Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 12375

 1                          Monday, 16 July 2001

 2                          [Prosecution Closing Statement]

 3                          [Open session]

 4                          --- Upon commencing at 9.27 a.m.

 5                          [The accused entered court]

 6            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Good morning.  Please be

 7    seated.

 8            Madam Registrar, can you call the case, please.

 9            THE REGISTRAR:  Good morning, Your Honours.  This is case number

10    IT-98-30/1, the Prosecutor versus Kvocka and others.

11            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you very much.

12            Can we have the appearances, please, for the Prosecution?

13            MS. SOMERS:  Thank you, Your Honour.  Appearing for the

14    Prosecution as lead counsel, Susan Somers; also Mr. Daniel Saxon,

15    Mr. Kapila Waidyaratne, and from our legal advisory section, Ms. Yukiko

16    Takashiba and Mr. Nubuo Hayashi, Ms. Gustin and Ms. Lakshmie Walpita.

17            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well.  Thank you.

18            For the Defence, please.

19            MR. K. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours.  As you

20    know, my name is Krstan Simic, representing Mr. Kvocka.

21            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you.

22            Mr. Nikolic.

23            MR. NIKOLIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honour.

24    Mrs. Jelena Nikolic, Mr. Eugene O'Sullivan, and I, myself, are

25    representing the Defence for the accused Mr. Kos.


Page 12376

 1            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well.  Thank you.

 2            Mr. Fila.

 3            MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours.  My name is

 4    Toma Fila, and together with Zoran Jovanovic, we are representing Mladjo

 5    Radic.

 6            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well.

 7            Mr. Stojanovic.

 8            MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, good morning.

 9    Mr. Zigic's Defence consists of Ms. Mitrovic, my colleague Mr. Miodrag

10    Deretic, and myself, Slobodan Stojanovic.

11            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Very well.

12            Mr. Jovan Simic.

13            MR. J. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours.  I am

14    Jovan Simic, and together with my colleague Mr. Masic, we are representing

15    Mr. Prcac.

16            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Here we are today for the

17    closing arguments, and pursuant to the provisions of Article 86, I'm going

18    to give the floor to the Prosecutor to be able to present her closing

19    arguments.  But before that, I am going to give you a general idea of the

20    timetable we are going to observe this week.

21            As you know, the Chamber has issued a decision establishing a day

22    and a half for the Prosecution, and the rest of the time will be divided

23    equally among the five Defence counsel.  So today we are going to be

24    working with the Prosecutor, and tomorrow for the first half of the day.

25            We will respect our normal working hours with small variations,


Page 12377

 1    either one-and-a-half-hour sessions or one-hour-twenty sessions, because

 2    the time accorded to each Defence counsel will more or less be two hours,

 3    50 minutes.  So we will adjust accordingly, which means we will be hearing

 4    the Prosecution today and for the first part of the day tomorrow.  Then we

 5    will have two working sessions for the Kvocka Defence.  Wednesday we will

 6    have the first two sessions for the Kos Defence, and the third for Radic.

 7    Then another session for Radic on Thursday, the second and third sessions

 8    on Thursday for the Zigic Defence, and Friday we will have the two morning

 9    sessions for the Prcac Defence.  That will leave us about an hour and 20

10    for the Judges' questions.  So that is how we thought we should organise

11    the time, in this way.

12            I therefore now give the floor -- no, I see Mr. Fila on his feet.

13            MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Mr. President, Your Honours, I do

14    apologise, and especially to Ms. Somers for taking some of her time, but I

15    would like to ask the Chamber to give us some explanation.

16            In the Krnojelac and Kunarac cases, the Chamber ruled that the

17    closing arguments should not consist of repetition of the closing briefs

18    which have already been read by the Trial Chamber, but that each party

19    respond to the arguments of the other party, of the opposing party.  So my

20    question is what it is I should address in my closing statements.  Should

21    I respond only to the arguments used against us by the Prosecution, which

22    would mean that the Prosecution should respond to our arguments in our

23    closing brief, rather than repeating what we have written.  This is not a

24    jury which does not understand what we have written.  So could Your

25    Honours give us some guidance in that respect?


Page 12378

 1            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] May I ask you a question,

 2    Mr. Fila?  Are you speaking on behalf of all the Defence counsel or in

 3    your personal name only?

 4            MR. FILA: [Interpretation] On behalf of the four of us, I'm sorry,

 5    on behalf of four Defence counsel.

 6            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Are you ready for which of those

 7    variants?

 8            MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Both, Your Honour.

 9            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Ms. Susan Somers.

10            MS. SOMERS:  Your Honour, I think that the response from the

11    Prosecution would be that it's a blend of approaches.  We are mindful of

12    the positions of the Defence from their briefs and, where appropriate, we

13    will address certain issues.  But this is to advance our case.  It is a

14    review of our evidence in light of their evidence.

15            It is not a point counterpoint to briefs as that is not the

16    purpose of closing argument.  And we are confident of the very great

17    capabilities of the staff of the Chamber to review certainly the points in

18    briefs, and whereas I cannot say that there are not certain points that I

19    will take from, perhaps, my brief, I have presented this to show my case

20    in the light that I want the Chamber to see my case in which is my

21    understanding from my experience of how closing argument should be.

22            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Just a moment, please.

23                          [Trial Chamber confers]

24            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Regarding this question, the

25    Chamber is of the opinion that is up to the parties to use their time in


Page 12379

 1    the most effective way to convince, if I may use that word, the Chamber of

 2    their position.  There is one point that the Chamber wishes to make clear,

 3    and that is that we haven't come here to reread what has been written

 4    beforehand.  So I think Ms. Susan Somers admitted this in a way when she

 5    said it was a mixed approach which means that the Chamber is opening the

 6    door a little.  It is up to the parties to make the best of their time in

 7    order to convince the Chamber of their case.

 8            So that is the guidance of the Chamber.  You are not strictly

 9    bound by what was written.  You are not going to repeat what has been said

10    in your briefs.  You are aware of the position of the other party and you

11    have been able to see it throughout the presentation of evidence so you

12    can adopt a dual approach and present your view of the whole case.

13            Having said that, I think that the position is now clear and I

14    give the floor to Ms. Susan Somers to present her closing arguments.

15            MS. SOMERS:  Thank you very much, Your Honour.

16            There are certain places and events of infamy which came into

17    existence during our life times that for people of good will evoke

18    reactions of terror and revulsion.  Their indelible images serve as

19    reminders of the instrumentalities of extreme evil that can be unleashed

20    when the norms of civilised behaviour give way to blind, irrational

21    nationalism, chauvinism, or racism.  Sadly for humankind, there are many

22    such places.  Among such places or events which by their scale and horror

23    first come to mind perhaps Dachau, Jasenovac, the killing fields of

24    Cambodia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Omarska.

25            I would ask, for one last time, to have the audio-visual unit


Page 12380

 1    assist us in our final review of the video of Omarska camp, it is only a

 2    few minutes, and I think it merits again for those who haven't seen it for

 3    a while a look at what it is Omarska was.

 4                          [Videotape played]

 5            MS. SOMERS:  This case is principally about Omarska.  Keraterm and

 6    Trnopolje camps are also the subject of the indictment with regard to the

 7    accused, Zoran Zigic.  This time represents the Prosecutor's final

 8    opportunity to address the Chamber about the individual criminal

 9    responsibility for the atrocities set forth in the consolidated indictment

10    relating to the five accused, Miroslav Kvocka, Mladjo Radic, also known as

11    Krkan, Milojica Kos, also known as Krle, Dragoljub Prcac and Zoran Zigic.

12            Throughout the trial, these accused have characterised themselves

13    more or less in the following manner:  Kvocka, a professional senior

14    police officer.  Radic, a long-time professional police officer.  Prcac, a

15    professional retired police officer/crime technician, turned chicken and

16    pig farmer, turned reserve police officer.  Kos, formerly a

17    professionally-trained waiter, turned reserve police officer, turned

18    professional police officer.  And Zigic, a guitar player, a one-time truck

19    driver, turned taxi driver, turned mobilised police reserve officer.

20            These men would ask the Chamber to see them as men simply caught

21    up in the events of Prijedor in 1992.  The Chamber should see them for

22    what the evidence has shown them to be: opportunistic, willing, criminal

23    participants in some of the worst atrocities in recent history.

24            If we look back to the opening statement and some of the

25    discussions of the Prosecution at the time, the evidence anticipated would


Page 12381

 1    be to demonstrate that none of the events which formed the context and the

 2    backdrop of the indictment occurred randomly.  They were the result of

 3    deliberate policy and planning aimed at the forcible removal of non-Serbs

 4    from, in this instance, Prijedor, and the role of the accused in these

 5    events principally through participation in Omarska or which other camp

 6    may be applicable.

 7            A Serb in Prijedor did not have to be a card-carrying SDS member

 8    to survive.  One did have to, however, accept and support SDS policy,

 9    which was the voice of the Serb people.  A fortiori, one had to go along

10    with SDS policy to attain or improve professional status in Prijedor.

11    Miroslav Kvocka is a prime example of how a Serb police officer, by going

12    along with the party line, despite professed interest in other political

13    movement, achieved continuing success in the new order.

14            The Prosecution has presented evidence that for the new Serb

15    authorities of Prijedor, provoking confrontation was essential to provide

16    the "justification" - my quotes - for taking action against the non-Serb

17    population.  The Chamber has seen evidence or examples of the type of

18    instigation necessary to provoke such confrontation with the incident at

19    the Hambarine checkpoint, with the resulting death of a Serb officer that

20    predictably provided a justification for the new Serb order to demand

21    surrender of arms from the non-Serbs and surrender of the alleged

22    assailant, a Muslim, Aziz Aliskovic.

23            The predictable inability or unwillingness to comply by the

24    non-Serbs resulted in swift and bloody shelling of Hambarine and Kozarac

25    by the Serbs, followed by mass arrests of the non-Serb population.  The


Page 12382

 1    Prosecution has shown that it was clear that the Serbs intended to effect

 2    the rounding up of the non-Serb population in any event as the Keraterm

 3    and Omarska camps were operational even before the 30 May 1992 attack on

 4    Prijedor.

 5            The Defence has asked the Chamber to look at the establishment of

 6    Omarska and Keraterm as a logical consequence of the 30th May attacks.

 7    The Chamber must disregard that.  It is not accurate.  These camps, by

 8    testimony heard in this court, were up and running and ready, according to

 9    plan, to receive the non-Serb population.  Again, going back perhaps as

10    early as 26 May, at least four days before the attack.

11            The Chamber also has heard that, predictably, the reaction by the

12    non-Serb population to the takeover of Prijedor by Serb authorities was

13    the attempt at armed resistance with an unsuccessful attack on Prijedor on

14    30 May 1992.  This, of course, provoked so-called justification for the

15    rounding up of non-Serbs who may have lacked even the most remote

16    connection to any aspect of the unsuccessful attack.

17            The camps at Omarska, Keraterm, Trnopolje, and other locations

18    within Prijedor municipality were set up as integral parts and

19    instrumentalities of the illegal plan of forcible removal of the non-Serb

20    population by the then Serb secessionist parastate - at that point in time

21    that was how it was viewed by the International Community at that point in

22    time - which parastate was emerging in increments on the territory of

23    Bosnia and Herzegovina.

24            That pretextual justification for such camps was to deal with the

25    so-called Muslim and Croat extremists - we have heard that over and over


Page 12383

 1    again - Muslim and Croat extremists in Prijedor.  The Chamber must not

 2    accept that.  The Chamber must recognise from the evidence that these

 3    persons, the non-Serb population that was deemed extremist, in reality

 4    were the resistance to the unlawful Serb takeover of a multiethnic

 5    municipality, Prijedor, and to its takeover of the legally elected

 6    institutions that arose from the multiparty elections, as well as

 7    resistance to the wilful renunciation by the new Serb order of the

 8    authority of the recognised legitimate -- the internationally recognised

 9    legitimate government of the new sovereign state of the Republic of

10    Bosnia-Herzegovina, with its capital in Sarajevo.

11            Why the need for interrogation centres?  Although the stated line

12    was that the principal purpose of Omarska and Keraterm was for

13    interrogations, we must look at the reality.  The reality is that the new

14    Serb order, the Serbs were in effective control of Prijedor to the extent

15    that no non-Serb could have left his residence or the territory, for that

16    matter, without Serb knowledge and control.  The non-Serb residences were

17    identified by white flags following the attack on Prijedor.  And so

18    investigations, if they were the real goal, could have been carried out at

19    the recognised organs of the SUP, at the SUP building, the police organs,

20    and the persons could have returned to their residences which were already

21    under strict Serb control.

22            Why?  Because it was apparent from the evidence that interrogation

23    was merely a pretext and that the rounding up and containment of the

24    non-Serb population in Omarska and Keraterm and Trnopolje was the goal.

25    There was never an intention to allow persons to return to their homes.


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Page 12385

 1    Quite to the contrary as the goal was to cleanse them from the territory.

 2            It would make perfect sense for the Chamber to accept that the

 3    obvious method of interrogation at SUP with house arrest would have been

 4    the route had there been a legitimate reason for investigation.  But we

 5    ask the Chamber to remember the words of Defence witness, Gostimir Modic,

 6    who was an interrogator from SUP and who worked in both Keraterm and

 7    Omarska, when he said, "Not a single person was proposed for criminal

 8    proceedings, as far as I know."

 9            I would ask the AV unit for one moment, and we would need closed

10    session for just a moment for the demonstration of one photograph that

11    arose during closed-session testimony to demonstrate the policy I have

12    underscored.  It is literally a moment.

13            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Closed session, please.

14                          [Closed session]

15  [redacted]

16  [redacted]

17  [redacted]

18  [redacted]

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21  [redacted]

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Page 12386

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12                          [Open session]

13            MS. SOMERS:  May I proceed?

14            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes, please do so.

15            MS. SOMERS:  The Chamber should also reflect on the fact of the

16    use of characterisations against the non-Serb population was a means of

17    instigation, of turning the population against other members of the

18    population.  Examples were presented during trial of the fact that

19    non-Serbs had been provided with weapons by certain Serbs in the course of

20    various events between 1991 and 1992.

21            Later, the fact of that possession was turned around and, of

22    course, the possession was known to the controlling population at that

23    point, and these persons who were in possession of weapons were labelled

24    as extremists, Green Berets, Mujahedin, and other types of names which

25    were calculated to evoke reaction, negative reaction by the population.


Page 12387

 1            Another point that I want to make clear that was in the

 2    judicially-noticed facts that should be brought to the attention and was

 3    raised during trial was that there was an attempt by the Defence to

 4    suggest that the takeover of Prijedor was a response to an instruction

 5    from the Sarajevo government to attack.  That is not true.  This was dealt

 6    with in judicially-noticed fact contained in paragraph 303 of the

 7    Chamber's decision and was simply ignored during the presentation of that

 8    evidence.

 9            The Chamber is also asked to look carefully at the documentary

10    evidence that it has before it that indicate that the takeover of the

11    municipality which was accomplished by force on the nights of the 29th,

12    the 30th of April was very long in the planning.  Indeed, there had been

13    long-standing secret preparations which had been ongoing since at least

14    1991 by the evidence in the documentary binders.  And the population, the

15    Serb population that ultimately became the new order maintained all the

16    while a veneer of cooperation with the non-Serb population so that the

17    effect of this long-planned secret takeover was that much more

18    treacherous, that much more insidious.

19            Although there has been language that the takeover occurred

20    without a shot being fired, we remind the Chamber that it was in every

21    sense of the word a takeover by force.  This takeover which is also

22    important to emphasise of this monoethnic usurpation of power took over

23    all the institutions of government; economic, governmental, and all the

24    resources found within Prijedor.  In effect, anyone who was not part of

25    that programme of the new order was not part of society as everything was


Page 12388

 1    under the control of the new order.

 2            It should be clear after all the months or perhaps year and a

 3    half, if I'm correct, of trial, that irrespective of whatever concessions

 4    the non-Serb may have tried to make with the new Serb order, that there

 5    was never a possibility for cohabitation with members of the other ethnic

 6    groups in the new Serb-controlled Prijedor.  The Chamber has seen evidence

 7    of Muslims signing loyalty oaths or oaths of allegiance, say credit oaths

 8    as they've been called to no avail.  These same persons ended up in the

 9    camps along with others.

10            The disenfranchisement was immediate.  Once it happened, people

11    simply had nowhere to go and, therefore, the swiftness with which their

12    lives were turned upside down is also a matter for the Chamber to consider

13    when it looks at the persons who have given testimony here, and those who

14    didn't live to do so.

15            The Defence for the accused, Kvocka, Radic, Kos, and Prcac, could

16    ask this Chamber to believe that those men were helpless observers to

17    events and conditions in the camps other over which they claimed to have

18    no control.  They would have the Chamber believe that it was a struggle

19    for them to report every day to work at Omarska.

20            The Prosecution has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the Serb

21    takeover of Prijedor involved a cooperation of all personnel of the SJB in

22    Prijedor which would include these men whether reserve or active-duty.

23    They had to know, they had to know, as is shown by the documents, that

24    there was going to be a takeover and that this set-up of the camp system

25    was going to be part of that schema.


Page 12389

 1            Implementing any conditions of improvement in the camp would have

 2    decreased the suffering which was -- and terror which was experienced by

 3    the detainees, and it can be inferred that there was a policy never to

 4    improve conditions in the camp lest the message of ultimate removal not be

 5    completely conveyed.

 6            These men occasionally showed that they could have sporadic acts

 7    of caring or at least provision for certain needs; cigarettes, food, other

 8    matters, but although it would take no effort to give water, bathing

 9    facilities, proper medical care, proper nutrition to these thousands of

10    persons detained in deplorable conditions, which have been acknowledged by

11    all parties, they did not do so.  This has to have been part of the plan.

12            Kvocka, himself, by his removing his own brothers-in-law upon

13    their arrival at Omarska, indicated that he knew -- he demonstrated that

14    he not only had the ability to intervene and do something but he knew the

15    situation and how grave it would be, what type of inhumane conditions lay

16    ahead for even those brothers-in-law.

17            There can be no doubt that these individuals willingly

18    participated in the system of repression which was Omarska camp.  There

19    has been more than enough evidence to show eagerness, and in the following

20    sections which will deal individually with the respective accused, the

21    over-arching point is that people could leave if they wanted to, and if

22    they chose to stay there, there were reasons of volition for doing so.

23            The accused Zigic, is also charged with crimes at Keraterm and

24    Trnopolje.  The Prosecution has shown that Zigic, who was no stranger to

25    criminal activity, capitalised on his ability to go from camp to camp to


Page 12390

 1    commit unspeakable acts of sadism on helpless, weak, and frightened

 2    non-Serb detainees.  His unobstructed access that allowed him to work this

 3    evil was the result of the acts and/or omissions of the co-accused,

 4    speaking of Omarska, speaking of Omarska, who had a duty to protect the

 5    detainees but who failed to do so.

 6            This Chamber has heard over and over again a Defence which

 7    suggests perhaps or arises out of desperation, resort to the "blame the

 8    dead guy" defence.  The Chamber has heard through testimony and interviews

 9    with investigators -- between investigators of the Office of the

10    Prosecutor and various accused, and through an array of witnesses of

11    highly questionable credibility, that Kvocka and Prcac have transferred

12    the blame for the atrocities in the camp to the dead guy, Simo Drljaca,

13    who himself is indicted by the Office of the Prosecutor and was killed

14    resisting arrest for that indictment.

15            The accused would ask this Chamber to believe that their

16    culpability should have been transferable exclusively to Simo Drljaca.

17    This is legally and factually nonsense.  They were all - all -

18    individually culpable, responsible, for the acts and omissions in

19    Omarska.

20            The accused, who are police officers, the four who are police

21    officers, and arguably Zigic who made this declaration of his status in

22    his 84 bis unsworn statement, police officers who were either active or

23    reserve, are asking the Chamber to believe that they could do nothing

24    about the conditions of confinement or the notorious abuses and crimes

25    which took place day and night, from the opening until the closing of the


Page 12391

 1    Omarska camp.  They are asking this Chamber to accept that they had no

 2    legal duty to the detainees.  They are asking the Chamber to absolve them

 3    of their obligations under the relevant Geneva Conventions and Protocols

 4    and customary international law, because they say they had no choice to be

 5    in Omarska; and that once there, they had no ability to exercise any

 6    control over the acts of the guards or the intruders, who on a regular

 7    basis, day and night, from the opening to the closing of the camp,

 8    brutalised the detainees.

 9            These same police officers are asking the Chamber to disregard the

10    overwhelming evidence that each of them profited from the system of

11    repression which was Omarska, Keraterm, and Trnopolje.  This profit came

12    in the form of material gain as well as professional advancement and the

13    ability to exercise unbridled power over life and death for a period of

14    several months as to the thousands of helpless detainees in the camps.

15            The Chamber has seen how the accused have managed to manipulate

16    the desperate plights of detainees to their own advantage.  The Chamber

17    has heard about Radic's rapes of women in Omarska; of Prcac and Kos

18    extorting money; with the exercise of such unrestrained, arbitrary power

19    over these detainees, many of whom, the evidence has shown, were these

20    police officers', these accused's personal acquaintances, colleagues,

21    neighbours, friends and, to some degree, in-law relatives.

22            The victims who have come in to give evidence during the

23    Prosecution case have no motive for not telling the truth.  There is no

24    allure to them for coming to The Hague to discuss in front of one's

25    torturers and, where open session, the world at large, how they themselves


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Page 12393

 1    suffered unspeakable abuse or how they had to stand by and watch men and

 2    women being humiliated, being starved, being beaten, being sexually

 3    assaulted, staying in desperately ill condition, being desperately

 4    frightened, and being murdered in cold blood.  Surely it can only be

 5    painful for these persons who were brave enough to come in to recount

 6    these horrors in a court of law, knowing that at the time of their

 7    commission, one simply had, in the main, to look out for one's own welfare

 8    to stay alive.

 9            No, there is no motive whatsoever for any of the victims or

10    witnesses who appeared to tell this Chamber about what happened there and

11    the involvement of these accused, there is no motive for these persons to

12    lie or be anything other than fully truthful.

13            These victimised witnesses have come to the Tribunal, some not for

14    the first time, because this forum is the only forum before which these

15    accused will ever be brought to justice for these crimes.  The Chamber is

16    reminded that not one of these accused surrendered.  They had to be hunted

17    down or transferred from custody, as in the case of Zigic.  They lived

18    with absolute impunity in the Republika Srpska.  They continued to enjoy

19    the ability to work as police officers even after indictment, until that

20    attracted too much attention.  And Kvocka and Prcac confirmed that they

21    went about their lives with no worries about their security or the

22    security of their families.

23            The Prosecution has shown that Keraterm was frequently a stop

24    along the way to Omarska.  The Prosecution reminds the Chamber that

25    Omarska was described by witness Emir Beganovic as hell.  The unrestrained


Page 12394

 1    horrors that were brought to light in the course of this trial, that were

 2    worked upon the detainee population by Zoran Zigic at Keraterm and his

 3    seeming -- his gang with which he operated oftentimes and his seemingly

 4    ubiquitous co-perpetrator, Dusko Knezevic, also known as Duca, these

 5    crimes also would never have been before any forum for a hearing to bring

 6    these perpetrators to justice.

 7            Again, the absolute lack of anything other than to tell the truth,

 8    albeit a painful truth, must be considered the sole reason for people

 9    coming forward some nine, ten years after the events, even having to deal

10    with the issues that memory can work.  But nonetheless because these

11    events were so fundamental to the turning points in their lives, the

12    indicia of truthfulness will always be there.

13            About the ability to come and go in a camp which, we want to

14    remind the Chamber, seemed to have been an unbridled privilege of Zoran

15    Zigic, we would ask for a quick review of Exhibit 3249 on the ELMO, just

16    to be reminded of -- 3/249, I'm terribly sorry, 3/249, acknowledging that

17    it was well known that persons were coming into camps for the purpose of

18    abuse.

19            This exhibit, which came actually from the Prijedor collection,

20    from the archives of the Serb authorities, purports to be signed by Dusko

21    Sikirica, compiled on or about the 4th of July.  The important point is

22    the acknowledgement that Sikirica, speaking as commander of security, in

23    other words, security in the camp was making an observation about the

24    forays into Keraterm by Zigic and others, and indicating that in fact

25    persons were beaten, persons did die, and yet goes short of saying, we'll


Page 12395

 1    do something about it.  The admissions here are critical admissions for

 2    the Chamber to consider in its deliberations.

 3            It is the position of the Prosecution that this note reflects some

 4    of the concern that arose after the death of detainee Drago Tokmadzic with

 5    which Zigic is charged in Keraterm.  The Prosecution has proven beyond a

 6    reasonable doubt that the context of the Omarska camp is unique - it is

 7    unique - and that the Chamber should look to the very specific

 8    circumstances of the case -- I'm sorry, of the camp structure and

 9    operation when deciding matters of superior authority.  It is a situation

10    in which an entire police station was transferred and effectively

11    retained, which is consistent with the evidence in the case, retained the

12    structure that existed in the Omarska Police Station.

13            I would like to remind the Chamber that throughout there have been

14    these attempts to obfuscate whether or not the position of deputy

15    commander was de jure present or not.  The order by Simo Drljaca, which is

16    2/ -- sorry, 3/4.11, which I would ask to be taken slightly out of turn -

17    I was going to show it a little bit later - but just to let this Chamber

18    have a look at what the categorisation of the Omarska police institution

19    was.  It indicates -- I'll have it put on the ELMO.  It is an order of

20    Simo Drljaca which was considered one of the seminal exhibits in this case

21    and has been referred to repeatedly.  But a point that perhaps wasn't

22    completely emphasised was in paragraph 6.  Drljaca himself says that the

23    "Security services at the collection centre shall be provided by the

24    Omarska Police Station."  He calls it the police station,

25    which nomenclature by admission through a number of witnesses indicates


Page 12396

 1    that there was a reversion to a position of deputy commander.

 2            Now, whether or not that position was ever de jure filled is

 3    irrelevant.  What is relevant is that the position existed, the function

 4    was recognised, and it makes all the more sense in light of the wartime

 5    situation and the number of persons in custody, ranging in the thousands

 6    at any given moment.

 7                So clearly if the Chamber bears in mind all the evidence that

 8    show that Omarska had a structure that perhaps unlike any other camp or

 9    detention facility adopted a hierarchy whether de jure or de facto, and

10    that hierarchy was adhered to throughout, throughout.  Again its

11    uniqueness must be considered it is to be contrasted with a number of

12    other instances that have been brought before this -- other Chambers in

13    the Tribunal.  Omarska was unique.

14            The Prosecutor has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that in the

15    context of these very specific circumstances of the Omarska camp, that

16    Miroslav Kvocka carried out the function of deputy commander and this can

17    be inferred from the evidence not to look at his words necessarily, but to

18    look at what he did.  In many instances with Kvocka, looking at his words

19    is very helpful because he, himself, has given a number of clues as to the

20    vastness of his power in the camp, and we will discuss those a little bit

21    later.

22            Mladjo Radic and Milojica Kos in the context of this camp and its

23    structure were shift commanders; sometimes referred to as shift leaders,

24    guard shift commanders, various types of tags fixed to the function but

25    the function, nonetheless, was there and they -- in all these functions


Page 12397

 1    bore responsibility, superior authority.

 2            The Prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that

 3    Dragoljub Prcac, who was well over the age of mobilisation, well over the

 4    age of mobilisation in 1992, returned to the reserve police officer's --

 5    as a reserve police officer in the Omarska police station and took over

 6    the function of deputy commander in the camp where Miroslav Kvocka was

 7    administrative, not punitively, by his own admission, administratively his

 8    the interview that he gave to the journalist just days before his arrest,

 9    Kvocka said administrative, transfer to the Tukovi police station.

10            The Prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the

11    failure of the accused with superior authority in the very specific

12    context of the Omarska camp to take measures within their material ability

13    to punish the perpetrators of crimes committed against the detainees

14    caused irreparable harm and went unpunished pointing out, perhaps, most

15    cogently than in a number of instances, these very accused with the

16    superior authority were, themselves, the perpetrators.

17            I will move on now to discuss Miroslav Kvocka.  Miroslav Kvocka is

18    a Bosnian Serb, a highly-trained senior police official whose abilities

19    were recognised early on by the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina

20    police organs.  Kvocka was sent as part of the security force to the

21    Yugoslav Embassy in Paris during an era from the end of the 1970s to the

22    very beginning of the 1980s when much of Europe, and particularly Paris,

23    was in a state of heightened alert due to terrorist activities.  Kvocka

24    was specially trained mentally and physically to, among other things,

25    prevent unauthorised entry on the territory of the embassy, and to


Page 12398

 1    protect.

 2            The Chamber has heard from Kvocka himself had he had the status of

 3    security commander for the firing range in the Prijedor municipality

 4    training that they undertook annually and biannually.  This is a very

 5    skilled, well-trained, sharp police officer.

 6            According to Defence -- to the Defence witness Milutin Vujic, who

 7    was the one-time commander of the Omarska police station perhaps when it

 8    was in its department phase, perhaps not, Kvocka was praised by his peers

 9    and superiors as being in the first generation that graduated from the

10    regular police academy.  He was, according to Vujic, an excellent pupil,

11    highly contentious, responsible, and a good policeman.  He performed all

12    his assignments on time and was highly communicative.

13            It is interesting to note, the Chamber should take note of it,

14    that this communicative ability was submerged as will.  Kvocka told the

15    interviewer with whom he spoke days before his arrest, which is in

16    evidence, there are two versions, 3/201 and 3/202, I hope I have the

17    numbers right, "Let me tell you, I did not complain to anyone in

18    particular," talking about conditions in Omarska.  "If I was present when

19    a situation might have arisen where an excess might have occurred, I would

20    just manage to calm it down, prevent it from happening, and for the

21    investigation to proceed normally."

22            Kvocka knew that a police officer had certain obligations with

23    regard to following orders.  He, himself, when asked about receipt of a

24    possibly criminal order in the transcript during examination said that,

25    "You would be entitled to think it over," clearly indicating that one


Page 12399

 1    does not follow automatically an order that is patently illegal.

 2            There have been discussions through later Defence experts to this

 3    effect as well, and I will not ask the Chamber specially now to listen to

 4    anything more about it but to be mindful of the comments by experts such

 5    as Lakcevic at the end of the Defence case whose testimony certainly

 6    covers all of the accused in terms of their obligations under the criminal

 7    justice system that existed then.

 8            Vujic explained that when a policeman has an individual in

 9    custody, the duty of the policeman is to guard the person so that he or

10    she does not escape, and also to ensure that the person in custody remains

11    safe and protected from others.

12            Kvocka, who acknowledged that the reserve police officers had the

13    same duties as professional police officers, would have been charged

14    equally with not just prevention of escape but with safeguarding the

15    welfare of those in custody.  Now, the custody situation at Omarska at any

16    given time could have been in the thousands.  That did not diminish his

17    obligation to make sure that these detainees were safe and had their human

18    rights observed at all times.  We know from a year and a half of trial

19    that did not happen.

20            Even the Prcac Defence witness Jasnic acknowledged, Milenko Jasnic

21    acknowledged, and this is relevant to Kvocka as well, that the entire

22    structure from Omarska police station in its hierarchy and its function

23    transferred to the camp, a very important point.  And custody at Omarska

24    police station, custody at Omarska camp, custody is custody.

25            There can be no avoiding the knowledge that these individuals had


Page 12400

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Page 12401

 1    that under the circumstances that were permitted to reign at Omarska camp,

 2    there was a substantial likelihood that crimes would occur.  There was a

 3    deliberate pattern of nonenforcement of the regulations that normally bind

 4    police officers and, again, of the various provisions of conventions,

 5    protocols and customary law that would be binding during times of armed

 6    conflict, a deliberate disregard.

 7            Liability that attaches to Kvocka is in both the form of 7(1),

 8    Article 7(1) and Article 7(3).  Looking, for example, at one of the more

 9    egregious instances of 7(1) was, as it were, the planning of the brutal

10    [redacted]

11    [redacted]

12    [redacted] The evidence has indicated

13    or suggests strongly that there was certainly a plan or understanding that

14    this beating was going to occur and it was involving Zigic and other

15    guards.  But Zigic was the principal perpetrator against whom this

16    evidence was brought.

17            Again, Zigic had access to Omarska.  The evidence indicates that

18    Kvocka knew about the plan and told a guard with respect to [redacted]

19    [redacted]  The guard obeyed Kvocka.  Kvocka

20    allowed the beating to take place by Zigic who was arguably, at that time,

21    not arguably, was an intruder in the camp, did nothing about it, in fact,

22    facilitated it.  And then, for whatever reason, to spare or order the

23    [redacted], indicates that he was in control of the situation.

24            In the second beating two days later involving Emir Beganovic,

25    Kvocka aided and abetted a guard named Nikica Janjic by permitting Janjic


Page 12402

 1    to take -- I'm sorry, an outsider, I'm terribly sorry, I'm sorry, an

 2    outsider named Janjic, an intruder, permitting Janjic to take Beganovic

 3    again to the "white house" for another beating and gave him a piece of

 4    paper claiming "Emir Beganovic, KOP 2."

 5            Beganovic indicated that there were -- in his testimony that there

 6    were large mining pits on the premises of the Omarska mine where the camp

 7    was and "KOP 2" referred to one of those pits where the dead from Omarska

 8    camp were thrown.  From this, it may be inferred that there was a

 9    pre-existing plan to beat and kill Emir Beganovic of which Kvocka was

10    aware and in which he participated, and that there was an advanced

11    pre-designated location for the disposal of his body.

12            With regard to outsiders, there is no need that there exists a

13    formal superior-subordinate relationship between, let's say, Kvocka in his

14    capacity as deputy commander and the outsider.  It is the authority of

15    Kvocka to exercise the control that governs.  Kvocka had a duty to remove

16    Zigic, never to let him in in the first place, but to remove him, to not

17    allow any harm come to the detainees.  And instead, he let him in, he

18    participated in working that harm, and did nothing about it there was

19    virtually no action taken.

20            On 24 June 1992, when Safeta Susic arrives in Omarska, Kvocka gave

21    another order a member of the security force, a person named either Krle

22    or Kole, to escort her and another woman to the restaurant where they were

23    to be confined in notoriously horrible conditions.  By giving these

24    instructions to this guard, Kvocka substantially contributed to the

25    confinement in inhumane conditions of these two Muslim women and is liable


Page 12403

 1    for persecution and propagation of inhumane acts.

 2            Kvocka ordered the return of an individual named Nusret Sivac as

 3    having been identified as the wrong person to be brought into custody.  He

 4    passed along -- Kvocka passed along an order of Ranko Mijic, who was

 5    arguably his superior, that Sivac should be returned to Prijedor.  This

 6    order was followed, having been passed along from Kvocka, and the

 7    individual was returned.

 8            At a point later, a Witness J was brought to Omarska and was --

 9    and was presented to Kvocka, Meakic, and Kos in the office of the

10    administration building.  Kvocka had conveyed the orders which resulted in

11    the arrest of Witness J and her detention at Omarska, the witness's

12    detention at Omarska and also, by so doing, substantially contributed to

13    this witness's confinement in inhumane conditions.

14            Defence witness Mirko Jesic, the SDB coordinator who was referred

15    to in the Drljaca order that we have just shown on the ELMO testified that

16    the process of locating a prisoner within the camp and escorting him or

17    her to the interrogation room, that process was under the control of

18    Zeljko Meakic which means that it was under the control of Miroslav Kvocka

19    and those in that chain.

20            Whether or not there existed separate chains of command, and this

21    has been asked frequently, does not change the fact that in Omarska camp,

22    the control over the condition of the detainees rested firmly with the

23    policing side under Zeljko Meakic or under Miroslav Kvocka or any of the

24    other persons in that chain.  By standing by and acquiescing in the

25    mistreatment of the detainees during the interrogations, Kvocka, Radic,


Page 12404

 1    Kos, and Prcac, are liable under a theory of aiding and abetting as they

 2    substantially committed to the crimes that were committed on these

 3    detainees.

 4            This is especially egregious when the Chamber recalls when it

 5    reviews the evidence of locations that these men spent a fair amount of

 6    time in the duty office located along the same corridor as the

 7    interrogation rooms and were within earshot of the sounds, the moans, the

 8    cries from pain of the prisoners who were being mistreated.

 9            Kvocka would have the Chamber differentiate between crimes

10    committed in his presence or crimes committed out of his presence.  The

11    Chamber knows there's no difference.  Kvocka told the OTP investigator in

12    his interview on page 35, "If an assault took place in my presence, then

13    one would expect me to stop either through a rather sharp suggestion or

14    sharp intervention.  To explain that, according to regulations, that was

15    not allowed."

16            Interesting admission.  There were regulations.  This, in fact,

17    was testified to by a number of -- by the Defence experts, by documentary

18    evidence that has gone in, by a number of the witnesses who simply

19    appeared, the colleagues, not necessarily experts, but mixed experts of

20    fact such as police officers like Vujic.  He maintained, however, "If that

21    happened when I was not present and I only heard about it, then my duty

22    would be to inform Zeljko Meakic."

23            Kvocka told the journalist days before his arrest, "I complained

24    specifically to no one.  If I was present when excesses occurred, I would

25    prevent them and ask for a regular investigation to be conducted.  I


Page 12405

 1    complained to no one."

 2            Now, we know that no investigations took place we know there was

 3    no punishment meted out for any of the events that occurred in Omarska.

 4    This is on Prosecution Exhibit 3/201 at page 4.

 5            Kvocka bears liability for persecution inhumane acts, outrageous

 6    upon personal dignity, torture, cruel treatment, and murder under the

 7    aiding and abetting theory.  He bears liability under the common purpose

 8    doctrine which is the co-perpetrator doctrine, and in concentration camp

 9    cases, the Prosecution has had to establish that there was a common

10    criminal plan involved to maintain a system of ill treatment toward

11    detainees.  That we have done.

12            His liability attaches not because of physical presence.  Whether

13    he activity participates in or assists or contributes, in this instance,

14    he's part of the enterprise and the degree of participation is not

15    particularly relevant for liability but may be addressed for penalty

16    purposes.

17            The intent to further the common plan can be inferred, is not

18    necessarily through direct evidence, as most intent is not direct, from

19    acts or omissions looking at the totality of the circumstances which

20    predominated at Omarska camp.

21            The mens rea that is specific to the category of the common

22    purpose must be proven, and the Prosecution submits that it has so done.

23    In this case, the allegation by the Prosecution of common purpose

24    liability for persecutory acts which occurred in a system of repression

25    which was Omarska camp, and as to Zigic, perhaps Keraterm, and the


Page 12406

 1    Prosecution need only establish that each accused have personal knowledge

 2    of the nature of the system of ill treatment and the intent to further

 3    that system.  The Chamber has seen and heard overwhelming evidence that

 4    that, in fact, is what has been shown by the Prosecution.

 5            Once having been shown, then participation in this discriminatory

 6    system of repression renders Kvocka, Kos, Radic, Prcac, Zigic liable for

 7    all acts of persecution committed in Omarska camp during the period when

 8    they worked there, and Zigic perhaps for whatever period he was there.

 9    Again, I'm looking principally, when I discuss this aspect, at the four

10    police officers, Kvocka, Radic, Prcac, Kos, and this is based on the

11    concentration camp category within the Tadic decision as to common

12    purpose.

13            The Prosecution is mindful that there has been another -- not so

14    much another test but an elaboration on the category 3 common purpose

15    liability test in the Talic Brdjanin case, that through their active

16    participation and the maintenance of the repressive camp, they manifested

17    their intent to further the plan.  If questions arise later on this, the

18    Prosecution believes that it is also able to address the specifics of this

19    case with regard to that decision.

20            The mens rea that is necessary to find liability can also be

21    inferred from position of authority and specific functions within the

22    camp.  Looking at Zigic, his liability under 7(1) as a co-perpetrator for

23    crimes committed in Keraterm while working there as a guard is also to be

24    considered by this Chamber.  Again, his evidence of guard status seems

25    principally to come from his own admission but must be factored in to the


Page 12407

 1    deliberations.

 2            There was no credible evidence of duress worked upon Kvocka by

 3    Kvocka or any of the witnesses who testified on his behalf.  Even had

 4    there been evidence of duress, it does not excuse criminal responsibility,

 5    and at best - at best - might be a factor considered in mitigation.  But

 6    the Prosecution has shown that there was no duress on Kvocka.  To the

 7    contrary, Kvocka has shown his ability to come and go in Omarska as he

 8    pleased.  He could take his brothers-in-law, detainees, out of the camp

 9    for a period of up to a month with impunity.  He was able to work an

10    administrative transfer to Tukovi.

11            Now, he would have this Chamber believe that there was

12    punishment.  There's simply no evidence of that.  No evidence.  If

13    anything, this Chamber has been shown that Tukovi, during the relevant

14    time period, was the police station closest to the Brdo area which was to

15    be cleansed, according to plan, around the 24th or so of July.  Kvocka was

16    transferred there because he was a superiorly qualified police officer who

17    was to help out the temporary station in Tukovi to handle the processing,

18    to handle the issues that would arise from that cleansing.  He was never

19    punished for any actions related to his brother-in-law, punished in the

20    true sense of the word.  In fact, his transfer to Tukovi was a vote of

21    confidence.  It was a tremendously important department for the period of

22    the cleansing and can in no way be construed, there is not a shred of

23    evidence that supports a real impunitive transfer of any kind.  He was a

24    police officer whose abilities were recognised, and he was moved

25    accordingly, according to police needs, as he himself has suggested in his


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Page 12409

 1    interview.

 2            Further, just to see the degree of freedom he enjoyed, he could

 3    use official vehicles with impunity.  He could assist his wife's family,

 4    his wife being a Muslim, could assist his wife's family in villages or

 5    places as far as Alisici with no consequence.  This is not the sign of a

 6    man who is under the gun for violating any type of order at Omarska.

 7            Kvocka said in sharp contrast to any claim of duress, "No one

 8    ordered me to kill anyone, to maltreat anyone, to rob anyone.  So if a

 9    similar situation were to occur again and I were given a task, to carry it

10    out as part of the investigation centre structure, I would probably

11    discharge it."  This is from the interview days before his arrest,

12    Prosecution's 3/201, at page 5.  Kvocka is telling the world that he is

13    willing to do it again.  No duress.

14            I am reminded that Kvocka, in fact, when he went to Tukovi was

15    appointed as an assistant commander.  This is hardly an indicium of

16    punishment.

17            Later in 1994, his career blossomed when he was promoted to shift

18    leader, a responsible position in the Prijedor Police Station, according

19    to the testimony of Brane Bolta.  He was never demoted for assisting the

20    enemy, albeit he chose to try to tell this Chamber that he was viewed as a

21    Muslim-lover, as someone who went to the other side.

22            Even Radic indicated that there was a guard by the name of Dusan

23    Jokic who could leave his guard post unattended, come and go to his

24    butcher shop.  In other words, no one had to stay in position, and those

25    who did so did it because they chose to do it.


Page 12410

 1            Would this be a convenient time to break, or would the Chamber

 2    like to wait till 11?

 3            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes, I think that this would be

 4    a good moment to take a break.  We shall adjourn for half an hour.

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

 6                          --- On resuming at 11.23 a.m.

 7            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Please be seated.

 8            Ms. Susan Somers, we're going to continue and we should -- shall

 9    be working up to ten minutes to 1.00.

10            MS. SOMERS:  Thank you very much, Your Honour.

11            I now turn to the 7(3) responsibility of Miroslav Kvocka.

12    Effective control over persons committing underlying crimes in the sense

13    of having material ability to prevent and punish commission of those

14    crimes can be de jure or de facto.  Whether determinative is the actual

15    possession or nonpossession of powers of control over the actions of

16    subordinates.  Accordingly, formal designation as commander is not and

17    should not be considered necessary as a prerequisite for superior

18    responsibility.  This responsibility can be by virtue of de facto as well

19    as de jure function within an organisation as a commander.

20            Kvocka's position which he would have you buy or believe is

21    summarised as follows:  Only those in a position to issue obligatory

22    orders should be held responsible for the acts of their subordinates, and

23    this kind of power is entrusted only to a military commander implying that

24    those who pass on orders alone are -- which are criminal are not liable,

25    and second branch, that a military commander is assisted by the


Page 12411

 1    headquarters head and if the latter does not issue the command orders,

 2    then they cannot be held responsible.  This is utterly ridiculous and

 3    without merit, without any foundation whatsoever.

 4            The Prosecution's position is that Kvocka and Prcac, after Kvocka

 5    left Omarska camp, wilfully joined the operation of the camp and actively

 6    pursued the common criminal design and hence are both responsible for all

 7    the crimes committed, now that is a 7(1) issue.  What occurred in Omarska,

 8    the crimes that occurred for which Kvocka bears superior responsibility

 9    have been shown repeatedly.  Today, we went through the beating of

10   [redacted]

11   [redacted]

12   [redacted]

13   [redacted]

14   [redacted]

15   [redacted]

16   [redacted]

17    Omarska, Kvocka's presence was far greater than Meakic, and this may have

18    created, with justification, the perception that he was a commander and

19    then replaced by Meakic who began more frequently to show up at Omarska.

20            I remind the Chamber that Kvocka, himself, was asked about his

21    preempting the responsibilities of reporting to Omarska on the night of

22    the 29th of May, 28th, 29th, when Jankovic the superior, whose name is

23    cited by Drljaca as the one who has supervisory capabilities and

24    responsibilities over Omarska, when Jankovic called the station where

25    Kvocka was working at night.


Page 12412

 1            Kvocka himself admits that he, although he was supposed to have

 2    Meakic involved, made a unilateral decision not to waken -- not to awaken

 3    Meakic but rather to respond himself to Omarska camp, a very significant

 4    point.  He is told to do something else but he decides to go to Omarska

 5    himself and effectively represent Omarska camp until Meakic eventually

 6    shows up several hours later.

 7            He not only shows up, he brings along the 20 or so reservists he

 8    is ordered to bring along.  He has taken control, a command action.  He

 9    has taken control of the organisation of reporting to Omarska, and of

10    handling matters which were to have been handled by the commander.  There,

11    of course, came a point when Meakic did show up, albeit in -- our evidence

12    shows that Meakic was a bit out of it not quite familiar with the

13    operation of Omarska when he arrived that morning, and Kvocka had to help

14    him get oriented.

15            It is significant that there was an admission that Kvocka could

16    have telephoned Zeljko Meakic but chose not to.  He chose not to.  In his

17    record of interview, he makes a point of indicating that he, he, Kvocka,

18    contacted the 25 or so reservists without waking up Meakic.  He was the

19    commander of the Omarska police station.

20            Some 10 days after Zeljko Meakic had been appointed commander of

21    the police station, now we're talking the police station, Kvocka said in

22    his record of interview at page 6 that, "Meakic asked me," Kvocka, "and

23    another colleague to help him as senior police officers.  So Zeljko asked

24    us to help him in police business."  The Prosecution submits that this is

25    a de facto appointment as deputy.  Record of interview page 6.


Page 12413

 1            Kvocka met up with the recruits at the Omarska camp on the morning

 2    of 28, 29 May and turned them over to a policeman who he did not know who

 3    took these 18 or 20 people and guided them along the guard posts according

 4    to a system that had been in place.  Kvocka's own record of interview

 5    pages 13 and 14.

 6            Even after Meakic arrived in Omarska, even after he arrived,

 7    Kvocka said, "He," Zeljko, "asked me to stay there and look, we used term

 8    to look after things."  His position is immediately apparent and is

 9    reinforced point after point.  Being, as Kvocka says, a more experienced

10    colleague, he was there to help the people.  He was supposed to explain to

11    them, the new recruits, how they were supposed to do their job.  Record of

12    interview page 16.  The Prosecution submits to the Chamber that this is

13    what a superior officer does.

14            I would ask for Exhibit 3/186 to be put on the ELMO, please.  This

15    exhibit in evidence acknowledges -- sorry, is a work schedule for May of

16    1991 issued by the then commander of the Prijedor police station, a Muslim

17    named Fikret Kadiric who, Kvocka confirmed, had at one time been his,

18    Kvocka's, superior officer, and up until 1991 was the commander of the

19    Prijedor police station.  What is to be noted is that it is the duty

20    roster, the assignment of personnel positions of locations, of taskings,

21    is a commander function.

22            Now, I ask the Chamber to remember during the cross-examination of

23    Kvocka, there was the exhibit of his interview it's 3/201, and Kvocka --

24    some parts were read out, some were just touched upon, but in that

25    document, in that interview given by Kvocka himself days before his


Page 12414

 1    arrest, he was asked about what he did at Omarska by the interviewer,

 2    Mr. Bennett.  And he said, "Let me tell you, I cannot accept in the sense

 3    that I was not -- in that sense because I was not exactly any special

 4    commander authority.  I was only in charge of organising and controlling

 5    their work, their presence at their posts."

 6            That is duty assignment.  That is a command responsibility.  That

 7    is a command function, by his own admission.  Indeed, nothing can be more

 8    important than assigning the right personnel to the right jobs.

 9            In his interview, Kvocka does mention specifically that he was to

10    draw up a work roster and uses the term -- was to draw up the term "shift

11    roster" in the investigation centre.  That is a critical point.  That

12    links him, by his own admission, to the responsibility that is, without

13    doubt, the responsibility of a person who has commander function.

14            Kvocka acknowledges in his record of interview, page 38, that when

15    Meakic was not physically in the camp, physically present in the camp, he,

16    Kvocka, was most often there.  Now, this is a camp with some arguably

17    3.000 or so detainees, plus/minus, depending on the time frame we are

18    discussing.  This is inconceivable that there would not be a command

19    leadership figure present at all times given that type of population.  It

20    is inconceivable in the civilian world that that would happen; it is more

21    inconceivable in the setting of Omarska camp.

22            Kvocka has described among his duties at Omarska as "to see how

23    the policemen were working, how they were going, to use my experience and

24    to suggest to the policemen the correct way of conducting themselves, and

25    probably if I noticed anything wrong, to inform him."  This is record of


Page 12415

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Page 12416

 1    interview, 39.  The Prosecution submits that this is a supervisory role

 2    with the same tasks as a commander or a person in command would have.

 3            Having established that, Kvocka failed to take any meaningful

 4    measures in connection with certain events, certain crimes that took place

 5    on the territory of Omarska camp.

 6            Let us look for a moment at the murder of Mehmedalija Nasic, an

 7    old Muslim man driven to rage by the conditions, the horrific conditions

 8    in Omarska camp, and who reacted verbally and was shot to death by a camp

 9    guard named Popovic, who is oftentimes referred to as Pavlic.

10            I would like to show for just a moment on the ELMO Prosecution

11    Exhibit 3/236 to remind the Chamber of what the restaurant area looked

12    like.  There was glass; there was ceiling.  This is the restaurant area.

13    Pavlic or Popovic came into this courtroom and testified to a story that

14    is absolutely not to be believed, about how this murder, which went really

15    unpunished, took place.  He would have -- Kvocka had this witness come in

16    and tell this Chamber that standing outside, outside the glass area,

17    looking in, he managed to discharge his weapon in such a way that it could

18    simply ricochet off the ceiling, perhaps a one-in-a-million shot, and kill

19    Nasic and injure two other persons.  This, I submit, is murder.  It is not

20    a reckless discharge.  Or if it is a reckless discharge, it is certainly a

21    death, a wrongful death, and any type of discharge would be calculated to

22    result in some type of injury.  But I submit to you that this was a

23    deliberate murder.

24            Within days of the incident - within days of the incident -

25    Popovic was back in the camp.  From a ballistics point of view, you all


Page 12417

 1    have experience, all of us have experience enough to know that this is not

 2    worthy of belief.  But this is the type of incident that is presented with

 3    the sign of cynicism that suggests that none of the people, none of the

 4    people in the Omarska camp as detainees had any value to those who were

 5    running or part of the running of the camp.

 6            Certainly, the use of that type of force could not even be

 7    explained under those circumstances as this was a group of unarmed, in the

 8    main, civilians.  There was ample guard presence throughout the camp, and

 9    there was no need whatsoever to resort to the use of a firearm to silence

10    the ravings of a man who had simply given in to the horrors of Omarska.

11    This was murder.

12            Having given I think what would be described as perhaps some of

13    the more forceful points about the accused Kvocka, it bears mentioning

14    that some six, seven months after the closing of the camp, after Kvocka

15    may have left Omarska, without fixing a time frame for his actual

16    departure, in early 1993, Kvocka again, using his position, along with

17    another shift leader, Gruban, called Ckalja, effectively robbed the family

18    of -- the family of the sister of Witness AW, who gave testimony before

19    this Chamber, and would want this Chamber to believe that in using his

20    official capacity, went to or ordered AW, whom he had known for a period

21    of time, to try to unearth, to try to unbury the treasures, the money and

22    the jewels, of his sister whose husband was killed before her eyes in one

23    of the areas cleansed by the Serb authorities.  Kvocka would ask you to

24    believe that he did this so that the sister could benefit from it or that

25    he could benefit from it.  This is absolutely an incredible fabrication.


Page 12418

 1            What happened was, again, trafficking in the misery of the

 2    detainees, this time after the camp.  But so many incidents occurred

 3    during the camp.  This type of act by Kvocka renders suspect any of the

 4    acts of alleged kindness or supposed short-term mercy that he may have

 5    demonstrated on occasion by delivering cigarettes, packages of food.  The

 6    motive was not human kindness, the motive was gain.

 7            Perhaps one point that bears mentioning is when Kvocka was trying

 8    to discuss his role at Omarska.  In the interview which he gave, he talked

 9    about conditions and he described his concerns as centering around the

10    feeding of, the taking care of, the interests of his men, of his persons

11    at Omarska camp.  Not one concern expressed about the plight, the daily

12    wretched plight of the detainees.  It was to make sure his men were okay.

13            This type of callousness brings to mind perhaps a tragic analogy

14    but one that historically suggests how completely callous people can be,

15    and that is during the Nazi regime, when it was too difficult for officers

16    to look their victims in the face as they were being killed, a shift to

17    the more distant, sterile, from the perspective of the killer, means of

18    gas chambers, of vans.  In other words, the concern, the emphasis was on

19    the well-being of the perpetrators, not for one second on the effect on

20    the detainees.

21            When Kvocka, in his interview, in 3/201 and 3/202, talks about his

22    duty to make life good, easy for his men, this provides an insight that no

23    witness can provide.  This is the man telling you how he views his role

24    and how he views the value of the lives of those thousands of detainees in

25    Omarska.


Page 12419

 1            I will now turn to the accused Milojica Kos.  Milojica Kos was a

 2    professional waiter who was mobilised to the reserve police force.  It was

 3    Kvocka's belief, as stated in Kvocka's record of interview on page 59,

 4    that Kos was appointed by Meakic to be one of three shift leaders.  Kos

 5    was a trusted person; he was trusted sufficiently by Kvocka that when

 6    Kvocka was leaving Omarska for his new assignment in Tukovi, he asked or

 7    entrusted to Kos and Gruban, one of the other shift leaders, the request

 8    to take care of his brothers-in-law who would remain in Omarska when

 9    Kvocka transferred out.  Kvocka indicated that he deemed Kos and Gruban

10    more mature.

11            Kos and Gruban and Radic used Room B5 the same room used by Kvocka

12    and Meakic as their administrative office and I will ask just for a moment

13    to place on the ELMO 3/223B which shows the corridor along which Room B5

14    was found.  Sharing this facility was clearly an indicium of the status of

15    responsibility.  You have been asked to believe that people could come and

16    go in this office where, according to the Defence, there would be no

17    particular importance attached to one's ability to be there.  That is not

18    possible.

19            In the structure and scheme of things, that office which also was

20    occupied by the typists who were privy to everything happening there, was

21    an office of privilege.  There is not a possibility that people could

22    wander in, be privy to management information, and wander out.  It simply

23    does not compute in the scheme of Omarska or in policing.

24            There was evidence given through Kvocka about shift, that each of

25    the shifts had permanent guards attached to them subject, of course, to


Page 12420

 1    the possibility of change.  This is significant in that the Chamber has

 2    heard evidence of detainees referring to Krkan's shift, Krle's shift, in

 3    other words, they were identifiable people with an identifiable shift

 4    leader.

 5            Kos was in Omarska as a shift leader, a guard shift leader from

 6    the end of May 1992 until roughly the end of August.  In other words, he

 7    was there for the duration of the function and the existence of Omarska

 8    camp.  His intent to participate in the system of oppression at Omarska

 9    may be inferred from his position as a guard shift leader, a position of

10    authority, and from his conduct and his remaining in Omarska for the

11    duration of its existence.

12            As a guard shift leader or shift leader, he was a significant

13    participant in the operation of Omarska, and under the concentration camp

14    theory of common purpose, Category 2, Tadic, he is liable for all crimes

15    which occurred during the operation of the camp in his presence.

16            Under Category 1 of the common purpose doctrine, Kos may be found

17    liable for participation of part of a group of men attempt to go extort

18    money from detainee Emir Beganovic which is a form, an egregious form of

19    psychological abuse by suggesting that if you pay, you may have a better

20    chance of surviving.  As evidence of this wilful intent, Kos returned a

21    second time for the same purpose.

22            Kos was aware of the horrific, horrific conditions of confinement

23    in Omarska and indeed, he declined to enter the room where Witness AV was

24    confined in the "white house" due to "the stench in the room."  Kos forced

25    Witness AV to slap another prisoner.


Page 12421

 1            The guards on Kos's shift threatened an individual by the name of

 2    Muhamed Cehajic, who had been the former mayor of Prijedor, with death if

 3    he did not give them 400 German marks.  Cehajic, who has been missing and

 4    was last seen at Omarska, had been beaten prior to this demand for

 5    extortion.

 6            Now, the Prosecution submits that while Cehajic was called out on

 7    multiple occasions, multiple occasions by the guards on different shifts,

 8    this particular extortionate act was committed on Kos's shift.  He had

 9    been beaten and was told that if he did not give over the money, he would

10    be killed.  He managed to get the money, return to his room, and managed,

11    indeed, to avoid being further beaten on that occasion.

12            I call the Chamber's attention to the testimony of Sabit

13    Murcehajic on that point.  The guards would mock the mayor, Muhamed

14    Cehajic, and one time, the guard would only allow the bucket, which was

15    serving as a toilet, to be emptied "if the mayor did it."

16            Zuti, a guard on Kos's shift told Witness F, who had been beaten

17    with a rifle butt and a police baton by guards on Kos's shift, that he

18    thought she would have been killed already.  She had been branded an

19    extremist from which the evidence of discriminatory intent towards her and

20    crimes committed towards her may be inferred.  Kos should have known, had

21    reason to know, that by his men calling Witness F an extremist, there

22    would be a likelihood of her being targeted, discriminated against, and

23    most likely beaten up and otherwise subjected to mistreatment.  Such was

24    the effect of characterisation of persons.

25            Kos was the shift leader when Mehmedalija Nasic, the old man who


Page 12422

 1    went mad in the restaurant, was killed by Pavlic or Pavlovic.  Because the

 2    glass was shattered as Pavlovic shot through the window from the outside

 3    into the restaurant, because the glass was shattered, Kos came to the

 4    detainees who had been there in the restaurant and told them to collect

 5    money, told the detainees to collect money to pay for the broken glass in

 6    the window resulting from the shot that murdered a detainee.

 7            The money was collected by the prisoners, but a guard named Jokic,

 8    the collection did not necessarily occur at that time, this did not

 9    immediately follow the event, that's very important to note, but shortly,

10    in a time shortly thereafter, not immediately thereafter, but after the

11    money was collected, a guard named Jokic in what can be categorised as a

12    rare display of conscience, returned the money to the detainees.  He

13    couldn't be part of it.

14            The following morning when Kos learned what Jokic had done, he

15    admonished Jokic with words to the effect that, "You want to help them?

16    And they would like to slit your throat."  And then Kos said, "You'll know

17    longer be part of my shift."  The abuse of the detainees started up again

18    thereafter.

19            The reporter of this was a Mr. Mesan, Omer Mesan.  And, again,

20    Mr. Mesan never said that the money for the glass was collected the same

21    night, it was some time after that, but the return of the money was half

22    an hour or so shortly after the collection.

23            The discriminatory intent can be further inferred from the phrase

24    used by Kos, "They would like to slit your throat," they, and the

25    subsequent mistreatment of the detainees all of which support a finding of


Page 12423

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Page 12424

 1    liability for persecution pursuant to Article 7(1).  The conduct also fits

 2    within Category 1 the common purpose doctrine.

 3            Kos is liable, individually responsible, for the murder of a

 4    Muslim detainee named Crnalic whom he shot and killed when Mr. Crnalic,

 5    unarmed, failed to heed Kos's warning to stop walking from the "white

 6    house" toward the pista.  According to Witness J, a Sylvia Saric, a Croat,

 7    and present of the HDZ, the Croatian National Party in Prijedor, and an

 8    Abdulah Puskar, a math teacher, were brought to the first floor of the

 9    administration building where she heard, where she, Witness J, heard these

10    two men begging Kos and others not to beat them.  She heard Kos yelling.

11    Witness B, who had been a student of Abdulah Puskar, also heard the

12    beating and heard the curses of those beating him, Mr. Puskar, and

13    Mr. Saric.

14            Witness B was told by other detainees that both men died as a

15    result of these beatings.  Witness B testified that after the beatings she

16    never saw Puskar or Saric again at Omarska or anywhere.  Kos is therefore

17    liable for murder under 7(1) for committing or aiding and abetting in the

18    commission and also under Category 1 of common purpose.

19            Kos is liable for the death of Miroslav Solaja, a Croat, under the

20    common purpose doctrine.  The discriminatory intent associated with this

21    murder is inferred from a number of bases.  Mr. Solaja, I will remind the

22    Chamber, was a man of approximately 60 years of age.  Had he been

23    characterised in the camp as a Green Beret and a gun runner.  This type of

24    characterisation was bound to bring some form of reaction in the form of

25    persecutory action against a detainee and to bring about discriminatory


Page 12425

 1    treatment.

 2            The statement from a guard from whom medical assistance for

 3    Mr. Solaja was sought because he had been so badly beaten was that Solaja

 4    had done so much harm to the Serbs that he did not deserve help.  This was

 5    further evidence of the discriminatory intent.  Mr. Solaja's apparently

 6    lifeless body was seen lying in front of the "white house" by witness

 7    Ermin Strikovic.  His remains, which to a 99.8 or 99.9 per cent certainty

 8    were to be those of Miroslav Solaja, were subsequently exhumed from a mass

 9    grave in Kevljani.  His ID card and a final letter to his love Mira were

10    found with the remains.

11            I would take a moment and ask the audiovisual colleagues to show a

12    film or a video.  This video, first of all, is of the letter, the last

13    letter, and I will also put it on the ELMO if it is more visible, found on

14    the person, on the remains of Miroslav Solaja in Kevljani.  The

15    translation, because of handwriting issues, was difficult, but I will give

16    it the best I can.

17            "Be proud.  Do not grieve -- my one and only Mira, be proud.  Do

18    not grieve.  I think this is our last moment.  It has been wonderful

19    living with you.  We did not achieve everything we planned.  My only one,

20    try to live on.  All those lies, they take your breath away.  Those were

21    Laza's drivers.  They accomplished everything they talked about.  They

22    lied that I --" probably says "beat Serbs in Zagreb," and many other

23    allegations that are hard to read.  "Mira, take all the money and jewelry

24    straight away and take them to a safe place.  Do it immediately.  Have

25    Laza take the car and trailer to his garage because they will know that I


Page 12426

 1    am not there.  The land and the house --" it's difficult, but "The land

 2    and the house, and let them use.  Say hello to everybody, to your family

 3    in Zagreb and Jelecka.  My greatest regret is that I am dying an innocent

 4    man.  Say hello to my family.  Have Una collect the honey.  I am dying as

 5    my father did.  Nobody will know where my grave lies.  My dear and only

 6    one, from the bottom of my heart, your Zica," his nickname.  And then he

 7    adds, "Give Dragan a thousand dinars.  Get the document for the garage in

 8    Rudnik if you mean to sell."

 9            I would ask to have the audiovisual people hone in on the remains

10    of Miroslav Solaja, found in a mass grave in Kevljani.  This is what the

11    site looked like.  Miroslav Solaja.  Thank you.

12            Witness AQ testified that on two occasions when detainees were

13    beaten in the presence of Kos -- sorry, that detainees were beaten in the

14    presence of Kos when they were entering the restaurant.  On one occasion,

15    Kos himself participated by beating detainees with a baton.  When Witness

16    AQ left the restaurant, he was beaten with a whip, having a ball and

17    spikes, and though Kos was present, he did nothing to intervene.

18            A second incident involving Witness AQ occurred on or about 27

19    July when he was entering the restaurant, and he and his group of

20    detainees were cursed by guards while Kos was present.  The guards

21    targeted a detainee who was wearing rubber boots, accusing him of so

22    wearing them to prepare for battle with the Serbs, and as a result abused

23    him.  Kos' doing nothing about this constituted a substantial contribution

24    to the crime and he is liable for aiding and abetting.  For his failure to

25    punish the offending guards, he is liable under 7(3), cruel treatment.  He


Page 12427

 1    is further liable under common purpose, category 1, for torture and cruel

 2    treatment.

 3            Witness AQ, who had a habit of keeping in his recipe book entries

 4    of very important events, important to him, something out of the ordinary,

 5    did not notably make an entry of this incident.  Why?  Because the beating

 6    of prisoners at mealtime was not an unusual event.  It was a common

 7    occurrence.

 8            Kos extorted money from Safet Ramadanovic, a detainee, on or about

 9    10 June, at the time of his and several other detainees arrival in

10    Omarska, referring to them as "cifut," a derogatory term for one who likes

11    money. Nusret Sivac testified that the detainees were then forced to

12    stand against the wall and were beaten.  No punishment was meted out.

13            Kos, called, I believe the term is, Kobac, meaning hawk, due to

14    what was perceived as his resemblance to a hawk by Witness Y, displayed a

15    sarcastic, cynical callousness towards Witness Y's obvious signs of having

16    been beaten, which, the witness said to protect himself, had come from a

17    doorway.  Kos responded to the witness, saying, "It's the doorways here

18    that are killing you."  This in no way could ever be construed as an

19    expression of concern.  From its context and from what this Chamber knows

20    about the relations at Omarska, what this was was a confirmation of the

21    widespread nature of the abuse, a confirmation by Kos himself.

22            Among the witnesses who testified on behalf of Kos was a Zelimir

23    Skrbic, whose rise at a very young age to police prominence, propelled in

24    part by a well-placed relative, led him to be sent to work with the

25    military, a policeman subordinated to the military, and to involvement


Page 12428

 1    with the Serb takeover of Jajce.  This is the calibre of witness called on

 2    behalf of Kos.

 3            Kos managed to continue, actually had no problem continuing in

 4    policing after Omarska, and his crimes at Omarska proved to be no barrier

 5    to his ability to function as a police officer.

 6            I will now address Mladjo Radic.  I would like to let the Chamber

 7    know in advance that there will be parts of this portion that, of

 8    necessity, must be private session, but they shall be brief.  But they

 9    must so remain, and I appreciate the Chamber's assistance on that.

10            Mladjo Radic, also known as Krkan, was a professional police

11    officer and served as a shift leader at Omarska camp.  The evidence

12    indicates that he was an individual who seemed to savour the conditions in

13    the camp which gave him the power he lacked as an ordinary policeman.  I

14    would ask for a moment for a still of Radic, which is an exhibit.  May I

15    ask the number, please.  Exhibit 3/69A.  This is Radic at Omarska.  Beret,

16    automatic weapon, all the indicia of power, a power that he did not enjoy

17    as an ordinary policeman.

18            In particular, the evidence that this Chamber has heard about the

19    allegations made against Kos suggests -- I'm sorry, not Kos, Radic,

20    suggests that Radic was able to use this new-found power over the very

21    vulnerable female detainees who were in the Omarska camp.

22            Radic, as the shift leader, under whose shift Rizah Hadzalic was

23    beaten to death while guards cursed Hadzalic's Muslim and Turkish mother,

24    did nothing to punish these guards.  Mr. Hadzalic's body was seen by

25    Abdulah Brkic being taken away in a yellow TAM truck.  Radic is liable for


Page 12429

 1    failure to punish, and is criminally responsible for the murder of Rizah

 2    Hadzalic.

 3            Radic is liable for the murders of Sefik Sivac, pursuant to the

 4    concentration camp category of common purpose; to Safet Ramadanovic,

 5    pursuant to his 7(3) failure to punish; to Azur Jakupovic, pursuant to

 6    concentration camp category also of common purpose.

 7            Although Radic denied throughout the trial any knowledge about the

 8    actual facts surrounding the death of a police officer named Ibrahim Denic

 9    at Omarska, it was the testimony of a Defence witness, Gostimir Modic, an

10    interrogator at both Omarska and Keraterm, who inadvertently on

11    cross-examination exposed Radic's untruthfulness on this subject.

12            This untruthfulness is particularly heinous in light of the fact

13    that one of the principal defences asserted by Radic's family and himself

14    was the relationship, the kum relationship between the Radics and the

15    Denics.  Mr. Radic had been -- Mr. Denic, also known as Braco, had been

16    the kum of Radic, and his family had been looking for some clue as to what

17    happened to the father, the husband that they no longer saw after his

18    being arrested.  Despite this alleged closeness, Radic persisted in

19    denying to the family any knowledge about the death of Mr. Denic, and only

20    told the family that he had heard the body had been found on a tractor in

21    Kozarac.

22            I submit to the Chamber that this is absolutely a lie.  If Modic

23    learned of the death in Omarska of Ibrahim Denic, a fellow police officer

24    like Radic, a fellow police officer, and he learned it from other

25    policemen, and he also said he heard it in Prijedor, then I submit it is


Page 12430

 1    impossible that Radic did not know the same facts that were brought to

 2    Modic's attention.  He knew but he elected to withhold them and tortured,

 3    until it was revealed in this courtroom, the family, thinking that the man

 4    had never died in Omarska.  Modic indicated he, in fact, had died in

 5    Omarska early on.

 6            The death of Ibrahim Denic is also a matter that would be

 7    chargeable to Radic, and the discriminatory intent of the crime is

 8    inferred from the fact that Denic was a Muslim police officer and a target

 9    for the new Serb authorities.

10            I would ask for a brief private session as I must now address

11    issues that arose in closed session.

12            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] So let's go into private session

13    now, please.

14                          [Private session]

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Page 12431

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Page 12436

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 9                          [Open session]

10            MS. SOMERS:  The Chamber should recall that on 8 November 1993,

11    Radic was presented with an award which was memorialised in Exhibit 3/231

12    which I would ask to be put on the ELMO.  And this reward was signed by

13    Bogdan Delic, head of the SJB, recommending a cash bonus and stating, in

14    part as a basis therefore, "He has selflessly laboured to uncover the

15    deeds of Muslim extremists at the Omarska reception centre where he has

16    worked day and night."  Thank you.

17            Radic found in Omarska, and the position he enjoyed there, a means

18    to enforce his authority in a way that apparently he lacked prior to the

19    conflict.  In his statement to an investigator of the Office of the

20    Prosecutor which is -- will be found it's 3/215, page 41, Radic said, "I

21    could never keep my mouth shut so I would always tell everyone what I

22    thought and, therefore, I did not get promoted.  I did not get advanced in

23    my years of service."

24            The Chamber has seen the video of an armed, macho Radic.  The

25    power he lacked in his position as a regular police officer, he was able


Page 12437

 1    to more than compensate for in the power he was given in Omarska.  He

 2    savoured the power and he savoured the sadism which he unleashed on the

 3    detainees.  He appeared to savour the reversal of fortune with regard to

 4    the authority that Omarska had provided him.  He was suddenly a camp

 5    official with life and death power over non-Serb captives.

 6            The Prosecution witnesses have proven beyond a reasonable doubt

 7    that Radic regularly availed himself of the is a sadistic pleasure which

 8    unbridled power with no accountability gave him.

 9            I now turn to Zoran Zigic.  Zoran Zigic claimed in his unsworn

10    84 bis statement given at the opening of his case that he was mobilised to

11    the reserve police.  The testimony that this Chamber has heard over the

12    past year and a half has confirmed that Zigic gained access on a regular

13    basis to Omarska and Keraterm.  In Omarska, he was permitted to enter at

14    will and to work unspeakable acts of sadism and brutality on the detainees

15    therein.

16            The Chamber has even heard evidence that Zigic was considered by

17    his own friend, Miroslav Zebric, as a violent man.  The Trial Chamber has

18    heard evidence that Zigic has committed crimes in all three camps:

19    Omarska, Keraterm, and Trnopolje.

20            Looking at Trnopolje, the Chamber may look back at the evidence of

21    Witness V, Witness N, Safet Taci and DD/9, a Defence witness, that Zigic

22    engaged in torture and cruel treatment against his kum, Hasan Karabasic.

23            The Chamber may look back at the evidence from Witness V and

24    Witness AD that at Keraterm, Zigic shot, at close range, a Muslim detainee

25    named Zijad Krivdic, shot in the head at close range, a Muslim detainee


Page 12438

 1    named Zijad Krivdic, causing serious bodily harm by literally blowing off

 2    part of his skull.

 3            Witness V went on to testify that Zigic told the injured Krivdic

 4    that if he did not stop moaning, he would kill him.  In this same

 5    incident, Zigic ordered Witness V to remove Krivdic's hair which had stuck

 6    to his pistol from the pistol.  After Witness V complied, Zigic ordered

 7    Witness W to kiss his, Zigic's, shoes.  After complying with the order to

 8    kiss Zigic's shoes, Zigic kicked Witness V between the eyes with his

 9    shoe.  Witness was injured and bleeding from the resulting cut.  This

10    string of crimes went unpunished.

11            Zigic is responsible for the murders of the detainees in the

12    Room 3 massacre at Keraterm.  Zigic attempted, through a parade of

13    witnesses who are not worthy of belief, to place himself at a home

14    barbecue in the Cirkin Polje area of Prijedor.  Witness Soka Sikic and her

15    husband, whom the Chamber will remember, subsequently on 19 August

16    provided Zigic with a vehicle, a weapon, and their son to rob the family

17    of Edin Ganic.  Soka Sikic, in speaking about the barbecue on the 24th or

18    25th of July, the evening before the massacre or of the massacre, she

19    said, "It was never a problem for us to have a party, to sit down, have

20    something to eat, drink."  She stated, "There was no special occasion for

21    the barbecue."  This was in direct contradiction, direct contradiction to

22    the testimony, unsworn, of Zoran Zigic who said in his 84 bis statement to

23    say that the gathering was to commemorate the death of a friend.

24            I would ask the Chamber to turn its attention to an Exhibit 3/144

25    to be put on the ELMO which is a document signed by Colonel -- or purports


Page 12439

 1    to be signed by Colonel Vladimir Arsic dated 28 July 1992.  This document

 2    is a criminal report in which Zigic, Zoran Zigic, is said to have, and I

 3    turn the Chamber's attention to the middle paragraph, "At about 2100 hours

 4    on 24 July 1992," which is the evening of the Keraterm Room 3 massacre,

 5    "at about 2100 hours on 24 July 1992 in the corridor of the Dr. Mladen

 6    Stojanovic Medical Centre Hospital in Prijedor, after he had learned of

 7    the death of his colleague Boro Zujic," he meaning Zoran Zigic,

 8    "approached a first aid stretcher on which the wounded Omer Karadzic was

 9    lying, and stabbed him in the heart with a knife killing him instantly."

10    Therefore committing an offence under the law of Socialist Republic of

11    Bosnia-Herzegovina.  The particular points are 2100 hours, the evening of

12    24 July 1992.

13            I would ask for just a moment for the Chamber to remind itself of

14    the distances and I may -- I ask my colleague, Ms. Walpita, to point out,

15    please, if you could reverse it, please, thank you.

16            The area of Cirkin Polje, where Zigic had his home and was

17    allegedly enjoying a barbecue, and the location of the Prijedor hospital,

18    if that could be pointed out as well, the distance is very, very small.

19    And also the relation -- this is Keraterm camp where the pointer is now

20    being shown.  Thank you.

21            Prosecution Witness V, Safet Taci, Witness AD, addressed Zigic's

22    presence and comments about Room 3.  Witness V saw Zigic in Keraterm the

23    afternoon of 24 July, walking between Rooms 2 and 3.  Taci saw Zigic

24    walking toward Room 3 on the same day, 24 July, and Witness AD testified,

25    "I saw Zoran Zigic.  At one point he came closer to the table.  He


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Page 12441

 1    started swearing at us that he would kill us all."  The table, it was

 2    explained, was the table in front of Room 3 on which a machine-gun had

 3    been placed.  The next day, 25 July, Witness N and Witness AD saw Zoran

 4    Zigic in Keraterm in the morning.

 5            The Prosecution has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that Zoran

 6    Zigic is guilty of the murder of Emsud Bahonjic, a Muslim, at Keraterm

 7    camp, who was slowly and systematically beaten to death over a period of

 8    time.  This murder went unpunished.

 9            The Prosecution has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that Zoran

10    Zigic is guilty of the murder of an individual known as Sead Jusufagic,

11    also known as Car, at Keraterm.  This crime went unpunished.

12            Zoran Zigic was responsible for the murder of Drago Tokmadzic, a

13    police officer of mixed -- potentially of mixed ethnic origin, perhaps

14    Serb and Croat, at Keraterm.  I would ask that we, for a moment -- well,

15    I'll wait for just a moment.  It should be noted that Tokmadzic was one of

16    those persons who thought that by giving the loyalty oath and by

17    continuing to work in the service of the new Serb order, he would be

18    okay.  He and Esad Islamovic, a Muslim police officer, did in fact deliver

19    detainees to Keraterm camp.  They themselves, however, ended up in

20    Keraterm camp and did not survive.  Those crimes went unpunished.

21            Just to point out or to remind the Chamber that Exhibit 3/249,

22    which we had shown earlier, purporting to be signed by Dusko Sikirica,

23    refers to a point in time that would be consistent with the times of the

24    murders of Tokmadzic, and we ask the Chamber to draw the inferences from

25    these facts.


Page 12442

 1            Zigic was responsible for the murder of Becir Medunjanin at

 2    Omarska.  Medunjanin was one of the most prominent Muslims in Prijedor.

 3    The Chamber heard evidence that he, along with his son, was brutally

 4    beaten by Zigic and others in the "white house" at Omarska on at least two

 5    occasions.  It is a reminder that Medunjanin occupied a public position in

 6    the Defence Secretariat for Prijedor, and this fact, we submit,

 7    contributed to the persecutory acts and the discrimination that was worked

 8    against him and his family.

 9            Zoran Zigic is guilty of the torture of Emir Beganovic, Rezak

10    Hukanovic, Sefik Terzic, and Asif Kapetanovic.  These incidents are so

11    infamous the Chamber has heard about them even from Witness DD10, a

12    Defence witness, who stated that she had heard that it was Zigic who had

13    beaten Rezak Hukanovic.

14            In his 84 bis statement before this Chamber, Zigic admitted to

15    having hit Rezak Hukanovic, but Zigic's comment was, "I felt when I did so

16    a great deal of pain all over my body," meaning Zigic.  "Not only in my

17    left hand, because with this movement, this movement caused pain, shooting

18    pains all over my body."

19            After the beating, Emir Beganovic testified that Zoran Zigic told

20    the victims to bend down and lap water like dogs.  I would ask for a

21    moment of closed session.  I would like to show an exhibit that will take

22    a moment, but it was presented in closed session.

23            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes.  Do you want us to go into

24    private session?

25            MS. SOMERS:  No.  It will be an exhibit, and I'm concerned about


Page 12443

 1    its possible transmission inadvertently to the public gallery.

 2            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes.  Let us move into closed

 3    session, then.

 4            MS. SOMERS:  Your Honour, this will just be a brief moment so

 5    there should be no inconvenience to the public.

 6                          [Closed session]

 7  [redacted]

 8  [redacted]

 9  [redacted]

10  [redacted]

11  [redacted]

12  [redacted]

13  [redacted]

14  [redacted]

15  [redacted]

16  [redacted]

17  [redacted]

18  [redacted]

19  [redacted]

20  [redacted]

21  [redacted]

22  [redacted]

23  [redacted]

24                          [Open session]

25            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Please proceed, Ms. Susan


Page 12444

 1    Somers.

 2            MS. SOMERS:  Thank you, Your Honour.

 3            Zoran Zigic is also guilty of the torture and murder of Hanki

 4    Ramic at Omarska.  This crime went unpunished.  Zigic would have the

 5    Chamber believe that the injury to his finger prevented him from

 6    committing some or all of the acts with which he is accused.  This is

 7    absolutely implausible; it is not true.  The Chamber has seen and heard

 8    overwhelming evidence that Zigic managed to operate a manual transmission,

 9    ride a moped, discharge a weapon, stab a woman named Mara Kusunic during a

10    robbery at the Ganics on the 19th of August, and carry on other actions

11    which require the use of one's hand.  There is no merit whatsoever to any

12    disability being the result of this injury to his finger.

13            Witness AD spoke about an incident at Keraterm concerning a

14    detainee named Suad, S-u-a-d, who was transferred -- I'm sorry, who was

15    also referred to as the machine-gunist.  The Chamber's attention should be

16    directed to the fact that at no time was there evidence that Suad, the

17    machine-gunist, was the same person as Sead, also known as Car.  That

18    would be S-e-a-d.  These are separate incidents and there is no basis for

19    doubting the testimony of Witness AD with regard to this matter.

20            I direct the Chamber's attention also to the testimony of

21    Witnesses J and U about Zigic coming to Trnopolje on or about the 3rd of

22    August, looking for Edin Ganic, and asks about the women from Omarska, the

23    women from Omarska, asking where the whores were.

24            If this is a convenient time to break, Your Honour, I would then

25    pick up after the break.


Page 12445

 1            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes, that is quite possible,

 2    Ms. Susan Somers.  Let us take the adjournment for luncheon.  We're going

 3    to adjourn for 50 minutes.

 4                          --- Recess taken at 12.48 p.m.

 5                          --- On resuming at 1.45 p.m.

 6            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Please be seated.

 7            Ms. Susan Somers, let us continue and we will be working until

 8    about ten past 3.00.

 9            MS. SOMERS:  Thank you, Your Honour.

10            Before resuming my comments on Zoran Zigic, I wanted to just give

11    the Chamber the benefit of a citation that I had mentioned in relation to

12    the accused, Kvocka, a description in 3/201 where Kvocka describes all the

13    good he does for his own staff, and that is found in the English

14    translation on page 2.

15            The crimes which have been discussed during the course of the

16    comments on Mr. Zigic have gone unpunished.  What is, perhaps, a sign of

17    the value placed on the victims by the persons in charge of the overall

18    governmental structures in Prijedor, is that the Chamber heard evidence by

19    Witness Ivica Sikic, neighbour of Mr. Zigic to the effect that Mr. Zigic

20    had been arrested and was convicted for the killing of a woman named

21    Petkovic, Danka Petkovic, who later, the Chamber learned was related, the

22    sister of Damir Dosen, one of the accused in Keraterm.

23            Although the crimes that the Chamber has heard of today committed

24    by Zigic and others, but particularly Zigic have gone unpunished, it is

25    telling to note that at the time of Zigic's arrival in The Hague he was


Page 12446

 1    convicted of and serving a sentence of a civilian Serb woman in a travel

 2    agency in Prijedor.  At no time was he charged with any of the atrocities

 3    that appear on this indictment and, perhaps, this is indicative of the

 4    tenure of the value of non-Serb life in this municipality.

 5            I would like to mention other incident and it would just require a

 6    quick reference in private session so as not to compromise a name.  It

 7    will literally be a quick second, not closed, just private.

 8            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes, let us go into private

 9    session.

10                          [Private session]

11  [redacted]

12  [redacted]

13  [redacted]

14  [redacted]

15  [redacted]

16  [redacted]

17  [redacted]

18  [redacted]

19  [redacted]

20  [redacted]

21  [redacted]

22  [redacted]

23  [redacted]

24                          [Open session]

25            MS. SOMERS:  I will now turn to Dragoljub Prcac.  To let the


Page 12447

 1    Chamber know that this issue of the arrest of Zigic is also seen in

 2    Exhibit 3/244 which is before the Chamber should it wish to take a look at

 3    the criminal case with victim Danka Petkovic.  Thank you.

 4            At the time of the events in the indictment, Dragoljub Prcac was

 5    well beyond the age of mobilisation.  He was, from all accounts and

 6    testimony, a very skilled individual, a crime technician, who had, perhaps

 7    later in life, retrained for a position that would offer him some security

 8    and stability.  Far from resisting his assignment in Omarska, Dragoljub

 9    Prcac willingly went to Omarska to enrich himself by extorting money from

10    known wealthy detainees, from a particularly known wealthy detainee who

11    testified before this Chamber by the name of Mirsad Kugic.

12            Mr. Prcac went to Omarska in late June, even arguably before he

13    may have reported full time for work there.  Mirsad Kugic testified that

14    Prcac spent something like a night, a long period of time in the camp,

15    speaking with Kugic.  Kugic, by reputation and, in fact, was one of the

16    wealthiest men in Prijedor, a fact of which Prcac was aware.

17            Kugic testified that Prcac made demands of Kugic for money and

18    this type of action we would categorize as a -- one of the most insidious

19    forms of psychological abuse.  To extort a detainee whose very daily life

20    is questionable, to extort a detainee under these circumstances plays on

21    the most vulnerable of feelings of an individual in captivity.

22            Mr. Kugic testified to the fact -- or indicated that, "If you pay

23    you die, if you don't pay you die."  And it is -- it was this type of

24    scenario that put these persons like Kugic at even greater risk.  The

25    reprehensible nature of the act committed by Prcac must be looked at for


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Page 12449

 1    what it is.  It is an opportunistic act to take advantage of a person who

 2    does not know whether, from day-to-day, he will live or die.  Prcac's

 3    response, according to Mr. Kugic was, "Well, just leave.  If you don't

 4    have any money, just go, and whatever happens to you will happen."

 5            I focus the Chamber's attention on much of the commentary about

 6    Mr. Prcac from his son, about the emphasis on modest means, problems with

 7    money, all of which, perhaps, fit into the motives, some of the motives

 8    which may have been behind his extortionate acts against Mr. Kugic.

 9            Prcac replaced Kvocka as deputy commander.  He, himself, commented

10    in his record of interview that he was to have replaced Kvocka, and the

11    Prosecution's evidence shows that by no later than 11 July he had assumed

12    the position in the camp of deputy commander.  However, it must be pointed

13    out that Prcac was attached to and working out of the Omarska police

14    station which was the parent organisation of the group at Omarska, in

15    fact, was one and the same.  It was a matter of location.

16            He must be held responsible for all crimes occurring in Omarska

17    which occurred on or after the 11th of July.  They include the murder of

18    Rizah Hadzalic, the Petrovdan murders, the killings of some or perhaps up

19    to 200 detainees from the Brdo area at the end of July, the murder of

20    Dr. Eso Sadikovic and approximately 124 other detainees, disappearance --

21    and this also, I remind the Chamber, may be regarded as an inhumane act

22    under Article 5 as charged in Count 2, the disappearance of approximately

23    another 50 detainees including two women, Sadeta Medunjanin and Edna

24    Dautovic, whose remains were found at the bottom of a mass grave in a deep

25    cave called Jama Lisac.


Page 12450

 1            I would ask the audiovisual unit to assist in showing the Chamber

 2    the footage of the graves.

 3                          [Videotape played]

 4            MS. SOMERS:  This is the entrance to the Jama Lisac, giving an

 5    indication of the depth.  Now showing remains and the means by which

 6    exhumation specialists had to enter to get at the remains.  The remains

 7    have been identified.  These are the remains of Sadeta Medunjanin, the

 8    wife of Becir Medunjanin.  A necklace that she had been described as

 9    wearing, I believe, by Witness J was found on her remains, and it's been

10    lifted.  You can see the white dangling object now.  And a red sweater,

11    which is also identified as having been worn by her when last seen.

12            This is the exhumed remains of Sadeta Medunjanin.  This was

13    described in the testimony before the Chamber of Investigator Tariq

14    Malik.  She was number 25, Mrs. Medunjanin.  These are the laid-out

15    remains of Mrs. Medunjanin.  A woman's slip was taken from her remains,

16    and her clothing.  Last seen at Omarska live; sent from Omarska by

17    Dragoljub Prcac.

18            I would ask for a moment to enable the audiovisual people to --

19    I'll present an additional video, because another of the individuals who

20    disappeared, another woman, Edna Dautovic, the remains of this woman were

21    also found in that cave.  The Chamber heard evidence that DNA tests

22    confirmed the identification of both Mrs. Medunjanin and Edna Dautovic.

23            Is the audio -- if we may ask, please, for the other video.

24                          [Videotape played]

25            MS. SOMERS:  This is a photograph of Edna Dautovic, a young


Page 12451

 1    woman.  Vibrant, full of life.  This is Edna Dautovic, exhumed from Jama

 2    Lisac, now reduced to being number 42.  Last seen live in Omarska; sent

 3    from Omarska by Dragoljub Prcac.

 4            I would ask for a moment if the Chamber would take a look at our

 5    Exhibit 3/204, I believe it is, which is a list of individuals compiled --

 6    it's dated 28 July, 1992.  It is a list of category 1 persons.  On page 2,

 7    number 46 is the name Sadeta Medunjanin, and on page 1 of the list, number

 8    6 is Edna Dautovic.  Excuse me for mispronouncing it.  Dautovic.  Category

 9    1 being designated, dangerous category.

10            It was on or about the 3rd of August, 1992, that Dragoljub Prcac

11    called out the list of women detainees who were to be transferred to

12    Trnopolje.  Five women were left in Omarska.  Three of these five women

13    have never been seen since.  They are Hajra Hodzic, Munira Becirevic, and

14    Valida Mahmuljin.  All sent out by Dragoljub Prcac.

15            Prcac was the deputy commander when a number of prominent

16    professionals and intellectuals were called out and never seen again.

17    They include Dr. Begic, Jusuf Pasic, Dr. Osman Mahmuljin, Zijad Mahmuljin,

18    Ago Sadikovic, Mirsad Alisic.  Prcac, Dragoljub Prcac, is responsible for

19    the murder of these individuals.

20            Prcac admitted to having seen his former colleague and friend,

21    police officer Reuf Travancic, being beaten in front of the "white

22    house."  Prcac did not intervene.  I turn your attention to his record of

23    interview, page 156.  Prcac said he was terribly sorry.  He said he did

24    not dare help.  He said, "He's the one that I would most like to help

25    because we spent so much ... together at the same desk, and if I was to


Page 12452

 1    help anyone, I wanted to help him.  But I didn't dare."

 2            Accordingly, if he would not intervene for his long-time friend

 3    and colleague, Reuf Travancic, this Chamber could not believe and should

 4    discount claims of Prcac's alleged bold intervention, brandishing a

 5    firearm to respond to the situation that was unfolding on the son of a

 6    friend; the son's name, Edin Karagic.  There is no truth to that

 7    incident.

 8            Karagic denied any intervention by Prcac while Karagic and the

 9    others were being beaten.  Karagic, who testified before this Chamber,

10    stated to the contrary.  "The beating went on for some time while Prcac

11    wrote down the personal details of the new detainees who were being

12    beaten.  Only after some time did Prcac tell the guards to stop, that

13    there would be time for this," presumably meaning beating, "later."  The

14    guards stopped; they obeyed Prcac.

15            It should be noted that at night, some of the guards came to the

16    room and asked where the new detainees were.  Karagic denied that at any

17    time during this incident did Prcac take out a gun or otherwise intervene

18    on his behalf.  Karagic stated that he, Karagic, was aware of what was

19    going on around him and that at no time did Prcac brandish a firearm.

20            The Chamber should find that even before Prcac was assigned to the

21    Omarska camp, he was performing tasks related to the Omarska camp, based

22    on evidence that was adduced.  Prcac said he brought food and packages to

23    the Omarska camp at the behest of Zeljko Meakic on a number of occasions.

24    He delivered the packages to a guard who, Prcac said he had -- I'm sorry,

25    to a guard.


Page 12453

 1            Prcac said that he had interrogated Witness B, already a detainee,

 2    but who had been brought to the Omarska Police Station after a brief stay

 3    in the camp.  She spent the night, although she had been a detainee in the

 4    camp, she spent the night in a cell in the Omarska Police Station and was

 5    returned to Omarska camp the next day.

 6            Prcac and Witness DD10 were disturbed by the working conditions,

 7    the noise in Omarska camp.  Prcac functioned in that camp with utter

 8    disregard, in fact, complete indifference to the ubiquitous suffering of

 9    the detainees in that camp.  What bothered him was how it affected his

10    work.  Witness DD stated that she got so disgusted that she claimed that

11    she left.  Prcac chose to stay.

12            Prcac said of Omarska when he arrived, "I'm going to go mad here.

13    It was very hot.  It was very oppressive.  It was very humid.  There

14    was -- there was a stench.  The air was stinking.  You could not stand

15    there, anywhere around," from his record of interview, page 9.

16            Zlata Cikota concluded that any acts of assistance which were done

17    were done with an eye toward either financial gain or possible

18    mitigation.  She did not ascribe to him pure motives based on notions of

19    human kindness.

20            The Chamber should conclude from this that Prcac was a cunning,

21    shrewd operator, looking out for his own interests, in particular,

22    material interests.

23      Nusret Sivac testified that Prcac was among the camp personnel

24    watching and laughing while detainees were being beaten going in and out

25    of the restaurant.  Witness DD10 stated that on the orders of Meakic,


Page 12454

 1    Prcac would go out to find detainees, would go out to find detainees to

 2    bring them up to the first floor for interrogation.

 3            I would ask for a minute of private session.

 4            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Yes, let us go into private

 5    session.

 6                          [Private session]

 7  [redacted]

 8  [redacted]

 9  [redacted]

10  [redacted]

11  [redacted]

12  [redacted]

13  [redacted]

14  [redacted]

15                          [Open session]

16            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] You may continue, Mrs. Susan

17    Somers.

18            MS. SOMERS: Nusret Sivac stated that a detainee named Mujo

19    Crnalic obtained permission from Prcac to bring back a prisoner named

20    Smail Duratovic to a large room in the administration building after a

21    stay in the "white house," where Duratovic had been tortured, with

22    evidence of burn marks over his body.  Prcac was in control over Omarska

23    camp at that time and is responsible for the torture of Duratovic.

24            Journalist Slavko Djukanovic, working allegedly for the Military

25    Press, told this Chamber he was granted entry into Omarska and took still


Page 12455

 1    photos.  This was under Prcac's time, under his watch.  Control of the

 2    journalists and the access a journalist would have is a command function,

 3    particularly in the circumstances of Omarska, where if the Chamber looks

 4    back to the order issued by Simo Drljaca of May 31, there is a specific

 5    reference to not allowing any information about the camp to get out.  I

 6    won't -- I don't have the exact phrasing but it is there, and I invite the

 7    Chamber to please look at that carefully.  Access to journalists, the

 8    granting of such access was a command function.

 9            Prcac said that he was aware that Sefik Terzic, a detainee, was

10    beaten a lot.  Prcac was aware of the atrocities that were taking place

11    around him and he did nothing.  Prcac saw dead bodies rotting on his first

12    official day in Omarska.  He did nothing about them, nothing.

13            Prcac heard from the guards that women at Omarska had been

14    complaining about being sexually assaulted.  He was on notice from the

15    conversations with the guards, and I turn the Chamber's attention of page

16    147 and 148 of the record of interview, that there were problems

17    experienced by the women in Omarska.  Nothing was done by him.

18            Prcac's denial of competency to address problems is not

19    determinative.  Denial would be expected coming from a person in his

20    position at this point.  It is nothing more than a refusal to act.  The

21    authority was there.  The refusal to use it was what the Chamber should

22    focus on.

23            I have concluded my comments about the accused.  It has gone more

24    quickly than I anticipated and I can address some aspects of sentencing if

25    the Chamber would like at this time.  I had planned, thinking it might


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Page 12457

 1    take a bit longer, to do this tomorrow.  I am in the Chamber's hands with

 2    this.  I tried to time it.  Perhaps I spoke without interruption and that

 3    is what enabled me to do that.

 4            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] If you are inclined to do so, we

 5    may continue, Ms. Susan Somers.

 6            MS. SOMERS:  If I could just have one moment, thank you.

 7            Jurisprudence of the Tribunal clearly establish that deterrence

 8    and retribution are among the primary sentencing principles applicable to

 9    persons convicted by the Tribunal.  The Tribunal has long recognised the

10    importance of deterrence in discharging the functions.  It is not

11    vengeance, it is deterrence.  It is seen as an expression of the

12    condemnation, the outrage of the International Community, the world at

13    large at the crimes committed and at the International Community's refusal

14    to tolerate the serious of international humanitarian law and human

15    rights.

16            It is not something -- it is not to be considered that an

17    individual, perhaps, in the former Yugoslavia might say, "Well, I never

18    anticipated being subject to these types of crimes."  These crimes are not

19    specific to a territory.  They are crimes against humanity.  They apply to

20    mankind as a whole.  By agreement among civilised nations, they have been

21    rendered the subject of conventions and have been incorporated into our

22    jurisprudence.  Factors such as duress, none of which are present, could

23    be considered but they are totally inapplicable in this case.  There has

24    been no credible evidence of duress on the part of any of these accused.

25            The consideration of the law of the former Yugoslavia is within


Page 12458

 1    the discretion of the Chamber, and we suggest that it is not governing in

 2    any way.  What was interesting was a comment by Dr. Lakcevic.  It was

 3    Dr. Lakcevic, the expert, brought in by Prcac, in response to Judge Wald's

 4    question about whether or not crimes such as common criminal enterprise or

 5    the type of common purpose plan, criminal responsibility, predominated in

 6    the former Yugoslavia.  He answered it did.

 7            Short of that, very little enlightenment was provided by any of

 8    the experts as to sentencing practices, particularly as nothing

 9    illuminating or of any value was provided by Beatovic.  Former Yugoslav

10    law does penalise crimes against humanity, and perhaps that should be

11    another aspect of the usefulness of the inquiry.

12            The most important consideration would be, perhaps, the gravity of

13    the offence.  The Chamber has heard over the past year and a half

14    testimony that, I am sure, has given all members of the bench, some

15    sleepless nights.  The type of atrocities that were worked on the people

16    of Omarska, Keraterm, Trnopolje, are often rejected by one's own mind as

17    going beyond that which the imagination can tolerate yet these people

18    lived through it, and those who lived through it had the courage to come

19    and tell this Court about it.

20            The scale of the crimes must also be factored in.  The sheer

21    numbers over a long period of time indicate the seriousness which

22    completion of this criminal plan was undertaken.  Indeed, it was only by

23    the accidental investigation of journalists that this horror machine came

24    to an end.

25            The degrees, the efforts made to hide evidence of the crime, to


Page 12459

 1    drop bodies in a cave, to move bodies from place to place, to not give

 2    loved ones the benefit of knowing if detainees, their loved ones, were

 3    alive or dead.  These are all factors that should be looked at as factors

 4    that came out in the evidence of this case.  The systematic approach to

 5    the killing, to the torture, to the deprivation, should also be

 6    considered.

 7            This particular case, perhaps unlike others, shows the commitment

 8    of all of these individuals, all of them, no exceptions, to seeing Omarska

 9    function and Keraterm where applicable.  There are absolutely no

10    mitigating factors as to any one of these five individuals, not one

11    mitigating factor that you could take into consideration.  Not the age of

12    Prcac who, despite his age at the time of the events, lent full

13    encouragement and participation to the scheme.  Not the finger of Zigic,

14    it makes no difference.  Not the Muslim wife of Kvocka.  It makes no

15    difference.  The law doesn't recognise any type of mitigation as a result

16    of this type of "Some of my best friends are," "I'm married to,"

17    irrelevant.

18            The Chamber has heard the forms and degrees of participation of

19    the accused and have seen that where there was a callous or perhaps

20    calculated failure to punish or react or intervene, this is appropriate to

21    consider also.  There has been no expression, no expression of remorse by

22    any one of the five people sitting there, not in interviews, not in

23    Court.

24            The remorse that was expressed was their own inconveniences to

25    have to put up with the noise of typing that so disturbed Mr. Radic.  To


Page 12460

 1    put up with the stench that so disturbed Mr. Prcac.  The inconvenience to

 2    them, not one shred of mercy to the victims.

 3            Looking at aggravating circumstances of which there are a few, at

 4    least, the continued captivity in which these crimes were committed is,

 5    indeed, an aggravating circumstance.  The numerous repeated acts of

 6    murder, torture, cruel treatment, rape, outrages upon personal dignity,

 7    disgust, were committed not against just ordinary citizens.  This is not a

 8    crime in a domestic setting.  This is crime against detainees rendered

 9    effectively helpless by virtue of their captivity.

10            I ask the Chamber to look to the Kunarac decision on the

11    particular vulnerability of detainees; women, persons weakened.  These

12    were discussed in the cross-examination of Dr. Beatovic who notably failed

13    to include them in his expert report, although he had been directed by the

14    Kunarac Chamber that these were the items of interest.

15            The length of the existence of the camps should also be looked

16    at.  They stretched from late May to the end of August 1992 and if they

17    had not been discovered, they would have continued.  They would have

18    continued until every last person had been disposed of according to plan,

19    and this Chamber has ample evidence of the plans that were set forth for

20    the people there.

21            The willing participation of these individuals must be factored

22    into the aggravation of a crime.  The perverse pleasure taken by Zoran

23    Zigic describing the humiliation of Car, if the Chamber remembers, in the

24    psychiatric report, Dr. Nedopil commented on that.  The perverse of

25    humiliating Car because "he dared to attack us," us, the persecutory


Page 12461

 1    intent, us, the discriminatory intent.

 2            Kvocka indicated in his interview days before his arrest that he

 3    would probably do it all over again if he needed to.  No remorse.  No

 4    regret.  No consideration of the implications on the destroyed lives of

 5    the thousands of people who were detained in Omarska, some of whom will

 6    never, never find any form of normalcy again.

 7            The discrimination, the actual elements of discrimination and

 8    racism that were evidenced in course of these crimes were also an

 9    aggravating factor.  The comment to Slavko Ecimovic, the young Croat, who

10    was a resistance fighter to the events in the new order of Serb Prijedor.

11    He was told -- it is said that he was addressed as, "Look at Tudjman's

12    fighter.  Look at him, well, because you'll end up like him."

13            This is attributed to Kvocka.  Kos scolded Jokic for having been

14    decent to the prisoners.  "They'll slit your throat.  They'll slit your

15    throat."  Zigic is frequently quoted as using derogatory language such as

16    "balija" and other types of phrases that are derogatory towards Muslims.

17            These should all be added into the equation when considering

18    sentence.  The repetitiveness of the crimes, the extortion of money on two

19    successive occasions by Prcac as to Kugic.  Radic's sexual misconduct of

20    the grossest nature; sexual crimes, misconduct is really too mild a term.

21    Zigic's extortion of money from different victims at different times.  The

22    beating of the victims.  This type of premeditation would aggravate the

23    culpability.  Zigic told Ervin Ramic at Keraterm that he was going to

24    Omarska to kill prominent Muslims.

25            The vengefulness of which these crimes were carried out.  These


Page 12462

 1    must be factored in as well should a Serb soldier or officer be killed,

 2    the detainees would pay for it.  There is evidence of retaliation taken

 3    out against detainees.  Not one of these accused cooperated with the

 4    Office of the Prosecutor, any type of substantial cooperation.  They had

 5    to be hunted down.

 6            It would be worthy for the Chamber to read in the interview that

 7    we have referred to on several occasions of Kvocka his attitude about

 8    surrender.  What is perhaps most cynical is his comment that, "An arrest

 9    should not take place before proving the charges."  And I believe one of

10    the interviewers said, "Well, isn't that what happened in Omarska?"

11            Turning to the sentences that the Prosecution is -- just before

12    that, let me -- looking -- encapsulating what I have just said, the

13    extreme gravity and the aggravating circumstances demand the harshest

14    penalties possible and that's to each and every one of these individuals.

15            The Prosecution is recommending and requests a sentence of 35

16    years for Miroslav Kvocka.  The Prosecution requests and recommends a

17    sentence of 35 years against Dragoljub Prcac.  The Prosecution requests

18    and recommends a sentence of 25 years against Milojica Kos.  The

19    Prosecution requests and recommends a sentence of imprisonment for the

20    rest of his natural life against Mladjo Radic.  The Prosecution requests

21    and recommends a sentence of imprisonment for the rest of his natural life

22    against Zoran Zigic.

23            I conclude my opening -- I'm sorry, my closing arguments, and I

24    ask that if the Chamber would grant me the ability to respond to questions

25    tomorrow, I would be very grateful unless there was a -- I don't know


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Page 12464

 1    whether the Chamber immediately follows but if it's not too difficult to

 2    request.

 3            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] Thank you very much, Ms. Susan

 4    Somers.  We will ask our questions after all the statements, both on the

 5    part of the Prosecution and the Defence.

 6            MS. SOMERS:  Thank you, Your Honour.

 7            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] So I think that there's no

 8    point, in my opinion, to start the Kvocka Defence today.  Do you agree,

 9    Mr. Krstan Simic?

10            MR. K. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour.  Surely we need a

11    little time to analyse what we have just heard.

12            JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Interpretation] So I think we are going to make

13    faster progress than we thought.  You are aware of the order in which we

14    will proceed and we have already said that each party will have two hours,

15    50 minutes, and it is quite clear that if one party doesn't take up all

16    its time, we will proceed to the next defendant.

17            So tomorrow at 9.20 we will begin with the closing statement of

18    the Kvocka Defence.  So the hearing is adjourned until tomorrow.

19                          --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.30 p.m.,

20                          to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 17th day of August,

21                          2001 at 9.20 a.m.

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