18383
Wednesday, 2 April 2003
[Open session]
[The witness entered court]
[The accused entered court]
--- Upon commencing at 9.12 a.m.
JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.
WITNESS: WITNESS B-[Resumed]
[Witness answered through interpreter] Examined by Mr. Nice: [Continued]
Q. B-071, yesterday we started to look at a map.
MR. NICE: Can it now be produced. It's going to be Exhibit 336/71A.
And if the Chamber has it in the same form that I have, it's copied on two sides. It's an extract from our standard atlas, with markings by the witness.
Q. Very swiftly, because I don't want to take unnecessary time when you've given the evidence orally, does this map show, starting on the first side at number 1 near Mrkonjic, the various places where you were held: First, Mrkonjic Grad; then the second place marked, hard to read just to the south of Trnovo; the third place to the north of that, the fourth place up on the right-hand side at Prnjavor; and then over the page, the fifth place, Derventa?
A. Yes.
Q. Paragraph 10, page 4. I asked you yesterday about senior soldiers visiting the barracks Zdravko Pcelar at Derventa. 18384
A. Yes.
Q. Think back and tell us of the most senior generals that you saw visit there by name.
A. I remember Momir Talic, Slavko Lisica - the former Major Lisica Slavko - Bosko Pejovic, lieutenant colonel.
Q. Do you remember any other generals who visited there, please?
A. I do remember, but I've just forgotten just now.
Q. In the summer of 1995, paragraph 11, were people cleaning the streets in Derventa town to which, as you told us yesterday, you had general access? Were you there by coincidence when an event happened involving Arkan's military policemen?
A. Yes.
Q. What was that? What happened?
A. When I left the barracks compound to have a walk, people were cleaning the streets, and I was there when Arkan's army turned up. I just noticed a Chevrolet, a black one, and they were taking -- collecting up people from the street, and they were deserters, looking for deserters.
Q. Where were they taken?
A. They were taken in the direction of Prijedor.
Q. Were you included in those who were picked up?
A. Yes.
Q. You having no papers on you at the time?
A. No.
Q. Having been picked up in that way, what happened to you? Were you put to work in a unit? 18385
A. Yes.
THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please repeat his answer.
JUDGE MAY: Could you repeat that, please, for the interpreters.
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] When Arkan's army collected us up, we worked for Arkan's army. We went to the battlefront, carried ammunition, helped in the kitchen, that kind of thing.
MR. NICE:
Q. And the name of the unit of which you were now a member was what?
A. The Serb Volunteer Guards.
Q. Was there a unit by the name of Partizaneri?
A. Yes. That was a work obligation unit.
Q. Did you work in that unit or not?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have a uniform provided at this time?
A. Yes, I did. I had a camouflage uniform but without any insignia.
Q. And no beret and no weapon?
A. No. No.
Q. Were you paid at all?
A. No.
Q. After a short time in Prijedor, were you relocated or located to the area of Mrkonjic Grad and the village of Mala Manjaca?
A. Yes.
MR. NICE: Perhaps the witness can now have on the overhead projector Exhibit 336/71B, another marked page from our standard atlas.
Q. And does this marked map, marked by you, show movements of Arkan's 18386 Tigers starting at Derventa, moving to Prijedor, and then we can see further down Mrkonjic Grad, so that we've covered the first three locations?
A. Yes.
Q. Your knowledge of and experience of Arkan's units enabled you to tell us, please, how they were divided. What were the subdivisions of his paramilitary formation?
A. Well, for example, he had a special purposes unit. Then he had his tank people and the artillery, mortars and snipers, professional ones. And he had intervention units, that kind of thing.
Q. Was there a military police unit?
A. Yes. They wore black uniforms.
Q. A reconnaissance unit?
A. Yes.
Q. And a communications unit?
A. Yes.
Q. The ranks used by Arkan's Tigers, were they similar to or different from the normal military ranks?
A. Well, mostly they were different ranks.
Q. To what other military organisation did the ranks in his formation most correspond?
A. Like, for example, the army of Republika Srpska but different names. They were called differently. For example, lance corporals in the Srpska Republika army was a corporal in his army. That was the name of the ranks. 18387
Q. Have you ever likened the formation of Arkan's unit to any foreign military force?
A. Well, yes. There were some others there, other insignia, like the Eagles and the Milicija, militia.
Q. Very well. As to uniforms, you've told us about the camouflage uniforms. Were they NATO in style?
A. Yes.
Q. The officers, what colour were their uniforms?
A. They wore camouflage uniforms in two parts. Two-piece.
Q. Were there any solid-colour uniforms, uniforms of a single colour worn?
A. There were green uniforms with the garrison, and they were the tank unit soldiers that wore them.
Q. What did the officers wear when they were not on active manoeuvre? What colour uniforms did they wear?
A. Camouflage NATO uniforms, two-piece, red berets, and so on.
Q. What colour berets did the ordinary soldiers and non-commissioned ranks wear?
A. The non-commissioned officers wore red with black berets.
Q. Were soldiers and officers equipped with automatic weapons?
A. Yes.
Q. The soldiers having what kind of weapons, typically?
A. Automatic weapons.
THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please repeat the type of weapon. 18388
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Snipers, Hecklers, Scorpios, et cetera.
MR. NICE:
Q. The officers usually had what type of weapons?
A. Automatic weapons and pistols.
Q. Any particular make of automatic weapon?
A. Well, they did have some weapons, but I'm not well-versed in the types of weapons. F-16, I think.
Q. Were there military jeeps available?
THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness please repeat his answer. We're finding it difficult to follow.
JUDGE MAY: Could you repeat the answer, please.
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They were mostly all civilian cars, but they were just painted the black.
MR. NICE:
Q. Were there any jeeps that you can recall?
A. With a tiger on the door. Pajero jeeps, Nissan, Mercedes.
Q. Were there any accounts of where these vehicles that Arkan's units used had come from?
A. They were all taken from the surroundings of Vukovar. Slavonski Brod, Vukovar.
Q. Were Arkan's men divided within themselves as between Tigers and something called Super Tigers?
A. Yes.
Q. Who were the Tigers? Who were the Super Tigers? What defined 18389 them?
A. Tigers were ordinary Tigers from 1992 onwards, whereas the Super Tigers were from 1991, from the attacks on Slavonia, and they had different patches on their sleeves.
Q. Did some of those men tell you about operations they'd been on? Did they say where they'd been in operation?
A. Not in Bosnia, but they spoke about Erdut and Vukovar.
Q. Did they tell you anything about operations in Bosnia, please?
A. They spoke of Bosanski Samac, Bijeljina, Zvornik.
Q. And you've described --
A. -- remember any more.
Q. [Previous translation continues]... because that's where the vehicles came from. In telling you of these operations, did the soldiers concerned say anything about whether people had been killed in the course of these operations?
A. Not in Bosnia. They didn't make any mention of any such thing.
Q. Did they make any such mention of any such things in any other such places?
A. Yes, in Vukovar, when we came to Erdut.
Q. Did the Super Tigers appear to have privileges over and above the ordinary Tigers?
A. They had different documents.
Q. Did they have any other privileges about when they had to parade and matters of that sort?
A. They didn't have to line up. They would come to the camp compound 18390 drunk. They would harass the other soldiers. If someone made a mistake, he would be disciplined by being beaten with a truncheon, tied to a lamppost, poured water over them in the middle of winter, and things like that. Those were the measures of discipline.
Q. The Tigers and Super Tigers, can you look, please, at this exhibit which will be on the screen, Exhibit 349, tab 2 and tab 8. Do you recognise if that's -- that's tab 2, yes. Do you recognise that patch?
A. Yes.
Q. What is it?
A. This is the patch of the Serbian Volunteer Guards. This was borne by regular soldiers from 1992 onwards.
And this also is a Tiger patch.
Q. Very well. Can we look --
JUDGE KWON: Mr. Nice, the previous one, was that tab 2 or tab 3?
MR. NICE: Tab 3. I'm grateful. Previously tendered through B-1738. Thank you very much.
JUDGE KWON: If the witness can tell the difference between tab 4 and tab 8.
MR. NICE: Can you bring up tab 4, please.
Q. This is tab 4, and then tab 8, please. What's the difference between --
JUDGE KWON: No. Tab 8. A tiger but different colour.
MR. NICE:
Q. Just one minute, please. 18391
JUDGE KWON: This is tab 4, and this is tab 8.
THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Your Honour.
MR. NICE:
Q. [Previous translation continues]... Tiger patches, please.
A. The difference is in the colour. And these were worn by the Super Tigers. They're different in colour.
Q. His Honour may want to know which one, or was it both -- if only one, which one was worn by the Super Tigers?
A. This one.
Q. And the other one? Go back to the other one, please. And was this one worn by --
A. This was worn by Tigers who joined from 1992 and onwards.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May.
JUDGE MAY: Yes.
THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone.
JUDGE MAY: They haven't got the microphone.
THE ACCUSED: Yesterday I got instruction to press the button here.
[Interpretation] I understand that this is a protected witness, among other things by voice distortion, but I wish to draw attention to the fact that the distortion is such, is so extreme, that his speech is totally incomprehensible, and that is why, as you see, the interpreters are having a problem too. So could the technical department distort the voice in such a way that he is -- that he is comprehensible? We are just hearing muttering noises. 18392
MR. NICE: He doesn't have voice distortion.
JUDGE MAY: There's no voice distortion, I'm told, in his case. We'll try and get the witness to speak as clearly as he can, and we'll put -- yes, put the second microphone on. If you put his second microphone on, it may help.
THE INTERPRETER: Could the witness perhaps move away from the microphone just a little bit.
JUDGE MAY: What is suggested is that you move a bit further from the microphone. Could you move a bit further away. We'll see how we get on.
MR. NICE:
Q. Concluding the patches for the time being, did they wear different patches on each shoulder?
A. Yes.
Q. So this one -- we'll move to the next one. And that one would be on the same soldier but on different sides of his body; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Just going back to one topic: You were telling us about the cars that were available to Arkan's men, a black car with a tiger on the door. Did you ever travel in such a car yourself?
A. Yes, but mostly in vans and jeeps. And all these vehicles had certain markings on them. Only the official vehicle used by Arkan had no markings on it.
Q. And these marked vehicles, did you ever travel with them across the border of Serbia? 18393
A. Yes, I did. I travelled in a kombi van.
Q. Any difficulties in crossing that border, or was it easy to do?
A. There were no problems. Arkan's guards had an advantage everywhere. They could move around Republika Srpska, Vukovar, Serbia. The way they behaved, they could go around anywhere.
Q. The jeeps, where was it said that they had come from?
A. I don't understand. Could you explain, please?
Q. Yes. You've told us where the cars came from, but where did the jeeps -- you've now told us there were jeeps. Where had those jeeps come from? Where had they been obtained?
A. From Belgrade mostly.
Q. Mr. B-071, you have produced in your statement and now reproduced as a separate exhibit a list of Tigers by name where you know the name, or a part name where you only know part of the name. That is tab 1 in this exhibit.
A. Yes.
Q. Exhibit 416.
MR. NICE: Your Honour, the list itself, which can be placed on the overhead projector, there's no problem with that, is of 93 names. There's a colour-coded version which I have.
Can we place the English version on the overhead projector? And can we provide a B/C/S version to the witness, Usher, please. Your Honour, I'm going to read out from the list about 20 names in order that they can be on the LiveNote record not least for searching purposes but also because they're important names. 18394 BLANK PAGE 18395
Q. B-071, have you identified from this general list of names --
A. Yes.
Q. -- those who are or were to your knowledge Super Tigers?
A. Yes.
Q. I'm going to read some names and I want you to say yes if it be the case that these are all Super Tigers. Number 2, Darko, also known as Ludilo?
A. Yes.
Q. Number 9, Mirko, also known as Siki or Cale?
A. Yes.
Q. Number 10, Nedeljko, also known as Niski?
A. Yes.
Q. Number 11, Srdjan, also known as Duma?
A. Yes.
Q. Number 13, Zoran from Bosanski Novi?
A. Yes.
Q. Number 14, another Zoran, also known as Mali Rambo?
A. Yes.
Q. Number 22, Zoran, also known as Cobe?
A. Yes.
Q. Number 25, somebody known as Hans, an NCO who was injured in battles at Mrkonjic Grad?
A. Yes.
Q. Staying with the list of Super Tigers, going to number 38, was there somebody called or known as Valjevac, captain? 18396
A. Yes.
Q. 39, Veliki Rambo?
A. Yes.
Q. 41, somebody known as Zizi, a military policeman?
A. Yes.
Q. 43, Agbaba Dragoslav, from Vukovar?
A. Yes.
Q. 47, Mile Dragutinovic?
A. Yes.
Q. These are all Super Tigers?
A. Yes.
Q. Number 51, Branko Gluscevic?
A. Yes.
Q. 53, Miroslav Grmusa?
A. Yes.
Q. 58, Zvonko Matijevic?
A. Yes.
Q. 59, Dusko Nikolic, also known as Dule?
A. Yes.
Q. 61, Djordje Opsenica?
A. Yes.
Q. 63, Miroslav Sarac?
A. Yes.
Q. 64 Radomir Trojanovic?
A. Yes. 18397
Q. Dragan Zaric, also known as Jerry?
A. Yes.
Q. And on the last page, the last six Super Tigers: 78, Goran Kuvelja, from Montenegro?
A. Yes.
Q. 79, Mladen Lukic, also known as Boske?
A. Yes.
Q. 80, Veselin Plavsic, also known as Veso?
A. Yes.
Q. 86, somebody known as Dijabola?
A. Yes.
Q. 88, somebody known as Laki?
A. Yes.
Q. And finally 91, Igor whose full name you didn't know but he was also known as Trubac?
A. Yes.
Q. And those are the Super Tigers, and then there are just six other names --
A. Yes.
Q. -- of -- six other names, Your Honour, that have already been mentioned in the testimony of other witnesses, and I'll draw them to your attention. Starting on the second sheet, number 26, was there a Tiger known as Kaljavi, later killed in Bosanski Novi?
A. Yes.
Q. Number 28, was there a Tiger known as Legija from the French 18398 Foreign Legion, an instructor who runs a discotheque, or did at the time of your statement, Zambi in Belgrade, and had a tattoo of a rose on the right side of his neck?
A. Yes.
Q. Number 37, a man known as Suca or Suco who was present in Erdut and was a sniper?
A. Yes.
Q. Over the page to 62, a man called Nikola Saponja, born in Mostar, one of Arkan's bodyguards --
A. Yes.
Q. -- karate champion?
A. Yes.
Q. And his brother Miroslav Saponja was involved in the security or construction staff in Belgrade; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. 65, Mile Ulemek, from Dalj, head of the communications unit?
A. Yes.
Q. And finally number 75, Goran Bozovic, also known as Raja, who had a position with the state security and was a frequent visitor to Arkan at his party headquarters?
A. Yes.
Q. B-071, with an eye to the exhibit showing the movement of Arkan's men, were you in September 1995 relocated from Prijedor to Mala Manjaca near Mrkonjic Grad, and was it there that you saw Arkan on an occasion?
A. Yes. 18399
Q. Were all soldiers lined up and did he address them?
A. Yes.
Q. Roughly how many Tigers were there?
A. His unit numbered 1.000 and a little over, men.
Q. On this occasion, what did he say to his men, did he talk about?
A. When we arrived in Mrkonjic, he said that Jasenova Kosa had to be captured and that that same day they had to move on to the front. A feature had to be captured.
Q. Yes. Was there another unit there as well as his Tigers?
A. I saw a unit with "milicija" on their sleeves, wearing blue camouflage uniforms and some with round patches like White Eagles.
Q. Did you see Arkan speaking to the commanders of those two other units; and if so, who appeared to be in charge?
A. It appeared to me that Arkan was the main boss and that everyone was listening to his orders.
Q. Can we look now, please, at Exhibit 349, tab 10. What is this the patch of?
A. The White Eagles.
Q. 349, tab 11.
A. The police of Krajina.
Q. During the operation that Arkan had spoken of, your function was to do what?
A. I don't understand.
Q. My mistake. What were you doing in the course of the operation of which Arkan spoke? What job did you do? 18400
A. I carried ammunition where necessary. For instance, grenades for mortars. And I carried food. And this was packed food from NATO, the kind of food that the UN soldiers in Bosnia are using.
Q. On the 3rd of October of 1995, did something happen to one of Arkan's Tigers, Djordje Djekic?
A. Yes. He was killed there in Perici. That's the name of the location.
Q. Were three opposing soldiers captured?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you see what happened to one of those soldiers at the hands of a Tiger called Glisa?
A. He caught him, stripped him to his underwear, hit him with his rifle butt on his legs and eventually he stuck his bayonet into his back, and he left him there lying in the yard.
Q. Did that man die?
A. I don't know what happened to him. He was lying there on the ground.
Q. Were you shown a knife afterwards?
A. Yes. He showed me that knife. There was an inscription on it. As far as I can remember, it said "Ivo Bakovic" on it, and he asked me whether I knew the man, and I said no.
Q. Is that apparently the man who had been knifed in the back by Glisa?
A. No, I didn't know that man.
Q. What ethnicity was the man who had been knifed in the back by 18401 Glisa?
A. I don't know whether he was a Muslim or a Croat, because he would take the documents immediately and hand them over to the commander.
Q. On the following day, was Arkan informed of the death of his soldier Djordje Djekic?
A. Yes.
Q. Were two captured soldiers brought to the village of Peric in Mrkonjic Grad when Arkan arrived?
A. Yes.
Q. What happened to those two captured soldiers?
A. One survived and the other one, when Arkan got out of his jeep, he took out his pistol and shot him in the head.
Q. On the 5th of October of 1995, did Arkan's unit suffer some losses in the battle, and were you injured yourself?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you taken to barracks at Mladen Stojanovic in Banja Luka?
A. Yes.
Q. Where did you discover the seriously wounded Tigers were taken for treatment?
A. They were taken to Serbia for treatment, those who lost a leg or an arm and had other serious injuries.
Q. Were they taken by helicopter?
A. Yes, from Banja Luka.
Q. You've spoken already of Arkan's discipline in part. I think you mentioned people being tied to a flagpole and beaten. Did he employ 18402 solitary confinement as punishment?
A. For instance, there were cases that people would be shut up for three days as punishment, without being given food or water. It all depended on the punishment.
Q. And at ordinary eating times, were soldiers allowed to talk one to another or not?
A. No.
Q. And did Arkan himself ever physically hit or slap people under his apparent command?
A. It would happen that he would come angry, nervous. He would lose in gambling and then he would slap an officer, a non-commissioned officer, out of fury.
Q. Very well. Can we now move, as I think you did, to Erdut. Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. We look at the map that you have yourself drawn, tab 2. For future reference or for this reference, does this map show us the location of the Erdut centre --
A. Yes.
Q. -- in juxtaposition with the kiosk and the gas station, the sugar refinery, and the road to Vukovar?
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you. That's for future reference, if helpful. When you arrived in Erdut, were you recovering from your wounds?
A. I hadn't recovered fully. I stayed in Vukovar for two or three 18403 days in order to recover.
Q. But -- and in Erdut, how many Tigers were there there when you arrived?
A. When I arrived, there weren't that many. About 300 soldiers, perhaps.
Q. Was there one incident that you were involved in concerning a well?
A. Yes.
Q. You've drawn a map of this, a redacted form of which may go on the overhead projector and is tab 3.
While that's being made available, what was your job at the well?
A. My task was to cover up the well with earth and to cover it up with branches so as to conceal it.
Q. Was one of the men working there Radomir Trojanovic?
A. Yes.
Q. What did he tell you of the well, why you were covering it up and so on?
A. I was wondering why we were doing this, and he said it was a mass grave formed there in Vukovar and that we had to conceal it so it wouldn't be noticeable.
Q. When you say a mass grave formed there in Vukovar, containing people killed where? Killed in Vukovar?
A. Most probably they were residents of Vukovar or maybe Erdut, Dalj, the places around there.
Q. Did he say from what year or years these bodies had come, when 18404 they'd been killed?
A. 1991.
Q. We can see the map again for reference. It's some distance from Erdut, and the way you've marked it, it's south and east of the Danube River. There's corn fields. You've identified where the soil came from, and you've identified a house with some evergreen trees and other features.
How near to or far from the nearest village or town was this well?
A. There was a village right there, and this was the house in the village.
Q. And the village was the village of?
A. I can't remember. I don't know.
Q. Very well. Radomir Trojanovic told you about these bodies coming from Vukovar in 1991. Did other Tigers or Super Tigers tell you of previous wartime experiences?
A. Well, for example, they would come drunk and recount stories of how they killed people around Vukovar, and children weren't spared either. They did everything they shouldn't have done.
Q. Thank you. In March of 1996, did the Tigers of Arkan leave Erdut and go to Djeletovci?
A. Yes.
Q. And when there, were they stationed beside or together with the forces of another group?
A. There was another group there, and they were the Skorpios.
Q. And they were under the command of whom? 18405 BLANK PAGE 18406
A. Ljuba Mauzer, as I heard it, a man called Ljuba Mauzer.
Q. He came from which town?
A. I don't know.
Q. Were the Skorpions similar in their discipline and equipment to the Tigers?
A. Yes. They had the same uniform. It was a camouflage NATO uniform, two pieces, and overalls with the two zips.
Q. Did they seem to be similarly disciplined and controlled to the way in which Arkan's Tigers were disciplined and controlled?
A. Yes, we could conclude that. They weren't allowed to get drunk. They weren't allowed to do what they weren't supposed to do. They would have to line up to get food.
Q. Very well. When the Tigers left Erdut, was there any looting by them?
A. Yes. They would take windows and doors from houses, for example, everything that could be used. Everything would be taken out and loaded up onto trucks.
Q. And those trucks took the looted property where?
A. They were taken off towards Serbia, to Belgrade.
Q. Do you know to which particular location?
A. I know it was close to Belgrade. They had a warehouse there.
Q. Was one of the Tigers Veliki Rambo who you've already spoken of?
A. Yes. He was the main -- in charge of the mines in Arkan's team.
Q. What did he do when property at Erdut was looted?
A. He occupied the weekend homes of people. 18407
Q. Very well. Did Arkan's Tigers finally withdraw to Serbia?
A. Yes.
Q. To Belgrade?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you now given a military booklet?
A. Yes, when I came to Belgrade.
Q. Did you carry on working for Arkan? If so, where?
A. I worked in his bakery called the Golden Crown or Zlatna Kruna, across the road from the stadium.
Q. Did you get paid or did you just get accommodation and food?
A. I was paid the first two months, but afterwards I was just given food and lodging.
Q. In 1997, did Arkan ask for your military booklet back, and everybody else's?
A. Yes.
Q. Did he make another request of you and of others?
A. Well, for example, he asked -- he came to us nicely at his party headquarters and asked whether we would like to go to the Republika Srpska or whether we preferred to remain in Yugoslavia. And depending on the decision people made, some people left, some people stayed. I decided to go back to Republika Srpska to see what had happened to my relatives. Then he took my military booklet, gave me a driver, and said, "Well, go to Doboj then."
Q. Were you taken home or somewhere else?
A. They took me to Doboj, drove me to Doboj, and the Kamenolom, the 18408 prison there. It was a civilian prison at the quarry.
Q. And were you then detained in that prison rather than being taken home as had been arranged?
A. Yes.
Q. In that prison, were you or did you in due course sign a piece of paper?
A. Yes. I had to sign a piece of paper testifying that I had committed a murder, that I had killed a man.
Q. Any truth in that?
A. No.
Q. How long did you stay in the prison?
A. About one year.
Q. Escaping in due course with the assistance of a guard, I think?
A. Yes.
Q. And on escape, were you able to walk home to Banja Luka? Or walk to Banja Luka, in any event?
A. Yes. I arrived at Banja Luka and Crna Rijeka.
Q. Just a few more questions, B-071. In Erdut, did you notice the type of visitors that Arkan received and where they came from, as judged by their car registration plates?
A. They would come -- for example, cars would come. There were some Audis, the dark type of Audi car. And then the people would wear civilian clothes, suits and ties. I remember one such man. There were some diplomatic registration plates or the BG, Belgrade licence plates.
Q. Thank you. Paragraph 27. While you were in Djeletovci, did you 18409 form some conclusions from your observations about whether Arkan had any connections with the Belgrade DB?
A. Well, for example, on one occasion when we were going back from Djeletovci where we cut down the forest for Arkan's bridge there, we encountered two policemen. They were wearing uniforms. And at that -- and we were stopped and asked whether we had anything to do with the commander because he had a package for the commander. He took up his Motorola and called 99, which was their commander's signal, the connection, communication, and he sent two vehicles and took off -- took away the package towards Djeletovci.
Q. Are you also aware of an incident in March or April of 1996, shortly before you left for Belgrade, when there was a shipment that arrived for Arkan in a refrigerated truck?
A. Yes.
Q. The people in the van -- sorry. The truck had licence plates from which country?
A. I couldn't see the licence plates, but from Serbia.
Q. Very well. The people with the truck dressed in what uniform?
A. One of them was wearing civilian clothing, a suit with a tie, and the other one was wearing the militia uniform.
Q. Is that the blue uniform?
A. Yes, camouflage.
Q. And did a man known as Padobranac, one of Arkan's soldiers, take possession of the shipment?
A. Yes. He called up the headquarters over there and two vehicles 18410 turned up. He took over the consignment and took it off.
Q. And the consignment turned out pretty obviously to be what?
A. When I came to Djeletovci, I saw that there were -- that the weapons were protected from corrosion. There were new uniforms, and I concluded that it was probably weapons and uniforms.
Q. And at this time, B-071, was it easy or difficult to travel between Serbia and Eastern Slavonia? You've probably covered this already, but was it in fact easy or difficult to make that journey?
A. When we would go from west -- from Western Slavonia to Serbia, there was no difficulty at the border crossings.
Q. In Belgrade, did you have a couple of experiences suggesting what Arkan's contacts there were with the DB? In particular, were you once checked yourself when you didn't have your ID cards with you and was Arkan or Arkan's name able to help you?
A. There was one case when I was stopped by a police patrol on the 20 -- the 29th of November was the name of the police station. They took me off down there and asked who I was and where my documents were. I said I didn't have any documents, that I forgot them in my room and that I was working at Arkan's bakery. And then they let me go straight away.
Q. A man called Duma had similar problems. Arkan discovered about it, and did he then go and address the shift officer who'd been dealing with Duma for lack of identification, and did he smack the man, the police officer concerned, and fire him from his job?
A. That man, that Super Tiger who had lost a leg on the front had some problems. He asked him what had happened, and he just waved his 18411 hand, and Arkan didn't like that. He didn't like you not to answer his questions. Because there was the Super Tigers and there was a difference between the Super Tigers and Tigers. And he said he had had some problems at the police station and they hassled him there because they didn't have an ID document of any kind. And then Arkan put him into his own Chevrolet and took him off to the station. And when Duma returned, he told us that on the spot he dismissed two or three of them and slapped the others who had mistreated him or hassled him.
Q. That's enough of that kind of evidence, thank you very much. You'll be asked some further questions, B-071.
JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:
Q. [Interpretation] Mr. B-071, what were you, a Tiger or a Super Tiger?
A. I didn't understand the question. Could you repeat it, please?
Q. What were you, tell me; were you a Tiger or a Super Tiger?
A. I was neither a Tiger nor a Super Tiger. I was a partisan, as we called it, and was doing a work obligation.
Q. You said that at the beginning of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, you were in a HOS uniform as a soldier, a courier, a reconnaissance man.
A. No. I was wearing civilian clothing.
Q. What did you say?
A. I didn't have a uniform at all.
Q. Well, I understood that you were a member of the HOS. 18412
A. No. The TO and the HOS are not the same thing.
Q. I didn't understand you.
A. The TO and the HOS is not the same army, nor did HOS exist.
Q. I'm asking about the Croatian armed forces, HOS.
A. Yes, I know, but it didn't exist in that year where we were.
Q. All right. Tell me then which formation, which unit did you belong to at the time when, as you say, you entered the area which was under Serb control in order to collect information and data about the deployment of the forces?
A. Well, it was an ordinary village guard.
Q. So what were you a member of? Were you a member of the Territorial Defence then? Could you identify for me, please, the character of the unit to which you belonged and for which you say you were a courier and a reconnaissance man.
A. Well, it wasn't a unit. It wasn't a paramilitary unit either. It was a village guard or village watch. There were just ten of us, for example, and we would stand guard in case of an attack on Mrkonjic Jezero.
Q. You said you were a courier. Whose courier were you?
A. The village watch, the Territorial Defence.
Q. Well, a courier is somebody attached to some kind of headquarters or command or some kind of commander. You were somebody's courier. You were on a reconnaissance mission too, so who were you working for?
A. Well, I was a reconnaissance man and courier for a man in charge and in command of the village watch.
Q. And who was your commander? 18413
A. I can't answer that question.
Q. I didn't understand your answer.
A. I can't answer your question.
Q. You can't answer my question?
A. No, I can't.
Q. Well, I don't think you'll be able to answer many of my questions. On page 2 of your statement, you speak about the positions at which the Serb forces were deployed; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. You don't mention the movement of Serb forces anywhere; isn't that so?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Now, those forces of yours, the ones you were reconnaissance man for, you say courier and reconnaissance missions. So the forces you worked for and as you went on reconnaissance missions, at that time were those forces preparing an attack on Serb positions at all?
A. No.
Q. Well, why did you have to do reconnaissance missions when you yourself say that you were not looking into any troop movements, just positions? So who assigned you this task? Who told you to go on these reconnaissance missions?
A. Nobody gave me these tasks. I had a girlfriend in Djeletovci so I would go around to see where the Serb army was, what positions they held, what kind of weapons they held, and so on. I wasn't able to return.
Q. All right. You were arrested wearing civilian clothing; right? 18414
A. Yes.
Q. And when did you take off your uniform and put civilian clothes on; when you went on assignment or a day before or when?
A. I never had a uniform.
Q. You never had a uniform?
A. No, I didn't.
Q. But you belonged to some military formation or unit, you said.
A. Well, it wasn't a military formation, it was an ordinary village guard's group or village watch.
Q. All right. When you were taken prisoner and interrogated about your activities, what did you explain to them? What did you say? Who did you belong to? What were you? Who were you?
A. Well, I didn't explain who I was or what I was. Everybody knew me. We were all neighbours.
Q. They all knew you?
A. Yes. There was a man there at the police station who knew me.
Q. So it couldn't have been a secret for that man. He knew you, so he knew your name, he knew your ethnic affiliation, everything else; isn't that right?
A. I don't know.
Q. What did you say?
A. I said I don't know.
Q. Mr. B-071, you say that they didn't question you and interrogate you because they knew you.
A. Well, I was questioned at the police station. 18415
Q. What did you say?
A. They asked me at the police station. Do you have -- are there any other soldiers, what weapons do you have, where's this man, where's that man?
Q. Yes, but they knew your name and they knew where you came from because you say they knew you.
A. Well, one man knew me, the one that took me into custody.
Q. Well, that person who took you into custody probably had to give your name and say who you were and what you were as you say he knew you. So why are you saying all this when you were under a false name, when the people who arrested you knew you? They knew your real name, so how could you later suddenly find yourself using a false name?
A. Well, I said a false name when I was moved to the military police.
Q. Well, can you explain this to me, please. You were transferred to the military police as a prisoner of war, weren't you?
A. As a civilian prisoner, not a prisoner of war.
Q. All right. You were transferred as a civilian. You were arrested by a man who knew you, he handed you over to the people in the police station with all the information as to your ID, and then somebody suddenly changed your name when you were put into the hands of the military police. Is that it?
A. I don't know.
Q. Mr. B-071, you're not telling the truth. Why don't you explain to us --
A. Well, if I wasn't telling the truth, I wouldn't have -- I wouldn't 18416 BLANK PAGE 18417 be here, and I wouldn't waste my time here or yours.
Q. All right. Did you recognise the reasons for which you were taken prisoner? Did you acknowledge them?
A. No.
Q. Well, why did the man arrest you in the first place and take you to the police station?
A. I don't know.
Q. You don't know that either?
A. No, I don't.
Q. You were transferred to the prison called Stari Mlin, the old mill, and stayed there until March 1994; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And then to Derventa?
A. Yes.
Q. And yesterday, I made a note of something here when you were asked. In the prison you belonged to some military unit, didn't you?
A. Yes.
Q. Well, did you consider yourself to be a free person? You did because you went around town, you went about various business. You said you cut wood and did some cleaning; right?
A. Yes.
Q. Well, when I was in the army, I always did cleaning work and chopped wood. That is part of the regular duties that soldiers have to do because the soldiers don't have anybody else to do this for them. So did your duties differ in any way from the duties of other soldiers? 18418
A. Well, for example, there were some soldiers who had duties around vehicles or weapons or in the kitchens.
Q. But they were soldiers too, those working in the kitchen and so on. All this work is done by soldiers. I have never heard of an army having servants, although perhaps some armies do have servants now.
A. Well, it was the unit of the army of Republika Srpska. They had officers' messes, kitchens separate for the officers and separate for the men.
Q. I'm not asking you about officers' messes or soldiers' kitchens. What I'm asking you is the following: You yourself say that you felt free. You felt yourself to be a free man, that you could move around town and you did the normal duties that soldiers are usually assigned to do. So where - how shall I put this? - you say you were a prisoner. How was it that you were a prisoner? How were you different from others? How did you see yourself as a prisoner?
A. Well, I had my work obligations. I had this work unit. I didn't have any weapons and so on, didn't go to the front.
Q. So you were privileged not to have to go to the front; right?
A. Yes.
Q. As to the other duties you had to perform, they were no different from the ones anybody else had to do; is that right?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Tell me, please, then, as you were arrested by a man who knew you, he knew your name, he knew your ethic affiliation and everything else, during this period of six years that you have been testifying about, did 18419 any of your relatives and relations look for you? Did the authorities of Bosnia-Herzegovina look for you or the authorities of the Republic of Croatia? Did they search for you? The Red Cross or anybody else from the Republic of Croatia, from the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, or from any other part or unit? Did anyone look for you? Were you on a list of missing persons, persons taken prisoner or anything like that?
A. Yes, I was.
MR. NICE: That's a very long question -- thank you.
JUDGE MAY: Yes. We were discussing the times we'll sit today. Because we missed a quarter of an hour at the beginning, we will sit until five to two this afternoon. The break will accordingly be rather later than usual, rather after half past ten.
Yes. Mr. Milosevic, if you ask long and complicated questions, people can't answer them. Now, what question would you like the witness to ask -- answer, I mean.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. Were you on a list of prisoners of war or detainees? Did anyone look for you during that period of six years?
A. Yes.
JUDGE MAY: Two questions. Two questions, Witness B-071. First of all, you were on a list of prisoners of war; is that right?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
JUDGE MAY: Secondly, did anybody look for you as far as you know?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
JUDGE MAY: Very well. 18420
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. And who was looking for you?
A. My relatives; my mother and father, brother, sisters.
Q. You were in no danger. You said you felt free. How come that you didn't find an opportunity through some sort of an exchange that were frequent in those days, to rejoin your family?
A. For instance, when there was the exchange at Manjaca, I was transferred to Prnjavor.
Q. And in Prnjavor, there was no other opportunity for you to be exchanged? You were free over there too, weren't you?
A. There were no exchanges. If I had had a chance, I would have escaped.
Q. But over there you were free too, as far as I understand.
A. Yes, but I wasn't as free to move around town as I was in Derventa.
Q. So you had no documents; is that right?
A. Yes, that's right.
Q. Tell me, please, as a free person, you mostly cut wood, cleaned the compound, and worked in the kitchen. I couldn't quite note down when you mentioned the cleaning of a cell with blood in it. Which barracks was it?
A. It was the Kula barracks in Mrkonjic.
Q. Is that in Mrkonjic Grad?
A. Yes, Mrkonjic Grad.
Q. And this was a regular barracks of the army of Republika Srpska? 18421
A. Yes. It's a barracks from the time of Tito's rule.
Q. Very well. So it's a barracks that had been in existence for many years. Isn't that right?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. Tell me, please, was there a camp there for detainees or prisoners, or was there a police station there or a place where somebody tortured somebody?
A. No. There was no camp. There was only the military police who interrogated people and sent them to Manjaca.
Q. Did you see anyone -- as I gather you were not badly treated, you were free, did you see anyone being tortured over there?
A. Yes.
Q. Would you give us the name of a person tortured there.
A. I wouldn't like to give you a name. I'd rather not mention any names.
Q. But you are duty-bound to tell us the name if you know one. Otherwise, you've made it up.
A. Well, for instance, Mato Tokic from Jajce.
Q. Was he beaten in that barracks in the room that you cleaned?
A. Yes, he was beaten up to death but he lived.
Q. I see. He was beaten almost to death. Do you know anyone else who was beaten up over there?
A. There were a couple of others but I don't know them.
Q. So you know only this one name.
A. Yes. 18422
Q. What was the name exactly?
A. Tokic Mato.
Q. And he's from Jajce. Is he in Jajce now?
A. I don't know where he is.
Q. Are you quite sure you didn't make up this story about a cell where people were beaten in a military institution?
A. I'm certain 100 per cent that it is true.
Q. I wouldn't say so, but we'll come to that. On page 10, you say that during your captivity -- you even mentioned the name that you used, the false name that you used. Who did you arrange with to use a false name? Because your real name was obviously known. Who gave you permission to use a false name?
A. They didn't ask me for documents or anything like that. He just asked me what my name was and I gave them the name that's how they registered me.
Q. So you're saying that they're so naive that without any documents they take what you say for granted? But nobody gave you permission to use a false name.
A. For instance in Prnjavor or Dreventa, nobody asked you your name or where you had come from. As soon as they saw an SMB uniform, they knew you were under work obligation.
Q. And who gave you that SMB uniform?
A. The army of Republika Srpska.
Q. So they didn't give you a prison uniform. An SMB uniform is a military uniform, so they dressed you like a regular soldier. 18423
A. No, but I didn't have any insignia or buttons or anything.
Q. Very well. Since you say that various people also used various names, who are the persons behind the names Dragoljub Coric, Miroslav Tolic, Miodrag Aksentic, Sinisa Zivkovic, Nebojsa Prijevic? Who are the persons hiding behind these names, since, according to what you say, they were also false names?
A. Well, Croats and Bosniaks may be hiding behind those names.
Q. But do you know them? Did you know their real identity?
A. No.
Q. But they were Croats and Bosniaks.
A. Judging by stories, yes, and the vocabulary they use differs.
Q. No, it doesn't differ. I don't think it differs either. It's only recently that I heard that there were several languages. But tell me, please, how is it possible? Did you have an explanation that in that unit of the Serbian Volunteer Guards there was a group of people, Croats and Muslims, who were given Serbian names and were hiding behind those names? Who gave them permission to do that? It's not just you, apparently, but several men who made up this whole plan that you say happened.
A. I don't know. Those who were in Arkan's unit, I knew where they came from. They may have been from Serbia, from Bosnia, from Croatia. I don't know where those people came from.
Q. Yes, but you say you know that they were Croats and Muslims.
A. Yes. When we spoke, I noticed the way they speak.
Q. When and where were they captured? 18424
A. I don't know. We didn't talk about that, nor did they say they were captured or anything.
Q. But since you spent most of your time in the company of these people, if you don't know their identity or anything that might -- do you know anything that might indicate where they came from, what they did before the conflict started? Surely people talk amongst themselves. You must know something more about them. You could have learnt something about them that might have pointed to their identity. What do you know about those people?
A. I don't know anything specific about them.
Q. So you don't know anything specific about the people you associated with, but you do know everything about Arkan, the Tigers and the Super Tigers.
A. I didn't engage in any conversations as to --
Q. Well, answer this logical question at least: If you had been captives, should there have been an agreement among you if anyone was released or manages to escape that he should inform families about the others, that they were alive and where they were? Did you have any such arrangement amongst yourselves?
A. Yes. I remember the name of Senad Zahirovic who was also captured and was under work obligation, and he fled to Croatia, and I told him to find my family, to tell them that I was alive and where I was.
Q. So the real identity of all of those persons, you only know of Senad Zahirovic from Zenica. Among all those persons, you only know of him. And what was the name that he used over there? Did he use his real 18425 name?
A. I don't know.
Q. Wait a moment. I listed a number of names that you say were Croats and Bosniaks and have Serb names, but for this one that you knew, you don't know which name he used.
A. He was a regular JNA soldier when the war started in Derventa, and he stayed behind in the unit.
Q. Which unit?
A. The Serbian army.
Q. Was he with you in Arkan's group?
A. Yes, he was under work obligation.
Q. Was he a member of the Serbian Volunteer Guard like you?
A. What do you mean a member; as a combatant or as a worker?
Q. Both.
JUDGE MAY: You're putting that the witness was a member of the Serbian Volunteer Guard. I thought he was a member of the Partizans. I may be wrong about that. Let's get it right from him. Were you also a member of the Serbian Volunteer Guard?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, I wasn't a member of the Serb Volunteer Guard. I was a Partizaner in this work unit.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, the witness himself claims that he had an ID card of the Serbian Volunteer Guard issued in his name, this name he used.
JUDGE MAY: Let's hear about that. We haven't heard about that. We've heard about a booklet, but we haven't heard about that. 18426 Did you have a work card from the Serbian Volunteer Guard, issued in the name which you assumed? Is that right?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Western Slavonia, I didn't have one, but in Belgrade I was given a military booklet with the inscription Serbian Volunteer Guard on it.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. Very well. Now, this military booklet of the Serbian Volunteer Guard that you had as a personal ID, is it the same as any other military booklet of members of that guard -- those guards, or was yours different from the others?
A. It was the same booklet. Same colour and everything.
Q. I see. So you had the same booklet as the other soldiers of the Serbian Volunteer Guards.
Since you mentioned this Senad Zahirovic from Zenica, after 1998, when you managed to go home to Jajce, did you have any contact with him?
A. No.
Q. Did you have any contact with any other member of this unit of yours with whom you had spent so many years?
A. No, because I didn't see anyone in Jajce, because it's mostly inhabited by Muslims and Croats. There were no Serbs there.
Q. As far -- according to what you say, you joined this Serbian Volunteer Guard, Arkan's unit, in 1995; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And from 1995, you moved around wherever Arkan's Serbian Volunteer Guards unit went? 18427 BLANK PAGE 18428
A. Yes.
Q. And since you were in those guards from 1995 and moved around with it everywhere, you're still claiming that you were a captive; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And you even had an ID of the unit, and you still claim that you were a captive.
A. I told you that I got those documents only once I reached Serbia.
Q. Very well. Let's move on.
JUDGE MAY: We'll adjourn now. It's now time to take the adjournment. We'll adjourn for 20 minutes.
--- Recess taken at 10.40 a.m.
--- On resuming at 11.04 a.m.
JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. Mr. B-071, a moment ago we established that you could not remember the names of those persons that you worked with nor their identity. So please tell me, how is it possible that you can remember almost a hundred people that were read out to you from a list that you remembered allegedly? Who gave you this list?
A. No one gave it to me.
Q. So you just remembered all those names on the basis of your own memory?
A. I spent two years with them, so it's normal that I know everything about them. 18429
Q. Well, how then can you not remember about these other people that I asked you about?
A. Maybe these other men have false names too. I just know them by their name and nickname.
Q. All right. If you remember all those people so well on the basis of your own memory; for instance, on page 6 of your statement, under 29, you mention a certain Macak, whose nickname was Macak or the cat. And you say that he was one of the leading commanders of Arkan's who is now serving a prison sentence of 13 years. Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know, Mr. B-071, that this same Macak that you referred to is in prison ever since the end of 1993?
A. No.
Q. So you don't know that.
A. No.
Q. But you claim that on the basis of what you remembered in 1995, you were able to say that he was one of the top commanders and everything else that you said. That's why I'm asking you who gave you the list.
A. These were all officers or men who used their names or nicknames, but what name hid behind those names, I don't know.
Q. But do you understand that what I'm asking you about shows that this is not possible, because the man has been in prison since 1993? So you could not put him on the list.
A. But I saw a photograph on the wall in the room where Arkan's men slept. 18430
Q. Do you know that that man, in 1993, was convicted by the Yugoslav courts for armed robbery carried out somewhere in the territory of Serbia, in the north, and that he's been in prison ever since?
A. No, I don't know that.
Q. But the very fact -- this very fact shows that no one, and therefore even Arkan's men, could not be spared of criminal responsibility when there was any evidence of such crimes.
JUDGE MAY: No. No. The witness says he was there. Now, you say something different. You can give evidence about it in due course, but at the moment, that's what the witness says. You can't ask any questions based on your supposition.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It's not a supposition, Mr. May, but a fact, because he identifies a man in 1995 who's been in prison since 1993.
JUDGE MAY: You can call evidence about it. You will give evidence yourself in due course, but you're not doing so now. You're asking questions, and you've heard what the witness says. He identifies this man as one of Arkan's top commanders. Whether he was in prison before then, of course, is a matter, no doubt, we can be informed about.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That is the point, Mr. May. I'm asking questions in connection with false allegations being made here by this witness, and I think it is quite a legitimate question.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. Tell me, Mr. B-071, you claim that you wore the same uniforms as the rest of Arkan's soldiers. Is that right or not? 18431
A. Yes, but without any insignia.
Q. But you wore the same uniforms as the others.
A. Yes.
Q. On page 10, and you mentioned something to that effect today too, in your statement you say that Arkan's forces, on the 5th of October, 1995, suffered serious losses in battles at Jasenova Kosa, close to Mrkonjic Grad; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And who were those forces fighting against?
A. Either the HVO or the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Q. I see. The forces of the Croatian Defence Council.
A. Yes. In Croatia, the Croatian Defence Council or the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Q. And on that day, as you say in your statement, you yourself were wounded; right?
A. Yes.
Q. You claim that you were injured by a grenade shrapnel at a gas station at a place near Peric; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, if you were not a member of the armed formations, how come you were where the fighting was at all? Because according to my information, near the gas station in Perici, there was a battle position, combat position of one of the units. Is that true or not? Just say yes or no.
A. Well, that's where the feature was, and that's where his vehicles 18432 were stationed, that's where the soldiers slept and all the rest of it.
Q. All right. And is it true that you yourself then were at these combat positions and that you took part in the fighting that went on and the fighting that that unit took part in too? Is that right?
A. Yes. I carried ammunition and food, but I had no weapons with me.
Q. And is it true that as an injured person, you were treated identically, in the same way that all the other people were that belonged to the units, this particular unit, in fact?
A. Yes.
Q. And that you shared a hospital room with Marinko Marinovic, Goran Pirocanac, someone nicknamed Bagi, Gluscevic?
A. Yes.
Q. And with a certain Hans; right?
A. Yes.
Q. So you were together with them as somebody wounded. When Arkan's forces withdrew on October the 10th, you withdrew with them and were transferred to Erdut; right?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, you claim you were a captive. You keep saying that. So who stood guard over you as a captive from the soldiers, because you say you belonged to a labour unit?
A. Well, there was the Partizaneri work unit. There was no security there. No guard stood over us there.
Q. So no guards guarded you?
A. No, they didn't. 18433
Q. All right. Now, as you say that you were not a member of the combat unit and again nobody stood guard over you, did you ever try to escape?
A. No.
Q. Did you try and get away from that area at all?
A. No.
Q. Well, when you were in Eastern Slavonia, for example, the border was very close by, the border that was under the control of Croatian forces. How come you never thought of escaping?
A. I had no documents. I had nothing. So I didn't plan to escape at all.
Q. So you think that had you crossed over to Croatian territory they wouldn't have taken you in because you had no documents?
A. Well, I might have been mistreated and abused like I was in some of the Serb units if I had no documents or anything like that.
Q. Mr. B-071, do you wish to say that from mid-1995 up until mid-1998 there was never an opportunity which you could use to escape?
A. I couldn't have escaped because all the border crossings were under heavy control. They asked for documents, so I couldn't.
Q. Let's take it this way: How long did you spend in Belgrade? You yourself say you were there.
A. One year. A year and a half.
Q. Do you know that as of 1996, relations were quite normal between Yugoslavia and the Republic of Croatia? Do you know that the bakery at the Red Star stadium to the Croatian embassy is just a five-minute walk? 18434 You don't have to take the car, it's five-minute walk away from your bakery, the one you worked in. Are you aware of that?
A. Well, I don't know where the embassy is, but --
Q. So you never had the idea, as you were a Croat yourself and you were working there against your own free will but could move around Belgrade freely, did you never think of going into your embassy and saying, "I'm here against my will. Please extend protection as one of your citizens and make it possible for me to go to Croatia"? You never thought of doing that?
A. No, I didn't.
Q. All right. Fine. Very well. On page 15, paragraph 7, you say that in the month of April 1996, you arrived in Belgrade where you worked at the stadium of the football club called Obilic.
A. Yes.
Q. So from 1996 to 1998, that is to say two years, you had the possibility of contacting people in Belgrade, including the Croatian embassy.
A. I was in Belgrade until 1997, not 1998.
Q. So that's when you were given your military booklet stating that you were a regular soldier of Arkan's unit; right?
A. In 1996 when I arrived in Belgrade, yes, that's right.
Q. And this other man Zahirovic came with you for whom you claim left Belgrade a month later and went to Croatia.
A. Yes. 18435
Q. So he was able to leave Belgrade one month later and go to Croatia and nobody prevented him in doing so; right?
A. Because he had his ID papers. So he could go wherever he took it into his head to go.
Q. So just because you didn't have your own ID documents, you didn't wish to go to Croatia; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Was there not some other reason perhaps?
A. No.
Q. All right. You say that in July 1997, Arkan asked you whether you wanted to go back to Bosnia. Isn't that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Doesn't this seem to be a little contradictory? You say you were a prisoner of war, a captive, and yet he asks you whether you wish to return to Bosnia. And when you said yes, he then sent you back to Bosnia; right?
A. Well, perhaps he didn't know I was a war captive. In Prijedor he asked us which unit we belonged to, and the people that had permits to move around, they said they were from the unit they were from, and I said I was in the work obligation unit. So I joined one of the Partizaneri, as they were called, doing my work assignment.
Q. Well, it's very difficult for me to put all the pieces together here, but let's just summarise.
You were injured at combat positions as a member of the Arkan unit; right? 18436
A. Yes.
Q. Then you spent two years in Belgrade, in the Belgrade region, or one year, as you say. Let's say one year. You slept there. You were accommodated, had food in a civilian facility, you received a salary for the work you did; isn't that right?
A. Just for the first two months I received a salary.
Q. Yes. You had a military booklet too.
A. Yes.
Q. And when you were asked whether you wished to return to Bosnia, you said you did. And then you did indeed go home in 1998. You went to Jajce; right?
A. In 1997 I was sent to the quarry civilian prison, in 1997, and then I went to Jajce.
Q. All right. So they sent you back to Bosnia. So why do you tell us you were a prisoner of war of some kind and that Arkan considered you to be a war deserter in view of all the facts that you have confirmed here?
A. I don't understand. Could you repeat that question, please.
Q. Were you in Arkan's units on a volunteer basis, voluntarily? From what you have said, it would appear you were for a period of five years.
A. No, I was not there voluntarily.
Q. You weren't there voluntarily?
A. No.
Q. Well, then answer me this: How come you stayed in Arkan's entourage for such a long period of time? 18437
A. Well, until his units were disbanded. Everything was disbanded and that was it.
Q. But you explained to us yesterday here in this courtroom that you joined - how shall I put this? - that you entered the Serb forces in order to learn what the enemy was doing. Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. So you were there for a full five years. During those five years, did you inform anybody about what this alleged enemy was doing to you?
A. No.
Q. So that was not your job. You didn't do what you said was your motive for infiltrating those forces in the first place.
A. That's right.
Q. Tell me, did you in any way -- were you in any way abused, mistreated during the time you spent in Arkan's unit?
A. Well, for example, they swore at me if I did something wrong. Arkan would personally slap us in the bakery, that kind of thing.
Q. Yes, but did they belittle you in any way because you were a Croat?
A. They didn't know I was a Croat.
Q. You say probably. They probably didn't know.
A. Well, my name is a sort of international name. It goes for both sides.
Q. All right. Well, if you didn't know where the Croatian embassy was, for example, and you knew nothing about things like, you spent such a long time there, didn't it ever occur to you to contact an international 18438 institution, for example, like the International Red Cross or the International High Commissioner -- UN High Commissioner for Refugees or just to come into contact with your own family to receive information about them, see how they were, to send them information about your whereabouts?
A. What do you mean, to go to look for the Croatian embassy and Red Cross and the church in Belgrade? But whenever I got the idea of doing so, I thought somebody would follow me, somebody was following me.
Q. So you thought somebody was following you and yet you say nobody stood guard over you or anything like that. Tell me what you told your own family members and your colleagues from the unit from which you were taken prisoner in the first place. What did you tell them? Where you were all those years without making any contact with them?
A. I said I was under a work obligation, working over there.
Q. Is it true that a driver by the name of Zikic from that unit of Arkan's drove you to Doboj in a car? That's right, isn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. So do you mean to say that that's what they usually do with captives, prisoners of war; they give them a car, give them a driver, a chauffeur to be taken to Bosnia on the basis of that person's assertion saying they wanted to go home?
A. Well, I didn't have my own ID papers so I had to get across the border somehow.
Q. Well, Doboj is a little further from Raca, so once you cross the border, that wouldn't have been necessary. 18439 BLANK PAGE 18440 Do you know a single prisoner of war, a captive either from the former SFRY territory or in the whole wide world whom the driver of an enemy unit who had taken him captive in the first place and kept him under detention --
JUDGE MAY: I'm going to stop you. This is not a question. It's a comment.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. May.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. You claim that they handed you over to a man called Coric, if I remember correctly, who was the warden of the prison at the quarry in Doboj.
A. Right.
Q. And from -- in 1998, you managed to cross over into Jajce?
A. Yes.
Q. Tell me how you managed to reach Jajce.
A. I escaped from the prison with the help of a guard who was married to a Croatian lady, and according to his story, that was it. And he helped me during the night. He gave me some trousers to put on, a shirt, he opened the gates and said, "You can go now but take the direction of Banja Luka. Don't go anywhere else."
Q. Now, tell me something with respect to what Mr. Nice asked you at the end of the examination-in-chief and something that is contained on page 13 of your statement, that in March 1996, several days prior to leaving the camp in the sugar refinery, that you were involved in a specialist -- a special task, as you say. You were on special assignment. 18441
A. Right.
Q. So in addition to you, on that assignment there were other members of that work unit of yours; right?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you remember which other members these were? Who were the others that went on this mission together with you? Can you give us the names?
A. Captain Pejo, Arkan's officer, was one. Then there was Radomir Trojanovic, and there were some others but I can't remember their names.
Q. You can't remember their names?
A. No.
Q. All right. But you seem to be able to remember hundreds of other names.
So who else from this work unit was on the assignment with you? You have mentioned the officers, but what about your colleagues, the rank and file that worked with you? So which other alleged war criminals were with you on this assignment that allegedly have the same status that you yourself say you had?
A. I can't remember.
Q. You remember the names of officers, but you can't remember the name of a single one of your colleagues. How is that possible?
A. Well, I don't know if he was a captive or whether he was on a work assignment.
Q. All right. Tell me at least some names of people who were there with you on -- doing this same work assignment except for the officers. 18442 They weren't doing the work, I assume.
A. I said Radomir Trojanovic.
Q. Was he a member of your work unit or was he a member of the Serbian Volunteer Guard?
A. He was a member of the Serbian Volunteer Guard.
Q. And what about your colleagues? Who was in the unit with you?
A. I can't remember.
Q. So you can't remember the name of a single colleague of yours?
A. Well, I can't remember. I don't think there were any other captives or things like that.
Q. So you drove around in a truck with the other captives from that work unit; isn't that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And yet you can't remember who the other captives were?
JUDGE MAY: No. Mr. Milosevic, there has now been a repetition of that question and answer three times, and it must stop. You've made your point. The witness says he can't remember. Now, let's move on.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. But you do remember the people who were in the other truck; right?
A. Yes.
Q. But you don't remember the ones in your own truck?
JUDGE MAY: No. That's precisely the point you're not to ask again.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] 18443
Q. As we can see from what you have testified or alleged -- your alleged testimony, it was your task to dig up -- dig in a well.
A. Yes.
Q. You had to cover up a well.
A. Yes.
Q. How big was the well? It was on the banks of the Danube River, wasn't it?
A. Well, I don't know where the Danube is.
Q. According to the sketch you showed us, the little map, I gain the impression from the diagram that it was in fact on the banks of the Danube.
A. Well, I didn't see any river nearby. Perhaps it was over the little hill.
Q. Well, wells are not usually very deep near the banks of a river because of the underground waters, but tell us how big the well was that you had to fill in. What was its diameter, for example?
A. Diameter? Well, three metres by four metres perhaps, and it was all in a circle.
Q. Was the well a square one?
A. It was a round one.
Q. Well, how can it be three times four metres?
A. There was a kind of foundations to it, a bottom part.
Q. And what about the wall of the well?
A. A metre.
Q. And the depth of the well? 18444
A. Well, I couldn't see down there. It was all filled with soil, with earth.
Q. You mentioned Radomir Trojanovic; is that right?
A. Yes.
JUDGE KWON: Just a second, Mr. Milosevic. Mr. B-071, did you say that you didn't know the -- where the Danube River is near?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't see the river nearby.
JUDGE KWON: Did you see the location of the Danube River?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, where the park is where Arkan was stationed, it was nearby, but over here I couldn't see it.
JUDGE KWON: If we could take a look at tab 3, Exhibit 416. Let the witness have the tab. You said you drew this map, didn't you?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes.
JUDGE KWON: Who wrote "Danube River" on left top? If you are not aware of the Danube River location, how could you write that?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Here where it says the Danube River, the man who went with me to investigate, he wrote it down, saying that the Danube was nearby.
JUDGE KWON: Then it was not you who wrote that?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.
JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Go on, Mr. Milosevic.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Kwon. I had just -- I was just looking at this sketch because the witness claimed that he had 18445 drawn the sketch, and it says on it that close to the location of the well there is indication of the Danube River.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. So B-071, will you tell me, did you draw this sketch or somewhere else?
A. I myself with my own hand.
Q. So you yourself drew this sketch, and you yourself marked the river Danube here?
A. No, I didn't mark the Danube River because I didn't know where it was.
Q. Well, then how can you say that you drew the sketch and everything that is written on this piece of paper?
JUDGE MAY: There are two points there. One, first of all, who drew the sketch; secondly, who wrote on it? Those are two different matters. Now, can you help us with that, Witness B-071?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is a sketch that I drew, and these markings here, up here, the Danube River, I didn't do that. I didn't mark that. I didn't know where this position was. I know that the Danube is nearby the promenade over here. So probably this gentleman who was with me when we investigated the gravesite did it.
JUDGE MAY: Now, who wrote on the sketch? Because we've got writing on it. Did you write on it or did somebody else write? Whose writing is it?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This gentleman who went with me as an investigator. 18446
MR. NICE: Your Honour, the investigator will be available if required.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. Very well. As I am asking you questions exclusively on the basis of what is said on this document of yours, so I asked you the question about the Danube because it says the river Danube on this piece of paper. Otherwise, how else could we orient ourselves?
Now, you say you didn't write it down. How much of this is your work and how much of this other gentleman?
A. I did the actual drawing, the sketch - the house, the trees - but the writing was by the gentleman who was with me. He wrote down the names of these various places.
Q. Very well. Let's not waste any more time on this. So this was a joint composition of yours.
Now, who is Radomir Trojanovic, please?
A. Radomir Trojanovic was a Super Tiger in Arkan's unit. He's somewhere from Kosovo, from Pristina. He worked in the bakery. He stayed behind after I had left.
Q. So he was the same as you were, a bakery worker. But he was a Super Tiger, and you were neither a Super Tiger nor a Tiger; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Is he alive?
A. I don't know. He was alive when I left. Whether he's alive now, I don't know. 18447
Q. You say that he explained to you, because you got there in 1995 so you didn't know anything about it. What did he explain that you were doing, that you were covering up?
A. We asked him what we were doing, and he said we had to fill in a gravesite with earth and mask it with trees, branches.
Q. Did you ask yourself what kind of a mass grave it could be in a one diameter well which must be shallow as it is close to the Danube? Did he tell you that you're really covering up a mass grave?
A. He just said that there was a grave there that needed to be filled in with soil and concealed.
Q. Do you know, and I'd like to hear, did you unearth anything there when you eventually went there with the investigator?
A. We started digging. It was deep, and then I went back to Bosnia.
Q. So you don't know anything about the results?
A. No.
Q. And you don't know anything about the origin of the possible contents of that well?
A. I don't.
Q. It seems to me that some of the things you're saying you don't know with certainty, so I'd like to ask you to try and clear it up for me. Mr. Nice asked you where those vehicles had come from that Arkan's unit had at its disposal, and you answered that they had come from Vukovar and Slavonski Brod. You joined the unit in 1995, and they surely already had those vehicles.
A. Yes. 18448
Q. How then could you know the origin of those vehicles?
A. For instance, when I was washing them, then there are documents indicating the origin. There were pickups from the UN. You could see the white paint showing up when the black point was scratched.
Q. Very well. Then several minutes later, you said that some vehicles had come from Belgrade.
A. Yes, the jeeps.
Q. I see. The origin of the vehicles is from Vukovar, Slavonski Brod, the UN, and Belgrade.
A. Yes.
Q. Mr. Nice asked you whether they spoke about the killing of people, and you said no. And then later on, you said that they mentioned some killings in Vukovar.
A. When we were digging the grave, they didn't say anything. But when we got to Vukovar, the Super Tigers officers would come drunk, and they would say all kinds of things like killings.
Q. Very well. Tell me, you said that the discipline was very strict in Arkan's unit; isn't that so?
A. Yes.
Q. Another witness who came from that unit, or said he came from the unit, said the same and that people were punished for the least offence, especially for drinking alcohol.
A. Yes.
Q. Well, how is it possible then that punishment should be severe in a unit if somebody drinks alcohol, whereas on the other side you're 18449 telling us that they would get drunk and recount what they had done.
A. The Super Tigers had greater privileges. They could do whatever they wanted. They could get drunk. They could tie people to flagpoles and so on.
Q. So the discipline didn't apply to everyone but only to some, and the others would get drunk and then they would talk about the crimes they had committed.
A. Yes. The officers and non-commissioned officers that were Super Tigers.
Q. And did you personally witness a single crime committed in those three or four years? How long were you in Arkan's unit?
A. For a year and a half.
Q. Very well. Well, did you see a single crime committed by that unit or a member of that unit?
A. I -- I would see them go off looting and never come back. They would go to commit a crime and they wouldn't return alive. This would happen in Serbia, for instance.
Q. I see. So a member of the unit would go to commit a crime and then he wouldn't come back?
A. Yes.
Q. And you noticed that he was missing, that he got killed?
A. Yes. The report would come in that he had been killed. For example, this Badzo who was a bodyguard to his children with Ceca, he went to do something in Orasje, and he didn't return alive. He was killed and he was buried. 18450 BLANK PAGE 18451
Q. I see. So you're not telling us that one of the members of your unit got killed. But tell me, do you have any knowledge of a member of your unit committing a crime?
A. There would be looting, for instance.
Q. Were they punished for stealing?
A. Yes.
Q. On page 3 in the annex, you say that a certain Srdjan, Duma, said that Arkan, and I'm using your expression, would slap around the inspectors who had troubled this Srdjan. Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you with them in the SUP premises when this happened?
A. No.
Q. So he told you about it, did he?
A. Yes.
Q. That he acted brutally, that he treated them brutally?
A. Yes.
Q. Explain something to me, please, which really doesn't fit in any sense into the logic of the events. You say that in April 1996, from Serbia to Eastern Slavonia a package of weapons arrived. In April 1996.
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know that by then the war had long since ended and that there were no operations there, and there was international presence in the area by then already? In April 1996, that was five months, or six months almost, after Dayton.
JUDGE MAY: Let him answer. 18452
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] For instance, I would see the UN forces in the restaurant of the Skorpions, where they would come with their pickups, vehicles, kombi vans and so on.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. Very well. While this was happening, were the UN forces there or, rather, international forces?
A. They roamed around in their vehicles, yes.
Q. They were present there, weren't they? Were they present at the border as well?
A. I don't know. I didn't see them.
Q. But there were no combat operations. The UN was there at the time. What kind of weapons are you talking about coming from Serbia in April 1996 arriving in Eastern Slavonia?
A. According to the story of this Padobranac, this sergeant, you can tell by his speech. Now, what was in the package, he himself didn't know.
Q. I see. So you're saying there were some packages that arrived and he himself didn't know what was inside. I'm glad we've cleared that up, because it was so illogical that it was essential that we cleared it up. You didn't say the consignment consisted of snipers, automatic weapons and so on. You're saying that he himself didn't know what was in the packages but you are claiming that there were snipers inside. Why did you make that up?
A. I didn't make it up. When we returned to Djeletovci, I saw them cleaning weapons, protecting them from corrosion, and new uniforms, and these were things that were not there when we arrived. 18453
Q. I see. So then you made the conclusion that that was what that package contained.
A. What else could it be? Not food.
Q. I'm afraid such arbitrary conclusions cannot be any grounds for real facts.
Tell me, how did that package -- packages arrive? You said during the examination-in-chief that the vehicle was from Serbia but that you didn't see the licence plates.
A. Yes.
Q. If you didn't see the licence plates, how did you know that they were from Serbia?
A. This Padobranac, narednik, this sergeant said this.
Q. So this was a sergeant you were working with?
A. But he was the person one would ask.
Q. Do you know the name of this person?
A. No, I know his nickname, Padobranac, or parachutist. There were two vehicles. They loaded them and took them to Djeletovci.
Q. If somebody loaded them, who unloaded them?
A. I don't know who loaded or who unloaded them.
Q. Well, what was your role, then?
A. My role was to cut wood for Arkan's soldiers in Nijemci.
Q. I see. Heating wood.
A. Whether it went to Serbia, it was loaded in log form onto trailer trucks and taken away.
Q. And this Padobranac, was he an important person among Arkan's 18454 units?
A. Well, he was a sergeant by rank.
Q. Let us now clear up a few more things, because what you've just said is quite unbelievable, especially in April 1996. Let's go back to your statements listing the names. You mention a large number of people who allegedly worked in Arkan's bakery.
A. Yes.
Q. And you too worked in Arkan's bakery, didn't you?
A. Yes.
Q. How big is this bakery? According to the information I have, it is about 25 square metres in size. Is that right?
A. I don't know the exact size.
Q. Well, let me help you. Five by five. That makes 25 square metres. From me to Mr. Tapuskovic and the same distance on the other side. So that would make a square of 25 metres.
A. I don't know. I didn't measure it.
Q. Very well. You didn't measure it, but is that roughly the size of that room?
A. Maybe a couple of metres broader with the shop where bread was sold.
Q. And as far as I have the information here, it had only a single furnace, single oven for the baked goods. If so many people were working in that one room, how would the customers enter?
A. There would be four working in production, making bread, and there were two working as salesmen. 18455
Q. Very well. Under number 54, you mentioned Dragan Joksovic, known as Joksa. You say he was Arkan's best man. Is that right? As regards Macak, we established that he was in prison you couldn't have mentioned him unless you had the list.
JUDGE MAY: No. You didn't establish anything. You're not giving evidence, and you're not to put it to the witness as though it is a fact when it isn't. He gives evidence opposite.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Don't worry about that.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. Why are you mentioning this man when he was never at the front, nor did he take part in any battle but lived and worked in Switzerland?
A. I didn't say he was at the front. I just mentioned him being in Serbia. I heard that he had been killed and all of that.
Q. So you put on the list or you were given a list by someone including men who were not on the front. Was that man in the unit or not?
A. No, he wasn't.
Q. Well, why did you put him on the list?
A. I put him on the list because I remember people who were close to Arkan.
Q. How could you have put -- you could have put his wife and children, aunts and uncles, anyone that anything to do with him, his friends, members of his football club.
A. I didn't put on a list his children and members of the family, relatives.
Q. In your statement, you mention some flying school, school for 18456 pilots that Arkan had. Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And where was that school located, Mr. B-071?
A. It is the motor school, the pilot school at Vezdera [phoen].
Q. Is it an automobile, a driving school or a flying school? Is it to learn how to drive cars or fly planes?
A. It was a school to train pilots.
Q. Well, if it was a flying school, it must have had people attending it who had to be trained as pilots; right?
A. Well, I don't know what they did there, but alleged -- we spent some time there, we slept there, and there was a plaque saying "Avio Skola," flying school.
Q. All right. Tell me who the members of that school were and what kind of aircraft did the school have?
A. It didn't have any.
Q. Well, why are you talking about a flying school?
A. Well, that was the name of it. It said Avio Skola. That's what it said on the plaque above the place. Maybe it was something that existed in the former Yugoslavia, training of that kind.
Q. Ah, I see. That's what you say. But in your statement, it would appear as if Arkan had his own flying school, school to train pilots and that people were being trained there to fly aircraft. What you're now saying is quite different.
A. No, I didn't say he had pilots flying from there.
Q. All right. Let's leave that behind then and move on. On page 8 18457 under 67, you mentioned Vlado Vukotic and you say he was a captain and a commander in that holiday home that the sugar refinery had; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know what the man was by profession?
A. No, I don't.
Q. Do you know that as a car mechanic he was the head of the carpool for the barracks, in the barracks of the Territorial Defence, in fact, in Erdut and not in any camp of Arkan's? He was a car mechanic and head of the car repair shop for motor vehicles.
A. No.
Q. What do you mean no? No to what? What is no is answer to?
A. I don't know that he was a car mechanic. I never saw him dirty or soiled in any way.
Q. I assume that a car mechanic who is the head of a car repair shop doesn't have to get too dirty. And even if he does, once he leaves his workplace he can have a bath, wash, and change his clothes.
A. Well, Arkan's car repair shop wasn't in the camp compound, it was near Erdut.
Q. All right. Tell me then, please. Do you know at all that Arkan's unit, the one you're talking about, was within the composition of the Territorial Defence of Eastern Slavonia at all or, rather, the Serbian army of Krajina?
A. No, I don't know that. I'm not aware of that.
Q. So you don't know that, as such, it worked within the composition of the TO of Eastern Slavonia and later the Serbian army of Krajina? 18458
A. No.
Q. Very well. Do you know this: That the holiday home owned by the sugar refinery was not Arkan's -- under Arkan's control, an Arkan facility, but was on the banks where other TO units and the army of Srpska Krajina was stationed and Arkan's as a component part?
A. Well, when you went into his camp there was a checkpoint at the entrance. You couldn't go in. He had guards there belonging to him. There wasn't any other army, soldiers of Republika Srpska.
Q. I'm not talking about Republika Srpska, I'm talking about Krajina.
A. That's what I'm talking about too.
Q. So you have no knowledge of any other units belonging to the Serbian army of Krajina being there?
A. No.
Q. And you don't know that Arkan's unit was part of the Serbian army of Krajina as a Serb Volunteer Guard?
A. No.
Q. You don't know that either?
A. No.
Q. And yet you were a member of that unit?
A. Yes.
Q. As you spoke about very rigorous discipline in the unit, why then do you speak of members of the unit as some kind of bandits? You can't have it both ways. Were they highly disciplined or were they a group of bandits?
A. For the Tigers it was a disciplined unit, but the Super Tigers 18459 worked under a different regime.
Q. All right. Since you say that certain persons had privileges and you mention Arkan's son Mihajlo amongst others --
A. Yes.
Q. -- do you know that his son was very severely sanctioned for some offences that he committed? Do you know about that?
A. No.
Q. That he personally punished him?
A. No, I don't know that.
Q. You don't know that?
A. No, I don't.
Q. So you claim that there were some people to which this discipline did not apply and who were able to go around drinking and behaving like bandits and so on. Is that what you're saying?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know, and I assume that you were given some information, you said that Arkan said something in front of a column of men on one occasion. I assume that he addressed his men on several occasions. So do you know of any other occasion when he spoke before a column of men, spoke to his men?
A. No.
Q. Well, you mention him speaking in Mrkonjic, for example, in front of 1.000 men, and you know that the Serbian Volunteer Guard could not have numbered 1.000 men. So is it quite clear, therefore, that his unit was within the composition of the army of Republika Srpska at that particular 18460 point in time in Krajina as the Serb Volunteer Guard?
JUDGE MAY: Let us unravel that question. It's, first of all, put, Witness B-071, and you can answer this, that the Serbian Volunteer Guard could not have numbered 1.000 men. Is that so or not?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I would say there are about a thousand people. Some were car mechanics, cooks; all of them. Then there were those others there, the ones that didn't go to the front line. So if he had three or four -- he had 300 or 400 men that just went to the front line.
JUDGE MAY: Taking -- taking the matter from there, the next point which is made is that Arkan's unit was within the army of the Republika Srpska in Krajina at that time. Now, as far as you knew, is that right or not, or was it acting independently? Can you help us?
THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know that.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. All right. So when you mention Mrkonjic and the 1.000 men, were there any other units there or just that unit of Arkan's?
A. Well, in Perici, for example, that place down there, there was the army of Republika Srpska, and I saw the Eagles insignia and the Milicija, the police insignia. Now, whether that was -- came under Arkan's units or not, I really can't say. I don't know.
Q. All right. When you say he had 300 to 400 and then you mention the figure of a thousand, I don't suppose two-thirds of the unit, as you say, were cooks and mechanics, as you yourself say, and just one-third of those belonging to his own unit. 18461 BLANK PAGE 18462
A. Well, for example, he had people in two groups. One shift would work for a week and then go to the front. Then they would return and be replaced.
Q. Yes. But you're talking about the presence of 1.000 men at the same time, not in two shifts. At one and the same time, which is then an even -- raises the question even more as to whether you're telling the truth or not.
If he had two shifts, then he should have had at least 2.000 men, which is science fiction, if you ask me. Isn't that so?
JUDGE MAY: What is the question? He's given his answer. Now, you seem to be indulging in some speculation of some sort. Let's move on from here.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. All right. Now, precisely because his volunteer unit was always either under the composition of the army of Srpska Krajina or the army of Republika Srpska where the losses and casualties were greatest, do you know that after peace was signed in Dayton, that particular unit was disbanded? He disbanded his guards.
A. I don't know that there was the army of Republika Srpska and the Krajina one or what you said. And he disbanded his army only when he got to Belgrade, only then.
Q. Do you know that after the peace agreement was signed -- that is to say he went to help out where there was fighting in the war, and when this came to an end and there was the peace agreement, he disbanded his men. So he went to help both armies in Republika Srpska. Do you know 18463 about that or not? Are you aware of that or not?
A. Well, I don't know if he assisted, if he helped them, whether they came on a voluntary basis.
Q. Well, he helped on a voluntary basis, of course, not forcibly, not by force; on a volunteer basis.
But all right. Let's just clear a couple of other points up and move on to save time, if possible.
JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, I should say you've got about five minutes left.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. May. I hope you're not going to split hairs whether it's five minutes or seven or eight minutes. I just have a few more questions and points to clear up with this witness who, just like the others, is quite obviously completely inconsistent in his testimony.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. You say with respect to the injuries, on page 10, that on the occasion you were wounded in your heel; is that right?
A. Yes. A grenade wounded me in my back, in my muscle area, and my heel.
Q. All right. And is it true that you were not injured by a shrapnel but by a rifle bullet?
A. No.
Q. And as to your treatment and how you received your injury, I assume you must know that there are medical records.
A. When I was treated in Banja Luka, nobody asked for any documents 18464 or anything else, for any of Arkan's soldiers. They weren't asked for that.
Q. I'm talking about medical records, people who treated you. When you speak of your injuries, you never mention in what capacity you were injured apart from saying that you happened to be there on the spot. So answer me this, please, give me a specific answer: Why are you trying to escape the truth that as a Croatian you were a member of the Arkan's armed formations, that is to say a fighter, a combatant, and that you were injured as a combatant in the fighting that you were injured in?
A. I was not a combatant, and I'm not trying to get away from the truth.
Q. Mr. B-071, you say, and this is how you put it, that Arkan collected you up in Derventa; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. Is the truth this, that you -- that as you were without a doubt a Croat by nationality, volunteered for Arkan's Serbian National Guard and Territorial Defence in Eastern Slavonia and Erdut in 1995? Isn't that the truth? You yourself volunteered in Erdut in 1995. Is that true or is it not? Just say yes or no.
A. No.
Q. And is it true that you had to undergo rigorous procedure to be taken in? They checked you out. They checked your documents out. You had to supply them with all your documents and a photograph; right?
A. Could you repeat that question? I wasn't following. I didn't 18465 understand you.
Q. When you were taken in as a member, you had to undergo, according to my information, and you passed this check-up very rigorously. There was a very rigorous procedure. You had to provide documents and so on. So nobody just collected you up, rounded you up, it was you yourself who went to Erdut to sign up, with all the necessary documents, photographs, and papers and requests to join the unit; isn't that right?
A. No, that is not right.
Q. The fact that you were injured as a combatant and that you signed up voluntarily and spent several years as a member of that unit --
JUDGE MAY: I'm not going to allow you to put the question in that form. The witness has denied it. It's his evidence which counts at the moment, not what you're putting to him. Now, you've got two minutes left if you want to put anything else.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I assume that it is quite clear from his own testimony that he was able to move around freely throughout, that he spent time in Belgrade, that --
JUDGE MAY: Those are all matters of argument. You can make these points to us in due course. Now, we're finishing this witness's cross-examination. If you've got any more questions, ask them.
MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]
Q. Just answer me this question then, please: How were you forced, in addition to the facts that I have put forward to you, what made you give the statement that you gave?
A. Everything I say in the statement is the truth. I'm not afraid of 18466 the truth and I don't wish to avoid the truth. If you have any more questions, please continue.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. May.
JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Kay.
MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour. Questioned by Mr. Kay:
Q. Witness B-071, you told us that you joined the TO in February of 1991 in Jajce; is that right?
A. No.
Q. What's wrong about that statement?
A. 1992. I joined the TO in 1992, the village guards.
Q. I've got a statement here signed by you, and I'm looking at page 2 of it, and I'll read out a sentence that's in that statement. It's a statement that you gave to the investigators for the Prosecutor of the Tribunal. It says: "In February 1991, I joined the Territorial Defence in Jajce. I was a courier and a reconnaissance soldier." Do you say now that that fact is wrong?
A. In 1991, I had just come from Split where I'd been working in a company there. So it was the beginning of 1992 that I'd joined the unit.
Q. In the beginning of 1992 then, as you say it was then you joined the unit --
A. Yes, the village guards. The TO, village guards or watch.
Q. -- was that in Jajce?
A. Yes.
Q. And when you say it was the village guards or watch, how different 18467 was that from the TO?
A. Well, for example, the village guards stood around the village. Mile, Vrbica, Sarovo Polje.
Q. You had a commander; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And was there a head commander above that commander?
A. Yes.
Q. And did they wear uniforms?
A. No.
Q. What was happening in Jajce at that time? Why were you part of a group of guards?
A. Nothing was happening in Jajce. It was peaceful. We were just guarding the lines, touring the villages so that the enemy might come from -- might not come from Mrkonjic or Kljuc or from other directions.
Q. Jajce was a place where very few Serbs lived; is that right?
A. Not few. There were quite a few of them.
Q. And so the guards that you were a part of were not formed because there was any trouble in your area; is that right?
A. No.
Q. As part of the guards in the area, you said you patrolled the villages, did you have weapons or did others have weapons?
A. I had a pistol on me.
Q. And where did your pistol come from?
A. It was given to me from a man for those village guards.
Q. And did the other village guards have weapons as well? 18468
A. They did have weapons. Some had purchased them. They would sell a cow and buy an automatic rifle.
Q. The man who gave you your pistol, who was he? What job did he have?
A. He was the commander of the village guards. I know that before the war he was a captain by rank and he was a reserve officer.
Q. Were other reserve officers involved with your village guard?
A. No.
Q. Do you know how the village guard was organised, where it got its orders from?
A. Who they got orders from, from their superiors, I don't remember. I just know that that the commander would say, "At 10.00, you have to spend two or three hours at a particular position, then come home," and that's how it went.
Q. You said you were a courier and involved in reconnaissance; is that right --
A. Yes.
Q. -- when you left the area and you were captured by the Serb reservists.
A. On the 23rd of May, 1992.
Q. And what were you doing at that time when you were on reconnaissance? What was your function?
A. I had a girlfriend in the area, so I headed towards her, and at the same time I wanted to see what the situation was with soldiers, whether there were any units coming from the outside, and things like 18469 that.
Q. And what would you have done with that information?
A. I didn't manage to do anything because I was caught straight away by the reserve police.
Q. What would you have done with any information you had gained?
A. Well, I would go back and tell my commander, the person who gave us orders. I would tell him if I had noticed any troops. I would inform him, of course.
Q. So your role was rather like that of a spy; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And had you performed other missions like that before?
A. No.
Q. So what did you do when you were on reconnaissance otherwise? Wasn't reconnaissance spying?
A. It depends what term people use. Some people call it reconnaissance, others spying.
Q. And so after you were captured, as you say, and kept in detention but with a certain amount of freedom thereafter, weren't you ever able to escape?
A. I thought about it, but I didn't have a chance.
MR. KAY: No further questions.
MR. NICE: Just a few things arising, please. Before we come to that, Your Honour, may I say this: The witness made two statements. He's been asked a number of questions about the first one and I think some about the second. It's a matter, of course, for the Chamber whether the 18470 Chamber wants to have them. The second statement does deal in some detail with the account he gives of going with the investigator to look at the well. I haven't gone into this in great detail, always concerned to save time. There have also been produced some photographs which I don't actually have to hand of the place where he went to find the well. It may be necessary to turn to this statement or to the investigator, who could give evidence of the discovery of the well, in order to connect to the evidence of Mr. Grujic, whose evidence the Chamber will recall in relation to exhumation sites including wells.
I'm in the hands of the Chamber as to whether the statement should be produced at this stage, but it might be a sensible precaution to have them in now.
[Trial Chamber confers]
JUDGE MAY: No. We don't think we need the statements, thank you.
MR. NICE: Very well. Re-examined by Mr. Nice:
Q. Just tell us this, please, B-071: As you've told us you went with an investigator, can you remember the name of the investigator with whom you went to look for the well?
A. Vladimir Dzuro.
Q. Was there something about the replanting of an evergreen tree that enabled you and Mr. Dzuro to look for the place where you said the well was?
A. Yes. 18471
Q. And on the basis of a replanted tree or the stump of such a tree, was one or possibly two possible sites for the well identified by you?
A. I found this location where the tree had been planted, and it was cut. So we just found the stump. We weren't quite sure, and we looked at two locations and we found it at one.
Q. And did you leave the future dealings at that site to the investigator and to members of the relevant commission looking into exhumations?
A. Yes, because I returned to Bosnia.
Q. It's been suggested by the accused that you were in some way a full fighting soldier in this unit. Any truth in that?
A. No.
Q. Were you a fighting soldier, would you have been paid, do you know?
A. Perhaps I would be paid. These regular soldiers had salaries.
Q. Were you in fact paid any salary yourself, apart from the few weeks in Belgrade?
A. No.
Q. Were you the only one doing these general tasks for Arkan's soldiers or were there others in the same capacity as you?
A. There were others too.
Q. Do you know if they were paid or unpaid?
A. I don't know.
Q. In any event, if records exist of Arkan's soldiers, would you be shown on them as a paid fighting soldier or not? 18472
A. I don't know.
Q. Have you ever been trained in -- in detail in the use of rifles or in warfare matters of the kind that Arkan's soldiers were engaged in doing?
A. I didn't attend training.
Q. Mr. Kay asked you about one date in one of your statements. How long were you in the Territorial Defence before you were sent to Bjelajac?
A. About four months.
MR. NICE: And, Your Honour, I can tell you without wearying you with the statement that the passage dealing with 1991 is followed by a paragraph that takes us immediately to May 1992, consistent with his account that it's four months, and therefore it would appear to be it's an error in the statement, a typographical error or whatever, because both make sense if they're 1992.
Q. Did you ever go with Arkan's soldiers when they were operational to see what they were doing and whether they were acting properly or whether they were committing war crimes, the accused having used the suggestion of war crimes in one of his questions?
A. I was at Mrkonjic in Perici. There were operations. That was the only case when I saw a knife being stuck in the captive's back and Arkan killing a captive.
JUDGE MAY: Yes.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I think that Mr. Nice's question is inappropriate, because he says that I suggested to him, the witness, that war crimes had been committed, whereas in fact, quite to the 18473 BLANK PAGE 18474 contrary, I asked him whether he ever saw anyone committing any war crime. And before that, I asked him whether he was with the unit all the time, and he said he was with the unit all the time wherever it moved. And then he confirmed that he didn't see any crime.
JUDGE MAY: Yes.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Therefore, I think it's misleading the witness.
MR. NICE: The accused used a question directed at the witness referring to whether he was with other war criminals.
JUDGE MAY: Yes. Mr. Nice, can you finish in five minutes, do you think?
MR. NICE: I can, yes.
Q. It's been asked whether you were ever recorded as missing. Can you look, please - and this is obviously not displayed on the overhead projector - at this document to become a new exhibit, an extract from -- thank you very much.
MR. NICE: Your Honour will see the title of the document. The witness can just have it in front of him.
Q. This is an International Committee of the Red Cross document, Missing Persons on the Territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
JUDGE MAY: Is it to be produced in due course.
MR. NICE: It is, Your Honour, yes, but it will have to be under seal. I see. Whether the whole document is produced I'm not sure, but I'm just going to produce the one extract at the moment. It's the 4th edition, dated the 30th of June, 1998. 18475
Q. And if you, Witness B-071, would look on the left-hand column -- I'm not going to give the page number, for obvious reasons. Just look on the left-hand column, nine entries up, that is, just yes or no, is that your name and date of birth? Just yes or no to that question.
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you. The accused suggested to you that there was something improbable in your being taken by Zikic to Bosnia. In fact, when taken to Bosnia by Zikic, what was the first thing that happened to you?
A. Could you be more specific, please?
Q. Were you taken home or were you, as you've told us, taken us somewhere else, namely a police station where you were imprisoned?
A. They took me to the prison, to the Kamenolom prison in Doboj.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May.
JUDGE MAY: Yes.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] He wasn't taken to Bosnia, he was in Bosnia. Jajce is in Bosnia.
MR. NICE: Very well.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Again he's being misled.
MR. NICE:
Q. Where were you taken from by Zikic?
A. Zikic took me from Belgrade and took me to Doboj, to the prison there called Kamenolom. No.
Q. It has been suggested that you could have left Arkan's employment or use for you at any stage. If you had acted contrary to Arkan's wishes, what, in your judgement, would have happened to you? 18476
A. He asked, "Do you want to return to Bosnia or do you want to stay and continue working as a baker?"
Q. Generally, if you had acted contrary to Arkan's wishes, what would have happened to you, do you think? I see the accused is amused. What would have happened to you? Please think about that.
A. There were cases where people were slapped. If a baker doesn't make the bread properly, he might get slapped.
Q. And the last question is this: You have been asked a number of questions about number 29 on your list, Macak, cat, but just to be quite clear, you've spoken of seeing his picture on the wall, and the accused has suggested to you you can't have seen him at the particular time because he was already in prison.
Did you actually see in the flesh or did you only see his picture and name on the wall? Which is it?
A. I saw him on a photograph on the wall, together with Arkan's soldiers. I didn't know this Kaljavi, for instance. He got killed. But they told me that this was Kaljavi, and that's how it was.
Q. Thank you.
MR. NICE: That's all I ask of this witness.
JUDGE MAY: Do you want the --
MR. NICE: Yes.
JUDGE MAY: -- Red Cross list exhibited.
MR. NICE: Yes, please.
JUDGE MAY: Tab 4, possibly most convenient.
MR. NICE: Tab 4 under seal. 18477
JUDGE MAY: Under seal.
MR. NICE: Yes. Thank you.
JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. Just a moment. Witness B-071, that concludes your evidence. Thank you for coming to the International Tribunal to give it. You are now free to go. Would you just wait a moment until the arrangements are made.
[The witness withdrew]
JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic, we're going to adjourn now.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, but I wanted to raise certain issues, and I think that despite this interruption, I expect you to reduce the degree of intolerance with respect to my objections. Namely, we were talking about health problems when you interrupted me the day before yesterday.
JUDGE MAY: Yes. We are now going to have a break. Then we are going to go on to the procedural matters. When we're dealing with procedural matters, you'll be free to raise anything or any relevant matters you wish to such as those about your health. You will have the chance of doing it after the break.
We will adjourn now. Twenty minutes.
--- Recess taken at 12.32 p.m.
--- On resuming at 12.55 p.m.
JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, we have got this hour at least for procedural matters. In fact, we can't sit beyond 1.50 in the event because of commitments of various sorts. So we've got 55 minutes during which we must deal with the matters you want to raise, those that the 18478 accused wants to raise, anything that the amici want to raise, and then start on the 92 bis witnesses, which I'm anxious to do, obviously. Can I say, remind you, perhaps, of how far we'd got. On the 3rd of March, you addressed the Trial Chamber on this topic and produced a chart which I recollect. Only Judge Kwon and I were present. Judge Robinson was ill at the time. And I had two main points which I noted that you wanted us to consider; that evidence-in-chief be given in written form, and that we should consider the time to be apportioned in terms of the witnesses to be called.
Now, those were the two things which I had noted. There may have been something else which I missed, but those were the matters which you wanted us to consider.
MR. NICE: I think absolutely right. I was immediately not sure what you meant by your second point, but I think I now understand what it was that I was saying that was reflected in that observation. And, Your Honour, I think I can be pretty brief today, always anxious to take as little time as possible on procedural matters. Before I return to those issues, can I respectfully remind the Chamber that are two outstanding motions which will bear on the timetable of the trial. There's the adjudicated facts motion of the 12th of December of last year. Now, another Chamber, the Krajisnik Chamber, has dealt with a similar application and has made a determination of a number of facts that it is prepared to take as adjudicated facts. We would respectfully invite you to consider their list. It's a rather easy way into the problem. It's probably rather broader or slightly broader than the application we 18479 originally made, and we've got copies of their list for you. We'll file it as --
JUDGE MAY: Can I tell that you in fact we've considered this matter, and the order is being drafted at the moment. I'm not anxious to reopen it.
Just a moment. Let me consider.
[Trial Chamber confers]
JUDGE MAY: No. We have fully considered this matter and the various written submissions, which are very fully briefed, and we don't wish to hear any more on the topic.
MR. NICE: Then there's the Foca transcript 92 bis application of the 10th of January.
JUDGE MAY: Yes. Which are very much due for consideration. We haven't yet considered them but we will.
MR. NICE: Thank you. Your Honour is quite right, that of the various proposals to shorten the proceedings, the one I was focusing on on the last occasion was the use of written statements as evidence in chief principally because I think effectively all other proposals that I had made have been concluded, mostly against the proposals I made or all against the proposals I made, and I don't wish to reopen those, the Court having particularly dealt with the question of imposition of counsel on the accused, and of course by the procedure that's been adopted, having dealt clearly with the limits both as to time and topic of cross-examination by the accused.
There's one other topic that was outstanding which I will deal 18480 with comprehensively at the end of this short submission that should be dealt with in closed session, and I'll return to that. Your Honour, we've obviously been having a very -- keeping a close watch on the timetable. We've been watching the 92 bis decisions with interest and inevitably some concern and would respectfully and gently observe that as it reads, the 92 bis (D) decision, which allows comprehensive cross-examination, apparently unlimited as to time --
JUDGE MAY: It won't be unlimited as to time.
MR. NICE: No, but would appear to be more difficult for timetable than 92 bis (B) where the expectation is that the total exercise will be no more than one hour per witness. We've obviously had to assume that later decisions may broadly follow those given already, although we recognise that each 92 bis decision has to be considered on its merits, and I fear we've come now to the conclusion that it isn't going to be possible for us to fit the required material for the Bosnian indictment into the time allowed nor indeed to prove the -- all of the crime base for the Croatia indictment in the time originally allowed. I take on myself personally the responsibility for not simply waiting until the end of allowed time and then saying, well, we now need more time. It doesn't seem to me an appropriate approach and I will not take it, therefore, I'm informing the Chamber now that we are in the position where we will have to make an application for more time, and that will be coming your way in writing as soon as can be. I should say that we've obviously reconsidered all the steps we've taken before -- not steps, the proposals we made before; dossiers, summary 18481 witnesses and so on, wondering whether we should attempt to reopen those issues.
JUDGE MAY: So we can clarify this, your application will be for more time beyond the May 16th plus time lost.
MR. NICE: Yes, it will be.
JUDGE MAY: The time lost we calculate now as being 54 days.
MR. NICE: We haven't done a recent calculation but --
JUDGE MAY: That's our calculation.
MR. NICE: I'm sure it will be roughly the same. And the Chamber saw how we made our calculations that led to the chart that we hoped was helpful, and the various earlier discussion papers that we provided you in order to ensure that you're always aware of where we are. And I've tried to be completely open -- or I have been completely open in how I'm planning this case.
But on the basis that your decisions on dossiers and summarising witnesses and so on have been made before, it seemed although possible, likely to be undesirable to spend time and energy on addressing those issues afresh for the present parts of the case, and so the application for more time will be made on the basis that those issues have now been effectively determined for the purposes of this trial. And that does leave, as Your Honour has rightly identified, outstanding the possibility of saving some time by the use of either original witness statements or summaries that are specifically gone through and adopted by witnesses as evidence in chief. I don't think there's anything more I need to say about that as a proposal beyond what 18482 is said in the various pleadings. It's a method that is well-known to several jurisdictions for judge-only trials, and of course it saves a considerable amount of time.
Can I --
JUDGE MAY: We will have to think about that. I suppose one problem is that we already have a procedure for doing this, and that is Rule 92 bis.
MR. NICE: Well, our submission on that would be -- is that 92 bis is actually really aimed principally to avoid attendance of witnesses at all, despite the way it's been applied generally in -- or most often in this Chamber, it's really to save witnesses from attendance at all. And what we are proposing is something different from that, although it's rather similar to what actually does happen with some of our 92 bis witnesses, that is to say we're simply proposing that a witness who is going to be here can put his evidence in chief in more swiftly by saying, "Yes, I've gone through this statement and, yes, every word of it is accurate," and then being submitted immediately to cross-examination or --
JUDGE MAY: If may be more convenient if it's in the form of a summary.
MR. NICE: Yes.
JUDGE MAY: I mean, the point about 92 bis is that it has the added sanction of being sworn to.
MR. NICE: But -- yes.
JUDGE MAY: And that clearly, when you've got statements which are as broad as these statements frequently are, is a sanction of a sort. 18483 BLANK PAGE 18484
MR. NICE: Your Honour, yes. That adds to the weight of a previous statement as amended or corrected, if it has to be amended or corrected, but of course the minute a witness takes the solemn declaration and says, for example, in respect of a summary, "Yes I have gone through this summary word-for-word and it is true, I've signed every page," or whatever it may be, then he's subject to the sanction of the Court, and that's the reason the system works to the extent that it does work in other jurisdictions and does not free the witness in any way from his responsibility of truthfulness.
It's obviously --
JUDGE MAY: So if the witness was to make a summary and then, under declaration, state that it's true, thinking aloud about this procedure, a summary would have to be based very much on the statement, because otherwise the other side wouldn't have had the time. The Defence and the amici wouldn't have had the time to read it. Well, we'll certainly consider it.
MR. NICE: Yes. The practice of civil courts in the United Kingdom but I understand elsewhere is that of course witness statements are prepared in advance and are served and the first question that the witness is asked in the witness box is, "Is your statement true?" and he may or may not be invited or allowed by the Court to go through a few central bits of evidence for acclimatization to the Court and for similar purposes, but after that, cross-examination.
It doesn't halve the time that a witness will take but it very, very substantially reduces it. Of course, it reduces it at the cost to 18485 the Prosecution of the vitality of examination-in-chief, but we have to have such regard to the timetable that that's something we would be prepared to forego because, by saving time, we get more evidence in the same amount of time.
There's the associated difficulty of the public trial. This problem could probably only be met by summaries being -- well, it can be met by summaries being provided as exhibits -- not -- yes, as exhibits after the witness gives evidence. Of course, for reporters it would always be desirable if they could see the material a little in advance to make more sense of the cross-examination. Those are probably matters of fine-tuning, although one -- I recognise that bringing such a practice into play in this Tribunal would not be without practical difficulties, the principal difficulty being that those of us proofing witnesses would have to have that process completed a little earlier and, of course, the proofing summaries would have to be gone through on a word-by-word, line-by-line basis with an interpreter for adoption by the witness.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, one result of this procedure, if it is institutionalised, is that the Chamber would end up with not as full an opportunity of assessing the demeanour of the witness as it would otherwise have had were we to simply introduce the witness's statement. It is true that you can assess the demeanour from cross-examination, and you of course would also have the opportunity to re-examine, but I think something would be lost in a procedure that becomes institutionalised where, on a wholesale basis, we simply have the statements of witnesses. That's my preliminary observation. 18486
MR. NICE: Your Honour, I think it's an observation I've heard Your Honour make before. I've dealt with it in one of the footnotes of one of our filings to this extent in this way: Yes, examination-in-chief may have some assistance for purposes of credibility, although it has to be recognised that by the time of examination-in-chief, the witness will have gone over the material inevitably and quite properly on several occasions so that the value for purposes of credibility is probably significantly less in examination-in-chief than it is in cross-examination. And of course where facts are not challenged, there's -- although it's nice to have them presented by a live witness and a great deal easier in some ways than having to read it, if they're not challenged, then there's no need for them to come live. The other point that of course His Honour Judge Kwon made a long time ago now is that if you have a document that is attested to in some way in detail by a witness, then every part of that statement or summary, whatever it is, is before you and we don't have, as we so often have to do here, to say, simply for want of time, let's skip that paragraph and skip that paragraph, which may ultimately turn out to be of value. There are pluses and minuses, of course, with all procedural reforms, but this one is one that, for Judge-only trials, is I think now well tested and accepted, and the opportunity for cross-examination is an opportunity fully to test the witness.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Just let me know: The procedure in the United Kingdom that you refer to, is it used in criminal cases?
MR. NICE: It's used in civil cases. 18487
JUDGE ROBINSON: In civil only.
MR. NICE: Where there are Judge-only trials. Criminal cases, of course -- well, criminal cases that have juries couldn't have that system at the moment, and criminal cases before magistrates are still conducted on the, as far as I can understand and know, are still conducted on the traditional basis. So it's civil only cases.
JUDGE ROBINSON: That may not be the only reason why it is not used in criminal cases. I mean, the fact that there is a jury in criminal cases may not be the only reason. It may be just the nature of the proceeding itself.
MR. NICE: Well, Your Honour I -- I --
JUDGE ROBINSON: Where the liberty of the accused is at stake.
MR. NICE: I can see no reason why there should be any other particular reason other than the fact that there's a jury, because after all, the assessor of fact has to deal with material in the way that's best and if this was not the best way of dealing with assessment of facts for the very important issues tried in civil litigation, then I'm sure it wouldn't be permitted.
It is, I think, simply a reflection in our courts, for example, in the United Kingdom but I understand elsewhere, of the need to bring efficiency to proceedings in a way that doesn't conflict with fair disposal of cases.
So there it is.
JUDGE KWON: Having come from the civil law countries, I would say I'm much more familiar with that regime than the other colleagues, but the 18488 problem here is that the -- is our Rule, Rule 92 bis. How would you rationalise the apparent contradiction with the Rule 92 bis? What will be our rationale?
MR. NICE: First of all, the underlying problem and the problem to which we simply cannot get round is the conflict between the length of the time that all these large trials will take if explored fully on the traditional oral basis and the need to bring about judicial economy, and decisions have to be made that confront that on a realistic basis. 92 bis's function, Your Honour, was, as I suggested, really to allow in evidence of a witness in a written statement without his necessarily being available at all for cross-examination.
JUDGE MAY: Not so. It was to allow the evidence in, but it's in two parts. One is to allow the evidence in; the second part is whether you should order cross-examination or not.
MR. NICE: Oh, certainly, yes.
JUDGE MAY: So it's a two-part rule. It's not quite right to say it's purely aimed at stopping cross-examination.
MR. NICE: Absolutely not its fundamental purpose, although it originally may have been introduced for the purposes of allowing evidence in that wasn't going to be cross-examined at all. What we are proposing is a system whereby there will be no question but that the accused will be allowed to cross-examine. Of course he would. The expectation is the witness would give his evidence and be cross-examined, it's simply the method by which he gives his evidence. So there is no two-part 92 bis procedures to be gone through to that extent at all. 18489
JUDGE MAY: Well, coming back to my original point is why not use Rule 92 bis? Why not use it for all the witnesses? It would limit you on the acts and conduct of the accused, of course, but probably a Trial Chamber would want that evidence to be given live anyway, direct evidence of that sort. But indirect evidence is catered for in 92 bis.
MR. NICE: Well, Your Honour, that's a position we'd, I think, broadly achieved towards the end of the Croatian section of the indictment where --
JUDGE MAY: Kosovo.
MR. NICE: The Kosovo section of the indictment where we were doing exactly that. We've departed from that throughout the Croatia part of the indictment because we've had these various applications pending and because the nature of the witnesses has by and large been rather different, they having been more substantial linkage witnesses for the most part, and we've confined 92 bis to crime base. But subject to the ability of the Registry to provide the 92 bis formal procedure, there is, of course, absolutely no problem with going down that route. The problem tends to be, or has been in the past, that finding the Registry time to 92 bis a statement has sometimes proved difficult.
JUDGE MAY: Yes. Well, I think we have the argument.
MR. NICE: And the -- one tiny additional point: Of course, witnesses from time to time in any event do give evidence by written materials when they produce, as for example the last witness did, a list and then to some degree we always allow written materials to go in, but it's typically on that sort of a basis. 18490 Just a couple more points then. First, I must alert the Chamber to the fact that from the general list of witnesses, there continue to be additions to the list and subtractions from it. Two points on that. Additions to the list are going to continue to be made. Not only have there been outstanding inquiries of our own but recent events in the former Yugoslavia are changing the attitude of witnesses in various ways. Sometimes witnesses are unwilling and, as a result of very recent events, seen evidence where they were willing before. Sometimes we're getting people coming and being available. Either they weren't available before or we had no knowledge of them. That's likely to continue, and of course it's our duty to ensure that we get the best possible evidence available to you, whether by application to add or application to substitute. You will already have seen applications where we've applied to add witnesses and deleted others. It's always been more deletions than additions, and I think there's another such motion coming your way fairly soon.
Can I say in advance there's no bargaining tactic in my mind. We don't, as it were, hold back witnesses we're going to delete so that we've got some to delete for the next addition. As soon as there are people to delete, we delete them, but it may mean, because we're deleting rather more than we're adding at the moment, it may mean there will come a time before the end of the case where we will be asking to add names and there won't be any comparable deletions, but we are playing straight on that, as you would expect from us.
JUDGE MAY: When you come to make your application for more time, 18491 perhaps you would be good enough to follow the same spirit. It would be helpful to know precisely what you're asking for rather than, "Can we have more time, please?"
MR. NICE: That's exactly my next point, and it picks up on the second point that Your Honour remembers my making on the last occasion. In light of the fact that of course the time taken by witnesses is partly in our hands but also partly in the hands of the Chamber, the accused, and the amici, we will be asking you to consider, I think in the motion, as an alternative to a set amount of time, allowing time to accommodate the particular witnesses or particular number of witnesses for the various topics we can identify, because respectfully, it seems to us that that may be a rather more realistic way of dealing with it, especially if the Chamber can be sure, as I very much hope it can be, that in leading evidence in chief, we are as economic as we possibly can be, economic in a way that will be further improved if by chance more use can be made of 92 bis.
Indeed, if many or most of the remaining witnesses were to be capable of being taken 92 bis, and if the Chamber were to identify by number, list, or whatever the witnesses for each topic that could be called, then it would be the Chamber's control of cross-examination that would be effectively determinative of how long the case would take. There's one short witness matter that I'd like to deal with in closed session, if I may.
THE REGISTRAR: Closed session or private session?
MR. NICE: Private session, I mean. 18492
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[Open session]
MR. NICE: And one last point in open session. We'd be grateful for your assistance in relation to Mr. McCormack whose presence I welcome, as indeed I welcome him if it's so open to me to do so. His role, as we understand it, is different from that of the other amici and is to write 18494 BLANK PAGE 18495 briefs. We would be grateful for some clarification of what that amounts to, and I'll give you a particular reason for our making that request. It seems to us that the issue of Croatia's independence and statehood is quite an important matter in this case, the date of it, when it's effective. It's a matter apt for the opinion of an international lawyer.
At the moment, we are undecided as to -- not undecided -- yes, we are undecided as to whether we should seek to call an expert to deal with that or whether we should try to deal with it in another way, particularly in light of Mr. McCormack being here.
Now, if he is an advocate, then we can discuss it with him, and if the accused had an advocate we could discuss it with him and with a representative of the accused to try and identify whether there are matters that are common ground between us or whether -- and what matters need to be resolved. If Mr. McCormack was an expert, which he isn't, of course, then any opinion he'd give is one that we could cross-examine. But if, for example, the Chamber were to decide that this was a topic on which it would want assistance from Mr. McCormack, the question is whether that would then be in the form of an opinion as if he were an expert or --
JUDGE MAY: He's an amicus. He's not an expert. He certainly can't be cross-examined.
MR. NICE: Of course. Exactly, we recognise that, and I wasn't -- I'm just identifying the problem. I discussed it briefly with Mr. McCormack yesterday.
JUDGE MAY: In speaking for myself, if you want to discuss 18496 something with him, I can't see why you shouldn't.
MR. NICE: The problem there is it will only ever be bilateral and not trilateral and therefore I'm cautious about doing that, particularly on a topic that we know is important to the accused. But -- so there is outstanding, for us, the question of how we should deal with this particular topic, when did Croatia become independent. It may be Mr. McCormack will be able to assist on that.
[Trial Chamber confers]
JUDGE MAY: Well, Mr. Nice, we think that ultimately it's a matter for you what course you take about that particular issue, what submissions you want to make. If we want an opinion from the amicus, we'll ask for it.
MR. NICE: Very well, then. The course I think I'll take is to serve on the amicus -- amici and the accused -- I probably will serve what our argument would be on this topic as a draft document. I needn't probably -- I can serve it on the Chamber as well.
JUDGE MAY: It's a matter for argument rather than some expert being called to say, I would have thought, speaking for myself. But anyway, follow that course and we'll see what is necessary.
MR. NICE: And we would be grateful for sanction of there being bilateral discussions on this if the accused elects to bar his own representatives from speaking to us on the topic.
JUDGE MAY: Let us consider that in due course.
MR. NICE: Thank you.
JUDGE MAY: Not for the moment. 18497
[Trial Chamber confers]
JUDGE MAY: Yes. Are there any matters the amici want to raise before we go on to the accused?
MR. KAY: There is a matter. It's not pressing. It does concern the future conduct of the case, but I'm very conscious that we have got the 92 bis arguments to conclude, and maybe it would be preferable if that took priority. I could write something --
JUDGE MAY: Could you? It would, I think, save time.
MR. KAY: Yes.
JUDGE MAY: If it's not pressing.
MR. KAY: It's not pressing but it is to do with the end of the Prosecution case and what happens then.
JUDGE MAY: Yes. We will be considering that so if you would put it into writing, we'll consider it.
MR. KAY: Yes.
JUDGE MAY: Yes. Now, Mr. Milosevic, what is it you want to raise?
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I wish to raise a couple of matters, and the substantive one has to do with the issue you addressed a moment ago. I won't engage in any qualifications, I just wish to present facts, and most resolutely to demand that you take a position about it. But before I say that, I have a prior matter, namely according to your rules on the Detention Unit, and I am referring to Rule number 30, I have the right to be examined by my own doctor. I was seriously ill some time ago - I don't need to give you the dates, you are well aware of them 18498 - and I requested to be examined by my doctor. This was not permitted. And I would like you to tell me why that was not allowed, and I request that such a decision would not be taken again.
So very briefly, that is one point that I wish to raise. And I would like to hear your answer, please.
JUDGE MAY: Dealing with that, the conduct of the Detention Unit, as you know, is not a matter for this Trial Chamber. It is a matter for the Registrar. We will raise the question which you raise with us with the Registrar. Yes.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Now, a fundamental matter that is linked to the previous one. I believe that this entire debate regarding procedural matters, the method of calling witnesses, the presentation of documents, which is guided primarily by the need for expediency and saving of time, is quite nonsensical in light of the facts we are confronted with, the facts that I have referred to on a number of occasions here in public and to which I was always given the answer that you would consider them, but I never received any response. Namely, I have asked you questions relevant to the volume and quantity of documents that have been served on me. And about a month ago, this so-called Prosecution admitted in this table that was served that, according to them, about 320 or 30.000 pages were served on me, and according to my calculations, about 400.000, not counting about 2.000 videotapes, a thousand audio cassettes, and so on.
Therefore, will you please consider the elementary logic that these figures imply if we take it that an individual can read daily 500 18499 pages, just materials provided by the opposite side, not counting the documents that he himself has to study or -- and which are provided by his associates and which are relevant and which he has to study to be able to reciprocate, so therefore, taking into consideration only what is provided by the opposing side, and if it were possible for an individual to read 500 pages only once without making any notes or anything, then I would need 800 days to do that for 400.000 pages.
Bear in mind that on this table, it says that at the end of January, because at the beginning of February the so-called Kosovo case ended, then less than 20.000 pages. Then throughout the Kosovo case, all these other pages were served, and just before the beginning of the Croatian case, as you call it, I was confronted with 200.000 pages which were disclosed to me in the course of the Kosovo case which I had no chance of considering in any way whatsoever, and then this figure went up to 400.000 pages.
Therefore, if we leave aside the fact that I need to examine at least as many documents from the other side prepared by my associates, just for this lot I would need 800 pages [as interpreted]. Therefore, all your comments about expediency fail confronted with the fact that you have deprived me of my basic right to familiarise myself at least with what is being said here. And let us leave aside also that we are not hearing any acts on my part, evidence about any acts on my part but various incidents from the civil war in Bosnia and Croatia about which I have to collect information indirectly as I couldn't have had them as Serbia was not a participant in that war. 18500 Therefore, if you bear in mind these facts that you have not responded to for several months, my question now is: When do you think it is possible for me just to read through what I have been given? And your answer has always been that you will rule about this, that you will consider it. Therefore, the whole thing, as is evident, is being reduced to physical mistreatment, and I think --
JUDGE MAY: We're not listening to submissions of that sort. You have a point -- you have a point which is a matter for consideration which has not been considered heretofore partly because of the breaks in the proceedings necessitated by your illness.
Now, what are you asking us to do? What are you asking for?
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, first of all, I would like to express my opinion.
JUDGE MAY: I asked you a question.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And that is that any legal court --
JUDGE MAY: No. We've heard your opinions. Now I'm asking you a question. You make these complaints. What are you asking us to do?
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, precisely what your amici have suggested to you and which you have chosen to ignore, and that is that you give me time to recover and to prepare myself on the basis of what has already been served on me which I have before me as a job that I need to do and which it is impossible to do under these conditions. It is impossible to do this and recover and to ensure something that you might consider just.
JUDGE MAY: No. You are asking -- are you asking us for an 18501 adjournment of the proceedings?
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I am asking you to release me for the time that is necessary, as was requested by the amici, first to recover and then to be able to read the documents that have been served on me and to collect the appropriate documents, information, and facts which are necessary so that I should not be deprived of the fundamental right that you yourself have proclaimed, and that is the right to defend myself and to defend those who have been attacked in this way, because I repeat again, this illegal court of yours is a means of warfare against my country.
JUDGE MAY: Just a moment.
[Trial Chamber confers]
JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice, I want to know this: He complains, does the accused, of all these pages. You served a document on us, as I recollect, or on the Court. You can help us now as to the pages which relate to future witnesses as opposed to witnesses which have occurred in the past.
MR. NICE: The document to which you refer was served, a filing of the 12th of February, and it contains the chart that covers disclosure by the month, breaking it down as to disclosure under Rule 68, Rule 66(B), Rule 66(A)(ii).
There are a couple of points to be made before I respond to Your Honour's question. First, the quantity of disclosure simply reflects the rules of the Chamber -- I beg your pardon, the rules of the institution for disclosure of material in various categories to the accused. 18502 The second point is --
JUDGE MAY: Since he has dealt with it in public, you can answer in public as to the amount relating to the various categories.
MR. NICE: Certainly, yes. Can I come to that in a second? Within the material being served on any particular day and any particular month, there has been a high level, I think, of duplication arising from the fact that the accused was served with a lot of material initially and in accordance with the timetable of the Tribunal which, he having no lawyers acting for him, he initially required to be re-served on him on a witness-by-witness basis and from which we thereafter elected, with encouragement of the Court, as I recollect it, to serve on him on a witness-by-witness basis. So there has been a substantial measure of duplication. I'll confirm this for tomorrow to make sure that what I'm saying in relation to a topic which I wasn't necessarily expecting, is accurate, but that's my understanding.
The third general point is that material served under Rule 68 would, in relation to this accused given the position he had, be very, very considerable. It was, as the Chamber will recall, pursuant to a policy that I introduced at the beginning of the trial that we identified so far as we could the materials we would be searching for Rule 68 material, and we identified the parameters we would be applying to those materials to search for Rule 68 material, inviting the accused and the amici to -- and indeed the Chamber, to reflect on these parameters, we being flexible and prepared to change them as appropriate, but I think there have been no notification from the accused or his representatives 18503 that he wishes the parameters changed.
So the last point that ought to be made is this: The accused complains of the quantity of material that has been provided to him. The Chamber will also bear in mind, I hope, that my colleagues have been assiduous in serving on him in advance of every witness, and beyond the duties of the Prosecution, the exhibits that they believe relate to the witness some days before so that he's been in a position the best to prepare himself; and the Chamber will not have missed the point that the accused has never wanted for a question to ask of a witness to fill the available time, or almost never, and as well as being able to deal with witnesses on the basis of the materials we have provided, he's also been able, clearly, to research a large quantity of material available to him but not to us to deal with those witnesses.
The graphs or charts that have been produced show disclosure by the month up and until January of this year, breaking the material down between what is 68, what is 66(B) and what is 66(A)(ii). Perhaps the overhead projector, because I don't think the Court has the material with it.
JUDGE MAY: Not to hand, no.
MR. NICE: Just put it on the overhead projector. There's no reason why it shouldn't be seen. Public filing in any event. So you see a pattern there with a particular high spot in May of last year, another high spot in October, and I think that the May high spot reflected to the timetabling of the Croatia and Bosnia parts of the indictment - I'll be corrected if I'm wrong on this - but I think it 18504 relates to the timetabling of those and the fact that the requirements of Rule 66 then bit at about that date. So a large quantity of material had to be provided. The disclosure figures are on the left-hand side. The white boxes are 68, the other two shades are the two parts of 66, 66(A)(ii), and 66 (B). So, Your Honour, we can look at the other charts but that's the global figure.
Can I have that the chart back and I'll see if there is another one that may help the Judges.
But the reality is that of course a case like this is going to involve a great deal of material. That's what happens when a former head of state finds himself facing these charges.
We have done all we can first to comply with the requirements of this Tribunal but achieving economy by identifying tight parameters for 68 wherever we can. We've gone further in attempting to make life easy, or easier, for the accused by serving him material on the relevant basis in preparation of witnesses.
This chart shows differently constructed. The white passage is Bosnia, the darker passage is Croatia, and the middle colour -- passage --
THE INTERPRETER: Could you please come closer to the microphone.
MR. NICE: And the middle colour - thank you very much - is Kosovo. And I then return to Your Honour's question about the amount of material that relates to outstanding as opposed to past witnesses. I'm not sure how possible it's going to be to deal with that quickly, but it may be that this chart will help you have some idea of the material thus far served until January that is Bosnia related, that being, of course, 18505 BLANK PAGE 18506 the immediate upcoming part of the trial.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May.
JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. I suppose one matter of concern -- we can have the chart back, the usher needn't stay there. One matter of concern, and I see we have got two minutes left, is if there is any question of ongoing disclosure beyond January.
MR. NICE: Yes, there is. We've disclosed, I'm told, some 6.000 pages since January, and I should alert the Chamber to this: The Chamber will recall that I invited, in his interests, the accused to defer preparation of topics of Srebrenica and Sarajevo until a later stage when I could confine so far as possible the materials that he would have to consider on those two very large topics, and the intention was and perhaps still is that we should take those topics at the end of the case, but there will be a substantial amount of disclosure in respect of those yet to come.
JUDGE ROBINSON: That 6.000 is 66 or 68?
MR. NICE: I haven't got that broken down; it's a mixture. And it may also of course contain a considerable amount of duplication, but again, although I make that point, I'd rather be in a position to confirm it tomorrow.
JUDGE MAY: We need to know what the duplication is, because that clearly has a bearing on the accused's position.
MR. NICE: Yes.
JUDGE MAY: If it's duplicated, that's one thing. If it isn't, it isn't. We will have to consider ourselves whether the time hasn't come 18507 when there could be no more disclosure at all. We are one year into the Prosecution case. Beyond that. The time has really come to stop disclosure.
MR. NICE: Your Honour, the problem there would be that we would have -- with great respect, we would have to make Rule 68 disclosure.
JUDGE MAY: I agree. 68 would remain, but any more disclosure for the Prosecution.
MR. NICE: Your Honour, I certainly would seek to be heard further on that.
JUDGE MAY: Yes.
MR. NICE: When we've perhaps been able to come back with a little more detail of the kind.
JUDGE MAY: What we may say is no disclosure without leave.
MR. NICE: Your Honour, yes, and I'm very helpfully reminded by Ms. Wee that, of course, a considerable amount of 66(A)(ii) disclosure relates to sensitive sources, and we can't disclose that until shortly before the sensitive source comes and there can be no doubt, in light of the overall experience of what's happened to witnesses, that respect for sensitive sources is appropriate.
JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, no. We're going to have to adjourn now. We have to attend to different matters.
Mr. Kay, was there something you wanted to add, but very briefly?
MR. KAY: It's just this in relation to the materials: There are CD-ROMs and videos of which there are a great number, and it's impossible even to count them because they fill walls, cupboards, and they contain 18508 pages after pages.
JUDGE MAY: Yes. Well, we'll have to look at that. We'll return to this topic -- Mr. Milosevic, we've ruled on your release. We've ruled -- just listen for a moment.
We have ruled on your release previously. We have ruled against you. You have heard that. But we'll consider your complaint about the amount of material which has been served on you when we have more details from the Prosecution.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, will you please place on the ELMO this table given by the opposing side for you to see it. Because they give you partial tables. Put their table on the ELMO, please.
JUDGE MAY: We have it --
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is theirs.
JUDGE MAY: And we will be looking at it and we will return to this topic. We will adjourn now. Nine o'clock tomorrow morning.
--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.53 p.m., to be reconvened on Thursday, the 3rd day of April, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.