1 Thursday, 2 November 2006

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.22 a.m.

5 [The witness entered court]

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Good morning, Mr. Popaj.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good morning.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Your evidence will now continue. Please remember

9 that the declaration you made at the beginning to tell the truth continues

10 to apply to everything you say in court today. And counsel, Mr. Ackerman,

11 will continue with his questions.

12 Mr. Ackerman.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour. Your Honour, I've given a

14 copy of his Albanian statement -- there, it's being handed to him now.

15 WITNESS: SABRI POPAJ [Resumed]

16 [Witness answered through interpreter]

17 Cross-examination by Mr. Ackerman: [Continued]

18 Q. Mr. Popaj, would you open that up to, I think, the second page.

19 You'll find some yellow highlighting in your statement there. Tell me

20 when you've seen the yellow highlighting.

21 A. Two other brothers, Nazmi and Nesim, who live --

22 Q. Excuse me, I have no idea what you're doing. I didn't ask you to

23 read anything. I want you to find a page in that statement where I have

24 highlighted in yellow some material. Maybe the usher could help you find

25 it.

1 A. This one is highlighted with red.

2 Q. I want one that's in yellow. Maybe the usher can help find it.

3 It's on, I think, the second page of the statement.

4 Now, you see the part that's in yellow. I'd just like you to read

5 it out, please. This is your statement that you gave to the Office of the

6 Prosecutor, so read out what you said there in Albanian.

7 THE INTERPRETER: Could the counsel please provide the reference

8 in English for the interpreters.

9 MR. ACKERMAN: It's on the top of page 3 of the English statement,

10 the last sentence in the first paragraph on page 3.

11 Q. Could you read it out loud, sir.

12 A. The first question?

13 Q. I want you to read the part that's yellow. Can you see the part

14 that's highlighted in yellow?

15 A. Yes.

16 "I returned upstairs and went outside. I saw five tanks which

17 were moving and taking up positions on a hill above Celine. I then told

18 my family that the tanks had left."

19 Q. All right. That's what's in your statement, isn't it?

20 A. Yes, I told my family that the tanks had left the village, those

21 that were near the mosque, that they went in the direction of the hill

22 above Celine.

23 Q. No, that's not what it says. You just read what it says. It

24 says: "I saw the five tanks move off and take up positions on a hill

25 overlooking Celine." You just read that to us; you didn't say you saw the

1 three. Now, what I want to know is: Is what you said in your statement

2 true or is that not true?

3 A. It is true that they left, the tanks that went in the direction of

4 Celine, above Celine.

5 Q. And according --

6 A. And Bellacerka.

7 Q. And, according to your statement, that was five tanks; right?

8 A. Five tanks entered the village.

9 Q. So your statement is wrong. When you say, in your statement, "The

10 five tanks moved off and took up positions on the hill overlooking

11 Celine," that's wrong. Is that your testimony? Is that what you're

12 saying under oath today?

13 A. This is what I said in my statement and I'll repeat it today. The

14 tanks that were near the mosque, they moved off in the direction of the

15 hill above Celine. Those that went to the schoolyard, they remained

16 there. Those that were at the mosque, they moved off in the direction of

17 the hill.

18 Q. Well, I think we'll get no further with that, sir, but the

19 honourable Judges can see that that's not what you said in your statement,

20 and I think that's good enough.

21 Now, these tanks, wherever you want us to believe they were, never

22 fired any weapons, did they?

23 A. They did not fire weapons at our village with tanks.

24 Q. Okay. Now, also in your statement, one of the things you told us

25 is, you said: "I have, in the past, along with most of the village, given

1 money and food to the KLA." What I would like to know is who was it in

2 the KLA that you gave money and food to? Was it one person, several

3 persons? Who was it you gave this stuff to, food and money?

4 A. We gave this in 1998. They were delivered to the KLA by the

5 leader of the village.

6 Q. No, I didn't ask you that. I asked you who you gave money and

7 food to, not "we." Who did you give money and food to? Give me the name.

8 A. We, not only me, my family, and others, we gave this money.

9 Q. Yes, I know that others did and that's not my question. My

10 question is: Who did you - you, Mr. Popaj, Mr. Sabri Popaj - who did you

11 give money and food to? Give me a name.

12 A. Mustafe Gashi was the village leader, and the people who were with

13 him, they took this to the KLA.

14 Q. All right. And that was just one time that you gave food and

15 money?

16 A. One time. They asked one time, and we gave it one time.

17 Q. You've told us, about a week before the 25th of March, around the

18 18th of March, I guess, you say that some Serb police and soldiers arrived

19 and started digging bunkers on a hill overlooking the village, and they

20 had with them trucks and armoured vehicles. Do you remember that part of

21 your statement?

22 A. Yes. They entered Naim Fetoshi's house and they forced him to

23 leave his house.

24 MR. ACKERMAN: For the registry, I'll be wanting to look at P615,

25 page 22.

1 Q. What steps did these people that came there with trucks and

2 armoured vehicles take to camouflage these vehicles? What did they

3 camouflage them with? What did they cover them with?

4 A. They dug the holes with excavators, they put them inside, and then

5 they covered them with all sorts of things.

6 Q. They put the vehicles in the holes; is that what you're saying?

7 A. One APC went to Naim Fetoshi's courtyard, while the others, they

8 went to the Breg or Brdo area. And they were firing from there.

9 Q. All right.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: Now I would like the registry to zoom in, please,

11 on this map. There's -- you can see a couple of villages below and to the

12 village of Grahovac, almost right in the centre of the map. Now you --

13 now I want to go down. You can see Bela Crkva now and Celina. I want to

14 zoom in, right in between those two villages. That's perfect.

15 Q. All right, sir. You should be able to see on a map, in front of

16 you now, your village of Bela Crkva and the village of Celina. And the

17 first thing I'd like you to show us, by using a red pen or a blue pen or

18 whatever color you want to use, the root that the tanks took, how they

19 came into your village, and then where they went in the vicinity of

20 Celina.

21 A. This is the road that goes to Rahovec.

22 Q. Okay. And what road did the tanks use when they entered your

23 village?

24 A. The road from Xerxe to Rahovec. The tanks were above Bellacerka,

25 and they entered Bellacerka from the left.

1 Q. Okay. Would you just draw a line from where they entered to

2 Celina, where they parked.

3 A. Above the hill, between Bellacerka and -- you see this map is not

4 exactly how it looks in the village. The hill was here, above Bellacerka,

5 and the holes are still there; the positions that they took.

6 Q. No, we're not --

7 A. They have not been covered yet.

8 Q. We're not communicating, and I don't know whether it's a

9 translation problem or what it is. But what I want you to do is with that

10 pen draw a line along the route that the tanks travelled from the time

11 they were -- no, you're not listening to me --

12 A. The positions were above Bellacerka. The tanks -- well, you see,

13 I don't understand this map. And I can't really draw a line because I

14 don't understand it.

15 Q. So this doesn't look like your village to you?

16 A. No. I can only read Bellacerka. I cannot recognise the roads

17 here on the map; I don't understand them.

18 Q. Do you see --

19 A. The positions are still there above Bellacerka.

20 Q. I understand that. Do you see Celina?

21 A. The Celine village is very low here on the map, and in reality

22 it's in line with Bellacerka.

23 Q. So one of two things, I guess, is possible: Either this map is

24 wrong or you don't know anything about Bela Crkva and Celina. Are you

25 actually from there?

1 A. I was born in Bellacerka, raised there, and still live there. The

2 Serb positions are still there, they're still open, they have not been

3 covered. And until I leave, I will not allow anyone to cover them.

4 Q. All right.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Popaj, from Bela Crkva to Celine, how many

6 roads are there.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] One and a half kilometre --

8 JUDGE BONOMY: But --

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] There's only one road from

10 Bellacerka, but the road here is -- turns like this. But from Bellacerka,

11 it is a straight road. At the exit of Bellacerka, you can actually see

12 Celine; it's in a straight line.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, Mr. Ackerman, on this map it looks as though

14 there are two roads.

15 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, I think this map was put together by UNMIK or

16 KFOR or somebody like that, probably properly done. I don't know. I

17 think the Prosecution has represented it to us as accurate. I suspect it

18 probably is.

19 Q. Aren't there two roads going from Bela Crkva to Celina, sir?

20 A. There is one road that goes to Celine from Bellacerka. And from

21 Rahovec, there is another road that goes to the place where the tanks were

22 positioned; a road that goes from Rahovec to Celine. And from Bellacerka,

23 there is only one road that goes to Celine.

24 Q. Is there any way you can mark on this map where the tanks were

25 positioned after they left your village?

1 A. The tanks were positioned above Naim Fetoshi's house. I really

2 don't understand this map, because this road to Brestovc, it's not close

3 to Bellacerka. Bernjaqa is only 500 metres away from Bellacerka.

4 Q. All right.

5 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I want a shot taken of this map --

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Bernjaqa is adjacent to Bellacerka,

7 actually.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Just before we do this, Mr. Popaj, you'll see on

9 the map a railway line. You see the --

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: -- see the railway line. And you can see the --

12 and you can see --

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I can see it very well.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: And you can see the Belaje stream which flows under

15 the railway line. Do you see that?

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, yes, I can see it very well,

17 too.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Just above that you can see that there's sort of a

19 yellow -- yellow-orange coloured line that joins Bela Crkva to Celina,

20 which looks like a road, it's meant to be a road. Now --

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] But this road from Bellacerka does

22 not take you to Celine, and the railway track are the same distance -- are

23 further from Bellacerka --

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, I understand that --

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] -- than Celine. Bernjaqa is 500

1 metres far from the house in Bellacerka.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, above that line there is another one with a

3 sort of bend on it which also goes on the map from Bela Crkva to Celine,

4 which looks like another road. Now, is that what you would say was the

5 road to Celine?

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This road does not take you to

7 Celine. This road does not exist at all. The road from the village of

8 Bellacerka takes you straight to Celine. This road to Rahovec and to

9 Bernjaqa, above here were the positions, 150 metres far from the

10 positions, while this road here from Bellacerka to Celine is not correct.

11 It should be a straight line.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, Mr. Ackerman, are there no photographs that

13 you could, perhaps, use that might assist?

14 MR. ACKERMAN: Not that I'm aware of, Your Honour. That one

15 photograph doesn't show all of the area that's necessary to make this

16 clear.

17 Q. You have made, Mr. Witness, some red dots. I don't know. It

18 looks like you made at least three red dots up along that main road. Is

19 that where the Serb positions were, by your testimony?

20 A. This should be the road that goes to Rahovec. Here is Naim

21 Fetoshi's house, and above his house were the positions. It should be

22 somewhere here.

23 Q. Okay. Draw a circle around that area that you have designated as

24 where the positions were.

25 A. Here, on this hill.

1 Q. All right. You made a small circle just north of the road, for

2 the record.

3 MR. ACKERMAN: All right. Now let's do a screen shot of this --

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Above the main road that goes to

5 Rahovec.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: Screen shot, please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: That will be IC99, Your Honours.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

9 Ms. Moeller.

10 MS. MOELLER: Your Honours, just in order to maybe assist with the

11 confusion about the roads. We just checked the legend in the Kosovo

12 atlas, and the fine red line is said to be a seasonal road/track, so that

13 may explain some of the confusion, maybe.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I doubt if it does because it's clear that

15 the witness envisages that there is a road from Bela Crkva to Celine, and

16 what it can be other than one of these seasonal tracks is difficult to see

17 here. But you'll have a chance to deal with that in re-examination, if

18 you wish.

19 Mr. Ackerman.

20 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

21 Q. Now, the last question I want to ask you about this map, while

22 it's still on the screen, you told us in your statement that from these

23 bunkers there was automatic fire directed across the top of your village.

24 They were shooting over the tops of the houses as a warning, you believed,

25 that you should leave your houses. Now, from where they were shooting

1 over the top of your village, what is there over there on the other side

2 of your village in the direction they were shooting? What's located over

3 there? Just fields and that stream and things?

4 A. Where the bunkers were, it's only field there. There's no stream.

5 Q. And you didn't see any KLA soldiers leaving your village and

6 heading out that direction, the direction in which those shots were being

7 fired? You didn't see that?

8 A. There was no way I could go there, because this was five or six

9 days before the 25th. There was no way that I could go and check. From

10 the moment the NATO bombing started on the night of the 24th, the bursts

11 of fire did not stop. And, as I said, this map does not represent the

12 real positions of the villages. The road that goes to Celine is a road

13 through fields, not used by animals.

14 Q. All right.

15 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm finished with that exhibit now.

16 Q. Now, over the next several days, after the 25th of March --

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Just one minute.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: All right.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Just before you do, Mr. Ackerman.

20 Mr. Popaj, you say that the road to Celine goes through fields.

21 Now, when you say in your statement, "the tanks moved off," they were not

22 on that road.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: All right.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. This is a road that goes to

1 Rahovec, that connects to the road to Rahovec and takes you to the hill.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

3 Mr. Ackerman.

4 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, I'm now further confused, Your Honour.

5 Q. Let me ask you again. I know you think this map is totally

6 inaccurate. Is there any way you can give us just a -- an approximation

7 of where the tanks parked, after they went through your village? Can you

8 find a place on that map that's anywhere representative of where you saw

9 those tanks parked on a hill?

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Is that not what the red circle is supposed to be?

11 MR. ACKERMAN: No. The red circle are the holes that were dug by

12 the Serb forces. The tanks went to Celina, he said, parked themselves on

13 a hill over there.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: No, parked on a hill overlooking Celina. That's

15 what you have to interrupt, and I thought that was the witness's

16 interpretation but I may be wrong. You should clarify what the red circle

17 is.

18 MR. ACKERMAN:

19 Q. Sir, the red circle is where the bunkers were dug, isn't it. And

20 from where the firing was coming?

21 A. Yes. The trenches were above Bellacerka, while the tanks that

22 went in the direction of Celine. If you have a photograph, you can see a

23 cow-shed there where they positioned themselves. It's above Celine and

24 Bellacerka. Here is Bellacerka; here is Celine. They were on a hill

25 between Bellacerka and Celine.

1 Q. Halfway between or what?

2 A. From this hill, you can see Bellacerka and Celine on this side,

3 and you can see Nagavc on the other side. The positions are still there,

4 can be seen there. The stable or the cow-shed where they were positioned

5 can still be seen; it's still there.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: And to get to that position when they left the

7 village, did they go initially in the direction of Orahovac?

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. They did not go on a main road

9 to Rahovec, but on the one that took you to the vineyards above Rahovec.

10 It's a small road that takes you to the vineyards. And that road takes a

11 turn and goes to the cow-shed where they took position. It's a bit of a

12 hill with oak trees.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

14 Mr. Ackerman.

15 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, Your Honour, I can't figure out a way to

16 clarify this any further.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: No. It's just possible that the description we've

18 been given is the upper-most of these two farm roads. But it's far from

19 clear, I agree.

20 MR. ACKERMAN:

21 Q. I want to go to another subject now. After the 25th of March, you

22 talk about in your statement - and I don't want to go into any detail at

23 all; this should be a fairly statement for you to answer - you talk about

24 finding and burying a number of bodies at very locations. My only

25 question about that is: Were you able to make a determination when you

1 observed these bodies whether they were killed by fire-arms or otherwise?

2 A. All of them were shot by fire-arms. The casings of the automatic

3 rifles were there, and I showed them to the investigators when we got the

4 bodies out.

5 Q. That's all I wanted to know. After you'd given your statement to

6 the Office of the Prosecutor, do you remember giving a statement to an

7 investigating judge in Prizren in a case against a gentleman by the name

8 of Andjelko Kolasinac from Orahovac? Do you remember doing that?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. According to a document that the OTP provided to us, what you said

11 in that interrogation, in that statement, to this investigating judge with

12 regard to the matters we've just been discussing was this:

13 "On the morning of 25 March 1999, around 3.00, I heard and saw

14 Serbian police and military troops entering the village of Bellacerke.

15 They arrived up to the village mosque and then moved in a direction of the

16 hill above the village. I woke up earlier and asked my family members to

17 prepare leave the village."

18 Now, nowhere that I was able to find in that statement that you

19 gave to this investigating judge did you say anything at all about tanks

20 coming to your village, did you?

21 A. They never asked. I didn't give this statement. It was my wife.

22 My wife was ill on the day, so I went in her stead. She was about to give

23 birth, and so it was me who went to give that statement. Fidaije Popaj,

24 that's the name on the statement.

25 Q. Well, the statement I have says the statement was given by Sabri

1 Popaj. Did you take a statement she'd written and just read it to them;

2 is that what you did?

3 A. My wife had to go to trial in Prizren because they'd taken the son

4 out of our hands, and we didn't have a doctor with us there.

5 Q. Okay. This is a question I ask just out of curiosity. I think

6 you told us there were 2.800 people that lived in your village. On page

7 6685 of the transcript of your testimony in Milosevic, the transcript says

8 there were 5.000 cattle in your village. Is that really true? Were there

9 really 5.000 cattle in a village of 2.800 people?

10 A. Yes, it is true. It was true because I had over 40. I've got 32

11 to this day and I had 180 sheep. I haven't mentioned that in my

12 statement, but even today you've got there over 1.500 sheep.

13 Q. Okay. Who is Muharrem Popaj from Bela Crkva?

14 A. Muharrem Popaj used to be my uncle; he's no longer alive, my

15 father's brother.

16 Q. And his father's name was Hidajet Popaj?

17 A. Hidajet Popaj. The son was Najit Popaj, not Muharrem Popaj.

18 Q. Well, I have information that there was a --

19 A. Najit Popaj is my aunt's son. My mother and his mother are

20 sisters. We live in adjacent houses.

21 Q. Let me tell you some information I have. I have information that

22 Hidaj Popaj, H-i-d-a-j, Popaj, was arrested by the KLA and that his son,

23 Muharrem Popaj, was making efforts in various places to try to get him

24 released. Do you know anything about this Popaj person being arrested by

25 the KLA?

1 A. I said this yesterday. He wasn't arrested by the KLA. He went to

2 see his mother in Pristina, and he was kidnapped by Serbian police and

3 disappeared. We found him last year. His remains were brought to me and

4 then he was buried. And that came from the mortuary at Rahovec. I took

5 his remains and buried it. It's about a year since then. We buried him

6 last December.

7 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I had asked yesterday for a check on

8 page 84, line 16, of the transcript, as to whether the translation was

9 accurate or not. It appears in the transcript and I was hoping I'd have

10 that this morning. Apparently it's not been finished yet.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, it should be. I was assured it would be.

12 Just give us a second to check.

13 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, it's apparently not complete, so you can have

15 a chance later. Hopefully it will be completed before the

16 cross-examination in total is finished.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Okay. Thank you, Your Honour. I think what I'll

18 do is defer a series of questions that I have then on that issue until

19 that's available, if that's okay with Your Honour.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

21 Mr. Lukic.

22 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

23 Cross-examination by Mr. Lukic:

24 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Popaj. My name is Branko

25 Lukic. I have quite a few questions for you. Could you please focus and

1 give me as brief answers as possible, whenever you can. Let me ask you

2 this first: Do you distinguish colours?

3 A. Yes, I can see.

4 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Can I ask the registrar to show us

5 P93, page 6.

6 Q. Mr. Popaj, yesterday, when you spoke about this photograph, on

7 page 38, line 17, the Prosecutor asks you: [In English] "And the

8 camouflage uniform, which colour camouflage was it?"

9 [Interpretation] In lines 18 to 19, you answer:

10 [In English] "It was the colour you see in the photograph but it

11 was lighter than this."

12 [Interpretation] Could you see that colour on police uniforms, and

13 is it the same colour you can see on the drapes behind the Judges?

14 A. A bit lighter and camouflage.

15 Q. So it is the same colour as the colour of the drapes behind the

16 Judges.

17 A. It's the same colour, but the clothes themselves, the uniform, was

18 camouflage. It was not uniform like that. Show them to me on the screen

19 here. I can't describe them just like that.

20 Q. Very well. Thank you. On page 45, you spoke of killings near the

21 bridge and say that people were forced to take their jackets off, that the

22 jackets were searched. How long did this search and robbing, thieving,

23 from the jackets last?

24 A. I wasn't there myself; I was hidden. I dared not get up, so I

25 stayed there, near the hole that was filled with water. I don't know how

1 long it lasted. I never checked my watch. And I still -- I still have

2 the jacket of my son which he left there on that bank; I still have it at

3 home.

4 Q. Were you looking in that direction?

5 A. I was looking in that direction, but I haven't -- I was not able

6 to see them when they put them in the direction of the stream; I saw them

7 on the banks.

8 Q. Can you tell us roughly, since you were looking in that direction,

9 how long the searching of those people lasted.

10 A. I have no idea. I didn't check my watch. I saw them when they

11 put them above the railway tracks, put in a line and made to take off

12 their clothes. Some of the clothes were left behind; some were put on.

13 And I still have the clothes of the people who were killed there.

14 Q. Mr. Popaj, when I ask you how long something lasted, could you

15 just answer me how long it took rather than describe the whole event,

16 because you have already done that in your statement. You said that you

17 were even looking through binoculars. How many people did you see on the

18 bridge and near the bridge at that moment?

19 A. I wasn't able to count them. About half the village was there.

20 They separated the women from the others, and some were left in the last

21 group and taken to the direction of Xerxe. Only the young children were

22 left near Belaje, and the young children and the women were sent in the

23 direction of the tracks. And people were able to tell who they were.

24 Some are still alive, some elderly people still. My mother, my wife, my

25 father, they were all separated. I have no idea how long it took. I know

1 when we were executed because I could hear the volleys of all the bursts

2 of gun-fire.

3 Q. At that moment were you able to see that large group of people at

4 the moment when the people were searched, when their jackets were taken

5 off? Were civilians present there at the same time?

6 A. The civilians who were separated, yes, they were. But they were

7 unable to see them take their clothes off. It was only the mother, the

8 wife, and my father who saw them when they were executed. And I have

9 pointed the sign where they were. There's a sign there, there's a

10 permanent sign. Sometimes they take it off, but I go there and re-insert

11 it, put it back there. It's near the railway track.

12 Q. Now I'll ask you something regarding page 60 of your statement.

13 It concerns the moment when, as you say, all the three mosques were blown

14 up, something that you saw. On page 60, line 19, you say:

15 [In English] "In the field between Celine and Bellacerka."

16 [Interpretation] The next page, 61, line 5, you say:

17 [In English] "We were there at the side of the mountain. That's

18 what we call it."

19 [Interpretation] So my question is: Were you in the field or were

20 you on top of a hill when you were observing this? Which of these is

21 true?

22 A. It was at Breg; it was near. That is my field. That's the field,

23 three and a half hectares; two are on the hilly bit, and the rest of it is

24 further down.

25 Q. So is it a hill or a field?

1 A. Half of it is a plain field and the rest of it is hilly.

2 MS. MOELLER: Your Honour --

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Listen to the answer, Mr. Lukic. It's a field,

4 part of which is on a hill.

5 MR. LUKIC: I was trying to get from him whether he was in the

6 field or on the hill.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: That's not the question. The question is: Was it

8 a hill or a field? That may a mistranslation, but it's what came through

9 to me.

10 MR. LUKIC: I'll try again, Your Honour, if I may.

11 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Popaj, at that moment were you on a hill or

12 in a field?

13 A. That's my field. It begins on -- and is a plain field, and then

14 the hill begins. And I wasn't up or down; I was at the foot. That's

15 where I was and that's where I could observe from. There were those, me

16 and the others, who did the exhumation in that particular spot.

17 Q. At that moment, is that what you're trying to say, at the moment

18 when these mosques were blown up, you were not alone; there was somebody

19 else there with you?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Thank you. On page 79, you speak of those three members of the

22 KLA from your village who existed, as you were told, but you never learned

23 their names. Because, as you say, you were in the mountains with cattle

24 until 1998. When did you climb down from the mountains together with your

25 cattle?

1 A. What I said was that every year I go up to the Bjeshket e Jasharit

2 up on the top of the mountain. I've done that since 1973. I did it this

3 year. I stayed there for about two years. I go there every year on the

4 21st of May and I return on the 20th of October.

5 Q. You said you climbed down from the mountains in 1998. When I'm

6 interested in something that you did in earlier years, I will ask you

7 that. In 1998, when did you come back from the mountain?

8 A. I told you that every year we descend there from the 20th of

9 September to the 20th of October. This year, for instance, we did it on

10 the 20th of October.

11 Q. Thank you. From the 20th of October until the 24th of March when,

12 let's say, the NATO bombing began and the 25th, when this happened in your

13 village, in those six months you did not find out the names of those three

14 men. Is that your evidence today?

15 A. I wasn't interested. In the very morning I take the animals out.

16 I did have sheep then; I don't have them anymore. We were too scared to

17 go to the hills over there, but we went in the direction of Celine.

18 Q. Very well. Thank you. We'll come back to this. You know that

19 there was a book published in Kosovo titled, "Fenikset e Lirise." Is that

20 correct?

21 A. I don't know. I don't read; I'm not a politician. I don't read

22 books.

23 Q. You followed the trial of now late Slobodan Milosevic, and you

24 listened to the testimony of Bozidar Delic. Is that correct?

25 A. No, I did not. When I came here to testify in the Milosevic

1 trial, I came straight from the top of the mountain. I left the animals

2 there and came here to testify on the 28th of May, 2002, and returned on

3 the 14th of June, 2002.

4 Q. Is it correct that with the investigators of the Office of the

5 Prosecutor on the 29th of June, 2005, you discussed the testimony of

6 Bozidar Delic, including the book titled, "Phoenixes of Freedom,"

7 "Fenikset e Lirise," in Albanian. Do you remember that?

8 A. I've never seen that book.

9 Q. Very well. Is then your evidence today that you did not speak to

10 investigators of the OTP on the 29th of June, 2005?

11 A. I cannot remember speaking to them in 2005.

12 Q. Very well. An investigator of the Office of the Prosecutor,

13 Ljubomir Jozefciak - at least according to the documents we received from

14 the Prosecution and which is entered in the system under 6D105 - it is

15 said that in this report we received from the Prosecution, we have

16 comments made by Mr. Sabri Popaj that he made after being shown the

17 publication "Fenikset e Lirise," published in Pristina in 2002.

18 In this statement, it is said that you discussed the book and the

19 affiliation of certain members of your family to the KLA, as stated in the

20 said book. Do you now remember this conversation with the investigators

21 of the Prosecution, Mr. Popaj?

22 A. I remember seeing someone, but I didn't ask whether he was an

23 investigator. I do remember now. I don't know his name. I don't know

24 who it was, and he asked, "Why have we written somewhere at the graveyards

25 that someone was a Martyr," and in fact they weren't. And that has been

1 taken off the tombstones, and I know what you're referring to. Yes, that

2 one came to see me.

3 Q. That's not what I asked you, not at all what I mean. I'm just

4 asking you if you remember the conversation.

5 A. I understand it now. I do remember it now. I don't know the

6 of that person --

7 Q. Thank you. We'll come back to that later. I'll ask you something

8 different now. In your statement of the 12th June 1999, you say that you

9 gave food and money to the KLA. Did anybody force you to do that, or did

10 you do that of your own will?

11 A. Out of our own free will; the whole of the village did that.

12 Q. Did the villagers from your village help the KLA in the same way?

13 A. Those who had something to give; those who didn't, didn't.

14 Q. Thank you. I will now have to ask a couple of questions that our

15 Chamber designates as the Milosevic-style question, but that will take

16 only a few minutes. Do you know that the attacks against the police in

17 your village started already on the 18th of March, 1998, when a patrol of

18 the traffic police was attacked?

19 A. That is not true.

20 Q. So you claim that on the 18th of March, 1998, there was no such

21 attack in your village?

22 A. No, there wasn't.

23 Q. Very well. And do you know that on the night of the 18th of July,

24 1998, in the village of Bela Crkva, there was several terrorist attacks

25 against the police, using automatic weapons, rocket-launchers, mortars,

1 light machine-guns, and snipers, on which occasion the KLA blocked the

2 road from Zerze to Orahovac. Do you remember that?

3 A. At that particular time I was up in the mountains, and I know that

4 the road to Rahovec had been sealed off.

5 Q. Do you know who sealed off that road?

6 A. I wasn't there; I said that. But I know on that particular day

7 the whole of the village had left. And on that particular day they killed

8 my wife's uncle, Ibrahim Popaj, born in 1916, Hajzizi Popaj, Hamita Popaj,

9 and Ravia Popaj. I was up in the mountains. I say that, and I returned

10 after, in the afternoon.

11 Q. All right. We see that you say that the population of the village

12 moved that day. Also in the Milosevic trial, on page 6683, line 2, you

13 say:

14 [In English] "Has positions on the 22nd of March and 80 per cent

15 of the people had already left."

16 A. They left on March the 24th.

17 Q. [Interpretation] I haven't yet asked you anything. In which part

18 of the village were the remaining 20 per cent of the inhabitants of your

19 village who, as you say, remained after the 24th of March, 1999, or the 20

20 per cent remaining were scattered all over the village?

21 A. They were on the lower part of the village, not on the side where

22 the bunkers and positions were. It's towards my house where -- as the

23 photograph shows, they were all there, whilst the upper part of the

24 village had all left.

25 Q. Thank you. You say there was no KLA in the village. You also say

1 on page English version 3, paragraph 2; Albanian version page 3, paragraph

2 4, you say that the policemen and soldiers fired above

3 roof-tops, and you understood that as a warning that you should leave the

4 village. Is it the case that in the forests overlooking the village there

5 were members of the KLA?

6 A. There were no members of the KLA. It could be seen when the

7 volleys of gun-fire were fired from there, and you could see from the

8 village of Bellacerka where the first houses started burning. And this

9 was the house of Xhem Gashi and Ymer Gashi. These were the first houses

10 to be burned on that particular morning.

11 Q. It suffices to say you assert that there was no KLA in the forest

12 overlooking your village.

13 A. They were not in the village. There was KLA but not in the

14 village of KLA. They were where the positions were, and they had units in

15 Drenovc and Reti. Drenovc is 14 kilometres, while Reti, 16 kilometres,

16 far from my village.

17 Q. Very well, thank you. In your statement you also say that you

18 were helping the Zhuniqi family as well as the Spahiu family to cross the

19 river -- to cross the river Belaje. Did you do this regularly? Were you

20 tasked with helping people cross the stream?

21 A. No, that was not my task. But as I was there, I heard the cry of

22 this child and went in that direction to see who was there. So I saw the

23 Zhuniqi and Spahiu family there, and I helped them cross. And Xhemail

24 Spahiu did not cross but he remained on this side.

25 Q. I asked you whether you were tasked with that; you said no, and

1 that is the answer to my question. Thank you.

2 How come you were not with your family on that day?

3 A. I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay there because my cattle was

4 at home. When I went to help the Spahiu family, after that I returned

5 again.

6 Q. And you say that after that you were in the field, close to an

7 electricity pole.

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Would you allow for the possibility that the electricity pole is

10 much closer to the river than you have marked it on the map. Electricity

11 poles are basically by the river itself.

12 A. The electricity pylon is still there, where I was hiding. We did

13 not remove it. It's on the field, on my field. And the hole from where

14 we water the field is there.

15 Q. This is precisely what I wanted to ask you. In the field there

16 are some holes, dug-outs. Is that what you're trying to tell us?

17 A. That is an irrigation canal. The pylon has been cut, but it's

18 about 1 metre tall. I did not remove it. It's on my field, and I go to

19 work on that field every day.

20 Q. I'll ask you again: Are there any holes in the field, and did you

21 use them to hide there? Or were you standing out in the open?

22 A. You can find holes at every 50 metres, where the outlets to start

23 the water are. They're about 1 metre or 1 metre and 20 centimetres deep,

24 and we go down there to turn on the outlets for the water.

25 Q. Therefore, in your view, these are not shelters which had been dug

1 to be used by the members of the KLA.

2 A. They were not dug by the KLA. They were dug by the people who

3 built the Radonjic system, the irrigation system. Every field has these

4 holes, the entire plain, up to Vandoviqe [phoen]. I can even tell you, if

5 necessary, who built that system.

6 MR. LUKIC: Would it be a convenient time, Your Honour?

7 JUDGE BONOMY: No. I envisaged, Mr. Lukic, that we would go on

8 until ten to.

9 MR. LUKIC: That's perfectly fine with me. I just wanted to

10 check. Thank you.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: We'll do an hour and a half before the break.

12 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. At page 3 in the English, paragraph 6 - and in the Albanian, this

14 is paragraph 3, page 4, as well as page 3, paragraph 4 of the B/C/S - you

15 talk about the approach of some armed Serbs. This was a group of 14

16 people. These policemen, did they follow the people from the same

17 direction or did they come from another direction?

18 A. I can show you on the map from which direction they came. I can

19 mark it with a pen.

20 Q. You can tell us whether they came from the direction of Bela Crkva

21 or from some other direction?

22 A. From the direction of Bellacerka, and they followed the line of

23 the Belaje stream.

24 Q. Therefore, they did not come from the direction of Rogovo.

25 A. No. They came from Bellacerka village.

1 Q. Thank you. Therefore, if someone were to say that they came from

2 the direction of Rogovo, they would not be telling the truth.

3 A. Nobody came from Rugova. On the main road Prizren-Gjakova, they

4 were there, the police and army, the Serbian police and army, and they

5 were firing from there. But they did not go to the scene, to the spot

6 itself.

7 Q. Thank you. I'm trying to compare your statement to that of Isuf

8 Zhuniqi. Thank you.

9 Next, you describe a group of people by the railway bridge. I'm

10 interested in the following: What was the position of your son Shendet,

11 when he was shot, since you say you saw that moment?

12 MS. MOELLER: Your Honour --

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I did not see them shoot at him.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Moeller.

15 MS. MOELLER: Yes, I'm actually objecting to that. I think the

16 witness did say explicitly in his testimony that he did not see the moment

17 when the men were shot; he just saw his son when they were searched.

18 MR. LUKIC: But --

19 JUDGE BONOMY: I, if you look at the second-last paragraph on page

20 4, which was changed, I understand that he saw his brother being executed

21 and the position of his son was unclear after that change was made. So is

22 there a reason why he can't explore that?

23 MS. MOELLER: No, I think there is no reason why it can't be

24 explored, but I think it's not correct to put to the witness that he said

25 that he saw his son being shot, because he didn't say that yesterday, to

1 my recollection.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: All right.

3 Well, could you clarify that, please, with the witness, Mr. Lukic.

4 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

5 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Popaj, did you see your son being fired at?

6 A. No, not when they fired at him. But when they took the group of

7 people to the position where they executed, that's when I could see them.

8 But when they took them down to the stream itself, I could no longer see

9 that because the bank was steep.

10 Q. You saw your brother being shot at; is that correct?

11 A. They executed all of them at the same time. When I went close to

12 that area, I found my son killed near my brother Nesim, while Agon --

13 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter didn't catch the last name of

14 the person.

15 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation].

16 Q. Thank you. Therefore, you didn't see your brother being shot

17 either?

18 A. I didn't see any of them when they were shot at, but I could hear

19 the gun-fire.

20 Q. Thank you. You saw policemen with bands around their heads, on

21 their foreheads. Did you used to see any other policemen with the

22 sweat-bands before?

23 A. No, not with scarves. I saw them with scarves on that day.

24 Q. Did you recognise any of them?

25 A. No, I didn't. I could not see them. And when they executed

1 Fetoshi, they were with their faces turned towards Fetoshi. I could only

2 see their backs. There's no way I could recognise them.

3 Q. You saw their backs. Did you see any insignia on their uniforms,

4 before or afterwards?

5 A. No, I did not see their insignia. I could see them talk on the

6 radios because they had radios.

7 Q. Thank you. You also state that you saw policemen wearing white

8 surgical gloves. Did you indeed see policemen wearing white surgical

9 gloves?

10 A. We found the gloves there when we exhumed the bodies, and we found

11 syringes there. These gloves were collected by the investigators who were

12 present when the exhumation took place. You can ask them.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: That's not an answer to the question, Mr. Popaj.

14 The question was: Did you actually see policemen wearing white surgical

15 gloves, which is what your statement says.

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I found them near the bodies,

17 because as they were leaving, after having executed the group, they threw

18 the gloves. And we also found syringes there and injections, and we gave

19 everything to the investigators involved in the investigation.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Did you actually see them throwing the gloves?

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said in my statement that I was

22 told by Sari Zhuniqi, who was hiding a little bit further up. I saw these

23 gloves when the bodies were exhumed, together with the cartridge cases.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Lukic, which paragraph is this?

25 MR. LUKIC: That's paragraph in English version, Your Honour, page

1 3, paragraph 6; in Albanian version, page 4, paragraph 3. It's the last

2 sentence of this paragraph.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, the answer now is that he did not see this,

4 that --

5 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: -- this is what he has subsequently concluded from

7 what was subsequently found.

8 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

9 Q. [Interpretation] In your statement you say that the shooting in

10 village lasted not only all day, all that day, but for an entire month.

11 Is that correct?

12 A. That's correct, until the 4th of May, when they burned the last

13 houses belonging to Muharrem Zhuniqi. And on that day, they forced the

14 people of Xerxe out of their houses.

15 Q. Why did the shooting last all day long, since there were no

16 civilians in the village, there was no KLA presence in the village, in

17 your words? Were Serbs shooting at each other?

18 A. No. They were shooting in case there was someone there. They

19 would come in in a truck who belonged to a Gashi, and they could load that

20 truck with things that they plundered. They took the truck and never

21 returned it.

22 Q. Is it your transcript today that the Serbs who were there opened

23 fire on empty Albanian houses or directed their fire against the nearby

24 forest or at the burned-down houses? What was they shooting at?

25 A. I went back to my burned house on many occasions, and I could

1 recognise Serbs from Rahovec. I have not mentioned their names, but they

2 entered the house and they plundered. And I know exactly by name who

3 stole my truck. And he called me last year and told me that I could go

4 and get my truck in Serbia.

5 Q. [No interpretation] --

6 MR. LUKIC: Sorry.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Popaj, for a period of a month until the 4th of

8 May, what were they shooting at?

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They were not shooting at anyone.

10 They were shooting in the air; the thought that there might be someone in

11 the village. They would go inside houses and loot them. I could see them

12 looting the house of Muharrem Zhuniqi. They would load the truck with the

13 things they have looted, and they would drive off. And on the last day

14 they also carried the things that they had looted in my vehicle. They

15 stole three vehicles; my truck, Muharrem Gashi's truck, and another

16 person's truck.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Lukic.

18 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

19 Q. [Interpretation] I didn't ask you about the presence of the KLA,

20 since you said that you were in the mountains after March. I think we

21 spoke about the 18th of June, 1998. In this case we intend to show - and

22 this is our Defence's position which I'm putting to you now - that your

23 village and its surrounding area was a stronghold of the KLA. This can be

24 deducted from the Albanian documents that we possess. One of the

25 documents confirming that is the very book we began discussing, the name

1 of which is "Fenikset e Lirise."

2 In that book, among other members of the KLA who were killed,

3 there are also the names of some of your family members. You mentioned

4 that in the statement we received from the OTP, when you spoke to their

5 investigator on the 29th of October, 2006 -- no, I apologise. It was in

6 June 2002. At page 23 of the book - and it bears the ERN number

7 00088083 - there is a person by the name of Alban R. Popaj mentioned

8 there.

9 In the statement concerning your interview with an OTP

10 investigator dated the 29th of June, 2005, you mentioned this person, and

11 you said he was your brother's son; your brother's name was Remzi. Is

12 that correct? Do you recall that?

13 A. Yes. He asked me that they appeared in the book as KLA members,

14 and I told him they were not. And I also told him I didn't know who wrote

15 that book.

16 Q. This exhibit is number D105. If you wish to see it, I can show

17 you some of the pages of the document, although I don't believe there is

18 any need for it for the time being. For the transcript, the exhibit

19 number is 6D104. Thank you. On the same list in the same book there is a

20 name of Nesim S. Popaj at page 75 of the book. He was from Bela Crkva.

21 You identified him as your brother when you spoke to the OTP

22 investigators. Is that correct?

23 A. Yes. I told him that he was my brother, but they were not KLA

24 soldiers. And this is what I told him.

25 Q. On the same list at page 94, there is a Shendet S. Popaj, and this

1 was your son. Is that correct?

2 A. Yes, he is my son.

3 Q. Among the KLA members from your village, at least according to the

4 book, bearing the last name of Popaj, we also have the following persons:

5 At page 67, Mehmet I. Popaj, you identified him as your neighbour; at page

6 86, Sahit V. Popaj, another neighbour of yours; at page 98, Xhavit S.

7 Popaj, born 1969; and at page 111, Kreshnik Popaj. You know all of these

8 people, and they were all your relatives and neighbours. Is that correct?

9 A. Yes, they are my relatives and neighbours, my first cousins and so

10 on. But this has wrote -- someone has wrote this book and made them look

11 as if they were KLA soldiers, but they were not. How can my son be a

12 member of the KLA when he was only 17? The same can be said for

13 Kreshnik. Even my youngest son was listed in the book. How could he have

14 been a KLA member when he was only 14?

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, Mr. Lukic, we will take the break.

16 MR. LUKIC: Yes.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: You should bear in mind what we've said earlier

18 about the extent to which, in cross-examination, when time is limited,

19 some issues should be explored. I acknowledge, though, that obtaining

20 confirmation of the identity of certain people as related to the witness

21 is important so that they can be tied to the schedule. But on the general

22 proposition about the presence of the KLA in the village, the witness's

23 position is clear; whether it's true is another matter, but it's clear.

24 So we'll resume at 11.15.

25 Mr. Popaj, the usher will show you where to wait while we have our

1 break; it will be a break of about 20 minutes.

2 [The witness stands down]

3 --- Recess taken at 10.52 a.m.

4 --- On resuming at 11.17 a.m.

5 MR. LUKIC: Your Honour, before the witness comes in, if I may.

6 Why I'm exploring all these names, among other things, is that you

7 ordered the Prosecution to revise the list and to see whether to leave the

8 list as it is or not or change -- or to change it. So I think that's our

9 last chance, actually, to check with this witness if he knows the identity

10 of some inhabitants of his village enumerated as the KLA fighters.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: I acknowledged that when I spoke at the end of the

12 last session. But it's quite a different thing to invite the Prosecution

13 to amend the list to reflect all who were killed or delete any who were

14 not killed from suggesting amendment because a person killed may have had

15 a particular status or have been doing a certain thing. That will be a

16 matter for us to judge. The schedule is simply a reflection of the people

17 killed, and you're not, I think, disputing that these people were killed.

18 MR. LUKIC: No, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: All I'm suggesting is that sort of detail I

20 understand you pursuing, but the generality is of doubtful value, bearing

21 in mind how often the witness has made his position on that clear.

22 [The witness takes the stand]

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Lukic.

24 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

25 Q. I will try now, Mr. Popaj, to speed things up, and I will only ask

1 you whether the following people are familiar to you, who are also

2 designated in the same book as members of the KLA, and it is stated that

3 they were born and died in Bela Crkva: Agim E. Kelmendi; Fatos Zhuniqi;

4 Kasim S. Zhuniqi; Eshref Zhuniqi; and Ramiz Krasniqi. Do you know these

5 people?

6 A. I do not know Ramiz Krasniqi. There is no Krasniqi in Bellacerka.

7 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: Could I ask for a clarification, please. Is the

8 witness saying that he knows the Zhuniqis?

9 MR. LUKIC: Should I ask the witness or are you asking him, Your

10 Honour?

11 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: You can go ahead and ask. Thank you.

12 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Are the other persons whose names I read out to you familiar to

14 you as residents of your village?

15 A. Yes, I do know them. Fatos Zhuniqi was a professor of the English

16 language and he continued teaching until the 24th. He was not a member of

17 the KLA. Eshref Zhuniqi was an elderly man. Kasim Zhuniqi or Kelmendi

18 was not even in the village; he wasn't killed in the village either, Agim

19 Kelmendi. I have no idea where he was killed. And the rest of them, no,

20 they were not members of the KLA. Fatos Zhuniqi was executed alongside

21 his own son, 14 years of age, Labinoti.

22 Q. Very well. In the third category of KLA fighters who have fallen,

23 according to this book, we find names of people who are not from Bela

24 Crkva, but it is stated next to their names that they died in the fighting

25 in Bela Crkva, that they got killed in the fighting. So I'm asking you:

1 Did you have occasion to meet any one of them? Mrs. Afridita S. Bokshin,

2 did you know her?

3 A. No, I do not know her.

4 Q. Saim a-Gashi from Drenovaca?

5 A. No, I do not know him.

6 Q. Hadija M. Spahiu from Rahovec?

7 A. I found Hadija Spahiu at the house of Nurije Kelmendi. She was

8 killed there and I buried her. I did not recognise who she was. I found

9 her. She'd been raped and massacred. And only after the exhumation it

10 was possible to identify her as Hadija Spahiu, from Rahovec.

11 Q. Eparem A. Thaqi?

12 A. He doesn't come from my village. I don't know him.

13 Q. He is from Landovica, but he got killed in your village.

14 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: Perparem A. Thaqi.

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is not true.

16 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. Sakip X. Bellaqa from Patacani.

18 A. There is no family with the surname of Bellaqa there. We don't

19 have one.

20 Q. Exactly. That's a man from Pataqane, but according to this book,

21 he got killed in the fighting in your village; that's why I am asking if

22 you had ever met him.

23 A. I never knew him. There are some Bellaqas in the upper Pataqane.

24 There are two Pataqanes. And I did not know this man.

25 Q. Very well. There are several more names but I am not going

1 through them with you.

2 In your statement given to an investigator of the Tribunal on the

3 29th of June, 2005, you state that it is impossible for your son Agon

4 Popaj to be named in that book because he had never been a member of the

5 KLA. He wasn't even 14 at the time. I did not find the name of your son

6 Agon Popaj in this book. I don't know if you did and why you mentioned

7 him, too, when you discussed this book.

8 A. The investigator told me that in that book there are all kinds of

9 names, including your small -- your little child, your little son. And I

10 told him that it wasn't possible for Skender or Agon to be there. And I

11 asked him who had written about it but he didn't tell me.

12 Q. Very well. You said that he put himself on the KLA list as a

13 volunteer, although he wasn't even 14. Is that correct?

14 A. That is not correct. He was at school, and his teacher of English

15 was Fatos Zhuniqi. He taught him in year 7 of the primary school.

16 Q. Very well. When you were burying those people, why did you decide

17 to bury them in a mass grave? Why didn't you bury them in individual

18 graves?

19 A. Because it was impossible for us to take them to the graveyard

20 because of the police, so we had to bury them in the night, on the night

21 of the 27th.

22 Q. That night, when you were burying those people, were there any

23 members of the Serb forces in your village?

24 A. In the middle of the village and up in the hills.

25 Q. You marked some bodies by placing their names in little bottles;

1 however, you marked only 17 bodies in this way. Why not all?

2 A. There weren't enough bottles going around, and that is why we put

3 pieces of paper with their names. Every one of them had a piece of paper.

4 There were only 17 bottles and we used them.

5 Q. On page, English version, 7, paragraph 3; in Albanian, page 9,

6 paragraph, you say the following:

7 "Feim Popaj, the son of my uncle, one of the survivors from the

8 massacre at the stream, told me that he recognised two of the policemen

9 who did the shooting and killing. Those were Zlatko Bozanic and another

10 one who's first name is Dejan."

11 You say, "I know these two policemen or I recognised these two

12 policemen," but then you go on to say, "I didn't recognise them at the

13 time because I was too far away."

14 Did you see those men at that moment or heard from someone else

15 that they were there?

16 A. The statement says that the news came from my uncle's son, Feimi,

17 who was able to recognise them and people were lined up to the to the

18 executed. Zlatko Bozanic was the one.

19 Q. Is Zlatko Bozanic from Opterusa?

20 A. Yes, yes.

21 Q. You know that Serbs from Opterusa were expelled back in 1998?

22 A. I don't know.

23 Q. Do you know that Serbs from Opterusa were kidnapped and killed in

24 1998, and the assaults were led by KLA commander Haxhi Mazreku, who was,

25 by the way, a member of the military police of the KLA?

1 A. I don't know. I didn't know who Haxhi Mazreku was.

2 Q. Do you know that in 1998 Serbs were kidnapped and killed from

3 Opterusa, a place where this Bosko Bozanic comes from?

4 A. You can ask Muzreku to come here and explain about it. I told you

5 that during 1998 I was not there, up until October.

6 Q. Very well. Thank you. So after October you did not hear of

7 anything like that happening, or maybe you know that something happened

8 before October?

9 A. I don't know what you're talking about; it's not clear to me.

10 Q. All right. I'll abandon this area. We'll move on to something

11 different. In your statement on page 7 of the English version, paragraph

12 7; and page 10, paragraph 1 of the Albanian version you say:

13 "Hysni Zhuniqi and his nephews, Mehdi Zhuniqi and Akim Zhuniqi" -

14 and there's one unintelligible part of the translation - "I suppose and

15 believe that those people were killed at the time that I heard that

16 shooting five minutes after the first execution that I'd seen. I left

17 those bodies where they were and went back to Xerxe."

18 Among those names you include Hysni Zhuniqi from Bela Crkva?

19 A. There was six people all in all. Yufan Popaj and Sadet Popaj,

20 first cousins; Hysni Zhuniqi, Delvish; Hajram Labega; Memohmdi Zhuniqi;

21 Negev Zhuniqi. Six people in all. This was on a different day, Muharrem

22 Zhuniqi told me:

23 "I heard the volleys of gun-fire, but I couldn't see them being

24 killed. After the burial, the people killed in the big massacre I

25 returned and saw the bodies of these people. It is not on the same day.

1 I did hear the volleys of gun-fire, but I wasn't aware that they'd been

2 killed. I found them on the day that I buried them, that is on the 27th

3 of March."

4 Q. Very well. Thank you then. Among those people, according to you,

5 there was Hysni Zhuniqi?

6 A. Yes. Hysni Zhuniqi born in 1937 --

7 JUDGE BONOMY: That's twice, Mr. Lukic, you've made that point,

8 and it's a quite unnecessary proposition to put. And it leads to the

9 witness going on at length explaining yet again what is obvious to us all

10 or adding a little bit more. It's better if you put a question, rather

11 than a proposition prior to the question, and incorporate the proposition

12 into your question; then we won't have this time being consumed by

13 unnecessary repetition.

14 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour. Thank you, Your Honour.

15 Q. [Interpretation] Do you know that Hysni Zhuniqi from Bela Crkva

16 succumbed to his injuries in the health care centre in Prizren. And he

17 was killed by NATO bombs on the 2nd of April, 1999, together with ten

18 persons, out of whom these were identified: Qazim Krasniqi, his father's

19 name Isa, from Mala Hoca; Makmuud Krasniqi from Mala Hoca; and Elshan

20 Hysni from Nagales village.

21 A. Hysni Juniqi, born in 1971, he was the one who was killed, while

22 Hysni Sulejman Zhuniqi is a different person and he was born in 1937. He

23 was buried in Prizren, but I exhumed the body in Prizren. And I buried

24 him on July the 5th, alongside the group that was exhumed in 1999.

25 Q. I was guided by your observation that there were no two persons

1 with the same name in your village, and I supposed --

2 A. The first name is not the same, though. The first one was called

3 Husen not Hysni. Husen and Hysni are quite different.

4 Q. I have the same spelling of the name for both of them, but never

5 mind. We'll move on.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, which --

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have got it here in these papers,

8 on the original, and I've got every detail recorded of the burial.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, which one is Husen?

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Husen was killed in Nagavc. Hysni

11 died in the canal alongside six other people. And the name is Husen Ahmet

12 Zhuniqi; Ahmet being his father's name.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

14 Mr. Lukic.

15 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

16 The name I have for Nagavc is Hysni, but we can clarify it

17 hopefully in some other way.

18 Q. [Interpretation] At that time you were moving towards Celina,

19 towards Zerze. Is it your testimony today that on the 25th, the 26th, the

20 27th, the 28th, the 29th, and all the way up to the 2nd of April there was

21 no fighting in the area of your village and those other villages between

22 Serb forces and the KLA?

23 A. No, there wasn't. There were no people either in the village,

24 with the exception of the police and the army.

25 Q. Very well. Thank you. I'll just ask you one more thing. In the

1 Milosevic trial, when you spoke about the moment when you saw 12

2 policemen, you say that on the other side of the river you did not see how

3 many policemen there were; however, the fact is they were paramilitaries

4 from Serbia. Did you see paramilitaries, in fact, there?

5 A. Yes, I did, sir. It was the paramilitaries who did the execution

6 of the 74 people from the village; it wasn't me who did the execution.

7 Q. Thank you. Let us just come back to the moment when you were

8 going through the border-crossing. Five of you handed in your documents.

9 Other members of your group did not produce documents. May we conclude

10 that at that moment neither you, nor anyone else in your group were

11 searched for documents. The only documents taken from you were those you

12 handed in yourselves.

13 A. They asked us to surrender our IDs. I didn't have them. There

14 were some five people; most of them are women and children. And there's

15 only five of us.

16 Q. But you were not searched; that's only -- that's the only thing I

17 want to know.

18 A. No, no. They just chucked them away and burned those five IDs

19 that they took from people.

20 Q. Thank you, Mr. Popaj. I have no further questions for you.

21 MR. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

23 Mr. Bakrac -- Mr. Cepic, I'm sorry.

24 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I think I will take this

25 witness, but I believe Mr. Ackerman wants to finish his examination before

1 me.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Very well.

3 Mr. Ackerman.

4 MR. CEPIC: Thank you.

5 MR. ACKERMAN: Thanks, Your Honour.

6 Cross-examination by Mr. Ackerman: [Continued]

7 Q. Mr. Popaj, I have just very little more to ask you about, and

8 before I ask you another question, I have to give you information. The

9 way the system works here is there is an audio-recording, or video- and

10 audio-recording, made of your testimony at the time you give it, so we

11 have an audio record of what you said in answer to questions. You might

12 recall yesterday that I asked the Judge to have that audio record checked

13 with regard to what you said about the shell fragments or bomb fragments

14 from Nagavc. Do you remember that?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And so that was done, and what we're told by the translators today

17 is what you said was this: "It is a clear proof that the fragments of the

18 bomb exist, are there. We have them. They were in Nagavc village, where

19 the bombing occurred. We have them, the fragments of the shell. I have

20 them at home." And then you talk about when the bombing happened and you

21 say: "We have the shells there. The investigators themselves have seen

22 them."

23 Later, in your testimony yesterday, you said, no, you didn't have

24 those fragments at your home, that they were in the home, in Nagavc, of a

25 gentleman named Feim Elshani. My question is: Why did you tell us you

1 had them at your home if you didn't have them there? What was your

2 purpose in telling that untruth?

3 A. I said -- I did not mean me, in person. I said, "We do have

4 them," and "we" means many more people, which means in our houses. But

5 they are being stored at Feim Elshani's house. He's the one who came to

6 testify on that matter.

7 Q. Well --

8 A. I did not mean me, in person; I meant we, in total.

9 Q. Well, you know, the thing you can't do is challenge your own words

10 that we have recorded here in this courtroom, and your own words were, "I

11 have them at home," and then you told us that the investigators had seen

12 them, presumably at your home. That's all not true, is it?

13 A. They took pictures of them, of the bomb fragments that fell

14 there. I should do the same, on my way back, and fax them anew should the

15 need arise.

16 Q. Were you there when they took pictures of them?

17 A. Yes. When we got them, we hid them; and upon our return, we did

18 find them again.

19 Q. And where was it that the pictures were taken? Where were these

20 fragments located when investigators from the Tribunal took pictures of

21 them?

22 A. In Nagavc.

23 Q. Where in Nagavc?

24 A. At Feim Elshani's house.

25 Q. You went to Mr. Elshani's house shortly after this incident

1 occurred of these bombings and explosions, didn't you?

2 A. Not immediately, but on the following day, in the morning, because

3 when it happened it was 20 to 2.00 in the morning.

4 Q. I understand. Did you see his backyard?

5 A. The whole of the village was there, including the backyard. We

6 did not go inside, though. But on the following day I saw my father's

7 sister, Sajimi Kastrati, there. She had been killed there and I did bury

8 her in the courtyard of --

9 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter couldn't catch that name.

10 MR. ACKERMAN:

11 Q. Did you see any craters from these bombs in Nagavc?

12 A. Of course we did.

13 Q. How many; do you remember? How big were they?

14 A. I never measured the size of the craters. All the houses of

15 Nagavc had no tiles on, no roof tiles on. All had fallen down.

16 Q. Do you have any idea how many craters you saw and about what size

17 they were? That's all I'm asking you about is craters.

18 A. I have no idea how big they were. But, again, not a single house

19 had its roof tiles on in that village as a result of the bombing.

20 Q. In the Milosevic trial, you testified on 11 June 2002, at page

21 6693, and you were asked about this bombing. You said that you had gone

22 there, and then you said this: "But we found pieces of the explosion. We

23 hid them and KFOR took these pieces." That's what you said in Milosevic,

24 that they were taken by KFOR. Today you're telling us they're at this

25 gentleman's house. Which is true?

1 A. My knowledge is that they are at Feim Elshani's house. Maybe KFOR

2 has taken some of it, but you can get further details on this from Feim

3 Elshani, who came here as a witness on Nagavc. I found and buried

4 children who had been killed in Nagavc, but I haven't spoken about them.

5 I found eight children who had been killed there, all under the age of

6 ten --

7 Q. Nobody is asking you about that. You're being asked about these

8 fragments and you know that, don't you? So please answer the questions

9 you're being asked.

10 Now, my question is this: Why did you tell the Judges, under

11 oath, in Milosevic, that KFOR took these pieces and now you're telling us

12 today that you don't really know whether KFOR took them or not? Why did

13 you tell the Judges that in Milosevic?

14 A. KFOR did take some of it, but there are still fragments from these

15 shells in Nagavc even today. And I have -- I have said it all the time,

16 I've been repeating it, and should the need arise, I will go to Nagavc and

17 take those bomb fragments and bring them over here, as well as the cases

18 that came from heavy artillery shelling on the village. I should bring

19 those as well.

20 Q. Mr. Visnjic asked you yesterday what the Cyrillic letters were

21 that you saw on these fragments and you never answered that question.

22 Would you tell us now what Cyrillic letters you observed?

23 A. You have the Cyrillic letters there. You ought to be able to

24 identify them.

25 Q. Where do you think I have them?

1 A. You can read and write, but I can't read and write in Cyrillic.

2 Q. So you don't know what Cyrillic letters were on these shell

3 fragments you're talking about?

4 A. I repeat it: If you need it, I shall bring those bits here and

5 you'll be able to see for yourselves.

6 Q. I'm just asking you if you know what the letters are that are on

7 these fragments. You can say you don't know; that's okay.

8 A. I do know, but I can't see them here on the screen. I've got

9 nothing in Cyrillic here in front of me.

10 Q. No, you don't, because I don't have it to show you. But can you

11 tell us what those letters are, or do you not know? What letters did you

12 see on these fragments? If you don't know, say you don't know or you

13 don't remember or whatever.

14 A. I didn't read that. But I will bring the fragments from these

15 shells here should the need arise, and you will be able to judge

16 yourselves what is written on them.

17 Q. Well, I am quite certain that investigators from this Tribunal

18 will want you to show them these pieces and the Cyrillic that's on them.

19 And I'm sure you will cooperate in that regard. Now, you told us

20 yesterday that these fragments were with Mr. Feim Elshani, who had

21 testified in Milosevic --

22 A. Feim Elshani told you about that. We were all present when he did

23 that, again and again, and I will not deny it. I will be able to bring

24 them over here. Not only that, but everything that was fired from heavy

25 artillery, all the casings, I shall bring them here.

1 Q. Well, Mr. Elshani testified, as you told us, in Milosevic at page

2 868, and with regard to these fragments, he said that parts of the

3 fragments were handed over to members of German KFOR. Do you know

4 anything about that?

5 A. I don't know about that. You can ask him on that.

6 Q. Okay. That's all I have.

7 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

9 Mr. Cepic.

10 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

11 Cross-examination by Mr. Cepic:

12 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Popaj. My name is Djuro Cepic,

13 one of the counsel for General Lazarevic.

14 I would like to go back to your statement from 1999. In paragraph

15 6 on page 2 of the English, you say that a week before the shelling

16 started -- the bombing started Serb forces arrived, as being the Serbian

17 police and soldiers, about 40 of them at your village. And they began

18 digging trenches on a hill overlooking the village.

19 My question is this: Did those forces come together with some

20 bright orange-coloured jeeps?

21 A. No. There wasn't any orange colour.

22 Q. Thank you. The location where the forces were is more or less one

23 kilometre away from your house. Is that correct?

24 A. Not one kilometre, but ...

25 Q. Could you finish your answer, please.

1 A. I did not measure the distance, but I don't think it's one

2 kilometre. It doesn't look far away, but if you want to go to that place

3 then it seems to be far.

4 Q. There is no need for me to go there. I wanted to get an

5 approximate figure of the distance.

6 A. I did not measure the distance. Through the fields it's closer,

7 and if you go there by car it's further.

8 Q. Sir, on the 29th of October you spoke to the OTP representatives.

9 You spoke with our learned friend, Ms. Christina Moeller. Is that

10 correct?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. On that occasion you said that up to Nahit Fetoshi's house, where

13 the forces were, that that distance is about 900 metres up to one

14 kilometre. Is that correct?

15 A. Yes. This is what I said. As I said, I did not measure the

16 distance. I gave an approximate distance.

17 Q. Very well. Thank you, Mr. Popaj. Let's try and move quickly. I

18 will try to be as clear as possible, and I would kindly ask you for clear

19 answers. You didn't approach those forces; you didn't come close, did

20 you?

21 A. No. I went up to the schools because the pupils were still

22 attending school. And from there we could observe them because they were

23 close.

24 Q. Yes. But you didn't see any insignia on them; is that correct?

25 A. I did not see any insignia. As I mentioned, they installed two

1 anti-aircraft cannons, and they expelled Naim Fetoshi with his family

2 members.

3 Q. We've already heard that, sir. Thank you. I want to move on to

4 another topic.

5 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] I would kindly ask the court

6 administration to show us P2445.

7 Q. Mr. Popaj, do you recognise this mosque?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Can you tell me where it is located.

10 A. It used to exist; it does not exist today. It was in Celine.

11 Q. Can you tell me this: On this photograph, it is a bit further

12 away from any other buildings. There are no houses adjacent to it. Is

13 that correct?

14 A. It's in the middle of the village. This is a road that goes

15 inside the village. There are houses on the upper part and on the lower

16 part, on all sides.

17 Q. Yes. But next to the mosque itself, as we can see on the

18 photograph, there are no family houses?

19 A. I don't know who took this photograph, but close to the mosque

20 there are houses. And above this road here, there are houses as well. I

21 don't know who took this photograph.

22 Q. Thank you. How many metres away from the mosque are the nearest

23 houses, or used to be?

24 A. Adjacent to the wall of the yard, and then again on the left and

25 on the right side. Riza is a name of the person whose house is next to

1 the mosque, and Rexhep's house is on the other side here.

2 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Could we please see P1800, please.

3 Q. Mr. Popaj, are you familiar with this location?

4 A. Yes. This is Riza's house that was adjacent to the mosque. This

5 is where Rexhep's house was, and this is where the mosque was.

6 Q. And you assert that this is the same location that we saw on the

7 photograph before that?

8 A. Yes, it's the same location.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic, what is the point that's involved in

10 challenge to the damage to this particular mosque? What is the point that

11 Defence are making? Has somebody been doctoring photographs

12 or -- bearing in the mind the evidence we've had from Riedlmayer?

13 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] No, quite the contrary, Your Honour.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: What is the point of taking time on this? There

15 must be a good for it, is there?

16 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] The witness stated he was present at

17 that time in Celine; that's why we wanted to inquire further as to the

18 events on the 28th of March. And for another reason, and with your leave,

19 I wanted to ask the next question concerning the dates mentioned when the

20 mosques were destroyed.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: All right.

22 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.

23 Q. Mr. Popaj, you claim that on the 28th of March the mosques of Bela

24 Crkva, Rogovo, and Celina were destroyed simultaneously; this was your

25 assertion. Before me I have a document, drafted by Mr. Andras Riedlmayer,

1 in which it is stated that the mosque in the village of Rogovo, according

2 to the statements of the villagers, was destroyed on the 3rd of April,

3 1999. Therefore, it wasn't on the 28th of March, as you stated.

4 A. There was not a single person in Rugova village on the 3rd of

5 April; only the animals were still there. You expelled Rugova village on

6 the 27th.

7 Q. Thank you, Mr. Popaj. Thank you.

8 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, this concludes my

9 cross-examination of this witness. Thank you.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Cepic.

11 Mr. Zecevic.

12 MR. ZECEVIC: No questions for this witness, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila.

14 MR. FILA: [Microphone not activated].

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

16 Ms. Moeller.

17 MS. MOELLER: Thank you, Your Honour.

18 Re-examination by Ms. Moeller:

19 Q. Mr. Popaj, my learned colleague Mr. Visnjic made a proposition to

20 you that your brother, Nesim Popaj, actually died at another date and at

21 another location than you testified about. Did you bury your brother

22 Nesim with your own hands?

23 A. Yes, I buried him with my own hands. They were referring to Mesim

24 Vebi Popaj, Vebi being the father's name, who is still alive. Mesim is

25 born in 1965, while the other person still lives. My brother's name was

1 Nesim and the other person's name is Mesim. I buried my brother with my

2 own hands. I put the bottle with his name inside, and when we exhumed

3 him, the bottle was still there.

4 Q. Okay. Thanks. Now, my learned colleague Mr. Ackerman asked you

5 about the number of cattle in your village, being 5.000, as you confirmed.

6 What happened to these cattle after the 24th of March, when your village

7 was -- when Serb forces came to your village?

8 A. After the 24th of March, or rather, after the 25th of March,

9 around the 30th of March, I would say, they were carrying the cattle in

10 trucks in the direction of Prizren. They killed some of the cattle, but

11 most of them they carried in trucks in the direction of Prizren. But now

12 you still have more than 50.000 cattle in the village.

13 Q. And you --

14 THE INTERPRETER: 5.000; interpreter's correction.

15 MS. MOELLER:

16 Q. Yes. And you also responded to a question of my learned colleague

17 Mr. Lukic regarding the situation in the village between the 25th of March

18 and the 4th of May, that there was looting going on in Bela Crkva and that

19 there were some people from Rahovec involved in that whom you recognised.

20 Did these people from Rahovec wear a uniform or did they wear civilian

21 clothes?

22 A. They were wearing civilian clothes. They were armed with

23 automatic rifles. They came in tractors. They took one of my tractors,

24 the make, Ferguson 39, and other vehicles that we had. They looted

25 everything and then they burned the houses. The person in question asked

1 me, called me, and told me that I could go and pick up my truck somewhere

2 near Nis, between Leskovc and Nis.

3 Q. When these people did the looting in your village, were there also

4 people in uniforms still present in Bela Crkva?

5 A. Yes. The army was above and the police were stationed in the

6 houses.

7 Q. Now, I think, when you were questioned again about the people who

8 did the shooting along the Belaje river, you referred to this being done

9 by paramilitaries. What do you actually mean by "paramilitaries"? Could

10 you explain that?

11 A. To me, a paramilitary is a person who kills and executes people,

12 innocent people, children. They killed children who were only 2 years

13 old.

14 Q. Okay. Now I would like to go back to the issue that my learned

15 colleague Mr. Ackerman --

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you think that actually helps resolve the

17 difficulty that is created by the use of the expression "paramilitary" in

18 the Milosevic trial?

19 MS. MOELLER: Well, I --

20 JUDGE BONOMY: You're content to leave it at that, are you?

21 MS. MOELLER: No, I'm going back to that.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: I see. Okay.

23 MS. MOELLER: Yes.

24 Q. Well, let's do it right away, then, here. These paramilitaries

25 you saw at the Belaje river, or however you would call them, they wore

1 uniforms, did they? I think you said that yesterday.

2 A. Yes, they were all wearing uniforms, police uniforms. The 12 that

3 were on my side and who I saw, they were all dressed in uniforms, on the

4 right side of the stream.

5 Q. And I think there was some further questioning about the colours

6 involved in these particular uniforms. Could you try to explain once more

7 what colour these uniforms had.

8 A. I already said that the colour was blue camouflage. I call it

9 green. You will not find persons from my village who will use the same

10 word for the colour. But they had this colour of the curtain,

11 camouflaged.

12 Q. And by "the curtains," you mean which curtains?

13 A. Behind the Judges, these curtains.

14 Q. Okay.

15 MS. MOELLER: May the record reflect once more that these curtains

16 are blue.

17 Q. Sir, the --

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Can I just interrupt.

19 Mr. Popaj, in the English language, the word "paramilitary" refers

20 to someone who is not actually in the army or in the police. It's an

21 important distinction. If you call somebody a paramilitary, he's not

22 actually a member of the official army or the official police force. Now,

23 when you use the expression "paramilitary," is that what you mean to say,

24 that these people are not part of the army, the official army, or the

25 official police?

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, they were part of the official

2 police. They were brought there in vehicles. They didn't come there on

3 foot.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

5 Ms. Moeller, that was the sort of clarification I was trying to

6 obtain.

7 MS. MOELLER: Yes, Your Honour. I thought it was clear from the

8 first answer he had actually given when he described what paramilitaries

9 meant in his meaning, but that is certainly much clearer now.

10 Q. And just to round this up, is the -- you mentioned some of the

11 people wear bandannas or scarves around their heads. Did they, at the

12 same time, also wear uniforms? And I'm talking about the group of people

13 who shot the villagers at the Belaje stream.

14 A. These wearing uniforms, they had bandannas on their heads.

15 Q. Okay. Now I would like to go back to the questions of the

16 positioning of the tanks in your village on the morning of the 25th of

17 March, which was discussed at length with my learned friend Mr. Ackerman.

18 MS. MOELLER: Could we call up Exhibit P93, page 11, and maybe

19 this photograph may help to sort out some confusion.

20 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

21 MS. MOELLER:

22 Q. Mr. Popaj, there is an aerial photo, I think, of your village and

23 it is taken from further away, and I'm wondering whether you can figure

24 out on this photograph the streets which would go from your village to

25 Celine, if it is depicted on this photograph. You may need a minute to

1 orient yourself.

2 A. Yes, yes, it's here.

3 Q. Can you take the pen and draw along the street that you mean.

4 A. This road leaves the village and goes to Celine. From this point,

5 Celine is 800 metres far, not even 1 kilometre. It goes to fields. And

6 this one here and this one here.

7 Q. Okay. And that is what you meant to describe, when you were

8 discussing it with Mr. Ackerman, as the one road that you are aware of

9 going between your village and the Celine village?

10 A. Yes, this road, while the road that the tanks took to go up to the

11 hill, it's this one. This road takes a turn and then goes to the middle

12 of Celine. The hill is above here, and that's where they positioned

13 themselves. These are the meadows where we took our cattle.

14 Q. Sorry, I'm not entirely clear still. The second road, the lower

15 red line you draw, this is another road which also goes to Celine but via

16 the mountains. Is that what you're saying or --

17 A. This road takes you to Rahovec, Nagavc. There is no road that

18 goes to the hill - they climb that hill through the fields - while this

19 road here takes you to Rahovec. And they went to the hill which is above

20 Celine and Nagavc.

21 Q. So just to be crystal clear, which of the two roads that you've

22 marked did the tanks take, the upper or the lower in the picture?

23 A. The upper, the upper road. They went through this road.

24 Q. By "upper," I mean upper in the photograph. I'm not --

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Is there another --

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Oh, on the photograph, it's the

2 lower one, while in the village, it's the upper one.

3 MS. MOELLER:

4 Q. Okay.

5 A. On this photograph it's the one below.

6 Q. I'm sorry, I wasn't clear in my question at all here.

7 MS. MOELLER: Could we --

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Could I ask just one thing.

9 And that road, you say, goes to Rahovec?

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, it goes to Rahovec. It's not

11 an asphalt road. It's an off-road usually used by us to carry grapes and

12 other sorts of things. It takes you straight to Rahovec. There is a road

13 of Pojata, as we call it --

14 JUDGE BONOMY: What other place does that road go through?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It takes you to Rahovec, to Brestovc

16 and nowhere else; up to Brestovc village, Rahovec, and up to Hoqe e Madhe.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

18 MS. MOELLER: Can we take a snap-shot of this picture, please.

19 THE REGISTRAR: That will be IC100, Your Honours.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

21 MS. MOELLER:

22 Q. Now, there was also some discussion about --

23 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, excuse me one moment.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

25 MR. ACKERMAN: Maybe -- I don't know. I'm concerned about page

1 58, line 4 and 5. Does that need to be clarified or not? I mean, we've

2 got two different things now.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, at that stage it was clear to me that he was

4 referring to the road that's the lower one on the map. There was then

5 some confusion following that because of his understanding of what was

6 meant by "lower" and "upper. " And when an attempt was made to clarify

7 that, he said it was the lower road on the photograph. Now that meant to

8 me that he had given two consistent answers.

9 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, Your Honour, I think - and I'm quite certain

10 I'm right - the upper red mark that he made was when he was asked to show

11 us the road that goes to Celine. The lower red mark that he made on the

12 photograph, the longer one, was the mark he made when he was showing us

13 where the tanks went. And he says "this road."

14 While the road that the tanks took go up to the hill, it's this

15 one. And that's the one he drew on the bottom, and said this road takes a

16 turn and goes to the middle of Celine. And that gets us back to what the

17 map shows of two roads going to Celine. So I don't know it. I think it's

18 more confused than it was before.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This road does not take you to

20 Celine --

21 JUDGE BONOMY: Just a moment, Mr. Popaj.

22 Ms. Moeller, I think it would pay dividends to try and clarify the

23 part of the transcript Mr. Ackerman has identified.

24 MS. MOELLER: Yes, if we could -- do we have IC100 -- yes, we

25 still have it on the screen.

1 Q. Mr. Popaj, could I ask you to put a number 1 at the street that

2 you lined, which leads from Bela Crkva to Celine, please.

3 A. [Marks]

4 Q. And could you put a number 2 where you lined the other road.

5 A. [Marks]

6 Q. Now, when the tanks left your village on the morning of 25 March,

7 did they take road number 1 or road number 2, and just tell us the number?

8 A. Number 2.

9 Q. Thank you.

10 MS. MOELLER: Can we take another snap-shot of this, please. I

11 think it's clear now.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.

13 THE REGISTRAR: That will be IC101, Your Honours.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

15 MS. MOELLER: Can we call up from the same exhibit page 5, please.

16 Q. There was some discussion about where the house of Mr. Fetoshi was

17 located in the village, and where the houses were which were burned first

18 on the 25th of March. And I would like you to have a look at the picture,

19 which comes up next, and tell us whether you can see the Fetoshi house and

20 the area where the houses were first burned on this picture or not.

21 A. I cannot see the house of Fehmi Fetoshi because not everything is

22 included in this shot.

23 Q. Are any of the houses which were burned first visible in this

24 picture, or are they also outside of this frame?

25 A. I know which of the houses were burned down first --

1 JUDGE BONOMY: Perhaps the usher would assist the witness; he's

2 looking for the pen.

3 MS. MOELLER: Yes.

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] At the entrance to the village, when

5 they entered here, they burned these houses first.

6 MS. MOELLER:

7 Q. You have to make -- to draw on the screen again to make it

8 visible, please

9 JUDGE BONOMY: He has done so.

10 MS. MOELLER: Oh, sorry. I didn't see. Yes.

11 Q. Okay. And can you also mark the street along which they entered

12 the village; draw a line along it, please.

13 A. [Marks]

14 Q. Okay. Thank you.

15 MS. MOELLER: Can we take another snap-shot, please.

16 THE REGISTRAR: That will be IC102, Your Honours.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

18 MS. MOELLER: Could we now call up page 8, please.

19 Q. Mr. Popaj, would Mr. Fetoshi's house be visible on that picture?

20 A. No -- oh, on this one. Hang on a second. You can see a bit of it

21 on the edge here. You can see it here.

22 Q. Could you indicate the direction where you can see the bit. Only

23 if you can, I mean, if it's outside, don't --

24 A. I cannot see it. It's outside the frame. I don't think the

25 picture shows everything.

1 Q. Okay. Okay. If you cannot do it then --

2 A. The mosque is here.

3 Q. -- I'll leave it here. Now, that's fine, Mr. Popaj. Thank you.

4 My last question would be related to the book Fenikset e Lirise -

5 and excuse my pronunciation, please - in which some of your family members

6 are listed. Did you ever see this book before it was shown to you by an

7 investigator in June 2005?

8 A. No. I saw it first when he came to my house. I heard from other

9 people that it had been written, but I only saw it on that particular day

10 when it was shown to me. And I didn't know on that day that it was an

11 investigator from this Tribunal.

12 Q. And did ever have anyone come to your house and inquire about your

13 son Shendet and your brother and other persons, whether they were actually

14 in the KLA or not, before this book was published or in relation to this

15 book?

16 A. No. No one asked me, with the exception of that person who came

17 to ask questions of me and who showed me the book, and I don't even know

18 his name.

19 Q. And your youngest son who was not even 14 when he was killed, did

20 he ever talk to you about signing a list of the KLA in school?

21 A. Agon, no.

22 Q. And in 1998, did your son not tell you that he put his name on a

23 list which was circulated in his school?

24 A. I cannot remember.

25 Q. Okay. Well, I have an investigator's notes here that said that he

1 inquired you about Agon - that's the one I'm talking about - and that you

2 told him that your son told you that, in 1998, a list was circulated in

3 his school and that he, among other boys, signed this list, and that you

4 didn't take that serious at the time because he was so young. Do you

5 recall that you said that to the person who came to talk to you about the

6 Fenikset e Lirise book, or not?

7 A. I cannot recall. Maybe he told me that, but I cannot remember

8 just now.

9 Q. Okay.

10 MS. MOELLER: I have no further questions, Your Honour.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

12 In relation to the roads, Mr. Ackerman, is there anything else you

13 want to raise?

14 MR. ACKERMAN: I think it would complicate it further, Your

15 Honour. I think we better leave it where it is.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

17 Mr. Popaj, that completes your evidence. Thank you for coming to

18 the Tribunal again to give evidence. You are now free to leave -- oh, I'm

19 sorry, a moment. Judge Nosworthy does want to ask you a question. Sorry.

20 Questioned by the Court:

21 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: Mr. Popaj, you have said that your son Agon, at

22 14, and your other son, respectively, at 17, they were too young, in your

23 consideration, to be members of the KLA/UCK. What I want to know from

24 you: As far as your knowledge goes, at what age would young men have

25 joined or been recruited into the KLA?

1 A. Over 18 years of age.

2 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: Thank you. And what about when they,

3 themselves, volunteered, as it was alleged that your younger son did?

4 A. They never left the house. They were there all the time. He went

5 to school every day.

6 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: I understand that that is what you are saying,

7 but does the age of 18 apply equally to when a young man would volunteer

8 for joining the KLA, as it was alleged that your younger son had

9 volunteered?

10 A. During the time of the former Yugoslavia, I applied to go and

11 serve my military service at 17. It was rejected. I did serve my

12 military service there after 18, after completing 18 years of age.

13 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: Thank you very much.

14 No further questions, Judge.

15 [Trial Chamber confers]

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that does now complete your evidence,

17 Mr. Popaj. Thank you for coming. You may now leave the courtroom.

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you from all -- everybody from

19 the Trial Chamber.

20 [The witness withdrew]

21 JUDGE BONOMY: There are a number of administrative matters it

22 might be appropriate to deal with in the time we have. We'll be breaking

23 around a quarter to 1.00.

24 Mr. Visnjic, can I ask you, you have a 54 bis application for

25 material from the Government of the United Kingdom. They have applied for

1 an extension of time to respond to that, and in that application, which I

2 hope you've received, they say that there are ongoing discussions about

3 material. I notice that on the Prosecution's latest list of witnesses to

4 the end of the year, Colonel Crosland doesn't appear. Now, the question

5 for me is -- for you, rather, is whether there is any point in delaying

6 taking a decision in this matter, or whether, as far as you're concerned,

7 it's got to the stage where the Trial Chamber has to make a decision?

8 MR. VISNJIC: [No interpretation].

9 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm sorry, I'm getting no interpretation for some

10 reason.

11 MR. VISNJIC: Oh, I'm sorry.

12 [Interpretation] We have already today answered in writing, and I

13 suppose that our filing is somewhere in the pipeline from the Registry

14 towards the Trial Chamber. But I can say briefly that I am not opposed to

15 this extension for the UK on the condition that we get the material before

16 the testimony of Colonel Crosland. And I believe this postponement -- in

17 fact, this new list is precisely intended at finding a convenient time for

18 all parties.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

20 The second matter is an application on behalf of Mr. Lukic to bar

21 certain testimony from the scheduled next witness Mehmet Mazrekaj. Now,

22 in view of the fact that the witness is about -- at least is listed to

23 give evidence next, there's no time, obviously, for a written response to

24 this. The application is confined to the question of rape and sexual

25 assault. Now, what response do the Prosecution wish to make to this?

1 MR. STAMP: Thank you very much, Your Honour. I think the

2 application raises questions of fairness in terms of adequate notice about

3 the allegation made by the witness. That allegation or that statement was

4 made during proofing recently, and it was transmitted to the Defence at

5 the earliest opportunity, or soon thereafter. It was not in a

6 supplemental information sheet, but the information was in the witness

7 notification, an addendum to the witness notification, in which it was

8 indicated that we would seek to lead that evidence.

9 The application, I think, quite rightly raises the issue as to

10 whether or not they should be notified as to his source of information. I

11 think that is the pith of the argument, that they were not notified as to

12 the source of his information. And we have supplied that information to

13 the Defence -- actually, he was told -- the source is that he was told

14 about the rapes by women who were present in the case where these rapes

15 were committed. That information, being what it is, I don't know if -- or

16 the extent to which that would impact on the preparation the Defence would

17 need to make for cross-examination. So I wonder if the application is

18 being pressed now --

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, what you've said suggests that you don't

20 think the information itself is worth very much, because if you do, then

21 you would expect the Defence to want to investigate and challenge it.

22 MR. STAMP: I'm not saying it is not worth very much. The

23 question is whether or not the source of the information, being what it

24 is, it would impact on the challenge in respect of this particular

25 witness. There would be some limitations to what they could do with this

1 particular witness if they wanted to challenge that allegation.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: All right. Thank you.

3 [Trial Chamber confers]

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic, it's being suggested that you might not

5 be pressing this application.

6 MR. IVETIC: We are pressing this application, Your Honour. We

7 don't file any application that we feel not to be pressed.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, it's just impossible for us to assess the

9 implications of allowing this evidence to be led. There has been more

10 than ample time for these matters to be fully investigated by the

11 Prosecution before the start of this trial, and to raise this matter at

12 this stage is, in our view, quite inappropriate. It's unfair to the

13 Defence to allow this particular witness to speak on these matters in the

14 way described by Mr. Stamp, and we therefore will grant this application

15 and we will refuse to admit any evidence about sexual assault or rape that

16 the Prosecution seek to lead from this witness.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, there's another matter with regard to

18 this witness that I'd like to raise.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.

20 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, we've received the original 65 ter

21 summary - I don't know how long ago, long ago - along with the statement

22 of the witness, and the statement of the witness says nothing about VJ.

23 Then recently we received a new 65 ter summary of the witness containing a

24 paragraph that says: "The witness will testify to these additional

25 matters," where, for the first time, there is mention of VJ. This is

1 becoming highly regular with regard to these witnesses that have nothing

2 to say about the VJ until they arrive here in The Hague and all of a

3 sudden they remember things about the VJ. There are two things about

4 this.

5 First of all, as Your Honour has made clear, we're entitled to

6 rely on the 65 ter summaries that were filed early in this case in terms

7 of our preparation and investigation and whether or not we even care about

8 a particular witness.

9 In addition, on at least two occasions, Your Honour, you have

10 instructed the Prosecution, if they want to amend the 65 ter summary, they

11 need to apply for leave of court to do so. We now have this new summary

12 that, all of a sudden, makes this witness of interest to some of us that

13 was of no interest to some of us earlier, without any application to you

14 for the amendment. And so I think the amendment should not be permitted

15 because there has not been a timely application.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, which paragraph -- well, I only have the

17 witness notification for the trial week commencing the 30th of October.

18 Is it included there?

19 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, all I can tell you is I have two of

20 them in my book here. One was the one that I think came with the

21 notification for the 30th of October and one that was given to us by

22 e-mail fairly recently, where this additional paragraph was attached down

23 by the bottom of it.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I'll have a look at that in the break, but I

25 think you face the difficulty in relation to this, Mr. Ackerman, whenever

1 Serb forces are referred to, and that might be seen as enough warning that

2 something may emerge that implicates the VJ. However, I will have a look

3 at the documents in question and indicate the position before the witness

4 starts giving evidence. I want to deal with certain other matters just

5 now.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, I just want to say that I'm concerned about

7 what is the current status of your order, that if they want to amend the

8 65 ter, they need to apply to you for leave. Is that order no longer

9 valid?

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I don't have an application at the moment so

11 I'm not in a position to make a decision. Let me consider what you've

12 said and obtain the necessary documentation. I want to deal with other

13 matters, because we don't have time to deal with everything at length and

14 there are urgent matters to be dealt with.

15 There's raised with the Trial Chamber the question of the witness

16 Zyrapi and the additional information provided about him and the

17 difficulty that, it's said, will face cross-examiners.

18 Now, who wishes to deal with this for the Prosecution?

19 MR. HANNIS: I will. Mr. Marcussen will be leading this witness,

20 but I can deal with it, Your Honour.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, what do you have to say on this matter?

22 MR. HANNIS: Well, Your Honour, we propose that there's certainly

23 adequate information to start cross-examination, and perhaps we'll reach a

24 point where it would be necessary for the Defence to recess to address the

25 additional information they say they need to cross-examine on.

1 JUDGE BONOMY: Let's assume, though, that you have other evidence

2 that exhausts this week, what would you do with this witness? Would you

3 still retain him to start at the beginning of next week?

4 MR. HANNIS: We would like to do that, rather than send him away

5 and have him come back at a later date, because we are having scheduling

6 difficulties.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that raises the question of when we hear the

8 cross-examination of the witness who has returned for cross-examination.

9 MR. HANNIS: Yes, Mr. Zogaj, Your Honour, he testified on the 21st

10 and 22nd of September. You'll recall he produced a book, I think it was

11 called "Blood Traces" that the Defence hadn't seen and wanted an

12 opportunity to examine and cross-examine him about. We tentatively

13 scheduled him to return on the 25th of October. I had informal

14 discussions with Defence counsel the week before about him coming that

15 week of the 25th, 26th, and 27th, our short week. They indicated they

16 weren't ready, so we put him off to this week. He arrived on Monday and

17 he's been here this week. I really would like to try and get him on and

18 completed so he doesn't have to stay another week or come back a third

19 time.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Are you wanting to take him next?

21 MR. HANNIS: Well, Your Honour, we proposed to do him after

22 Mr. Mazrekaj, because we thought Mazrekaj would be fairly short and we

23 would have time enough to complete Zogaj, and then whatever time we had

24 left, we might start direct examination of Mr. Zyrapi.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, does the cross-examination of Mr. Zogaj

1 present a problem for the Defence this week? No.

2 So that problem is resolved, Mr. Hannis.

3 Just a couple of other matters. On the 13th of October, there

4 arose an issue between, I think, Ms. Moeller, representing the

5 Prosecution, and Mr. Ivetic over a number of exhibits, and the parties

6 were instructed and undertook to discuss the position and report back to

7 the Trial Chamber by the following Thursday, which would have been the

8 19th of October. Nothing's happened on that. There has been an e-mail

9 sent to alert the parties of the failure to do anything about it and still

10 nothing's happened. Now, what is the position?

11 Ms. Moeller.

12 MS. MOELLER: Your Honours, I can report that I had some

13 conversations with Mr. Ivetic, my learned colleague, just, I think, the

14 day before yesterday. The week before, I think he was out of the country

15 and he signaled that he just hadn't had time to look at the exhumation

16 reports and deaths at the time. But he promised to do that this week and

17 I'm confident that we will be able to let you know maybe early next week,

18 or maybe Mr. Ivetic can speak for himself as to the status.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic.

20 MR. IVETIC: Your Honour, actually, this morning I had completed

21 looking through the autopsy reports. The situation is as I had expected

22 when the exhibits were tendered: The exhibits tendered are not the

23 complete set of exhibits. The exhibits tendered in particular are

24 photographs that were not led with any witness and do not have any idea --

25 and we do not have any idea of what the photographs show. Their reference

1 was made to remains that were discovered --

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Just tell me the time-scale, Mr. Ivetic.

3 MR. IVETIC: Your Honours, I can let you know tomorrow what the

4 list of documents that should be tendered if the whole set is tendered.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: That's helpful.

6 Just, finally, on matters at this stage, also in your case, but

7 possibly being dealt with by Mr. Lukic, a number of exhibits were tendered

8 in untranslated form during the cross-examination of Peraj and there was

9 an order made that a written filing should be submitted once all the

10 translated copies were available. Now, what is the position on that?

11 [Defence counsel confer]

12 MR. IVETIC: We have to check on that, Your Honour. As of the

13 other day, I thought we were still waiting on at least one document --

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, again, an e-mail was sent and there's been no

15 response. Now, we expect, at least as a matter of courtesy, if nothing

16 else, that you will respond to these e-mails and tell us the position.

17 It's inappropriate that we should have to take up time here in court to

18 deal with matters which should be capable of being dealt with out of the

19 courtroom.

20 MR. IVETIC: I apologise, Your Honour. We will try to follow that

21 in the future.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: I would like an answer to this tomorrow as well.

23 It doesn't necessarily need to be done in the courtroom; it can be done

24 directly to Mr. Dawson, who's been communicating with you.

25 MR. IVETIC: Thank you.

1 JUDGE BONOMY: Now --

2 MS. MOELLER: Your Honours, sorry, just before we move on, because

3 Mr. Popaj completed the evidence for the murder site of Bela Crkva and

4 there are two exhibits, and it fits in with --

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, we'll deal with it when we come back, because

6 I think we've already overrun long enough before the interpreters need a

7 break. So I will deal with this afterwards.

8 MS. MOELLER: Okay. I'm sorry.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: We'll resume at quarter past 1.00 and we will sit

10 until about five past 2.00. When we resume, we will be without Judge

11 Nosworthy, who's committed to the other trial, and we wish to make use of

12 such additional time as we can to compensate for what was lost this

13 morning. So we will resume at 1.15.

14 --- Recess taken at 12.53 p.m.

15 --- On resuming at 1.16 p.m.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Moeller, you were going to raise something

17 about the last witness.

18 MS. MOELLER: Yes, Your Honours. With your leave, I would like to

19 tender Exhibits P93 and P97, which are the crime scene photograph report

20 and the exhumation reports from the Metropolitan Police relating to Bela

21 Crkva. Both exhibits have been addressed with Mr. Popaj and earlier also

22 with Mr. Zhuniqi, who testified about Bela Crkva. We have now concluded

23 our evidence on this particular site.

24 The exhibit P97 was discussed in terms of admission also when Mr.

25 Zhuniqi testified on the 27th of September, 2006, and it is transcript

1 page 4137, lines 6 to 17, and at this stage I ask -- I didn't tender

2 Exhibit P97, but you said that, as far as it was related to by Mr.

3 Zhuniqi, that you would want to make use of it in the transcript. I

4 checked it in e-court; it's not yet admitted. But I just wanted to direct

5 you to this passage in the transcript where the admission was discussed.

6 At this point I seek to tender both exhibits in full.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

8 Is there any opposition to that, Mr. Visnjic?

9 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, as to the photographs,

10 we have no objection whatsoever; but as for the report regarding Bela

11 Crkva, I think it contains exhumation reports which, as I understood it,

12 the Prosecution intended to introduce through the expert. Since the issue

13 of the expert is still outstanding, my position now is that I object to

14 the introduction of these reports through witnesses, either Popaj or

15 Zhuniqi, because neither of them have much to do with the expert report

16 itself.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: I read this as an application similar to one that's

18 been made before in relation to forensic science material and see the

19 Prosecution as tendering these on their own, in the light of all the other

20 evidence that has been submitted. These ones are being submitted in the

21 context in which it is possible to make sense of them. You have an

22 indication from the Prosecution that they'll be calling the forensic

23 expert Baccard, I think, and I know that you want to cross-examine him on

24 certain aspects of some of the material. In the end of the day, it's

25 going to be a matter of weight, because these ones do fit into the other

1 evidence in a way that we can understand. So the Chamber's attitude to

2 these is to admit them as documents in their entirety.

3 However, this is a suitable opportunity also to deal with an

4 earlier situation. On the 18th of October, at the end of the evidence of

5 the witness Kadriu, the Chamber was invited to admit a number of documents

6 as free-standing documents, as it were, from the bar table. The situation

7 with them is different. This is where the matter you just mentioned

8 originally arose, Mr. Visnjic, the question of cross-examination of an

9 expert. We tend to regard that as a separate issue, albeit an important

10 one. And even if the Prosecution, for some reason, didn't call the

11 expert, you could, of course, call him yourself. And, indeed, it may

12 weaken the Prosecution position in their case in-chief if they haven't

13 called him, I suppose.

14 But this particular set, which was P331 to 334, P206, 210, and

15 P2235, are rather different from the ones we've just been looking at.

16 It's not possible to make proper sense of them in the context of the

17 evidence so far and therefore we do not think that they ought to be

18 admitted as free-standing documents, with one exception. P2235 has

19 already been admitted. It's actually the 92 bis package of Fuad

20 Haxhibeqiri, and it would appear that that -- and it's page 4 of that

21 where there's an issue over identification of policemen, which appears

22 already to have been admitted. But in relation to the others, that's P331

23 to 334 and P206 and P210, we refuse to admit these at this stage. It may

24 be appropriate to renew the application when other evidence would allow

25 the Chamber to make sense of these exhibits, but that remains to be seen.

1 Now, that takes us to the question raised by Mr. Ackerman. I have

2 now seen the supplemental information sheet for the first time. Now, who

3 is dealing with this witness of the Prosecution? Mr. Stamp.

4 MR. STAMP: Yes, Your Honour.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Stamp, the reference that seems to be causing

6 concern is, I think, the second paragraph of this, about the presence of

7 VJ vehicles and soldiers of the VJ in Beleg.

8 MR. STAMP: Yes, Your Honour.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, what date does that relate to?

10 MR. STAMP: This relates to the dates the 27th to the 29th of

11 March, 1999.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: And can you clarify for me the date on which it is

13 said that the witness crossed the border?

14 MR. STAMP: The witness crossed the border much later than that.

15 I think the witness crossed the border in April - I'm not sure of the

16 date - 1999.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: So can you tell me on which page of the statement

18 this part would fit in?

19 MR. STAMP: He describes the circumstances that obtained while he

20 and other villagers were refugees in a village by the name of Beleg, and

21 he refers to an APC and military vehicles --

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Where is the current reference to that in the

23 existing -- in the statement?

24 MR. STAMP: That is --

25 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm trying to fit --

1 MR. STAMP: It is --

2 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm trying to fit it into his evidence to see the

3 implications it would have.

4 MR. STAMP: Yes, Your Honour. The references to his time in Beleg

5 is really from page 4 of his statement, onwards, to about page 7. But on

6 page 7, in particular, he refers to an APC in a situation that is not

7 entirely clear whether he is reference to one APC or more than one. He

8 says he recognised one of the policemen who was inside the APCs, but it's

9 "APC" with a "comma S." So the question is really whose APC, and how

10 many APCs there were, APC being an armoured vehicle. And the answer to

11 the question is that they were APCs -- armoured vehicles belonging to the

12 VJ.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, the reference to the 18 soldiers being killed

14 is in the statement at the moment.

15 MR. STAMP: Yes, Your Honour --

16 JUDGE BONOMY: There is, though, the separate matter of how this

17 sort of situation should be handled. If you consider it necessary to

18 amend the 65 ter summary, then that's got to be done formally. But it

19 would appear, in this instance, you haven't considered that necessary.

20 MR. STAMP: Yes, Your Honour, but I was of the view that it was

21 really a matter of notice to the Defence. If the witness notification

22 indicates that the Prosecution would move to lead evidence in respect to

23 additional matters, then the application -- and I think Your Honour did

24 suggest that the application could be made orally when the witness comes

25 to testify, the important thing being that notice is given to the Defence

1 that the Prosecution intends to seek to lead that evidence.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, but do you consider this to alter your 65 ter

3 summary?

4 MR. STAMP: Your Honour, there are references to soldiers and

5 there are references to vehicles, in which the natural question would

6 arises whose vehicle, if it is an armoured vehicle, it is. And therefore,

7 in my estimation, it is not something so entirely new as, for example --

8 well, without giving examples, it is not something so entirely new as to

9 necessitate a change; however, the -- or an application to amend the 65

10 ter summary. However, the -- and I know an abundance of caution is not

11 necessarily a good reason. But I would say, since the matter is not

12 entirely beyond debate, the Prosecution, out of caution, would seek to

13 amend or would move to amend, just to be able to lead this evidence.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

15 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, may I respond briefly?

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, you were referred to various pages of

18 this document. The statement of the witness never mentions VJ, except for

19 that one. You might be able to take it out of the 18 Serb soldiers who

20 were killed causing the roads to be blocked, but that has nothing to do

21 with what's been added to the Rule 65 ter --

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, it's in the same context, isn't it?

23 MR. ACKERMAN: No, it's not. What we're talking about is -- we're

24 told, in the new 65 ter, that when they went to Beleg, there were Serb

25 police and VJ personnel and paramilitaries there. When you look at his

1 statement, what it says, they went there on -- about 4.00 p.m., I think,

2 on Saturday; on Sunday, the 28th, then he says some police arrived to

3 check the village. And you've been referred to page 7, that that little

4 statement where he mentions an APC should alert us that that has to do

5 with the VJ, when we know that the police have APCs, and, in fact, the

6 statement is "recognised one of the policemen who was inside the APC." So

7 it's clearly a police APC that's involved. There's nothing there.

8 If you go to the next page, again, it talks about policemen and

9 paramilitary. Never does it say anything about Serb soldiers except that

10 one spot. And then, all of a sudden, at the last minute, we're hit with

11 this thing about VJ personnel being in the village. That's the first time

12 it's ever showed up by implication or otherwise.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

14 [Trial Chamber confers]

15 JUDGE BONOMY: One of the things that guides us -- has guided us

16 in the past also is whether it's realistic to exclude parts of witnesses'

17 evidence. We've made a decision a short time ago to do so because it's

18 clearly separable evidence and it's something that you can do without,

19 putting unrealistic barriers in the way of the witness.

20 This is rather different. We're very sympathetic to

21 Mr. Ackerman's submission that this is the result of inadequate

22 preparation of the Defence case and inadequate efforts by the --

23 inadequate preparation of the Prosecution case and inadequate efforts to

24 give full details of that case to the Defence during the pre-trial phase.

25 But we're also conscious that this is the sort of material that would

1 probably have emerged in the examination of the witness without notice

2 being given to the Defence that it was going to happen.

3 So I know that it's little consolation to have our sympathy,

4 Mr. Ackerman, but this is one where we will grant the application to

5 extend the 65 ter summary and allow this evidence. But when we've done

6 that in the past, we've made it clear that if it does cause any prejudice,

7 then we will be sympathetic to an application for delayed

8 cross-examination or for re-call, if necessary, of the witness.

9 Mr. Stamp, there's going to come a time when pressure will be

10 such - that's the pressure of the clock will be such - that we won't be

11 able to allow this sort of thing. We'll have to do something which we

12 find distasteful, which is take an otherwise unrealistic approach to a

13 witness's evidence and exclude things in fairness because time will not

14 allow us the luxury of re-call or delay of cross-examination. So we urge

15 you again to think about how you are carrying out these proofing exercises

16 and how much time or notice you're giving the Defence as a result of doing

17 so at the very last minute.

18 MR. STAMP: Yes, Your Honour, we have taken serious steps to try

19 to have the proofing done as early as possible, including utilising what

20 is suggested by Your Honour, the facilities of teleconferencing.

21 Sometimes it just proves impossible to do so with some witnesses,

22 especially when we bring forward witnesses who we had intended to call

23 much later. But we do -- I do accept the sentiments expressed by the

24 Court and we will amend our list.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, please bring in Mr. Mazrekaj.

1 [The witness entered court]

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Good afternoon, Mr. Mazrekaj.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good afternoon.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Would you please make the solemn declaration to

5 speak the truth by reading aloud the document which will now be placed

6 before you.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

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

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Please be seated.

10 As I hope you're aware, we already have your statement before us,

11 so we have been able to read the evidence you have provided to the Office

12 of the Prosecutor. The purpose of bringing you here was to enable counsel

13 for the parties to ask you additional questions that they feel are

14 important to assist us to reach the right conclusion in this case. It's

15 important, therefore, to concentrate on the particular issues that the

16 parties raise with you and to try to confine your answers to the

17 particular points you are asked about. The first person or the first

18 counsel to ask questions of you will be for the Prosecution, Mr. Stamp.

19 Mr. Stamp.

20 MR. STAMP: Thank you very much, Your Honour.

21 WITNESS: MEHMET MAZREKAJ

22 [Witness answered through interpreter]

23 Examination by Mr. Stamp:

24 Q. Mr. Mazrekaj, good afternoon.

25 A. Good afternoon.

1 Q. Can you state your name, please, for the record.

2 A. My name is Mehmet Mazrekaj, from the village of Drenoc,

3 municipality from Decan.

4 Q. Thank you. And, Mr. Mazrekaj, I understand that on the 4th of

5 February, 2000, you gave a statement to a member of the ICTY Prosecution

6 team in respect to events that occurred in your village of Drenoc in 1998

7 and 1999; is that correct?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. And are the contents of that statement true; in other words, would

10 your answers remain the same if you were asked about the same matters

11 again or today?

12 A. Yes, yes.

13 Q. Further, on the 18th of September, 2004, you attended before an

14 attesting officer of this Tribunal in Irzniq, in Kosovo, where you

15 attested to the correctness of this statement; is that correct?

16 A. Yes, it is entirely correct.

17 MR. STAMP: The statement, Your Honour, is P --

18 JUDGE BONOMY: 2374.

19 MR. STAMP: -- 2374.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

21 MR. STAMP:

22 Q. In your statement you refer to events which you call the first

23 offensive.

24 MR. STAMP: Your Honour, I'm referring to the fourth full

25 paragraph of page 3 of the English copy, and that is also the fourth full

1 paragraph in the Serb version.

2 MR. ACKERMAN: And, Your Honour, I would object to testimony about

3 the first offensive because it all has to do with 1998.

4 MR. STAMP: I see --

5 MR. ACKERMAN: And I can't see any relevance to it. Maybe

6 Mr. Stamp can advise you of the relevance that would make it relevant to

7 the indictment, but I don't see the relevance and, therefore, I object on

8 that basis.

9 MR. STAMP: Your Honour, I was just going to ask one question

10 because the statement doesn't tell precisely when. It refers to 1998 and

11 the question was when, precisely, did these events occur.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, ask that question.

13 MR. STAMP:

14 Q. The events which you describe as the first offensive in your

15 statement, when did they occur?

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, Mr. Fila.

17 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] No, no -- [Microphone not activated].

18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Your microphone.

20 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I expect Mr. Stamp to tell us whether

21 this is a 92 bis witness or an 89 witness or whether he's a viva voce

22 witness - I haven't heard all this - and what issues in the indictment

23 he's testifying to. It was my fault, I'm sorry.

24 MR. STAMP: Very well. Actually, it's on the witness

25 notification --

1 JUDGE BONOMY: It is, but you better tell us.

2 MR. STAMP: Very well. The witness is 92 ter.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.

4 MR. STAMP: Formerly, it had been applied under 92 bis (B). And

5 he refers to events in Decani, and that is particularly paragraph 72(l) of

6 the indictment.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.

8 MR. STAMP: When I say "Decani," I mean the municipality of

9 Decani.

10 May I proceed, Your Honour?

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.

12 MR. STAMP:

13 Q. Yes. The events which you describe as having occurred during the

14 first offensive, when did these events occur?

15 A. On May the 29th, 1998.

16 Q. And you said that as a result of these events you left Albania and

17 thereafter decided to return to Kosovo -- sorry, you said as a result of

18 these events, you left Kosovo --

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. -- sorry, you went to Decani, in Kosovo, from your village, where

21 you spent some months there and then returned to your home in Drenoc

22 eventually. When did you return to your home in Drenoc?

23 A. We returned to Drenoc three months after first leaving it.

24 Q. Very well.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Now could you deal with the objection that's been

1 made, Mr. Stamp?

2 Just a second --

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Excuse me.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: -- Mr. Mazrekaj, until I hear from counsel.

5 MR. STAMP: I'm sorry, I'm not sure which objection.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: The objection is that the evidence about 1998 is

7 irrelevant to the indictment, and Mr. Ackerman is asking which part of the

8 indictment you suggest it's relevant to.

9 MR. STAMP: Your Honour, I'm just establishing where the witness

10 was, that he returned to his home at some point and he was living there at

11 a particular point in time. I intend to move on now from that part of the

12 evidence.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, but the evidence is there in the written

14 statement and the objection is being taken to that part of the written

15 statement, so the point that's being made is: Is it relevant to the

16 indictment?

17 Mr. Ackerman, is there something else you want to say?

18 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, Your Honour, it looks to me like Mr. Stamp

19 agrees with me, and in that event, I think if we look at page 2, "When the

20 war started ..." and basically go from page 4 down to right after, "Later

21 nothing had happened because the OSCE was here ..." that that would take

22 out the 68 material. And I'd simply ask that the Trial Chamber exclude

23 that material from your consideration of the testimony of this witness. I

24 don't think we need to go through a formal redaction or anything, unless

25 you believe so, Your Honour.

1 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Stamp, what do you say about that?

2 MR. STAMP: Thank you, Your Honour.

3 I, at no point, conceded or suggested that it was not relevant;

4 it's just that I did not intend to go over it or spend time in court to

5 deal with it, except to establish a date. But this is a matter which is

6 part of the -- referred to in the background sections of the indictment,

7 particularly, at paragraph 95 of the indictment, which refers to various

8 operations in 1998, particularly where it says that, "By the end of

9 September, forces of the FRY and Serbia shelled and burned down about half

10 of the villages in Decani municipality." This is what the witness speaks

11 about in that section of his statement.

12 So it is relevant to the indictment, Your Honour, but I did not

13 really want to use time to deal with it.

14 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, in none of the 65 ter notices does

15 paragraph 95 appear as a relevant indictment paragraph.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: What I'm finding difficulty understanding is the

17 part at the foot of page 2, "When the war started ..." Now, that seems to

18 refer to the beginning -- well, the month of March 1999.

19 MR. STAMP: Yes, Your Honour, I would -- it does; that is my

20 understanding.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, but --

22 MR. STAMP: So --

23 JUDGE BONOMY: -- but you then have the paragraph that you

24 directed attention to, which tells us that the first offensive was in May

25 1998. So I find this whole section incomprehensible at the moment.

1 MR. STAMP: That is the problem with the statement. The statement

2 begins by referring to something which occurred, "the movement of the

3 Serbs in the war started," and then it proceeds, in the last line of page

4 2, to speak about Serb forces surrounding the village and details of what

5 happened, and concludes by saying that was the first offensive.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: You know --

7 MR. STAMP: That is why I just wanted to clarify with the witness

8 what period he is speaking about, with the statement as is.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Stamp, to leave these statements in this state

10 from the year 2000, six and a half years ago, and present them now in this

11 state, to this Tribunal, runs a very serious risk of a grave injustice

12 being done. It's not fair to the witness to present them in this

13 disorganised state; it is unlikely to give the best presentation of his

14 evidence, and, in accumulation of these statements of a similar nature, it

15 is likely the Prosecution case is not going to be presented in the best

16 light.

17 If that is the case, if that's what happens here, it is going to

18 be a tragedy for which the Prosecution will bear a very grave

19 responsibility. This sort of evidence should be capable of presentation

20 in a simple form, if adequate steps had been taken to put it in order,

21 before these witnesses were presented to us.

22 Carry on with this evidence. We will make a decision about the

23 objection at the end of the evidence, once we see how it can possibly --

24 we can possibly fit pages 2 to 4 into the overall evidence of the witness.

25 MR. ACKERMAN: May I just, very briefly, Your Honour, call your

1 attention to the last paragraph of the part that I highlighted for you.

2 You'll see that he begins there with, "When the war started ..." and that

3 section I outline ends with, "Later nothing had happened because the OSCE

4 was here..." In other words, he's describing matters that happened before

5 the arrival of OSCE, and then when OSCE arrives, nothing happens after

6 that. And then the next event, we finally go to March of 1999. So that's

7 clearly 1998 material all the way through there.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that's your interpretation which you may

9 present to us in due course, if the passage remains there. If Mr. Stamp

10 wishes to clarify it, that's for him. Or he may tell us he agrees with

11 that. I don't know if he actually knows.

12 MR. STAMP: I think the witness has just indicated that the events

13 which he just described in that part of his statement occurred in March

14 1998 --

15 JUDGE BONOMY: So what war are we talking about?

16 MR. STAMP: He refers to the war on page 2 of his statement, and

17 then -- that is the war in 1999, and then he --

18 JUDGE BONOMY: How do you conclude that that's the war in

19 1999? "Up until then, there were no conflicts between the Serbs and

20 Albanian population in the village," how could that possibly be referring

21 to 1999?

22 MR. STAMP: I beg your pardon, Your Honour.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, if you're about to tell us about the conflict

24 between Serbs and Albanians in 1998, how could a passage that says, "When

25 the war started ..." and then goes on, "Until then, there were no

1 conflicts between Serb and Albanian population in the village," how could

2 that be right?

3 MR. STAMP: The statement, Your Honour, I agree, deals with these

4 issues not in a proper sequential order, which is why all I want from the

5 witness is just to get the dates of when certain things occurred, because

6 it deals with one matter which seems to be 1999, and then it goes back to

7 1998 and then it comes back to 1999, which is really why I just want to

8 ask him when certain things occurred, because it might not be clear from

9 the statement.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, please carry on.

11 MR. STAMP:

12 Q. You said in your statement, sir, that when the war started, all

13 the Serbs left the village and went to the town of Decan. Which period

14 are you speaking about when the Serbs left the village and went to Decan?

15 A. I'm referring to the Serbs who were my neighbours, six families of

16 them. When the offensive started, they left their houses in our village

17 and went and occupied flats in Decan.

18 Q. And is this the period of 1998 when you speak of the first

19 offensive occurring, May 1998, as you said?

20 A. 1998, yes.

21 Q. I see from your statement that you're a teacher. As a teacher in

22 the village of Decani --

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. -- did you -- in the village of Drenoc --

25 A. Yes, yes.

1 Q. -- did the villagers select you to take any role or responsibility

2 in respect to the affairs of the village in 1999?

3 A. Yes, I was the eldest and so I looked after all the inhabitants of

4 that village, which included the elderly, women, children, and so on, and

5 so I looked after their affairs, to the best of my ability.

6 Q. Did they elect you to any position?

7 A. The leaders of all the neighbourhoods elected me and I vowed to

8 work on their behalf.

9 Q. Elected you to what position?

10 A. Some sort of supervisor. Nothing else.

11 Q. Very well. In your statement - this is page 4 of the English

12 statement, the second paragraph from the bottom; also page 4 of the Serb

13 version of the statement; and it's the sixth paragraph - you say that on

14 the 27th of March, 1999, at around 8.30 p.m., "I went out and saw

15 villagers who were gathered in a centre of it."

16 Was it in the evening or in the morning that you went out and saw

17 these villagers gathered there?

18 A. It was in the morning.

19 Q. Now, these were the villagers of Drenoc and you said there were

20 four other -- there were four families from the village of Sllup. Do you

21 know why these villagers gathered there that morning? Did they tell you

22 why they were there?

23 A. It is true that there were four families from the village of Sllup

24 as well, and they gathered there because they told us that was police who

25 came from the village and told them to leave the village automatically,

1 all at once.

2 Q. Very well. And the villagers from your own village, Drenoc, were

3 gathered there. Did they say why they were gathered there, in the centre

4 of the village?

5 A. They converged in the centre because police had forced them to

6 evacuate on account or the pretext that they had to, because NATO was

7 about to bomb them.

8 Q. About how many villagers were gathered there that morning, when

9 you went outside there?

10 A. At this stage there were 520 villagers from my village and 37 that

11 came from the village of Sllup.

12 Q. Did you speak, as a village supervisor, with any of the policemen

13 who were telling people to leave their homes or who were forcing people

14 from their homes, or did any of them speak to you?

15 A. Yes, I did speak to them.

16 Q. What did they tell you?

17 A. "Mr. Teacher," they said, "you should leave the village and go

18 beyond the asphalted road and make your way towards the other villages."

19 Q. What did you understand them to mean when they said "beyond the

20 asphalted road"?

21 A. What they meant was for us to evacuate the village, and I cannot

22 say here what their ultimate intention might have been.

23 Q. Now, did you know these policemen before? Could you say where

24 these policemen were from?

25 A. Yes. One came from Peje. I don't know his name. The other -- of

1 the other two, one was called Ahmet.

2 Q. And where were they from, the other two?

3 A. One of the other two came from Decan, from the police station at

4 Decan.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Can I ask for clarification of one thing. On page

6 4, that very first paragraph dealing with the 27th of March, Mr. Stamp,

7 there's a sentence at the end, "Local Albanian policemen told us not to

8 leave the village because nothing would happen to us."

9 MR. STAMP: Yes, Your Honour.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: That's still part of the evidence, is it?

11 MR. STAMP: Yes, Your Honour, I --

12 Q. So you --

13 JUDGE BONOMY: You what?

14 MR. STAMP: I intend to get to that, Your Honour.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: I see. Thank you.

16 MR. STAMP:

17 Q. So you say the people gathered because they had been instructed to

18 leave by police officers from Pec and Decan, and you said in your

19 statement, as just indicated by His Honour, that "local ... policemen told

20 us not to leave the village because nothing would happen to us." Can you

21 explain this, please.

22 A. Yes. The police who came from that neighbourhood had been chosen

23 by the Decan police; the other two were local policemen, both of them

24 Albanians. And they asked us not to leave the village; however, we

25 disobeyed their advice and left.

1 Q. So I take it from your answer that the police who came from Decani

2 told the villagers to leave, but the local Albanian police in the area

3 asked you not to leave.

4 A. Yes, because they thought they held -- they held a higher

5 position. In fact, what they were was simply my co-villagers.

6 Q. You said in your statement - and I'm looking at the English

7 version, at the bottom of page 4, going on to page 5 - that you set out to

8 Carrabreg in order to ask the police at the check-point at Carrabreg if

9 the villagers could pass through that check-point. I take it from that

10 that you and the villagers had decided to leave the village. Why did you

11 decide to leave the village?

12 A. We decided to leave the village because they forced us to. At

13 that point I went to Carrabreg, where Serbian police had a check-point at

14 the crossroads at Carrabreg. And, on behalf of the village, I went there

15 to request that we be left to move beyond the check-point towards the

16 village of Irzniq.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, Mr. Stamp, we will have to interrupt there,

18 I'm afraid. It's unfortunate, but there are technical reasons why we

19 can't continue this afternoon, albeit the court's available.

20 Well, Mr. Mazrekaj, I'm afraid we have to finish there for the day

21 because we don't have the facility to carry on in this courtroom today.

22 We will have to resume your evidence tomorrow. For that purpose, you will

23 have to be back here at 9.00 to re-commence giving evidence. Overnight,

24 please do not speak to anyone, anyone at all, about anything to do with

25 your evidence, either the evidence you've given or the evidence you will

1 give. You can talk about anything else, but the evidence is absolutely

2 off limits to your discussions.. So could you please leave the courtroom

3 now with the usher and we'll see you back here tomorrow again at 9.00.

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

5 [The witness stands down]

6 JUDGE BONOMY: We will resume at 9.00 tomorrow.

7 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.06 p.m.,

8 to be reconvened on Friday, the 3rd day of

9 November, 2006, at 9.00 a.m.

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