Page 42057
1 Monday, 11 July 2005
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, you may continue.
7 MR. NICE: Thank you.
8 WITNESS: BOZIDAR DELIC [Resumed]
9 [Witness answered through interpreter]
10 Cross-examined by Mr. Nice: [Continued]
11 Q. Mr. Delic, on Thursday of last week, right at the end of your
12 evidence, you told us that you'd been on the battlefield in 1993 and 1994.
13 What were you doing on the battlefield in 1993 and 1994?
14 A. In 1993 and 1994, I was an officer in the organ for civilian
15 affairs in the town of Cavtat. That means that my task was -- because in
16 that territory there wasn't any schooling organised due to war operations,
17 my duty was to establish schools and public utilities, everything that was
18 required by the civilian population in that area.
19 Q. 1993 and 1994 or 1991 was that?
20 A. Well, in 1993 and 1994, that is to say from the 19th of April,
21 1993, until the 31st of January, 1994, well, that's Bosnia-Herzegovina. I
22 was in the area around the area of Ljubinje, and at that time I was Chief
23 of Staff of the 715th Brigade for two months, and after that, head of the
24 information security organ of the brigade.
25 Q. Did that involve your leading troops in combat?
Page 42058
1 A. At the time when I was in the 715th Brigade there was no fighting
2 in that territory. Fighting was in the area of Mostar between the units
3 of the Croat army and the Muslim units, whereas in the part of the theatre
4 of war where I was vis-a-vis the Croat and the Muslim units, there was no
5 fighting.
6 Q. And then you're telling us that after that period in Bosnia in
7 1994, you returned where?
8 A. After that, I returned to Belgrade, to the military academy where
9 I was an officer in the organ for teaching and operations, and I was there
10 until the 16th of February, 1995.
11 Q. And from the 16th of February, 1995, where were you?
12 A. Correction. Not from the 16th but from the 6th.
13 Q. Where were you?
14 A. From the 6th of February, 1995, until the 3rd of September, 1996,
15 I was Chief of Staff of the 549th Motorised Brigade in Prizren.
16 Q. There were two spells when you were working out of Serbia, one in
17 the 1991, and I think you said 1992 period, when you were in Croatia in
18 the area of Dubrovnik at Cavtat doing administrative matters; is that
19 right? Civil affairs.
20 A. Yes, yes.
21 Q. And by whom were you paid then, 1991, 1992?
22 A. In 1991 and 1992, I was within the Yugoslav People's Army.
23 Croatia was a part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
24 Q. 1993, 1994, when you were in Bosnia-Herzegovina, how come you were
25 working there?
Page 42059
1 A. In 1993 and 1994, I was in Bosnia-Herzegovina at my own request,
2 in the area around Ljubinje and Bileca, because my parents were born in
3 that territory, so I hail from that area. For ten years I served in
4 Bileca, from 1977 until 1987. That was the reason I was in that
5 territory.
6 Q. You haven't answered my question. By whom were you paid when you
7 were working in the area of Bileca, which is of course right next door to
8 Trebinje, isn't it? By whom were you paid when you were there?
9 A. I've already said that I went at my own request. For a while,
10 naturally it was the army of Yugoslavia that was paying me, and after
11 that, they severed my pay.
12 Q. When did they sever your pay, and why?
13 A. Well, they severed my pay. I never saw an actual paper. I never
14 got an order severing my pay, but for a few months I did not receive any
15 salary. When I returned, I was told -- rather, if I did not return to the
16 territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that my professional
17 service would cease. After that I returned. That was on the 31st of
18 January, 1994.
19 Q. Who told you that you'd have to return or your service would
20 cease?
21 A. At my unit, the military academy in Belgrade, where I was one of
22 the employees.
23 Q. So just an oral communication, was it?
24 A. From time to time I would call my superior in Belgrade to give him
25 a call, because of course I communicated with my family in Belgrade as
Page 42060
1 well. He told me that I had to return to Belgrade, or if I stayed on, I
2 can stay on where I am but that my professional service in the army would
3 cease. That is why I returned again.
4 Q. When you were working in Bosnia-Herzegovina, paid by the army of
5 Yugoslavia, what was the mechanism by which you were paid?
6 A. I was not paid in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I had my own bank account
7 in Belgrade, and in Belgrade I received or, rather, my family, of course,
8 received my salary in Belgrade until it was severed.
9 Q. And you were there as the Chief of Staff of the 715th Brigade.
10 What showed up in your record as the unit to which you were attached for
11 this period of time?
12 A. I worked at the military academy, and I did not receive the salary
13 of a chief of staff, and that is a post I held for a rather short period
14 of time. I received the salary for the actual post within the
15 establishment where I worked in Belgrade.
16 Q. Were you nominally attached to something called the 30th Personnel
17 Centre?
18 A. The 30th Personnel Centre was -- or, rather, they probably wrote a
19 temporary order, a temporary order, because my basic workplace was in
20 Belgrade and it was there waiting for me, but I just received an order,
21 and I believe it was the 30th Personnel Centre that wrote it, about my
22 appointment to that unit where I was, actually.
23 Q. Let's see if we can put this all together. You maintain that you
24 were a volunteer but that they wrote an order associating you with the
25 30th Personnel Centre, and you then went to serve in Bosnia. What did the
Page 42061
1 30th Personnel Centre have to do with all of this?
2 A. As far as I'm concerned personally, it had nothing to do with me.
3 The only thing was that they knew of my wish to go to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
4 They probably established contact with the command of the Herzegovina
5 Corps in Bileca, and when I came to that corps I expressed my wish to go
6 to a unit where officers with whom I had worked before were serving, and
7 those are persons who are from there, too, from Bosnia-Herzegovina. They
8 only assisted me in that sense, that I could serve on the unit where I
9 wished to be.
10 Q. The 30th Personnel Centre was the fiction whereby VJ soldiers
11 served in Bosnia and were paid. It's as simple as that, isn't it?
12 A. That's your opinion.
13 Q. Tell me in what way I'm wrong. You see, you as a --
14 A. I mean I don't know what kind of way of expressing yourself this
15 is, fiction, invention. The 30th Personnel Centre did exist. There were
16 persons who were born in Bosnia, and these people certainly went there to
17 defend their homes and their people in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The 30th
18 Personnel Centre primarily took care of these people. They didn't have to
19 take care of me because I wasn't the one who was born in
20 Bosnia-Herzegovina. My parents had been born there. I worked in
21 Bosnia-Herzegovina for ten years, and I wanted to be with the people whom
22 I had met over those ten years and the unit where I worked for those ten
23 years. So the 30th Personnel Centre does not have anything to do with me
24 personally really.
25 Q. You're from Kosovo and from Serbia, and we've heard the accused
Page 42062
1 say many times that Serbia wasn't in any way at war. It wouldn't have
2 been appropriate or right, would it, for the VJ of Serbia to send you to
3 serve in another country, like Bosnia, and to pay you. It wouldn't have
4 been right to do that, would it?
5 A. The army of Yugoslavia certainly did not send me. It was my wish.
6 Q. If it was your wish, it still wouldn't be right for the taxpayers
7 of Serbia to have you paid by the army to go and serve in another country,
8 would it? No justification for that.
9 A. But I did not defend Americans in Bosnia. I defended part of my
10 own people. I defended my relatives.
11 Q. I wonder if you could just listen to the question for a second.
12 It wouldn't have about appropriate or right, would it, for the army of
13 Serbia to send you to serve in another country, because Serbia wasn't at
14 war.
15 A. Well, I'm telling you that the army did not send me. The army
16 could not even send those people who had been born in Bosnia, who had
17 their families there, their parents there. They could not send anyone by
18 force if the said person didn't want to go. I know many people who were
19 born --
20 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... to pay you to go and fight in
21 somebody else's country?
22 A. You say that Bosnia is somebody else's country, some other
23 country. Until that time, Bosnia was an integral part of Yugoslavia. Let
24 us not go into politics now, the kind of politics that led to the break-up
25 of --
Page 42063
1 Q. You're a senior military official. You've told us about your
2 Ph.D. You volunteered opinions about political matters in the extensive
3 evidence to the accused. What was the status of recognition of Bosnia by
4 1993, 1994? Was it recognised internationally?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. I repeat the question so you can have a chance to answer it. How
7 could it have been right -- I'll change it so you can have another way of
8 looking at it. Can it have been right for the VJ to pay for you to go and
9 serve in the army of a different -- on a different country; in Bosnia?
10 A. Obviously you don't understand a great many things regarding the
11 conflict in the former Yugoslavia. It was possible. At that moment when
12 I received information that the army severed my pay and that they put this
13 condition forth that I should either return to Yugoslavia and be with the
14 army of Yugoslavia or remain in Bosnia without any links to the army of
15 Yugoslavia, at that juncture, I returned to Belgrade.
16 Q. Your personnel file exists somewhere. Have you seen it?
17 A. Well, it's not customary for officers to be able to see their own
18 personnel files. It was in the personnel administration of the army of
19 Yugoslavia.
20 Q. But it still exists, and so we should be able to obtain it,
21 shouldn't we?
22 A. Well, certainly, if you ask for it.
23 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... no objection to us looking at
24 it, would you? And is this --
25 A. There's no reason --
Page 42064
1 Q. And is this going to show the pressure put on you to return from
2 Bosnia to Serbia, or is that oral request not going to be evidenced by any
3 part of your written record?
4 A. Well, you see, such things cannot be seen in one's personnel file.
5 Perhaps, perhaps there may be a telegram, but I'm not sure. I know there
6 was a telegram, though. If it was kept, perhaps it still exists in my
7 personnel file.
8 Q. Then to summarise the position with the two wars that were fought
9 in Croatia and in Bosnia, although you were present at the area of
10 Dubrovnik at the time of the shelling of Dubrovnik, you took no part in
11 that?
12 A. I was in Dubrovnik or, rather, I was not in Dubrovnik. I was in
13 the area surrounding Dubrovnik from the 9th of December, 1991. Allegedly,
14 the alleged shelling of Dubrovnik occurred earlier.
15 Q. Don't -- don't hesitate to tell us if you think that the evidence
16 of the shelling of Dubrovnik is incorrect. You were there with other
17 officers. Is it your case there was no shelling of Dubrovnik, or do you
18 accept, with all the knowledge you must have had, that there was shelling
19 of Dubrovnik? Which?
20 A. A lot of time is required in order to answer that question. Of
21 course I have knowledge. It was military objectives that were targeted in
22 Dubrovnik. If I had a map here, I could show --
23 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... they were shelled then.
24 Please, yes or no: It was shelled.
25 A. At that time, military objectives were targeted. Not the old
Page 42065
1 city, not by any means.
2 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... was it shelled? Yes or no.
3 A. Dubrovnik was not shelled.
4 Q. Very well. What was shelled in the area of Dubrovnik?
5 A. In the area of Dubrovnik, artillery positions and mortar positions
6 of the Croatian army were targeted.
7 Q. And the Old Town was never shelled at all. Is that your case? Is
8 that your evidence?
9 A. The Old Town was never shelled at all. One of the positions, I
10 know now that these were four mortars of 82 millimetres. One was right by
11 the north-western ramparts of the old part of Dubrovnik. One
12 anti-aircraft gun was, from time to time, on a tower in the old part of
13 town. Mortars positioned on vehicles, TAM 75 that the Croats called
14 Charlie, often entered the old part of town and opened fire from the old
15 part of town. There is no need for me to explain --
16 Q. So if they entered the old part of the town, then I suppose it
17 would have been justified to shell it, but you say it was never shelled;
18 is that right?
19 You see, we've seen video footage of the damage done to the Old
20 Town of Dubrovnik, but maybe it's all a mistake. Never shelled?
21 A. International observers were there, and I talked to them. So you
22 are asking me about some things concerning which you have reliable
23 information received from the European observers. You know that in the
24 hotels of Dubrovnik, on the upper floors of these hotels there were
25 refugees from the territory of the area of Dubrovnik, and downstairs there
Page 42066
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Page 42067
1 were troops of the Croatian army. That is what was established by the
2 European Monitors too.
3 Q. Okay. So we may come back to this if time permits, but you had no
4 active role, no combat role in the area of Dubrovnik at all.
5 A. My role was to assist the civilian population.
6 Q. Then in 1993, 1994, in your second deployment, this time to
7 Bosnia, you had no active role in combat at all; correct?
8 A. I did not take part in combat, because at the time there was
9 intensive fighting between the Croatian and Muslim units, whereas as far
10 as the Serb side is concerned, there weren't any operations directed
11 against it by either one of the two other sides.
12 Q. When you --
13 JUDGE BONOMY: Could I just clarify one thing, and it's probably
14 my fault.
15 General, in 1993 and 1994 when you were in Bosnia, of which army
16 was the 715th Brigade part?
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It was part of the Herzegovina Corps
18 of the army of Republika Srpska.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
20 MR. NICE:
21 Q. Yes, and I am indeed grateful for being reminded to ask you a
22 question that I had intended to ask you a few minutes ago. You weren't
23 working with the recognised army of Bosnia, were you? You were working
24 with an army of an entity that was not recognised internationally at all;
25 correct?
Page 42068
1 A. I worked for the army of Republika Srpska. As for recognition of
2 that entity, that was recognised. That is part of the policy that led to
3 the break-up of the state and later on to the break-up of
4 Bosnia-Herzegovina. I'm a Herzegovinian by descent, I was in Herzegovina,
5 and that is my right.
6 Q. Now, when you became a general, what date was that?
7 A. I became a general on the 31st of December, 1999.
8 Q. At that time, I think you were the youngest or one of the youngest
9 generals in the army. Martinovic or Obradovic might have been about the
10 same age, but other than that, it was you. Is that correct?
11 A. Well, at that time they were already not in the army. I was the
12 youngest general.
13 Q. And you then indeed took over in Belgrade, didn't you, in charge
14 of the unit in Belgrade?
15 A. Yes. On the 15th of January, 2000, I transferred to Belgrade and
16 became Chief of Staff of the Belgrade Corps.
17 Q. And do we take it that this reward was built entirely on your
18 performance in Kosovo, that there was no earlier combat record that was to
19 justify your promotion at such a young age to general?
20 A. No, we cannot take it that way. I became colonel in 1996, and I
21 was the youngest colonel of the army of Yugoslavia. So --
22 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... you done by 1996 to become
23 the youngest colonel? Because we've looked at what you did in 1991 to
24 1993, 1994, and there doesn't seem to be any combat. So what combat had
25 you done by 1996?
Page 42069
1 A. It is not required to participate in combat. I became a colonel
2 in 1996 quite regularly, because I had served four years as lieutenant
3 colonel before that. That is the normal legal procedure. I spent four
4 years in the rank of lieutenant colonel, and in a quite regular way I
5 became -- I was promoted into colonel in 1996. No special merits are
6 required for their promotion. If you know anything about interrelations
7 in the army, that is a regular promotion.
8 And because I was the youngest -- I was youngest, by the way, when
9 I was 2nd lieutenant in the army of Yugoslavia.
10 Q. I asked you a couple of minutes ago if there was no earlier combat
11 record to justify your promotion at such a young age apart from your
12 performance in Kosovo, you said we can't take it that way, suggesting
13 there was earlier combat. Now you say there wasn't. Let's just have it
14 clearly, shall we?
15 Until Kosovo, were you ever engaged in combat; and if so, where?
16 A. You're obviously twisting my answers, and that's not appropriate.
17 I said quite clearly --
18 Q. Sorry, Mr. Delic. I'm not going to allow you to say that. I
19 simply read back to you the answer as translated so that you would have a
20 chance to deal with it, and since you choose to make the observation you
21 do, I'll give you a chance to have it exactly as it appears on the
22 transcript.
23 What I asked you was this: "Do we take it that this reward was
24 built entirely on your performance in Kosovo, that there was no earlier
25 combat record that was to justify your promotion at such a young age to
Page 42070
1 general?" You said: "No, we cannot take it that way. I became a colonel
2 in 1996." And I simply questioned: "Was there combat before 1996 of
3 which we have yet to hear?"
4 A. There were no combat activities prior to 1996. However, I was one
5 of the best recruits in the school of national defence, and I spent the
6 required time in the rank of lieutenant colonel; four years. So one
7 cannot conclude that my stint in Kosovo was the only thing that helped me
8 become a colonel. My entire service served as a guarantee for my
9 promotion into that rank.
10 Whether my stint in Kosovo had some influence, I don't know. I
11 believe it had.
12 Q. My last question at the moment on your career is this, for the
13 time being, at least: Did your time serving for the army of Republika
14 Srpska count towards the time required to justify your promotion to
15 lieutenant colonel? Did it?
16 A. No. No. That period had no significance whatsoever, because it
17 is only my superiors in the army of Yugoslavia who rate my performance.
18 Q. Did the time in the RS count towards the total period of time
19 needed to justify your promotion? That's all.
20 A. I was there for only eight months. That time does count into
21 those four years required for a promotion into the rank of colonel.
22 Q. And I suggest so - quite an easy question and an easy answer: The
23 VJ recognised your time in the RS as time that could be added in to
24 justify your promotion.
25 A. I do not see anything contestable about this.
Page 42071
1 Q. When did you first accept, Mr. Delic, that ten years ago today
2 thousands of Muslims were killed by Serbs at Srebrenica?
3 A. That is your observation. I do not accept your story.
4 Q. Well, maybe, in which case that will make matters much shorter.
5 Do you not accept, even today, that 7 or 8.000 men and boys were killed in
6 Srebrenica by Serbs?
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.
8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, yes.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I think it is inappropriate to ask
10 this witness questions about Srebrenica. Mr. Nice is doing this looking
11 only at the media. The witness has explained what he did there, and this
12 has nothing to do with his testimony. Mr. Nice is making comments that go
13 totally beyond the scope of this testimony for reasons that are well known
14 to him and to the public as well.
15 [Trial Chamber confers]
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: It's relevant to his credibility, Mr. Milosevic.
17 The question should be answered.
18 MR. NICE:
19 Q. Do you accept even today that 7 or 8.000 men and boys were killed
20 in Srebrenica by Serbs?
21 A. I accept that in the area of Srebrenica 2 to 3.000 Serbs were
22 killed and several thousand Muslims.
23 Q. Several thousand Muslims were killed by Serbs, weren't they?
24 A. A large number of those Muslims were killed in combat with Serb
25 forces.
Page 42072
1 Q. And you know that, do you?
2 A. I was not there. All I know I know from the press, a bit from
3 this trial.
4 Q. My question was very carefully constructed as first asked, and the
5 question was when did you accept this. And did you accept this reality in
6 1995 when the first evidence about it surfaced, or did you accept it later
7 when people like Mladic got indicted, or did you accept it later when
8 people here pleaded guilty? Help us understand the environment in which
9 you operate by letting us know when you, Mr. Delic, first recognised that
10 that atrocity had occurred.
11 A. Well, you see, you're absolutely unfair on this issue. I was
12 never there. I've never been there. My knowledge about this is the
13 knowledge of a man who read about it in the newspapers, and now you want
14 me to tell you when I accepted that.
15 I do not accept that what happened there happened in the way you
16 are trying to represent here. I told you, several thousand people were
17 killed there, Serbs and Muslims, but let this Court decide about that.
18 And of course I will be happy to know the real truth about that event one
19 day.
20 Q. You see --
21 A. As for -- as for my attitude towards crime, I condemn every crime,
22 Mr. Nice. So this segment of your questions I believe was completely
23 unnecessary and very unfair.
24 Q. There is in Serbia denial, isn't there, of the past? People have
25 been for ten --
Page 42073
1 A. That is not true.
2 Q. Well, for example, apparently until about a few months ago, or a
3 few weeks ago, a majority of Serbs, in answer to a poll - you may know
4 this - would deny that Srebrenica happened. And what I want your help
5 with as an intelligent person is what were the influences that led people
6 to deny the obvious? Can you help us? It's your country.
7 A. In the case of Srebrenica, there is only one-sided bias, and there
8 is only obvious insistence on the casualties and victims of one people.
9 That problem was never approached with equanimity. 63 Serb villages were
10 destroyed in the area of Srebrenica, a fact that you will seldom hear. I
11 know, therefore, that my people condemn every crime, and these days,
12 reading the newspapers, I know that crimes are being primarily condemned
13 committed by my people. And it is also my approach, my belief, that all
14 criminals should be brought to justice, including individuals from my
15 people who committed crimes. That has always been my belief, and please
16 do not try to put other words in my mouth.
17 Q. Well, I ask you these questions with a particular purpose in mind
18 that relates to the evidence you've given and to which I'm going to turn,
19 but I'm going to start my questioning on this topic in this way: Are you
20 -- have you yourself, do you think, been involved in the process of
21 trying to adjust or control the recognition of reality? Have you been
22 involved in trying to affect the way people think about these affairs in
23 any way?
24 A. I'm not a public figure. I simply do not have access to the mass
25 media in order to be able to influence public opinion. The only impact I
Page 42074
1 could have had was in contacts with my colleagues or with regular citizens
2 who are my friends or acquaintances.
3 Q. Ten thousand four hundred documents were assembled to assist this
4 accused in his defence. Can you please tell us how they were assembled?
5 A. As far as documents are concerned, that is the job of legal
6 assistants. When they contacted me, I was given certain subjects, themes
7 to prepare and to which I would testify, but I said that in order to
8 testify to these subjects, I need certain documents. I suggested some of
9 them, others I received by the legal assistants --
10 Q. Well, that's --
11 A. -- the legal counsellors, and it was their job to provide the
12 documentation.
13 Q. When did this process start?
14 A. The first contact was made sometime in 2002.
15 Q. 2002. What month, roughly, in 2002?
16 A. Early 2002, I believe.
17 Q. And were you then in regular contact with the legal counsellors,
18 as you describe them, in gathering, reviewing the documents that were to
19 be relied on and to become the binders of exhibits we have here? Is that
20 right?
21 A. No. I was not in regular contact with them. Sometimes we would
22 not hear from one another for six months on end.
23 Q. Starting in 2002, you knew you were going to be giving evidence,
24 or might be giving evidence, for this accused, and you and his counsellors
25 were identifying the documents to be used. Would that be fair?
Page 42075
1 A. I was aware of the subjects on which I should speak, and
2 regardless of legal counsellors, I reflected on these subjects, and at the
3 end of the day I am familiar with these subjects because they related to
4 my work in the area of Kosovo and Metohija.
5 Q. Now let's hear about the role of the Commission for Cooperation
6 with the ICTY in the assembling of this 10.400 documents. Can you tell us
7 about that?
8 A. The Commission for Cooperation, while it existed, was a very
9 representative institution counting about 40 members, including several
10 generals and several people with Ph.D.'s, and this commission received
11 requests signed by you and sent by you to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
12 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs forwarded these documents from you to
13 the Commission for Cooperation with the ICTY, and then that commission,
14 which had its own teams of experts depending on which segment of the
15 indictment was concerned, Croatia, Bosnia, or Kosovo, worked to collect
16 this documentation.
17 I had a specific duty. In that job I received several requests
18 for -- from that commission concerning specific documents. The
19 commission, however, gathered the documents and gave them to the National
20 Council for Cooperation, which later decided on their sending to the ICTY.
21 But you know that commission was abolished in the first half of 2003. And
22 after that --
23 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... by Mr. Tadic, and we'll come
24 to that a little later. But so that the Court can fully understand the
25 position, the National Council for Cooperation, which deals with requests
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Page 42077
1 on cooperation, then had a further filter, or found itself facing a
2 further filter in respect of the VJ and in the form of this commission;
3 correct?
4 A. No. The first thing you need to understand is this: As far as
5 the documentation of the VJ is concerned, there are several things you
6 need to know. The General Staff and various commands of the army of
7 Yugoslavia were bombed on more than one occasion and several hundreds of
8 square metres of their premises were destroyed. The documentation is
9 stored in six to eight locations, in an adequate space, in premises
10 distant from one another. There was no system of electronic processing of
11 documentation. So when you request something - and I know this because
12 some of your requests reached me, and I have one of your requests here in
13 my bag - in order to respond adequately to your request months and even
14 years are required and enormous resources because you almost never say,
15 "I need this and that document." For instance, the request I have in my
16 bag, you say you need from the General Staff everything from the army,
17 from the corps, and from brigades. Those are millions and millions of
18 paper.
19 Q. Can you tell me why an international criminal court, investigating
20 an army against which there is evidence of criminality, should not have
21 access to its records?
22 A. You have received a huge quantity of material from the army.
23 Since I was brigade commander, I said if the International Tribunal needs
24 documents from my brigade, let them have everything down to the last bit
25 of paper.
Page 42078
1 Q. Thank you for that. Have you, by any chance, got any more
2 documents with you here today? I don't mean here in this room but here in
3 The Hague, beyond the binders we've already seen?
4 A. Well, leaving Belgrade, I was thinking about what else I might
5 perhaps need, and I do have certain other documents with me.
6 Q. What other documents have you got with you? Give us the general
7 list. I don't want suddenly to be presented with things at the last
8 minute, you see. What other documents in general have you got with you?
9 A. It's difficult to give you a list, but I have, for instance, my
10 war journal, my combat reports. I have the war journal of my commander.
11 I have reports from my subordinate commanders, including the subordinate
12 commander who was the most remote from my unit. I have various telegrams
13 exchanged and a number of smaller orders.
14 Q. What volume of material is this?
15 A. Those are notebooks, photocopied notebooks, several of them.
16 Q. And is the journal the war diary that we've been seeking?
17 A. Yes. Yes. You asked for it. In fact, you asked for all war
18 diaries.
19 Q. And we were never provided with them, were we?
20 A. I don't know whether you received them. You probably received
21 some of them. But you should have short-listed the documents you
22 required, from which units you wanted war diaries. The way you formulated
23 it, not a single sovereign state will give you that.
24 Q. Yes. We're obviously grateful to you for your assistance in how
25 we should do our work, but you know that one of the requests was indeed
Page 42079
1 for the war diary of your unit. We haven't seen it, and I take it you
2 have it with you. It's available for inspection, and it's not translated.
3 Would that be about right?
4 A. Let me correct you right away. If you had required the war diary
5 of my unit, you would have received it immediately, because I was never
6 opposed to you receiving any paper from my unit. It was always available
7 to you. But what you said was war diaries of all brigades. You didn't
8 say the war diary of 549th Brigade. If you had requested anything
9 specifically from my unit, I have nothing to hide. Every document should
10 be accessible to you if my state should decide so.
11 Q. The commission that you've told us about actually has created a
12 whole lot of new material, as we'll see when we come to the relevant tabs,
13 and has not provided us with the contemporaneous material. Can you
14 explain that?
15 We've got maps and we've got statements from your commanders, but
16 what we don't have from the commission is the contemporaneous material.
17 Can you explain that?
18 A. I cannot say with any certainty whether the commission was tasked
19 to do this by the state to clarify certain points in the indictment or it
20 was requested in order to be submitted to the Tribunal. At any rate, that
21 job began and was done for several months, because when the commission was
22 abolished, the process of abolishing it did not take months. When the new
23 minister took office, he immediately took the decision to cancel it.
24 Within ten days, most people were let go. Only four officers remained and
25 one technical expert. The others retired. And those who remained did the
Page 42080
1 best they could. Whenever they would receive a request from you, they
2 would search for documentation in order to forward it to the national
3 council or to you.
4 Q. As long ago as the 16th of October, 2002, we requested war diaries
5 of the General Staff of the Yugoslav army, Supreme Command Staff, the 3rd
6 Army, the Pristina Corps, and of all brigades and independent battalions
7 subordinate to the Pristina Corps during the state of war. So that would
8 have been your war diary.
9 Now, we asked for it whenever it was, three years ago, and we have
10 yet to receive it. And you've got it there with you, have you?
11 A. What I have here is my own diary.
12 Q. No. I want the war diary.
13 A. Well, yes, the war diary, but I only have the war diary of my own
14 unit here. I have every right to it. I had the right to take the war
15 diary of my unit.
16 Q. Let's explore that in a little bit more detail. Units subordinate
17 to your brigade would keep written records of everything that they did,
18 and so far as possible, they'd keep written records of every radio and
19 telephone communication that went up to your brigade; correct?
20 A. No. Just the unit which was in the other garrison, that is to say
21 the Djakovica garrison, which was my 2nd Motorised Battalion, which did
22 not have direct communication like the other commanders did. So it was
23 duty bound to keep a notebook of all incoming telegrams from me and all
24 outgoing telegrams and dispatches, and they were required to -- or he was
25 required to send in his reports. The other commanders who were in the
Page 42081
1 same location where the brigade was, that is to say they just kept a war
2 diary. The other documents and records they had no need of keeping
3 because they were on a direct telephone communication with the duty
4 officer.
5 Q. Let's just look, shall we, at --
6 MR. NICE: Mr. Prendergast, if you could show that page to the
7 witness, and we'll display on the overhead projector this.
8 Mr. Prendergast, if you would put page 202 of this on the overhead
9 projector.
10 Q. This, I trust, is a document you recognise. Command and control
11 dated 1997, and we're looking at a chapter, 4.2, and that will go on the
12 overhead projector, please.
13 Follow with me, please, as I read: "An operational log is a
14 combat document into which, during a war, in chronological order, per day,
15 are entered: All important events (state of the enemy and one's own
16 forces and losses), a short summary of all the commandant's commands, the
17 more important orders, data from the reports of subordinates,
18 notifications received and sent, requests, and so on."
19 Was that requirement effective in your brigade and in its
20 subordinate parts?
21 A. You have here in my opinion a textbook for the training at general
22 staff schools and the military academy which is setting out the
23 principles, which means that this is not a rule. It is a textbook for
24 teaching and training. But the units keep war diaries, and the contents
25 of a war diary is, roughly speaking, as you read out.
Page 42082
1 Q. And it goes on to say: "It is kept by units of the level of the
2 battalion or artillery battalion or higher." So that's your unit.
3 "It is safeguarded as a document of permanent value, so as to enable,
4 after the war, study and analysis of combat operations of the units; it
5 also serves for the writing of history."
6 So the operational log for your unit is a document you provided to
7 us, or not?
8 A. I did not provide you with it, of course.
9 Q. Why not?
10 A. You did not ask for it. You did not request the document from my
11 unit.
12 Q. Forgive my naivete if it is, but wouldn't an operational log be
13 about the best document as a starting document to work out what happened
14 in the course of a war?
15 A. A war diary is the basic document in wartime. In wartime, war
16 diaries are kept, and the operational or whatever you called it, the
17 operational log or diary is not kept during a war. It is written -- or,
18 rather, combat reports are written. As soon as a war starts, the
19 operational logs ceases -- log ceases to be kept and combat reports are
20 written and a war diary kept.
21 Q. Well, have we got all the --
22 A. But they're very similar.
23 Q. Have we -- very well. Incidentally, for the benefit of the Court
24 but also for you, Mr. Delic, on the same 16th of October, 2002, we
25 requested operations logs of all brigades and independent battalions
Page 42083
1 subordinate to the Pristina Corps. So if I may say so, we were after your
2 documents three years ago, or just under.
3 Now, are they here today, the operational logs or what you
4 describe as combat reports? Are they all here?
5 A. Well, you can answer that question for me whether you received it
6 or not. My operational logs and my war diary is here, and the report by
7 one of my commanders who wrote it is here. That I have here with me.
8 Now, whether you received what you requested, I really can't say. I don't
9 know.
10 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, your answer a moment ago, Mr. Delic, was that
11 your operational log was not handed over because it wasn't asked for. Now
12 it appears, if that extract is accurate that's been read to you, it
13 appears it was asked for.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They asked for the documents of
15 practically the whole army, referring to the whole army. What they should
16 have done was to ask specifically which document they were interested in;
17 which unit and which specific document. Just imagine for yourself
18 somebody asking for several million pages of material. If Mr. Nice
19 requested --
20 JUDGE BONOMY: [Previous translation continues] ... the question
21 I've asked. Could you please deal with the point I'm making to you rather
22 than entering into some political polemic about how the Prosecutor here
23 has carried out his work in general and deal with the point I'm asking you
24 about, which is: The quotation we've just had from the Prosecutor
25 suggests that your operational log was requested. Do you accept that?
Page 42084
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Specifically, no, not specifically.
2 It wasn't asked for specifically, the war report and war diary of my
3 brigade. My brigade was not mentioned anywhere in the requesting --
4 document for request.
5 MR. NICE: Shall I just lay this on the overhead projector.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: So it is not a brigade that is within the Pristina
7 Corps.
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It is a brigade within the Pristina
9 Corps, certainly.
10 MR. NICE: Put this on the overhead projector.
11 Q. I'm sorry this doesn't come to you in translation, Mr. Delic, but
12 you'll have to trust my reading of the translation.
13 MR. NICE: Can we just see the date, Mr. Prendergast.
14 Q. 16th of October, 2002. "The Office of the Prosecutor wishes to
15 request the assistance of your government to provide...
16 "1. War diaries.
17 "2. Operations logs of: General Staff of the army, Supreme
18 Command Staff, 3rd Army, Pristina Corps, all brigades and independent
19 battalions subordinate to the Pristina Corps during the state of war."
20 That covers you, doesn't it?
21 A. Yes.
22 MR. NICE: Could I have the document back, please,
23 Mr. Prendergast. Thank you.
24 Q. Well, now, let's just try and stick with the sort of material that
25 was in fact available and may be, for all we know, in your briefcase at
Page 42085
1 the moment. But you gave an answer not so very long ago -- let's just see
2 what you said.
3 You said this to me. You said: "You can answer that question
4 whether you've received it or not. My operational logs and war diary is
5 here, and the report by one of my commanders. That's what I have here
6 with me." Now, you said I should be able to tell you.
7 In the nearly 30 hours of evidence that you gave, you produced
8 eight binders of material, and you will understand that we, the
9 Prosecution and the Judges, are working on that material as being the
10 material that has been provided and is relevant. Do you understand me?
11 A. Yes, fully.
12 Q. You've now told us a little bit about what's in your briefcase,
13 but if we take temporarily and out of sequence so I can explain my
14 concerns -- yes. Would you be good enough, please, to take your own tab
15 430. We'll come back to this much later, but it's -- sorry, volume 6.
16 Have you got volume 6? And perhaps Mr. Prendergast would lay --
17 A. What tab number did you say?
18 Q. 430.
19 JUDGE KWON: There are several maps.
20 MR. NICE: Any of these little maps will do. Lay one of them
21 perhaps on the overhead projector.
22 Q. You see, what you've told us, Mr. Delic, is this, that these maps
23 which we're now looking at were constructed by the commission, weren't
24 they?
25 A. I never said that.
Page 42086
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Page 42087
1 Q. Well, by whom --
2 A. How can you claim anything like that?
3 Q. By whom were they constructed?
4 A. They were drafted pursuant to the request of the commission, and
5 they were drawn up by my officers.
6 Q. Very well. Which officer -- let's just take this one that's on
7 the overhead projector at the moment so we can go and speak to him if we
8 need to. Who was it?
9 A. I accept this map just as if I had drawn it myself, but it was
10 drawn by my operative officer.
11 Q. When?
12 A. I've already said; sometime towards the end of 2002.
13 Q. Yes. So these documents that we've been looking at were
14 constructed by, at the moment, an officer who you have not named and on
15 the basis of, no doubt you will tell me, contemporaneous material. Yes?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And although this comes to us via the legal associates of the
18 accused and from the commission, you were actually actively engaged, were
19 you, in getting a subordinate to draw the map?
20 A. Like all the other commanders, I, too, was given the assignment
21 from an expert team of the National Council. I therefore received the
22 events that I was supposed to deal with, both in graphic form and in
23 textual form. So it's not only this map. I -- my assignment was to work
24 it out for a number of places where my unit was, to explain the effects of
25 my unit as related to this particular place on the map, and that I was to
Page 42088
1 draw that and to give statements about that event.
2 Q. And then --
3 JUDGE BONOMY: General, can you clarify just one thing for me
4 before we go further. I asked you about this earlier.
5 My understanding was that you had personally drawn these maps.
6 Are there some that you drew yourself or did you delegate the job of
7 drawing each one to another officer?
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm a general, Mr. Bonomy. I don't
9 actually draw maps. But there are people whose profession and special
10 training it is to draw maps, draft maps. And the man who drafted these
11 maps in wartime was -- did so when the -- in the presence of the
12 commanders of the units shown on the map here. And so we had maps and our
13 documents, contemporaneous documents, as Mr. Nice says, relevant
14 documents, relevant to the event. Now, the actual technology of drawing a
15 map, the maps were actually drawn by the person who drew them during the
16 war, the operations officer.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: So when it comes to the large maps which are
18 reproductions of the submission you made for approval and the approval
19 which came back, these were also reproduced by other persons, not by you
20 personally; is that right?
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Let's understand one another. If
22 you mean these maps, these copies, the copies went through a photocopying
23 machine. They weren't drawn by other people.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: No, no. But the marks that are on them were simply
25 -- are simply photocopies, you say, of the original map used during the
Page 42089
1 war.
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Please. If you copy something in
3 the Geographical Military Institute, if you copy a map, then everything on
4 that map, everything that exists on that map is copied. There are no
5 other markings. Everything is copied at once altogether. It's like
6 placing it on any other photocopy machine in colour except this is special
7 technology, state-of-the-art equipment that only that institution has.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I remain confused, I'm afraid, but no doubt
9 it will become clear in the course of the cross-examination.
10 MR. NICE:
11 Q. Staying one more question with these maps, these maps have not
12 been photocopied from contemporaneous maps. They've been constructed from
13 some kind of information, haven't they?
14 A. No. I've already told you a number of times these maps are not
15 contemporaneous. They date from 2002 and were drawn up pursuant to a
16 request. And you can see from the statements who requested that those
17 maps be drawn up. So the graphical representation and the textual
18 representation was drawn up for a particular event.
19 Q. Well, I don't understand that either. I'll try it once more.
20 I'll hold it up so you can see what I'm talking about.
21 This map - I'll break it into two parts - was not copied from a
22 contemporaneous map, was it?
23 A. I've already told you that a hundred times. If I need to, I'll
24 tell you 101 times. It was compiled in 2002. That is to say, it wasn't
25 -- it didn't originate in -- earlier.
Page 42090
1 MR. KAY: The word "copy" and "photocopy" might be distinguished
2 to help in the answers.
3 MR. NICE:
4 Q. It was constructed on the basis of information provided to the map
5 drawer in 2002.
6 A. The drawer of the map is the direct participant in the events as
7 well, and the basis, the groundwork for that map was the map that exists
8 here in the documents.
9 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... name yet, but no doubt you've
10 got his name because you said he was a participant in the events. So --
11 A. Of course I do.
12 Q. Very well. So who drew the map?
13 A. The maps were drawn by my operations officer in wartime, Colonel
14 Konjikovac.
15 Q. That's the first time we've heard about that, you see, but now we
16 know. Colonel -- the name again -- oh, Colonel Konjikovac had -- had --
17 A. Along with the suggestions of all the commanders who were at that
18 time, in 1999, in that location, and along with suggestions from me as
19 well.
20 Q. So what, was this a group meeting where you all sat round a table
21 and Colonel Konjikovac drew up the map? Is that what happened?
22 A. We received our assignment from the expert team and the Commission
23 for Cooperation, and then we called on all the officers who -- and most of
24 them were in Belgrade, and we did the job in my office.
25 Q. Right. We're gradually getting there. How many people sat round
Page 42091
1 the table?
2 A. I think that is of no importance whatsoever how many people were
3 sitting round the table. There might have been five to six of us.
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: You must answer the question, General.
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I've already said; five to six
6 people.
7 MR. NICE:
8 Q. And did you, as one of the five to six, have the contemporaneous
9 documents with you on the basis of which Colonel Konjikovac was able to
10 draw his map?
11 A. Yes, we did. We had all the documents from the relevant period.
12 Q. But the curiosity is that we don't have those documents, do we?
13 Because they're not included in the nearly 20 hours of testimony or in the
14 eight volumes of paper. All we've got is this reconstruction; correct?
15 A. All the documents are documents that you had, all the relevant
16 documents in my testimony, and all are shown here on the easel.
17 Q. So that I'm going to be able to find, am I, if I ask you, the
18 documents that will show, because they're in writing, all these troop
19 dispositions for this map and all the troop dispositions for all the other
20 maps? Am I going to find those in the eight volumes of materials that
21 I've got?
22 A. Well, what you're holding up there in your hand is something that
23 is in the binders as well.
24 Q. Am I going to find all the material going to show all those troop
25 dispositions in the documents that have been provided?
Page 42092
1 A. I said clearly here to one and all that there are three basic
2 documents for each operation; an order, a decision on the map, and an
3 analysis of the effects of the operation. And you had that on the map,
4 and you do have that in your tabs. So you have all the relevant documents
5 on the basis of which the maps were drawn.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: I take it from the answer you've just given about
7 three basic documents that in relation to a particular order there was a
8 map which set out the decision on the map; is that correct?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
10 JUDGE BONOMY: Now, do you understand why a Judge in a Tribunal
11 like this - and I'm speaking only for myself at the moment, I'm only
12 expressing my personal position - but do you understand why a Judge in a
13 Tribunal like this might actually like to see the original document used
14 during the conflict to compare it with what you've reproduced and how, if
15 there were a few examples of that, at least - and I'm not suggesting that
16 it would be enough for you to do that, that that's all you should have
17 done - but at least if there were a few examples, how it might be
18 reassuring to me?
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, in this Tribunal does that
20 mean you never received a single original document? You received
21 photocopies of documents. So my maps here, as far as I'm concerned, are
22 completely original because they are photocopies of the original maps.
23 And as far as I know, the photocopies are fully relevant.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: We know that tab 430 isn't a photocopy. We're
25 clear about that. That's the one that Mr. Nice has been showing to you.
Page 42093
1 It may be you're now clarifying the other thing that has been certainly
2 causing me difficulty.
3 The one on your left-hand side, on the easel - I don't know the
4 number of it offhand - including the marks that are plainly handwritten or
5 meant to be handwritten representations of where forces were at particular
6 stages and identifying these particular forces, are you saying that what
7 we have here is a photocopy which includes these troop dispositions as
8 they were on the map used at the time of the conflict and that nothing has
9 actually been written onto the photocopy at all by anyone else after the
10 photocopy was made?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, you can check that out. That
12 means just one single -- you can't add one single spot or place on a map.
13 Between this map and the original map, there are absolutely no differences
14 whatsoever.
15 JUDGE BONOMY: Look, General, I know that's what you're saying.
16 I've got that point. What I want to know is whether that is purely and
17 simply what was photocopied from the original and that after the photocopy
18 was made nobody took a coloured pen and added anything, no one took an
19 ordinary pen and wrote anything. That is as photocopied without any
20 alterations, and what it's photocopied from was a map used during the
21 conflict. Yes or no.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Absolutely. I can absolutely
23 confirm and sign everything that I said as being true and correct.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that's not even an answer to the question.
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: That's apparently inconsistent with what was said
Page 42094
1 earlier. I thought you said it was based on -- based on information from
2 1999 and which left me with the impression that it was not an original.
3 We'll take the break and then try to resolve this when we return.
4 Twenty minutes.
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's ludicrous.
6 --- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.
7 --- On resuming at 10.55 a.m.
8 JUDGE ROBINSON: General, I'll just ask you to confirm two matters
9 in relation to the maps, and hopefully this will clarify the matter. The
10 maps are copies of originals. That's the first thing. Just yes or no.
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Okay.
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The big ones.
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: The big ones, yes. And the originals were made
15 contemporaneously with the events of 1999?
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Those are decisions taken before
19 each and every event, as is usually done in the military.
20 JUDGE ROBINSON: In which case the question arises as to whether
21 we would be able to have access to those originals that were made in 1999.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, since you have your own office
23 in Belgrade, a request should be presented in order to see what this
24 original looks like. Nobody can actually get the original from the
25 military archives, but they can have a look at it. They can compare it,
Page 42095
1 this map to the original map, that is.
2 JUDGE ROBINSON: All right. Mr. Nice, you can take it from there.
3 MR. NICE:
4 Q. The large map we've been talking about is a map of what was
5 planned. It is not in any sense a record of what actually happened;
6 correct?
7 A. According to its own rules, the army, before carrying out an
8 operation, adopts decisions in written and in graphic form.
9 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... my question was capable of --
10 A. It's quite clear.
11 Q. -- this map is not in any sense a record of what actually
12 happened. Yes?
13 A. That's right. It is a record of what is supposed to happen.
14 Q. For a record of what happened, we have these little maps, produced
15 by the committee sitting around the table, and may I take it that the MUP
16 were not present to contribute what they'd done?
17 A. May I just correct you. You said Commission for Cooperation. It
18 wasn't the Commission for Cooperation that drew up these maps. They were
19 drawn up in accordance with the request that it had made.
20 Q. In this case an error in translation. I was referring to the
21 committee sitting round the table, which was the group of five or six
22 people, and I used the word "committee" to describe in an informal way
23 that meeting. So I'll go back, get it absolutely right.
24 For what actually happened, we have these little maps produced by
25 the group of five or six sitting round the table; correct?
Page 42096
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Page 42097
1 A. Please just don't use the word "committee." Let it be a group of
2 officers, but not a committee.
3 So this group of officers had before it the original documents.
4 They had an order, they had the decision on the map, and they had the
5 analysis of the operation, and --
6 Q. We in this Court, all we have is the map, and would you now
7 please, just to remind the Court, go to tab 432 as an example. If the --
8 if you could take 432.
9 MR. NICE: And if Mr. Prendergast would just lay that on the
10 overhead projector. It's the same volume. It's volume 6.
11 Q. So we've also been provided with these things, statements taken in
12 either 2002 or 2003, apparently for the Commission for Cooperation's
13 expert team, and then signed in this case by Nikolic. Were these
14 statements taken in 2003 or 2002, were they prepared at the same table
15 with the group of officers sitting round it, or how were they prepared?
16 A. No. Perhaps one of these five or six persons did it, but I myself
17 wrote my own statements. Each and every one of them wrote a statement for
18 himself. They were not prepared at that same table.
19 Q. Well, we may have some postoperative analyses, I think, and I'm
20 not going to go to it because I can't immediately find it and I don't want
21 to take the time at the moment, but 359 is one, but that is the totality
22 of the material, the written material, that you have brought to Court to
23 tell us about the important events into which this Tribunal is inquiring;
24 is that right?
25 A. Yes, this is part of the material.
Page 42098
1 Q. Now, let's go back -- sorry.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: Before you do, can I just, in case I lose track of
3 it, clarify one matter again.
4 You said, General, that the five or six people who did discuss the
5 preparation of the plan, an example was tab 430, had access to the
6 original plan in doing so. But in answer to Judge Robinson a moment ago,
7 you said no one can get access to the original plans because they're kept
8 in the military archive.
9 Now, are you saying that in spite of that your group were able to
10 get the originals to work on?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know, Mr. Bonomy, what kind
12 of translation is coming out, but the question put by Judge Robinson was
13 whether this is the original. You or I or anybody else can have a look at
14 the original document. I would like to ask Mr. Milosevic to follow the
15 interpretation of what I'm going to say now.
16 So in the military archives you can see the original document, but
17 you cannot take the original document away with you.
18 JUDGE BONOMY: That is what -- that is what we were told. That
19 was clear. But when you were preparing, as an example, tab number 430,
20 you said that you had the original. Now, what did you mean by that?
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I had what I had already received
22 from the military archives, because that's it. For me, this is a colour
23 photocopy of the original map.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: So you got the photocopy from the archives; is that
25 correct?
Page 42099
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
2 MR. NICE:
3 Q. On that last point, there's a matter of detail. Are you aware
4 that the OTP has offered to go and inspect the archive and has never been
5 invited or allowed to do so, to look at things like maps?
6 A. I don't know about that.
7 Q. Let's go back, then, please, to what is our Exhibit 309, which we
8 were looking at before.
9 MR. NICE: If Mr. Prendergast could help. It's the operational
10 log passage. It was page 202.
11 Q. And just see what range of contemporaneous written material should
12 exist. We got down to the second paragraph, and it says this, third
13 paragraph in 4.2: "After a certain time combat documents are arranged and
14 made complete in a special dossier, to which is appended a list of the
15 documents. Into this list in chronological order, by numbers, the combat
16 documents are placed (plans, commands, orders, directives, instructions,
17 reports, notifications, working maps, recordings and so on) for this
18 period of time. Documents thus arranged can be photographed (negatives
19 are safeguarded ..."
20 Was that practice followed at your brigade?
21 A. Again, I am saying that you have a textbook, and this is a
22 photocopy of a page from the textbook. So what it says here is fine.
23 That's the way it's done. But not at brigade level. A brigade does
24 safeguard its documents, and after awhile the archives of the brigade are
25 handed over to the archives of the superior command. We do not have the
Page 42100
1 possibility that is referred to here, that is to say that documents are
2 photographed and negatives safeguarded. That is only at the level of the
3 military archive. Other levels do not have the possibility of taking
4 photographs and safeguarding negatives. That is only done at the level of
5 the military archive.
6 As far as I know, in this period there was an enormous amount of
7 documentation, so it required a lot of money, too, and this was not done
8 for this documentation.
9 Q. And your subordinate units -- we can go through the textbook if
10 it's helpful or we can just deal with it in general. Your subordinate
11 units would themselves be keeping extensive written records of what they
12 did, of the ammunition they used and needed to be replaced, and so on.
13 A. Yes. Units at battalion level had their own war diary.
14 Q. And at your level there would be somebody sitting beside the radio
15 or the telephone, keeping a log, so far as possible complete, of incoming
16 and outgoing telephone and radio messages from your subordinates to you
17 and back, and from you to your superiors and back; correct?
18 A. This operations duty officer sitting by the telephone receives
19 messages from units, receives messages from me, receives messages from the
20 superior command and, if necessary, transmits these messages to me. He
21 just has his work log. He records what happened during the course of the
22 day, and then he makes entries of the most important events in his record,
23 report.
24 Q. And is that operations log with you in your briefcase today,
25 covering the relevant period?
Page 42101
1 A. Yes. Yes, I have it.
2 Q. And who made the decision not to include it as one of the
3 documents that we were going to be provided? Was it you or was it the
4 commission or was it the accused's associates, or don't you know?
5 A. At any rate, I wasn't the one who made that decision. I took
6 these documents along so that they would assist me, primarily in this
7 examination. The legal advisors, I don't know. They didn't decide on
8 using these documents.
9 Q. You would accept, wouldn't you, that you as a brigade commander
10 need to be aware pretty much on a minute-by-minute basis as much as
11 possible of what your units in the field are doing, where they are, where
12 the KLA was?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. This exercise in the course of which the accused tells us 10.400
15 documents were assembled and then the subject of selection, over what
16 period of time did that exercise last?
17 A. The assembling of documents has nothing to do with this accused.
18 I said at the outset that from 2002 onwards I've been collecting documents
19 for cases of this Tribunal against the KLA, and that I am the only officer
20 of the army of Yugoslavia who was appointed to testify in cases against
21 the KLA. Therefore, I was given the possibility to have access to all
22 documents that I deem relevant for such cases. So I had access to my own
23 documents and documents that come from other organs.
24 Q. Precisely. At the same period of time as you were working with
25 the group of officers round the table to prepare for the defence of this
Page 42102
1 accused, you had unrestricted access to material because you were going to
2 help the Office of the Prosecution in the prosecution of the KLA. That's
3 correct, isn't it, completely correct?
4 A. The first part is not correct. I and my group of officers never
5 worked on helping this accused person. We were given an assignment, like
6 all other units. I don't have the order here, but I think I can get it in
7 Belgrade.
8 So we got an order, we got an exact list of locations and events
9 that we had to explain, and the method according to which this had to be
10 explained through these maps. That's what I was supposed to do with my
11 own officers.
12 What I did at the request of the OTP for cases against the KLA is
13 a completely different matter. I did that on my own.
14 Q. How do you mean you did it on your own? Didn't you seek or didn't
15 you need approval to get unrestricted access to the archives?
16 A. Three senior staff meetings of the Chief of General Staff were
17 held where my request was discussed, so that all of those who have certain
18 documentation related to the KLA would allow me to get such documents so
19 that I could go to the archives and request such documents. Of course I
20 received this permission.
21 Q. Remember I asked you a question about denial earlier, and it was
22 done with a purpose, and I can deal with it briefly now and in more detail
23 maybe later.
24 In your investigations into all the documentation to which you had
25 access, you have found, I think, nothing that shows wrongdoing by any
Page 42103
1 senior Serb military or political figure; correct?
2 A. Well, I think that you have here the most important document,
3 starting with the General Staff, all the way down to the corps. Every one
4 of these documents can show the professional approach to every task by the
5 officers of the army of Yugoslavia irrespective of level.
6 Q. By all means give a long answer if you like, but I'm quite happy
7 with a short one.
8 From all your investigations have you found anything that shows
9 wrongdoing by any senior Serb military or political figure?
10 A. No, I have not found anything in the archives where I looked.
11 Q. And we heard endless accounts by you -- not endless but many
12 accounts by you of what the KLA did. In your inquiry you found a very
13 large number of documents, and you have a lot of personal experience of
14 the bad things that the KLA and the KLA leaders did; correct?
15 A. Well, since that was the task that I was involved on, and I
16 already said that I spent about 3.000 hours working on that task, that was
17 my primary task, to focus on these maps. I took this very seriously, and
18 I did my work professionally and seriously.
19 Q. Well, is the position this, that you, working with or for the
20 commission, were engaged in the process of slanting history in the
21 documents you provided in a way that will, as I suggested, encourage the
22 continued process of denial? Is that what you were doing?
23 A. Well, perhaps you, Mr. Nice, are trying to slant history, but
24 independently of you and me it is going to take its own course. I would
25 never do anything such thing, what you are trying to accuse me of.
Page 42104
1 Q. In the course of your work to find material to help the
2 prosecutions of the KLA offenders, you made a statement. We needn't look
3 at it, but it's right, isn't it, that you made no mention to the
4 investigators dealing with you then of the work you were doing to help
5 this accused or at least to be responsive to the accused's indictment, did
6 you?
7 A. That's not right. That's not correct. When I was first asked to
8 get in touch with the investigators of the Tribunal who were dealing with
9 indictments against the KLA, I had already given my agreement to testify
10 in this case. The investigator working in Belgrade was informed that when
11 the time came and when I was called by the legal advisors I would testify
12 in this case too. It was no problem then. After all, there is only one
13 truth, regardless of whether I'm testifying for a Defence case or for a
14 Prosecution case. There is only one truth always.
15 Q. I'm not a position to accept or reject the last point having only
16 documents to go with and the investigator concerned not being immediately
17 available, but when you were interviewed, you were interviewed in the
18 presence of the man Radomir Gojovic, the general who's already given
19 evidence in this case, weren't you?
20 A. Yes. Radomir Gojovic was on the Commission for Cooperation with
21 The Hague Tribunal. So it was in that capacity that he was present
22 together with me as a member of the commission.
23 Q. He was its legal advisor, wasn't he?
24 A. Yes. I think that in addition to him, the commission had other
25 legal people, too, but I know that he was a legal man in the military and
Page 42105
1 that he worked within that commission. But I think that in addition to
2 him there were one or two other lawyers there, too, who had worked in the
3 army beforehand.
4 Q. Is it right that in your written statement to the OTP you made no
5 reference whatsoever to your service in Croatia in 1991, 1992, or your
6 service in Bosnia in 1993, 1994?
7 A. I made that statement quite awhile ago. Quite awhile ago. I'm
8 not sure whether it says whether I was in Croatia or Bosnia or not, but I
9 did talk about that to the investigator. There was absolutely no doubt,
10 but it was not relevant to the case that the investigator was interested
11 in. The investigator was very fair, and he never asked me any question
12 that had to do with the operation of my unit or the army of Yugoslavia.
13 He said, "My questions will be only geared towards what you know about the
14 Kosovo Liberation Army."
15 Q. The last few questions about the commission: It was discharged by
16 Defence Minister, as he then was, Tadic on taking office because? For
17 what reason?
18 A. Believe me, that question is not for me after all. I personally
19 saw the dissolution of that commission as a surprise, because it had 40
20 members, and it had just started to work very well and in a high quality
21 manner. However, Mr. Tadic's first order as minister was to dissolve the
22 commission, and then only the technical staff of the commission was left.
23 That was the way it was all the way up to the beginning of this year. A
24 different body was set up now. I think it's called The Centre for
25 Cooperation with the International Tribunal, and it's attached to the
Page 42106
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Page 42107
1 ministry, whereas our commission was functioning along with the General
2 Staff of the army of Yugoslavia. I cannot tell you anything about the
3 dissolution of that commission, but we were all impeded by that; the
4 Office of the Prosecutor, everybody.
5 Q. The --
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice -- oh, well, just before I forget, you
7 accept, then, that the reason for his statement not mentioning his service
8 in Croatia or Bosnia was that the questions put to him by the investigator
9 were only concerned with the KLA.
10 MR. NICE: I'm in no position to accept or reject that at the
11 moment for the same reason; the investigator's not available.
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Okay. I see.
13 MR. NICE: But if I'm able to track him down, it's a question of
14 leave, I'll deal with it.
15 Q. The commission was a body charged nominally with assisting army
16 officers who voluntarily surrendered to this Tribunal in their defence.
17 Would that be about right?
18 A. In the briefest possible terms, I don't think that can be
19 completely correct because the name of the cooperation was the Commission
20 of the General Staff for Cooperation with the Criminal Tribunal. It had
21 the task and it received your requests through the Ministry of Foreign
22 Affairs, and its task was to find documents, to gather all the relevant
23 information and submit it to the National Council for Cooperation with the
24 ICTY.
25 Q. In fact, far from cooperating, it was effectively a council for
Page 42108
1 obstruction of the Tribunal. Isn't that the truth?
2 A. That is what you say. I, since I personally received a number of
3 documents wherein I personally and my administration were requested to
4 find certain documents, certain rules, et cetera, which we did in order to
5 submit them to them to be forwarded to the Tribunal.
6 You invoke this textbook. I believe that this textbook, for
7 instance, originates from my administration, and that it was the
8 commission that submitted it.
9 Q. Included in the members of the commission were such retired
10 generals as Gvero, who is now indicted and here; is that correct?
11 A. I think he was on one of the teams that dealt with Bosnia.
12 Q. Its presiding judge was the active, the only active judge,
13 Lieutenant General Zlatoje Terzic. Although he may have kept a low
14 profile, he was in fact the chairman.
15 A. Please. I don't think the interpretation is quite correct. You
16 said the only active judge, didn't you?
17 Q. The only active -- if I said that, it was my mistake. I meant the
18 only active army officer.
19 A. That is the interpretation I got.
20 Q. The only active army officer.
21 A. No. The commission comprised for the most part of active duty
22 members of the army out of all the 40 members. They were in the ranks of
23 colonel, lieutenant colonel, there were several majors, and maybe two or
24 three captains. And there was also a number of those who were retired,
25 five or six.
Page 42109
1 Q. But Terzic was involved. Can you please just display the letter
2 of the 14th of April.
3 A. Yes.
4 MR. NICE: Again, Your Honours, this is a document like the ones
5 I've used so far that are either existing exhibits or not, documents I'm
6 going to seek to produce.
7 Q. This is a letter of the 14th of April from the Prosecutor to
8 Mr. Svilanovic, and we can see -- a little further down the page, please,
9 Mr. Prendergast -- that it records the following: "On the 21 November
10 2002, during a meeting with the acting Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav
11 army, General Branko Krga, attended also by the president of the
12 Commission for Cooperation with the ICTY of the Yugoslav Army, General
13 Zlatoje Terzic, it was firmly asserted that the Yugoslav army did not have
14 any personal file on Ratko Mladic since he had been a member of the army
15 of the Republika Srpska at the time of the conflict."
16 Just help me at this stage with this question: That assertion, is
17 it true or untrue?
18 A. On this issue I really cannot be of assistance to you because the
19 personnel documentation is kept not in the military archives. It is kept
20 in the personnel administration for all the branches. So I don't have any
21 such knowledge.
22 Q. And just staying for a moment with what's public knowledge, are
23 you aware of any public pronouncements in Serbia about Mladic's personnel
24 file, where it is and who possesses it?
25 A. I think it was mentioned. I don't know whether the press wrote
Page 42110
1 about it as well.
2 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...
3 A. Well, the question was precisely what you just said, whether it
4 was in the Republika Srpska or in Yugoslavia.
5 Q. Very well.
6 MR. NICE: I'll have the document back, please, Mr. Prendergast.
7 Q. Let's move to something entirely different.
8 MR. NICE: If Your Honours just give me one minute.
9 Your Honours, this is a translation of the thesis of this witness,
10 graduation thesis at the Yugoslav army military school centre, dated 1997.
11 I just have a few questions to ask him about it.
12 Q. This is the thesis that you wrote. Is that for your Ph.D. in
13 1997?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Would you be good enough, please, to go to the opening pages of
16 text, 1.2.
17 MR. NICE: The Chamber will find it, I think, on the second
18 segment.
19 Q. Demographic study of Kosovo. This, I take it, was a serious and
20 scientific study?
21 A. This is not a scientific study, and it does not have the character
22 of a scientific study. It is the expert work of somebody attending a
23 technical school on a given subject --
24 Q. So let's look --
25 A. -- assigned subject.
Page 42111
1 Q. Let's look at 1.2, Demographic study structure of Kosovo and its
2 changes in the 20th century.
3 "In Kosovo and Metohija, the mother country of the Serbian
4 people, the ethnic space of Serbs was continually reduced in the past
5 centuries by the systematic advance of Albanians from the neighbouring
6 Albania and the expulsion of the Serbian population. In the past decades,
7 the process culminated in a phenomenon unique in Europe," and then this
8 sentence or phrase, "whose goal is to expel the remaining Serbian
9 population through biological (demographic) expansion based on a high
10 birth rate among the Siptars..."
11 So was that your belief in 1997, that the high birth rate amongst
12 Kosovo Albanians was deliberately aimed at expelling the Serbian
13 population?
14 A. That is a fact. It is an incontestable fact.
15 Q. What I'm interested in, and there's sometimes problems with
16 translation, you're actually of the view or you were of the view that the
17 population of Kosovo Albanians as a whole had as a goal, an objective, to
18 dominate the territory by having lots of babies. Is that really what
19 you're saying?
20 A. You are saying this in such simplified terms. I wouldn't put it
21 that way, "by having lots of babies." It is the characteristic of the
22 Albanian population that their birth rate is the highest in Europe.
23 Q. Yes, it may be, but if you're simply saying that it's a matter of
24 fact that they had a high birth rate, why do you say it was their goal to
25 expel the remaining Serbs through expansion based on the high birth rate?
Page 42112
1 Why do you say that?
2 A. Because in that way quite peacefully, without war, the Serbs who
3 had been jeopardised by then for many years by the growing majority of
4 Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija, and they were the majority during the
5 Ottoman Empire and the First World War and after the Second World War.
6 Q. We'll return to this topic in a couple of pages, but let's just
7 stay on this page and go down two paragraphs. You said this: "According
8 to the estimates for the population in 1991, the Siptar population is in
9 the absolute majority with 1.655.294 inhabitants or 82 per cent." And
10 then you go on to say that there are some 1.730.000 Siptars in Yugoslavia.
11 But sticking with Kosovo, 1.655.294. That's your figure, is it, and you
12 stick by it?
13 A. Well, while you were reading that estimate, it says according to
14 the estimates, because the Siptars did not take part in the last census.
15 But the estimates are not mine. They come from the statistical institute
16 of Serbia whose data I used.
17 Q. You put this estimate into your thesis. If you'd had any
18 reservations about it then, apart from the fact it's an estimate, you
19 would have said so. May I take it you had no reservations then and you
20 have no reservations now, so that we can work on this as a reasonable
21 estimate for the population?
22 A. Just look at --
23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, yes.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, as usual Mr. Nice is taking a
25 quotation out of context and then using it to prove something that he
Page 42113
1 would not be able to prove if he had been -- if he had read the previous
2 paragraph. The previous paragraph says that the Albanians boycotted the
3 previous census and all the --
4 MR. NICE: We've heard that already through the witness, and --
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Look towards the bottom of the page.
6 There is a footnote. Footnote 8. Attachment 2, footnote 8. Estimate by
7 the Kosovo Province Statistical Unit.
8 Q. Let me just explain this to you, Mr. Delic: The accused's
9 evidence -- please listen to me. A lot less Kosovo Albanians there and
10 it's one of the issues that the Chamber may have to deal with, demographic
11 evidence. Here you are doing a learned study, 1997, although it's
12 estimates and all the qualifications, that was your recording of the
13 estimates then. Do you have any reason to doubt its accuracy? Yes or no.
14 A. This is an estimate from the Kosovo Province Statistical
15 Institute, and I accepted it in my work. But if you continue reading my
16 work, you will see that in addition to this figure, there were 300.000
17 inhabitants living outside of the country.
18 Q. Can we go on then, please, to the English page 3, and if you would
19 go, please, in the original text, probably a couple of pages on, to the
20 passage immediately below the box that sets out in six rows the
21 demographic structure between 1918 and 1971. So you come to a sentence
22 that begins "Under strong pressure..." Have you found it? It's about two
23 pages on.
24 Now, here you record --
25 A. Yes.
Page 42114
1 Q. -- "Under the strong pressure of the Siptar settlement and a
2 totally wrong policy of the state between 1941 and 1991, the demographic
3 structure in Kosovo and Metohija was turned upside down. The Serbian
4 people were forced to emigrate ..." and so on.
5 And then if we look a little bit further down, we find this,
6 towards about halfway down the paragraph, a bit more: "Furthermore, in
7 the entire post-war period, there was the planned policy of high birth
8 rate among Siptars in Kosovo and Metohija, motivated primarily by national
9 interests."
10 So in order to understand your thinking, would it be fair to say
11 that you believed that the principal motivation for high birth rate was
12 the national interests of the Kosovo Albanians?
13 A. You are again taking two sentences out of context. If you have
14 read my entire work, you can see from it very clearly all the elements
15 that influenced the creation of that situation as it was in Kosovo and
16 Metohija. Why didn't you, for instance, read the second paragraph of what
17 you just started reading, which reads: "The measures of the
18 government --"
19 THE INTERPRETER: Could we have a reference, please?
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] "Measures instituted -- measures
21 instituted by the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia in 1948 banned
22 the Serb colonies from returning to their homestead, thereby legalising
23 the settlement of 60.000 to 120.000 Siptars from Albania."
24 JUDGE BONOMY: That wasn't the question you were asked, if I may
25 say so. That's a different issue. Can you not deal with the simple
Page 42115
1 question that actually was asked?
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, Mr. Nice set a goal to
3 himself, and he wants to prove something through a school study,
4 schoolwork. First of all, he should explain how he managed to get his
5 hands on something I wrote in school.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: What he wants to do, I suspect, is find out what
7 your state of mind is on these matters, and the simple question was would
8 it be fair to say that you believed that the principal motivation for high
9 birth rate was the national interest of the Kosovo Albanians? It's a
10 simple question.
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That was not the main motivation.
12 Kosovo and Metohija is the most underdeveloped part of the Socialist
13 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The most underdeveloped part. And like
14 in all countries where the economy is underdeveloped, the birth rate is
15 high. But one of the reasons was also the one I mentioned here,
16 demographic expansion motivated by national interests. In addition to
17 backwardness, economic underdevelopment and the fact that Kosovo and
18 Metohija was mainly a rural land with poorly developed infrastructure,
19 poorly developed economy, this is also one of the motives.
20 JUDGE BONOMY: From -- from what you said a moment ago about
21 writing this when you were in school, the date, the indicative date of
22 writing is 1997. Is that inaccurate?
23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It was written in end 1996 and early
24 1997, by July 1997.
25 MR. NICE:
Page 42116
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Page 42117
1 Q. It's just to explain the position to you and to show the relevance
2 of this to later questioning, as you know, there's evidence before this
3 Tribunal that you and the forces under you engaged in ethnic cleansing and
4 that you gave direct instructions as to the killing of individuals when
5 you shouldn't have done. You understand that's the state of the evidence
6 before this Tribunal?
7 A. If such evidence exists, it is fabricated. I was there throughout
8 that time, and I know very well that both I and my unit acted all the time
9 in keeping with the law, and my conscience was -- is completely clear with
10 regard to everything I did in Kosovo and Metohija.
11 Q. What I'm doing with this thesis of yours is exploring whether you
12 had the state of mind that would have allowed to you do that sort of
13 thing. Do you follow me?
14 A. Somebody else decided in good time on my state of mind. That is
15 not your job. But if you read this thesis, you could have learned a lot
16 about Kosovo and Metohija.
17 Q. Well, shall we go on, English page 15 at the bottom, and chapter
18 and subparts 7.6 for you, please. If you can find chapter 7.6. And
19 having found it -- have you found 7.6, Use of Security Organs and Forces?
20 Now, if you go down one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
21 paragraphs, you come to something that begins at the foot of our page 15.
22 Mr. Prendergast, please, right at the bottom: "In recent times due to
23 problems in the sphere of international relations, security services of
24 the member republics have had totally different views of the same events
25 determined by the views of the political leadership of the republic to
Page 42118
1 whom the security services in question are accountable. It is clear,
2 then, that such a decentralisation of the security service and organs is
3 untenable and that they must be unified at the level of the SRJ, because
4 instead of being a factor contributing to stability, they are often a
5 factor contributing to instability ..."
6 Does this reflect, this passage, your belief that everything
7 should be unified under Belgrade or Serb control?
8 A. In a very strange way, you are drawing certain conclusions. This
9 speaks to certain problems that existed in my country; the fact that there
10 were in existence two republics, that the services and organs of security
11 were primarily determined by political views. And from the viewpoint of
12 the tenability of the entire country, it was completely impossible.
13 I am saying here that on the level of the Federal Republic of
14 Yugoslavia there should be security organs that would care primarily about
15 the interests of the whole state, not the individual members of that
16 state. And this decentralisation of those two security systems was
17 affecting negatively the security of the federal state.
18 Q. But is it right, if we look at the beginning of this passage, that
19 within the security systems available at the time, or working at the time,
20 there were different views as to, for example, the rights and wrongs of
21 the KLA or the rights and wrongs of the Serbs? Would that be fair?
22 A. Please, this is a graduation thesis written in 1996 and 1997. The
23 KLA appeared on the scene in end 1997, more precisely in 1998. So the
24 subject here are some other problems.
25 Q. I can't find it immediately, but you described an enemy in this
Page 42119
1 paper. I will find it in a second. Who was the enemy you were referring
2 to in this paper?
3 A. You have to find a specific passage. Give me a page and then I'll
4 give you a specific answer.
5 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... yourself as writing this
6 about an existing enemy?
7 A. This graduation thesis is entitled "Preparation and engagement of
8 defence forces in the prevention and crushing of armed insurgency in
9 Kosovo and Metohija." This is a thesis written in a school in which, as
10 you see, all the units and all the other things were dealt with not in
11 terms of the actual situation in Kosovo and Metohija. It reflected things
12 in the way that was possible at school.
13 Q. Go to English page 21, and could you find chapter 8.4. But you
14 emphasise that this was school work. In 1996 and 1997, what rank of
15 officer were you?
16 A. Well, I've already said. I had the rank of colonel.
17 Q. The youngest ever colonel appointed, or one of the youngest?
18 A. In 1996 I was the youngest, yes.
19 Q. And colonel's quite a senior rank in the army, isn't it?
20 A. Certainly.
21 Q. And to write a thesis for a doctorate is a serious -- it should be
22 a serious intellectual and academic exercise, shouldn't it?
23 A. At all events, this is work that was required of me by the school,
24 and to complete that school, to graduate, you would get a degree equal to
25 a Ph.D.
Page 42120
1 Q. Let's look at 8.4 on page 21. "Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo
2 and Metohija who have not been given their assignments as v/o --" "v/o" is
3 what, volunteers?
4 A. Military conscripts, "vojni obveznici."
5 Q. " ... in the units of the VJ and the VTK and the MUP have been
6 issued light infantry weapons with a single of ammunition.
7 "Thus the resistance in the settlements where Serbs and
8 Montenegrins live has been ensured, as they can offer resistance and
9 defend their homes and families." You then detail the types of weapons
10 that have been issued, said they were inspected, dealt with personnel
11 organised into squads, platoons, and companies. Unit commanders have been
12 appointed, and these forces number 16.000 armed people.
13 "If necessary (but only in exceptional cases)" you go on,
14 "university students and third and fourth-grade students in secondary
15 schools ... can be counted upon as the source of the reserve for the
16 defence forces ... They are numerous, because only students in the
17 Pristina University number about 22.000."
18 So by the end of 1996, beginning of 1997, Serbs and Montenegrins
19 had been armed, had they, in the way described?
20 A. Armed, that is to say Serbs and Montenegrins armed in this way
21 were within the composition of the units of the civilian defence.
22 Q. Can we go on to paragraph 9.1 on the following page, page 22. You
23 set out here under 9.1: "Use of the VJ in the suppression of the armed
24 insurgency." And if we then go on in the original to headed paragraph or
25 chapter -- I'm sorry. Beg your pardon.
Page 42121
1 Can you go to a later paragraph, 9.1.2, which the Chamber will
2 find in its extracts at page 27. Can you find 9.1.2, please. And here we
3 come to a categorisation of yours, if you have that passage, which is
4 headed "Use of the Yugoslav Army in the 2nd stage of insurgency." Can you
5 find that?
6 A. Yes, yes.
7 Q. By "the second stage of insurgency" - you somewhere define three
8 stages - what did you mean by the second stage?
9 A. The second stage of armed insurgency, when the rebel forces had
10 become so strong that they had under their control a considerable portion
11 of the territory.
12 Q. Now, there is no doubt, is there, that by 1998, on your analysis,
13 the KLA had achieved that.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Because you make this point clear in your paragraph 9.1.2: "One
16 of the particularly important aspects which has a substantial impact on
17 the use and activities of the defence forces in the 2nd stage of the armed
18 insurgency is the fact that the activities will be carried out at the time
19 when a state of emergency has been declared or in an even more serious
20 situation, that of an imminent threat of war."
21 So on your own analysis and understanding, once you reach the
22 state of affairs that you were in in 1998, second stage insurgency, for
23 the army to be involved there will have to be a declared state of
24 emergency; correct?
25 A. No, that is not right.
Page 42122
1 Q. Explain why not.
2 A. What I wrote down here relates and happened or, rather, was
3 proclaimed -- a state of war had been proclaimed in 1999, which means that
4 the rules of service, and the rule of service, I can't say that its point
5 -- it's point 400 and something of the rules of service and if I had them
6 I could find the exact paragraph now, but one of the tasks of the army
7 among all other things was the fight against the rebel and terrorist
8 groups which were jeopardising military facilities and the territory as a
9 whole and communication lines without the proclamation of a state of
10 emergency.
11 Q. The point you're referring is probably article 470 which was
12 relied upon by those of you who attacked General Perisic after he left
13 office. Is that the section you have in mind, 470?
14 A. Well, if you were to show me the rules of service, I would be able
15 to find the article.
16 Q. But --
17 A. And tell you like this off the top of my head, I can't be specific
18 as to which particular article it is, but the rules of service allows for
19 the engagement of the army in peacetime, without the proclamation of a
20 state of emergency.
21 Q. You see, I wasn't asking you about 1999. I was simply reading
22 from your own thesis. And when I asked you about 1998, when I asked you
23 about the state of emergency, it would have appeared at that stage that
24 1998 merited a state of emergency and I'm going to suggest to you that for
25 the use of the army a state of emergency should have been declared.
Page 42123
1 A. That is one possibility. A state of emergency is, therefore,
2 proclaimed by somebody else. A state of emergency is proclaimed by the
3 Assembly. That is the political part and not to do with me. But the
4 army, in its rules of service and in other of its documents, it has a
5 mechanism in place to respond to an armed uprising and terrorist action.
6 So probably that is the article that you yourself mentioned.
7 Q. What should be the reaction of an army officer, a commander,
8 facing an unconstitutional, or potentially unconstitutional use of force;
9 i.e., when he's told to act without a declared state of emergency, what
10 should the army officer's reaction be? Should he obey his superior
11 officer or should he say no, this is unlawful?
12 A. I didn't have a situation like that in practice and it did not
13 take place in either 1998 or 1999. We acted pursuant to the constitution
14 and the law.
15 Now, had what you stated happened, certainly an officer should not
16 carry out the order which was unconstitutional and unlawful.
17 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... easy to give you a
18 hypothetical because of course you were in charge of the tanks that would
19 have rolled into Belgrade to quell the people on the street at the time
20 that this accused was toppled from office. All you would have needed was
21 an instruction from General Pavkovic. By then, in fact, he'd changed
22 sides, but it doesn't matter.
23 If General Pavkovic in 2000 had told you to take the tanks onto
24 the streets to quell the demonstrations that toppled this accused, would
25 you have complied?
Page 42124
1 A. I would not have carried out that except in a situation where
2 there was the danger of a civil war breaking out and large scale conflicts
3 and clashes. If all forces needed to be made available to prevent a civil
4 war. Otherwise, the army is not engaged for anybody's needs, not the
5 individual certainly but only in the interests of the state.
6 Q. Very well. So where you need a state of emergency, it is improper
7 -- and one has not been declared, it's improper for a commander to do as
8 he is instructed; correct?
9 A. Give me a specific case or situation.
10 Q. There are two significances in this point and I'm going to deal
11 with both of them. The first is that if you were turning tanks onto
12 civilians in 1998, you were acting without a state of emergency and what
13 you did was, to your knowledge, unlawful. Correct?
14 A. Except that that never actually happened. So I really can't give
15 you an answer. I would never aim tanks at civilians because that would
16 have been unlawful. And as you yourself say, it never actually happened.
17 Q. The second point intertwined with the first is this: You remember
18 answering a lot of questions, to the Judges in particular but also to the
19 accused, about the existence of the Joint Command. Do you remember doing
20 that?
21 A. Yes, yes, I do remember.
22 Q. In particular I drew to your attention that right at the end of
23 the last day of hearings you gave a very long answer explaining the Joint
24 Command. Do you remember that?
25 A. Yes.
Page 42125
1 Q. The Joint Command is problematic for both you as a senior, or then
2 a comparatively senior and then later very senior military man, and for
3 the politicians, because the Joint Command was a political body exercising
4 control over armed and police forces in circumstances where it had no
5 authority to do so. Isn't that right?
6 A. That is not right.
7 Q. I'll just finish the question and then you can give a longer
8 answer. And I'm going to suggest to you now and in more detail when we
9 look at the documents that that is why it is impossible to tie the Joint
10 Command down, because both the military, the police, and the politicians
11 have had to hide its real existence, knowing that it was unlawful. Do you
12 want to add anything to your observation that my suggestion is not right?
13 A. Certainly I wish to present my observations and knowledge and
14 position which corresponds to the truth. If we use the word "command" at
15 all, then command implies that you have to have something formed by an
16 order or decree. There was no order establishing a Joint Command. There
17 was no decree by the president to form a Joint Command.
18 Then the next point is this: Every command at whatever level must
19 have a commander. What you refer to as Joint Command is something that
20 did not have a commander, and there are no signatures anywhere on any
21 documents. And if something is called or termed "command" of any unit,
22 even this Joint Command option, then it must have its bodies. It must
23 have its branches and services performing certain affairs and operations
24 for them. So each of our commands has their military post and their
25 stamp. There is the military post, you can see that written up on any
Page 42126
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Page 42127
1 document, and at the bottom of the document you have the stamp. So this
2 Joint Command did not have a post or a stamp.
3 And going on to my next point, you have to have some records where
4 part of the Joint Command operations are recorded, logged. Every document
5 put out by the Joint Command must be recorded. Here everything was done
6 in the Pristina Corps, for example. The group of people who were from
7 Belgrade, that is to say politicians at a federal and republican level,
8 and some of them I know and I mentioned some of their names earlier on,
9 they then were on the territory of Pristina. They were sent there from
10 Belgrade to be closer to the situation. That means to talk to the
11 Albanian side, that means to talk to the diplomatic representatives, that
12 means to talk to the international humanitarian organisations, and via the
13 command of the Pristina Corps and through the MUP staff to exchange
14 information about the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, and probably to
15 report back to Belgrade about it.
16 And they had some meetings. I never attended those meetings, but
17 as I say, to link up the Joint Command to any order going down to the
18 units would be quite erroneous, quite wrong, because I would never carry
19 out an order from someone over there, any politician, for that matter,
20 whatsoever.
21 Q. Now, may I suggest your answer again reveals the truth; that you
22 struggle to identify a body that has no command function when there was
23 the need for a clear command function, and you struggle because you knew
24 and you know that you were all responding to the private club of this
25 accused in controlling events in Kosovo, and that's the embarrassment for
Page 42128
1 you.
2 A. That story of yours is really very unpleasant, especially for an
3 officer and a general. There are no generals who belong to anybody and
4 are privately owned by anybody, and I can never and will not ever be
5 anybody's appendage, any politician. I'm a general of the Serb army and
6 of my own state. And I'm trying to tell you that a coordinating body --
7 to this day we have a coordinating body for the south of Serbia, for
8 instance, with a coordinating function to perform before that body, and it
9 was called the Joint Command. There was something -- another body that
10 was called interdepartmental staff. But you're not following what I'm
11 saying now, are you?
12 Q. I'm following what you're saying. Please carry on.
13 A. As I was saying, before the Joint Command, there was something
14 that was called an interdepartmental staff, and I've already explained,
15 and I will do so again if need be, how I as a commander understand it, why
16 in certain documents it -- you do come across the term "Joint Command."
17 Only so that on the ground coordination can be carried out between the
18 army, that is to say between me as the brigade commander on the one side
19 and the commander or chief of the Secretariat of the Ministry of the
20 Interior, for instance, for that particular purpose because that man from
21 the Ministry of the Interior does not want to carry out orders if it says
22 coming from the Pristina Corps. All documents where it says Joint Command
23 were recorded into the logbook of the Pristina Corps.
24 Q. You do remember, don't you, the passage of questioning where His
25 Honour Judge Kwon identified for us a serial number on a Joint Command
Page 42129
1 document that was in sequence with command documents of other bodies? Do
2 you remember that passage?
3 A. Yes. Mr. Bonomy asked me, but that was not related to the Joint
4 Command. It was a question related to my brigade directly.
5 Q. I'll come back to the Joint Command as a segment later. I want to
6 conclude --
7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, maybe this would be an appropriate time
8 to adjourn for 20 minutes. We're adjourned.
9 --- Recess taken at 12.17 p.m.
10 --- On resuming at 12.41 p.m.
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.
12 MR. NICE:
13 Q. In fact, there are still a few more questions I will ask at this
14 stage about the Joint Command. Could you be good enough, please, in your
15 thesis to go to chapter 10, headed "Exercise of command over the Defence
16 forces of the SRJ in Kosovo and Metohija." It's Court's page 45.
17 A. Could you give me a page reference, please.
18 Q. Page -- chapter 10. He may be able to find it for you, but it's
19 chapter 10, "Exercise of command," towards the end. Just before that, I
20 can see the page. That's it. So here's a chapter headed "Exercise of
21 command."
22 If the Court would be enough to go over one page, and if you would
23 go over one page to English page 46, we there see the tabulation of three
24 stages of insurgency but I've asked you the only question about that that
25 I want to, and you end this part of your thesis saying - at the foot of
Page 42130
1 the page, please, Mr. Prendergast - "According to this proposal --"
2 "The existing proposal for the resolution of the issue of the
3 command over all the defence forces in the context of the armed insurgency
4 ensures the implementation of all the principles of command and should be
5 further elaborated, particularly at the lower-tactical level.
6 "According to this proposal," you said, "a command and control
7 organ exercising these functions in the context of a state of emergency
8 ... is established at the level of the Main Staff of the VJ."
9 And if we then go over the page we find, do we not, a chart, your
10 proposal in your thesis, which has the Supreme Defence Council running
11 through the General Staff, running through the MUP on the right-hand side,
12 the 3rd Army on the left, and coming to something which is here the
13 Pristina command, which it says "Unifies the command over all the defence
14 forces in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija," and then it goes from
15 there, from the unified command, to subordinate VJ units or subordinate
16 MUP units.
17 Now, I'm not suggesting that this organigramme reflects the Joint
18 Command, but what it reflects is the overwhelming imperative to have to
19 have a unified command, in this case it is the Pristina command on the
20 ground, with all forces answering to it, doesn't it?
21 A. You probably haven't forgotten that this was my Ph.D. thesis and
22 not some combat rule relating to combat. So these are my thoughts on the
23 subject, that is to say what would be the most efficient way of commanding
24 in Kosovo and Metohija. And I'd be very happy indeed if some of my
25 deliberations were to be applied in practice.
Page 42131
1 However, if you follow this schematic, the diagram on the overhead
2 projector, you will see that we can see here that from the 3rd Army
3 command there should be a sort of command team to come and join up with
4 the Pristina Corps.
5 In 1998 this did not happen in the way -- in that way, but in
6 Pristina a forward command post was established of the 3rd Army. So it
7 didn't come within the composition of the Pristina Corps, become part of
8 that. What did exist was the MUP staff of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija.
9 It did exist. However, it did not provide its team to the Pristina
10 command corps, but it existed throughout as an independent organ. And I
11 still consider to this day that when there are different forces in play,
12 that the best thing to do is to have one unit of the army which is
13 responsible for a particular territory to comprise and combine all those
14 forces. And today in the south of Serbia, for instance, we have a
15 coordinating body working in similar fashion, because it includes members
16 of the army and members of the police.
17 Q. Well, my suggestion to you is that what is revealed in your thesis
18 at this stage is a simple and obvious point that if you've got more than
19 one type of force in the same territory, for a whole range of obvious
20 military reasons, you need a single command. And then my second point is
21 that that single command was the Joint Command. Do you reject both points
22 or just one of them?
23 A. I reject your second assertion. You know that in 1999, a decision
24 was taken on the resubordination of the MUP forces to the forces of the
25 army as provided for by Article 16 and Article 17 of the law on defence,
Page 42132
1 which means that that was what happened in 1999. What was done was
2 pursuant to the law. On the 20 something of April. I think it was the
3 24th of April, in actual fact, when an order was given for the MUP forces
4 to be resubordinated to the units of the army as provided for by Article
5 16 and 17.
6 Q. [Previous translation continues]... later. Mr. Prendergast,
7 please. It's still your position, is it, that in 1998 the Joint Command
8 was simply an advisory or coordinating body.
9 A. That means a coordinating body providing -- giving advice,
10 advisory body.
11 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... which is referred to in the
12 addendum to Mr. Coo's report - I haven't got an exhibit number for it at
13 the moment - it's a letter in the original -- or the Serb version is
14 before the witness. It's dated the 12th of July of 2002, and it says in
15 answer to a request: "The Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija was
16 formed on the order of the FRY President in June 1998 without any specific
17 document;
18 "The above command operated until the October of that year
19 following which several unofficial meetings were held where the current
20 security situation was analysed."
21 It goes on: "According to the military organs' knowledge, the
22 documents from the Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija related to
23 military issues were delivered to the incumbent Chief of the Cabinet of
24 the FRY president upon the termination of its work, late in 1998."
25 And then this: "The buildings where these documents may have been
Page 42133
1 housed were demolished and destroyed during the NATO aggression..."
2 Two points. In fact, the careful use of the phrase "may have been
3 housed" has been overtaken by events because you've been able to provide
4 these documents, haven't you, or some of them?
5 A. As far as I know, you were provided with the documents of the
6 Joint Command and the minutes from those meetings. You have them in your
7 possession, I believe.
8 Q. And secondly, the Chief of Cabinet of the FRY president is being
9 prosecuted for the hiding or destruction of documents, isn't he? Do you
10 know about that? Mr. Milinovic, Goran Milinovic.
11 A. I don't know that that person is being prosecuted.
12 Q. Never heard about that, have you?
13 A. As for that individual, I have heard about the individual, but I
14 haven't heard about any -- him being prosecuted.
15 Q. Binder 2, tab 66, please. That's my last question for the time
16 being on the Joint Command, the last couple of questions. So in 1998 the
17 Joint Command, a coordinating body.
18 Right. If we could possibly lay it on the overhead projector.
19 Thank you very much.
20 This is dated the 7th of July of 1998, and it comes from your
21 brigade and indeed is signed by you. And we see that it's titled
22 "Prohibition on conduct of operations without the knowledge and
23 authorisation of your own command." Is that correct? Right.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. It goes on to say: "Pursuant to the order of the Joint Command
Page 42134
1 --" oh, order of the Joint Command. Can you explain that?
2 A. For me there was never any contest that my Pristina Corps stood
3 behind this Joint Command. 1104, dated the 7th of July, 1998, and that is
4 the number under which this was registered in the Pristina Corps. For me,
5 what it says here, Joint Command, is irrelevant.
6 Q. Have you got this document? 1104-6 of the 6th of July, because
7 it's being described as an order. Have you got it?
8 A. Yes. Yes, I certainly got it.
9 Q. Is it in the papers we've got? I've done my best to consume them,
10 but it's -- there's quite a lot of material here, and --
11 A. I'm not sure. But if it's not here, then it's in the archive.
12 Q. You see --
13 A. In the archive where the documents of my unit are. After all,
14 this document, even if it's not in the archive of my unit, it was sent out
15 to all other units, and it's in the archives of the Pristina Corps.
16 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...
17 A. Under this number.
18 Q. I'm only concerned with you, you see. Let's go on a bit.
19 "Bearing in mind previous experience of carrying out combat operations and
20 the damage suffered by units due to operations not being prepared and
21 being poorly executed and in order to increase the efficiency of carrying
22 out tasks at all levels and to improve organisation," et cetera, "I issue
23 the following," and then your order says: "The conduct of any operations
24 by units formed from the former force without the knowledge and
25 authorisation of the 549th command is hereby prohibited."
Page 42135
1 So what can we infer as to what that confidential number 1104-6 of
2 the 6th of July said? What do you tell us that document said?
3 A. Well, in that document or, rather, the further content of the
4 document is more or less like in my order, except that in my order I
5 actually address my commanders, and in this order the commanders of the
6 other brigades.
7 Q. What did the Joint Command, which isn't a command, what did it say
8 to you, "Please ensure that your troops don't behave without an order from
9 you," or might it have said, "Please ensure that your troops behave, don't
10 do anything without an order from us, the Joint Command"? What would it
11 have said?
12 A. Perhaps it's not identical in my order from one letter to the
13 other, but it's the same points that are made. It's the same points that
14 are made. The order that was written at this higher level pertains to
15 brigades, whereas I am writing to my battalions here. As for my
16 commanders --
17 Q. The Joint Command couldn't give orders, could it, because it was
18 only a cooperation body? The Joint Command couldn't give you an order.
19 Although it says order here, but it couldn't give you an order.
20 A. No. The Joint Command could never issue me an order. Whenever
21 you say "Joint Command," I see the Pristina Corps here.
22 Q. What we want to know is in its letter headed "Joint Command,"
23 which we haven't got because it's in the archive and hasn't been provided
24 to us, in its letter what did the Joint Command say? Just try and help
25 us.
Page 42136
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Page 42137
1 A. In that document, it says approximately everything that is here in
2 this order from paragraphs 1 through 7, but it pertains to other units.
3 All units, all brigades got this order.
4 Q. All units and all brigades have got to behave themselves and the
5 subordinate parts mustn't act without a proper order from the commander;
6 is that right? Something like that?
7 A. Yes, of course.
8 Q. Very well. Well, as you correctly observed, the document will
9 have gone to other brigades, and we can have a look at their
10 interpretation.
11 MR. NICE: Perhaps you'd provide the witness with the original of
12 Exhibit 319 tab 65. Or Exhibit 282. I think it's the same document.
13 Q. You see -- you see, this document comes from the commander of the
14 125th Motorised Brigade, not yours, but it's got the same date. We see
15 that it's -- refers in its first substantive paragraph to confidential
16 order number 1104-6 of the 6th of July. So it's referring to the same
17 document. Now let's look how it's headed: "Ban on operations without the
18 knowledge and approval of the Joint Command. Order:
19 "Pursuant to the order of the Joint Command... with the aim of
20 increasing efficiency in carrying out tasks..." and so on, "I hereby
21 order..." And he then, number 1, prohibits "the execution of any
22 operations by units and formations without the approval of the Joint
23 Command for Kosovo and Metohija and my own approval." This is signed by
24 your colleague, as it were, Dragan Zivanovic.
25 A. Yes.
Page 42138
1 Q. Seems to have misunderstood the order, doesn't he, or the document
2 he received?
3 A. The document hardly differs from my document at all. The points
4 are the same. It's true what you say about the first point. If I receive
5 an order as brigade commander, I am responsible for carrying out that
6 order, and I no longer need any kind of superior command or as he wrote
7 this here. He verbatim copied paragraph 1 from 101/6. And then he also
8 added my own order too. I wrote what I think every commander should have
9 ordered. I, as commander of my brigade, issued this kind of order to my
10 brigade. I am responsible for every order, and I am the only one who can
11 order the use of my brigade, and I can be ordered to do so only by my
12 superior commander. As for all the other paragraphs, perhaps it was
13 written in another way, but it was more or less the same thing.
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: General, were you free not to carry out the order
15 of the Joint Command number 1104-6 of 6 July 1998?
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The order of my superior command, of
17 course, like any other officer, I always carried it out. I'm telling you
18 now that the Joint Command is just a notion. It is not a command. It
19 does not have the attributes of a command existing in any army.
20 If I got this order, and I did get this order from a messenger who
21 brought it from the command of the Pristina Corps, I know that my
22 commander, commander of the Pristina Corps, stands behind it. And of
23 course it never crossed my mind not to carry out an order given to me by
24 the corps commander or his deputy. And I've already told you that no one
25 outside that chain has the right to give me any kind of order. I would
Page 42139
1 not have carried out anybody else's order.
2 Down the vertical line, there's the -- or, rather, up the vertical
3 line there's the commander of the army, et cetera. So this is strictly in
4 accordance with military rules.
5 As brigade commander, I cannot accept the existence of any kind of
6 Joint Command.
7 JUDGE ROBINSON: What's the answer to the question that I asked?
8 I asked whether you would have been free not to carry out the order of the
9 Joint Command of 6 July 1998 that is referred to in tab 66.
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It depends on what you mean by Joint
11 Command and what I mean by Joint Command. Mr. Nice is trying to say that
12 the Joint Command is something, and on that basis I'd never carry out that
13 kind of order. But for me the Joint Command is just a notion behind this
14 document 1104-6. This document was registered in the office of the
15 Pristina Corps, and I know that because I follow the numbers involved, and
16 I certainly have to carry out an order that was registered under this
17 number.
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Why, then, did the communication not refer to the
19 Pristina Corps?
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Most orders, an enormous majority,
21 99 per cent, were of the Pristina Corps. And you see in some places it
22 does say the Joint Command. For me, even at that time, that had no
23 significance whatsoever. Since I was not in Pristina, I cannot give you a
24 concrete answer to why the person who wrote this wrote Joint Command,
25 because this is a plain military order. There is nothing political about
Page 42140
1 it.
2 JUDGE ROBINSON: So for you the term "Joint Command" is synonymous
3 with Pristina Corps.
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] If we're talking about the documents
5 that I received as brigade commander, everything where it says Joint
6 Command and was sent to the -- to my brigade for execution was from the
7 Pristina Corps. I'm not talking about documents that I never got and that
8 never reached me.
9 Joint Command, according to my understanding of the term, was just
10 a coordination body. The command of the Pristina Corps was in Pristina in
11 1998, and the forward command post of the 3rd Army. So those were the
12 levels of command that I was responsible to and no one else apart from
13 that.
14 MR. NICE:
15 Q. I have a couple more points to make on your thesis on a different
16 topic. I'm sorry it's going to take you back to only three very short
17 references.
18 If the Chamber would go to page 31, and if you would back in your
19 thesis, please, to the chapter heading or sub-heading "Controlling the
20 population and resources and blocking the territory." It's about
21 half-way through, I think, maybe a little over half-way through. I'm sorry
22 not to have marked the pages for you on this occasion but normally I will
23 manage to achieve that, but on this occasion it wasn't possible.
24 Have you found the passage that heads "Controlling the population
25 and resources"?
Page 42141
1 A. I think that there is no such name.
2 Q. Can I read you what it says, because I think on this topic you may
3 not need the text and we can follow it in English and it can be checked
4 for re-examination if necessary.
5 On page 31 in the English, you speak of "Measures and procedures
6 used to control the population and resources and to block the territory
7 ..." And then, Mr. Prendergast, over the page, it deals with --
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. -- refugees and displaced persons.
10 If the Chamber would be good enough to go on to page 42 under a
11 heading that is "Use of the CZ and CO forces in the suppression of the
12 armed insurgency," what you said here, Mr. Delic, was that in the second
13 and third stages of armed insurgency, CO and CZ forces carry out the
14 following tasks, and it says rescue and care for the victims and
15 endangered population and evacuate them.
16 A. Please let me just find this, because you've already moved on
17 to --
18 JUDGE BONOMY: Does reference to footnotes help, Mr. Nice?
19 MR. NICE: Yes, footnote 35. Your Honour, that's very helpful.
20 Footnote 35, if you can find it.
21 JUDGE BONOMY: It doesn't help us. It's 108 in mine.
22 MR. NICE: Ah. Sorry about that. I think immediately before 9.4,
23 so I think it's probably part of 9.3. Yes, it is part of 9.3.
24 Q. Here you say that "In the second and third stages of armed
25 insurgency..."
Page 42142
1 Bullet point 3, there will be a duty to "rescue and care for the
2 victims and endangered population and evacuate them."
3 And then if you go to 9.4 and the Chamber goes to --
4 A. Yes, I've found it yes.
5 Q. -- page 43, a little bit. So it's in 9.4, about a page on, you
6 have this: "Units composed of the armed Serbian and Montenegrin
7 population..."
8 "... will carry out the following tasks in the context of the
9 armed insurgency."
10 And then bullet point 4 is: "Providing food and accommodation for
11 the refugees in the areas threatened by the armed insurgency."
12 So those are just three passages, and it's a very simple point
13 which we'll come back to in a much later stage in questioning, but a flow
14 of refugees --
15 A. Please let me find what you're asking me about exactly. Where is
16 this exactly?
17 Q. 9.4, and it's about a page on in 9.4.
18 A. All right.
19 Q. And it says, "Units composed of the armed Serbian and Montenegrin
20 population will carry out the following tasks: --"
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. "[Previous translation continues] ... food and accommodation for
23 refugees." And the simple point I want to be quite sure about --
24 A. Yes, yes.
25 Q. -- is --
Page 42143
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. -- you fully understood in 1996 and 1997 that an armed insurgency,
3 first, second, or third stage but say the second stage, an armed
4 insurgency would inevitably involve and lead to substantial flows of
5 refugees. Do you accept that?
6 A. What is your question?
7 Q. My question is did you accept in 1996 and 1997 that an armed
8 insurgency will inevitably involve and lead to substantial flows of
9 refugees?
10 A. What is referred to here is the engagement of the Serbian
11 Montenegrin population. In paragraph 4 it says that if there is an armed
12 insurgency, the Serbian and Montenegrin population that is jeopardised
13 will leave their villages, and that is what it pertains to. And that's
14 what happened in practice.
15 Q. There was always to be expected that there would be a large flow
16 of refugees.
17 A. Every war in any territory gives rise to refugees.
18 Q. Finally on your thesis, please, page 54 in the English, paragraph
19 12, the conclusion. What you said was this at this stage: "Kosovo and
20 Metohija are an integral part of the Republic of Serbia and the Federal
21 Republic of Yugoslavia; in historical, cultural and civilisational terms,
22 it is the heartland of the Serbian culture ... the 'sacred Serbian land.'"
23 Was that the sort of view that informed your thinking and your
24 actions in the years that were to come?
25 A. No. What is written here is simply a fact that all monuments of
Page 42144
1 the Serbian culture are in Kosovo and Metohija. Centuries of history and
2 culture are there. That is why it is called sacred Serbian land.
3 Q. And this is the document -- I think you said it wasn't an academic
4 or intellectual document but this was the document upon which you got your
5 entitlement to status of general, is it?
6 A. You are really playing with words. This is the expression that we
7 use. Certainly a person who works in a top-rated military school writes
8 documents that are intellectual documents, but that was only done for the
9 purposes of that school. This is not a document that was published
10 anywhere, so it's only contained in the archives of that school. Those
11 who appraised this document, you see here that I had a mentor, Major
12 General Vukadinovic, and a commission that assessed how I dealt with the
13 subject assigned to me, gave me an appraisal.
14 MR. NICE: Your Honours, I think that probably better become an
15 exhibit, with your leave. I've asked a number of questions about it.
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes, it will be exhibited.
17 MR. NICE:
18 Q. Mr. Delic, as you would expect, I'm in no position to deal with
19 all the exhibits you produced. I have some questions about some of them,
20 and in the balance of this morning I'm going to try to deal with some of
21 the earliest ones and to deal with them swiftly. So if you would be good
22 enough to take volume 1.
23 MR. NICE: And Your Honours, my hope is that having dealt with the
24 preliminary issues to some extent today and other matters that aren't
25 absolutely specifically crime base related, I will be able to turn to
Page 42145
1 crime base -- horrible phrase; related to the crimes alleged in the
2 indictment. I will become much more specific in the course of tomorrow.
3 But I'm going to be restrictive in the questions I ask.
4 Q. Just look at tab 4, please. Now, this is the intelligence report
5 that we've discussed a little bit. In some detail, actually. We know
6 from the way it's headed that it's been specially prepared, because if the
7 Chamber looks at the title page in the B/C/S or the Serbian, or in the
8 English, we see a special title page which announces this as an excerpt
9 from the annual intelligence report.
10 You told us that you'd seen this, I think, in 2002 when working
11 with or for the Defence. Who decided what to excerpt? Who decided what
12 to choose?
13 A. You said a few inaccurate things here. First of all, when you say
14 this was done for this case, that absolutely does not correspond to the
15 truth. When it says "Excerpt," that means that from a large number of
16 documents certain documents are taken out.
17 Also, what you said that I saw it in 2002, that is correct but not
18 because of this case but because of the case that had to do with the
19 indictment against the KLA. Your investigator from Belgrade asked me, if
20 possible, to provide to him this intelligence information and tapes in
21 particular, where the actual speech can be heard. And this has to do with
22 concrete people from the KLA. I'm not going to name any names now.
23 I got this material but not this particular material, the material
24 in its entirety. But at that time that did not suit the investigator
25 because he was looking at material for concrete people and the actual
Page 42146
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13 English transcripts.
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16
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18
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21
22
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24
25
Page 42147
1 audio recordings of what they said on air and what was registered, but at
2 the time I could not provide him with that.
3 Q. And who made the selection?
4 A. The selection was made by the Pristina Corps or, rather, this unit
5 that recorded these conversations.
6 Q. And that knew that was making it either A for the KLA cases or
7 case, or B, I suggest, for the defence of this accused. Would that be
8 right?
9 A. You see, what is primarily referred to here is the Kosovo
10 Liberation Army, because the overall activity of that unit was aimed at
11 following the Kosovo Liberation Army and their communications on air. So
12 it is absolutely irrelevant who this was prepared for. These are
13 documents and an analysis of the work of that unit in 1998. They are
14 quite the same for KLA cases and other cases.
15 JUDGE BONOMY: There may be confusion in the concept of
16 excerpting. I'm forming the impression from the answer that the main, the
17 entire document consists mainly of excerpts and then there's been a
18 further excerpting exercise and I think your question is related to the
19 second of these.
20 MR. NICE: Yes. And I hadn't necessarily picked up on the first
21 interpretation. Perhaps the witness can help us.
22 Q. Was there a first summary, a first excerpt and then a second
23 process of summarising or selecting or excerpting?
24 A. I had insight into the complete document in 19 -- sorry, 2002, and
25 what was provided to the legal advisors is something else. It's not a
Page 42148
1 complete document, because the complete document speaks of the units,
2 their equipment, their establishment, of various other tasks that the unit
3 was performing, and this was only one task that they were doing,
4 monitoring terrorist forces.
5 Q. The selection was done by the special group of the commission
6 which was responding to allegations in the indictment against this
7 accused.
8 A. That claim is absolutely not corroborated by this document, by
9 this documentation. The people from that unit received a different task.
10 They were asked to make a summary of that documentation that would pertain
11 to the KLA. In the army, it is not customary to associate such
12 assignments with either me or Mr. Milosevic or anybody else. That's the
13 kind of request they received, and that's what they did.
14 Q. Just a few characteristics of this document. For example, no page
15 31. That's all -- if we look at the English pages at the bottom, that's
16 page 3. So there simply is no page 31. That's been kept back.
17 We go to English page 5, there's no pages 34 and 35. They've just
18 been kept back.
19 If we go to English page 9, there is no pages 39 and 40; right?
20 And you can't explain why, can you?
21 A. If the request was to prepare a document giving an account of the
22 most typical cases in relation to the KLA, then the pages that are missing
23 that you mentioned probably do not contain many interesting details. And
24 anyway, if this document was received and if somebody considered these
25 pages to be important, it is not a problem to get the other pages, the
Page 42149
1 missing pages, if they pertain to the KLA, and it is up to the legal
2 advisors to do that.
3 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... wrongdoing by the Serbs?
4 Supposing they reveal wrongdoing by the Serbs? We'll never know, will we,
5 because they haven't been produced.
6 A. You can make the assumptions that you want to make, but I don't
7 think that it is a problem to get the missing pages and have the complete
8 document.
9 Q. And if we're looking at page 41, English page 9, just to take some
10 examples, we see on the second entry, 22nd of April, "Fire was opened on
11 MUP personnel from sniper rifles and hand-held launchers, while they were
12 seizing the sector of Erecka Suka; firing went on until the evening. The
13 next day, MUP units seized this feature with the help of VJ units. On the
14 same day, terrorists attacked two Serbian families in Djakovica area.
15 They were kept surrounded until MUP personnel came to help them."
16 Well, what I'd like your help with is this: All that material
17 would appear to be material that should be simply available from army or
18 MUP records. What's it doing in a security report? All of this stuff
19 should be in a MUP record, a VJ record, shouldn't it? Why does it need to
20 be in security?
21 A. If you have a booth eavesdropping on communications on the air and
22 there are people in it listening to both conversations on the radio waves
23 of the terrorists and the radio waves of the army and the radio waves of
24 the MUP, these people write this sort of summary from all of that. And
25 certainly in the report of the MUP for that day, the MUP of Djakovica,
Page 42150
1 this should be recorded.
2 Q. Look at the second sentence: "The next day, MUP units seized this
3 feature with the help of the VJ units." Are you suggesting that somehow
4 the KLA was speaking over their radios or intercepts, saying, "Oh, watch
5 out, the MUP units who seized this feature with the help of the VJ units."
6 This looks as though it's a record not of overheard conversations but of
7 something else, doesn't it? Do you see the point?
8 A. Those units, they don't only monitor the communications of the KLA
9 but also the communications of the army and the police. They monitor
10 everything that is going on on the air. The person in that booth is far
11 from the place where the events are taking place, but he is making notes.
12 Q. So --
13 A. Whatever he can hear in his headset --
14 Q. In addition to the daily records being kept by your unit, by the
15 unit below, and by the -- and by the body above, Pristina Corps, there's
16 yet another record of what actually happened in that the intercept
17 listeners would pick up commands and responses to command from the
18 territory; is that right?
19 A. You say that there are other documents. Well, every unit of the
20 army, if it set out on an assignment, has an order and a command for that
21 mission. Unless it was attacked on the road and responding to fire,
22 then --
23 Q. Lord Ashdown - and we'll come to his evidence a bit later - gave
24 evidence of tanks firing at houses when he says they shouldn't be. Apart
25 from the daily orders and the daily records of the tank, which will cover
Page 42151
1 what it did broadly or in detail, what ammunition it used, what orders it
2 was responding to, there might also be evidence from the people on the
3 radio listening in to the tank commander saying, "I've just fired at some
4 houses." This is part of the record, isn't it?
5 A. Let me correct you on one point immediately. As far as military
6 terminology is concerned, people would have a good laugh if they heard
7 what you just said. Tanks as a combat resource and their crews are not
8 obliged to keep any records, and they don't. The commander of a tank
9 battalion is duty-bound to keep prescribed records. One single tank does
10 not have any records of its own. But certainly if something is being said
11 on the air, regardless of which unit it comes from, the KLA, the MUP, or
12 the army, the surveillance unit keeps a record of these communications.
13 Q. Well, I'm grateful for that, and I'm sure you would like to review
14 your last answer to this extent: It would be no laughing matter, would
15 it, for a tank to fire on a house occupied by civilians and to leave no
16 record or trace of what it had done, would it?
17 A. Certainly. Just give me one concrete case where that happened.
18 Q. We'll come to it in Lord Ashdown's evidence soon. Can we stay
19 with where we were? We were on English page 9, page 41 of the record. If
20 we go over to page 10, this excerpt also contains at the partway through
21 page 41 it is, an alleged quotation from something that's been overheard
22 by two people speaking: "Many Serbs are moving out of this area.
23 "Just let them go. We don't need them here, this is ours.
24 "Yes, if we keep on frightening them like this, no one will stay."
25 I'm not saying it's impossible that that was said. I'm not
Page 42152
1 necessarily challenging it. But it's easy to write without having the
2 tape recording to listen to, isn't it?
3 A. If I tell you that my country was bombed for 78 days and that
4 every single barracks was bombed from the General Staff to the smallest
5 unit, what shall we do with that? What if many documents were destroyed?
6 The units that gathered this information was bombed on a number of
7 occasions precisely because it has electronic equipment of such potential
8 that it is immediately detected from the air.
9 Q. Well, two last entries on this, I think, or one. If you would go,
10 please, to page 17 in the English, page 50 in your version, please.
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, I'd like you to stop at about twenty to
12 so I can give the decision on the exhibits --
13 MR. NICE: Oh, yes.
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- in the evidence in chief.
15 MR. NICE:
16 Q. 28th of September. You see that entry there on page 50 or our
17 page 17. "Siptars who intended to run away were advised to go in groups
18 of 1.000 or 2.000 because that way our people would not shell them ..."
19 How come they'd shell them if they were in smaller numbers?
20 A. The record here reflects what the Siptars are talking amongst
21 themselves. Just find me one situation in my area of responsibility where
22 any group was bombed. This reference to a thousand or 2.000 I would
23 explain in a different way.
24 Q. You see, obviously this is, if it is accurate, it may well be, is
25 what's overheard from the Kosovo Albanians. Why should they harbour this
Page 42153
1 belief that only by being in bulk are they likely to be free of the risk
2 of shelling? Can you give any explanation for that?
3 A. I cannot place myself in their shoes now and explain to you what
4 the Albanians were thinking. Of course this happens only when we would
5 come across larger groups, because with larger groups we could not make a
6 triage. In a smaller group we could use the paraffin glove test and other
7 tests to see which people, individuals in the group opened fire. In a
8 smaller group, it is easier to escape by shedding uniforms and putting on
9 civilian clothes and disappearing. With a larger group, that's more
10 difficult. But I don't know that any group was shelled in my area.
11 Q. On the 28th of October, page 19 in the English: "Some Siptar
12 civilians said --" this is now a reported speech rather than a quotation,
13 "that KLA members who were near Kramovik behaved in a cowardly way,
14 because they shelled a police column after it had withdrawn, and when the
15 police fired back, they withdrew to the woods, leaving the population to
16 the mercy of their shells." Does that sort of make sense to you, that the
17 population could have been left, the civilian population might have been
18 left to the mercy of the shelling?
19 A. If you look at the date, the 28th of October, this is associated
20 with the agreement with the OSCE mission, according to which the police
21 was first to abandon its checkpoints on roads, and later a certain number
22 of policemen were to leave the territory of Kosovo and Metohija. I
23 believe it was on that date, the 28th of October, that a motorcade of
24 police buses leaving Kosovo and Metohija were attacked between Djakovica
25 and Klina, and there were a number of wounded policemen.
Page 42154
1 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... very briefly, the last
2 paragraph, paragraph 5 of tab 5. An order of yours. I think it's an
3 order of yours. No, it's a report of yours, I beg your pardon. And it
4 simply says at paragraph 5: "If measures are not taken in time to place
5 this and other similar territories in Kosovo and Metohija under control,
6 if we are not authorised or ordered to use units now when the terrorist
7 forces are not yet massed and equipped, we could find ourselves in a
8 situation where we cannot carry out the task set - to defend Kosovo and
9 Metohija - which is too great a responsibility for any unit commander."
10 This paragraph reflects your understanding that you needed a
11 declared state of emergency to become engaged with the civil population,
12 didn't it?
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I am getting no
14 interpretation. I don't know if the witness received any interpretation
15 of this last --
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... hear it?
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I heard the interpretation.
18 But this has nothing to do with the state of emergency.
19 MR. NICE:
20 Q. Well, I ask you that simply to try to get your interpretation of
21 your own writing. "If measures are not taken in time to place this and
22 other similar territories in Kosovo and Metohija under control, if we are
23 not authorised" is what it says in the English, "or ordered to use units
24 now," and so on. Wasn't this a reflection of the fact that under
25 insurgency state 2, as you describe it in your thesis,
Page 42155
1 you needed the state of emergency that the accused always declined to
2 obtain or seek to obtain?
3 A. This is not the second stage of an armed uprising. It is the
4 first stage of the initial insurgency. And when you say to place under
5 control territories, that means to order or allow units to come out or,
6 rather, certain MUP organs which for the critical territory, and that
7 territory here is limited, which will, by their presence on the territory,
8 prevent any mass terrorist movement from taking place. So that's the
9 first stage, and there's no need for a state of emergency.
10 Q. If I can just ask one more question before I have to finish. I'm
11 going to suggest that -- you were dealing with tab 9. We needn't look to
12 it, but when dealing with tab 9, you were asked about events in Bec
13 village and you were asked if this happens in the area of your
14 responsibility and you inform the commander of the Pristina Corps about it
15 but you don't intervene, and you replied this in tab 9 in the same rough
16 date period, you said: "Those were not our orders. The army was still
17 in place, and after all, this would be a matter for the MUP to deal with."
18 Now, that was part of your evidence in answer to this accused, and
19 I'm suggesting that when you said that you made it clear you realised the
20 army had to stay in its place performing its peacetime functions without a
21 declared state of emergency and otherwise leave matters to the police. Is
22 that right?
23 A. Read the rules of service of the army of Yugoslavia again and that
24 Article 470, I think you said it was, how the army can be deployed in
25 peacetime and in what situations.
Page 42156
1 Q. Mr. Delic, you're the military man. You're the expert. You've
2 written the thesis, and here you are saying the army was in place, it was
3 for the MUP to deal with.
4 Isn't the position exactly as I described, that you needed a state
5 of emergency and you never got one?
6 A. I opened tab 9 and none of that, of what you're saying is
7 contained there.
8 Q. No. What you said when you were being questioned about tab 9.
9 That was just to explain the time of the testimony for the learned Judges.
10 MR. NICE: Perhaps tomorrow, then, Your Honours.
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Nice.
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I would -- I would like to have
13 that in front of me, since you're asking me, so that I can respond and
14 have it in my own language.
15 JUDGE ROBINSON: That can be done tomorrow. I'll now give the
16 ruling on the remaining documents submitted by the accused.
17 We had dealt with the admission of documents up to tab 480. Tabs
18 481 to 497 will be admitted except for 489 and 493, which are summaries of
19 newspaper articles that were not dealt with.
20 Tabs 498 to 607 are admitted as a group.
21 After tab 608, the accused indicated that he would be dealing with
22 the documents individually. We admit all of those documents after 608
23 except for 608 to 615 and 617, which were not referred to.
24 I am to say that tabs 618 to 621 are admitted by majority. These
25 relate to intercepted communications. Judge Bonomy dissents.
Page 42157
1 Tab 630 is a map challenging the evidence of Mr. Ashdown, and
2 that's admitted.
3 We are adjourned until 9.00 tomorrow morning.
4 MR. KAY: Your Honour, before we adjourn - we've still got two
5 minutes - there's a matter that needs to be raised concerning the Seselj
6 issue. If Ms. Higgins could just briefly address you on it as it is quite
7 urgent.
8 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, very briefly. We have reviewed the
9 report which was issued by the Deputy Registrar pursuant to the Trial
10 Chamber's order, and we have also noted your own order that was issued on
11 Friday. The assigned counsel would wish to put the following very brief
12 submissions to you orally when deciding the matter: Firstly, Your Honour,
13 you will be aware that in paragraph 5 of the Deputy Registrar's report the
14 main concerns of the Registry are outlined and summarised there. You will
15 also be aware that Mr. Milosevic, since the communication restriction on
16 Mr. Seselj came into place in June, was allowed to proof Mr. Seselj
17 afterwards, that being a decision that was made by the UNDU.
18 I don't wish to outline the concerns of the Registry, as Your
19 Honours will be fully familiar with them, but in our submission this is
20 indeed a fair trial issue. It is for the following reasons: It is a
21 fundamental right of Mr. Milosevic's to be able to continue to prepare his
22 case and to proof the witnesses which he would asked to be called before
23 this Trial Chamber. Mr. Seselj was on the and is on the 65 ter list, and
24 one of the objections of the Registry is in fact that he has not appeared
25 on the weekly witness list. The problem there and it's one we say is a
Page 42158
1 matter of formality, that the Trial Chamber will be aware that the list
2 only comes out the week before, and the Registry have been informed fully
3 that Mr. Milosevic expects and wishes the witness to testify on the 18th,
4 which is next week, leaving not much time for him to continue in his
5 preparations.
6 It is of concern to us that the Registry determined that it is a
7 matter for them to determine how long an accused can proof a witness, and
8 where it seems to be that there is a simple solution to this, and we
9 propose that it is as follows: If the Registry has concerns, and the
10 UNDU, as to the good and proper conduct within their prison and as to how
11 that is to be pursued, then communications between the two men can surely
12 take place in the confines of a normal office which does not have
13 communications with the outside world, for example, telephone and fax.
14 We would ask that the Trial Chamber, if it were so minded to do
15 so, communicate their view of the importance of the continuation of this
16 trial and that there be no disruption to witness scheduling and that the
17 accused be allowed to continue to know the full extent of the evidence
18 that Mr. Seselj may give and to make a final determination as to whether
19 he may call him, to convey the message back to the UNDU that it is
20 important for this accused to continue his proofing.
21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thanks for your submissions. I'd like to say
22 that I see the matter in the very same light. It is a fair trial issue.
23 It goes to the right of the accused to prepare his case, and we are
24 grateful for your submissions, and we --
25 MR. NICE: Ours will be in writing this afternoon.
Page 42159
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. We are, of course, expecting submissions
2 from the other parties.
3 We are adjourned.
4 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.47 p.m.,
5 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 12th day
6 of July, 2005, at 9.00 a.m.
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