1 Wednesday, 7 March 2007

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The accused Milutinovic not present]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.

6 [The witness entered court]

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Good morning, Mr. Maisonneuve.

8 THE WITNESS: Good morning, Your Honour.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic, sometime in the course of this session,

10 and hopefully before you finish your cross-examination, we'll give you a

11 decision on the objections that were taken yesterday to this evidence.

12 There are certain passages, specific passages, involved and I want to be

13 precise in what I'm telling you. So somebody's working on typing up my

14 manuscript and I will give you that hopefully before you finish your

15 cross-examination. But meanwhile, please just continue with the questions

16 from yesterday.

17 MR. CEPIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

18 WITNESS: JOSEPH OMER MICHEL MAISONNEUVE [Resumed]

19 Cross-examination by Mr. Cepic: [Continued]

20 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Crosland -- [In English] I do

21 apologise because Colonel Crosland was in my mind about some issues.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: The day can only get better, Mr. Cepic.

23 MR. CEPIC:

24 Q. Good morning, General Maisonneuve.

25 A. [Interpretation] Good morning.

1 Q. [Interpretation] I will pick up from where I left it yesterday,

2 MM/14, which deals with the meeting taking place on the 23rd of January,

3 1999, where in addition to Drini, Mr. Smith, Lefever, and another person

4 were present. In item 2 of the annexed document there is the detailed

5 description of an ambush at Bela Crkva where KLA members were involved.

6 The vehicle containing KLA members seemed to have been caught by accident.

7 I would like you to tell me if you were aware of the fact that Bela Crkva

8 was one of the strongholds of the KLA.

9 A. [In English] I knew that there was a presence -- a KLA presence in

10 Bela Crkva.

11 Q. Thank you. You also know, I suppose, a member of your mission,

12 Mr. Frank Letvic?

13 A. Mm-hmm, yes.

14 Q. He was there on the spot and he learnt all this. I suppose he

15 reported to you on what had happened on that occasion?

16 A. I don't know if it's possible to get the read-out here, but I

17 don't recall exactly the Bela Crkva incident that you're speaking about.

18 And if I could have a look at the actual notes, that would help me refresh

19 my memory.

20 Q. In the documents received from Prosecution, we don't have a report

21 by Mr. Letvic. We only know what I told you, a general report from the

22 meeting. I would merely want you to confirm the identity of your verifier

23 and that is enough for me at this time. Thank you. My learned friend

24 Sepenuk, whom we address as General, referred to this same document and

25 mentioned a threat to urban terrorism.

1 I would like to know whether you knew whether these threats in

2 fact materialised where explosive devices were set at Podujevo, Urosevac,

3 it Mitrovica, and such-like places. On these occasions there were several

4 wounded and as many as nine persons were killed. I will just remind you

5 of Mitrovica on the 13th of March, 1999, a bomb at the market there,

6 several wounded and dead. You received that sort of information, didn't

7 you?

8 A. I remember specifically the Mitrovica incident to which you refer,

9 yes.

10 Q. Thank you, General, sir. From the same set of documents, MM/14,

11 there's minutes from a visit to a house in Drina on the 28th of January.

12 There were you, Drini, and Mike Morwood --

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

14 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. -- in the same minutes discussion was carried out about the

16 possible setting up of an office in the village of Planeja next to the

17 border. On this occasion Drini said, and this is the last paragraph: "I'm

18 not sure if I'm aware of what the final deadline for leaving or vacating

19 the village is." Can you explain to us what this is all about. Who

20 issued a deadline for the village to be vacated?

21 A. Well on several occasions the KLA in particular, but also the

22 authority forces in -- in Kosovo, tried to set deadlines that they wanted

23 us to adhere to. And we made the point repeatedly to them that we did not

24 do deadlines, i.e., that the OSCE was not working on any deadlines from

25 the parties in the theatre.

1 Q. Thank you.

2 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Mr. Marcussen is on his feet.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Marcussen.

4 MR. MARCUSSEN: I was just going to seek clarification of what

5 part of this document my learned friend was quoting from. Is it the first

6 --

7 JUDGE BONOMY: The last paragraph, he said.

8 MR. MARCUSSEN: Yes, but that doesn't talk about the deadline of

9 15 minutes. That's another bullet point. One, two, three, four, five,

10 six. It's the sixth bullet point and I don't think that talks about

11 vacating a village, so I was just confused about what it actually is. I

12 think it's a deadline for the KVM to evacuate a certain point before what

13 might be an attack. But it might be that I'm misunderstanding. That's

14 what I'm seeking the --

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Where is the reference, Mr. Cepic?

16 MR. CEPIC: If you give me just a minute, please.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: If you go, Mr. Marcussen --

18 MR. CEPIC: Just --

19 JUDGE BONOMY: -- to the -- if you go to the last page of that

20 which is headed "Record of Discussions," and D final paragraph: "Unknown

21 but Aware of Deadlines to Leave Village." This is on sheet 5717.

22 MR. MARCUSSEN: Sorry. I thought we were at the last of those

23 attachments to the document. Sorry. That's my mistake.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: This is MM/14.

25 MR. MARCUSSEN: But there are a number of -- there are three or

1 four documents in that and we were -- just before we were at the last one

2 of the documents that's attached under that tab. But --

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, this is the last one I have under MM/14, so

4 you're maybe in a different order from me. The next one is 14A in my

5 bundle.

6 MR. MARCUSSEN: I may be even more confused, then.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: All right. Thank you.

8 Mr. Cepic, please continue.

9 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

10 Q. I suppose you're aware, General, that many Albanian villages in

11 the border area were given an order by the KLA to move out, specifically

12 on the eve of Strela Operation which was supposed to be launched from

13 Albania in the direction of Djakovica and Prizren?

14 A. I'm not aware of that.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Is there a date for that, Mr. Cepic?

16 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Some of the evidence relating to the

17 period concerning Strela Operation I used in my cross-examination of

18 Mr. Zyrapi. This is the beginning of April already, at the time when

19 General Maisonneuve was not in Kosovo, but there was mention of the

20 population moving out from Albanian itself, and I wanted to know whether

21 General knew anything about it, since he was present in Albania at the

22 time.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, you have the answer so please --

24 MR. CEPIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: -- move on to something he's likely to know about,

1 please.

2 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation].

3 Q. General, we heard a lot about disproportionate use of force

4 yesterday. In paragraph 18 of your statement you say that in principle,

5 the responses by the army and the police, when these are provoked or when

6 they are thought to be provoked, were disproportionate to the provocation

7 involved, and this is stated in paragraph 18 of your statement.

8 A. I see, yes.

9 Q. [In English] Thank you. [Interpretation] You will agree with me

10 that the activities by the KLA in Kosovo oftentimes had the character of

11 sabotage actions, ambushes. As you described yesterday the incident on

12 the 8th of January had the character of rebel actions, trench-type combat,

13 attacks against buildings and facilities. Isn't that so?

14 A. That's correct.

15 Q. Yesterday in the course of your evidence when answering the

16 questions by the Prosecutor, transcript page 51, line 11, stated that in

17 the fighting against rebel terrorist forces, special or lightly armed

18 units were engaged. If there were no such special units and in view of

19 the widespread activity of the rebel forces, am I right in saying that

20 conventional forces should be used instead, such as the Rules of

21 Engagement FM3 of the US item 9-37 which states: "Terrorist attacks

22 oftentimes have disproportionate effects, even against conventional

23 forces."

24 Rule 9-38: "The commander engaging conventional forces against

25 organised terrorist forces active within his area of responsibility shall

1 carry out conventional offensive attacks and not anti-terrorist

2 activities."

3 A. I'm not aware of the US rules of engagement to which you refer;

4 however, I guess as a rule, as a military person, I would certainly use

5 the means at my disposal to react to attacks if the terrorists can be

6 identified and if there's a possibility of retaliation. But also as a

7 military officer I would say that you tend -- I would certainly direct my

8 troops to reply in a proportionate fashion, no matter what the rules of

9 engagement say.

10 Q. Thank you. General, I'd like to hear your opinion in view of what

11 was said before. The situation is as follows. The adversary is well

12 entrenched, well-fortified. How can the enemy be neutralised if they are

13 fortified in an area such as Dulje Stibe [phoen] where they were

14 well-entrenched or if they are well-fortified in buildings and from there

15 opening fire upon your units. And the area in front of these facilities

16 is laid with mines; therefore, you can't have infantry forces advance into

17 the area, is in such situations the use of armoured units at half a

18 distance justified in order to neutralise the attack against one's own

19 forces?

20 A. Well, in the scenario you describe, there's no question that that

21 would be the proper employment of armoured forces, but that is not a type

22 of scenario that I ever saw in terms of a dug-in enemy. What I saw was

23 mostly hit-and-run tactics that were -- of course they would be hidden,

24 for example, in this particular ambush of the 8th of January, there's no

25 question --

1 Q. Thank you. Now that you've mentioned ambushes, let us clarify one

2 thing. As we said -- mentioned several times, the situation on the 18th

3 [as interpreted] of January, 1999, where you state that later on from a

4 combat position at Dulje a tank appeared, firing rounds at the village of

5 Slapuzane. This was in the case against Milosevic transcript --

6 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter didn't catch the page --

7 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. -- you said yesterday --

9 JUDGE BONOMY: We need the page. Mr. Cepic, you're going a bit

10 quickly for the interpreter.

11 MR. CEPIC: Transcript page 5784 --

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

13 MR. CEPIC: -- line 8.

14 Q. [Interpretation] You said that there was one tank. Yesterday on

15 page 61 of your evidence you stated that several tanks were active.

16 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] In the meantime could the court

17 officer pull up P733, please, on to the screens.

18 THE WITNESS: Could you confirm the date, please, Mr. Cepic.

19 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] 8th of January, 1999, three police

20 officers were killed. Later on you described the situation, and as I

21 said, in the Milosevic case you mentioned one tank, whereas yesterday's,

22 you mentioned that there were several tanks. This isn't the most

23 important issue now. The most important thing is the following one. I

24 went carefully through your reports for that day --

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Let's take them one at a time. Can we clarify this

1 because --

2 THE WITNESS: I'm afraid, Your Honour, I can't remember if there

3 was one tank or many tanks. All I remember is my people reporting that at

4 least one tank was firing into the city and into the town.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: How's your memory of these events today compared

6 with 2002 when you gave evidence?

7 THE WITNESS: It's not as good as it was then.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: All right. Thanks.

9 Mr. Cepic, please continue.

10 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.

11 Could the court deputy play P733, please. I don't have it on my

12 screen. [In English] Next page, please.

13 Q. [Interpretation] General, we have one of the Prosecution exhibits

14 in front of us and this is a report by your mission talking of this very

15 same incident. There, the KLA action is being condemned as well as the

16 kidnapping of soldiers at a different location. What I would like to

17 point out is that this document doesn't state anywhere that any sort of

18 force was employed by the Yugoslav Army; quite the contrary, it is stated

19 that the response was quite restrained. Do you allow for the possibility

20 that you received inaccurate information from the field, at least in part?

21 A. Certainly not in terms of the tank firing into the town, because

22 indeed I spoke to the individual -- the verifier who actually spoke to the

23 tank commander and told him to stop. And indeed he followed that

24 direction. The firing stopped. And I subsequently went into the village

25 myself to check on the damage and to speak to the people in the village.

1 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] In the meantime could Prosecution

2 Exhibit P638 be prepared.

3 MR. MARCUSSEN: I just wanted to ask if we had been notified about

4 those particular documents. I only remember seeing some videos yesterday

5 being given to us.

6 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] I really can't recall. At any rate,

7 this is a Prosecution document that has been used so far.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: We have an accord, don't we, for notifying the

9 Prosecution of the documents you're likely to use so that they can prepare

10 themselves in view of the mass of material. It sounds as though you

11 didn't do that here, Mr. Cepic, but it's something to bear in mind each

12 day. Thanks.

13 MR. CEPIC: I understood. Thank you, Your Honour.

14 Q. [Interpretation] I suppose that your verifier informed some of the

15 commanding officers in the army. Do you know that on the basis of this

16 piece of information about allegedly one tank round having been fired, the

17 3rd Army of the VJ conducted an investigation in order to ascertain

18 whether fire was indeed opened, that the military centre in Pristina was

19 informed accordingly as well as the communications administration of the

20 Yugoslav Army General Staff, and the result or the outcome of the

21 investigation was that none of the rounds were fired. And this was the

22 upshot of an extensive investigation. At any rate, you received this

23 information from the army?

24 A. I do not remember receiving that information, actually.

25 Q. Thank you.

1 JUDGE BONOMY: Have you got the communication, Mr. Cepic, to let

2 the general see it?

3 MR. CEPIC: Unfortunately, not now. I haven't got that document

4 in the system, but it will be prepared probably for Defence case.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

6 MR. CEPIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

7 Q. [Interpretation] Paragraph 18 of your statement is where you say

8 that in most of the cases it seemed that the police and the VJ acted

9 independently, each under their own command, although there was a high

10 degree of cooperation and coordination in some actions. Now I would like

11 to refer to one of the rules of the land army of the US, item 445, and the

12 rule states that: "Within the area of anti-terrorist operations, in the

13 absence of command authority, the commanders shall cooperate and achieve a

14 consensus in order to achieve a unified action."

15 Do you agree with me that cooperation and coordination between

16 police and military forces is essential when dealing with anti-terrorist

17 activities?

18 A. Absolutely. Yes, I do agree.

19 Q. Thank you, General. You received a lot of information in your

20 regional centre. I'd like to know whether you received the information

21 concerning the existence of military camps for the training of KLA members

22 in the territory of the state of Albania along the border belt opposite

23 Prizren, where KLA members underwent training under -- and held by foreign

24 trainers and they would be infiltrated into Kosovo along the -- across the

25 Pastrik mount. Did you have any information to that effect?

1 A. I didn't have specific information, but, of course, it was always

2 talked about that there were rumours and there were allegations that these

3 camps existed. I did not in fact -- when I went into Albania after, I

4 didn't get a chance to visit or confirm or deny these allegations.

5 Q. General, I suppose you're aware of the fact that in a number of

6 villages of the areas of Prizren, Suva Reka that were within the area of

7 your regional centre, at the end of 1998 great amounts of weapons were

8 being returned that the KLA had previously distributed to the villagers,

9 and more than a 50 villages were involved in this?

10 A. I don't recall specifically that that was the case.

11 Q. Is it correct that the verifiers of your mission oftentimes went

12 to the villages occupied by the Albanians and spoke to the villagers

13 concerning the stability, villages Orcusa, Zub-Damjane, Zub-Vrbnica, these

14 are the villages among others.

15 A. My verifiers tried to be very active and speak to both parties and

16 of all ethnic backgrounds in my area.

17 Q. Thank you. One of your verifiers was Mr. Trevor Wilson, was he

18 not, from Great Britain?

19 A. Possibly. The name -- that name doesn't ring a bell. David

20 Wilson does, but not Trevor.

21 Q. Then we will not go into that any further. Is it correct,

22 General, that you were at the head of one of the teams of your mission

23 which visited all three combat groups of the Army of Yugoslav from the

24 Pristina Corps which were at [indiscernible] and Lapusnik and had no

25 comments to make on the 24th of January, 1999?

1 A. Indeed I did visit those locations with the authorities, yes.

2 Q. Thank you.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: The real question was you had no comments to make.

4 What's the answer to that?

5 THE WITNESS: In fact, the combat teams were deployed in

6 accordance with the agreement. Those were agreed locations and we had

7 freedom of movement to go visit those with -- accompanied by VJ

8 commanders. In fact, Colonel Kotur was with me, I believe, at that time.

9 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Thank you. Yesterday there was mention about entering the border

11 belt. You know that entry into the border belt had to be announced in

12 advance through the liaison officer because of the possibility of ambushes

13 which happened frequently and for the sake of putting in place security

14 measures. Isn't that correct?

15 A. That was the approach that we took was to request through the

16 liaison officer an accompanying officer.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: That again wasn't the question. I think -- I think

18 you were critical of the arrangements for visiting at the border belt, and

19 Mr. Cepic's question is designed to say that there was justification for

20 that --

21 THE WITNESS: Well --

22 JUDGE BONOMY: -- because of the possibility of ambushes and for

23 the sake of putting in place security measures. Now, what's your comment

24 on that?

25 THE WITNESS: Well, my comment would be that there's no question

1 that there would have been possibilities of ambush anywhere in Kosovo, but

2 my sense was that the KVM was there to -- in fact, to verify the situation

3 and always travelled of course in orange vehicles. And I would think that

4 the security of the verifiers along the border area, the border belt as

5 it's described, would have been just as great as it was in the rest of

6 Kosovo. So I didn't understand the -- in fact, I believe that the reasons

7 given were not in accordance with the mission of the KVM.

8 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. Thank you. General, did you have information that the Army of

10 Yugoslavia, or rather, its units in your area of responsibility were not

11 authorised by the higher levels outside of Kosovo to permit visits to the

12 border area that were not previously announced through the liaison

13 officer? Did you have such information through Colonel Delic?

14 A. Yes, I did.

15 Q. And you are aware that any army, including the Army of Yugoslavia,

16 has a very strict hierarchy?

17 A. Yes, I am.

18 Q. Thank you. I also believe you are aware that a joint procedure

19 was put in place by the Kosovo Verification Mission and the Army of

20 Yugoslavia for entry into these restricted areas. Colonel Ciaglinski said

21 something about this. Did you know that this procedure was being

22 prepared?

23 A. Yes, I did.

24 Q. Thank you. I would also like to ask you the following. You know

25 that your verifiers attended or were present at numerous military

1 activities, such as target practice and combat to secure the border

2 ceremonies, joint exercises for the procedure to be employed when members

3 of the mission were there. Is that correct?

4 A. There was a good -- a good level of cooperation between my

5 verifiers and the VJ.

6 Q. Did you have the impression that the Army of Yugoslavia was

7 concerned about the security of your mission?

8 A. Absolutely.

9 Q. Thank you. I would now like to go back to the village of Planeja.

10 Would I be correct in saying that quite often you would get erroneous

11 information and your patrols would go on the spot and would then establish

12 that the situation was quite different? An example of this would be the

13 village of Planeja, where information was received that on the 20th of

14 January the village was shelled and looted, but your verifiers, as

15 reported in the report of your regional centre on daily activities for the

16 29th of January, 1999, a patrol of your regional centre visited the

17 village and found that life was going on as normal, that there have been

18 no injuries -- or rather, no violations according to what I said before?

19 A. I think in general terms it would quite often happen that we would

20 get information that was of such a precise nature that by the time we

21 would send a patrol, it wasn't -- we weren't able to confirm it. At

22 times, of course, it was out of proportion, i.e., they would embellish

23 what happened. So that did happen on occasion. In the specific case of

24 Planeja on the 29th of January, if it was reported in the minutes or in

25 the daily incident report, I'm sure that it's exactly what happened.

1 Q. Thank you, General. Just a few more questions. Now I'm

2 interested in the following. In your statement and in your testimony in

3 the Milosevic case, there was mention of the fusing of KDOM into the

4 Kosovo Verification Mission. Would it be correct if I said that members

5 of the US KDOM and the European KDOM were not fully fused with the KVM all

6 the time until the 20th of March, 1999, when the mission left Kosovo, that

7 they actually acted independently of the Kosovo Verification Mission?

8 A. I believe that would be a correct statement. In my case I had

9 members -- some members of the US KDOM integrated into my command, but I

10 think others stayed out; you're right.

11 Q. Did you receive a report from US KDOM that in the course of the

12 autumn 1998 they had carried out verification of the weapons in the

13 Pristina Corps and that everything had been done successfully. Did you

14 receive such a report?

15 A. No, I did not.

16 Q. Yesterday on page 69 of the transcript, there was mention of

17 Messrs. Delic and Loncar. During your testimony you pointed out more than

18 once that the VJ was a professional army and that Delic and his soldiers

19 acted only on orders. You also stated the same in your testimony and in

20 paragraph 25 of your statement as well as page 69 of the transcript, where

21 Delic said, "Loncar is not my commander, he's a liaison officer." In your

22 army was there a procedure put in place?

23 A. For the liaison officers, Mr. Cepic?

24 Q. Just a moment, please. Just let me finish my question, because

25 the point is something else. Is there a procedure in place in your army

1 and other armies, especially armies of NATO, that officers cannot decide

2 on their own on activities in their area and that they cannot take orders

3 from outside the chain of command or from civilian authorities, even if

4 the civilian authorities are at the highest state level, that the chain of

5 command, in other words, has to remain intact?

6 A. I would say that that -- that that is not always an absolute

7 and -- for the most part, I think generally, you're right, that the chain

8 of command of course must stay inviolate , and the reason why I'm kind of

9 hedging here is because there are times when, of course, officers are

10 provided or receive, if you wish, appropriate delegation of authority

11 from the chain of command to be able to make decisions or to coordinate in

12 certain areas. Is that clear?

13 Q. But the chain of command was inviolate in this particular case as

14 it has to be in general in every army. That was my question.

15 A. I would say that's a general statement that applies, yes.

16 MR. CEPIC: Sorry, Your Honour.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Carry on. I would like to hear the next question.

18 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. In this particular case the chain of command remained intact, it

20 remained inviolate, I'm referring to the situation you described regarding

21 Delic and Loncar. For the record, please, could you --

22 A. Yes, I think that is the case and I think that's what Colonel

23 Delic was telling me was that General Loncar did not have authority to be

24 able to make this kind of decision.

25 Q. [In English] Thank you very much, General Maisonneuve.

1 A. Thank you.

2 Q. I haven't got any further questions. I just finished in English

3 because you started in Serbian.

4 MR. CEPIC: Thank you, Your Honours.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Yesterday on this same topic I had the impression

6 that you thought that Loncar should fit somewhere into the chain of

7 command.

8 THE WITNESS: My sense, Your Honour, is that I would have thought

9 that because General Loncar -- and again, this is perhaps a misperception

10 on my part at the time, that he had been given delegated authority to

11 coordinate the work or the -- the activities of the VJ in the Kosovo

12 theatre. And therefore, I would have thought that he, through the chain

13 of command which -- through the corps commander, presumably, would have

14 been able to actually make decisions or ensure that indeed permission was

15 given in this case.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: That was the first time, I have to say, I had the

17 impression that he might be part of a chain of command. Up until now I've

18 been under the impression that a liaison officer was a go-between and

19 didn't have command responsibilities and indeed had been brought into the

20 set-up in -- I think in a couple of cases out of retirement to fill a

21 particular sort of -- I don't know if it's almost a role of a mediator but

22 it's certainly a liaison role.

23 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, we sometimes called it certainly in my

24 army a coordination role. If he's the same rank as the corps commander,

25 obviously wouldn't come in and take over the corps, but he would be

1 charged - and this would be in my army and I think a professional army -

2 would be charged with direction from the actual chain of command, let's

3 say in this case Belgrade, perhaps, to pass the information on --

4 coordinate with KVM and then pass the information on to the corps

5 commander so that the decisions could be made appropriately. So it

6 depends how much authority he was delegated and what his terms of

7 reference actually were, I think, in the case.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: But Delic was telling you, "Although I'm a colonel,

9 it's my word that goes here and not that of Loncar"?

10 THE WITNESS: Well, Delic was -- what he was telling me was that

11 Loncar's role was only as a liaison officer, that he could not give Delic

12 direct orders.

13 [Trial Chamber and legal officer confer]

14 JUDGE BONOMY: I'd like now to deal with the objections that were

15 stated yesterday to passages of this evidence and give you the Trial

16 Chamber's ruling on it. There was a Defence motion in writing which we

17 received only after we had come on to the bench requesting us to exclude

18 portions of the evidence of the witness. We also heard oral submissions

19 on the matter from both parties. I made a tentative ruling to give some

20 guidance for cross-examination at that stage and indicated that the

21 position would be more formally determined overnight and that a decision

22 would be given to you today. And the Chamber now makes its ruling on the

23 admission of the evidence of the witness.

24 Dealing, first of all, with the statement. The statement of the

25 witness will be admitted except for paragraph 34. Dealing now with the

1 transcript from the Milosevic case, that will be admitted minus the

2 following sections which will not be admitted: Page 5768, lines 8 to 10;

3 5787, lines 9 to 18; 5795, line 8 to 5796, line 23; 5797, lines 14 to 25;

4 5800, line 8, to 58 -- sorry, to 5805, line 14; 5840, line 22, to 5848,

5 line 11; 5849, line 8, to 5853, line 16; 5855, line 15 to 5892, line 5;

6 and 5903, line 23, to 5909, line 19.

7 As far as the exhibits are concerned, the decisions that I give

8 are confined to the ones to which exception was taken, and that was set

9 out in paragraph 4(B) of the motion to exclude testimony. MM/7 will not

10 be admitted; MM/8 will be admitted; MM/13 will not be admitted; MM/13A

11 will be admitted, except for the assessment section on page 2, which will

12 not be admitted; and MM/13B will not be admitted.

13 In relation to MM/15 and 16, the Chamber accepts the Defence

14 argument that these documents are substantially similar to As Seen, As

15 Told and Under Orders which the Chambers deemed to be legally admissible

16 but nevertheless denied admission into evidence in the exercise of its

17 discretion pursuant to Rule 89(C) on the basis that the Prosecution had

18 failed to show that they bore sufficient indicia of reliability in order

19 to be admitted as hearsay evidence. That decision was issued on the 1st

20 of September, 2006. So for similar reasons, the Chamber, having

21 considered these documents, hereby denies their admission into evidence.

22 I want to say something about the reasoning behind this decision.

23 As set forth in the decision on the application of Rule 73 bis on the --

24 issued on the 12th of July, the Chamber has removed the charges in

25 relation to Racak from the indictment and will not be rendering verdicts

1 upon the alleged killings there in the final judgement. The parties

2 should, therefore, tailor their adducement of evidence to issues other

3 than those going to the specific alleged killings in Racak on the 15th of

4 January, 1999.

5 Issues that are potentially relevant to the indictment in relation

6 to Racak may include the following: Coordination between the VJ and MUP

7 in the vicinity of Racak in January 1999, command and control of the VJ

8 and MUP in the same area at the same time, the activities of the OSCE-KVM

9 at the same place and same time, and the disproportionate use of force in

10 that area in January 1999, and in relation to that issue, also the

11 presence and strength of KLA forces in the vicinity of Racak in January

12 1999.

13 In other words, the parties are hopefully being directed by the

14 Chamber to the territory that is relevant and ought to be explored and

15 hopefully guided and advised by the Chamber not to expend significant

16 resources upon the litigation of who may or may not have been killed at

17 Racak on the 15th of January, 1999. If the parties choose to adduce

18 further evidence in relation to Racak, it should be tailored as narrowly

19 as possible to the issues described above.

20 Now, in light of this, because we have picked our way through the

21 transcript, in particular, it may be that there are passages to which

22 objection was taken which the Defence might wish restored for the sake of

23 balance. We've had that in mind in going through it in detail, and we

24 think we've reflected the position fairly. There may be passages that you

25 can instantly identify which we've excluded and which look as though

1 they're favourable to the Defence, but it might be a speech to which

2 there's no specific answer. So we've tried to tailor it to reflect the

3 position fairly. But we will consider an application to restore any

4 passages wrongly excluded in the view of the Defence if that is the case.

5 Now, in light of that, Mr. Cepic, do you have any further

6 cross-examination for Mr. Maisonneuve?

7 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, by your leave, may I go

8 through the transcript during the cross-examination of Mr. Ivetic once

9 more. I believe I will not have any more questions, but I would like to

10 check.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: After we've heard any further cross-examination

12 from other counsel, then I will give you an opportunity if you wish. You

13 must tell me, though, if you wish another opportunity to cross-examine at

14 that stage.

15 MR. CEPIC: [Microphone not activated]

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Is he the only other Defence counsel with

17 questions?

18 MR. CEPIC: [Microphone not activated]

19 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I have a few questions, very few.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Who's going first? Mr. Ivetic or Mr. Fila?

21 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I'll do it.

22 Cross-examination by Mr. Fila:

23 Q. [Interpretation] Sir, good day. My name is Toma Fila. I appear

24 for Nikola Sainovic. In paragraph 9 of your statement and during

25 yesterday's testimony on page 36, lines 1 to 5, you said that you met

1 Sainovic once and that you attended that meeting with Ambassador Keller

2 who chaired the meeting. Is that correct?

3 A. That's correct.

4 Q. It was a brief meeting, less than an hour. Isn't that correct?

5 A. From my recollection, yes.

6 Q. And everybody spoke, not just Sainovic; right?

7 A. That's correct, yes.

8 Q. And based on that brief meeting you said that it was your

9 impression that he was well-informed, polite, and that he was authorised

10 to act. That's something we will be dealing with. You also said that in

11 response to a question by the Prosecutor on page 36, lines 16 to 20, and

12 you said you don't remember him having the need to consult anyone during

13 the meeting. Would that be correct?

14 A. Yeah, that's correct. I was trying to get a sense of the -- an

15 impression of the man.

16 Q. Thank you. Sir, are you aware that as a consequence of the

17 Milosevic-Holbrooke Agreement, which none of us have seen yet but

18 apparently it exists, by a decision of the Government of Yugoslavia signed

19 by its president, Momir Bulatovic, Nikola Sainovic was appointed president

20 of the Federal Commission for Cooperation with the OSCE, that is, with you

21 also. And that in Article 2 of that document - as you know, it's a

22 Defence document, 2108. I've shown it so many times that everybody knows

23 it off by heart now.

24 And it says there that he has to be well-informed, that he has to

25 monitor the situation, and that he has to look after your security.

1 That's the commission, not he personally. And that was on the 16th. And

2 it was signed by the minister of foreign affairs, minister of interior,

3 and so on, and General Loncar was another member of that commission. Are

4 you aware of the existence of that body and that Nikola Sainovic was its

5 chairperson?

6 A. Not in detail, but I am aware that Mr. Sainovic had been delegated

7 responsibility to coordinate the Kosovo theatre.

8 Q. I wanted to ask you the following. Does this explain your

9 impression of his powers, the position he held?

10 A. Undoubtedly, yes, it does.

11 Q. Thank you. Sir, as an officer you fight with ammunition, and we

12 fight with words and words can sometimes kill worse than bullets. That's

13 why I'm putting these questions, not because I enjoy putting them, but

14 because I have to. The Prosecutor wanted to hair something else, of

15 course.

16 I assume that you know that this was not the first meeting chaired

17 by Keller, where he met Sainovic, that they had more than one contact?

18 I'm referring to Mr. Keller and Mr. Sainovic.

19 A. I would imagine he did, yes.

20 Q. I also assume that -- and I hope that Ambassador Keller was more

21 privy to the powers held by Sainovic than you are --

22 A. I'm sure he was, yes.

23 Q. Will you, therefore, agree with me that in -- keeping in mind the

24 knowledge Ambassador Keller had as the chairman of the meeting, that both

25 of them knew what their respective powers were and that the meeting -- and

1 that during these meetings Sainovic did not have any need to consult with

2 anyone. Is that right?

3 A. That would be correct, yes.

4 Q. I thank you. I would like to ask you something out of the

5 context, out of curiosity. At one point yesterday you said that you met

6 two Albanians and that they were some sort of your own personal security,

7 they were refugees. Can you tell us in what sense were they providing

8 security for you. And when you give me this answer, can you tell me did

9 others have Albanians as their security guards; and if so, were these

10 Albanians armed? Thank you.

11 A. No, they were not armed. They were local personnel employed to do

12 physical security of our buildings.

13 Q. I apologise that I sat down. It was a discourtesy to you. Please

14 go on.

15 A. No, they were not armed. They were physical security officers

16 that would patrol, you know, around our headquarters, more for physical

17 security purposes than for any kind of armed attack. It was for, you

18 know, to keep people from stealing, et cetera, and to -- they were this

19 kind of security folks. Locally employed civilians is what we were using

20 for that purpose.

21 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I've finished. Thank you.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Fila.

23 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic.

25 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

1 Cross-examination by Mr. Ivetic:

2 Q. Good day, General. My name is Dan Ivetic and I represent Sreten

3 Lukic and I have a series of questions for you today and I ask you to pay

4 close attention to my questions so we can try and get through them with

5 the most accurate and truthful answers possible. Since we do speak the

6 same language I've been asked by the interpreters to remind myself and

7 yourself that we do need to pause in between each of our respective

8 comments or statements so they can accurately keep up with us, and I'll

9 try my best and hopefully we'll get through it.

10 First of all, sir, we've heard about your military career prior to

11 being second into the OSCE verifier mission in Kosovo and Metohija. Am I

12 correct that your professionally career does not include any experience

13 working as a civilian police officer in any capacity?

14 A. That's correct.

15 Q. Thank you, sir. And furthermore, am I correct that you have not

16 had any police-specific formal training or post-secondary education?

17 A. That's correct.

18 Q. And as part of your training for the OSCE-KVM mission insofar as

19 you were not intended to be a police verifier, you did not receive any

20 additional or extensive police-specific training as part of the

21 preparations for your deployment, did you?

22 A. No, I did not.

23 Q. Okay. Now, there were other persons within the OSCE-KVM that were

24 dedicated police observers and verifiers. Is that correct?

25 A. That's correct.

1 Q. Do you know what percentage of the KVM police verifiers had any

2 prior training or experience as law enforcement or police officers?

3 A. I could not put a percentage on them, but I had several of them in

4 my -- in my particular regional centre.

5 Q. Thank you. I'm waiting for the transcript to catch up with us.

6 Now, if you could turn for a moment to the agreements that you

7 were tasked with verifying -- and these are the agreements reached around

8 October 1998. As far as these agreements are concerned, am I correct that

9 they were all negotiated prior to the arrival of yourself and the KVM,

10 primarily by the US KDOM and others involved in the negotiation process?

11 A. That is correct.

12 Q. And as far as the agreement as to the number of police or MUP

13 personnel that were to be permitted in Kosovo, am I correct that the

14 base-line figure that was established, that is to say the number of MUP

15 personnel allowed in Kosovo was roughly 10.000 and some odd persons?

16 A. That's -- I must tell you that I don't recall the exact number

17 that had been negotiated or agreed upon, but that's a number I've heard on

18 several occasions before.

19 Q. In any event, there was a fixed number that --

20 A. I believe there was a fixed number.

21 Q. Okay. Fair enough. And do you recall if this fixed number had

22 been reached by KDOM, by the US KDOM as part of the negotiation process

23 with the Serbian authorities, and if that number had been communicated to

24 the KVM?

25 A. Again, I believe it had and it would make sense that it would have

1 been.

2 Q. Fair enough, sir. Now, based upon the information that you

3 obtained or that the KVM obtained after implementation of the agreements,

4 the Serbian MUP abided by this agreement and reduced their personnel

5 levels in Kosovo. Is that correct?

6 A. What I can tell you is that while I was on the ground, personally

7 I did not see any instances of reinforcement of the -- of the MUP

8 presence.

9 Q. Thank you, sir.

10 A. From outside of Kosovo.

11 Q. Thank you. Now, with respect to the KVM monitors, am I correct

12 that there were some -- you've mentioned about reports that came in that

13 were sometimes exaggerated or compounded upon. But with respect to the

14 monitors, did you experience a problem with certain monitors that were

15 either inexperienced or were relying primarily on second-hand information

16 rather than going out into the field to verify things?

17 A. I would say there were a minimum of those types of instances. We

18 really tried to -- in fact, that was part of the training that we gave the

19 verifiers and it was part of the -- kind of the daily interaction we had

20 with them to ensure that they would not become emotionally involved and

21 therefore embellish situations.

22 Q. Thank you, sir. Now if we can just move briefly to Racak and I'm

23 going to try and keep my questions tailored to the guide-lines that the

24 Trial Chamber specified.

25 Now, first, with respect to the activities of the KVM. Prior to

1 undertaking the operation at Racak to arrest and disband members of the

2 KLA that had been involved in attacks or killings in the area, it is

3 presented that the local police officials in Stimlje and Urosevac not only

4 gave notice of their operation that they were going to undertake to arrest

5 individuals in Racak but engaged in lengthy discussions with the local KVM

6 personnel, including a David Meyer, regarding the same. Do you have any

7 knowledge of that?

8 A. I do not, but I'm not surprised, because in fact, as you know, it

9 was outside my area; and if those negotiations had been taking place, it

10 would have been with Regional Centre 5 which was covering that area at the

11 time.

12 Q. So you would have to defer to anyone who was actually involved in

13 that process?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Thank you. If such notification and discussions were underway,

16 that would be in compliance with the agreement that the KVM was

17 verifying. Is that correct?

18 A. The aspect -- I guess, the aspect of ensuring that coordination

19 would take place and that it would be done in -- accompanied by verifiers,

20 international observers, I think would have been in accordance with the

21 agreement.

22 Q. Okay. We have had some evidence in this case, in particular we

23 have an exhibit that was referred to in your discussions with my colleague

24 Mr. Sepenuk from Warrant Officer Christopher Clark, one of the verifiers

25 on the ground who talked about the notifications that took place and the

1 notification that came before Racak. He also specified that the KVM plan

2 was to place various verifier vehicles on the scene to watch what was

3 going on and that these orders were issued but that two KVM vehicles did

4 not leave the Stimlje police station, basically disobeying their

5 instructions. Do you have any knowledge of that?

6 A. I do not.

7 Q. Thank you. Now --

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Maisonneuve, remind me how it was you came to

9 be involved in Racak at all, since it was outwith your area.

10 THE WITNESS: Well, it was on the border between my area and

11 Regional Centre 5 and at the time Regional Centre 5 did not have a head of

12 regional centres they only had a deputy. So General DZ tasked me to go in

13 and take command of the operation at the time, bring some of my own

14 verifiers with me and try to bring some order to situation.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Just one other question which you may have answered

16 yesterday but on a matter you've just been dealing with a moment ago.

17 What date was it you actually went on leave so that you weren't there when

18 the mission withdrew on about the 20th of March?

19 THE WITNESS: I think it was the 15th of March or something like

20 that. It was a few days before the end.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: So you were there until the 15th of March or

22 thereabouts --

23 THE WITNESS: Right.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: -- and were not aware of any increase in MUP

25 forces, reinforcement from outwith Kosovo?

1 THE WITNESS: I was not.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

3 Mr. Ivetic.

4 MR. IVETIC: Thank you, Your Honour.

5 Q. And do you know whether, in fact, any of the -- strike that.

6 Are you aware of the fact that Colonel Mijatovic, the MUP liaison

7 to the KVM mission, also personally followed up the local level

8 notifications relating to Racak with a notification to the KVM

9 headquarters the morning of the operation?

10 A. I was not aware of that.

11 Q. And, again, not being involved -- first of all, if the

12 notification were sent to the Pristina headquarters of the KVM, that would

13 not normally go to you, in any event.

14 A. Pristina Regional Centre 5.

15 Q. Thank you. Now, if I can move on to another locale. I would like

16 to take a few moments to attempt to clear up your testimony about the

17 incident in Rogovo, in Djakovica municipality.

18 First of all, am I correct that you were able to verify beyond any

19 doubt that most of the dead were active KLA fighters in that case?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Okay. And isn't it a fact that a fire-fight between the KLA and

22 the Serbian forces occurred around 6.30 in the morning, or in the early

23 morning hours?

24 A. Well, the reports -- I think the reports talk about fire-fights

25 that -- the ones that certainly were seen and factual by the verifiers

1 themselves, I think they were closer to about 10.00 in the morning, but

2 there had been some action early as well. So it was an issue of what did

3 we actually witness and hear, and the verifiers on the ground I don't

4 think were there at 6.30 in the morning, but they heard from the villagers

5 and so on that there had been some action early in the morning as well.

6 Q. Sorry. Again, I'm trying to allow the interpreters and the

7 transcript to catch up with us. In any event, we can be assured that the

8 fighting was protracted in that incident between the two forces.

9 A. Protracted meaning short?

10 Q. Meaning long.

11 A. I'm sorry?

12 Q. Meaning longer.

13 A. Yes, I think that's the case. Yes.

14 Q. Okay. Do you know what time you arrived at the scene?

15 A. Yes. I arrived somewhere around noon or thereafter, maybe 1300,

16 something like that.

17 Q. Okay. And at the time that you arrived and thereafter, a detailed

18 investigation lasting most of the remainder of the day was undertaken by

19 the Serbian authorities. Isn't that correct?

20 A. That is correct.

21 Q. Do you know approximately how long that investigation took place?

22 A. Well, certainly that entire day, I believe, and perhaps carried

23 on, you know, later because we were actually looking for the results of

24 that investigation ourselves.

25 Q. Okay. And the KVM received a detailed reporting from both the MUP

1 liaison officer and General Loncar regarding the incident and the

2 investigation conducted. Is that correct?

3 A. Well, first of all, I believe General Loncar was on the ground in

4 Rogovo at the time I was there as well. And I believe a report did come

5 through but I don't remember seeing it personally.

6 Q. Fair enough. And, again, the reporting from the Serbian MUP with

7 respect to this incident was in compliance with the various agreements in

8 place?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Thank you. Now, with respect to the incident and your personal

11 observations, you did not -- since -- strike that.

12 You could not tell the difference between the various forces, the

13 MUP forces. You couldn't tell what the various units were that were

14 involved, could you?

15 A. The only way I could tell was the different dress that they were

16 wearing, outfits. Some of them were in the regular dark blue camouflage

17 outfits; some of the personnel on the ground were wearing these one-piece

18 kind of jump-suits that were grey, a greyer colour. And so that's the

19 only thing that I could distinguish certainly in my dealings there on the

20 ground.

21 Q. And if we could -- I apologise again. I'm not meant to be

22 disrespectful. I'm just trying to catch up with the transcript.

23 With respect to these grey jump-suits, am I correct that in

24 particular the individuals that were moving the bodies and taking

25 photographs were primarily wearing these grey jump-suits and plastic

1 disposable gloves on their hands?

2 A. There were a number of them walking around the scene. As well, my

3 verifiers saw the body of the dead MUP was wearing one of those grey

4 sweat-suits or grey jump-suits also.

5 Q. Okay. Now, in your statement, if we could turn to that for that

6 second, at page 3, General, you claim -- you talk about during the

7 time-period of the KVM, that General DZ would meet with General Sreten

8 Lukic on several occasions and that you had replaced General DZ on three

9 such occasions but that General Lukic had been replaced by Colonel

10 Mijatovic. The question I have for you, sir: Are you aware of the fact,

11 as testified to by General DZ, General Loncar and Colonel Ciaglinski here,

12 that in fact the meetings you referenced were with members of the Yugoslav

13 Commission for Cooperation with the KVM and did not involve General Lukic,

14 who was not a member of that commission?

15 A. I was not aware of the reason why he was not there, but I was

16 quite happy to meet with Colonel Mijatovic.

17 Q. And in the occasions that you met with Colonel Mijatovic, did you

18 find him to be cooperative with the whole process?

19 A. Yes, I did.

20 Q. Thank you. Now, in your statement you refer to General Lukic as a

21 lieutenant-general, and I think he would thank you for the promotion since

22 he was only a major-general or a brigadier-general at the time. But I

23 trust from the limited information and from this misunderstanding we have

24 now cleared up that you, in fact, had a very limited knowledge and were

25 quite unaware of who Mr. Lukic was exactly?

1 A. Absolutely, yes.

2 Q. Thank you. Now, when dealing with the MUP, if we look at

3 attachment MM/23, specifically annex A. And for purposes of my question,

4 it's general enough that we don't need to go through it with a fine-tooth

5 comb. I'm just trying to place where it's coming from.

6 In the annex A, I note that the information relating to MUP

7 outside of Prizren is rather sketchy. There's very few names of

8 individuals mentioned, et cetera. Do you agree with me that apart from

9 the people that you dealt with in Prizren itself, your knowledge of

10 personnel outside of the area and their role within the MUP was fairly

11 limited?

12 A. Yeah, that would be a good -- that would be a correct assumption.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic, I don't have an MM/23. Am I missing

14 something?

15 MR. IVETIC: I'm sorry, it might be MM/2B --

16 JUDGE BONOMY: 2B.

17 MR. IVETIC: My handwriting is getting the better of me.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

19 MR. IVETIC:

20 Q. Now, sir, if we can return to Sreten Lukic for a moment. Your

21 knowledge of him was limited. Am I correct that you never had a chance to

22 see any official documents setting forth any duties or responsibilities of

23 General Lukic?

24 A. That's correct.

25 Q. And as far as you know, you never met Sreten Lukic?

1 A. That's correct.

2 Q. Thank you. Now, in -- I apologise. In MM/2 of your statement,

3 specifically paragraph 6 of the same, you describe that you were reporting

4 details to the KVM in Pristina, specifically to the Fusion Centre, which

5 you describe as a black hole. Now, what do you mean when you describe the

6 Fusion Centre as a black hole? Did you -- is it your understanding that

7 information that didn't agree with the -- strike that.

8 Well, did you find that information relating to aggression or

9 violations by the KLA was ignored? Is that what you meant by that term?

10 A. No, that's not what I meant. I meant that we sometimes found that

11 there was very little feedback on the information that we provided. So it

12 was sort of a one-way flow mostly.

13 Q. Okay. Now, at page 6 of your statement, the third paragraph from

14 the top, you mention that your MUP counter-part in Prizren, Colonel

15 Vojnovic, was deputy prefect as well as chief of police. What is the

16 basis of your belief that he was deputy prefect and what do you mean by

17 that?

18 A. In fact, I don't exactly recall where I received that information,

19 so -- you know, in fact, this is a piece where I kind of lost the -- you

20 know, where I received from information between now and in 2002 when I

21 first testified, or certainly in 2000 when I gave this statement.

22 Q. Fair enough. Now, when dealing with the MUP, we've got military

23 sounding ranks given to MUP personnel. Am I correct that you, based upon

24 your military experience, would equate that rank structure as being

25 similar to the military but you really don't know whether that's the case?

1 A. You're right. You're exactly right.

2 Q. Thank you, sir. Do you recall who was your police liaison officer

3 in Prizren from the KVM side?

4 A. I believe it was a Lieutenant-Colonel Petrovic.

5 Q. On the KVM side?

6 A. Sorry, my liaison -- on the KVM side? No, I don't recall his name

7 exactly at this moment.

8 Q. But there was one individual that was tasked --

9 A. There was one appointed. I believe it's in my notes and my

10 papers.

11 Q. I believe it is, too, but the name is escaping me at the moment as

12 well. In any event, with respect to --

13 A. Les House, I believe. Les House.

14 Q. That's the name that's referenced in one of your attachments.

15 With respect to Mr. House, would it be accurate that as your liaison he

16 was in daily contact with the police and daily meetings with the MUP and

17 the police in Prizren?

18 A. Yes, he was.

19 Q. And the liaison on the SUP side, you mention Mr. Petrovic. I also

20 know of a Mr. Vukobrat. With respect to whomever was the liaison on the

21 SUP side, am I correct that they fully cooperated with the KVM during the

22 time-period they were there?

23 A. Yes, they did.

24 Q. And you found them to be professional in their interactions with

25 you?

1 A. Yes, I did.

2 Q. And in addition to the appointed liaison officer, Colonel

3 Vojnovic, also, I guess, informally met with you and assisted you as

4 well. Is that correct?

5 A. Yes, he did.

6 Q. And did you find him to be professional in his dealings with you?

7 A. I did.

8 Q. Thank you. Again, I'm slowing for the transcript. I apologise.

9 We're getting through this.

10 Now, during your testimony yesterday, you stated that on one

11 occasion you went to a police station - I don't recall if you mentioned

12 where - and that you saw Albanians standing in line looking intimidated.

13 Now, the question I have for you is: Apart from being around the police

14 station, you did not eye-witness the police personnel present at that

15 location being abusive, did you?

16 A. No, I did not.

17 Q. Okay. And, in fact, you yourself never eye-witnessed a single

18 excess on the part of the police during your stay in Kosovo, did you?

19 A. Not personally, no.

20 Q. Thank you. Relative to your meetings with Commander Drini of the

21 KLA, in at least two of the notes from these meetings, there's a reference

22 to the missing Serbs that you asked -- or that the KVM asked him about.

23 The notation states that Drini said that if they were missing in his zone,

24 they were probably dead. Did you take this to mean that the KLA was

25 executing Serbian civilians within your zone of responsibility?

1 A. Well, either executing or that they would have died through

2 action, military action. So, you know, when he would say something like

3 this, that's what I was taking for, you know, granted.

4 Q. Thank you. And just a few more points to finish up. Suva Reka

5 was within your zone of responsibility?

6 A. Yes, [Realtime transcript read in error "I didn't"] it was.

7 Q. Am I --

8 MR. IVETIC: Your Honours, I think the transcript at page 38, line

9 15, says the answer is: "I didn't, it was." I believe the general said

10 "Yes, it was."

11 THE WITNESS: Yes, it was.

12 MR. IVETIC: That one's easy to correct.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

14 MR. IVETIC:

15 Q. With respect to the KVM headquarters or centre in Suva Reka, am I

16 correct that it was relocated from the Hotel Boss to a private Albanian

17 residence during the course of the mission?

18 A. I believe that is the case, yeah.

19 Q. Do you, in fact, recall the reason why it was located?

20 A. No, I don't, actually.

21 Q. Okay. Now, you never visited the MUP staff in Pristina, did you?

22 A. In Pristina, no, I did not.

23 Q. Okay. Yesterday Mr. Marcussen seemed to indicate that your

24 testimony would relate to how the MUP staff in Pristina coordinated

25 activities across the whole of the province of Kosovo-Metohija, but in

1 your statement at the bottom of page 10 you actually state that you have

2 not heard of any such MUP coordination headquarters Pristina. Is that

3 still accurate, though, what you say in your statement at page 10, that

4 you had not heard of any such MUP coordination headquarters in Pristina?

5 A. Do you define a coordination centre as different than just a

6 normal MUP headquarters or -- that's an easy -- if that was what we were

7 trying to do, then I would say that I've not heard of any, you know, like

8 coordination centre outside of the normal headquarters. I certainly would

9 have expected that in Pristina would have been the headquarters of the MUP

10 for the Kosovo region.

11 Q. But that's just speculation. You don't know any hard facts?

12 A. I was never there. I never visited, so I can't confirm one or the

13 other.

14 Q. Okay. One final question for you, sir, and this is getting back

15 to the KLA. Did you have any information or knowledge, either directly or

16 through your operatives in the KVM, that the KLA had ordered villagers in

17 Albanian villages, particularly around the border area, to leave those

18 villages in February and March of 1999?

19 A. No, I did not have any.

20 Q. Thank you, General, for your time.

21 MR. IVETIC: Your Honours, I have no further questions for this

22 witness.

23 Q. Thank you.

24 A. Thank you.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Ivetic.

1 Any further cross-examination?

2 Mr. Marcussen, re-examination?

3 MR. MARCUSSEN: Just a very limited number of points, Your Honour.

4 Re-examination by Mr. Marcussen:

5 Q. General, yesterday there was -- and I believe also today, there

6 was some talk about this information that Drini gave you that there was --

7 at least he said they had a plan to take fighting to towns and things like

8 this. Now, which locations within your regional centre would you define

9 as towns, to start?

10 A. Well, you know, it's a bit of a semantic question here. Villages

11 and towns -- I guess if you define a town as slightly bigger than a

12 village, there might have been a few -- for example, the municipalities

13 perhaps would be towns but, you know, I wouldn't go any further than that.

14 Q. But to your knowledge, while you were in Kosovo, was there a

15 KLM -- KLA presence in, for example, Suva Reka, Djakovica, Orahovac, and

16 Prizren?

17 A. Well, there was a KLA presence -- you know, I can't go city by

18 city and tell you that there was a presence here or a presence there,

19 because sometimes you didn't know who was KLA or where the KLA were or

20 whether they were camouflaged or not. Certainly in the areas where there

21 was a strong Serb authority presence, I would have thought that there

22 would not be a very strong KLA presence. The KLA preferred to be in the

23 outlying kind of -- I think in the regions, you know, the small villages

24 and kind of lost in the woods and that's where they preferred to be.

25 Q. So while you were in Kosovo, the fighting was not taken to the

1 towns. Drini's plan, if there was one, was not implemented?

2 A. That's correct.

3 Q. And I just wanted to clarify your -- the incident with the 35

4 bodies that you -- that occurred very early after you arrived to maybe

5 even have occurred --

6 A. Before.

7 Q. -- before you came. So your involvement was in the -- in getting

8 the bodies back to the families?

9 A. That is correct.

10 Q. And you were not offered the location itself where this incident

11 had happened?

12 A. I was not.

13 Q. Now, we've been talking a bit about the functions and maybe

14 authority of liaison officers and there's just one more point I'd like to

15 try to clarify with you. If a liaison officer enters into an agreement

16 with the person or the body that he's liaising with, would that be a sign

17 that the liaison officer either had the delegated authority that we talked

18 about or that the thing he agreed to had been approved by the chain of

19 command that he was liaising with?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. And then about Rogova, when you -- you said you arrived afternoon

22 maybe at 1.00 or something like that. At that point in time when you

23 arrived, had the bodies from the incident been moved?

24 A. Yes, they had.

25 Q. Had they been -- where did the bodies you saw --

1 A. Well, they had them lined up, you know -- beside the -- inside the

2 compound in lines.

3 Q. And were there any signs that some of them had also been moved on

4 from there to another location?

5 A. I think there had been some that had been moved and left the

6 location already, but I can't exactly recall how many bodies were lined

7 up.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Marcussen, which part of the statement is this

9 dealt with?

10 MR. MARCUSSEN: It's dealt with in the -- it's dealt with in the

11 Milosevic transcript. I believe it's in parts that were allowed in.

12 Yeah, right now I don't remember whether it's in the -- I don't think it's

13 in the statement, it's only in the transcript.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: All right. Thank you.

15 MR. MARCUSSEN:

16 Q. You were also asked whether you yourself had seen excesses by the

17 MUP at police stations and maybe check-points, and you said you did not.

18 Have you any doubts about the correctness of what your verifiers reported

19 to you when they said they had seen this sort of thing?

20 A. I have no doubt.

21 MR. MARCUSSEN: I have no further questions, Your Honour.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

23 [Trial Chamber confers]

24 Questioned by the Court:

25 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Excuse me, General. I have a question to ask.

1 This has arisen because of your written statement reflected in paragraph

2 43 --

3 A. Mm-hmm.

4 JUDGE CHOWHAN: -- and pertains to the 29th of January, 1999. What

5 are your impressions about this cooperation you had mentioned, both in

6 paragraph 43 and its preceding paragraph, 42, the relationship being

7 cordial with these institutions whose abbreviations are reflected here.

8 And also that -- could you please dilate more on your impressions about

9 what the -- about what you saw and what was the interaction and how these

10 two units, two names, were cooperated with each other. That will be very

11 important for us, coming from a person having high office like yourself

12 and you were also physically there. I'm most grateful.

13 A. Your Honour, I guess I would -- I would describe the cooperation

14 as professional, very much required. In any -- in any activity, any

15 activity involving the police and the military, there has to be very close

16 cooperation to ensure that each knows what the other is going to do so

17 that there are no friendly engagements from friendly to friendly, if you

18 know what I mean. And all the cases that I saw, I certainly -- my

19 experience was that they -- they cooperated. They seemed to know what

20 each other's plan was. There were clear delineation of responsibilities,

21 but so ensure that there is clear delineation of responsibilities you must

22 do some prior coordination and establish what the delineation will be. So

23 that was my experience certainly in the theatre.

24 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Just for further elucidation, now, in paragraph

25 36, if you -- I would request that you kindly look at paragraph 36 and

1 then see if you could very kindly speak of the relationship.

2 A. My impression -- yes.

3 JUDGE CHOWHAN: In terms of paragraph 42 and 43.

4 A. Right.

5 JUDGE CHOWHAN: What special things you saw --

6 A. Yeah.

7 JUDGE CHOWHAN: -- what extraordinary things you saw, what

8 exceptional things you saw, because cooperation generally is one thing and

9 exceptional is the other. What exceptional things you saw?

10 A. I would not characterise it as exceptional. What I would tell you

11 is that generally my sense was, my assessment of both those actions was

12 that the VJ would provide perimeter-type support and help while the -- the

13 military forces -- sorry, the police forces would conduct the actual

14 operations in the -- you know, in the close combat, if you wish, or in the

15 tactical piece. So, for example, when it was reported that howitzers were

16 pointed towards Racak, then that would seem to indicate to me as a

17 military officer that the artillery was prepared to support the actual

18 dismounted operation in case there was -- in case there was a -- you know,

19 they ran into trouble, to allow them to eradicate themselves, this type of

20 activity. But I would not call that extraordinary or exceptional. I

21 would call that, you know, understood and agreed to delineation of

22 responsibilities.

23 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Thanks.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that completes your evidence,

25 Mr. Maisonneuve. Thank you once again for coming to the Tribunal to give

1 evidence and for your patience while we've dealt with one or two issues

2 that have arisen during the evidence. That completes it, as I say, and

3 you're now free to leave.

4 THE WITNESS: Thank you very much, Your Honours.

5 [The witness withdrew]

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Marcussen, the next witness will be?

7 MR. MARCUSSEN: The next witness will be Mr. Kickert, and I

8 believe he would be on his way now, together with Ms. Moeller, who is

9 going to be the counsel taking him.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Moeller. Okay.

11 Well, we shall rise now and resume at 11.15.

12 --- Recess taken at 10.42 a.m.

13 --- On resuming at 11.15 a.m.

14 [The witness entered court]

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Good morning, Mr. Kickert.

16 THE WITNESS: Good morning.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Would you please make the solemn declaration to

18 speak the truth by reading aloud the document which will be placed before

19 you..

20 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the

21 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you. Please be seated.

23 Ms. Moeller.

24 MS. MOELLER: Thank you, Your Honour.

25 WITNESS: JAN KICKERT

1 Examination by Ms. Moeller:

2 Q. Good morning, Mr. Kickert.

3 A. Good morning.

4 Q. Could you just state your full name for the sake of the

5 transcript, please.

6 A. Jan Kickert.

7 Q. And what is your nationality?

8 A. Austrian.

9 Q. And what is your occupation?

10 A. I'm a diplomat in the Austrian Foreign Service.

11 Q. Where are you currently posted?

12 A. In Vienna, in the ministry.

13 Q. How long have you been working as a diplomat?

14 A. Since 1995.

15 Q. And during this time, were you ever posted to Serbia and

16 Montenegro?

17 A. Yes, indeed. I was posted to Belgrade in November 1997.

18 Q. And how long did you stay in this post?

19 A. Until 1999, until the beginning of the NATO bombing.

20 Q. I think we have to be careful to pause a little bit between

21 question and answer. That applies for me as well, because we're both

22 speaking in English, so the interpreters can follow us actually.

23 A. All right.

24 Q. While you were posted to Serbia and Montenegro, which position did

25 you hold in the embassy?

1 A. I was -- I was second secretary in the Austrian Embassy in

2 Belgrade.

3 Q. And what was your portfolio or what were your specific

4 responsibilities during this time?

5 A. I had a mixed portfolio dealing on the one side with media and

6 cultural issues and on the other hand with political issue of Kosovo.

7 Q. And who was the mission chief during this time, Mr. Kickert?

8 A. That was Ambassador Petritsch.

9 Q. While posted to Belgrade, did you ever go to Kosovo?

10 A. Yes, indeed. I started to go to Kosovo in January 1998 and ever

11 more frequently during 1998 and during the second half of 1998 when

12 Austria hold -- held the rotating EU Presidency I spent almost half of my

13 time in Kosovo and the other half of my time up in Belgrade.

14 Q. And during your -- during the time you spent in Kosovo, where were

15 you based there?

16 A. In the beginning, the trips were mostly day trips. We would go

17 down from Belgrade, driving to Pristina. My first trips just took me to

18 Pristina and not into the rest of Kosovo, and if I stayed there overnight

19 I would stay in a hotel at the beginning. And from the beginning of July,

20 the Austrian Embassy -- July 1998, the Austrian Embassy had rented a house

21 in Pristina which we used as our base.

22 Q. And can you tell us a little bit about how the Austrian Embassy

23 came to rent this house.

24 A. The European Union always wanted to have representation in

25 Pristina, which was not well regarded by the Belgrade authorities. So we

1 then -- as Austria took over the EU Presidency, we just took the

2 initiative to rent a house there on a bilateral level to have a base

3 there, invited the EU organisations who were present which was ECHO, the

4 humanitarian organisation, and the European Commission who dealt with aid

5 projects connected to the education agreement. They were invited to join

6 us in our house to have sort of a EU house, after all.

7 Q. And you said: "The European Union wanted to have a

8 representation, but this was not well regarded by the Belgrade

9 authorities."

10 Do you know the reason why it wasn't well regarded?

11 A. I mean, my suspicion is that they wanted -- they didn't want to

12 have too much of an international presence in Pristina. The US had an

13 office there. They were -- for historical reasons. I don't know the real

14 background. And we wanted to have -- as EU, a representation there, too.

15 The Belgrade authorities, they the whole time 1998 didn't want to have the

16 Kosovo issue nationalised [Realtime transcript read in

17 error "internationalised"], so maybe that's the background they didn't

18 want us to have a permanent basis in Pristina.

19 Q. And what --

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Did you -- just one second. You say there that

21 they didn't want the Kosovo issue --

22 THE WITNESS: Internationalised.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Internationalise, yes. The transcript reflected it

24 wrong. Thank you.

25 Ms. Moeller.

1 MS. MOELLER:

2 Q. This residence in Pristina, which flag did you use there?

3 A. That was a bit of an issue. We used to fly one day both the

4 Austrian and the EU flag, and that was the day when the EU troika -- that

5 must have been end of July 1998 -- was visiting Kosovo coming from

6 Belgrade. They had a meeting, the EU troika, led by the Secretary-General

7 of the Austrian foreign ministry Albert Rohan and accompanied by two

8 political directors. That was -- of the UK and of Germany, the outgoing

9 and the incoming EU Presidency. That was Emyr John Perry and Mr. Fischer

10 from Germany.

11 They had a meeting before and I believe it was with foreign

12 minister Jovanovic. And there was quite a debate on this house, and the

13 compromise was then that they would accept it as long as it was on a

14 solely bilateral basis. That's why we took off the EU flag and just had

15 the Austrian flag for the time being.

16 Q. And while Austria had this residence in Pristina, did the embassy

17 encounter any other problems with this residence in terms of the --

18 JUDGE BONOMY: I wonder, Ms. Moeller, why are we spending so much

19 time on this? What is its relevance to the indictment?

20 MS. MOELLER: I'm sorry, Your Honours.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: What is the relevance of this --

22 MS. MOELLER: I think it's relevant to show -- it is -- it goes to

23 the interests of Serbia in 1998 --

24 JUDGE BONOMY: It's entirely understandable that Serbia would not

25 want things internationalised in Kosovo. We understand all that.

1 MS. MOELLER: Well, I think the relevance is that when

2 Mr. Petritsch testified there was an issue of efforts made by Serbia to

3 get this situation into grip in 1998, and Mr. Petritsch, I recall,

4 testified that if some more international involvement would have been

5 accepted, it would have been helped to improve the situation and this

6 is --

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Countries over the world debate the extent to which

8 internationals should be allowed into their affairs. I come from one

9 myself. So it's an issue that we all know is a debatable political issue

10 that we're not here to resolve. Let's get to the issues in the

11 indictment, please.

12 MS. MOELLER: I will, Your Honours. But there is another issue

13 related to this house which goes to -- no, no. It goes to issues that are

14 quite relevant to the case. And if you stay with me for maybe one

15 question, then I'm done with this issue. May I?

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.

17 MS. MOELLER: Thank you.

18 Q. Mr. Kickert, I asked you whether there were any other problems

19 encountered by the Austrian Embassy with regard to this residence at any

20 time.

21 A. Apart from the flag issue at the beginning, it was only later in

22 the year, end of the year, probably December, that we had a problem with

23 our electricity, when our electricity was turned off because they accused

24 us of tampering the electricity metre and asked from us a back payment and

25 a fine of, I don't know, 10.000, 20.000 Deutschemarks.

1 Q. And which steps did you - meaning you and the embassy - undertake

2 to resolve this issue, first?

3 A. Well, we tried to solve it locally. I personally went to see the

4 head of the ElektroKosovo agency and was not able to resolve it.

5 Q. And were you finally able to resolve it and how?

6 A. That was Ambassador Petritsch bringing this issue up with

7 Mr. Sainovic.

8 Q. And what happened then?

9 A. Shortly thereafter, the electricity was restored and we didn't

10 have to pay the fine.

11 Q. Thank you. Moving on now. During your --

12 JUDGE BONOMY: I may say, Ms. Moeller, I'm distinctly unimpressed

13 by that being an issue that might be used to indicate the degree of

14 control that Mr. Sainovic had over affairs in Kosovo. But if you think --

15 I mean, I'm astonished that the Prosecution should think this is relevant

16 to the case.

17 MS. MOELLER: Well, Your Honour, it's a mosaic of many pieces that

18 we will attempt to stitch together at the end and it may or may not prove

19 our case. In this regard it's one tiny bit of evidence we think is

20 relevant, but it is of course, up to you to decide that at the end, and I

21 will move on now.

22 Q. Mr. Petritsch, while you were in Pristina on your -- on your

23 visits there, did you go on any field-trips in the region?

24 A. As I said my first trips were to Pristina alone to meet the

25 political figures which were located in Pristina. It was not until June

1 that I participate -- went to the field participating in an organised

2 field trip organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to western Kosovo.

3 And only thereafter did I start making my own field-trips.

4 Q. Mm-hmm. And in general, which areas did you mainly visit

5 throughout 1998, if you can say?

6 A. Would have been central Kosovo, the Drenica area, it would have

7 been western Kosovo, which is called Metohija by the Serbs and Dukagjin by

8 the Albanians.

9 Q. I would now like to talk about some field-trips in more detail

10 with you.

11 MS. MOELLER: Your Honours, we have documents we wish to tender in

12 this regard. I have a bundle here which I would like to give to the

13 witness. It contains both the English and the German original. He asked

14 in the proofing that he would have a chance to refer to the German

15 original in court. May I --

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Okay, yes.

17 MS. MOELLER: -- hand this to the witness?

18 Q. It is in the order, Mr. Kickert, in which we will go through the

19 documents, which is in a chronological order. You already mentioned that

20 your first field-trip took place in June, I think. Before that, was there

21 any field-trip organised, to your knowledge, already in which you did not

22 participate - you meaning again you and the Austrian Embassy?

23 A. Yes, there was after the incident in Prekaz beginning of March

24 1998 that a trip was organised by the foreign ministry to visit the site

25 of Prekaz. That must have been just a few days later, early March 1998.

1 Q. And did anyone from the Austrian Embassy take part in this trip?

2 A. No.

3 Q. And why was that?

4 A. We were afraid, and most of the EU countries also follow that

5 line, is that we were afraid that that would be misused as a -- for

6 propaganda purposes. So we didn't want to get involved in that.

7 Q. Could you explain that what you mean by misused for propaganda

8 purposes.

9 A. Well, that -- that they would show us the locality and say, Well,

10 this is -- this is a legitimate fight against terrorists, as they were

11 calling them, and that by showing on TV us, Western diplomats there, they

12 were portrayed in a way that we would approve of their action.

13 MS. MOELLER: Now can we call up exhibit P2666, please. And

14 English version, please.

15 Q. This exhibit should be the first document in the bundle that you

16 have, Mr. Kickert. And it is dated 8 June 1998. If you could look at

17 that. Is that one of the reports you drafted?

18 A. Yes, indeed, because in the right top corner it says: "SB," which

19 is [German spoken]. That means not literally, but it means author, that

20 was myself.

21 Q. And this report refers to a trip for diplomats and military

22 attaches in the first paragraph under the bullet point on 7 June to the

23 battle zones around Decani and western Kosovo and it says that you

24 represented the embassy. Is that correct?

25 A. That's correct.

1 Q. It also says the participants were mainly junior diplomats?

2 A. On behalf of the EU states yes.

3 Q. And then the route travelled is explained in the third paragraph.

4 Can you comment on the fact that the route taken was not the most direct

5 route actually to go through these locations?

6 A. Yeah, the most direct route would have been on the route which

7 goes from Pristina to Pec, and we took a big detour to the north to --

8 even into Rozaje, which is Montenegro, to get to Pec.

9 Q. And why was this detour taken at the time?

10 A. This question was also posed I believe by the Japanese ambassador

11 who participated, and the reason was for security. Our assessment was

12 that the Belgrade authorities didn't have full control of the direct road

13 between Pristina and Pec at the time.

14 Q. Now I would like to turn to page 2 of this report --

15 JUDGE BONOMY: The report actually says that the Serb authorities

16 have no control over the road between Pristina and Pec. Is that different

17 from your impression?

18 THE WITNESS: Well, what I've written is that apparently without

19 control. That's in the first bullet of the -- of the -- at the very first

20 bullet on top of the report --

21 JUDGE BONOMY: Can we go back to the previous page, please.

22 THE WITNESS: Yeah, at the summary. I say [German spoken]

23 apparently without control. So I had no direct information, but the fact

24 that we took this large detour and not the direct road was for us an

25 indication that they felt not secure enough to take us on this direct

1 road.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

3 MS. MOELLER:

4 Q. Now, since we're back to the first page I may as well address one

5 of the bullet points. It's the third from the bottom, the third-last one,

6 saying: "Situation in Decani tense, majority of inhabitants appear to

7 have left."

8 How did you make this conclusion or finding?

9 JUDGE BONOMY: I think we need to go back to page 2 of the

10 document now. Thank you.

11 THE WITNESS: We drove there with our convoy, I think it was two

12 buses, and we got off in Decani. And the only people we met were in a

13 cafe sitting outside drinking coffee, and we chatted with them. Some were

14 from a village more in the south called Baboloc, which were refugees from

15 elsewhere outside Kosovo. And the houses -- and you didn't see any people

16 either on the street nor in the windows of houses. So the appearance was

17 that this town, Decani, was pretty empty.

18 MS. MOELLER:

19 Q. And you describe that on page 2 of your report under the name

20 Decani. And then under that you say: "Next village Prilep." How about

21 inhabitants in Prilep, how was the situation in this village?

22 A. We got off there too, as far as I recall, and wandered around.

23 And I can't recall any inhabitants there either, or if so, just a few.

24 Q. And you also refer in your report to considerable devastation, and

25 in the paragraph dealing with Decani, the third on the second page, you

1 say: "Considerable devastation but by no means as drastic as described by

2 LDK."

3 Can you comment on that and explain it further.

4 A. Yeah, one of the problems we had all along was a question of

5 getting accurate information. So we got information either from the

6 Belgrade authorities or from Kosovo, from the LDK, who had their daily

7 bulletin and so on. And one of the reasons we decided to participate in

8 that field-trip is to see for ourselves the effects of the military

9 actions in the Decani area. And what I've described here is that the LDK

10 said as a -- in Vukovar, and I've been to Vukovar and seen the destruction

11 there, and it was not comparable to the destruction I've seen in Decani.

12 Q. And What kind of destruction that you called considerable

13 devastation did you see yourself, if you could describe it, how the cities

14 looked.

15 A. As I also write in the report there was some direct impact you

16 could see, and I'm not a military expert whatsoever, but I had military

17 attaches who I could ask. And there were some rounds of heavy ammunition

18 but mostly it was machine-gun fire. And what was -- what was interesting,

19 remarkable, is that a lot was destroyed by fire.

20 Q. Mm-hmm. You also in the last sentence of the paragraph dealing

21 with Decani, you refer to: "Colleagues who visited the Drenica region in

22 March reported comparitively little destruction, no shelling with heavy

23 weaponry."

24 Who were these colleagues who had been to Drenica in March?

25 A. That must have been military attache colleagues.

1 Q. And how did they describe the destruction in Drenica in March?

2 A. They probably talk about Prekaz where they had heavier weaponry

3 used than apparently in the Decani region.

4 Q. Now, at the bottom of page 2 there is a title saying: "Briefing

5 by Yugoslav Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of the Interior." Do you

6 recall who briefed the group of diplomats on this occasion?

7 A. No, I don't have a clear recollection of who exactly the people

8 were. I remember that we were accompanied by people from the foreign

9 ministry and the Ministry of the Interior, but I cannot state with any

10 certainty who these people were any more.

11 Q. And the second bullet point is an entry that I would also ask you

12 to comment on. "The visit should rectify erroneous information of the

13 international community figures for refugees fleeing to Albania 'totally

14 false.'" Can you explain that bullet point a little bit?

15 A. Yeah, throughout 1998 and really first half of 1998, because of

16 the security incidents and the response, we had a number of IDPs

17 throughout Kosovo and apparently there was a claim that many fled to

18 Albania, which at this briefing the Belgrade authorities refuted.

19 Q. I now would like to move on --

20 MS. MOELLER: Unless Your Honours have any questions about this

21 particular exhibit.

22 Q. -- to the next one, Exhibit P2665. This is a report of the 1st of

23 July, 1998, and is it correct, Mr. Kickert, you are the author again, as

24 it shows: "SB: Kickert" on the top again?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. In the summary it says: "Official confirmation for the first time

2 of participation of army units in inland operations." Let me ask you

3 first, before the 1st of July did you have any information on whether and

4 to which extent, if so, the VJ was participating in any anti-terrorist

5 operations in Kosovo?

6 A. No, we didn't have any information. It was an issue we brought up

7 with our Austrian military attache time and again in the first half of

8 1998, and his assessment was that the VJ was not involved in these

9 actions. They may have provided some logistics, trucks, whatever, but they

10 were not directly involved in the fighting.

11 Q. Now, this report in the second paragraph under the summary refers

12 to: "HO press reports." Can you explain what the HO means?

13 A. HO is a bureaucratic abbreviation. [German spoken], that means

14 local in this respect, so local press information.

15 Q. So this was based on local press releases only or did you have any

16 other information about that facts stated in this document at the time?

17 A. Only -- I do cite Reuters here, so that's the only source of

18 information I had writing this paragraph.

19 Q. Did you later gain any more information about the degree of

20 participation of the VJ in operations in Kosovo after the 1st of July?

21 A. Not that I can recall now.

22 Q. Okay. The next exhibit would be P2664.

23 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Now, Your Honour, I have an objection to P2665

24 and its use in this trial. It's based on press reports. It's not

25 anything based on first-hand knowledge. I know your ruling is to say to

1 the extent that it's used with the witness, but clearly, it's based on

2 local press, some of which is reported in Reuters. So the observation I

3 wish to make is that P2665 is nothing more than a summary of what

4 Mr. Kickert found in the local press.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Which exhibit is on the screen at the moment? Can

6 we go back to 2665, please.

7 Do we have a problem?

8 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

9 JUDGE BONOMY: You may have used this exhibit already,

10 Mr. O'Sullivan.

11 MS. MOELLER: That's correct, Your Honours. That's --

12 JUDGE BONOMY: I have a marvelous memory, you know.

13 MR. O'SULLIVAN: I asked if some of the information in it was

14 correct. I didn't rely on the exhibit, Your Honour. I put it to the

15 previous witness, asking about information at the conclusion of it.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: You can take it that evidence confined to a press

17 report of the involvement of the VJ in operations anywhere will carry no

18 weight with us.

19 You can move now to 2664.

20 MS. MOELLER:

21 Q. Mr. Kickert, 2664 is a report dated 6 July 1998 and the subject is

22 "Kosovo Observer Mission Inaugural Trip." Can you explain the background

23 to that document a little bit.

24 A. Well, first, I've written it in English because as we took over --

25 Austria took over the EU Presidency on the 1st of July, it was also our

1 obligation to inform other EU member states about what was going on. So I

2 drafted it in English, in the form of a CorEu, which is a form of

3 communication between EU member states. And the whole event was

4 inauguration of the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission. This was an

5 agreement with the Belgrade authorities that we would put observers into

6 the field to get first-hand information of what was going on in Kosovo.

7 Q. And did you participate in this field-trip?

8 A. Yes, I did.

9 Q. And Mr. Petritsch, was he also there?

10 A. Yes, he was also there. We drove down from Belgrade, made this

11 field excursion, if you like, and then drove to Belgrade the very same

12 day.

13 Q. Now, on page 2 of this exhibit, the route that was taken is

14 described: From Pristina north to Kosovska Mitrovica, Gornja Klina,

15 Srbica up to Donji Prekaz and the Jashari family compound. What

16 observations, if any, did you make on this field-trip?

17 A. Well, as I describe just a sentence later on, we did not enter any

18 UCK-controlled areas at the time. And I remember that we stopped in

19 Srbica and there was a police -- not a check-point, but where they

20 protected themselves against possible attacks. We chatted with the

21 policemen and they told us about sporadic fire, but they didn't seem too

22 much concerned about attacks after all.

23 Q. And do you know why the convoy did circumvent all UCK-controlled

24 areas?

25 A. This is what I write at the end in German, is that it was the

1 insistence or the wish of the Russian ambassador not to enter any

2 territory which was UCK controlled, or he didn't want to have an encounter

3 with the UCK.

4 Q. Okay. Now, in this very month, in July 1998, did you participate

5 in any other field-trips?

6 A. Yeah, this is -- in July, this is when I started to travel more,

7 and July was also the month where we went with political directors of EU

8 troika. This was the month where Mr. Rohan was visiting on his own. This

9 is also the month where I went to Malisevo and met for the very first time

10 Mr. Thaqi.

11 Q. Maybe we can take this one after one because we don't have the

12 documents here on these trips. The field-trip with the political

13 directors of the EU troika, who was participating in this mission?

14 A. Chronologically, that was the last of the three trips, but

15 participating was, as I said before, the political director of the United

16 Kingdom, Emyr John Perry, and the political director of the German foreign

17 ministry, Wolfgang Ischinger. And from Austria, the Presidency was the

18 Secretary-General Albert Rohan and -- yeah. So these are the top people

19 who participated.

20 Q. And where did you travel on this occasion?

21 A. We travelled on the normal western road to Pec.

22 Q. And any specific observations you made during this field-trip?

23 A. We were stopped at a police check-point and were not let through.

24 And I remember that we tried to talk the policeman, saying, "Well, this is

25 an important delegation and they're going to see Mr. Milosevic the very

1 next day." That did not impress the policemen there. They just started

2 to radio back to headquarters when Mr. Rohan said that we just had met

3 Mr. Odalovic, Veljko Odalovic, and he had guaranteed us freedom of

4 movement throughout Kosovo.

5 Q. Who was Mr. Veljko Odalovic?

6 A. He was the prefect of Pristina, but for us he was -- we treated

7 him as the prefect for the whole of Kosovo. So any diplomat who would go

8 down to Pristina to meet Kosovo Albanians would also normally meet Veljko

9 Odalovic.

10 Q. And in terms of the areas you passed through on this trip, did you

11 observe anything in particular?

12 A. This was a time when you would see, time and again, houses

13 burning, unharvested fields burning. And with this impression also the

14 political directors went back to Belgrade and confronted Mr. Milosevic

15 with what they had seen.

16 Q. So did you see that yourself?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. You also mentioned a field-trip to Malisevo.

19 A. That's correct.

20 Q. Can you elaborate on that a little bit.

21 A. There were two trips. One was with Mr. Rohan, who came by

22 himself. That was before the EU troika. And through ECMM, that's the

23 European Community Monitoring Mission, I just want to explain that we had

24 this monitoring mission in ex-Yugoslavia for quite a while and also in the

25 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. And from May on, we had one team located

1 in Kosovo reporting to us. So they were already quite acquainted with the

2 area, and through them we had organised a trip to Malisevo to meet for the

3 first time UCK officials.

4 Q. And what was the reason for this meeting with UCK officials?

5 A. The reason was to convince them to be included in the political

6 process. We feared that the violent clashes would grow, that violence

7 would prevail, and so the initiative was taken by Secretary-General Rohan

8 to make an effort by seeing somebody in the leadership of the UCK to

9 involve them in the political process. It was not easy because we didn't

10 know the structure of the UCK whatsoever, but we made an effort.

11 Q. And you said that was the first time that such meeting was

12 arranged for. Were there other meetings in 1998 that you attended with

13 the UCK, the KLA?

14 A. Just to be precise, it was the first meeting we had with the KLA.

15 The Americans did have meetings, even if they were said to be incidental,

16 with the KLA. I remember a meeting of Mr. Holbrooke in Junik where he was

17 even in pictures with armed KLA people. But to our knowledge, afterwards

18 this person he met there was not of importance, not in the leadership of

19 the KLA. But there were contacts also on other levels by the US.

20 Q. Okay. Thank you for this clarification.

21 Now, from your side, from the side of the Austrian government,

22 were there any follow-up meetings after this one in July 1998 with KLA

23 representatives?

24 A. Yeah. Later in July, it must have been end of July, I did also go

25 with my British colleague David Slinn to Klecka, to meet in Klecka with

1 the spokesperson, as he was labelled, of the KLA, Jakup Krasniqi. Also at

2 that meeting were Ram Buja and also Fatmir Limaj.

3 Q. Okay. And any other meetings you would have attended with KLA

4 representatives?

5 A. That was the last meeting for quite some time, because this is the

6 period where the summer offensive of the Serb security forces had

7 started. The KLA, that was -- from their attempt to take Orahovac; then

8 the KLA abandoned Malisevo and went to the hills. So it was, for us, not

9 possible to arrange any meetings with them any more for quite some time.

10 Q. Now, going back to Malisevo, you say the KLA abandoned Malisevo.

11 What was the -- did Malisevo have any particular significance for the KLA?

12 A. Well, the time when I was there in July, they portrayed it as the

13 capital of the "free territories," as they called it, under quotation

14 marks.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: You said something about Orahovac there which has

16 not been very well transcribed. Could you say again what you told us

17 about Orahovac.

18 THE WITNESS: My take of Orahovac is that the KLA not -- being a

19 little bit -- misjudging their strength, tried to take Orahovac and were

20 repelled by the Serb security forces. The way the KLA presented it is

21 that they were provoked to go into there, but my take is that they just

22 overestimated their strength at the time.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

24 Ms. Moeller.

25 MS. MOELLER:

1 Q. Did you visit Orahovac during 1998?

2 A. Very often.

3 Q. And for which purpose, if any specific?

4 A. The purpose was -- so after this counter-offensive, our main aim

5 was on the return of IDPs, and Orahovac was one of the areas where we

6 wanted people to return. The tensions were very high. This is a mixed --

7 this is an ethnically mixed city, Serbs and Albanians and -- so we wanted

8 to facilitate the return of people to Orahovac and the surrounding, not

9 only the city itself.

10 So what we were doing is then what was called then, because they

11 officially launched it, the foreign minister of Germany and the foreign

12 minister of France, the Kinkel-Vedrine initiative, is to, through the

13 presence of our European Union monitoring mission in Orahovac, give some

14 confidence that the situation has calmed down. We had to be careful not

15 to give them the feeling that we were responsible for security but to give

16 them confidence through the presence of internationals that there would be

17 some observation of what was going on. And it did have some effect; the

18 people had returned to Orahovac. We tried then later to copy this model

19 to other areas, which is much more difficult if it's not a city. So we

20 had this project later on in Kishna Reka --

21 Q. Yes. We'll get to that later. Thank you.

22 How was the -- about what time would these initiatives have been

23 taken in 1998, if you recall?

24 A. That must have been August 1998, starting August 1998.

25 Q. And did you - meaning, again, the Austrian Embassy representatives

1 and the ECMM teams - have free access to the area in Orahovac?

2 A. That varied. Time and again we would be -- we would be turned

3 back at check-points, Serb check-points, and other times we had no problem

4 whatsoever to go wherever we wanted. This varied and it was sometimes

5 pure luck. Sometimes there was an operation going on and they didn't want

6 us to get in there, also for security reasons. Yeah.

7 Q. And you mentioned a little bit earlier that you went to Malisevo

8 twice and we talked about the field-trip with the EU troika

9 representatives. Which was the other trip you made?

10 A. Malisevo is a little town which -- a town which is at a

11 crossroads, so you would -- it's easy to go through Malisevo in whichever

12 direction you come from, the north or the east or the west or the south.

13 So you would pass through Malisevo very frequently if you travelled

14 through Kosovo. So during the summer, many, many times we went through to

15 Malisevo.

16 Q. And what, if anything, did you recognise in regard to Malisevo

17 over this summer period?

18 A. What was striking was that immediately after the abandonment of

19 Malisevo by the KLA and of the local population, it was an empty city with

20 just Serb police stationed there and a few elderly people maybe having

21 remained. And you could witness, every time you would go through, that

22 there was more destruction in the city, until this town was even partly

23 leveled.

24 Q. Okay. Now, if you were to -- if you were asked to summarise your

25 observations in regard to the villages and cities you passed by during

1 your field-trips in July and early August 1998, how would you summarise

2 that?

3 A. My own observations, and especially the observations of our

4 monitors on the ground, is that the houses along the roads and in towns

5 were burnt down rather systematically.

6 Q. And did you have any information on who was responsible for this

7 destruction and burning of --

8 A. Well, if you would go through a village and there were no inhabits

9 and just Serb security forces, you ask yourself, Who is responsible for

10 that? Our observers, ECMM observers, also witnessed a policeman setting

11 fire to a house, a policeman in uniform. They wrote it in one of their

12 reports.

13 Q. Okay. I would now like to move on to Exhibit P2655 --

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Before you do that, have I wrongly understood that

15 your last visit around that time was in July?

16 THE WITNESS: My last visit where I met KLA people.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Ah. So in August you still were visiting the

18 locality.

19 THE WITNESS: Yes.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

21 [Trial Chamber confers]

22 MS. MOELLER: Exhibit P2655.

23 Q. Mr. Kickert, if you could have a look at that. The first

24 paragraph -- we already looked at that document with Ambassador Petritsch,

25 so it's already been seen by the Judges. But I would like to ask you to

1 give some background about the first paragraph which refers to the freedom

2 of access for humanitarian NGOs. Was there a problem with this freedom of

3 access at that time? And the date is early August, 4 August 1998 here.

4 A. Yes. As I said before, we had problems of access at times, and we

5 didn't go every day to the field. The humanitarian NGOs, they did, and

6 they were turning to us to ask for political support. And as I see there,

7 the bullet points for the demarche, they also complain about radio

8 equipment being confiscated and issues like that. So this is based on the

9 humanitarian organisations turning to us to support them politically so

10 that they could do their job on the ground.

11 Q. Can you name some of these humanitarian organisations who reported

12 these kinds of problems?

13 A. Our main interlocutors on the ground were ICRC and UNHCR, but

14 there were also some Western NGOs active on the ground. Medecins Sans

15 Frontieres, Oxfam, these are the ones who were also present in Kosovo also

16 -- before and also during this time.

17 Q. Now, moving on to page 2 of this exhibit, the speaking points

18 start with a list of major concerns. What was the basis you - meaning,

19 again, you, the embassy, and the colleagues you address in this telefax -

20 heard about these allegations? What was the information underlying these

21 allegations set out under major concerns?

22 A. These were our observers or monitors on the ground. And we got --

23 from ECMM we got daily reports, weekly reports. This Kosovo Diplomatic

24 Observer Mission, they had joint trips into the field. So there was a US

25 component, there was a Russian component, and there was some joint

1 reports, but I relied, or we relied, mainly on our own European Union

2 monitors.

3 Q. And which of these points listed could you also know from your own

4 observations during your field-trips?

5 A. As I said before, unharvested fields burning, houses burning. I

6 don't know whether I'd seen IDPs at that time already, but there we relied

7 on the international organisations, mainly UNHCR. We didn't rely on local

8 sources on that.

9 Q. And why didn't you rely on local sources in regards to numbers of

10 refugees?

11 A. Because we had the experience also, but we were fearing that they

12 were inflated, the numbers.

13 Q. And local organisations who would also provide numbers, would you

14 be able to name any?

15 A. Well, there was the Mother Teresa Society and there was this

16 Council for Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms. But, as I said, we

17 rather relied on information we got from international NGOs and

18 international organisations.

19 Q. Thank you. Now, in August 1998, was there any other field-trip

20 you participated in?

21 A. Yeah, time and again. I don't -- yeah, there were several

22 field-trips in August, also in September.

23 Q. Did you ever meet Emma Bonino in Kosovo?

24 A. Yes, she was coming in the second half of August. She was from

25 the European Commission, the commissioner for humanitarian aid. She was

1 visiting and I was co-organising that visit, because we also had the

2 infrastructure, the house, there, where she gave also her press

3 conference. And we were touring Kosovo also with her. Ambassador

4 Petritsch was also present. He was present with her in Belgrade when I

5 was already down in Pristina, and then they flew down and we made this

6 field-trip which was mainly organised by ECHO in conjunction -- ECHO, the

7 European Community Humanitarian Office, in conjunction with UNHCR.

8 Q. And where did you go on this trip with Ms. Bonino?

9 A. We also went to Malisevo and then we wanted to go to an IDP camp

10 which was east of Malisevo. So if you take the road, the eastern road

11 from Malisevo, you would turn up to the left, meaning to the north, and

12 there our convoy, which was also full of media people, was not let through

13 by -- at a KLA check-point. So we returned and went instead to the

14 northern, Drenica, region to Cirez.

15 Q. And what, if anything, did you see in Cirez?

16 A. To be honest, I can't recall. There must have been some IDPs for

17 the simple reason that the commissioner was taken there, but that -- no

18 recollection.

19 Q. Okay.

20 MS. MOELLER: The next exhibit is Exhibit P564, please.

21 Q. I understand, Mr. Kickert, that this is also authored by you, this

22 report?

23 A. Yes, indeed.

24 Q. And it now takes us to September 1998. That was a field-trip in

25 which you participated?

1 A. Yes. It was a visit of Ambassador Parak, who was the head of the

2 ECMM. At that time each Presidency had -- was heading the ECMM which had

3 its headquarters for the whole region of ex-Yugoslavia in Sarajevo, so it

4 was based in Sarajevo. And he came down to look at the situation himself.

5 With the logistical assistance of ECMM, we went into the field, if you so

6 like.

7 Q. And the route you took, as described in the first paragraph, was

8 Pristina-Pec-Decani-Junik-Pec-Pristina. Is that correct?

9 A. That's correct, yes.

10 Q. Now, this document contains some observations, and the first

11 bullet point reads: "Villages along the main Pristina-Pec road are, with

12 the exception of Serbian villages, no longer inhabited."

13 How did you know Albanian villages from Serb villages?

14 A. Well, first you can tell quite often by the way the houses are

15 built, the compounds are built. Then you can guess if there's a mosque

16 there that it's -- it will not be a Serbian village. In a Serbian village

17 you would find an Orthodox church. And in this case, by then you could

18 judge, by the degree of destruction and by the number of people being

19 there, whether it was an Albanian or not. So if the village was destroyed

20 and no villagers seen, then you could guess with quite a certainty that it

21 was an Albanian village. And in others you would find -- in Serbian

22 villages you would find people. And I remember one of these crossings

23 from Pristina to Pec. I even saw villagers in civilian clothes with

24 Kalashnikovs for their -- I assume, their own protection. And this would

25 also give you a clue that it was a Serbian village, if they can run around

1 with a Kalashnikov openly.

2 Q. You say "... run around with a Kalashnikov openly." Were there

3 any Serb security forces in the area where you saw that, or, I mean --

4 A. At that particular time when I saw this villager, no. But as I

5 write in this report, there we saw a convoy of milicija.

6 Q. And that's actually the next bullet point. On 10th September you

7 saw a convoy of military vehicles carrying special army units southwards

8 from Pec. Now, you already mentioned that you are not a military expert.

9 How were you able to conclude that these were special army units that you

10 saw?

11 A. That was certainly based on the assessment of the ECMM observers.

12 Many of the ECMM observers were military. So I would rely on what they

13 told me because I have no idea to see on -- whatever they have on their --

14 marks on their uniforms, I had no clue whatsoever.

15 Q. Were some of these observers also on this field-trip with you and

16 Ambassador Parak?

17 A. Absolutely. There must have been at least two cars. The driver

18 most probably was Austrian military and they would always go with military

19 people.

20 Q. And just to go back for one question, to the first bullet point.

21 The villages along the main Pristina-Pec road, how many villages are we

22 talking about, if you can recall, where you made this observation?

23 A. I don't know how many villages are on the way. I don't know. A

24 dozen? I wouldn't -- I wouldn't be able to make a guess which would hold.

25 Q. Okay.

1 JUDGE BONOMY: This document is reflecting your own personal

2 observations?

3 THE WITNESS: Right.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

5 THE WITNESS: But if I may add, a lot comes also from my talk with

6 people who have been in the area. Like, I cite the Dutch military

7 attache --

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes. You indicate, though, when that is the case,

9 don't you?

10 THE WITNESS: Yeah.

11 MS. MOELLER:

12 Q. Now moving on to the third bullet point, Junik. You say: "There

13 is nothing to be seen of the 1.000 people who have returned home from the

14 Serbian side." Can you comment on that. Which 1.000 people were those?

15 A. I suppose that that was sort of the claim, that a thousand people

16 had returned to the area. I don't think that Junik had any Serbian --

17 major Serbian population, so it must have been Albanian. So my

18 interpretation now is that they claim that a thousand people had returned,

19 and I state there that I haven't seen many people, certainly not a

20 thousand people. But then I continue, saying that US KDOM had reported

21 about 2.000 returnees and so we had tasked the ECMM team, which was based

22 in Pec, to verify these reports.

23 Q. And the next paragraph deals with the Serbian humanitarian centre

24 in Decani. You say: "It was set up, equipped, opened, but nobody went

25 there. The Albanian population did not return." What is your explanation

1 for that fact?

2 A. Well, lack of confidence of being able to return, lack of

3 confidence to use the Serbian humanitarian centres, which was not only in

4 Decani but, as I told you about, the return project to Orahovac, they had

5 one there, too. And if they would not go there, the Albanian population,

6 it didn't make much sense to have them the way they were set up.

7 Q. Were there any ECMM monitors also placed at this or close to this

8 humanitarian centre in Decani?

9 A. Yeah, we had -- the ECMM had a different concept. We didn't have

10 the security issues as the Americans had it. The Americans always do this

11 in compounds for security reason. We were regionally dispersed, so the

12 nearest ECMM office was in Pec. And we had one in Prizren, we had one in

13 Kosovska Mitrovica, we had one in Pristina, and I believe so -- later on

14 in Orahovac and later on also in Urosevac/Ferizaj.

15 Q. But not in Decani, I conclude from that?

16 A. Not to my knowledge.

17 Q. Thank you.

18 A. It was near to Pec anyways. You could drive down there easily and

19 they were patrolling the area. So they would go there, I suppose -- every

20 one of these ECMM posts had two teams, so I suppose that they went daily

21 through Decani.

22 Q. Now, moving on to page 2 of this exhibit. The first bullet point

23 on this side, you refer to an ICRC aid convoy not being allowed entry on

24 the 10th of September nearby Krusevac, that is, I think. Can you comment

25 on that further?

1 A. Well, the issue here was always to reach the IDPs, and since there

2 were operations - I called them clean-up operations or mop-up operations -

3 that were going on, the issue was having access to them to give them

4 humanitarian goods, and to find them because they would also move. And I

5 refer to that the ECMM went to Krusevac and didn't see any persons any

6 more there. And the assumption was maybe they moved further south.

7 Q. Now, the summary of this document states that the number of

8 internally displaced persons has not yet dropped, that they are only being

9 shifted locally by the action of the security forces. What was the

10 underlying information of this conclusion?

11 A. Well, the information we got from ECMM and from humanitarian

12 organisations in the field.

13 Q. And around that time, in early September, did you talk about this

14 problem with Serbian authorities, you meaning again the Austrian Embassy

15 side?

16 A. That was a regular issue with the Belgrade authorities. As you

17 have picked out, this demarche in early August, that continued the

18 discussion with the Belgrade authorities all along because we had this big

19 fear that this will drag on into winter and we would have then pictures

20 around the world of IDPs in the open and freezing in the snow and we just

21 wanted to avoid that. And I think also Belgrade understood that and was

22 receptive to our efforts like the one in Orahovac for people to return and

23 have access to humanitarian organisations.

24 Q. And in return -- in regard of numbers that you gave to Serbian

25 authorities, how would they respond to that?

1 A. I -- the general was that they were playing down the numbers, and

2 just to not portray it as drastic as it was; on the other hand, you had

3 the Albanian -- Kosovo Albanian side trying to inflate the numbers. So we

4 had the find the middle ground, and this is where we relied very much on

5 UNHCR.

6 Q. Now, the last bullet point states that entry for humanitarian

7 organisations will be more difficult from now on."

8 A. No. In German it says: "Continues to be hindered -- the access

9 for humanitarian organisations -- [German spoken] is continuously

10 hindered. That's a wrong translation, then.

11 MS. MOELLER: Indeed, Your Honours, so I can -- being a German

12 native speaker, I can confirm that the correct translation would be what

13 Mr. Kickert just said is "continuing to be hindered" instead of "will be

14 more difficult from now on."

15 And that would actually resolve my question because then it's not

16 getting more difficult, which I wanted to ask why.

17 Q. Okay. Then we can move on to the next exhibit which is P558. And

18 this is a document from the end of September, and again, Mr. Kickert, I

19 think you were the author of this document?

20 A. Correct.

21 Q. And what is this report based on? Is it your own experience or is

22 it reflecting something else?

23 A. No. This is a report based on what my British colleague with whom

24 I shared a lot of work down in Kosovo told me. I couldn't participate in

25 that trip, but I did visit the area earlier in September with him. This

1 is what I'm referring to, to the earlier report of the 7th of September.

2 Q. And just to give some background, what was this topic of a local

3 police force that is being dealt with in this document? What was it

4 about?

5 A. It was one of the issues to, A, give security -- a sense of

6 security to the people; and B, have it sort of locally owned, meaning that

7 in Kosovo Albanian villages there would be Kosovo Albanian security

8 instead of Serbian police, which should then also facilitate the

9 confidence and the wish to return or stay there.

10 Q. And where did this initiative come from?

11 A. That originated in Belgrade, but I -- it could be well based on

12 discussions the Americans had with -- in Belgrade.

13 Q. And before we go back to this document, you mentioned that you

14 went to the place mentioned in the document, Djakovica, on an earlier

15 occasion.

16 A. Mm-hmm.

17 Q. And was this in relation to this issue of a local police?

18 A. Yes, indeed. We wanted to see it for ourselves. And I think

19 after we picked up news that this was being -- being done in the area of

20 Djakovica, my British colleague, David Slinn, and I, we went there and we

21 talked to a deputy and not the prefect of Djakovica at the time. And he

22 confirmed it. There was a little bit of uncertainty whether they would be

23 uniformed or armed, and so this is the follow-up report based on what my

24 British colleague told me when he was in the area.

25 Q. So what did the deputy of the Prefect of Djakovica tell you at

1 that earlier meeting that they were planning to do?

2 A. That it would set up security, coordinators, or local police in a

3 number of villages of the Djakovica area. At that time, he -- as I said,

4 he was not certain whether they would have uniforms or get side-arms, but

5 in this report I think it -- it says already -- that was then the Prefect

6 of Djakovica -- told my British colleague that they would get uniforms,

7 they would get side-arms and ammunition the very next day, so the 25th of

8 September.

9 Q. And then your report states in the paragraph before the paragraph

10 titled [German spoken] in German and "verdict" in English?

11 A. "Verdict" is wrong.

12 Q. Which is also a wrong translation, right?

13 A. It would be assessment.

14 Q. Exactly. But the paragraph above the "assessment" paragraph

15 refers to a tour of Djakovica via Ponosevac and Junik, that none of the

16 people listed was to be found in any of the villages, despite inquiries

17 being made?

18 A. Yes, this was a trip of the British colleague and he was given a

19 list of these security coordinators. So he just hit the road and went to

20 these villages where the people were listed and he didn't find them.

21 Q. Just to clarify, on this particular tour where none were found,

22 that was only your British colleague or were you with him?

23 A. No, I was not with him. I stayed up there. I had to write a

24 report of the heads of mission on the implementation of the education

25 agreement.

1 Q. And the observation that most villages were empty of inhabitants,

2 only a very small number of people had returned even to Junik is then also

3 the observation of your British colleague?

4 A. Correct.

5 Q. Now, turning to the part which should be under the

6 title "assessment." The assessment is -- I think let's first go to the

7 last sentence, because there's also a translation mistake in there that

8 you pointed out when we looked at the document in the proofing. The last

9 sentence says: "For the time being it can only be viewed as a cover-up

10 operation."

11 A. Alibi action, I said. It's sort of -- our assessment was it's

12 nothing -- this action is nothing serious. It was just announced and they

13 did a little bit but it had no real effect on the ground, because I write

14 earlier that the local LDK representatives were saying these locally hired

15 people were police informants, so it would not be giving what -- what the

16 expectation was, meaning confidence, to the local population. Quite the

17 contrary.

18 Q. And the assessment that it was more or less an alibi operation,

19 was that -- is that now your assessment in this report or is it the

20 assessment that your British colleague gave to you?

21 A. It's a shared assessment.

22 Q. And as far as you shared this assessment, was it based only on the

23 report of your British colleague or on other information as well?

24 A. And my previous trip when I was, earlier in September, with him

25 there, on the 6th or 7th of September.

1 Q. Did anything make you reconsider this assessment at a later

2 point? Did you learn anything different in regards to local police?

3 A. Well, at end of September things have just -- were taken over by

4 events. This was -- September 1998 was the time of the

5 Secretary-General's report on the implementation of Security Council

6 Resolution - what was that? - 1199, and so there was a lot of activities

7 going on at the end of September/early October, where the discussions

8 were -- Richard Holbrooke was in Belgrade and which resulted in the Kosovo

9 Verification Mission. So we didn't follow this up, to my knowledge,

10 because it was overtaken by events with the KVM and -- or before the KVM

11 was operational, the expanded KDOM.

12 Q. Okay.

13 MS. MOELLER: Now I would like to move on to Exhibit P557.

14 Q. This is a document from the 30th of September, 1998. And on the

15 right-hand corner you see under "SB," which means -- as you said in

16 English, would read "author." "MC Kickert Senfter." What would MC be?

17 A. Mission chief.

18 Q. So it was a common report.

19 A. It was a joint report. I mean, if I'm the author, he still signs

20 it off and would make changes or additions. But in this report it is a

21 compilation of three authors for the simple reason that I was not present

22 at this talk Ambassador Petritsch had with the Contact Group ambassadors,

23 with President Milosevic.

24 Q. Okay. So you already answered my next question. You were not

25 present in the meeting with Milosevic, but I would still like you to look

1 at the last bullet point under the category "Talks with President

2 Milosevic," which took place according to this report on 28 September.

3 And the last bullet point says: "There are perhaps a maximum of 700 IDPs

4 in the open air." Do I understand correctly that this is information that

5 was given by President Milosevic at the time?

6 A. Yes, that's how I understand it, that President Milosevic said,

7 "700 IDPs under open air."

8 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Your Honour, I'm going to object to this line of

9 questioning. The witness has said he wasn't present at the meeting. The

10 person who was present at this meeting testified a couple of days ago.

11 That's when the question should have been put, not to this witness.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: I think it was put, Mr. O'Sullivan, or do you

13 remember it not having been put?

14 MR. O'SULLIVAN: This witness can't speak to --

15 JUDGE BONOMY: I understand the point you're making. But was

16 Petritsch not actually asked?

17 MS. MOELLER: Your Honours, the document was tendered through

18 Mr. Petritsch.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Yeah. So what's the point in asking this witness

20 about it?

21 MS. MOELLER: I just would like him to comment on the number of

22 700 IDPs in relation to the knowledge he had.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, do that, but don't ask him whether the source

24 is Mr. Milosevic because we've already had the witness that could deal

25 with that.

1 MS. MOELLER: That was just to clarify where it came from.

2 Q. Mr. Kickert, this number of 700 IDPs that was stated on this

3 occasion, what do you say about that?

4 A. Well, in the report, it continues that the very next day we had

5 been together with the Contact Group ambassadors to an IDP camp in Kisna

6 Reka, which I was referring to before, and on my own account I was there.

7 I would have guessed that in this particular main camp we had been at

8 there were a thousand IDPs alone in this particular camp, and this was a

9 camp in the open.

10 Q. And this would be referred to in your report under number 2, the

11 second paragraph. Is that the camp you refer to now?

12 A. That's correct, yes.

13 Q. Okay. Do you know how long this camp was there at Kishna Reka?

14 A. All through summer. Most probably at the moment that the KLA had

15 to leave the area, the people would have been withdrawn up. So I guess

16 end of July/early August.

17 Q. Okay.

18 MS. MOELLER: We can move on to the next exhibit, which is P561.

19 Q. I'm just going back a little bit in time, 8 September, and you are

20 the author of this document, Mr. Kickert, are you?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. It refers to a briefing, personal briefing, given to Ambassador

23 Petritsch by the US Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and

24 Labour, Mr. Shattuck. Were you present in this briefing?

25 A. I must have been since I wrote it, but it didn't make much

1 impression on me so I ...

2 MS. MOELLER: I would like to look at the paragraph at the bottom

3 of this document under "Forensic Experts."

4 Q. And if you could explain to us what is stated in there,

5 that "Shattuck demonstrated guarded optimism; Milosevic had given him to

6 understand that individual international experts may be considered; he ...

7 ruled out sending in organisations." And then it says: "Shattuck showed

8 interest in either the Finnish team or the Dutch experts."

9 What is that all about, please?

10 A. To get credible information about incidents, claims of massacres,

11 we wanted to have international experts look at certain incidents and so

12 we had the idea of early on to ask -- early on meaning that -- I know that

13 it was already a claim of my foreign minister Wolfgang Schuessel when he

14 in Belgrade visited on the 5th of June, 1998, to ask for international

15 forensic experts to investigate and look at these incidents to get an

16 objective information because you had claims and counter-claims on all

17 these incidents. And we just wanted to get a clear picture about it.

18 So we had proposed this Finnish forensic team which we - meaning

19 Austria - were well-acquainted with through cooperation in Bosnia. And we

20 understood the reluctance of Belgrade not to have the ICTY investigating.

21 So we thought that maybe a way out would be international experts from a

22 neutral country which had no interests and stakes in Kosovo or the Federal

23 Republic of Yugoslavia.

24 Q. And how was the reaction of Belgrade, as you said, to that -- or

25 the Yugoslav officials to that proposal in June 1998?

1 A. Ignorance. I mean, there was no follow-up to that. They said

2 that, Well, we have our own investigations into these. We are a sovereign

3 state. We will have our investigating judges. We have our own

4 pathologists, our own experts look at the issues.

5 MS. MOELLER: Your Honours, I see the time. Would you like to

6 break at this point?

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes.

8 Mr. Kickert, we have to break at this stage for an hour. The

9 usher will show you where you should go to wait for that hour and then you

10 should return. But meanwhile would you leave the courtroom with the

11 usher. Thank you.

12 [The witness stands down]

13 JUDGE BONOMY: And we shall resume at quarter to 2.00.

14 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.45 p.m.

15 --- On resuming at 1.45 p.m.

16 [The witness takes the stand]

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Moeller.

18 MS. MOELLER: Thank you, Your Honour.

19 Q. Mr. Kickert, before the break we left off talking about the

20 forensic expert team. Did this forensic team or any forensic team

21 eventually arrive in Kosovo?

22 A. Yes, it did.

23 Q. And what team was it?

24 A. It was the Finnish team.

25 Q. And when did it arrive?

1 A. We got the go-ahead by Belgrade at the beginning of October, and

2 they came for their first fact-finding mission in the second half of

3 October, 20th-25th, around that time.

4 Q. And how did it come about that they were -- that they were called

5 to come into Kosovo?

6 A. I think that it was part of the - as I may call it - Holbrooke

7 package. It was for Belgrade certainly the lesser evil than having the

8 ICTY there. It was better to have the forensic -- Finnish forensic

9 experts on what was then a rather bilateral level. We dealt a lot with

10 the circumstances how they were invited. First Belgrade wanted to have

11 them invited by an institution like the Forensic Institute, but we then

12 convinced Belgrade that it would be a formal invitation by a foreign

13 minister -- a letter to the Finnish foreign minister asking to send this

14 team to the FRY.

15 Q. And what was the mandate of this forensic team? What were they

16 supposed to do once in Kosovo?

17 A. They -- the idea was - and there was a little bit of a haggling

18 about the mandate. We insisted that they should have totally free hand,

19 free movement, and doing investigations as they saw fit. They did arrive.

20 They started their work. We had agreed then on a number of sites and

21 incidents they would look at. We shared them equally, meaning equally in

22 the sense of having some -- some cases where Belgrade alleged an atrocity

23 had happened like Klecka, like Glodjane. And on the other hand we had

24 incidents, same number, where the Kosovo Albanian side alleged to have

25 that -- alleged that the atrocities had happened.

1 Q. And which role, if any, did you play in regard to the work of the

2 Finnish expert team?

3 A. Well, I was sort of an intermediary. I was the representative of

4 the EU Presidency. They had started off on a bilateral level, the first

5 visit paid by the Finnish government, but then we had a joint action of

6 the European Union, community at the time, where it was commonly paid by

7 the EU.

8 Q. And after they arrived in Kosovo, what did this team do?

9 A. They set up a headquarters there. They had contacts, both in

10 Belgrade with the authorities and then in Kosovo with the authorities.

11 They had made contact with the Serbian forensic experts, sort of -- then

12 making decisions which sites they would be looking into, issues like that.

13 Q. And you said there was a little bit of haggling about the

14 incidents which they would look at. Did they eventually start

15 investigations on certain incidents?

16 A. Yes, they did, but they were not able to do their work in the way

17 it was intended to. We had problems -- and that was already back in

18 December then, had problems of doing the exhumations as foreseen at -- of

19 those victims of the alleged incident in Gornje Obrinje.

20 Q. And what problems were these?

21 A. This was a question of access combined with -- with security. It

22 was no problem whatsoever to go there by themselves, the Finns by

23 themselves, in the company of the ECMM. But when the exhumations should

24 have started, I don't know, around 10th of December or whatever, there was

25 not only the Serbian investigating judge part of the convoy but a long

1 tail of MUP police cars and unit including APCs. And Gornje Obrinje was

2 in the Drenica region in the UCK-held area at that time, so had we

3 continued, it would have meant a conflict, meaning it would have been

4 shooting, for sure, and we, the Finns and I, would have been in the middle

5 of it. So we -- or it was actually myself who then decided we cannot

6 continue and cannot move into this area.

7 Q. So you were present when the Finnish forensic team went to Gornje

8 Obrinje, I understand from what you're saying?

9 A. Yes. They had the most logistical support by ECMM. We even had

10 the big trucks. Everything was prepared. They have been -- the day

11 before they have been at the site, burial site in Gornje Obrinje to make

12 the excavations -- exhumations. Sorry. And when we want to go there to

13 do the actual exhumations, we could not without having risked an armed

14 incident, so we withdrew.

15 Q. Okay.

16 MS. MOELLER: I would like to call up exhibit P2820, please.

17 Q. Mr. Kickert, that's a document dated 16th December 1998.

18 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Your Honour, I object to the use of this

19 document.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Yeah.

21 MR. O'SULLIVAN: This document was disclosed to us yesterday

22 evening at 1625. It had not been previously disclosed. It's in English

23 and German. There's no complete English translation. There's no B/C/S

24 translation for our clients. This document and this testimony indeed is

25 not indicated in the 65 ter summary. For all those reasons we object for

1 lack of notice and lack of inadequate time to prepare for this.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Moeller.

3 MS. MOELLER: Your Honours, it's correct that that document was

4 disclosed yesterday. The reason is I had on the notification another

5 document, Exhibit P2657, which had the same subject line as this

6 document: Obstacles for the Finnish Forensic Expert Team," but which

7 dealt with everything else but the Finnish forensic team. Now, when I

8 talked to Mr. Kickert yesterday I inquired whether there was any document

9 actually dealing with the issue of the Finnish forensic expert team, and

10 this is the very document which I wasn't aware of previously.

11 That's the reason why we disclosed it. I think the evidence that

12 Mr. Kickert gave on that is admissible because it is dealt with in his

13 statement. He refers in two paragraphs on page 5 of his statement to the

14 work of the Finnish forensic team and the problems encountered and what

15 was done about it. And we would tender this document only in support of

16 his testimony on that point, basically on the note that you made recently

17 that contemporaneous documents on the events are the best evidence we can

18 present, and this is why we suggest this evidence now to be admitted,

19 despite a relatively late notice of the document itself.

20 As to the German and English, the content I want to rely on is

21 only in the English text. Only the heading and maybe one sentence in the

22 beginning is in German, which could be read out in English here, and then

23 there is some four paragraphs at the end which are in German, but they

24 deal with a different aspect, and we would -- we are of course working on

25 translations as we speak about it. They hadn't been available this

1 morning.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Why had you not seek amendment of your Rule 65 ter

3 list of exhibits?

4 MS. MOELLER: Your Honours, I was -- I was planning to raise this

5 issue later on, because I understand with the last witness where we had a

6 lot of documents we sometimes filed -- had to file something in writing

7 about the actual admission of documents. I would have addressed that

8 then.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

10 [Trial Chamber confers]

11 JUDGE BONOMY: In view of this failure to comply with the basic

12 rule that we've invited you to follow, and indeed in view of the absence

13 of just basic courtesy to the Trial Chamber, and also because of the late

14 notification of this document for the reasons given by Mr. O'Sullivan, we

15 refuse to allow you to tender this or to use it.

16 MS. MOELLER: Thank you, Your Honour.

17 I understand this ruling to mean that I may ask him some

18 additional questions about the incident as such? May I, as --

19 JUDGE BONOMY: It defeats me why you would bother with the

20 document in view of what you had said earlier about the content of the

21 witness's statement, and that has been disclosed, according to you. So --

22 I haven't seen the statement, as you know --

23 MS. MOELLER: Yes.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: -- but I accept what you say about its contents,

25 and that seems to answer Mr. O'Sullivan's point about the subject matter

1 but not about the use of the document.

2 MS. MOELLER: Very well. Thank you.

3 Q. Mr. Kickert, on this -- the incident we just talked about, the

4 aborted attempt to go to Gornje Obrinje that day, were there any further

5 discussions about this incident later with the Serb authorities?

6 A. Yes, it was brought up, both in Belgrade and then as a matter of

7 coincidence the Serb minister of justice --

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry, Mr. Cepic.

9 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, by your leave, I'm

10 raising the issue of the basis for the questions put by my learned friend

11 Ms. Moeller. The statement of the witness was not attached, only the

12 documents were attached. Therefore, there is no basis for this incident,

13 although my learned friend referred to the statement earlier on.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Moeller.

15 MS. MOELLER: Your Honour --

16 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.

17 MS. MOELLER: -- this is not a Rule 92 ter but a live witness, so

18 we didn't put the statement on the notification, but the statement was

19 disclosed yesterday as part of the witness 66(A)(ii) disclosure --

20 JUDGE BONOMY: So the statement is not part of the 65 ter summary?

21 MS. MOELLER: Of the summary, yes, but it is not an exhibit in

22 e-court as P number, because we do not intend to tender the statement, as

23 he is live.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: So where is this referred to in the 65 ter summary,

25 then?

1 MS. MOELLER: Your Honour, the 65 ter summary is relatively short,

2 which is why I put an additional notice to the Defence saying: "The

3 Prosecution intends to lead evidence on all aspects dealt with in the

4 witness statement dated 14 May--

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Oh, yes.

6 MS. MOELLER: -- and 8-9 June, which is one and the same --

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes. Thank you.

8 MS. MOELLER: -- statement of five pages.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic, you'll see that there is reference to

10 the statement in what is called "Additional Notice to the Defence."

11 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Yes, but the leave of the Chamber was

12 not asked for in the meantime, as far as I know. And it is not contained

13 in the original 65 ter list or in the summary, for that matter.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Moeller.

15 MS. MOELLER: Your Honour, I think, as I said, the witness summary

16 is relatively generic in saying: "I was responsible for political issues

17 focused on Kosovo," and we submit that is one aspect of it. And it is

18 dealt with explicitly in the witness statement that we referred the

19 Defence to, there cannot be a lack of notice, really, in this case.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Why don't you follow the course that we instructed

21 and ask for leave to amend these lists at the appropriate time? Why do

22 you just ignore these rules that have been made?

23 MS. MOELLER: Which -- amend the 65 ter summary, Your Honour?

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, if you want to amend it, you need leave to do

25 it. There was a deadline back in June for 65 ter lists, and you know that

1 there is a rule requiring you to ask if you wish to amend it.

2 MS. MOELLER: But, Your Honour, I -- what I was arguing is that it

3 is actually included in the description of tasks and portfolio of the

4 witness, as set out in the 65 ter summary. Now, if you're asking that

5 each and every little detail of the statement goes into a 65 ter summary,

6 that would blow these 65 ter summaries up very much. So that's why we

7 often use more generic descriptions, and in this case I think it is

8 covered by the description of what the witness will testify about in

9 general terms.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Direct my attention, please, to the description

11 that includes this.

12 MS. MOELLER: Well, the second sentence saying: "The witness was

13 responsible for political issues and was focussed on Kosovo."

14 [Trial Chamber confers]

15 JUDGE BONOMY: We will allow you to follow this line of

16 examination in the way that -- the restricted way that can be done without

17 the document, but that should not be understood as in any way accepting

18 the submission you have just made to us.

19 If you're right that notice is given in the second sentence of

20 your 65 ter summary, then it is incomprehensible that you would add an

21 additional notice to this. You obviously think that that doesn't -- or

22 when it was drafted didn't cover the various matters that were referred to

23 in the statement. And therefore, to make the position clear you've added

24 this additional notice to the Defence. And it really isn't acceptable to

25 suggest that that second sentence would be adequate notice of evidence

1 about the obstructive behaviour of Serb authorities in relation to

2 exhumations, if that's what you're leading evidence about.

3 So please don't treat the Bench as having no understanding of what

4 the content of a 65 ter summary ought to have. But as far as this issue

5 is concerned, we will allow you to pursue it in this way by asking further

6 questions.

7 MS. MOELLER: Thank you, Your Honour. And I apologise if I

8 offended you. I only put this additional notice to indicate that this was

9 our interpretation of the 65 ter summary, but I take your point, of

10 course.

11 Q. Mr. Kickert, just a few more questions on this issue.

12 MS. MOELLER: I'm sorry, I'm seeing --

13 JUDGE BONOMY: One moment.

14 Mr. Cepic.

15 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, may I be allowed to go

16 back to this issue again. I may be mistaken, but I don't think at any

17 point in the statement there is anything mentioning exhumations, and my

18 learned friend may correct me if I'm wrong. Thank you.

19 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, we have the disadvantage of not having the

20 statement, so I am relying on what I'm being told.

21 MS. MOELLER: Your Honour, may I refer you to the statement?

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, just tell me what it says.

23 MS. MOELLER: It says that the witness had dealings with Zoran

24 Andjelkovic when he worked to facilitate access for the Finnish forensic

25 team and that he also met with the Serbian minister of justice after

1 access to the site at Gornje Obrinje was denied to the Finnish forensic

2 team. Now, access to a site, yes, I think that -- what would the Finnish

3 forensic team do at the site but exhumations, even if the

4 word "exhumations" is not in the statement, I submit that is notice.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Yeah. Mr. Cepic, we already had reference to the

6 fact that this was to do with exhumations and there was no objection taken

7 at that stage. We don't want to go back to this and we will allow

8 Ms. Moeller to continue, as we've already stipulated.

9 MS. MOELLER:

10 Q. Mr. Kickert, once the attempt to go to the site at Gornje Obrinje

11 was aborted, was this discussed with the Serbian authorities?

12 A. Yes. When I -- my last intervention, the Serbian Minister of

13 Justice happened to be in Pristina that day and we were able to meet him

14 in the government building in Pristina, and I brought that forward, that

15 issue. And also what I saw as a breach of the Vienna Diplomatic

16 Convention as a -- a photograph of -- not a photograph but the apparatus,

17 the photo apparatus -- the camera of Mr. Timo Lehelma, the Finnish

18 ambassador accompanying the team was taken away while sitting in a

19 diplomatic vehicle. And so we brought also this issue up with the Serbian

20 Minister of Justice and later on also in Belgrade, but it was to no

21 avail. The Finnish forensic team did not start exhumations in Gornje

22 Obrinje before the Christmas break. They left home and from the 1st of

23 January, 1999, I was no longer responsible, because I was no longer EU

24 Presidency but it was the Germans.

25 Q. Thank you. Now I would like to move on to Exhibit P560, please.

1 That's a document from 7 October 1998. It says at the top "Special Report

2 Kickert," so is it correct to conclude --

3 A. No, no.

4 Q. -- you were the author?

5 A. SB is not --

6 Q. SB --

7 A. It's [German spoken]. It's [German spoken], but it's just author

8 Kickert.

9 Q. Author. Okay. You authored that document, right?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. It refers to a meeting, I think, of Ambassador Petritsch with

12 Mr. Sainovic. Were you present at that meeting?

13 A. Yes, I was.

14 Q. I would like you to look at the second sentence in the first

15 paragraph which says that "Sainovic is considered a close associate of

16 Yugoslav President Milosevic and is thought to be responsible for

17 coordinating the security forces in Kosovo since the summer." What was

18 the information upon you - you meaning again you and the Austrian Embassy

19 - included this in your report?

20 A. Well, this was our assessment of his role all along summer.

21 Mr. Sainovic was very often down in Pristina in the government building,

22 and we know that at one occasion for sure that Ambassador -- the US

23 Ambassador Chris Hill met him there in Pristina in the government

24 building, and he was referred to us as the person the Americans would

25 bring security issues up with. For us, the meeting on 7th of October was

1 the very first meeting that we had with Mr. Sainovic.

2 Q. And did you learn at any time any information which would indicate

3 that the statement in this report about Mr. Sainovic's role would have

4 been wrong, would have been different?

5 A. We were not discussing security issues as such, hard-core security

6 issues with Mr. Sainovic. So I could neither one way or the other -- it

7 is our assessment we got -- our impression we got from hearing that he was

8 an interlocutor for security issues for the Americans.

9 Q. And why was it that meetings on security issues were held more or

10 less by the Americans?

11 A. Well, you have to understand that the EU had not a common foreign

12 security policy at that time, and actually Ambassador Petritsch was -- was

13 the real first special envoy named, and actually, at this very time he was

14 already in his new position, an agreement in principle to name him EU

15 Special Envoy in Kosovo was made at the General Affairs Council meeting,

16 the informal one, at the margins at the General Assembly in New York about

17 September and officially he was formalised as EU Special Envoy, if I'm not

18 mistaken, at the General Affairs Council on the 5th of October. So it was

19 just after he was named that Mr. Sainovic was ready to see Ambassador

20 Petritsch. We had generally also as EU Presidency problems of access. I

21 put it very bluntly. We were as EU a soft power, not taken seriously and

22 certainly not on par with the Americans.

23 Q. Was there any reference from the Yugoslav side who they would

24 rather have as interlocutors, the EU or the US?

25 A. No. The main dealings were with Americans, general. Also on --

1 by this time there were already with what we called the Hill drafts, sort

2 of drafts for an interim agreement, political agreement, were circulating

3 and given to one side and the other side. It was always the Americans who

4 would discuss these drafts with the Serb interlocutors. It was not us, it

5 was not the EU.

6 Q. Thank you. Can you tell us a little bit more about this meeting

7 with Mr. Sainovic on this occasion?

8 A. I think it says pretty much all. I think the most important is

9 what all the meetings in the end of September/beginning of October stated

10 that it was announced that the -- that the offensive or the action of the

11 security forces have ended. And I think it had to do also with the

12 deadline of Security Council Resolution 1199.

13 Q. And the bullet point referring to this issue, I think it's the

14 third from the bottom in the English version: "Action by security forces

15 was allegedly called off on 28 September. Since then, no serious

16 clashes."

17 The sentence after that: "Were it possible to accept the argument

18 of the US ..." Can you explain that. It's not quite clear to me what

19 this is meant to say.

20 A. Well, I'm reading it in German and -- well, it says that he could

21 accept that the fights have ended just -- maybe just five days ago. It's

22 just impossible that actions would stop from one moment to the other and

23 withdraw security forces. So even if you set a target date of 28 - that's

24 my interpretation now - of 28 of September, you -- by retreating your

25 security forces, you could not stop -- avoid certain fights once and for

1 all on this target date.

2 Q. Did you have any other independent information on what the

3 situation was during these days, the last days in September in terms of

4 the ending of the operations?

5 A. There was a report by ECMM which was also shared with the UN to be

6 a basis for the Secretary-General's report based on Security Council

7 Resolution 1199. So there must be a report submitted to New York by us,

8 by the ECMM.

9 Q. And the last exhibit I would like to look at with you is Exhibit

10 P562.

11 MS. MOELLER: If we could go to the last page first, please, the

12 third page.

13 Q. This is an e-mail dispatch from the 20th of February, 1999, and

14 your name, Mr. Kickert, appears at the end of the text, Petritsch/Kickert.

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. But on the first page as SB, author, is a Mr. Senfter --

17 A. He --

18 Q. -- could you explain how this report came together.

19 A. This is a report I filed from the castle of Rambouillet, and it

20 was a little complicated, but I had a ciphering device which I used in

21 Kosovo, which deciphering device was in Belgrade. So for that matter I

22 sent this report to Belgrade and then my colleague, Mr. Senfter, would

23 forward it to Vienna.

24 Q. And --

25 JUDGE BONOMY: We saw a number of these communications earlier

1 with Mr. Petritsch, and these ones tend to bear a time as well as a date.

2 And some of them bear odd times like 3.00 in the morning, for example.

3 Did you have a practice during these negotiations of communicating quickly

4 or is it just coincidental that these times appear on the telegram?

5 THE WITNESS: No. It was our intention to have, if possible,

6 same-day reporting, meaning reporting every day. At times, the -- I was

7 not available to find time to write but in the night, and that's when I

8 filed them.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Moeller.

10 MS. MOELLER: Could we now have a look at page 2, please. The

11 third-last paragraph from the bottom.

12 Q. It refers to lengthy talks held with the undersigned and President

13 Milutinovic.

14 A. Yeah, this refers to Ambassador Petritsch.

15 Q. Yes. Were you, Mr. Kickert, present at that meeting?

16 A. Not to my knowledge. This paragraph must have been inserted by

17 Ambassador Petritsch. So when we wrote reports, I would do the general

18 report and he would either make changes or add something. And this

19 paragraph must have been added by him.

20 Q. Now, more generally to Rambouillet, you already mentioned you were

21 there. And what was your role at Rambouillet?

22 A. I was Mr. Petritsch's assistant and sort of -- I did the

23 reporting; and as my job in general was more liaising with the Kosovo

24 Albanians, I did the same also in Rambouillet.

25 Q. Thank you, Mr. Kickert.

1 MS. MOELLER: Your Honours, that concludes my direct examination.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

3 Mr. O'Sullivan.

4 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Your Honour, we'll follow the indictment.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Very well.

6 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Just give me a moment.

7 Your Honour, thank you.

8 Cross-examination by Mr. O'Sullivan:

9 Q. Good afternoon.

10 A. Good afternoon.

11 Q. I believe you still have the documents that the Prosecutor gave

12 you in front of you.

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Can I ask you to find P564. P564. I'm just waiting for it to

15 come up on the screen for others. All right. P564 is a document dated

16 the 11th September 1998. Do you see that?

17 A. Yes, I do.

18 Q. And you composed that document?

19 A. Yes, I did.

20 Q. And Ambassador Petritsch signed it?

21 A. Yes, he did.

22 Q. And I believe you told us that often you would prepare documents

23 and Ambassador Petritsch would review it and approve it; correct?

24 A. Correct.

25 Q. Were there times, however, where you would compose a document by

1 yourself and it wouldn't be reviewed by Ambassador Petritsch. You just

2 said you would send it off --

3 A. We have strict rules in our service. So if I would sent it off,

4 that nobody had seen it or approved of it, it would be my name at the

5 bottom of a report.

6 Q. Okay.

7 A. But at this trip, Ambassador Petritsch was not present, so he

8 would have just looked at it and said, Send it.

9 Q. So two sets of eyes look at it to see its accuracy?

10 A. Well, I mean, as he was not present, he would not be able to write

11 anything on the substance.

12 Q. Okay. Let's look at the third bullet point. This says: "Junik

13 has been little damaged." And then the next sentence was: "However there

14 is nothing to be seen of the 1.000 people who have returned home from the

15 Serbian side." Do you see that sentence?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. And today, during your testimony, you offered this interpretation.

18 You said: "I don't think that Junik had any Serbian -- any major Serbian

19 population, so it must have been Albanian. So my interpretation now is

20 that they claimed that a thousand people had returned and I -- I state

21 there that I haven't seen many people, certainly not a thousand people."

22 So it appears that something slipped into this report that wasn't quite

23 accurate?

24 A. Yeah, from time to time it happened that I was writing quickly and

25 you would find sentences not finished. And from my point of view now, I

1 may be mistaken, but this is how I interpret it now. This isn't a

2 sentence which makes sense.

3 Q. Let's turn to a different topic. You were talking about an

4 Exhibit -- P558 is the next one. P558. Do you have the hard copy, sir?

5 A. Yes, I do.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Is it 2558? It's not simply 558.

7 MR. O'SULLIVAN: That's my mistake. P558.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: 558.

9 MR. O'SULLIVAN: I'm sorry.

10 Q. Right. "28 September, 1998." Do you see that, sir?

11 A. Yes, I do.

12 Q. And that's where you -- we've seen that you made the correction

13 that the word "assessment" instead of "verdict" is a mistranslation

14 and "cover-up" should be "alibi operation." In this context you said that

15 you had visited Djakovica early in the month of September 1998; correct?

16 A. This is correct.

17 Q. And that visit in -- at the beginning of September was, again, in

18 connection to the creation of local police forces; right?

19 A. This is correct.

20 Q. In other words, Albanian -- people of Albanian ethnicity making up

21 the security force; correct?

22 A. Correct.

23 Q. And the object of this exercise was to, as I believe you've said,

24 create trust and confidence within the community or the communities that

25 were living there; correct?

1 A. Yes, so that they would feel more secure and return.

2 Q. And you see here that your British colleague told you that in fact

3 there were people at that time in -- at the end of September 1998, that's

4 P558, there were people in the office in uniform with insignia and that

5 there was a plan to have them receive hand-guns; correct?

6 A. Correct.

7 Q. So it would appear that some steps had been taken in that

8 direction to at least begin to create this local force with Albanian

9 people in it?

10 A. Force -- or as they were called, security coordinators.

11 Q. Right. And also the -- this afternoon you told us that events

12 overtook the situation shortly thereafter with the Holbrooke-Milosevic

13 Agreement and therefore this sort of faded away, this initiative; correct?

14 A. This is my understanding, yes.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: I've obviously misunderstood this earlier. I

16 thought the reference to them already wearing uniforms with insignia was

17 to what your colleague had been told, but is that actually a reflection of

18 what he had seen in?

19 THE WITNESS: Yes, that's what he had seen. He hasn't seen them

20 wearing side-arms because it was announced that they would get these

21 side-arms and ammunition the very next day.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, but you then later on your own visit don't

23 actually see any of them.

24 THE WITNESS: That was previous. My visit --

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Ah.

1 THE WITNESS: -- was previous to this one. And at that time it

2 was still some insecurity by the deputy of Djakovica whether they would

3 wear uniforms or not.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you for that clarification. I had

5 misunderstood.

6 MR. O'SULLIVAN: And perhaps in line with His Honour's question,

7 we can look at P559 --

8 Q. -- which you don't have in hard copy but which will appear on the

9 screen, P559. I think you have it now. It's a document dated September

10 7th, 1998.

11 A. That's it.

12 Q. And that gives an account of the visit we were discussing earlier

13 in September; correct?

14 A. That's correct.

15 Q. And I want to draw your attention to the last paragraph, if you

16 can just have a look at it, and I can ask you some questions about that.

17 You see what you highlight in your concluding paragraph is -- are the

18 inherent problems or risks associated with this. On the one hand, the

19 Serbs would be giving ethnic Albanians weapons; on the other hand, the

20 ethnic Albanians who agreed to participate in this local force could be

21 seen as traitors?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. And you say could be subject to UCK persecution?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. So it was a very difficult situation, wasn't it?

1 A. I agree.

2 Q. I'd like to change topics for a second. In your testimony you

3 mentioned some of the first contacts you had with the KLA, but you said

4 that previous to that, the Americans, and particularly Mr. Holbrooke, had

5 contact with the KLA. And I'm looking at the transcript and you said

6 there was one time when Mr. Holbrooke was in Junik where there were even

7 pictures of him with the KLA. Do you remember saying that?

8 A. Yes, absolutely.

9 Q. Those are -- the pictures I'm thinking of are the ones that made

10 it into the television and print media where we see Mr. Holbrooke and I

11 believe Ambassador Hill at an Albanian home in the traditional way with

12 their shoes off and sitting along the wall and a man with a beard and a

13 KLA uniform carrying a Kalashnikov moves in and sits down right beside

14 Mr. Holbrooke. Is that what we're talking about?

15 A. That's the picture I have in mind, yes.

16 Q. And you also say that -- this morning you've told us that there

17 were contacts between the Americans and the KLA on other levels.

18 A. Yeah.

19 Q. Do you recall saying that?

20 A. Yes, I believe it was on military attache level or outside of

21 Kosovo itself.

22 Q. All right.

23 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Well, let's call up Exhibit 5D121, 5D121.

24 Q. 5D121 is dated 27 June, 1998. You see your name at the top

25 right-hand corner --

1 A. Could I have the German version, please, because my trust of the

2 translations is ...

3 Q. I'm not sure -- well, I'm not sure if we have it.

4 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Do we have it?

5 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry, no German today. You'll have to make use of

7 this one.

8 THE WITNESS: It takes away some of the authenticity of it but

9 I'll give it a try.

10 MR. O'SULLIVAN: All right.

11 Q. Let's talk about the contents of it. You see on that first page,

12 point number 1, "State of the US and RF," Russian Federation,

13 "initiatives." Do you see that; correct?

14 A. No. My screen: "Contact Group, Head of Mission Meeting 27th of

15 June."

16 Q. You've got the document 27 June, 1998 in front of you?

17 A. Yeah.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: The one in front of me is a German version.

19 THE WITNESS: No, that's the former report of the local police at

20 the left-hand side. So that's -- we went past this stage.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: Indeed, that's Vienna --

22 MR. O'SULLIVAN: I'm referring to the document dated 27 June,

23 1998, that's 5D121, and it says: "Austrian Embassy Sarajevo - please

24 forward ASAP."

25 THE WITNESS: It's on my screen.

1 MR. O'SULLIVAN:

2 Q. And it gives an account of a two-hour meeting between the Contact

3 Group, head of missions, here, and the OSCE. "German in office held today

4 27 June under German chairmanship and attended for the first time by the

5 undersigned," who is Ambassador Petritsch. Do you see that?

6 A. Yes, I do.

7 Q. Then there is point number 1: "State of the US and RF

8 initiatives." Okay?

9 A. Mm-hmm.

10 Q. And the third bullet point is the American -- Americans informing

11 this -- people at this meeting -- they're playing down the contact between

12 Holbrooke and the UCK saying it's fortuitous. "No political talks, only

13 humanitarian and supply issues discussed. A man in UCK uniform forced his

14 way into the picture." That's what we just talked about.

15 A. Indeed.

16 Q. The next bullet point, which you've actually mentioned a moment

17 ago. "On the other hand, by their own admission, there have long been

18 contacts with UCK representatives at the US military attache level."

19 Could you explain that and tell us what you know about that, what you

20 heard?

21 A. This was mentioned in that meeting; otherwise, I would not have

22 written it down there.

23 Q. Correct. And what did you -- what details did you know about it

24 then or learn about in your work in Belgrade?

25 A. For us it was sort of the first admittance of these contacts on

1 that level because until then our policy was to avoid contacts with the

2 UCK and, for example, the British colleague I've talked about earlier, he

3 did not have authority to meet KLA until later in July.

4 Q. Well, what were -- what would the contacts have been? What was

5 your knowledge of the contacts between the KLA and the US military?

6 A. No knowledge.

7 Q. All right. A moment ago you also mentioned that you heard about

8 or you knew about contacts between the KLA and the Americans outside of

9 the FRY. What do you know about that? What can you tell us about that?

10 A. Well, the KLA had representatives abroad, mainly in Geneva and

11 there too it was the Americans who had contacts with them first, before we

12 had.

13 Q. This would be, again, on the military level?

14 A. No, that would be the political level.

15 Q. Do you know which individuals on the American side?

16 A. I imagine that it was Mr. Larry Rossin who was responsible for

17 southeast Europe and the state department.

18 Q. Do you know who he met on the KLA side?

19 A. I suspect it was Badima Mahmuti.

20 Q. What was he in the KLA?

21 A. He presented himself as a spokesperson abroad of the KLA.

22 Q. All right. In hard copy I believe you have Exhibit P562, that's

23 the last document you looked at.

24 A. Yes.

25 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Just for the transcript I believe you said that

1 Larry Rossin was responsible for south-east Europe at the US State

2 Department, is that right?

3 A. Right.

4 Q. And his name is spelled -- do you know how to spell his name?

5 THE WITNESS: R-o-s-s-i-n.

6 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Thank you.

7 All right. You have P562 in front of you and we have it on the

8 screen. It's the document dated 20 February 1999.

9 Q. Do you see that?

10 A. Yes, I do.

11 Q. Now, my friend the Prosecutor directed you to -- on the second

12 page, the third-last paragraph. The second page, third-last paragraph.

13 A. Mm-hmm.

14 Q. Now, Mr. Petritsch testified here a couple of days ago and he said

15 he -- that you composed this document and he never said that he inserted

16 this paragraph. Now, what do you say to that?

17 A. Well, I mean, I can't recall that I was present at that meeting,

18 so I could not have written it.

19 Q. But he said you wrote it. What do you say to that?

20 A. I wrote the report as such --

21 MS. MOELLER: Your Honour, objection --

22 THE WITNESS: But as I --

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Hold on, please, Mr. Kickert. Mr. --

24 THE WITNESS: But as I said earlier --

25 JUDGE BONOMY: No, no, please, please just a moment. Thank you.

1 Ms. --

2 MS. MOELLER: I recall Mr. Petritsch testifying that Mr. Kickert

3 drafted the documents and he revised it and sometimes shortened them or

4 put something in. That's what Mr. Petritsch testified, to my memory, and

5 I don't think he was explicitly asked whether Mr. Kickert drafted this

6 particular paragraph and said yes, that did not happen.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: I think there's a mistake in the transcript here.

8 I think you said you recalled Petritsch saying he -- is that right?

9 MS. MOELLER: Yes, indeed. I don't know whether I misspoke --

10 JUDGE BONOMY: You better go through that --

11 MS. MOELLER: Shall I repeat that, Your Honour?

12 JUDGE BONOMY: No. Just hold on a second -- so are you disputing

13 Mr. O'Sullivan's contention that Mr. Petritsch said that Mr. Kickert

14 composed the document?

15 MS. MOELLER: Yes. My argument is that he only tells Mr. Kickert

16 half of what Mr. Petritsch said and he does not tell Mr. Kickert that

17 Mr. Petritsch also said that he revised this document and he would shorten

18 such documents sometimes and sometimes add to them. And the second point

19 is Mr. Petritsch was not asked explicitly whether Mr. Kickert drafted this

20 particular paragraph and he did not answer.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: Have you a page reference for this?

22 MR. O'SULLIVAN: 10957.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: The date is --

24 MR. O'SULLIVAN: -- The 2nd of March, line 22. I can read it for

25 the Court. Ambassador Petritsch says: "P --

1 JUDGE BONOMY: Just a second until we see it. 10 -- sorry --

2 MR. O'SULLIVAN: 10957, line 22.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: The words are: "That was written by Mr. Kickert."

4 MS. MOELLER: But it also says: "Usually that happens that there

5 is a draft and then I go" --

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Just, I think we've heard enough. This is another

7 of these objections that really is quite inappropriate, because it's a

8 matter of exploration in evidence what actually happened. You will have

9 your chance in re-examination to clarify this. The point's probably been

10 completely lost now because this debate has taken place in front of the

11 witness. So please don't interrupt when it's clearly a matter of dispute

12 and it can be resolved so far as you're concerned by re-examination. I

13 don't accept your submission that there was a misrepresentation of the

14 evidence of Mr. Petritsch. Mr. O'Sullivan, it's back to you. Take it up

15 in whatever way you think is appropriate.

16 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Well, I think I'll just leave the point now

17 because of what you just said and I hope it's left by the other side as

18 well on that same basis.

19 Let's go to the first page of this document --

20 Q. Well, first of all, the first page. You see the date is 20

21 February 1999, 0600 hours.

22 A. Yeah.

23 Q. And in his testimony, Ambassador Petritsch at page 10884 said that

24 it had been prepared -- this document had been prepared by you just before

25 sending it, just before 0600 hours in the morning. In fact, you had been

1 working on it during the night. Does that sound right?

2 A. Must have been.

3 Q. Okay. Now, the -- on the first page we see an entry there that

4 talks about the afternoon of the 19th of February where Ambassador

5 Petritsch has been working with the Kosovars on a re-drafting of the

6 Rambouillet Agreement. Do you see that?

7 A. If -- I'm just -- sorry, I'm just --

8 Q. I'll read the sentence to you --

9 A. No, before I get there. This 6 hours is up at the --

10 Q. Right.

11 A. -- at what the embassy in Belgrade put on. And then my remark is

12 in quotation marks starting from 19th of February all the way down, talk

13 about 19th of February. So it doesn't -- so as long as the quotation

14 marks, it doesn't say when it was sent by me to Belgrade.

15 Q. Do you have any reason to dispute what Mr. Petritsch said about

16 that, what I just read to you?

17 A. No. I'm just wondering why 6.00 in the morning why is it on top

18 and not within the quotation mark of the report, "Our embassy had sent on

19 to Vienna."

20 JUDGE BONOMY: I understand what you're saying but if you look at

21 the heading, certainly in the English version it seems to be saying: "This

22 is the situation at the Rambouillet negotiations" --

23 THE WITNESS: 6.00 in the morning.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: -- "at 6.00." So it doesn't seem to refer to the

25 time at which Belgrade was sending on the telegram to Vienna.

1 THE WITNESS: That's correct.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. O'Sullivan.

3 MR. O'SULLIVAN:

4 Q. So the second paragraph of that first page it says: "On the

5 afternoon of 19th February, the Kosovars put forward concrete drafting

6 proposals" --

7 A. Redrafting proposals.

8 Q. Redrafting proposals for the key pass -- for the passages of key

9 concern to them --

10 THE INTERPRETER: Can the speakers please make significantly

11 longer pauses between question and answer. Thank you.

12 MR. O'SULLIVAN:

13 Q. [Previous translation continues]... do you recall him meeting that

14 afternoon with the Kosovar delegation?

15 A. I was probably present. I was normally present if there were

16 meetings with the bigger delegations -- the whole delegations. Meetings

17 where the -- where the three negotiators had on smaller scale, I was

18 rarely present. So on this one I was probably present because it looked

19 like an official bigger gathering.

20 Q. Okay. Then we go to the second page and second page gives

21 accounts of certain things that happened on the evening of the 19th of

22 February, which is, I can tell you, a Friday. All right. I can make that

23 representation to you. And the top of page 2, first several paragraphs,

24 refer to meetings between members of the Kosovar delegation and NATO. You

25 might recall those are the meetings held with General Clark; correct?

1 A. I would not be able to confirm that. I can't recall.

2 Q. Okay. Then you go down to the third paragraph --

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. O'Sullivan, there is some difficulty over the

4 speed of this interchange. If you can just please bear in mind the need

5 to pause.

6 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Thank you.

7 Q. Then the third paragraph, again in the evening, we see the first

8 part of that third paragraph says that Mr. Cook, Mr. Petritsch, and

9 Ambassador Mayorski had meetings on further procedure; correct?

10 A. Yeah.

11 Q. And then that was followed by talks with selected Kosovars in

12 order to encourage them to accept the texts; correct?

13 A. Correct.

14 Q. Then the next paragraph deals with a meeting between Mr. Hill,

15 Mr. Petritsch, and Mr. Thaqi. Do you see that?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. "On the evening of the 19th," second half of the paragraph, do you

18 see that?

19 A. Yes, I do.

20 Q. Do you recall that Thaqi had been in Ljubljana that day to see

21 Demaqi?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. And Hill had gone to Belgrade?

24 A. Right.

25 Q. So this would have been late in the evening I would assume that

1 this meeting took place?

2 A. I suppose.

3 Q. Then there's the meeting with Mr. Milutinovic, Ambassadors

4 Petritsch and Mayorski, and there's no indication of what time of day that

5 took place; right?

6 A. On the timing, but it took place on the 19th of February.

7 Q. Okay. Then the paragraph below that talks about a provisional

8 timetable for the 20th of February, and you may recall the 20th of

9 February is the second -- it's the second Saturday of Rambouillet. That's

10 the day that the Contact Group foreign ministers met individually with

11 each delegation. Do you recall that taking place? It was supposed to be

12 the final day of Rambouillet.

13 A. Right. I mean, I remember that -- all the Contact Group foreign

14 ministers had arrived apparently on this day.

15 Q. You may recall that Rambouillet was extended three extra days

16 after this 20th; correct?

17 A. Right.

18 Q. And you see there's a provisional timetable. So CG 7.30, Contact

19 Group meeting at the PS level, that would that mean?

20 A. PD, in German, political directors' level.

21 Q. Okay. And then at 8.00 in the morning is when the first ministers

22 arrive and each delegation will come in to see them -- appear before the

23 Contact Group foreign ministers; correct?

24 A. Yes, they would arrive and then there were bilateral meetings with

25 the delegations --

1 Q. Right --

2 A. -- or with single of their members.

3 Q. Right. So if you go -- if you put your mind back to the 19th and

4 20th, we're at a point where the conference could be ending on the 20th,

5 the next day, we don't know if there's going to be an extension. And we

6 have all this activity the night before. We have, as I suggested to you,

7 the Albanians are seeing Clark, your Ambassador is meeting with Mr. Cook

8 and Mr. Mayorski, with the Kosovar delegation. Then Mr. Petritsch is

9 meeting with Mr. Hill and Demaqi --

10 A. No, not Demaqi, Thaqi.

11 Q. Thaqi. Excuse me. Thaqi. And your recollection is that you were

12 working on the creation of this document overnight so it could give a

13 snap-shot of what happened by 6.00 in the morning on the 20th; right?

14 A. Right.

15 Q. Okay. Now, let's look at the next paragraph. It says: "During

16 the morning there was a rapprochement of the views on the political

17 parts."

18 A. Mm-hmm.

19 Q. So obviously -- well, keep going. "Most important outstanding

20 part now is Yug's agreement to the Implementation Annexes," it should say

21 above all, "stationing of NATO troops). Hill and the undersigned --

22 that's Petritsch -- agree that the deadline should perhaps be extended two

23 to three days at the most but only if the Yugoslav side unambiguously

24 confirms its acceptance of the presence of international troops." So this

25 meeting that you've described here took place before the 6.00 in the

1 morning, didn't it?

2 A. Yeah. I mean, now that you tell me that it was the last night

3 before the Contact Group foreign ministers came, there was discussions. I

4 remember that the -- Jim O'Brien and the lawyers went up to see the Serb

5 delegation in their rooms the whole night and I remember that with

6 Ambassador Hill we met in the early-morning hours with the Kosovo Albanian

7 delegation.

8 Q. So we're talking about a pretty hectic, highly charged night,

9 aren't we?

10 A. We're talking about an intense night.

11 Q. Yes.

12 MR. O'SULLIVAN: I have no further questions, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Fila.

14 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I do have some questions.

15 Cross-examination by Mr. Fila:

16 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Kickert. My name is Toma

17 Fila. I'm representing Mr. Sainovic. I will be questioning you about

18 document P560.

19 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Could it please be brought to the

20 screen.

21 Q. It is the telegram that Ms. Moeller has been questioned you

22 extensively. Before I move on to this question, we received from the

23 Prosecution, on the 6th of March, your supplemental statement. I don't

24 know whether this supplemental statement has been shown to you by the

25 Prosecution, but in relation to P560, that is the dispatch drafted by you

1 and Mr. Petritsch, either separately or together, it says here, in

2 relation to P560, Kickert was present at the meeting with Sainovic. This

3 meeting was something like a business meeting. And now, totally unrelated

4 to the telegram itself, you say the following: "Sainovic, in 1998, flew

5 regularly to Pristina and Chris Hill would meet him there in the

6 government building in Pristina. The European Community was not the chief

7 interlocutor. Serbs prefer to speak to the Americans," and so on and so

8 forth.

9 Mr. Kickert, what I want to know is: What does this

10 sentence: "Mr. Sainovic flew regularly to Pristina to meet Mr. Hill,"

11 what does it have to do with the telegram? Why did you say this if you,

12 in fact, did say this? If I have not been clear, I will repeat. In the

13 telegram that you write, you do not mention Chris Hill nor Mr. Sainovic

14 flying to Pristina, you do not mention any talks of anything. How can

15 that you mention Chris Hill in relation to telegram 560 since Ms. Moeller

16 did not explain to us how God worked in mysterious ways to bring us to

17 this point. This is what I wanted to ask you.

18 A. This is the explanation why at the beginning before I cite that

19 Mr. Sainovic told Mr. Petritsch at that meeting on the 7th of October how

20 I describe Mr. Sainovic in our assessment. And it only came that Mr. Hill

21 came into this because we knew from Mr. Hill that he met Mr. Sainovic in

22 Pristina.

23 Q. Fine. Fine. And based on this you draw this conclusion that

24 because Mr. Hill was in charge of security that Sainovic spoke to him

25 about this area. Is that correct?

1 A. Yes, Mr. Hill was regularly debriefing us of his talks he had with

2 Serb interlocutors and he also told us about meetings he had and at least

3 one, if not more, with Mr. Sainovic in the government building in

4 Pristina.

5 Q. Fine. I understand you here. Mr. Petritsch, when he testified

6 here a couple of days ago, he was shown by a different Prosecutor the same

7 sentence that we just spoke about. And on that occasion, Mr. Petritsch

8 said, that's page 10767, lines 14 and above, that this sentence was put in

9 here because he had read something like that in the papers or there had

10 been a press release by the Yugoslav government. And because his memory

11 was not quite clear and he wasn't really sure about that, he added the

12 sentence: "Our understanding in the diplomatic circles was that

13 Mr. Sainovic was in charge of Kosovo," without specifying the part of

14 Kosovo. How would you comment on this statement made by Mr. Petritsch?

15 He did not mention Mr. Hill or anything like this. He provided a totally

16 different explanation, in other words.

17 A. I just answered on a question posed to me on the best of my

18 recollection. And I'm not -- I cannot comment on Mr. Petritsch, what his

19 motivation was to answer differently.

20 Q. Fine, fine. And the dispatch that was sent is, in fact, a work

21 both by you and Mr. Petritsch because, as far as I can see, as far as I

22 know, it is Mr. Petritsch who signed the dispatch and he is responsible

23 for the contents, is that correct, not you?

24 A. Yes, I wrote it and --

25 Q. Thank you. But he signed it?

1 A. He signed it off, correct.

2 Q. That's correct. Yes. You will agree with me that you did not

3 attend the meetings, one meeting or several meetings between Mr. Hill and

4 Sainovic in Pristina. And you have no idea what they spoke about. Is

5 that correct?

6 A. I did not attend a meeting between Mr. Hill and Mr. Sainovic in

7 Pristina.

8 Q. Do you know that Mr. Hill was in fact the chief political

9 representative of the USA in all the negotiations with Serbia, both in

10 Pristina and in Belgrade and, in fact, also in Rambouillet? Do you agree

11 with me?

12 A. That is true, but he also had people with him at meetings like

13 Mr. Burns from the US KDOM who indeed dealt with security matters and who

14 signed agreements in October on where Serb police had to withdraw or where

15 they could drive back and forth.

16 Q. Mr. Petritsch, in his evidence, told us that in a critical night

17 that you yourself spoke about that Mr. Hill appeared with a demand that

18 the word "referendum after three years" be put in the agreement. That's

19 what Mr. Petritsch said. Do you remember that?

20 A. I think that the word "referendum" was avoided. To my knowledge,

21 it was taking account of the will of the people --

22 Q. Later on, yes.

23 A. -- to avoid the word "referendum."

24 Q. So I fully agree with what you say but what I said is also true.

25 You say -- you spoke about the end and I spoke about the beginning. At

1 the beginning, Mr. Hill appeared demanding that the words "referendum

2 after three years" to be put in, and Mr. Petritsch objected and so did the

3 European Community and that's why the word was not put in. But Mr. Hill

4 used the word "referendum." Do you remember that?

5 A. I don't know whether Mr. Hill used the word referendum but that

6 was certainly what the Kosovo Albanians wanted to have included and we

7 wanted to have it balanced and not have the word "referendum" in there.

8 Q. Let me just check something here. And finally, could you please

9 tell me one more thing. You used the following wording. The meeting that

10 you attended was like a business meeting before saying that he went to see

11 Hill in Pristina. What do you mean when you say a "business meeting"

12 because this word is not there in the telegram. What did you mean by

13 that? Just to cut a long story short, did you want it to say that they

14 did not discuss any issues related to security but that this was a

15 political discussion?

16 A. We never discussed security, neither in Rambouillet nor before.

17 We were diplomats. We are from a neutral country, so this was not a

18 subject we were dealt with. Business-like meeting was probably because it

19 was the first meeting of the two of them and there was sort of no

20 particular demands. But it was for the two of them to meet first time,

21 get to know each other, and build on this for future meetings.

22 Q. Mr. Petritsch later said that they had many meetings, I don't know

23 how many of those meetings you yourself attended, and he characterised

24 Sainovic as a highly cooperative person who wanted peace, who advocated

25 peace at Rambouillet. But he said that somebody else unfortunately had

1 prevented that later. Do you agree with what Mr. Petritsch had said?

2 A. We certainly dealt very well with Mr. Sainovic. He's a person, I

3 would describe, you could do business with and who you never had sort of

4 acrimonious fights on anything but was somebody you could really talk

5 things through with.

6 Q. Thank you, sir. Well, otherwise it would appear that the only

7 thing he did was to make sure that you had electricity for two days.

8 Thank you very much. I have no further questions.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Visnjic -- Mr. Sepenuk, sorry.

10 MR. SEPENUK: No questions, Your Honour.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Aleksic.

12 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] No questions, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.

14 MR. CEPIC: Just a few questions, Your Honour.

15 Cross-examination by Mr. Cepic:

16 Q. [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Mr. Kickert. My name is Djuro

17 Cepic. I'm on the Defence team representing General Lazarevic.

18 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] I would like to ask the registrar to

19 show Defence Exhibit 5D119, to bring it on the screen, please.

20 Q. Mr. Kickert, it seems that, unfortunately -- no -- okay. We have

21 it both in German and in English. Excellent. This is a report of the

22 24th of July, 1998, and here at the top right-hand corner you see that it

23 says "desk officer Kickert." Did you, yourself, draft this report?

24 A. Yes, I did.

25 Q. Thank you.

1 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Could we please scroll down a little

2 bit. Fine. Thank you.

3 Q. And here at the bottom of the page it says: "The meeting on the

4 23rd of July in Malisevo," and then it says below that it was held in the

5 presence of Gani Krasniqi, one of the KLA commanders, and his position in

6 the chain of command is described. Did you, yourself, attend this meeting

7 with Mr. Krasniqi?

8 A. Yeah, that report, that particular report, is the follow-on

9 meeting I had where I met with number 3 which was Hashim Thaqi and I also

10 attended a meeting, and that must have been the previous day where the

11 secretary-general Albert Rohan was going to Malisevo and where he met with

12 number 7 and Gani Krasniqi, and I was present at that meeting.

13 Q. Thank you.

14 And after this date, did you have any other meetings with the KLA

15 in Malisevo?

16 A. As I said, the first meeting was just with number 7 and the next

17 day with number 3 and 7. That was a meeting I was having alone with no

18 other interlocutor from the Austrian Embassy or Austrian foreign ministry,

19 just accompanied by Kosovo Albanian journalist who facilitated the

20 meeting.

21 Q. Is the name of this journalist Baton Haxhiu?

22 A. Baton Haxhiu was present at the meeting with number 7 but he did

23 not facilitate the meeting. The meeting was organised by ECMM. The

24 meeting I had with number 3 was facilitated by another journalist Dukagjin

25 Gorani also from Koha Ditore. Mr. Baton Haxhiu was facilitating a

1 follow-on meeting which my British colleague, David Slinn, and I had in

2 Klecka with Jakup Krasniqi, Ram Buja, and Fatmir Limaj.

3 Q. Thank you. You do know that at that time some crimes were

4 committed in Klecka; right?

5 A. That was the allegation. That's why we also put it on the list of

6 those sites which the Finnish forensic experts should have looked into.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: The catalogue you've just given of meetings there

8 with KLA representatives isn't terribly clear, I think, from the

9 transcript. Did you have only two meetings?

10 THE WITNESS: No, I -- in July, I had three meetings.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Three. And it was the first one with someone you

12 know only as number 7?

13 THE WITNESS: Well, I know his proper name now, it's Kadri Veseli.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: And then the middle meeting must be the one at

15 which Krasniqi was present. Is that right?

16 THE WITNESS: I'll try to clarify.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Was he also present at the third one with Thaqi, is

18 it?

19 THE WITNESS: No. Mr. Gani Krasniqi was present at the very first

20 meeting which must have taken place on the 22nd of July when the

21 Secretary-General was visiting, coming down from Belgrade and we went with

22 ECMM to Malisevo. Then we met number 7, Kadri Veseli. The very next day

23 I was going on my own. Mr. Rohan was already returning to Belgrade.

24 Through this Kosovar journalist, I was able to meet number 3, Mr. Hashim

25 Thaqi on the 23rd of July. And later that month, after Malisevo was

1 abandoned and we still wanted to keep in touch with the KLA to include

2 them in the political process, I went to Klecka but met other people

3 there. As I said, Jakup Krasniqi, the internal spokesperson of the KLA, I

4 met there also Ram Buja and Fatmir Limaj.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Kickert.

6 Mr. Cepic.

7 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

8 Q. Well, we mentioned Mr. Baton Haxhiu and you said that he

9 facilitated the meeting in Klecka with Limaj, Krasniqi, and Buja.

10 Mr. Haxhiu was on excellent terms with the KLA top; right?

11 A. He was always able to report on the KLA in the newspaper and he

12 was in contact with them and he was able to facilitate our meetings with

13 the KLA.

14 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Could we see page 3 of this document

15 that I had brought on the screen, if we could see that.

16 Q. Mr. Kickert, you mentioned Orahovac and the KLA attack on

17 Orahovac, and here in the first few sentences here we can see a report by

18 a journalist Enver Maloku, and then in line 4 it says here that he was

19 recently a victim of a mysterious assassination attempt. So he was not as

20 fortunate as Mr. Haxhiu to be able to publish everything about the KLA.

21 Could you please comment on these allegations here about how hundreds of

22 civilians were killed and the assassination attempt on Mr. Maloku. So the

23 first four sentences that all relate to Orahovac. [In English] "In

24 article by Enver Maloku, leader of Kosovo information centre of the LDK,

25 in which he accused the KLA of irresponsible behaviour in Orahovac which

1 took the lives of hundreds of civilians, also contributed to increasing

2 the fractured relationship between the KLA and the LDK."

3 A. The LDK.

4 Q. "Maloku was recently the victim of the mysterious assassination

5 attempt".

6 A. That's a correct translation. The LDK, for the longest time,

7 including Mr. Rugova, denied the existence of the UCK and there, in this

8 article, when I wrote it down, it was certainly information of the Kosovo

9 Information Centre which I referred to earlier as -- with their daily

10 informations trying to put their side of the picture to the public and I

11 cite that. And it was sort of our -- our attempt to get to grips with

12 this organisation where we really didn't know how it was structured and

13 who our potential interlocutors could be to integrate them in the

14 political process. And apparently, I write that there seems to be

15 fractions within the UCK. I refer to a central command in Malisevo and --

16 and that they're trying to bring them in line.

17 Q. [Interpretation] Do you perhaps have any knowledge who actually

18 attempted to assassinate Mr. Maloku? Did you perhaps learn of that later

19 on? Do you recall that, yes or no?

20 A. No idea.

21 Q. Now, when you mentioned the central command in Malisevo, do you

22 know, do you perhaps remember that the central command in fact ordered the

23 villagers of Malisevo to leave or the inhabitants of Malisevo to leave the

24 town together with them?

25 A. I don't know about it, but I would not be surprised.

1 Q. That was, in fact, frequently the practice of the KLA to order the

2 civilians to leave a certain area together with them; right?

3 A. I cannot say whether they were ordered or whether they left

4 because they felt insecure without them.

5 Q. Thank you. You mentioned the visit by Madam Emma Bonino, that's

6 page 69 of the transcript, the visit to the Drenica and Malisevo areas.

7 And you mentioned that the KLA did not allow you to enter their area

8 because of the large number of media representatives that were together

9 with you. Do you perhaps know why they did not allow you to enter into

10 their zone, the real reason why they didn't allow you to go in?

11 A. I cannot say more than the fact that they didn't let us in.

12 That's all I can say. I have no idea what the reasoning was; nobody told

13 me.

14 Q. Thank you, Mr. Kickert. I have no further questions.

15 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Cepic.

17 Mr. Lukic.

18 MR. LUKIC: Your Honour, I have a few questions for Mr. Kickert.

19 Cross-examination by Mr. Lukic:

20 Q. [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Mr. Kickert.

21 A. [Interpretation] Good afternoon.

22 Q. My name is Branko Lukic, and I will have a couple of questions for

23 you -- in fact, I will be just asking you to clarify things to help us

24 understand. In Prosecution exhibit that was shown first, that would be

25 P2666, the location of Baboloc is mentioned and the document indicates

1 that this is a location for refugees, a refugee centre, for refugees of

2 Slovenian background, Slavic background.

3 A. It says in German of Slavic background and I don't know where I

4 got the information from that they are from Albania. But, at any rate,

5 they -- we communicated in Serbian with them and I remember that at the

6 early days of ECMM, where we also had colleagues of the foreign ministry

7 in ECMM and we had just one team, they were assaulted physically by the

8 people in Baboloc when they went there. That's why I refer that there

9 were a lot of frictions there because they felt very insecure in this area

10 where we had a lot of UCK activity.

11 Q. Thank you. And then one paragraph down it says, "Information

12 Meeting Between the Foreign Minister and the Interior Minister of

13 Yugoslavia." And in item 1 it says, "police actions are response to

14 murders and abductions of police officers particularly to the attempts by

15 terrorist gangs to block the main route."

16 In relation to this, I would like to ask you if you had any

17 personal experience where the KLA actually attempted to block the roads in

18 Kosovo and do you know if they were successful doing that?

19 A. There were times where we passed KLA check-points. For example,

20 that meeting we had in Malisevo, the first one we passed a KLA check-point

21 just on the outskirts of Suva Reka. Then I referred to earlier that at

22 times we were denied passage by the KLA check-points. This happened.

23 This happened both sides. There's nothing, just black and white -- yeah.

24 Q. Thank you. And in relation to this, you told us that in July you

25 travelled down the Pristina-Pec road and that you were stopped by the

1 police and that they would not let you through. And only after you

2 mentioned Odalovic's name was -- were you allowed to pass. What I want to

3 ask you is can you remember -- can you perhaps be more specific about the

4 date and the location of this incident?

5 A. It was with the political directors troika of the EU. That must

6 have been end of July. It was not the big check-point at Komorane

7 juncture. It must have been somewhere before or after because this is

8 then when we went to Pec road and then I think we went south to Malisevo

9 or we attempted to go south. So somewhere on this road, but I cannot tell

10 by certainty. But having the picture of the Komorane check-point in my

11 mind, I don't think it was Komorane but somewhere else.

12 Q. [In English] Okay. [Interpretation] Thank you. Do you remember,

13 since as you said yourself this was towards the end of July, when there

14 was intensive fighting going on between the Serb forces and the KLA, what

15 you were told was the reason they were not allowing you to go any further?

16 Were you stopped because of the security situation for your own security

17 and safety and that of your mission?

18 A. The reasons they gave us was they had orders not to let anybody

19 through. They did not get to -- as good policemen, they did not get into

20 a discussion, but they just said, I have the order. And when they radioed

21 back, eventually they waited there for half an hour, I don't know,

22 three-quarters of an hour. They eventually let us through.

23 Q. Thank you. When asked by the Prosecutor, you explained that

24 Malisevo was the capital of the KLA. Did you mean by that that for them

25 it was the capital of Kosovo, the Republic of Kosovo?

1 A. No. The way portrayed it, it was sort of their intermestic

2 [phoen] capital of what they called "the free areas" where the Serb police

3 had no access.

4 Q. Thank you. Do you remember that before Malisevo the KLA had set

5 up roadblocks from every direction and they controlled all traffic going

6 in and out?

7 A. As I said earlier, the very first time I went into the field was

8 this organised trip on the 8th of June. And before I didn't go into the

9 field. So there I cannot say what really happened. Whether I remember

10 that this road was blocked and I remember also that Mr. Holbrooke said

11 Kijevo, where there was a Serbian and to my knowledge also a Roma

12 population, was the most dangerous place on earth at a certain period

13 because it was isolated. There was no communication lines to this place.

14 Q. Thank you. Are you aware that in the Malisevo area, even after

15 the KLA withdrew, there was frequent fighting between the KLA and the Serb

16 security forces?

17 A. There was fighting going on in the area -- in the greater Drenica

18 area all through summer with -- until the KVM came and deployed and it was

19 quieter, but then also at the end of the year of 1998, there were again

20 skirmishes.

21 Q. Thank you. I asked you about Malisevo, but as you saw more and

22 more destruction going on, our Defence is putting it to you that in

23 Malisevo there was continuous fighting between the KLA and Serb forces,

24 that there was -- there were constant hostilities. And would you accept

25 that as the main reason for all the fires and destruction of buildings?

1 A. No. A building cannot be torn down by occasional fire-fights. I

2 mean, shooting with guns cannot bring a house to collapse.

3 Q. Thank you. You are not a military expert, but we have heard here

4 from other witnesses that incendiary bullets can set fire to a house.

5 However, I will move on to another topic.

6 In Exhibit P2655 -- I do apologise. It's 2665. There is

7 reference to -- excuse me. I apologise for my confusion, but I have two

8 exhibit numbers and neither of them seem to be correct. After -- it's

9 2655, after all. In this document it says that means of communication

10 were confiscated from some international organisation, communications

11 equipment, that is. Do you recall where these radio stations were

12 confiscated and what the main reason was?

13 A. This was reported to us by international NGOs on the confiscation,

14 also on problems with the renewal of radio licences to use certain

15 frequencies. This is what we heard and I could not -- I could not

16 pin-point which organisation it was and which exact date. I could not.

17 Q. Thank you. You yourself mentioned radio frequencies. Did you get

18 any specific information that this organisation was using MUP frequencies,

19 although they were not authorised to do so, and that that was the reason

20 for the confiscation of the communications equipment?

21 A. No, I haven't heard of that. I just heard that from policemen

22 that they were communicating by radio with UCK at times, but anything else

23 on usage of police frequencies, I never heard anything about.

24 Q. Did you ever hear on some other occasion that the communications

25 equipment was confiscated from other international organisations?

1 A. I believe KVM had their communications equipment. We used

2 satellite phones to communicate out in the field as -- also as a security

3 measure for us because cellphones did not work. But it was only the

4 bigger international organisations like UNHCR, ICRC, and maybe some NGOs,

5 bigger NGOs, international NGOs who used radio communication.

6 Q. You never heard that such equipment was confiscated from somebody

7 else?

8 A. No, not that I can recall.

9 Q. Thank you. There's also reference to a leaflet calling on

10 citizens to return, but in the report it says that this was not a good

11 method to get people to return home. Do you mean that it was insufficient

12 or not good enough or do you think that it was a mistake to call people --

13 to call up on people to return?

14 A. Well, if people have fled the area because they fear MUP and then

15 MUP sends leaflets or drops leaflets and says, "It's safe to return," I

16 don't think it's a convincing method to get these people back. That's why

17 we made our efforts to have international observers there to give them a

18 sense of confidence in returning.

19 Q. Because we have to take a break, I will put only one question now.

20 Do you know that the KLA killed people who returned to their homes?

21 A. The real problem was for us you had allegations and counter

22 allegations. That's why we could only try to rely on our observers and of

23 international organisations. We, indeed, wanted to look into issues,

24 topics, locations where these allegations were. I mentioned before

25 Glodjane which -- where parallel cases is an issue as well. But we wanted

1 to make also forensic expertise on the victims of this incident.

2 Q. Thank you. I'm not sure that you've answered my question, though.

3 Did you have any knowledge that the KLA killed Albanians who returned

4 because they didn't want them to come back? They wanted to have chaos in

5 Kosovo?

6 A. No, I had no such information.

7 Q. Thank you.

8 MR. LUKIC: Looking at the time, I think it's half past, and I

9 wouldn't have more than 15 minutes to add to this.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you have re-examination, Ms. Moeller?

11 MS. MOELLER: So far, Your Honours, rather not.

12 [Trial Chamber confers]

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Kickert, it's unfortunate, but we are going to

14 have to interrupt your evidence. There's another -- we don't have the

15 courtroom to ourselves. There's another hearing at 4.00 and it takes half

16 an hour to arrange for the transfer between one case and another. So even

17 though your time here tomorrow will apparently be brief, I'm afraid we're

18 stuck with that situation. So I have to simply remind you of the

19 obligation not to discuss your evidence with anybody overnight and ask you

20 to be patient and sympathetic towards us and come back here ready to

21 resume your evidence at 9.00 tomorrow. Now, could you please leave the

22 courtroom with the usher.

23 [The witness stands down]

24 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 3.32 p.m.,

25 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 8th day of

1 March, 2007, at 9.00 a.m.

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