Milosevic Transcript 2003-08-26

²⁵²⁴⁵

Tuesday, 26 August 2003

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] With this next witness, as far as I can see, it's Mr. Colm Doyle. I believe that it is unacceptable to even in part treat him under Rule 92 bis or to shorten his testimony. He was the chief of the observer mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, of the monitoring mission in the critical time. He talks about very important facts from that period; peace plans, the referendum. He attended meetings of the National Assembly, and so on. So I believe that it is completely unacceptable for him to be shortened in any way by using this usual practice of 92 bis, and I am categorically opposed to this.

JUDGE MAY: It will be borne in mind when it comes to considering the time for cross-examination that there have been parts which the Trial Chamber has ordered should be dealt with under that Rule. They are not the significance parts of the evidence. The significance parts of the evidence will be given live, but we shall, as I say, in determining how long you have for cross-examination, allow you to have longer because of that reason, longer than the Prosecution.

Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, there was no translation at all from English.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let's see how we get on. ²⁵²⁴⁶

MR. NICE: Before the witness comes in, may I address you on another matter, in private session, for about one minute?

JUDGE MAY: Is there translation? Mr. Tapuskovic has the channel. Yes, Mr. Nice. I think there's a problem about the channel.

MR. NICE: May I address you for one minute in private session about an unrelated matter?

[Private session]

[redacted]

[redacted] ²⁵²⁴⁷ [redacted].

[Open session]

THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.

MR. NICE: The Chamber has an exhibit bundle of some 29 or -- 29 tabs, although it will not be necessary to go beyond number 19, the remainder being intercepts, the -- which he is going to be able to authenticate without producing in a more detailed way. The tabs are not entirely chronological because the first 12, I think it is, are the annexes to his statement which has been in part 92 bis'd, and it seemed more sensible to stick to the order of those original annexures and therefore the other exhibits he'll be producing follow on from tab 12, as I say I think it is.

May that exhibit be given a number?

[The witness entered court]

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, the binder for the exhibits for Mr. Doyle will be Prosecution Exhibit 515.

MR. NICE: Thank you very much.

JUDGE MAY: If the witness would take the declaration.

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

JUDGE MAY: If you'd like to take a seat.

WITNESS: COLM DOYLE

MR. NICE: I trust the Chamber has the witness summary. Examined by Mr. Nice:

Q. Your full name, please, sir. ²⁵²⁴⁸

A. Colm Doyle.

Q. And are you a colonel in the Irish defence forces?

A. Yes, I am.

Q. Colonel Doyle, you made a statement to the Office of the Prosecutor. Did you go through an exercise with an officer of the court attesting to the accuracy of that statement subject to one or two very minor changes?

A. Yes, I did.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, that statement can be found at tab 1 of Exhibit 515, with the minor corrections at an early part of that tab. And the Court having allowed part of the witness's evidence to be taken under the process of 92 bis as read, I'll deal with the balance viva voce in the standard way.

Q. Colonel Doyle, were you seconded or whatever from the Irish defence forces in 1991 to the European Community Monitoring Mission ECMM?

A. Yes, I was.

Q. Dealing with your arrival in Sarajevo, as you were deployed elsewhere to begin with, I think; dealing with your arrival in Sarajevo, did you arrive there on the 24th of November, 1991?

A. I went to Sarajevo on the 24th of November, 1991 to take over as head of the monitoring mission for Bosnia.

Q. Were you based then at the Hotel Bosna in Ilidza, a residential suburb of Sarajevo?

A. Yes.

MR. NICE: Your Honour will see we've got a map of Sarajevo ²⁵²⁴⁹ available. It may be it's a map that will be of value to the Court, we'll wait and see, with other Sarajevo witnesses. Can it be given an exhibit number.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, it's Prosecution Exhibit 343, tab 7.

MR. NICE: Thank you very much. I shan't actually be asking Colonel Doyle to deal with very many features of the map and it may be the Court will already be familiar with the general shape of Sarajevo.

Q. Colonel Doyle, you had been to Sarajevo before, I think for three days on the 11th of October; is that correct?

A. Yes. I went to Sarajevo for approximately three days before I was deployed to Banja Luka.

Q. On arrival on the 24th of November, what if anything did you notice or sense about the state of conflict in the area?

A. Well, because I had been in the area of operations, as we refer to it, for some time, there was a feeling that the situation was beginning to get rather tense, and there was some concern being expressed about the consequences of the withdrawal of the federal army, the JNA, from Croatia.

Q. Amongst your duties as head of mission, were you obliged to liaise with other monitoring teams situated in Bihac, Banja Luka, Tuzla, Mostar, as well as in Sarajevo?

A. Yes. Part of our function was to deploy monitor teams to the various locations covering the ethnic groups in Bosnia. So we picked those as an indication where we would get the best sort of information as to the developing situation within Bosnia.

Q. And of course, as the Chamber already knows, ECMM monitors were ²⁵²⁵⁰ drawn from a wide range of countries.

And I think that the monitoring team sent nightly reports, and one of your operations officers - this is paragraph 4 - would do a combined report collating all the relevant material; correct?

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. And then that report was sent either by you or by someone in your team to the head of the ECMM in Zagreb?

A. Correct.

Q. Your particular duty - paragraph 5 - given your role as head of the mission, to maintain contact with the civilian and political leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

A. Yes, that's correct, where the teams would have contact in the localities where they were deployed. When I took over as head of the mission, I was asked to remain in contact with the party leaderships.

Q. Very well. Following your deployment on the 24th, then, to this particular position, a first or an early meeting of significance was on the 27th of November when you spoke to the Bosnian Prime Minister Jure Pelivan?

A. That's correct, yes.

Q. You have your summary there and I forecast the Chamber may not object to your looking at it. I think you also have diaries.

A. I have diaries of where I went and who I met on the various dates.

Q. But so far as possible, Colonel, if you can speak from recollection on matters of importance, assisted as you will be by documents that we'll be looking at, that will probably be the preferred ²⁵²⁵¹ course of the Chamber.

MR. NICE: And if the witness could have a binder of exhibits. Is there a spare one for the usher to display on the overhead projector or not? If there's one more.

Q. And it may be, Colonel Doyle, if you'd like to turn, in the binder that's going to come your way, to tab 15. And if the usher would be good enough, when possible, to display the relevant tabs on the overhead projector because I'm afraid we haven't got this material on Sanction yet. Just tell us, please, very briefly about your meeting with the Prime Minister on the 27th of November.

A. One of the first requests that was made of me when I became head of the mission was that the Prime Minister, Mr. Pelivan, asked to meet with me in his office, and as well as welcoming me into the appointment, he wanted to bring to my attention some of the concerns that had been expressed by his office, particularly in relation to the fact that the JNA had been accused of taking in armaments in the form of rockets in a civilian four-truck convoy from Montenegro. These rockets had been confiscated by the civilian police, and the Prime Minister informed me that the JNA had intimated to him that if he didn't hand over these weapons, that they would have to take action.

I suggested to the Prime Minister that it might be of benefit were he to open up dialogue with the federal army.

Q. Thank you very much. We see that reflected in tab 15, paragraph A, where there's a reference to a feeling, in the middle of the paragraph, that the build-up by the JNA is a threat to the stability of the country, ²⁵²⁵² and that relates to the continuous withdrawal of JNA units and equipment from Croatia leading to a build-up in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Paragraph B deals with the four civilian trucks carrying approximately a hundred tons of rockets. C, to the JNA's being subject of a government request for full cooperation. And then D in your report on this meeting, you deal with the economic stagnation caused by blockades of roads and bridges, further damaged by the decision of Serbia to halt food exports to other republics, as announced. This is seen as a further Serbian attempt to weaken Bosnia-Herzegovina.

And then you make this point: Should this decision persist, the government may be forced to look to the Orient and Muslim-friendly countries for trade assistance.

Was that something that was covered by the Prime Minister, or was that something that was your own interpretation or calculation of future events?

A. No, the Prime Minister intimated that to me.

Q. Thank you very much. Very well. Paragraph 7 of the summary: On the 6th of December, did you travel to Trebinje and, in accordance with your normal practice, meet the mayor?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. I think he was a former truck driver working in Dubrovnik. What, if anything, did you observe - again from memory or from notes - as to his attitude, and what concerns did that give you?

A. I was struck by the fact that this gentleman was in uniform, which is the first time I'd met the mayor of a location who wore a uniform, and ²⁵²⁵³ some of the expressions he had I found to be very radical. He spoke about the return of the Third Reich, he talked about his opposition to -- he mentioned the Jews. He mentioned the Vatican. And I was very concerned and quite surprised that a man who appeared to me to be quite radical was holding the position of mayor of a town in Bosnia.

Q. This, of course, an early or comparatively early stage still of your general familiarisation with your job as head --

A. Yes, it was.

Q. So you were getting the sense of the location. And I think on that same day you met General Strugar, or Lieutenant General Strugar?

A. Yes, that's correct. I met him with my senior operations officer and an interpreter.

Q. Before we come to your account of what happened, I think you have with you - we needn't produce it - a photograph of that meeting.

A. Yes, I have.

Q. Which has an annotation on the back which you've recently looked at and which has reminded you of a detail not in your statement and not in the summary. With that in mind, and you can tell us about the photograph if necessary, tell us about the meeting with him. Where was -- where was the meeting?

A. I know that I left Trebinje. It was in some location not too far from Trebinje, and I think it might have been his field headquarters. And when we were met, I was informed that the general was not immediately available to meet with me because he was dealing with a problem which arose, and I intimated that if he couldn't see me, then there was no use ²⁵²⁵⁴ in me remaining. So about five minutes later I was told that he would meet with me and we then met for about 25 minutes, I recall.

Q. What did you notice about his tone and so on?

A. General Strugar was very perturbed and there had been a flurry of activity going on with people coming in and out which I wasn't too clear about. He then opened up the dialogue by telling me that he was -- had been very busy that period of time that I arrived but he felt obliged to meet with me. He also mentioned to me that because there were paramilitary troops -- he intimated there were Croats who had fired on his troops, he had no option but to take retaliatory action, and he admitted to me that he had fired on Dubrovnik.

Q. Now, he said that these were paramilitaries, or implied or indicated that they were paramilitaries and Croats. Did he say where they were that they were firing on his troops?

A. No, he didn't say where they -- I assumed that they were troops that had come in from Croatian or were on the territory of Bosnia in Western Herzegovina, but I didn't know or did he say to me where they had come from.

Q. By that stage, had you ever been to Dubrovnik?

A. No, I hadn't.

Q. Indeed, have you ever been to Dubrovnik?

A. I have never been to Dubrovnik.

Q. So its precise topography and so on is unknown to you?

A. Correct.

Q. Did he seek to justify the attack he was acknowledging on ²⁵²⁵⁵ Dubrovnik by reference to these paramilitaries?

A. Well, in the sense he intimated to me, as far as I recall, that he was not going to tolerate people interfering and killing his troops.

Q. Did he give you any details of killings or numbers of killings or anything of that sort?

A. No. He didn't say to me how many had been killed, but certainly he did admit to me that he was obliged to take retaliatory action and that he had taken action against the city of Dubrovnik.

Q. Your annotated photograph reminds you of what? Just explain that, please.

A. Well, I took a lot of photographs because of historical record out there, and I asked the general would he mind standing in for a photograph with myself and my operations officer. He conceded to do that. It was my tendency then that when I got some of these photographs, I would notate on the back what they refer to, and the notation on the back of that photograph which I made after it was developed was that it gave the date, which was the 6th of December, 1991, and it was with General Strugar the day he launched an artillery attack on Dubrovnik, killing 16 people.

Q. And so that detail, the killing of 16 people, was available to you then even if you can't track its source now?

A. I have no recollection of why I mentioned that figure but I know it's actually notated on the back of the photograph.

Q. I think you met Strugar once again in February, 1992, in Bileca?

A. Yes, I met him with the then head of the monitor mission, Ambassador Cutileiro, for a meeting. ²⁵²⁵⁶

Q. You've been asked if you noticed anything about his rank at that stage, whether it was up or down, and the answer is you don't know.

A. I don't recollect.

Q. Moving on from December 1991 to January 1992, on the 28th of January of 1992, did you have your first meeting with Radovan Karadzic?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. Where and in what setting?

A. The meeting took place in the office, as far as I recall, of Mrs. Plavsic, who was one of the Serb members of the Bosnian Presidency, and the meeting was held at my instigation in order to meet with the party political leaders.

Q. So this was in which town?

A. This was in the city of Sarajevo. In the Presidency building.

Q. And indeed, as you're going to tell us, I think, your contacts tended to be or were focused on the Presidency itself at that time.

A. Yes. Almost all of the -- all of the politicians I met with, the party political leaders, and a lot of the meetings were held in the Presidency.

Q. For a short period of time it being possible to meet different groups together, later on having to deal with them all separately. Would that be a correct summary of your position?

A. That's correct.

Q. Your impression of Karadzic and his approach?

A. Well, Radovan Karadzic was very pleased to me with me on that occasion. I remember him expressing his gratitude that as head of the ²⁵²⁵⁷ monitor mission I would give time to meeting with him. He -- my view was very clearly the leader of the SDS party. He was very concerned to get the message across that he was very supportive of what the monitor mission was trying to achieve and that he felt that having dialogue on a regular basis would the leadership of the SDS would be good for both sides.

Q. You had subsequent meetings with him and with other members of the SDS leadership. Can you give the Judges any indication of the sort of frequency or number of meetings that you had or would that be unrealistic?

A. I can't recall how many official meetings I would have had when I was head of the monitor mission, but as the situation developed, I met with him more frequently. And also when the head of the monitor mission from Zagreb came to the city, we had meetings with the Serb leadership which would have included Radovan Karadzic, Nikola Koljevic, and the third member was mainly Krajisnik who was the president, I understand, of the Parliament. I also met, on occasions, Mrs. Plavsic.

Q. Now, with the benefit of those encounters, were you able to form a view as to who did what, who called the shots, who deferred to whom?

A. Well, the one person who didn't speak any English was Mr. Krajisnik; however, I knew that Dr. Karadzic conferred with him considerably. But all of them, I felt, deferred to Radovan Karadzic, so it would have been my distinct impression that he was the -- he was undoubtedly and indisputably the leader of the Bosnian Serbs and they all deferred to him.

Q. Krajisnik, when he spoke, did he speak through interpreters or how? ²⁵²⁵⁸ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁵²⁵⁹

A. Most of the time that I had meetings with him, he spoke in English himself. There would also be -- their own interpreter would be there in case of clarification.

Q. Sorry, Krajisnik you say spoke in English?

A. No. Krajisnik did not speak any English certainly that I was aware of.

Q. So he spoke through interpreters or through someone else?

A. He spoke through an interpreter, or else he would speak directly to Dr. Karadzic and he in turn then would speak in English. Nikola Koljevic was a good speaker of English as well.

Q. On the 13th and 14th of February, was there the start of a round of conferences on the future of Bosnia and did that happen in Villa Konak in Sarajevo under the chairmanship of Ambassador Jose Cutileiro from Portugal?

A. Yes.

Q. Your role in all of this?

A. My role at the time was I was requested by the -- this delegation who were part of the Conference on Yugoslavia to clarify the various positions in Sarajevo. So it became the practice for me to give a briefing to these people when they came to Sarajevo, to bring them up-to-date on the developments within the political and military situation. I was also asked if I would be available on a sort of a standby so that during talks with the political leaders, of which I did not play any part, but I would be readily available in case these negotiators would look for my service or for my views. ²⁵²⁶⁰

Q. And without being subject to any false modesty but just telling it as it is, how were your briefings valued, as you understood it, by people, for example, like Lord Carrington?

A. Well, Lord Carrington did say to me on the first occasion I met with him, he asked me what I -- he inferred to me that he had been nearly three days in Sarajevo and that he had spoken to all sides, and one side would counter what the other side had said. So my name was given to him, I understand, by the Presidency as somebody who would probably have a neutral and impartial view of what was going on, particularly as I had teams deployed throughout the republic. So he asked if I would go with him in his car to the airport because he was about to leave, which I did, and I gave him a general briefing in the car, and his remark when he left the car was that he had learned more from me in 15 minutes than he had learned in the previous three days. So I did get the impression that he was appreciative of my knowledge of the situation as an impartial observer.

Q. Did he express to you any view on the ease or difficulty in obtaining a truthful account from others?

A. I know that he did mention on one occasion that all the parties lied and that it was very difficult to get at the truth.

Q. Moving on then from that first round of the conference, on the 27th of February, did you have a meeting with the Bosnian Serb Information Minister, Velibor Ostojic?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. It touched on the television station. A brief account of that, ²⁵²⁶¹ please, and its significance as you saw it in your position.

A. The Minister for Information Ostojic asked to meet me. He made a request that I would go to his office, which I did. I was very surprised that he asked if I could use my influence in persuading the Minister of the Interior to give him, that is Mr. Ostojic, more responsibility for communications within the country. What he was referring to here was his objection that the Minister for Information -- I beg your pardon, that the Minister of the Interior had control over Sarajevo television and not he as Minister for Information. I was very surprised that the head of the monitor mission was being asked to get involved in what was essentially an inter-Minister dispute of the government of Bosnia. So I told him that I would attempt to meet with the Minister of the Interior to get his side of the argument.

Over the next I think maybe two days, I met with the Deputy Minister of the Interior who informed me that it was not any concern of Mr. Ostojic, he had no responsibility for Sarajevo television and that's the way it would remain, and he gave me the opinion that all Mr. Ostojic wanted was actual control of the television station itself. So I felt it was not something that the monitor mission should get involved in and I informed both sides that I was no longer taking up this issue on anybody's behalf.

Q. Nevertheless, the effort to obtain control of the television station through you an indication of how things were in the city and the state generally.

A. Yes, that there was certainly a division within the government, ²⁵²⁶² depending on what side you came from, and that there were difficulties.

Q. The referendum on independence took place on the 29th of February of 1992. Your involvement in that was anything in relation to the referendum itself or the voting or did you stick out -- stay out of that?

A. I was asked by the head of the mission in Zagreb to attend the parliamentary debate on the question of whether a referendum should be held in Bosnia to determine independence and sovereignty. I attended the referendum which lasted for about maybe 36 hours. I had an interpreter with me. I was welcomed into the Chamber by the -- by the President, and I stayed there for the parliamentary debate.

Q. Ambassador Cutileiro, I think, had asked you to approach the party leaders?

A. Yes, Ambassador Cutileiro asked me if I would contact the party leaders and ask them what they felt would be the outcome were Bosnia to be given its independence. I spoke with the president, and he told me that although the Serbs would not be very happy if Bosnia became independent, that they in time would come round to accepting it. I then asked the leader --

Q. By "the president," you're referring to?

A. President Izetbegovic. I then asked, sometime later, Radovan Karadzic what he felt would happen if Bosnia was given its independence and he said that there would be conflict.

Q. When you say "conflict," can you remember the terminology he used?

A. I had the distinct impression he was referring to war.

Q. Well, now, the results of that referendum - paragraph 17 - were ²⁵²⁶³ announced on what day? Can you recall?

A. I think they were announced on the 1st of March.

Q. And I think it was a formal press conference dealing with that. You returned to your headquarters. Now, I don't know how comfortable you are with just simply pointing things out on the map, and I don't know to what extent the learned Judges from this or other cases are familiar with Sarajevo, but you've been provided with a pointer, and it may help if you can just, looking at that exhibit, which is 343, tab 7, just start the process of familiarisation if the Judges require it. The old town is where?

A. The old town is here.

Q. Yes. And the big main street --

A. This is the airport here.

Q. Yes. The big main street with high-rise buildings on certainly one side, it runs right the way through it?

A. Along here.

Q. And you're --

A. I was out on this side, and Ilidza --

Q. Over there on the west.

A. The west.

Q. All right. We'll come back to that map occasionally, I think. You were dressed, I think, in civilian clothes for a particular reason.

A. When the results of the referendum were announced at a press conference, I was asked if I would attend. I said yes, but I attended in ²⁵²⁶⁴ civilian clothes rather than in the white uniforms we wore as members of the monitor mission. I did this because before, when the Bosnian Serbs wanted hold their referendum, Radovan Karadzic asked, or invited the monitor mission to -- to monitor, I suppose, the holding of the Serb referendum and I felt that was not appropriate, so I declined. Therefore, I felt that if I was going to be appearing at the press conference for the referendum in general that was being announced by the Prime Minister, that it might be appropriate if I didn't attend that as a member of the monitor mission, so I decided to wear a suit rather than to wear the white uniform of the monitor mission.

Q. Now, you got back to your base at Ilidza, but what did you discover the following morning?

A. The following morning a member of the hotel staff came to me and he brought me out to the window, and he said, Do you notice anything? And I said no. And he said there's nobody moving. Now, at that time in the mornings all of the students, we used to see them quite frequently, and then he told me that the city was blockaded. This is the first information I had that blockades had been erected in the city. I was also informed by my operations officer that some of my monitors who were in the city the previous evening could not get back to the hotel. I viewed this as quite serious, and I then made contact with the Presidency to ascertain what was happening, and then I was informed as to the nature of the blockades and why the blockades had been set up.

Q. And by whom had they been set up and for what apparent purpose?

A. Well, the information I had at the time was that they were set up ²⁵²⁶⁵ as a result of the killing of a Serb at a wedding the previous day and tensions were high. However, I was informed by various parties that the reason they had been erected was that the Serbs were objecting to the principle of the referendum and the referendum results. And I was also concerned that I had been informed that there might be a difficulty in arranging for the departure of the referendum -- the civilian referendum observers from countries of the European Union.

Q. Did you in the early afternoon drive to the city centre with your operations officer? And of course, as the Judges will already remember, the ECMM is entirely an unarmed mission.

A. Yes, I went into the city.

Q. So far as you could judge, how necessary would it have been for the blockades you then saw to have been planned in advance?

A. I suppose my military training would lead me to believe that these barricades went up very, very quickly. They seemed to go up in the all the strategic positions around the city, and it would be my view that they had already been planned in advance.

Q. On your way in, was there any shooting?

A. Yes, there was. Near the Bristol Hotel, which is on the main route into the city, our -- we came across a barricade, and very close to the barricade there was a considerable amount of shooting going on. Shots were being fired at people on the barricade from a building on the left-hand side. I was very concerned for my own safety and that of my officer and driver, so I was about to withdraw when a red car -- a Red Cross car came with a flag flying and passed by my car and somebody inside ²⁵²⁶⁶ indicated that I should follow. And when we approached the barricade, the barricade was lifted to allow me through. I suppose the main reason for this was that my car was easily recognisable; it had the motif of the monitor mission and --

Q. You were now in your white uniform?

A. I was now in my white uniform, on official duty. So I was facilitated with passage through the barricade and made my way to the -- to the Holiday Inn where all activity seemed to be centred.

Q. You there met Mr. Ganic, the deputy president of Bosnia-Herzegovina; is that correct?

A. Yes, I met Mr. Ganic, who was at that time head of the Crisis Committee, and we had a discussion about what action should be taken to defuse the situation.

Q. I think you saw Karadzic there as well that day at some stage?

A. Yes, I saw Dr. Karadzic later on. I had been informed on my arrival that he was ensconced in a floor of the hotel with his Crisis Committee.

Q. You reported on this -- and this is one of the original annexures to the witness's statement so it's early on in the tabs. It's tab 6, originally annex 5 to the witness statement.

We're not going to go through your earlier reports, Colonel Doyle, because they're produced by your witness statement which is admitted under the provisions of the Tribunal called 92 bis, but I think if the Judges do find themselves going through it, they'll see that your earlier reports were handwritten at some stages when you were right at the beginning of ²⁵²⁶⁷ your mission. By this stage you've got proper equipment?

A. Yes.

Q. Now, this report sets out what?

A. This was a report that I submitted to the head of the mission, and it set out the official SDS demands that were handed to me in the Holiday Inn and for which I discussed Mr. Ganic.

Q. You can see those demands: Activities relating to international recognition to be stopped, conference to be continued, media to stop reporting, Bosnia-Herzegovina is already recognised. Then reference to the political situation and assassins to be caught, Yutel TV to be discontinued and a division of television and radio into ethnic channels. Further down, we see Ganic accepted the responsibility to secure the departure of the European observers. Then over the page, at 1700 hours Ostojic, senior observer of the European parliament, HRC, and his officers were permitted to approach one of the barricades. It became apparent that the armed Serbs would only consider dismantling the barricades on the directive of the SDS leadership. Can you just explain that to us, please.

A. I decided after I'd spoken to Mr. Ganic that I would try and use my position to make an approach to one of the barricades to see if I could defuse the situation. So I approached a barricade that was on a bridge behind the parliamentary building. I was with Dr. Ostojic and, as you say, the chairman of the monitoring group, and I was easily recognisable, and one of the personnel on the barricade gave me permission to walk across the bridge, which I did. And then through the interpreter I asked ²⁵²⁶⁸ if they would consider dismantling the barricade because I had been in contact with the Crisis Committee of the SDS and had dealt with Dr. Ganic -- or Mr. Ganic.

The person I spoke to on the barricade inferred that the only condition in which he would dismantle the barricade would be on the word of Dr. Radovan Karadzic. I withdrew at that stage.

Q. Very well. I think you had some dealings at this stage with Lieutenant Colonel Dimitrijevic.

A. Lieutenant Colonel Dimitrijevic was a JNA officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel who was given as a sort a liaison officer to the monitor mission. And when the decision was made to move the referendum observers back to the airport, I was very well aware of the fact that we would have to go through a considerable amount of barricades and the situation was very tense and very dangerous, so I requested of this lieutenant colonel if he would accompany me and permission was granted for that to be done.

The JNA provided, I think it were, two coaches, and we got most of the referendum observers on these coaches. And Lieutenant Colonel Dimitrijevic in his car, followed by my car, we set off to try and get these observers out of the airport.

Q. Just conclude with tab 6 on the second page. You report, halfway down the page: The results of the meeting of the Presidency eased the situation as a lot of the SDS demands were met by the government, and you set out what was met.

A. Yes. ²⁵²⁶⁹

Q. When you refer to a meeting of the Presidency, does that mean that the Presidency including members of all parties?

A. No. At that stage, I was looking upon Ejub Ganic basically as the representative of the Presidency that I was dealing with, because it was getting less frequent for the various ethnic groups to actually talk together. So if we had a meeting with the Serbs, they were separate. When we arrived first in the mission area we were able to talk to all of these people together, but it was becoming increasingly difficult with the amount of mistrust so we found ourselves dealing with them separately.

Q. Well, you got the election monitors out. I think the journey took several hours to make, although it was only a couple of miles, or three miles or something like that, but on the following day, the 3rd of March - paragraph 21 - what happened within the city by way of Muslim-erected barricades?

A. I was informed on the 3rd of March that a lot of barricades were now going up in certain portions of the city. Not the entire city but those parts of the city that were predominantly occupied by Muslims. I didn't see any of them myself, but when I inquired I was informed that there was a great fear that Serb paramilitaries under the command of Arkan were coming towards Sarajevo. I understand it was from Pale, I was informed. I have no evidence of this. And I had heard of Arkan's reputation and I attempted to ascertain if in fact this report was true. The only information I received subsequent to that in relation to Arkan was that a member of the hotel staff informed me that Mr. Arkan was anxious to meet with me. ²⁵²⁷⁰

Q. Were you ever able to verify whether Arkan had made such a request?

A. No, I was not able to verify it at all and I was not able to verify if in fact Arkan had been in the city. All I know is that his reputation was such that it certainly spread a lot of concern among some of the population.

Q. Paragraph 24. The Muslim barricades came down when and under what circumstances?

A. The I think the Muslim barricades came down on the following day, on the 4th of March. I think the reason for this was there was a debate on television, Mr. Ganic, General Kukanjac, who was the senior JNA military officer in Sarajevo, and I think that took some of the tension out of it. And an address that had been made by Vice-president Ganic.

Q. There was a delegation -- or the Cutileiro delegation on March the 15th and 16th for another round of talks on the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina. You were available to but did not attend those talks; correct?

A. That's correct.

Q. Is this in line with your retention of some independence so that you could carry out your task and be trusted by as many as possible?

A. Yes, I felt this was important, and I had no official capacity as -- at that stage as a member of the peace conference. I was strictly head of the monitor mission and reported through my chain of command to Zagreb. But I felt that it would be incumbent upon me to assist in any way I could with the visits and also in my dealings with the force commander of ²⁵²⁷¹ UNPROFOR.

Q. What was happening to movements around Sarajevo, in and around Sarajevo at this time?

A. Movement was gradually becoming more difficult. A lot of the JNA movement had been brought about by the withdrawal of the JNA army, in essence, from Croatia. Part of the monitor mission's task at that stage was to follow the convoys of JNA as they came out of Croatia and ascertain where they were going to.

As head of the mission, I was becoming concerned that as the JNA left Croatia, there was a large build-up of JNA forces into Bosnia, and it was around that time that I became aware of the -- I suppose the evidence that a lot of the JNA army who were from Bosnia originally would now become part of a JNA Bosnian Serb army.

Q. And of course not so very long before you had heard complaint of armaments in the form of rockets coming up from Montenegro also onto Bosnian territory.

A. Yes. I was also concerned that with the result of the referendum and some of the comments that had been passed to me in relation to Dr. Karadzic and what would happen, I was anxious that we in the mission would receive information very quickly, if recognition was going to be given to Bosnia, so that I could develop a plan of evacuation for the people I had responsibility for. So I was very -- I was very conscious of wishing to be informed as to what the developments were and of following developments closely.

Q. Now, this tour of duty with the ECMM ended on the 22nd of March; ²⁵²⁷² ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁵²⁷³ correct?

A. Yes.

Q. And Lord Carrington, whom you'd met in the course of this duty, asked you to become his personal representative, and in that capacity you returned as soon as the 10th of April, 1992, with Ambassador Cutileiro; correct?

A. Correct.

Q. And you then had the opportunity, or indeed the duty, of meeting the senior politicians on a more regular basis even.

A. Yes, I had.

Q. On your return in April, what did you notice about the position in Sarajevo generally as compared with how it had been when you left at the end of your tour of duty?

A. Well, I found a dramatic difference in the whole atmosphere when I returned on the 10th of April. The first thing we noticed was that Sarajevo airport was under the complete control of the federal army. And the second thing I noticed was that there was a large crowd of inhabitants of Sarajevo eagerly seeking to leave the city.

We soon established that -- that afternoon, that the only flights that were leaving Sarajevo were basically moving out members of the JNA and their families and that it was very difficult to get a flight for a civilian who wished to leave the city. There was an air of tension around, and it was very palpable, I felt. It was completely different to the atmosphere when I left as head of the monitor mission on the 22nd.

Q. Was there any sniping? ²⁵²⁷⁴

A. I can't remember exactly when the sniping started, but I do -- I was aware that UNPROFOR were finding it difficult and that positions had been entrenched. But I can't accurately reflect as to when the first incidence of sniping happened in the city to my recollection.

Q. At some stage certainly the term "Sniper Alley" came to be used, did it not?

A. Yes, that was a frequent phrase which brought a lot of fear to a lot of people.

Q. It may or may not be a phrase of precise definition. What, if anything, did you understand by it? You may have not been in the best geographical position to know it too well, but what did you understand it to mean?

A. I never actually moved into the city too much. I was very conscious of the instructions that were given to me by Lord Carrington which was that it was important that I remain safe and that I was a representative of the peace conference, but certainly I used to hear many reports from military people, from civilians, and certainly from members of the media that it was a dangerous place to drive along Sniper Alley, which I took to be a portion of the main road coming in towards the Marsal Tito barracks, around the Holiday Inn and up towards the railway station.

Q. Pretty well in the dead centre of the map --

A. Yes.

Q. -- on the board, on that long road. Very well. I think one of the journalists you spoke to was Martin Bell. Do you remember an exchange with him on the 10th of April? ²⁵²⁷⁵

A. Can I just have that again? I --

Q. Yes. Martin Bell.

A. Yes.

Q. Do you remember discussing matters with him on the 10th of April?

A. Well, I know that when I arrived, we were going into immediate talks with the Serb leadership in the hotel in Ilidza, and I was quickly taken aside by Martin Bell, whom I had not met before, and he said to me, "Please remember that I have evidence of 25.000 refugees on the move from Zvornik." I asked him where did he get this information, and he said that he filmed it on BBC's television, their own camera which was out there. And I bore that in mind, and sometime during our discussions with Radovan Karadzic, I put it to him that I had received a report from there were 25.000 refugees on the move in Zvornik. He seemed to be a little bit alarmed when I gave him this information. He asked me where I got the information from. I told him it was given to me by BBC television, and he replied that he didn't trust them and didn't believe them. I mentioned later on to Martin Bell that I had in fact mentioned this to the Serb leadership.

Q. Where were you based for this mission; the same hotel?

A. Yes. I --

Q. In Ilidza?

A. I stayed in the same hotel because I felt it would be of benefit. I would have had the facilities of the mission transport and communications, et cetera.

Q. And did you notice at some stage a change in the ethnic ²⁵²⁷⁶ composition of the hotel staff?

A. Yes, I did. While I was in the capacity as Carrington's representative and around that time, I can't be sure exactly when, we noticed that a lot of the hotel staff had changed, and when I inquired about it, I was told that all non-Serbs who were members of the staff were dropped in a transport into the centre of Sarajevo. I asked a member of the hotel staff why this was the case and he said, "Well, we were told it was for their own safety."

The following day, I think, I was invited to a dinner in the hotel by what I was told was the new Serb local community committee, and some members of the monitor mission were invited as well. I attended the dinner, but when I listened to a speech by this new chairman, whose name I do not know, I felt that we were being used to more or less accept this situation. So when I had an opportunity to respond to the speech, I stood up and I spoke about my concern at this development, and then I walked out from the dinner and invited the monitor mission personnel to follow me.

Q. I think there was, on the 12th of April, a meeting organised by General Morillon which came to nothing because the SDS didn't turn up; is that correct?

A. That's correct.

Q. And you were at that meeting. You went back to the Hotel Bosna and had discussions with Dr. Karadzic?

A. Correct.

Q. And what was that all about? We can see the fruits of it at tab 16 in the Exhibit 515. ²⁵²⁷⁷

A. Well, this was a period when we were attempting to negotiate cease-fires because firing had been quite frequent at this stage. And I was involved in negotiating a cease-fire agreement which is as is indicated on the overhead projector.

Q. It says here the leaders of the three main parties, aware of the extremely serious situation, agree. Had you been dealing with them individually or collectively?

A. We had been dealing with them individually.

Q. It has the terms of the cease-fire, which includes, we see towards the bottom of the page, disbanding all irregular armed forces in accordance with an agreed timetable under the supervision of the EC monitors.

And in this context it concludes the three main parties reaffirm their opposition to any territorial gain by force and agree on the right of return to the refugees.

A. I should point out that this agreement was officially negotiated not by myself but certainly by the visiting delegation of Jose Cutileiro and his officials. But I was a member of the delegation at that stage.

Q. Paragraph 33 of the summary. Did you conduct negotiations with the board of Sarajevo Television about a clause of this agreement allowing access to the television station? You may not find it here.

A. Yes. I was to -- part of the agreement was that this would be done, so on the following day, on the 13th of April, I went to Sarajevo Television, and I had some Serbs can me. I can't recall who they were, but they were -- they were to be there on behalf of what we were ²⁵²⁷⁸ considering during the cease-fire. So I chaired this meeting, and I soon realised that what I interpreted to be the terms of the cease-fire as related to television wasn't what the Serbs had actually wanted. We understood that the terms of the cease-fire included that the Serbs would be given more access to television air time, but in fact it became clear during the meeting that what the Serbs wanted was a division of all of the assets of Sarajevo Television. This would include parts of the buildings, parts of the facilities. And nothing came of this because it was my understanding this was not what had been agreed during the cease-fire. So the meeting did not achieve anything.

Q. On the same general topic, on the 18th of April, did the Sarajevo Television receive a telephone call making a certain threat?

A. Yes.

Q. Tell us about that briefly.

A. I was informed by a phone call I received from Sarajevo Television that they had received a warning from Pale, the Serbs in Pale, that if they did not get off the air, the television station would be targeted in 30 minutes. Now, at that time, the Bosnian Serb Crisis Committee of Dr. Radovan Karadzic had based themselves in the hotel where I was, so I attempted to contact Dr. Karadzic, who was downstairs, and I got in contact with one of his aides and I told him that I wanted Dr. Karadzic to ensure that this attack would not take place on the television station, and the aide came back and told me that Dr. Karadzic wished to assure me that this attack would not take place.

Approximately 20 minutes later, the television station was hit by ²⁵²⁷⁹ mortar fire, and I understand two people were killed. I sent a message to Dr. Karadzic that I was now going to condemn this attack and blame him or that he would take responsibility for it because it was he who assured me that this attack would not take place. So I sent the message to him, and later on that evening he came to me with Nikola Koljevic, in a very agitated state, and he said to me that -- he admitted that the attack had taken place, he admitted to me that it was done by Serbs or Serb paramilitaries, but that it was not done with his permission, and that he said he would carry out an investigation. But I got the impression he was very embarrassed by what had happened and was very concerned when I told him that I would condemn this attack on BBC television.

Q. Something I think you did.

A. Yes, I did.

Q. But did he, despite his confess-and-avoid approach to this, did he say where the attack had been ordered from?

A. No, he did not.

Q. Did you discover where it had been ordered from?

A. No, I did not discover nor did I seek to. I was -- I assumed that because Radovan Karadzic admitted it had taken place, that it would have been from -- directed by Pale from some position forward of that that would have been within mortar fire, or that the television would have been within mortar fire. Of course, this is not the first time this happened. It happened subsequently on many occasions.

Q. Paragraph --

JUDGE KWON: Colonel Doyle, do you think or do you believe now ²⁵²⁸⁰ that there was a way for Mr. Karadzic to prevent such an attack at that time?

THE WITNESS: Well, I think, Your Honour, it would have been my -- it would have been my acceptance at the time that he was the undisputed leader of the Serbs. He had been many occasions in Pale. He operated a lot from Pale. So I would have been satisfied that he had a lot of influence as to what did and did not take place.

JUDGE KWON: What would be those ways for him to prevent, for example?

THE WITNESS: He would direct his military commander to ensure it didn't happen, or he would direct the paramilitaries in Pale to ensure it didn't happen.

JUDGE KWON: So you mean that he had direct influence over paramilitaries in Pale?

THE WITNESS: That would be my opinion, yes.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

MR. NICE:

Q. It may be that His Honour would want to know on what other experience or what other material you formed the view that Karadzic had the ability to control the military or the paramilitaries.

A. Well, it was around this time when the -- when we would have talks in the Hotel Bosna with the Serbs that they would come under the protection of armoured cars provided by the JNA. And on one occasion we had a meeting with Radovan Karadzic and General Aksentijevic and both of them travelled together in an armoured car, so it would have been my ²⁵²⁸¹ assumption that he had a lot of control and influence.

Q. And it may be, just to focus on this topic in a wider, general setting, did you have any evidence one way or another, or material pointing one way or another to the suggestion that the armed forces, regular or paramilitary, were acting without political oversight?

A. I would have to say that in my opinion at that time, the JNA, although a large influence and present, were not directly getting involved in any conflict. But certainly they were everywhere. There was a gradual build-up, and that increased as the evacuation from Croatia progressed.

Q. Paragraph 37. Beg your pardon, paragraph 36. Can you deal with something specifically although it may have a wider, general application: Was there an occasion when an ECMM team was sent to Foca having received, or some part of the mission having received reports of ethnic cleansing?

A. Yes. I was in the ECMM mission headquarters office when a decision was made to attempt to send a team to Foca because information was coming in, "ethnic cleansing" was a phrase that becoming more frequent, and I assumed that the monitor mission received some reports of events that were taking place in Foca.

I did not have any influence in this except that I was aware that it was happening, and within the short period of time after the team departed for Foca, they returned. I spoke with one of them who was an Italian officer and he informed me that they were stopped by the JNA and told that the JNA could not ensure their safety or their security if they went to the Foca region, and therefore, they were taking the decision not to allow them to proceed further. ²⁵²⁸²

Q. Did you raise this matter with Nikola Koljevic?

A. Yes, I did. Nikola Koljevic was quite sympathetic and a man who used to ramble quite considerably I found, but he did say that he would like to be able to facilitate the monitor mission because he believed in what they did, and he said he would even offer to go to Foca himself.

Q. Now, was this -- I'm so sorry.

A. But he didn't go, of course, nor did the mission go.

Q. Did this explanation or excuse or reason for non-access to areas, or to this area, where ethnic cleansing was under consideration on grounds of security, was that something that happened once or more than once?

A. It was beginning to happen increasingly. Certainly I had a report from the area of Banja Luka by one of my teams that they were now finding freedom of movement very difficult. Now, the two binding principles under which the monitor mission were in Bosnia, apart from their specific tasks, was that the authorities in Bosnia would provide freedom of movement and safety and security. This was an unarmed mission totally, therefore they didn't pose a threat to anybody. And in order to be able to keep up-to-date on the developments politically and militarily, they needed to get to areas. And certainly I was aware that the monitor mission was becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress in their teams going to certain areas.

Also around this time we became aware that everything -- there was a lot of reference to ethnic cleansing and there were refugees on the move, and it was becoming very difficult for the mission to move anywhere; and this would have been one of those occasions, when they attempted to go ²⁵²⁸³ to Foca.

Q. On the 21st of April was there fierce fighting in the area outside the Hotel Bosna where you were located, and as you could judge it was it Bosnians firing into an adjoining location with Serbs returning fire?

A. Yes. The area where I lived was the Hotel Bosna in Ilidza and it was predominantly a Serb area. The first occasion that I witnessed any fighting in the city happened outside our hotel at about 5.00 a.m. in the morning of April -- in fact, my record I think has it on April the 22nd. And I, after a while --

Q. We can take it quite shortly just because I have got an eye on the clock.

A. Well, I know that fighting took place. We could see Serb paramilitary returning fire, but we could also see a lot of fire coming in against the Serb paramilitaries.

Q. 13 people died in that battle, I think.

A. We were told that 13 people died, yes.

Q. Paragraph 38. On the 23rd of April, did Lord Carrington with Ambassador Cutileiro and president of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, Dr. Pinhiero, arrive at Sarajevo airport for talks of a cease-fire and was the text of the 12th of April cease-fire reaffirmed?

A. Yes.

Q. Were there meetings between that delegation and UNPROFOR Generals MacKenzie and Morillon and the JNA Commander Kukanjac.

A. Yes.

Q. Together with representatives Mr. Izetbegovic, Karadzic, and ²⁵²⁸⁴ Koljevic and Boras for the HDZ?

A. Correct.

Q. Were you left with the task of getting that ceasefire agreement signed and on terms that everybody did it at the airport?

A. That is correct, yes.

Q. Karadzic signed first because he was at the airport --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Obviously the interpreter cannot follow. The interpreter is only reading the transcript with a delay. Because both the witness and Mr. Nice speak the same language, you should warn them to make small pauses.

JUDGE MAY: Thank you for the suggestion. Yes.

MR. NICE:

Q. Was Mr. Karadzic the first to sign and did Izetbegovic initially decline to return to the airport but you persuaded him?

A. Yes.

Q. Was there a pause in the fighting when the negotiators were in the city that day?

A. Yes. There was no shooting going on that day until after the delegation left.

Q. At 9.00 p.m., what happened?

A. At 9.00 p.m. a lot of gunfire broke out, and we persisted with attempting to get the party leaders back to sign the cease-fire.

Q. On the 27th of April, you received a phone call from a Mrs. ²⁵²⁸⁵ Banjac, pleading that she should make some effort -- or that you should make some effort to release her husband, Jasenko Banjac, who had been abducted by the Serb police, she understanding that he had been taken for interrogation in Serb-held Vraca; is that right?

A. That's correct, yes.

Q. Were you able to do anything about that? Was this something that Pale was able to deal with and control?

A. I was in Pale sometime later, and I raised this issue and I was told that it was likely that this man would be released, thereby giving me the impression that they were aware that he was in custody.

Q. You'd been identified as somebody to chair meetings at a local level between all three parties on a daily basis; is that right?

A. That's correct. This came from a peace conference which we had in London on one of the sessions, and the peace conference was anxious to find out if there was any level at which representatives from the three sides would sit down together. So I would was proposed as a chairman, and that was accepted by the leadership of three sides.

Q. We can see the composition of this regular meeting at tab 9, which was annex 8 but is tab 9 of the exhibit. It sets out the composition there, but in fact I don't think it met very often, this particular commission; correct?

A. Yes. It was difficult to get them all together because of the continuous fighting in the city, but we had met on just a few occasions.

Q. We move on, and I'm going to try and pick up the pace a bit if I can. On the 28th of April, you were involved in getting President ²⁵²⁸⁶ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁵²⁸⁷ Izetbegovic to Lisbon for the peace negotiations. You managed to get him, with difficulty, to the airport, and then you were told something about airspace or the use of airspace.

A. When we took the president under United Nations escort as far as the airport, I was anxious to get him there before dark. When we arrived at the airport, the aircraft that was to take him to Lisbon had not landed. I inquired from the manager of the airport and he told me that because Belgrade controlled the airspace over Bosnia, they had to get permission from Belgrade for the aircraft to land and Belgrade refused permission. So we had no alternative but to take the president back into the city under UN escort.

Q. In fact, he got out of the following morning?

A. Yes, we managed to get him out the following morning at approximately 1000 hours.

Q. Tab 10 is the next exhibit we'll look at. While we're turning that up, I think on the 28th of April, you met the mayor of Sarajevo, Mr. Kresevljakovic to discuss access to food stores in the city's suburbs.

A. Yes, I did.

Q. The letter that we can now see follows on from that meeting; is that correct?

A. Yes. A copy of that letter was given to me.

Q. Explain its setting, please, for us.

A. My understanding is that the letter was addressed to Mr. Jack Delor, who was the president of the European Union, and notated on the top of the letter in handwriting was copies to Mr. Cutileiro, Mr. Soares, who ²⁵²⁸⁸ was a member of the peace conference, and myself.

Q. Now again we can look at the letter in detail ourselves. We can see at the foot of the first page the mayor's account of kidnapping innocent inhabitants, civilians and children, threats of blackmail, they exchanged them for snipers and other attackers, captivated, it says, by territorial defence, and indeed over the page you see six lines up from the bottom his description as mayor of the exhausted city. This letter, which as I say we can all read at leisure, accurate or overstating or what?

A. It would be my opinion that the letter was probably overstated.

Q. But with an underlying factual base?

A. Yes, I think so, yes.

Q. Paragraph 45. On the 30th of April, did you have a meeting with Bosnian acting Prime Minister Mr. Rusmir Mahmutcehajic?

A. Yes, I met with Mr. Mahmutcehajic in his office. He was the acting Prime Minister on that date.

Q. And he gave you something then?

A. Yes, he gave me a transcript of a phone conversation which he said was between Dr. Nikola Koljevic, who was in Lisbon for the peace talks, and a Mr. Karisik who was believed to be in the area of Pale. I'm not familiar with this gentleman, so I don't know. And the transcript centred around a requirement for the people in Pale to show me evidence of the moving back of artillery positions which were overlooking the city because this was negotiated in Lisbon as part of the continuing process, and Dr. Koljevic intimated that if I as Carrington's representative did not ²⁵²⁸⁹ see evidence of the withdrawal of this artillery, then the peace talks in Lisbon would be suspended.

Q. Now, you were provided simply with a written transcript at that time and you were, I think, unable to verify one way or another whether the written transcript reflected any real conversation or not.

A. That's correct.

Q. Yesterday you'd been able to hear an intercept; is that correct?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. Were you able to identify any of the voices?

A. I identified the voice of Dr. Nikola Koljevic only.

Q. And therefore, the transcript which you provided, which we can find as one of your original annexures, annex 10 at tab 11, is something you're now better able to verify as apparently being accurate?

A. Yes. I would accept that.

Q. Let's look at tab 11, and you may want your pointer for the map. I know this was not the map you were looking at overnight when you were reviewing this transcript. Are you going to be able to identify approximately, for the advantage of the Judges, the two positions that we've been able to pick out?

A. Here is one here, Zlatiste, and the second one is Vraca, which is very close into the city.

Q. The first place, how many kilometres from the city would that be?

A. I would say this is not more than a kilometre and a half, maximum, from the city. The other one, Vraca, is right on the outskirts of the city itself. ²⁵²⁹⁰

Q. Let's just look how those places turn up in the transcript itself. "N" is Nikola Koljevic and "M" is Mladjo Karisik. The first reference to Milenko presumably referring to Karisik one way or another. And he says: "We can't get through to Pale. What did they do? What kind of an action happened yesterday? The conference stopped because of that shooting. I see there's nothing from Zlatiste." And that's the first place you've been referring to; is that right?

A. Yes, it is.

Q. I'm not going to go through all of it because we can see another reference to an artillery position or firing position in the middle of the page: "From Hum, from Zlatiste, from Sirokaca direction." You haven't been able to locate that, I think.

A. No, I have not.

Q. But if we go further down the page, we see reference to yourself with Koljevic speaking: "Listen, you should take care of that today. We agreed with Doyle to get the observers on the place where our artillery stands. Let that artillery withdraw. We can't start the conference here without doing that. That they are casing it to us here and it should be like that in order that we can attack him. They do not have the argument, these here are talking only about the artillery..., then demobilisation can be allowed. We must drive him into a corner here. Doyle will appeal to you and you will take him to some artillery points." The reply: "Theirs?"

"No, not theirs, ours, it is written like that on the paper, demobilisation cannot start until the artillery that threatens the town is ²⁵²⁹¹ taken away. They permanently state it that it can shoot at the city. And not one shell could fall on the city any more. We can't prove that it comes from Hum, we can only take them there and tell them: These are our artillery weapons. I ask you to do that and to accompany them and let them come to some of our artillery points."

"Ours?" "Ours."

THE INTERPRETER: Mr. Nice, please slow down.

MR. NICE: Sorry. I'm slowing down. Sorry.

Q. "You know that our artillery is situated on Vraca." And I think Vraca was the second place you indicated, closer to the city.

A. Yes.

Q. Indeed it can be seen on the black and white map. Very well. That's all I ask of that. I'm sorry to have gone too fast. On that same day, I think, the 30th of April, did you go to Pale to meet Mrs. Plavsic, to observe artillery positions?

A. Well, I had attempted to go to Pale the day before, which was the 30th of April, but we weren't able to make progress up on the route to Pale because the route was totally congested with tanks that were heading up to Pale. So Mrs. Plavsic agreed with me that we would come back down and we would attempt to go up on the following day, which we did on the 1st of May.

Q. And you had a conversation with her, she picking you up -- or you picking her up outside her apartment block?

A. Yes, I had. ²⁵²⁹²

Q. And what did she say about territory and percentages and things like that?

A. In the course of conversation with her, she intimated to me that it was important that if there was to be a division of territory in Bosnia, it should accurately reflect the ethnic groupings. She also mentioned that the Serbs should be entitled to about 70 per cent or 75 per cent of the territory because even though they had a smaller percentage ethnic-wise, the fact that they had lost a lot of territory since the war and the fact that they were mainly rural people would indicate that they deserved more territory than the other groups. She also casually mentioned to me that if it took the lives of 3 million people to solve this problem, then maybe they should get on with it.

Q. And so her justification for the larger percentage of territory was that the others were city dwellers or city-centred dwellers?

A. Yes, that was my understanding.

Q. Specifically, did she identify the ethnic group that was that minority of city dwellers?

A. She did make reference to the Muslims as being mainly city dwellers and business people.

Q. I think at some stage you sent your colleague out to attempt to check on artillery positions. It was your birthday then or thereabouts, and you calculate that something of a public relations exercise was made out of that.

A. I indicated to Mrs. Plavsic that when I was going to Pale, I needed to be careful that my visit to Pale was not to be exploited as to ²⁵²⁹³ be taken as some sort of recognition of the -- what became Republika Srpska. So I told her that I would go to Pale to meet some of the leadership but I did not want any publicity. She was aware of the fact that it happened to be my birthday, so when I sent my deputy out to verify the withdrawal of the artillery positions, we had a discussion with some of the leadership in the location, at the end of which, after dinner, a birthday cake was rolled into the room and a video camera suddenly appeared to videotape the event, and I felt that I had been exploited to the extent that I understand that this appeared on Belgrade television the following day.

Q. You met up with your deputy who had been attempting to verify withdrawal of artillery positions. He didn't speak to you in the presence of Bosnian Serb officials but reported to you in the car on the way back what?

A. He informed me that he had no evidence of the withdrawal of any artillery, and on receipt of that information I contacted Lisbon and gave them that report, and I understand it resulted in the subsequent disbandment of the talks.

JUDGE MAY: If that's a convenient moment, we'll adjourn. Colonel Doyle, in this and any other adjournment, I must warn you as we warn all witnesses, please don't speak about your evidence to anybody and that does include the Prosecution team.

THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: Thank you. Twenty minutes, please.

--- Recess taken at 10.34 a.m. ²⁵²⁹⁴

--- On resuming at 10.56 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE:

Q. Before we move to paragraph 50, something not on the summary, relates to the 2nd of May. I think on the 2nd of May, Colonel, Izetbegovic returned as a result of something that was said to you, you weren't expecting him. He was arrested in circumstances fairly well known and was subsequently released?

A. Yes.

Q. What was it that was said to you that led to his being unattended by you at the airport?

A. When I was taking the president to the airport, it was done with a security escort from the United Nations, and the arrangement was that when the president returned, the Presidency would inform me and I would arrange for the United Nations escort to return to the airport to take him back. On that day in question, and there was a lot of fighting that started in the city, and I got this phone call from what I thought was the Presidency saying that because of the renewed fighting in the city the president would not be coming back on that occasion. So I phoned the United Nations and told them to stand down the escort. I later realised that the phone call I received was not from the Presidency but was from other source who wanted me to ensure that the escort did not arrive at the airport and I found out subsequently that the president did return to Sarajevo and was taken into custody by the JNA.

Q. Along with his daughter and things like that? ²⁵²⁹⁵

A. Along with his daughter and another member of the Presidency whose name I can't recall and his security officer.

Q. And the released was conditioned on withdrawal from barracks, I think?

A. Yes. And it became something of a -- the negotiations for his release centred around he being released and also taking the cordon that was around the military headquarters where General Kukanjac was now a hostage in his own headquarters, that was the deal, that one would be released and the cordon around the headquarters would be lifted.

Q. Paragraph 50. On the 5th of May you participated in cease-fire negotiations involving Fikret Abdic, Stjepan Kljuic, and General Aksentijevic on the Serb side. Any inclusion of the Bosnian Serbs? If not, why not?

A. The Bosnian Serbs did not come to those negotiations primarily because they didn't deem it safe to be able to go to that portion of the city which was the PTT building which was the headquarters of the UNPROFOR, and therefore we continued the negotiations between the members that you mentioned and Mr. Fikret Abdic, Stjepan Kljuic, and the JNA under General Aksentijevic.

Q. Tab 17 shows the fruits of this negotiation, limited though they were, because I think the cease-fire was really the same day, wasn't it?

A. Yes. I would have to say that a lot of these cease-fires were broken fairly quickly.

Q. Nevertheless, tab 17 --

A. But we did -- I did get an agreement from the various parties, and ²⁵²⁹⁶ it was signed as you see there.

Q. On the 10th of May -- I should have asked you this: Your impression at this stage as to the desire of the JNA was that it wanted to do what?

A. I was -- I was satisfied at this stage that the JNA wished to withdraw from Bosnia in totality, and my view was I think reinforced when I went to Belgrade subsequently and spoke with two senior officers of the JNA who wished to talk to me. So that -- they were my impressions, that the JNA wished to withdraw from Bosnia, in a dignified manner I would add.

Q. I move to the 10th of May. I think there was another tentative agreement reached on the evacuation of the JNA barracks in the city. This has been dealt with an earlier exhibit, Exhibit 503, tab 18 for which courtesy copies are available and a copy for the witness. This agreement concerned leaving weapons and heavy equipment behind; correct?

A. Correct.

Q. And who wanted that equipment to be left behind?

A. My impression would have been that if these heavy weapons were left behind, it will be taken over the non-Serbs, because at that stage I recall a conversation with the vice-president saying that he was very anxious to try and get weapons for the defence of the city, for the Muslims. So I assume that one of the advantages of the JNA leaving all their heavy weapons would be that it would be taken over by some other party.

Q. That then the 10th of May we needn't spend any longer on that document which has been reviewed before. ²⁵²⁹⁷ On the 12th of May were you evacuated by helicopter?

A. Yes, I was.

Q. Because?

A. The decision had been made to withdraw the monitor mission from Bosnia, and early that morning I was informed that -- in fact the night before I was informed by the -- my successor as head of the monitor mission for Bosnia that I was to be taken out of the city. I do not know who arranged that I would fly, that the JNA would fly me to Belgrade. But I was advised that I should be at the PTT building at 0530 hours the following morning. That was the morning of May the 12th. I was taken to the military barracks at Lukavica, and the JNA flew me from Lukavica to Belgrade. I was in the company of General Aksentijevic.

Q. On the way, your path took you where?

A. When we were taking off from Lukavica, I was informed by General Aksentijevic that the helicopter would be touching down in Pale first because there was a requirement to take a soldier who was dying from wounds back to Belgrade.

Q. The Chamber will know where Pale is and can find it on page 33 of the atlas if it wishes to, due east of -- in fact due east of Sarajevo, Exhibit 336.

On your way to Pale, what did you notice by way of artillery?

A. Well, on the way to Pale I was conscious of seeing a very large amount of artillery weapons, mortars, and they were deployed along the mountain ridge outside of Sarajevo, because the aircraft was flying relatively low. I didn't pass any comment to General Aksentijevic on ²⁵²⁹⁸ seeing this.

Q. Your interpretation of the fact that the aircraft was confident enough to fly low over this artillery -- these artillery positions being what?

A. Well, I assumed they were artillery -- Serb artillery positions, because if they weren't, the helicopter would not have been flying as low as it was. Had they been -- had they been belonging to the Muslims or Croats, I'm sure they would have attempted to shoot down the helicopter.

Q. We move to Belgrade. Before we do, you didn't, I think, in Belgrade meet any of the Bosnian Serb leaders, did you?

A. No, I did not.

Q. On review of your own working documents of the time, are you able to help us with whether those Bosnian Serb leaders had Belgrade locations where they could be found?

A. Well, I know that I have in my diary telephone numbers for all of the party leaders, and in reviewing my diary recently, I noticed that when I was given the telephone numbers of Radovan Karadzic and Nikola Koljevic, I was also given Belgrade telephone numbers for them as well.

Q. On arrival in Belgrade, was your early appointment or one of your first appointments with Vladislav Jovanovic, with whom you had dinner?

A. Yes. On the 12th of May, when I was withdrawn from Bosnia, somebody had arranged that I would have dinner with Foreign Minister Jovanovic. I assume this came from Mr. Jovanovic's office himself, and I had dinner with him that evening.

Q. Did he make a comment about Bosnian Serb leaders? ²⁵²⁹⁹

A. Yes. He was -- he was very gracious in his comments to me, but in the course of the conversation that evening, he said that -- he asked me how I found, in general, the Bosnian Serbs. So I gave him my opinion, and then he replied by saying, "Well, you know, there are far more radical Serbs than the people you have been dealing with." So when I asked him what was he referring to, he just made a reference to the people in Banja Luka.

Q. Paragraph 56 we've covered. Paragraph 57. On the 20th of May did you fly to Lisbon, having been invited to join the peace talks, and did you stay there until they failed on the 27th of May, but within the course of that time and as a result of an event that happened in Sarajevo, did you achieve something about Sarajevo airport? Tab 18 refers.

A. We were in Lisbon for some days, and we didn't seem to be making any progress on talks with the representatives of the parties. And then on the 27th of May, a mortar landed in a bread queue in Sarajevo, causing several fatalities. This became an item of immediate news. Cutileiro's delegation, which included myself, were contacted and told to turn on television, and we saw the results of this mortar explosion. A short time after that, Radovan Karadzic was very anxious to come in and talk with us, and we had a discussion about meeting with him. So when he came in, he immediately inferred that the Bosnian Serbs were not responsible for that mortar. I recall Ambassador Cutileiro saying to him -- asking him how was he -- how did he know that this attack could not be attributed to the Bosnian Serbs, because it was impossible to have contact with Sarajevo from Lisbon. However, what was attempted by the conference ²⁵³⁰⁰ as a result of this was that Dr. Karadzic was informed that whether the Serbs were to blame or not, they -- the Serbs were actually responsible for it or not, they were probably going to be blamed and, therefore, it would be the interest of them to make a gesture to our conference. We had discussed this previously to Dr. Karadzic coming in, and I suggested - I think it was I, I may not be sure on that - but one of us suggested that maybe we would exploit this to be able to get an agreement on the airport. So after some considerable time, Dr. Karadzic agreed that in certain circumstances he would be willing to hand over control of Sarajevo airport to the United Nations.

Q. We see on tab 18 the leadership announcing its readiness to open the airport for humanitarian transports and other details of that. It's also announcing its readiness to remove heavy artillery from around Sarajevo under international supervision. Similar supervision will be extended to the city to ensure the protection of the civilian population. Very well. Paragraph 59. You returned on the 2nd of June to Belgrade, and you met Lieutenant Colonel Dimitrijevic, he in civilian clothes. You had another meeting with Jovanovic. You believe that was set up by Dimitrijevic. And on leaving Jovanovic, you saw somebody in his outer office.

Now, what position did Jovanovic hold at this stage?

A. Well, as far as I was concerned, Jovanovic was Foreign Minister of Serbia.

Q. And who did you see?

A. When I left his office and in the outer office waiting to go in, ²⁵³⁰¹ or I assumed he was waiting to go in, was a newly appointed minister of the -- what became the Republika Srpska, a Mr. Buha, whom I had previously met in Pale. So I knew him to be a minister of the Bosnian Serb Republika. And I noticed him sitting in the outer office, and we just acknowledged each other but we did not speak.

Q. Very well. On the 12th of June did the same Lieutenant Colonel Dimitrijevic indicate that the accused was prepared to or wanted to meet you?

A. Yes. He came to me and said that -- that Slobodan Milosevic would like to meet with me, and I assumed it would be at some meeting with many, many people. But when he told me that Mr. Milosevic would meet me at a time that suited me, I then began to realise that maybe this was to be a private meeting. So I eventually did meet with Mr. Milosevic on the 16th of June.

Q. You took along William Jackson from the British embassy as a note taker?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. Tab 12 contains your report. It's probably better if I read most of this out, I think, and I'll try and go at the correct speed. You set out how you spoke to the accused according to instructions. In a lengthy monologue the accused argued in familiar terms that the Serbs were being unjustly blamed for everything happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina, claiming that Belgrade shared the objectives of reopening Sarajevo airport, internationalising the city, and neutralising the artillery in the mountains. Belgrade had repeatedly made this clear ²⁵³⁰² ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁵³⁰³ through public statements. He also strongly recommended Karadzic's idea that UN monitors should be attached to Bosnian Serb units to verify the situation on the ground. There was no regular or irregular forces from Serbia itself on Bosnian soil, he said. Belgrade could not halt humanitarian aid to Bosnian Serbs but would take any concrete steps proposed by Lord Carrington in order to bring peace to the area. He agreed is that the EC conference was the only forum for the resolution of the crisis. A settlement was in Belgrade's interest, though the Muslims did not apparently see it to be in theirs.

You record, Colonel, that there was no political discussion of issues such as sanctions or recognition. The press weren't present, and there had been no publicity.

Following that summary, you deal with matters in a little more detail, setting out the next page, paragraph 3: You called for Belgrade's support in maintaining the cease-fire, reopening the airport, facilitating UN observers to neutralise artillery and halting expulsions of non-Serbs from occupied settlements.

Paragraph 4, you stressed Lord Carrington's concern for the accused to use his influence over Serb irregulars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and over Mladic to end the shelling of Sarajevo, emphasising the importance of getting international agencies back into the city as soon as possible and pointing out the international consensus that the EC peace conference was the forum in which future constitutional arrangements should be elaborated.

Having listened to you attentively, the accused said he believed ²⁵³⁰⁴ Lord Carrington was aware that Belgrade was doing its best to support the peace process. In all communications with the Bosnian Serbs, Belgrade had pressed them to avoid bloodshed. Sarajevo was the key problem position, and if the city could be pacified, solutions would usually be easier elsewhere in the Republic. Belgrade, he said, shared the objectives of reopening the airport, putting the city under UN control, and removing the artillery. This had been made clear publicly and on repeated occasions, he said. It was now the turn of the UN to take action accordingly, and he expressed keen interest in knowing when the airport might be reopened and indeed when Lord Carrington might visit Sarajevo. He endorsed the proposal from the Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic that observers be attached to each unit of the Bosnian Serb forces in order to witness the fact on the ground. He said that Belgrade was constantly cast in the role of aggressor although there wasn't a single Serb from Serbia fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina. If the contrary were true, it would be impossible to keep secret, he said. Serbian police were monitoring the border with Bosnia-Herzegovina, and as reported by the Ministry of Interior, a week ago had already arrested some 1.300 people who had been in the area carrying weapons for which they had no licence. He claimed he personally pressed for the evacuation of the JNA cadets from Marsal Tito barracks in Sarajevo even at the cost of leaving behind heavy weapons to the annoyance of local Serbs.

He pointed out more than once that Belgrade had condemned the shelling of -- vigorously condemned the shelling of Sarajevo which had been a futile and criminal exercise for which the perpetrators should be ²⁵³⁰⁵ punished. They would be if they set foot in Serbia, he said. He contrasted the activities of the Croats who had regular troops in Western Herzegovina, a fact which a French emissary had recently confirmed to him. And he rejected your suggestion, Colonel, that it had been the Serbs who had principally benefited from the arms and ammunition abandoned by the JNA, claiming that all ethnic groups had ended by securing a share. He stated that Belgrade could not halt its supply of humanitarian aid to the Bosnian Serbs in the form of clothing, food, tents and money, but complained that there had been no coverage by the Western media of two Serbian relief convoys which had distributed food and medical goods impartially to the three ethnic communities in Sarajevo. He agreed there was no alternative to the peace conference for working out a solution. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, it was impossible for anyone to emerge as a winner from war in the republic. There were no innocent parties, he said; Bosnia-Herzegovina was a state of three equal peoples and Belgrade would respect any agreement based on a tripartite consensus.

The international community had been ill advised to recognise Bosnia-Herzegovina when it did, but Belgrade was doing politically everything it could to bring about peace. It was obviously in its interests to do so, whereas for the Muslims, Izetbegovic was refusing to negotiate and seemed inclined to continue the civil war. Belgrade would take any concrete steps required of it to promote a settlement. Thus the notes typed up, I think, by your colleague; is that correct? ²⁵³⁰⁶

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. One question on that: You expressed the view that the Serbs had obtained the largest share of weaponry. On what basis and did you hold it notwithstanding the accused's challenging of your position?

A. My feeling was that from my time as head of the monitor mission in Bosnia, President Izetbegovic had said that there would not be a requirement for people to obey the federal call-up to mobilisation. So the only people that were being called up in fact were Serbs. It had been brought to my attention in many of the opstina locations that I went to that the others - they being Croats and Muslims - were very concerned that these people who were being called up for mobilisation were being allowed to keep the weapons that were issued to them by the JNA army and that they were becoming very concerned by the fact that these people, the Serbs, were retaining their weapons.

Q. Thank you. We see a handwritten addition to the note. Your handwriting, I think.

A. Yes, it is.

Q. When and how did that come to be put there?

A. When Mr. Jackson came to me at my hotel the following morning with the written text of my meeting with Mr. Milosevic, I had recalled Mr. Milosevic acknowledging to me that Sarajevo was a Muslim city and that the Serbs bombarding it, that they should not do so because, basically, it was a Muslim city and the Muslims should have control over it. So I felt that was sufficiently important for me to put it in writing in my report.

Q. Very well. Coming to the conclusion of your evidence, then. ²⁵³⁰⁷ Paragraph 62. You were in Brussels for a plenary session on the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia on the 13th of August, 1992, which lasted for two days, being aborted when the Bosnian Muslim delegation left; correct?

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. You were in Brussels on the 16th of August still when the Times published a photograph -- Times newspaper published a photograph of a prisoner at barbed wire of the Omarska camp in an emaciated condition. You presented that to Karadzic while he was having breakfast at the same hotel.

A. Yes.

Q. Being approached thereafter by one of Karadzic's advisors, a Mr. Kennedy, seeking an appointment with you or meeting with you, you saying you couldn't meet him in an official capacity but nevertheless encountering Karadzic in the lobby of the hotel with Krajisnik, Koljevic, and the man Kennedy.

A. Yes.

Q. Your impression?

A. My impression was that Radovan Karadzic was very taken back by the paper and the photograph which referred to the camps, and I felt that I should mention to him also that these camps would now become public notice.

I mentioned to him that we were very familiar of the practice of forcing people to leave their homes, taking their homes over. These would be essentially non-Serbs. And some of these people were obliged to pay ²⁵³⁰⁸ money for permission to leave their homes. Dr. Karadzic agreed with me that this was not legal and should not have happened. I suggested to him that maybe to set the record straight he might write a letter to the Times pointing out this fact. I got the impression that he said he would, and I am unaware if that in fact transpired because I returned to Belgrade the following day.

Q. You flew back to Zagreb on the 17th of August, to Sarajevo on the 20th of August, and on that day there was an artillery attack on the Marsal Tito barracks damaging vehicles including United Nations vehicles.

A. Yes.

Q. You met Mrs. Plavsic on the 22nd of August, and then you left Sarajevo on the 24th of August, travelling to Zagreb, making your way to London for the peace conference on the 26th and 27th of August, completing your duties in relation to these matters thereafter?

A. Yes.

Q. Tab 19, please. If we can just lay that on the overhead projector. And a copy for the witness. While you've been here, Colonel Doyle, have you been able to assist us by listening to several tape-recordings of what are apparently intercepts of telephone conversations?

A. Yes.

Q. The purpose of that being to see if you're able to identify voices and in the way revealed on this table, you have been able to identify in most cases one voice, in one case two voices of people you were listening to? ²⁵³⁰⁹

A. Yes.

Q. And the Court will see the references. The reference number on the left-hand side with a description of the telephone conversation, the apparent date of the conversation, and then the voice or voices identified by the witness, Karadzic, Koljevic, and on one occasion Karadzic and the accused.

His evidence on that point and the intercepts to which he refers which follow on from tab 19 and are produced by him for these purposes and to this extent will be the subject of the overall intercept exercise at a later stage, but this is evidence of voice identification. It seems to us probably the most time efficient way to get witnesses to do the voice identification and produce the evidence in the form of a schedule and then consolidate all the material again at a later stage.

JUDGE MAY: At the moment they'll only be marked for identification, no more.

MR. NICE: Yes.

JUDGE MAY: Just looking at the exhibits, do we need in fact to exhibit them in this binder?

MR. NICE: If there is no question as to continuity or identity, then they can probably -- everything after 19 could be removed from this binder because Exhibit 19 doesn't need to be for identification only because it's evidence of his identification. Sorry, tab 19. And the connection can be made with the exhibits themselves later on.

JUDGE MAY: What we'll do is we will leave them for the moment in the binder. So if there is any cross-examination upon them, it can ²⁵³¹⁰ take place and review the position at the end with that in mind.

MR. NICE: That concludes my questions of the witness.

Q. You'll be asked further questions, Colonel.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I don't understand this last point. Do you think that this witness can identify these intercepted conversations and prove their authenticity?

JUDGE MAY: He cannot prove the authenticity of the tape. All that he can do is to say that he's listened to the voices and he can identify them. If you want to ask him about that and cross-examine him about it, you can do so. Yes.

Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Doyle, you came to Sarajevo on the 11th of October, 1991; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. So as a matter of fact, you were not only present there as a monitor which was your duty, you were quite familiar with things that were going on in Sarajevo, especially at this session of the Assembly in mid-October and after that, everything you testified about. Am I right?

A. Yes.

Q. Tell me, please, is it correct that Serb members of parliament on that 15th of October put forth a request that this question of adopting a platform of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina in order to exercise sovereignty, all these documents then the memorandum of sovereignty, the letter of intent and so on and so forth, that all of this should be ²⁵³¹¹ presented before the council that dealt with issues related to the equality of rights of all the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina? This was a major issue, and they asked that before being debated in parliament this be discussed first before this council for the equality of rights of the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina; is that right?

A. I was not aware at that time of the details of the political make-up within Sarajevo. I should point out that when I arrived there first I was just a monitor, and having been informed in Sarajevo that I would be deployed to Banja Luka, my -- I suppose my interest was in the area of Banja Luka during those early days. I was not involved at any national political level in those early days. So I would not be able to say the point that you raise, whether I was familiar with it or not, but I certainly at the time had no knowledge of that.

Q. All right. If you had no knowledge of that and this was discussed at the Assembly session that you attended, is it correct that on that night, contrary to what was made public by Momcilo Krajisnik, president of the Assembly, that the session would be adjourned until the following morning when it was supposed to be continued, the vice-president of the Assembly, Mariofil Ljubic, said there would be a one-hour break and then Muslim and Croat MPs returned to the parliament hall and then in the absence of Serb MPs adopted this platform; is that right?

A. I don't want to get mixed up here, but I should say that it was my recollection that that occurred during the parliamentary debate on whether or not there should be a referendum on independence, but that was not on -- my understanding was that was not on the 15th of October. ²⁵³¹²

Q. All right. I'm talking about the key event involved. It doesn't really matter whether I have the exact date written down here. Do you remember that this parliamentary debate went on until 3.30 a.m. and that then Krajisnik, at 330 a.m., said that the session should be adjourned and continued the following morning at 10.00?

A. I don't recall saying that Mr. Krajisnik said that it should be continued the following morning, but yes, I am aware that at that stage that the Serb delegation had left.

Q. Well, at that moment, the chairperson, that is to say the president of the parliament, said that the session would be adjourned and that it would be continued. It was already 3.30 in the morning and they worked all day, and he said the session would be continued the following morning at 10.00. And the others passed this decision in the absence of the Serb MPs. Is that right or is that not right?

A. Yes.

Q. This was actually on the 24th of October. Is that right, Mr. Doyle?

A. Again, I'm not too sure. I understand what you're saying, and I was there at the time, but I still don't think it was the 24th of October. But, yes, I do remember that occurring, and I do remember the parliamentary debate continued after the members of the Serbs had withdrawn.

Q. All right, Mr. Doyle. Can we clarify one point? The Serb representatives did not withdraw. When the president of the Assembly adjourned the session, then they left, and it was to be expected that the ²⁵³¹³ others would leave too because the session was supposed to continue the following day, the following morning. They did not leave the session. The president of the parliament said at 3.30 a.m. that the session would be adjourned, would be continue the following morning. Everybody got up and left. Is that right?

A. It was my understanding that certainly when the parliament was adjourned that the Serbs had left. You should remember that this whole debate was taking place in Serbo-Croat. I don't speak the language. I had an interpreter with me, and it was my understanding that the Croats and the Muslims decided on the adjournment of the Serbs that they would continue with the debate.

Q. In tab 5, I have your report or, rather, what you sent, and at the end it says: "[In English] Note: It is expected that the legality of the Assembly being reconvened after it was closed by the Assembly president may be --" [Interpretation] not very legible -- "[In English] as may the authority of the president of the Assembly to conclude the session without a majority in the first place."

A. I accept the accuracy of that report.

Q. [Interpretation] All right. That means that there is no doubt that the president of the Assembly closed the session. That is what is stated here in your report. So that fact is not being disputed.

A. Correct.

Q. And then when the Serbs left in the belief that the session was adjourned and that it would be continued, then the Muslim and Croat MPs decided to continue the session without them and to pass a decision. Did ²⁵³¹⁴ you see that as something that could be treated as legal or not?

A. A short period after that decision was made by the parliament, I sought a meeting with the judiciary of Bosnia to ascertain on the part of the Bosnian Serbs whether the parliamentary debate was constitutional or not, because the Serbs had mentioned to me that everything in the country was to be done by consensus. So I wanted to be able to give the monitor mission an accurate report on what the legality of this debate was. I had that meeting with the judiciary, and when I went to the meeting it was attended by the Deputy Minister for Defence. He asked me what was the purpose of the meeting and when I told him it was to ascertain whether the judiciary accepted that what went on in the parliament was constitutional, he told me that this was not what I should be seeking.

When he left, I then put it to the members of the judiciary, and because one lady I spoke to who was a member said that we, the collective judiciary cannot decide whether that debate was constitutional or not because the judiciary are made up of Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, so I could not get a definitive from the judiciary as to whether that decision was constitutional or not. And I did inform my headquarters of that fact.

Q. But you've just said yourself that in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the government consisted of representatives of all three peoples and that the rule was that decisions were passed by way of consensus between all three peoples. You were aware of that, and you just said so yourself. Is that right, Mr. Doyle?

A. No, Mr. Milosevic. What I said in relation to that was according ²⁵³¹⁵ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁵³¹⁶ to the Serb leadership. It was the Serbs who told me that they were of the view that decisions had to be made by consensus of all three sides. So that was the Serb interpretation. And that was one of the reasons why I wanted to meet the judiciary, to ascertain whether or not that was constitutional. So the view that decisions had to be made by consensus of all three parties was referred to me by the Serb leadership, and not by the Muslims or the Croats. So in fact I don't know what was legal and what was not legal.

Q. All right. You're not an expert in constitutional matters so I don't want to torment you any more with questions like that. Do you know that after that, precisely bearing in mind the fact that Muslim and Croat MPs, in violation of the constitution and rules of procedure, passed documents, enactments that were contrary to their interests or, rather, contrary to the interests of the Serb ethnic community in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Serb people, the Serb people being, in accordance with the constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of the constituent peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina. So bearing in mind the fact that the Assembly was abused to their detriment, on the 24th of October they founded their own Assembly; is that right?

A. I am aware that the Serb leadership, or that the Serb party founded their own Assembly. Yes, I am aware of that.

Q. Do you know that they then organised a plebiscite on the 9th and 10th of November, and a vast majority voted in favour of remaining within Yugoslavia?

A. Yes, I am aware of that. ²⁵³¹⁷

Q. Do you know anything about the fact that before all these events and before the 14th and 15th of October and the 24th and 25th of January, 1992, Muslim and Croat representatives in the Assembly actually prevented the questions related to the equality of right of nations and nationalities from being on the agenda of this council that was supposed to deal with matters related to the equality of nations and nationalities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was still in existence? If you don't know anything about this, just say so and we'll go on.

A. I do not know anything about that.

Q. Do you recall that in February 1991, the Party of Democratic Action made a draft declaration on the sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina which was submitted to the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina and that this caused quite a stir among many parties, especially in the Serb Democratic Party? Do you remember that?

A. No. I wasn't -- I wasn't in Yugoslavia in February 1991. I'm not aware of that.

Q. All right. Let's go back to the session of the 24th and 25th of January, 1992, the one you attended. Is it obvious that the presence of the Serb MPs, headed by the president of the Serb Democratic Party, Radovan Karadzic, at the session of the Assembly on the 24th and 25th of January, 1992, was an indicator of the will of the Serb side to ease tensions, to find a peaceful solution based on compromise which would satisfy the interests of all sides involved?

So although --

JUDGE MAY: Just a moment -- ²⁵³¹⁸

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. -- previously --

JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. The witness can't answer long speeches.

Colonel, can you help as to what's been put so far by the accused?

THE WITNESS: I am aware of the fact that the Serbs had withdrawn from the day-to-day workings of the parliament in Bosnia, and I am aware that the Serb members of parliament did take place in that parliamentary debate, as referred to by Mr. Milosevic, on the 24th and the 25th of January, 1992, because I was present in parliament for that. The political manoeuverings around that time is not something that I would deem myself to be an expert on. Primarily as a military person, my function was to observe and to report, but the intricacies of government weren't something that I would be qualified to comment on.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Yes. But it is beyond dispute that the Serb MPs, although this happened considerably after what you described when they left, they were nevertheless the present on the 24th and 25th of January, and they wanted to find a civil solution that would be acceptable to all. Is that the essence of what they were doing at that Assembly meeting that you attended?

A. Yes, I would accept that.

Q. Isn't it quite clear that a concession was made on the Serb side in relation to their previous positions so that they would accept an independent Bosnia-Herzegovina and the concession from the Muslim side to ²⁵³¹⁹ carry out a certain regionalisation? Isn't that right?

A. I would not term it as a concession. I would term it as a decision by the Serbs to take part in that parliamentary debate.

Q. All right. According to what you said yourself, you were in close contact and you closely cooperated with Ambassador Cutileiro who, on behalf of the European Community, mediated in the negotiations between the representatives of the three sides, the Serbs, Muslims, and Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina; isn't that right?

A. Yes, but I did not take part in any of those debates at that stage because I was head of the monitor mission. It wasn't until I became Lord Carrington's representative that I was involved in negotiations. So in January 1992 I wasn't involved in any sessions or negotiations with Ambassador Cutileiro.

Q. All right. Even though you did not take part in the negotiations I, heard you say this morning that you closely followed everything that was going on. You observed this, and you reported on it. That is to say that you were informed about what was going on. Is that right?

A. In general terms, yes.

Q. I assume that you know too what was known throughout the territory of the former Yugoslavia, namely that Cutileiro became famous due to the plan for resolving the Bosnia-Herzegovnian crisis and on the 18th of March, 1992, all three sides had accepted that plan, that is to say before the war broke out.

A. Again, I'm not aware of that. I do know that the information I received was that the negotiation -- the negotiation team were very close ²⁵³²⁰ to an agreement. I don't know whether an agreement was reached or not at that time. Because I wasn't part of it.

Q. So you do not remember that all three sides accepted that agreement and then afterwards, on the 25th of March, Alija Izetbegovic withdrew the signature that he had already placed on that plan?

A. No, I am not personally aware of that.

Q. All right. Do you know at least that this plan envisaged that Bosnia-Herzegovina should be independent but regionally defined in accordance with the interests of all three peoples? That is how all three sides signed the agreement. Are you aware of that?

A. No, I'm not aware of that.

Q. This is the most important event that occurred, this acceptance and then afterwards the withdrawal of Izetbegovic's signature from that plan. Is it possible that you don't know anything about this, Mr. Doyle?

A. I am aware of the fact that many negotiations were taking place under the conference of Yugoslavia. My role at the time was to advise the negotiation team. I had no immediate hand in any of these negotiations. I was generally aware that negotiations were taking place. I was generally aware that some sort of an agreement had been reached or had hoped to be reached in or around the 18th of March. I am not familiar with the specifics of that agreement.

Q. You are not even aware of the fact that all three sides accepted it on the 18th of March?

A. Personally, I am not, no.

Q. Do you remember that even a Muslim newspaper wrote in mid-1993 ²⁵³²¹ that the non-acceptance of the Cutileiro plan was one of the most disastrous failures of the Muslim policy? They then wrote that the non-acceptance of the Cutileiro plan at the beginning of the negotiations that was even accepted by the Serbs shows how shortsighted the Muslim policy is. This is what their own Muslim newspaper said, the newspaper called Slobodna Bosna?

A. No. I am not familiar with the newspaper, and I am not familiar with the article.

Q. All right. Do you remember at least the rather widely known statement made by Izetbegovic on the 27th of February, 1991, in the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina? I'm quoting this from a British newspaper. "[In English] ... Bosnia-Herzegovina but would not sacrifice its sovereignty for peace." [Interpretation] Do you remember that? This caused a great deal of concern. And then letters were sent to the Presidency of the SFRY because Yugoslavia was still there.

JUDGE MAY: The witness must have a chance to answer these questions.

Colonel, do you know anything about these articles?

THE WITNESS: No, Your Honour, I know nothing about them. As I said before, I was not in Bosnia in February 1991, and have no knowledge of any letters of this nature.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you should deal with areas which the witness can himself give evidence about. He knows nothing about these articles. You will have the opportunity in due course to put evidence in front of us and if you wish you can put these matters. ²⁵³²²

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, Mr. May. Since the witness doesn't know anything about the Cutileiro plan, and this had to do with the most important things that were going on.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Do you at least remember -- I mean, by then you were already there. On the 24th of February, 1992, the Sarajevo daily Oslobodjenje, that was a government-controlled newspaper of the then government of Bosnia-Herzegovina, it carried a statement made by Jose Cutileiro at the beginning of the negotiating process, and this was at the Lisbon conference on the 21st and 22nd of February, 1992, that the Serbs were seeking a confederal Bosnia-Herzegovina and that the Croats were seeking a federation and that the Muslims were seeking an independent Bosnia-Herzegovina? Do you remember that statement at least?

A. No, I do not.

Q. Do you know that the Cutileiro plan did not envisage a confederal state but, rather, a cantonalised state, much firmer than a confederacy? Do you remember that?

A. No.

Q. You do not remember that?

A. I'm sorry. I do not remember that, no.

Q. You do not even remember that they accepted the Cutileiro plan and that all three sides accepted the Cutileiro plan? You do not remember that either?

A. No, I do not.

Q. All right. Let us then move on to some things that you'd have to ²⁵³²³ remember. In paragraphs 6 and 7 on page 11 of this statement that I received, and you said and I'm quoting you: On the 12th of April, General Morillon organised a meeting with all parties. We went to this meeting at 8.00 in the morning. In the command of the UN, Cutileiro had meetings with the president, Mr. Brkic, who represented the HDZ. General Kukanjac came on behalf of the JNA, and the ambassador talked to him too. The SDS did not appear at the meeting as expected. Nothing was achieved at that meeting.

From that meeting we returned to the Hotel Bosna and we continued talking about a cease-fire with Dr. Karadzic. An agreement was reached on the wording of the ceasefire agreement. This wording was used later during that month when the agreement was finally signed. Is that right?

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. So that text that you managed to agree upon with Karadzic at the Bosna Hotel was ultimately adopted later when the agreement was finally signed. And then in paragraphs 4 and 5 on the next page you say: "On the 23rd of April, Lord Carrington and Ambassador Cutileiro accompanied by the president of the Council of Ministers of the EU, Dr. Pinhiero arrived at the Sarajevo airport for talks. The text for a cease-fire was reaffirmed from the 12th of April. They had meetings with General MacKenzie and Morillon from UNPROFOR and the JNA commander General Kukanjac. The SDA was represented by Mr. Izetbegovic, the SDS by Dr. Karadzic and Dr. Koljevic and the HDZ by Mr. Boras. When Lord Carrington left he gave me the task of having the agreement signed. I had Dr. Karadzic sign ²⁵³²⁴ first.

That's what you say; isn't that right?

A. Correct.

Q. So he signed it immediately. And then you go on in the text: "The president initially --" When you say "president," you mean Izetbegovic; isn't at that right?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. The president initially refused to return, saying that his life could be in danger from snipers but I eventually talked him into returning to the airport, and he signed the agreement at about 8.00 p.m. that evening.

So, Mr. Doyle, I quoted your very own statement, and doesn't this show that as far as the cease-fire is concerned, you did not have problems with the Serb side? The problem was precisely Izetbegovic who was dragging his feet on the attainment of this cease-fire; isn't that right?

A. I can acknowledge that Radovan Karadzic had no problem in signing the cease-fire. All I can repeat is that I was informed by President Izetbegovic that he was worried about his safety in coming to the airport. When I assured him he would be given a UN escort, he then agreed to come. He eventually arrived, and he signed the cease-fire agreement.

Q. Very well. From what you stated, the Serbs were militarily superior, and from that aspect, since you're a soldier, I assume that they didn't have such a need for it but they did want peace and were the first to sign. Karadzic was the first one to sign the agreement; isn't that right? ²⁵³²⁵

A. Yes, Karadzic was the first to sign the agreement, but for the main reason that he was only the party political leader who was still at the airport. Because when we spoke with the various political leaders, the last party we spoke to was Dr. Karadzic's party. So he was still there.

My mission from Lord Carrington was to try and get the Croats and Muslims back to the airport to sign as was agreed. But Karadzic was still there, so it was automatic that he would sign the document first.

Q. Well, let's assume that he didn't sign it first because he was right there. He could assume that he signed it because he was in agreement with the accord, Mr. Doyle.

A. Yes, I accept that.

Q. In paragraph 2 on page 13 of your statement, you say: "On the 7th of April -- on the 27th of April, I received a call from Ambassador Cutileiro asking me if I could persuade Mr. Izetbegovic, on behalf of the SDA, and Mr. Brkic on behalf of the HDZ to travel to Lisbon for talks for the peace conference. Mr. Izetbegovic agreed to go with the UN escort to the airport, and an aircraft was arranged for their transport. Mr. Izetbegovic flew out to Lisbon on the 29th of April, at 11.20 a.m. Mr. Brkic, who had agreed earlier to travel to Lisbon, later on changed his mind."

Two paragraphs later, you say that the Serb representative, Mr. Nikola Koljevic, was in Lisbon.

So based on what you state here, Mr. Cutileiro called you and asked you if you could convince Mr. Izetbegovic and Brkic to come there ²⁵³²⁶ and Koljevic was already in Lisbon, can we conclude that it was difficult to persuade the Croat and the Muslim side to go to the Lisbon negotiations? Otherwise, why would there be any need to convince them?

A. Yes, I would conclude that the Serb leadership were already there. I think the problem mainly in relation to the Presidency was the physical difficulty of getting to the airport and the physical difficulty of getting an aircraft to take them to Lisbon. But yes, the Serbs were there first.

Q. Mr. Doyle, in paragraphs 2 and 3 on page 15, you've talked about things relating to the Lisbon negotiations. This is why it was strange to me that you don't know what the outcome was of the Cutileiro plan, and this is something that is generally known. But let's not go back to that. I am quoting you: "On the 20th of May I flew to Lisbon where I was invited to join the peace talks. I stayed there until the talks were aborted on the 27th of May. The most significant achievement of these talks was that Dr. Karadzic signed the agreement, signalling his intention to hand over the Sarajevo airport to the United Nations. On the 27th of May, a mortar shell killed a large number of people queueing for bread in Sarajevo. When this was published, Hari Silajdzic, who was the chief of the Bosnian Muslim delegation, stated that they would no longer continue with the talks. Immediately Dr. Karadzic, who was the head of the Bosnian Serb delegation, came to the room where we were negotiating and insisted that the Bosnian Serbs were not responsible for the mortar attack. Ambassador Cutileiro replied, asking Dr. Karadzic how would he know that they were not responsible because he had been in Lisbon all of the time. ²⁵³²⁷ It was because of this mortar attack that Ambassador Cutileiro was able to exploit the situation and obtain the intention to hand over the airport. A statement to this effect was signed by Dr. Karadzic and this document was faxed to the United Nations in New York."

I am quoting what you said. So the objective was to reach a peaceful solution, which would imply the agreement of all three sides. Is that correct, Mr. Doyle? The objective of the meeting was a peaceful resolution to which all three sides would agree; is that correct?

A. Yes, I accept that.

Q. The only thing that was achieved at the meeting was that Radovan Karadzic agreed to hand over the Sarajevo airport to the UN troops for which only the accord of the Serbian side was necessary. Is that true, Mr. Doyle?

A. That is correct.

Q. The Muslim representative left the negotiations. This was the second time that the peaceful mediation by Mr. Cutileiro failed because of the refusal of the Muslim side to participate. Is that correct?

A. No, I don't think so. What I would have to say here is that the negotiation team were confident that once this attack took place in Sarajevo that the three parties would not remain at the table. It is true that Hari Silajdzic intimated that because of this attack the Muslims could not see themselves staying further. The objective of the team at that stage was to try to get something from these talks and it was decided then that one of the priorities in Sarajevo was to try and get access to humanitarian assistance and the only way that could be done was if the ²⁵³²⁸ airport was taken over by an independent body that was recognised by us. And that is one of the reasons why it was suggested that as a gesture of good faith Radovan Karadzic would give us an indication that under certain circumstances the airport would be handed over to the United Nations.

Q. Very well. Let's go back. I will now show you, because this is an extract in English, it's an article from the Independent from the 22nd of August, 1992, and it states: "[In English] Muslims slaughter their own people. The Independent, 720 words. From Leonard Doyle in New York." [Interpretation] Just by chance he happens to share your last name. Then he states -- I will not read the whole thing but I will show it to you, but I just wanted to point out a few things and you will be able to read whole thing for yourself. "[In English] United Nations officials and senior Western military officers believe some of the worst recent killings in Sarajevo, including the massacre of at least 16 people in a bread queue, were carried out by the city's mainly Muslim defenders, not Serb besiegers, as a propaganda ploy to win world sympathy and military intervention."

[Interpretation] The text is quite long. It goes on to speak about the choreography and so on.

JUDGE MAY: I'm not going to allow you to go on reading out what this Mr. Doyle says about it. You can ask the witness, since he is a military officer, whether he knows of this article and whether he shares these views. I think they have been described elsewhere, but for the moment you can ask the witness that, but you're not going to read a whole document out unless it's relevant to the witness's evidence. ²⁵³²⁹ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁵³³⁰ Do you know anything about this Mr. Doyle, first of all, Colonel Doyle?

THE WITNESS: No, Your Honour, I don't.

JUDGE MAY: Never heard of him.

THE WITNESS: No.

JUDGE MAY: Well, you've heard what he's suggesting, that the Muslims -- that senior, I should say senior Western military officers, and that might, of course, include yourself, believe that some of the worst killings, including this massacre to which you've referred in the bread queue, was carried out by the Muslim defenders.

Now, you've heard that allegation, and of course you should have the opportunity to deal with it. Is there anything which you usefully think you can say about it?

THE WITNESS: Your Honour, the only thing I can say about it is that I am aware that this incident took place. I have absolutely no knowledge as to who caused it.

JUDGE MAY: Have you ever suggested to any reporters that the Muslims were killing themselves?

THE WITNESS: No, Your Honour, I have not.

JUDGE MAY: If you want to call Mr. Doyle, Mr. Milosevic, you can, or the officers who were referred to, but this witness can take this allegation no further.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I read one more sentence from this, and perhaps Mr. Doyle knows something about that, because the text ends in the following way: "[In English] UN force commander General ²⁵³³¹ Satish Nambiar concluded, however, that Bosnian forces loyal to President Alija Izetbegovic may have detonated a bomb. We believe it was a command detonated explosion, probably in a can a UN official said. The impact which is there now is not necessarily similar or anywhere near as large as we come to expect with a mortar round landing on the paved surface."

JUDGE MAY: The witness has said he knows nothing about this. Do you know the General who is referred to, General Nambiar?

THE WITNESS: Yes, I know of General Nambiar. He was the force commander in UNPROFOR.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please, look at this report. Look at this report.

JUDGE MAY: No. There is no point. He knows nothing about this. He's said he cannot help you. If you want to call General Nambiar, as I say, you can.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Of course I intend to do that, Mr. May. Please don't worry about that.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. May I now ask you, since you spoke about this and you described the conversation, and I quoted what Karadzic said about the same topic that you referred to, besides the fact that it's a tragedy that took place with the killing of these people in the bread queue, and it's really a terrible tragedy, does it not seem to you that this event could be the reason that this event could serve as a pretext to abandon this solution? Does that seem plausible to you? How could somebody back down from a peaceful resolution regardless of the tragic nature of this event? Is ²⁵³³² this not something that would seem absurd to you?

JUDGE MAY: The witness cannot possibly comment on this. The suggestion is - is this right so that we follow it - that this was used as a pretext to abandon the Cutileiro plan? Is that the suggestion?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Not only the Cutileiro plan but a solution for peace anyway, because the Cutileiro plan was rejected. Very well.

JUDGE MAY: Let's ask the witness about it. Have you heard any such suggestion or is that something you were aware of at the time?

THE WITNESS: No, I wasn't aware of it. It has never been suggested to me, and my professional opinion would be it had nothing to do with it.

JUDGE MAY: It's time for an adjournment now. Twenty minutes, please.

--- Recess taken at 12.18 p.m.

--- On resuming at 12.41 p.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Doyle, you said yourself that you don't know anything about the Cutileiro plan or the signing or the abandoning of it. Do you at least know that a compromise solution was reached between the Serb and the Muslim side - i.e., Karadzic and Cengic - on the 24th and the 25th of January, 1992?

A. No, I am not aware of that. ²⁵³³³

Q. During the period when these negotiations were proceeding conducted by Ambassador Cutileiro, you were a representative of Lord Carrington; is that correct?

A. I did not become a representative of Lord Carrington until the 10th of April, 1992.

Q. So at that point you were still the head of the monitoring mission.

A. Yes.

Q. Very well. And now, please, could you take a look at paragraph 3 on page 9. You're talking about the setting up of barricades, and this is something that you talked about, the examination-in-chief, on the 2nd of March, 1992, in Sarajevo. Before that, the results of the referendum were published, and you say regarding the setting up of the barricades on the 2nd of March, 1992, the previous day, there was a murder where a Serb member of a wedding party had been shot to death by a Muslim in the centre of the city.

This was also one of the reasons for an increase in the tensions within the Serb community. That is what you say. I assume that you recall that during the attack on the wedding procession Nikola Gardovic was killed. He was the bridegroom's father, and an Orthodox priest was wounded, Radenko Mitrovic. He was the brother-in-law of Gardovic. Do you recall that?

A. I do not recall exactly who was killed. All I know is that there was one Serb killed at least at that wedding. Their names I'm not familiar with. ²⁵³³⁴

Q. I assume that you know that the man who was killed, whose name you don't know, his name is Nikola Gardovic, he was killed at the door of the Orthodox church in the centre of Sarajevo was in fact the first victim of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Do you know that?

A. I know that he was one of the first victims that was killed. Whether it could be termed as a war or not is open, I think, to interpretation. To me, this was an innocent person killed at a wedding and I felt it shouldn't have anything to do with the events of the city.

Q. You believe that this had nothing to do with the events in the city, with the just-announced, published results of this referendum that was conducted without the participation of the Serbs. Did I understand you properly?

A. It is my belief that the killing of the Serb at the wedding was used to justify the erection of the barricades of the city. That, and the result of the referendum, I believe, was exploited.

Q. The Serbs used the fact that a Serb was killed to erect barricades. Is that what you're saying?

A. Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Q. Do you know that as far as the Serbs were concerned this murder was like a message that in spite of their will and Yugoslavia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Muslims had expressed their desire for independence and had now started to commit murders? Isn't it possible for this to cause tension or concern in Yugoslavia, because immediately after the referendum they were being killed? Isn't that so, Mr. Doyle?

A. I would accept that the killing of the Serb might have been a ²⁵³³⁵ message. However, I deem it I am probable that just because one Serb was killed the entire city of Sarajevo should be barricaded.

Q. As a member of the monitoring mission of the European Community in Yugoslavia, I assume that you were familiar with the fact that a group of Muslims which attacked the wedding party was led by Ramiz Delalic, nicknamed Celo. He was a member of the Patriotic League, the party army of Alija Izetbegovic. Do you know this?

A. I have no knowledge as to who carried out the killing of the Serb.

Q. Did you ever hear of Ramiz Delalic, Celo, who was a notorious criminal? And he had links with Alija Izetbegovic and the SDA leadership. Have you ever heard of this man?

A. Personally, I have not heard of him.

Q. Very well. Since Mr. Nice cited a document of yours, and that is a -- [In English] 1st and 2nd March, 1992. [Interpretation] The results of the referendum were announced. This is in tab 6 of the binder that I received. The referendum results were announced. Immediately after that there was the killing of a Serb. The Serbs were very, very much disturbed by this. So the sequence of events is without doubt as follows: The announcement of the referendum results and then the beginning of the attack on the Serbs, including this killing.

And then you state in your report as follows: "[In English] Official SDS Demands: (a) All activities with regard to international recognition should be stopped."

[Interpretation] So is it clear then that it was precisely these activities that began to cause conflicts, clashes, and murders, and that ²⁵³³⁶ is the reason why the Serbs were making the demands they were making? Is that true, Mr. Doyle?

A. It is my interpretation that what Radovan Karadzic had predicted to me that would happen if sovereignty was given to Bosnia was coming to pass.

Q. So Radovan Karadzic envisaged that when the results of the referendum are published, Muslims would start killing Serbs, which is what happened. Is it perhaps Radovan Karadzic who organised the murder of this man Gardovic in the centre of Sarajevo, according to what you know, Mr. Doyle?

A. As I repeat, I have no idea who was responsible for the death of the Serb in the city.

Q. All right. But let us look at the following points of this SDS demands. "[In English] Conference on BiH should be continued. Media should stop reporting as if BiH was already recognised." [Interpretation] Here you say: "[In English] The political situation, Ministry of Interior - not performing as it should be - 24 hours to settle on new composition. Assassins should be caught before the end of today." [Interpretation] And in brackets, "2 Muslims, 1 Croat." "[In English] They should be well-known criminals." [Interpretation] And so on and so forth. The part that follows relates to the television, and it says it is spreading anti-Serb propaganda in such a way as for every party to have their own channel, meaning Serbs, Croats, and Muslims.

Is that so, Mr. Doyle? It is in your report.

A. Yes. They are a copy of the demands that were given to me by the ²⁵³³⁷ SDS Crisis Committee.

Q. This morning you were saying that the Minister of Information asked you to intervene with the Minister of the Police regarding his competencies regarding the media in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Is that so?

A. Yes. The Minister of Information was keen to elicit my support in persuading the Minister of the Interior, that he, the Minister of Information should have more control of the national airwaves than he had.

Q. Very well. Tell me, Mr. Doyle, as a man of great experience, a representative of the European Community in the area coming from a country with a democratic system, does it seem logical to you that the television be under the control of the Ministry of Police or the Ministry of Information?

A. I don't think it's appropriate for me to make comment on what are the internal workings of a country such as Bosnia. The fact that they may not conform with what we have in other countries of the European Community is, I believe, besides the point. I believe it was not appropriate for me to interfere in the internal workings of these two ministries.

Q. Yes. That may well be, but I just asked you whether you thought it logical for the Ministry of Police to be in control of television rather that the Ministry of Information.

JUDGE MAY: If there is any significance in this point, we can make a decision about it. Yes.

THE WITNESS: My previous reference made to not the Ministry of Police but the Interior Ministry rather than the Ministry of Police. ²⁵³³⁸

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. All right. That's one and the same thing. Then you go on to speak -- you spoke earlier today about going to a press conference dealing with this referendum, and you were wearing civilian clothes because it was inappropriate for you to appear there in an official role, and you explained, when you were talking about it today, that Karadzic invited you to observe the Serbian referendum and you refused it, deeming it inappropriate.

If that was inappropriate, to monitor the Serbian referendum, then why was it appropriate to attend the press conference of the other side? Didn't you find that inappropriate as well?

A. No, I didn't, because the referendum was requested. The assistance of the European Union was requested by the referendum authorities. The European Union made the decision to send referendum observers, therefore I didn't think that it was in any way inappropriate that I be there. However, I felt for my own impartiality and to maintain that impartiality and so that my appearance in uniform might be exploited by the Serbs, I decided not to wear a uniform. So it was a personal decision based on my judgement of the situation.

Q. All right, Mr. Doyle. Is it indisputable, since that is something you said while explaining or justifying this remark with your military experience, that the barricades you saw in Sarajevo were erected hastily? Is that so?

A. My opinion is that they all seemed to be erected at the same time, and they were very effective in cutting off the city, so it was my opinion ²⁵³³⁹ that this had been planned in advance. I have no proof of that, but it is my opinion.

Q. But you just said, and I noted it down, you said the barricades had been erected hastily, and that was something you concluded on the basis of your military experience. Therefore, after this event, the murder and the violence, the barricades were erected hastily. How do you connect that now with the remark, the observation that it was planned in advance and all the rest you had to say in this connection?

JUDGE MAY: What the witness has said is that for such an operation - this was the effect of it - there must have been some planning in advance. It's you who are saying it was all hastily done.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Actually, no. It was the witness who said that, from what he could judge based on his military experience, he said in his examination-in-chief, that the barricades had been erected hastily. You must have that on the transcript.

JUDGE MAY: Let me find it. It's not my recollection that he talked about barricades being erected hastily, but let us clarify from the witness.

Colonel, there are really two questions, one leading from the other. Did the barricades appear to be erected hastily, and if so, is that consistent with your view that there appeared to be some prior planning?

THE WITNESS: Yes. I think it is consistent. When I used the word "hastily," what I'm referring here to, Your Honour, is that in my opinion this was planned. Because the barricades went up hastily, it was ²⁵³⁴⁰ my view that it was planned in advance. In other words, when I say "hastily," it meant they did not take too long for this plan to be put into action because I believe there was a plan there in advance.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Very well, Mr. Doyle. Immediately below, you say there was shooting from the town on people, on the barricades, from the surrounding buildings. Who was it who shot at the men at the barricades?

A. I have no idea, but it would be my opinion that they were not Serbs, because the Serbs were manning the barricades. So it was my presumption that they were either Croats or Muslims.

Q. All right. And immediately after that, you met with Ejub Ganic at the Holiday Inn, and after that, with Karadzic. You met with both at the Holiday Inn on different floors, in different rooms; is that correct?

A. I distinctly remember meeting with Ejub Ganic. My notes refer to me meeting Karadzic. I don't personally recollect at this time remembering it was specifically him. I met with Ejub Ganic in the main lobby of the hotel. I cannot recall where I met with Radovan Karadzic, but I am almost certain it was he who handed me the demands.

Q. All right, then. Tell me, since you had met with both and they were at the same hotel, you met with both of them, what was the outcome of those meetings with them and your mediation effort? Was there a result with either party?

A. The result of the meeting with the SDS Crisis Committee with Radovan Karadzic was that I agreed I would pass on the demands of the committee to the Presidency, which I did by giving to Mr. Ganic. The ²⁵³⁴¹ result of my meeting with Mr. Ganic is that I got from him an agreement that there would be a requirement for the government of the Presidency to secure the safe return of the referendum observers to the airport. And it was in that context that I agreed that I would use myself in the convoy to go to the airport, which I duly did.

I subsequently went down to one of the barricades, as is in my report, but I was not successful in persuading the Serbs to lift that barricade.

Q. Then you go on to say that on the 3rd of March, Muslim barricades were erected.

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. And then Ganic and General Kukanjac appeared jointly on television, General Kukanjac being the then commander of the JNA in the area. And this joint appearance helped ease the tensions in the city and calm the situation down.

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. Now, tell me, please, since you are talking about the withdrawal of the JNA from Croatia, you say you were concerned because troops were accumulating in Bosnia. Is that so?

A. Yes, I was.

Q. Well, then, did you have any information to the effect that the JNA withdrawing from Croatia was free to go to Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, possibly, but there was no other area they could go to. Therefore, the troops from Croatia did not concentrate in Bosnia. They also went to Serbia and to other parts of the Yugoslavia as they were ²⁵³⁴² leaving Croatia. Is that correct?

A. I'm not aware of the conditions of the agreement under which the JNA would withdraw from Croatia. In other words, I don't know if there was an agreement with the international community as to where that army would go. My one concern was that the because the Presidency did not look favourably on the JNA, a large build-up of those forces in Bosnia might not help the political situation, and therefore, I was concerned. I have no evidence as to where else they went to, but I would assume that they would have gone to places like Serbia, and Macedonia and Montenegro, but I don't know exactly where the balance of the military force went except to say that a large amount of their heavy weapons and their tanks went to Pale.

Q. Yes, but you also state that a large part of JNA troops withdrawing from Croatia originally came from Bosnia. That's what you said.

A. Yes. I would accept that.

Q. And why would then they have to go to Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro?

A. What I want to say here is that I don't know what percentage of the JNA army leaving Croatia, what percentage of those were Bosnians. I simply don't know. But we were aware that the element of the Croatian -- of the JNA army that was withdrawing from Croatia, a large amount of that that went to Bosnia subsequently became part of the Bosnian Serb army, and they were based primarily in Pale.

Q. All right, then. I understood from your testimony in chief, and I ²⁵³⁴³ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁵³⁴⁴ even noted it down somewhere, that you were satisfied that the JNA was really and honestly withdrawing from Bosnia at the time when it was topical.

A. Yes. I formed the opinion that after a lot of the JNA force that was Bosnian that consisted of Serbs when they went to Pale, that the balance of the federal army that were not from Bosnia but were stationed in Bosnia were anxious to leave the country and return to Serbia. Yes, I would agree on that.

Q. All right, then. You say that when you arrived, the situation was very tense. The only flights from the airport were intended to evacuate families of JNA members and JNA troops leaving Sarajevo; is that correct?

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. But then you go on to say that you cannot judge about the situation in the city because you did not move around the city. All information you had was secondhand about activities in the centre. Is that correct?

A. No, not particularly, because at this time I had quite a lot of contact with General Kukanjac and General Aksentijevic.

Q. But you do say that the JNA did not interfere in these clashes. Is that true?

A. Up to the time that I was there, and I would have to refer to my notes to get a date, but at the start of the fighting in the city of Sarajevo, it was my belief that the JNA were not anxious to interfere.

Q. Very well, then. But I suppose it is a fact that you could have established as a monitor. You talked about a meeting you had with the ²⁵³⁴⁵ Serb leadership Ilidza. Prior to that Bell from the BBC told you that there were about 2.500 refugees from Zvornik and you related that immediately to Karadzic, and Karadzic responded that he didn't believe that. Was that so?

A. That is correct.

Q. Did you make any effort to establish the truth?

A. As I said, it was difficult for me to establish the truth, because at that stage the sources of information that I would have used would have come from the European Community Monitor mission, and as I mentioned it earlier, it was getting more difficult for them to move into areas where we wished to find out what the situation was because the JNA informed them they could not give them freedom of movement or safety and security. So I was relying on secondhand information to find out what the situation was. I did not have an independent source to verify what the situation was in these locations.

Q. All right. But you also mentioned that from what you could see at the hotel, the non-Serb personnel had left and seeking an answer to why they left, you established that they had in fact fled because they did not feel safe any more. Was that the reason?

A. No, that was not the reason. They left because they were forced to leave. It wasn't their choice.

Q. But I understood you as saying that they had left for security reasons. Are you now saying that somebody had expelled them?

A. Yes, I am.

Q. Who told you that? ²⁵³⁴⁶

A. It was when I asked the question of the Serb new community leadership at Ilidza why it was that these people were moved, it was they who said they were moved for their own safety. It was not the Muslims themselves who said that. We took this as being a forced removal of an element of the population of Sarajevo, and it was not something they would have chosen themselves in my opinion.

Q. That means that the Serbs told you they had expelled Muslims from Ilidza. Is that what you're saying? And they had told you themselves that they had left because they didn't feel safe, and you interpreted that as an expelling of the Muslims, and that was the information you got from the local Serbs, from the leadership at Ilidza?

A. It was not the Serbs who told me they expelled the Muslims. It was the Serbs who told me that they had moved the Muslims to the centre of the city for their own safety. It was not the Serbs that said they were expelled. It was others who told me that this amounted to an -- I want to get proper wording here. These people, in my view, the Muslims, did not request to be moved to the centre of the city. They had no choice in the matter.

Q. But those local Serbs from Ilidza, whom you call local Serb, they invited you to dinner, didn't they? You spoke about that. And you concluded that they wanted to abuse --

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter didn't hear a part of this sentence.

To abuse it how?

A. First of all, I should say that it was my opinion that the reason ²⁵³⁴⁷ why I was invited to dinner was that I would be on the side of this new Serb community. It was only when the representative of the Serbs who spoke at the dinner said that they had moved the Muslims for their own safety that I realised that this might not be the case and that I might -- my position might be exploited.

I mentioned this in a reply to the speech, and as a consequence of that, I decided to leave the dinner, and this I did.

Q. All right. Then after that, if I understood you correctly, at this Bosna Hotel, you reached that agreement, the cease-fire agreement with Karadzic. Is that correct? Is the timing I mention correct?

A. I would have to check in my notes as to the specific dates of this, but in the negotiations with Radovan Karadzic around that time, they were conducted at that hotel.

Q. And that is in fact the agreement you reached with him at that time, and that is the agreement that was concluded a few days later, wasn't it?

A. I think that may be the case, but I would need some time to refer to my notes on it.

I can't -- I can't ascertain the date of that dinner that I was invited to, but I can confirm the date that we had negotiated with Radovan Karadzic on the cease-fire. So I can't marry both of them up together at the moment.

Q. All right. You don't have to marry both of them up. At any rate, you reached an agreement with Karadzic on a cease-fire, and later on precisely this agreement that you reached with him was -- became the ²⁵³⁴⁸ agreement that all three sides -- that all three sides signed, and that's the one that we already discussed; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. Cutileiro said after that that all three sides were against the use of force with a view to taking any kind of territories and also in favour of the return of refugees; isn't that right?

A. Yes, I believe that to be the case.

Q. Tell me now, please, you said that somebody had threatened the television station, the television station would be targeted within the next half hour. You reacted immediately, you talked to Karadzic, he guaranteed that this would not happen, but nevertheless some shells fell. That's what you were saying.

A. So it was.

Q. Wasn't it clear to you on the basis of that that these were things that were out of control, out of their control, and that perhaps somebody who got furious because of the statements he heard and the lies he heard did this and that this was not under Radovan Karadzic's control, and on the basis of what you've been saying, he wasn't even in Pale at the time, because this is the first time I ever hear about this, from you.

A. Well, all I can say is that on the 18th of April when the telephone allegedly from Pale came to Sarajevo Television and they sent it on to me and I got in contact with Radovan Karadzic through his aide, it was Radovan Karadzic who said, "Do not worry, the PT -- the television station will not be targeted." I can only assume then that he would have had influence in deciding whether it would be targeted or not. Had I not ²⁵³⁴⁹ known that -- had I known that Radovan Karadzic allegedly was not in control, I probably wouldn't have gone to him to get an agreement or to get an assurance that the television station would not be targeted. But because I felt that he was in control, and the fact that he acknowledged to me that this attack would not take place, led me further to believe that he did have influence in this regard.

Q. Yes, but I assume that those days when you were in Sarajevo there was chaos reigning there. Does it seem probable to you that Radovan Karadzic could have had control over just about anyone who could have fired a shell? Weren't there elements of anarchy, a lack of discipline there? You're an experienced soldier; you should know that.

A. In my discussions with Radovan Karadzic, he certainly gave me the belief that he controlled everything in relation to the Serbs and the Bosnian Serb army at that stage. I have no reason to disbelieve that. In a state of conflict of this nature, of course there is the chance that renegades here and there may act independently, but it is my belief that part of political leadership is responsibility for those who are under your control or under your influence, and it is my belief that Radovan Karadzic had that. I can't prove that he controlled every Serb in Sarajevo or the outlying area of Pale, but I assume that he could, and I expected that he could because he deemed himself to be the leader of the Bosnian Serbs.

Q. He was the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, but when he told you that no one would attack and this happened nevertheless, wasn't that a sign to you that there were things that were not under his control? He would not ²⁵³⁵⁰ have given you his word and then had something like that happen if he could have prevented this from happening. Was it your impression that he was deceiving you or that he was speaking to you frankly?

A. I would accept that he was speaking to me frankly, and I would acknowledge that. Maybe he didn't have control in that particular instant. I simply don't know.

Q. All right. All right. Let's not dwell on that any longer now. You spoke about Foca and ethnic cleansing. You were not directly involved in the events concerned, but some of your monitors had gone to Foca. It was my understanding that that is what you were saying. Is that right?

A. What I was saying that some of the monitors of the mission were attempting to get to Foca, yes.

Q. But it was my understanding that en route they were warned by members of the JNA that they could not guarantee their safety because they did not have things in Foca under their own control. A few minutes before that, you were saying that the JNA was not interfering in any conflict. Was this a well-intentioned suggestion made by the members of the JNA, that they did not know what was going on and they could not guarantee their security, or do you think that they stopped them on purpose so that they would conceal what was going on in Foca? What did you infer on that basis, Mr. Doyle?

A. Well, first of all, I did not say that the JNA were not interfering in any conflict. What I did say was that as far as I could ascertain in the city of Sarajevo, they were not interfering, which is ²⁵³⁵¹ distinctly different from what might have been happening elsewhere in the country.

I have no detailed knowledge as to what was happening in these areas, but I do know that it was the JNA who advised the monitor mission that they could not in their own safety get to a location like Foca. That being the case, it would be, in my view, unusual that the military army that was in present -- was in so many numbers in this republic could not guarantee the safety of a few monitors, because they were well spread out. So I simply don't know why the JNA did not allow them to go to Foca. It was remarked by the JNA to the team that they, the JNA, could not guarantee their safety. One has to ask the question why they wouldn't guarantee their safety. I simply don't know.

Q. Did they give an answer? Did they give any answer? I assume that they asked them, "Why can you not guarantee our safety?" There were units there, weren't there? They warned them then; right? And then you say further on that Koljevic offered to help. However, later on this was not carried through, but everybody was all worked up about it. Did Koljevic seem sincere to you?

A. I have no reason to believe that he wasn't sincere.

Q. And immediately after that, you say that in the Hotel Bosna in Ilidza -- so this was the area where Serbs lived, and as a matter of fact, you described that the Muslims had left the area or were expelled or I don't know what and that the first fighting took place on the 22nd of April at 5.00 a.m. and that this was an attack launched by the Muslims. Isn't at that right, Mr. Doyle? ²⁵³⁵²

A. I'm assuming it was attacked by non-Serbs. Exactly who, I simply don't know, but the people who were defending the location were the Serbs, so I presume it was either Muslims or Croats. I do not know exactly.

Q. I assume that you could have assessed that this was a fierce attack because you say that there were 13 casualties.

A. What I saw that day was approximately 40 to 50 Serb paramilitaries, heavily armed, and they were returning fire to a location from which fire was being directed at them. It was later in the afternoon when a television crew went out and carried out some interviews, some of the members of the Serb -- the Serb paramilitaries, that they were told that there were 13 people killed.

Q. So at the beginning, Gardovic was killed, and that was beginning, in the centre of Sarajevo. Then there was this attack by the Muslims on this Serb settlement in Ilidza, 13 persons killed. And is it clear to you, Mr. Doyle, as a monitor, that conflicts were being caused precisely by the Muslim side? And add to that the fact that Karadzic was the first one to sign the cease-fire agreement and that they had an agreement with Cutileiro. He had a compromise with Cengic, that all of this was rejected. And then when you put all the pieces together, can't it be seen that it was the Muslim side that behaved most aggressively in all these events that took place after the partial referendum? Is that picture clear to you or not?

A. No, that picture is not clear to me.

Q. Well, look, on the 22nd of April, 13 people were killed in a Serb settlement, and they were killed by the attacking forces. And on the 23rd ²⁵³⁵³ of April, Karadzic was the first one to accept the cease-fire agreement and sign it. That's what you said.

A. That's what I said, but I think it is you who is inferring that all of this was to be blamed on the Muslims and the Serbs were the sufferers. I don't accept that in the context of the overall picture I had of Sarajevo and its environs.

Q. It is not being contested that Izetbegovic and his people played the role of victim successfully, but these are facts that you testified about, Mr. Doyle. Tell me, please --

JUDGE MAY: That's just pure comment by you. Now, if you've got questions, you must ask them, not comment.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, Mr. May. I'm not going to -- I'm not going to make any comments.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You said that on the 28th of April, you were persuading Izetbegovic to go to Lisbon, and then the air traffic control from Belgrade did not give approval for the plane to land. Do you know what the reason was for that? Did you get any kind of explanation? And the following morning it could leave. You say that the plane left the following morning at 10.00 a.m. So in the evening they did not give this approval, and in the morning they did. What's the point of that?

A. I don't think I'm making a point, I'm just stating a fact. When the plane was not allowed to land in Sarajevo, I passed that message on to Ambassador Cutileiro in Lisbon, and he said he would try and persuade the authorities, I presume in Belgrade, to allow this aircraft to land the ²⁵³⁵⁴ following day, and I assume he was successful. But I'm simply saying that the plane was not allowed to land in Sarajevo. I had the president there under UN escort, and my objective then was to try and get the president safely back to the Presidency. What happened between the evening when the plane was not allowed to land and the following morning when it was allowed to land, I simply don't know.

Q. All right. But I assume that you did not infer that somebody from Belgrade was impeding the possibility of going to the peace conference, because what did not happen in the evening did happen in the morning.

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. You gave some comments, and it's here in one of the tabs, the letter of the mayor of Sarajevo, and you yourself said that it was an exaggeration. Isn't that right, Mr. Doyle?

A. What I would say about that is that in lots of reports that I got from all sides there was the general tendency to exaggerate, and this, in my view, was one of those. I do not in any way dispute the fact that the situation was getting pretty desperate and that there was an urgent need for corridors to be open to get humanitarian aid into the city, but from the experience I had in the former Yugoslavia over the 12 months, I would say that all sides from time to time, in my opinion, seemed to exaggerate the situation.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Since I don't know how much more time I will have, Mr. May, I would like, before that, for us to have a look at this report that you sent from the talks you had with me. Mr. Nice apologised for quoting extensively. However, his ²⁵³⁵⁵ quotations were rather distorted, I should say.

Since I have your report here - it's your very own text - I would like --

JUDGE MAY: Tab 12. And I don't accept for a moment that Mr. Nice distorted what was said. We can read it for ourselves. Yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I have your text. I haven't got a text of my own. So you say that the talks took place in accordance with the instructions you received from Lord Carrington and Ambassador Cutileiro. That's what's written here. Isn't that right, Mr. Doyle?

A. That is correct.

Q. And you say, since I want to go through all these details, I want this to be fair.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I'm going to draw your attention to the places where I think the distortion was particularly pronounced.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You say: "[In English] Having clearly defined my role and the nature of my mission, I called for Belgrade support in --" [Interpretation] then you say: "[In English] maintaining the present cease-fire in BiH."

[Interpretation] So you sought the support of Belgrade so that Belgrade would help maintain the cease-fire; is that right?

A. Yes. This would be by using its influence in that area. ²⁵³⁵⁶

Q. Then you say: "[In English] Reopening the airport at Sarajevo and guaranteeing the unhindered passage of humanitarian relief supplies." [Interpretation] So you asked for our support in that as well, that we support the maintenance of the cease-fire, unhindered passage of humanitarian relief supplies. "[In English] Around the city: Halting the expulsions of non-Serbs from occupied settlements and allowing those who so wished to return to them."

[Interpretation] This is where you sought the support of Belgrade. Isn't that right, Mr. Doyle?

A. Yes. These were the -- these were the points that I was requested to bring up at that meeting.

Q. All right. Yes. That's where you sought the support of Belgrade. And for all of that you did receive the support of Belgrade. You say in the following paragraph: "[In English] I stressed that Lord Carrington was anxious for Milosevic to use his influence." [Interpretation] And so on and so forth, to use his influence to a maximum. And I say to you, after having listened to you carefully, and that's what you said yourself: "[In English]... he believed -- he believed Lord Carrington was aware that Belgrade was doing its best to support the peace process in Bosnia and Herzegovina."

[Interpretation] Secondly: "[In English] In all communications with the Bosnian Serbs Belgrade pressed for them to avoid bloodshed. Sarajevo was the key problem position, and if the city could be pacified, solutions would usually be easier elsewhere in the republic. Belgrade shared the objectives of reopening Sarajevo airport, putting the city ²⁵³⁵⁷ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁵³⁵⁸ under UN control and removing the artillery from the mountains. This had been made clear publicly on repeated occasions." [Interpretation] Are you aware, Mr. Doyle, that all of these positions of mine were presented in public as well? And then I say to you: "[In English] It was now the turn of the UN to take action accordingly. Milosevic expressed keen interest in knowing when the airport might be reopened and when Lord Carrington might visit Sarajevo." [Interpretation] As you remember, I thought that a visit by Lord Carrington to Sarajevo would give an additional impetus to the conference that was supposed to achieve peace in Bosnia. Isn't that right, Mr. Doyle?

A. The points that I'm raising here are, in my opinion, an accurate reflection of what was mentioned at the meeting that I had with you, and I was repeating what you said that Lord Carrington believed to be the case. So I'm simply reflecting what you've said to me, and I'm reflecting that as accurately as I can recall.

Q. That's right. That's right. And then you say that I supported the proposal, strongly endorsed the proposal of Radovan Karadzic, to be quite precise. This is your report: "[In English] Milosevic strongly endorsed the proposal from the Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic that UN observers be attached -- to be attached to each unit of the Bosnian Serb forces in order to witness the facts on the ground." [Interpretation] Wasn't that a logical and sincere offer made by Karadzic? And I believed that you would support it too, to provide observers so that they could truly bear witness to what was going on ²⁵³⁵⁹ rather than having the Bosnian Serbs blamed for everything that was going on. As you said here, you're going to be blamed for that shell regardless of whether you fired it or not.

So wasn't this a very frank proposal made by Karadzic to provide observers and each and every one of their units so you could see that they had nothing to hide?

And further on, you say that: "[In English] Belgrade was constantly cast in the role of aggressor, but there was not a single Serb from Serbia fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina. If the contrary were true, it would be impossible to keep secret."

[Interpretation] And then I mention to you there let's try to keep this as short as possible, that our police already "[In English]... arrested 1.300 people who had been in the area carrying weapons for which they had no licence."

[Interpretation] And then you say that I insisted to evacuate cadets, as you put it here, from the Marsal Tito barracks, even at the cost of leaving behind heavy weapons, because I did not think that a single soldier should be killed for the sake of keeping some weapons there, even though others or anybody could have opposed this. I really cared about preserving the lives of these young people who came to do their military service in the JNA, not to get killed out there. And then paragraph 3, you say: "[In English] Milosevic pointed out more than once that Belgrade had vigorously condemned the shelling of Sarajevo, which had been a futile and criminal exercise for which the perpetrators should be punished." [Interpretation] And so on. ²⁵³⁶⁰ And then I move on to say: "[In English] Milosevic stated that Belgrade could not halt its supply of humanitarian aid to Bosnian Serbs." [Interpretation] Of course not. Of course not. How we could leave the people out there in that kind of situation? Helpless people. You say here in parentheses: "Clothing, food," and I said yes, we are giving them material assistance, we are giving them food, goods, everything. "[In English] But also complained that there had been no coverage by the Western media --" [Interpretation] This was a misquote by Mr. Nice. He said that the Westerners did not take part in this. "[In English]... there had been no coverage by the Western media of two Serbian relief convoys which had distributed food and medical goods impartially to the three ethnic communities in Sarajevo."

[Interpretation] By then we had already sent two convoys to Sarajevo to get in and to give all citizens aid by way of food and medicines on a non-discriminatory basis. And then you move on to say: "He agreed --" I mean I agreed that --

JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. We're coming to the end. Do you know anything about these convoys, Colonel?

THE WITNESS: No, I'm not familiar with the convoys. I would just like to state here that I have no argument with Mr. Milosevic in the content of this meeting we had. It was Mr. Milosevic who said all these things and I was simply there to accurately reflect what he believed to be the case and what he said was the case. I don't know what the reality was, but I felt it was very important that whatever Mr. Milosevic would say to me, that I would accurately reflect that back to Lord Carrington, ²⁵³⁶¹ and this is what I did the best way I could. That was one of the reasons why I asked if I could have somebody to take notes so that I would not make any mistake.

So I agree with what Mr. Milosevic is saying. How accurate it is in practice I have no way of knowing.

JUDGE MAY: Thank you. It's now time to adjourn. Mr. Milosevic, dealing with the time available to you, we have in mind that this witness's statement was admitted partially under Rule 92 bis and therefore you should have extra time to reflect that. We also bear in mind that this is an important witness in nature of his role. In those circumstances, we've decided that you should have a total of three hours cross-examination. That leaves you one hour and five minutes tomorrow.

Do the amicus anticipate any questions?

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honours. I would have about 15 or 20 minutes for sure.

JUDGE MAY: It would be as well if we could finish by the adjournment.

We will adjourn now. Nine o'clock tomorrow morning, please, Colonel.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.51 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 27th day of

August, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.