Page 873
1 Thursday, 2 March 2000
2 [Open session]
3 --- Upon commencing at 10.00 a.m.
4 [The accused entered court]
5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Good
6 morning. You may be seated. Good morning, ladies and
7 gentlemen. Good morning to the technical booth, the
8 interpreters, the members of the Prosecution, the
9 members of the Defence teams. We are in the same
10 composition today as on the previous days. For the
11 record, we don't need to waste time in having the
12 appearances.
13 Before beginning, I must apologise for the
14 delay, but I would like to take advantage of this
15 opportunity to say that an organisation involves all
16 parties in an orderly relationship with the view to
17 achieving a certain objective. I said that is what I
18 thought, because I noticed that on the intranet,
19 yesterday's hearing was announced as a closed session
20 hearing, when, in fact, it was a public hearing. Today
21 I verified to see that the time announced for the
22 beginning hearing was 10.30, rather than 9.30, as we
23 had decided.
24 Therefore, I should ask the registrar to pay
25 attention to these matters. Otherwise, we will not
Page 874
1 achieve the goals that we have set ourselves. In fact,
2 I believe that each one of us has to assume his
3 responsibilities and do his part of the work. The
4 President of the Chamber should not have to check and
5 review these things to ensure the proper functioning of
6 the proceedings. Everyone must assume his share of the
7 responsibility.
8 So the delay today is partly due to this
9 confusion because the beginning was announced for 10.30
10 instead of 9.30, and as a rule, our hearings will
11 always begin at 9.30, going on until 2.30, except when
12 an exception is made. That is the rule. And all
13 exceptions will have to be announced with sufficient
14 time in advance. We respect the time of other people,
15 and therefore I draw the attention of the registrar to
16 these matters so that the necessary corrections can be
17 made.
18 So now we can continue with the testimony of
19 Mr. Kvocka, and I therefore give the floor to
20 Mr. Simic.
21 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Good morning,
22 Your Honours, and thank you.
23 WITNESS: MIROSLAV KVOCKA [Resumed]
24 Examined by Mr. Simic: [Cont'd]
25 Q. Mr. Kvocka, we started yesterday with a
Page 875
1 discussion on your first contacts with the Omarska
2 Investigation Centre, and we will continue on that same
3 subject.
4 You said explicitly yesterday that after the
5 Omarska police station department or, rather, its
6 personnel had taken over the security duties from
7 members of the police whom you didn't know, that you
8 recognised three or four bodies, and you showed us
9 where they were on the grass opposite the restaurant in
10 the administration building.
11 Do you have any knowledge as to whether among
12 those bodies was the body of the late Mr. Anhil Dedic?
13 A. Later on, people said that one of those
14 killed was he. This was talked about among the guards,
15 who, in the meantime, had established contact with some
16 of the prisoners, and they probably heard that from
17 them.
18 Q. You did not personally know Mr. Anhil Dedic,
19 did you?
20 A. No.
21 Q. So you didn't verify because you didn't
22 approach the bodies either, did you?
23 A. No.
24 Q. So all the knowledge you have about the death
25 of the late Dedic was obtained from others who told you
Page 876
1 that he was killed when attempting to escape.
2 A. Yes, that was what was said some seven or
3 eight days later.
4 Q. Mr. Kvocka, upon your first arrival in the
5 Omarska Investigation Centre, what were you wearing?
6 Did you have a uniform on or something else?
7 A. I was wearing my regular police uniform,
8 which was worn for many years in the course of --
9 during the former Yugoslavia and the former Republic of
10 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
11 Q. So this was a standard uniform that was worn
12 for the past five, six months or more?
13 A. More than that, for longer than that.
14 Q. Were there any insignia on your uniform that
15 would indicate any measure of superiority?
16 A. No. All policemen had the same insignia on
17 their uniforms.
18 Q. Was there a difference when it came to the
19 uniform worn by the commander?
20 A. I didn't notice it.
21 Q. What kind of weapon did you have on you on
22 that occasion, and was it in any way different from the
23 standard weapon that you were issued?
24 A. I was armed with a standard weapon.
25 Q. What is that standard weapon?
Page 877
1 A. A pistol.
2 Q. You were never issued an automatic rifle when
3 entering the Omarska Investigation Centre.
4 A. Yes, I did sign up for one, like all active
5 duty policemen, but I didn't carry it on me.
6 Q. Where was it?
7 A. It was usually in the premises of the police,
8 and sometimes in the official vehicle.
9 Q. We heard yesterday from you that you were a
10 highly disciplined policeman. In the course of your
11 career, did you ever violate the rules regarding the
12 way in which you wore your uniform?
13 A. No.
14 Q. Do the rules envisage the obligation to wear
15 gloves, especially those gloves without fingers that we
16 know from police films?
17 A. That is not envisaged by the rules, nor was
18 it allowed for policemen to wear any such things.
19 Q. Did you ever use such gloves in Omarska?
20 A. No, never.
21 Q. In the course of your stay in Omarska, did
22 you notice that any policeman wore such gloves?
23 A. I think there were some who used such gloves
24 but not among the active-duty professional policemen.
25 Not a single one of them did I notice wearing them.
Page 878
1 Anyway, there were only two or three of us active-duty
2 policemen in Omarska at the time, so I can assert that
3 with certainty.
4 Q. Can you give us the name of anyone who you
5 saw wearing such gloves because, after all, those were
6 unnatural times.
7 A. I think that one person with the same surname
8 as mine, and his name is Milojica, so his name is
9 Milojica Kvocka, I think that occasionally I did see
10 saw him wearing such gloves.
11 Q. What about Meakic as the commander of police
12 department? Did he react when he saw that? As you
13 said yourself, that that was not in line with the
14 rules.
15 A. I don't know.
16 Q. You told us yesterday that Mr. Meakic arrived
17 some 15 minutes after the group or maybe at the same
18 time as the group. What was he wearing?
19 A. He was dressed in the same way as I was,
20 wearing the standard police uniform that was worn at
21 the time.
22 Q. What did Mr. Meakic have as weapons?
23 A. The same weapon as all active-duty
24 policemen.
25 Q. Did you own a rifle called pumperica? Did
Page 879
1 such a rifle appear in Omarska?
2 A. No, I never had possession of such a rifle.
3 Q. Did such a rifle -- was it seen in Omarska at
4 all?
5 A. I did not see one in the parts of the
6 compound where I was.
7 Q. That first day, whether it was the 27th to
8 the 28th or the 28th to the 29th of May 1992, you said
9 that food was not provided for the detainees. Is that
10 correct?
11 A. Yes, it is. No mention was made of food.
12 Q. Did Mr. Meakic inform you and the other
13 guards what was the plan regarding food?
14 A. You mean on the first day?
15 Q. Yes.
16 A. No, he didn't say anything.
17 Q. Did the guards have food provided for that
18 day?
19 A. No.
20 Q. Did Mr. Meakic take any steps to find, as
21 donors, one of the well-known businessmen to get some
22 food on that first day for the detainees?
23 A. No, not on that first day.
24 Q. When did he contact Mr. Andzic in connection
25 with such matters?
Page 880
1 A. That was the following day.
2 Q. We'll come back to that when we go on to the
3 next day. I'm talking about the first day now.
4 MS. HOLLIS: Excuse me, Your Honour. Your
5 Honour, we've been quite patient in regard to leading
6 questions and questions which introduce facts which are
7 not in evidence, but now that we're in Omarska itself,
8 we would object to the continuing leading nature of the
9 questions that are being asked.
10 For example, the last question was: "When
11 did" -- first he said: "Did Mr. Meakic take any steps
12 to find one of the well-known businessmen to get some
13 food on the first day for the detainees?" That, we
14 would allow as a lead-in, but the next question: "And
15 when did he contact Mr. Andzic?" That's a fact that is
16 not in evidence. It is a leading question.
17 We would ask that for Omarska, at least,
18 counsel allow the witness to testify and he refrain
19 from these kinds of questions. Thank you.
20 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Simic,
21 do you have any reaction to this objection?
22 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] I accept the
23 objection and I shall pay closer attention to the
24 wording of my questions, but I thought that we had
25 covered most of these questions together with
Page 881
1 Mr. Keegan in the interview with Mr. Kvocka. So these
2 things are something that the Prosecution is familiar
3 with. I had no intention to lead, and I shall try and
4 be more specific in my questions.
5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes,
6 please. Put non-leading questions to the witness so
7 that the witness can testify properly.
8 Thank you very much, Mr. Simic.
9 Thank you, Ms. Hollis, for your objection and
10 remark.
11 Please continue.
12 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.
13 Q. On that first day, were members of the
14 security replaced by new persons?
15 A. Yes. In the evening there was a change of
16 shift. The entire personnel was replaced and that is
17 when I also went home.
18 Q. Who brought those new personnel, that new
19 shift?
20 A. They came together again with Zeljko Meakic,
21 because on that first day, he would come and go on
22 several occasions to the investigation centre, to and
23 from the investigation centre.
24 Q. Do you believe that while he was absent he
25 was organising things?
Page 882
1 A. I don't know anything about that
2 specifically. I can just assume that he probably
3 contacted some people in positions of responsibility to
4 find out what was happening, because it was my
5 impression that many things were not clear to him
6 either.
7 Q. That first day that you spent in the Omarska
8 Investigation Centre, did investigators appear?
9 A. No.
10 Q. A moment ago, you said you went home to rest
11 overnight. When did you come back to Omarska?
12 A. The next day, in the morning.
13 Q. Did you find Mr. Meakic there?
14 A. Yes, I did.
15 Q. Was a change of shift organised again; that
16 is, the night-shift being over, so new reinforcements
17 had to come in? Who was doing that?
18 A. Zeljko Meakic.
19 Q. So the new morning shift appeared, who were
20 to work that whole day?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Was food organised for the detainees on that
23 day? Because you told us that they were there.
24 A. On that day, as far as I was able to see,
25 Milan Andzic from Omarska, as a private individual who
Page 883
1 was a wealthy, well-known businessman, brought several
2 sacks full of sandwiches.
3 Q. Those sandwiches, were they distributed among
4 the detainees on that day?
5 A. Yes, they were.
6 Q. Who did the distribution?
7 A. The policemen providing security. And I know
8 that there were remarks that the food was insufficient.
9 Q. How was the food for the policemen organised
10 on that second day?
11 A. In the investigating centre itself there was
12 no food provided for the policemen on that day either.
13 Q. Did you notice whether some policemen had
14 brought some food with them from their homes?
15 A. Yes. That was visible. Almost everyone had
16 a parcel in his pocket, a sandwich or something to
17 eat.
18 Q. Do you know whether the policemen were told
19 that there would be no food provided and that they
20 should bring some from home?
21 A. I don't know anything about that.
22 Q. Mr. Kvocka, we have been talking about two
23 days now. In the course of those two days, did any new
24 detainees appear in any way at all?
25 A. On that first day, the 28th to the 29th,
Page 884
1 there were none. On the 30th, on the second day, the
2 30th of May, late in the afternoon, sometime around
3 5.00 or 6.00 p.m., some people arrived, that is,
4 detainees, in several buses.
5 Q. Did anything unusual happen in Prijedor
6 before these new detainees were brought in on several
7 buses, as you said?
8 A. On that day, at around midday, amongst us
9 policemen, the news was spreading that there had been
10 an attack on Prijedor. There were announcements to
11 that effect on the radio, some people heard these
12 announcements, and listening to the radio that we had
13 in one of the premises, according to the conversations
14 being conducted within the territory of Prijedor, one
15 could infer that a conflict was ongoing there.
16 Q. This radio station that you mentioned, we'll
17 be coming back to that -- the radio transmitter is
18 something we'll be coming back to.
19 My question is: Was an announcement issued
20 to members of the security, that is, members of the
21 Omarska Police Department? Was this announcement made
22 to them, or did you learn it by listening in to others
23 and their conversations over the radio transmitter?
24 A. There were no announcements made to the
25 investigating centre itself. We were just able to
Page 885
1 overhear what other people were saying in the territory
2 of Prijedor, because the same frequencies were being
3 used.
4 Q. Mr. Kvocka, on the 30th of May, 1992, did the
5 members of the Omarska police station department
6 receive any kind of news, through Meakic or anyone
7 else, that new detainees were arriving?
8 A. No. I simply heard nothing about that, nor
9 did anyone inform me about that.
10 Q. Was it a surprise for the security personnel
11 to see these new detainees arriving?
12 A. Yes. We were all asking ourselves, "What is
13 this?" and "What's happening?" and "Why again?"
14 Q. Among these men, was Mr. Meakic there?
15 A. Yes. In the evening, on that day, he was
16 present too.
17 Q. Mr. Kvocka, let's go back for a moment
18 because we omitted something. What were you doing
19 during that day until the arrival of these new
20 detainees?
21 A. I was on duty, as I had been the previous
22 day, with the same orders from Zeljko, to lend a
23 helping hand to the reserve policemen, should they need
24 advice in performing their duties.
25 Q. On that day, did you move around on the
Page 886
1 pista, or did you spend the day inside?
2 A. I spent most of the day outside.
3 MS. HOLLIS: Excuse me, Your Honour. I
4 apologise for interrupting, but again we have counsel
5 basically testifying for the witness, putting in facts
6 that are not in evidence. We would ask that he not ask
7 leading questions and perhaps confine himself to asking
8 the witness what the witness did, instead of stating
9 what he believes the witness did.
10 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] You heard
11 the objection, Mr. Simic.
12 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] It's my mistake.
13 I'll rephrase the question, Your Honour.
14 Q. What were you doing, Mr. Kvocka, during that
15 day?
16 A. That day, the 30th of May, I spent doing the
17 same things as I had done the previous day. I was on
18 duty in the investigation centre, having the same
19 assignments that I had been given by Mr. Meakic. I
20 spent the time mostly outside, on the compound. Among
21 the reserve policemen, no one came to ask for my
22 assistance or advice.
23 Q. Where were you at the time the buses with the
24 new detainees arrived?
25 A. I was in front of the entrance to the
Page 887
1 administration building.
2 Q. Who escorted this convoy of detainees?
3 A. The escort consisted of the police officers
4 from Prijedor -- this I know because I recognised some
5 of them as career policemen -- and also there were some
6 military police. In other words, it was a mixed
7 escort.
8 Q. Were any of the commanding police officers
9 from the Prijedor police station among them?
10 A. No, not of the top commanders whom I knew.
11 Q. What happened to the detainees who were
12 brought in by bus?
13 A. They were taken by these police officers who
14 escorted them to certain rooms.
15 Q. Were only the escorting police officers
16 involved in this, in other words, those who were not
17 members of the Omarska police station?
18 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] I'm sorry
19 for interrupting you. The question that you have just
20 asked is clearly a leading question, if you say "Was it
21 these policemen who were doing this or that?" You must
22 ask "Who did such and such?" If you're asking, "Did
23 these police officers do this?" the answer will be
24 yes. So you must ask, "Who did such and such?"
25 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] I apologise. I
Page 888
1 will rephrase the question again, accepting the
2 suggestion with gratitude.
3 A. It was the police officers from the escort
4 who took the newly arrived prisoners to the places
5 where they were first accommodated, and then they were
6 also assisted by the police officers who were already
7 there as security, in other words, in that area where
8 they were placed.
9 Q. In those buses, did you recognise any
10 individuals?
11 A. On that day, on the 30th, these early
12 arrivals -- the first arrival of those buses, yes,
13 there were people I recognised, people whom I
14 occasionally would meet in town. And those who were
15 the most familiar to me, if I may go on, who had been
16 brought in at that time, were my wife's three
17 brothers: Adnan Crnalic, called Dado; Rizak Crnalic,
18 also known as Rica; and Nedzad Crnalic, also known as
19 Necko.
20 Before I observed them, a police officer, who
21 was an active duty police officer from Prijedor, whom I
22 knew from before, Obrenko Sajdel, pointed them out to
23 me, he said that they were there.
24 Q. Were you surprised by this fact?
25 A. I was absolutely surprised, and I started
Page 889
1 asking myself why were they brought in, why were any of
2 these people brought to me, but especially them. I was
3 upset.
4 Q. What was your reaction in this situation?
5 A. I simply separated them out off -- I
6 separated them out off to the side, and about ten
7 minutes later I put them in an official vehicle and I
8 took them out of there. I took them to my family house
9 in Omarska, in other words, to my parents' house in
10 Omarska.
11 Q. Did you ask anyone for permission to do so?
12 A. No, not at the time. Zeljko was somewhere in
13 the vicinity, but I did not go over to him to ask him
14 anything. I did it spontaneously, if I can put it that
15 way.
16 Q. Was that a violation of rules?
17 A. You could say that this was some kind of a
18 violation of rules, because I was taking a step which I
19 was not entitled to.
20 Q. When you took your brothers-in-law home, did
21 you come back to the centre?
22 A. Yes, briefly. After I dropped them off
23 there -- and let me say right away that my wife and my
24 children were already there in my parents' house, and
25 we had a scene there between them because my wife had
Page 890
1 also heard on the radio that the general war had
2 started and that bad things were happening in Prijedor,
3 and she became quite frightened for her family and for
4 her own safety in Prijedor on that day.
5 Q. Did your wife know where her brothers were
6 during these operations?
7 A. She knew nothing until I brought them to my
8 parents' home, and that is where she saw them for the
9 first time.
10 Q. After you went back to Omarska, how long did
11 you stay there?
12 A. After my return, I stayed there very briefly
13 because Zeljko told me that I was free and that I
14 should report back the next morning.
15 Q. Did you tell him about your action with
16 regard to your brothers-in-law?
17 A. No, I did not specifically, nor did I tell
18 him anything about it, but I concluded that he must
19 have received information about it while I was gone.
20 Q. Let us try to stay in this area for a while.
21 You're talking about the Omarska police station
22 security. In these two days that you have just spent
23 there, was there any additional security there?
24 A. In those two days, I noticed no other
25 security except for the police officers from the
Page 891
1 Omarska precinct.
2 Q. You mentioned that there was a security
3 guard. The company guard, was at the front gate.
4 A. Yes. That was a single company guard who was
5 not part of the police security.
6 Q. How long was this front gate from the
7 administration building? You said that yesterday.
8 A. About 1.5, 2 kilometres.
9 Q. Very well. In addition to this company
10 guard, was there another guard who was added at the
11 front gate?
12 A. No. There were no other guards except for
13 that single guard at the front gate.
14 Q. Very well. Let's move on to the 31st now.
15 Can you describe how the guard shifts were organised?
16 Without repeating what you said before.
17 A. On the 31st I reported to work again. I was
18 met by Zeljko. He told me the same thing, that is,
19 repeated the same orders. He said that I was duty
20 officer and that he was just going to take a little
21 rest, and during the day he had a lot of obligations,
22 that the number of detainees had increased, that he had
23 to do something with respect to increasing security and
24 perhaps make certain changes in the method of work, and
25 he left, but he told me he would just take a quick rest
Page 892
1 and that he would come back very shortly.
2 Q. Was the food supply organised? This is now
3 the third day. Were detainees getting any food?
4 A. On that third day, the food for detainees had
5 already been provided. It was distributed.
6 Q. Who organised the food, that is, the
7 provisions for the detainees?
8 A. I don't know much about this organisation. I
9 know only that as early as 10.00 or 11.00 that morning,
10 the containers with prepared food had arrived to this
11 restaurant which we had shown yesterday, and the food
12 distribution to the detainees had begun.
13 Q. Did you notice who had delivered the food,
14 members of what structure?
15 A. It was brought in by a company vehicle, I
16 think a vehicle belonging to that same company. I
17 think it was a yellow -- painted yellow. I think that
18 all mining company vehicles were painted yellow.
19 Q. So the vehicle was owned by the company?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Who drove this vehicle and to what
22 organisation or structure did he belong?
23 A. I don't know, but he was not a member of the
24 police force. He was not a policeman. He wore a blue
25 worker's suit; he did not wear any uniform.
Page 893
1 Q. Did the company provide for food? Did they
2 organise food distribution?
3 A. Previously, during the regular operation of
4 the company, they had organised cafeteria and food
5 distribution for the entire company. This food
6 preparation station was right by the front gate.
7 Q. Where was it located?
8 A. It was right by the front gate, about 1.5 to
9 2 kilometres.
10 Q. Did you notice what that first meal was?
11 What did it consist of?
12 A. No. I paid no attention.
13 Q. Did the members of the security receive any
14 food that day?
15 A. Food was made available to them if they
16 wanted to, and I think some of them did take it.
17 Q. This was on the 31st. Were new detainees
18 brought in? Did new buses arrive?
19 A. Yes. Sometime in the afternoon, somewhere
20 around 1700, between 1700 and 1800, a couple of buses
21 arrived with men who were then detained in this
22 complex.
23 Q. How many buses were there?
24 A. There were three or four buses, I'm sure.
25 Q. Were they filled with people?
Page 894
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Who was escorting those buses?
3 A. Those buses were escorted by police officers
4 from Prijedor mixed in with military personnel. Some
5 were described as military police and some described
6 them as civilians, but those terms were used
7 interchangeably in those days.
8 Q. Did you recognise any of the police
9 officials, that is, Prijedor police officials who may
10 have been escorting this convoy?
11 A. No, I did not recognise any of the police
12 officials from Prijedor that I knew.
13 Q. Did anyone abuse or mistreat detainees as
14 they were getting off the buses?
15 A. As they were getting off the buses, I did not
16 notice any mistreatment, but then at one point a very
17 ugly and bad incident happened.
18 Q. What incident?
19 A. I will describe this incident. People
20 started getting off one of the buses. I believe that
21 in front of it was an empty bus which had already been
22 emptied of people, and behind the bus from which people
23 were disembarking there was another bus where people
24 were still waiting to get off. As they were stepping
25 off that middle bus, at one point a vehicle appeared
Page 895
1 from the direction where one entered the entire
2 compound and a vehicle approached these buses. The
3 driver came out of this vehicle, which was some kind of
4 a pick-up truck, with a rifle in his hand and raged.
5 He said, "Serbs, move away," and he started shooting at
6 the people who were getting off the bus.
7 Q. Mr. Kvocka, in order not to go back through
8 the details, maybe we can just stop here. We need a
9 description of this rifle. I know this is a very ugly
10 scene but try to just concentrate on this now?
11 A. This was a rifle known as PAM, very similar
12 to a regular automatic rifle but with a somewhat longer
13 barrel. At the top of the barrel there is a bipod,
14 something that can be used as support, as far as I
15 understand its use.
16 Q. The man who jumped out of this vehicle, who
17 was enraged, can you tell us anything else about him
18 that is out of the ordinary?
19 A. At the moment when I started towards him, I
20 could notice that he was quite inebriated.
21 Q. Very well. Can you go on now from the moment
22 when he started shooting? Did he shoot at the people?
23 A. When I noticed him coming out and raising his
24 weapon, I started towards him from his side, but he had
25 already begun shooting. I approached him from his
Page 896
1 side, and the casings were already falling in my
2 direction, and one brushed my face and scratched my
3 face.
4 I jumped in front of him about two metres.
5 He still had his barrel trained in front. I opened my
6 jacket, and I opened it and I told him, "What's with
7 you, man? These are civilians. If you need to, shoot
8 at me." For several seconds he stared at me. I did
9 not know what he was going to do. However, he slowly
10 put down the weapon and started crying, and he said,
11 "They killed my brother."
12 As he started putting down the weapon, I
13 seized the weapon and I yanked it out of his arms.
14 Zeljko Meakic then approached, and I handed him the
15 rifle.
16 A police investigator then approached, and
17 later I was told that he had watched this incident from
18 a window. Zeljko then turned over the rifle to him,
19 and with the assistance of several other policemen, he
20 took away this man and he basically arrested him, as I
21 would call it in police parlance.
22 Q. I know that you were both upset and
23 frightened. Did you see the consequences of this
24 shooting? Did you see how many people were hit and
25 were they seriously injured?
Page 897
1 A. When he shot at people before I stepped in
2 front of him, five or six people were injured. They
3 all fell to the ground.
4 As soon as Zeljko took this person away,
5 together with some other reserve officers, I went to
6 see if we could help these people, and it was clear
7 that there were some very badly wounded ones among
8 these five or six people. There were some who were
9 sitting on the ground and holding onto the wounds, but
10 there were a couple of them who were on the ground
11 without any signs of life.
12 As the reservists stayed with the less
13 seriously wounded, I went to the room on the top floor
14 where we had a radio transmitter, where we could call
15 in to the Omarska police precinct, and I called the
16 duty officer and I told him to immediately go to the
17 health centre, which is about 50 metres from the police
18 precinct. There was no other link to the health centre
19 anyway.
20 Q. Just a moment, please. Can you tell the
21 Chamber who was the duty officer in the precinct of
22 whom you requested to provide an ambulance?
23 A. This was Boro Delic, called Baja.
24 Q. Did an ambulance arrive? When did it arrive,
25 and who was the driver of this ambulance or what type
Page 898
1 of vehicle was it?
2 A. After awhile, about 15 minutes, an ambulance
3 arrived but not a regular civilian ambulance vehicle.
4 It was a much larger vehicle, a military ambulance
5 vehicle, drab olive in colour, which had a lot of space
6 for the wounded, and it was driven by a man from
7 Omarska, a young man called Rosic. That's his last
8 name. But we all knew him by his nickname which was
9 Mingo. Those individuals were immediately carried into
10 the vehicle, and Mingo drove them off in the direction
11 of the front gate.
12 Q. Who else was injured during this bad
13 incident?
14 A. The active duty policeman Branislav Bojic was
15 also grazed by a bullet casing, like I was, and
16 Miroslav Nisic, another police officer, was hit in the
17 heel. The injury was such that he could not support
18 himself on that leg.
19 Q. And was he also provided assistance?
20 A. Yes, but he was taken in another vehicle, not
21 in the same vehicle as those injured detainees were.
22 He had an official vehicle made available to him.
23 Q. You said that Mr. Bojic was there. Who else
24 was present during this serious incident?
25 A. Among those present was a man called Rosic,
Page 899
1 who was not a member of the Omarska police precinct,
2 but he was a company employee. He was a maintenance
3 person, I think, at some water pump stations or
4 something, he was employed there. He was in the
5 vicinity, I noticed him and his son, who was also not a
6 member of the police force but who apparently had just
7 come to visit him and bring him some food.
8 Q. Was Zeljko Meakic present at the time of this
9 incident, or did he appear later?
10 A. At the time when I took away the rifle from
11 the person who was shooting, I saw Zeljko right next to
12 me.
13 Q. How long did the medical attention or therapy
14 of Miroslav Nisic take?
15 A. As far as I know, Miroslav Nisic never
16 rejoined the police force following this injury because
17 it was a very complicated injury which he sustained to
18 his heel, and long after this, I saw him hobble.
19 Q. What was the attitude of the other members of
20 the reserve police force towards that incident?
21 A. Well, some of the people that I talked to
22 directly were astounded, one and all. Others, some of
23 them would say, "Go to Gradacac and fight there. Don't
24 shoot at civilians," that kind of thing. They were
25 angry, they were bitter. They asked themselves, "If
Page 900
1 things carry on this way, how are we going to be able
2 to work at all, how are we going to do our job," things
3 like that. The comments were along those lines.
4 Q. What happened to that individual after the
5 shooting?
6 A. I only know what happened in those couple of
7 minutes. He went off together with the inspector and
8 Zeljko, he went off with them, and after that, he was
9 taken away from the compound by the policemen. What
10 happened later on, I don't know.
11 Q. How did you yourself feel, faced with a
12 situation of this kind?
13 A. Well, it's difficult to describe my feelings
14 after so many years, ten years, but traces, of course,
15 remain. It was a great shock for me. It was the first
16 time in my entire police career that I was faced with a
17 situation of this kind and conduct of this kind, with a
18 killing before my very eyes. Briefly speaking, I was
19 confused. There was total confusion in my head.
20 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Simic,
21 I see that Mr. Kvocka is a little tired. It is his
22 third day of testimony. Perhaps we have to bear that
23 in mind.
24 But in any event, before the break, I should
25 like to share with you a few thoughts. We are truly at
Page 901
1 the beginning of this trial, we are going to have many
2 days of work, and I think it is always important to
3 establish or to forecast a few things which can be
4 contained within certain rules.
5 In order to establish certain rules of
6 communication amongst us, I should like to go back to
7 this question of leading or non-leading questions. I
8 think you, as the attorneys, are professionals -- I
9 mean attorneys on both sides -- highly experienced,
10 highly competent lawyers, and you know very well, from
11 the point of view of verbal communication, what is a
12 leading question and a non-leading question.
13 I think that the goodwill of Ms. Hollis and
14 Mr. Keegan have allowed certain other leading questions
15 to pass. On the whole, I must tell you, Mr. Simic,
16 that you have done a very good job of your
17 examination-in-chief, but I should like to make two
18 points to refine the criteria. Instead of asking "Were
19 you surprised?" what you should ask is "What was your
20 reaction?" Because in the totality of a whole range of
21 reactions, there can be a wide variety of reactions,
22 joy, surprise, et cetera. If you choose one and focus
23 on surprise, then the answer can be either yes or no.
24 If it is yes, one will never know whether there were
25 any other reactions; if no, again, we will not know.
Page 902
1 So I think that is one example.
2 Another example that I would like to use is
3 the following: Does this represent a violation of the
4 rules? For instance, the question should have been,
5 how do rules provide for such a situation? Otherwise,
6 if there are several possibilities, you are obviously
7 choosing one.
8 There is really no need for me to explain
9 these things to you because you are highly competent,
10 highly experienced, you know these things very well,
11 but in the course of a conversation, one may have an
12 immediate reaction which does not necessarily fit
13 within this framework and can be considered a leading
14 question, and we understand that.
15 But a second point that I should like to
16 consider with you is the following: In principle, a
17 person, a witness who's testifying for several days, I
18 think it is really too much to ask for him to testify
19 for more than an hour at a time. It's different when
20 we have a witness coming for one day only. So I would
21 like to give you the following suggestion:
22 Psychologists, the people working on these things, say
23 that after an hour and ten minutes of work, the
24 concentration, the efficiency, declines. So there is
25 no point in insisting on working for longer than one
Page 903
1 hour and ten minutes at a time.
2 As a general orientation, I would suggest the
3 following: We'll work for one hour ten, one hour
4 twenty minutes, and it is up to you, as soon as we
5 reach one hour ten minutes -- we're talking about the
6 normal situation, when witnesses come here for one day
7 or so -- between one hour ten and one hour twenty as a
8 working period, you choose the moment where we should
9 break, because I think it is also important to bear in
10 mind that there are segments of information that one
11 wants to cover in a certain period.
12 So you choose the moment in between one hour
13 ten, one hour twenty to make the interruption, or I
14 shall show you this sign [indicates], the time-out
15 sign, by hand, indicating that we could take a break.
16 But it is up to you to decide. So I think from the
17 point of view on ensuring an orderly, quiet
18 proceedings, we should bear all these things in mind.
19 There's one other thing I wanted to say. I
20 prefer to have more shorter breaks, but I know that
21 from the point of the accused it is complicated to have
22 such short breaks, and therefore respecting the right
23 of the accused to a break as well, we need at least a
24 20-minute break for them to be able to leave the
25 courtroom, to take a rest, to be able to follow their
Page 904
1 trial.
2 So as we go along and come up with questions
3 of this kind, we can regulate them so as to have a
4 certain code of communication, so we will know in
5 advance what is going to happen and what the solution
6 is.
7 Let us now have a 20-minute break.
8 --- Recess taken at 11.13 a.m.
9 --- On resuming at 11.40 a.m.
10 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] You may be
11 seated. Mr. Kvocka, you may sit down too.
12 Mr. Simic, it's your turn. Please continue.
13 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your
14 Honours, for the suggestions you have made. Despite
15 all our experience, this is one new experience for us,
16 and we always learn something new and are faced with
17 new situations. So thank you, Your Honours.
18 Q. Mr. Kvocka, what happened afterwards? How
19 did you organise the rest of your day?
20 A. After that, when I left my three
21 brothers-in-law in the house and after the short
22 conversations that we had and the meetings with their
23 sister, that is to say, my wife, and that little -- and
24 the confusion over that whole situation, they were
25 happy to see each other again, and sorry and sad
Page 905
1 because they didn't know what happened to the others.
2 I returned to the investigation centre. I
3 found Zeljko there again. It was 7.00 or half past
4 7.00 in the evening by that time. He told me, because
5 I was working that entire day, that I should go off
6 duty, on leave.
7 Q. This brings us to the 1st of June. Could you
8 describe your activities in the course of that day, the
9 1st of June 1992?
10 A. I returned and slept through the night, spent
11 the night in my parents' place in Omarska, together
12 with all the other people there. On the 1st, I went
13 back to my job in the morning once again.
14 However, in the evening, the previous
15 evening, we were, of course, all there in the house,
16 and I was in a difficult psychological situation. I
17 remember that I didn't really have much inclination to
18 talk to anybody else, so that my wife tried her best to
19 make me enter into the conversation. She would ask me
20 whether I would like a cup of coffee or things like
21 that, but I just wanted to be left alone. I laid down
22 on the floor in the room, turned towards the floor, and
23 I tried to collect my thoughts and to see what I was
24 going to do in the future if faced with that kind of
25 situation because, quite obviously, there were going to
Page 906
1 be a lot of problems for my family, my wife's family.
2 I succeeded in having a bit of a rest in the
3 course of the night, and in the morning, on the 1st, I
4 returned.
5 Q. To your job?
6 A. Well, I think that when I arrived on duty, I
7 felt even worse than I had the previous night. Zeljko
8 saw that there was something wrong with me. We had a
9 short conversation, and I had the feeling that he
10 understood me. He told me that I should take two or
11 three days off, not to come to work for two or three
12 days.
13 So I went back to Omarska, to the house in
14 which my brothers-in-law were accommodated and my
15 parents, and we discussed the situation. They were all
16 crying. They wondered what had happened to their
17 wives, to their mother who had stayed on in Prijedor,
18 what had happened to one of their children. One of the
19 brothers-in-law had a child at the time. They wondered
20 what had happened to them. That's what we did, more or
21 less.
22 Q. What happened next?
23 A. My wife and I decided to go to Prijedor at
24 this point and to go directly to the house of my
25 mother-in-law, but we didn't find anybody at home.
Page 907
1 So we went to my flat, which is at Pecani,
2 and that's where we found them; that is to say, there
3 were two daughters-in-law, that is, the wives of my
4 wife's brothers. We found their wives, two of the
5 wives there. We also came across my mother-in-law, my
6 wife's mother. Her name is Hajra. And there were some
7 more elderly woman there as well. I knew some of them,
8 others I did not.
9 At the same time, like us, they were happy to
10 see us. But at the same time, they were a little
11 frightened, and they had many questions that they
12 wanted to ask us, and wondered what had happened to
13 their sons or husbands. So they were worried about
14 their whereabouts. We managed to calm them down and to
15 tell them that they were safe, at least for the time
16 being, that we felt they were safe, and that we would
17 see what would happened.
18 So I used those two or three days that I was
19 given leave to go back to Omarska. I took some food
20 from my parents. They had a large garden in Omarska,
21 because it's a village, a rural area. It's not purely
22 a town. So you could grow things, and you didn't have
23 to buy everything in the shops. So we took these
24 things from the vegetable garden to Prijedor.
25 There I came across my mother-in-law in her
Page 908
1 own home during the day, but once again there were
2 quite a lot of neighbours there, mostly womenfolk,
3 elderly women, her friends, and I knew perhaps two or
4 three of them, but there were at least eight or ten of
5 them there at the time. They told me that they had
6 come to my mother-in-law's because they felt more or
7 less safe while they were in her house.
8 The wives of my brothers-in-law were still in
9 my own flat, so we took them some food as well. So
10 that's how those two or three days went by.
11 Q. Mr. Kvocka, you say that there were eight to
12 ten elderly women neighbours and that they felt safer
13 in your mother-in-law's house. Why?
14 A. Well, my mother-in-law would say to me that
15 when they come to her, they always ask whether they can
16 come in and that they think they would be safe there.
17 And they say, "Well, your son-in-law is a Serb, so they
18 probably won't wish to harm us."
19 Q. Why were your sisters-in-law not in their own
20 houses?
21 A. Well, they did live in the same house earlier
22 on, that is to say, where my mother-in-law lived, in
23 that same house. But there wasn't enough room for
24 everybody, and they too felt safer in my flat.
25 However, we really didn't know how safe it was. That
Page 909
1 was a debatable point, because when these people turned
2 up in my flat, I met some people standing guard in
3 front of the entrance. They were reservists, reserve
4 policemen. I knew them just in passing. They were
5 just acquaintances. And they would say to me, "What
6 are you doing?" I apologise for the expressions that
7 I'm going to use; I apologise to the Trial Chamber.
8 They said, "What are you doing, you fag? You're
9 keeping flats in your -- you're keeping Turks in your
10 flat," and they would use similar derogatory terms.
11 "You bastard," they would say to me.
12 Q. Mr. Kvocka, I know that it is difficult for
13 all of us to talk about those truly terrible times
14 which we all hope will never recur, but I think that
15 this is a good point to broach a very important
16 question: Who organised the camp, how everything
17 functioned. To do this, I would like to resort to some
18 documents which I consider to be very significant and
19 which will help us to understand the whole workings and
20 system of the centre.
21 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] It is DP55. The
22 document is DP55, and I would like to ask the usher to
23 distribute the document.
24 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Defence
25 Exhibit D17/1, and D17/1A for the English version.
Page 910
1 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation]
2 Q. Mr. Kvocka, you have in front of you a letter
3 of the public security station of Prijedor, dated the
4 31st of May 1992. When and where did you see this
5 letter for the first time?
6 A. I saw this letter for the first time when the
7 gentleman from the Prosecutor's Office showed me it.
8 Q. Mr. Kvocka, you have probably read the
9 letter, so I'm not going to ask you that. Who was the
10 founder of the collection and investigating centre in
11 the Omarska compound, according to this letter?
12 A. According to this letter, I am able to
13 conclude -- but I'd rather say that this is an order,
14 because it states that something is being ordered. A
15 letter is something different.
16 The founder of the investigating centre or
17 camp or whatever you like to call it was the crisis
18 staff or the chief of the public security station, Simo
19 Drljaca, whose signature is at the end of this letter
20 and who is the person who issued this order. But in
21 view of the fact that he refers to a decision taken by
22 the crisis staff in this particular order, then I
23 cannot differentiate as to who was the founder and who
24 was the commander of the camp.
25 Judging by the general situation that
Page 911
1 prevailed at the time and in my talks with people, I
2 should also like to say that that could have been Simo
3 Drljaca, in view of the fact that everybody used to say
4 that without his permission, nothing could be done.
5 Q. Mr. Kvocka, does this order contain any
6 orders issued to the police precinct of the police
7 station of Omarska?
8 A. Yes, it does.
9 Q. What did Mr. Drljaca, in fact, order the
10 police station of Omarska to do?
11 A. Mr. Drljaca -- I think it is in paragraph
12 6 -- is issuing strict orders to the security services
13 at the collection centre, and I see another term used
14 for the camp. Here it states "collection centre":
15 "Shall be provided by the Omarska police station."
16 Q. Mr. Kvocka, what does it mean to provide
17 security for the collection centre?
18 A. Well, briefly speaking, it means that the
19 policemen belonging to this police station and its
20 precinct are duty-bound to provide security, that is to
21 say, prevent individuals from escaping.
22 Q. Does this order contained in paragraph 6
23 imply that it is -- does it imply any organisational
24 activities for the policemen of that department?
25 A. No that does not emanate from this paragraph.
Page 912
1 Q. This document was dated the 31st of May
2 1992. On the last page, it stipulates to whom the
3 copies were sent; that is to say, which individuals
4 received copies of this order from Mr. Drljaca. Who
5 received this order of Mr. Drljaca, dated the 31st of
6 May 1992 for the security services. Can you recognise
7 the signature of the individuals who received these
8 orders on behalf of the security service?
9 A. Yes. Under number 1, it states that Zeljko
10 Meakic took over the order, and it is his signature for
11 the security service. I also know the signature under
12 number 2.
13 Q. Whose signature is that?
14 A. It is the signature of Dusan Jankovic.
15 Q. What was Mr. Meakic on that particular day?
16 A. He was the commander of the police department
17 in Omarska.
18 Q. In keeping with the rules and regulations of
19 the service, bearing in mind the orders contained in
20 paragraph 6, that this order should be received by the
21 commander of the police station of Omarska?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Is he the responsible individual for
24 organising security, the security provided for by the
25 police station of Omarska?
Page 913
1 A. Yes, he is responsible for the policemen.
2 Q. Mr. Kvocka, we broached the subject of
3 security, security by the policemen of the security
4 station of Omarska. Was that the sole form of security
5 that existed at the time you were there?
6 A. No.
7 Q. Can you tell us --
8 A. After my return from, let us say my leave,
9 which wasn't really a resting period for me, it was the
10 three or four days that I found very difficult, but
11 noticed, on the first day after I had come back to
12 work, I noticed certain changes that had taken place in
13 the work of the police at the investigating centre.
14 And there were other changes as well with respect to
15 the security system for the investigation centre.
16 Would you like me to tell you what these
17 changes were?
18 Q. What were the changes that had taken place in
19 the overall security system at the centre, and what
20 innovations were made?
21 A. Well, as soon as I went through the entrance
22 gate, I noticed that in addition to the company guard,
23 from the mine, that is, there was also a policeman
24 standing there.
25 Q. Was he a member of the station?
Page 914
1 A. Yes, he was, the Omarska Police Department.
2 Q. Please continue.
3 A. When I moved towards the investigation
4 centre, when I was halfway there, that is to say,
5 midway between the entrance gate and the building,
6 there was a facility of some kind, a sort of petrol
7 pump or something like that, that's what it was
8 referred to, and there were three or four soldiers
9 standing there of the Territorial Defence. Because at
10 the time we used the terms -- either we referred to it
11 as the army or the Territorial Defence, both these two
12 terms were used interchangeably.
13 Q. Mr. Kvocka, at this second guard checkpoint,
14 during your stay in Omarska, was there a member of the
15 department of the Omarska police station at any time?
16 A. No, there was not.
17 Q. Were there any other changes with respect to
18 the overall compound that you noted?
19 A. It was obvious that on the broader area,
20 especially on this side here [indicates], where that
21 green surface is on the model, but quite far off, that
22 there were also groups of two or three men belonging to
23 the army, military personnel. And afterwards, people
24 would say that groups of people were all around the
25 compound, although we couldn't see that standing in
Page 915
1 front of the compound itself.
2 Q. What did you actually see among those
3 security officers?
4 A. I saw those that I had to pass by, and I saw
5 these others at the edge of the meadow, and also at one
6 other place. There is another access road here
7 [indicates], in this direction, one might say at right
8 angles in relation to the road leading from the main
9 entrance, and there were military there too, but some
10 distance away from the administration building.
11 Q. How far away?
12 A. Some 50 metres.
13 Q. Were there any other new security guards
14 within the compound?
15 A. Within the compound, among the guards, the
16 policemen, I noticed quite a number of new faces. But
17 they were not properly dressed as policemen, they were
18 mostly wearing military uniforms, green uniforms, the
19 uniforms worn by the former Yugoslav army.
20 Q. Who were those men? Did they belong to your
21 police department or were they new?
22 A. Zeljko said that they were people who had
23 been attached from the Territorial Defence to assist in
24 providing security, and some of them had been newly
25 mobilised reserve policemen. However, there was
Page 916
1 another group of policemen in addition to these who
2 were there at the time.
3 Q. Who were they?
4 A. A group of policemen wearing blue police
5 uniforms but in camouflage colours of blue. So they
6 weren't plain blue, but coloured in different shades,
7 but blue. And we were told that these were members of
8 a special unit from Banja Luka.
9 Q. How many men were in this unit?
10 A. It is difficult for me to estimate the
11 number, but there were at least 30 of them. They also
12 had their two combat vehicles there. There were the
13 complete crews of these vehicles, and these vehicles
14 are manned by four to five men each.
15 Q. Those combat vehicles, in the former system
16 that you're familiar with, did they belong to the
17 standard police armaments?
18 A. No. The police in those days did not have
19 combat vehicles as part of its standard equipment.
20 Q. Could you describe those two combat vehicles
21 and the weapons they were armed with?
22 A. One of them is known, I think, as a personnel
23 carrier. It is used for the transportation of men on
24 the inside, and it has caterpillar wheels, not normal
25 rubber tyres, one of these vehicles.
Page 917
1 Q. Was it an armoured vehicle?
2 A. Yes, there's armour on the roof with a weapon
3 mounted, a certain type of weapon of which I don't know
4 the name.
5 Q. So it was a large-calibre weapon?
6 A. Yes, but also large in size, larger than a
7 normal rifle.
8 Q. Would it be a machine-gun, a small cannon?
9 A. Something like a machine-gun. Something like
10 a machine-gun, I think.
11 Q. And the second vehicle, could you describe
12 that one?
13 A. The second vehicle is what is known as BOV, I
14 think that is the expression used. It is also a
15 vehicle equipped on the roof with a heavy-calibre
16 weapon, but it has rubber tyres, not caterpillar wheels
17 like the previous one.
18 Q. Who was the leader or commander of this
19 special police unit that you came across among the
20 security force?
21 A. During those first seven days that this group
22 was there for, the leader was a certain man called
23 Maric.
24 Q. So if I understand you correctly, that group
25 was replaced later on.
Page 918
1 A. Yes, they were replaced about six or seven
2 days later, and another group appeared, again from
3 Banja Luka, wearing the same kind of uniforms and with
4 the same vehicles. Their leader was somebody called
5 Strazivuk, that was his surname, Strazivuk.
6 Q. Talking about the system of security, could
7 you comment on the relationship between Meakic and
8 Maric or Strazivuk? Who was the superior to whom?
9 A. I think neither of the two could give orders
10 to the other.
11 Q. When entering the Omarska compound, what is
12 the Omarska police controlling through its members?
13 Which access points?
14 A. It was controlling only the entrance gate.
15 This policeman who was now positioned there, he could
16 control entry into the compound.
17 Q. What about the other entrances? Who
18 controlled the possibility of entering the compound
19 from other directions?
20 A. The military.
21 Q. What were members of the special police from
22 Banja Luka actually doing in practice? What were their
23 assignments?
24 A. I have no idea.
25 Q. Did they have guard posts?
Page 919
1 A. No, except for these two vehicles which were
2 positioned in certain places and manned by their
3 crews. The others moved around the investigation
4 centre freely.
5 Q. Was there any problems because of their
6 presence there?
7 A. Yes, quite a number of problems.
8 Q. What kind of problems?
9 A. As they roamed around the investigation
10 centre freely, they would go from one building to
11 another. There were reports that they mistreated
12 people; that of their own initiative, they conducted
13 certain investigations; that they confiscated money
14 and jewellery; that during their so-called
15 investigations, they would beat up people.
16 There were certain situations when Zeljko
17 didn't know what to do because there were clashes
18 between the policemen from the Omarska department and
19 them; first verbal exchanges, of course, because I
20 didn't see any physical fights, nor did anyone dare to
21 oppose them.
22 Q. What was the attitude taken by the other
23 guards in relation to the conduct of the members of the
24 special police from Banja Luka?
25 A. The other guards kept their distance. They
Page 920
1 said if things continued in that way, they would simply
2 walk out, they would give up their jobs, they didn't
3 know what to do, that things couldn't go on like that.
4 Q. What were your contacts like with members of
5 this police force, if any?
6 A. On one occasion, I spoke to Maric.
7 Q. What prompted the conversation?
8 A. One morning, I was informed, or rather a
9 prisoner complained to me as I passed by him, a
10 prisoner whom I knew well, his name was Dedo Crnalic
11 who is a relative of my wife's, though not a close one,
12 he complained to me that during the night money had
13 been taken from him and a ring and a watch. He said
14 that the watch was more of a souvenir than something of
15 value, at least that's what he told me. But he wanted
16 to let me know that that wasn't all that important, so
17 long as things didn't get worse. And he said that this
18 had been done by the people wearing blue camouflage
19 uniforms, because this is something he could clearly
20 see.
21 Q. Did you do anything about it?
22 A. That was when I talked to Maric, who, in my
23 assessment, was quite a decent man, and he told me
24 literally that these were gangs out of control, that
25 this unit was a gang of men out of control, and that he
Page 921
1 would see if he could restore to this person the things
2 that had been taken away from him. I think that after
3 some time, some of those things were restored to him,
4 but not all of them.
5 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President, if
6 this will not be too complicated, I should like to
7 tender a new exhibit, but I would like to keep the
8 previous exhibit because we will be coming back to it.
9 So the next document is the Defence document number
10 54.
11 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Defence
12 Exhibit 18/1; 18/1A for the French version.
13 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation]
14 Q. Mr. Kvocka, what was Mr. Meakic's attitude
15 towards the members of this special unit from Banja
16 Luka?
17 A. I think that he too was dissatisfied with
18 their conduct. He was confused, upset, disturbed. He
19 said that he had to find a solution.
20 Q. Did he contact Mr. Drljaca for that purpose?
21 A. Not that I know of.
22 Q. When did the members of this special unit
23 from Banja Luka leave Omarska for good?
24 A. They left -- or this second shift of them,
25 they left when their shift ended, and that was perhaps
Page 922
1 one day less than seven days, a day or two less.
2 Q. Could you give us a rough idea when that
3 could have been?
4 A. The 12th or the 13th. Perhaps the 14th. I
5 can't tell you the exact date.
6 Q. What month was that?
7 A. It was the month of June.
8 Q. So you have before you a letter addressed by
9 Mr. Drljaca to the head of the Security Services
10 Centre, Banja Luka. Could you read that letter
11 through, though you have had occasion to read it
12 before. It was produced by the Prosecution. What is
13 stated in this letter, is it true? Were there problems
14 as Mr. Drljaca described them to the head of this unit?
15 A. Yes, I have read this letter, and it roughly
16 corresponds to what I have just said. He said that
17 this was a unit whose members were commanded by
18 Strazivuk. So this is the second shift I was
19 describing, that they were interrogating people,
20 mistreating them, that they were simply seizing money
21 and other valuables. This unit did even worse things
22 under the control of Strazivuk than the previous one.
23 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] So that completes
24 the part of the testimony relating to the presence of
25 the special police unit in Omarska. So could the usher
Page 923
1 put back the previous document on the ELMO.
2 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Simic,
3 which document are we dealing with now? What is the
4 number of that document?
5 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Our number 55.
6 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] So it's the
7 last one, is it not?
8 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Yes. It is
9 Exhibit D17/1, Mr. President.
10 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation]
11 Q. Could we look at paragraph 7, please. To
12 whom does this order assign the duty of organising
13 meals in the Omarska compound?
14 A. What it says here is that the mine's
15 management, and allow me to read it: "Shall organise
16 meals for investigators, guards, and detainees,
17 according to norms which shall be agreed with the
18 military quartermaster service. At the same time, the
19 mine's management shall organise regular cleaning, as
20 well as maintenance of plumbing, electrical fixtures,
21 and other utilities, and it shall organise other kinds
22 of logistic support for the work and stay of the given
23 number of persons on the given premises by obligatory
24 work on the specialised employees."
25 Q. Did the mine's management carry out its
Page 924
1 duties in accordance with these instructions in
2 paragraph 7?
3 A. It is a fact that they engaged in these
4 activities, but to what extent they were successful is
5 something I cannot judge.
6 Q. Was the Omarska compound fenced in with
7 wire?
8 A. No.
9 Q. Later was there any kind of fence?
10 A. During my sojourn there, there was never any
11 kind of wire fence around it, around the compound.
12 Q. Was the compound mined to prevent escape? Do
13 you have information to that effect?
14 A. No, it was not mined. Nobody said anything
15 to that effect. I could see people moving freely,
16 military men walking around the area where we could see
17 them. They moved there freely along that grass
18 surface.
19 Q. This order, does it give certain persons any
20 specific tasks? You told us Zeljko Meakic was assigned
21 the task of providing security. Are there any
22 assignments to named individuals?
23 A. Yes. Everyone is given certain assignments
24 contained in 16 or 17 paragraphs.
25 Q. I'm talking about the superiors.
Page 925
1 A. Zeljko Meakic was given these orders as you
2 have described them.
3 Q. Were there any coordinators?
4 A. In paragraph 3, there is an instruction which
5 says: "Continued work and selection of arrested
6 persons shall be conducted by a mixed group of
7 investigators of national, public, and military
8 security who have to be organised along this same mixed
9 principle, and the persons responsible for their work
10 are Mirko Jesic, Ranko Mijic, and Lieutenant-Colonel
11 Majstorovic.
12 Q. What about paragraph 17? Who supervises the
13 implementation of this order?
14 A. It says here that the implementation of this
15 order should be supervised by police chief Dusan
16 Jankovic, in collaboration with the Banja Luka Security
17 Services Centre -- and the abbreviation is used, CSB --
18 with the support of authorised executive personnel.
19 Q. Who were the responsible executive personnel
20 from this decision with whom Mr. Dusan Jankovic should
21 have organised this activity?
22 A. If we are referring only to the policing
23 segment, then Zeljko Meakic was his subordinate.
24 Q. I'm asking you about the whole system, the
25 system as a whole.
Page 926
1 A. If we look at it from a broader standpoint,
2 then he should have coordinated with the manager of the
3 mines, with the military command, and with possibly
4 these executives or senior officials, whatever the term
5 is used here, the coordinators of the service.
6 Q. Who were the coordinators?
7 A. Mirko Jesic, Ranko Mijic, and
8 Lieutenant-Colonel Majstorovic.
9 Q. Was this decision issued to those persons who
10 have certain assignments as superiors, with superior
11 responsibility?
12 A. From signatures of the people who received
13 these orders and from what is stated about to whom the
14 decision was forwarded, we can see that those were the
15 crisis staff; the coordinators; the CSB of Banja Luka;
16 the police chief, that is Mr. Jankovic; the security
17 chief, that is Zeljko Meakic; the general manager of
18 the iron ore mines Ljubija and for the files.
19 Q. Thank you, Mr. Kvocka. But this document
20 raises another issue that we have to deal with.
21 Mention is made here of investigations. Where were
22 investigations carried out, if any, in the Omarska
23 compound?
24 A. Yes, the detainees were interrogated.
25 Q. Which services conducted investigations of
Page 927
1 the detainees?
2 A. It was the state security service. For a
3 short period of time they were called national security
4 service, and this is why I was mentioning that too, but
5 that is what it was.
6 Q. So how many services are there?
7 A. There are three separate services.
8 Q. Who was the head of each of these services?
9 A. These coordinators, these three coordinators
10 were the chiefs. Ranko Mijic was the head of the
11 public security service, Mirko Jesic was the state
12 security services chief, and Lieutenant-Colonel
13 Majstorovic was the head of the military services.
14 Q. How were these investigations organised? Who
15 were the investigators? Where did they come from?
16 A. As I have mentioned yesterday, the
17 investigations took place in that upper floor of the
18 administration building where there were a number of
19 offices.
20 Q. Can you recall how many offices there were
21 there?
22 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Perhaps we can
23 remove the roof from the model so that the witness can
24 better see and provide the information that we need.
25 The administration building. The one next to you.
Page 928
1 Q. Does the layout of this floor correspond to
2 the layout of the offices on the top floor of the
3 administration building?
4 A. I believe that it does correspond to what I
5 was able to observe there.
6 Q. Who used the upper-floor premises? What was
7 used by the Omarska police and what was used by the
8 investigators?
9 A. The Omarska police used one room which is
10 where the police officers were staying.
11 Q. Can you please show us that room?
12 A. This is supposed to be this room, B5
13 [indicates]. It is marked as B5 here.
14 Q. Who used the other rooms?
15 A. The other rooms were used by the mixed
16 investigation group. They used all of the other
17 rooms. This is where they carried out investigations.
18 There was a larger room at the end where the
19 coordinators were sitting.
20 Q. What is the marking of that larger room?
21 A. B1. Actually, B1 was also used to mark --
22 but there was a sliding door which was separating these
23 two areas of that room B1.
24 Q. Where did the investigators come from to
25 work?
Page 929
1 A. They were bused in from Prijedor for a part
2 of them. I don't know about every one of them.
3 Q. Did they come every morning?
4 A. Yes. Except Sundays, I believe.
5 Q. What time would they come?
6 A. Around 9.00.
7 Q. And what time did they stay?
8 A. Till 5.00 in the afternoon, 1700.
9 Q. Perhaps the investigation room we can skip,
10 but how many investigators worked per room?
11 A. Two or three; it depended.
12 Q. What was the composition of the investigation
13 teams in each of the rooms?
14 A. It was mixed. For instance, it would happen
15 that an investigator from the public security service
16 would work together with the state security service,
17 and sometimes a third, a military one, would be added.
18 Q. Did they have note-takers or typists?
19 A. There were two women who worked with
20 typewriters.
21 Q. Where did they come from?
22 A. They would come on the same bus with the
23 investigators.
24 Q. Where did they work?
25 A. They had worked -- in fact, one had worked in
Page 930
1 the public security station in Prijedor and the other
2 one worked at the state security service. I knew this
3 because they were there for a long time.
4 Q. What were their names?
5 A. Slavica Lakic and Nada Markovski.
6 Q. Where did they sit while they were in the
7 investigation centre?
8 A. They had -- in fact, they had two tables in
9 the same office which occasionally were used by the
10 police officers from the Omarska precinct.
11 Yes, I remember. There were two desks
12 arranged in an L-shape.
13 Q. What was their task on that day?
14 A. During their working hours, they were typing
15 up documents, and I noticed that there were -- that
16 handwritten drafts were brought to them by these
17 coordinators.
18 Q. Who among the Omarska police officers were
19 staying in this room and what were they doing there?
20 A. The duty officers were staying there, the
21 duty police officers.
22 Q. Would that fall within the regular police
23 duties?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Were there any communication -- was there any
Page 931
1 communication equipment there?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. What kind?
4 A. There was a radio transmitter, a so-called
5 fixed-radio transmitter, and a local telephone.
6 Q. What does it mean, a "local telephone"?
7 A. That means you could make internal calls in
8 the compound from that telephone.
9 Q. Could you have made a call out to the
10 Prijedor police station or the Omarska precinct?
11 A. No.
12 Q. How did you communicate with those two
13 offices?
14 A. Through the radio transmitter. That was a
15 possibility, at least to call the Omarska precinct and
16 the duty room in the Prijedor police station.
17 Q. When you called in for assistance, when that
18 incident took place, who did you call? How did you
19 make the call?
20 A. I used that transmitter that I mentioned.
21 Q. Was there a code used to make calls?
22 A. In the entire communications system, there
23 are certain call codes. The term "code" was not used,
24 it was just called a call number.
25 Q. Is it the same thing?
Page 932
1 A. Well, perhaps it is, yes.
2 Q. What was the call number for the Omarska
3 complex, do you recall?
4 A. I cannot recall that right now. I believe
5 that -- I think that the word "Sana" was used.
6 Q. Were there any numbers added to that?
7 A. Sana 5. I don't know whether this was
8 Sana 5, but there was another number or digit in
9 addition to the word.
10 Q. Why would one need numbers in addition to the
11 word "Sana," as you called it?
12 A. Because there are a number of participants at
13 the same frequency, and so that one would know which
14 exact location it was. So, for instance, if you said
15 Sana 5, that would be the investigation centre.
16 Q. And what about Sana 1?
17 A. Sana 1 would then be the duty room in the
18 public security station in Prijedor.
19 Q. When we talk about communications, to stay
20 with that, was there any other telephone lines so that
21 someone could make telephone calls?
22 A. There was a telephone in the coordinator's
23 office by which you could call outside of the
24 compound.
25 Q. Could you, from your duty room, call the
Page 933
1 front gate which we mentioned, that was 1.5 kilometres
2 away from the administration building?
3 A. Yes, but that was within the compound. So it
4 was within the local system.
5 Q. We have another few minutes before we take a
6 break. I would like to ask you more about this room.
7 Who were the duty police officers who were in this
8 room?
9 A. In addition to myself, the duty also provided
10 was Milojica Kos, Mladjo Radic, and Momcilo Gruban,
11 also known as Ckalja.
12 Q. Was this communication system functioning by
13 order? How did it function, this whole communication
14 system, that is, of the compound with the outside
15 world, to put it that way?
16 A. In practical terms, throughout my stay there,
17 in my use of that room, it happened several times that
18 someone would call from the Prijedor Public Security
19 Station asking for Zeljko Meakic, and I only used it
20 once when I asked for the ambulance when that incident
21 occurred, when the injuries occurred.
22 Q. Were any reports drafted about the work of
23 the security, and were you involved in that?
24 A. No, there were no documents kept or produced
25 there.
Page 934
1 Q. Did the security service have a list of
2 detainees? Because these were detained persons there.
3 A. No. I believe that actually no list existed
4 of detainees ever.
5 Q. In the hierarchy of individuals whom we
6 mentioned, Dusan Jankovic, then Mijic, Jesic, and
7 Lieutenant-Colonel Majstorovic, what was the status of
8 Meakic, who was the commander of the Omarska police
9 precinct?
10 A. He was subordinate to Jankovic, and as for
11 his relationship with the coordinators, I am not sure
12 about that.
13 Q. Could he have ordered anything to Mijic?
14 A. I believe not.
15 Q. What about the other way around?
16 A. I believe not.
17 Q. Thank you.
18 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] I think that we
19 have reached the 1.10-hours mark, and we may have
20 become a little exhausted. We can move on to the
21 methods of investigation after the break.
22 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you
23 very much, Mr. Simic. We are now going to have a
24 20-minute break, and then we'll resume.
25 --- Recess taken at 12.53 p.m.
Page 935
1 --- On resuming at 1.15 p.m.
2 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Mr. Simic,
3 you may continue, if you please.
4 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your
5 Honour.
6 Q. Mr. Kvocka, before the break, we had opened
7 the question of the investigation. We will talk about
8 the method of investigation and whether you have any
9 knowledge of it. So this is how I'm going to begin.
10 In what way were the detainees identified by
11 the investigators, or whoever it was who identified
12 them, how were they brought in? And can you give us an
13 overview of the method of work of the investigation
14 teams at all?
15 A. I will try to describe it as best I can, what
16 I knew at the time, based on what I was able to
17 observe.
18 Zeljko Meakic designated a group of police
19 officers, eight to ten of them, and put them at the
20 investigators' disposal. Then the investigators asked
21 these police officers directly to bring in a certain
22 individual for an interview. I observed that there
23 were cases when they did not ask for someone by their
24 name, but rather just said that people should be
25 brought in in order.
Page 936
1 Q. Did the coordinators have a list of detainees
2 in the Omarska camp?
3 A. I don't know that.
4 Q. After a request to bring in a specific or any
5 detainee, what procedure was followed then?
6 A. Then they conducted an information interview
7 with the individual that was brought in to them, and
8 the police officer would remain standing in front of
9 the office, and sometimes even inside the office,
10 together with them.
11 Q. Was this a usual procedure? Was there any
12 deviation from the regular police procedure?
13 A. It is hard for me to determine this. I
14 observed that they were brought in, escorted by police
15 officers, and that then interviews were conducted with
16 these individuals in the offices.
17 Q. Except for those ten or so police officers
18 that you mentioned, did other police officers have
19 access to the area where the investigations took place?
20 A. No. Those who were on their guard positions
21 did not have that opportunity.
22 Q. How about the duty officers?
23 A. No.
24 Q. This may be obvious, but let me ask you this
25 anyway: Were the security officers at Omarska involved
Page 937
1 in any way in the investigations against these
2 individuals?
3 A. No, absolutely not. There were even
4 suggestions on the part of Zeljko Meakic that any
5 contact with detainees should be avoided, unless the
6 detainees approached them.
7 Q. Was that Zeljko's order, or did it come from
8 some superior place?
9 A. Zeljko passed it on to us, but I don't know
10 if it went up -- if it came from above or not.
11 Q. Was there any mistreatment of detainees
12 during the investigations?
13 A. During my stay up there, I observed a
14 situation which, to me, looked like something like
15 that.
16 What happened was I was sitting in the duty
17 room, and some unusual noises could be heard, I could
18 describe them as moans, from the area of the offices on
19 the same side where the police duty room was.
20 Q. Did you react to them?
21 A. Yes. I stepped out into the hallway to see
22 what was going on and I entered several offices. In
23 several of the offices, everything was fine, but in one
24 of the offices, I could see that one of the persons
25 being interrogated had been beaten up. And then I
Page 938
1 reacted, and I think that it was rather harsh, my
2 reaction, I said, "What is going on?" and I asked
3 whether a police officer or a reserve police officer
4 was involved in this in any way.
5 There was an investigator there whom I did
6 not know -- he was not from Prijedor because I know all
7 those from Prijedor -- and he kind of laughed a little
8 bit at me, and he said, "It's fine. It's fine.
9 Everything is going to be all right." But I didn't
10 get -- I couldn't get a good impression of who it was
11 that had beaten up the detainee, whether it was the
12 police officer who had brought him there or the
13 investigator.
14 Q. Mr. Kvocka, you were in Omarska over a period
15 of time. Did you hear any other noises, any other
16 voices coming from the office, different offices? You
17 would spend up to 10 hours there at a time. Were there
18 any moans or cries or anything like that?
19 A. This incident that I just described, that was
20 very specific and I reacted on that occasion. But on
21 several other occasions, I could surmise that force had
22 been used also.
23 Q. In the police force of the former Yugoslavia,
24 before these events, do you know of the use of force?
25 A. Yes, I know of such cases.
Page 939
1 Q. When you responded, when you felt provoked by
2 the noises and moans, what was the response of other
3 police officers, your colleagues? What did they do?
4 Did they agree with your response, or did they just
5 gloss it over? What happened?
6 A. A number -- let me tell you. This created a
7 lot of noise. I reacted rather harshly, so a number of
8 doors opened and people stepped out to see. Those from
9 Banja Luka, one of them said, "Listen, kid, what are
10 you doing here? What are you trying to do?" And one
11 of the investigators who worked -- who had a desk at
12 the top of the hallway, this is where he conducted his
13 investigations, and he is a local man from Prijedor, he
14 supported me. He said, "Good for you, Kvocka."
15 Q. What's the name of that police officer?
16 A. You mean the investigator?
17 Q. Yes, the investigator.
18 A. It's Rade Knezevic. He worked in the
19 Prijedor police force for a period of time. Later on,
20 the two investigators who worked across from the police
21 room, the officer's room, said it was all right for me
22 to have responded, but what were they to do, because
23 these investigators were not going to listen to us
24 about this.
25 Q. Do you know what the subject of the
Page 940
1 investigation was? What were they trying to
2 investigate?
3 A. No, I don't know, except that people talked
4 about the need to investigate these individuals to find
5 out who took part in the attack and in the armed
6 rebellion, who had organised it all, who had financed
7 it, and things like that. This is what the word was
8 about among the police officers.
9 Q. Who received the investigators' reports?
10 A. I don't know that.
11 Q. As you were told in the beginning that this
12 was going to take about 15 days, did you see any
13 detainees released in that period?
14 A. Yes. After about six or seven days of these,
15 a larger group was released.
16 Q. Do you know who was released?
17 A. I don't know the exact number, but I believe
18 they were taken in at least two buses. And the other
19 detainees said that these people were, for the most
20 part, from a place near Prijedor called Gornja
21 Puharska. I believe that they were the first ones to
22 be interrogated.
23 Q. Were there also individual releases?
24 A. I don't know about that, except that I
25 observed that on two or three occasions the
Page 941
1 investigators would take someone in the bus which they
2 used for their transportation. But it would also
3 happen that in the morning they would also bring in a
4 person or two on that same bus, when they were coming
5 to work.
6 Q. Could you pinpoint the time when any kind of
7 release stopped?
8 A. It is hard for me to say so. I think that
9 there were no mass releases during my stay, except for
10 that group which I mentioned.
11 Q. Your brothers-in-law were subject to an
12 investigation. Were there any reactions on the part of
13 Mr. Meakic with regard to their absence?
14 A. Mr. Meakic told me, on several occasions,
15 that, quite simply, the climate was such in Omarska --
16 it was not a good climate, that is to say, for me and
17 my family. More for my family who was in a house in
18 the centre of town, that there were rumours going
19 around of various kinds that I was hiding -- that I was
20 putting up extremists, that I was feeding them while
21 their compatriots were being killed in other places.
22 So criticisms of this kind were conveyed to me. Other
23 people told me that too from town.
24 Q. With regards to your brothers-in-law, were
25 there any demands made, any conditions?
Page 942
1 A. Quite simply, he told me that I must see what
2 I was going to do because it wouldn't end up well.
3 Q. Let us go back to the release of the
4 detainees, and we'll take up the subject of your
5 brothers-in-law later on. Once again, I'd like to look
6 at it from the aspect of the superiors in the Omarska
7 compound.
8 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] With this in
9 view, I would like to tender DP21. It is our DP21. I
10 would like to tender it into evidence.
11 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Exhibit
12 D19/1, Defence exhibit.
13 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation]
14 Q. Mr. Kvocka, you have in front of you a
15 decision of the crisis staff, dated the 2nd of June
16 1992, that is to say, from the very outset of the
17 existence of this unfortunate centre.
18 In Article 6 -- and I'd like to ask you to
19 read it, Mr. Kvocka.
20 A. It says in Article 6: "This decision that
21 the public security station is entrusted for the
22 implementation of this decision and personal
23 responsibilities held by the chief of the public
24 security station which exclusively with his signature
25 can release any individuals detained."
Page 943
1 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] I apologise.
2 There seems to be a mix-up with the documents on the
3 monitor. Just one moment, please, if we may, to
4 clarify this.
5 We apologise, Your Honours, because there
6 were two similar documents.
7 Q. Mr. Kvocka, I shall interpret this article.
8 Who was the supreme authority, not to say the -- in
9 charge of all the managerial structures in the Omarska
10 compound?
11 A. According to what it says here, what the
12 crisis staff wrote, we can see it is evident that it is
13 the chief of the public security station himself who
14 was responsible, and that he exclusively, by virtue of
15 his signature, could make the moves.
16 Q. Mr. Kvocka --
17 MS. HOLLIS: Excuse me, Your Honours. We may
18 be able to assist you in the mix-up in the documents.
19 I believe we have an English translation of the proper
20 document if you wish to have that placed on the ELMO.
21 I don't know if that would assist you.
22 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] We have it too,
23 but it will be a good idea. Any assistance is
24 welcome.
25 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] I think we
Page 944
1 have the document now, Ms. Hollis. We have the right
2 document.
3 MS. HOLLIS: We were the only ones confused
4 by it, Your Honour. I'm sorry. Thank you.
5 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you
6 anyway, Ms. Hollis.
7 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] The Defence thank
8 you as well.
9 Q. Mr. Kvocka, who is the individual who was
10 solely responsible for the release from Omarska of any
11 individuals?
12 A. It was the chief of the public security
13 station himself, Simo Drljaca.
14 Q. I should now like to ask, and I hope that
15 we're not going to have any more technical problems, to
16 take a look at document 25. It is our number 25.
17 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Defence
18 Exhibit D20/1, D20/1A for the English version.
19 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Mr. Kvocka, you have before you a letter, a
21 report to the crisis staff of the municipal assembly of
22 Prijedor, dated the 1st July 1992, submitted by
23 Mr. Simo Drljaca. I should like to ask you to read the
24 first paragraph or item in this letter which has to do
25 with what we're discussing.
Page 945
1 A. It says here that: "Conclusion number
2 01-111-108/92, by which the release of prisoners is
3 prohibited, is being fully observed."
4 Q. Did the security service, any policemen, or
5 Meakic as the head of the department, commander of the
6 department, have any knowledge of the existence of an
7 absolute prohibition for the release of prisoners?
8 A. No. We did not have any knowledge of that.
9 Q. This sentence, what does it assert, confirm?
10 Who remains the supreme authority when it comes to the
11 release of individuals from Omarska? Who is master of
12 life and death in Omarska, to put it that way?
13 A. Well, this just confirms that it was Simo
14 Drljaca. Simo Drljaca was the sole individual who
15 could order or sign any kind of document ordering the
16 release of somebody from the centre.
17 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Within the
18 context of these questions, I should like to refer to
19 document DP24.
20 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Defence
21 Exhibit D21/1 and D21/1A.
22 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. Mr. Kvocka, you now have before you an order
24 of the crisis staff of the Prijedor municipality, dated
25 the 2nd of July, 1992. This is also a document which
Page 946
1 we received in the disclosure process from the
2 Prosecution.
3 You said a moment ago that security, that is
4 to say, the police precinct, did not have a list or
5 information as to who the detainees were. Does
6 paragraph 2, point 2, of this order contain an answer
7 to the question who had the lists and records of the
8 individuals who had been detained?
9 A. I think it does, yes.
10 Q. Who had the lists, the lists with the names
11 of individuals?
12 A. It is stated here that "Information about
13 these workers is to be submitted by the public security
14 station" of Prijedor "on request of the above-mentioned
15 organs, companies, and associations."
16 Q. In the top right-hand corner, we have a list
17 of the individuals to whom copies of this order were
18 sent. Can you identify these people and tell us their
19 names?
20 A. Yes, I can. The first two are fairly
21 legible. They are Marko Dzenadija and number 2 is
22 Dusan Jankovic. It says "D. Jankovic," but I think it
23 means Dusan Jankovic. And under number 3, it could be
24 M. Topic.
25 Q. Marko Dzenadija, do you know who he was?
Page 947
1 A. Yes. He was a worker from previous times.
2 He worked in the Secretariat for Internal Affairs, when
3 the secretariat existed, and the public security of
4 Prijedor later on which came into being.
5 Q. And number 2, who is that?
6 A. Yes, I know Dusan Jankovic.
7 Q. Number 3, "M. Topic," do you know that
8 individual?
9 A. This could be a woman. She was a clerk, an
10 administrator, in Drljaca's office, because there was a
11 lady with the surname Topic, and she was a sort of
12 technical secretary to Drljaca, something like that.
13 Q. Was this order sent to Mr. Meakic, the head
14 of security?
15 A. I don't think it was, no.
16 Q. Thank you. Now, to wind up this subject of
17 investigation and interviews. The duty officers were
18 in the same room as two typists; was that so throughout
19 your stay at Omarska?
20 A. Yes. While I was there, yes.
21 Q. Did you know what they were writing down or
22 typing out?
23 A. I don't think we had any insight into that,
24 because once they had completed their work, typing out
25 the document, they would send them back to the
Page 948
1 coordinators. Perhaps if anybody was interested, they
2 could just have a brief look, glance at the paper in
3 the typewriter, but as far as I was able to note, this
4 wasn't of interest to anyone.
5 Q. Were your brothers-in-law subject to an
6 interview?
7 A. Yes, they were.
8 Q. In what way?
9 A. When rumours were going around Omarska about
10 the problems that I and my family could face, I
11 contacted two inspectors, investigators whom I knew and
12 who previously worked in Prijedor. They are younger
13 men, that is to say, they didn't have many years of
14 service, and I knew them to be very proper in their
15 conduct and in conducting the interviews. So I asked
16 them whether they could interview my brothers-in-law
17 and to tell me when to bring them in for questioning.
18 They told me that I could bring them in straightaway,
19 that there was no problem, so that that is what I did.
20 Having completed the interviews with those inspectors,
21 I took my brothers-in-law back to the house.
22 Q. Did the inspectors tell you about the results
23 of the interviews at all?
24 A. Well, Nebojsa Tomicic, and the other one's
25 name is Babic, he was also Nebojsa Babic, they told me
Page 949
1 that they had nothing interesting to note and that my
2 brothers-in-law were absolutely of no interest to them
3 from any aspect, but that they could do nothing else.
4 All they could do was to send them back to me.
5 Q. You have mentioned for the second time the
6 unpleasantness that you could have, and that people
7 told you that you would have some unpleasantness.
8 Could you tell us, who told you this and when?
9 A. In addition to the unpleasantness and what
10 Mr. Meakic told me, and some of my neighbours who
11 indirectly let this be understood, that the situation
12 was not a good one, that the mood was not good, on one
13 occasion in Omarska, one of my school friends looked me
14 up -- at the beginning of his career, he worked with me
15 in Prijedor but then went to work in Banja Luka -- it
16 was about the 12th or 13th of June, I believe.
17 We met in the centre of Omarska, and as we
18 hadn't seen each other for a long time, for about a
19 year, we went to have a cup of coffee. He explained to
20 me briefly that he had come to visit his wife, who was
21 in a nearby village, near Omarska, the village's name
22 is Piskavica, and the name of that friend of mine was
23 Jadranko Mikic.
24 So after a brief discussion about general
25 subjects, he said to me -- well, he became a little
Page 950
1 more serious, and he said, "Well, pal," he used this
2 word "pal," sort of classmate, "in Banja Luka, in our
3 security centre, people are saying bad things about
4 you, they're not saying nice things about you. You
5 haven't got a good reputation. They're saying that you
6 are a greater enemy to the Serbs than the Muslims are
7 themselves, that you are collaborating with them, that
8 you're helping them in every respect," something along
9 those lines, that's what he said to me on the
10 occasion.
11 He also said that rumour had it in Banja Luka
12 that, quite simply, I was collaborating with another
13 school friend of ours, and he said that they knew in
14 Banja Luka that this particular school friend of ours
15 was a sniper in the Green Berets, and that I was a
16 great collaborator of his. And he said, "That's all I
17 can tell you. Even I've said too much already, it's
18 dangerous for me. But as we're colleagues and friends,
19 take care of yourself. The times are bad. And good
20 luck to you."
21 Q. What does the term you used "klasic" mean,
22 when you referred to your pal or classmate? Tell us
23 what the term "klasic" means.
24 A. Well, the term was used between people who
25 had completed school in the same class or level,
Page 951
1 especially when it came to the police school and the
2 cadets there, and for uniformed personnel, because
3 that's how they referred to each other, they went to
4 the same class. So it's a friendly term for people you
5 were in the same class with, on a par with.
6 Q. It's a friendly term, is it?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Mr. Kvocka, what effect did this have on you?
9 A. Well, in view of everything that had taken
10 place previously, this was another blow, another
11 additional shock, because up till then, I thought that
12 this was a small circle of people who thought that way
13 and that these -- well, shall I say, threats that were
14 addressed to me, I didn't take them seriously up until
15 that moment.
16 I tried to clear things up for me in my own
17 mind, what I was doing that was considered to be so
18 terrible, and I couldn't really see what it was that I
19 was doing wrong, the reasons for these criticisms to
20 have been made of me.
21 Q. Mr. Kvocka, I think this rounds off the
22 subject of investigators and inspectors, but let us go
23 back to a question we touched upon earlier on.
24 What did you do to solve the problem of your
25 brothers-in-law?
Page 952
1 A. After all this information that had reached
2 me, and after talking to Zeljko, he told me, "Well, I
3 can't tell you anything. You know what Simo's like
4 yourself. If you want to go and ask him," and "Come
5 what may." He also told me that Zeljko wouldn't dare
6 go up to him with any question of that kind.
7 Q. Did you know Simo Drljaca from before?
8 A. No, not until he came to be the chief.
9 Q. Was this a new man in the police force?
10 A. Yes, he was a completely new man.
11 Q. Did you have enough willpower to go and see
12 him, guts to go and see him?
13 A. Yes, I did.
14 Q. What was the conversation like? How did it
15 end?
16 A. One morning, I managed to reach Simo Drljaca,
17 having asked the secretary to announce me, and I went
18 into his office, he just said, "What's up, Kvocka?" and
19 I tried to explain to him that I had a problem and that
20 I would like to return my brothers-in-law to their own
21 homes, that they were interviewed in Omarska by
22 inspectors and that they said that they had done
23 nothing wrong, and could he issue a permit to that
24 effect.
25 After my first introductory statements and my
Page 953
1 requests, he jumped out of his chair, and said, "What's
2 wrong with you, Kvocka? The Muslims seem to have got
3 your brain." He said, "Well, perhaps you're not a Serb
4 actually at all. Take your pants off so I can see.
5 Perhaps you're a Muslim yourself. I could deal with
6 you very easily were it not for some other people here
7 in SUP, in the police station." He said, "Get out and
8 don't come back again. I don't want to see you
9 again."
10 Q. What happened next?
11 A. Well, nothing. I was astounded by his
12 behaviour, the reaction on the part of a leader. I had
13 never encountered that in my entire career before. So
14 I went back to Omarska. I went to work to do my shift,
15 went on duty. I was with Zeljko.
16 Q. Did you tell anybody in your family about
17 this meeting?
18 A. Well, yes. I told my wife, in general terms,
19 what had happened, because she asked me how we were
20 going to solve the whole situation, that was terrible
21 for these people in Omarska, they didn't dare leave the
22 house, they were frightened to leave the house and go
23 anywhere. When I told her that I had not been able to
24 do anything and not been able to secure their official
25 release, they were very surprised, astonished, because
Page 954
1 we just didn't see a way out of the situation.
2 Q. What about your brothers-in-law? Did they
3 learn of how things stood?
4 A. Yes. I think my wife told them.
5 Q. What happened next with respect to your
6 brothers-in-law?
7 A. I think that it was on the very next day that
8 Zeljko told me that the two of us had to go; that is to
9 say, that Dule Jankovic had ordered him that the two of
10 us should report to Dusan Jankovic.
11 Q. And did you go?
12 A. Yes. On that same day when he told me this,
13 he said that he had some business to attend to and that
14 we would go in a few hours time. That is what
15 happened. We went and found Dusan Jankovic in his
16 office in the building of the public security station
17 in Prijedor.
18 Q. What was the conversation that you had with
19 Jankovic and was Mr. Meakic present?
20 A. Yes, Zeljko was present. Jankovic just said
21 very briefly, "Kvocka, where are your
22 brothers-in-law?" I answered, "They're at my place, at
23 my house with my parents." He said, "Go back and take
24 them to the investigating centre and report to me
25 tomorrow morning here."
Page 955
1 Q. What did you do then, Mr. Kvocka?
2 A. I went back home. I said that this was
3 something we had to do because the situation was highly
4 volatile. The three of them got into the car with me,
5 and I drove them back to the investigate centre. I
6 found there the duty officer who was Momcilo Gruban,
7 who gave me the impression of being a decent and honest
8 man. I said to him, "Here you are. Take care of them
9 if you can. Help them, and I will probably come to
10 visit them occasionally."
11 Q. Mr. Kvocka, was this the last day of your
12 service in the Omarska police station department and,
13 thereby, also in the mining compound of Omarska?
14 A. That evening when I left them there and went
15 back home, that was my last day of work.
16 Q. What day was that?
17 A. That could have been the 22nd or 23rd of June
18 1992. Taking into account the day when I had to report
19 to Jankovic that morning, then that must be the date.
20 Q. What was your status in the ensuing days and
21 what were your activities? What did you do?
22 A. The next morning, as he said, I reported, but
23 he wasn't there or, rather, his secretary said he was
24 busy and that I should wait for a while and we'd see.
25 However, he didn't turn up that day. So I came back
Page 956
1 the next day, and for another day I called up the
2 secretary by phone from my apartment to tell me whether
3 Dule Jankovic could see me. Eventually this did
4 happen.
5 One day towards the end of June, again we had
6 a brief conversation. All he said to me was, "Go to
7 the reserve police force in a locality called Tukovi, a
8 suburb of Prijedor, in the direction of Sanski Most,
9 and report to Mile Drazic there, who is the commander
10 there. You will assist them in their work."
11 Q. Mr. Kvocka, allow me now to read a document
12 which has already been tendered, D13/1, that is exhibit
13 number. It was our document DP8.
14 Allow me to read item 1 of the letter of the
15 12th of March 1993, signed by the head of the centre,
16 Marko Dzenadija: "Kvocka Miroslav worked in Omarska
17 including the 23rd of June 1993, when he terminated his
18 employment and went on a seven-day leave to end on the
19 30th of June inclusive, Omarska."
20 The text is now on the monitor.
21 Paragraph 2 of this letter reads, "The
22 policeman Kvocka Miroslav worked in Omarska until
23 June 23rd, 1992, when he handed over the duty and took
24 a seven-day leave ending June 30th, 1992, when he came
25 back to work in the Tukovi police station."
Page 957
1 This is paragraph 1. I'm sorry.
2 Can this official report be accepted as
3 correct, the report being issued by the public security
4 centre in Prijedor?
5 A. Yes. I think this fits, only I see that they
6 registered me as if I had been on leave because that is
7 what I had asked Jankovic to do. But it wasn't really
8 a vacation. It couldn't have been a vacation for me.
9 I was thinking whether I would be fired or be put in
10 prison or who knows what else.
11 Q. We won't deal in detail with the Tukovi
12 police station because it is outside the relevant
13 issues, but we will introduce evidence to show that you
14 did begin working there, because according to the
15 Prosecution, your responsibility ends with the 30th of
16 June. But Mr. Niemann, in his opening statement, again
17 referred to the whole period. So we wonder now whether
18 we need to prove the fact that Mr. Kvocka really did,
19 on the 1st of July 1992, begin working in the Tukovi
20 police station.
21 According to the amended indictment, there
22 would be no need to introduce evidence to prove this,
23 but in view of the opening statement by my learned
24 friend Mr. Niemann, we would need to prove that fact.
25 When you arrived at the Omarska police
Page 958
1 station, who was the commander?
2 A. You mean Omarska or Tukovi?
3 Q. No. No. I'm sorry. Tukovi.
4 A. The commander was Mile Drazic.
5 Q. Was he a member of the reserve or active-duty
6 policemen?
7 A. He was a member of the reserve police force.
8 Q. Who was his deputy?
9 A. His deputy was Slavko Antonic.
10 Q. Mr. Antonic. Where was he working and what
11 was his status, active duty or reserve policeman?
12 A. Mr. Antonic was also a reserve policeman, and
13 he used to work in the economy, I think, in the post
14 office in Prijedor.
15 Q. Who was the assistant commander of the Tukovi
16 police station?
17 A. It was Lazar Basrak.
18 Q. What was his status?
19 A. Basrak was an active-duty policeman who came
20 after the well-known events in Croatia. He had to
21 leave Zagreb. But I think that at the time in the
22 Tukovi station, he still didn't have any official
23 decision as an active-duty policeman. So one could
24 really describe him as being a reserve policeman. But
25 by occupation, he was a professional policeman. I know
Page 959
1 that.
2 Q. What was Mr. Basak's situation later on,
3 three or four years later? Did he get employment in
4 the police?
5 A. Yes. He started working later in the public
6 security station in Prijedor for a number of years,
7 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996. I think he stayed on working
8 there after I was arrested in the Prijedor police
9 station.
10 Q. What was your duty in the Tukovi police
11 station?
12 A. I had no specific assignments in Tukovi
13 except to be on duty in a small auxiliary office which
14 was part of the premises of the local community, and I
15 would assist Mile Drazic with the administrative work,
16 because he was not qualified for these administrative
17 duties. So I usually was on duty there, then I'd go
18 home when I was off duty, and then I'd come back again
19 to Tukovi.
20 Q. Mr. Kvocka, during your stay in Tukovi -- let
21 me rephrase that. What was the attitude of the
22 superiors in the Tukovi police station towards you?
23 A. I didn't have any outspoken problems, but
24 everyone was very reserved towards me. Basrak would
25 exchange a few words with me occasionally about
Page 960
1 policing since he had spent many years in Zagreb as a
2 policeman, and that was all.
3 Q. For how long did you go on working in the
4 Tukovi police station?
5 A. I find it difficult to recall exactly, but it
6 could have been until sometime in September when I
7 stopped working in Tukovi.
8 Q. What was the reason for your stopping to work
9 in Tukovi?
10 A. I think there was talk already then about the
11 termination and the closure of that police station, but
12 a couple of days before that, several of us from Tukovi
13 were assigned to provide security for a gathering in
14 Prijedor. After I participated in providing security,
15 I no longer worked in Tukovi.
16 Q. What was this gathering?
17 A. It was an assembly, a joint-assembly meeting
18 of the Republika Srpska and the Republic of Serbian
19 Krajina. It was a rather important gathering in those
20 days and quite a number of policemen provided the
21 security.
22 Q. What did you do there?
23 A. My duty was to stand on one corner of the
24 hotel, and should any person try to do something in
25 that area, to attack the hotel in any way, it was my
Page 961
1 duty to prevent it.
2 Q. Which hotel was this?
3 A. It was the Prijedor Hotel.
4 Q. Is it in the centre of town or is it on the
5 bank of the Sana River?
6 A. It is a hotel on the Sana River, right close
7 to the bridge there.
8 Q. Can you tell us, roughly, to end this story
9 about Tukovi, how many days went by from the security
10 of that event to the disbanding of the station in
11 Tukovi?
12 A. It wasn't a long period of time, but I don't
13 know exactly. It could be 15 -- I could say 15 and it
14 could be 25, so I wouldn't be precise in giving an
15 estimate. Since I never went back to Tukovi after
16 that, I lost interest in it.
17 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I
18 thought that the examination would take three, maybe
19 four days. It seems that it will have to take a fourth
20 day. We have ended one subject area. Perhaps it would
21 not be good to embark upon another subject area now.
22 But of course, I am at your disposal regarding what you
23 think we should do.
24 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] If I
25 understood you correctly, Mr. Simic, you need another
Page 962
1 day at least to complete the testimony of Mr. Kvocka;
2 is that correct?
3 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Half a day.
4 Roughly. I have a couple of more subject areas, meals,
5 medical treatment, and that would be more or less the
6 end. About half a day, according to my judgement.
7 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Excuse me,
8 Mr. Simic. Let me ask Mr. Fila.
9 Are you ready to begin on Monday, following
10 the end of this examination-in-chief?
11 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I'm
12 ready to begin on Monday, but it depends on when
13 Mr. Krstan Simic finishes his part of the work. What I
14 promised you and the Prosecution is that it will be
15 very brief if we agree that Mr. Radic accepts
16 everything that Mr. Kvocka has said so that I don't
17 have to go through it again to ask Radic, "Where is
18 Prijedor? Where is Omarska?" and all these things all
19 over again. I don't think that is necessary. It will
20 be too tiring.
21 JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] You may be
22 seated, Mr. Fila.
23 I think it is better for us to adjourn for
24 the moment and to embark upon your next subject on
25 Monday. As soon as Mr. Kvocka finishes his testimony,
Page 963
1 we will begin with the testimony of Mr. Radic on
2 Monday.
3 So for today, that will be all. As you know,
4 we have no hearing tomorrow, so I wish you success in
5 your work and a pleasant weekend.
6 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned
7 at 2.20 p.m., to be reconvened on
8 Monday, the 6th day of March, 2000,
9 at 9.30 a.m.
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