⁵¹⁵⁶

Tuesday, 21 May 2002

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

[The witness entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Tanic, I hear that -- from the registry that you've asked to say something. The short answer is this, that the way that this examination of witnesses occurs here is by question and answer from the parties, and we don't on the whole allow statements from witnesses. But there will come a time at the end when the Prosecution will re-examine, and that may be an opportunity for you to add something which you wanted to add. Meanwhile, Mr. Milosevic's time is limited, and therefore we don't think it right to take it up in any other way. Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

WITNESS: RATOMIR TANIC [Resumed]

[Witness answered through interpreter] Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic: [Continued]

Q. [Interpretation] At the beginning of your statement, you expound the reasons for which you are testifying, and then roughly speaking, in the roughest of terms, you set out six points, six basic points on which you base this: Personal experience in your negotiations with the Kosovo Albanians; second, that you were liaison officer between the Western countries and the Yugoslav government; third, the knowledge that you gained over the past five years during your many contacts with individuals who worked directly under Slobodan Milosevic; fourth, in your professional ⁵¹⁵⁷ relationship with the State Security Service and intensive cooperation with Zoran Mijatovic and Jovica Stanisic; and fifth, from your relations with Dusan Mihajlovic, the president of the party, whom you mentioned most frequently here as an individual that was included in all this activity. And also Dusan Mitevic, as you describe him, a former leader of the Radio Television Serbia stations, at one time a key negotiator and close friend and associate of Milosevic, who Milosevic believed and trusted most, and Momcilo Perisic, whom on page 20 you quote as being a man for whom you say that, "most of my information as to the activities of the state commission comes from Perisic." That's what you say on page 20. And as far as I can see, we have the key individuals whom you mention and refer to except for Dusan Mihajlovic, and we'll come to him later on. Perisic and Mijatovic; Mijatovic as a man whom I believed in most, as you claim here on page 1, and Perisic, the other man whom you talked to.

Now, in this connection, do you know when Mitevic was replaced as the director of Radio Television Serbia? Do you know when that took place?

A. No, I don't know exactly, but I do know that it was quite some years ago.

Q. In 1991, actually. Now, do you know that at the presidential elections in Serbia in 1993, that my main adversary, the candidate that opposed me, was the premier at the time, Milan Panic, who was an American and who lost the elections to me in 1993 in the first round of the elections in fact. Do you remember that?

A. Yes. ⁵¹⁵⁸

Q. Do you remember who the head of the election headquarters was for Milan Panic and who worked to promote him in the elections?

A. Yes.

Q. Was that in fact Dusan Mijatovic?

A. Yes. But he was your friend.

Q. Very well. So you claim -- you're saying here that I trusted somebody who was the head of the electoral campaign headquarters of my opposing candidate that was replaced already in 1991. And do you know that Dusan Mijatovic, of course under another name, also wrote a book against me but he received 6.000 marks for it, and now as far as I heard, you got 5.000 euros, so I think they seem to value you more than him. Do you know about that?

A. There are other records that say that he was your personal negotiator and friend after that.

Q. What was it that he negotiated in my name and on my behalf? Who did negotiate with?

A. Together with Milan Panic, he prepared the peace agreement in Dayton, and with the United States of America. And this went exclusively from our part -- on our part, the preparations went via Mr. Panic and via Mr. Mijatovic. When the preparations were concluded, then, of course, you were the main person after that.

Q. You've been misinformed by someone about that as well but let's not go into that now. It is quite clear who you are referring to. Now, do you know when you're speaking about Momcilo Perisic that Momcilo Perisic is a general and one time head of the General Staff and ⁵¹⁵⁹ that this year, in fact a few months ago, was arrested as a spy by the present government and authorities, as an American spy together with an American representative, and this took place in a motel on the Ibarska Road. Do you know about that?

A. I read that in the papers. I can't comment on something that I wasn't able to see. I wasn't in the country and wasn't able to follow current events.

Q. So your source of information is the Panic head of staff, and this person that is being held accountable for espionage against his own country. Very well.

A. If somebody is a spy, it doesn't mean he's not saying the truth, and they weren't my main sources of information, they were only additional ones, as it says in my statement.

THE INTERPRETER: Could the speakers please be asked to make pauses between question and answer. Thank you.

JUDGE MAY: Both of you are asked to make pauses. Would you remember, Mr. Milosevic in particular, the interpreters.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You're saying that we would meet in the cabinet of Mira Markovic or, rather, my wife. You never met my wife; is that true or not?

A. It is not true. I did have a meeting with your wife. Of course not in her capacity as your wife but in her capacity as the president of the head department of administration of JUL, the JUL party.

Q. Do you have any proof of that, any evidence to bear that out? ⁵¹⁶⁰

A. Yes.

Q. What kind? Let's hear it.

A. The meeting took place with Mr. Martin Lutz, Mrs. Mira Markovic. Mr. Martin Lutz is a representative of Carl Bildt. He was there and so was I, and the meeting was devoted to the question of opening up a headquarters for the European Union in Kosovo. There are minutes about that and I think that Mr. Lutz would be able to testify, if you challenge this.

Q. Well, I challenge any relationship between you and her. Now, whether you were an escort to somebody, whether you accompanied somebody and whether somebody should say whether a meeting actually took place and who accompanied the people attending, I hope you agree that that is quite by the way; it is not a main matter, it is a secondary element. Is that right?

A. I wasn't only accompanying Mr. Martin Lutz. I wasn't an escort. I had an active part at the meeting, and even if I was in his escorting party, this does not show anything.

Q. This doesn't prove anything but let's move on. Furthermore, you say that you had meetings with Stanisic, head of the State Security Service. On page 4, paragraph 2, it says, "I met with Stanisic but I never found myself in a situation with Stanisic when other people were there." That's what you say, isn't that right? And then you go on to say that you informed Milan Milutinovic and so on and so forth. Is that right or is it not?

A. The interpretation wasn't correct. I said I saw -- the ⁵¹⁶¹ translation is incorrect. I said I saw Stanisic and not met him. It is quite clear that I met Zoran Mijatovic and his deputy and head of the SDB service for Belgrade. I just said I saw Stanisic.

Q. Right. So you had no relationship with Stanisic, in fact, did you?

A. I did have relations with Jovica Stanisic but not in the sense of getting personal instructions from him or having meetings with him. I had a professional relationship with Mr. Stanisic by his deputy, who was Mr. Zoran Mijatovic, and he was also the head of the SDB service for Belgrade, that is to say, the second man in security service, and this wasn't correctly translated. It just said that we saw each other on two or three occasions at a reception of some kind.

Q. We'll come to the translation later on. I have the English version in front of me and I saw that there was nothing incorrect there in that translation so that you can't use that as a pretext, that is unacceptable. And I am going to take note of it and we'll see about it later on, whether we can accept this. We'll compare the two translations, in fact, in due course. Very well.

A. At all events, I did have a professional relationship with Stanisic as Stanisic, as the head of the service, was the sole person who could authorise what his number 2 man did, and that is how you should interpret my statement. I said quite clearly that I never received personal instructions from Mr. Stanisic but a relationship did exist in the sense that I have just said, that is to say, in a professional sense.

Q. At the end of the third paragraph on page 4, you say that the ⁵¹⁶² written analyses about his tasks were elaborated. "I elaborated in cooperation with other members of the SDB." You, therefore, elaborated analyses in cooperation with other members of the SDB, as you say. Now --

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Milosevic, we couldn't follow your -- the reference to the page numbers. Could you clarify the page number again. You said you were looking at the English version.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm looking at the Serbian version now but I mentioned the English text because I compared the two. I compared his reference to a poor translation. There is no poor translation. It's quite all right. And in the Serbian version, on page 4, at the end of the paragraph in the middle of the page itself, it says that, "I completed written analyses on my progress in cooperation with other members of the SDB." Full stop. That's the entire sentence.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Now, my question is as follows: Does that therefore confirm that you were a member of the SDB, the State Security Service? Because you prepared and completed analyses with other members of the State Security Service.

A. That is correct. But that does not confirm the fact that I was a member of the SDB. Neither did I say that. It just confirms that I worked in the official system of the State Security Service in an official capacity, official working capacity of the SDB. But I never said that I was a member of the State Security Service. The description of my cooperation was given in the sense that there was -- I was not informed, did not receive information from anybody. There was no ratting. But I ⁵¹⁶³ have all the confirmation that confirms this.

Q. That's your affair. But I'm asking you about what you're saying in your statement. On page 5, at the beginning of paragraph 3, you say: "Via my contacts with the SDB, I was able to follow Milosevic's reactions to proposals to solve this crisis in Kosovo. He had to agree to what I achieved in the negotiations for me to be able to continue the negotiations at all."

Is that what you say? So I had to accept what you achieved in negotiations for you to be able to continue the negotiations; right? And then at the end of the paragraph, you said, "Now, whether Milosevic okayed the negotiations or not, I knew his opinion."

Now, my question to you is the following: In addition to Milutinovic, who was president of Serbia, who carried on negotiations with the Albanian said, the representative of the Kosovo negotiators, in addition to the government representatives and their commissions and all the different groups, working groups, et cetera - let me remind you that Mr. Nice here showed an official note from a meeting of the government commission that was held - so why, then, would the SDB carry out negotiations at all and when did the State Security Service ever hold any kind of negotiations which had to be with political matters? Do you consider that it did or that it did not?

A. The SDB was always included into the intelligence dimension of your negotiations. It necessarily had to be included because your cooperators and associates, together with you, misled the public. And your associates very often misled you too. That is why the State Security ⁵¹⁶⁴ Service was included into those negotiations. And the sentence you quoted of mine is quite clear that you did not accept what I -- had you not accepted what I was doing, I couldn't have gone on doing it for three and a half years. I would have stopped two months later. Somebody would have said that is not in order, that is not all right, he can't do work of that kind. And so there is a lay -- a chain of command, a chain of subordination in the political system of Yugoslavia, and the SDB, the State Security Service, is a link in that chain, a component part of that chain, and the overall information on that situation.

Q. Well, that's what I'm saying, that you never did do that work. So we agree then, there's no problem there, but let's move on on page 6 --

A. I do apologise but we did not agree at all on that point.

Q. All right. Very well. Now, on page 6, paragraph 2, you say Agani was more important than Rugova. I -- this is something that I'm hearing for the first time. Do you actually consider that that is one of your own findings? Is that something you consider you have discovered?

A. It was said that Agani was more important in the negotiations than Rugova in the sense that he took part in the negotiations straight away, authorised by Rugova, and Rugova only took part from time to time. And we all know, and you know full well as well, that Mr. Rugova is a hermetic, if I can put it like that, personality. He did not appear very frequently in the negotiations himself in person, and in that sense, Agani was more important, just as I, who did not have any great function, was the driving force of many of those negotiations. In Serbia, political life evolved to a great extent out of the -- outside the institutions, and we all know ⁵¹⁶⁵ that.

Q. That's something that you claim and we'll come to that later on, but let's move on. In paragraph 4 on that same page, you say Monsignor Paglia, the papal representative whom the European Union authorised to be a negotiator in the negotiations et cetera, et cetera. Do you know that Monsignor Paglia acted as an individual and that his advantage was precisely the fact that he did not represent any kind of state; he did not represent an institution, and he was there as a friend, as a personal friend, my friend and Rugova's friend, to try and help us find a common tongue. So do you know that that was his advantage, precisely the fact that he did not represent anybody except representing himself? Do you know that or not?

A. That simply is not true. Mr. Paglia, now Bishop Paglia, had personal authorisation from Pope Paul II and was accepted by the European Union as a discrete negotiator. He did act in his personal name at the beginning, but once he had achieved the most significant result, he was accepted just as the recommendations of Bertelsmann's commission was accepted by the European Union.

Q. So you're now coming to what I was saying, that all the support that Paglia received from various institutions followed after the conclusion of the agreement on education in which he assisted. Is that so or not?

A. As soon as Monsignor Paglia, now Bishop Paglia, achieved progress on the agreement on education and before it was signed, he was given support, and many international mediators and national ones took part. ⁵¹⁶⁶ This was a process based on good offices, and I also took part in this. There is no dispute over that, and I see no contradiction.

Q. The contradiction is that the agreement between Rugova and me was not published and no one knew about it. Is that true or not?

A. That is absolutely not true. I can -- I can show you a lot of evidence. That is absolutely not true, because it was only you that took part and Monsignor Paglia in the preparation of that agreement and that no one knew about it.

Q. Very well. At the end of page 6, you say the SDB analysed potential problems that may jeopardise the negotiations or - and that is my point - other individuals within the circle around Milosevic would be given a chance to feed him incorrect information. Why was this a chance for individuals around Milosevic to feed him incorrect information?

A. This is distorting the meaning of the sentence, because if you read it carefully, it says that SDB prevented certain individuals around you from giving you incorrect information, because there were such people around you.

Q. Very well. If the sentence is incorrect, then there is no need for me to prove it because it is clearly written.

A. I'm sorry. That is not what it says. I ask the Court to read it; that is not what it says.

Q. I have read it and the Court can examine it later. In another paragraph, you said: "Round tables were organised which actually served as a screen for discussions, as a cover for discussions that were held in the evenings." So when meetings are held in ⁵¹⁶⁷ cafes and restaurants, then real discussions and substantive discussions are conducted; is that what you're saying?

A. The organisation of round tables everywhere in the world serve as a cover for more concrete meetings among significant persons, meetings that do not take place in coffee bars but in other premises, and everywhere in the world, in such situations, that is the most traditional form of meetings. That is applied everywhere in the world.

Q. That is your interpretation. We've cleared up the matter. Tell me, in the fifth paragraph, did you notice that all the dates of the articles that you have listed, and there are about three articles, that all those dates of those articles are after September the 1st, that is, after the date when the agreement was signed between Rugova and me on education in Kosovo?

A. It is my duty to inform the Court that I never denied the significance of that agreement, but there are also articles before that agreement on education, and my -- and I have supplied only a small percentage of the articles linked to this subject and not designed to promote me.

Q. Very well, then. I have nothing to ask in that connection. You said that all the recommendations, and that is what it says here on page 8, in paragraph 1, that they all represent "what was achieved in the first of these stages which Mihajlovic and I had proposed to Milosevic at our meeting," et cetera, et cetera. So that was the result of joint efforts by you, Mihajlovic, and your involvement in the preparations of the agreement. Is that so or not? ^{5168 BLANK PAGE 5169}

A. Let us see the page, please.

Q. Page 8, paragraph 1. You say:"These recommendations represent what was achieved in the first stages that Mihajlovic and I proposed to Milosevic."

So my question is: The main activity was conducted by Mihajlovic and you; isn't that so? You and Mihajlovic took care of all these things and were active in that field. You and Mihajlovic. Is that correct?

A. We suggested the programme to you. Until then, you had no platform for the negotiations. We were the motive force behind these negotiations. We kept chasing you to dismantle the powder keg so that it doesn't blow up in your face. And the platform that we presented to you and you approved in 1995 was the most complete platform that Serbia and Yugoslavia ever had for negotiations on the Kosovo problem, and that platform was further elaborated, and until your agreement with Holbrooke - this is in evidence and this can be illustrated by reading through the documents --

Q. I'm just trying to establish what you are saying here, that you and Mihajlovic were actually in charge of these activities, according to you. Is that so?

JUDGE MAY: He's given his answer.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Would you please play this tape? It is only one minute long. So I should like to ask you some questions after that.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could the interpreters interpret, because this is a live recording of what Mihajlovic is saying, and it is ⁵¹⁷⁰ linked to what the witness has said.

[Videotape played]

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] There's no sound.

THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "THE INTERVIEWER: In today's testimony in the police there are some people who still are withholding the truth. He even mentioned the head of the public security service. "MR. MIHAJLOVIC: Well, you see The Hague Tribunal is a very serious institution that the world expects a lot of. It has invested a lot of time, money, and hope in it. And we see what is happening to us now, to find ourself in a rather ridiculous or sad situation that the Prosecution is loudly announcing a key witness, somebody who cannot be that, who has simply collected what he found in the newspapers and preparing his book on the crisis in Kosovo has actually made it available to The Hague Tribunal. So this is mixing apples with pears, mixing political negotiations with the Albanian side organised by various foundations all over the world and other efforts that were made to avoid a conflict, to avoid the bombing and so on. But in any event, neither did Mr. Tanic take part in that nor was he an active executor of any plans that he refers to. So this is simply rumours and hearsay, which calls in question the seriousness of the Prosecution. This cannot be established in any way, because he did not participate in any way in the decision-making that he's testifying about nor in the execution of those decisions. He was just an observer, like almost all the citizens of Serbia. If that is an exaggeration, then anyone who took part in public and political life could be compared with him, and this can be found in ⁵¹⁷¹ articles or programmes in the media."

JUDGE MAY: Just -- before we go any further, when was that programme made, Mr. Milosevic? The date.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It is a live programme three days ago. As you can see, Mihajlovic is being asked about the testimony of this witness here. After his testimony, the programme was aired.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. You can -- you can ask the witness about it. What appears on the television is not evidence. That ought to be plain. It's merely the comments of Mr. Mihajlovic. However, you have the opportunity to ask the witness about them so that he can get the opportunity of answering.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Is Mihajlovic telling the truth or is he lying?

A. Unfortunately, he's not telling the truth.

Q. Very well, then. The entire press has carried this statement. Dusan Mihajlovic, for instance, in The Express: "Tanic is talking nonsense. Ratomir Tanic under no circumstances can be a witness --"

JUDGE MAY: It doesn't matter what the press says. Now, you can ask the witness about what Mr. Mihajlovic has said so that he can answer. If you're not going to, I shall.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I've asked him the question, and he has given an answer.

JUDGE MAY: No. No. What was said on that clip, Mr. Tanic, so that you can deal with this, what was said is that you were not a participant, you were a mere observer, like anybody else in Serbia. What ⁵¹⁷² is your answer to that?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That is absolutely untrue, and I will later submit documents showing that it is not true. I can also provide at least ten names of domestic figures and international figures who can confirm that I did take part in that.

JUDGE MAY: Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Very well. So all the media have carried, in addition to this live TV programme, similar comments. But let me go on to the next question.

So the main person that you are relying on is Dusan Mihajlovic, the current Minister of the Interior, is disproving what you're saying and you're claiming that he is lying.

JUDGE MAY: That's a comment. We've already dealt with it. Let's move on.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. In a part of your statement, you said that you were arrested by the security with three vans and taken to a cellar, to a basement. Is that true?

A. It is not true, because I said that I was kidnapped by certain individuals from the state security rather than arrested.

Q. Very well. So you were kidnapped. So you're a victim of the service for which you were working. Is that so?

A. No. In that service, there were individuals working for you ⁵¹⁷³ outside the legal frameworks, and an investigation was conducted and the results of the investigation can be made available to the Court, and I can comment on them. My wife was also kidnapped.

Q. Did you perhaps make that up?

A. Absolutely no.

Q. Did you perhaps not flee from Belgrade for some other reasons, Mr. Tanic?

A. First of all, I didn't escape from Belgrade. I left the country legally, and I didn't leave it for any other reasons nor do any such other reasons exist.

Q. Did you cheat somebody or do you owe somebody some money?

A. No. My debts and liabilities are such that I have much greater claims than my debts. As for cheating, there was no such thing.

Q. Very well.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Will you please place this document on the ELMO.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I will read it out for you from the ELMO. It says here: "The district court in Belgrade --" and giving the number of the case -- "17th of May, 2002, Belgrade." And it says here, "Certificate. With the district court in Belgrade regarding the case K1269/76, criminal proceedings were conducted against the accused Tanic Ratomir, father's name Lazar, born the 6th of April, 1956, in Belgrade, a student at the time residing in Belgrade, Topuska Street [phoen] 14, for the criminal act of looting under Article 255 paragraph 1 and in relation to article 258, ⁵¹⁷⁴ paragraph 2, pursuant to article 16 of the Criminal Code and article 306, paragraph 3 in connection with paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code. "On the 7th of March, 1977, for the same criminal acts, he was found accused and -- found guilty and sentenced to a prison term of one year and two months of strict confinement.

"The defendant and his attorney appealed on the 19th of April, 1977, and by decision of the Supreme Court of Serbia and Belgrade, KZ.130/77, dated the 1st of November, 1997, by decision of the district Court in Belgrade, K1269/76, the sentence was changed, revised, and his -- to seven months of imprisonment."

It says later on that: "In accordance with the court rules of procedure, the decision was annulled, and this certificate is being issued exclusively to be used in the proceedings against Slobodan Milosevic." So already in 1977, you were sentenced for robbery, were you not, Mr. Tanic?

A. I have nothing to say about this except that the commission annulled the case, so I don't know how Mr. Milosevic got hold of it. And anyway, this is something that is 26 years old. And it says that, by commission, the case was annulled. I don't know what I'm being asked about.

Q. Mr. Tanic, as you know, according to the rules of procedure of the court, after a certain number of years, cases are destroyed but records are kept, and this was issued by the district court in Belgrade on the 17th of this month, signed and stamped by the court. Are you trying to tell us that you were not sentenced for robbery, as stated here, and that ⁵¹⁷⁵ this is a forgery that I have provided the Court with?

A. I was never sentenced for robbery, and there is no record any -- and there is no criminal record about me in Serbia or anywhere else. So there is no criminal -- I have no criminal record. I was never sentenced for robbery. And this is a piece of paper 26 years old and presenting such information, I don't know what the purpose is, but that is up to the Court to judge.

Q. So you're telling us that what was shown on the ELMO is false, that it is a piece of paper that doesn't exist, that it is a forgery?

JUDGE MAY: He didn't say that it was false. The document will be exhibited and translated.

Yes. Give it a number, please.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] But I did say I was never sentenced for robbery, and this is something 26 years old, which to tell the truth, I cannot remember to be able to confirm before the Court, but there is no legal record of my name as a convicted person.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Very well.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I'd like you to just explain to me a little more about this certificate of annulment. Was the annulment done after the lapse of a certain period of time? What is the period after which the conviction is annulled?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't know exactly the provisions of the rules of procedure in court but cases are not kept eternally as a ⁵¹⁷⁶ whole but the certificate was issued on the date that it says, stamped and signed by the court, and it clearly states that Mr. Tanic was convicted for robbery according to the articles of the Criminal Code that was in force in Yugoslavia at the time. And it is well known in the rules of procedure --

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues]... it was in May of this year.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The certificate. Yes. You have this certificate, and it says in the upper left-hand corner - you have the date - on the date of issue of the certificate.

JUDGE ROBINSON: What is not clear to me is when did the annulment take place? Did the annulment take place on the date of the issue of the certificate? Because it appears to me that certificate was issued for the purposes of this case. Or did the annulment take place sometime before that date, in May of this year?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No, no. This was issued on the date it says, as I read it out to you. Upon the request of my associate, who is a professional advocate who has offices in Belgrade, and who asked the district court, in view of the fact that this person is appearing here, to issue a certificate confirming that this was a person who was convicted, and that is why it says that it is being used exclusively for these proceedings, upon the request of my associate who is an attorney in Belgrade.

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues]... evidence. You can continue. ⁵¹⁷⁷

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And we can get any further information that we need subsequently.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll give that an exhibit number.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this will be marked Exhibit Number D11.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Tanic, do you know about the statement that was made by the vice-president of your party, the Novo Demokratija party, Nebojsa Seleskovic, which he gave over television and this was carried over the press? Are you acquainted with the statement he made? Yes or no. He says Tanic was not a participant in the negotiations with the Kosovo Albanians. He furthermore states, "This witness in The Hague was never in a direct role in the negotiations with the Albanians, and he never saw or talked to Slobodan Milosevic, but he might have seen him sometime across the street perhaps." And he goes on to say that he is informed that Tanic, in Belgrade, ran up a lot of debts, and in the autumn of 1999 he just disappeared from Belgrade, and that he agreed to testify in The Hague for a sum of money. That is what the vice-president of your party claims.

A. In Belgrade, there are two active processes in my favour against people who owe me money. As to the statement made by the vice-president of my party that I could have seen you from across the street, we're going to show that very quickly here when I come to present my evidence. You have supplied the Tribunal with a document about a case that you said was annulled, and you also submitted a forgery from the Novo Demokratija, and we're going to prove that in the course of today. ⁵¹⁷⁸

JUDGE MAY: We're not going to go into argument here. Two allegations are made; that you disappeared from Belgrade in the autumn of 1999, it's said, because you ran up debts. And your answer to that, in fact, is that you were owed money and you have begun or succeeded in actions to get that money back; is that right?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, absolutely. And there is no ongoing legal claims on me or any legal proceedings for these concocted things that I owe.

JUDGE MAY: No. Let us deal with the other serious allegation which is made, apparently to a newspaper. It's now been repeated here, so you should have the opportunity to deal with it. This person apparently alleges that you agreed to testify here for a sum of money. Now, you should have an opportunity to deal with that. Is there any truth in that?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] There is no truth in that. I have my own affairs independent of any relationship with the Hague Tribunal, and these affairs and businesses are outside and they are protected from these concoctions from Belgrade.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Before I move on, let me just remind you that Mr. Nice here too mentioned money in connection with the protection of this witness, his identity changed, the fact that he was moved to a third country and given a different place of residence and everything linked to large sums of money, which I'm sure does not comprise only that. But I do consider that this matter should be investigated.

JUDGE MAY: Now, have you got a question? ⁵¹⁷⁹

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, I do have a question. Did he receive money or did he not?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Yes or no.

JUDGE MAY: He has said that he didn't for giving evidence.

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. If not money, perhaps some other material gain has been promised him.

A. I should like to inform the Court that no money was offered me nor did I ask for any. I have my manufacturing plants in a country in the West and the only benefit that I can have from this testimony is I can go back to manufacturing the goods that I have been manufacturing for nine years previously, and I can also provide proof of that?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. What I read out a moment ago about the statement made by the vice-president of the Novo Demokratija party, this is an agency news item, the Beta news agency, taken from its general service, and it is what was said on television. So I should like to tender this document into evidence as well and to move on.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Ryneveld.

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honour, this proposed evidence, along with the copy of the tape, of course, is subject to the fact that it has never been subjected to cross-examination by the Prosecution. In fairness, this type of evidence can only be, in my respectful submission, useful in order to ⁵¹⁸⁰ put a particular issue to a witness to give him an opportunity to answer it before it becomes evidence when the accused presents his case. In other words, it's part of the putting your case to a witness but ought not be evidence per se simply because it's tendered in this form. That's the comment I wish to make at this time.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: We shall not admit this document. The reason that we're not admitting it is that it is a totally unsubstantiated comment made after a witness has given evidence, published in the press. There is no support for it at all. The only reason that the accused was permitted to cross-examine about it was so that the witness could deal with the allegations. And only his answers are evidence.

If the Defence want to put this witness before the Tribunal, of course they could do so, or they could apply to put this document in in due course as part of their case, but that application will only be considered in the totality of the case. At the moment, it is not admissible as evidence and it will be returned to the accused.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. I expect you to deduct this time you spent conferring from the time allotted me for the cross-examination.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Now, on page 8, you say that Vedrine-Kinkel or, rather, Kinkel and Vedrine, as you say, in February of 1998 came and presented Milosevic a document with joint recommendations. And my question to you is as follows, then: Why did they present me this document if you say that it ^{5181 BLANK PAGE 5182} was compiled along with my acquiescence?

A. Well, they presented the document to you once again so that what you had promised that you should not retract, because you promised and then retracted it and they wanted you to finally sign the paper which you claimed you wanted to. And in the course of three years, you kept maintaining this face that you would give a broad autonomy back to the Albanians and the problem was there. The international community finally wanted to ask you when you were actually going to do this. Now, you did it with Holbrooke in 1998, and then -- actually, you wrote it, you signed it, and then you went back on it, your word.

Q. You obviously know nothing about that, but let me just ask you this: What are your reactions to the following fact? As the whole public knew our policy, the policy we were waging and pursuing, and there was no surprise on that score, I have here an official report from the Kinkel-Vedrine meeting with me. That, of course, did not take place in February but on the 20th of March, as it says here in the header of Politika cooperation. It was on the 19th, but that's not important. It doesn't matter that you made a mistake of one month, but it speaks about cooperation, so this is all public matter, public material. No Bertelsmann was made mention of here. And let me just quote a brief excerpt from it. And it is towards the end of the page or, rather, in the second half of this official report, and it says: "In connection with the problems in Kosovo and Metohija for which there was great interest by Kinkel and Vedrine, the ministers, President Milosevic said that our two key positions were as follows: First, that Kosovo was the internal affair ⁵¹⁸³ of Serbia and that it can be resolved only within Serbia through political means. And the second point is that that is why we cannot accept his -- the problem's internationalisation. We cannot accept that the problem be internationalised."

And then it goes on to say that I lent my support to the statement made by the president of Serbia, Milan Milutinovic, and so on and so forth.

Now, do you consider that Kinkel and Vedrine would come with one thing and then the statement from the meeting or report from the meeting would read quite differently from what you're claiming was discussed at that meeting and that they didn't react to it at all or pose the questions that you were posing? Can you believe that that is possible in political life when a head of state receives two ministers coming from the European Union in front of cameras, cameramen, journalists, et cetera? Is that possible?

A. I should like to inform the Court, and that is my duty, that the difference between Milosevic's statements in the press, in the papers, and Milosevic's statements in the course of negotiations with anyone was the main reason that the conflict broke out, not only in Kosovo but also later on with the international community. Mr. Milosevic quite simply tricked and deluded the international community as he is deluding this Tribunal here today.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I don't suppose that is a comment, is it? I suppose that's testimony because the witness was there and he knows all about it. ⁵¹⁸⁴

JUDGE MAY: Move on.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. May.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Do you know that I informed them precisely because of the importance of the negotiations that were conducted between the leadership of Serbia and the leadership of the Kosovo Albanians, that for those negotiations I should nominate my own special representative in the dialogue between the leadership of Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians? Are you aware of that? That's what it says too in the Politika paper of that day.

A. I am aware of that, but I know that the negotiations took place in a different way than you had promised the representatives of the international community and domestic political factors that it would take place in private contacts.

Q. So are you that domestic political factor, as you put it? Are you one of those?

A. I'm just one of them. But when I have an occasion to state this and demonstrate it, I will show documents to the contrary of what you're saying.

Q. I'm not claiming anything. You're the one that's testifying here, I'm just conducting a cross-examination based on your testimony. Now, in view of the fact that we have this statement, let us clear some matters up. You refer to some errors and mistakes in translation with respect to your statement. And in the Serbian version, on page 26, paragraph 2, you say: "In the course of the NATO bombing, I had a very ⁵¹⁸⁵ fierce confrontation with Milosevic at a small reception." Later on, and that's what it says here, whereas in the English version, gentlemen, on page 27, paragraph 3, it says the following: "NATO bombing -- [In English] heated conversation with Milosevic at a small reception."

[Interpretation] There is no difference whatsoever that I can see between what it says here in English and in the sentence that I read out in Serbian, which says that during the NATO bombing, and that's what it says in English, during the NATO bombing campaign, "I had a heated conversation with Milosevic at a small reception," and here it says: "I had a heated conversation with Milosevic at a small reception." That's precisely what it says. So there is no difference whatsoever in the translation there, the difference and discrepancy that the so-called alleged witness referred to.

Now, in this connection -- let's put that aside for the time being. You, Mr. Tanic, said that, in fact, it was a reception held in the Novo Demokratija Party premises; right?

Now, Vuk Draskovic telephoned me from -- telephoned me. That's what you said. And that you listened to it over a loudspeaker and that this is not good because it wasn't translated very well but that it was a telephone conversation with Vuk Draskovic, in fact.

A. As we're talking about that, I didn't say and refer to a mistake in the translation. I apologise to the Court, saying that I didn't describe these events precisely enough because they were -- it took place in the year 2000. As there were several hysterical conversations in the ⁵¹⁸⁶ course of the war, I apologise to the Court and the Prosecution for not describing it in very precise terms.

There was a reception in the sense that there was a working meeting between Vuk Draskovic, the vice-premier of the Yugoslav government, Dusan Mihajlovic, myself, and the Italian Ambassador who would -- who turned up with a peace solution. Now, it is from talks of this kind and of course at those talks something -- they had something to eat as well because they went on for three hours.

Q. Please don't go on telling us what you ate but we have established what you actually said. Now, tell me this: How could you have had a heated discussion with me, heated conversation with me if you listened to Vuk Draskovic's conversation with me on the phone?

A. For the simple reason that you were informed first as to who was present at the meeting, and secondly, I stepped in with two or three sentences in that conversation. Vuk Draskovic found it difficult to locate you but he informed you he looked for Lilic and Pavle Bulatovic. He succeeded in finding you on one occasion over the phone --

Q. All right, all right, Mr. Tanic. Do you know about Vuk Draskovic's statement precisely with respect to what you have just told us, and it says the following, and it was by Blic. The man denied that in the course of the meeting with Mihajlovic that Milosevic was ever on a direct telephone line and he assesses Tanic's statement as a complete untruth. Now, is Vuk Draskovic speaking untruths as well, Mr. Tanic? Is that it?

A. Well, it's quite obvious now that everybody is washing their hands ⁵¹⁸⁷ of it. But there is evidence that those meetings did take place and that Vuk did have telephone conversations both with Lilic and with Bulatovic and on one occasion, after trying a great deal, he did manage to get you on the phone as well, but it was dealing with peace plans.

Q. All right, so what you're saying is that Vuk Draskovic is telling untruths as well; is that it?

JUDGE MAY: That's a comment too.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Very well. So a comment.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You say that I didn't want to strike a bargain with the Kosovo Albanians. Is it your opinion that bargaining is a principle on which a state that attaches great significance to its integrity and national dignity should be based on?

A. What page are we talking about, please?

Q. I'll tell you, but I don't have to quote the page every time, surely. At the end of the third paragraph on page 9. "On several occasions, he rejected the chance of striking a bargain with the Kosovo Albanians."

So my question is: Do you feel that bargaining is a principle on the basis of which a state that attaches significance to its integrity and national dignity should function?

A. All political negotiations on delicate issues contain an element of bargaining, and that is well-known worldwide.

Q. Very well. So that is your position? ⁵¹⁸⁸

A. You did bargain with them when that was necessary.

Q. I never bargained with anyone, Mr. Tanic. Maybe you do. In the middle of the last paragraph, you say that: "We managed to agree with Monsignor Paglia an agreement on education which Milosevic even agreed to start implementing." Do you know that even some Albanian witnesses did not deny that in the process of the implementation of those negotiations, many thousands of square metres of faculties were handed over as a result of this group on education which was implementing the agreement? So surely this is completely untrue when you said that he didn't even start to implement it. Do you know that?

A. That was far from a real beginning to the implementation of the agreement. Some facilities were handed over, but -- that is true, but the Serbian factor, upon your orders or somebody else's orders, opposed what you had signed. That was the first time for me to see someone opposing you. So this was a double-faced game. And this was confirmed to me by your associates. But as no one seems to remember me now, I don't know what to do about it. We'll try and prove that in another way.

Q. Very well. You can try and prove that with them. On page 10, you say that what was done, that this agreement actually meant recognition of the fact that there was discrimination at the expense of the Kosovo Albanians. So my question is: Is it recognition or acknowledgement of the existence of discrimination or was it the result of an effort for the Albanians to give up this parallel system and to be reintegrated in the life of Serbia? So is it recognition of discrimination or a reflection of efforts to reintegrate the Kosovo ⁵¹⁸⁹ Albanians in the political life of Serbia? Yes or no. Which of the two?

A. If there had been no problems or discrimination, why would you have had to have an agreement to deal with the problems? When everything is all right, there's no need for any agreements. They wouldn't be educating themselves in basements.

Q. Very well. We'll come back to that later. I can see that on page 10, you list the names of people attending the reception. You read that from the newspapers, and then you said that they were the people you saw at the reception, like Mirko Marjanovic, Milovan Bojic, and so on, people from the government of Serbia. You read that in the newspapers, didn't you?

A. No. I attended all those receptions, and there is proof of that.

Q. Very well. On page 11, you said at the very beginning, at the top of the page: "Shortly before the conversation, I spoke to Ratko Markovic, the vice-president of the government, who told me that Milosevic had ordered that he would not negotiate seriously with the Kosovo Albanians." And before that, you said that -- you were explaining in your conversation with Ratko Markovic, that he said that the attitude towards Kosovo was being changed. So I would like at least this to be admitted into evidence. It is a letter by Ratko Markovic, who says, in connection with the statement - it is a handwritten letter - "Ratomir Tanic gave a statement in The Hague Tribunal." And he wrote this letter on the 14th of May, and he says: "He spoke about alleged meetings and conversations he had with me before going to Rambouillet. It is my duty to inform the public of the truth: With Mr. Tanic, I did not have any meetings before ⁵¹⁹⁰ going to Rambouillet, and therefore, I could not have had any conversations with him. And how little truth there is in his statement is evidenced by the fact that the platform with which the state delegation of the Republic of Serbia went to the negotiations in Rambouillet is the same as the one with which the Government of Serbia went to Pristina throughout 1998 for negotiations with representatives of all ethnic communities living in Kosovo and Metohija but without success." Signed Ratko Markovic, 14th of May, 2002.

So Ratko Markovic is not telling the truth either, is he?

JUDGE MAY: The same applies as applied to the earlier document. The witness has heard what this person has said in the letter. Mr. Tanic, you can deal with it. Mr. Markovic has apparently written a letter, saying that he didn't have any meetings with you. Is there any truth in that or not?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. And when I'm allowed to speak, I can mention the names of two people who can confirm a meeting with Mr. Ratko Markovic, who complained to me that he had a lot of problems. He's a honest man, a man of integrity. I'm not calling that in question at all. But people in Belgrade are exposed to pressure and are saying all kinds of things. And I will show various photographs and other documents that confirm everything I'm saying or most of what I'm saying.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Are those photographs from the receptions as well?

A. No. No. No. I didn't bring photographs from receptions. But you said that I didn't even attend receptions. So maybe they would be ⁵¹⁹¹ sufficient. But I will rely on witnesses.

Q. On the contrary, I said that you may have only attended receptions.

A. They are not receptions.

Q. So for Ratko Markovic, that you say is a honest man, you wrote that he said to you, on page 11 again, that he had been given an apartment from Milosevic and, therefore, he has to follow my requests. Imagine, a vice-premier to whom I'm giving an apartment - the very idea of me giving people apartments - and then the poor person has to do what I say. Is there any end Mr. Tanic, to your endeavours to sling mud against people in this way?

A. First of all, I didn't slander Mr. Ratko Markovic. It is my duty to tell the Court that Mr. Markovic showed me bruises from beatings in Pristina, that the Serbian police did not protect him there. So I didn't sully his integrity nor anybody else's. It is up to the Court to judge. There was pressure in Belgrade against people. Similar kind of pressure was brought to bear against me.

Q. We have to hasten, because I have a lot more questions. On imagine 12, you say that from Western sources, you learnt that their intelligence services had said that they would assist in the elimination of the KLA if I support the reforms for Kosovo Albanians, that they would stop financing them and that they would cooperate with Serbia and FRY, et cetera, et cetera. Is that true?

A. It is true, but I didn't say that they would stop financing them but that they would interrupt the flow of finances. ⁵¹⁹²

Q. So you confirm cooperation with all these foreign intelligence services, don't you?

A. No. Out of the question. Working contacts about political questions such as terrorism is one thing and cooperation is another.

Q. So you don't confirm it. Very well. Are you familiar with the basic request of the Kosovo Albanians from much earlier on? Are you familiar with that demand of theirs?

A. That demand was to have their autonomy at least restored that they were deprived of at the end of the 1980s.

Q. Mr. Tanic, their demand was a Kosovo republic. Yes or no. Please answer me, I have very little time left, so yes or no. Was there a demand for a Kosovo republic in negotiations?

A. No. But as for what is said in media, I don't want to comment it.

Q. But you heard Rugova the other day, that never in any negotiations did he say that he was demanding independence. Is what he said is true or not? What was the demand that he was making?

A. I think that Mr. Rugova confirmed what I am saying. It is one thing to have autonomy and political independence, and secession is something else. And a third thing is autonomy plus --

Q. Never mind, leave that for your book. So you do know that the West financed the KLA and assisted it to that end, without interrupting the drug -- Albanian drug trafficking. You're aware of that, aren't you?

A. I never said that the West financed the KLA. That is not in my statement nor in my testimony. One thing is to interrupt the flow of sources and another thing to finance them, and never did I say that the ⁵¹⁹³ West financed the KLA.

Q. A moment ago, you said that if something happened, that they would cease financing the KLA. That is what you said a moment ago. So as a connoisseur, as you pretend to be, of the requirements of the Kosovo Albanians and the positions of the international community, you list the countries on whose name you speak, and as a participant in numerous negotiations you're saying that the KLA was financed by the West and that the international community did nothing --

JUDGE MAY: That is not what he said. Now, stop misrepresenting the evidence, particularly as time is short.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You say on page 12: "Milosevic refused Stanisic's proposal to export the problem of Albanian terrorism to Northern Albania by exploiting the divisions between the Gheg and Tosk clans and rifts in Albanian politics, an opportunity which presented itself during the crisis in Albania in spring 1997."

So you're claiming that I rejected Stanisic's proposal for exporting the problem to Northern Albania. Does that mean that Stanisic also felt that what was happening in Kosovo was terrorism? Just yes or no, please. I have no time.

A. Yes indeed. There is no dispute about it. What the dispute is over the methods of dealing with the problem.

Q. Then you go on to say -- sorry. Was that the position of the international community as well, that that was terrorism?

A. Yes. But only the question was who was provoking it. You ^{5194 BLANK PAGE 5195} provoked it and not they.

Q. Oh, I see. Fine. So Mr. Stanisic's proposal, I hear it for the first time from you, regarding the export of terrorism. Can the problem of terrorism be resolved by being -- by exporting it to the neighbours? Do you consider that an ethical solution?

A. I'm sorry. When talking about the defence of a country, it's not a question of morality. Everything that helps solve the problem is allowed. Our aim was protect the territory of Serbia and Yugoslavia from escalation of terrorist activities that you signed.

Q. So you're claiming that Stanisic wanted to export terrorism to Albania, and you took part in the preparation of that plan, as you say here.

A. No. He simply wanted to export the Albanian terrorists from where they had come, and you wanted to keep them in the territory of our country because you needed them.

Q. Very well. At the end of page 12, you say: "In spite of the fact that he received information from me that the governments of three western states were ready to assist in eliminating the KLA." So I got a message from you. How come they didn't hand it through the Ministry of the Interior, through Stanisic, but rather through you? Which three states sent me a message through you?

A. They did send a message through Stanisic and other security sources and the diplomatic service. I just said that it went through me as well. You received hundreds such -- a hundred or so of such messages and you turned a deaf ear. You know all that but you say here that you ⁵¹⁹⁶ got the message through me.

Q. You're also claiming that I rejected some sort of a plan of Perisic's. Is that true?

A. I'm sorry. Would you please give me the page? I can't follow.

Q. If you don't know, let me move on.

A. No, no. Give me the page so I can find the context. It's not that I don't know. I want to see the context. I explained Perisic's plan the other day - a state of emergency, a legal struggle against terrorists - and that was also Stanisic's plan.

Q. Are you sure that that was his plan or somebody else's plan, in view of what is happening with Perisic now and his arrest and accusations of spying, charges of spying and so on?

A. That was a joint plan of Mr. Perisic, Mr. Stanisic, Mr. Lilic, and some others, people in the public security service, honest patriots from the security structures, military structures, and politicians.

Q. So on page 15, in the second paragraph, you refer to information of American, British, and Vatican services from whom you learnt that NATO had no problems acting under the UN flag, and so on. Can you answer my question: Why didn't NATO ask for UN approval, and why didn't you ever give permission for the NATO aggression, and do you consider that NATO did commit aggression and violate the charter of the UN by attacking Yugoslavia?

JUDGE MAY: No. That's not for him.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, we'll give you another five minutes, to ⁵¹⁹⁷ twenty-five to, because some time was taken up. So you should -- any questions you want to ask, you should ask them now.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have very many questions. It is very hard for me now to make a selection because, as you see, this false witness has made a vast number of allegations that everyone is denying.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You said that in February or March, facts needed to be collected about Kosovo. Lilic, Stanisic, Perisic, and then Sainovic joined in. My question is: And why did the security service or the military need any vice-premier, whether his name was Lilic or Sainovic, to discover what the real state of affairs was? Why would they need that? Surely they know the situation without a vice-premier.

A. They wanted to cooperate with honest patriots from around you rather than people who were misleading you or participating together with you in the tricks against Serbs and Albanians. Lilic is an honest man. He's known as an honest man, as the majority of those I've listed here.

Q. You claim that they, at the time when they drew up this information, they said that there was no major organised terrorism in Kosovo. Isn't that so?

A. No. They told you that that terrorism could be eliminated by legal means and that it was high time to resort to those legal means, otherwise, terrorism would escalate, we would enter into a dispute with the international community, et cetera.

Q. Leave that aside. Isn't it illogical for these insignificant terrorist groups, as you claim throughout your testimony, and then to ⁵¹⁹⁸ suggest the use of the army to suppress them, don't you think that is illogical, to talk about insignificant terrorist groups and then to advocate the use of the army to deal with them?

A. He suggested the introduction of the state of emergency as a legal framework for the struggle against Albanian terrorists who were still weak.

Q. So you claim without a state of emergency, there's no legal way of struggling against terrorists? Is that what you're saying?

A. There is, but future problems were already emerging that required a state of emergency. The border belt and combat operations, and one needed to see whether all of them were terrorists or whether the problem could be solved without the use of force.

Q. You said that there was no definition as to what is terrorism and what is not. Do you know that the Criminal Code of Yugoslavia very clearly sanctions the criminal act of terrorism? Are you aware of that?

A. Yes. But one thing is massive terrorist activities and rebellion, and a second thing are individual acts of terrorism.

Q. You talk about a commission of mine for preparing and conducting ethnic cleansing and the Horseshoe operation, because I heard from you that the JNA had this Horseshoe plan. Did such a commission exist? Was it only for Albanians or is it also for Bulgarians, Romanians, and Hungarians? Who set up that commission? What kind of a commission are you talking about?

A. We had a headquarters for Kosovo that is mentioned in Perisic's letter. It is the state commission for Kosovo which was founded to ⁵¹⁹⁹ implement your private will outside the legal institutions.

Q. You said that outside the legal institutions through the Minister of the Interior and the head of the security of the services gave orders. I don't know who those two gentlemen and those two institutions are if they are not legal institutions. But my question is: As you named Sainovic as the head of an illegal commission, do you know that Nikola Sainovic was the president of the commission of the federal -- of the head of the Federal Commission for Cooperation with the OSCE? Do you know that or not?

A. That is quite true, but it is not the same commission. I did not also say that Mr. Stanisic was involved in any way, because he was against your plan, as was Perisic.

Q. What plan are you talking about? You're talking about a plan that did not exist. What plan are you talking about? Which plan were they against? Is there mention of the word "plan" anywhere?

A. They were against the plan to provoke war in Kosovo when both Albanians and Serbs would suffer as well as our army and our police and the Albanian civilians. They were against that plan.

Q. So you're claiming that I wanted to ethnically cleanse all the Albanians and then to kill the Serbs as well? Is that what you're saying?

A. In your own interest to hold onto power, you wanted to exert violence over Serbs and Albanians, and that is what you did.

Q. Fine, Mr. Tanic. That is another pearl in your string of allegations.

Where was this commission active? You mentioned people who held ⁵²⁰⁰ very responsible state positions and who went to Kosovo to assist in the work of the local bodies. You mentioned the president of parliament, Milomir Minic. True enough, but here it says secretary of the Federal Assembly but let me assume it is a printing error, he was president of parliament. You mentioned the vice-premier, who was president of the commission of the Federal Government for cooperation with the OSCE. You mentioned a vice-president of a party, Dusko Markovic. You mentioned the president of the provisional Executive Council in Kosovo, Zoran Andjelkovic. Surely all these people had the duty to deal with political problems affecting Yugoslavia and Serbia. Yes or no, Mr. Tanic.

A. They were not working with the authorisation of our institutions, and the problem of Kosovo was never discussed at Assembly bodies or government bodies of Serbia and Yugoslavia, as they should have been. They were state functionaries but they acted as a private group connected to you rather than our institutions as institutions.

JUDGE MAY: Your last question, Mr. Milosevic, and then we will adjourn.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] If you won't let me continue, the only thing I can ask Mr. Tanic is:

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] How does he think that he can sell this story of his -- and surely you will accept this as evidence, in connection with that really absurd statement that we had been informed by NATO that they would bomb the television station and other targets, here is a letter from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the district court in Belgrade, dated 2001, because these questions were raised not linked to ⁵²⁰¹ me, and it says: "We are responding to your request as to whether the television station has any evidence that someone from the NATO command or the countries of the NATO alliance gave prior information to any executives in our country or any executives in Radio Television Serbia that the building of the television would be bombed. We wish to inform you that Radio Television Belgrade does not have any such evidence." Could you please admit this into evidence, though you don't have to because it is clear to everyone. Even NATO denied this.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. Very well. There is no need to make a speech at this stage. That document can be put in. We'll admit it into evidence.

Let it have an exhibit number.

JUDGE KWON: Before we adjourn, I'd like to raise a couple of questions to the Prosecution, which I hope then they can consider during the adjournment.

First, it's all about the exhibits. The first thing is the Prosecution Exhibit 147.3, which is a news clipping from Politika, dated 31st of July, 1997. According to the statements of this witness, Mr. Tanic was identified as a negotiator in this article, but I couldn't find what phrase is doing this. And also, if I'm right in reading Cyrillic, the Serb version of the exhibit seems to mention the witness's name in several places but I couldn't find an English translation or even in some redacted version. Nothing at all. That's the first thing. And second thing is the Prosecution Exhibit 148 or TX-5. It is the final version of the Halki meeting of BSF, called "Joint ⁵²⁰² Recommendation on Kosovo Conflict." According to the witness statement of this witness, the last page is missing and which was offered to the witness by one of the investigators. So could the Chamber get the last page, which is TX-6.

And the final question is that Mr. Perisic's letter referred by this witness, he said that this is the photocopy of the letter, but is that -- I'd like to know whether the Prosecution's position is the same. I'd like to hear at a later stage.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you, Your Honour. I'll attempt to deal with those during the break.

Just one question, however. I don't know whether the witness was given an opportunity to respond to the allegation with respect to the last exhibit that was put in. I didn't hear a response from him with respect to that allegation.

JUDGE MAY: I don't think it called for comment from him. If you want to ask him about it, do, Mr. Ryneveld.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, we'll get an exhibit number.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, the letter from the Ministry of Internal Affairs will be Exhibit D12.

JUDGE MAY: We will adjourn now for 20 minutes. When we come back, we will go on with cross-examination from the amicus.

--- Recess taken at 10.40 a.m.

--- On resuming at 11.02 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Kay. ⁵²⁰³

MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour. Questioned by Mr. Kay:

Q. Mr. Tanic, can you deal with this matter, please: Were you convicted of any criminal offence in 1977?

A. Since I am not amongst the record of those convicted and as the whole proceedings have been destroyed, I don't need to answer that question. And secondly, I am speaking as a person who is not contained in any of the records, legal records, of convicted persons.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Tanic, you will have to answer the question.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, that question can go to my disadvantage. Why do I have to answer if I'm not on the list and in the records of any convicted persons?

JUDGE ROBINSON: It's for the Chamber to assess what weight we will attach to the answer that you give, but an answer is required. If you don't answer, the Chamber will also make an assessment as to that.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] All right. That's not a problem. Twenty-six years ago, there was some slight sentence, not for robbery. But it was wiped out on the basis our law because they were small problems. I was only 19 years at the time, but it wasn't robbery.

MR. KAY:

Q. Can you tell the Trial Chamber for what offences you were convicted of.

A. I must say, without going round the problem, I don't really remember any more.

Q. Very well. I've got some other questions to ask you now. When ⁵²⁰⁴ did you start writing your book on Kosovo?

A. In the summer of 1999. Summer, autumn. Late summer, early autumn. Late summer, in fact.

Q. Has the book been published or completed?

A. The book is being completed. It is in the stage of completion. An interview was published and an article, an excerpt from the book.

Q. When did the British security service contact you about your book?

A. The British intelligence service never contacted me in connection with the book but in connection with the discovery of Serb victims in Kosovo.

Q. Have the British security service paid you money as part of your funds for writing this book?

A. It gave a sum which was supposed to cover about 50 per cent of the expenses of the research, because there was quite considerable research linked to the writing of the book.

Q. In what circumstances did it come about that the British security service were paying you funds for the expenses of this book?

A. Because one of the subjects in the book was research into Serb victims in Kosovo and sending in information about that, among others, to the International Tribunal in The Hague, and Milosevic and his men refused to do so, to supply that.

Q. Did you declare this interest of the British security service in your book to your political party or any other agency, government agency?

A. Yes.

Q. To which agencies? ⁵²⁰⁵

A. To the State Security Service of Serbia.

Q. The money that was paid to you, we were told, was 3.000 euros. Is that right?

A. No, no. I said approximately 5.000 euros in two instalments, on two occasions.

Q. And how was that money paid to you? Was it cash or to a bank account?

A. In cash, with no records. I didn't have to mention it or bring it up here in this Tribunal. There is no bank account, nothing. It was in cash for 50 per cent of the expenses of the research, as the rest of the 50 per cent was supplied by -- was supplied by me.

Q. You told us that you had businesses and that you were successful in business. Why did you need the money from the British security service of 5.000 euros?

A. I'm not a businessman. I am a manufacturer of goods, a producer of goods, a small scale industrialist and for nine years I spent my own money in politics, but due to the costs of the war and the different problems that arose with regard to myself and my family, I was not able to finance all my activities and that is why I asked for assistance as this was of general national interest. And I reported this to the State Security Service of Serbia, so there was no secret on that score.

Q. And did the State Security Service of Serbia give their approval of your writing this book with the aid of money from the British security service?

A. Yes, it did. They even started collecting documents and ⁵²⁰⁶ information about the Serb victims. And this was dispersed in different boxes and trucks, this information, or storehouses, rather, warehouses, not trucks.

Q. You told us last week that the book concerned the victims of Kosovo. Was that victims exclusively who were Serb or also Albanian victims?

A. The basic thesis of the book is that Mr. Milosevic caused a war in which both the Albanians and the Serbs fell victim. In view of the fact that the Albanians victims are already common knowledge, more or less, the book starts out from the premises of Serb victims but of course just as part of all that.

Q. And did the British security service tell you what interest they had in you writing and publishing this book?

A. Yes, they did. Their interest was twofold: One was to secure via unofficial channels some facts on Serb victims which Mr. Milosevic did not supply at the time; and the second interest was that we have a well-balanced out picture of what actually did happen in 1998 and 1999 in that unfortunate circumstance that befell all of us.

Q. Did you ask them for money or did they suggest that they would pay you money?

A. I asked them, because I said that I would not be able to finance the costs and expenditure of the research and that, if they were willing, they could meet 50 per cent of the expenses in view of the fact that I knew them for a long time and that it was a subject that was of common interest. So I contacted them. ^{5207 BLANK PAGE 5208}

Q. From what you say, would that subject be that it was anti or against Mr. Milosevic?

A. No. The British side, like myself, was interested in seeing a realistic, or as close to real as possible, of the image of what was going on in Kosovo. No mention was made of any specific interest against Milosevic because The Hague indictment had already been raised against him. Therefore, it was quite clear that there were other -- that there was other evidence except for that.

Q. Would you say, then, that it was accepted by both of you that the book would be anti-Milosevic?

A. That book was to be the truth or as close to the truth as possible. Whether that was anti-Milosevic or not, that's another matter. The book did not deal in anti-Milosevic positions but in ascertaining as correctly as possible the facts of the matter.

Q. Have any other security services paid you any money?

A. No. Not until I left the country. Only once I had left the country, but that was a private affair altogether at that point in time. And not money. It wasn't money. When I left the country, it wasn't a question of money, it was assistance with regard to accommodation for a brief period of time.

Q. Were you in need of money to support yourself when you left Serbia?

A. For a brief period of time, yes, because I had to leave Serbia in a great hurry, and lots -- I did not manage to have all the debts owed me paid in. So 150.000 euros, claims to that effect, claims that were not ⁵²⁰⁹ paid to me to that amount.

Q. Did you avoid the payment of bills yourself when you left Serbia?

A. No. Quite simply, I had no accounts abroad. So there was no one to pay in except the firm's accounts. But of course, private affairs and the affairs of the firm cannot be mixed up. And my firm, my company, was frozen for two years anyway.

Q. So did you settle all the outstanding accounts and bills owing by you at the time that you had left Serbia?

A. No, because the money I was to have been repaid was ten times greater than the bills that I had to be paid. So before I got the money paid to me, I wasn't able to settle my outstanding accounts and bills. But nobody is persecuting me for that, because the bills I should have paid are far smaller than my claims. So nobody's after me for that.

Q. Since leaving Yugoslavia, you've said that you had some slight assistance from another security service while you established yourself in accommodation, I just want to ask you some questions now about your circumstances without you giving any personal details in public. Do you understand that?

A. I must say that I don't understand what you're telling me.

Q. Have you been provided with a new country in which to live?

A. No, not up until now. Whether I shall be or not, I don't know that.

Q. So you're currently seeking asylum in another country. Would that be right?

A. Well, you would have to see about that with the OTP office of The ⁵²¹⁰ Hague Tribunal. I have not officially asked for asylum because I can live in a third country even without the asylum status. But perhaps I will ask for it. I really didn't deal with the question of my future in any great detail.

Q. But is the position that you will be given a new identity in another country? I don't want the details, but just whether that fact is true or not.

A. It is absolutely untrue. A new identity abroad. I never discussed that with anybody, nor would I accept it. I have no reason to ask for a new identity. Protection is one matter, a new identity is quite another.

MR. KAY: Thank you. I have no further questions.

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes, Your Honours. Did you wish me to deal with the questions posed to me by Judge Kwon before I re-examine?

JUDGE MAY: Whichever is convenient.

MR. RYNEVELD: Perhaps I may do that, and the third of those questions may well lead into my re-examination, if I may. In the first place, Your Honour, my -- according to my note, Your Honour asked about a document, 147.3, and referred to the fact that in the document dated the 31st of, I believe it's July 1997, there appeared to be references in Cyrillic script to this particular witness which do not appear on the English translation that was provided. My understanding is that the copy that was sent for translation at that particular time was sent in a redacted form with the name, of course, because this was a protected witness, with the name -- that then was a ⁵²¹¹ protected witness, the name redacted. Therefore, the translation that has been submitted under 147.3 does not contain the witness's name and the translation is written in such a way as to try to make sense of it without the name in it.

My understanding is that we have requested a subsequent translation of this document in its unredacted form, and that is forthcoming.

If it would assist, we could place the unredacted document on the ELMO now and perhaps have the translators or the interpreters read a couple of aspects of it.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE KWON: Yes, please.

MR. RYNEVELD: I'm sorry, did Your Honour respond that you'd like to put it on the ELMO now?

JUDGE KWON: Yes.

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes. Thank you.

JUDGE KWON: Other translations indicate that there are some parts redacted but this does not.

MR. RYNEVELD: That's correct. It's two pages but the first page is being placed on the ELMO now. And I suspect that it's the underlined aspects that were in fact redacted when it was sent for translation. So if the interpreters are able to read this particular exhibit as it's now displayed, perhaps we could go to, first of all, the --

THE INTERPRETER: The --

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes. Go ahead. ⁵²¹²

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters apologise, but somebody from the courtroom will have to read the text first.

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes. I'm unable, of course, to read the Cyrillic text, so I'm unable to assist in that regard. Perhaps that could be shown to the witness who, I take it, can read it, and perhaps the witness will be prepared to read that for us.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. There's no problem there. Re-examined by Mr. Ryneveld:

Q. All right, Witness, I'm go to ask you, if you would please, underneath the headline, there appears to be a reference. Could you read the caption, if you would, please, in Cyrillic, out loud so the translator can interpret.

A. The subtitle is: "The previous authority led by Salih Denicoc [phoen], the Social Democrats of Albania have not been hit by the virus of nationalism, says Predrag Simic. The Social Democrats and Democratic Alliance of Albania are turned towards European integrations and tendencies of the new European left, is the opinion of Ratomir Tanic. After this signal from Tirana, the politicians of the Albanian parties in Kosovo are starting to reassess their positions." That is the subtitle. Do you wish me to read on?

Q. I would like you to turn to the column where it is underlined and read the underlined sentence in its entirety, please. That was the three columns, the three vertical columns, the left one appears to have a sentence underlined. Could you read that to us.

A. Well, the whole sentence is a lengthy one, and it says: "As to ⁵²¹³ what the relationships were like between the SRY and Serbia with neighbouring Albania and their possible improvement after the mentioned statement as well as the repercussions on the viewpoints of the leaders of political parties of Albanians in Kosmet, we talked to Dr. Predrag Simic, the director of Institute for International Politics and Economics, and Ratomir Tanic, advisor for international relations in the Novo Demokratija party, with experts who took part in the negotiations for a solution to the Serbian-Albanian problem in Kosmet, Kosovo and Metohija."

Q. Thank you. And in the remaining highlights, you will see a name underlined. Is that your name, in fact, that's been underlined?

A. Yes, yes.

MR. RYNEVELD: Unless Your Honours wish me to have the entire article written, I understand that the translation is available tomorrow. Thank you. That deals with that.

Now, the second document that Your Honours have asked for clarification was the document 148, which was marked, I believe, as an attachment to this witness's statement as item TX-5, and TX-5 was noted in the statement to be missing a page, as it were, and in fact, TX-6 in the statement was a document which included the first five pages in TX-5 and the additional pages -- the balance of page 5 and a final page as well. That has not been marked as an exhibit. I would ask to substitute TX-6, which we have copies of here, for item TX-5. So if this could have a new exhibit number. This is the entire article.

JUDGE KWON: On the front page, there are some parts redacted. What are they? ⁵²¹⁴

MR. RYNEVELD: I'm sorry. Yes. I'm afraid I -- the original, I believe, that has been given to the registrar and marked as an exhibit is in its unredacted form, but I have a redacted copy as well, Your Honour. But I believe the original that has been marked as an exhibit is in unredacted form. 148.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this will be marked 148A.

MR. RYNEVELD: I propose now, in re-examination, to deal with the third issue that Your Honour has mentioned, but if I may, I propose to ask a few questions about it in the course of re-examination. Thank you.

Q. Now, Mr. Tanic, during your cross-examination, you have been challenged about -- that you were never in a position to know many of the matters to which you have testified to. In response, among other things, you've said that you've testified only about those matters which there is independent corroboration for what you say; is that correct?

A. Yes, correct. I did not present my overall knowledge because I cannot corroborate my overall knowledge.

Q. Yes. Now, sir, in particular dealing with conversations which you refer to both in your evidence and in your statement that you had with Momcilo Perisic while you were preparing your book, I believe you indicated that he showed you a letter dated the spring of 1998 that he apparently sent to the accused Milosevic while Mr. Perisic was still the Chief of Staff of the VJ, and that's at page 19 of your statement. Do you recall testifying to that matter?

A. Yes.

Q. And in that letter, it's alleged that Mr. Perisic pointed out some ⁵²¹⁵ six points he referred to as negative facts, and in so doing, in effect complaining that Mr. Milosevic was cutting Mr. Perisic out of the chain of command of the VJ. Do you recall that?

A. Yes.

MR. RYNEVELD: Now, Your Honours, I understand that the book itself has not been marked as an exhibit. I have a copy of it here, and I understand the accused was provided with a copy, or borrowed the copy - I don't know if that's been returned - but an extract of page 160, I believe, was entered as Exhibit 150.

Now, I just want to ask some questions about it.

Q. First of all, sir, I'm showing you -- if you could look at me, I'm showing you a book which is authored by Messrs. Dejan Lukic and Pero Simic, and its translated title is "Fire and Flood." Are you familiar with that book?

A. No. I saw that book for the first time three or four days ago, when I was provided with a photocopy of Perisic's letter.

Q. All right.

MR. RYNEVELD: Might the usher assist. I'm just going to show this page, the inside page, which indicates its publication date, please. Could you show that could the witness.

Q. There appears -- I'm showing you a single page of that book, which appears to have the names of the two authors at the top, a title in the middle, and then an address and date as to publication. Can you tell us what that is?

A. The title page of the book, Filip Visnjic is a publishing house in ⁵²¹⁶ Belgrade, 2001. Pero Simic and Dejan Lukic are the authors of the book "Fire and Food," which is the title of the book.

MR. RYNEVELD: And perhaps I might -- I don't know whether it's gone in as part of the exhibit or not, but I have a copy of that title page. Was it marked originally as part of Exhibit 150? Thank you. All right.

Q. Now, sir, if you could -- sorry. I'm going to turn to page 160 that book.

MR. RYNEVELD: Mr. Usher.

Q. At page 160 of that book, labelled Appendix 2, you will find a letter dated the 23rd of July 1998 from Momcilo Perisic, addressed to then-President Slobodan Milosevic of the FRY. Is that the letter to which you referred in your evidence? Is that the letter that you were shown?

A. Yes. And I know that because it wasn't just the letter that was shown to me but Mr. Perisic and I had a long discussion about the contents of that letter. So the letter wasn't just shown to me but it was the subject of a lengthy discussion between me and Mr. Perisic.

Q. Now, this letter is dated the 28th of July, 1998, according to its publication date as Appendix 2 to that book. When, approximately, did you first see the letter when you discussed it with Mr. Perisic?

A. I knew of the existence of the letter earlier than that, but I saw the letter itself for the first time in the summer of 1999. But I knew that the letter existed immediately after it had been written. But I didn't see it then, I saw it in the summer of 1999.

Q. Now, is it true, sir, that you gave your statement to officials of ⁵²¹⁷ the ICTY over the course of several interviews between the 21st of June, 1999, and the 19th of July, 2000?

A. Yes.

Q. And we've already seen that, according to the publication date, that letter was not published until 2001. Is that correct?

A. Yes, absolutely so.

Q. Now, secondly, sir, in your statement, I believe in the course -- in the English version, pages 30 to 32, and in your evidence, you refer to conveying information to the accused Milosevic about two secret offers of settlement, both just before the bombing commenced and after it had started, and the purpose of that was to indicate that it was possible to negotiate peacefully with the West. You also refer to Zoran Lilic's involvement, in your statement.

Would you look at page 166 of that same book. That's Appendix 4. Do you recognise the document at Appendix 4? Just have a look at it, if you would, please.

A. I do recognise it, but I recognise the political content of the document, but I didn't see it before a couple of days ago, though I knew of its existence, but I recognise its contents.

Q. What is that document?

A. It's a document confirming that already at the end of April and the beginning of May there was a possibility, without the violation of the vital interests of Serbia and Yugoslavia, the war with NATO to be ended and the continued suffering of our people to be brought to an end.

Q. When is it dated? ⁵²¹⁸

A. The 5th of May, 1999.

Q. Who wrote it?

A. Mr. Zoran Lilic. I recognise his signature. I don't know Mr. Zoran Lilic, but I know from Mr. Vuk Draskovic, who spoke with Mr. Lilic several times about peace offers.

Q. To whom is the published letter addressed?

A. To Mr. Milosevic.

Q. You may have already said this, but when did you first see this letter?

A. As I said, a couple of days ago.

Q. And you referred to the contents or similar contents as is contained in this letter in your statement to the ICTY before you saw this document in its published form; is that correct?

A. Yes, indeed.

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, I do have copies of this particular appendix which may be marked as exhibits in these proceedings. The witness has now recognised it and testified about it. Since we don't have copies of the book, I wonder whether I might be able to tender both the original copies of Appendix 4 and an English translation at this time.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you.

JUDGE MAY: Give it the next exhibit number, please.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Prosecutor's Exhibit 152. ⁵²¹⁹

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Ryneveld.

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE KWON: Am I right in understanding that this witness has no idea about -- as to whether Appendix 2 is a photocopy or not?

MR. RYNEVELD: I didn't ask that question, but, Your Honour, my understanding is that Exhibit 2 is a photocopy of -- let me double-check because I didn't personally make the copy.

JUDGE KWON: Let me ask this: On page 160, there's a date in the first part of the letter which is written 23rd of July, 1998. Are you following me?

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE KWON: And the last page is 164. There once again we have the date, 23rd of July, 1998.

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE KWON: To my eye, the letters themselves look different. Could you clarify that matter? Especially the number 7 is different, and 9 is different.

MR. RYNEVELD: I'm sorry, Your Honour, I didn't focus on that particular aspect over the brief adjournment we had. Perhaps if you will allow me the opportunity to find out exactly whether this was photocopied or whether it's simply a copy of it, I will undertake to respond.

JUDGE KWON: Yes. Thank you.

MR. RYNEVELD:

Q. Now, Mr. Tanic, during the course of your cross-examination, the accused produced a document purporting to show your registration in your ^{5220 BLANK PAGE 5221} capacity as a sympathiser with the New Democracy Party. Do you recall being shown that document?

A. Yes, I do indeed.

Q. He went on to suggest in cross-examination that you were not a member or did not hold any specific function with that political party. Do you recall that aspect of the cross-examination?

A. Yes, I do remember.

Q. Now, sir, are you familiar with the Bertelsmann Wissenschaftsstung system?

A. Yes. I apologise for interfering, but I can offer written evidence that I was an advisor of the president of New Democracy. Even the Prosecution doesn't have this document because I didn't consider all that to be necessary, and I do indeed apologise. But there is absolute direct evidence of that. I simply didn't know that I needed to prove to the Prosecution what is common knowledge in Belgrade. I'm sorry for the interfering.

Q. No need. I'm going to ask -- I'm going to show you some documentation at this point.

Sir, what is the Bertelsmann Wissenschaftsstung system? What kind of an organisation is that?

A. It is what we call an NGO, a non-governmental organisation, a powerful NGO engaged in investigating peace settlements in various parts of the world. It is linked to the German government, and the director of the research project is Mr. Janning, who was an advisor, at that time at least, in the European Union. ⁵²²²

Q. And did you ever attend any of the conferences of that organisation, that NGO, as a representative of the New Democracy Party?

A. Yes, several times, but as a representative of the ruling coalition. And I also did some writing for that foundation.

Q. Now, for example, sir, did you attend a conference of the Bertelsmann Wissenschaftsstung in Rhodes in September of 1996?

A. Yes. That was when I first brought an original copy of the Milosevic-Holbrooke agreement, which was given to me by the ruling authorities in Serbia, and it was the first time to be taken abroad.

Q. Did you attend any further conferences of that organisation?

A. Yes. I attended several more, which were also attended by representatives of the Socialist Party of Serbia on two occasions.

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, I have a series of documents I now wish to show to the witness, if I may. I have the originals and copies. First of all, perhaps we can -- in order to save time, just put the whole bundle in at once to everyone, and then I'll quickly refer to all of them rather than do them piecemeal.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you. First of all, here are some originals to go to the registrar, please, Mr. Usher.

I intend to deal with these documents in the order that they are being handed out. And for the sake of convenience, perhaps the bundle might get an exhibit number, if Your Honours so choose.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this will be Prosecutor's Exhibit 153. ⁵²²³

MR. RYNEVELD: And for the record, the bundle that I'm handing are six separate documents.

Q. First of all, Witness, I'm showing you the first document which has a list of participants with the heading of "The Albanian Question in the Balkans in Rhodes September 5th through 6th of 1996." Do you see that document, the front page? Sorry. I'm just asking you to look at the front page now.

Mr. Tanic, the question is: Do you see the page --

A. Yes.

Q. -- list of participants, "The Albanian Question of the Balkans in Rhodes September 5th and 6th, 1996?"

I don't have a response from you, sir.

A. Yes, yes, I do. Yes.

Q. Looking at the second page following that, there's a number of people listed as having been participants in that -- at that conference, and on the second page, under number K0224112, your name appears fourth from the bottom. Do you see that? On the English version.

A. Yes. Yes, yes.

Q. And you are described there as the conciliarly to the president and secretary for international relations of New Democracy in Belgrade. Was that your function when you attended that particular conference?

A. Yes. And I can also provide my own documents; my party booklet, my card, party card.

Q. I'm not asking for that. I'm simply asking whether you recognise your name and described title as a participant at that conference. You're ⁵²²⁴ nodding your head, being yes?

A. Yes, yes, yes.

Q. Very quickly, sir, look at the next document, list of participants in Munich, 21st to 22nd of January 1997, the same organisation. Front page, third name from the bottom, is that your name and your affiliation to New Democracy Belgrade?

A. I simply can't find the page. I do apologise. Is it -- does it refer to Rhodes or something else?

Q. This.

A. Yes, yes. You're right, quite. I see it now, yes.

Q. The next document titled List of Participants, Strategies and Options for Kosovo in Athens June 4th and 5th 1997. That's the title page. Over the page, your name, third from the bottom -- fourth from the bottom. And again your affiliation with New Democracy Belgrade. Correct?

A. Yes, yes. Indeed.

Q. Next document. List of Participants, Strategies and Options for Kosovo in Halki, September 7th through 10th 1997. Next page, your name fourth from the bottom, New Democracy, Belgrade?

A. Yes, yes. Yes.

Q. And quickly, next document, again List of Participants, Strategies and Options for Kosovo, Thessaloniki, April 20th and 21st 1998. Your name, two pages down, looks to be about sixth from the bottom. Again New Democracy, Belgrade?

A. Yes, yes. ⁵²²⁵

Q. And finally --

A. I see it. I can see it.

Q. -- Balkans Security Risks and Implications for the European Union, again in Halki, September 7th through 9th 1998, and your name, second page, second from the bottom, again New Democracy, Belgrade? Correct?

A. Yes. Correct.

Q. Sir, do you recall a press conference on the 15th of September, 1994, wherein you were described in that press release that you were now a -- or words to the effect that you were now an advisor to the president of the New Democracy Party, responsible for international questions?

A. Yes, of course.

Q. I'm going to show you, sir, first of all -- excuse me just one moment.

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, I have copies of a press release dated the 16th of September 1994, both in its Cyrillic text, showing its source, then the second page is an enlarged copy of the article to which I'm referring, and the third page is an English translation of that article. If I might tender that as the next exhibit.

Q. Sir, first of all, do you recognise this as being a photocopy of what appears to be a publication known as Politika, dated the 16th of September, 1994?

A. Yes. It is Politika, the official organ of the Republic of Serbia. That is subject to censorship, therefore, only data that are correct can be published. And I do recognise this report.

Q. Sir, there's no need to give additional information. I'm asking ⁵²²⁶ you, first of all, do you recognise this as being -- and you've answered that. Now, I'd like you to turn your attention to the bottom third --

A. Yes, yes.

Q. -- bottom quarter, as it were. There seems to be an article which has as a headline, "New Democracy Press Conference." Do you see that article on the bottom quarter, right-hand corner of the page?

A. Yes.

Q. And if you'll turn the page, please, in the bundle, there appears to be an enlargement of that particular article.

A. Yes, I see it.

Q. And does this article describe you as having recently resigned from the office of the vice-president and having left the Civic Alliance of Serbia and becoming a member of the New Democracy Party?

A. Yes.

Q. Does it go on to describe what your position would be with respect to the New Democracy Party? Was something announced there? Just look at that first paragraph.

A. Yes. Yes. I've looked at it. It does --

Q. Okay. What does it say --

A. -- publish that.

Q. -- your job would be and what you would soon do, according to the press release from the party?

A. It is said that my job would be advisor to president of New Democracy for international affairs and a member of the Executive Board of the party. ⁵²²⁷

Q. Thank you. Just a few other questions, if I may, sir. Because time is of the essence, if possible if you could respond to my questions -- oh, I'm sorry.

MR. RYNEVELD: Might we have an exhibit number before I move on in my haste.

THE REGISTRAR: This will be Prosecutor's Exhibit 154.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Q. Wherever possible, sir, just short succinct answers would be good. Have you maintained contact with Mr. Mihajlovic since you became a witness for the Prosecution?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you ever tell Mihajlovic that you would be giving evidence at this trial?

A. No. But we did discuss the problems linked to this trial.

Q. Again, just confining your answers, if possible, to yes or no, was the figure of the Albanian population in Kosovo being less than a million ever discussed in parliament or within the circles where you moved, to your knowledge?

A. It was mentioned in private conversations by officials, in parliament -- in parliament, as far as I know, it was not, but I wasn't fully aware of what was happening in parliament, and I apologise for not being able to provide a full answer.

Q. Are you aware whether it was ever discussed as anybody's official policy?

A. No. In no parliament was the problem of Kosovo ever discussed in ⁵²²⁸ that way or from the standpoint of investigating any other problems either.

Q. Sir, has anyone ever suggested to you that you were kidnapped by anyone other than the Serbs?

A. No. The results of the investigation showed officially that they were Serbs.

Q. And have you pursued any legal remedy or civil redress for this kidnapping from any source?

A. I asked the Minister of the Interior, Mihajlovic, and the heads of the State Security Service that the persons who perpetrated the kidnapping, after they were identified through an official investigation, that they should be arrested and charged. I personally did not undertake any steps because I do not have the conditions to do that.

Q. So you complained and you sought that something be done about that fact, is that correct, through official channels?

A. Yes, together with the names that the investigation came up with, the people who had kidnapped me and my wife and tortured me, and everything else that I reported on.

MR. RYNEVELD: I just have one final matter, Your Honour. I understand there was a previous document that was tendered for which there was no translation, and I believe that we now -- this was supposedly -- this was during the course of Milosevic's cross-examination last day. He tried to tender this particular document. We now have a translation available, and perhaps this would be an appropriate time to introduce that. ⁵²²⁹

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you. Otherwise, I believe I've come to the end of my re-examination of this witness. Thank you, Your Honours.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Give that an exhibit number.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this will be marked Defence Exhibit 12.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Tanic, that concludes your evidence. Thank you for coming to the International Tribunal to give it.

JUDGE KWON: I'm sorry, I have a few questions.

JUDGE MAY: I'm sorry.

JUDGE KWON: Before I ask some questions, could he be given an English version of his statement, because I notice there are some discrepancies between the page numbers.

MR. RYNEVELD: No usher. May I approach the witness to -- oh, there he is.

Questioned by the Court:

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Tanic, I'd like to ask a few questions regarding your written statements. It's on page 10 of your statements, English version. On the last part of third paragraph, you mention that: "Mr. Milosevic stated that there will be no negotiations, that he would prove there were less than 1 million Albanians, that war was nothing, and that there would be ethnic cleansing."

I'd like to ask the -- ask about the final sentence about ethnic cleansing. Is that the exact words that Mr. Milosevic had said at that time? ⁵²³⁰

A. Yes. Those are the words that Mr. Milosevic used, and other words too, that we would throw them out, who weren't -- I can't repeat all the words that were said, because quite simply ...

JUDGE KWON: But in other parts of your statement, you said it is your conclusion, your speculations.

Let's turn to page 20, third paragraph. At the last part, you said: "I concluded that Milosevic had a policy of killing Kosovo Albanian civilians." Oh, there might be a little difference, but -- so you are maintaining that Mr. Milosevic said to throw out the Albanians?

A. I do claim that, but everything that I need to prove and everything that cannot be proved I have taken upon myself personally. I think that was obvious throughout my testimony. But, yes, I do claim that Mr. Milosevic said that. There were statements to that effect earlier on, with respect to Croatia and Slovenia.

JUDGE KWON: Yes. Then let's go back to page 10 and at the next paragraph, you said that Mr. Martin Lutz asked you to set up a meeting with Mrs. Mira Markovic, and in the middle of the paragraph, you said that you organised the meeting in the spring of 1997. How did you organise that meeting?

A. After looking through my documents, I established that this was in fact in 1996, a year earlier. In the spring of 1996. I organised it on the basis of the fact that, as members of the ruling coalition, we had the right to inform each other, one another, and to have talks, and Mr. Lutz asked for assistance in a meeting with Mrs. Markovic, who is an influential political functionary, and that's how the meeting came to be ⁵²³¹ organised, quite simply. Via the official channels of communication between the three ruling coalition parties.

JUDGE KWON: So it is your party that organised the meeting, rather than you in person?

A. No. I organised it through the channels of official communication. I wasn't a friend of Mrs. Markovic at all.

JUDGE KWON: Yes. Turn to page 11 then. In the third paragraph, you pointed out some difference between two autonomies. I'll read it. "However, after concluding this agreement with Holbrooke, Milosevic sent Serb negotiators to Kosovo 13 times to discuss the autonomy of the province and not of the Kosovo Albanians, thus acting completely opposite to a political solution."

What is the difference between the autonomy of the province and that of people?

A. The difference lies in the fact that the autonomy of the people, in this case the Albanians, incorporates the rights to their specific national political identity within the frameworks of Serbia and Yugoslavia. And the autonomy for the whole province would imply that, for example, 1.000 members of the Roma people or 100 Egyptians, for example, living in Kosovo should be equated with the 1.2 million, approximately, of Albanians. So that is the difference and that is the difference that was always insisted upon so precision was always made whether what was referred to was the autonomy of the province or the autonomy of the Kosovo Albanians.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Then page 12, at the third paragraph, you ⁵²³² said that the Italian ambassador in Belgrade asked you to convey to Mr. Milosevic their willingness to assist in eliminating the KLA. Why did the Italians choose you to convey their willingness? In what capacity did you have contact with them?

A. For two reasons: One is that I had personally good contacts with the Italian political establishment and the ambassador in question; and the second reason was that my party was considered to be the most liberal within the frameworks of the ruling coalition. And so usually all the messages that were to be conveyed and prepared -- and to prepare a more liberal solution usually went via our party, my party. And I, as the advisor of the president, was present there.

JUDGE KWON: My last question is that, at page 25, the third paragraph: "Milosevic knew that there would be a NATO attack if he continued ethnic cleansing of the Kosovo Albanians or other violent operations in Kosovo. In the summer of 1998, I was informed of this by my Western contacts."

Could you clarify, what you mean by these "Western contacts"?

A. The Italian, British, German diplomacy. The diplomacies of those countries, not the intelligence services, the diplomacies of those countries, to send out a warning that the problem should be avoided.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, in connection with this question, may I be allowed, with regard to the question that Mr. Kwon asked, may I ask a question myself?

JUDGE MAY: Yes, one question. ^{5233 BLANK PAGE 5234} Further cross-examination by Mr. Milosevic:

Q. [Interpretation] And I'd like to divide it up into two or three. What kind of ethnic cleansing of Albanians and, generally speaking, the suffering of the Albanians existed before the war began?

A. You mean with the Albanians or with the NATO pact?

Q. Before the NATO pact aggression against Yugoslavia began. That's what I'm asking about. What kind of mass suffering of Albanians were these?

A. At the Cicavica mountain, on the Kosovo side of Mount Kopaonik, at Laba, six weeks after the Serb forces had regularly taken control of Junik and that the international community agreed to, six weeks after that, ethnic cleansing was continued via Cicavica mountain and on the Kosovo side of Kopaonik and Labo. That is just one example. And the Serb victims, these continued among the police force and the army.

Q. Are you thinking about the event in Racak? Do you believe that to be some kind of ethnic cleansing?

A. No. I quoted just one example. To quote other examples would take up too much time. And I too would like to say something. As His Honour Judge May said this morning, he said I would be allowed to say a few words at the end this morning.

Q. I am asking you the following: Do you consider that the so-called massacre, as Walker referred to it, in Racak was in fact that ethnic cleansing of Albanians before the war?

JUDGE MAY: No. That's a matter which we're going to have to deal with. We're going to have to consider that. ⁵²³⁵ Now, is there any other question that you want to ask arising from what Judge Kwon said?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. How many Albanians -- before the NATO aggression started, how many Albanians were killed in Kosovo by, as you claim, the forces of Serbia and Yugoslavia? How many Albanians at all died in Kosovo before the war began?

A. Not -- I'm not -- it wasn't a question of killing but that they were expelled from their homes, their passports were torn up, all these things. So not just killings. They were expelled from their houses, their ID papers and passports were torn up to destroy their identity and similar things. Of course, the Serb forces did not fully fulfil your wishes, thank God.

Q. Do you know that at that time, that is to say until the beginning of the war, there was the Verification Mission present in Kosovo, the OSCE one? Are you aware of that?

A. Well, you called their results false. Now, if you recognise them now, there's no problem.

Q. I'm talking about the Verification Mission and their presence in Kosovo. And as you know very well, there is no ethnic cleansing and everything that you're claiming there. There were 1.300 verifiers there.

A. As far as I know, in their reports and in your talks to Yeltsin and other statesmen, massacres were always mentioned and expulsions as well. They weren't always killings. At the Cicavica plant in the Kosovo part of Kopaonik and after Junik was returned, that was what triggered off ⁵²³⁶ this wave of refugees to Albania, and Albania refugees and in Montenegro. So the Serb forces did not carry out all your orders and that serves to their honour.

Q. And do you know, for example, that all of the foreign politicians so far said that Racak was in fact what triggered off the whole --

JUDGE MAY: No. I'm not going to continue this. That's a comment which you make frequently, and it's of no help putting it again. The registrar wishes to make a correction about Defence exhibits.

THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. The letter from the Ministry of Internal Affairs is actually D12, and the statement by New Democracy dated 14 May 2002 is D13.

JUDGE MAY: Thank you. Mr. Tanic, our procedures do not allow for statements by witnesses. I understand that there are some documents which you wish to hand over. The way to do that is to give them to the Prosecution. You could now speak to the Prosecution since your evidence is over. Give them to the Prosecution, and they can then deal with them and put them in front of the Court as need be.

That concludes your evidence. Thank you for coming to the Tribunal to give it. You are free to go.

We will adjourn now for 20 minutes.

[The witness withdrew]

--- Recess taken at 12.18 p.m.

--- On resuming at 12.45 p.m.

THE ACCUSED: Mr. May, can I -- ⁵²³⁷

JUDGE MAY: Just one moment. Let's get the -- I thought the witness was going to be in. We've been a very long time during this break.

MR. RYNEVELD: Sorry, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: I thought the witness was going to be in.

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honour, during the break, I have been supplied with a bunch of documents from the last witness. As you know, once a witness leaves --

JUDGE MAY: I said he was to give them to you. Mr. Ryneveld, what do you want to do with them?

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honour, we will present these documents to the Court in due course. In the interim and in fairness, I have on the ELMO at the moment, subject to the Court's permission, three photographs which the Court ought see at this particular point since this witness's -- since the previous witness's evidence has been questioned. They're photographs that show him in the company of Mr. Milosevic, in the company of Mr. Mihajlovic, and in the company of Mr. Milutinovic. In just one second, I've shown them both to the amici and to the accused. The issue of his credibility is for this Court, but I would submit that it's important that it be shown immediately that some of the things that he's been testifying to are in fact borne out in documentary fashion. That is in addition to documents we will be presenting in due course by leave of the Court.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We've seen the documents, the photographs. Thank you. ⁵²³⁸ Yes, Mr. Milosevic, what do you want to say?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I first say something with respect to those photographs, as the other side mentioned them, brought them up?

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, that photograph, for example, where you can see the reception of the Novo Demokratija delegation, that particular photograph showing the reception indicates what I said, that it was a delegation that numbered numerous people. And as you can see, Mr. Tanic was escorting this delegation, which is borne out by his position in the photograph. And I suppose they used him to bring in some books or pictures or something else that they needed. So there's no question of a meeting between himself, myself, and Mihajlovic, but it was a mass reception of the delegation of the Novo Demokratija Party. And at any rate, we heard the opposite side presenting a series of evidence here that proves nothing except that he was an employee of the Novo Demokratija Party in the capacity of --

JUDGE MAY: You can present evidence on it in due course. Meanwhile, we've seen the photographs, we will have them exhibited. Next Prosecution exhibit number, please.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I also have an answer, a response to the question asked by Mr. Robinson, and I wasn't able to answer him because I did not have knowledge of the legal rules, but in the break, I have procured the answer, the exact answer to his question. According to the district court procedure and rules, I'm talking ⁵²³⁹ about Belgrade, Article 199, paragraph 3 says that if somebody is convicted in a trial, according to legal proceedings, and receives a prison sentence of up to one year, this material is kept for a period of ten years. All the papers are kept for a period of ten years, after which they are destroyed. But a permanent record is kept of them for the purposes of the court. So it is completely uncontestable what it says in the attestation given by the district court which I supplied in the original. It is quite clear that Mr. Tanic was found guilty for the crime of robbery and --

JUDGE MAY: We have the explanation.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. All right. If you have that, then let me move on to my next objection, and that has to do with the forthcoming witness, Dr. Eric Baccard. What I want to say is this: You have assumed the position with respect to 38 registers, and I see that there is an enormous amount of physical work done here by the employees of the Tribunal, bringing in piles of files and binders, and you concluded that these 38 binders were a component part of his report. So in that sense, I have an objection to make with respect to your own rules and regulations, because I consider --

JUDGE MAY: Let us find out what the binders are here for from the Prosecution and then we can hear any objections.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please. May I just explain what I wanted to say, what I wanted to make as an objection? Those 38 binders, they are heavy binders, were sent to me in the English language, the English version, and I think that not even an ⁵²⁴⁰ average literate English man, with respect to the professional terminology used, is not able to read through all that material. And according to your own Rules of Procedure and Evidence, you were duty-bound to supply me with them in the Serbian language because an expert report and finding must be also looked into by my professional associates and not by me alone. And that is why I consider that the cross-examination of this witness can only refer to his report per se, whereas all the other 38 binders --

JUDGE MAY: Yes. That is the only material but for some reason, which we haven't yet been enlightened, other documents have been brought in. Let's hear what they're here for and then we can go further from there. But at the moment we know no more about it.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you, Your Honour. I was about to do that. I might say, Your Honour, there have -- you will recall a discussion with the Prosecution some time ago in open court at which time Mr. Nice outlined the fact that there were a number of binders by municipality that would be of assistance to the Court. The Court made a ruling with respect to what could and could not be contained in those binders, and those binders have now been edited in accordance with the Chamber's ruling as given by Judge Robinson on behalf of the Chamber. These are for the various 12 what have been referred to as killing sites, and they contain a compendium of the material that has been viewed by the Court, at least with respect to -- I believe the Court looked at one sample municipality binder, Bela Crkva. These are now the balance of the binders for the additional municipalities. ⁵²⁴¹ It made sense, in our respectful submission, that these binders be tendered at this particular time, (a), because we said we would do that as quickly as possible and people have been feverishly working to get this done, and (b), because it relates to the evidence of our expert witness, Dr. Eric Baccard.

Dr. Baccard is the forensic pathologist who reviewed all of the various exhumation and pathology reports. He was the supervisor of the pathologists, the various teams who conducted all of the autopsies for these various municipalities. His report was prepared and has been tendered. A copy of all this documentation was given to the accused in black and white prior to the commencement of the trial. He's had this since February.

The --

JUDGE MAY: So that he can follow this --

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes.

JUDGE MAY: -- this is all material which has been disclosed.

MR. RYNEVELD: Correct.

JUDGE MAY: All that has happened is that this documentation has been collected and put into binders relating to each place.

MR. RYNEVELD: Correct. For ease of reference, municipality by municipality, as the Court indicated its preference.

JUDGE MAY: It contains no new material; is that right?

MR. RYNEVELD: Correct, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: And indeed we did rule, not very long ago, that we would admit these binders for ease of reference. ⁵²⁴² Now, just dealing with Dr. Baccard, the idea, presumably, is that he will refer to his own reports.

MR. RYNEVELD: That's correct. But in his report, and just so that the Court, again for ease of reference, this is a potentially tedious and lengthy process. In order to do this as quickly and efficiently and as logical as possible, it was my suggestion that we put the binders in, have them marked as exhibits, dealing with Dr. Baccard, and supply the Court with an index for each site in his report to the tab numbers in the municipal site. In other words, that is the source material for his report.

I intend to deal with Dr. Baccard only with respect to his report, and the source material will be referenced to the Court in case the court wants to refer to the actual reports by tab number. For example, if we deal with, say, Bela Crkva site, we have an index for Bela Crkva. It's two binders, and it deals at tab 8 with the British forensic team exhumation report. That goes site by site, how many binders, and exactly what tab number refers to references in Dr. Baccard's report and its table of contents. That, we thought was the most efficient way to deal with it. Unless the Court has a preference for me to do it piecemeal and one by one. We'll be here quite awhile if I have to do that.

JUDGE MAY: So that we have the position fully, all this material has been disclosed?

MR. RYNEVELD: That's correct, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: You have arranged it in this way and have been allowed ⁵²⁴³ to do so so that not only the Trial Chamber but the parties can find their way around the material. The witness will refer to his reports; is this right?

MR. RYNEVELD: That is correct, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: But only if there is a requirement to look at some original which is referred to in the report will it be necessary to look at these binders.

MR. RYNEVELD: Absolutely correct. It may be that those binders will not have to be touched during the course of my examination of this witness.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Very well. Thank you.

MR. KAY: Your Honour, sorry to interrupt, but it may be that we have an understanding of this problem. It's the translation of the material within those binders that has been the problem for the accused. The disclosure has been in the English language. I know for our part that Mr. Tapuskovic has had to have the binders translated to him by his assistant from the English language to the B/C/S.

JUDGE MAY: It's all been disclosed, as I understand it. These binders contain nothing new. That's the crucial point.

MR. KAY: Not in the B/C/S, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you've heard the debate. The binders contain nothing new; they merely contain documents which have been disclosed before. The witness will give evidence from his report, and can be cross-examined about it.

If some issue arises about nondisclosure in B/C/S, then we'll ⁵²⁴⁴ listen to it at the time, but for the moment, we will go on, and we'll deal with the report. The binders are a complete side issue at the moment.

Yes. Let's call the evidence.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I state something further, please, another piece of information? The binders or, rather, the documents were given in colour only on Friday. For professionals to examine these, it makes a difference whether the photographs are in black and white or in colour, and when they were supplied, because professionals are not able to examine them, black and white differs from colour. Now, as none of these binders have been provided in the Serbian language and in view of the fact that on Friday, that is to say --

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, stop. There is a confusion here. The binders are not new material. They are old material which has been arranged in a different way for the convenience of all, including your side, so that when you come to a particular site, you will have all the evidence about it.

Now, let us not continue this argument. You've had, I suspect, a long time to prepare for it. Now we'll have -- I think we don't have a number for those last photographs. We'll have a number for them and then we'll have the witness.

THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. The three photographs will be marked Prosecutor's Exhibit 155.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please. May I say what I --

JUDGE MAY: No. No. You've made your point. Let us call the ⁵²⁴⁵ witness. We have now wasted 20 minutes and more with argument. Let us call the witness, and if there are difficulties about it and examination of him, we'll hear you in due course, but let's hear his evidence.

MR. RYNEVELD: I call Dr. Eric Baccard. And while we're awaiting his arrival, I might just add that Dr. Baccard's report has also been disclosed in B/C/S.

[The witness entered court]

JUDGE MAY: Would you take the declaration, please. Yes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

JUDGE MAY: If you'd like to take a seat.

WITNESS: ERIC BACCARD

[Witness answered through interpreter] Examined by Mr. Ryneveld:

Q. Dr. Baccard, I understand, sir, that you are the chief forensic pathologist for the ICTY in Kosovo, and you've been acting as a consultant to the ICTY; is that correct?

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. You've been a medical doctor since 1981?

A. Yes, that's also correct.

Q. You received your speciality in pathology in 1985?

A. Yes, that's correct. I received that in 1985, but I had begun it much earlier than that.

Q. Yes. You had some subspecialties as well, and in 1980, you received a speciality in evaluation of bodily damage; is that correct? ^{5246 BLANK PAGE 5247}

A. Yes. That's what we call the evaluation of bodily damage.

Q. Yes. And you've also completed a speciality in forensic criminalistics, which includes such things as DNA, the forensic criminal aspects of pathology?

A. Yes. The diploma was issued in Paris and is known as a diploma in criminology.

Q. All right. And, sir, you also received your diploma in wound ballistics in 1994; is that correct?

A. Yes. I think that must -- it must have been that year. Yes, it was a diploma from the faculty of medicine of Marseilles, and I was in the top of my class.

Q. Now, Dr. Baccard, I understand that as part of your report, you have submitted your curriculum vitae at page 80 of your 154-page report; is that correct?

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. Very, very briefly, sir, so that the Court understands some background as well, you are not only a forensic pathologist but a wound ballistics expert for France; is that correct?

A. Yes. I am an expert in forensic medicine, and an expert as well for the Cour de Cassation, the only expert at that court in France, authorised by that court as a forensic pathologist with specialisation in ballistics, ballistic wounds.

Q. Over the years since you developed your expertise, are you able to estimate how many written expert reports you may have submitted to various courts in your home country of France? ⁵²⁴⁸

A. Well, it would be difficult to give you an exact figure. I think it must be several thousand.

Q. And, sir, have you been permitted by the courts -- qualified as an expert and allowed to express opinions in oral testimony in the courts of France concerning your field of expertise?

A. Yes. I am on the list of experts for the appeals court of Grenoble and, as I said, I am on the national list of experts with authorisation or qualification from the Cour de Cassation.

Q. All right. Sir, turning to your work history with respect to matters of the Balkans conflict, I understand that you were the chief forensic pathologist for the ICTY in Kosovo in March of 2000; is that correct?

A. Yes, that's correct. I worked also with the Office of the Prosecutor in 1999 in Visoko in Bosnia and then in Zagreb in Croatia as a forensic pathologist. In March of 2000 that I took over the direction of the Orahovac morgue.

Q. And when you say you took over the direction of the Orahovac morgue, were you in charge of a number of forensic pathologists who were conducting the autopsies? Were you the chief pathologist?

A. Yes, that's correct. When I talk about being in charge, I'm talking about scientific responsibility, and as such, my responsibilities were also myself to carry out, to perform autopsies and also to personally supervise the work carried out by my various foreign colleagues who came to the ICTY morgue in Orahovac in 2000, as they would come one by one.

Q. Now, sir, I take it then during the course of your duties you ⁵²⁴⁹ reviewed a number of reports prepared by these different international teams of pathologists; is that correct?

A. Yes, that's correct. Not only did I supervise the performance of the autopsies in 2000 in Orahovac, but I also reread all of the reports that have been drafted by my colleagues during that period.

Q. Dealing very briefly with the methodology that you used in compiling your report, are you able to give the Court an indication as to how many sites and subsites there may have been into which you have, shall we say, divided your report?

A. Yes. The sites are listed in my report on page 9. These are the sites at Bela Crkva, Djakovica, the Milos Gilic Street incident, Djakovica the incident on Ymer Grezda Street, in Dubrava in the Dubrava prison, in Izbica, in Kotlina, in Krusha e Vogel, in Padalishte, in Racak, in Stagovo, Studime e Eperme, in Suva Reka and Vata.

Q. Am I correct, sir, in saying that there were some 11 main sites of which one had four subsites, in your report?

A. Yes, that's correct. Yes, that's correct.

Q. All right. Now, sir, is it my understanding that all of the bodies, wherever they were found, would have been transported to the mortuaries in Orahovac where you were working, apart from the ones that were in Pristina?

A. In referring to the year -- the mission for 2000, yes. For 1999, no.

Q. All right. In 1999, where were they?

A. The bodies were autopsied in morgues, either official morgues or ⁵²⁵⁰ improvised ones, and carried out by the various international pathologist teams and the location of the autopsies is indicated for each site in my report.

Q. All right. Now, sir, perhaps we can just give the Court a thumbnail sketch as to how it is that you went about preparing your report. I take it that you received individual pathology reports from the various international teams that had performed autopsies from various sites; is that correct?

A. Yes, that's correct. The first task that I had to carry out was to identify what the sources of information in terms of forensic medicine existed to which I could refer.

Q. Yes.

A. That first step thus allowed us to bring out several documents on which I could base my analysis. I am referring now to the autopsy reports but also to the anthropological expertise reports, the examination reports on crime sites -- at crime sites, the albums of photographs and both photographs that were taken during the autopsies and/or photographs taken on site, and sometimes as well there was testimony of witnesses. In one specific case, which is the case of Izbica, in addition to the documents previously listed, I worked from a copy of the video cassette and photographs which had been extracted from that video cassette.

Q. Just so that we're clear, sir, these reports that you had available to you were complete reports with photographs, et cetera, and you're aware that they have now been placed into various binders by site; is that correct? ⁵²⁵¹

A. The reports were, in fact, reports that were more or less complete because each international team had its own way of working, and the reports were accompanied with the photographs, of course. And I know that the reports were put into binders on which I worked.

Q. And just so that we're clear, the reference to certain reports are contained in your report, and they refer to the individual reports prepared by other forensic teams which you examined, reviewed, and commented upon; is that correct?

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. Sir, you carried out, as I understand it, a rather exhaustive review of all of these reports. That took you approximately six months or so?

A. I think that we could say that it was an average of about six months. Six months of work that I did.

Q. And where you found errors or discrepancies or issues that you did not agree with or were not supported in your review, did you make a note of those observations in your report to the Court?

A. Yes. That's true. Also when I spoke about the first stage of the methodology that was used, that is to -- to go through the various documents I had available to me, that stage was then followed by another one which was to read the reports prepared by my colleagues and to compare them with the other reports that had been made by crime scene technicians and to compare them to the photographs that were taken at the time of the autopsies and on the sites.

In the annex of this report, there are several documents which ⁵²⁵² point out to discrepancies I might have -- that I sometimes noted during the comparative study.

Q. So where you found discrepancies between the report and your own observations, you would have made a note of them in your report; is that correct?

A. Yes, that's correct. And the contradictions are pointed out in the annex.

Q. All right. Now, you mention that there was one somewhat unusual site in the sense that the bodies had not been autopsied themselves, I take it. Is that correct? I'm referring, of course, to Izbica.

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. How did that site differ from the other sites?

A. I'll speak of the difference only in respect on the level of how my report was drafted and not in respect of observations that might have been made on site. As regarded my work, available to me I had only fragmentary information, because the evaluation reports that were performed -- evaluations carried out by the French team on site had not been based on the performance of autopsies but, rather, on an examination of the crime scene and examinations of vestiages of clothing and weapons, munitions remnants, and sources of information which came from that traditional way of working was rather reduced.

Fortunately, I was given, as I said initially, I was given a video cassette which showed bodies, and that video cassette and the photographs extracted from it were, among other things, some of the things which allowed me to give a forensic interpretation in respect of the photographs ⁵²⁵³ that I examined.

Q. Just to summarise, if I may, the reason there were no autopsies performed on the bodies that were to be at the Izbica site is because the bodies were not there; is that correct? They had been removed?

A. That's right. The observations made by the French team and which appear in the report refer to exhumations after an initial burial. Therefore, exhumation of bodies which explains that at the time of the evaluative work carried out by the French team, no body was found except for some human remains which were, as well as signs of exhumation which had been carried out beforehand.

Q. What you did have available to you is a video of the bodies that were sort of in place, supposedly at that particular scene, taken before the initial burial; is that correct?

A. Yes. The video cassette that I reviewed, along with the photographs that had been extracted from that video cassette, showed the presence of several bodies. I had no forensic pathologist with me with the technical possibilities to determine whether this was a place where an execution had been carried out or not.

Q. And you conducted your assessment of these bodies by means of the -- both the video and the still photographs taken from that video; is that correct?

A. Yes, that's correct. In my report, I also mentioned the observations made by the French expert team, in particular as regards the ^T clothing or bits of clothing that were exhumed during the crime scene ⁵²⁵⁴ evaluation.

Q. Sir, is this method that you were forced to adopt in this particular instance, i.e., making your diagnoses, as it were, from photos and videos, is that an accepted pathological -- within your field of pathology, is that an accepted method and are there some limitations on that method if it is in fact an accepted method?

A. As regards, first of all, the frequency with which that method is used, I would say that it is not part of the so-called routine evaluations. However, it is used rather often. In particular during my work in France, sometimes Judges designate us as experts in order to carry out an analysis on the basis of photographic documents or videos showing bodies of victims. That's the first point.

The second point is that I also used this method in other -- under other circumstances, and I am referring here to a mission that I carried out for the United Nations investigation commission in the Ivory Coast in March and April of 2001, that is last year, where in the absence of access authorisation for the expert team, access to the bodies, that is, we worked from documents, video documents and photographic documents. And so in fact, that is a method which is used.

However, one must clearly indicate what the limits of this method are. In no case can there be, for us, a question of claiming that that method is a real evaluation. It is only an information -- a forensic information element like any other when we do not have the body. And then in that case, it is necessary to have -- to use the information which is provided to us. ⁵²⁵⁵

Q. One final question on the methodology, sir. Was this also used by you, this method, in any other investigations where you were a pathologist before any other Tribunal?

A. That's what I was saying. In France, on several occasions I used this type of method at the request of Judges who designated me as an expert.

Q. Yes. I'm sorry. I didn't -- my question wasn't specific enough. Were you involved in an investigation into deaths in the Ivory Coast?

A. Yes, that's true, I was.

Q. And did you have to adopt a similar methodology in that particular instance and was that accepted?

A. Yes, absolutely. That method was accepted, and it was the subject of the annex to the report of the United Nations international investigation committee for -- commission for the Ivory Coast.

Q. Dr. Baccard, your report speaks for itself, but I would ask that you perhaps just deal with some of the conclusions that you came to with respect to the various sites, if I may, at this time.

MR. RYNEVELD: But before I do that, I wonder, Your Honours, whether I should officially ask to have those binders marked and provide the Court with an index to Dr. Baccard's report, for ease of reference. And then I'm going to ask that the doctor turn to the conclusions starting at page 15 of his report, and I'm just going to ask a few questions and then turn him over for cross.

JUDGE MAY: We will admit the binders. How do you propose to go about it, numbering them? ⁵²⁵⁶

MR. RYNEVELD: Well -- excuse me.

[Prosecution counsel confer]

MR. RYNEVELD: I'm asked if I could recommend to the Court that we mark them as one number per site.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. RYNEVELD: And then if we do them in the order of this index, starting with Racak, as you'll see from the index that it has two binders, so if we have a number with two separate binders, we're going to be dealing with tab 6, 11, and 12. Those would be in those binders. And then we move on to Bela Crkva, which is a two-binder site; then Krusha e Vogel, et cetera, et cetera. If we go with the index, then we're not going back and forth.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let's have the index, please.

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes. I've just been reminded that each site has various binders. Racak, for example, has five binders and each of the tabs per site goes in chronological order. We go to a new site, we start with a new number 1, as it were.

So do you have copies of the index? Ah, it's being passed out now.

So if you have this index in front you, I think this might be an easy way to keep everything logical. That is, if we start with the Racak binders and give that a number, and then you'll see in binder 1 we have reference to tab 6, and in binder 2 we have reference to tabs 11 and 12, and they're identified in the report what they're about. Binders 3, 4, and 5 have two tabs, 13 and 14, which are relevant to this report. Then ⁵²⁵⁷ we get the next number, which would be Bela Crkva municipality, and give that a different number, et cetera, and go through the report in that -- in that way.

JUDGE MAY: Let us give each binder, I suggest, a different exhibit number.

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes.

JUDGE MAY: And perhaps the registrar would do that now, beginning with the next Prosecution exhibit number, give it Racak binder 1 and then go on binder 2, et cetera. Between you, perhaps, Mr. Ryneveld, you would get them numbered. Let's do that now.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you. The general order that they will be admitted and numbers will be assigned, I don't -- do you want to do that now?

JUDGE MAY: Yes, let's do it now, then it's done.

THE REGISTRAR: I recommend you name this municipality and I'll just number it.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you. The Racak municipality.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be Prosecutor's Exhibit 156.

MR. RYNEVELD: Consisting of five binders. Bela Crkva, Orahovac municipality

THE REGISTRAR: That will be Prosecutor's Exhibit 157.

MR. RYNEVELD: Krusha e Vogel, Malekrusa, Prizren municipality.

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit 158.

MR. RYNEVELD: Djakovica, the Ymer Grezda, in Djakovica municipality. ⁵²⁵⁸

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit 159.

MR. RYNEVELD: Djakovica, Millosh Gillic Street of the Djakovica municipality.

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit 160.

MR. RYNEVELD: Padalishte, the Istok municipality.

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit 161.

MR. RYNEVELD: Izbica of the Srbica municipality.

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit 162.

MR. RYNEVELD: Kacanik, Kacanik municipality.

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit 163.

MR. RYNEVELD: There are, I believe, four subbinders there. One would be Kotlina. The second --

THE REGISTRAR: 1 --

MR. RYNEVELD: Go ahead.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be Prosecutor's Exhibit 163.1.

MR. RYNEVELD: Dubrava, Dubrava.

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit 163.2.

MR. RYNEVELD: Vata.

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit 163.3.

MR. RYNEVELD: Stagovo.

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit 163.4.

MR. RYNEVELD: Moving on to a new number, Studime e Eperme of the Vushitrn municipality.

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit 164.

MR. RYNEVELD: Dubrava Prison, of the Istok municipality ^{5259 BLANK PAGE 5260}

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit 165.

MR. RYNEVELD: And finally, Suva Reka, of the Suva Reka municipality.

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit 166.

MR. RYNEVELD: We appear to be must -- missing one from the index. I don't know where it went, but we're missing Meja. So we will -- can we make Meja the final one, and I think the binders are there but the page isn't. It's in Djakovica municipality. Can we assign it a number because the binders are here and we will provide an extra page of the index.

THE REGISTRAR: Within Djakovica, is that what you said?

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes.

THE REGISTRAR: So that will be 160.1.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you.

Q. Now, Doctor, do you have a copy of your report with you, and before you turn to it, we can ask permission --

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, in view of the fact that this is an expert witness, might the witness be allowed to refer to his report?

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you.

Q. Do you have your report, Doctor? Very, very briefly, Doctor, in the time remaining to us, dealing with Bela Crkva, which you have at page 15, your conclusions at 1.4.1, I understand that this is a British forensic team who performed the initial 54 examinations. Are you able to tell us how many identified victims there were?

A. In terms of the problem of identification, one must distinguish ⁵²⁶¹ two things: First of all, the identification at the time that the autopsies were performed and identifications which were made subsequently as the investigation continued.

As regards the percentage of identifications that appear in my report, I'm referring only to identifications that were made at the time that the autopsies were performed and at the time that the reports were drafted.

So to answer your question, the British team, directed by Peter Vanezis, carried out 54 post-mortem examinations on 42 identified victims.

Q. And were there also some unidentified victims?

A. Twelve at the time that the autopsy was performed. Twelve of the 24 people I autopsied remained unidentified.

Q. Are you able to tell the Court the division of sex or age?

A. As regards distribution by sex, 87 per cent of the victims were males and 13 per cent females. 87 per cent were adults and 13 per cent were children.

Q. Are you able to determine the nature of the cause of death in what percentage of cases?

A. The cause of death that was shown by the British team were gunshot wounds in more than 98 per cent of the cases.

Q. All right. And could you tell in general where the location of the wounds, or in the vast majority? Front, back, side, where?

A. In most of the cases, the anatomical areas that were hit by projectiles was the trunk, that is, the thorax and abdomen, since almost 60 per cent of the gunshot wounds were -- and after that, Professor Peter ⁵²⁶² Vanezis said that the entry points were mostly in the front part of the trunk.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Ryneveld, may I ask Dr. Baccard a question? The conclusions that you have arrived at in your report, taking the British forensic team's report in relation to Bela Crkva as an example, your conclusions are entirely based on the findings in the original report, in this case, the British forensic team report?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In the great majority of cases, yes. But in some cases, the conclusions and figures which appear in my report are figures which in a very discrete manner may vary in respect of those figures appearing in the -- my colleague's report. In some cases, in fact, there were some errors pointed out - for instance, the additions in the number of wounds - and those errors were put into the annex of my report when there is a difference with the statistics which appear in my colleague's report.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Apart from those technical discrepancies, if there was a mistake made in the original report which could only be verified by actual examination at the site of the bodies, for example, would you have been able to detect such a mistake?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes, Your Honour. That was the case under some of the circumstances, thanks to comparison of the description of the wounds which appear in the expert reports, comparisons with the photographs that were taken at the autopsies. I'm thinking about errors of the side where right was left or other interpretations of wounds. That did happen, yes. ⁵²⁶³

JUDGE ROBINSON: What about an error as to the cause of death and as to the -- as to how the wound was inflicted? Would you be able to detect that independently?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As a general rule, yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Continue, Mr. Ryneveld.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you.

Q. In particular, in response to His Honour Judge Robinson's questions, at page 88 of your report, sir, you have itemised remarks about the forensic report of the Bela Crkva site; is that correct? Wait until you find page 88.

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. And there you have, in fact, indicated where you think there are errors in terms of location, description of injuries, precision about the origin of a wound, the location of a wound, whether it's left or right, and a mistake in description of the path and the projectile provoking the gunshot wound; is that correct? You've made -- where you've disagreed, you've made those notations to the Court in your annex, site by site.

A. Yes, that's correct. And when I was unable to decide as to one or other possibility, I indicated that as a kind of a question mark to say that there was a doubt as to that specific point.

Q. And again in response to His Honour Judge Robinson's question as to how you were able to do that, you did have available to you the various photographs of the -- that were taken by the pathologist who prepared the original report, and you had those available to interpret your own examination findings in your review of their report; is that correct? ⁵²⁶⁴

A. Yes, that's correct. The list of documents on which I relied for my analysis and the summary of the reports was indicated exhaustively and in a limiting manner, indicating each of the paragraphs which was devoted to each site.

Q. And for example, for the Bela Crkva site, those photographs would have been contained at tab 8 of the binder for Bela Crkva and those photographs were part of the British report; is that correct?

A. I would ask you to repeat the description of the document in binder 8.

Q. Well, I'm just giving as an example, as a general way --

A. So I can check.

Q. For Bela Crkva, those have now been placed -- the report with photographs have been placed in two binders. In those binders, there is tab 8 which contains the British forensic team exhumation report. My question to you is: Those photographs that you reviewed would have been part of the British report; is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. I'm going to move on, if I may. Very briefly, sir, for the Djakovica Millosh Gillic Street case, is it right that there were an examination carried out by a US forensic team for at least 20 individuals, one male and the rest female?

A. Could you please repeat the name of the street?

Q. Millosh Gillic Street. I'm referring -- I'm going to go to 1.4.2, page 15.

A. Yes, that's correct. Yes, yes, that's correct. ⁵²⁶⁵

Q. How many of those were, shall we say, children that hadn't quite reached adulthood?

A. The anthropological examinations that were performed by the experts present say that there were 12, 12 which were not adults.

Q. All right. So we have 19 females, one male. Twelve of those were children.

A. Well, not quite. As regards determining -- determining the sex in that file, it appears that my American colleagues were dealing with bodies that were very degraded. Sex could be determined only in one case, and it was a male. It was a male in one case. The others were either women or victims whose sex could not be established.

Q. Sorry. Yes. I didn't -- either female or undetermined, yes. Okay.

Moving on, if I may, to the Djakovica Ymer Grezda Street --

JUDGE MAY: This had better be the last question, Mr. Ryneveld, because of the time.

MR. RYNEVELD: I'm sorry. Yes.

Q. Again, this was a report by a US forensic team; is that correct?

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. And there were six victims, ranging in age from 31 to 72; correct?

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. And the cause of death was by -- by what? Perhaps I should have you tell us what the cause of death was in those cases.

A. The cause of death, as regards the six of them, were wounds to the head caused by gunshot projectiles. ⁵²⁶⁶

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you, Your Honours. That is my last question. I will be very brief with the witness tomorrow and hopefully finish in about 20 minutes.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. We will adjourn now. Dr. Baccard, we have to adjourn. Could you be back, please, tomorrow morning at 9.00 to conclude your evidence. Would you remember in this adjournment and any others there may be not to speak to anybody about your evidence until it's over, and that does include the members of the Prosecution team.

Thank you.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.45 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 22nd day of May, 2002, at 9.00 a.m.