Milosevic Transcript 2003-02-12

¹⁵⁸⁷⁴

Wednesday, 12 February 2003

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I've asked for the witness to stay out just to bring the Chamber up-to-date with a number of administrative developments and identify one or two potential administrative issues. Some I'd like to deal with in private session, but before I come to that, can I inform the Chamber that the disclosure -- the report that you sought from us concerning recent disclosure to the accused will be signed and filed today. The witness list for the Bosnia segment of the trial to match the one that came with the recent report reflecting the Croatia segment of the trial will, I think, also come today or tomorrow. We are beginning to encounter some --

JUDGE MAY: Let me just interrupt to see if I follow that. We're going to get the Bosnia witness list and the remainder of the Croatia list; is that right?

MR. NICE: I think the Croatia list probably won't -- in our most recent general report was complete as to form. If it was incomplete, I'll check.

JUDGE MAY: Very well.

MR. NICE: But the Bosnia one was very much skeletal in form, just numbers.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. ¹⁵⁸⁷⁵

MR. NICE: And you're now getting it in the other form. Your Honour, we're beginning to encounter significant timetabling problems, many of them flowing from difficulties caused when the accused was unwell and when witnesses came and had to go back and had to rearrange their diaries. We note at the moment, incidentally, that the 5th, 6th, and 7th of March are days when the court is not sitting and would respectfully inquire whether there's any chance of any of those days being converted into court days. But I can tell Your Honour that, as things stand at the moment, Ambassador Okun, who was detained here because of the accused's ill-health for something like two weeks is due to give evidence on the 26th of this month, and it's really going to be very difficult for him to find another time. An extremely senior officer from the Irish army is due to give evidence on the following day, and that's the only day he can give evidence on, we've been told, the 27th.

JUDGE MAY: Is he one on the 92 --

MR. NICE: Yes.

JUDGE MAY: -- bis list?

MR. NICE: Yes. Partly 92 bis. And by the time those two days are approached, we may also be well in -- under way in respect of another very major witness who I'll deal with just briefly in private session. So although I know the question of wrapping witnesses around witnesses is one the Chamber said we would avoid if at all possible, we will do whatever we can with these witnesses to avoid having to ask for that as a solution, but when we face the number of difficulties we have faced and where we've got people of this sort of level, sometimes we're ¹⁵⁸⁷⁶ going to be met with the answer, "I'm sorry, it's then or never."

JUDGE MAY: I speak for myself, but it seems to me that if you are encountering the sort of difficulties which have been encountered due to illness and the like, there are real problems, and one cannot totally ignore the convenience of witnesses if they are being inconvenienced in the way that some of these have been. Plainly it's a matter which must be taken into account and in the end they may have to be called rather out of order.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, we'll do our best to make the most convenient and easily consumed evidence but there it is. Can we go very briefly into private session? Briefly.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

[Private session]

[redacted]

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[redacted]

[Open session]

THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.

MR. NICE: Last --

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: Last very short administrative matter: The Court knows a number of 92 bis statements have been served, with exhibits, in English, and they're available from the registry in English. There's been the suggestion that it would be helpful, indeed it might even be helpful to the accused if parallel packages were served in B/C/S. We are coordinating the material that could be served. Technically, it might require the lifting of restriction on the service of material because the B/C/S hasn't actually been exhibited, I think, so far, something to that effect. I imagine that the Chamber would see -- I forecast the Chamber would see it as, in principle, a good thing for material made available in English to be available in B/C/S if it can be coordinated with the ¹⁵⁸⁸² registry and done in a convenient way.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. Yes. Unless there are any other matters you want to raise, Mr. Nice, there is something which I want to raise, and that concerns the application in respect of 92 bis. The amici objections to the admissibility of those statements include objections in the case of ten witnesses, which is page 8 of their filing, that they cannot verify whether evidence is cumulative or not, they say, because statements of witnesses who will testify have not been disclosed. No doubt you can assist as to this. I mean, I don't want you to do it now but either serve or tell us why not. The witnesses are C-025, C-029, Davor Strinovic, and Dr. Grujic. Dr. Grujic, I think, has been served in the form of a report. But perhaps you could look into that and let us have those as soon as possible disclosed.

Attachments are also said to be not translated into English, and that appears on page 13 of the observations. Perhaps you could deal with that.

Those are some fairly straightforward matters. As for dealing with these statements, there are 64 of them. Plainly, they're going to have to take some careful consideration, and it may be that an appropriate course would be to deal with them in a number of groupings, and it may be sensible to deal, first of all, with the groupings that the amici take objection to on particular grounds, and I immediately think of B-1732, there is the evidence of some children, there's Mr. Mangan and Mr. Davies. Those are all separate issues which it may be we could take this week and try and deal with then. ¹⁵⁸⁸³

MR. NICE: Thank you very much. I know that the statements of Strinovic and Grujic have been served, they are experts. The others are witnesses for whom delayed disclosure had been ordered but I'll check on the position and come back, if necessary, later today or this week.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. As for March the 5th to the 7th, arrangements have been made those days and it won't be possible to sit.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May?

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I assume that you are not making a conclusion, that you're not deciding upon the 92 bis proposals, because if you are discussing them, then I should like to present my arguments for -- and the reasons why I'm categorically against. But if you're going to discuss the issue at some later point, later date, then I shall present my views on that occasion.

JUDGE MAY: You will have the opportunity. What I'm proposing is that these various statements be dealt with in parts rather than globally, but that's merely a proposal at the moment. You will have the opportunity to make your submissions.

Yes. Can we have the witness, please.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Fine.

MR. NICE: Paragraph 100 on the summary. We come rapidly to what is a reasonably substantially closed session, as forecast.

[The witness entered court]

JUDGE MAY: I'm sorry you've been kept waiting, Mr. Vasiljevic. We had some administrative matters we had to deal with. ¹⁵⁸⁸⁴

WITNESS: ALEKSANDAR VASILJEVIC [Resumed]

[Witness answered through interpreter] Examined by Mr. Nice: [Continued]

Q. General Vasiljevic, can I turn to the Vojna Linija of the MUP of Serbia. Tell us, please, what this term meant and in summary what it described. We will probably turn to more detail in closed session, so if at this stage you could deal with the material that you're happy to deal with - and make it as much as possible - in open session, I'll then ask the Chamber for a closed session later.

A. The term "Vojna Linija" implies the activities of some leading personages from the MUP and state security of Serbia and others who, outside the duties provided for by law pertaining to their office engaged in activities which did not come under their competence and related to the formation of paramilitary units and their deployment to certain parts of the theatre of war.

Q. Were the activities legal or not?

A. Those activities, when it came to operations on the battlefront, of course did not come under the competence of people and their duties within MUP. So for those kinds of operations, it was the military units who would have been responsible for that and that it came under their authority.

Q. The intervention of these particular personalities qualified as legal or illegal or somewhere in between?

A. Well, in addition to their legal functions, the ones they did within MUP and the state security service, they had a portion of their ¹⁵⁸⁸⁵ activities, as I said earlier on, which did not come under their competence. So it wasn't actually an illegal activity, but on the other hand, it wasn't fully legal either.

Q. This is the MUP of Serbia. To what degree was this work focused on paramilitaries? You've mentioned paramilitaries. To what degree was it focused on the activities of paramilitaries?

A. Well, some people from the MUP of Serbia, for example, and also from the state security service, on the one hand, were behind the bringing in of certain instructors from abroad, those who had previously been in the Foreign Legion, for example, and they would later on serve to train some of the paramilitary groups, or lead them directly. On the other hand, they were involved with individuals who had criminal records in their previous lives, who also set up or were members of some paramilitary groups. And later on, I can tell you which these groups were.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, may we now go into closed session -- private session.

[Private session]

[redacted]

[redacted] ¹⁵⁸⁸⁶ Pages 15886-15901 - redacted - private session

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[redacted]

[Open session]

THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.

MR. NICE:

Q. In July or August --

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Apologies.

Q. In July or August of 1991, did the Serbian Minister of Internal Affairs, Zoran Sokolovic, invite you to a meeting in his cabinet?

A. Yes, he did.

Q. What was said there?

A. First of all, he told me to come and see him on my own, to come alone, because it wasn't my custom to go to the Ministry of the Interior ¹⁵⁹⁰³ of Serbia alone.

When I arrived, to be brief, to answer your question directly, what he said was the following: He said his boss was interested in information about the generals, and I asked, "Which boss?" And his reply was, "Don't mess about with me. President Milosevic, of course." I can recount the whole encounter, if you wish.

Q. What was your response to this request for information about the generals? How appropriate was it that you should be being approached by the accused in this way?

A. No. Not only was it not appropriate, it wasn't the regular channel, nor was it permitted. I said that the information that he was seeking was something I did not know much about because I spent little time in Belgrade. And the short space of time that I did spend in Belgrade, I spent in the field. And then I said that information of this kind is something that a general knew about, and he knew about it all very well. And he asked who the general was, and I said General Krstic, that he in fact was in charge of the cadres and staff in the Personnel Department.

And then Sokolovic said, "Well, I know all that, but I don't know whether he's going to provide me with that kind of information." And my answer to him was that he would if he did not behave towards him as he did towards me, that he shouldn't ask for it directly but he should ask approval for obtaining information of that kind from General Kadijevic first. So I made an excuse. I said I had a meeting to go to and had to leave, and that's how that particular meeting ended. ¹⁵⁹⁰⁴

MR. NICE: Two paragraphs in closed session, please.

[Private session]

[redacted]

[redacted] ¹⁵⁹⁰⁵

[redacted]

[Open session]

THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session. ¹⁵⁹⁰⁶

MR. NICE:

Q. In September of 1991, was there or were there moves to remove Kadijevic from his position as Federal Secretary?

A. Yes, there were. And this was on the 29th of September, in fact, 1991. But I should like to mention that four days prior to that, that is to say on the 25th of September, an attempt was made in a similar way to do away with General Jurjevic, Zvonko, who was, at the time, the commander of the air force.

MR. NICE: Your Honour may find it helpful to be reminded of the structure of things by Exhibit 387, tab 1. We can always lay a copy of this on the overhead projector in case it assists. Borrow ours for speed.

Q. Who was involved in this attempt, General Vasiljevic?

A. Parts of the 1st Guards Motorised Brigade.

Q. And we see there on the right-hand side of the chart they being - thank you very much --

A. 1st Motorised Guards Brigade.

Q. -- commanded, as your chart, or the chart, reveals by Colonel Mile Mrksic.

A. Yes.

Q. And then who else was involved?

A. The building was blocked by Special Police Units. When this happened, I was out in the field, and I was recalled. When I arrived, they were at a stage at which General Kadijevic was already isolated in his offices, and Colonel Mrksic, Mile Mrksic, and Colonel Vuk Obradovic at the time, who was head of the military cabinet or offices, and one of the ¹⁵⁹⁰⁷ commanders of the military police were at Blagoje Adzic's offices or cabinet and trying to persuade him to take on the function of Federal Secretary for National Defence.

Q. But that failed in the event?

A. It failed because, first of all, General Adzic said that he didn't want to have anything to do with their dirty business. And they said, "If you want, you can arrest me too." That's what he said. And the second element was that I talked to the members of the military police and convinced them that this was quite an unreasonable act. So they withdrew, and that's how it all ended.

Q. The chart shows the subordination of the 1st Motorised Guard Brigade to the chief of the cabinet who was involved, you say, Vuk Obradovic. It may be a small part, but did Vuk Obradovic have a brother Pavic?

A. Yes, he did.

Q. Was that brother an important member of the SPS at that time?

A. Yes, he was. I also think he was the vice-president of the Assembly of Serbia.

Q. In your experience, did Vuk Obradovic ever respond to any influence of his brother Pavic?

A. Vuk Obradovic had some views which, at that time, were different from the general attitudes and climate that prevailed. And not only I myself but quite a number of people from the SSNO explained this in the way that Vuk -- by saying that Vuk was under the influence of his brother Pavic and that they wielded a certain amount of influence vis-a-vis the ¹⁵⁹⁰⁸ cabinet.

Q. On the 5th of March of 1992, were you called by Zoran Janackovic, who was at the time member of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to a meeting with the accused?

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. Did you discuss this meeting before it happened with General Adzic?

A. When I learnt of the fact that I had been invited to the meeting, I informed General Adzic about that. And at the time, he represented the Federal Secretary for National Defence.

Q. What was he able to tell you preliminary to your meeting?

A. He told me: "Thank you very much. I'm very grateful to you for having told me that on a man-to-man basis. But I know that Slobodan is doing the inviting. I'm sure that you will be the first and last person to inform me about that."

Q. Before we come to the meeting, at that time was the security administration allowed to inform the Federal Presidency or any other republican organs directly or was it obliged to work through the SSNO?

A. No. Only via the SSNO or the Federal Secretariat for National Defence.

Q. At your meeting with the accused, what, in summary, did he want and what, if anything, did you tell him?

A. Well, I made a bit of a joke. Perhaps I wasn't as -- too serious on the occasion, because I expected that he would be interested in certain information that the military service could provide, and I said that I ¹⁵⁹⁰⁹ worked in the service for almost 30 years, that it was always my job to ask other people questions, and that they had to answer me. So that I asked him not to put me in the reverse situation, where he was doing the asking and I had to do the answering. He laughed and he said, "All right. Well, just tell me what you think I might be interested in, that might interest me."

Q. Yes. Did you respond to that?

A. Well, yes, I did. I thought that what he was interested in was that there was general political uncertainty and that he wanted to know how the mass demonstrations, the proclamation of the mass demonstrations and the celebrations of the 9th of March, 1991, would evolve. And so I gave him extensive information about what I knew and what the security services knew about all that.

Q. After that part of your discussion, did he make a specific request to you?

A. Well, not a specific request, but he said he was satisfied. He told me he was pleased with the overall information I provided him with and that he had no further questions to ask me on that score. And then he went on to say that he had heard that we in the security department were working on a set of information and reports and could I send them to him for him to have a look at. My answer to him was that I sent out that kind of information on a regular basis to the MUP of Serbia and the MUP of Montenegro, and the federal MUP, of course, and that he too probably received copies of those reports and information. After that, he said that he did indeed receive some information ¹⁵⁹¹⁰ but that he wasn't sure whether MUP was sending him the information in its entirety on every occasion. And I said that if he failed to receive it for the 1st of May, he should put everything away. And it -- we ended our conversation on that issue.

I felt -- it was my feeling that the accused actually was asking me to give him complete information which -- and -- which had a fourth section, and that referred to the state in the JNA. And this was something that was accessible only to the top military echelons. So my feeling was that he wanted facts and information, although he didn't say so directly, which concerned this fourth section in the way he asked me to send him the information. I assumed that he was interested in the special data on the JNA, concerning the JNA?

MR. NICE: A very short closed session, please.

[Private session]

[redacted]

[Open session] ¹⁵⁹¹¹

THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.

MR. NICE:

Q. Kadijevic left office on the 9th of January of 1992. What, if any, effect did that have on the accused's influence over the JNA?

A. While General Kadijevic was the Federal Secretary, you could not appoint cadres without his decisive influence. He made the decisions. After General Kadijevic retired, the situation changed.

Q. In what way did it change? Did the accused's influence decline or increase?

A. It increased. Already in January 1992, I received a report from a friend in which the accused was saying that there would be a lot of cleaning up in the General Staff shortly. And as that wasn't customary, things were not done in that way, on the basis of this information, he thought that this would lead -- trigger off a reaction in the General Staff. And allegedly his answer was that he was quite certain that nobody would dare utter a word of protest.

If February or, rather, the beginning of February of that same year, Zoran Sokolovic and Radovan Stojicic, nicknamed Badza, were in contact with two generals from the Ministry of Defence and the Territorial Defence of Serbia as well. And in an intimate conversation with me, they said that there would be a cleaning up in the General Staff, a major cleaning up, and that all those who were unreliable would be set aside but that this was still being kept secret, although it would come out into the open very soon. So this kind of replacement within the General Staff without the key role played by the head of the General Staff and the head ¹⁵⁹¹² of personnel was unprecedented up until then.

MR. NICE: One sentence, closed session, please.

[Private session]

[redacted]

[Open session]

MR. NICE: If it will help the Chamber in its thinking, once we get to page 26, the end of page 26, from there on there will just be a very limited number of points made between there and the beginning of the Kosovo section. Progress will be much more rapid in terms of pages covered than might be feared. ¹⁵⁹¹³

JUDGE MAY: We will adjourn now. Twenty minutes.

--- Recess taken at 10.31 a.m.

--- On resuming at 10.55 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Open session.

Q. General, in February 1992, did General Adzic receive a list of generals who were to be retired?

A. Yes, he did.

Q. How many? What consultation had there been before his receiving this list?

A. There were 33 generals on that list, that list of people who were to be retired. General Adzic and also the head of the Personnel Department was there, General Gojko Krstic. They both told me that nobody had consulted them about that.

Q. Was your deputy, Tumanov, on the list?

A. Yes. And he did not meet a single one of the legal prerequisites for retiring. He did not have the minimum age for retirement nor did he have the required number of years of service.

Q. You pursued the matter. Tell us how and with what result.

A. I asked General Adzic what the reason was for Tumanov to be retired so suddenly. He said that he did not know either, that nobody had consulted him about this, and nobody had made him aware of it. Then I and the head of the Personnel Department said to General Adzic that he should ask why Tumanov was being retired. Then he called then President Milosevic. The relevant decree is to be signed by the ¹⁵⁹¹⁴ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹⁵⁹¹⁵ president of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, Branko Kostic at the time. Milosevic told him to come and see him.

Adzic said to us that we should wait for him there in the office. When he returned, he was - how should I put this? - satisfied with the contact he had. He said, "I did not only manage to get Tumanov off the list but also four other generals," that is to say, from that list of generals who were supposed to be retired. So the final number of generals who retired towards the end of February 1992 was 28.

Q. Now, the involvement of Milosevic in all this, did you regard that as appropriate at the time or not?

A. Well, it is not appropriate. In my opinion, the decision on who would be retired is a decision that was ultimately to be made by the Presidency of Yugoslavia. However, it's interesting that General Adzic did not call anyone from the Presidency, rather, he addressed Milosevic, knowing where the power to change things actually lay.

Q. And so paragraph 127. Were you and 37 other generals retired on the 8th of May, of 1992? In your case, did you qualify for the legal conditions for retirement?

A. At that time, on the 8th of May, 38 generals were retired. Two generals did not meet any one of the requirements prescribed by law. That was myself and General Tumanov.

Q. Had there been any consultation with General Krstic, head of personnel, or Adzic?

A. When I was about to be retired, I was somewhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the field, and when I returned to Belgrade, General ¹⁵⁹¹⁶ Adzic said to me that this retirement again was decided upon without consulting him or the Personnel Department.

Q. Did you hear a report of what Branko Kostic said when asked by General Vuleta Vuletic why you had been retired?

A. Yes. Allegedly Branko Kostic said that he had only read that list and that the decision was made by others.

Q. In the course of these retirements, when you speak of letters written, for example, by Nedeljko Boskovic to Milosevic about retirements --

A. This did not have to do with this retirement from May 1992. This had to do -- this had to do with May 1993 when, again, people were retired, namely General Boskovic and General Domazetovic, without applying the regular procedure. As he was dissatisfied because of this retirement, General Boskovic wrote a letter to the accused in which he asked him to change this decision on his retirement and that he and Domazetovic retire at the end of the year. General Domazetovic really retired at the end of the year, but Boskovic's request was not granted. Again, I can make a comment if a comment is necessary. Boskovic did not write a letter to the president of Yugoslavia as the head person who signs these decisions related to generals. At that time, it was Dobrica Cosic. He wrote to the president of Serbia because he thought that that is where power was vested.

Q. Coming back a little in time then from that, paragraph 129, to the appointment of Zivota Panic as chief of the General Staff of the VJ, was that appointment made on or about the 11th of May of 1992? ¹⁵⁹¹⁷

A. Yes. Those were the decrees appointing General Zivota Panic Federal Secretary first, and afterwards, chief of General Staff.

Q. And roughly the same time, Colonel Nedeljko Boskovic was promoted to general, what do you say about his appointment and any connection that may have with the Vojna Linija?

A. Well, first of all, Nedeljko Boskovic was brought in as a retired person in March 1992. He was brought to head the security department of the command of the air force, and regular procedure was not applied then. This was done without consulting anyone at the General Staff. I was not consulted either, as head of the security administration. He was not reactivated then. He was temporarily assigned to this position in the army of Yugoslavia for up to six months. On the 8th of May, he was reactivated. That is to say, he was readmitted into active military service. And on the 11th of May, he was promoted to the rank of general, although he did not even meet the minimum legal requirements for that.

I know for a fact that the then-head of the SDB of the MUP of Serbia stood behind him.

MR. NICE: Closed session, please.

[Private session]

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[Open session]

THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.

MR. NICE: There is an intercepted telephone conversation to be played, please. Tab 24. There was a mistake in the translation, and I gather there are further copies that are available. They've been distributed. The correction is on page 2 of 3, and although I don't think it's the passage we're actually playing, it's four entries down where, beside the name Karadzic, it originally read as "I am" where it should in fact read "Alija."

May we play, please, the relevant part of this.

[Audiotape played]

MOMO: Went to Han Pijesak on Friday, we had a meeting with the armies, the federal SUP. Gracanin was there...

And our Vito ... he wasn't there, he stayed on at the Assembly, and later I went to Belgrade with one man and then there were terrible lies spread by Alija and Vito. Vito...

RADOVAN KARADZIC: No, no, I mean there is chaos now, besides, he is trying something new there now, but he will not tell me that they are preparing the transfer for Draskovic, and we had previously agreed that there would be no transfer of any Serb without the consent of...

MOMO: Mr. President, that's all right. Cedo Kljajic will go to the police department. He will be replaced by this person for public, for this ... that is okay, President.

RADOVAN KARADZIC: Wait, That cannot be done without our ¹⁵⁹²¹ agreement and our consent at all. This is unacceptable as a method, and tomorrow members of the parliament will ask me for answers tomorrow about this situation. This is intolerable, simply intolerable to have any personnel changes without our knowledge and our consent, because that is a mechanism which wishes to manipulate us, and Serb members of parliament are fed up with all those attempts to proclaim independence. Alija Izetbegovic admitted to us...

MOMO: I heard.

RADOVAN KARADZIC: ... that this sovereignty means independence.

MOMO: Yes.

RADOVAN KARADZIC: And that is the way Croatia took and we know what is going to happen here. That has nothing to do with Karadzic's or anyone else's decision. We know exactly what is going to happen. There is no...

MOMO: Definitely, that is clear to people in Belgrade.

RADOVAN KARADZIC: In just a couple of days, Sarajevo will be gone and there will be 500.000 dead, in one month Muslims will be annihilated in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the number of Serbs will be reduced and Croats will be the only ones to profit because they will keep their municipalities...

MR. NICE:

Q. Which, if either, of those voices do you recognise, please?

A. One is the voice of Radovan Karadzic, judging by the subject that is discussed and the name that was used. And this other voice, Momo, I assume is Momo Mandic. ¹⁵⁹²²

MR. NICE: Thank you. The other telephone intercept need not be played, tab 25. He has identified - he having listened to it - by the witness as between Radovan Karadzic and Vitomir Zepinic. The Chamber has already looked at it on an earlier occasion, I think, so we can move on to this:

Q. General, was there a meeting in Sarajevo on the 15th of October of 1991, which would be some two weeks before the intercept that you heard played to you when you were preparing to give evidence? Was there a meeting in Sarajevo a couple of days before that intercept with the JNA, the Bosnian military leadership, and some of the Serb -- Bosnian Serb leaders?

MR. NICE: Beg your pardon. Apparently the Court hasn't yet considered tab 25. It's a new intercept, even though it doesn't need to be played. We'll come back to that in a second.

Q. Was there this meeting on the 15th of October?

A. Yes. The meeting was held on the 15th of October, of the military leadership headed by General Kadijevic, but together with the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, not with the military leadership of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The interpretation I received said with the military leadership of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but no, it was with the entire Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Q. Topic of the conversation?

A. The topic of conversation was problems related to cooperation of the authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina with the Yugoslav People's Army. The objective was to ease the tensions that existed in Bosnia-Herzegovina. ¹⁵⁹²³ The problems had to do with mobilisation, which was not being implemented there. That was it for the most part.

MR. NICE: Then, Your Honours, there's this particular intercept, subject of the same declaration by the witness. Tab 25. Just to save time, I'm not going to take you through it at the moment unless I'm invited to.

Q. Can we move on, please, General, to crimes in Croatia. Lovas, on the 23rd of October of 1991, was a location for crimes, as your security organs discovered.

A. I received a brief piece of information, incomplete, from the security department of the 1st Military District about the following: That a large number of civilians were killed in a minefield and that these civilians were used as a human shield by the detachment of Dusan Silni, and that is how this happened.

The following day, I wrote a brief piece of information about this for the Federal Secretary and for his closest associates, for the top military leadership, and I asked the security organs for more detailed information regarding this incident, and I got this information during the course of the 24th. It described the mentioned incident in a bit more detail.

First of all, that the detachment Dusan Silni was under the jurisdiction and control of the commander of that particular locality, that village, Ljubo Devetak. Then the day before this crime was committed, the Dusan Silni detachment interrogated some of the Croats who lived in that village, and during the interrogation, four persons were ¹⁵⁹²⁴ liquidated.

The following day, when the Territorial Defence detachment from Valjevo was supposed to search the area around the village, the Dusan Silni detachment took about 30 local Croats, most of them elderly people. They used them as a human shield in front of them, and they went and searched the area that way.

They came across a minefield. That is where 17 people were killed in total. Fourteen of them were locals, and three from the Dusan Silni detachment.

This is it in the briefest possible terms.

Q. The Valjevo of which you speak - and, Your Honour, there's a misprint in the summary - is where? Which territory is Valjevo on?

A. Valjevo is in Western Serbia.

Q. South of Belgrade, I think.

A. Yes, to the south-west.

Q. So we have a Territorial Defence from Valjevo, south of Belgrade, together with the Dusan Silni paramilitary unit, and the territory concerned, of course, as the Judges will probably remember, is in Croatia. Page 23 in Exhibit 336, at E2 refers. Lovas can be found across the river to the west, just south-west of Backa Palanka.

Your report on this matter, General, was distributed in accordance with perhaps, I don't know, regular procedures, to whom?

A. Yes. On the 25th of October, we in the security department compiled ten information reports for nine JNA generals and one colonel, and he was the military prosecutor of the time, the military prosecutor of ¹⁵⁹²⁵ the JNA, the Yugoslav People's Army.

Two days after that, information was sent out about this case to the MUP of Serbia as well. Of the generals who were not within the JNA, the information was sent to the Minister of Defence of Serbia and the commander of the republican headquarters and staff of the Territorial Defence in Serbia.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I'm going to -- I'm going to come back to Exhibit 342, tab 11. I meant to prepare the precise passages I want to take you through first this morning. I was engaged in other matters, and I'll deal with it when I have taken those steps.

Q. Vukovar. At the time of Vukovar, was there coordination of Territorial Defence units through Badza, Radovan Stojicic?

A. I've already spoken about two types of Territorial Defence in Slavonia, the legal units of the Territorial Defence on the one hand, from Serbia, who were active in the territory. And one of those detachments was the Valjevo detachment itself. And I also spoke about another armed formation in the territory which, to my mind, did not have the features of a true Territorial Defence, the kind that it should have been. However, with the arrival of Radovan Stojicic to the command position, the forward command post with General Panic, this quite obviously was to coordinate the two forces.

Q. So far as you were aware in the battles for Vukovar, which units were engaged?

A. I can't give you the specific units, or all the units. There was the 1st Motorised Guards Brigade, for example, under the command of the ¹⁵⁹²⁶ then-colonel, Colonel Mrksic. And then there were the units of the Novi Sad Corps under the command of General Biorcevic. Then there was an Armoured Brigade from Kraljevo, and there was the 80th Motorised Brigade from Kragujevac as well. Then there were some units of the Territorial Defence of Serbia and some units from the Territorial Defence of Vojvodina too. So that, in general terms, is what I know of the units?

MR. NICE: Can we just look at a few documents. Tab 26. If that can be provided to the witness on the overhead projector. This is an order. I think it's dated the 19th of October. At least, one of the stamps reads 19th of October. From the command guard of the Motorised Brigade. It's to the command and it's based on the insights of organs of the command for the 1st Military District and the General Staff of the armed forces of the SFRY, and besides several warnings that in the areas of the units activities are not consolidated activities of all forces ... omitting the rest.

There is an order that all forces active in the areas of the units are to be submitted to the command of the commander of the JNA unit which performs combat activities in those areas.

Then there's details of how that's to be effected. Perhaps the Court can scan the rest of the page without my reading it. That's tab 26.

Tab 27, please. This is the 15th of November, an order by Mile Mrksic. Regulation of issues regarding subordination. "With the goal of a successful realisation of the decision from 14 November and the unification of command for the following actions, the following have to be ¹⁵⁹²⁷ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹⁵⁹²⁸ pre-subordinated:

"A detachment of Territorial Defence from Stara Pazova, the 80th Motorised Brigade."

And then: The 80th MTBR, with the same detachment from the Territorial Defence, Stara Pazova, will be in the following actions, carrying out duties in accordance with the decision.

Q. So this is an order by Mrksic including and subordinating territorial units into this Operational Group, but the units he's incorporating came from where, from Serbia?

A. Yes.

Q. And then tab 28, please. Comes from Mrksic, goes to General Panic and reports on the evacuation of the Vukovar Hospital. We pick up the report paragraph 2.

"As you specified in the task of Operation Jug that the Operation Jug is to seize the hospital and MIA and mop up Vukovar from Ustashi forces during the morning on the 18th of November, this task was carried out by 1100 hours on the 19th. The security of movement and service of control and protection were established."

Then it deals with the "cleaning of the settlement of Mitnica," problems with the extradition of civilians sent to the Republic of Croatia, at the ramp on the highway, since the Croatian government did not accept them. Claims that everything was carried out pursuant to the Geneva Convention on war prisoners.

"Measures were taken for strengthening command and control ..." Mine clearance. And subparagraph 2: The initiated activities ¹⁵⁹²⁹ continued regarding the mopping up of remaining Ustashi forces in freed areas and facilities in Vukovar. Measures have been taken to establish complete control over the city. And further references to that. Over the page. The transport of civilians that were sent back yesterday from the highway has today been sent back several times from the agreed extradition spot in the Nustar region. The same happened with a transport of civilians from the Velepromet region which was sent back several times. We resolved that that way -- that we sent the transport to Sid since we had no other choice.

Thus his report and summary to General Panic, listing of injuries, severe injuries, and soldiers killed?

MR. NICE: Can we now look, please, still on the topic of Vukovar, at one or, I think, two very short video clips. If the booth would help us.

Your Honours, this is -- I hope this is the clip that we looked at in a previous witness's evidence, and I invited you to focus on a particular military person whom this witness should be able to identify for us.

[Videotape played]

MR. NICE: Pausing there, if we can.

Q. The man on whom attention was focused by the cameraman, sitting down on the other side of the table, was whom?

A. At the time, he was Colonel Nebojsa Pavkovic, and his rank was colonel at the time.

Q. Subsequently to become general? ¹⁵⁹³⁰

A. Yes.

MR. NICE: May we look at the other clip? I hope it's the right one. If it's not, I'll come back to it at a later stage.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "They're taking us away as criminals. Taking the memories that we collected, with hatred and brutality. Those people who were our neighbours until yesterday are taking us off to camps or death, because the dead cannot come back except in dreams. Velepromet Ovcara, the barracks, the hospital, are just some of the places at which ..."

MR. NICE: We may have to get the other clip out later. I had hoped that we might be able to play it at this stage.

Q. But in any event, what we see in the second part of that clip relates to Velepromet and Vukovar; correct?

A. I can't be certain, because I don't know the area.

Q. But what you can be certain of is that the first part of the clip showed Colonel, later General, Pavkovic.

MR. NICE: I'm not sure if the booth has another -- it does. Well, can we play the next one then now? Probably almost little more than a still.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "State your problem, please. "The problem is that I can see the soldiers walking in the street and the trucks passing by. There you go.

"I opened that bridge for traffic. ¹⁵⁹³¹ "My colleagues were there.

"The convoy is escorted by my soldiers."

MR. NICE: Thank you very much.

Q. The officer in the foreground, not speaking but whose head turned into profile, on the bridge with Sljivancanin, was whom?

A. Nebojsa Pavkovic.

Q. Do you know or can you tell us what his position was at that time, what position he would have been forming in Vukovar at that time?

A. In Vukovar, he was there as representative of the cabinet of the Federal Secretariat for National Defence.

Q. So that is a representative of the very highest organ of which you've spoken.

A. That organ was highly placed, and it had a high function, yes.

Q. Ovcara. A little about that, please. Paragraph 137. Later in 1993, did you have contact with Zjajo Muris, or Muris. Muris, I think.

A. Yes.

Q. Did he give you an account of what had happened at Vukovar?

A. Yes.

Q. In summary?

A. Well, with Zjajo Muris, I had a very brief contact, actually, in January 1993. I met him briefly. And this was due to some accusations to the effect that I had more or less stolen some money from Vukovar. And as Zjajo Muris was the leader of the Special Police Unit, commander of the Special Police Unit, I wanted to hear from him what sum of money it -- ¹⁵⁹³² what it was all about and what had happened. I really knew nothing about it. He told me on the occasion that he wasn't involved in that particular case, on that assignment, because he had been sent to Ovcara. And that was the first time that I heard of a place called that. I didn't know whether it was actually the name of a place, whether it was a place or whether they were just sheep sheds. And he said, "Well, you don't know that. I'll tell you about it later on."

And when my trial was over, I had occasion to meet Muris again, who had already been demobilised, he was a demobilised officer, and this is briefly what he told me: He said that from the hospital, the prisoners who were suspected of actually being members of the Croatian National Guard Corps, masking themselves as civilians, that they were going to be evacuated together with the other people in the hospital, and that they had been transported to Ovcara where the 80th Motorised Brigade from Kragujevac was located.

Somebody from the Guards Brigade had sent him with a few other -- a few policemen, sent him to Ovcara to see what was going on there, because allegedly, according to certain reports coming in, there were problems there. When he drew near to Ovcara, according to the story he told me, he heard shots being fired and used his radio communication device to inform the brigade command of that. He said there was shooting up there. And the answer he received was, "All right. Come back. It's no longer our problem."

After a certain amount of time had passed, he didn't say exactly how long, he learnt from other people in the brigade, the Guards Brigade, ¹⁵⁹³³ that they were the Vukovar Territorials, as they were called, and that they had shot about 160 civilians.

So that, in the briefest terms, is what I was told by Muris.

Q. Can we look at tab 30 and tab 31, please. You remember at the beginning you were giving us a general account of the units or sort of units that were operative in the Vukovar area. Here we see a document dated the 18th of October from Sid under the stamp of the Vukovar Territorial Defence Staff.

"Legalisation of the functioning of the unit detachment 'Leva Supoderica.' Commander of the unit Milan Lancuzanin. The remaining part of the unit is registered with the commander of the unit. Commander Milan Lancuzanin is responsible for the activities of the unit." Signed by Dusan Filipovic.

Does this order have the effect -- or what effect does this order have in respect to that Leva Supoderica unit?

A. Well, this document, in fact, illustrates the state of affairs that I described earlier on of the so-called Territorial Defence in Slavonia. That means that the unit was being legalised. Now, the question is what the detachment, the Leva Supoderica detachment had been previously. It means that it had not been a legal one previously, and now it is allegedly being made part of the Territorial Defence Staff, this part of the staff in Vukovar.

However, this document does not have the form of a normal document of this nature. So briefly speaking, as of this date, that unit is considered to be a unit of the Territorial Defence of the Territorial ¹⁵⁹³⁴ Defence Staff in Vukovar. But the form of the document states what the situation was like.

And according to what I learnt later on, this was not Milan Lancuzanin, but Miodrag Lancuzanin. So Miodrag Lancuzanin was the commander of the Leva Supoderica detachment. And from what I learnt later on, again, this people from this unit took part in the liquidation that took place at Ovcara.

Q. And Leva Supoderica coming from which territory?

A. Well, it was always designated to me as a Chetnik unit. It was called the Seselj unit. That's what they called it. So Zjajo Muris himself spoke about the term and used the term Leva Supoderica because, to me, that name was rather strange. I didn't know what it was exactly. And then later on, it was used to denote a Seselj unit, that they were in fact his radicals.

Later on, I learnt from journalists who were in the area their qualifications of that unit, and they were the same. They qualified it as such.

Q. And if we look at tab 31, does Lancuzanin have a nickname, please?

A. Yes, he did have a nickname and it was Kameni.

Q. Tab 31, please. This is an order of the 29th -- a decision, rather, of the 29th of October of 1991 from the Operational Group on the continuation of the assault Operation Vukovar. The document is signed by Colonel Mrksic, and his decision -- we can move straight to the deployments, I think, of the units' tasks. You will see that the assault detachment structure is the 1st Motorised Battalion, and then there's the ¹⁵⁹³⁵ detachment of Leva Supoderica, there's also the detachment of Petrova Gora and various other units put together.

So does this operate to subordinate these, for example, two groups, Leva Supoderica and Petrova Gora, to the 1st Motorised Guards Brigade?

A. Yes. From this we can see the order, that is that the Petrova Gora and Leva Supoderica detachments come under the assault detachment 1, probably from the Jug Operative Group or, rather, the Motorised Guards Brigade.

I should like to point out here that judging by what it says here, the OD, odred, or detachment, of Leva Supoderica and Petrova Gora, it doesn't say the Territorial Defence detachment, as is stipulated in other documents, for example. It would be the OD of the TO of Valjevo or the detachment of the Territorial Defence of Stara Pazova, for example. What we see here is the simple expression of odred, or detachment, which is in fact and improvised Territorial Defence with none the usual attributes, the kind that it should have. So it's more or less a sort of paramilitary component.

Q. And you've given us your understanding of the Seselj connection of Leva Supoderica. Do you know anything about Petrova Gora, which I think, as a place, is in the area of Knin, but do you know anything about it as a unit if a unit it was?

A. I don't know the details of that unit, who it belonged to, but what I do know that in Vukovar -- or part of Vukovar is in fact called Petrova Gora, and I can only assume that it was a unit from that ¹⁵⁹³⁶ particular area, just like the Leva Supoderica. That's a part of town too. So it wasn't a unit from Knin of any sort. At least, that's what -- my opinion.

Q. Staying with Vukovar, you first informed General Dimitrijevic about what Muris had told you when?

A. Well, this was sometime after he was appointed head of the security administration. So it was either the end of 1993 or the very beginning of 1994. Because I was not really allowed to enter the General Staff premises because the remnants of Nedeljko Boskovic's tenure there were still present.

Q. Although you had a number of further contacts about Vukovar, I'm not going to take you through them in detail, they are in the summary, should it be relevant to adduce them, but at paragraph 143, did you in 1998 have a brief meeting with retired General Mrksic, as he then was?

A. Yes, I did. It wasn't a meeting. It was a brief sudden encounter.

Q. And was or were events in Vukovar discussed or, if not discussed, mentioned in this encounter?

A. Well, I always had the wish to put three questions to any one of the members of the leadership of that brigade that I may see, questions that I would be interested in. So I managed to put the first two questions to General Mrksic. That was, what was it that happened at Ovcara? I'm going to tell you exactly what he answered me. He said, "Aco, I swear by my children had I known what they would do to them, we never would have handed them over." Then I asked him, "And ¹⁵⁹³⁷ when you did find out what had been done to them, why did you not inform thereof along the line of communication?" And then he answered, "When we found out what they had done to them, then we swore to remain silent about it." I could not put the third question to him. We were in traffic, I had to move my car too, and this ended our brief encounter.

Q. Can we look at a couple --

JUDGE KWON: General Vasiljevic, what is your assessment at that time? Did you find that he was telling the truth?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] He looked very sincere to me. This was six or seven years after the event that had occurred. Secondly, I did not hold any kind of office. I was a retiree. We met as two human beings, and it was my impression that it was actually hard for him when he was telling me about it.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

MR. NICE: Would Your Honour give me one minute.

[Prosecution counsel confer]

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I'm going to deal with tabs 32 to 35 in the same way as with the other tab. Although it's inconvenient to take things out of order, it's better not to waste your time, and I'll be able to focus them better after the break, I think.

The next passage, pages 28 until 32, is marked as a passage for which closed session is required. So can we go into closed session? It's not actually going to take very long because I'm only going to touch a few points.

It might be at the end of that session, if you would indulge me, I ¹⁵⁹³⁸ could then, over the break, deal with the outstanding exhibits before we come to Kosovo.

[Private session]

[redacted]

[redacted] ¹⁵⁹³⁹ Pages 15939-15944 - redacted - private session

¹⁵⁹⁴⁵

[redacted]

[Open session]

THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.

MR. NICE:

Q. We've heard from Slobodan Lazarevic. Did he work for the UB? If he not, if he had a relationship with Colonel Zimonja, what relationship would that be?

A. I can state quite categorically that Slobodan Lazarevic did not have anything to do with the intelligence -- with the security service and its organs, with the UB. So this is a man I don't know at all, nor do I ¹⁵⁹⁴⁶ know -- nor am I familiar with his name within the UB of the JNA. And he was not an active official of the JNA at all, officer of the JNA. Colonel Zimonja, on the other hand, was an officer of the Intelligence Administration of the General Staff of the JNA. He held different positions. As far as I know, sometime in 1991, he was working abroad, he was on assignment abroad. He was a military attache or assistant.

Q. And so if, as we heard, Lazarevic had an official relationship with Colonel Zimonja, this would have been or could have been in connection with the Intelligence Administration of the -- of the Intelligence Administration of the General Staff of the JNA?

A. I don't know about that connection of theirs or relationship, but if he did have an official relationship, then down the chain of command this would be a link to the Intelligence Administration of the General Staff.

Q. General Vasiljevic, I'm going to just tidy up a few things that I've overlooked or put back for reasons of one kind or another.

MR. NICE: If the Chamber would be good enough to go back to page 25.

Q. Just a couple more questions about Lovas and one exhibit, General. You told us where you sent your reports about Lovas. Did you - paragraph 135 - receive a report from a duty officer at the SSNO concerning a find at the end of November 1991 by a military police patrol of some bodies at a farm, Lovas, near Dalj?

A. Yes. ¹⁵⁹⁴⁷

Q. In a sentence, the substance of that report and what was found?

A. That was a report which went from the duty service of the military police downwards, and from the 1st Military District, according to that report, sometime towards the end of November 1991 at the Lovas farm, the patrol, the military police patrol, came across, found, 23 mutilated bodies of civilians. They took footage of this location and took down the necessary details and informed the territorially competent MUP in Dalj about the case, and further investigation into the case were taken over by the MUP in Dalj.

Q. These reports, did they ever lead to any prosecution, to your knowledge?

A. Well, proceedings should have been undertaken against the unknown perpetrators of that particular crime. So later on, the competent territorial prosecutor should have been informed about the event, and he would have gone to the internal affairs organs, stipulating what actions they were duty-bound to take.

Q. But are you aware one way or another as to whether those steps were taken and any prosecutions were launched?

A. I don't know whether any steps were taken or whether they were prosecuted. That came under the competence of the MUP.

Q. Can we now look, please, at the exhibit I put back, Exhibit 342, tab 11. This is the letter of the 23rd of October 1991, by Milan Eremija, deputy commander for instruction on matters of morale and political propaganda. To the command of the 1st Military District. On the second page, under paragraph 4, General, do we see ¹⁵⁹⁴⁸ activities and occurrences which had a negative impact on the state of morale in the division's units, for which the third bullet point reads. "In the combat activity zone, the main motive behind the presence of several groups of different paramilitary formations from Serbia, Chetniks, the Dusan Silni detachment, and various self-styled volunteers is not to combat the enemy but to loot people's property and engage in sadistic abuse of innocent civilians of Croatian nationality. "In the village of Lovas on one occasion, 80 villagers of Croatian nationality were captured by the Territorial Defence of Lovas and the Dusan Silni detachment, physically abused and four of them killed. Then it deals with the killing of 17 more, and so on. And then at 5, proposals for improving morale in the units: "Undertake the organised disarming of paramilitary formations, in particular of the Dusan Silni detachment, Chetniks, and Arkan's soldiers, authorities of the Republic of Serbia must participate in the campaign." Does this document accord with the inquiries you were making and reflect the involvement of forces, the paramilitary forces from Serbia in what was happening?

A. Yes, it does.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, if we could move on to page 27 and to the four listed exhibits. I can save you, I think, one of them, and ask the witness to look at just three.

Q. Omitting tab 32 and going straight to tab 33, have you been shown, General Vasiljevic, some other reports which cover events of which you have no firsthand or even hearsay knowledge but which you've been asked to ¹⁵⁹⁴⁹ look at to see if they appear to be regular reports?

A. Yes. I have looked at this report. I looked at it here when you showed me the documents. It is a report by the 180th security organ and Major Branislav Ristic, in fact. 180th Motorised Brigade. Judging by its form, it corresponds to the type of document that the security organs wrote, and we can see that it was compiled in one copy and not sent out to anybody. No addressees.

Q. I think the fact that there is only the one copy is perhaps unusual or ...

A. Well, if this is information for himself and he has perhaps made a note of it to be dealt with in greater detail later on, then from several documents of this kind he can make an overall report comprising all of these.

Q. Looking at the text, the statement of facts, as it's called in English, and taking it comparatively swiftly, this document is genuine and records an interview conducted with a private who told the officer: "When we turned off on to the Skabrnja road, I saw from the BOV a ZNG member lying dead. There was a semi-automatic rifle next to him. As we entered the village, the territorials and volunteers ... who call themselves Chetniks, brought a group of around 20 civilians out of a cellar. One of them had a PAP. They immediately took him behind the BOV and shot him. They lined up an old woman and two old men in front of the BOV, made them lie on the ground and shot them in the back of the head. "Three men were taken from one of the houses. One was around 35 and the other two around 45 ... They questioned them for a bit in the ¹⁵⁹⁵⁰ courtyard, and then shot them.

"I have also heard stories that they killed a woman of 19 with an eight-month-old child, but I didn't see that myself. "They brought a girl and -- a father and daughter out of the cellar. They immediately killed the father with an automatic rifle. They knocked her down to the ground, pulled her hair, and said, 'Do you want to suffer the same fate as your father?' I shouted, 'Don't shoot,' and pointed my rifle at him. We later took the girl to the command. "I saw territorials steering a group of five civilians ahead of them and then they positioned them in front of the tank so that they could lead the way to serve as a shield. As we were heading towards Nadin, I saw that the territorials had captured a civilian. The chief of the public security service, Drazic, was talking to him, but I later heard that they had killed him too."

The officer whose report this would appear to be notes from the information provided by this private: "Certain groups of territorials have behaved more as a gang than an army. Soldiers were revolted by this sort of behaviour to such an extent that they almost came into direct confrontation with them in order to protect some Croatian civilians." So thus what appears to you a regular report at the end of November 1991.

A. Yes. According to its form, the way it was compiled, this isn't a report, actually, it was an Official Note of his. And on the basis of the first pieces of information, this security organ should have checked out the information and the documents. First this driver, this is the driver ¹⁵⁹⁵¹ of a military police vehicle, and they have a leader, komandir, from the military police. So what should have been done was to call for an official report by the military police commander who was in that armoured vehicle. Now, whether he did this later on, I don't know. But what he describes here I don't doubt.

Q. And if we look at the next, also an Official Note, tab 34. Is this another Official Note which you've reviewed? Subject to again its being a single copy, does it appear to you to be in due form?

A. Yes, it does.

MR. NICE: I'm not going to read all of it. This comes from a lieutenant, as we can see from the third page of the English. He deals with the fighting in the village of Skabrnja and says that the members of paramilitary Ustasha formations and civilians were killed. He then lists the people who were killed, and we can read that detail for ourselves. We can see that included are people, particularly women, age that should make it surprising for them to be killed.

And there's a further statement of reasons, if the Chamber has that. I may have confused them. I've been reading what I hope is 34. That was 34? And 35 may be the next document.

The one I've been reading from, apparently, was 35. 34 -- the one I was reading from is 35. 34. Perhaps the witness could have this document, whatever its number, which is the statement of reasons. If the witness could have a look at that and see if that accords with normal --

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. ¹⁵⁹⁵²

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] I think that there must be a misunderstanding here, because what I have before me, which is in tab 33, was read under 34, and what I have in these documents -- this is actually a report without a signature. All it is is typed out --

JUDGE MAY: It doesn't matter about that for the moment, unless you're taking an objection. Let's try and sort out which document is which. Mr. Nice, can you do that, please.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] But I have it, I do have an objection. This document, the document that we have in tab 33, is in fact a report, a typewritten report, without anything, no signature or any other kind of characteristic showing that it is an official document.

JUDGE MAY: No. Well, those are matters of weight, as we've ruled on other occasions.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I think there's -- sorry. There's --

JUDGE MAY: It's a matter of weight. We'll decide what weight to give to it.

Yes.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, so far the exhibit number is concerned, the 23rd of November, 1991, document, one page of text in the original and one and a half pages of text in the English, is tab 33, or should be. Tab 34, I'm going to -- I am told by Ms. Dicklich is the statement of reasons. And therefore, when I suggested the document I was reading was tab 34, I was wrong. That was tab 35.

JUDGE MAY: We've got in front of the statement -- we've got, or I have, rather, a reference to the Motorised Brigade on the first page of ¹⁵⁹⁵³ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹⁵⁹⁵⁴ 34, tab 34. "Note of work method applied." I've got three pages of that, and then it comes to the blank page and then to the statement of reasons.

MR. NICE: Yes. That's 34, and it was my error to say that the document being reviewed was 34. So this is 34, and the witness must look at it and confirm that it is in due order.

A. Yes.

MR. NICE: And we can see from this that the officer whose reasons are being recorded sets out how, on the 25th of December, he contacted some body or individual regarding information on the killing of civilians in the village of Skabrnja, to be told that Goran Opacic had visited, talking of how there were killings of civilians, mostly women and old men, in Skabrnja that a volunteer Chetnik known as Jaro Jare from Prebilovac in Herzegovina, with a friend from the same unit, were particularly prominent. He was an active-duty soldier, constantly moving around in the military formation with them. When an old man was running away, the active-duty soldier took a rocket launcher and asked a Chetnik, Can I photograph him and hit him with the rocket launcher. The reporting Goran Opacic said he had never seen a more terrible sight because the man was blown to pieces, with just a leg remaining nearby. And he heard that that evening Zoric, whose first name he didn't know, was somewhere in the Territorial Defence unit around town, showing people a bag containing human ears. And he went into a cafe-bar and called a waitress over and showed her a glass with an ear in it.

So that was the statement of reasons, and the general confirms that that's in due order. ¹⁵⁹⁵⁵ And then Exhibit 35, which I had incorrectly described as 34, is the document about which the witness has already expressed his satisfaction that it accords with form, and that is the Official Note. I've reviewed it in summary earlier. I don't propose to go further into it.

With my apologies for that confusion, may we thus produce tabs 33 and 34 and 35. Sweeping up, my final sweeping up before we move, I think, to Kosovo, is in fact as early as page 3 of the summary. Two points. One in relation to reporting.

Q. General, you've told us a lot about reporting already. Now, I think communication between the military districts and the SSNO would, in principle, run through the operations centre of the Chief of the General Staff; is that correct?

A. Yes. They would go -- information would go via the operations sector -- section.

Q. The Federal Secretariat had the ultimate right on communication directly with the military districts?

A. The Federal Secretary, yes.

Q. Did the operations centre prepare daily reports on events that related to the JNA for distribution to the SSNO and the Chief of the General Staff?

A. Yes.

Q. And did General Kadijevic, on receiving those reports, communicate directly with his subordinates in the various operational units - for example, a military district - without going through the Chief of the ¹⁵⁹⁵⁶ General Staff?

A. Yes. He could have contacted directly.

Q. And then finally on this part, different issue at paragraph 20. You told us about the activation of the Supreme Command and the Supreme Command Staff according to legal procedures, and normally only activated when one of the three states we've heard about came into being or was declared.

In fact, did the Supreme Command come into being or find itself activated on any occasions, to your knowledge, without that appropriate step being taken, the declaration or finding of one of the relevant states?

A. Well, I can't know exactly when the state of immediate war was proclaimed, but objectively speaking, war operations went forward regardless of whether this was proclaimed or not. For example, in Slovenia in 1990, the term "Supreme Command Staff" was used, and we would meet as a staff. It was the title, actually, was the Supreme Command Staff, but who actually met were all those people whom the Federal Secretary for Defence thought had competencies in certain areas relevant to the situation. So this term "staff" probably started being used prior to the state of emergency or state of imminent threat of war being proclaimed.

Q. Kosovo, then, please, page 35. In fact, we'll start at page 37. General, having been prematurely retired in 1992, as you've described, maintaining contacts, as your evidence reveals, to some degree thereafter, did you volunteer for service in the VJ when NATO attacked the ¹⁵⁹⁵⁷ FRY?

A. Yes, like many other retired officers and generals.

Q. The position to which you were appointed was what?

A. I was appointed deputy head of the security administration of the General Staff.

Q. And the appointment was on or about the 27th of April of 1999, by General Ojdanic?

A. Yes. I was appointed by a decree of the president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Q. Shortly before that, had you met the accused? If so, just summarise the exchange you had with him.

A. Two days before the appointment by this decree, I was invited for a meeting, a discussion, with Mr. Milosevic. This was an informal conversation, a broader one. The first option was that I would be appointed security advisor to the Chief of General Staff. However, during this conversation, he told me that I would be appointed deputy head of the administration.

I don't know whether there is anything noteworthy from this conversation that I need to present now.

Q. It might help us if you just gave us a couple of words of an exchange. Was something said by you about the terms upon which you would do this work or the terms upon which you were re-engaged at all?

A. That is not putting it appropriately, that I could name the terms in any way. When the now accused asked me what had happened to me, I told him, inter alia, about the problems that the volunteers caused in the war ¹⁵⁹⁵⁸ in 1991 and 1992, and I said that I had clashes in that respect both with them and with people from the then-MUP and that I would not want to deviate from those principles now either if I were to be reactivated, and he said to me, "That's the kind of man I need."

Q. During the conflict with NATO, General Geza Farkas was head of UB?

A. Yes.

Q. He was your immediate superior, he having been appointed --

A. Yes.

Q. -- in place of Aleksandar Dimitrijevic, his predecessor.

A. Yes.

Q. Briefly about the flow of UB information at this time. Paragraph 200. Reporting put together for the Chief of the General Staff and other staff, and who had the ultimate decision of where reports went from Kosovo sources?

A. I can talk about reports from the province of work of the security organs. They were sent along the vertical line up to the security administration, and selections were made at every lower level of command. As for this information, the Chief of General Staff was informed about all of them, and he decided which particular pieces of information would then be forwarded to the president of Yugoslavia.

Q. So that would be General Ojdanic?

A. Yes.

Q. Paragraph 201. Any crimes of which the UB became aware in the Pristina Corps would have been brought to the attention of General Lazarevic? ¹⁵⁹⁵⁹

A. That's the way it should be.

Q. And his obligation would be to have reported to whom?

A. He would have to report on the basis of selection as to what was relevant. He would have to report to the commander of the 3rd Army.

Q. And that would then take those reports, as appropriate, to General Ojdanic?

A. Yes. That is the ultimate instance.

Q. The general in charge of the 3rd Army at that stage being?

A. General Nebojsa Pavkovic.

Q. We saw on the bridge at Vukovar.

A. Yes.

Q. The composition of the General Staff you've set out, and it would probably be easier if I simply read it. This was the General Staff during the state of war. Chief of General Staff, General Ojdanic. Deputy Chief of the General Staff, General Svetozar Marjanovic. Assistant to the Chief of the General Staff for operative affairs, General Blagoje Kovacevic. Assistant to the Chief of the General Staff for land forces, General Simic. Assistant to the Chief of the General Staff for the navy, Admiral Vlado Nokovic. Assistant to the General Staff for the air force, General Bane Petrovic. Head of the VJ Security Service, as we heard, General Geza Farkas. Assistant to the Chief of the General Staff for intelligence, General Branko Krga. Assistant to the Chief of the General Staff for logistics, General Pantelic. And at least until last week you did not remember the name of the assistant to the chief of the General Staff for morale. ¹⁵⁹⁶⁰

A. Yes.

Q. Paragraph 204. During the extraordinary states, as we've heard, the General Staff becomes known as the Supreme Command Staff, and the President of the FRY, as the Commander-in-Chief of the VJ, commands the VJ through the Supreme Command. Would that be correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Now, the term "Supreme Commander" gets used from time to time. To your knowledge, did it actually exist in the legislation?

A. I don't know exactly how things stand in -- on paper, but in fact, this is the Supreme Commander if the person concerned commands the army.

Q. And was that title appropriate for the accused?

A. Yes.

Q. The Supreme Command comprised the Supreme Command Staff and what else or who else?

A. Well, the Supreme Defence Council. That's the way it should be.

Q. Did this incorporate the Minister of Defence?

A. Yes.

Q. During the state of war, was the Supreme Command located in a single place or dispersed in various locations in Belgrade?

A. Various locations around Belgrade.

Q. Were there daily briefings of the Supreme Command?

A. I cannot know that. I know that the Supreme Command Staff met on a daily basis.

Q. And representation of the UB on the General Staff or within the Supreme Command would come how? ¹⁵⁹⁶¹

A. The security administration was not deployed at the same places where the Supreme Command Staff was, and usually one of the senior officers or a general would take part in the work of the Supreme Command Staff on a daily basis. But people took turns. It wasn't always the same person.

Q. If we can look at tab 37, please. There is a document purporting to be minutes of the 8th session of the Supreme Defence Council held on the 25th of December, 1998, in Belgrade. And have you reviewed it so as to be satisfied that it would seem to be generally representative of the materials that might be dealt with at such a meeting?

A. I was not present at such meetings. However, according to the form in line with which this document was made, I think that this does reflect the functioning of this type of body.

Q. We can see on the first page, and I'm not going to take you through very much of it, but we can see on the first page that the composition is the accused presiding, with the President of Serbia, Milan Milutinovic, and of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic; together with vice-presidents of the federal government, Nikola Sainovic; Federal Minister of Defence, Pavle Bulatovic; and General Ojdanic as Chief of the General Staff; and Slavoljub Susic as Secretary of the Supreme Defence Council.

That's the composition of this particular meeting. And if we go on to English page 13, and in the original unnumbered pages I think it will be about -- I'm afraid I can't find it for you. I think it may be about three or four pages in from the end. But there's a passage that ¹⁵⁹⁶² begins with President Djukanovic not wanting to comment on candidates, especially because he personally knew only a couple of them, emphasising controversial information on the Pristina Corps engagement in Kosovo. Can you find that passage where, as the context of the document as a whole, you'll see that President Djukanovic --

A. I have found it.

Q. And we see in this paragraph President Djukanovic questioning Pavkovic's qualities. And then if we see the next paragraph down, we see the accused agreeing with Djukanovic's remarks that there were -- there's a mistake in the preparations and the lists were given together with the motions. After reviewing the documents, however, President Djukanovic said that the materials provided were sufficient. When commenting on his dilemma about General Pavkovic, the accused said there were no complaints from any side about unlawful behaviour of the Pristina Corps.

This passage reflects what, so far as you're concerned -- and is it a topic of which you had knowledge contemporaneously?

A. I only know about the general situation, the general debate that took place when General Pavkovic was supposed to be appointed. However, I'm not aware of these details, and therefore, I cannot give an assessment as to what was discussed and what the problems involved were, because it's written in rather general terms over here as well.

Q. What was known publicly at the time -- or I say publicly. What was known to those of you in high office within the various parts of the forces and security services and so on? What was known about the ¹⁵⁹⁶³ appointment of Pavkovic and the attitudes taken by the accused and President Djukanovic?

A. Well, you know what? President Djukanovic at that time was in a position of obstruction. Perhaps I can put it that way. Even vis-a-vis Yugoslavia as a whole. And I think that it is from that point of view that he put this question why these personnel proposed appointments were not submitted to him earlier. So his was a restrained position, a reserved position, and probably if he had something more specific on the situation in Kosovo and on the problems that he was speaking of, I assume that he would have said so.

However, as for General Pavkovic, in that period of time it was widely known that the then-president of Yugoslavia was inclined towards him and that he definitely influenced his candidature and appointment.

Q. Can we turn to the accused's authority over the MUP. Was the MUP part of the -- formally part of the Supreme Command?

A. I cannot say that with any certainty, but MUP was practically under the control of the accused along the vertical line that went through the Minister of the Interior of Serbia and then further on in-depth. However, at the time when I held these positions during the state of war, I am not aware that anyone from the MUP ever attended meetings of the Supreme Command Staff. That means that they did not attend meetings of the Supreme Command either.

Q. Mr. Stanisic again, as head of the RDB, what reporting was done by him to the accused?

A. I don't know to what degree, but he certainly had to report to him ¹⁵⁹⁶⁴ and inform him regularly, bearing in mind the fact that he was immediately subordinated to him.

Q. Can you explain for the Chamber, please, the process whereby the accused's direction became an operational plan for the army of which he was effectively Commander-in-Chief.

A. I can explain that in principle. When the army or the chief of General Staff are issued a concrete order and when an objective is set that is to be achieved, then in principle in the staff the situation involved is assessed and proposals are presented on the way in which the armed forces could be used. This proposal as to the way in which the armed forces could be used should then be presented to the Supreme Commander by the chief of General Staff. And then upon his verification, this would come into effect, or certain corrections are made if any such corrections were made in the process.

Q. And the authorisation of a proposal as amended, is this to be a signed document?

A. As far as I know, if this is a general directive on the use of the armed forces, there should be a signature, saying "I approve," and this means that this is approval of the Supreme Commander. This also refers to maps where the deployment of forces is actually charted.

Q. And once that step's been taken, is the next step to issue instructions to strategic groups of the decisions for the use of the VJ?

A. Yes.

Q. And so on down the chain of command from strategic groups to their various subordinate commands? ¹⁵⁹⁶⁵

A. Yes.

Q. In your summary, you make a reference to contingency plans existing even in peacetime. Perhaps obviously in a country surrounded by many other countries, there could have been contingency plans to cope with various possibilities; correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Would there be documents specifically approved and even signed by the accused, even if they needed fleshing out with detail should the relevant crisis occur?

A. I don't know about that. I know about the period when I did service at the JNA when states of emergency were proclaimed - twice actually - for the situation in Kosovo. But I don't know whether a state of emergency was proclaimed later on.

Q. Very well, then we won't trouble you with that earlier detail at this stage.

Information going to the accused, please, from Ojdanic on what basis as to regularity?

A. I don't know, but I assume that he received daily reports which were compiled by the operations centre of the General Staff.

Q. And the Chief of the General Staff himself was kept informed by a regular reporting system upwards to him, with consolidation of information from lower units producing daily reports and other reports. Would that be correct?

A. Yes, correct.

Q. And might there be yet further reports informing Ojdanic outside ¹⁵⁹⁶⁶ ^{BLANK PAGE} ¹⁵⁹⁶⁷ of or certainly independent of the operations centre which would be handling the majority of regular reports?

A. There would be, because it was under his competence to command the strategic groups under him. So he could have received oral reports. He could have asked for special reports. So that is separate from the line going from the operations centre.

Q. We'll deal now with a meeting on the 1st of June, 1999, when you went to Kosovo to inspect the UB units. And while you were there, did General Pavkovic invite you to attend a meeting of the Joint Command?

A. Yes, he did, but he didn't tell me that it was a meeting. He just told me to come to him.

Q. When you got there, did you find that it was indeed a meeting?

A. Yes. The meeting started soon afterwards. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Sainovic, and with him to attend the meeting Andjelkovic arrived, Zoran Andjelkovic. Of the generals, the JNA generals present, there was General Pavkovic, General Lazarevic, myself, and colonel chief of security in the Pristina Corps with whom I came to the meeting. He was there too. From the MUP, there was General Djordjevic present, General Stevanovic, and General Lukic.

Q. I think you've mentioned Colonel Stojanovic. Was he significant and was he there?

A. He was chief of security of the Pristina Corps, yes.

Q. Was an absentee identified?

A. General Djordjevic said that the absentee was General Ilic, that he wouldn't be attending the meeting. ¹⁵⁹⁶⁸

Q. And the reason for his absence on this particular day, the 1st of June, 1999, was what?

A. According to what was said, he was on assignment with respect to cleaning up or mopping up the battleground.

Q. And the particular word that we use for cleaning up or mopping up -- beg your pardon. The particular word that you use was what?

A. It was the prescribed procedure of doing away with the bodies, clearing the terrain of the bodies of people or animals and other noxious material that could have a negative effect on the health of the population, cause epidemics or other hazardous effects.

Q. But is the word indeed "asanacija"?

A. Yes, "asanacija bojista."

Q. The explanation for General Ilic's absence led you to conclude that he was a normal or regular attender?

A. Yes.

Q. Was there any representative there from the state security, the RDB?

A. No.

Q. You checked on the number of seats around the table and formed what view?

A. Well, there was a seat that was empty, and that was the seat that probably should have been occupied by General Ilic. At the head of the table, in the presiding chair, was Mr. Sainovic, and to his left were Generals -- well, the colonel that I mentioned. To his right was Zoran Andjelkovic and the MUP generals. And opposite him, on the other side of ¹⁵⁹⁶⁹ the table to Mr. Sainovic, was General Lukic.

Q. On this occasion where we have to deal with things normally fairly swiftly, I want you to help the Judges, please, with who had authority. Who was revealed as having authority, and how did that become clear? You said Sainovic was in the chair. How was he treated by all the others?

A. Both according to his position around the table and also according to the other people's relationship and conduct towards him and by virtue of the fact that he in fact chaired the meeting, Mr. Sainovic had the dominant role in all of this.

JUDGE MAY: In fact Mr. Nice, we have to adjourn on time today. We'll go on tomorrow. How much longer do you think you'll be with this witness?

MR. NICE: I should think at least the first session.

JUDGE MAY: We will adjourn now. General Vasiljevic, will you be back, please, 9.00 tomorrow morning.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.45 p.m., to be reconvened on Thursday, the 13th day of

February, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.