Page 8278
1 Tuesday, 30 March 2010
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.11 a.m.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. This is case
6 IT-08-91-T, the Prosecutor versus Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin.
7 JUDGE HALL
8 Good morning to everyone. May we have the appearances for today,
9 please.
10 MS. KORNER: Good morning, Your Honours. Joanna Korner assisted
11 by Crispian Smith, Case Manager, for the Prosecution.
12 MR. ZECEVIC: Good morning, Your Honours. Slobodan Zecevic,
13 Slobodan Cvijetic, Eugene O'Sullivan, appearing for Stanisic Defence this
14 morning. Thank you.
15 MR. PANTELIC: Good morning, Your Honours. For Zupljanin Defence
16 this morning appearing Igor Pantelic, Dragan Krgovic, and Miroslav
17 Cuskic. Thank you.
18 JUDGE HALL
19 Yes, Ms. Korner.
20 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, before the witness comes in, I raised
21 on Friday a query or asked for clarification of the ruling made on the
22 24th of March in respect to our application to add I think it was three
23 documents to the 65 ter list which was refused by Your Honour's ruling.
24 And the reasons given for the ruling state that notwithstanding the
25 Prosecution's contention that the Defence would not be prejudiced by the
Page 8279
1 inclusion of the proposed document, it is is not established to the
2 satisfaction by the Trial Chamber that there is good cause for its
3 request or that the proposed documents are of sufficient importance to
4 justify their late inclusion.
5 And my request for clarification was whether the denial of our
6 application was on the basis that the documents were not relevant or on
7 the basis that the Prosecution had made it too late and, therefore,
8 effectively, if I can put it that way, was to be punished for not making
9 the application earlier.
10 So, Your Honours. May I ask for clarification.
11 JUDGE HALL
12 that nothing further need be said. The Chamber gave its ruling and no
13 clarification is, in the Chamber's view, necessary. So the Chamber has
14 nothing to add.
15 [Trial Chamber confers]
16 [Trial Chamber and Legal Officer confer]
17 [The witness entered court]
18 JUDGE HARHOFF: Good morning to you, sir.
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Good morning.
20 JUDGE HARHOFF: Would you be kind enough to read the solemn
21 declaration.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will
23 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
24 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, sir. You may sit down.
25 And welcome to the Tribunal, and thank you for coming to give
Page 8280
1 your testimony today.
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you very much for making it
3 possible for me and for acknowledging my reasons to testify now.
4 JUDGE HARHOFF: Very well. And I take it that can you hear me in
5 a voice -- in a language that you understand?
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I do.
7 JUDGE HARHOFF: Very well.
8 Let's start by asking you to give us your name and your date and
9 place of birth, if you would be so kind.
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My name is Slobodan Skipina. I was
11 born on the 24th November, 1944, in Brojnici, municipality of Pale
12 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, sir. And what is your -- what is your
13 current occupation?
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm retired. Otherwise, I have a
15 degree in economics.
16 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you very much.
17 And what was your occupation in 1992?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In 1992, I was re-called from
19 retirement, in which I had been since 1990, and I worked in the National
20 Security Service of the Serbian Republic
21 leader of the service.
22 JUDGE HARHOFF: And where was that?
23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It was at Pale.
24 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you very much.
25 What is your ethnicity?
Page 8281
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Serb.
2 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you very much.
3 Sir, have you ever testified before this Tribunal, earlier on?
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. Not before this Tribunal or
5 any other.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: And so I understand that you have not been asked
7 to testify before any other Tribunal in your home country; is that
8 correct?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, that's correct.
10 JUDGE HARHOFF: Very well.
11 Let me then explain to you, then, the proceedings, as we have it
12 here. You have been called to testify by the Prosecution, who is sitting
13 to your right, and I assume that you have already met with the
14 Prosecution.
15 The Prosecution has asked for four hours to go through your
16 testimony in-chief. And the Defence has then, after that, asked for four
17 hours by the Defence for Mico Stanisic, and one and a half hours for the
18 Defence of Stojan Zupljanin. And the Defence is sitting to your left.
19 After completion of your testimony in-chief and
20 cross-examination, the Judges may have some questions for you. And then
21 the Prosecution will be given an extra chance to have some questions for
22 you in re-direct examination.
23 So that is the course of the events. So, in short, four hours
24 for the Prosecution; four hours for the Defence of Stanisic; and one and
25 a half hours for Mr. Zupljanin, which will bring us well through the day
Page 8282
1 of today and probably also the day of tomorrow, and so your testimony is
2 going to last at least a couple of days.
3 The system here is that we have to have a break every 90 minutes,
4 because the tapes need to be changed, and so every 90 minutes we will
5 have a 20-minutes' break. And the proceedings this morning will be
6 completed at a quarter to 2.00. Then we adjourn for today and we resume
7 again tomorrow.
8 If at any point you feel that you're tired or exhausted or you
9 want to put a question to the Judges, then feel free to do so.
10 And then, finally, I shall remind you that you are obliged to
11 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and I should
12 also remind you that is there a severe plenty for providing false
13 testimony to the Court.
14 Is this clear? Thank you very much.
15 In that case, I will pass the floor on to Ms. Korner for the
16 Prosecution.
17 MS. KORNER: Before I begin, two problems: Judge Harhoff turned
18 into Judge Hall at the end of page 3. And in addition to that, we don't
19 have LiveNote. It's gone.
20 JUDGE HARHOFF: Sir, while we're waiting for the system to come
21 up, there is another little issue that I would just wish to mention to
22 you. As can you see on the screen in front of you, everything you say is
23 being recorded by the stenographer, who is sitting over here, and -- and
24 I would advise you to keep an eye on the cursor on the screen, in order
25 to avoid overlap between the questions and the answers. The difficulty
Page 8283
1 is that if you speak too fast or if you overlap, the interpreters will be
2 unable to catch what either of you are saying and so there is going to be
3 a lacunae in the transcript.
4 So please just speak slowly and speak clearly and do not overlap.
5 Ms. Korner.
6 WITNESS: SLOBODAN SKIPINA
7 [Witness answered through interpreter]
8 Examination by Ms. Korner:
9 Q. Mr. Skipina, can I just add, as you were told yesterday, please
10 only answer the question that you're asked. If any more details are
11 required, then you will be asked for further details.
12 Do you understand that? I'm afraid you have to say yes or no.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Mr. Skipina, I want to deal, first of all, with how you came to
15 give evidence. I think it's right that you were interviewed by the
16 Office of the Prosecutor over two days on the 4th and 5th of November,
17 2004; is that right?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And you were interviewed as a suspect. That is, you had the
20 right to have a lawyer present, and you did have a lawyer present.
21 A. Correct.
22 Q. Mr. Branko Lukic?
23 A. That's correct.
24 Q. Before you were interviewed, had you, in fact, been contacted by
25 Vlastimir Kusmuk, and Goran Radovic?
Page 8284
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And also Dragan Kijac, who replaced you as head of the SNB in
3 1992?
4 A. Yes, sometime after Radovic and Kusmuk.
5 Q. Did you discuss with any of these three gentlemen the matters
6 about which you were to be interviewed?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Did they contact you about the fact that you were to be
9 interviewed?
10 A. Yes. But I'd like to explain, if you allow me.
11 Q. If you would do that very shortly, please, because we have a lot
12 of matters to get through. But if you think it's relevant, then,
13 shortly, please, tell us.
14 A. I got a telephone call from Vlastimir Kusmuk who told me that he
15 had been interviewed by the Office of the Prosecutor and that someone
16 from the Office of the Prosecutor told him that they should also
17 interview a friend of his, a good friend of his, and since the two of us
18 were close, he called me up and said, I suppose it's you.
19 I told him if they ask, give them my telephone number so they can
20 contact me, and that is how I was contacted by the Prosecution.
21 Q. All right. And, finally, before you came here on Sunday, when
22 you agreed you would speak to the Defence, had you been contacted by
23 Milan
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And did he tell you that he had given evidence?
Page 8285
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Did you discuss what he had said in evidence with him?
3 A. No.
4 Q. But as a result of speaking to him, you having deadlined to speak
5 to the Defence, did you then agree?
6 MR. KRGOVIC: That's leading.
7 MS. KORNER:
8 Q. Mr. Skipina.
9 A. I apologise, could you please repeat the question.
10 Q. Did you originally agree to meet the Defence?
11 A. No. Because I didn't know the procedure. Namely, that as an OTP
12 witness, I had a right to also meet with the Defence.
13 Q. And what was it about your conversation with Mr. Scekic that made
14 you change your mind?
15 A. Scekic described to me briefly his stay at the ICTY, said that he
16 was pleased. We did not discuss the substance of his evidence, and in
17 that conversation, he told me that he had been proofed, both by the OTP
18 and the Defence.
19 Q. And?
20 A. I asked him, What do you mean with the Defence? And he said,
21 Yes, one can also contact Defence before reading out the solemn
22 declaration.
23 When they called me from the OTP to postpone my testimony, I then
24 told them that I would like to also contact the Defence.
25 Q. All right. As a result of your meeting with the Defence on
Page 8286
1 Sunday, did you make any decision to change any part of what you said in
2 your interview?
3 A. I didn't make a decision to change. Everything mostly remained
4 as I had stated it in my interview. It's just that I may have a dilemma
5 about the question that you put to me about the membership of
6 Mr. Stanisic in the Serbian Democratic Party.
7 Q. Yes, we'll come on to that in a moment. But does your dilemma
8 arise from any decisions with the Defence?
9 A. Which dilemma do you have in mind?
10 Q. The one you've just mentioned.
11 A. Well, I have accepted, given that the procedure allows for me to
12 meet with the Defence too.
13 Q. Yes. You told us, I asked you whether as a result of your
14 meeting with the Defence you had made a decision to change any part of
15 what you said in your interview. And your response was: "I didn't make
16 a decision to change. Everything mostly remained as I had stated it in
17 my interview. It's just that I may have a dilemma about the question
18 that you put to me about the membership of Mr. Stanisic in the Serbian
19 Democratic Party."
20 And now I'm asking you what your dilemma is.
21 A. We will clarify that, as you have said, later.
22 As for the rest, I stand by the statement that I gave to the OTP
23 in 2004 with a proviso that that interview with me was never completed,
24 that I had some additional relevant matters to say, and we left it off
25 where the OTP said that they would call me again but they never did, and
Page 8287
1 we never met up again. So that's my first interview with the OTP was
2 actually never completed.
3 Q. Yes. Even though it lasted two days.
4 A. Yes. Two long days, nine hours each.
5 Q. All right. Let's move, then, to your actual career as a police
6 officer.
7 Now, sir, I don't want the full details of your career. I'm just
8 going summarise, I hope, accurately, your career with the police.
9 I think you joined the police with the then-SDB, as it was
10 called, in 1968 in Doboj. Is that right?
11 A. That's correct.
12 Q. You, in fact, took an economics degree in 1974, and then you went
13 back -- well, you remained in the police and you became an inspector
14 under the old BiH MUP still with the SDB in charge of investigating
15 Serbian nationalism; is that right?
16 A. Yes. You skipped some details though.
17 Q. Yes, I know. I -- I'm sure that if they become relevant the
18 Defence will ask you about them.
19 Did you then, in 1980, become head of the department for internal
20 problems in -- I think that was in Sarajevo
21 A. Yes. Within the SDB in Sarajevo
22 Q. You then, I think, became head of the SDB then head of the CSB in
23 Sarajevo
24 of the state security -- I'm sorry, 1991. No, 1990, sorry, all right.
25 A. I can give you the exact date.
Page 8288
1 Q. Yes, the exact date of your retirement. Yes, why don't you tell
2 us that.
3 A. I first served as deputy chief of the SDB centre in Sarajevo
4 then chief of the SDB centre in Sarajevo
5 reorganisation which took place in the Ministry of th e Interior, in
6 1986, I became chief of centre for security services both public and
7 state security. I remained there the full term, and then in the spring
8 of 1990, I was appointed assistant under-secretary for the State Security
9 Service of Bosnia-Herzegovina. And then in late 1990, on the 31st of
10 December, I retired.
11 Q. Thank you. And then as you told the Judges, were you brought
12 back after the split of the MUP in Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the
13 beginning of April 1992?
14 A. That's correct.
15 Q. And who was it who brought you back into the MUP?
16 A. Mr. Mico Stanisic offered me to come back. It's not that he
17 brought me back. He offered me to come back.
18 Q. And when was that? How many days before your appointment?
19 A. Approximately ten days before I was appointed to the position
20 that I was to discharge. Around the 20th of March.
21 Q. And why was it that you agreed to return to the MUP, even though
22 you had only just retired, effectively?
23 A. My reasons for retiring at the age of 45 were of a personal
24 nature. If you wish to learn about it, I can tell.
25 Q. No, I don't want to know the reason why you retired. I want to
Page 8289
1 know the reason why you returned to the new MUP.
2 A. Throughout my retirement, I was constantly attacked by the
3 Bosniak side due to cases that I had worked on previously in my work,
4 especially the case of Alija Izetbegovic, which was solely my case.
5 So for that reason, and also other reasons, I retired. I was
6 given death threats. Same goes for the members of my family. In late
7 1991, at night, I would illegally go and hide with my family and friends,
8 spend a night there, because there was a campaign in place against me,
9 especially on the part of the MUP. Hilmo Selimovic, he was assistant
10 minister for personnel whom I had investigated due to white-collar crime
11 and then he decided to take revenge and so on.
12 Q. All right. Can I stop you there. I simply want to know in one
13 sentence why you agreed to join the new Serbian MUP.
14 A. I accepted it, because I thought that that could possibly protect
15 me. I thought that if I worked at the MUP I would have personal
16 protection. And in addition to that, Minister Stanisic told me that he
17 wanted me to come, due to my great experience in working in the police.
18 He said that he needed men like me.
19 Q. All right. Let's deal with Minister Stanisic.
20 How long had you known Mico Stanisic?
21 A. Before meeting him on the 20th of March, I had met Mr. Stanisic
22 only twice in my life. The first time was when he was, I think, an
23 executive within a company called Upi; and the second time when he was
24 appointed secretary of the city SUP
25 An inspector who worked with me, the late Jozo Leutar, was
Page 8290
1 appointed deputy of Stanisic. He was deputy secretary of the city SUP
2 and we met in front of the building of the city SUP where I lived nearby.
3 I congratulated him, he asked me to go and have coffee with him, we had
4 coffee together, Jozo Leutar and I, and he told me, Do you know Mico? I
5 told him, I met him once. He said, Let's go over to see him to
6 congratulate him, so we went over to Stanisic, I congratulated him. We
7 didn't talk much. We said good-bye, and I left the city SUP. That was
8 the only time that I had ever visited any MUP facility after retiring.
9 Q. Right. Anyhow having agreed to re-join the MUP, to what position
10 were you appointed?
11 A. Minister Stanisic talked to me. I think that the course of that
12 conversation is relevant, so I should tell you about it.
13 Q. All right.
14 A. He called me on the telephone at around the 20th of March, asking
15 me to meet at the Holiday Inn hotel. I accepted that invitation. I came
16 to the hotel. He was sitting there with his wife. Later on, he
17 introduced her to me and said that that was his wife.
18 So we sat there and talked a bit and then at one point he told me
19 that the Assembly of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina
20 adopted a decision to split from the joint Assembly and that that was in
21 accordance with the Cutileiro Plan about the cantonisation of
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is something that I knew of from the media.
23 Q. He actually told you that, did he, that this was to do with the
24 Cutileiro Plan?
25 A. Yes. He told me that, that Cutileiro Plan envisaged the
Page 8291
1 cantonisation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and I knew that myself from the
2 media.
3 Q. And?
4 A. I asked him then, given the terrible heated atmosphere,
5 especially in the city where I lived, in Sarajevo, I asked him, Mico,
6 what is your assessment? Is there going to be a war in Bosnia and
7 Herzegovina
8 politicians had come to their senses, and that it was just rhetorical
9 that they were heating up the situation so that the people would accept
10 the division easier.
11 Then he told me that they, the Bosniak, Serbian, and Croatian
12 side, had agreed on the separation of property within the MUP and that
13 the school centre in Vrace, according to that agreement, was going to
14 belong to the Serbian MUP where they were going to have their
15 headquarters; whereas, the republican SUP, city SUP, and the CSB
16 were going to be divided between the Bosniaks, Muslims, and Croats.
17 Q. Right. In any event, can I ask you what position - which is my
18 original question - what position was he offering you in the new MUP?
19 A. Then further on, during that conversation, he asked me whether,
20 given my police experience, I would be ready to assist in establishing
21 the National Security Service.
22 I asked him, How come, Mico, when you know that I don't have good
23 reputation in the Serbian political circles. He said to me, Just leave
24 that to me. You were proposed by the operations service that you headed
25 before your retirement. We did not really discuss the position that I
Page 8292
1 was going to have. That came later.
2 Q. All right.
3 A. I agreed, in principle. I said that within my abilities I was
4 ready to assist.
5 Q. So that was the meeting at the Holiday Inn.
6 Did you meet him again before your appointment?
7 A. I didn't. No, actually, I did. At around the 27th of March. He
8 called me on the telephone again and he said that he would send a car to
9 fetch me, to bring me to Pale, to a small administrative building which
10 was a hotel of the scout organisation or something like that, to join the
11 team working on the rules of internal organisation and job classification
12 within the MUP. I accepted that. I went up there at around the 27th of
13 March. I found a team working there with a lawyer called Nenad Radovic,
14 Slavica Krstovic and another lawyer whose name I don't know. I think
15 that he had started working in the meantime in 1991, I'm not sure. And
16 as for the state security, Sukalo, Ranko, my former colleague, also a
17 lawyer was there. They had already started working on the rules for the
18 public security, the rules of the Ministry of Interior, whereas Ranko
19 Sukalo, and I started drafting the rules for the national Security
20 Service.
21 Q. By that stage, had Mico Stanisic explained how he had the power
22 to ask you to re-join the MUP or what his position was going to be?
23 A. I apologise, I omitted to say that when we talked at the
24 Holiday Inn at around the 20th of March, he told me that he was supposed
25 to become the minister of the interior of Republika Srpska.
Page 8293
1 Q. Did you ask him how it was that he was going become the minister,
2 given that there were other people, such as Momcilo Mandic, who held
3 higher positions in the old MUP?
4 A. I didn't ask him.
5 Q. Well --
6 A. It wasn't up to me. Didn't concern me.
7 Q. Well, weren't you -- can I put it this way: Did it come as a
8 surprise to you that he was going to be the minister?
9 A. What should I tell you? What do you mean surprise me? I
10 accepted the fact he that was going to become minister. I knew that he
11 used to work at the Ministry of the Interior earlier, so there was really
12 nothing to surprise me or not surprise me. I simple accepted the fact as
13 it was.
14 Q. Did you know anything at that stage about his political
15 affiliations?
16 A. No.
17 Q. All right. Later did you discover from anything that he said
18 what his political allegiance was?
19 A. As for political allegiance, given the heated atmosphere, the
20 Serbs were supporting SDS
21 is whom people favoured, 90 per cent of them.
22 Q. Let's move further than political allegiance. Did you understand
23 that he was ever a member of any political party?
24 A. I never knew about that, nor did he ever utter in front of me
25 that he was a member of the party, nor did I hear from anybody else that
Page 8294
1 he was a member of the party, nor did I see any document proving that he
2 was a member of the party.
3 Q. All right. You may not have seen a document, you may not have
4 heard it from anybody else, did you believe him to be a member of a
5 political party?
6 A. I was of the belief that all people holding top positions in the
7 government, all ministers, members of the Presidency, were members of the
8 party. It was only later on that I learned that Mr. Dzeric was not a
9 member of any party that, that deputy president of the Republic,
10 Professor Nikola Koljevic was also not a member of any party.
11 In the beginning, however, I truly believed that everybody who is
12 appointed to any top position was a member of the party.
13 Q. All right, now, let's move on. Was there a discussion with Mico
14 Stanisic when others were present about the SDS membership?
15 A. Yes. Sometime in the beginning perhaps around the 15th of April,
16 roughly, I can't remember exactly. There were two or three of us sitting
17 together. I think that Kusmuk was one of them and another person whom I
18 can't remember now, Mr. Stanisic, as we sat there informally, it was not
19 a formal meeting or anything of the sort, just three of four of us
20 meeting, and Mr. Stanisic said something like this, I think that all
21 officials in leading positions, member of the collegium need to be
22 members of the party. I told him that I did not want to become one nor
23 that the operations officers who were working for the SNB would. And
24 that was the only discussion that I ever had with Mr. Stanisic concerning
25 that. He did not reply anything to what I said. He did not insist. All
Page 8295
1 I know is that none of the members of the collegium, as far as I know,
2 were members of the Serbian Democratic Party.
3 Q. All right. So when you said members of -- Mr. Stanisic said
4 something like, I think that all officials in leading positions, members
5 of the collegium need to be members of the party, which party did you
6 mean?
7 A. Well, I suppose he did not mean the league of Communists. He
8 meant the Serbian Democratic Party.
9 Q. Can we then return, please, to your appointment. Were you
10 actually formally appointed to the position by Mr. Stanisic on the 1st of
11 April?
12 A. Well, the letter of appointment says I was appointed acting
13 under-secretary of the National Security Service as of the 1st of April,
14 although the actual appointment was only on the 5th of April. But the
15 letter of appointment said as of 1st April.
16 Let me add this: I was resisting this decision. I didn't want
17 to become that. I was suggesting Sredoje Novic to become under-secretary
18 because he had been the last in that position at the level of the former
19 Bosnia and Herzegovina, and he was supposed to become secretary of the
20 federal National Security Service, but he eventually didn't. Then I was
21 told Sredoje Novic cannot occupy that position because Mr. Krajisnik
22 won't let him.
23 Q. Did you understand that the political leadership outside of
24 Mr. Stanisic, therefore, had some say in who was appointed?
25 A. Excuse me, which position do you mean?
Page 8296
1 Q. You told us that you would have preferred that Sredoje Novic
2 would become the under-secretary, but you were told that that couldn't
3 happen because Mr. Krajisnik wouldn't let him.
4 So I'm asking you whether, from that, you understood that the
5 political leadership, that is to say, Krajisnik, Karadzic, Plavsic,
6 whoever, had some say in the appointments within the MUP?
7 A. I suppose that Mr. Stanisic, if he wanted to form a team, and I
8 think he was trying to form a team from people in the field, he was
9 trying to form a team of professionals. However, that didn't necessarily
10 mean that he was going to be allowed to do that. There was certain
11 resistances, like in the case of Mr. Sredoje Novic.
12 Q. That's what I'm asking you. Was your understanding from this
13 conversation that Mr. Stanisic had to consult with Krajisnik, as leader
14 of the Assembly; Karadzic as President; Plavsic as a member of the
15 Presidency with political leaders?
16 A. I don't know if he had to consult them, or perhaps he mentions
17 Sredoje Novic in conversation, and Sredoje Novic was the focus of certain
18 problems even before the war. I don't know whether he actually had
19 consultations or not, sir. I'm not aware of that.
20 Q. I'd like you now to have a look, please, you explained in
21 interview at length the various people and the structure of the SNB but
22 it has been reduced to a diagram which you had a look at yesterday and I
23 think you say is correct, so I would like you to look at it, please.
24 MS. KORNER: Obviously it's a brand new diagram, Your Honour, so
25 oit has been given a number 10326 [Real-time translation read in error
Page 8297
1 "10329"]. It's a bit like the diagram we did for the CSB Banja Luka.
2 And some of the names, Your Honours, appear, as you will see, on the
3 bigger chart of the RS MUP.
4 MR. PANTELIC: I do apologise. Did you mention, Ms. Korner, 1 --
5 MS. KORNER: 10 something or other, 10326.
6 MR. PANTELIC: Because in the transcript it's page 19, line 19
7 it's 10329, so I just want to clarify. Yeah, thank you.
8 MS. KORNER: All right.
9 Q. This is a sort of basic guide, if one can put it that way, to the
10 structure of the SNB
11 We see yourself as chief of the SNB or under-secretary, and then
12 under you, Mr. Radovic, as the assistant chief, and for a short period of
13 time, as we can see, which is why it is in slightly difficult writing to
14 read, you have a deputy chief assistant under-secretary Dragan Devedlaka,
15 and Nedo Vlaski. Is that right?
16 A. Right.
17 Q. Both of whom went off to Belgrade
18 right?
19 A. That's right. Especially Nedo Vlaski. He occupied his position
20 only one day.
21 Q. Then do we see under that, the -- the six different departments
22 within the SNB
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. The administration for intelligence headed by Dragisa Mihic?
25 A. The only one.
Page 8298
1 Q. Yeah. Then administration for affairs and -- really foreign
2 intelligence services. Again, was this Mr. Blagojevic for a short period
3 of time?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And was he ever replaced while you were still head?
6 A. No, because he was the only one in the administration.
7 Q. Right. But if he left apparently also in April so he wasn't
8 there for very long, why was no one else appointed once you were head?
9 A. We did not have enough operatives.
10 Q. All right.
11 A. We started from scratch. Whatever resources we had, we used to
12 fill at least fictionally vacancies in the administration. But some
13 administrations had no personnel.
14 Q. Then we see the security section, headed by Milan Skekic.
15 Defence preparations, Todar Cicovic. I'm not sure about the
16 pronunciation there. Then administration for analytical information,
17 Ljiljana Trisic, and finally legal department personnel, Mr. Sukalo.
18 Is that right?
19 A. That's right. These people were appointed to these positions
20 although within their structures, these administrations had actually no
21 personnel. So these people were one-man shows. There were the chiefs
22 and their staff. But I have to say about this administration for Defence
23 preparations led by Todor Cicovic, that's an administration that exists
24 only in peacetime, and his job was to train reserve staff for
25 contingencies such as natural disasters and war in which they would be
Page 8299
1 activated. Since war broke out this administration no longer had any
2 reason to exist.
3 Q. But Mr. Cicovic was still there, was he?
4 A. Yes, yes, he continued doing other jobs.
5 Q. Where was the SNB
6 A. It was based in that building that I mentioned before where the
7 rules on the activities of the MUP were being developed.
8 We had a conference room that was available to other personnel
9 and even third parties, such as political parties without any special
10 bars or supervision. Plus there was one office where Lila Trisic [phoen]
11 worked as an analyst with a typist next to her. So we really had no
12 proper premises.
13 Q. Right. Sorry, I meant geographically, where was the building?
14 A. Overlooking Pale, there is an feature called Kalovita Brda about
15 a kilometre from the centre of Pale.
16 Q. Right. Is that on Mount Jahorina
17 A. Oh, no. It's at Pale, the first hill next to Pale. One
18 kilometre from the centre of Pale.
19 Q. All right. So your department was based there. What about the
20 rest of the MUP? Where was that? In April of 1992, to begin with.
21 A. Minister Stanisic came by occasionally. It wasn't exactly an
22 office that he used. It was more like a room where he sometimes spent
23 the night, and there were another two rooms for his body-guards. Also,
24 for a while, the assistant minister for finance, Bogdan Kosarac would
25 come sometimes and use the office because the government was close by and
Page 8300
1 it was convenient for him to communicate with the government from there.
2 Other executives would come and go. Most of them were based in Vrace,
3 where the deputy minister Momcilo Mandic was based permanently along with
4 Cedo Kljajic, chief of public security; Milenko Karisik, commander of the
5 special police, and I know also the assistant minister for general crime,
6 Dobro Planojevic was also there. But, in fact, it was all pending the
7 decision, the final decision to establish a seat at Vrace, because the
8 security situation was very bad. The enemy was targeting us constantly
9 with snipers and mortar fire until the MUP moved finally to Vrace.
10 Q. The enemy was targeting you where? In Pale or in Vrace?
11 A. At Vrace. The seat of the MUP and its supporting services was
12 supposed to be at Vrace.
13 Q. Right. Now I want to deal at this stage with the -- what part
14 you played after the takeover of the school at Vrace in April, 6th of
15 April.
16 Were you given any particular task by Mico Stanisic?
17 A. Yes. After the clash at Vrace, when the special police led by
18 Milenko Karisik, separated from the joint special police of the former
19 MUP, and when they moved to Vrace, to a destination designated earlier,
20 they were met by fire from the school building, and it was the teachers
21 and cadets in the police school who were firing. These were young men
22 who had done their compulsory military service and applied, after that,
23 for a six-month course to become policemen. They met the special police
24 unit with fire. And on that occasion, two special policemen were killed,
25 another five or six were wounded but still the special police managed to
Page 8301
1 get into the building at Vrace, and some of the instructors and students
2 from this course were arrested.
3 After that, Minister Stanisic ordered that they should be
4 interviewed, and since we didn't have enough operative officers, we
5 decided to use combined teams consisting of both national security
6 personnel and the police from the CID. After that, I reported to the
7 minister that there were no elements of criminal responsibility in any of
8 the individual cases, and he then said, Slobodan, contact the Bosniak MUP
9 and have these people exchanged, because - and I already knew this from
10 reports by citizens - some Serbs had been arrested, so go and contact the
11 Bosniak MUP and organise an exchange.
12 I told the minister there is no chance I'll be able to do that.
13 I don't have the resources. I don't have the men or the vehicles or
14 anything else. So then he called Radomir Kojic on the telephone.
15 Radomir Kojic came in from Pale. We talked, and he told this man, From
16 now on, obey Slobo Skipina and do whatever he tells you to do, and he
17 told me, Now contact the Bosniak member, which did I. I called Avdo
18 Hebib, assistant minister for the police, and I believed that some of his
19 family members were among those arrested. He directed them to Simo
20 Grubisic, a man on their staff as a man who was in charge of exchange,
21 and then the two of us exchanged lists and conducted three or four
22 exchanges on the separation line between the municipalities of Stari Grad
23 and Pale.
24 Q. All right. Thank you very much for that lengthy explanation,
25 sir. But in future, can we just have it slightly shorter.
Page 8302
1 First, how many people were being held and integrated at the
2 school, roughly?
3 A. I can't remember exactly.
4 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... are we talking 100 or more,
5 or less?
6 A. Well, we certainly didn't have 50 operatives to interview these
7 people, let alone 100, so that was less than 50 certainly.
8 Q. I'm not talking about your operatives, but how many people had
9 been, as you put it, arrested after Mr. Karisik had taken over the
10 school?
11 A. I don't know how many people were arrested there. I'm trying to
12 tell you that we didn't have more than 50 operatives in total to
13 interview them. So there were less than 50 men invited to be
14 interviewed.
15 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... logic in the two because
16 surely an operative could conduct one interview on one day and a second
17 interview with somebody different on another day.
18 So why do you equate the two?
19 A. Well, we conducted all the interviews within a day or two.
20 Q. During the course of any of these interviews, were any of these
21 prisoners assaulted?
22 A. Not that I know of. I don't know of any assaults. What kind of
23 assaults do you mean?
24 Q. Beatings.
25 A. I don't know. I wasn't there at Vrace, so I don't know whether
Page 8303
1 anything of the sort happened.
2 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... but you dealt with the
3 exchange personally, didn't you?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Did you see any signs of injury to any of the people that you
6 were exchanging?
7 A. I did not personally take these people to be exchanged. Radomir
8 Kojic did that. I only harmonised lists and agreed with Simo Grubisic was
9 exchanges would be taking place. I did not see any of the men with my
10 own eyes.
11 Q. And one final question: Your operatives who conducted the
12 interviews found that there were no grounds for detaining these people.
13 Why weren't they released without having to be exchanged for Serbs?
14 A. I'm trying to tell you that, in the meantime a large number of
15 Serbs had been arrested in Sarajevo
16 released without an exchange. So this exchange was organised to have all
17 of them freed, and that was done very efficiently. The first exchange
18 took place within three or four days with great efforts invested by both
19 sides.
20 Q. I understand you say that the Serbs were not going to be released
21 without an exchange, but this question of an exchange -- or this
22 suggestion, I'm sorry, came from Mico Stanisic, you've told us.
23 A. Yes. He told me, Contact the Bosniak MUP and have these people
24 exchanged because, in the meantime, a number of Serbs had been arrested
25 in Sarajevo
Page 8304
1 Q. Yes. How did he or, indeed, you know whether there were any
2 grounds for the arrest of the Serbs?
3 A. At Pale, at least ten Serbs had come to my office with reports
4 that they had received telephone calls from their families in Sarajevo
5 who had said that the male members of their family had been taken away
6 without any explanation. At first I was supposed to exchange only those
7 who had been arrested by the police, but then, hearing these reports, I
8 included those people too.
9 Q. I'm so sorry. I don't think I quite follow that.
10 You had arrested people -- or police had arrested people, had
11 they, outside of those who were in the Vrace school?
12 A. No. I'm saying that citizens from Pale came to me and begged me
13 to put on the exchange lists their relatives from Sarajevo, that the
14 Bosniak police had rounded up from their apartments and took them nobody
15 knew where. So I did that.
16 Q. Final two questions on this topic and then I think it is probably
17 time for a break.
18 The people at the school who you had interviewed and decided to
19 use to the exchange, were they all non-Serbs?
20 A. Frankly, I didn't pay attention.
21 Q. Are you saying that your operatives didn't -- well, you had a
22 list of the names because you discussed that with your opposite number,
23 Mr. Hebib. Were they all non-Serbs?
24 A. I suppose that they were most of them non-Serbs, but I cannot
25 rule out the possibility that there were a few Serbs among them. But in
Page 8305
1 any case, they wouldn't ask for Serbs in exchange.
2 Q. Right. And finally this: This sort of feature of exchanging
3 prisoners against whom there were no grounds for detaining them, was that
4 something that happened quite often than you dealt with?
5 A. I don't know whether it happened often. I didn't deal with that
6 sort of thing a lot because I left that job very soon afterwards. I
7 refused to do any more of that for reasons that I can share with you, if
8 you insist.
9 Q. Yes, all right. After the break I'm going to ask you about how
10 you came to stop dealing with exchanges.
11 Did you deal with -- after the school exchange and before you
12 stopped, did you deal with other exchanges of prisoners?
13 A. There were more prisoners, such as one group of five or six from
14 Ilidza. I got a report that some of them had killed a number of Serbs
15 with sniper fire and they had reports about it. I asked to receive these
16 reports, which I never did, so I had these people exchanged.
17 Then we also had one case where the police arrested a certain
18 Senahid Memic at Vrace. He was member of the SDA, an official of the SDA
19 carrying false IDs. He had six or seven false IDs in Serbian names. He
20 had membership card of the SDS
21 offices, and a number of other badges all in Serbian names.
22 I, or, rather, the National Security Service took over that case,
23 and he confessed that he was the chief organiser of the arming of Muslims
24 before the war, that he acquired weapons in Croatia, transported it
25 across Mount Igman
Page 8306
1 no patrols. Let me finish, please.
2 Q. No. We really don't need all the details of what this man did.
3 What did you do with him?
4 A. We recorded the interview with him, and we invited a report from
5 the SRNA
6 And then after that programme, Bakir Alispahic, chief of the CSB
7 Sarajevo
8 he told me, Look, chief, it's not exactly what it looks like. And I told
9 him, Man, what have you done? Because he was using Bakir Alispahic's
10 personal car to transport weapons, and he received all these false IDs
11 from Bakir Alispahic and Munir Alibabic. I'm talking about his case
12 because it's interesting. And then I told Bakir, Look, I'm sending him
13 back to you in the next exchange, and did I that.
14 Q. All right.
15 JUDGE HALL
16 resume in 20 minutes.
17 [The witness stands down]
18 --- Recess taken at 10.36 a.m.
19 --- On resuming at 10.59 a.m.
20 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, while the witness is being brought, can
21 I tender the diagram, if there's no objection, as an exhibit. That is,
22 10326.
23 JUDGE HALL
24 MS. KORNER: Thank you.
25 THE REGISTRAR: This will be Exhibit P1251, Your Honour.
Page 8307
1 JUDGE HALL
2 several months ago you had helpfully prepared for our use these large
3 folders of maps and diagrams. Could you remind me as to whether they
4 were formally tendered or whether they were just working copies that
5 we're using.
6 MS. KORNER: No, they're both. I'm not sure about the maps, but
7 certainly the diagrams of the various parts of the government and the MUP
8 and the like are -- are an exhibit. I don't remember about the maps.
9 JUDGE HALL
10 such as the present whether we are adding it to things that have been
11 previously exhibited or --
12 MS. KORNER: No, I think, if you recall, Your Honour, there is a
13 difficulty about sort of adding things in to previous exhibits all to do
14 where the electronic display, I think, because the diagram we did of the
15 CSB
16 But we can -- Your Honours, we can certainly add them to the
17 booklets that Your Honours have got them, if you would like them all
18 together in one place.
19 JUDGE HALL
20 be in a size which is readable.
21 MS. KORNER: Yes. Your Honours -- well, certainly after Easter
22 we'll make sure you get, as it were, if you give us your booklets back
23 unles you've marked them, and then we can add in the two new diagrams.
24 JUDGE HALL
25 [The witness takes the stand]
Page 8308
1 MS. KORNER:
2 Q. Mr. Skipina, I want to stay on the topic of those exchanges. You
3 told us there came a point where you declined or told Mr. Stanisic that
4 you would no longer deal with this; is that right?
5 A. That's right.
6 Q. Can you tell the Court, please, briefly about the two incidents
7 which led you to tell Mr. Stanisic you would no longer engage in exchange
8 of prisoner activities.
9 A. The first case was as follows: One morning as I was coming to
10 work in front of the building where I worked I saw 2 or 300 Bosniaks and
11 a truck with a tarpaulin, perhaps two trucks even and three armed men who
12 had brought them there, escorted them there. I asked them who they were,
13 and where they were from. They told me that they had been sent by the
14 Bratunac Crisis Staff. Now to whom these Bosniaks were sent I asked them
15 and they said, We were just told to bring them to Pale, and then I asked,
16 Whom to Pale? And then they said, We don't know.
17 I was standing there, thinking what to do. If he were to return
18 them, to send them back, I was afraid they could be killed. If I were to
19 get in touch with Grubisic about organising an exchange, that would take
20 a couple of days. These people were standing by a road. It was possible
21 that a member of a paramilitary unit could come along or somebody else
22 who could just open fire on those people, throw a hand-grenade or
23 something like that, and R that moment I remember that Dobro Planojevic
24 assistant minister for general crime several days prior to that told me
25 that Maric, who was chief of public security station in Ilijas, was a
Page 8309
1 good lad, a good professional, and previously I learned that Serbs from
2 Zenica and Kakanj used to come across the border crossing at Cekrcici to
3 go into Ilijas.
4 So I called Maric up, and I asked him whether he could transfer a
5 group of Bosniaks safely to Visiko. He told me he could organise that.
6 I called up Radomir Kojic immediately, and I exaggerated the
7 seriousness of the case and I said, Based on the order of Karadzic and
8 Stanisic, please take this group of Bosniaks urgently to Ilijas to Maric
9 so that he could then transport them to Visoko area.
10 In the meantime, I called an operative of the National Security
11 Service who was at Ilijas at the moment, and I asked him to follow up on
12 that activity. Kojic went there, drove those people there, and the first
13 one who called me up on the phone was Mile Renovica. He told me that the
14 operation had been successfully completed, that the people had been
15 transported to Visoko.
16 The minister came on the following day I told him about this. I
17 told him that I used his name without authorisation as well as as the
18 office of the president of the Republic but that I had no other choice.
19 It was very important for me to protect these people.
20 Several days after that, on radio Sarajevo, which was the BH
21 radio, people were calling up Radomir Kojic, sending greetings to him,
22 and thanking him for saving them. But this left a trace on me,
23 traumatised me --
24 Q. Right. Thank you. Can you pause there before you deal with the
25 second incident.
Page 8310
1 First, you said you were going to get in touch with Grubisic or
2 you couldn't get in touch with Grubisic about organising exchange. Who
3 was Grubisic? Very briefly.
4 A. Grubisic was in charge of the exchange. He represented the
5 Bosniak MUP. I have mentioned him earlier today.
6 Q. All right. Second, you said you -- you were frightened that if
7 they remained in the street they could be attacked by paramilitary.
8 This is paramilitaries in Pale, is it?
9 A. Yes. Because I didn't know who could have come by. Perhaps a
10 person whose family had been killed could have come by, learned that
11 Bosniaks were there, and done something terrible to these people, so I
12 was afraid that somebody could have done something without thinking. It
13 could have been a member of a paramilitary unit, it could have been a
14 member of the Territorial Defence. Anybody, really.
15 Q. Was Captain Dragan -- sorry, Captain Dragan. Were Arkan's Men in
16 Pale in this period?
17 A. Ever since I came to work at Pale, I never heard that Arkan's Men
18 were ever present there. I'm not aware of that. It is possible that
19 they were, but I simply don't know about that.
20 I know that they were in Bijeljina, in Zvornik, but as for them
21 being in Pale, I don't know about that.
22 Q. But Pale is a tiny place, isn't it, what we sometimes call a
23 one-horse town?
24 A. Well, there could have been two, but it is small.
25 Q. A two-horse town.
Page 8311
1 Are you saying that you could have been wholly unaware if Arkan's
2 Men were in Pale?
3 A. I didn't know about that, nor did anybody ever mention in my
4 presence that Arkan's Men were in Pale. It is possible that they were
5 there.
6 Q. Did you come across Captain Dragan at all?
7 A. God forbid, no.
8 Q. What about a gentleman called, forgive me, Dusko Malovic?
9 A. No.
10 Q. Did you ever have any discussion at all with Mr. Kijac about
11 Dusko Malovic?
12 A. I don't know Dusko Malovic, any Dusko Malovic. But I can't
13 exclude the possibility that Kijac may have mentioned something to me.
14 But I don't know any Dusko Malovic.
15 Q. So you didn't know him to be a paramilitary?
16 A. I don't know about that first and last name.
17 Q. All right. We got slightly side-tracked from these Bosniaks.
18 Did you make any inquiries as to why these Bosniaks had been sent
19 to Pale from Bratunac, what they had done to justify sending them to
20 Pale?
21 A. Looking at those people, just casting a superficial glance, I
22 don't think that they did anything. But I didn't have my operatives in
23 Bratunac nor in nearby municipalities, so I don't know. I never received
24 any information nor did I seek one.
25 On the following day, I told Minister Stanisic that the Crisis
Page 8312
1 Staff from Bratunac had sent those people.
2 Q. The people who were guarding the 300 Bosniaks, who were they?
3 Members of the MUP? Members of the army?
4 A. They had different sorts of uniforms. I think camouflage bottoms
5 and jackets. They were not blue ones. They didn't have anything
6 indicating that they were members of the MUP.
7 Q. And you say they didn't look like people who had done anything.
8 Do you mean there were women and children there? Or did they all look
9 like civilians?
10 A. They were all male, civilians, but so scared, so frightened, that
11 I simply couldn't see them as a threat.
12 Q. All right. Did -- when you reported all this to Minister
13 Stanisic, did you say that, really, something should be done about this
14 expulsion of civilians from Bratunac, some complaint made to anybody?
15 A. I didn't suggest anything to the minister. I simply told him
16 about the event, about how it unfolded. He told me, Well, done. And
17 this is where it ended.
18 Q. And he didn't say, Right, I'm going to tell Mr. Karadzic or
19 anybody else in the Presidency, that civilians are being expelled from
20 Bratunac, Muslim civilians, Bosniaks, as you put it?
21 A. He didn't say that, but that doesn't mean that he didn't do
22 anything about it. I don't know.
23 Q. No. All right. And the second incident that you say led you to
24 tell Mr. Stanisic you would no longer deal with exchanges, can you
25 briefly tell the Court what that was about. And I mean briefly, please,
Page 8313
1 because we've got a number of things to deal with.
2 A. Commander of Green Berets, or commander of the Patriotic League
3 from Sarajevo
4 me up. He introduced himself. I can't remember his name. But I do know
5 that his headquarters was in the Bosna hotel.
6 He told me that somewhere in the Vogosca area the Serbian forces
7 had arrested one of his men. He told me to find him within that same day
8 and to return the man to him, in Sarajevo
9 who were in his custody at the hotel. Or maybe -- I don't remember
10 whether the hotel was called Bosna or Evropa. I apologise. I forget the
11 name of the hotel.
12 Q. Don't worry about the hotel. Describe briefly, please, the
13 incident.
14 A. All right. So I made numerous phone calls, calling people in
15 Ilijas, Vogosca, Ilidza. He gave me the name of this man of his who was
16 missing. I couldn't find the man.
17 Earlier as he told me this, he put one of those Serbs on the
18 phone and said, Let's have this Serb tell you about this. Vojo Milijas
19 [phoen] took the phone. He was the director of the Privredna bank in
20 Sarajevo
21 did everything I could. The man we were looking for was simply missing.
22 In the afternoon the commander called me again asking whether
23 there was anything new. I said, No. And he said, Well, I'm taking over
24 now. And I told him, Well, it's up to you now. Show us whether you're
25 human or inhumane. This is where the conversation ended. Later on, I
Page 8314
1 heard that Vojo Milijas had fled to Belgrade
2 people. I never spoke to Vojo Milijas again to inquire about the
3 details, so I don't know what happened. It is possible that nobody died
4 in that incident. I simply don't know.
5 Q. Well, wouldn't you have heard if 48 Serbs had been killed that
6 day by this man?
7 A. Forgive me, but he didn't need to kill all 40 of them at once.
8 He could have killed one by one, one a day. I never heard about an
9 incident in which 40 Serbs were killed at once.
10 Q. No. And as far as you know, Mr. Vojo Milijas was clearly
11 released because he went to Belgrade
12 A. Yes, he fled to Belgrade
13 the man is alive. He had been released.
14 Q. All right. I now want to move then off the question -- I'm
15 sorry.
16 You said it was these two incidents that made you speak to
17 Mr. Stanisic. Did you speak to Mr. Stanisic about this question of
18 dealing with exchanges?
19 A. Yes. When Minister Stanisic came, I told him, Minister, please
20 let us establish a committee for exchange at the government level. I do
21 not want to do this any longer. I had experienced two huge traumas and I
22 wanted somebody else to take over to do that job. Several days later,
23 certain Rajko Tolovic [phoen] arrived. I don't know whether he was
24 appointed by the cabinet or by whom. He introduced him as deputy
25 military prosecutor in Vlasenica. I handed over to him all of the
Page 8315
1 documents concerning the exchange, and I was done with it.
2 Q. When was it that you spoke to Stanisic about replacing you,
3 roughly?
4 A. Well, let's say mid-May.
5 Q. Thank you. And between dealing with the Vrace prisoners and
6 mid-May, how many exchanges of prisoners all together do you think you
7 dealt with?
8 A. As far as I can remember, I did four exchanges with Sime Grubisic
9 plus the exchange, or whatever you want to call it, the freeing of 200 of
10 Bosniaks and sending them off to Visoko. So as far as I remember I did
11 the four exchanges plus this other event.
12 Q. Now I want to move to some other aspects of your work, please.
13 First of all, I want you to have a look, if you would, at -- sorry, I'll
14 just get my ...
15 MR. ZECEVIC: Sorry, Your Honours, 37, 22 -- oh. It has been
16 corrected right now. Thank you very much.
17 MS. KORNER: I'm not quite sure ... yes.
18 Q. Can you have a look, please, at a document with the 65 ter number
19 87.
20 MS. KORNER: No, I don't think that's it, at least not in B/C/S.
21 It's definitely not it. It should be -- the B/C/S version should be
22 2089524. See, it's a different date. No -- sorry, in that case -- it's
23 the 17th of April I want, not the 3rd of April, both in English and
24 B/C/S. That now says the 3rd of April. Thank you.
25 Q. Looking at the B/C/S please, Mr. Skipina, Can you tell us,
Page 8316
1 somebody is signing on behalf of Mico Stanisic. Can you tell us whose
2 signature that is?
3 A. Excuse me, could I see the date?
4 Q. Yeah. 17th of April.
5 A. This is my signature.
6 Q. All right. Can I ask, this is -- it's an order or a dispatch, I
7 should -- to the CSBs. It's to do with people stealing property.
8 How is it that you signed on behalf of Mr. Stanisic?
9 A. Minister Stanisic called me two or three times on the phone,
10 saying that they would bring a dispatch to me. I think that it was in
11 April. And then he would say, Please sign it so that it can be sent to
12 the centres. I did sign it.
13 These are the matters within the scope of the public security.
14 The minister told me, I read it, and in relation to one dispatch, the
15 minister told me, If have you any suggestions incorporate them into the
16 dispatch and sign. And this is what I did.
17 Q. But -- well, this is the first thing. This is all connected with
18 the public security, isn't it, not the state security, of which you were
19 head?
20 A. Correct.
21 Q. So why was he asking you as head of state security to sign a
22 document that related to public security matters? Why not Mr. Kljajic,
23 for example?
24 A. I don't know. It's possible that Kljajic was absent at that
25 moment and that he couldn't sign the dispatch, and that the minister was
Page 8317
1 also absent and couldn't sign the dispatch. And then, as the second
2 under-secretary, the second person in charge within the MUP, he told me
3 to sign the dispatch, which is what I did.
4 Q. All right.
5 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, this has not yet so far been
6 exhibited, so can I ask it be admitted and marked.
7 JUDGE HALL
8 THE REGISTRAR: This would be Exhibit P1252, Your Honour.
9 MS. KORNER: Now I want to move next to a whole series of daily
10 events, bulletins or the like.
11 Now, Your Honours, I do not want to have go through everything
12 single one of them. Some are signed, I think, by him and others by other
13 people. Can I ask that if there's no objection, they simply -- I can
14 give you the numbers after we've been through one or two and just have
15 them all admitted and marked and explain what they are, obviously.
16 JUDGE HALL
17 MR. ZECEVIC: Well, Your Honours, I don't know what we are
18 talking about. It is likely we don't have the objection, but I would
19 like to know what -- what specific documents are we -- Ms. Korner has in
20 mind.
21 MS. KORNER: Well, we'll put up one of them.
22 Can we have up, please, document number 937.
23 JUDGE HALL
24 Korner, that what you are attempting to do is the practice we have sort
25 of adopted of marking the batch according to one or two specimens.
Page 8318
1 MS. KORNER: Yes, and you will see that they're all the same type
2 of document.
3 Q. This is a documented dated 23red of April headed Daily Events
4 Bulletin. It's got the stamp and it's, I think, says, Minister of the
5 interior, Mico Stanisic. But can you tell us who signed that?
6 A. It's not my signature.
7 Q. Are you able to ... [Microphone not activated]
8 A. And I don't know whose it is. I can't identify it.
9 Q. All right. But before we move to the next one, can you tell us
10 what these daily events bulletins were, daily reports they're sometimes
11 called.
12 A. There were daily events, bulletins, and daily reports which were
13 intended for the people in leading positions to inform them about the
14 events. And then when it came to more serious bulletins, then prime
15 minister was also informed of them.
16 However, in the list of addressees, if there were any external
17 addressees, say cabinet members, then the bulletin would say that it was
18 sent to the cabinet as well. If nothing of the sort was stated then it
19 was meant for only internal use.
20 Q. But these daily events, reports, or bulletins were intended for
21 people in leading positions, and by that, do you mean the -- the
22 politicians or leading positions in the MUP?
23 A. There were no politicians in the MUP.
24 Q. No, sorry. You said, "these daily reports were intended for
25 people in leading positions." Leading positions in the MUP or outside
Page 8319
1 the municipal, for example, in the government?
2 A. Those that do not contain any indication to whom they were copied
3 were intended for senior staff in the MUP.
4 Q. All right. And what was the purpose behind senior staff in the
5 MUP getting these reports?
6 A. Well, that was their purpose, to provide as much information
7 about developments on the ground.
8 Q. All right. And if Mico Stanisic didn't sign for some reason, and
9 I think we'll come to ones that you did sign, would he be aware of the
10 contents of these reports?
11 A. If he signed under the report, it's only reasonable to assume
12 that he was familiar with a particular bulletin.
13 Q. If it has his stamp and his typed signature but actually somebody
14 like you had signed on his behalf, would he still be aware, would you
15 sign without his permission to sign, or his instructions?
16 A. If a report was intended as internal information, then it was not
17 particularly valuable as a document, and I could sign it or any other
18 senior staff member could sign it because it did not have any particular
19 importance.
20 Q. Well, just for a moment, let's just have a look at this
21 particular one even though you didn't sign it.
22 Did you get these reports in your position?
23 A. I did not. But I'm familiar with those that I signed.
24 Q. Sorry. If it was meant -- if these reports were meant for
25 leaders -- those in leading positions in the MUP, did you hold a leading
Page 8320
1 position in the MUP?
2 A. I was nominally one of the leading people in the MUP, but in
3 practice, the National Security Service was a separate service within the
4 security system, and it was only nominally linked to the MUP.
5 Q. All right. Well, let's just -- the contents of this daily events
6 bulletin, the young Predrag Mocevic was monstrously killed, or, rather,
7 massacred by the Green Berets today in Sarajevo ... the autopsy report
8 shows exactly how the butchers went around their -- abut their job,
9 et cetera, et cetera.
10 Is that sort of language that you expect in this period to be
11 found in a police report?
12 A. I would not expect it. But it was up to the person who did the
13 writing. We did not have professional analysts in charge of writing
14 these reports.
15 I wouldn't say this is appropriate language, but it is also not
16 appropriate for the media to name me and my son as the key
17 throat-slitters in Pale. And my son who had been the subject of many
18 death threats, has lived in Belgrade
19 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter didn't hear the end.
20 MS. KORNER: I don't think it matters when his son left for
21 Belgrade
22 Q. Mr. Skipina, I'm sorry, would you say this language was intended
23 to incite hatred of non-Serbs amongst the police officers who were going
24 to read it?
25 A. Perhaps you could read that into it. But aren't the things that
Page 8321
1 I'm mentioning about to you also inappropriate? I worked for a long time
2 in Sarajevo
3 called me a throat-cutter; whereas, I saved many of these people. And
4 that's -- you can't say that's propaganda.
5 Q. Were you ever aware of Mr. Stanisic saying, I'm not going to let
6 a report in this sort of language go out under my name?
7 A. I saw Mr. Stanisic only very seldom. I don't know how he would
8 react if a particular report came to his desk. So I cannot answer in
9 general terms.
10 Q. All right.
11 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, this particular report not signed by
12 him by somebody else, but I'm go to go on to ones that are actually
13 signed by him. I don't know whether I can have this exhibited on the
14 way, as it were. I mean, he is familiar with these reports.
15 JUDGE HALL
16 you intend to show first and then we'll come back to the question of
17 exhibits.
18 MS. KORNER: All right. Then can I -- can I have it marked for
19 identification, Your Honour?
20 JUDGE HALL
21 THE REGISTRAR: This would be Exhibit P1253 marked for
22 identification, Your Honour.
23 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry, Your Honours, just for the sake of
24 accuracy of the transcript 43, 13, I believe the witness said, I
25 mentioned -- I'm mentioning about me. What the things that are
Page 8322
1 mentioning about me are also inappropriate, and it is recorded as you.
2 So it doesn't make sense like it is recorded. Thank you.
3 JUDGE HALL
4 MS. KORNER: Can we look, please, at document 942, please. Can
5 we just ...
6 [Prosecution counsel confer]
7 MS. KORNER: Yeah. 30th of April. Could we have a look just at
8 the bottom, the signature, again, somebody signing on behalf of
9 Mr. Stanisic.
10 Q. Whose signature?
11 A. With 95 per cent certainty, I think it is Radomir Ninkovic. At
12 the time, he was assistant minister for analysis and information in the
13 MUP.
14 Q. All right. Can you --
15 MS. KORNER: Can we have the second paragraph of that report down
16 which says:
17 Q. "According to reports received from the public security station
18 of the Serbian municipality of Bosanski Samac, the town is now free and
19 the situation is gradually becoming normal."
20 What do you understand is meant by "the town is now free"?
21 A. Well, in my understanding, it had been earlier attacked by
22 Bosniak and Croat forces before Serbian authorities finally re-asserted
23 their control over that area. That's how I would understand it.
24 Q. The town is now free. When it is being attacked, you say, by
25 Croats and Muslims?
Page 8323
1 A. Well, I suppose because it says according to reports from the
2 public security station of the Serbian municipality of Bosanski Samac
3 this town is now free, which means that it had been attacked by some
4 forces. The members of the Croatian paramilitary forces had been
5 disarmed, et cetera, et cetera, which means that some activity had taken
6 place before and they now report the town is free again.
7 Q. So it doesn't read to you that the very opposite, that the
8 Bosniaks and Croats were in the town and the Serbs were attacking it, and
9 that's how they freed it; that doesn't read that to you?
10 A. Well, I don't know. Maybe you could read it that way too. I
11 don't know what the situation was. Maybe you could read it that way.
12 But I read it the way I already described.
13 Q. When weren't you collecting intelligence from all these areas, as
14 head of the SNB
15 A. I did not have any contact whatsoever with the national security
16 sectors in Banja Luka and Doboj throughout my tenure, that is, up to the
17 3rd of July when I resigned. I had no communication whatsoever with the
18 national security sector in Doboj and its leader Dusan Zivkovic all with
19 Nedeljko Kesic in Banja Luka.
20 Q. We'll come on to your contacts with Mr. Kesic, but, I'm sorry,
21 you're saying that Samac -- Samac came under Doboj, because it certainly
22 didn't come under Banja Luka, did it?
23 A. That's right. It was under Doboj.
24 Q. And when you say you had no contacts with them, you were
25 receiving -- reports were being received, weren't they, from these areas
Page 8324
1 both from Doboj and Banja Luka because if we go through these daily
2 reports we'll see there was information. So what do you mean, you had no
3 contact?
4 A. I said sometime ago that the National Security Service was a
5 separate service which has its own rules. It was dealing with
6 intelligence and counter-intelligence work, anti-terrorist activity
7 against attacks from abroad, and this service does not communicate in
8 open text, not even on the telephone. All its communications have to be
9 encrypted. If I did any different as head of the service, I would be
10 breaking the rules.
11 Q. So what you're saying, you had a lack of ability to have
12 encrypted conversations with Mr. Kesic or the other gentleman that you
13 mentioned from Doboj, Mr. Zivkovic?
14 A. That's correct. That's right.
15 Q. But if the absolute worse came to the worst, could you have rung
16 Mr. Kesic or Mr. Zivkovic on an open line saying, I need a report,
17 however you get it to me?
18 A. Yes, I would be able to do that, but I would be breaking the
19 rules. And if they sent a report, all the telephone communications went
20 across the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. From the viewpoint of
21 operative work, the -- such a conversation on the telephone would be
22 fraught with consequences. I could only use those communications that
23 were allowed.
24 Q. All right. Could we have -- I have forgotten whether we asked to
25 you look at the signature on this one. Again it has gone out under
Page 8325
1 Mr. Stanisic's name, but who has signed on his behalf?
2 A. I've already said, Radomir Ninkovic, assistant minister for
3 analysis.
4 MS. KORNER: All right. Your Honours, may that be marked for
5 identification as well until we actually come to one he actually did
6 sign. That's 946.
7 JUDGE HALL
8 THE REGISTRAR: That would be Exhibit P1254 marked for
9 identification, Your Honour.
10 MS. KORNER: All right. Can we now look, please, at a document
11 that's already been marked for identification, P142.
12 And I just for these purposes want to have a look at the
13 signature on the bottom of the B/C/S.
14 Q. Again, somebody signing on behalf of Mr. Stanisic. Whose
15 signature?
16 A. It looks like my signature, but it's not mine. It's a good
17 imitation.
18 Q. All right. Pause -- how do you know it's not your signature,
19 sir?
20 A. It's not, because I never put that line across at the end. The
21 first letter, Sh, is identical, the K is not mine, and I'll compare later
22 my real signature to this one, if you wish.
23 Q. Why was somebody forging your signature then?
24 A. I have no idea. Maybe it is not a forgery. Maybe it is somebody
25 who signs his name in this way. But if you show me a real signature, I
Page 8326
1 will certainly not deny it is mine, whatever the content above it.
2 Q. Was -- were only people in -- in your sort of position able to
3 sign these reports?
4 A. Well, there was a number of senior staff in the state security.
5 But even -- I mean, whoever signed it, he must have been instructed by
6 his superior. In this case, this is a daily events report intended
7 exclusively for the internal information of those employed with the MUP.
8 Q. Okay. Well, that's already been marked for identification.
9 MS. KORNER: Can we move to the next document, please, which is
10 948.
11 Q. Signature, please? Whose is that? Somebody signing again on
12 behalf of Mr. Stanisic?
13 A. Let me say that both the previous and this one are my signatures.
14 Q. When you say "let me say," do you mean they are your signatures?
15 A. I'm not sure. But I'm prepared to accept that any signature that
16 looks like mine is mine.
17 JUDGE HALL
18 MS. KORNER: Yes. The one that he just said it wasn't his
19 signature.
20 JUDGE HALL
21 MS. KORNER:
22 Q. Mr. Skipina, giving evidence, you're on oath. Are -- was this --
23 is this your signature? Not that you're prepared to say it is. Is it
24 your signature?
25 A. I'm saying I'm not sure. Certain features would seem to indicate
Page 8327
1 it's my signature, but if there is any problem, I -- I have given a
2 solemn declaration, I stand by that solemn declaration, and I'm certainly
3 not going to violate it in any way.
4 This is some sort of report, so ...
5 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... this is a whole series of
6 daily reports during April and May. The one we looked at before was the
7 6th of May; this is the 8th of May.
8 The one on the 6th, you said, you thought was a forgery. You
9 have now looked at the one on the 8th. And you are saying that you now
10 believe that the one on the 8th and the one on the 6th are your
11 signature; is that right?
12 A. Both this one and the previous document are similar in terms of
13 signature. There are elements of my signature. I cannot claim with
14 certainty that it's a forgery. Why would anyone forge a signature on a
15 simple daily bulletin?
16 Q. Exactly. [Microphone not activated]
17 A. But maybe -- maybe I was out of sorts when I was signing this.
18 Q. Well, just for a moment let's have a look, shall we, what's in
19 the first paragraph of this report?
20 Just look at the language there. Innocent civilians in the
21 general area of Sarajevo
22 the former BH and the Muslim extremists. Military defeats and clashes
23 with Serbian forces and the fact they are gradually losing territory have
24 made them rampant. Serb slaughtering, Muslim gangs, the Green Berets,
25 and the Patriotic League, even more bloodthirsty. More and more
Page 8328
1 frequently, men are taken away, maltreated, and finally executed in a
2 most hideous manner.
3 Let me ask you the same question I asked you about the first: Is
4 that appropriate language to go into a daily report?
5 A. It shouldn't be the language.
6 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... then why did you sign it
7 instead of saying, I'm not going to allow a report like this to go out?
8 A. Well, in view of the purpose and intent and the recipients of the
9 bulletin and in view of the fact that I was not authorised to change the
10 contents of any information, I was just given to sign it.
11 Q. Who could authorise the change in such a bulletin?
12 A. The chief of the department for analysis and information was
13 responsible and authorised, but, at that time, he was absent.
14 Q. This was going under -- out under Mico Stanisic's name as
15 minister of the interior. Did he have the authority to alter the
16 content?
17 A. He would have if such a bulletin reached him. But he normally
18 didn't read these bulletins. He didn't have time for such things. This
19 was more intended to inform the employees.
20 Q. How do you know, given that you say you didn't have that much
21 contact with him, whether he read the bulletins and whether he had time
22 to read them?
23 A. Well, if he were absent for three days, and if three bulletins
24 were published in those three day, then how could he have had any
25 influence on the content?
Page 8329
1 Q. This is not -- this is not an argument, please, Mr. Skipina. You
2 stated as a fact that he didn't read, he normally didn't read the
3 bulletin, he didn't have time. And I'm asking you how you know that?
4 A. Well, I suppose that this is a small matter, these bulletins.
5 I -- I suppose he wouldn't have time for such things. I don't know
6 actually how much he read and what he read. I'm not claiming anything.
7 Q. All right.
8 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, may this be marked for identification?
9 I mean, we are going to come to one where he actually says, It is my
10 signature, but ... I don't know whether you consider what he says, well,
11 it probably is my signature is sufficient.
12 JUDGE HALL
13 the explanation he would have given, and we're talking about a passage of
14 time and his recollection, and I think we've all had the experience of
15 our signatures evolving over time, so the -- as I understand the
16 evidence, I -- he accepts that this and the previous document in the
17 set-up they had must be his.
18 MS. KORNER: In that case, Your Honour, can I have all the
19 earlier ones? Also as I say -- as you can see it's all part of a group
20 which were marked for identification actually admitted.
21 JUDGE HALL
22 understand, Mr. Skipina, that the arrangement or set-up was - I'm
23 building on Ms. Korner's last question - was that although the minister
24 was as minister responsible for anything that issues from his department,
25 that these documents were at a level of routine that the minister didn't
Page 8330
1 necessarily see them?
2 Is that what I understand the tone of your evidence to be, that
3 they were just issued at a lower level in the ordinary work of the
4 ministry?
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That is the best possible
6 formulation, Your Honour, the one you just made.
7 JUDGE HALL
8 So are we exhibiting the -- how many documents -- we have seen
9 four or five. How many comprise the whole batch?
10 MS. KORNER: The ones -- I think there are about ten in all.
11 I'll go quickly through them.
12 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry, Your Honours, we have two different
13 documents. Namely, six documents out of totally 12 of the daily reports
14 are signed -- or actually more than 12. 15. There's 15 daily reports.
15 Out of 15 daily reports, six are signed by somebody, and it says "for
16 Mico Stanisic, the minister of interior."
17 The rest of the documents are signed by the department for
18 analysis and information, informational tasks, so, therefore, if this is
19 the purpose that Ms. Korner wants to use these documents, she can exhibit
20 these six and then maybe the other as a -- as in another batch because
21 there is a difference between the documents.
22 MS. KORNER: The purpose for the admission of these documents is
23 to show the amount of information that was coming up to the MUP at the
24 republican level -- at the level of the the Serbian Republic
25 JUDGE HALL
Page 8331
1 observation to be, is that the ones that we have seen are in one
2 category, but the others are in a different category so you may have to
3 select a number of those and separately exhibit them. That is all I
4 understand his observation to be.
5 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, whether they are signed, not signed
6 whatever, the purpose is, and I think for all the reports, is to inform
7 either internally the MUP or sometimes, and we can see it on some of the
8 documents, they are clearly marked to be sent to members of the
9 government.
10 We say that all part and parcel. I'm reluctant to waste the time
11 that I have in going through them. But if -- if Your Honour feels that
12 there's some merit in Mr. Zecevic's objection, then I will have to do
13 that.
14 JUDGE HALL
15 select say one or two of the other set that went through a different
16 department. That is what I understand his --
17 MS. KORNER: All right. Your Honours, in that case, can I just
18 go back through, so document 937 which I had marked for identification
19 should be admitted, 942 should be admitted. 946, 947, 948, and 949
20 should all be fully admitted.
21 JUDGE HALL
22 MS. KORNER: Yes. I think there is a bit more to come actually.
23 THE REGISTRAR: So 65 ter 946 becomes Exhibit P1255; 948 becomes
24 Exhibit Number 1256; 947 becomes Exhibit 1257; 949 becomes Exhibit P1258,
25 Your Honour.
Page 8332
1 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry, if I can be of assistance, I don't want
2 to use up Ms. Korner's time, I'm just -- just for the clarification.
3 65 ter 947 is already admitted. It is P142, MFI. So in this
4 respect, this should be changed.
5 And I believe 65 ter 950 belongs in the same category, the ones
6 which are signed by his signature.
7 MS. KORNER: Yes, it does.
8 MR. ZECEVIC: So --
9 MS. KORNER: I was going to say ... so, Your Honour, can that --
10 without me having to go through it, could that be marked as well?
11 JUDGE HALL
12 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
13 [Trial Chamber confers]
14 JUDGE HARHOFF: Ms. Korner, could I just ask you if your purpose
15 of seeking to have all of these daily reports admitted into evidence is
16 to point to the propagandistic tone of the information that was passed
17 around, or is there another purpose? Because if it is only for the issue
18 of propaganda, then I don't think we need to admit the whole batch.
19 MS. KORNER: Your Honour ... [Microphone not activated]
20 JUDGE HARHOFF: [Microphone not activated]
21 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, the reason -- the propaganda is
22 actually ancillary, and it only occurred to me when I was reading through
23 them last night, is the amount of information they were getting from the
24 various areas. As we've been through before, it's a big issue in this
25 case as to what was known to the republican MUP. And, secondly, I
Page 8333
1 haven't gone through the content, but at an appropriate stage I may well,
2 the reports that are getting contain almost no reference to any killings
3 of non-Serbs or crimes against non-Serbs.
4 So that's the -- the purpose.
5 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you.
6 THE REGISTRAR: So first the 65 ter 947 will not get a number
7 P1257 because it's been already exhibited.
8 So 65 ter 946 becomes Exhibit P1255; 65 ter 948 becomes Exhibit
9 P1256; 65 ter 949 becomes Exhibit P1257; and 65 ter 950 becomes Exhibit
10 P1258, Your Honour.
11 JUDGE HALL
12 MS. KORNER: Sorry ... [Microphone not activated] ... bogged
13 down. Did we have 942 exhibited?
14 THE REGISTRAR: 942 is Exhibit P1254 marked for identification.
15 MS. KORNER: No.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Not anymore.
17 So then 65 ter 937 is not marked for identification, so it is now
18 Exhibit P1253 and 65 ter 942 is Exhibit P1254.
19 MS. KORNER: Thank you.
20 [The witness stands down]
21 --- Recess taken at 12.10 p.m.
22 --- On resuming at 12.31 p.m.
23 [Trial Chamber confers]
24 [The witness takes the stand]
25 [Prosecution counsel confer]
Page 8334
1 MS. KORNER:
2 Q. Mr. Skipina, before we go on to the next bunch of documents, can
3 I just return for a moment to a topic that came out of one of the
4 reports, Bosanski Samac.
5 And you explained that you thought that the town had been
6 surrounded by Croat and Muslims and was then -- the Serbs re-established
7 control.
8 Who did you get that information from?
9 A. It's an assumption based on reading the text.
10 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... did you ever have a
11 conversation on the telephone with Stevan Todorovic?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And when did you have that conversation with him?
14 A. It's possible that it was in late April or in May. I'm not sure.
15 Q. And when Mr. -- who rang whom? Was Mr. Todorovic ringing you or
16 the other way around?
17 A. Mr. Todorovic rang the number, and I picked up the phone. He
18 introduced himself saying that he was Stevan Todorovic, chief of public
19 security station in Samac, and asked for some senior MUP staff members.
20 I introduced myself, said I was Slobo Skipina, chief of national
21 security. And then he told me, Mr. Skipina, we have major problems.
22 They are firing artillery at us from Croatia
23 It's the Croats firing at us and also from Domaljevac, but we think that
24 we will persevere, that we will survive. That was the only conversation
25 I had. I never met Stevan Todorovic before that or after that.
Page 8335
1 Q. Did you have one conversation with him or more than one
2 conversation?
3 A. Just that one.
4 Q. And did you ever hear of Mr. Todorovic committing crimes in
5 Samac?
6 A. Yes. And I know that he was on trial here.
7 Q. But did you know at the time that he was committing crimes in
8 Bosanski Samac?
9 A. No. Because I had no communication with my service in order to
10 learn from them --
11 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...
12 A. -- at the time.
13 Q. Did you not get any reports through anybody who was based in the
14 Doboj area about the crimes that were being committed against Muslims,
15 not only in Bosanski Samac, but in other places?
16 A. No.
17 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... not one?
18 A. Not one.
19 Q. So you were receiving a multitude of information about crimes
20 committed against Serbs or -- when I say "you," the MUP headquarters, but
21 nothing against crimes committed against non-Serbs; is that what you're
22 saying?
23 A. Information about crimes against Croats or Bosniaks never reached
24 me. I never received information of that nature except for one case in
25 Sarajevo
Page 8336
1 Q. No. Let's leave that. I want to -- apart that from that one --
2 I don't want the detail. If Defence want it, they can ask you. Apart
3 from that one incident in Sarajevo
4 crimes committed against Croats or Bosniaks during the whole period
5 whilst you were, first of all, in charge of the SNB?
6 A. While I headed the SNB
7 information reached me. Later on, I heard people talked about crimes in
8 Visegrad, about crimes in Vlasenica, in Brcko, in Zvornik that had been
9 committed by persons of Serb ethnicity against Bosniaks. I heard in 1993
10 in Bijeljina that a crime had been committed at Koricanske Stijene, so
11 these are the crimes that I heard about later on, subsequently. But I
12 did not receive any piece of information about these crimes while I
13 headed the SNB
14 Q. What about camps? Places or -- camps -- buildings where people
15 were being held, guarded by members of the MUP? Did you hear about that
16 during your period as head of SNB
17 A. No.
18 Q. What about in Pale itself? Were you aware of people being kept
19 in any building that was not the police station?
20 A. I didn't hear of that, nor did I see a single facility in Pale or
21 go down there. So I have no information about Pale.
22 If anybody, it could be the public security station in Pale that
23 could have such information.
24 Q. Well, I want to ask you, do you remember being asked about this
25 in your interview? Which you listened to, you told us, before you
Page 8337
1 arrived here.
2 A. I didn't listen to it. I stopped listening to it. I
3 interrupted.
4 Q. I'm sorry, I understood you to -- well, when did you stop
5 listening to it? How far through the interview?
6 A. Approximately halfway through. 130 pages were read to me,
7 translation from English. It would take me ten days to sit there. For
8 two and a half hours they read to me the translation of my biography from
9 English. There was no need for that.
10 Q. I'm sorry, did you, before you came to The Hague, listen to the
11 tapes of your interview which were delivered to you?
12 A. I did. When it was sent to me, sometime in the summer of last
13 year. I listened to it. And I think that your question was whether
14 there was a camp in Pale. Cultural hall was mentioned and some sort of
15 gym or a sports hall, something like that. Even though I was born in
16 Pale municipality, during that time I did not go down to Pale itself. I
17 don't know where the gym is or the culture hall. I never went down into
18 the town. Never went -- never descended from the hills.
19 Q. What about a primary school?
20 A. Well, I suppose that the gym was part of the primary school.
21 That's my assumption.
22 Q. Well, let me just perhaps see if this refreshes your memory as
23 it's a long time since you've listened to the interview and, as you say,
24 we didn't get through it, owing to the lack of time yesterday.
25 Do you remember being asked:
Page 8338
1 "Did you know about any detention facilities, which would be
2 established in Pale apart from the prison which was in the SJB building?"
3 And your answer, page 91:
4 "I think there was. I never went there, but I think there was
5 one in the school, primary school, in Pale?"
6 A. Well, that's possible. If that's the gym, it's possible. People
7 talked about the gym. And in Pale, only a school could have a gym.
8 Q. So people were talking about the fact, were they, that non-Serbs
9 were being held in the gym of the school?
10 A. Yes. People talked. They even said that Muslims or Bosniaks
11 asked from the chief of the public security station in Pale to find
12 accommodation for them somewhere, for their safety. And then they made a
13 collective request to move out, which was made possible, to move out to
14 Sarajevo
15 of.
16 Q. I'm sorry, are you now saying that your understanding is that
17 people were being held -- Bosniaks were being held in the gym of the
18 primary school at their own request?
19 A. Who would ask to be held there? I suppose that some people were
20 kept there without their consent. Who would voluntarily go to the gym?
21 Q. You may well ask, indeed, Mr. Skipina. It is a question, no
22 doubt, the Court will ask.
23 Right.
24 MS. KORNER: Can we go back, please, to the collection of
25 documents that we were looking at --
Page 8339
1 JUDGE HARHOFF: Ms. Korner, could I just kick in one little
2 question in relation to the answers that we have just heard from -- from
3 Mr. Skipina.
4 Because there was something that struck my mind when you told us
5 that you had never received in 1992, while you were at the SNB, any
6 information about crimes committed by Serbs against Croats or Muslims,
7 neither in the field nor in the camps.
8 But that, in my understanding, would seem to stand against the
9 evidence that you gave us earlier this morning, when you were talking
10 about the exchange of detainees that came from Bratunac, and where you
11 said that you feared for their safety just by virtue of the fact that
12 they could be standing on the road, because if they were just standing
13 there, some paramilitaries could come and -- and shoot at them. So
14 obviously these people were in danger.
15 Would that not suggest that crimes could be committed against
16 anyone who was detained?
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I'm not talking about
18 the entire 1992. I'm only talking about the period up until the 3rd of
19 June, until when I headed the service.
20 The only relevant information from me would be the one I received
21 from my inspectors, from my men on the ground about something that may
22 have happened. There were such cases. Batko, a certain Batko was
23 mentioned in Grbavica who committed misdeeds against the Bosniak people.
24 I spoke to Dobro Planojevic, assistant minister for general crime, about
25 doing something about it. Dobro Planojevic told me that the minister
Page 8340
1 knew of this and that he took it upon himself to inform the army about
2 it, because that Batko was a member of the army, territorial defence of
3 the army, and that he came under their jurisdiction.
4 Then another case took place while I was in office. A case in
5 which Serbs, I don't know which Serbs, whether they were members of
6 the -- of a paramilitary formation or some other unit, we, as SNB asked
7 for information but in that incident about 30 Bosniaks were killed who
8 had been captured in the vicinity of Sarajevo in the village of Kotorac
9 and then killed.
10 So it's not that I didn't know about such cases but what was
11 relevant for me was what I received formally through formal channels
12 within my service. I did not have enough of my people on the ground, I
13 did not have the a single operative or inspector in many municipalities,
14 and I didn't have communications with many of my operatives.
15 So my service was tiny, it was just being created. We had no
16 technical equipment, no manpower, that was the reality. I simply didn't
17 have resources. Half of the people remained in Sarajevo. Some went to
18 Montenegro
19 reserve officials and those had retired. I rehired them and still that
20 wasn't enough to cover the entire area.
21 JUDGE HARHOFF: I understand. But what you're saying now would
22 seem to translate into a question of whether then, you did receive
23 information about crimes committed by Serbs against Muslims and Croats
24 through informal channels.
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't receive information via
Page 8341
1 informal channels either. Not a single enactment reached me say from
2 the public security department that had been sent to CSBs and SJBs. I
3 did not receive a single such document, and also when it comes to
4 feedback, no documents reached me. No documents sent by SJBs and CSBs to
5 MUP.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: No. I understand. But that would be through
7 formal channel, would it not? So my question to you is, did you receive
8 through informal channels any information about such crimes?
9 And when I'm pointing to informal channels, that could be press
10 releases, that could be rumours in town, that could be oral reports given
11 to you that could be in discussions at meetings, and so on.
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I frequently listened to the
13 Bosniak radio, Radio Sarajevo. They announced such news, that crime had
14 been committed, that Bosnian population was terrorised and so on, but I
15 did not see receive any other pieces of information through any informal
16 channels. I did not learn of it.
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, sir.
18 MS. KORNER:
19 Q. Did you consider that you had -- [Microphone not activated]
20 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
21 MS. KORNER:
22 Q. Did you consider that you had a duty to be proactive in your job,
23 as opposed to reactive?
24 A. I did not understand your question.
25 Q. Well, did you consider that your job meant that you had to
Page 8342
1 ensure, as far as was possible, that you were getting intelligence
2 reports as opposed to just sitting back and saying, Well, I haven't got
3 any. That's just bad luck?
4 A. I wasn't just sitting. Operatives were given a task. If they
5 learned of any information within their scope of work, to send it to the
6 public security department for further processing.
7 Q. And as we will see later, you did, in fact, have information
8 before you resigned, didn't you, about crimes both in Bijeljina and
9 Zvornik?
10 A. That I received information officially about Bijeljina and
11 Zvornik? In Zvornik, yes. If you are referring to my trip to Bijeljina
12 pursuant to the order of Minister Stanisic, and if you are referring to
13 the two groups that caused problems in Bijeljina, if that's what you have
14 in mind, then, yes.
15 Q. That's what I have in mind. And, as I say, we'll look at that a
16 little later as a separate topic.
17 Can we, however, just finish, for the moment, please, these daily
18 reports or bulletins.
19 Could you have a look, please, at document number 962.
20 MS. KORNER: And can we look at the last page in both English and
21 B/C/S, please. Second page that would be ... apparently not. I must
22 say, Your Honour, when I calculate the time I should add in a further
23 half-hour for the length of time it takes for documents to come up.
24 Q. It's a daily report, number 108. So presumably there had been
25 107 before that.
Page 8343
1 And if we ever get to the second page ...
2 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
3 MS. KORNER: Is the machine stuck?
4 [Prosecution counsel confer]
5 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
6 MS. KORNER: No, sorry. Second page in English; second page in
7 B/C/S. Well, "Pale staff" is part of it. Okay. Can we look at the
8 bottom of the second page in English.
9 Q. The date of this report is 24th of May, and it's addressed to the
10 ministry, the under-secretaries, times two under Serbian government, and
11 then as we saw, Pale staff.
12 Were you one of the under-secretaries to whom this report would
13 come?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And so this is one of the other batch of reports that you
16 describe that actually go outside the MUP itself to the Serbian
17 government; is that right?
18 A. Correct.
19 Q. All right. And can you -- in B/C/S, we need to go back to the
20 first page, but stay on the second page, please.
21 MS. KORNER: Can we go back to the first page in B/C/S.
22 JUDGE HALL
23 to continue to occur from time to time until the system gets sorted out.
24 MS. KORNER: Yes. Can I have an extra number of minutes to make
25 up for this? Thank you.
Page 8344
1 Q. Do we see there, this is the report from Banja Luka, and there's
2 a whole bunch of things about Bosanska Gradiska, in fact, I don't want to
3 move to the previous page in English. Just leave it where it is. It
4 deals with Prijedor, which can you see, then Bosanska Gradiska,
5 Banja Luka, a member of the CSB special unit tried to commit suicide.
6 I'm sure that was relevant information for the MUP. And then Kljuc,
7 Prnjavor, Sanski Most explosive devices, and all the rest of it.
8 So even if you weren't communicating with encrypted lines, it
9 would appear that you were getting information from Banja Luka. Would
10 you agree?
11 A. Perhaps MUP was receiving information from Banja Luka, I'm not
12 denying that, but the National Security Service did not receive a single
13 document, a single report during the time I was head of the service. Not
14 from Doboj and not from Banja Luka, from the CSB.
15 I -- I'm not ruling out that there could have been other means of
16 communication through which the Ministry of Interior received information
17 from these centres.
18 Q. And you're saying it's because you couldn't have an encrypted
19 line. Is that because you didn't have a person to encrypt, as opposed to
20 not having a line?
21 A. No. We did not have the equipment or the encryptor at least for
22 mobile communication systems. We had nothing.
23 Q. Well, I'm -- leave aside mobile communication systems, did you
24 have, as it were, non-mobile communication system which could be
25 encrypted, whatever non-mobile may be? Land-line.
Page 8345
1 A. If you mean whether they existed, I know that it -- at Vrace
2 before the war, there were mobile communication systems and laboratories
3 of the National Security Service. There were offices and equipment,
4 cameras, still cameras, everything normally used by the National Security
5 Service. I knew that all that existed in Vrace, in the offices of the
6 National Security Service, before the war, when I was retiring.
7 Q. Yeah.
8 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, then -- sorry, may that be admitted and
9 marked. And then there are another 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 -- seven reports,
10 a further seven reports like that.
11 So if Mr. Zecevic has no objection, could they -- I can read the
12 numbers out.
13 MR. ZECEVIC: There's no objection, Your Honours.
14 JUDGE HALL
15 MS. KORNER: And, Your Honours, that one is -- that was, sorry,
16 number 19 was P -- was 963. I would like to have marked and admitted 65
17 ter numbers 965, 966, 967, 968, 969, 970, and 972. Oh, sorry, stop. I
18 have just seen that 972 is, in fact, a Defence exhibit.
19 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, so 65 ter 962 become Exhibit P1259; 995
20 become Exhibit P1260; 966 become Exhibit P1261; 967 become Exhibit P1262;
21 65 ter 968 becomes Exhibit P1263; 979 become Exhibit P1264; 970 become
22 Exhibit P1265; and 972 become Exhibit P --
23 MS. KORNER: No.
24 THE REGISTRAR: It is already an exhibit. Excuse me, did 963 was
25 also in this list?
Page 8346
1 MS. KORNER: Yes.
2 THE REGISTRAR: So this would be exhibit -- 963 becomes Exhibit
3 P1266, Your Honour.
4 MS. KORNER: Right. Thank you very much.
5 THE REGISTRAR: I apologise, I said 995 instead of 965, I
6 apologise. Just for the clarity of the record. It becomes P1260.
7 JUDGE DELVOIE: Didn't 971 -- wasn't 971 included in your list,
8 Ms. Korner? I think --
9 MS. KORNER: I don't think so, no, Your Honour. It is 970 and
10 then 972. There was no 971.
11 JUDGE DELVOIE: No 971. Thank you.
12 MS. KORNER: No. Now next I want to move --
13 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm terribly sorry, I am just completely lost now.
14 Which -- which document is 65 ter 979 which became Exhibit P1264?
15 MS. KORNER: [Microphone not activated]... 969.
16 THE REGISTRAR: 969. So 65 ter 969 becomes Exhibit P1264.
17 MR. ZECEVIC: Okay. Thank you very much.
18 MS. KORNER: [Microphone not activated] I now have a query. We
19 applied to add a document in the last motion as a proposed 65 ter 3575,
20 and you declined. Does that mean that I cannot ask the witness to look
21 at the document for -- and whether he is familiar with the contents?
22 Am I prohibited from doing that? That's what I want to know.
23 I'm not exhibiting is what I mean.
24 JUDGE HALL
25 to the witness, yes.
Page 8347
1 MS. KORNER: Thank you. All right.
2 Q. Could you have a look, please, at - I hope it is in Sanction -
3 3575.
4 All right. This is the first page of a -- double-sided. So it's
5 about a five-page document. I want to know, could you just tell us, are
6 you familiar with any of the telephone numbers that you can see there?
7 A. No.
8 Q. None of them at all?
9 A. I'm not very good at remembering telephone numbers. I can hardly
10 remember my own home number.
11 Q. 071 611 377. Is that -- ring any bells with you?
12 A. No.
13 Q. All right. In that case, I won't pursue this. Thank you.
14 Now, did you attend meetings, on behalf of Mr. Stanisic, of
15 sessions of the government in June of 1992?
16 A. Yes, I think twice.
17 Q. All right. Could you have a look, please, at P231.
18 Does that show you attending, instead of Mico Stanisic, on the
19 16th of June?
20 A. Yes, that's what it says.
21 Q. And how come was it that you attended instead of Mr. Stanisic? I
22 mean, why you rather than, for example, Mr. Kljajic?
23 A. Both times the minister called me from somewhere, I don't know
24 where he was, and he said, Slobo, there's a cabinet session today. You
25 go there. You don't have to take part in the discussion, but just be
Page 8348
1 there to see whether some assignments for the Ministry of the Interior
2 will be given at that session.
3 And that's how I came to attend both sessions.
4 Q. And were -- was it your job to report back to Mr. Stanisic about
5 matters that affected the MUP?
6 A. Absolutely.
7 Q. All right. Could you look, please, in the B/C/S version, at page
8 3; and in the English version, it's also page 3.
9 Under agenda item 6, the last item: "It has been said at the
10 session that records office had to be established as soon as possible,
11 where information on crimes against Serb people would be collected."
12 Was that something that you decided affected the MUP and had to
13 be transmitted to Mr. Stanisic?
14 A. That session did not adopt the decision to establish that,
15 because it was up to the government to establish it. It was just noted
16 that this record office should be established, and I told the minister
17 that it is likely going to happen because the government intends to have
18 it established. Once the government establishes that, they would also
19 designate the persons responsible for gathering information, et cetera.
20 This is just an expression of intention.
21 Q. And who would be the persons responsible for gathering
22 information on these crimes? What organisation?
23 A. Any institution that could contribute.
24 Q. Well, who was responsible for the investigation of crimes,
25 please, Mr. Skipina? Which body?
Page 8349
1 A. Well, it could be the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry for
2 Refugees, the Ministry of National Defence. A number of institutions
3 would have to work together to establish such documentation or a
4 documentation bureau. Everyone would have to contribute.
5 Q. Did the -- did the Ministry for Refugees investigate crimes?
6 A. The Ministry of Refugees could receive information from refugees
7 that war crimes had been committed against family members or others in
8 places where these refugees used to live.
9 Q. Did it come as any surprise to you that apparently the only
10 information that was going to be placed into this records office was
11 crimes against the Serb people as opposed to crimes against non-Serb
12 people?
13 A. The government was expressing its intention here. It could
14 express its intention regarding all crimes committed, regardless of the
15 victims. That would be more just, more fair.
16 But it could also handle crimes against Serbs separately from the
17 others. The purview of the government is not my purview.
18 Q. All right. Thank you. That's all I ask about that document.
19 Can you quickly, please, look at the session for the next day.
20 MS. KORNER: Which is document P232.
21 Q. Again, does -- oh. I haven't got the English yet. Yeah. Does,
22 again, that show you attending in place of Mico Stanisic?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Where was Mr. Stanisic at this period; do you know?
25 A. I didn't have the right to keep tabs on the movements of the
Page 8350
1 minister of the interior.
2 Q. Yes, but --
3 A. I don't know.
4 Q. Sorry, I interrupted you. When he rang you to say, Please attend
5 these meetings instead of me, did he explain why he wasn't going to be
6 there?
7 A. He was not obliged to explain to an underling why he would not be
8 attending. On the contrary, the underling is under the obligation to
9 carry out his orders, unless they were unlawful.
10 Q. All right. Could you look, please, here at the the fifth page
11 in B/C/S, and I think it's the sixth page in English.
12 All right. The top of the -- I'm not sure if it's the top of the
13 page in B/C/S but in English it's the top of the page. I think it is
14 close to the top of the page:
15 "It is being concluded that the Ministry of the Interior prepare
16 a report on the work of the National Security Service and the Public
17 Security Service and propose measures for a more efficient functioning."
18 Is that something that you passed on to Mr. Stanisic?
19 A. I had to report something like that.
20 Q. All right. And could you look, please, at the -- for English you
21 need to go onto the next page but in B/C/S, it's the same page.
22 MS. KORNER: No, sorry, it's the next page in B/C/S as well. So
23 sorry. Just before we get to the end of the document. So the next page
24 in both.
25 Q. Now, at the very end of this meeting apparently it says:
Page 8351
1 "The government has concluded that all measures be taken promptly
2 for a more efficient work of the Republic Commission for the exchange of
3 prisoners. With regard to this fact, it is necessary to secure the
4 accommodation and other conditions according to a previous decision of
5 the government ..."
6 Were you aware of the Republic Commission for the exchange of
7 prisons?
8 A. While I was conducting those exchanges I don't think that
9 commission existed.
10 Q. No. But before you attended this meeting in June, were you aware
11 that this commission had been set up?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Did you pass that piece of information onto Mr. Stanisic?
14 A. It says the Ministry of Justice is in charge. That's what the
15 document says so I'm not sure. I cannot say with any certainty whether I
16 informed Stanisic. It was 20 years ago. I can't be so sure whether I
17 reported this part. I'm just not sure.
18 Q. Now, you described your relationship with Mr. Stanisic as --
19 sorry, I need to go back to get his exact words.
20 What you said was - when I asked you whether he explained why he
21 wasn't going to be - "he's not obliged to explain to an underling why he
22 would not be attending. On the contrary, the underling is under the
23 obligation to carry out his orders, unless they were unlawful."
24 Now can you ask you in relation to that, first, what was Mico
25 Stanisic's attitude to the giving of information to people in the
Page 8352
1 government, for example, people in your position?
2 A. Right at the very beginning when the MUP just started operating,
3 Minister Stanisic explicitly forbade everyone to provide information to
4 the leadership of the Republic or to the government without informing him
5 and consulting him first, and it was his right to do that.
6 Q. All right. What about the appointment of people within the MUP?
7 Could appointments be made without his authority?
8 A. I can guarantee for the National Security Service that in case of
9 each appointment and there were not many positions, Mr. Stanisic was
10 consulted, and gave his approval. Whether it was possible to appoint
11 anyone in public security stations without his approval, I don't know. I
12 know that when he came into office there were many staff already there in
13 the SJBs, people earlier appointed by the local authorities, and, in many
14 cases, those were people who simply didn't belong with the Ministry of
15 Interior.
16 Whether Minister Stanisic had the authority to replace them or
17 not, I have one example from Pale. When he said, I'll replace Malko
18 Koroman, chief of the public security station, I don't why, it's just
19 something that he said before a number of us who were gathered. He said,
20 I will replace that man. And the next day a rally occurred suddenly at
21 Pale organised by Malko Koroman, the entire police force turned out as
22 well as many of the regular citizens. There were many people and when
23 Mico Stanisic received the report, he said to me, Go there, Slobo, and
24 see what these people want. I told him, You have the chief of the public
25 security sector, you have an assistant for the police force, and you
Page 8353
1 yourself can do it. It's not my job. I have nothing to do with the
2 police.
3 So Minister Stanisic eventually went to that rally. I don't know
4 what was said there, what happened. In any case, Malko Koroman remained
5 the chief of that station, and I suppose, therefore, that
6 Minister Stanisic was unable to replace them.
7 Q. Did you hear about Malko Koroman committing crimes?
8 A. I did not hear about him committing crimes, but there were many
9 stories that implicated him in the smuggling of cars.
10 Q. But Mico Stanisic did not remove him from his position as chief
11 of the SJB?
12 A. I don't know. I'm telling you what I know, the information that
13 came to my ears. Whether he was unable to replace him or what actually
14 happened, I don't know.
15 Q. All right. Now you knew Mr. Djeric, didn't you, the prime
16 minister?
17 A. Yes. I knew him before the war.
18 Q. Was there ever a time when you disobeyed Mr. Stanisic's
19 instructions and went to speak to Mr. Djeric directly together with
20 Mr. Planojevic?
21 A. On two occasions Mr. Djeric invited me to have coffee with him
22 and although we knew each other well, I refused both times, because I
23 didn't want the minister to find out about it although I was not going to
24 reveal any information.
25 On one occasion, I can't remember the details, we were in the
Page 8354
1 building of the government, myself and Dobro Planojevic, assistant
2 minister for crime. We were invited to have coffee with Djeric, and we
3 talked about all sorts of things. We discussed also the high incidents
4 of crime. We also said that this -- these goods should not be allowed to
5 get into the hands of criminals, that are any goods that were seized
6 should be placed with commodity reserves and used later to supply
7 refugees. We said that we should form a directorate for commodity
8 reserves, find a warehouse and appoint a commission to distribute food,
9 that resources should be found to open soup kitchens for refugees,
10 et cetera, and on that occasion he told us, considering that there are
11 few ministers in my ministry who had worked in state agencies before,
12 they have little experience, would you make me a draft document, a rough
13 document about what the government should do for the refugees? So I sat
14 down and wrote what should be done for the refugees to protect the
15 property of citizens and various businesses that had been robbed. There
16 were many such cases. Goods would be taken overnight from a company
17 warehouse and taken God knows where.
18 We put all this on a piece of paper. Djeric took it and put it
19 in his pocket, and we parted ways. Otherwise, we didn't provide any
20 information in the sense of reports to Mr. Djeric.
21 Q. Well, first of all, can I ask you about the property of citizens
22 and various businesses that are robbed.
23 Are we talking about non-Serb property that was being looted or
24 set on fire?
25 A. The criminals didn't distinguish whose property it was, whether
Page 8355
1 it belonged to Serbs or Bosniaks. Whatever they put their hands on, they
2 stole.
3 Q. And why was Mr. Djeric asking you, as head of the intelligence
4 department, and Mr. Planojevic as -- he was head of the crime section,
5 wasn't he?
6 Why was he asking you two, the senior, senior police officers to
7 talk about a collection centre, a warehouse for refugees? To collect
8 looted goods - sorry - and deal with refugees?
9 A. Because we said that the refugees in Pale were in a difficult
10 condition. They were on the move, nobody was providing any assistance.
11 They had no shelter, no food. We said that it was the task of the
12 government to open up soup kitchens and to provide all the aid to the
13 population. A lot of population fled from Sarajevo, and the first stop
14 was Pale, and there were also people from Zenica, from Central Bosnia.
15 It was horrendous, and nobody was taking care of the refugees.
16 So that was the reason why we did it. We didn't go to see him
17 intending to say that. It's just that he saw us, and he took us to
18 coffee, and we talked to him about it, and then he said, Why don't you
19 write this for me? Not a lot of my ministers have previous government
20 experience, and they don't really feel what it means to work for the
21 government, so why don't you two writing something for me.
22 Q. Did you know Dr. Kalinic the minister of health?
23 A. Yes. But not that well. I knew him, but -- his brother worked
24 in my service before the war SNB
25 worked for the SNB
Page 8356
1 So I knew Kalanic but not really well, not close.
2 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... wasn't that job more for him
3 than for you two senior officers in the police?
4 A. Perhaps he asked the same from Kalanic later on. At any rate,
5 Kalanic's ministry belonged to the government as well.
6 Q. So Mr. Djeric and Mr. Stanisic didn't get on, did they?
7 A. It's hard for me to say that. All I know is that they were not
8 on good terms. When Mr. Djeric, sometime in the fall, when I was no
9 longer head of the service, in an Assembly session when Djeric was
10 removed or he resigned that at that session Minister Stanisic said
11 something against Djeric based on which I concluded that they were not on
12 good terms since Stanisic said that about him. But I can't really be an
13 authority on this. I never met with the two of them face to face to
14 discuss this.
15 It's very hard to ask me, whether they were on good terms. I'm
16 not a reliable source of information on that question.
17 Q. All right. Finally, did you ever have any meetings with
18 Mr. Djeric when the question of police officers committing crimes was
19 being discussed, you and Mr. Planojevic?
20 A. Which police officers committing crimes?
21 Q. Police officers, members of the MUP being involved in crime. Did
22 you ever discuss that with Mr. Djeric?
23 A. Well, there is a difference between looting or robbery and a
24 crime committed against people. That what's you said, didn't you?
25 Q. I'm asking you whether you ever discussed with Mr. Djeric and
Page 8357
1 Mr. Planojevic, at the same time, the matter that police officers were
2 committing crimes such as thefts, looting, and robbery, those sort of
3 crimes?
4 A. It's possible that we mentioned it at the time. For example, it
5 was public knowledge in Pale that there were policemen or criminals who
6 were active with Golf vehicles so it is possible that we mentioned that,
7 but I can't really be certain that I talked to prime minister about it.
8 It's been 20 years.
9 I know that I talked to him on the 3rd of July when I resigned.
10 That was the only meeting with Djeric that I had when Dobro Planojevic
11 and I went to see him.
12 Q. So you went to see him at that time. You tell us there was a
13 discussion about the warehouse for looted goods, and the second time you
14 and Planojevic went to see him was when you resigned on the 3rd of July?
15 A. Yes, that was the second time without mentioning two government
16 cabinet sessions when I only attended but had no contact with him.
17 So the only contact was with Planojevic, and the second time was
18 when I resigned.
19 Q. Right. On that second occasion, did you complain to him that
20 police officers were committing crimes and not being either disciplined
21 or prosecuted?
22 A. I did not speak about the crimes. I didn't know. I didn't have
23 information about police committing crimes, so I didn't speak about
24 crimes.
25 Now, as for criminal activity of individuals, it's possible that
Page 8358
1 I mentioned that, saying that more needs to be done about it and that
2 other organs need to get involved because the ministry could not be the
3 only one working on it and so on. He told me that he knew about that,
4 that criminal activities were rampant, that he knew that some of his
5 ministers were involved in theft and that he couldn't do anything about
6 it, that he had no authority over them because he had not appointed them,
7 in fact. The ministers had been appointed by Mr. Krajisnik and Mr.
8 Karadzic.
9 On that occasion, he also complained especially about Karadzic
10 and Krajisnik about them pushing him aside, and not letting him do
11 anything, that the government is supposed to be in charge of foreign
12 policy, yet he was not really consulted by them on those issues.
13 So that -- he mentioned those things.
14 Q. I will come back in a moment to the ministers involved in crime.
15 But why didn't you speak to Mr. Stanisic about the fact that more
16 needed to be done about the people committing crimes and, in particular,
17 police officers?
18 A. If I were to tell you that I did not have a single piece of
19 information about what the public security department had done about
20 preventing and prosecuting those who committed crimes, I couldn't tell
21 the minister whether more needed to be done or less needed to be done.
22 In general, it is always more that needs to be done.
23 Now what we had to see was which public security station was
24 willing to do that, which one was knowledgeable enough to do that, which
25 of their members were involved in those things because I'm telling you, a
Page 8359
1 lot of them did not feel that they belonged to the MUP. They just took
2 advantage of that opportunity. By being members of the SDS, they were
3 appointed as commanders and chiefs of police stations so it is
4 questionable. It is also questionable to which extent the army was
5 involved and how equipped and what manpower police had, and so the
6 greatest part of problems was within the domain of SJBs. CSBs and the
7 MUP provided technical assistance. They couldn't really gather evidence
8 and documents. They couldn't get involved directly. That's how the
9 responsibilities and authorities had been set up.
10 Q. Not five minutes ago, if you told the Court when I asked you
11 about meetings with Mr. Djeric when you and Mr. Planojevic went to see
12 him and about mentioning crime you said: "It's possible that we
13 mentioned it at the time. For example, it was public knowledge in Pale
14 that there were policemen or criminals who were active with Golf vehicles
15 so it is possible that we mentioned that ..."
16 Now, if you were going mention it to the prime minister, as you
17 did when you resigned, why didn't you mention this to Mr. Stanisic?
18 A. There was chief of SJB in Pale, there was assistant minister for
19 general crime, so it was least up to me to inform the minister about the
20 crime. It was not my responsibility whatsoever.
21 Q. But you informed Mr. Djeric who could do less, surely, than the
22 minister of the interior.
23 A. I'm telling you again that in an unrelated conversation about
24 refugees we touched upon that topic as well, how there were criminal
25 activities and how funds and resources could be secured for refugees that
Page 8360
1 way. So we didn't go there to inform him about the crime and what was
2 happening. It's just that we met him in the hallway and since he knew
3 both of us he invited us to have coffee. Had it been just me alone I
4 would not have gone to have coffee, but since there were two of us --
5 Q. All right. You've told us that already. And, finally, I think
6 probably the last question for today, you said that Mr. Djeric was
7 complaining that his ministers were committing crimes. Which ministers?
8 A. He said that he had information that some of his ministers were
9 involved in crime but that he could do nothing against them without
10 giving anyone's name individually.
11 I wasn't on such close terms with Mr. Djeric, prime minister, to
12 have him tell me exactly which minister was involved in theft.
13 Q. All right.
14 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, that's probably ...
15 JUDGE HALL
16 Mr. Skipina, we are about to take the adjournment for today.
17 You, having been sworn as a witness, cannot communicate with counsel from
18 either side, and in such conversations as you may have with anybody
19 outside of the Chamber, you cannot discuss your testimony.
20 So we will resume in this courtroom at 9.00 tomorrow morning.
21 Before we adjourn, the -- I would alert Defence counsel that
22 the -- we are in receipt, as council would be aware, of a motion
23 yesterday from the Prosecution with respect to witnesses due to testify
24 in April, and we would wish to have your expedited oral responses by the
25 time we wind up tomorrow or Thursday, so I am alerting you to that now.
Page 8361
1 So we take the adjournment until tomorrow morning at 9.00.
2 [The witness stands down]
3 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.48 p.m.
4 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 31st of
5 March, 2010 at 9.00 a.m.
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