¹¹³⁷¹

Thursday, 10 October 2002

[Open session]

[The witness entered court]

[The accused entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.33 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, we have considered your request for further time. Having regard to the evidence which the witness has given and the amount of time which we think you should have available for cross-examination, we'll give you an hour this morning, which is some extra time, although not a great deal. So you have one hour from now.

WITNESS: NIKOLA SAMARDZIC [Resumed]

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

Q. Mr. Samardzic, yesterday you said that it was not true, or rather, that what you said was not correct, what you said and published by Pobjeda, the Pobjeda newspaper on the 3rd of October, 1991. I have here - I received this this morning - a photocopy of the issue of Pobjeda, dated the 3rd of October, and I'll hand it in once I receive the original of that issue of the 3rd of October by post. But there's a large photograph in the article. It was taken on the 2nd or 3rd. And it says, "The commemoration paid to the heroes who were killed," and you can see this commemorative meeting taking place on the photograph. And this is what it says in the article, the passage where you yourself are quoted. So I'd like to hear your comments and answer my questions later on: "Nikola Samardzic," it says, "the Foreign Minister, in his speech ¹¹³⁷² spoke about the expectations of the forthcoming Hague conference. He spoke of the previous conference and Samardzic reminded us that the Montenegrin delegation had assumed as far as was possible a flexible in order to arrive at a settlement for the Yugoslav crisis and the cease of hostilities. However, the events that took place along the border towards Croatia, and especially what has taken place at the Ravno-Slano line today shows that our casualties of our units were perpetrated on territory that did not belong to Croatia and that the MUP from Croatia had come and attacked our units from an ambush. All this testifies to the fact that Montenegro was attacked by the Croatian MUP and that this was done on purpose. It was an attack, in fact, on the JNA, and Montenegrin guys who were doing their best to serve the JNA." And so on and so forth. I don't want to take up more time with reading out the whole article. Then we also have a quotation by you which was highlighted in the middle of the article, as particularly important, where you say: "I think that the meeting at The Hague will be fairly difficult on the 5th, and I presented this fact because the foreign media are well organised against us. And yesterday, in Dubrovnik, observers demonstrated how Dubrovnik had been attacked by the army and Montenegro at the same time our young men were being killed in Herzegovina. Perhaps this language is somewhat different, but the object is to show that we are being attacked and that we are performing our duty and standing up in defence of our country.

"With the issue of Prevlaka, we have to keep proving that Prevlaka is part of our territory, that is to say, is part of Montenegro, ¹¹³⁷³ and that it was never Croatia. So what right do they now have to take this and attack it? I am experiencing all this as a great tragedy and as being very unfortunate. As things are as they stand, we have to go ahead and fight and defend ourselves. Nikola Samardzic." So yesterday I read out a quotation, and today I read out another quotation. This was a statement given from the report and minutes of a meeting. You questioned that, denied you had ever said it, denied you had ever said that Prevlaka was never Croatian, that it was always -- that it always belonged to Montenegro, whereas this is what the newspapers in 1991 said. So tell me now, please, Mr. Samardzic, why is it that you --

JUDGE MAY: No. Mr. Milosevic, you can't go on in this way, talking all the time. Let the witness see the publication which you have. He should have the chance to comment on it.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] [No interpretation]

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

JUDGE MAY: I've cut the microphone off. Let the witness see it.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The article was printed as it stands, the top half and then the bottom half. The photocopy machine only takes an A-4 format, so I had to copy it in that way. But I will be getting the newspapers, the original issue and edition, so I don't think that will be a problem.

Mr. May, so as not to waste time, I think that this is --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, give me a chance to read through what you've just given me.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] ¹¹³⁷⁴

Q. Well, I read it all out to you.

A. You didn't read it out properly.

Q. Oh, come on. Let's give it to the interpreters to read, then.

A. The newspaper Pobjeda quite obviously published what I said, but not what I really said. At that time, the editor of Pobjeda was a man named Konatar, a ultranationalist, who was famed for writings of all kind, articles of all kind in Pobjeda, and the newspaper was even called Konatar's newspaper Pobjeda. He seems to have planted this on me and alleges that I said that, especially that Prevlaka belonged to Montenegro. That's not correct, because everybody else I said that Prevlaka was part of Croatian territory but that we should win it in negotiations with Croatia. That is what I said.

And what Milosevic is trying to supplant is just not true, and Konatar as well. This was all within the frameworks of the policy that was waged at the time, in which everybody could say what they wanted as they saw it. So Mr. Milosevic, this means absolutely nothing. The newspaper Pobjeda wrote all sorts of things at that time, and I stand by the fact that I always stated things publicly and said that at that time I acted as I did.

I should like to repeat that prior to that and after that, I always claimed that we could win Prevlaka over only in negotiations with Croatia. And secondly, I don't understand what you wish to prove with this article. What is it? What do you want to show?

JUDGE MAY: What it's being produced for is to contradict your evidence. What the accused says is that this is what you were saying at ¹¹³⁷⁵ the time, and it, of course, is different to what you're saying now. That's the point, so you understand it. Now, do I understand this to be your position: That the paper has misquoted what you said at that meeting? Is that right?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, precisely so. That's quite right, Your Honour. The newspaper did not print what I actually said, and at that time, I spoke in the Assembly and at the government session that was held and always said publicly that we should win Prevlaka over in negotiations with Croatia. That is the well-known stance that I took. And this small trick that is being tried here doesn't mean a thing.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, Mr. Samardzic, is Pobjeda, or was Pobjeda the leading state newspaper of Montenegro at that time? And I'm talking about 1991. Let's say in 1991.

A. In 1991, Pobjeda was in the hands of the ultranationalists, who advocated fighting and aggression to take over Dubrovnik.

JUDGE MAY: Let us deal with this. Is there any further question you want to ask about the article? Because if so, the usher should be able to sit down and the Prosecution can have a look at it. Is there anything else you want to ask about the actual article?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I just want to ask whether Pobjeda was the leading Montenegrin daily at that time, and it still is, I believe, the principal newspaper and official newspaper of the Republic of Montenegro.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] ¹¹³⁷⁶

Q. Is that so or not?

A. It is the main newspaper in Montenegro, but that does not prove that I actually said those words. I never authorised the article. I never authorised what he wrote.

Q. Mr. Samardzic, you know that all important government sessions and meetings of the Presidency are attended by journalists. They are not closed to the gentlemen of the press. The newspapers report on them. So you were -- this was a leading, official Montenegrin paper, and it is quoting the Foreign Minister of Montenegro. Now you're claiming that they were misquoting you. Did you ever deny what Pobjeda had printed? If you were so flagrantly misquoted, as you now claim, did you ever deny having said that? You were the minister and Pobjeda was the paper.

A. The truth is that I did not deny it, and at the time I did not have the time to do so, nor was the situation such that I could enter into a quarrel of any kind or take issue with the publication. There are other points made here that I don't understand. You say that this appeared on the 3rd of October. Yesterday you claimed that on the 1st of October the commemorative meeting was held. So you can't have the meeting held on the 1st of October with Pobjeda reporting on it only on the 3rd of October.

Q. There is no date on that particular copy because it is a copy. But I will get the newspaper, and you'll see that everybody is standing up in the -- to observe the commemorative meeting, and that's what the article is about. It speaks about that commemorative meeting. But let's not waste time there. ¹¹³⁷⁷ Mr. Samardzic, I have another question for you now, and it's this --

JUDGE MAY: If you're moving on to something else, then --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'd like to tender this as an exhibit, please.

JUDGE MAY: Just for a moment --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] -- this photocopy.

JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation continues]... and then we'll make a decision about it.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And I will be producing, once I receive it through the post, the original issue and copy of the newspaper, so that you can see that it is authentic.

THE WITNESS: Your Honour, I was not present according with this photo here. This commemoration. [Interpretation] Quite certainly, this is a forgery, and there's been some mix-up, because I can't see myself on the picture.

JUDGE MAY: Let the witness finish. Yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, he's finished.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Twelve years have elapsed since the meeting, so I have to do my best to recall those days. Your questions are very fast. I can see the photograph. It is a photograph I don't recognise. I wasn't at that meeting and I know that I was -- did not attend any commemorative meeting held in the government.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. All right. All right, Mr. Samardzic. As it's a forgery in the ¹¹³⁷⁸ newspapers, in 1991, when you were a minister, you can just stand by that claim. I don't mind.

JUDGE MAY: Let the Prosecution have that.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] It doesn't bother me.

Q. Mr. Samardzic, do you know the name Zoran Kovacevic, a captain from the 7th Battalion, perhaps, at that time, of the JNA? Zoran Kovacevic is the name. Do you know him from the days of the conflicts that took place along the Montenegrin-Croatian border and that tripod of Montenegro, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina?

A. I don't know any Zoran Kovacevic, and as you're asking me now, I can't link it up with anything. I don't know what you're getting at.

Q. All right. Then comment this, please, his statement, and this is today's issue of Pobjeda. It is his statement here that I have, and he was a witness to the events that you're testifying about. I'm going to skip over certain portions where he says that everybody was absolutely revolted, but he said that: "Zoran Kovacevic, captain of the 7th Battalion, came to our offices and says that Samardzic asked him and his fellow fighters to steal on the Dubrovnik theatre of war. 'Samardzic came up to us in front of the Plaza Hotel in the town of Herceg-Novi while we were washing our hands, washing the blood off our hands from our injured comrade. We didn't know who he was, but when he introduced himself as the Foreign Minister, we accepted his invitation to have a drink with him. All our talks about politics and what was going on at the Dubrovnik battlefront, he said, Well, Dubrovnik is going to be ours. There will be happy days for us.' The captain of the 7th Battalion also recounted that ¹¹³⁷⁹ Samardzic told them that they had to go back to Debeli Brijeg and The Hague witness today, the Foreign Minister of Montenegro at the time, asked them that if they could, he would appreciate to have a little camper sent to him and that he would give them 300 Deutschmarks in return. 'In other words, Samardzic asked us to steal for him, and he even suggested that we could do the job in the town of Slano, where he said there were a lot of campers that holiday makers used. And he asked that the camper be as big and as long as possible. We were absolutely astounded. We couldn't believe that he was actually asking us to do something like that. And this coming from the Foreign Minister of Montenegro.' And a message to The Hague witness from Captain Kovacevic: "I am not a thief, and that is why I did not want to have the army lose face. That is why I didn't fulfil your expectations, and I'm very sorry that you were left without this big and long trailer, camper.' That is what Captain Kovacevic has to say. And he also adds and says that Nikola Samardzic told him --"

JUDGE MAY: It is quite impossible for the witness to follow all of this. The witness must have a chance -- he must have a chance to answer you making these allegations.

Do you know anything about this, Mr. Samardzic, this Captain Kovacevic?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As I said, first and foremost, I don't know that man. I never saw him in my life. This is nonsense, and it's lies, organised lies, that are intended to disqualify me, discredit me as a witness. And they are being forged in Podgorica today, and there is no trace of the truth. I never asked for a trailer. I could have ¹¹³⁸⁰ bought one many times in my life. I didn't need to steal one from the Dubrovnik front line. So this is an absolute pure trick and lie. What they resort to is something that I'm astounded by, also by the volume of lies that the accused Milosevic is presenting against me.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I have to tell you that all of Montenegro is astonished --

JUDGE MAY: Remember you're in a court, please, and here he is "Mr. Milosevic."

Yes.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. He claims that you particularly said --

JUDGE MAY: You're reading out from a statement. Is this some statement which has been supplied to you --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Let me just finish, Mr. May.

JUDGE MAY: No. I'm asking you a question. Would you kindly answer. Is this a statement? We ought to know what it is that you've got. Is this a statement which has been supplied to you or is it some other document?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'll give this to you immediately, gentlemen. I just want to ask the witness whether --

JUDGE MAY: Is it a statement -- it's a very simple question: Is it a statement which has been provided to you? Is that what it is?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, this was published in this morning's newspaper in Podgorica, and it's not a statement that was made to me; it was addressed to the entire public, if you read the newspapers. ¹¹³⁸¹

JUDGE MAY: That is the answer to the question that I was asking you: Yes, it was in the newspaper this morning.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Samardzic, please, this is nothing that I got. It's not a statement that I got. This is from the newspapers. Did you talk about the house of Tereza Kesovija, the well-known Croat pop singer? And you said that the house was more than rich and there were plenty of things that could be taken from there.

A. Mr. Milosevic, why are you saying all these crazy things? You are fantasising. Today, Pobjeda is in the hands of Chetniks and they write this way. They are writing this way because they want to smear the name of people from that time, of honest people.

Q. All right. But here is a reaction of a man you mentioned here. I personally don't recall his name, but he watched you on television. You mentioned him, and he says, "Samardzic either cannot control himself or has been paid to lie." And this is what he says --

JUDGE MAY: That's of no use. That's of no use to us. The comment of somebody reprinted in a newspaper about the evidence is of no assistance to the Court.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, the man accused by Mr. Samardzic here is reacting, through the newspaper, to these false accusations. I'm asking Mr. Samardzic what he's been doing.

JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation continues]... to give evidence in due course, if you want, but merely writing something in a newspaper isn't evidence. ¹¹³⁸²

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. All right. This is the reaction of Predrag Popovic, who you mentioned as some participant from the People's Party, a nationalist, whatever. Mr. Samardzic, what is your reaction to the following: The fact that the Association of Veterans of Montenegro published this. It's right here on the same page of this morning's paper. Today is the 10th. This is again the Pobjeda newspaper that is published in Podgorica, and it says: "The Association expresses its sorrow and its shame before the public that the testimony of Mr. Samardzic is primarily based on --"

JUDGE MAY: I'm going to stop this. The opinion of the veterans is neither here nor there. It is of no assistance to this Court. Now, you can put, as you did, an allegation that this witness was involved, as you allege, in the looting. You can put that if you have allegations of that sort to put, but mere comments and abuse is of no assistance to us.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I'm just quoting today's newspaper that is published in the capital of Montenegro. That is the principal newspaper there.

JUDGE MAY: You know our opinion about those matters and whether such questions are admissible. They are only admissible if they are allegations which ought to be put, allegations of alleged fact.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Let's move on. Let's try to be as effective as possible.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Samardzic, what was the number of employees at the foreign ministry of Montenegro when you were minister? ¹¹³⁸³

A. I don't recall the exact number. I guess it was about 15.

Q. So your ministry had a total of 15 employees?

A. I guess so. I can't remember the exact number.

Q. Yesterday you said that you personally did not take part in drafting these questions for Momir Bulatovic, and you were a member of the delegation when that delegation, headed by Momir Bulatovic, went to the United States; is that right?

A. Yes. I was a member of the delegation, that's right.

Q. So you, as minister accompanying his president, and you head a ministry of a total of 15 employees, have nothing to do with this paper provided by the Foreign Ministry. Do you consider that to be probable, credible to anyone?

A. Yes, because at the same time I was director, manager, of Jugooceanija, and I spent most of my time in Kotor, not Titograd, and I only came to the ministry when there was something urgent going on. So I was not a paid minister. It is quite possible that somebody at the ministry wrote that while I was in Kotor, just before we left. So there's nothing more to it. These are primarily things that you are trying to bring forth in a deceitful manner. I wrote many times about President Wilson, and this could have been used for writing a pro memoria for President Bulatovic. I don't see anything bad about that except for this trick, trying to say that I said that what was going on in Croatia at that time was genocide. So that is really up to Bulatovic and the employee concerned.

But I am truly astounded by what Pobjeda wrote this morning. ¹¹³⁸⁴ These are such terrible deceits, like what they wrote about Tereza Kesovija. Whoever knows me in Montenegro will understand, and it will be quite clear to them, how great these lies published by Pobjeda this morning are. It is quite impossible that I said any of these things, that I encountered this man, and that any of that happened. In all these tricks and lies, I am truly astonished, but thank God --

Q. Why are you going back to that question? We've already dealt with that. I see that you are truly affected by it, upset by it.

A. No, I'm not, but --

JUDGE MAY: I'm going to cut the microphone for a moment. Now, don't both speak at the same time.

Now, Mr. Milosevic, I think we've gone over this very fully, so perhaps move on to another topic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Since you claim that out of this total number of 15 employees you did not know who did what, you were on the delegation with Bulatovic, and somebody else from the ministry, then, prepared these possible questions and answers for him. Who could have done that, Mr. Samardzic?

A. I'm not going to go into all of that, but I do know that sometimes when I was in Kotor, that Bulatovic would call in one of my employees to write something for him. That happened not once, but several times. So there is nothing awful about this. And why are you trying to compromise me in this way? This kind of thing actually happened. I remember how things were done at the ministry. When I was not there, and I was not ¹¹³⁸⁵ there often because also director of Jugooceanija, then President Bulatovic would call someone from the ministry, an employee, to write something for him. So this could have easily taken place then as well.

Q. All right, Mr. Samardzic. But these documents that I've presented to you - there are several documents - some you could not deny, and I see that you're denying this one, this speaks of the political and diplomatic position of the government and its activities, that you were a member of. So that includes you too. Isn't that quite clear -- isn't it quite clear that you are saying something quite different today, 11 years later?

A. It is not contrary at all. I have proven this before the Court, and I have original notes from the meetings of the Assembly. And what I advocated in Vienna and also on the 17th and 18th of October, when I said clearly that I condemn the policy that you pursued then, both in Serbia and in Montenegro and towards Croatia. I condemned it. So you cannot deceive anyone here by saying that that's what I did. There are many documents from that period. I could also put questions to you: What is this? What is that? Where do you get all these things that you're trying to trick me with? You are trying to say --

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Samardzic, the accused is entitled to ask his questions, and try and answer them, if you would, as shortly as possible. Now, Mr. Milosevic, in your part, don't repeat questions which you've asked before.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have no intention of repeating them. All of this is quite sufficient.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] ¹¹³⁸⁶

Q. Please, Mr. Samardzic, on page 15, towards the end of the second paragraph - I'm speaking about your statement now, the 30-page statement or whatever the number of pages - you speak about your decision to resign from your post as Foreign Minister, and then you say that you were prevented from doing so by Hrvoje Kacic, a Croatian official and your friend, chairman of the foreign policy committee of the parliament of Croatia. You acted on his suggestions, as you explained this now; you did not resign. From then on, you represented the interests of Croatia and the government of Montenegro. Is that correct, Mr. Samardzic?

A. That is an absolute lie. This is deceitful. I never represented the interests of Croatia and the government of Montenegro. I represented the interests of the Montenegrin people in this grave tragedy that was taking place then.

Q. All right, Mr. Samardzic. Very well. Tell me, please: Give me an answer to the following question. I have to deal with quite a few areas now, because I see that time is running out. Why are you untruthfully representing the role of the Serbian Orthodox church and Amfilohije Radovic, the archbishop of Montenegro? On page 22 of your statement, you slandered the church. You said that they were proponents of hatred, killing, and all kinds of crimes. At the same time, you did not offer any proof of that. Of course, that doesn't surprise me that you've offered no proof, because it is a well-known thing that high --

JUDGE MAY: Don't comment. Don't comment. Just ask a question.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. ¹¹³⁸⁷

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Can you give me any proof for such accusations levelled at the Serbian Orthodox church and Amfilohije Radovic, the archbishop of Montenegro?

A. That's not exactly the way I had put it, the way you read it out. I did mention in the statements two years back, I did mention Amfilohije Radovic, and I repeat today that Amfilohije Radovic, who is head of the Serbian Orthodox church in Montenegro, is a proponent of hatred towards anyone who is not a Serb. That is true.

During the war at the Dubrovnik front line, he went there instead of carrying out his duty as a man of the cloth. He was chanting combat songs there, encouraging the army to fight. And his newspaper - Svetigora, I think is the name of the newspaper - during those days, incited hatred and a further struggle with Croatia. It is sufficient to look at his newspaper from those days and to conclude who Amfilohije Radovic is. That does not mean that I have accused all the clergymen of the Serbian Orthodox church. I mentioned Amfilohije Radovic there and I had him in mind primarily. Very many people in Montenegro consider him to be exactly the kind of person that I've described just now.

Q. Well, it's a bit more complex than that. This is what it says in your statement:

"The anti-Catholic nature of the Dubrovnik offensive should not be underestimated. Both Bulatovic and Djukanovic were violent anti-Catholics, like all pro-Serb extremists were. This position was articulated in the official media, notably by the Serbian Orthodox ¹¹³⁸⁸ church."

And it is only then that you say the archbishop of the Serbian Orthodox church in Montenegro, Amfilohije Radovic, was professing the most horrible hatred. He also spoke in favour of torturing Croats, and then Muslims later. You are saying that, that he instigated people to kill and torture Croats and Muslims and he personally sang, chanted, along with the gusle, about the glory of Serbia and Montenegro. As a Montenegrin, Mr. Samardzic, I'm sure you know --

JUDGE MAY: The witness should have the chance to deal with the passage which has been referred to in the statement. Is there anything you want to say about that, Mr. Samardzic?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, there is something I want to say. I don't think that he is properly reading my statement, if he is actually reading, and then that's not what I said. I condemned Amfilohije then. I mean, I condemned his behaviour. I did not agree with that kind of behaviour, especially not for someone who is supposed to be God's shepherd in Montenegro. And that is the point of the criticism that I raised. I said that he participated in the war at the front line with his gusle, and I don't think that that is proper for a man of the cloth.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You also talked about instigating killings and torture.

A. No, no, no. I did not say that.

Q. Oh, again they tricked you into giving this kind of statement. Did they plant that into your statement, so your statement is incorrect?

A. My statement is correct. What I said now is what I meant, and ¹¹³⁸⁹ that's what I said, and I condemn the behaviour of Amfilohije in those days. If that is not sufficient, I really don't know what you want.

Q. Everything that you have been saying is quite sufficient for me, Mr. Samardzic. I was quoting your statement; I wasn't claiming anything myself. And then on page 22, you go on to say that "Amfilohije, who strove for killings, both in his sermons as well as in his publications ..." So he spoke out in favour of killings, that's what you said. You accuse him of doing this. And your proof is that he was chanting epic poems to the accompaniment of the gusle instrument. That is what every Montenegrin does, old and young. They all sing songs accompanied by the gusle.

A. Yes, they do, but not a church dignitary. He doesn't follow an army, singing to the tune of the gusle.

Q. Very well, Mr. Samardzic. I have understood you -- I always understood that the church was with the people, so that it follows the people where they go. And you said that Branko Kostic went to see the people who had been victims and casualties in attacks and you criticise him for doing that. And you criticise Amfilohije Radovic for going to visit his flock.

JUDGE MAY: No need to respond.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You furthermore explain that your positions were very quickly contrary to those held by Bulatovic and Djukanovic, because, as you yourself state, Djukanovic's interests were geared towards Russia, Greece, and the former Soviet republics, whereas you preferred contacts with the ¹¹³⁹⁰ West, and that is why you tried to persuade him to change his views. Is that another pure fabrication on your part? It says so on page 5 of your statement. So perhaps you're going to deny it once again and say that your statement is not correct. You are between a rock and a hard place. You don't know what to do. You don't want to say anything against the opposite side and yet you --

JUDGE MAY: Let the witness answer. Now, it's been put to you that in your statement you say - and I haven't found it yet --

MR. KAY: Page 6.

JUDGE MAY: Page 6. Thank you. It's been put that there was a difference between you and Bulatovic about orientation to other countries. Is there anything you want to say about that?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's how it was written, along those lines, as far as I recall, two years ago. But I want to stress that what I stated here and not two years ago, that is what is relevant. But if he wants me to talk about that and if he's asking me about that, the truth is that in my work at the ministry at that time, the first trips we had was to the East, and I don't think it was a terrible thing if I advised the president, which I suppose I did, that we should orient ourselves towards the West. I made no accusations, because I think that we should cooperate both with the East and with the West. And at that time, Montenegro needed to turn towards the West more than it did towards the East.

And we did have meetings in Russia and Kazakhstan and all that was ¹¹³⁹¹ quite in order, quite fine. So I don't see why you're trying to trip me up and why you're saying something quite different.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Samardzic, I think that you're trying to trip yourself up. All I'm doing is asking you to explain your statement, because you say on page 5, the penultimate paragraph:

"I tried to prevail upon Djukanovic to go to Western Europe, Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. But he had no desire to go to these places and was actually quite contemptuous of them."

A. I did not say that. Whatever is written there, I did not put it that way. I am presenting here before the Tribunal matters as I recall them. Now, if this was put into my mouth, I don't think that is in order.

Q. All right. Very well, Mr. Samardzic.

A. Quite simply, I presented what we did, how we worked in the ministry, and I don't see that I can be accused of anything. I do not accuse Djukanovic of anything, nor should this be discussed here and now. We are discussing your crimes here and not how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Montenegro functioned.

Q. Mr. Samardzic, I'm going to ask you whatever I feel like asking you, and not what you want me to ask you, of course within the limitations put on me here. And I am sorry that you cannot get out of the well you've fallen into, the pit you've fallen into, but you can scratch along its walls. You won't be able to get out of it.

JUDGE MAY: Now, is there any more cross-examination which is proper? ¹¹³⁹²

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, of course, Mr. May. I do have quite a few more questions. I don't think I'll have time to ask them all, so I'd like to ask you to extend my time, if you would. I don't think I'll get through all my questions in the ten minutes I have left.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Now, although your speech denies you - and I showed the October speech to you - you explained that there was no reason for concern on the part of Montenegro with respect to any aspirations on the part of Croatia, and that Croatia's conduct in that regard was quite civilised, without any territorial pretensions. Now I'm asking you this: Do you recall - and you were minister at that time - do you recall, for example, that on the 23rd of January, 1991, in Zagreb, a meeting was held of the representatives of Croatia and Montenegro? So the date is the 23rd of January, 1991. At that meeting, the then president of the Croatian Sabor or parliament, Zarko Domljan, stated that Croatia considers the area of Boka Kotorska, the Bay of Kotor, to be its own territory, and the Assembly of Montenegro and the whole Yugoslav public was informed of this through the debate that was held at the Montenegrin parliamentary debate on February of that same year. And it was televised directly via Television Montenegro, so this was no propaganda. It was publicly stated, and many times asserted facts and direct coverage from the meetings and sessions of the Montenegrin Assembly. Do you remember that, and do you consider that to be worrying for Montenegro, that it gave rise for concern? And do you consider it justified for it to defend that territory that belonged to it?

A. I don't remember that at all, and once again, I think that you ¹¹³⁹³ have made a forgery.

Q. All right. All right. You don't remember. Let me go on. We haven't got time. You say you don't remember.

JUDGE MAY: Let him finish. You've put something to him. Let him finish.

A. I did not attend that meeting in Zagreb, the one you claim to have taken place, nor can I remember that anybody in Croatia put it that way, said that. Now, you can bring in newspapers, like Konatar's newspaper or today's Pobjeda issue, or whatever you like --

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Samardzic, you must let the accused ask the questions and give him time. Just restrict your answers, if you would, to dealing with the questions.

Yes, Mr. Milosevic. You've got slightly over ten minutes left.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I didn't hear you. How much more? Ten minutes?

JUDGE MAY: Slightly over ten minutes, yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That means until 20 to 11.00; is that right?

JUDGE MAY: Not the clock I'm looking at. It means 25 to.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Perhaps you're looking at it from a different angle of vision.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Samardzic, let me ask you this, something that you uttered into the microphone and not something you wrote into your statement. You said that in Montenegro, a nationalist putsch had been effected, which ¹¹³⁹⁴ brought Djukanovic and Bulatovic into power, or rather, Bulatovic and Djukanovic, in that order. Is that what you said? Is that what you uttered into this microphone here?

A. I said that a nationalistic putsch did take place. I don't recall having mentioned Bulatovic and Djukanovic in that context, because they didn't come into power straight away. They were elected at the end of the year. The putsch took place at the beginning of the year and they were elected at the end of the year, after the elections. That is what I said, and you're trying to trip me up again. So I'm not here either to attack Djukanovic or Bulatovic, but you seem to be going round and round in circles and trying to trip me up.

Q. Well, I'm asking you what I feel like asking you, what I want to ask.

Tell me, then: Who took over power in Montenegro with the advent of that nationalist putsch?

A. You did, Mr. Milosevic.

Q. So I took over power and authority in Montenegro; is that what you're saying?

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. So who was at the head of Montenegro at that time in my name, on my behalf? Because I wasn't there. So please tell me: Who executed power in Montenegro?

A. Well, a certain group of people acting in your name. And the group that came in power was working for you. Then Milo Djukanovic turned this about and changed the power and authority. He did that for a full ¹¹³⁹⁵ five years. And you keep saying that I'm attacking Milo Djukanovic; because he stands in opposition to you, I'm not going to attack him.

Q. Mr. Samardzic, I'm not linking you with any attacks on Milo Djukanovic. All I'm doing is asking you something. And as you said that he was against me, I don't need to defend him. I have no reason to defend him. I'm just defending the truth, and what you're saying here is untruths. You have written 30 pages here against him and against his brother, accusing him and his brother, and of course I feel duty-bound to defend the truth.

A. No, I did not write anything against him or his brother. What was written about his brother I said was a mistake, an error, and that I said that Jezda the boss knew about the weapons, not him. You tried to trip me up and you're doing it again.

Q. All right. Whether -- I don't try to trip anybody up. But would you tell me through whom it was that I was managing Montenegro when the nationalistic putsch took place?

A. Through the people who had effected the putsch; the army and the police.

Q. Now, please, what did the army and the police have to do in the demonstration that took place in Montenegro? Not a single flower was trampled on. Not a single window was shattered, so what does the army and the police have to do with it? What are you talking about, Mr. Samardzic?

A. Nobody did say that any windows were shattered or flowers trampled on. The army was there under your control and the police was there under your control, and they had taken over power and authority, so it is quite ¹¹³⁹⁶ certain that you were the initiator of what took place in Montenegro, the so-called Anti-Bureaucratic revolution. That is your act. And I stand by that. What more do you want?

Q. And who, then, assumed power in Montenegro except me? Because you say I did. I don't know that I was in power in Montenegro, but if you say so, if you claim so, well, then. So tell me now: Who was in power in my name?

A. After the elections, it was Milo and Momir. What more do you want?

Q. Well, just wait a minute. Aren't you contradicting yourself? Were they legally elected at the topmost party elections in Montenegro?

A. Yes, they were.

Q. So what's the putsch you're talking about?

A. The putsch took place before that. They wouldn't have come to power had there not been the putsch, and that is quite certain.

Q. Ah, so the people would not have voted for them had the putsch not taken place; is that it?

A. Well, those are your conclusions. Let's leave that, whether they would or would not vote. Up until then, they were not people that held such high functions, high offices. They were not in the top echelons of power. And at the time, they were people who you trusted, and that is nothing terrible. This is common knowledge in Montenegro. You yourself are aware of it and know it full well. And Milo Djukanovic came to realise the policy you were implementing and turned against you, and you can't make me attack him here today. And even if you are trying to trip ¹¹³⁹⁷ me up, this has nothing to do with that.

Q. Well, I didn't force you to write your statement.

A. Well, the statements were the ones I gave two years ago. They are not relevant now. Quite a lot of errors were made in that statement, and you're trying to compromise me by bringing that up. And wait a minute. It is I who am speaking now.

Q. You compromise yourself.

A. No, I'm not.

JUDGE MAY: It's time for a moment to cool now. Now, Mr. Samardzic, the accused is entitled to ask you questions about your statement. We hear your responses about it.

Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You explained that Branko Kostic was a Greater Serbian nationalist. Was he elected under my influence, Mr. Samardzic, or was it you in Montenegro who elected him?

A. I was not one of those who elected him, you can be sure of that.

Q. No. When I say "you," I mean the citizens of Montenegro, democratic institutions, the parliament that elected him. I certainly don't think that you are the person who elected him or did he care about that. Was he freely elected in Montenegro by the Assembly of Montenegro?

A. Which position are you referring to?

Q. I am referring to his position in the Presidency of Yugoslavia.

A. Yes, it is the Assembly of Montenegro that nominated him instead of Bucin. That is true. But that does not mean that because he was ¹¹³⁹⁸ nominated by the Assembly of Montenegro that he is not a nationalist, an ultranationalist, as I have said.

Q. All right, Mr. Samardzic. You said that in Montenegro, paramilitary units were organised and that that can be seen. You said that into that same microphone there. That can be seen in the order issued by the two Bulatovics. It so happened that the president of Montenegro and the Minister of the Interior shared the same last name; Bulatovic. This is an exhibit that you presented here. So now I'm asking you: Where can that be seen in that particular exhibit, especially as concerns the order to carry out mobilisation of the special unit of the police? I'm quoting what it says here:

"As strong as a reinforced infantry company. Only in the war conflict on the border between the Republic of Montenegro and the Republic of Croatia..."

That's what Momir Bulatovic signed. And now you say that, on the basis of this, one can see that a paramilitary formation was established. There is this one company of policemen at the border. Now --

JUDGE MAY: I'm going to stop this. The accused is referring to Exhibit 338, tabs 2 and 3.

Mr. Samardzic, do you remember the documents to which the accused is referring or would you like to see copies of them?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I don't want to look at that document. I've already seen it. Mr. Milosevic is tricking me. He said that I presented this to the Court. That is not true. I did not present this document to the Court, or the other one either. ¹¹³⁹⁹

JUDGE MAY: To be fair to him, he's not tricking you. The document was presented during your evidence, and he is entitled to ask you some questions about it. Can you help us at all about what is described as these mobilisation orders or not?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] By your leave, Your Honour, I don't know how this was interpreted to you, but he said that I presented this to the Court. Again, I'm saying I'm not the one who presented this. This was presented to me in court so that I could see it. And now in response to your question, I would like to say the following: It is clear from the documents I saw here that both Bulatovics issued an order to establish special units. To be precise, from the police force and from the Territorial Defence. To the best of my understanding, these units are not purely military units. They are similar to military units, so that's why they're called paramilitary units. At least, that's the way I understand it. And they were placed under the command of the Yugoslav army that was then engaged in war. And that's all. I don't see anything controversial about this. I don't see why I should be tricked in this way.

JUDGE MAY: You're not being tricked. You're not being tricked. You are simply being asked a question about the document, and you have now explained.

Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Again you said here, Mr. Samardzic, paramilitaries, Territorial Defence, et cetera. In this order, show me any mention of anything except ¹¹⁴⁰⁰ a company of the police that is supposed to guard the border between Montenegro and Croatia, where conflicts had broken out. Is any other unit referred to, or any other mobilisation in these two orders? One is a general order issued by the president of the Republic, and the other one that spells it out in more concrete terms, because it's the minister, because he says between such-and-such and such-and-such hours --

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not catch the time, it was too fast.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Did you see anything except for this one unit of one company of the police force? I'm asking you about this order. And you say it is obvious that paramilitary units are being established.

A. Didn't Bulatovic issue an order on general mobilisation, not to mobilise one company only?

Q. I'm asking you about that one and the other one. Where is this other order that you're talking about?

A. I'm talking about the general order that was signed by Bulatovic and that they presented to me.

Q. Where is this order?

A. Give it to me and --

Q. I haven't got it.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Samardzic -- Mr. Milosevic, you have one final question, because your time is up.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I wanted to ask him about these few documents that he interpreted in a freakish way, but ¹¹⁴⁰¹ unfortunately, you won't let me.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Samardzic, do you know the Serbian saying that people who lie have short legs?

JUDGE MAY: You needn't bother to answer that. Mr. Kay, have you any questions, or Mr. Tapuskovic?

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, this is the first time that I'm asking you this. I am really going to try to finish by 11.00 with my questions, but if I do not finish, perhaps could you give me just a few minutes more, if possible? If it is not possible, I'll really try to finish by 11.00.

JUDGE MAY: Could you try and finish, because we need to hear another witness today.

Questioned by Mr. Tapuskovic:

Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Samardzic, could you please just give me yes or no answers, because these are very well-known things that I'm going to ask you about. Were you born in 1935? That's not being contested, right?

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. Does that mean that in 1990 you were 55 years old and at that time more than half of the population of Yugoslavia was that age?

A. Yes, right.

Q. Does that mean that what happened in the First World War is something that everybody had actually lived through; it was not only history?

A. The First World War? ¹¹⁴⁰²

Q. Oh, no the Second World War.

A. Yes, I experienced it.

Q. And at that time, were there very many people who had lived both through the First and Second World Wars?

A. Yes. At that time, there were still people alive who had lived through the First World War too.

Q. Thank you. I'm actually interested in a few things that happened between 1950 -- or rather, in 1945 and 1953, because you mentioned that at that time your father was in deep trouble. And in 1953, you were 18 years old; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. Could you tell me why your father was in prison? Because you said this in your written statement, that between 1948 and 1953, he was in prison. So for five years. He must have done something really terrible.

A. I didn't say that he was in 'til 1953, and it was until 1952. And he didn't do a thing. He was tricked. He was set up. He was a member of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Montenegro. He was a holder of the 1941 Partizan memorial medal. He was supposed to get the highest decoration, to be declared a national hero of Yugoslavia; however, it was the state security service that had set him up and detained him in Goli Otok. And he was quite innocent, quite innocent. And this is obvious from documents.

Q. Does that mean that he got into trouble during Com Inform only because of his opinion?

A. He did get in trouble during the Com Inform times, yes, but his ¹¹⁴⁰³ opinion was correct. He was not in favour of Stalin. He was not. He was in favour of the line carried by his party then. But Sava Joksimovic, chief of police in Montenegro, set him up and that is why he was detained.

Q. Why are you so upset? I'm just asking you.

A. I'm not being upset, but it is really hard. I'm talking about the memory of my father, who was an innocent man and who suffered, and you are setting up these traps.

Q. I am not setting up traps.

A. Why is the fate of my father important for this trial?

JUDGE MAY: The question is really this: How is this assisting the Trial Chamber? Clearly it's an important matter for the witness, but is it -- I don't at the moment see the relevance of this.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] You will see this very soon, Your Honours.

Q. That's what I'm trying to say, Mr. Samardzic, that your father got into trouble --

JUDGE MAY: Perhaps you would explain what the relevance is so we can understand.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] The relevance of this question lies in the following: In that year -- during those years, rather, about 50.000 people were imprisoned. Out of these 50.000 people, the majority were Serbs and Montenegrins, and they were all imprisoned in gaols on small islands. And this was because, again, this idea of a Greater Serbia was being bandied about. So it was 16.000 people who were imprisoned in these islands, including his father. And they suffered only because they ¹¹⁴⁰⁴ were Serbs and Montenegrins and because they thought that there was a certain opinion that was right. But they were not declared guilty by a court of law. No judgement was passed against them. And that is the core of the matter. And then you can see some well-known things that happened in the aftermath. So I'm really asking you to let me explain this, because it is highly relevant, and you will see.

JUDGE MAY: We will see, but meanwhile, you've put the matter, and the witness can answer.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Is this the way things were, the way I put it?

A. The figures on the number of prisoners could be right. There were far more than 16.000. That's right, but I totally disagree with you that they were detained because of this idea of a Greater Serbia. The veterans of Sutjeska and Neretva who were detained in Goli Otok were not fighting for a Greater Serbia but for the brotherhood of the people of Yugoslavia, of the Slovenians, Croats, and everybody else, so don't try to plant this on them.

Q. We're going to get to that. But you said in your statement that Aleksandar Rankovic, Tito's Minister of the Interior, shamelessly promoted the Serbian cause in Montenegro. He cleansed those who were not militarily prepared to accept Serb domination. Is that what you said in your statement, that this was a pogrom and that Com Inform was, inter alia, a pogrom for that?

A. Common form was a pogrom against the Montenegrin nation, because you did not give the exact number of detainees. You should separate the ¹¹⁴⁰⁵ Serb detainees from the Montenegrin detainees. 80 per cent of the detainees, the prisoners in Goli Otok, were from Montenegro, and Montenegro has only 1.6 per cent of Yugoslavia's population. Let me repeat this, Your Honour. Let me try to repeat it slowly: 90 per cent of the people who were imprisoned then in Yugoslavia were not in favour of Stalin. They were innocent, and they were imprisoned. Out of the 20 or so thousand who were in Goli Otok, who were imprisoned there, 80 per cent were Montenegrin, whereas Montenegro accounts only for 1.6 per cent of Yugoslavia's total population. The chief of police was from Serbia, Rankovic, and he was trying to take this out against the Montenegrins.

Q. Where was your father in prison? In Rab or Goli Otok?

A. In Goli Otok.

Q. Where is Goli Otok?

A. It is correct that Goli Otok is in Croatia, but the power of Rankovic was the same in Montenegro and in Croatia. Then the situation was not the same as it is today.

Q. That is quite sufficient, Mr. Samardzic. I have other things to deal with as well. Is it correct that immediately after the end of the Second World War -- you talked yesterday about the civil war that lasted until 1945, and you remember that. And is it correct that immediately after the end of the Second World War, tens of thousands of persons were killed, either because they were rich or they belonged to some political parties before the war that advocated parliamentary democracy, that were prominent persons, artists, and that this primarily took place in Serbia ¹¹⁴⁰⁶ and Montenegro?

A. No, not the way you're putting it. Perhaps there were a few killings. That's probable. But that this was general practice to kill rich people after the war, and prominent people, that simply is not true. Allow me to say this --

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: I must protest. The amici are supposed to be doing a service to the Court and then they ask for an excess of time when we are extremely limited as to time. There must come a limit to the amount --

JUDGE MAY: I agree. We will discuss the matter on the Bench.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Tapuskovic, we are having great difficulty in determining the relevance of the questions that you are asking. Will you explain the relevance. And in any event, I think we'd like you to direct your cross-examination to matters that are more up-to-date and leave the historical matters aside.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour Judge Robinson, I highly appreciate your remarks, but you know that from day one we have been dealing with the problem of Greater Serbia because of the indictment, and all three indictments are brought together by that. Now I have perhaps come to the point. Everything that I've been asking the witness is directed at showing that this idea that a Greater Serbia should exist has been propounded for the past 50 years or so, and this is contained in the statement of this witness, so that you would see that at all difficult points in time throughout history over the past 50 years, from 1945 ¹¹⁴⁰⁷ onwards, it is always the question of a Greater Serbia that was raised time and again, that this Greater Serbia could jeopardise other nations. During this trial -- I don't know how long I'll be dealing with this case any more, but --

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues]... have been around for some time; is that it? We'll proceed, but I think you'll have to finish by 11.00.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have an objection, Mr. May.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, very briefly, what is the point?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I think that what Mr. Tapuskovic was saying was completely misunderstood. It is not the idea of a Greater Serbia, but these are accusations concerning an alleged idea to set up a Greater Serbia. A Greater Serbia is a -- is something that was concocted by Austro-Hungary two centuries ago, never by Serbia, and I explained that very well. So this was a pogrom of the Serbs really.

JUDGE MAY: Let Mr. Tapuskovic conduct his own examination. Yes, now, Mr. Tapuskovic, you've got until 11.00, so perhaps you would just deal with the matters in that time.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Then I'm going to hurry up. But I think it would be useful for you, at any rate. But all right. Of course I'm going to act upon your instructions.

Q. Mr. Samardzic, you said yesterday that this idea of a Greater Serbia was created only in the late 1980s and that the creators of this idea were the memoranda, Dobrica Cosic, and then Slobodan Milosevic. That's what you said yesterday. ¹¹⁴⁰⁸

A. I said that was the leader. I never said it was the beginning. The beginning was at the time of Garasanin, of Ilija Garasanin. The idea of a Greater Serbia has been in existence since the times of Ilija Garasanin. It was not invented by Austro-Hungary but by this Serbian minister.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours. Please, Your Honours, I would like to draw your attention to page 8 of the Serbian version, or rather, page 9, last paragraph, of the English version, where it says that Mr. Samardzic stated, after the first sentence: "... particularly in the north-east of the Republic, they always supported the idea of a Greater Serbia ... After the war, Aleksandar Rankovic, Tito's Minister of the Interior, shamelessly promoted the Serb cause in Montenegro. After World War II, he purged many people in Montenegro who were not willing to totally endorse Serb domination. Many people who had fought with the Partizans were imprisoned as Stalinists, royalists, fascists, or just plain nationalists. He replaced them with persons who subscribed to his view of Serbian primacy." So that was the idea that always existed amongst the Montenegrins. That's what you say, this idea of a Greater Serbia. And then Serbian supremacy, in the actions of Aleksandar Rankovic, as you had put it. Is it the way you put it here, that Greater Serbia was being referred to even then?

A. What do you mean?

Q. Well, something that was always being ascribed to the Serbian side. ¹¹⁴⁰⁹

A. In Montenegro, after 1948, propaganda began for Greater Serbism, and that is true, in schools, and it exists to the present day as well. So everything from the educational system; schools, cadres, policy - I mention this - everything was implemented in this way to make Montenegro just a part of a Greater Serbia or close to a Greater Serbia. That was what was done.

Q. Thank you, Mr. Samardzic. So in 1965, was Rankovic arrested, along with lots of other people, for that same alleged existence of the idea of Greater Serbia?

A. He was replaced at that time because of the idea of a Greater Serbia. That is true. But none of his policemen were arrested with him. A portion of them were just pensioned off.

Q. Thank you. The constitution of 1974 -- and in 1974 you were a member of parliament, of the federal parliament, a deputy there, and you know everything connected to how the constitution was enacted, what happened up until 1974 and afterwards. Now, the 1974 constitution, was it passed precisely because of this fear of a Greater Serbia, and was not that 1974 constitution a preparation in fact for all the subsequent republics that were later set up, the six republics and two autonomous provinces for the economic and political breaking off of these republics and provinces?

A. I cannot define the 1970 [as interpreted] constitution in that way. The constitution did, without doubt, have as its intentions to clip Greater Serbia and the idea about that, but the constitution did not provide for the possibility of secession. ¹¹⁴¹⁰

Q. Thank you. Now, was there a special provision in the constitution with respect total national defence, that all the people should be armed? Now, who did Yugoslavia have to defend itself from when there was peace in Europe? There was no intimation of war at all.

A. I apologise. Yugoslavia had to have an army of its own and its organised system of defence.

Q. Yes, I agree there with you.

A. But after that, the danger always lurked of an attack from the Soviet Union and its bloc.

Q. But why should we arm the people? To defend our borders, that's okay, but why did we arm the people?

A. Well, if Yugoslavia were to be attacked, were to have been attacked at that time by the Soviet bloc, for instance, the sole defence was what we referred to as total peoples defence, and that is in the traditions of our peoples, that along with the army, all military-able men could also assist in the defence of the country. That was nothing bad.

Q. Now, if this constitution provided for secession, does any -- let me ask you: Does any constitution in any other country allow for separation up until a secession even?

A. Tito's Yugoslavia had five constitutions, if I may be allowed to state. From the first to the last, they all contained the provision on the right of peoples to self-determination, and I see nothing bad if peoples in a federal state enjoyed the right to step down and separate.

Q. But this constitutional provision, did it not come into force when Slovenia took the action it did? ¹¹⁴¹¹

A. What do you mean?

Q. When it attacked the army.

A. Oh, you're talking about 1990 and 1991; is that it?

Q. Yes.

A. I don't want to go into Slovenia did. There was a conflict created there. But you can't blame the provision of the 1974 constitution for that. The provision did exist. That is exact.

Q. When the 1974 constitution was adopted and passed, was there mention made of autonomy for Serbs in Croatia? Was there any mention of that?

A. Well, that idea always did exist that the Serbs ought to be given their autonomy in Croatia. I can't speak about 1974, but there were always advocates of this. During World War II, Mosa Pijade asked Tito that Serbs in Croatia be given autonomy. And what did Tito say? He didn't allow it. He didn't permit it.

Q. Well, you say that Mosa Pijade told Tito that and Tito answered that there can be no question of autonomy for that portion of Croatia. That was Tito's answer to Mosa Pijade. Is that true? Is it correct?

A. Yes. That took place at Mount Glamoc. I think they met there, and Mosa Pijade did advocate this idea. Tito, on the other hand, considered that there was no need for autonomy because he was an advocate of setting up a state of nations living under the spirit of brotherhood and equality. And at this point in time, don't ask me whether I agree with Mosa Pijade or whether I agree with Tito. That event did come to pass, and I don't know what your conclusions are. ¹¹⁴¹²

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I see that my time is up. May I be allowed to ask some more questions, please?

JUDGE MAY: You can ask until 5 past. We'll sit until 5 past to allow you to do so.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Then I will be as brief as possible.

Q. Take a look at the 1974 constitution. It enabled complete autonomy, even including the right to secession.

A. That was the same in 1946, Mr. Tapuskovic. That was the 1946 constitution too.

Q. Yes, yes, I know. Now, tell me: Did the right of veto exist before 1974?

A. The veto was not in force in 1974 in all areas either.

Q. Could Serbia have tried to have a law passed at federal level, for example, if Vojvodina did not -- the people of Vojvodina did not live within Serbia?

A. Well, it depends what law you're referring to.

Q. You were in the Federal Assembly in 1978. Was there a complete paralysis in the work of the federal organs? Nothing could be done at federal level; wasn't that true? There was complete paralysis.

A. No, there wasn't complete paralysis. There were very serious difficulties, yes, there were, but it was not a completely paralysed system.

Q. Now, had the Serbs been given autonomy in Vojvodina, in Serbia, and not Serbs in Croatia, how do you explain this? ¹¹⁴¹³

A. I explain this by saying that the autonomy of Vojvodina and the autonomy of Kosovo was not allowed in 1974, but 1945, and the decisions made at the second session of the anti-fascist council, known as Avnoj.

Q. Why was this not given in 1945?

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] I do apologise, Your Honours. That is my temperament, my natural temperament. I tend to flare up. So I do agree that I am going a little too fast, but it's in my nature, and I don't seem to be able to do otherwise.

JUDGE MAY: Try and curb it, if you would. Now, let's move on.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Let me answer you straight away.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So Tito didn't permit this in 1945; he didn't allow the Serbs to have autonomy in Croatia in 1945. Is that right?

A. Yes, that's right. But Lord Carrington proposed that Serbs be given the greatest possible degree of autonomy, and Milosevic refuted it. That is also true. And then, when they were going to be accorded this, Slobodan Milosevic threw this chance away. If we in Yugoslavia were not able to settle this matter - and I permit that we could have been criticised - that if Lord Carrington, a British aristocrat, was willing to give the Serbs complete autonomy, or a large measure of autonomy, in Croatia, why did Mr. Milosevic throw that chance away?

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you must interrupt very briefly.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In my speech, which we have in its entirety here, I make mention of the facts that Mr. Samardzic is bringing up now, and what I said was quite contrary to what he is claiming ¹¹⁴¹⁴ now.

JUDGE MAY: You will have the chance to read the speech, and you can make any point about it, but now Mr. Tapuskovic is examining. Let him finish and don't interrupt.

Yes, Mr. Tapuskovic.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I'm going to skip over quite a number of matters here, but you were in Australia; right?

A. Right.

Q. And you were in contact with emigres there, Serb emigres and Croat emigres, and we heard from you that they talked about the fact that Croatia would gain independence very soon.

A. A large number of emigres from Croatia, a certain number of them, did have their organisations and did advocate an independent Croatia.

Q. That's what you heard two years after Tito's death, and you heard it in Australia; is that right?

A. Yes. They advocated an independent Croatia. These Croatian emigrants, not all of them, but certain emigres did come out in favour of that.

Q. In your statement here, you said -- and I think that it would be in order, because brotherhood and unity was forged. We were all equal. But in your statement, you differentiated and said that the Croats were closer to the Montenegrins than the Serbs were.

A. Yes, I did write that. Where did I write that? Let me ask you.

Q. Well, I'll find it for you. ¹¹⁴¹⁵

A. Well, I don't remember having said that. I was brought up along those lines in that way, and I think that is quite true. The Montenegrins are very close to both the Serbs and the Croats.

Q. What does "Serbisation" mean? Did anybody try to make you change your ethnic affiliation?

A. Not me personally, but this trend did exist, that a certain number of Montenegrins say they're Serbs and not Montenegrins. That is something that is quite prevalent.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I don't want to abuse your patience. Your Honours, I do not wish to abuse your patience, as I said, but rest assured that I had a lot of other things that would have been of great assistance to you in having an overview of all these questions. But I thank you for the time that you have accorded me and I will end there.

JUDGE MAY: Very well.

MR. NICE: Before we adjourn, can I raise one administrative matter?

JUDGE MAY: Do you have re-examination of this witness?

MR. NICE: Yes. We have identified, in light of the cross-examination, some further transcripts of sessions of the parliament. Now, you can see them. They're very substantial in size and they're all in Cyrillic. I suspect they're documents that the accused has already had access to in one form or another, but it occurs to me, before the decision is made to release the witness, that we probably should disclose them, whether under Rule 68 ¹¹⁴¹⁶ or otherwise. And I can tell the accused, in case he's interested, that there are I think about five or six pages that we've identified as having contributions from this witness recorded in the stenographic notes. And I'll just read out those pages so that he can write them down if he wants to and I'll make them available to him now before the break, and if anything arises we can deal with it after the break. The page numbers for the accused to write down, if he wants to, if he hasn't had them already from another source, are: 101, 102, 104, 147, 149, 193 to 196. I'll make a copy available to Mr. Tapuskovic as well.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We need to finish this witness as rapidly as we can.

MR. NICE: And one other thing: When we sit again, I would ask for a short private session, again on administrative matters, but I think important that I deal with it at that stage and before I re-examine.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll adjourn for half an hour.

--- Recess taken at 11.04 a.m.

--- On resuming at 11.37 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, three short matters, the first one different from the other two in the sense that it's something that arose from the cross-examination. As the Chamber knows, I am conducting this case with the absolute minimum of intervention. I hope that's what the Chamber wants. But -- and also I pursue a policy of never putting the Chamber in a position where it would have to agree with something without having a chance to consider it, as it were, in advance. But we have to ¹¹⁴¹⁷ say that the closing question of the accused hit, in our judgement, depths of bad taste, given the physical condition of this man, this witness. And bearing in mind that that observation by the accused is frequently understood, as I understand it, as a threat, it reached depths of bad taste, on which we would invite the Chamber to make public comment.

JUDGE MAY: I recollect it now. It was vulgar abuse.

MR. NICE: It causes enormous upset to native speakers and to those from the region who know exactly what is afoot, because it's both, of course, extraordinarily offensive to a man who's lost --

JUDGE MAY: Why don't you make this point in open session so everybody can hear it.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, we're in open session.

JUDGE MAY: We are in open session. So you made the point, but not in the presence of the witness, unfortunately.

MR. NICE: No. I'll repeat it when he comes in. May I have private session for two matters?

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

[Private session]

[redacted]

[redacted]

[redacted]

[redacted]

[redacted]

[redacted]

[redacted] ¹¹⁴¹⁸ Pages 11418-11424 - redacted - private session

¹¹⁴²⁵

[Open session]

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, we're back in open session.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, while the witness is coming into court, there were some stenographic notes that I provided before the shortest -- latest short adjournment. They cover the following dates of the Montenegrin Assembly: The 4th, 7th, 17th, 24th, and 25th of October; I think the 23rd of December; the 16th, 17th, maybe the 18th, 21st, and 22nd of January of 1992. They are only in Cyrillic at the moment, and rather than burden the translation department with an enormous additional task, we may return to the Chamber in due course with a request to meet our obligations to translate selectively.

May they be given an exhibit number?

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Prosecutor's Exhibit 340.

MR. NICE: And Your Honour, before I may return to questions of this witness on the substance of the evidence, may I record the condemnation by all on the Prosecution side of the very last question of the accused, which, in our respectful submission, descended to depths of poor taste, and it may be worse, where he used a phrase about legs to a man who is injured -- not injured, suffers in the way that the Chamber knows this man does. It was an astonishing and, in our respectful submission, absolutely inexcusable thing to do.

I turn to the re-examination --

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, I shall make it plain that the Trial Chamber ¹¹⁴²⁶ takes no notice of that sort of question, and in its view, was no more than vulgar abuse, and the witness should hear that. Yes. Re-examined by Mr. Nice:

Q. Mr. Samardzic, a few more questions. You made one observation, quite recently --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] [No interpretation]

JUDGE MAY: No. Just be quiet for a moment, Mr. Milosevic. Let Mr. Nice finish.

MR. NICE:

Q. You made an observation that Djukanovic stands in opposition to the accused and that you are not going to attack him. You made that observation in relation to certain passages of your statement where you had apparently said things about Djukanovic. Is it your position, as you said then, that you're not going to attack him because he stands in opposition to the accused? Just yes or no, if that will adequately answer the question.

A. Yes, that's it, but it's not only that. There were also some small errors in that statement that I made two years ago. But the essence is what you asked me about now. I do not wish to attack Milo Djukanovic before this Court.

Q. And again, as a matter of record so that the Chamber can have it on the record, something that it might also have in mind when it looks at the newspaper articles that are being produced: There is indeed an election under way at the moment; is that correct, and is Djukanovic a candidate standing for an independent Montenegro? ¹¹⁴²⁷

A. Mr. Djukanovic advocates an independent Montenegro. I think that that's the way it is. However, today a new state is being created, Serbia and Montenegro, and in that state, Montenegro is probably going to obtain confederal status.

Q. One passage was put to you from your statement about the anti-Catholic nature of the Dubrovnik offensive. Most of the paragraph, on page 16 of the English version, was put, but I'd like to read you the last sentence, where you spoke of the Serb Orthodox church and its archbishop. And you said in the statement:

"They never spoke out for reconciliation or for tolerance, but instead they consistently advocated the most radical course, with absolute disregard for anyone who was not a Serb."

Was that your position when you made your statement? Is that your position and view now? And again, if the question is capable of being answered by yes or no, please do so.

A. Yes. The Serbian Orthodox church, especially its representative in Montenegro, acted precisely in that manner, yes.

Q. You were asked a number of questions by the accused about self-determination or about Serbs remaining in one state, matters to that general effect, and whether this was a position that you had yourself adopted and espoused. You remember looking, on the map, at the Karlobag-Virovitica line. Tell us, please, this: Would a composite state, defined by a border along that line, be one where it was just a question of Serbs remaining in one state, or not?

A. If that line were to be reached, Karlobag-Virovitica, most of the ¹¹⁴²⁸ Serbs would, for the most part, be in one state. But in that same state, there would be quite a few Croats and Muslims as well, and the other ethnic groups which make up Yugoslavia.

Q. Let's turn to the --

JUDGE KWON: Just a moment. Mr. Samardzic, you referred as the base of your assertion that the accused was pursuing the idea of Greater Serbia to the accused's speech in which he said that the Serbs should live in one state, as making assertion for the Greater Serbia. However, given that the accused is saying now that the meaning of the one country in saying that the Serbs should live in one country was nothing but the federal Yugoslavia. That being the case, could you draw a distinction between your position, that is, that you still abide by -- you said you still abide by your words that the Serb people in Croatia should remain in Yugoslavia. Then could you draw a distinction between your position and that of Mr. Milosevic, as you understand it now.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Milosevic advocated a Greater Serbia, not a Federal Yugoslavia, if we exclude his concept of federation between a small Montenegro and a Greater Serbia. As far as the Serb people in Croatia are concerned, his clear-cut stand is that once Yugoslavia does not exist, that they should be in a Greater Serbia. My position in the matter was quite clear: Croatia should remain within its own borders and the Serbs should be given self-government in that territory, as proposed by Lord Carrington. And there's an enormous difference between the two. ¹¹⁴²⁹ His candidate for the president of Serbia, Vojvoda "Duke" Seselj, whom, as I say, Mr. Milosevic puts forward as president of Serbia, has, without cessation for the past 12 years right up to the present day, been advocating a Greater Serbia and says very specifically that, "Karlobag is ours and so is the territory up to Virovitica." Recently he made mention of the port of Rijeka which is further to the west, and he said that it should be a Serb port.

So that is the understanding that Mr. Milosevic has of a Greater Serbia. And not only him; the whole movement aspires to that. Perhaps he made less frequent mention of Virovitica, et cetera, but his followers, such as Seselj, a case in point, and many others, they strove for a Greater Serbia. Mr. Milosevic, before the crisis became full-fledged, rejected the initiative by the Gligorov and Izetbegovic, the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, this one, and they proposed that Federal Yugoslavia be composed of four republics, if Croatia and Slovenia secede. Milosevic blatantly rejected that initiative of theirs because his intention was other; that of creating a Greater Serbia.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

MR. NICE: The accused, I think, spoke.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The witness is now saying that I made less frequent mention of this border, Karlovac-Virovitica-Karlobag, which means that he implies that I mentioned it very rarely. Now, as I never, ever mentioned it, I ask that the witness find any of my statements, private or public, to bear his point out. And when he says ¹¹⁴³⁰ that I rejected the Izetbegovic-Gligorov plan --

JUDGE MAY: You've had your chance to cross-examine, and you can't interrupt continually what anybody else says. And in addition to that, you will have the chance to comment in due course on what the witness has said, and we will hear it.

Now.

MR. NICE:

Q. Can I turn to the meeting of the 1st of October? The Defence produced, but without copies, a newspaper article contained a photograph. Mr. Samardzic, just so that I can understand it -- I don't know what the exhibit number is.

JUDGE MAY: We'll give it an exhibit number, a Defence one.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, it will be Defence Exhibit 53.

MR. NICE:

Q. Mr. Samardzic, as to Defence Exhibit 63 [sic], you had a short time to review it, and to review it in difficult circumstances of being in the witness chair. But first of all, are you shown in the photograph at all?

A. No, I'm not shown at all. I can't recognise myself there, nor can I see myself. And I wasn't at any kind of commemorative meeting during those days there. At least I can't remember. No commemoration at all.

Q. Very well. I think the article says -- we'll have a translation, no doubt, in due course, that the ceremony was at the beginning of a meeting, without necessarily specifying the date of the meeting. I think that's what it may say. Were you familiar at all with formal meetings ¹¹⁴³¹ being preceded by short ceremonies of the kind revealed in the photograph, with people standing to attention and in apparent silence?

A. I did not attend any such commemoration. It might have been held -- it could have been held, but not on the 1st of October. It could have been held, if we see what the Pobjeda article says of the 3rd of October, it might have been held on the 2nd of October, but that has nothing to do with my statement and claims that the government session in the presence of the generals was held, in fact, on the 1st of October.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, sorry to interrupt you; I'd just like to see the exhibit.

Yes, please proceed.

MR. NICE: Returning to the same issue of the document, can the witness just have another look, or can we lay on the overhead projector, perhaps, the English versions of Exhibit 338, tabs 2 and 3, I think. If we can just lay the English version on the overhead projector, I think, because Mr. Samardzic speaks English.

Incidentally, Your Honour, my recollection is from my brief look at the photograph - I'm sorry, cutting through - I think that the photograph doesn't have uniforms in it, but I'm not sure.

Q. If we look at the English version, the top of it, please. That's fine. We see that -- a bit further up, actually. Right. We see that it's dated, with a strictly confidential number of 14, the 1st of October. We then see that this is an order pursuant to certain provisions, and we then see that the order is effective on the 2nd of October. And we see that this was the order that contained the reference to performing ¹¹⁴³² specific military tasks on the Dubrovnik front.

If we then turn, please, to look at Exhibit 3 - and I'll ask you about the exhibits in a second, please. Exhibit 3, again top part. Again we see it's dated the 1st of October, and with a strictly confidential number 01-14/2, pursuant to an order by the president of the Presidency of the Republic. And an order is made by Minister Bulatovic, again relating to the Dubrovnik theatre of war, as it's described on this occasion at the foot of the page, in the translation.

Now, the question I want to ask you is this: Can you help us with the sequence of events? Either, one, were these orders made after the meeting you referred to; and two, could they have been made without that meeting having taken place?

A. Documents of this kind -- and I'm looking at this one for the first time here and now in the courtroom. Documents of this kind could not have been compiled and written during the session itself. Quite obviously, they were compiled after the session, in precise terms, the one held on the 1st of October, the one that I talked about with the presence of the generals, which is when the decision was taken about the war efforts vis-a-vis Croatia. As this was written on the 1st of October, as I can see from the text, it was to have been executed -- that is to say, mobilisation was to take place, not only just one unit, as Mr. Milosevic mentioned, but, to all intents and purposes, general mobilisation, according to what Mr. Bulatovic signed here, and that began on the 2nd of October. The session of the 1st of October was not a commemorative session, it was a working meeting. ¹¹⁴³³

Q. And you've been shown no other document by the accused or anybody else consistent with the institution of mobilisation, have you?

A. No. No, I haven't. I haven't looked at any documents concerning mobilisation. All I can see is what stands before me now.

Q. Can you help us with Strugar's approach at this meeting? What was his attitude at this meeting?

A. I came quite late, but I heard Strugar, who confirmed what Mr. Bulatovic had been saying, that the Ustashas had attacked us and that he confirmed the figure of 30.000 mentioned by Bulatovic, and that it was up to us to defend ourselves. He didn't speak for long. He said more or less what I have just stated. And I cannot recall anything else that he said at present. He said it's up to us to defend ourselves, and that was his position.

Otherwise, let me say that I don't know Mr. Strugar personally. That was the first time that I had seen him. And I had a brief conversation with Jokic, and I also testified about that. And that's all.

Q. Before we turn from this topic generally, and the institution of military action in the area of Dubrovnik, just answer this question, please, yes or no: Have you yourself heard directly, whether on television, radio, or by being present, what passed between President Djukanovic and President Mesic at their first public or publicised meeting in recent years? I think it was in Cavtat, but it may have been in Dubrovnik. Did you -- it was in Cavtat. Did you hear what Djukanovic said to Mesic about the Dubrovnik campaign?

A. Yes. It was publicised, stated in public, that President ¹¹⁴³⁴ Djukanovic apologised to Croatia for the difficulties that they were having and for the deaths that occurred in Dubrovnik. He apologised in the name of the people of Montenegro.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, we may get more detail of that, from one source or another, later.

Q. I want to turn now to the decision taken in the Carrington conference, but before I deal with that, the history of it having been challenged by the accused: Were you aware of any telephone calls being made before the vote was dealt with by Lord Carrington? And if so, between who?

A. Do you mean the telephone conversation in Podgorica or somewhere else? In The Hague, perhaps?

Q. Involving Mr. Bulatovic, if any, of which you are aware, and before the --

A. Yes. During the meeting of the Montenegrin Assembly, from about 7.00 in the evening until 7.00 in the morning - and this was televised by Television Titograd - Momir was mostly in his office and watching on the screen there, the monitor. And he was frequently in communication that evening with Mr. Milosevic. He told me that himself. And for the situation at that time and relations at that time, I considered that to be quite normal.

Q. Thank you very much. A number of questions were put to you on this topic, coming from a statement made by Mr. Bulatovic, so it is said. If the video booth would be good enough now, please, to play a short video for us. ¹¹⁴³⁵

[Videotape played]

REPORTER: The Serbs leaders spent the flight home plotting.

MR. JOVIC: [Voiceover] For us, the only favourable version was that Montenegro withdraw its stand.

MR. BULATOVIC: [Voiceover] And then my telephone began ringing. Important political personages over there asked, Is it possible that you have become a traitor of the Serbian people? The conversation lasted all night. The phone constantly rang. There were even threats.

SPEAKER: [Voiceover] Of course, the Montenegrin People's Party called for an extraordinary parliamentary session because Momir Bulatovic wrote this hard declaration. And Momir Bulatovic's signature on that document is considered to be a separatist --

MR. NICE: Your Honour, the clip that we've just seen is one of a number of exhibits that will be produced by a later witness, and of course is possibly familiar to the Chamber if it's seen the film "The Death of Yugoslavia." But I'm happy to produce it now as a clip now or to defer its production until the witness produces material generally.

JUDGE MAY: Better dealt with generally than, I think, in a clip.

MR. NICE:

Q. Was that Mr. Bulatovic you saw on that clip?

A. Of course. That was Momir Bulatovic personally.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... then about what happened the night before and the day, in accordance with your experience?

A. In complete conformity, in complete accordance. He spoke about the telephone calls, the fact that he was called a traitor, and he had to ¹¹⁴³⁶ change his standpoint because of the pressures exerted on him that I mentioned.

Q. Just a couple more questions and I shall be done. Was the phrase "liberation of Dubrovnik" something that you overheard? You've been challenged about what was happening at Dubrovnik, and I'll come to that in a second, but was the phrase "liberation of Dubrovnik" ever referred to?

A. Yes, of course I did mention that. That was what was said. Dubrovnik had to be freed, liberated. And that was present in their consciousness, to defend it from the -- to defend ourselves from the Ustashas and then to carry on with the liberation of Dubrovnik.

Q. Do you remember any occasion when this alleged liberation was said to have been completed or imminent?

A. Could you please repeat the question and tell me what you mean. How do you mean, completed or imminent?

Q. [Previous translation continues]... in any meeting at which you attended, that Dubrovnik was soon to be liberated? If you can't remember, we'll move on, but if you can, help us.

A. I can't remember for the moment --

Q. Very well.

A. -- about this being completed or imminent, but that Dubrovnik would be liberated, that was something that was bandied about, at least in the coastal regions of Montenegro.

Q. You've had various things put to you said by you or said to have been said about you by Prevlaka, and we've seen the documentation showing ¹¹⁴³⁷ your negotiations with Croatia over Prevlaka. So far as you were concerned, were you pursuing a consistent line in relation to negotiating Prevlaka, both in your private dealings by correspondence with Croatia and in your public statements, or were you for any reason obliged to say slightly different things or much different things in public?

A. From the very beginning, at any kind of discussion about the Prevlaka, I always held the same position and always strove in favour of it; that is to say, we can win the Prevlaka only in negotiations with friendly Croatia and not to go to war with it. And there was no other way for us to obtain Prevlaka from Croatia. The sole way was to negotiate and not to go to war. I said this on television, at the government sessions, in the government; from start to finish, that was what I advocated, and I feel the same way today.

Q. Finally, then --

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: My apologies.

Q. Finally, then, please, Mr. Samardzic, the actual heart of -- core of your evidence and what it's all about, the attack -- or a lot of it is about, and that is the attack on Dubrovnik. The accused has said that he condemned it, that he -- or condemned the shelling of Dubrovnik. When pressed by the Chamber for an explanation, he said something to this effect: That he understood that the army was being attacked because it wanted to limit the action of National Guard Corps. Is that an explanation for the involvement of the army at Dubrovnik that you've heard before? ¹¹⁴³⁸

A. No. What he said in The Hague or in Brussels - Mr. Milosevic, I mean - does not correspond, absolutely does not correspond to the truth. He probably said it, but there was fighting over Dubrovnik. The whole army was ready, and its equipment and the reservists of Montenegro attacked Dubrovnik. That's what they were doing. At that time, there were none of the ZNGs or National Guard Corps, as the president of the Serbian government, Zelenovic -- the Prime Minister of the government, Zelenovic, writes.

Q. And in the meetings of the Montenegrin Assembly, particularly on the 1st of October and subsequent ones, was this explanation or excuse being advanced or not?

A. Let me say that it wasn't an Assembly meeting, that one on the 1st of October. It was a government session with the generals I mentioned. And I attended that meeting in part, and the principal issue was that the Croats were attacking us and that it was up to us to defend ourselves. And of course, within that context, the subject of the incidents came up, the incidents perpetrated by the Croatian side along our borders. And there was even a document presented about it. I didn't protest on the occasion, but I wasn't quite sure that that was in order. So what I remember most vividly from that meeting was that we had to defend ourselves against Croatia. That was on the 1st of October. And already the following day it was quite evident that our units had entered into Croatia and that there was no trace of the 30.000 who were attacking Montenegro.

Q. You explained yesterday that when you were first presented -- not ¹¹⁴³⁹ yesterday, the day before, I think. Whenever. That when you were first presented with this explanation of the 30.000 attacking Croatians, you accepted it because it came from the mouths of the generals. Can you just finally tell us roughly when, or precisely when, you first realised that that account was false and that you first started to detach yourself from it?

A. That evening, that is to say, on the 1st of October, in the evening, I said the following: If they have indeed attacked us, then it is up to us to defend ourselves. Because I believed, I had the impression that the generals were there in full battle dress --

Q. [Previous translation continues]... that what you were told was not true. We've had the evidence before. Just roughly when you first realised that what you were told was false.

A. Already the following day or days. It wasn't easy for me. It wasn't easy to see that -- I always believed that the army would defend Yugoslavia, and I always remembered it as the army I had remembered when I was a child. So it took a few days for me to become accustomed to this new idea.

Q. That's all I need.

MR. NICE: That's my re-examination.

JUDGE MAY: Thank you, Mr. Samardzic, for coming to the International Tribunal to give your evidence. It's concluded. You're free to go.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, can I not put some questions in relation to this? ¹¹⁴⁴⁰

JUDGE MAY: No. You've had your go at cross-examination, and we really must conclude this witness's evidence.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, but this would pertain to --

THE WITNESS: Thank you very much.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What about the stenographic notes? The ones that --

JUDGE MAY: They're going to be exhibited and you can comment on them in due course, once we have them translated. Yes, let's have the next witness.

[The witness withdrew]

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, I'm going to use the time while we're waiting for this witness to come to give a ruling. Mr. Kay, this involves Mr. Wladimiroff, and it's the ruling of the Trial Chamber in relation to his position.

MR. KAY: Thank you.

JUDGE MAY: The Chamber has considered this matter very carefully and has concluded that the statements made by Mr. Wladimiroff, even with the explanations accepted, raise serious questions about the appropriateness of his continuing as amicus curiae. The Chamber observes that not only did he comment on parts of the case in respect of which evidence has been given, but that he has also made an assessment of parts in respect of which evidence has not yet been adduced, and that in both instances he appears to have formed a view of the case unfavourable to the accused. Of particular concern is the view expressed that the accused must be convicted of at least some of the ¹¹⁴⁴¹ charges.

The statements, taken as a whole, would, in the Chamber's view, give rise to a reasonable perception of bias on the part of the amicus curiae. Implicit in the concept of an amicus curiae is the trust that the Court reposes in the friend to act fairly in the performance of his duties. In the circumstances, the Chamber cannot be confident that the amicus curiae will discharge his duties, which include bringing to its attention any defences open to the accused, with the required impartiality.

Accordingly, the Chamber will instruct the Registrar to revoke Mr. Wladimiroff's appointment as an amicus curiae. This is a decision which the Chamber has arrived at with much regret, since Mr. Wladimiroff has, like the other amici, provided useful assistance to the Court. More detailed reasons will be given in writing.

Yes.

MR. NICE: I imagine the witness is at the door, but ...

JUDGE MAY: Perhaps someone could go and have a look.

MR. NICE: Yes.

[The witness entered court]

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

WITNESS: DEJAN ANASTASIJEVIC

[Witness answered through interpreter]

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Examined by Mr. Nice: ¹¹⁴⁴²

Q. Your full name, please.

A. My name is Dejan Anastasijevic.

Q. Mr. Anastasijevic, are you by ethnicity a Serb, born in Belgrade in 1962, and did you study at the University of Belgrade, in the department of molecular biology, not graduate; you served in the national service with the JNA between 1980 and 1981; correct?

A. All this information is correct.

Q. Had you become a journalist and become a war reporter since the early autumn of 1991, first working in Belgrade, I think, for Radio B92, the independent radio station, and then for United Press International? Did you work during the war in Croatia as a journalist for various individuals, including -- bodies, including the CNN, BBC, and the New York Times?

A. Yes, all of that is correct.

Q. Since 1993, have you worked for Vreme, the independent Belgrade-based weekly newspaper, and have you been a freelance reporter for Time magazine since 1996?

A. Yes, all of that is correct.

Q. Did you visit and make reports from several battle fronts, including Vukovar, immediately after its fall into the hands of Serb and Yugoslav forces? Have you also been in Eastern Bosnia in 1992?

A. All of that is correct.

Q. Finally, so far as background is concerned, have you recently just returned from spending one academic year, year 2001 to 2002, at Harvard University, on a fellowship for working journalists? ¹¹⁴⁴³

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. First, then, some observations of your own on the ground. Vukovar, November 1991. When did you first go to Eastern Slovenia in relation to the fall of Vukovar?

A. This was a few days, approximately seven days, before the town fell into the hands of the Serb forces.

Q. In order to get there, what formalities did you have to go through?

A. It was necessary to get a permit from the information service of the Yugoslav People's Army, as it was then. This permit was obtained in Belgrade and it was valid up to the village of Negoslavci, which is near Vukovar. And over there, at the press service of the JNA, it was necessary to obtain a new permit, which made it possible to get closer to town.

Q. That permit being issued by what authority?

A. The permit was issued by the information service of the Yugoslav People's Army.

Q. As you went into Vukovar, what, if any, checkpoints did you have to pass through?

A. There were several checkpoints that one had to pass through. The first one was at the very administrative border with Croatia, and then, depending on the situation, there were a few checkpoints up to Negoslavci, and then another few between Negoslavci and Vukovar.

Q. By the time you reached Vukovar, had you heard anything from Serb media, television, and radio about what was happening there? ¹¹⁴⁴⁴

A. Of course, there were many news that were broadcast from the area at the time. For the most part, the news indicated that what was going on was that well-trained and armed forces of the so-called ZNGs, that is to say, the Croatian National Guard Corps, were attacking poorly defended Serb villages around Vukovar and that the Serbs, the bare-armed peoples, it was said then, could hardly manage to defend themselves. And the forces of the Yugoslav People's Army that were there were described as forces that were trying to separate the warring parties and that they were there exclusively to oppose the Croatian extremists, if necessary.

Q. How did those reports match with or contrast to what you found when you got to Vukovar?

A. The difference was drastic and shocking. First of all, the Serb forces, or rather, the Serb paramilitary units in the region, were excellently armed. Actually, the town was under siege and an offensive was under way in order to capture the town. Also, it was quite obvious that the JNA was not neutral at all. As a matter of fact, that it was giving logistic and materiel support to the Serb forces.

Q. When you say it wasn't acting in a neutral way, was there potential that you could see for the separation of the two sides, or two sides on the ground? If so, what was the JNA apparently doing when such potential existed?

A. The propaganda changed during the conflict. The story of neutrality existed only during the first part of the siege of Vukovar. Later on, it was claimed that this was a clash between the JNA and Croatian extremists. However, practically throughout the siege, and after ¹¹⁴⁴⁵ it, the JNA quite obviously gave active assistance to the units of the so-called Territorial Defence in the area that was held by Serbs around Vukovar; and also it actively assisted the paramilitary units that were sent from Serbia, which primarily consisted of volunteers. They also operated in the region.

Q. I think I'll come back -- or we will come back to paragraph 6 a little later, Your Honour. Let's go to paragraph 7. As you passed through Croatian villages in Eastern Slavonia, did you notice certain things at about this time, particularly in the village of Tovarnik?

A. Yes. I remember the village of Tovarnik quite clearly, the village that's on the road to Vukovar, and I remember clearly that it struck me then that some houses were damaged or burned and others were intact. Although I knew there was heavy fighting in that village and around that village, I found it strange. How had this happened? However, I realised that all the houses that were intact had inscriptions saying that, "This is a Serb house, do not touch it," or a national symbol which showed that the -- the house was in Serb possession.

Q. The other houses, how badly were they damaged, typically?

A. The other houses were badly damaged. Some of them were obviously damaged by artillery, that is to say, mortar or tank or cannon fire. Other houses looked as if they had been torched intentionally, that is to say that the external walls were practically intact, but inside, everything had burned down, and therefore the roof had fallen as a result of all of that. ¹¹⁴⁴⁶

Q. Turning from that particular village and its internal composition, were you able to see a difference as between villages that had a predominantly Serb as opposed to Croat composition, generally?

A. The difference was quite obvious. The villages that were predominantly Croat were practically levelled to the Croat, at least those houses that did not have any Serb inscriptions on them. But the predominantly Serb villages, like Borovo Selo, for example, were practically intact. I was surprised because of the many reports that came in on the heavy fighting around Borovo Selo - these were broadcast on Serb television - when I first entered Borovo Selo and when I saw that there was hardly any damage there.

Q. When you got into Vukovar itself, as you went into Vukovar, did you notice anything by way of a change in the comparative presence on the ground of one type of force from another?

A. Yes. What struck me even then was that it looked as if the presence of the Yugoslav People's Army, especially of its active members, was on the decline as we were getting closer to town, that is to say, I and other journalists. There were less and less active members of the army and more and more members of paramilitary units.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, before I turn to the detail of that, and as we start to familiarise ourselves, as we are going to, with Exhibit 336, the atlas, Vukovar is on page 23 and Borovo is a short distance north, along the banks of the Danube. I'm grateful to Mr. McKeon; Tovarnik, which we've just had referred to, is south and east of Vukovar. The grid references on this atlas aren't particularly easy to follow, but ¹¹⁴⁴⁷ it's south and west of Backa Palanka.

Q. Very well, then. Let's turn to the sightings you made of paramilitary groups. To what degree were they apparent on the ground?

A. There were very many of them the closer we got to town. And basically, there were three categories of them: One were the reservists of the JNA that, in nominal terms, were supposed to be under the control of the army, but they operated more or less as independent units. And very often they were left to their own resources. And many of them complained to me that no active-duty officers were with them. Then the other category were the members of the Territorial Defence, that is to say, for the most part, people from that area who were ethnic Serbs. And the third category were the so-called volunteers from Serbia. There were many of them, and they were within different groups.

Q. Were you able to identify any of the groups by name or by leader?

A. It was rather easy to distinguish the reservists because they wore the old uniforms of the Yugoslav People's Army, the woolen uniforms, whereas the volunteers had diverse uniforms and diverse insignia. Many bore the names of various animals, like Tigers, Lions, Panthers. However, the group led by Zeljko Raznjatovic, Arkan, figured most prominently and they could be easily discerned. They were the Tigers belonging to Arkan's guard. And they had special weapons and they were readily discernible, more readily than all the rest.

Q. Within Vukovar, you were able to make some observations. Before we come to those, tell us how it was you were to move around, whether it was dangerous for you, what news organisation you were working for on this ^{11448 BLANK PAGE 11460} occasion.

A. At that time, I was a freelance journalist. For the most part, I worked for B92 and for the weekly Vreme as a freelance reporter. I was mainly in the company of my colleagues, correspondents from abroad. For a while, I was with the CNN crew and then the BBC crew, but there were others as well. This is an answer to the question as to who I worked for then.

Can you please repeat the first part of the question for me, please?

Q. Certainly. I wanted to know how it was that it was safe, if it was safe, to move around. You've probably answered it by explaining that you were with a lot of other journalists, but give us your own answer, please.

A. The rule is that, in principle, in war zones, journalists should move about in groups, and it is very rare for people to move about on their own. For various reasons, there were still pockets of resistance from the Croatian side. In Vukovar, there were snipers, that is. Also, there was mortar fire, also there were booby traps, and also there were mortar mines that had not exploded along the road. And there were a lot of drunk men with weapons, and that is also a great factor of danger.

Q. Did you see any crimes being committed? Did you see any evidence consistent with crimes having been committed?

A. Nobody was killed before my very own eyes. However, I saw, on many occasions, members of the Territorial Defence or volunteers taking someone away for whom they had claimed that he was a prisoner or a member ¹¹⁴⁶¹ of the Croatian National Guard Corps. They would take such a person behind a house and then a burst of gunfire would be heard. Also I saw many cases of looting. I remember a unit that were carrying caps and other things that they had stolen from a shop selling Fred Perry goods, so they called themselves the Fred Perry unit because they had those caps. I remember that absolutely no one tried to prevent the looting, and it was obvious that the paramilitaries decided rather arbitrarily and at random as to who was a suspect, that is, suspected of being a member of the Croatian forces.

Q. Was there any evidence of JNA oversight, by their officers or otherwise, of what was going on?

A. During the first three days after the fall of Vukovar, I do not remember having seen a single active-duty officer in town itself. There were only paramilitaries there. They were drunk, they were disorderly, and it looked as if there had been tacit agreement, or at least a tacit decision made by the JNA, that they would leave these three or four days after entering town to them so that they could do whatever they wanted.

Q. In the course of this, you witnessed a confrontation between a JNA officer and a paramilitary. Tell us about that, please.

A. Yes. I was interviewing an active captain of the JNA. I can no longer recall his name. It was about 10.00 in the morning, when a reservist who was obviously very drunk walked up and tried to interrupt our conversation. The captain rather politely asked him to let us talk and to go away, whereas the reservist cocked his automatic rifle, pointed it at the captain, started insulting him and then walked away only a few ¹¹⁴⁶² minutes later. After that, I asked this captain how he could allow that kind of chaos and such a lack of discipline, but he answered me that the JNA did not have enough people under arms around Vukovar and that therefore they were prepared to accept anyone who was prepared to carry a rifle. This is more or less a direct quotation.

Q. You were there for several days, as is clear. We only have a very simple map showing the scale of Vukovar and its size before us at the moment. Were you, in those few days, confined to a very small part of Vukovar, a few hundred metres one way or another, or were you able to look over most of the town?

A. Like other journalists, I could move about rather freely within the perimeter of a few kilometres. Practically all the way up to the line of demarcation with Croatia, or rather, with the Croatian forces. The only constraints were things like minefields and other places that were obviously inaccessible. But practically, there were no restrictions of movement.

Q. And what --

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, it is 1.00.

MR. NICE: Very well.

JUDGE MAY: If that's a convenient moment.

MR. NICE: If I may put the last question that follows on from what I've been preparing.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE:

Q. The behaviour that you've described seeing - presence of ¹¹⁴⁶³ paramilitaries, absence of JNA, and so on - was that consistent over the whole territory of Vukovar that you can see or was it isolated, patchy? Tell us.

A. The situation that I described practically pertains to the entire broader centre of Vukovar, that is to say, almost the entire town.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, if we can adjourn there. As the court knows, through no disrespect to the Court or certainly to the witness, I can't be here this afternoon, but Mr. McKeon will conclude the examination-in-chief for this witness.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll adjourn now. Mr. Anastasijevic, you've started giving your evidence. Would you remember, in this and any other adjournments there are in it, not to speak about it to anybody until it's over, and that does include the members of the Prosecution team. Could you be back here at half past 2.00, please.

--- Luncheon recess taken at 1.02 p.m. ¹¹⁴⁶⁴

--- On resuming at 2.32 p.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. McKeon. MR. McKEON: Thank you, Your Honour.

Q. Sir, during the time that you were in the Vukovar area, did you ever have an opportunity to talk to members of the volunteers or paramilitaries about what they did before they came to the war?

A. Yes, I did. I had quite a lot of opportunities to talk to them, and I did talk to many of them, and I asked each of them, as part of procedure, what they did before the war. And I was surprised how many of them said in response that they had worked in the MUP, that is to say, the Ministry of the Interior of Serbia. On the other hand, some of them tried to avoid giving me an answer, which was also indicative. And also I based my opinions of them, about how they looked, that they were actually officials.

Q. Now, when you were in the Vukovar area, did you hear stories about Arkan's troops from other paramilitaries and others in the area?

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. KAY: Shall I raise matters here?

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. KAY: I think implicit in the question: "Did you hear stories about..." probably isn't helpful to the Trial Chamber in relation to considering the evidence in this case. I mean, it is hearsay. We don't know how many stages removed of hearsay.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Perhaps, Mr. McKeon, you're able to be a little more specific. ¹¹⁴⁶⁵ MR. McKEON: Yes, Your Honour.

Q. Sir, was there pervasive talk among the volunteers that you were encountering about Mr. Arkan and the things that he was engaged in the area?

MR. KAY: I'm not sure it gets any better, if my learned friend will forgive me, as I was trying to work the question out, and I appreciate his difficulty. But really, the Trial Chamber has said on several occasions it's concerned to be focused really on the issues in the case and on evidence that's reliable.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. McKeon, yes. MR. McKEON: Yes, Your Honour. The only thing that we are attempting to show the Court is that at least stories about Mr. Arkan's activities were widespread in the area and that this witness in fact, on a later occasion, shortly after this, had the opportunity to ask Mr. Arkan about those stories.

JUDGE MAY: I don't think, I'm afraid, that it assists us. I see we're now going on to the next paragraph, which is 13, and you wanted to raise an objection about that, Mr. Kay.

MR. KAY: Yes. I previously notified the Trial Chamber in closed session about this. We all have a summary of this witness's evidence, and we'll note that in paragraph 13, there is mention there that the content of that statement is based on an interview by this witness with a particular person. And then we'll also note in paragraphs 15 to 18 that that is all substantially based again on another interview by this witness with another person involved in events. And these -- there's a further ¹¹⁴⁶⁶ matter from paragraph 19 onwards as well.

And it really comes to this: That the Prosecution here is calling a witness who is a journalist who has interviewed people at various times over events that took place. And that in itself is so far removed as evidence in this case that, in our submission, it's not helpful to the Trial Chamber to deal with the more essential parts of its task. You'll notice in paragraph 15 that in fact that was an interview that took place in 1994, and we're dealing here with events in 1991. So three years after the event, he interviews this particular person, who tells him all about, as he says, events that took place some time before. The same criticism can be made in paragraph 19, where you note the dates of the interviews are during 1994 and 1995.

JUDGE MAY: I think 19 isn't going to be led. Is that right?

MR. McKEON: That's correct, Your Honour. We won't be asking any questions from paragraphs 19 or 20.

JUDGE ROBINSON: When was the interview with Goran Hadzic conducted?

MR. McKEON: Your Honour, my understanding is that that was in 1991.

JUDGE MAY: A week after. MR. McKEON: Yes, shortly after the fall of Vukovar.

JUDGE MAY: There is also, while you're dealing with it, paragraph 21, interview with Seselj. Do you object to that too?

MR. KAY: Yes. I'm not sure about 22 to 24. It's not a heading ¹¹⁴⁶⁷ in bold type. I'm not sure -- it looks to me that that reads as a distinct subject rather than newspaper interviews. MR. McKEON: That is correct.

MR. KAY: Right.

JUDGE MAY: What do you say about 21? And what do you say about the general point? We do admit hearsay. We've said it often enough and we've ruled often enough to admit hearsay.

MR. KAY: We understand that, and that's accepted at this Tribunal, but there are degrees of hearsay that the Trial Chambers find unacceptable, and we've heard several occasions during this trial about newspaper interviews and reports. Now I appreciate we've got the particular journalist who is having the interview, but all he can tell the Trial Chamber is that this man told him this and this man told him that. He won't be able to deal with any of the questions of the accused in cross-examination, which will probably deny the content of what was being said. And then it's simply unhelpful to the Trial Chamber to have this kind of evidence mounting up and not really form any substantial part of the evidence that is required in relation to the indictment.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Would you make a distinction between the interview conducted - what is it? - one week after Vukovar fell and the other one conducted some three, four years after?

MR. KAY: Obviously, those conducted three, four years after are in a distinct category and the criticism to them is apparent. A newspaper interview one week afterwards with a particular person again falls upon this problem: That questions asked about it, he will only be able to say, ¹¹⁴⁶⁸ "This is what this man told me," when really this Court should be receiving evidence of what this man saw happen. This happened, that happened, rather than, "I was told this and I was told that," which is simply really unhelpful in the task of weighing up evidence and deciding on how useful it is in proving an indictment. It carries with it grave, grave dangers, in our submission.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, is there anything you want to say about this before we hear from the Prosecution?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I've already said -- I've already said that I don't understand at all the sense of testimony by anyone who was not a participant in the actual events, who didn't see something himself personally, and who is merely recounting what others said to him, told him, without any binding factor. Because a newspaper interview is not an examination of any kind. Many speakers wish to represent things the way they want them to appear sometimes, and not even the way they saw them for themselves. And on many occasions -- [In English] That is not with my stuff here.

[Interpretation] As I was saying, on many occasions you rejected quotations, for example, even from very prominent world figures, with respect to the events. And now you're bringing a journalist forth to testify, and all he knows and is testifying about is secondhand, tenth hand, 20th hand, et cetera. And on the other hand, he has his own political orientations of the kind that he is in fact working for the OTP, for the Prosecution. So I think that from the aspects of any kind of ¹¹⁴⁶⁹ legal court, testimony of this kind would be completely worthless, and I doubt that for these reasons and the reasons mentioned by Mr. Kay a moment ago, that any legal court would accept the testimony of such a witness.

JUDGE MAY: We don't accept that he's working for the OTP. It's not the case at all. But we'll bear in mind what you say. Yes, Mr. McKeon.

MR. McKEON: Thank you, Your Honour. I think the arguments that counsel has raised are arguments that can be raised against any hearsay, and as the Tribunal has noted, hearsay can be admitted in these proceedings if there are indicia of reliability. In this particular case, this witness, through the course of his work as a journalist, interviewed many people, did many investigations, came upon much information, but we have not chosen to ask him about all of that. We've only picked the -- actually, I think, two areas that we think is most important for this Tribunal to hear. One witness that he might be able to talk about that may be testifying later in these proceedings, we're not going to ask him the questions that we had proposed, and those are in paragraphs 19 and 20. But as for the others, the witness identified in paragraph 13, and also the witness identified in paragraph 21 are identified in the indictment as members of the joint criminal enterprise. These are people, all of these, witnesses that the Prosecution would be unable or unlikely to be able to bring for this Court to hear what they have to say. And this is the only way that we can put before the Court what these witnesses have to say.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. McKeon, would the remoteness in time from the ¹¹⁴⁷⁰ incident in relation to paragraph 15 affect reliability? MR. McKEON: Your Honour, I would suggest that it wouldn't affect reliability. It's obviously a factor the Court can take into account in weighing the persuasiveness of the testimony, particularly when weighed against whatever other evidence the Tribunal may have before it at the end of the day. But that it shouldn't affect the admissibility of the evidence. The question is whether the evidence is reliable, not whether it is near in time or remote in time.

In this particular case, we will be able to adduce from this witness many indicators of reliability on each of these statements, including the manner in which it was taken, the fact that they were conducted in a professional manner by a professional journalist whose job it is to conduct these sorts of interviews and be accurate; the fact that after these interviews were conducted, in some cases articles were published - we have one of the articles relating to the witness identified in paragraph 15 - that after this, there was no comment from the person interviewed that his opinions were misrepresented in the interview in any way. And finally, the experience of this witness as a journalist, that after these interviews were conducted and through his continuing work in journalism, he was able to corroborate things that he was told by these witnesses and gained some confidence in their truthfulness. Also, Your Honour, I would note that in paragraph 21, I expect this witness will say that the things that was told to him by this witness in these interviews are things that he also saw this witness -- this person say on other occasions to other people in other forums. So that it ¹¹⁴⁷¹ wasn't -- he's not just reporting that this was just told to him in one interview, but it's something that he heard repeated, which would give an indication of its reliability.

So I think that the Tribunal does accept hearsay evidence if there are indicia of reliability, and in this case there are those indicators. To the extent that the accused may have issues with that, those can be raised in cross-examination and can go to the weight of the evidence.

JUDGE MAY: Thank you, Mr. McKeon. We'll consider the position. The legal officer, please.

[Trial Chamber and legal officer confer]

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: We've considered this objection. There is an important point of principle here. Paragraph 89 -- I'm sorry, Rule 89 permits the Chamber to admit any relevant evidence which it deems to have probative value, but allows the Chamber to exclude evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the need to ensure a fair trial.

The evidence which is proposed to be given is in three parts: Paragraphs 13, 21, and 15 to 18. All of it is hearsay evidence, what various people told this witness. As Mr. McKeon rightly points out, hearsay is admissible in this Tribunal. He also points out the distinction between paragraph 13 and 21, where the people involved are members of the criminal enterprise, as alleged, and therefore not people from whom the Prosecution, it may be assumed, can obtain evidence. And paragraphs 15 to 18, which does not -- which do not involve somebody from ¹¹⁴⁷² the enterprise itself.

There is a further distinction in that paragraph 13 involves a conversation, a contemporaneous, virtually, conversation with the events, and therefore more likely to be reliable than the conversation referred to in paragraphs 15 to 18, which was some three years after the events. Although it's right that we do admit hearsay, there are limits on which we'll -- as to which we will admit evidence, and we consider that whereas the evidence in paragraphs 13 to 21, which deals with statements of those involved in the criminal enterprise should be admissible; on the other hand, the statements of another person three years after the event, about which there is or could be other evidence, is not sufficiently probative to be admissible in the particular circumstances of this case. It would be impossible to cross-examine the witness properly about them. So we will admit paragraph 13. We will exclude 15 to 18. We will admit 21.

Yes, Mr. McKeon. MR. McKEON: Thank you, Your Honour.

Q. Sir, during the time that you were in the Vukovar area, did you have the opportunity to interview Mr. Goran Hadzic?

A. Yes, I did have the opportunity of interviewing Mr. Goran Hadzic, as well as several other members of the so-called government of the SAO Baranja, Eastern Slavonia and Western Srem.

Q. Could you tell us, sir, the circumstances around that interview: Where it took place, when it took place, who was present; basically the details of that interview. ¹¹⁴⁷³

A. The interview was held several days - I can't remember exactly, five or six days perhaps - after Vukovar having been taken over by the Serb forces, in a village called Dalj, near the town of Vukovar, which is where the government had been established of what was called, or what the government, alleged government, of the autonomous region of Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem. And at the head of that government was Mr. Goran Hadzic. And they called in journalists once they had established a government in Dalj to interview them, and that interview was held under those circumstances.

Q. Who else was present during this interview, sir?

A. There were quite a few people, ten or fifteen other journalists, in fact. I can't remember from which papers they came, who they were exactly. And also there were several government members present, as I said a moment ago, including the Minister for Tourism.

Q. Now, sir, during the course of this interview, did Mr. Hadzic make a comment about prisoners who were being held by the JNA? And if so, could you tell us what that comment was.

A. Mr. Hadzic responded, talking about the role of the Yugoslav People's Army in the events, and he was very critical towards the Yugoslav People's Army, which he claimed, like many other members of the Territorial Defence of the day, had not done enough in what they termed the defence of the Serb people, that they didn't lend enough support to them. And they insisted especially upon the fact that the JNA did not permit the government to assume control over the prisoners who were allegedly members of the ZNG, the Croatian National Guard Corps. Mr. ¹¹⁴⁷⁴ Goran Hadzic said at the time that the government of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Srem did have its judicial system and its courts and that those prisoners would be tried for war crimes, and he was sorry that the army would not let him take over these people for that purpose.

Q. Thank you, Your Honour. MR. McKEON: And in the atlas, which is Exhibit 336, the town of Dalj that the witness is referring to appears on page 23, due north of Vukovar, at coordinate -- it looks like it's 45 degrees north, 30 minutes, and about 19 degrees in the other direction, just on the river of the Danube.

Your Honour, I'm not sure -- the objection to the questions in this area was actually raised before I was getting into paragraph 12, and I'm not sure if there was a ruling from the Court on whether we could go into those matters.

JUDGE MAY: No. MR. McKEON: No.

Q. Without telling us what Mr. Arkan may have said to you or you said to him, at some point did you have a meeting -- a time when you met Mr. Arkan?

A. Yes. At that time, I did meet with Mr. Arkan and members of his guard, at the headquarters in Erdut that they had just established.

Q. Could you describe for the Tribunal what those headquarters looked like.

A. The headquarters were in a biggish house. I think that before the war there was also a wine distillery there nearby. So there were some ¹¹⁴⁷⁵ offices where they had been put up. And around there were other houses where his soldiers slept. Zeljko Raznjatovic received me and a few other journalists in a meeting room that was in that house. So that was a biggish room, with a big table, and that's where he talked to us.

Q. And when did this take place?

A. This happened relatively soon after Vukovar was taken over by the Serb forces, so it was perhaps seven or ten days later.

Q. Would you describe how Mr. Arkan was dressed for this meeting, what his clothing looked like, any particular insignia that may have been on that clothing.

A. Yes. Arkan was dressed the same way his other commanding officers were dressed in: Overalls, olive-green/grey. They were quite characteristic. They were different from the usual camouflage uniform that was worn by members of the Yugoslav People's Army or other paramilitary units. Later on, I found out that these uniforms were actually paratrooper's uniforms. He carried an automatic rifle, Heckler and Koch MP-5, with a silencer, and he also had Motorola communications equipment that was rather sophisticated. His right hand was a bit injured. I noticed that as we were shaking hands. And generally speaking, one got the impression that Zeljko Raznjatovic and the members of his guard were much better armed, not only than other volunteer units, but also better than the units belonging to the active force of the Yugoslav People's Army.

Q. Approximately how many other members of Arkan's guard unit did you see when you were at that meeting with Mr. Arkan? ¹¹⁴⁷⁶

A. In honour of the journalists that came then, I know that the troops were lined up, and I remember that there were 150 members of Arkan's unit.

I just remembered I forgot to mention the insignia. I didn't respond to that part of the question. They had insignia with a tiger's face depicted on it, and it said "The Serb Volunteers' Guard, The Tigers." MR. McKEON: Your Honour, Erdut, which the witness has identified as where this meeting took place, appears on page 23 of the atlas. It's on the -- about in the middle of the page, due east of Osijek.

Q. Now, sir, at some point did you have the opportunity to interview Mr. Seselj?

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please, this is a typical example that we don't actually know what this is all about. Questions are being put as to where this happened when the witness encountered Arkan. He explains that this is at the wine distillery. And when? It was ten days later. And what did he look like? Well, this is what he looked like. And was anybody else present? Well, yes, there were I don't know how many of them. Except we don't know what the meeting was all about, what the --

JUDGE MAY: You can ask him. You can ask him about that if you want. The Prosecution -- just a moment. The Prosecution are entitled to ask questions about what this witness saw and did, and that's what he's given evidence about. Now, what the weight of it is is something we'll have to decide, but if you want to ask about the circumstances, you can. Yes, Mr. McKeon. You were going on to deal with the next ¹¹⁴⁷⁷ paragraph.

MR. McKEON: Yes, sir.

Q. When did this -- when did you first begin interviewing Mr. Seselj?

A. I first had an interview with Mr. Seselj in 1994. I don't remember exactly what the month was. This happened when Mr. Seselj, though in opposition, was liked by the government, but then all of a sudden they came to dislike him. So the big media, like national TV, banned him. And Mr. Seselj then decided to talk to hostile newspapers, including the one that I worked for, and he became far more friendly towards us and he started giving us interviews. So it's approximately the summer of 1994.

Q. And what was the newspaper that you were working for at the time?

A. I did then, as I do now, for the Vreme weekly.

Q. And before 1994, was Mr. Seselj willing to give interviews to your news magazine?

A. No. Mr. Seselj had a very firm view regarding journalists who he called insufficient patriots, traitors, or whatever, enemies of Serbia, and this category practically included all journalists from the media that the regime did not have under its control at the time. He even threatened many of them. However, this position abruptly changed in 1994, when there was a political conflict between Mr. Seselj and the accused. At that point in time, he all of a sudden became far more open to the independent media.

Q. Was there a change in 1994 in the amount of coverage that Mr. Seselj was getting in the non-independent media? ¹¹⁴⁷⁸

A. Yes. In the media that were under direct or indirect state control, Mr. Seselj had a very privileged status from 1991 to 1994. Practically a person couldn't turn on the TV set without seeing him, as opposed to all other opposition leaders who very rarely appeared on national television. However, in 1994, this changed abruptly and Mr. Seselj practically could not appear any longer.

MR. McKEON: Just so the Tribunal can follow along, at this point we're returning to paragraph 6, which was skipped over earlier in this witness's examination.

Q. How many times were you able to interview Mr. Seselj?

A. Five or six times between 1994 and 1996.

Q. And did your access to Mr. Seselj for these interviews change again in 1996?

A. His accessibility considerably changed at the beginning of 1997, when he was in the government, and then again, the very same moment, he stopped dealing with the journalists, he said that they were traitors, that they would be tried, that all sorts of things would happen to them, and he was making all these references to journalists of the independent media.

Q. Now, you used the phrase "independent media." Could you describe for us what you mean by "the independent media" and what sort of control the accused had over the print and broadcast media in Serbia in 1991 that was not the independent media.

A. The question is rather complicated, and I'll try to be as brief as possible. When I say "independent media," I'm referring to media that are ¹¹⁴⁷⁹ not directly or indirectly dependent on a political party or a particular state agency. As for the other media, I mean those who are under direct or indirect state control, like the state television or the national newspapers, like Politika or Vecernje Novosti, or those that were under the control of the party of the accused, meaning that the editors-in-chief and journalists were activists or active members of the ruling party or affiliate parties.

Q. Are you familiar with a situation in March of 1991 when Milorad Vucelic replaced Dusan Mitevic in a high position in the media? And if you do recall that, could you tell us about that and tell us what that shows about the accused's control over the print and broadcast media.

A. This is also a broad subject, but again I'll try to deal with it briefly. Dissatisfied by what was then called the media blockade, that is to say, the fact that they could not present their views in the media, the opposition leaders, led by Vuk Draskovic, on the 9th of March, 1991, called people to demonstrate in Belgrade. During these demonstrations, tear gas was used all around against the demonstrators, they were attacked by the police, there was violence, there was general chaos. Two people lost their lives. And tanks of the Yugoslav People's Army were brought out into the streets, and this dispersed the masses. After that, strong pressure was brought to bear by the opposition against Mr. Milosevic's government to replace the Minister of Police and to replace the director of national television. At that time, that was Mr. Dusan Mitevic. The Minister of Police was indeed replaced, Radmilo Bogdanovic and Dusan Mitevic was too, and he was replaced by Milorad ¹¹⁴⁸⁰ Vucelic, a person close to Mr. Milosevic, vice-president of the Socialist Party of Serbia, and - this may also be interesting - at that time he was member of the government of another Serb district, a member of the government of the SAO Herzegovina, which was under the control of Bozidar Vucurevic.

It so turned out that after Mr. Vucelic came to this position, the television became even harsher in its attacks against the opposition, and they even more relentlessly pursued the positions supported by Mr. Milosevic and the satellite nationalists like Vojislav Seselj.

Q. I'd like to return now to your interviews of Mr. Seselj. That's in paragraph 21 of our summary. Did the things that Mr. Seselj told you in your interviews of him, were those statements consistent with other public statements that you had heard Mr. Seselj make over time?

A. Yes. What Seselj said in his interviews to me highly coincided with what he said to other journalists as well.

Q. And what did Mr. Seselj tell you about his role to the Serbian regime during the early -- or during the late 1991 period to 1992?

A. Mr. Seselj said that in 1991 and 1992 he had a very close relationship with Mr. Jovica Stanisic, who at that time held the duty of head of the state security service of Serbia, practically the secret police, and with Stanisic's co-workers. Their cooperation largely amounted to the following: That Mr. Stanisic and his co-workers, who, according to Mr. Seselj, had a very important role in organising the paramilitary forces in Croatia and in Bosnia and also arming the local Serbs in these republics, they asked Mr. Seselj for volunteers, so Mr. ¹¹⁴⁸¹ Seselj said that Mr. Stanisic would contact him and ask, for example, 120 volunteers for Vukovar. And then Seselj, through his party machinery, which was very well-developed in Serbia then, he organised the taking in of these volunteers to training centres in Serbia or directly to the front line in Croatia or in Bosnia.

Q. And did you publish articles based upon these things that Mr. Seselj told you?

A. Yes. His assertions were indeed published not only in my paper but also in quite a few of the other media.

Q. And after you printed these things, did Mr. Seselj ever call you up and tell you, "No, no. You got it all wrong. That didn't really happen and that's not what I said"?

A. No. At any rate, definitely as far as the relationship between Mr. Seselj and Mr. Stanisic is concerned, there was no reaction from Mr. Seselj, but there was a reaction from Mr. Stanisic to these assertions.

Q. And what was that reaction?

A. I said there was absolutely no reaction.

Q. Oh, absolutely no reaction. Sorry. Thank you. In late 1991/mid-1992, did you observe anything in Belgrade yourself that supported what Mr. Seselj was later telling you about what was happening during that period of time?

A. I assume that you are referring to the volunteers of the Serbian radical party and their going to the front line.

Q. Yes. Did you observe any buses or any people signing up or going onto buses to go off to the front lines? ¹¹⁴⁸²

A. Yes. In front of St. Mark's church in Belgrade, which is in the centre of Belgrade and which is where I happen to live, that's where volunteers were assembled every day. That's where buses were waiting for them, and they went either to Bubanj Potok to a training centre near Belgrade, or directly to the front line. Flags were there, and also emblems of the Serbian radical party.

Q. And did you learn from your interviews of Mr. Seselj what sort of units these men were going to? Were they JNA units or other types of units?

A. These were not JNA units. These were other units. These were units of the army of Republika Srpska, in case of Bosnia, because the units of the Territorial Defence - let me explain this - existed in Bosnia only at the very beginning of the war. Later on, they were replaced by the police and army of Republika Srpska. Also there were similar units in Croatia, like the army of the Serb Krajina or the police of the Republic of the Srpska Krajina. However, it is important to point out that Mr. Seselj insisted that he only sent these volunteers to the front line but that he did not exercise any control over them, that they were under the control of the authorities that were in that territory at the time, whose area of responsibility that was. So if it was the army of Republika Srpska, they went there, and so on.

Q. I'd like to turn now to your experiences in Bosnia. Were you present in Bosnia during the Bosnia war?

A. Yes, to a great deal, and often.

Q. Where were you in Bosnia, and at what period of time were you ¹¹⁴⁸³ there?

A. Since the war conflict in Bosnia went on for three years, it is hard to mention all of it. At the beginning of the war, I was in Foca, in Eastern Bosnia, at the time when that town was taken over by the Serb forces. I was around Sarajevo and in Sarajevo itself in June 1992. I was in Tuzla. After the front lines were stabilised in 1992, I was in Republika Srpska very often, from time to time in the area that is nowadays called the Muslim-Croat Federation as well.

Q. Now, in your time in Bosnia, did you encounter officers or soldiers who worked for the VRS who earlier had been soldiers or officers with the JNA or the VJ?

A. Almost all officers in the army of Republika Srpska were soldiers of the JNA before they came that. Their supreme commander -- or no, not their supreme commander, but the commander of that army, Ratko Mladic, was a case in point, and then everybody else. Practically all of them were taken over from the Yugoslav People's Army.

Q. And did you learn from your work as a journalist how these officers and soldiers came to be in the VRS in Bosnia rather than in the JNA or the VJ?

A. In May 1992, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed instead of the until then Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and after the JNA changed its name into the army of Yugoslavia, practically all officers who were ethnic Serbs - and at that time, of course, a vast majority of the officers were ethnic Serbs, because the rest had either fled or were expelled - so all ethnic Serbs who were born either in ¹¹⁴⁸⁴ Croatia or in Bosnia were practically put before a choice; either to be transferred to the army of Republika Srpska or the army of the Republic of Srpska Krajina or to be dismissed from the army altogether. So most career officers, of course, opted for the first possibility and they became members of the army of the Srpska Krajina or the army of Republika Srpska.

Q. Did you learn from these officers that had gone over to the VRS who paid them once they switched over?

A. It is generally known that the salaries and the pensions for the army of Republika Srpska, until recently, went through the army of Yugoslavia, and that they were practically paid from the budget of the Republic of Yugoslavia.

Q. Now, in addition to payment for the officers, did you also notice whether or not there was any military or logistical support being given to the VRS during military operations in Bosnia by the VJ?

A. Yes. Assistance to the army of Republika Srpska in equipment, ammunition, and manpower was practically a non-stop process. This was obvious in any border town or village along the boundary between Yugoslavia and Republika Srpska. However, during a certain period of time, because of the presence of international monitors, these convoys had to be sent in a more discreet fashion. But according to the claims made by many officers of Republika Srpska, this never stopped, not even after the relations between the accused and Radovan Karadzic became chilled and Republika Srpska was placed under an economic blockade by Yugoslavia. Military transports, though, were excluded from this blockade. ¹¹⁴⁸⁵

Q. Did you ever actually see VJ vehicles crossing the borders from Serbia into Bosnia?

A. Yes, I did see vehicles with licence plates of the army of Yugoslavia crossing the border many times, and I also saw vehicles with plates of either the army of Republika Srpska or Republika Srpska crossing the border into Yugoslavia.

Q. Now, could you tell the Tribunal what happened in August of 1994 that affected the general ability of people to go back and forth between Bosnia and Serbia.

A. What happened was that there was practically a political conflict between the accused and Radovan Karadzic, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs. The conflict occurred with regard to signing the peace plan that Mr. Milosevic wanted to see signed, but Radovan Karadzic refused to do it. What followed after that were economic sanctions. Economic sanctions were imposed by Yugoslavia against Republika Srpska. What is also quite interesting was that the presence of international monitors was allowed along these borders. However, according to claims made by many officers of the army of Republika Srpska and also officers of the army of Yugoslavia, these economic sanctions did not pertain to the military and their transports. However, as for the people who lived in Republika Srpska, who often bought food supplies and other consumer goods in Serbia, things became very difficult because they could practically not carry a bread loaf across the border, whereas, on the other hand, I personally saw trucks that did not have any military insignia that were crossing the border. However, for ordinary people on both sides of the border, notably ¹¹⁴⁸⁶ in Republika Srpska, it was very difficult indeed.

Q. Sir, the translation that we have has you saying that you saw trucks that did not have military insignia crossing the border. Is that what you meant to say, and did you in fact ever see trucks with military insignia crossing the border after August 1994?

A. No, I did not see any vehicles crossing the border that had military insignia, which is quite logical, because after August 1994 there were international monitors. However, I heard from many sources, on both sides of the border, that military transports continued nevertheless, without any problem whatsoever.

Q. Did you observe that at the border some trucks would be let over the border and other trucks would be held back?

A. Yes, I did notice that.

Q. At any point, sir, did you notice or learn about shelling from the Serbian side of the border into Bosnia, particularly in 1994?

A. Both in 1992 and in 1994 - April 1994, in fact - the Serb forces launched an offensive on Gorazde, a town in Eastern Bosnia, and I remember very well that at that time, passing by on the Serbian side, that is to say, going along the eastern bank of the Drina River, I noticed artillery positions of the Yugoslav army that were entrenched by the roadway. When I passed by that way, the artillery pieces were quiet, but I heard from many of the locals that they were unable to sleep because the guns would fire throughout the night.

Q. When you say "the locals," are you referring to people on the Serbian side of the border or on the Bosnian side of the border? ¹¹⁴⁸⁷

A. I'm talking about the people on the Serbian side of the border.

Q. Can you tell us, sir, what you learned when you were in Bosnia about Serbian police going from Serbia to work in Bosnia during the time of this conflict?

A. What I learnt was the following, from many policemen, on both sides of the border: That it was quite customary for policemen from Serbia to go and take up their duties from time to time in the police force in Bosnia, and their shifts would last three or four weeks as a rule. And they would be receiving additional per diems for that. It was also customary that this was a two-way flow of traffic and that police from Republika Srpska would also spend some time assisting the police of Serbia, especially when they had to break down the demonstrators and demonstrations against the accused.

Q. Did you learn how long these police would go to Bosnia for, for what period of time?

A. Depending on the situation that prevailed, three to six weeks.

Q. And were these police officers engaged in combat operations when they went to Bosnia?

A. For the most part, they did not engage in combat operations, at least according to what they said; they usually took part in the regular duties of a policeman in order to free the resources for people who took part in the combat operations themselves.

Q. From whom did you learn this about the police working from Serbia in Bosnia?

A. Well, what happened was when I was travelling through Republika ¹¹⁴⁸⁸ Srpska, I would happen to meet a policeman who quite obviously spoke the Belgrade dialect, and I would ask him where he was from. He would say he was from Belgrade and that he was only there temporarily and that he would be going back home soon. Or perhaps he might have been from some other town in Serbia. This was common knowledge. I didn't really pay much attention or attach any great importance to that at the time.

Q. Can you tell us, sir, what you know about the activities of the Red Berets in Bosnia during the war.

A. The Red Berets were the colloquial term used to denote the unit which exists today and is called the special purposes unit. And during the war in Bosnia, it was under the control of the state security department of the Republic of Serbia, and this was at the -- at the head of that was Jovica Stanisic throughout the war. This was an elite combat unit and the members operated in practically all the areas where fighting went on in Croatia and Bosnia, these special operation units. And for a long time it was rather mysterious because the only way in which the members were able to differentiate among themselves were the red berets they had and an insignia on their sleeves with a wild animal on it. But there was no -- nothing in writing, in letters. This unit was very well known and people would talk about it, always with quite a bit of fear, even people who were veterans in the field and had had a great deal of experience. Its members were ruthless, and people said that where they appeared, the grass never grew again.

Q. Did you ever actually see any of these Red Berets yourself in the Bosnia area? ¹¹⁴⁸⁹

A. No, I did not see them with my own eyes, either in Bosnia or in Croatia.

MR. McKEON: If I could, Your Honour, I'd just like to return briefly to a matter that we already covered. I just had a couple of additional questions about paragraph 12, following up on the accused's comment that we hadn't asked information about the purpose of this meeting or what happened at the meeting, what was said.

Q. Could you tell us, this meeting that you had with Arkan in November 1991, what the purpose of this meeting was.

A. The late Zeljko Raznjatovic had at that time set up his headquarters in Erdut, and I felt that it was his wish to see -- for journalists to see those headquarters and to see his own unit and to hear what he had to tell them.

Q. Did he give you a tour of the facilities?

A. At that time, as his headquarters in Erdut, or the training centre, as it was called later on, had just been established, there wasn't much to see, actually, so apart from the unit lined up for review, there wasn't any terrible need to tour the area.

Q. And what was said at this meeting?

A. The late Raznjatovic said quite a lot of things which had to do with current affairs. They seemed rather improbable, such as the fact that the Croatian side had planes of the Tornado type, which allegedly they had been given by Germany, and that it has the state of the art NATO tanks as well. He even said that his men had taken several of those tanks, had seized several of those tanks, and that he would show them to ¹¹⁴⁹⁰ us, but he never did this. He also claimed that his men had toppled several of these Tornado planes, shot them down, but he wasn't able to show them to us either. And he had a lot of criticisms to make with respect to the Yugoslav People's Army. He said that it wasn't sufficiently patriotic and was not being involved enough in the defence of the Serbs. And apart from that, he resolutely denied a question from many journalists, including myself, which related to the stories being bandied about to the effect that his fighters were involved in war crimes. He said that things of that kind were absolutely not true. And that was how the talk went.

Q. Did you ever see any evidence, either before or after this meeting, that what Mr. Arkan was telling you about tanks and planes being shot down was actually true?

A. No. MR. McKEON: That's all I have, Your Honour. Thank you very much.

JUDGE MAY: Thank you. Mr. Milosevic.

Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Anastasijevic, do you consider that it is a basic rule of the profession of journalists to be objective and to inform about events objectively?

A. Yes, that is an important rule.

Q. And it should also be an important rule that they be honest in doing their job?

A. Yes, I agree. ¹¹⁴⁹¹

Q. Can you say for yourself that you are unprejudiced and unbiased when you describe the events in our areas, whereas you are testifying against me?

A. In all my texts and articles, I always sought to be impartial. How far I was successful in that, I will leave it to the readers to assess.

Q. All right. Tell me now: Are you a member of a society called Povezano Drustvo, Associated Society?

A. I don't know what you're talking about, what you mean.

Q. Well, as far as I know, it is a non-governmental organisation, for example, Selba 1999 [phoen], migrations, they were represented before the Hungarian public, if I recall correctly. And I have a list here. You are the only person, the only Yugoslav journalist, as far as I can see, within that project of non-governmental organisations, entitled "Selba 1999" or "Migrations 1999," and this society generally called the Associated Society. Do you know about that?

A. Quite frankly, I just cannot remember that I had any political activities in Hungary, although I passed through Hungary several times. This is the first time that I hear of that society called Povezano Drustvo.

Q. Would you have a look at this list of media, and they say, "We were in." So take a look at this list.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I should like to ask the usher to come up and take this document to show it to you. It can be placed on the overhead projector. ¹¹⁴⁹²

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Take a look at it, please, and then you can respond. Perhaps that's a forgery too. Have a look. Go ahead. Feel free to have look. You can even have a look at it in your own hands before it's placed on the overhead projector. Perhaps you'll find it easier that way.

A. This -- the name of this organisation is still unfamiliar to me, this connected society.

Q. Now go ahead and take a look at the list of participants, especially the media, and they say they were part of that, and your name is among those on that list.

Have you found your name?

A. Yes, I have.

Q. How come your name figures there?

A. I have no explanation for that, although I do recognise on that same list the name of Andrew Purvis, who was the head of the Time department for Central and Eastern Europe, Time magazine. Mr. Purvis is my boss, my immediate boss, in Time magazine. And I also know that it is quite improbable for a magazine of the type that Time is, with Mr. Purvis and all its other employees, that they should engage in any activities of this type. So that it is my assumption that, quite simply, some of the people who at that time were trying to collect some funds and monies for their own projects introduced my name and Mr. Purvis's name on the list, probably wishing to impress the sponsors. But I can say quite definitely that I have never heard of the existence of an organisation with that name. ¹¹⁴⁹³

Q. When you look at that entire list, would you say it was a forgery then, or what?

A. I can't say that. I can't make that assessment.

Q. Do you know the other participants? Have you heard of them?

A. I think I recognise another name, that is of Dragan Galic. I don't know anything about him, although the name rings a bell. As to the other names, I can't say I recognise them, not even remotely. I see a Veronique Mistiaen that appears several times. I don't know who that could be. Actually, it means nothing to me. None of this rings a bell.

Q. All right, Mr. Anastasijevic. Very well. Now, were you involved in an arrangement of any kind of the Niemann Foundation?

A. Oh, I see, a foundation that is called the Niemann Fellowship for Journalists. I assume you mean that.

Q. Perhaps I didn't read it out properly, the way it's spelled.

JUDGE MAY: It's an objection. MR. McKEON: Your Honour, we would like to see this document that he has placed before the witness.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, absolutely.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Of course. You can include it in your documents and exhibits. Niemann. That's right. I read it the way the Germans would read it. But yes, it says US International Fellowship, that's quite right. Niemann is the name. Would you like to take a look at that perhaps?

A. I have heard of that particular foundation, fellowship, and you can go ahead and ask me your questions in that regard. ¹¹⁴⁹⁴

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Did you receive a fellowship from the Niemann Foundation?

A. I was a fellow of the Niemann Foundation. I did have a fellowship from the year 2001 to 2002, as it says in my introduction. The foundation is part of Harvard University.

Q. All right. So you were financed by the Niemann Foundation, you received a grant from them to further your education or to become professionally trained and capacitated in the course of one year; is that right?

A. Yes, in the academic year of 2001/2002. I myself and 24 other journalists from all over the world, we received these grants by that foundation.

Q. Would you have a look at this list and tell me if that's the list you mean.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could I ask the usher again to show the witness the list.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Is that the list that you're talking about, just to clarify that particular point?

A. Yes, that's right. That's the list.

Q. Well, as far as I understand it, Amnesty International assisted their connections from Germany and other organisations which -- who took part in the financing of Niemann? How was the foundation or fellowship established in the first place?

A. This fellowship was founded in 1939 and has been in existence for ¹¹⁴⁹⁵ a long time. It is one of the elite grants or scholarships granted. If you are a recipient of a Niemann grant, it is tantamount to a Pulitzer Prize. I don't know who they collect their resources and funds from, but I know that the founder's name was Alfred Niemann, I believe, in 1939. He left the sum of, I think, --> million at that time and this serves as the basic capital to fund the organisation. I also know that Harvard University, which is one of the largest in the USA, has several billion dollars to its credit, and I think that the bulk of the resources are obtained from there. Now, which non-governmental organisations and others who have contributed to the fund, I really can't say. That's not my job. The only thing that was interesting for me when I was granted the fellowship is that it was a highly distinguished grant.

Q. And do you know that, as you say, the people financing it are the same people financing this Tribunal? I mean this institution that calls itself --

JUDGE MAY: No, Mr. Milosevic. That's totally irrelevant. If the usher would like to give that document to the Prosecution. Now, your next question, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] All right. All right.

Q. Do you think, since you are being financed from these sources, and I claim that they are the same forces that finance this illegal court, that one can speak of your impartiality with regard to your giving evidence here and generally speaking with regard to your activities that you are testifying about here and those that you are not testifying about here? ¹¹⁴⁹⁶

A. I receive a salary as a journalist on the desk of Vreme. As for Time magazine, I get fees for the articles I write according to the contract I have with that company. Regardless of whether it concerns my texts written for Time or for Vreme, I believe that they observe the highest professional standards, and until now I never had any serious objections to my professionalism except once.

Q. All right. Since you're talking about the magazine Vreme, I don't expect you to confirm what I'm going to say now, but do you know that in Serbia, in Yugoslavia, not in any very narrow circles but quite widely, people know very well that this magazine Vreme has throughout been an outpost of the services that worked on the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and that it was involved in the media war against Yugoslavia for all these years, and you, as its journalist, as well?

A. I'm not sure I really understand this question. Do I know that other circles know ...? I've really lost the thread of the argument.

Q. All right. Do you know that the Vreme news magazine has a reputation for being an outpost of the services that broke up Yugoslavia?

A. I know that Vreme was attacked by your supporters because of its insufficiently patriotic stand, and yes, we have been accused of working for a wide range of enemies of Serbia, starting with Freemasons all the way up to Islamic fundamentalists. These accusations are really nothing new.

Q. All right. I'm glad you know about that. So you have been working for Vreme, also for Time magazine; is that right?

A. Yes, that's right. ¹¹⁴⁹⁷

Q. You also worked for United Press International; is that right?

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. I think you also worked for an American publishing house; is that right?

A. I don't know about any publishing houses really. I did write -- rather, I edited a book, but I don't really think that that is of any consequence now.

Q. Tell me: Which publishing house was the publisher of this book that you had edited?

A. It was published jointly by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in London - perhaps it's better to give their official name in the original - and Press Now, an organisation that assists freedom of the media, and it is based here in Holland.

Q. Do you know who the founders are of that organisation, I mean this organisation based in Holland?

A. I don't know who the founders are, because I only communicated with the editor or the coordinator. At any rate, only with Paul Staal, the man who heads this firm. I don't know what the actual organisational set-up is and who established them, but I know that it enjoys a good reputation.

Q. All right. So you work for at least three institutions, or four. So that's Time magazine, United Press International, these two organisations that gave you work, that is, that asked you to edit a book, then also you received a Niemann fellowship. So when you put all of that together, you consider yourself to be an impartial author as far as the ¹¹⁴⁹⁸ Yugoslav crisis is concerned?

A. Yes.

Q. Very well. Since a short while ago I think you spoke about -- let me just have a look at this. You spoke about your stay in Bosnia. You now mentioned Foca, Sarajevo, Tuzla. After that, you said that you were also in the territory of what is nowadays called the Croat-Muslim Federation. I assume that Tuzla was called the Muslim-Croat Federation or the Croat-Muslim Federation throughout. Isn't that right?

A. During the war in Bosnia, Tuzla, as far as I'm concerned, was Tuzla. As far as I know, the Croat-Muslim Federation was established as such just before the Dayton Accords, that is to say, in 1995.

Q. Tell me: Is it correct that in the summer of 1992 you were in Tuzla?

A. It is correct that I spent one day in Tuzla, yes.

Q. Did an incident happen to you then when you were there in Tuzla in the summer of 1992?

A. There were a few incidents involved.

Q. What is this incident that happened to you in Tuzla in summer 1992?

A. I would really like you to be more specific, if possible, in your question. After this day, I wrote quite a long report about everything that happened, but I don't really want to waste the time of this Court by telling this entire story.

Q. I'm not asking you to tell the entire story. Just tell me: What are these incidents that happened to you in Tuzla in the summer of 1992? ¹¹⁴⁹⁹

A. I was travelling, accompanied by a UN convoy that was going from Belgrade to Sarajevo, and we had to stop in Tuzla because there was a problem at the checkpoint. So instead of just passing through the checkpoint, we were practically there all day and all night. The two things I can remember now is that at one point in time I was threatened by members of the BH army, when they realised that they had a Serb, a man from Belgrade, in front of them, but that ended rather quickly. After we exchanged a few words, we could actually communicate quite normally. That is one thing that could be called an incident, perhaps. Another thing was that after the convoy was already getting out of Tuzla, and my vehicle was the last one in the convoy, so that is to say a few gunshots were fired in our direction but they did not hit the vehicle, so that was that.

That's what I can remember. I assume that that's what you mean.

Q. How much time did you spend in Bosnia?

A. Well, look, I went to Bosnia practically every week. I mean, I really cannot give you the exact number of days I spent in Bosnia during the war. What do you mean, actually?

Q. Which is the period that you spent in Bosnia? From when until when, when you say temporarily you went there, once a week or whatever.

A. Sometimes I went there for two or three days, sometimes I went there for two or three weeks. It depended on the assignment, the journalistic assignment I got.

Q. In which period?

A. Throughout the war, and after the war, of course. ¹¹⁵⁰⁰

Q. That means that you were there from 1992 until 1995, until Dayton; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. Permanently? For a week, for two weeks, three weeks, a day or two or three; and how long were the breaks?

A. I did not say I was there permanently. This is a very contradictory question. I was there often, in two- -- for two- or three-day periods or two- or three-day weeks. And sometimes there were a few months in between.

Q. Tell me: Who did you send this information that you obtained in Bosnia to?

A. When I worked for the UPI, the United Press International, I sent them in - and this was until October 1993 - I sent them to UPI. And also at that time from time to time I had my articles published in Vreme, as a journalist, and then I would send them.

Q. Tell me quite specifically: Then in Bosnia, did you receive any money from a foreign service?

A. I did not ever receive any money from any service, as you call it; either local service, national service, or foreign service.

Q. All right. Where do you live now? Yugoslavia or abroad?

A. I live in Belgrade.

Q. Since when have you been living in Belgrade?

A. I've lived in Belgrade practically all my life, with two interruptions that were a bit longer, the first one was from the 31st of April 1999, until the 20th of September 2000. And the other interruption ¹¹⁵⁰¹ was from the second half of August 2000 -- I'm sorry, 2001, until June 2002, when I had the Niemann fellowship.

Q. All right. So from April 1999 until June 2000, you lived abroad, practically incessantly, only with short breaks.

A. I did not say that it was only with short breaks. Just a minute. What are you trying to say? Oh, yes, now I understand the question. Yes. I'm sorry. After less than a year -- well, during those three years, I spent less than one year in Belgrade. That's it.

Q. You say in your statement, on page 2, that you were involved in research that had to do with police and intelligence work and that you monitored the situation in Yugoslavia, state security, military security.

A. I don't know whether that was the exact wording, but within my work as a journalist, yes, there was a lot of research that went in that direction, in view of the importance that the secret services and the police, first and foremost, had in the system that you headed.

Q. You say, and I'm quoting you now, on page 2 of your statement: "This included research on police and intelligence matters and thus kept abreast of events within the Serbian and Yugoslav police forces, the state security and military intelligence agencies, and governmental connections to or support for paramilitary organisations."

And so on and so forth.

A. Yes.

Q. So you followed all these services and you researched them. So tell me: What is the methodology that you applied during your research of the state security, the military, intelligence service? ¹¹⁵⁰²

A. Interviews, texts that are accessible to the public, so that is to say the usual compiling of information within journalistic research.

Q. However, you are giving evidence about everything, about the psychological profile of various persons, about political activities of parties, about my political activity. Then the affairs of state that I conducted and other people who were in government, about the counter-intelligence service, the intelligence service, the state security service. So practically you are covering a wide range of topics. And then I saw in this statement of yours you also testify about war events in Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia. There is practically not a single field that you have not testified about. Is that right?

A. As a witness here, I answered the questions that were put to me.

Q. Oh, you mean when your written statement was taken and now, as you were here?

A. Yes, just like I'm answering your questions now.

Q. All right. If you were in Bosnia-Herzegovina practically throughout the war, from 1991, as you said a short while ago, until 1995, apart from what you said here during the examination-in-chief, that you were in Vukovar after the events there and the fall of Vukovar, when were you in Croatia? When were you in Kosovo? Since you were in Bosnia all the time, when did you research the work of all these agencies and the political events in Yugoslavia, and so on and so forth? How were you in all these places at the same time?

A. Until now, I've never managed to be in more than one place at a time, although I would have liked that. ¹¹⁵⁰³

Q. This is witty, but it's no answer to my question. How come you are testifying about events that were evolving along parallel lines, although you say yourself that you did not manage to be at more than one place at one time?

A. Could you give me a more specific question related to more specific events? And I'm going to tell you where I was in specific circumstances.

Q. As for specific events, we're going to get to that. But do you allow for the following possibility: That some other journalist, let us assume, say, that some journalist who is just as capable as you consider yourself to be, who followed these events, would some other journalist draw some other conclusions from the events that you followed, or would he or she have to draw the same conclusions?

A. I could not really say what some other person would have done in my place.

Q. I'm not asking you to speculate. I'm asking you whether you allow for a different possibility, that some journalist, for example, even a better journalist than you, would have drawn some other conclusions from the events that you are describing.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, he's answered that. He can't put himself in somebody else's shoes.

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

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. On page 2 of your statement, in the last paragraph, you say that I started doing some things in order to consolidate my own power. Why do ¹¹⁵⁰⁴ you use this word "consolidation"? Had I lost power before that and did I try to consolidate it afterwards? What does that mean?

A. As far as I know, consolidation means strengthening. I'm not trying to say that you had lost power and that you were trying to regain it now, I was saying that you were trying to consolidate, strengthen, control over political life that you had then.

Q. All right. You move on then to say that I was taking away the autonomy of provincial and republican governments in Serbia. How did municipal authorities lose their autonomy, as you had put it?

A. I wish I could see the whole sentence before I answer this question, because I don't know exactly. I gave this statement more than two years ago. I would really like to know what you are specifically referring to.

JUDGE MAY: We are going, in fact, to adjourn now. It's 10 past 4.00.

Mr. Milosevic, I guess there's more that you want to ask this witness. You can have a further hour when we next convene, which will be next Tuesday.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Are you trying to say that you are only giving me one more hour on the next day we meet, Mr. May?

JUDGE MAY: That's absolutely right, Mr. Milosevic. Now, Mr. Anastasijevic, would you be back, please, at 9.00 on Tuesday. Thank you.

We'll adjourn now.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 4.10 ¹¹⁵⁰⁵ p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 15th day of October 2002, at 9.00 a.m.