Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 4036

1 Thursday, 1 June 2000

2 [Open session]

3 [The witness entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.35 a.m.

5 [The accused entered court]

6 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Good

7 morning, ladies and gentlemen, the technical booth, the

8 interpreters. I see they are there. Good morning to

9 the court reporters, legal assistants. Good morning,

10 Mr. McCloskey, Mr. Harmon, Mr. Krstic, Mr. Visnjic,

11 Mr. Petrusic.

12 Good morning, Professor Brunborg. I hope I

13 pronounce your name correctly. How are you?

14 THE WITNESS: Fine, thank you.

15 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] You will

16 pronounce it better than I can, I'm sure.

17 You're going to read the solemn declaration

18 that the usher is going to give you, please.

19 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will

20 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the

21 truth.

22 WITNESS: HELGE BRUNBORG

23 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Please be

24 seated. Thank you very much for coming. I think you

25 are very familiar with the court proceedings, so you

Page 4037

1 will be feeling at ease in the courtroom.

2 First of all, you will be answering questions

3 put to you by Mr. McCloskey.

4 Mr. McCloskey, you have the floor.

5 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, and good morning,

6 Mr. President, Your Honours, Counsel.

7 Examined by Mr. McCloskey:

8 Q. Could you please state your name and spell

9 your last name for the record?

10 A. My name is Helge Brunborg. My last name is

11 spelled B-r-u-n-b-o-r-g.

12 Q. And you're of Norwegian nationality?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And what is your profession?

15 A. I'm a demographer.

16 Q. Can you briefly describe for us what

17 demography is, as relates to your profession?

18 A. Demography relates to population studies, the

19 changes of population, and the composition of a

20 population.

21 Q. Can you give us your educational background?

22 A. Yes. I have an undergraduate degree from the

23 University of Oslo in mathematics and statistics and

24 physics, and a graduate degree from the University of

25 Oslo in economics, and a PhD from the University of

Page 4038

1 Michigan in economics, specialising in demography.

2 Q. And can you tell us your employment history?

3 A. I've been employed at Statistics Norway since

4 1974, but with several spells of employment elsewhere,

5 mostly in other countries.

6 Q. What is Statistics Norway?

7 A. It's a central agency for collecting and

8 disseminating statistics for Norway.

9 Q. Could you give us an example or two of the

10 kind of work you've done for Statistics Norway over the

11 years?

12 A. I made population projections for Norway, for

13 the country and for all the regions. I've studied

14 fertility trends, historically and current, even new

15 patterns, cohabitational patterns, consensual unions,

16 that is, living together without being married,

17 mortality trends in particular.

18 Q. You say you've had various periods of leave.

19 Can you tell us some of the projects you were involved

20 in during those periods of leave?

21 A. I've been employed by the Central Statistics

22 Office of Botswana and by the University of Botswana

23 for two years altogether. I have worked here for one

24 and a half years on a permanent basis.

25 Q. Tell us what you were doing in Botswana.

Page 4039

1 A. I was working in the demography unit and

2 advising on analysis of census. And I was planning a

3 demographic survey, an interview survey, and in that

4 respect I went into the field with interviewers to

5 collect data.

6 Q. And I notice your curriculum vitae, which is

7 marked Exhibit 269. Under "Professional Activities",

8 can you give us an example of one of your professional

9 activities?

10 A. I've been travelling to several countries,

11 advising on various aspects of data collection and data

12 analysis, including Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia,

13 Albania and Bosnia.

14 Q. Were you part of the Norwegian delegation to

15 the United Nations?

16 A. Yes. I have represented Norway in the

17 Population Commission of the United Nations since 1991.

18 Q. And what was that in regard?

19 A. That is an advisory body under ECOSOC.

20 Q. What do they do?

21 A. They advise on the population policies and

22 data collection activities and give advice. They were

23 the planning body for the large international

24 population conference in Cairo in 1994, where I was

25 also representing Norway.

Page 4040

1 Q. And when did you come to work -- to assist

2 the Office of the Prosecutor?

3 A. End of June, 1997.

4 Q. And while you were working for the

5 Prosecutor, did you get a specific assignment regarding

6 the Srebrenica investigation?

7 A. Yes. First I worked on the general problem

8 of estimating the population consequences of the war in

9 Bosnia, and later I was asked to study Srebrenica in

10 particular and try to estimate and validate the number

11 of missing persons from Srebrenica.

12 Q. Were you basically asked to review the

13 International Committee for the Red Cross's missing

14 list, as well as another missing list from another

15 non-governmental organisation, as well as other

16 material, and determine their potential reliability and

17 validity?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. So, first of all, can you describe who you

20 worked with on that project and how that was set up?

21 A. Well, first I had an assistant. I've had an

22 assistant since January 1998, because I soon realised

23 that the task, what I was supposed to do, was

24 overwhelming. And these assistants -- there have been

25 four of them -- have been Norwegian graduate students.

Page 4041

1 Q. Have they been they students of yours?

2 A. More or less. Some have, some have -- I've

3 gotten to know through other people, through

4 colleagues.

5 Q. I didn't ask you about your teaching

6 experience. What sort of teaching experience do you

7 have?

8 A. Yes. I also do part-time teaching at the

9 University of Oslo, and I've been a teacher at the

10 University of Botswana as well.

11 Q. So what was the team that comprised your

12 population -- your study of Srebrenica missing?

13 A. Well, it was a student, the assistant, and

14 myself, and then we were working in close contact with

15 the team investigating Srebrenica.

16 Q. And what is your student's name?

17 A. Henrik Urdal and later Torkild Lyngstad, who

18 is here now. I should also mention perhaps that I went

19 back to Oslo in January 1998, 1999, and then worked

20 here on a part-time basis, coming here every two months

21 for a week but then talking to my assistant every day,

22 and he was also coming to Oslo every two months or so,

23 so we had very good contact with the project.

24 Q. Can you tell us a bit about how you attacked

25 this project, this task? What was the one of the first

Page 4042

1 things that you had to do?

2 A. Well, first, we needed to find out how the

3 data were collected by these two organisations that you

4 referred to, the ICRC, the International Committee of

5 the Red Cross, and PHR, the Physicians for Human

6 Rights.

7 Is there a problem? Press this one also?

8 Q. That should get it.

9 A. All right. Now are there two.

10 Q. All right. Can you tell the Court what you

11 learned about the ICRC and specifically about their

12 missing lists?

13 A. Well, what I learned was that -- I'm a bit

14 uncomfortable hearing myself in stereo. Can I take

15 this off now? Is that okay? Okay.

16 Q. You'll notice if someone's speaking to you in

17 language you don't understand. Then put it right back

18 on.

19 A. Yes. For the time being, if I may.

20 The ICRC is an organisation based in Geneva

21 that has worked for more than a hundred years in

22 relation to war and crisis. It has always emphasised,

23 as far as I know, to be neutral so that they have

24 access to both parties. For instance, visiting

25 prisoners of war.

Page 4043

1 One of their mandates, one of their tasks is

2 to trace people who have gone missing because of the

3 war. In war periods, families easily get split, and if

4 they are refugees or displaced, it's very hard for them

5 to unite. So to help in that, they take tracing

6 requests. People can register people as missing, and

7 they go through various national and international

8 channels to try to locate the missing people.

9 Q. Okay. Did you learn what specific methods

10 and procedures the ICRC used in regard to the war in

11 the former Yugoslavia?

12 A. Yes. They had offices all over the former

13 Yugoslavia or particularly in Bosnia and Croatia, and

14 they designed a questionnaire that people who wanted to

15 place a tracing request had to complete with the help

16 of an interviewer and then this information was entered

17 into a database. Parts of the information, some of the

18 items, were published in books.

19 Q. All right. Let me ask you, did they allow

20 anyone to come register someone missing or did they

21 have some standards regarding that?

22 A. Only -- no. Only close relatives were

23 supposed to register, and they had to record the name.

24 In fact, more than 95 per cent of the people who

25 reported a person as missing were close relatives.

Page 4044

1 That is, parents, children, spouses, and siblings.

2 Q. Did they ever make exceptions to that?

3 A. Occasionally friends and neighbours and more

4 distant relatives, because there is a problem in that

5 sometimes whole families went missing and there was

6 nobody to report them.

7 Q. Did they allow government agencies or bodies

8 like that to put in missing persons' names?

9 A. Not to my knowledge, and it is not listed,

10 no.

11 Q. So this was for the entire conflict of the

12 former Yugoslavia?

13 A. Yes. The first person went listed as missing

14 in Bosnia in November 1991, in fact.

15 Q. How many different editions of missing lists

16 has the ICRC actually come out with?

17 A. Four.

18 Q. Can you explain that?

19 THE INTERPRETER: Could we ask counsel to

20 make breaks between the questions and answers, please.

21 A. Did you say something?

22 MR. McCLOSKEY:

23 Q. We speak the same language. We spoke briefly

24 beforehand. I need to make a break and perhaps you can

25 try to make a pause too.

Page 4045

1 A. Yes. I'm familiar with the last two editions

2 of this one, this book here, editions 3 and 4.

3 Edition 3 was published in January 1997 and the 4th in

4 July 1998, actually, the 2nd in September 1996, I

5 believe.

6 MR. McCLOSKEY: For the record, that was the

7 Exhibit number 270, the ICRC missing list.

8 Q. So which volumes did you pay attention to in

9 your review?

10 A. Volumes 3 and 4.

11 Q. Why wouldn't you just focus on the most

12 recent volume?

13 A. Because people were -- between each edition,

14 people were added because more were registered missing,

15 but also people were taken off the list because it was

16 shown that they were dead or, in a few cases, that they

17 were alive.

18 Q. So that was all of interest to you in forming

19 your final list.

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Now, can you tell us a little bit about what

22 you learned specifically about the effort to register

23 those missing from Srebrenica by the ICRC?

24 A. I've been told that the whole process started

25 in July 1995, when they learned about the events in

Page 4046

1 Srebrenica. In particular, it started because it

2 became known that many people were captured and were

3 imprisoned in Serbia.

4 Q. Those were the allegations or the --

5 A. Yes. And it started in Tuzla, where --

6 because many refugees came to Tuzla.

7 Q. What have you learned about any problems

8 related to that process?

9 A. Well, it was a very chaotic situation. It

10 must have been when people were separated, especially

11 women and children were separated from the men. They

12 had to flee at very short notice, bringing few

13 belongings. Some of them were refugees for the second

14 time, in fact, displaced. They had spent a long time

15 in Srebrenica, in the enclave, being displaced from

16 other places in Bosnia. They did not know what

17 happened to their relatives, and many of them must have

18 been in a state of shock.

19 So when they were asked to give particulars

20 about the missing persons, some, they did not always

21 have the exact data. For example, date of birth is

22 missing for a substantial -- exact date of birth is

23 missing for a substantial number of persons. The year

24 of birth is there for everybody but one.

25 Q. What was the important data that you used in

Page 4047

1 your study that came from the ICRC list?

2 A. The most important is, of course, the surname

3 of the missing person; first name; and father's name,

4 which is widely used in the former Yugoslavia, in the

5 Balkans, to identify people; date of birth; place of

6 birth; and not the least, place and date of

7 disappearance; and also the opstina, the municipality

8 of disappearance, with those data I had access to. The

9 ICRC collected more data but these were the only data

10 that were made public.

11 Q. Did they take down ethnicity?

12 A. Yes, according to the questionnaire, they did

13 that, but we never got access to that information.

14 Q. Were the missing from Srebrenica incorporated

15 into the publication for all of Bosnia?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. So in order to determine Srebrenica missing

18 from the ICRC list, you have to put in certain data to

19 determine who are actually missing from Srebrenica in

20 1995; is that right?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. Okay. So that's the ICRC list. Do you have

23 any other observations about that list before we go

24 onto the other list?

25 A. The total list, if you include everybody who

Page 4048

1 has ever been reported, includes about 19.000 people.

2 Q. And initially when you first got the volume,

3 or what -- how many of those are related to Srebrenica,

4 according to the ICRC?

5 A. Some 7.400.

6 Q. All right. Now, tell us what you learned

7 about the Physicians for Human Rights missing list.

8 Who are they and what did you learn about them?

9 A. That's an American-based, non-governmental

10 organisation. I guess it's -- they're doing

11 humanitarian work, human rights related work, and they

12 wanted to assist particularly in identifying exhumed

13 bodies related to Srebrenica. So in 1996, they started

14 registering data on the missing persons much in the

15 same way as ICRC did, but the objective was different.

16 They wanted to use this information to identify people

17 who were exhumed.

18 So then in addition to asking the same

19 questions as ICRC about place and date of

20 disappearance, name, and so on, they also asked about

21 particulars about the missing persons. For example,

22 special physical characteristics, special clothing,

23 special -- and something special about the teeth, and

24 so on.

25 Q. How long did that project continue?

Page 4049

1 A. I believe it continued until January this

2 year when, apparently, they ran out of funds and it was

3 taken over by somebody else.

4 Q. Can you describe who they took statements

5 from? What kind of people did they allow to register?

6 A. Also close relatives. They were more -- they

7 were more liberal, but also in their case was that --

8 were the missing persons reported by close relatives in

9 more than 95 per cent of the cases.

10 Q. What about Srebrenica? Were they only

11 Srebrenica or would they allow other people?

12 A. The main purpose was -- objective was to map

13 Srebrenica, but they did not object to anybody coming

14 in to report people going missing from other places.

15 So of those 7.000-something, in their lists, in their

16 database, about 80 per cent are Srebrenica-related.

17 Q. Did you have access to the two volumes of the

18 ICRC and the PHR lists in an electronic format?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. All right. What was your next job, having

21 access to these lists that you've described? What was

22 the next job to meet your objective?

23 A. Well, first related to the ICRC lists, I have

24 two different versions, so we had to merge those,

25 making sure that nobody appeared twice. And also

Page 4050

1 finding out if somebody was removed from version 3 to

2 version 4, we needed to why were they removed; was it

3 because they were found to be dead or found to be

4 living.

5 Q. So those that were found to be dead you would

6 want to keep on your list, because that related to

7 Srebrenica?

8 A. And we wanted, of course, to delete those

9 found to be alive.

10 Q. So did you go through that process?

11 A. Yes. So we merged those two lists, and also

12 together with a list of dead people published at the

13 back of this book, about 600 people.

14 Q. And what did you do with the PHR list?

15 A. Well, also there we had different versions.

16 We had to merge them, check for duplicates. We did not

17 want the same person to be represented twice. It could

18 be that some relatives went, actually, twice and were

19 recorded by two different people or there was a mix-up

20 in the data entry. And we did find some duplicates,

21 and we checked with PHR later and they confirmed that

22 we were right.

23 So then we had two lists, one ICRC combined

24 list, one PHR combined list. Then we merged those two

25 lists. That was much more difficult, because most of

Page 4051

1 the people appeared in both lists. So then we had to

2 be very careful that we did not include people twice.

3 We were conservative all the time, trying not

4 to inflate the number but to get an exact and true

5 picture of the number of missing as possible.

6 Q. Can you just give us a brief idea of what was

7 involved in the merging to --

8 A. Well, this was done using computers, of

9 course, because of the large numbers, and we used the

10 Access database programme and we searched for names

11 that are equal; family name, first name, father's name,

12 date of birth. If all those items are identical and

13 place and date of disappearance are also similar or

14 very similar, then we would accept this as being

15 information for the same person.

16 Now, a problem is that sometimes, as I told,

17 the exact date of birth was missing. Then it was more

18 difficult. Or there was misspellings in the names, and

19 then we had to check this manually also to confirm that

20 these were really the same people and not different

21 people.

22 Q. Did you have another data source that helped

23 you with that, the problems of misspellings and lack of

24 information?

25 A. Yes. We were fortunate in having a complete

Page 4052

1 copy of the population census of 1991 for Bosnia and

2 Herzegovina.

3 Q. Can you tell the Court what you learned about

4 that, how reliable you believe that to be?

5 A. That is a standard census which was -- it was

6 taken then in 1991 in all of the former Yugoslavia,

7 following similar censuses in 1981 and 1971 and so on.

8 They record at the household level; also name, date of

9 birth, ethnicity, in addition to lots of social

10 variables like educational attainment, occupation, and

11 so on.

12 Q. Is there a national ID number for people?

13 A. Yes. A national ID number called maticni

14 broj, meaning "unique number", was introduced in the

15 former Yugoslavia in 1981. It consists of the date of

16 birth, seven digits, and some additional six digits.

17 But, if I may, this was recorded in the 1991 census,

18 but not by everybody, unfortunately.

19 Q. What were the problems with the 1991 census?

20 I mean obviously 1991, in the former Yugoslavia, was

21 not an easy time.

22 A. The major problem, I think, was that they did

23 not have time to clean the data, as I said. The data

24 was written on forms using longhand by enumerators and

25 then entered into the computer by optical scanning.

Page 4053

1 Now, depending on the handwriting of the enumerator, if

2 the handwriting is poor, then there will be many

3 mistakes introduced. And usually, this should be

4 checked later, but because of the political problems

5 that started at that time, they never had time to clean

6 the data, clean and correct the data in the Bosnia

7 census.

8 Q. Be that as it may, it did provide another

9 information source on particular names that might help

10 you clear out difficulties as you've described in the

11 other lists?

12 A. Yes, and we believe it is very complete.

13 Q. All right. Well, that gets us back to the

14 point where we have -- you've merged the ICRC list with

15 the PHR list. However, we know from your testimony

16 that the ICRC list contained people from the entire war

17 and the PHR list contained some, I believe you said, 20

18 per cent non-related to Srebrenica. So how did you

19 cull out from this big list the people that were just

20 related to the Srebrenica incidents of July 1995?

21 A. The investigation team of OTP told us that we

22 should only include people who were reported as missing

23 on the 11th of July or later and that we should only

24 include people who went missing from places in or near

25 Srebrenica or places related to the events. There were

Page 4054

1 people who have very good knowledge about the events

2 that happened in July 1995.

3 Q. So the investigative team provided you with

4 villages, and opstinas, and identification like that?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. How about an ended date for gone missing?

7 You mentioned July 11th as the beginning date. Was

8 there an end date?

9 A. 31st of August. However, we also included, I

10 believe, 99 cases of people who went missing between

11 the 1st of September and the 1st of December, because

12 the places in which they went missing from were very

13 related to the Srebrenica events.

14 Q. You're referring to 1995 when you say

15 "August"?

16 A. 1995, yes. And we also included 68 cases of

17 people who went missing in July 1995 but without known

18 day of July. But other information shows that this was

19 only true for half a per cent, so we are fairly safe to

20 include those.

21 Q. All right.

22 A. There were, of course, also people who went

23 missing from Srebrenica before July 11th, but they were

24 not included.

25 Q. So were you able to, using those criteria and

Page 4055

1 those lists, come up with a number, an initial number

2 of total missing, after the fall of the Srebrenica

3 enclave?

4 A. Based on both lists, we came up with a number

5 of 7.490 who went missing from both -- from Srebrenica.

6 Q. All right. And what quality-control

7 measures -- that's of course my term -- did you use to

8 test the reliability of this number, 7.490?

9 A. Well, we looked at the data themselves to see

10 if the age and sex structure of the data was consistent

11 with what we had learned from other sources about the

12 events, and that seemed to be the case, and we compared

13 the data with other sources. The three major sources

14 were the census of 1991, a list of voters who were

15 listed in 1997, and also exhumed bodies.

16 Q. All right. Was the list of voters one of the

17 principle lists that you used to compare to your lists?

18 A. Yes. There has been no post-war census in

19 Bosnia, which would solve a lot of problems. The only

20 comprehensive large-scale data collection activity has

21 been undertaken by OSCE, that is, the Organisation for

22 Security and Cooperation in Europe. That, as part of

23 its mandate, is organising and supervising elections

24 for democracy building, and they organised elections in

25 1996, 1997, 1998, and this year, 2000, and they

Page 4056

1 established special registration procedures in 1997 and

2 1998.

3 Q. Okay. Can you tell us, did you have access

4 to the OSCE registration records of 1996, 1997, 1998?

5 A. 1997 and 1998, yes. In 1996, there was no

6 electoral register, so we didn't have access to that.

7 Q. But there was elections?

8 A. Yes. So then they used the 1991 census as

9 the electoral register.

10 Q. All right. And so how did you deal with the

11 two registration lists for 1997 and 1998?

12 A. Well, again we had to go through the same

13 procedure, merge them, trying to avoid that the same

14 people were included twice. There was a sequential

15 number that helped us in doing that, but there were

16 errors even there, some duplicates and some errors here

17 and there.

18 Q. Did OSCE ask people to put down their

19 father's name?

20 A. Unfortunately not.

21 Q. Were there any other problems associated with

22 the OSCE list like that?

23 A. It was very limited information. They

24 collected only a few items; surname, first name, date

25 of birth, maticni broj, the ID number, and where the

Page 4057

1 people lived in 1991.

2 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speaker please be

3 asked to slow down?

4 A. Sorry, I heard.

5 MR. McCLOSKEY:

6 Q. You need to slow down.

7 A. Okay. And also where they were registered to

8 vote, in which municipality, and which municipality

9 they wanted to vote for. They did not collect any

10 information on ethnicity, for example, and, as you

11 said, not on father's name.

12 Q. And did you find that many people in Bosnia

13 had the same or similar names?

14 A. Yes. There are some names that occur

15 hundreds of times. The most common name in Bosnia is,

16 I believe, "Fatima Hodzic". There are at least 500

17 persons by that name.

18 Q. So that presented some unique problems when

19 comparing the OSCE voters registration lists to your

20 missing lists?

21 A. Well, you can't do any comparison without

22 more information on date of birth and, preferably,

23 father's name.

24 Q. All right. Once you were able to merge the

25 OSCE lists, what did you do in regard to the OSCE lists

Page 4058

1 and your list, and why?

2 A. Well, we wanted to be absolutely sure that

3 there were no people who were living amongst those

4 7.490 missing, so we matched that list, the missing

5 list, with the voters' list, which consists of about

6 2.6 million records, to see if there were any living

7 people, because that would make the missing list less

8 reliable.

9 Q. And can you describe the process that you had

10 to go through to match these very voluminous lists? I

11 take it OSCE was also in electronic format.

12 A. Yes. This should seem like an easy procedure

13 if you have computers, and in a country like my own

14 where data are almost perfect, we would have an ID

15 number that is perfect, it would have been a very easy

16 task. But again, because of lack of information or

17 incomplete information in many fields, it was not so

18 easy.

19 Also, in the OSCE voters lists, there were

20 misprints of names. They also used optical scanners,

21 but the handwriting might have been better than the

22 enumerator's 1991 handwriting. So there are a few

23 errors. The maticni broj was also not recorded for

24 everybody. That wouldn't have helped anyway, because

25 that unique number is not represented in the missing

Page 4059

1 persons' list.

2 So we match on the basis of first name, last

3 name, date of birth and opstina. That is all we

4 actually could match.

5 We tried different approaches. First we did

6 that. Then -- and we got a long list. We looked at

7 them. Then we tried, for example, to include only the

8 initial of the last name, because of the misprints, and

9 first name and date of birth, or only the year of

10 birth, or the year of birth plus or minus one or plus

11 or minus two, to try to eliminate -- to find as many

12 possible or potential matches as possible. In fact, we

13 came up with about 3.000 potential candidates. This

14 was also done by the OSCE for the ICRC in Sarajevo. So

15 altogether I think there were approximately 3.000

16 potential candidates of matches between the missing

17 persons' list and the voters' list.

18 Q. So did you focus on those 3.000 potential

19 matches to see if they were true matches or not?

20 A. Yes. They were all inspected visually.

21 Sometimes it was -- usually it was very obvious that

22 these represented different persons.

23 Q. Have you brought with you some examples of

24 how you would have reviewed potential matches? I think

25 it's Exhibit 278. It should be right there near the

Page 4060

1 top.

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Looking at Exhibit 278, could you -- there's

4 a pointer there. Can you take us through that and

5 explain the process that you looked at these 3.000

6 potential matches for?

7 A. Yes. So what we got from the ICRC lists, we

8 found a person -- there's a person by the name of

9 Abdulah Delic. His father's name is Husein. Born in

10 1955. Then the computer, doing automatic searching,

11 found a person by the same name, Abdulah Delic, born

12 1955, in the voters' registry in 1997.

13 Q. Let me interrupt you. I notice the year of

14 birth, all you've got here is "1955". Was that common,

15 that you didn't have a month or a day?

16 A. It happened. Not so common. In the majority

17 of the cases was the complete date of birth, but here I

18 chose an example where that was not the case.

19 Q. Keep it as simple as possible. Okay.

20 A. Yes. And it also shows the ambiguities that

21 we came across.

22 Q. Go ahead.

23 A. So on the basis of this information, we could

24 not tell -- we cannot tell whether these two records

25 represent the same physical person. But then,

Page 4061

1 fortunately, we had access to the census, and we looked

2 up the census and we found two Abdulah Delics. The

3 first person with a father Husein and the second whose

4 father's Kemal. Moreover, the second person had the

5 same maticni broj person who registered to vote.

6 Q. That's the ID number on the right of the

7 column.

8 A. Yeah, 183954. So we can quite safely

9 conclude that these represent two different persons.

10 It is one person, Abdulah Delic, who is registered as

11 missing. There's another Abdulah Delic who registered

12 to vote, but they're not the same person.

13 Q. So this is an example of the kind of analysis

14 that you did for all 3.000 of those potential matches?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Were they all this easy?

17 A. Some were harder, but most were much easier.

18 Q. The census you're talking about now, did that

19 include all of Bosnia or was this a limited part of

20 Bosnia that you were using?

21 A. The census was taken for all of Bosnia, but

22 we made a census file including the seven opstinas in

23 Eastern Bosnia surrounding Srebrenica to get a more

24 manageable file.

25 Q. Otherwise, you would have had many more

Page 4062

1 Abdulah Delics?

2 A. Yes. And the five consisted of somewhat more

3 than 200.000 people.

4 Q. So you're considering that most of the

5 missing went missing from Eastern Bosnia. Is that why

6 that's a fair thing to do?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. That's what the investigation team has told

9 you?

10 A. Actually, we checked that. Of a sample of

11 people who went -- are on the missing list, 93 per cent

12 went missing from Eastern Bosnia.

13 Q. All right. Now, do you have another example

14 of a true match?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And can you -- that is Exhibit 277. And can

17 you explain that? And you can point out the actual

18 things with your pointer, if you could.

19 A. Here on the ICRC list we have a man by the

20 name Mensur Gabeljic. His father's name is Avdo. He

21 was born in 1970. Then in the voters' register we

22 found again Mensud but there was a misspelling.

23 Sometimes the "LJ" is represented by a "Q," but this

24 was corrected. So we found it. We discovered that.

25 Without the father's name, because it's not recorded

Page 4063

1 there, born on the 28th of 11, 1971.

2 So here there are two inconsistencies. The

3 "LJ" became "Q," which is very obvious. So that's not

4 the problem really.

5 Now, the ICRC person was born in 1970, the

6 other in 1971, but as I said, there were -- sometimes

7 the date -- should I speak slower? -- the year of birth

8 was recorded slightly wrong.

9 So we looked up the census, and we found only

10 one person with this name or similar names, Gabeljic,

11 his father was listed as Avoo, not Avdo, but that's a

12 misprint, that's easy to understand, and he was born on

13 exactly the same date as in the voters' register.

14 Note that the maticni broj is missing in both

15 of those sources. So here we conclude that these two

16 names represent the same physical person.

17 This is one of the nine people, although, the

18 information has been changed to protect his identity.

19 Q. Well, I was going to ask you, after your

20 analysis of the comparing the OSCE with the missing

21 list you developed, how many matches or

22 believe-to-be-true matches did you come up with?

23 A. I already said, nine matches.

24 Q. Okay. Like this one in this example?

25 A. Yes.

Page 4064

1 Q. Okay. Have you provided those matches to the

2 investigative team for further investigation?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Okay. So what can you conclude from the

5 results of the OSCE comparison to your missing list

6 with nine matches, potential matches?

7 A. Well, it shouldn't be the case, of course,

8 that missing people can vote or register to vote, so

9 something is wrong. Either there was fraudulent

10 registration of a missing person, there was

11 fraudulent -- fraud in the registration of a voter,

12 or -- those are two reasons. The third reason, that

13 the missing person survived but does not want this

14 known to the world, to relatives for various reasons,

15 criminal, maybe he has remarried, you never know.

16 There are a few cases like that. And the fourth is the

17 mix-up of data. There is always errors in all data, so

18 that is the other reason.

19 Q. So this is the kind of thing that the

20 investigative team will be able to sort out?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. So nine potential matches out of all these

23 thousands of names. What does that do, in your

24 opinion, to the reliability of the 7.400-plus names?

25 A. In my opinion, this is insignificant. Out of

Page 4065

1 almost 7.500, nine people, that is approximately

2 one-tenth of a per cent, and it is insignificant

3 compared to the large number. So it shows that -- it

4 indicates -- it is not proof, of course, but it's a

5 strong indication that the missing persons are dead.

6 Q. All right. Can we go to Exhibit 272, where I

7 think you lay this out very clearly, and if you could

8 just explain each of the columns and the numbers.

9 A. Yes. After this merging procedure of

10 different files on missing persons, we found that 5.712

11 people came -- were registered both by ICRC and PHR.

12 So the majority were registered by both agencies.

13 In addition, there were 1.586 people

14 registered by ICRC only and 192 registered by PHR only,

15 adding up to 7.490, as explained previously.

16 Q. So with all of PHR's work, they only

17 registered 192 more than ICRC did?

18 A. Yes. And this is an indication that the

19 coverage of ICRC was very good and surprisingly good,

20 since PHR used different methods and in a more -- in a

21 less turbulent period. So you should think that people

22 should be more willing to come forward, but also PHR

23 had a lack of resources and could not collect that data

24 all over Bosnia and not abroad, as ICRC also did.

25 So it resulted only in 192 additional missing

Page 4066

1 people, although this was not the primary person to --

2 reason for them to collect data on additional people

3 but to get more information on everybody.

4 Q. Okay. So that leaves us with the 7.490 that

5 we've been talking about. Then what's the next

6 column?

7 A. Then we had, to be on the safe side, to be

8 sure, we subtract the nine inconsistent cases that we

9 talked about. Those that were found -- also found in

10 the voters' register. The number may be lower but it

11 is nine at the most. So we end up with 7.481 missing

12 people.

13 Q. Okay. And what's the next column about?

14 A. Then we asked the ICRC if they could provide

15 us with the names of those who were taken off the lists

16 of missing persons after January 1997 because they were

17 found to be alive, and they that said they cannot do

18 that, they will not reveal their identities, but we

19 were told that there were six related cases like that.

20 So we have subtracted those. We don't know their

21 identities, but we know there that are six people. So

22 we subtract that, to be on the safe side. Those six

23 could actually also be -- could be some of the same as

24 those nine, actually. It could be that -- it's very

25 likely that they are included in the nine, but we don't

Page 4067

1 know. So we end up with 7.475 missing people.

2 Q. Are those people and their names listed in

3 what is Exhibit 271?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. Could you just hold that up so we could see

6 what that is?

7 A. Sorry.

8 Q. I think that's the other exhibit.

9 A. Sorry.

10 Q. So this is the published list that the ICTY

11 or the OTP has done reflecting your research?

12 A. I notice that it includes 7.481 names because

13 of those six names. We don't know their identities.

14 Q. Now, you've stated earlier that the ICRC

15 didn't take ethnicity down. So there must have been a

16 significant number of the missing where you don't have

17 ethnicity.

18 A. Yes, but the PHR took that down, and of the

19 5.556 coming from the PHR list, there were 5.555

20 Bosniaks or Muslims and 1 Serb.

21 Q. So how many does that leave left over from

22 ICRC that you don't have a record for?

23 A. One thousand nine hundred and twenty-five.

24 Then we looked at the names of those people, and we

25 compared the names of these with the census and found

Page 4068

1 that there were probably around four additional --

2 three or four additional non-Muslims, one Yugoslav, one

3 Croat, one Serb, and one with unstated ethnicity or

4 something.

5 So that leaves us with a total of five

6 non-Muslims of those 7.481 people.

7 Q. So how did you account for those non-Muslim

8 names?

9 A. Why that would happen?

10 Q. Yes.

11 A. Well, this could be due to many causes.

12 Intermarriage is one of them.

13 Q. So did you choose to subtract those from the

14 list?

15 A. No.

16 Q. Okay. You've discussed a couple of other

17 things you did for quality control of those numbers,

18 and I think you've got some exhibits that illustrate

19 that. You can put those on please. Tell us what

20 exhibit.

21 A. This is Exhibit 273. I think this could be

22 enlarged a little bit. This shows the age distribution

23 of the men who went missing from Srebrenica, and we see

24 that the most common -- yeah, that's better. The most

25 common age group is around 18, 19, 20, where more than

Page 4069

1 250 of that age went missing. The youngest here is 14,

2 two 14-year-olds. The oldest here is 89.

3 Q. As a demographer, how does this support the

4 quality of the list? Why isn't it just a reflection of

5 what the list tells you?

6 A. Well, we can look at the age structure here.

7 It is a bit jagged, there are peaks here, but probably

8 not more than you would expect of a small population

9 like this where this sampling varies.

10 Q. What is it about this figure that supports

11 the validity of the lists?

12 A. It is consistent with the reports that we

13 have heard, that there were mostly young men who were

14 separated from their families and who were reported as

15 missing, and that it's a reasonably smooth age

16 structure. Not perfect. That could also be due to

17 errors in the age reporting.

18 Q. What do you mean by smooth age structure?

19 A. Well --

20 Q. Why would we expect a smooth age structure?

21 A. Well, we wouldn't expect many more

22 30-year-olds missing than 29-year-olds and

23 31-year-olds. So approximately the same.

24 This trough here around age 50 is probably

25 due to lower number of births during the Second World

Page 4070

1 War, so there are fewer people in that age group, for

2 example.

3 Q. Okay. Why don't we go to the next exhibit.

4 I believe it's -- well, whichever one you want to use.

5 A. 275 -- no, 274. More on the age structure.

6 Q. All right. Now, this exhibit actually gives

7 us the number of the various ages. Can you explain

8 that?

9 A. Yeah. It shows us first that there were --

10 most of the people who are on the missing list are

11 men. There are only 48 women on the list of missing

12 persons and 2.433 men. It also shows us is that there

13 are a significant number of young and old men; 199

14 below the age of 17, which is normally believed to be

15 the military -- lowest military age. The youngest men

16 were, sorry, not 14 but 13. The youngest women were

17 two girls aged 8. There's also a high number of old

18 people, aged 60 and above, or 739.

19 Q. Was this chart something that the Prosecution

20 specifically asked you to do to illustrate the actual

21 ages?

22 A. Partly, but as a demographer, it's very

23 natural to produce tables by age and sex.

24 Q. All right. Thank you. You can go to the

25 next exhibit. Exhibit 275. What is this?

Page 4071

1 A. Here we have compared the age distribution of

2 the missing persons with the age distribution of the

3 exhumed bodies. There are very few bodies that have

4 been identified, only around 70 so far. So these are

5 the -- the red ones -- red bars show the -- show the

6 age distribution of the -- approximately 1.900 exhumed

7 bodies where the ages or age ranges have been estimated

8 using methods that you have heard about during the last

9 days. The blue bars represent the age distribution of

10 the missing persons, the 7.481 missing persons on the

11 list.

12 We see -- so that the age distributions are

13 fairly similar. Not surprisingly similar but they are

14 very similar. This indicates that the exhumed bodies

15 come from the population of missing persons, that they

16 represent the same population, you could say.

17 Q. How could you account for the differences?

18 A. There are two causes of differences. The

19 most important is that estimating age on the basis of

20 bone fragments is not an exact science. This was

21 elaborated, I believe, over the last couple of days.

22 Secondly, the sampling variability. So when

23 you draw a sample, here of 1.900 from more than 7.000,

24 you are bound to get some sampling variations, some

25 errors in that.

Page 4072

1 Q. You had 1.900. That's about the number of

2 bodies recovered that the anthropologists worked with.

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. All right. Now, in addition to that work,

5 did the investigation present you with certain

6 published challenges to the credibility of the ICRC

7 list?

8 A. Yes. We received four examples of that from

9 Belgrade sources.

10 Q. Could you turn to page 9 in your report where

11 I think you outline those challenges and you discuss

12 them, and if you could put page 9 on the ELMO.

13 A. I think we can focus on the top one first.

14 Yes, like that.

15 Q. Okay. So the one that's entitled "Lacking

16 the Date of Birth," where did that come from as far as

17 you know, based on what you were given, this particular

18 challenge?

19 A. It came from the Law Project Centre in

20 Yugoslavia, as specified in footnote 20.

21 Q. Do you know anything about who or what that

22 is?

23 A. No.

24 Q. That was just provided to you by the

25 investigation?

Page 4073

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. What was that particular challenge?

3 A. I can read. It was -- it says that for 60

4 per cent of the people from the list there is no

5 information such as date of birth, which is quite

6 impossible, for they have been reported missing by

7 their closest family members.

8 Q. Okay. How do you explain that?

9 A. First -- at first glance, this seems like a

10 very reasonable allegation, I agree. Now, when we

11 looked at this more closely, we saw that it was not

12 quite true, that claim, since the year of birth is

13 missing for nobody -- or for only one person, and month

14 of birth is missing 44 per cent, and day of birth for

15 46 per cent. So the real -- it is complete, the date

16 of birth is complete for 53.5 per cent of the

17 population. So less than claimed here. I don't know

18 where date of birth, what they mean, whether they mean

19 complete date of birth or year of birth. We can

20 interpret it as being complete date of birth and then

21 the true figure should be 53.5 per cent.

22 And as I indicated earlier, it is not at all

23 surprising that the relatives and the informants did

24 not have exact information on the exact date of birth

25 of the missing persons, because the identification

Page 4074

1 papers and other documents of these people were carried

2 by the people who had disappeared. So they did not

3 have access to them.

4 Q. Still, these numbers of lack of specificity

5 of date of birth, does that make your work invalid

6 or --

7 A. Let me also add that it is very common in

8 many cultures not to put so much attention on the exact

9 date of birth. I think in our culture in Western

10 Europe and the United States, we are more concerned

11 about the date of birth, and in some other cultures,

12 where, for example, a father's name is a more important

13 piece of identification. And also many of the people

14 who informed the ICRC and PHR were old and did not

15 remember exactly the exact date of birth.

16 Q. So did this cripple your analysis?

17 A. Not at all, I think.

18 Q. Okay. Let's go to the next challenge.

19 Could you again, I think, just read it and --

20 A. Yes.

21 "On the list of 3.016 missing persons

22 officially recorded in the registers of the

23 International Red Cross, the names of 350 persons whose

24 identity has been established with certainty appear on

25 the electoral list of September 1996."

Page 4075

1 Q. So they are saying that the voters'

2 registration -- in their comparison of the voters'

3 registration to the ICRC, they come up with 350

4 matches. Can you explain that?

5 A. Well, as I indicated, there was no voters'

6 register in 1996. The voters' register was this census

7 of 1991. So it is not at all surprising that people

8 who went missing in 1995 were on the lists recorded in

9 1991. They should be there.

10 Q. But if basically you're saying they compared

11 the census to the census, why is there only 350 --

12 A. Sorry, not the census to the census but the

13 missing to the census.

14 Q. The missing to the census. Why is there only

15 350?

16 A. Well, in the electoral, they said they had

17 only compared names beginning with the letters "A" and

18 "K", which is slightly more than half of the alphabet

19 when you're thinking of persons with those names, and

20 they only compared named with complete information on

21 both lists. That's complete name and complete date of

22 birth. Now, that is about half on each. One half

23 times one half is a quarter. If you then multiply by

24 there one half of the alphabet that was included, you

25 get about one-eighth. One-eighth of 3.000 is

Page 4076

1 approximately 350, so that would be the expected number

2 of matches -- no, 360, and that would be the expected

3 number of matches to be found in such an exercise, and

4 they found 350.

5 Q. So you went through the same exercise they

6 did and came up with the same number?

7 A. Well, this was just estimating the

8 probability that they would find, the expected number

9 of matches they would find, and I came up with

10 approximately the same number as they actually found.

11 Q. And can you again explain to me why that is

12 invalid again?

13 A. Because they did not find any -- this is no

14 claim that living -- they claim that -- excuse me --

15 that there were missing persons who registered to vote

16 by comparing the missing persons and what they said was

17 the voting lists. But there was no voting list. It

18 was the census they compared.

19 Q. People that were counted in 1991?

20 A. And of course most of them would be there.

21 Q. All right. Let's go to the next one down,

22 the next challenge.

23 A. In the book "Radovan Karadzic", it is claimed

24 that several persons reported as missing on the ICRC

25 list also appear on the voters' lists, and they list 17

Page 4077

1 persons by name, picked by random, related to men from

2 Srebrenica. We found 11 of those names on the voters'

3 lists, but when we checked the date of birth and ID

4 number with our census records, these were not true

5 matches. So they were false matches. So their names

6 were similar, but the dates of birth were not similar.

7 Q. You went through the process that you already

8 have described to us. You're able to exclude those

9 names?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. All right. Let's go down to the last one in

12 your report.

13 A. It was also claimed that many people were

14 listed as missing who died before 1995 from natural

15 causes or in combat, and they gave a list of names and

16 dates of birth taken from a cemetery in Kazani of

17 people who died between 1992 and early 1995. But when

18 we looked at the ICRC lists, we did not find any of

19 those names with the same date of birth or

20 approximately the same date of birth as alleged.

21 Q. Now, very recently has the investigation

22 provided you with another challenge to the credibility

23 that the investigation has received, very similar to

24 this last one regarding people dead prior to the fall?

25 A. Yes. The Office of the Prosecutor has

Page 4078

1 received lists originating from the Bosnian army, the

2 BiH army, of soldiers who were either killed, wounded,

3 captured, or missing in action before July 1995, some

4 in 1994. And the total of this list include 1.139

5 names of soldiers then, and they disclaim that these

6 people are registered as missing, although they died --

7 many of them died before July 1995.

8 Q. And have you, in the last couple of days,

9 been able to make an attempt to analyse this

10 information?

11 A. Yes. The problem is that some of the data is

12 very deficient. But for one list of 242 people, date

13 of birth is given, and we compared it with the list of

14 missing persons, a number found. So none of those 242

15 dead and/or captured or wounded soldiers have been

16 reported as missing.

17 In addition, there were then eight,

18 nine hundred people we checked, but they without date

19 of birth. So it was only the name, only first name and

20 last name. This is very hard to identify.

21 We found 188 of these names on the list of

22 missing persons based on only first name and last name,

23 but that does not necessarily mean that these are

24 registered as missing, because some of these names are

25 very common. Some of these names occur 26 times in the

Page 4079

1 census of Eastern Bosnia in 1991. So we cannot be sure

2 that that name found here in this list by first name

3 and last name does not mean -- necessarily mean that it

4 represents one of these dead soldiers.

5 Q. Were you able to narrow down that number, one

6 hundred and -- what did you say it was?

7 A. One eighty-eight.

8 Q. -- 188 at all?

9 A. Yes. We found -- for 183 of those, we found

10 more than one occurrence of the name in the census, so

11 it means that there could be -- there are more people,

12 there are more Mehemed Hodzics than the one reported --

13 than the dead soldier in the lists. For five people,

14 we found only one, but the investigations are

15 continuing, and it could be that some of these

16 registered were enumerated outside Eastern Bosnia in

17 1991, and we are currently looking into that.

18 Q. And did I ask you this morning just to

19 analyse how many people went missing from Potocari

20 according to your lists?

21 A. I believe there are 2.380 or 2.280, something

22 like that. But that includes also some -- includes

23 many people who were later seen elsewhere -- 2.280,

24 yes -- because they could be reported as missing from

25 Potocari to the ICRC and missing from elsewhere to

Page 4080

1 PHR. But 2.280.

2 Q. Now, we've been talking about missing lists.

3 Did you, in your report, discuss the issue of whether

4 these missing were, in fact, truly missing or were

5 probably dead?

6 A. Well, our analysis indicated that they are

7 dead, as we have found very few potential examples of

8 survivors. I mention nine and those six from ICRC.

9 That is a maximum of 15. We have checked -- compared

10 with various lists, and they do not seem to be many, if

11 any, survivors.

12 We also looked at a list of 70 exhumed bodies

13 who were identified, and we found -- on that list, we

14 found 66 people who were also on the missing lists.

15 Then there were two who are missing in the

16 Srebrenica-related graves, but they were not on the

17 lists so they have not been reported as missing, and

18 two who went missing before July 1995. So that's a

19 fairly high percentage of people who are known to be

20 dead but who are also on the missing lists.

21 Q. You mentioned people that have been

22 identified. Now, is that -- what organisation is

23 attempting the identifications?

24 A. It's something called the Podrinje

25 Identification Project, and also the PHR are working on

Page 4081

1 or were working on identifying people, in addition to

2 the ICTY.

3 Q. Now, can you conclude with the summary of why

4 you believe that the total number, 7.433, is a reliable

5 number, and tell us whether or not it's a conservative

6 number.

7 A. I think it's quite reliable or very reliable

8 and that it is a minimum estimate of all of the number

9 of missing persons. We have been very conservative,

10 very cautious, tried to avoid including duplicates or

11 avoiding other errors, and we have deleted actually a

12 number of cases which could be included.

13 Several hundred cases have been excluded

14 because there was some inconsistency between the

15 information reported to ICRC and to PHR; for example,

16 on the date of birth or place of disappearance. But it

17 is likely that some of these several hundred are also

18 missing from Srebrenica.

19 In addition, we believe that there are quite

20 a few people who did not report their relatives as

21 missing, as we just mentioned an example of two

22 persons. That could be many reasons. One is that the

23 whole family disappeared. Others have given --

24 families have given up all hope of seeing these

25 relatives again.

Page 4082

1 Remember that this is a part of a tracing

2 exercise, tracing operation, so the purpose for people

3 to trace -- record people as missing was to be united

4 with their families, to trace them, to find out what

5 happened, not really to come up with an aggregate

6 number of missing people. I don't think that was in

7 people's minds. So a combination, and some people were

8 obviously sick, or mental problems, or there were many

9 reasons why everybody would not report a person as

10 missing.

11 But 7.475 should be considered a minimum

12 number, a conservative number. The actual number is

13 probably higher.

14 Q. So is it fair to say that fundamentally, the

15 credibility of these lists is founded upon the Bosnian

16 families that made the reporting to the various

17 institutions?

18 A. Yes, but not only, because we have checked

19 with other data sources and we have found that all the

20 data that they reported are true. These are not

21 made-up persons, they are not phantom persons, because

22 almost whenever we tried to find a person in the

23 census, 1991 census, we found him or her, as I said, in

24 93 per cent of the cases. And it could be that those

25 seven additional per cent were enumerated elsewhere in

Page 4083

1 Bosnia, not in Eastern Bosnia.

2 MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you.

3 Mr. President, I don't have any further

4 questions.

5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you

6 very much, Mr. McCloskey.

7 I think this is a convenient time for a

8 break. We will have a 20-minute break now.

9 --- Recess taken at 10.50 a.m.

10 --- On resuming at 11.15 a.m.

11 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Professor

12 Brunborg, you are now going to answer questions which I

13 see Mr. Petrusic, Defence attorney, is going to ask

14 you.

15 Mr. Petrusic, you have the floor. You may

16 begin.

17 MR. PETRUSIC: Good morning, Your Honours, my

18 learned friends from the Prosecution; and good morning,

19 Mr. Brunborg.

20 Cross-examined by Mr. Petrusic:

21 Q. My first question is a general one, and that

22 is, regarding your report on the number of dead and

23 missing in Srebrenica, of the 12th of February, 2000,

24 the list of the missing, is that a component part of

25 your report?

Page 4084

1 A. I think it should be considered an addendum

2 to the report or an appendix, if you like.

3 Q. Thank you. On page 2 of your report, you

4 talk about the methods used in your study, and one of

5 the methods is the evaluation of the quality of data

6 sources, particularly those regarding missing persons.

7 Did you or your associates in this project

8 check the quality of the data sources?

9 A. Yes. We looked carefully at all the data

10 collected. We also talked to representatives of the

11 ICRC in Sarajevo. We started a questionnaire, and we

12 evaluated each field recorded, the names, date of

13 birth, father's name, and so on.

14 Q. As far as I am able to understand from your

15 answer, your direct contacts were with representatives

16 of the International Red Cross, if we're talking about

17 their list.

18 A. Yes, that's correct.

19 Q. Representatives of that organisation or the

20 Physicians for Human Rights who compiled those lists in

21 the way you have described, they collected those data

22 on the basis of direct contacts with relatives who

23 reported their missing members, family members.

24 A. Yes, that's correct.

25 Q. Did you or the representatives of your team

Page 4085

1 have any direct contact to check the allegations made

2 by relatives who reported their family members as

3 missing?

4 A. Yes. Let me first say that we also met

5 several times with the representatives of the

6 Physicians for Human Rights, and we also met with some

7 relatives of missing persons who had reported their

8 relatives as missing.

9 Q. So this was a limited number of people that

10 you or members of your team had contact with among the

11 relatives?

12 A. Yes. We did not have the capacity to meet a

13 large number of those 7.500 people.

14 Q. Page 8 of your report, you discuss the age

15 group of the missing people from Srebrenica.

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. The Defence was not able to review your list

18 for technical reasons, because it was just prior to the

19 beginning of today's hearing that we received the list,

20 but a very superficial review of that list shows that a

21 very large number of people have their date of birth

22 indicated.

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. My question is, in that connection, whether

25 the table that you have given, that is table number 2,

Page 4086

1 could it have been more precise regarding the able

2 structure in view of the fact that for a very large

3 number of people the date of birth is given in the

4 list, especially the people in the age group between

5 15 to 60 or 16 to 60?

6 A. No. This list was available, of course,

7 finished before the 12th of July, and the day -- the

8 year of birth is recorded for everybody but one

9 person. So that decides the age. So we know that age

10 for everybody but one, and this is also indicated in

11 table 2," Men, age unkown". There's only one person.

12 The dates of birth reported in the list is

13 taken either from the ICRC list or from the PHR lists,

14 depending on whether it appeared. If it is missing

15 from the ICRC list, it's taken from the PHR list and

16 vice versa.

17 Q. But the range from 16 to 60 as an age group,

18 couldn't it have been narrowed down, broken down into

19 two or three groups within that age range?

20 A. Definitely, that's possible, yes.

21 Q. Mr. Brunborg, on page 12 of your report -- in

22 the English version it may be page 11 -- you refer to

23 the number of 1.909. Page 11 of the English version.

24 I beg your pardon. The number of people found in mass

25 graves is 1.909?

Page 4087

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. The team of experts, including

3 anthropologists, in their study and report give the

4 figure of 1.883 persons. When compiling this list and

5 compiling these numbers, including the one I have

6 referred to regarding dead bodies found so far of

7 1.909, did you bear in mind the reports issued by the

8 pathologists and anthropologists regarding the same

9 issue?

10 A. My figure is based on report dated December 8

11 last year, when we -- when I wrote my report, and the

12 most recent anthropological report had not been

13 available to me.

14 But the number of exhumed bodies has changed

15 a little bit, I notice. I don't know the reasons for

16 that. It could be that it is often based on fragments

17 of bodies and it is difficult to give exact estimates.

18 Anyway, it is close to 1.900.

19 Q. In your report, when you referred to defining

20 the term of victims from Srebrenica -- this is on

21 page 3 and "Definition of Terms" is the heading -- you

22 talk about the place of disappearance, among other

23 things. In view of the fact that the term "when a

24 person was last seen" is used, could it be possible for

25 a person to be reported as missing twice and maybe more

Page 4088

1 times because it may have been seen for the last time

2 by a certain group of people in several places?

3 You have given an example here of a person

4 who may have been seen for the last time in Nova

5 Kasaba, or Srebrenica, I'm sorry, and after that in

6 Zume or Nova Kasaba, in the forest or in Nova Kasaba.

7 A. Yes, let me answer. For more than 5.700

8 people were reported twice, both by the -- that is,

9 both by the ICRC and by PHR, so they reported twice.

10 And as I explained, we took great care, when merging

11 the lists, to avoid keeping such person for more than

12 once. It should not be -- deleting duplicates. We

13 also found some duplicates in the ICRC lists and in the

14 PHR lists on the basis of name, date of birth, and

15 other information, and we deleted such cases.

16 Q. Towards the end, you also speak about the

17 unique identification number of citizens established in

18 the territory of the former Yugoslavia and that that

19 national ID number was used as an element for

20 identification in the census of 1991. You said that it

21 provoked a lot of -- that it had many imprecisions

22 because of the way in which the enumerators registered

23 the data they collected.

24 Mr. Brunborg, this national ID number was

25 established in the territory of the former Yugoslavia

Page 4089

1 in 1981, so in the census of 1991 it was already -- it

2 was being used for the second time, so it had been

3 tested in practice.

4 In view of that being a unique national ID

5 number, could it have been a more reliable element to

6 be used in the course of your studies?

7 A. Now, I checked the maticni broj for those

8 people from the Srebrenica area, those seven

9 municipalities, and it appears to be correct for two

10 thirds of the cases; 67 per cent, it is absolutely

11 correct. So it means that it is incorrect or, I would

12 say, partly missing or -- for one third. In the

13 voters' register in 1997, it appears to be correct for

14 more than 80 per cent of those cases.

15 I believe that the number was used not only

16 in the census, 1991, but was also used for other

17 purposes, so that many people had some experience using

18 the number and they knew the number.

19 MR. PETRUSIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President,

20 I have no further questions.

21 Thank you very much, Witness.

22 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you

23 very much, Mr. Petrusic.

24 Mr. McCloskey, have you any re-examination

25 for the witness?

Page 4090

1 MR. McCLOSKEY: No, Mr. President.

2 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you

3 very much, Mr. McCloskey.

4 Judge Fouad Riad, if you please.

5 JUDGE RIAD: [Interpretation] Thank you,

6 Mr. President.

7 Questioned by the Court

8 JUDGE RIAD: [In English] Mr. Brunborg, good

9 morning.

10 A. Good morning.

11 JUDGE RIAD: I just have two global

12 questions, not being a great expert like you.

13 You mentioned that according to your

14 analysis, you reached the conclusion that the missing

15 persons would be either 7.475 or 7.481, whatever the

16 number is. According to your long experience, what

17 could be the margin of inaccuracies in such analysis?

18 A. That is a very difficult answer to question

19 [sic], Your Honour.

20 JUDGE RIAD: Excuse me. Would it be just in

21 the number, whether instead of being 7.000 it could be

22 6.000, or would it be in the totality?

23 A. No. I think that this is very close to the

24 lower number. It is a minimum estimate. And I do not

25 believe that the real number can be much lower than

Page 4091

1 7.475. Maybe a handful or two, but very few. But it

2 could be considerably higher. So the range of

3 uncertainty is very little, on the low side, but it

4 is -- it could extend by several hundred, at least,

5 upwards, because, as I said, we have been very

6 conservative and excluded all cases where we were in

7 doubt about.

8 JUDGE RIAD: That's good to know. My second

9 question: You mentioned that -- because perhaps it's

10 related to this answer, you said that everybody did not

11 report missing persons and perhaps you consider that

12 the number must have been higher, and you affirmed it

13 as a fact. Do you have any evidence that some people

14 really did not report, or is it your logical conclusion

15 according to your experience?

16 A. Your Honour, it is mentioned in the report

17 that two people who were identified bodies found in a

18 grave with other -- with Srebrenica-related bodies were

19 not on the list. So there we have an example of two

20 dead people who went missing from Srebrenica. They're

21 reported as missing and then also found in a grave.

22 So those are examples of people not included

23 in our list, not reported as missing. It could be that

24 they were reported as missing but with insufficient

25 information, unclear information for us to include

Page 4092

1 them.

2 JUDGE RIAD: That was the only perhaps

3 example of people not reported or some people in your

4 contacts expressed the fact that they don't care to

5 report?

6 A. I don't remember that we met such persons,

7 but we met -- we asked whether people knew about whole

8 families that were not reported, and we learned about a

9 couple of cases of such family. Names of such families

10 were mentioned. One of those families were indeed

11 reported, where whole families had disappeared, and the

12 other family was not reported. So there are such

13 cases. But we did not have the capacity to do a lot of

14 work, to trace people who did not report -- were not

15 reported as missing.

16 JUDGE RIAD: Thank you very much,

17 Mr. Brunborg.

18 A. Thank you.

19 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you

20 very much, Judge Fouad Riad.

21 Madam Judge Wald, please.

22 JUDGE WALD: Professor Brunborg, was any

23 attempt made to take into consideration whether or not

24 people, during these turbulent times, who were reported

25 as missing might eventually have left the entire

Page 4093

1 country of Bosnia? We have had many witnesses who have

2 come back from other countries. Would there be any way

3 of knowing if that happened?

4 A. We did not know where the people were

5 registered as missing, but I believe that it was

6 possible to do that all over the world, either to local

7 ICRC offices or perhaps there was a mail system. I'm

8 not aware how that was done, but I know there were

9 people registered as missing in other countries by

10 refugees.

11 JUDGE WALD: So that if, if supposedly one of

12 the missing people here eventually survived and later

13 emigrated to some neighbouring country, there was some

14 possibility or likelihood that that would be reported

15 back to the ICRC so that they take them off the missing

16 list?

17 A. Yes. If such a person has relatives who

18 reported that person as missing or know somebody else

19 who know that his name is on the list, they will

20 probably report to the ICRC, but I don't think there is

21 an automatic mechanism for that.

22 JUDGE WALD: That was my next question.

23 A. Yes.

24 JUDGE WALD: You told us a little bit about

25 the intake methods of the ICRC, the relatives or

Page 4094

1 close -- relatives making reports. Is there any

2 organised method by which the ICRC receives reports

3 that people who are originally reported as missing

4 later have been found and -- I mean do they have a

5 regular system? Do they ask the people who originally

6 report to let them know if the person turns up or is

7 that just up to chance?

8 A. I don't know -- I do not know the system in

9 detail, but many people are taken off the lists,

10 several hundred between the different versions. ICRC

11 has regular meetings in Sarajevo with the three parties

12 involved in the armed conflict and they exchange

13 information. When they learn about a death either

14 through exhumations or otherwise, that person is taken

15 off the list. Likewise, I believe that when they learn

16 about a person who is alive and not dead, they will

17 take that person off the list.

18 JUDGE WALD: My third question relates to the

19 volume of Srebrenica missing. You touched on this a

20 little bit in your testimony on cross-examination, the

21 fact that under the column "Date and Place of

22 Disappearance," in many cases -- this is a general

23 question -- in many cases, the place of disappearance

24 may not be Srebrenica or Potocari but will be Bratunac

25 or Zvornik, one of those places that is in the

Page 4095

1 immediate area and that has been involved in the exodus

2 from Srebrenica. But my question specifically is:

3 Before somebody gets on this list, what kind of a link

4 to the exodus from Srebrenica is necessary? Does the

5 relative have to say, "He used to live in Srebrenica,"

6 or, "He was part of the exodus"? How would you avoid

7 getting somebody, say, who lived in Bratunac or was

8 killed in some little combat thing in Bratunac? How do

9 you link that -- people who have a different location

10 in that column to the whole Srebrenica exodus?

11 A. Your Honour, the PHR asked -- had a specific

12 question on whether the person went missing after the

13 fall of the enclave, relative to that fall. So that's

14 a specific question.

15 JUDGE WALD: How about the ICRC?

16 A. They did not have a specific question, but

17 they say that often the person reported would say that,

18 volunteer that information. However, we did not have

19 access to that information, so we decided whether it

20 was related to the fall of Srebrenica through the place

21 of disappearance.

22 JUDGE WALD: And the time.

23 A. And the time. The places of disappearance

24 were provided to us by the investigators and people

25 knowledgeable about this. Some of the place names on

Page 4096

1 these lists are very small, very small places. Most of

2 the places can be found on the map. When they cannot

3 be found on the map, we went to local people and asked,

4 "Where is this place?" We did not ask them -- tell

5 them why we asked this question, "Could you tell us

6 where is this place?" They pointed to the map and saw

7 this was a small hamlet or something. When that was

8 related to the exodus or the events in Srebrenica it

9 was included, otherwise, not.

10 JUDGE WALD: Thank you.

11 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you

12 very much, Judge Wald.

13 Professor Brunborg, I have five very brief

14 questions for you, and in a way, all of my questions

15 are of a general nature.

16 You have told us that for a demographer, age

17 and sex are two main criteria in research. What was

18 the role and what would be your conclusions -- your

19 conclusions in connection with that of the military

20 age?

21 A. Now, women are not considered to be of

22 military age. We can keep those out.

23 I have been told that as shown in one of the

24 exhibits, that the military ages are between, say, 16

25 and 60. Now, after more detailed discussions with

Page 4097

1 people knowledgeable about that, I included in the

2 Exhibit 274, 17 through 59 -- sorry, 17 as the lower

3 age. People are drafted as age 18 but they can be

4 registered as soldiers from age 17. When they turn 60,

5 they are not part of the -- cannot be considered part

6 of the armed forces any more. So that's why it's

7 59 inclusive and 17 inclusive.

8 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] My second

9 question for you, Professor, is the following, it is a

10 follow-up to my first question, actually: On page 8 of

11 your report you have table number 2. I told you it's

12 probably a follow-up to my first question, but I should

13 like to know what were the criteria to establish age

14 groups that are indicated in this table? Was the

15 military age taken into account or was it the case

16 where another criterion was applied?

17 A. These are the military ages as told to me

18 half a year ago, but then after a more -- as I said,

19 thorough discussions, I decided to include 17 through

20 59. There are not so many people in those age group.

21 There are 104 or something 16-year-old men and a

22 similar number or a little bit lower of 60-year-old

23 men. So it does not affect the results very much.

24 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] In your

25 report, you make mention of the Exhibit number 275. It

Page 4098

1 is a table that shows age distribution of missing

2 persons together with exhumed bodies. Yes. This is

3 the one that I'm referring to. I don't know whether

4 you have spoken about it, and I apologise if this was

5 the case, but I should like to know why the number of

6 exhumations is higher than the number of missing

7 persons.

8 A. The total number is not higher, Your Honour.

9 It is 1.900 versus 7.481. It is true that it is

10 slightly higher in one age group, the youngest, 8

11 through 12, where we have only recorded two missing

12 persons, two men 13 years old, whereas there were

13 exhumed six or seven bodies in that age group. But as

14 you heard yesterday and the day before, it is very

15 difficult to estimate those ages and it could very well

16 be that some of the 13- and 14-year-olds were wrongly

17 classified as belonging to the youngest age group, 8 to

18 12.

19 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] You spoke

20 about contacts that you had with families who provided

21 you with the information. Why did you make those

22 contacts? I do not wish to lead you in any way, but

23 could you tell me, what was the reason of those

24 contacts with families?

25 A. The major reason was to find out about the

Page 4099

1 interview situation; what happened, how did they react

2 to it, what did they think about it. I did not use

3 those contacts to gather information on more missing

4 persons, just to get some feeling for how they reacted

5 in that situation. And I would say they were not

6 always positive. They felt sometimes they were treated

7 not very well, treated impolitely by some other

8 organisations. And this should be seen in the light of

9 the very traumatic situation they were experiencing.

10 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Let's say

11 that it was a humane reason. You did not contact the

12 families in order to test the reliability of the

13 information or in order to resolve a specific problem;

14 you did it for, if I may say so, humanitarian reasons?

15 A. Not really. Just to understand more about

16 the process. The data were checked not with the

17 families but with the census 1991, where the persons

18 themselves came forward with information. So we

19 thought that was a more reliable source and also a more

20 comprehensive source.

21 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Let me

22 finish, Professor, with another question I think you

23 spoke about. To what extent can we say that missing

24 people equals dead people?

25 A. Now, of course, ordinarily to declare that a

Page 4100

1 person is dead requires either a -- in statistics,

2 requires a medical certificate or, if that cannot be

3 obtained, by a certificate provided by a judge. So

4 there should be medical or legal evidence that a person

5 is dead, and we do not have that for these people

6 because most of the bodies have not been found and

7 there is a lack of witnesses. So we cannot be sure,

8 but all indications -- all these investigations and

9 analyses point in one direction, that the people are

10 dead, supposed to be dead. There are also some people

11 we know to be dead amongst these and, as I said, at the

12 most 15 people of them may be alive; probably less. So

13 I think comparing with all kinds of sources, with the

14 voters' register and exhumed bodies and otherwise, they

15 all indicate that these people are dead.

16 Let me also add that the ICRC has repeatedly

17 visited prisons in Serbia because of claims that many

18 of these missing people are in detention in Serbia and

19 elsewhere, and they did find some at the beginning, who

20 were then taken off the lists, but recently -- my

21 understanding is that in recent years, they haven't

22 found anybody.

23 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you

24 very much, Professor.

25 I think that we have to take care of the

Page 4101

1 exhibits that have been tendered. Mr. McCloskey, I

2 believe that you wish to tender some exhibits at this

3 point.

4 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President. Those

5 exhibits are number 269, the CV, resume; 270, the ICRC

6 report; 271, the ICTY compilation report; 272; 273;

7 274; 275, which are some of the charts, I believe; 276,

8 which is the missing reports, 276A and B, which are in

9 Bosnian and French; 277 and 278.

10 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation]

11 Mr. Petrusic, any objections?

12 MR. PETRUSIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President,

13 the Defence has one general objection in respect of

14 Exhibits 271 and 270. The reason of our objection is

15 that we received all of the exhibits only today. But

16 these two exhibits are quite voluminous. It is an

17 appendix to the report composed by Mr. Brunborg. The

18 other exhibit, number 270, is a report of the ICRC in

19 connection with missing persons from that area.

20 The Defence simply was not in a position to

21 verify the allegations made in these two exhibits

22 because of the method of a random sample that was

23 used. So we should like to ask the Trial Chamber to

24 give us some additional time to present our arguments

25 regarding these two exhibits.

Page 4102

1 As regards other exhibits that have been

2 tendered by the Prosecutor, we do not have any

3 objections, although they are in close connection with

4 the two exhibits we object to. However, in view of the

5 fact that they are of a statistical nature, we will

6 accept them.

7 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation]

8 Mr. McCloskey.

9 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President. I would

10 point out that the Defence has had Mr. Brunborg's

11 report, and I don't know the exact date, but since

12 April. The references to the source material are very

13 clear in that report.

14 The ICRC missing list is a publication that

15 can be acquired everywhere, especially in the former

16 Yugoslavia, and we have never received a request to

17 obtain the list otherwise, which would amount to, I

18 believe it was, 182 additional names that the ICRC list

19 did not have until right now.

20 Having said that, if counsel needs more time

21 to review it, I don't believe we have any objection to

22 that and understand the situation they are in.

23 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well,

24 then. Mr. Petrusic, do you wish to add anything?

25 MR. PETRUSIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President,

Page 4103

1 only in order to avoid confusion. Mr. McCloskey is

2 referring to the report. It is true that we received

3 it, and we used it for cross-examination. However, as

4 regards Exhibit 271 which is being tendered, it is in

5 respect of that document that we raise an objection.

6 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you,

7 Mr. Petrusic. I will consult my colleagues. You may

8 sit down.

9 [Trial Chamber deliberates]

10 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] The Chamber

11 will admit all of the exhibits that have been

12 tendered.

13 As regards to exhibits 270 and 271, we will

14 grant additional time to the Defence to review or

15 verify the data that are contained therein.

16 Mr. Petrusic, I don't think that you will need more

17 than one month to do that. Is one month enough?

18 MR. PETRUSIC: [Interpretation] Yes,

19 Mr. President.

20 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation]

21 Mr. McCloskey, do you agree with this additional time,

22 one additional month for the Defence to review the

23 documents?

24 MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Mr. President.

25 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] So the

Page 4104

1 Chamber grants additional time, one month, for the

2 Defence to review the documents. All other exhibits

3 have been admitted into evidence.

4 Professor Brunborg, we have finished with

5 your testimony. Thank you very much once again for

6 coming here to testify. Thank you for your

7 cooperation, and you have accomplished very valuable

8 work here. Thank you once again.

9 [The witness withdrew]

10 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] I can see

11 Mr. Harmon coming to take the floor, but Mr. Visnjic is

12 also standing. Perhaps I should give the floor to him

13 first.

14 Mr. Visnjic.

15 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President,

16 if I may take five minutes of the Court's time in order

17 to follow up on the situation that has been raised just

18 recently.

19 We have noticed a problem here which might

20 have significance in terms of the disclosure process as

21 regards expert witness reports.

22 The position adopted by the Defence is as

23 follows: If the documents are significant for the

24 testimony, or if the documents are a component part of

25 the report of the expert witness, then in that case

Page 4105

1 such documentation, such evidence, should be disclosed

2 or made available to the Defence at the same time as

3 the expert witness report, in accordance with Rule 94

4 bis. Let me state two examples in support of this

5 submission.

6 We have just seen one example. One of the

7 main reasons why the Defence has used, in terms of

8 cross-examination, was the fact that the list of

9 missing persons was not addended [sic] to the report,

10 it was not annexed to the report of the expert witness

11 that has just testified here, so we were not in a

12 position to check his allegations. On the other hand,

13 on the 18th of May, in accordance with Rule 94 bis A,

14 the Prosecutor submitted a report to the Court in

15 connection to a specific document.

16 When we received the report, we realised that

17 the said document had not been disclosed to us, and we

18 were not in a position to make submissions on something

19 that we did not see at all. So we contacted the

20 Prosecution in respect of that, and upon our request,

21 the Prosecutor has made it available to us, the said

22 document which was subject of the expert witness

23 analysis. That document would probably be accepted by

24 us without even using our right to cross-examination.

25 In that sense, we believe -- it is our

Page 4106

1 position that in addition to each expert witness report

2 tendered by the Prosecutor in accordance with Rule 94

3 bis, additional evidence should also be disclosed,

4 namely, evidence that is also part of that testimony

5 or, rather, the expert witness report.

6 In case of delay, in case an expert witness

7 report is disclosed first and additional documents are

8 disclosed only later on, in that case we believe that

9 we should be given an opportunity -- and this should,

10 of course, apply to the Prosecutor during the Defence

11 case -- that the time limits stated in Rule 94 bis,

12 namely, the 14-day deadline, should be extended, taking

13 into account the delay that has elapsed.

14 So we should like to hear the Chamber. We

15 should like to hear the position of the Chamber in

16 respect to this issue in order to avoid any future

17 misunderstanding.

18 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Harmon,

19 before answering the question raised by Mr. Visnjic, I

20 should like to ask you first, do you have other

21 witnesses or other experts to call and bring into the

22 courtroom for today and tomorrow?

23 MR. HARMON: No, we do not.

24 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Can we know

25 then what we're going to do afterwards.

Page 4107

1 MR. HARMON: In respect of today's hearing,

2 Mr. President, yes.

3 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Tomorrow.

4 MR. HARMON: Today we will have a videotape

5 of testimony that was taken in 1996 from a gentleman,

6 Mr. Pasaga Mesic, that was given in the Rule 61

7 hearing, in the Karadzic and Mladic Rule 61 hearing.

8 It's approximately 29 minutes long. We're going to

9 tender that as our next piece of evidence.

10 Thereafter, I intend to introduce an expert

11 report that has been consented to by the Defence. It

12 is the expert report of Mark Mills, who is an expert on

13 watches. Thereafter, I have a series of documents that

14 I will be tendering to the Court. And at some point

15 today, I've been informed by the Defence that they want

16 to cross-examine Mr. Manning, whose cross-examination

17 has been deferred. We will ask Mr. Manning to come

18 back into the courtroom and be available for

19 cross-examination by the Defence and Your Honours'

20 questions and any redirect examination by the

21 Prosecutor, and that concludes today's session, if we

22 can get through all of that.

23 I would need to go into a private session,

24 perhaps, in respect of the remainder of the schedule.

25 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] I asked you

Page 4108

1 this because I should like to make a distinction

2 between the hearing time when we have witnesses and

3 experts waiting and matters relating to the

4 organisation of work, which we can leave for another

5 time, specifically the afternoon. But I think now we

6 can hear Mr. Harmon's response to the questions asked

7 by Mr. Visnjic, which doesn't mean that next time we

8 can have a Status Conference in the afternoon to

9 discuss these matters to avoid witnesses waiting.

10 I wish to have this distinction and avoid

11 discussing organisational matters during the time

12 reserved for hearings, making the witnesses wait,

13 sometimes over the weekend. If we make this

14 distinction, then we have guaranteed time to hear the

15 witnesses and to discuss organisational matters in the

16 afternoon.

17 Mr. Harmon, can we have your response,

18 please?

19 MR. HARMON: Thank you, Mr. President, Your

20 Honours, counsel. The issue raised by my colleague is

21 one that I think should have additional reflection,

22 additional time to discuss amongst the parties to this

23 litigation. However, let me respond, at least in the

24 beginning, by saying under the Rule, which is 94 bis,

25 the requirement under 94 bis (A) requires the full

Page 4109

1 statement of any expert witness, and in many cases it

2 clearly does not state the full statement and all

3 supporting documentation.

4 Now, I think Rule 94 bis has to be read in

5 context with the other Rules. The other Rules -- let

6 me say, it has to be read in context with the other

7 Rules so as not to eviscerate other important rules in

8 this set of comprehensive rules. Let me give you an

9 example.

10 Under Rule 66(B): "The Prosecutor shall,

11 upon request, permit the Defence to inspect any books,

12 documents, photographs, and tangible objects in the

13 Prosecutor's custody or control which are material to

14 the preparation of the defence or are intended for use

15 by the Prosecutor as evidence at trial or were obtained

16 from or belong to the accused."

17 Now, what this Rule clearly says is if the

18 Defence wants to see those kinds of documents, they

19 have to make a request. And there's a quid pro quo.

20 The quid pro quo is found in the reciprocal discovery

21 provision found in Rule 67(C). If they make the

22 request, then the Prosecutor, likewise, is able to

23 examine all of the material that the Defence -- any

24 books, documents, photographs, and tangible objects

25 which are in their control and which they intend to use

Page 4110

1 as evidence at trial.

2 Conceivably, an interpretation of Rule 94 bis

3 as suggested by the Defence, which asked for not only

4 the statement of the expert but all the supporting

5 documentation, can drive a hole through this balance

6 that is found presently in these Rules.

7 For example, if the Prosecutor intends to

8 call an expert that deals with the central elements of

9 this case and in support of that expert would submit,

10 eventually as pieces of evidence, a hundred documents,

11 by making the request that my colleague has made, not

12 only to see the statement but, in addition, all the

13 documents that support the witness, you will have the

14 consequence of eviscerating the reciprocal discovery

15 provisions.

16 So it is our position that under Rule 94 bis,

17 the testimony of an expert witness, these witnesses

18 have prepared statements, those statements have been

19 produced, but it's our position that the Defence is not

20 entitled to see all of the documents that support those

21 expert statements because they have to make a request

22 to see those under 67.

23 That's the position that we take. We've

24 invited the Defence, on many occasions -- I've informed

25 them in writing and orally, that we intend to produce

Page 4111

1 many documents, a large volume of documents in the

2 upcoming sessions of this proceeding. I've invited

3 them to inspect those documents if they're willing to

4 make a request under the Rule 67, and we'll make them

5 available, and the Defence has explicitly declined both

6 my oral request and my written request.

7 So our view is one has to read the Rules in

8 their entirety, and our interpretation of these Rules

9 in their entirety favour a balance, a balance that can

10 be seen by providing the statement of the expert to the

11 Defence, the Defence can consult with their own experts

12 based on the statement of the expert, but to entitle

13 them to see all of the supporting material behind that

14 is, in our view, something that creates an imbalance

15 and could the purpose and effect of the other Rules in

16 the whole scheme.

17 So that's our position. I think this issue

18 may bear additional reflection, but that's my initial

19 reaction.

20 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation]

21 Mr. Visnjic, you are entitled to a response.

22 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President,

23 the Defence has given thought to the submission made by

24 Mr. Harmon, so we would have a brief response to it.

25 Within the framework of the complete set of

Page 4112

1 Rules, one of the Rules envisaged is the Rule that the

2 accused must be entitled to a timely defence. In the

3 conviction of the Defence, the Prosecutor must, at a

4 certain point of time, disclose all of the documents

5 and submit them to the Trial Chamber and thereby also

6 to the Defence.

7 Now if we would reduce the matter to

8 procedural economy. Let us assume that the Prosecutor

9 has an expert witness to whose testimony they wish to

10 attach about a hundred documents which are of

11 substantive importance for the trial. In that case, if

12 these are indeed important documents and the Defence

13 did not have a chance to verify them, we assume that

14 the Defence will most probably object to those

15 documents, in which case again, in light of all the

16 other Rules, it would be granted additional time from

17 the time those documents were disclosed, additional

18 time to review those documents, and then that would

19 mean bringing back the expert at least on one other

20 occasion.

21 I do not think that the right of the

22 Prosecution to disclose of documents as envisaged under

23 66(B), that is, rather, retaining those documents,

24 would be at risk if those documents were to be

25 disclosed only 21 days in advance, at the same time as

Page 4113

1 the expert report, in other words.

2 In that case, the Defence would have

3 sufficient time, or we can assume it would have

4 sufficient time not only to study the documents but

5 also to prepare questions for the expert, which would

6 mean that he would be testifying in court only once.

7 What I have just said regarding the Defence

8 will be a problem for the Prosecution during the

9 Defence case when the Defence brings its own expert

10 witnesses to testify in court.

11 Therefore, our submission would be, and

12 request, that you review this request in that light.

13 And regarding 66 bis, I think that the spirit of the

14 Rule really relates to the period prior to the

15 beginning of trial in essence, though it can also be

16 applied in the course of the trial itself.

17 That would be my submission, Your Honour.

18 [Trial Chamber confers]

19 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation]

20 Mr. Visnjic, we have a question here which was not in

21 our minds when we granted you a month-long delay. Do

22 you intend to have the witness called back or not? The

23 answer may be that that depends on your re-reading and

24 studying of the document, but I would like to have an

25 idea.

Page 4114

1 Do you imagine calling the witness back to

2 cross-examine him or not?

3 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] If you're

4 asking me about this particular witness, most probably

5 no. I can't say with certainty, but most probably no.

6 But in principle, if such a situation were to occur

7 again, the answer would probably be yes.

8 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] I thought

9 that Mr. Petrusic was not going to call back the

10 witness, and that is why we gave you this time to

11 review the document. Have you anything to add or shall

12 I convey my ruling?

13 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] No, nothing

14 more, Mr. President.

15 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] At the end

16 of the day, as Mr. Visnjic has said, the Chamber has

17 been asked for some guidelines, some guidance. So we

18 don't really have a particular issue to rule on, but we

19 will convey to you what we think about the matter, what

20 we think about the matter right now, regarding this

21 particular issue.

22 I think that it is clear, Professor Brunborg,

23 in answer to a question by Mr. Petrusic, said that this

24 booklet or this document was an annex to his report

25 and, therefore, I think that we cannot go so far as to

Page 4115

1 ask the Prosecutor to send to the Defence all the

2 materials which the expert witness used to compile his

3 report. Perhaps the whole Demography Institute of

4 Norway would have to come here to the courtroom. Of

5 course, I'm exaggerating, but it is also true that we

6 cannot limit ourselves to the eight- or nine-page

7 report of the expert witness.

8 Therefore, in this particular case, I think

9 that it was reasonable for the report of the expert

10 witness to have been accompanied with this document,

11 which was very closely and directly used as a basis for

12 the whole study.

13 We agree with the interpretation Mr. Harmon

14 made of the Rules, but I think that in this particular

15 case it is quite possible that when the Prosecutor

16 intends to use this document as an exhibit to be

17 tendered, it is quite reasonable. And, anyway, there

18 is no problem in sending it to the Defence, I think.

19 So as I said, Mr. Visnjic asked for the

20 opinion of the Chamber. This is our opinion. But I

21 think that we will have to reconsider this question

22 again at a status conference, and then we can go into

23 the practical matters, because Mr. Visnjic has already

24 gone further by saying that, "We would like to know,

25 for our own guidance, what we should provide to the

Page 4116

1 Prosecution when our turn comes."

2 So I think that for the moment, the question

3 is closed regarding this particular case, but I think

4 we shall have to reopen the discussion at a status

5 conference so as to be able to organise our work

6 properly.

7 I think now we have to switch over to hearing

8 time, which means resume our proceedings. I think

9 Mr. Harmon was talking about a 20 or something --

10 29-minute video, exactly the amount of time we need

11 before a break.

12 Mr. Harmon, is that possible?

13 MR. HARMON: It is.

14 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] So we can

15 now have the video.

16 MR. HARMON: Before we play Prosecutor's

17 Exhibit 56, which is the number on the video, I would

18 ask that the documents that accompany that video, which

19 are 56A, the English transcript, and 56B, the French

20 transcript, be distributed.

21 And to put this video into context, into

22 proper context, let me explain what Your Honours will

23 see and what the audience will see.

24 This exhibit, for the record, is an exhibit,

25 as I said, that was taken from a Rule 61 hearing

Page 4117

1 conducted in 1996. For purposes of the record, the

2 Defence has consented to this video being played, and

3 therefore we did not call Mr. Mesic, who is the person

4 testifying, to the stand live.

5 In 1996, we had available -- the Office of

6 the Prosecutor had available to us film footage taken

7 in Potocari in July -- on July the 12th and the 13th.

8 I've introduced into evidence those clips of the film

9 showing men being separated from women.

10 When we received that film, we asked

11 representatives of the Bosnian government to attempt to

12 identify the individuals who were in the film, the

13 Muslim men who were being separated and the Muslim men

14 who were being detained at a location called the "white

15 house". Prior to the testimony of Mr. Mesic in 1996, I

16 was informed that a certain number of those people had

17 been identified, and therefore Mr. Mesic came to the

18 Rule 61 hearing, he was shown the film, and he made

19 those identifications.

20 Now, with that in mind, I need to also inform

21 the Chamber that on the 10th of February of this year,

22 I was informed that one of the individuals who had been

23 identified by Mr. Mesic had been incorrectly

24 identified, and that identification relates to an

25 individual who will be seen in the Photograph Z37, an

Page 4118

1 individual by the name of Mustafa Mujcinovic. It

2 turned out the individual who had identified

3 Mr. Mujcinovic was mistaken, and subsequently the

4 Bosnian government learned of that mistaken

5 identification. Mr. Mesic, when he testified, believed

6 that to be an accurate identification, but with that

7 correction by the Bosnian government, then this film

8 can be properly viewed. The reference to the Z37 will

9 be found in the transcripts that I've provided to Your

10 Honours.

11 One last piece of information for Your

12 Honours. I have been informed that the film, which is

13 the official record of the Rule 61 hearing and which

14 was provided to us for purposes of this exhibit, lacks

15 a matter of minutes at the end of the film. A few

16 minutes are missing. However, I'm also informed that

17 the French and the English transcripts of that

18 proceeding are complete.

19 So with that introduction, Mr. President and

20 Your Honours, if we could now proceed by dimming the

21 lights and we could see Mr. Mesic's testimony in

22 Prosecutor's Exhibit 56.

23 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Harmon,

24 perhaps before we start viewing the video and for the

25 record, I should like to ask the Defence if what

Page 4119

1 Mr. Harmon is saying is true and are you accepting the

2 video?

3 MR. PETRUSIC: [Interpretation] Yes, we are,

4 Mr. President.

5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you.

6 This was only for the purposes of the record. Thank

7 you very much.

8 Now we can begin with the viewing.

9 [Videotape played].

10 ANSWER: [Voiceover] I solemnly declare that I

11 will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but

12 the truth.

13 THE PRESIDING JUDGE: Thank you. Please be

14 seated.

15 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Thank you.

16 THE PRESIDING JUDGE: You have been called as

17 a witness by the Prosecution, so I'm going to ask Mr.

18 Ostberg to proceed.

19 MR. OSTBERG: Thank you, Your Honour.

20 QUESTION: Will you please state your name

21 and also spell it for the record?

22 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Pasaga Mesic.

23 P-a-s-a-g-a, M-e-s-i-c.

24 QUESTION: Would you also state your present

25 occupation?

Page 4120

1 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Head of the police

2 department in Tuzla which, among other things, collects

3 facts about crimes committed in the territory of

4 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

5 QUESTION: Could you tell us about what this

6 police department in Tuzla encompassed, the cities or

7 places we have been talking about in the context of

8 Srebrenica?

9 ANSWER: [Voiceover] My department covered the

10 territory of North-East Bosnia. Before the war, there

11 was the administrative region of Tuzla. It belonged to

12 the Tuzla region which, among other common

13 municipalities, covers the municipalities of

14 Srebrenica, Bratunac, and others.

15 QUESTION: Thank you. Did you, in your

16 office, try to identify missing people?

17 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes, we did.

18 QUESTION: How did you go about that?

19 ANSWER: [Voiceover] We did it in several

20 ways. The chief method was that when people expelled

21 from Srebrenica arrived when the Serb army took the

22 enclave of Srebrenica, in those places where the

23 expelled were accommodated in their settlements, we

24 conducted a questionnaire of all citizens of age who

25 had arrived there.

Page 4121

1 The questionnaire included -- in addition to

2 the name and particulars, it also included a question

3 of where their next of kin were. In those

4 questionnaires, they listed the names of their close

5 relatives who either had been kept by the Serb army in

6 Potocari or tried to reach the free territory through

7 the woods.

8 Another question in the questionnaire was

9 whether they had witnessed a murder or some other

10 crime, that is, some other violation of international

11 humanitarian law.

12 QUESTION: Thank you. Can you provide the

13 Court with the figure of numbers of missing people from

14 the U.N. safe area of Srebrenica?

15 ANSWER: [Voiceover] After we had collected

16 all the information and facts in this and other ways,

17 we were able to make some estimates about the number of

18 persons missing. It is, however, still impossible to

19 identify all the missing persons.

20 The information we have gathered so far says

21 that during the attack of the Serb army against the

22 enclave, that is, the protected zone of Srebrenica,

23 between 6.000 to 6.500 people went missing.

24 QUESTION: And what means did you use to

25 reach this result, apart from what you already told us

Page 4122

1 about this questionnaire?

2 ANSWER: [Voiceover] In addition to this, we

3 also used lists of missing persons compiled by the

4 International Committee of the Red Cross, and that is

5 their office in Tuzla, which was also supplied to the

6 Commission for the Exchange of Prisoners in Tuzla.

7 We also used information from the lists of

8 missing persons compiled by representatives of the

9 municipalities of Srebrenica, Bratunac and Vlasenica,

10 and on the basis of all this information and by

11 subtracting from that number the of persons who arrived

12 in the free territory in the meantime, including the

13 surrender of persons to IFOR in Zvornik, it was 3.469

14 [sic] missing persons.

15 QUESTION: Will you name the figure again? I

16 did not quite get it.

17 ANSWER: [Voiceover] 9.349 persons.

18 QUESTION: Thank you. Now, during this

19 period, the free territory was reached by a certain

20 number of members of the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina

21 who managed to break through the Serb blockade. We do

22 not have the exact figure because it is a military

23 secret and therefore may not be divulged. However, on

24 the basis of the information we have, we estimate it is

25 about 30 per cent of the last figure I mentioned, which

Page 4123

1 means that between 3.000 and 3.500 members of the army

2 arrived in the free territory. And when this is

3 subtracted from those 9.349, we arrive at the first

4 figure, that is, that about 6.000 to 6.500 people are

5 still missing.

6 QUESTION: Thank you very much. Now I would

7 like to turn to another matter, namely, photographs

8 which I'm soon going to show you. I will first ask you

9 this:

10 Did the Office of the Prosecutor present you

11 with photographs of prisoners from the Srebrenica

12 enclave?

13 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes.

14 QUESTION: Do you know where these

15 photographs came from?

16 ANSWER: [Voiceover] No, I don't know that,

17 but I know that the photographs were taken of a film

18 which was in the possession of an investigating team of

19 the Tribunal.

20 QUESTION: What were you asked to do with

21 these photos?

22 ANSWER: [Voiceover] The investigator's team

23 of the Tribunal asked us to try to identify those

24 persons with those who had arrived in the territory, as

25 they were showing men who were members of the Serb army

Page 4124

1 in Potocari and other places in the Srebrenica area

2 were separated by the Serb army from their families and

3 then taken into an unknown direction.

4 QUESTION: What methods did you use to try to

5 identify these prisoners?

6 ANSWER: [Voiceover] We began by showing those

7 photographs to the expelled people from Srebrenica in

8 refugee camps in which they were accommodated. But

9 since they were scattered all over the territory,

10 almost throughout the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

11 we were not able to identify them for those missing

12 persons.

13 A fortnight ago, we used the cantonal

14 television of Tuzla and we broadcasted those

15 photographs and invited anyone who could identify

16 anyone in those photographs to come to our office and

17 then identify any of those persons who they could

18 recognise or they knew from the photographs that we

19 had.

20 QUESTION: Thank you. How many photographs

21 were you presented with?

22 ANSWER: [Voiceover] We were shown 30

23 photographs.

24 QUESTION: And were you able to determine the

25 identities of the persons in these photos?

Page 4125

1 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes. We identified 28

2 persons.

3 QUESTION: Thank you. Now I'm going to show

4 you some photos, and you tell us what you found out

5 concerning the people we are going to show you. I

6 think it is, in total, 16 photos, and the first one is

7 Exhibit 8A.

8 Can the Court see that photograph also?

9 I now ask you, can you identify any persons

10 on that photo? Were you able to identify any one of

11 them?

12 ANSWER: [Voiceover] On this photograph, we

13 identified three persons.

14 QUESTION: Thank you. Please proceed.

15 Again, my question was: Can you identify any one of

16 these people on that photograph?

17 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes. The person I'm

18 pointing at now is Sevko Mujic, son of Omer.

19 QUESTION: Do you have a pointer? Can we

20 point with -- has he something to point with? On the

21 ELMO, I think you have to do it.

22 ANSWER: [Voiceover] The person I'm pointing

23 at now is Sevko Mujic.

24 QUESTION: Who did identify him?

25 ANSWER: [Voiceover] He was identified by a

Page 4126

1 neighbour.

2 QUESTION: Can you tell us about his fate?

3 ANSWER: [Voiceover] He disappeared, he's

4 missing, and nothing is known about his fate.

5 QUESTION: Thank you. Are there any other

6 persons on this photo that you can identify?

7 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes.

8 QUESTION: And who is this person?

9 ANSWER: [Voiceover] This is Ahmo Mehmedovic,

10 son of Sulejman, age 58. He was identified by a

11 neighbour.

12 QUESTION: And his fate?

13 ANSWER: [Voiceover] He's also missing.

14 QUESTION: Thank you. Any other on this

15 photo?

16 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes. This person here,

17 this is Meho Mehmedovic, also son of Sulejman, Ahmo's

18 brother, age 56, also identified by neighbours.

19 QUESTION: And his fate?

20 ANSWER: [Voiceover] He's missing too.

21 QUESTION: Thank you. As Your Honours may

22 recall, these are photos that were shown by our

23 investigator Rene Ruez during his examination. So you

24 have seen them before, and now we show them again just

25 for this purpose.

Page 4127

1 Can I have Exhibit 8B, please. Can you

2 identify anybody on this photograph?

3 ANSWER: [Voiceover] It is this person. He

4 was also in Exhibit 8A. This is Meho Mehmedovic.

5 QUESTION: And who identified him?

6 ANSWER: [Voiceover] He was identified by his

7 neighbour or, rather, two persons who were his

8 neighbours while they were in the area of Srebrenica.

9 QUESTION: What do we know about him?

10 ANSWER: [Voiceover] He's missing.

11 QUESTION: Now we look at Exhibit 10B. Can

12 you identify anybody on this photo?

13 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes.

14 QUESTION: And that is?

15 ANSWER: [Voiceover] This person's name is

16 Kasim Hafizovic, son of Mehmed, age 58, and was

17 identified by his close relatives.

18 QUESTION: And what do we know about him?

19 ANSWER: [Voiceover] He's missing too.

20 QUESTION: Is there anybody else on this

21 photo who you can --

22 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes. Senahid Hafizovic,

23 son of Mehmed, aged 54, also identified by neighbours,

24 also on the list of missing persons.

25 QUESTION: Thank you. We go on to Exhibit

Page 4128

1 11A, and we can really see two persons on it. Can you

2 identify them?

3 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes, this person is Misa

4 Efendic, son of Meho, age 63, identified by a

5 neighbour, also on the list of missing persons.

6 QUESTION: Thank you. And the other one?

7 ANSWER: [Voiceover] The other person is Ibro

8 Huseinovic, son of Ahmo, aged 51, identified by his

9 close relatives, listed as a missing person.

10 QUESTION: Can we now please go to Exhibit

11 12D. Do you have any -- can we -- I can't see anything

12 on my screen for the moment. Here we are. Thank you.

13 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Only this person was

14 identified on this photograph. This is Nazif Krdzic,

15 aged 54, identified by his colleague.

16 QUESTION: And his fate?

17 ANSWER: [Voiceover] He's also missing.

18 QUESTION: And now, please, we go to Exhibit

19 13A. Could you point us out the people there? Yes,

20 and who is that?

21 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes. This is Bajro

22 Malkic, son of Hilmo, aged 53, identified by his

23 relatives, listed as a missing person.

24 QUESTION: Thank you. Any other people on

25 this photo?

Page 4129

1 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Next person is Mevludin

2 Pasagic, aged 56, identified by his close relatives on

3 the list of missing persons. One more person on this

4 photograph, Hamza Gudic, aged 52, identified by

5 colleagues. He's also on the list of missing persons.

6 QUESTION: Thank you. And then I will ask

7 for number 13B.

8 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Here we see Hamza Gudic

9 again. We saw him in number 13A. Then this person

10 here, his name is Idriz Suljic, son of Sanaban, aged

11 60, identified by friends, on the list of missing

12 persons.

13 QUESTION: Yes.

14 ANSWER: [Voiceover] This person here is

15 Ibrahim Jelkic, son of Bahrija, aged 59, identified by

16 a friend, also on the list of missing persons.

17 QUESTION: Thank you. Can I ask for Exhibit

18 number 14B. You will recognise him. That was the

19 person who was forced to call out for his comrades in

20 the hills. Yes, please?

21 ANSWER: [Voiceover] This person here is Ramo

22 Osmanovic, son of Omer, age 42, identified by

23 relatives, on the list of missing persons. On this

24 photograph, we also identified this person here. There

25 is Miralem Mujic, son of Rasim, aged 47, identified by

Page 4130

1 close relatives, also on the list of missing persons.

2 QUESTION: Thank you. May I have Exhibit

3 number 15B? You do also, Your Honours, recognise him.

4 That was the person who was interviewed by a television

5 reporter. Yes, please?

6 ANSWER: [Voiceover] This person is Ramo

7 Mustafic, son of Meho, age 54, identified by

8 relatives.

9 QUESTION: Thank you. Now I would ask for

10 Exhibit number 16A.

11 ANSWER: [Voiceover] On this photograph we see

12 Salih Salihovic, aged 49, identified by friends, on the

13 list of missing persons.

14 QUESTION: Thank you. May I ask for number

15 17B.

16 ANSWER: [Voiceover] On this photograph we

17 identified two persons. This is Ramo Kabilovic, son of

18 Hajro, aged 34, was identified by close relatives, on

19 the list of missing persons. In the middle and behind

20 him on the stretcher is Mujo Mesanovic, son of Abdulah,

21 aged 22, identified by close relatives, on the list of

22 missing persons.

23 QUESTION: Thank you. I would ask for

24 Exhibit number 18A.

25 ANSWER: [Voiceover] This person here is Salih

Page 4131

1 Isbisevic, son of Ibrahim, 36 years old. He was

2 identified by his close relatives, and he's on the list

3 of missing persons.

4 QUESTION: Thank you and now 19B, please.

5 ANSWER: [Voiceover] On this photograph, this

6 young man has been identified. His name is Almir

7 Salcinovic, son of Turabija, 21 years old, and he was

8 identified by a friend. Then Halil Gabeljic, son of

9 Mahmut, who was identified by a friend and who is also

10 on the list of missing persons.

11 QUESTION: Both of these people are missing,

12 correct.

13 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes.

14 QUESTION: Thank you. That takes us to 20B,

15 please.

16 ANSWER: [Voiceover] This person's name is

17 Muhamed Malagic, son of Ramiz, 23 years old. He was

18 identified by his close relatives and he is on the list

19 of missing persons now.

20 QUESTION: Thank you. And now 21B, please.

21 ANSWER: [Voiceover] On this photograph, Nezir

22 Ibisevic was identified. He's the son of Juso, 20

23 years old. He was identified by his friends. He's on

24 the missing-persons' list now.

25 QUESTION: Now we're going to show you the

Page 4132

1 last photograph, and that is 22B.

2 ANSWER: [Voiceover] This person's name is

3 Bajazit Delic, son of Amil. He was identified by

4 distant relatives, and he's on the missing-persons'

5 list now. This here is Mustafa Mujcinovic, son of

6 Mujo, 38 years old, was identified by an acquaintance,

7 and he's on the missing-persons' list now.

8 QUESTION: All these people we have now shown

9 photos of, are they all missing?

10 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes, all these persons

11 are on the missing-persons' list. We said that

12 28 persons have been identified. We saw 26 persons,

13 because two persons reached the free territory and

14 their photographs, for security reasons, we will not be

15 showing. One man is 62 years old, and a boy who's only

16 14.

17 QUESTION: Thank you. And all the others are

18 missing.

19 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Yes.

20 MR. OSTRBERG: Thank you very much. This

21 concludes the questions I have to put to you, thank you

22 very much.

23 THE PRESIDING JUDGE: [Voiceover] Do you have

24 a question, Madam Judge?

25 JUDGE ODIO BENITO: Mr. Pasaga Mesic, you

Page 4133

1 spoke of about 6.000, 6.500 missing persons. Could you

2 tell the Court how many are men, how many are women,

3 how many are children?

4 ANSWER: [Voiceover] No. At this moment I

5 cannot tell the Court that because we do not know

6 exactly even the number of missing people nor the

7 composition of those missing persons. Since the

8 activities to complete data on missing persons are

9 still underway and, the government of

10 Bosnia-Herzegovina, that is formed a commission for

11 missing persons which should also take part take in the

12 final establishment of the number of missing persons

13 and their composition during the takeover by the

14 Srebrenica enclave by the Serb army.

15 JUDGE ODIO BENITO: So that means that you

16 couldn't say if mostly they are elderly people.

17 ANSWER: [Voiceover] Mostly they were males

18 over 17 years of age, since most of the women and

19 children were transported out of Srebrenica ..."

20 MR. HARMON: That concludes the tape,

21 Mr. President. As I said, part of it is missing but

22 the transcripts are complete, and we would tender as

23 exhibits copies of Prosecutor's Exhibit 56, which is

24 the tape; and 56A, the English transcript of the

25 proceedings; and 56B, the French transcript of the

Page 4134

1 proceedings.

2 JUDGE WALD: Mr. Harmon, do we know whether

3 any of those people who are identified in the video and

4 were then on the missing list have since been found?

5 MR. HARMON: I don't know the answer to

6 that. All I know is that the Bosnia government has

7 informed me that one person was misidentified. Whether

8 that person was misidentified and is now alive, I'm not

9 sure.

10 JUDGE WALD: Okay.

11 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation]

12 Mr. Petrusic, do you have any objections in respect of

13 this exhibit?

14 MR. PETRUSIC: [Interpretation] No, I don't,

15 Mr. President.

16 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you

17 very much. The exhibits will be admitted into

18 evidence.

19 I think that this is a very convenient time

20 for a break. However, before the break, I think I

21 should mention something for the benefit of the

22 public.

23 Mr. Harmon, you stated that we should go into

24 closed session to discuss the work of the next week.

25 Can we do it before the break or maybe after the break,

Page 4135

1 or maybe we can discuss it now and then after the break

2 inform the public about the schedule for next week.

3 So we will now go into closed session. After

4 the closed session, there will be a break, and we will

5 be back around half past 1.00.

6 Closed session, please.

7 [Closed session]

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Page 4136

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Page 4137

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Page 4139

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Page 4140

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19 --- Recess taken at 1.10 p.m.

20 --- On resuming at 1.42 p.m.

21 [Open session]

22 [The witness entered court]

23 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation]

24 Mr. Manning, thank you very much for coming back.

25 We're going to treat this as the continuation of your

Page 4141

1 testimony, and you are now going to answer questions

2 which I think Mr. Visnjic is going to put to you within

3 the framework of the cross-examination.

4 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Thank you,

5 Mr. President. As we said when asking for the delay

6 for Mr. Manning, most of the questions that we had

7 prepared for him have been answered for us by the

8 expert witnesses, so that our cross-examination of

9 Mr. Manning will be very brief and consists of only a

10 few questions.

11 WITNESS: DEAN MANNING [Resumed]

12 Cross-examined by Mr. Visnjic:

13 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Manning. Your report of

14 the 16th of May contains parts which are written in

15 italics. I hope the interpreters will be able to

16 interpret this.

17 A. Yes, that's correct.

18 Q. Can you explain? Are those parts, also a

19 component part of expert findings or are they another

20 kind of proof?

21 A. I think you would have to refer to a specific

22 section of italics. I believe each separate grave area

23 has an italic area, if that's what you're referring

24 to.

25 Q. On page 5 of your report, and items 1, 2, 3,

Page 4142

1 and then again on page 6. In fact, on every page

2 containing descriptions of grave sites, there is what

3 one might call an introductory paragraph.

4 A. That's correct. That's the section that I've

5 marked with italics, if you like. It was simply to

6 highlight the introduction, if you like, to each of the

7 crime scenes in that I was trying to summarise it.

8 That was just to highlight the introduction.

9 Q. Were those parts taken from expert reports or

10 were they compiled in the form of an introduction to

11 the report?

12 A. In the main, they were taken either from the

13 indictment or from a summary of the witness such as you

14 see with Witness S40 on the bottom of page 5.

15 Q. Thank you. My second question relates to

16 page 20 of your report, and page 21, containing tables

17 on ligatures and blindfolds. I have noted a certain

18 discrepancy in the numbers given in this report and the

19 numbers that were given to us by the experts. So I

20 should like to ask you about one or two specific

21 examples to see whether you can explain the difference

22 for me.

23 On page 20, it is stated that the total

24 number of ligatures for Kozluk is 168. At the same

25 time, I compared that number with the number given by

Page 4143

1 Dr. Clark in his report, on page 7.

2 MR. VISNJIC: I have that page of the report,

3 and I would like to ask the usher for his assistance,

4 to show it to Mr. Manning.

5 A. Thank you.

6 MR. VISNJIC:

7 Q. I think that the number of ligatures in your

8 report is slightly higher than the one given in his.

9 A. Yes. Just looking at those figures, my

10 indication of the number of ligatures is higher. I

11 believe I spoke about that during my evidence in chief,

12 in that I looked at what was found at the site, what

13 was found by the pathologists, and what was found

14 loose, if you like, at the morgue, and I indicated

15 then, I believe, that there would be differences in

16 what the archaeologists found and what the pathologists

17 in the morgue found and what I said was the number.

18 Q. The number that you gave, would that be a

19 compilation of all the numbers found by the

20 anthropologists and the pathologists or is there

21 another source that collected evidence?

22 A. My figure represents ligatures in this case

23 that were located during the exhumation and autopsy

24 process only; that is, ligatures found at the grave

25 site, ligatures found at the morgue site by those

Page 4144

1 people you mentioned, plus also scientific officers

2 examining the artefacts at the morgue. I assume that

3 Dr. Clark did not examine all the ligatures,

4 specifically ones that weren't located with the body.

5 Q. Thank you. On that same page, it is stated

6 that at the Petkovci dam, one ligature was found.

7 However, the Prosecution has shown us two exhibits

8 showing two ligatures. One is Exhibit number 22/8, and

9 the other one is 131/1.

10 This is Exhibit 22/8, showing a ligature

11 found by Mr. Jean-Rene Ruez during his stay there in

12 April 1997. I think that is the final date

13 established. And Exhibit 131/1, showing another

14 ligature, was produced during your testimony in chief.

15 My question is whether you could explain to

16 us this particular discrepancy. A second part of that

17 question is the actual technique applied to collect

18 this kind of physical evidence or artefacts.

19 A. To answer the first part of your question,

20 this ligature here, the string ligature marked DG-118,

21 was located during the autopsy -- sorry, exhumation

22 process at the dam conducted by Professor Wright. I

23 included that as a ligature located at Petkovci dam or

24 the dam near Petkovci on the basis that it was found

25 during that process, and I was summarising evidence

Page 4145

1 located during the exhumation/autopsy process.

2 The other ligature which is shown in this

3 photograph was, as you pointed out, located by

4 Mr. Ruez, not as part of the exhumation/autopsy

5 process. It wasn't examined by the archaeologists or

6 the scientific officers or by the pathologists.

7 Therefore, as I said, it was a conservative number of

8 ligatures and blindfolds, and that one was not counted

9 by myself as part of this process.

10 Q. Could you please explain in a little greater

11 detail the technique, the method applied regarding, for

12 example, Exhibit 22/8. It was found on site and then

13 what?

14 A. You're referring to this exhibit here?

15 Q. For example, that one, yes.

16 A. I was not present when that item was

17 located. Indeed, I wasn't at the Tribunal. Mr. Ruez

18 handled this exhibit, so I'm afraid you'll have to ask

19 him those details.

20 Q. But generally speaking, for instance, Exhibit

21 131, I'm interested in the actual procedure of

22 registering and safekeeping of these artefacts.

23 A. In relation to this item, DG-118, and I have

24 to generalise because I haven't got the details of this

25 particular item in front of me, but when an exhumation

Page 4146

1 is conducted, each item or body that is identified, the

2 individual who finds it or identifies it calls out to

3 the register keeper or a scientific officer present at

4 the site for a number. The process has changed and

5 evolved from 1998, but it's essentially the same.

6 A number was issued for that item. It was

7 either tagged immediately or tagged, and by "tagged" I

8 mean that little metal tag that you see in that

9 photograph or some other tag, removed from the grave,

10 placed in a bag, reported on a ledger which would then

11 accompany that item to the morgue. It may be that that

12 item stayed with the body and is placed in the body

13 bag, and it would then be removed at the morgue on

14 examination. Again speaking generally, it could be

15 that that item would not be discovered until it came to

16 the morgue. It may be dirty or tangled with other

17 things, in which case it would be cleaned, registered

18 at the morgue, photographed, bagged, and placed into an

19 exhibit locker or room.

20 Basically, that's the general processing of

21 an exhibit.

22 Q. Thank you. Mr. Manning, according to the

23 evidence produced by the Prosecution so far, and

24 judging by the statement of witnesses who, in part of

25 their testimony, claimed that in the area from Nova

Page 4147

1 Kasaba to Konjevic Polje, while a column of males was

2 going through the woods in the direction of Zvornik,

3 that in that area there were numerous ambushes and a

4 certain number of casualties. In the course of your

5 investigations, were you aware of the fact of the

6 burial place of those victims who fell as casualties

7 during these events?

8 A. No, I'm not aware of the burial of those

9 individuals.

10 Q. According to the evidence produced by the

11 Prosecution also, and judging by the statements of

12 witnesses, one can infer that in the area of Bajkovici,

13 of Zvornik, there were also armed conflicts between a

14 column that was breaking through to the territory of

15 the Federation. I have reviewed very briefly the list

16 of missing persons, and, for instance, under the letter

17 "A" alone, that is, persons whose surnames begin with

18 the letter "A", the place of disappearance for 50

19 persons under that letter of the alphabet, Bajkovici

20 and Udrc, territory in Zvornik municipality, are

21 given. Also, according to certain sources, the Serb

22 forces alone in a single day had more than 100 men put

23 out of action; some killed, some wounded. Do you

24 perhaps know where and whether the victims of those

25 conflicts were buried?

Page 4148

1 A. No, I don't.

2 MR. VISNJIC: Thank you, Mr. Manning.

3 Mr. President, that ends my

4 cross-examination.

5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you

6 very much, Mr. Visnjic.

7 Mr. Harmon, have you any re-examination?

8 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, I do not.

9 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Judge Fouad

10 Riad, do you have any questions?

11 Madam Judge Wald, have you any questions?

12 JUDGE WALD: I have one.

13 Questioned by the Court:

14 JUDGE WALD: During your testimony, Mr.

15 Manning, I don't have the chart in front of me but I

16 believe there was a chart that showed the graves that

17 had been disturbed, the primary graves that had been

18 disturbed, and those that had not, and the secondary

19 graves. My question is basically whether or not, based

20 upon your observation and research, you were able to

21 come up with any hypothesis or clues as to why

22 particular primary graves were disturbed, relocated to

23 secondary graves, and others were left alone, based

24 upon their location or any other factor that you might

25 may have come across?

Page 4149

1 A. Your Honour, I could surmise that graves that

2 were undisturbed seemed to be in a particular area.

3 JUDGE WALD: Which area?

4 A. The graves around Cerska, Konjevic Polje,

5 Nova Kasaba. I assume that because of that location,

6 it was a difficulty in disturbing them or some other

7 reason that they were not disturbed. I also believe

8 that at least for the case of some of the graves, they

9 were easily identified, particularly in light of the

10 aerial images that were released.

11 JUDGE WALD: So just to nail that down, the

12 first group that you said there would be difficulty in

13 disturbing them, those were less accessible?

14 A. Your Honour, no less accessible than Cancari

15 road or -- sorry.

16 JUDGE WALD: Well, they were less accessible

17 than some of the other primary graves that were

18 disturbed or not?

19 A. I don't believe that's the reason. As I say,

20 I believe it may be due to the location. Those graves

21 are as accessible as the others.

22 JUDGE WALD: But when you say "location",

23 why?

24 A. I would have to answer that simply by saying

25 that they seemed to be graves that are grouped together

Page 4150

1 that have not been disturbed. So for some reason that

2 I don't know, those graves were not disturbed. Perhaps

3 they were too close to something, perhaps they had been

4 in a different -- I don't know.

5 JUDGE WALD: Okay, all right. Thank you.

6 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you

7 very much, Judge Wald.

8 So, Mr. Manning, I think that we have

9 finished your testimony.

10 I think there are no exhibits to deal with in

11 this case. Is that correct, Mr. Harmon, Mr. Visnjic?

12 I don't think we have any outstanding exhibits to

13 tender, or reports.

14 The report is Exhibit 150, I think, is it

15 not? No, 140. I'm sorry.

16 MR. HARMON: In the course of Mr. Manning's

17 direct examination, the exhibits were tendered and

18 accepted by the Trial Chamber.

19 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well,

20 then. Everything has been dealt with.

21 Thank you very much, Mr. Manning, for coming

22 to the courtroom and for answering the questions put to

23 you.

24 We are now going to adjourn.

25 For the benefit of the public, I have to say

Page 4151

1 that the whole day tomorrow, hearings will be held in

2 closed session. So from the standpoint of the public,

3 the case is closed for this week. So we will be

4 resuming this trial, but in a different framework.

5 The hearing is adjourned.

6 [The witness withdrew]

7 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at

8 2.13 p.m., to be reconvened on

9 Friday, the 2nd day of June, 2000,

10 at 9.30 a.m.

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