1 Monday, 16 September 2002

2 [Depositions Hearing]

3 [Open session]

4 [The accused entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.35 a.m.

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Good morning. Please be seated.

7 From a different environment, you can see that as envisaged, today

8 this is not an ordinary hearing. This is a taken deposition under Rule

9 71, and today, I do not act in my capacity as presiding judge but as

10 presiding officer under Rule 71 (A). Nevertheless, may we please hear in

11 what case we are acting.

12 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning. This is Case Number IT-97-24-T, the

13 Prosecutor versus Milomir Stakic.

14 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. And for the transcript, we need the

15 appearances, please.

16 MR. KOUMJIAN: Good morning, Your Honours. Nicholas Koumjian with

17 Ruth Karper for the Office of the Prosecutor.

18 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Good morning. And the complete Defence.

19 MR. LUKIC: Good morning, Mr. Presiding officer. Branko Lukic,

20 John Ostojic, and Danilo Cirkovic for the Defence.

21 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you.

22 Are there any obstacles to start immediately with the hearing of

23 today's witness?

24 MR. KOUMJIAN: No, Your Honour. We can begin. There was earlier

25 this morning a technical problem with the video, but when we reach that

1 point, we'll see if it has been solved yet.

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I take it that Mr. -- To be cautious, our

3 witness has no protection, no pseudonym?

4 MR. KOUMJIAN: That's correct.

5 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: In open session. So may I ask the usher to

6 escort Mr. Vulliamy into the courtroom.

7 [The witness entered court]

8 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Good morning, Mr. Vulliamy.

9 THE WITNESS: Good morning.

10 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: It's the intention to hear you as a witness in

11 the framework of Rule 71 in order to take a deposition in the case

12 Prosecutor versus Dr. Stakic. And may we please hear your solemn

13 declaration, first.

14 THE WITNESS: Certainly, Your Honour. I solemnly declare that I

15 will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. Please be seated. And the floor is

17 open for the Prosecutor.

18 MR. KOUMJIAN: Thank you. Can I just ask that the ELMO be moved

19 out of the way for the moment. Thank you.

20 WITNESS: EDWARD SEBASTIAN VULLIAMY

21 Examined by Mr. Koumjian:

22 Q. Sir, could you please tell the Court, or the presiding officer,

23 your name and your profession?

24 A. My full name is Edward Sebastian Vulliamy, and I'm a journalist, a

25 reporter.

1 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, can you tell the -- for the purpose of this hearing,

2 I'll be calling them Judges, don't worry about that, there's a technical

3 difference because we are missing one judge but there's no reason for you

4 to concern yourself with that. Can you tell the Judges what your

5 background is as a journalist, in other words chronologically go through

6 your various employment and positions from when you began working as a

7 journalist until today's date.

8 A. Yes. After finishing my studies, I joined a local paper in the

9 west of England. After that, I went to work for a local news programme in

10 Manchester in the north of England. I suppose it began when I was

11 promoted to a programme called "World in Action" which is the main

12 international current affairs programme on English, British independent

13 television. That's to say not the BBC. I was there for five years

14 working as a researcher, reporter. And that took me to many countries. I

15 was -- I focussed on northern Ireland and the conflict there, covering it

16 from all sides, the British, what is called the Protestant, the Catholic,

17 republican. I also got to work on programmes in the Middle East, in

18 Australia, Poland, Gdansk and the uprising. The United States and all

19 across western Europe.

20 I then decided that I wanted to write. Television wasn't really

21 necessarily for me. And I went to join the Guardian newspaper.

22 Q. If I could just ask you to fill in on that the year that you

23 finished your studies and began your work as a journalist, and to the

24 point that you decided to become a writer as opposed to working in

25 television?

1 A. You mean why?

2 Q. No, just the years.

3 A. I'm sorry. I apologise. This is 1985. I joined the Guardian on

4 the 1st of January, 1986. And I have been with that company ever since.

5 The -- my duties initially were on the national desk, British news, but

6 also features, arts, sport, general reporter. And occasionally working in

7 western Europe as well. After some years, in 1989, they decided that in

8 their wisdom, they wanted to make me an editor, and I was promoted to the

9 position of editor of the newspaper's magazine. But after six

10 months -- well, what happened is the Berlin wall came down, and I thought

11 that editing wasn't quite my thing. I preferred to work in the field, and

12 I sort of assigned myself to go to Berlin, and that was a bit of a turning

13 point because that's when I went to the paper and said: "Look, I want to

14 stay with this." And I did. I covered the fall of communism in eastern

15 Europe. Romania being the main event that Christmas, the fall of

16 Ceausescu, and the conflict across Romania at that time.

17 I was then -- I wanted to stay in that arena, but -- and to join

18 the foreign staff. And the vacancy they had was in Rome, so they posted

19 me in 1990 in Italy where I set up a new office because they wanted to

20 start covering southern Europe more seriously. And ironically, my brief

21 was to cover southern Europe and Italy and to keep an eye on Yugoslavia,

22 which in 1990 was not much in the headlines. Pardon me.

23 But -- so I yes, I worked a lot on the corruption scandals that

24 were breaking open in Italy at that time. But in the summer of 1991 was

25 asked to go to Slovenia to examine the situation there, the Slovenes were

1 making a bid for independence from Yugoslavia. And that led on to

2 Croatia, and from the very beginnings of the -- what everyone wants to

3 call it, the war of independence, between Croatia and the shrinking

4 Yugoslavia, I covered that at what I could call close range. I was all

5 across the various front lines of that country. So I suppose I had

6 unwittingly and unintentionally become a war reporter, except I omitted to

7 say in early 1991, before -- and forgive me if I regress chronologically,

8 I was also dispatched by way of a sort of emergency coverage to Baghdad in

9 the weeks immediately preceding and the weeks immediately following the

10 Gulf war. We were thrown out of Iraq when the war started. And I was

11 able to get back into Baghdad after the war and to work in Kurdistan and

12 in the south of Iraq where I got, I suppose if you don't count Romania, my

13 first taste of war while working for the newspaper.

14 But to go back to Croatia, that conflict was, in its way, resolved

15 in December 1991. I went back to working in Italy, but not long after,

16 the war began or the conflict began in Bosnia. And perhaps a short of

17 shorthand would help at this point. For the next two and a half years,

18 two years, my time was spent between Bosnia-Herzegovina, which again I

19 covered at I would say very close range indeed, and Italy, where I was

20 trying to live, without much success.

21 I then was -- early in 1994, spring 1994, was, sort of at the

22 paper's insistence really, sent to the United States. They thought I

23 needed a change, and I was made the bureau chief for the Observer

24 newspaper in the United States. The Guardian had bought the Observer to

25 be its Sunday edition, if you like. And I did that for about a year, but

1 at my own request, returned to Europe to be based in London and to

2 continue working on the, by now, concluding war in Bosnia. And I was then

3 commissioned by my editor to do a long and fairly detailed retrospective

4 series of articles which I did between roughly the signing of the Dayton

5 agreement and the following summer on aspects of the war that it was felt

6 hadn't been covered or known about during the day-to-day coverage. We

7 called it "the Secret War".

8 Now, I then returned to the United States. They gave me a second

9 chance to go back to America, and I was posted once again in Washington

10 with the same position, bureau chief for the U.S., for the Observer. I

11 should, sorry, say when I was back in Europe I was working with the

12 Guardian. But this was back with the Observer again. There was a fluid

13 situation between the staff of both newspapers, then being part of the

14 same group and indeed in the same building. And that's where I have been

15 ever since. I moved to New York in 1999, but I've covered all aspects of

16 the politics and social matters in the United States, from school

17 shootings. I have been in Haiti a number of times. I have been in

18 Nicaragua, Mexico, Jamaica, gang warfare. Unless you want a more complete

19 list. I have been covering the Americas ever since. And, of course, the

20 climax, I suppose you could say, was the morning of September the 11th

21 last year when I was buying my coffee not far from the World Trade Centre

22 when the towers came down. And that has obviously been the -- that and

23 the war in Afghanistan have been the main preoccupation over the past

24 year.

25 Q. Thank you. Sir, is it correct, Mr. Vulliamy, that you were one of

1 the first group of foreign journalists to visit the Omarska camp in 1992?

2 A. I was one of the first group to go into the camp, yes.

3 Q. Can you -- just setting the scene for that, can you go back and

4 tell us how that trip began? What was the impetus that first led to you

5 or your editors deciding to try to enter the Omarska camp?

6 A. Yes. Well, I had already reported from the Former Yugoslavia and

7 was on the, if you like, the roster of journalists covering the by now

8 shifted conflict into Bosnia-Herzegovina. And the background is

9 specifically this: My newspaper, the Guardian, published -- well, the

10 latest in a number of articles about reports of the Omarska camp. And

11 this was based on -- mostly on word from refugees or deportees who were

12 crossing from Bosnia into the Croatian city of Karlovac. On the same day

13 as our main story was published, not by me but by a colleague of mine

14 called O'Kane, another story was published in an American paper called

15 Newsday by a Mr. Gutman. And it so happened that on that day, that very

16 day, Radovan Karadzic, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, was in London for

17 some conference or other. And he was on the ITN news that night, ITN

18 being Independent Television News, the main independent, that is to say,

19 non-BBC, news. And the gist of his argument was that these reports were

20 untrue, they were fabrications, they were wrong. And he laid down a sort

21 of challenge to the effect of: "Come and see for yourselves, if you

22 insist." And in a nutshell, we did.

23 I was involved because it was my turn to go back to Bosnia anyway.

24 And it was -- the story had been in the guardian. So if you like, ITN and

25 ourselves teamed up, and my boss, the foreign editor, whose name is

1 Webster, spoke to Dr. Karadzic on his car phone, as I recall, on

2 Dr. Karadzic's way to the airport and said: "Well, we are coming and our

3 reporter is leaving immediately for Belgrade." ITN also went straight

4 away, and I met up with them in Budapest actually because you couldn't fly

5 to Belgrade. You had to go by car from Hungary. I think perhaps Dr.

6 Karadzic anticipated a longer --

7 Q. I want to ask you not to speculate about Dr. Karadzic.

8 A. Okay. So we went to Belgrade. And that's how it came about. We

9 arrived expecting to go to Omarska directly.

10 Q. When you arrived in Belgrade, do you recall what date that would

11 have been?

12 A. I think it would have been the 28th or the 29th of July.

13 Q. You said there were also journalists from ITN television. Can you

14 name them, who were accompanying you at that time?

15 A. There were two. If I can explain. ITN is a news company which

16 makes -- which makes the news for two different channels, Channel 3 and

17 Channel 4. I suppose because of the gravity of this, they chose to send

18 two television crews, one for Channel 3 and one for Channel 4. The

19 reporter for Channel 3 news was called Penny Marshall, and for the Channel

20 4 news was called Ian Williams.

21 Q. When you arrived in Belgrade, did you speak to any officials from

22 the Bosnian Serb entity at that time or from Republika Srpska?

23 A. Yes, we were met by officials from the Serbian and the Bosnian

24 Serbian authorities, and the main host from the Bosnian Serbs was the

25 vice-president of their Republika Srpska whose name was Nikola Koljevic.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 Q. And he was a fluent English speaker. Is that correct?

2 A. His English was very good, yes.

3 Q. He was a professor of literature of some kind?

4 A. That's what I was told. He was a professor of English

5 literature.

6 Q. For the record, do you speak any foreign languages?

7 A. I speak fluent Italian and French.

8 Q. Do you not speak any languages of the Former Yugoslavia, that

9 being Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, or Albanian?

10 A. I picked up a pidgin version over the period but I would certainly

11 not claim to speak that language.

12 Q. And were your discussions with Mr. Koljevic and the authorities

13 from the Serbian Republic, that is, the Yugoslavian federal authorities,

14 all dealing with your desire to go visit the Omarska camp?

15 A. Oh, yes, there was little else. Professor Koljevic said that we

16 would get to Omarska but first of all arrangements had been made for us to

17 visit other places. And I suppose you could say that a number of days of

18 impatient conversations began when he made that proposition because we

19 were not there to visit other places; we were there to visit Omarska. But

20 the combination of Professor Koljevic and the federal Yugoslav authorities

21 had organised various visits for us that they insisted we make to other

22 centres, camps, places, which reluctantly because there were no other

23 plans on offer, we undertook.

24 Q. And I don't want to cover this in detail, but briefly did you

25 cover various detention officers in Serbia and did you report that

1 the -- that the conditions there were adequate or humanitarian?

2 A. Yes. In particular, a place called Loznica, which is right on the

3 border of Bosnia, in fact you can see Bosnia from the place, it was a

4 converted school, and the conditions were not good, but the conditions

5 were not bad. And indeed, one wondered why we were there. It was by no

6 means anything worth the kind of language that had been used to describe

7 Omarska. By no means. It was not bad.

8 Q. Just briefly, though, is it correct that you had received reports

9 from the other side, to call it that, the government in Sarajevo or some

10 people there, that these camps were -- did have inhumane conditions and

11 you determined that there was no evidence of that from your journey. Is

12 that correct?

13 A. I had seen it -- sorry, I had not seen it. But there was a list,

14 and I don't know whether Loznica was on that list. But I know that

15 government in Sarajevo was saying that the conditions were inhumane in the

16 federal republic, and if Loznica was on that list, they were certainly

17 wrong.

18 Q. Proceeding now, from Belgrade, where did you travel?

19 A. We messed around or got messed around in Belgrade for a number of

20 days. And on the 3rd of August, we were flown by helicopter, by federal

21 army helicopter, to Pale, which was the sort of ad hoc capital of the

22 Serbian bit of Bosnia outside Sarajevo.

23 Q. In Pale, did you again have an opportunity to speak yourself with

24 Mr. Karadzic?

25 A. Yes, we were greeted by Dr. Karadzic, and we were taken

1 immediately to his headquarters.

2 Q. Can you briefly describe the conversation with Dr. Karadzic?

3 A. Well, obviously we were pushing to go to Omarska, and that

4 was -- when are we going? And he said: "I promise you will go to Omarska

5 Omarska," and he reiterated his authority for that visit. But he said

6 that -- well, he said a number of things. He said first of all that he

7 wanted us to see some more places where Muslims were being held before we

8 went there, in the immediate vicinity. He said that he hoped we would

9 also make efforts to visit camps on the other side where Serbs were being

10 held. And gave us some advice as to where we might try. And he went on

11 to warn us that he couldn't guarantee for our safety during our trip to

12 Omarska. He said that the -- that journalists were being targeted by the

13 Muslims and the result of their attacks being blamed on the Serbs, and

14 that we should be wary of that.

15 Q. Did you, in fact, visit any Serbian-controlled camps in the Pale

16 area before departing Pale?

17 A. Yes. Again, reluctantly, because we wanted to get on. But yes,

18 we did. We went to visit -- or were taken to visit a camp at a place

19 called Kula.

20 Q. Can you briefly describe the conditions that you observed during

21 your visit at Kula?

22 A. Sad. My conclusion was -- or my inference was that this was a

23 centre where men and a few women were being kept for exchange, human

24 currency for prisoners on the other side or captives on the other side.

25 And it was a reasonably well-run place actually. It was sad. It was not

1 pleasant, and a couple of the people there talked about beatings, but we

2 saw no evidence of them. And the conditions were not that bad.

3 Q. From Pale, where did you travel?

4 A. We stayed overnight in Pale, and went by road the following day,

5 which would be the 4th of August, on a long drive, long by necessity of

6 not crossing front lines and so on, the place was obviously a crisscross

7 of territory. So we drove in a convoy, a vehicle, a military vehicle, or

8 were driven in a military vehicle from Pale north through the east of

9 Bosnia to a town called Bijeljina. And from there west through what was

10 called the corridor, a narrow corridor of Serbian-controlled territory,

11 between Croatia and the northern government-controlled area to Banja Luka,

12 through Brcko, a very badly damaged town with some quite shocking damage,

13 shell and -- shell fire and mortar fire damage. Deserted.

14 And then on to Banja Luka, the biggest city in the Krajina area of

15 Bosnia.

16 Q. In Banja Luka, did you meet with various officials in an official

17 capacity regarding your proposed trip to Omarska?

18 A. The following morning, yes, after a rather unpleasant reception we

19 met with a man called Major Milutinovic. He was the representative of the

20 military authorities in Banja Luka, and he met up with us the following

21 morning. That would be the 5th of August.

22 Q. In Banja Luka, did you see Professor Koljevic?

23 A. Professor Koljevic actually sort of bobbed up all over the place.

24 He was in Pale when we got there. And he was in Bijeljina when we got

25 there. Joined us for lunch. And I think he was in Banja Luka as well. I

1 don't remember having a long conversation with him in Banja Luka, but he

2 was there, and that's where he bade us farewell.

3 Q. From Banja Luka --

4 A. Sorry, he was there in the evening but not the following morning

5 when we met Milutinovic.

6 Q. The following morning, which was I believe you indicated was the

7 5th of August, can you tell us where you travelled that day?

8 A. We drove with Major Milutinovic from Banja Luka west towards

9 Prijedor. And what I remember best from the journey was driving past the

10 southern edges of a town which I now know to be the town of Kozarac where

11 the damage was very extensive, almost all the houses had been burned or

12 shelled, with one or two left remaining intact with their occupants still

13 tending their gardens or small agricultural property. And Major

14 Milutinovic told us that these remaining inhabitants were the local

15 Serbian population and that he gave us a figure of some 40.000 Muslims

16 which he said had decided to leave the area, and he gave us a history of

17 the area. But that's where we drove. And we arrived then in Prijedor,

18 which is a little further on. Excuse me.

19 Q. I presume that Major Milutinovic is your official escort at this

20 time. Is that correct?

21 A. Yes, he was.

22 Q. Did you have your own vehicles or were you travelling in military

23 vehicles or did you have any military or police escorts?

24 A. At some point, an -- we had gone from Pale to Banja Luka in a

25 military sort of van thing. At some point, an ITN vehicle hooked up with

1 this, which they had ordered from Belgrade. I don't remember when that

2 arrived actually, but we were travelling in -- I think Major Milutinovic's

3 car at that point.

4 Q. When you arrived in Prijedor, where did you go?

5 A. We arrived in the city -- in the town and went straight to the

6 civic centre.

7 Q. Were you told who you were going to meet with? Do you remember

8 now whether or not Major Milutinovic had told you what the purpose of

9 going to the centre of town was?

10 A. I don't remember what he told us, but I remember what we told him.

11 We said we wanted to meet the people who were going to give us the

12 authority to go to Omarska. That's why we're here. I should perhaps say

13 that by now, we were pressing as hard as we possibly could and patience

14 was getting pretty thing, because it was clear, and I'm not going to

15 infer -- it was clear we were being messed about. We had been delayed

16 and delayed. And he -- maybe he said something. "I will take you to the

17 people or this is the next stage of your trip." But we certainly made it

18 clear to him that we hoped whoever was in this office were the people who

19 were going to fulfill Dr. Karadzic's guarantee to us.

20 Q. When you got to that building, what happened?

21 A. We went in and we were greeted on the ground floor, in the

22 entrance, by a man who was introduced as the chief of the police. His

23 name, Simo Drljaca. And we were then taken upstairs to a sort of

24 conference room and introduced to another group of men who were -- who we

25 were told were called the crisis committee.

1 Q. Do you recall - and obviously you've seen videos of that since

2 that time --

3 A. Yes, I have.

4 Q. Do you recall the individuals who were present at that table,

5 representing the authorities from Prijedor?

6 A. Indeed. They were the mayor, the top official, Milomir Stakic;

7 his deputy, Milan Kovacevic; the man who we were given to believe was the

8 top military man in the area, a Colonel Vladimir Arsic; Mr. Drljaca was

9 already with us, by then having come up the stairs. And there was a lady,

10 a Mrs. Nada Balaban or Ms. Nada Balaban. And there were other people in

11 the room to whom we were not introduced by name and milling about.

12 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May I just interrupt. You mentioned, transcript

13 page 14, line 17, "crisis committee." Quite sure, to the best of your

14 recollection, that they were called indeed "crisis committee" or could it

15 be the notion was "Crisis Staff" or "Municipal Assembly" or something else

16 in this direction?

17 THE WITNESS: Crisis Staff, possibly. Municipal Assembly, that

18 would certainly surprise me. Crisis Staff, maybe. But Municipal

19 Assembly, I think not.

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Once again, crisis committee versus crisis

21 staff, what have the notion, to the best of your recollection?

22 THE WITNESS: If it's Crisis Staff, I stand corrected, and that

23 would not surprise me. But Municipal Assembly, no.

24 MR. KOUMJIAN:

25 Q. At this point, it would be appropriate to clarify. Were you using

1 interpreters during these exchanges with the authorities in Prijedor?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. And who was interpreting for you?

4 A. It was variously a man who was hired by ITN as a translator, and

5 Ms. Balaban who was, I think, their translator.

6 Q. Without going into names, is it correct that the normal policy

7 would be always to use a local interpreter from the area rather than

8 bringing one from Sarajevo, for example?

9 A. Sorry?

10 Q. Is it correct that your practice covering the wars in the Former

11 Yugoslavia would be to use a local interpreter from the area in which you

12 were working at that time rather than bringing an interpreter across lines

13 to the other side?

14 A. Well, this gentleman who was in the employ or hired by ITN was not

15 actually local to the area. He was from Belgrade. But certainly you

16 would not want to have anybody from the other side working with you on the

17 other side because that would be very unsafe, I think, for them.

18 Q. So perhaps -- did ITN, to your knowledge, record at least part of

19 the meeting with the members of what you called the crisis committee?

20 A. Well, I doubt -- yeah. I doubt they'd have filmed all of it,

21 because it was quite a long meeting, but they would have filmed a bit of

22 it. In fact, I know they did. I've seen it.

23 Q. Just to clarify, Did you have authority to tell the cameraman --

24 did you tell the cameraman turn your camera on or off? Did you do any of

25 that producing or directing?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 A. Absolutely not. We were there together because we were -- because

2 in London, we had been entwined by the unfolding events. But I had

3 absolutely no part of their journalistic enterprise, no, not at all. I

4 was just doing my thing.

5 Q. You were a mere print journalist?

6 A. A mere print journalist.

7 Q. Sir, can you tell us how many camera crews were there recording

8 the event?

9 A. I'm sorry, I should have said this before, or not. There were the

10 two crews from ITN, and there was another film crew who had joined us in

11 Pale. They were introduced to us the night before we left, therefore, the

12 night of the 3rd of August. And they were from Bosnian Serb television,

13 and they were making a film about us. And they were there as well.

14 Q. Do you recall who was the first, to the best of your recollection

15 now, ten years later, who were the first individuals to speak to you from

16 the authorities in Prijedor?

17 A. There were brief introductory remarks, I think from all of them,

18 but certainly from Mr. Kovacevic and Mr. Stakic. The first -- once we --

19 once the sort of -- once the meaty discussion started, the first person we

20 spoke to who spoke at length was Colonel Arsic.

21 Q. What did Colonel Arsic say, to the best of your recollection now,

22 regarding your plans to visit Omarska?

23 A. I remember very well what he said. Colonel Arsic recommended that

24 we visit another place called Manjaca and said that we could go there

25 almost straight away if we wanted to. And he said that Manjaca was under

1 his authority and that we had his permission to go there. And we said,

2 and I said, but the ITN people, too, through the interpreter, "no, we

3 don't want to go to Manjaca, we want to go to Omarska. And that's what we

4 are here for. And that's what Dr. Karadzic said we could do." And this

5 went on for a good while. During which the more, and by now also the

6 others joining in, said that it would be a good idea for us to go to

7 Manjaca. We realised that Omarska was the place to go. I should perhaps

8 that there were other motives. Manjaca had already been visited by the

9 International Red Cross and deemed to be pretty bad. They were fairly

10 shocked by what they found.

11 So that was a, if you like journalistic reason not to go there.

12 And if you forgive me, there was a purely journalistic reason not to go

13 there, because a picture of Manjaca had already appeared in the papers,

14 and I had reason to believe that the opposition, if you can call them

15 that, Mr. Gutman, was about to go there himself. And we had a feeling

16 that Omarska was the place to be.

17 Q. Who was the person then that did most of the talking at the

18 meeting?

19 A. Who did most of the talking? Most of the talking was

20 Mr. Kovacevic.

21 Q. Do you recall -- perhaps instead of asking you to recollect it, if

22 the video is ready, I see it is.

23 MR. KOUMJIAN: If we can put in the video. I don't believe it has

24 been marked yet. It's on the 65 ter list as -- sorry, it is marked. It's

25 S157. And sir, we're going to play this video. If you need to stop and

1 comment, we can do that. Or we can go back. I think it's about 6 or 7

2 minutes long, and you can comment later.

3 We do have a transcript of this to hand out.

4 Q. While that's being done, Mr. Vulliamy, so that no one is misled,

5 this video is about 7 minutes long, how long is the meeting that you had?

6 A. Couple of hours, between an hour and a half and a couple of hours.

7 Q. So what we're seeing is a small portion of that meeting.

8 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I have some problems. This is public session,

9 and we have visitors in the public gallery. And once again, it's their

10 right to follow the proceedings. And what about the parties? May I first

11 hear the observations by the parties as regards, yes -- it could be called

12 infringement of the principle of public hearing. Please?

13 MR. KOUMJIAN: I'm sorry, I'm not asking for it to be closed. I'm

14 not sure I understand. We propose to play it in open session.

15 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Yes, but the principle of a public hearing

16 includes, no doubt, that also the public gallery can following our

17 proceedings. We'll say, to see the video. And we have visitors in the

18 public galleries which are not able to follow the proceedings. How can we

19 resolve this problem?

20 MR. KOUMJIAN: How have we done it in the past?

21 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: The last time the visitors in the public

22 galleries waived the right to see the parts of the video. May I have

23 observations by the Defence.

24 MR. OSTOJIC: Your Honour, we'll proceed in any manner the Court

25 wishes.

1 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Can I understand that for these purposes, the

2 Defence has no objections that it's not transmitted to the public gallery,

3 and they will never, from this point or based on this point, any kind of

4 objection or appeal?

5 MR. OSTOJIC: That would be accurate, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. And I can see the visitors do not

7 object that we proceed this way. Thank you.

8 May we then start the video, please.

9 MR. KOUMJIAN: Thank you.

10 [Videotape played]

11 "The Journalist: That we could see Omarska and Trnopolje.

12 "The Speaker: First, you are welcome.

13 "The Journalist: Thank you.

14 "The Speaker: Even if we have negative experience with the

15 international press.

16 "The Speaker: In the purpose of this, I would like you to show

17 this very objective, not in the purpose of propaganda.

18 "The Speaker: Two things that I do not agree with your visit

19 here...

20 "The Speaker: First is negative experience with the press.

21 "The Speaker: Second is because you take a risk on your lives

22 because you are in the war area."

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Just stop for a moment, please.

24 Mr. Vulliamy, could you please be so kind and describe to the best

25 of your recollections the person sitting there around there the desk. If

1 we can see the still please. Thank you.

2 THE WITNESS: On our left is the mayor, Milomir Stakic. The

3 gentleman who has been talking with the T-shirt is his number two, his

4 deputy, Milan Kovacevic. And next to him is Colonel Arsic, and at the end

5 next to the lady is the chief of police, Simo Drljaca. And that's

6 Ms. Balaban in the pink blouse.

7 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: It's not quite clear, at least on my screen,

8 Dr. Stakic, did he wear civil clothes or was it a kind of uniform or even

9 a camouflaged uniform?

10 THE WITNESS: I shouldn't depend on my recollections. That

11 wouldn't be right because I can see the film. But it seems to me to be

12 military.

13 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you.

14 THE WITNESS: But I don't remember.

15 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please proceed, Mr. Koumjian.

16 MR. KOUMJIAN: If we could continue playing the tape a few

17 minutes.

18 [Videotape played]

19 "The Interpreter: If you have time to see one film here, what we

20 prepared, that you better understand the situation here. Now we can talk

21 about that what you want.

22 "The Journalist: Okay, first this.

23 "The Interpreter: First of all, we know very well what are the

24 concentration camps.

25 "The Interpreter: And we know better that than the English

1 people.

2 "The Interpreter: Because the -- in Britain, they, they have

3 heard about that concentration camp, but they didn't believe it until 1943

4 or 1945.

5 "The Interpreter: But we, we know that concentration camps and

6 many of the people passed through that camps already in the Second World

7 War.

8 "The Interpreter: And you will see that there exists not any

9 concentration camp here. And not 30, only...

10 "The Interpreter: There's no concentration camp. There is some

11 transit, transit camps...

12 "The Interpreter: That you're going to see.

13 "The Interpreter: He is glad that you are coming, come here to

14 see this situation here, and from some other press media, another team.

15 "The Interpreter: ... More and heavier clash than now. Even now

16 we have some clashes around. He'd like to ask you, have you ever been to

17 some other camp on other side where are the Serbs imprisoned.

18 "The Journalist: I personally have not.

19 "The Interpreter: Just want to say that they're simply glad,

20 these people on their homes..."

21 MR. KOUMJIAN: Thank you.

22 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, first, again, did you have anything to do with the

23 production or editing of the tape, the portion of the meeting, that we

24 just saw?

25 A. No.

1 Q. Did you have anything to do with the transcript, which you don't

2 have which the parties have, of that short clip?

3 A. No. Not at all.

4 MR. KOUMJIAN: Your Honour, I just note that the transcript, the

5 person that was identified by the witness as Mr. Kovacevic is identified

6 in the transcript as the president, and the male voice at the end was

7 Dr. Stakic speaking where in the transcript it indicates "male voice."

8 And we'll seek a correction on the official transcript. This is a draft.

9 Q. In the short clip we saw, there was some talk about a film being

10 shown. Was a film, in fact, shown to you?

11 A. During the meeting?

12 Q. During the meeting, yes.

13 A. Yes, they showed us a video.

14 Q. What was that a video of?

15 A. It was a video which they said supported their version of events

16 that there had been what they called a jihad or an uprising by Muslims in

17 the area, and I don't remember much about it. I was getting really

18 annoyed by the time they put it on. But I do remember seeing some -- the

19 great play made of people finding a copy of the Koran in a house, and I

20 remember a shot of some soldiers opening up a box of sort of -- a

21 machine-gun -- a strip of machine-gun bullets and various weapons being

22 found and lots of pictures of soldiers, their soldiers, Bosnian Serb

23 soldiers. But I don't remember much about it, I'm afraid.

24 Q. You indicated, and perhaps I missed something. You indicated that

25 Colonel Arsic encouraged you to go to Manjaca. How was that finally

1 resolved?

2 A. I mean, it wasn't resolved. It was resolved by us refusing to go

3 to Manjaca and saying that that's not where we were going to go. Then he

4 said: "If you want to go to Omarska, these are the people that you need

5 to talk to."

6 Q. You just made a gesture to your right. Is that what Colonel Arsic

7 did? Was that a gesture he made or explain what you meant?

8 A. He made a gesture. I don't remember whether he said it by name,

9 but he gestured towards Mr. Kovacevic and Mr. Stakic.

10 Q. Do you have any other recollection of anything that Dr. Stakic

11 said during that meeting?

12 A. He gave a history of the events in the area in the immediate past.

13 He talked about the discovery of weapons in the town of Kozarac. He

14 specified 3.500 guns had been found. He said that the Muslims had been

15 putting up barricades in the area on the roads. And he gave us some

16 description of what sort of prisoners were kept in which, what he called,

17 transit centres. And to summarise, I do have a note of this, not with me

18 now. But to summarise, it was that Manjaca was those who had been

19 arrested or captured in the Muslim militia, and Omarska and Trnopolje why

20 civilians who were seeking to leave or wanting to leave.

21 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, were you taking a type of shorthand notes during

22 that meeting?

23 A. I was.

24 Q. I believe we have copies of those. If at any time during your

25 testimony you require them, please let us know.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 A. And likewise the Court. I would be quite happy to read those any

2 time.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May they be distributed immediately to the

4 parties and the Judges.

5 MR. KOUMJIAN: Well, there's a small technical problem in that the

6 actual copies we have are a sealed exhibit. The witness apparently -- I

7 need to check one thing with him. I think the witness doesn't have an

8 objection except I don't know if the names and phone numbers have been

9 removed from these copies or not.

10 THE WITNESS: To the best of my recollection, there's no sensitive

11 material on those pages. So it's fine by me if -- I mean, perhaps I

12 should have a look. But as -- I mean it would be okay by me if they help

13 the Court. Then it's fine for them to be put into the record.

14 MR. KOUMJIAN: If you could review it first.

15 Specifically, there was an order by Judge May to keep those under

16 seal dated 18th of January, 2001, and I just realised that over the

17 weekend. We don't have a problem with releasing it and neither does the

18 witness, provided he does review and ensure that -- Mr. Usher, please, the

19 witness should get them first and review them before even the registry.

20 Yes.

21 I would also warn the Court that I don't believe much is legible.

22 It's in a shorthand.

23 THE WITNESS: I've got something else here. I've got one page of

24 shorthand, and something that isn't -- doesn't appear to be relevant.

25 MR. KOUMJIAN: I believe the other materials are with the

1 Registrar. You can hand everything to the witness, and he will look for

2 his 1992 notes.

3 THE WITNESS: Perhaps that one is...

4 These are the pages, Your Honour. No, these are fine.

5 MR. KOUMJIAN: They could be distributed.

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Even if they should be marked under seal, or

7 were marked under seal, now it's open material for the participants.

8 Correct?

9 MR. KOUMJIAN: I don't think I have the power to say that, Your

10 Honour, since it's under seal. But I would indicate to the Court that

11 these are copies of Mr. -- Excuse me.

12 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think it's the right of the witness, and if

13 it's his assessment that there is no special protection needed, it may be

14 open material.

15 MR. KOUMJIAN: I see Mr. Vulliamy, these are going to be handed

16 over to the Defence, and the accused has a right to look at those also.

17 THE WITNESS: Absolutely. I have been handed by the Registrar.

18 There are three pages of shorthand notes that were relevant in this, and I

19 was handed about 20 pages.

20 MR. KOUMJIAN:

21 Q. And you only reviewed the pages related to 1992?

22 A. My understanding is that I'm being asked to enter on to the record

23 the pages of shorthand I took pertaining to the notes in 1992 and

24 Mr. Stakic's remarks.

25 Q. Yes.

1 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Right.

2 THE WITNESS: I was shown by the Registrar a whole lot of other

3 stuff. And I separated out those three pages, but I see that rather more

4 than three pages has crossed the courtroom. In other words, material has

5 been handed out that quite apart from that I am talking about.

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So no doubt, the order of Judge May still

7 remains in power, save the three pages you just mentioned. They are, as

8 far as I can understand you, open and no protection is needed, the three

9 pages. Right?

10 THE WITNESS: Well, sorry, Your Honour.

11 MR. KOUMJIAN: Perhaps I can. The witness has indicated that we

12 handed out a bunch of pages, that he doesn't know what else the Defence

13 has been handed, and some of them maybe his personal notes that he has not

14 yet consented to have released. He has only consented to have three pages

15 released.

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Can we please proceed this way, the usher please

17 take back to the OTP the other pages.

18 MR. KOUMJIAN: And if Mr. Vulliamy could identify to the usher the

19 three pages that we're dealing with right now, we'll make sure the Defence

20 and Court has those three.

21 THE WITNESS: Yes, I would like to do that, if that's possible.

22 MR. KOUMJIAN:

23 Q. Sir, do you have the three pages of notes now?

24 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

25 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May we please, now, have also for the Defence

1 and the Judges one copy of these three pages in order to following the

2 proceedings.

3 MR. KOUMJIAN: I'm sorry. Could we borrow your three pages

4 because my case manager is having trouble identifying what they are.

5 MR. OSTOJIC: If I may be heard, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please.

7 MR. OSTOJIC: Quite frankly, we have an objection to the

8 proceedings as how they're -- or actually, the process that the OTP is

9 trying to attempt here with this witness. The witness has certainly kept

10 notes of meetings that he has had in 1992 as well as 1996. In the prior

11 trial where this witness has testified, Judge May, since he has been cited

12 in terms of holding some of this evidence confidential, has certainly

13 allowed in the other case to give the Defence in its entirety Mr.

14 Vulliamy's handwritten, typed written, and I think as he called it, by a

15 journalistic definition, a hybrid of those two so we could analyse it. I

16 don't think it's necessary to wait until the eve of our cross-examination

17 for the OTP to give that to us. Those documents, even though perhaps

18 mistakenly given to us, should be given to us. And we insist that we get

19 those at the earliest moment in time since Judge May has previously ruled

20 that they are relevant.

21 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: No question about this. The purpose of this

22 exercise is only to make a distinction between those three pages being

23 public now and no longer under seal, and the other remaining pages, no

24 doubt, they have been to be disclosed to you and no doubt, the Judges are

25 more than eager to see these additional pages only for the purposes of

1 this distinction public and under seal. Only for this exercise.

2 MR. OSTOJIC: Thank you, Your Honour, I understand.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Then they will be marked with different numbers.

4 Provisional Exhibit Numbers. And when we are ready just to go to this

5 procedure, as the admission of evidence will be done by the entire

6 Trial Chamber, these documents --

7 MR. KOUMJIAN: Your Honour, if I could be heard on that, I guess I

8 object to the handwritten notes being marked as an exhibit --

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May I please, may I please proceed with that

10 what I wanted to say. That for the purposes of the record, we already

11 obtained a draft translation, and we expect later on a complete

12 translation of that what we saw as videoevidence. No doubt, this video

13 was already earlier during the hearing admitted into evidence as S157.

14 For the purposes that we don't forget to admit later or not admit

15 later the one or other document, we start today with a new collection of

16 numbers. And this transcript of the video will be D1, (provisional

17 S157-1).

18 Then it will follow, will be followed by the next three pages

19 being public now, tendered and provisionally marked as D2 (S -- and may I

20 please have, Madam Registrar, the next available number for the hearing.

21 THE REGISTRAR: S328.

22 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: S328. (S328).

23 Decision on the admission into evidence will be done as soon as

24 possible by the Chamber. There were additional remarks by the OTP?

25 MR. KOUMJIAN: Well, my remark was just going to be that I don't

1 have a problem with the witness referring and even reading that for the

2 record, but to mark it as an exhibit to be translated is going to create

3 tremendous problems since it's in a hybrid type of shorthand. It's

4 basically not -- I don't know where we're going to find someone who can

5 read it and translate it into the three languages.

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: For this purpose, can you please be so kind, we

7 need this for the purposes for forensic purposes in this original version.

8 But as you have noticed, in doubt, it would be problematic to have an

9 interpretation of your shorthand. May I therefore ask you, for the

10 purposes of the transcript and later, the hearings, that you could read

11 what your notes are, the three pages you have before you. I would

12 appreciate very much. Thank you.

13 THE WITNESS: Of course, Your Honour.

14 MR. KOUMJIAN: You can -- I think the question dealt with what

15 Dr. Stakic said at the meeting, if you have any notes regarding Dr. Stakic

16 said at the meeting.

17 A. Yes, there's a section that begins at the top of the page queued

18 by the word "president Stakic."

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Respectfully, I don't agree with this proposal,

20 if we admit these entire documents, also for the purpose of balancing who,

21 say, took the lead during the conversation, I would ask you to read out

22 everything we can read from this document. These three pages. Thank you.

23 THE WITNESS: Of course.

24 [As read] Chief of police, commandant: Colonel Arsic, region

25 Vladimir, Manjaca, Manjaca. T-shirt. Pres. Of commune, Milomir Stakic.

1 Kovacevic, vice-pres., exec. Of commune.

2 Kovacevic: Even we had negative exp. with the int. press. In the

3 papers of these, I want look you show these in obj., not for propaganda.

4 I this not agree, negative exp. With the press. And secondly, because you

5 can risk your lives because you are in the war area. What I suggest if

6 you have. You are knowing what is a concentration, conc. camp. We know,

7 but then the English people, because Britain, they have heard about conc.

8 camps, but they didn't believe until 1943 to 45. But we know what conc.

9 camps are, and many of us passed through conc. camps in the Second World

10 War.

11 "And you will see that there is not conc. camps here. There are

12 transit camps that you are going to see.

13 "President Stakic: I am glad you have come here to see this

14 situation here. But I am sorry because the international publicity was

15 not -- or publications, pub, was not int. two to three months ago in this

16 area. At that time, there was heavier fighting than now. Two years ago,

17 elections. There was -- government was half/half Serbians and Muslims. I

18 was negotiating two sides, Serbs and the Muslims. Get try to agree, the

19 others side to live in peace together. What we are looking for today. We

20 think we have problems from the Muslim extremists here, not with the

21 Muslim population. We asked the Muslims not to leave this area, but to

22 live together with us. Serbs are not doing any genocide to other people.

23 "We cannot make a nation. It is very difficult for such a country

24 to exist. The other side buying weapons all the time. Croatian and

25 Muslim extremists. We have a doc, a Kozarski. There are -- there were

1 3.500 armed people. We have the names and the weapons they have got. We

2 have two tapes and by the Muslims how they were prepared for this war.

3 Even we try very hard to not. They started to kill the Serbian people in

4 this area. They made barricades. Beginning of May, on the main and side

5 roads. Green headbands and berets. SDA, with a line through, Serbian

6 people saw what was going to be and know what was in the Second World War.

7 Started to protect themselves, their houses, in this area. We defend us

8 from the first. A clash from other side. In that documentation, from all

9 that we saw, from papers and documents, we had a fear what could be done

10 to us. There's no conc. camps exists, only transit camps, that we put

11 some of the refugees in their camps to protect them. And some come by

12 themselves. The refugees who want to leave this area. Some of them want

13 to go back to Bosnia, Izetbegovic country. And it is provided for most of

14 them to go there, but there is many of the Muslim people, they don't want

15 to go and live in that country. They want to go to Croatia, Austria,

16 Germany. Now we are negotiate with UNPROFOR, and Int. Cross to provide

17 those people with all the docs. Queueing to get the documents to go

18 abroad.

19 "Manjaca, arrow, those ones who are captured with weapons are

20 investig. in army prison. Up at the top, Om. - Trn. All the rest are

21 treated as civilian refugees. So the soldiers are in prison and will be

22 investig. and tried. The others go into the transit camps. Omarska and

23 Turn transit. About 2.000. Three to four thousand people, they want to

24 leave there, have waiting to leave this area and does the other side, is

25 there a Muslim. We are trying to stop. In the margin, Kovacevic, Milan,

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 with lines indicating either this line or the following one. We are

2 trying to stop some people, but other side say they didn't want. Ibeg.

3 Swapped people. Ibeg. or Eebeg. swapped people to exchange Serbs. They

4 ask a certain amount of flour, munitions and weapons. He doesn't want the

5 people. These are not our prisoners. Babies down the river Una, crosses

6 with their eyes gouged out. There is no -- there is not -- there is no

7 our prisons. All are in the -- divided women and children. Then within

8 the men, we investigate. Some from home. There are still some groups are

9 still fighting. 18 groups don't want to give up. Yesterday, we had

10 Muslim killed a soldier. Yet. One man of the SDA party came into the

11 camp to be collected. Killed 20 Serbs. And soldiers, Hambarine. Mullah

12 had from weapons all over from Hambarine on a list. Mosque used for.

13 Three months began. I was born 41. Map. Born in Jasenovac. Propaganda

14 video. Prisoner, he was preparing for war. Muslims accumulate medical

15 supplies, transportation to their places."

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you very much. May, Madam Registrar,

17 please point out that this document, for the purposes of this deposition

18 called D2, can be found on today's transcript from page 30, line 16 to

19 page 33, line 5.

20 It is time now for having a break. We will proceed at 11.30.

21 Thank you.

22 --- Recess taken at 11.01 a.m.

23 --- On resuming at 11.33 a.m.

24 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please be seated. Just for the record, no doubt

25 it would be advantageous to call the provisional exhibits not as D

1 exhibits but DP exhibits, which stands for deposition exhibits. So please

2 proceed, Mr. Koumjian.

3 MR. KOUMJIAN:

4 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, after speaking with the authorities in the building

5 at the municipal building, did they reach a final decision in your

6 presence regarding your -- consent for your visit to Omarska?

7 A. No.

8 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for the Witness, please.

9 A. -- Good while, discussion of maps and other things. And it got, I

10 would say, fairly acrimonious. And after a while, we were told indeed to

11 leave the room and the building and to go and wait outside by the vehicles

12 while they attended to business and to our requests.

13 Q. For what length of period were you waiting outside?

14 A. I would say about 20 minutes or so.

15 Q. And during that 20 minutes, was there anything notable that you

16 observed in front of that municipal building?

17 A. Well, yes, and if I should have said before, I apologise. We had

18 already noticed a long line of women waiting outside the building opposite

19 the -- right across the road from the civic centre, which we were given to

20 understand was the police station. And they were lined up along the

21 sidewalk, and we, of course, saw them again when we went out, to wait

22 outside, as instructed. And -- rather than just stand about, it seemed

23 the obvious thing to do to go and talk to them.

24 Q. What did these women tell you in their conversations with them

25 while waiting for a decision?

1 A. In a distressed manner, they said, almost unanimously, that they

2 had come to the police station in search of information on their menfolk

3 who had been taken away or vanished in one way or other. And they were

4 looking for information about their husbands or sons, and we heard mention

5 of Omarska quite a bit during the conversations we had with those women.

6 I conducted a couple of interviews myself, as did the television crew.

7 Q. We have been cautioned earlier today to pause before asking you

8 the next question, so that would be why I'm pausing.

9 Sir, were you able to determine the ethnicity of these women in

10 the line?

11 A. They were Muslim.

12 Q. After -- by the way, we have been talking about requesting to go

13 to Omarska, did you mention to the authorities any other camp that you

14 wished to view?

15 A. ITN were particularly keen also on another place called Trnopolje.

16 This had also been reported in the Guardian. I was anxious to see it,

17 too. But for my specific, I mean, I talked about Omarska more than

18 Trnopolje.

19 Q. After 20 minutes or so, what happened?

20 A. Mr. Drljaca and a dispatch of uniformed men came out of the civic

21 centre and said we were going to Omarska after all. And they evicted a

22 colleague of mine, a fellow I knew from before from a rival newspaper who

23 had joined the convoy. They asked him if he was part of Dr. Karadzic's

24 party? He admitted that he was not. And I confess to my professional

25 relief, he was thrown off the convoy. So then we made to leave.

1 Q. Just to clarify that, this colleague, was he Mr. Juda, and he had

2 come along just that day while you were waiting outside the municipal

3 building, at that time had he come along and asked to join your group?

4 A. Yes. If the Court will forgive professional considerations, he

5 and a French journalists sort of arrived in a car and after all sort of

6 efforts and time and delay, I was rather fed up to see him breeze down

7 from Zagreb to say: "Oh, Omarska, great. We'll come, too." But he was

8 not allowed to join th convoy because he wasn't part of what they called

9 "Dr. Karadzic's party." And his name was, yes, Tim Juda from the Times.

10 Q. Who was it that told Mr. Juda that he could not join your party?

11 A. It was Major Milutinovic, but the conversations were had by some

12 other people who were from Mr. Drljaca's dispatch. I should -- sorry, I

13 should have said that Mr. -- Major Milutinovic also came out of the

14 building with Mr. Drljaca at the end of that wait outside.

15 Q. So at that time, did you go to Omarska with Mr. Drljaca and Major

16 Milutinovic?

17 A. Yeah, we set off.

18 Q. Again, did you notice anything during that journey to Omarska,

19 anything along the roads that you passed?

20 A. Yes. We were not in the same vehicle as M same -- Mr. Drljaca.

21 We were with Major Milutinovic. Yes, certainly noticed things. The

22 burned out houses along the road, and then we, to my worry, we drove

23 passed a sign off the main road saying "Omarska." And carried on, and

24 then we turned off down a series of unpaved roads or very small or unpaved

25 roads and through a sort of maze of lanes or minor roads. And there were

1 houses either burned out, shelled, and deserted, or there were houses with

2 white -- I saw flags, but they weren't flags, they were bits of sheeting

3 or towelling or white textile hanging from trees or from windows. And we

4 discussed that.

5 Q. Now, you said you went past a sign for the Omarska camp. Between

6 passing that sign and actually arriving in the camp, did something happen

7 that delayed the journey again?

8 A. Yeah. While we were still driving this lot of minor roads, there

9 was a burst of gunfire from the woods over our heads. And we were told to

10 sort of duck, and some of the Serbian, they were uniformed -- they were in

11 blue paramilitary uniforms, got out of an APC, a blue APC, armoured

12 personnel carrier, and returned fire from a ditch. And there was a sort

13 of minor, I wouldn't say battle, but exchange of fire, quite loud. And we

14 were told that this was a mujahedin, Muslim extremists hiding in the woods

15 attacking our convoy.

16 I was, by now, in a very bad mood and very anxious to get to the

17 camp. And I had also -- was not convinced in my mind that there were any

18 so-called mujahedin in the area. And while some of our party were quite

19 alarmed by this, I was, perhaps ill-advisedly, impatient and said

20 something to Major Milutinovic to the effect that this is silly, let's

21 just carry on, I'm not convinced -- let's just carry on. And the battle

22 abruptly stopped, and we proceeded.

23 Q. At this point, this is August 5th, 1992, had you seen battle

24 scenes, real battle scenes, in Bosnia? Had you been exposed to fire

25 before that date?

1 A. Most certainly. I had seen exchanges of -- well, more than

2 exchanges of fire in Croatia for several months, and I had been in

3 Sarajevo prior to that which was not exactly -- about you I wouldn't

4 describe as battles. But in Croatia I had certainly seen exchanges of

5 fire and elsewhere, and in the West Bank, too.

6 Q. Was there anything about the scene that you observed where the men

7 jumped out of the APC and fired from a ditch that made you think that this

8 was not an authentic battle, that this was staged?

9 A. Yes, it didn't convince -- it was all much too overdramatic, and

10 all the fire was coming over our heads in exactly the same place. I mean,

11 if you're under fire, the fire is coming at you behind, in front, over.

12 And it's -- I wasn't convinced. It was coming straight over our heads,

13 and it was the way in which these guys with sunglasses jumped out of the

14 APC. They were returning fire, they were aiming fairly high. It didn't

15 feel right. It didn't feel convincing. I thought to myself then and I

16 think now it was an attempt to intimidate us.

17 Q. After you indicated that you wanted to proceed, you said the

18 battle stopped, and then did you go to the camp?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. When you arrived at the camp, can you tell us from which part of

21 the camp you arrived and what your first impressions were?

22 A. We arrived through what appeared to be a back gate. Inasmuch as

23 there was no guard house or anything like that, and we came in. There

24 were a series of red brick buildings around us. And in front, immediately

25 in front -- I mean, ahead of us, a large red rust-coloured hangar or large

1 warehouse building, and we went through the gate.

2 Q. Where did you go?

3 A. First, we were sort of marshalled and assembled in a yard, a

4 tarmac yard, opposite the large hangar. I can't remember what was said

5 because of what I saw, which was the rather extraordinary and

6 unforgettable sight of a group of men, some 30 or so men, coming out of a

7 door into the sunlight, out of the hangar, being lined up, and marshalled

8 to order, and being made to run, drilled, across the yard in single file.

9 And I remember seeing up above to my left, atop a building a sort of glass

10 area or turret of some kind a man with a machine-gun watching them as they

11 were drilled across the yard. And some of them were in what I would call

12 reasonable seeming condition physically, but others were in a shocking

13 condition. Near skeletal. A couple of them had shaven heads, extremely

14 thin. And that, one could see even from the distance.

15 Q. What happened them -- then?

16 A. They were drilled across, and they went into a building on our

17 left. And we were told to follow them, and we were told that this was the

18 canteen. And we saw them line up for their midday meal in various states

19 of decay. And they were given each a bowl of sort of watery stew soup.

20 And either half or whole roll of bread. And they went to -- variously to

21 the tables laid out in the room and started to eat their soup in a way

22 that suggested quite honestly -- well, they looked like they were

23 famished, and they started to attack this soup. And I got the impression

24 they hadn't eaten for a long time. And we were told we could interview

25 them, but it wasn't a very -- wasn't a very -- wasn't a situation where

1 one felt able to interview them quite honestly. The guards were sort of

2 mooching around, swinging their guns, and these men looked terrified.

3 Q. Did you see obvious injuries, any bruising or wounds on the people

4 that you saw running across the yard and in the kitchen?

5 A. I couldn't see any wounds while they were running across the yard

6 but there was a man with a wound to the side of his face. And I asked him

7 through the interpreter what had happened, and he said that he had fallen

8 over. And that was the gist of the conversations that we were having. If

9 I can say this: That it was what they weren't saying that spoke a lot

10 louder than what they were saying. There is something about the eyes of

11 someone who is trying to communicate something to you that you know they

12 can't communicate, and that was certainly the case. And certainly with

13 regard to this man. You know, their eyes kind of burn. It's quite

14 impressionable.

15 Q. This man that told you he fell down, did you ever see him again?

16 A. Yes, I did. In rather strange circumstances. In the summer of

17 1995, I was -- well, I was above the town in Central Bosnia called Donja

18 Vakuf with the by then advancing Bosnian army, and a sniper was shooting

19 in a trench. And we were running along, got to a commander's hut. And

20 this man said to me: "You were in Omarska, weren't you?" And I said:

21 "Yes." And he said: "Do you remember me?" And I didn't actually because

22 he had put on an awful lot of weight by then. Not put on weight, he had

23 recovered weight. And he said: "Do you remember the man who said he had

24 fallen over. And that was me. And I hadn't fallen over. That wound was

25 inflicted." And that was quite a moment, I must say.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 Q. Were you introduced to the commander of the camp during your

2 visit?

3 A. Yes, we were. Again, forgive me for not saying that earlier.

4 That was before we went into the yard, before going into the canteen, we

5 were introduced to the commander by the name of Meakic.

6 Q. How many groups were you able to see come into the kitchen and

7 eat?

8 A. The shift was a minute. You had a minute to eat your soup. And

9 then they lined up and I noticed that some of them were keeping their roll

10 or half a roll for later. So we would have seen I think two, if not

11 three, shifts in their entirety, the first one, then there was a change.

12 Then there was another change. So I think I would say three, but I can't

13 remember exactly.

14 Q. Did you request permission to see other parts of the camp decides

15 the kitchen and the outdoor area that you saw?

16 A. Well, yeah. Certainly, because we wanted to get into the hangar

17 because that was where the men had come from and we wanted to see what I

18 was calling the sleeping quarters or the living quarters. And we

19 asked -- in fact, that's why we spent perhaps less time in the canteen

20 than we should have done because we were saying, let's move, let's move on

21 from here. Let's look at the conditions as it were, you know, from which

22 these men come to eat in this state that they were in. So we wanted to

23 get into the hangar. And there were other buildings. You could other

24 buildings quite clearly in the immediate vicinity of this yard. My

25 understanding certainly from Dr. Karadzic's guarantee and the fact that

1 back in Prijedor, we had been told that we were going to Omarska, that

2 this was going to be a reasonably thorough inspection.

3 Q. Were you ever given permission to see the areas where the

4 prisoners were kept or slept during that visit to Omarska?

5 A. No, we were taken upstairs for a long - forgive me - and pretty

6 irrelevant briefing which went on and on. And actually, during that,

7 there was another burst of gunfire in the woods and they said, oh, it's

8 the mujahedin again. But I paid no heed whatsoever to that. The Bosnian

9 Serb television crew were very excited by, it but we weren't. We were

10 listening to these lectures and talked about various categories of

11 prisoner, but we wanted to get on and look at the rest of the camp. But

12 the briefing went on for quite some time I'm afraid to say.

13 Q. After your requests to see the rest of the camp were denied, what

14 happened then?

15 A. We said we wanted to interview more inmates because we had very

16 little, apart from the obvious visual impressions from the canteen. One

17 man coming up with the, for me, unforgettable line: "I do not want to

18 tell any lies but I cannot tell the truth." And they started producing

19 people for interview. One man in particular in the corridor as we made

20 to -- we hoped, to look at the hangar, but in vain.

21 Q. Do you recall --

22 A. I refused to talk to anyone. I said I refuse to talk to anyone

23 that you produce. I want to be able to produce my interviewees.

24 Q. Do you recall in that person that they wanted you to interview in

25 the corridor was identified by way of a position?

1 A. An official with the local SDA party which was the party in

2 government in Sarajevo. Forgive me if it sounds brusque, but there was

3 a -- it was a pretty antagonistic atmosphere by now, and they were

4 suggesting people to interview and I decided that this -- that it wasn't

5 worth talking to people who were presented by them to interview. We

6 wanted to get on to the main business.

7 Q. Did they then take you to the Trnopolje camp?

8 A. Well, indirectly, yeah, we went out into the yard and spent a lot

9 of time there continuing the arguments. And it was made clear that we

10 weren't going to get into this hangar. At one point, the ITN fellow and I

11 just walked towards Drljaca and Meakic who blocked our way with their

12 guns, and this was -- we decided that we would go along with them at that

13 point. It was not very nice. So yeah -- well, we wanted to stay, and

14 they said: "Now we're going to Trnopolje because if you go into the

15 hangar, you'll get behind on your schedule." So we eventually after quite

16 an exchange, we agreed to continue.

17 Q. What happened --

18 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Sorry to interrupt. You always mention "they."

19 If you could, please, be a little bit more concrete, to the best of your

20 recollection, who was the person intervening or were the persons

21 intervening at that time.

22 THE WITNESS: Certainly. Down in the yard when we were arguing

23 and at this one rather risky point trying to get to the hangar, it was

24 mostly Simo Drljaca, the chief of police, and the camp commander was also

25 there, Meakic. And the conversations were translated by at this point in

1 some instance from the ITN man from Belgrade but mostly Mrs. Balaban, and

2 they were the people who were saying this. Major Milutinovic, too, was

3 there, but it was mostly Mr. Drljaca who was preventing our progress.

4 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you for this clarification.

5 Please proceed.

6 THE WITNESS: With pleasure.

7 Q. When you drove to the Trnopolje camp, tell us what your

8 impressions were when you arrived there.

9 A. Okay. Well, we were in a van and were going along. And to the

10 left on the road was a remarkable sight, and we told the driver to stop.

11 And he sort of didn't at first, but then did. And we just got out of the

12 van. And across a scrap of land, the sight we saw was basically a fence,

13 a barbed-wire fence, and behind it quite crowded, a group of men. And

14 again, in various states of decay, but those who were in the serious state

15 of decay were in a very serious state of decay, skeletal. And we made our

16 way, myself and the ITN crew, across this scrap of land to the fence to

17 introduce ourselves, present ourselves to this group of prisoners.

18 Mutually amazed to see each other, I think.

19 Q. The men that you spoke to behind the fence, did they indicate when

20 they had arrived at the camp and from where?

21 A. Yes. The majority of them had arrived at this place, Trnopolje,

22 that very day. Some from Omarska, and others from a place of which I

23 hadn't heard until then called Keraterm. And they had come that day from

24 these places, and we started to ask about conditions both where we were

25 now and where they had come from.

1 Q. Did these prisoners discuss any reluctance to discuss the

2 conditions of their stay in Keraterm?

3 A. Yes, some did, some didn't. Some were extremely scared because

4 there were guards all around the place with guns listening to what was

5 being said. I found it easier to talk when the cameras weren't pointing

6 directly at them. The ITN translator was moving around, and I also

7 managed to find a prisoner who spoke English. There was one man by the

8 name of Alic who talked about a -- what he called a massacre. He said

9 that -- he said then, I later met him and he said a different figure. He

10 said then 200 people had been killed in one night in this place Keraterm,

11 and that he had been asked to join a dispatch to clear up the bodies but

12 that he had broken down, he couldn't do it and was replaced by another

13 prisoner. I found this a shocking story. Others -- well, rather like

14 Omarska really. If I can say, they spoke with their eyes. It's hard to

15 describe this, or not. "No, I can't talk about it now." And after

16 Omarska, I had become pretty used to the idea that with the guards around

17 you had to do with this by intuition, by expression and then we were able

18 to move around more freely, yes.

19 Q. The massacre that you were told about that occurred in the

20 Keraterm camp, did anyone identify the place in the Keraterm camp in any

21 way where the massacre had taken place?

22 A. They said it was one of the hangars in the camp. I now know that

23 it was called number 3, but I didn't find that out at the time. So they

24 just said it was in a hangar. But I know more now than I did then, but I

25 wasn't given the exact detail or location at that time, no. Not that I

1 recall anyway.

2 MR. KOUMJIAN: Perhaps now we could run a video taken by one of

3 the ITN crews of about 27 minutes.

4 Q. And before we run it, again, Mr. Vulliamy, did you have anything

5 to do with selecting what was filmed and how any film was edited or

6 nonedited?

7 A. No, I was in a separate operation. A mere print journalist.

8 MR. KOUMJIAN: Before we begin, we also have the transcript of

9 this video to hand out. It is video number 0000664. It's on the 65 ter

10 list as -- we'll get that number. Number 804 on the 65 ter list. We

11 would ask that the entire video and transcript be admitted once it's

12 played.

13 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: For the purposes of today, it should have the

14 exhibit number DP3, and the transcript, DP3-1.

15 MR. KOUMJIAN: I do not want to misrepresent that this is the

16 entire film, because it's not. We have so many selections from ITN, but

17 this is one of them. It's about 27 minutes long.

18 [Videotape played]

19 "The Journalist: We would really like to see it.

20 "The Speaker: Or to Manjaca.

21 "The Speaker: Why not?

22 "The Speaker: They say, this is an investigation centre, so if

23 they prove that they are guilty or not guilty, then there is a certain

24 procedure. So this is a centre for investigation."

25 MR. KOUMJIAN: Can we stop the tape.

1 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, can you identify the two men in uniform that we saw?

2 A. On our left is Major Milutinovic, and on our right, chief of

3 police, Simo Drljaca.

4 Q. And the person in the shirt, in the screen in front of us

5 gesturing, was that the interpreter that you're using?

6 A. That's the interpreter contracted by ITN, yes.

7 Q. Thank you.

8 MR. KOUMJIAN: We can proceed, please.

9 [Videotape played]

10 "The Journalist: That anyone could see it. The Red Cross

11 couldn't come and now they're stopping us. We've seen nothing. We've

12 seen one dining hall and 80 prisoners.

13 "The Speaker: But we have a promise from Dr. Karadzic and now

14 they're telling us something else."

15 MR. KOUMJIAN: Could we stop the tape. I don't think we're

16 starting at the beginning of the tape. It may not have been rewound.

17 If we could rewind the tape entirely to the beginning.

18 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think it started with what we can read from

19 the transcript. I think it's --

20 MR. KOUMJIAN: I apologise.

21 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: -- Correct.

22 MR. KOUMJIAN: Thank you. Proceed, please. My fault.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May we please proceed with the video at the

24 point we have just been.

25 [Videotape played]

1 "The Journalist: We would really like to see it.

2 "The Speaker: Or to Manjaca.

3 "The Speaker: Why not?

4 "The Speaker: This is an investigation centre, so if they prove

5 that they are guilty or not guilty, then there is a certain procedure. So

6 this is a centre for investigation.

7 "The Journalist: Why can't we -- that anyone could see it. The

8 Red Cross couldn't come and now they are stopping us. We've seen nothing.

9 We've seen one dining hall and 80 prisoners.

10 "The Speaker: All of them are going.

11 "The Speaker: We cannot make a proper judgement about this camp

12 until we see the way they live."

13 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Just stop a moment.

14 Do you recall the name of the third person in uniform arriving

15 now?

16 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour. It's the camp -- I believe it's

17 the camp commander, name of Meakic.

18 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. Please proceed with the video.

19 [Videotape played]

20 "The Speaker: Investigation centre, you can see how they eat.

21 "The Speaker: We will have no other choice to say in our report

22 that they did not fulfill Dr. Karadzic's promise and allow us to see what

23 we wanted at this centre.

24 "The Speaker: He said about security, about our because of our

25 security.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 "The Journalist: Further we will not be able to say on British

2 television that this is not a concentration camp.

3 "The Speaker: We have seen nothing yet.

4 "The Speaker: Fighters.

5 "The Speaker: Kozarac alone had 3500 armed people.

6 "The Speaker: Are we going to Trnopolje or Banja Luka?

7 "The Speaker: Banja Luka.

8 "The Speaker: And your reason is?

9 "The Speaker: What's your reason?

10 "The Speaker: Just trying to do my best here.

11 "The Speaker: Promised us something else, and said you can do

12 this and this and that, and not that. If they say this is a protocol of

13 your stay here, that will be all. I'm sorry. That will be all.

14 "The Speaker: So he told you not to give us access to the

15 majority of this camp.

16 "The Speaker: I'm just translating. I'm just trying to do my

17 best.

18 "The Speaker: You now have a chance to go to Trnopolje.

19 "The Speaker: Just a minute.

20 "The Speaker: Yes. Yes, some security reasons are present here.

21 "The Speaker: If you don't mind, you can go to Trnopolje or you

22 can go to Banja Luka. I'm really sorry. I would like to do my best. Do

23 you believe?

24 "The Speaker: Access to this camp. We, all we have seen it 80

25 people having lunch. We can't judgement on the camp.

1 "The Speaker: We would like five minutes in this building here.

2 "The Speaker: But we also have some timetable for you here.

3 "The Speaker: He is saying we are not safe.

4 "The Speaker: Commander... Guarantee our safety.

5 "The Speaker: Why can we not see five minutes in here? It's not

6 going to throw our timetable out, five minutes looking in this building.

7 "The Speaker: I'm sorry. It's not according to protocol. The

8 protocol does not allow us to go there and... I'm sorry, really sorry,

9 and that's all.

10 "The Speaker: We're now being asked to leave this camp having

11 seen nothing more than the canteen. We are being told that Dr. Karadzic's

12 promise, while good to us, does not carry any weight here."

13 MR. KOUMJIAN: If we could stop the tape.

14 Q. All that we've seen so far is from the Omarska camp. Is that

15 correct?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. And we'll proceed now, and can you identify when we next get to

18 the Trnopolje camp.

19 A. Of course.

20 [Videotape played]

21 MR. KOUMJIAN: We could stop for a moment.

22 Q. Is this now, sir, the Trnopolje camp?

23 A. Yeah, this is Trnopolje.

24 MR. KOUMJIAN: We can proceed.

25 [Videotape played]

1 "The Speaker: How are conditions for you here? How is the

2 situation for you?

3 "The Speaker: I don't know if I'm allowed to speak.

4 "The Speaker: Is it difficult for you to speak?

5 How long have you been here?

6 "The Speaker: Before I came here.

7 "The Speaker: Where did you come from? Did they take you from

8 your home?

9 "The Speaker: All from the same town?

10 "The Speaker: From the surrounding of this town, the villages,

11 and from our homes, yes.

12 "The Speaker: Why did they say they were bringing you here?

13 "The Speaker: Say us anything.

14 "The Speaker: Why do you think you are here? Is it difficult for

15 you here?

16 "The Speaker: Yes.

17 "The Speaker: How many of you are there here?

18 "The Speaker: I'm not sure. I'm not quite sure about that. I

19 just came today here.

20 "The Speaker: Where were you before?

21 "The Speaker: In another camp for 50 days, in the city.

22 "The Speaker: Where are your families, your wives and children?

23 "The Speaker: I don't know. We think they are home. I'm not

24 sure.

25 "The Speaker: Everybody is from Prijedor or close to Prijedor?

1 "The Speaker: From the surroundings, from the villages around.

2 "The Speaker: The Serbs say that you were, that you were

3 fighters, that you were fighters with the Muslim forces. Is that right?

4 "The Speaker: I'm not a fighter. I never fought. I've never

5 fought. I don't know.

6 "The Speaker: Can you tell me anything about the conditions in

7 which you are being kept? Or is it difficult?

8 "The Speaker: I'm not sure that I'm allowed about that, you know.

9 Can you understand me?

10 "The Speaker: How many times are you fed? How many times do you

11 eat?

12 "The Speaker: Before it was once upon a time once upon a day,

13 once in a day, before, in the former camp.

14 "The Speaker: And here?

15 "The Speaker: I don't know. I just came here. We just came here

16 today.

17 "The Speaker: Are people here being beaten?

18 "The Speaker: Here, no. Here, no, here.

19 "The Speaker: But in other places?

20 "The Speaker: I rather wouldn't talk about that, I'm not sure.

21 "The Speaker: Thank you very much for speaking with us. We are

22 from British television. This is the first time we have been able

23 to -- we have known about your situation. This is the first time we were

24 able to come and film you here.

25 "The Speaker: It has taken us a long time to find you here, but

1 we've, we wanted to find out what conditions you are being kept in or how

2 things are for you here.

3 "The Speaker: I was for two months in another place, and now I am

4 here, they are saying we are going to go home soon from here.

5 "The Speaker: How have things been in the other place? Can you

6 tell us anything about the conditions that you have been kept in and the

7 treatment of the people you were with?

8 "The Speaker: Well, that was hard time.

9 "The Speaker: We heard stories of people being beaten and people

10 disappearing. Did that happen?

11 "The Speaker: Well, I can't say much about that. See, people

12 were hungry.

13 "The Speaker: It was difficult?

14 "The Speaker: It was difficult time, yes, for sure.

15 "The Speaker: That's fine. And you have, you have just got here

16 now today?

17 "The Speaker: Yeah, we got here today.

18 "The Speaker: Are the conditions better here?

19 "The Speaker: Well, they are saying it's going be better here.

20 People from here are supposed to go home.

21 "The Speaker: And you are outside here in the sun?

22 "The Speaker: Yeah, what can we do?

23 "The Speaker: Do you know where all your family is?

24 "The Speaker: Well, I know my wife, where she is, in Istra. And

25 for other people, I don't know.

1 "The Speaker: So you know your wife is, your wife is safe, your

2 wife is...?

3 "The Speaker: Yeah, my wife is safe.

4 "The Speaker: So hopefully you will be able to join her soon.

5 "The Speaker: Yeah.

6 "The Speaker: I hope so. Because this is the first time that...

7 "The Speaker: What are the conditions like in which you have been

8 living in?

9 "The Speaker: Conditions, very bad.

10 "The Speaker: We don't have food or water.

11 "The Speaker: Today?

12 "The Speaker: We just came here today.

13 "The Speaker: Where did you come from?

14 "The Speaker: From Prijedor, Keraterm.

15 "The Speaker: Prijedor.

16 "The Speaker: What did they give you here to eat, to drink?

17 "The Speaker: Nothing.

18 "The Speaker: Here, tea and afternoon lunch, bread, and...

19 "The Speaker: Soup.

20 "The Speaker: Soup.

21 "The Speaker: Someone was speaking English here?

22 "The Speaker: Yes, I speak a little.

23 "The Speaker: So for you, what have, what have the conditions

24 been like since? How long have you been here held?

25 "The Speaker: We came, we just came here.

1 "The Speaker: From another camp.

2 "The Speaker: From another camp. We don't about the condition

3 here, except a little bit more better.

4 "The Speaker: What was it like before?

5 "The Speaker: It was terrible. We just eat two parts of bread

6 and soup on the day.

7 "The Speaker: The reason we are here, we've heard terrible

8 stories about people.

9 "The Speaker: Yeah. The story is very complicated here. You can

10 translate it. It's the power. I think it's power of the arrest, arrest

11 people, but this...

12 "The Speaker: They don't give you anything to eat.

13 "The Speaker: Have they told you how long you will be here?

14 "The Speaker: They think perhaps next 20 days, rest, more people

15 is here long time. Somebody goes very quick. I don't know. We just

16 must, we must say here and wait with the rest.

17 "The Speaker: Were you, were you interrogated at the last camp?

18 "The Speaker: Pardon?

19 "The Speaker: Were you interrogated at the last camp? Did they

20 question you?

21 "The Speaker: Personally, no, but the rest a little bit, more

22 interrogated rest of the people. I have friends in England, Sweden, and

23 some other parts, Germany. I'd like to say to all people that it isn't

24 good any more. It's not life.

25 "The Speaker: To form these camps. So we hope that when this is

1 seen in, in Europe, it will help you all and it will mean that you will

2 be, you'll be more quickly released.

3 "The Speaker: I hope so. Yeah.

4 "The Speaker: Anyway..."

5 MR. KOUMJIAN: Thank you.

6 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, is it correct from viewing that tape that there were

7 certain prisoners within an area that was fenced off, and others outside?

8 A. The people who said that they had arrived there that day, who we

9 initially saw, were in a different bit of the camp from the more sparsely

10 distributed people that we saw on other bits of the film, yes, if that's

11 what you were asking.

12 Q. Did you speak to some of these people that were outside the

13 fenced-off area?

14 A. Who were in the bit of the camp that was not fenced in?

15 Q. Correct.

16 A. Yes. I went in to the other bit of the camp with a young man who

17 spoke English, a -- quite good English who showed me round during the time

18 that we -- I had. And some of the time I spent with the ITN crew visiting

19 what they called the medical facility and other bits of the camp that were

20 not in the film, yes.

21 Q. Not in the film we just showed. Is that correct?

22 A. Yeah.

23 Q. There was cameras present when you went into the medical centre

24 and met with Dr. Idriz Merdzanic?

25 A. Yes, I was with the crew when they went to see the doctor, yes.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 Q. The people that you spoke to that were outside of the fenced area,

2 did they indicate, any of them, indicate to you how they came to be in the

3 camp?

4 A. They had come for a variety of reasons. Each that I spoke to,

5 with their own story. Some had been marshalled from their homes, either

6 because troops had arrived and rounded them up or because troop had

7 arrived and attacked their houses or their villages, notably Kozarac but

8 also others. And they had been marched there in columns under guard.

9 Others had come of their own accord in flight, from their villages or

10 towns, where their houses had been burned or shelled or had been shooting

11 at them or at their houses. And they had come to seek, I suppose, what I

12 saw at the time as being the protection of numbers. And my thought was if

13 they fled to this, what have they fled from? But there were a variety of

14 reasons. It was confusion in parts of that place, and there were a

15 variety of reasons why people had come.

16 Q. Did you make any note of the sanitary conditions at the camp

17 during your visit?

18 A. Yes, I did, and they were bad. There were open latrines, open

19 holes of excrement. It was very hot. There was little or no water,

20 running water. The place was a converted school complex. It was rather

21 bizarre because all of the paraphernalia of a school was on some of the

22 walls. And I went inside to some of the sleeping quarters. Some were

23 living indoors. Some were living out in the open. But the - my

24 impression - I've got to be straight with this, is that it was not --

25 Omarska was the place that remained in my mind. It was bad, but not as

1 bad. And I think I was sort of aware of that at the time. In fact, I

2 know I was aware of that at the time.

3 Q. Were you told that also by the prisoners behind the fence who said

4 that they had arrived that day from Keraterm?

5 A. Well, it was clear from what they were saying and from what others

6 were saying that I had interviewed from Keraterm and Omarska who had

7 arrived that day that although it's rather perverse to say so, they were

8 pleased to be there rather than where they had been before. I wouldn't

9 say "pleased," sorry; relieved in comparison from whence they had come.

10 Q. In the video, we saw an interview with a young man in a white

11 T-shirt. You had indicated earlier that a lot of what you learned from

12 was from what was not said. And I recall this man saying -- he was asked

13 if there were beatings here, on page 9 of the transcript, he was asked, I

14 believe by Mr. Williams, you can correct me if I am wrong, are people here

15 being beaten? He said: "Here, no. No, here, not here." And the

16 question about other places, he said: "I rather wouldn't talk about that.

17 I'm not sure."

18 Is that the kind of answer that gave you the impression that

19 there was more information that the prisoners were reluctant to give?

20 A. Indeed. I didn't actually interview that particular man. But

21 that's the sort of thing. Having now -- I would say this: It was in the

22 canteen in Omarska where those -- I was conducting those sort of

23 conversations. It was more painful to watch than that gentleman, this, as

24 it were, articulate silence if that's what you mean or articulate

25 reticence.

1 Q. We also saw on the video something being handed to someone behind

2 the fence and a group quickly forming around them and people reaching in.

3 Do you know what that was?

4 A. No, I don't. But I would infer that it might be some sort of

5 refreshment, water, food, bread.

6 Q. Did you see any food or water handed to the people behind the

7 fence while you were there?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. What was their reaction?

10 A. Very anxious to get to it, scrambling, but not violently, but

11 certainly a scramble to get to whatever was being handed over the fence.

12 Happened mainly when the cameras were around.

13 Q. In other words, things were passed to them when the cameras were

14 around. Is that correct?

15 A. Yeah.

16 Q. That was August the 5th of 1992. Correct?

17 A. This is all August the 5th, yes. By the time we get to Trnopolje,

18 it would have been mid-afternoon, mid to late afternoon.

19 Q. After you left Trnopolje, where did you go?

20 A. Back to Belgrade.

21 Q. And from Belgrade, were you able to write a story and transmit it

22 in some way to your newspaper?

23 A. Yes, we got to Belgrade late that night or in the early hours of

24 the following morning. And I wrote and transmitted my article on the 6th

25 of August, the following day.

1 Q. Do you know if ITN or Channel 4 broadcast tape from that visit on

2 other the 5th or the 6th?

3 A. I do know and did know that both were -- they went to Budapest to

4 edit and send their material which was transmitted in the UK on the

5 evening of August the 6th.

6 Q. And --

7 A. Sorry.

8 Q. Your article would be published the 7th?

9 A. The morning of the 7th, yes.

10 Q. Did you observe any reaction from the world press to the

11 broadcasts and the publication concerning your visits to Omarska and

12 Trnopolje?

13 A. Well, yes. The 7th was quite a day because I was contacted by

14 radio stations from all over the world. It went pretty berserk if you

15 will forgive the expression. I was on -- I was taken down to the

16 television studios in Belgrade. I was doing interviews all over the

17 place. Indeed, there was quite a reaction. At the time -- everybody

18 wanted to talk about concentration camps. At the time, I declined to use

19 the term because of the connotations. I have since researched the term

20 and it's history, not least in South Africa, so now I would use it. So,

21 it was a big reaction, yeah.

22 Q. Did any news organisation ask you to go back to the camp based

23 upon those reports?

24 A. Yes, for various complicated reasons to do with television

25 franchise, partnerships and copyright, NBC, the American channel, were not

1 able to transmit ITN's pictures because ITN was paired up with some other

2 group in America. I can't remember which. So NBC was in a bit of a fix,

3 and they wanted me to go and front, report on screen, their coverage of

4 the follow up because I have to say Belgrade became quite a sort of bedlam

5 of media during the aftermath of our story. And I don't mind calling it

6 the media circus, it sort of descended on Trnopolje and NBC offered me

7 quite a lot of money to go and do it for them.

8 Q. And did you accept that and go back to the camp?

9 A. No, I didn't. Because, rightly or wrongly, there was a press

10 conference in Belgrade given by vice-president Nikola Koljevic who,

11 without -- I can't remember whether -- I think there was a list actually.

12 But anyway, the gist of the press conference was: "We challenge the

13 world, you, to go and look at the camps that we know about where Serbs are

14 being held." And I had done the war in Croatia, and I had seen terrible

15 things being done by both sides. And for reasons to do with -- well, I

16 have to say professional, to keep, I mean, I spoke to my editor about

17 this, and he said: "Well, let's keep ahead of the game. Let's keep ahead

18 of the pack. You know, we have been to Omarska and Trnopolje. Now the

19 circus is heading down there. Let's keep trying to set this agenda." And

20 partly that, and partly because of my experience in Croatia where I had

21 seen victims on both sides, I thought that the best thing to do was to

22 head round to the other side, which I did, through Hungary.

23 Q. Did you then visit a camp where Croatians were holding -- an area

24 of Bosnia-Herzegovina controlled by Croatian forces where they were

25 holding Serbs and publish an article concerning your visit there and the

1 conditions in which the prisoners were held?

2 A. Yes. And it took quite some effort, although slightly less effort

3 than on the Serbian side. But eventually, with a colleague from the

4 Associated Press, we managed to get into, partly by challenging them,

5 saying: "Look, I was the person who the Serbs let into the camps where

6 your people are being held," because there were Croatians in Omarska as

7 well as Muslims, "what about yours?" And after the same sort of hassle,

8 which I won't go into, we did manage to get inside a camp called Dretelj

9 in which -- run by a Croatian militia called the HOS for Serbs. And while

10 I now know, because I went -- never mind, I went back to it later when the

11 Croatians were holding Muslims, I now know we didn't see the whole of that

12 camp. I saw enough to see that the conditions were bad and very

13 frightening for the prisoners. But most importantly, that contrary to

14 what the Croatians were saying, women were being held in a warehouse

15 there. And I published a story about this. But -- and -- one has to see

16 these things on a scale, the conditions were very bad. They were worse

17 than the camps we originally saw around Belgrade but incomparable

18 [Realtime transcript read in error "comparable"] with Omarska and

19 Trnopolje.

20 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, is it correct, then, that at this camp in

21 Croatian-controlled territory, Serbian women were being held prisoner?

22 A. Yes. I've just seen on my screen here that it says: "comparable

23 with Omarska and Trnopolje." I said just the opposite, I said

24 "incomparable with Omarska and Trnopolje." Excuse me,.

25 Q. Thank you.

1 A. By which I meant much much -- not as bad as Omarska and Trnopolje.

2 Excuse me, I just saw that on the screen.

3 Q. Just going back for a moment to your visit in the Omarska camp,

4 you saw two or three groups going to lunch. Did you see, at any time, any

5 women or were you shown any women during your visit to the Omarska camp?

6 A. In Omarska, there were women working in the canteen, but as sort

7 of kitchen staff. But I didn't see any women among the prisoners being

8 drilled or eating. I now know differently, that there were women

9 prisoners, but not at the time.

10 Q. You talked about being in Belgrade after the publication of your

11 story and the broadcast of the ITN and seeing the international press

12 begin to descend - would it be correct - descend on Belgrade enroute to

13 Prijedor?

14 A. Sorry.

15 Q. Would it be correct that following the publication of your

16 stories, you observed members of the international press begin to move

17 towards Prijedor from Belgrade?

18 A. Oh, very large numbers, yes.

19 Q. Just perhaps -- just before the break, I have a short videotape,

20 the last one, showing the actual -- one of the broadcasts of ITN that

21 motivated this. If we could play that.

22 MR. KOUMJIAN: I'm only going to play the first broadcast, which I

23 believe is about 7 or 8 minutes long, 8 minutes long.

24 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May we please hear the ERN number, or if it

25 already has an exhibit number.

1 MR. KOUMJIAN: Yes, that's 0401, is the ERN number, in other words

2 V000-0401. It's 65 ter number 825. It has not been exhibited yet.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: For the purposes of today, DP4.

4 Please play the video now.

5 MR. KOUMJIAN: With sound, please.

6 [Videotape played]

7 "The Speaker: What else she saw in the camps.

8 "The Speaker: Well, John, I have to say what we saw is enough.

9 Enough to now make it absolutely essential that the Red Cross and the

10 United Nations are given access to these camps in northern Bosnia as soon

11 as possible. We left with serious misgivings about what's going on there,

12 and with great suspicions that something very nasty is afoot. We went to

13 two camps. One was a detention centre. We were taken in by the Serbian

14 army under their protection and at their invitation. At the first

15 detention centre --

16 MR. KOUMJIAN: Perhaps we could finish this after lunch. Because

17 I think it's queued and I could be wrong. Okay proceed, I'm sorry again.

18 I thought it was Mr. Williams' broadcast rather than Ms. Marshall. Please

19 proceed.

20 [Videotape played]

21 "The Speaker: ... There is where the Muslim men are brought and

22 they're interrogated and those that are found guilty of fighting are sent

23 on we're told to a prison of war camp and those that aren't are sent on to

24 a refugee camp. We saw terribly old men there, men paper thin, too

25 terrified to speak to us. Terribly underfed, and only about 80 of a total

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 of 1400 prisoners. We were not allowed to see the others. We were not

2 allowed to see where they lived, what they were doing. In fact, we were

3 escorted in the end away from the camp by men with guns and left with

4 very, very grave doubts. At the second camp, some people there had come

5 from this detention centre and from others, and then we heard very serious

6 allegations, beatings, rapes, even shootings.

7 We cannot verify them. We weren't in a position to check them out

8 because we were under the escort of the people who were being accused, the

9 side that was being accused of these crimes. We were able to smuggle out

10 some photographs that do show some beating was going on. And we enough

11 terror on the faces of these people to make it absolutely certain that

12 this must be cleared up once and for all, the Red Cross must be allowed

13 in.

14 "The Speaker: These are the Muslim prisoners of Omarska. In

15 small groups under heavy Serbian guard, they are ushered into the canteen

16 for their single meal of the day. Most have been here for two months.

17 They say they don't know why but they were rounded up from their homes.

18 They were too frightened to talk about the way they have been treated, and

19 the conditions in which they have been kept. Conditions which have been

20 hidden from the world as the Serbs have denied access here to the United

21 Nations and to the International Red Cross. Their prison is an old mining

22 complex outside Banja Luka" --

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May we stop for a moment, please. I just was

24 informed there is no B/C/S interpretation. Is this correct, Dr. Stakic?

25 Can you follow the video in a language you understand?

1 MR. OSTOJIC: You are correct, there is no B/C/S translation, Your

2 Honour.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Can you assist us?

4 MR. KOUMJIAN: No. Apparently, at least on this exhibit, there is

5 not a transcript available. I can try to search, because the problem is

6 we have some of this clip on many different videotapes, but I haven't seen

7 a transcript associated with this particular videotape.

8 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: What about the length of this clip?

9 MR. KOUMJIAN: It's about 8 minutes long.

10 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: 8 minutes long. Then I would ask that we

11 proceed with this video, and take it in small portions and ask the

12 interpreters to be so kind to do their very best in order to provide an

13 interpretation for Dr. Stakic. This is mandatory, no doubt.

14 The trial stays adjourned, or the deposition taking stays

15 adjourned until 14.30. Thank you.

16 --- Luncheon recess taken at 1.00 p.m.

17 --- On resuming at 2.30 p.m.

18 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Good afternoon. Please be seated.

19 The problem, has it been resolved regarding the B/C/S?

20 MR. KOUMJIAN: Your Honour, thanks to the kind assistance of the

21 court reporter we made a transcript, or she did, over the lunch hour of

22 the tape, at about the point where we stopped it last time. That's an

23 English transcript, but I believe it'll be of assistance to the booth.

24 They all have it now, so they can do the translation from the transcript.

25 I don't know if Your Honours want a copy, and the Defence also, of

1 the transcript.

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Most important that Dr. Stakic has one copy.

3 MR. KOUMJIAN: It's in English. But the interpreters will be

4 assisted by that.

5 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Big thanks to everybody who provided us with

6 this. And let's start and, please, give me a signal in case you can't

7 follow because the video is too fast. Then let's stop immediately. I

8 think we can start on this basis. Once again, the video.

9 MR. KOUMJIAN: The video is not now set for the very beginning,

10 but for the point we stopped at.

11 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So this is the evidence available for this

12 trial, from now on.

13 Please start, with sound, please.

14 [Videotape played]

15 "The Speaker: It's absolutely essential that the United Nations

16 and the Red Cross are given access to these camps in northern Bosnia as

17 soon as possible. We left with serious misgivings about what's going on

18 there, and with great suspicions that something very nasty is afoot. We

19 went to two camps. One was a detention centre, we were taken in by the

20 Serbian army under their protection, and at their invitation. At the

21 first Detention Centre, we were given very, very limited access, and this

22 is where Muslim men are brought, and they are interrogated. And those

23 that are found guilty of fighting are sent on we are told to a prisoner of

24 war camp. And those that aren't are sent on to refugee --"

25 MR. KOUMJIAN: I just asked for the tape to stop so the

1 interpreters could catch up.

2 We can proceed.

3 [Videotape played]

4 "The Speaker: We saw terribly old men there. Men, paper thin,

5 too terrified to speak to us, terribly underfed. And only about 80 of a

6 total of 1400 prisoners. We were not allowed to see the others. We were

7 not allowed to see where they lived, what they were doing. In fact, we

8 were escorted in the end away from the camp by men with guns and left with

9 very, very grave doubts. At the second camp, some people there had come

10 from this Detention Centre and from others, and then we heard very serious

11 allegations, beatings, rapes, even shootings. We cannot verify them. We

12 weren't in a position to check them out because we were under the escort

13 of the people who were being accused -- the side that were being accused

14 of these crimes. We were able to smuggle out some photographs that do

15 show some beatings going on. And we saw enough terror on the faces of

16 these people to make absolutely certain that this must be cleared up once

17 and for all. The Red Cross must be allowed in.

18 "The Speaker: These are the Muslims prisoners of Omarska. In

19 small groups, under heavy Serbian guard, they are ushered into the canteen

20 for their single meal of the day. Most have been here for two months.

21 They say they don't know why, but they were rounded up from their homes.

22 There were two frightened to talk about the way they have been treated and

23 the conditions in which they have been kept, conditions which have been

24 hidden in the world as the Serbs have denied access here to the United

25 Nations and to the International Red Cross. Their prison is an old mining

1 complex outside Banja Luka in northern Bosnia. In an office above the

2 canteen, the camp commandant and the spokeswoman for the local Serbian

3 authorities said they have two and a half thousand of what they called

4 internees who were being interrogated as possible Muslim fighters.

5 "The Speaker: No, this is not a camp. This is a centre, a transit

6 centre, Omarska and Trnopolje, both centres, not camps.

7 "The Speaker: The prisoners were being brought to the canteen from

8 a large industrial building in the centre of the mining complex. It, too,

9 was under heavy guard, and we asked to be allowed to look inside. But in

10 spite of promises of openness from the Serb Bosnian leader, Dr. Karadzic,

11 we were told we could see no more.

12 "The Speaker: Why are you not fulfilling Dr. Karadzic's promise

13 to us?

14 "The Speaker: He promised us something else, and said you could

15 do this and this, and that and not that."

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Didn't we see this portion already?

17 MR. KOUMJIAN: Your Honour, the last video that we saw was a rush

18 video. It was raw footage, and this is the broadcast report containing

19 portions of that rush footage and some other footage that we did not see

20 from that camera.

21 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you.

22 [Videotape played].

23 "The Speaker: We are now being asked to leave this camp seeing

24 nothing more than the canteen. We are being told that Dr. Karadzic's

25 promise, while good to us, does not carry any weight here. As we were

1 moved on, soldiers told us the army did not control the camp, which they

2 said was will you know by the local authorities and militia. We had asked

3 to be taken to a second camp, at Trnopolje, in the same area to which

4 several hundred prisoners from Omarska had that day been transferred and

5 which has also been at the centre of allegations of atrocities.

6 Conditions at this camp were appalling. In 100 degree heat, hundreds of

7 men were forced to eat and sleep outside in a field, behind barbed wire.

8 Their meagre rations consist of a small hunk of bread and a bowl of soup

9 every day. Here, too, they said they had been rounded up, whole villages

10 emptied of their men. And they were afraid.

11 "Can you tell me anything about the conditions in which you are

12 being kept, or is it difficult?

13 "I'm not sure that I'm allowed about that.

14 "Can you understand me?

15 "People here being beaten?

16 "Here, no. Here, no. Not here. I rather wouldn't talk about

17 that. I'm not sure.

18 "Can you tell us anything about the conditions that you are being

19 kept in and the treatment of the people you were with?

20 "Well, that was hard time. What can you say?

21 "We heard, we heard stories of people being beaten and people

22 disappearing. Did that happen?

23 "Well, I can't say much about that.

24 "We just came here from another camp. And we didn't know what the

25 condition here. We accept a little bit more better.

1 "What was it like before?

2 "It was terrible.

3 "One of the prisoners asked us to check on him in several days'

4 time to see that he hadn't been punished for speaking to us. And away

5 from the camera there were allegations of routine beatings and executions.

6 Several prisoners told us of retaliatory killings. In one instance, in

7 which they claimed 150 of their fellow prisoners had been killed,

8 following the death of ten Serbian soldiers in a Muslim village. We were

9 told people had been beaten to death, and we were asked to smuggle a film

10 out of the camp. The pictures show severe injuries apparently as a result

11 of beatings.

12 "In the makeshift medical centre, there were cases of scabies,

13 malnutrition, and diarrhea. Local doctors said they were chronically

14 short of medicine and drugs. Among them was a Muslim doctor. We asked

15 him whether there had been any cases of beatings.

16 "Many?"

17 "On one side of the camp were refugees who were here simply

18 because they had nowhere else to go, their homes having been destroyed.

19 They have been told they can go as soon as they have a guarantee of a home

20 outside Serb-controlled Bosnia. In Banja Luka, prisoners' wives have been

21 queueing for days for the news of their men and to register as refugees

22 because they, too, have nowhere to go. On the roads to Banja Luka, Muslim

23 villages lie empty and deserted, homes destroyed. If there is eventually

24 freedom for the men in the detention centres, it's unlikely to be in

25 Serb-controlled Bosnia.

1 Ian Williams, ITN, northern Bosnia."

2 MR. KOUMJIAN: Thank you, that's the end of the portion of the

3 tape that I wish in evidence.

4 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Just for clarification, I tried to follow in

5 B/C/S. We saw this queue of persons lining up. Was this in which town,

6 to the best of your recollection? Can you recall where this was?

7 THE WITNESS: To the exact best of my recollection, that was in

8 Prijedor, not Banja Luka. I take issue with the commentary on the film,

9 that he has made a mistake.

10 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Would this be identical with that you described

11 earlier as this lining up in front of the police station?

12 THE WITNESS: So far as I recognise it, it was that which we saw

13 lining up outside the police station.

14 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you.

15 Please proceed, Mr. Koumjian.

16 MR. KOUMJIAN: Thank you.

17 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, after this was broadcast, you indicated you were in

18 Belgrade. Did you ever have occasion to speak to Mr. Koljevic following

19 the broadcast and publication of your visit to Omarska and Trnopolje?

20 A. Yes, we had tea together, English tea, at the Hyatt Hotel.

21 Q. Did Mr. Koljevic make any remarks concerning your visit to the

22 camps that stick in your memory?

23 A. Yes, made a rather barbed joke at, I suppose, my expense and at

24 the expense of the media and the world, I suppose. He said -- he joked.

25 He said: "So you found them." He said: "You'll do well out of this.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 Took you a long time, didn't it?" And he chastised in a sort of

2 semi-joking way, the concentration of the media and the world on the

3 capital, the siege of the capital of Sarajevo, and he characterised this

4 sympathy with "lovely old multiethnic city with its university being laid

5 siege to by us barbarians," and he joked along these lines and made some

6 remark like: "Of course there was no Winter Olympics in Prijedor. None

7 of you ever took a holiday in Trnopolje." And well, we laughed for

8 different reasons. I thought he probably had a point.

9 Q. Did he bring Venice into the story?

10 A. And he said all this happening so near to Venice, a few kilometres

11 down the road from Venice.

12 Q. Just to go back for a moment, you talked about visiting camps in

13 which Serbian civilians were being held prisoner, in territory controlled

14 by the HOS, Croatian militia. During that visit, did you receive

15 something that you interpreted as a threat?

16 A. I received a threat from the commander of the camp and of the I

17 think also of the -- one of the HOS units in this town near which the camp

18 was called Capilinja. And we were pushing him on the presence of the

19 women in the camp which we had been in the hut that had been sort of

20 whisked past. And he said: "If you're a journalist, you're rather like a

21 intelligence officer, the less you say, the longer you'll live." And I

22 took that to mean don't mention the women. And I didn't think that my

23 life was in danger, one doesn't when people make these threats. Got used

24 to them. But it was a menacing enough remark, and I was on my way back to

25 Zagreb, and I was fairly wary of them perhaps knowing where I was because,

1 I did, of course, write about the women.

2 Q. And in writing about the women in that camp, did you also, in

3 fact, even publish that threat and name the major, the Croat officer, who

4 had threatened you?

5 A. I'm sure I published the threat. I don't remember the man's name.

6 Q. Was it Major Miro Hrstic?

7 A. Yes, that rings a bell.

8 Q. By the way, in your experience in covering wars in Bosnia, was

9 there a danger to journalists in Bosnia?

10 A. There was certainly a danger to journalists in Bosnia. I think

11 some 42 were killed, mostly from the local agencies and press. But some

12 from outside the area as well, and I was myself involved in the retrieval

13 of a body of one of them, BBC cameraman, a Croat in Central Bosnia. We

14 went up to get it with a unit from the Croatian army. He had been killed

15 by a tank round, a Serbian tank round, while driving his vehicle clearly

16 marked "press."

17 Q. Following your visit, your article, about Serbian civilians

18 detained in camps controlled by the HOS, did you return to Prijedor on the

19 17th of August, 1992?

20 A. Yes. With a specific motive, yes, I did.

21 Q. On that visit, did you have -- first, did you have official

22 permission from Republika Srpska authorities for that visit, as you did --

23 A. No.

24 Q. Can you tell us the background, what motivated you to go back to

25 the opstina, the municipality of Prijedor, on the 17th of August?

1 A. Yes. I came back from the HOS camp to Zagreb, and immediately on

2 arrival there had to report the story of a decision by the Croatian

3 government to close their border to the by now stream, I would say a

4 flood, of refugees and deportees coming across their borders, mostly at

5 Karlovac which I mentioned earlier. But other places, too. Croatia had

6 by then become a young nation, but one basically full of refugees and

7 deportees. And I remember reporting the government saying they now had

8 600.000 people from Bosnia and they just couldn't take any more. So they

9 closed their border to any more. And we were talking about, a colleague

10 and I, were talking about this in Zagreb, and I can't exactly remember who

11 said what to who. But I mean the gist of it was well, that's the front

12 door shut. But I'm sure they are not or we were sure they weren't going

13 to stop deporting people. So we had better find out where they are going

14 and where the back door is. And I remember with some trepidation, it

15 dawned on us that the only way to find out was to get, to use the

16 expression, to get ethnically cleansed ourselves and to find out from the

17 inside where people were being deported to. And the way of doing that was

18 to cross over from Croatia, across an area of Croatia under Serbian

19 control, and into the Serbian bit of Bosnia, which was then called the

20 Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to Prijedor.

21 Q. With whom and by what means did you travel?

22 A. Travelled in a rental car with a colleague called Andre Gustincic

23 [phoen] from Reuters, who was a Yugoslav.

24 Q. I presume because he spoke the language you did not have an

25 interpreter with you? Was it just the two of you?

1 A. No, indeed, we were later joined by a reporter from the AP, the

2 Associated Press, called Maud Beelman. But to put it frankly, I'd worked

3 with Andre Gustincic [phoen] a lot in the past and in Croatia, and he

4 didn't have a driving license. And the deal was I drove and he

5 translated.

6 Q. So there was no interpreter?

7 A. No, there was no interpreter. No.

8 Q. Where in the surroundings of Prijedor did you actually go?

9 A. Went to Prijedor. I think we asked -- we actually made a brief

10 pass by the civic centre. I can't remember why, a briefing from the

11 police or something. But we were sent on our way. And we then started

12 out down the road towards -- in the direction of Banja Luka and familiarly

13 enough past the sign to Omarska. And saw a sight which was -- I mean,

14 simultaneously, it was gratifying from I suppose from a professional point

15 of view of why we were there, but it was otherwise pretty depressing. An

16 extraordinary large convoy of mostly cars, some buses, and trucks parked

17 alongside the road. Long convoy.

18 Q. Did you speak to any of the persons in this convoy and learn where

19 they were from and where they were headed, if they knew?

20 A. Yes. We -- well, we slipped into the convoy. We found a space in

21 it, and put our car into it. And of course started talking to the people.

22 They were from a town called Sanski Most to the south of Prijedor and they

23 had been marshalled that morning, after quite a -- as they reported, a

24 considerable amount of violence against their homes. And they said that

25 they had been told to assemble, that they were to leave the town in the

1 convoy. But for the most part, at least initially when we spoke to them,

2 they did not know where they were going.

3 Q. Were there any police or army escorting the convoy?

4 A. Yes. There were armed guards, so far as I could tell, mostly from

5 the police, civilian, units, not in green camouflage but in blue uniforms.

6 Q. Do you recall if it was the light blue police shirt or if it was a

7 camouflage uniform?

8 A. As I recall, it was a light blue police tunic, shirt, uniform, but

9 I think some of them had darker blue sort of anoraks or jackets.

10 Q. I'd now like you to recount for us the journey that you took with

11 this group of people. I'm going to try not to interrupt you, and tell us

12 what it was like to be on one of these convoys of persons going from the

13 Krajina area to Travnik.

14 A. You mentioned Travnik, and indeed, some people further -- later in

15 the day, further along the line did have some idea that we might be going

16 to Travnik. I had never heard of the place.

17 It became increasingly confusing and terrifying as it went along.

18 We started out down the road. They had pulled over on the side of the

19 road when we found them for what we later learned was one of a number of

20 stops or pauses or marshalling to order along the route. We went through

21 Banja Luka and took a sort of turning off the main road, which started to

22 climb towards hillier terrain. There were various stops. I can remember

23 one man's car broke down, and I'll never forget the terror on his face

24 when he thought that he might perhaps be abandoned without the protection

25 of numbers in this increasingly hostile terrain. They quickly attached a

1 rope to his car so that he could be pulled. This was the car in front of

2 us, in fact.

3 We went through a town called Skender Vakuf where I was stopped

4 actually. And a guard, a soldier, who had had a few drinks started

5 talking to me. And I was pretty scared because I didn't want to give

6 myself away as a foreigner. So I pretended to be deaf and dumb. I just

7 went like this. And Andre said: "He's from Australia. It's all a

8 mistake." And this man gave me a Chinese burn on my arm and a bit of a

9 kick through the door, wrenched the windscreen wiper off the car, kicked

10 the door shut, and then we went on. That was the sort of atmosphere. We

11 saw an awful lot of, from my point of view very interesting, because it

12 was a rare view of the guns, of the Serbian gun positions above -- atop

13 the hills. And you could see that they -- perhaps not relevant here it

14 was very interesting to see how much hardware that was up there and

15 plentiful ammunition. But everywhere there were trucks and people giving

16 the Serbian salute at our convoy and spitting and shouting. And then we

17 got to a place called Vitovlje, and I can remember the people running

18 across the fields and gardens of the village, shouting a term which Andre

19 told me meant: "Slaughter them, slaughter them." Using a word - and I

20 don't know, because I don't know the language, but Andre said - which was

21 supposed to apply to animals, not people. And then it got dark, or

22 started to get dark.

23 We pull over again at a sort of factory farm or chicken hut. And

24 one of our party, the lady from the AP, said: "Oh, is this the final

25 destination?" Is this going to be -- should we be mentioning the

1 unmentionable? You know, is this a camp or are they going to kill us? We

2 didn't know what the hell was going on or where we were going. By the

3 time we left Vitovlje, we were skirting mountain passes, and as dusk fell,

4 we could hear, in the bushes beside the road, guns and shooting over the

5 top of the convoy.

6 Then there was a final stop, penultimate stop before the end, when

7 they went down the convoy which was by now we counted and we estimated 58

8 cars, some 8 or so buses and trucks. Calculated about 1600 people in all.

9 The -- they went down the convoy, it appeared, taking property. They did

10 not take ours. We decided that this was the point at which it was

11 advisable to declare that we were with the press. They did take our

12 petrol, gas, but they were moving down the convoy. Then we moved on. And

13 by now, there was more shooting. And I don't think that was at us or over

14 us. I think this was part of the exchange of fire where we were getting

15 to, which was the front line. A place called Smet. And by now, the

16 police had -- the people that had escorted us to this far had gone back to

17 Prijedor and we were now in the hands of a different lot of people, some

18 irregulars, and others in a sort of paramilitary uniform.

19 And the -- they basically took all the cars. They yanked the

20 people out of the cars at gunpoint, and some were able to marshal

21 belongings from the car, but not as I recall from the trunks of the cars.

22 And the cars were driven away. And the convoy -- we weren't. We actually

23 managed to chat to the people at the checkpoint, and Andre and I, we were

24 joking about the Belgrade soccer team and we were sort of quite anxious to

25 ingratiate ourselves with these people. So they said you can take your

1 car through. We then packed it full of people and people on top, as well,

2 and I knew that we were now starting to -- we were doing what you never

3 and I know you never do which is cross lines in a war. Never, never cross

4 the lines. Rule number 1.

5 And the convoy set off into the night on foot, apart from us and I

6 think a couple of other cars which for some reason were allowed to... We

7 got to a pile of rocks in the road which was the demarcation between the

8 two territories. There was a drop on one side, at least a bit of grass

9 and a drop, and clearly mines around the rocks. So we left the car

10 obviously and joined this clamber over the rocks. If you can imagine all

11 these people climbing over the rocks, there were children there, very old

12 people. I remember a man in a wheelchair having to be taken out of the

13 chair going over and a man coming over. There was teddy bears and then,

14 it was just anybody. But once over the rocks, we were in the battlefield

15 basically. And down below was a village which I now know to be called

16 Kozice or something. And they were shelling that village, and there was

17 recent but not immediately shed blood on the road, and there had

18 obviously -- well, there were the signs of mortar, mortar attacks or

19 mortar fire because there were -- there was -- well, I stepped on a body

20 part on the road. There had clearly been fighting, serious fighting, in

21 that area. We carried on. We were marshalled by an enterprising man into

22 a single-file line as far apart as was feasible because if a mortar hit

23 us, then that would minimize the casualty. And we carried on.

24 I mean, the whole thing took about 14 hours. And I will not

25 forget things like a man shuffling forward in his slippers, and I talked

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 to him. And I later learned that he died. We were then -- because the

2 fighting was quite heavy in the valley, we were told to go up a mountain.

3 I didn't know then, I knew nothing then, but I now know it to be called

4 Mount Vlasic.

5 And then down the other side. And that's where the first people

6 from the Bosnian army, the government army, met up at a place called

7 Turbet, and a young man said: "We have buses to take you the rest of the

8 way. Welcome to Travnik." And I'll never forget the woman touching the

9 thing on his arm, very relieved, I suppose, to be there. And that night

10 we arrived in a place I had never heard of called Travnik. It had been a

11 very long day.

12 Q. Following that journey, did you on any occasion attempt to get

13 permission while the war was still going on to re-enter the territory of

14 Republika Srpska?

15 A. Yes, many times.

16 Q. And were you --

17 A. When I say "many," I mean between five and ten.

18 Q. Were you able to get official permission to re-enter Republika

19 Srpska?

20 A. No. A couple of times I got as far as Pale from Sarajevo, but

21 permission was declined by the woman in charge of press accreditation, who

22 was actually Dr. Karadzic's daughter Sonja. I was not granted permission

23 to return.

24 Q. Going back for a moment to the video where we saw the women in

25 line, you indicated that that was in Prijedor outside the municipal

1 building. Is that correct?

2 A. F well, if it wasn't, it was very, very similar to what we saw in

3 Prijedor. I don't think that was Banja Luka.

4 Q. Was that line of women visible from the front entrance of the

5 Municipal Assembly building --

6 A. Oh, yes, right opposite.

7 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Would it be possible that the competent unit

8 provide us, until tomorrow, with a still of this picture that we can

9 identify the buildings around.

10 MR. KOUMJIAN: I'll do that, or I may try to find it in a video

11 that shows more surroundings. I think there's a video that shows more of

12 the area.

13 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you.

14 MR. KOUMJIAN:

15 Q. I want to move on now. You indicated that you were reassigned to

16 Washington, and then came back later at the very end of the war in 1995

17 with an assignment to write some retrospective series about untold stories

18 of the war. Is that correct?

19 A. Yes, that would have been February 1994. I was pretty much

20 instructed by my paper to leave Bosnia. They -- my editors decided I had

21 been doing this too long. I wanted to stay but they took me out. Went to

22 America, and I asked to come back to -- yeah, become the first U.S. bureau

23 chief to be asked to be transferred to the Balkans. It was at my request

24 that I returned. And I was based in London, and I covered the conclusion

25 of the war from, I suppose, early summer 1995, the fallout from

1 Srebrenica, and the NATO bombing which ended the war. And then sat down

2 with my editor, the foreign editor, by now a new foreign editor who said

3 well this is the conflict was what it is. We didn't think that the whole

4 story by any means had been told. And he commissioned me to research what

5 were going to be -- what was going to be a series of long articles and

6 which were going to try -- well, in which I would retrace my steps and

7 retrace some of the steps of the war and of the diplomatic shenanigans, to

8 try and tell and illuminate the background to what had been in the news

9 week in, week out for years.

10 Q. In February 1996, did you return to Prijedor?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. And at that time, did you interview or attempt to interview

13 several individuals?

14 A. Yes. I wanted to go back to Omarska, and I wanted to seek out and

15 interview the people that we had met before.

16 Q. Did you go to the -- try to go to the Omarska camp in February

17 1996? And this is just to remind us, after Dayton. Correct?

18 A. Yes, all this is after the end of the war, and the war ended by

19 the Dayton agreement. And indeed, with a colleague, I went to Omarska, to

20 the former camp, a mine again now. First time certainly I had had the

21 opportunity to have a proper look at it, at its location and whereabouts.

22 And there were three guards there at the entrance, this time the front

23 entrance. And they did not allow us to go in, but we did talk to them,

24 and they said that there had been no camp there and it was all lies. And

25 we talked about the pictures and they said it was a montage, this sort of

1 conversation.

2 Q. Did you ask them their names?

3 A. Yes, and they refused to give them, making a reference to this

4 Tribunal actually. They said a man called Tadic had been arrested and had

5 been brought here, and I knew about that because I had actually been

6 interviewed about it before by the Tribunal. And -- well, not about him

7 but about the camps. And they said: "Oh, no names, please. We've had a

8 nice conversation, but no names. You never can tell." They took Dule

9 Tadic to The Hague, and they said that they knew him and he had a nice

10 cafe and so on. It was like that.

11 Q. Among the people that you interviewed in February of 1996, did you

12 interview Dr. Milan Kovacevic?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Can you tell us, where was it that you -- how did you get in

15 contact with Dr. Kovacevic and where did you interview him?

16 A. We interviewed him at his work which was the Prijedor hospital of

17 which he was the director and found out that he was the director. If you

18 will pardon, I'll explain. In Banja Luka, the night after we had been to

19 Omarska and endeavoured to speak to Mr. Drljaca, without success, a

20 translator, Serbian-speaking translator, was working with another

21 colleague, and we happened to meet up in a restaurant and were talking

22 about what we were -- what we were hoping to do. And it was this person

23 who knew where Dr. Kovacevic was.

24 Q. When you say "we" spoke to, was there any other journalist with

25 you on this trip?

1 A. Yes, there was.

2 Q. Who was that?

3 A. His name was Roger Cohen [phoen]. He works for the New York

4 Times.

5 Q. Besides yourself and Mr. Cohen [phoen], was there an interpreter?

6 A. Yes, there was. We wanted this individual to accompany us because

7 he/she was particularly sort of knowledgeable and experienced. But she

8 was unavailable because was working with somebody else, and recommended

9 somebody who she regarded as competent. And he was in Bijeljina and

10 called him and came down.

11 Q. Approximately what time of day was it that you interviewed

12 Dr. Kovacevic?

13 A. 9.00 in the morning.

14 Q. Did this occur in some type of office?

15 A. It was in his office at the hospital, yes.

16 Q. Can you tell us, without referring to any notes at the moment,

17 just what you recall now six years later what you recall about that

18 conversation? And later, we can go over your notes.

19 A. I recall him being fairly haunted by it all. He produced a bottle

20 of homemade brandy from a cupboard and drank a quantity of it. And to

21 summarise, his discourse was a mixture of remorse, a fairly haunted sort

22 of - how can I say? - outburst in a way of bitterness over what had

23 happened.

24 Q. Do you think it would be best for you to read your shorthand notes

25 to recollect as much as possible the details of that conversation?

1 A. It's up to the Court. I mean, I can go into more detail from

2 memory if the Court wishes. I remember it pretty well, but it's

3 absolutely up to the Court.

4 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: We all know that witness evidence, please, don't

5 take it personally, witness evidence is in most cases the worst evidence.

6 And therefore, based on personal notes, yes, they no doubt, there can be

7 additional probative value. I think it would be advisable that these

8 notes be distributed to the parties. And as far as I understand, this

9 should be under seal, the remaining pages, for which special reasons, if I

10 may ask?

11 MR. KOUMJIAN: Well, these are personal notes. I'm going to ask

12 the witness also about a conversation with Dr. Stakic. So I'd ask him to

13 go through these and tell us if these notes that I have contain the

14 interviews of 1996 with Drs. Kovacevic and Stakic and ask him if there's

15 any other material that he does not want to be disclosed publicly. And if

16 so, let us know.

17 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So let's proceed this way. The usher please

18 give one copy first to the witness, and before we proceed, may be provided

19 to everybody else.

20 MR. KOUMJIAN:

21 Q. Have you finished?

22 A. It's fine, yeah.

23 Q. You don't have a problem of this being disclosed publicly, to the

24 Defence, to the accused?

25 A. None whatsoever.

1 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. Then it may be distributed, please,

2 to the Defence and to the Judges.

3 MR. KOUMJIAN: While it's being distributed, a few questions.

4 Q. Is it your normal practice in taking notes during an interview to

5 include the question? Or would that normally not be something that you

6 write down?

7 A. Normally not.

8 Q. Also, was it your practice when you covered the wars in the Former

9 Yugoslavia to bring a tape recorder to the field, or did you have any

10 audiorecording equipment normally with you?

11 A. No. I had one, but it was stolen at a roadblock.

12 Q. Okay, I think we are all prepared.

13 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: No, unfortunately not.

14 So please.

15 MR. KOUMJIAN: Yes, I think we can proceed now, Mr. President?

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: We can proceed. I think as to the fact that

17 this is more or less a loose leaf collection, we have to take care that we

18 all have the document in the same order. And therefore, it seems to be

19 necessary to paginate these documents which would be, Madam Registrar,

20 please correct me, DP5? DP5, and then page by page -1, -2, and

21 following.

22 So please proceed.

23 MR. KOUMJIAN:

24 Q. Yes, we are now dealing with the conversation with Mr. Kovacevic

25 in 1996. Can you read your notes from that interview.

1 A. Sorry, respectfully, I'm not prepared because I don't have a copy.

2 Q. That's a good reason.

3 While that's being brought to you, how long do you think that

4 conversation was?

5 A. I don't know. Between an hour and two.

6 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, if you could read the notes that you took of your

7 conversation with Dr. Kovacevic.

8 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: And sorry to disturb once again. But if you

9 could, please, put on the ELMO, page by page, the page you are quoting

10 from. This enables us to give the page number to the same page for all

11 parties at the same time.

12 The usher please take care that the ELMO works.

13 THE WITNESS: Would Your Honour like me to turn around like

14 this...

15 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Just so we can see which page you are referring

16 to. Okay. I think we have all the same. This would be, then, DP5-1.

17 And then proceed by page in this manner. Thank you. It's not

18 necessary that you turn around, just whenever you start a new page, please

19 show it on the ELMO.

20 THE WITNESS: Okay.

21 MR. KOUMJIAN:

22 Q. You may begin.

23 A. [As read] Kovacevic. If IFOR, K and Mlad. did that, would not

24 these people. K, grapes. The British were here for a month after. The

25 month after that the Czech officer, then something both of them. They

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 have their own med. system going to Travnik where they have their medical

2 base. Stolac. How can you accept that someone is breaking you, and how

3 can you accept his presence here?

4 Hospital financed by the European community. I don't want to talk

5 about politics. It's not acceptable that someone serious is touchable on

6 you for our people. It's not acceptable. These are stories for children,

7 children do not react well on that. It's different for someone to

8 have -- he is offering a peace. We will see what kind of peace it will

9 be. I think it will stay. And a whole peace. I will talk about

10 medicine. I don't want to talk about policy. I will, but not officially.

11 When you are unlucky, when a snake bites you, you are afraid of

12 little lizards. A lizard is a lizard, but a snake is a snake. I'm

13 worried about the future. 40.000 municipal, Krajina, Domovina [phoen],

14 Krupa, Petrovic, Kljuc. When they want to defeat for the Serbs in the

15 war, the people is like birds flying from tree to tree. But the

16 organisation, something will go back. It is a definition, whoever is to

17 exchange from their homes is -- whoever is to escape from their homes is a

18 defeat. The Germans, when you move three times, it's like being something

19 out once. But I cannot. People who are not need medicine for six months.

20 They are coming here for treatment. Bad conditions. Pneumonia.

21 Many had will die. During the travelling, psychological problems,

22 tragedy. When 25.000 moving, if you see it from a helicopter, it's a

23 tragedy. It was tragic thing, a necessary fight, a moment of madness,

24 though the west says it was the Serbs something. Now they are in their

25 relations with Milosevic. Now they say he is a peacemaker.

1 It's not up to him to something with he has influence or not. You

2 cannot be an aggressor on my land. I cannot be an aggressor on my

3 neighbour when I am a Catholic or Orthodox. How it happened is not up to

4 me to speak. It was a civil war. But basically, it was a religious war.

5 Something was in the 13th to 14th centuries when the Christians

6 went to fight against the Muslims. Basically economic problems, but it

7 escaped in this way. Muslims were something by Iran, Iraq. The Croatians

8 by the Vatican. The Serbs, they are being backed the Russians, very weak.

9 England and the United States, they had their intervention. The Russians,

10 the Serbs were losing their spine during the war.

11 All of them lost their spine, but the Serbs mostly. Destroyed

12 homes? That was madness. Did -- today, there is peace. It is a kind of

13 thinking, but during the fighting, people were losing control. Before the

14 war, it was thinking the same as now. I know from history that no one

15 gets anything from war, only the United States got anything out of a war

16 because it always -- because they always entered the second half of a war.

17 That was at the beginning. At the beginning, people were losing control.

18 People don't behave normally. People say a foreign television, there is

19 no difference between events in the Krajina now and at the beginning of

20 the war.

21 In the margin, it seems to say inflection and something. I can't

22 read that. For sure, it was a mistake. We know very well what Auschwitz

23 and Dachau were. We know very well how it was then. This was not the

24 same as Dachau or -- and Sachsenhausen. But it was a mistake. It was

25 planned to have a camp for people, not a concentration camp, but a camp

1 for people. President Karadzic, President interfered and wanted to

2 evacuate Omarska. What do you think is it but to get one family in a camp

3 where they can survive and something before leave them in their house when

4 they will survive for sure. That was the plan. What happened later was

5 different.

6 Pardon me, Your Honour. New page.

7 Kovacevic.

8 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: This would be, then, page DP5-3.

9 THE WITNESS: A third page.

10 It was planned as a reception centre, but then it turned into

11 something else. It was turned into something else because of this -- word

12 too faint something. I cannot explain that losing of control, even

13 historians will not explain it in the next 50 years. I could call it

14 "collective madness." There is a fact that the English didn't know

15 anything about the concentration camps until 1942, though there were

16 not -- they were not interested. The English didn't know about. More

17 than 600.000 people were killed in Jasenovac. I was brought to Jasenovac

18 as a small child. My aunt --

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Sorry, does it read 600.000 or 3.600.000?

20 THE WITNESS: More than 600.000.

21 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Okay. Thank you.

22 THE WITNESS: My aunt brought home to Jasenovac, and she saved me.

23 Me don't was a something people moving from one place to -- many followed

24 or foll. It will be very different for peace. I can't remember

25 everything because I was a small child, but my aunt is in

1 Prijedor -- sorry, is in Rijeka in Croatia. She doesn't trust anybody. In

2 the Second World War, Muslims from Kozarac, they entered into the Serbian

3 villages and burned everything. The Serbs escaped into the Kozara

4 mountains. My mother knew my aunt. The Muslims and the Ustasha tried to

5 kill our people in Kozara. There were a few German officers, 50 to 60,

6 not more. The rest were Muslims and Croats. My mother was in the

7 mountain hiding. That people, we remember everything. History was forged

8 in this way. History was diluted by the authorities. Other communism,

9 but the memories were not. Under communism, but the memories were not.

10 You cannot compare the situation here to Europe. This is the

11 Balkans. If you see history to Europe, something -- Europe stops at the

12 Una. East of here -- east of here, we the something. This is Krajina,

13 the border. There are great -- there are great circumstances you cannot

14 make an agreement ever between the civilisations. This is the American

15 mistake. Economically, this region is a hundred years behind Europe.

16 Next page. Perhaps the Germans and French, they saw it was not

17 possible. We -- we -- perhaps it is better to talk for 50 years but to

18 fight a year. The French and Germans learn from history. I was

19 specialising in German history. I was a specialist in Germany. I saw the

20 something when something France -- French was to be operated in Germany.

21 The German something, the German doctor did treat him well. Sorry, if I

22 could, with respect, go back, I think it's clearer. I saw one something,

23 when my father was to be operated in Germany, the German doctor treated

24 him well. They said he's French, practiced in Germany. Now, there are

25 economic reasons to cooperate. If something happened, France or my

1 father -- I don't know which, FR, is in danger because of Germany. It

2 doesn't mean that. Here, people are not educated. The culture is very

3 low, poor people. These are the reasons it happened here. But the doctor

4 is -- is think it's a question for science to discover what happened here.

5 If you see the conf. problems added, that is why the French and Germans

6 meet 30 years after war. That situation could be when Luther or something

7 fighting against the Catholics.

8 It's all very well planned if you're looking from New York. But

9 on the spot, when everything is burning, something is breaking in people's

10 heads. It's something for the psychiatrist. It was necessary to bring

11 these people to the psychiatrists, but there was not enough time. Perhaps

12 someone will come in scientists and investigate everything that happened,

13 and someone else will write another dissertation and say that what had

14 something -- what had -- and say that what he said was not true. If

15 someone said it was -- "I was not a member of the collective madness," I

16 would say "that is not true." But then I wouldn't like to think about how

17 much. It's a fact I was a member of the municipal government for a year.

18 We cannot be the same in everything, even in that. If Tadic killed

19 someone, and you didn't kill anybody, it's not the same. We live in 50

20 years of collective responsibility. That was the communist mistake. If

21 everything is okay in this hospital, then I am clearly responsible. If

22 things are not good in this hospital, then I am guilty. I learned that

23 all the Germans are killers. When I went to Germany, I found it was not

24 true. Every man has its good side and its bad side. Where he is is the

25 important thing.

1 There's some writing at the top of the page.

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: This would be DP5-5, if it's consecutive, or you

3 mention here on the top of the page the name Kovacevic. Once again, was

4 it only one discussion you had or --?

5 THE WITNESS: Yes, only one.

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Okay.

7 THE WITNESS: The copy is not very good here.

8 These institutions at the age, hospital. Don't know. Is a -- I'm

9 afraid I can't read that. They had to show if they are serious. I think

10 it's more of a political game than anything else. It's more a game than a

11 serious job. He is the middle man, Clinton and Milosevic.

12 Tito was something and a ruler. Bosnia established on the same

13 principle as the Austria-Hungarian empire, Muslim/Croatian alliance. Now

14 look at what was happening in Mostar. The Croats will take everything.

15 They know how to get everything. The Muslims, they will save a small

16 part.

17 Bosnia was not a state. Bosnia existed within Yugoslavia, like

18 Yugoslavia in miniature. The politicians are mad. They say we will -- it

19 trails off, I'm afraid. They are saying that is check on history today.

20 We cannot live together, but we can live as neighbours. It is necessary

21 to know who is who. You are brothers. Excuse me. You are brothers; you

22 get around. You have got farms, families. It is not possible to live in

23 the same house. They will taking two coffees together, but by the third

24 coffee, they will be angry. The facts showed that it was necessary to

25 destroy Bosnia. You can't fingerprints because there, it's not possible

1 to find two fingers the same. But the brains are even more different than

2 the fingers. How can you know? Of course, I think about my Croatian

3 Muslims and friends. I think about how they are suffering now, like me.

4 Are they alive? How are they? But they were the -- but the something,

5 the director, had one friend, vice-president in the city. Government. He

6 was a very nice man. I didn't even have an argument with him. I didn't

7 hear the chairman. He was an electrical engineer, very good lives in

8 London. But it is different for him to live there. It's not a problem

9 with someone -- what someone is. Could something -- it's different how

10 ours to -- last word I can't see.

11 Top of the next page, it says Simo Drljaca. I don't know why,

12 because this is the same conversation continuing with Dr. Kovacevic.

13 Perhaps he was mentioned, but we did not meet with Simo Drljaca, so I

14 don't know why his name is there.

15 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: DP5-6.

16 THE WITNESS: There is a medical morality in this hospital.

17 Muslim, Croat, Serbs, they are all treated here. I didn't know what

18 happened to them after they were treated in this hospital. We kept our

19 prof -- I guess it must be profession -- here. If I were to write the

20 history, I would write the truth, yes, even about Omarska and what

21 happened there. I believe that once the truth is done for children,

22 India, Gandhi, write a book about history, hundred deep they saw 90 per

23 cent of them in that book. That is why I think everyone cannot write

24 history. It's -- it's only possible to write about history 50 years after

25 the events. There is a direct connection between what was happening to

1 the Muslims in the something, and the Muslims were soldiers in the

2 creation, the NDH, in the Croatian, the NDH.

3 When -- when... We. Oh, when -- when did war crimes, now it was

4 the other way around. That is a historical memory. It's not conscious or

5 subconscious, and you -- hang on. Or subconscious. You can find Serbs

6 who view the -- who view, who something their taken their father and

7 grandfather. Your grandfather killed my grandfather. Perhaps it will

8 happen again, but the other way round again in 50 years.

9 President Clinton made a peace plan, but he doesn't understand the

10 reality. It's good for him, but it's a little strange here. There is a

11 connection between a very thin -- but a very thin one between Jasenovac

12 and Omarska. You can call Omarska a collection camp, concentration camp,

13 Auschwitz, as you like, but something in Omarska, someone who was -- who

14 was something brought was Muslim killed someone whether it's -- whether it

15 was 10 or 100, it doesn't matter. To say more than a hundred, but in

16 Jasenovac, it was a killing factory.

17 Omarska was a collection camp, but it was not a killing factory

18 like Jasenovac was. The main difference. There are facts that the

19 Russians didn't something still. I know that only one child died in

20 Omarska. Are there -- or they can write everything they want. I know for

21 sure what happened there. A child was not killed in that house in

22 Trnopolje. Someone shot to the something and bullet something through the

23 head.

24 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I suggest that we proceed with the following two

25 pages, and then resume with the page that starts with Stakic. Agreed?

1 MR. KOUMJIAN: Yes.

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So the next page would be DP5-7.

3 THE WITNESS: Next page Kovacevic: I directly informed so that

4 their father could bury the child, six to seven years old, killed not

5 died. It was the number who were killed, not died. You will have to talk

6 to the doctors. I don't know. It was a wind tunnel, this part of the

7 world, with the wind blowing to and fro. It's more natural now than

8 before. Forget what the politicians are saying, Karadzic, Izetbegovic,

9 you can ask the people on the ground. If you had a hundred Serbs, a

10 hundred Croats, and a hundred Muslims dead, it's like flour. It's not

11 possible to divide, but we are a little primitive. We did not know how to

12 talk, only to fight.

13 1915, it was the fault of the king. He wanted to swim in the

14 great lake of Slovenia. That was the first mistake. I'd like a foreign

15 passport. I'm like an animal here in a cage. Can't get to Serbia, can't

16 go to Croatia, Bosnian passport, it's the same shit. If you have a

17 Bosnian passport, you can go into the Serbian and Croatian part. I left

18 politics because I saw many bad things. That is my personal secret thing.

19 Things did not turn out the way I planned. If you have to do things by

20 killing people, well. Talking about this is a relaxation where to me --

21 where to my private professional problems. Now, my hair is white. I

22 don't sleep so well. Clinton, Yeltsin are these end.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: DP5-8.

24 THE WITNESS: Excuse me. I want a job to Paris -- can't read,

25 Austria. It doesn't matter where. But if I arrive in Austria with a

1 Bosnian something, then they will say "oh, you've come from the same town

2 as Tadic." Or "don't" something. I came in to Paris with this opinion.

3 I didn't carry my opinion, but because others, they think he something

4 necessary or join them.

5 At the something -- oh, at the beginning of the war, I wanted to

6 make this Serb land without Muslims, yes. We cannot live together, but we

7 can live next door. When the separation, they are -- the two brothers,

8 then they are good neighbours. Doctors something know will who are

9 Muslims, and I called them Turks. I worked with them. I was selling cows

10 to them. They were not getting married, the Muslims and the Serbs. If

11 any Serbian girls get married with a Muslim, she would lose her connection

12 with her family. Suddenly, Tito said: "We are brothers." Perhaps he had

13 the best intentions, but how could we be brothers when the Turks had been

14 occupiers here for 500 years? You cannot be brothers because in history,

15 the Turks were always killing Serbs. When Muslim nation was established,

16 it was an -- it's an artificial nation. In 1974, by Tito, in the U.S., we

17 are a celestial people. The Serbs something really know how to die. That

18 resolution -- that the resolution needs time. We had a revolution, not

19 evolution. We say not fight. We say something fight or let's kill the

20 king. Something island, Muslims saved Serbs and opposite. Same shit.

21 Got Otok, something island, near Proc [phoen]. There is no worse death

22 than political death. Milomir Zilas [phoen], father was a farmer. He did

23 make trade with the Muslims, but all the time he was calling them "Turks."

24 In fact, these Muslims are from there. They are not Turks.

25 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think this concludes this reading out. And I

1 thank you very much for these very special efforts you took. And let us

2 have a break now, if there is nothing to add as regards this taking

3 deposition.

4 MR. KOUMJIAN: That's correct. I do have a little concern about

5 the schedule for Thursday. We had scheduled Mr. Brown. Perhaps I can

6 address that tomorrow morning. We had scheduled Mr. Brown to testify, and

7 I understood that the Court requested we call another witness to see if

8 Judge Fassi Fihri would be back for Mr. Brown's testimony.

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: If you have a look on the schedule, you will

10 find out that it's scheduled to hear maybe tomorrow the witness before us.

11 Then Wednesday, Witness B, and possibly also on Thursday, if necessary.

12 It should only be -- preparation should be made in case of vacancy to have

13 another witness available, and it's for the OTP to provide adequate, also

14 as regards, apropros time. It may be necessary to have the entire day

15 tomorrow especially for the cross-examination available until 4.00. So

16 the Status Conference may follow then within short notice.

17 There is a break now of this taking deposition until tomorrow,

18 9.30. Thank you very much.

19 --- Whereupon the Depositions Hearing adjourned

20 at 4.06 p.m., to be reconvened on

21 Tuesday, the 17th day of September, 2002,

22 at 9.30 a.m.

23

24

25