090914ED

Page 152

1 O'Sullivan, Mr. Slobodan Cvijetic, and Ms. Tatjana Savic. Thank you very

2 much.

3 MR. PANTELIC: Good afternoon, Your Honours. On behalf of

4 Zupljanin's Defence, I'm Igor Pantelic, lead counsel. Next to me is my

5 co-counsel, Mr. Dragan Krkovic. Left to my side is Mr. Brent Hicks,

6 Defence counsel from Florida Bar. And next to him is Mr. Eric Tully, our

7 case manager. Thank you.

8 JUDGE HALL: Before we proceed further, I would wish to inquire

9 of the accused separately whether they can understand the proceedings --

10 what we have said so far.

11 THE ACCUSED STANISIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honours, I can

12 understand.

13 JUDGE HALL: Thank you.

14 THE ACCUSED ZUPLJANIN: [Interpretation] I can understand as well.

15 Thank you.

16 JUDGE HALL: Yes.

17 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, the case which you are about to hear

18 over the next few months concentrates on the role of the Bosnian Serb

19 police during the conflict, which took place in 1992 in

20 Bosnia-Herzegovina and of course continued longer. The indictment, in

21 this case, as you are aware, deals with those events of 1992.

22 The Bosnian Serb police, in short form the RS MUP, I will explain

23 in a moment or two what MUP stands for. RS, of course, is Republika

24 Srpska. The name Republika Srpska did not come into existence until

25 later on in 1992, but it's just easier throughout if one talks about the

Page 153

1 RS MUP.

2 The two accused in this case, Mico Stanisic, as minister of the

3 interior of what became known as Republika Srpska, and Stojan Zupljanin

4 as chief of the security services centre, otherwise called CSB, in the

5 area of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, represent the highest level of

6 the RS MUP and the regional level.

7 The events of 1992, as have already been well-documented in

8 previous cases before this Tribunal, reveal, the Prosecution say, a

9 widespread and systematic campaign of criminal activities by the Bosnian

10 Serbs against their fellow Bosnians who were of Muslim and Croat

11 ethnicity or nationality, and in particular against the former, the

12 Muslims. And when I say Bosnian Serbs, I mean those Bosnian Serbs who

13 were the leadership of the SDS and who took part in the creation of the

14 Bosnian Serb state and then carried out the planned activities.

15 The criminal activities range from discriminatory measures, for

16 example, denial of employment, restriction of movement of the lowest to

17 mass killings at the highest, and the Prosecution say that these crimes

18 did not take place spontaneously or by happenstance. The similarity of

19 events which occurred in the municipalities all over Bosnia and

20 Herzegovina, if nothing else, shows that the crimes were intended and

21 came about as the result of a criminal enterprise.

22 We submit that the evidence will show in this case that the

23 criminal enterprise was planned and put into execution by the Bosnian

24 Serb leaders in politics, the police, and the military. The objective of

25 this plan was to remove permanently the non-Serbs from the territory

Page 154

1 which the Bosnian Serbs consider belonged, and I use that word in

2 inverted commas because it was a word that was used by one of the

3 leaders, which the Bosnian Serbs considered belonged to them and

4 therefore should form part of the Serbian state within Bosnia.

5 The participation of the MUP in this enterprise, the RS MUP, as a

6 matter of common sense, if nothing else, was clearly integral to its

7 success. The crimes which were envisaged and executed, if nothing else,

8 should have been investigated and those responsible charged and

9 prosecuted. This, as we will show, did not happen.

10 Whilst for some of the most notorious crimes public announcements

11 of an investigation were made, in reality these were sham investigations.

12 Furthermore, in many of the crimes which are listed in the schedules to

13 this indictment, members of the RS MUP were active participants therein.

14 In general terms they participated in the original seizure of power by

15 the Bosnian Serb leaders in most if not all of the municipalities about

16 which evidence will be heard in this case. They were wholly or partly

17 responsible for some of the mass killings. For example, those which

18 occurred on Mount Vlasic or outside the medical centre in Kotor Varos.

19 They were operating notorious camps such as Omarska and Keraterm in the

20 Prijedor municipality.

21 It is not suggested that every police officer, every member of

22 the MUP took part in crimes. Some of those in positions of

23 responsibility who took part in the activities which preceded the

24 official establishment of the RS MUP carried out their duties in a proper

25 professional manner. Others resigned or found themselves positions which

Page 155

1 took them out of the mainstream of the activities of the MUP. For

2 example, taking charge of security in the Villa Bosanska in Belgrade

3 which was used for meetings by high-ranking Bosnian Serb officials and

4 their counterparts in Serbia proper. There was, as the evidence will

5 show, close co-operation between the MUPs in Serbia and in Bosnian Serb

6 territory, as well as between government figures.

7 We should further make it clear straightaway it is not suggested

8 that either of the two accused personally committed any murders or

9 beatings or took part personally in looting; however, they were aware of

10 these crimes. The evidence shows that their failure to take any action,

11 either to investigate crimes which had taken place or take steps to

12 prevent future crimes, was not simply a failure to act but a positive

13 affirmation of their adherence to and participation in the criminal

14 enterprise which was designed to rid the designated territory of its

15 non-Serb peoples.

16 The description of the evidence which you are about to hear in

17 this opening is no more than a summary of the salient parts. It would be

18 impossible to deal in any opening with every area of evidence, let alone

19 every piece of evidence, and the intention of this opening is to set out

20 the framework into which the evidence you will hear and assess fits.

21 So may I start straightaway with a brief biography of the

22 accused. First of all, Mico Stanisic, who you will see on your screens,

23 not as he is now but as he was filmed in 1992. He's now aged 55, being

24 born on the 30th of June, 1954. He attended the police school in

25 Sarajevo and joined the Bosnian police force, the Bosnia-Herzegovina

Page 156

1 police force, then known as the SUP - as I say, I'll come on to explain

2 some of these expressions - in 1973. May I just interrupt. We're going

3 to show the video from which this clip is taken, so -- at a later stage.

4 He then took a law degree at Sarajevo University, graduating in

5 1982, and in 1984 he left the police to go into business. In 1991, he

6 returned to the Bosnian police and in May of that year was appointed

7 secretary to the public security station, the Secretariat for Internal

8 Affairs in Sarajevo, a position of some importance. By then, the

9 minister of the interior was Alija Delimustafic. And in February 1992,

10 he was appointed advisor to the minister on state security, which in the

11 light of what was happening in February of 1992 was a touch ironic.

12 He was a member of the SDS party at a very early stage and was on

13 the Main Board in 1990. And if you look there, document, you will see at

14 number 13 -- 19, Mico Stanisic. Can we just look at the title, it says:

15 "Main Committee of the Serbian Democratic Party of Bosnia and

16 Herzegovina," known as the SDS.

17 JUDGE HARHOFF: Ms. Korner, when was this appointment made?

18 MS. KORNER: The appointment, which appointment, Your Honour?

19 JUDGE HARHOFF: His appointment to the Main Committee.

20 MS. KORNER: I don't know when it was actually made, but that

21 document is 1990, so it must have been very early on because the parties

22 were established sometime before the elections in 1990.

23 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you.

24 MS. KORNER: But the exact date I can't -- I don't think the

25 document has a date on it.

Page 157

1 As we will see later looking at other documents, in December of

2 1991, he was a member of the SDS Crisis Staff, and again I'll explain

3 about Crisis Staffs a little later, and was also appointed to the Council

4 of Ministers.

5 On the 27th of March, 1992, when the Bosnian Serb Assembly, which

6 had been established back in October of 1991, passed its Law on Internal

7 Affairs which regulates the police, Mico Stanisic was appointed minister

8 of the interior. He also became a member of the National Security

9 Council, which was established the same day.

10 If we look at one document, number 28, you will see -- we're

11 going to see the document relating to his appointment to the minister of

12 the interior later, but that is the ministerial council, and he appears

13 at number 18.

14 All the names on this list will, I think, become familiar to you

15 as we go through the evidence. It's perhaps worth looking at number 2 on

16 the list: Dr. Vitomir Zepinic, who at that stage was in the BiH police

17 and was assistant minister.

18 Mico Stanisic held the position as minister of the interior until

19 January of 1993. There was then a change of administration and he was

20 replaced, but he was reinstated at the end of that year.

21 Next, Stojan Zupljanin. Again, the photograph you're seeing on

22 the screen at the moment is what he looked like in June of 1992. It's

23 taken from a video which we'll be playing later. He is, in fact, now

24 aged 57, very nearly 58 because he was born on the 22nd of September,

25 1951. He, too, was a career police officer, in fact, rather more than

Page 158

1 Mico Stanisic because he remained in the police throughout. He managed

2 to obtain a law degree from Sarajevo University. He joined the Banja

3 Luka police in 1973, and he remained in that area throughout his career.

4 By 1985, he was chief of the Department of General Crime. In May of

5 1991, he was appointed as chief of the CSB in Banja Luka. Of course, it

6 was still then part of the Bosnian MUP.

7 After the formation of the RS MUP on the 1st of April, 1992,

8 Mico Stanisic appointed him temporarily as the chief of the RS MUP CSB,

9 and that appointment was confirmed on the 15th of May. And if we just

10 look at the date at the top. It's in the middle there, middle of that

11 first paragraph.

12 Zupljanin remained as the chief of the CSB in Banja Luka until

13 February of 1994, when he was appointed advisor to Radovan Karadzic on

14 internal affairs. And we say that in itself shows the close and good

15 relationship he had with Karadzic and the respect in which he was held.

16 So that's a brief biography of both the accused in this case.

17 Can I start with explaining a little bit of the background to the events

18 about which you will hear evidence in detail. We appreciate that it's

19 been said before, but perhaps it's important just to set it in context.

20 As is well-known, the death of Marsal Tito in 1980 gradually led

21 to the decline of the dominance of the Communist Party in the countries

22 which made up the former Yugoslavia, that is to say Serbia, Croatia,

23 Slovenia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and the two autonomous regions,

24 Kosovo and Vojvodina. Those were the countries, republics, that made up

25 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Page 159

1 In November of 1990, the first multi-party elections which were

2 held in Bosnia and Herzegovina resulted in the three nationalist parties,

3 that is to say the Muslim Party of Democratic Action, which was led by

4 Alija Izetbegovic, called the SDA. Obviously it's the initials, the

5 acronyms for the proper titles in the Bosnian language. The Serb

6 Democratic Party led by Radovan Karadzic, the SDS, and the Croatian

7 Democratic Union led by Stefan Kljuc, the HDZ. These three parties

8 received the bulk of the votes. And it's right to say that an assessment

9 of the voting pattern showed that the voters divided on ethnic lines.

10 Following the elections, there was an initial period of

11 co-operation between the three parties in respect of the allocation of

12 posts at both government and municipal levels. And if we have a look for

13 a moment at the diagrammatic representation of that, this shows the

14 power -- the positions in the Presidency and government between January

15 of 1991 and March of 1992. The president obviously being

16 Alija Izetbegovic of the SDA. Underneath that you had as part of the

17 Presidency -- I should say he was the president of the Presidency.

18 Fikret Abdic from the SDA; Biljana Plavsic, SDS; Nikola Koljevic, SDS;

19 and then Stjepan Kljuc from the HDZ; Franjo Boras and Ejup Ganic from the

20 SDA. Prime minister HDZ, deputy prime minister SDA, deputy prime

21 minister SDS, and the second or third deputy prime minister SDA. And

22 then underneath that you will see the minister of the republic

23 secretariat of internal affairs, the RS SUP because it was a secretariat.

24 The Bosnian Serb republic, when it passed its laws we will see and hear

25 changed secretariat to minister, and that's why it became the MUP. And

Page 160

1 there we see Alija Delimustafic from the SDA. Minister of justice,

2 however, under the SDS. And that gives one a general idea of how the

3 posts were divided after the elections.

4 Gradually, however, tensions arose and mistrust crept in between

5 the three parties. In particular, after Slovenia in December of 1990,

6 and then Croatia in May of 1991, had voted to secede from the Socialist

7 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and in June of 1991, both republics

8 declared their independence.

9 To try and reverse these actions, the Yugoslav National Army, the

10 JNA, was brought into action for a very brief period in Slovenia and for

11 a longer and more destructive period in Croatia. For various reasons,

12 the members of the JNA who took part in the conflict in Croatia, who

13 responded to the mobilisation call, were largely those of Bosnian Serb

14 ethnicity.

15 According to the 1991 census, members of all three nations were

16 residentially dispersed throughout most of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In

17 rural areas many lived in single-nation villages, but these villages were

18 often adjacent to or close to villages or settlements that were largely

19 occupied by members of other nations.

20 So we should now see on your screen, first of all, simply a map

21 of Bosnia and Herzegovina showing its borders with the other Yugoslav

22 republics. Then if we move to the next map, what you see there are the

23 municipalities that we will be dealing with in the course of this case.

24 Prijedor, Sanski Mostar, Banja Luka, Kljuc, Kotor Varos, Skender Vakuf

25 only because of the Mount Vlasic massacre, that north-west Bosnia going

Page 161

1 across to Doboj, coming round to Brcko, Zvornik, Vlasenica, Visegrad, the

2 municipalities within the area of Sarajevo, and then down at the bottom

3 Gacko and Bileca.

4 JUDGE HARHOFF: Ms. Korner, can I just ask you, when you say that

5 Ilijas and Pale were within the area of Sarajevo, are we to understand,

6 just for clarification, do they form part of the Sarajevo --

7 MS. KORNER: I suppose you could say they form part of Greater

8 Sarajevo, if there is such a thing. There was central Sarajevo, then

9 there were a number of small municipalities dotted around, one of which

10 was Pale. There are a number of other municipalities within the Sarajevo

11 area. As Sarajevo grew, Your Honours will be hearing a little more about

12 that from Dr. Donia, places which had been completely separate gradually

13 were absorbed, as it were, into the Greater Sarajevo, but Pale is a

14 little bit distance -- the rest of the -- we can probably, and in fact,

15 we will when Dr. Donia gives evidence [indiscernible].

16 It's right to say that except for a few areas of Bosnia and

17 Herzegovina, it was simply impossible to draw boundaries on a map which

18 defined contiguous territory inhabited by only one single national group.

19 They were really very, very mixed. But the Bosnian Serb leadership which

20 was concerned that if Bosnia were to become independent they would be a

21 minority, asserted a claim which was based on their reading of the

22 historical records to 65 per cent of the territory. The fact that much

23 of the territory they laid claim to in this way had a mixed population

24 and contained municipalities which had a majority Muslim population,

25 meant that if pure Serb areas, in inverted commas because again that's an

Page 162

1 expression that was used, were to be established in Bosnia and

2 Herzegovina, the non-Serb populous would have to be evicted. And one can

3 see in an intercept that took place -- a telephone conversation, sorry,

4 rather than an intercept, which took place between Karadzic and Milosevic

5 on the 24th of October that this was something that was absolutely clear

6 to them.

7 If one looks -- and I'm just going to take parts of this. Now,

8 what Karadzic was saying on the first page, the discussion was going on

9 at that stage as to what was to happen. This was, at the time, when the

10 Bosnian Serbs walked out of the Assembly and set up their own Assembly,

11 the Bosnian Assembly, and Karadzic was saying to Milosevic, talking about

12 Alija Izetbegovic:

13 "They want The Hague, that is Europe, to give them a state in

14 which we would be locked within these borders by international

15 agreements. We can't allow that. We have to prepare everything, and we

16 have to -- and we have prepared everything to create a de facto

17 situation that cannot be ... which they will break their teeth on. They

18 will simply have to break them. There is no way we will live in a

19 country with them. No way at all. That's it."

20 And then later on we go to page 7. At the middle of the page.

21 Let me put this in context. Milosevic says he's going to talk to

22 Izetbegovic, and Karadzic said this:

23 "You tell him the Serbs are moving on, that you can't, that you

24 can't exert influence over us to mellow things down. We are moving on.

25 We will establish full authority over the Serbian territories in BiH and

Page 163

1 none of his lawyers will be able ... to show his nose there. He will not

2 be able to exercise power. He will not have control over 65 per cent of

3 his territory. That is our goal."

4 And then at the bottom of that page:

5 "Our steps are calculated. We have to establish authority and

6 control over our territories so that he doesn't have -- doesn't get his

7 sovereign Bosnia. Croatia doesn't have control over 30 per cent of its

8 territory, and Bosnia will not have control over 60 per cent of its

9 territory!"

10 During the course of 1991, the SDS established what they called

11 Serb autonomous areas, SAOs for short. Some existed really -- or came to

12 exist in name only. For example, Northern Bosnia. Others, in

13 particular, the Autonomous Region of Krajina, with its seat in Banja

14 Luka, for geographical, political, and military reasons came to wield

15 real power and influence. Its creation, the Autonomous Region of

16 Krajina, was foreshadowed by the establishment in April 1991 of something

17 called the community of municipalities of the Bosnian Krajina, otherwise

18 known by the acronym, which you may see over various documents ZOBK,

19 Z-O-B-K. This community of municipalities set up an Assembly composed of

20 Serb representatives from the municipalities, which were important for

21 the creation of a Serb state, but the reality was that many of these

22 municipalities did not have a majority of Serb inhabitants. That

23 Assembly, in September of 1991, as we will see later, declared itself to

24 be the Assembly of the Autonomous Region of Krajina.

25 Intercepts and documents that you will see in this case which

Page 164

1 were created during 1991 show the increasing determination of the Bosnian

2 Serb leadership to establish that Serb state by force if it could not be

3 done by negotiation.

4 On the 15th of October of 1991, the Socialist Republic of Bosnia

5 and Herzegovina Assembly declared the sovereignty of the Bosnian

6 republic, and that provoked what is now the infamous speech by

7 Radovan Karadzic.

8 [Video-clip played]

9 THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] And there will be no way to stop

10 that. Now I have to send a message to all the delegates. Gentlemen,

11 believe me, even if you would make such a decision tonight and there is

12 no way to make it because you have a constitutional way whereby we can

13 prevent you from voting, but even if you were to decide that, we would

14 find a way to prevent that in The Hague and to shame Mr. Izetbegovic in

15 The Hague. Also, it would be a very bad image for our peoples, for

16 peoples of Yugoslavia and Europe, and it will be a particular

17 embarrassment for you. It would be to show how disrespectful you are of

18 the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. So I'm asking you one more

19 time, I'm not threatening but, rather, asking to take seriously the

20 interpretation of political will of Serbian people which is represented

21 here by the Serbian Democratic Party and the Serbian Movement of Renewal

22 and some other Serbs. Please take it seriously. Whatever you're doing

23 now is not good. This is the road that you want to take Bosnia and

24 Herzegovina to, that is the same highway of hell and suffering that

25 Slovenia and Croatia took. Don't think that you won't take Bosnia and

Page 165

1 Herzegovina to hell and the Muslim people to possible extinction. The

2 Muslim people will not be able to defend themselves if we are going to

3 have a war here."

4 He was absolutely right in saying what was to happen was the road

5 to hell.

6 On the 24th of October of 1991, the SDS and the Serbian Renewal

7 Party, known by its acronym of the SPO, their delegates to the Bosnian

8 Assembly, the socialist Republic of Bosnia, they sat as a separate body,

9 and they then proclaimed the Assembly of the Serbian People in Bosnia and

10 Herzegovina, and that Assembly called for a plebiscite of the Serbian

11 people in Bosnia to decide whether they wanted to remain within a federal

12 state effectively of Yugoslavia.

13 The plebiscite took place on the 9th and 10th of November of

14 1991. It was only participated in by Bosnian Serbs. The result was

15 overwhelmingly in favour of staying within the social -- Socialist

16 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and on the 21st of December of 1991, the

17 Bosnian Serb Assembly adopted a decision to establish a republic of

18 Serbian Bosnia and Herzegovina, and at the same session they appointed

19 the Council of Ministers, which we already had a look at the document of

20 which Mico Stanisic became a member.

21 This council was effectively the precursor of the government

22 which the Bosnian Serbs intended to form in their republic.

23 The republic was formally proclaimed at the Bosnian Serb Assembly

24 session on the 9th of January, 1992. The Serbian -- the republic of

25 Serbian Bosnia and Herzegovina was eventually shortened to Republika

Page 166

1 Srpska in August of 1992. That republic was to come into existence

2 following upon any international recognition of an independent Bosnia.

3 On the 11th of January of 1992, the Badinter Commission, which

4 had been appointed by the -- or established by the economic -- the

5 European Community to assess any procedures by which Yugoslav republics

6 might apply for independence, recommended that there be a referendum in

7 Bosnia to establish the will of its people with respect to independence.

8 And incidentally, on the same day, as we will see, the first meeting of

9 the Council of Ministers was held.

10 That referendum took place between the 29th of February and the

11 1st of March. The result was overwhelmingly in favour of independence,

12 but very few Serbs voted in that referendum.

13 On the second day of the referendum, a Bosnian Serb guest was

14 killed at a wedding in Sarajevo, and this provided the perfect excuse for

15 the erections of barricades -- for the erection of barricades in Sarajevo

16 by members of or adherents to the SDS. The Muslim members of the SDA

17 responded by setting up their own barricades. Intercept evidence reveals

18 that this was not a spontaneous action but planned and it further

19 reveals, as we will be seeing, the involvement of Mico Stanisic in the

20 barricades incident and support from Banja Luka by Stojan Zupljanin.

21 On the 6th of April, 1992, the European Community announced that

22 it would recognise the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The same

23 day, the police academy in Vraca was taken over by the Bosnian Serbs led

24 by Momcilo Mandic, who was then the deputy minister of the interior.

25 So that rather sketchy canter, as it were, through the

Page 167

1 background, can I now say a little bit about the MUP, the police force.

2 MUP is, in fact, the acronym for the words in Bosnian language of

3 Ministry of Internal Affairs. And I'm not even going to attempt to say

4 it in the Bosnian language. The Law on Internal Affairs, which had been

5 passed in 1990, referred to the republican secretariat of internal

6 affairs. So in those days properly it was called the SUP, but when the

7 Bosnian Serbs promulgated their own Law on Internal Affairs on the 23rd

8 of March of 1992, that referred to the Ministry, and so that's why, as I

9 say, those terms were changed. But in fact, one will see that numbers of

10 people use -- seem to use the terms interchangeably, so you will see SUP

11 and MUP appearing. Either way, whether it's SUP or MUP, it's used to

12 mean the police generally.

13 The structure and the sphere of activities and the powers and

14 duties of the MUP were set out in the Law on Internal Affairs and then

15 further refined in something called the Rulebook on the Internal

16 Organisation of the Ministry or Secretariat.

17 After the 1990 elections in the -- the Socialist Republic of

18 Bosnia MUP, the major posts within there were divided, rather as we saw

19 in the government, by agreement between the three nationalist parties.

20 Now, if we have a look at the chart which was marked 6.3, it was attached

21 to the pre-trial brief, you will see there the Minister Alija

22 Delimustafic; the deputy minister Vitomir Zepinic, whose name we saw in

23 that earlier document, SDS; and then with the, as it were, assistant

24 ministers. The SDA had Avdo Hebib, the assistant minister for police

25 affairs. Again, he's someone you're likely to hear a great deal about.

Page 168

1 We then go public security, again SDA; the assistant minister for

2 prevention and suppression of crime, Momcilo Mandic, whom you will

3 undoubtedly hear a great deal about during the course of this case; legal

4 and administrative affairs Hilmo Selimovic. Again, he's someone whose

5 name crops up quite a lot. He was SDA. And in fact, we then go -- I

6 don't know we need to trouble about, for the moment, general personnel,

7 administration, analytical information, but the under-secretary for state

8 security service was a gentleman named Branko Kvesic, who was a Croat

9 member of the HDZ.

10 Below that, and I'll come back to that in a moment, we see the

11 CSBs, the centres that existed then, and there were nine of them. We'll

12 have a look later at a map. And then under that the SJBs, which were, as

13 it were, the police stations in the various municipalities, and I'll come

14 back to that in a moment.

15 The regional organisation was based on those nine CSBs, and they

16 were in Bihac, Banja Luka, Doboj -- actually I suppose -- yes, Bihac,

17 Banja Luka, Livno, and coming up you can see where they are all based.

18 That's it. Bihac, right up top, top in the north-west, Banja Luka,

19 Zenica centrally, Livno, Sarajevo, Mostar, Gorazde, Tuzla, and Doboj.

20 That sets out where they all were.

21 The heads or the heads of the CSBs reported directly --

22 JUDGE HARHOFF: Ms. Korner, can I just ask you in relation to

23 this chart that you have just shown us. Maybe we can have it back on the

24 screen. And even the one before that with the figures -- with the

25 stations.

Page 169

1 MS. KORNER: The 6.3.

2 JUDGE HARHOFF: This one.

3 MS. KORNER: Yes.

4 JUDGE HARHOFF: Because it seems to me that although Banja Luka

5 on the map would be geographically the largest area, you have both Tuzla

6 and Sarajevo with more police stations. So my question is: Do the

7 number of police stations reflect the number of inhabitants within that

8 municipality, or how -- what's the relation between the geographical area

9 and the organisation of the --

10 MS. KORNER: Each of the municipalities had its own SJB or police

11 station. As to whether that had anything to do with the numbers of

12 people, you know, I've never actually asked, but I'm sure we can find

13 out. In each of the -- if you look at Banja Luka, you will see that

14 under Banja Luka CSB there was an SJB within the town itself, and then

15 you've got under that Prijedor, Sanski Mostar, et cetera, et cetera.

16 Those were all municipalities, and all came within the geographical area

17 of responsibility, if you like, of Banja Luka. And so the same is for

18 Sarajevo, which had a number of very small municipalities but clearly

19 defined territories, if one puts it that way, or opstinas. Trnovo, for

20 example, was minute.

21 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you. The reason I'm asking is that -- that

22 from the indictment one may be led to believe that Banja Luka was the

23 most important CSB of the area, district, and that is somehow

24 counterbalanced by the number of police stations in Tuzla and Sarajevo.

25 MS. KORNER: No. It's Banja Luka after the declaration and

Page 170

1 establishment of the RS MUP. This is -- what you're looking at here is

2 the pre-break-up diagram.

3 JUDGE HARHOFF: Okay.

4 MS. KORNER: When you see what happens after the break-up, you

5 will see Sarajevo had very few municipalities that were Serb -- I mean,

6 or that could be -- when I say they were Serb, were declared Serb.

7 Banja Luka had a vast number more than appears here.

8 JUDGE HARHOFF: We'll come this that. Thank you.

9 MS. KORNER: Yes.

10 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you for clarifying this.

11 MS. KORNER: The head of the CSB reported to the Minister of the

12 Interior, sometimes through his undersecretaries depending on how busy

13 but it was a direct line of reporting. Each of the CSBs included a state

14 security service, the SSDB. And just to confuse matters, it -- the name

15 for the security service became the SNB at a later stage. This was the

16 intelligence-gathering service. It also contained, the CSB, a public

17 security sector, the SSJB, and the heads of those two services reported

18 to the chief of the CSB. Additionally, however, as you will hear, the

19 head of the SSDB reported to the under-secretary in Sarajevo. At the

20 time when we looked at the chart, that was in fact Branko Kvesic.

21 Those three posts were the major ones within the CSB, but the

22 CSBs contained additionally four other organisational units; a department

23 for communications; a department for foreigners, legal, administrative

24 and personnel affairs all lumped in together; a department for material,

25 financial and technical affairs; and public security stations. And

Page 171

1 again, the division of posts between the parties applied to the CSB.

2 The CSB had authority over the public security station that we've

3 just looked at, the SJB. The public security -- the public security

4 stations of the municipalities which came within their territorial

5 jurisdiction. And additionally below that, there were local police

6 stations known as SMs, and reserve place stations, SRMs, within the areas

7 of the SJBs. And a person could possibly go mad with the number of

8 acronyms, but you will become familiar with them.

9 If one looks at another chart, one is now looking, and this may

10 be the answer to His Honour Judge Harhoff's question, at the Banja Luka

11 CSB after the split. Are we -- no, we're not. We're looking at the --

12 no. Yes, we are. Yeah. Absolutely.

13 So we've got Mico Stanisic, and then below that -- just a moment.

14 No, sorry. We're looking at a slightly ...

15 Oh, yes, we are. Sorry. Just a slightly different version.

16 The chief of the CSB going through the under-secretary of public

17 security, Cedo Kljajic, to the minister, but in fact there was also

18 direct reporting. Then under that we see, and perhaps now,

19 Judge Harhoff, we see there are a large number of SJBs which

20 theoretically, in any event, were in charge of their own areas and

21 includes those. They reported to Stojan Zupljanin.

22 And if we move to the left of the chart -- sorry. Right to the

23 left. Thank you.

24 What we see there is the SNB section of the CSB. There was, as

25 I've already said, as it were, a dual system of reporting. The head of

Page 172

1 the CSB -- the SNB in the CSB Banja Luka, became a man called

2 Nedeljko Kesic. He reported to his superiors in Pale or wherever the MUP

3 happened to be at a moment, who were Slobodan Skipina, and then

4 Dragan Kijac. At the same time, however, he was obliged to report to

5 Stojan Zupljanin, and then below him were the operatives of the SNB.

6 Your Honour, they are slightly different from the chart that we

7 put in -- yes. The reason was we were asked to make certain changes by

8 the Defence. We did, and we obviously didn't give them to Your Honours,

9 which we should have done. Or did we? No, well, we will give them at

10 the end of this because they are slightly different. In fact, as you

11 saw, they slightly took me by surprise because I was still working off

12 the old ones.

13 It's right to say that the authority wielded by the chief of the

14 CSB over the SJBs was a real, not an illusory one nor a theoretical one.

15 To take one example, on the 19th of September of 1991, Stojan Zupljanin

16 wrote to the chief of the Prijedor SJB about the employment of personnel

17 without his approval.

18 As you will see, if we go to the top of the letter first, it's

19 dated the 19th of September, addressed to the Prijedor SJB for the chief,

20 and then begins about he'd been informed that certain people had been

21 assigned to Prijedor SJB. It would appear from the names that all of

22 them were Muslim.

23 And then dealing with Mr. Ilijas Aliskovic, he dealt -- says that

24 was all right, and then he says:

25 "With regard to the other workers for whom I have not provided a

Page 173

1 recommendation for employment to the MUP of the SR BH and for whom

2 security vetting has not been completed ..." et cetera, et cetera, "I

3 have received reports that they have begun to work at your public

4 security station despite not being covered by the number of police

5 staffing specification posts. I hereby require you to inform me with

6 whom it was agreed that the number of posts in accordance with the

7 Prijedor SJB staffing specification was exceeded and the reason why. I

8 here by require that in all future cases you consult me when proposing

9 candidates ..."

10 The MUP also had a component of reserve police. Just to put it

11 in general terms, and I should say this is a very brief summary of what

12 was actually quite a large and complex organisation, but Your Honours

13 will hear evidence from Dr. Nielsen who will put it in more context.

14 Once a male in the former Yugoslavia had completed his JNA

15 service - there was compulsory military service - he would be assigned to

16 a reserve post. Most often this was with the army, but it could also be

17 with the police. And so basically speaking, all reservists were

18 conscripts, and so the call-up of police reserves was partially governed

19 by the Law on All People's Defence. The only time that the SJBs, the

20 CSBs and indeed the Sarajevo city SUP could call up police reservists

21 without explicit permission or order from the republican MUP was simply

22 for training purposes. Ministerial consent had to be given for the

23 call-up of police reservists, for example, in cases of natural disaster

24 and other exceptional circumstances. Again, all pursuant to the

25 Law on All People's Defence. And indeed, at one stage, I'm not sure that

Page 174

1 there's a date on this communication, Mr. Delimustafic felt obliged to

2 write to the CSBs about their practices in this respect, and you will see

3 it's addressed to the CSBs, the SJBs, public security service, and indeed

4 to the SUP Secretariat of the Interior. And then it goes on to say

5 under 1:

6 "Public security stations," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, "can

7 call up members of the reserve police force without the consent of the

8 republic Ministry of the Interior only in order to carry out professional

9 training programmes and training of active and reserve members ..."

10 And it refers to the Law on Internal Affairs. And the reason for

11 that was that in many cases, particularly this was true of Banja Luka,

12 without authority reservists were being called up.

13 The last component of the MUP which is worth mentioning at this

14 stage is that of the Special Police, properly known as the company for

15 the execution of special tasks and duties. This was part of the public

16 security within the SUP, and it functioned as an organisational unit in

17 the seat of the republican -- republican secretariat. It dealt with any

18 complex or emergency operations such as capturing or destroying

19 sabotage-terrorist groups, large-scale disturbances, hijacking, hostages,

20 rescue operations, and all the rest. And it comprised two special tasks

21 platoons and a mechanised platoon. And the 1st Special Operations

22 Platoon undertook the most complex operations that the company faced,

23 while the second one dealt with the rescue operations. And that was all

24 regulated by the Rulebook on Internal Organisation of the Republican

25 Secretariat for Internal Affairs.

Page 175

1 So there was only that one Special Police force pre the split.

2 So turning now to the events which led directly to the formation

3 of the RS MUP. The Bosnian Serb plans which developed during the course

4 of 1991 to establish a separate Serbian state within Bosnia, as I've

5 already said, of necessity, included a police force as well as an army.

6 The division of the posts and indeed manoeuvering by all three

7 parties within the BiH SUP caused great acrimony. It may well be when

8 you listen to the evidence that it shows that some of the complaints made

9 by the Bosnian Serb leaders about not being allocated the positions to

10 which they were entitled under inter-party agreements or the calibre of

11 people being appointed were not without merit, but the Prosecution say

12 that in this case these grievances, justified or not, did no more than

13 provide the Bosnian Serb leadership with excuses for putting into action

14 that which they intended to do in any event in respect of their police

15 force.

16 Now, it's right to say that Karadzic took a personal interest in

17 the personnel issues which were arising within the BiH MUP, and during

18 the course of 1991, he held numerous telephone conversations on that

19 topic with various people.

20 We're only going to produce one example of a conversation that he

21 had on the 24th of July, 1991, with Vitomir Zepinic, and this was all to

22 do with, first of all, the fact that nothing was to be organised within

23 the -- the BiH MUP without the consent of what he called the Serbs but

24 effectively the SDS.

25 If one goes, first of all, to page 5, Zepinic has been describing

Page 176

1 a meeting that's been held, and Karadzic says to him:

2 "Please arrange for the collegium to meet every morning and see

3 what happened the previous day and what's planned for that day. So that

4 no one is appointed without the full approval of all the Serbs there."

5 And Zepinic says:

6 "I don't know. I have to consult with Simovic on everything."

7 And Karadzic goes on to say:

8 "Because this will result. We've prepared an alternative which

9 will be atrocious. We've prepared it and we'll fuck their mothers, but

10 to stop that from happening, let them sit every day."

11 And then Zepinic goes on, and then at the bottom of page when

12 Karadzic is dealing with the power, the split of power:

13 "... three peoples are sharing power and watching closely not to

14 be tricked, and we've not been tricked at the MUP, especially at State

15 Security."

16 And then going on to page 9. Again, this is -- the whole

17 discussion is about who's going to be appointed to what. And Karadzic

18 says in the middle of that page:

19 "Again, please let the collegium meet every morning and clear all

20 that out. I was with Izetbegovic last night and with Zulfikarpasic, and

21 I told him right into his face we'll establish a parallel government,

22 parallel police. We'll withdraw our people and they'd have to be paid by

23 the government. We'll withdraw all our people and our arms. We'll

24 establish an entire parallel state if you keep on screwing us."

25 And leaving out the profanity in the middle of that page:

Page 177

1 "Let there be war, let there be war, but we'll finish the job for

2 once."

3 And then finally over at page 10, Karadzic goes on saying:

4 "Please discuss this matter at the Serbian collegium. And then

5 tomorrow morning at the Serbian collegium you tell them there is this

6 vacant post. Who do we suggest. No one should work on their own."

7 And Zepinic says:

8 "Mico will see me in the morning at 8.30."

9 And Karadzic queries that and he says:

10 "Stanisic, yes."

11 And in fact, Karadzic says, that's not enough either.

12 "Not just Mico Stanisic, we need to assemble everybody."

13 Stojan Zupljanin also took steps to make his dissatisfaction

14 known to the higher authorities. On the 25th of July, he wrote to

15 Biljana Plavsic, then in her capacity of President of the Council for the

16 Protection of Constitutional Order.

17 One can see the date, the 27th of July, to the council -- oh,

18 1991, to the council of the protection of constitutional order of the

19 SRBH:

20 "Dear, Mrs. Plavsic, I'm writing to you for what might be an

21 unusual and - at first glance - trivial reason, but for me it is

22 exceptionally important for future relations in the Ministry of the

23 Interior."

24 And carries on, he says he was at meeting in the ministry and

25 received a document. And he says:

Page 178

1 "It wasn't so much the content" -- paragraph 2.

2 "It wasn't so much the content that amazed me as the appearance,

3 or to be more precise, the colour on which it was printed -- in which it

4 was printed. It is a well-known fact that the colour of police equipment

5 is blue, so why then is green suddenly introduced in official

6 correspondence, and is this a sign of the dominance of the Muslims in

7 this important ministry?"

8 And then he refers, as I said, to the two gentlemen that I said

9 the evidence would probably say quite a lot about, Mr. Avdo Hebib and

10 Mr. Hilmija Selimovic:

11 "The attempts -- that attempts are being made to create a Muslim

12 army from this ministry" -- next paragraph. Sorry. "Is also apparent

13 from the most recent police training course that began on the

14 22nd of July, 1991," and then he goes on about that police training

15 course.

16 Well, he may have described it as trivial, but in fact that

17 letter was taken seriously enough by Mrs. Plavsic for her to read the

18 letter to the council and discuss what should be done about this in no

19 less than three telephone conversations with Radovan Karadzic on the

20 26th of July, which I'm not going to trouble with at the moment, but they

21 are part of the evidence in this case.

22 Then in the autumn of 1991, two major papers were produced which

23 set out the reasons for and the methods of creating a Serbian MUP within

24 Bosnia. An undated paper ended its proposed course of action with an

25 unambiguous recommendation that a Serbian MUP be established. And if one

Page 179

1 goes -- the title of the paper was "Possibilities to decentralise

2 internal affairs in Bosnia and Herzegovina." And if one goes to page 3,

3 third paragraph. The paragraph begins with the current security

4 situation in the republic. It says it's "... endangered but still under

5 control thanks to JNA troops that have withdrawn from Slovenia and

6 Croatia." Which puts this sometime in early 1992.

7 "The BH MUP with its security services centre and public security

8 stations successfully co-operate with the JNA and in that way it restores

9 trust amongst the Serbian people. The further safety of the Serbian

10 people in BH depends on the successful co-operation between the MUP and

11 JNA, especially in the municipalities where the Serbian people are in a

12 minority."

13 And then the paragraph continues -- perhaps I can finish this

14 document, Your Honour. I'm being reminded that it's probably time for a

15 break.

16 JUDGE HARHOFF: We have another ten minutes.

17 MS. KORNER: Thank you.

18 Then it goes on to say in that same paragraph:

19 "Certain organisational changes and not the decentralisation

20 within the MUP could improve the security and safety of the Serbian

21 people. This could be accomplished by creating a new CSB which would

22 cover the regions of the SAOs ..." Those are the Serb autonomous

23 organisations -- regions.

24 Then the next paragraph, near the end:

25 "The main issue is how to protect the Serbian population in

Page 180

1 municipalities where they are a minority. Besides that, there is an

2 issue of coordinating the internal affairs, which would provide safety in

3 municipalities where the Serbs are a majority. An expert organ on the

4 republic level should be created in order to carry out these functions.

5 That means that the Serbian MUP must be created."

6 The author of this paper then went on to suggest some solutions

7 to this problem. The first set of solutions presupposed agreement and

8 co-operation with the BiH authorities. The second set did not.

9 "If the previously-stated proposals are not sufficient and the

10 decentralisation should be carried out we propose the following:

11 "1. In the municipalities where the Serbian people are a

12 majority, the SJB should be transformed into municipal police stations.

13 "2. CSBs should be established for the regions of the SAOs which

14 would consist of sectors SDB," as I say, SDB later became SNB, state

15 security service, SNB being national, "and the SJB. They would carry out

16 the compound intelligence duties and coordinate the municipal police

17 stations."

18 And finally, again uncompromisingly:

19 "3. Establish the Serbian MUP at republic level."

20 Then on the 17th of October, so in fact it must have been earlier

21 than this paper, clearly, two days after the BiH Assembly's declaration

22 of the sovereignty of the republic, a paper was produced entitled

23 "The possibilities of organising a Serbian Ministry for Internal

24 Affairs." And I'm not going to trouble you with that because this was

25 obviously the later document.

Page 181

1 When the Council of Ministers was appointed on the

2 21st of December, Zepinic was appointed the minister of the interior with

3 Mico Stanisic as the minister without portfolio. The reason for this was

4 that two delegates actually objected to Zepinic's appointment, and one of

5 them, a gentleman named Sarac, actually nominated Mico Stanisic in his

6 place, wherein the end a compromise was reached. Momcilo Krajisnik, who

7 was the president of the Assembly, saying that both of them should be

8 appointed. But it's right to say that dissatisfaction with Zepinic had

9 been expressed by Karadzic since September of 1991 on the basis that he

10 was allowing the Bosnian MUP to become a Muslim force, and we saw

11 something of that in one of the other intercepts.

12 It's right to say that the first meeting of the Council of

13 Ministers on the 11th of January, it was Mico Stanisic and not Zepinic,

14 although he was there, who was given the responsibility of developing the

15 organisation and scope of national security as it was described. So if

16 we look at Exhibit 14 -- sorry, it's my note as 65 ter, but we'll look at

17 the document.

18 Although it's dated the 13th of January, it refers back to the

19 meeting on the 11th of January. And if we go down to the list of

20 attendees you'll see Mico Stanisic, as well as many others. And then if

21 one goes to the third page, item number 4 of the conclusions:

22 "A working group comprising Mico Stanisic, Dr. Vitomir Zepinic,

23 Mr. Lajic, and Mr. Novakovic, will deal with the issues regarding the

24 organisation and scope of national security and will frame a concept

25 about this. Mico Stanisic is responsible for the work of this group."

Page 182

1 I think that's probably -- Your Honours, I'm about to move to a

2 separate document.

3 JUDGE HARHOFF: Shall we take the break now?

4 MS. KORNER: Yes. I think that probably would be sensible.

5 JUDGE HALL: We will resume at -- we will resume at 4.05.

6 --- Recess taken at 3.43 p.m.

7 --- On resuming at 4.11 p.m.

8 JUDGE HALL: Ms. Korner, before we invite you to continue, we

9 would alert you that at quarter of 7.00, we would invite you to -- we

10 would invite you to find a convenient point in which you could break your

11 opening so that quarter of 7.00 we may interrupt your opening in order to

12 deal with the matter that you would have raised, and you will pick up --

13 you will, of course, resume your opening proper tomorrow morning.

14 MS. KORNER: Yes. I don't know that I've raised the matter

15 already, Your Honour, but I was about to mention that we would like some

16 time to discuss the matter which affects the first witness in this case.

17 If that's what Your Honours have in mind, that would be very suitable.

18 So I'm certainly prepared to pause a quarter to 7.00.

19 Your Honours, I think we had reached the -- the first meeting of

20 the Council of Ministers where Mico Stanisic was given the task of

21 developing the -- what's called the organisation and scope of national

22 security. I think I mentioned it already, but just to repeat this, the

23 Council of Ministers was effectively the government in waiting once the

24 republic had been declared.

25 That was the 11th of January of 1992, and then on the

Page 183

1 6th of February Radovan Karadzic wrote a long letter which, as we will

2 see, he circulated to a long list of recipients. Just a moment. Yes.

3 Which I hope is coming up on the screen. It is indeed.

4 6th of February, and it gives the number and if we -- well, we'll

5 go to the next page and maybe it's -- we'll see it's signed by Karadzic.

6 And then it says:

7 "Pursuant" -- at the top of -- "pursuant to the decision of the

8 Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the

9 2nd of March," which must be a typing error -- or one of them is typing

10 everything [indiscernible], "which relates to the necessary personnel of

11 organisational changes in the Ministry of the Interior, we demand ..."

12 and then it goes in to personnel matters, and under 4 in personnel

13 matters:

14 "4. Personnel of Serbian nationality are to be appointed to

15 posts that belong to them (the chiefs of the public security in Zenica,

16 Livno, and Mostar, commanders in Visegrad)," et cetera, et cetera.

17 Organisational matters, under 2:

18 "The state security sector of the CSB in Sarajevo is to be

19 brought up to strength, the legality of the operation of this sector is

20 to be examined, especially the illegal use of the methods and equipment

21 of this service against officials of Serb nationality (secret

22 surveillance ...)"

23 Now, I'm merely bringing that to your attention because I've

24 already mentioned intercepts -- in this Karadzic was absolutely right.

25 The Serbs were being tapped and much of the evidence that shows the

Page 184

1 development of the plan comes from this -- these taps. They were, in

2 fact, authorised taps, as you will hear during the course of the

3 evidence.

4 And finally:

5 "I hereby authorise and order Momcilo Mandic, assistant in the

6 MUP of BH, to participate in solving personnel and organisational matters

7 in the MUP of BH on behalf of the SDS."

8 And as you will see, there's a whole long list of people it's

9 delivered to or sent to, and it's signed by Karadzic.

10 I rather feel that it's -- probably is March and the February

11 date is in error but we'll check against the original.

12 Now, on the 11th of February, on the face of it, five days after

13 this letter, perhaps one of the most important meetings that figure in

14 this case was held in Banja Luka on the 11th of February, and it was

15 attended -- it was attended by a number of high-ranking Serb police

16 officers, many of whom were to play an important role in the activities

17 of the RS MUP. Notably absent as you will see from this meeting was

18 Zepinic.

19 If one looks at the attendees, Momcilo Mandic you've already

20 heard about, then assistant minister in the BiH -- the Republic of BiH

21 MUP, later to become minister of justice in the RS, Mico Stanisic.

22 Cedo Kljajic. I think you saw his name on one of the charts.

23 Can I -- Your Honours, may I interrupt at this stage to -- to say

24 about the charts. What we propose to do, I know we're no longer

25 indulging in paper exercises, but we will provide proper, new updated

Page 185

1 colour charts in a folder for Your Honours as soon as the evidence

2 starts.

3 Cedo Kljajic became the under-secretary of public security in the

4 RS MUP ministry. Draskovic became head at some stage of the Trebinje

5 CSB. Stojan Zupljanin. Stanko Stojanovic, for the moment I can't

6 remember. Bjelosevic became head of the CSB in Doboj. This is all under

7 the RS MUP. Nenad Radovic, he became something, and I can't -- ah, yes.

8 He went into the headquarters and was under-secretary in the

9 administration. Tutus became head of the SJB in Banja Luka directly

10 under Zupljanin. Krsto Savic became the head of the CSB in -- and I

11 ought to remember this. It's just been dealt with in Sarajevo. No. Is

12 somebody going to remind me? Krsto Savic. Yeah, Trebinje, I'm helpfully

13 reminded.

14 Goran Radovic, he went into the SNB at headquarters, the

15 republican RS headquarters. Nedjo Vlaski who you will see something

16 about a little later in connection with the barricades incident in

17 Sarajevo in March was also SNB. Malko Koroman, again a name that you're

18 likely to hear quite a lot about, was in the Sarajevo, then Pale SUP.

19 Jesurovic -- Jesuric, sorry, and I ought to know that too, and I've

20 forgotten where he was. Bijeljina. Thank you very much, Mr. Hannis.

21 Then you see there's a gap for the first name, Kesic. That was Nedeljko

22 Kesic who became in charge of the SNB in Banja Luka. And Mr. Velasevic

23 took the minutes. So that's not all of them but a lot of them as you

24 will see became very important.

25 So if we look at the document itself. The first speaker was, in

Page 186

1 fact, Stojan Zupljanin. Whether it was because outside of Mico Stanisic

2 he was one or more important -- and Momcilo Mandic, he was one of the

3 more important people there or because the meeting was held in Banja Luka

4 he was the first speaker, and you will see that he informed those

5 present:

6 "... that a decision had been made that not a single new Muslim

7 or Croatian employee would be hired until the status of about 600 Serbian

8 police employees from the Republic of Croatia who have fled to Bosnia and

9 Herzegovina has been resolved."

10 The next speaker was Mico Stanisic, and if we go down -- yes.

11 "Work is to be done by the organisation of the Serbian MUP,

12 starting from the municipal and regional levels up to the Serbian

13 ministry. Serbian personnel in the MUP must provide the means to

14 strengthen and supply the Serbian MUP, ensuring that resources will be

15 distributed equally."

16 If we go on to page -- the next page and go to Krsto Savic. You

17 should have it. Krsto Savic has recently been convicted in the War

18 Crimes Chamber of the Bosnia state court.

19 "We are already forming the Serbian Mostar SJB ...

20 "Since Serbs are not being hired at the MUP, I propose that men

21 be taken on without official decisions since there is no other way. I

22 insist that the position of the SJB secretary for the Mostar CSB must not

23 be omitted."

24 And says:

25 "I would mention again that we are already establishing a Serbian

Page 187

1 SJB on the left side of the Neretva."

2 By February matters were moving on to establish Serbian MUPs as

3 well as Serbian assemblies.

4 Malko Koroman, next page.

5 "My opinion is that all further discussion is pointless. A list

6 of demands should be made drawn up," as opposed to "drown up," "and given

7 to the MUP with a deadline. If they are not met, we must paralyse the

8 whole of SR BH and we can do that."

9 Next speaker was Vlaski who you will hear more about.

10 "We must work out how to carry out the decisions from this

11 meeting. The only way would be to organise the Serbian MUP and implement

12 all the decisions without question."

13 And finally at this end, the conclusions.

14 "A Serbian collegium is hereby established in the SR BH MUP,

15 consisting of Serbian personnel at executive positions in all lines of

16 work."

17 And then item 5:

18 "Not a single decision regarding staffing policies in the SR BH

19 MUP will be implemented without the approval of the deputy minister

20 Momcilo Mandic."

21 The Prosecution suggests - of course, Your Honours, we will be

22 looking at the whole document during -- during the evidence. We've just

23 selected bits at the moment - that this meeting which was not attended by

24 all serving Bosnian Serb members of the MUP. As I say, the notable

25 absentee was Mr. Vitomir Zepinic, was really the beginnings of the, we

Page 188

1 would suggest, thoroughly illegal in terms of what was happening then,

2 setting up of a separate MUP. It was something that Stanisic and

3 Zupljanin were supporting and organising, indeed, and it was allied with

4 the overall plan that there should be a Serbian state created in Bosnia

5 with, as we'll see, its own police force and its own army regardless of

6 what effect that would have on other nationalities.

7 In fact, after that meeting matters definitely hotted up. On the

8 13th of February, Mandic sent a dispatch to the leading Serb members of

9 the MUP asking them to arrange meetings with leading personnel in their

10 areas of responsibility. As you will see, addressed to Zupljanin,

11 Bjelosevic, Stojanovic, Savic, and Cvijetic, and then Stanisic.

12 "Following the conclusions ... at the meeting held in Banja Luka

13 on the 11th of February, 1992, please set up and have a meeting with all

14 senior executives of the MUP SRBiH in your area and inform me

15 accordingly."

16 Can I just say one thing? There was, in fact, another Stanisic

17 working in Sarajevo, so one has to be a bit careful as to whether it's

18 addressed to him or to the accused.

19 On the 28th of February, the Bosnian Serb Assembly adopted the

20 Law on Internal Affairs. It came into effect on the 31st of March, and

21 its effect was to establish formally the RS MUP. The new law was based

22 almost entirely on the 1990 Socialist Republic of Bosnia Law on Internal

23 Affairs, and indeed as far as the rulebook was concerned the RS MUP used

24 the old 1991 one throughout most if not all of 1992. A draft after new

25 rulebook was produced in September 1992, but it's not clear that it came

Page 189

1 into effect then.

2 Article 28 created instead of the old nine CSBs, only five, which

3 were to correspond, as you will see, with the Serb autonomous areas --

4 districts: Banja Luka, Trebinje, Doboj, Sarajevo, and Bijeljina.

5 On the 24th of March 1992 at the Bosnian Serb Assembly Mico

6 Stanisic was nominated as the minister of the interior, and he accepted

7 that nomination.

8 On the 27th of March, with the promulgation of the Bosnian Serb

9 Constitution, the Bosnia -- the Bosnian Serb MUP was activated. And on

10 the 31st of March, again Momcilo Mandic sent a circular, presumably still

11 in his guise as the assistant minister in the BH MUP, to the personnel of

12 the RS MUP.

13 You see the date at the top, 31st of March, addressed to all the

14 heads of the CSBs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Then in paragraph 1

15 he talks about the passing of the constitution, the promulgation of the

16 constitution, and then said in the middle of that paragraph in that --

17 beginning with the words:

18 "In that respect, pass a law on internal affairs, which will be

19 uniformly applied on the territory of the republic -- the republic of the

20 Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina as of April 1st and appointed

21 Mico Stanisic until now an advisor in the BiH MUP as minister."

22 The only slight oddity is when he listed the five CSBs which we

23 just looked at under Article 28, there was a change in the last one.

24 Yeah. That instead of Bijeljina, it was Ugljevik. But in fact, in

25 practice, it was Bijeljina. I'm not altogether sure why that is.

Page 190

1 On April the 1st, Mico Stanisic appointed his CSB chiefs, and on

2 the 4th of April, Vitomir Zepinic sent a letter to the Bosnian Serb

3 Assembly resigning from the MUP.

4 Now, on the 19th of November of 1993, Stojan Zupljanin was

5 interviewed on television. It was some kind of a debate, as you will

6 see, and he gave the reporter then an account of what his goals had been

7 for the RS MUP back in 1992, and we're going to look at the video.

8 Yeah, the -- it's not a dubbed video, Your Honours, so you'll

9 have to listen, and the interpretation will be given.

10 [Video-clip played]

11 THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] I have been dreaming about this new

12 type of police officers, members of the police of the Republika Srpska.

13 As I have put this before myself as one of the goals when I opted,

14 together with several colleagues of mine, to intensively work on

15 preparations that preceded a war, on the one hand, conscience of the risk

16 is existing for the Serb nation and Serb man on this territory. It is my

17 great desire to create a police force that is tailored to the people,

18 although the police is not particularly popular in any system, but we

19 took the English Bobby as our model. We feel they're among top world

20 police officers and that they're highly esteemed and respected by their

21 people, that it is the honour for the English police and the English

22 people when a policeman comes to their houses and that they are above all

23 professionally trained and oriented persons, that they are above all

24 moral and worthy men. When I say moral, it is quite certain that with us

25 in the previous system moral had eroded to its lowest. When it comes to

Page 191

1 morality, then I have to recall, for example, that we have a similar

2 situation with business morality too. And when I recently found a little

3 time and remembered the nice times when you could read something, I took

4 Aristotle's politics and at one point I found one of his significant

5 thoughts where he said that the most important task of the state is to

6 preserve and foster morality. I think that our state has to do much on

7 this in the forthcoming period.

8 "When it comes to the police it is certain that it must include

9 the most loyal [Realtime transcript read in error "lying"] sons of our

10 people, young, extremely capable and ultimately committed personnel, the

11 persons of reason and clean hands, the persons not interested in personal

12 gain but persons who are willing to give everything, even their lives,

13 for the good of their people."

14 Well, Your Honours, all one can say on behalf the English Bobby

15 is when looks at what actually happened in 1992, that was not, we would

16 suggest, something that was achieved.

17 Can I then move to the actual operational commencement of the --

18 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry, Your Honours. I have the intervention

19 in the transcript. I mean, I understand it was very difficult to

20 translate, but there has been quite a few mistakes in the interpretation.

21 I hope this will be dealt with, subsequently, of course.

22 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, Mr. Zecevic. Can you point us to some

23 of them right away?

24 MR. ZECEVIC: Well, yes. Forty-three, it referred to a number of

25 peoples, a peoples, and the most -- it's here lying sons of our people.

Page 192

1 It's obviously a mistake. I can't remember because I couldn't take the

2 notes, it was very fast, but there is a quite a few mistakes in that. I

3 appreciate that it was impossible for the interpreters to translate from

4 the video, but it can be done subsequently, I guess, reviewed. Thank you

5 very much.

6 JUDGE HARHOFF: I'm sure ITSS will -- sorry, CLSS will take care

7 of it afterwards.

8 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, we move now really to the -- to the --

9 the beginnings of the operation of what we say was the common plan. As I

10 said earlier when I began this opening, the plan of the Bosnian Serb

11 leadership to establish its own state by necessity involved the removal

12 of any non-Serb inhabitants from the planned territory. And when I say

13 "by necessity," of course they could have stayed there but would have had

14 to stay under conditions which would not have been acceptable, and the --

15 to the Bosnian Serbs it's apparent they saw the non-Serb peoples as a

16 threat.

17 It was abundantly clear, we say, too, that the removal of the

18 non-Serb peoples couldn't happen without the use of force, and that in

19 itself had to involve criminal methods in order to expel the inhabitants.

20 Not only expel them, but make sure they didn't come back.

21 The establishment on the declaration of the Serb autonomous

22 regions were the first public step in the laying out of the territorial

23 boundaries which were intended to form the planned state. And there one

24 sees the adoption of the decision by the community of Bosnian Krajina

25 municipalities on the 16th of September, 1991, which I referred to

Page 193

1 earlier. And under the agenda: "The adoption of a decision to declare

2 the Autonomous Region of Krajina."

3 And you will see there that the vice-president of the community,

4 Radoslav Brdjanin, a name with which you will become very familiar, was

5 the one who spoke, and said:

6 "By this decision we are ensuring the region's independence. We

7 don't want to bother anyone who does not want to leave Yugoslavia, but no

8 one here can be allowed to put various pressure -- various kinds of

9 pressure on us ...

10 "We are for peace but we do not want that peace to be implemented

11 over our faces as Tudjman and the other leaders want. We know that the

12 Serbs support the army.

13 "By declaring autonomy we want to go to negotiations not to war."

14 As we will see, that is the very opposite of what he was going to

15 say at the 12th of May Assembly of Bosnian Serbs.

16 In fact, the Serb autonomous region of the Autonomous Region of

17 Krajina through Brdjanin wasted very little time in exercising what can

18 only be described, as we've said, parallel authority to the government

19 bodies of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the republic.

20 He sent a telex in October which, as you can see, is addressed to

21 the president of the Municipal Assembly. An order of the SDS. By

22 definition that did not mean the municipal assemblies where the

23 presidents were members of the SDA or the HDZ but anyone who was a Serb

24 or any parallel assemblies that had already been set up.

25 And then he sets out which was by order of the SDS made public at

Page 194

1 the meeting of all municipal presidents on the 26th of October, 1991, at

2 3.00 in Banja Luka, chaired by Dr. Karadzic.

3 And then if we go down we can see a list, a long list, of

4 instructions.

5 "Immediately form a command of the town ..." et cetera, et

6 cetera, et cetera.

7 Now, all of this was a bit premature, not unusually with

8 Radoslav Brdjanin, and indeed this telex, as you will hear, was

9 intercepted in various places by members of the SDA, and it caused a

10 great furor, and in fact, none of this was ever put into effect.

11 Following the plebiscite in November, the Bosnian Serb Assembly

12 issued a decision making it absolutely clear which territories the

13 Bosnian Serb leadership considered came within the state, and you will

14 see based on the will of the Serbian people in Bosnia as expressed in

15 plebiscite, which of course only Serbs voted, and the conclusion of the

16 Assembly of the Serbian People, the following decision:

17 "On the territories of municipalities, local communes and

18 inhabited places in BH which are considered as territory in the federal

19 state of Yugoslavia."

20 And then if we go to 1, it's quite a complicated sentence but

21 it's wherever the plebiscite was conducted for the Serbian people, where

22 they agreed to stay, and where over 50 per cent of the registered

23 citizens of Serbian ethnicity voted for this common state as well as

24 where the other citizens of other ethnicities voted to remain in the

25 common state "shall be considered to be -- shall be considered the

Page 195

1 territory of the federal state of Yugoslavia."

2 And then II:

3 "The parts of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina item I of

4 the decision together with the territories of the Republic of Serbia, the

5 Republic of Montenegro, the SAO Krajina, the SAOs Slavonia, Baranja and

6 Western Srem shall constitute the core of the common state of

7 Yugoslavia."

8 And then finally, just to throw in everything, at item III --

9 sorry.

10 "The municipalities, local communes and inhabited places where

11 the plebiscite was not conducted may opt to remain in the common state

12 from item I of the decision by way of a plebiscite or decision by the

13 Municipal Assembly." So taking everybody in.

14 And then there were further -- if we just look at the end, I

15 think. It's signed by Krajisnik and dated the 21st of November, 1991.

16 Then we come in chronological order -- obviously as I -- can I

17 just repeat, Your Honours, I'm leaving out a lot of the evidence that

18 you're going to be hearing about as to how this developed but just

19 concentrating on the major points.

20 On the 19th of December, 1991, the SDS issued the document which

21 has become known generally as Variant A and B. It has been the subject

22 of argument in numerous trials. It is now an adjudicated fact in this

23 case. Number 100 and 103.

24 Your Honours, that's not surprising, because actual recipients

25 have testified over and over again, and we anticipate you may hear from

Page 196

1 some in this trial that they were provided with the document and sought

2 to implement it. So again, it is one of the more important documents in

3 the case.

4 This is copy number 93, and we've copied that one for a

5 particular reason which we'll come to at the end. The "Instructions for

6 the organisation and operation of organs of the Serbian people in Bosnia

7 and Herzegovina in emergency conditions." And if we go to the bottom,

8 Sarajevo, the 19th of December, 1991.

9 There's a preamble to all of this which one can see there:

10 "... reasonable grounds for suspicion that certain forces are

11 working persistently, thoroughly and in an organised way to take Bosnia

12 and Herzegovina and thence also the Serbian people out of Yugoslavia by

13 force, we hereby issue these instructions ..."

14 And then going down to paragraph 3.

15 "The tasks, measures and other activities set forth in these

16 instructions shall be implemented over the entire territory of the

17 Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, or in every municipality where

18 the Serbian people live as follows ..."

19 Of course that's important because in many municipalities they

20 were a minority.

21 In their entirety in those municipalities where the Serbian

22 people constitute a majority, Variant A. And partially in those

23 municipalities where the Serbian people do not constitute a majority,

24 Variant B.

25 "In order to ensure their consistent and timely implementation

Page 197

1 tasks, measures and other activities shall be set forth in two variants,

2 A and B, and at two levels."

3 Next page, Variant A, the first level and the first two are

4 effectively communication and meetings.

5 Three:

6 "SDS Municipal Boards shall establish immediately Crisis Staffs

7 of the Serbian people in the municipality ..."

8 Now, can I just pause there for a moment to give you a very brief

9 explanation in case you haven't come across Crisis Staffs before. It

10 goes back to the old Yugoslavia. They -- when the Municipal Assembly in

11 times of emergency or war couldn't sit, then their duties would be

12 devolved to Crisis Staffs. It's quite a complicated thing. As I say,

13 you'll hear evidence about it from someone who studied this in rather

14 more depth, but the Serbs used this particular type of organisation in

15 order effectively to set up control in the municipalities. It's also

16 right to say that other -- once this had started, once the Serbs started

17 doing it so did the other parties, and so you will hear that there were

18 HDZ Crisis Staffs and also SDA Muslim ones.

19 Anyhow, so immediately establish Crisis Staffs of the Serbian

20 people in the municipality composed of the following: All members of the

21 SDS Municipal Board, persons holding office in the municipality, and, in

22 the middle of that, the chief of the public security station or the

23 police station commander. Effectively it brought together all the people

24 who had authority in a particular municipality. Then what were they

25 supposed to do?

Page 198

1 "Convene and proclaim an Assembly of the Serbian people in the

2 municipality composed of accept representatives of the Serbian people in

3 the Municipal Assembly.

4 "The first session ... will elect the president of the Assembly

5 which will be president of the current Municipal Assembly or chairman of

6 the municipal" -- except this is all in the municipality where the Serbs

7 were in a majority so the likelihood was the chairman of the -- the

8 president of the Municipal Assembly would be indeed a Serb.

9 Under 5: "Prepare the takeover the staff, buildings and

10 equipment of security services centres and their integration with the

11 newly established organ of the interior at the seat of the centre."

12 Item number 8: "Step up information and propaganda to ensure

13 that the Serbian people are informed fully and in time about the

14 political and security situation in the municipality and beyond." And so

15 on and so forth until we come to the second level.

16 First of all to convene a session of the Municipal Assembly,

17 establish the organs, et cetera, et cetera.

18 Item 2: "Mobilise all Serbian police forces and gradually

19 resubordinate them in coordination with JNA commands and staffs."

20 And then we go on and it's the actual blueprint, as we say, for a

21 takeover.

22 Variant B, very quickly, much the same on the first

23 [indiscernible] until we come to item number 4:

24 "When convening and proclaiming Assembly of the Serbian people,

25 the first session of the Assembly of the Serbian which will elect a

Page 199

1 president shall be convened by the chairman of the SDS Municipal Board."

2 This of course is where because they were a minority, they were

3 unlikely to have had the president of the Municipal Assembly.

4 Over the page: "Prepare the takeover the staff and some of the

5 equipment of security services centres and their integration with the

6 public security station in the municipality or ... the place where a

7 public security station is established."

8 "In local communes or settlements with a predominant Serbian

9 population establish secret warehouses and depots for storing food and

10 other deficient products, raw materials ... manufacturing ... which

11 should be removed through secret channels from commodities, reserves,

12 warehouses at all levels ..."

13 It never actually mentions arms, but as you will hear, there was

14 a hive of activity in the delivery of arms.

15 Then the second level, I don't think is much the same, although

16 the slight difference is because it was a minority Serb thing. And

17 finally III:

18 "In order to carry out as effectively as possible its tasks,

19 measures and other activities defined herein and also other tasks," et

20 cetera, et cetera, "... judged to be useful for the organisation of the

21 Serbian people for its best possible defence and protection, the Crisis

22 Staff must first undertake a comprehensive assessment of the situation in

23 the municipality and its anticipated development in the next period."

24 "In this, you must ensure and respect declarations of loyalty ...

25 to the constitution and the legal system of the federal state of

Page 200

1 Yugoslavia by citizens of other ethnic backgrounds."

2 All of this aimed of course at the -- the Yugoslav constitution.

3 And then 3:

4 "Tasks, measures and other activities referred to herein may be

5 implemented exclusively by order of the president of the BH SDS in

6 accordance with a specifically defined secret procedure."

7 And then 4:

8 "The secret procedure for transferring and receiving orders to

9 implement tasks, measures or other activities defined herein shall be

10 established subsequently."

11 I don't think that we've ever recovered the document, if there

12 was one, which established the secret procedures. But as we say, when

13 one looks at the way events developed in the municipalities that form

14 part of this indictment, you will see that they almost entirely,

15 depending on the situation, followed those instructions as far as they

16 were able.

17 Right. And the last page, sorry, this is why we've got this

18 copy, and we -- this is the English translation, and we've also -- it's

19 one of the rare occasions we brought up the B/C/S. Somebody has scrawled

20 on this copy. We don't know who. That's how we got the copy. And

21 you'll see the translation. Can we push it up slightly there -- I'm

22 afraid we can't put it up side by side on -- without using e-court.

23 Thank you. This is Sanction which doesn't allow you to do this, but you

24 will see that 93b is Mico. And can we go back for a moment to the ...

25 yes. And then 93c says "Banja Luka - Stojan." And that's what it says

Page 201

1 in Cyrillic, apparently. And then down at 93f, apparently, is written

2 something or other Stanisic.

3 Right. Thank you very much.

4 Now, the role of the Crisis Staff as it was envisaged by the

5 Bosnian Serb leadership was set up most clearly in a document which was

6 sent by Djeric on the 26th of April. Well, when I say "sent," there is

7 some discussions whether it was sent or whether it was supposed to have

8 been sent. There were a number of documents which show it try to being

9 recalled, but in any event, this is what he set out.

10 Excerpt from the instructions for the work of the municipal

11 Crisis Staff, and then "in a state of war the Crisis Staff shall assume

12 all prerogatives and functions of the municipal assemblies when they are

13 unable to convene."

14 Paragraph 2 defines who should be members. As I say, those who

15 exercised authority, and you will see in the third line: "Head of the

16 MUP, minister of the interior."

17 Para-3:

18 "The Crisis Staff coordinates the functions of authorities in

19 order to ensure the defence of the territories, the safety of the

20 population and property, the establishment of government," et cetera, et

21 cetera.

22 In fact, we suggest it very odd -- it did the very opposite. In

23 the areas that we're going to look at the Crisis Staff was there to

24 coordinate the various armed forces, amongst others, in order to expel

25 the population, but in a public document that was not what they were

Page 202

1 going to be saying.

2 4:

3 "The command of the TO and police forces is under the exclusive

4 authority of a professional staff, and therefore any interference

5 regarding the command of the TO and the use of police forces must be

6 prevented."

7 As you will see, that was -- that was quite an important order,

8 because the Crisis Staffs certainly attempted to give orders at various

9 stages to either the police or the local army units. It's quite clear

10 from the evidence that the police and the army stuck to its own hierarchy

11 and took orders as per its own organisation; but nonetheless, it's also

12 equally clear, we would submit from the evidence, that the Crisis Staffs

13 could influence and did influence a number of the actions that were

14 taken, and the stronger the head of the Crisis Staff, the more likely

15 this was to happen.

16 And then finally 7:

17 "The Crisis Staff shall convene a meeting of the Municipal

18 Assembly as soon as circumstances permit to have its work, conclusions

19 and decisions verified."

20 The Crisis Staff actually changed its name over the period. It

21 became at some stage War Staff, War Presidency, but it was always the

22 same body and the same body of men. Most of the Crisis Staffs were

23 abolished in or about July or August of 1992 once the territories had

24 been seized, and then they did indeed give reports to the reconstituted

25 assemblies, but Serb assemblies, not in the territories which had been

Page 203

1 either Muslim majority or no majority, the mixed assemblies, as it were.

2 Now, in Sarajevo the SDS there held a meeting on the

3 24th of December to appoint its members of the Crisis Staff, and

4 Mico Stanisic was a member of both this and also, it would appear, the

5 SDS Main Board Crisis Staff, but there we see at number 6 the Crisis

6 Staff is made up of the following members with particular staff,

7 Mico Stanisic. But if one goes to number 2 at the top, yes, there, as I

8 say, one has to be careful where it just appears Stanisic in connection

9 with Sarajevo because there was a Maksim Stanisic, who I believe, but I'm

10 open to correction on this, was some -- was a relative of Mico Stanisic.

11 But as I say, one has to be careful there.

12 And in the middle of that page -- as I say, the argument through

13 every trials is -- about this document has been - how can I put it? - a

14 waste of time, but anyhow, can we look at the middle there.

15 "Particular tasks as per the instructions on the organisation

16 activity of the organs of the Serbian people in BiH in emergency ...

17 according to Variant B under first-degree instructions."

18 Obviously Sarajevo was not a Serb majority -- the city of

19 Sarajevo.

20 The SDS boards in the municipalities which it had been decided

21 should form part of the Bosnian Serb state also wasted little time in

22 putting into effect the instructions. This is the Prijedor Municipal

23 Board of the SDS at a meeting on the 27th of December, and we will see

24 about half -- well, first of all, President of the Prijedor Municipal

25 Board Simo Miskovic made an introductory presentation and then the

Page 204

1 agenda. If we look at the agenda -- oh, sorry. Can we look at the

2 second -- I'm so sorry. Why don't we switch to the -- yeah. There,

3 above -- the sentence above:

4 "President Miskovic then read out the instructions delivered to

5 the Prijedor Municipal Board of the SDS by the Serbian Assembly."

6 If we go down there:

7 "Establishment of the Assembly of the Serbian People, mobilise

8 the war police." And then Variant II, capital letter B crossed out,

9 first variant. In fact, they were a Variant B. The Serbs were not in a

10 majority in Prijedor. And then:

11 "After the presentation of the instruction Miskovic gave a

12 briefing ..."

13 So that was Prijedor, up in north-west Bosnia. In the Sarajevo

14 municipalities we saw Ilidza proclaiming as a pursuant to the

15 constitution the plebiscite and the instructions number 79, they got

16 apparently, of the 19th of December, 1991, the Assembly of the Serbian

17 People in Ilidza adopted the following decision. And item II:

18 "The Serbian Assembly shall be the highest organ of power of the

19 Serbian people in the area of Ilidza ..."

20 I don't think we need trouble with anything else. Well -- except

21 they sent a copy to - if we go to the next page - to everybody they could

22 think of. The Serbian Assembly, the president of the Main Board, the

23 SDS, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

24 Then on the 3rd of March, the incident that I've already referred

25 to, the barricades incident following on the shooting of a Serb guest at

Page 205

1 a wedding, took place in Sarajevo and I mentioned in passing that it was

2 our case based on the evidence this wasn't a spontaneous arising,

3 erection of barricades, but an SDS planned incident.

4 Can we start with some of the intercept evidence. With -- the

5 first is a conversation between Karadzic and Rajko Djukic -- Djukic, on

6 the 1st of the 3rd, and Djukic was the president of the Executive Board

7 of the SDS.

8 We go down to the middle of the page. He's been describing the

9 beginning of the incident and he said -- and Karadzic says to him:

10 "Get them, get them to rise up and have things prepared. They

11 should close everything tonight."

12 Dukic says: "Erm ...

13 And Radovan Karadzic says: "All the exits.

14 Dukic says: "There is no other way, my friend. Have them close

15 all the exits."

16 And then Stojan Zupljanin, on the following day, got in touch

17 with Mico Stanisic. He gets -- the first thing he does is have a

18 conversation with somebody called Gvozden, explains who he is, and he

19 asks what's going on, and Gvozden says to Stojan Zupljanin:

20 "I didn't know" -- in keeping with that -- [indiscernible] "I

21 think this is how you should also be stepping up the level over there.

22 "Stojan Zupljanin: Yes. Because you can take a turn for the

23 worse."

24 "Zupljanin: Yes, we are also at a level. It just remains to be

25 seen if we will be going for a total blockade or not."

Page 206

1 Then he asks to speak to Vito, presumably Zepinic. He's told

2 he's not there but Mico is, and he goes on to have a conversation with

3 Mico Stanisic. And Stanisic asks what he's doing, et cetera, et cetera,

4 and [indiscernible] says: "We're listening.

5 "Zupljanin: We are following and listening as they say and

6 waiting for further instructions. Then you are in contact with this

7 policy of yours, aren't you?"

8 And Zupljanin goes on: "For the most part, everything is ready

9 on our side."

10 Mico Stanisic says: "Yes, we are waiting for the sign. If a

11 total blockade is needed or the rest it will be done."

12 As we say, it's clear this was something that wasn't just

13 confined to the SDS, to the MUP in Sarajevo, but was also something that

14 was being, as it were, encouraged by other members of the MUP. In fact,

15 in March nothing happened in Banja Luka or very little, but come April,

16 much the same as we will hear, the same thing happened.

17 At the end of the barricade incident, in which Mico Stanisic was

18 certainly playing a part, a report was prepared by Mr. Kvesic, who was

19 know was the SNB minister, we saw, and it was a report to the government,

20 the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and we anticipate you

21 will hear some evidence to suggest that a lot of what was in this report

22 was accurate.

23 Dated the 13th of March, and he says:

24 "We are hereby forwarding you the list of employees ... who took

25 part in the activities relating to the setting of barricades in the

Page 207

1 region of Sarajevo in early March 1992 ..."

2 First person, Momcilo Mandic, the deputy minister in charge of

3 prevention and suppression of crime. The suggestion is that armed men

4 acting in accordance with his orders. And him distributing jackets and

5 also his presence at the barricade.

6 Number 13 on the list: Malko Koroman, head of the SJB,

7 Novo Sarajevo. Took part directly in the setting of barricades at

8 Lapasnica [phoen]. "His engagement in this action was recorded in radio

9 communication with other participants ..."

10 And then over to the last heard, in the Crisis Staff of the SDS

11 amongst others the following persons were engaged: Mandic; Stanisic;

12 Dragan Kijac, also to play a major role in the RS MUP; Dragan Devedlaka

13 as you saw attended the meeting of the 11th of February; and Cedo

14 Kljajic. And then:

15 "We are stressing that in the critical period ... the inspector

16 of the 1st Administration of BH MUP state security ... Vlaski Nedjo was

17 wounded by fire arms, and he was hospitalised on which the official

18 report was requested from the state security services sector ..."

19 And finally Djevedlaka -- Devedlaka, Radovic, and Blagojevic

20 refused to make any statements about the movements.

21 I mentioned a little while ago that the Variant A and B

22 instructions never really mentioned arms in the storing of warehouses and

23 secret things, but fro late 1991 the evidence, we anticipate, will show

24 that the Bosnian Serbs were arming themselves. Most of those who

25 responded, as I said, to the mobilisation call for the conflict in

Page 208

1 Croatia had been Bosnian Serbs. The JNA in September of 1990, had taken

2 charge of a large number of the TO, the territorial divisions, the armed

3 forces, from the warehouses in which they had been stored. Yugoslavia

4 had a small standing army but a very large number of people that it could

5 mobilise. And the weapons were kept usually in warehouses in each

6 municipality.

7 Indeed as a 1992 report from Prijedor SJB made clear, weapons

8 were obtained from a number of sources but mainly from the army. As

9 early as October of 1991, Radovan Karadzic was claiming that large

10 numbers of Bosnian Serbs had in fact been armed. And if we look again at

11 another intercept of a conversation this time between a gentleman named

12 Gojko Djogo and Radovan Karadzic and as well early chitchat where he

13 talks to Mrs. Karadzic, and then there's a discussion and of course this

14 is the 12th of October in the Assembly about the Assembly halfway down

15 Alija Izetbegovic spoke two or three times and I had to respond.

16 "Excellent. They say that you told them gentlemen we will not

17 and you can do whatever you want.

18 "We let them but they are preparing for war. They will try to

19 wage war here."

20 Of course this was what Karadzic was publicly saying as well,

21 that it was the -- as it were, the people of who were going for

22 independence of Bosnia that were wanting war and whatever the Serbs did

23 was just to protect themselves.

24 And then down there: "Where is he going to war?

25 "He's crazy. They're totally crazy. What's he thinking to start

Page 209

1 a war in Sarajevo? Is he crazy? He's, I think, they -- exactly, they

2 should be thrashed if they start a war. They will ... they will

3 disappear." And of course it was a few days later that he made that

4 speech in the Assembly.

5 "There will be rivers of blood."

6 That was certainly a prophecy that came true.

7 Then Karadzic: "They will disappear. That people will disappear

8 from the face of the earth if they start now. Our offer was their only

9 chance. Even that was too much, what we offered them."

10 And then the part that I've referred to at page 7, pretty long

11 conversation, Karadzic says:

12 "They have to know that there are some 20.000 armed Serbs around

13 Sarajevo, that's insane. They will disappear. Sarajevo will be a black

14 cauldron where 300 [sic] Muslims will die. They're not right in the

15 head. I don't know. Now I will have to talk to then openly. People,

16 don't crew around. There are three, four hundred thousand armed Serbs in

17 BiH. What are you thinking of, plus there's the army and the hardware

18 and everything. Do you think you can just secede like Croatia."

19 Probably an exaggeration 3 to 400.000, but, nonetheless, he makes

20 clear the point that they had on their side the army was to be seen and

21 all the hardware that went with the army.

22 And then at another document relating to the arming, this comes

23 from the -- a report in September 1993 from Ilidza, and it talks about

24 what happened, and in terms refers to the army -- the arming.

25 "At the beginning of 1991 during illegal meetings organised by

Page 210

1 Kovac Tomislav, better known as Tomo Kovac, commander of Ilidza Public

2 Security Station ... policemen of Serbian nationality were informed the

3 war option for realisation of national interests was being increasingly

4 promoted. Aside from the obligations that the Serb gather up and prepare

5 for war through the meetings that took place it was also ... agreed that

6 intense activity should be undertaken to arm citizens of Serbian

7 nationality. And the armament was transported from ..." it gives the

8 names of those places.

9 "... 5th of March, 1992, the MUP storage in Dugi Potok was

10 blocked and put under control and the armament and ammunition was

11 distributed to the Serbian people. Blockade of the storage was carried

12 out ... when armament, ammunition, and equipment was supposed to be moved

13 into the city."

14 So the documents produced themselves by the MUP and the Bosnian

15 Serbs show the arming.

16 Now, can we say straightaway it's not our case that clandestine

17 arming was confined to the Bosnian Serbs alone? Both the Muslim and

18 Croats, when they realised the gravity of the situation, tried and

19 succeeded to a limited extent in obtaining arms, but they were markedly

20 less successful than the Bosnian Serbs, both in the quantity and the

21 breadth of weaponry they were able to obtain because they didn't have the

22 access to the army and TO supplies.

23 The importance of the RS MUP in these early stages was made clear

24 by Biljana Plavsic at the Assembly meeting which was held on the 26th of

25 January when she pointed out, it is known what the making of a state

Page 211

1 means.

2 First, the Ministry of Internal Affairs will do whatever is

3 necessary to have its own army. And indeed Mico Stanisic echoed this

4 sentiment in an interview he gave. It's not altogether clear when it was

5 but it would appear from the context that it's 1994, because it talks

6 about him going and coming back again as minister of the interior.

7 This was an interview on television and again we'll need the

8 earphones, and if Mr. Zecevic thinks there's any fault in what's being

9 said he can translate it.

10 [Video-clip played]

11 THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] The history has not recorded of a

12 single example where the police and in this case it is the Ministry of

13 the Interior of a state has become directly engaged in the defence

14 against an enemy's aggression. This is the first time and the members of

15 the Ministry of the Interior have speared headed in the fight against the

16 enemy. It was first the employees of the then Ministry of the Interior

17 in the former Bosnia and Herzegovina who stood up in defence of the Serb

18 national interests.

19 "Stanisic: I would say that this time the Serb people has

20 defended itself from the enemy, given the army that was organised in the

21 way in which it was organised at the time. At the time, the only armed

22 forces among the Serb people were the members of the Ministry of the

23 Interior aware of all that had been prepared against the Serb people and

24 aware of what had in similar situations happened to the Serb people as

25 professional and people who were most at the source of information and

Page 212

1 normally using our professional knowledge being able to obtain such

2 information in a better manner at the moment while our enemies were

3 preparing to destroy the Serb people in this territory we decided -- or,

4 rather, the members of the Ministry of the Interior decided to prepare

5 the best possible defence of our territory and of our people, defending

6 the people and territory jointly with the people.

7 Reporter: You have this historical role. You have this

8 historical role. You have this historical duty and obligation to

9 complete what you have begun, that is to say, to defend the nation and

10 the Serb land. Tell us, do you have the feeling that sometimes those

11 results are minimised or perhaps even intentionally being kept silent?

12 Stanisic: Well, see, I do not share that feeling simply because

13 I believe that now we all have to work together on this cause of ours, on

14 our common goal, and only in a time to come we will evaluate who made

15 which contribution. I must mention that in the words of Mr. President on

16 the holy -- glory holiday of the Republika Srpska one could clearly see

17 where Mr. President of our republic Radovan Karadzic positions the place

18 and role of the Ministry of Interior of Republika Srpska.

19 Reporter: Of course credit should be given to the ministry and

20 to all of its members for all that has been achieved so far. The special

21 units of the ministry and the police units have been directly engaged at

22 the first front lines of defence against aggression. Tell me, what have

23 been the results achieved in conjunction with units of the Army of the

24 Republika Srpska on the entire territory of our country?

25 Stanisic: Well, luckily for us, both the army and police forces

Page 213

1 are part of the Serb people with clearly set goals for both of them.

2 Perhaps given our internal tasks, we differ a bit, but when it comes to

3 the defence of our country and defence of our people, then we are all

4 one, one united front. The armed forces include both the army and the

5 police and even all the Serb people in this territory."

6 MS. KORNER: In particular, of course, it's the passage where he

7 stated that at the time the only armed forces amongst the Serb people

8 were the members of the Ministry of the Interior.

9 On the 18th of March at the Assembly, Krajisnik referred

10 specifically to the need for ethnic separation on the ground. A delegate

11 called Vjestica from Bosanska Krupa made it clear that a Serbian MUP was

12 necessary so that they could seize control physically of their

13 territories. And one of the methods of seizing control was the use of

14 the so-called paramilitary forces.

15 On the 3rd of April, so almost exactly a month after the

16 barricades in Sarajevo, a group styling themselves the SOS invaded, in

17 inverted commas, Banja Luka and set up barricades. And in what was

18 almost a repetition of the Sarajevo barricades indent, the SOS issued a

19 set of demands that effectively were designed to establish Serb control

20 in Banja Luka.

21 It was the job, of course, of the MUP in Banja Luka, headed by

22 Stojan Zupljanin, to remove the barricades and restore order. Not

23 surprisingly, no such thing happened, and we anticipate the evidence will

24 show is that is because this was something that Stojan Zupljanin knew

25 about in advance. It was deliberately planned by the Bosnian Serb

Page 214

1 leadership in conjunction with the MUP in order to, as it were, advance

2 the cause of the Serbian people.

3 It's also right to mention at this stage, as you will hear, that

4 a group calling itself the SOS also took part in the events which led to

5 the takeover of Sanski Most, and it's worth having a look briefly at the

6 report that appeared in Glas newspaper about all these events. It's a

7 very long report. I'm just going to highlight some of it.

8 This -- what you've got here -- you're going to see is, in fact,

9 the newspaper. It's got sort of boxes all over the place, but this is

10 just how it's been set out in the translation.

11 Banja Luka, 3rd of April. Since this morning the city of Banja

12 Luka has been blocked. The members of the Serbian defence forces, SOS,

13 have seized all key intersections in the city and control the Municipal

14 Assembly ... Radio Banja Luka, et cetera, et cetera, all the bridges and

15 important strategic positions in the city.

16 They were, as you will hear, a very small group of men, and as I

17 say, there's no earthly reason, particularly when one looks at the raid

18 that we're going to see -- that happened in May, the equipment that was

19 available to the Banja Luka CSB and SJB.

20 Then what did they proclaim, the Serbian defence forces?

21 "We, Serbian patriots, patriots, members of the JNA, reservists,

22 volunteers, citizens of Banja Luka, relatives and friends of fallen

23 soldiers, organised in the Serbian [indiscernible] ... have decided on

24 the step because of a new genocide against the Serbian people and the

25 failure of all mechanisms for the protection of the Serbian people." It

Page 215

1 says in the explanation of this morning's appearance of barricades on all

2 the approaches to Banja Luka.

3 "The whole announcement concerning the barricades was read out

4 over Radio Banja Luka, but with no explanation about which political

5 forces - parties - are actually behind the SOS."

6 And then it goes on further down of the page, yep:

7 "Therefore," the statement says, "we demand that the president of

8 the municipality activates a Crisis Staff that we would agree to and

9 negotiate with so as to fulfil the following demands."

10 Amazing enough those demands seem to fit in with the Variant A

11 and B instructions and the general goals of the Serbian people.

12 "We demand the president activates a Crisis Staff, that there's

13 an immediate enactment on a Law of Internal Affairs of the republic of

14 the Serbian people, territory of Banja Luka, Bosnian Krajina. Dismissal

15 of all employees who have shown in their work they are destroyers of

16 Yugoslavia and enemies of the Serbian people," and that of course meant

17 non-Serbs.

18 "No disbanding of the Banja Luka Corps. Arrest of war profiteers

19 and the like, investigation."

20 And then the next page. Yep. And then: "Large-scale abuses, we

21 demand extraordinary sessions of the Municipal Assembly and the Krajina

22 Assembly can be convened so the Crisis Staff can appoint its officials."

23 And then, SOS, I think -- yeah. And then almost immediately --

24 surprising enough this was a genuine incident where effectively a gun was

25 being placed at the heads of the police, Municipal Assembly, the same day

Page 216

1 the demands are all accepted. Predrag Radic, president of the Banja Luka

2 Crisis Staff -- and can I interpose at this stage just to explain. You

3 will hear that there were, in fact, two Crisis Staffs based in Banja

4 Luka; one was the Crisis Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, one

5 was the one which was based on the Municipal Assembly in Banja Luka, and

6 the Crisis Staffs as discussed in the Variant A and B instructions.

7 Predrag Radic, who was actually president of the Municipal

8 Assembly at the time Banja Luka was a Variant A municipality, declared

9 that all the Serbian defence force demands had been agreed to. True in a

10 slightly modified form. And then it talks about the negotiations, and

11 then during -- yeah.

12 "At a press conference in which Predrag Radic,

13 Dr. Radoslav Vukic," he was president of the SDS board and you'll be able

14 to see what he looks like at the 12th of May Assembly, "Stojan Zupljanin,

15 Radoslav Brdjanin, and Mr. Milinkovic replied to numerous questions by

16 reporters ..."

17 And then if we go on, Stojan Zupljanin used this opportunity to

18 emphasise the situation was extremely difficult in other areas,

19 particularly in the peripheral areas of the Bosnian Krajina on the Kupres

20 plateau. Closing the press conference, et cetera.

21 And then we see the people who were to be on the Crisis Staff.

22 Radic, Zupljanin, Tutus. Milorad Sajic, he was in charge of the TO.

23 Kesic, Vesic. Puvacic, to my recollection, was the air force. Colonel

24 Bosko Kelecevic was the intelligence arm of the still then-JNA, and

25 Subotic from the Banja Luka corps. Dr. Radoslav Vukic and Nenad

Page 217

1 Stevandic. Nenad Stevandic, again, was to play a major part in these

2 events. At that stage he was president of an organisation calling itself

3 Sokol, which was -- it actually, I believe, means "hawk," but it was

4 supposed to be the young, politically engaged Bosnian Serb organisation.

5 He then went on to become quite a powerful figure and a member of the

6 so-called Banja Luka Special Police.

7 Right. And that's the report.

8 JUDGE HALL: Ms. Korner, is this a convenient point at which to

9 take the break?

10 MS. KORNER: Certainly.

11 JUDGE HALL: Yes.

12 --- Recess taken at 5.35 p.m.

13 --- On resuming at 6.07 p.m.

14 MS. KORNER: Your Honours.

15 Your Honours, after that incursion by the SOS -- after that

16 incursion into Banja Luka by the SOS, the situation was rather succinctly

17 summed up in a report by someone or a group calling themselves Milos.

18 You will see a number of documents in this case from this group. They

19 were a group of Serb -- Bosnian Serb police officers working under the

20 Banja Luka SNB gathering intelligence. And on the 15th of April, they

21 sent in a report to the Banja Luka CSB, first of all dealing with an

22 apparently attempted assassination of Nenad Stevandic. As I said, he's

23 going to figure quite often in this case.

24 But then they went on to say this:

25 "We ask you for an urgent contact with the centre in the purpose

Page 218

1 of clarifying, explaining, the certain circumstances which are neither in

2 your nor in our favour if we want to succeed in executing the forthcoming

3 tasks."

4 And it goes on then:

5 "The self-named Serbian dukes, leaders and ring leaders hold the

6 majority of the SDS leadership in their surrounding and under their

7 control, and they have the strong armed groups by which they threaten

8 anybody who do not think the same way they do and who do not act the way

9 they would like."

10 And we would suggest that that was a fairly accurate summary of

11 what was going on from, in fact, a group of Bosnian Serbs.

12 JUDGE HARHOFF: Madam Korner, was the Milos group self-appointed

13 or --

14 MS. KORNER: No. It was an appointed intelligence-gathering

15 organisation which acted under the code-name Milos. It contained a

16 number of people in it.

17 JUDGE HARHOFF: So it was not just a private --

18 MS. KORNER: No.

19 JUDGE HARHOFF: -- gathering or getting together of intelligence

20 police officers.

21 MS. KORNER: No. No. They were an authorised

22 intelligence-gatherers, but some were perhaps more sensible and realistic

23 than others.

24 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thanks.

25 MS. KORNER: And may I say, it's an unusual -- unusually frank

Page 219

1 and perhaps one might say honest report. In other reports one will see

2 the use of the standard anti-non-Serb terminology.

3 On the 6th of April, with the recognition of an independent

4 Bosnia and Herzegovina, the very first action by the RS MUP, as I've

5 mentioned already, was the forcible takeover of the police school in

6 Vraca. That then became the first headquarters of the RS MUP. The

7 headquarters in the period 1992 moved around quite a lot. It was in

8 Vraca, in Bijeljina, in Pale.

9 The attack on the school was executed under the leadership of

10 Momcilo Mandic and a man named Milenko Karisik. Karisik had been the

11 second in command to the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina Special

12 Police. The takeover, in fact, perhaps not surprisingly, involved taking

13 hostages, and it would appear that before they were released, exchanged,

14 there was subsequent ill-treatment.

15 Now, Mico Stanisic, it would seem, had a close relationship with

16 Milenko Karisik and the Special Police generally. In June of 1992, a

17 Serb -- Serb filmmaker but based, I think, in England at the time, made a

18 very long documentary, which was eventually shown on British television,

19 called "Serbian Epics," or Epic. And we're only going to show a part of

20 it now, but during the course of the filming they had a brief

21 conversation with Stanisic who was apparently engaged in the training of

22 the Special Police troops, and it is actually, I think, in English.

23 All right. I'm -- anyhow, it is subtitled, Your Honours, so you

24 won't need the ...

25 [Video-clip played]

Page 220

1 THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] Karishko Miljenko, commander of

2 the special unit of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina MUP

3 who commanded the first operation. His assistants Brdar, Zlatko,

4 commander of the unit in that first operation and he commanded his unit.

5 Mane, also an associate of Mr. Karishko who took part in this first

6 combat and commanded his unit. Skoro Spaso also an associate of

7 Mr. Karisik who participated in the same operation and commanded his

8 unit. And Mr. Abazovic, Goran, who has been with me from the very first

9 day."

10 MS. KORNER: As I say, that's a small portion of what is, I

11 think, well over an hour's film.

12 On the 15th of April, a joint session of the National Security

13 Council and the government decided, amongst other things, to ask the

14 Presidency to declare an imminent threat of war. You will see there the

15 people who attended the meeting, and then if you go down to item 3, we

16 can do this fairly quickly, decisions and conclusions.

17 "Reviewing the security situation the Serbian Republic of Bosnia

18 and Herzegovina, it was assessed ... the conditions are being met to

19 propose that the Presidency of the republic declare an imminent threat of

20 war."

21 Now, during the course of April 1992, the forcible seizure of

22 power by the Bosnian Serb leaders, municipal leaders aided and abetted by

23 the higher leaders, took place in the majority of the municipalities

24 which are the subject of this indictment, and in nearly all, the events

25 began with the takeover of the SJB.

Page 221

1 If we look for a moment as an instant guide to the chronology

2 that was attached to the pre-trial brief, you will see there between the

3 12th -- sorry, the 9th of April, Zvornik came under the control of the

4 Serb forces. 12th to the 14th, Visegrad. 14th to 17th, Vogosca. 19th

5 of April -- sorry, 17th of April, Bosanski Samac. Sanski Most on the

6 19th. 20th, 21st, Vlasenica. 30th, Brcko, Prijedor, Doboj. Now we

7 are -- actually, we're now heading into May, so we'll leave that.

8 And if we can show this graphically depicted. All right. The --

9 what we're showing you at this stage, and we may as well show the whole

10 thing, is the municipalities that were taken under Serb control. The

11 red -- those in red are the ones which figure in our indictment, but it's

12 obviously important that it is realised that that is only really quite a

13 small proportion of the municipalities that were taken over by control.

14 And what we saw is, as you can see what is underneath -- if we

15 can right it back again --

16 JUDGE HARHOFF: Ms. Korner, the turning red occurred over how

17 long time?

18 MS. KORNER: Right until the end of July.

19 JUDGE HARHOFF: From April to July --

20 MS. KORNER: Yeah. It took, though, very few, most, as you can

21 see, if you looked at the list, April and May is when most. Some it took

22 a lot -- it took a little longer. For example, Kotor Varos which I'm

23 going to concentrate on as an example. But we'll see there -- yeah. I

24 think we saw Kotor Varos as one of the last.

25 JUDGE HARHOFF: Sorry, I didn't see [Microphone not activated] --

Page 222

1 MS. KORNER: That's -- the two at the bottom are Bileca and

2 Gacko. And above -- just so you understand, above the municipalities at

3 the top of the picture into Croatia was the Knin part of Croatia, which

4 there was also fighting going on and what's called the -- the Serb

5 Republic of Krajina. And towards the east we're talking about Serbia.

6 Right. As far as the RS MUP was concerned, once the takeovers

7 were effected, all officers were required to sign a loyalty oath to the

8 Serbian republic. On the 16th of April, Mico Stanisic ordered all CSBs

9 to forward a list of non-Serb employees that were within their area of

10 responsibility, and the same day, Stojan Zupljanin sent an instruction in

11 respect of the loyalty oath.

12 As we will see, the penalty for failure to sign was extended

13 leave, in reality dismissal. In some places we'll see, for example in

14 Bileca, the Muslim employees weren't even given the opportunity to take

15 the oath.

16 So the first document that we're looking at is the order dated

17 the 16th of April, by Mico Stanisic, number 01?4 above the date of the

18 16th of April. Incidentally, what it says in the first paragraph is:

19 "Every day forward a daily report to the Ministry of the Interior

20 of the Serbian Republic of BiH," and gives a fax number.

21 And then:

22 "I therefore order that by no later than 2400 hours on the 16th

23 of April ... all centres and SJB stations in the territory ... forward

24 aggregate reports on the number of Serbian and non-Serbian employees who

25 have been employed at the Ministry of the Interior."

Page 223

1 And then:

2 "Because of problems with communications, the above-mentioned

3 centres must inform all SJBs in their territory of the contents of this

4 dispatch."

5 And then on the same day Stojan Zupljanin received -- sorry, a

6 response from Prijedor, that station, referring to the solemn oath which

7 he'd been asked to -- and says -- which says this:

8 "The obligations mention this had telegram, i.e., to sign the

9 declaration do not apply to the Prijedor and Kotor Varos SJB. Authorised

10 officials at the stations may continue to wear the current insignia if

11 they wish until further notice."

12 That was because the Serbs had no overall majority in either of

13 those two places.

14 And finally, dealing with the Bileca document. At the beginning

15 page you'll see this is from the CSB at Nevesinje in Sarajevo. Don't

16 worry about the first, but then it's a list of people who received a

17 salary, those who were on active duty, and finally:

18 "Employees of Muslim nationality from the SJB Bileca and

19 SJB Kalinovik were not offered the possibility to express loyalty to the

20 Ministry of Internal Affairs of the BiH Republika Srpska, so we are not

21 able to inform you if they did express loyalty."

22 By May of 1992, the Autonomous Region of Krajina Crisis Staff had

23 publicly announced its existence and started to issue decisions. One of

24 the most important related to the deadline for surrender of weapons, and

25 in practice, although as we'll see the order doesn't say specifically

Page 224

1 that, this order for disarmament was only executed as against the

2 non-Serbs, the Muslims and Croats.

3 The first document is that of the 18th of May, which is the

4 conclusions of the Crisis Staff meeting. First of all, it says:

5 "A delegation of the Autonomous Region of Krajina consisting

6 of ... Kupresanin, ... Erceg ... Sajic and Stojan Zupljanin is to go to

7 Pale and hold talks on defining the territory towards Semberija."

8 This came after the Assembly meeting of the 12th of May, which

9 we'll look at in a bit, but I wanted to deal with the disarmament things.

10 And then item number 4:

11 "All formations that are not in the army of the Serbian Republic

12 of Bosnia and Herzegovina or the Banja Luka Security Services Centre and

13 are in the Autonomous Region of Krajina are considered paramilitary

14 formations and must be disarmed."

15 As I say, it doesn't say that in terms, but clearly the Muslims

16 and Croats would not be joining the RS MUP or the army of the Serbian

17 republic.

18 "All those who are not part of the armed forces of the Serbian

19 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina or its police must return their weapons."

20 And then item 6:

21 "The Banja Luka Security Services Centre is to write instructions

22 for the disarming of paramilitary formations."

23 And then over at paragraph 15: "A meeting is to be held in

24 Mrkonjic Grad with a delegation from Jajce. The delegation of the

25 Autonomous Region of Krajina shall consist again of ... Kupresanin ..."

Page 225

1 Kupresanin was at the time or had been the president of the Autonomous

2 Region of Krajina Assembly. However, Radoslav Brdjanin, as we will see,

3 became president of the Crisis Staff. Radic, who was the Municipal

4 Assembly of Banja Luka. Sajic was the TO, and Stojan Zupljanin.

5 The Crisis Staff itself, as I say, declared itself on the 5th of

6 May, and there we see number 1: President Radoslav Brdjanin, and then

7 General Talic. As we saw, the instructions were to gather together

8 everybody from -- who was of any importance. General Talic was then the

9 head of the Banja Luka Corps, the 1st Krajina Corps of the JNA. It

10 hadn't yet transformed itself. And if we note also number 14, Slobodan

11 Dubocanin, who was about to obtain infamy in Kotor Varos. Zupljanin is

12 number 10, and Nedeljko Kesic, head of the SNB in Banja Luka, also a

13 member.

14 9th of May. This is actually leading up to the document we just

15 looked at. This was the -- at this stage they're calling themselves War

16 Staff. As one sees, there was War Presidency, War Staff, Crisis Staff

17 but it's all the same lot. And there we see:

18 "The weapons should be turned over to the nearest public security

19 station by 15 hours on the 11th of May ... at the latest."

20 And the next bit:

21 "Firm action will be taken against those who refuse to return

22 weapons."

23 We shall see what the firm action was. In some cases whether or

24 not weapons had been handed over, firm action was taken.

25 And then on the 11th of May, back to calling itself a Crisis

Page 226

1 Staff. Deadline extended to the 14th of May, 1992.

2 "After the expiry of the deadline, the weapons will be seized by

3 the employees of the security services centre of the Autonomous Region of

4 Krajina and the most severe sanctions shall be taken against those that

5 disobey the proclamation of the Crisis Staff."

6 On the 20th of May, Stojan Zupljanin sent out a dispatch about

7 the conclusions which had been reached at the meeting of the Centre

8 council of the security services, and you can see there who attended. In

9 addition to members of the council of experts, the chiefs of the SSJB and

10 the heads of departments in the CSB, this was a council within the MUP:

11 "The meeting was attended by the chiefs of the public security stations

12 in Banja Luka, Gradiska, Dubica, Grahovo, so on and so forth. As I said,

13 once the split came Banja Luka became the largest of the centres for the

14 numbers of SJBs and territories within its area of responsibility.

15 Then, first of all, Stojan Zupljanin presented an overview of the

16 current security station, and what he then -- in summing up, he proposed

17 the following to be adopted as conclusions, and the most important was

18 number 4:

19 "All my orders conveyed orally, as well as those I may forward

20 by dispatch, must be carried out: They are your law. The chain of

21 command, commanding an execution are clearly distinguished in this

22 service. If any one of your staff should refuse to act upon an order,

23 just inform him he's fired; we have got to get ride of the old ideology

24 and concepts not suited to the present moment."

25 We suggest that one small sentence, paragraph, really sums up the

Page 227

1 personality and the control that was exercised by Stojan Zupljanin.

2 If we go over to -- for a moment to some of the conclusions,

3 because these also go to other themes that go to the case. Item 12:

4 "Chiefs of departments in the CSB headquarters and chiefs of

5 public security stations will submit monthly performance reports and

6 plans for the current month to me by the 5th of every month. I will

7 deduct 10 per cent of the chief's income for every failure to submit a

8 report on time."

9 One of the major aspects of the RS MUP and other MUPs within the

10 former Yugoslavia were that they were disciplined, hierarchical

11 organisations, and although the beginnings of the period that we're going

12 to be looking at from April until the end of May, obviously things were a

13 bit chaotic from everything that was going on, nonetheless, the

14 obligation to report was enforced. Stanisic was insisting the CSBs

15 reported to him. The CSBs were insisting that the SJBs. And although

16 again one will see obviously that communication was occasionally a bit

17 erratic, they had many methods of communicating, and indeed did continue

18 to communicate throughout the period.

19 And then paragraph 14:

20 "The chief of CSB will arrange with the government of the

21 Autonomous Region of Krajina to make a decision in accordance with

22 Article 510 ... which will entitle the Banja Luka Security Services

23 Centre to acquire all confiscated ownerless property ... to sell it and

24 to use the profits for the equipping of the service. This primarily

25 concerns seized motor vehicles of unknown origin or vehicles acquired in

Page 228

1 a criminal way: They are to be handed over to the centre where they will

2 be registered as service vehicles."

3 One of the -- again one of the themes running through this is

4 that there appears to have been whole scale, in some areas, appropriation

5 of motor cars by members of the MUP. There is a particular factory where

6 a number of Volkswagen Golfs disappeared from that -- appears to cause

7 some consternation.

8 Right. Now, the -- as I say, those orders for disarmament

9 provided the excuse for the attacks on the non-Serb villages and areas.

10 On the 12th of May, the Bosnian Serb Assembly met in Banja Luka.

11 It was, again, an extremely significant meeting. It was the one in which

12 the strategic goals of the Bosnian Serb leadership were enunciated

13 clearly for the first time, and what that implied was set out by one of

14 the deputies, a man called Kalinic, and subsequently approved by Radoslav

15 Brdjanin in a speech. And at the same time, the Assembly took the

16 decision to establish the -- its own Bosnian Serb army which is known

17 generally as the VRS. I think that's Vojska Republika Srpska. So the

18 Assembly not only set out the goals that were to be achieved but

19 established the second mechanism by which it was to be -- or they were to

20 be achieved, the VRS, which together with the MUP were to be the direct

21 architects of some of the major crimes.

22 If one looks, first of all, at a couple of things in the actual

23 record of the Assembly, and then there's a video, a short one, showing

24 who was attending.

25 Can we just go to the first page for a moment. Sorry.

Page 229

1 This is the minutes of the 16th session of the Assembly of the

2 Serbian People in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 12th of May, Banja Luka,

3 chaired by the president of the Assembly, Momcilo Krajisnik.

4 The first speech was that of Krajisnik, and then Dr. Karadzic,

5 Radovan Karadzic, made a very long speech, though not as long by any

6 means as that made at the end by Mladic, and this is part of that speech

7 that he made. This is page 13.

8 "The Serbian side in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Presidency, the

9 government, the Council for National Security which we have set up, have

10 formulated strategic priorities, that is to say ... strategic goals for

11 the Serbian people. The first such goal is separation from the two

12 national -- the other two national communities - separation of states.

13 "Separation from those who are our enemies and who have used

14 every opportunity, especially in this century, to attack us, and who

15 would continue with such practices if we were to continue to stay

16 together in the same state."

17 As I have no doubt you're aware, there is continual harping back

18 in speeches to what happened in the Second World War, in particular. And

19 again, it is suggested that all the actions of the Bosnian Serb

20 leadership are simply to defend themselves.

21 The second strategic goal is the corridor between Semberija and

22 Krajina of the utmost strategic importance for the Serbian people because

23 it integrates the Serbian lands not only of Serbian, Bosnia, and

24 Herzegovina -- because it integrates the Serbian lands not only of

25 Serbian, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, but Serbian, Bosnia, and Herzegovina

Page 230

1 with Serbian Krajina, Serbian Krajina with Serbian Bosnia and

2 Herzegovina, and that was to form particularly in north-west Bosnia,

3 where Stojan Zupljanin was operating, one the most important reasons for

4 the actions that were carried out, as we saw from that chart when the

5 municipalities lit up, there was -- the determination was to link up with

6 the other Serbs.

7 Third strategic goal: The corridor on the Drina valley.

8 Fourth strategic goal: Establishment of the border on the Una

9 and Neretva Rivers.

10 Fifth strategic goal: The division of the city of Sarajevo into

11 Serbian and Muslim parts and implementation of an effective state

12 government in each of these two parts. And that, of course, leaving

13 aside the military considerations for establishing a corridor was also

14 going to be a major task because Sarajevo was ethnically diverse even

15 though some particular areas might have of more of one nation than

16 another.

17 And the sixth strategic goal: Access of Serbian Republic of

18 Bosnia and Herzegovina to the sea.

19 This was all said in the Assembly at which a large number of

20 people were present, including reporters -- in fact it wasn't actually

21 officially published in a gazette until considerably later, I believe the

22 following year.

23 Now, it is worth looking at a speech by Dragan Kalinic who, I

24 believe, became the minister of health, and what he said was this:

25 "I'd like to address some of the things I've heard here and some

Page 231

1 of the information and ideas have been in circulation recently and this

2 would be the right place to clear such issues up while there is still

3 time. Among all the issues this Assembly should decide on, the most

4 important one is this: Have we chosen the option of war or the option of

5 negotiation? I say this with a reason and I must instantly add that

6 knowing who our enemies are, how perfidious they are, how they cannot be

7 trusted until they are physically, militarily destroyed and crushed,"

8 which of course implies eliminating and liquidating their key people.

9 "I do not hesitate in selecting the first option, the option of

10 war ..."

11 "Why do I say that the option of war seems more likely to me?

12 Because only what has been conquered militarily may become really and

13 truly ours."

14 And when Radoslav Brdjanin, who we saw earlier in a document

15 saying everything should be peaceful, rose to his feet - page 29 - he

16 said:

17 "... I asked for the floor only after I realised that I was the

18 most remote, that compared to everyone else I am the kindergarten. I

19 would first of all like to thank all those participating in the

20 discussion, and I would like to say a heartfelt bravo to Mr. Kalinic. In

21 all my appearances in this joint Assembly, it has never crossed my mind

22 is that although he seems quiet, while I seem hawkish, his opinions are

23 the closest to mine."

24 And Radoslav Brdjanin, in his position as president of the

25 Autonomous Region of Krajina Crisis Staff was in a position to put that,

Page 232

1 his views of what should happen, namely war, into effect.

2 And over the page, still Brdjanin speaking. What he said there

3 relates to the issue.

4 "How can anyone still believe," he says, "it is all right that we

5 have a Muslim teaching political classes in the Banja Luka Corps?"

6 Shortly after this, which created the VRS in June of 1992, all

7 Muslim and Croat officers were dismissed from the VRS, and this was a

8 reference to a professional soldier called Colonel Osman Selak, and it

9 showed that Brdjanin was not averse to even putting pressure on the

10 military to get rid of its non-Serbs.

11 And finally the president, Hadzic, who was present here and who I

12 think we see in the video, is the one who was president of the Croatian

13 sub-Krajina so-called, and the missing -- one of the last missing

14 indictees in this institution, as everyone knows, and there:

15 "As for military options, I do not know much about that, but I

16 propose, as Mr. Zupljanin has said, that Serbian Bosnia-Herzegovina

17 cannot be defended if it is based on the voluntary principle. If we

18 establish Serbian armed forces today, we will be announcing general

19 mobilisation and now everyone must be put under the command of the

20 Serbian armed forces and the forces for preserving law and order. All

21 paramilitary units must truly disappear ..."

22 As we will see later, that was more an expression, I think, of

23 pious hope.

24 And I think we'll have to look at the video tomorrow.

25 JUDGE HALL: Thank you, Ms. Korner. I would now invite

Page 233

1 Judge Harhoff --

2 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE HALL: -- administrative issue.

4 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you. The issue that we wanted to raise was

5 the manner in which and the basis on which Dr. Donia is to be examined

6 when he arrives here, I believe Wednesday, because it was -- it became

7 clear to us that the issue which we had discussed earlier on relating to

8 the late filing of some documents pertaining to Dr. Donia's testimony,

9 expected testimony, was such that one of these -- some of these documents

10 related to a report that Dr. Donia had filed regarding the siege of

11 Sarajevo, and that report, that last report filed by Dr. Donia, was then

12 dubbed the Karadzic report. And since it had been filed late, the

13 agreement was made that the Defence counsels would then be entitled to

14 have a two-month period in which to study the importance of this late

15 document.

16 Now, we also took the liberty of going through the document, and

17 it became -- a question arose to the Bench, namely of the relevance of

18 this report and of the 29 documents that have been identified in the late

19 filings as being relevant to the Karadzic report, because the Chamber is

20 mindful that the siege of Sarajevo as such falls outside the scope of

21 this indictment, and therefore, at least by a first glance, would seem to

22 be irrelevant to the case and something that we really shouldn't concern

23 ourselves with unless you can point us to the parts of the Karadzic

24 report and the documents that pertain to this report and also to the

25 29 documents that you have identified that are relevant to this report,