1 Wednesday, 20 July 2005

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 8.34 a.m.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.

6 MR. NICE: I asked for the witness to be kept out just to explain

7 what my position is and will be in respect of the timetable and possible

8 further examination of this witness. I'm always anxious not to postpone

9 any part of cross-examination, it adds to difficulties, and that's still

10 my ambition here, notwithstanding the fact that the Court was good enough

11 to indicate that cross-examination on SDC documents and/or VJ files would

12 have to be postponed and thus might allow for the witness to return.

13 I'm hopeful that on those topics I might be able to avoid any need

14 to exercise, as it were, the opportunity to have him back for those

15 purposes that the Chamber perhaps effectively allowed me. But reviewing

16 the position overnight, I think that there are other reasons why it may be

17 inevitable that I seek to have him back for cross-examination. Let me

18 identify a few of them.

19 Fundamentally difficult for us has been preparation of this

20 witness because his exhibits weren't on the 65 ter list, they weren't

21 provided in advance, and when they were provided, they weren't translated.

22 Sometimes with a bulk of material like this it's easy to overlook the

23 significance of non-translation, but for example, if the Chamber turns its

24 attention to what the accused would probably regard as the critical

25 documents at the end of our volumes 5, the beginning of volume 6, which

1 are the documents of the witness's subordinate officers produced through

2 the VJ commission, either half or more of those are simply not translated,

3 and work though we have with the resources available, it has not been

4 possible for us to review them and, therefore, the fundamental documents

5 that he would rely on for the purposes of his defence in relation to the

6 commission of offences simply haven't been available to us.

7 Now, I shall, of course, be applying, as you will have forecast,

8 to exclude those documents on grounds in any event, but one way or -- and

9 I have to be careful not to make any sort of application that's inter

10 terrorem, but those documents present a fundamental difficulty for us.

11 And it's not only the documents of the subordinates. I discovered last

12 night as reviewing just how little of the material had been truly

13 available to us, that if you look at tab 381, which I think is in volume

14 5, it's actually quite an important report of this witness, and unless

15 things have changed in the binders of the Court from those that I have to

16 deal with, 381, which is said to be a comprehensive report by this

17 witness, so it might conceivably fall into a different category from those

18 of his subordinates, I only have in the translation that says translation

19 incomplete, which might have suggested that the document provided was

20 incomplete. But then I also have in my same tab 381 a complete version of

21 the document in Cyrillic, the second and third pages of which simply

22 haven't been translated, and this is his report for the 25th to the 28th

23 of March, so it's the absolutely critical period.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: If it's the same document that I'm looking at, I

25 have a translation, I think.

1 MR. NICE: I only have --

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Oh, I see. You say it's document incomplete. It

3 does have document incomplete.

4 MR. NICE: That's because only the first page, for some reason,

5 was dealt with, but if you look beyond that, Your Honour will probably

6 find in Cyrillic a three-page document. So it doesn't matter whose

7 shortcoming it is; the full document was provided but -- no. And I tried

8 to work on it overnight, but I simply can't say I'm prepared to deal with

9 that.

10 And indeed, and I may deal with this this morning, these -- with

11 one example, these documents produced by the witness of his subordinates

12 via the VJ commission are documents that probably merit really quite

13 careful analysis if one's to look at their integrity and to measure the

14 credibility of the witness beside them. So that's a fundamental point.

15 But there are other really serious difficulties.

16 I'm simply not personally - and I'm not making a point, I'm

17 expressing so far as I'm concerned a real problem - I simply don't

18 understand what the witness is currently saying about the existence of

19 underlying source material either at the time or since.

20 Now, the Court knows that we've made every application for

21 material of the kind that would help us and the Court, and we've simply

22 been thwarted. We've tried to work through the Court and with its orders,

23 but one way and another we simply haven't got the material. And I think

24 it would be irresponsible of me not to initiate, in light of the answers

25 of the witness, a repeat request for all documents of his brigade so that

1 we can have an answer from the authorities on whether such documents exist

2 coming up from, say, battalions to brigades --

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, I can give you my view on that, Mr. Nice.

4 The case can't be held up because the documents are not available. You

5 know, we'll have to make our own assessment on the basis of the evidence

6 that is before us and assess credibility.

7 MR. NICE: I understand that, Your Honour. At that doesn't, I

8 think, stop me in making the request because --

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, you can make the request but it cannot go on

10 ad infinitum. There must come a time when it must stop.

11 MR. NICE: Your Honour, that I understand, but my duty to go on

12 investigating right through the case, and indeed through appeal, I think,

13 is settled in jurisprudence of the Tribunal, and this is such a flagrant

14 act of non-cooperation by the authorities over the years, not made good by

15 the production of documents by this witness and not helped by the fact

16 that none of them were dealt with on the 65 ter list --

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: If a state fails to cooperate and fails to

18 produce documents requested, it doesn't mean that the case can't be

19 determined.

20 MR. NICE: No, no, of course.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: There are other ways of dealing with that state.

22 MR. NICE: Yes, but on matters of this importance, if those

23 documents do exist, it's obviously in the interests of the Trial Chamber

24 that the Trial Chamber should have them.

25 The war diary, so-called, that we've looked at is clearly a

1 document that merits careful inspection, scrutiny, and maybe skepticism,

2 and it's a document of which we would clearly now, having looked at it,

3 require the original, or require sight of the original at the very least

4 if they won't release the original to the Court. That itself will take

5 some time.

6 And then finally, Your Honour, not -- well, no not finally at all.

7 Again without prejudice to whether the Court admits the untranslated or

8 the translated documents of the witness's subordinates produced by the

9 commission, in light of the way this evidence was presented, it was of

10 course quite impossible for us to investigate what those witnesses are

11 said to have said, whereas with Kosovo witnesses or statements from people

12 in Kosovo we can go and see them comparatively quickly, as the Court

13 knows. To see an officer or former officer or retired officer in Serbia

14 is a matter of months of work. It's not matter of picking up the

15 telephone or sending an investigator to see him. It does not and cannot

16 work like that. And so we simply haven't about able to investigate these

17 matters.

18 Now, that of course, it may be, could be reflected, if there's

19 fruits to such investigation, in rebuttal evidence. It may also be that

20 it would be material that would more properly be dealt with in

21 cross-examination.

22 The commission itself, which of course comes before you as a body

23 of significance for the first time with this witness, although it's been

24 touched upon before, is a body that was disbanded by Minister Tadic, as he

25 then was, for reasons that are touched upon in the public domain but in

1 respect of which we have outstanding inquiries and despite every effort it

2 hasn't been possible to have those inquiries resolved by today. I suspect

3 I'll get some documents by the end of next week or the week after which

4 may materially affect the cross-examination that I should put to this

5 witness. Until I have those documents, I can't know.

6 So, Your Honour, for those reasons, what I would propose to do, if

7 the Court will allow me, is do my best to reach a point today where, with

8 luck, there won't be any need to call him back; i.e., I'll leave

9 outstanding issues that I have to leave by the Court's orders but I hope

10 to deal with them with other witnesses, and depending on the fruits of my

11 other inquiries and other requests, there may be no need to have this

12 witness back but I must reserve my position.

13 If the Court is happy with that, then the accused could press on

14 with re-examination and hopefully conclude today. I gather he's indicated

15 informally that he may only require one session.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, could I clarify [microphone not

17 activated].

18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Your Honour. Microphone.

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: [Microphone not activated].

20 MR. NICE: Microphone for Your Honour.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: I just wanted to clarify that.

22 MR. NICE: I would hope to reach a position where there is a real

23 chance that I won't have to have him back, that I can deal with everything

24 in another way, but I can't make -- I can't make it unequivocal that I

25 won't make that application.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Very well, then. Mr. Milosevic, let's have the

2 witness in Court, and it's for you to re-examine. I should say in

3 relation to the two documents that you --

4 MR. NICE: No, no, absolutely not. Sorry, not now, Your Honour.

5 I haven't finished now. I'm so sorry if Your Honour misunderstood me.

6 I've got at least another session to go.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Oh, I see.

8 MR. NICE: Even to reach the position where he could start.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Okay. But I'll still --

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The way you accept so easily

13 everything Mr. Nice says is really admirable, but I have to say something

14 about the documents in connection with General Delic. They were disclosed

15 exactly three months ago. Today is the 20th of July, and the documents

16 were disclosed on the 20th of April. The fact that they have not been

17 translated is of no interest to me whatsoever. That is not my job, and --

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, in all fairness, it must be a

19 matter that affects the Prosecutor's right to cross-examine if the

20 documents are not translated. If you have documents that are not

21 translated, it would affect your right to cross-examine too.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Very well. Very well,

23 Mr. Robinson. I'm glad you said that. I told you that I had received

24 several hundreds of thousands of pages untranslated and you didn't even

25 give me enough time to read them. Therefore, your attitude towards what

1 Mr. Nice is saying, and he's behaving like a spoiled child and his every

2 request is being granted, and your attitude to me with respect to

3 translations of documents and time to study the documents really cannot be

4 compared, and I want this on the record.

5 Secondly, there were objections that there were many exhibits

6 introduced through Mr. Delic. Now Mr. Nice says there are few. I don't

7 really know what you want. Do you want more exhibits? Do you want more

8 documents or do you want fewer documents? Or is Mr. Nice having a huge

9 problem because he's unable to challenge what the general is testifying to

10 and documenting?

11 All the witnesses he brought have testified to something that is

12 now being disputed.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I must reject out of hand your

14 remark about disparity in treatment. The Chamber has treated both parties

15 fairly and evenly.

16 We have not made any decision on the submissions made by Mr. Nice

17 in relation to untranslated documents. We will do so at the time when it

18 -- when the issue arises.

19 I was going to say that in relation to the two documents that you

20 mentioned yesterday, we have investigated them and both of them were

21 referred to. They are untranslated and, in accordance with the Chamber's

22 practice, they will be marked for -- for identification.

23 MR. NICE: With Your Honours leave.

24 WITNESS: BOZIDAR DELIC [Resumed]

25 [Witness answered through interpreter]

1 Cross-examined by Mr. Nice: [Continued]

2 Q. Mr. Delic, yesterday -- I'm so sorry.

3 [Trial Chamber confers]

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

5 MR. NICE:

6 Q. Mr. Delic, yesterday we were dealing with Dubrovnik. A witness in

7 this case, Nojko Marinovic, a general who had been based at Trebinje and

8 then moved to defend or to lead the defence of Dubrovnik, did you know

9 that general? You were based in the adjacent or nearby premises -- base.

10 A. No, I didn't know him, but I have heard of him.

11 Q. And he explained that the idea lying behind the attack on

12 Dubrovnik, as he understood it from his previous position at a VJ base,

13 moving late in the story to Dubrovnik, was that there should be an attack

14 on several axes to reach the Neretva River and the Neretva valley as soon

15 as possible to connect up with the 10th Brigade from Mostar. Did you

16 write that?

17 A. These general plans are something I'm not familiar with. In

18 Dubrovnik, as I said, in the Dubrovnik area I dealt with civilian affairs,

19 making life better for the population there. At that time, all activities

20 around Dubrovnik had already been completed, at least as far as 1991 is

21 concerned.

22 Q. You're a comparatively senior officer becoming a very senior

23 officer at a young age. Can you not help us, please, with what the plans

24 were to attack Dubrovnik, given the extreme notoriety that attack

25 attracted?

1 A. When you say notorious -- notoriety, I have to say that this is a

2 manipulation. When the military operations began, conducted by the JNA,

3 which was attempting to defend the integrity of the Socialist Federative

4 Republic of Yugoslavia, Dubrovnik could have been taken in one day. But

5 as far as I know, because of interventions, perhaps from Belgrade, the

6 units were prevented from entering Dubrovnik. It had already been

7 abandoned by all the forces defending it.

8 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... justification for taking the

9 city of Dubrovnik by force and shelling it then? What was the

10 justification?

11 A. At that time, there was no shelling of Dubrovnik at all. The

12 entire territory was being defended by illegal and paramilitary forces;

13 the ZNG, the Zbor Narodne Garde and Zbor Narodne Zastite, which on the

14 territory of Montenegro attacked the JNA.

15 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

16 A. The state that --

17 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... former president, currently

18 Prime Minister Djukanovic had to make public apology for what happened to

19 Dubrovnik and that I think reported in yesterday's newspapers the process

20 of paying damages in respect of what happened there has started. Are you

21 aware of all that?

22 A. Yes, as for Mr. Djukanovic, I don't wish to comment on him because

23 even in 1992, during the war, he was considered an ally by our enemies,

24 and I'm not surprised at all. Wesley Clark, in his book, called him a

25 friend, an ally.

1 Q. This man who sat on the Supreme Defence Council - I shan't be

2 asking you about the Supreme Defence Council - right up until Kosovo, it

3 was an ally of your enemies; is that right?

4 A. No. I don't want to say that. He was apologising for something

5 done by territorial units from Montenegro, perhaps. I was part of the

6 regular units of the JNA. Croatia was part of Yugoslavia. Dubrovnik was

7 part of Yugoslavia. We were defending Yugoslavia there.

8 Q. You see, General Marinovic, with his knowledge from both the

9 previous existing plans and what happened on the ground, said that the

10 ultimate plan was to take the territory up to the

11 Karlobag-Karlovac-Virovitica line, exactly what Kadijevic said in his

12 book, and I must suggest to you that you as a senior officer, then and

13 since, know that to be absolutely the plan the Serbs had for Croatia.

14 A. You are absolutely not right. The Yugoslav People's Army was

15 attempting to preserve the integrity of Yugoslavia. Preserving the

16 integrity of Yugoslavia coincided with the interests of the Serbs, and

17 this is understandable because the Serbs are a people living in Croatia,

18 Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and it suited them to remain living all

19 together in a state which, at the European level, according to its size

20 and population, was quite a respectable state with 20 million inhabitants

21 and a large territory.

22 Q. Your answer isn't entirely responsive but let me repeat the

23 question with one addition: Fighting on the south up from Dubrovnik and

24 being involved in the attack on Vukovar to the north, working in the same

25 direction, am I right - last question on this topic - am I right that

1 those attacks would have taken the part of Croatia under Serb control to

2 the Karlovac-Virovitica-Karlobag line?

3 A. No, you're not right. You're not right. The army was supposed to

4 defend Yugoslavia, and that was its constitutional right, to defend

5 Yugoslavia from secession, from a break-up prepared outside Yugoslavia in

6 cooperation with certain destructive forces within the country itself.

7 Q. Before we move from Croatia, the same television programme that

8 you told us you'd seen, this time a very short clip from Babic, an

9 interview with Milan Babic just to confirm one of the things you told us

10 yesterday.

11 [Videotape played]

12 THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover]... which were smaller military

13 formations - they were active officers of the JNA who remained in the

14 Krajina according to a decision of the personnel administration of the

15 General Staff of the army of Yugoslavia. They received salaries from the

16 army of Yugoslavia. They were promoted to appropriate ranks. Their

17 service was counted double for purposes of pension."

18 MR. NICE: Your Honour, this is clip number 1 on the transcript of

19 excerpts that I provided.

20 Q. And this confirms, doesn't it, what Babic says, something you

21 would agree with; people left behind or otherwise working in the Krajina

22 would receive double salaries, wartime rate, and be promoted to adequate

23 ranks, yes?

24 A. No, you are not right. In spite of the fact that they were in the

25 Krajina, people were not paid double salaries. These were people who had

1 been born in the Krajina, and they were there to defend their own people.

2 What he says about this being counted double in their service, that was

3 according to the law. You are --

4 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... you're quite right --

5 A. -- overlooking a fact --

6 Q. -- phrase "double salaries," it's double benefit for pension

7 purposes. Press on. Do you agree with that and do you agree with what

8 Babic says?

9 A. I do not agree completely with what he says, but you're not

10 letting me tell you the true facts.

11 Q. Can we move now then to Bosnia. You were in Bosnia for a time.

12 Just tell us, please, where were you in July 1995 again?

13 A. Mr. Nice, you have a poor memory. In July 1995, I was in Kosovo

14 and Metohija, and I told you that on the first day.

15 Q. And you didn't go back to Bosnia at all in that part of 1995?

16 A. No. I had no need to return to Bosnia. I was the Chief of Staff

17 of the 549th Motorised Brigade in Prizren.

18 Q. Very well. I wanted to know finally that you hadn't been back

19 there because I'm going to ask you some further questions about Srebrenica

20 but not very many. Before we come to them and in light of what you've

21 already said about your service in Bosnia, can we look at clip 2, please.

22 This is from the same programme, the person speaking is Ljubomir

23 Stojadinovic, who was head of information administration for the General

24 Staff until 1994.

25 [Videotape played]

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13 English transcripts.

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1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Let me put you right there straight

2 away, not to mislead the Trial Chamber. What you've just said is

3 absolutely incorrect. This man was never at the head of the Intelligence

4 Administration, and I don't know how --

5 MR. NICE:

6 Q. The word I used was information and that's what he's put out as on

7 the subtitle, head of information administration, and you'll see what he

8 says.

9 A. The interpretation I received was that he was head of the

10 intelligence administration, which is quite incorrect. This is just a

11 marginal person in our army. At the time, he was in charge of

12 information.

13 Q. Thank you. We'll play what he has to say.

14 [Videotape played]

15 THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] ... the Serbian army in Western

16 Serbian lands. So that was the formulation. And at those meetings,

17 generally once a month, we would decide how Yugoslavia should help the

18 armies across the Drina River."

19 MR. NICE:

20 Q. Right. Pausing there. Is there any reason to doubt what Colonel

21 Stojadinovic says about there being regular discussions about -- in the

22 Serbian army about how to help those armies across the Drina River?

23 A. You see, you've played an excerpt here to us in which we simply

24 don't know when this footage was taken, what role Mr. Stojadinovic was in

25 there, and ultimately what he said was just two sentences which are not

1 essential at all, that they discussed how to help the Serbs across the

2 Drina. That's all he said. Well, of course this was discussed. It was

3 discussed throughout Serbia in every company, in every municipality, even

4 in Kosovo, how to send humanitarian aid across the Drina River.

5 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... question of humanitarian aid,

6 was it? You Serb soldiers with nationalist inclinations, if you had them

7 or otherwise, were concerned to provide military help to your Serb

8 brothers across the Drina. Yes or no.

9 A. Brothers across the Drina. Well, brothers are helped everywhere

10 and at all times even if it is only moral assistance. That's

11 understandable.

12 Q. The intention was to provide military assistance. Yes or no.

13 A. Republika Srpska and the army of Republika Srpska was so strong

14 that she didn't need any assistance.

15 Q. So what was required then, just humanitarian assistance?

16 A. Humanitarian assistance was needed and probably what else was

17 needed was support on a diplomatic level, international level, and so on

18 and so forth. But those are matters which go outside the scope of my

19 authority. I don't want to speak about them because they are outside my

20 professional competence.

21 Q. Well, you went over and served in the Hercegovina Corps, didn't

22 you?

23 A. Yes. So you can ask me any questions from the time that I was

24 there.

25 MR. NICE: Your Honours, this -- this would relate to one of the

1 topics about which deferral is necessary but I'll ask the question in

2 general terms.

3 Q. Were you aware of a request going out from the leader of the SAO

4 for Krajina seeking support for the Hercegovina Corps in the form of

5 military personnel?

6 A. The SAO seeking support from Herzegovina? Is that what you're

7 asking? No.

8 Q. Support for the Hercegovina Corps in the form of military

9 personnel, and that would have been in December of 1992.

10 A. I was there from 1993.

11 Q. Yes.

12 A. From April 1993, in fact, until the end of January 1994, and

13 during that period of time quite certainly no assistance was requested.

14 Q. My question is whether your attending there, you said as a

15 volunteer, but my question is whether your attending there was actually

16 responsive to a request for military assistance in the form of officers,

17 and a number were made available, the request made initially by the leader

18 of the SAO Krajina.

19 A. Mr. Nice, I really -- when you ask me questions like this, I'm

20 really trying to understand you as best I can, with the best intentions in

21 the world, but you just don't know the situation. You mention SAO

22 Krajina. What SAO Krajina are you referring to? I was in the Hercegovina

23 Corps as a volunteer because I come from the territory. That's where I

24 originated from. My mother and father were born there, in the Bileca area

25 precisely, which is where I served for ten years myself and I went there

1 as a volunteer. So what SAO Krajina are you referring to?

2 MR. NICE: Your Honours, I'm not in a position, in light of the

3 restrictions on me, to take this matter any further at the moment. I'll

4 have to deal with it in another way at another time. I can give the Court

5 the identifying documents later on.

6 Q. It comes to this, Mr. Delic: I'm challenging your suggestion that

7 you went there simply as a volunteer. You went there as part of a planned

8 response to a request. True or false?

9 A. Mr. Nice, what you say is absolutely false. Probably in some

10 records in Belgrade, but I didn't think this was important, you would find

11 a request from me to be allowed to go to Herzegovina, which is the land I

12 originated from, where my forefathers came from, my parents in fact. And

13 I have documents giving me permission to go, to come back, and they wrote

14 to my unit telling them what my work was like when I was there.

15 Q. There may well be such a request. We'll see it, if we get access

16 to your file, and such requests -- I must ask you, were such requests

17 required of those going to serve in order that it could look like being a

18 volunteer? Or if not required, encouraged or pressed to go and serve in

19 order that it might make them look like volunteers? Is that what

20 happened?

21 A. That is absolutely not what happened. I don't know how you never

22 hit on the right thing in your head. You always have some negative ideas.

23 That was my wish. I wanted my wish to be fulfilled.

24 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

25 MR. NICE: Your Honours, the witness is taking a great deal of

1 time with supplementary answers. I'm asking him questions. It's up to

2 the Court, and I'm doing my best to get through things, but he takes a

3 great deal of time always with the supplementary observations. I doubt to

4 the Court if they're helpful, the questions are very straightforward.

5 Q. I'm going to play another clip now, please. This is --

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, you have made the complaint before but

7 I don't see anything improper in the witness's answers.

8 MR. NICE: If that's what Your Honour wishes.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: I will encourage the witness.

10 General, try to answer more directly. Avoid the introductory

11 commentary.

12 MR. NICE:

13 Q. Another clip from General Perisic, whom you've described in

14 condemning terms, but let's see what he had to say on this part of the

15 television programme.

16 [Videotape played]

17 MR. KAY: On these questions and answers, when it's put in an

18 argumentative form and in a comment with a direct barb, you're going to

19 get the comeback from the witness. So you reap what you sow.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: That may be, Mr. Nice.

21 MR. NICE: Yes, maybe to an extent, but I wanted to remind the

22 witness --

23 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Mr. Nice.

24 MR. NICE: -- what he's already told us about this witness. I

25 could have done it in two questions. Let's press on.

1 [Videotape played]

2 THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover]... had its political peak in

3 Republika Srpska. It was not made without agreement from the state

4 leaderships of Yugoslavia. The army was closely linked for many reasons,

5 because it was a united army on the one hand and on the other hand because

6 it had its members in all those areas. And thirdly, because it had the

7 technical facilities and its logistical support which it gained from the

8 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia mostly."

9 MR. NICE:

10 Q. Mr. Delic, we didn't hear the very beginning of that which deals

11 with -- in the introductory passage he speaks of the Republika Srpska

12 Krajina, even though it had its political leadership having its decisions

13 made in full agreement with the top -- political top of the Federal

14 Republic of Yugoslavia, and he says the same thing happened in Republika

15 Srpska. That was the introduction. He says because it was, I think in

16 the translation we've had, a united army.

17 Now, do you accept from your experience in both Croatia and in

18 Bosnia that it was in reality through that time a united army, the RSK,

19 the VRS, and the army in Serbia?

20 A. Well, then it would have been called a united army. There was the

21 army of Republika Srpska, there was the army of Republika Srpska Krajina,

22 and there was the army of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. These are

23 questions you should be asking the gentleman we just saw on the screen.

24 Q. I'm asking you because you were a practical --

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic.

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I didn't want to object before the

3 witness had a chance to answer because I didn't want you to think that I

4 was giving instructions to the witness, so I waited for the witness's

5 answer. But I think it is quite improper in this way to extract things

6 from their context and then ask the witness what General Perisic is

7 talking about. General Perisic was here for a year. Why didn't Mr. Nice

8 bring him in here to testify, to sit opposite me and then to say something

9 if he had anything to say?

10 Secondly, he doesn't say that the army of Krajina and Republika

11 Srpska and Yugoslavia was a united army. What he's talking about, as far

12 as I was able to follow based on this context, was that in Republika

13 Srpska it was a united army which had a large amount of technical means

14 for which it needed resources from the territory of Yugoslavia, but you

15 can hear that only if you listen to everything he says. And this is quite

16 -- saying that it is a united army is quite unreal, nebulous.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Are you raising a problem of translation or just

18 a problem of understanding, interpreting what the general said, General

19 Perisic? If it's matter of translation, then --

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] First of all, my objection is to

21 this: That the interpretation is incorrect as interpreted -- he couldn't

22 have said what Mr. Nice said, not the translation. The interpretation of

23 how it was thought to have been said.

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I was shown footage, then Mr. Nice

25 said something that I didn't see on the footage. Mr. Peric said what he

1 said and then I went on listening to what Mr. Perisic said. If he wants

2 me to say something, he must play the entire video for me to see the

3 entire footage, and I consider in general terms that Mr. Nice's questions

4 are absolutely irrelevant, because Mr. Peric was here.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: The Chamber will determine the relevance of the

6 questions, General.

7 All right. Proceed, Mr. Nice.

8 MR. NICE: Thank you, Your Honour.

9 Q. You were a practical soldier rising to a very senior rank with

10 access to information appropriate to your rank and no doubt with some

11 historical ability to look at what had happened. What General Perisic

12 said, according to the interpreters in Court today, was that it was a

13 united army. We have another transcript which expresses it slightly

14 differently, but that's what was said today.

15 Were these three armies, in your experience, acting as a united

16 army?

17 A. First of all, General Perisic doesn't say that it was a united

18 army, so you can't claim that because that's not what he said. Secondly,

19 the question you're asking me of whether it was a united army, I tell you

20 it was not a united army. We had the army of Yugoslavia led by General

21 Perisic, then we had the army of Republika Srpska led by Mr. Mladic, then

22 there was the army of Republika Srpska Krajina - I don't know who was at

23 the head of that army, I just can't remember now - but that's it.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Delic, what is it you say that has been wrongly

25 translated?

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It wasn't a united army. General

2 Perisic --

3 JUDGE BONOMY: You said that's what Perisic said. Could you tell

4 us what Perisic actually said, according to you from what you heard.

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm having problems with my

6 headsets. Too much noise and interference. That's better now. Can you

7 hear me now?

8 General Perisic said that they were armies of Republika Srpska

9 Krajina, Republika Srpska, which relied on the officers who came from the

10 Yugoslav People's Army, and that the technical facilities that both armies

11 had in the logistics sense depended on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,

12 and that related to parts of it, logistics support, for example, linked to

13 combat technology.

14 All the officers who were in those three armies came from a united

15 army, but from a united army that is to say the Yugoslav People's Army.

16 When the Yugoslav People's Army ceased to exist, then the matter was quite

17 different. Some of them went to join the army of Republika Srpska

18 Krajina, the others went to the Republika Srpska, and others again stayed

19 in the army of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

20 MR. NICE:

21 Q. Well, then let's look at the next clip from General Peric. We'll

22 hope to -- it's a very short clip but we'll hope to get it all in --

23 THE INTERPRETER: Could the interpreters be provided with a

24 transcript of the footage.

25 MR. NICE: My oversight. I thought it was provided a couple of

1 days ago. If it wasn't, I'm sorry about that. It was provided but it

2 must have been in the mass of paper. I wouldn't be surprised if something

3 could occasionally get mislaid. But it's very short.

4 [Videotape played]

5 THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] An attack, on any entity, meaning,

6 the Republika Srpska Krajina or Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or meant an

7 attack --"

8 THE INTERPRETER: The witness says that he cannot make out what is

9 being said on the tape, and the interpreters agree.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: There is a technical problem. We'll try to have

11 it resolved.

12 MR. NICE:

13 Q. While the technical problem's being resolved and to save time,

14 I'll give you a possible English translation of what the general is saying

15 and it's very short, we can listen to it, and see if it matches the

16 English translation.

17 The English translation is to the following effect --

18 MR. NICE: I suppose, Your Honour, it would always make more sense

19 to get a B/C/S reader to read the transcript, but I don't have one

20 available and I can't really ask Ms. Dicklich to do it, so I better do it

21 in English.

22 "An attack, on any entity, meaning, the Republika Srpska Krajina,

23 or the Republika Srpska or on the FRY, meant an attack on all three. In

24 that sense, the army had to take certain measures, and there were many

25 discussions about that, even some decisions were made."

1 Now, I wonder if we could try the tape again and see if we can get

2 the text.

3 [Videotape played]

4 THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] ... on any entity, meaning the

5 Republika Srpska Krajina or the Republika Srpska or the FRY, meant an

6 attack on all three. And in that sense, the army had to take certain

7 measures and there were many discussions about that, even some decisions

8 were made."

9 MR. NICE:

10 Q. Now, what he's saying there on that tape is that an attack on one

11 meant an attack on all three. You were a serving officer. Was that your

12 understanding of the way the three armies were going to react, and in

13 particular the army of Serbia; to regard an attack on any one component

14 part as an attack on all three?

15 A. Well, I was certainly a soldier then performing lower-level

16 duties. There were attacks on Republika Srpska Krajina and Republika

17 Srpska, and the army of Yugoslavia did not react once. As far as I know,

18 the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the signatory of an agreement when

19 it came to Republika Srpska Krajina, and the aggression of Croatia against

20 Republika Srpska Krajina, even the protected areas under UN protection,

21 were acts counter to the law and counter to the decision taken by the

22 United Nations, and our country was signatory to that agreement, and in my

23 opinion it ought to have reacted at the time but it did not. So what

24 General Perisic is saying here never actually happened.

25 Q. And --

1 A. Perhaps he had plans of that kind, but it never actually took

2 place.

3 Q. And in particular when we come on to Srebrenica, was there any

4 sense there, in your experience and judgement, of a united army, to use

5 the term of the translation, or of the need for all to act for one and one

6 for all?

7 A. That's just your story. I don't know. Every day here you're

8 trying to bring me into context with Srebrenica in one way or another, and

9 I've already told you that I was never in that territory at all. You're

10 trying to link me up with that.

11 At that time all contacts had been interrupted between the army of

12 Republika Srpska and the army of Yugoslavia, every form of technical

13 assistance. All they could do, and that was on the basis of the personal

14 wishes of someone, somebody could move to Republika Srpska or Srpska

15 Krajina and be a volunteer there in the units of the army of Republika

16 Srpska, for instance.

17 Q. Relation, finally, on Bosnia to Srebrenica, you'll remember that

18 you told us on the earlier occasion I asked you about this that you

19 thought the people dying there were killed in combat. Is that still your

20 position?

21 A. I said at the time that nobody verified and checked out how many

22 of the people who died there died in battle and how many died outside

23 battle. I'm certain that a large number were killed in battle -- was

24 killed in battle.

25 Q. When did you first accept, you personally, when did you first

1 accept that any were killed other than in battle, by massacre of Bosnians

2 by Serbs? When did you accept that?

3 A. Mr. Nice, this is the second time you're trying to put those words

4 into my mouth. When this Tribunal completes its work, I expect the Court

5 to give us the real truth about Srebrenica. Therefore, I have no

6 awareness and knowledge of that, and I do not accept that a massacre

7 committed there in the manner in which you are presenting it here.

8 On that territory, there were fatalities on the part of both

9 peoples, both the Serbs and Muslims. But stress is laid here, especially

10 of late, only of the victims of one ethnic group as if the other ethnic

11 group was worthless, not worthy of being mentioned, and we're dealing with

12 several thousand people there again on that side too.

13 Q. As you recollect, Mr. Delic, we're looking at your credibility

14 through your approach to these matters. You've seen this television

15 programme. You've made that clear. I just want you to take a look at one

16 last clip. To explain it, it begins with context given by a narrator, and

17 the person who then speaks, Dr. Zoran Stankovic, is a pathologist and

18 indeed on the Defence witness list. Let's see what is said.

19 [Videotape played]

20 THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] NARRATOR: They launched an

21 offensive in Eastern Bosnia. On the 26th of June, 1995 they take over the

22 Srebrenica. The Hague Tribunal, because of a massacre of more than 7.000

23 civilians and prisoners of war, will raise an indictment for genocide and

24 crimes against humanity against Ratko Mladic, the President of Republika

25 Srpska Radovan Karadzic, and others.

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1 "INTERVIEWEE: What was presented and why those people who have

2 been indicted should be held responsible is because of the some 300

3 bodies. They had ligatures around their hands, on their eyes, and wounds

4 on their bodies, and it's quite obvious that those people and that number

5 of people were killed as a result of execution."

6 MR. NICE:

7 Q. Now, you see, there Dr. Stankovic, Serb pathologist, even as long

8 ago as this programme that you saw is making it clear as to 300 people,

9 they were executed. Did that not affect your thinking at all about

10 Srebrenica or was your mind closed to any and all information coming to

11 you about it?

12 A. Mr. Nice, what you're trying to do with my credibility is

13 completely improper because you just speak about Srebrenica. What

14 Mr. Stankovic is saying there is something that I'm hearing for the first

15 time. I am in favour, of course, of having all criminals be held

16 responsible, from any nation, any ethnic group, and last time I said that

17 I'm first of all in favour of having criminals from my own ethnic group

18 being brought to trial. And we say here that 300 persons were tied up

19 with ligatures and that they were executed. So the people who did that

20 must be brought to court and must be held responsible. But the real truth

21 must be established as well and all the perpetrators of crimes and people

22 responsible must be brought before the Tribunal. I'm talking about

23 perpetrators from my own ethnic group. Let it be up to other national

24 groups to see that criminals among their number be brought to trial as

25 well.

1 I completely support what General Stankovic is taking here,

2 although I'm hearing this extract for the first time and seeing that

3 footage for the first time.

4 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... television programme as part

5 of the same television programme you see.

6 A. Well, you see, I have quite a lot of duties to attend to and can't

7 spend my time sitting in front of the television set all day. I know

8 Mr. Stankovic personally. I've talked to him a number of times, and I

9 know that he is quite certainly a highly professional man, a good

10 pathologist, and I don't doubt at all for one minute what he said here and

11 I completely agree with him.

12 Q. You speak of the need for people from your own ethnicity to be

13 investigated. Mladic has been identified as somebody responsible for

14 Srebrenica since 1995. You were in the army. Were you aware of the army

15 ever investigating that allegation?

16 A. Mr. Mladic was in the army of Republika Srpska. I only saw him

17 twice in my life, and that was before that time. At that time, I was a

18 lieutenant colonel, he was a general --

19 Q. Pausing there.

20 A. -- and --

21 Q. You are aware --

22 A. -- we saw each other in passing.

23 Q. -- of course, of the links between Mladic and the Serb army

24 acknowledged publicly, at the time, that for example, his VJ file has been

25 discussed publicly. Has there been to your knowledge any investigation by

1 your army of any of those indicted and being detained here, some of them,

2 said to be involved in Srebrenica?

3 A. Of course. I know that at the time while I was an active officer

4 several actions were taken in certain military facilities on the basis of

5 some reports that General Mladic may be there. The facilities would be

6 blocked abruptly, they would be entered, but all of that is pointless,

7 because the army of Yugoslavia never hid Mladic. Even today some people

8 are saying that he may be in Serbia, but I think that this is a piece of

9 nonsense. I think that that is used as a pretext for exercising pressure

10 against my country.

11 Q. You're answering a different question which I hadn't asked you and

12 I'm not going to pursue, where he may be or where he may have been hidden.

13 I just want to know, you as a senior army officer, are you aware of any

14 inquiry into Mladic or any of the others - Gvero, Pandurevic and all of

15 those - are you aware of any investigation since 1995 by the army into

16 those who are said are members of or linked to that army, your army?

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The question is totally

20 inappropriate. All the names that Mr. Nice referred to are those of

21 members of the army of Republika Srpska, not the army of Yugoslavia,

22 except if he considers them to be members of the army of Yugoslavia

23 because they are receiving social benefits from the army of Yugoslavia

24 until 2000 something. They receive these benefits for a longer period of

25 time after the war than during the war itself. So all these people are --

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I see nothing improper in the

2 question.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] But, Mr. Robinson, why would the

4 question not be phrased differently? Why did -- didn't yet another army

5 conduct an investigation about a third army? Why would it be the job of

6 the army of Yugoslavia to investigate the army of Republika Srpska? The

7 Dayton agreement was signed in 1995. You have foreign forces there. You

8 have the High Representative there. You have all organs there. The

9 armies are there too. Isn't it up to them to investigate?

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, those are matters that you may

11 raise in re-examination. I don't think they make the question improper.

12 MR. NICE:

13 Q. May I have an answer to my question, please, Mr. Delic? Any

14 investigation, any inquiry by your army --

15 A. There is really nothing else for me to say about that.

16 Mr. Milosevic just said it too. What was done in our army and in our

17 police was a search for these persons. If some kind of investigation were

18 to be carried out, then relevant documentation would be required and

19 everything else. They were members of another army. In our country, we

20 were only trying to see whether they were hiding on our territory.

21 Q. Moving back then to Kosovo. Binder 5, please, and Exhibit 3 --

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What is your programme today? Is

25 each session going to be an hour and a half, too, or will there be any

1 changes involved?

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. We started at 8.30, so we'll break at 10.00

3 for 20 minutes, and then another hour and a half.

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: But we are finishing at 1.15.

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.

7 MR. NICE:

8 Q. Return, please, to volume 5 in the English, at tab 356.

9 MR. NICE: Your Honours, may I have private session for one

10 minute, literally? May I have private session, with Your Honour's leave,

11 for one minute?

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Private session, yes.

13 [Private session]

14 (redacted)

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1 [Open session]

2 MR. NICE:

3 Q. Mr. Delic, we've looked at and we'll continue probably to look at

4 356 and the associated documents, but 356 is dated the 23rd of March. So

5 that's, what, one day before the opening of the war diary and one day

6 before the --

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, I'm sorry. May I just clarify

8 something for the benefit of Mr. Milosevic.

9 MR. NICE: Certainly.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, this does not mean that there will

11 not be an opportunity to refer to these matters. After we have had the

12 Appeals Chamber's ruling on the matter, we'll then know how to proceed,

13 and it may then be that the general will be recalled. So it does not mean

14 that you have lost an opportunity to refer to those matters.

15 Yes, Mr. Nice.

16 MR. NICE:

17 Q. Mr. Delic, this document of the 23rd of March is one day before

18 the opening of the war diary and I think one day before the declaration of

19 war. Do you accept that?

20 A. Yes. That is one day before.

21 Q. It comes to the Joint Command. Incidentally, we never established

22 this --

23 A. But, Mr. Nice, you said before the declaration of the war.

24 However, as far as I know, there was no war that was ever declared. It

25 was an illegal war. It was an aggression. One day before the aggression,

1 that is to say.

2 Q. Very well, however you wish to describe it. A tiny point we

3 haven't actually dealt with yet is the Joint Command, when you wanted to

4 communicate with the Joint Command, what -- how did you do it? Who did

5 you telephone, or if you sent a written message, where did you address it?

6 A. I never had any contact with the Joint Command, because the Joint

7 Command functions only as this notion that you see here on paper. This

8 group of people that you are trying to call a Joint Command, that was the

9 coordinating body. Nobody could called a Joint Command or the Joint

10 Command because it didn't have an address or telephone.

11 Q. Well, it didn't have an address or telephone, but when the

12 communications like this one, which is written and in however many pages

13 it is, arrived, where did it come from? It didn't come down with a shower

14 of rain, as they say. It had to come physically from somewhere. Where

15 did they come from?

16 A. Yes. They came from the command of the Pristina Corps, in the

17 mail that I got from the Pristina Corps, and this is the fifth time I'm

18 saying this.

19 Q. Now, what I'd like you to help me with is this: This order that

20 precedes the aggression, as you describe it, or whatever else it was,

21 gives instruction to attack, if we turn over, for example, to part of

22 paragraph 5, "continue the attack, destroying the remaining SDS," and so

23 on.

24 Where did the Joint Command order - where did this order - derive

25 its authority that it could command you to go out and attack?

1 A. First of all, you are using some expressions that are

2 inappropriate. Nowhere does it say to continue an attack. It is

3 specifically stated that on such-and-such a day an attack should start.

4 I've already explained that here.

5 Prior to this order, I got a preparatory order from the commander

6 of the Pristina Corps to prepare the units, and after that I got this

7 order, and there's nothing controversial about it as far as I'm concerned.

8 It was registered with the command of the Pristina Corps and in the office

9 of the Pristina corps, because here in this part, where it says "Strictly

10 confidential," the number is from the command of the Pristina Corps. I've

11 already explained why that is what it said on the top of the page.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Delic, there is something that is not clear

13 to me. Why do you object to the Prosecutor using the term "Joint

14 Command"? We have had this several times in your testimony. Because the

15 word itself is in the text.

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, it's not that I'm

17 objecting, because here in the text it really does say "Joint Command,"

18 but Mr. Nice is trying to tell me that it was some kind of Joint Command

19 that was issuing orders to me, and that is absolutely wrong. I only

20 received orders from my own command, and that's the command of the

21 Pristina Corps. This paper, this order I also received through a

22 messenger who brought this to me from the commander of the Pristina Corps.

23 If you'll recall, Mr. Robinson, from my vantage point as brigade

24 commander, because I was not in Pristina then, I tried to explain why

25 that's what it says there, Joint Command. I don't think this is a good

1 phrase either.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: What is in paragraph 5? Is that not an

3 instruction to you? 5.1, the reference to 549th Motorised Brigade.

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I fully agree. This is an order to

5 my brigade. So there's nothing in dispute that I carried out this order,

6 I mean. But, Mr. Robinson, please look at tab 359.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, I have tab 359.

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I carried out this order from tab

9 356, and afterwards, having carried out that order, I report back that I

10 carried out the order, and I report back to the command of the Pristina

11 Corps, as you can see. I'm not reporting back to any kind of Joint

12 Command. And never will you --

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: That is clear, but it doesn't mean that you

14 didn't get the order from the Joint Command. You got the order from a

15 body called the Joint Command, but you reported back to the Pristina

16 Corps. Would you agree with that?

17 A. I fully agree. But Joint Command, a Joint Command never existed

18 as a command. That's what I've been trying to tell you. That a group of

19 people, there were some politicians there who were sent from Belgrade to

20 be there on the ground, the representatives of the MUP, and the

21 representatives the military. However, in order for a body to be a

22 command, it has to have many elements. First of all, it has to have a

23 commander. There is no command without a commander. And then that

24 commander would have signed this document.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: I see. What you're really saying is that the

1 term "Joint Command" is a misnomer. It has wrongly described itself.

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It was not a command. It was a

3 coordination body. This is a most unfortunately chosen expression for a

4 coordinating body.

5 And may I just take up a moment of your time to explain this

6 again?

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, yes, very briefly.

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As briefly as I can. Had it said up

9 here on the top of the page "Command of the Pristina Corps," then there is

10 certainly nothing controversial as far as I'm concerned to carry out that

11 order. I will carry out that order. But it is then controversial for the

12 MUP units, because they will not carry out an order signed by the

13 commander of the Pristina Corps because they have nothing to do with the

14 Pristina Corps. That is why in the heading it says Joint Command, because

15 then corresponds to the MUP units too. It's not the army that is

16 commanding them or the Pristina Corps but some Joint Command, some

17 fictitious Joint Command. It suits me too, I accept that as well, because

18 I know that all of this, after all, came from my own corps, from the

19 Pristina Corps. That's where coordination was carried out between the MUP

20 and the army at corps level.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Nice.

22 MR. NICE:

23 Q. You see, just to confirm, and I think this is a yes/no question

24 maybe now, we don't have any order from the Pristina Corps of the same

25 date telling you to do these things, do we?

1 A. Now, as far as that is concerned, we haven't got one here, or

2 perhaps it's an oversight on my part. There are a few orders here of the

3 Joint Command. I'm sure that in Belgrade, even documents that I have,

4 there is an order to use the artillery and an order for the engineering

5 units under the same number.

6 Q. Mr. Delic, if there had been -- I mean, at early stages in your

7 evidence you said various things about orders coming from the Pristina

8 command. Isn't the reality this: There never was an order of the 23rd of

9 March covering the topics of this Joint Command document that came from

10 the Pristina Corps. There never was such an order.

11 A. There is no identical order because there was no need for one, but

12 I believe that there are orders to spell out specifically certain matters

13 such as artillery, engineering, et cetera. The same number and then /1 or

14 /2.

15 Q. We haven't seen. We've demanded -- we've requested all these

16 documents over the years.

17 Can you help us, please, with who gave instructions to this

18 coordinating body?

19 A. You see, I was never present at any coordination body meeting.

20 Q. Very well.

21 A. As far as 1998 is concerned, when the coordinating body was

22 established, when a group of politicians came from Belgrade, there was the

23 MUP staff to combat terrorism, and there was the Pristina Corps. These

24 people who came from Belgrade came primarily for the purpose of various

25 diplomatic missions that were in Kosovo at that time, also to talk to the

1 Albanians --

2 Q. I want answers to the questions. It's very simple: You obviously

3 don't know who gave instructions to the coordinating body. Do you know to

4 whom the coordinating body reported? Just yes or no.

5 A. The coordinating body? I explained it last time. As far as the

6 army is concerned, the commander of the Pristina Corps, before he would go

7 to attend a meeting of this coordinating body, would have to go and see

8 General Simic, whose forward command post was also in Pristina, to report

9 to him to say that he was going to this meeting. And after the meeting he

10 would have to go back to General Simic to tell him whether there were any

11 requests vis-a-vis the military and that he allowed him -- that he would

12 then allow him to use the military.

13 The MUP probably had to contact their own minister too. As for

14 the civilians, well, since they represented the government, they had to

15 report to someone in the government.

16 As far as 1998 is concerned, let us be quite clear on that: At

17 the level of Belgrade, a plan was elaborated to combat terrorism in five

18 phases, and I think that that was discussed at top level.

19 Q. [Previous translation continues]... topic. Right.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Can I just clarify one thing, please, Mr. Nice.

21 Was the commander of the Pristina Corps a member of the

22 coordinating body?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, yes. The commander of the

24 Pristina Corps was.

25 MR. NICE:

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1 Q. You see, you've referred to my earlier questions on this topic,

2 and I'm going to come back to them because the reality is that you were in

3 possession of a document apparently authorising you to conduct an attack,

4 and you were in possession of that document, as it happens, a day before

5 the declaration of the relevant state of emergency, war, or whatever it

6 was that was required for the coordinated work of the MUP and the army;

7 correct?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. You responded to that document as if it were an effective order.

10 A. Yes. It is done according to the rules, and it contains all the

11 elements that an order should contain.

12 Q. And if we read just the last line of the order, we can see what it

13 says. Paragraph 13, perhaps you'd like to follow it with me and we'll

14 read it together: "Coordinated actions with MUP forces on preparations

15 for combat operations shall be organised before and during combat

16 operations.

17 "The Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija from the Pristina

18 section shall command and control all forces during combat operations."

19 So you had an effective order, and the order said the body giving

20 you this order is in charge; correct?

21 A. I'm absolutely not denying that what you read out, what is written

22 here, is exactly the way it has been written in this order. During combat

23 operations, only my corps commander was in contact with me and was issuing

24 commands to me, and I only reported back to him.

25 Q. And, Mr. Delic, I know you don't want to use the aide-memoire but

1 those who have got it will be able to see the picture very easily.

2 Following that day, the 23rd of March, incidents involving the

3 army occurred in the next few days, couple of days. They occurred in

4 Djakovica, Orahovac, in Suva Reka, Bela Crkva, Celine, Velika Krusa,

5 Landovica, and other places. And in the course of those operations,

6 significant numbers of KLA or alleged KLA people were killed, a limited

7 number of soldiers died - we'll look at the numbers if necessary - and I

8 think either none -- no or almost no prisoners were taken, and that was

9 responsive to this order. Is that summary correct?

10 A. You are now trying to single out from a single operation some

11 particular points. This order pertains to a broader anti-terrorist

12 operation, which can be viewed here on these maps too. Its objective was

13 to break up groups of terrorist forces that were in the immediate vicinity

14 of the border. That was the situation because a ground invasion was

15 expected from Albania and Macedonia. These operations were first in this

16 area, then in the area of Drenica, then in Crmljani, then in the area of

17 Budakovo, and so on.

18 Mr. Nice, do you believe something that my war enemy wrote,

19 General Clark, when he refers to these operations of ours directly? I

20 wish you'd read that, because I agree with what Mr. Clark wrote, and I

21 think it would be a good thing to have that heard. It's only a few

22 sentences.

23 Q. A matter for re-examination, maybe. I'm going to press on with

24 what I'm putting to you because I want you to have --

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. The Chamber would like to hear it.

1 MR. NICE: Very well.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let us know what you're reading from.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's the book "Modern Warfare" by

4 Mr. Wesley Clark, that he wrote after the war, and it has to do with the

5 war in Kosovo.

6 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters note that they do not have the

7 original.

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Read slowly.

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, sir.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Tell us how long the passage is.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's about three or four sentences.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Very well. Go ahead.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It has to do with this operation and

14 the operations that followed. It is page 285: "But we were fighting

15 against a capable enemy. In the military field in Kosovo, the Serb

16 military forces were attacking little by little large bases of the KLA in

17 the mountains. Every day the organised resistance of the KLA was weaker

18 and weaker, and that meant that the Serb forces were capable of changing

19 their positions, dispersing, and hiding from our aircraft. After two

20 weeks, most of their operations, large-scale operations, had been

21 completed."

22 Mr. Clark was reported to by his officers: "Sir, those big bases

23 that we targeted are simply no longer there."

24 On the basis of what I've read out just now, Mr. Clark says that

25 within the scope of two weeks through our attacks that were aimed at large

1 KLA bases, we managed to neutralise them.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

3 Mr. Nice, do you have questions on that?

4 MR. NICE: No, not on that.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Because it's time for the break. We will adjourn

6 for 20 minutes.

7 --- Recess taken at 10.03 a.m.

8 --- On resuming at 10.28 a.m.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

10 MR. NICE:

11 Q. Mr. Delic, pursuing the last topic but with a broader question and

12 explaining the Prosecution's position on the Joint Command, the truth is

13 this, is it not: That the army and the police were engaged in criminal

14 conduct to their certain knowledge in 1998 and 1999 of which Racak is one

15 example. That's my suggestion to you. Racak was outside your area of

16 responsibility, just, or to a limited degree, but is not the position

17 this; that you knew that the army and the police had been involved in an

18 operation that simply went in to kill, not just to find KLA people and to

19 safeguard villages.

20 A. What you are saying, Mr. Nice, is very insulting, both for my army

21 and my police, but as you're allowed to speak in this way, all I can say

22 is that all this is completely untrue. The army and the police are state

23 organs --

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: I was going to -- I was going to intervene before

25 you replied to let you know that the manner in which Mr. Nice puts his

1 question is perfectly proper. That is the way it is done in the

2 adversarial system. It's vigorous cross-examination. There's nothing

3 wrong with that. So don't feel personally insulted, but you give your

4 answers. But there is nothing improper in the manner in which the

5 questions are being put. If there was, then we would stop him. I've seen

6 cross-examination much more vigorous than that.

7 Yes. Proceed with the answer.

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Absolutely everything Mr. Nice has

9 said does not correspond to the truth and to reality. The army of

10 Yugoslavia and the MUP units were in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999 fighting

11 against terrorism, and as of March 1999 against the aggression of the NATO

12 forces.

13 As for Racak, Racak is a put-up, fabricated situation used to

14 exert pressure on our country and later on to justify the bombing.

15 MR. NICE:

16 Q. The recognition, the knowledge that you were all engaged in

17 unlawful acts is reflected by the ability - and you've been a party to

18 this - to say that there was no Joint Command from some date in 1998, when

19 in fact, as we've seen from documents, it continued right through to 1999.

20 And just to make it clear, you had to deny the existence of a Joint

21 Command because you all knew that the Joint Command was the civil

22 authority that was getting you to commit criminal acts.

23 A. That's your opinion, Mr. Nice. A Joint Command such as you see is

24 certainly something that suits you in view of your indictment. However,

25 it's on -- based on a very shaky foundation. I can say, speaking as a

1 commander, that I received orders only from my command and his Chief of

2 Staff, and I issued commands only to my own units. Nobody else from the

3 outside could ever have issued an order, nor would I have carried it out.

4 We know how the legislation and the rules of service deal with

5 perpetration of crimes.

6 Q. And in very short order, what followed the Joint Command order

7 that we've been looking at was a campaign to attack Kosovo Albanians and

8 to kick them out of their country, and you all knew you were acting

9 unlawfully, and you knew you were taking advantage of the expected NATO

10 intervention to put into plan an order actually issued a day before that

11 intervention started.

12 A. That's only your opinion, Mr. Nice. You are not a soldier, and

13 you do not understand anything about tactics or strategy. Our operations

14 - and you saw Mr. Clark speaking of them, and he never says they were

15 aimed at the civilian population - our operations were aimed against the

16 terrorist groups in the mountains and on the territory between Kosovo and

17 Metohija.

18 After the aggression across the state border, they were supposed

19 to attack our forces from behind. We did not have the strength to fight

20 two adversaries at once. We had to defeat one adversary and neutralise it

21 right away, and this was the KLA, and we did this.

22 Q. The last general point before we move to some new particular topic

23 is this: You believed, didn't you, that a vast majority of the Kosovo

24 Albanian population supported the KLA.

25 A. The number of Albanians supporting the KLA grew from 1998 onwards

1 precisely because the KLA applied brutal force against the Albanians, and

2 murder if they disagreed with their policies.

3 Q. Whatever the reason, I'm neither accepting that nor commenting on

4 it, but whatever the reason, by 1999 you believed that a vast majority of

5 the Kosovo Albanian population supported the KLA. Am I right in that?

6 A. No, you're not right in that. In my town of Prizren, there was

7 probably a small part of the population supporting the KLA while the other

8 inhabitants were loyal and doing their jobs. The number of supporters was

9 greater in the villages than in the towns.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: The question was whether you believed that a vast

11 majority of the Kosovo Albanian population supported the KLA.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't believe it was a vast

13 majority. A considerable percentage, yes, but not the vast majority. The

14 vast majority were decent people who had nothing special against the state

15 community and co-existence with the Serbs. There were many more of those

16 who wished Kosovo to have a different status within Serbia, to be a

17 republic within Serbia. Some wanted independence. But the number of

18 those who wanted war was far, far less.

19 MR. NICE:

20 Q. You see, one proposition I want you to deal with is this: Is it

21 the case that the army and the MUP felt themselves to be an occupying

22 force in essentially now an alien territory and that's why they behaved in

23 the criminally extreme way that they did? That's the proposition for you

24 to answer, please.

25 A. I'll be happy to answer your question, but you should know that

1 the whole world is listening to this. The army and the police cannot be

2 an occupying force on their own territory. Even today Kosovo and Metohija

3 is part of the Republic of Serbia.

4 Q. You didn't attend -- I don't criticise you for this: You didn't

5 attend to the way I carefully expressed the question, which was that they

6 felt themselves to be. It's as if they were, not dealing with the legal

7 position one way or the other. If you don't want to answer the question,

8 we'll move on to the next topic.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, you had indicated that you would

10 complete your cross-examination to the extent that you can --

11 MR. NICE: Yes.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- by the first break. What is your new

13 assessment?

14 MR. NICE: The end of the second break. I'm sorry, but time has

15 been taken and there's a great deal to cover. Your Honours, can I press

16 on in any event?

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

18 MR. NICE:

19 Q. The --

20 A. I wish -- I wish to answer your question, the question you put. I

21 was born in Kosovo and Metohija among Albanians, Turks, and others, and I

22 had many good friends among these people. Neither I nor any other soldier

23 felt we were on foreign land. We felt we were on our land, which is why

24 we defended it very persistently from all those attacking it, whether they

25 were terrorists or the NATO pact.

1 Q. I want you now, please, to look at a series of clips in evidence -

2 we may get through all of them, we may only get through some - that show

3 the passage of Kosovo Albanians out of Kosovo.

4 [Videotape played]

5 "Under the symbols of their nationalism, the Serbian authorities

6 pushed the Albanian population of Kosovo into exile. By now the refugees

7 have been stripped of any document that says who they are. Only their

8 despair is left as a mark of common identity.

9 "This is no haphazard flow of people. There is a grim logic to

10 what is going on. When you check where these refugees are coming from,

11 you can see that Kosovo is being cleansed, ethnically cleansed, village by

12 village, hour after hour."

13 [Videotape played]

14 "We have reached a point when the figures become almost

15 meaningless. It's enough to say that once they open the gates on the

16 other side you wait for a gap in the influx in vain. Those who come

17 across now have been on the move for days inside Kosovo. They're

18 desperate and it shows. Albania's capacity to absorb them is being

19 stretched to the limit.

20 "Logistics is that we can't move people out of this area quick

21 enough, so -- we haven't got the facilities to hold them here but we

22 haven't got the capacity to move them, so we are struggling.

23 "But this is a humanitarian crisis caused by political thuggery

24 and savage militarism. The evidence is plain to see.

25 "What we've seen and heard on this side of the border is grim

1 enough. Imagine then what it must be like inside Kosovo. Nothing less,

2 it seems, than the planned, systematic destruction of a people.

3 "Every family here has a story to tell, seen its share of horror.

4 "Yes, we are leaving. I had to close the eyes of my children so

5 they could not witness the execution.

6 "Are the Serbian paramilitary or the Serbian army, are they

7 attacking civilians? Have you seen that?

8 "They are using everything in their arsenal to wipe out the whole

9 area.

10 "From where we are you can see Serb soldiers escorting yet more

11 ethnic Albanians across the border. They will be tomorrow's exiles.

12 "George Alagiah, BBC News on the ..."

13 [Videotape played]

14 "A sea of exiles wading through an ocean of mud, another 9.000 in

15 the last 24 hours at this border crossing alone. In the confusion, this

16 woman loses her three children. She frantically eyes the crowd, but there

17 is no sign of them."

18 MR. NICE: This one is Macedonia.

19 [Videotape played]

20 "Chaos on the Macedonian border today as 2.000 refugees from

21 Kosovo circumvent the border checkpoint. They flooded in along the

22 railway line, encouraged by Serbian police eager to see them leave the

23 country. The tales they have to tell are of elemental terror. Some have

24 seen friends and relatives killed, others have lost their husbands or

25 wives."

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Judge Robinson.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have not heard a single word of

4 interpretation. I think the witness understood nothing of what was shown

5 here. I wonder whether he has received the transcript in the Serbian

6 language or what.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have received nothing, and I have

8 not understood a single word of all this. I don't know what Mr. Nice

9 intends to ask me.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: I thought it was being translated.

11 MR. NICE: So did I. Your Honour, what I will do, if we can just

12 play a little bit of this one at the Pristina railway station.

13 [Videotape played]

14 "Kosovo's capital Pristina is being drained of its people and its

15 identity."

16 MR. NICE: Pause there. We don't know what the technical problem

17 is.

18 Q. What you've been looking at, and I'm sorry you haven't had the

19 benefit of sound, is some of the evidence of Kosovo Albanians leaving

20 Kosovo via both Albanian gateways and Macedonian, and the last bit is of

21 them leaving the Pristina railway station. In the second to last clip, we

22 saw and there was reference to VJ soldiers escorting them out.

23 Can you help us, please: Has there been any inquiry within the VJ

24 of any soldier or any commander committing an offence by encouraging or

25 forcing people out of Kosovo?

1 A. What you have shown here is not in dispute, the fact that

2 Albanians left Kosovo. What is at issue is their motive. I have already

3 said that I had dozens of cases of soldiers who did not act in a legal way

4 towards the refugees. And I showed here through some tabs - I can find

5 them again if necessary - and the document that shows that they were

6 court-martialed. There were ten, 15, 20 of them. They were sent to a

7 military court, and they all --

8 Q. Apart from those ten, 15 which we haven't had a chance yet

9 ourselves to investigate further, but apart from those, the question is

10 specific: Have there been any charged with offences in relation to

11 forcing people out of Kosovo?

12 A. No unit of mine was ever assigned such a task, and therefore could

13 not have carried out such a task. You are showing soldiers escorting

14 civilians.

15 Q. Have any soldiers ever been investigated for or charged with

16 offences of either forcing Kosovo Albanians out or destroying their

17 personal documents or their car number plates at the borders? Has there

18 been any such inquiry ever?

19 A. The soldiers never did that. They did not need to have access to

20 the documents of the Kosovo Albanians. The soldiers were held responsible

21 for unseemly behaviour and for the confiscation of either vehicles or

22 money from the Kosovo Albanians.

23 In my unit, there were such soldiers, and I know there were such

24 soldiers in other units as well. This documentation can be obtained from

25 the court. There are probably several dozen such cases, maybe even more

1 than that.

2 General Gojovic can speak of that because he has the entire

3 documentation. I can speak only about my own men.

4 Q. And -- very well.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Did you say, Mr. Nice, each of these video clips

6 were already part of the evidence?

7 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Mr. Nice, please.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: It would be helpful if later I could have the tab

9 numbers of each of them.

10 MR. NICE: I haven't got them to hand.

11 MR. KAY: Exhibit 14 onwards, Spargo.

12 MR. NICE: A short exercise -- I hope short, but absolutely

13 essential. In binder 5, starting at tab 361.

14 Your Honours, this relates to -- this is one of the areas where we

15 have got translations for the documents of the kind I was mentioning

16 before the Court sat this morning.

17 Q. If we look, please, at tab 361, which is your statement prepared

18 in 2002 in relation to Bela Crkva. We see you assert that you had issued

19 a decision based on earlier intelligence not to include Bela Crkva in the

20 territory that needed to be examined since you assess that there were no

21 terrorists there.

22 Can you tell us what your intelligence was?

23 A. You should know that in the village of Bela Crkva, on the asphalt

24 road from Zrze towards Orahovac there was a police checkpoint. It was

25 right there, and this is information coming from the police.

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7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 Q. Very well. That's your -- that's your --

2 A. There was one checkpoint in the village of Zrze and one here.

3 Q. Now, we then -- in the last paragraph, the second paragraph, you

4 say: "At the time I had no information of any crimes allegedly committed

5 ... When I learnt about it in 2000 ..." Is that an assertion that that's

6 the first time you learnt about these alleged crimes?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. The indictment against this accused and others being issued in

9 1999, you didn't read it, it was never broadcast? It was a public

10 indictment. Is that what you're saying?

11 A. What I have written here is quite true. In the middle of 2000, we

12 were summoned by the commander of the 3rd Army, General Pavkovic, who

13 distributed to us certain sheets of paper on which were parts of the

14 indictment.

15 Q. And we see in your statement that you arrived at the village at

16 5.10.

17 So can we now go to 362, the statement of Vukovic. He explains --

18 apart from the -- well, the only points I might like to take, but he

19 explains that he arrived there on the 25th of March. It's the bottom of

20 the English page, four paragraphs down. On the 25th of March, he explains

21 his movement. He left the village of Zrze, waited by the silo for the

22 unit from Prizren to pass, and he explains, over the page in the English,

23 that combat group 2 passed the village at 0500 to 5.30, and then he then

24 says: "I did not notice any civilians and no fighting took place in the

25 village. At approximately 0700 hours -" says the English - "we began to

1 search the terrain." I think the word used is "pretres."

2 What do you understand by the meaning of the word "pretres"?

3 Explain it. What sort of search was to be done?

4 A. A search of the terrain, pretres, is when a unit spreads out into

5 a combat disposition. The squads and platoons develop in their proper

6 way. Companies have a different way of spreading out. And then when the

7 soldiers start moving from a certain line, searching the terrain they are

8 crossing. This is a search which might be the search of a forest or

9 something else. The men are eight to ten metres away from each other.

10 Q. He also says he first heard of these alleged offences in 2001.

11 If we go to tab 3 -- tab 363, the statement of -- Janos Sel. His

12 assignment was given to him as described in the first paragraph. He

13 starts a march, he says, at 0200 hours, but he says because of a problem

14 with vehicles, didn't arrive at Bela Crkva until 0530. So his arrival

15 coincides broadly with yours and with Vukovic's; correct?

16 A. He probably arrived in Bella Crkva a little later.

17 Q. He again says he never heard of the allegations before.

18 Tab 364, we have Feta Elifat. Probably what, a Roma, is he, or

19 was he?

20 A. No. He's not a Roma. Feta Elifat is a Gorani.

21 Q. Thank you.

22 A. That is a special ethnic group living to the south-east of

23 Prizren.

24 Q. He says he passed through the village of Bela Crkva in a convoy of

25 motor vehicles at about 5.30, and he then says, "I didn't meet any

1 civilians."

2 If we look at the next tab, 365, this is Oliver Ilijevski.

3 Incidentally, could you just read out in the second sentence -- sorry, the

4 second paragraph the very first sentence for us, please, and have the

5 translation from the interpreters.

6 A. "In order to carry out this assignment, the platoon had to pass

7 on the 25th of March, 1999, through the village of Bela Crkva and by 6.00

8 take up positions along a one-kilometre stretch of the blockade line

9 south-east of the village towards the village of Celine." Shall I go on?

10 Q. Looks to me as though like we've got the wrong translation because

11 that didn't match what I have here particularly, and yet -- well, I'll

12 have to deal with --

13 JUDGE BONOMY: It's the same as the one I have, I think.

14 MR. NICE: I've got something that says -- yes. I've got

15 something that speaks of the period 25th to 28th of March, but it says

16 participated with a rifle platoon.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: That's the paragraph before.

18 MR. NICE: So sorry. I'm grateful to Your Honour.

19 Q. Could you read out the previous sentence, "U vremenu od..." et

20 cetera.

21 A. You asked for the second paragraph, which is why I read it.

22 "In the period from the 25th to the 28th of March 1999, I

23 participated with a rifle platoon in blocking off and searching the

24 terrain and destroying Siptar terrorist forces on the axis of the villages

25 of Bela Crkva, Celine, Randubrava, Donje Retimlje, Neprebiste."

1 Q. Does the term used there for rifle platoon describe a platoon

2 that's going to be shooting or does it describe simply the way the platoon

3 is armed?

4 A. That describes the kind of weapons they had. There are artillery

5 platoons, mortar platoons, depending on the kind of unit they're in and

6 the kind of weapons they have. In an infantry company and a motorised

7 company, there are rifle platoons and there used to be hand-held rocket

8 launcher platoon, and so on and so forth.

9 Q. You describe -- not you, he describes setting out from Zub at

10 about 0130, leaving the village of Zrze and waiting by the silo and

11 arriving at about 0500. So again, everybody arrives at Bela Crkva

12 together.

13 And the last statement we have is from Zivkovic at tab 366. I

14 should have said the previous one also said he saw no civilians. And then

15 halfway down the third paragraph, which is the substantial paragraph, he

16 says this: "We set out at around 0130 on the 25th ... Outside the

17 village of Bela Crkva we waited for our unit to pass, headed for Prizren

18 towards Orahovac. I received information from the -- that the PJP had

19 already entered the village of Bela Crkva and that there were no STS in

20 the village."

21 Well, that's different from the intelligence you set out in your

22 statement. You say it was the local police at the roadblock; is that

23 right?

24 A. That's not different. It's exactly the same as what I said.

25 Q. Very well.

1 A. It's exactly the same. He says that he received information that

2 there were no Siptar terrorist forces, and I said the same thing, that all

3 our information and intelligence told us that there were no terrorist

4 forces over there.

5 Q. Now, -- and then he's -- he explains they drove through at 5.00

6 and 6.00, "set up our positions at the assigned blockade. There was no

7 fighting, and I did not see any residents." And then he says: "In

8 accordance with my assignment..." and this translator has interpreted the

9 same word as combing the terrain, but it's the same word, I think, and so

10 on.

11 So if we look at this collection of statements, they have all

12 parts of the relevant units arriving at Bela Crkva at the same time, do

13 they not?

14 A. Well, we can see that they arrived between 5.00 and 5.30.

15 Q. And is the reason that they all arrive there, contrary to what

16 you've told us, that this was an operation to attack there, come what may?

17 A. Well, what you're saying now has absolutely nothing to do with

18 what I said a moment ago. All these statements are by people from the

19 same unit. It's the same unit. It is combat unit 2 coming from

20 Djakovica. But what they say here is this: They say that in some of the

21 tabs that you mentioned here that they set out at such-and-such a time,

22 but that because of the danger of bombing they drove with wartime lights.

23 You know what that means: They were moving slowly, with distance between

24 each of the units.

25 Q. Very well. We know that you have with you and have produced no

1 documents, written documents, coming from those days from your subordinate

2 units or from yourself setting out what happened, apart from the war

3 diary.

4 May we remind the Judges by having it placed on the overhead

5 projector what that shows.

6 A. Mr. Nice. Mr. Nice, I don't want it to seem as if what you said

7 was true. It does not correspond to the truth, because I would like to

8 turn you back once again to the tab and tell you that there are four

9 relevant documents here that we're dealing with, four relevant documents,

10 beginning with tab 356 --

11 Q. We looked at those --

12 A. -- and concluding with -- yes. Well, if you have you can't then

13 say that there are no relevant documents from the relevant period of time.

14 The key documents from the relevant period of time are tabs 356 to 359

15 inclusive. And you cannot deny that at all or present something different

16 to the Trial Chamber saying that there were just documents that were

17 compiled later on.

18 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... for the 23rd and

19 the 30th. We're now going to look at the only contemporary entry we have,

20 please, with Mr. Nort's assistance, in the document that's described war

21 diary. If you hand it to me, I'll show you exactly what we want to look

22 at.

23 Can I have it, Mr. Nort? Thank you very much. And I'll just show

24 you this is the page. There.

25 Q. This page shows the only entries for the 24th and the 25th. 24th

1 at the top, 25th at the bottom. And then over the page for the rest of

2 the 25th.

3 No reference to Bela Crkva, I think.

4 A. Bela Crkva. Well, from the aspects of performing the overall

5 assignment, Bela Crkva is immaterial, because the assignment is titled

6 "Blockade and breakdown of Siptar terrorist forces in the region of

7 Orahovac, Suva Reka, and Velika Krusa." Bela Crkva is just one of some 20

8 villages which exist in that region, so why should a specific mention be

9 made of Bela Crkva?

10 Q. If the Trial Chamber finds in due course that over 50 people were

11 executed on that occasion in Bela Crkva by Serb forces, there is no

12 document of the 25th of March or even of the 26th, -7th, -8th, or -9th

13 that tells us in detail what your sub-units were doing at the time, is

14 there?

15 A. My sub-units, subordinated units and subordinated commanders,

16 reported to me throughout about the movement of their troops. Therefore,

17 throughout this time when I was there, I can guarantee fully for the

18 conduct and behaviour of my units and of my officers too.

19 MR. NICE: Your Honours, I've gone through that exercise -- oh,

20 there's one other question.

21 Q. The statements that we've looked at show each statement-maker

22 saying for one reason or another there were no civilians there. If, and

23 it's going to be for the Chamber to decide in due course, there were

24 civilians there and they were killed, can you point us to what steps were

25 taken, as revealed in these statements, to identify and safeguard

1 civilians, by reference to these statements?

2 A. What it says in those statements is completely accurate. In the

3 statements, therefore, it says that they never saw any civilians anywhere,

4 which does not mean that those civilians were not perhaps in their houses.

5 But the civilians weren't out on the streets or in the street, and they

6 weren't in the yards either. So they weren't readily visible. They

7 couldn't have been seen.

8 Q. Does any of the statements which all assert that there was simply

9 no civilians there so that anybody who would be there would be, as it

10 were, KLA, I suppose, but does any of the statements reveal what, if

11 anything, was done to safeguard the civilians?

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, yes.

14 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Nice is drawing conclusions that

16 where it says there were no civilians would imply that they were all in

17 the KLA. I really don't understand the logics of that or putting

18 questions in that way. That is not what is being suggested by these

19 statements, that civilians, since they were not there, they were in the

20 KLA.

21 MR. NICE: In which case, if that's the accused's objection, I'll

22 ask the witness this question:

23 Q. Do you take it from these reports of your subordinate officers and

24 from your own expression of opinion that the village was simply empty,

25 completely empty?

1 A. No. I have no knowledge of that nature, and so I cannot claim

2 that. All I can claim is that at the time our units passed through there,

3 and when I passed through there, on the streets and in the yards there

4 were no civilians. They were not seen.

5 Q. In the course of this operation ordered by the Joint Command order

6 of the 23rd and reported on by you on the 30th, what prisoners were taken?

7 A. It says that in tab 369, I think.

8 Q. How many?

9 A. Or 359, I'm not quite sure. Well, take a look, Mr. Nice. It says

10 so there.

11 Q. How many? You were there. You've told us about your memory. How

12 many?

13 A. I'm reading what it says in tab 359. There were no prisoners

14 taken.

15 Q. Thank you. How can it be in a well-ordered operation with your

16 force at full stretch, in cooperation with the MUP, in areas where there

17 were apparently no civilians on site that there were no prisoners taken at

18 all?

19 A. Well, you should have taken a look at the tabs or, rather, the

20 four maps which explain the operations day by day, which means that

21 sometime between the 26th and 27th, during the night, the terrorists

22 pulled out along the axis between the village of Studencani and the

23 village of Dobrodeljane towards Pagarusa, because the combat group 5 and

24 combat group 6 had failed to link up. That means this: One worked from

25 the Suva Reka axis and the other from the Orahovac direction and before

1 they managed to cut through the Suva Reka-Orahovac road, to cut across the

2 road, the bulk of the terrorist forces pulled out with it a part of the

3 inhabitants towards the Dobrodeljane village. Had we managed to close off

4 that circle, there would no doubt have been prisoners too.

5 And now the next point: In some specific moments - this happened

6 in 1998 too - those who threw down their arms, laid down their arms and

7 took off their uniforms under which they had civilian clothing turned into

8 civilians by those acts.

9 Q. And were some of these killed? We know of some. The people

10 referred to escaping to the riverbed in document 359 who had thrown down

11 their arms at the last minute and so on. But how many people were killed

12 altogether, do you say, in those six or seven days between the 23rd and

13 the 30th in your area of operation? How many were killed?

14 A. We're not talking about killed people, not five or six days,

15 because this activity went on intensively from the 25th right up to the

16 and inclusive with the 27th. On the 28th, there was less fighting and

17 about 85 were killed. That is our assessment, that about 85 persons or,

18 rather, terrorists were killed.

19 Q. See, I'm going to suggest to you that these documents you've

20 produced, these statements produced in response to Pavkovic and in

21 organisation with the committee of experts or whatever the expert

22 committee, are prepared or were prepared actively to hide the truth, and

23 that's why we've got these statements and we haven't got supporting

24 documents dated the 24th, the 25th, the 26th, the 27th, the 28th, and the

25 29th, because such documents would, if they still exist, reveal a

1 different story.

2 A. Mr. Nice, those documents exist in your head alone. Here you're

3 being presented with all the relevant documents and you quite simply are

4 looking for something to suit your purposes which does not exist. And

5 this has nothing do with Pavkovic and the commission that you're talking

6 about in the way you're talking about it, which underestimates and

7 undermines the work of some 40 persons of high rank, had quite a different

8 goal. It had as its goal to ensure the relevant documents precisely for

9 this Prosecution. And the people from that commission, when they hear how

10 you are assessing their work, will take a very negative position towards

11 that attitude.

12 Q. When Prime Minister Tadic tied -- wound up that commission, he

13 spoke of the possibility of its having been engaged in illegal activities,

14 didn't he?

15 A. No. He couldn't have concluded anything like that. They're all

16 serious men, professionals. But he interrupted work on finding the

17 relevant documents which was requested by the Prosecution. After that,

18 there was nobody there to work on the documents requested by you.

19 Q. And this commission, apart from being set up by Pavkovic, now

20 indicted, also included, for example, General Gvero, indicted for

21 Srebrenica, didn't it?

22 A. Well, I think General Gvero was just an associate in that

23 commission, because it had several retired generals on it too.

24 MR. NICE: Private session for two minutes, if Your Honours

25 please.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

2 [Private session]

3 (redacted)

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5 [Open session]

6 MR. NICE:

7 Q. The commission was known as the Anti-Hague Lobby, wasn't it, or by

8 such terms?

9 A. That term was probably used by Tadic to justify the disbanding of

10 that commission, and since that commission was let go, everybody only had

11 harm from that.

12 Q. Mr. Tadic now holding the position of?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Which position does he hold now?

15 A. He is now President of Serbia.

16 Q. Thank you. Can we just play one, I think it is, that I want you

17 particularly to consider.

18 [Videotape played]

19 "The Macedonian authorities are overwhelmed but are doing the

20 best they can. Appealing to the outside world for help and anxious about

21 the impact of all of this on their own country. For these Kosovo

22 Albanians, the immediate danger may be over. They have escaped with their

23 lives but little else. Some of have lost relatives and all have lost

24 homes. The question now is where will they go and will they ever be able

25 to return. Nicholas Witchell, BBC News."

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1 MR. NICE:

2 Q. Now, those pictures are just some of the many that show the

3 refugees. You produced some evidence to show people saying that they'd

4 been forced out by the NATO bombing. The truth is, and you know this,

5 Mr. Delic, that you and the police in your area were responsible for

6 driving people out. Am I not right?

7 A. You're absolutely not right. The scenario for the refugees was

8 devised in some other place. I know that these unfortunate people that we

9 can see on these images that suffered great traumas have nothing to do

10 whatsoever with that scenario. However, can we read something that comes

11 from the United Nations and linked to the refugees?

12 MR. NICE: Your Honour --

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Can we do that? Something from

14 NATO, the NATO pact referring to refugees. Direct evidence as to who

15 organised the refugees. Are you ready to hear that, Mr. Nice?

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Go ahead, General.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm sure you all know of Noam

18 Chomsky, the well-known analyst, and this is his book. New Militaristic

19 Humanism, is its title, The Kosovo Lesson. Page 30:

20 "The Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema visited Washington on

21 the 5th of March and cautioned Clinton that should Milosevic not

22 capitulate immediately, the result could be 3 to 400.000 refugees crossing

23 into Albania." And he was afraid that they might cross into Italy too.

24 Clinton addressed the council -- counsellor for security, Sandy Berger,

25 who said that in that case NATO would continue its bombing, with even more

1 terrible consequences. The president of the intelligence committee of the

2 White House, Goss Porter, informed the media and said that our

3 intelligence service is warning us and has been for months and days before

4 the bombing that there will be a true explosion of refugees exceeding a

5 number of 250.000, which was expected even during the course of last

6 year."

7 And then the next paragraph: "Back in 1992, European observers in

8 Macedonia forecast a mass influx of refugees of ethnic Albanians if the

9 conflicts expand to Kosovo," and therefore there are reports by the OSCE

10 to that effect which are to be found or, rather, which are quoted at the

11 end of the book.

12 And then let me just read out something else, what Clark wrote

13 about all this at his meeting with Mrs. Albright, because he had two

14 meetings with her in fact.

15 MR. NICE: Your Honours, I respectfully invite the Court to allow

16 me to press on with questioning as the, as it were, elective answers of

17 the accused -- the witness is one of the reasons why we are taking a long

18 time, but it's up to the Court. And I'm anxious to conclude.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's just a question of truth,

20 Mr. Nice. And the truth, Mr. Nice, cannot be stopped.

21 MR. NICE: Mr. Nort --

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The witness did not understand that

23 you were in fact giving him permission to read out what he wanted to read.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Conclude the reading.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is taken from the book by

1 Mr. Clark. It is page 162. He is talking about Rambouillet and the fact

2 that negotiations in Rambouillet fell through, and he says this created

3 conditions for the beginning of the bombing, says Wesley Clark, on 175,

4 fifth page of his book, Warfare. And on page 162 from that same book, in

5 the summer of 1998, he says, that at a meeting -- he tells Mrs. Albright

6 at a meeting, "We must somehow fit into the situation in Serbia the

7 negotiations there and throw in some democracy into Belgrade, into the

8 discussion there."

9 And then on page 163, Mr. Clark explains to Jim Steinberg, a White

10 House advisor, says that the problem isn't in Kosovo, in fact the problem

11 is in Belgrade. And when Steinberg comments, he says, "Wes, I hear what

12 you're saying but we don't have the levers to convince Milosevic to accept

13 more democracy in Belgrade." And Clark's answer to this is the

14 following: "We must have, Jim. We are considering bombing and we can see

15 we can make some positive steps forward, positive incentives."

16 Now, on the 6th of March, that is to say 18 days before the

17 bombing, Clark explains to Albright the scenario of the NATO strike before

18 any refugees at all happened and before any humanitarian catastrophe

19 happened. That is on page 205 and 206. Albright says: "If we start with

20 the strikes, will the Serbs attack the population?" she says. Clark

21 answers: "Almost certainly they will attack the civilian population. We

22 must expect that they will do so." Albright: "What should we do? How

23 can we prevent their attacks on civilians?" Clark: "We cannot prevent

24 that. Despite our best efforts, the Serbs will attack the civilians and

25 that will be a race between our airstrikes and the harm we do to them and

1 what they can do on the ground themselves. In the long-term, they will be

2 the winners of that race. Therefore, what should we do?" Clark says, "We

3 must strengthen our power. We must give more. We must be stronger than

4 everything that they have but it will not be pleasant."

5 His entire book refutes the subject and conclusion of a

6 humanitarian catastrophe. The portion I read out, although he talks about

7 attacks on civilians, in fact confirms the fact that the army set out at

8 the beginning of the bombing and launched an attack on the bases. And

9 there is another meeting with Albright -- may I have the Court's

10 indulgence?

11 MR. NICE: I must say the Court is allowing the witness --

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: We have heard enough.

13 MR. NICE: -- to decide on the evidence and we -- well, it's

14 matter for the Court.

15 Q. Would you be good enough, please, then in light of what you've

16 said, to take and comment on two excerpts. First from "As Seen, As Told"

17 page 112. I'll read it out to you in English on the screen. And it says

18 -- left-hand side, thank you. "Extortion and harassment on buses and

19 trains and at the border." And this again, Mr. Delic, is not the live

20 witnesses who have come to this Court, although there have been live

21 witnesses who have dealt with this issue as well, this is OSCE's analysis

22 of their evidence.

23 "Expulsion by train or bus provided another opportunity to extort

24 money from Kosovo Albanians, who had to buy tickets at inflated prices and

25 pay in Deutschmarks for the journey out of Kosovo. Payment had to be made

1 to the ticket controller, driver, or accompanying police or VJ, or to a

2 combination of these.

3 "Sometimes Kosovo Albanians were taken off buses and threatened

4 or beaten and had to pay to be allowed to get back on. Others had to pay

5 in order to be allowed simply to pass checkpoints. Sometimes it was also

6 necessary to pay police to cross the border, especially if the internally

7 displaced persons didn't have an identification. One 41-year-old man, who

8 took the train from Pristina to Djeneral Jankovic on the 31st of March,

9 where he got off the train, had like many others to walk along the railway

10 tracks to the border." It deals with him paying 200 Deutschmarks.

11 Then the next paragraph: "The majority of refugee statements

12 indicate that documents, as well as money and valuables, were routinely

13 taken from Kosovo Albanians by police, VJ, or Serbian border police,

14 either en route to the border or at the border, whether with Albania or

15 the former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia. This practice was

16 sufficiently widespread as to constitute a clear pattern. Other refugees

17 left their documents in their houses because they had to leave so suddenly

18 or had them burned..."

19 I'll read you another short passage from another analysis which

20 puts a slightly different interpretation on part of that, but tell me, was

21 there perhaps from your civilian joint command an instruction to kick the

22 Kosovo Albanians out and to keep them out by taking away their

23 identifications?

24 A. As for what you read earlier on I'm not saying that it's not

25 written in that book, but there was no pattern of the kind you described.

1 You mentioned some kind of civilian command too. First of all, that is

2 illogical. There was no civilian command, and a civilian command does not

3 command the army. There was not a single order that would negatively

4 affect the civilian population. Actually, there was a large number of

5 orders seeking the protection of the civilian population and making it

6 possible for them to go where they wanted to.

7 Q. A similar passage from "Under Orders" but with a slightly

8 different interpretation. It needs to be before you for your comment.

9 And again we've had live evidence on this from witnesses, but this is how

10 "Under Orders" puts it. At the bottom of the left hand page: "The

11 widespread confiscation of identity documents and car licence plates by

12 Serbian police and border guards from departing Kosovar Albanian refugees

13 also points to the systematic nature of the expulsions. Hundreds of

14 refugees arrived in Albania spoke of being forced to hand over ID cards,

15 passports, and birth certificates, which were often torn up in front of

16 them, before they were permitted to cross the border. Those who crossed

17 the border by car were given screwdrivers and ordered to remove the

18 licence plates from their vehicles."

19 But then this: "By contrast, refugees who were expelled to

20 Macedonia generally were permitted to retain their documents, even after

21 having them inspected by Serbian police officers. (As noted in the

22 section discussing explanations for the 'ethnic cleansing,' the difference

23 in approach may reflect an expectation that those sent to Albania could be

24 more easily characterised as Albanians from Albania and blocked from

25 returning, whereas -" top of the next page - "Macedonia was unlikely to

1 tolerate the permanent residence of large numbers of Albanians..."

2 Now, your area had borders with both Albania and Macedonia. If

3 the Chamber finds on the evidence available that there was a difference in

4 the conduct of, it says here police but evidence covers both police and

5 military, if it finds that there was a difference in the conduct of those

6 two different borders, can you explain it for us?

7 A. I have already explained that only in one area at one border

8 crossing point this happened, this that you've been describing. I'm not

9 trying to say that in other places other unlawful things did not happen,

10 that is to say that money was taken away and things like that. However,

11 as for the taking away of documents, that took place only in Vrbnica.

12 Whoever went to Montenegro, whoever crossed at Cafa Prusit and whoever

13 went to Macedonia kept their documents. So this was isolated behaviour on

14 the part of a group of irresponsible people. I have already explained

15 this. I saw it myself once when I came with the TV crew to the Vrbnica

16 border crossing, and I informed their chief of that or, rather, I sought

17 an explanation. He was surprised, too, and this activity ceased.

18 This was a very ugly thing, and these journalists who were with me

19 recorded that. However, that was only in that part of the territory. So

20 it cannot be called a pattern. Of course that is unlawful behaviour on

21 the part of border policemen from that particular border crossing point,

22 and of course that was not under my control.

23 Q. Finally, for the purposes of today, can you name the people who

24 wrote the war diary? I don't know if the Court was provided with copies

25 of it. We very helpfully were, as requested, but I don't know if the

1 Court's seen copies of it.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: No, we haven't seen it.

3 MR. NICE: Very well.

4 Q. Can you name the scribes in this book? And you can of course have

5 it before you. Mr. Nort will bring it to you.

6 MR. NICE: Mr. Nort, the red backed -- red-spined document down

7 there. Just hand it to the witness, please.

8 Q. The format of the book is the first few pages are in one format,

9 and then quite rapidly the format changes, and then from a later page it

10 becomes a consistent apparently single hand. Can you name for me, please,

11 the scribes.

12 A. The signatures of all these persons are here. At the beginning it

13 is Major Milomir Jevtic. Then --

14 Q. Major Milomir Jevdic?

15 A. Jevtic. Major Milomir Jevtic. Then Captain First Class Hristo

16 Ivanovski. Then Major Suljok Imre. Then Captain First Class Milivoje

17 Djordjevic. He wrote quite a bit of this. Then Jevtic again. So it's

18 primarily these two persons, Jevtic and Djordjevic. And some sections

19 were written by these other persons I referred to. And yet another

20 officer is here, Major Nikola Guzina.

21 Q. Anybody else?

22 A. That's most of them. I don't know if I omitted someone. I didn't

23 manage to look through all the pages perhaps.

24 Q. There is one last question. If the Chamber finds in due course

25 that 200 bodies from Meja were dug up and transported to Batajnica in

1 Serbia, can you explain why that should have happened?

2 A. First of all, I don't see what I have to do with Meja at all as a

3 territory.

4 Q. Technically outside your area, but I think you had units in the

5 area, didn't you?

6 A. Yes. They were rather close by, but they were at the state

7 border.

8 Q. You've told us a great deal about other places. You've offered

9 opinions about Racak, which is outside your area. My question remains:

10 From all your knowledge of the army and police in your immediate and

11 immediately adjoining area where your troops were indeed working, if 200

12 bodies from Meja were dug up and taken to Batajnica, can you explain why?

13 A. I certainly cannot explain that. I can only say that it is a very

14 strange fact that Batajnica was discovered in 2002. That is something

15 that surprises me. Had it been discovered in 2000 or 2001, it would have

16 been somewhat clearer to me.

17 In Kosovo, bodies are being dug up. Would you like me to show you

18 about a place that you asked me about the other day, Mr. Nice? To show

19 you what a mass grave looks like.

20 Q. I've seen pictures of mass graves in these trials.

21 MR. NICE: Your Honours, with the reservation --

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] But one cemetery -- oh, all right.

23 MR. NICE: With the reservation I made this morning before the

24 witness came in, that's all I wish to ask today.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Nice.

1 Mr. Milosevic, re-examination.

2 Re-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

3 Q. [Interpretation] General, I'm going to put a few questions to you.

4 Not exactly in the same order that Mr. Nice did, but now towards the end

5 he insisted on Bela Crkva a lot, and yesterday we saw a book "As Seen, As

6 Told," and Mr. Nice referred to a great many sources and then quoted an

7 event as it was described in that book.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, could the usher please

9 place this book on the ELMO with the description of the event in Bela

10 Crkva, the one that we had the opportunity of reading yesterday. I

11 haven't got the book.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, but we'll need to find the page.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It is the description of what

14 happened. I think that Mr. Nice said that it's 280, but I am not sure.

15 Is it 278? I wrote it down later.

16 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, for Mr. Nice. Microphone,

17 please for Mr. Nice.

18 MR. NICE: 277, I think. I'll just check it. That's what the

19 aide-memoire would suggest. Yes.

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Nice, before that, mentioned a

21 great many sources, showed footnotes in relation to the description of

22 this event. Can we now read out what it says here? We can only read it

23 from the projector. I haven't got the book.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: What is it you want the witness to read, and to

25 what end?

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I wanted to have something

2 read out, what I remember from yesterday, that their clothes were taken

3 off and then they were put back on and they were taken to the stream and

4 then they were shot at. I've just received the book now. I have to see

5 where this exact passage is.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: The second column there is a passage that begins,

7 "Fifty-five men were separated ..."

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, yes. Yes. I'll omit that.

9 Separated. All of that preceded it.

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. The next paragraph reads as follows: "The men were told [In

12 English] to dress and face the water. With their backs to the police,

13 they were told to walk into the water. They were shoulder to shoulder."

14 [Interpretation] And then it says that they were shot at and that

15 that is where they were executed. So this is what it says here. With

16 their backs to the police, they were told to walk into the water. They

17 were shoulder to shoulder, facing the water. And the police, as it says

18 here, shot and killed them.

19 Mr. Nice even referred to Exhibit 168, a forensic analysis that I

20 received yesterday. I didn't have time to look at all of this, but

21 there's a very short one on page 15, a very brief excerpt concerning Bela

22 Crkva. I'll read it.

23 "[In English] In the Bela Crkva case, from 30/6/99 to 3rd of

24 July, 1999, a British -- British forensic team performed 54 post-mortem

25 examinations concerning 42 identified victims and 12 unidentified

1 victims," et cetera.

2 [Interpretation] And so on, not to read out all of this

3 information, except for the following: [Previous translation continues]

4 ... "[In English] from 1 to 13. According to the forensic experts, the

5 main part of the entry wounds was located to the front side of the trunk."

6 [Interpretation] So the minimum that is referred to here, is it

7 possible, General, what I read out to you from this book that they ordered

8 them to turn their backs to these alleged executors, to kill them, and

9 then according to this forensic finding of an English expert, forensic

10 expert, their wounds are on the front of their bodies?

11 A. Any amateur would know that the entry wounds have to be on the

12 side from where the gunshots came from.

13 Q. All right. So much for that. So much for these assertions

14 contained in "As Seen, As Told."

15 Do you know how information was collected for this book and where

16 this information came from, from whom?

17 A. When you read the book, you see many footnotes, many numbers. The

18 information was collected from Albanians in Albania, Macedonia, from those

19 who had left our country.

20 Q. Now, since Bela Crkva is there -- and both of these documents that

21 I read out that are obviously contradictory are both Mr. Nice's documents,

22 the forensic document and the other one that he quoted yesterday.

23 Mr. Nice insisted that there had to be additional documents about

24 this period concerning Bela Crkva. These are documents in tabs 356 to 359

25 inclusive, four tabs. Are they all from that time? Are they all

1 contemporaneous?

2 A. They're all from that time, absolutely, from the 23rd, when the

3 first order was received, all the way up to the 30th when the analysis was

4 made.

5 Q. General, Mr. Nice mentioned these events, describing them as a

6 campaign for expelling the Albanians. In these documents, can we see any

7 element of anything that was done against civilians?

8 A. On the contrary. In every one of these documents there is a part

9 that refers to the protection of civilians. There was no campaign. The

10 section that I read out from Wesley Clark's book, as a matter of fact

11 confirms what the army did, and that within the span of two weeks the

12 major strongholds of the KLA were broken down.

13 Q. Professor Rakic told me just now that in "The Phoenix of Freedom,"

14 the book that the Albanians wrote, and also that list of KLA members,

15 which is of course incomplete because they didn't manage to include all of

16 their members in that book, they will probably deal with that later, from

17 that point of view I certainly trust them. They will certainly do it

18 later. And it contains dozens of names of KLA heroes. And in annex B or,

19 rather, Schedule B, they are referred to as Albanian civilians who were

20 killed in Bela Crkva. Does that correspond to what you've been saying or

21 to what Mr. Nice has been claiming?

22 A. I have not read that book, but if people appear as civilians on a

23 list of allegedly killed civilians and in another book on another hand

24 they are proclaimed to be KLA heroes, that is self-explanatory.

25 Q. All right, General. Now, please answer the following question: I

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1 assume that this analysis that you made on the 30th includes these days

2 that are referred to in the analysis, that is to say from the 25th to the

3 29th. Is there a single detail in it -- you wrote this analysis on the

4 30th of March. Is there a single detail there that could indicate any

5 activity, not to use the expression "campaign" that Mr. Nice used, that

6 would be aimed against civilians?

7 A. Just like the initial document, the last document, too, the

8 analysis analyses combat actions against the 124th Brigade of the KLA in

9 the area of Retimlje, rather, its command was in the area of Retimlje. So

10 practically this is a professional presentation of operations day-to-day.

11 Q. General, on the first page you have this. What I have quoted here

12 is in your analysis: "The losses of the Serb -- of the Siptar terrorist

13 forces, my assessment is that it's 85."

14 When you say Siptar terrorist forces and their losses, can we ever

15 refer to them as civilians?

16 A. No, no. They are not civilians. They are people with weapons.

17 Q. Any one of them, even if they had weapons, was anyone executed or

18 were they all killed in combat?

19 A. I have never heard of anyone being executed or that anyone could

20 have been executed. In my opinion, it is inconceivable. A terrorist,

21 even a terrorist, any man who discards weapons is no longer a fighter.

22 Q. All right. Excuse me. We are going to draw on this analysis of

23 yours to clarify some other matters which obviously could not have been

24 clear in relation to the Joint Command. Rather, tab 356, that document,

25 it does say joint command, and the number is 455-63. Is that correct,

1 General?

2 A. Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

3 Q. Now, your analysis that refers to that order of the Joint

4 Command --

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. -- it reads as follows -- it is sent to the command of the

7 Pristina Corps.

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. "In accordance with the order of the commander of the 549th

10 Brigade and the order of the Pristina Corps number 455-63." So this order

11 455-63 on which it is written Joint Command, you refer to it as the order

12 of the Pristina Corps command.

13 A. Yes. That's the way I've always referred to it, because I got it

14 from a messenger from the Pristina Corps with other documents.

15 Q. All right. So for you this is not in dispute that this order that

16 you got is from the Pristina Corps command and --

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Just direct us to the particular section in tab

18 356 to which you're referring.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] 356 is the tab that says order of

20 the Joint Command. It says Joint Command in the heading. And the number

21 there is 455-63 in the upper left-hand corner. I hope you can see that.

22 Then in tab 359, in response to that order, it says: "In

23 accordance with the order of the Pristina Corps command, strictly

24 confidential, number 455-63."

25 So General Delic refers to the order of the Pristina Corps command

1 with the same number. That's what I wanted to establish.

2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. Is that the order? Is that an order from the Pristina Corps for

4 you?

5 A. For me there is no doubt that that is an order from the Pristina

6 Corps.

7 Q. All right, General. In this analysis where you talk about all the

8 operations of your unit, you had three soldiers killed and eight wounded,

9 and that is what it says towards the end of the second page.

10 A. Yes. There were killed members of the MUP, but I don't know the

11 exact number. Ranging between three and five, most probably.

12 Q. General, at that time, from the 25th until the 29th, were there

13 any other documents that referred to this operation? You have an order,

14 you have a decision on the map, and you have the analysis. You explained

15 that for every movement of forces you have these three documents. The

16 rules of service and regulations, do they envisage any other documents

17 that were perhaps intentionally omitted here?

18 A. No, Mr. Milosevic. In these binders we have a tab which

19 prescribes what kind of records have to be kept for every combat

20 operation. There is a document here prescribing that it is precisely

21 these three that have to be there. That is to say an order, decision, and

22 analysis.

23 Q. The order is written, the decision is on the map, and finally you

24 have the analysis.

25 A. Yes.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, it's time for the break. We will

2 adjourn for 20 minutes.

3 --- Recess taken at 12.00 p.m.

4 --- On resuming at 12.27 p.m.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, as I indicated, we will be

6 adjourning at a quarter past one, and in order to ensure that we deal with

7 any outstanding administrative matters, we'll stop hearing evidence at ten

8 past.

9 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for Mr. Milosevic, please. The

10 interpreter did not hear.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I said this -- does this mean that I

12 will be able to raise an administrative issue in those five minutes?

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. I'm not encouraging you, but if you wish,

14 then you can.

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. General, let's round off this issue of the Joint Command. Could

18 you please put on the ELMO a document from one of these tabs that you

19 brought along, but it's -- there's a muddle here. It's a diagram showing

20 the chain of command. I assume you will be able to find out what tab

21 number it is because my documents have got mixed up a bit.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could you please put it on the ELMO,

23 and at the same time I ask that the witness be shown this document under

24 number D299, and it's tab 144 MFI. It's only got an identification number

25 because I assume it has not been translated, but the witness will have to

1 have it before him.

2 Very good.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. General, Mr. Nice, when cross-examining you about the Joint

5 Command, said at one point that it was a kind of private club of this

6 accused, and today he asked to whom this coordination body was

7 responsible, this body entitled the Joint Command. I will ask you to look

8 at this document I have just placed before you. It's a record. It's

9 minutes. What does it say here? This is tab 628, this diagram showing

10 the levels of command of the army of Yugoslavia.

11 General, please look at this other document I've just given you.

12 A. I haven't received that document.

13 These are minutes from a meeting of the operative inter-ministry

14 staff for the suppression of terrorism held in Beli Dvor in Belgrade.

15 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not catch the date.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. Would you please look in parallel who was present at this meeting

18 and this diagram showing the levels of command of the army of Yugoslavia.

19 Would you please read out who was present at the meeting or shall I ask

20 questions of you?

21 In this diagram you have the president of the SR Yugoslavia.

22 Above him is the Supreme Defence Council. So at this meeting, the

23 chairperson was Slobodan Milosevic, and present were Milan Milutinovic,

24 the president of the Republic of Serbia; is that correct?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. He was a member of the Supreme Defence Council. Let's go down

2 this diagram. Was the Chief of the General Staff present at the meeting?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Can you find him?

5 A. Momcilo Perisic, Chief of the General Staff.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic and the witness, I sense you're

7 going too fast for the interpreters. Observe a pause between question and

8 answer.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Have you found the Chief of the General Staff?

11 A. Yes. The Chief of the General Staff, here is Colonel General

12 Momcilo Perisic.

13 Q. Very well. So that's the first line of command in this diagram,

14 and they attended the meeting; is that correct?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. The next level is the army level; is that correct?

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Just a minute. Have we got the minute that you're

18 referring to, minute of a meeting?

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, yes. It's Exhibit D299, tab

20 144. It's an exhibit that was produced here with General Stevanovic.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: 299 is not before us at the moment. It's an

22 earlier witness, as you say, Stevanovic, so I certainly don't have my copy

23 here. It's difficult to follow this without having the document.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In that case, we'll put it on the

25 ELMO so you can see what it says, and it can be interpreted by your

1 interpreters, because it has been marked for identification because it has

2 not been translated yet. However, it should have been a long time ago

3 because General Stevanovic testified before this witness.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. So according to the diagram showing the command, here is the

6 president of the republic, the commander of the General Staff, and the

7 commander of the 3rd Army.

8 A. Yes, Dusan Samardzic, colonel.

9 Q. Is that the next level?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Below that level of command, what is the next level of command?

12 A. It's the corps level.

13 Q. Is the corps commander there?

14 A. Lieutenant Colonel General Nebojsa Pavkovic was there.

15 Q. Yes, Pavkovic, Samardzic, Perisic, and I were there?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Is there any interruption here in the chain of command with

18 respect to those attending the meeting?

19 A. This is the full chain of command from the top down to corps

20 level.

21 Q. Down to corps level. Very well. I assume you are familiar with

22 the way the Ministry of the Interior is organised. Would you please take

23 a look and tell us, and we'll start from the bottom this time, from the

24 lowest level. The commander of the MUP staff was General Sreten Lukic in

25 Kosovo?

1 A. Yes. And here he is.

2 Q. And superior to him was the chief of the public security sector,

3 Lieutenant General Djordjevic. Was he present?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. And superior to him was the minister of the interior, Vlatko

6 Stojiljkovic. Was he there?

7 A. Yes, in line 4.

8 Q. And his superior, Milan Milutinovic, the president of the Republic

9 of Serbia, was he present?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Is there a gap in the chain of command here with respect to the

12 police?

13 A. No. Both as regards the police, also everybody from the chain

14 command was here who was competent for the police.

15 Q. Very well. Tell me, now, was it possible as what is being

16 challenged and disputed here is that someone was bypassed in the

17 functioning of this coordination body, which was entitled the Joint

18 Command. Could any of those present have been bypassed?

19 A. All those who were supposed to be present were present. All those

20 who were supposed to be present when important decisions were made.

21 THE INTERPRETER: Mr. Milosevic's microphone is not on.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. It's back on again. It says here: "Opening the meeting, the

24 president of SR Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic informed the members of the

25 operative inter-sector staff for the suppression of terrorism on Kosovo

1 and Metohija with the agenda and the order in which the participants would

2 speak." Generals Pavkovic and Lukic, the president of the council of

3 citizens of the Federal Assembly Milomir Minic, and then General Pavkovic

4 was to put forward the proposals of the Joint Command. After that, the

5 others would speak. And then the -- the general who was present on the

6 territory spoke, General Nebojsa Pavkovic, the commander of the Pristina

7 Corps. And everything that he said is noted down here.

8 After that, on page 7, if you turn to page 7, you can see General

9 Sreten Lukic. On page 8 we see that the president of the council of

10 citizens of the Assembly, Minic, spoke. Further on, Pavkovic spoke again.

11 Afterwards, on page 11, we can see that Perisic took the floor,

12 followed by Milutinovic. Perisic said, among other things, on page 12,

13 the second paragraph from the bottom, "We have to do everything in our

14 power to convince the representatives the international community that we

15 have not caused the crisis in Kosovo and Metohija but that the Albanian

16 terrorists are the cause." That's what he says here.

17 After that, the vice-president or the deputy Prime Minister of the

18 federal government, Sainovic, spoke about the need to find a political

19 solution.

20 And the conclusion is that the Joint Command and the coordination

21 staff should continue operating. And on page 16, the conclusion

22 underlined here is that it is our position that all ethnic communities

23 living in Kosovo and Metohija should have representatives in the

24 government bodies, and Kosovo and Metohija must preserve the ethnic

25 make-up of its population. And then it goes on to say that the

1 conclusions were adopted unanimously. The positions of Generals Pavkovic

2 and Lukic, of the president of the Assembly Minic, were adopted. That the

3 breadth of the border belt should be agreed on in the federal government.

4 General, we have now skimmed through this document briefly.

5 Bearing this document in mind, can one claim that the Joint Command which

6 General Stevanovic described in the same way as you did as a kind of

7 horizontal coordinating body, was it a body used to bypass the chain of

8 command?

9 A. No way, no. I never experienced anything like this on the ground.

10 All the chains of command were functioning according to the law, both in

11 the army and the police.

12 Q. Very well. I hope we've dealt with this now.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, that question was leading. Avoid

14 leading questions.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. Mr. Delic, Mr. Nice said that this Joint Command was a private

17 club of this accused. In view of these minutes, which is a very clear

18 document showing who attended the meeting and what the content of the

19 meeting was, can one accept such a statement?

20 A. Absolutely not.

21 Q. Very well. Let's proceed. Let's move on. At the beginning of

22 his cross-examination, Mr. Nice showed maps starting from tab 430. These

23 are the maps of different sections, as you know, and I will not dwell on

24 this as long as Mr. Nice did. I will just ask the following: These maps

25 were drawn up in 2002, the section maps, and do they contain the same

1 information as the maps from 1999 that you have before you?

2 A. Yes, except that they contain details day by day.

3 Q. Everything that is in these maps of 2002, can it also be seen on

4 the original maps which were contemporaneous, drawn up in 1999?

5 A. Yes. From these additional maps you can see how the task was

6 implemented, the task assigned to the units. And you can see this day by

7 day, hour by hour, with many details.

8 Q. But it's precisely the same tasks -- task as the one defined in

9 1999, or is it different?

10 A. These are not these maps. I have the map here.

11 Q. But the task is the same?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. The task entered into the maps of 1999?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Very well. Thank you. And to go back to this, there was always

16 an order, a decision that was entered into the map, and an analysis?

17 A. Yes, that existed always. If a unit asked that something be

18 solved, then additional documents were issued. The submission of

19 intelligence information, a request by the command that an idea be

20 presented, the approval of the idea, then an order and these three

21 documents.

22 Q. Very well. Mr. Nice dwelt quite long on the issue of opening fire

23 from a tank. General, what can one conclude from the fact that no one in

24 a position lower than yours had the right, as it says in the order we were

25 able to see here, no one in a position lower than yours had the right to

1 order the opening of fire from a tank?

2 A. Only the brigade commander could evaluate whether the target was

3 relevant and to avoid losses among the civilian population or unnecessary

4 destruction of buildings and facilities.

5 Q. So was this a measure of extreme caution in order to prevent

6 unwanted side-effects?

7 A. Yes. I think that's why the brigade commanders almost always had

8 to be out in the field with their unit, because they couldn't have issued

9 such orders from their offices. They had to be present on the ground.

10 They had to be shown something on the ground, and then they had to

11 communicate by radio and only then could they issue such an order.

12 Q. Very well. So was this a measure introduced to avoid unwanted

13 consequences?

14 A. Yes. This was a security measure.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I warned you about leading

16 questions. "So was this a measure introduced to avoid unwanted

17 consequences?" That's clearly leading.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, if an order is issued

19 that no one below the rank or post of brigade commander could open fire,

20 it's clear to everybody that this was a measure designed to avoid errors

21 or unwanted consequences.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: Why ask the question?

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Then why do you ask the question? You don't need

24 the answer.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Very well.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. General, Mr. Nice asked you something about internally displaced

3 persons. To the best of your knowledge, the army of Yugoslavia or members

4 of the Ministry of the Interior, did they displace the Kosovo Albanians?

5 A. You mentioned internally displaced persons. By this I understand

6 people who were within Kosovo and Metohija, who hadn't left. The army and

7 the police never organised, regardless of the ethnic affiliation of these

8 persons, anything like this. Most of the internally displaced persons

9 were Albanians, but there were also many Serbs who in 1998 left all

10 villages which were not safe and went to the towns, and they, too, were

11 internally displaced persons.

12 At the end of 1998, the number of internally displaced persons was

13 reduced, especially after the arrival of the OSCE, except in the Drenica

14 area. There are some data shown here, but I think that this number could

15 not have been greater than 40 or 50.000.

16 Q. Very well. Tell us briefly, what were the causes of the flight of

17 the population from the villages, or this internal displacement as

18 mentioned by Mr. Nice. What were the causes of this?

19 A. I have had occasion to see the population leave villages on many

20 occasions before we arrived in the villages, and it was these -- these

21 inhabitants were always accompanied by the KLA, KLA members.

22 Q. And what about the authorities? Did they take care of the

23 internally displaced persons in your area of responsibility, for example?

24 What can you tell us about that?

25 A. Well, I can tell you about that because I was present quite a

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1 number of times when the stage and operations against the terrorists had

2 been completed, and there were different groups, population groups,

3 sometimes several thousand, 10 to 20.000 people in one place sometimes.

4 And the organs of local self-administration and self-government were

5 involved in this to distribute food. Then you had the medical corps to

6 see to the population before the population set out to return to its

7 villages. And I was present on several occasions when things like this

8 were done.

9 Q. All right. Fine, General. Now, my next question is this, it

10 relates to assertions made by Mr. Nice about the truthfulness of at least

11 certain elements from the K41 witness statements and K32 witness

12 statements. And they were members of your unit were they not, General?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. You explained to us, as far as I can remember, that in those

15 events and in view of the distribution of events, they could have been --

16 the nearest they could have been to you was three kilometres?

17 A. Yes. When we are talking about Jeskovo village. Then you can see

18 on the map where their unit was located and where my unit was located.

19 Q. All right. So you can see that. Right. Now, can the soldiers

20 move around wherever they want when they are deployed somewhere? When

21 they are in combat deployment could they be anywhere close to you or did

22 they have to be in the locations that were prescribed to them?

23 A. No, in combat and combat order there was high combat discipline

24 and each sold soldier was able to move along the axis provided for by the

25 order issued. Otherwise, there could be fatalities caused by friendly

1 fire. So each person had their own position pinpointed in the combat

2 order and deployment of troops.

3 Q. You told us something about the security organs in the brigade,

4 General, did you not. Now, would a security organ in your brigade, for

5 instance, in case you did something unlawful, would they take steps

6 against you?

7 A. Yes. The security organs were independent of the command, even if

8 they were attached to the brigade. There is a separate chain of command,

9 their own security chain of command, and they would report to their

10 superior officer, security officer, about all events taking place in the

11 brigade, including the commander. And they would give -- provide the

12 commander with sufficient information, intelligence, counter-intelligence,

13 and so on and so forth, which could be of use to the commander in his

14 decision-making process.

15 Q. Mr. Nice -- right. You've explained that to us, General. Thank

16 you for that.

17 Now, Mr. Nice asked you a number of questions which had to do with

18 the armed non-Siptar population, and you explained to us that they had the

19 assignment of keeping watch over the village or guarding the village, the

20 villages. Did they ever have any other assignment but to guard their

21 villages?

22 A. No, never. In all these operations and actions, they would never

23 appear because they were otherwise armed with weaker types of weapons, and

24 they were elderly people too.

25 Q. So apart from the tasks they were given to stand watch over their

1 village, they could have no other assignments; is that right?

2 A. That's right. No other assignment, just to stand guard and watch

3 over their village to prevent any terrorists from reaching them and to

4 inflict casualties on them.

5 Q. All right. Thank you. Now, Mr. Nice also mentioned the Dulje

6 pass, and you mentioned it in another context as well yourself, and the

7 fighting in the Mount Caranja [phoen] and Mount Jezerska area. Tell us

8 what the importance of the Dulje pass is, General, please. And what

9 fighting was there in September 1998 with relation to that geographic

10 location that we call Dulje and the Dulje pass?

11 A. The Dulje pass is a very well known pass between Metohija on the

12 one side and Kosovo on the other side. And the Dulje pass from the

13 Metohija side closes off the entrance into the Crnoljevo canyon, river

14 canyon, and it is located here on the map, and its altitude is about 850

15 metres above sea level. I'm not quite sure of the exact altitude, but

16 that's about it. And it was highly important in all wars ever conducted

17 on this territory. And according to an agreement with the OSCE, in that

18 particular locality one of the three units of the army of Yugoslavia was

19 located there. They were given permission to be there outside the border

20 belt, and it was a unit from the 233rd Brigade.

21 Now, as far as the month of September goes, September 1998, and

22 something else that was mentioned, Jezerska Mountain and Mt. Sara, that is

23 where the last, fifth stage of the anti-terrorist operation was conducted

24 pursuant to the plan dating back to July.

25 Q. General, you were asked many questions here about Mr. Ashdown.

1 Now I have one for you, too, or an assumption. Had Mr. Ashdown come close

2 to the MUP units and the police instead of going to the terrorists over

3 there, would he have been able to see everything that was going on in that

4 area around Suva Reka that he referred to? Was there any position or

5 feature from which, or vantage point from which he could see that?

6 A. General Ashdown was a diplomatic representative, and he had the

7 right to come -- or, rather, there were many positions from which that

8 could be seen. I think the best position would have been above Suva Reka

9 itself. Right before you get to Dulje, there's a feature called Birac

10 where the army was too. So from that feature there and vantage point he

11 would be able to follow the goings-on of all this territory down here

12 where the combat operations were unfolding. So that is the Birac feature.

13 Although along the Dulje-Suva Reka road and communication line there are

14 many other points from which that could also be seen and viewed better,

15 and viewed in its entirety, in fact.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Presumably that feature is higher than the

17 location that was given for Mr. Ashdown.

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, yes, considerably higher.

19 Considerably higher. And it is even higher than these villages here. It

20 is not higher than the peaks of the mountains here, the mountain tops, but

21 it does enable someone standing there to see this entire area from that

22 location.

23 Of course, Lord Ashdown wouldn't perhaps be able to come here for

24 his personal security, that is to say where the actual combat and fighting

25 was taking place, but from a reasonable distance of say two or three

1 kilometres to monitor the situation, or five kilometres even, he would be

2 able to. Nobody could prevent him to do that. It was his right.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. At all events, whether he could see all that from the point he was

5 standing at -- could he?

6 A. No. From the point he was standing at, as I was shown here on the

7 map, he was not able to see all that, sometimes because some of the

8 features were absolutely not visible from that point, and for another

9 reason, because the terrain in front of him stopped his angle of vision

10 towards these villages. And because it is a great distance.

11 Q. Thank you, General. Now, individual witnesses who appeared here,

12 and amongst them, if you were able to remember a note, there was an

13 officer of the army of Yugoslavia. His -- he was captain first class, Nik

14 Peraj was his name, and he spoke about paramilitary formations in

15 Metohija. Then he also spoke about a brigade of the army of Republika

16 Srpska which, as he said, with tanks -- with tanks arrived in Serbia.

17 What is your information and opinion about those claims presented by

18 Captain First Class Nik Peraj?

19 MR. NICE: Although I certainly had a lot of questions I wanted to

20 raise, had time been limitless, relating to the evidence and information

21 available from Captain Peraj, in the event I didn't, and it doesn't seem

22 remotely appropriate to raise it now.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, Mr. Nice asked a

24 number of questions about paramilitary formations, and General Delic

25 answered those questions about paramilitary formations on a number of

1 occasions. Now I'm taking specific statements by Mr. Nice's witness who

2 said the same thing that Mr. Nice claims. So I think it is quite

3 legitimate for me to ask questions about claims relating to paramilitary

4 formations, because in the cross-examination Mr. Nice did focus on that

5 topic most especially.

6 [Trial Chamber confers]

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, while it is true that there was

8 cross-examination on paramilitary formations, I think the manner in which

9 you have put the question results in it not being appropriate for

10 re-examination. It should be more -- it should be more specific. And in

11 any event, you're seeking this witness's opinion, and I don't think we'll

12 -- that will take us very far.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I wasn't asking the

14 witness's opinion. It is assumed that General Delic knows full well what

15 happened in his area of responsibility.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: "What is your information and opinion about these

17 claims presented by Captain First Class Nik Peraj?" So his opinion is not

18 helpful.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Mr. Robinson, I will

20 take on board what you said fully.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. So, General, I'm not asking you for your opinion. I'm asking you

23 in view of the fact that you yourself were there and that Djakovica is in

24 your area of responsibility -- is it? Is Djakovica in your area?

25 A. Yes, Djakovica is in my area of responsibility, but the town

1 itself was in the -- or, rather, it was the 52nd Artillery Brigade that

2 was -- of the PVO that was in charge of Djakovica.

3 Q. All right. Now, General, in the Djakovica area was there any

4 paramilitary formation there or any unit of the army of Republika Srpska,

5 as is claimed by Captain First Class Peraj?

6 A. I've already said with respect to the paramilitary formations --

7 I've already given my answer, but the units of the MUP and the units of

8 the army were in my zone, in my area of responsibility. As for the army

9 of Republika Srpska, that is absolutely impossible. And all the people

10 sitting here know that full well, because the border between Republika

11 Srpska and Yugoslavia, on that border crossing you had the forces of SFOR

12 in place, and it was impossible, therefore, for anybody to go in one

13 direction or the other, to cross over in any way.

14 Q. Yes, that's quite clear. I'm just saying -- telling you of all

15 the kinds of things that were claimed here.

16 General, this witness also claimed that in the barracks over there

17 in Kosovo and Metohija, there -- in the Djakovica area there were over 170

18 tanks.

19 A. That is absolutely not true. Just two brigades were located in

20 Metohija, just my brigade in full force and parts of the 125th Brigade

21 from Mitrovica were located in Pec. So my brigade had a total of 31

22 tanks, of which always two to three were undergoing maintenance in Cacak.

23 But let's take it that all the 31 tanks were present and the 125th

24 Motorised Brigade also had 31 tanks. During 1998 in Djakovica, there were

25 three of my own tanks and three of my tanks were in the village of Dusni

1 towards Ponosevac. In the village of Ponosevac there were three tanks

2 from the 125th Brigade, and I think that the other three tanks were

3 somewhere around Junik.

4 Around the end of 1998, I withdrew my tanks to Prizren, and only

5 three tanks were located in the region of Djakovacki HAS or, rather, near

6 the village of Kusnik [phoen], which means that not a single tank, none of

7 my tanks were in Djakovica proper, and the 125th --

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: General, you have answered Mr. Milosevic's

9 question.

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. General, several times during the cross-examination, and I've

12 taken up my notes and we see there is one witness where we can see that

13 he's not telling the truth from these statements, you were explaining to

14 us why the Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija cannot tell the truth. What's

15 the main reason for that?

16 A. Today, now in Kosovo and Metohija, the Albanians cannot tell the

17 truth for one single reason.

18 MR. NICE: I have to say that is an unbelievably sweeping

19 observation. I know we have had it from the witness on his own volition

20 but I don't know whether this Chamber is really going to allow a witness

21 to express such an opinion about a whole ethnic group in a territory in

22 which we're concerned.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

24 [Trial Chamber confers]

25 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Your Honour.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm going to ask the witness to

2 comment on a quotation from this particular document. It is your

3 document, that is to say document addressed to Trial Chamber II, where it

4 says Prosecutor versus Ramush Haradinaj, et al. And on page 8 of that

5 document, it is Prosecution's response to Defence motion on behalf of

6 Ramush Haradinaj for provisional release. Here it is. It's a rather

7 lengthy document written by --

8 MR. NICE: Confidential document. I haven't seen it myself. I

9 don't understand its immediate relevance --

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let's wait and hear.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is what it says, paragraph 25

12 on page 8: "The security situation for witnesses in Kosovo [In English]

13 is fundamentally different from situation faced -- faced by witnesses in

14 other regions of the former Yugoslavia. UNMIK's efforts to re-establish a

15 functional judicial system have been beset by persistent problem

16 associated with the intimidation of witnesses. In some of the most

17 serious cases witnesses have been killed shortly after cooperating with

18 local judicial authorities. In a report entitled 'Kosovo, a review of the

19 criminal justice system,' the Office of Security and Cooperation in Europe

20 conducted a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system in Kosovo.

21 It reported in part intimidation of witnesses has been a recurrent problem

22 in Kosovo for a number of years, which has led to the introduction by

23 UNMIK of witness protection measures. However, over the reporting period

24 OSCE has recorded a number of incidents that indicate a continuing or even

25 growing trend in witness or victim intimidation and the related problem of

1 stress to judicial officials."

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Time for a question now, Mr. Milosevic.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. General, it is mentioned here that some witnesses were even killed

5 "[In English] shortly after cooperating with local judicial authorities."

6 [Interpretation] Killed shortly after cooperating with judicial

7 authorities. And that pertains to Kosovo.

8 So what do you have to say to that? What are the reasons for

9 which these persons whose faces we saw during the examination-in-chief are

10 now changing their testimony?

11 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... is it going to be

12 thought appropriate for us to drag out as a general -- or for general

13 observation on the credibility of Serbs that there have been witnesses who

14 have been interfered with when they've cooperated with the Prosecution in

15 cases where there are Serb witnesses? This really is, in my respectful

16 submission, a valueless exercise.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: In my view, it arises from the cross-examination,

18 and it may serve some purpose. Let us hear the answer and then we'll

19 adjourn.

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] All my knowledge, because I'm still

21 in contact with some Albanians, and as for some Albanians who got killed

22 and were supposed to be witnesses before this Court, anyway, whoever

23 appears before this Tribunal can no longer return to Kosovo and Metohija.

24 Such a person has to bear in mind his family as well, because his family

25 members can also get killed.

1 One of these very important witnesses in the Ramush Haradinaj case

2 would be Colonel Tahir Zemaj who belonged to FARK and who was close to

3 Ibrahim Rugova. He was killed on the 4th of January, 2000 -- I think it

4 was 2004. He had already given a statement to the investigators of the

5 Tribunal stating that he wished to testify against Ramush Haradinaj.

6 Regardless of what Mr. Nice says, I am saying that any Trial

7 Chamber that will be trying any Albanian will have a great difficulty

8 involved in bringing any Albanian witnesses from Kosovo. They would have

9 to make sure that they and their families can safely leave Kosovo without

10 ever returning there again.

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, General.

12 Any -- Mr. Milosevic, as I indicated, we'll just hear

13 administrative matters very quickly. I take it you are not -- you have

14 not concluded your re-examination.

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have not. I have not. Your

16 assumption is correct.

17 In relation to administrative matters, may I just --

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] My request is very specific and very

20 modest: To make it possible for me to see Mr. Vojislav Seselj. Actually,

21 you have allowed that, but due to a variety of technical reasons, and

22 there's no need for me to go into all of that, that time was greatly

23 shortened. He came with a great delay, not to take up more time to

24 explain why, so I could not fully complete the conversation I was supposed

25 to have with him.

1 And I also wish to draw your attention to another thing. I had

2 the possibility of talking to him for 20 hours, but I did not avail myself

3 of that opportunity. Since he will be testifying right after the break,

4 after recess, I should see him at least once or twice before he testifies.

5 So I need you to grant me that.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, if you wish to see Mr. Seselj on

7 another occasion, then make another request to the Registrar.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, that was my assumption, but

9 I'm not sure that that will be granted unless you order it.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: No. You must go to the Registrar first.

11 Mr. Kay.

12 MR. KAY: Yes. Your Honour, it arises, an administrative matter,

13 from the recent filing by the Prosecution on the 18th of July. You've

14 probably received it. It's the application for a limited reopening of the

15 Bosnia and Kosovo components of the Prosecution case. It's quite a

16 weighty amount of work that will have to be done by us in considering

17 this, and I'd ask for our time to be extended from the usual so that we

18 could make a filing by the end of August to get through this particular

19 piece of work.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, that's granted.

21 MR. KAY: Thank you very much.

22 MR. NICE: Your Honour, the only thing I diffidently remind the

23 Court of is the warning to a witness, of course, would have to be effected

24 to him for the duration of the adjournment. I think that's all I need to

25 say.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Before we adjourn, Mr. Delic, we will be

2 going on the summer break, and I give you the usual warning not to discuss

3 your evidence with anybody.

4 We will resume on Wednesday, the 17th of August, at 9.00 a.m.

5 We are adjourned.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Sir, Mr. Robinson, may I say

7 something, please?

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Very quickly, yes.

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I spent 15 days more here than I had

10 planned to originally. I am a manager and co-owner of a company, so my

11 business is suffering on account of this, so could you please have some

12 understanding for the engagements and obligations I have vis-a-vis my

13 company. So then can I get back to you in terms of when I could come back

14 here, please?

15 [Trial Chamber confers]

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: You will have some difficulty returning on the

17 17th?

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, I cannot be sure at this

19 moment, but there may be some problems which could have serious economic

20 consequences for the employees of the company and all the work I'm

21 supposed to finish by the end of this year.

22 [Trial Chamber confers]

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Delic, we'll leave it this way: If you have

24 a difficulty, then get in touch with the associates or with the assigned

25 counsel, and they will make the appropriate filing.

1 We are adjourned.

2 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.22 p.m.,

3 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 17th day

4 of August, 2005, at 9.00 a.m.

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