1 Tuesday, 15th July 1997

2 (10.00 am)

3 Witness M (continued)

4 Cross-examined by MR. ACKERMAN

5 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

6 Now we continue from where we stopped yesterday. Can

7 you remind the witness he is still on his oath? Let's

8 have the appearances first and then we continue.

9 MS. McHENRY: Good morning, your Honours. I am Teresa

10 McHenry for the Office of the Prosecutor.

11 THE INTERPRETER: Excuse me. The witness apparently has

12 problems with the earphones.

13 THE REGISTRAR: I should like to remind you that you are

14 still testifying under oath. I wish to remind you ...

15 A. Okay.

16 THE REGISTRAR: I wish to remind you that you are still

17 testifying under oath.

18 MS. McHENRY: Good morning, your Honours. I am Teresa

19 McHenry with the Office of the Prosecutor. I appear

20 here with Mr. Giuliano Turone, my co-counsel, and Ms.

21 Elles van Dusschoten, our case manager.

22 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Thank you very much.

23 MS. RESIDOVIC (in interpretation): Good morning, your

24 Honours. I am Edina Residovic, defence counsel for

25 Mr. Zejnil Delalic. My co-counsel is Mr. Eugene

1 O'Sullivan, Professor from Canada.

2 MR. OLUJIC (in interpretation): Good morning, your

3 Honours. I am Zeljko Olujic, defence counsel of

4 Mr. Zdravko Mucic. With me as co-counsel is Michael

5 Greaves, attorney from the United Kingdom and Northern

6 Ireland.

7 MR. KARABDIC (in interpretation): Good morning, your

8 Honours. I am Salih Karabdic, lawyer from Sarajevo.

9 I am defence counsel for Mr. Hazim Delic. With me in

10 the team is Mr. Thomas Moran, attorney from Houston,

11 Texas.

12 MR. ACKERMAN: Good morning, your Honours. I'm John

13 Ackerman. I appear here on behalf of Mr. Esad Landzo.

14 My co-counsel is Ms. Cynthia McMurrey from the United

15 States. Thank you.

16 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Thank you. Mr. Ackerman, I think you

17 can continue.

18 MS. McHENRY: If your Honours would like, I can give you an

19 update from my discussions with the witness yesterday

20 before Mr. Ackerman starts.

21 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: That's ideal. Let's hear your

22 discussion.

23 MS. McHENRY: First of all, your Honour, it is the case that

24 in a published book entitled "Suffering of the Serbs in

25 Konjic and Tarcin" this witness' statement, which is in

1 Serbo-Croatian and is about half a page, is found. I

2 will note that the defence was advised that in last year

3 or in January that there were many books that were

4 publicly available about the suffering -- about what

5 happened in Celebici, and in particular then in a court

6 filing on 16th January 1997 the Prosecution again

7 reported in response to a motion filed by the Defence, a

8 general motion for disclosure of exculpatory evidence,

9 among other things -- the Prosecution noted that it was

10 aware of two books in particular, which included this

11 book, "Suffering of Serbs in Konjic and Tarcin", edited

12 by Dusica Bojic in Belgrade, from the Commissariat for

13 the Refugees of the Republic of Serbia, 1995. So the

14 Defence was told this book was published and was

15 available. Although it was stated it was not

16 necessary, the Prosecution did not believe it was

17 necessary, the Prosecution reported in this motion filed

18 before the court that it was willing to permit

19 inspection of these books. So the witness has

20 indicated -- has now seen this book and indicated that

21 this statement is, in fact, the statement that he is

22 referring to. It does not appear that this is the

23 exact same book that he saw, and I will note that this

24 is a book in which certain things such as the

25 introduction I think are in English and only the -- and

1 certain witness statements, some of which are named and

2 some of which are not, are in Serbo-Croatian. So it

3 may be that this witness has seen an earlier version of

4 this book that was just in Serbo-Croatian. This

5 witness does remember -- indicates that he remembers the

6 editor of the book that he saw, and that book was edited

7 by Sretan Jakouljevic, who is also in Belgrade. So

8 this book is presumably available in book stores or

9 libraries. So this witness also agreed to contact --

10 try to contact the person who he believes has a copy of

11 the exact book he saw, but he cannot do that now. The

12 Prosecution believes, given that the Defence may look at

13 this one and has been able to look at it since January

14 of 1997, it's not necessary for this witness to continue

15 any further efforts, but I will just update the court

16 that that's the situation.

17 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Thank you very much. It depends on

18 what the Defence regards the statement which hasn't been

19 tendered to them made by the witness, but even in that

20 case, except the witness is in possession of the

21 statements, there is no way he can tender them.

22 MR. MORAN: Excuse me, your Honour. This raises another

23 issue and maybe the Prosecution can help us with this.

24 Under the provisions of Rule 66(A) it requires the

25 Prosecutor to provide the Defence, even without request,

1 copies of all statements of witnesses in the possession

2 of the Prosecution.

3 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: In their possession.

4 MR. MORAN: That's correct, your Honour. I would like to

5 know if there are other prosecution witnesses whose

6 statements are in this book.

7 JUDGE JAN: Mr. Moran, read Rule 66A:

8 "Statements obtained by the Prosecutor".

9 MR. MORAN: Your Honour, as I understand it, there is a

10 decision, and I think it is in the Tadic case, but

11 I could be wrong -- it may be in the Blaskic case --

12 which says it doesn't make any difference how these

13 statements come into the possession of OTP. It defines

14 "obtained" in a broad way that "obtained" means get as

15 opposed to questioning the witness, but I could be wrong

16 on that, your Honour.

17 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Have you exercised your entitlement

18 under Rule 67B? I think you have.

19 MR. MORAN: Although we did ask for request under 66B, it

20 would be my position that Rule 66A is a requirement on

21 the Prosecution, whether or not the Defence asked for

22 it.

23 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I'm not disputing that. That is what

24 you should attach to the indictment and the like, but

25 with the exercise that arises under 66B, then you could

1 have gone through all the documents which they have.

2 MR. MORAN: Yes, your Honour. We did, of course, file a

3 66B motion.

4 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: So you could have gone through that

5 and found whatever they had and if this is one of the

6 things which you have gone through, I think that might

7 have satisfied the provision.

8 MR. MORAN: The only other thing I would suggest to the

9 court would be this: several witnesses have been asked:

10 "Did you give statements to anybody else or did you

11 talk to anybody else?" If those statements -- if there

12 are statements from those witnesses that are contained

13 in that book, arguably that would be Rule 68,

14 exculpatory material, as it may affect the credibility

15 of prosecution witnesses or prosecution evidence.

16 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: That depends if it is exculpatory.

17 It is not merely if someone spoke or wrote a letter to

18 someone.

19 MR. MORAN: No, your Honour. What I have in mind is if

20 someone says "I did not make any other statement" and

21 there is another statement, that goes right to the

22 credibility of the witness.

23 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I think we are even expanding the

24 meaning of "statement" too much, as if what anybody said to

25 anybody, to any family friend, is a statement with

1 respect to what we are going through. It's not

2 necessarily so.

3 MR. MORAN: Yes, your Honour.

4 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes. Let's hear what you intend to

5 put in the circumstances.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, it's very difficult for me to

7 respond to what the Prosecutor has just told us unless I

8 can see the document that she was holding there, and

9 I would like to have an opportunity to take a look at

10 that time for just a moment, if I can.

11 JUDGE JAN: Surely, but as Miss McHenry is saying --

12 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

13 JUDGE JAN: As Ms. McHenry has said, the Prosecution

14 indicated to you these two books in at least January

15 1997. Why don't you look at those -- why don't you

16 accept it from her and go through the book and see what

17 the statements contained in that book were?

18 MR. ACKERMAN: Until Ms. McHenry made that statement this

19 morning I had no idea they had filed such a document.

20 It was just one of the things I have not yet got

21 around to reading in this case. So my colleagues may

22 have been fully aware of that. I was not. I

23 admit should have been. I guess what disturbs me at

24 this point is in connection with several witnesses that

25 have testified since I have arrived here, either me or

1 one or more of my colleagues have enquired of them

2 whether they have made any other formal written

3 statements to an organisation such as the Association of

4 Detainees, and many of them have denied having done so.

5 I think on more than one occasion since I have been here

6 the Prosecutor has been asked to state to the court

7 whether or not they had knowledge of any other

8 statements given by such witnesses to the Association of

9 Detainees or any other organisation, and my recollection

10 is that on each occasion the Prosecutor has told the

11 court that they had no knowledge of any other statements

12 given by the witness, and had no knowledge that any

13 statements had been given to an organisation such as the

14 Association of Detainees. Now I am not capable of

15 making more than that kind of broad general statement at

16 this point because I have not seen the book. If the

17 only witness whose statement appears in that book is the

18 one seated before us today, then I have very little to

19 complain about, because they have brought now today to

20 our attention that that statement exists in that book.

21 In terms of my further cross-examination of this

22 witness, I think it's important that I be provided with

23 at least a copy of that portion of the book which

24 contains the statement that he made, so that I can make

25 a determination whether there is any material in it that

1 I might be able to use for impeachment purposes. So

2 that's kind of where I stand with regard to that right

3 now. I must say that I'm -- I was surprised this

4 morning -- maybe some of my colleagues were not -- to

5 learn of the existence of such a book.

6 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I suppose it depends largely on the

7 extent of researches into what has happened since then,

8 because if counsel has been very conversant with what

9 has been going on, they might have known about the

10 existence of the books, irrespective of whether the

11 Prosecution knew of it or not.

12 MS. McHENRY: The Prosecution does not -- is happy to give a

13 copy -- to let the Defence counsel use this book during

14 his cross-examination. I will tell defence counsel

15 that it is only in Serbo-Croatian and we do not have a

16 translation, but possibly co-counsel who is there --

17 I also just want to clarify the record. I believe what

18 the Prosecution has stated is that any statements that

19 it has received from the Association, that the

20 Prosecution has received,, have been given. It may

21 well be that certain witnesses have given other

22 statements, be they to the media, government agencies

23 and things like that that we just don't know. So

24 please do not take anything the Prosecution has said to

25 state there were no other statements made. I believe

1 what we stated was that the Association had not provided

2 us any statements that we had not turned over to the

3 Defence, just so that's clear. I'm happy to let

4 Defence counsel use this book or maybe I can -- a copy

5 can be made later on, if you request also.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, your Honour, since it is in

7 Serbo-Croatian there's very little use I can make of it

8 right at the moment. I would ask leave to have it made

9 available during the next break so that I can have

10 someone look at it for me and tell me what this

11 statement says. I see the statement.

12 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Has the Prosecution a translation of

13 that statement in?

14 MS. McHENRY: No, your Honour. In all frankness it was

15 only -- I don't know that we were even aware that this

16 statement was in there but after this issue came up

17 yesterday, we found it. So we do not have a

18 translation. I did quickly have someone look at it

19 this morning and give me a brief summary but we don't

20 have a translation.

21 JUDGE JAN: Does his name occur in this book?

22 MS. McHENRY: Yes, your Honour.

23 JUDGE JAN: What protection can be --

24 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: You will be the first person to

25 translate the statement.

1 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, I agree. Your Honours, the first thing

2 I notice as I look at this is this seems to be a

3 regularly published book, not some kind of a private

4 publication. It appears to be a book that might be

5 available in book stores, libraries, things of that

6 nature; in other words, a public document. The other

7 thing I notice is that this witness' name appears

8 publicly in this book without the protection that has

9 been requested here in this court. I don't know if

10 that's significant or not, but that's the case.

11 MS. McHENRY: May I -- I'm sorry.

12 MR. ACKERMAN: Go ahead.

13 MS. McHENRY: May I just speak to that? It is the case that

14 with a number of witnesses the protection they request

15 is that they are testifying here as witnesses, not that

16 they were victims of Celebici camp and, for instance,

17 there are a number of witnesses whose name appears in

18 the indictment, who nonetheless have requested

19 protection, and what they are seeking is not protection

20 from what happened to them in Celebici or their

21 identities, but their status as a witness. So the fact

22 that there is a book in which it is made public that

23 they are a witness in Celebici -- a victim in Celebici,

24 the Prosecution does not believe would mean they are not

25 entitled to protection. It is the case -- it is the

1 Prosecution's understanding that this book is

2 available. In fact, in our January filing in which we

3 mentioned several books, we indicated that both of them

4 are books that are publicly -- as far as we know are

5 publicly available, and we consider them public material

6 rather than statements or anything like that. Maybe it

7 would be best if I can have -- I will request that

8 someone from the Prosecution office come in and get this

9 and I'll make copies of the witness' statement so that

10 all Defence counsel may have them during the break.

11 MR. ACKERMAN: I think that's fine. I would -- I guess I'm

12 about to have a conversation with Ms. McHenry that

13 doesn't need to take place on the record. I'll have

14 that conversation during the break. In any event, I am

15 prepared to go forward with my cross-examination

16 excluding anything I might want to do with regard to

17 this book, and if I finish my cross-examination prior to

18 our morning break, then I would ask leave to have this

19 witness brought back for additional cross-examination

20 after I've had a chance to look at the statement if

21 I think it's appropriate; otherwise not.

22 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: That's all right, because if you

23 really want to impeach him you could not do so until you

24 have seen what the statement is about.

25 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes.

1 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: So you can continue your

2 cross-examination.

3 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, your Honour.

4 Mr. M, I would like to talk to you a bit more about

5 the memoires that you have written regarding your

6 experiences; okay?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. I want to have you tell us if in connection with writing

9 those memoires that you focused primarily or exclusively

10 on your experiences in Celebici camp and in Musala, or

11 if it went broader into all of your experiences prior to

12 and during the war in Bosnia?

13 A. If you recall, I said that the memoires were something

14 I was writing for myself, something that I do not wish

15 to publish at least for the time being, and to satisfy

16 your curiosity I will tell you that I'm covering the

17 period from 1992, that is before the outbreak of the

18 conflict, until the end. I just mentioned this by

19 chance, that I was writing these memoires. I said that

20 I didn't know whether they would ever be published. If

21 they are, they will be available. I'm talking about my

22 experiences and all the events that happened from

23 January 1992 to the end of 1995.

24 Q. Did you base these writings strictly on your own memory

25 and your own experiences, or did you conduct some

1 additional research and use additional materials to help

2 you in writing these memoires?

3 A. They have to do with my personal experiences, my

4 personal reflections about the situation, about the war

5 itself. I didn't use any other material. Memoires

6 are memoires.

7 Q. Prior to May of 1992 you, of course, had learned a great

8 deal about what was going on in the former Yugoslavia

9 and specifically in Bosnia, had you not?

10 A. Yes, from the mass media.

11 Q. And from discussions with other persons?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. You learned a great deal about what was going on by

14 watching television, I take it?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And that primarily was the television from Belgrade?

17 A. No, it was Sarajevo television, because I was living in

18 the environs of Sarajevo.

19 Q. Did there not come a time when you could no longer

20 receive the Sarajevo television but only the Belgrade

21 television?

22 A. Yes, but at that time I could not watch television,

23 because there was no electricity. We couldn't watch

24 television at all. Electricity was cut off.

25 Q. Was it things that you had learned from television that

1 made it clear to you that it might be a good idea for

2 you to arm yourselves, the citizens of Bradina?

3 A. No. I said that I was watching Sarajevo television.

4 Q. Were you watching television from TV Srna, from the

5 Republika Srpska?

6 A. No, the official TV Sarajevo.

7 Q. What was it that occurred prior to your acquiring a

8 weapon and other Serbs in Bradina acquiring weapons that

9 caused you to believe that that might be necessary?

10 A. The political situation itself in the Republic,

11 especially the political situation in the municipality

12 of Konjic, where the Serb population held less than 20

13 per cent of the share, total share of the population.

14 I don't know the exact figure. The people who were

15 fleeing from the town of Konjic and from other parts

16 where they were in the minority, so that even before the

17 attack on Bradina itself, people were intimidated where

18 they were in the minority. They fled from town. They

19 came to Bradina. They fled to Sarajevo, fearing the

20 worst, and learning from this experience of others,

21 I had a dilemma whether I should take my wife and

22 children away from Bradina or whether I should stay.

23 Thus believing that a conflict could break out,

24 I stayed. At least I didn't believe the war could

25 occur in the way it did and that is why I stayed;

1 otherwise I would have left.

2 Q. I take it you knew about the various speeches and

3 statements being made by Slobodan Milosevic regarding

4 his ideas about creating a Greater Serbia?

5 A. No. I am familiar with that idea, but I personally did

6 not support such an idea.

7 Q. Prior to the problems that developed in

8 Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1991 and 1992, there had been, had

9 there not, what might be described as a peaceful

10 co-existence among the peoples who inhabited that region

11 regardless of their ethnicity?

12 A. Yes. I have already said that before the conflict I was

13 one of the organisers who tried to find people of

14 goodwill who were willing to negotiate with the villages

15 in which the Muslims were in the majority, and I formed

16 such a committee, and I said yesterday that I went three

17 times to three different villages to try and find ways

18 of avoiding an armed conflict, to try and find a

19 solution at least in our part of the country so that the

20 tensions would be eased.

21 Q. Prior to all these difficulties in the late 1980s, the

22 people living in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the area

23 where you lived were enjoying a pretty good standard of

24 living, were they not?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. It was very much a European standard of living. You

2 had automobiles, telephones, television, a good society

3 to live in; would you agree with that?

4 MS. McHENRY: Your Honour, I am going to respectfully

5 object. I have not objected up to now but I am going

6 to object as to relevancy.

7 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, your Honour, I think the relevancy of

8 this was established by the Prosecution when they called

9 Ms. Calic. I am simply exploring many of the issues she

10 testified about. I think the Prosecution has made it

11 relevant to the court by calling Miss Calic that the

12 Tribunal cannot really understand the ramifications of

13 this case without understanding the background of the

14 conflict and that's what I'm pursuing and I think it's

15 totally appropriate.

16 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes, but this witness did not give any

17 evidence to that. What I thought you were pursuing was

18 the fact of the question you asked. What made him

19 decide to arm himself? I think that was what you were

20 pursuing.

21 MR. ACKERMAN: Of course that's what I'm pursuing and that's

22 what I'm trying to get to, yes.

23 Did you ever become -- I'm not sure you answered

24 my last question and that was with regard to the

25 standard of living that you had. It was a good

1 standard of living prior to the outbreak of these

2 problems, was it not?

3 A. Relatively speaking, yes.

4 Q. Did there come a time before the residents of Bradina

5 decided to arm themselves that you became aware, for

6 instance, of the events that had been occurring in the

7 Krajina region of Croatia?

8 A. No. I said since about February of 1992 we had no

9 possibility of watching television because the

10 electricity had been cut off.

11 Q. Did you ever learn about the activities, for instance of

12 a man named Milan Babic in Knin in the Krajina area?

13 A. No.

14 Q. You knew, of course, that at some point Bradina became a

15 pretty strategic location with regard to the war that

16 had broken out in early 1992?

17 A. Strategic? I can say that Bradina was a place where

18 people organised themselves. There was no organisation

19 from outside. The people organised within so that they

20 would try in a peaceful way to preserve peace. They

21 tried that, but it was -- they organised it -- they

22 organised themselves in order to try to protect their

23 homes and their mothers and wives. There was no

24 strategic importance for anybody but ourselves.

25 Q. You, of course, understand that Bradina was located on

1 the main highway and the main railroad from Sarajevo to

2 the coast, to the Adriatic; correct?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. You do know that in April of 1992 Sarajevo was placed

5 under siege and shelling began of Sarajevo?

6 A. I knew that there were problems in Sarajevo at that

7 time.

8 Q. And you knew that Sarajevo was under siege and the

9 problem of simple supply --

10 A. No. I don't know what ... no, I did not know that. I

11 don't know what siege you are referring to, not even

12 now.

13 Q. You don't know that Sarajevo was fired upon by Serb

14 artillery almost daily for more than two years?

15 A. I know that there was a war going on in Sarajevo and

16 that there was shooting going on.

17 Q. Do you know that the United Nations was trying to keep

18 the airport in Sarajevo open so that the citizens of

19 Sarajevo could be supplied with food and medicine and

20 things of that nature?

21 A. I'm not -- I don't understand the question. May I ask

22 what period of time you are referring to, because I have

23 to remind you that I was arrested in May of 1992 and

24 I was in the Celebici camp, and I don't think that

25 whatever you've mentioned here in Sarajevo and the siege

1 and the attempts of the UN to provide food and medicine,

2 all this was happening following that, so I'm not

3 familiar with any of these events that you're referring

4 to, because I was in prison at that time.

5 Q. Well, you do know this: you do know that Bradina had

6 tunnels on both sides of Bradina that could be used very

7 effectively to close off both the railroad and the

8 highway simply by bombing those tunnels? You knew that?

9 A. I knew that and this was done. Tunnels were closed off

10 on both sides. From the side of Konjic I know the

11 person's name, the person who did it. I can tell

12 that. On the other side it was also closed by putting

13 there earth. So we had no opportunity -- we had no

14 possibility of going either in the direction of Sarajevo

15 or in the direction of Konjic from Bradina.

16 Q. You knew, of course, did you not, that it was a major

17 interest of the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina at that

18 time to try to keep that road open so that Sarajevo

19 could be supplied with food, medicines, things of that

20 nature; correct?

21 A. Yes. I knew that. I also don't know if you know,

22 because I personally was on one of these barricades, and

23 except for a search of the passengers who were passing

24 through, and between the two attacks on Bradina, people

25 who were passing through from Konjic who needed medical

1 help in Sarajevo, they were let through, and they were

2 going to Sarajevo and coming back. So the territory

3 through Bradina was not blocked, but there was a ramp,

4 and with the regular security measures, the control.

5 So the road through Bradina was never blocked in the

6 sense of 100 per cent blockade. There were checkpoints

7 for security reasons, for fear of weapons coming through

8 and for fear of attack, of sabotage attacks.

9 Throughout this period the road was open and passage was

10 possible.

11 Q. You knew, did you not, that the interests involved there

12 were the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina wanted to keep the

13 road open to supply Sarajevo, and the Bosnian Serb Army

14 wanted to keep the road closed in order to cut off

15 Sarajevo. You knew that was the main mission of both

16 sides of the conflict at that point; right?

17 A. I don't know what either side wanted. I know that the

18 army of the Republika Srpska had not put a blockade in

19 Bradina. These were people, local people who had

20 organised themselves, and there were people who were

21 fleeing to Bradina. Based on their bad experiences,

22 people wanted to protect themselves. There were no

23 orders on the Republika Srpska army. We were organised

24 ourselves. We organised self-defence.

25 Q. Well, you know, do you not, that the reason that Bradina

1 was attacked was an effort to keep the road open, that

2 that was what the purpose of that attack was?

3 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I'm surprised you are asking so many

4 policing questions which this witness will not be able

5 to answer. These are things which go into the control

6 of the areas. He has given you an answer.

7 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, if he doesn't know the answers,

8 he is perfectly free to say he doesn't know and I will

9 go on to something else.

10 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: So there's no point. If he may not

11 know, why ask him?

12 MR. ACKERMAN: You recall my last question. Do you have

13 any knowledge of that?

14 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: It's not necessary.

15 MR. ACKERMAN: All right. When the battle of Bradina

16 started you told us that you were manning your position

17 with an automatic weapon?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And shots were being fired on both sides; correct?

20 A. In the wider area of Bradina, yes.

21 Q. And you actually fired your weapon?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. A number of times?

24 A. Several times.

25 Q. So that when it became clear to you that the forces

1 trying to defend Bradina were seriously out numbered and

2 that you should surrender, you surrendered, carrying

3 with you a weapon that it was obvious had been fired?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. Following that surrender, and I'm just going to go very

6 briefly over this, because it has been largely covered,

7 immediately following the surrender, prior to your being

8 loaded on trucks, you've told us that you were beaten

9 rather severely over a fairly long period of time;

10 correct?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. And, as a result of that beating, you were bleeding?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Your arm was severely injured?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And I think you even still have scars, marks on your arm

17 from the injuries you received at that time?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. You were beaten to the point where you were beaten to

20 the ground at least ten times prior to your getting on

21 the truck?

22 A. I cannot tell the exact number, but I did fall several

23 times. It could have been ten; it could have been even

24 more, but I did fall to the ground on a number of times,

25 but I did not count.

1 Q. When you finally made it to the truck, you became

2 unconscious for a period of time?

3 A. Not completely unconscious; semi-unconscious, dazed,

4 beaten-up.

5 Q. You have told us about your arrival at Celebici and your

6 having been confined first in Tunnel Number 9. I want

7 to ask you just a couple of questions about that; okay?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. From the time you were placed in Tunnel Number 9 until

10 the time you were transferred to Hangar Number 9,

11 I believe it to be your testimony that during that seven

12 day period you were only subjected to one beating; is

13 that correct?

14 A. Once while being put into the tunnel and then the second

15 time I was brought out and beaten, yes, so in total

16 twice.

17 Q. I'm talking about from the time when you were put in

18 until the time you were taken out, during that seven day

19 period you were taken out and beaten on one occasion;

20 that is correct, isn't it?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. Did you say that the way you were all arranged in that

23 tunnel was that you were sitting facing each other?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Isn't it true that that tunnel is entirely too narrow

1 for two people to sit across from each other and face

2 each other?

3 A. I think that you probably know the measurements of the

4 tunnel. We were facing each other. So that would

5 mean we were leaning against the walls. We would have

6 our legs pulled up and we would face one another.

7 Q. Was that the situation during the entire time you were

8 in Tunnel 9?

9 A. Yes, the whole time we had to lean against the wall and

10 our knees up, pulled up.

11 Q. You described for the -- I want to now go to the time

12 after you went to Hangar 6. You described for the

13 Tribunal yesterday an incident in which your hand was

14 burned with a knife. Do you recall that incident?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Would you be able to show all of us and show the court

17 the scars on your hand that are left from that burning?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Could I perhaps ask your Honours that the ELMO be

20 positioned in such a way that he can put his hand on the

21 ELMO and we can see by that method the scars that remain

22 on his hand. Can you see your monitor?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. You see your hand on the monitor?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. All right. Thank you. Have you ever told anyone --

2 let me do it this way. No. I'll ask this question.

3 Have you ever told anyone that there was a time while

4 you were in Hangar 6 that you reached outside underneath

5 the wall of Hangar 6 and picked grass to eat?

6 A. No. Personally I did not. I said that I ate grass

7 after I would come out, after I would go to the

8 toilet. I could not do it the way you describe it,

9 because I was on the side where there was concrete; in

10 other words, where there was the parking area.

11 Q. I want to direct your attention now to the incident you

12 have described regarding the two brothers Dordic. You

13 know the incident that I'm talking about; correct?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. The incident you described yesterday involving the

16 sexual matters?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. What you've told us yesterday is you don't really

19 remember the guard or guards that were involved in that,

20 and I just want to suggest to you that the guard

21 involved in that was a fellow by the name of Osman

22 Dedic. Does that refresh your memory?

23 A. Not really.

24 Q. You also told us yesterday about a detainee by the name

25 of Bosko Samoukovic, and I want to direct your attention

1 now to that situation; okay?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. With regard to what it was that caused the death of

4 Mr. Samoukovic and when it was Mr. Samoukovic died, I take

5 it that you would rely on what Dr. Relja might know about

6 that?

7 A. No. My statement is based on personal experience, what

8 I saw with respect to that incident. What I said is

9 what I personally saw, not what other people said or

10 through somebody else's experience. It was my own

11 experience. I had access to -- I personally had access

12 to what was going on, visual access to what was going on

13 at that time regarding Mr. Samoukovic.

14 Q. What I'm really talking about is after the time that

15 Mr. Samoukovic was removed from Hangar 6 and taken to the

16 infirmary in Building 22. You would have no personal

17 knowledge about what happened after he was removed from

18 Hangar 6, would you?

19 A. Yes. I don't know what happened there. I only know

20 what happened in the hangar and how he was beaten up,

21 how he -- and I saw that with my own eyes.

22 Q. For what happened after he was removed from Hangar 6 and

23 taken to Building 22, you would rely on what Dr. Relja

24 might have said about his condition and how it was that

25 he might have died; correct?

1 MS. McHENRY: I would object to this. This witness doesn't

2 have to rely on anything that anyone else has said.

3 MR. ACKERMAN: I accept that. I think that's a correct

4 objection. The last question I want to ask you, the

5 last area I want to talk to you about, involves the

6 first visit to Celebici of the International Committee

7 of the Red Cross. Do you remember about when that

8 visit was?

9 A. No, I don't recall the date, but I can say approximately

10 about a month and a half or two after my imprisonment.

11 Q. You know, do you not, that about two weeks prior to that

12 visit Mr. Landzo had left Celebici and was no longer

13 there?

14 A. No. I don't know that.

15 Q. That's all I have. Thank you.

16 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Any re-examination?

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, may I just remind the court that

18 during the break I will have an opportunity to see the

19 statement this morning and I may have some additional

20 questions I may want to ask the witness after having an

21 opportunity to see that, but other than that I've

22 completed my cross-examination.

23 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes. Thank you.

24 Re-examination by Ms. McHenry.

25 MS. McHENRY: Two questions, your Honour. You reported that

1 Mr. Mucic at some point insulted you. Do you remember

2 any details about what happened or where?

3 A. Yes. During one of the visits to the camp Mucic came in

4 and it was like a review. He started up on the

5 right-hand side. He would talk to somebody. He

6 talked to the ones that he knew, I guess. He knew my

7 brother personally. He came to the place where my

8 brother and I were. He asked about my and his release

9 and he said: "He's a Cetnik. He'll never be

10 released. He'll be killed".

11 Q. Just so I can clarify, was it your brother who asked

12 about your release and was it Mucic who said: "He is a

13 Cetnik. He'll never be released. He'll be killed"?

14 A. Yes, my brother asked. I did not dare ask and I did

15 not want to ask.

16 Q. Was it Mucic who gave the response?

17 A. Yes. He gave the response and if I can just add, your

18 Honours, in conversation with the witness I found out

19 this and if needed this person is prepared to provide

20 this information.

21 JUDGE JAN: Ms. McHenry, is this clarification arising out

22 of cross-examination or are you bringing in additional

23 material?

24 MS. McHENRY: I believe it was direct clarification of an

25 issue raised by the Defence.

1 JUDGE JAN: What was the clarification there?

2 MS. McHENRY: The clarification was what exactly happened.

3 MS. McHENRY: Your Honour, I --

4 MR. GREAVES: I do apologise for interrupting.

5 MS. McHENRY: I believe when Defence Counsel raises a new

6 issue the Prosecution is allowed to ask the

7 circumstances surrounding that. I think this is very

8 fair re-examination, if I am naming it correctly. Let

9 me go on to my next question.

10 MR. GREAVES: I have an objection on the basis that one of

11 the answers which is given at page 32, line 13, appears

12 to indicate that, in fact, this witness is relying on

13 something related to him by somebody completely

14 different: "In conversation with the witness". I have

15 the usual objection that it appears the proper

16 foundation for introducing what appears to be hearsay

17 evidence has not been laid. I invite the Prosecution

18 to do it. If it is unable to do it, I object to the

19 admissibility of this evidence.

20 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I thought you understood that the

21 additional answer he gave was not an answer which was

22 directed to him.

23 MS. McHENRY: Your Honour, if I may clarify that -- I mean,

24 I have to answer your Honours I don't know. So I will

25 be happy to, as Mr. Greaves has requested, clarify this.

1 Sir, is this something you yourself heard Mr. Mucic

2 say, and, if not, who told you he said it and when?

3 A. You mean regarding my release or my brother's?

4 Q. The conversation you indicated where Mr. Mucic said with

5 reference to you that you would not be released for the

6 reasons he gave, did you yourself hear that or did

7 someone tell you that?

8 A. No, I personally heard that. This happened in the

9 hangar. My brother was lying next to me. I was next

10 to him. He asked for both himself and myself and these

11 were his exact words, that I would never be released

12 because I was a Cetnik.

13 Q. Thank you. My last question, sir: you indicated in

14 cross-examination that in the very first period of time

15 when you were at the camp you received some indication

16 leading you to believe that Rale may have been

17 commander. What could you observe or learn about the

18 role of Rale in Celebici, if any, after that very first

19 period?

20 A. I think that at the time when we were brought to

21 Celebici -- this is my personal opinion -- Rale was

22 somebody who was in charge, maybe not the camp

23 commander, but somebody who was in charge, who had a

24 group. I clarified this yesterday. When we were

25 brought off the truck, the first three were beaten, and

1 he said: "Don't beat the people". That's what I tried

2 to use to get off the truck. However, I saw, as I was

3 climbing off the truck, that he was getting into the car

4 and then he left and then I received beatings.

5 Q. Sir, my question is: you have testified about that

6 first -- that very first period. After that very first

7 period, what did you observe or learn about whether or

8 not Rale continued to have any kind of role in the camp,

9 after that first period that you have already testified

10 about?

11 A. No, after transfer to the hangar I did not see Rale and

12 I don't know what his activities were. That means only

13 when I was brought to the Celebici, the first time I was

14 brought there.

15 Q. No further questions.

16 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: The witness can now stand aside. Do

17 you have another witness?

18 MS. McHENRY: Yes, your Honour. We do have another witness

19 who is here to start. The only thing that I would

20 advise your Honours of is pursuant to a joint request

21 that your Honours had granted I believe some months ago

22 this witness is scheduled for a medical examination.

23 I have been informed that that examination is supposed

24 to take place this afternoon. At least one possibility

25 is that we would take our break now such that the

1 Defence counsel would be able to at least receive a

2 verbal translation of this witness, what was in the

3 book. It is only half a page. Then, if necessary,

4 this witness could be recalled immediately such that his

5 medical examination will not be postponed and so that he can

6 leave as scheduled. That's a suggestion for your

7 Honour, but if you do not want to do that, we have

8 another witness here.

9 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: It will be convenient. I think what

10 we will do is we will rise now and come back at 11.45

11 and then take until 1 o'clock when we will rise for

12 lunch. I am sure you should be able to have the

13 translation done.

14 (11.05 am)

15 (Short break)

16 (11.45 am)

17 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes, Mr. Ackerman?

18 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honours, I have no further questions of

19 the witness. I don't know about any other Defence

20 Counsel, but I have completed my cross.

21 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: That's all for the witness. I think

22 we can discharge him, subject to his medical

23 examination. Your next witness then.

24 MS. McHENRY: Your Honours, the Prosecution would now be

25 calling Mr. B. Maybe while he is being -- while the

1 usher is getting him, I can raise another issue just as

2 to scheduling that I have previously discussed with

3 Defence Counsel for Mr. Mucic about the issue of the

4 Prosecution Exhibit I believe 155 and the handwriting.

5 Your Honours had indicated that you would like us

6 to file our submissions by Wednesday. The Prosecution

7 is going to file its submission by Wednesday.

8 Mr. Greaves had indicated that he might now wish to at

9 least briefly review ours before filing his response, a

10 proposal to which we do not have any objection. If

11 I may, I might respectfully suggest to the court and

12 find out if it is acceptable, whether or not if the

13 Prosecution files its response by Wednesday, as directed

14 by the court, if the Defence of Mr. Mucic files their

15 response by either Friday or Monday, and then if there's

16 any argument that your Honours desire, that could be

17 heard immediately upon our resuming court in the

18 beginning of August. That would also give the

19 Prosecution the opportunity to have Mr. Grant Niemann,

20 our lead counsel, present for the arguments at least.

21 That's what we would be requesting. I have talked with

22 Mr. Greaves about this and he's in full agreement with

23 it.

24 MR. GREAVES: My learned friend speaks for me on this matter

25 and she accurately reflects the conversation we have

1 had. It is, of course, subject to your Honours'

2 decision. If you want to do it in some other way,

3 that's a matter, of course, for your Honours, but we

4 hope that that suggestion will find favour with all of

5 your Honours this morning.

6 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: When we have received your written

7 submissions, then we'll fix an appropriate date when

8 perhaps argument should be heard.

9 MR. GREAVES: Thank you very much.

10 MS. McHENRY: Your Honour, your clerk has correctly reminded

11 me that I wish to on behalf of the Prosecution to withdraw

12 Mr. B's request for a screen separating him from the

13 accused. He has determined that he no longer believes

14 that is necessary. So we have informed your personnel,

15 but not your Honours. Please excuse us. We now

16 withdraw the request for a separate screen separating

17 the accused. He continues to wish his identity,

18 including his name, face and identifying

19 characteristics, be protected from the media and, in

20 fact, I would just, if I may, inform Defence Counsel

21 that this witness, as well as the next -- not the next

22 witness but the witness after next, Mr. D, are both very,

23 very sensitive about disclosure to the public or media,

24 and so I would just ask that Defence Counsel, if there's

25 any question in their mind about whether or not a

1 question or answer -- that they ask for private session,

2 and I'll be doing the same.

3 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Thank you very much. Invite the

4 witness now. Let's start.

5 (Witness enters court)

6 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Let him take the oath.

7 Witness B (sworn)

8 Examined by Ms. McHenry

9 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes, you can continue.

10 MS. McHENRY: Thank you, your Honour. Sir, good morning.

11 Sir, am I correct that you have requested that your name

12 and identity not be released to the public or the media?

13 A. (In interpretation): Yes.

14 Q. You will thus be known as Mr. B. Do you understand

15 that?

16 A. Yes. Fine.

17 Q. Do you understand if I or anyone else asks you a

18 question and you believe that the answer might tend to

19 reveal your identity, you can request the judges to give

20 your answer in private session?

21 A. Yes. Thank you.

22 Q. With the usher's assistance I would now like to show

23 you, sir, on a piece of paper a name, and can you

24 confirm that this is, in fact, your name, without saying

25 it?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Thank you. Mr. B, how old are you at the present time?

3 A. I am 36.

4 Q. What is your ethnic background?

5 A. By nationality I'm a Serb.

6 Q. Where were you living in the beginning of 1992?

7 A. At the beginning of 1992 I was living in Konjic.

8 Q. Do you mean Konjic town?

9 A. I'm thinking of Konjic town.

10 Q. Did there come a time when you left the town of Konjic?

11 A. I left the town of Konjic on 17th April. I went to a

12 nearby village. The war had started in

13 Bosnia-Herzegovina. There were hardly any supplies.

14 I had one and a half year old child. I couldn't find

15 the necessary food for my child, so I went to a village

16 hoping that the supplies would be better there. That

17 was the period when I left Konjic. If you're thinking

18 of all the times that I left Konjic, I left Konjic

19 during my studies, when I went to Sarajevo, but I don't

20 suppose that's relevant.

21 Q. So in May and June of 1992 where were you living at that

22 time?

23 A. In May and June 1992 I was living in the village of

24 Brdjani, near Konjic.

25 Q. Did there come a time when there was military action in

1 Brdjani?

2 A. Yes. Military operations occurred in Brdjani. The

3 Muslims attacked our village. I can say that I didn't

4 see the Muslim troops, but when the artillery attack

5 started on the village there was a shower of shells and

6 anti-aircraft grenades and so we all scattered. The

7 attack lasted for maybe two days roughly.

8 Q. Did you participate in any defence of the village?

9 A. I'm afraid I don't quite understand the question,

10 because nobody took part in the defence of that village,

11 and therefore I didn't either. There was no organised

12 defence of the village.

13 Q. Were you armed during this time?

14 A. No, I was never armed.

15 Q. What did you do during the attack on Brdjani? Can you

16 just briefly describe what happened?

17 A. I ran for my life. That would be my briefest

18 response. If you want me to give you a more detailed

19 answer, I can say that suddenly out of the blue a shower

20 of shells fell on Brdjani. There were bullets flying

21 all over, hitting our houses, and so we all ran for our

22 lives into the nearby woods, and I think that perhaps we

23 were lucky that there were such thick woods in the

24 immediate surroundings, so we managed to escape there

25 and hide.

1 Q. Where did you go next?

2 A. From that forest we managed to reach the village of

3 Bradina. I walked for about two days, I think all of

4 two days, to cover less than 10 km., because the forest

5 was constantly being shelled, hit by grenades and fired

6 upon, so that we could move with difficulty. We went

7 in small groups as we happened to form them, and we

8 somehow reached this village. My estimate is that it

9 was no more than 10 km. away. The village of Bradina

10 at that time had still not been attacked. Before the

11 war the majority population was Serb, so that we thought

12 that we would be safer there.

13 There were some reports that we heard of in

14 Brdjani, even though reports were highly unreliable and

15 there was a lot of misinformation, and this proved to be

16 misinformation, that the women and children of the

17 village of Bradina would be evacuated through the

18 mediation of the Red Cross and they would be 100 per

19 cent safe, and this didn't happen, and of course all of

20 us who had children, we wanted to save them. That's

21 why we all headed for Bradina.

22 Q. When was it then approximately, if you know, that the

23 attack on Brdjani happened and you then spent two days

24 going to Bradina?

25 A. When talking about dates, I mean, I'm not very good at

1 history, and I shall try and be as precise as possible,

2 but please bear with me when dates are involved.

3 I think the attack on Brdjani took place between 10th

4 and 15th May. I'm not quite sure regarding the exact

5 date.

6 Q. After you went to Bradina, how long did you stay in

7 Bradina?

8 A. I stayed in Bradina I don't recollect exactly. A few

9 days, maybe five or six days.

10 Q. Then what happened?

11 A. After that, when the attack on Brdjani was over, I could

12 climb to a nearby hill from Bradina to see whether

13 Brdjani was still exposed to shelling, and when I saw

14 that calm had returned, I took my wife and child and we

15 returned to our home in Brdjani, and we continued living

16 in our family house in Brdjani.

17 Q. What happened after you returned to Brdjani?

18 A. After I returned to Brdjani I stayed to live there in my

19 house. In the village there were very few people

20 left. A lot of people had fled. Some stayed on in

21 Bradina, thinking it was safer. I personally didn't

22 agree with that, because I saw that Bradina really had

23 no defence against the Muslims, that the people were

24 extremely disorganised, even though they had some

25 infantry weapons, but there was no safety there. So

1 I returned to Brdjani and I stayed there until I was

2 imprisoned in the camp. I simply stayed in the

3 village. I didn't move around anywhere except maybe a

4 couple of dozen metres around my house, because it was

5 dangerous anyway to move around.

6 Q. Can you please tell us exactly what happened such that

7 were then imprisoned in Celebici? Can you please

8 describe to us exactly how that happened?

9 A. After Bradina fell, not the first or second day, but

10 maybe a certain period of time elapsed and just one man

11 came, a Muslim. I don't know what his official

12 function was. I think he was in the Muslim military

13 police. His surname was Pavo. I have forgotten his

14 first name. I know him -- I knew him very well from

15 before the war. He read out a list of names of all

16 those people who had to report allegedly for an

17 informative interview in the nearby village of

18 Podorasac. Actually the list included the names of all

19 the men, absolutely all the men from the village of

20 Brdjani. Some had stayed behind in Bradina and they

21 were brought with the people from Bradina to the camp,

22 but all the others who were there were on the list; at

23 least I think so. So that as soon as he read out the

24 list the order was that we move immediately. We had

25 absolutely no choice. Because of our families, we had

1 to go to this village of Podorasac, although we presumed

2 roughly what was lying in wait for us and it proved

3 true, because in the village of Podorasac we were --

4 Q. Can I ask you: at this time were you told what would

5 happen to you after the informative interview?

6 A. No.

7 Q. Please continue with what happened when you went to the

8 village of Podorasac?

9 A. When we reached the village of Podorasac, we were

10 ordered to board one or two trucks. The trucks were

11 closed. We still didn't know where we were being

12 taken. Nobody had told us, but after some fifteen or

13 20 minutes -- I don't know exactly -- we were ordered to

14 get off. We saw where we had come. We had arrived at

15 a former military facility in Celebici, which was later

16 used as a camp for prisoners. We got there. We were

17 ordered to get off.

18 Q. Let me stop you for a minute here. Can you tell us, if

19 you know, the approximate date then that you were

20 brought to Celebici?

21 A. I think it was in the second half of June.

22 Q. Just to get an overview, can you just tell us now how

23 long you stayed in Celebici? When was it that you

24 finally left Celebici?

25 A. I left Celebici in the second half of August.

1 Q. Going back now to when you arrived at Celebici, do you

2 remember about what time of day it was and do you

3 remember about how many persons were brought to Celebici

4 at the same time as you?

5 A. I can only say roughly how many people there were.

6 I think about between 50 and 60 men were brought

7 there. That's my estimate. We were brought there

8 somewhere around midday, around 12 o'clock, maybe 1 in

9 the afternoon. I don't remember exactly, because the

10 man who came and informed us to go to Podorasac, he must

11 have come somewhere around 10.00 in the morning. Then

12 it took us an hour to get to Podorasac, so that must

13 have been 11.00. So it must have been between 12.00

14 and 1.00 in the afternoon. I don't know the exact

15 time.

16 Q. Between the time you were brought to Podorasac and then

17 you were transported to Celebici, during this time, in

18 other words the time before you got to the camp, can you

19 tell us whether or not you were physically mistreated?

20 I am not asking you for details. I am just asking at

21 the time you were arrested or while you were being

22 transported to the camp were you mistreated physically?

23 A. I was not physically mistreated. I don't know whether

24 other people were, because this was a large group of

25 people, and I couldn't have insight into what happened

1 to each and every one of them. Whether somebody got

2 beaten or not, I can't say.

3 Q. Going to when you arrived at Celebici, can you please

4 tell us what happened when you arrived at the camp?

5 A. When we arrived at the camp we were ordered to get off

6 the trucks and to line up against a wall about 20 metres

7 long, something like that, a concrete wall. I don't

8 know exactly. It was at the very entrance into the

9 camp. Normally everything was done with a lot of

10 curses, threats and other humiliation. We were ordered

11 to empty our pockets, to give whatever we had, belts,

12 laces, watches, money. Everything we owned we had to

13 put next to us. Then we were ordered to form a line

14 and to follow the guards. There were guards

15 accompanying us all the time, and we headed towards a

16 part of the camp. At the time I didn't know where

17 I was going nor where we would be put up.

18 Q. Let me stop you for a minute here, if I may, sir. Was

19 anything taken from you personally at the entrance, when

20 everyone had to empty their pockets? Was anything of

21 value taken from you?

22 A. All of us that had watches, we had to take off our

23 watches. We had to give them whatever we had actually

24 in our pockets. Money, we had to hand over money,

25 though by then already Yugoslav money could not be

1 considered a value at that time. It was simply a pile

2 of paper circulating.

3 Q. Was anything of value taken from you?

4 A. In the camp I had to surrender my watch and about a

5 month later I had to give my ring, but I gave my ring

6 maybe a month after I had come. I don't know exactly.

7 Q. Did you ever get either your watch or your ring back?

8 A. No. It was never returned. Nothing was ever returned.

9 Q. Were you made to say anything when you first arrived at

10 the camp?

11 A. Upon our arrival, no. Nobody asked me anything.

12 Q. Please continue then with what happened after you and

13 the others gave up your valuables.

14 A. We were ordered to move -- to follow the guard. I was

15 somewhere in the middle of the group. We were brought

16 to a plateau near this wall. It wasn't very far.

17 There was a plateau. Actually there was nothing there

18 except manholes with some installations for fuel or for

19 water. I really don't know. I'm not an expert for

20 these things. These manholes were 2-3 metres deep.

21 It depends. They ordered us to enter those manholes.

22 Some of them were half full of water. In some there

23 was no water. In some there were five men; in others

24 there were ten. We were all forced into these

25 manholes. I can't -- it is difficult for me to say how

1 long we spent in those manholes, because I think one

2 loses all track of time under those circumstances.

3 I thought it was an eternity I had spent there.

4 Q. Let me ask you: do you know who any of the persons

5 other than the other prisoners who were present at the

6 time that you were -- you and the other prisoners were

7 placed into the manhole?

8 A. There were Muslim guards who were present. The team

9 from the camp, who was working in the camp all the

10 time. So the relationship was between prisoners and

11 guards.

12 Q. Do you know the names of anyone from the camp who was

13 present at the time you were put into the manhole?

14 A. Actually I knew a few people, but I've forgotten the

15 names. I remember certain nicknames. In charge of

16 this team of guards when we were brought to the camp and

17 taken to the manhole, the Commander was Hazim Delic.

18 Q. Please go on. While you were in the pit, could you

19 hear -- the manhole, could you hear anything coming from

20 any other manholes?

21 A. Of course. One could hear the sounds coming from the

22 other manholes. What I was particularly shocked and

23 surprised by, because at that time I didn't know that my

24 father who was in town at the time, who was brought

25 there at the same time as me and put in a manhole with

1 me -- not with me; he was in another manhole. I heard

2 his cries for help. He's a man of 65, 66, and quite

3 sick. I heard his cries that he was choking; he would

4 choke to death while he was in the manhole. Then

5 I recognised that it was my father. I heard somebody

6 opening the manhole next to ours. Soon they opened

7 ours too, ordered us to come out and the first thing

8 I saw was my father, who was sitting next to the

9 neighbouring manhole and he seemed lost. He was hardly

10 -- he was hardly conscious. That was one of the first

11 shocks I experienced upon being brought to the camp.

12 Q. When you say that your father was in town at the time,

13 what town do you mean?

14 A. I mean the town of Konjic. I have told you that I was

15 brought from the village of Brdjani where we had a

16 family home, an old family home, but we were living in

17 the town of Konjic and my father was in our apartment in

18 the town of Konjic. Since his name was read out in the

19 list in Brdjani and he was not in the village at the

20 time, he was brought from Konjic.

21 Q. Now at the time that you were removed from the manhole

22 do you remember anyone from the camp who was present at

23 the time you were removed from the manhole?

24 A. Yes. When we were removed we were ordered to form a

25 line again, and I again saw Hazim Delic. I saw Pavo

1 Mucic. He was standing to the left of me. He was

2 wearing a camouflage uniform. He had sunglasses on.

3 I remember his presence very well and the other guards

4 were always there. There were plenty of guards always.

5 Q. At this time when you first got to the camp did you

6 notice anything about Mr. Delic's physical condition at

7 that time?

8 A. Mr. Delic at that time was limping on one leg. I cannot

9 remember which leg. He had been hurt, I don't know

10 how. He must have been injured. Some people were

11 saying that he had been wounded. Others said that he

12 got injured when robbing a cafe. I really don't

13 know. Anyway it is a fact that his leg was injured and

14 that he was limping.

15 Q. What happened then after you were taken out of the

16 manhole? Where were you brought?

17 A. After being taken out of the manhole we were ordered to

18 follow a path after a guard, following a guard, and

19 there were others, of course, and we were brought in

20 front of a hangar, a military warehouse, a metal

21 structure some 25 metres long and 10-15 metres wide. I

22 don't know exactly. We entered one by one. We were

23 lined up in front and then we were ordered to enter one

24 by one. We were assigned a position where we would sit

25 and that is where we had to sit.

1 Q. Can you describe approximately where you sat in the

2 hangar?

3 A. I sat very, very close to the door, the entrance to the

4 hangar, on the shorter side, so I was sitting on the

5 width side of the hangar, three or four metres from the

6 door.

7 Q. Thank you. Did you stay in Hangar 6 the entire time

8 you were at Celebici?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Can you estimate how many prisoners approximately there

11 were in Hangar 6 when you arrived there?

12 A. When our group was brought there to the hangar in

13 Celebici, we filled the whole hangar. There wasn't any

14 more room left. We were distributed along the length

15 and width of the hangar and also in the middle some kind

16 of concentric circles were formed. I think there must

17 have been between 350 and 400 men. It's impossible for

18 me to give the exact figure because neither did I dare,

19 nor did I have the possibility to count, nor did it

20 occur to me to count the people.

21 Q. Can you describe the living conditions in Hangar 6, the

22 food, the toilet facilities, water? Can you just please

23 describe the living conditions?

24 A. In detail or just one word? Horror. Or are you

25 interested in more?

1 Q. In detail, please, sir.

2 A. Horror is a mild word for this. In the camp there was

3 dirt, filth, infectious skin diseases. We didn't wash

4 for a month. In the camp we had lice. As for food,

5 we got one piece -- a thin piece of bread a day, but

6 there were periods where we didn't get even that. We

7 drink water, industrial water that was given to us in

8 bottles. It was taken from the hydrants, from these

9 devices for fire-fighting devices, so that frequently

10 people had intestinal troubles and other problems

11 probably due to the water and to the general conditions

12 in the camp. They were inhuman, absolutely inhuman

13 conditions. There was terrible hunger. We didn't

14 have anything to eat and we were not allowed to receive

15 food. It was only after the Red Cross came to visit

16 that we were allowed to receive food from people

17 outside. So that I can say that almost throughout my

18 stay in the camp I had 90 kilos before the war. When

19 I came out I weighed some 50 kilos and that applied to

20 all of us. We were living corpses. When people got

21 up, we were ordered to sit, and when we were allowed to

22 get up to go to the toilet or if the guards closed the

23 doors and one could get up just to stretch, many people

24 would faint. They were so exhausted, many.

25 Q. Sir, were you sometimes allowed out of Hangar 6 to

1 perform certain duties?

2 A. Not just me, but there were other prisoners too who went

3 out of the hangar, because all the chores that needed to

4 be done in the camp, this military facility was not just

5 a camp; it was a warehouse for armaments and ammunition

6 for the Muslim army. It was like a barracks for a time

7 for the Muslim army. People came for training or for

8 some kind of gatherings. I don't know. I have no

9 idea of. I know there was another building full of

10 Muslim troops. There were duties. So I went out

11 frequently to do things, like unloading weapons or

12 unloading food or washing somebody's car. People often

13 came for the prisoners to wash their cars or to do some

14 other cleaning duty, moving things from one place to

15 another. There were often such duties to perform.

16 Q. Who was it who usually asked you to perform these

17 duties?

18 A. Usually a guard would come who was on duty. He would

19 probably be given orders to collect so many prisoners to

20 do a certain task, and sometimes they would ask whether

21 anybody wants to work. Another time he would say: "The

22 first five from this row" or "another five from this

23 row". There were various ways in which they selected

24 prisoners for work. Sometimes you would go out just to

25 have a chance to wash your hands or wash up after

1 completing this duty. Some people even volunteered.

2 Q. Was there someone present at the camp named Mr. Ivica

3 Buric?

4 A. Yes. Ivica Buric was in the camp. He was actually the

5 driver of Pavo Mucic. He was the driver in the camp.

6 He also drove for other purposes, not just for Pavo,

7 probably to get certain supplies or something.

8 Q. Did you know Mr. Buric from before the war?

9 A. Yes. I saw Buric several times before the war. I

10 didn't know him well, but I had excellent relationships

11 with his brother.

12 Q. Were there some occasions where Mr. Buric called you out

13 or requested that you be called out to perform certain

14 tasks?

15 A. Yes. It happened quite often. Again I can't say how

16 many times, but usually, as this was in my interest, he

17 would ask me to wash his car, because in that way

18 I myself could keep clean. On a number of occasions he

19 would offer me food. That was one of the ways for him

20 to be able to do it. Sometimes when he was forced to

21 act as a guard in place of somebody, he would take me

22 out because the temperature in the hangar was

23 unbearable. It was extremely high in the summer. We

24 were there in the summer, when for two or three months

25 there wasn't a drop of rain. So you can imagine what

1 it was like under a steel roof, in a steel structure.

2 So it was almost a pleasure to be taken out to do

3 anything -- except for beating, of course -- and he

4 would take me out and we would talk when he was on duty.

5 Q. During your conversations with Mr. Buric did he ever

6 provide you information concerning who he worked for or

7 how the camp structure was?

8 A. We spoke about everything. We would touch all kinds of

9 subjects. Throughout that time I had the impression

10 that he was almost apologising, that he found it hard

11 why these things were happening, why Serbs and Croats

12 were fighting one another. He couldn't accept that.

13 He said he was horrified by what the Muslims were doing

14 in the camp to the Serbs, both the male and female

15 prisoners, and I think that he and Pavo were the only

16 Croats there, at least during my stay in the camp.

17 Q. Did Mr. Buric ever indicate to you that he had talked

18 with anyone about the fact that you would or would not

19 be mistreated?

20 A. Of course, it's natural when you get into some kind of

21 trouble to try and find a way out in some possible way,

22 so I asked Buric whether he could help me somehow,

23 because I saw that people were getting killed, beaten

24 up, and he told me -- he promised that he would talk to

25 Pavo to try and protect me, so that nothing terrible

1 should happen to me, and on one occasion he even told me

2 that Pavo had told him to tell me not to worry, that

3 nothing terrible would happen to me. Of course,

4 everything was terrible, but when I say something

5 terrible, I'm thinking of not getting killed in the

6 camp.

7 Q. Do you remember anything about exactly -- well, do you

8 remember anything about when these conversations were

9 with Mr. Buric? Were they the entire time you were at

10 the camp?

11 A. If I don't count the first five or six days, but after

12 those five or six days throughout my stay in the camp,

13 sometimes twice a day he would call me. Sometimes he

14 wasn't there for a day or two, but we had contact very

15 frequently throughout my stay in Celebici.

16 Q. When you were at the camp, how frequently would you

17 yourself see Mr. Mucic present?

18 A. It's hard to tell precisely how often and on what

19 occasions, but on average about twice a month. That

20 would mean not too often. The first meeting was

21 immediately upon my arrival and then the next one, ten

22 days later. Then there was a period of time when

23 I wouldn't see him. Maybe some others did see him,

24 because, as I said, I did not stay in this hangar all

25 the time. I often did something, worked.

1 Q. So on those occasions when you did see Mr. Mucic, where

2 would it be? Would it be inside the hangar or outside

3 the hangar? Can you just tell us about that?

4 A. For the most part it was in the hangar. Pavo Mucic

5 would come escorted by some guards, and would always

6 order them to stay at the door to watch us. He would

7 go from one prisoner to the next and in this way he

8 would actually review all the prisoners. He would ask

9 some questions of someone and some he would just pass

10 by. Usually the questions were: "What did you have?

11 What kind of weapons did you have?" At least that's

12 what he asked of me.

13 Q. Did Mr. Mucic have an office at the camp?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. How do you know that he had an office at the camp?

16 A. On one occasion I was taken with another prisoner to

17 clean in this part where these offices were. There was

18 also a room where people ate and also I think there was

19 a dormitory. Delic had an office there. There were

20 some other rooms in there, in that building and I was

21 also questioned in this building after being brought to

22 Celebici, and somebody, a guard, who watched us as we

23 were working so that we wouldn't do something, he told

24 this other prisoner: "Go and clean up Pavo's office".

25 That sentence, that makes me believe that he had an

1 office there.

2 Q. Can you tell us anything about when this conversation --

3 when this happened, the beginning part of your stay or

4 what month it was that this happened, that this prisoner

5 was told to go and clean up Pavo's office?

6 A. It's hard for me to pinpoint the date. I think it was

7 the second half of July, about a month after my arrival

8 in the camp.

9 Q. Excuse me. Sir, did you know who was the commander of

10 the camp?

11 A. I thought that the commander of the camp, the camp

12 commander, was Pavo Mucic. When you arrive somewhere,

13 you first enquire with other prisoners: "Where are we?

14 What is this?" We wanted to have as much information as

15 possible. "How are things here?" In fact, everybody

16 wanted to know who the camp commander was. There were

17 other motives involved as well. There were people

18 maybe who may have thought that it would be a friend of

19 theirs, that there was a friend of theirs in the camp

20 who could help them. So we wanted to find out who the

21 camp commander was, who else was in the camp, etc., etc.,

22 so that we could find any kind of advantage for us. So

23 I got this information from other prisoners who had been

24 there from before, that he was the camp commander.

25 Q. During your conversations with Mr. Buric did you also

1 come to learn any information about who was in charge?

2 A. He sometimes had a habit -- in fact, I once joked with

3 him and said: "What are you guarding here? As soon as

4 Pavo is gone, Delic assigns you to guard". He said:

5 "Well, I can endure it. When Pavo is here, there are

6 no problems. Delic can't do anything and I'm not going

7 on guard duties".

8 Q. Okay. What did you understand Mr. Delic's role in the

9 camp to be?

10 A. Delic was addressed by other guards, some guards, as

11 "commander" and he was the one who was in charge of

12 prisoners, of the guards, the guard duties and anything

13 concerning the hangar and everything to do with the

14 prisoners. I know that a number of them addressed him

15 as "commander". So I thought that he was like the guard

16 commander. He seemed to be the second-in-command.

17 Maybe he was the first. That is my opinion based on

18 the function.

19 Q. When you were in the camp how frequently would you see

20 Mr. Delic?

21 A. I don't know if a day passed that I would not see him.

22 On many days I would see him several times; in other

23 words, very, very frequently. You could almost say

24 I saw him daily.

25 Q. Were you ever interrogated while you were at the camp?

1 A. Yes, I was interrogated. About seven days after my

2 arrival in the camp the interrogation started. Those

3 interrogations started earlier, but my turn came about

4 seven days later. There was a group of about five or

5 six people. That was the size of these groups. It

6 was ordered that we sit down on the concrete in front of

7 this command building where these offices were, with our

8 hands up, and we had to keep that way the whole time,

9 and we were waiting. Then eventually I was called in

10 and I gave a statement. This was about seven days

11 after my arrival in the camp I was interrogated.

12 Q. Do you know who it was who interrogated you, and can you

13 tell us how you were treated during the interrogation?

14 A. I was interrogated by Mladen Zovko. I don't know what

15 his post was at that time. He was my interrogator at

16 the time. That was the function that he discharged.

17 The interrogation -- at this interrogation there was

18 also a woman present there. I forget the name but she

19 was the typist during this process. I was asked about

20 this last period, where I was, where I was going, what

21 our movements were. Then they were sort of making a

22 summary of what I had said and dictated it to the

23 typist. I was not forced to answer this or that way,

24 and I'm sure at that time that his dictation to the

25 typist was very correct; in other words, I was in

1 complete agreement with what he was dictating and I had

2 no time to read this statement, but I then signed it and

3 then I was returned to the hangar.

4 Q. Were you ever told the results of your interrogation or

5 anything about why you were being detained?

6 A. No. In fact, never. When I saw that I was going to be

7 interrogated, I was hoping -- I said: "Well, this is my

8 chance to get out. I was never armed so nobody can

9 have anything against me". However, this day continued

10 without any results and any chances to get out. Then

11 I asked someone -- I don't recall whom. I said: "What

12 am I guilty for? What am I here for?" Then they said:

13 "Well, you're guilty because you're a Serb".

14 Q. Now, Mr. B, during the time that you were at the Celebici

15 camp, were you yourself ever mistreated?

16 A. In fact, I -- once or twice I was hit by Hazim Delic.

17 I apologise if I don't pronounce his name correctly.

18 On one occasion he kicked me in the chest as I was

19 sitting down. He walked by and he kicked me. The

20 second time he hit me with a baseball bat. That was

21 later. I cannot say that it was a particularly hard

22 blow. The only time when I was really beaten up was

23 immediately following the visit of the Red Cross to the

24 camp. At that time --

25 Q. Before you get there, was there ever any kind of

1 instrument used against any of the prisoners?

2 A. Hazim Delic often used a baseball bat. For a while he

3 had -- he carried -- I don't know how to call this

4 instrument. It was like a device that causes

5 electrical shocks. He would place it against the skin

6 of people and then they would sort of go into spasm or

7 something. I don't know what it's called. I know

8 that it was very unpleasant. I know that he found it

9 very amusing and that he did this to many prisoners.

10 Q. When you say you know it was very unpleasant, how do you

11 yourself know that it was unpleasant?

12 A. I know that it was unpleasant because he did it to me

13 too.

14 Q. Thank you. Please, you were starting to describe what

15 happened immediately after the Red Cross visit. First,

16 can you estimate when it was that the Red Cross visit

17 was?

18 A. I can say that approximately the visit took place in the

19 first half of August, maybe around August 10. I'm

20 really not sure about the exact date. First half of

21 August, somewhere around 10th August.

22 Q. Please continue with what happened such that you were

23 mistreated after the Red Cross visit.

24 A. After the visit of the Red Cross, shortly after their

25 departure, the doors to the hangar were closed. We

1 heard footsteps and we knew that there was a larger

2 group arriving. They abruptly came in. They were led

3 by Hazim Delic. This was a large group of guards.

4 I think that there were eight of them. They were

5 divided into two groups of four. They went from one

6 side and the other went from the other side. Each

7 prisoner was beaten by four guards. I remember that at

8 that time I received quite a lot of beatings and

9 I suffered the consequences of that beating even after

10 I was released from prison.

11 Q. Was anyone in charge of the prisoners being beaten and

12 can you describe exactly what happened to you?

13 A. Hazim Delic stood -- was sort of close to me, not far

14 from the door, and for some he would say: "Go easy on

15 him". So he had some prisoners that he wanted beaten

16 more severely and some others not so severely. I don't

17 know what the criterion was, but I know that when the

18 people from the Red Cross came they closed the door to

19 the hangar and supposedly we were free to talk to these

20 people. However, nobody would approach them,

21 absolutely nobody wanted to come close to them and say

22 anything to them, because we were fearing all kinds of

23 things at that time. I think that people were fearing

24 the presence of the interpreters. There was a woman

25 from Mostar. I didn't recall her name. At one point

1 I approached these people from the Red Cross and I asked

2 whether the interpreter speaks -- whether the

3 interpreter spoke French. I was told that she was only

4 interpreting from English, and since I had studied

5 French before the war I tried to speak in French and

6 explain the conditions in the camp, what was going on,

7 what was happening to us, and then he asked the other

8 prisoners to gather in a larger group and tell what was

9 going on in the camp, and I think that some of the

10 prisoners -- you know, there's always somebody who wants

11 to profit, to benefit, maybe to get less beatings and

12 more bread. Somebody may have given my name, because

13 I really received unusually strong beating, and I was

14 wondering why it was happening to me then since up until

15 that time I was not getting that kind of beating.

16 Q. Can you please just tell us who beat you, what

17 happened? Can you please just tell us exactly what

18 happened?

19 A. The procedure was approximately -- not approximately;

20 this is exactly what the procedure was. We all had to

21 sit down facing the wall. We all had to put our hands

22 up behind our heads, so that the guards could beat us.

23 We were all in this position and these teams went around

24 and hit every -- beat every prisoner. Again my

25 impression is that some got more and some less, but they

1 were all beaten in the same way. We all had to do

2 this, and if you fell after the first blow, they wait.

3 You have to get up so that they could -- the others

4 could continue to beat you.

5 Q. Okay. Sir, during your time at Celebici did you ever

6 witness other prisoners being mistreated?

7 A. That was just about a daily occurrence. It was daily

8 really. For instance, Esad Landzo would come in or

9 Hazim Delic would come in and they would say: "Okay.

10 The whole Bradina, get up". All people from Bradina had

11 to get up. They would go from one to the next and beat

12 them. Many -- the real nightmare was when it grew

13 dark. Almost every night the guards would call out

14 people who had to get out and were beaten or killed.

15 Q. Okay. Did you ever witness any mistreatment which

16 resulted or events leading up to the death of any

17 prisoners?

18 A. Yes, I did see. I saw one such murder when Esad Landzo

19 killed Bosko Samoukovic. He did this in front of all

20 of us, 350, 400, however many we were there. Maybe it

21 was 2 or 3 metres away from me is where he killed this

22 man.

23 Q. Would you please just describe exactly what you yourself

24 saw about what happened?

25 A. What I saw happening was that Landzo came in, came

1 through the door and ordered Bosko Samoukovic to get

2 up. Bosko Samoukovic was a very fragile, elderly man

3 of some 70 -- maybe he was even older than that. When

4 he came there, and this was all happening in front of

5 me, he started hitting him savagely. I think he first

6 hit him several times with his rifle butt. He fell

7 down but he continued to kick him. He had soldier's

8 boots on and he kicked him all over the body. I think

9 in the end he picked up some stick or something, until

10 he really finished him off, until the man -- I don't

11 know if he was dead at that moment really or maybe he

12 died the next day. The next day Hazim Delic came and

13 walked around the hangar and asked one of the Bosko's

14 sons who were there, and Landzo had killed him in front

15 of them, and he asked him: "So what's with your father?

16 Do you know what is with your father?" And he kept

17 silent. He said: "He died". He said: "It must have

18 been the cold. Do you think that he caught cold".

19 It's hard for me to recall exactly, because Delic's

20 communications with prisoners was filled with

21 cynicism. So this is what I remember, this comment

22 that it was from cold that he died.

23 Q. Okay. Was there a prisoner named Zeljko Klimenta at

24 Celebici when you were there?

25 A. Yes. Yes.

1 Q. Can you please tell us what you yourself observed or

2 what you yourself heard with respect to what happened to

3 him?

4 A. Zeljko Klimenta was killed in this camp a day or two

5 before the -- several days let's say before the visit of

6 the Red Cross. I don't know exactly the time. One

7 night -- Zeljko Klimenta, by the way, was the owner of

8 several cafes in Konjic, and people were saying of him

9 that he was very skilful and that he was a good

10 businessman, and he had a different treatment from

11 others. He was often called out. He would often get

12 cigarettes. So most people in Konjic knew him, because

13 many could come to the camp and beat anybody, but they

14 could also visit anybody they wanted. So the guards

15 would bring people out so that they would be able to

16 talk to these visitors. I heard not far away from me

17 on the other side of the hangar, at the other side of

18 this tin wall of the hangar, somebody was -- somebody

19 asked that Zeljko Klimenta come out. I heard Delic

20 saying to some Emir: "I don't know. I'm a bit -- oh,

21 Emir, just feast your eyes on him. Fuck it. He's not

22 going to live to see tomorrow". This happened on the

23 eve of when Zeljko Klimenta was killed.

24 Q. Okay. Then please continue. After this conversation

25 -- at some point after this conversation that you

1 overheard with Mr. Delic what, if anything, did you

2 observe concerning Mr. Klimenta?

3 A. Klimenta returned to the hangar. As I said, it was

4 already the evening, the night, and shortly thereafter

5 -- and I now don't recall whether somebody had been

6 beaten up that night; that I don't recollect. Now we

7 slept on the concrete, so our sleep was very light.

8 I know that in the morning one of the guards called

9 Klimenta out. In fact, no. One of the prisoners

10 called Klimenta out to have -- to take coffee with the

11 guard. That also happened, that some guards would call

12 Klimenta out and have a cup of coffee with him. So

13 this was early in the morning. I don't know if it was

14 4.00 or 5.00 in the morning. They had gone out

15 there. I didn't consider it significant at all. All

16 of a sudden a shot rang out and we all jumped.

17 Immediately following this shot this prisoner -- his

18 name I think was Martic -- I think he was called Crni --

19 he ran in and he said: "Keljo was killed". That was

20 Klimenta's nickname. He sat down at his place and he

21 put his head into his hand and started crying. Shortly

22 after that the door was closed. We all fell silent and

23 we expected to see what was going to happen. They

24 called some prisoners out to hose down the blood because

25 the body was right in front of the hangar. He was

1 killed, I guess, on his way back to the hangar. He was

2 shot from behind in the head. Then they called out

3 some prisoners to remove his body and wash up the

4 blood. This was two or three days before the visit of

5 the Red Cross, so I just wanted to survive. When we

6 would go out to the toilet really ourselves, the next

7 time you could not see any traces of blood and the body

8 had been removed.

9 Q. Okay.

10 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I suppose we can afford to break here.

11 MS. McHENRY: Thank you, your Honour.

12 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: And resume at 2.30.

13 MS. McHENRY: Thank you.

14 (1.00 pm)

15 (Luncheon Adjournment)

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 (2.30 pm)

2 (Witness re-enters court)

3 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Remind the witness he is on his oath.

4 THE REGISTRAR: I'm reminding you that you are still

5 testifying under oath.

6 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: You can continue, Ms. McHenry.

7 MS. McHENRY: Thank you, your Honour.

8 Sir, was there a detainee named Mr. Scepo Gotovac

9 in Celebici?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Can you please tell me what, if anything, you yourself

12 observed or you yourself heard at the time concerning

13 what happened to Mr. Gotovac?

14 A. Scepo Gotovac was brought a few days after my arrival at

15 the camp. One day they threw him through the door.

16 This old man was thrown into the prison. I saw Hazim

17 Delic and Zenga then. He was thrown there next to me

18 to sit next to me and Hazim Delic said that during the

19 Second World War he had killed two Muslims and buried

20 them on the location of the camp, and he said that he

21 should not hope to leave alive. He tried to defend

22 himself, claiming that he'd never killed anyone. Even

23 he told the rest of us prisoners.

24 After the door had been closed he was saying

25 that.

1 That evening Scepo Gotovac was beaten up twice.

2 First, he was taken out that same evening and beaten for

3 quite a long time. We could hear the cries, the

4 moans. He was not killed then. He was brought

5 back. Then I think it was the next evening he was

6 lying there all beaten up. He was called out again

7 outside, at night fall. I remember Zenga, Esad

8 Landzo. He came in. He came into the hangar.

9 I think that Delic was near the door, outside. He

10 didn't want to go out. He was -- and then two other

11 prisoners were ordered to help him get up and push him

12 out, outside the door. This was right next to me in

13 the hangar. They started beating him and by the number

14 of blows, the movements and everything we could hear,

15 there must have been a large group of people, several

16 people. This went on forever. At least that's the

17 impression I had. They seemed to have tired of it

18 eventually and at one point I think Zenga said: "Let me

19 have him". Then we heard blows inflicted by only one

20 person, heavy blows, with some kind of a stick on the

21 body, and after a very short time those of us who were

22 sitting nearby could only hear the blows on the body.

23 There seemed to be no resistance, no moans, no cries,

24 nothing. After some time somebody came in and called

25 out the prisoners sitting next to the door and ordered

1 them to come out and carry Scepo's body back in, which,

2 of course, they had to do. They brought him in. Esad

3 Landzo came in and said: "If anyone takes this badge off

4 his forehead", and he had pierced his forehead with a

5 badge of the Serbian Democratic Party, and he said: "If

6 anyone removes this badge from his forehead, I will kill

7 him myself", and the body of Scepo Gotovac lay there for

8 maybe two or three days -- I don't know exactly -- right

9 next to me in that camp. Nobody, of course, dared

10 touch him or remove the badge. I don't know who it was

11 that gave permission for the body to be taken out and

12 removed from the hangar. So it was almost always the

13 same team of men sitting next to the door who carried

14 out the body and took it away somewhere.

15 Q. Sir, when you say --

16 MR. OLUJIC (in interpretation): I apologise, your

17 Honours. Mr. Zdravko Mucic, because of the screen,

18 cannot see the witness, so could we open up the screen a

19 little bit, so he can see the witness. Thank you.

20 MS. McHENRY: Maybe it would also be possible if your

21 Honours would request that the witness move forward. I

22 don't know if that would also help matters.

23 JUDGE JAN: Yes, it would.

24 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes. If you come forward. I think

25 the screen may be opened up a bit. Straighten it up a

1 bit. It will make a lot of difference. On that side,

2 yes. You can open it wider. It doesn't matter.

3 Yes.

4 MS. McHENRY: Sir, when you said that the body remained

5 there for two days, was Mr. Gotovac dead or alive then

6 and how did you conclude that he was either dead or

7 alive?

8 A. I'm not a doctor to be able to say that somebody is

9 dead, but if somebody doesn't move for two days and

10 stays in the same position at night and day-time and if

11 somebody doesn't breathe, I suppose he's dead.

12 Q. Thank you. Sir, was there a prisoner named Simo

13 Jovanovic in the prison?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Could you please tell the judges what, it anything, you

16 observed concerning what happened to Mr. Jovanovic?

17 A. Yes. Simo Jovanovic was a man in his 60s who was

18 already in the camp when I arrived. I heard that

19 before I came he had been terribly beaten.

20 MS. McMURREY: Your Honour, I'm going to ask that -- the

21 Prosecutor, of course, knows that the proper foundation

22 has to be laid before he can go into what he heard about

23 what happened before he got to the camp. I'm only

24 asking the Prosecutor lay the proper foundation for this

25 second-hand information. Thank you.

1 MS. McHENRY: Sir, maybe -- can you just please go forward

2 to tell us what you yourself saw or heard going on as it

3 was happening with respect to Mr. Jovanovic's treatment

4 after you were at the camp?

5 A. When I was at the camp, Mr. Simo Jovanovic, I found him

6 there. He was already in a poor condition. I don't

7 know exactly at what time during my stay, but anyway one

8 night he was called out. I saw Zenga then. I'm sorry

9 -- Esad Landzo, that everyone called Zenga. He came

10 in with another man, whom I didn't know. People said

11 that he came from the same village as Simo Jovanovic,

12 but I don't know that for sure. He had to go out.

13 All of us in the camp, as soon as he left, there were

14 certain satirical comments: "Come on, Simo. Come

15 out. We won't do anything. You'll be all right". As

16 soon as he left, the beating started. Again it must

17 have been a group of people. We heard terrible cries

18 and moans, and afterwards, talking to some people in the

19 camp, the people who lived 500 metres or 1 km from that

20 hangar in the village of Celebici could hear these

21 cries.

22 MS. McHENRY: Sir, if you could just please again tell us

23 what you yourself saw or heard at this time with respect

24 to Mr. Jovanovic?

25 A. Okay.

1 Q. During this beating that you could hear going on

2 outside, could you hear anyone's voices?

3 A. It seemed to me that I could hear the voice of Esad

4 Landzo. There was this tin wall between us. I don't

5 know exactly how long this beating lasted. I think it

6 lasted for quite some time and then it is difficult to

7 say exactly who, because everything was happening either

8 at dusk or in the evening. Somebody came in. We

9 called them the guards for the dead. They were called

10 out to bring him in. In the morning we all saw that he

11 was dead. When we got up, when it dawned, his body was

12 there with us for at least two days, and one of the

13 inmates who may have had a contact with one of the

14 guards asked that the body be removed, if possible,

15 because it was very hot in the hangar and we were afraid

16 of disease. So with another two or three prisoners

17 I carried out his body. We put him behind the

18 hangar. I think we covered him with an old uniform of

19 the former JNA, the shirt. I don't remember exactly

20 how long the body stayed there, nor where it was carried

21 away to.

22 Q. During the time that the body was in the hangar, was it

23 motionless and was there any breathing?

24 A. No. No. One could not hear any breathing and the body

25 was motionless.

1 Q. Sir, several times you have mentioned Esad Landzo called

2 Zenga in the camp. Did you know Mr. Landzo from before

3 the war?

4 A. I never knew Landzo personally, nor was I ever

5 introduced to him or him to me. I saw the boy once or

6 twice in my life. I knew his face, nothing more than

7 that. I never had any personal contact with him.

8 Q. But when you say you knew his face, do you mean you knew

9 his face before you were at the camp?

10 A. Yes. Yes. Yes. When I saw him in the camp, I realised

11 it was somebody I knew, somebody I had seen from before,

12 though I didn't know his name or surname at the time.

13 We had no personal contact, nor were we ever introduced

14 to one another.

15 Q. When you were at the camp how frequently would you see

16 Zenga in the camp?

17 A. Unfortunately very frequently.

18 Q. Sir, was there other mistreatment of prisoners, even

19 when it did not result in prisoners dying?

20 A. Almost on a daily basis.

21 Q. Could you please tell us what you yourself observed

22 concerning mistreatment of other prisoners?

23 A. I shall try to briefly mention some instances of

24 mistreatment, because it is really impossible and

25 difficult to describe within a limited period of time

1 all this. Esad Landzo was the most active in

2 mistreatment and the most imaginative in making up all

3 kinds of forms of mistreatment. I shall mention just

4 some of his specialities. He would burn parts of

5 people's bodies. He would pour --

6 MS. McMURREY: Your Honour, excuse me. I would like to ask

7 one more time that the proper foundation be set and

8 whether this person witnessed personally what he is

9 talking about or whether he just got this from

10 second-hand information. I submit please that the

11 proper foundation be laid before this information is

12 gone into.

13 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Actually if you had listened to him,

14 he opened his statement by saying he would like to limit

15 it to just a few and I think he is stating what he

16 himself has observed. If somebody is telling you

17 somebody was most imaginative, he knew what he has been

18 saying. He didn't tell us from the beginning that he

19 has heard it from anyone else.

20 MS. McMURREY: I do believe that Ms. McHenry did ask that he

21 reflect only what he personally saw and personally

22 witnessed. I just wanted to make sure that the proper

23 foundation was laid. Thank you.

24 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I didn't see the point in raising this

25 objection at all.

1 MS. McHENRY: Sir, would you please -- may I continue, your

2 Honour?

3 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes, you can continue.

4 MS. McHENRY: Sir, would you please continue with what you

5 yourself observed concerning what Zenga did?

6 A. Let me repeat, I shall try to mention only a few

7 examples that I personally observed and that happened in

8 my immediate vicinity. Next to me for a time two

9 brothers were sitting. I don't know whether it would

10 be right to mention their identity, because what

11 happened to them is really awful. He forced them to do

12 fellatio in front of all of us, to have sexual

13 intercourse. I'm really embarrassed to talk about

14 these things. When I remember all of those things, the

15 tears of those boys, when I remember that we had to

16 watch, that this was all amusement to him, it is really

17 very hard.

18 Q. Sir, in addition to the -- did you in addition to the

19 fellatio did you observe any of the other things that

20 happened to these two brothers?

21 A. He forced them to beat each other. Alternatively they

22 had to beat each other. If one of them didn't hit hard

23 enough, then he would hit him, and he would go on

24 forcing them to hit each other really hard. Then he

25 would take a -- I think it's a slow-burning fuse or

1 something like that that's used for explosives, and he

2 would order them to take off their underwear so that --

3 and then he would wind this fuse round their body, and

4 one end would be free and he would light that end.

5 Then he would order them to stand still without moving,

6 and if they would begin to move, he would beat them.

7 I can't remember all the names. I didn't know all the

8 prisoners by name.

9 He would come to a prisoner and he would force him

10 to do push-ups, and at the same time he would hit him in

11 the area of the stomach, with full force, the kidneys,

12 the back while he was performing these push-ups.

13 I personally witnessed at least 20 of those cases, such

14 cases, without any exaggeration. This kind of physical

15 exercises when he was beating these, what one might call

16 corpses doing these exercises.

17 Also in my immediate vicinity he heated some kind

18 of pincers -- I think you could call them that. He

19 heated these pincers and then he tortured whether ear,

20 nose, tongue, mouth of a prisoner from Bradina, from the

21 village of Bradina. I can't remember all the forms of

22 torture that I personally observed. A former taxi

23 driver from Konjic, I think his name was Bendzo, had his

24 whole leg lighted. Nedo Draganic, another prisoner,

25 was poured with petrol and his whole leg was burnt from

1 the lower leg to the knee, and he had terrible wounds

2 without any medical treatment in that filth and at a

3 temperature of maybe up to 50 degrees Centigrade.

4 Q. Sir, were the injuries that the prisoners received from

5 being mistreated, were they sometimes visible injuries?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Sir, when was it that you left Celebici?

8 A. I left Celebici in the second half of August. I was

9 transferred to the Sports Hall in Konjic.

10 Q. How long did you stay at the Sports Hall in Konjic?

11 A. I think it was not more than ten days.

12 Q. Okay. What then, sir, were the circumstances when you

13 left the Musala camp?

14 A. I was sent for exchange, to be exchanged. One day a

15 guard came to me and told me to go out. I went, and

16 outside there were some guards and some other people.

17 Pavo Mucic gave me a paper. I don't know how I could

18 call it -- a discharge paper. I think in the heading

19 it said "Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Municipality of

20 Konjic" and it said that the measure of detention is

21 being suspended and that I would be sent to a place

22 called Fojnica for the purpose of exchange. I had to

23 go. I didn't have to accept being exchanged but I had

24 to go.

25 Q. Sir, when you received this document from Mr. Mucic, was

1 it already filled out and signed, or did any part of

2 that happen in your presence?

3 A. I think that the signature was placed in my presence.

4 Q. If I may have the usher's assistance, may I please have

5 this document marked for identification purposes as

6 Prosecution Exhibit -- I understand 158? This document

7 has previously been provided to all Defence Counsel.

8 Sir, I ask if you can identify the document that

9 has been marked for identification purposes as 158.

10 Yes, sir, that document?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. What is that document?

13 A. Yes, that is that document.

14 Q. That is a document given to you by Mr. Mucic that you've

15 just described; is that correct?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Sir, were you, in fact --

18 JUDGE JAN: Just a minute. Have you read the English

19 translation?

20 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, your Honour.

21 JUDGE JAN: When you read the English translation, it says

22 "her movements".

23 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: It's indicating a female.

24 MR. MORAN: Excuse me, your Honour. The interpreters are

25 waving. I don't think your microphone is on.

1 MS. McHENRY: I will check with the translation section

2 afterwards. I believe what happens with this is it is

3 a neutral term in the Serbo-Croatian language. It

4 neither signifies -- at least as this is being read. I

5 will double check that, but that is my understanding.

6 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I suppose if it's --

7 MS. McHENRY: We will check with the translation section.

8 If there's a problem, we will submit a corrected

9 translation. As you might imagine, I'm unable to fully

10 answer your Honour's question, since I do not speak

11 Serbo-Croatian.

12 Sir, were you, in fact, exchanged at this time?

13 A. No.

14 Q. Can you just please briefly describe what happened?

15 A. Together with my father two Muslim soldiers -- I assume

16 they were soldiers because they were in uniform -- they

17 took us by car to the place called Fojnica and I waited

18 ten days for the exchange in Fojnica. All the time

19 they were trying to carry out the exchange, but it

20 didn't succeed. I do not know for what reason. After

21 that I was taken back to Konjic, and upon coming to

22 Konjic I went to the village of Brdjani again where my

23 family was, and I stayed there until I left.

24 Q. When was it that you left Brdjani and the entire Konjic

25 area?

1 A. From Brdjani I left on March 13th. That is when I left

2 the municipality of Konjic and Bosnia-Herzegovina and

3 via Croatia and Hungary I arrived in Belgrade.

4 Q. Excuse me for one minute, your Honour.

5 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes. You can continue.

6 MS. McHENRY: Your Honour, that finishes my examination.

7 May I please briefly ask for a private session just with

8 no sound to the public gallery?

9 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes, you can. Kindly inform them.

10 MS. McHENRY: Thank you. I believe it is now private.

11 (In closed session).

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

1 (redacted)

2 (redacted)

3 (redacted)

4 (redacted)

5 (redacted)

6 (redacted)

7 (In open session)

8 MS. McHENRY: I think we are now. I would be requesting

9 the admission of Prosecution Exhibit 158 and I have no

10 further questions.

11 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: There is no objection to it, is

12 there? It is admitted. Any cross-examinations?

13 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Yes, your Honour. We will proceed in this

14 order. First, counsel for Mr. Delalic; second, counsel

15 for Mr. Mucic; third, counsel for Mr. Delic; and, fourth,

16 counsel for Mr. Landzo.

17 Cross-examination by Ms. Residovic

18 MS. RESIDOVIC (in interpretation): May I, your Honours?

19 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes, you may.

20 MS. RESIDOVIC (in interpretation): May I proceed? Thank

21 you. Good afternoon, Mr. B. As you may be aware of, I

22 am Edina Residovic. I am Defence Counsel for Mr. Zejnil

23 Delalic. I will request of you, since I'll be asking

24 several questions with respect to the names of your

25 family, to go into private session, so that I would not

1 violate your right to protect your own identity before

2 this Trial Chamber. Could we please go into the

3 private session?

4 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes. Let's get into private session

5 for the cross-examination.

6 (In closed session)

7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25

1 into the open session now, please.

2 (In open session)

3 MS. RESIDOVIC (in interpretation): Mr. B, did you spend two

4 and a half months in Celebici and Musala since the end

5 of June until the middle of August?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. As you stated before this Trial Chamber, you went

8 through to Belgrade via Zagreb and Hungary and then,

9 following that, you went abroad to the place you are

10 now; is that correct?

11 A. The important aspect is that I arrived in Belgrade

12 through Zagreb and Hungary. I would like to keep my

13 address private. I don't want to be a media star or

14 anything. I would like my address to remain anonymous.

15 Q. Thank you. Yes, but as a Serb who for a while was

16 imprisoned in the Celebici camp, on your way to Belgrade

17 did you encounter no problems?

18 A. Absolutely.

19 Q. Mr. B, beside the family house in Brdjani, your parents

20 also had an apartment in Konjic?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. Could you please tell us whether your house in Brdjani

23 was damaged?

24 A. There were -- there was no major damage, but if you can

25 count as damage the fact that several times, as we say,

1 in quotation marks our neighbours came and shot into our

2 -- at our house several times from up close and then

3 also --

4 Q. What about your apartment in Konjic?

5 A. The apartment in Konjic was left intact.

6 Q. You said that you graduated in economics in Sarajevo?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Is it true that after that you worked as a commercial

9 specialist in Unis, one of the largest companies in

10 Bosnia?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. You went to work until mid-April; is that correct?

13 A. The last time I went to work was April 13th.

14 Q. Mr. B, you are a witness of the fact that as of 6th April

15 Sarajevo was attacked, which created an atmosphere that

16 really meant the immediate threat of war and war

17 situation?

18 A. I don't know what attack you have in mind. On 13th

19 April I was in Sarajevo, so the communications were free

20 and open and there was no attack, and as far as the

21 atmosphere is concerned, I would say you were right, but

22 the atmosphere was very bad much earlier than that.

23 Q. Based on your personal experience can you confirm before

24 this Trial Chamber that on the highway at different

25 points there were checkpoints, some of them manned by

1 the representatives of the reserve police, and in

2 Ilidza, Blazuji, Hadzici and in Bradina these

3 checkpoints were manned by the Serb reservists?

4 A. I cannot give you a precise answer to this question,

5 because towards the very end, that is practically at the

6 end of my work in Sarajevo, I did not go to Sarajevo in

7 a vehicle every day. The simple reason for this was

8 that it was incredibly difficult to find fuel. So when

9 we could find fuel we would take a vehicle and, if not,

10 we would take a train. From the train I never saw any

11 barricade, but it is possible they did exist.

12 Q. Mr. B, let us just touch on what you just said. You

13 said that there were serious shortages of fuel and

14 before this Trial Chamber you said that already in the

15 second half of April there were severe shortages of food

16 in the Konjic town, that you had a small child and that

17 this was one of the reasons why you left Konjic town; is

18 that correct?

19 A. One of the reasons was because it was very difficult to

20 find food for a small child and milk and I thought that

21 it would be easier to find that in the countryside, in a

22 village, to find milk.

23 Q. Mr. B, you have personal experience of the fact that

24 there were food shortages in the Konjic town and area in

25 mid-April?

1 A. I really only was referring to the baby food. This is

2 what I focused on. I was the person in the family --

3 I was not the person in the family who was really

4 shopping for food, and so I don't know what was

5 difficult to find, but I know that this was difficult to

6 find in Konjic even earlier. So for the last year

7 I was bringing this food from Sarajevo.

8 Q. Mr. B, now I would like to ask you, since until you left

9 for Brdjani you lived in town, if you could try to

10 identify certain locations that I will show you on this

11 tape. There's no audio on this. This is an original

12 videotape, true videotape of Konjic television. This

13 tape has been shown to the Prosecution in July of last

14 year and was also made available to them two months

15 ago. I would like now to have this tape shown to the

16 witness, please. Can we have the Technical Department

17 please show this and have it marked for identification

18 also.

19 (Videotape played)

20 Q. Thank you. Mr. B, can you recognise the location that

21 was shown on this tape?

22 A. I think this was the Serbian orthodox church in Konjic

23 based on the tower. I am saying I think but I'm not

24 sure.

25 Q. Before that you saw a panorama of the city. What city

1 was that?

2 A. Konjic.

3 Q. Since the witness identified the city and the location

4 where this group of people was standing, which was the

5 intention of the Defence, I would like to have -- to

6 tender this videotape as evidence. Go ahead, please.

7 MS. McHENRY: Your Honour, I would object for two reasons.

8 The first is relevance and the second is the witness has

9 indicated that he's not the least -- he's sure that he

10 recognised the tower but he couldn't say anything other

11 than that -- other than that the panorama was for Konjic

12 town. So I would object for two reasons, first for

13 relevance and, second, for foundation.

14 MS. RESIDOVIC (in interpretation): Your Honours, I think

15 that this objection is not founded, since the Defence

16 asked for the location and the city be identified, and

17 from -- also it speaks to the shortages that the witness

18 has referred to. I think that the witness was accurate

19 enough, that his identification is acceptable. If

20 necessary, we can show the videotape one more time. Do

21 you wish to see it one more time?

22 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: What is the issue which you are

23 trying to establish? What is the issue? I don't know

24 what is the relevance of it all. What is the issue

25 this video is trying to establish?

1 MS. RESIDOVIC (in interpretation): Your Honours, the

2 witness said --

3 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I don't think it's necessary.

4 I agree with the objection. It has no basis at all.

5 I don't see the relevance at all.

6 MS. RESIDOVIC (in interpretation): Your Honours, you

7 ruled. I will not comment on it. However, the

8 witness spoke about the shortages of baby food and food

9 for children and obviously there were food lines that

10 were shown in this video.

11 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I don't know if it's baby food they

12 are talking about there. It has nothing to do about it

13 at all.

14 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

15 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I still repeat it is completely

16 irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the evidence or

17 what you are trying to prove.

18 MS. RESIDOVIC (in interpretation): Mr. B, in early May of

19 1992 did the Commander from Podorasac Zovko Zvonko and

20 the MUP of Konjic conduct a search in the village of

21 Brdjani. Do you know about this?

22 A. You said this was?

23 Q. Early May of 1992?

24 A. I don't know that.

25 Q. You also don't know that at that time a part of the

1 population -- some individuals in the village of Brdjani

2 was detained because of weapons possession?

3 A. No, I don't. No. As I said, I do not know. Maybe a

4 correction there. Even though I was born there, I was

5 going up to that village very rarely and except for a

6 few people, I didn't know anybody there. So I don't

7 think that my knowledge of it is relevant, because

8 I simply don't know these things.

9 Q. Mr. B, do you know that at that time there was the HVO in

10 existence in Konjic and a number of Muslims from the

11 city and the environs was involved in it?

12 A. Are you asking me whether I know of it now or whether

13 I knew about it at that time?

14 Q. Both.

15 A. Now I certainly know that this exists. I think it's

16 common knowledge now, but frankly speaking I did not

17 know of any military formations being there. Then

18 I would not have -- I would have fled the city.

19 I would have gone somewhere else to seek shelter.

20 Q. Mr. B, do you know that in Bosnia and Herzegovina a state

21 of immediate war threat was declared on April 8th?

22 A. No.

23 Q. Do you know that in mid-April, or more precisely 17th

24 April, a general call-out was also proclaimed?

25 A. No.

1 Q. Mr. B, you are a military conscript?

2 A. No. You mean now?

3 Q. No, at that time.

4 A. At that time I don't know. About a month or two or

5 three before that I received -- I was a conscript and

6 I did go to Mostar to some exercises and I got a call to

7 come and turn in all my equipment, and I did that, and

8 then after that nobody ever called me again.

9 Q. You personally did not go to report anywhere?

10 A. No, nowhere.

11 Q. Mr. B, you said that Mr. Spago came in the second part of

12 June with a list of all male citizens of Brdjani?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. You also said that seven days after your arrival in

15 Celebici you were interrogated by the commission which

16 interrogated the detainees?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Given that a long time has gone by, on the basis of that

19 information can we conclude that you must have been

20 interrogated somewhere around June 25th?

21 A. I cannot make any conclusions. I explained that I had

22 to make a reservation, because -- regarding dates,

23 because five years have gone by. Whether that was on

24 25th or 26th I find it very difficult to pinpoint the

25 date.

1 Q. Mr. B, I only ask of you to put a date on it the way you

2 have explained the other events, I guess. So you

3 arrived in the second half, the middle of June, and then

4 seven days later you were interrogated?

5 A. Approximately.

6 Q. So that would have been around 25th June?

7 A. Approximately. It could have been but it may not have

8 been but there is the possibility it was around 25th

9 June.

10 Q. Thank you. Do you know Strahinja Zivak, your neighbour

11 from Brdjani?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Do you know that Strahinja Zivak gave a rifle M-48 to

14 your father?

15 A. No.

16 Q. Is it true that you discussed with your father certain

17 weapons offered by Zivak? Is it true, Mr. B, that while

18 you were in Bradina you were in the house of Vaso

19 Kuljanin?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Is it true that you surrendered your father's rifle --

22 you gave it to Mr. Vaso Kuljanin?

23 A. No.

24 Q. If somebody else were to say that this was correct, he

25 wouldn't be telling the truth?

1 A. Probably.

2 Q. Mr. B, I only have a few more questions for you. You

3 said that after being called out -- after your name

4 being called out you were taken to the place of

5 Podorasac?

6 A. Yes, yes, to Podorasac.

7 Q. Podorasac was the seat of the HVO command?

8 A. Believe me, I don't know. To me they were all the

9 same. I really don't know who had their base there.

10 Q. Mr. B, did you see any insignia -- that insignia on the

11 uniform of Mr. Spago Nedzad?

12 A. I do not recall the insignia.

13 Q. Mr. B, do you know the following persons as your

14 neighbours: Mirko Zivak, Cedo Zivak, Savo Zivak,

15 Radenko Gligorevic, Zaran Slavko, Zivak Slavko,

16 Stoijanovic Mladen, Draganic Voijo, Draganic Radko,

17 Senikovic Slobodan and others?

18 A. By their surnames I met some of those people in the

19 camp. I would say that they come from that region of

20 Brdjani, but, as I have already said, I knew very, very

21 people from the village, only a few households that were

22 in the immediate vicinity of my old family home.

23 Q. Do you know Ramic Agan?

24 A. Ramic Agan, yes. I didn't know him before the war but

25 I met him during the war.

1 Q. Do you know that he was the Commander of a TO unit in

2 your village?

3 A. I don't know. I don't know what his function was.

4 I know that almost all of them had been engaged in the

5 TO, but what exactly his duty was I don't know.

6 Q. Do you know that the persons I listed a moment ago and

7 some others from Brdjani had handed to Agan Ramic a

8 total of 47 rifles, of which 29 were M-48s, six were

9 semi-automatic rifles and 12 were other types of

10 weapons?

11 A. Possibly that is true. I never counted any weapons,

12 nor did I keep any record of what people had by way of

13 weapons.

14 Q. Therefore, Mr. B, you knew that the inhabitants of

15 Brdjani had military weapons?

16 A. I think that at that time there were weapons virtually

17 everywhere and I do know that some people had some kind

18 of weapons. What they had and how many, whether it was

19 military or hunting rifles, I really don't know.

20 Q. Therefore the statement that you made in your testimony

21 that nobody in Brdjani was armed, nor did anyone

22 participate in defence, could not be considered quite

23 right?

24 A. I don't know who was armed in Brdjani, but I know that

25 there was absolutely no defence of that village, nor can

1 anyone say that people from Brdjani participated in the

2 defence of Brdjani.

3 Q. A further point. Two more questions. Were you aware

4 that the Serbian Democratic Party, of which you are not

5 a member, in the first half of April, took a decision

6 that it would not participate in the defence of Konjic?

7 A. As you said, I was never a member of the Serbian

8 Democratic Party, so I am not familiar with their

9 decisions at all, though my life was mostly limited to

10 life in Sarajevo, so that I knew very little of what was

11 happening in Konjic. I would just come and spend the

12 night there more or less.

13 Q. But as an inhabitant of Sarajevo you were familiar with

14 the positions of SDS and Radovan Karadzic at the time?

15 A. Really it was very difficult to work in those days as an

16 economist so I was preoccupied and I am not a

17 politically minded person. I was never interested in

18 politics. So I didn't know much about positions that

19 you referred to. Of course, one had to watch the TV

20 sometimes and one had to see that the situation was very

21 bad, but I never really was intimately familiar with the

22 positions of Radovan Karadzic, nor were anyone else.

23 Q. Thank you very much, Mr. B. I have no further

24 questions. Thank you, your Honours?

25 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Thank you very much. Any other

1 cross-examination?

2 MR. OLUJIC (in interpretation): Yes, your Honours. I beg

3 for your indulgence for a couple of minutes until I get

4 set up here.

5 Cross-examination by Mr. Olujic

6 MR. OLUJIC (in interpretation): May I be allowed, your

7 Honours?

8 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes.

9 MR. OLUJIC (in interpretation): Thank you.

10 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: You can carry on with the witness.

11 MR. OLUJIC (in interpretation): Good afternoon, Mr. B. My

12 name is Zeljko Olujic. I am Defence Counsel for

13 Mr. Zdravko Mucic. We speak in two different languages

14 but we'll understand one another. You speak Serbian,

15 I speak Croatian, but we lived for a long time in the

16 same state, so I think we'll understand each other.

17 I won't take long, Mr. B.

18 A. May I make a correction? I was taught all my life that

19 I speak Serbo-Croatian and I still claim to speak

20 Serbo-Croatian.

21 Q. That was a misconception, both yours and ours. You

22 have spent all day in the courtroom, so I shall try and

23 be as concise as possible, because I assume you must be

24 tired, but nevertheless we need to clear up a few

25 things, so ...

1 In your testimony today in this courtroom you said

2 that Mr. Ivica Buric was a person who helped you in the

3 camp?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. Is that correct?

6 A. Absolutely correct.

7 Q. May I ask you something else? We must wait a little for

8 the interpretation into English between our questions

9 and our answers so as to be able to allow the others to

10 follow?

11 A. I apologise.

12 Q. Never mind. You knew Ivica Buric from before, didn't

13 you?

14 A. I knew him very superficially. He's much younger than

15 I, so that he was not in my group, but I knew his

16 brother very well, and that probably explains the help

17 he gave me because his brother probably influenced

18 him. That's all that I can assume.

19 Q. What was his brother's name?

20 A. I knew his brother Stravko. No, I'm sorry. The

21 brother that I was close to was Goran. I'm sorry.

22 Goran.

23 Q. Mr. B, how did Mr. Ivica Buric treat the other prisoners

24 in the camp?

25 A. You see, I can't be exclusive, but I must say that

1 nobody ever said anything bad about that young man. He

2 was very -- he treated people decently and I think he

3 mostly tried to help them. He didn't help me only.

4 He probably helped others. In a nutshell he was

5 correct.

6 Q. What was he by ethnic origin?

7 A. He was a Croat.

8 Q. Your Honours, I should like to ask a question which may

9 in a certain sense disclose the identity of the witness

10 so for these two questions may we go into private

11 session, please?

12 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Yes.

13 (In closed session)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (In open session)

21 Q. In answer to the cross-examination of my learned

22 colleague you said that before the war you used to work

23 in Sarajevo?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Did you have occasion to meet a certain Mr. Petar

1 Blazevic there?

2 A. Can you give me his nickname? Maybe I do know him.

3 Q. Petar Blazevic. I only know him as such?

4 A. If he's from Konjic, I think I know him. I know a

5 Petar Blazevic and how many people there are in the

6 former Yugoslavia with the same names, you know

7 yourself.

8 Q. This Petar Blazevic comes from Serbia. Nicknamed maybe

9 Serbia.

10 A. Yes, they called him Serbia. That is the Petar

11 Blazevic I had in mind.

12 Q. You know him?

13 A. Yes, I do.

14 Q. How did you meet him?

15 A. I didn't know Petar Blazevic from Sarajevo. I knew

16 Peter Blazevic from much earlier on.

17 Q. But he worked with you in Sarajevo?

18 A. This was a large enterprise, as your learned colleague

19 said. There are about 2000 workers and at least 20

20 branch offices, and he worked in one of those Unis

21 branch offices. I think it was the branch for the

22 maintenance of the buildings in which we worked, if I'm

23 not mistaken.

24 Q. Did you know Mr. Zdravko Mucic from before?

25 A. We were never personally introduced, nor were we

1 friends, but I did know him.

2 Q. Mr. B, in your testimony today you mentioned that you had

3 heard from other prisoners that Mr. Mucic had an office

4 in the camp; is that correct?

5 A. I didn't hear that from prisoners. I heard that on one

6 occasion when we were cleaning the premises and one of

7 the guards said: "Clean Pavo's office". So I'm just

8 conveying what I heard. So I won't enter into the

9 conclusion you can make from that. Maybe the man was

10 wrong. Maybe it wasn't his office. I don't know.

11 Q. So you allow for that possibility?

12 A. Sir, I conveyed the sentence I heard. Now what the

13 competence of the guards is, how reliable and all that,

14 it's not up to me to judge. I don't know.

15 Q. Mr. B, when you heard that -- let me try and fix this in

16 time. Was this just before the arrival of the

17 International Red Cross or after, a few days before or a

18 few days after?

19 A. I wouldn't say it was a couple of days before the Red

20 Cross. It was a little more than that, maybe -- let's

21 say a month after my arrival at the camp. I can't say

22 exactly whether it was 31 days, 32 or 29 days. Under

23 those conditions it's very difficult to measure the

24 time.

25 Q. I understand that. That is why I am trying to link

1 this to certain events, because I realised after all the

2 suffering you have gone through you can't remember the

3 dates with precision, but let us roughly try and situate

4 this in time, if you can.

5 MS. McHENRY: Your Honours, if I may just object, the

6 witness has already stated he doesn't know exactly but

7 he statements it was somewhere around 30 days after he

8 first arrived at the camp. Therefore, I would object

9 to any further questions about that.

10 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I suppose you might still try to limit

11 him within the period. You can find a way to bring him

12 nearer to the period. It is still within these

13 grounds.

14 MR. OLUJIC (in interpretation): Well, let us leave that as

15 it is, so we can proceed, Mr. B. In your testimony

16 today you said that when you were released from the

17 camp, the release paper was given to you by Mr. Zdravko

18 Mucic; is that correct?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. Mr. B, tell me, who signed that document on your release?

21 A. Mr. Zdravko Mucic. This was between the Sports Hall and

22 a part of the elementary school. They were linked, and

23 in the place in between there was a table and there were

24 some other people in addition to Zdravko Mucic. I was

25 told I was going to be exchanged. He was sitting at

1 that table and signing some papers. As soon as he

2 signed that paper it was given to me.

3 Q. But the paper that you received, when signed that paper?

4 A. Probably Mr. Mucic. You see three lines. Mr. Mucic.

5 Q. But I am asking you not to assume but to tell us what

6 you are sure of. If you're not sure --

7 A. I saw Mr. Mucic leaning on the table and writing on those

8 papers, so that must be it. That's all I can say, what

9 I saw.

10 Q. Mr. B, when you left the Celebici camp, did you see

11 Mr. Mucic immediately before that?

12 A. Just before I left the camp he came to Hangar

13 Number 6. I don't know exactly how many of our names

14 were read out then, and he was there until we entered a

15 van. I don't know exactly how many of us there were.

16 I don't know what the others were transported in.

17 I entered this van and I was driven to Musala. After

18 that I wasn't in Celebici, nor could I go there.

19 Q. Did Mr. Mucic ask you then whether you had any rifle or

20 weapon?

21 A. He asked me once whether I was armed and I said, as

22 before in the statement that I made in the Celebici camp

23 that I didn't have any weapons and he simply passed by

24 without making any comment.

25 Q. When you arrived in the camp you mentioned that all --

1 you gave all your valuables, money, gold ring?

2 A. No, the ring went I don't know exactly when, but it went

3 maybe a month after, after. I had a Quartz watch, some

4 perhaps already worthless money. There was a tobacco

5 box. We had no cigarettes then already so we were

6 making our own. Then there was something like a

7 cigarette holder that you put this hand-made cigarette

8 into and I can't remember every little detail.

9 Q. It's only normal that you can't. When you were handing

10 over these things, was anyone else present?

11 A. We put the things next to us at a time when we were

12 facing the wall. The guards were there. Delic was

13 there and the other guards. I don't know who picked up

14 those things and how, because we were led off in the

15 direction of the manholes.

16 Q. Was Mr. Mucic present there?

17 A. I didn't see him then.

18 Q. Mr. B, tell me, did anyone ever tell you from among the

19 prisoners that during physical and other mistreatment

20 Mr. Pavo Mucic had been present?

21 A. No.

22 Q. Did you ever see in the four or five times that you saw

23 Mr. Mucic in the camp -- did you ever observe anyone

24 being physically mistreated in his presence?

25 A. No.

1 Q. Just very briefly, Mr. B, where did you first make a

2 statement regarding the issue that has brought you here

3 to The Hague Tribunal?

4 A. Do I have to answer that question, give you the address,

5 the town? Just the town?

6 MS. McHENRY: Your Honour, I would request that this witness

7 even in private session not be asked to give the

8 location of where he gave -- assuming that it's anywhere

9 close to where he lives now, or if he's uncomfortable

10 because he doesn't want to give his current

11 whereabouts. I don't believe there would be any

12 objection if Defence Counsel wanted to ask to whom, but

13 if the witness believes that the answer to this would

14 give away his present whereabouts, then I would object

15 to the question.

16 MR. OLUJIC (in interpretation): Was this statement made

17 outside the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

18 A. If you are satisfied with such an answer, in a town in

19 Serbia. I had the status of refugee and all the

20 refugees -- I don't know about the women, but at least

21 I was -- almost everyone was asked to make this

22 interview in the Ministry of the Interior, had a very

23 brief informative interview, where you were, what you

24 did. I said what I had been through. When I said that

25 I had been in the camp, they asked me if I could make a

1 statement about my stay in the camp. I said I had

2 nothing against and I made a statement on my stay in the

3 camp.

4 Q. I have no further questions. Thank you, your

5 Honours. Thank you, Mr. B.

6 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Any other cross-examination?

7 MR. MORAN: Yes, your Honour. Your Honour, my cross will

8 be fairly --

9 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: We might break now and come back at

10 4.30.

11 MR. MORAN: I was just about to suggest that very thing,

12 your Honour.

13 (4.00 pm)

14 (Short break)

15 (4.30 pm)

16 Cross-examination by Mr. Moran

17 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Mr. Moran?

18 MR. MORAN: Thank you, your Honour. May it please the

19 court? Good afternoon, sir. My name is Tom Moran and

20 I represent Hazim Delic here. I am going to ask you a

21 very few questions, a couple of areas, and I will tell

22 you what those are. I would ask you if you will listen

23 to the question that I ask and if you don't understand

24 it, I will rephrase it until you do, because I'm not

25 trying to confuse you. Is that fair enough?

1 The second thing is I just noticed you nodded

2 "yes". There's two people in the courtroom, this lady

3 up here and another lady over there, who are what are

4 called court reporters, and they have to write down

5 everything that happens in the court to make a record of

6 it. They can't write down a nod. So if you say "yes"

7 or "no", if "yes" or "no" is what you want to say,

8 I know they would appreciate it and the judges would

9 appreciate it and I would appreciate it. Can you do

10 that for me, sir?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. There are a

13 couple of areas I want to go over. I know you made a

14 statement to the Office of the Prosecutor in February of

15 last year and you made that statement to the Ministry of

16 the Interior for -- what was it -- Serbia after you were

17 released from the camp or after you were exchanged.

18 I would like to ask you: have you talked about your

19 experiences in the camp with any other groups or people

20 from officials sources?

21 A. Yes, of course, I did discuss my stay in the camp with

22 my family, with my relatives who were in the camp.

23 Unfortunately we do remember those unpleasant times, and

24 as far as people in official positions are concerned,

25 no, not really.

1 Q. So not with, for instance, the Association of Detainees

2 or the American Serbian Women's Caucus, any organisation

3 like that?

4 A. I cannot know. Like, for instance, if I talk to you, I

5 don't know what are the memberships in different

6 organisations you may be. So I don't know if these

7 people that I talked to were also members of some other

8 associations.

9 Q. But you didn't give any kind of a formal -- just the two

10 formal written statements are the only two formal

11 written statements you've given?

12 A. I gave a statement in Serbia and I also gave a statement

13 -- that's right. There was Serbian Women's Caucus.

14 I need not say where they are from, but this was done in

15 the presence of a representative of the Tribunal. I

16 don't know his name. But it could have also been a

17 tourist travel agency or some such organisation as well.

18 Q. Sure. So you gave a statement to a guy from the

19 Tribunal, named Ole Hortemo, back in February of last

20 year?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And there was someone present from another group at the

23 time you gave that statement from some Serbian Women's

24 Caucus? Did I understand you to say that?

25 A. When I was giving the statement, there was no other

1 person present except for the interpreter of Mr.

2 Hortemo. So no other person had access to the

3 statement. I don't know what Mr. Hortemo did with this

4 statement subsequently, to whom, if anybody, he showed

5 it, but when I was giving the statement, only Mr. Hortemo

6 and his interpreter were present there, but if he is a

7 member of one of these organisations you are referring

8 to, you can check that with him. I think that he is

9 Norwegian, and I believe that my pronunciation of his

10 name is correct, but if I'm wrong, please correct me on

11 that.

12 Q. Your guess is as good as mine, sir, on the pronunciation

13 of his name. Your Honour, I'm going to ask about two

14 questions that I think we might want to do in a private

15 session.

16 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: We can get that organised.

17 MR. MORAN: So if we could go into private session for a

18 couple of minutes. I think we are in private session

19 now.

20 (In closed session)

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21 (In open session)

22 Q. I would like to ask you to help me with a couple of

23 areas and then we will be done. You testified on

24 direct for a while you were living in Bradina. You

25 went to Bradina in, what -- some time in May or April of

1 1992. Do you remember that? You went there for a

2 short time?

3 A. Yes. In May of 1992, and I was there for a very short

4 period of time.

5 Q. And you were talking about -- everything was fairly

6 unorganised -- "extremely disorganised" I think were

7 your words -- when it came to the defence of Bradina.

8 Do you recall that?

9 A. It is very easily possible that I said that. When

10 I speak about organisation of things, it's a matter of

11 personal view. I think it's a personal opinion. On

12 the same topic -- for the same thing you could say that

13 something was organised very well and I could say that

14 something is poorly organised. In my view it was very

15 poorly organised. I saw that my wife and my daughter

16 could not leave Bradina under the auspices of the Red

17 Cross and my only goal was to pull out of this dangerous

18 surroundings. There was -- and I had no-one to turn to

19 in Brdjani and that turned out to be a very good

20 decision as it ...

21 I also need to add that I never was involved in

22 anything military, in terms of studying military

23 doctrines, on studies or anything like that, so I don't

24 think that I can really give any expert judgement on

25 whether something was well-organised from a military

1 point of view. This was a lay opinion and the opinion

2 of an amateur, if you will. So it's like the same as

3 whether you like something or you don't like something,

4 that type of statement.

5 Q. You are of the age -- I think you have testified you are

6 36 years old. So you would have been of the age to

7 have done National Service in the JNA. Did you do your

8 National Service or were you somehow exempted, and if

9 you were exempted, that's fine?

10 A. No, I did do my military service.

11 Q. Okay. So you've got some experience around the

12 military. Obviously you weren't on the general staff

13 or anything like that, but when you were in Bradina --

14 you have been around an organised military. The JNA at

15 the time you were in it was a well-organised,

16 well-respected army in Europe. Did you see anything

17 even close to like that?

18 A. Unfortunately I must say that in part I don't agree with

19 you when you say that the JNA was a well-organised

20 force, because during my military service in 1984

21 I worked in a telephone exchange as an operator, so that

22 I don't have much experience in terms of again the

23 military doctrines, the attacks and defence and things

24 like that, but my impression from being in the JNA was

25 that it was a very poorly organised military force, but

1 I'm not competent. Even when I served, I was only a

2 telephone operator. So I really again cannot give you

3 expert opinions on it.

4 Q. Let me go on to something else and I'll tell you why I'm

5 going to ask you about this so again it's not going to

6 come as any kind of surprise to you. You may very well

7 be the first person we have talked to here that was out

8 and about inside the camp at Celebici. You were out

9 doing various jobs at various times. What I want to

10 ask you about is this. As I understand it, there were

11 people, military people, that were living, stationed in

12 the Celebici camp, who weren't part of the guard

13 force. It was a separate unit. Can you help me with

14 that?

15 A. I first must tell you that your first assertion that

16 I was moving around Celebici -- I worked at the camp.

17 Celebici is a village and the camp was part of that

18 village, the territory of the village. So I was only

19 moving around the camp only under the escort of a guard

20 and, for instance, at night there would be transport

21 coming in, so then they would say: "Come on. Do we need

22 ten guys to unload this?" Then when they were tired,

23 the other ten would come in. So it was not just

24 wandering about the camp. So it was always

25 organised.

1 The other part of your question referred to other

2 uniformed persons besides the guard force. Is that

3 correct? Can you restate that please?

4 Q. Yes. By the way, I am just centring on the camp, not

5 the whole town of Celebici. Were there other military

6 people that were stationed in the camp or living in the

7 camp at Celebici who were not part of the guard force,

8 maybe another unit sharing the camp?

9 A. For a while, that is periodically in a hangar which was

10 next to Hangar Number 6, which served as a prison, some

11 uniformed people stayed and they were part of the Muslim

12 forces. Nobody introduced themselves to me, who they

13 were, what they were, so this is my assumption. If

14 this short stay there could be called, you know, being

15 stationed there, maybe. Then there were some other

16 persons there who were also present, who were not

17 connected to the guard force. I think that there was

18 somebody who was repairing weaponry, who had their own

19 little corner and they had their own little cot so that

20 they could sleep there. Again whether it was living on

21 the premises, again I don't know.

22 Q. The day you got to Celebici, when you were lined up

23 against the wall, the concrete wall, right after you got

24 off the trucks -- do you recall you testified about

25 that, and there were some Muslim soldiers that came up,

1 right after you reached Celebici, right after you

2 reached the camp? You testified on direct you were

3 ordered to line up against a concrete wall and there

4 were some threats and curses at you and you were ordered

5 to empty your pockets. Do you recall testifying about

6 that on direct?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Did you see the people milling around that were not part

9 of the guard force?

10 A. No, I did not see them. I must tell you that at that

11 time I had the impression that I shouldn't turn around

12 much and look around. That was the impression that

13 I had, so that I could only see the guards, maybe not

14 even all the guards. I would see somebody who was in

15 front of me or just in my line of vision. I couldn't

16 see the guards behind me and I didn't turn around much

17 and look around whether there were other people there,

18 and in this kind of a situation it's a bit unnatural to

19 sort of wander around and look at the landscape or

20 wherever.

21 Q. I understand. Sir, thank you very much. Your Honour,

22 I pass the witness.

23 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Thank you very much. Any other

24 cross-examination?

25 MS. McMURREY: Yes, your Honour.

1 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Ms. McMurrey?

2 MS. McMURREY: Yes, your Honour.

3 Cross-examination by Ms. McMurrey

4 MS. McMURREY: I would just like to inform the Registrar,

5 please, that I will need those three photographs of the

6 people from Belgrade in a few moments also. I don't

7 know the numbers of those. Thank you.

8 May it please the court? Thank you. Good

9 afternoon, Witness B. My name is Cynthia McMurrey.

10 A. Good afternoon.

11 Q. Good afternoon. I'm defence attorney for Mr. Esad

12 Landzo. I know that the Prosecutor has already

13 discussed this with you, but one of the things that

14 I would like to ask you to agree with me on this

15 afternoon is when you are giving evidence in the

16 courtroom that you only testify or talk about things

17 that you personally experienced or that you personally

18 heard or that you personally witnessed. Do we have an

19 agreement on that?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Thank you very much. I believe that you visited with

22 the Prosecutor -- you said Mr. -- I can't pronounce his

23 name either -- Mr. Hortemo -- is that his name -- with

24 the Prosecutor's Office in February of 1996?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. And you granted him an interview at that time, didn't

2 you?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Now, the Prosecution some time between that point and

5 now told you that we of the defence would like a chance

6 to interview and talk to you about your experiences at

7 Celebici also, didn't they?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. And you responded to them that you did not want to

10 discuss that with us; is that correct?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. So you decided that you would not give us the same

13 courtesy that you gave the Prosecution?

14 A. I don't know why I would -- I had a special courtesy for

15 the Prosecution. I had no time to talk to anybody from

16 the Defence and I didn't think that it was necessary.

17 I was given a choice and if you are given a choice, you

18 take the option that you use more. I didn't ever feel

19 that this was my obligation, because that was not how it

20 was put to me. Since I have agreed to -- since

21 I agreed to come here, I knew that I would accept, as

22 they call it, the rules of the game and talk to

23 everyone, but I was given a choice to talk to you or not

24 and then I chose not to.

25 Q. Thank you. We respect your choice also. Thank you.

1 You stated earlier that, of course, you made a statement

2 to the Office of the Prosecution and you said you also

3 spoke to the Serbian Women's Caucus and you also

4 mentioned something about a tourist travel agency. Can

5 you tell us what kind of statement you might have made

6 to a tourist travel agency?

7 A. Obviously either it was misinterpreted or it was maybe

8 misunderstood. When your colleague asked me before

9 about the circumstances under which I gave a statement,

10 I was very clear. There was no organisation of Serbian

11 Women that I gave this statement to. I gave this

12 statement exclusively to Mr. Hortemo in the present of

13 his interpreter -- I mean his interpreter -- yes, in the

14 presence of his interpreter, and it seemed to me at that

15 time that I did not need to answer who organised this,

16 and I said: "Well, it could have been organised even by

17 a tourist travel agency". Obviously I did not give any

18 statements to a tourist travel agency, because I said

19 already that I had not given any statements to anyone

20 except to the representatives of this Tribunal, provided

21 that Mr. Hortemo is or was a representative of this

22 Tribunal. So that was what I said.

23 Q. Thank you. At this time I would like to ask, with the

24 assistance of the usher, that these three photographs be

25 shown to Mr. B, please, and just for the record, could

1 I have what the numbers of those three photographs are?

2 THE REGISTRAR: It is 5/2, 6/2 and 7/2 exhibit numbers.

3 MS. McMURREY: Thank you very much. Could we start with

4 the first photograph? Can we put it on the ELMO also?

5 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: How do you identify these numbers to

6 correspond with what he has?

7 MS. McMURREY: I will have to ask the usher to assist me

8 with that. Thank you. Mr. Usher, can you tell us the

9 number of the photograph that you are putting on the

10 ELMO first, please?

11 THE USHER: D6/2.

12 MS. McMURREY: Thank you. Mr. B, can you tell me if you

13 have ever seen this woman before, if you recognise this

14 woman, not from what's on the monitor now. If we could

15 just have it focused a second. Thank you. Have you

16 ever seen that woman before?

17 A. I think I've not. I think I have not seen her.

18 Q. Okay. Thank you. Can we go on to the next

19 photograph, please?

20 THE USHER: D5/2.

21 MS. McMURREY: This photograph is D5/2 and, Mr. B, can you

22 look at this photograph and tell me if you have ever

23 seen this person before and if you recognise him?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And can you tell us who he is, please?

1 A. This is Dr. Milivoy -- it is even written down there.

2 There is a caption down there with his name. Otherwise

3 I do know him.

4 Q. You do know him because you saw him in Belgrade; isn't

5 that true?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Do you know him as the President of the Association of

8 Detainees in Belgrade?

9 A. No.

10 Q. It is true that at some point this person examined you

11 in Belgrade, didn't he?

12 A. Yes. Yes.

13 Q. When he examined you, did you give a statement to him

14 about your experiences in Celebici?

15 A. No.

16 Q. When he examined you in Belgrade, did he take X-rays of

17 you?

18 A. Believe me, I can't remember. I really can't remember

19 whether he took X-rays or not. I did have an

20 examination, but I don't know that any -- whether any

21 X-rays were included in it.

22 Q. So if there were X-rays, he didn't give them to you, did

23 he?

24 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: That's a very awkward question. He

25 didn't know whether there were X-rays so the condition

1 of whether if there were is a very --

2 MS. McMURREY: I'll move on, your Honour. Do you remember

3 whether you had any urine samples taken and any reports

4 done of your urine as part of your examination?

5 A. No. I can't remember. I can tell you the examination

6 took place maybe five years ago and in that period

7 things were happening to me, such big things and such

8 big changes in my life, that I had to fight for my

9 existence, for my survival. There was the question of

10 moving from Belgrade and things like that. So I really

11 can't remember these details from a medical examination.

12 Q. So your testimony is that you can't remember what

13 occurred at the medical examination, but you do remember

14 that you did not make a statement about your experiences

15 at Celebici to this gentleman, did you?

16 A. I had certain difficulties in the area of my back and

17 it's quite possible that he must have asked me what

18 happened. "Did you fall? Is it from a blow?", or

19 things like that. I don't know what the exact term is

20 in medicine when a doctor wants to find out how an

21 injury or a medical problem started. So it's quite

22 possible for a doctor to ask you: "Did you fall or did

23 somebody hit you?", so as to know how to treat you. He

24 must know the origin of your injury and I may have told

25 him that I was detained in a camp. I find it difficult

1 to recall the exact wording of what I said, but I'm

2 saying that it's quite probable that he did ask me this.

3 Q. You were aware that this doctor was also associated with

4 the Association of Detainees in Belgrade, were you not?

5 A. No. I didn't even know that such an association existed

6 in Belgrade, nor was I ever a member of that

7 association, nor -- I got the address of Dr. Bjelica from

8 another detainee, a relative of mine, and the first few

9 days when we arrived to Serbia nobody reported, because

10 we were afraid of mobilisation and who knows what else

11 could happen. Later on our fears proved to be

12 unfounded, so we had no medical documents, no documents

13 at all, and I learned that this man was a highly humane

14 one, that he would examine us without any payment and we

15 needed this examination without having to pay for it.

16 I hadn't known him from before, nor was I aware that he

17 was a member of any association, nor did I know his

18 surname.

19 Q. When you say that none of you reported when you first

20 arrived in Belgrade, do you mean that none of you

21 reported to this doctor for an examination?

22 A. No. No. Please be more precise if you are asking me

23 things like that. I never said that nobody reported to

24 the authorities when they came to Belgrade or somewhere

25 else in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. I didn't

1 report immediately to the authorities. When I learned

2 that one could do so without any consequences, I did,

3 but a couple of days went by before we reported to the

4 authorities, before we registered. I did later on.

5 Q. I'm sorry. I just realised that I'm being

6 inconsiderate to the usher. Would you please remove

7 that photograph and show him the third one so we can

8 finish with the photographs? That would be?

9 THE USHER: D7/2.

10 MS. McMURREY: D7/2. Do you recognise this gentleman?

11 A. No.

12 Q. Okay. Thank you very much. I would just like the

13 record to reflect that the only one he recognised was

14 D5/2; is that correct?

15 THE USHER: Yes.

16 MS. McMURREY: Okay. Thank you. So when you got to

17 Belgrade, you did not ask the Association of Detainees

18 for any assistance; is that correct?

19 A. No.

20 Q. I believe earlier you had stated that you were not

21 interested in politics at all, but as an economist, you

22 know for a fact that economics and politics are

23 intrinsically intertwined, aren't they?

24 A. You are right, but maybe I need to expand a little on my

25 answer. Politics and economics -- in the firm I was

1 working in, I dealt with the domestic market. Politics

2 is necessary for economies dealing with export and

3 import so as to know what kind of a political situation

4 is in a particular country, whether it is appropriate

5 for investment, whether capital was fleeing from that

6 country and so on. I was saying that politics was not

7 my preoccupation, but if you insist, it is normal that

8 no-one can 100 per cent isolate himself from politics.

9 If you have ears and eyes you have to see or hear things

10 in the papers, on television. You have to have some

11 kind of knowledge about it, but that was not my

12 occupation, nor was it my preoccupation or my interest.

13 Q. But you did testify that you were aware that the

14 political situation basically had rendered the Yugoslav

15 money worthless; isn't that correct?

16 A. Yes, of course. Indeed.

17 Q. I believe in your testimony earlier also you had

18 testified that the Muslim troops attacked Brdjani; is

19 that correct?

20 A. If you were listening carefully to my answers, I said

21 that I fled from the village of Brdjani as soon as this

22 shower of shells started falling. I don't know exactly

23 what firearms were being used, was it anti-aircraft

24 machine guns or something like that. I didn't see

25 Muslim troops entering the village.

1 Q. But you did know -- you know now that it was not Muslim

2 troops; it was a combined forces of HVO, HOS and TO

3 forces, wasn't it?

4 MS. McHENRY: Your Honour, if I may object or at least get

5 Defence Counsel to withdraw her previous instruction

6 that this witness should only testify about what he

7 himself observed, since he has already stated he himself

8 did not observe this. If she wants to ask him about

9 hearsay, I don't object, but I just think we should be

10 clear about that.

11 MS. McMURREY: Well, I will ask him if he knows from his

12 studies since that time whether it was a combined force.

13 MS. McHENRY: Then I would only ask for clarification of the

14 word "studies", your Honour.

15 MS. McMURREY: I'll move on. I really don't think it's

16 that important at this point. Thank you. You also

17 claimed --

18 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: It's a very good game.

19 MS. McMURREY: Thank you. I can give occasionally. The

20 Muslim military police you said came to arrest you on

21 the second half of June. Isn't that true? Didn't you

22 say it was the Muslim military police? That's not

23 correct, is it?

24 A. I apologise. I can't recall saying that the Muslim

25 police came to arrest me on 2nd June. If you can

1 explain a little, when did I make the statement on 2nd

2 June?

3 Q. In your direct testimony earlier you stated in the

4 second half of June -- you couldn't remember the exact

5 day -- that the Muslim military police came to Brdjani

6 and read out a list of 50 to 60 men from Brdjani; is

7 that correct?

8 A. I apologise. Originally the translation I got was "2nd

9 June", not "the second half of June". In the second

10 half of June I assume he was working for the Muslim

11 military police, Mr. Spago. I have just remembered his

12 first name. I think it was Ferid. He read out a

13 list, but please don't insist on the number. My

14 estimate was that it was between 50 and 60 men. There

15 may have been fewer or more than that. That was my

16 estimate.

17 Q. My specific point of interest is that there was not

18 really any Muslim military police; that that was a

19 combined force also, wasn't it?

20 A. I'm very uncertain about military terminology. For me

21 a force means several people. This was one individual,

22 a member of the Muslim military police. I'm sorry I'm

23 using the term "Muslim military police". Maybe at that

24 time they called themselves "Territorial Defence" and

25 later became the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina. I don't

1 know exactly, but anyway I'm saying it so that you know

2 who I mean. It was this one man, Ferid Spago. Maybe

3 someone else went to the other end of the village.

4 Mountain villages consist of several hamlets with quite

5 isolated homes and households. I don't know whether

6 someone else went to a different part of the village.

7 All I remember is Ferid Spago.

8 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: I think what counsel is trying to

9 explain to you is that there is no such organisation

10 known as the Muslim military police. That's what she's

11 saying.

12 MS. McMURREY: Thank you, your Honour.

13 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Do you know of any such organisation?

14 A. I knew a man who told me. I said I was using the term

15 "Muslim" to indicate that it was not a Serbian. This

16 may not be an organisation, but a part of the Army of

17 Bosnia-Herzegovina that was the military police.

18 I suppose there is a military police in any country in

19 the world, and I just wanted to say that one member of

20 that section came and read out this list.

21 MS. McMURREY: Thank you. I would like to move back to --

22 A. I am sorry. May I just add, I was not saying a

23 paramilitary organisation had come that called itself

24 the military police or any such separate group that had

25 the words "military police" in its name. I have never

1 implied that this was a separate organisation, just as a

2 part of a force.

3 Q. Thank you. I think we're all clear on that now.

4 Thank you. I want to move back to -- Madame Residovic,

5 who is the attorney for Mr. Delalic, had shown a video

6 earlier today. In that video you did recognise that as

7 Konjic and you did recognise that as the Serbian

8 Orthodox Church of some sort. Can you tell me: do you

9 recognise that line of people as a line of persons in

10 Konjic waiting to receive food rations?

11 A. I must first say that my impression was that it was

12 Konjic. After all, there are many towns that have a

13 river and lots of greenery along the banks. Since this

14 is a trial about Celebici and Konjic, it's normal that

15 I should assume that it was Konjic and it resembles

16 Konjic. I also assume that it is the Orthodox Church,

17 and what those people were waiting for in the line and

18 what they were carrying in the bags I really can't

19 tell. Though I come from Konjic and I lived a long

20 time there, I didn't recognise anyone in that line.

21 Q. Even though you didn't recognise anyone in that line,

22 you don't recognise that that was a line of people

23 needing to receive food in Konjic; is that what you are

24 testifying?

25 MS. McHENRY: Objection. Asked and answered.

1 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Why do you think he should come to

2 such a conclusion?

3 MS. McMURREY: Well, I was just asking if he did recognise

4 it as a food line.

5 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: How could he?

6 MS. McMURREY: How could he?

7 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Is there anything written in the video

8 to indicate that there was such a food line?

9 MS. McMURREY: It looked like a food line to me, but maybe

10 it doesn't look like a food line to him. That is all

11 I'm trying to elicit. If it doesn't look like a food

12 line to him, I will move on.

13 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: So many people may draw different

14 conclusions from such a line.

15 MS. McMURREY: It could have been for paper and pencils.

16 Okay. Thank you. You did testify that even for the

17 last year that food supplies were in short supply in

18 Konjic, didn't you? I know you testified about baby

19 food, but there were shortages of other food in Konjic

20 in 1992, weren't there?

21 A. Believe me, about other supplies I don't know. I know

22 that very frequently I would bring various baby foods

23 from Sarajevo, which doesn't mean to say that you could

24 never find it in Konjic, but it was easier to find it in

25 Sarajevo, as the centre of the Republic, which was far

1 better supplied, than in a relatively small town like

2 Konjic. It was my mother who usually went to the

3 market, my wife. They did the shopping, so I really

4 don't know.

5 Q. Since you lived in Konjic and you worked in Sarajevo,

6 were you aware that in the month of April there were

7 some maybe 20,000 refugees that were coming through

8 Konjic at that time?

9 A. No.

10 Q. Thank you. You had testified earlier today about

11 certain injuries to a Nedeljko Draganic, a Dusko Bendzo

12 and a few other persons that you mentioned. Just for

13 clarification, I would like to say that you maybe saw

14 the injuries of these people, but you didn't see what

15 actually happened to them outside the hangar, did you?

16 A. I stated very clearly today which injuries of which

17 people and which tortures I eyewitnessed. After that I

18 said what kind of injuries I saw, and I can add to that

19 that I really did see those injuries, but I didn't see

20 the moments when those burns were inflicted. I did see

21 other things. Maybe, if necessary, I can clarify

22 further.

23 Q. Thank you very much. I think you just clarified it.

24 Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I also

25 wanted to bring to your attention to -- I wanted to ask

1 if you were aware of an incident that happened on July

2 12th, 1992, where a group of military police were

3 murdered in an area called Repovci, I think. Are you

4 aware of that?

5 A. I couldn't recall the date, but it was somewhere around

6 then, and I had heard that a group of military policemen

7 had got killed.

8 Q. In fact, you knew a few of those military policemen from

9 Konjic, didn't you?

10 A. Perhaps one might say that I knew a couple, maybe two of

11 them. I have never learned of all the names of the

12 people who were killed then.

13 Q. If you remember, those were considered very brutal

14 murders, weren't they?

15 A. I was not on the spot, nor did I have too much

16 information, nor did I dare at the time enquire. So

17 I just knew that an incident had occurred, that some

18 people had got killed. I know I knew one personally.

19 I think I knew another. I'm not quite sure, but I know

20 absolutely no details. I don't know who conducted the

21 investigation, what happened.

22 Q. Thank you. You also testified earlier that

23 occasionally a guard would come into Hangar 6. He had

24 probably been given orders to pick a few of the

25 detainees in there and take them out to work. Isn't

1 that correct?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Even though you were merely an exchange operator in your

4 service in the JNA, from your military experience you

5 know that as a rule the guards follow orders?

6 A. I don't know how the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina was

7 organised, whether in their army somebody follows orders

8 or acts on his own initiative. If that is your

9 assumption, you may be right. That's all I can say.

10 I'm not sure at all what the method of command in the

11 Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina is. Maybe I shouldn't even

12 have made that assumption.

13 Q. Thank you. You are aware that some time before the

14 International Red Cross came to visit you in August that

15 Mr. Landzo left Celebici, didn't he? He was no longer

16 there?

17 A. Maybe. I don't know the exact date when Mr. Landzo left

18 Celebici.

19 Q. Okay. Thank you. You also before the war knew a

20 gentleman -- and I don't want to repeat his surname here

21 in open court -- but you knew a gentleman named Miro,

22 who was a restaurant owner in Konjic, didn't you?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. And --

25 A. It's not "Miro". That was just the nickname.

1 Q. Yes. I was just using his nickname.

2 A. As you avoided the surname, the name is not correct

3 either. It is a nickname. I want to make sure that

4 we have the same person in mind.

5 Q. I think it is a person that you were aware that

6 Mr. Landzo worked for before the war; is that correct?

7 A. I learned later. I must have seen Landzo in that

8 restaurant a couple of times without paying any

9 attention to him at the time, but this was a very, very

10 good friend of mine, Mr. Miro, so that it is most

11 probable that that is where I saw Landzo. I learned

12 only later that he had worked there, because, you know,

13 if you go to a restaurant, if you see someone in a

14 restaurant, it need not necessarily mean that he's

15 working there. I didn't pay any attention to what

16 capacity -- to the capacity in which he was there.

17 Q. But while you were in Celebici, you found out that

18 Mr. Landzo was also friends with Miro, and so you two

19 became semi-friends. He never harmed you in Celebici,

20 did he, Mr. Landzo?

21 A. Absolutely correct. Mr. Landzo never did anything wrong

22 to me. I didn't say that he did. It is not

23 Mr. Landzo's fault that I came to Celebici. He didn't

24 bring me there. I'm just saying what I saw or heard.

25 It is quite correct that he did not inflict any harm on

1 me personally.

2 Q. I just wanted to ask you one final question. It's true

3 that, at the risk of himself being chastised or getting

4 in trouble, Mr. Landzo allowed your wife to come visit

5 with you in his dug-out while you were in Celebici,

6 didn't he?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Thank you, sir. I have no further questions. Thank

9 you.

10 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Any re-examination?

11 MS. McHENRY: Just one question, your Honour.

12 Re-examination by Ms. McHenry

13 MS. McHENRY: Sir, with respect to the persons you saw who

14 were burned and otherwise had injuries from burns or

15 heated instruments, can you just please clarify which

16 incidents or which persons of what you have already

17 testified to did you yourself see what happened as it

18 happened and which you saw the injuries afterwards?

19 A. The incidents that I personally eyewitnessed was the one

20 with the ear of one of the prisoners with the hot red

21 pincers; then wrapping a fuse around the body of one of

22 the brothers; frequent kicking of people while they were

23 doing push-ups. What else did I mention? As for

24 burns, I didn't see the moment when the burns were

25 inflicted. I just saw those injuries, but not the

1 moment when they were done.

2 Q. Thank you. Your Honours, that was the only question

3 I had for re-examination.

4 I will just inform your Honours that the

5 Translation Section has provided me with corrected

6 translations, in which the word "her" has been switched

7 to "his". I have extra copies for Defence Counsel.

8 I also believe in the first sentence instead of saying:

9 "After interrogating the individual whose name

10 appears below ..."

11 they have changed it to say:

12 "After interviewing the below-mentioned individual

13 ...".

14 Those are the only changes. I have extra copies

15 and I would submit them as corrected translations for

16 the exhibit. The exhibit hasn't changed.

17 JUDGE KARIBI WHYTE: Thank you very much. The most

18 offending aspect I think -- this is the masculine being

19 the feminine -- has been changed, I suppose. I think

20 this is the end of this witness' examination.

21 Therefore he is discharged.

22 The Trial Chamber will rise now and reassemble

23 tomorrow morning at 10.00.

24 (5.30 pm)

25 (Hearing adjourned until 10.00 tomorrow morning)