Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 44323

 1                           Monday, 5 December 2016

 2                           [Prosecution Closing Arguments]

 3                           [Open session]

 4                           [The accused entered court]

 5                           --- Upon commencing at 9.36 a.m.

 6             JUDGE ORIE:  Good morning to everyone in and around this

 7     courtroom.

 8             Mr. Registrar, would you please call the case.

 9             THE REGISTRAR:  Thank you.  And good morning, Your Honours.  This

10     is case IT-09-92-T, the Prosecutor versus Ratko Mladic.

11             JUDGE ORIE:  Thank you, Mr. Registrar.

12             Could I have the appearances.  Prosecution first.

13             MR. TIEGER:  Good morning, Mr. President, Your Honours.

14     Alan Tieger, Peter McCloskey, Arthur Traldi, and Adam Weber, with

15     Case Manager Janet Stewart appearing for the Prosecution.

16             JUDGE ORIE:  Thank you, Mr. Tieger.

17             Mr. Lukic, appearances for the Defence.

18             MR. LUKIC:  Good morning, Your Honours.  Branko Lukic,

19     Miodrag Stojanovic, Dan Ivetic, Jason Alarid, Radovan Djurdjevic, and

20     legal assistants, Kristina O'Young and Laura Brincus and

21     Alessia Gaultieri.  Sorry.

22             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, it's not only know your Judges; it's also know

23     your league team, Mr. Lukic.  Thank you for that.

24             We're here today to hear the final arguments of the parties.  The

25     Chamber, however, was informed that there was a preliminary matter to be


Page 44324

 1     raised by the Defence.

 2             MR. IVETIC:  Yes, Your Honours.  We just wanted to bring to your

 3     attention, since filing hasn't gone through the e-court -- the electronic

 4     web mail system, but we did send a courtesy copy on Friday; and I believe

 5     the Prosecution has sent a courtesy copy of that response to that filing

 6     from Friday, that's our renewed urgent motion for stay of proceedings

 7     pending the one appeal, interlocutory appeal, that is still pending and

 8     it's based on Your Honours' 21 October 2016 decision on our first motion

 9     for stay of proceedings which said that:

10             "No irreversible consequence for the trial or prejudice to the

11     accused would result that could not be remedied by an opportunity to

12     supplement the final brief or" --

13             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Ivetic.

14             MR. IVETIC:  Yeah.

15             JUDGE ORIE:  Are you reading now?  I think -- it sounds familiar

16     to me.  Is that what you're reading is the content of your motion?

17             MR. IVETIC:  Actually, I'm reading the content of your order,

18     which is recited in our motion, yeah.

19             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, yes, that's what I thought.  So the motion --

20     we indeed received a courtesy copy.  We also received a courtesy copy of

21     the response the Prosecution intended to file.  We do understand that

22     today at 9.16 the motion was formally filed.  The Chamber also received

23     information -- Mr. Registrar, I hope you can confirm that meanwhile the

24     Prosecution response is officially filed now as well.

25                           [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]


Page 44325

 1             JUDGE ORIE:  I can be not as precise as with the 9.16, but it was

 2     a couple of minutes ago; that's the Chamber's understanding.

 3             So that's where we stand.  We have received courtesy copies.  We

 4     have received information that the motion and the response have been

 5     filed.

 6             Could the parties confirm - and otherwise I would have to check

 7     it now right away - but that the motion as sent to us as a courtesy copy

 8     is identical to the one which was filed at 9.16.

 9             Mr. Ivetic.

10             MR. IVETIC:  It should be since I forwarded the same PDF file, so

11     --

12             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes.  So there was no intention in any way to divert

13     from what you sent us or what you sent to the Registry and we then later

14     received as your courtesy copy?

15             MR. IVETIC:  That's correct.

16             JUDGE ORIE:  Same question to the Prosecution.

17             MR. TIEGER:  Also confirmed, Mr. President.

18             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes.  Then, under those circumstances ...

19                           [Trial Chamber confers]

20             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, there was a need to verify this because the

21     Chamber - having received the courtesy copies and expecting that

22     identical motion and the response would be filed - has deliberated on the

23     basis of the courtesy copies, which now turns out to be the motion and

24     the response.

25             Therefore, we can proceed on this matter, and the Chamber will


Page 44326

 1     now issue its decision on the motion.  The motion for -- the urgent

 2     motion, renewed urgent Defence motion for the stay of the proceedings is

 3     denied, reasons to follow, which means that we'll now proceed to hear the

 4     final argument of the parties.

 5             Prosecution first.  Mr. Tieger.

 6             MR. TIEGER:  Mr. President, Your Honours.

 7             In 1993, after his forces had radically altered the demographic

 8     picture in the portions of Bosnia claimed by the Bosnian Serbs,

 9     Ratko Mladic took credit for what had been done under his command and for

10     the positive situation in which Bosnian Serb negotiators now found

11     themselves.

12             "Mr. President, you have started from the most favourable

13     starting position in Geneva.  You had the military result in your hands."

14             P2508, pages 32 through 33, and may the Court Officer be

15     instructed, please, to show the Sanction presentation on the large

16     screens.

17             That military result, Your Honours, was the realisation of a

18     strategy to create a factual situation that could not be reversed, a

19     reconfiguration of Bosnian demographics that the international

20     community - as well as Muslims and Croats - would have to accept as

21     permanent.

22             It didn't happen secretly, as Karadzic quoted a Bosnian Serb

23     War Commissioner:

24             "We are skinning the cat alive before the whole world."

25             P4584, pages 13 and 15.


Page 44327

 1             As the entire world was able to see, what had happened in

 2     municipality after municipality was not an unintended effect of the

 3     military campaign but its very purpose.  UN Special Rapporteur Mazowiecki

 4     reported in August 1992:

 5             "Ethnic cleansing does not appear to be the consequence of the

 6     war, but rather its goal.  This goal, to a large extent, has already been

 7     achieved through killings, beatings, rape, destruction of houses and

 8     threats."

 9             It's P2813, paragraph 6.

10             By the time that the Special Rapporteur made these observations,

11     General Mladic's VRS controlled approximately 70 per cent of the

12     territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina.  You can find that at P4581, pages 38,

13     48, and 55.

14             By the summer of 1992, they had enough to be thinking about

15     cease-fires and freezing their already advantageous positions.  P3113,

16     pages 1, 3, and 5.

17             Offers of cease-fire, however, did not mean that their

18     territorial objectives had been fully satisfied, as reflected, for

19     example, in General Mladic's November 1992 Directive 4, which orders the

20     VRS to pursue an as-yet unfulfilled Strategic Objective, number 3, by

21     forcing the enemy "with the Muslim population" to leave Birac, Zepa, and

22     Gorazde areas.  It's P2217, page 5.

23             Those Eastern Bosnia operations continued, in Karadzic's words

24     "packing Muslims in small areas."  P4584, page 13, and culminated -

25     temporarily at any rate - when the international community prevented


Page 44328

 1     their take-over of Srebrenica and established safe areas.  As

 2     General Mladic said:

 3             "If the international community had not meddled, they," meaning

 4     the Muslims, "would have paid the price for everything they had done up

 5     to then to the Serb people."

 6             P1973, page 5.

 7             Despite this setback, the focus on Srebrenica and the remaining

 8     enclaves persisted.  As General Mladic communicated to the Drina Corps in

 9     1994, which was captured in an information report to the Bratunac Brigade

10     and this is from the report:

11             "We must attain our final goal, an entirely Serbian Podrinje,"

12     and that report continued, "we must continue to arm, train, discipline,

13     and prepare the RS Army for the execution of this crucial task:  The

14     expulsion of Muslims from the Srebrenica enclave."

15             That's P1505, page 3, also found at the transcript 111786 through

16     90.

17             As General Mladic explained in 1994 to the Bosnian Serb Assembly,

18     the Bosnian Serbs had a historical opportunity to create "not any kind of

19     state, but an all-Serbian state ... with ... as little enemies as

20     possible, those who could be our potential enemies and raise against us

21     in a few years ..."

22             His concern, he told the Assembly was not that Muslims might

23     create a state.  His concern "is to have them vanish completely."

24     P3076, pages 18 through 20.

25             By March 1995, General Mladic and Radovan Karadzic re-intensified


Page 44329

 1     their focus on Srebrenica, issuing a directive to create conditions to

 2     make the lives of Srebrenica's inhabitants "unbearable."  That's

 3     Directive 7.

 4             By July 2nd a combat operation in furtherance of Directive 7 was

 5     underway.  On the 9th of July, General Mladic and Karadzic realised they

 6     could take the enclave itself and changed the operations to do so.  On

 7     the 11th of July, General Mladic walked into Srebrenica and vowed that

 8     the time had come to take revenge on the Turks.  That's P1147, page 11.

 9             Within a short time, over 7.000 Srebrenica men and boys, boys as

10     young as 12, had been systematically murdered and all of the remaining

11     inhabitants of Srebrenica expelled.  The Srebrenica community had been

12     destroyed, had "vanished."

13             Meanwhile, Bosnia's capital had been held under what

14     General Mladic called "our hammer."  P431, page 35.

15             Its civilian population subjected to a campaign of shelling and

16     sniping that was increased to place pressure on or retaliate against the

17     Muslim side or, conversely, reduced in response to pressures from the

18     international community.  Internationals who arrived at different points

19     in the conflict came to the same conclusion, that the primary purpose of

20     the shelling and sniping was to induce terror in the civilian population.

21     The campaign was so pervasive and enduring that life itself in Sarajevo,

22     including even the behaviour of children, painfully adapted to it.  The

23     effort to produce terror through shelling and sniping was also buttressed

24     by the simultaneous pressure of restrictions on humanitarian aid and

25     basic means of life:  Water, heating, electricity.


Page 44330

 1             These massive criminal efforts - municipalities, Sarajevo,

 2     Srebrenica - along with the taking of UN personnel as hostages in

 3     May 1995 in order to prevent NATO air-strikes, these efforts are

 4     reflected in four separate but related JCEs charged in the indictment,

 5     all distinct, although each broadly in service of the same goal of

 6     achieving a Serbian state on vast territories within Bosnia-Herzegovina

 7     with as few historical enemies as possible.

 8             Your Honours, by way of presentation I will be discussing with

 9     you aspects of the overarching JCE in the context of addressing claims

10     made in the Defence final trial brief.  Mr. Traldi will then address

11     General Mladic's implementation of the common purpose, the overarching

12     common purpose.  I will then return to speak about Count 1, genocide, in

13     the municipalities, specifically focussing as we did on our brief on the

14     municipality of Prijedor.  Mr. Weber will then address the Sarajevo, the

15     terror JCE; followed by Mr. McCloskey on the elimination JCE in

16     Srebrenica in July 1995, the execution of over 7.000 men and boys and the

17     forceable transfer of the women, children, and elderly.

18             Finally, Your Honours, I will address you on sentencing.

19             More specifically with respect to my remarks this morning, I will

20     be addressing claims in the Defence brief related to the overarching JCE,

21     claims that the common purpose or General Mladic's contributions to it

22     are belied by such things as local autonomy in the municipalities, or no

23     plans by the leadership, or the alleged fact that those who left were

24     welcome to come back, or by General Mladic's alleged lack of control over

25     the VRS or his benevolent view of non-Serbs.  As I will discuss, these


Page 44331

 1     claims are false.  Indeed, when their basis is more closely examined, the

 2     evidence demonstrates the existence of the common purpose and

 3     General Mladic's many contributions to it.

 4             So I begin with some of the more extraordinary claims in the

 5     Defence's final brief.  Faced with a massive trial record revealing the

 6     enormity of his crimes, crimes that he committed by using his authority

 7     to control the entire army, the Defence attempts to transform

 8     General Mladic into a benign but ineffectual officer, determined to

 9     protect Muslims against people like Karadzic, but unfortunately only a

10     marginalised secondary figure, less important than the corps commanders.

11     The fundamental principle that a general can delegate authority but not

12     responsibility is turned on its head, as General Mladic now tries to pass

13     off his responsibility for what he once bragged about by blaming his

14     superior and his subordinates in an effort to exculpate himself.

15             The Defence claims that command and control principles in the VRS

16     meant that General Mladic could issue general instructions but was

17     thereafter relegated to an advisory role because "exclusive" [Realtime

18     transcript read in error "conclusive"] command was assumed by the corps

19     commanders, whom they want you to believe were the most powerful and

20     important people in the VRS.  That's paragraphs 643 through 644 of the

21     Defence brief.

22             JUDGE ORIE:  Can I just check with you.  The draft, at least the

23     draft, reads "conclusive."  Did I hear you say "exclusive"?

24             MR. TIEGER:  Yes, Your Honour, "exclusive."  Thank you.

25             JUDGE ORIE:  Thank you.


Page 44332

 1             MR. TIEGER:  Thus, according to the Defence, Dragomir Milosevic

 2     and Galic were the ones who really controlled the army in Sarajevo.  In

 3     Srebrenica - although the accused was physically present - command lay in

 4     the hands of Krstic.  Para 644 of the Defence brief.

 5             That claim distorts the operative language by taking it out of

 6     context.  For example, the Defence pretends that the term "exclusive"

 7     command in reference to a corps commander means that no one else can tell

 8     him what to do.  In fact, the term means that within the corps, it is the

 9     commander who is at the top and no one else.  At the same time, however,

10     military doctrine and VRS regulations covering corps commanders recognise

11     the existence of superior command.  Indeed the Defence's conception of

12     command would render the very concept of chain of command - with which

13     have all become familiar during the course of this case - meaningless.

14     It is not only facially preposterous, but it is belied by the extensive

15     evidence you have heard from VRS and international witnesses that the

16     chain of command was the operative principle.  And in that chain, General

17     Mladic carried out, fully carried out, his role as commander, issuing and

18     overseeing the implementation of his orders to the corps commanders on a

19     continuing basis.  As General Milovanovic explained to you, the corps

20     commanders would send the Main Staff in their daily reports, their

21     decisions and plans for the following day's activities, which General

22     Mladic would then approve or reject.  That's T1696 through 97.

23             But let's watch just half a minute from the war, 30 seconds which

24     embody what the evidence has repeatedly shown about General Mladic's

25     commanding role and which reflects the very absurdity of casting him as a


Page 44333

 1     secondary and marginal figure, as a mere advisor.

 2             Your Honours, this is the third Hotel Fontana meeting.  The

 3     Chamber will recall General Mladic's domineering presence in each of the

 4     three meetings although one could be excused for forgetting the presence

 5     of other officers in the face of that dominance.  Here, with Krstic

 6     sitting quietly by his side, this clip is a reminder of who was in

 7     charge, of who called the shots.

 8                           [Video-clip played]

 9             MR. TIEGER:  It is General Mladic who makes clear what will

10     happen to "your husbands, your brothers, your neighbours."

11             This is just 30 seconds from a particular event, Your Honours,

12     but it captures what has been proven over and over in intercepts, in

13     written orders, in testimony about General Mladic's commanding presence

14     and commanding role over the army.

15             As you will hear in more detail from subsequent presentations,

16     witnesses from virtually every level of command made clear that in the

17     VRS you follow orders that come from the top and that move down the chain

18     of command and that General Mladic was a superior commander over each of

19     the corps commanders.  And you can find that in the Prosecution final

20     brief at paragraphs 94 through 109, 121 through 152, 253 through 271, 714

21     through 759.

22             One of those witnesses put this reality in simple, concrete

23     terms.  When asked about the principles of unity of command and

24     singleness of command, he said:

25             "There's a pyramid.  On the top of this pyramid is the Supreme


Page 44334

 1     Commander, the Chief of General Staff, and then it goes all the way down

 2     to the level of corporal and private.  Everyone has their own superior

 3     and the superior has the right to issue orders and to supervise the

 4     implementation of those orders and those who are subordinates are in

 5     charge of carrying out those orders."

 6             That's found at T 5018.

 7             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Can we have the name of the person being quoted?

 8             MR. TIEGER:  That's confidential, Mr. President, so I quote it

 9     just by reference.

10             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Thank you.

11             MR. TIEGER:  As Kralj said:

12             "The Army of Republika Srpska operates on the principle of

13     subordination.  And orders of superior officers, especially

14     General Mladic, his orders were strictly adhered to and carried out."

15             That's T27436.  And, as Milovanovic testified, General Mladic, as

16     commander of the Main Staff, had the right to issue orders to anyone in

17     the VRS.  That's T16923.

18             Now, not content with claiming that it is his subordinate

19     officers who are responsible, not him, General Mladic also claims that he

20     was marginalised by Radovan Karadzic, with whom Mladic allegedly

21     disagreed on how to treat Muslims.  Now let's set aside for the moment

22     such evidence as the fact that, as Karadzic put it, he and Mladic "talked

23     about things as brothers" and their aim was to "move together towards the

24     same goal."  Set aside the fact that although Milovanovic heard talk of a

25     conflict between Mladic and Karadzic, "especially after the war," during


Page 44335

 1     the entire course of the war he "never" saw them quarrel.  That's T17107.

 2             But apart from these matters, according to the Defence, the "best

 3     illustration" of Mladic's claim is Directive 7.  The Defence asserts that

 4     Karadzic bypassed General Mladic by sending Directive 7 directly on to

 5     the corps and that when General Mladic found out, he issued a superseding

 6     directive, Directive 7.1, that omitted the illegal order to create "an

 7     unbearable situation of total insecurity," to force Muslim civilians out.

 8     That's found at paragraphs 571 through 72 of the Defence brief.

 9             Directive 7 and 7/1 together, the Defence claims, "shows the

10     disparity" between the criminally minded Karadzic, who wanted to

11     illegally put pressure on the civilian population, and General Mladic who

12     "took it upon himself" not to do that.  That's at paragraphs 572 through

13     573.

14             Now that is an epic story of moral bravery, and it is as false as

15     it is dramatic.  It rests on General Milovanovic's testimony that, A,

16     Karadzic improperly sent Directive 7 directly to the corps, that's T16993

17     and 995; and that General Mladic omitted the illegal order from his

18     directive to protect the civilian population, that's at transcript 16996.

19             What the evidence actually reveals, however - what

20     General Milovanovic was forced to admit when confronted with documents -

21     is that Milovanovic forwarded Directive 7 to all the corps, not just to

22     the 1 KK which he initially was forced to admit, but also to the

23     Drina Corps, the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, the Herzegovina Corps, all of

24     which also belie General Milovanovic's preposterous claim that he saw the

25     directive for the first time long after the war.  That's at transcript


Page 44336

 1     16996 through 99.

 2             As for the claim that the omission of the illegal order to make

 3     life unbearable reflected General Mladic's effort to protect civilians,

 4     that was exposed as false when Milovanovic admitted that details were

 5     omitted from 7/1 because they were "already contained in Directive 7,"

 6     and that, in fact, Directive 7 remained operative.  That's transcript

 7     17126 through 27.  And that is further in confirmed by the fact that in

 8     Directive 7/1 itself, General Mladic twice references Directive 7 as

 9     authority:  On the basis of Directive number 7 -- or "in accordance with

10     Directive number 7."  That's P1470, page 2 and page 4.

11             Beyond that, Directive 7 bears General Mladic's mark, echoing his

12     intentions and indeed his words.  As mentioned, Mladic's July 1994

13     meeting at the corps command was reflected in a Bratunac brigade

14     information report which said:

15             "The enemy's life has to be made unbearable and their temporary

16     stay in the enclave impossible so that they leave the enclave en masse as

17     soon as possible, realising that they cannot survive there."

18             That's P1505, page 3, "unbearable."

19             And on 8 March 1995, the day Karadzic signed Directive 7,

20     General Mladic held a meeting at the Main Staff which was reflected in

21     General Zivanovic's notebooks as "make life impossible."  That's P5274,

22     page 27.  And you can find a detailed discussion at the Prosecution brief

23     at paragraphs 426 through 452.

24             This is just one of many examples, Your Honours, a portion of

25     which you'll hear about over the next few days, of claims made in the


Page 44337

 1     Defence brief that crumble upon scrutiny.

 2             In contrast to the depiction of Karadzic, Mladic is cast as a

 3     beneficent protector of Muslims.  Now, that is grounded on scattered

 4     examples, none of which supports the proposition such as the alleged

 5     protection of Muslim villages at paragraphs 685 through 690 of the

 6     Defence brief; the protection of Bosnian Croat civilians, 696 through

 7     699; or that he issued orders or made pronouncements to protect civilians

 8     and obey international humanitarian law, for example, paragraphs 795

 9     through 796, paragraph 414 of the Defence final brief.

10             These references, however, do not support these assertions which

11     in any event, Your Honours, are belied by the vast volume of evidence

12     demonstrating General Mladic's commitment to the contrary.  For example,

13     Mladic's alleged protection of Bosnian Croat civilians is addressed at

14     paragraph 459 of our brief, and that outlines the evidence demonstrating

15     that this transfer was not altruistic, but arranged in order to advance

16     Bosnia's division, to obtain military advantage for the Bosnian Serbs,

17     for public relations purposes, and indeed for money.

18             Similarly the claim that the Main Staff protected non-Serb

19     villages relies on the testimony of General Sokanovic, that life in

20     Muslim Podzeplje near the Main Staff continued unhindered.  That claim is

21     belied by the evidence that Podzeplje was burned to the ground in

22     August 1992 following threats by Salapura to set on fire all Muslim

23     villages in the area up to the Drina.  That's at P3306, paragraphs 7

24     through 8.  And also found at the Prosecution final brief at

25     paragraph 305.


Page 44338

 1             As for orders to protect civilians and the alleged protection of

 2     Muslim villages -- Muslim and Croat victims, you will hear in subsequent

 3     presentations about the superficially cosmetic nature of General Mladic's

 4     toothless orders to obey international humanitarian law; and also

 5     about the cover-ups, systemic failures to prosecute, promotions and

 6     praise for perpetrators of those crimes - which more accurately reflected

 7     General Mladic's position on crimes against Muslims and Croats which fell

 8     within the common purpose.  For that see Prosecution final brief

 9     paragraphs 490 through 491.  And you will also hear, Your Honours, about

10     how non-Serbs were treated, treated in the municipalities, in Sarajevo

11     and in Srebrenica.  And I will address you a bit later on the claim

12     related to paragraph 414 of the Defence final brief and the 16th Session.

13             More generally, the broad claim that General Mladic was a

14     benefactor and protector of Muslims and Croats whose only ethnic

15     distinctions were made for benevolent purposes simply cannot withstand

16     the totality of the evidence.  One candid moment caught on video of

17     General Mladic on a short trip with a Serbian-Canadian supporter of the

18     RS encapsulates what we have all learned and what the evidence shows

19     about General Mladic's view of Muslims.  Now that clip begins, you may

20     recall, Your Honours, shortly after General Mladic has just explained

21     that:

22             "... whenever I come by Sarajevo, I kill someone in passing ... I

23     go kick the hell out of the Turks.  Who gives a fuck for them?"

24             And now let's watch a short clip from the rest of that video.

25                           [Video-clip played]


Page 44339

 1             MR. TIEGER:  "Look what a house this Turkish motherfucker had."

 2     Showing off destroyed Muslim villages, Mladic exhibits pride and deep

 3     satisfaction at what he and his forces had achieved and nothing but

 4     contempt for the victims.  These attitudes were also reflected in

 5     Mladic's conversation with Van Duijn, during which he crudely mimicked

 6     Muslims and told Van Duijn that the presence of a Nigerian in Van Duijn's

 7     unit was an indication that Mladic would be obliged to come to Holland in

 8     ten years to protect the Dutch from other races and from Muslims.  You

 9     can find that at the Prosecution final brief paragraph 1201.

10             The brazenly false attempt to depict himself as a Muslim

11     benefactor and to blame his superior and his subordinates merely exposes

12     General Mladic's awareness of the criminal nature of the plan to which he

13     once boasted about contributing.  That plan - which was formed before

14     General Mladic was recruited to join - had its roots in events that took

15     place before he returned to his birth republic in 1992, and that

16     background will take us to some of the other Defence claims about the

17     common purpose.

18             In 1990, national elections were held in Bosnia in the wake of

19     Communism's declining hold on political power.  The three nationalist

20     parties were overwhelming winners, essentially corresponding to their

21     demographic ratio in Bosnia.  Elated by the fall of Communism and what

22     they saw as the re-awakening of Serbian consciousness, Bosnian Serb

23     leaders nevertheless were concerned about the increasing risk of

24     Yugoslavia's dissolution and the prospect that Bosnia would become a

25     sovereign and independent nation.  Even before the election, the SDS


Page 44340

 1     leadership expressed its categorical opposition to the possibility of

 2     Bosnia becoming sovereign and independent.  As Karadzic said in an

 3     interview in July 1990:

 4             "The Serbs will not allow to live in some new NDH nor in some

 5     state which is without their matrix, Serbia."

 6             That's P7759, page 6.

 7             In the summer and fall of 1991, the SDS strongly supported JNA

 8     efforts in response to Croatia's independence and meanwhile attempted

 9     unsuccessfully to reach a negotiated solution with Muslims and Croats

10     that would keep Bosnia in Yugoslavia, such as the Belgrade Initiative or

11     the so-called historic agreement.  In the face of the unsuccessful

12     negotiations, however, by September 1991 the SDS had established several

13     Serbian autonomous regions, the purpose of which was to "destroy" the

14     unitary Bosnia and Herzegovina.  That's P7000 page 4 and page 6.

15             When the Bosnian Muslims and Croats approved a memorandum of

16     independence at the controversial 8th Session of the joint parliament on

17     the 14th and 15th of October 1991, the Bosnian Serb leadership - in

18     Karadzic's words to Milosevic - decided to "move on."   As detailed in

19     paragraphs 175 through 190 of the Prosecution brief, they established

20     parallel institutions aimed at the creation of a Bosnian Serb state and

21     organised the means to do so by force, if necessary.  At the republic

22     level, a parallel Bosnian Serb Assembly and a shadow government, the

23     Council of Ministers, were established.  At the municipal level, Karadzic

24     issued instructions - the Variant A and B instructions - for the creation

25     of Bosnian Serb Crisis Staffs that would spear-head the eventual


Page 44341

 1     take-over of the claimed areas.

 2             Karadzic began to emphasise during this period - as he would

 3     continue to do throughout the conflict - that Muslims and Croats were

 4     historical enemies whose inherent incompatibility with Serbs precluded

 5     co-existence.   You find that at paragraphs 161 through 163 of the

 6     Prosecution brief.

 7             "Muslims and Serbs," he claimed, "were like a dog and a cat" or

 8     "plants that cannot grow side by side."  See the Prosecution final brief

 9     footnote 603.  Karadzic stressed the alleged demographic threat resulting

10     from the Muslim birth-rate, his words casting them as an unstoppable

11     demographic threat.

12             "They'll overwhelm you with their birth-rate and tricks."

13             That's P3900, page 36.

14             Thus, even a minority of Muslims were a threat, much less the

15     majority communities in eastern or north-west Bosnia ultimately claimed

16     by the Bosnian Serbs.  As Karadzic would tell the Assembly, explaining

17     why smaller but ethnically pure territories were preferable to

18     controlling all of Bosnia, with the Muslims the "23 per cent would rise

19     to 24 per cent the day after, and the day after that one, it would be

20     25 per cent, because that is how it is with them."

21             P3076, page 23 and 25.

22             At the same time, however, the Bosnian Serb leadership claimed

23     vast territories where Serbs and non-Serbs were intermingled, indeed

24     where non-Serbs were the majority.  Now, they attempted to justify these

25     claims in various ways.  For example, that Serbs were entitled to


Page 44342

 1     territory where they had been a majority before World War II; or that the

 2     plebiscite meant entitlement to any territory where a majority of Serbs -

 3     no matter how small a percentage of the actual population - had voted to

 4     stay in Yugoslavia; or justified simply on the basis that the area was

 5     deemed strategically significant to the Bosnian Serbs.  You'll find that

 6     at paragraphs 1644 through 66.

 7             As Karadzic reminisced in 1995:

 8             "To tell the truth, there are towns that we've grabbed for

 9     ourselves and there were only 30 per cent of us.  I can name as many of

10     those as you want, but we cannot give up the towns where we made up

11     70 per cent.   Don't let this get around, but remember how many of us

12     there were in Bratunac, how many in Srebrenica, how many in Visegrad, how

13     many in Rogatica, how many in Vlasenica, in Zvornik, et cetera.  Due to

14     strategic importance, they had to become ours and no one is practically

15     questioning it anymore."

16             That's P4584, pages 17 through 18.

17             As one witness observed, these undesired people on desired

18     territory weren't going to disappear by magic.  And separating them "is

19     what ethnic cleansing was designed to do."  That's P3103, transcript

20     4205.

21             By late March 1992, as Bosnian independence loomed, Karadzic

22     advised his officials that they could be confident that the number of

23     Bosnian Serb police was sufficient and that soon the Bosnian Serbs would

24     "literally assume control of the entire territory" of their

25     municipalities, citing Zvornik as one example.  That's P406, page 22.


Page 44343

 1             The take-over the Bijeljina a week later signalled the

 2     commencement of that process, sometimes accompanied by attacks on

 3     non-Serb villages and forcible removal of non-Serbs, sometimes by more

 4     slowly escalating forms of persecution.  Serb authorities, including

 5     Slobodan Milosevic, helped implement the beginnings of the ethnic

 6     cleansing campaign through the JNA and the "strong support" the Bosnian

 7     Serbs had received from the DB, from State Security.  That's P353, page

 8     133.  This included the deployment of Arkan's Men to Bijeljina and

 9     Zvornik.  As Bell reported contemporaneously, Serb forces, including

10     Arkan's Men, were "redrawing" the "ethnic map of Bosnia."  That's P1874

11     and P832, page [sic] 24.

12             Thus, by the time that General Mladic assumed command of the

13     newly formed Army of Republika Srpska, the process of removing Muslims

14     and Croats through a variety of crimes was under way, as he was duly

15     informed.  That's paragraphs 200 through 203.

16             Indeed, by 12 May - when he was formally appointed Chief of the

17     Main Staff - the nature of the cleansing campaign was obvious to the

18     world.  As the UN Secretary-General reported that day:

19             "All international observers agree that what is happening is a

20     concerted effort by the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the

21     acquiescence of and at least some support from the JNA, to create

22     ethnically pure regions ... the techniques used are the seizure of

23     territory by military force and intimidation of the non-Serb population."

24             That's at P2814, paragraph 5.

25             And when we return from our break, Your Honours, I would like to


Page 44344

 1     pick up on some of the Defence claims in respect of this evidence.

 2             JUDGE ORIE:  Thank you, Mr. Tieger.  We'll take a break.  We

 3     return at ten minutes to 11.00.

 4                           --- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.

 5                           --- On resuming at 10.52 a.m.

 6             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Tieger, you may proceed.

 7             MR. TIEGER:  Thank you, Mr. President.

 8             Before we recessed, I had addressed some of the backdrop and

 9     development ...

10             JUDGE ORIE:  I wasn't --

11             MR. IVETIC:  Your Honours, I've been told the B/C/S channel is

12     not coming through.  I noted my own headset needed to be reset after

13     coming in from the break.  I don't know if that's the issue.

14             JUDGE ORIE:  I don't know what Mr. Ivetic says because his voice,

15     as mine, apparently is not reaching ... I still ...

16             JUDGE FLUEGGE:  Mr. Ivetic, can you say something again?

17             MR. IVETIC:  Can you hear me?

18             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, I now can hear you.  Can you hear me meanwhile?

19             MR. TIEGER:  Yes, Mr. President, I can.

20             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, then all the technical problems apparently have

21     been resolved.  Mr. Mladic receives interpretation.  Then we'll re-start

22     and I'll repeat my first words.

23             Mr. Tieger, you may proceed.

24             MR. TIEGER:  Thank you.

25             As I mentioned before we recessed, I had addressed some of the


Page 44345

 1     backdrop and development of the joint criminal enterprise which

 2     General Mladic joined in May of 1992.  Now, in its brief, the Defence

 3     picks unsuccessfully at various aspects of this reality.  And a closer

 4     examination of those claims will reveal - rather than disprove - the

 5     existence of the common purpose, and I'd like to take some of those at

 6     this point.

 7             The Defence argues, for example, that there is no evidence that

 8     anyone from the republic level "enforced" Variant A and B or monitored

 9     compliance with it.  That's found at paragraph 462 of the Defence brief.

10             Contrary to that claim, however, immediately after Variant A and

11     B was issued, Karadzic assigned an emissary - Cizmovic - to "visit all

12     our municipalities" to implement the Variant A and B papers that had just

13     been issued.  That's P4112, pages 2 and 3; and P2672, pages 3 through 4.

14             And accordingly, on the 16th of January 1992, Cizmovic advised

15     Karadzic that Bijeljina was "prepared for full co-operation with the

16     instructions."  That's P4115.  And on the 22nd of January from a Krajina

17     municipality, Cizmovic advised that things were "working," that a

18     Crisis Staff would be created that night because "the objective must be

19     carried out, instructions must be carried out."  And that Cizmovic would

20     be seeing about Birac, Romanija, and Herzegovina in due course.  P6971,

21     page 7.

22             At the Assembly session on the 26th of January, 1992, Cizmovic

23     called for the Variant A and B instructions to be carried out.  That's

24     P379, page 12.  And on the 14th of February, Karadzic activated the

25     second level of Variant A and B, telling a large extended group of his


Page 44346

 1     officials to introduce the "second level" and to intensify the

 2     functioning of the government at any cost and on every single millimetre

 3     of our territory."  That's P3774, page 24.

 4             As Karadzic reminisced in 1995:

 5             "At the moment the war began, in the municipalities where we were

 6     the majority, we had municipal power, held it firmly, controlled

 7     everything.  In the municipalities where we were in the minority, we set

 8     up secret government, Municipal Boards, Municipal Assemblies, presidents

 9     of Executive Boards.  You will remember the A and B Variants."

10             That's P4583, page 323.

11             So - contrary to the Defence claim - there is not only some

12     evidence but overwhelming evidence that Variant A and B was part of the

13     plan.  This is another of the many examples of assertions in the Defence

14     final brief that are ostensibly demonstrated by evidence that does not,

15     in fact, support the claim, or grounded on an assertion by a witness who

16     revealed his lack of credibility or reliability, or indeed by a witness

17     who recanted the point on cross-examination, or claims that are simply

18     contradicted by the totality of the evidence.

19             Now by way of another example, let's take Prijedor Crisis Staff

20     member Mandic.  Now, he's the Defence witness whose statement is cited

21     more times than any other in relation to the overarching JCE, 42 times,

22     and his statement is the sole support, for example, for propositions such

23     as the Muslims in Hambarine put up a "strong resistance."  That's at

24     paragraph 930, footnote 2085 of the Defence brief.  Or that people were

25     released from Omarska when evidence showed that they had not broken the


Page 44347

 1     law.  That's at paragraph 960, footnote 2158 of the Defence brief.

 2             Those assertions ignore the witness's acknowledgment in

 3     cross-examination that he no basis to make those claims, in fact, had

 4     contrary information; and you can find that at T28902 and 28909 through

 5     910.

 6             And beyond those specific examples, this witness attested, under

 7     oath, to the accuracy of portions of his statement that he had recanted

 8     or qualified when he testified in Karadzic, under oath, prompting the

 9     Chamber to ask him to consider his attestation over a break.  That's

10     T28916 through 27.  And beyond all that are the multiple contradictions

11     that emerge when his claims are weighed against the totality of the

12     evidence in this case.

13             More generally, Your Honours, section 8 of the Prosecution final

14     brief, beginning at page 689, discusses in detail witness credibility and

15     evaluation of evidence.  Over the course of the following days, we will

16     continue to look beneath many of the Defence claims, exposing similar

17     examples of assertions that are contradicted by a closer look of the

18     evidence ostensibly supporting them and by the totality of evidence

19     related to that point.

20             But returning now to some of those claims in relation to the

21     overarching JCE, the Defence also claims that the Crisis Staffs, led by

22     local personalities who were allegedly focussed on only local interests,

23     had "tremendous autonomy."  That's found at paragraph 464 of the Defence

24     brief.  Now, this claim, too, unravels on examination.  The claim that

25     Crisis Staffs were autonomous is based on the testimony of Trifka Komad,


Page 44348

 1     a witness who told you under oath that Serbian -- that SAO did not mean

 2     Serbian Autonomous Regions, but claimed instead that the "S" stood for

 3     "independent."  And he claimed that the Serb and non-Serb ballots for the

 4     November 1991 plebiscite had the same wording and that the differing

 5     colours were merely the result of a technical issue.  Propositions so

 6     manifestly untrue that the Defence stipulated that - contrary to what he

 7     had said - it was Serbian Autonomous Regions and withdrew reliance on his

 8     testimony about the plebiscite ballot.  That's found at transcript 28131

 9     through 33.

10             The examples of municipalities where the allegedly outsized

11     personalities and narrow focus of local leaders supposedly distanced them

12     from any republic-level plan are Rasula from Sanski Most and Stanic from

13     Foca.  Yet, in Sanski Most the Crisis Staff assigned its deputy president

14     to be responsible for implementing "the ideas of the SDS leadership at

15     the level of the republic, region, and municipality."

16             That's P404, page 1.

17             And in Foca, Crisis Staff President Stanic was forthright that:

18             "We, the Serbs living to the west of the Drina river, know very

19     well that our leaders are Dr. Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic."

20             That's P7753.

21             And Stanic's Crisis Staff informed Karadzic shortly before the

22     conflict that:

23             "We are ready to carry out any order you order."

24             P3957.

25             Once again, tug at the citation and it unravels, revealing a


Page 44349

 1     reality - instead - consistent with the Prosecution case.

 2             Now, the Defence also asserts that "some" Crisis Staffs displayed

 3     concern for how non-Serbs were treated, citing as two of its primary

 4     examples Sanski Most and the ARK Crisis Staff.  That's at Defence brief

 5     paragraphs 450 through 451.

 6             Sanski Most.  That's where the SDS newspaper the "Informator"

 7     informed Serbs that in pursuit of the "goal of creating a Serbian state,"

 8     the SDS had organised and prepared Serbs for the "Bitter battle with the

 9     other two peoples, the Muslims if indeed are a people (they are not) and

10     the Croats, who have forever carried in their genes a sick, a

11     pathological desire and urge to kill those better, more honest and - do

12     we need to say this? - stronger than they are."

13             And the "Informator" continued that Serbs had finally abandoned

14     the mistaken view that those people were anything other than

15     "bloodthirsty villains who have never stopped in their religiously

16     inspired drive to go for the blood of Serbhood."

17             That's P705, page 6.

18             Sanski Most, where the Crisis Staff concluded that captured

19     civilians were to be used for exchange and where the VRS brutally

20     cleansed Muslim villages in pretextual disarming operations after threats

21     were issued to non-Serbs to "destroy and devastate your villages."

22             That's P3302, page 7.

23             Another prime example of alleged concern for Muslims by

24     Crisis Staff was the ARK Crisis Staff which was headed by - indeed

25     personified by - Radislav Brdjanin, whose philosophy was, as we learned,


Page 44350

 1     obedience to Karadzic above him and obedience from those beneath him in

 2     the hierarchy.  That's P6997 and transcript T29759.  Radislav Brdjanin,

 3     who relayed the orders from Karadzic to form the ARK Crisis Staff.

 4   That's T33986 through 87.  And whose shared goals with Karadzic brought him

 5     to that position.  P7757, page 7, and T34040 through 41.

 6             This leader whose "horns," as one witness put it, could have been

 7     "shortened" by Karadzic at any time.  That's P6994, page 11; and T29785

 8     through 86.  This leader repeatedly called for Muslims to leave

 9     Banja Luka, stating that only a small percentage of Muslims could remain.

10     That's P3989, pages 1 through 2; and P6994, page 8.

11             Told a huge rally on the same podium with Karadzic that it was

12     the obligation of Serbs to wipe their feet from the "foul non-Christians"

13     befouling their soil.  Page 6976, page 2.

14             And who praised Omarska as "a job well done."  P3959.

15             Scratch the surface and the evidence exposes as false the

16     suggestion that the ARK Crisis Staff was a kindly force, whose benevolent

17     view of Muslims contradicts the common purpose.

18             Now this failed attempt to depict Crisis Staffs as belying the

19     common purpose is echoed by Defence efforts to suggest that other organs

20     similarly reflected an absence of indications of the common purpose.

21     Thus, in their discussion of the Bosnian Serb Assembly, the Defence cites

22     the testimony of one of the Assembly's former members that he was not

23     aware of a common plan to permanently remove other ethnicities.  That's

24     at paragraph 348 of the Defence brief.

25             Now, that former member, Dodik, denied indeed that he had ever


Page 44351

 1     heard at Assembly sessions any indications, any hints of an intention, of

 2     a goal, or a process of moving or expelling Muslims.  That's at T42299.

 3     That denial, however, did not square with the reality of what was said at

 4     various Assembly sessions.  For example, the president of the SDS

 5     Executive Board and the co-ordinator of the Birac SAO, Rajko Dukic,

 6     talking about Eastern Bosnia in July 1992 said:

 7             "If we move further, there is Birac which is 100 to 108

 8     kilometres away and has 120.000 Muslims.  That is how many there were,

 9     but I hope that has at least been halved."

10             P4581, page 73; see also P7082 and P7081, page 3, item number 4.

11             Or these remarks at an Assembly session expressing concern that

12     the language of a proposed law on citizenship suggests that:

13             "The citizenship of Republika Srpska shall be acquired, among

14     other things, by birth in the territory of Republika Srpska.  This refers

15     to all the Muslims and Croats we expelled; in reality they are citizens

16     of Republika Srpska."

17             That's P7196, page 10.  And by the way, Your Honours, the bill

18     was sent back for "improvement."  And that's at P7196, page 11.

19             Or this forthright acknowledgment of the goal of ethnic

20     homogeneity and the resulting need for relocation:

21             "Gentlemen, there is no Serbian state in Bosnian pot without

22     gradual depopulation and relocating.  If we want ethnically pure Serbian

23     state - and we do, don't we? - if we all know and emphasise that we

24     cannot live with them, then we have to realise that these draft maps are

25     offering exactly that and that there has to be relocation."


Page 44352

 1             P2508, page 27.

 2             Or another statement in an Assembly session, expressing the

 3     concern that a proposed peace plan would mean that "everyone will be able

 4     to go back to their own territory," and "we will have to compensate

 5     everything we destroyed and burned and 17 mosques that we flattened" in

 6     that particular representative's municipality.  That's P2508, page 22.

 7             Or any of the other similar Assembly references found in the

 8     final brief or to which we will be referring today.

 9             Again, when we peel back the assertion and examine the evidence

10     on which it purportedly relies as well as the totality of the evidence

11     that bears on that issue, the evidence reveals the common purpose.

12             The Defence has also attempted to paint a picture of a Bosnian

13     Serbs leadership whose passivity belies the existence or possibility of

14     any common plan.  They claim that the Bosnian Serbs were not preparing

15     for war.  Indeed "did not foresee war as a possible outcome," as

16     evidenced by the "reactive decisions" made by the SDS.  And that's at

17     paragraph 312 of the Defence brief.

18             These claims, first, founder on the evidence of Karadzic's

19     repeated position that he and the SDS leadership knew far in advance the

20     steps that they wanted to implement but waited for a politically

21     expedient moment to do so.  For example, Karadzic told members of the

22     SFRY Presidency in December 1991:

23             "We have made a list of moves, but we don't do anything -- we

24     won't do anything until Alija messes something up.  When Alija messes

25     something up, we will make move number 5 and then we wait.  When Alija


Page 44353

 1     messes something else up, we make move number 6."

 2             P4927, page 4.

 3             Or as he explained to the RS Assembly in 1994, there were nine to

 4     ten actions that the leadership had brain-stormed and then carried out.

 5     "Not all nine moves straight away" but "after Alija made a mistake."  And

 6     that these pre-planned moves included the Serbian Autonomous Regions.

 7     That's P7762, pages 2 through 3.

 8             And in January 1995, Karadzic explained that his pre-planned

 9     steps included not only the regions, but bodies such as the Assembly.

10             "We had a list of the actions and steps to take, but we always

11     waited for the Muslims to make a mistake; and after they made one, we

12     created a union of municipalities and the Serbian Autonomous areas next,

13     followed by the regions, and eventually our Assembly and finally

14     republic."

15             P6999, page 3.

16             Karadzic made clear to his officials as events were unfolding

17     that "we have all the moves in the envelopes" and "we have plans for

18     everything."  That's D857, pages 6 through 7.

19             He instructed them to conform to that time-table, advising SDS

20     operative Stevandic to tell Brdjanin and Kupresanin "not to do anything

21     stupid.  We'll do everything Vojo and Brdjo think, but after the failure

22     of the agreements that Alija will bring about.  We'll accuse Alija for

23     this failure."  P7763.

24             And make no mistake, those plans included territory.  Babic

25     recalled Karadzic and Jovica Stanisic long before the war clandestinely


Page 44354

 1     poring over maps of Bosnia with municipalities depicted in differing

 2     colours.  That's P4166, T3406 through 08.

 3             Karadzic reminisced to the Assembly in 1994 about "making plans"

 4     before the war.

 5             "We were thinking then," he explained, about capturing certain

 6     features "so that the distance between Sarajevo and Banja Luka could be

 7     covered on a good road in 1.5.  That is a state.  That is a

 8     well-integrated nation.  That was our plan back before the war."

 9             D639, page 9.

10             But what about the Defence's claim that the Bosnian Serbs "did

11     not foresee war as a possible outcome."  That's again paragraph 312.

12             Now, that claim would come, for example, as a great surprise to

13     Cyrus Vance and Ambassador Okun, to whom Karadzic stated that if the

14     Bosnian Serbs don't get what they want, they would get it through war.

15     That's P3103, T4164, and pages 38 and 39.

16             It would come as a surprise to Gojko Djogo, to whom Karadzic said

17     that the Muslims would "disappear if there was a war.  It will be a real

18     bloodbath," Karadzic said.  And he continued:  "It will be said to

19     Europe:  'Go fuck yourselves and do not come back before we finish the

20     job.'"

21             P4109, page 3, page 9, and page 24.

22             The claim that the Bosnian Serb leadership did not foresee the

23     possibility of war would come as a surprise to the Muslim and Croat

24     members of the Joint Assembly, who Karadzic threatened in October 1991

25     that their moves toward independence would result in "the same highway of


Page 44355

 1     hell and suffering that Slovenia and Croatia went through.  Don't think

 2     you won't take Bosnia and Herzegovina to hell and the Muslim people in

 3     possible extinction, because the Muslim people will not be able to defend

 4     itself if it comes to war here."

 5             P2004, page 3.

 6             And the claim that the Bosnian Serb leadership did not foresee

 7     war as a possibility would come as a surprise to Momcilo Krajisnik, who

 8     told the Assembly in February 1992:

 9             "We have two options:  To fight by political means or to break

10     off talks and go for what we have done over the centuries:  Win our

11     territories by force ... you know what our profession has always been:

12     To wage war."

13             P7005, pages 11 and 18.

14             Momcilo Krajisnik, to whom Karadzic angrily said in January,

15     talking about Izetbegovic:

16             "Now he's talking openly of a sovereign and independent Bosnia.

17     Does he want someone to destroy Sarajevo ... fuck him.  We will release

18     our Tigers and let them do their job."

19             P2676, page 5.

20             And the claim that the Bosnian Serb leadership did not foresee

21     war as a possible outcome would come as a surprise to General Kukanjac,

22     Mladic predecessor as head of the 2nd Military District, who reported in

23     March 1992 that "the Serbian leadership and the Serbian people are fully

24     prepared to wage war should the confederal option not be accepted."  And

25     that the SDS leadership in the Serbian population have "embraced the


Page 44356

 1     army," including that the JNA had "distributed 51.900 weapons

 2     (75 per cent) and the SDS 17.298" to Bosnian Serbs in various

 3     municipalities.

 4             That's P3030, pages 4 through 6.

 5             In short, contrary to the Defence claim, the Bosnian Serbs

 6     unmistakably "foresaw" the possibility of war, prepared for it, and

 7     indeed used the threat of their military and their military force to

 8     pressure their political opponents into abandoning moves toward

 9     independence.  Once again, scratch the surface of the Defence brief, and

10     it is the common purpose instead which is revealed.

11             The Defence also claims that the Bosnian Serbs' involvement in

12     negotiations - and that's found at paragraphs 292, 293, 298, 360 through

13     368 of the Defence brief - and particularly their involvement in the

14     Cutileiro discussions:  "Contradicts the Prosecution's allegation of the

15     overarching JCE."  That's at paragraph 364 -- 374.

16             Again, contrary to this claim, the Bosnian Serb participation in

17     negotiations was wholly compatible with the common purpose.  First, of

18     course, the pursuit of a negotiated dissolution does not gain, say, the

19     attempt to achieve maximum objectives by force if a comprise is not

20     reached.  But beyond that, the Bosnian Serbs were not engaged in the

21     Cutileiro negotiations out of some Gandhi-esque commitment to peace, but

22     because it was clear to them that it could be used to destroy the

23     possibility of a unitary Bosnia and to secure an ethnically defined

24     state.

25             Contrary to the representations made to Cutileiro at the time,


Page 44357

 1     the Bosnian Serb leadership did not actually accept the fundamental terms

 2     of the Statement of Principles.  Now, perhaps the single key principle

 3     within the Statement of Principles was that Bosnia would be a state.

 4     That's found at T42409.

 5             As Karadzic told the Assembly, however:

 6             "The first position in all Cutileiro's principles, if you

 7     remember, was that Bosnia was a state consisting of this and that, but it

 8     was always said that Bosnia was a state and we never accepted that."

 9             P7023, page 2.

10             As Cutileiro himself acknowledged in this Court, Karadzic

11     withheld this position from Cutileiro and instead feigned agreement with

12     the Statement of Principles.  T42410 through 11.

13             Similarly, the Statement of Principles did not envision that the

14     Bosnian Serb entity would unite with Serbia.  That's T42411.

15             The Bosnian Serb leadership's goal, however, was to have the

16     Bosnian Serbs "become part of the Serbian empire."  P7005, page 18.

17             And as Cutileiro acknowledged, if this view had actually been

18     expressed, they wouldn't have had agreement.  P7005 and T42411 through

19     13.

20             Furthermore, the maps were "totally unacceptable to the Bosnian

21     Serb leadership.  That's P4582, page 4.  The Bosnian Serbs - as Karadzic

22     later explained - weren't satisfied with Eastern Bosnia, with Sarajevo,

23     with the Neretva River Valley, or with what he called the "green stain,"

24     meaning Muslim areas in north-west Bosnia.  P7294.

25             So in the face of such fundamental disagreement, why did the


Page 44358

 1     Bosnian Serbs indicate agreement?  They did so because they considered

 2     that they had "pulled" the Muslims into accepting that there would be a

 3     division, that it "would be based on ethnicity."

 4             D639, page 7.

 5             As Karadzic explained, that was "fatal" for Izetbegovic and

 6     Bosnia, and a "grave mistake" by the international community.  The

 7     Bosnian Serbs had "led them" to believe that the process would be

 8     successful, but at that instant "Bosnia was finished.  That's P4582, page

 9     4.

10             And as for the unacceptable maps, well those would be taken care

11     of in a different way.  Karadzic and the Bosnian Serb leadership

12     considered that they had achieved the "quality," that is, ethnic

13     division, and the destruction of Bosnia.  And so all that was left was "a

14     question of quantity."  That's P4580.

15             So what, Karadzic explained, if Bosnia remained within the

16     current borders.  "What matters is that the ones within Bosnia and

17     Herzegovina become as wide as possible."  P7005, page 10.

18             So provided they made their borders with Bosnia sufficiently

19     wide, this would be as good as staying in Yugoslavia.  "As the popular

20     saying goes," Karadzic told his officials, "if kicked out the door, go

21     back through the window.  You will still be in the same place."

22             That's P7005, page 10.

23             And that would be determined by the principle of the factual or

24     de facto situation.  As Karadzic told his SDS officials at the Assembly

25     on the very day that the agreement in principle was at least temporarily


Page 44359

 1     reached, the quantity "will happen according to the actual conditions

 2     which are up to you to create."

 3             And Krajisnik told the Assembly at the very same session:

 4             "... it would be good if we could do one thing for strategic

 5     reasons, if we could start implementing what we have agreed upon, the

 6     ethnic division on the ground."

 7             P4580, pages 44 and 13.

 8             And then once it became clear that Izetbegovic, who - like

 9     international negotiators such as Darwin and Carrington - had from the

10     outset doubts about the feasibility of ethnic divisions in an ethnically

11     intermixed republic - and that's at T42393 and P7770, pages 3 and 4 -

12     once it became clear that he had backed away, the Bosnian Serbs in

13     Cutileiro's own words "went brutally on the offensive."  P771 and T42446

14     through 47.

15    Went on the offensive and took by brutal force those areas denied them in

16     the original Cutileiro map, such as Eastern Bosnia, Sarajevo, Neretva,

17     and the green stain that Karadzic referred to in north-west Bosnia.

18     Contrary to the claims of the Defence, again, following the trail of the

19     evidence leads inexorably to the common purpose.

20             But while that was purposefully obscured in the context of the

21     negotiations, those aims were repeatedly exposed - exposed in the cruel

22     logic of policies that claimed vast territories inhabited by people with

23     whom it was ostensibly to live, exposed in the pattern of cleansing in

24     municipality after municipality, and also exposed in what the Bosnian

25     Serb leaders revealed to internationals, what they conveyed to their


Page 44360

 1     subordinates, and what they said to each other.

 2             It was "obvious," crystal clear, to UN sector commander

 3     Abdel-Razek that there was a consensus among the Serb leaders and

 4     military commanders regarding cleansing.  Karadzic, Krajisnik, and

 5     Plavsic acknowledged their plan for removal of Muslims from Serb

 6     territories, and Karadzic and Mladic once told him:  "Muslims will be

 7     transferred out of Serb territory because we can't live together."  And

 8     told him if we "miss this chance, we will not have it again."  That's

 9     P293, paragraph 33.

10             The Bosnian Serb leaders also explained to UN Representative

11     Harland that historical circumstances required the removal of very large

12     numbers of Bosnian Muslims, particularly in Eastern Bosnia and were open

13     and wanting non-Serbs out of their territories.  That's P1,

14     paragraphs 270 and 274.

15             Similarly, it was apparent to Anthony Banbury from his repeated

16     meetings with the Bosnian Serbs leadership that:  "Ethnic cleansing was a

17     policy of the Bosnian Serbs.  They wanted only Serbs living on the

18     territory they controlled."  That's P874, paragraph 63.

19             As Ambassador Okun explained it:

20             The position of the Bosnian Serb leadership throughout the whole

21     period was that the people had to be separated, that they could not live

22     together.  Even though the populations were thoroughly intermixed, the

23     Bosnian Serb leadership position was that they had to be taken apart.

24     And that," Okun explained, "is of course what ethnic cleansing was

25     designed to do.  The leadership told him that Republika Srpska was to be


Page 44361

 1     as homogeneous ethnically, that is, ethnically 'pure' was the word that

 2     was often used by the Bosnian Serbs, ethnically pure as it could be."

 3     P3103, page 4169.

 4             And all Bosnian Serbs leaders were very consistent in their

 5     position that physical separation was needed and that the communities

 6     could not live together.  P3103, T4205 and 4220.

 7             The policy was exposed to and known to Serbian and Croatian Serb

 8     leaders.  For example, in July 1991, in a meeting in Slobodan Milosevic's

 9     office, Karadzic insisted that Babic not move forward with a proposed

10     Krajina unification because it would interfere with the Bosnian Serb

11     plans to form a Bosnian Serb entity that included territories where Serbs

12     were a minority.  Karadzic explained that they would wait for Alija to

13     make a wrong political move and then link up the Serb territories by

14     expelling Muslims.  That's P4167, T13054 through 56, and P4166, T3401

15     through 04.

16             It was known in the municipalities where local leaders

17     implemented it.  As Ilidza Crisis Staff President Prstojevic acknowledged

18     in July 1992 when Karadzic "visited us in Ilidza and encouraged us, the

19     Serbs from Sarajevo retained control over the territory and even extended

20     their territory in some areas, driving the Muslims out of the territories

21     where they had actually been a majority."

22             That's P4581, page 66.

23             On the 30th of June, 1992, Mladic and Karadzic met in Zvornik

24     with military and civilian authorities from Zvornik, Vlasenica,

25     Srebrenica, Bratunac, and other local areas, at which Zvornik TO


Page 44362

 1     Commander Pavlovic bragged to Karadzic:  "We were most active in evicting

 2     the Muslims."  And Crisis Staff President Grujic reported:  "We have

 3     successfully implemented the president's decision to settle Divic and

 4     Kozluk with our children."

 5             The policy found expression in the selection by local leaders of

 6     particular percentages of Muslims and Croats allowed to leave [sic].  In

 7     Sanski Most 2 per cent, in Bijeljina 2 per cent, 5 to 6 per cent in

 8     Kljuc, and in Banja Luka and the ARK generally a small percentage.  And

 9     you can find those respectively at P365; T6771 through 73; at P1054,

10   paragraphs 11, 31 through 32; adjudicated fact 750; transcript 2050 through

11     51; and P3989, pages 1 through 3; P6994, page 8.

12             And local leaders also acknowledged the common plan without

13     reference to particular percentages, for example, the Rogatica Crisis

14     Staff president and brigade commander referred on one instance to running

15     late with the cleansing.  P309, paragraphs 90 through 91.

16             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Tieger would you please look at page 36, line

17     18, whether that is -- I don't remember what I heard, but whether that is

18     what you --

19             MR. TIEGER:  Yes, that's correct, Mr. President.  I had said:

20     "Successfully implemented the president's decision to settle Divic and

21     Kozluk with our children."

22             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, but I'm looking two lines further down.

23             MR. TIEGER:  Oh, I'm sorry.

24             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, perhaps I'm looking at the other -- allowed to,

25     Muslims and Croats allowed to ...


Page 44363

 1             MR. TIEGER:  Oh, I'm sorry.  Thank you.  I appreciate that.  It

 2     should say "allowed to remain."

 3             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes.

 4             MR. TIEGER:  Thank you very much.

 5             JUDGE ORIE:  Please proceed.

 6             MR. TIEGER:  When this policy was not fulfilled, the Bosnian

 7     Serbs leadership followed up.  In personal meetings, Karadzic admonished

 8     Banja Luka mayor, Predrag Radic, for not having expelled non-Serbs or

 9     destroyed mosques, in contrast to other municipalities.  You find that at

10     the Prosecution brief paragraph 284, footnotes 1145 through 46.

11             That was confirmed by Defence witness Solaja who testified about

12     the constant pressure Radic was under from people at the political top

13     and criticism of him because mosques were not [sic] standing.  You can

14     find that at T32751 through 52.  Mosques were still standing.  I think I

15     said "not standing."  So the criticism of Radic was for the fact that

16     mosques remained and had not been destroyed.

17             The common purpose was also acknowledged by Karadzic at various

18     times, including when he explained to the Assembly his concern earlier in

19     the war that Muslims might agree to peace proposals.  Now why concerned?

20     Because "we had some unfinished tasks related to military actions.  I

21     just prayed to God that nothing would be accepted because we had some

22     tasks to complete."

23             And what were those military tasks?  Well, in Doboj, he said the

24     Muslims had been in the relative majority, but "nowadays, Doboj is almost

25     100 per cent Serbian.  The people from mountains moved into town, and so


Page 44364

 1     on.  Thus, we can consider ourselves as winners after occupying this land

 2     since the land is 100 per cent Serbian now."

 3             That's P3076, pages 23, 25, and 26.

 4             The policy was acknowledged during a January 1993 meeting of

 5     Bosnian Serb and Serbian leaders, including Mladic, Karadzic, and

 6     Milosevic.  When Serbian Foreign Minister Jovanovic urged Mladic and

 7     Karadzic to pursue the objective of making Bosnian Serb territory

 8     "nationally homogeneous as soon as possible" by more subtle means than

 9     ethnic cleansing because the international community was looking to catch

10     them at the ethnic cleansings.  Jovanovic also warned that freedom of

11     movement might lead to mixing of the populations with the result that

12     "what had been gained would gradually erode."

13             Karadzic assured him that national homogenisation had already

14     happened "to a huge extent," citing with pride Zvornik where there was

15     50/50 of us and now "the number of inhabitants of Zvornik is the same,

16     approximately 50.000, and they are all Serbs."

17             That's P7746, pages 14 through 16.

18             The adoption of more subtle and deniable forms of purifying the

19     territories was reflected in the Bosnian Serb leadership's use of Vojkan,

20     who cleansed Bijeljina of thousands of remaining Muslims in 1994,

21     prompting international complaints and false promises by the Bosnian

22     Serbs leadership to investigate.  See P7699, page 2, paragraph 7.  As

23     Karadzic reminded Mladic and others at a session of the Supreme Command,

24     having Muslims remain is "disastrous for us."

25             Vojkan's cleansing, however, under the guise of a private agency,


Page 44365

 1     permitted the leadership deniability, by "turning a blind eye" they could

 2     further our policy of "separation of peoples, of cultures, of worlds, and

 3     no one can accuse us."  That's P6723, pages 6 through 7.

 4             In the face of such overwhelming evidence, the Defence suggests

 5     that an alleged republic-level policy that all citizens would be allowed

 6     to return belies the existence of the common purpose to permanently

 7     remove, and that's found at paragraph 459 of the Defence brief.  What

 8     would be the point, they argue, of forcibly removing people only to let

 9     them back in?  Well, as it happens, it is that very logic that explains

10     why the Bosnian Serb leadership repeatedly made clear that it would

11     ensure against the return of those they had expelled.  From the very

12     outset, the Bosnian Serb leadership had banked on the establishment of a

13     factual situation to their advantage.  As Karadzic explained to a

14     gathering of top Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials at a meeting of the

15     SFRY Presidency in December 1991, Serbs had to prepare to press their

16     case on not only a legal basis but on "the factual basis."  That's P4927.

17             In the immediate aftermath of the Joint Assembly session at which

18     Karadzic warned Muslims that moves toward independence threatened their

19     very existence, Karadzic explained to Milosevic that the Bosnian Serbs

20     were "moving on" to establish a "de facto situation ..." on 65 per cent

21     of Bosnia which the Muslims will break their teeth on.  That's P2659,

22     pages 1 and 7.

23             In mid-February 1992 when Karadzic activated the second level of

24     Variant A and B, he told his officials that "now it would be more

25     important to gain the real situation, the factual situation on the


Page 44366

 1     ground," which would allow Serbs to say to negotiators that maybe the

 2     Muslims are right but the factual situation controls.  That's P3774,

 3     page 5.

 4             And as noted a few moments ago, a month after that, shortly

 5     before the take-overs began, Karadzic told his SDS officials at the

 6     Assembly that the quantity of their state "will happen according to the

 7     actual conditions which are up to you to create."  P4580, page 44 through

 8     13.

 9             And General Mladic and the VRS continued to implement the policy

10     of creating a new factual situation and using it to control the ultimate

11     territorial resolution.  As General Mladic said:

12             "Whoever holds the territory also draws the maps," and it was

13     "the people and its army" who had drawn those maps."

14             P1974, page 5.

15             And like Okun, UNPROFOR recognised that General Mladic wanted

16     them to "authenticate the new lines of ethnic division."

17             That's P2810, paragraph 2.

18             Karadzic underscored to General Mladic in 1992 that "the European

19     community will accept the factual state of affairs and that is why we

20     should not make a single concession in military terms."  P354, page 22.

21             And General Mladic conveyed the importance of that policy to his

22     troops, reminding his corps command in Directive 2:

23             "We liberated the territories we considered ours and created

24     conditions for political and military leadership of the Serbian Republic

25     of Bosnia-Herzegovina, so that they could perform all activities and


Page 44367

 1     negotiations regarding the future state of BiH from the position of the

 2     stronger one in this territory."

 3             That's D99, page 1.

 4             And that message was indeed heard after the 1 KK had conducted

 5     ethnic cleansing operations throughout the ARK.  1 KK Commander Talic

 6     noted to Mladic the importance of insisting on "the factual situation."

 7     That's P360, page 54.

 8             "We liberated the territories."  That's the language from the

 9     Directive 2 that we saw a moment ago in the previous slide.  The Defence

10     defends the terms "liberated" as meaning only "fighting against

11     aggression."  And that's found at the Defence final brief at

12     paragraph 704.  A more accurate understanding of its meaning, however,

13     may be gleaned from a 6 June 1992 meeting at which a Bratunac municipal

14     leader reported to Karadzic and Mladic, among others, that:

15             "There are no Muslims now in Bratunac municipality.  It is a

16     fully liberated town."

17             That's P353, page 101.

18             The success of VRS operations meant that General Mladic would be

19     able to report that the de facto approach had been successfully

20     implemented.  It 1993, General Mladic expressed the Main Staff's

21     appreciation that "our negotiating team have done everything to change

22     the factual state into permanent ..."  and reminded Karadzic - as I noted

23     earlier - "Mr. President, you have started from the most favourable

24     starting position in Geneva.  You had the military result in your hands."

25     That's again P2508, page 33.


Page 44368

 1             I think it's time for a break, Your Honour, and we can continue

 2     in 20 minutes.

 3             JUDGE ORIE:  It is, indeed, Mr. Tieger.

 4             We'll take a break, and we'll resume at ten minutes past midday.

 5                           --- Recess taken at 11.51 a.m.

 6                           --- On resuming at 12.12 p.m.

 7             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Tieger, please proceed.

 8             MR. TIEGER:  Thank you, Mr. President.

 9             Before we recessed, I had been discussing the creation of the

10     factual situation.  We broke with General Mladic reporting his

11     satisfaction and pride about having presented the military result and the

12     factual situation to the negotiators.

13             Having thus made the factual situation a key part of their

14     strategy for creating the state and defining its territory, the Bosnian

15     Serb leadership was not about to relinquish it once achieved; instead,

16     maintaining the homogeneity or areas remained a keystone so that, as

17     Jovanovic had urged, what had been gained would not be eroded.

18             Now, you recall that the Bosnian Serb leadership acknowledged to

19     Harland their pressure on the Bosnian government to accept the ethnic

20     cleansing, the redistribution of the populations.  That's P1, para 270.

21             Ambassador Okun also recognised that the Bosnian Serbs were

22     attempting to cement the cleansing, in contrast to undoing it, as the

23     Defence claims, noting that "their whole claim, for example, for the

24     Drina River Valley, that is to say for the left bank of the Drina, was

25     based on ethnic cleansing.  I mean, they knew it; we knew it."


Page 44369

 1             P3103, transcript 4192.

 2             Okun also recalled the Bosnian Serb leadership's call "to

 3     accommodate ethnic realities," which Okun explained was a "very clear,

 4     not so subtle" reference to ethnic cleansing.  P3103, T4215 through 16.

 5             One transparent strategem for cementing the cleansing was their

 6     call for referendums in which the inhabitants of territory would vote on

 7     which entity they wished to be in.  And as Okun explained:  "Holding a

 8     referendum in areas that you've ethnically cleansed looks like a pretty

 9     good deal to the cleanser."  And that's P3103, T4245.

10             Karadzic made crystal clear to his officials that Bosnian Serb

11     negotiators would insist that the allocation of territory in any peace

12     process would be governed by the factual situation they had created, that

13     is, by what the VRS had achieved.  They would explain, for example, that

14     while Zvornik was once 60/40 to the advantage of Muslims, as he said:

15             "We request Zvornik based on the right which comes out of the new

16     reality ... this war has created the new reality.  There are now the

17     Serbs from Zenica here.  If you want to give Zvornik to the Muslims, then

18     you have to wage a new war in order to expel these Serbs back to Zenica.

19     We request Zvornik according to this right."

20             P7357, page 5.

21             May I ask the Court Officer, please, to display the -- thank you.

22             Further, the Bosnian Serb leadership was equally clear that it

23     would not allow the results of the ethnic cleansing to be undone by a

24     right of return.  So when a representative complained to Karadzic that a

25     proposed peace agreement meant that "everyone will be able to go back to


Page 44370

 1     their own territory," Karadzic assured him that the Bosnian Serbs would

 2     control their borders and "we will have barbed wire for ten years."

 3     P2508, pages 22 through 23.

 4             And that was regardless of what they might have to promise the

 5     international community.  So when Deputies Club President Maksimovic

 6     insisted that not even "500 or more Muslims" should be allowed back,

 7     that's P3076, page 36, Karadzic elucidated one of his ploys to frustrate

 8     international efforts to ensure return.  He agreed that "what

 9     Mr. Maksimovic has said is correct," but explained that under

10     international law, they would not be permitted to ban return.  That is

11     why, Karadzic noted, he had insisted on a "two-way process."  That's

12     P3076, page 38.  And this meant - as he elaborated at a subsequent

13     Assembly session - that "Muslims from Kozluk can return to Kozluk if the

14     Serbs from Kozluk return to Zenica."  And Serbs from Zvornik weren't

15     going anywhere.  As Karadzic explained:

16             "We can act the Serbian Cyrillic way and tell it all to their

17     face, or we can be a bit cunning.  We do have to be a bit cunning."

18             P4584, page 8.

19             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Tieger, may I urge you to here and there slow

20     down a bit because sometimes part of what you are telling us are missing

21     in the provisional transcripts, and we'd like to be able to read

22     everything.

23             MR. TIEGER:  Thank you, Your Honour.

24             JUDGE ORIE:  Please proceed.

25             MR. TIEGER:  Will do.


Page 44371

 1             The Bosnian Serb leadership also established a demographic

 2     programme to resettle Serbian refugees into areas successfully targeted

 3     by the Strategic Objectives in order to cement the forcible displacement

 4     of non-Serbs.  And see paragraphs 475 through 77 of the Prosecution

 5     brief.

 6             The objective of that programme was epitomised by its co-chair

 7     Radislav Brdjanin, a man devoted to homogenous territories.  Brdjanin

 8     once defended a housing law against criticism that it might invite the

 9     return of Muslims by saying:

10             "Gentlemen, you cannot fool me that you believe in the greatest

11     wonder of the world, such as that Brdjanin could participate in a process

12     of return of Croats and Muslims."

13             That's P6742, page 11.

14             Once again, peel back the Defence allegation - in this instance

15     the claim that expelled refugees were "free to return," that's

16     paragraph 459 of their brief; and the evidence exposes not only the

17     inaccuracy of the claim but the existence of the common purpose.

18             Now, as discussed to some extent earlier, the Defence attempts to

19     paint General Mladic as a protector of Muslims and Croats.  And in part,

20     this rests on repeated claims throughout their brief that

21     General Mladic's remarks at the Assembly session at which he was formally

22     appointed Chief of the Main Staff reflect his protective and benevolent

23     views toward non-Serbs, and that's found at various parts of the Defence

24     brief, 559, 115, 568, 412 through 415, 788, and so on.

25             Now, first it is surprising to find this speech cited in support


Page 44372

 1     of Mladic's alleged good intentions toward the non-Serbs, in view of such

 2     things as his criticism for simply "spitting" on Sarajevo with a few

 3     mortars, his call for it to be ringed with 300 mortars, his statement

 4     that he would make Sarajevo "even less" than useless to anyone, and his

 5     call to deprive it of utilities while blaming Muslims.  That's found at

 6     Prosecution brief 617 through 623.

 7             But beyond that, taking the Defence citations in context and in

 8     light of the totality of evidence, the 16th Session including

 9     General Mladic's speech is, again, further corroboration of the common

10     purpose.  Now by the date of that session, May 12th, the existing Bosnian

11    Serb forces and authorities had taken control of nearly all of the claimed

12     territories -- the claimed municipalities at any rate.  While non-Serbs

13     have been forced out of some areas, the bulk of the cleansing to

14     sufficiently homogenise those municipalities and those territories had

15     not yet taken place.  And during this period, while the seizures were

16     taking place and before General Mladic's accession, Dr. Karadzic and the

17     Bosnian Serb leadership intensified efforts that had begun months earlier

18     to create a Bosnian Serb army and, in particular, to find the right

19     person to successfully lead that army and the implementation of Bosnian

20     Serb goals.

21             Unsurprisingly, Karadzic looked to events in Croatia where Serb

22     forces had forcibly displaced ethnic Croats from Serb-claimed areas to

23     create a Serbian state - for that see paragraphs 204 through 208 of the

24     Prosecution brief - an effort that was strongly supported by the Bosnian

25     Serb leadership.  For example, P2668 and P2671.  Indeed, Karadzic


Page 44373

 1     considered the RSK as an example and inspiration.  That's P3978, page 11.

 2     And he used Croatia's fate as an example, that is, "the same highway of

 3     hell and suffering," when he warned the Bosnian parliament that an

 4     independence initiative would result in the possible extinction of the

 5     Muslim people.  Again, that's P2004, page 3.

 6             And as detailed in paragraphs 204 through 208 of our brief,

 7     General Mladic was a key figure on that highway of hell.  Upon arrival in

 8     Croatia, he changed the role of the JNA from one of buffer between the

 9     two sides to one of siding with the Serbs.  That's P7638.

10             And in that new capacity, General Mladic led attacks on towns and

11     villages, including Kijevo, Drnis, Sibenik, Sinj, Srbinje, advancing

12     Serbian territorial objectives through destruction of towns, killings,

13     and expulsion of inhabitants.  He used previous attacks as threats of

14     what lay in store for others, for example, telling an interlocutor that

15     "Kijevo will be a garden of flowers compared to what you will experience

16     if you should touch me."

17             His view of how to achieve his objectives was further captured in

18     these comments:

19             "Nothing will get out the of Dalmatia except children under the

20     age of 10 if they carry on like this, all that is older than 10 and

21     younger than 75 will come to harm in Sibenik and we will not leave a

22     single house standing, unless they finish the job like it was done in

23     Sinj."

24             That's P1959, also P7052 which duplicates at page 8.

25             Karadzic had heard of Mladic and "took an interest in him."


Page 44374

 1     P4583, page 324.

 2             He and Krajisnik went to General Kukanjac's office and listened

 3     to Mladic "issuing orders and commanding around Kupres and Knin."  And

 4     thereafter, as he told the Assembly:

 5             "Gentlemen, we got the officers we asked for.  I asked for

 6     Mladic."  That's P4583, page 324.  General Mladic, the man Karadzic once

 7     referred to as "the glorious fighter from Krajina."  P2001, page 118.

 8             As discussed as paragraph 20 of the Prosecution brief.  On April

 9     30th, 1992, at a meeting with Milosevic and other Serbian and SFRY

10     leaders, the Bosnian Serbs "got their own military," including the

11     agreement that General Mladic would become commander of the soon-to-be

12     Bosnian Serb army.  Within days General Mladic was meeting with the

13     Bosnian Serb leadership and others to formulate the strategic objectives

14     that would guide the nascent army.  And that's found at Prosecution

15     brief, paragraph 209.

16             Days later, at the 16th Session, Karadzic reported on political

17     conditions and the war, in the course of which he enunciated the six

18     Strategic Objectives.  The achievement of all six goals, he said, would

19     "finally finish the job of the freedom struggle of the Serbian people."

20     That's P431, page 10.

21             After Karadzic spoke, a number of officials took the floor and

22     some of whom suggested that geographic areas not embraced by the

23     objectives, for example, Tuzla and Bihac, should be included.  Brdjanin,

24     for example, on his part expressed dismay that a Muslim colonel was

25     teaching political education for the Banja Luka Corps.


Page 44375

 1             "How can anyone still believe it is all right that we have a

 2     Muslim doing political education in the Banja Luka Corps?"

 3             That's at P431, pages 13, 23 and 25.

 4             And although General Mladic had not been on the agenda to speak

 5     at that point, he "asked for the floor" after listening to these remarks.

 6     That's at page 31 of P431.

 7             And he conveyed what would one would expect from a man who had

 8     been selected to lead the army on the basis of his Croatia credentials.

 9             "I know what I'm doing.  Let's stick to the goals that the other

10     leaders and I have come up and not make things harder for ourselves by

11     trying to do too much or by revealing our secret plan."

12             General Mladic immediately and repeatedly cited his experiences

13     in Croatia as validation of his expertise and reflections of what he

14     intended to do, including an anecdote about shelling a hotel housing

15     European community monitors to enforce his demands, prompting response at

16     the time:  "Mladic are you sane?"  P431, page 37.

17             General Mladic explained:  "We have only made our first move in

18     the war."  And that they had to be realistic and stated:  "The goals that

19     I've heard here and the demands, please, even if we had an army like the

20     Chinese, it is doubtful that we could fulfil them."  And then he

21     explained:  People are not simply keys in a pocket that can be shifted

22     from here to there.  "It is something easily said but difficult to

23     achieve."  P431 all of pages 32 to 34.

24             And he reminded the Assembly that:  "The thing that we are doing

25     needs to be guarded as our deepest secret."


Page 44376

 1             Than their representatives needed to present their goals in a way

 2     that will sound appealing to the international community while at the

 3     same time "our people must know how to read between the lines."  That's

 4     page 34 of that P431.

 5             And he also blasted Brdjanin for his criticism of the Muslim

 6     teaching within the Banja Luka Corps.

 7             "I know to whom it referred," General Mladic said.  It refers to

 8     Colonel Hasotic.  And he explained that it was better to have Hasotic

 9     who had served in Croatia and who "knows better how to neutralise me,"

10     with them than fighting against them.  And so he explained:  You can't

11     have a sieve to get rid of everyone, that would include guys like

12     Hasotic.  And beyond that, how would that square with the concerns he had

13     just expressed about appeasing the international community?  How would

14     Karadzic and Krajisnik explain that?  And that's at page 35.

15             And similarly he referred to his recent visit to Kalinovik, where

16   frightened Muslim villagers "fear, might prays to no God" met with him in a

17     scene which brought to mind - as Minister of Information Ostojic who was

18     with him explained - a master-servant relationship.  And that's found at

19     P431, page 7.  And so those cowed, subservient Muslims in

20     General Mladic's Serbian majority hometown with whom he just met were,

21     like Hasotic, among those who might not have to be explained to the

22     international community and might not have to be expelled or drowned.

23     That was the context of General Mladic's remarks.  And thereafter, he

24     oversaw - before the month was out - the beginning of the VRS's brutal

25     implementation of the Strategic Objectives in Muslim and Croat villages,


Page 44377

 1     towns, and communities.

 2             As Defence expert Kovic acknowledged:  One should look to what

 3     happened on the ground when determining what someone intended.  And

 4     that's at T42007.

 5             The Defence, however, seeks to distance Mladic from the Strategic

 6     Objectives and to neutralise them.  They claim, first, that the Strategic

 7     Objectives had nothing to do with the common plan to permanently remove,

 8     arguing that the Prosecution ignores that Karadzic defined the first goal

 9     as "separation of states."  That's para 410.

10             What the Defence fails to mention is that after mentioning

11     states, Karadzic immediately went on to make clear that the separation

12     was about people.

13             "Separation from those who are our enemies and who have used

14     every opportunity, especially in this century, to attack us and who would

15     continue with such practices if we were to stay together in the same

16     state."

17             That's P431, page 9.

18             General Mladic certainly knew what he meant.  Only a few days

19     before, on 6 May in one of their meetings about the Strategic Objectives,

20     Karadzic had enthused:

21             "We are on the threshold of achieving our centuries'-old dream of

22     creating our own state without many internal enemies."

23             That's P352, pages 257 through 258.

24             Similarly General Gvero - also in attendance at the 16th

25     Session - understood that:  "Everybody has to live on his own territory,


Page 44378

 1     Muslim on Muslim territory, Serbs on Serbian."  P7394, page 3.

 2             The Defence also claims that at the 16th Session:  "There is a

 3     notable absence of discussions on separating or moving Muslims."  That's

 4     found at paragraph 413 of their brief.

 5             This claim simply disregards such comments as Radic's on the

 6     process of "resettlement."  Or Milojevic's references to the fact that

 7     the borders relating to the Strategic Objectives "intrinsically implies

 8     moving a contingent of the population," or the reference to the "happy

 9     news" that the Strategic Objectives meant that Muslims who had been

10     relocated across the Una River would not be returning.  And those are

11     found at P431, pages 15, 33, and 20 respectively.

12             The Defence further contends that while General Mladic may have

13     heard of the Strategic Objectives he "provides no insight" into their

14     formulation or implementation and the evidence does not support the claim

15     that he formulated or implemented them.  That's at paragraphs 419 through

16     20.  Now this false claim ignores such evidence as --

17             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Tieger, may I again ask you to slow down a bit.

18     It's not only transcription but also French translation, which easily is

19     a few lines behind.

20             So please slowly proceed.

21             MR. TIEGER:  I was addressing the Defence claim that the evidence

22     doesn't support the assertion that he formulated - that is,

23     General Mladic formulated or implemented the Strategic Objectives.  This

24     claim ignores such facts as the following:

25             1.  That General Mladic expressly said at the 16th that:  "I have


Page 44379

 1     read, mulled over for a long time and discussed within the most select

 2     circle of comrades whom we convened the strategic goals that are of

 3     substance."  P431, page 32.

 4             2.  That Milovanovic said:  "So far our army has achieved four

 5     strategic goals, that is, the tasks."  Adding:  "And that is the basis

 6     from which we embark on the negotiations."  P7764, page 2.

 7             That Mladic told the Assembly:  "The tasks in the army in this

 8     war stem from the known six Strategic Objectives adopted by our

 9     Assembly."  P4583, page 22.

10             Or that the combat-readiness report stated that the -- states

11     that:  "The Strategic Objectives served as the guide-lines for planning

12     the actual operations and concerted battles."  Page 338, page 159.

13             Or just one more example, that at a meeting on the 8th of

14     November, 1992, a meeting including General Mladic, Karadzic, Krajisnik,

15     and corps commanders, a meeting that focussed on the importance of the

16     Drina, Krajisnik noted that the army had achieved some of the Strategic

17     Objectives but not all, including Strategic Objective number 3.

18     Therefore, he said, the most important task was the mopping up - the

19     "ciscenje" - of the Drina by the Drina Corps; and Directive 4, ordering

20     the Drina Corps to force the Muslim population in the Podrinje to leave

21     was issued two weeks later.  That's P356, pages 146 through 147; and

22     P976, page 5.

23             Once again, Your Honours, scratch the surface and the common

24     purpose is revealed.

25             Now, I have mentioned throughout my remarks this morning and


Page 44380

 1     early this afternoon the disparity between the propositions made by the

 2     Defence and the citations supporting them.  The caution required in

 3     considering those assertions extends to the legal propositions in the

 4     Defence brief.

 5             For example, the Defence proffers a sweeping but wholly

 6     uninformed attack on JCE liability, which is grounded throughout on a

 7     disregard for Appeals Chamber jurisprudence, claiming that Tadic -- the

 8     Tadic case should be limited to small-scale cases.  They disregard

 9     Krajisnik at para 469, Brdjanin at paragraphs 422 through 425, and

10     Djordjevic at para 40.

11             Challenging whether JCE liability exists as a matter -- as a part

12     of customary law, they disregard Djordjevic's confirmation at

13     paragraphs 43 through 44 of the validity of the Tadic approach.  In a

14     similar manner, Popovic at paragraph 1674; and Djordjevic at para 50 and

15     52 make clear that findings of other courts outside the Tribunal are not

16     binding.  Sainovic para 611 and Kvocka at 115 through 119 hold that a

17     common plan or design may be inferred from the facts and don't require

18     proof of any additional agreement between the accused and other JCE

19     members.

20             Similarly, contrary to Defence arguments, Brdjanin at paragraphs

21     413 through 414 holds that a JCE member can be held accountable for acts

22     of physical perpetration of non-JCE members.  You can also see

23     Stanisic/Zupljanin at paragraphs 994 through 96.  The Defence claims that

24     General Mladic is not responsible for crimes at detention facilities he

25     allegedly did not control ignore the Martic judgement at paragraphs 187


Page 44381

 1     through 89, 195, 215 and 210; and the Stanisic/Zupljanin judgement at

 2     paragraph 96 and Brdjanin at paragraph 410.

 3             Similarly, the Defence attempt to import new requirements for

 4     JCE 3 liability, have been rejected already by Stanisic/Zupljanin at

 5     paragraphs 963 through 966; and the Appeals Chamber has repeatedly

 6     affirmed the standards set out by the Prosecution, for example,

 7     Stanisic/Zupljanin at 595 and 614; Sainovic, 1061, 1557; Brdjanin, 365

 8     and 411.

 9             And with respect to the fact that JCE liability applies to all

10     crimes, including specific-intent crimes, see Stanisic/Zupljanin

11     paragraph 599; the Brdjanin interlocutory appeal on the 19th of March,

12     2004; and Djordjevic at paragraph 919.  These same mischaracterisations

13     of law, coupled with misstatements of fact, are applied by the Defence to

14     Count 11, hostages.  So, for example, the Defence asserts in

15     paragraphs 165 through 169 of its brief that Count 11 is "procedurally

16     defective" because Common Article 3 lays down the minimum criterion that

17     the parties must respect during an internal conflict and the conflict in

18     BiH was international in 1995.

19             Contrary to the Defence claim, the Tribunal has held, including

20     in the context of hostage-taking, that Common Article 3 of the

21     Geneva Conventions applies to both international and non-international

22     armed conflicts.  That's the Karadzic Trial Chamber, 28 April 2009,

23     paragraph 59, referring to the Appeals Chamber decision in Tadic on the

24     2nd of October, 1995.  You can also see Delalic on 20 February 2001 at

25     paragraph 150.  The Delalic Appeals Chamber, in fact, called it "legally


Page 44382

 1     and morally untenable" to interpret the protections under Common

 2     Article 3 as inapplicable to an international conflict.  The Defence

 3     claim that Count 11 is procedurally defective is baseless and contrary to

 4     settled law.

 5             Similarly, the Defence asserts at paragraph 3313 of its brief

 6     that although certain courts have held that detained peacekeepers enjoy

 7     the protections of Common Article 3, the UN detainees in this case gave

 8     up such protection by actively participating in the conflict.

 9             Now, this claim chooses, first, to disregard the very language of

10     Common Article 3, which expressly applies "to persons taking no active

11     part in the hostilities including members of armed forces placed hors de

12     combat by, inter alia, detention."

13     It also ignores Tribunal jurisprudence

14     confirming that the prohibition on hostage-taking is

15     "absolute and without exception" and that it applies to UN personnel,

16     irrespective of their status prior to detention.  And for that, see the

17     Karadzic Appeals Chamber 98 bis decision on 11 December 2012,

18     paragraph 16.

19             These mischaracterisations of law in respect of the hostage count

20     are matched by Defence mischaracterisations of fact.  They claim, for

21     example, that around 28 May 1995, General Mladic had a conversation with

22     Smith in which he was calm, threatened no one, and said that no threats

23     had been made against detainees.  That's at paragraph 3382.  Now, apart

24     from the fact that in that very conversation, General Mladic acknowledged

25     that some of the detained personnel were held at potential targets for


Page 44383

 1     NATO - that's P2558 - this claim ignores such evidence as the following.

 2     First, it ignores General Mladic's conversation with Smith two days

 3     earlier, during which Mladic told Smith that if there were further

 4     air-strikes, UNMOs would be killed and that the fate of the hostages was

 5     in Smith's hands.  That's P7540, page 2; and P2557 page 4; P791.

 6             It ignores that Kalabrcyk was handcuffed and filmed at the

 7     Jahorina radar site because Mladic wanted UN people filmed at that

 8     location.  2554, page 13.

 9             It ignores that General Milovanovic issued a Main Staff order -

10     approved by the Supreme Commander - to distribute 103 detainees to

11     various corps and deploy them at warehouses in the corps "in order to

12     prevent NATO leaders from carrying out their intentions."  And it ignores

13     that on 30th of May, 1995, General Mladic ordered the SRK to "complete

14     the disarming of the captured UNPROFOR members and their deployment to

15     the facilities which have been assessed as possible NATO air-strike

16     targets."  That's P5230, paragraph 7, page 3.

17             And one further legal matter, two additional legal matters.  One,

18     the Defence also asserts the Prosecution is required to prove that the

19     physical perpetrators or the tools of the JCE possessed the specific

20     intent required for genocide.  That's at paragraph 251.  The intent of

21     the physical perpetrator, of course, is relevant only to the extent that

22     the Trial Chamber could find that neither Mladic nor any member of the

23     JCE had the requisite mens rea and genocidal intent.  That's found at

24     Krajisnik Appeals Judgement para 226; Brdjanin appeals judgement,

25     para 410.  And were that to happen in this instance, the Chamber would


Page 44384

 1     then consider, pursuant to JCE 3, the destructive intent of such persons

 2     as Drljaca or Zeljaja according to the elements of Article 4 that I will

 3     be discussing tomorrow.

 4             And finally, Mr. President, Your Honours, let me quickly address

 5     the 73 bis argument, another Defence claim that is frankly untethered to

 6     reality.  The reduction pursuant to 73 bis in this case was clearly about

 7     Scheduled Incidents, as reflected in the very first paragraph of the

 8     Prosecution's submission.  After explaining in paragraph 1 which of the

 9     "crimes enumerated in the schedules" it would present evidence on, it

10     noted again in paragraph 7 that it had identified "the scheduled crimes"

11     upon which it would present evidence and that it would not present

12     evidence on the remainder of the previously scheduled crimes, resulting

13     in a reduction of the case.  Thereafter, the Trial Chamber adopted the

14     proposal and ordered the Prosecution to file an amended indictment in

15     accordance with the decision, which the Prosecution did.  The

16     Amended Indictment crossed out the identified Scheduled Incidents and -

17     unsurprisingly - all the counts remained.  No objection was made to this

18     indictment with all 11 counts.  Thereafter, the Prosecution led evidence

19     on forcible transfer and deportation.  No objections were made to that

20     evidence on the basis of a claim that counts -- the counts related to

21     forcible transfer and deportation had been dropped.

22             At 98 bis, the Chamber found a case to answer on all 11 counts,

23     and the Defence did not object that Counts 7 and 8 had been dropped.  The

24     Defence then called extensive evidence related to forcible transfer and

25     deportation, and there is no evidence -- there is no suggestion that


Page 44385

 1     these were superfluous because the counts had been dropped.  In short,

 2     the preposterous interpretation proffered now by the Defence is belied by

 3     the fact that no one interpreted the 73 bis decision in that patently

 4     unreasonable manner during the entire course of the subsequent five

 5     years.

 6             Mr. President, Your Honours, that concludes my presentation this

 7     morning.  Mr. Traldi will now address aspects of the implementation of

 8     the overarching JCE.

 9             JUDGE ORIE:  Thank you, Mr. Tieger.  I take it that the stage has

10     to be changed slightly.

11             Mr. Traldi, since you were present, you certainly have heard my

12     observations as to the speed of speech which I addressed to Mr. Tieger,

13     but which equally apply to you.

14             MR. TRALDI:  At least equally, I'm sure, Your Honour.  And I will

15     do my best.

16             JUDGE ORIE:  Please proceed.

17             MR. TRALDI:  Thank you, Mr. President.

18             Beginning immediately after the 16th Assembly, General Mladic led

19     the ethnic cleansing campaign which implemented the common criminal

20     purpose Mr. Tieger just described.  In carrying out the cleansing

21     campaign, his VRS and other Bosnian Serb forces committed a constant

22     pattern of crimes throughout Serb-claimed territory, particularly in the

23     charged municipalities.   Mladic used his command and control over the

24     VRS to lead this campaign.  Indeed, he escalated the cleansing campaign

25     immediately after the VRS began to function under its own name on 19


Page 44386

 1     May 1992.  In the first two weeks of its existence, the VRS led ethnic

 2     cleansing operations in six different indictment municipalities.  These

 3     operations included eight of the massacres General Mladic is charged

 4     with; and during that same period, VRS units and other Bosnian Serb

 5     forces established camps at which they detained and abused non-Serb

 6     civilians at Manjaca, in Banja Luka; Susica, in Vlasenica; the Veljko

 7     Vlahovic school in Rogatica; and Omarska, Keraterm, and Trnopolje in

 8     Prijedor.

 9             Mladic used his control of his subordinates to achieve the

10     cleansing he had told the 16th Assembly would be difficult through a

11     pattern of terrible crimes.  In municipality after municipality, the

12     cleansing campaign tore apart non-Serb families and communities and left

13     behind destroyed mosques and Catholic churches, the burned-out and empty

14     shells of Muslim and Croat villages, and mass graves full of victims,

15     while many of those who had not been killed or fled huddled in terror in

16     camps, waiting to see which detainees would be the next to be brutalised.

17             I will first be discussing General Mladic's command and control,

18     then his use of that command and control to operationalise the common

19     purpose, and then his knowledge and approval of the cleansing campaign.

20     And finally I'll address some issues related to several of the specific

21     municipalities.

22             The evidence shows what witnesses told you they saw from the

23     beginning of the war:  Mladic had firm command and control over the VRS

24     and subordinated Bosnian Serb forces throughout this campaign.

25             Brigade General Wilson, who was present in Bosnia from the


Page 44387

 1     establishment of the VRS, testified its operations were sophisticated,

 2     well-organised, requiring good command and control.  And Colonel Tucker

 3     explained nothing of any military significance could happen in

 4     Republika Srpska without Mladic's specific approval:

 5             "It was very apparent that he made all the practical military

 6     decisions that mattered."

 7             At the 16th Assembly, Mladic made clear he insisted on single

 8     command, telling the Assembly:

 9             "I do how to command an army but to be able to command, I need to

10     have an army, and we cannot have 100 masters in one home.  The army must

11     have a unified command."

12             He took immediate measures to ensure that single command

13     beginning, in fact, even before the 16th Assembly.  The day afterwards,

14     Ilidza Crisis Staff member Unkovic asked Mladic if Arkan's men in Ilidza

15     were under Mladic's command, and this was Mladic's response.

16                           [Audiotape played]

17             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Traldi, I do not hear anything on the English

18     channel.

19             MR. TRALDI:  I didn't either, Your Honour, and I'm told it's

20     because I neglected to tell the booths that it's P403, which -- the

21     transcript of which they have.

22             JUDGE ORIE:  [Previous translation continues] ... portion of it.

23             MR. TRALDI:  It's a portion which has been identified in what

24     we've given them.

25             JUDGE ORIE:  Thank you.  Then let's re-start if everyone is


Page 44388

 1     ready.

 2                           [Audiotape played]

 3             INTERPRETER: [Voiceover]

 4             "U:  One more question.

 5             "M:  Yes.

 6             "U:  We have some Arkan's Men here.

 7             "M:  Yes.

 8             "U:  Are they under our command?

 9             "M:  All of them, all under arms are under my command if they

10     want to stay alive."

11             MR. TRALDI:  By this point, Mladic was already issuing orders,

12     still formally on the letterhead of the JNA 2nd Military District and

13     through its chain of command, like P3056 and 3057.  As Milovanovic

14     testified, then JNA corps were sending combat reports in to Main Staff

15     headquarters and Mladic was on the phone exercising command, as you've

16     just heard, and, for instance, over the Kalinovik Tactical Group in

17     P1597.

18             On 19 May, General Gvero informed subordinate VRS units that

19     Mladic was the VRS's commander and:   "All the other important elements

20     of a united organisation and leadership and command have also been

21     established."

22             And that's P7325, page 2.

23             So the Main Staff concluded it had effective control over Bosnian

24     Serb military forces as of the 19th of May.  The VRS inherited much of

25     this command structure, including its personnel, weapons, and Mladic


Page 44389

 1     himself from the JNA.  As we set out in our brief, paragraphs 11 to 32,

 2     this was the culmination of a plan to create a Bosnian Serb army, which

 3     the JCE members had shared beginning in December 1991 and which

 4     Slobodan Milosevic had initiated.

 5             And you'll see on the next two slides Borislav Jovic's notes of

 6     meetings with Milosevic, first reflecting his decision to transfer JNA

 7     personnel so that the Serb leadership in Bosnia-Herzegovina could "assume

 8     command over the Serb part of the JNA."  And Jovic's notes show

 9     soldiers were quickly redeployed consistent with this plan.

10             And then, on 30th of April, 1992, the need to "withdraw the

11     remainder of the soldiers who are FRY citizens from Bosnia-Herzegovina so

12     that the remaining 90.000 JNA soldiers in that republic, mostly of Serb

13     nationality, could be placed under the command of the Bosnian Serb

14     leadership.

15             And that's P3084, pages 29 to 32.

16             Because of this plan and the preparations the JCE members made,

17     Mladic took over a well-functioning army established to implement the

18     common purpose.  And the Defence argues the JNA in Bosnia was ill

19     organised and a neutral force.  Both arguments fail on close scrutiny.

20     In fact, when Mladic took command, the JNA 2nd Military District was a

21     well-functioning military that was part of the JCE in Bosnia.   Under the

22     control of JCE member Slobodan Milosevic, the JNA had worked in concert

23     with the Bosnian Serb leadership to begin implementing the common

24     purpose.  We lay the evidence for that out in our brief, particularly in

25     paragraphs 17 to 23, 193, and 546 to 547.  And you see various JNA corps


Page 44390

 1     transform into VRS corps, for instance, in Defence witness

 2     Kelecevic's testimony at transcript page 37138; and in 4th Corps officer

 3     Gagovic's order, P6534.

 4             And the Defence attempts to deny even that the VRS acquired JNA

 5     weapons, but Mladic himself had stated during the war:   "Our army is one

 6     of the rare ones in history to have started a liberation war with a very

 7     solid material base."  P1966, page 5.

 8             And his predecessor as 2nd Military District Commander Kukanjac

 9     explained after the war:  "The Muslim-Croat horde never got hold of a

10     single plane, helicopter, tank, armoured personnel carrier, gun, mortar,

11     or motor vehicle."

12             And once the VRS was formed, Mladic had strong command and

13     control.  As Milovanovic explained:

14             "Command is centralised first and foremost and it goes top to

15     bottom from the Supreme Command across the Main Staff, corps commands,

16     and down the chain to squads."

17             That's at transcript page 16932.

18             And he goes on to explain how the Main Staff monitored the

19     implementation of its orders and the activities of corps commands.  And

20     General Wilson, among others, gave evidence that Mladic's effective

21     control over VRS units was visible to him.  And that's P320,

22     paragraph 127.

23             The combat-readiness report of the Main Staff explained that it

24     had translated objectives and tasks set by the political leadership into

25     "missions of the Army of RS, with the goals of every individual combat


Page 44391

 1     action, operation, or battle being specifically defined."  It concluded

 2     decisions on the engagement of the forces of the VRS were taken at

 3     meetings of bodies of the Main Staff headed as a rule by the commander --

 4             JUDGE MOLOTO:  Slow down, Mr. Traldi, please.

 5             MR. TRALDI:  That is, by General Mladic.  That's P338, page 8.

 6     And after the war, Mladic explained the most complicated and difficult

 7     decisions he often made alone or with his Chief of Staff.  That's P1147,

 8     page 124.

 9             In paragraph 636 of its brief, the Defence suggests that the

10     military police may have carried out tasks from the security organ

11     without Mladic's knowledge, in an effort to separate him from the crimes

12     the military police were committing, but the security organ was run by

13     General Tolimir - one of Mladic's trusted subordinates from Croatia as

14     can you see in P5007.  Mladic described him as part of the inner core of

15     the Main Staff.  The presence of a lieutenant like Tolimir under Mladic's

16     command and supervising the professional work of the military police

17     supported Mladic's command and control over them, but Mladic was the one

18     with command, as Skrbic explained.  Mladic's various assistant commanders

19     would make proposals to him in their areas of responsibility and if

20     Mladic agreed, they were responsible for implementing those proposals.

21             And Mladic kept firm control over even his most trusted

22     subordinates.  For instance, he made clear to Tolimir in May 1992 that

23     Tolimir had on one occasion gone beyond his remit telling him:  "Don't

24     exceed your powers and competencies anymore."  Amd Tolimir replied:  "I

25     understand, Comrade General."  Mladic added:  "And don't bow to pressure


Page 44392

 1     anymore."  And Tolimir again replied:  "I understand, Comrade General."

 2     The next day when Mandic notified Tolimir of an order from Mladic,

 3     Tolimir simply replied:  "Well, that's clear."  And that's P2752 and

 4     P2755.

 5             Mladic also exercised firm control over corps commanders.  SRK

 6     commander Dragomir Milosevic was described by international as "merely

 7     adhering to the orders/directions that were issued to him by

 8     General Mladic.  And Milosevic's assistant commander for legal, morale,

 9     and religious affairs, Luka Dragovic, testified that as far as he knew,

10     Milosevic abided by Main Staff decisions and "never issued an order that

11     was in contravention of orders from the superior command."

12             As Mr. Tieger mentioned, corps commanders would seek approval for

13     the next day's decisions in their daily reports, and you see that process

14     illustrated, for instance, in P3663, P3672, P4045, and P4450.  And East

15     Bosnia Corps commander Simic testified he had the right to call Mladic

16     urgently "to ask for approval of some of our decisions."  And that's

17     P4325, transcript page 28494.

18             And corps commanders passed Mladic's orders down the chain to the

19     units.  Defence witness Milivoje Simic acknowledged 1st Krajina Corps

20     Commander Talic's orders were "received from the Main Staff ... he sent

21     it down to me and I sent to down to my units.  That's how it went."

22             And orders were unquestionable.  When asked if he supported

23     Mladic's decision that no man, woman, or child could leave besieged

24     Vecici until those remaining there had surrendered their weapons, 22nd

25     Brigade Battalion Commander Slobodan Zupljanin explained:  "It wasn't up


Page 44393

 1     to me to support.  It was up to me to implement the decisions --

 2     implement the orders of my superior command."

 3             In paragraph 644 of its brief, the Defence claims Prosecution

 4     expert Butler gave evidence that the most important position in the VRS

 5     was corps commander.  What Butler actually wrote at P2200, paragraph 2.0,

 6     was that corps commander was the most important position in a given VRS

 7     corps.   The evidence shows the most important position in the VRS, the

 8     man responsible, was General Mladic.

 9             And, Your Honour, I see we're at the time for a break.

10             JUDGE ORIE:  Thank you, Mr. Traldi.  We'll take a break and we'll

11     resume at 1.30 p.m.

12

13                           --- Recess taken at 1.10 p.m.

14                           --- On resuming at 1.31 p.m.

15             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Traldi, please proceed.

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

17             The Defence claims in paragraph 646 that Mladic could not appoint

18     corps or brigade commanders who it suggests were under Karadzic's

19     control.  And initially you can see Mladic appoint brigade commanders in

20     P4985 and in his meeting with Svetozar Andric in Vlasenica on the 18th

21     of May, 1992.  And as Skrbic testified, VRS personnel decisions were

22     drafted by the Main Staff's personnel sector based on Mladic's orders,

23     even when they were for Karadzic to sign.

24             But more fundamentally, Karadzic and Mladic worked together to

25     implement the common purpose.  Both repeatedly underscored the importance


Page 44394

 1     of unity between the military and political branches; what Gvero called

 2     the VRS's greatest value.  That's P7391, page 3.

 3             And Karadzic, as Supreme Commander, recognised and relied on

 4     Mladic's essential role in the army's efforts.  Milovanovic explained,

 5     for instance, that municipality President Dusko Kornjaca in Cajnice, a

 6     non-indictment municipality, had been the original brigade commander

 7     there and wanted to replace the commander who had been subsequently

 8     appointed pursuant to a Main Staff decision.  When Milovanovic and

 9     then-Colonel Milenko Zivanovic complained to Karadzic, Karadzic called

10     Kornjaca and he said:  "Dusko, we are physicians.  We don't know how to

11     command in war.  Let the professionals command."

12             And that's how you see it working throughout the cleansing

13     campaign.  Karadzic meeting with Mladic, giving strategic direction, but

14     letting the professionals command the army.  As Karadzic put it in

15     January 1994, he had "accepted entirely the decisions of all the officers

16     and General Mladic."  That's P4094, page 2.  While Karadzic issued some

17     specific orders, primarily later in the war, that was the exception, and

18     there's certainly no evidence that Karadzic went around Mladic and the

19     Main Staff to order VRS units to commit crimes without Mladic's

20     knowledge.

21             The Defence relies on Milovanovic's testimony that Karadzic

22     issued him orders directly in August 1995 after the VRS had suffered a

23     number of serious defeats in the Krajina.  Now, Milovanovic says during

24     that period, Karadzic gave him direct orders, and then Milovanovic

25     explained:  "All the orders that I received from him were forwarded by


Page 44395

 1     myself to General Mladic.  And I waited for his position because Mladic

 2     was my immediate superior ..."  At the very at least, he always Mladic

 3     informed.  And that's at transcript page 16972 to 16973.

 4             Now this came long after Mladic and Karadzic had together used

 5     the VRS to ethnically cleanse most of BiH.  And looking closer, this

 6     period shows the strength of Mladic's command.  Even though Karadzic had

 7     attempted to reassign Mladic, Milovanovic ran Karadzic's orders by

 8     Mladic, his immediate superior, and five corps commanders signed a letter

 9     supporting Mladic; P4284.  Mladic continued exercising command, and

10     eventually Karadzic formally withdrew his decision, and they continued

11     working together.  Indeed, when the Defence discusses this in

12    paragraph 3287 of their brief, they cite orders Mladic subsequently issued

13     as Main Staff commander in the very next paragraph.  This strong command

14     and control was the way Mladic made his primary contribution to

15     implementing the overarching JCE in this case.  We set out his other

16     contributions in paragraph 290 of our final brief.

17             Now one of the messages Mladic ensured was disseminated down the

18     chain of command was the JCE members' view that Bosnian Muslim and Croats

19     generally were their enemies.  Here we see Mladic instructing his

20     subordinates what to do with their enemies.

21             THE INTERPRETER:  Mr. Traldi, could you please slow down.

22             JUDGE ORIE:  Mr. Traldi, you are invited to slow down.

23             MR. TRALDI:  I'll try to accept, Mr. President.

24             Mladic writes:   "Keep pushing energetically onwards, pay no

25     attention to what is going on around us.  The Turks must disappear from


Page 44396

 1     these areas."

 2             And you see here the desire to expel being operationalized.  And

 3     in an interview in the same year, 1994, Mladic explained many of the

 4     Bosnian Muslims were, as we'll see on the next slide, "not even Turks

 5     they are converts."  The B/C/S word you see bolded is "Poturice" which

 6     you've heard is derogatory.  And he calls them "the worst scum who had

 7     betrayed the Serb people."

 8             And this message was replayed down the VRS's ranks you see here

 9     P6647 and Defence witness Dragicevic, then the SRK's assistant commander

10     for legal, morale and religious affairs, writing that Serbs were

11     genetically superior to Muslims, stronger, better, more handsome and

12     cleverer, and referring to them again as "Poturice."  And we set out in

13     paragraphs 72 through 82 of our brief the key role that Dragicevic's

14     sector played in the propaganda campaign and disseminating the JCE

15     members' message to soldiers on the ground.

16             You see that this message throughout the VRS corps being repeated

17     and operationalized.  In 1st Krajina Corps chief of security Bogojevic's

18     report on the removal of "the enemy," that is, the Muslim and Croat

19     population of Kotor Varos.  That's P3815.  In 17th Brigade officer

20     Marko Samardzija's reference to "the internal enemy, the Muslim

21     population in our villages," that's P519.  And in SRK commander Galic's

22     exhortation to his soldiers that "the value of each individual and each

23     unit is the measure to which they have safe-guarded the Serbs and Serbian

24     territory and how many Poturice they have liquidated and how much of

25     their territory they have seized."


Page 44397

 1             The VRS seized and ethnically cleansed the territory the JCE

 2     members had claimed.  And, indeed, you see here how the Main Staff

 3     characterised the goals of its 1992 campaign in the combat readiness

 4     report.  "Liberation of territories which are ours and which belong to us

 5     by historical birthright."  The charged municipalities were all among

 6     those territories.  And here we see again, P7325, page 2, Gvero's

 7     19 May order.  It reflects the Main Staff's view that the "state-building

 8     Serbian people living on around 65 per cent of the territory and

 9     representing around 35 per cent of the population of Bosnia and

10     Herzegovina must fight for a total partition from the Muslim and Croatian

11     people and must create their own state."

12             And you've heard from various Defence witnesses that this order

13     implemented strategic objective 1 and told the soldiers the purpose of

14     the war.  That includes witness Barasin from the 1st Krajina Corps and

15     Defence historic expert Kovic.

16             And illustrated throughout our brief, Mladic knew very well how

17     VRS units were pursuing "total partition."  Indeed, he had to know in

18     order to exercise command.  The Chamber received the evidence of Mladic's

19     detailed knowledge of VRS activities.  2nd Krajina Corps commander Boric

20     explained Mladic "would know what the situation was like on the front

21     line of the 2nd Krajina Corps without me having to report to him."  And

22     those reports meant Mladic "knew what was occurring in the entire AOR of

23     the VRS."

24             And that second reference is from P439.

25             Now, the Defence attempts to undermine Mladic's knowledge of the


Page 44398

 1     notorious cleansing campaign by claiming in paragraph `665 that unless

 2     Mladic actively inquired about daily combat reports, he was not informed

 3     about them.  This preposterous claim ignores that he chaired the

 4     Main Staff meetings at which such reports were discussed.  It's from

 5     Milovanovic's testimony.  It ignores East Bosnia Corps commander Simic's

 6     evidence that he spoke with Mladic almost every day to follow up on the

 7     daily combat report whether Mladic was in Crna Rijeka or out in the

 8     field.  And that's P4325, transcript page 28494, and it ignores that even

 9     the witness they cite, Banduka, testified that -- testified not that the

10     report didn't reach Mladic but that it went to the operative centre and

11     as long as Mladic was present at Crna Rijeka "he would be conveyed that

12     information from the operative centre of the Main Staff or the Chief of

13     Staff himself."

14             Consistent with Mladic's detailed knowledge about what his units

15     were doing, he knew they were implementing his orders through the

16     commission of widespread crimes.

17             We noted in our brief, particularly at paragraphs 283 and 479,

18     the international notoriety of the cleansing campaign.

19             Many of the charged crimes were also individually notorious in

20     Bosnia or outside it, and for the charged municipalities we set some of

21     the evidence set out in the knowledge and approval sections of our

22     municipality narratives.  But, in short, the world was well aware of the

23     nature of the cleansing campaign.  Mladic must have known it too.  He

24     knew it from the international negotiators he met with, he knew it from

25     the media, he knew it from meetings he recorded in his notebooks, and he


Page 44399

 1     knew it from daily combat reports that he received.  Mladic received

 2     direct reports of crimes in some of those reports.  The Defence notes

 3     this in paragraph 736 of its brief without giving any examples, but they

 4     claim that he received reports from the military justice system that

 5     those crimes were being prosecuted.  I will get to the military justice

 6     system in a little while; but, for now, I want to make clear that there

 7     is nothing in its reports that suggests on even a cursory read that it

 8     was successfully prosecuting the perpetrators of crimes against

 9     non-Serbs.  We set out a number of direct reports of crimes in our brief

10     but just, for instance, you see Mladic's knowledge in P3733 where the

11     1 KK noted its "attempt to expel" Muslim and Croat refugees to

12     Central Bosnia; or D418, where the 1 KK reported that "the Muslim

13     population of the area of Lisnja village has been expelled."

14             These reports documented just a few examples of how the VRS

15     operationalized the JCE members' common purpose.  The evidence shows that

16     the VRS and other Bosnian Serb forces engaged in the same pattern of

17     crimes throughout Serb-claimed territories.  That pattern was present

18     throughout the charged municipalities, in most of which the evidence we

19     cited in our narratives and in our Scheduled Incident charts reflects

20     that the cleansing campaign encompassed not just all the charged crimes

21     but all the various persecutory acts charged in Count 3 of the

22     indictment.  And you also saw the pattern in evidence of

23     Unscheduled Incidents which reinforce and corroborate the pattern of

24     crimes, and the pattern reflects the organisation, preparation and

25     planning that preceded these crimes.  It reveals the common purpose


Page 44400

 1     behind them.  The only reasonable inference from the pattern of grave and

 2     brutal crimes committed by Mladic's subordinates is that the crimes were

 3     part of the cleansing campaign's purpose.

 4             And you now see on your screen, or are about to, an order from

 5     General Mladic, a portion of Directive 4 reflecting the task he assigned

 6     to Drina Corps:  "Exhaust the enemy, inflict the heaviest possible losses

 7     on them and force them to leave the Birac, Zepa and Gorazde

 8     areas with the Muslim population."  This is an unambiguous order to expel

 9     the Muslim population, an order for ethnic cleansing.  That clear

10     interpretation is confirmed by, among other things, the fact that the VRS

11     implemented Directive 4 by expelling thousands of Bosnian Muslims from

12     Eastern Bosnia.  The history of Directive 4 which, as Mr. Tieger told

13     you, arose from a meeting between Mladic and other high-level Bosnian

14     Serb leaders where they discussed the need to "ciscenje" Eastern Bosnia.

15     The implementing order Drina Corps commander Zivanovic issued, which

16     explicitly orders Drina Corps units to expel the Muslim population and,

17     finally, Mladic and other JCE members' goal of establishing a homogenous

18     Serb Eastern Bosnia which had already been implemented through

19     large-scale ethnic cleansing before Directive 4 was issued.  You've heard

20     evidence about how Directive 4 was implemented, and we address it

21     particularly in paragraphs 401 through 412 of our brief.  Systematic

22     operations, ethnically cleansing one village at a time; P7361.  Wanton

23     destruction of Muslim hamlets around the Cerska enclave; P2193, P4093.

24     And Drina Corps commander Zivanovic's call to his subordinates to do so:

25             "Are the Turks' houses burning."


Page 44401

 1             Response:  "They are burning, they are burning."

 2             And Zivanovic's:   "Way to go, as many as possible."

 3             That's P2192.

 4             As Ibro Osmanovic's family reflects, many of those expelled had

 5     already been pushed from their homes to the remaining Muslim enclaves in

 6     Vlasenica and Bratunac, Cerska and Konjevic Polje.  He testified:  "My

 7     mother had been expelled from Vlasenica to Cerska.  My sister was in

 8     Cerska.  They were there until February 1993.  From there, they passed

 9     through," and he mentions a number of other villages and then explains:

10     "And they arrived Tuzla.  The others, the remainder of the population

11     went to Srebrenica.  So Cerska was empty.  It remained empty."

12             And you see next Drina Corps commander Zivanovic's order

13     implementing Directive 4, P2095, and he tells the Drina Corps he has

14     decided pursuant to directive 4 to "inflict on the enemy the highest

15     possible losses, exhaust them, break them up or force them to surrender,

16     and force the Muslim local population to abandon the area of Cerska,

17     Zepa, Srebrenica and Gorazde."

18             So Zivanovic understood he was implementing an order to expel, to

19     expel the population.

20             The Defence relies in paragraph 2856 on General Milovanovic's

21     self-serving claim that Directive 4 simply anticipated the Muslim

22     population would flee.  If that was the case, of course, Zivanovic

23     wouldn't have needed to order them forced out and the conduct of the

24     operations reflects, as you'd seen throughout the cleansing campaign, the

25     goal was to expel them, the goal was to cleanse the territory.


Page 44402

 1             The Defence also claims in paragraph 2854 of its brief that

 2     Butler testified Directive 4 legitimately targeted a portion of the

 3     population which was assisting the Bosnian military.  In fact, Butler

 4     testified that Directive 4 was unlawful and the VRS implemented it

 5     through targeting "the civilian population at large."  And that's

 6     transcript pages 16135 to 16136 and 16144 to 16145.

 7             Directive 4 just put on paper the way the VRS conducted its

 8     operations from the time it was established.  The systematic ethnic

 9     cleansing conducted in its implementation reflected what the VRS had

10     already done throughout Serb-claimed territory.  And so what it tells you

11     is that the way the VRS fought the war - burning entire villages,

12     expelling non-Serb civilians, and leaving them nothing to which return -

13     was no accident.  The directive merely codified long-term VRS practice

14     under the name and signature of the man who had led the VRS in

15     implementing the cleansing campaign from the establishment of the army,

16     General Mladic.

17             For instance, you see here P7086, an order by Birac Brigade

18     commander Svetozar Andric on 26 May 1992 to "move women and children out

19     of the Muslim villages to Kalesija and Gracanica, whereas the men are to

20     be taken away to collection centres."

21             Andric admitted that this meant women and children from Muslim

22     villages had to move to Muslim-held territory.  That's transcript

23     page 34773.  And you see here he was ordering his subordinates to move

24     them.  Realising the obvious implications of this order for ethnic

25     cleansing, he attempted in testimony to claim this reference to women and


Page 44403

 1     children in Muslim villages was, in fact, a reference to women and

 2     children of all ethnicities before admitting at transcript page 34775

 3     that the order specifically focused on moving out Muslim women and

 4     children.

 5             And you see here P7380 just over a month after Andric's cleansing

 6     order, Mladic promoting him to lieutenant-colonel.  As you've heard and

 7     read, he ended the war a general and the Drina Corps Chief of Staff.

 8             Andric's order reflects that the cleansing operations and the

 9     roundup of non-Serbs during them created a need to warehouse huge numbers

10     of prisoners, and the JCE members systemically detained them in terrible

11     conditions, in camps where they were exposed to beatings, to sexual

12     violence and where many were murdered.

13             Now the camp system was a joint enterprise between the VRS, the

14     RS MUP and Bosnian Serb civilian authorities.   You see in P3801, Mico

15     Stanisic's 17 July 1992 report that those institutions all shared

16     responsibility for the system.

17             He writes:   "The army, Crisis Staffs and War Presidencies have

18     requested that the army round up or capture as many Muslim civilians as

19     possible, and they leave such undefined camps to internal affairs organs.

20     The conditions in some of these camps are poor; there is no food,

21     individuals sometimes do not observe international norms, et cetera."

22             The evidence shows many of these camps were run by internal

23     affairs organs, as Stanisic said, but many of the charged camps were run

24     by VRS units.  And we set out in paragraphs 312 to 313 of our brief the

25     evidence of the camp system was one single system, and following that the


Page 44404

 1     evidence of the terrible conditions throughout it.

 2             The VRS played a critical role in the system aside from leading

 3     the cleansing operations in which, as Stanisic noted, Muslim civilians

 4     were rounded up and captured, the VRS operated camps including the

 5     charged camps in Bijeljina, Banja Luka, Foca, Kalinovik, Rogatica and

 6     Trnopolje camp in Prijedor.  Like in the rest of the system, the

 7     conditions in those camps were terrible.  For the moment, I'm going to

 8     focus on two where the Defence concede the VRS ran the camps but claim

 9     conditions were humane.

10             First, Batkovic was established in Bijeljina municipality at

11     Mladic's order and operated by the East Bosnia Corps.  The evidence shows

12     it held thousands of non-Serb detainees in overcrowded and unsanitary

13     conditions.  Guards beat detainees, singled some out for particularly

14     harsh treatment, killed several, and detainees were forced to beat and

15     abuse each other.  That's all in our Scheduled Incident chart.

16             Just to look at one example, one witness was transferred from the

17     Vlasenica prison to Batkovic on 13 August 1992 and held there until the

18     11 September 1992.  He was one of ten detainees known as the special unit

19     who were subjected to particularly cruel beatings and torture, beaten at

20     least three times a day, ordered to beat each other and have sexual

21     intercourse with each other.  Often they were beaten in front of other

22     prisoners.  When journalists or Red Cross representatives came, the

23     special unit members were hidden.  And the injuries inflicted on this

24     witness included a fractured skull, stab wounds in both hands and his

25     left foot, cigarette burns, damage to his nervous system, fractures to

 


Page 44405

 1     his upper right arm, nose and jaw, broken ribs and damaged kidneys.  So

 2     he had lasting physical injuries and post-traumatic stress.  That's P2521

 3     and P2522.

 4             Now, the Defence claims in paragraph 1629 of its brief that

 5     Batkovic legitimately held POWs and prisoners for whom there were

 6     suspicions that they committed criminal acts or war crimes.  The very

 7     evidence they cite refutes this.  They cite first P3806, which refers to

 8     the transfer of prisoners from Manjaca.  As I'll get to in a moment, the

 9     prisoners held there were known mostly to be simple civilians.

10             And for the second discussion, can we briefly go into private

11     session.

12             JUDGE ORIE:  We move into private session.

13                           [Private session]

14   (redacted)

15   (redacted)

16   (redacted)

17   (redacted)

18   (redacted)

19   (redacted)

20   (redacted)

21   (redacted)

22   (redacted)

23   (redacted)

24   (redacted)

25   (redacted)


Page 44406

 1   (redacted)

 2   (redacted)

 3   (redacted)

 4   (redacted)

 5   (redacted)

 6   (redacted)

 7   (redacted)

 8                           [Open session]

 9             THE REGISTRAR:  We're now in open session, Your Honours.

10             JUDGE ORIE:  Thank you, Mr. Registrar.

11             MR. TRALDI:  And Defence witness and military judge Bojanovic

12     admitted he visited Muslim civilians detained at Batkovic.  That's

13     transcript page 27975.  And Defence witness Andan admitted a Croat he

14     knew was being detained at Batkovic only because he was a Croat.  "I

15     couldn't find any other reason or explanation."

16             The Defence claim that transferring prisoners to Batkovic for

17     exchange "proves the VRS had no criminal intent" - that's in

18     paragraph 1641 of their brief is unsubstantial - is unsustainable.  Those

19     people being held to be exchanged out of Serb territory because of their

20     ethnicity were held by the VRS in criminal, disgraceful conditions, were

21     primarily civilians who had been rounded up to be detained and eventually

22     removed and were abused and some killed in detention.

23             Turning to Manjaca, the 1st Krajina Corps held thousands of

24     detainees there, almost all non-Serbs.  They were held with insufficient

25     food and water, in crowded stables, many were severely beaten and

 


Page 44407

 1     otherwise abused and at least ten killed.  For instance, a judge from

 2     Sanski Most who was transferred from Manjaca on 17 June 1992.  He was

 3     beaten regularly, beginning as soon as he arrived.  He fainted several

 4     times during beatings by soldiers and military police, lost a tooth, lost

 5     approximately one-third of his body weight due to the lack of food in the

 6     camp before being transferred to Germany in December 1992.  He was still

 7     suffering pain from the beatings when he gave a statement in 2000.

 8     That's P3293.                                 

 9             The Defence claim that the VRS released detainees who were found

10     not to have participated in combat is also based on Manjaca evidence.

11     That evidence, P241, shows 700 Manjaca detainees being transferred to

12     Croatia in November 1992, thus completing their permanent removal from

13     Serb-claimed territory.  The Defence witness Solaja admitted the Bosnian

14     Serb leadership had made a condition of closing the camp.  The other

15     evidence they rely on, P219, simply refers to the intention to "discuss

16     the possibility" of some detainees' returning home, but they cite no

17     examples of anyone who did, perhaps because the VRS had destroyed many of

18     the Muslim homes and villages in Sanski Most during its cleansing

19     operations as we set out in our municipality narrative.

20             Here, too, the evidence shows the prisoners being held by the VRS

21     at Manjaca were civilians.  In the main, I'd refer you to P220, P221, and

22     the evidence of Adil Medic that 1st Krajina Corps officer Vukelic had

23     told him very few of the detainees at Manjaca had anything to do with the

24     armed conflict.

25             In paragraph 62 of its brief, the Defence dispute what they call


Page 44408

 1     Pyers Tucker's "hearsay evidence" that Mladic controlled detention

 2     facilities, including Batkovic, KP Dom Foca and Kula prison.  First, the

 3     evidence is that Mladic himself told Tucker that he controlled those

 4     facilities.  That's not hearsay evidence; it's an admission.  Second, in

 5     Kula, the Defence also ignore the testimony of their own witness,

 6     Main Staff officer Savo Sokanovic, that Kula prison was "under the

 7     control of the army."

 8             As we set out in our Ilidza narrative, VRS officers, including

 9     members of the SRK command, exercised such control, in part, by approving

10     the use of Kula prison detainees for forced labour on the front lines

11     where some were killed.  The Defence claims that this was done by

12     individuals acting against orders, but the very documents that they cite

13     in footnote 3058 of their brief reflect VRS officers, including SRK chief

14     of security Marko Lugonja, approving these forced labour assignments.

15     And Kula was one of the hubs of the detention camp system, like Batkovic

16     and Foca and Manjaca.  The Defence argues in paragraph 1324 that "a 156

17     people" were accommodated at Kula, only combatants when Bosnian Serb

18     documentation, for instance, P3808 reflects that thousands of non-Serb

19     civilians had passed through Kula by October 1994.

20             We set out in paragraphs 322 through 332 of our brief just some

21     of the evidence that huge numbers of civilians were detained throughout

22     the camp system, consistent with the practice at Batkovic, Manjaca, and

23     Kula and with the Andric order that you saw earlier.

24             Now, one of the places the intentional detention of civilians is

25     most apparent is in the processing of Manjaca prisoners in late


Page 44409

 1     August 1992, after international condemnation of the Bosnian Serb camps.

 2     Mladic met with the Presidency and then the Main Staff tasked the Manjaca

 3     camp staff with processing detainees.  The camp identified 92 who did not

 4     participate in combat activities, also had serious health problems, and

 5     were attracting the attention of journalists and representatives of

 6     humanitarian organisations.  You see that in P4288 and you see the

 7     criteria at page 1.  You can see in this still from a BBC broadcast,

 8     P243, that such prisoners were attracting international attention.  But

 9     three weeks later, only three of the 92 prisoners the camp staff had

10     identified were released pursuant to pardons from President Karadzic, and

11     you see other evidence that the 1 KK was detaining known civilians there,

12     for instance, in paragraph 341 of our brief.

13     Finally, for today I want to turn to the Defence attempt to undermine the

14     evidence of the individual charged crimes.   The Defence suggests for

15     various crimes that crimes were committed by drunk soldiers acting on

16     their own or that civilians wearing military uniforms on the same day the

17     VRS attacked a village committed crimes in that village during the attack

18     and somehow the VRS didn't notice.

19             Now, we set out in the Scheduled Incident charts in our brief the

20     evidence which, considered in its totality, conclusively identifies

21     perpetrators.  In various incidents, that evidence includes VRS reports

22     showing units attacking villages on the date of the charged crime,

23     includes witnesses familiarity with their tormentors which enabled them

24     to identify perpetrators by name or unit, includes the use of heavy

25     military weaponry, like tanks, and is supported by the ability of


Page 44410

 1     witnesses from a society with compulsory military service to distinguish

 2     between different types of uniforms.

 3             I want to look at one such incident specifically, the cleansing

 4     of Novoseoci village in Sokolac municipality, Scheduled Incident A8.1

 5     Crisis Staff president Milan Tupajic explained that the 2nd

 6     Romanija Brigade surrounded and blocked Novoseoci on the evening of

 7     21 September 1992.  That's P3170, transcript page 15428.  This followed

 8     brigade commander Radislav Krstic's order the day before to attack areas

 9     in Sokolac municipality, P6641, which itself implemented SRK commander

10     Galic's order, P7408.

11             Now survivor, Munira Selmanovic explained on 22 September 1992

12     she saw soldiers dressed in olive-drab and camouflage uniforms in

13     Novoseoci who rounded up the Muslim villagers and brought them to

14     Metaljka field.  That's P717, paragraph 8.  And she recognised

15     Momcilo Pajic, a Serb she knew very well, was in charge of the soldiers.

16     That's paragraphs 11 and 12.

17             Your Honours see who Pajic was on this document:  A captain and

18     military police commander in the 2nd Romanija Brigade, the same unit

19     Tupajic mentioned until he was promoted here to major in 1995.  Pajic

20     told Selmanovic --

21             And, Your Honour, I have about two minutes on this point if it

22     would all right for everyone to finish the topic for continuity.

23             JUDGE ORIE:  If you would limit it to two minutes, it's okay.

24             MR. TRALDI:  Thank you, Your Honour.

25             Pajic told Selmanovic and the others gathered at the field to


Page 44411

 1     wait while he went to Sokolac for orders.  When he returned, at his

 2     order, the soldiers separated men from women, children and elderly

 3     people.  Selmanovic and the other women, children, and elderly people

 4     were taken to the confrontation lines and dropped off, then walked into

 5     besieged Sarajevo.  She begged to take her teenage son with her, but he

 6     was kept at Metaljka field.

 7             The 2nd Romanija Brigade, you will see on the next slide,

 8     reported to the Main Staff that evening at 1800 hours that it had

 9     "ciscenje" the village of Novoseoci that day.  By the evening, Tupajic

10     knew the men had been murdered.  That's P3170, transcript pages 15427 and

11     15428.  He, Selmanovic, P727, and P7529 reflect that the victims were

12     then buried in a garbage dump at a place called Ivan Polje, and the

13     exhumation report for the site, P727, shows you the victims were the same

14     people Selmanovic saw surrounded and detained by soldiers, left behind at

15     the field.  Tupajic's evidence that the men were murdered is borne out by

16     the forensic evidence, P2262, which shows the people in the grave site

17     died of gunshot wounds mostly multiple times from behind with

18     high-velocity rifles.  And you can see here the remains of the Novoseoci

19     mosque blown up the same day by 2nd Romanija Brigade engineers found in

20     the garbage pile on top of the mass grave, and the slide is P2512,

21     page 18, and the same information is in P727 and at transcript page 6818.

22     So the evidence fits together like a mosaic to prove the crime and the

23     identify of the perpetrators.

24             I thank Your Honours for your indulgence, and I'll pick up

25     tomorrow morning.


Page 44412

 1             JUDGE ORIE:  Thank you, Mr. Traldi.

 2             Just four practical purposes, is the Prosecution on schedule

 3     until now?

 4             MR. TIEGER:  We are, Mr. President, notwithstanding a slight --

 5     an understanding that the timing of the commencement of this morning, but

 6     we're still on schedule, I believe.

 7             JUDGE ORIE:  Yes, well, if it is only about those ten minutes,

 8     then there seem to be no major problems, at least not yet.

 9             We will adjourn for the day and we'll resume tomorrow, Tuesday,

10     the 6th of December, 9.30 in the morning, in this same courtroom, I.

11                            --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.18 p.m.,

12                           to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 6th day of

13                           December, 2016, at 9.30 a.m.

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