⁸⁴⁰³

Tuesday, 23 July 2002

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Very briefly on timetable: After this witness, there's a witness Radojkovic. On your list, that witness would be followed by K33 and K34. For reasons that we explored a little yesterday, K33 will have to be put back until procedural issues are dealt with, and I understand the lawyers for the Federal Republic are coming up tomorrow morning and perhaps we'll be in a position to argue the matter on Thursday were that otherwise to be convenient.

K34 is not in a position to start today. It simply isn't possible for other reasons. Accordingly, were we to finish both those witnesses whom I've named, it would be necessary to look beyond those K33 and K34. We come to two witnesses, two crime-base witnesses. Jemini, although he's gone through the 92 bis process here, we haven't yet made an application. If I make a formal application now, the matter can at least be dealt with although he's absolutely the sort of witness whose evidence should be given live as to the very matter upon which he's being called here which is conversations overheard. So it may be that he might be subject to 92 bis for part of his evidence.

Then there's Krasniqi, who is in a position to go ahead but we have yet to have a ruling from you in relation to 92 bis. I think the accused has been told this morning by the court ⁸⁴⁰⁴ officer of the possibility of calling one or other of those crime-base witnesses this morning, but I ought to put the matter on the record.

JUDGE MAY: The timetable will be this: The accused will have one hour and three-quarters, up to that time, for cross-examination of this witness.

We have considered Mr. Musa Krasniqi. He deals with new matter which we haven't had evidence about, the prison, and therefore should give evidence live.

The programme we have in mind is that on Thursday, we should hear the submissions about Mr. Lilic. We should also bring forward -- it seemed to us convenient to bring forward the Pre-Trial Conference. So we don't deal with that in a rush, bring that forward to Thursday. I don't know if you've seen the medical report on the accused yet.

MR. NICE: I have, and I was disturbed to discover that it hadn't found its way to the Court by yesterday morning because I assumed you had it in mind, but, yes, I have seen it.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. That clearly is a matter which will need to be addressed, and I would have thought we need to allow an hour and a half for those matters together.

MR. NICE: Certainly. Your Honour, the good news is that we'll probably be less time with K34 than I'd originally thought. So if we start him tomorrow but don't conclude him tomorrow, he may be perhaps, in the vernacular we've been developing, wrapped around the procedural issues on Thursday, concluding on Thursday or Friday, and then I'll lay plans to use any balance of time on Friday. ⁸⁴⁰⁵

JUDGE MAY: Well, he clearly must be finished by Friday, as indeed must any other evidence, of course, that we embark on.

MR. NICE: Yes. Perhaps just by way of forecast, were we to find ourselves with time to spare on Friday, it has occurred to us that it might be useful to revert to the idea that I think came from the Bench of taking the evidence of Philip Coo in chief, which would be a question of going through such parts of the report as need legal argument and perhaps touching on the parts of the report that need explanation in examination-in-chief given that he's otherwise an expert whose report goes in without much examination.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll have the witness.

MR. NICE: Thank you.

[The witness entered court]

WITNESS: DRAGAN KARLEUSA [Resumed]

[Witness answered through interpreter]

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Karleusa, I'm sorry you've been kept waiting. There were some administrative matters we had to deal with. You will now be cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic. We have ruled in your absence that he would have up to, if he requires it, an hour and three-quarters. We will, of course, have the breaks at the usual time.

Could you remember, please, and Mr. Milosevic, could you remember, please, that since you both speak the same language there is a real risk that the interpreters get behind, so would you leave a pause between question and answer.

Yes. ⁸⁴⁰⁶ Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

Q. [Interpretation] The matter that you speak to in your written statement and yesterday during your testimony, all that is based on indirect knowledge, not based on your personal experience but based on what you heard from different people regarding these events which allegedly took place in 1999; is that correct?

A. For the most part, yes.

Q. Your first knowledge about that refrigerator truck, although you had a long career in the Ministry of the Interior, was derived from the article of the "Timok Crime Review" published in 2001.

A. Yes.

Q. Did you also deal with other articles published in the Timok region about the same event with different -- or the same interlocutors but with different conclusions?

A. No.

Q. Did you deal with information published in the "Timok Crime Review" of June 2001 where the diver, Zika Djordjevic, gives a different explanation of the event than the one you gave?

A. I can't remember exactly, but I don't recall that his conclusions were completely opposite to what we found.

Q. He says, "We've opened this refrigerator truck and we found bodies but we don't know how many." He says he doesn't know how many.

A. It's possible that he doesn't know.

Q. So you think that's possible too. And are you aware that at that time, regarding what you've just mentioned, it was published in regard to ⁸⁴⁰⁷ Petrovo Selo that those mass graves date back to 1945 or 1955 when there was some sort of liquidation operation after the Second World War. I don't know what exactly it refers to. Do you know about that?

A. No, I don't. However, our insights and reports were not based to that extent on his statement.

Q. Was it established to what time these graves in Petrovo Selo date back?

A. I don't know whether that has been established, but if it has, that should be in the report of the expert team who carried out the exhumation and post-mortems.

Q. Did you deal with the information published in the newspaper you quote by the same author, published in September 1999 - the author is Vitomirevic - and he says that he had seen a lorry with Swiss licence plates which toppled and had contained bodies, and the bodies allegedly fell out of the refrigerator lorry when it toppled.

A. I don't know about that. There were various stories which circulated about an alleged traffic accident, for instance, and it was said that these bodies found their way into the Danube in that way.

Q. In newspaper Politika, the 20th of May, even before your report, published an interview with a certain Petrovic about a refrigerator lorry falling into the river. Why didn't you deal with that as well? Although he says that you had visited him indeed. This Branislav Petrovic says so.

A. At this moment, I don't know the name of that person. We did talk to one person who allegedly had seen, at least that's what he says, how ⁸⁴⁰⁸ the refrigerator truck fell into the river. However, considering the objective circumstances on the site, as we concluded at that time in that place, it was impossible for the refrigerator truck to fall into the river in the way he describes.

Q. All right. But do you know about this statement - and he says you do - it was published by Politika on the 20th of May, 2001, I quote: "That night in March 1999, I was standing on the shore. About 20 metres away I heard human voices. They carry well across the river at that time. I didn't understand that language, but it wasn't Serbian or Romanian." You know Romania is across the river. He says that the language was neither Serbian nor Romanian. This man is a former smuggler of petrol. And he knows, as he says in this article, very well about the contraband of people across the Danube. Did you hear anything about this?

A. I am familiar with the statement of this person. On site we tried to clarify whether something like that was possible. And I have already said, considering what he said and the way he said it, and viewing the site where he indicated where he was supposedly located at the time, and without making any final conclusions, we thought that it was impossible. And we are familiar with what he stated. He did state it.

Q. As a policeman who dealt with this matter of the refrigerator truck, are you aware that there are cases when our police detected the smuggling of people or illegal aliens hiding in refrigerator trucks or other trucks and which are transported by the -- via the Vidin-Sipikovo canal?

A. Yes, I am aware of that. ⁸⁴⁰⁹

Q. I will read to you just one example from a briefing of the public security office where it says -- state security office. It says: "Via the canal Vidin-Sipikovo transport is taking place. Slobodan Vitomirevic is involved in this --" that is the brother of the author engaged in this crime review -- "Dejan called Zabar, and a certain Marinovic. Using loopholes in the border crossing, and this is a well-used track, used for the transport of gold and arms, the price asked of one person is 500 Deutschmarks."

He further says that: "Three informers from Sipikovo whose names would be notified later regularly inform the chief of police, but so far there had been no reaction." Are you aware of this?

THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters ask the accused kindly to read more slowly.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. I'm not aware of that. I am aware of cases of smuggling of people, but I'm not aware of this particular case.

JUDGE MAY: If you're reading, Mr. Milosevic, would you read more slowly the interpreters ask.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, Mr. May.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. And have you established the following: The author of this article from the Crime Review, which came as an introduction to my transport to The Hague, his brother is involved in this transport and contraband of people and forms part of a criminal group which is involved in the contraband of people, heroin, cigarettes, vehicles, and so on and ⁸⁴¹⁰ so forth. Are you aware of that?

A. No, I'm not. But I know that SUP Zajecar has scored successes in detecting such contraband.

Q. I will read to you again from the report of state security offices, first about the contraband of arms. "Dragan and Slobodan Vitomirevic at this time are in possession of the following revolvers and pistols: Baretta 65, Browning, Walter, Skorpion, Heckler Koch, Colt Cobra revolver, diamond-back rifle of a small calibre with a muffler, grenades. SUP Zajecar has very precise operative information about arms, starting from 1955 to date. All this information has been collected by Goran Tomic together with his associates Mihajlovic and others." And then on 8th July 2001 on border crossing Vrska Cuka, a truck was halted - licence plates are indicated - it had a trailer driven by a Bulgarian driver born in 1958, never mind where. He says the goods were transported for Trnjekovo Enterprise owned by Slavisa and Suzana Milenkovic, engaged in contraband of platinum and the importer was Aler Cis importer, the forwarding agent was Dilertrans. When they were caught, immediately Goran Tomic and this same Goran Vitomirevic showed up, they intervened and the truck was allowed to cross the border. All this information is in the possession of Slobodan Aleksic, chief of state security Zajecar.

Are you aware of this information about the activities of this criminal group and was there any investigation on the part of your working group?

A. Regarding our working group, there has been no investigation nor ⁸⁴¹¹ did we have this information.

Q. So you were not aware of this state of affairs.

A. No.

Q. And did you get the Official Note drafted by the municipal public prosecutor's office in Zajecar, which I have in front of me, where it says: "The public prosecutor's office in Zajecar knows that Slobodan Vitomirevic is a recidivist -" which means that he has a long police record - "and apart from that, the public prosecutor's office in Zajecar is informed that Slobodan Vitomirevic is heading a group involving Miroslav Marinovic, a man nicknamed Zabar, and others which is bringing cigarettes and other goods smuggled in large quantities into the area of Zajecar. An order has been issued to verify this information." This is an Official Note of the public prosecutor's office in Zajecar dated, as you see, year 2001. I will provide it to be included into the evidence if it is accepted because anything I offer or tender is rarely accepted, but that is their problem.

Are you aware of this Official Note, of this report?

A. No, I'm not.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you're not getting away with that. That is not true, as you well know. Many of your exhibits have been accepted if they are admissible. Now, if you want to put this document in and if it's relevant, first of all, and if it's admissible, of course it will be exhibited.

Perhaps the usher could go and get it, please.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What we're talking about here is a ⁸⁴¹² criminal group which has all the strings in its hands, including those controlling the contraband and smuggling of people, and they practically did not involve a witness who could tell them whether it was their refrigerator truck containing people who had drowned in a refrigerator truck that had toppled and fell into the river, which they later, with the help of their agents in the police and elsewhere, presented differently in a media story.

Let's go on, however.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You said that General Djordjevic told you what happened happened --

JUDGE MAY: No. Let the witness deal with the matter because it's serious.

What is being suggested is that this truck did not contain corpses from Kosovo but was in fact part of an operation to smuggle people, and so the identification with Kosovo is incorrect.

Now, Mr. Karleusa, you carried out this investigation. Would you like to comment on the suggestion which is now made, that you're mistaken about this and really this was just part of a smuggling operation.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In our documents, that is the documents of the working group, there are Official Notes which reflect what our interlocutors, possible eyewitnesses, and other people who may have been involved had told us. Based on those documents, we drafted two communiques which we presented to the public. We did not go at that moment into any conclusions as to whether those corpses belonged to people ⁸⁴¹³ of Albanian nationality or not, whether they were from Kosovo or not. Instead, judging from all we could see on the site, we accepted that, and we concluded, for instance, the following: Judging by the lettering on the truck, Prizren Exporting Slaughterhouse Progres, we thought that it might have been from Kosovo. We did not make any judgements about the origins of the corpses.

We also tried to look for other facts which could corroborate this indicia about the possibility that the people came from Kosovo. We waited for the exhumations to be completed. But we said that once the bodies are exhumed and autopsies carried out, it will be possible at that later stage to establish where those people came from.

In the communiques, we said we had no basis for concluding that the corpses belonged to people who came from Kosovo. We said we needed to establish relevant facts first, which would probably indicate the origin of those people.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Can I continue, Mr. May?

JUDGE MAY: Well, in fact, the witness should go on to deal with this: Did you then have information as to where the corpses came from after the exhumation?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I would like to point out that according to the results that were obtained by the expert team that carried out the exhumation in the territory of Batajnica, and we know from before or, rather, we have information from persons who transported these bodies to Batajnica, that that is where they were buried as well. According to the report of the expert team, we did not come to the ⁸⁴¹⁴ conclusion that these were bodies that were transported from Tekija or, rather, from the refrigerator truck mentioned. That can be concluded on the basis of the characteristics that we got from eyewitnesses or, rather, from the technician who worked then and who works now and who was on the site itself. And he could give us a description of the bodies, the structure, rather, the number of men, women, children respectively, and also the number of objects that were found there, and they were all buried together. Therefore, we do not know where these bodies actually come from.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. SHIN: Just to deal quickly with the document provided by Mr. Milosevic. The Prosecution notes that we are not able to deal with this right now because it is only in Serbian, without a translation. One minor observation; there's a fax line across the top indicating the date of August 16th, 1999, whereas it appears that the document is from August 21, 2001. There may very well be a simple explanation for that.

JUDGE MAY: Mark it for identification and it can be translated. Yes. Judge Kwon suggests rightly; let's put that to the witness and can he help.

Mr. Karleusa, could you just have a look at that. If you've got any comment about it, perhaps you could make it.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Approximately Mr. Milosevic did read some segments from this text, this document of the public prosecutor's office of the municipality of Zajecar. As I said already, I did not see this. I did not hear about this either. ⁸⁴¹⁵ The document is dated the 21st of August, 2001.

I don't know what else I should say in relation to this.

JUDGE MAY: It's the sort of document you've seen before, is it?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have seen similar documents before. This is the form used to compile Official Notes by public prosecutors offices, the police, et cetera. However, I have not seen this note, and I'm not aware of its contents.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. Thank you very much. If we get an exhibit -- just a moment. Let's get an exhibit mark for it.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be marked Defence Exhibit D27, actually marked for identification.

JUDGE MAY: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I hope, Mr. Karleusa, that you have noticed that at the end there is a stamp and a signature, that is to say, of the public prosecutor.

A. Yes.

Q. I mean it is a regular type of Official Note compiled by the public prosecutor's office as usual. Registered, signed, sealed, and stamped. I hope that you managed to see that much.

A. Since this is a fax and since the elements that you are referring to can be seen, it is possible that it may be so.

Q. In your statement, you said that General Djordjevic said to you, "What happened, happened." If that is true, then why did you state in your interview that you gave on the 1st of November to the newspaper Vreme that Djordjevic did not say anything to you? I have a quotation here. ⁸⁴¹⁶ They ask you about Djordjevic, and your answer reads as follows: "Yes. We tried to get in touch with him. He had been retired. While I still did not know what was going on, I called him," and then you quote yourself, "Rodjo, come, I have a truck and rumour has it that it has something to do with the police. And when he came, I asked him --" again you're quoting yourself -- "Do you know anything about the refrigerator truck? He mumbled something. He didn't really say anything to me." Full stop.

Is that right or is that not right?

A. That is what was written by the journalist who talked to me. However, the truth is what I said in my statement and in my testimony here before the Court.

As for journalists, I may have said things to them, and I may have not said things to them. And whether they correctly transmitted it or not, I don't know. I don't know whether I told them exactly the same things I said before the Court, but sometimes I tell journalists a bit less, sometimes I tell them a bit more.

Q. All right. But do explain this to me: What does it mean you -- I mean, I keep saying your Official Note, but I don't mean you personally, it's some kind of working group that signs this. And the Official Note is signed on the 15th of May, the interview with Milan Stevanovic which you submitted here as evidence. What does it mean that Frenki's men and others were there? I mean, what's the point of that statement? Are you trying to link them up with what you have been claiming here?

A. I wish to give you a twofold answer. First of all, I did not ⁸⁴¹⁷ submit a single document. That document was submitted by the court. And how the court obtained that was for the Court to say, and they did.

Q. Excuse me for interrupting, but for all these documents that are here attached to your statement were not attached by you but they were attached by this other side over there; is that right?

A. I submitted these reports like all others with an appropriate letter of the Ministry of the Interior and the then administration of the crime police where I was deputy head. We sent all of that to the public prosecutor's office. That is the truth.

Can I give you a further explanation and answer? What is recorded in the Official Note is not what we stated. That is what the person we interviewed stated. Whether that is correct or not is something that has to be dealt with through future checks and the checks that were carried out then.

Q. All right. When you took statements from various people, you did not really take anything in writing or, rather, did you not take signed statements. Why not?

A. Because it was our assessment that we should work this way. Later, if necessary, statements could have been taken subsequently in the form stipulated by Article 151 on the Law on Criminal Procedure. We decided to do that by way of Official Notes because this was police working material.

Q. So it is your testimony that you are giving here only on the basis of police working materials.

A. Yes. On the basis of what we did, on the basis of what we heard, ⁸⁴¹⁸ and on the basis of what we obtained perhaps through the checks that we conducted after interviewing people and maybe these checks corroborated this.

Q. Do you know that this is within the province of work of the investigating judge?

A. At that time, we did not have any request put forth by the investigating judge, because the investigating judge had no knowledge about this. It was only later in relation to the knowledge that we obtained, when we obtained certain indicia, that is, and when voluminous material was compiled - I'm referring to Official Notes - it was only then that the public prosecutor's office was informed and the investigating judge, et cetera, as I have already said.

Q. All right. So what you have been saying is that all these statements that you compiled were not signed, and you sent them to the public prosecutor in Belgrade and then the public prosecutor started dealing with this matter and that's all; is that right?

A. I told you, we did not submit statements. These are Official Notes conducted by the police, and they contain what people said during their interviews. As for what we had, we submitted that to the office of the prosecutor.

Q. All right. In your statement, on page 2, paragraph 5, you say that only a few days after the article appeared on the 1st of May, you were invited to a meeting and you were informed that a working group would be established with the assignment of establishing relevant facts that had to do with the refrigerator truck. However, already on the 25th of May, ⁸⁴¹⁹ that is to say the very same month, after about two weeks, as far as I can tell, I mean after the working group was established, you already gave a press release where you presented the facts that you allegedly had ascertained. Is that correct?

A. I was not informed that a working group would be formed. I got instructions through General Sreten Lukic, and the instructions were actually given by the minister to have a working group established, and this was done. And it was not only two weeks that had gone by, much more than that. I would like to point out that the working group straight away started carrying out activities related to this matter, and that was about 20 days, it was not two weeks, as you had put it.

Q. All right. Let it be three weeks, Mr. Karleusa, but it is not being contested that the working group was established in the beginning of May and that your press release about what you allegedly found out was released on the 25th of May. That is what is here within these dates. So if the working group was established only in May and if you did not have formal statements, if you only made these notes and you submitted all of that to the office of the prosecutor, then why did you hastily make such statements, press releases? Is this the usual practice?

A. If you look at the dates, if you look at the dates when the interviews were carried out or, rather, if you look at the dates on the Official Notes, you can see that this was considerably earlier, not when the press release was made. The entire documentation in this regard was not submitted in the month of May to the office of the prosecutor but considerably later, and we then gathered what we call information, and ⁸⁴²⁰ then we carried out checks with regard to what we had learned. What we had, we presented to the public, because there was great public pressure that was brought to bear so that people could find out what had actually happened.

Q. Tell me, please, because I imagine it is not being challenged that you gave this statement on the 25th of May. Actually, this is your press release; is that right? The information you provided to the public.

A. Yes.

Q. And you started working sometime in the beginning of May. So on the 25th of May, you made this statement. Can you answer the following question: Was there a political reason behind this, a reason related to political marketing? Was that behind this press release? Was this media preparation for my hand-over to The Hague, because your press conference was roughly just before that.

JUDGE MAY: One thing at a time. The first question is the political marketing, as it's put. Was there a political reason for it or political pressure?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We did not have any political reasons. We, as policemen and also my working group - and I am proud of its work - we were not engaged in politics. We presented what we learned during the course of our work, and we did present that. Now, why was it necessary then? Already during the month of May, immediately after this was made public or, rather, after the article was carried in the Zajecar crime review, the prosecutor also spoke in public. This is the district public attorney in Negotin. ⁸⁴²¹ All these writings caused considerable unrest among the public, and we thought that we should show that we are not remaining silent in the face of this. We want to check this out and investigate it. That was my job. And I personally do not see this as politics, and I personally don't want to have anything to do with political matters.

Q. All right. You said that you did all of that in May, and there were 30 interviews, as you said yesterday. Information was gathered. A lot of other things were done in May. All right, let's not say 14 days, a bit more than 14 days.

Now, tell me, from that moment onwards, as far as I can see according to this information you provided when you made this public statement, to the present day you did not make any headway in your investigation. There are no new facts except for what you published then.

A. I would not agree with you. There are certain facts and certain data that are still being processed, and this could be called headway, as you had put it. I cannot speak about that right now. I will speak about it if I am required to do so when we have sufficient arguments for that.

Q. All right. So when you gave your statement, you did not have sufficient arguments, so you gave what you could give on the basis of what you did within 14 days. And then 14 months went by and you did not make any statement as to what you had done during those 14 months. I assumed that after I was handed over to The Hague there was no further motive to insist on it any longer; right?

A. I have to tell you the following, and that is from the moment when we informed the office of the prosecutor, the prosecutor's office or, ⁸⁴²² rather, the district court in Belgrade took over everything that had to do with press releases and statements made to the public. We acted only on the instructions given to us by the prosecutor's office. We are not authorised to give the results of possible conclusions and investigations that we came to in this regard. If necessary, the office of the prosecutor in Belgrade can give their views on this.

Q. All right, let me ask you as a policeman with vast experience - if I remember correctly, you've been working in the police force for 27 years, that's what we heard yesterday - isn't it logical to establish first and foremost who these people are, where, how they were killed, and who killed them, and only then to draw conclusions? I should think that every investigation regarding a body that is found has to give answers to these questions first.

A. Yes. We have got that problem, because if we are talking about the refrigerator truck, the bodies have not been identified yet. That's the problem. Not only in the case of the refrigerator truck but also other bodies that were found. This does not depend on us. The identification of such a large number of bodies that was referred to here is something that goes very slowly, as is well-known. And we, as the police, expect to obtain the results of this identification process so that we could work in the following direction, that is to say where these people come from, and then we will see what happened, if anything, in that area, who is missing, who worked there, and who the possible perpetrator may be. We are working on the establishment of all relevant facts. First of all, who perpetrated the crime; secondly, where these people come from; ⁸⁴²³ and thirdly, that the perpetrators be established individually.

Q. I assumed that this is the task of the judiciary organs and the police to answer these questions, who they were, where they were killed, who killed them, in order to make further progress. I'm glad that you agree with this.

Now, tell me, please, in the public release, in the press release you quote on page 3, you say that Vlajko Stojiljkovic, the then Minister of the Interior and the head of public security, Vlastimir Djordjevic, proclaimed that the entire case was a state secret, and in this connection, they started an action called Depth 2, Dubina 2. Did any markings in this relation exist anywhere? Did you ever see anything of this nature?

A. No. If -- actually, we found out that this was a state secret because it was said then that this should be considered strictly confidential, a state secret, and that no information should be given to the public. We got this information from the then head of the SUP of Bor, from the then district public attorney in Negotin, and other persons who were all invoking that order.

There is a document on which there is this kind of marking, "strictly confidential, state secret," and it speaks of payments made subsequently for the physical work of the persons who were carrying the bodies out of the refrigerator truck.

Q. Tell me, please, what kind of secret information is this, engaging workers from the company called Higijena or Komunalac or whatever, that is to say, street sweepers or grave diggers? What kind of operation is this? ⁸⁴²⁴

A. According to the statements given to us by persons who took part in this, that's the way it was. At that time, that's the way it was. We could not influence it then.

Now, why it was so, I do not know.

Q. All right. Let me just look up one thing. On page 4 of your statement, you say, inter alia, that operative information gathered by the working group indicate that in March 1999, a meeting was held in my office, attended by Vlajko Stojiljkovic, Vlastimir Djordjevic, and Rade Markovic, that Djordjevic raised the issue of mopping up the terrain and that I allegedly ordered Vlajko Stojiljkovic to undertake measures to remove any traces that could be potentially indicative of the existence of evidence regarding the committed crimes.

Here it is on page 4 of your statement. You say: "On that occasion, General Djordjevic raised the issue of mopping up in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija as a problem. That is, a clean-up of terrain in the area of Kosovo and Metohija. In this connection, Slobodan Milosevic ordered Vlajko Stojiljkovic to take measures for the removal of all vestiges potentially indicative of the existence of crimes..." and so on and so forth.

First of all, he speaks about a clean-up operation and then I do not respond to what he says, I instead give different orders, and then comes a senior staff meeting of the Ministry of the Interior where the same problem of clean-up actions is reviewed.

Did you attend this meeting, first of all?

A. Which meeting? ⁸⁴²⁵

Q. This meeting that you say -- where you say I ordered the removal of all traces of crimes.

A. Do you mean the meeting that was said to have been held in your office?

Q. Yes.

A. No, I did not attend that meeting.

Q. Do you make any distinction between a clean-up of the territory and removal of traces of crimes?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you assume, then, that the head of state issues such orders in response to a problem of mopping up being raised, that he issues orders to remove traces of crimes? Do you know how many times it has been insisted on precisely the opposite, to apprehend all perpetrators of crimes, to call everyone to task for any infraction or violation? Do you know about such orders and instructions?

A. You asked several questions in one. I will try to answer them in sequence. Saying that such a meeting was held in your office in March is not something that we did or invented. That is something that Rade Markovic stated. What we know, we know from Mr. Rade Markovic, and he is the source of this information, of this allegation, if you want. Then you talked about the mopping up or clean-up operation --

Q. Let us --

JUDGE MAY: Let the witness finish what he's saying.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have no doubt in my mind what the mopping-up or clean-up operation means. That term was used properly and ⁸⁴²⁶ improperly in the media. But I'm not here to make any conclusions. It's not my job. My job was to report what was said, and that's the way we conveyed it.

In my statement given to the investigators of this Tribunal, I only repeated what we stated in our press release, the way we were informed of the matter, and quoting operative information that had been collected - that's all we had at the time - we said all we could say, although we can today indicate the source of this information.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You say this information came from Rade Markovic. I don't believe he could have stated anything of the kind, nor than anyone else could have said it considering that it is absolutely untrue. But please, would you answer the question I asked you regarding your own statement that I quoted.

You say further on in your statement: "I am not certain who the source of this information is, although I was apprised of it at a MUP meeting. It was my understanding that the information most likely came from one of the participants of the meeting held in Milosevic's office." Then you go on to say further below: "We also talked with Obrad Stojanovic but he basically denied any involvement in these events. We also spoke to General Dragan Ilic, Stojan Misic, and Petar Zekovic but all denied any involvement. We in fact spoke to many of the administration chiefs, the assistant minister, and the chef de cabinet but they all denied any knowledge. None of them offered the working group any information relating to the mopping-up operation in Kosovo or any ⁸⁴²⁷ knowledge of the refrigerator lorry case."

In this statement, thus, you say that you have no idea who the source of information is, it was just conveyed to you at the time, and here you are saying that your source is Markovic.

JUDGE MAY: You must put a question to the witness so he can deal with it fairly.

Mr. Karleusa, have you heard what's been read out?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I've heard it, but I would like to hear a specific question.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So in your statement, you said that you did not know where the information originated, this piece of information which you now claim you received from Rade Markovic.

A. Yes.

Q. Did you speak to Rade Markovic?

A. No.

Q. Did the working group speak to him?

A. No.

Q. Then on the basis of what did you as the working group conclude that Rade Markovic had told you about a meeting held in my office and orders issued not to conduct a mopping-up operation but to remove traces of crimes? How did you or the working group come to such a conclusion?

A. At a meeting which --

Q. What?

A. At a meeting which I mentioned both in my statement and in my ⁸⁴²⁸ testimony, I saw with my own eyes a signed statement made by Mr. Rade Markovic which states specifically what I quoted here. At a time when two -- I gave my statement to the investigator of the OTP in Belgrade. I did not specify the source. I specified the source here. That, too, is correct.

Q. Fine. Then how did you establish, considering that the working group had not spoken to Markovic, that he had given that statement?

A. I saw a signed statement by Mr. Rade Markovic with my own eyes, and I had the opportunity to read it. It was an official statement, properly recorded by a recording secretary, bearing a date and signature, and so on and so forth.

Q. So you saw this statement. You say: "I have a record of a trial proceedings dated 28th of May, 2002, drafted in the District Court of Belgrade. It concerns Rade Markovic."

It explains, for instance, that a witness, Goran Petkovic, an official of the state security office, he says a meeting was held on the 31st of May and was held at the headquarters of the state security sector in Banjica, Belgrade.

Then it says Markovic was brought to the meeting by Mijatovic and Galic, then chief of the state security sector. Further on, the witness explains that no record was made nor was an Official Note drafted of that interview because the accused Markovic did not state anything of importance which would require such an action, that is, the drafting of an Official Note.

Q. Furthermore, in response to the question by accused Markovic to ⁸⁴²⁹ the witness whether he remembers what he was told in the corridor, the witness said it was an irony of fate that he and Mijatovic were in the process of attempting to get the accused Markovic out of gaol. It is noted the accused Markovic says he can swear on his child's life about all he says about the contents of that conversation. This is not a note. This is a record of a child.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, we must come to the point. What is the point of what you're reading out?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The point is, Mr. May, that witnesses at trial claim that there was no record of that interview when Markovic was taken out of gaol without any court order, illegally, to make statements. No record or Official Note was made. And it was subsequent orchestration and engineering and fabrication of something that Markovic allegedly said, a man who is in the dungeons of the central prison for more than a year now.

JUDGE MAY: Let us try and understand what's being put. Are you saying there could have been no statement which the witness could have seen because Markovic was in prison at the time and there's no record of him being removed? Is that the point?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm only saying that if this witness ever saw something, it must be a fabrication. It can't be the truth. I'll tell you what the Minister of Interior Affairs says.

JUDGE MAY: No. You let the witness deal with these matters. Mr. Karleusa, you've heard what's being suggested. Can you comment on that? ⁸⁴³⁰

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The truth is that I have seen a statement by Mr. Rade Markovic bearing his signature - I suppose it was his signature - indicating all his personal details, and the statement was in the proper, due format, typical of such a statement. It is true that in my statement given to the investigators of the OTP and my testimony before this Court is true. I would not like to make any comments upon your allegations. What I saw at the time as a representative of the working group was the basis for my information. That's the way we gathered information. We didn't have to go there ourselves.

I told you how we came by this piece of information. We got it that way, and that is the truth. We received it in May 2001, before we went public with it. That is the truth.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Dusan Mihajlovic, according to this record, says the witness agreed to conduct an interview with Markovic, which was published on the 31st of May, 2001, and this interview was conducted on the premises of the State Security Service in Banjica. It was attended by both Mijatovic and Petrovic, and he says: "I don't know whether a record was made of this interview or an Official Note, because there was no information revealed. No promises were made to Markovic in the form of possible release or financial assistance. Therefore, my point is, he says no record was made. And he says it was precisely Mijatovic who told him that the subject of the conversation was Slobodan Milosevic.

Do you know, according to what the parliamentary investigative ⁸⁴³¹ committees published, what pressure was brought to bear on Radovic -- on Rade Markovic to accuse me of something in the circumstances of extreme duress which lasted for over a year, and torture?

A. That's what I learnt from the media.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I hope, Mr. May, that you will accept this record of trial proceedings before the District Court in Belgrade.

JUDGE MAY: We will deal with it in the same way. Collect it, the Prosecution can see it, it will be marked for identification.

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karleusa, do you think you know where the alleged -- the statement of Markovic is now?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, I don't know where this statement by Mr. Markovic is now.

JUDGE KWON: Who showed you the statement at that time?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I saw that statement personally at a senior MUP staff meeting at which I was presenting my progress report in the refrigerator lorry case. That statement was shown to me in the context of the reason for my presence at that meeting. I don't have it in my possession, nor does the working group have it.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. All right. Will you please answer this question: Since I quoted to you part of your own statement underlying this testimony where you say you ignore the source of this information concerning the meeting in my office and then you say that you had spoken to all the participants, Stojiljkovic, Djordjevic, Obrad Stojanovic, Dragan Minic, Stojan Misic -- ⁸⁴³²

JUDGE MAY: You've read all that out. There's no need to read it again. If you have a question, ask it.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. None of these people gave you a single piece of information that would corroborate what you said in your statement, in your press release. You didn't get a single piece of information corroborating the claims made in your communique. Why, then, did you present this lie?

A. We presented that in order to give the public our findings. We did not say that that was the truth. We presented what we had learned until then. And that operative activity in terms of the establishment of all facts was still under way. That's the truth.

Q. All right. But you said that there is some kind of information with regard to some alleged meeting held in my office sometime around the 25th of May; is that right?

A. We found out about that. I personally -- I personally attended that meeting, and this was before the 25th of May.

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Shin, please.

MR. SHIN: Your Honour, this document, this last document as well is only in Serbian so the Prosecution will not be able to deal with it at this time.

JUDGE MAY: It can be marked for identification.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this will be marked for identification as D28.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So you found out, on the basis of the statement made by Rade ⁸⁴³³ Markovic, as you said now before the 25th of May, and he was talked to, as it can be seen here, after that date. How could you find out about that before he was actually talked to?

A. I am telling you and I am stating before this Court what I saw. What I'm saying is the full truth. I saw the statement made by Mr. Rade Markovic, a regular type of statement. The way a statement should be. I don't know what you have been saying, that there is a statement dated later. Perhaps he was interviewed several times with regard to this same subject.

Q. All right. Does it seem to you that this was also within the preparations for taking me to The Hague? And you know that that was illegal, unconstitutional, and criminal.

JUDGE MAY: It's not for the witness to comment on that. Mr. Karleusa -- this will be the final question on this topic, Mr. Milosevic. It's suggested that the comment or the comments about Mr. Markovic and the report of the meeting was part of the preparation to send Mr. Milosevic here. Is there any truth in that or not?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I am not involved in any such thing and I cannot say anything about this. That is not my opinion, though.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You say in your statement, on page 5, that the statement contains information obtained from Bosko Radojkovic, and also that he got the impression that all the corpses had sustained injuries by blunt objects, et cetera. So my question is: Why are you relying on Radojkovic's statement only in your communique when he is not an expert in how injuries ⁸⁴³⁴ are sustained?

A. Mr. Bosko Radojkovic is an exceptionally experienced technician. As far as I know, since I took part in the interview on the basis of which an Official Note was made with Mr. Bosko Radojkovic, I know and I came to the conclusion that he has vast experience and that what he said is based on considerable arguments. My impression was that his statement about this was truthful.

I asked him how he came to this conclusion, and he said that in his practice, he had seen hundreds of consequences of death and investigated hundreds of such cases. And since he is in that area, he has dealt with many cases of bodies that were taken out of the water, of people who had drowned. So that is not my statement, that is what he stated.

Q. Oh, does that mean that these people had drowned?

A. No. I said that he had experience with people who had drowned and with corpses. He gave his preliminary findings at police level. It is quite clear that, subsequently, it was for forensic experts to establish the cause of death in the case of the bodies found.

Q. Could you please explain to me what the criteria were that you used in terms of establishing which information you will take as valid and which information you will not consider as valid? For example, yesterday you said that somebody had stated that these bodies had KLA uniforms on them, and afterwards, you said that these bodies did not have KLA uniforms on them. How did you opt for one of the two, whether they did wear KLA uniforms or not? ⁸⁴³⁵ Or another example: You say that Radojkovic --

JUDGE MAY: Let him deal with one at a time. No. No. Let him deal -- you've put the example to him, let him deal with it.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What is your question?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You use statements; right? Statements are the only basis for your reports. You don't have material facts. You have statements. So you have a statement that they wore KLA uniforms, and then you have a statement that they were not wearing KLA uniforms, and then you opt for the statement that they did not wear KLA uniforms. So according to what criterion do you decide which statement you are going to accept as relevant, to use your words? I mean, I'm not insisting they were wearing KLA uniforms. I'm not insisting they were from Kosovo at all. I'm not even insisting on that particular year. I'm not insisting on anything. I'm simply asking you what your criteria are.

JUDGE MAY: Let the witness answer.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] According to the same criteria on the basis of which we came to the knowledge that some of the corpses had KLA uniforms, according to the same criterion, we had to rectify this, that bodies with KLA uniforms had not been found, because Mr. Radojkovic was the direct source of that information. So this was a mistake. Either he said it that way and that was recorded, but at any rate, he revised it afterwards. In this connection, we could not invent anything nor did we have any reason to invent anything.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] ⁸⁴³⁶

Q. I'm not asking you whether you invented anything. I'm just asking you according to which criterion do you accept some information and respect others and put it all together?

That was just one example but here's another example: Radojkovic, in his statement that you took down, said that in his assessment, these people had been killed two days before that. And for example, according to the statement that you took from Nenad Popovic, a crime operations officer of MUP Kladovo, on the last page of that statement, it says that the bodies were in a state of decay.

Now, could you explain that? Why is it important that your conclusions should be based on one statement and not on the other one? Because obviously both saw these corpses. That is what both of them claim.

A. In this case, it is not a question of findings, it is a question of knowledge.

Mr. Bosko Radojkovic presented convincingly the position that these were bodies that were not in a state of visible decay. What he said was recorded in the Official Note and that is how we conveyed that. We thought that other persons had not been in such contact nor could they speak with the kind of knowledge that Mr. Radojkovic had.

Q. All right. But this Nenad Popovic, this crime technician, he also saw that, or, rather, he is a crime operations officer. So why do you give advantage to one and not the other? Both are approximately qualified to the same extent to infer such things, or perhaps equally unqualified to infer such things because neither of them are forensic experts. ⁸⁴³⁷

A. I pointed out that Bosko Radojkovic is a crime technician, a professional crime technician with vast experience. This other gentleman, the operations officer, most probably did not have that kind of experience but he said what he said, and Bosko Radojkovic said what he said, and all of this is contained in their statements. As far as I know, all of this is presented here before this Court in the annexures.

Q. All right. In your statement on the 25th of May, the press release, you say that there were over 50 bodies, and then you say that Radojkovic said that there were 86 bodies, and the one who opened the refrigerator truck said that there were 30. Who established how many corpses there were there? How did you establish that? Again, is it only Radojkovic's assertion that is taken into account or the assertions of all others?

A. The knowledge that we have that there was 50 or that there was 30 is actually a question of free estimates of the persons who were there. What it looked like, to put it that way.

As for the definite count, that was carried out when the bodies were being placed in the truck. In the first one, there were 30; in the other one, there were 58.

In addition to Bosko Radojkovic, this was counted by somebody else.

I remember now that, in his statement, Bosko Radojkovic said unequivocally that there were 58. And everything else was the way he had put it in his statement. ⁸⁴³⁸

Q. All right. Let us try to keep this time as short as possible. You did not attend the exhumation of the corpses; is that right?

A. I did attend the exhumation of the corpses.

Q. All right. It was my understanding that the police can only provide security on the exhumation sites, that they did not have the right to attend exhumations because this is expert work carried out by persons in charge of that. Isn't that the way it is, according to regulations?

A. No.

Q. All right. Do you know what the results of the analysis were after the exhumation of the corpses that were found in Batajnica?

A. I did not read the report of the expert team that carried out the exhumation. This report was submitted to the district public attorney who was in charge of the proceedings related to the exhumations.

Q. Is it true that until the present day the cause of death was not established?

A. Possibly. I did not read the report. The bodies were not identified. And I pointed out then that that was a major problem. Preliminary identifications were carried out, incomplete, and in our opinion, this is only an indication that perhaps most probably these are persons whose identification documents we did find on the actual site, but the bodies were not identified the way they have to be identified in order to treat this seriously and with certainty.

Q. Is it correct that the identity of these corpses has not been established until the present day, or the place of death or where the bodies originate from? ⁸⁴³⁹

A. I do have some knowledge in this regard, but I also have information that some have been fully identified by now. I don't know exactly.

Q. All right. But everything that you mentioned in connection with Batajnica again has nothing to do with these corpses from the refrigerator body, because you did not -- you did not find them yet and they were not exhumed.

A. As far as I know, according to the description provided by Mr. Radojkovic in terms of the number, characteristics, structure, et cetera, it seems to me that we have not found these bodies, or, rather, that they had not been found during the exhumations that were carried out. Please, may I just correct one more thing? I am relying on the exhumation called Batajnica 1. I don't know whether during the course of the exhumation of the mass grave BA2, Batajnica 2, bodies were found in this connection, because there is a large number of exhumed bodies there.

Q. As you say in your statement, on page 9, in connection with what you are saying about Batajnica, you had the impression that these bodies originate from Kosovo. Based on what did you have this impression?

A. I wouldn't put it that way, that it was my impression. I was just trying to conclude based on what had been found on the site and presented officially, such as ID cards and other documents, that much has been established and documented; namely, these documents were issued in the name of ethnic Albanians, and they were mainly issued in a locality called Suva Reka in Kosovo.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, the time has come for the adjournment. ⁸⁴⁴⁰ Mr. Karleusa, we're going to adjourn now for 20 minutes. Would you be back, please, at the end of that.

--- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.

--- On resuming at 10.55 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So, Mr. Karleusa, let us just clear up this matter. You've just mentioned ID cards from Suva Reka. But you are saying that, based on that, you think the bodies are from Kosovo. How can you claim that the bodies from the refrigerator lorry were from Kosovo when they haven't been even found yet?

A. I am not claiming either. We are not claiming that the bodies from the refrigerator lorry are from Kosovo, but there are statements and information which indicate that it is so.

And as for the ID cards that have been found, we, the police, know that if a certain document is found next to a body, it doesn't mean it belongs with the body. That is why I underlined the importance of full identification of the bodies so that we can establish where they come from, which would enable further proper investigation in the right direction.

Q. But is this claim of yours quite clear, that the bodies from the refrigerator lorry haven't been found yet?

A. As far as I know, the elements which could be acceptable as proof have not been found. I have stressed that I am not familiar with the forensic report on Batajnica 2 where about 270 bodies were exhumed. It is ⁸⁴⁴¹ possible that some of these bodies were related to our case but I don't know for sure.

Q. So you don't know whether the bodies relating to your case have been found.

A. No.

Q. All right. Since you say that an ID card can indicate that the bodies are from Kosovo, what do you think of this paper enumerating various objects and documents? One of them is the membership card of a deputy from -- to the Congress of the Socialist Party of Serbia. What do you think of that as an indication?

A. I can't say. I don't know about the existence of such a document.

Q. Well, here it is on the list of objects recovered in Batajnica. You have said a moment ago that you attended the exhumations. I have a record here of the district court in Belgrade on the exhumations and post-mortems conducted on the premises of police headquarters, dated the 19th of July, and the report indicates the names of the teams of experts and the other persons present. Your name is nowhere here. Don't you think that if you attended, your name should be on the list of those who attended?

A. I was not a member of the expert team nor was I officially supposed to attend as a policeman. I was present from time to time for a while, which is quite enough to gain an impression of what it is all about. And I was continuously informed of the progress made on the site relating to the exhumations, considering that one of the members of the forensic team was our own crime technician of our crime investigations ⁸⁴⁴² technical centre who photographed and otherwise documented everything that he was required to by the leader of the expert team.

Q. Since you say on page 9 that the data collected through the work of the working group indicate that the bodies from the refrigerator lorry have not been exhumed to date, how did you establish that?

A. I told you, we haven't established it. We just have no confirmation that they were exhumed.

Q. You say on page 9 that 70 something bodies were exhumed in Petrovo Selo, that they were examined and that the impression was they originate from Kosovo. How could you have that impression if you did not attend the exhumation?

A. Based on the expert team's report and the fact that a number of ID cards were also found on that site in addition to other documents issued in the names of ethnic Albanians. And second, according to witness statements, that is, a statement of one particular witness who said that he brought to that site a truck containing human bodies.

Q. What?

A. Human bodies.

Q. Is it true that the cause of death has not been established to date?

A. I haven't read in detail the post-mortem reports for these bodies, and I cannot say anything specific about that. But I do know that with the exception of three bodies, the rest have not been identified, and the identification process for these bodies is under way using DNA analysis.

Q. About those three which you say were identified, where do they ⁸⁴⁴³ come from?

A. Those are three persons, Bytyqi brothers.

Q. So the identities of the others have not been established?

A. No, not as far as I know. I know only about those three persons, and their identification was contributed to by foreign forensic teams.

Q. You say in your statement that on Bajna Basta site another exhumation took place, and again you state your own assumptions, which I don't see any grounds for, to the effect that they may originate from Kosovo. Is that correct?

A. Yes. It is true that on the bank of Perucac Lake we identified --

Q. That is not disputed. How do you claim they are from Kosovo if you have no information to corroborate it?

A. I don't claim anything. I'm conveying certain insights and indicia regarding that, and that will be established definitively in the future when the bodies are identified.

Q. So it is true that to date these bodies have not been identified or their origins or cause of death or anything else primarily; how they met their death, who killed them and so on and so forth.

A. As far as I know, the bodies have not been identified to date.

Q. And you are not involved in any investigation regarding mass graves or war crimes, are you?

A. I don't understand your question.

Q. I'm saying you're not involved in any investigations concerning war crimes or mass graves. You say that on page 8.

A. When the administration for combatting organised crime established ⁸⁴⁴⁴ and manned a section for the investigation of war crimes and tracing of missing persons, my job in the working group was terminated and was taken over by an expert team within the section I mentioned. It is composed of police officers and experts.

Q. But is it true that in 1999, as you say, when the on-site investigation was conducted, in addition to police officers, there were also representatives of judicial bodies, deputy public prosecutor, and so on?

A. That's correct.

Q. Is it true that both the judges and the public prosecutor officials said at the time that it was not in their jurisdiction, it was in the jurisdiction of Negotin and Kladovo public prosecutors' offices?

A. That's correct.

Q. You say also that General Djordjevic was informed of that by the chief of SUP. He was told that post-mortems or burials could not take place on the territory of Kladovo. Is that report correct?

A. That's how we came by that knowledge, and that is written in the statements.

Q. Is it true that Djordjevic then ordered to secure the place and extract the refrigerator lorry?

A. In the words of the then chief of police, that's how it was.

Q. Is it true that Djordjevic then also ordered the extraction of bodies and preparations for transport where post-mortems and burials would have to take place?

A. That's what the chief of SUP at the time said. ⁸⁴⁴⁵

Q. In your communique, you mention it was over 50 bodies. It was assumed that they were from Kosovo and Metohija. My question now is: From the Official Note made by your working group concerning the interview with the diver who said that there were about 30 bodies in the refrigerator lorry, how come you said it was over 50 when the man who opened the truck said it was 30?

A. That's what he said in his statement during the interview. It was his rough estimate. We later found out, however, that there were many more bodies. And the figure of 50 was voiced and generally accepted by many, including Mr. Bosko Radojkovic at that time, until the moment he was able to make a final body count.

Q. Why doesn't your press release contain any information which precedes from your interview with the chief of SUP, as you say on page 2, of your interview with him, that is, that General Djordjevic said that post-mortems should be conducted of the bodies?

A. That's not what it says in our Official Notes, as far as I remember. It says the order was to extract or pull out the refrigerator lorry, to remove the bodies, and that transport would be organised, and that burial and post-mortems would be conducted in Belgrade, or to be more precise, in a different location.

Q. All right. You have, then, a variety of statements. Zivadin Djordjevic says that the lettering on the truck said "Export/import." Other witnesses do not remember any lettering at all. Sperlic Vukasin, who says about it on page 2, says the lettering said "Pec" or "Prizren." ⁸⁴⁴⁶ How did the working group opt for one version in favour of another when there are many of them?

A. In the statement of Mr. Radojkovic, a technician of the internal affairs office of Kladovo, you can see exactly what he said. Mr. Radojkovic made available to us during the interview in which I personally participated ten shots from the negative of the film which was used to film the refrigerator truck. All of them were published. And these photographs, as far as I know, have been filed with the Court, with the Tribunal, as evidence. And all these photographs, together with other documents, were submitted by us to the competent public prosecutor's office in Belgrade.

From what you can see on those photographs, the lettering is distinctly visible, "Exporting Slaughterhouse, Prizren," some fax and telephone numbers. Checks have been run in this regard.

Q. Mr. Karleusa, tell me now, you have just a moment ago expressed a number of compliments addressed to this crime investigations technician who is a highly qualified professional, a hard-working person, et cetera, things that I do not intend to dispute at all.

Since I have received this photographs annexed to your statement, ten of them to be precise, and one after the other they show the trailer protruding from the water, the truck being pulled out. Photograph 4 shows chains and padlocks on the door of the trailer. On photograph 5 you see the refrigerator lorry from the profile. Photograph 6, a close-up of the cab --

JUDGE MAY: I'm going to interrupt you for a moment. It may be ⁸⁴⁴⁷ better to put these photographs to Mr. Radojkovic when he comes. He refers to them. It may be more sensible to put them to him, whatever the point is.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] My question to Mr. Karleusa, who led the investigation as head of the working group, is as follows:

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. How come that an experienced crime investigation technician who made these photographs, put them in a sealed envelope and submitted it to the police concerning the refrigerator lorry containing bodies has not a single photograph among them which shows a body? All we see is a refrigerator lorry. But the point is in the bodies, not the lorry. Is it possible that the procedure for gathering evidence about something that possibly happened there could be documented by photographs of a cab, a trailer, tyres, et cetera, without a single body of a corpse? How do you explain that?

A. That was precisely my question to Mr. Radojkovic when I talked to him. He explained that he had started his on-site investigation applying regular procedure. He made the photographs he made, and then he was suddenly ordered to stop doing what he was doing, that there would be no on-site investigation, and that's where it was all terminated. I think Mr. Radojkovic's is in better place to explain this in detail.

Q. Did you establish when the people who were exhumed had been killed, and do you know, according to the first forensic estimates, that certain bodies date back to a long time ago, even before the war?

A. We - that is the working group - have not established that. That ⁸⁴⁴⁸ may have been established, as far as I know, by members of the expert team.

From what I know from speaking to them at the time, the bodies do not date back to a long time ago. They date back to a recent time. There is no great difference between their times of death.

Q. All right, Mr. Karleusa. In addition to a great number of discrepancies and clarities, ambiguities, you took only a few days, allegedly, to establish the relevant facts and hold a press conference, and created an impression that the bodies concerned were from Kosovo. So I'm asking you now, was it a politically motivated campaign which should have served as a preparation, as paving the way for my illegal extradition to The Hague?

A. We gave a press release when we gave it, and neither I nor anyone else from my working group was motivated by political agendas that you mention.

Q. Tell me, please, since you yesterday talked about the composition of the working group and from that composition, without naming any names, we can see that there were two lieutenant colonels and one major in that working group; is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Is it correct? I didn't hear you.

A. It is.

Q. So two lieutenant colonels and one major. Does it seem logical to you, that you as a captain, the lowest ranking member of that working group, be the leader of that group, superior to the lieutenant colonels ⁸⁴⁴⁹ and the major?

A. I was leader of that working group not because I was captain by rank but because I was deputy head of the criminal investigations police force at the time, and I don't see anything irregular or illogical about the fact that I was the leader of the working group.

Q. Does it have to do anything with the fact that professionally and otherwise, in business terms, you were related to the then Minister Dusan Mihajlovic, bypassing regular official links?

A. That is not correct.

Q. All right. Tell me then, Mr. Karleusa, is it true that the enterprise whose co-owner is your wife is engaged in supplying private companies owned by Dusan Mihajlovic, your minister? Supplying security guards.

A. That's not correct.

Q. What is not true, that your wife does not co-own this enterprise, this company --

JUDGE MAY: That's enough. It has nothing to do with this trial. You've heard what this witness has said.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please. Here is an exhibit. The registration with the business relations court in Belgrade of an enterprise which names among its activities physical and technical security services. Fito Centar is his name. Svetlana, father's name Jan, Karleusa. That's your wife, isn't she?

A. Yes.

Q. Address Pariske Komune 61. Here we read: "Unlimited ^{8450 BLANK PAGE 8459} authorisations," and so on and so forth. Svetlana Karleusa, acting director without limitation of authority, and so on.

JUDGE MAY: The witness has answered. He said it has nothing to do with his evidence or the fact that he was made the leader of the group. Now, that's his answer. The fact that his wife may have had a relationship with somebody else is irrelevant.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, it is very relevant what kind of relationship he has with the current member of the government and his own minister, apart from the fact that he is employed with the MUP, and all these parallel links are very relevant because it is precisely that government which is extremely involved in what I call self-humiliation and self-degradation.

JUDGE MAY: You know that political speeches are not allowed here. Just one moment.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Karleusa, what is suggested is this, and perhaps we could deal with it in various forms: First of all, does your wife have this company? Is she a director of this company?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] She is co-owner and director of that company.

JUDGE MAY: And the Minister of the Interior, what is his involvement with it? So we can understand the position.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That company that is managed by my wife does not provide security for any companies or premises that have anything to do with Mr. Dusan Mihajlovic. ⁸⁴⁶⁰

JUDGE MAY: Is there any business relationship between them at all?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As far as I know, no. No.

JUDGE MAY: It may be suggested that your evidence in this case is affected in some way by some sort of relationship, business relationship of some sort. Is there any truth in that?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. There is no truth in that.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic. You can ask two more questions and then your time is up.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, Mr. May. That is customary practice.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Could you now answer me a question that has to do with the end of your statement. I'm going to read the last paragraph to you: "I have been advised that my statement may be sought by other law enforcement agencies and/or judicial authorities for the purpose of prosecution." Full stop. And then another sentence: "I hereby do not," underlined, "do not agree to the release of any part of my statement to such authorities at the discretion of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia." And you speak of their discretion. Why do you not give this agreement, Mr. Karleusa? Is it because the sole purpose of this is for testifying in this trial, this illegal trial against me, or is there some other reason for that?

A. At the moment when I gave this statement, I used my own words, and they are, for the most part, contained in that statement. ⁸⁴⁶¹ At the end of that statement, as far as I can see, it says that I am not giving the kind of agreement that you have just referred to, as it has been put here. However, I did not understand that or have I ever heard of any such situation existing.

This did not pertain to Yugoslav judicial authorities, because Yugoslav judicial authorities, starting from the court of law and the prosecutor's office, can obtain this at any point in time, because my statement is in the hands of the National Committee of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, then also the team that works at the level of the Ministry of the Interior. And I thought at that time that that was supposed to mean that it is not supposed to be made public. I did not know how all of this would evolve, but it is true that that's what I said so let me explain now what I meant by it. That's the way it is.

Q. All right. Tell me, Mr. Karleusa, in view of such an alleged operation of removing corpses that is being ascribed to the very top echelons of the state, does it seem to you that such a decision can be made by any sensible person?

JUDGE MAY: Now, that's a comment. Mr. Karleusa, you needn't deal with that.

That's something, Mr. Milosevic, that we will have to consider. You can make that point to us in due course.

Now, Mr. Kay.

MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honours. Dealing with paragraph 8 of the summary, last sentence in paragraph 8. ⁸⁴⁶² Questioned by Mr. Kay:

Q. Mr. Karleusa, you gave evidence today that you saw a statement by Rade Markovic in which information was contained that Mr. Milosevic had ordered the removal of crimes from the Kosovo area. Do you remember that?

A. Yes.

Q. I'm looking at a statement made by you this year, which was an interview on the 27th of May, 2002, and the 3rd of June, 2002, and in that statement you recite the same fact about Mr. Milosevic's order, but you say in the statement: "I am not certain of the source of this information, although I was advised of this at a MUP meeting. It was my understanding that the information most likely came from one of the participants of the Milosevic meeting."

Can you explain the contradiction between your statement that I've just read out and the evidence you gave today?

A. At the moment when I gave my statement to Mr. John Zdrilic, investigator, I did not wish to state the source, knowing that the document bore the marking "strictly confidential." At that moment, I thought I was not allowed to disclose the source. Later, I saw that I could state that and that that is not contestable, so I did that here.

MR. KAY: No further questions. Re-examined by Mr. Shin:

Q. Mr. Karleusa, do you recall approximately when the accused arrived at The Hague Tribunal?

A. On St. Vitus's Day.

Q. And what year was that? ⁸⁴⁶³

A. 2001.

Q. Did the investigations that were carried out regarding the refrigerator truck by the working group, did they continue after that date?

A. Yes.

Q. Are they continuing currently, as far as you know?

A. Yes, they are continuing upon instructions of the prosecutor's office in charge.

Q. Who or what organ is carrying out those investigations apart from the prosecutor's office which you've just mentioned?

A. According to the request of the prosecutor in charge, regardless of whether it is a case of Belgrade, Negotin, or Uzice, the collection of information that is required is being carried out by a department for combatting organised crime, and it is within the ministry, as I've already mentioned. It is called the Department for the Investigation of War Crimes and Searching for Missing Persons.

Q. Are you still in -- are you still in charge of these investigations? Are you personally still in charge?

A. I am not in charge personally, but since I am deputy head of the administration within which this department is, I am indirectly involved. But I am not directly engaged in carrying out any investigation nor am I regularly informed about this.

Q. Is the working group still in existence?

A. The working group no longer exists in that form and with that membership as was the case then. All of the tasks carried out by that ⁸⁴⁶⁴ working group have now been incorporated into the department I've just referred to.

Q. You had mentioned in your direct testimony that exhumations are continuing this summer, even now, at least with respect to one site in Batajnica. Is that true?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you know -- are you aware of other exhumations that will be carried out in the future? Just if you know. I'm sorry, I -- just to explain, exhumations in connection with the three sites you mentioned; Batajnica, Petrovo Selo, and Perucac Lake.

A. As far as I know and as far as the working group knew, it is possible that other exhumations will take place in the Batajnica locality. That is what we stated. And the exhumations will probably go on until this locality and this terrain are fully searched.

Q. Thank you. Mr. Karleusa, with regards to the March 1999 meeting, I'd like to show you a document.

MR. SHIN: Usher, if you could, please.

Q. Please look at the document carefully, and I will ask you some questions after that.

MR. SHIN: Your Honours, would it be possible to have this document marked for identification? The Prosecution intends to put this document in as evidence through a later witness and this is a document that is in fact the subject of disclosure today.

JUDGE MAY: What is the document first? Tell us what it is.

MR. SHIN: The document is a statement that Radomir Markovic ⁸⁴⁶⁵ provided to -- to the police in Serbia.

JUDGE MAY: Perhaps if the witness can identify it first.

MR. SHIN: If I could just ask him some questions then.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. SHIN:

Q. Mr. Karleusa, do you recall having seen that document before?

A. No. I have not seen this document in this form before. What I did see is a similar statement but in different form at the meeting that I referred to.

Q. Mr. Karleusa, what is the date of this document that you see before you?

A. The date is the 2nd of June, 2001 or 2002. I can't see exactly. 2002. 2001. It says in the text the 2nd of June, 2001, whereas what is handwritten is a bit illegible.

Q. Mr. Karleusa, could you explain very briefly what this document is.

MR. KAY: Your Honours, I must rise here. It's not his document, he doesn't recognise the document, and I'm not sure what the purpose of this exercise is.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Shin, I don't think you can really take this any further. You can, of course, deal with it with another witness, if you wish.

MR. SHIN: What I would seek to ask the witness is whether from what he has seen here, whether it's consistent with the document that he has testified that he saw prior to his communique in May of -- I believe ⁸⁴⁶⁶ that was 2001.

JUDGE MAY: But he said it's similar. Perhaps you could ask this: Were the contents of the document similar?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes. The contents of this document are, for the most part, the same or similar to the document that I had seen and on the basis of which we gave our statement and on the basis of which our knowledge was obtained. However, the form was different. I think that that particular record was different. It had more pages, not devoted to this subject but perhaps to something else. I saw only that which pertained to questions related to my own province of work.

So that's about it. Perhaps there is a bit more here or perhaps I do not remember enough.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. I don't think you can take it any further.

MR. SHIN: Okay. Thank you. If I could please just have that document marked for identification.

JUDGE MAY: No, I don't think you can for the moment.

MR. KAY: I was just going to raise a matter concerning the date which the Prosecution should perhaps look at again on the second page and third page of the document for the year; 2002.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Yes. The witness can't identify it. Let the Prosecution have the document back.

MR. SHIN: Your Honours, the Office of the Prosecutor has very recently received a report from the Spanish National Institute of Toxicology, within the past week, which will explain the results of some ⁸⁴⁶⁷ of the DNA samples that Witness William Fulton testified about and will indicate that the bodies found in that Batajnica site do -- to a high degree of probability do relate to persons from Kosovo. I'm not sure how Your Honours would like us to proceed with this. We could, for example, have another investigator come in to put in these documents, if that's --

JUDGE MAY: That might be the most efficient way to deal with it and there can be any examination about it. This witness can't clearly deal it because he doesn't know anything.

MR. SHIN: Thank you. No further questions.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Karleusa, that concludes your evidence. Thank you for coming to the International Tribunal to give it. You are free to go.

[The witness withdrew]

MR. RYNEVELD: The Prosecution calls Bosko Radojkovic, Your Honour.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Ryneveld, apparently a milestone has been reached with the calling of this witness: 100.

MR. RYNEVELD: I'm sorry, Your Honour, I had the earphones on and, unfortunately, it was a different channel.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I was just saying that a milestone has been reached in the Prosecution's case: This is the 100th witness.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you for pointing that out. I'm sorry, I lost track of the numbers. 100. Thank you.

If it assists while we're waiting for the witness, Your Honours, during the course of his evidence I do intend to show him a series of some ten photographs in a bundle, and the Court may in fact have already ⁸⁴⁶⁸ received a copy of those photographs, along with the summary which I prepared, in advance.

And does the Registrar have copies available now or do we -- I'm just trying to save time, if I can.

[The witness entered court]

WITNESS: BOSKO RADOJKOVIC

[Witness answered through interpreter]

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the witness take the declaration.

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. Examined by Mr. Ryneveld:

Q. Mr. Radojkovic, could you state your full name for the Court, please.

A. Bosko Radojkovic.

Q. Sir, I understand that you're 46 years of age and you're currently a policeman employed as a senior crime technician in the Serbian Ministry of Interior in Kladovo; is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. And the course of your duties as a crime technician or a crime scene identification officer, do they include such things as taking photographs and fingerprints and attending the scene of what are suspected to be crimes?

A. Yes.

Q. And how long have you been doing that kind of work with the police ⁸⁴⁶⁹ in Serbia?

A. Twenty-five years.

Q. During your career as a crime scene examiner, sir, have you had any experience with bodies that have been in water?

A. Yes.

Q. In particular, is there a particular body of water with which you have had considerable experience in terms of finding bodies?

A. In view of the place where I work, it mainly had to do with corpses in the river of the Danube, the Danube River.

Q. And in the course of your duties, sir, I take it you found various bodies that had been dead ranging from fairly recent to long periods of time?

A. Yes.

Q. And in the course of your duties, did you ever have the occasion to tentatively give estimates of how long these bodies had been in water, or had been dead?

A. Yes, together with the doctor and the rest of the team which conducted the on-site investigation.

Q. All right. That's in generality. I'd like you now, if you would, please, to turn your mind to an incident on the 5th of April of 1999. In the course of your duties, were you called upon to attend the scene in the Danube River near the village of Tekija near Kladovo? Or Tekija.

A. Yes.

Q. Tell us, sir, about how it is that you went to the scene of the Danube River and what is it that you saw when you arrived on the 5th of ⁸⁴⁷⁰ April, 1999.

A. The police officer on duty informed me that in the Danube River near Tekija village, a fisherman noticed an object floating on the water, something that looked like a trailer box on a truck. Since it was not unusual for vehicles to skid off the road and into the Danube, I invited a policeman from the Kladovo police station to accompany me to the site to investigate.

Q. Do you remember approximately what time of day it was? Was it morning, afternoon, late afternoon? Do you remember?

A. I remember that the officer on duty called me on the telephone around 1300 hours. It may have been a little earlier, but after 12.00. Between 12.00 and 1300 hours.

Q. And you went out to the scene that afternoon, did you?

A. Yes. As soon as I was notified, I went there straight away.

Q. And what, if anything, did you see when you got there?

A. At a distance of about 20 to 30 metres from the bank, I saw something protruding from the water. It could have been a large box, that is, the trailer part of a truck. A closed container. It was just the tip of the trailer box.

Q. When you say it was just the tip, was there a lot of it visible? Could you identify from where you were on the road what it for sure was at that point?

A. You could assume that it was a lorry, a trailer with a closed container behind, inside the river, in the water.

Q. When you saw that, what happened next? Did you give instructions ⁸⁴⁷¹ to anyone to do something or did you investigate in some way to see whether it was in fact a truck or a lorry?

A. Yes, I did. The diver put on his equipment and dived into the water, and when he re-surfaced, he told me that it was a lorry, that there was no one in the cab, that the front windshield had fallen out, and that it was probably a Mercedes lorry and its trailer box looked like that of a refrigerated lorry.

Q. About what time of day was it now?

A. It might have been around 1600 hours, because the diver took rather a long time to get ready to dive to view the vehicle under water, et cetera.

Q. What was the water level in the Danube at that particular time? Was it a high river or low or was there run-off or can you tell us?

A. I can't recall exactly right now, but I think the level of the water was slightly above average at that time.

Q. Did you take any photographs that afternoon or evening of the 5th of April, 1999?

A. No. I don't think I took any photographs then because it was getting dark by that time.

Q. Since it was getting dark and since you had found there were no occupants in the cab, what did you do next?

A. The diver went in again and used a length of rope and a plastic bucket to mark the location so that we could return in the morning and find the place in case the water level rises and the object moves. I think we tied it with this rope; I'm not sure about that part. ⁸⁴⁷²

Q. So after having checked it out and marking the location of the vehicle since it was getting dark, did you leave for the evening?

A. Yes. We went to the police station.

Q. You told us that you intended to return the next day. Did you do so, and if so, what did you do upon your return?

A. That evening, we made arrangements for a crane to be given to us from the hydro power plant of Djerdap to help us pull out the vehicle from the water. And the next morning, the same diver, a colleague of mine from the police force, and myself went there again. The crane was already there together with ten or 15 employees of the hydro power plant.

Q. What was accomplished with the crane? Were you able to lift the vehicle out of the water?

A. Yes. Slowly, step-by-step, we pulled the lorry out. The diver got into the cab and tried to straighten the wheels by turning the wheel, and the wheels were stuck in the mud on the bottom of the river, and it took a long time and a lot of effort to pull it out.

Q. You finally managed to get it to the edge of the river bank, did you, sir?

A. Yes.

Q. And at some time after that had been accomplished, did you start to take photographs of this vehicle?

A. I did. On the 6th of April, when I returned to the site, I made several photographs of the vehicle in the position in which it was originally found and then another series of photographs showing progressively the process of pulling it out. ⁸⁴⁷³

Q. Yes. And of the photographs that you took that day, I now have -- that day and the next, I now have a series of ten photographs that you've supplied to us.

MR. RYNEVELD: Might the witness be shown the bundle of photographs at this point, please.

My proposal, Your Honours, is to mark these as one exhibit and have them marked. They actually are labeled 1 through 10, and they bear our internal numbers K0226128 right through to the last one, 6137. If that meets with your approval, rather than giving them separate exhibit numbers.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll have the exhibit number.

THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit number 275.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you.

Q. Now, Witness, you've seen these photographs? These are the photographs that you took on the 6th and 7th of April; is that correct?

A. That's correct.

Q. All right. Sir, looking at the first photograph, numbered 1, it's now on the ELMO, you see it there? Can you point out to us -- there's not too much to point out.

Is this the first photograph that you took after of the vehicle had been dragged, by the crane, out of the water?

A. I think it is the first one.

Q. All right. And the second photograph. Is that a close-up of the same truck?

A. Yes. From a shorter distance. ⁸⁴⁷⁴

Q. And just so that we're clear, sir, when you attended the evening before, the 5th of April, can you perhaps indicate with your pointer how much of this vehicle was visible to you when you attended the day before, before the truck was pulled out of the water level? Could you perhaps just show us with the pointer?

A. Yes, I can. You see this dark strip here, the right upper corner of the side of the lorry. This was made by the dirt in the water.

Q. So if we're looking at the lorry box, as it were, the triangle that is left by that black mark, only that top little triangle was visible to you? The rest of the vehicle was submerged?

A. Correct.

Q. I see. Turning to the third photograph, sir, is that a close-up of the vehicle once it's been pulled even further out of the water?

A. Yes. The rear wheels are already on the bank.

Q. Now, I'd like to spend just a little bit of time with respect to this photograph.

When you looked at this truck, what, if anything, did you note about the back of the -- the door area of the vehicle?

A. I noticed that the right half of the door had been broken into, that through this slit, there were two human legs and one arm protruding.

Q. Now, it's difficult to see on the screen, but could you use your pointer -- first of all, are any parts of the bodies that you've just described visible in this photograph?

A. Yes. You can see one leg. Here it is.

Q. You're now pointing just to the left of the little stair hanging ⁸⁴⁷⁵ down from the right corner of the box of the truck; is that correct? There is what appears to be a foot immediately to the left of that. Could you put your pointer right on the object that you say is a leg.

A. Yes. That is the object. This, the body part.

Q. What did you do with respect to that body part or any other body parts?

A. I have to add that the diver had informed me even before the rear of the truck was pulled out that there was a hole in the rear of the truck and that something was protruding, something that looked like a human foot or an arm, and he asked me what to do. He told me it was still in the water. And I said, "Well, there's nothing you can do. Let's pull it out and see."

And when the rear of the lorry was pulled out onto the bank of the river, I saw this one foot protruding, and there were another foot and an arm less visible right there. I pushed them back inside the lorry. I fastened the interior using some planks I had handy and some nuts and bolts.

Q. So you pushed the body parts back inside and then attempted to cover up the hole, did you?

A. Yes.

Q. Now, once you had done that, sir, what time of day is it now on the 6th of April? Has some time passed?

A. I think it was already 12 or 1300 hours by that time, maybe even later.

Q. Did you attend the scene only with a diver or did other police ⁸⁴⁷⁶ officers or other officials also come to the scene of this, where you found the truck?

A. I had a colleague with me also from the crime investigations department, and there were two other policemen who controlled traffic on the road, and there were ten employees from the hydroelectrical power plant who operated the crane, the other equipment. I must say that when the lorry was pulled out, just before it was pulled out onto the bank, we informed the investigating judge, the coroner of the medical centre in Kladovo, and the office of the public prosecutor to come to the scene and to witness the final stages of extraction of this refrigerated lorry.

Q. So you called for them once you realised that this vehicle actually contained bodies; is that correct?

A. Correct.

Q. Did you wait for their arrival or did you do something in the meantime? After putting the body parts back in and covering the hole, did you wait for their arrival or did you do something further?

A. No. I don't think we did anything else. We were waiting for the investigating judge and the prosecutor.

Q. Were they far away, and did it take them long to arrive?

A. No. We didn't wait long. I think they actually arrived a short time before the lorry was pulled out finally onto the bank, because the extraction was extremely difficult and slow.

Q. All right. Sir, I'd like you to turn to the next photograph, if you would, please. There appears to be a photograph of that same truck ⁸⁴⁷⁷ before you covered the hole but it seems to have a chain on it. Was it in that condition when you saw it?

A. Yes. Along the centre of the door, somewhere in the middle, they were secured with a padlock and a chain.

Q. What, if anything, did you do in regards to that chain and why?

A. When the investigating judge and the public prosecutor arrived, I tried to cut this chain but I failed, so I had to break through to break the padlock in order to open the door.

Q. I take it you accomplished that objective, and were you able then to open the doors to this vehicle?

A. Yes. I opened the door.

Q. Tell us what you saw when you opened the doors.

A. I saw a heap of corpses.

Q. When you saw that, what did you do, if anything?

A. When I saw that, I shut the door immediately, and I informed the investigating judge, who was close by, about the contents of the lorry.

Q. And did you receive any instructions or any indication as to his interest or lack of it?

A. The judge asked me how many bodies there were inside. I answered there were a lot. And then the judge said it was not within the purview of the court in Kladovo. A case like that was not within their jurisdiction and that we should inform the district court in Negotin. I offered to open the door for him to see what's inside, but he declined, and he said there was no need for that.

Q. So what did you do next? ⁸⁴⁷⁸

A. He told the policemen to seal off the site, and I went to the police station in Kladovo together with my colleagues from the police.

Q. Before you shut the doors again, did you show any of your colleagues what was inside this box?

A. Yes. One or two of my colleagues saw the inside when I opened the door, and perhaps some others saw it from a distance.

Q. In any event, I understand you then shut the doors again. You'd covered the hole, as you indicated. Did you secure -- did you secure the truck?

A. Yes. The employees of the hydro power plant used a cable to tie the chassis of the lorry to a large tree on the bank of the river.

Q. I'm just going to go very quickly and lead you through this --

JUDGE MAY: We'll adjourn now. It's time for the break. Mr. Radojkovic, we're going to adjourn now for 20 minutes. Could you remember in this and any other breaks there are in your evidence not to speak to anybody until it's over about it, and that does include the members of the Prosecution team. Could you be back, please, in 20 minutes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: We'll adjourn.

--- Recess taken at 12.17 p.m.

--- On resuming at 12.42 p.m.

MR. RYNEVELD:

Q. Now, Witness, just before the break you had just told us that after calling the local officials down to have a look and they declined to ⁸⁴⁷⁹ do so, you showed your colleagues what was in the truck and then you closed the doors and then you -- I understand you eventually went to the police station. Just before you did that, did you take some more photographs of the doors of this truck? And if so, would you please look at photographs number 5 and 6. Would you look over there.

A. Yes, I made a few more photographs. This was while the truck was being dragged out.

Q. Yes. And on the passenger's side, if I can call it that, of this door, we see some lettering. And if you will turn to photograph number 6, we see it a little closer. Was that the condition that the door was in on the 6th of April, as it was being taken out of the Danube River?

A. Yes, in this state. The front wheels were still in the water.

Q. And what is it that it says on the door? We can read it, but perhaps you could read it for us.

A. On the door, it says the following: "PIK Progres Export Slaughterhouse. Telephone number, telefax number, Prizren."

Q. And had you noticed any licence plates on either the front or the back of this vehicle?

A. No, there weren't any licence plates.

Q. Anyway, sir, after you secured the scene, do I understand that that particular day, the 6th of April 1999, you returned to the police station?

A. Yes, in the evening, in the afternoon.

Q. And when you got there, sir, did you advise the people in charge of the police station what you had seen and what you had done? ⁸⁴⁸⁰

A. Yes, I did inform the head of the local police there, the chief of the crime prevention service in the police station in Kladovo. The two of them, at any rate. I don't know if any of their associates were present as well.

Q. Do you recall their names?

A. Yes.

Q. Could you tell us.

A. The head of the SUP in Kladovo was Vukasin Sperlic. The head of the group for combatting crime was Stevanovic, and Nena Popovic, Momcilo Sujranovic, my colleagues.

Q. Now, after giving your report, did you receive any instructions with respect to what further steps, if any, you ought to take?

A. Yes. According to customary procedure, we sent a letter to the Secretariat of the Interior, that is to say the regional SUP in Bor. We sent a written report as to what we had found in the Danube and what was in the truck. In view of the fact that all of this during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the entire event was taking place right by the border with Romania. And Romania had then allowed the use of their own air space for NATO aircraft very close to the site where this occurred, it's perhaps only 1.000 metres away, that is a very short distance in terms of waterways. On the Romanian side, there were Romanian patrol boats and bigger ships.

Bearing in mind the fact that they had the technical devices to see this truck and perhaps even see the lettering on the door, and also bearing in mind the fact that this was close to the town of Tekija and ⁸⁴⁸¹ that this lettering on the truck may be reminiscent of certain events in Kosovo, we agreed during the night that we should cover the lettering on the door so that perhaps due to that lettering we would not have any consequences by way of bombing or something.

Q. So were you told or -- to do something or did you make a decision on your own to do something?

A. I was told that I should somehow cover this lettering so that it could not be seen from a distance, so that the public could not see it.

Q. Who told you to do that?

A. Directly, I don't know. It was at local police level. So it was the head or the chief of group. That is how we agreed as to how this should be done.

Q. As a consequence, what, if anything, did you do later that evening?

A. Yes. Later that evening, I got some car paint, and the colour was similar to that of the truck, and in the evening, I went to the site. It was during the night. So I used this car paint spray to cover the lettering on the driver's door and on the passenger's side door.

Q. Although we can only see on photographs 5 and 6 of Exhibit 275 the lettering on the passenger's side door, was there similar writing on the driver's side door?

A. Yes, identical.

Q. So you went back at night with cans of spray paint and what, if anything, did you do in relation to the writing on the doors of this truck? ⁸⁴⁸²

A. Yes. I sprayed the writing on the door with this spray paint so that it could not be seen.

Q. All right. You told us earlier there were no licence plates on the vehicle. Did you do something in relation to licence plates?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. What was that?

A. From the police station in Kladovo, I took some old licence plates with -- Bor licence plates, and then I damaged them a bit to make them less noticeable. And then that same night when I was spraying the doors with the spray paint, I put the licence plates on the back and on the front of the truck.

Q. And then you went home?

A. Yes. I went home.

Q. Did you return the next day and take some more photographs?

A. Yes. In the morning, I went to the scene again, again with my colleagues from the Kladovo police, and there was already a big group of workers from the hydroelectric power plant there, and there was also a crane there, bigger than the one that was there before.

Q. And what can you tell us about -- well, you took some photographs, and I'd like you to look at photographs number 7 and 8, if you would, please.

First of all number 7, which is now on the ELMO. That's a photograph you took, and that's the same truck as the one you found on the 5th and the 6th of April, 1999?

A. Yes. ⁸⁴⁸³

Q. And now there's no writing visible on the doors; is that it?

A. Yes.

Q. These are black and white photographs. Do you remember what colour the cab of this vehicle was?

A. Green.

Q. And did you use a dark green or did you use a green matching spray paint to cover the door?

A. Yes, but I didn't get the right shade. Not exactly the right shade.

Q. All right. But you effectively covered up the writing; correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Looking at photograph number 8, did you -- where did you say you put the licence plate? Was it on the front or the back or both? I don't recall. Is there a licence plate showing on the back? I don't see it if -- perhaps you can help us.

A. In the front it was tied with a wire, and in the back I attached it with some nuts and bolts. But the licence plate was considerably damaged, so you couldn't really see it from afar. You'd have to go very close in order to see what it said. I had scraped off some of the paint and lettering and I had hit it with a hammer.

Q. Did you also cover it with dirt or anything?

A. Yes. Yes. Mud from the Danube. I smeared it with that when I put it on the truck.

Q. Is the licence plate in fact now visible on the back of this vehicle, and if so, could you point out where it is, because it's not ⁸⁴⁸⁴ readily discernible to my eye. Could you show it to us, please.

A. I think that in the photograph you can't even see it, but it was on the lower left-hand corner. The photograph was not taken with a flash, but at any rate, it was in the lower left-hand corner.

Q. Perhaps you could show us in photographs 9 or 10. You also took two more photographs that day?

A. I think that this is the licence plate, this white thing here, this white line.

Q. I see.

A. A bit wider. I think that's it.

Q. Okay. And it shows -- these photographs, 9 and 10, also clear show that you've done something to the back to cover it up. Did you attach that -- what appears to be a patch on the back right rear door?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. All right, sir. Now, you'd met with the local police, and did police attend the scene of this truck on the 7th of April, after you took these photographs and after the crane, the larger crane, pulled it further out of the water?

A. I don't really understand the question.

Q. All right. That's my fault. I understand that on the 7th, you've just told us about photographs you took. You've told us that a larger crane was there. Did you use this larger crane to pull this vehicle right out of the water?

A. No.

Q. Did the crane -- the larger crane that was there on the 7th, was ⁸⁴⁸⁵ it used at all? Do you understand my question or am I phrasing this badly?

A. On the scene itself, we first had a smaller one. It was big, but it was not big enough to pull something this big out, or this heavy out. So then the next day, an even bigger crane was brought.

Q. Right. And what, if anything, was done with that bigger crane?

A. With the larger crane, we were trying to extract the truck from the water once again. In order to make this clear, the hydroelectric power plant is very close, ten kilometres away. And then the water level goes up and down a metre or two. So then during the day, we pull out the back part and then the water goes up and then part of the truck is submerged again. So that's why we needed this bigger crane, to pull it out completely to a place that was a certain distance away from the water edge itself.

Q. My question, sir, was at some time during that day, by use of this new, second, larger crane, did you accomplish that objective? In other words, did you get the truck out of the water?

A. Yes.

Q. Thank you. Now, did something happen that evening? Did the district police arrive?

A. Yes.

Q. Why?

A. They were informed about what had happened in Kladovo and what was found on the Danube. And then the head of the district police, with his associates, came to Kladovo. When they found out about this, we were ⁸⁴⁸⁶ ordered to stop all activities related to the refrigerator truck.

Q. All right. Then what?

A. The chief of regional police, of district police, had a meeting in Kladovo with the local police, with his associates, and then we were informed that I and a few of my colleagues should be ready in the evening, that we should come to the police station in the evening so that we would do something in relation to the truck.

Q. Did you wait until evening?

A. Yes. That meeting was held around 2000 hours.

Q. And what was discussed and decided, if anything, at that meeting?

A. I was not present at the meeting. Perhaps I was in that office for about five minutes around the middle of the meeting, but I was told to get some of my colleagues who were free so that we would go during the night to get the corpses out of the refrigerator truck.

Q. Who told you to do that?

A. The head of the district police and this entire team that was there. The head of the district police was, of course, the ranking member present.

Q. Do you know his name?

A. Yes.

Q. Could you tell us.

A. Caslav Golubovic. He's a colonel.

Q. All right. And did you in fact follow those instructions and go back to the scene and remove the, as you call them, corpses from the truck? ⁸⁴⁸⁷

A. Yes. Not only I, there were about 15 of us.

Q. Yes. And this is after 8.00 at night. Was it light or dark?

A. No. It was dark. It was around 2300 hours in the evening.

Q. Is there a reason why you waited until it was dark in order to accomplish that task?

A. Well, one of the reasons was precisely because this was the time when Yugoslavia was bombed. And secondly, we had to carry out some preparations after this meeting in order to be able to go to the scene.

Q. All right. And you went back to the truck. I take it you opened the doors again and at that point you started removing bodies; is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Tell us what you saw. Tell us what you did.

A. We gave assignments to different people as to what each and every person should do. I was in the refrigerator truck together with a colleague. We were extracting the corpses from the truck. One colleague was right next to the refrigerator truck, behind us, and he was taking the corpses from us and wrapping them. Others were carrying them, somebody was lighting the ground, and others were putting the corpses onto a truck. So that is how we organised the operation.

Q. You personally were inside the truck where the bodies were; is that correct? You saw them in their state in the back of the truck?

A. Yes. I and another colleague and the one who was behind the refrigerator truck.

Q. How many bodies did you remove that night? ⁸⁴⁸⁸

A. Thirty.

Q. Where were they taken and how? You've described how you passed them from person to person, wrapped them. Where were they taken once they were out of the back of your truck -- or the truck you found?

A. I don't know where they were driven, but the truck on which the corpses were loaded went towards Milanovac, which is upstream in relation to the Danube River.

Q. From your answer, am I correct in assuming that they were taken off the lorry found in the river and placed on a different truck?

A. Yes.

Q. And you've just told us that that truck left in the direction that you described; is that correct?

A. Correct.

Q. Can you tell us, sir, anything about those 30 bodies that you personally handled in terms of what they looked like, how they were dressed, and approximate ages or sex?

A. There were both male and female bodies. As for the age pattern, I know for sure that there were two children, a boy about five or six years old and a little girl about eight or nine years old. There weren't any more children.

As for the other corpses, their ages ranged from about 20 until about 70, perhaps even a bit more than that. I came to that conclusion on the basis of their external appearance.

Q. Were they dressed, and if so, in what type of clothing?

A. Yes. For the most part, they were dressed. The men wore regular ⁸⁴⁸⁹ type of clothes; trousers, jeans, nothing special. As for the female corpses, most of them had pantaloons.

Q. When you say "pantaloons," was there anything special about that garment?

A. Well, nothing special, but it is characteristic of certain groups of women.

Q. What kinds of groups of women did you have in mind when you noted that clothing?

A. Pantaloons are not compulsory clothing for any particular group of any ethnicity, but it is certain groups, certain ethnicities that wear such clothing.

Q. My question is: Are you able to tell us, in your mind, what types of ethnicities are more common to wear that type of clothing?

A. As far as I know, such clothing is worn by Romany women, Turkish women, Albanian women, Muslim women. I'm not sure about other groups, whether they wear that, because we have quite a few different ethnic groups so I'm not sure whether there are others that wear them as well.

Q. Sir, you've told us that there were two children and the rest were adults, and you've given us the range in age that you estimated. Could you tell what state these bodies were in? In other words, from your experience of some 25 or more years, could you tell, in your opinion, the approximate -- how long these bodies had been dead?

A. In my estimate - but I would like to say that I'm not a forensic expert but I'm speaking on the basis of my own experience - I can say that these corpses were not older than two or three days in relation to the day ⁸⁴⁹⁰ when they were found. That is to say that death had occurred two or three days before they were found in the Danube.

I'm bearing in mind the fact that the water was cold, that the weather was rather cold, and that considerably effects changes on dead bodies.

Q. Just one more question about how they were dressed. Did any of them, of the bodies that you personally handled, appear to be wearing a uniform of any type at all?

A. No.

Q. Did you look at the bodies themselves with respect to any signs as to perhaps how they might have met their death? In other words, were there any wounds or anything visible to you?

A. Yes. As for these first 30 bodies, I had a look at most of them out of curiosity or due to my profession. Those were the corpses where I had time to see the corpses because the people who were carrying the corpses were running a bit late so I helped my colleague who was wrapping up the corpses in a sheet or in a blanket or whatever, so I managed to see then.

Q. And what did you see about these bodies?

A. Injuries on the bodies. Most of them were readily visible. They were mostly inflicted by something mechanical, a blunt object, but it also had to be heavy. Or a mechanical instrument but with a sharp edge. That would also have had to be heavy as well.

Q. Did you note any gunshot wounds or bullet wounds on any of the bodies that you handled that night, the 30 bodies? ⁸⁴⁹¹

A. I can say something only about one of the bodies, a male body aged between 17 and 20. He was wearing jeans, and he didn't have any clothing on the upper part of the body, and he had an exit -- an entry/exit wound in the chest.

Q. Did you notice anything about his hands?

A. Yes.

Q. What was that?

A. His hands were bound with wire in the back.

Q. So his hands were tied behind his back with wire; is that what you're saying?

A. Yes.

Q. Now, sir, you've told us that it's night, it's after 11.00 or thereabouts. What kind of lighting was available to you in order to make the observations you've just told us about?

A. In the refrigerator truck, we had one torchlight, and the colleague next to us, next to the refrigerator truck, the one who was wrapping up the bodies, he also had a torchlight, but they were not very strong because we didn't want to be seen from Romania. So we used this only for a short while. And I think that there was plenty of moonlight too.

Q. All right. Now, sir, did you give a detailed account of your observations, in more detail than you've told us today, to the working group of the MUP in 2001?

A. I did. I provided a more detailed report to the working group. Basically it is the same as what I have said now. Perhaps it contained a ⁸⁴⁹² little more detail.

MR. RYNEVELD: Perhaps, Your Honours, if that report hasn't already been marked as an exhibit -- I believe it has been marked as an exhibit and it's found in -- I'll ask some more questions while I get the number for your reference.

Q. Now, sir, the -- did you do anything further after you loaded these 30 bodies into the truck?

A. No.

Q. Why did you stop?

A. We did nothing more that night.

Q. Were there more bodies still in the truck found in the Danube?

A. Yes, there were, but around 3.00 a.m. we stopped for the time being because the workers were tired. Nobody had any strength any more. Everybody was exhausted. It was a difficult job to carry these bodies uphill. The terrain was steep, and we simply couldn't go on any more for the night.

Q. Did you return the next day?

A. We did. We returned immediately the next morning.

Q. I'm just going to speed things up a little bit. I understand, sir, that with the crane you --

A. Yes.

Q. You loaded the -- you actually managed to pull this truck and put it onto a flatbed truck; is that correct?

A. Correct, a flatbed truck.

Q. Now, did you do anything during the course of the day, while it ⁸⁴⁹³ was light, with respect to the remaining bodies?

A. No. Nothing was done with the corpses. They were only removed or, rather, the entire refrigerator lorry was pulled out, uphill out of the river onto a site where the flatbed truck was standing ready.

Q. And did you do something further with the balance of the bodies in the truck later that day?

A. Yes. That night when dark fell, we transferred all the remaining bodies from the refrigerator lorry to the flatbed truck.

Q. Why did you wait until dark?

A. Because the lorry and the flatbed truck were near a very busy road from Belgrade to Kladovo. The traffic was very busy. And the other reason, as I already explained, was the vicinity of the Romanian border and their vessels.

Q. By way of summary, is it fair to say that you did not want to be seen doing what you were doing?

A. Perhaps.

Q. Now, did you empty the lorry, or the truck in the Danube, did you empty the balance of the bodies at that time?

A. Yes. We removed all the remaining bodies.

Q. How many were there?

A. The second night we removed 53 bodies which were entire bodies, if I can put it that way, and we recovered another three corpses or, rather, body parts belonging to three corpses. At least, there were three human heads and whether all of the body parts were there on the truck to make complete three corpses, I don't know. So on the whole, there were 56 ⁸⁴⁹⁴ bodies.

Q. Is a fair way of summarising that to say there were 56 heads, 53 of which had bodies attached to them, intact, and body parts for the remaining three but you don't know if they made complete bodies?

A. Precisely.

Q. Were you able to tell the Court, again, how they were dressed, if they were dressed, the sex and age?

A. Those 53 corpses that had been removed from the refrigerator lorry the second night were also of both genders. The clothing was as I described earlier, but there were no younger people or children among them. In fact, I could say that there was no one below 20. All the bodies belonged to adults.

Q. How -- you say all adults. Are you able to give an upper range of the age of people? Were there any elderly among them?

A. Yes, there were people who could have been 60 or 70, judging by their faces, by their general appearance. That's the only thing I had to go by.

Q. Just a couple more quick questions about the bodies. Again, you told us that there were dressed similarly. Any uniforms on any of these 53 bodies or 56 heads?

A. No.

Q. Did you take any photographs of these bodies either the night of the 6th or the night of the 7th as you were removing them from the truck?

A. Could you please repeat that question?

Q. You've told us you took bodies out on the night of the 6th and ⁸⁴⁹⁵ then again on the night of the 7th. Did you take any photographs of any of the bodies that you removed on either night?

A. No.

Q. Why not?

A. When the chief of the district police arrived and that meeting was held at the police station in Kladovo, it was said that no further photographs were to be taken.

Q. It was said to whom?

A. To me.

Q. Under normal circumstances in the course of your duties, would it be a normal thing for you to take photographs?

A. Yes, certainly.

Q. Now, when you finished loading these bodies, what happened that night? Did you go home or go back to the police station, or what did you do when you finished that job?

A. The lorry with the corpses went further up the river again, in the direction of Donji Milanovac, and I went home.

Q. What happened, if anything, to the truck that had been found in the Danube that had been loaded onto the flatbed? Did it stay at the scene or did it leave somewhere too?

A. When I set out to go home, the truck was still there. But the next morning, when I came back to the police station in Kladovo, I was told that the flatbed truck, escorted by two policemen, was transported to Petrovo Selo, which is near Kladovo.

Q. Were you given any instructions by anyone with respect to the ⁸⁴⁹⁶ refrigerator truck?

A. Yes. The next day, the chief of police from Bor, or one of his associates, gave us a ring and said that this truck needs to be destroyed. It was suggested that this should be done by burning it.

Q. Yes. And that was the suggestion. Did you receive an instruction to destroy it or what happened?

A. When I received the instruction to destroy the lorry, I went to Petrovo Selo accompanied by a colleague, and we poured petrol over the lorry and set it on fire.

Q. Where was the lorry?

A. It was in Petrovo Selo, which is a village on a mountain near Kladovo.

Q. How did you know where it was? How did you know where to go?

A. This colleague of mine who accompanied me on this mission to torch the truck, he had accompanied the transfer of the lorry from Kladovo to Petrovo Selo the night before.

Q. When you poured petrol on the refrigerator truck, did that destroy it sufficiently? After you set it on fire, of course.

A. No. The skeleton of the lorry remained.

Q. So what, if anything, did you do next?

A. I called up the chief of police in Bor. I told him that things were not good, that it was not going to be done that way, not going to be accomplished that way and that we had to blow it up.

Q. Did you do that?

A. We did. ⁸⁴⁹⁷

Q. When and how?

A. I think it was the 8th of April when we set the lorry on fire. So it must have been the 9th when we used explosives to destroy it completely. Explosives used in industry.

Q. And you brought those explosives with you for the purpose of blowing up the truck; is that correct?

A. Yes. It had been brought.

Q. Did the explosives do the trick?

A. Yes.

Q. Now, that would have happened, then, on the 9th of April, if I've been following the progression correctly, 1999.

A. Yes. All these events happened on several days in sequence, over several days. So it must have been Saturday, the 9th of April.

Q. Now, sir, a couple of years later, May 1st, 2001, did you become familiar with an article that was published in the "Timok Crime Review" in relation to that vehicle that you had discovered and dealt with?

A. Yes.

Q. And to make a long story short, were you then questioned by the working group of the MUP? And you've already told us you've given them a report; is that correct?

A. Yes. They conducted an interview with me. I didn't give them any report. They just interviewed me and, on the basis of that interview, they drew up an Official Note.

Q. And have you had an opportunity of reading that Official Note?

A. I did, but only later. ⁸⁴⁹⁸

Q. I understand that.

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, I promised to give you this exhibit number. You have that as Exhibit 274, that last binder that went through the previous witness, Karleusa, at tab 8.

Q. Now, you had -- much later, had an opportunity to read that Official Note. Is the Official Note an accurate rendition of your recollection of what you told the working group as to what you did?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you make any changes at all to your -- to your statement about the communique released by the working group about what you had seen? Did you want to make any changes to that?

A. As regards the Official Note drawn up by the working group based on their interview with me, I stand by the contents of that Official Note in full. And at any rate, they -- the investigators got hold of this Official Note through the Ministry of the Interior. I only have reservations about the second part.

Q. All right. In the document you read, did you note anything at all about a sentence about KLA uniforms being found on any of the bodies?

A. No. That is not in the Official Note made on the basis of the interview with me. But an error must have been made later, in one of the subsequent documents, and I told them to correct it.

Q. And that was the communique that was released; is that correct? Or do you know what document it is?

A. No.

Q. In any event, your evidence is that on none of these 83 bodies, or ⁸⁴⁹⁹ 86 bodies, you saw no uniforms at all?

A. Correct.

Q. Two more questions. The negatives -- these photographs that you've taken, some of which were entered in these proceedings, the ten photographs, you personally developed those photographs, did you?

A. Yes. This roll of film which I used to photograph the object, I developed the film and it was part of my case file kept in my office. In 2001, I gave this negative to the working group, headed by Captain Karleusa, and he must still have it.

Q. My final question, sir: Looking back on what happened in April of 1999, how do you feel about the way in which you were instructed to carry out that investigation? Is that a normal way that you as a professional crime scene investigator would conduct an investigation?

A. Your Honours, I'm testifying here about what I did, what I did with my own hands, what I saw with my own eyes. As for my feelings, I had none at the time. There was a war going on. That's what had to be done. That was the way it had to be done.

Q. Thank you, Witness.

JUDGE MAY: We will adjourn now. Cross-examination tomorrow morning.

Mr. Radojkovic, would you be back, please, 9.00 tomorrow morning, to conclude your evidence.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I understand, Your Honour. I will.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.38 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 24th day of July, ⁸⁵⁰⁰ 2002, at 9.00 a.m.