Milosevic Transcript 2002-10-21

¹¹⁹⁴⁴

Monday, 21 October 2002

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

[The witness entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.30 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

WITNESS: WITNESS C-1[Resumed]

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

Q. [Interpretation] Mr. C-1141, they asked you somewhere towards the beginning of your testimony whether you had seen any paramilitary units when they arrived, when they had arrived from Serbia, whether you were there, and your answer was that you didn't see them; is that right?

A. Right.

Q. Now, in your answers when you used word "soldiers," as far as I understood you, you were in fact talking about local citizens who had put on uniforms; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. So in Hrvatska Dubica, there were no members of the JNA or anybody else from Serbia; is that right?

A. I did not see anybody.

Q. Very well. Tell me, please, as you say that relations in Hrvatska Dubica deteriorated in 1990, do you happen to know when in Croatia the HDZ party was formed?

A. I know that, yes. ¹¹⁹⁴⁵

Q. Well, tell me when.

A. In 1990.

Q. So in your opinion, was the HDZ a nationalistic party or was it a party of democratic option which could be deduced from its heading, its title?

A. Well, I don't know, but I'm a member of the Social Democratic Party, that's all I know, and as for the other one, I don't know.

Q. All right. When the HDZ was established, did the local Serbs in Hrvatska Dubica have any party of their own?

A. Yes, they did.

Q. When did they form their own party?

A. In 1990.

Q. Is it correct that the Serbs in Croatia, and therefore, in Hrvatska Dubica as well, in 1990 to a large extent realised their political goals within this party which used to be the League of Communists of Croatia or, rather, the party I'm talking about is the SDP, that most of them at those first elections voted for the SDP party; is that right?

A. No. No, it's not. Some -- some people voted or, rather, they already had -- in 1990, the parties had already been set up, the HDZ and the SDS and there were three of them, three parties, and the SDP was the third. And I was a member of the SDP. They asked me to be the president of the SDS but I refused. I turned that down, and that's what it says.

Q. Yes, that's quite clear to me. Now, how long after the HDZ was the SDS formed in Hrvatska Dubica? ¹¹⁹⁴⁶

A. I don't know that. I can't tell you the day or the date but it was in 1990 sometime.

Q. All right. Very well.

A. In the summer.

Q. Yes, yes. I understand. Now, is it true, [redacted], that as a child in World War II you were left an orphan without either parents?

A. No. I was left without a father.

MR. GROOME: The accused has used the witness's name instead of the pseudonym. I'd ask that it be redacted from the record and I'd ask Mr. Milosevic to be directed not to use his name.

JUDGE MAY: I don't have that.

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: I'm told that is so. Mr. Milosevic, don't use the name. You know that.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I didn't notice having said it I said 1141 a moment ago. I addressed him in that way, but probably I misspoke and a slip of the tongue and said the name. I didn't do it on purpose.

JUDGE MAY: Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Now, do you know how many Serbs left Hrvatska Dubica on the 2nd of August, 1991?

A. They did not leave Dubica. They would just leave during the day. That's what happened. They went to Bosanska Dubica. But in the morning -- actually, they would go to Bosanska Dubica in the evening and would ¹¹⁹⁴⁷ return from Bosanska Dubica in the morning, back to their own homes. Whether they all went or not, I can't say. Whether the young people went off and the elderly people stayed to look after the homes, but that's what it was.

Q. Now, why did they go away during the night?

A. I don't know.

Q. Were they afraid of anything?

A. That's not quite clear to me. I'm not clear as to why they did so. I really don't know.

Q. All right. I have a piece of information here that tells me that on the 2nd of August, about 1.250 Serbs left their homes. Tell me, please, is it true that on that particular day in Hrvatska Dubica, 13 buses arrived belonging to members of the ZNG, the Croatian National Guard Corps and the police force, and that the column stretched from the centre of Dubica right up towards the Jesenovac area?

A. I'm not aware of that, I don't know.

Q. All right. But you say in your statement that the Croats had organised themselves and were preparing for the threat that loomed over them. That's what you said.

A. No, I did not. I didn't.

Q. All right. So they weren't in jeopardy at all?

A. Whether somebody was afraid or not and for what reason I really can't say but they were not threatened. Everybody went about their own business.

Q. All right. Do you remember an event when at the end of July 1991 ¹¹⁹⁴⁸ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹¹⁹⁴⁹ members of the Croatian paramilitary units slaughtered Stevo Djuricic, a man who was 65 years old and he was a caretaker at the school?

A. I heard about that, but I don't know what actually happened to him. I heard that he had been killed, but who killed him or what, I really don't know.

Q. Mr. C-1141, you say you know nothing about this.

A. I heard that he and not only him but --

Q. What else did you hear?

A. Well, there was another person who was killed. Not only Djuricic.

Q. All right. Do you remember when Stevo Vlatkovic, who disappeared without trace and we don't know his fate to this day, did you hear about that?

A. Well, he was captured in his own house and they found weapons in his house. Now, what happened to him after that, I really don't know.

Q. Do you know that another Serb, Petar Kojic, about 53 years of age, disappeared on the same day as Ugarkovic and ten days later his body was found in Gornji Bacin by a Croat, Milan Coric?

A. Whether that was on the same day, I don't know, but yes, Pera Kojic was captured in a forest -- well, not a forest, actually, a wood, and he had a hunting rifle on him. Now, what happened to him afterwards, I really don't know, but I know that he's not around.

Q. Well, is it logical that when people are in the woods, they carry hunting rifles?

A. Well, he had a hunting rifle, yes. And it didn't belong to him either. ¹¹⁹⁵⁰

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I would like to ask the witness a few questions which I don't think can be asked in open session, just for a few minutes please.

JUDGE MAY: Private session, please.

[Private session]

[redacted]

[redacted] ¹¹⁹⁵¹

[redacted]

[Open session]

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You say that the local Serbs on the 18th of September, 1991, occupied Hrvatska Dubica.

A. I did not say that.

Q. Let me just check here. Well, all right, I can't seem to find this in your statement just now. I did see it in your statement. If you say so, all right.

A. Tell me what you saw.

Q. It's not important, never mind. Tell me this: What was the population structure in Hrvatska Dubica at the time that you're testifying about?

A. Mixed; Serbs, Croats, there were some Muslims too.

Q. On page 1 here of your statement or, rather, it's page 2, marked as page 2, last paragraph, or the penultimate paragraph in fact, it says -- and let me say that I received your statement only in English, so I'm going to quote in English and the interpreters will translate for you. It says the following: [In English] "When I left my village on the 16th of September (Saturday) the forces of SAO Krajina and other Serb paramilitaries were in the woods above Hrvatska Dubica. The Croatian defenders had already left the village but the Serb paramilitaries did not know that. However, they came to know of it very soon and occupied ¹¹⁹⁵² Hrvatska Dubica on Monday, 18th of September, 1991." [Interpretation] That means you say they occupied Hrvatska Dubica on the 18th of September, the Serbs, and that is what -- as it stands, and you say you didn't say that. Now, I'm asking you, how is it possible for them to occupy their own town and the houses and streets they lived in?

A. You are distorting some things. I did not say that they occupied it. I said that when the population withdrew, when the population left, when they withdrew, because in Dubica at that time there was the Croatian police there. There were no soldiers, no members of the army, I just saw the police. So when the bridge was blown up -- you see, you're distorting all this, because when the bridge was blown up, that's what happened. Several days later, people started to flee. Everybody fled. Now, what happened afterwards -- and you say that I said this was on the 16th. It was a Saturday. I don't remember the exact date, whether it was the 16th or the 17th, but it was a Saturday.

Now, what happened afterwards, after that particular Saturday, I really don't know. I can't say. I wasn't there.

Q. Mr. C-1141, please, I just read out the text of your statement because I know nothing about your town. All I can do is to read what you wrote down here, and I read it all word-for-word as it states in the statement.

Now, does that mean that this is a mistake and that this observation was made by mistake? Because I haven't distorted or made up anything. I just read it out.

A. Now, this word "occupy," why it says that, I don't know who could ¹¹⁹⁵³ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹¹⁹⁵⁴ have occupied it. We had withdrawn. The place was left empty. Now, who came after that, I don't know. Whether it was the reservists or anybody else, I really don't know.

Q. All right. Fine. That means it is not your statement and they did not occupy the place.

A. It is my statement, and what I said I stand by now.

Q. And not -- you don't stand by what I've just read out?

A. Well, you've read out some things which were probably not translated properly.

Q. Not translated properly you say, I see. Now, you just said that this was after the bridge had been blown up.

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. Well, tell me, please, who blew the bridge up?

A. I heard -- I don't know who did it, but I heard that the bridge was blown up, it seems, by the Croatian police force or whoever was there. What their names were, I really don't know.

Q. In the paragraph before that, you say the following: [In English] "On 12th or 13th of September 1991 (Wednesday), the Croatians destroyed the bridge on Una River between Hrvatska Dubica and Bosanska Dubica as there was a possibility of JNA tanks coming over to this area."

A. That's right. They were afraid.

Q. Yes. So Croats or, rather, Croat paramilitaries had destroyed the bridge.

A. No. Police did that.

Q. So the Croatian police destroyed the bridge. ¹¹⁹⁵⁵

A. Yes, that's what I heard.

Q. And then once the Croatian police destroyed the bridge, then the population started fleeing.

A. No. No. People continued living in Dubica.

Q. All right. Since you say they did not occupy, as is stated here, then I will put no more questions regarding this. Can you tell us whether before the 18th of September, 1991, there were -- there was some fighting in the wider area of Dubica?

A. I don't know about that.

Q. So since there was no fighting in that area, there was nobody who could attack or defend Dubica. The only violent event was the destruction of that bridge, as far as I understand it. Is that right?

A. No, that's not right.

Q. Well, tell me what else happened there.

A. One couldn't reach Dubica. In the roads, there were roadblocks. There were trees knocked down and then there were guards or guard patrols on the road, in the hills. I don't know why it was there. I don't know the reason for that, but it was there.

Q. I understand that you're saying now that there were watchguards there, but was there any conflict there?

A. As far as I know, no. I don't know about that.

Q. Well, that's what I'm interested in. You told us that upon your return to Dubica, you saw a person called Momcilo Kovacevic who was -- who held a position, as far as I understood it, and you saw him putting posters up, posters warning that everybody looting houses would be ¹¹⁹⁵⁶ punished.

A. Yes, that's what I did see.

Q. That means that a lot of people had left Dubica, the houses were vacant, and as far as I understand it, this man was actually a policeman.

A. He did wear the uniform of the SAO police of Krajina.

Q. And he was putting up posters with warnings that those who loot houses would be punished?

A. Yes, that's right. And I'm sorry I didn't bring with me one of those posters so that I could show it to you here.

Q. I suppose that he and his colleagues wanted to protect the property of inhabitants of Hrvatska Dubica; is that right?

A. Well, as was said in those announcements, I believe that you're right. Now, whether they succeeded in actually implementing that, I don't know about that.

Q. In your statement, you mention names of several commanders of Territorial Defence.

A. Only one name.

Q. All right. Well, let's reduce it to that one name that you mentioned. And that one name that you mentioned and this one person in fact is a resident of Hrvatska Dubica; is that right?

A. No.

Q. Well, where was that man from?

A. I don't know where he was from. His name was Borojevic, and he got killed. He was a young man. I don't know his first name. He's gone now. ¹¹⁹⁵⁷

Q. I see that you mention here -- and in fact you asked for a closed session in order to mention a name, and I wrote it down. You are saying that you were mentioning a commander of the guard near the firehouse station who was a local person, a local resident.

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. Well, that's who I'm referring to.

A. Oh, no. He was no commander at all. That man helped me to escape from the firehouse.

Q. Very well. You say on page 4, paragraph 3: "The commander of the guard --" so a third paragraph on page 4, you say that the commander of those guards, and then you mention his nickname and so on, and you say that he was a local resident from your town.

A. He was no commander at all. Yes, he was a local resident, and I suppose that he had something to do with those guards watching us in the firehouse. Now, what was his position, I don't know.

Q. All right, Mr. C-1141. All I'm doing is reading your statement out loud to you because you, in your statement, call him the commander.

A. No, no, no.

Q. Well, that's what it says in your statement.

A. No. The commander of the staff was Borojevic, and the staff was located in a different village, and all of them wore olive-drab uniforms or something like that.

Q. When you say "olive-drab uniforms," you are in fact referring to old JNA uniforms; is that right?

A. Yes. They were reservists. ¹¹⁹⁵⁸ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹¹⁹⁵⁹

Q. And the JNA had camouflage combat uniforms. They in fact did not wear old uniforms.

A. Well, these people, the reservists, in fact had those old uniforms.

Q. So the local people.

A. Yes, reservists. I don't know any other people other than them.

Q. So while you were there, you did not see anybody who came from outside to Hrvatska Dubica. Those were all locals; is that right?

A. Yes. There were locals there, yes, and there were several people whom I didn't know. I saw them but I didn't know them. And later I learned that they were from Bosanska Dubica. And as to who had brought them there and why they came there, I don't know.

Q. You are from Bosanska Dubica too as far as I understood it.

A. No.

Q. Bosanska Dubica is just across the Una River; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. And there was this bridge that was blown up by Croatian police between Bosanska/Hrvatska Dubica?

A. I heard that it was destroyed on the Croatian side, and now I don't know who destroyed it. I heard that it was them, because nobody else had access there. The police guarded the bridge.

Q. All right, Mr. C-1141. Now, tell me, please, do you have any information regarding how many Serb houses were looted after the 2nd August of 1991 when 1.250 Serbs, based on my information, left Dubica?

A. I don't know that a single house was looted or set on fire at that ¹¹⁹⁶⁰ time. All I know is that upon my return on the 2nd of October, 1991, from Ljubljana where I stayed with my brother, that there were burnt houses. I stayed there for 18 days, and I saw that 12 houses were burnt down. And later on, my house as well. After I left, my house was set on fire, the last. And I don't know about people looting houses. I don't know.

Q. Well, yes, I see that you don't know. All I'm trying is to extract what you do know.

A. Well, I will say what I do know.

Q. Very well.

A. And what I saw.

Q. Is it true that during July of 1991 in -- dynamite was thrown on several Serb houses in and around Dubica?

A. I don't know about that.

Q. Do you know somebody called Mateljak Tomislav?

A. Yes.

Q. He's a Croat, isn't he?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you remember that in his car a large amount of dynamite and weapons was found, in his car?

A. No, I never heard about that.

Q. So you never heard about it?

A. No.

Q. Did you attend a meeting of residents of Dubica, both Serbs and Croats, which was called in order to calm down tensions, inter-ethnic tensions, and to calm down the situation and in order to organise jointly ¹¹⁹⁶¹ and protect themselves from any possible attacks and so on?

A. I heard about this meeting but I did not attend it. I did not attend it, but the meeting was held. I don't know in which building it was held either.

Q. All right. Do you know that on the 19th of October, 1991, in Zelenik forest, not far from Hrvatska Dubica, four persons were killed, all of them Serbs: Zoran Tatic, 34 years old; Rajko Burazor, 35 years old; Mladen Tomic, born in 1965; and Nenad Mitrovic, 30 years old. Did you hear about this?

A. Yes, I did. But they encountered a mine in their vehicle, and there were two older men in that vehicle and one middle-aged man as well. They were all from that town. And it didn't happen in the town itself but as they were leaving town, they took with them two other men, and as they were leaving down, they ran into a mine and all of them were blown up. Yes, that's what I heard and that's true.

Q. All right. You are mostly describing things that you had heard.

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. Well, let's clarify your evidence regarding the firehouse.

A. All right.

Q. How many hours did you spend in the firehouse?

A. From 9.00 in the morning until 5.30 or 6.00 in the evening.

Q. So 5.30 or 6.00?

A. Well, I didn't have a watch on me, but around that time.

Q. After that you were called and you asked to go home to get some clothing, and then after that, you escaped in the hills; is that right? ¹¹⁹⁶²

A. Yes.

Q. And after that, you don't know what was going on in the firehouse.

A. No. The elderly remained at the firehouse that night.

Q. So those who were with you up until the moment you left the place remained?

A. Yes.

Q. And you don't know, therefore, whether anybody else left the firehouse just like you did and the other ten people that you mentioned or whether they were remained there in the firehouse.

A. After I left, they remained in the firehouse. However, during the night, and there are some living witnesses who can testify to this, three or four persons that were taken out alive, out of them only one old lady died. So three or four people were taken out alive, three or four people who remained after me. And as to who took them out, I don't know about that.

Q. That's exactly what I was going to ask you. How do you know how those people perished, whether they perished afterwards, on that occasion? You basically don't know what went on afterwards. You left the firehouse at 6.00 p.m. and don't know what happened afterwards because you fled.

A. Yes.

Q. You spoke about possible motives.

A. No.

Q. Let's just clarify this. You were asked, on the last day of your testimony, about being arrested a few days later on and being taken to the ¹¹⁹⁶³ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹¹⁹⁶⁴ police station and being kept there for two days; is that right?

A. No. It wasn't after a couple of days. You are putting it wrongly. Why don't you ask me about things that I experienced and saw.

Q. Well, I'm asking you, when did the police arrest you after that?

A. On Sunday, in the evening, upon my escape from the firehouse. Once I escaped, I fled into the hills to my friend's place. I spent the night there, and then a transfer was organised to transfer me from Hrvatska Dubica to Bosnia, and it was attempted on Monday evening or late afternoon. Yes. Towards the evening, yes. And that's how we did it. However, some ten kilometres from Dubica, on the road towards Sisak - because that was the only available road - I had to be transferred through Hrvatska Kostajnica and Bosanska Kostajnica into Bosnia. However, they caught me there and the driver who was taking me there, he and I were taken back. And then on Monday evening, I was locked into a special room in the old school building. I wasn't taken to the firehouse. And later on, I heard, once they started interrogating me, that there was nobody in the firehouse.

Once we returned, four kilometres from Dubica near the river in Bacin, a grave was found with 43 persons who remained in the firehouse.

Q. All right. Let me ask you this since I'm trying to find the explanation for all this: You said that you were arrested, they interrogated you, and then you were asked by the Prosecution whether you were beaten or not. You said that you were not. However, the topic of all this was to find out why you did not support the SDS party.

A. No. They asked me about why I was detained there, why I was ¹¹⁹⁶⁵ persecuted by the local authority, and they asked me why I did not accept to be the leader of the SDS and so on.

Q. Well, that's exactly what I wrote down. You said that you were not beaten and that they interrogated you about the reasons for escaping from the firehouse and not accepting the position within the SDS.

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. Well, that's what I'm referring to. Could we now there find a motive for detaining you there in the firehouse? Was it because of these party reasons, political party reasons? Do you have an explanation yourself for the fact that you were locked in the firehouse with other people, with 53 people?

A. I don't have an explanation. I really don't know why.

Q. And you knew that there were Serbs and Croats and Muslims there with you.

A. Yes.

Q. So you were not detained on the basis of your ethnic origin but you think there was a political background to it.

A. No, no, no. I don't know. We don't know why we were detained and locked in the firehouse. In fact, the guards told us that we had to wait because somebody was supposed to come and call a meeting. I don't know what the meeting was about. And this meeting never took place.

Q. Well, the meeting never took place while you were there until 6.00 p.m. and you don't know whether somebody came after 6.00 p.m.

A. No.

Q. And do you think that what you're saying about the parties appears ¹¹⁹⁶⁶ to be specific of a multi-party system understood in the Balkan sense, that is, in the understanding of Hrvatska Dubica? Would you say that that provoked the problem that you encountered?

A. I couldn't say whether that was the reason or not, but I think that if it hadn't been for -- for that -- I don't know. If there hadn't been the SDS, the HDZ -- I can't answer that question. What caused it, I don't know. But until then, everything was fine.

Q. That's what I'm talking about, Mr. C-1141. I also think that Yugoslavia, up till then, was, at least for me, the most beautiful country in the world.

A. I don't know about that.

Q. People were living in harmony.

A. I'm just saying what happened in my town. What happened afterwards, who ordered it, under whose control, I don't know.

Q. Can you say that you know what happened to those people who stayed behind in the fire station?

A. I can.

Q. On what basis can you say that and you don't know about other things?

A. I know because the people who crossed the Una River on the Bosnian side are live witnesses. They heard shooting. And all those people were found there, exhumed and identified. What more do you want?

Q. When were those people exhumed and identified?

A. I don't know exactly; in 1996 or 1997. I don't know exactly when the exhumation was carried out. Afterwards, when we returned. ¹¹⁹⁶⁷

Q. You say that this was a mass grave next to the river.

A. Yes.

Q. How many bodies were exhumed at the time?

A. All 43 that were identified. And there were others in the grave. I don't know how many. Because apparently they were brought there and executed there from other villages, from Crvljani. When they were brought there I don't know because they were not in the fire station while I was there. When they rounded them up, during the night or in the morning, I don't know. I don't know about the others. I just know that 43 persons from my town were sent away from the fire station and they're gone.

Q. At the end of page 5, at the end of the list, you say that the exhumation was carried out in March and April 1997 and 56 bodies were removed from the site. And out of those 56, 37 were identified, as well as many other villagers and your wife. "I was also present," you say, "when we identified a number of bodies."

A. No. How could I identify bodies whether out of those 43 persons several persons couldn't be identified or their children didn't come who are someplace in Germany, Switzerland? They were not identified, but they were buried there. I and my wife couldn't recognise anyone because they were not our relatives. So don't ask me things like that.

Q. Mr. C-1141, I'm not claiming anything that is not written in your statement. I'm just reading it out for you.

A. Read it. Read it.

Q. [In English] "Our exhumation of the mass grave in Bacin took place ¹¹⁹⁶⁸ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹¹⁹⁶⁹ in March and April 1997, and 56 bodies were removed from the site. Of those 56, 37 have been identified. Along with my other villagers and my wife, I was also present at the site when the exhumation took place, and we identified a number of bodies. Of those 43 detained at the fire station on 20th of October, the bodies of following persons were from Hrvatska Dubica."

[Interpretation] And then you list 18 names, and first and last names.

That is what is stated in your statement. I've read out every single word. Is that right or not? Is this your statement?

A. It is my statement, but not that list. You don't have the real list. I don't know why.

Q. I don't know either, Mr. C-1141.

A. Forty-three persons are on the list from my town who were killed, and out of the 43 of them, most were identified. I did not identify a single one, and I claimed that. And if you have something else written down there, I don't stand by that.

Q. But, Mr. C-1141, I don't have anything else in writing except what was given to me as your statement which you signed.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour --

JUDGE MAY: Yes --

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Is that your statement?

MR. GROOME: Mr. Milosevic was also given what is Prosecution Exhibit 344, the handwritten list of Mr. C-1141 and it contains a full ¹¹⁹⁷⁰ list of the names.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Mr. Milosevic, we have the point. We have the exhibit which the witness produced. Now, can move on to another point.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can I just finish with this first.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. There is no dispute, even though you're saying this is not quite correct, there is no dispute that this was in March and April 1997, when the exhumation was carried out. That is what is stated in the statement; is that right?

A. It was in 1997, in the spring. I don't remember the exact date.

Q. Fine. And you're claiming that they were killed in 1991; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. So six years prior to that.

A. Yes.

Q. So they were buried on a river bank in a kind of collective grave; right?

A. It is well known where they were buried.

Q. Is it possible, six years later, for you to recognise anyone six years later?

A. No, no. I never claimed that I recognised anyone. The relatives, the relatives; my neighbours recognised their fathers. I didn't. How could I?

Q. Do you think that six years later people buried on a river bank in this humid earth -- ¹¹⁹⁷¹

JUDGE MAY: That's not a matter for the witness.

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

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Tell me, please, Mr. C-1141, since you speak of the time you spent in the fire station, after that you were on the run, and you don't know anything that you are claiming that happened later that you didn't see.

A. I didn't see. I was not with them. But there is no doubt. There is evidence. I didn't see it, but persons who were with me were found. I've explained. And when they caught me again, I learnt it then. That was on the Monday evening that I learned that they were no longer in the fire station.

Q. So on Monday evening, you learned that there was no one in the fire station.

A. Yes.

Q. Can you conclude from that that they were taken away and killed then?

A. For sure.

Q. If that is the kind of conclusion you reach, could you at least intimate what could have been a motive for such a crazy act for some old men and women to be taken off and executed, people of different ethnicities and so on? What could have been the reason?

A. I really don't know. I'm surprised myself what could have been the reason and who could have ordered that, on whose authority and on whose will this was done.

Q. What could anyone gain from the killing of those people when there ¹¹⁹⁷² were no conflicts there even?

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, the witness has answered that he doesn't know, and he's as surprised as anybody.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. C-1141, you are saying that you heard afterwards that those people were killed. You're not testifying about their killing because you don't know anything about it; is that right?

A. How can I testify about the killing of that person when I wasn't there when they were killed? But there are live people who are alive who heard the screams and the shooting, and they identified the spot and reported that that is where they were buried, and they were found there. And dates are given, the time of day, the morning, when this happened, and so on.

Q. I just wanted to state that you are not testifying about this because you don't know anything about that.

A. That is not right. I was with them and they are gone.

Q. That is not disputed that you were in the fire station. But after that, you were on the run. After that, you were arrested, interrogated, and released again.

A. No. What happened to me and how I happened to survive by chance, that's another matter. I was being sought after because I'm the only live witness of that event.

Q. But you were not present.

A. Present at the killing? No.

Q. But do you know anything about who committed that crime? ¹¹⁹⁷³ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹¹⁹⁷⁴

A. I don't know. And I keep asking myself why it was done and who did it.

Q. You don't know who did it nor why.

A. I don't know why it was done. This was an arbitrary killing.

Q. But who -- who did you learn about it from?

A. From survivors and who were taken out during the week. I don't know how. Relatives. There's a waitress, a forestry worker. There is a list and they are alive, and they too are wondering why they killed them, why they didn't release everyone.

Q. You are surprised and others. I, too, for instance, can wonder why those people were killed and who killed them. So you cannot answer the question who killed them nor why they killed them.

A. I didn't see it. If I knew who killed them --

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, is it disputed -- it may assist in clarifying the issues: Is it disputed that these 43 people who were -- whose bodies were exhumed were in fact killed in October 1991 as alleged? Is that fact in dispute?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I think it is absurd for you to ask such a question. How could I possibly know what happened?

JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation continues]... no, of course you don't know. But -- but at the end of this trial, we are going to have to make our minds up about events such as this, and we're going to have to make up our minds as to what occurred on the evidence which is produced. Now, the issues will be clarified if we know what is in dispute and what isn't. ¹¹⁹⁷⁵ Now, you don't have to answer, of course, but in order to clarify, as I say, the issues and reduce them, it would be helpful to know if you dispute that this occurred or not.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, as you see also by the statement of the witness, it is inexplicable that something like that should have happened. And he doesn't know who could have done that. So that one could assume that those people died under different circumstances and not simply that they were brought to the fire station and after that executed. It is unbelievable this hypothesis that somebody should round up some old men and women in the fire station and then execute them. It is simply unbelievable. That's why my common sense says --

JUDGE MAY: It may be unbelievable, but the question is did it happen or not.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't doubt at all that this man is sincerely talking about what happened in the fire station. He described it. But what happened after that, he cannot know. He doesn't know. And he cannot claim something that he doesn't know. That is the gist of it.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What I lived through and what I saw I can assert, Mr. Milosevic. I don't understand why you're insisting so much on something that is not clear to you. And I told you that I don't know who killed them, but they were killed, killed.

JUDGE MAY: Witness C-1141, you don't have to speculate as to that.

Yes, Mr. Milosevic. You've got slightly under ten minutes more ¹¹⁹⁷⁶ for questions.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Mr. C-1141 --

JUDGE MAY: Just on the transcript, what I said to the witness is you don't have to speculate as to that. Yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm not speaking about any speculations. I'm trying to establish, Mr. May, that the witness is not testifying about something he saw but about something that happened prior to that which may or may not point to such a course of events, and the course of events is so unbelievable that something like that should happen in a peaceful situation that the witness has told us about, I'm just asking what else could have been the cause for the death of these people. If they were exhumed and found dead six or seven years later, I assume that is true, and I'm not disputing that. What I'm trying to discover is what could have been the cause for the death of these people, because the explanation offered by the witness is simply unbelievable for me.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You said, Mr. C-1141, that there were Serbs, Croats, and Muslims there. Who were the people who were released, those ten who were released while you were there? Were they also of different ethnicities?

A. Yes, yes.

Q. Can we then exclude as the possible reason any ethnic affiliation for the killing of these people?

A. I don't know that.

Q. Both Serbs and Croats were killed.

A. Only two Serbs. ¹¹⁹⁷⁷

Q. Very well. The scale can be of significance, but nevertheless, both Serbs and Croats were killed. There's no dispute over that.

A. Yes, there isn't any.

Q. Can we then infer that this was not based on any kind of ethnic hatred? You, too, were arrested and you're a Serb.

A. Yes.

Q. So you could have been killed too.

A. Yes.

Q. Can we then conclude that this was not any kind of ethnic hatred that prompted anyone to kill anyone else?

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, we're going to have to make that decision at the end of the case. The witness can merely tell us what he saw. What you can ask him -- I think you've probably covered it, but to make sure we'll cover it again: Could you see, Witness C-1141, any cause for this killing?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I really don't know. I've thought about this, and I keep thinking about it, what the cause was. I think it was arbitrariness on the part of a group of people, several people. Why they did that, I really don't know.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, can you indicate who these people were who took this arbitrary action?

A. Well, these people in my place, in my town. Whether they had received instructions from where else, I don't know, but those people were in my town. They're not there now. ¹¹⁹⁷⁸ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹¹⁹⁷⁹

Q. All right. Could you be more specific, please? You were asked a question about the brigade in your town. I intervened, and you said that there were 31 or 32 policemen; is that right?

A. Well, it wasn't a brigade. Don't say that.

Q. Well, that's precisely what I was claiming, that it wasn't a brigade.

A. It was the police, and then there was a brigade or a battalion of the army. That was separate. That held the line from Jasenovac to Sunja along the Sava River. That's something else. They had a headquarters and a staff and a commander and all the rest of it.

Q. All right. Okay. Now, you're saying that that was the line, a sort of front line. Is that what you mean?

A. Yes, probably.

Q. And that had nothing to do with the goings-on in your particular town?

A. No, it didn't.

Q. All right, very well. Now, these 31 or 32 policemen that you mentioned, they were your policemen; is that right?

A. They weren't my policemen. They were the police officers belonging to the militia, part of the local ones and some of the others I really don't know. I don't know where they came from but they all had patches on their shoulders saying Militia of SAO Krajina. And the vehicles had this written up on them too, the vehicles they used. It said the Police of SAO Krajina.

Q. Now, in the fire station, were you guarded by the policemen, the ¹¹⁹⁸⁰ Milicija or the local territorials?

A. No. In that police uniform, the local ones were not wearing that uniform. I told you the type of uniforms they wore. But they were really reservists, at least, as far as I heard. Now, who they belonged to, I really don't know.

Q. All right. But these reservists were people who you knew. They were from your town.

A. Yes, they were.

Q. Well let's just make a distinction between these two points: The police who arrested you afterwards and interrogated you afterwards didn't harm you at all, did they?

A. They didn't beat me. They were astonished. The person doing the interrogation was surprised why I had been accused. I asked who accused me and he didn't want to tell me.

Q. All right. So the policeman who arrested you was surprised?

A. No.

Q. You mean the one that interrogated you.

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. Was he a policeman?

A. Well, he was wearing civilian clothes. He was an inspector of some kind.

Q. All right. An inspector in the police station. And he let you go, didn't he?

A. No, he didn't let me go.

Q. Who let you go, then? ¹¹⁹⁸¹

A. A group of those others did; the people, the locals, the young boys. They let me go and they let me go at night so that nobody else should know.

Q. All right. Fine. Now, did the police do anything to harm you?

A. No, except putting me in the fire station in the first place, because they knew -- their people had a list of names, and they went around the village collecting these people from the list, and they would call the names of the people out and take them to the fire station. Whenever they changed shifts, they would do the roll call.

Q. All right. The roll call and the shift and guards in the fire station were not policemen but territorials; is that right?

A. Yes, that's right. Now, who they received their orders from, I don't know. They were probably linked up with the police. I don't know.

Q. All right. Let's assume then that the police was not involved in this, that it was the territorials who were involved in all this.

A. Both of them. These people guarded us and the other people brought us in. Both of them.

Q. Well, they might have had orders to bring people to a meeting. How do you know they didn't?

A. Well, I assumed that we were to have a meeting.

Q. Somebody must have said go and call these people to attend the meeting.

A. I assume that's how it should have been, but --

Q. So we both agree on this assumption, right?

A. Yes. ¹¹⁹⁸²

Q. Now, what does the police of Krajina has to do with what went on in the villages? And you still assume that it happened the way you say.

A. What Krajina? I'm talking about the police force from my own local village.

Q. What does the -- your local police force then have to do with the events that took place later on? And you link up the reservists who are also from your place.

A. It's not true that the reservists did that.

Q. Who did, then?

A. Well, the police gathered us all up, took us to the fire station, and we were guarded by the reservists. Now, who took them over later on I really don't know because I didn't see.

And now let me tell you one other thing, Mr. Milosevic: Arbitrariness was prevalent 100 per cent. People did what they liked. All of them did. Now the person -- I don't know what name to give him, the person that was in charge of the policemen - not the army and reservists but in charge of the policemen - was on the run and his people had come into conflict with the police force of the Kostajnica municipality, and one of the policemen from the municipality of Kostajnica was killed. Now, why they had this conflict, because they wanted -- this man wanted to separate our region and an exit to Bosanska Dubica. That's it.

Q. Well, I know that you're talking about all this chaos that went on during the civil war when some local man wanted -- took it into his head to take your part of Bosanska Dubica and put it onto the other part. Now, ¹¹⁹⁸³ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹¹⁹⁸⁴ who ordered him to do this?

A. I really don't know.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, we must be bringing this to a close because you've had the hour allotted and slightly more, but you can certainly ask two more questions.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. All right, Mr. C-1141.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, Mr. May. This just shows how absurd it all is. You could have brought in any witness, a witness that had been on barley, to testify about --

JUDGE MAY: We're not listening to comments of that sort and you shouldn't be making them.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. All right. Tell me this: Do you live in Hrvatska Dubica today?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. And is this correct: That today in Dubica, of the 2.500 Serbs who lived there before the war, there are only some 30 remaining inhabitants; is that correct?

A. No, it's not.

Q. How many Serbs were there before the war, how many are there now?

A. I don't know how many there were before the war. When it was a municipality, the number of inhabitants were 3.000 or closer to 4.000 inhabitants. Now, of that number, although I don't know exactly, but I would say that perhaps 50 per cent were Serbs. The ratio was 50/50 of Croats and Serbs. Now, today, in that place of ours, village of ours, ¹¹⁹⁸⁵ there are many more Serbs living there than you have mentioned, and there are more and more every day, with each passing day. They've started coming back to their own homes, their own homes are being refurbished, but there are many more of them who are there today than the figure you mentioned.

Q. How many, then?

JUDGE MAY: I'm not going to go on with this cross-examination, you having had your time, Mr. Milosevic.

Have the amici any questions?

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honours. Questioned by Mr. Tapuskovic:

Q. [Interpretation] I should just like to ask the witness for some explanations with respect to the document that has been tendered as an exhibit, along with the remark that I am not at all bringing into question the fact that all these persons did lose their lives. What I'm interested in is this, Mr. Witness: You said that the bodies were dug up from this mass grave in March and April 1997; is that right?

A. Yes, they were dug up. Now, whether it was March or April, I really can't say, but it was in 1997.

Q. Well, that's what you said in the statement you gave on the 3rd of August -- on the 8th of November, 2000, in fact.

A. Yes.

Q. Now, I'm interested in this list, the list you have in front of you. When was it compiled? You made your statement to the Prosecution of ¹¹⁹⁸⁶ the Tribunal in November 2000, but when was this list compiled? Because we can't see a date on it. Everything else is there but not the date.

A. I'll tell you the date right now. This list was copied out from the original list which I made in 1991 when I succeeded in leaving that prison again where I had spent two days and two nights. So once I left, that's when I made up the list. And I was transferred to Bosanska Dubica. I was there for several days, staying with friends, and that's when I compiled the list. Not this one but the list which was taken from me by the police. I don't know why they needed it. And I asked them to give it back to me. But what happened was this: They did not give the list back to me, and I sat down once again afterwards, and I sat down with my wife, and I know exactly, I know exactly who was from which house. Mostly -- there were six people from my own house, three men and six or seven women, older ones. And I know exactly where they were in the fire station, because three times in a single day, the list was read out. Three times a day. So that's it.

Q. But I was asking you something else. So when did you actually compile this particular list?

A. I made this list up myself later on. It might have been in 1990 -- 2000, let's say. 2000.

Q. So why isn't there a date on the list? That's what I'm asking you now.

A. Why isn't there a date?

Q. Yes.

A. Well, I made this list up for myself so that I would have one, a ¹¹⁹⁸⁷ copy. There is a date on the original, but the original was never given back to me. So why should I write the date down?

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I am asking this question for the following reason:

Q. In the statement you gave to the Prosecutor in November 2001, you said that you recognised only 19 persons.

A. That's not true.

Q. Well, I have the list here.

A. I didn't recognise anybody. That's not right.

Q. You said the following persons, bodies, were from Hrvatska Dubica, and you state -- you proceed to give 19 names and not 43.

A. You go ahead and try and remember, for example, when somebody asks you how many of us were at such-and-such a place. You try and remember. I wrote down my neighbours, the neighbours I knew about, but here we have people from the whole place, from the whole town.

Q. Well, if you did this on the basis your memory, your recollections, then you should have told the investigators of the Tribunal that. Did anybody dictate the list out to you?

A. No, why would anybody dictate it out to me? I compiled the list myself. I sat there together with my wife and drew up this list, because she knew quite a lot of them. I knew some of them, but they were older people, and she knew more people than I did. I knew the younger ones. So it was I who compiled this list.

Q. Thank you, Witness.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours. ¹¹⁹⁸⁸ Re-examined by Mr. Groome:

Q. Mr. C-1141, in response to a question of Mr. Milosevic, you said when you returned on the 2nd of October, you saw -- or you counted 12 houses that had been burnt by fire. And my question to you is: Did you know the owners of those 12 houses and can you please characterise for us were they a mixture of both Croat and Serb houses or one or the other ethnicity?

A. They were mostly Croatian houses, but two houses were -- belonged to people who had mixed marriages; mine, the 13th one was set fire to, but later on. Not in October. It was set fire to later on, not then.

Q. Now, is it your understanding that the reservists, the men in military uniforms at the fire station, were under the command of this person you've described as Borojevic?

A. Ah. Well, I don't know that. I can't say.

Q. Borojevic, you said or you stated that he was not from Hrvatska Dubica. Did you ever have an opportunity to hear him speak?

A. No.

MR. GROOME: I have nothing further, Your Honour. Questioned by the Court:

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Witness C-1141, during the cross-examination by the accused, you once said like this, I quote: "But there are live people who are alive who heard the screams and the shooting, and they identified the spot and reported that that is where they were buried, and they were found there." Is that right? My question is --

A. Yes. ¹¹⁹⁸⁹

JUDGE KWON: -- why could the exhumation not have taken place earlier? It took place as late as in 1997, after the six years. But there was witnesses who can identify this place. Why couldn't that take place earlier? Could you make any observation on that?

A. Yes, I can. That was unclear to me as well, why not, because this was learnt about much before the time that they were exhumed and the spot pinpointed.

Now, why this was not done, I really don't know. Why it wasn't done earlier, I don't know.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Much has been made of the fact that the people taken to the police station comprised Croats, Serbs, and Muslims, and in response to the accused, at one time you said, in trying to explain that, "Arbitrariness was present 100 per cent." Would you like to elaborate on that? Are you suggesting that the action that took place took place in an arbitrary manner irrespective of the ethnic background of the persons who were subjected to that kind of treatment?

A. First of all, they weren't taken to the police station but to the fire station. And second, why did this happen? It's not clear to me to this day. I don't know.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

A. Three --

JUDGE ROBINSON: If you want to continue, continue.

A. You see, because up until then, there was no difference between us. Serbs, Croats, Muslims, we were all the same. We were there and we ¹¹⁹⁹⁰ built up our town together, and it really is a little strange how somebody could have took it into their heads to -- or who could have come. Nobody knew him. He didn't recognise neighbours, anybody. And if he wanted to do something, why he didn't put them in a bus and take them away to Bosnia, for example, because in Bosnia it was peaceful at that time. And then from Bosnia, they could have crossed over to Croatia. I really don't know. It's not clear to me. But to collect them all up just like that and under the guise of taking them to a meeting which never took place. It was a Sunday, they didn't give us water or food the whole day, and in the evening, as I say, I saw that something was amiss, and I managed to get out. But the other people stayed there and they're not around any more.

So quite certainly they didn't see the dawn of Monday morning. It was towards dawn that they were taken off and killed, and that's it.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

JUDGE MAY: Witness C-1141, thank you for coming to the Tribunal to give your evidence. It's now concluded and you're free to go.

[The witness withdrew]

JUDGE MAY: Before we call the next witness, there is a matter I want to deal with in private session.

[Private session]

[redacted]

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[redacted]

--- Recess taken at 10.58 a.m.

--- On resuming at 11.32 a.m.

[The witness entered court]

[Open session]

JUDGE MAY: Let the witness take the declaration.

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

JUDGE MAY: If you would like to take a seat.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, this witness has been granted the protection of pseudonym and facial distortion and will be known throughout the proceedings as C-060. In order to avoid his identification being revealed, I must ask for private session at certain places during his testimony, but principally to deal with matters of background which would be revealing of his identity. I would ask for a private session now and I will take those matters of background as quickly as I can.

WITNESS: WITNESS C-060

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

[Private session]

[redacted]

[redacted] ¹¹⁹⁹⁶ Pages 11996-12000 - redacted - private session

¹²⁰⁰¹

[redacted]

[Open session]

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

MR. NICE:

Q. C-060, we are concerned in your evidence principally with the area of the municipality of Podravska Slatina. It's in the north-east, as we'll see on a map shortly, of Western Slavonia, but before we move on to the evidence, just inform us, was Slatina ever taken control of by the Serbs?

A. No.

Q. Going back to 1990, at elections in Slatina, did the SDP, led by Ivica Racan, win those elections?

A. Yes, they did.

Q. Did you judge Racan to be a moderate or a man of extreme views?

A. No. He was a moderate man. There was nothing based on which I could conclude he was an extremist.

Q. And the same election, the HDZ of Franjo Tudjman gained what percentage of the votes, if you can recall?

A. I think that at the level of the republic, they gained 30 per cent, and in our municipality, I suppose somewhere up to 30; perhaps 20 something per cent.

Q. The 1991 census in Slatina revealed a division of ethnic groupings, I think with Croats amounting to what percentage and then tell us how many Serbs. ¹²⁰⁰² ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹²⁰⁰³

A. When the census was conducted, there were 57 per cent of Croats in 1991, whereas Serbs constituted 34.5 per cent, and the rest were Yugoslavs, Hungarians, Czechs, and so on; they all made up about 8 per cent.

Q. I turn to the SDS party in Western Slavonia. At the beginning of 1991, was there a man called Ilija Sasic who occupied a key position?

A. Yes.

Q. Can you recall precisely what position he did hold?

A. As far as I remember, he was a member of the Regional Board of the SDS for Western Slavonia.

Q. The first president of the party in your own Podravska Slatina was whom?

A. It was Mr. Milun Karadzic.

Q. How did those two men relate one to the other? Was either the leader of the other?

A. Yes. Based on everything we saw, Mr. Karadzic in a way was manipulated by Mr. Sasic, Ilija Sasic.

Q. Did Ilija Sasic have a role in respect of volunteers? If so, what, and with whom did he contact? Volunteers and also armaments and so on.

A. Your Honours, I have to explain that at the time, Mr. Ilija Sasic used to be a judge in the municipal court in Slatina, and then later on or in parallel with that, he was also politically active in the League of Communists. He was a member of leadership structures of the League of Communists in Slatina. And immediately thereafter, I think it was in ¹²⁰⁰⁴ 1990, he left the court and became an attorney, opened a private practice. And based on my experience, what I heard and in Slatina, in our local community and also later wider in Western Slavonia, he was associated to a great extent with the establishment of the SDS. And he was also quite well-connected to the leadership of that party.

There was a lot of talk among the local population about the procurement of weapons. Prior to the units of the Territorial Defence being established, the name of Mr. Sasic was closely connected to the procurement of those illegal weapons and the establishment of those TO units. Based on what I know, Mr. Sasic contacted very influential people in Belgrade and Serbia.

Q. Thank you. As a sign of his position generally, was there a time in April or May of 1991 when Goran Hadzic had been arrested by the Croatian police and negotiations were mounted to effect his release, with Franjo Tudjman?

A. Yes.

Q. Did Sasic have any role to play in those negotiations?

A. Yes, Mr. Sasic and Veljko Dzakula negotiated with Mr. Tudjman in respect of the release of these people.

Q. Page 4, paragraph 7. You've mentioned Mr. Dzakula. How did his views as to a peaceable or otherwise solution to developing problems compare with those of Sasic? Was either of them connected to the man Seselj?

A. Based on what I know, and I knew both of them, although I met Mr. Dzakula only in 1992, but based on the relations between those two, ¹²⁰⁰⁵ one could see that they were not supporting the same cause, namely, Mr. Sasic was more radical in organising Serbs and putting up resistance or, if I can say so, in the military sense, whereas Mr. Dzakula supported a proposition that was prior to that affirmed by late Dr. Raskovic. That was a peaceful solution, a democratic option that involved negotiating and negotiating ad infinitum. At least, that's how he presented this position to me. That was the difference between the two of them.

Q. And was the man Seselj ever seen in your area? If so, where and with whom?

A. Yes. In October of 1991 -- I can't, Your Honours, remember the exact time, but I'm sure it was either November or October of 1991, more likely November, so Mr. Seselj was accompanied by Mr. Vukelic, Sasic, and some other gentlemen, Bojcic, and I can't get -- say that -- those names. So they were in Vocin. I saw them in Vocin.

Q. Deal with the progress of the SDP party and the SDS party. In June of 1991, was there a decline in membership of the SDP party as members migrated in the SDS party?

A. Yes. It is well known that in 1990, and this is usually pointed out, at first democratic elections in Croatia, HDZ won the majority on the republic level. However, in my area, in Slatina, in addition to SDP, HDZ also participated in the elections. SDS did not exist yet at the time. However, shortly thereafter, in May of 1990 or after May of 1990, after the elections were completed, I'm not sure in what period, whether it was late 1990 or early 1991, SDS was established in Slatina. And after that, members of the SDP which were elected to the Assembly as members of the ¹²⁰⁰⁶ SDP transferred into the SDS. And by doing that, they jeopardised the SDP's majority in the Assembly.

If I understood you well, this is what you wanted me to explain. Members of the SDP transferred into the SDS.

Q. Did that bring the HDZ to be in a position to appoint a government commissioner for an interim administration, and was that man Ante Simara who they appointed?

A. Yes, Mr. Ante Simara was appointed commissioner of the Croatian government for Podravska Slatina municipality sometime in early June 1991 or late May 1991.

Q. And could you please just answer this question yes or no: Were a number of leading Serbs dismissed from their positions by Ante Simara? Just yes or no to that, please.

A. Yes?

MR. NICE: Can we now have the map exhibit which we're going to look at on several occasions. We ask that this becomes tab 10 to the existing Exhibit 326, for convenience. This is the original which is actually a map, I take it marked by the witness himself. I hope it's been folded in a way that will be convenient for you to look at the critical part of it, which is Western Slavonia. We may need to open it out. Here is the original for the Court's records. Thank you very much. And can one go on the overhead projector for the witness. If you have any troubles about folding it, bring it to me and I'll fold it for you.

Q. This is a map, C-060, that I think you've marked yourself, ¹²⁰⁰⁷ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹²⁰⁰⁸ correct, and you've marked it in the various ways that we're going to look at later. What does the area surrounded in orange or red reflect?

A. This area that I'm about to show now, this orange line, indicates municipalities of Novska, Pakrac, Daruvar, Grubisno Polje, Virovitica Podravska Slatina, Orahovica, Pozega, and Novo Gradiska.

Q. And what was that area?

A. This area represents, in fact, Western Slavonia. I forgot to mention including part of Novska near Jasenovac.

Q. If we can have just a little more of the top right-hand corner of that bit shown so that people can see Podravska Slatina. Although this is Western Slavonia, as you've told us, Podravska Slatina was never taken by the Serbs and remained in Croat hands; is that correct?

A. Yes. Not only Podravska Slatina but also Virovitica and Grubisno Polje and Orahovica. I'm now referring to towns, the towns themselves, they were not occupied.

Q. Yes. Despite those limitations, was the autonomous area of Western Slavonia formed and held its first session, I think, on the 30th of October of 1991?

A. Yes. On the 30th of October, 1991, the first constituent Assembly of Western Slavonia was held.

Q. These are matters of record so I lead them: Veljko Vukelic was president of the Assembly. Veljko Dzakula was president of the government; is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. We'll come back to this map because you've marked other things on ¹²⁰⁰⁹ it, and perhaps just leave it on the overhead projector for the time being. Thank you very much.

THE REGISTRAR: Sorry Mr. Nice. Your Honours, this will be marked Exhibit 326, tab 10.C-060.

MR. NICE:

Q. From its creation, did Western Slavonia have links with Belgrade through the man Sasic and others?

A. Yes, of course.

Q. What offices did it maintain in Belgrade, and what did those offices reveal about the nature of the relationship between Western Slavonia and Belgrade?

A. Your Honours, the office of Western Slavonia in Belgrade, that is how it was called, the bureau or the office, according to my knowledge, especially acquired later, and I assume he held this position earlier on, had the role of coordination, assistance, activities, and needs of the people from Western Slavonia and those who were asking for assistance. They organised and synchronised that aid and dispatched it in the direction of Western Slavonia regardless of the kind of aid in question.

Q. Can you give an example of aid, in particular, oil provided by NIS, Naftna Industria of Serbia?

A. Regarding the Serbian oil industry, NIS, that was a relationship with the Republic of Serbian Krajina which had its office in Belgrade as a liaison with several ministries to meet the most essential needs. What I know of is the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Justice. And as for the oil industry of Serbia, it supplied the people and organisations in ¹²⁰¹⁰ Krajina, in Belgrade, or, rather, within the territory of Serbia, and most probably sent some oil, at least I know that a part of the oil that reached Slavonia came through the NIS, the oil industry of Serbia.

Q. To what extent was the currency or financial system of the RSK, let alone just Western Slavonia, integrated with Yugoslavia's currency and financial systems?

A. As you know, we are talking about 1991, when throughout the territory of the former Yugoslavia, dinar was the means of payment, the currency. So with respect to monetary issues, all the former republics in those days used the dinar, and so did Western Slavonia, that is, the Republic of Serbian Krajina. However, Western Slavonia itself as a part of the Republic of Srpska Krajina was later tied up within a subsystem on the basis of this currency, that is the dinar, which means that it had to be directly controlled and managed by the National Bank of Yugoslavia.

Q. To a couple of matters of your own military experience before we look at the military position on the ground at the relevant times. Until 1991, armed forces of Yugoslavia were divided between the JNA and the Territorial Defence, I think each republic having its own Territorial Defence. Would that be correct?

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. The build-up to the events with which we are concerned, was there a migration of Croat soldiers from the JNA into either the Croat Territorial Defence or into paramilitary units?

A. Yes. That was common knowledge.

Q. And so far as Serb soldiers were concerned, what was their ¹²⁰¹¹ migration or movement; similar?

A. No. The Serbs, as a rule, did not leave the JNA. As for Serb reservists, those who were not directly active in the JNA, they formed territorial units in the areas in which the Serbs constituted the majority population.

Q. What, if any, financial support, and from whom, did those units get?

A. If you're referring to Territorial Defence units, members of those units of the Territorial Defence, the Serbs, received salaries in the form of compensation for military exercises. That is the official name.

Q. And salaries were paid by whom?

A. The salaries for Western Slavonia were paid by the rear or logistics body of the command of the 5th Corps in Banja Luka.

Q. We'll come to that corps in a second or a few minutes. In Slatina itself, was there a part of the Territorial Defence that was trained and equipped by the JNA?

A. Yes. It's a specific institution which needs to be clarified. Namely, there were simultaneously two forms of Territorial Defence. One at the level of each republic and, consequently, at the level of each municipality. And another part of the Territorial Defence were units that were filled in for the needs of the JNA, and they came from several municipalities. Reservists were recruited from various municipalities to form a unit.

Specifically, the unit that I was in consisted of reservists like me from my municipality, and we formed a unit together with members of ¹²⁰¹² ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹²⁰¹³ such a unit from Orahovica and Nasice, and we formed a brigade in that way. That unit had active officers in command as opposed to the other units in the municipalities. We were equipped, trained in the units and in barracks of the JNA, that is, the professional JNA officers trained us, whereas the Territorial Defence had its own training programmes, and they organised themselves and their own training at municipality level.

Q. Thank you.

A. I don't know whether I have succeeded in conveying the difference.

Q. Thank you. Territorial Defence, paragraph 13. Looking at the map, using the pointer, the Territorial Defence Main Staff of Western Slavonia - these may be details the Judges will need when other evidence comes in - was located where?

A. Just a moment, please. First of all, at the beginning, within the territory of Pakrac municipality, in the village of Brusnik, which is about six kilometres from Pakrac. And after that --

Q. I don't know if it's showing up.

A. Yes, I've shown it. No, the name is not indicated on the map but the place exists, called Brusnik. And as I've just said, it is about five or six kilometres from Pakrac.

Later on, the command or the Main Staff of the Territorial Defence of Western Slavonia was located in Zvecevo, or to be more specific, in the Zvecevo recreation centre, which is about ten kilometres from Vocin.

Q. And was there also present in a motel on top of a hill in Omanovac, the command of a Banja Luka Corps unit?

A. Yes. Not far. Right here. Not far from this village of Brusnik ¹²⁰¹⁴ was the command of a brigade of the Banja Luka Corps.

Q. Dealing with the Main Staff of the Territorial Defence of Western Slavonia - you can give all the names - but did any of them have active JNA status?

A. With the exception of Colonel Trbojevic, no one had active status. I mean those who previously performed those duties, no one except for Colonel Trbojevic.

Q. And he took over when and remained in charge until when?

A. Sometime around the beginning of November, Colonel Trbojevic arrived and took over the position of commander of the Main Staff of the Territorial Defence for Western Slavonia, and he remained until the end, and I'm referring to the exodus of the Serbs from the area. I am referring to the municipalities of Daruvar, Slatina, right up to Pakrac. So until mid-December he held that position.

Q. And his predecessors you've listed for us. It's probably a matter of record. Were they Veljko Vukelic, Milan Loncar, Miso Petkovic before Trbojevic took over?

A. Yes.

Q. Did any of these have a nickname of Munja?

A. None of them, but Mr. Boro Lukic did have that nickname.

Q. We're going to come to him a little later. Can I turn then to page 6, paragraphs 14 and subsequent.

There are, as you know, C-060, allegations of crimes committed in Western Slavonia included in this indictment, but --

MR. NICE: And, Your Honour, I'll deal with this in part in open ¹²⁰¹⁵ and come back to the closed matters later.

Q. There's a village called Cetekovac. Can you point that out to the Court, please, or its location. Again, it doesn't show --

A. Here it is, where my finger is, or I could describe the position. Between the village of Balinci and Mikleus. You can see that on the map.

Q. The -- your knowledge of what happened there comes in various sources but one of which is simply newspaper --

JUDGE MAY: There is some problem with Judge Robinson's monitor. It has been going on for a week and it's time it was resolved. The Registry really must resolve this problem.

[Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

JUDGE MAY: This is a matter that should be dealt with immediately and not merely left. It's nothing to do with any of the parties, of course, but it's the organisation of the court.

MR. NICE: I don't know if the far wing monitor is any better. We can imagine ourselves as an appellate court for a couple of sessions. And it's particularly unfortunate given that the map doesn't actually contain all these very small villages, so they can't even be traced afterwards. May I continue?

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE:

Q. One of the ways you -- C-060, one of the ways you learned of what happened in Cetekovac is through newspapers? Just yes or no.

A. Yes.

Q. At the time of these events, of which the Judges will hear from ¹²⁰¹⁶ other witnesses, who was in charge on the ground from your own personal knowledge?

A. According to my knowledge, Mr. Boro Lukic, Boro Radosavljevic, and Mr. Rajko Bojcic were responsible.

Q. Perhaps you'd just remind the Judges of their particular positions at the time of the September 1991 alleged crimes.

A. This period or, rather, this incident coincides with the time I arrived to the area of Vocin, and I didn't know the exact positions they held, but from what I did know, I gathered that all three were in the staff of the Territorial Defence of Slatina municipality in a staff that numbered eight to ten persons, that within the framework of that staff was both the military and the civilian component, and that that staff had command over those units or the activities of some of those units, if any. And the same applies to this incident in Cetekovac.

Q. Thank you.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, I'll come back to the balance of paragraphs 14 and 16 if and when I'm granted a further private session.

Q. Paragraph 17. Was Vojislav Seselj seen in the area of Vocin, of which we know you are in a position to give some information. Vocin, the Chamber will see, south and west of Podravska Slatina at effectively a crossroads, as it were.

Was Vojislav Seselj seen in that area at about the end of October or beginning of November? If so, with whom?

A. Yes. I have already mentioned Your Honours, that again I can't tell you exactly whether it was October or November, but I think more ¹²⁰¹⁷ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹²⁰¹⁸ probably beginning of November, I saw Mr. Vojislav Seselj together with Mr. Sasic, Veljko Vukelic, Bojcic, and some other gentlemen whose names I either cannot recollect just now or whom I didn't know. In Vocin, of course.

Q. Did he go to any other locations that you can remember on the same day?

A. Yes. I heard that he visited Mijokovicevo, which is now called Djulovac, and afterwards he went to Okucani. That was on his way back, but he stopped there for a while, allegedly.

Q. And this time, just yes or no: Was there any evidence to suggest the presence in the area of a paramilitary group known as the White Eagles? Yes just or no.

A. Yes.

Q. I'll come back to that later as well. Paragraph 18. While you were still in the area, were four Croat civilians killed in Vocin in or around the 7th of December?

A. Yes. I was in Vocin up until the 8th of December, and on the 7th of December I heard that they had disappeared. But I didn't know at the time that they had been killed.

Q. I'll return to the details of that a little later. Under the heading "Vocin" is the particular offences, or are the particular offences alleged in respect of that location. Before the date of the 13th of December linked to the killings in Vocin, had you, in November 1991, seen something happening at the house of the family Matanci, later to be involved as victims in the killings? ¹²⁰¹⁹

A. Yes. Around the second half of November, closer to the end of November, I was accompanying a friend of mine home, and in front of the Matanci house or, rather, 100 metres prior to that house, we encountered three volunteers. We may not have paid any attention, but there were few passersby at that time of day, and we simply came across some men that we knew were volunteers, but we didn't know who they belonged to, neither I nor the lady I was accompanying.

When 100 metres later we reached the Matanci house, we saw something unusual. All the lights were lit in this house, and usually, as there was no electricity, people used candles, so the light was discreet. And it was only an hour later, or maybe even less, we heard noises, we came out of the house, and we saw the house was on fire. So I was convinced that those three volunteers had most probably started the fire. It was very hard to link anyone to this in view of the circumstances at the time which I was very familiar with.

These gentlemen, and I inquired about them, this Matanci elderly family members were not there. They had gone somewhere else. I later heard that they had been killed on the 13th of December.

Q. And does that date coincide to some degree with the departure of Serb forces from the area? If so, can you describe the media output that was associated with that departure of forces?

A. First of all, Your Honours, I need to explain the situation in Vocin itself.

JUDGE MAY: I'm sure you do, but could you please concentrate on the question which counsel -- he'll have a reason for asking it, and could ¹²⁰²⁰ you answer, please, as shortly as possible. I know you're trying to help us as much as possible, but our time is fairly short. Perhaps, Mr. Nice, you could deal with the question again.

MR. NICE: Yes. I'll break it up into two parts.

Q. Does the date of the killings -- the alleged killings of the Matanci family and others coincide with the departure of Serb forces to some degree?

A. Yes. Yes, it does coincide.

Q. That departure was associated with output on probably two sides. Can you say something about the media output that was associated with or led to the departure of Serb forces?

A. The media announced that strong forces of the Croatian army and police were heading towards that area. This was carried by the Serbian media which added to the general psychosis, and they didn't need much for the people as a whole to abandon the area, and that is what happened.

Q. Did Colonel Trbojevic take any part in the communication of -- or the communications that were in the media?

A. Colonel Trbojevic comes from a small place next to Vocin. That is where he was born. And he is said to have set the whole thing in motion. At least, that is what the population there believes, that Mr. Trbojevic set in motion the villagers of his village, and this had a chain reaction effect on the other neighbouring villages, including Vocin.

Q. You learnt something of what may have happened at Vocin when the Matancis and others were killed. Before we can ask you to tell the Judges about it, you must give us an account of your sources of knowledge. Did ¹²⁰²¹ you learn things from residents in the area? Just yes or no.

A. Yes. Yes.

Q. Were those residents themselves, according to what they told you, firsthand observers of what happened or were they themselves recounting to you what had been told to them?

A. No. They were eyewitnesses, firsthand observers.

Q. In the course of what you were told, did you learn something about people with the name of Simic? If so, what was the nature of your information, firsthand eyewitnesses or not?

A. Yes. I learnt from people who had allegedly recognised them that it was two young men from the Simic family.

Q. Very well. And then finally, did you learn something about somebody called Ivanovic? And again, if so, what was the source of your information? Was it firsthand eyewitness or not?

A. Yes. From people who knew them, because they come from neighbouring villages, the Ivanovics, do.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, in those circumstances, I'd ask that the witness may give his account. It's quite short.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE:

Q. Could you tell us then, please, what you learned of what happened in this attack in Vocin.

A. Your Honours, this is what it was about: On that day, the 13th of December, the entire population from 22 villages around Vocin withdrew. So both the civilians and the soldiers. And they went in the direction of ¹²⁰²² ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹²⁰²³ Zvecevo or Kamensko or Pakrac and further on towards Bosnia. On that occasion, according to what I had heard from the eyewitnesses themselves, a series of killings took place of Croat civilians in Vocin, and this happened in one particular area, that is to say along the road they were moving on, the soldiers and civilians, when they were withdrawing. So that this is from the direction, if I were to indicate this on the map to you, from the village of Liscine across Vocin, that part of the road, and then through the main street in Vocin onwards towards Djedovica or, rather, towards the centre of Vocin. It was in that area, according to what I learnt, that most of them or almost all those civilians were killed; in the yards, in front of the houses, and some in the houses as well where they had stopped off, as far as I was able to gather, the volunteers, because somebody had to point out whose house it was.

So this was documented later on. But the first version that I heard was the one I heard from the people who were withdrawing, that is to say, who were in an exodus from Bosnia towards Serbia. And later on when I meet some of these people, they bear out that version, the people who had lived through all of that and seen it all happen, seen the particulars and details of that crime.

Q. And then finally - we'll move on after this - the role of the two members of the family Simic, if particularised, and the role of somebody called Ivanovic.

A. Yes. A large portion of those crimes are ascribed to, especially on the road from the village of Popovac towards the centre of Vocin, that ¹²⁰²⁴ a group of masked individuals recognised by the locals nonetheless even if they were masked, and they were members of the Simic family from Vocin and the Ivanovic family from Popovac. Allegedly, these people had gone into the courtyards when they saw members of the Croatian or, rather, when they saw Croats, started shooting at them and killed them off in the yards. That was the information that I received from some of the locals, the local inhabitants who either saw this happen or, rather, recognised some of the perpetrators.

Q. Thank you. Paragraph 22. Following the withdrawal of Serbs, were many Serb males in the Vocin area arrested by Croats in respect of the massacre, the massacre being of some 40 people, you understood?

A. Yes; all of them.

Q. And as you understood it, how were they treated by the Croatian police?

A. Well, I have to say that the Croatian police force and the judiciary had violated all the codes of conduct in their treatment of these people. They behaved towards them very cruelly, inhumanely.

Q. Thank you.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, we're moving to Okucani. I have got quite a lot of private-session material stored up for completion, but I'm quite happy to press on until, say, ten to one and deal with it all then if that's not inconvenient to the Chamber.

JUDGE MAY: Very well.

MR. NICE:

Q. You moved locations effectively, and we'll be looking at another ¹²⁰²⁵ part of the territory as from December. I needn't trouble with paragraph 24, I think, save perhaps just for this: On the topic of volunteers working in the territory generally, did General Vukovic ever say something to you about the value or need for volunteers in part of the territory?

A. Yes. General Vukovic, at my request that a group of volunteers from Ribnjak, Vrbovljani, be displaced and they should leave the economic facilities for them to be able to function, he said to leave it alone, that I shouldn't raise the matter again.

Q. Did he say anything about the need for volunteers or who needed them?

A. Yes. He happened to mention that as volunteers were needed, that they had some assignments and work to do, he didn't speak in any concrete terms, but quite obviously they were needed by the 5th Corps.

Q. On the map, please, can you point out Okucani for us.

A. Okucani is located here, where I am indicating on the map. It is on the motorway between Novska and Nova Gradiska, equidistant to the two, or, rather, 15 kilometres before you get to the Sava River and Bosanska Gradiska.

Q. Did you learn of any intelligence work being done by security officers from Okucani about December 1991 and where they were sending their intelligence?

A. Yes, there was a group of officers in Okucani, and the intelligence work was linked to them, as it's called, the terminology used. And this was a publicly known secret. And on the basis of the work I did later on, I knew a little bit about this in greater detail. ¹²⁰²⁶

MR. NICE: Your Honour, there's only one documentary exercise that I want to go through with this witness. It relates to an existing and very substantial exhibit, Exhibit 327, and rather than ask you to work your way through that exhibit, we've extracted copies of the relevant pages which we present as separate exhibits to you through this witness, and I hope that would be more convenient. And we can deal with it, I think, quite quickly.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Kay.

MR. KAY: Your Honour, I'm looking at the summary here provided by the Prosecution where they go through the exhibits with the tabs. It's on page 9. And you'll see the first one that would be referred to is Exhibit 327, tab 13, attachment 57, and there's an issue here as to whether this witness could properly speak of such a document as this. There seem to be doubts about the authenticity of the document in the first place and the context of the document itself.

JUDGE MAY: According to the summary, he was shown extracts of the list. So he can comment on that, presumably.

MR. KAY: Yes. The issue that really needs to be taken in mind, in my submission here, is really the issue of the truth of the document or the contents of it.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Well, perhaps we better hear from Mr. Nice how he proposes to deal with it.

MR. KAY: From looking through the page, that issue, in my view, perhaps reproduces itself.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, there are a number of different issues ¹²⁰²⁷ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹²⁰²⁸ arising from this document, but the first one, which deals with the identity of Boro Lukic as Munja, has already been covered by the witness, and indeed attachment 57, which is said to be illegible in the English version, is in fact legible in the B/C/S version and the signature is there to be seen but we needn't trouble with that one, I think. So we can go straight to what is described as tab 13, attachment 58, and apparently that should be attachment 57 as well. And if we can just look at that. That's the list of Territorial Defence. The witness's comment on it is forecast in the summary, and there's the reference there to a particular person whose name you can see, and the point there is a simple point that's made.

JUDGE MAY: I suppose the objection is to comments such as, "May be authentic."

MR. NICE: Yes. The witness has seen these documents and has expressed views about them, and probably the questioning there will --

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I'll say, Mr. Nice, that on the other hand, it does show how familiar he is with the document that he feels sufficiently confident to identify parts as being authentic and others as not authentic.

MR. NICE: It may be the context that gives his ability to say that. And of course, lack of authenticity may be favourable to the accused. So it's not something that we could in any sense not draw to your attention. ¹²⁰²⁹

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Yes, Mr. Kay.

MR. KAY: I'm wondering whether using documents in this way through the witness to produce the documents when he's just commenting on well, it may be authentic, it may be not, I know of these names, whether then producing the material as an exhibit when he can recognise names makes the document admissible. He can tell you the names anyway, and it doesn't need a document there with him telling the names to make the document valid within the case. That's the way I see it.

JUDGE MAY: It's been admitted anyway.

MR. KAY: I agree with that, but --

JUDGE MAY: Well, why can't he -- if he's a member of a unit and documents are produced with apparently what is said to be lists on a unit, he must be entitled to comment on it. It's not the same position where you have a witness who has no connection with a unit or anything of the sort being asked to comment.

Would it not be better to hear his evidence and see what the foundation is for his comments upon the various documents?

MR. KAY: Yes. I agree with that. Yes.

MR. NICE: Your Honour is, in our respectful submission, quite right. The documents are already exhibits, and it's quite standard for a witness to be allowed to make comments on already produced documents. And lack of authenticity, as I've indicated, may actually be favourable to the accuse.

Can we deal with the documents? We go then first to what is incorrectly described as -- I can omit the first one. The second one is ¹²⁰³⁰ incorrectly described as attachments -- I'm sorry. The Chamber already has the first two. If the Chamber's -- can we lay before the witness, please, the document that is not attachment 58 but attachment 57. It's a list. No. It's the list. Can we have a look at that, please.

Q. The first two names on this list are Lukic Borivoj, and you've -- and then Vojnica Brar [sic]. What can you say about those two?

A. Well, I can say that both of them are from Slatina and that I know both of them.

Q. And I said "Brar"; it's Branko Vojnica, I think. Of what party was he a member, and what position did he hold?

A. Branko Vojnica was a member of the SDP while I knew him. Later on, in the Republic of Srpska Krajina, he became a member of the Radical Party, and as such, he became a member of the parliament of the Republic of Srpska Krajina and became president of parliament, if that's what you meant.

Q. Thank you. Can we look at attachment 59, headed "Volunteers from Serbia Special Unit." Perhaps we could put the English version on the overhead projector, if you wouldn't mind.

What do you notice about the names here, please?

A. First of all, these surnames are not customary for my region, the region I come from.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They're not very common around those parts.

JUDGE ROBINSON: This summary doesn't bind, but it does say in the ¹²⁰³¹ summary that he's able to identify some parts as -- or suspects some parts to be a fabrication.

MR. NICE: I'll get him to deal with that.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Let him tell us about that.

MR. NICE: I've started on this document. Shall I come back and deal with that in a second?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

MR. NICE:

Q. You were dealing with the unusual nature of these names or the way in which they're not customary for your region.

A. Yes, that's right. Most of those names. But most of them indicate -- actually, I can't recognise some of them as being from my parts, that is to say from the region of Western Slavonia.

Q. Thank you. We'll go back, then, please -- I'm sorry to ask you to do this, C-060, but we'll go back to attachment 57, if we can have a look at that again. We know that you have expressed the view that there may be parts of this document that are inaccurate. Can you explain -- or indeed a fabrication. Can you explain to the Court, in answer to His Honour Judge Robinson's particular query, why you have some doubts about the accuracy or genuineness of this document.

A. As for this document, the one I'm looking at now --

Q. Yes.

A. -- I said about this document, and I say again to you, Your Honours, that it is possible that it is relevant. And I say that for the following reason: The Cyrillic script used -- actually, the Cyrillic ¹²⁰³² script was not used at all by members of the Croatian army or the civilian organs. They do know it, of course, but that is why I have my suspicions. And as we have a series of photocopies there, I said that they could be authentic -- it could be authentic, although I've never seen it before myself. But I'll take a look at the chronology in which this document was written or, rather, the way in which it was written, the method observed in writing it, and I said it could be an authentic one, because that is in fact the way we compiled these documents. So that's why I said that it could be an authentic document.

Q. So if I understand you correctly, the Cyrillic -- the use of the Cyrillic script casts a doubt, but otherwise, the form of the document is consistent with what you would expect.

A. Yes. Yes.

Q. May we look, then, next --

MR. NICE: If you take those away, Usher, please, if you'd be so good.

Q. May we turn to attachment 62. Thank you very much. And two points to be made on this. If we look at the first page, which is an order.

MR. NICE: If you would be good enough to put that on the -- sorry. Would you place the English version on the overhead projector, please, the one headed "Order."

Q. This reads: "Pursuant to the requirements and plans of the Autonomous Region of Western Slavonia Main Staff, I order the forming of regional departments of Vocin police station as follows," and the first ¹²⁰³³ one is the Drenovac regional department and the second is Zvecevo regional department. So here we have the creation by the Main Staff of police regional departments.

Any comment that you would like to make on that, please, C-060?

A. Well, yes. Your Honours, I mentioned that at the very beginning, the Territorial Defence staff of Podravska Slatina combined the military and civilian component, and this just bears that out. It confirms that observation, because the nomination of civilian police -- of the civilian police force belongs to the civilian area department, whereas it was the staff that did it in this case.

Q. The second part of the same attachment, headed "HQ of the Territorial Defence Requisition," incorporates requisition for gas masks and water purification pills and so on, is signed by Borivoj Radosavljevic, commander of the Territorial Defence. What does this tell us about the supply of equipment, please?

A. It tells us that the Municipal Staff of the Territorial Defence of Podravska Slatina made a list of what they required, the Main Staff of the SAO Western Slavonia, asking them for this type of equipment against any noxious matter, chemical devices, et cetera. Biological poisons, et cetera. They wanted gas masks, personal decontamination equipment, et cetera.

Q. And finally - and this is the only substantial documentary exercise with this witness the Court will be pleased to know - is attachment 65, which is a transcript of an intercept, apparently between Western Slavonia headquarters and Slatina Territorial Defence. I'm not ¹²⁰³⁴ going to go through the content of it. In the English version, Your Honours will find on lines 85 - because the lines always cover the names - Milenko Stankovic; on line 96, Captain Kulic; and on line 108, Milan Trbojevic.

What, C-060, can you tell us about those names insofar as they appear on this coded radio communication that had been apparently obtained and included in this overall document?

A. Well, I recognise the name of Milenko Stankovic, and in this document, he's asking when he can collect the rest of the money. I know that he took the money for members of the Territorial Defence. He was carrying the money for the Slatina region. [redacted] [redacted]. There was no reason or need for me, nor did I ever --

Q. We'll move on to the next one, please. Colonel Trbojevic.

A. As for Trbojevic, he was the commander of the Territorial Defence staff for Western Slavonia, Colonel Trbojevic.

Q. Thank you very much. Very well.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, we won't have time to deal with all the closed session material, or private session material now. I'll move on to the Territorial Defence at Slatina.

JUDGE MAY: I think probably after the adjournment.

MR. NICE: Thank you very much.

JUDGE MAY: Witness C-060, we're going to adjourn now until half past two. Would you be back then to continue your evidence. Could you remember in this and any other adjournments there may be during your evidence not to speak to anybody about it until it's over, and that does ¹²⁰³⁵ include the members of the Prosecution team.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I understand.

JUDGE MAY: We will adjourn.

--- Luncheon recess taken at 1.00 p.m. ¹²⁰³⁶

--- On resuming at 2.32 p.m.

MR. NICE: May the witness have the map, please. Thank you.

Q. Matters of detail that we can do quite swiftly. The Territorial Defence for Slatina was located in Lager Sekulinci, I think, which you can point out for us, until mid-October when it moved to Sekulinci.

A. Yes. It's right here.

Q. So that's outside --

A. Around here. It -- the name is not written, but not far from Vocin.

Q. And so, therefore, it's outside Slatina itself which, as you've told us, remained in Croat hands. And I think the original Slatina staff consisted of how many members, increasing in November?

A. I think it had eight members but could be more. I am not sure of the exact details, but I knew of eight members.

Q. Then Boro Lukic, Munja, was commander until the 30th of September, 1991, and I think he then left, going where?

A. Yes. He went with a unit to Zvecevo.

Q. Thank you. He was replaced by Boro Radosavljevic until the 15th of December, 1991.

A. Yes.

Q. What was the attitude of either or both of those men towards people who weren't members of the SDS by the end of 1991?

A. They distrusted them. I wouldn't say it was exactly hostile, but sort of uneasy, uncomfortable.

Q. And then finally dealing with Ceralije, remind us again on the map ¹²⁰³⁷ where that is.

A. Here.

Q. Thank you. The commander from the 1st of October until the 1st of November was who?

A. Mr. Dragomir Keleuva.

Q. And then he was replaced by?

A. He was replaced by Rajko Bojcic.

Q. Thank you. The Territorial Defence units subordinated to the Territorial Defence general command were located in various places, and you can give an estimate of the number of men involved, and if you just give us a number, that will help. I think we can move through this quickly.

In Ceralije, how many men, approximately? And if you'd point it out on the map as we go through them.

A. Ceralije, in addition to the town of Ceralije itself covered also two other villages, so therefore, there were younger people, reservists of the TO, and they were members of that unit of Ceralije. There were some 150 of them, I think.

Q. Then Macute, could you point that out and tell us just the figure.

A. Macute is here.

Q. How many --

A. Macute covered Smude village as well, and there were 80 people there.

Q. Vocin, a larger place, how many reservists?

A. Vocin is here. In 1991, it had 1.000 inhabitants, and from the ¹²⁰³⁸ information available to me, there were 200 reservists.

Q. Liscine or Liscine?

A. Liscine is completely to the west of Slatina municipality, right here, some six or seven kilometres from Vocin. And this place had between 80 and 100 reservists together with Hum and Kuzma.

Q. Slatinski Drenovac.

A. Slatinski Drenovac is here, you can't really see it. Just a minute, please. That belongs to Orahovica municipality. Drenovac is right here by the border, indicated in black. That's why we can't see it well.

Q. How many --

A. It belonged to Orahovica municipality. About 120, I think.

Q. Kokocak?

A. Kokocak is also located in Orahovica municipality, and it had some 40 to 60 reservists.

Q. I shan't bother with H, I and J unless I'm advised that I should. I will move to paragraph 31. Thank you, Witness C-060. After the Vocin massacre, did the Territorial Defence for the Autonomous Region of Western Slavonia continue to exist in reality or not? If not, what happened to the personnel who had been in it?

A. I've already tried to explain earlier that on the 13th of December, there was a retreat, both of population and army from Vocin area, and one of the consequences of uncontrolled behaviour was the massacre that you mentioned. At any rate, after the 13th of December in Vocin area, there were some Croats who remained there. And in the ¹²⁰³⁹ surrounding villages, there were some elderly Serbs that remained, few of them.

So on the 13th of December, both the population and the army, and by this I mean members of the Territorial Defence, left.

Q. Thank you. You've told us largely about the supply of weapons and ammunitions by the JNA, including through such sources as Sasic and how the Territorial Defence had its own weapons from before the war. What about the two parties, the SDS and the SRS? Did they have any part in weapons and ammunitions or not?

A. Serbian Democratic Party, at least in the beginning, when it comes to arming and the information that I gathered from the local population in respect of procuring weapons and information I got from Mr. Sasic, also involved some other people, most probably within the framework of the SDS or some groups within the SDS. These people procured weapons. As for the SRS, Serbian Radical Party, I couldn't tell you much because, in Western Slavonia in that first period that we're talking about, this party was established sometime in 1992 in Okucani.

Q. Paragraph 33. The Territorial Defence, as you tell us, was subordinated to the JNA. What level of contact was there between the Territorial Defence commander Vukelic and the JNA General Uzelac, commander of the Banja Luka Corps?

A. Your Honours, I have to remind you here I have never once said that the TO was subordinated to the JNA. I said that they had some links between them, and I explained those links. And now when it comes to the contact between Main Staff of Western Slavonia with the command of the 5th ¹²⁰⁴⁰ Corps in Banja Luka, specifically General Uzelac, it is quite clear from the information available to me, gathered through my contacts with people from the Territorial Defence, it was clear that that first commander, Mr. Vukelic, liaised with General Uzelac.

Q. Very well. We'll deal with the balance of paragraph 33 in private session.

Can we deal with JNA garrisons in the area of Western Slavonia. It's on your map, and you've marked it, I think, in orange circles. Page 12 of the summary, and I'm not going to go through these details in any detail unless I'm advised that there's some particular there that I ought to go through.

JUDGE MAY: No.

MR. NICE:

Q. But we can see, looking at the map, starting at the top, that there was a garrison at Virovitica.

A. Yes.

Q. And I think that was mixed artillery unit with many soldiers. And was it subordinated to the Zagreb military district, General Spegelj, later General Raseta?

A. Yes.

Q. Slatina itself we can see. Thank you very much. A small unit with -- tasked with border control, mainly Serb soldiers, subordinated to the Varazdin Corps whose commander was General Trifunovic?

A. Yes, exactly so.

Q. We can hear the details of what happened to him if it becomes ¹²⁰⁴¹ relevant. C, Pozega, down to the south, or Pozega, probably. About 300 mainly Serb soldiers, a mixed artillery unit, armoured vehicles. Part of the Sarajevo -- I beg your pardon. Subordinated to the command of the Tuzla Corps and part of the Sarajevo military district, commanded by General Kukanjac.

A. Yes.

Q. Nasice garrison, 60 kilometres east of Zvecevo. You can point that out for us. Thank you very much.

A. Yes. I'm pointing it right now.

Q. Thank you very much. 60 to 70 mainly Serb soldiers, armoured vehicles, and some other equipment. Subordinated to Sarajevo military district under General Kukanjac. The commander of the garrison, Captain Dragojevic?

A. Yes.

Q. Daruvar to the west. A small garrison with a large warehouse. A large number of Serb soldiers reduced to 20. Under the command of Colonel Maric and subordinated to the Zagreb military district. And the equipment there belonged to the Jan Ziska Brigade; correct? Thank you. That's Daruvar. Thank you very much.

A. It belonged.

Q. Yes.

JUDGE MAY: The transcript seems to be rather odd, line 80. Or rather, 2, page 80, but it can be no doubt put right.

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Nice, just one moment. I don't think I follow it in full. The witness is not assisting only in the geography matters. ¹²⁰⁴² He's giving evidence in garrison matters; is it right?

MR. NICE: These are garrison -- that's right.

JUDGE KWON: He's familiar --

MR. NICE: He --

JUDGE KWON: So why don't you make it clearer. I think he's just helping the geographical matters. That's not the case.

MR. NICE: No, it's not just the geography. He's giving the location of the various garrisons of the JNA when may become relevant when you look at the crimes on the ground and you need to know where they were and roughly how strong they were, that's all. And he is familiar with them and can give his evidence himself.

JUDGE KWON: If you can clarify how he came to know of those kind of things.

MR. NICE: Private session.

JUDGE KWON: Oh, yes.

MR. NICE:

Q. Paramilitaries. Witness C-060, paragraph 36. Did you ever identify any paramilitaries of Frenki Simatovic's unit?

A. No. I did not recognise them. However, that in itself is not very meaningful because not all of the information was available to me anyway. I was not in a position to have to know all that.

Q. In October 1991, were you aware of volunteers in Ceralije connected to a particular party and a particular individual?

A. Yes. I met in the TO command or, rather, I -- Commander Dragomir Keleuva pointed them out to me and introduced me to them. I guess he ¹²⁰⁴³ wanted to show off or something like that. I saw them in his presence, and I read a document which categorised them as such, as volunteers from Serbia.

Q. And the document that you saw, did it connect them with any other provider or any particular individual providing volunteers, and did the document say to whom these volunteers were subordinated?

A. That kind of approach to Mr. Keleuva prompted me out to ask him how were they identified. It was quite dangerous for us there, to have people come to that area and not be under anybody's control. And then he showed me that certificate that I just mentioned to you through which I could see that those volunteers were mobilised in Belgrade, that they were mobilised by Serbian Radical Party. That document also contained a confirmation that they were subordinated to the Territorial Defence in the territory of Western Slavonia, and there was also a name of their leader, the man who led that group of 17 people. I did not retain that name. I didn't come frequently across that name anyway. However, I saw him on two or three occasions, and I would be able to recognise him.

Q. Very well. In paragraph 37 of the summary, there's reference to another name, the name Radovan Novacic. Is that possibly the same man or is that a different man?

A. Yes. The name -- the last name certainly, and the first name possibly do sound like the name of the leader of that group.

Q. Was it the leader of that group who sought assistance from you in relation to matters of training?

A. No. Commander Keleuva asked me to do something with that group. ¹²⁰⁴⁴ However, I refused that possibility because I was sent to do other tasks, and therefore, it wasn't within the scope of my responsibility to do anything with the army.

Q. Was this group wearing JNA uniforms or not?

A. No. No, they didn't. Not uniforms and not insignia either.

Q. I'll come back to the balance of 36 in a minute. What insignia did the volunteers have that you saw?

A. Some volunteers had no insignia at all. However, a number of them had an all-Serb coat of arms emblem on their hats.

Q. Did you hear anything about the White Eagles being present, and if so, where and at whose control?

A. Yes. I heard that in the Vocin area there was a group of volunteers called White Eagles. However, I personally didn't come across them. I probably in fact did, but I wouldn't be able to distinguish them. They were under the control of the Main Staff of Territorial Defence in Zvecevo.

Q. Very well. Colonel Trbojevic, who we've heard of, his attitude towards the use of volunteers was what?

A. I met Colonel Trbojevic, and I knew him. However, I don't know what his position was regarding this. However, I know for certain that he was in charge of commanding these volunteers. So they were subordinated to the Main Staff of the Territorial Defence of Western Slavonia.

Q. If we -- one other matter on this type of person. In November 91 at that place now called Djulovac - originally Mijokovicevo - in the vicinity of Vocin, were you aware of some volunteers there from Vojvodina? ¹²⁰⁴⁵

A. I learned of it later by accident through information received at the staff in Vocin that I belonged to. I learned that there was a group of volunteers in Mijokovicevo who were under the command of Colonel Trbojevic and came with him from Novi Sad.

Q. We've now then got the garrisons and the incidents of volunteers of which you are aware. Can you turn to the map, please, again. You've marked on the map, this time in orange lines, the deployment, I think, of the JNA in Western Slavonia by around the 8th of January, 1992. Can you explain that for us, please.

A. When it comes to the presence of the units of the JNA in Western Slavonia, I have to say, Your Honours, that those were units of the Banja Luka Corps which were in Pakrac municipality in Novska and Nova Gradiska municipalities, too. It is indicated by yellow lines here on the map that you can see right here under the word "Pakrac." There is Lipik here and then Pakrac, and then to the west, to the Psunj Mountain and to the south towards this area where it says Nova Gradiska, and also to the left, to the west towards Novska municipality. So this triangle that I indicated here and as is marked on the map?

MR. NICE: Your Honours, I'm trying to save some time, if I can. It's -- yes. We better have a look at it. Can he have a look, please, at Exhibit 327, tab 24, separately copied. If we can lay the English version on the overhead so that those of you can see.

Q. This is a document that you haven't seen separately of being prepared as a witness, I think. It's dated the 16th of October, to the staff of Western Slavonia. And I think the position is, although you have ¹²⁰⁴⁶ not seen the document before, there are various names on it that you can recognise; is that correct?

A. Yes. I do see here --

Q. So that on the first page --

A. I see some names here, yes.

Q. So on the first page, Zarkovic Krsta?

A. Zarkovic Krsta. Cakmak Rade.

Q. Commander Vezmar Jovo?

A. Vezmar Jovo.

Q. And on the third page, Miso Petkovic?

A. Yes.

Q. And these are names present here in a way that suggests to you that the document may be authentic, I believe.

A. Yes, it could be authentic. However, as far as this document is concerned, I see it for the first time but it is true that I know some of the names of people mentioned here.

Q. Jovo Vezmar, who is he?

A. Jovo Vezmar was chief of police in Pakrac before the war and during the war. He was commander of the TO staff at the very beginning.

Q. You say that he was commander of the TO staff at the beginning. Did he spend any of his time elsewhere than in this region? Did he spend any of his time back in Serbia?

A. Yes. Jovo Vezmar was there at the beginning, and as far as I know, he didn't come back again. After the end of 1991, he didn't come again. ¹²⁰⁴⁷

Q. Where was he then, do you know?

A. I think he was in Belgrade.

Q. Next paragraph, 42, just part of it. Was there any example that you can help us with of Serbs being -- or refugee Serbs being mobilised? And if so, where were they mobilised to fight?

A. Yes. It is well known that Serbs from Krajina, or to be more precise from Western Slavonia in the area of Serbia, were mobilised and sent back to territorial units in Krajina.

Q. 44 in private session. And, Your Honour, indeed I think the balance, if we may -- probably the balance, if we may, in private session.

[Private session]

[redacted]

[redacted] ¹²⁰⁴⁸ Pages 12048-12056 - redacted - private session

¹²⁰⁵⁶

[redacted]

[Open session] ¹²⁰⁵⁷

THE REGISTRAR: We're back into open session, Your Honours.

MR. NICE:

Q. Couple of questions if you can help us, please, C-060. Goran Hadzic's attitude to or contact with Karadzic. Can you tell us anything about that or not?

A. Yes. I think that Mr. Karadzic was a mentor of Mr. Hadzic, and there are a number of reasons that support this thesis of mine. [redacted]

[redacted]

Q. [Previous translation continues]... edit the last part and just have this last passage, please. Carry on. Sorry. May we go into private session, please, as well?

[Private session]

[redacted]

[redacted] ¹²⁰⁵⁸

[redacted]

[Open session]

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

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic. Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

Q. [Interpretation] Mr. C-060, do you know when was the HDZ established in Croatia?

A. I don't know, but I think it was in 1989.

Q. So in 1989. You say on page 2, paragraph 4, that in 1990, they were, as you say, as you put it, somewhat aggressive. Is that right?

A. Your Honours, could Mr. Milosevic be more precise, please?

Q. Well, to be more precise, how was that aggressiveness expressed? Through what means?

A. Your Honours, while giving my testimony this morning, I pointed out that a wave of nationalism grew with the HDZ. So if that answer is accepted, it then explains what I said.

Q. So you say that the wave of nationalism grew. Is it true that at ¹²⁰⁵⁹ the time, the Serbs did not express some tendencies that one could characterise as nationalistic?

A. I was not a member of political parties at the time. I was dealing with a quite complex task at the time. However, I know that one could publicly hear that Serbs assembled around the newly established Serbian Democratic Party that was involved in the elections. In 1995, the late Dr. Raskovic was at the helm of that party, and this is how it was portrayed by the media in Croatia when they described the activities of Serbs in Croatia.

Q. All right. But based on what you said and based on what others said and what I think that I know from that period of time, it seems that Professor Jovan Raskovic was quite a categorical supporter of the peaceful option.

A. Yes.

Q. And that -- and I think you know this well, too: Serbia also supported this view that problems ought to be solved in a peaceful way.

A. Based on the attitude and views of political leadership of Serbia, it would be difficult for me to give more specific answers regarding that period, especially when it comes to Serbs from Croatia.

Q. All right. You said this morning that the Serb Democratic Party did not participate in the elections in Slatina in 1990.

A. Yes, that's right. It did not participate.

Q. And in Eastern Slavonia, in Banija, in Kordun or, rather, in the largest part populated by Serbs, they mostly, in those first elections, voted for the League of Communists of Croatia or, later on, for SDP. ¹²⁰⁶⁰

A. Yes, that's what I said too.

Q. And based on my recollection and analysis of data that I looked over, they even had 21 deputies in Croatian parliament based on those lists and the SDP membership. Do you remember that data?

A. I don't know those figures. I don't know the exact figures. However, I know that in the Croatian parliament the SDS had several representatives.

Q. The SDS had several representatives but much fewer than when it comes to the League of Communists and its Serb representatives in 1990; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. You said this morning that Serbs of the SDP later on started transferring to the SDS. Do you know why they started doing that? Can you briefly explain that in a sentence or two in order not to waste time?

A. Yes, I can. It was quite simple. The HDZ held power at the republic level and the local authorities were most often inferior to them. And probably because of that and because they wanted to protect the Serb interest, they thought they would best do it in a -- in a national party.

Q. And what was it that you felt that Serb national rights were threatened? Was it prior to the victory of HDZ in elections? Do you know something about pressure being exerted against Serbs in the election campaign before the elections and later on, how it developed later on?

A. In view of the fact that those were first democratic elections held, many people were taken aback by the views expressed at the time, but it is undoubted that in -- the national element came to surface more often ¹²⁰⁶¹ in public discussions.

Q. However, in view of the fact that Serbs opted for SDP, which had a far greater number of Croat members, do you think that reason for that was they expected that SDP's platform - and at the helm of the SDP at the time was Ivica Racan - was that they expected the SDP to protect their minimal rights? Do you think that was the reason?

A. I think that the Serbs believed in the SDP's platform and this is why they voted for the SDP, and that probably also involved some of their specific rights that they wanted to be protected.

Q. Why do you say their rights? Weren't those your rights as well?

A. Yes, those were my rights too.

Q. So I would have expected you to say "our rights," not "their rights."

A. If you put specific questions to me, I will give you specific answers.

Q. All right, Mr. C-060. After the elections, did the SDP provide you, meaning Serbs from Croatia, any kind of protection of national interest or did it provide national equality to you?

A. Obviously not.

Q. Is it true that the SDP or the former League of Communists of Croatia, in the elections, supported secession from Yugoslavia and by giving its support to the new constitution in fact supported the second-rate status for Serbs and deprivation of Serbs of their statutes of constituent nation; is that right?

A. Well, I wouldn't draw such generalisations. I don't know this ¹²⁰⁶² enough and I was not involved in political life in order to draw such general conclusions. I know specifically what went on in my area. And if I remember well, the area that you're describing now and putting questions to me, I think that when it comes to nationalism, it was quite strong in other areas other than Croatia.

Q. Well, my question pertained to Croatia. You say that you were not involved in politics. You were not interested in politics. And what I'm asking you now is something quite factual. Do you know about mass dismissals of Serbs from public service, from police, health care, from management positions in economy? Do you know about that?

A. Yes.

Q. Is it true? Did it really happen?

A. It did.

Q. Were you dismissed in that wave of dismissal of Serb leadership?

A. I don't know if I was dismissed in that wave, but I was dismissed on the 1st of June, 1991.

Q. Your case, I assume, was not an isolated one.

A. No. All of my colleagues were dismissed similar to me.

Q. Did you do something that would show that you were against Croatia or that would show that you were a Serb nationalist in order to provoke that dismissal?

A. No. There was nothing like that in my behaviour.

Q. So these Serbs that were involved in politics and that belonged to the SDP, did they vote for that party with a confidence that later was betrayed, and was that perhaps a reason why they started joining the SDS ¹²⁰⁶³ later on?

MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues]...

JUDGE MAY: I'm sorry?

MR. NICE: He can't possibly answer that sort of question. I don't mind the political exploration that we're going on, but this witness can't answer what other people voted and why they voted. There has to be some limit to the exploration of political issues.

JUDGE MAY: Well, I know, but the fact is that they were touched on in chief and the accused is, therefore, entitled to explore them, in my view. If the witness can help. It may be he can't help.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I know of specific cases in the area where I lived. This is to say in Podravska Slatina municipality. I know that some of the leading people left that party and joined the SDS. I don't know their names and I couldn't give you now the names of all of those people that transferred, however, I know that these people attended the constituent session of the SDS, and those people were former members of the SDP.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. All right, Mr. C-060. Were you a member of the League of Communists?

A. I was a member of the League of Communists until 1988.

Q. And were you ever a member of the SDS after that?

A. No, never.

Q. Were you a member of any political party?

A. No. ¹²⁰⁶⁴

Q. Therefore, after 1988, you never joined any political party?

A. No, never.

Q. All right. Since on page 3, paragraph 5 of your statement you claim that at the first constituent session of the SDS in Podravska Slatina cultural autonomy and preservation of national identity of Serb people in Croatia was discussed; is that true?

A. Yes, that's the information I received from those who attended that session.

Q. All right. Is it true that at that session there was no call to arms, no call to start a war but, rather, that cultural autonomy and protection of national identity and preservation of national identity that was threatened, that those things were discussed?

A. Yes, that's right. That's what I heard about.

Q. All right. Since you say in your statement on page 3, paragraph 6, can you tell me what gang did those Serbs establish, those Serbs that attended that constituent session?

A. I never claimed that they established a gang or joined a gang. I simply described what kind of forms of military, civilian, and other structures they had established.

Q. Well, this is what you go on to say. This is on page 3: "The first reason why I did not like their idea was that their national idea was insignificant compared to the idea I had supported until then, and that was the idea of brotherhood and unity. That idea was much wider and included multiculturalism and the integration of people of different ethnicity." ¹²⁰⁶⁵ That's the idea based on which Yugoslavia was established, and Yugoslavia was a successful country.

"I did not like their nationalistic spirit, their attitude to provoke incidents, nor the people who could be easily manipulated. In other words, they were associated in sort of mob." This is what you say.

A. No, that's what you say.

Q. I'm reading out --

A. I never said that I thought it was a mob, but you can put a specific question to me.

Q. Mr. C-060, I would urge you to read what your statement says. That's the last sentence of this paragraph that I read out, perhaps unnecessarily in its entirety, but the last sentence goes as follows: "In other words, they were associated in a sort of mob." This is what your statement says.

JUDGE MAY: The witness can have a copy of his statement.

MR. NICE: Thank you very much. And we'll have to identify the appropriate paragraphs in the B/C/S version.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. In the B/C/S version, as you inadequately call the Serbian language, and I think in an offensive manner, is to be found in the chapter headed, "The Creation of the SDS in Western Slavonia and Personalities." That is the heading. And then it goes first, second, third paragraph, and the last sentence is the one that refers to a "mob."

A. Your Honour, I didn't sign this text in this form. I signed it in ¹²⁰⁶⁶ English. Now, what the wording is in English, I don't know. Nor am I familiar with the English language. But I know the expressions I used and could have used, but there is an explanation for this particular wording.

Q. And what is the explanation, Mr. C-060?

A. The explanation is that I know the people from my local community for 30 years, and I know very well which people I would like to be in a community of opinion with or a community of interests, members of my family and my close friends, and I also know which people I didn't want to associate with, and that's why I abandoned the party of which I was a member for 20 years. Those same people, individuals but a good number of them and a large proportion of the individuals had distorted, not such a bad idea, of Dr. Jovan Raskovic. Some of them were present at that convention. Neither then nor now nor in the future will I associate with them. However, I do not believe that I used this word "banda" or "mob," regardless of what it says here. I signed the statement in English, and these translations may be erroneous.

Q. But I assume you made your statement in the Serbian language, not in English.

A. When I made my statement, I was shown the text. I think the text was in English.

Q. So you were not given the text in your own language?

A. It was given later. But I didn't - I don't know how to put it - go into that, because those were not things that I might hurt anyone's rights for me to go into details or any specifics, any details.

Q. But I think the way you have described the Serbs in Croatia, that ¹²⁰⁶⁷ they are associated in a sort of mob, is not a question of punctuation, but I think it is a question of violation of rights. So I assume you would have reacted if you had a chance to do so.

A. Mr. Milosevic, you are attributing things to me in spite of what I have said. I did not say that my Serbs were a mob, but I said that some people behaved in a way that could be described as uncontrolled behaviour.

Q. Mr. C-060, please bear in mind that I am not making any insinuations. I simply read out verbatim what is written in your statement which you yourself were able to see with your own eyes just now.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, we've dealt with that and he's given his answer.

JUDGE KWON: Or, Mr. C-060, you can find the exact word you used in the English statement. I think you have that version. Could you find the word you used during your -- at the statement of yours. Or Mr. Nice could help him.

MR. NICE: Certainly. Does the --

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

JUDGE MAY: We don't -- through nobody's fault. We don't have the statement.

MR. NICE: In fact the word in the English statement is "mob. I've -- we've laid it before him, but I don't think he speaks English sufficiently necessary to --

JUDGE MAY: The witness has said he didn't use the word. So we can't really take the matter very much further. The accused has read out ¹²⁰⁶⁸ the passage.

Could we move on to something else, please, Mr. Milosevic. Perhaps you'd like to take the English back. Let the usher do that.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. In connection with that, when we're talking about your position, is it true, this reference to an incident that you provoked in the municipality building in Podravska Slatina, that you shot at the photograph of the late President Tito?

A. I never shot at anybody's picture and still less the picture of President Tito. And in Slatina, never in any public place did I use a weapon. In Slatina or anywhere else.

Q. Were you taken into custody in connection with such an event, even if you were innocent?

A. Yes, such an event was attributed to me.

Q. When was this when you say this incident was attributed to you?

A. That was in 1971.

Q. In 1971, during the mass movement in Croatia; is that right?

A. Yes. That coincided with that period. There was the "maspok" or mass movement in Croatia. That is true.

Q. And what was insinuated to you when you were arrested in 1971 in Croatia? What was it that you were charged with?

A. That I jeopardised the life of the chief of police and his employees.

Q. How did you do that in 1971? ¹²⁰⁶⁹

A. I didn't, when he was lying. If I had, I would have been convicted.

Q. So what you were charged with at the time was not proven, or did they consider that the act did not merit a serious conviction?

A. No. The chief of police in Slatina and the police commander who made such a report were lying, and the investigating judge proved this.

Q. Very well. You say that in 1990 in Croatia, there was a significant percentage of the population who declared themselves to be Yugoslavs.

A. Yes, there was quite a number.

Q. Do you know the members of which ethnic group mostly declared themselves to be Yugoslavs?

A. Mostly people from mixed marriages. That is how we called it. Though some estimated that there were more Serbs. But I don't believe that. I don't know. Maybe that's true. I don't know.

Q. You say that in Podravska Slatina, you witnessed the Croats disassociating themselves from the Serbs.

A. Yes.

Q. Tell me, did this occur already prior to the victory of the HDZ at the elections in Croatia?

A. I would not be able to claim that.

Q. And when you're talking about the ethnic composition of the population of Podravska Slatina municipality, do you know what the situation was after the Second World War?

A. Yes, I was familiar with the data at the time. ¹²⁰⁷⁰

Q. So you no longer remembered them. To refresh your memory, perhaps you will remember, perhaps not; if you don't, tell me no --

JUDGE MAY: I thought he said he was familiar with the data. Go on. Put them to him.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Do you know that the majority population were Serbs? 60 to 70 per cent Serbs, 30 per cent Croats. This was the situation -- 30 to 40 per cent Croats after the Second World War.

A. Where?

Q. In the area in which you lived, Podravska Slatina. Do you know how the composition of the population in Podravska Slatina changed in the years following the Second World War?

A. Yes, I do. I come from there.

Q. Very well. Then tell me, do you know that by administrative decisions of the republican authorities of Croatia, several villages with a virtually hundred per cent Serbian population were attached to the municipality of Orahovica in which the Croats had a large majority, whereas, at the same time, some Croatian villages were attached to Podravska Slatina so that the Serbs in your municipality with these changes in the territories of the municipalities, the Serbs became a minority. Do you remember that?

A. Yes, Mr. Milosevic. I have a long memory of territorial and administration changes of local communities. In that context, this is also part of that. However, within the framework of the autonomy of those communities, I don't see any problem there in particular, especially ¹²⁰⁷¹ since, as I said in my statement, we advocated brotherhood and unity in our part of the country.

Q. Very well. What was the relationship between Serbs and Croats in 1991 in your municipality?

A. I said that my statement; 57 to 35 per cent, and 8 per cent were the others.

Q. Very well. And do you know that the municipality of Okucani, which was mostly Serb, through administrative measures by Croatia much earlier was divided into two parts, one part belonging to Novska with a majority Croat population and the other to Gradiska, again with a Croat majority, so that in both municipalities, as a result, the Serbs became the minority population by simply administrative decisions or paperwork. Do you remember that? Is that correct or are my data incorrect?

A. No, that is quite true, only I don't see any particular reasons there. It was an autonomous decision of those people. If we're talking about historical decisions, one should ask Cedo Grbic; he's from Rajic.

Q. So you're not disputing that this occurred. The only thing is you don't know why the Croatian authorities undertook such administrative matters. That is something that you can't seem to find the reason for.

A. Actually, it was not just the Croatian authorities. There was the Croatian Serbian authority, at least while I was living there and where I was born.

Q. Of course. Of course. There is no dispute over that.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I apologise. I seem to have lost my pen, so can I borrow one from this gentleman next to me so as to be able ¹²⁰⁷² to make some notes?

JUDGE MAY: We will go on, if we may, for another ten minutes if the interpreters will allow. Thank you.

THE INTERPRETER: Yes, Your Honour.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Tell me, please, in view of the fact that we've covered these questions concerning the elections and attitude of the Serb population towards political solutions in Croatia, the support for the SDP, et cetera, does it follow then that the Serbs in Croatia subsequently, more specifically in Podravska Slatina which you are testifying about and which you know best about, after the elections and at the end of 1991, as far as I can remember what you said, set up the SDS as a kind of response to the pressure, nationalist pressure that they were exposed to by the other side as a result of all these things that we have referred to coming from the HDZ, not only in the political and rhetorical sense but also dismissals, persecution, constitutional changes, et cetera, et cetera? Is that right or not?

A. I didn't know, nor do I know with precision the motives to be able to tell them, but probably that one could assume so.

Q. Very well. But do you know, for instance, that a delegation of the SDS at that -- within the framework of the efforts to have all matters resolved by peaceful means, being aware of the problems that were cropping up under these pressures in the spring of 1991, in Zagreb, conducted talks with a group of some ten or so American congressmen? Among them was an American lady of Yugoslav extraction, Helen Delic Bentley, and also with ¹²⁰⁷³ the ambassadors of the USA, Germany, France, in Belgrade and presented to them the need for a peaceful resolution of the political situation in Croatia, familiarised them with the problems and sought their support for a peaceful settlement of what was known as the international community, support for a peaceful resolution of the problems in Croatia? Do you remember those initiatives, those efforts to ensure support, aid, protection?

A. Dr. Raskovic's activities and the activities of other leaders of the SDS I had occasion to see only through the media in those days, and most frequently this was at the local level, that is, the media of the Republic of Croatia. In those days in 1991, I didn't have occasion to see any different approaches. And I don't remember noticing that they attended any such meeting, but I assume that they did, that one and others like it.

Q. Do you know that in those delegations, that was not just one meeting, there was in Zagreb, in Belgrade, with there various groups, with congressmen and ambassadors and so on, do you know that Ilija Sasic was a member of this delegation, this man who you accuse rather grossly of selling weapons and warmongering? Do you remember that? Do you know that? He's a man from your environment, from your part of the country.

A. I do know of some media coverage given to Mr. Sasic within the framework of the SDS. I know more details about what I have testified about. I am not accusing him of anything except of what I heard from people in his circle and accusations made by them, and I have repeated them and made one myself. ¹²⁰⁷⁴

Q. But let us make one thing clear, Mr. C-060. You didn't accuse him of anything that you are aware of personally but of only something that you heard from others who told you about it.

A. No. I knew a circle of people that he worked with, but I knew him personally. And judging from his statements, conduct, and meetings that I attended, I can assert with precision what I have said here regarding his positions and endeavours.

Q. So you're claiming that Ilija Sasic, with Franjo Tudjman, conducted negotiations in Zagreb to release Goran Hadzic. Are you sure of that?

A. I saw that in the media, and what I saw, if my memory does not fail me in these ten or 11 years, then that is what it was.

Q. Do you know that in mid-March 1991 he negotiated with Tudjman but not prompted by this event but in connection with the release of some 30 Serb policemen that Croatian special forces had arrested in Pakrac without any combat and held them in custody in the Bjelovar prison? Do you know that that was what they discussed and not what you said?

A. I remember this part in the media as it was presented, that it was Hadzic and Savic, I think. But I do allow for the possibility that policemen were involved as well.

Q. Do you know that these Serbs were arrested and mistreated simply because they refused to put on their caps the chequerboard flag?

A. I don't know why, but I do know that the Croatian MUP punished them because of some kind of violation of a code. And this was an incident in March 1991. ¹²⁰⁷⁵

Q. Yes. I'm talking about March 1991. But tell me, then, the chequerboard flag, did it have the meaning of a political symbol for the Serbs or something else?

A. Mr. Milosevic, I am a legalist, and I consider this to be an insignia of the Ministry of the Interior of Croatia. Now, whether those people wanted or didn't want to accept it and to remain in service, I can't go into it. As to what Serbs think about it, I can't give you a collective answer. I can tell you what I think.

Q. But you probably have your own views - not offhand but with arguments - what Serbs think. Can you tell us how many thousand Serbs saw the chequerboard flag as the last thing they ever saw before dying?

A. I only know that from history. Maybe better than you.

Q. I am quite sure that you do, but do you think that their reactions were just some -- an expression of arrogance or was it in protest?

A. I differ from some people in the expression of protests. A democratic option requires a different manifestation. However, this manifestation had its consequences, as you know.

Q. Very well. Do you know that when Tudjman was engaged in these negotiations, that it was agreed that all problems should be resolved exclusively by peaceful means?

A. I know that every time the agreement was to resolve questions by peaceful means.

Q. Do you know that this peaceful resolution was unanimously accepted at a meeting of the Main Board of the Serbian Democratic Party on the 30th of March, 1991, as a generalised model for dealing with the problems ¹²⁰⁷⁶ between Serbs and Croats in Croatia? Are you familiar with that?

A. I probably heard of it, but I didn't follow the work of the SDS, and I cannot state emphatically.

Q. Do you know that already the next day, the 31st of March, 1991, on a Sunday, and this was on the 30th of March, Croatian elite forces attacked Serbs in Plitvice? The very next day. Do you remember that?

A. I remember certain events. I don't know whether it was that particular date. I don't remember these details. It was outside my scope of knowledge.

Q. Very well. Mr. C-060, do you know that on that very occasion during the attack that occurred after what you described, Goran Hadzic was arrested and not when you say and linking it to Sasic's negotiations with Tudjman? So it was only on the 31st of March during the attack on Plitvice that he was arrested.

A. I assume that it was not properly interpreted. I was talking about negotiations about the release of Hadzic linked to the events in Plitvice.

Q. Very well. Do you know that even after this attack, Serbs advocated a peaceful solution to the crisis but that after all the negotiations, the Croatian authorities expressed and showed hypocrisy and continued their attacks on Serb villages and towns? Are you familiar with that?

A. I do know that the intervention of the Croatian police in certain areas in which the Serbs had a majority did represent a kind of provocation, but I also know that if we stick to legal forms of action by ¹²⁰⁷⁷ the authorities, this was part of their competence. Of course, I am not justifying their actions.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, I've in fact cut the microphone off simply because it's time. It's 4.15, and we have to adjourn now. As far as tomorrow is concerned, we've decided that you should have up to two hours and a half cross-examination with this witness, which gives you one hour, 50 minutes tomorrow, should you want it. We shall be sitting tomorrow at half past nine to 4.15; and on Wednesday I should say we will be sitting from 9.00 until 1.00, adjourning at 1.00 precisely.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I provided the summary of C-020 not to invite the Chamber to have to read it overnight because it will serve its purpose tomorrow but to deal with the point I made this morning about the need for private session which can probably be dealt with by looking at the headlines. The evidence will not be as long as the summary might suggest, for various reasons question which I'll go into tomorrow or demonstrate tomorrow. But the private session passage would in fact be everything from paragraph 7 to paragraph 43 because it's all one topic, as you'll see. So it's provided simply so that you can see in advance the problem we're advancing and how I've proposed to resolve it.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll look at that. Witness C-060, would you be back, please, at half past nine tomorrow morning. Thank you.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I understand.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 4.16 p.m., ¹²⁰⁷⁸ to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 22nd day of

October, 2002, at 9.30 a.m.