1. 1 Wednesday, 27th January, 1999

    2 (Open session)

    3 --- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.

    4 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours.

    5 Case number IT-95-16-T, the Prosecutor versus Zoran

    6 Kupreskic, Mirjan Kupreskic, Vlatko Kupreskic, Drago

    7 Josipovic, Dragan Papic, and Vladimir Santic.

    8 JUDGE CASSESE: Good morning.

    9 MR. BLAXILL: Good morning, Your Honours. If

    10 I may interpose for a moment. Mr. President, you are

    11 aware of a matter I communicated to you yesterday. I

    12 have confirmed that for our deceased teammate, the

    13 memorial service is to be held at 10.30 tomorrow

    14 morning, and we would very much appreciate it if the

    15 Court could reschedule business tomorrow to facilitate

    16 our attendance at that service.

    17 JUDGE CASSESE: Well, first of all, let me

    18 convey to you the Court's condolences. We are very

    19 saddened by what happened.

    20 In principle, if the Defence counsel are

    21 agreeable, we would reschedule the hearing so as to

    22 hold it tomorrow afternoon, but we will have to check

    23 whether there are any problems. Can we say that we

    24 will let you know later on?

    25 MR. BLAXILL: Yes, indeed, Your Honour.



  2. 1 JUDGE CASSESE: So we will hold no hearing

    2 tomorrow morning in any case, but let us try and see

    3 whether we could, say, for instance, sit from 1.30 to

    4 6.00 tomorrow afternoon, if there's no objection from

    5 Defence counsel. All right. We will come back to this

    6 matter later on.

    7 MR. BLAXILL: Much appreciated, Your Honour.

    8 JUDGE CASSESE: Counsel Pavkovic?

    9 MR. PAVKOVIC: Good morning, Your Honours. I

    10 just wanted to state to you that the Defence agrees

    11 with what the Prosecutor says, and we have no

    12 objections whatsoever. Let us reorganise our schedule

    13 accordingly.

    14 I also wish to avail myself of this

    15 opportunity to express the condolences of the Defence

    16 to our colleagues, the Prosecutors, on this sad

    17 occasion.

    18 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you so much. All

    19 right. Today, I suggest that we take a break at a

    20 quarter past ten. The 30-minute break will be taken at

    21 a quarter past ten to reconvene at a quarter to

    22 eleven.

    23 Let us move on, and I think Counsel

    24 Slokovic-Glumac was re-examining the witness.

    25 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: Good morning, Your



  3. 1 Honours.

    2 WITNESS: DRAGAN GREBENAR

    3 Re-examined by Ms. Slokovic-Glumac:

    4 Q. Good morning, Mr. Grebenar. You just said

    5 during your cross-examination that you heard later on

    6 that on the 16th Redzo was killed, I don't know if that

    7 is that person's name or nickname, and that this was a

    8 person from Prnjavor. Do you know where he was killed

    9 or do you know anything else regarding the

    10 circumstances of his death?

    11 A. Yes, it is true I said that Redzo was

    12 killed. That is his name and, believe me, I do not

    13 know his last name. I heard about this about a year

    14 ago, that on the 16th, a Muslim was killed in

    15 Poculica. He was killed somewhere around the school,

    16 as far as I heard, but under which circumstances and

    17 how, that, I do not know. This person Redzo lived in

    18 Prnjavor, but he was killed in this area around the

    19 school.

    20 Q. But you personally did not see a thing; is

    21 that right?

    22 A. No, no, no. I even think that he was killed

    23 after I was wounded. It was in the early evening

    24 hours.

    25 Q. Also, you mentioned the village of Gornja



  4. 1 Dubravica. That is a village which is just below

    2 Poculica. You showed it on the map.

    3 A. Yes, that's right.

    4 Q. How many Croat houses were there? Could you

    5 just tell us that?

    6 A. Well, Gornja Dubravica spreads out from the

    7 road that leads to Sivrino Selo, so perhaps -- I don't

    8 know. I don't know the exact number, but there might

    9 have been about 50 to 60 Croat houses.

    10 Q. Do you know whether these people were

    11 informed about the events that would ensue on the 16th

    12 in any way?

    13 A. I think they were not because when we sent

    14 the civilians towards Krizancevo Selo, the civilians

    15 from Dubravica, Gornja Dubravica, were also by the

    16 creek, and together with the civilians from Poculica,

    17 they escaped towards Krizancevo Selo.

    18 Q. So the Croats from Gornja Dubravica fled on

    19 the 16th?

    20 A. Yes.

    21 Q. In relation to Kuber, which was relatively

    22 close to your village, however, near your village is

    23 only one part of Kuber, that is to say, the Vitez side;

    24 right?

    25 A. Yes. When one says "Kuber," one means a



  5. 1 range of elevations, hills, as we call them, so we had

    2 this observation point closer to our village, closer to

    3 Poculica, whereas on the other side, the Busovaca side,

    4 there was another observation point.

    5 Q. But you didn't go there, did you?

    6 A. No, no, only during the conflict. In 1993, I

    7 was there once, and I saw where it was.

    8 Q. Do you know anything about the events in

    9 Kuber on the 15th of April, 1993?

    10 A. Well, from the 15th of April, 1993 -- as a

    11 matter of fact, later on, I found out a few things.

    12 People were retelling what had happened, and during

    13 that night, there were some of my people there who were

    14 out there on guard duty, and we had said that that

    15 night did not differ from any other night, we thought

    16 so. During the night, one could hear bits of shooting

    17 from Vitez, Tolovici, Vrhovine, but we always thought

    18 that, in most cases, fortunately, somebody was just in

    19 a very good mood. After a few glasses of beer, perhaps

    20 they would pick up a rifle and shoot a burst of gunfire

    21 or two.

    22 But my group that was out there on the 15th,

    23 they realised that from Kuber, from Vrhovine, they

    24 could hear some shooting, but only later we found out

    25 that -- rather, when I was at the hospital later, I



  6. 1 found out that on the Busovaca side where the

    2 observation point was for the young men from Busovaca,

    3 there was an attack there, and if I remember, they

    4 mentioned two or three men being killed during that

    5 night between the 15th and 16th of April. That is on

    6 the Busovaca side. But here on our side, I heard that

    7 there was sporadic shooting, but I really don't know

    8 whether there were people who were killed or wounded.

    9 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: I have finished with

    10 this part, but with the permission of the Trial

    11 Chamber, I would like to put another question which is

    12 not a real question, I mean, one that belongs to

    13 cross-examination. It is not really a subject that

    14 pertains to cross-examination; however, Zoran Kupreskic

    15 said that I interrupted the witness at one point when

    16 he started talking about Majda Sivro. So with your

    17 permission, I would just like to put one question in

    18 addition to what the witness already said, so "Who was

    19 Majda Sivro?" Thank you.

    20 Q. Who was Majda Sivro and how did Zoran

    21 Kupreskic help her?

    22 A. Majda Sivro is a Muslim woman. I know her as

    23 a co-worker. She was also employed at the SPS factory,

    24 and I personally knew her through the obligations we

    25 had at work, so that is where we communicated. But



  7. 1 Zoran Kupreskic had known Majda from earlier on because

    2 I think that Majda's husband, I think his name is

    3 Bahtija, was for a certain period of time the president

    4 of our or, rather, their cultural society in Vitez.

    5 That's where Mirjan and Zoran Kupreskic were active.

    6 So they were friends with Majda in that respect too.

    7 They performed quite a bit outside the borders of

    8 Bosnia, and Majda, as the wife of the president, would

    9 travel with them on these tours, and that is how they

    10 become friends.

    11 As regards assistance, yes, I was interrupted

    12 yesterday, but I did mention that as soon as the

    13 conflict broke out, Zoran asked me when he saw me, he

    14 said that he would be embarrassed to show up on his own

    15 but he heard that Majda was in her apartment with her

    16 children still, and he asked me whether I would be

    17 willing to come along with him and to see how she was

    18 and whether anything could be done for her, whether she

    19 could be helped in any way, because the fact remains

    20 that fear prevailed at that time in Vitez and --

    21 Q. That was at the beginning of the war, is that

    22 correct, after the conflict broke out?

    23 A. Yes, yes, after the conflict broke out, five

    24 or six days, perhaps, after the conflict broke out. I

    25 cannot tell you exactly, but it was at the beginning of



  8. 1 the conflict. We went to Majda's apartment. We

    2 knocked at the door. Zoran introduced himself because

    3 she had asked who it was, and he introduced himself,

    4 and he said, "This is Zoran, Majda. Are you in?" And

    5 she said, "Yes," and she opened the door and she hugged

    6 Zoran and burst into tears, and she said, "What's going

    7 on?" And he said, "I have no idea. I imagine

    8 everything will turn out fine."

    9 I think that he had heard from another lady,

    10 a Croat who had worked together with us at the company,

    11 I can't remember her exact name, and she asked us

    12 whether we'd like to come in and sit down. It was a

    13 bit embarrassing, but we did walk in, and we sat down

    14 at the dining table. As far as I remember, the

    15 children were there too. I'm not sure of the little

    16 girl, but, yes, her little children were there with

    17 her. And we talked about 10 or 15 minutes. Zoran and

    18 her talked a great deal more because they were very

    19 friendly, and she asked me about my wounds and whether

    20 all my people were still alive and whether I had

    21 anything left in Poculica, but Zoran, among other

    22 things, asked her whether he could help her in any way,

    23 whether she had enough food and other things, and she

    24 said that she did for the time being, that she had

    25 enough food supplies, but that she was afraid that



  9. 1 there were refugees coming in, and the name on the door

    2 is a Muslim name, her husband's surname and her

    3 surname. She was afraid that perhaps somebody might

    4 break-in in the evening or something like that.

    5 At that moment, Zoran took me by surprise.

    6 He suggested something which I did not approve of then,

    7 but it turned out to be the right thing. Actually, he

    8 offered Majda to write something down on a piece of

    9 paper. What was the rule at that time? When refugees

    10 would come in and get into other people's apartments,

    11 abandoned apartments, they would just take a little

    12 piece of paper and put their name on the door so people

    13 would know that this was a Croat and that they wouldn't

    14 bang at the door and whatever. Zoran offered that he

    15 writes his name on the door, "Zoran Kupreskic," showing

    16 that he lived there, and that would protect her, at

    17 least to a certain extent.

    18 She was truly surprised too by his gesture,

    19 and she said, "Well, you are putting yourself in danger

    20 too," and he said, "Well, don't worry. I will drop in

    21 or Greba --" "Greba" is my nickname, "either he will

    22 drop in or I will drop in. Everything will be just

    23 fine."

    24 Later on I saw Majda once again. I did not

    25 go to see her at the apartment, but I know that Zoran



  10. 1 went and took her food supplies as well as long as

    2 Majda was there.

    3 Q. Thank you very much. I have concluded with

    4 the redirect.

    5 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. Now, of course,

    6 Counsel Slokovic-Glumac, you are aware that in allowing

    7 you to raise a matter in re-examination, which had not

    8 been discussed or raised before, we have slightly

    9 departed from our basic Rules of Procedure. I thought,

    10 however, that this was necessary in the interest of

    11 justice. However, we have to stick with some

    12 principles, not only the question of a fair trial at

    13 the interest of justice, namely, the interest to search

    14 for the truth, but also we have to comply with the

    15 principle of equality of arms. So therefore it is, I

    16 think, appropriate for me to ask the Prosecutor whether

    17 they want to ask any question on this particular matter

    18 just raised by Defence counsel.

    19 MR. TERRIER: Thank you, Your Honour.

    20 Actually, I would have one question to put to the

    21 witness regarding this protection that Mr. Zoran

    22 Kupreskic granted to his Muslim friend.

    23 Re-cross-examined by Mr. Terrier:

    24 Q. Could Mr. Grebenar tell us why this person of

    25 Muslim faith was threatened, why she was in danger, and



  11. 1 then, secondly, could he tell us why it was dangerous

    2 for Zoran Kupreskic to grant this woman his

    3 protection? In what measure is that a heroic act or a

    4 brave act from his part? These are the two questions I

    5 would like to put to Mr. Grebenar.

    6 A. If I understood you correctly, the first

    7 question was why she felt imperilled, Mrs. Majda

    8 Sivro. And I think that is quite clear. If I felt

    9 threatened as a man and terrified in my own home in

    10 Poculica on that first day, when I was surrounded by

    11 Muslims, and when she saw that Croat refugees were

    12 coming to Vitez, peoples whose houses were burnt down

    13 and who had some of their next of kin killed, of course

    14 the woman was afraid. She was afraid that some of

    15 these Croat refugees who were flooding into Vitez from

    16 all sides could do something out of revolt or revenge.

    17 They were all afraid.

    18 So may I also answer your other question. In

    19 what sense -- I don't know how I should put this. How

    20 Mr. Zoran Kupreskic felt. Perhaps the situation was

    21 not all that dangerous, but, as you said, it certainly

    22 was a brave act on the part of Mr. Kupreskic at that

    23 time. Because during the culmination of the conflict,

    24 when Croats are being killed on one side and

    25 persecuted, to help Muslims on the other side, and to



  12. 1 have Muslims helping Croats in Zenica or elsewhere,

    2 helping their friends. On the one side there were the

    3 Croats and the other side there were the Muslims. It

    4 was not considered to be a natural thing, and it could

    5 have caused certain incidents.

    6 That is why I said that I myself did not

    7 approve of Zoran's offer to put up his own name on that

    8 door.

    9 Q. Your Honour, may I put one other question to

    10 the witness. Thank you.

    11 Mr. Grebenar, are you aware of the fact that

    12 Mr. Zoran Kupreskic has granted the same kind of

    13 protection to Muslims from the village of Ahmici? Do

    14 you know of such cases?

    15 A. You mean on the day of the conflict or before

    16 that?

    17 Q. No, I am thinking about Zoran Kupreskic's

    18 neighbours in Ahmici, whatever the time I am referring

    19 to.

    20 A. I think that Zoran did help them. I cannot

    21 speak of that very day, of the outbreak of the

    22 conflict. I wasn't there. So I cannot speak of that

    23 day. But before that we had quite a few colleagues at

    24 work from Ahmici. I think that 70 per cent of the

    25 people of Ahmici, either Croats or Muslims, were



  13. 1 employed at the SPS factory in Vitez, that is to say,

    2 these were our co-workers, we knew them from sight, at

    3 least, and also they were his neighbours and his

    4 friends more than mine. But I know that in various

    5 ways if he could and to the extent he could, he would

    6 help people.

    7 Zoran Kupreskic was actually head of one

    8 section of maintenance at the factory, and he had young

    9 men from Ahmici employed there, Muslims, for example.

    10 I remember Nermin Ahmic, I think that was his name.

    11 I know that once even the head locksmith objected to

    12 Zoran and said that he did too many favours to Nermin

    13 Ahmic. I mean favours. He allowed him to stay away

    14 from work and he took it as part of his annual leave.

    15 However, Zoran was familiar with his situation. He had

    16 a mother who was ill or something like that and he

    17 often had to go to the hospital. So he tried to help

    18 this person.

    19 He actually explained to Mr. Ahmic's

    20 immediate superior that the man was in a difficult

    21 situation, that he needed to be helped. He did not

    22 only help him on that day, he helped them earlier on.

    23 He helped whoever he could help and whoever he had an

    24 opportunity to help.

    25 MR. TERRIER: Thank you, Your Honour.



  14. 1 JUDGE CASSESE: Counsel Slokovic-Glumac, I

    2 think you are entitled to briefly re-examine, very

    3 briefly re-examine, the witness on this very point.

    4 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: Thank you,

    5 Mr. President. I have no further questions.

    6 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. Well, we have no

    7 questions for the witness.

    8 Mr. Grebenar, thank you so much for coming

    9 here to testify in Court. You may now be released.

    10 Thank you.

    11 THE WITNESS: Thank you too, sir.

    12 (The witness withdrew)

    13 JUDGE CASSESE: Before we move onto our next

    14 witness, let me first of all ask Counsel

    15 Slokovic-Glumac whether it is -- there's a number 2 on

    16 our list, and he is being called by, I think, Counsel

    17 Susak.

    18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for counsel,

    19 please.

    20 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: The next witness is

    21 Zeljka Rajic. I don't know what number she is listed

    22 under.

    23 JUDGE CASSESE: Number three. She's -- I

    24 don't know -- she is a she? She's being called by you

    25 and Counsel Radovic. Any protective measures?



  15. 1 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: No.

    2 JUDGE CASSESE: If you don't mind, before we

    3 now call the next witness, let me express to you the

    4 worries and concerns of the Court about the list of

    5 witnesses we received from the Defence counsel.

    6 Actually, now we have 111 witnesses to be called by

    7 Defence counsel, plus, of course, at least three

    8 accused and a few Court witnesses. That amounts to

    9 about 120 witnesses.

    10 Judging from the pace of our proceedings,

    11 this would take about 90 working days, 90 to 95 working

    12 days. That means that since we can't sit on Kupreskic

    13 every week for the next few months, that we would end

    14 probably in July or September only with the Defence

    15 case. And then we need, of course, to write our

    16 judgment. So I fear that the end -- we are going to

    17 put off the end of this trial to the Greek kalends, ad

    18 calendas graecas, and, as you know, the Greeks didn't

    19 have any kalends. So that means sine die.

    20 I wonder whether we could take some steps so

    21 as to shorten the list of witnesses. We would like

    22 first of all to suggest that as for the 16 character

    23 witnesses Defence counsel propose to call, we should

    24 apply Rule 94 ter. So we would like to suggest that

    25 each Defence counsel intending to call character



  16. 1 witnesses should only call one, and for the other ones

    2 should provide affidavits, of course subject to any

    3 possible objection by the Prosecution.

    4 If there are any objection by the

    5 Prosecution, of course, the character witnesses will be

    6 called here to appear in Court.

    7 Now, similarly, as for the four expert

    8 witnesses now listed in this document, we would like to

    9 apply, again, Rule 94 bis. I assume you have already

    10 envisaged this possibility by providing the witness

    11 statements of the expert witnesses. I hope so. That

    12 means that the -- it is now for the Prosecution to see

    13 whether they have any objection.

    14 In this way we would reduce by 20, probably,

    15 the list of witnesses.

    16 In addition we would like to point out that

    17 we will not admit any testimony which is repetitive, in

    18 particular on Count 1. So please make sure that the

    19 future witnesses do not repeat matters or insist on

    20 matters which we have already heard.

    21 I wonder whether there are any suggestions

    22 from either Defence or the Prosecution to the effect

    23 that we should try to shorten our proceedings as much

    24 as possible, however, because, without saying, that we

    25 will never curtail the rights of the Defence. It goes



  17. 1 without saying.

    2 No suggestion? Let us think it over.

    3 Actually, one final question to Counsel Krajina. I

    4 assume that the list here submitted includes the three

    5 witnesses to be summoned by the Court? Originally

    6 there were four. Now you are going to call, through

    7 us, only three?

    8 MR. KRAJINA: Yes, Mr. President.

    9 JUDGE CASSESE: Also make an effort, for

    10 instance, remember, we intend to call the

    11 anthropologist, an expert witness, and I wonder whether

    12 we could simply admit into evidence her book which you

    13 have read. I wonder whether you could consider this

    14 matter. If you have no objections. You have

    15 objections? Yes. All right. So we will call her.

    16 JUDGE MAY: What are the objections? We

    17 really must speed these proceedings up.

    18 MR. RADOVIC: Regarding the expert witness,

    19 the anthropologist, I think she has to appear before

    20 the Trial Chamber. She needs to respond to several

    21 questions which bring into question her whole theory.

    22 The theory is, in fact, states that neighbours who were

    23 in good relations at one point in time could turn

    24 around their lives. In applying this thesis on Ahmici,

    25 she would need to respond. How does she know that the



  18. 1 crimes in Ahmici were committed by neighbours? If she

    2 does not know this, then her thesis that neighbours in

    3 Ahmici could have committed this becomes -- it doesn't

    4 stand. It only remains on the surface of what she's

    5 claiming.

    6 So if her book is being used, we insist that

    7 she appear before this Trial Chamber.

    8 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you.

    9 MR. TERRIER: Yes, Your Honour, as regards

    10 this anthropologist we just mentioned, I don't think it

    11 is proper to ask her to give her opinion on what

    12 happened in Ahmici. She doesn't know a thing about

    13 what happened in Ahmici, and she cannot give an opinion

    14 on these particular events.

    15 Now, as for the village itself, she spent

    16 some time in the village and she has observed a number

    17 of things, so she can give us some explanations. Then

    18 it will be your task, Your Honours, to see if what

    19 happened in the other villages of the Kiseljak area

    20 can, in a way, in certain measure, explain what

    21 happened in Ahmici. But that is a decision for you to

    22 make. You are also entitled to put questions to that

    23 witness about what happened in Ahmici.

    24 So I think it is not really possible to just

    25 ask that the book she wrote, and which was published by



  19. 1 the Princeton University, be admitted in the case

    2 file. This, and also the video which she made for the

    3 BBC channel.

    4 Now, as to the issue you raised earlier and

    5 as regards character witnesses. What I would like to

    6 stress is that, as far as the Prosecution is concerned,

    7 there is no doubt as to the character of the

    8 witnesses. We are not aiming to prove before this

    9 Court that the accused before the conflict were

    10 horrible human beings who had terrifying relations with

    11 their Muslim neighbours. I think the contrary is true,

    12 and we are not contesting that particular point.

    13 So if the Defence are trying to prove that

    14 the accused were good neighbours and good human beings,

    15 I think indeed Rule 94 ter could be relied upon. We

    16 will not contest that point of the Defence strategy.

    17 JUDGE CASSESE: I do share the Prosecutor's

    18 opinion. I read the book written by the anthropologist

    19 and, as far as I am concerned, there is not one word

    20 concerning Ahmici in that book. There is not one word

    21 about the crimes committed in that village. So what we

    22 need to do is ask the witness to tell us what was the

    23 nature of the relationship that existed between the

    24 different ethnic groups. Couldn't you give us a

    25 general picture of what the situation was? I don't



  20. 1 know. What is your position? I am turning towards all

    2 the Defence counsels.

    3 Now, as far as character witnesses, we've

    4 just heard from the Prosecution that they have no

    5 objection to the fact that affidavits could be used, in

    6 which case I am inviting the Defence counsels to give

    7 us that kind of statement and to try to reduce the

    8 number of character witnesses to one per accused. One

    9 person could come and testify about the character of

    10 the witnesses.

    11 Mr. Radovic, I see you would like to take the

    12 floor. No?

    13 Yes, Counsel Par.

    14 MR. PAR: If you permit me, Mr. President, I

    15 think the question is not clarified about the expert

    16 testimony. As far as I understood, the Court proposes

    17 that we get the statements by the expert witness and

    18 then the Prosecution would express its opinion. So I

    19 would like my learned colleague, Mr. Terrier, to tell

    20 us what his position is about that.

    21 We have sent the findings to the Prosecution,

    22 so we would like to hear the position of the

    23 Prosecution regarding the need to bring these expert

    24 witnesses before the Trial Chamber.

    25 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. As I say, we



  21. 1 intend to apply Rule 94 bis. I wonder whether the

    2 Prosecutor is ready now to give an answer to say

    3 whether they object, they oppose the statements of the

    4 expert witness which I've already been provided. If,

    5 of course, the Prosecutor needs some time, we can come

    6 back to this matter maybe on Friday.

    7 Do you need some time?

    8 MR. TERRIER: Yes, Your Honour, please. Your

    9 Honour, can I just add one thing. As far as our future

    10 work is concerned, we would like to be advised well in

    11 advance of the change that may interfere in the order

    12 of witnesses who will come before you, because of

    13 course this will effect our strategy.

    14 JUDGE CASSESE: Yes, of course, it's

    15 obvious. I think this is what the Prosecution did when

    16 calling its own witnesses. The Prosecution warned the

    17 Defence well in advance of the changes that took

    18 place. So the Defence counsel should behave in the

    19 same way and should abide by this principle, very

    20 reasonable principle, and a principle which serves the

    21 interest of justice.

    22 Mr. Terrier, I think by Friday morning you

    23 will be able to give us the Prosecution's opinion about

    24 what should be done with expert witnesses. So that's

    25 settled.



  22. 1 I think we can now have the next witness

    2 brought in. I think the name of the witness is

    3 Mrs. Zeljka Rajic. She can be brought in.

    4 (The witness entered court)

    5 JUDGE CASSESE: Good morning, Madam. I would

    6 like to ask you to read the solemn declaration.

    7 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will

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

    9 truth.

    10 JUDGE CASSESE: You may be seated. Counsel

    11 Slokovic-Glumac.

    12 WITNESS: ZELJKA RAJIC

    13 Examined by Mrs. Slokovic-Glumac:

    14 Q. Good morning, Mrs. Rajic. Could you please

    15 tell us where you were born and when and what your

    16 occupation is.

    17 A. My name is Zeljka Rajic. I was born in

    18 Zenica. I lived in Zenica until '75, when I got

    19 married, and went to Lasva until '93. That's where I

    20 was. Right now I am living in Busovaca.

    21 Q. Could you tell us your date of birth?

    22 A. Yes. I was born in 1958.

    23 Q. You said that until you got married you lived

    24 in Zenica?

    25 A. Yes.



  23. 1 Q. After you got married, where did you go?

    2 A. I went to Lasva.

    3 Q. You married Zvonko Rajic; is that right?

    4 A. Yes.

    5 Q. Where is the village of Lasva, please?

    6 A. The village of Lasva is 18 kilometres away

    7 from Zenica.

    8 Q. It will be easier if you could see the map.

    9 Would the usher please show the Court Chamber and the

    10 witness this map.

    11 THE REGISTRAR: This document is marked

    12 D61/2.

    13 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC:

    14 Q. Would you please indicate where the village

    15 of Lasva is, please.

    16 A. Yes. It's right here (indicating).

    17 Q. Could we see this on the ELMO, please. Could

    18 you indicate it now, please, on the ELMO. On this

    19 side, Ms. Rajic. Okay.

    20 A. Zenica is here. So it could be right here.

    21 Q. So how far is it from Zenica?

    22 A. Eighteen kilometres.

    23 Q. You mean Lasva and Busovaca. What's the

    24 distance between them?

    25 A. Yes, 17 kilometres.



  24. 1 Q. What about Lasva-Vitez?

    2 A. Lasva-Vitez (French translation).

    3 JUDGE CASSESE: -- between French and English

    4 translations (French translation). No, there is no

    5 difference. Sometimes we hear the French and sometimes

    6 we hear the English coming in. (French translation)

    7 We have the English translation on channel 4

    8 and the French on channel 5, as usual.

    9 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: French, not the

    10 English.

    11 JUDGE CASSESE: Yes.

    12 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC:

    13 Q. So you said that Lasva is between Zenica,

    14 Vitez and Busovaca. You will also in the course of

    15 your testimony mention another place?

    16 A. Yes.

    17 Q. That place is called Dusina?

    18 A. Yes.

    19 Q. So could you tell where Dusina is located on

    20 this map. Is the distance between Lasva and Dusina

    21 three kilometres?

    22 A. Well, how can I explain this.

    23 Q. Is Dusina in the direction of Zenica or

    24 Busovaca?

    25 A. It's in the direction of Busovaca. It's



  25. 1 three kilometres away, but on the map it's kind of

    2 difficult to find one's way around.

    3 Q. Do you see Busovaca?

    4 A. Yes, I see Busovaca, but I don't know what

    5 the black markings mean, but three kilometres would

    6 mean --

    7 JUDGE MAY: Mrs. Slokovic-Glumac, can you

    8 help the witness as to where this is pointed out.

    9 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: This is Dusina. This

    10 is how I pointed it out.

    11 Q. So between Zenica and Busovaca, Lasva is

    12 halfway on the road?

    13 A. Yes, that's right.

    14 Q. How big was Lasva before the conflict broke

    15 out, so in '92?

    16 A. Well, how many -- what the Croat population

    17 was and what the Muslim population was, is that what

    18 you mean?

    19 Q. Yes.

    20 A. Well, there were about 500 Muslim houses,

    21 that's how many houses they had, and we had 42 of our

    22 houses, Croat houses, including Dusina and Lasva.

    23 Q. How many Croat houses were there?

    24 A. Forty-six.

    25 Q. How many Croats lived there?



  26. 1 A. About 70.

    2 Q. I'm talking about Lasva now.

    3 A. Yes, Lasva.

    4 Q. Who did you live with at that time?

    5 A. With my husband and three children.

    6 Q. How old were your children?

    7 A. My oldest daughter was 16, the younger

    8 daughter was 15, and my son was 9 years old.

    9 Q. Your husband, Zvonko Rajic, how old was he?

    10 A. He was 38 years old.

    11 Q. What was your husband's occupation?

    12 A. He was a transporter. He had a transport

    13 company. He had his own bus. That's what we call it.

    14 Q. So he had his own bus, a truck, so he was a

    15 transporter?

    16 A. Yes, that's right.

    17 Q. Was he in the HVO?

    18 A. Yes.

    19 Q. Was he a commander of the HVO in Lasva?

    20 A. Yes.

    21 Q. How many soldiers were under his command?

    22 A. About 30.

    23 Q. These were men from Lasva and Dusina; is that

    24 right?

    25 A. Yes.



  27. 1 Q. When did the first problems between Muslims

    2 and Croats in the area of Lasva start?

    3 A. Well, these were not problems. First of all,

    4 we lost our trust in them because they attacked a

    5 village, Bozici, which was three kilometres away from

    6 Lasva. It was on a slope, on an elevation, because the

    7 Serbs --

    8 Q. So whose village was this?

    9 A. This was a Serb village.

    10 Q. And its name?

    11 A. Its name was Bozici. There were about 10 of

    12 their houses there. In '92, in October, they

    13 surrendered their weapons voluntarily because they

    14 wanted to move out, but after that, in November of '92,

    15 the BH army surrounded the village of Bozici. My

    16 husband was fixing his truck, so I was there with him.

    17 I was helping him. The phone rang. A young man, one

    18 of our young men was up there with a friend of his,

    19 visiting a friend of his, and he said, "Bozici has been

    20 surrounded."

    21 My husband left what he was doing

    22 immediately. He looked to see if he could see their

    23 village from our house. A group of about 50 soldiers

    24 of the BH army had surrounded a part of the forest,

    25 there's a forest there, and that's how they were going



  28. 1 into their village.

    2 My husband took a car, he was all dirty, and

    3 he went to that village because he knew they didn't

    4 have any weapons, that there was no need for them to go

    5 up there. So by the time he arrived, the BH army had

    6 separated the men, the husbands, into a barn and were

    7 practically beating one by one with iron rods, also

    8 wooden rods, so these were like batons. There was also

    9 a pregnant woman. They killed her and her husband.

    10 My Zvonko, when he got there, since one of

    11 the locals from Lasva, a Muslim, was there, he asked

    12 him, "Why are you doing this? I would like to see your

    13 orders. Where do you get the right to beat people?" I

    14 will name this person. This was Batan Pasalic. He

    15 told my husband Zvonko, "Don't interfere or the same

    16 will happen to you."

    17 My husband, of course, had no idea about

    18 this. He said, "Let these people go." They didn't let

    19 them go. Then they took the women, made them drink

    20 oil, and there was quarrelling, but by the time he got

    21 there, there was no more shooting, so he rescued those

    22 people. One of the men died from the beating, and then

    23 after two or three days, these people had left that

    24 village.

    25 Q. How many Serbs did you say were in the



  29. 1 village of Bozici?

    2 A. About 10 homes, so it's about 20 people. All

    3 the youth had left, they went to other towns, so only

    4 the older people remained in the village.

    5 Q. Your husband went to help the Serbs; is that

    6 right?

    7 A. Yes, that's right.

    8 Q. So the main reason he went there was to warn

    9 the BH army soldiers?

    10 A. Yes.

    11 Q. To warn them that the people in the village

    12 were not armed?

    13 A. Yes, of course. All of those people knew,

    14 particularly that local Batan villager, he knew that

    15 they didn't have any weapons, because Jovica, the Serb,

    16 had taken all the weapons to the local community, at

    17 the school, and he said Croats and Muslims can be

    18 distributed with weapons. So these people had no arms,

    19 no weapons at all. This was in October. Then in

    20 November, they were attacked and beaten. My husband

    21 protected those people practically because they didn't

    22 have any ammunition.

    23 Q. So in November, the village was vacated?

    24 A. Yes. The three people were buried at that

    25 time, I was present, and then on that day or two or



  30. 1 three days later, everybody moved out from that

    2 village.

    3 Q. What kind of a person was your husband?

    4 A. My husband was a good man. He was a peaceful

    5 man. He helped everybody whenever they had any kind of

    6 trouble, any kind of trouble. I think a man like that

    7 will not be born again.

    8 Q. After that, nothing happened in Lasva until

    9 the 25th of January of '93?

    10 A. Yes, but before that, things went on as

    11 usual. Our neighbours, women neighbours, Muslims,

    12 would come, and they would ask my husband, they're

    13 hungry, they have nothing to eat, and they would ask

    14 him to go get flour. So he took his truck, and he

    15 brought back about 10 tonnes of flour, oil, so that

    16 they could survive because we were a minority, and we

    17 had what he needed.

    18 Q. You were a well-off family?

    19 A. That's right. We were practically the

    20 richest family. We were rich. My husband struggled

    21 throughout his life, but he had everything and he loved

    22 people. But after that, on the 25th, an order arrived

    23 that we are going to be attacked by the Muslims. I was

    24 very scared and a couple of our neighbours too.

    25 I wanted to go to Dusina and then move to



  31. 1 Busovaca, and I asked my husband to let me go because

    2 five women were going and six children and one man. He

    3 said, "No, you won't go. Nothing will happen. These

    4 are just fantasies." I asked him, I kept asking him

    5 until about 2.00, and other people tried to convince

    6 him. They said, "Let her go." He had his best man, he

    7 was telling him, "Let him go with my wife, and if

    8 nothing happens, they'll be back. This is not far."

    9 At about 2.00, me and my daughter, my

    10 15-year-old daughter --

    11 Q. This was on the 25th?

    12 A. Yes, on the 25th. We started off towards

    13 Dusina. We went as a group.

    14 Q. So who was with you?

    15 A. My daughter was with me, also my

    16 sister-in-law and her daughter. That's when we left,

    17 but then before us, a man and a woman left. They were

    18 older people. In the second group, a woman also -- two

    19 women and four children went. They went in twos, so

    20 that's about it. So that's how we left Lasva.

    21 Q. So mainly women and children?

    22 A. Yes, mainly women and children, and then that

    23 one man who went with us.

    24 Q. And the men remained in Dusina --

    25 A. No, in Lasva. They all remained in Lasva.



  32. 1 Only three of us women and four children left Lasva.

    2 No one else from the Croat population wanted to leave.

    3 They didn't want to.

    4 Q. Where did you go to?

    5 A. I went to Dusina and I arrived in Dusina. It

    6 was about half past three when we arrived. The weather

    7 was terrible, rainy, windy --

    8 Q. Was there any snow?

    9 A. Yes, there was a little snow, so we couldn't

    10 go to Busovaca. And then we thought, well, we'll just

    11 stay here, spend the night here, and we'll leave in the

    12 morning.

    13 Q. Where did you spend the night, in whose

    14 house?

    15 A. At Ivica Kegelj's, that is his house. There

    16 were about 30 of us there altogether. The locals from

    17 Dusina also wanted to go to Busovaca.

    18 Q. They had also received some information that

    19 the Muslims might attack?

    20 A. Yes.

    21 Q. These 30-odd people that were staying at the

    22 house, were they civilians, soldiers? Who were these

    23 people?

    24 A. As far as soldiers are concerned, there were

    25 only two or three of them because there weren't any



  33. 1 young people there at all. Practically all of us were

    2 civilians. All of us were civilians practically, that

    3 is to say, 25 civilians were in the house, and the

    4 young men of 18 or 20, there were about five of them,

    5 and they belonged to the army.

    6 So we spent the night there, and at 5.00

    7 a.m., we got up and sat at the table in order to take

    8 our coffee, and all of a sudden an RPG hit the house.

    9 We panicked. We didn't know what was going on, and --

    10 JUDGE MAY: Can I interrupt? What's an RPG?

    11 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: It's a rocket

    12 launcher. It's for shelling.

    13 A. Did he ask me that?

    14 Q. Yes. Could you please explain to the Judge

    15 what that is.

    16 A. Oh, that's a shell, a Zolja. That's what we

    17 call it.

    18 Q. Could you please explain it to him?

    19 A. I know that it makes a terrible hole in the

    20 wall. It was dreadful.

    21 Q. Is that a hand-held rocket launcher?

    22 A. Yes, yes, that's right. I'm not very

    23 knowledgable in these military matters, but, yes,

    24 that's it.

    25 Q. So in the morning, you heard something hit



  34. 1 the house; right?

    2 A. Yes, and then I went to wake up my child. I

    3 didn't want my child to be terrified, and I said, "Get

    4 up, dear. There seems to be some shooting here." So

    5 we all got up and went to the basement of that house,

    6 and as we were descending into the basement, we heard

    7 cries of "Allah-u-ekber," and I went back immediately

    8 and called my husband, and I told him that we were

    9 surrounded.

    10 Q. What is "Allah-u-ekber"?

    11 A. I don't know. It's a word of their's,

    12 "Allah-u-ekber." I don't know what it means. I just

    13 know that that is what they were shouting.

    14 Q. All right. So you went to the basement, and

    15 then you called your husband; is that right?

    16 A. Yes, yes, and I was at the door, and I

    17 already saw that some people were killed. A young man

    18 had been killed.

    19 Q. What was the name of this young man who you

    20 saw in front of the house?

    21 A. Drazan, Drazan Kegelj. I called my husband,

    22 my husband was asleep, and I said, "Zvonko, Dusina is

    23 in flames. We've been surrounded." And he said,

    24 "Who? What?" And I said, "They're shouting

    25 Allah-u-ekber," and he said, "All right. I'll come up



  35. 1 there."

    2 So I went back, and as soon as I closed the

    3 door, again, one of these shells hit the house. We

    4 were crying, we were screaming, actually, and five

    5 minutes later, perhaps, we saw people in white with

    6 green berets and green bands around their heads, and

    7 they had clothing on --

    8 Q. What do you mean "clothing"?

    9 A. Well, there was snow, so they were wearing

    10 white clothes.

    11 Q. Were these white uniforms?

    12 A. Yes, yes, like white uniforms. We saw them

    13 shooting and hollering, and we opened the door of the

    14 basement, and we were crying, of course, and one of us,

    15 a man, Stipo Kegelj, went out and said, "Don't kill

    16 us. We're surrendering." And they simply grabbed us

    17 by the shoulders and got all of us out of the house,

    18 lined us up by the wall of the house. Everything we

    19 had, anything, rosaries, as we call them, you know,

    20 whatever we had of that nature, they tore it off, and

    21 also whoever was wearing a cross, they would throw the

    22 cross down, and then they would trample all over it.

    23 Q. Rosaries too? And where were these rosaries?

    24 A. Yes. We did have rosaries. Some people wore

    25 them around their necks, and others, elderly women,



  36. 1 held them in their hands and were praying. Then one of

    2 the men said, "We should kill everyone over here."

    3 Q. Excuse me, Mrs. Rajic. How many people did

    4 you see there?

    5 A. You mean Muslims?

    6 Q. Yes, I mean Muslims.

    7 A. Oh, there were a great many of them because

    8 there were two groups. First, there was one group that

    9 spoke our language, there must have been 50 of them,

    10 and there was this other group, they had beards, and

    11 they stood away from them, and they didn't move.

    12 Q. Were all of them in uniform?

    13 A. Yes, yes, all of them were in uniform.

    14 Q. Did you see some of the local Muslims among

    15 them?

    16 A. Only one. When he took us to the --

    17 Q. Wait a second. Wait a second. Please don't

    18 go ahead of your story. You said that you saw a group

    19 of Muslim soldiers who were with you, another Muslim

    20 group stood a bit further away. Did these people have

    21 any kind of insignia on their uniforms?

    22 A. Yes, they did, "BiH army," yes, yes, on that

    23 green or, rather, on that white -- they had a green

    24 band saying "Armija BH," BiH army.

    25 Q. All right. What happened when you were



  37. 1 searched and when you were lined up by the wall?

    2 A. A local man came and he took us through their

    3 village with these army men of theirs. I didn't know

    4 any of them. So we passed through the village twice,

    5 up and down. Marko Rajic was wounded. They didn't

    6 give him any kind of first aid or anything. A soldier

    7 even kicked him in the very place where he was wounded,

    8 and he asked for help but to no avail.

    9 At the intersection, Edin Hakanovic selected

    10 20 younger persons as a human shield, and he left the

    11 old people at the intersection. My daughter and I were

    12 there and quite a few other people and --

    13 Q. I'm sorry. A human shield vis-a-vis who?

    14 A. Vis-a-vis a hill where our people were. My

    15 husband had come to that hill.

    16 Q. So they stood behind you?

    17 A. Yes.

    18 Q. They put you in front?

    19 A. Yes.

    20 Q. On the hill that is facing you is where your

    21 people are?

    22 A. Yes, that is where our people are, my husband

    23 and about 15 other members of the HVO.

    24 Q. All right. You and your daughter were in

    25 this human shield, weren't you?



  38. 1 A. Yes.

    2 Q. This local person, Edin, he had a

    3 loudspeaker, and he called out to my husband, and he

    4 said, "Come down to negotiate," and he told him to come

    5 down there so that they could reach some kind of an

    6 agreement. I saw my husband walking down the hill, and

    7 they could not have discussed anything because Edin

    8 asked for them to go to Lasva for negotiations. My

    9 husband refused. He asked for them to go to Zenica.

    10 Throughout this period of time, there was

    11 terrible shooting in Lasva, so the civilians who

    12 remained down there were surrendered, and they took

    13 them to the school in Lasva.

    14 Q. What you are saying now refers to Lasva;

    15 right?

    16 A. Yes, that's right.

    17 Q. You heard about that later, that they were

    18 shooting in Lasva?

    19 A. No, it's not that I heard it later. I was

    20 there in that clearing, and I could see my village, and

    21 there was shooting there, terrible shooting.

    22 Q. So you were taken to this intersection

    23 somewhere halfway towards Lasva; is that correct?

    24 A. Yes, yes, all of it is flat.

    25 Q. So you saw your husband going downhill; is



  39. 1 that right?

    2 A. Yes.

    3 Q. And he asked for negotiations?

    4 A. Yes. The last time he went down, he had a

    5 little white flag or something, some kind of a white

    6 rag or something in his hands, and he was waving with

    7 it, and he was walking down, and then they agreed.

    8 They said that the BiH army would send only 20 and that

    9 they would leave their ammunition behind, and Zvonko's

    10 men should do the same thing.

    11 Q. So they were going to Zenica for

    12 negotiations; right?

    13 A. Yes, yes. I saw them leave, and then they

    14 returned us to the village.

    15 JUDGE CASSESE: Shall we take a break now?

    16 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: All right.

    17 JUDGE CASSESE: All right.

    18 --- Recess taken at 10.15 a.m.

    19 --- On resuming at 10.45 a.m.

    20 JUDGE CASSESE: Counsel Slokovic-Glumac.

    21 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: Thank you,

    22 Mr. President.

    23 Q. So you stopped at the point when you were

    24 talking about how you were returned to the village,

    25 right?



  40. 1 A. Yes, that's right.

    2 Q. To the village of Dusina; is that correct?

    3 A. Yes.

    4 Q. Where were they taking you to?

    5 A. They took us again towards the Muslim

    6 village. We made about two rounds.

    7 Q. Are you trying to say the Muslim part of the

    8 village?

    9 A. Yes, the Muslim part of the village. They

    10 mistreated us all along. They said that they would

    11 kill all of us. They took us back to a Croat's house,

    12 Stipo Kegelj's house. We were there altogether.

    13 Q. So who was there, the people who were taken

    14 as human shields?

    15 A. Yes, that's right. And the elderly, the

    16 women and their husbands.

    17 Q. All of them are Croats; is that correct?

    18 A. Yes, all of them are Croats.

    19 Q. There were elderly people, younger people; is

    20 that right?

    21 A. Yes.

    22 Q. Children?

    23 A. Yes.

    24 Q. How many people were in Stipo Kegelj's house?

    25 A. Well, I think up to 10, up to 10 elderly



  41. 1 people.

    2 Q. What about younger people?

    3 A. Younger, well, three.

    4 Q. That is to say a total of 13 persons?

    5 A. Yes, a total of 13 persons, the elderly and

    6 the three who were sitting there with us, because in

    7 this house we were sitting in one room and they were

    8 sitting in the other room.

    9 Q. Who were these other people?

    10 A. Croats too, except that they separated us.

    11 The men, the elderly on one side, and the elderly with

    12 the women and children on the other side. So there was

    13 a door and we could see everything that was going on.

    14 Then a group of Muslims said all sorts of things to us,

    15 and they intimidated us and they mistreated us. They

    16 said that they came to cleanse this terrain, that they

    17 wanted to kill the Croats. Naturally, we bowed our

    18 heads. You didn't dare watch.

    19 Another one would come and then he would be

    20 nice, because they had tours of guard duty of 15

    21 minutes. Some would say, "Have no fear," and then

    22 others would come in and say, "They haven't been killed

    23 yet."

    24 The elderly men were taken out twice in

    25 groups of five or six. They beat them, they returned



  42. 1 black and blue, bloody. We were terrified. We cried.

    2 "What do you need this for? What have we done to

    3 you?" That is what an unknown gentleman had said.

    4 They asked us to come in to cleanse this

    5 terrain so that there would be no Croats left.

    6 Q. That is what they told you?

    7 A. Yes. The last time these five men who were

    8 taken out, were taken towards Ivica Kegelj's house.

    9 They tied Ivica's hands with a wire and Franjo Kristo's

    10 hands with a wire too. But these five men walked

    11 behind them and by the house. They were killed

    12 individually. They were killed by an unidentified man.

    13 Q. Did you see these people being killed?

    14 A. Yes. Yes. It is not far away. It's only a

    15 minute or two -- a minute or two distance to the other

    16 house. It's practically next door. But Ivica Kristo

    17 and Franjo Rajic, they put these people into the garage

    18 and covered them with straw so no one could see them.

    19 Q. I think you are a bit confused with the

    20 names?

    21 A. No, I am not confused.

    22 Q. Ivica Kegelj and Franjo Kristo?

    23 A. Yes, yes --

    24 Q. Just a minute, please. So afterwards they

    25 had to move those people away, those people who had



  43. 1 been killed?

    2 A. Yes, but they went together. They went

    3 together and they had tied their hands behind their

    4 backs. Then they killed these five men, and then these

    5 two, that's seven, and then they tried to cover up

    6 these killed men so that no one could see this.

    7 Q. They did this on orders, right?

    8 A. Naturally they did. The soldier who came to

    9 take these people out ordered them to go out.

    10 Q. Some of the Muslim soldiers ordered this?

    11 A. Yes, yes, the BH army soldiers.

    12 Q. Ordered them to take these bodies to the

    13 garage; is that right?

    14 A. Yes, that's right.

    15 Q. And to leave them there?

    16 A. Yes, to leave them there and to cover them

    17 with straw, with hay, so that the blood couldn't be

    18 seen.

    19 Q. Do you know the names of these five men who

    20 were killed?

    21 A. Yes, I do.

    22 Q. Please tell us these names.

    23 A. Vinko Kegelj, Niko Kegelj, Stipo Kegelj.

    24 That's three. I can't mention them in the exact

    25 order. If you had a list, I could --



  44. 1 Q. So you said Vinko Kegelj, Niko Kegelj?

    2 A. Yes.

    3 Q. And Stipo Kegelj?

    4 A. Yes.

    5 Q. And was Jozo Kegelj in this group?

    6 A. No.

    7 Q. All right. We'll go back to that later. All

    8 right. After that Ivica Kegelj and Franjo Kristo

    9 returned to the house; is that correct?

    10 A. Yes. Yes. Their hands were tied and these

    11 Muslims from the BH army said that they would be killed

    12 too.

    13 JUDGE CASSESE: I apologise for interrupting

    14 you, but we don't understand the reason behind so many

    15 -- your questions about so many details about alleged

    16 massacres or gross misbehaviour by Muslims against the

    17 Croats. What is the relevance to our case?

    18 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: You will see from our

    19 Defence that we believe that approximately the whole

    20 story and the goriness of this war starts from Dusina.

    21 The effect of what happened in Dusina on the

    22 surrounding areas was truly enormous. Until then

    23 people lived relatively peacefully and there weren't

    24 any major problems between Muslims and Croats.

    25 However, this story strained relations and indeed



  45. 1 brought about major problems and insecurity to this

    2 area. That is the first point.

    3 The second reason why we insist on this event

    4 is the fact that this event influenced people's

    5 consciousness in a major way and also their behaviour

    6 on the 16th. I am not talking about the accused, I am

    7 talking about other persons who were present in the

    8 village of Ahmici on the day when the conflict

    9 occurred. That event also had an effect on the

    10 consciousness of the accused. We wished to explain why

    11 they had weapons when information was received about

    12 the Muslim attack.

    13 Secondly, I also wish to say that the

    14 indictment states that in the Lasva River Valley area,

    15 from the first conflict on the 20th of October, 1992

    16 and until the war broke out, on the 16th of April,

    17 1993, it is stated all the time that the HVO attacked

    18 unarmed Muslim civilians.

    19 Also, in the background of the indictment it

    20 is stated that these attacks intensified during the

    21 month of January, 1993. So we are refuting these

    22 counts in the indictment and we claim that there was no

    23 attack on the Muslims.

    24 We are proving that in the area of the Lasva

    25 River Valley there were only attacks of the BH army



  46. 1 against Croat civilians.

    2 In view of the fact that the Prosecutor has

    3 been asserting the contrary without pinpointing

    4 specific events, we are providing you with specific

    5 events, and we shall also speak about specific

    6 persons.

    7 In this part the attack in Lasva, Dusina and

    8 then Busovaca, it was exclusively an attack by the BH

    9 army against Croat civilians, so we assert that these

    10 assertions by the Prosecution are not correct, the

    11 assertions cited in the indictment by the Prosecution.

    12 So we believe that this witness, and the two

    13 following witnesses, who will also talk about the same

    14 events, are very important for us.

    15 The second witness will testify about the

    16 villages around Kacuni and about Busovaca, and the

    17 third witness will testify about events in Jelinak,

    18 Loncari and Putis, based on which the Prosecutor said

    19 that these were attacks by the BH army, which is not

    20 true. Because we would like to present what happened

    21 in these places.

    22 And, of course, it's up to this Trial Chamber

    23 to decide which evidence you will admit.

    24 JUDGE CASSESE: Although we have some doubts

    25 about the relevance of the testimony you propose that



  47. 1 we should hear, the relevance to Count 1, we are

    2 prepared to admit this evidence, I mean the testimony

    3 of the various witnesses.

    4 However, may I, on behalf of the Court, call

    5 up on you to try to be as concise as possible, not to

    6 put too many questions regarding minute details. It is

    7 sufficient for us to have some general picture of what

    8 happened in that area. Thank you.

    9 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC:

    10 Q. So what happened after that, when the people

    11 returned to their houses?

    12 A. When they returned to the houses, people were

    13 afraid. They didn't tell anybody what had happened.

    14 Later a man who came to my room, to our room where the

    15 women were, and some men, he had a kind of notebook.

    16 He was wearing a green beret and a green band. He had

    17 the markings of the 7th unit of the BH army. He sat

    18 down at a sewing machine.

    19 He was talking very coolly, normally, and he

    20 called out Augustin Rados.

    21 Q. Do you know the name of that man?

    22 A. Yes, I do.

    23 Q. The one you said who had come in?

    24 A. Yes. His name is Serif Patkovic.

    25 Q. So he called out Augustin Rados, you said?



  48. 1 A. He took him outside, took him to the other

    2 house, killed him, then he came back. Then he said,

    3 "Well, you see, Zvonko Rajic, he placed his family, his

    4 wife somewhere in Croatia, and I have come to kill

    5 them." He was saying that he had been to Croatia to

    6 receive medical treatment, that he came in '92 to

    7 Zenica from Croatia. And he said, "Thank you to

    8 Mr. Tudjman for allowing me to kill his people."

    9 He was saying this as he was sitting on top

    10 of a sewing machine. And this woman, Zdravka Rados,

    11 she said, "It's not true that Zvonko sent his wife and

    12 children away." His wife is here and his child is

    13 here. He asked where. She directed him towards me,

    14 where I was sitting. He turned around. We weren't

    15 even half a metre apart from one another and he said,

    16 "I know your husband very well. Would you like me to

    17 describe him?" I looked frightened. Why was he

    18 telling me all of this? He said he was wearing a

    19 coloured suit, he had a bullet vest, he had a scorpion,

    20 and this is all true. I thought that they could see

    21 one another on the road, because he had gone for

    22 negotiations to Zenica. He said, "I killed him. I

    23 fired a whole magazine into his head." I didn't

    24 believe him. He was acting so coolly. I bent my head

    25 and I started to cry, naturally. He said, "Go



  49. 1 upstairs," in this house, Stipo Kegelj's house.

    2 I went. My child was crying.

    3 Q. Before they took you to the first floor, did

    4 they take away other people from the house?

    5 A. Yes. Vojo Stanisic was taken away, and then

    6 before that, his wife was killed too. Everything that

    7 he had written in the notebook, he would read out,

    8 "Take away outside and kill."

    9 Q. What about Pero Ljubicic? Was Pero

    10 Ljubicic --

    11 A. Yes, Pero Ljubicic, yes, that's one of the

    12 persons who I couldn't remember. That's how each one

    13 of them was killed.

    14 Q. How many people did Serif Patkovic take

    15 outside of the house?

    16 A. Three from my room, from the room where I

    17 was, three, and then from another room, five, and then

    18 specially these two people separately, Ivica and

    19 Franjo, who had to cover these bodies up.

    20 Q. Did you see the bodies of those who were

    21 killed after that?

    22 A. No, no, we saw them being taken out and being

    23 killed. They probably hid them. We heard the shots,

    24 we heard the shooting, so we knew what was happening,

    25 and these people didn't come back again.



  50. 1 Q. What happened when they took you upstairs to

    2 the first floor?

    3 A. When I was going up the stairs, there was a

    4 man dressed in white. He had a beard. He had a big

    5 gun. He didn't say anything. The other person who was

    6 taking me said, "We won't kill her. She has money.

    7 We'll take that away from her," but they will kind of

    8 keep me as a dessert. They took away 100.000 German

    9 marks from me and 1.000 dollars. They gave me back 270

    10 German marks. He hit me on the head with this money

    11 and said that if I told anybody that this was

    12 confiscated, they would kill me, and "Of course, it's

    13 your turn anyway, so you will be killed." So I went

    14 back downstairs in tears. My child was happy that I

    15 returned.

    16 Q. Do you remember what happened to Mladen

    17 Kegelj?

    18 A. Yes. He was stripped naked, and his hands

    19 were tied with wire. His ears were cut off. He was

    20 taken through the Muslim village. Other things were

    21 cut off too, so this man died. He was killed at the

    22 end.

    23 Q. Did you see that any houses were being

    24 torched in the village?

    25 A. Yes, we saw that when we were leaving. When



  51. 1 they received news from Zenica that not a hair on our

    2 heads could be harmed, they went mad. They were

    3 enraged. They wanted to burn all of us. We could see

    4 the canister where they were keeping the gasoline, and

    5 they said, "We came here to kill all the Croats in this

    6 territory."

    7 Q. Then the order arrived to stop with the

    8 killing; is that right?

    9 A. Yes.

    10 Q. Where were you taken after that?

    11 A. After that, at about 6.00, we were taken to

    12 the schoolhouse in Lasva, but for two or three times,

    13 we remained there. They were afraid. They were

    14 debating whether we would be killed here in this band,

    15 so it took us an hour or two with these stops to get to

    16 the school.

    17 Q. How did you go to Lasva, on foot?

    18 A. Yes, on foot, and we were barefoot.

    19 Q. When you were going from Lasva to Dusina, on

    20 foot?

    21 A. Yes, also on foot, yes.

    22 Q. In Lasva, you were placed in the schoolhouse?

    23 A. Yes, and all the civilians who happened to be

    24 in Lasva, they were all captured. Old men, women,

    25 children, they were all detained. When I was going



  52. 1 down the road, one person, Sisic, I know him well, his

    2 last name, he asked us, "Where is Tatin now?" That was

    3 my husband's nickname. I couldn't believe that he had

    4 killed him. I thought maybe he wanted to scare me.

    5 And then later when I stopped next to a wall, a young

    6 man kept looking at me, and I kept looking back at him

    7 out of fear. He approached me. He had a gun. I

    8 thought he would kill me. He said, "Don't look at me

    9 anymore. I did not kill your husband." And then it

    10 became clear to me that this man had killed my husband,

    11 Patkovic.

    12 Q. When were you released?

    13 A. It was 2.00 a.m. There was a guard. We went

    14 to my uncle's house. The next morning at 8.00, I went

    15 to our house. Everything had been taken away, and the

    16 money that I had kept, that I had hidden in my chimney,

    17 even that was found. This was dead capital but they

    18 had taken it all away. Batan Pasalic, who was in

    19 Bozici, was driving my husband's car, and I met him

    20 when we were going to the schoolhouse in Lasva from

    21 Dusina. He was sitting in my husband's car. I thought

    22 maybe -- I had no idea that they had killed him.

    23 Q. Your house was looted?

    24 A. Yes.

    25 Q. You left Lasva in the morning?



  53. 1 A. Yes, I left Lasva for Zenica. My two

    2 children were there at my parents' house, so then I was

    3 transferred from my parents' house to Cajdras for

    4 safety because I was being followed. I noticed a car

    5 that was following me, so for my safety, I spent nine

    6 days in Cajdras until the funerals were held for those

    7 who had been killed.

    8 Q. When did you receive information that the

    9 body of your husband had been exchanged?

    10 A. When did I get this message?

    11 Q. Yes.

    12 A. What do you mean "exchanged"?

    13 Q. That it had been returned to the Croats.

    14 A. You mean to the hospital in Zenica? Yes,

    15 that's when I heard after five or six days that

    16 UNPROFOR had come and taken the dead bodies to the

    17 morgue in Zenica and that funeral preparations were

    18 being made.

    19 Q. Would you please look at a tape now, and at

    20 the beginning of this tape, there is a statement by

    21 your husband regarding some kind of misunderstanding

    22 about the size and the division of the municipality of

    23 Lasva?

    24 A. Yes.

    25 Q. The second part of the tape shows the bodies



  54. 1 of those killed, so if you are not able to watch --

    2 A. I will watch.

    3 THE REGISTRAR: The videotape is marked

    4 D62/2.

    5 JUDGE CASSESE: The transcript, what is the

    6 number?

    7 THE REGISTRAR: The number of the transcript

    8 is D62A/2.

    9 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you.

    10 THE INTERPRETER: Could the interpreters

    11 please have a copy?

    12 JUDGE CASSESE: The interpreters would like

    13 to have a copy.

    14 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: Now we will look at the

    15 tape.

    16 (Videotape played)

    17 THE INTERPRETER: Conflict from Gornji Vakuf

    18 has switched to this area of Central Bosnia where the

    19 HVO from Busanica, so according to some information

    20 from the accords in Geneva, the Travnik province

    21 stretches to the River Bosnia.

    22 This is not what's on the transcript.

    23 We want peace, and we will wait as people

    24 wait for a football match to be over, so we will know

    25 that it is over and what the final results are. This



  55. 1 is what we're waiting for.

    2 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: Thank you. The problem

    3 is that the text is quite inaudible. The tape is quite

    4 old.

    5 Q. Mrs. Rajic, could you tell us, do you

    6 remember when this took place?

    7 A. I don't know when this was recorded, I wasn't

    8 present, but I think this was probably at the end of

    9 '92.

    10 Q. It's obvious that --

    11 A. Yes, this happened in November. Yes, in

    12 November.

    13 Q. In view of what your husband said, that he

    14 didn't care who the Lasva municipality would be awarded

    15 to, he was, first of all, in favour of peace?

    16 A. Yes, he was a very peace-loving man. He

    17 loved everybody.

    18 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: Could we look at the

    19 second part of the tape now, please?

    20 (Videotape played)

    21 THE INTERPRETER: These are the massacred

    22 people from Lasva, and the names are Zvonko Rajic,

    23 Franjo Rajic, Stipo Kegelj, Niko Kegelj, Vinko Kegelj,

    24 Dragan Kegelj, Pero Ljubicic, Vojo Stanisic, Mladen

    25 Kegelj, and Augustin Rados.



  56. 1 In attacks by the Muslim aggressor army, they

    2 lost their lives in Lasva. May they rest in peace.

    3 JUDGE CASSESE: Counsel Slokovic-Glumac,

    4 don't you think we could stop now?

    5 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: Okay.

    6 Q. Have you seen this tape before?

    7 A. Yes.

    8 Q. Did you recognise your husband?

    9 A. Yes, with the hole in his chest where they

    10 plucked his heart out.

    11 Q. Would you please look at this list that I

    12 will give you and tell us whether these people are the

    13 people who were killed on that day?

    14 THE REGISTRAR: This document is marked

    15 D63/2.

    16 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC:

    17 Q. There is a list of those who were executed,

    18 also captured, who are missing, and also those who are

    19 wounded. Are the names on that list familiar to you?

    20 A. Yes. I only know Jozo Kegelj. He's alive.

    21 Stipo, where did I see him? Just a minute.

    22 Q. Can you tell us whether these people were

    23 killed on that day?

    24 A. Yes, yes.

    25 Q. Also, could you please tell us whether this



  57. 1 information on the ages of Stipo Kegelj, Vojo Stanisic,

    2 and Pero Ljubicic is true?

    3 A. Yes, they are true.

    4 Q. These were older men.

    5 A. Yes, that's right.

    6 Q. Could you also please tell us whether, after

    7 what happened in Lasva and Dusina on the 26th, any

    8 Croats remained living there?

    9 A. No, not a single Croat lives in Lasva

    10 anymore.

    11 Q. What about Dusina?

    12 A. No.

    13 Q. Tell me, have any of the Croats returned?

    14 A. No. At Dusina, the houses are burned down,

    15 and in Lasva where I lived and many other people,

    16 Muslims moved into these houses.

    17 Q. All right. Thank you, Mrs. Rajic. I have

    18 concluded my questioning.

    19 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: Also, I would like to

    20 tender into evidence as Defence Exhibits D62/2, and

    21 D63/2.

    22 JUDGE CASSESE: Any objection from the

    23 Prosecution?

    24 MR. BLAXILL: No objection.

    25 JUDGE CASSESE: No objection. They are



  58. 1 admitted into evidence.

    2 I wonder whether Counsel Radovic would like

    3 to cross-examine.

    4 MR. RADOVIC: Thank you, but no.

    5 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you, Counsel Radovic.

    6 Any other cross-examination by any other Defence

    7 counsel. Counsel Pavkovic?

    8 MR. PAVKOVIC: No, Mr. President. No one

    9 else will examine the witness.

    10 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. It's for the

    11 Prosecution to cross-examine the witness.

    12 MR. BLAXILL: Your Honours, the Prosecution

    13 proposes to ask no questions in cross-examination.

    14 Thank you.

    15 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. There will be

    16 no --

    17 THE REGISTRAR: Excuse me, Your Honour, but

    18 you also had document D61/2, the map, and you didn't

    19 ask ...

    20 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: Yes. I would like

    21 D61/2 to be admitted into evidence as well.

    22 JUDGE CASSESE: Yes. It is admitted into

    23 evidence. So there will be, therefore, no

    24 re-examination. The Court has no questions for the

    25 witness. I assume there's no objection to the witness



  59. 1 being released.

    2 Madam, thank you for giving evidence in

    3 court. You may now be released. Thank you.

    4 THE WITNESS: Thank you too, sir.

    5 (The witness withdrew)

    6 JUDGE CASSESE: So who will be our next

    7 witness?

    8 MR. SUSAK: Mr. President, it will be

    9 Jadranka Tolic.

    10 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. She will be

    11 examined in chief by you, Counsel Susak?

    12 MR. SUSAK: Exactly.

    13 JUDGE CASSESE: Then could we have a rough

    14 idea of the following witnesses? After Mrs. Tolic,

    15 it's Mr. Stojak?

    16 MR. SUSAK: Those who are on the list, the

    17 list that was already provided to the Prosecutors. I

    18 think it's going to be Dragan Stojak.

    19 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. Followed by Mario

    20 Rajic and Ljuban Grubesic, I assume.

    21 MS. SLOKOVIC-GLUMAC: Mr. President, with

    22 your permission, I wish to say that two witnesses have

    23 not arrived from Bosnia or, rather, they arrived only

    24 last night. Mario Rajic and Stojak are the persons in

    25 question. So, therefore, we cannot hear them now,



  60. 1 according to the list that we submitted to the Court,

    2 but they will be the first tomorrow after Jadranka

    3 Tolic. First it's going to be Grubesic, then Stojak,

    4 and then Mario Rajic.

    5 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you.

    6 (The witness entered court)

    7 JUDGE CASSESE: Good morning, Mrs. Tolic.

    8 Good morning. Could you please make the solemn

    9 declaration?

    10 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will

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

    12 truth.

    13 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. You may be

    14 seated. Counsel Susak will examine this witness in

    15 chief.

    16 MR. SUSAK: Thank you, Mr. President.

    17 WITNESS: JADRANKA TOLIC

    18 Examined by Mr. Susak:

    19 Q. Mrs. Tolic, good day to you.

    20 A. Good day.

    21 Q. I shall be putting questions to you, and you

    22 are going to answer them.

    23 A. All right.

    24 Q. I wish to draw your attention to the

    25 following: Please pause awhile before you answer



  61. 1 because the interpreters are supposed to do their part

    2 of the job too.

    3 Would you please tell me where you were born

    4 and when?

    5 A. I was born on the 12th of January, 1961, and

    6 I was born in Zenica.

    7 Q. What are you by profession?

    8 A. I am a nurse. I worked in the general

    9 hospital in Zenica.

    10 Q. Could you speak slower, please? You said

    11 that you worked in Zenica. Where?

    12 A. In the hospital in the central laboratory.

    13 Q. Could you please tell me who your family

    14 members are?

    15 A. I have a husband, Zoran, and I have two sons,

    16 Adrijan and Toni.

    17 Q. When were they born?

    18 A. The older one was born in 1981, and the

    19 younger one was born in 1986.

    20 Q. Now that we're on this subject, I'm going to

    21 ask you about your brother too. You also had a

    22 brother, didn't you? What was his name?

    23 A. My brother's name was Tomislav Trogrlic. He

    24 was killed as a civilian when he tried to leave Zenica.

    25 Q. When was this?



  62. 1 A. I don't know exactly. It was at the end of

    2 June, the beginning of July 1993.

    3 Q. When was he born?

    4 A. He was born on the 21st of June, 1972.

    5 Q. You said that he was killed as he was trying

    6 to leave Zenica. Could you please tell me when you

    7 found out about this? When did you find out about the

    8 fact that he was killed or did you just think he was

    9 missing?

    10 A. We did not find out about the killing

    11 immediately.

    12 Q. Could you please tell us a bit about this.

    13 A. Towards the end of April I fled to Busovaca,

    14 the military forces took me there and the telephone

    15 lines were still on, and I got a message from my mother

    16 in Zenica that my brother would try to join me there,

    17 because, in Zenica, there was great intolerance. Young

    18 people were being persecuted, Croats. My brother tried

    19 to get out of Zenica to join me. He left via

    20 Cajdras, Vjetrenica and Poculica. He was killed

    21 somewhere up there. However, my mother informed me

    22 that he was supposed to come, but he never came.

    23 Then we were in correspondence. I received

    24 letters through the U.N. They would come to Busovaca

    25 and bring humanitarian aid to us, and they brought us



  63. 1 letters too. There I realised that he was not at home

    2 and that he hadn't come to stay with me either. Then I

    3 reported him as missing, hoping that the International

    4 Red Cross would find him somewhere.

    5 However, we did not succeed in this effort.

    6 For two or two-and-a-half years we did not know whether

    7 he was dead or alive. We found out only in 1996. I

    8 heard from a relative of mine who spent the entire war,

    9 until 1994, in Cajdras. Some policeman who worked in

    10 that part of Zenica came to have a cup of coffee at her

    11 place and they asked her who she was and where she was

    12 from. When they heard that her last name was Trogrlic,

    13 they said that to the best of their knowledge a man

    14 called Trogrlic was killed at the end of June,

    15 beginning of July, 1993 at Vjetrenica.

    16 When the cease-fire was established in '94,

    17 she came to Busovaca and she told me about this. Then

    18 I started looking for my brother, and I went to Zenica

    19 to the International Red Cross, to the Red Cross of the

    20 town of Zenica. I asked other people from town to help

    21 me find him.

    22 When we found out what the exact location

    23 was, we agreed on the exhumation, and then his mortal

    24 remains were transferred to Split. That is where the

    25 exhumation took place. And he was buried in Mostar.



  64. 1 Q. All right. Now we shall go back to other

    2 questions, to the very beginning. You said you lived

    3 and worked in Zenica; is that correct?

    4 A. Yes.

    5 Q. Could you please tell us what the basic

    6 structure of Zenica was, tell us very briefly.

    7 A. Yes. I shall. There was a census in 1990

    8 and about 11 per cent of the population was Serbs, 17

    9 per cent were Croats, and the rest -- there were two or

    10 three per cent who were others, and all the rest were

    11 Muslims.

    12 Q. Could you please tell us what the relations

    13 were between the Muslims and the Croats, what they were

    14 like before the conflict and what about after the

    15 conflict?

    16 A. Well, before the conflict, when the

    17 aggression against Bosnia-Herzegovina started, the Serb

    18 aggression, then the Territorial Defence was

    19 organised. Then there was mobilisation of all who were

    20 employed. They received their war assignments in the

    21 places where they worked and then they were taken to

    22 garrisons where the former Yugoslav People's Army, the

    23 JNA had been. All the citizens were there together.

    24 There were Serbs and Croats and Muslims in that

    25 Territorial Defence, I mean. Then it was being said



  65. 1 that this would be a joint defence against the

    2 aggressors.

    3 Q. You are referring to the Territorial Defence

    4 when you say TO?

    5 A. Yes, I am referring to the Territorial

    6 Defence of the city of Zenica.

    7 Q. Who took part in this Territorial Defence?

    8 A. Croats and Muslims did.

    9 Q. All right. When were the relations between

    10 the Croats and the Muslims aggravated?

    11 A. First there were milder forms of aggravation,

    12 because they were defending themselves against the

    13 Serbs, and the Serbs were attacking from the village of

    14 Cekrcici, from some mountain, I think. It was mostly

    15 Territorial Defence units that went up there. It was

    16 noticed up there and people were saying that Croats

    17 were mainly put in the first lines.

    18 Then people started dodging the TO, the

    19 Territorial Defence. Then the relations worsened even

    20 further during the attack in January, 1993. However,

    21 there is another thing I have to mention, something

    22 that happened earlier. When the Mujahedins came to the

    23 town of Zenica, then there was a worsening of

    24 relations. Also, when the crime in Dusina took place,

    25 and also the attack on Busovaca.



  66. 1 Q. You mentioned the Mujahedins. Who are these

    2 Mujahedins?

    3 A. The Mujahedins were foreign nationals who

    4 came to Bosnia-Herzegovina and who behaved differently

    5 from our local Muslims. However, they brought along

    6 with them certain changes, laws of their own. Until

    7 then there was some kind of tolerance. We even got

    8 along pretty well with one another. But when the

    9 Mujahedins came, they tried to re-educate our Muslims.

    10 They tried to change them. Actually, the Mujahedins

    11 hated everything that was not Muslim.

    12 Q. How did you, the city people, recognise the

    13 Mujahedins? How did you know that you saw them?

    14 A. Yes. Well, I knew when I would see them

    15 because they all wore beards. Our local Muslims,

    16 citizens of Zenica who had joined them, also started

    17 wearing beards, and they wore a special kind of

    18 headdress.

    19 Q. So that's how you recognised them?

    20 A. Yes, that's how we recognised them. The

    21 Mujahedins patrolled the streets and they were

    22 intimidating the non-Muslim population. They sang

    23 different songs. And our people who joined them --

    24 THE INTERPRETER: Just a minute, Madam.

    25 Could you please speak a little bit slower.



  67. 1 A. Well, at that time fear prevailed, because

    2 they were patrolling the streets and they were marching

    3 along the streets and they were singing from Sarajevo

    4 to Vranducka Vrata, there will be no Serbs or Croats.

    5 They also had other slogans, like this

    6 country Bosnia will be Turkish. This was a sign to the

    7 non-Muslim population that there would be no life for

    8 us there, that there could be no life together. That

    9 we would not feel free there, that we will not be able

    10 to live and work there as we had until then.

    11 Q. Could you please speak slower.

    12 A. All right.

    13 Q. And now you said that you worked in the

    14 hospital?

    15 A. Yes.

    16 Q. How long?

    17 A. From 1981 until 1992.

    18 Q. What were the relations between the Croats

    19 and Muslims like in the hospital itself? I am

    20 referring to the physicians employed there.

    21 A. Well, in 1991, political debate started about

    22 the representatives of the Muslim, Croat and Serb

    23 peoples. There were squabbles every day, quarrels.

    24 The majority of the population in Zenica was Muslim and

    25 also most of the people employed at the hospital were



  68. 1 Muslim too. We started feeling threatened among them.

    2 That is exactly what they wanted. Because in '92 a

    3 large number of expelled Muslims from other parts of

    4 Bosnia started coming into Zenica. At work they

    5 started telling us that there was no room for the Serbs

    6 and Croats there, that they should leave the hospital

    7 so that they could find jobs for their refugees.

    8 Q. May I help you at this point. Could you

    9 please tell us what the reasons are, why you left the

    10 Zenica hospital?

    11 A. Yes. I am going to tell you my reasons. One

    12 of my bosses, the second one in line, would often

    13 invite me to her office. She would debate various

    14 points with me and would often ask me how I could be a

    15 Croat, because I was born in Bosnia. It wasn't only

    16 once. Twice a week or once a week she would call me in

    17 for such interrogations and she would ask for an

    18 answer. I also had other unpleasant situations in the

    19 laboratory. We wore white uniforms and then when they

    20 got dirty we would send them out for washing. Then

    21 they were sent back and there were crosses on our

    22 sleeves or on our pockets. That was a sign that was

    23 supposed to show who the non-Muslim workers were. And

    24 that offended me terribly. Then there were these other

    25 interrogations, and they said we had drawn this



  69. 1 ourselves. We couldn't even work and breathe in the

    2 hospital normally, let alone do something like that.

    3 Q. Do you know of any other similar incidents in

    4 the hospital, especially how were the Croats treated

    5 and how were the Muslims treated? Again, I am talking

    6 about the period before the conflict or, rather, before

    7 the attack on the 18th of April, 1993.

    8 A. Yes, I can tell you that the Muslims did not

    9 conduct themselves well towards non-Muslim wounded who

    10 came from the surrounding towns around Zenica. There

    11 was fighting in Zepce, Orasje, and so on, Uskoplje. So

    12 I think they neglected people. Not so much in that

    13 period, but later this became very pronounced.

    14 Q. When you say later, you mean after the 18th.

    15 Now, let's go back to the beginning. You mentioned

    16 that many things were getting worse after the attack

    17 against Busovaca in January. What happened in Zenica

    18 the day before the attack in Busovaca? What was the

    19 atmosphere in Zenica?

    20 A. The atmosphere at the end of January, in '93,

    21 was very tense, but ordinary citizens didn't know what

    22 was going on. The town was already in darkness in the

    23 early afternoon. It would get dark around 4.00 or 5.00

    24 p.m. We had no electricity at night, so the town was

    25 dark. So this had a terrible effect. There were armed



  70. 1 soldiers in the buildings of Zenica. On any higher

    2 building, where they had a good view, there were sniper

    3 nests. This was very frightening for us. We didn't

    4 know why, against whom.

    5 The citizens felt very insecure. There was a

    6 kind of calm. You couldn't even talk loudly. We would

    7 whisper. We didn't know what was going on.

    8 Q. Were Muslims arriving at that town from

    9 Busovaca to Zenica?

    10 A. Just by coincidence, I was walking in the

    11 daytime, I live in Zenica, there are four tall

    12 high-rise buildings, so maybe I was going shopping and

    13 I was passing by. I saw a truck and there were two

    14 vehicles and women and children were coming out of

    15 these vehicles. And this was unusual -- this was not

    16 unusual to see in Zenica, because expelled persons

    17 would arrive from different places every day. This

    18 looked very dismal. People were crying.

    19 So I asked them where they were from, because

    20 people would come, these expelled people would come to

    21 the door everyday. They would ask for help in bread or

    22 money. So when I saw them, I asked them where they

    23 were from. They said from Busovaca. I was surprised.

    24 I thought, "What is happening there?" If

    25 they arrived -- if expelled persons were coming from



  71. 1 Busovaca to Zenica, this was not clear to me. I was

    2 confused when I went home, because earlier people were

    3 arriving from Potkozarje or Gorazde, but I was very

    4 surprised how come these people came from Busovaca

    5 because nothing had happened before then. At least we

    6 didn't know about anything.

    7 Q. What was your experience at the time when the

    8 Muslims were arriving to Zenica? Did they visit you in

    9 your apartments, did they do anything?

    10 A. Well, I couldn't really say anything about

    11 that. I don't know about that period, because if

    12 somebody did come to the door to ask for bread, I never

    13 asked where they were from. I could say for the later

    14 period.

    15 Q. All right. We'll talk about that later,

    16 because we will discuss the other events after the 18th

    17 of April.

    18 You said you worked in the hospital. After

    19 that, where did you go, after you left the hospital?

    20 A. Well, I already told my reasons for leaving

    21 the Zenica hospital. I would like to add another

    22 reason. This would be instructive. I am a graduate of

    23 medical high school and I was a senior lab technician.

    24 We had received new computers for blood analysis, and

    25 there were about 45 of us. I was among the five chosen



  72. 1 to be senior lab technicians to work on these

    2 computers. So during these events, in the war, I was

    3 removed from this post and I was given the lowest

    4 ranking post in the lab. They returned me like a

    5 beginner to work on urine analysis.

    6 So I left the hospital. For a period I was

    7 at home, and then I found out that a kind of medical

    8 unit at the crisis committee was being formed where

    9 Croat people were gathering. So I reported there to

    10 work as a nurse. They accepted me. I started with the

    11 establishment of the medical unit.

    12 Q. Where was this located in Zenica?

    13 A. At the beginning we started in the elementary

    14 school, Sestra Dietrich Ditrih. And then because the

    15 school year was supposed to start, we had to vacate

    16 those premises and then we went to Cajdras to work. We

    17 worked in a private house from there that belonged to a

    18 Croat who was working abroad.

    19 Q. Okay. So now we have finished with the

    20 period of your work in the Zenica hospital, and we will

    21 move to another question. It's a kind of

    22 continuation. When did all these incidents, all these

    23 incidents of behaviour, untoward behaviour of Muslims

    24 towards Croats, when did the division between Muslims

    25 and Croats take place, generally speaking, in the



  73. 1 Territorial Defence and in the authorities?

    2 A. Well, I already said that Croats, Muslims and

    3 a small number of Serbs had been part of the TO who had

    4 not already left the town, but the division came about

    5 when the Muslim politicians -- I don't know how to call

    6 them -- when the Muslim people started to form the BH

    7 army. They started to form some kind of defence

    8 forces. There was the Patriotic League, the Green

    9 League, the 7th Muslim, then the Mujahedins founded the

    10 MOS, the Muslim defence forces, MOS. So these were all

    11 things being formed so that the Muslim people could

    12 defend themselves.

    13 Q. So there were these several formations?

    14 A. Yes, that's right. Then the Croats saw that

    15 Muslims were grouping themselves in their national

    16 structures. The Croats felt insecure because we were

    17 so few in number, and they had already been so many

    18 indications that we were not welcome, and that we

    19 didn't feel safe.

    20 So out of fear Croats started to organise

    21 Crisis Staffs. And, depending on the part of the town

    22 where there were, perhaps, majority Croat population,

    23 this is where these staffs were formed.

    24 Q. Okay. You mentioned MOS. What does that

    25 mean?



  74. 1 A. Muslim liberation forces.

    2 Q. Who comprised this organisation?

    3 A. The Muslim defence force were comprised

    4 mostly of Mujahedins and they were joined by local

    5 Muslims. Not all, of course. Mostly they were in the

    6 BH army, but a large number of them also joined the

    7 Mujahedins.

    8 Q. Did MOS operate together with the BH army or

    9 separately?

    10 A. Well, let me tell you. All the units that

    11 were being formed, I would call them altogether by one

    12 name, Muslim forces, including the BH army, the Green

    13 Legion, the Patriotic Legion, and the MOS, Mujahedin

    14 organisation. These were all Muslim forces. They

    15 operated together in coordination, and that's how they

    16 carried out their tasks.

    17 Q. As far as the civilian authorities, was there

    18 any police in Zenica? Was there military and civilian

    19 police?

    20 A. Yes. There were two police forces. There

    21 was the civilian police of the town of Zenica and there

    22 was the military police. When the Crisis Staff of the

    23 Croatian people was formed, they started -- also they

    24 elected some people who were familiar with these

    25 affairs. They were officials in the civilian



  75. 1 component, so they came to the Crisis Staffs of the

    2 Croatian people at that time. And then they founded

    3 the police of the Croatian people.

    4 Q. Yes, go ahead. You can continue.

    5 A. Well, I really couldn't say anything more

    6 about this.

    7 Q. All right. In view of the fact that you were

    8 in Zenica, were there any terrible incidents by Muslims

    9 against Croats? For example, were there any rapes?

    10 A. Well, I heard of several cases.

    11 Q. Would you please tell us, two cases?

    12 A. Well, I can tell you that Ana Spasojevic, an

    13 old lady who was over 60 years old, was in her house,

    14 and this was in a village quite high up. She was there

    15 with her son, who is mentally retarded. They were

    16 alone in the house -- no, her husband was there too.

    17 No, her husband was in the hospital at the time. He

    18 died shortly afterwards. They were attacked by masked

    19 persons. The old woman was raped. Her name was Ana

    20 Spasojevic.

    21 Then after that she and her son were both

    22 tied to the bed until the neighbours found them. And

    23 this was done by some masked persons. They had black

    24 masks on their heads.

    25 Q. What about another case?



  76. 1 A. Well, another case that I heard had happened

    2 somewhere in Drivusa. That's the Drivusa settlement.

    3 It's a young woman who had two young children. She had

    4 been raped in front of her children and her mother and

    5 father-in-law. I don't know her name. I heard about

    6 both of these cases.

    7 Q. We will move to another question now. You

    8 mentioned these incidents before that had happened.

    9 What were the reasons for Croats to leave Zenica?

    10 Could you tell us?

    11 A. The reasons why Croats left Zenica were that

    12 the life conditions were intolerable, but the main

    13 reasons were the attack on Dusina and the crimes in

    14 Dusina, and this horrified the citizens, Croats in

    15 Zenica, and other citizens. Then the attack on

    16 Busovaca. Then from that time Croats in Zenica felt

    17 very insecure. They were afraid for their own lives

    18 and the lives of their children.

    19 Q. What do you know about Dusina?

    20 A. Well, I know that Dusina is a place before

    21 Zenica, when you go from Sarajevo towards Zenica. It's

    22 before Zenica. And a major crime was committed there,

    23 that 10 or 12 people were killed there.

    24 Q. Why do you think this crime in Dusina was

    25 committed?



  77. 1 A. Well, I never know why people commit crimes.

    2 Q. And then one of the reasons that caused fear

    3 among the citizens was because of what happened in

    4 Dusina. Was there any fear as a result of the arrest

    5 of Zivko Totic?

    6 A. Yes, this was another case. This happened in

    7 Zenica itself. We could see this for ourselves. We

    8 could see what they did.

    9 Q. May I just interrupt you. Did you see that

    10 event?

    11 A. Yes.

    12 Q. Could you please tell us about it.

    13 A. Well, when it was happening I didn't see it.

    14 I came by that road shortly afterwards, because I was

    15 on my way to work in Cajdras. So this happened close

    16 to my house. So I had to pass by. And I was passing

    17 by and I happened to see. I was on my way to work. I

    18 didn't know what was going on. But then I came by and

    19 I saw the car where our people had been killed.

    20 Q. Did you know anybody among the victims?

    21 A. Yes. In that crime, and I will call it a

    22 crime, my cousin, Ivica Vidovic, was there, and then

    23 two other people that I knew, Tihomir Ljubic and Anto

    24 Zrnic, I knew the two of them. There was also Marko

    25 Ljubic, but I hadn't seen him before.



  78. 1 Q. All right. Did you see the police when you

    2 were passing by?

    3 A. Yes. They were already there. I think they

    4 were from the civilian police of the city of Zenica.

    5 They were blocking the road -- people were blocking the

    6 road so you couldn't get past.

    7 Q. So now we'll move onto something else. It's

    8 a continuation. Who do you think arrested Zivko Totic

    9 and why?

    10 A. Yes, I know, I heard from my neighbours,

    11 because I lived there. I had a house there. I heard

    12 that they saw a minivan and people with beards. These

    13 were members of the Muslim armed forces, meaning

    14 Mujahedins. They arrested him and they killed Zivko

    15 Totic's escort.

    16 Q. How many people were killed in the escort

    17 altogether?

    18 A. Four were killed from the escort and a

    19 passer-by was killed too.

    20 Q. When Zivko Totic was captured, and you said

    21 he was captured by the Mujahedins?

    22 A. Yes.

    23 Q. Who negotiated for the release of Zivko

    24 Totic? Was it MOS or was it the BH army?

    25 A. Who negotiated? Well, I wouldn't know that.



  79. 1 But I know when Zivko was exchanged. The negotiations

    2 were conducted by members of the BH army and the U.N.

    3 Q. So who was exchanged for Zivko Totic?

    4 A. When he arrived to Vitez and Busovaca, we met

    5 in Busovaca and he told me that he was exchanged and

    6 some captured Mujahedins were exchanged for him.

    7 Q. So the BH army carried out the negotiations

    8 and exchanged Zivko Totic for Mujahedins. What does

    9 this tell you?

    10 A. Well, I said already earlier that these were

    11 Muslim forces, and they did everything in

    12 coordination. Both the Mujahedin and the BH army,

    13 these were not separate structures. The Mujahedin were

    14 part of the BH army.

    15 Q. I'm asking you this because the BH army, in

    16 fact, representatives of the BH army, sometimes

    17 justified themselves by saying that they did not have

    18 any tight coordination links with MOS?

    19 A. That's not true. They did closely coordinate

    20 with them, so MOS, the Mujahedin, would carry out some

    21 bad things which the BH army wanted to conceal, and

    22 this is how they would make excuses. They would say,

    23 "We had nothing to do with this. We cannot do

    24 anything," but this wasn't true.

    25 Q. All right. We have now come to the 18th of



  80. 1 April, 1993, and that is to say, the date when the

    2 Croats of Zenica were attacked, and we're going to say

    3 a few words about that. Where were you on the 17th?

    4 On the 17th of April, did you notice anything in the

    5 town of Zenica on that day or before that?

    6 A. I'm sorry. I would like to start with the

    7 15th.

    8 Q. All right. A day or two earlier.

    9 A. Yes. I would like to start with the 15th.

    10 Q. I'm sorry. Just one more thing,

    11 Mr. President.

    12 Do you know why the Mujahedin captured Zivko

    13 Totic, but then you took me back to the 15th. Do you

    14 know? Please tell us now.

    15 A. From the 18th until the 15th -- well, I'll

    16 tell you my conclusions after the 18th. I think that

    17 they arrested him. I think they arrested him for one

    18 reason so that the HVO, already at that point, would

    19 remain without its main staff, that is to say, that

    20 they abducted the key man of the Croat people. We were

    21 left without a leader after Zivko was arrested. We

    22 didn't know what to do because he was the most

    23 knowledgable man amongst us.

    24 Q. Was that already a sign that the Muslims were

    25 preparing attack against the Croats?



  81. 1 A. We did not think so then. We did not know

    2 it. On the 15th and all the way up to the 18th, we

    3 expected them to return Zivko to us, and that was the

    4 only subject of people's conversations, and we had no

    5 intimations of the attack.

    6 Q. Now you say that you will say something about

    7 the 15th and the 16th of April, so please proceed.

    8 A. I shall start with the 15th. Zivko Totic was

    9 arrested. His escorts were killed. It was a terrible

    10 sight. For us, the Croatian people, it was so

    11 discouraging that we did not know what to think. This

    12 was proof to us that we certainly could not go on

    13 living there, nor could we behave and work freely and

    14 normally.

    15 There was chaos in the town of Zenica. They

    16 arrested Zivko. They killed five men, also a fifth

    17 one, an accidental passerby. This had a terrible

    18 effect on all the citizens of Zenica, not only Croats,

    19 all honest citizens. Chaos prevailed in town. The

    20 town was blocked. There were police everywhere. Until

    21 then, police patrols were not that frequent. I know.

    22 I went to work on the 15th in the morning from

    23 Podbrezje to Cajdras. That is where I went to work.

    24 We had some kind of a mini clinic there, a mini

    25 hospital.



  82. 1 I saw what happened. I couldn't pass because

    2 the police wouldn't let us pass, and I went back to

    3 Trokuce where the HVO headquarters was. They called,

    4 from there, the hospital in Cajdras, and they said that

    5 they should send an ambulance to pick me up because

    6 they found out that only ambulances could drive through

    7 town. So it was an ambulance that came to pick me up

    8 at Trokuce, and I was taken to Cajdras. They returned

    9 me to Trokuce from there too because that is where the

    10 Croat headquarters was, the HVO headquarters, and there

    11 were several medical persons there. The people who

    12 remained, rather, at headquarters wanted to have one

    13 medical person there, if need be. Zivko Totic's

    14 brother was there, and he didn't feel very well, and

    15 that is why they took me back there.

    16 So in the morning of the 15th, I took my

    17 first aid bag and some medical material, infusions,

    18 things like that, things I thought that would be needed

    19 just in case, and I returned to the headquarters. This

    20 was actually the building of a company called

    21 Vatrostana, and that is where the HVO headquarters was.

    22 Q. All right. Now we're going to move on to the

    23 18th of April, to the attack.

    24 A. All right. From the 15th to the 18th, I

    25 stayed at headquarters. I lived nearby --



  83. 1 JUDGE CASSESE: Sorry to interrupt you. Do

    2 you mind if we take a break now, a 15-minute break,

    3 before you move on to the 18th of April?

    4 MR. SUSAK: Mr. President, this is the best

    5 point of all because I'm moving on to another subject.

    6 Thank you.

    7 JUDGE CASSESE: Fifteen minutes.

    8 --- Recess taken at 12.16 p.m.

    9 --- On resuming at 12.31 p.m.

    10 JUDGE CASSESE: Counsel Susak?

    11 MR. SUSAK: Thank you, Mr. President.

    12 Q. I shall continue my questions. We have

    13 already touched upon the 18th of April, 1993. Do you

    14 know whether there were any attacks in Zenica on that

    15 day?

    16 A. Well, this is the way it was. I repeat, the

    17 15th, I went back to headquarters. I was in Podbrezje

    18 or, rather, in Trokuce where the headquarters building

    19 was, and I stayed there until the 18th. There was

    20 chaos.

    21 We, the others who were working at

    22 headquarters, we just knew that they asked for the

    23 unconditional release of Zivko Totic. Obviously, they

    24 had not succeeded in this. There was chaos there. I

    25 was there to take care of the men at headquarters. For



  84. 1 example, Zivko Totic's brother, Zeljko Totic, that was

    2 his youngest brother, he was in very bad shape. He

    3 needed pills. He needed tranquilisers.

    4 On the morning of the 18th -- well, I spent

    5 all the night there. From the 15th until the 18th, I

    6 was there at headquarters. My home was nearby, and I

    7 would only go occasionally to refresh myself. On the

    8 18th in the evening, I was also at headquarters. I was

    9 awake until midnight or even after midnight, 1.00. I

    10 went to a room where there were mattresses on the

    11 floor, and I wanted to get some rest. I fell asleep.

    12 In the morning, I heard a shot ring out. It

    13 wasn't a shot from a rifle. It was like a grenade or

    14 something like that. It was twenty past five in the

    15 morning. I jumped up. I put my shoes on, and I

    16 realised that there was another military man there, and

    17 we went out in front of the building. In front of the

    18 building, we were all terrified, frightened. We heard

    19 shots from rifles. We were terribly afraid. Then we

    20 finally realised that it had started, that that was an

    21 attack on headquarters.

    22 Around ten to six, they brought a man to me,

    23 and they asked me to help him, but I could not help

    24 him. He was already dead. His name was Vlado

    25 Lovrenovic. He was my neighbour. He was a civilian.



  85. 1 He was not a member of the HVO units.

    2 Q. Can I just interrupt you a bit? You said

    3 that you were in Trokuce, and that's where the

    4 headquarters was. Could you please tell me what

    5 happened after Trokuce in terms of your movement?

    6 A. Certainly. The attack started at twenty past

    7 five, and we stayed there for awhile because of the

    8 shooting, and then we moved out at around 8.30. From

    9 Trokuce, we went to a village which is above that area,

    10 and that is called Podbrezje. That is where I lived.

    11 That is where my home was.

    12 Then we went further up, above that village

    13 of mine, and that is where they told me that there were

    14 some people who were wounded. The headquarters, the

    15 members of the main staff and all those who were

    16 working there, went ahead, and I had to stay behind and

    17 wait for the wounded to come in so that I could help

    18 the wounded person, and a few men stayed to help me

    19 with him, that is to say, to carry him. His name was

    20 Marko Dujic. He was shot in the chest, and I gave him

    21 an infusion there. I bandaged his wounds.

    22 We tried to catch up with the rest who were

    23 ahead of us. We went from Trokuce to Podbrezje and

    24 from Podbrezje to Zmajevac. Zmajevac is a hill. We

    25 reached that hill around 11.00, 11.30. From there,



  86. 1 others took over this wounded man. There was a car

    2 there. I think it was a minivan. It was not a proper

    3 ambulance. We had to go on foot all the way, the

    4 military and the civilians.

    5 Q. You said "the military and the civilians."

    6 Where did you go from Zmajevac?

    7 A. From Zmajevac, we went from Grm, and from

    8 Grm, we came to Cajdras.

    9 Q. Can you tell me where this place Cajdras is?

    10 A. Cajdras? Cajdras, there is a road going

    11 through Cajdras that links Zenica to Vitez.

    12 Q. When you reached Cajdras, how much time did

    13 you spend there? Are we still talking about the 18th?

    14 A. Yes, we're still talking about the 18th. We

    15 could have reached Cajdras around 12.30 or 1.00. I

    16 stayed there until 11.00 p.m. There were many

    17 civilians there, also the military. There were many

    18 people there. Panic prevailed. Children were crying.

    19 Old women were passing out. My colleagues and I had a

    20 lot of things to do.

    21 Q. Were you still in the medical corps?

    22 A. Yes, throughout.

    23 Q. You say that you were there until 11.00 p.m.?

    24 What happened after that?

    25 A. After that, the U.N. forces came in, the



  87. 1 joint authorities or the police. There were some

    2 negotiations there in a building, in a house across the

    3 street from the church, and they asked the military to

    4 surrender their weapons unconditionally, to board

    5 buses, and then they were taken to the corrections

    6 house. Mothers were crying because of their sons and

    7 their husbands. Chaos prevailed.

    8 Q. Were they all taken to the corrections house

    9 or somewhere else?

    10 A. Those who were in Cajdras were taken to the

    11 corrections house of Zenica, and the civilians who were

    12 arrested by the MOS in town and in other Croat

    13 settlements were taken to the MOS building where the

    14 Mujahedin were staying. That was the music school of

    15 Zenica.

    16 Q. That is where they put up the women and

    17 children?

    18 A. No.

    19 Q. Who was there then?

    20 A. The Mujahedin arrested civilians.

    21 Q. Civilians?

    22 A. Civilians. Men, as far as I know, I don't

    23 know whether there were any women there, but they took

    24 the men to MOS, and they beat them up very badly

    25 there. They used wooden sticks, big ones, and rifles



  88. 1 and metal bars.

    2 Q. What about the corrections house? Were

    3 Croats treated better there or at the music house?

    4 A. I found out later that they were treated far

    5 more cruelly in the music school. When I was released

    6 from the house of corrections --

    7 Q. When were you released from the corrections

    8 house? Please answer my questions. Do you know when

    9 you were released from the corrections house?

    10 A. Yes, I know. I was released on Tuesday.

    11 That was the 20th of April, '93 around 1.30 p.m.

    12 MR. SUSAK: Mr. President, could the usher

    13 please show this paper to the witness? One of the

    14 copies goes to the interpreters too.

    15 THE REGISTRAR: The document is marked D8/4.

    16 MS. SUSAK:

    17 Q. Mrs. Tolic, in front of you, you have a

    18 decision on custody. Do you see the date? Do you see

    19 the date when you were sent to custody?

    20 A. Yes, yes. "Custody will start on the 18th of

    21 April, 1993 at 1 --"

    22 THE REGISTRAR: Excuse me. There are no

    23 copies for the Prosecution, nor for the translators.

    24 MS. SUSAK: I did give copies but they were

    25 supposed to be grouped properly. Here you are. We



  89. 1 have two decisions, one on custody and the other one on

    2 release from custody. You even have translations into

    3 English of each and every one of these decisions.

    4 Q. Did you receive a copy of that decision?

    5 A. Yes.

    6 Q. Were you given this decision when you were

    7 brought into custody at the corrections house?

    8 A. No, I got this decision, as well as the other

    9 one, on release from custody, when I was leaving the

    10 corrections house.

    11 Q. Did they tell you how you could seek legal

    12 assistance and how you could appeal this decision on

    13 custody?

    14 A. No.

    15 Q. You did not receive any such information?

    16 A. No.

    17 Q. Did they tell you why they were taking you

    18 into custody?

    19 A. No.

    20 Q. Did they know that you were working in the

    21 medical corps?

    22 A. Yes. Yes, they knew it.

    23 Q. Would you now tell me how come they knew?

    24 A. They knew because they took me into custody

    25 in my white nurse's uniform.



  90. 1 Q. Did you always wear that white uniform?

    2 A. Yes.

    3 Q. When they brought you into custody, did you

    4 introduce yourself, that you belonged to the medical

    5 corps, to that formation?

    6 A. Yes, yes, I introduced myself. When I was

    7 brought into custody, I asked to speak to the warden of

    8 this prison, and I was taken to him. It was an elderly

    9 gentleman. I don't know his name. I asked him why I

    10 was there, and he said, "I don't know." And then I

    11 said, "Take me to someone who does know," and he gave a

    12 rough response or, actually, he addressed the two

    13 guards escorting me and said, "Take her away," and they

    14 took me to a cell.

    15 Q. How many days did you spend in prison?

    16 A. Two days, from the 18th until the 20th.

    17 Q. When you were released from custody, was

    18 everybody else released from custody?

    19 A. No.

    20 Q. Why not? Do you know why not? How come you

    21 were released before other people?

    22 A. I don't know the reasons why. Many people

    23 stayed. After me, they released other individuals.

    24 This was some kind of an unofficial exchange. Some

    25 kind of concessions were made.



  91. 1 I think, if I may continue, because there

    2 were three other persons, three women in the cell,

    3 young women, I found out from one of the detainees, as

    4 I woke up for two mornings in the cell and I didn't

    5 have any personal hygiene items, she offered me her's.

    6 Her name was Fatima. She gave me a little bit of

    7 toothpaste on my finger. She gave me her soap, and she

    8 said that on Tuesday, this was Monday morning, she

    9 said, "Tomorrow, the International Red Cross will come

    10 probably tomorrow to tour, and then you will get

    11 whatever you need."

    12 I was released from the corrections house

    13 earlier, so thank God I wasn't there for that visit by

    14 the Red Cross.

    15 Q. Let's complete the cycle of your movements.

    16 When did you leave Zenica and where did you go to?

    17 A. I left Zenica when I was released from the

    18 house of corrections. I got in touch by telephone with

    19 a former work colleague of mine from the Zenica

    20 hospital who had left the Zenica hospital and went to

    21 work in Busovaca because that's where she was born. I

    22 called her on the telephone and asked her for help. I

    23 told her that I had been detained and that I was very

    24 afraid because I had heard from the other citizens that

    25 when you are released from the house of corrections by



  92. 1 the BH army, then they usually -- or members of MOS,

    2 the Mujahedin, would arrest these people and take them

    3 to the music school, so I was very afraid.

    4 I explained this to her, and she asked for

    5 help in my name in Busovaca, and they called me then

    6 and they told me that UNPROFOR will come and pick me

    7 up.

    8 Q. Did you have any other way to leave Zenica?

    9 A. Some people offered, they offered for me to

    10 leave my apartment and for them to take me towards the

    11 direction of Zepce, but by that time I had already

    12 talked to my colleague, and they told me from the

    13 Busovaca police to remain calm, to be patient for a day

    14 or two, and that they will send UNPROFOR to collect me

    15 and my family. This is what happened. I refused these

    16 other offers to go towards Zepce, because many of my

    17 other citizens in Zenica, when they tried to leave

    18 Zenica, ugly things had happened. They would take them

    19 in the direction of Zepce, Vares and some other exits.

    20 I don't know exactly which ones. But they couldn't

    21 leave. Some couldn't leave.

    22 So they would come back. And then once they

    23 came back, their house had already, or apartment, would

    24 already be occupied. And such exchanges and departures

    25 where people would pay, they would be sent to dangerous



  93. 1 places. I know, and I heard about the whole family,

    2 Strbac, their case, where the whole family was supposed

    3 to be taken out from Zenica to the crossing towards

    4 Vitez, but they were sent to mine fields and they all

    5 perished. So this was a family, husband, wife and

    6 children. I think two children.

    7 Q. So when you left the house of correction, you

    8 spent some time in your apartment?

    9 A. Yes.

    10 Q. Were you in peace there?

    11 A. No. There was no question of peace. It

    12 could not have been like that. Arrests were already

    13 being carried out and I heard from the other citizens

    14 that people were being arrested, people were being

    15 taken to the music school and to the house of

    16 correction. Also, I had different kinds of

    17 provocations. They called me on the phone all day.

    18 They would threaten me, call me by insulting names. My

    19 children couldn't go out any more. Before, when they

    20 played in front of the building, the other children

    21 would abuse them. They would hit them. So after that

    22 they didn't go out any more.

    23 There were constant threats over the

    24 telephone, and I kept expecting for somebody to come to

    25 my door and to take us away.



  94. 1 Q. How did they know where Croats lived in

    2 Zenica?

    3 A. Well, this wasn't difficult to know. They

    4 had members of their units in the buildings, not

    5 Muslims in the buildings. It would always be people

    6 who wanted to -- not all, I have to say not all

    7 citizens, not all Muslim citizens were the same, but

    8 there were persons who would, during the night, place

    9 crosses on the doors of non-Muslim citizens.

    10 Q. So what did that cross represent?

    11 A. Well, that Muslims were not living there.

    12 Q. Yes.

    13 A. But non-Muslim populations were living there,

    14 Croats, Serbs, Jews. There were a few Jews in the

    15 town.

    16 Q. So now we have finished with your movements.

    17 I am going back to the beginning, the 18th of April,

    18 there was an attack. Who attacked whom? What you

    19 know? Tell us what you know.

    20 A. Well, the Muslim forces attacked the

    21 headquarters of the HVO and the surrounding towns with

    22 the majority Croat populations. The attack was from

    23 the direction of Gradac. This is a place above Trokuce

    24 and Podbrezje.

    25 Q. Is this east or west when you look from



  95. 1 Zenica, or which side did the attack come from?

    2 A. Well, I couldn't tell you whether it was east

    3 or west. I just know that I was in Trokuce. The

    4 attack came from the neighbouring town, Gradista. It's

    5 a large Muslim settlement. They attacked the command

    6 in Trokuca, the village of Podbrezje, Kozarci,

    7 Stranjani. This was all linked up, up to Cajdras.

    8 Q. What about Zmajevac and Janjac?

    9 A. Yes, Zmajevac, this is a part of that.

    10 Q. Were all of these places with majority Croat

    11 populations?

    12 A. Yes.

    13 Q. Before the attack of the 18th of April, do

    14 you know what was going on with the HOS on the 17th of

    15 April, or thereabouts, in '93?

    16 A. When I was released from the house of

    17 correction on the 20th of April, after that my friends

    18 and acquaintances came to see me, to see how I was

    19 doing, what had happened to me in the house of

    20 correction, was I physically abused. And then I found

    21 out from them that the day before the region of

    22 Crkvice was disarmed where there was one building where

    23 HOS was situated. Then Radakovo, Perin Han, Lukovo

    24 Polje, they had a command also in Radakovo. Not a

    25 command, a kind of command post. Yes, a command post.



  96. 1 So they disarmed them. These places are on

    2 the right side of the Bosna River.

    3 Then I also heard that they disarmed -- I am

    4 talking about the 16th and the 17th. I don't know what

    5 happened on what day, but the 16th and the 17th of

    6 April I know they disarmed Raspotocje. This is already

    7 on the left side of the River Bosna.

    8 I also heard then, because this was already

    9 the left side, Raspotocje, then we have Gornja Zenica.

    10 Above Gornja Zenica we have Kuber. This is where I

    11 heard -- so this is the 16th, the 17th, the 15th, when

    12 that part or those parts of the town were being

    13 disarmed.

    14 Q. So we are not saying that Raspotocje was

    15 disarmed on one side of the river. Were all the Croats

    16 on the other side of the river disarmed also, in view

    17 of all of these places that you had mentioned?

    18 A. Yes, that's right. I repeat again that I

    19 only heard this after the 20th, when I was released,

    20 which means that there was disarming going on. Not

    21 only in these places, they were also disarming the HOS

    22 forces which were also in the centre of the town.

    23 Q. As far as I understood you, you said they

    24 were in the centre of the town and in Radakovo?

    25 A. No, in Crkvice, the HOS forces.



  97. 1 Q. So were the HOS forces in Crkvice also

    2 disarmed?

    3 A. Yes.

    4 Q. At the same time on the same same day?

    5 A. That I don't know. I know the disarming went

    6 on on the 16th and the 17th.

    7 Q. You mentioned Kuber. How far is Kuber away

    8 from Zenica?

    9 A. Kuber, yes. Kuber is like a big hill. I

    10 can't really call it a mountain above Zenica. I don't

    11 know how far it is from Zenica. I was never up there.

    12 Q. Approximately.

    13 A. Well, I know about a Croatian settlement,

    14 Gornja Zenica, where there was a majority Croat

    15 population and that's maybe not more than 10 kilometres

    16 away from town.

    17 Then above that settlement, above Gornja

    18 Zenica, Bilovode, Travnik, and so on, Kuber was

    19 located.

    20 Q. Did you hear anything about Kuber? Who held

    21 Kuber, Croats or Muslims?

    22 A. I know that a part of our forces were in

    23 Kuber earlier, but I heard that there was an attack up

    24 there already on the 15th, and that from the 15th Kuber

    25 was held by the Muslims.



  98. 1 Q. When you say the 15th, can you say the date,

    2 then the month and the year?

    3 A. I apologise, the 15th of April. So this was

    4 already happening up there when they had already

    5 arrested Zivko Totic.

    6 Q. Was this hill of Kuber an important point

    7 from a military standpoint?

    8 A. Well, I heard this from my patients, from the

    9 injured, that this was an important elevation, because

    10 you could see the whole of Zenica from that hill.

    11 Q. You said that the attack started on the 15th

    12 of April, 1993. How long did it last? Did you hear

    13 that maybe from the wounded or from somebody else?

    14 A. I don't understand the question.

    15 Q. How long did it last, this conflict or the

    16 attack in Kuber? Was it on the 15th, the 16th, the

    17 17th?

    18 A. Well, I can say from what I heard. I heard

    19 from the 15th there was some minor battles there, which

    20 means that Muslim forces took Kuber on the 15th.

    21 Whether there were any battles on the 16th or the 17th,

    22 that I don't know. But I know that on the 18th the

    23 Muslim forces starting going towards other places from

    24 Kuber. And I know that from the events that happened

    25 up there. They burnt houses up there.



  99. 1 There were a lot of injured people up there.

    2 Four bodies were found in that house. One of those

    3 bodies was the father of Stipo Kristo.

    4 Q. Did you hear of anybody else being killed up

    5 there, among the Croats?

    6 A. Yes, there were, but -- I heard people were

    7 killed, but I don't know their names.

    8 Q. Okay. Let's move on. So we are finished now

    9 with the 18th.

    10 Since the attack on Zivko Totic, and then we

    11 talked about the 15th in Kuber and then the 18th in

    12 Zenica, how did the Muslims and the Muslim authorities

    13 behave towards the Croats in Zenica? What period are

    14 you talking about? Well, I will repeat that. We

    15 talked about the 15th of April and then we finished

    16 talking about the 18th of April. So what was the

    17 behaviour of the Muslims and their authorities on the

    18 18th and after that towards the Croats?

    19 A. Well, I heard about that. The situation was

    20 terrible. I left on the 18th. So I heard about this

    21 while I was in Zenica, for a week maybe after I was

    22 released from the house of correction. Arrests were

    23 being made, houses were being searched. The MOS

    24 forces, the Mujahedins, would be going around the

    25 villages that were populated by Croats and they would



  100. 1 mistreat civilians and old people. They would enter

    2 their houses. They would break and take down holy

    3 pictures and crosses. They shot in churches. They

    4 destroyed the cemetery. They destroyed about 76

    5 tombstones. And I think they behaved very savagely.

    6 After that, I can say something about the

    7 events in Sircavica I heard about. They went up there,

    8 they went into the church, they abused the priest and

    9 the nuns. They tied them and they really mistreated

    10 the priest.

    11 Q. Did the Muslim authorities take care of

    12 civilians? Was there any kind of decision reached on

    13 the 18th or after that?

    14 A. In that period they did not, but I heard

    15 later -- I was already out of Zenica --

    16 Q. Well, I was talking about what you had heard,

    17 not what you had seen.

    18 A. Okay. Well, I wasn't there any more, but

    19 later, which means this could already have been May and

    20 June of '93, they sent to the village of Podbrezje,

    21 U.N. forces to protect the population, but before that,

    22 before the U.N. forces arrived, this was the Turkish

    23 battalion, there was the civilian police from the town

    24 of Zenica which protected the Croat population that

    25 remained in the village. But this wasn't enough,



  101. 1 because the MOS forces, the Mujahedins, had captured

    2 the former headquarters of the HVO and they moved in

    3 there. This became their headquarters. So every day,

    4 at night and during the day, they would patrol the

    5 village. They would make arrests, and they would beat

    6 the population there, the men who happened to be in the

    7 village.

    8 Q. So when you left the hospital, did you ever

    9 return to the hospital? Did you visit the HVO soldiers

    10 in the hospital?

    11 A. This was in the period after I had left the

    12 hospital and I was working at the Crisis Staff where

    13 the Croat forces were being formed, where the Croat

    14 people were grouping themselves. Wounded people were

    15 coming from Zepce and Usora and they were fighting

    16 against the aggressor together with the Muslims. So

    17 all the wounded from those areas would come to the

    18 Zenica hospital for treatment and, in view of the fact

    19 that there was hunger already, then we would go once or

    20 twice a week from the medical unit to visit the wounded

    21 from other places. We would take them sandwiches or

    22 something like that. Already at that time, and this

    23 was the second half of '92 and the beginning of '93, I

    24 would go and visit those wounded. And there was some

    25 very unpleasant, uncomfortable situations.



  102. 1 There were already some wounded Mujahedins

    2 there and they would see whom we were visiting and they

    3 would show the sign of the cross and make this gesture

    4 (indicating). They knew who we were and who these

    5 wounded were. So they were showing us what they

    6 thought about us.

    7 Q. So they would show you the sign of the cross?

    8 A. This is how they would show us the sign of

    9 the cross, because many of them couldn't talk, and then

    10 this is what they would show us (indicating).

    11 Q. What does that mean?

    12 A. That we should have our throats cut.

    13 Q. Did the Mujahedins come to the hospital armed

    14 or did somebody else come in armed?

    15 A. As far as I know, when we were coming in to

    16 see the wounded, no one was allowed to have weapons.

    17 Their colleagues who went to see our wounded had to

    18 leave their weapons at the reception desk, at the

    19 entrance to the hospital. However, this rule did not

    20 apply to the Mujahedins. They entered the hospital

    21 armed.

    22 Q. Who walked around the hospital or, rather,

    23 who guarded the hospital?

    24 A. There were always MOS members there and there

    25 were also people who worked as guards earlier on at the



  103. 1 reception desk. However, MOS members were all around

    2 the building and in the building too.

    3 Q. Could you please tell us what they looked

    4 like, these people who walked around the hospital and

    5 who guarded it and who came in with weapons?

    6 A. Most of them had long beards and some of them

    7 had some kind of headdress and others didn't.

    8 Q. What about their uniforms?

    9 A. They did wear military uniform.

    10 Q. The people from the BH army, did they see

    11 that?

    12 A. Everybody saw that and everybody knew that.

    13 Q. Now we are going to move onto another

    14 subject. Do you know how and when Croats left Zenica?

    15 Was Zenica abandoned by the Croats even before the 18th

    16 of April, and did people move out after that too?

    17 A. Yes, people did move out, but I am going to

    18 tell you about it now. At the beginning of the war,

    19 immediately after the Serb aggression against

    20 Bosnia-Herzegovina, many people who had somewhere to go

    21 to did, because they were afraid of the war, and they

    22 tried to get out of Zenica, both Muslims and Croats,

    23 those who could get out. As I said, some people had

    24 money. Other people had friends, acquaintances,

    25 relatives. But this was not massive at that stage.



  104. 1 However, after the 15th of April, and after

    2 the 18th of April --

    3 Q. You are trying to say after Zivko Totic's

    4 arrest and after the attack on the Croats of Zenica?

    5 A. Yes. From those days and also after the

    6 crime in Dusina, because that is when there was a

    7 general lack of security, and people started seeking

    8 ways and means of leaving Zenica. However, from the

    9 15th hardly anyone could get out. The city was sealed

    10 off after the 15th. There were no ways of getting

    11 out.

    12 After the 18th, I already said, I already

    13 said this, after the 18th assistance was offered by

    14 Muslim citizens. They said they would take us to Zepce

    15 or Vares, not only me but to other people from town.

    16 Q. That is to say to area that was under HVO

    17 control?

    18 A. Yes.

    19 Q. Could one get out of Zenica and go to Vitez?

    20 A. With great difficulty. I don't think so.

    21 Q. Could you tell us how many Croats there were

    22 in the 1990 census in Zenica?

    23 A. The 1990 census showed that there were 17 per

    24 cent of Croats, 11 per cent of Serbs, 2 or 3 per cent

    25 were others, and the remaining population was Muslim.



  105. 1 Q. Mrs. Tolic, that's what you told me in

    2 response to my previous question, but could you give me

    3 the actual numbers and could you also tell me how many

    4 Croats moved out of Zenica?

    5 A. During the census of 1990, it was believed

    6 that there were between 25.000 and 28.000 Croats in

    7 Zenica.

    8 Q. What about today, how many remain until the

    9 present day?

    10 A. Well, no one knows the exact number, but

    11 people say there's not more than 5.000 or 6.000 left.

    12 And most of them left the town of Zenica after the

    13 cease-fire, after 1994, because from 1993, from the

    14 18th of April until 1994, until the cease-fire was

    15 signed, Zenica was a big concentration camp. No one

    16 was allowed to leave Zenica. Or they could leave but

    17 with great difficulty or they would get killed as they

    18 were trying to leave it. So most people left Zenica in

    19 1994, after the Dayton Accords were signed.

    20 Q. And after the Dayton Accords were signed, why

    21 did so many Croats leave Zenica? Do you have any

    22 arguments for this or do you know why this was the

    23 case?

    24 A. I can tell you what I think. 1993 was a

    25 terrible year in Zenica. It was a year of famine. It



  106. 1 was a year of persecution of Croats in Zenica. I can

    2 say that after 1994, after the cease-fire agreement was

    3 signed, it was not only the Croats who were leaving

    4 Zenica. Muslims were leaving it too, because a large

    5 number of refugees arrived in Zenica.

    6 Q. In your opinion, what are the other reasons

    7 why Croats left Zenica?

    8 A. Well, because they were the minority people.

    9 The Muslims showed, by their attack and their

    10 behaviour, that we could not live and work there

    11 freely. I think that those are the most important

    12 reasons.

    13 Q. In this period, and especially on the 18th

    14 and after that, and also before that, were there any

    15 killings of Croats in Zenica, and also around Zenica?

    16 A. As regards the events that took place before

    17 Dusina and before Busovaca and before the 18th of

    18 April, I do not know. I do not know whether there were

    19 any killings. But as regards the killings that took

    20 place during the attack on the 18th of April, I can say

    21 what I know.

    22 Q. Could you give us a few cases.

    23 A. The first person killed was Vlado Lovrenovic,

    24 as I said already. And he was brought to me in the

    25 early morning hours. And also in the village of



  107. 1 Kozarci, two old men were killed. Those are my

    2 mother's uncles. One was 90 years old and the other

    3 one was 92 years old. One of them was blind and

    4 bedridden and the other one was very ill. Ivan Vidovic

    5 Ivan and Antan Vidovic were their names.

    6 Also in this village of Kozarci a

    7 three-year-old child was killed and the mother was

    8 gravely wounded.

    9 Q. Whose child was this?

    10 A. This was the child of Zeljko and Ivanka

    11 Zrnic.

    12 Q. They are Croats, right?

    13 A. Yes.

    14 Q. And --

    15 A. Further on in the village of Zalje, which is

    16 near Zmajevac, they killed Stipo Trogrlic. Stipo

    17 Trogrlic. In this same village they also killed a

    18 child of Ana and Zejnil Pranjic. That child was one of

    19 two twins.

    20 Q. I don't know if you refer to Gornja Zenica.

    21 A. I heard that they found four burned corpses

    22 in Gornja Zenica, and one of them was the body of Stipo

    23 Kristo's father.

    24 Q. What about all of these things, were they

    25 supposed to intimidate the Croats?



  108. 1 A. By that time ...

    2 Q. Did this cause fear amongst the Croats?

    3 A. Well, these murders happened during the

    4 attack on the 18th.

    5 Q. I shall repeat my question. Did this affect

    6 the feelings of Croats, and also did this make them

    7 move out of Zenica?

    8 A. Indeed so. There was an attack. They killed

    9 people. They killed our relatives, our neighbours.

    10 Q. Were they in fear of their own lives?

    11 A. Yes, of course.

    12 Q. Now that we mentioned the persons who were

    13 killed, were there any people who were missing?

    14 A. Yes, yes, I heard about this. Zdeno Dujic

    15 was missing. He is the husband of an acquaintance of

    16 mine. He worked in the civilian police force in the

    17 town of Zenica. They came into his home, and they told

    18 him that he was supposed to go on assignment. He was

    19 taken away, and he was never found again. No one knows

    20 whether he is dead or alive.

    21 Also, a young boy, 17 or 18 years old, was

    22 also missing. He's also from my village, the village

    23 of Podbrezje. His name was Vjekoslav Pandza. Until

    24 this day, no one knows a thing about him.

    25 I know of another case too related to the



  109. 1 hospital in Zenica where Dr. Sladojevic worked. He was

    2 head of the eye department. In the morning at work,

    3 they would have staff meetings of the doctors, and he

    4 protested, and he said, "Where did the people who were

    5 admitted the previous day disappear to?" So he would

    6 come into work one day, and the next day, these people

    7 would be missing. Soon after that, they came to see

    8 him at his home, they took him away, and nothing is

    9 known about him until this very day, and this was the

    10 case of Dr. Sladojevic.

    11 Q. What did he do at the hospital?

    12 A. He was an eye doctor, a specialist, and he

    13 was also head of the department, the eye department.

    14 Q. You also mentioned Anto Dujic?

    15 A. Yes.

    16 Q. Who is that person? Is he also missing?

    17 A. Yes.

    18 Q. Where did he work?

    19 A. He worked in the civilian police.

    20 Q. In the civilian police. How did he

    21 disappear, now that you mentioned it?

    22 A. As far as I heard from his wife, they came to

    23 his home, they took him away, and nothing is known

    24 until the present day as to what happened to him.

    25 Q. I think that I omitted a question. How many



  110. 1 Croats live in Zenica now, to the best of your

    2 knowledge?

    3 JUDGE MAY: She gave the answer to that,

    4 5.000 to 6.000.

    5 MR. SUSAK: All right. I apologise. I

    6 simply forgot that right now.

    7 Q. Now that we're talking about Zenica, where

    8 were the Mujahedin staying?

    9 A. The Mujahedin were staying somewhere near the

    10 centre of town, the music school. They also were

    11 staying in a far away village.

    12 Q. Yes. You mentioned the music school, but in

    13 addition to the music school, were they located

    14 anywhere else?

    15 A. In a far away village out of town. The

    16 village was called Arnauti.

    17 Q. How many Mujahedin were in Zenica, to the

    18 best of your knowledge?

    19 A. That, I do not know.

    20 Q. Could you give us an estimate?

    21 A. No.

    22 Q. Could you see them often in town?

    23 A. Yes, yes, we would see them everywhere.

    24 Q. What about the villages? What about the

    25 villages around Zenica?



  111. 1 A. I can only talk about my own village where I

    2 was, Podbrezje. In Podbrezje, there was a Croat

    3 population, and in Tetovo, there was a Muslim

    4 population too, and they were in that part too because

    5 that is where they came to say in the empty houses that

    6 belonged to Serbs or -- well, that's where they lived.

    7 Q. How did the Croats take all of this before

    8 the 18th and after the 18th? Now we have come to the

    9 area of humanitarian aid.

    10 A. In Zenica, there were quite a few

    11 humanitarian organisations. The Muslims, to the best

    12 of my knowledge, had two such organisations, Merhamet

    13 and Agasa. The Serbs had one called Dobrotvor, and if

    14 the Croatian church, there was Caritas, the

    15 International Red Cross. Those were the humanitarian

    16 organisations that I'm aware of, and I also know that

    17 Caritas distributed aid to all the citizens of Zenica,

    18 whoever came to see them, and I'm not familiar with

    19 what others did.

    20 Q. Did Croats receive humanitarian aid from

    21 Merhamet?

    22 A. No.

    23 Q. Or from Agasa, as you said? That is another

    24 Muslim humanitarian organisation.

    25 A. I am not aware of that.



  112. 1 Q. Before the 18th, before the attack on places

    2 that had predominantly Croat populations and

    3 afterwards, you said that at one point in time Zenica

    4 was sealed off. What period does this blockade refer

    5 to?

    6 A. The blockade of the town of Zenica refers to

    7 the following period -- actually, it started on the

    8 15th of April. After the 18th of April, it was

    9 intensified, so it was difficult to leave town or to

    10 enter town.

    11 Q. How could ordinary civilians leave town?

    12 A. Well, it was difficult to get out. Ordinary

    13 civilians could not leave Zenica at all, unless they

    14 had some Muslim friends who would bring them to a

    15 point, to a checkpoint, where they would let them pass

    16 through, but that was not a sure way of doing it.

    17 Q. We just have one more question. You

    18 mentioned the Territorial Defence. Where was the

    19 Territorial Defence located and, after that, the army

    20 of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Zenica?

    21 A. The Territorial Defence was at the building

    22 at Bilmiste. This was the former Yugoslav People's

    23 Army barracks.

    24 Q. Did the authorities in Zenica carry out

    25 mobilisation?



  113. 1 A. Yes, they did carry out mobilisation and at

    2 work places at that. The employees of Zenica

    3 steelworks got their war assignments, their military

    4 assignments, at work, that is to say, people went to

    5 work, and they would get their war assignments, and

    6 they were taken away from work to the barracks at

    7 Bilmiste.

    8 Q. How long would they stay there?

    9 A. Well, it depends. It depends on these

    10 military actions. They would spend at least a week

    11 there, and then they would go home for awhile, and then

    12 they would go back and spend another week, something

    13 like that.

    14 Q. Was there any punishment in case someone did

    15 not respond to call-ups, to mobilisation?

    16 A. I think that, at that time, there was not a

    17 single person who would not have responded. I'm not

    18 aware of this, but most people joined the Territorial

    19 Defence.

    20 Q. Who went to the Territorial Defence? You

    21 said it was the employed persons who went.

    22 A. Everyone went, almost everyone, almost all

    23 citizens of Zenica, men.

    24 Q. Are you trying to say military-aged men?

    25 A. Yes.



  114. 1 MR. SUSAK: Mr. President, have I no further

    2 questions.

    3 JUDGE CASSESE: Thank you. Before we

    4 adjourn, could I know if there will be any

    5 cross-examination by other Defence counsel?

    6 MR. PAVKOVIC: Your Honours, the witnesses

    7 will be questioned by Ranko Radovic and Jadranka

    8 Slokovic-Glumac. Thank you.

    9 JUDGE CASSESE: We will adjourn now until

    10 tomorrow at 1.30. Tomorrow we will be sitting -- yes,

    11 Counsel Susak?

    12 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for Counsel

    13 Susak, please.

    14 MR. SUSAK: Mr. President, I suggest that two

    15 documents be admitted into evidence, that is to say,

    16 the decision on custody and the decision on release

    17 from custody for this particular witness.

    18 JUDGE CASSESE: We only received one

    19 decision, the one for the release. The other one was

    20 never handed to us.

    21 MR. SUSAK: I have both.

    22 JUDGE CASSESE: But we don't have it. D8/4 is the

    23 only one we have.

    24 MR. SUSAK: Yes, but I have extra copies, and

    25 I shall submit this other document to you forthwith.



  115. 1 JUDGE CASSESE: Yes, but then we must give

    2 time to the Prosecution to consider those and see

    3 whether they have any objections. So you can hand in

    4 now this document, and tomorrow we will decide whether

    5 or not both documents are admitted into evidence.

    6 As I say, tomorrow, we will be sitting from

    7 1.30 until 6.00 p.m.

    8 The hearing is adjourned.

    9 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at

    10 1.30 p.m., to be reconvened on Thursday,

    11 the 28th day of January, 1999 at

    12 1.30 p.m.

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