojelac for the first time in the KP Dom?

4 A. I don't know precisely. I saw Milorad most often in the

5 yard when he was passing by on his way to the kitchen or to his office.

6 He would go across the yard usually when we were not out for lunch or

7 dinner. We usually saw him from our rooms.

8 Q. When you saw him, what was he usually wearing?

9 A. He had a military uniform on. Not a camouflage uniform but the

10 olive-green/grey one. That uniform was worn not by regular soldiers but

11 by noncommissioned officers or officers. He wore it with a yellow belt

12 and a pistol in that belt.

13 Q. This yellow belt, was it a particular soldier's belt?

14 A. Most probably a military belt since it was a military uniform. I

15 don't know what kind of belt it was.

16 Q. At what times did you see him? Did you ever see him late in the

17 afternoon or the evenings?

18 A. To tell you the truth, I don't know, but I know he was passing by

19 accompanied by some people, on his way to the carpentry shop. Sometimes

20 it was evening, sometimes it was morning, but I don't remember ever seeing

21 him at night. It was usually in the daytime, both in the morning and the

22 afternoon.

23 Q. Did you ever see him with heavy weapons? You mentioned before

24 that he had a pistol, but did you ever see him with heavy weapons?

25 A. Yes, I did. There was one day, I don't remember when, there were

1 people playing football in the yard. Those were Serb inmates. Some wore

2 uniforms, some didn't. I think it was in the afternoon. Later, they were

3 all taken upstairs and locked up in their rooms. And those inmates who

4 worked in the carpentry shop and elsewhere were returned to their rooms.

5 We were all locked up. The door, the entrance doors, were all locked up,

6 and everybody, including people who worked at the entrance and who worked

7 in the carpentry shop - I don't know about the farm and other places, but

8 all of us were locked up, and we were frightened. We could feel that

9 something was going on.

10 At that moment, guards appeared in the yard, all of them. They

11 were carrying backpacks, military equipment, and at that moment the warden

12 came out of the administrative building, carrying an automatic rifle, with

13 a backpack on his back. They gathered in front of the kitchen. They

14 assembled there, and went in the direction of the carpentry shop. We were

15 afraid that they were going to kill us. However, they spread across the

16 compound. I don't know where they were. But in any case, an hour or two

17 later, they all came back and things returned to normal.

18 Q. Do you know what caused this particular situation?

19 A. We never knew what brought this about, but rumour had it it

20 was some kind of drill or alert. That is what we heard later.

21 Q. From whom did you learn that?

22 A. That's what we assumed, we the inmates, but there was no official

23 information from anyone.

24 Q. Did you ever see Mr. Krnojelac when detainees were taken away for

25 exchanges or for beatings?

1 A. I never saw him when people were taken away for beatings, but once

2 when a lot of people were being taken for exchange, about 75 men, the

3 warden, Krnojelac, was walking about the compound accompanied by Mitar

4 Rasevic, and the guards, they were calling out people from their rooms and

5 assembling them down in the courtyard. That's when I saw him. [as

6 interpreted]

7 Q. When was that? You said when 75 men were assembled -- detainees

8 were assembled in the courtyard. When was that, what time?

9 A. I don't know the exact date, but in all probability, it was the

10 30th of August, the 1st of September, after the departure of those 55

11 people who had gone for an exchange. After their departure, it was the

12 day after or two days later. All those people were assembled from their

13 rooms, and according to our count and calculations, 75 men were gathered

14 on that occasion, collected and taken to the gate. It was a fine, sunny

15 day.

16 Q. Was Mr. Krnojelac present during the entire time when these

17 detainees were gathered in the compound or only part of the time? Do you

18 know?

19 A. He was present for some of the time while they were being

20 collected from their rooms and assembled in the yard, I mean the prisoners

21 for that big exchange involving 75 men. I cannot say he was in the yard

22 all of the time, but I saw him on that occasion.

23 Q. I forgot to ask you. When you described this situation when

24 Mr. Krnojelac was with the heavy weapon, I forgot to ask you when did this

25 happen?

1 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honour.

2 JUDGE HUNT: Yes.

3 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I just have a small

4 remark relating to the transcript. The witness said that Krnojelac

5 happened to be in the courtyard. That's not what the transcript says. In

6 fact, it's not in the transcript. Your Honour, it's page 97, lines 9, 10,

7 and 11. He said, "Krnojelac happened to be in the yard," and after that,

8 he said he wasn't there all of the time, only a part of the time. This

9 second part is recorded well, but it doesn't mention that he "happened" to

10 be there.

11 JUDGE HUNT: What I want to know is precisely where you say it

12 fits in after the words "involving 75 men." Do you say he said Krnojelac

13 "just happened to be in the yard"? Is that what you're saying?

14 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] When they were assembled in the yard,

15 he "happened" to be there. He "happened" to be in the yard, in the

16 compound.

17 JUDGE HUNT: I think it would be best, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, if you

18 ask him precisely about that, perhaps by a leading question, so that we

19 can get it cleared up. There is no way in which we can resolve that

20 without having to go right through the tape. Would you ask him about it?

21 It's disappearing off the screen, unfortunately. I've got it held on

22 mine, but ...

23 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: I think the best is to clarify the whole

24 situation, if it is by chance that he was in the courtyard or actually

25 involved.

1 JUDGE HUNT: I agree, yes.

2 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF:

3 Q. When these 75 people were taken, can you tell us how this whole

4 procedure started? What happened on that day when these 75 detainees were

5 taken away?

6 A. What happened on that day. Is that a question to me?

7 Q. Yes, in relation to this 75 people, how this procedure started.

8 A. It all began like this: The guards were moving around all the

9 rooms, going from one room to another in the entire compound, calling

10 people out and assembling them in the compound, where they lined them up.

11 Those were ordinary guards moving about. At that time, there was also the

12 warden moving around, walking about, and also Mitar Rasevic. During

13 earlier exchanges, we didn't see the warden. We would see sometimes Mitar

14 Rasevic, but even him we saw less often.

15 Q. Did you see the warden and Mitar Rasevic come together with the

16 guards who collected the people into the compound or was he in the

17 compound already for another reason? Do you know?

18 A. I don't know whether he was there in the yard for some other

19 reason, but he was there. Down in the yard there was Rasevic, the warden,

20 and other guards. The inmates were being assembled after being taken

21 out from their rooms. They were being lined up, and Mitar Rasevic and the

22 warden and the guards all took part in assembling the inmates. They were

23 assembling this group of 75 men, and once they were assembled, they left.

24 Q. How did Mr. Krnojelac take part in assembling these detainees?

25 What did he actually do?

1 A. I don't know what he was doing, whether he was giving instructions

2 to the guards or to other people, but in any case, he was around. He was

3 there during the assembly of those people. What exactly his duties were

4 or what he was doing, I don't know.

5 Q. The question is: What did you see him do? Did you see him talk

6 to the guards who assembled the detainees?

7 A. I don't know. He was just walking about. I can't say whether he

8 talked to them or not, but they were just hanging about the courtyard, to

9 put it in a vulgar way. Those guards were coming out of the rooms

10 carrying lists. People were coming out, gathering. Down there in the

11 courtyard, the people I have mentioned were present. What exactly he was

12 doing, whether he had a specific task, I don't know.

13 Q. You said they were just hanging about the courtyard. Was he close

14 to the detainees or was he in another part of the courtyard?

15 A. Of course he was moving among the prisoners who were being

16 assembled from the buildings, from the prisoners' quarters, and he was

17 walking close to them. I don't know whether he had exchanged a word or

18 two with them, but they were all moving about the courtyard during the

19 assembly of that group of 75 men. What their tasks were, I don't

20 know, but he was present there.

21 Q. And these 75 detainees, where exactly in the courtyard

22 were they assembled? In which part of the courtyard?

23 A. They were being assembled and lined up directly in front of the

24 gate through which they were going to be released from the building, in

25 the narrow circle in front of the building.

1 Q. This may not be an ideal photo, but we will see.

2 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: With the help of the usher, I would like to

3 show the witness the photo 7479.

4 Q. Are you able to point the assembling point out to us on this

5 photo?

6 A. Here, above the KP Dom. I cannot really find my way around this

7 photograph.

8 Q. We can try two other photographs, and it's actually the

9 photographs 7510 and 7511, which also show the yard.

10 A. This compound is a large space. That's in front of the door which

11 leads out of the KP Dom. It's here.

12 Q. Can you see this assembly --

13 A. It's in front of the door leading out of the KP Dom.

14 Q. Do you mean the metal door that you have already pointed out a

15 couple of times?

16 A. Yes, the metal door. Outside the metal door, somewhere before the

17 metal door, and others were lined up on the other side.

18 Q. Let me give you yet another photo, 7477. That's the bottom

19 photo. If you look at this photo, can you show us where the detainees

20 were lined up? Was it in front of this metal door?

21 A. That is the metal door. This one.

22 Q. Look only at the bottom photo. Where were the detainees, these 75

23 men? Where were they lined up?

24 A. In front of this door and along this path. This is the metal

25 door. You don't see the windows here that are next to it. Here, along

1 this path.

2 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: The witness is pointing at this path from

3 the metal door to the left side of the photo.

4 Q. And where did you see Mr. Krnojelac? Where was he?

5 A. They were moving along this path throughout the yard, outside

6 building 1 and outside building 2. They were being assembled before

7 the -- before leaving the KP Dom.

8 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: The witness has pointed out the same path

9 again when he indicated where Mr. Krnojelac was.

10 Q. Thank you. That clarifies the matter.

11 How long was he there? Do you recall? Just a couple of minutes

12 or for longer?

13 A. I cannot know that. He was there. Whether he was there for

14 two, three, or five minutes, I cannot say. I don't know. But he was

15 there. He was there in the courtyard.

16 Q. And was he present when the detainees left through the metal

17 door? Do you know that?

18 A. I don't know. I cannot claim one way or the other. I really

19 don't know. While they were being collected and assembled and lined up,

20 he was moving about the courtyard together with Mitar Rasevic and with the

21 guards. He was there during the assembly of these 75 people.

22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, it is 4.00, and I would also now

23 start a different chapter.

24 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you. Well, then, we will adjourn now until

25 9.30 tomorrow morning.

1 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 4.00 p.m.,

2 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 20^th day of March,

3 2001, at 9.30 a.m.

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