International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 2664

1 Monday, 6 May 2002

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 2.17 p.m.

5 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please be seated. Good afternoon, everybody.

6 May the case be called, please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon. This is Case Number IT-97-24-T,

8 the Prosecutor versus Milomir Stakic.

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. Then the appearances, please. The

10 Prosecutor. In this case --

11 MR. KOUMJIAN: Nicholas Koumjian, Kapila Waidyaratne, and Ruth

12 Karper, case manager.

13 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: And for the Defence.

14 MR. LUKIC: Good afternoon, Your Honours. Branko Lukic and Mr.

15 John Ostojic for the Defence.

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May I today at the beginning of the fourth week

17 of our hearing, ask Dr. Stakic is there any personal problems, especially

18 in the detention unit, any problems of health or something like that? At

19 the beginning of the hearing, I said that I won't come back each and every

20 day to this issue, but today, let me know. Are there any problems?

21 THE ACCUSED STAKIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, thank you for

22 inquiring. But for the time being, I don't have any problems. And due to

23 that, I did not ask to speak up earlier.

24 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. Please, feel free whenever you

25 regard it as necessary to inform the Bench about problems arising.

Page 2665

1 THE ACCUSED STAKIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Very brief, we have before us still the

3 Prosecution's motion to amend the witness list. It was filed on a

4 confidential basis. Therefore, maybe go for just a minute into private

5 session.

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Page 2669

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5 [Open session]

6 [The witness entered court]

7 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Mr. Muharem Murselovic, can you hear me in a

8 language you understand?

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I do.

10 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please be seated when you have taken the solemn

11 declaration.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

13 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

14 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. Please be seated.

15 WITNESS: MUHAREM MURSELOVIC

16 [Witness answered through interpreter].

17 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: The Office of the Prosecutor may start the

18 examination.

19 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Thank you, Your Honours.

20 Examined by Mr. Waidyaratne:

21 Q. Good afternoon, Witness. Could you please state your full name

22 for the record.

23 A. My name is Muharem Murselovic.

24 Q. Your date of birth?

25 A. 24th of November, 1947.

Page 2670

1 Q. Where were you born?

2 A. I was born in Prijedor.

3 Q. Where were you raised?

4 A. I completed my elementary and secondary schools in Prijedor.

5 Q. What is your ethnicity?

6 A. I'm a Bosniak of Islamic faith.

7 Q. You said that you attended your elementary and secondary schools

8 in Prijedor. Did you specialise in any specific area?

9 A. Yes, I did. After completing my secondary school, I was trained

10 in Opatija at the school for caterers and I completed my degree there.

11 Opatija is currently located in the Republic of Croatia.

12 Q. Did you teach at any school at any time?

13 A. I used to work at the school for catering, because that was my

14 trade, that was my specialty. I was a lecturer there, and I thought

15 subjects in the field of catering.

16 Q. Mr. Murselovic, are you married?

17 A. I was married, and I have two adult children who are married now.

18 Q. Where did you reside before the conflict in 1992?

19 A. I have spent my entire life in Prijedor. I have always worked

20 there. I used to work at a school for a time, and then after that, I was

21 engaged in a private business.

22 Q. What was your place of residence?

23 A. I lived in the centre of Prijedor the entire time, in the main

24 street.

25 Q. Is it number 43, Marsal Tito?

Page 2671

1 A. Yes. Yes, the number was 43. That's correct. Before the war, I

2 lived in Marsal Tito Street, number 43. That's what it used to be called

3 before the war. Now it's called the Street of Peter 1st, the Liberator.

4 The number is still 43.

5 Q. Mr. Murselovic, did you own any restaurants or were you in the

6 business of running restaurants?

7 A. Yes. I have worked in catering my entire life. At the end of

8 1978, I opened a private restaurant that was called Mursel. That was my

9 name, my nickname, in fact. This was how I was known and that's how

10 people normally call me.

11 Q. Where was this restaurant located?

12 A. The restaurant was located in the centre of the town.

13 Q. Could you give a brief description of the restaurant that you had

14 before the war.

15 A. Well, it was a restaurant with some 50 seats. It had one large

16 room and a smaller parlour. And it was mainly frequented by businessmen.

17 It served European dishes in addition to some local specialties. I tried

18 to make it into a decent restaurant. People of various nationalities and

19 people from all over Bosnia and former Yugoslavia used to frequent my

20 restaurant. It was a restaurant that had many patrons, and I was quite

21 busy.

22 Q. Did you also have a snack bar other than the restaurant?

23 A. Yes, I had another establishment. It was a snack bar. And it was

24 quite a different establishment. I served fast food there, hamburgers,

25 pizza, sandwiches and so on, cakes, and well, other food items that are

Page 2672

1 appropriate for a snack bar. This snack bar was also located in downtown,

2 in the pedestrian area in the street called Marsal Tito Street.

3 Q. Mr. Murselovic, before the conflict in Prijedor in 1992, could we

4 say that you were a businessman of good standing, and well established?

5 A. Well, as compared to the others, it was the time of socialist

6 regime, and you could say that I had more than other people. But you

7 couldn't call it -- you can't say that I was particularly well off. The

8 establishments were owned by myself and my family. My late father was

9 involved in a similar business for over 50 years in Prijedor as was my

10 late mother. So I simply continued this family tradition, and perhaps you

11 could say that by owning these two establishments and by owning my own

12 apartment, that I was -- that I was well off as compared to the others.

13 Of course, you couldn't say that I was well off as compared to the

14 current times. Yes, my family and I owned more than other people in the

15 past, yes.

16 Q. Now, Mr. Murselovic, before the conflict in 1992, did you sell the

17 building and your -- the restaurant?

18 A. Yes, I did. I sold one building in which my restaurant Mursel was

19 located, and an apartment -- rather two apartments above the restaurant.

20 That was a move of mine that I can now analyse as a move expressing my

21 desire to build something new, newer and better building. I spent some

22 13, 14 years in that restaurant, and I thought it was better for me to

23 sell it than renovate it. It was quite logical for me to sell it and then

24 perhaps invest in another one. And my thoughts were along these lines,

25 and therefore I sold the entire building together with the restaurant.

Page 2673

1 Q. Mr. Murselovic, you were the owner of the house or the place that

2 you resided before the war? You owned the building?

3 A. Yes. Everything was owned by myself and by my family. Some was

4 owned by my mother, my late mother. Something was owned by my wife. But

5 yes, everything was owned by my family.

6 Q. Did you perform compulsory military service?

7 A. Yes, of course. In the former Yugoslavia I completed my military

8 service in 1969 and 1970. Part of my service I spent in Sisak, and the

9 other in Crpia od Krki [phoen], that is near Zagreb, towards Ljubljana in

10 Slovenia. It is a small town, and I served there for some time. I came

11 back from the army in 1970 having spent there a bit less than one year.

12 Q. Mr. Murselovic, you were a member of a political party under the

13 multiparty system. Am I correct?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Could you tell the name of the party and during what time, what

16 period this was?

17 A. I was a private entrepreneur, an independent private entrepreneur,

18 as we used to call it in those days. And after the multiparty system

19 emerged, there were a number of political parties and we wanted to protect

20 our own interests in that system in which the dominant force was the state

21 capital. We wanted to create a party which would regardless of everything

22 be able to protect the interests of us private entrepreneurs. And

23 therefore, we established the party called the Party of Private

24 Initiative. I was a member of that party. And during those first

25 multiparty elections, I was elected for the first time to the Municipal

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Page 2675

1 Assembly as a delegate of my party, and I became an assemblyman of the

2 Municipal Assembly of Prijedor. That was at the end of 1989 -- sorry, at

3 the end of 1990, this was when the first multiparty elections were held.

4 This was when I became an assemblyman of the Municipal Assembly of

5 Prijedor.

6 Q. Other than becoming a deputy in the Municipal Assembly, did you

7 hold any specific post in your own party?

8 A. Well, I think there might have been a misunderstanding. I was an

9 assemblyman of that party in the Municipal Assembly. And in addition to,

10 that I was an active member of that party, and I was its vice-president on

11 the municipal level. But this is of less importance. I was also at the

12 head of the list of my party, and as I said, I was elected an assemblyman

13 in the Municipal Assembly of Prijedor.

14 Q. Mr. Murselovic, under the multiparty system, what are the other

15 parties which is prominent in Prijedor during that time?

16 A. After these first multiparty elections, the greatest, the largest

17 parties that had their deputies in the Municipal Assembly, in addition to

18 my party which was a small party and had only one assemblyman, so these

19 larger parties were the SDA. That was the largest party. It had 30

20 assemblyman. Then we had Serbian democratic party known as SDS, which had

21 28 assemblymen. And there was also, if I can call it that, former

22 socialist party which had something around 13 assemblymen. And then there

23 was also the party called the Reformist Forces, that was the party of Ante

24 Markovic. It had some 10 assemblymen. There was the HDZ there as well.

25 It was a Croatian party, Croatian democratic party. It had only 2

Page 2676

1 assemblymen.

2 So there was another party. It was called Democratic Socialist

3 Alliance. I think it had 5 assemblymen. There was a total of 90

4 assemblymen in the party, and eight political parties represented there.

5 I'm sorry, 90 assemblymen in the assembly.

6 Q. Now, you described the composition of the Municipal Assembly.

7 Could you very briefly say, the prominent members, specifically in the

8 party of the SDA under the multiparty system?

9 A. Do you mean the names, the individuals who represented that party?

10 Q. Yes, please.

11 A. Well, there was professor Muhamed Cehajic, who was later elected

12 as the president of the Municipal Assembly. He taught in the secondary

13 school. Then there was a man called Music, Ilijas. He was a professor of

14 physics. He taught at another secondary school for economic education.

15 Then, there was also Meho Tursic, who used to be the president of the

16 Municipal Assembly, and later on he was a director of the public

17 accounting office. There was also a man called Talundzic, a man called

18 Sarajlic. And there were a lot of people who represented the top

19 leadership of that party. The chairman of the party was a physician,

20 Mirza Mujadzic. There was a lot of people involved actively in the SDA.

21 There was a man called Nijaz Kapetanovic. There were a lot of people.

22 Q. Do you recall the name of one Mr. Becir Medunjanin?

23 A. Yes, I apologise. I cannot remember all of them. There were so

24 many of them. Becir Medunjanin was a teacher at the elementary school,

25 Rade Kondic in Kozarac. He was married to a woman in Prijedor. He lived

Page 2677

1 in Kozarac. I know his family personally. He had two sons. He and his

2 wife both worked at the school in Kozarac up until those multiparty

3 elections. I knew him superficially as a teacher in that school.

4 Q. Mr. Murselovic, now that you have given the names with regard to

5 the people in the SDA, could you also recall the names of the prominent

6 people in the Serbian party, the SDS during that time.

7 A. In the Serbian democratic party the prominent members were Simo

8 Miskovic who was chairman of the party at that time. Then Srdjo Srdic,

9 then Milomir Stakic. Then Dr. Kovacevic. Slavko Budimir. There was also

10 a large number of people there who were active in that party. There was a

11 man called Timarac, who is deceased now from Omarska. He was also an

12 assemblyman like Srdjo Srdic. There were assemblymen in the parliament of

13 Bosnia and Herzegovina.

14 Q. Now, Mr. Murselovic, you described the composition and the amount

15 of -- the number of members which are selected to the Municipal Assembly.

16 Could you describe whether you knew or whether you were aware of any

17 agreements between the two -- three main parties before the elections?

18 A. Well, it was a public secret that those three parties as we used

19 to call them, three national parties, that represented their own peoples.

20 So by this, I mean the SDA, the SDS, and HDZ. So it was rumoured that an

21 agreement has been signed between them specifying that they will create a

22 coalition, some kind of an informal alliance to divide power among them.

23 This was an agreement before the elections. I think that in the beginning

24 it was honoured in Prijedor as well. The people who held the positions

25 were the people from the HDZ, the SDS, and SDA. And even though the HDZ

Page 2678

1 was a small party that had only two assemblymen, it was a coalition

2 partner in the Municipal Assembly of Prijedor. Together these three

3 parties had 60 out of 90 assemblymen, and the rest of the political

4 parties were the so-called opposition, and they had a total of 30

5 assemblymen among them, and I was one of them, representing a small

6 political party.

7 Q. What was the relationship that your party had with the other three

8 main parties before the election and after the election?

9 A. My political platform, the representatives of my political party,

10 were all entrepreneurs, people representing those who were engaged in some

11 kind of private business activity. Although I have to say that

12 entrepreneurs were represented in other political parties as well, but I,

13 myself, and my political party, believed that we would best be able to

14 protect our interests in a multi-party election. This is why we decided

15 to participate in the elections. Their attitude towards us as a small

16 marginal party in view of the number of our deputies was the same as the

17 attitude towards all other political parties who were in the opposition.

18 We didn't count much, so to speak, and we did not participate in the

19 allocation of functions in the assembly. This was done by these three

20 main political parties.

21 Q. Mr. Murselovic, before we go to another area, could you also tell

22 briefly the -- how the allocations were done after the elections? Who

23 held what post after the elections?

24 A. Well, as I have already said, the SDS and the SDA, together with

25 the HDZ, which had only two assemblymen but was participating in the

Page 2679

1 division of power, because this was their previous agreement, they between

2 themselves agreed to divide and allocate the functions among them. So

3 this allocation of functions in the assembly was agreed upon between them

4 before. They came out with this in the assembly, and that was adopted. I

5 don't know whether between themselves there were frictions regarding this

6 allocation, but the most important position, the president of the

7 municipality, was awarded to the SDA, because that party had the largest

8 number of the assemblymen. And it was logical for that party who had the

9 largest body of voters and the largest number of assemblymen, it was

10 logical for them to be given this position of the president of the

11 municipality. That was quite normal.

12 The position of the vice-president, which was second ranking

13 position, was allocated to the SDS and Milomir Stakic, president of the

14 executive council, as an office that had to coordinate contacts with

15 enterprises, with various departments and divisions of the Municipal

16 Assembly, was given to Dr. Kovacevic, also a member of the SDS. Becir

17 Medunjanin became the secretary of the municipal secretariat for people's

18 defence. This is what this body was called. Therefore, Medunjanin became

19 the secretary of the secretariat. So these most important positions were

20 allocated between these two most important political parties, with HDZ be

21 given some smaller functions so that everybody was happy.

22 And they had this proposal, or rather they came out with this

23 proposal, and if I remember correctly, we voted on it and adopted it and

24 this is how it became implemented.

25 Q. Now, in that previous answer, you said the most important

Page 2680

1 position, the president of the assembly, was given to the person from the

2 SDA, Mr. Cehajic. Could you explain what functions did the president of

3 the Municipal Assembly perform under that multi-party system?

4 A. Well, in that kind of system, I have to say that this was

5 inherited from the previous regime, and unlike what we have today, the

6 president of the municipality was a complete authority. He not only

7 chaired the assembly sessions, but was also superior to everybody else in

8 the municipal administration. Therefore, this person represented also the

9 legislative and the executive power. And this person had power over all

10 secretariats, all departments of the municipality of municipal

11 administration. That person was in charge of hiring and firing employees,

12 Was in charge of the budget, approving, adopting the budget. Therefore,

13 the president of the municipality had a dominant role, and he was assisted

14 in his work as the vice-president of the municipality, who was the

15 president's closest assistant.

16 Q. Further, Mr. Murselovic, did the Municipal Assembly coordinate or

17 cooperate with the police?

18 A. Yes. The then organisation of the police which at that time was

19 known as the Secretariat of the Interior, or SUP, was directly

20 subordinated to the municipality. It was a municipal body just like all

21 secretariats in the Municipal Assembly, but in terms of its professional

22 competences, it was also subordinated to the ministries and had to

23 coordinate its work with the ministry. But at any rate, the secretary of

24 the secretariat of the interior was an important position. And after

25 multi-party elections, Hasan Talundzic was appointed to that office as a

Page 2681

1 prominent member of the SDA. I remember that it was said that that was

2 the first Bosniak who was appointed to that position after the Second

3 World War. He was the first Muslim and Bosniak to be appointed to that

4 office.

5 Q. Now, with the time passing, in approaching 1992, what was the

6 working relationship within the coalition government that was functioning

7 at the time?

8 A. Well, it is generally believed that these three parties were able

9 to find common ground only when it came to bringing down communists. And

10 this is what they did. This is where they were in unison. However, as

11 the time passed, these so-called partners developed many antagonisms, and

12 this was a heavy burden for the work of the municipality. I think that

13 these were simply two political options that were unable to work in

14 harmony. It is impossible to reconcile them.

15 And as the time passed and as we got closer to 1992, these

16 conflicts within the municipality and within the parties in power became

17 more and more evident. And we could say that by the time -- by 1992,

18 nothing functioned properly any more. The assembly sessions were

19 scheduled. However, they were frequently adjourned, and the sessions were

20 interrupted and discontinued because we were unable to adopt decisions and

21 do all the business that is normally within the sphere of Municipal

22 Assembly's responsibilities. It became obvious that there were many

23 disagreements between the SDS and the SDA in many areas.

24 Q. Mr. Murselovic, during this time at the beginning of 1992, do you

25 remember the establishment or proclamation of the Serbian municipality

Page 2682

1 which was formed in Prijedor?

2 A. Yes. At the beginning of 1992, after several interruptions in the

3 work of the Municipal Assembly, there were arguments and the demands in

4 favour of the assembly taking a stance on an issue. And we perhaps might

5 say here that the most important point of friction was that the SDA wanted

6 to pass a resolution about remaining in the federal state of Yugoslavia.

7 But it was not a matter for the municipality to deal with, but there were

8 interruptions and blockings of the work of the assembly. And regular work

9 of the Municipal Assembly simply could not evolve. There were many

10 blockades in the work of the assembly. In early 1992, a Serbian

11 municipality of Prijedor was set up. There were Serbian deputies,

12 deputies of the SDS there, and they proclaimed that part of the assembly

13 which numbered 90 people, they proclaimed them the Municipal Assembly of

14 Prijedor -- Serbian assembly of Prijedor. And this, of course, was an

15 abnormal situation, it was abnormal to ask that this be a Serbian

16 municipality when the municipality counted a larger number of Bosniaks.

17 According to the 1991 census of the 12.000, there were 44 per cent

18 Bosniaks, 42.5 were Serbs, and 5.6 Croats. There were also Yugoslavs and

19 others who pronounced themselves as national minorities, so that the Serb

20 deputies wanted to proclaim the Serbian municipality of Prijedor, which

21 was done officially. And from my point of view, this was funny,

22 ridiculous. It was a mixed municipality. There were not on one side

23 Bosniaks and on the other side Serbs. They were mixed. They were

24 intermingled. There were Bosniak, Serb villages, Croat villages, and to

25 proclaim it a Serb municipality, I think is ridiculous. But this is, in

Page 2683

1 fact, what happened, and at that assembly of the Serb municipality of

2 Prijedor, they proclaimed all leaders in the Prijedor municipality who

3 were in some way necessary, the vice-president, president, secretaries,

4 heads of department, the presidents of the courts -- I apologise. At the

5 Serb municipality of Prijedor which was proclaimed in early 1992, I think

6 it was in February of 1992, the Serb deputies proclaimed that municipality

7 as a Serb municipality, and they appointed all the officials who, true

8 enough, coincided with some of them who were in power at the time.

9 Q. Mr. Murselovic, I would please request you to speak slowly,

10 because the interpretation would be much easier then. And also, do you

11 know as to what post was held by Mr. Stakic in that Serbian municipality?

12 A. Well, he was appointed president of the Serb municipality of

13 Prijedor.

14 Q. Who were the other people who held the prominent posts or

15 positions in that formation?

16 A. Well, the president of the courts, of the judiciary, there was

17 Kreca Mico, president of the executive council remained Dr. Kovacevic

18 who -- then Simo Drljaca was appointed head of the secretariat for

19 internal affairs of the interior. Budimir, Slavko was appointed secretary

20 of the municipal secretariat for defence, and so on. So they appointed

21 parallel bodies.

22 Q. Mr. Murselovic, how did you get to know about this? What was the

23 source or how did you get to know the information about this Serbian --

24 all-Serbian municipality?

25 A. Well, it was in the mass media, in the Kozarski Vjesnik, local

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Page 2685

1 radio stations. This was not concealed. It was not a secret that this

2 was proclaimed as Serb municipality, that people were appointed. So it

3 seemed ridiculous to us, funny.

4 Q. Mr. Murselovic, going to a different area, could you briefly and

5 slowly explain to the Chamber the political situation or the atmosphere in

6 Prijedor in 1991 with the war in Croatia?

7 A. During the second half of 1991, the war in Croatia was in full

8 progress. From Prijedor, Serb soldiers would go to fight. They were

9 recruited -- mobilised by the municipality of Prijedor to go to Croatia

10 and fight. The representatives of the SDA opposed this mobilisation, and

11 the soldiers from the reserve units of the JNA went to the battlefields of

12 Slavonija, to Pakrac, to Lipik, to parts of Croatia. From Prijedor,

13 journalists would also go and accompany them. The battle of the Serb

14 people in Croatia was glorified. And when the soldiers returned in

15 periods of 20 days, there was much shooting. It would seem that there

16 were a lot of weapons. There was shooting going on. The people,

17 citizens -- population was disturbed by this, the Muslims. The Croats

18 were condemned and publicly blamed for not taking part in that war which

19 was considered by them -- the fact that they should not take part in that

20 war.

21 There was also an atmosphere of distrust that pervaded the area.

22 There was fear. There was shooting. There were provocations going on. So

23 it was an uncertain time for all citizens of Prijedor.

24 Q. In brief, what you say is that the understanding or the trust was

25 divide -- was getting lower, and also that there was fear between the

Page 2686

1 major ethnicities in Prijedor?

2 A. The citizens were very much disturbed. Shooting went on

3 throughout the night. If the shooting went on from the trucks, and if

4 weapons were used and carried in the streets, and if shooting went on

5 throughout the night, even heavy weapons were being used, they were

6 positioned in visible areas, and there were large quantities of weapons --

7 Q. Mr. Murselovic, who were the people who were going in the trucks?

8 A. They were Serbs, Serb soldiers, they were the only ones who had

9 weapons. They went to the front lines in Croatia. I simply want to say

10 that the Serb army, the Serbs were armed, the soldiers were armed. There

11 was a lot of shooting, as I said, was going on. Much weapons were brought

12 back from Croatia. And it was rumoured that the greatest concentration of

13 arms was in Bosnia. There was a growing distrust among the peoples.

14 Q. Now, Mr. Murselovic, if I take your mind to the period in 1992

15 before April, what was the political situation that prevailed in Prijedor

16 during that time, if you could state very briefly?

17 A. What do you mean when you say "political situation"? I explained

18 that the assembly had not been functioning.

19 Q. Why do you say that? Why didn't the assembly function?

20 A. Well, the deputies of the SDS were leaving the assembly, and very

21 often, the work of the assembly was blocked. The sessions were convened.

22 The meeting was opened, the quorum was established, and then a question

23 was raised that could not be resolved by the assembly. Given that

24 situation, the deputies of the SDS would abandon the assembly of Prijedor.

25 I remember very well that when the Serb deputies left the assembly, all

Page 2687

1 the others left as well. There were 60 deputies remained out of 90.

2 There was also a situation where we had a quorum and we could work. And

3 Cehajic was chairing the meeting, and we said: "We have to stop work

4 because the SDS is leaving." I got up and said: "We can continue with

5 the work. We have a quorum." But the work of the assembly was

6 interrupted. The SDA wanted to continue work, but the misunderstandings

7 were so great that the result was that work was rendered impossible.

8 Q. During this time before April, what was the function -- did you

9 observe the propaganda which was in the media?

10 A. Well, the propaganda was quite obvious in the sense that the Serbs

11 had to be armed, that they should, at all costs -- that their fate of

12 World War II be prevented, that they should be safeguarded. That they

13 cannot experience the disasters that they experienced in World War II

14 again. It was said that they were killed by the Ustasha, the camps were

15 mentioned where they had suffered. And the remnants of various saints

16 were carried, and there was an atmosphere of preparation and -- in order

17 to avoid the situation occurring, a situation of World War II, the Serbs

18 thought that it was necessary to prepare for war. They didn't want a

19 repetition of the disaster of World War II, 50 years before.

20 This, in fact, was in the Serb press. Belgrade -- papers from

21 Belgrade were read widely. It was said that the Serbs were in danger,

22 that they had to fight for their rights, and this is the way things went.

23 Q. Now, Mr. Murselovic, you're aware that the takeover in Prijedor

24 municipality was on the 30th of April, 1992? Am I correct?

25 A. Yes.

Page 2688

1 Q. Before this, during the time that you spent as a member in the

2 Municipal Assembly, did you see Mr. Stakic and know Mr. Stakic well?

3 A. I met Stakic after the multiparty assembly was set up. He was a

4 young physician. He comes from an area of Omarska, which is quite densely

5 populated settlement in Prijedor. But before 1992, I didn't -- that is to

6 say, until 1990, I didn't know him. Following the multiparty elections

7 and the assembly, I got to know him because he became vice-president of

8 the assembly of Prijedor.

9 Q. Before the takeover on the 30th of April, have you spoken to

10 Mr. Stakic when he held the post of vice-president in the Municipal

11 Assembly, before the takeover?

12 A. Quite sincerely, amongst the deputies, there is a normal

13 communication. I didn't have any specific contacts with Mr. Stakic, but

14 we knew each other. We would greet one another, and he would come to my

15 snack bar for breakfast. I'd see him around town, because he used to be,

16 at the time, vice-president of the municipality in the street where I

17 often went. We knew each other, but we were not in particularly cordial

18 relations. But we knew each other.

19 Q. Mr. Murselovic, now, on the 30th of April, 1992, did you get to

20 know that there had been a change in the power in the municipality of

21 Prijedor?

22 A. On that morning, when I got up, the workers informed me, the

23 workers going to work informed me, that there was a lot of soldiers in the

24 town, more than usual. And various points -- checkpoints were established

25 in town. A worker told me that she had been stopped ten times. "The

Page 2689

1 soldiers were there at the checkpoints, and I could hardly make it to

2 work. I don't know what is going on." I said to her: "Well, we will

3 probably work anyway, open up the restaurant. I suppose someone will come

4 to have some coffee or fruit juice." I didn't take the situation

5 seriously.

6 This was early. This was around 7.00 in the morning. Then I went

7 down. I went to my house in the main pedestrian area, and my restaurant

8 was across from there. And there, I saw many armed soldiers in town. They

9 were carrying guns, weapons. They were acting in a fairly -- there were

10 posters throughout town. They were not acting very respectful. The radio

11 stated that power had been taken over by the SDS, and this is what I saw

12 happening. At first, I was shocked. In the proclamations which were put

13 up throughout the town, posters were, in fact, put up, and the local radio

14 station kept repeating this, that the SDS had taken over power because it

15 could no longer watch the SDA lead the municipality to economic disaster,

16 to further problems. And the SDA could not resolve all those problems,

17 and that is why the SDS took over power to make life better for the

18 population, to improve the economic situation. And this was repeated on

19 the radio and on the various proclamations in town.

20 Then a Crisis Staff was established. This was rather a cynical

21 thing. The SDA itself did not hold power on its own in Prijedor. The SDA

22 had shared power with the SDS. It also had a part in the power of

23 Prijedor. And to say that the SDA alone led the municipality to economic

24 disaster was both ridiculous and cynical.

25 Q. Mr. Murselovic, in that last answer, you mentioned about

Page 2690

1 proclamations and posters. Could you very briefly say what you saw in

2 them and what these proclamations were?

3 A. Well, listen, there was a proclamation issued to the residents of

4 Prijedor. I have to say that ten years have passed since, and I can't

5 remember what it said exactly in this proclamation. But here is the gist

6 of it: That the SDS had taken over power because it was unable to simply

7 watch how the SDA and the Muslims led the municipality into economic

8 disaster, heavy economic losses, and et cetera, et cetera. And it was

9 signed underneath by the Crisis Staff of the Prijedor municipality. It

10 was quite strange for me to see this Crisis Staff mentioned for the first

11 time. It was unusual for me. I have to say that the situation in town

12 was also quite unusual. There were many checkpoints with troops on them,

13 on all high-rise buildings, there were soldiers walking on rooftops. So I

14 saw that the situation was serious, and that this takeover of power,

15 regardless how it was said on the radio constantly that the taken over

16 without a single bullet, it still heralded bad times to me.

17 Q. Mr. Murselovic, you spoke about a Crisis Staff. Did you get to

18 know or was it announced as to who the people who were involved in the

19 Crisis Staff, or who held posts in the Crisis Staff?

20 A. Never officially. Never officially. It was never announced who

21 held positions in the Crisis Staff. However, we knew after the

22 municipality of Prijedor was created, the Serbian municipality of

23 Prijedor, we knew and it was publicly announced that people who held

24 leading positions were in the Crisis Staff. Because this Serb

25 municipality of Prijedor was in a dormant state until the takeover of

Page 2691

1 power. Once the power had been taken over, the president of the

2 municipality or the president of the Crisis Staff was the post awarded to

3 Milomir Stakic. This was not publicly spoken about, but we all knew it.

4 And the names of other people who were involved in it were never publicly

5 announced.

6 Q. Did you -- are you aware as to what happened to the people who

7 held posts in the legally elected government and the other members after

8 the takeover?

9 A. Well, these people remained in town. I think the first day

10 following the takeover was Saturday or Sunday. So, a day or two after the

11 takeover, these people, not knowing any better, went to their offices. And

12 since in front of every institution, every enterprise, there were armed

13 soldiers guarding the entrance, they turned back these people. And Mr.

14 Cehajic was turned back as well. It was circulated for a long time

15 afterwards that Mr. Nedzad Seric was turned back from the Court building.

16 He was the president of the Court and a judge for a number of years. He

17 was a very respected man, because his father, his late father, used to

18 work in the municipal administration as well. He was a very popular man,

19 a prominent man in town. And when they turned him back from the Court

20 building, when he was turned back from the reception of the Court building

21 after he was not allowed to go into his office, people started whispering

22 about Nedzad Seric being turned back. Everybody condemned this, Muslims,

23 Serbs, and Croats alike.

24 Nedzad Seric [Realtime transcript read in error "Ceric"], I see

25 his name is spelled here. It should be S-E-R-I-C. So this was a shock, a

Page 2692

1 total surprise that these people were turned back. And a majority of

2 Croats and Muslims were turned back from their offices. They were sent

3 back home. They were not allowed to enter their offices.

4 Q. Mr. Murselovic, you said that you got to know about the Crisis

5 Staff that was functioning after the takeover in 1992 in April. Who were

6 the people who were in the Crisis Staff according to your information and

7 what is your source?

8 A. I think as far as the main people are concerned, their names were

9 publicly known. The president of the Crisis Staff was Milomir Stakic. The

10 president of the executive council was Dr. Kovacevic. In that Crisis

11 Staff, there was also a man who was the secretary of the secretariat of

12 the interior, which was in fact the police, and that was Simo Drljaca. So

13 the people who were involved in the Serb municipality of Prijedor who had

14 been established two months prior to that were involved in it. So we knew

15 it, as far as we could tell, Slobodan Kuruzovic was a member of the Crisis

16 Staff. He was a teacher before the war, and he spent a lot of time on the

17 front in Croatia and later became the commander of the Territorial

18 Defence. So these were the main members of the Crisis Staff, and it was

19 rumoured that there were some military representatives in the Crisis Staff

20 as well, commander of the garrison, Radmilo Arsic, and somebody called

21 Zeljaja. And these were the people who held the most prominent posts.

22 We simply knew them to be people who were appointed by the Serb

23 municipality of Prijedor to various offices within that municipality.

24 Q. Did you have information as to when this Crisis Staff met or where

25 they met?

Page 2693

1 A. Based on our information, they met at the municipal building. I

2 don't know where else they could have. Because Milomir Stakic was the

3 president of the Crisis Staff, and at the same time, he was president of

4 the municipality.

5 Q. Did you hear any announcements or any proclamations made by the

6 Crisis Staff after the takeover?

7 A. After the takeover, the Crisis Staff frequently made announcements

8 under that name, "the Crisis Staff." They asked the Bosniaks to surrender

9 their weapons. They also asked that the TO posts held by the Bosniak

10 Muslims and villages be turned over as well. They simply issued

11 proclamations through mass media, through radio, and the local papers.

12 Q. Now, Mr. Murselovic, did you meet Mr. Milomir Stakic after the

13 takeover? And if you did, where did you meet him?

14 A. Well, at that time, I was one of the residents of the town. All

15 of these developments were quite unusual for me, and I went to inquire as

16 to whether we were going to continue working, whether people would be

17 going back to their offices, and how things are going to develop in

18 general. I was interested about our future. So I call the municipality,

19 and the secretary answered. Her name was Mica. That was her nickname. I

20 believe her last name was Radakovic. And I asked her to get in touch with

21 Dr. Stakic. I simply wanted to hear from the first man of our

22 municipality what was going on. She told me to come the following day.

23 And the following morning, I went there at about 9.30. I went to the

24 municipality. I can't tell you exactly what day it was, but it was -- it

25 might have been 3rd or 4th May, so several days after the takeover.

Page 2694

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Page 2695

1 I went there together with several prominent members of my

2 association, Huso Hadzic was with me, Andrea Pavic. I think there was

3 also the secretary of our association there with us, Mr. Simatovic. Mr.

4 Stakic met with us at about 9.30. I joked a little bit with the

5 secretary, with Mica, and I told her: "Listen, Mica, the presidents here

6 keep changing, but you are constant. You are also here. She was the

7 secretary for Mr. Cehajic before. And during the socialist regime, the

8 president of the municipality was Mirko Pavic, and she was his secretary

9 as well. So I told her: "Well, listen, Mica, the presidents keep coming

10 and going, but you are here always."

11 And so we went in Mr. Stakic's office, and Marko Palic came out of

12 there, and we greeted each other because we knew each other. We went to

13 school together. And when we were in Mr. Stakic's office, I asked him

14 openly: "What is this all about? What is this all about? Are we going

15 to work? Are we going to keep our cafes and catering establishments open?

16 Are we going to have fuel? What do you think is going to happen? Nothing

17 is going to change for the better" and so on. And Mr. Stakic looked at me

18 and said: "Well, we'll see. You seem to be not informed." And then he

19 mentioned Kupres. And then he said he didn't really know how the

20 situation was going to develop. And then he told us he was about to go to

21 Banja Luka at 10.00, and that he was going to find out what was going on.

22 And then he told me to come back and see him upon his return.

23 So we stayed there for some 10 to 15 minutes. I didn't learn

24 anything new. I didn't know what was going to happen. Mr. Stakic told me

25 he was going to go to Banja Luka. He didn't tell me who he was going to

Page 2696

1 see in Banja Luka. He simply said he was going to gather information

2 there. And then he said: "We'll see each other, we'll talk later on, and

3 then I'll tell you about it." However, he never called me. Neither did

4 I. So this is where we left it off. And then things started developing

5 very quickly after that.

6 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Your Honour, may I ask a very simple question

7 from the witness before we take the adjournment.

8 Q. Mr. Murselovic, very briefly, when you went to Mr. Stakic on that

9 day, where did you meet him? Did you meet him in the president's office

10 where Mr. Cehajic was occupying?

11 A. Well, let me tell you: The allocation of offices in the municipal

12 building was always the same. As you entered to the left was the office

13 of the president of the municipality, because it was a large office and it

14 also had a conference room. And to the right was the office of the

15 vice-president and it only had one room in it. Mr. Stakic was already

16 occupying the office to the left which was normally the president's

17 office. And this surprised me. And I simply concluded that he had moved

18 into Mr. Cehajic's office. So a day or two later, after the takeover, he

19 was already occupying that office. And it was unusual to me, because I

20 know that he used to have a different office, an office to the right from

21 the entrance.

22 Q. Thank you.

23 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Your Honour, would this be an appropriate time.

24 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. We adjourn; resume at 4.00 sharp.

25 --- Recess taken at 3.40 p.m.

Page 2697

1 --- On resuming at 4.01 p.m.

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please be seated. And we restart immediately.

3 MR. WAIDYARATNE: May I, Your Honour?

4 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Yes.

5 MR. WAIDYARATNE:

6 Q. Mr. Murselovic, when you -- before the adjournment, you said that

7 you met Mr. Stakic in his office. When you went to the municipal

8 building, were there any armed personnel or soldiers present?

9 A. Well, in front of the building, there would usually be several

10 soldiers, just like in front of all other buildings in town. It wasn't

11 the case just with the municipal building; there were armed soldiers in

12 front of the Court building, the police building, banks, important

13 institutions.

14 Q. Now, with the takeover, what changes did you observe in the

15 municipality of Prijedor?

16 A. You mean in town?

17 Q. Yes.

18 A. Well, there were many soldiers walking around town. They were

19 armed. In front of all buildings, or rather on top of all high-rise

20 buildings in town, there were armed soldiers. One could see them clearly

21 on rooftops. The situation was quite sad. There was a curfew which

22 lasted from 10.00 p.m. until 6.00 a.m. And during the curfew, one could

23 not walk about town. The situation was tense, and I don't know myself,

24 because I didn't walk around town myself. But people were fearful, and it

25 was not a normal situation for our town.

Page 2698

1 Q. Did you know as to who imposed the curfew?

2 A. The Crisis Staff imposed the curfew. It was clearly announced

3 that the Crisis Staff had decided what the hours of the curfew would be,

4 from the evening until the morning hours.

5 Q. Were the people able to get to their places of work? Were they

6 able to move freely?

7 A. Well, during the day, people moved about town. However, they did

8 so fearfully. A vast majority of Bosniaks and Croats were turned back

9 from their work. They were not allowed to enter the premises of their

10 companies. By this, I mean socially owned companies. And the situation

11 as I told you was quite tense. The -- there was the curfew, there was a

12 large number of soldiers around town, on rooftops. A lot of troops were

13 armed. My employees complained that soldiers would come in drunk and

14 leave their weapons on the bar or on tables. So it was a situation where

15 many people felt intimidated, were fearful.

16 Q. Mr. Murselovic, during this time, did you come to know of a

17 situation where people had to take a loyalty oath to the Serb authorities?

18 A. The policemen who were Bosniaks and Croats were required to sign a

19 loyalty oath, confirming their loyalty to the Serb government, the Serb

20 state, as they called it. They had to undertake a written obligation to

21 be loyal and participate in the work of the Serb government. This

22 especially applied to policemen. A vast majority of policemen who were

23 Bosniaks and Croats did not agree to sign this. They were automatically

24 fired from their jobs, and also disarmed.

25 At that time, I have to add that various incidents or various

Page 2699

1 events took place that increased the tension in town. There were several

2 murders that went unresolved. Many instances of revenge took place. There

3 were also cases where people were pulled off buses and killed. A

4 prominent businessman Kutkavic [phoen] was killed in the suburbs. He was

5 pulled off a tractor. Some people were taken off the bus between Prijedor

6 and Bosanska Dubica and killed. And the Crisis Staff was the only contact

7 -- Crisis Staff was the only source of information regarding this. And

8 they explained this as a case where this was a revenge for a soldier that

9 had been killed in town. So the times were very uncertain. There were

10 shootings going on. One couldn't sleep at night from all the shooting

11 that took place, and all of this contributed to the sense of fear among

12 people. So these were uncertain times.

13 Q. Did you observe the soldiers and the police personnel in the

14 Prijedor town acting in coordination or direction of the SDS or the Crisis

15 Staff?

16 A. It was absolutely synchronized and coordinated. The Crisis Staff

17 informed about everything as a Supreme Commander would be. The Crisis

18 Staff coordinated the work of the police, and in some ways the army was

19 also involved.

20 Q. Mr. Murselovic, I would bring your attention to the 22nd of May,

21 1992. Do you recall an incident at Hambarine at a checkpoint?

22 A. Yes, that was on the 21st or 22nd of May. I don't remember

23 exactly. There was an incident at the checkpoint held by Bosniaks, by

24 Muslims. Hambarine, where the incident took place, and six villages or

25 six local communes, which prior to the war were inhabited by over 10.000

Page 2700

1 Bosniaks, organised their own Territorial Defence. And in some ways, they

2 tried to protect their own villages. They did not leave their villages;

3 they remained in Hambarine. And at one checkpoint, which was on the road

4 to Ljubija, another settlement, there was an incident where there was some

5 shooting as a result of which one Serb soldier was killed.

6 This incident, I think, took place on the 22nd of May, and the

7 Crisis Staff addressed the population regarding this, requiring all of

8 those who participated in that incident to surrender themselves. They

9 mentioned a name of some commander in Hambarine, some Aliskovic, yes

10 Aliskovic. Therefore, the Crisis Staff wanted him to surrender himself to

11 the Serb authorities. They believed him to be personally responsible for

12 the death of this Serb soldier.

13 Naturally, the Bosniaks refused to surrender, and the Crisis Staff

14 issued an ultimatum to surrender all weapons and to have those soldiers,

15 as they called them, surrender to the Serb authorities. So this was what

16 the ultimatum was all about. This ultimatum was broadcast throughout the

17 entire day on the 22nd of May. It was broadcast through the local radio.

18 I have to say that for a long time prior to that, we were unable to listen

19 to any other radio except for that local station. We were unable to watch

20 Belgrade television or Sarajevo or Zagreb television. The only one

21 available to us was the Banja Luka television and the one in Prijedor.

22 Q. You said that there was an ultimatum which was broadcasted. What

23 happened after the ultimatum expired?

24 A. Next day, there was a terrible shelling and bombarding of the

25 village. The shelling, the bombardment from all sorts of weapons, lasted

Page 2701

1 almost the entire day. There were even some tanks that crossed the bridge

2 over the Sana River and moved in the direction of the Hambarine village.

3 The regular forces of the army were also involved so this was terrible.

4 And for the very first time, it was then that we were confronted with the

5 artillery, the artillery was left in villages, in -- where the Serbs

6 lived. So the shelling lasted a long time, and there was much destruction

7 in those villages and severe civilian casualties.

8 Q. Mr. Murselovic, what was clear from this sequence of events, after

9 the Crisis Staff made an ultimatum and when it expired, the attack by the

10 military?

11 A. It was obviously that the Crisis Staff and the army and the

12 police, that they worked in coordination because the ultimatum was issued

13 by the Crisis Staff, and that the -- and the army, with its tanks and

14 heavy artillery, attacked the village. So we knew that all this was very

15 much planned and coordinated.

16 Q. Mr. Murselovic, did you -- were you aware that subsequently, an

17 area which is known as Kozarac was also attacked?

18 A. Well, a few days following the attack on Hambarine, which, to be

19 quite honest, did not meet with any special resistance. There was vast

20 destruction and people saw that their homes were being destroyed and that

21 people were being killed and they were very much in a state of shock. A

22 few days later -- this was, in fact an unselective shelling of homes in

23 the village.

24 A few days later, an ultimatum was issued that Kozarac, too, that

25 the TO of Kozarac, should also surrender its weapons. I must say that

Page 2702

1 Kozarac is in a different area of the town from Hambarine. 12 kilometres

2 from Prijedor in the direction of Banja Luka. And it is not a village. It

3 is a small town. It used to be a municipality. It is composed of four

4 local communities. And before the war, about 19.000 Bosniaks lived. A

5 very small percentage of others, of Ukranians, and Croats and others lived

6 there, too. But 95 per cent of the population were Bosniaks.

7 And then an ultimatum was issued to Kozarac, according to which

8 Kozarac was to surrender its arms, and that the TO should surrender. The

9 ultimatum was also issued by the Crisis Staff of the municipality of

10 Prijedor. And it was even demanded that the police should disarm. And

11 then terrible shelling ensued, and bombardment with heavy weapons, tanks,

12 cannons of all calibres against Kozarac. This was not done in a selective

13 fashion. From my own apartment, from Prijedor, I could see that from all

14 directions, in the direction of Kozarac, shells were being fired. Firing

15 took place from different spots in the direction of Kozarac. I'm not an

16 expert in military matters, but we nevertheless could see how the rounds

17 flew over us in the direction of Kozarac.

18 In the case of Kozarac, I could also say that the ultimatum was

19 issued both to the police and the TO. The police in Kozarac was basically

20 of Bosniak ethnicity. Unfortunately, the police surrendered at that time,

21 together with the commander, and none of them have been found nor have

22 been exhumed. They apparently were all killed. The commander of the

23 police station was Mahmuljanin. I don't remember his name exactly.

24 Q. Mr. Murselovic, now I would take your attention to a different

25 area. When were you first arrested? And briefly, how did that happen?

Page 2703

1 A. Well, I was arrested the first time on May 23rd. It was a

2 Saturday. I was at home alone. I was watching television.

3 Unfortunately, we could only see the programme -- the Serbian programme of

4 Banja Luka from 7.00. At one moment, the speaker -- the presenter said --

5 the announcer said, when reading out the news: "A group of extremists

6 from Kozarac admitted that the financing of Bosniaks, Muslims, that they

7 were financed by a well-known caterer, someone from the restaurant

8 business in Prijedor. His name was Murselovic. And there was also Dr.

9 Kulenovic mentioned. Someone who I did not know at all. I was truly

10 shocked when these names were mentioned on television. At that very

11 moment, I called the police, the policeman on duty answered. And I said

12 my name. And I said that information was given on the news, on

13 television. "And what is this all about? Can you give me an explanation?

14 This is wrong information. Can you explain it to me?"

15 A policeman by the name of Jankovic answered the phone. I knew

16 him personally. He was a junior policeman. He told me: "I don't know

17 anything about it. Don't you worry." I called him first on phone, and

18 then I went to the premises, to the police building itself. Because it is

19 quite near from my home. It was still daytime. It was 7.00. And I went

20 there, and I said: "What is going on? Please deny the information, the

21 truth of this information. I have nothing to do with this. Don't drag me

22 into things that I have nothing to do with." He told me: "You go home. I

23 know nothing about it. If we need anything, you will find out soon

24 enough".

25 Q. Mr. Murselovic, were you a member of any resistance group at any

Page 2704

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Page 2705

1 time?

2 A. No, I wasn't.

3 Q. Did you ever finance the Kozarac TO or the SDA?

4 A. Well, for five or six months I hadn't been to Kozarac. I didn't

5 even pass through it. I had no special links at the time with Kozarac. I

6 had never financed -- well, I joked on that account. I said that if

7 someone asked some advice from me, I would give it willingly, but I was

8 not in a position to offer money.

9 Q. Mr. Murselovic, after this announcement, you went to the police

10 station and came back. Thereafter, were you arrested immediately and

11 taken to the police?

12 A. Well, half an hour later, I was at home -- perhaps 20 minutes, 40

13 minutes. I don't know exactly. But about half an hour or so had elapsed,

14 and then someone called from the pedestrian street, called my name from

15 the pedestrian street, since my office there and everyone knew I was there

16 at the time. I sit there, watch television, read or write something.

17 Someone called out my name. I opened the window, and I saw two policemen

18 who said that I should prepare, get ready, and come down.

19 Q. Were the policemen in their police uniforms?

20 A. Yes, two policemen. There were two policemen. One of them was

21 Bato Kovacevic. That was his surname. I knew him well. The other one, I

22 didn't know.

23 Q. Was the arrest to the Prijedor police station?

24 A. Yes. Mr. Kovacevic, Bato was his nickname. I don't know what his

25 real name was, we called him Bato Kovacevic, he was a policeman at the

Page 2706

1 Prijedor police station. Through the window, I told them I had been to

2 the police and there was no need to call me. They told me to come down

3 and to follow them.

4 Q. Did you go with them and were you interrogated?

5 A. Yes, I did. They didn't ask me anything then until I reached the

6 police station, the secretariat of the interior. It was a building about

7 a hundred or 150 metres from my apartment. And then they took me to an

8 office in the police building. It was on the second floor. The person

9 who interrogated me was a young investigator. I think his name was

10 Krneta. He asked me: "What do you know about that?" And I told him I

11 know nothing about it. What I learned is what I learned from the news,

12 and that this was a case of wrong information.

13 Q. Did they detain after you?

14 A. They detained me. Krneta, well I told him I have no connection

15 with this. I wanted to go home. They didn't let me go home. I was on

16 the second story in an office there. And I remained there until 12.00,

17 half past 12.00. I was there from 7.00 more or less. I asked to return

18 home. I was sitting on a very uncomfortable chair for three or four

19 hours. They didn't give me anything to drink, not even a glass of water.

20 I asked to go home. I was asking why I was there in the first place. I

21 protested. And they told me that I could -- that I should sleep over at

22 the police station. "Does that mean that I'm under arrest," I asked. And

23 they said: "Yes, something like that."

24 Q. And where did you spend the rest of the time in the police

25 station?

Page 2707

1 A. Well, when I left the office on the second floor, it was number 30

2 or 34. I think the -- I saw that someone else was being brought to the

3 police building. Ilijaz Music, a professor who used to work with me at

4 the school. And we were taken down to a building in the yard. We were

5 closed, shut there. This is a place where people were closed, shut, if

6 they were caught drunk. It had bars, iron bars, pretty high. And there,

7 I saw several people who had come there like me. There was Music and

8 there were several more people whom I knew. I saw Mehmed Tursic, the head

9 of the internal revenues department of Prijedor. I said I saw Music, Dr.

10 Sikora, a young physician, a Croat. And someone called Juso Seric, a

11 tradesman, who is employed in the Naftagas company. And a young man who

12 worked -- who was about 20, 25. He worked at a restaurant where one of my

13 colleagues worked. We were talking. We were wondering why we were there.

14 We were all civilians.

15 After about half an hour, all of a sudden, the doors opened, and

16 the president of the assembly, Muhamed Cehajic, entered. I tried to joke

17 with him, and I said: "We are in good company, high-level company. We

18 have the president with us." And while we were there in this building in

19 the yard, the police were charging, unloading, loading their guns, and

20 they were shooting, firing, and bullets were being fired. And some of

21 them were even fired in the direction of our building, and they kept

22 saying: "These are Ustasha, they should all be killed." So we had to

23 move away from the window. And we spent the night there in that premise.

24 We were standing or sitting. We feared the shooting that took place from

25 the yard.

Page 2708

1 Q. You mentioned a person by the name of Music, Ilijaz Music. Did he

2 hold office in the SDA? And what --

3 A. Yes, he did. He was a member of the top leadership of the SDA.

4 And to tell you the truth, we knew each other. We used to work together

5 previously. I also went to secondary school with one of his brothers. We

6 were the same age. So he was in the top leadership of the SDA, and he was

7 even one of the Bosniak candidates for the president of the municipality.

8 However, within the party primary, Cehajic won more votes, and at least

9 this is what I heard. But at any rate, he was one of the prominent

10 members of the SDA.

11 Q. Do you know what happened to Ilijaz Music thereafter?

12 A. When I was released the following day around 5.00 or 6.00 p.m., I

13 never saw Music after that. So I was released, and I never saw Music

14 afterwards. And the following day, or on Monday, which was the first

15 business day -- the first following business day, I got a call from his

16 brother Dr. Music, who told me he had heard that I had been together with

17 his brother, arrested. So he inquired about his brother, because his

18 brother went missing. And I told him what I knew. I told him that I had

19 seen him, but that I didn't know what happened to him afterwards. I

20 didn't know whether he remained there or was released.

21 And then Dr. Music, the older brother of Ilijaz Music, told me:

22 "I'm going to look for him. I will go to the police and the municipality

23 tomorrow. This is ridiculous. What have they done to my brother?" And

24 later on, I learned that this doctor, in fact, did that, and went missing

25 every since. I never heard -- I never heard from him or saw him ever

Page 2709

1 again.

2 Q. He was a professor, Professor Ilijaz Music. Am I correct?

3 A. Yes, he was a professor of physics.

4 Q. Now, you mentioned the name of Mehmed Tursic. Have you seen him

5 since?

6 A. Well, frankly speaking, yes, I did see him. Later on, when I came

7 to Omarska, and after about some ten days, a bus came in, as usual. It

8 was bringing prisoners to Omarska. And he came in the same group with the

9 president of the Court, Mr. Nedzad Seric. And I saw him leave the bus,

10 and then kept seeing him for several days in the camp compound, because we

11 would see each other when we ran to lunch. However, three or four days

12 later, I didn't see him any more. But I did see him initially when he

13 came to Omarska.

14 Q. Do you know whether he survived the Omarska camp?

15 A. He did not. That's definite. Because later, at the end of 1992,

16 I met with his wife in Zagreb. She left for Sweden in a convoy from

17 Zagreb. She left at the end of 1992 or later on. And then I met her when

18 she came to Prijedor in 1998 and 1999. And at that time, she told me that

19 Mehmed Tursic on the 23rd of May was arrested, and then released. And

20 then arrested again and taken to Omarska, and then she lost trace of him.

21 So he wasn't seen from -- he wasn't seen later on, and it is certain that

22 he had been killed in Omarska.

23 Q. Very quickly, Mr. Mehmed Tursic, what position did he hold in the

24 SDA, if you know?

25 A. I don't know what was his position in the organisational structure

Page 2710

1 of the SDA. But the SDA appointed him as the director of the internal

2 revenue agency.

3 Q. The two people whom you mentioned Mehmed Tursic and Ilijaz Music,

4 to what ethnicity did they belong to, if you know?

5 A. They were Bosniaks. Bosniaks and Muslims.

6 Q. You mentioned about another person, Dr. Sikora. A medical doctor.

7 Do you know what happened to him?

8 A. Well, let me tell you about him. He was a young physician. I

9 knew him very well because he frequented my restaurant quite often. He

10 was very open and social and friendly. I never saw him subsequent to that

11 arrest, the one that took place on the 23rd of May. And the following

12 day, when I was released, his mother came to me, because the rumour had

13 circulated that we both had been arrested. So his mother came to me to

14 inquire about her son. I couldn't tell her anything because I didn't know

15 anything. I told her that I had been released and that he probably

16 remained there. And then I took her in my car to where she lived near the

17 hospital in Urija. I never saw his mother afterwards.

18 I met his father, because he was in Omarska camp as well, and I

19 used to speak to him there often. He was an elderly man, some 75 or 76

20 years of age. He went to Omarska and Manjaca, and later on he was

21 released and I don't know what happened to him afterwards. But their son,

22 Zeljko Sikora, I never saw him again.

23 Q. And you mentioned another person, Muhamed Cehajic. This was on

24 the 23rd of May, 1992, when you saw him in the cell in the SUP building.

25 Did you see him thereafter?

Page 2711

1 A. When I was arrested for the second time, I saw him in Omarska on

2 the 30th of May. So seven days later. He was in Omarska in the same room

3 where I was. When we came to Omarska in the evening hours of the 30th,

4 this is when I was arrested for the second time, I saw him sitting on the

5 tile floor, and he had a beard. He was unshaven, and I simply could not

6 comprehend that he had been sleeping for seven days on a tile floor.

7 Q. Do you know what happened to him thereafter?

8 A. Since we were in the same room, I saw him there a lot. I spoke to

9 him a lot as well. He stayed with us in that room for some time, and then

10 he went to Banja Luka for some questioning. He even showed me some kind

11 of a draft indictment charging him for something. He spent some 10 or 15

12 days in Banja Luka at the most. And afterwards, he came back to our room.

13 He said that it wasn't bad for him in Banja Luka. They gave him enough

14 food, cigarettes. He was a passionate smoker. And he was very pleased

15 with the treatment he had received in Banja Luka. So he stayed with us

16 for some time in a situation where there were 700 of us in one large room.

17 Later on, he was taken out and I never saw him again.

18 Q. You spoke about Dr. Sikora. Do you know to what -- what ethnicity

19 he belonged to?

20 A. Zeljko Sikora was a Croat. He was a Catholic.

21 Q. Mr. Murselovic, you said that you were released the next day.

22 Could you explain very briefly as to how it happened.

23 A. When they brought me back from that small cell where we had spent

24 the night, back to that inspector who was called Krneta, on the 24th of

25 May in the morning, he, who was a young man, told me that he was married

Page 2712

1 to a Muslim woman and had a child with her. I knew his father. I had

2 worked with him many years ago, 20 to 30 years ago in a national park.

3 His father was a forester. And I managed to establish rapport with him.

4 And at one point, he told me: "Listen, Murselovic, the Crisis Staff had

5 denied the information that it was announced over -- there was announced

6 on television regarding you." And I was extremely pleased to hear that,

7 and I asked him: "Well, why don't you let me go, then?" He said: "Well,

8 I can't do that, but we'll see what's going to happen to you."

9 And then I remained in that office until 4.00 or 5.00 p.m. Some

10 policemen came then, Mejakic came, Drago. They even gave me some food.

11 They treated me fairly decently. And then they took me to see Ranko,

12 Baja. His last name was Mijic. He was the head of the Criminal

13 Investigation Department in the police. I knew him. He was a bit younger

14 than me, maybe some ten years. So I told him: "Baja, what's going on?

15 Why was I arrested?" And he told me: "You will be released." And I

16 said: "Why am I here to begin with?" And he said: "It's fine. You are

17 going to leave this place." And then he asked me if I had any intention

18 of leaving town, and he -- he wanted to know whether I would remain in

19 Prijedor, in case they needed something, and I told him even if I wanted

20 to leave Prijedor I would be unable to because the town is completely

21 blocked and a bird couldn't leave it unseen. I told him that my family

22 was in Belgrade, having left town some five or six days prior to that.

23 And I told him that I perhaps might go to Belgrade myself. And he said:

24 "Okay, we'll let you go this time. However, you may not leave Prijedor.

25 You have to remain within our reach."

Page 2713

1 And I was released at around 5.00 or 6.00 p.m.

2 Q. Mr. Murselovic, you said that Krneta, the officer who had spoke to

3 you before you spoke to Mijic, said that the Crisis Staff had denied the

4 information. Did he say from whom he had got the news?

5 A. I have no idea. He simply told me that this is what the Crisis

6 Staff had said. He said that that information regarding me had been

7 denied, and that that was a positive move. He didn't tell me anything

8 else, and that was quite enough for me.

9 Q. Then you spoke about a person by the name of Baja, or Baja is a

10 nickname and his family name is Mijic. He was a police officer attached

11 to the Prijedor police station?

12 A. Yes, that's right. He was the head of the Criminal Investigation

13 Department. And he was in charge of all these investigators and

14 inspectors.

15 Q. Did you see him thereafter when you were detained in the Omarska

16 camp?

17 A. I saw him come to Omarska, and I even meet him now in Prijedor. I

18 saw him seven days ago in Prijedor.

19 Q. Mr. Murselovic, my question was the time you spent in Omarska

20 during your detention, did you see Mr. Mijic come into the Omarska camp?

21 A. I did.

22 Q. Did you know for what purpose he was there?

23 A. Well, all prisoners who had been brought to Omarska had to go

24 through some interrogation, through some questioning. And he was sort of

25 in charge, and I suppose since he was the head of that department, all of

Page 2714

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Page 2715

1 these investigators, inspectors, were subordinated to him. There were

2 many investigators there who came daily on a bus in the morning. And they

3 used to investigate prisoners. This is how we called it. And I was

4 interrogated as well.

5 Q. Thank you.

6 Were you again arrested on the 30th of May, 1992?

7 A. That's right. The police arrested me again on the 30th of May, in

8 the morning around 11.00 or 12.00. They banged on my door. A neighbour

9 of mine in a military uniform, Ranko Vujasinovic, a young man, banged on

10 my door. He was wearing a police uniform. And he told me: "Well, it's

11 quite unsafe here. There's some shooting going on, and why don't you go

12 across the road to the Hotel Balkan." There were several other policemen

13 with him, and all of us, all of my neighbours, Serbs and Bosniaks, there

14 were elderly people there, we all went across to the Balkan Hotel, and we

15 sat in a cafe there, for at least three to four hours.

16 Prior to that, they asked me whether I had any weapons, whether I

17 had a pistol and so on. I told them I had a pistol and a license to carry

18 it. They asked me to surrender it to them. I went back to my apartment,

19 took my pistol, my license, and turned it over to this neighbour of mine,

20 Ranko Vujasinovic.

21 Q. So you handed over the pistol and the license to the person who

22 came and asked you to come out of the house?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. And what uniform did he -- was he wearing?

25 A. They were wearing police uniforms.

Page 2716

1 Q. Did you know whether they were policemen? Was he a policeman?

2 A. He wasn't a professional policeman. They were reserve policemen.

3 Q. Now, you said that you and there were others taken to the Hotel

4 Balkan. Who were the others there at the hotel?

5 A. There were lots of people from my neighbourhood there. Many of my

6 neighbours were there. Many people I knew were there. They were brought

7 from all parts of the town. And we sat there in the hotel not knowing why

8 we were there. We heard that there was much shooting going on, and we

9 were told that we should stay there because it was a safer place.

10 Q. Then what happened thereafter? Were you taken anywhere?

11 A. Then they said that the Serbs should remain, and that the Croats

12 and Muslims should separate to another side, and males under 60, and that

13 we should line up. And when these groups separated, we were ordered to

14 leave the hotel. There were some buses waiting. They were waiting

15 before, even before. And we were taken into those buses. Of the people I

16 knew, there were quite a number of them. And I remember Sefik Terzic,

17 Kiki, who was a barber. Asef Kapetanovic, who was in the restaurant

18 business. There were not very many of us in the bus. About 20, maximum

19 25 people in the bus.

20 Q. [Previous translation continues]... when they were ordered to get

21 into the bus?

22 A. The young policeman, the reserve policeman, by the name of

23 Vujasinovic, Kiki Terzic, the barber tried to ask a question to find out

24 where we were going because he used to know that person. He was on

25 friendly relations with his parents, with his father, Sveto, and the

Page 2717

1 barber had a barber shop nearby. This was all in the centre of the town.

2 And this young man used to go to the barber shop frequently with his

3 parents. And the barber used to know him quite well. Well, this young

4 policeman kicked this older man and told the driver: "Drive this shit."

5 Q. Were you beaten at this instance?

6 A. Well, no one beat me then. But when we started moving, we

7 actually started from the Balkan Hotel to the Mose Pijade Street, and the

8 post office, and then we turned right to the post office and the police

9 station. On the Zebra Crossing [phoen] which separates the municipality

10 and the police, the bus stopped. And the policeman, who entered the bus

11 with us and who was armed and whom I knew quite well, I forgot his name.

12 It may have been Grahovac, I'm not sure. I knew him nevertheless. I

13 asked him: "Where are you taking us? Why are we in the bus? Where are

14 you driving us?" And he shrugged his shoulders and said:"I don't know".

15 When the bus stopped, I asked him can I go out and go to the police

16 station and see what is going on? Why are you taking us? Why have you

17 arrested us? "Well, if you want, you can go out," he told me. Is there a

18 commander there? Is Drljaca there? Is Jankovic there? Who are these

19 people? Why are you argue us? Where are you taking us? I found this to

20 be strange. There were older people there, civilians, businessmen.

21 It was quite unusual, abnormal. Well, I left -- the policeman let

22 me go off the bus. I went in the direction of the police station to find

23 out what was going on, to protest, simply. And facing me was a soldier

24 who was coming in my direction. I think that he had some military

25 insignia. And he asked me where I was going. "Sir, I do not know you," I

Page 2718

1 told him. I see that people are being arrested. They are being taken

2 somewhere, and I don't know what is going on. I wanted to ask the

3 commander what was going on and why we were being taken. He didn't know

4 me. He was not from Prijedor. Had he been from Prijedor, he would have

5 known me. He asked me what my name was. When I said "Muharem

6 Murselovic," the person was amazed. "Well, you are those who are

7 slaughtering Serb children. Go back." He kicked me in the behind, and I

8 jumped into the bus. And then he got on to the bus with me, and he said:

9 "You are the ones who want to slaughter our Serb children. Lie down," he

10 told me. And then we all laid down in the bus.

11 Q. Mr. Murselovic, did you observe as to the buses, the buses which

12 were used? From where did these buses come from? Were they Autotransport

13 buses?

14 A. They were state-owned buses, owned by the state company

15 Autotransport. Some had names. These were usually transport lines in the

16 city.

17 Q. City of Prijedor?

18 A. Yes, the city of Prijedor.

19 Q. Did anybody accompany the people, the people who were in the bus?

20 Were there armed guards?

21 A. In that bus, in my bus, there was an armed policeman, not a

22 soldier, an armed policeman who stood next to the bus driver, near the

23 entrance to the bus. And he kept us there. We were lying face down in

24 the bus, and when we had moved away from the town, then he felt sorry for

25 us, I suppose, and he told us to sit down.

Page 2719

1 Q. Now, where did the bus ultimately -- where did the buses go to?

2 A. Well, all the buses headed for the Partizanska Street. It's in

3 the direction of the village of Gomjenica. When we got up and sat down,

4 we saw that we were heading towards Gomjenica. And we drove for about

5 half an hour. And then we went to Sanicani -- Tomasica. And then we

6 reach the Omarska area, because Omarska is between Prijedor and Banja

7 Luka. But we entered the area from the other direction, the mine. I had

8 never been to that mine before. I didn't know it. I had no reason to go

9 there before. It was an iron ore, the Ljubija iron ore in the Omarska

10 part, the Tomasica part.

11 Q. Now, this was the 30th of May, 1992. How long did you stay in

12 Omarska?

13 A. Well, from May 30th, I was in Omarska. We saw that it was a camp,

14 that there were guards there. And that lots of things were happening

15 there. I stayed there until August 6th, 1992.

16 Q. Now, Mr. Murselovic, coming to the Omarska camp and spending

17 almost more than two months in the camp, could you briefly state the

18 specific areas that you were detained in the camp? The names of these

19 places, as popularly known.

20 A. Well, I spent about 70 days in the camp. And the room where I was

21 put, it was called Mujo's room. It was behind the restaurant. It is the

22 place where the wardrobe used to be, the cupboards were pushed to one

23 side. And the room -- well, I was practically all the time in that room

24 with the exception of a few days when I was taken to an area called pista.

25 Q. Mr. Murselovic, could you describe the Mujo's room to the Chamber,

Page 2720

1 as to how the dimension of the room.

2 A. That room, well, you entered it from the side. Well, its

3 dimensions were 15 by 12, more or less. 12 in width; 15 metres in length.

4 Q. When you were first to the Mujo's room, on the 30th of May, 1992,

5 how many people were there?

6 A. At the time, in that room, well, there were not very many people

7 there. Ten, 15 people maximum. Very few people. And here, I met Mr.

8 Cehajic, president of the assembly.

9 Q. And approximately how many people would you estimate would have

10 been there in that room?

11 A. Well, it varied between 200, 300, up to 600 or 700. We were in

12 rows, like sardines. Some people were being transferred there. But on

13 the average, there were about 500 people were there.

14 Q. And were the -- did you know the ethnicity of these people who

15 were detained in that room?

16 A. Well, most of the people were familiar to me. They were for the

17 most part Bosniaks, Muslims. But there was a fair number of Croats, too.

18 But a lesser number than the Bosniaks.

19 Q. Did you see a person by the name of Stipo Sosic in that room?

20 A. Sosic, yes, he was there, too. He was a Catholic priest from

21 Ljubija. I didn't know him before, but he greeted me and asked me how I

22 was. And the -- he said where his parish was. And then we were

23 frequently in contact. He was detained there, too. There was some other

24 Croats, 5 to 10 per cent of us were Croats. There weren't more. There

25 was a musician I knew, a music professor. His name was Ivica Peretin.

Page 2721

1 There was also a driver and his son. They were also Croats.

2 Q. Did you ask Stipo Sosic as to why he was detained there?

3 A. I had no idea why he was detained. He was detained because he was

4 a Croat. I didn't even know why I was detained, let alone I didn't know

5 why the priest was there.

6 Q. In time passing, what was the condition of the prisoners in Mujo's

7 room?

8 A. Well, the conditions in the camp, in the whole of the camp, were

9 inhuman. We slept on tiles. Who had a piece of cardboard or some paper,

10 well, he was considered to be privileged, not to have to sleep directly on

11 the tiles. Who had a coat would spread out his coat and lay on the coat.

12 Simply, these were not normal conditions in all respects. As regards

13 food, well, we were fed once a day. And 30 of us were crammed together.

14 And in a very brief period of time, we had to run from pista to the

15 kitchen to take the food, which was poured out there, to eat that food

16 very quickly. And even quicker than that, we had to run and return the

17 plate. It was usually spoiled food, beans or potatoes, swimming in

18 something like water. And we were usually beaten on the way out because

19 sometimes, we would spill some water and oil, so that if we slipped, we

20 were met by the people on guard and we were beaten.

21 We drank water from the Banjanica [phoen] River. It was not

22 drinking water. It was industrial water. And many of us suffered from

23 dysentery, from stomach diseases. And many people who refused to eat food

24 were constipated, so they were unable to go to the toilet for as long as

25 30 or 60 days. I didn't go for 30 -- over 30 days. Simply, in our room,

Page 2722

1 well, some of us were set aside, and the excrements were, in fact, all

2 over the place. So all this was swimming there and next to that, were the

3 detainees, sitting crammed together. It was very ugly, very sad.

4 Q. Were you provided with medical assistance?

5 A. No, we were not given any medical care. There were many problems

6 in that some people had chronic diseases like diabetes and so on, and they

7 had to go without medication. Allegedly, there was a doctor in the camp;

8 however, he never saw detainees. And after all the beating we'd received,

9 the only medication we had available were cold compresses that we would

10 put on our body to alleviate the results of all that beating.

11 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Your Honour, would this be a convenient time to

12 stop.

13 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. Let us have a break of half an hour

14 now. That means resume 5.45.

15 --- Recess taken at 5.14 p.m.

16 --- On resuming at 5.52 p.m.

17 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please be seated, and let's continue

18 immediately.

19 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Thank you.

20 Q. Mr. Murselovic, you described the conditions that prevailed in the

21 camp and what you observed during your stay or your detention in the camp.

22 Were you also detained in a place called "garage", during the latter part

23 of your detention?

24 A. Yes, I was. I spent two or three nights locked in there. I

25 slept, and I lived in something that we called a garage. It was a room

Page 2723

1 whose dimensions were 5 by 4 and a half metres, something like that. And

2 there was to the side of the other room where I spent most of my time, the

3 so-called Mujo's room.

4 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Your Honour, may I be permitted to tender an

5 exhibit.

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Yes, please.

7 MR. WAIDYARATNE: From the set of exhibits that was submitted as

8 S15, in the index, it's 9 E, and ERN number 00409596.

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: This would be, then, 15-3. Correct. Thank you.

10 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Thank you.

11 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Objections?

12 Admitted into evidence.

13 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Your Honour, this is a photograph from the model

14 of the Omarska camp.

15 If the photograph could be moved a little bit to the right. I

16 want the photograph -- the Exhibit Number 00409596 on the ELMO.

17 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: 9592 we had already.

18 MR. WAIDYARATNE: I'm told, Your Honour, that this

19 photograph -- the exhibit is S15-2.

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Yes. I saw it. I had the impression we had

21 this before. It's indeed dash 2. We had this already.

22 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Thank you.

23 Q. Witness, would you look at the exhibit which is on the ELMO,

24 please. You said that you were detained first in the room we just called

25 the Mujo's room which is in the restaurant building. On this photo could

Page 2724

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Page 2725

1 you kindly point out the building which you called "the restaurant

2 building" please.

3 A. This was the main entrance here, in this area here, the area

4 that's protruding. And it had -- it was covered by a roof. And then this

5 circular part is the staircase that leads to the first floor. This here

6 was the area that all of us called Mujo's room, this here.

7 Q. Was this the building --

8 A. And then there's an entrance here.

9 Q. Was this the building which was called the, "restaurant building"?

10 A. This is behind the restaurant. The restaurant is right up here in

11 front. This is the restaurant.

12 Q. Then to assist the Chamber, could you also show the place that you

13 referred to as the "garage," the entrance to the garage.

14 A. Right here. This area here.

15 Q. This was the room that you said that it was 4 by 5 metres in size?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Now, there was another place that you referred to in your evidence

18 earlier as the pista.

19 A. Yes. This whole area here, between the hangar, the entrance. So

20 this entire area here we called the "pista." It was all covered in

21 asphalt, and we called it the pista.

22 Q. How would someone enter Mujo's room?

23 A. Yes, you can see the entrance here on this side, right here.

24 Q. What is the white building which is on the edge of the picture?

25 A. This one here?

Page 2726

1 Q. Yes.

2 A. This was called "the white house."

3 Q. Now, you also could see another small building away from the white

4 house. Do you know as to what it was called by the prisoners?

5 A. This one here. Well, this here was the white house, and the other

6 one, I don't know what it was called. Thank God, I never went either to

7 the white house nor to the other one. This other one was a red house or

8 something like that. But I never went there. I never went to the rooms

9 there in 1992. I did not.

10 Q. Mr. Murselovic, what is the big building which is opposite the

11 restaurant building? Do you know as to what the prisoners called this big

12 building?

13 A. Well, this large building was called the hangar. They had

14 workshops there to repair heavy machinery, dampers, and the machinery that

15 they used to load and unload the ore. And they were quite large, so this

16 entire area was called the hangar.

17 Q. Were prisoners detained in the hangar building, too?

18 A. Yes, they were. The prisoners were in this entire area, this one

19 here.

20 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Your Honour, can I have the assistance of the

21 usher to have the exhibit 00409597 be shown to the witness, please.

22 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Is it correct, this is a new one?

23 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Yes, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Then this is 15-3.

25 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Thank you.

Page 2727

1 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: No objections. Admitted into evidence.

2 THE REGISTRAR: I'm sorry, Your Honour. This would be S15-4.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Sorry. There was a mistake. There was an

4 exchange of the pictures, and the former dash 2 remained, of course, dash

5 2, and now we are only with dash 3. The other was not used --

6 MR. WAIDYARATNE: The other was not used. That's right. Thank

7 you.

8 May I proceed, Your Honour?

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please.

10 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Thank you.

11 Q. Now, is this a picture of the restaurant building from the model

12 of the -- Omarska model?

13 A. Yes, it is. This here is the restaurant, as I told you. This is

14 the entrance, and this is the staircase leading to the floor above.

15 Q. Now, do you see the door on the side which also -- which enables

16 someone, anyone to enter the -- anyone to enter the Mujo room?

17 A. Yes, this is right here.

18 Q. And also at the extreme end, could you find out the place where

19 you called -- the place that you called the "garage"?

20 A. Right here.

21 Q. Thank you.

22 Mr. Murselovic, also before we take the photograph away, would you

23 be able to show in the picture where the interrogations were held?

24 A. The interrogations took place up here following the staircase,

25 there was a hallway, and offices on both sides. So this up here were the

Page 2728

1 offices where the interrogations took place. So you would take the

2 staircase, and then once you got up there, there was a hallway, and

3 offices were to the left and to the right.

4 Q. It was in the first floor?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. A person who would enter the restaurant for meals, would you be

7 able to show as to how one would enter the restaurant?

8 A. During the day, in accordance with a predetermined schedule, we

9 would go to have our meal. And that lasted from 9.00 a.m. until 6.00 p.m.

10 we would line up here in this area, and since we were close to the

11 entrance of the Mujo's room, then 30 prisoners would line up and then run

12 through this main entrance to enter the restaurant. This was a

13 self-service restaurant, a typical one. And we had to get our food very

14 quickly, as I told you, the food was bad indeed. We would also take

15 one-eighth or one-quarter of a loaf of bread. We would eat it quickly,

16 take the plates back to where we picked them up originally, and then

17 usually take the same way back, running along it, and then get through the

18 door back to the pista and line up there. This whole process lasted not

19 more than 3 minutes. So lining up, running, getting the plates, getting

20 the food, eating, putting the plates back, and running back.

21 Q. Is it correct if I say that people who would go for the meals from

22 the front door of the restaurant would be in the pista area for some time

23 before they go for the meal?

24 A. Well, yes. We would line up here in groups of 30. And only 30

25 people were allowed to go in for their meal. And this is why this whole

Page 2729

1 process took so long, because there were many of us. So sometimes we

2 would eat at 10.00 in the morning and sometimes at 5.00 p.m. Because only

3 30 people were allowed to line up in a group, and then enter the

4 restaurant and back.

5 Q. Is it correct if I say that you were only given one meal a day?

6 A. Well, yes, there was just one meal a day given to us. It was a

7 bad meal at that. You could hardly call it a meal.

8 Q. Thank you.

9 Now, Mr. Murselovic, when you were detained in the garage, the

10 place that you call the garage, the latter part of your detention in

11 Omarska, who were the people who were with you whom you could recall the

12 names, whom you could recall?

13 A. Well, I can recall a number of names. People's names were called

14 out in accordance with some preselection by the investigators -- or I

15 don't know whom. Dedo Crnalic was with me. Nezir Krak. Sefik, Kiki,

16 Terzic, Dr. Sadikovic. So there were a lot of people. There was even one

17 woman among us. There was some hundred and 50 to 170 people in the garage

18 with us. There was a woman called Hajra there as well. She never left the

19 camp. She must have been camp.

20 Q. I'm sorry, please carry on.

21 A. There were many prominent people. Enes Kapetanovic. It has been

22 ten years, but still I was able to give you names of six, seven, eight

23 people. We were all crammed in that limited space, and this is how we

24 spent our nights.

25 Q. Mr. Murselovic, you mentioned the name of Kapetanovic. Is it Enes

Page 2730

1 or Asef?

2 A. It was Enes Kapetanovic. And he's a relative of Asef Kapetanovic.

3 Asef Kapetanovic was taken out previously, and he was not in the same room

4 with us.

5 Q. You also mentioned about a woman being detained with you by the

6 name of Hajra. Do you recall the family name of this person?

7 A. I think the last name was Hadzic or Hodzic, although I think it

8 was Hadzic Hajra.

9 Q. And you said that she never left the camp. Why do you say that?

10 A. Because immediately after that -- well, there was some 30 to 35

11 female prisoners in the camp. I can't tell you the exact number. But

12 around that. And all of those women, among whom I knew many, there was a

13 lady judge there, Nusreta Sivac. There was a lady called Besirevic

14 Mugbila [Realtime transcript read in error "Basirovic"]. She was an

15 economist. She used to work in a bank. There was an employee of mine

16 there, Avdic Sadija. Then there was Hajra. Then there was Medunjanin.

17 No, it was not Medunjanin. There was a lady, Mahmuljin, Velida who was a

18 teacher. There was Jadranka Cigelj there as well. There were many women

19 that I knew from before there. And a few days prior to that, a bus had

20 arrived with investigators, and these women were taken back to Prijedor.

21 I later learned that they were allegedly taken to Trnopolje or Prijedor.

22 However, three or four women remained, and there was no trace of them

23 thereafter. Hajra was among them.

24 Q. Now, you mentioned a person by the name of Velida Mahmuljin?

25 A. Yes.

Page 2731

1 Q. Have you seen her since the Omarska camp?

2 A. Unfortunately, I never saw her again, but I knew her very well.

3 Q. Did she hold any office or position in the assembly or the SDA?

4 A. She was a deputy of the municipal assembly of Prijedor, and she

5 was there on behalf of the SDA. Otherwise, she was a teacher by

6 profession, and she used to work for some time in Kozarac. Her husband,

7 his name was Suleja Mahmuljin, and he was a dentist by profession. And

8 her family name was Arnautovic, maiden name. And she came from the part

9 of the city called Tukovi.

10 Q. You also mention the name Basirovic as in the transcript. But is

11 it Mugbila Besirovic?

12 A. Yes, Mugbila Besirevic, she used to work in a bank. She was an

13 economist. She came from Cejreci, a local community quite near the town.

14 She was an elderly lady. She was very active in her local community. She

15 was highly respected by the people, and she was one of those who never

16 left the Omarska camp.

17 Q. What you say is that she did not survive the camp, am I correct?

18 A. Absolutely, she did not survive the camp. She never left Omarska

19 with the other colleagues when they were returned to Prijedor after having

20 spent 50 or 60 days there. And all traces of her were lost. No one heard

21 of her any more. Her family never heard of her, her children. And I saw

22 her husband when I left Omarska after the war. He lived in Bihac about

23 eight months. Following that, her husband unfortunately also died.

24 Q. Mr. Murselovic, you mentioned about Hajra Hadzic or Hodzic --

25 A. Hadzic.

Page 2732

1 Q. -- Being detained in the garage with you in the latter part. Where

2 were the other female detainees being kept?

3 A. During the day, they used to sit in a corner of the restaurant.

4 Some of them would help around when food was being served. They would

5 hand over the bread or food. During the night, they were taken to the

6 premises on the floor above, and we had no contact with them during the

7 night. So we didn't know what was going on during the night. We don't

8 know under what conditions they were living there. But during the day,

9 when we were having our meals, they would sit in the corner of the

10 restaurant. This was frequently the case.

11 They would clean the area, the floors. They handled the dishes.

12 But in most cases, in 90 per cent of the cases, they would sit quietly in

13 that corner and that is how they spent their day.

14 Q. Now, Mr. Murselovic, taking your attention to another area, could

15 you explain the times that you were beaten in the camp?

16 A. I must say that during the interrogation which lasted about 30 or

17 40 minutes, I was, in fact, one of the last to be interrogated after

18 having spent 30 days in Mujo's room. Muja, the police, took me up the

19 stairs, and during this questioning, I met Ratko Milosavljevic there. He

20 interrogated me. He worked at the assembly as an agriculture engineer

21 before. He took me to a room which was on the left of the staircase. On

22 that occasion, I was not beaten. I was interrogated by two persons. I

23 think one was called Nenad, and the other one Neso. They used to be

24 investigators, I think, in the police before. On that occasion, I was not

25 beaten. They asked me some questions. They didn't have much sense, where

Page 2733

1 I was, where I had been, what I had been doing. I told him that I had

2 been arrested once. Then one of them went to ask someone what to do with

3 me. I think one of them was tall and one of them was short. He said I

4 should be interrogated like all the others. I wasn't beaten then. I was

5 beaten three or four times on later occasions.

6 Once, I was beaten by the guards in pista where we used to sit

7 after having our meals. It was very risky to go and have the meal because

8 then we would have to stay on pista, and then we were exposed to the

9 guards. Then Kevo Simo came on one occasion, and said: "Look, here's

10 Mursel, he used to persecute Serb children when he was employed at the

11 school." Well, I had not worked at the school for 14 years then. But the

12 person recalled that. He used to work at the same time as me, when I used

13 to work at the school. And the guards then took hold of me. They started

14 beating me. Well, with cable, with batons, longer than police batons. I

15 was beaten on the pista itself. They said: "You persecuted Serb

16 children." And a blond policeman called Marmat was the roughest amongst

17 them. Marmat was his surname, and it was familiar to me. I had many

18 students from the area, and these are strange surnames. They don't end in

19 "ic" which is mostly the case. Their names were Marmat, Vuceta [phoen]

20 And so forth. And people who worked in the school remember those names of

21 the other teachers.

22 Two policemen beat me fiercely indeed. I tried to defend myself.

23 I was in a crouching position. And I think Marmat was the worst of all.

24 At one moment, I saw red, and I told Marmat: "Ask Borka whether I

25 persecuted Serb children." When I mentioned the name Borka, he just

Page 2734

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Page 2735

1 stopped. He recalled the name. It may have been his relative, his

2 sister. And at that moment, they stopped beating me, and they said:

3 "We'll see about that." Then Kiki Terzic was the target of the beatings,

4 and they let me go. But before that, I was severely beaten on the head

5 and on the shoulders. This was one occasion.

6 Then on another occasion, I met Marmat again in the restaurant. He

7 was standing behind the counter. And he shouted to me: "Mursel, where

8 are you?" And I turned around because on those occasions, you just looked

9 straight ahead of you. You don't turn right or left. Then I saw Marmat,

10 and I just couldn't help asking him: "Did you check up on what I told

11 you?" I was referring to Borka and the fact that he said I had persecuted

12 Serb children. He said: "Well, sorry," he said, "that is something I

13 experienced." This is one occasion when I was beaten.

14 Q. Mr. Murselovic, in your detailed description of that beating, you

15 mentioned the name Kevo Simo. Is it Simo Kevic?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Was he a guard at the camp?

18 A. No, he wasn't. I don't know what his business was there in

19 Omarska. And unlike the others, he was wearing an army uniform, an SMB,

20 olive-green uniform.

21 Q. Now, you were beaten again severely once when you went to get your

22 meal.

23 A. Yes. There was some unwritten rule in the case of the guards that

24 they would -- they simply spilled a bit of oil and water, and since we

25 were running we frequently slipped and fell. Once on my way back, I was

Page 2736

1 running, and there were some young fellows behind me. One of the guards

2 was standing alone. And he hit every prisoner on the head or on the

3 shoulders with his baton. Sometimes, there were five or six of them who

4 beat the prisoners. But on that occasion, there was one guard who beat

5 absolutely everyone who passed by. He hit me on the ear. And then the

6 boys behind me pushed me, and I fell because I had slipped. And I slipped

7 on my knees, and I hit the door. And the pain was very intense, because I

8 was hit. Then the boys got up. I had felt a pain in my foot, and the

9 guard I hadn't met before, he collected his wits about him. He hit me

10 while I was lying down, ten times with the baton -- with the thick cable.

11 I was standing alone. There was no one behind me, so he was able to beat

12 me very hard indeed. I was able to run the 5 or 6 metres and join the

13 other prisoners. Well, about 15 minutes, I was trying to get up, and he

14 kept beating me, so I can barely muster the strength to cross over to the

15 other prisoners. This was a fortunate thing for me because someone came

16 and helped me up. And when he saw in what condition I was, he said:

17 "Well, he is useless." They tried finding some younger men to do some

18 work.

19 I was left alone. Two young men were taken to do some work. They

20 were taken somewhere, but they never returned. And therefore, I was not

21 killed.

22 Once, I was also beaten when I went to the toilet. It was in the

23 hangar. I wanted to go to a toilet because the other toilets were filthy.

24 You couldn't even approach them. The conditions were inhuman. The

25 toilets were blocked, and people said that the toilets were better in the

Page 2737

1 hangar. And when I went there, someone broke down the door, one of the

2 guards, people I didn't know. And they said: "Oh, you're a balija, a

3 Turk." They said something offensive. "You're washing yourself." I was

4 crouching because they were these crouching toilets. They started beating

5 me, and they, in fact, broke my ribs. I managed to stand up, to pull up

6 my trousers, and to rush out, to lie down on pista. But about two months,

7 I felt the consequences of the beating. I had trouble breathing and

8 eating. I put some compresses on my ribs, but the consequences were

9 long-lasting.

10 Q. Mr. Murselovic, when these beatings took place, were the guards,

11 or the people who were there in authority, present?

12 A. Yes, they were all there. They would pass by. It was clear --

13 perhaps this was not organised, but it was supervised by them. The guards

14 were allowed, I would say, to do what they wanted with these people,

15 because the people that beat me, I didn't know.

16 Q. Mr. Murselovic, now, coming to the area of the people who were in

17 charge of the camp, did you get to know or observe as to who was in

18 command of the camp?

19 A. Well, the man who introduced himself as the commander of the camp

20 was Zeljko Meakic, and his assistant was allegedly Drago Prcac. He was an

21 elderly man, a retired policeman. And there was Kvocka there, as well. I

22 can't remember his first name. He was married to a Muslim lady, to a lady

23 from Crnalic. At least that was the rumour circulating. There was a man

24 called Kos. We used to call him Krle. In fact, he was a former student

25 of mine. I thought him during my first year of employment as a teacher.

Page 2738

1 There was a man called Krkan. I think his first name was Mladjo. He was

2 a chubby man. And then there were some other people. I can't remember

3 their names. Kos was the shift leader. And shift leader was, so to

4 speak, in charge from, say 7.00 a.m. To 7.00 p.m. The shifts were usually

5 12 hours long. And the shift leaders were in charge of policemen there.

6 In addition to that, there were people who would come every day to

7 investigate or to interrogate the prisoners. There was a man that I had

8 mentioned previously called Baja among them. And these people were either

9 professional policemen who had worked up to 1992 in the police like the

10 man who interrogated me, Mijic and so on, but in addition to that, there

11 were also people who subsequently became active and prior to that used to

12 be reserve policemen, for example, Dragan Radakovic, who prior to the war

13 was the director of the national park. He was an art teacher before the

14 war. And I also mentioned Ratko Milosavljevic who was an agricultural

15 engineer and used to work for the municipality and so on. There were many

16 people there, people of many professions who became active.

17 It was also rumoured that some interrogators came from Banja Luka.

18 They were looking for certain information and so on. So these are the

19 people who were in charge at the Omarska camp.

20 Q. Mr. Murselovic, now, you mentioned people coming for

21 interrogation. Did you see them coming to the camp for interrogations?

22 How did they come?

23 A. People would come by buses. The buses would normally park on the

24 pista. People would be taken out. And usually, while entering the camp,

25 they would be fiercely beaten. And they would beat them at that first

Page 2739

1 entrance when they searched them, looking allegedly for weapons or I don't

2 know what. I just know that they severely beat these people.

3 Q. May I interrupt you, if you didn't understand the question, I was

4 asking about the people who came to conduct the interrogations.

5 A. Oh, I'm sorry, I apologise. Those who came to conduct

6 interrogations would come daily on a small minibus. It was a minibus that

7 belonged to the iron ore company Ljubija. It was driven by a chauffeur

8 from either the Autotransport company or a chauffeur from the mine. I

9 knew him. So this minibus would come at about 7.00 a.m., and the

10 interrogators would normally stay there until 5.00, 5.30. We would see

11 them as they left the bus and as they boarded the bus to go back to

12 Prijedor or wherever they lived. So they came daily.

13 Q. Now, Mr. Murselovic, you said that you used to see Mijic who

14 worked in the police before coming to the camp.

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. When he came to the camp for interrogation, do you know as to what

17 post or position he held in the Prijedor police?

18 A. He was the head of Criminal Investigation Department. So he was a

19 boss to all of these civilian inspectors, if I can call them that.

20 Q. Other than Mijic, did you recognise any other police officers who

21 came for interrogation?

22 A. Well, as I've told you, among those who interrogated me, there

23 was -- there were two of them called very similarly, Nenad, Neso. And I

24 can't remember exactly their names, their last names, even though I still

25 see them in Prijedor now. One was short and the other one was tall. But

Page 2740

1 it has been ten years and I can't recall that now. They were professional

2 police workers prior to that. And they would come regularly, daily, and

3 conduct interrogations.

4 There was another man there, Drago Mejakic. I would see him as

5 well. So these were the people that were police employees before the war

6 as well. But there were those who would also come on that minibus to

7 interrogate people.

8 Q. The guards in the camp you mentioned in Omarska, what uniforms did

9 they wear?

10 A. They wore police uniforms. They usually had blue police uniforms.

11 Q. Did you see the commander whom you mentioned, Meakic, in the camp?

12 A. Yes. We saw him through the window when we ran. He moved about

13 the camp freely. He was some 15, 20 years younger than me. He was

14 somewhat tall, blond, a handsome man. And he acted as a commander.

15 Q. How was he dressed?

16 A. Well, he wore regular police blue uniform, the light one. On one

17 occasion, they took us out at night, and he was there. Together with a

18 policeman called Brk, and maybe some others. So they took us out at,

19 perhaps, 1.00 a.m. I was taken out together with Dedo Crnalic, Kiki Sefik

20 Terzic, and it was so pitiful, so ridiculous. They told us the

21 following: "See how poorly dressed the Serb policemen are, they don't have

22 good uniforms. So why don't you give them some money so they can buy some

23 uniforms. You are well-known entrepreneurs, we know you are successful

24 businessmen. Why don't you give them 10.000 deutschmarks so we can get

25 them some good uniforms." So you know, when somebody takes you out at

Page 2741

1 1.00 a.m., you can imagine what fear we felt. And then how cynical it is

2 to ask the prisoners to buy uniforms for their guards. You didn't know

3 whether they were joking or it was some kind of a provocation. I kept

4 quiet the whole time. I didn't say anything.

5 And then Meakic addressed me, and then he said: "Well, listen,

6 Mursel" -- because this is how everybody called me -- "you're a smart man.

7 You always come up with great ideas so how come you don't have a good idea

8 to solve this right now? And I told him: "You take me out at some wee

9 hour and then you want me to come up with good ideas. Why don't you take

10 us to Belgrade." Because I knew what they were hinting on. If we go

11 there, we can send you money from there, and then they sent us back to our

12 room to sleep and this is how it all ended.

13 Q. Mr. Murselovic, you said you were interrogated and they asked you

14 questions. Did they ever tell you why you were arrested and why you were

15 detained?

16 A. They never told me anything. And right at this minute, I

17 remembered what the last name of one of those interrogators was. His last

18 name was Tomcic; his first name, Nenad.

19 So to go back to the other story, they kept me on a chair, a

20 three-legged chair, for many hours. And I was there with a slice of bread

21 that I picked up during lunchtime. I have to say that they treated me

22 decently. Nobody hit me at all. They asked me where I spent that week

23 between my first release until my second arrest, from the 23rd until 30th.

24 I told them I was in my apartment, and I did nothing wrong. And you

25 should know this better than me. And then they asked me something

Page 2742

1 concerning the assembly, concerning Cehajic. They asked me whether

2 Cehajic asked money of me. I told them: "No, he didn't. I don't have

3 money anyway," along those lines. So this lasted some 30, 40 minutes.

4 Nobody hit me. They simply asked me where I went, what I did, whether I'd

5 financed the SDA. I told them I had not been a member of the SDA, nor did

6 I finance them.

7 They asked me about my contacts with Cehajic. I told them he was

8 the president of the municipality and I had a good rapport with him in the

9 assembly, which was quite normal. And...

10 Q. Mr. Murselovic, after you left the camp or the time that you were

11 in the camp, did they initiate any proceedings in a court of law?

12 A. No. They did not initiate any proceedings. And during the

13 interrogation, I did not sign anything. They simply told me: "Go back to

14 where you were." And I went back downstairs, because the interrogation

15 offices were on the first floor and we stayed on the ground floor. And I

16 asked them to give me a policeman who could escort me downstairs because

17 it was very typical for policemen to beat people who they were

18 interrogating. You could hear terrible screams during interrogations. So

19 these two interrogators who interrogated me gave me a policeman who

20 escorted me downstairs to where my fellow prisoners were.

21 Q. After your interrogation, were you released immediately?

22 A. No. This was perhaps some 30 days into my stay in the camp. And

23 following that, I stayed there for another 40 days.

24 Q. Mr. Murselovic, now, you referred to in your evidence about

25 beatings that took place during the interrogations. Did you observe or

Page 2743

1 see anybody being beaten or being brought after being beaten when you were

2 detained in the restaurant building?

3 A. As we sat the entire day in that Mujo's room, this so-called

4 interrogation went on during the whole day. People were simply beaten up.

5 You could hear the sounds of people being thrown against the wall, thrown

6 on the floor. You could hear screams mixed with painful moans. And it

7 became impossible to listen to those screams, which came from a floor

8 above. We were downstairs. It was terrible.

9 And some people came back from interrogation during the daylight.

10 I remember that several people were so severely beaten that they died in

11 our room. For example, Zijad Ziko Mahmuljin, who was an economist, he was

12 the president of the executive council of the municipality at one time.

13 He was sent back after this so-called interrogation, and he passed away

14 shortly thereafter, an hour or two later. And then there was a man called

15 Camil Pezo. He was the director of an agricultural station. And he had

16 also been beaten and came back in a terrible shape. He died an hour after

17 that. He still gave some signs of life, but he and others had arms and

18 legs that were so injured that we couldn't really do much for them. And

19 they would die, and we would simply take them outside of our room.

20 An old man, Safet Ramadanovic, who was also a caterer, was

21 severely beaten, too. They beat him, perhaps not as intensely as the

22 others, but he was so old and in such a poor physical shape that that was

23 quite enough for him. He developed dysentery, like a vast majority of

24 others, and he also died in our room. The president of the court, Seric,

25 was also beaten on one occasion. His arms were severely injured.

Page 2744

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Page 2745

1 However, he was not in such a terrible shape after that.

2 There was a man there called Crnkic. He was an engineer and used

3 to work in the mine. I can't remember his first name. His brother was

4 called Husa. He was the principal of the secondary school and was also

5 killed in Omarska. So this man was quite strong, was built quite strong.

6 And we put compresses on him for a day or two, wet compresses, to make it

7 wet. And he was black and blue all over. However, physically, he was

8 strong. I just remembered his first name. Esef, Esef Crnkic. And all of

9 a sudden, I saw that he had bumps, bumps coming out all over his body, on

10 his head. You know some bumps were bigger, some were smaller. It was a

11 terrible sight. He was a terrible sight.

12 I asked Dr. Mahmuljin, I said, "Osman, tell me how come that this

13 man is developing these bumps all over his body and head after the

14 beating?" And the doctor replied to me and said: "He will die soon. His

15 kidneys and his liver are detached now. So all the liquid, all the fluids

16 in his body are running loose. And this leads to this deformation of his

17 body." So this man was employed in this mine previously, and what a

18 tragedy that now in the same mine he met his death, and he used to be a

19 leading engineer. And he was brought to the same premises where he was

20 interrogated and beaten. And he was not the only one to meet this fate.

21 There was Sarajlic, who was a member of the board of directors of this

22 mine. And then there was another man who was an economist and was a

23 prominent manager in the mine. And another man whose name I cannot

24 remember right now.

25 So these people, these people gave a large share of life to

Page 2746

1 building this mine. And then later on, the fate would have them be

2 imprisoned and killed in their own company later on.

3 Q. Mr. Murselovic, you mentioned the president of the court, Seric.

4 Is his first name Nedzad Seric?

5 A. I mentioned the name Nedzad Seric. He was a lawyer and president

6 of the court. He was there, and he was beaten also.

7 Q. Yes. Then you mentioned about another person by the name of

8 Dr. Osman Mahmuljin. Did he survive the camp?

9 A. He didn't survive the camp. He was severely beaten before coming

10 to the camp, before he was brought to the camp. He was beaten thoroughly,

11 and his arms were black and blue from top to bottom, both arms. This

12 doctor, who was a good friend of mine, who was my own physician, he simply

13 couldn't bring his fingers together, join them together. He was a person

14 that I held in very high esteem, whom I liked very much. He came to the

15 camp about 20 days or a month after I had come. And he was in such a

16 state of shock, he couldn't even imagine being a prominent doctor and head

17 of a hospital. He was a specialist in internal medicine. And the witness

18 to his marriage. He married -- he was there, a witness to the marriage of

19 some person from the SDS, whose name was Simo Miskovic. He was a witness

20 to his marriage, and this is something that is much respected. If you

21 call him to be your witness, this is a great privilege for someone. And

22 this was a shock to him. He was conscious of his status, and he was very

23 much affected by the beatings, that something like that could happen to

24 him.

25 There was also another physician, doctor, there, Dr. Reso [as

Page 2747

1 interpreted] Sadikovic. He was an ORL specialist. He was a very popular

2 person. He was very funny. He was humorous. He appeared in the local

3 press. He had a column there. He would write articles. He was present

4 there, both him and Osman. One evening, they were taken out, and they

5 never returned. I remember the exact moment when Esad, Esad Sadikovic,

6 when he was taken out. He was called by Dragan Prcac. This was between

7 10.00 and 11.00 p.m. It was dark. There was a bus parked on pista. And

8 he said that Dr. Sadikovic should come out. He was in our group. And he

9 was confused, and very much intimidated. He asked: "Should I take my

10 things along with me, my belongings?" And Drago Prcac said: "If you want

11 to, take them with you. If you don't, you don't have to." Esad said

12 farewell to all of us, we exchanged kisses, he left and I never set eyes

13 on him again after that.

14 MR. WAIDYARATNE: Your Honour, may this be a convenient moment to

15 adjourn.

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: The Court resumes tomorrow at 2.15.

17 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at

18 6.57 p.m., to be reconvened on

19 Tuesday, the 7th day of May, 2002,

20 at 2.15 p.m.

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