1 Monday, 20 March 2000

2 [Prosecution Opening Statement]

3 [Open session]

4 [The accused entered court]

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

6 JUDGE MUMBA: May the registrar call the

7 case.

8 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Case number

9 IT-96-23-T, the Prosecutor against Dragoljub Kunarac,

10 Radomir Kovac, and Zoran Vukovic.

11 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you. May we have the

12 parties, please. The Prosecution.

13 MR. RYNEVELD: If it please the Court. Dirk

14 Ryneveld for the Prosecution, and with me today are

15 Hildegard Uertz-Retzlaff and Peggy Kuo, and also

16 assisting are our case manager, George Huber, and the

17 legal officer, Daryl Mundis.

18 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you. The Defence

19 counsel.

20 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Good

21 morning, Your Honours. I am Slavisa Prodanovic. Next

22 to me, I have my colleague, Ms. Mara Pilipovic, and we

23 are the Defence counsel for Mr. Dragoljub Kunarac, the

24 accused.

25 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you.

1 MR. KOLESAR: [Interpretation] Good morning,

2 Your Honours. I am lawyer Momir Kolesar from Zemunj,

3 and I'm the Defence counsel for the accused Radomir

4 Kovac.

5 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you.

6 MR. JOVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Good morning,

7 Your Honours. Attorneys Goran Jovanovic and Ms. Jelena

8 Lopicic as the Defence counsel for Mr. Zoran Vukovic.

9 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you.

10 I would like to find out from the accused

11 persons whether they can hear the proceedings.

12 Mr. Kunarac, can you hear the proceedings in

13 a language you understand?

14 THE ACCUSED KUNARAC: [Interpretation] Yes,

15 Your Honours, I can hear and follow the proceedings.

16 THE ACCUSED KOVAC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your

17 Honours. My name is Radomir Kovac. If I can take up a

18 little bit of your time, I would like to make several

19 remarks.

20 First of all, as you can see on my team,

21 there is no co-defence counsel. I have several times

22 tendered a request for Mr. Milan Vujin, in whom I have

23 full confidence; however, the Registrar refused my

24 request. I would like to ask you to request of the

25 Registrar to speed up my new request and claims for

1 attorney Stanko Bejatovic, so that in the course of

2 this week, he can join my defence team. Otherwise, I

3 feel trial-ready. Thank you.

4 JUDGE MUMBA: If I may answer that with

5 Mr. Kolesar's attention. This matter has already been

6 decided. The Registrar referred the matter to the

7 Trial Chamber; the Trial Chamber did decide. The other

8 matter had gone to the President. The decision has

9 already been taken that the President has no

10 jurisdiction. So the matter as it stands now is that

11 Mr. Vujin will not be granted audience by this Trial

12 Chamber. That is the position. So the trial will

13 proceed with Mr. Kolesar.

14 The next accused, please. Can you hear the

15 proceedings in a language you understand?

16 THE ACCUSED VUKOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes,

17 Your Honours, I can understand.

18 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you. You may be seated.

19 This is the opening session, and I will hear

20 from the Prosecution any opening statement.

21 MR. RYNEVELD: Madam President and Your

22 Honours, before I commence the opening statement, I

23 would seek your permission to have Mr. Mundis, who is

24 assisting me this morning, to be allowed to sit at the

25 ELMO to display various maps and charts which I will be

1 referring to throughout the proceedings.

2 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. The Prosecution may go

3 ahead.

4 MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you.

5 Your Honours, it is now my privilege to

6 present the Prosecution case against Mr. Kunarac,

7 Kovac, and Vukovic by outlining the evidence that the

8 Prosecution will adduce.

9 Just for your information, before we start, I

10 expect my opening statement will take approximately an

11 hour and a half.

12 I do not intend to simply restate the

13 contents of our trial brief. I intend, instead, to

14 outline the framework of our case and highlight some of

15 the material evidence that the Prosecution's witnesses

16 will give. At the end of the trial, we submit that

17 this evidence will leave no doubt in your minds as to

18 the guilt of the accused Kunarac, Kovac, and Vukovic.

19 Your Honours, this is a case about rape camps

20 in eastern Bosnia, whose uncovering in 1992 shocked the

21 world. This is a case about the women and girls, some

22 as young as 12 or 15 years old, who endured

23 unimaginable horrors as their worlds collapsed around

24 them. Before their very eyes, their family members

25 were killed and their homes were destroyed. They were

1 then brutalised, sexually assaulted, and dehumanised by

2 their captors, including the three accused who sit

3 before you today. This is a case about justice and

4 international laws that seek to proscribe the

5 atrocities committed during armed conflict. In this

6 trial, you will see the human face of the atrocities,

7 both of the perpetrators and the victims.

8 The victims will testify about what happened

9 to them. They will identify these three men as being

10 among those who raped and tortured them. The three

11 accused before you today are only a few of the

12 individuals indicted for the crimes these women and

13 girls endured. Other individuals indicted with these

14 accused are still at large. In light of the fact that

15 there are still other indicted persons at large, many

16 of the victims, as you are aware, have residual

17 concerns for their own safety and for that of their

18 families. As a result, it will be necessary to protect

19 the identities of many of the victims and witnesses.

20 Of course the Court and the accused will hear their

21 testimony and the Prosecution's case will largely be

22 proven through their compelling accounts of what

23 happened.

24 More importantly, however, this testimony,

25 together with the testimony of other witnesses, will

1 draw you to the inescapable conclusion that each legal

2 element of rape, torture, and enslavement, as set forth

3 in the Statute, has been proven beyond a reasonable

4 doubt.

5 Rapes, sexual torture, and other forms of

6 sexual violence prohibited under humanitarian law are

7 found in the Lieber Code, the Hague Convention of 1907,

8 the Geneva Conventions of 1929 and 1949, as well as the

9 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions.

10 Customary international law outlaws rape during armed

11 conflict. The Tribunal's Statute, which according to

12 the Secretary-General derives from customary law,

13 specifically enumerates rape as a crime against

14 humanity.

15 The Trial Chamber will hear that women and

16 children, some as I said earlier, as young as 12 years

17 old in Foca, were detained and raped vaginally, anally,

18 and orally; subjected to gang-rapes, forced to dance

19 nude with weapons pointed at them; and even enslaved.

20 The jurisprudence of the Furundzija and the

21 Celebici cases at this Tribunal and the jurisprudence

22 of the Akayesu and Musema cases at the Rwanda Tribunal

23 have already held that similar acts of this nature

24 amount to torture, rape, and outrages upon personal

25 dignity. There is no doubt, we submit, that the acts

1 of sexual violence that the witnesses will recount are

2 serious violations of international humanitarian law

3 within the meaning and the mandate of the Tribunal's

4 Statute.

5 Providing the backdrop to this case is the

6 armed conflict that swept through Bosnia-Herzegovina in

7 the early 1990s. Of course, the Prosecution does not

8 intend to litigate the war. Everyone agrees that there

9 was an armed conflict at the time, and the origins of

10 that armed conflict are largely irrelevant, except to

11 the extent that it is necessary to demonstrate that

12 these crimes occurred within the context of a

13 widespread or systematic attack on the non-Serb

14 civilian population in the area. Having said that,

15 however, allow me to set forth a brief account of what

16 transpired in the Foca area in 1992.

17 If we could turn to the ELMO.

18 Prior to April 7th, 1992, the town of Foca

19 was an ethnically mixed community located on the banks

20 of the Drina River in south-eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina

21 near the Montenegrin border. Its inhabitants appeared

22 to coexist in relatively peaceful harmony, until

23 approximately 1990 when various nationalist political

24 parties began fomenting ethnic tension.

25 What you are about to see now is an

1 approximately one-minute excerpt of what is obviously a

2 home video taken by someone in April of 1991, about a

3 year prior to the war in Foca breaking out. As the

4 video footage starts, one of the first buildings to

5 come into view is a building known as the KP Dom, a

6 prison facility. The camera then pans to the right to

7 show the town of Foca, and incidentally, you will see

8 footage of the Partizan Sports Hall and a mosque.

9 These buildings will play a significant role in the

10 unfolding of the narrative of this trial.

11 Could we have the video.

12 [Videotape played]

13 MR. RYNEVELD: You can see that the video is

14 taken on the 3rd of April, 1991. Now we are seeing the

15 prison facility known as the KP Dom. There's a

16 close-up of the prison facility. That gives an idea of

17 the Drina River and the valley which houses the town of

18 Foca. The building that it's now zooming in on is the

19 Partizan Sports Hall. You will hear about that

20 facility as a place of detention. The building now is

21 the police building, known as the SUP, and there you

22 see a mosque.

23 By a slight majority, the population of Foca

24 municipality, prior to April 7, 1992, was predominantly

25 Muslim. As you will note on the map now on the ELMO,

1 this map shows the ethnic composition of the various

2 villages and communities within Foca municipality. You

3 can see from the legend that green means Muslim; red

4 means Serb; and blue means other. The large pie in the

5 top right-hand corner shows the ethnic composition of

6 the entire municipality, and the entire municipality,

7 of course, is the area in yellow. On the map itself

8 are the different ethnic compositions of each of the

9 settlements. The evidence will disclose that the

10 municipality of Foca had a pre-war population of 40.513

11 inhabitants, of whom roughly half, or 51.6 percent

12 were Muslim.

13 We will expect the evidence to show that the

14 war in Foca, much as it did in other regions of Bosnia

15 and Herzegovina, began on the 8th of April, 1992, and

16 continued with the take-over of the surrounding

17 villages throughout the summer of 1992.

18 Witnesses will also testify that fighting was

19 occurring in the surrounding municipalities of Gorazde,

20 which is being demonstrated on the ELMO, Gacko,

21 Kalinovik, and the areas bordering them, including

22 Trnovo and Rogoj.

23 The parties to this armed conflict were the

24 newly-declared Republika Srpska and the government of

25 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Foca was the scene of fighting

1 between the Republika Srpska army, the VRS, and the

2 army of Bosnis-Herzegovina, the ABiH. The Serb forces,

3 unlike the Muslims, were well-organised and equipped.

4 The fighting was protracted and was conducted by the

5 Serb forces with both light and heavy weaponry, and the

6 VRS was supported and equipped by the Yugoslav National

7 Army, the JNA. By contrast, the forces of the ABiH

8 were comprised of reserve police and Territorial

9 Defence units and were equipped with only light

10 weapons. By the summer of 1992, the VRS occupied the

11 town of Foca and the surrounding municipalities. As is

12 well-known, the greater war in Bosnia-Herzegovina

13 lasted until at least the signing of the Dayton Peace

14 Accord in December 1995. One of the major front lines

15 of that conflict was along the strategic axes running

16 between Sarajevo, Foca, and Gorazde, as is being shown

17 now on the ELMO.

18 In the period leading up to the commencement

19 of armed conflict, Foca and its surrounding villages

20 were torn with ethnic and religious strife. You will

21 be hearing from some of our initial witnesses about

22 that process of transformation. You will hear that

23 many Serb citizens of Foca turned on their Muslim

24 neighbours and professional colleagues ostracised

25 members of their profession of different ethnic or

1 religious affiliation. And that was only the beginning

2 of the protracted nightmare that lay in store for many

3 of the women and children that we will be hearing

4 about, and from, during the course of this trial.

5 The evidence will show that life as they knew

6 it changed drastically for the inhabitants of Foca on

7 the 8th of April, 1992. They became personally and

8 directly involved, as victims and not as participants,

9 in an armed conflict that was being waged throughout

10 Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Prosecutor asserts that the

11 attack on the non-Serb civilian population of Foca and

12 the surrounding area was also perpetrated by inflicting

13 acts of sexual violence committed against women and

14 girls. The attack was part of an organised and planned

15 campaign and policy of the Bosnian Serb authorities to

16 ethnically purge the Foca municipality of non-Serbs.

17 This policy to ethnically cleanse the Republika Srpska

18 was simultaneously implemented on various fronts

19 throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina. You will be hearing

20 from experts during the course of this trial who will

21 detail the background of the conflict and how

22 widespread and systematic the assault on the civilian

23 population was in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992.

24 Bosnian Serb forces started military action

25 and their soldiers and military police started

1 arresting non-Serb inhabitants. Foca became a

2 battleground. Its inhabitants and neighbourhoods were

3 specifically targeted for destruction, and as will

4 become obvious during the course of the trial, Muslim

5 houses were looted, burned, and destroyed.

6 You will now see an excerpt of a BBC News

7 broadcast, narrated by Martin Bell, describing what

8 happened to Foca on the day it fell to the Serbs.

9 [Videotape played]

10 MR. RYNEVELD: Similar to the pattern that

11 had developed in the rest of Bosnia, in what was a

12 widespread and systematic attack on the civilian

13 population, non-Serb residents were rounded up,

14 arrested, and detained with the men and the women

15 separated into two groups. The men were confined in

16 prisons such as the KP Dom, a former penitentiary for

17 the region, and the women and children were kept in the

18 detention centres such as the Foca High School and the

19 Partizan Sports Hall, localities that will play a large

20 part in the unfolding of the narrative of this trial.

21 As in other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the

22 area around Foca became part of a savage and inhuman

23 campaign of terror designed to drive away the non-Serbs

24 and to make the area ethnically pure. Nor was this

25 event an unexpected one. It had been planned for some

1 time by the Serb leadership, and ultimately implemented

2 on various fronts throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina at

3 approximately the same time. The inflammatory rhetoric

4 of the politicians threatening war and the secret arms

5 build-up by the Serbs demonstrates that the Serbs were

6 planning to go to war and knew that the Muslims were

7 unprepared to engage them.

8 You will now see a brief video clip of a

9 Parliamentary exchange between Mr. Karadzic and

10 Mr. Izetbegovic just prior to the war in which they

11 discuss the relative parties's preparedness for war.

12 [Videotape played]

13 MR. RYNEVELD: So effective was this

14 systematic attack on the non-Serb inhabitants of Foca,

15 and so thorough was the process of ethnic cleansing

16 that by the end of the war, Foca, which prior to the

17 war had been a predominantly Muslim town, was

18 exclusively composed of Serb residents. Indeed, so

19 effective and so thorough was this ethnic cleansing

20 that the town of Foca was renamed Srbinje after the

21 war, referring to its new entirely Serb composition.

22 Turning again to the ELMO, similar

23 circumstances befell the non-Serb inhabitants of the

24 neighbouring communities of Kalinovik and Gacko, as

25 shown on the map. You will hear from various witnesses

1 that starting in May 1992, they were driven from their

2 homes, arrested, and subsequently detained in the

3 Kalinovik Primary School, which served as a detention

4 facility similar to that of the Partizan Sports Hall in

5 Foca.

6 Although during the course of this trial,

7 among other things, you will be hearing evidence about

8 rapes and torture, sexual assaults and enslavement of a

9 number of girls and women, this is not just a rape case

10 like those in national jurisdictions. It must be

11 remembered that this is a trial about the crimes of a

12 policy of ethnic cleansing unleashed by the Bosnian

13 Serb leadership on the non-Serb civilian population.

14 These crimes were committed during an armed conflict

15 and were widespread and systematic.

16 It will become clear that what happened to

17 the Muslim women of Foca and surrounding area occurred

18 purely because of their ethnicity or religion and

19 because they were women. It will also become clear

20 that what befell them was either at the hands of these

21 three accused directly, or at the hands of individuals

22 who were subject, in the case of Kunarac, to his

23 authority.

24 Allow me to briefly introduce the backgrounds

25 of these accused to you. All three are Bosnian Serbs

1 born in the Foca region.

2 Dragoljub Kunarac, also known as Zaga or

3 Dragan, was born in Foca on the 15th of May, 1960.

4 Immediately prior to the war, he lived in Tivat,

5 Montenegro. He briefly returned to Foca in late May

6 1992, and again on the 6th of June, 1992, remaining

7 there until his arrest in 1998. He was involved in the

8 fighting in the Foca area, serving as a corporal in a

9 mine-clearing and reconnaissance unit. He apparently

10 was quite adept at his military duties, since we know

11 that not withstanding his relatively junior rank, he

12 commanded a detachment which bore his name, the

13 Independent Zaga Detachment, and which reported

14 directly to the battalion commander.

15 The second accused, Radomir Kovac, also known

16 as Klanfa, was born in Foca on the 31st of March, 1961

17 and was a permanent resident of the town. He was one

18 of the sub-commanders of the military police and was a

19 paramilitary leader in Foca. He was involved in the

20 attack on Foca and the surrounding villages and

21 participated in the arrest of civilians.

22 The third accused, Zoran Vukovic, was born in

23 the village of Brusna, in the municipality of Foca, and

24 was a permanent resident of the town of Foca. Prior to

25 the war, he worked as a waiter and a driver. Like

1 Radomir Kovac, Zoran Vukovic also participated in the

2 attack on Foca and the surrounding villages, and in the

3 arrest of civilians. He also served as one of the

4 sub-commanders of the local military police and as a

5 paramilitary leader in Foca.

6 The parties have stipulated that the offences

7 charged in this indictment occurred during an armed

8 conflict between, on the one hand, forces composed of

9 mostly ethnic Serbs, and on the other hand, forces

10 composed of mostly ethnic Muslims. Indeed, in some

11 instances, the Defence does not seem to contest that

12 the victims were, indeed, raped and sexually assaulted

13 in the manner that they will describe in their

14 testimony. The Defence only contests that these

15 accused committed the crimes or that these offences

16 were part of a planned, widespread or systematic attack

17 on the civilian population. The other contested issue,

18 of course, is one of the identities of the accused as

19 the ones who committed these offences.

20 The Prosecution submits that at the end of

21 the trial, the Trial Chamber will have no difficulty in

22 concluding that these offences occurred during a

23 widespread or systematic attack on the civilian

24 population. Nor will you have any difficulty in

25 concluding that the victims were indeed raped and

1 sexually assaulted in the manner that they will

2 describe in their testimony. Furthermore, for reasons

3 I will elaborate upon later in this opening address,

4 the Prosecution submits that the identification

5 evidence given by the victims, coupled with the

6 inferences to be drawn from the circumstantial

7 evidence, will satisfy you beyond a reasonable doubt on

8 the issue of identity of all three accused.

9 Turning next to the issue of victim

10 testimony.

11 Because this case involves multiple victims

12 at various locations, at various times at the hands of

13 multiple perpetrators, we have prepared some charts

14 that will hopefully assist you to keep track of exactly

15 what happened. These charts are based on the

16 information contained in the indictment and will assist

17 you in visualising how the victims were transferred

18 between various locations and which victim was raped at

19 which location by which accused.

20 Due to the complexity of the evidence and the

21 multiplicity of events and occurrences involving

22 multiple victims and multiple accused, it is difficult

23 to accurately depict the number of times the victims

24 were raped or assaulted at the locations noted on the

25 charts. You will hear in detail from the victims when,

1 where, and how often the accused raped and sexually

2 assaulted them.

3 With your permission, I would ask the usher

4 at this time to provide the Trial Chamber, as well as

5 my learned friends for the Defence, with copies of two

6 charts which we have prepared for ease of reference,

7 and I would ask that Mr. Mundis will be displaying

8 those on the ELMO during the course of my opening.

9 Each folder contains two charts. If I may refer first

10 to the time-line chart, that's the coloured one, it's

11 entitled "Overview - Places of Detention".

12 The first chart was prepared to show you in a

13 time-line form where the various victims were detained

14 and their transfer between the various locations that

15 will be referred to during the course of the trial. It

16 is important to remember when looking at this chart

17 that the Prosecution maintains that the victims were

18 continuously detained. Even when a witness testifies

19 that she was removed from a detention facility and

20 taken to another location to be raped and then returned

21 to the primary site of detention, they were

22 nevertheless still detained throughout. It is equally

23 important to point out that we take the position that

24 these women, in addition to being constantly detained,

25 were simultaneously subjected to or had reason to fear

1 violence, duress, and psychological oppression during

2 each of the crimes described in the indictment.

3 I'll return to that chart in a moment. I

4 just want to introduce the second chart, which is

5 entitled "Locations, Victims, Perpetrators". It's now

6 on the ELMO.

7 The second chart outlines in visual form the

8 allegations in the indictment where the victims were

9 raped and by whom. It shows that although some of the

10 victims were raped where they were detained, most of

11 them were not. They were instead taken to other

12 locations, raped there, and then returned to the

13 detention facility. It is important to keep in mind

14 that this chart also does not depict how many times

15 each victim was raped at each location. I will be

16 referring to both charts from time to time during the

17 opening.

18 If you'd be so kind as to turn with me again

19 to that time-line chart, I propose to describe it.

20 As you can see on the left, the time-line

21 chart begins on the 8th of April, 1992. On that date,

22 you will hear, the attack on Foca began. You can also

23 see from the chart that at the outset of these

24 detention periods, there were two main groups of

25 detainees: those initially detained at Buk Bijela and

1 then at Foca High School, and those who were initially

2 detained at Kalinovik Primary School. In addition,

3 there were a smaller group of girls from Miljevina who

4 were arrested and detained in the Partizan Sports

5 Hall. These three groups of women and girls were later

6 brought together and detained at Karaman's House, which

7 is the red box in the middle.

8 You will note that the charts refer to

9 various locations in and around Foca, and I would like

10 to briefly describe a couple of these locations for you

11 at the outset. And perhaps we can have some

12 photographs on the ELMO, and I would ask the

13 audiovisual people to display those. Thank you.

14 The first photograph we now see on the ELMO

15 is the Buk Bijela. That is a settlement on a

16 hydroelectric dam construction site near Foca. After

17 April 1992, it was turned into a local military

18 headquarters, and some of the victims in this case were

19 briefly detained at this location before being

20 transferred to the Foca High School. Now, the Foca

21 High School, you'll see, is named the Aladza High

22 School. That's the same facility. It's now on the

23 ELMO. The victims were then subsequently transferred

24 to the Partizan Sports Hall. The Partizan Sports Hall

25 was located in Foca adjacent to the police headquarters

1 building, known as the SUP, S-U-P, and they were

2 detained there.

3 Ulica Osmana Djikica 16 served as

4 Mr. Kunarac's headquarters and those of his men. The

5 photograph now depicts not a building, because the

6 building is gone. Mr. Mundis is pointing out sort of

7 the green area where the building was at the time.

8 That building has subsequently been destroyed.

9 Although it was subsequently destroyed, it stood at the

10 location indicated on the photograph, and this was the

11 place where, by Mr. Kunarac's own account, his men

12 rested between missions and spent their time off.

13 Kunarac himself has acknowledged being there, as you

14 will hear shortly. This house also served as a rape

15 house, as numerous victims will testify.

16 The next photograph is of Karaman's House.

17 Karaman's House, which was formerly a Muslim family's

18 residence and which some victims will refer to as the

19 "tailor's house," was used as a detention centre.

20 We next see the building known as the Brena

21 Block, which was an apartment complex in Foca where

22 several victims were taken and raped. Moreover, the

23 accused Kovac maintained an apartment, which was also

24 formerly the residence of a Muslim family, in this

25 complex. You recall hear witnesses describe this

1 apartment as Klanfa's Apartment and what occurred to

2 them there.

3 Next we have a photograph of the Hotel

4 Zelengora. You will hear references to this Hotel.

5 The next is the KP Dom, that building that

6 you also saw on that 1991 home video, which although

7 it's not central to the events in this case, this was

8 the place where many of the non-Serb male residents and

9 the occasional female resident were detained.

10 Turning now to the map, I want to deal next

11 with what happened to the women and girls at the Buk

12 Bijela and Foca High School.

13 On about the 3rd of July, the villages of

14 Trosanj and Mjesaja in the vicinity of Foca were

15 attacked by soldiers including Zoran Vukovic, and

16 Radomir Kovac. As part of this attack, a group of

17 about 60 non-Serb women, children, and elderly persons

18 were taken to Buk Bijela where they were detained for

19 the day. While at Buk Bijela, Zoran Vukovic conducted

20 the interrogations of the women and threatened them

21 with murder and sexual assault if they lied. Several

22 of the girls and younger women were raped at Buk

23 Bijela. Following their brief detention in Buk Bijela,

24 these civilians were transferred and detained at the

25 Foca High School.

1 You can see from the time-line chart that

2 these detainees were kept there until the 13th of July,

3 1992, when they were transferred to the Partizan Sports

4 Hall, where most of them remained until about the 13th

5 of August, when they were deported to Montenegro.

6 The sexual assaults, rapes, gang-rapes, and

7 degradations were a daily occurrence from the outset of

8 detention, starting at Buk Bijela for some of the

9 victims. Among them were Witness 50, Witness 75,

10 Witness 87, and Witness 95. A military police

11 organisation known as Cosa's Guards, of which both the

12 accused Kovac and the accused Vukovic were members,

13 were responsible for these crimes, it is alleged. The

14 accused and/or their associates threatened to kill many

15 of these women and/or their children if they resisted

16 being sexually assaulted. If they nevertheless did

17 resist, soldiers, including the accused Zoran Vukovic,

18 beat them.

19 These crimes continued on a daily basis

20 during their subsequent detention at the Foca High

21 School. On the 6th or 7th of July, 1992, Zoran Vukovic

22 was involved in the selection of Witness 50,

23 Witness 75, Witness 87, and Witness 95 sometime during

24 the first week of July. The women were taken to a

25 separate classroom in the Foca High School, distributed

1 among several soldiers, and forced to remove their

2 clothing. Each woman was then raped. The evidence

3 will show that Zoran Vukovic personally raped

4 Witness 87 on that occasion. You can see this depicted

5 on the perpetrator's chart as well.

6 On at least five other occasions between 8

7 July and 13 July 1992, Witness 75 and Witness 87 were

8 again taken to another classroom at Foca High School

9 and raped by the accused Vukovic.

10 Turning back to the time-line chart, if we

11 may. As I mentioned earlier, selected victims were

12 transferred from the Foca High School to Partizan on

13 the 13th of July, 1992. Once detained at Partizan

14 Sports Hall, four of the victims initially detained at

15 Buk Bijela were taken on various occasions to other

16 locations by the accused and their soldier colleagues

17 for the express purpose of rape and sexual assault.

18 For example, on the perpetrator chart, you can see that

19 Witness 75, which is -- the witnesses are up along the

20 top column -- Witness 87 and DB were raped on 13 July

21 1992, at Ulica Osmana Djikica 16, which will also be

22 referred to as Kunarac's headquarters. On this

23 occasion, the accused Kunarac and three other soldiers

24 raped Witness 87. Several other soldiers

25 simultaneously raped Witness 75 at that location.

1 On the same night, after they had been

2 returned to the Partizan Sports Hall, the accused

3 Kunarac went back to Partizan and took two of the same

4 three women, Witness 75 and Witness 87, as well as

5 Witness 48, to the Hotel Zelengora. You will hear that

6 Witness 48 refused to go with him and Kunarac kicked

7 her and dragged her out. She was then taken to a room

8 at Hotel Zelengora, where both the accused Kunarac and

9 the accused Vukovic raped her that night. She was then

10 told that she would now give birth to Serb babies.

11 On or about the following day, the 14th of

12 July, 1992, Witness 50 was taken to an apartment near

13 Partizan and raped by the accused Vukovic.

14 Witness 95, one of the other women initially

15 detained at Buk Bijela and subsequently transferred to

16 Partizan, was taken out by the accused Kunarac on at

17 least two occasions between the 13th of July and the

18 2nd of August, 1992. On the first occasion, the

19 accused Kunarac took her and two other women to his

20 headquarters, where he took her into a room and

21 personally raped her. Later that evening, three other

22 soldiers also raped her. On the second occasion, after

23 the accused Kunarac took her to Ulica Osmana Djikica

24 16, two or three soldiers again raped her.

25 On the following day, the 14th of July, 1992,

1 or thereabouts, Witness 48, along with Witness 87 and

2 another woman, were taken from Partizan and transported

3 to the Brena Block apartments. When they arrived, the

4 accused Zoran Vukovic was waiting with another

5 soldier. Vukovic then raped Witness 48, while his

6 soldier friend raped Witness 87.

7 During that same month, July of 1992,

8 Witness 87 was frequently removed from Partizan and

9 raped, and on one occasion gang-raped by four men,

10 including Zoran Vukovic.

11 In addition, you will hear that Witness 48

12 was raped by Zoran Vukovic again on the 15th of July,

13 but this time he was a participant in a gang-rape

14 perpetrated upon her by eight or more soldiers. This

15 assault took place in an empty Muslim house in the

16 Aladza neighbourhood. At the time of this episode,

17 Witness 48 had been threatened by one of the soldiers

18 to have her throat slashed if she resisted. Zoran

19 Vukovic, who apparently was the sixth man in succession

20 to rape her, bit her nipples until they bled and then

21 pinched her breasts until she fainted from the pain.

22 Vukovic also raped her at the Brena Block on July 23,

23 1992 and at the same location on 12 August 1992. The

24 witness herself will tell you the details of those

25 assaults.

1 Thus, the evidence will show that Witness 50,

2 Witness 75, Witness 87, and Witness 95 were removed

3 from Partizan Sports Hall and raped and sexual

4 assaulted by Serb soldiers almost every night of their

5 detention between the 13th of July and the 13th of

6 August, 1992. They would be taken to one of those

7 various locations, on the left-hand column of the

8 perpetrator's chart, raped and then returned to

9 Partizan.

10 You can see from the time-line chart that 2

11 August 1992 has been highlighted as a significant

12 date. On that day, the Aladza Mosque was destroyed, a

13 fact that is undisputed. And although some of the

14 witnesses may be uncertain with respect to precise

15 dates, they will be able to relate events to the date

16 when the mosque was destroyed.

17 So on the 2nd of August, 1992, the night the

18 Aladza Mosque was destroyed, the accused Kunarac again

19 took Witness 50 and three other women to his

20 headquarters. There she was raped by an unknown

21 Montenegrin soldier who threatened to cut off her arms

22 and legs and take her to a church in order to baptise

23 her.

24 This date is significant because it was on

25 the eve of the destruction of the mosque that the

1 accused Kunarac took some of the detainees from both

2 the Partizan Sports Hall and the Kalinovik Primary

3 School to his headquarters. These two groups were

4 subsequently moved to and detained at Karaman's House

5 in Miljevina. Thus, in essence, selected members of

6 the two groups of detainees were brought together for

7 the first time from different detention locations.

8 Turning, if I may, next to the group that

9 came from Kalinovik. You will see from the time-line

10 chart that a group of women and children from Gacko and

11 Kalinovik had been detained at Kalinovik since about

12 the 4th of July, at approximately the same time that

13 the Trosanj and the Mjesaja women had been collected

14 and detained at Buk Bijela and Foca High School.

15 These groups in essence, had been detained in

16 separate facilities. However, the evidence will show

17 that selected victims were removed from both detention

18 centres and taken to various houses in Foca, including

19 Karaman's House, where some of them were subjected to

20 sexual assaults, rapes, torture, and degradations, at

21 the hands of the accused Kunarac and his associates.

22 Other victims were transferred by the accused Kunarac

23 to different locations and raped.

24 The time line also shows that the Kalinovik

25 school detention facility continued to operate for the

1 balance of the detainees from Gacko and Kalinovik until

2 about 1 September 1992.

3 But the horrors of detention and abuses did

4 not end for some of the unfortunate victims from either

5 the Partizan group or the Kalinovik group with the

6 transfer or deportation to Montenegro of the balance of

7 the detainees. No. Instead, these selected victims

8 were subjected to daily and frequent atrocities at the

9 hands of multiple perpetrators, including the accused

10 Kunarac, both at Karaman's House until about

11 mid-October 1992, and at a house in Trnovace.

12 On the 2nd of August, 1992, the accused

13 Kunarac and two other soldiers took Witness 186,

14 Witness 191, and JG, who had earlier been detained at

15 Kalinovik, from his headquarters to the abandoned house

16 of Halid Cedic in Trnovace. Once at this house, the

17 soldiers divided the girls amongst themselves and raped

18 them. The perpetrators' chart shows that at this

19 house, the accused Kunarac raped Witness 191.

20 Witness 186 and Witness 191 were kept in this

21 house for approximately six months. During this

22 period, the accused Kunarac constantly raped

23 Witness 191 for a two-month period, while another

24 soldier raped Witness 186 during the entire six-month

25 period.

1 As mentioned earlier, the accused Kunarac

2 transferred Witness 75 and Witness 87 from Partizan to

3 Karaman's House on the 2nd of August, 1992. These

4 witnesses, along with seven other women, were detained

5 in this house until the end of October 1992. While so

6 detained, they were forced to perform household chores

7 and were frequently raped and sexually assaulted.

8 On or about the 30th of October, 1992, four

9 of the young victims, 75, 87, A.S., and A.B., were

10 taken by associates of the accused Kovac from Karaman's

11 House and handed over to the accused Kovac the

12 following day near the Ribarski Fish Restaurant in the

13 centre of Foca. The accused Kovac and another soldier

14 then transferred these victims to an apartment in the

15 Brena Block occupied by the accused Kovac, referred to

16 as Klanfa's Apartment. While at Klanfa's Apartment,

17 the victims were continually subjected to rapes, sexual

18 assaults, torture, and degradations, including being

19 forced at gunpoint to undress and dance naked on a

20 table. On one occasion at this apartment, Witness 75

21 was ordered to have sex with another soldier, and when

22 she refused to do so, she was beaten.

23 Towards the middle or the end of November

24 1992, two of the victims, Witness 75 and A.B., were

25 taken from this flat to a house near the Hotel

1 Zelengora, where for a period of about 20 days, they

2 were constantly sexually assaulted by a group of

3 soldiers. These two victims were then transported to

4 another location, a flat in Pod Masala, a neighbourhood

5 in Foca, where they were raped for an additional 15

6 days before being returned to the accused Kovac on or

7 about the 25th of December, 1992. Later that evening,

8 as the soldiers drank and shot through the windows of

9 the flat, Kovac sold A.B. to another soldier for 200

10 Deutschemarks. Victim A.B., who was 12 years old at

11 the time, has never been located since, and remains

12 missing to this day.

13 The following day, December 26th or

14 thereabouts, Witness 75 was handed over by Kovac to

15 another soldier in Kovac's group, and from there she

16 was taken by numerous other soldiers to various

17 locations where she was subjected to repeated rape and

18 sexual assault until the 5th of March, 1993, when a

19 sympathetic soldier finally helped her to escape.

20 While A.B. and Witness 75 were subjected to

21 these indignities, Witness 87 and A.S. remained in

22 Kovac's flat in the Brena Block from on or about the

23 30th of October, 1992 until the 25th of February,

24 1993. During this period of detention, the victims

25 were subjected to constant rape and sexual assault in a

1 manner that amounted to enslavement. Throughout this

2 period of nearly four months, they were also forced to

3 cook and clean for Kovac and one of his associates. On

4 the 25th of February, 1993, Kovac and his associate

5 sold Witness 87 and A.S. to two Montenegrins for 500

6 Deutschemarks each. The victims were then transported

7 to Montenegro where they were subjected to more sexual

8 violence and where they were forced to work as

9 barmaids until their escape on the 5th of April, 1993.

10 The accused Kunarac is also charged with the

11 rape of Witness 183, who was taken from her home, an

12 apartment in Foca, to a location on the banks of the

13 Cehotina River near Velecevo and raped in mid-July

14 1992. The accused Kunarac and two of his soldiers

15 suspected this woman of sending messages out over a

16 radio. After looting her apartment, the three men took

17 her to the Cehotina River, which is a tributary of the

18 Drina River, threatened to kill her and slaughter her

19 son and then raped her. During the rapes, the accused

20 Kunarac taunted the witness by telling her that she

21 would not know which of the three rapists would be the

22 father of her son. After returning her to her

23 apartment, the accused Kunarac robbed her of all her

24 gold and money, and this incident is shown on the

25 bottom of the perpetrator's chart as well.

1 Even though this last incident involves an

2 isolated rape of one victim at one location, this case

3 is emphatically not about an isolated rape of one

4 victim at one location. This was an organised campaign

5 of rape and sexual assault upon various women at

6 various locations over a prolonged period of time.

7 Look at the perpetrator chart with me for a moment, and

8 you will see the pattern established.

9 You will undoubtedly keep this in mind while

10 deliberating on the evidence of the various victims who

11 were raped at various locations at various times.

12 The witnesses will tell you what happened to

13 them, how they were assaulted, raped, and tortured.

14 They will describe their terror and their feeling of

15 helplessness. They will tell you who do this to them.

16 However, it must always be remembered that the victims

17 are being asked to testify many years after the event

18 and, consequently, there may be minor discrepancies in

19 details.

20 These events occurred in 1992 and early 1993,

21 and it is understandable that memories may have faded

22 or details become less precise. The important facts,

23 however, remain indelibly etched into the memories of

24 the victims. The details that made an impression will

25 remain clear, and the reliability and credibility of

1 these witnesses will not, and should not, be eroded

2 simply because of time.

3 In some instances, the witnesses gave signed

4 statements much closer in time to the events than

5 today, and we will rely in part on those statements,

6 when necessary, to fill in some gaps. But those

7 instances will be rare, and the heart of the

8 Prosecution evidence will be based on what the

9 witnesses say in court over the next few weeks.

10 A few words about identification, if I may.

11 In many instances, the victims were forced to live in

12 close contact with the accused over a long period of

13 time. Identity of the accused is not an issue in these

14 circumstances. In other instances, the contact was

15 much shorter, and the witnesses can only identify the

16 perpetrators through bits and pieces of identification,

17 such as their recognition of the accused from before

18 the war, or their opportunity to observe the accused on

19 one or more occasions.

20 In some instances, the witnesses may have

21 been shown photoboards of individuals and have been

22 asked to determine if they recognise anyone from

23 photographs. Often, recognition comes from a

24 combination of recognising facial features or

25 mannerisms, or gait, or voice, or unique features of

1 how people move or stand or behave. In those cases,

2 in-court identification may prove to be of more

3 assistance in establishing identity. In some cases,

4 the witnesses did not know who their attackers were at

5 the time. In those instances, inferences may have to

6 be drawn from circumstantial evidence and hearsay

7 evidence with respect to names of perpetrators given to

8 them by other witnesses or fellow captives.

9 Thus, there are basically three categories of

10 witnesses as they relate to identification. The first

11 category is comprised of those witnesses who did not

12 know the accused prior to the commission of the crimes,

13 but who observed the accused over a lengthy period of

14 time during which the crimes were committed. We submit

15 that the credibility of these witnesses relating to

16 identity will not be a problem. For example, the

17 accused Kovac detained Witness 75 and 87 for prolonged

18 periods of time, and we contend that therefore their

19 identification of him will be credible and reliable.

20 The same can be said of several of the witnesses with

21 respect to the accused Kunarac.

22 The second category of witnesses are those

23 who knew the accused prior to the commission of the

24 offences. Like the first category, their credibility

25 regarding the identity of the accused should not be an

1 issue.

2 The third category involves witnesses who did

3 not know the accused prior to the commission of the

4 offences and who only saw the accused once. With

5 regard to this third category of witnesses, we contend

6 that circumstantial evidence, combined with the

7 in-court identification of these witnesses, will

8 convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused

9 sitting before you are indeed the ones who committed

10 these crimes.

11 It must also be remembered that many of the

12 victims were emotionally and psychologically scarred by

13 their experiences at the hands of their attackers.

14 However, as the Trial Chamber in the Furundzija case

15 explicitly recognised, victims who have suffered

16 traumatic experiences are not necessarily unreliable.

17 When assessing the credibility of any

18 witness, the Court will look at all the usual factors

19 in determining whether the witness is reliable. They

20 are, of course, different in each instance, and I will

21 not attempt to numerate them here. One factor that the

22 Court may take into account, however, is the similarity

23 of the method or pattern of conduct used by the accused

24 in taking the women out of the detention centres for

25 the purpose of rape and sexual assault. Another may be

1 the frequency of the complaints by various witnesses

2 that may tend to corroborate one another. In other

3 words, a pattern of conduct may be established from

4 which the Court may draw inferences that tend to

5 support complaints by some witnesses in those cases

6 where identity may be less clear.

7 Before I move on to our theories of

8 liability, allow me to comment on two final points

9 regarding the testimony of the victims. First,

10 pursuant to Rule 96, no corroboration is necessary for

11 the testimony of victims of sexual assault; and,

12 second, unlike many domestic rapes, the offences

13 committed in this case were often done in the full view

14 of others, or in rooms where several women were being

15 raped simultaneously. Thus, many of the victims will

16 testify not only about what happened to them, but also

17 as to what happened to others at the same time.

18 The theories of liability. I will now

19 attempt to highlight the Prosecution's theory of

20 liability with respect to the accused Kunarac. I do

21 not propose to deal in this opening statement at any

22 great length with issues of law, such as criminal

23 responsibility, under Statute Article 7(1), or such

24 issues as intent, because the Prosecutor's position has

25 been thoroughly detailed in our pre-trial brief. Nor

1 will I dwell on legal issues involving the accused

2 Kovac or Vukovic, since they are charged only with

3 Article 7(1) individual criminal responsibility.

4 Rather, my focus in this opening will be on factual

5 issues relating to some of the legal considerations.

6 With that in mind, I propose now to turn next to the

7 issue of Kunarac's criminal responsibility under

8 Article 7(3).

9 With respect to the accused Kunarac, the

10 Prosecution will prove that he was guilty under both

11 Article 7(1) and Article 7(3) of the Statute. With

12 respect to Article 7(1), the Prosecution contends that

13 Kunarac was a perpetrator and as such committed acts of

14 rape, torture, enslavement, and outrages upon personal

15 dignity. The Prosecution also submits, as stated in

16 our pre-trial brief, that Kunarac's liability under

17 Article 7(1) could be based on his participation in the

18 collective criminal conduct or in his acts of aiding

19 and abetting others to commit sexual crimes.

20 As a commander, he can also be liable under

21 the provisions of Article 7(1) if his actions in this

22 position actually contributed to the commission of the

23 crimes. The Prosecution will establish Kunarac's

24 culpability in accord with the theory of command

25 responsibility for the offences committed by the

1 soldiers under his command. This culpability is based

2 on his failure to either prevent or stop the offences

3 committed by his subordinates or by his failure to

4 report or to punish his subordinates who committed

5 rapes and other acts of sexual violence. In so doing,

6 Kunarac is liable and can be convicted under both

7 Articles 7(1) and 7(3).

8 The Prosecution asserts that the evidence of

9 his participation as a perpetrator will be convincing

10 and overwhelming with respect to Article 7(1).

11 Similarly, we submit that evidence of his superior

12 authority and failure to punish and report will result

13 in his conviction under Article 7(3).

14 The Prosecution anticipates that during the

15 course of the victims' testimony, it will become very

16 clear that Dragoljub Kunarac had actual knowledge of

17 the illegal activities occurring at his headquarters at

18 Ulica Osmana Djikica 16. That was the place where he

19 met his men, where he selected soldiers for various

20 assignments, where they returned to reside after

21 returning from battle, and where some of them lived.

22 That was also the place, among others, where many of

23 the victims you will hear from during the course of

24 this trial were taken from Partizan between the 13th of

25 July to the 2nd of August, 1992, and from other

1 locations at other times; raped, brutalised, assaulted

2 and abused, both by Kunarac personally and by his men.

3 Not only did he personally rape some of them

4 on several different occasions, but he was also

5 physically present when his men divided the women up

6 amongst them and raped them. He was also --

7 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speaker please

8 slow down.

9 MR. RYNEVELD: He was also the one who often

10 transported the women from Partizan and other places to

11 his headquarters for purposes of rape. However, based

12 on his position as a commander, he is also criminally

13 responsible under Article 7(3) for the rapes at this

14 house even when he was not present, on the basis that

15 he failed to prevent these rapes from occurring or

16 failed to punish those responsible.

17 Now, the accused Kunarac claims that he had

18 no idea what was going on at his headquarters. Let's

19 look at the perpetrator's chart. If you look at the

20 perpetrator chart in the column opposite Ulica Osmana

21 Djikica 16, you will count that there are seven

22 witnesses who will describe being raped by Kunarac

23 personally or by Kunarac's men with his knowledge or

24 participation at that location. Even just considering

25 the sheer number of victims and the lengthy time

1 interval during which these rapes and assaults took

2 place, we submit that there is no air of reality to his

3 contention he did not know what was going on.

4 We know from his interview given to

5 investigators shortly after his arrest that the accused

6 Kunarac initially admitted a number of things, although

7 in perfect fairness, in a later statement, he attempts

8 to back away from some of those earlier admissions.

9 You will have an opportunity to hear the entire

10 interviews during the evidence of Mr. Brett Simpson,

11 the OTP's investigator in this case who primarily

12 conducted the first interview. I propose now, however,

13 to play certain extracts of that interview which

14 highlight some of the points I wish to make during this

15 opening.

16 With respect to his role as a commander of a

17 special reconnaissance unit, Kunarac had the following

18 to say in the following two brief excerpts of his

19 initial interview.

20 Could we have the footage, please.

21 [Videotape played]

22 MR. RYNEVELD: And skipping ahead to the

23 second portion.

24 [Videotape played]

25 MR. RYNEVELD: Mr. Kunarac has acknowledged

1 that some of his men stayed at the house at Ulica

2 Osmana Djikica 16.

3 Go ahead.

4 [Videotape played]

5 MR. RYNEVELD: Moreover, Kunarac admits that

6 he was at the house at Ulica Osmana Djikica 16.

7 [Videotape played]

8 MR. RYNEVELD: It can be seen from the

9 indictment and the perpetrator's chart that the accused

10 Kunarac was involved in sexual assaults over a

11 prolonged period of time, on different occasions with

12 multiple victims at multiple locations. At times he

13 committed the acts alone, sometimes in the company of

14 others, and at yet other times was there while other

15 soldiers committed the acts with his express or implied

16 knowledge and consent. We will prove his involvement

17 by a variety of means:

18 a) direct identification by the victims and

19 witnesses who say that he was the one who raped them or

20 others in their presence;

21 b) direct identification by witnesses who saw

22 him take victims away;

23 c) identification by witnesses to whom Zaga

24 was pointed out to them;

25 d) identification by witnesses who knew what

1 he looked like but did not know his name and who heard

2 what he was called by means of hearsay evidence;

3 e) identification by circumstantial evidence,

4 in relation to other known facts;

5 f) identification by witnesses who knew him

6 or knew of him prior to the outbreak of hostilities;

7 g) his pattern of conduct; and

8 h) the accused's own statement and

9 testimony.

10 The accused Kunarac claims that he was

11 elsewhere during some of the times when these crimes

12 were committed and, therefore, could not have committed

13 them. However, the evidence will show that during the

14 times he alleges he was at the battlefront, the various

15 locations in Foca where the crimes were committed were

16 a short driving distance away and accessible to him.

17 Indeed, on the night of August 2nd, when the mosque was

18 destroyed, the accused admits he was in Foca and heard

19 the detonation. He only denies that he was at the

20 tailor's house or at Partizan.

21 In the armed conflict that engulfed

22 Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s, it may be said that

23 the three accused sitting before you were not

24 particularly major players. They are not the ones who

25 hatched the diabolical policy that resulted in the

1 deaths of thousands of individuals including innocent

2 civilians. They are not the ones who contrived the

3 policy of ethnic cleansing. They are not the ones who

4 ordered the wholesale destruction of villages. They

5 are also not the ones who determined that the Muslim

6 culture that dated back for centuries in

7 Bosnia-Herzegovina should be decimated.

8 But make no mistake about it: there would

9 have been no ethnic cleansing if there were not

10 individuals willing to turn on their neighbours, to

11 unleash terror and hatred, to turn multi-ethnic

12 communities into homogenous communities and to leave

13 scarred victims. Unlike the policymakers who dealt in

14 theories and plans, these were the individuals who

15 rounded up innocent women and girls, then raped them,

16 or sexually assaulted them, tortured them, enslaved

17 them, and then, in some cases, exchanged, sold, or

18 transferred them to other soldiers. These accused are

19 the individuals who gang-raped these women, while

20 boasting that the women would give birth to Serb babies

21 in order to further humiliate them.

22 As you listen to the evidence that is about

23 to unfold throughout the course of this trial, there

24 will be times when it will be difficult to fathom the

25 depths of despair and the horror that these victims

1 went through. You, as experienced professionals, may

2 have heard evidence of this nature previously during

3 the course of your legal and judicial careers. You do

4 not need me to tell you how such experiences may have

5 affected the lives of the survivors.

6 Nevertheless, imagine, if you will, what

7 these women must have felt in their unique

8 circumstances. They were unprotected, captive, and

9 afraid for their lives. The laws available to protect

10 them were repeatedly violated. The structure of their

11 lives had been shaken, turned upside-down, and

12 demolished by the events that overtook them in 1992.

13 They had seen friends and family members beaten and

14 killed. Their Serb captors seemingly had power to do

15 with them what they wanted. There was no avenue of

16 escape, no entity to protect them, no shred of hope to

17 cling to. Their humiliation was complete. Some of

18 them were owned by their captors, used, abused, and

19 later disposed of as they saw fit.

20 This may help to put into perspective some of

21 the evidence that I anticipate you will hear from the

22 various witnesses. Against this backdrop that I have

23 just painted, you will hear, for example, the witnesses

24 describe their ordeal in the following terms:

25 "I was raped by many soldiers that night,

1 one after the other."

2 "I was out of my myself, like a machine in

3 their hands."

4 "I felt horrible. During these months, I

5 felt like an object that was being constantly

6 exchanged. I never knew what was going to happen to me

7 the following days. All the time I was afraid for my

8 life."

9 Your Honours, at the end of this trial, we

10 submit, the Prosecution's evidence will prove the

11 culpability of these accused beyond a reasonable

12 doubt. The International Community demands that crimes

13 of sexual violence be exposed, prosecuted, and punished

14 according to international law. Accordingly, Your

15 Honours, the Prosecution will be asking you to find

16 each of the accused guilty as charged.

17 Thank you.

18 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you very much,

19 Mr. Ryneveld. I will ask my colleagues if they want to

20 ask any questions. Thank you very much. We do not

21 have any questions for you, Mr. Ryneveld.

22 I'm looking at the time now. We have eight

23 minutes. Mr. Registrar, I hope that that clock is

24 correct. So it's close to our time for taking a

25 break. I wanted to find out from the Defence counsel

1 if they wanted to make their statements soon after the

2 Prosecutor's statement.

3 Mr. Prodanovic.

4 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your

5 Honours, we do not have the intention of presenting

6 our -- any statements after what the Prosecutor has set

7 out. We're going to be making our introductory address

8 after the Prosecution presents its evidence.

9 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you.

10 Is that the same, Mr. Kolesar?

11 MR. KOLESAR: [Interpretation] Your Honours,

12 that is also true for the Defence of the accused

13 Mr. Kovac.

14 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you.

15 MR. JOVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours,

16 the position for us is the same as for my colleagues.

17 Thank you.

18 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you very much. I think

19 we'll take a break, and we'll enjoy the luxury of the

20 extra minutes since this is the first day. The Trial

21 Chamber will rise and will resume proceedings at 11.30

22 hours.

23 --- Recess taken at 10.55 a.m.

24 --- On resuming at 11.32 a.m.

25 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. We are ready to proceed.

1 Is the Prosecution ready to proceed?

2 MR. RYNEVELD: If it please the Court, we are

3 prepared to proceed. I wonder, whether before we call

4 our first witness, there were some preliminary matters

5 we can address in order to ensure that everything is

6 understood by everyone.

7 The first matter is a matter of the

8 stipulations which have been the issue of pre-trial

9 matters, but I wonder whether there's a way in which we

10 can now formally have those stipulations made part of

11 the record, and I've asked Ms. Kuo to deal with those

12 issues. I don't know how the Chamber wishes to deal

13 with it, but as you're aware, we have filed the

14 stipulations, and I just want to ensure that my learned

15 friends and the Prosecution are in accord and that

16 those stipulations, indeed, are part of the record. I

17 don't know how you wish us to handle that, but that's

18 why I'm raising it.

19 JUDGE MUMBA: Can we just have you mention

20 each one of them and the date they were filed for

21 purposes of identification?

22 MR. RYNEVELD: Yes. I'll ask Ms. Kuo to

23 handle that, if I may.

24 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

25 Ms. Kuo.

1 MS. KUO: Thank you, Your Honours. On the

2 1st of February, 2000, the Prosecution filed a

3 Prosecution submission regarding admissions of fact and

4 issues not in contention regarding Mr. Kunarac and

5 Mr. Kovac.

6 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. Can you wait for

7 Mr. Prodanovic and Mr. Kolesar? You have understood

8 what the Prosecution are saying?

9 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your

10 Honours. We had to wait a little bit to get the

11 interpretation. But, yes, it is correct, and we have

12 agreed and the joint proposal I hope went to the Trial

13 Chamber, that is to say, to you yourself.

14 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. In terms of having them

15 as admitted documents, I'll ask the registrar that

16 since we have almost every exhibit numbered, we can

17 start with the last to next number so that we don't

18 confuse the numbering. So that one will be exhibit

19 number -- can you give us the number?

20 MS. KUO: Your Honours, it should be number

21 174.

22 JUDGE MUMBA: It should be 174.

23 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Yes, that's

24 right. The document will be marked 174.

25 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you. The next one.

1 MS. KUO: The second submission was filed on

2 8th March, 200, and it's entitled Prosecution

3 submission regarding admissions and contested matters

4 regarding the accused Zoran Vukovic.

5 JUDGE MUMBA: Mr. Jovanovic, for the

6 accused.

7 MR. JOVANOVIC: [Interpretation] We are in

8 full agreement with our learned colleagues from the

9 Prosecution, and as far as I know, that has been sent

10 to the Trial Chamber as well.

11 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you. It will be exhibit

12 number?

13 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] It will be

14 Exhibit 175.

15 MR. RYNEVELD: There are some other minor

16 matters. I can tell the Court that in an effort to

17 reduce the necessary -- the necessity of calling some

18 military and political experts, we have instead decided

19 to call a Mr. Subasic, and we have some additional

20 summaries of his evidence and I have about 15 copies of

21 that that are, perhaps -- copies can be distributed now

22 both to the bench and to my learned friends, with your

23 permission. We think that we may be able to reduce the

24 necessity of calling some experts by adding this

25 witness to the list. That's Mr. Subasic,

1 S-u-b-a-s-i-c.

2 JUDGE MUMBA: What is his full name?

3 MR. RYNEVELD: Excuse me.

4 JUDGE MUMBA: The full name?

5 MR. RYNEVELD: Yes. It's Osman Subasic.

6 O-s-m-a-n S-u-b-a-s-i-c. And we have a summary of that

7 witness statement here and we would ask perhaps our

8 case manager present it to the usher for distribution.

9 JUDGE MUMBA: And you are saying he is an

10 expert witness?

11 MR. RYNEVELD: No. He would be more of a

12 fact witness, but we take the view that with this fact

13 witness, it will obviate the necessity to call an

14 expert who, in our view, perhaps might encroach an area

15 in which this bench is, in fact, the experts on

16 international law. Rather than call an expert to tell

17 you about something in which you are an expert already,

18 we thought it would be best to do it by way of fact

19 witnesses.

20 JUDGE MUMBA: So that will be Prosecution

21 witness number --

22 MR. RYNEVELD: We haven't actually given him

23 a number, but I --

24 JUDGE MUMBA: No, just in terms of number of

25 witnesses. It adds to the number, doesn't it?

1 MR. RYNEVELD: Sorry. Yes, and there's

2 another one as well.

3 JUDGE MUMBA: That will be 39.

4 MR. RYNEVELD: That will be 39.

5 JUDGE MUMBA: That will bring the

6 Prosecution's witnesses to 39.

7 MR. RYNEVELD: Yes. Thank you. And the

8 fortieth witness, I can tell the Court that we have

9 just last week made contact with the individual

10 referred to throughout as A.S. She has been referred

11 to in the indictment, referred to in the opening and we

12 only managed to get in touch with her last week. We

13 don't have a formal statement, but we have interviewed

14 her informally and, again, we have summaries of her

15 evidence which we would ask to distribute to both the

16 Defence and the bench at this time --

17 JUDGE MUMBA: Regarding that witness, is the

18 witness a fact witness?

19 MR. RYNEVELD: She is a victim fact witness,

20 yes.

21 JUDGE MUMBA: And you are saying what you

22 have now, only summaries, is it your intention to

23 extract a full statement from this witness?

24 MR. RYNEVELD: No. We do not. I don't think

25 that time has permitted to do that. She has been

1 informally interviewed, and we want to give as much

2 notice, as early as possible, and we have summarised

3 the extent of the evidence we anticipate she will give

4 and are providing that now. It was only prepared

5 yesterday.

6 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. I appreciate that. But

7 what I'm trying to look at is the problems with fact

8 witnesses in the sense that the Defence have to know

9 for purposes of cross-examination, not only of that

10 particular witness, of other witnesses as well. So it

11 is important that the summaries you are going to

12 give --

13 MR. RYNEVELD: Yes.

14 JUDGE MUMBA: -- that witness will stick to

15 that. Is that my understanding?

16 MR. RYNEVELD: Yes. I do understand what

17 you're saying. I anticipate that the witness will stay

18 within the parameters of the informal statement and the

19 summary we have prepared. I understand that -- you're

20 saying that what we give now, we can't go beyond the

21 bounds of that.

22 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

23 MR. RYNEVELD: I understand that. And we

24 have asked for translation of that document, but, of

25 course, since we've just got it over the weekend, that

1 is in the process of being done.

2 JUDGE MUMBA: It's unredacted.

3 MR. RYNEVELD: It's unredacted, yes.

4 JUDGE MUMBA: The full name --

5 MR. RYNEVELD: Full name, everything yes.

6 JUDGE MUMBA: Any other witness?

7 MR. RYNEVELD: No. Those are the two

8 issues.

9 The third issue --

10 JUDGE MUMBA: Is that the only issue dealing

11 with witnesses?

12 MR. RYNEVELD: Yes.

13 JUDGE MUMBA: Can I have the answers from

14 Defence counsel before we leave it, so that we have

15 their stand understand?

16 MR. RYNEVELD: Sorry. I do have one

17 additional thing, and that is that Witness 90 will not

18 be testifying. So we are adding two but deleting one.

19 JUDGE MUMBA: Okay. So that will give us a

20 total of --

21 MR. RYNEVELD: Back to 39, unless, of course,

22 major -- General Rogers is not called, which reduces us

23 back to 38.

24 JUDGE MUMBA: Okay. Let me hear Defence

25 counsel with regard to witness Osman Subasic and A.S.,

1 please. What is your stand?

2 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your

3 Honours, we are still not in a position to read as to

4 what the witness will be testifying to, Mr. Subasic,

5 and if we introduce him and the A.S. witness, we should

6 like to request that they be -- they give testimony at

7 the end of the Prosecution witnesses, which gives us

8 enough time to check out the facts presented by those

9 two witnesses. So we don't have anything against them

10 testifying, but we'd like to have a longer time period

11 to consider it.

12 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you.

13 Mr. Kolesar, the same?

14 MR. KOLESAR: [Interpretation] I agree fully

15 with the proposal made by the Defence counsel of

16 Mr. Kunarac.

17 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

18 MR. JOVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your

19 Honours, we agree.

20 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. Thank you. So those

21 witnesses will be added to the list of Prosecution

22 witnesses, and Defence counsel will be given sufficient

23 time to indicate whichever way. But they will be given

24 enough time.

25 Yes. Any other matter?

1 MR. RYNEVELD: The only other matter that --

2 I don't know whether you wish to address now. You're

3 aware that we have received a copy of a Defence request

4 about closed session proceedings. I don't know whether

5 you wish us to address that now or at some other time.

6 But we did receive from the Defence a request about the

7 fact victim witnesses the Defence has filed, and I

8 don't know if you wish to address that now, but

9 we're --

10 JUDGE MUMBA: I'm wondering which motion this

11 is, because I've seen a Defence motion dealing with

12 Prosecution witnesses.

13 MR. RYNEVELD: Yes.

14 JUDGE MUMBA: That they want some of their

15 evidence in closed session because some of those have

16 either voice alteration or face alteration only, and

17 they are just -- they are asking for a variation of

18 those protective measures because they have concerns

19 which they've expressed. And the Trial Chamber will

20 decide on those matters later.

21 MR. RYNEVELD: Fine.

22 JUDGE MUMBA: Because we haven't -- I wonder

23 whether the Prosecution have filed their response.

24 MR. RYNEVELD: Yes. If you wish to decide

25 that later, that's fine.

1 JUDGE MUMBA: Or maybe to cut the whole story

2 short, is there an objection on any of the witnesses?

3 MR. RYNEVELD: Well, the request that I'm

4 referring is the one whereby they are suggesting that

5 there be closed session proceedings --

6 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please,

7 Mr. Ryneveld.

8 MR. RYNEVELD: Sorry.

9 The request is one that was just filed, I

10 believe, on the weekend, whereby they're asking for

11 closed session proceedings on, it seems to me, the bulk

12 of the victim witnesses. And our position is that we

13 have asked for protection for those witnesses that we

14 feel are adequate to address the needs; we are also

15 mindful of the fact that this Chamber wishes these

16 proceedings to be as open and as public as possible.

17 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

18 MR. RYNEVELD: And our position is that the

19 witnesses who are being called that the Court has

20 looked at their individual requirements carefully and

21 sufficiently, and we take the view that it would not

22 serve the interests of justice to have such an

23 expansive request for closed sessions as has been

24 suggested by my learned friends. It seems to me that

25 it's, perhaps, more a way to prevent the evidence

1 against their clients from being made public. And

2 accordingly, our view is that we would oppose the full

3 expansiveness of the request and say that there is an

4 adequate protection at present.

5 [Trial Chamber confers]

6 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. Having heard the

7 Prosecution, the Trial Chamber will give a written

8 decision in due course, on the understanding that none

9 of those witnesses are coming today.

10 MR. RYNEVELD: That's correct.

11 JUDGE MUMBA: So a written decision will be

12 issued.

13 JUDGE HUNT: Mr. Ryneveld, the lists of

14 exhibits that I have stops at 116. Those were the ones

15 filed in February. Now, according to the registrar,

16 that exhibit went in as 174. So there's a list of

17 exhibits that needs to be brought up to date, I should

18 think.

19 MR. RYNEVELD: I think that's an "oops" there

20 somewhere in the material. The numbering that we have

21 is up to 173, and then we've added 174 and 175. That's

22 in the binder that you're referring to.

23 JUDGE HUNT: The document I have commences at

24 page 3615 and ends at 3602 in the filing.

25 MR. RYNEVELD: Ms. Kuo seems to have the

1 answer to this, and I would just be scrambling so I

2 will defer to her.

3 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

4 MS. KUO: Your Honours, at the Pre-Trial

5 Conference, we orally superseded that exhibit list with

6 the trial binders that were submitted to the Court and

7 in the trial binder volume 1, there should be a full

8 list of all the exhibits, and it goes up to 173.

9 JUDGE HUNT: Well, on the bench this morning,

10 there was a document which says Trial Binder 1, index,

11 and the list of exhibits goes up to 148 only.

12 MS. KUO: Yes, Your Honour. As I mentioned,

13 at the Pre-Trial Conference, the Prosecution submitted

14 a set of five binders. At the beginning of binder 1,

15 there should be an index for all five binders. We've

16 made some changes in trial binder 1 in preparation for

17 today's witness, and that is what Your Honour is

18 referring to, the document -- that is, only trial

19 binder 1 that you received, that should be substituted

20 for what you previously received. So we apologise to

21 the Court that there was no formal filing to the

22 Registry regarding the new set of exhibits, but we

23 hoped that we had made clear on the record in court

24 that that's what we were doing.

25 JUDGE HUNT: Yes. Thank you. I've found

1 it.

2 MR. RYNEVELD: There is just one more thing,

3 if I may, with respect to scheduling. I heard my

4 friend's request that Witness Subasic and A.S. be

5 scheduled at the end. I can tell the Court that we

6 have disclosed all of Mr. Subasic's material, including

7 B/C/S, to the Defence today, and we do intend to call

8 him towards the end. However, Witness A.S., who only

9 corroborates Witness 87, that's the nature of her

10 evidence, we have her presently scheduled for the 3rd

11 of April of 2000. And since she is a corroboration

12 witness, we wonder whether -- just so that the flow of

13 evidence and the availability of the witness, whether

14 that can be accommodated into the schedule.

15 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. That is two weeks from

16 today.

17 MR. RYNEVELD: Yes. And she's not exactly a

18 brand new witness. She's been referred to, she's only

19 a corroboration witness, and they now have her

20 summary. So that would be our request. Hopefully, my

21 learned friends, once they've had an opportunity to see

22 the contents of the summary, may be in a position to

23 agree that the 3rd of April is not an unreasonable time

24 to call her.

25 JUDGE MUMBA: Okay.

1 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your

2 Honours, at this point in time, it is very difficult

3 for me to say whether that two-week period is all right

4 or not, because we have not read the statement. So I

5 don't know whether we are able to check out what the

6 witness says in her statement because we're going to

7 spend three weeks here, and as far as I've understood,

8 she will be here after the third week of trial. So we

9 would ask for your indulgence and to be later on,

10 towards the end, as I stated a moment ago. Regardless

11 of the fact that we have had very good cooperation with

12 the Office of the Prosecutor so far, but at this point

13 in time, it is difficult for me to say that I accept

14 this proposal or not from the Prosecution.

15 JUDGE MUMBA: The submissions of the Defence

16 are taken by the Trial Chamber. I think we'll

17 proceed. We'll deal with this matter at a later

18 stage.

19 MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you, Your Honour. Then

20 we are prepared to call our first witness, and I will

21 ask Ms. Kuo to lead the evidence in this regard.

22 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, please.

23 Would the witness stand up and take the

24 solemn declaration, please.

25 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will

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

2 truth.

3 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you. You may be seated.

4 WITNESS: TEJSHREE THAPA.

5 MS. KUO: Your Honours, as a preliminary

6 matter, I just would like to let the Court know that we

7 are calling this witness for the purpose of tendering

8 into evidence Exhibits 1 through 36, and we do not

9 intend to tender her as an expert in interpreting the

10 documents; simply in summarising and describing them.

11 Furthermore, the order of the exhibits that

12 will be presented will be as follows: We will start

13 with maps, and then we will go -- there's some video --

14 through some videotapes which we'll ask the audiovisual

15 director to show, then a number of documents. And so

16 they will be a little bit out of order from the way

17 they were in the trial binder, but we think this makes

18 a little bit more sense. We also apologise, there were

19 some last-minute changes, and our case manager did give

20 new copies of the exhibits that were new or changed to

21 your legal assistants, and we hope that they did make

22 it into your binders in time.

23 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

24 JUDGE HUNT: They're all left at this end of

25 the bench.

1 [Trial Chamber confers]

2 JUDGE HUNT: If you do it again, Ms. Kuo, it

3 would be helpful if you put some holes in them.

4 MS. KUO: I apologise, Your Honour.

5 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. We may proceed.

6 MS. KUO: One more preliminary matter is that

7 if it becomes necessary to make arguments under

8 Rule 89(C) for relevance, we would just ask that we

9 wait until we go through all the evidence because it

10 might be easier to deal with them as a group.

11 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

12 Examined by Ms. Kuo:

13 Q. Would you please state your name for the

14 record.

15 A. Yes. Tejshree Thapa.

16 Q. How are you employed, Ms. Thapa?

17 A. I'm a research officer in the Office of the

18 Prosecutor.

19 Q. How long have you worked as the research

20 officer?

21 A. Since May of 1995.

22 Q. Can you describe briefly for the Court what

23 your role has been in that capacity?

24 A. I've worked since 1995 on the Foca

25 investigation, largely as an investigator more than as

1 a research officer, really. In the course of my

2 duties, I've recorded witness statements and collected

3 documentary evidence; orders, newspaper articles,

4 videos, maps.

5 Q. So in your capacity as a research officer,

6 are you familiar with the various maps and documents

7 collected in the Foca case?

8 A. Yes, I am.

9 MS. KUO: With the usher's aid, I wish to

10 tender to the witness Exhibits 1 through 36.

11 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters kindly

12 request that pauses be made between question and

13 answer. Thank you.

14 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, Ms. Kuo, please remember

15 the interpreters. Ms. Kuo, just remember that there is

16 interpretation going on, and pause for the witness to

17 answer.

18 JUDGE HUNT: There's an awful lot of feedback

19 too. I don't know whether the technical people can do

20 something about it, but it's pretty grim.

21 MS. KUO:

22 Q. Ms. Thapa, turning first to Exhibit 14, could

23 you put that on the ELMO and describe what that is,

24 please.

25 A. This is a map of the former Yugoslavia as it

1 existed before the war, so around 1990. It shows you

2 the six republics of the former Yugoslavia and the two

3 autonomous provinces within Serbia. More specifically,

4 for this case, it shows the Republic of

5 Bosnia-Herzegovina, with its administrative capital in

6 Sarajevo. South-east of Sarajevo, approximately 70

7 kilometres, we have indicated with a star the town of

8 Foca.

9 Q. Turning to Exhibit 15, can you describe that,

10 please?

11 A. Exhibit 15 shows the Republic of Bosnia and

12 Herzegovina and the Republic of Montenegro. We have

13 mapped out four of the municipalities most relevant for

14 this trial, that is, Foca, Gorazde, Kalinovik, and

15 Gacko. The administrative capitals which share the

16 name of the municipalities are also indicated within

17 each of the municipalities.

18 Within Montenegro, we have indicated the

19 capital -- sorry, we've indicated Podgorica and the

20 town of Niksic, which you will be hearing about in the

21 trial.

22 Q. Turning to Exhibit 16, describe that,

23 please.

24 A. Again, this is the map of the Republic of

25 Bosnia and Herzegovina. The coloured areas indicate

1 the Serbian Autonomous District which was proclaimed by

2 the assembly of the Serbian people in

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina on the 21st of November, 1991.

4 You can see that the municipalities of Foca,

5 Kalinovik, and Gacko appear in the green/yellow shaded

6 area, representing the fact that they were declared as

7 a part of the Serbian Autonomous District of

8 Herzegovina.

9 Q. Turning now to Exhibit 17, Ms. Thapa, could

10 you explain what that is?

11 A. This is a map which shows the ethnic

12 composition of Bosnia-Herzegovina based upon the census

13 of 1991. The green areas indicate Muslim majorities;

14 the blue indicates Serb majorities; and the pink/orange

15 indicates Croat majority. There are small pockets of

16 red which indicate areas with no specific ethnic

17 majority.

18 Q. Could you outline with the pointer, please,

19 more or less where the municipality of Foca is?

20 A. Yes. Foca is in this region here

21 [indicates]. Gorazde is here [indicates], and you can

22 see that Foca -- it's difficult to see on this map, but

23 it is indicated -- you can see that the municipality on

24 its borders, going this way [indicates], has a Muslim

25 population, and there's a Serb population here

1 [indicates] as -- just along the middle, bordering

2 Montenegro.

3 Q. When you say "population," do you mean that

4 it's a majority population or that it's fully Serb or

5 fully Muslim?

6 A. It's a majority.

7 Q. Now, let's turn to Exhibit number 18,

8 please. Can you explain what that is?

9 A. Yes. Exhibit 18, these are the results of

10 the 1991 census. This is a little bit difficult to

11 read because of the way it's been photocopied. I don't

12 know if that helps. But the municipality of Foca is

13 indicated on page 102, at line 24, and to get the

14 results of the 1991 census, you have to read across to

15 page -- on to page 103.

16 Q. Could you please tell us what the result of

17 the 1991 census showed to be the population of Foca?

18 A. The total population is shown as 40,513

19 persons; with 94 Croats, 20,790 Muslims, 18,315 Serbs,

20 483 [sic] Yugoslavs, and 851 "other" or "not known".

21 Q. 463?

22 A. Sorry, 463, that's right.

23 Q. Just to clarify, is that Foca town or

24 municipality?

25 A. That's the municipality.

1 Q. Do you see the statistics for Foca town?

2 A. Yes. That is on pages 104 and 105; the

3 results are on line 14. The total population of the

4 town in 1991 was 14,335; with 74 Croats, 5,526 Muslims,

5 7,901 Serb, 312 Yugoslavs, 522 "other" or "not known".

6 Q. Now, turning to some information about other

7 towns in that municipality, could you point out the

8 statistics for Miljevina and Mjesaja, please?

9 A. Yes. The results from Miljevina and Mjesaja

10 appear on pages 106 – 107. Miljevina is on line

11 3. The total population of Miljevina in 1991 was

12 1,763; with eight Croats, 730 Muslims, 943 Serbs, 44

13 Yugoslavs, and 38 "other" or "not known". For Mjesaja,

14 a total population of 328; with no Croats, 161 Muslims,

15 166 Serbs, and one Yugoslav.

16 Q. Turning to the information regarding the

17 municipality and town of Gacko, could you please

18 indicate what the census results were?

19 A. Gacko municipality, the results appear on

20 line 21, page 110 – 111. The total population

21 was 10,778; 29 Croats, 3,858 Serbs, 6,661 Yugoslavs,

22 and 84 "other" or "not known".

23 Q. And for Gacko town?

24 A. Yes. Gacko town appears on -- sorry, I

25 haven't highlighted that -- it appears on line 39. It

1 shows a total of 4.584 in the town; 28 Croats, 2.253

2 Serbs, 2.144 -- sorry, the other way. 2.253 Muslims,

3 2.144 Serbs, 78 Yugoslavs, and 81 "other" or "not

4 known".

5 Q. Thank you. Let's look now at Exhibit 19.

6 Would you describe that, please?

7 A. Yes. This is a map based on the 1991 census

8 results. I'm sorry, the whole thing won't fit on the

9 ELMO.

10 Q. So the results that you've just pointed out.

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Exhibit 18.

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. This was prepared in-house based upon the

15 1991 census results. The green indicates Muslim, the

16 red is Serb, and the blue is "other". This is just the

17 municipality of Foca. You can see that the chart --

18 the big pie chart over here [indicates] shows the total

19 population of the municipality; 52 percent Muslim, 45

20 percent Serb, and the little bit, that is, areas

21 unknown, is "other".

22 Could you please point out Foca town?

23 A. Foca town is here [indicates], it's right in

24 the centre, and -- I'm sorry. I have to get closer to

25 it to read the results. It's 55 percent Serb and 38

1 percent Muslim, with the remainder as "other".

2 Q. Could you point out Miljevina town, please?

3 A. Miljevina is here [indicates], to the west of

4 Foca town, and the population at that time was roughly

5 53 percent Serb to 41 percent Muslim, and the

6 remainder is "other".

7 Q. Finally, could you point out Mjesaja town,

8 please?

9 A. Mjesaja is here [indicates], it's to the

10 south of Foca town. According to the 1991 census

11 results, it was 50/50, Serb and Muslim.

12 Q. Turning to Exhibit 20, could you please tell

13 us what that is?

14 A. This is a partial reproduction of a road map

15 showing parts of Montenegro and a part of

16 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

17 You can see the town of Foca here

18 [indicates], and the red lines indicate the main

19 roads. What you can see is that four main roads go

20 through Foca town itself: One main road comes in from

21 Montenegro, through Niksic, up into the town; there's

22 another road that continues, the most direct road, to

23 Sarajevo, and it goes through the Rogoj Pass, through

24 Dobro Polje, through Trnovo, up to Sarajevo; there's

25 another road going down south, all the way to the

1 Croatian coast at Dubrovnik; and another main road

2 going up north, towards Gorazde.

3 Q. Turning now to Exhibit 23, can you please

4 describe that for the Court?

5 A. This map shows the main municipalities

6 relevant to this trial.

7 Q. Could you please put it upright on the ELMO.

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Thank you.

10 A. This scale is 1:50.000, and we've circled in

11 green the areas that are of particular relevance.

12 Shall I just point them out to you?

13 Q. Yes, please.

14 A. You can see Sarajevo here [indicates], it's

15 the largest city in the area. Coming directly south

16 from Sarajevo, again on -- if you follow the main red

17 road that I showed early on the previous exhibit, you

18 would come down through Trnovo, through the Rogoj Pass;

19 you would pass Dobro Polje, down to Miljevina, and on

20 to Foca. Again, north of Foca is Gorazde; directly

21 south is Trnovace; further south is Mjesaja.

22 You can see Kalinovik here [indicates]. And

23 this is not on this main road, you have to take a turn

24 off this road, off the main Sarajevo-Foca road, to get

25 to Kalinovik.

1 Q. Thank you.

2 MS. KUO: Now, with the assistance of the

3 usher or someone else who can get Exhibit 21, I'll ask

4 the witness to indicate that, that's the big map.

5 Q. Maybe I can just ask the witness to approach

6 the map -- or at the podium, indicate what the map is,

7 and then approach the map.

8 A. This is a map, once again, of the various

9 municipalities you've just seen on the 1:50.000, the

10 reduced version. It shows you Sarajevo municipality,

11 Gorazde municipality, Foca municipality, Kalinovik

12 municipality, and a part of Gacko, at the bottom.

13 Q. What is the source of the map?

14 A. This is from UNPROFOR.

15 Q. May I ask the witness now to approach the map

16 and just generally indicate -- perhaps you could use

17 the pointer.

18 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

19 MS. KUO:

20 Q. Indicate where Foca is, Sarajevo, and

21 Gorazde.

22 A. Sorry. You said Foca? This is Foca here

23 [indicates], at the confluence of the Drina River and

24 the Cehotina --

25 JUDGE MUMBA: Can I interrupt? Is your

1 microphone cord long enough for you to stand on the

2 other side, to allow Defence counsel to look at the

3 map?

4 THE WITNESS: Yes.

5 JUDGE MUMBA: I can see that your pointer is

6 a bit short, but do try so that the Defence counsel can

7 see. You can extend it. Okay.

8 A. This is Gorazde here [indicates], along the

9 Drina River. Here is Foca [indicates].

10 MS. KUO:

11 Q. And Sarajevo?

12 A. Sarajevo is up here [indicates], it's this

13 built-up area.

14 Q. Can you point out where Miljevina is?

15 A. Yes. To get to Miljevina, you have to take

16 this road west of Foca, and it's right here

17 [indicates].

18 Q. And Trnovace -- I'm sorry. Trnovo.

19 A. Trnovo is further along this road. You pass

20 Dobro Polje here, continue north to Sarajevo, and it's

21 here [indicates].

22 Q. And the Rogoj Pass?

23 A. The Rogoj Pass is in this area [indicates].

24 Q. Would you point out Trnovace, then, please?

25 A. Yes. Trnovace is south of Foca, and it's

1 right here [indicates].

2 Q. Thank you. I'll ask the witness now to turn

3 to Exhibit 12 and place that on the ELMO.

4 A. Exhibit 12, yes.

5 Q. Could you describe what that is, please?

6 A. This is a map of the town of Foca itself.

7 The scale is 1:10.000. It shows you really just the

8 centre of Foca. This is the Drina River [indicates],

9 which flows north, and the Cehotina, which also joins

10 the Drina and flows north together.

11 Q. What is the source of the map?

12 A. This is from the Bethesda Mapping Agency.

13 Q. Is there a date on it?

14 A. Yes. 1993.

15 Q. I'll ask the witness to turn to Exhibit

16 12/1. Explain that one, please.

17 MS. KUO: This, for the Court, is --

18 JUDGE HUNT: Have we been given a copy of

19 this?

20 MS. KUO: This is one of the exhibits that I

21 mentioned earlier that would have been given to your

22 Chambers. If not, we can -- it's been provided, I've

23 been informed. There should be another map of Foca

24 with markings on it, Your Honour.

25 JUDGE HUNT: Is this in the bundle of papers

1 that were on the bench this morning? Because it

2 doesn't appear in my copy.

3 MS. KUO: I've been informed by my case

4 manager that this was given to Chambers late last week,

5 Wednesday.

6 [Trial Chamber confers with legal

7 officer]

8 JUDGE HUNT: The senior legal officer got one

9 this morning, but no one else seems to have one.

10 MS. KUO: Your Honours, we apologise for this

11 mix-up, and we can provide extra copies to the Court

12 during the break.

13 JUDGE MUMBA: Do the Defence counsel have

14 copies?

15 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your

16 Honours, we do have a copy of 12/1, and up to number

17 20. We have received that, that is to say, we received

18 it an hour ago.

19 JUDGE HUNT: We're looking for 12/1. Is it

20 12/1?

21 MS. KUO: Yes, it is.

22 JUDGE HUNT: There seems to be some

23 misunderstanding as to the instructions you gave to the

24 legal officers. They understood that this was a

25 replacement of Exhibit 12 not a new Exhibit 12/1. So

1 the one we have is 12/1 and we've lost 12.

2 MS. KUO: Your Honour, that was our fault,

3 because at one point, we were going to replace 12 with

4 12/1, and we realised that it was probably better for

5 the Court to have both maps. So then we went to

6 12/1 --

7 JUDGE HUNT: That's where the mix-up is.

8 MS. KUO: That's correct, Your Honour. Well,

9 if you then need to have the copies of 12, we can

10 provide that.

11 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes, in the meantime, we will

12 use the ELMO.

13 MS. KUO:

14 Q. Ms. Thapa, can you indicate on Exhibit 12/1

15 what that exhibit is?

16 A. This is based on the previous map, the

17 1:10.000 city map. What we did with this map was

18 simply indicate on it the particular points of

19 interest, either landmarks -- landmark buildings and

20 neighbourhoods for the case, as well as distances to

21 neighbouring towns and municipalities.

22 Q. Okay. Could we please maybe start with an

23 overview of the town of Foca, indicating the main

24 geographic features.

25 A. Yes. I'll start with the rivers. This is --

1 JUDGE HUNT: It would help if we could

2 actually see what is being transmitted on this. So far

3 as I can see, I'm just getting a picture of the

4 witness. We're not getting a picture of what's on the

5 ELMO. Thank you.

6 A. I'll start with the rivers. This is the

7 River Drina, which flows into Foca, first through the

8 town of Brod, then up through the centre of town where

9 it is met by Cehotina, which is a much smaller river.

10 They continue then further north, towards Gorazde, as

11 the Drina River. We've marked Gorazde as being 35

12 kilometres as you follow the river north. Along the

13 Cehotina here [indicates], about 1.5 kilometres to the

14 east is Velecevo. Montenegro is 15 kilometres east if

15 you go in one direction, if you take another route,

16 this way it is 21 kilometres. The town of Trnovace is

17 to the south, 2.5 kilometres. This way, Mejsaja is

18 about 10 kilometres. Miljevina is about 13 kilometres

19 west and Kalinovik, about 34 kilometres west. .

20 MS. KUO: Could you, beginning with what's enumerated

21 as number 1 on the map, point out what those features

22 are? And you can go from 1 through 11.

23 A. Number 1 indicates Partizan Sports Hall.

24 That's there [indicates]. Number --

25 Q. Is that the black rectangle indicated there?

1 A. Yes, it is.

2 Q. Yes.

3 A. Directly above it, at number 2, is the police

4 building which witnesses refer to as the SUP or the

5 Secretariat of the Interior. Number 3 points to what

6 is referred to in the legend as the opstina building,

7 which is the municipal assembly building, where the

8 local parliament sat. Number 4 points to the Brena

9 Block, the Brena apartments. Number 5 --

10 Q. Excuse me. Number 4 is written on the legend

11 as Lepa Brena. Is that any different from what you

12 just stated?

13 A. No. I just used the shorthand -- the full

14 name of the apartment building is Lepa Brena.

15 Number 5 points to the Hotel Zelengora.

16 Q. Again, the legend indicates Hotel/Motel

17 Zelengora. Is there a difference?

18 A. No, there isn't. We have used that because

19 witnesses refer to both the hotel and the motel, they

20 use the two interchangeably.

21 Number 6 shows the site of where the Foca

22 Trans Company was. Number 7 is the male penitentiary,

23 the KP Dom. It's quite a large block of buildings.

24 Number 8 on this map shows Ulica Osmana Djikica 16,

25 but unfortunately the arrow needs to be extended a bit

1 further.

2 Q. If you could use a black pen and indicate

3 with an "X" where that address would be on the map?

4 A. Right now the arrow is pointing to the main

5 road. So the house is actually just off the main road,

6 it's roughly here [indicates], it's here, where the

7 main -- it's at a point where the main road meets the

8 small road.

9 Q. If I could ask the AV director to

10 zoom in a little bit closer there, please.

11 Would the witness point out where she's

12 indicated the "X"?

13 A. Here [indicates].

14 Q. Thank you. And if you could continue with

15 number 9.

16 A. Number 9 shows the Aladza High School. If I

17 could just point out, there's a legend over the high

18 school which says Aladza settlement. That refers to

19 the neighbourhood. It's actually just a bit larger

20 than how it's indicated.

21 Q. And are the names of other neighbourhoods

22 likewise indicated in green?

23 A. Yes, there are. And Donje Polje further up

24 here, Cohodor Mahala across here. Donje Polje here.

25 Q. And number 9 is what?

1 A. Number 9 is the high school, that's the Foca

2 High School. It is sometimes called the Aladza High

3 School, the Nikola Tesla, Srednja Skola, it goes by

4 different names. It's the Foca High School.

5 Q. And number 10?

6 A. Number 10 is the Livade warehouses.

7 Q. And finally 11?

8 A. Number 11 shows the stadium.

9 Q. I'll ask the witness now to turn to Exhibits

10 number 22 and 22/1 through /5. I hope the Court has

11 received these. These would be aerial photographs.

12 Ms. Thapa, could you please explain what

13 Exhibit 22 is.

14 A. Yes. This is an aerial photograph of

15 Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is from the US Reconnaissance

16 Systems, and the photograph is dated the 10th of

17 August, 1992.

18 Q. What does the photograph show?

19 A. The photograph shows the town of Foca.

20 Again, this is the Drina River, the Cehotina. You can

21 see the stadium I last pointed to on the map. In

22 addition to just showing the town, we have marked on

23 the map little boxes which --

24 Q. Ms. Thapa, could you please move the

25 photographs a little bit up on the ELMO so that we can

1 see that more clearly? Thank you.

2 A. Yes. The boxes -- the white boxes, and these

3 represent areas where there were mosques, and as of

4 this date, the 10th of August, 1992, there were no

5 mosques.

6 Q. Could you just show where the corresponding

7 boxes are and whether they are then indicated on

8 further exhibits?

9 A. Yes. This is Exhibit 22/1, and we will be

10 showing you a photograph of 22/1; likewise, this is

11 22/2, 22/3, 22/4, and 22/5.

12 Q. And just for orientation sake, could you

13 point out where Partizan is on this map, if you can

14 find it?

15 A. I think this should be Partizan Sports Hall.

16 Q. And the Aladza neighbourhood?

17 A. That's here [indicates].

18 Q. All right. Let's turn to Exhibit 22/1. Can

19 you explain this exhibit, please?

20 A. Yes. This is the first box that I referred

21 to on the overview map. These are before and after.

22 The first -- the box on the left-hand side of the page

23 shows a photograph from the 30th of October, 1991, and

24 on the right-hand side of the page is a photograph from

25 the 10th of August, 1992. What you can see in the 10th

1 of August, 1992 picture is an empty space where there

2 should be a mosque – it appears to be on the 1991

3 photograph that the mosque was here [indicates], and

4 you can see that it's no longer visible on the 10th of

5 August map.

6 Q. Maybe briefly go back to Exhibit 22 and show

7 where that is.

8 A. That's this [indicates].

9 Q. Does the box on Exhibit 22 correspond in

10 precise size to 22/1?

11 A. No, it doesn't. The area shown in the

12 close-up photograph, the before and after of the

13 mosque, show a larger area than what is shown in the

14 box. In the box itself, you really can see only just

15 an empty space where the mosque was, while in this, you

16 see the larger neighbourhood around it.

17 Q. Going now to Exhibit 22/2, can you explain

18 that, please?

19 A. This is also -- the left-hand side of the

20 photograph is from the 30th of October, 1991; the

21 right-hand side is 10th of August, 1992. Again, you

22 can see -- I know the copy isn't very clear from 1991,

23 but there appears to be a mosque here [indicates]. You

24 can see something that looks like a minaret there, and

25 that's the mosque. On this photograph, what you see is

1 what looks like the dome of the mosque, but no

2 minaret. And that appears to be the destruction to

3 that mosque.

4 Q. And indicate on Exhibit 22 where that

5 corresponding box is.

6 A. That's here [indicates]. And again the area

7 shown on this map is larger than what is shown in the

8 overview, the town map. If I could just point out, you

9 can see quite a bit of damage to the houses in the area

10 around the mosque also.

11 Q. And you're pointing out to the August 1992

12 map?

13 A. The 1992 map.

14 Q. Let's go to Exhibit 22/3. Can you explain

15 that, please?

16 A. Yes. This is again from -- the photo on the

17 left is from the 30th of October, 1991; on the right is

18 from the 10th of August, 1992. You can see -- it's

19 difficult to see again on the 1991 photograph, but the

20 mosque appears to have been here [indicates], and there

21 is no mosque here [indicates].

22 Q. In 1992, you mean.

23 A. In 1992, yes.

24 Q. Then let's go back briefly to Exhibit 22 and

25 indicate where that is.

1 A. That's this box [indicates].

2 Q. Now, Exhibit 22/4, can you describe that,

3 please?

4 A. Yes. This is also before and after. The

5 30th of October 1991 on the left-hand side; the 10th of

6 August 1992 on the right-hand side.

7 This is actually the Aladza mosque that is

8 being shown here. You can see it on the 1991

9 photograph quite clearly, right here [indicates].

10 That's the minaret, this is the dome. You can see that

11 there is nothing here [indicates], where it used to

12 be.

13 Q. On the 1992 map.

14 A. On the 1992 map.

15 Q. And could you point that out on the overview

16 map, Exhibit 22, please?

17 A. That is this [indicates], where this square

18 is.

19 Q. And finally, Exhibit 22/5.

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Can you describe that?

22 A. Again, this is a before and after. The 30th

23 of October, 1991 and the 10th of August, 1992. The

24 mosque appears to have been -- sorry. The light is

25 glaring. The mosque is here [indicates], in the 1991

1 photograph; that's the minaret, here's the dome. In

2 the 1992 photograph, you don't see a mosque, you see

3 what appears to be just a hollow shell of a building,

4 but there's no dome and there's no minaret.

5 Q. In the 1992 photograph, can you also see

6 damage in the surrounding area?

7 A. Yes, you can. This is the Donje Polje

8 neighbourhood, actually, which was quite extensively

9 destroyed.

10 Q. Thank you, Ms. Thapa.

11 We'll turn now to a series of videotapes.

12 Some of these tapes have been played already during the

13 opening statement, and if the Court wishes, we can not

14 show them again, or since they're brief, I don't know

15 if the Court wishes us to show them again. Exhibit --

16 JUDGE MUMBA: I think it's better to show

17 them again so that we have a sequence, because we are

18 now dealing with evidence.

19 MS. KUO: Very well, Your Honour.

20 I would ask the audiovisual people to have

21 Exhibit 24 ready.

22 Q. But first I'll ask the witness to explain

23 what Exhibit 24 is.

24 A. Exhibit 24 is a news item broadcast by the

25 BBC on the 17th of April, 1992, Martin Bell reporting.

1 He reports about the war, the fighting in Foca, he

2 reports the fall of Foca, and there's a small bit at

3 the end about a funeral in Sarajevo.

4 Q. You've seen this videotape, have you?

5 A. Yes, I have.

6 Q. What do the images portray at the beginning?

7 Is Foca indicated on it?

8 A. There are pictures of Foca burning, Foca in

9 flames, and you can tell only from the voice-over that

10 this is Foca. It's not immediately recognisable as

11 such.

12 MS. KUO: May I ask the AV director, please,

13 to play Exhibit 24 from the point where it's cued.

14 [Videotape played]

15 MS. KUO:

16 Q. That's the end?

17 A. Yes, it is.

18 Q. Exhibit 25, can you explain what that is?

19 A. Yes. This is a videotape; it's a short piece

20 taken from the Death of Yugoslavia series. It shows

21 the parliamentary exchanges between Mr. Karadzic and

22 Mr. Izetbegovic. Mr. Ryneveld showed part of it in his

23 opening statement.

24 MS. KUO: May I ask the AV director, please,

25 to play from the cued point.

1 [Videotape played]

2 MS. KUO:

3 Q. Ms. Thapa, turning to Exhibit 26, can you

4 explain what that is?

5 A. Yes. This is a videotape. It contains

6 pictures of Foca from before the war. It is part of a

7 personal collection given to us by a resident of Foca.

8 Q. I'm going to ask you to put Exhibit 22 back

9 on the ELMO and show us where approximately this video

10 appears to have been taken. If you have the aerial

11 photograph.

12 A. The video was shot from -- it appears to have

13 been shot from this side of the river, looking at Foca

14 this way [indicates]. The quality of the image is not

15 very good, partly because of the distance, I think.

16 Q. And the area where you're indicating, is that

17 at a higher elevation than the town itself?

18 A. Yes, it is. The person who took the video

19 appears to have been on a picnic and seems to have gone

20 up a bit into the mountains.

21 Q. Could you show us -- well, let's go to the

22 videotape, and you can show us on the videotape.

23 MS. KUO: If we could have the volume turned

24 down or off. Thank you.

25 Q. Ms. Thapa, could you show us --

1 MS. KUO: Perhaps we should go back. I'm

2 sorry. Could the AV director go back for a few seconds

3 to the beginning. To the point where it was cued at

4 5.00.

5 Q. Okay. Ms. Thapa, could you narrate and tell

6 us what we're looking at?

7 A. This building that is now going to come into

8 focus, with the red roof, the white building with the

9 red roof, that is Partizan Sports Hall. The building

10 now that's in the middle of the screen, the white

11 building, that's the police station. The building

12 there at the bottom, that just fell off, is the

13 municipal assembly building. This is a neighbourhood

14 in Foca. This is the stadium that's now coming into

15 view. This is the River Cehotina, the small river.

16 This is the Drina River, but it's not -- you can't

17 really see it clearly. Again, Partizan Sports Hall

18 there. The police building. The camera is actually

19 moving from south to -- well, now it's looking back

20 south again but ... This is the Hotel Zelengora, the

21 building that is at the right-hand corner of the

22 screen. I believe it comes back in. It has the red

23 roof, this building, yes [indicates], that is the Hotel

24 Zelengora, and the building behind it is part of the

25 hotel also. There's a high-rise adjacent to it which

1 came into focus for a little bit, and that's the Lepa

2 Brena Block. This is the centre of Foca.

3 MS. KUO: Okay. Thank you to the AV

4 director. That will be all.

5 Q. I turn now to Exhibit 27. Can you explain

6 what that is?

7 A. Yes. These are segments of rush footage,

8 that is to say, footage that was not broadcast by the

9 BBC Panorama when they were producing what eventually

10 became their broadcast programme, "Getting Away with

11 Murder." These particular clips show, I believe, the

12 Partizan Sports Hall and the Aladza neighbourhood and

13 parts of Foca. This is from 1993.

14 MS. KUO: There are two separate clips, and

15 I'll ask the AV director to play the first clip,

16 please.

17 [Videotape played]

18 A. This is an apartment building next to Foca --

19 I mean, next to Partizan Sports Hall. This is Partizan

20 Sports Hall. This is the main entrance, the steps

21 leading up to it. You can see that it's right in the

22 middle of where civilians were living, in the middle of

23 town. You see the bars on the window; some witnesses

24 will refer to this.

25 MS. KUO: Let's cue forward to the second

1 segment.

2 [Videotape played]

3 A. These are just driving shots around Foca. I

4 believe this building coming up on the left-hand

5 side -- yes, it is, this is the Aladza High School, the

6 Foca High School, where some of the women and girls

7 were detained. This is in the Aladza neighbourhood.

8 MS. KUO: Thank you. That's all for the

9 videotape.

10 Q. Ms. Thapa, did you mention what date,

11 approximately, this was taken?

12 A. Yes. This was in 1993. The programme itself

13 was broadcast at the end of 1993. I believe they took

14 the footage in the summer of 1993.

15 Q. Let's turn to Exhibit 28. Can you describe

16 what that is?

17 A. Number 28, these are videos made by -- or

18 this is a video made by the investigative team, the

19 Tribunal investigative team, in 1996. I was part of

20 the mission to Foca in June of 1996, when we visited

21 several of the sites and prepared this videotape.

22 Q. Can you tell us what this segment that we're

23 about to show will be of?

24 A. Yes. This segment shows the site of the

25 Aladza mosque, where it used to be, and of a street

1 just adjacent to it, Ulica Osmana Djikica.

2 MS. KUO: Could I ask the AV director,

3 please, to show the segment in Exhibit 28.

4 [Videotape played]

5 A. This is the part of the Aladza

6 neighbourhood. This green expanse where the horses are

7 grazing, this is where the mosque used to be. You can

8 see that there is nothing left there, really. There

9 are the signs of a foundation. This street here,

10 that's Ulica Osmana Djikica.

11 MS. KUO: Can we pause for a moment, please?

12 Q. Can you see where number 16 would have been?

13 A. Number 16 is at the end of the street, you

14 can't actually see it on this photo. You would have to

15 continue walking up this street, not much further, but

16 it's at the intersection -- this street meets a larger

17 street, a larger road, further up, and it's just at the

18 intersection, on the right-hand corner of that

19 intersection.

20 MS. KUO: Could we continue, please.

21 [Videotape played]

22 A. Again, this is the site of the former

23 mosque. You can see some of the rubble, limestone.

24 This is a tombstone, a Muslim tombstone. This is part

25 of what's remaining of the cemetery. This is where the

1 minaret used to be, this round foundational remains.

2 This is a close-up of the minaret. I believe this area

3 is now a park, or it's used as an open space. This is

4 a tombstone, the site of a grave, a Muslim grave. The

5 camera now moves again to Ulica Osmana Djikica.

6 MS. KUO: Pause, please. Pause.

7 Q. Do you have a better view there of the house?

8 A. Yes, slightly. Just at the end there, on the

9 right-hand side of the road, it's difficult to see but

10 that house is the house next to what used to be Ulica

11 Osmana Djikica 16. Mr. Kunarac himself in his

12 interview has referred to this house on the end as

13 being the house where he said overflow soldiers would

14 stay. If there wasn't enough room for them at number

15 16, they would stay in this house.

16 MS. KUO: Can I ask the AV director to go

17 backwards, rewind for a few seconds, so that we can

18 just go through that segment again. Okay.

19 Q. So the mosque is on the left?

20 A. That's right. And this is the street. The

21 house right at the end on the right-hand side, that's

22 the overflow house. I believe the camera now tries to

23 get a bit closer. You can see in photographs that I'll

24 be showing you, you'll see this photograph -- this

25 house more closely.

1 Q. Thank you.

2 MS. KUO: That's the end of the videotape,

3 please.

4 Q. So the house in the videotape that's shown as

5 blue/green, what house is that?

6 A. I don't know the number on it, but this is

7 the house next to Ulica Osmana Djikica 16. Number 16

8 itself is where Mr. Kunarac and his soldiers stayed,

9 and according to Mr. Kunarac himself, this blue/green

10 house next to it is where his overflow soldiers

11 stayed.

12 Q. But number 16 no longer exists; is that

13 right?

14 A. It doesn't exist, no.

15 Q. Let's go to Exhibit 29, please.

16 MS. KUO: And may I bring the Court's

17 attention to Exhibit 29/1, which is a transcript of

18 Exhibit 29, and maybe the witness can explain what

19 Exhibit 29 is before we play that.

20 A. Exhibit 29 is -- it contains an interview

21 with Miroslav Stanic, who gave this interview to Srna

22 Television, which is Republika Srpska Television,

23 usually based in Pale at that time. He gave the

24 interview on the occasion of the third anniversary of

25 the "liberation" of Foca --

1 Q. Which would mean what date?

2 A. It depends on what he views as the third

3 anniversary. It's not entirely clear. It could be --

4 if he dates it from the fall of the municipality, it

5 should be the end of April 1992. He may, however, be

6 dating it to St. Vitus' Day, which is the 28th of

7 June. It's not clear from the video the specific

8 date.

9 Q. What year would it be, then?

10 A. This was in 1995, because he says it's three

11 years after the liberation of Srbinje.

12 Q. Could you maybe, if you're making reference

13 to Exhibit 29/1, explain what the segments are that we

14 are about to see?

15 A. Yes. The first segment is just the beginning

16 of the programme in which Miroslav Stanic is introduced

17 as the member of the Main Board of the Serbian

18 Democratic Party, and primarily -- or more relevantly,

19 as the First War Commander in Foca.

20 The next segment that we're excerpting is a

21 section in which Mr. Stanic discusses the preparations

22 that the Serbs made in Foca for the war, the military

23 preparations that were made as early as 1991, and the

24 help that the SDS lent the Serbs in preparing

25 militarily for the war. He also discusses in this

1 segment the First War Commanders, and he lists them.

2 Q. All right. Ms. Thapa, what I would ask, for

3 the Court, is this segment will run about ten minutes

4 or so, and we may run a little bit past 1.00. If you'd

5 like, we can begin immediately with this and conclude

6 with this exhibit, and when we come back from the lunch

7 break, we can begin with the documentary evidence.

8 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. We can go ahead.

9 MS. KUO: Just for the Court's ability to

10 follow, we will ask the AV director to begin at 1.50,

11 where there is a short segment, and then I will ask the

12 director to fast-forward at a certain point to 4.18,

13 where the interview begins. And then on the

14 transcript, it will end at the top of page 2, which,

15 for the AV director, will be approximately 5.08, and

16 then we'll fast-forward to 9.45, and that's the top of

17 page 3. We will conclude in the middle of page 4,

18 which is about 17.18.

19 So would the director please begin with 1.50,

20 please.

21 [Videotape played]

22 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] The Serbian

23 heroes set out. Both sides of the road to Jelec are

24 packed with the deadly machine-gun nests of our former

25 neighbours. In Miljevina, a small Serbian mining town

1 14 kilometres from Foca, the Serbian people took to

2 arms even before the events in Foca. The assassination

3 attempt against the Serbian leaders on the way to

4 Jelec, the disappearance of Luka Vukovic from Kozija

5 Luka, and open threats from Jelec were sufficient

6 reasons. At the open space in front of the hotel in

7 Miljevina, the fighters are receiving final

8 instructions from the Serbian heroes Pero Elez,

9 Slavomir Zivanovic, nicknamed Zuca, and Branimir

10 Cosovic.

11 [Videotape fast-forwarded]

12 [Videotape played]

13 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] As we said at

14 the beginning of Otvoreni programme, the open

15 programme, today is the third anniversary of the

16 liberation of Srbinje. The guest in our studio is

17 Miroslav Stanic, member of the Main Board of the

18 Serbian Democratic Party of all Serbian states, and

19 member of the Municipal Board of Srbinje and the First

20 Commander. Welcome. How do you do?

21 Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you

22 here today.

23 Our viewers could see the combat footage of

24 the beginning of the liberation of Srbinje. This

25 anniversary is also an opportunity for us to remember

1 the beginning of the conflict in this area.

2 I shall try ...

3 MS. KUO: I'd ask the AV director to turn the

4 volume down slightly. That would help. Thank you.

5 [Videotape fast-forwarded]

6 [Videotape played]

7 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] You were the

8 First War Commander in the area of Srbinje. Can you

9 give our viewers your account of the beginning of the

10 armed conflict and the three war years.

11 I cannot talk about the whole period. I

12 shall talk only about the part when I was the

13 commander, on behalf of the SDS, which enabled me to

14 become the First War Commander because I was there at

15 the time. However, I must say this before we go on:

16 our response to the Bacchanal in the Drina Valley,

17 which was inevitable, at least a verbal response was

18 the magnificent founding of the assembly of the SDS in

19 September 1990, followed by yet more magnificent

20 Trojcindan Sabor, convention, when we said that the

21 Drina would never become a border but a windpipe

22 between two lungs. It may be true that one of the

23 lungs has been somewhat contracted now. Let me put it

24 this way, although that is far from my profession, it

25 has tonsillitis, to use that expression, but I hope

1 that we shall eliminate this contraction with

2 preventive measures soon. The Serbian Democratic Party

3 left all the political activities aside and began the

4 self-organisation of the Serbian people, because it saw

5 the dark clouds rolling towards their people. The

6 Serbian Democratic Party promptly formed eight

7 battalions which were led, and some of them are still

8 led, by the then reserve Serbian officers. It worked

9 on the military organisation and material supplies for

10 the battalions. I would like to mention something that

11 I have never said in public in the three, now four

12 years, and it took place in June, during the inspection

13 of one of the battalions on Zlataj Mountain, when I saw

14 a magnificent scene. The battalion was lined up in

15 companies, the quartermaster's unit on one side, and

16 above them the tricolor Serbian flag, with the cross

17 and the four S's planted in a hollow beech tree. The

18 Serbs with their national symbols, in total illegality,

19 since it was June 1991. Was there anything more

20 beautiful for a Serbian Orthodox soul to see than that

21 at that time than that? Somebody will say yes there

22 is, because there are Serbian feasts in Serbia itself.

23 Are not the feasts in Sumadija better? And what about

24 skiing on Mount Kopaonik, or swimming at the seaside?

25 Yes. But history has planned another role for us,

1 younger brothers, to defend the older brothers. But I

2 besiege our older brothers to understand that our

3 endurance has its limits and that they remove this

4 shameful shroud from the Drina River as soon as

5 possible.

6 Your response to the Muslims had to be swift

7 because, as we all remember, the SDA party, Serbian

8 Democratic Action party was strong in Foca at the

9 time.

10 Yes, it was strong, and it is a good thing

11 that we prepared on time and that we overestimated it

12 and that we did not do a song and dance, but prepared

13 the military organisation of the Serbian people a year

14 before. I have to say, and to mention the first war

15 commanders: Lazar Kunarac, Zoran Vukovic, Brane

16 Cosovic, Slavko Todovic, Dragan Nikolic, Nade Radovic,

17 Zdravko Kovac, Ljubisa Dostic, Boro Ivanovic, Gojko

18 Jankovic, Pero Elez, Jovan Vukovic, Slavomir Zivanovic,

19 called Zuco, and Radmilo Pljevadzic. There were other

20 heroes as well, some of whom have died and others are

21 still in command. Unfortunately, some of those I

22 listed have also died. And for obvious reasons, I

23 cannot tell you who those are. But I am sure that for

24 the Serbian people of Srbinje and for myself

25 personally, they will always be our war commanders. As

1 regards the beginning of the war itself, which you

2 mentioned earlier on, it resulted from an attack by the

3 Green Berets, which took place on this date, on the

4 Serbian suburb area of Srpsko Prevrace. There was an

5 attack the day before, but we did not respond then. An

6 indication of the seriousness of the situation and that

7 the war would start in a matter of hours, or even

8 minutes, was the release of the prisoners of Muslim and

9 Albanian nationality from the penitentiary who were

10 armed and then sent towards Serbian positions. In our

11 crisis committee there were a lot of reserve officers

12 at the time. I was a man with no military education

13 and training, and I offered the commanding post to some

14 other members of the crisis committee, but they

15 declined it for personal reasons. I hope that a more

16 peaceful time will come and that they will tell me more

17 about that. This is not the time or place to do that.

18 I must say that at that time we had elaborated two

19 versions of our Serbian response: one was the

20 Triglav-Dzevdelija version and the other was the

21 Pale-Stari Grad version. The Triglav-Dzevdelija

22 entailed, I assumed, that we would fire a few shots and

23 then negotiate, then withdraw and in the end, a total

24 withdrawal.

25 But you did know what the enemy were up to.

1 You asked me what my orders were. You can

2 guess what it was. I ordered to fight for

3 the"honourable cross and the golden freedom". What

4 else could I do? Our experience had taught us that if

5 we went for the first version, we would share the fate

6 of Gorazde, which I definitely hope will be ours. That

7 was the beginning of our outstanding victories. We

8 liberated the town in six days. By the 25th of April,

9 we managed to liberate the whole of the Foca

10 municipality, which was the largest municipality in the

11 Republika Srpska at the time. I submitted my war

12 report to the Ministerial council, as it was called

13 then. At the time, at the beginning of June, we were

14 active in the crisis committee, and later on in the

15 army command. I turned over the command to eleven

16 officers, headed by Colonel Marko Kovac. Our

17 organisation changed names. It was called Tactical

18 Group Drina, and then it was referred to as the

19 Garrison. It changed names several times. But the

20 structure of the battalion remained the same until a

21 year ago, and of course it was very efficient, as

22 everyone knows. This is common knowledge in the whole

23 of the Republika Srpska territory.

24 MS. KUO: That's all. Thank you.

25 Your Honour, that's all for the videotape

1 exhibits.

2 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you. We shall still

3 continue with Ms. Thapa?

4 MS. KUO: Yes, we will.

5 JUDGE MUMBA: The Trial Chamber will adjourn,

6 and we will resume this afternoon at 14.30 hours.

7 --- Luncheon recess taken at 1.04 p.m.

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 --- On resuming at 2.32 p.m.

2 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. The Prosecution will

3 continue with Ms. Thapa.

4 MS. KUO: Thank you, Your Honour.

5 Q. Ms. Thapa, could you please turn to Exhibit

6 number 1. Actually, let's take Exhibits 1 through 10

7 first, as a whole. Can you explain what Exhibits 1

8 through 10 are?

9 A. They're all military documents. Some of them

10 are orders; some of them are newspaper articles from

11 military newspapers. All of these documents were

12 captured at various times in different places by the

13 army of Bosnia-Herzegovina and turned over to the OTP.

14 Q. Are you able to determine from where these

15 documents were captured?

16 A. Yes. Documents 3 through 8 were captured in

17 Trnovo, after the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina took over

18 Trnovo on the 31st of July, 1992. The remaining

19 documents, 1, 2, 9, and 10, were captured by the army

20 of Bosnia-Herzegovina in and around the area of

21 Gorazde.

22 Q. Do you know when?

23 A. No. At different times on different

24 battlefields, as and when they took control of certain

25 positions.

1 Q. Let's turn now to Exhibit 1. Could you

2 please explain what that is?

3 A. I'll put it on the ELMO. This is the English

4 translation of a request from the Serbian Municipal

5 Assembly of Foca. It's signed by Josif Milicic, who

6 was the president of the Serbian assembly in Foca at

7 that time. It's dated the 17th of March, 1992. It's a

8 request for stationing a garrison in Foca. The request

9 is directed to the JNA General Staff, to the attention

10 of Colonel General Blagoje Adzic, and in the relevant

11 part, there is a reference to the possibility of the

12 women's penitentiary being taken over in Foca, and it

13 mentions that the penitentiary can house 500 to 600

14 persons.

15 Q. When you say "taken over," do you know for

16 what purpose?

17 A. For the purpose of the JNA to station a

18 garrison there.

19 Q. Do you know the name of the women's

20 penitentiary they are referring to?

21 A. Yes. That would be the Velecevo

22 penitentiary, which was later used by the VRS as its

23 brigade command.

24 Q. Does this document also state a source of

25 possible military reinforcements?

1 A. Yes. The third paragraph in the document

2 says: "In order to reinforce the unit, we are ready to

3 provide the troops who are at present in training in

4 the Kalinovik garrison."

5 Q. Would you turn now, please, to Exhibit 2.

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Can you tell us what that is?

8 A. This is an order of battle from the Foca

9 Tactical Group commander --

10 Q. Could you please place it on the ELMO.

11 A. It's from the Foca Tactical Group commander,

12 it's dated the 7th of July, 1992, and it's an order to

13 break the siege of Gorazde. The order is quite

14 complex; it's directed to several different units, and

15 there are very specific instructions about what kind of

16 weaponry to use, what directions of attack to take.

17 Q. I would direct your attention to page 3.

18 Would you read the highlighted sentences, please?

19 A. Yes. It reads: "The 1st Independent Dragan

20 Nikolic Detachment shall take part in the liberation

21 and mop-up of Ilovaca village and beyond as part of one

22 SB." The translator's notation indicates that "SB"

23 stands for "independent battalion."

24 The second paragraph, the paragraph below

25 that reads: "The Independent Zaga Detachment shall

1 take part in mopping up settled areas in the direction

2 of the 5th Battalion's attack."

3 Q. Turning your attention to page 5, could you

4 read the highlighted portion there as well?

5 A. Yes. It reads: "Regular reports every day

6 until 2000 hours, with the situation as of 1900 hours;

7 interim reports as needed."

8 Q. And by whom is this document signed?

9 A. It's signed by their commander, Colonel Marko

10 Kovac, and there's a stamp on the original, the stamp

11 of the Territorial Defence of the Serbian Autonomous

12 District of Herzegovina.

13 Q. I turn your attention now to Exhibit 3.

14 Could you place that on the ELMO and describe it,

15 please.

16 A. This is an order from the Serbian Republic of

17 Bosnia-Herzegovina. It's signed, on the second page,

18 by the prime minister of the Serbian Republic of

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina, Professor Branko Ceric, at that

20 time. This is an order which requires persons, subject

21 to military service, to remain within the area, and

22 stipulates that legal measures shall be taken against

23 individuals liable for military service who fail to

24 abide by these provisions.

25 Q. What is the date of the document?

1 A. The 21st of May, 1992.

2 Q. Turning now to Exhibit 4, could you describe

3 that, please?

4 A. Yes. This is an order from the commander of

5 the Tactical Group Kalinovik. It's dated the 11th of

6 June, 1992, and it's signed by the commander of the

7 Kalinovik Tactical Group, Colonel Ratko Bundalo. The

8 order, first of all, declares the municipalities of

9 Kalinovik and Trnovo to be war zones. In paragraphs 2

10 and 3, it restricts the movement of the population in

11 the area of combat. Paragraph 4 onwards regulates the

12 conduct both of civilians and of members of the

13 fighting forces within the zone of war theatres. So,

14 for instance, it prohibits the consumption of alcohol

15 in certain areas and prohibits hunting and fishing.

16 Q. Turning now to Exhibit 6, would you please

17 describe what that is?

18 A. Yes. Exhibit 6 is also an order of battle.

19 It's another order from Colonel Ratko Bundalo, the

20 commander of the Tactical Group Kalinovik. It's the

21 tasking of units for further action. It's directed to

22 commanders of basic units and the command of the Trnovo

23 Battalion.

24 Q. What is the date of that document?

25 A. The 21st of June. It says "1800 hours".

1 Q. Directing your attention to pages 2 and 3,

2 could you please read the highlighted portions relating

3 to the use of artillery?

4 A. Yes. Paragraph 1.2: "The 1st 155-millimetre

5 Howitzer Battery should open fire from the present

6 firing positions."

7 Paragraph 1.3: "The 1st 105-millimetre

8 Howitzer Battery should open fire from the present

9 firing positions."

10 Under paragraph 1.5, the second section of

11 that, it reads: "One 20/3 anti-aircraft defence squad

12 should launch attacks on the enemy forces in the

13 regions of Gradac, Pendicici, and Zabrdze, from the

14 area of the relay station."

15 Paragraph 1.7 reads: "While preparing

16 attacks, the 82-millimetre Mortar Platoon should fire

17 at the targets 1, 2, and 3 from its present positions."

18 Paragraph 1.8: "A two-squad rocket battery

19 deployed in the Sesteljevo area should open fire at the

20 observed targets and the established positions of the

21 enemy."

22 The next page. On the following page, there

23 is an instruction to the logistics unit to provide 100

24 projectiles for the 155-millimetre howitzer batteries.

25 Q. Turning to Exhibit 6/1 --

1 MS. KUO: I hope that everybody has received

2 a copy of Exhibit 6/1.

3 Q. Will the witness please describe what that

4 is?

5 A. Yes. These are photographs that we

6 photocopied from the Canadian Immigration Service

7 Debrief Guide. It's meant to provide examples of what

8 some of this weaponry -- some of the weaponry described

9 in the order looked like.

10 Here you have the 155-millimetre howitzer.

11 This is 105-millimetre [sic] howitzer. Next to it is a

12 152-millimetre howitzer. Under "mortars," this first

13 one is the 82-millimetre mortar. This section down

14 here shows -- these are examples of three-barreled

15 anti-aircraft defence artillery.

16 Q. The first one you showed, I think you

17 misspoke. It's 155, or did you say "105," the first --

18 A. No, 155 is the first one; 105 is the one next

19 to it. Sorry.

20 Q. Thank you. Going back to Exhibit 6, could

21 you look at the bottom of page 2, and that final

22 paragraph that is entitled "Maintaining Morale," could

23 you read that outloud, please?

24 A. Yes. "Maintaining Morale. On 22 June, the

25 Assistant Commanders for Morale, the President of the

1 Kalinovik Municipality, the President of the Kalinovik

2 Executive Board, and the President of the Trnovo Crisis

3 Staff will visit the units, in particular, the

4 infantry, explain the purpose and the objectives of the

5 forthcoming operations and motivate the troops for

6 carrying out the forthcoming tasks."

7 Q. Let's turn now to Exhibit 7. Could you

8 describe that, please?

9 A. Yes. This is an order for further

10 activities. Again, it's from the Command of the

11 Kalinovik Tactical Group, it's dated the 13th of June,

12 1992, and it's an order for further activities.

13 Sorry. It's also signed by Commander Colonel Ratko

14 Bundalo.

15 Q. Could you please read the highlighted

16 portions?

17 A. Yes. "Also fleeing with the enemy forces

18 were women, children, and the elderly. According to

19 information at our disposal, the enemy does not have an

20 organised system of defence. However, from its present

21 area, the enemy is deploying its forces at suitable

22 sites from which they are able to fire on our forces

23 with 82-millimetre mortars and other infantry weapons.

24 So far they have not been successful in their attacks.

25 The enemy has great problems. He is short of weapons,

1 ammunition, and food. As a result of the success of

2 our forces, the large number of dead, and the

3 disorganisation in enemy ranks, great panic and fear

4 prevail among the Muslim people. They don't see a way

5 out of the current crisis. The Muslim authorities are

6 being increasingly criticised."

7 Q. Turning now to Exhibit 8, would you describe

8 what Exhibit 8 is, please?

9 A. Yes. I'll put the B/C/S original on the

10 ELMO. This is an order, again from the Kalinovik

11 Tactical Group Command, signed for the commander,

12 Colonel Ratko Bundalo, dated the 6th of June, 1992.

13 The order has two parts; there's a typewritten part

14 which is the actual text of the order, and then you can

15 see in the B/C/S version handwritten notes on top -- on

16 the margins.

17 Q. Would you read the English translations first

18 of the typewritten text?

19 A. Yes. It says: "Kalinovik Tactical Group

20 Command. Date: 6 June 1992. Number: S1/92. To the

21 Trnovo Territorial Defence Commander: I hereby order

22 that soldier Dragan Zvizdalo, born in Trnovo on 6 May

23 1992, be immediately included in the front line combat

24 units." The "1992" is clearly a mistake. "You are

25 personally responsible for the carrying out of this

1 order, and you should report on this to the

2 Commander." Then you have the signature.

3 Q. Now could you please read, and indicate as

4 you're reading it, perhaps, what the handwritten

5 portions are translated into English as?

6 A. Yes. On the top part, it is translated as:

7 "He pointed out Muslim houses to Pero --" and then the

8 translator has indicated that the family name is

9 illegible. However, if you look at the B/C/S version,

10 you can see that it looks like "Elez," "E-l-e-z," "U"

11 is the way that the name would be declined in

12 Bosnian -- in B/C/S. So if you're familiar with the

13 name and you know that there is a Pero Elez from

14 Miljevina, that's quite obvious. The translator, I

15 think, who was translating it was not familiar with

16 it.

17 It continues: "... from Miljevina and the

18 Duke from 'illegible' so that they could burn them."

19 At the bottom, it says: "Rewarded for that, after

20 which he avoided military service, and

21 consequently ..." and then it's illegible.

22 Q. Let's turn now to Exhibit 9. Could you

23 please describe what Exhibit 9 is?

24 A. Yes. This is a request from the commander of

25 the 1st Battalion, Lieutenant Milos Tomovic, a request

1 to the Foca Tactical Group commander, asking that

2 fighters who have left the battalion to join other

3 units be returned to the units to which they belong.

4 Q. Does the name "Dragan Nikolic" appear on the

5 document?

6 A. Yes, it does. It appears on the left-hand

7 column, where the names of the platoons and units that

8 the soldiers belonged to are listed. On this side, you

9 have the names, and this side, you have the -- the

10 names of the soldiers; the names of the units.

11 Q. You mean the right-hand side?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Do you know, based on the context, what the

14 name appears to refers to, the name "Dragan Nikolic"?

15 A. Yes. It's the name of a unit, which we'll

16 hear more about. It's a unit that was part of the Foca

17 Tactical Brigade.

18 Q. Could you give us the date, please, of that

19 document?

20 A. Yes. It's the 24th of November, 1992.

21 Q. Let's look at Exhibit 10. Could you describe

22 what Exhibit 10 is?

23 A. Yes. Exhibit 10 is -- these are excerpts

24 from the military -- the military information newspaper

25 of Srbinje. Srbinje is the new name of Foca; Foca was

1 renamed during the war and the name became Srbinje.

2 It's published by the Srbinje Garrison command of the

3 Republika Srpska army.

4 This particular magazine, this issue appears

5 to be a commemorative issue. Although there's no date

6 on the front page, on some of the articles, the date

7 the day "St. Vitus's Day" appears. That's the 20th of

8 June, 1995; it says, "Vitus Day 1995." It appears to

9 be a commemorative article. The tenor of many of the

10 articles suggest that they were all published as one

11 piece. They are articles that celebrate the work of

12 commanders, of particular units, and the liberation of

13 Foca.

14 MS. KUO: May I just point out to the Court

15 that the way this has been organised is that the

16 English translation appears right before each page of

17 the original B/C/S version. For some of the articles

18 where there are several articles that appear on a

19 single page, all of the English translations precede

20 the page in the original.

21 Q. So let me turn your attention to the article

22 that is headlined, "We Shall Defend." Would you please

23 put that on the ELMO and read very slowly the

24 highlighted portion?

25 A. Yes. This is an excerpt from an interview

1 with Lieutenant Colonel N. Paprica, a Srbinje Garrison

2 commander in the Republika Srpska army. The

3 highlighted section reads as follows:

4 "Members of the army from Srbinje have

5 already done many things for which they will go down in

6 the history of the Republika Srpska. The way our

7 people organised themselves made it possible for us to

8 take control of the town of Foca as early as April

9 1992. In the course of the next two months, Serbian

10 armed units formed at that time managed to take over

11 the territory of the entire municipality. When the

12 process of the formation of VRS units was completed in

13 June that year, the general military situation in this

14 area was largely under our control. Since that time,

15 we have constantly expanded the free Serbian territory

16 so that it now corresponds to the garrisons' zone of

17 responsibility, which is larger than some European

18 countries."

19 THE INTERPRETER: Would the witness please

20 read slower.

21 MS. KUO:

22 Q. Turning your attention to the article that is

23 headlined "Looking at the Sky". If you would please

24 put that on the ELMO -- it already is -- and read the

25 highlighted portion very slowly.

1 A. Yes. This is an interview with an officer of

2 the anti-aircraft defence unit of the VRS. The

3 paragraph reads:

4 "This unit embarked on its combat trail

5 immediately after the war broke out. The enemy has

6 experienced the fire of three-barreled and

7 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, which, supported by

8 infantry units and other sections of the artillery,

9 have been used in all combat missions in our zone of

10 responsibility, as well as further afield in Republika

11 Srpska."

12 Q. Now the article entitled "Continuing Their

13 Forbearer's Tradition".

14 A. This is the story of the Mixed Artillery

15 Battalion. The highlighted paragraph reads:

16 "Immediately after fighting broke out in our

17 area, activities were started toward forming an

18 artillery unit which would cooperate with other

19 branches in resisting the enemy. Some of the weapons

20 of an artillery regiment which were transferred from

21 Rijeka, Croatia were used to start forming a

22 battalion. The experience and efforts of four officers

23 of the former JNA were engaged to begin a course for

24 the weapons crew and start training new officers. Only

25 two days later, projectiles of 105-millimetre howitzer

1 battery pierced the sky for the first time. The

2 greatest problem was a lack of fighters who had

3 specialised in artillery. Their places were filled by

4 men from the infantry, logistics, and other branches."

5 Q. We turn now to the article that is headlined

6 "Dragan Nikolic".

7 A. Yes. This is a commemorative article on the

8 late Dragan Nikolic, a former commander in the VRS.

9 I'll start with the second paragraph, which is

10 highlighted.

11 "We roll back the tape. It is Saturday

12 afternoon, 11 April. Shots and bursts fired from

13 automatic weapons are echoing through Foca. Shells are

14 falling over the town. People are mostly in shelters

15 or out of town, in a safe place. The bitterest battle

16 is being fought in the neighbourhood of Aladza, where

17 Muslims have been entrenched for a long time and have

18 prepared for long resistance. A sniper has been firing

19 from the minaret of the neighbourhood mosque since the

20 start of the street fighting. The unit commanded by

21 Dragan Nikolic, made up exclusively of volunteers from

22 the villages around Foca, has been assigned the most

23 difficult mission - to take control of this part of the

24 town. The volunteers knew exactly what to expect in

25 the conflict which began on 8 April."

1 Further down on the page, it says:

2 "The name of this first fallen war commander

3 in Foca was later used for the intervention unit,

4 commanded by Brano Cosovic."

5 Q. Turning now to the article headlined "Lazo

6 Kunarac".

7 A. This is an article -- also a war story of

8 Lazo Kunarac, who died during the war. He is listed as

9 the late commander of the 2nd Battalion of the Serbian

10 army in Srbinje. I should say that, to the best of my

11 knowledge, Lazo Kunarac is not related to Mr. Dragoljub

12 Kunarac. The highlighted paragraph reads:

13 "It was 7 June 1992. The day before, he had

14 come back from Pale, where he and other leaders had

15 participated in arrangements being made at the command

16 of the Republika Srpska army."

17 Q. Now the article headlined "Pero Elez".

18 A. Yes. This is a commemorative article about

19 Pero Elez, who also died during the war. He was a

20 commander in the Republika Srpska army. The

21 highlighted paragraph reads:

22 "When roads were blocked in Sarajevo in

23 March 1992, similar roadblocks were erected in

24 Miljevina too. Pero and a small group of his

25 co-fighters were to obstruct the path for those who

1 were driving lorries loaded with rifles to Jelec,

2 Meledzica, and Kozija Luka. In the small town on the

3 Bistrica, 6 April 1992 is now more than an ordinary day

4 in the calendar. In a well-organised and

5 professionally conducted operation, Serbian soldiers

6 took over all the institutions in the town. There was

7 no reason to wait any longer."

8 On the second page of that article, there's a

9 specific reference to the date of the death of Pero

10 Elez, and it reads:

11 "The date 10 December 1992 will be

12 remembered by every child in Miljevina. After lining

13 up the members of his unit and issuing combat orders,

14 Pero hurried to go out to the main command in Foca. He

15 had just got into a Golf when a shot rang out."

16 Q. Let's look now at the article headlined

17 "Slavko Todovic."

18 A. This is an article about Slavko Todovic, who

19 also died. He's referred to as an officer in the

20 Republika Srpska army. I'll start from the beginning

21 till the end of the highlighted section.

22 "'This day will go down in the history of

23 the Serbian people,'" said Slavko Todovic, on St.

24 Vitus' Day, 28 June 1991, at a secret meeting of the

25 Crisis Staff held in his family house in Foca --"

1 Q. Would the witness please slow down.

2 A. Sorry. "There was no time to lose. Serbs

3 had to be rallied together and persuaded that they

4 could resist the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in

5 these areas only if they were united and organised.

6 "As a member of the Serbian Democratic Party,

7 Todovic became the representative of the constituency

8 of Livade in the Municipal Assembly and a member of the

9 Party's Main Board for Foca. He was a visionary and

10 felt that war was inevitable. He often said, 'The Foca

11 trans affair does not seem to have opened our Serbian

12 eyes. We are blind to repeated gatherings of Muslims,

13 their acquisition of weapons, their organised military

14 training, the formation of units, and the setting up of

15 guard posts. It is high time we too organised

16 ourselves and prepared for war.'" .

17 Q. Would you, before we leave this document,

18 continue reading the paragraph immediately after that?

19 A. "Slavko was familiar with military doctrine

20 and was therefore elected chairman of the Crisis

21 Staff. He took part in the preparation and

22 implementation of combat operations, in the setting up

23 of new defence lines, and the organisation of logistic

24 support. With a rifle in his hand, he went all around

25 our battlefield, rubbing shoulders with Serbian

1 fighters."

2 I'm just highlighting this additional

3 paragraph.

4 Q. I'll turn now to the article headlined

5 "Radomir Cile-Cicmil".

6 A. Yes. This is an article about Radomir

7 Cile-Cicmil, former commander in the Republika Srpska

8 army. The only part of this document that I would like

9 to draw attention to is at the bottom of the first

10 page, going on to the second page, where Gojko Jankovic

11 is referred to as the commander of the special

12 detachment.

13 Q. That will be all for Exhibit 10.

14 Let's turn now -- it's a little bit out of

15 order, I apologise for this, but Exhibits number 31

16 through 36. Ms. Thapa, could you please explain what

17 Exhibits 31 to 36 consist of?

18 A. Yes. Exhibit 31 is a letter from the Federal

19 Ministry of Justice in Belgrade to the Prosecutor of

20 the ICTY, enclosing the documents, Exhibits 32 through

21 36, which are listed in Exhibit 31, which is a letter.

22 Q. What is the date of the letter?

23 A. The letter is dated the 25th of June, 1998.

24 Q. Does the letter appear to be in response to

25 something?

1 A. Yes. It's in response to the request for

2 legal assistance of the Prosecutor of the Tribunal.

3 It's a request in which we requested certain documents,

4 and they supplied us with these documents.

5 Q. Does Exhibit --

6 JUDGE HUNT: My document is dated the 29th of

7 June. I assume we've got the same one, have we? The

8 witness said the 25th of June.

9 MS. KUO:

10 Q. Does the witness see those two dates?

11 A. Yes, I do. The 25th of June appears on the

12 left-hand side of the page, under "Federal Republic of

13 Yugoslavia, Federal Ministry of Justice". That appears

14 to be the date on which the letter was --

15 JUDGE HUNT: Yes. Thank you.

16 MS. KUO:

17 Q. Does Exhibit 31 make reference to Exhibits 32

18 through 36?

19 A. Yes, it does. It lists Exhibits 32 through

20 36. You can see them numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

21 Q. Let's take them one at a time. If you could

22 please tell us what exhibit number corresponds to each

23 item that is described.

24 A. Item 1, which is the indictment of 10

25 February 1993, refers to Exhibit 32. This is an --

1 shall I describe the documents now or --

2 Q. Well, let's go through the listing, and then

3 we can go through each document.

4 A. Item number 2, the judgement of 16 December

5 1996, is Exhibit 33. Item number 3, the appeal of 23

6 July, and it says "1998" but it should actually read

7 "1993," is Exhibit 34. Item 4, the decision of the

8 Supreme Court of 15 June 1995 is Exhibit 35. Item 5,

9 the letter from the senior prosecutor, is Exhibit 36.

10 Q. Let's take the exhibits, then, in

11 chronological order. So we'll begin with what would be

12 Exhibit 32, and that is described as an indictment of

13 10 February 1993. Could you please explain that

14 document, just very briefly?

15 A. Yes. This is an indictment issued by the

16 senior public prosecutor's office in Podgorica against

17 several accused, including Zoran Vukovic and Radomir

18 Kovac. The indictment charges them with war crimes, in

19 specific, the murder of members of the Klapuh family.

20 Q. And where was this crime alleged to have

21 occurred?

22 A. In Montenegro.

23 Q. When?

24 A. When? On the 7th -- on the 6th of July,

25 1992.

1 Q. Could you please read the personal

2 information for Zoran Vukovic and Radomir Kovac?

3 A. Yes. From the indictment?

4 Q. From the indictment.

5 A. I can put the indictment on the ELMO. For

6 Zoran Vukovic, the indictment, that's Exhibit

7 32: "Zoran Vukovic, father Milojica, date of birth, 6

8 September 1955, in Bruse, municipality of Foca, living

9 in Foca, member of the army of Republika Srpska, Bosnia

10 and Herzegovina, Special Unit 'Dragan Nikolic'."

11 "Radomir Kovac, father Milenko, date of

12 birth, 31 March 1961, in Foca, municipality of Foca,

13 living in Foca, member of the army of Republika Srpska,

14 Bosnia and Herzegovina, Special Unit 'Dragan Nikolic'."

15 Q. Let's go now to Exhibit number 34, which is

16 the next one chronologically, and that is dated the

17 23rd of July, 1993. Could you explain that, please?

18 A. Yes. This is an appeal by the senior public

19 prosecutor of Podgorica, appealing against the

20 judgement of the Court of First Instance, which found

21 the accused guilty for murder rather than for war

22 crimes, and this is a letter appealing that judgement.

23 Q. Do we have in Exhibits 31 through 36 a copy

24 of that judgement from which this is appealed?

25 A. I don't think we do. No, we don't.

1 Q. Could you state briefly and generally what

2 the ground of appeal was?

3 A. Yes. There are two things that are

4 complained against. One is the verdict against Kovac

5 and Vukovic, and the other two, they received 20 years'

6 imprisonment. The senior public prosecutor complains

7 that the crimes that are charged amount to war crimes

8 and that they deserve a higher punishment than what was

9 given out. The second ground of complaint is that

10 Golubovic was found guilty for failure to report the

11 crime, and he was sentenced to only eight months

12 imprisonment. The senior public prosecutor complains

13 against that also, accusing him of having a greater

14 hand in the act than one of simple non-reporting.

15 Q. Let's turn now to Exhibit number 35, which is

16 dated 15 June 1995. Can you explain that?

17 A. Yes. This is the response -- this is the

18 response to the appeal.

19 Q. Is it a decision by the court?

20 A. Yes, it is. And the decision is that the --

21 the decision upheld the appeal by the Senior

22 Prosecutor and returns the case for a retrial to the

23 court of first instance. In particular, the Supreme

24 Court finds that there was sufficient grounds to find

25 the accused guilty, not just of murder but also of war

1 crimes.

2 Q. Now, let's turn to Exhibit 33, which is dated

3 the 16th of December, 1996.

4 A. Exhibit 33, you said.

5 Q. Yes. What is that?

6 A. This is the decision by the court after the

7 case has been returned to the court of first instance.

8 This is the decision following the retrial. You can

9 see in the first paragraph that there was a main public

10 hearing. The decision specifically finds Zoran Vukovic

11 and Radomir Kovac, again with the same biographical

12 information, among others, guilty of violations of

13 international humanitarian law and war crimes against

14 civilians, and sentences them to 20 years'

15 imprisonment.

16 Q. Looking on page 2 of that document, the

17 second paragraph under the heading "Rationale," would

18 you read that paragraph, please?

19 A. "All the indictees were tried in absentia

20 pursuant to Article 300, and there were compelling

21 reasons for the trial in absentia, because the indicted

22 persons were charged with a serious crime, and

23 considering the manner and circumstances under which

24 the crime was committed, the Trial Chamber points to

25 the necessity that the sentence be brought against the

1 indictees."

2 Q. Now turning finally to Exhibit 36, would you

3 describe what that is?

4 A. Exhibit 36 is a letter from the Senior

5 Prosecutor in Podgorica to the Prosecutor of the

6 Tribunal, giving a summary of the case, what happened

7 at what stage; gives a summary of what happened at the

8 court of first instance. Then it explains the appeal,

9 the Supreme Court's finding and the High Court's

10 finding when the case is returned to it.

11 Q. According to this, is that final finding

12 final, or is it being appealed? The one dated 1996.

13 A. Sorry. Did it mention 1996?

14 Q. Well, let me rephrase the question. Is there

15 anything in this letter from the Prosecutor, that's

16 dated 1998, to indicate an appeal was being taken

17 against the judgement that was entered in 1996?

18 A. No.

19 Q. All right. Let's turn now to the final

20 exhibit, which is Exhibit number 11, and that will be

21 the photo album of photographs in Foca.

22 MS. KUO: They should be in a separate

23 binder, the coloured versions, in any event, and in the

24 original trial binders we only had the black and

25 white. I hope everybody has the separate one.

1 JUDGE HUNT: Before you leave this particular

2 volume, now that I've had the opportunity to put some

3 holes in the documents we received this morning,

4 Exhibit 22 you gave us, there is already an Exhibit 22,

5 a very large map there. Is this to replace that?

6 MS. KUO: Yes, Your Honour.

7 JUDGE HUNT: Replace it completely?

8 MS. KUO: Yes.

9 Q. Ms. Thapa, could you please explain what

10 Exhibit 11 is?

11 A. Yes. This is a series of photos that were

12 made during our investigative mission to Foca in June

13 of 1996. We took photographs of many of the crime

14 scenes and places of relevance, as well as panoramic

15 pictures of Foca, and they're all contained in this

16 album.

17 Q. Are the photographs numbered?

18 A. Yes, they are.

19 Q. Maybe you can give us the number of the first

20 photograph and the number of the final photograph.

21 A. Yes. The sequence starts at 00407286, and

22 that is actually the table of contents, the first page

23 of the table of contents. The last document in this

24 series, which is a photograph, is 00407532.

25 Q. All right. We'll, for shorthand, refer to

1 the last three digits of the numbers, and I would turn

2 your attention first to number 288. Could you describe

3 for the Court, please, what this exhibit shows?

4 A. Yes. This is a picture of the town of Foca.

5 It's taken from the left bank of the Drina, looking at

6 the right bank, which is where the town is, and it

7 gives you a sense of the scale and the layout of the

8 town.

9 Q. Turning to the next page, the photograph 289,

10 can you explain what that is?

11 A. Yes. This is a photograph of a part of the

12 town. You can see that we've numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4,

13 we've marked certain buildings as 1, 2, 3, and 4.

14 Number 1 shows you Partizan Sports Hall; number 2 is

15 the police station; number 3 is the municipal assembly;

16 and number 4 is Hotel Zelengora, with the red roof.

17 Q. Let's look at Exhibit -- at photograph number

18 294?

19 A. This is a close-up on the photograph we just

20 saw. So we have 1, 2, and 3 marked. That's Partizan

21 Sports Hall. It's a clear view. You can see the

22 police station, the SUP, just below the hill here, and

23 this is the municipality building [indicates].

24 Q. Which one is the municipality building,

25 actually?

1 A. Sorry. It's this one [indicates], there.

2 Q. Turning to photographs numbered 302 and 303.

3 First, 302.

4 A. This is Partizan Sports Hall. It's a view

5 from the front. This is the front door [indicates].

6 There are steps leading up to it which we saw more

7 clearly in the video. This is a little shack next to

8 it. It looks like there's a car actually in there

9 now. This is the green in front of it which witnesses

10 will refer to.

11 Q. And 303.

12 A. Photograph 303 is a different angle of the

13 same area. This is the corner of Partizan Sports

14 Hall. You can see some apartment buildings back here,

15 some houses here [indicates]. The police station is

16 directly below this green here [indicates], and this is

17 just a front --

18 Q. When you say "here," do you mean the lower

19 left-hand corner of the photograph?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Let's turn now to photographs 315 and 316.

22 What do they show?

23 A. These are photographs of the inside of

24 Partizan Sports Hall. When these pictures were taken

25 in 1996, Partizan Sports Hall was being used by the Red

1 Cross as a distribution centre for humanitarian

2 supplies, and so the inside of Partizan, when we were

3 there, was filled with these humanitarian supplies.

4 These supplies were not there, the Red Cross was not

5 using this building in 1992, so the rooms would have

6 been free of these bags and boxes.

7 Q. What's shown in those photographs is the main

8 hallway -- the hall itself, the sports hall?

9 A. Yes, the main room in the sports hall.

10 Q. And number 325, what is that?

11 A. Again, it's the inside of the main hall of

12 Partizan Sports Hall. You can see the humanitarian

13 supplies. This is the stage [indicates], which

14 witnesses will refer to, the steps leading up to it.

15 Q. Would you look at photographs 327 and 328?

16 A. Yes. These are the washing facilities in

17 Partizan Sports Hall, these two photographs.

18 Q. I'm going to turn now to photograph 345.

19 A. Yes. This is the Miljevina Motel in

20 Miljevina. Witnesses will refer to it. It's quite a

21 distinctive building and serves as a landmark. In

22 Miljevina, Pero Elez and many of his soldiers used the

23 motel at different times, and you'll be hearing about

24 it during the trial.

25 Q. I look now at photographs 353 through 358.

1 Beginning with 353 and 354.

2 A. These are all photographs of Karaman's House

3 in Miljevina. This is the house itself [indicates].

4 This photograph is taken from the motel which we just

5 saw.

6 Q. Motel Miljevina, you mean.

7 A. Motel Miljevina. And you can see that you

8 have quite a clear view onto the house from the hotel.

9 This is the house itself --

10 Q. That's 354?

11 A. Yes, 354. It shows Karaman's House itself.

12 It is the front gate, coming from the level of the

13 road. This is the house [indicates].

14 Q. Does the arrow point to something specific?

15 A. Yes. You can see, if you look closely, that

16 the arrow is pointing to Miljevina Motel, the

17 distinctive looking building with the odd angles.

18 Q. Photograph 355, please.

19 A. Photograph 355 is a clearer picture of the

20 house itself, of Karaman's House. This is the front

21 gate, this is the driveway [indicates]. The front door

22 is here. You can see this overhanging vine here

23 [indicates].

24 Q. Does that appear to be a grape trellis?

25 A. Yes, it does, from this photograph. And 356

1 shows the front door of the house.

2 Q. Photograph 357, please.

3 A. This is Karaman's House, again seen from the

4 back. The earlier photographs were taken from the

5 road, which is up here, from behind -- or, actually,

6 that's -- the front entrance of the house is on the

7 side here [indicates], and this is a view from the back

8 garden.

9 Q. And the perspective from which this is being

10 taken is going somewhat downhill, into a valley; is

11 that correct?

12 A. Yes. That's correct. You can see on the

13 next photograph, 358, the view outward from that

14 valley. So the house is now directly behind you, and

15 you can see again Miljevina Motel here [indicates],

16 looking from the backyard of Karaman's House.

17 Q. Let's turn now to photographs 394 and 398.

18 Could you describe what is shown in 394?

19 A. Yes. 394, you may recall from the video, the

20 pictures of Ulica Osmana Djikica, as seen from the area

21 of the Aladza mosque, this is essentially the same

22 shot, just clearer. This is the house that I referred

23 to as the overflow house that Mr. Kunarac said that his

24 soldiers would sometimes stay in. This area with the

25 debris, with the green area, is where number 16 used to

1 be.

2 Q. Photograph 394, that's somewhat in the middle

3 of the photograph; correct?

4 A. Yes. It's right here [indicates]. And the

5 Aladza mosque is further down here. You would have to

6 come down this street in this direction [indicates].

7 Q. If you -- is this the similar perspective

8 from the one shown on the video, Exhibit number 28?

9 A. Yes. It's the same perspective.

10 Q. So where would the photographer be standing

11 in relation to the mosque?

12 A. In relation to the mosque, the photographer

13 would be somewhere here. The mosque would be behind

14 him. Behind him, to the left.

15 Q. Exhibit number 395, what is that?

16 A. This is a view of the house from the other

17 side. Again, this house is not number 16. This is

18 where number 16 used to be.

19 Q. So it just shows the location of where number

20 16 was.

21 A. Yes, where it used to be. The other shot --

22 the photograph before this was shot from down here on

23 this road [indicates]. This shot is from the main road

24 over here [indicates].

25 Q. And you're indicating the bottom of the

1 photograph.

2 A. That's right. I can point out that this

3 house here in cyrillic letters, this reads "Niksic",

4 and Mr. Kunarac has said that one of his soldiers wrote

5 this, one of his soldiers from Niksic wrote this.

6 Q. Let's look at photograph 396. Can you

7 indicate from this photograph where the house number 16

8 would have been located?

9 A. Number 16 would have been just where this

10 pile of rubble and green is. Right on the corner, you

11 can see this is a road here [indicates]. This is

12 Osmana Djikica. This is the little road that leads --

13 the arrow is pointing in the direction of the mosque.

14 This is the main road.

15 Q. So this photograph, 396, is taken from more

16 or less the same perspective as the previous

17 photograph?

18 A. Yes, just further back on the main road. And

19 you get a clearer sense of the space of the -- of where

20 number 16 used to be.

21 Q. And number 397.

22 A. Number 397, you can see the blue house here.

23 This is where number 16 would have been. Again the

24 arrow is now -- the photograph is taken again from the

25 main road and the arrow points in the direction of the

1 Aladza High School.

2 Q. So just to compare the perspectives of

3 photographs 396 and 397, would it be fair to say that

4 the photographer is standing in more or less the same

5 location but just turning perhaps 90 degrees to the

6 left?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Finally, let's turn to photograph 398, and

9 can you explain that photograph?

10 A. Yes. This is another picture of the area

11 where Ulica Osmana Djikica 16 used to be. This is,

12 again, a slightly different angle on the blue house.

13 This area where the debris is is where the house used

14 to be.

15 Q. All right. Let's turn now to a few more

16 photographs of other locations. Number 400.

17 A. This is a photograph of a part of Foca town,

18 in particular, in focus with the red roof and the

19 building just behind it. This is the Hotel Zelengora.

20 Q. Hotel Zelengora is with the red roof.

21 A. Yes. This building which appears here

22 [indicates], in the corner, this high-rise, is the

23 beginning of the Lepa Brena apartments.

24 Q. And you're pointing to the right-hand side of

25 the photograph?

1 A. Yes. That's right.

2 Q. Photograph 401.

3 A. Yes. These are the Lepa Brena apartment

4 building -- this is the main part. There are shops on

5 the street level, and above that are the apartments. I

6 point out that there are balconies attached to the

7 apartments.

8 Q. Let's look at photographs 415 and 416.

9 A. These are photographs of the Buk Bijela

10 barracks, where the women who were arrested on the 3rd

11 of July of 1992 from the villages of Mjesaja and

12 Trosanj were first taken. The photograph just below

13 415, number 416 shows essentially the same photograph,

14 it just has an arrow pointing to the motel which is

15 attached to the barracks.

16 Q. Photographs 418 and 419, please.

17 A. 418 and 419 both show the Foca High School,

18 in the Aladza area. This is a view from the side.

19 This is the main road leading to the high school. 419

20 is a view from the side. This is a parking lot, and

21 it's a view of the high school from the side.

22 Q. Photographs 426 and 427, please.

23 A. Yes. This is the inside of the high school.

24 426 has two arrows on it which indicates two separate

25 levels, level 1 and level 2. So you have the main part

1 there, the ground floor, and this is the first level.

2 This is the second level.

3 Q. What room is this; do you know?

4 A. This is the lobby as you enter the building,

5 this area [indicates].

6 Q. Is this high school still being used as a

7 school, or at least in 1996 when you visited?

8 A. Yes, it was.

9 Q. Could you then turn to pages 430 and 431.

10 JUDGE HUNT: Is there some significance in

11 the arrow on 427?

12 THE WITNESS: 427?

13 JUDGE HUNT: Yes.

14 THE WITNESS: Yes. The arrow on 427

15 indicates the main entrance.

16 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

17 MS. KUO:

18 Q. I'm sorry. 428 and 429 first.

19 A. 428, again, this is all from inside the high

20 school; 428 shows you the stairs leading up to the

21 classrooms. 429 shows the corridors once you get

22 upstairs, and the doors leading to the classrooms.

23 Q. And now 430 and 431.

24 A. These two pictures are different angles on a

25 classroom. It gives you a sense of the size of the

1 space in which the women and children were detained.

2 Q. Photograph 441.

3 A. Sorry. 441 shows the KP Dom, the men's

4 penitentiary. In Foca, this was a functional prison

5 from before the war, one of the largest in the former

6 Yugoslavia. This is the main detention unit

7 [indicates] for the prisoners.

8 Q. Do you know its function during the war?

9 A. It was used to detain male Muslim civilians.

10 A part of the prison was also used by the VRS to

11 punish -- to imprison soldiers who had violated

12 military norms.

13 Q. And turning to Exhibit -- photograph 442 and

14 443.

15 A. Yes. 442 is a picture of the KP Dom from the

16 other side of the bridge, again from the left bank of

17 the Drina. This is the bridge which was destroyed --

18 actually, it was bombed by NATO, and it's since been

19 rebuilt, but in 1996, it was still destroyed. This is

20 the KP Dom. Again, 448 [sic] is also from the other

21 side of the river, and it focuses more on this building

22 which was the restaurant outside the KP Dom which was

23 used by officers who work -- officers and functionaries

24 of the KP Dom.

25 JUDGE HUNT: I think that's 443.

1 THE WITNESS: Yes, 443.

2 MS. KUO:

3 Q. Before we move to Exhibit 11, I would like to

4 return to photograph 295.

5 A. 295?

6 Q. Yes. I believe that 295 is in two parts. Is

7 that correct?

8 A. It is.

9 Q. Could you perhaps try to put the two parts

10 together and show it on the ELMO?

11 A. Yes. It should look something like this

12 [indicates]. I think it's still too big for the ELMO.

13 Q. Could you describe it, then?

14 A. Yes. This is the municipal assembly

15 building.

16 Q. You're pointing to the left-hand side.

17 A. The left-hand side, this brick building with

18 the tile roof. This white building, the large white

19 building, is the police station, which witnesses will

20 refer to as the SUP. And directly above that, this

21 small building here [indicates], this is the Partizan

22 Sports Hall.

23 Q. And you're pointing to the right of the

24 panoramic photograph.

25 A. Yes, that's right. It's a small -- it's a

1 smallish building with -- it's a white long building

2 with a red tile roof.

3 MS. KUO: That will be all the questions that

4 the Prosecution has for this witness, Your Honours.

5 [Trial Chamber confers]

6 JUDGE MUMBA: Ms. Kuo, we were wondering

7 about whether or not these exhibits are going to be

8 admitted into evidence.

9 MS. KUO: Yes. I guess I would wish to know

10 how the Court wants to proceed on that. We do wish to

11 enter Exhibits 1 through 36 which have been discussed

12 by this witness into evidence, and --

13 JUDGE MUMBA: We'll ask the Defence.

14 The Defence counsel. Mr. Prodanovic first.

15 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your

16 Honours, I wish to remind you of the fact that we did

17 not question the authenticity of these documents.

18 Nevertheless, I would like the Prosecutor to give me

19 some clarifications with regard to three documents.

20 Document 24, please.

21 JUDGE MUMBA: Mr. Prodanovic, you just want

22 clarification, not cross-examination yet.

23 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes.

24 Just clarifications.

25 Document 24 is the BBC cassette --

1 THE WITNESS: I'm not getting any

2 translation. I think the volume is too low, that it

3 doesn't seem to be responding.

4 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] In this

5 cassette, we see houses that are burning in town.

6 Could the investigator please tell me, since she was an

7 investigator -- I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

8 THE INTERPRETER: Can you hear the

9 interpretation now?

10 THE WITNESS: Yes, I can.

11 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] So I'm going

12 to repeat my question.

13 Document 24 is a videocassette made by the

14 BBC, and houses that are on fire can be seen in it.

15 Since you investigated this, did you investigate whose

16 houses were on fire? Can one see that from this

17 videocassette?

18 THE WITNESS: I haven't investigated which

19 those houses are that are shown on the video. I

20 suppose someone who knows the neighbourhoods of Foca better

21 than I do would be able to point out which

22 neighbourhoods these are which are on fire.

23 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] I presume

24 that this is going to be a topic that we will discuss

25 during this trial. Now document 8 and 9. This

1 document does not have a seal or stamp on it. There is

2 another thing that is illogical. The soldier that we

3 are speaking of was born in 1992, that's what it says.

4 Do you have this document with a stamp, with the

5 original?

6 THE WITNESS: No. What we have is the

7 document as it appears. In our collection, also it is

8 without a stamp. And my understanding was that the 6th

9 of May, 1992, that's obviously -- that's a mistake.

10 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] That was

11 all. That was all the clarification I sought because I

12 thought that the investigator would have the original

13 of this document. Thank you.

14 JUDGE MUMBA: So are you objecting to the

15 admission into evidence?

16 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] We are

17 objecting to this document and to that other document,

18 number 9, where there is no stamp.

19 JUDGE MUMBA: And which one?

20 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] That is

21 document number 9.

22 JUDGE HUNT: And which is the other one?

23 JUDGE MUMBA: That's the only document you're

24 objecting to?

25 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Number 8

1 too. Documents 8 and 9.

2 JUDGE MUMBA: So it's Exhibits 8 and 9, those

3 are the only two exhibits you are objecting to?

4 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your

5 Honour. Yes.

6 JUDGE MUMBA: The rest you have no objection

7 to their being admitted into evidence?

8 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] No, Your

9 Honour.

10 JUDGE MUMBA: Mr. Kolesar.

11 MR. KOLESAR: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I

12 fully concur. I object to these two documents only. I

13 do not object to all the other exhibits, not in terms

14 of their authenticity, that is.

15 JUDGE MUMBA: Mr. Jovanovic?

16 MR. JOVANOVIC: [Interpretation] No, Your

17 Honour, we have no objections to the authenticity of

18 these documents, except that the two documents that

19 were already mentioned by my colleague,

20 Mr. Prodanovic.

21 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you.

22 Any explanation on the points of objection?

23 MS. KUO:

24 Q. If I may ask the witness to explain how

25 documents 8 and 9 were obtained and copies made.

1 A. These both were -- they come from two

2 different collections. Document number 8 comes from

3 what we refer to as our Trnovo collection. These are

4 documents which were captured by the army of

5 Bosnia-Herzegovina, again after the 31st of July,

6 1992. These were given to a member of the OTP. The

7 originals of these documents are still held by the

8 relevant authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. What we

9 have in our custody is simply the photocopy of the

10 original, which is what appears in the exhibit binder.

11 Q. And looking at Exhibit number 8, the

12 original, what language is that in?

13 A. That is in B/C/S.

14 Q. And is there a signature?

15 A. There is a signature. It is signed for the

16 commander, Ratko Bundalo.

17 Q. Now, Exhibit 9, can you explain how that was

18 obtained?

19 A. Yes. This document comes from our Gorazde

20 collection. This is an order which, together with

21 other documents from that collection, were found by the

22 army of Bosnia-Herzegovina in and around the

23 battlefields of Gorazde. Again, the original of this

24 document remains in the custody of the authorities of

25 Bosnia-Herzegovina. What we have here is a photocopy

1 of the original. As far as this document is concerned,

2 I examined the original myself and made a photocopy of

3 it.

4 Q. And this photocopy in the B/C/S language, is

5 that -- was there anything changed in it from the

6 original?

7 A. No. No.

8 JUDGE HUNT: The point seems to be that

9 there's no stamp on it. Now, from that evidence, may

10 we assume that there was no stamp on the original

11 either?

12 MS. KUO: Yes, that's correct, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE HUNT: So you're relying upon the

14 provenance of them being found either in the

15 battlefield or in some particular spot by the

16 Bosnia-Herzegovina army.

17 MS. KUO: That's correct.

18 JUDGE HUNT: I see.

19 [Trial Chamber confers]

20 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. Is there anything that

21 the Defence counsel would like to say in reply? The

22 objection seems to be that they don't have stamps.

23 JUDGE HUNT: The point, Mr. Prodanovic, is

24 that they have exactly the same provenance as the other

25 documents. They are found in the same places. The

1 originals don't have stamps either. So these are

2 merely photostats of the original documents found.

3 What is the difference between them and the ones that

4 do have stamps on them if they are found in the same

5 way?

6 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour,

7 those who have stamps cannot be forged, in our opinion,

8 whereas those that do not have a stamp can be made by

9 anyone. That's the difference. Because, you see, this

10 document is illogical. It was signed by a Colonel, and

11 Zvizdalo Dragan was born in 1992, that's what it says

12 here. So the contents of the document is illogical as

13 well.

14 JUDGE HUNT: Ms. Kuo, have we got that

15 gentleman's signature on any of the other documents

16 that do have stamps?

17 MS. KUO: This signature on Exhibit 8 --

18 JUDGE HUNT: We've got several of his

19 documents, haven't we?

20 MS. KUO: Yes, we do. But it appears that

21 the signature on Exhibit 8 is signed by someone for

22 Ratko Bundalo, rather than him signing it --

23 JUDGE HUNT: Do you have any with that

24 particular signature on it?

25 MS. KUO: I don't believe so, Your Honour.

1 If I could just respond very briefly to

2 Mr. Prodanovic's objection to the birth date of the

3 soldier. We are going on the assumption that that is

4 simply a typographical error, as it is entirely

5 illogical, nobody would have been born on that date and

6 be a soldier, but we are not offering that part of the

7 evidence as being true. We really are relying on the

8 handwritten part.

9 JUDGE HUNT: What about Exhibit 9? Is that

10 signature on any other document you have with a stamp

11 on it?

12 MS. KUO: I also don't believe that appears

13 on any other document.

14 JUDGE HUNT: Thank you.

15 [Trial Chamber deliberates]

16 JUDGE MUMBA: Mr. Prodanovic, and the other

17 Defence counsel, the Trial Chamber is of the view that,

18 in view of the objections that you have pointed out,

19 the Trial Chamber will consider what weight to attach

20 to these exhibits; otherwise, they will be admitted

21 into evidence.

22 Since the Prosecution have finished, we are

23 supposed to proceed with the cross-examination of this

24 witness, and we have a few minutes. I think we can

25 start.

1 MR. PRODANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your

2 Honours, we have no questions for this witness. We

3 have had a look at these materials. We already said

4 that we would not object to the authenticity of these

5 exhibits, save for the two already mentioned. My

6 understanding of what my colleague, the Prosecutor,

7 said before the investigator started talking about

8 these documents was that the substance of these

9 particular documents would be interpreted by experts.

10 So then at that point in time, we are going to put our

11 questions. For the time being, we don't want to take

12 up more of your time with questions related to these

13 documents. Thank you.

14 JUDGE MUMBA: Confirmed, Mr. Kolesar?

15 MR. KOLESAR: [Interpretation] Yes, I do

16 confirm this. We are going to have quite a few

17 questions, particularly in relation to the military

18 orders. However, I think that this witness cannot

19 respond to these questions, it will really be for a

20 military expert to answer those questions.

21 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you. The third Defence

22 counsel.

23 MR. JOVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour,

24 I fully agree with my colleagues' positions, but I just

25 have a brief question for the investigator related to

1 numbers 31 to 36, related to the procedure -- rather,

2 the trial against Mr. Vukovic in Podgorica.

3 Cross-examined by Mr. Jovanovic:

4 Q. Before the trial began, we were told that the

5 investigator, in addition to these documents, had some

6 other details related to this that she investigated.

7 Since all of this has been presented in this particular

8 form, I would like to know whether the investigator has

9 been familiarised in any way with the provisions of the

10 Criminal Code in the territory of the Federal Republic

11 of Yugoslavia.

12 JUDGE MUMBA: The witness may answer that

13 question.

14 A. Yes. I am not, in any depth, familiar with

15 the codes of procedure -- criminal procedure and

16 evidence in the former Yugoslavia, in particular, in

17 the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, I should say. I'm

18 aware of the fact that you can have these

19 proceedings -- you can have a trial in absentia of

20 certain accused in order to preserve the evidence. But

21 as and when the accused is arrested, there must then be

22 a trial again. This is all I know.

23 Q. Thank you. That was an answer to my

24 question.

25 MR. JOVANOVIC: [Interpretation] No further

1 questions, Your Honours.

2 JUDGE MUMBA: Thank you very much. That's

3 the end. We've finished with Ms. Thapa? That's the

4 end?

5 MS. KUO: Yes, Your Honour. May I just have

6 a clarification on the record that, in fact, Exhibits 1

7 through 36 are now in evidence.

8 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes.

9 MS. KUO: Thank you.

10 JUDGE MUMBA: Any questions?

11 JUDGE HUNT: Ms. Kuo, could you just give us,

12 very briefly, what the relevance of them are, those

13 particular documents?

14 MS. KUO: Certainly, Your Honour. Shall I

15 begin -- go in the order --

16 JUDGE HUNT: No, just the whole of that

17 particular procedure. What is the relevance of them to

18 this trial?

19 MS. KUO: The maps and the photographs --

20 JUDGE HUNT: No. No. Documents 31 to --

21 MS. KUO: I'm sorry. I misunderstood. There

22 are two things, in particular. One is the fact of

23 showing that Mr. Vukovic, the same personal particulars

24 as the accused, and also Radovan Kovac, are members of

25 the Dragan Nikolic Detachment, and this is a finding by

1 a court -- an official finding by a court. In

2 addition, we would ask at the sentencing phase to show

3 that these individuals, in fact, have been convicted by

4 a court of law and --

5 JUDGE HUNT: In absentia?

6 MS. KUO: That is correct.

7 JUDGE HUNT: No doubt that will be an

8 interesting argument later on.

9 JUDGE MUMBA: Yes. Thank you very much,

10 Ms. Thapa. Thank you for the evidence. You are now

11 released.

12 We were informed by the Prosecutor that you

13 may wish to stay on during the evidence of other

14 Prosecution witnesses, and we have already granted our

15 order in that regard.

16 We've now come to the end of the afternoon

17 session. The Trial Chamber will adjourn until tomorrow

18 at 9.30 hours, for continuation of the Prosecution

19 case.

20 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at

21 4 p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday,

22 the 21^st day of March, 2000, at

23 9.30 a.m.

24

25