Milosevic Transcript 2003-10-28

²⁸¹⁰⁰

Tuesday, 28 October 2003

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: A couple of minutes of private session, with your leave.

[Private session]

[redacted]

[redacted] ²⁸¹⁰¹

[redacted]

[Open session]

THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Blewitt.

MR. NICE: Of course, he is an Australian so I suppose the phrase "long stop" is not inappropriate. That's a cricketing allusion, for His ²⁸¹⁰² Honour Judge Kwon, will be raised with him I'm sure elsewhere. I will raise with the long stop the possibility.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, while we're waiting for the witness to be brought in, if I could bring to the Court's attention the witness, after reviewing the witness summary yesterday which the Prosecution will be tendering pursuant to 89(F), there were six corrections that the witness made, and it's attached as an addendum to the back of that summary. If I can just draw the Chamber's attention to that document.

JUDGE MAY: Let us consider, first of all, just before we have the witness, your application under 89(F). On occasion, we have had the document, of course.

Are you intending to play any parts of the video?

MR. GROOME: Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: You are.

MR. GROOME: Yes.

JUDGE MAY: And his evidence, in effect, is really -- most of it is a commentary on that video; is that right?

MR. GROOME: I would say approximately 60 per cent of it. There are a few portions that he was not permitted to film that he will be speaking about as well.

JUDGE MAY: Well, it may be helpful if he deals with the matter fairly fully in chief since time is not as pressing as it usually is. We'll consider whether the rest of it can go in under 89(F).

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Groome, if you could tell us about the situation ²⁸¹⁰³ of the disclosure and translation of those things.

MR. GROOME: Yes, Your Honour. Just a moment, Your Honour. We are calling up the exact -- precise dates on the computer. I can say that the addendum was disclosed yesterday afternoon, shortly after the witness signed it. The B/C/S version of the original document was disclosed on the 21st of October and the English on the 15th of October.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. We will admit it on the basis I think it will be helpful to us to have the video played, those parts which are relevant, if you would bear that in mind.

MR. GROOME: Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll have the witness, please.

MR. GROOME: The Prosecution calls Michel Riviere.

[The witness entered court]

JUDGE MAY: Yes. If the witness would take the declaration.

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

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

WITNESS: MICHEL RIVIERE

[Witness answered through interpreter] Examined by Mr. Groome:

Q. Sir, I'd like to ask you to begin your testimony here this morning by stating your name for the record.

A. Michel Riviere.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, I'd ask that an exhibit number be assigned to the 89(F) statement and that it be shown to the witness. ²⁸¹⁰⁴

THE REGISTRAR: 573, Your Honour.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Sir, I'd ask you to take a look at this multi-page document, and if I could draw your attention to the last page of that document, I'd ask you, do you recognise your signature on that page?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. Have you had an opportunity to read the entirety of this document prior to testifying here this morning?

A. Yes, I have.

Q. And the initial pages taken with the addendum or the corrections that you made yesterday, do you verify that that is an accurate account of the testimony that you are able to give before this Chamber?

A. Yes. These were the corrections we made.

MR. GROOME: The Prosecution would tender that document under 89(F).

Q. Sir, the first paragraph of that document describes -- or you describe yourself as being a correspondent for ARTE television in July of 1992. Pursuant to your responsibilities with ARTE, were you pursuing a story about the deportation of civilians from the Kozluk area of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

A. I was in Hungary in July 1992 for another series of stories. I was in Budapest at the time, indeed for the public television station ARTE, and I learned that in the south of Hungary an important convoy of Bosnian refugees had just arrived. I had some free time at my hand, and I asked to be authorised in Budapest to go and see the refugees. I did ²⁸¹⁰⁵ indeed find myself in the Nojata camp [phoen] in the south of Hungary. It is a former camp of the Red Army. And I met a lot of people from the Kozluk area, in particular the mayor of Kozluk, Fadil. He told me his story that had just been happening a few days before. With a lot of details, he told about ethnic cleansing and about the people who he deemed responsible for the ethnic cleansing operation. I interviewed young people --

Q. Sir, after interviewing the people from Kozluk in Hungary, did you go to Belgrade to make arrangements to make a trip to Kozluk in Bosnia?

A. Yes, quite. I thought that these were terrifying stories. I called the chief editor in Paris, and I told him that if these things were true, if this testimony was true, it had to be verified on the spot. I had to check the accuracy of the situation. In order to go to Eastern Bosnia, the only way I could go was to go through Belgrade to ask for the authorisation to go. So this is what I did.

Q. And where specifically did you go in Belgrade to seek authorisation to enter Eastern Bosnia?

A. Well, in Belgrade, I had been working in Yugoslavia in 1989 and 1990. I knew what was the equivalent of the information ministry, I knew the various organisations. Close to the Moskva Hotel in the centre of Belgrade there was an old building - it must have been the building of the Tanjug agency - and I was told to go there in order to get a pass to go to Bosnia. I went there, I went to the building, and I was indeed informed that once I had given my press card, I was given a piece of paper telling me that I had to go to Pale. I was given an exact date to go there. I ²⁸¹⁰⁶ from three to five days to get this authorisation in Pale.

Q. When you were seeking authorisation in Belgrade, did the people in Belgrade contact the people in Pale in order to make these arrangements?

A. Yes, quite. I had the feeling that I had to do with journalists who were in close contact with the Srna agency in Pale, and anyway, that the names of the journalists were written down somewhere in a book.

Q. Now, sir, I'm going to be asking you to describe a video that will be shown on the screen before you and the other people in the courtroom here. Can I ask you at this juncture, did you and your cameraman film portions of your excursion into Eastern Bosnia and into the Pale region?

A. Yes. I was authorised to film. My plan was to verify whether what I'd heard in Kozluk was right. You know, my leading theme was what I had heard about Kozluk. So I was given the accreditation to go to Bosnia, but I had to cross the Drina River in the Zvornik area. I did this on the 20th of July. I couldn't get directly into Zvornik through the first bridge because I think it was somehow under siege, but I was able to cross the Drina through the second bridge. In other words, through the only checkpoint that was obviously authorised at the time.

Q. Sir, now the screen before us has a still of the video, and I will ask that it be played in a minute. It's at 1:05 in the video. Can I -- can I ask you to describe what it is we are looking at in this scene on the video.

A. You see this image, and what you can see here is the second bridge, the second Zvornik bridge, somewhat out of the city on the Drina, with a lot of military presence. And on the other side of the bridge is ²⁸¹⁰⁷ Bosnia, and this bridge is the delimitation, the border between Serbia and Bosnia.

So on the other side of the bridge, on the Bosnian side, there was a checkpoint where we were checked for about an hour.

Q. Sir, I'm going to ask now that the video be played and I'm going to ask that be played up to about 2:10. Can I ask you to describe what it is we are looking at during this one-minute portion of the videotape as it's playing.

[Videotape played]

MR. GROOME:

Q. Sir, we've stopped the video at 1:30. Can you please describe what it is we are looking at in this portion.

A. Well, this is precisely the checkpoint just beyond the bridge. In other words, we are in Bosnia on the 20th of July, 1992. This is where a press officer checked us, he checked whether our temporary accreditation was a valid one. And on the right of this small kiosk is the Zvornik town, which is where I wanted to go, and so the checks were carried out. On the left-hand side, but it can't be seen on this picture, there was a farm building. And whilst we were waiting, I went to that farm building, and I could see that there were a number of soldiers in various uniforms. And while I'm not a specialist, I must say, in this army, so I can't say, but there were red berets and also apparently regular uniforms and people were leaning over a table where there was a map. When they saw me in civilian clothes, they were very nervous because they didn't know who I was, and it was obvious that operations were being planned. ²⁸¹⁰⁸

MR. GROOME: We will continue playing the tape.

JUDGE MAY: Before you do, the video should have a number.

MR. GROOME: I'm sorry, Your Honour, my mistake. This has been marked for identification as 529. I will be seeking to tender it at the conclusion of this witness's testimony.

JUDGE MAY: Very well.

MR. GROOME: My apologies.

[Videotape played]

MR. GROOME:

Q. Now, sir, watching some cars go by, it appears that some are stopped and checked and others are allowed to pass without being checked. Was that your experience or your observation during the hour or so that you were there?

A. Yes, indeed. Each vehicle was filtered but some could pass without any problems - I guess people knew each other - whilst others were stopped and checked more seriously, the way it was for us.

Q. Now, in paragraph 7 of the summary, the 89(F) statement that's now in evidence, you describe how you were eventually permitted to leave the checkpoint but were made to carry a soldier with you and you were not permitted to take any film of your trip to Pale. Can I ask you to summarise for the Chamber any significant observations you made between Zvornik and Pale.

A. Yes, indeed. After being authorised not to go to Zvornik but to go to the left of it, I thought that I would eventually manage to get to Kozluk. First we had to take with us a military man, who checked us, and ²⁸¹⁰⁹ then we were not allowed to film. On the whole trip that was to lead us to Kozluk, well it was a trip where you could see the whole chaos of this war.

There were checkpoints everywhere. We didn't necessarily stay on the main road. Every now and then we had to be taken to by-roads, to small villages. We were somehow veering from checkpoint to checkpoint, and I was able to observe at a given point in time on the right-hand side of the road two or three types of freshly dug out graveyards on the -- along the roadside. And what struck me was that there seemed to be a lot of provisional graves. There were pieces of wood with pieces of clothing on top of them, it may have been T-shirts or shoes. I couldn't identify the nature of these temporary graves.

So I carried on my way up to Pale in these conditions. There was a lot of troop moments. There were occasional fire. There were tanks checking the crossroads. And towards the late afternoon, I made it to Pale where I was eventually to exchange my provisional accreditation to get a press card, a press pass, that was established in the television centre in the centre of Pale, and I think that's where it was.

MR. GROOME: Can I ask that an exhibit number be assigned to this document, and I ask that this document, this identification card, be shown to the witness.

THE REGISTRAR: 574, Your Honour.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Sir, you've just testified about going to a particular location in Pale to receive credentials. Can I ask you to look at the document before ²⁸¹¹⁰ you, which is now Exhibit 574. Do you recognise that document?

A. Yes, absolutely. This is the press card, the credentials I was given, with number 226, in exchange for the printed paper that I had got in Belgrade and cost $50. As to my cameraman, he got number -- the number before mine --

Q. Now, after --

A. -- 126.

Q. Now, after receiving this credential, did you and your cameraman to a restaurant in order to eat some food?

A. Yes. There where I was in the press centre, I asked where there was the closest hotel, and I was shown a kind of chalet, a lodge where I went in order just to drop gear and just to have a rest after a rather heavy day.

Q. And when you and the cameraman were in the restaurant, were you approached by two men?

A. Yes. Well, you see, there were the two of us. I did not have any interpreter with me, so there was my cameraman and myself, and we were about to go and have dinner when two military men with red berets came towards our table. They simply asked us whether they could sit down with us. They ordered some drinks. We had ordered some food. We started talking over a drink in a restaurant about which we were told that it was probably kept by a Muslim because their grilled meat was good, and it was in a hamlet -- in a restaurant called Koran. They said that they'd seen our car in the parking lot. Since it was a French car, they thought that French and Serbs always had had good connections. So that's probably why ²⁸¹¹¹ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸¹¹² they came towards our table.

Q. So that we're clear, these two mean, did you ever learn their names or did they ever give you their names?

A. No.

Q. Are you able to distinguish them by the type of weapon that each of them carried?

A. Rather quickly we understood, because it was not a very sort of coherent discussion, you know, and the discussion was taking place in English, so very quickly we understood that they would not give their names. I asked the question, and one of them replied that if we were to know their real names, we might be killed.

I was able to identify them. One of them had a long knife, and he was playing with it. So I could identify him. And the other one had an automatic pistol.

The one with the long knife said, when I asked him -- since I wanted to go to Kozluk, and when I asked him how Kozluk was, what was happening there, he didn't react to the name of Kozluk because indeed through ethnic cleansing there Kozluk had become Cacan [phoen]. And he said that Kozluk and Zvornik, that was all over for him, that the Muslims had had their throats slitted, they had not been gunned, and now that the Sarajevo battle was starting. The one with the automatic pistol, throwing it on the table, explained that when they were not killed with a knife, were killed with a pistol. The man with the knife explained that they were killed like pigs, because indeed for them --

Q. Just so the record is clear -- I think, because of the ²⁸¹¹³ translation, maybe some of your gestures are not being captured on the record. You've made a motion across your throat. Did one of the men make a gesture across -- a similar gesture; and if so, which one, the man with the knife or the man with the automatic pistol?

A. The man who made that gesture was the man with the knife. And by the way, he was the more aggressive of the two. And he was the one who spoke the most. Anyway, he tended to brag a little about his actions. And he was the man who also threatened my cameraman by asking him if he was Turkish, by threatening him with his knife and looking at him straight in the eyes. I mean, my cameraman is from the south of France, and in that area they're a bit more dark-skinned, let's say.

Q. Can I ask you before you continue, did you have an impression whether either of these men or both of these men had been drinking alcohol?

A. I believe that the man who drunk the most alcohol was the one with the long knife, and he was the one who talked most. And they kept on drinking whilst they were sitting with us, whilst we were eating, and the conversation lasted for about two hours.

Q. Did these men at some point during the conversation identify what unit, or the name of the unit that they belonged to?

A. Well, it was ruled out that names were given. They may have given pseudonyms, but they said clearly that they belonged to the White Eagles and that they were carrying out operations wherever they wished, in all villages where they wanted, and they were given carte blanche to do whatever they wanted and that their commander was Commander Marko. ²⁸¹¹⁴ I was rather surprised by one thing: These two men wanted to pay for our drinks. I refused to be paid for anything. I let them pay for their drinks. I paid for our food, and I was very surprised to see that they had bundles of banknotes, both dinars -- and they were, you know, brand new banknotes or they were new dinars probably. A lot of dinars, a lot of German marks. And I was amazed to see so much money. And they said that they did not belong to the regular army, so that they were not being paid and therefore that they were authorised in somehow to be paid by the boot, that they were authorised to loot.

Q. Can I draw your attention back to the reference one of them made to Zvornik. Can I ask you to tell us which person made a reference to what had occurred in Zvornik, and can you, as precisely as you're able, recall what it was he said.

A. Regarding the Zvornik area and the town itself, they said this: "We're Serbs. We're being threatened by the Muslims. We have to protect ourselves. We have to protect the West. So we have to cleanse this area." I repeat what I said, but indeed his speech was the following: "The Zvornik battle is over now. We've got to take care of Sarajevo." And it even went further than that, but I think he was bragging, you know, the way drunk soldiers do. He said, "We're not waiting for the Europeans, we're waiting to fight the Americans."

Q. And which of the men said this, if you recall; the man with the knife or the man with the automatic pistol?

A. All these speeches were held mainly by the man with the knife. The man with the pistol was sort of translating into English whenever we ²⁸¹¹⁵ found it difficult to understand each other.

Q. And once again, if I can ask you to speak as precisely as you can about what either of these men said about their purpose for being in the Sarajevo area.

A. Well, the purpose, as stated by them to me was that the Sarajevo battle was -- had just begun and that, therefore, we could think that their assignment was to cleanse the areas that were, in their view, not safe around Sarajevo, and they had been given carte blanche to move around Sarajevo. And towards the end of the meal, they even suggested -- because I had serious doubts about it all. We had happened to be there, we had not planned this meeting, these people had come to see us at the table. And since I was expressing some doubt, they insisted on taking us to their command centre to show that that -- what they were saying was real.

Q. Sir, before we go to or ask you to talk about the command centre, you testified that they, or one of the men, said that they were authorised to keep the money from the people that they were cleansing. Did they speak specifically to who it was that authorised them to do this?

A. No. All I know is that it was obviously a unit that had been created not in the way Arkan's unit had been created anyway. By the way, this man with the knife must have been in Vukovar, and he didn't get on with Arkan. I think that a lot of these men were not pleased with Arkan. It had to do with money. So their unit was more radical, more autonomous. They purchased themselves their equipment, the uniforms and the weapons, and this is why they needed money - I repeat what I said - unlike the regular army that got money. ²⁸¹¹⁶

Q. Now, you've just testified that they offered to take you to their headquarters, and from paragraph 17 from the 89(F) statement, we can see that they did in fact take you to the headquarters. Can I draw your attention once again now to the video monitor in front of you. It's now at 2:12 of the video. Can you please describe where this location is that we can now see on the video before I ask it to be played.

A. You have this picture, and you can see the two people outside the restaurant. They took us further into Pale, a few minutes away from this restaurant/lodge where we had dinner. They took us to a place that looked like a municipal building, and there was a large parking lot outside it.

Q. The scene that we can see now, is this inside that building?

A. Yes, yes. This is the main entrance, and just behind it on the left there's the parking lot, and on the right-hand side a large room that was a reception area.

Q. I'm going to ask that the video be played now. I will ask that it be paused at several parts and I will note the time and then ask you to comment. We can begin by playing the video.

[Videotape played]

MR. GROOME:

Q. Sir, the men that are depicted now in this portion of the video at 2:28, do you recognise any of the men in this still?

A. The man who is in the centre, you see from the back with the long knife, in the back, is indeed the man we spoke to in the restaurant. And on the far right you can see rather poorly, but you can see, but I'm ²⁸¹¹⁷ certain it's him, the man with the pistol, but I'm sure the man with the knife I met is the one in the centre of these two. I didn't know the other two people.

MR. GROOME: We'll resume the play.

[Videotape played]

MR. GROOME:

Q. Do you recognise anybody now in this particular portion? This is now at 2:41.

A. Yes. On the left-hand side is the man with the long knife, and to the right you have the man who was sort of toying with his pistol.

MR. GROOME: I ask that it be restarted.

[Videotape played]

MR. GROOME:

Q. Sir, in the video we can see them what appears to be loading weapons. Was that the general activity of the men in the room?

A. Yes. This room was used by them to watch television, sort of a sitting room, and there was a corridor, and I realised later that there were weapons there.

Q. We've paused at tape at 3:19. There's a man now in a grey sweatshirt on the left-hand side. Who is that?

A. It's me a few years before. And you can see by the way I'm dressed that I was not at all prepared for this type of situation. I was taken by surprise, just as was the case for my cameraman. We were meaning to have dinner and then go to bed.

[Videotape played] ²⁸¹¹⁸

MR. GROOME:

Q. Did there come a time when you were asked or your cameraman was directed to turn off the camera inside the command centre?

A. Yes. At various points in time, we were obliged to stop filming, especially when they went to look for weapons, and we will see that situation very clearly a little later.

Q. We are now seeing what appears to be a movie being played on a television. Can you explain that to us? And that's at 4:18.

A. I had an impression that this was a Rambo film, and all the videotapes were war, depicted war scenes.

Q. Did it appear to you that the men in that centre, or that building, were preparing for some type of military mission?

A. I had the feeling that the people who were there could go on mission at any point in time, and we could see that in this room most of the men were equipped either to go on mission or were just returning from a mission.

Q. Now, the video has been paused at 4:35. Can I ask you to describe what it is we are looking at here.

A. That is a second room that was next to the room where the TV set was. So it is a restroom, and the man on the left is a man who also had a long knife at the back and who made the same kind of gesture as the one in the restaurant, showing that he too would kill with his knife, slitting throats of people.

Q. And we can see in this man's belt a red beret, and we can see another red beret on what appears to be the window sill. Did all the men ²⁸¹¹⁹ inside this centre have red berets as part of their uniforms?

A. Yes. It was clear that that was one unit, a commando unit, and that they had red berets on their heads or in their pockets. They all belonged to the same unit, the same entity.

Q. If we could restart the tape, and I'd ask you to narrate what it is we are looking at as it plays.

[Videotape played]

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That is an illustration of what I have just told you. So this man too had a long knife attached in the back at his belt, and he was in a kind of complicity with the other man with the long knife.

[Videotape played]

MR. GROOME:

Q. We are now at approximately 5:15. Is the room or the place where the weapons were stored, can that be seen in this picture?

A. Yes, to the left of this reception area and at the end of this corridor was the place where people went to fetch their weapons, as we will see later. And there were different types of weapons, light weapons as well as some heavier weapons.

As we can see now, all of these weapons were at the bottom of room, and obviously we were not allowed to film that. This was a Kalashnikov, for instance. And there were other types of weapons as well.

Q. Approximately how many men altogether were preparing for a mission in this room?

A. I think that there were about 20 persons, but I must specify that ²⁸¹²⁰ up until the moment we left and I saw this bus on the parking lot, I still didn't believe that we would be leaving on mission with this group. I thought that this was a joke by the man from the restaurant.

Q. We are now at 6:50 in the video, and we can see a bus. Were you and your cameraman permitted to go on the bus with them as they drove to a mission?

A. I think that their person -- their purpose was to take us, and we took this bus upon the initiative of the two men that we met in the restaurant. And we see that this is a group that was fully equipped and that could confront any kind of operation.

Q. The man that's in the foreground of this picture, another witness has spoken to knowledge about this man. Can you describe who this man is for us if you -- can you describe who this man is?

A. This is the man that carried the long knife with whom we had a lengthy discussion in the restaurant. He's the one who explained to us how his unit functioned, the fact that most of the people were coming from different parts of Serbia, the region of Belgrade, et cetera, and he explained all the mechanisms of cleansing and who in fact initiated this situation, saying that he could go anywhere he wanted and that he had a kind of carte blanche.

Q. Sir, so the record is clear, there's only one man in the picture with a beard, or looks like unshaven. Is that the man that you're referring to now?

A. Yes. It's always the same man, there's no doubt about that. Throughout this clip it is the same person? ²⁸¹²¹

MR. GROOME: Please continue.

[Videotape played]

MR. GROOME:

Q. And this man now driving the bus, who is he?

A. This man is the second person who was in the restaurant with us and who carried that Colt and who was more withdrawn in relation to his colleague but who was an accomplice in creating this whole situation.

MR. GROOME: And this is at 7:29. If we could continue that video.

[Videotape played]

MR. GROOME:

Q. Sir, the weapon that this man has, it's partially visible in the video. Can I ask you to describe what you recall about this weapon to the Chamber.

A. I think that this was a rifle with a sniper, an infrared sight, and I think that at the time I had not been frequently to Sarajevo, as I would be going later on, and I didn't know the kind of use that such a weapon could be put to.

MR. GROOME: I'd ask the video continue, and this, for the record, was at 7:44.

[Videotape played]

MR. GROOME:

Q. Now, sir, while the video is playing the bus moving, can I ask you to describe for the Chamber the length of the trip and what you recall about the trip that you took on the bus with these men. ²⁸¹²²

A. The trip was in the middle of the night, about midnight, one hour after midnight. It lasted about one hour. What impressed me most was that there were no checkpoints or, rather, when there were any, they passed without being checked. At certain places, the men would slide down in their seats, and I concluded that they were passing through dangerous areas that were not fully controlled by them. So they were clearly proving that they could move around wherever they wanted to in this region without any control or restrictions.

Q. Did there come a time when this bus was overtaken by an army jeep?

A. Yes. During this first trip, we were actually stopped by a military jeep, and we were forced to make an about-turn.

Q. Approximately how much time elapsed between the time you left the centre in the bus to the time that you were stopped by the military jeep?

A. I think it was about after one hour, in my opinion.

Q. Can you -- we're now at 9:44. Can you please describe what it is we're looking at now.

A. After the jeep stopped us, I concluded that it must have been the unit commander who stopped the bus, learning that the men had left in a sort of an adventurous manner. So we returned to the command centre, to this municipal hall, and there I would meet the person who was referred to by his men as Commander Marko and who was going to -- who will organise the next trip with the same bus and virtually in a similar sort of situation.

MR. GROOME: I'd ask the video continue playing

[Videotape played] ²⁸¹²³ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸¹²⁴

MR. GROOME:

Q. We're now at 9:50 and continuing. Can you please narrate what it is we're looking at in this portion of the video.

A. We're now outside this hall. To the right we see Commander Marko. We were no longer allowed to film inside, as we had been previously, and we see that the man with the long knife was not allowed to go with the unit again, because I imagine that the commander came to the conclusion that he was not desirable.

So we took the same bus in a more serious atmosphere here. This is the man who was introduced to us as being Commander Marko, the commander of this unit or group.

Q. We're now at 10:44 into the video. There's only one man visible in the frame at this time, who you've just identified as Commander Marko. He's carrying a weapon. Can I ask you to describe what you recall about that weapon.

A. I think that this is also a sniper rifle. Actually, we will go to a place close to Sarajevo which was a place for sniping.

Q. On the bus on this second excursion out from the command centre, how many men had sniper rifles similar to the one that we can see here in this frame?

A. I think that there were about three people with this type of weapon. Others had bazookas and others had lighter weapons.

MR. GROOME: I'd ask that we continue playing the video.

[Videotape played]

MR. GROOME: ²⁸¹²⁵

Q. This portion of the video is pitch black. Is that an accurate representation of the lighting conditions -- I'm sorry, the lighting conditions at the scene where it was filmed?

A. At this part, we are on the heights around Sarajevo. Sarajevo is in complete darkness. Everything is dark. I did not film the second trip. I only filmed this small sequence.

So we were at a particular spot, and I came back again to the same spot and found that position.

Q. I wanted to ask you a few questions about the night that -- or the -- let me -- the night that you went on the second mission, can you describe the location where you went and how far away it was from the command centre.

A. Yes. I think it was more or less the same route. We travelled perhaps a quarter of an hour longer, but all this is relative in such situations, plus/minus five minutes, but I would say that the route -- that the trip took about one hour to reach the outskirts of Sarajevo.

Q. Can you recall for the Chamber what it was you observed when you arrived at the location where the bus stopped.

A. Yes. Apart from the total darkness and the silence after the noise we had heard all day of fighting, that there were casings of different calibres of weapons everywhere around us.

Q. At this point in time, in the darkness, were you able to see what it was that was in front of where you were standing?

A. No, absolutely nothing. It was total darkness around us.

Q. How long did you remain there at that location? ²⁸¹²⁶

A. We stayed about ten minutes, 15 minutes. Nothing happened. And then Commander Marko, as we could see on the few dark pictures, that he decided to have his unit return to Pale, and we did. After returning to Pale, Commander Marko, with his lieutenant whom we didn't see on the picture, who is a student from Belgrade who spoke good English, accompanied me to the hotel together with my cameraman, and we had a lengthy discussion on the parking lot of the hotel, and there I had quite a different talk to what we heard from the two men in the restaurant. I would qualify it as an ideological discussion. Actually, Commander Marko explained to me that he had lost the media war, that he was endeavouring to win the opinion war, and that we in the West should understand that their role was to defend the West even though they came from all parts of Serbia, that the West needed to fight against the possible invasion of Islam, and for the first time I heard mention of a kind of a green belt going through Kosovo -- Turkey, Kosovo, Sandzak towards Europe, and he spoke at length about the problems of Muslims in France. And this was a propaganda speech which I had already heard in the years 1989, 1990 during the electoral campaigns for the Presidency in Serbia and Kosovo.

Q. Sir, the next day, then, did you and your cameraman, by yourselves, find your way back to the location where you were the night before?

A. Yes. It was enough to ask for the road to Sarajevo, and people would point it out to us, and I did make this trip again. And I learned two days later that I had made the same trip that I had made two nights ²⁸¹²⁷ before.

Q. I'm going to now ask that the video resume at 11:14, and if I would ask you to narrate what it is we are looking at as it plays.

[Videotape played]

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This entire area, these are the slopes of Trebevic, and once you leave Pale and the forests around Pale, you are on the heights around Sarajevo. This whole area was under military control, and one could see that the hotel complexes and restaurants, the tourist areas which I knew before the war because I visited there, that everything had been destroyed, and this whole area was being held by the army, the artillery along the road, we only saw that. So I filmed a few sequences, and we see very well that we are on the heights around Sarajevo.

MR. GROOME: Can we just pause the video at 12:17 just to give the Chamber a chance to take a closer look.

Q. Can you approximate how far was the place where you were from the -- this part of Sarajevo as the bird would fly?

A. I think as the crow flies, it's not more than a kilometre. This is a limited area covered by the camera, but I think that the closest buildings were about one kilometre away.

[Videotape played]

MR. GROOME:

Q. This portion of the road, is this also at the location where the bus was the night before?

A. Yes, exactly so. This is the place where there was a parking and ²⁸¹²⁸ a view, and I recognised it because we stopped there, and I saw during the day all the casings of different calibre, and I realised that this was a sniper position which provided complete coverage of Sarajevo. This was a very dangerous area, and one can hear constant shooting, whether it is with light weapons or whatever, return sniper fire coming in the other direction.

Q. While you were there with your cameraman, did you hear fire coming in your direction from Sarajevo?

A. Yes, yes. At this spot, which was one of the hot spots for snipers, we were indeed sniped at from the opposite direction. So I imagine this was coming from Bosnian positions.

Q. Sir, I've omitted or I'm skipping over a portion of the video between 13:20 and 17:20. Is that a portion of the video that was shot in the Lukavica barracks that you visited on that day as well?

A. Yes. After that, after Trebevic and before entering Sarajevo was the Lukavica barracks by Lukavica. My intention originally was to enter Sarajevo. I understood that with the Red Berets and ethnic cleansing and the testimony about Kozluk which confirmed all that, that we needed to go to Sarajevo, and in order to do that we had to pass through a checkpoint at the Lukavica barracks. And I think the UNPROFOR, at the time the Canadian Battalion, would come and check journalists and other persons wanting to go into Sarajevo.

Q. I'm just conscious of the time. Would it be fair to say that you ultimately were not able to get into Sarajevo but later that day you did return to the same location you were the night before and took additional ²⁸¹²⁹ footage?

A. Yes. We were with the Hungarian television that were able to enter Sarajevo, and we had to go back to Pale and to suspend this mission temporarily.

Q. I'm going to resume the video at 17:24. Once again if I could ask you to describe what it is we are looking at as it plays.

[Videotape played]

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Here we are on the return route, still on the slopes of Trebevic, and the places with sniper positions frequently framed by tanks. You don't see that on the picture. And one can see that this whole area was very heavily armed, militarised. Specifically what surprised us was that these were regular troops and that the cannon were all facing in the same direction. So I think there was no doubt as to the destination of the ammunition.

[Videotape played]

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Whether it is cannon or tanks or machine-guns, they were all pointed towards Sarajevo. And this was a day when there was a lot of shooting and bombing, and the town was shelled repeatedly.

These are all reinforced and protected positions on the heights surrounding, overlooking Sarajevo.

MR. GROOME:

Q. At 19:13, is this an artillery piece that we can see in the frame?

A. Yes, indeed. There were different calibres of weapons and artillery. These are all artillery pieces of different calibres. ²⁸¹³⁰ These are positions that were slightly more reinforced and better protected. I think it is an old compound, hotel compound, in fact, and that in protected areas like this there were more heavy weaponry -- there was more heavy weaponry; between 120 and 240 millimetres.

Q. Sir, a moment ago you drew a distinction between regular soldiers and the men that you had been with the night before. How is it that you distinguish between the two different types of men that you encountered on your trip?

A. I think that the bearing of these people was quite different. Here we see units of the army, perhaps the ex-federal army, and they weren't actually commandos, and their behaviour on conduct was different. And on the way, en route, I noticed that many of those soldiers would take -- make stop-offs as if they were hiking. And I don't think that many of them were pleased to be in a situation of that kind in actual fact.

Q. Sir, we've stopped or paused at video at 21:02. Are you familiar with the Sarajevo library, the old Turkish library?

A. Yes, quite. I did know the building. It was situated in the centre of the picture, and I said a moment ago that I did visit Sarajevo before the war several times, so I was well acquainted with that whole general area, the old city centre of Sarajevo, Bas Carsija and the rest of it.

Q. Is it visible in this frame; and if it is could I ask you to describe which building it is for the Chamber.

A. We can see that it is the building in actual fact in the very centre of this image and that the building is intact, the 21st or 22nd of ²⁸¹³¹ July, 1992, the building was standing. It was intact.

MR. GROOME: Please resume.

[Videotape played]

MR. GROOME:

Q. And sir, this vantage point that the cameraman is at now, where is this in respect to the location that you were the night before with the men in the red berets?

A. These are all places which, relatively speaking, were fairly near. This whole stretch of ground here was about a kilometre or more away, and then we went further towards the interior, the forest towards Pale. So actually, all these points and locations here and all this type of weaponry where the snipers installed themselves were concentrated, geographically speaking, in one area.

Q. We're now at 21:58 on the video. Can you describe what it is that is being filmed now.

A. Once again, we see the difference between the paramilitary groups who were coming in from other regions and the regular troops which were going up and down to and from the front and who were probably locals from the region who were taking buses, who would normally take a bus in any other situation.

So that's where we were, on our return route going back to Pale and Belgrade.

Q. And for the record, we've terminated the video at 6 22:35. And as the 89(F) statement, in paragraphs 44 and 45 describe, you were able then to return back into Serbia generally via the way that you came to ²⁸¹³² Pale; is that correct?

A. Yes. We took the exact same itinerary and route with the same types of situations. And when crossing the bridge at Zvornik, we encountered the same type of fighting, and we passed from Bosnia to Serbia in the night between the 23rd -- the night of the 23rd, in fact. There was a lot of fighting going on even at 20 kilometres from the Zvornik bridge, including during the night.

Q. Sir, yesterday, in cooperation with members of the Office of the Prosecutor's staff, did you work on a document containing stills from the video with notes made by you indicating certain important identifications from the video?

A. Yes. Would you like me to comment on those stills?

Q. I'd ask you, is that the document that you worked on yesterday, making your notes about what is depicted in the video at the particular time indicated in the left-hand column?

A. Yes, that's right. It's the same document that we worked on yesterday, absolutely.

Q. And those are the -- the video that we've seen here today, is that an accurate version of the video that was taken by yourself and your cameraman on the trip that you've described in July of 1992?

A. Yes, it is. Everything is exact, all the stills.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, I would formally tender that exhibit now, and I would ask that this document containing the stills and the notes, that that be tendered as well, and may I suggest that we tender it as tab 2 to keep it with Exhibit 529, the video itself. ²⁸¹³³

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, the video would be 529. Tab 1 would be the excerpts of the video viewed today, and tab 2 would be the stills.

MR. GROOME: And, Your Honour, if I could just note a typographical error on this tab 2 of 529. In the third still, where it says 3:34, that should read 4:34. That's a typographical error. I have no further questions.

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

Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Riviere, the film you shot in Bosnia in July 1992, which we have partially been shown here through a series of different stills and images endeavours to describe the atmosphere at the battlefront, is that right? In that area; is that right, the area you were in?

A. This film wasn't a film that was ordered or imposed. It's not a situation that I created. It was a situation created by the Red Berets themselves. Quite simply, I found some answers to the various testimony that I heard in Hungary, in Kozlugi -- about Kozluk, I'm sorry. And I wasn't able to include testimony from the people of Kozluk themselves, and so I didn't want to doubt any of the testimonies a priori, either by the people or the Red Berets. And in fact, during that period of time, those two testimonies were corroborated and bore each other out. They explained all the mechanisms of ethnic cleansing in Eastern Bosnia, and everything that the people of Kozluk had had to go through or the people of Zvornik.

Q. Let's just dwell for a short time on Kozluk, because we did have a witness here who was the president of Kozluk. As far as I remember his ²⁸¹³⁴ testimony, the citizens of Kozluk demanded that they be allowed to leave the area, and with the help of the Red Cross, through Serbia, they were evacuated to Hungary, because that's what they wanted to do themselves, and that is common knowledge.

Do you know that? Do you know about that? Are you aware of it?

A. The version of the inhabitants of Kozluk, and you mentioned the president or, rather, the mayor of Kozluk I assume you mean - I remember his first name, it was Fadil - that was something in actual fact which had to be verified. But what I questioned was not that. I listened to the testimony of the women from Kozluk, a lot of them, and when you hear women testify, and I remember a case in point, a particular woman, what I remarked there with respect to Kozluk was that she explained that her baby was killed, it was only several months old, because it was taken by a soldier, by its legs and killed. And others said that their sons and husbands had been killed. So I don't know whether under those circumstances one can speak about the people voluntarily wanting to leave. So I just filmed the testimony in the raw, if I can put it that way, and that's what I wanted to show. There were --

Q. Mr. Riviere, we have seen nothing of those testimonies. What I'm talking about is what you have testified about here in the courtroom. Now, this witness from Kozluk explained that all of them, unimpeded, did go to Hungary --

JUDGE MAY: You've put that to the witness already, Mr. Milosevic, and he's given you his response. That was the response that he talked to people, as he put it, in the raw, and that was the response that they ²⁸¹³⁵ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸¹³⁶ gave.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I should like to dwell for a moment on what the witness testified here.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. You can ask him. You can certainly ask him -- wait a moment. You can certainly ask him a question, of course, about what he's said in evidence, but simply repeating questions which you've already put is a waste of time.

Now, you've put what the witness said here. He's given you his response. Now, move on to something else. Ask another question.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That's what I'm doing. I'm asking him about his film, because his film represents the largest part of his testimony. So the question was whether he reflects the atmosphere in that war-infested area, which is where he took the shots, where he filmed it.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Riviere, I don't know what that question means, but I suppose you could be asked: Do you think you accurately reflected the atmosphere of what was going on, you accurately reflected the sites which you saw in the film?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I'm a little surprised by the question, because when one takes footage of this kind of film, one doesn't film the ambience.

JUDGE MAY: I'm trying to put a question that he's asking, to make sense of it. That's the point. So don't be offended in any way. Is there anything -- put it this way: Was there anything you filmed -- was there anything you didn't film which might have made a difference to what you've showed or what you've talked about? ²⁸¹³⁷

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. I did grasp your question and the sense of it, and I wasn't taking offence in any way, but as I say, it wasn't atmosphere and ambience, it was facts. The testimony from the people of Kozluk that we broadcast over French television and the footage recorded with the Red Berets, they weren't images or footage that was artificial, created by us; they were realistic images. The weapons of the White Eagles were not the weapons contrary to the video taken by Rambo, and it wasn't a wild goose chase either. So this was footage of a precise situation, a situation in Bosnia that existed, that was one of confusion and could appear such if one came in from outside, but once one was there in the locality, it became very clear.

So I did not ask for any testimony, I just filmed events as they were progressing, improvised very often, and I filmed facts and recorded what was going on without making any value judgements myself.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, we saw the footage you took, and you keep mentioning Kozluk. Perhaps I missed something here, but I didn't see anything that had to do with Kozluk actually on your footage, or perhaps that was skipped over in the footage we saw, but I really didn't see anything to connect with Kozluk in the film.

A. The reason for my going to Bosnia in the first place was precisely because I had heard testimony about Eastern Bosnia, and I can be at the court's disposal and present all the testimony that was made to me; the names of the people, the dates, and everything they said with respect to ethnic cleansing in that period, July 1992, Eastern Bosnia being the ²⁸¹³⁸ place.

Q. Mr. --

JUDGE MAY: I think we've come to time for an adjournment. It's after half past.

Yes, Mr. Groome.

MR. GROOME: I would just state that we are in possession of this other piece of work which is the interview of the Kozluk victims. It was not the Prosecution's intention to tender that, but if the Chamber wishes, I can secure a copy of that over the break.

JUDGE MAY: No. Thank you very much. Mr. Riviere, we're going to adjourn for 20 minutes. Could I remind you, as we mind all witnesses, not to speak to anybody about your evidence until it's over.

Twenty minutes.

--- Recess taken at 10.33 a.m.

--- On resuming at 10.55 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you have one hour and ten minutes, should you require it, for further cross-examination.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Riviere, quite simply, in the testimony we heard from you today and the footage we saw, there's nothing from Kozluk; isn't that right?

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Groome, perhaps you would like to repeat, because it's apparent the accused didn't hear this.

MR. GROOME: Yes, Your Honour. ²⁸¹³⁹

JUDGE MAY: It's not disputed that there is nothing from Kozluk shown in court. Now, would you like to repeat again what you said before so the accused can hear it.

MR. GROOME: That's correct, Your Honour. The witness made a piece about Kozluk from Hungary which was aired on ARTE TV. I have a copy of that and it's available should the court wish. The second piece is the raw footage from his attempts to get to Kozluk. He was never permitted go to Kozluk, as he's testified about and is in the 89(F) statement. So there is no footage from Kozluk simply because he was prevented from going there.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. We've cleared that point up then.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Now, what we can see on the film in this war-infested area, the footage we saw, those were scenes from a time when there wasn't any fighting going on, actually, because there's no fighting, no combat action on the actual footage. Isn't that right?

A. There was fighting going on. All you would have to do was to listen to the soundtrack of some of the footage and you would, in actual fact, hear light-arms fire or fire from heavier weaponry. But in any case, if you -- not throughout the film, but that's television for you. We see -- we hear fairly distinctly on the soundtrack fighting going on.

Q. Very well. So in -- the film doesn't actually show the fighting, and you can hear shots sporadically from an unspecified direction, but you ²⁸¹⁴⁰ haven't got the footage of actual fighting, of actual combat action, have you?

A. If by that you mean cannon shots or shots are not tantamount to combat operation, what is a combat operation then?

Q. Well, I didn't see anywhere on this footage any cannons, any guns firing, actually firing, shots of cannons actually firing; that's all I'm saying.

Now, tell me this, please, Mr. Riviere: Am I right in observing that the only combat action you actually filmed, and which was mentioned in the summary, was the shooting of a bullet from the position of Sarajevo towards the Serb positions? And you have that in paragraph 38 of the summary, and on the videotape it is at 12:57. At least, that's what I've noted down, where you hear a bullet fly past.

A. Yes, that's right. If you were in that position that was sniped and if you take it that a sniper shot from the Bosnian side was an action of war directed actually against us, against the civilians and the press, we can consider that everything we heard as shots or as gunfire, et cetera, throughout the period of time that we were there was really combat action. But on the -- and there is no doubt with respect to the location from which this gunfire, machine-gun fire came from. So we were able to know which side this heavy weaponry was targeting in actual fact.

Q. All right. So that means that you just filmed the Muslims at one point shooting at the Serbs and nothing else with respect to fighting. Is that right?

A. If the question is this, that you're asking me whether the Muslims ²⁸¹⁴¹ were shooting at the Serbs, I -- my answer is I can't tell you who the Muslims were. It was Bosniaks rather than Muslims and who the Serbs were at a point in time when the army on the high ground -- was on the high ground around Sarajevo, so one could think that there were fragments of the federal army, in fact. So I really can't answer your question.

Q. These were parts of the army of Republika Srpska, as far as I know, in those days, and not of the federal army. You do not mention any federal army in your statement. Is that right, Mr. Riviere?

A. In my statement, I mentioned two different elements of the armed forces that I was able to see on the ground. There was first what I thought to be a regular army, and I was not able to identify them formally except that when I was on the heights around Sarajevo, I was able to notice that the weapons were turned in one single direction. On the other hand, the few hours I spent with Red Berets instructed me that these were paramilitaries, Serb paramilitaries. Their talk -- discussions were quite explicit in that sense. I did not engage in any investigation as to the forces that appeared to me to be regular forces.

Q. The regular army of Republika Srpska, yes. However, these young men that you met in the restaurant and later where they lived and slept and watched television, et cetera, and in the bars, they were going on a mission that never took place and came back twice. According to your testimony, they belonged to the White Eagles paramilitary group; isn't that right?

A. Yes, absolutely. ²⁸¹⁴²

Q. In paragraph 12 of your summary, it says that one of the White Eagles, the one with the long knife, said, "We are coming from everywhere to save the Serb nation. It is our duty"; and I quote your statement. Is it clear from this sentence that this was a group of volunteers organised to form a paramilitary grouping that had come from various areas prompted by personal feelings of duty to assist their people? Isn't that right?

A. If you're talking about different areas of Serbia or Belgrade, indeed some of the members of this group said that they came from Serbia or the surroundings of Belgrade. Some were students in Belgrade. The sociological composition of this group, for me, was vague. Regarding Commander Marko, it was my impression that he was a career military man, a captain in the former Yugoslav army, that he had quite a clear ideological position, defending values which he considered, rightly or wrongly, that he should defend. And the men in his group, my impression was that they were not just students but that there were various social categories of people in that group, and even at times my impression was that I was dealing with criminals.

Q. Can one conclude from what you saw and from what you filmed and explained here that the White Eagles were some sort of an independent and autonomous paramilitary formation outside the army of Republika Srpska or any other official structure?

A. The way they functioned, one could conclude that they did not belong to a classical organised military group. When we looked at the eastern part of Bosnia that I went through twice, it was impossible to ²⁸¹⁴³ move around without being stopped every 30 seconds. There were checkpoints absolutely everywhere, and it was impossible to move freely. Therefore, to say that these groups were totally independent and were not subjected to any superior authority, it's perhaps going too far. And I think to allow troops to function freely like that, to punish and loot the civilian population without planning and organisation, in my view, would not be acceptable, and in my position, I'm simply not in a position to answer this question whether there was any superior authority that organised this group.

Q. In your examination-in-chief this morning, you said that they did not belong to the regular army, but you say that they had the right to loot. To me, that appears to be contradictory. Who can give anyone the right to loot? Can such an expression be accepted at all, the right to loot? Who could possibly authorise them to loot? And when you were asked who authorised them to loot, you said you didn't know who gave them that right. Isn't that right, Mr. Riviere?

JUDGE MAY: There are two questions there. If you can answer either of them, Mr. Riviere, do so.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] There is a question asking me whether I knew that a superior or higher authority, an organised authority, would allow this unit to carry out such actions. As to that question, I maintain that I don't have enough knowledge as to say it in any certified way. So I don't know regarding that. As to the other point, however, this had to do with the way that this unit would move about within that part of Bosnia, knowing that most ²⁸¹⁴⁴ of the checkpoint were manned and controlled both by the regular army and by the police forces. Just look at the first still at the Zvornik post. You see that there is the blue uniformed forces and the army. So the police forces are there. If you let Red Berets cross that checkpoint, that means that they are authorised to do so.

So if you talk about a higher authority, if you know that, there's a constant, permanent connection, a hi-fi and walkie-talkie connection between them. It is obvious that the slightest movement by an individual, be he military or be that a television crew, it's obvious that everybody knew, that everybody had the information from one village to the other, from one checkpoint to the other, from one town to the other.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Very well. I draw your attention to your summary, and in paragraph 6, following on to the previous point, you say that you had the impression that they were nervous because of your presence. There were ordinary soldiers, other soldiers with red berets, and some others that looked like paramilitaries. And then you say quite explicitly in paragraph 6: "At that location Mr. Riviere's attention was drawn to a Serb woman who was near the body of her son, which lay on the side of the road." Isn't that right? This is what is stated in paragraph 6 of your summary,

A. Yes, absolutely. Indeed, while we were being checked at the checkpoint in -- we to wait for an hour for our accreditation to be checked. However, you can't see that in the clip. You have a young Serb who had just been killed. He was 18 years old. And indeed his mother ²⁸¹⁴⁵ came to collect his body, and the press officer who checked us there explained to us that he was 18 years old, he was a Serb, and that it was also necessary to convey their point of view.

Q. Very well. In paragraph 43 of your summary, and you also have this on the videotape, 21:58, it says: "This shot shows the change of regular troops at artillery positions. They are significantly different from the paramilitaries they met the day before. These men seemed more like professional soldiers and appeared to be travelling back and forth to their homes to work at the artillery emplacements." That was a quotation from your summary, paragraph 43. So this also indicates that the White Eagles that you met were an atypical and irregular grouping as opposed to this other group of soldiers who were regulars. Is that right?

A. Yes, yes, absolutely.

Q. [No interpretation]

JUDGE MAY: We're not getting any translation, so start again, would you.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'll repeat, Mr. May.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. On the film, one can hear that some members of the White Eagles speak the Ekavian dialect, which is spoken in Serbia, and the others the Ijkavian dialect, the variant used in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the western part of the Serb language area. This is about two minutes into the film. One of the members asks another one, "Siptar, where is my shirt?" So he's using the Bosnian-Herzegovinian dialect. Judging by the ²⁸¹⁴⁶ speech of these White Eagles members, one can really see that they came from various parts of the country on both sides of the Drina River. Do you realise that?

A. As I told you, I had indeed the impression that this was a group, from its sociological composition was very diverse. I had talked with some men in the restaurant. Some members of the unit came from Serbia and they state so openly. Out of the 20 men in that unit who went on a mission together with us, and out of the 20 men, I really talked with four of them. So out of these four men, there were at least three of whom I can say that they were not from Bosnia. And you mentioned "Siptar." So they would have been from Kosovo, from Albania.

Q. That could easily be a nickname. I didn't mention Siptar because he is -- somebody was from Kosovo, but I mentioned this sentence because he used the word "Gde," which is a word that would not be used by anyone from Serbia who speaks the Ekavian dialect. When he said "Gde" as opposed to "Gdje."

So that I'm saying this, that one can conclude on that basis that members of this paramilitary unit came from various areas on both sides of the Drina River. Are you aware of that?

A. It seems quite plausible to me.

Q. Mr. Riviere, you don't speak Serbian. One can see from the film that you used English in your communications in Bosnia. Isn't that right?

A. Yes, right.

Q. Did anyone later translate for you what is said in the Serbian language on the tape? ²⁸¹⁴⁷ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸¹⁴⁸

A. No. Let's be clear. We are talking about the tape with the Red Berets; right?

Q. Yes, when the White Eagles unit is shown that you are testifying about.

So what they were saying is not translated for you. So you brought the film, and you're testifying on the basis of it, yet you don't know what those men on film are saying.

JUDGE MAY: This is a comment by you. The witness has explained what happened and explained what he saw. He can go no further than that. Let's move on to something else.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. This paramilitary grouping, the White Eagles, as you yourself say and as can be seen from the film, have red berets, and then you said in paragraph 5, which I just mentioned, that at the checkpoint after crossing the Bosnian border, you saw a group of men looking at a map, some of whom were again wearing red berets. Were they also White Eagles?

A. I'd like to specify one thing. I was not the one who said that this unit, this paramilitary group were the White Eagles. They said so themselves. I mean, the two people I found -- I met in the restaurant. Just to be clear on that.

Now, as to the checkpoint, there was indeed a group in which people wore various types of uniforms. I had just arrived in Bosnia, and I did not at all know what it was all about, who it was all about. So I am not at all able to tell you whether these people with the red berets in ²⁸¹⁴⁹ other uniforms who were leaned over that map were members of that unit. All I can say is that I did not see these people when I was in Pale.

Q. Very well. A moment ago, you said that when you arrived at Pale you went to a restaurant called Koran and that it was run by a Muslim; is that right?

A. Not at all. Not at all. What I said is that I was told about a restaurant/hunting lodge or chalet, and that when the paramilitaries came to sit at our table, they told me that it was kept by a Muslim and that's why we had to order their meat, because they made good meat. And that place, that hamlet where the restaurant was, was called Koran.

Q. Very well. But you found out that the restaurant was owned by a Muslim who was running that restaurant, regardless of what prompted them to tell you that, whether it was because of the quality of the meat or for some other reason.

A. Well, personally, I did not check whether he was a Muslim or not. I didn't really ask myself that question.

JUDGE KWON: If you read paragraph 9 of your summary, you stated that: "Mr. Riviere could see the restaurant owner, who he believed was Muslim, get frightened by the appearances in his restaurant." Paragraph 9.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. It was a mistake in the witness statement and, Mr. Kwon, we corrected paragraph 9. So this is to be found in the addendum, in the corrections, where we changed this paragraph and explained that that had been said by the paramilitaries. It was not me who had said so. This is change number 47. ²⁸¹⁵⁰

JUDGE KWON: Yes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Correction number 47.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, if I may add to Judge Kwon's question. True, a correction has been made, but no correction was made to the statement that he noticed that he was fearful. That was not corrected.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Riviere, the correction has to do with the area, the name of the area in which the restaurant is located, but nothing was changed with respect to the fact that the owner was a Muslim. Isn't that right?

A. Well, it doesn't change anything to the fact that the paramilitaries said that he was a Muslim. However, regarding the fact that this man would have been afraid of the situation that was unfolding, I repeat and maintain that he looked very frightened by the situation.

Q. Very well. But he's at Pale. In the administrative centre of Republika Srpska, a Muslim is running a restaurant. So there's no doubt about that, I assume, Mr. Riviere. Doesn't that indicate that in Pale, which is not only the administrative but the military centre too, a Muslim was running a restaurant, doesn't that indicate there was a very decent level of tolerance, which you were able to witness?

A. I mainly noted that this man was very afraid, but I have no other comment to make.

Q. Very well. Without going into why you went to Bosnia and Herzegovina, actually, you went there after the interview with the refugees from Kozluk that you had in Hungary. You didn't get there, but ²⁸¹⁵¹ you got to Pale. Actually, you went to Pale to get a press accreditation; isn't that right?

A. Well, first I went to Belgrade mainly in order to get my accreditation, a provisional one that would allow me to access Bosnia in order to get a more lasting accreditation of some days in Bosnia, against $50. So I was supposed also to get another accreditation card for my cameraman. So I went to the centre of Belgrade, and it is there that it was decided whether I could be accredited or not, initially speaking.

Q. Very well. In Belgrade itself, I assume you had no problems whatsoever, but they advised you, as you were not competent for this, that you had to go to Pale to get a permission for Bosnia; isn't that right?

A. On the contrary. I had the feeling that they were very competent in this field, because the people who took me in phoned Pale, I was recorded in this copybook. I wasn't the first journalist to be registered in this way. So they had competence to give me a transit pass, a provisional one. And indeed, once I had crossed the Zvornik bridge, this paper authorised and allowed me to move about in Bosnia.

Q. I understand that. You explained during the examination-in-chief this morning that you actually went to the news agency in Belgrade, to Tanjug, that they contacted the news agency of Republika Srpska, that is Srna, told them that you wanted to go there, and advised you to go to Pale where the pass that you displayed here was actually issued to you. Isn't that right?

A. Yes. This paper was issued in Belgrade by which I could move about. Therefore, I concluded that there was a connection in -- by which ²⁸¹⁵² journalists could be accredited if they wanted to go from Belgrade to Bosnia.

Q. You have here this pass or permit. It has been produced here under 0347371, and it says here "Army of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo-Romanija Corps," and then in capital letters, "Permit." And it says the agency, your agency FR-3; then your name, Riviere Michel; the number of your passport; and the number of the pass, 226. And as I can see on the stamp, the word "Sarajevo" is written on it, which means that it was issued in Pale, wasn't it?

A. Yes, this pass was indeed issued in Pale in exchange for this printed paper that had been issued in Belgrade. Without the printed paper that I had from Belgrade, I don't think that I would have been able to go from the Zvornik bridge to Pale only with my press card. I think that it would have been impossible back in those days, given the situation.

Q. All right. But a permit was issued which allowed you to move around and to do your job as a journalist at Pale, and that's where you paid what you say you paid for your press card; right?

A. Yes. We can see this card that was issued in Pale.

Q. Now you say that after you received this permit, you went to the hotel and the restaurant there and that you met two members of the White Eagles who started talking to you, and you started asking about Kozluk; right?

A. Yes, I did ask them questions about Kozluk, and Zvornik as well, because in the camp in Hungary, there wasn't any refugees from Kozluk, Zvornik, or around. That is to say, they weren't only from Kozluk but ²⁸¹⁵³ from Zvornik as well, so I asked questions about the region. And the answer was that we have finished with that region and we're now going to see to Sarajevo. The answer was very clear. And when I spoke about Kozluk, they made out that they didn't understand what I was talking about.

Q. So they had nothing to do with Kozluk. Is that what that means?

A. I think quite the contrary. They had everything to do with Kozluk.

Q. Very well. May we then conclude that throughout that situation of war and the combat operations in which thousands of people took part, that on both sides, on all sides you had this unusual circumstance that although you never reached Kozluk but to Pale, quite a long way away, you just happened to come across some people who had been in Kozluk and explained to you by the gestures they made that they had slit the throats of the Muslim population there? Is that it?

A. Exactly so. Very explicitly. Those were the gestures.

Q. Well, do you know at all the fact that the population of Kozluk was not slaughtered? They left Kozluk collectively and in the capacity of refugees, through the mediation of the Red Cross, they left.

JUDGE MAY: You have already put that. All the witness can say is what he was told by the man.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Very well. Now, tell me this, please, Mr. Riviere: As it says in paragraph 9 of this summary of yours, those two members of the paramilitaries, at the point in time when you met them were drunk and that ²⁸¹⁵⁴ after talking with you for two hours, they continued to drink. Is that right? I'm looking at point 9, and this is what you say: "When the witness gave an affirmative answer, he asked about the car with the Yugoslav number plates. He said that the French and Serbs were always good friends. That's what he says."

And then in point 10, you say: "These two men sat down, ordered more drinks, and over the course of two hours they told Mr. Riviere and his cameraman many stories." Is that right?

That means, actually, that they arrived drunk and continued to drink. Is that how it was, Mr. Riviere?

A. With respect to the two men, the two Red Berets who arrived and sat at our table, it was quite obvious that one of the two, the one that had the long knife, that he was slightly drunk, which wasn't the case with the second man who had the pistol.

Now, throughout the discussion there, those two men did continue to drink but not more or less -- actually, what I think is this: As they saw French journalists and a French car, they wanted to show that they were soldiers and so the discussion was -- jumped from one subject to the other, wasn't very coherent. But I wanted to say in vino veritas.

Q. Well, that's a well-known proverb, of course, and sometimes when one is drunk one says a lot of things.

Now, as we can see from the film that they were drunk as well. For example, in the footage 7:30 to 7:35, you can hear somebody speaking to one of your friends from the restaurant, the one that drove the bus, and he says, and you can hear this on the footage, on the tape: "If you ²⁸¹⁵⁵ can't drive, then don't drive. If you're not capable of driving, then don't drive. You can see you're drunk. I'll take you back." That can be quite clearly heard. So you're talking to two drunken men, and you're testifying on the basis of what these two drunk men were telling you in a bar.

A. Well, not only with respect to these two men. I've just told you that one of the men arrived slightly drunk, tipsy, whereas the other wasn't. And while we were having dinner, they had drinks with us. So I would like to point out that they wanted to pay for our drinks, but I wouldn't have that, I wouldn't allow it, so each of us paid for ourselves. Now, during the meal, one of the men was more drunk than the other. That was quite obvious. And I think that that is the reason why they spoke to us so much, they talked so much, especially the one with the long knife. Now, when we met up with the complete unit and Commander Marko and I had the lengthy discussion that I had with respect to the return from the second voyage from Sarajevo, Marko -- and his lieutenant was translating in English, he was studying English and was a student in Belgrade, in actual fact. The discussion was a very serious one and touched upon political issues, and they explained to me in a more ideological way, based on ideology, why they were undertaking ethnic cleansing in that part of Bosnia. And at that point, I had absolutely no reason not to understand their testimony and that they implied military operations in the area as well.

Q. All right, Mr. Riviere. But you didn't take a footage of that. You didn't record your conversations. Is that what you're saying? ²⁸¹⁵⁶

A. As regards the latter portion, the discussion with Commander Marko, whom we filmed in a portion of the footage and who was there in the bus during the second trip, no, we didn't record that discussion.

Q. So you didn't record it. Now, you did record the conversation with the two drunken men. Now, from the film can you see, Mr. Riviere - and apart from the film you also felt the atmosphere and the mood that prevailed - that the overall conduct of those people who you say were White Eagles was not at all serious. For example, at 3:11 one of the members of the paramilitaries asks where his shirt was and he was laughing insanely. And at 5:55, the one with the knife stuck his tongue out at the camera. Then at 7:25, he is grimacing, making grimaces in front of the camera, and all this is the result of him being drunk, isn't that right? And you have this on your film, on the footage you took. He's making various faces, he's laughing non-stop, he's sticking his tongue out at the camera. So that was behaviour that can be completely --

JUDGE MAY: What is the question?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, doesn't this show that these were quite certainly two drunken men that were playing around? I think that's quite obvious from seeing that footage.

A. Well, one can have a different interpretation when we see men carrying the weapons they had and having the means of this kind and circulating around and passing through all the checkpoints without having to show anything -- any passes or anything like that. Then one can easily imagine what was going on in certain villages when people like that ²⁸¹⁵⁷ arrived there as free radicals in villages running rampant. So that's what I saw. I saw their behaviour. And this behaviour brought out -- corroborated -- was corroborated by the testimonies that I got from the people of Kozluk, from what they told me. And they were in Hungary, and a lot of them were killed. And one of the women from Kozluk did tell us that three whole truckloads of corpses were brought out of Kozluk. So that I can only imagine that these paramilitaries, regardless of the moral judgement that one can make with respect to their behaviour and conduct and on the basis of the footage we made, we can easily imagine that their behaviour in the villages did correspond to their conduct on our film, on the footage.

Q. Just a minute, please. Now, apart from the fact that we can clearly see that they're drunk and playing around, in paragraph 22 of your summary you give us your impressions about one of these White Eagles, and he says: "A man with a blue bandanna also had a big knife, and it appeared that something wasn't all right with him or that he was a criminal in his behaviour."

So in addition to these two men who were quite obviously drunk, among the other paramilitaries that you were in communication with, there were others that acted as if they were not normal.

A. Well, that's a point we can agree on. Yes, I do think there was one man, one person who had drunk too much, the one with the knife, and then this other one who was tipsy, and other people once again who hadn't been drinking but whose behaviour was, to say the least, strange and a little disquieting, worrying. So what I'm saying is that we weren't at a ²⁸¹⁵⁸ circus there. We were at a command centre with a military unit which had all the resources and weapons at their disposal, ranging from light weapons to heavy weapons, and that these people could move around whenever and wherever they wanted, and there was shooting all over the place. And it was easier, of course, to circulate during the day than it was at night.

So at the end of our dinner in the restaurant, the man with the knife said to us, "I can take you to Sarajevo, and we can go into an operation there." I personally -- not only I did not believe him, but I knew that that wasn't possible. He was just joking. However, I was able to note that the joking wasn't all that pleasant. So this was at the limits of the psychotic. Even in the footage we took of them, the footage of Rambo, this was worrying. Their behaviour and conduct was worrying. And of course there were the people responsible there who allowed people going round with the weapons and with that kind of ideology were not true military men in the right sense of the word. So that's the question.

Q. Well, that's the point. They weren't real soldiers at all. Some of them were drunk, others appeared to you to be psychopaths, their behaviour was abnormal. So doesn't it seem to you that your sources of information are, to put it mildly, strange, because you used that word, I think, "strange."

A. My sources of information were all the less strange because they weren't filtered or censored in any way. Those men were able to express themselves freely. And afterwards, the discussion we had with Commander Marko or the lieutenant, or actually the man who was called Commander ²⁸¹⁵⁹ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸¹⁶⁰ Marko by his fellow soldiers, corroborated what others had told me. So I would like to repeat that once again. So those people had real weapons, they were real men in a real war situation, just as in Sarajevo the shots that were being fired and that I could hear from light weaponry or cannons or tanks were being fired by real men, real tanks, real cannons. Or perhaps all that was just a nightmare on my part, a nightmare I was having.

Q. Unfortunately it wasn't, no. But what I'm talking about are your sources of information, people fooling and behaving as people behave when they're drunk. That's what I'm referring to. And even judging by what we can see on the film and by your descriptions as well, these were men that were prone to fooling around, verbally and in all other respects as well. So do you really think that all that was the result of their lack of responsibility and fooling around and, to a certain extent, the fact that you yourself observed that these were people that had something wrong with them, mentally wrong, as you mention in paragraph 22 yourself, that they were somewhat disturbed? Isn't that right, Mr. Riviere?

A. Now, if these men were abnormal to that degree, then one would have to wonder why they were given the freedom to move around, total freedom, like wild animals released in the wild, to do as they pleased.

Q. Well, that, of course, is a very big question. But doesn't it seem to you, this story about the ethnic cleansing of Sarajevo, for instance, and stories of that kind, doesn't that to you -- seem to you to be just fooling around? Who could have talked about ethnic cleansing in Sarajevo to you? ²⁸¹⁶¹

A. If you want me to mention previous reportages, I was in Yugoslavia in 1989, 1990 - before the war, therefore - and that I followed what was being said in the former Yugoslav republics. I am not referring to the memorandum of the Academy of Sciences and all those other things, but I think that there was indeed a political debate before this whole situation in Yugoslavia, between what one could call modernity and the past, and I'm not saying that modernity won in various republics, but in relation to that situation, you see, I come from a family and my father was a member of the resistance from the very beginning. He formed one of the first resistance groups. So I am not a nationalist. My attitude, in viewing all these things, was the attitude of an anti-fascist. I come from an anti-fascist family in relation to our own regime, as far as my father was concerned.

So I worked a lot in this area, and the testimony I was able to collect was so frightful and that in all honesty I could only do one of two things, either not go to Bosnia and verify whether those things were real and true and whether men were capable of behaving in that way contrary to all the laws of mankind and humanity, contrary to all the laws of military logic and the Civil Code, or not to broadcast anything regarding ethnic cleansing. But concerning Bosnia and what happened later on only corroborated what we had done and the testimony we had collected regarding Kozluk as well as the activities of these paramilitaries.

Q. Very well, Mr. Riviere. As you say that in 1989 you were in Yugoslavia, you will probably remember that the expression "ethnic cleansing" was used primarily for crimes committed against the Serb ²⁸¹⁶² population in Kosovo and Metohija in those days. That was the only situation with respect to which the term "ethnic cleansing" was used in 1989. Isn't at that right? You are referring to your own experience from those years.

A. I am basing my views on the experience regarding political debate that was ongoing in 1989, 1990, at the point in time when Yugoslavia was still a federation and before the elections of November and December 1990, the first round in Serbia which brought certain teams into power. So the political debate between the followers of Mr. Markovic and those people who defended certain nationalist views, one had the impression that this was a debate between modernity and European integration, and on the other hand going back far into history, Dusan -- the Emperor Dusan, et cetera.

Q. Mr. Riviere, in 1989, had you heard of the expression of "ethnic cleansing"? Did you hear the expression used?

A. There were schools of thought which use the word "ethnicity."

Q. My question has to do with the expression "ethnic cleansing" that you heard in 1989.

A. I did not hear the term "ethnic cleansing" being used in such a precise manner in the way that the mayor of Kozluk spoke about it to me, including when going to Kosovo in 1989 when there was a state of emergency proclaimed in Kosovo, if I remember well, in March 1989, I think it was the federal army which was installed there.

Q. Well, the federal army was always present in Kosovo, and the federal police was also sent there. The whole of Yugoslavia reacted to ²⁸¹⁶³ Albanian nationalism and separatism. It wasn't just Serbia. So surely you remember that, too, if you were in Yugoslavia in those days, as you say. Isn't that right or not, Mr. Riviere?

A. Yes. I remember the situation in Yugoslavia at the time and the deployment of the federal army, but I think that the debate on Kosovo was a different debate in relation to the one we are having today. Today we're talking about Eastern Bosnia, what happened there, who did what there, how, and why.

Q. Yes, but do you know how many hundreds of thousands of refugees from Bosnia stayed in Serbia? I'm sorry. My microphone was switched off.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. I'm going to question the relevance of this, but you can ask the witness if he had any experience of refugees from Bosnia in Serbia itself. Perhaps Mr. Riviere can help us about that, if he did or not.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Actually, when I was in Belgrade in July 1992, before leaving for Bosnia, I met a gentleman, I think his name was Dobrica Vidovic, who was a commissioner for refugees in Serbia. And there was a Red Cross camp in Kovin outside Belgrade, and I had a long interview with this person, who explained to me that there were refugees coming from the previous conflict in Croatia, a conflict I did not cover, and the few people that I was able to meet, this doesn't seem to have anything in common with the testimony I heard about Kozluk. I had an interview with Mr. Vidovic - I think that was his name, if I remember well - and I did go to this camp.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] ²⁸¹⁶⁴

Q. And do you know that those very refugees, as well as those who didn't have the good fortune to flee but were killed there, were victims of the same type of Nazism that were victimised by their ancestors during the Second World War?

JUDGE MAY: I think we're getting well away from the evidence of the witness. Now, you've got about five minutes left, Mr. Milosevic, if you want to go on to something else which the witness can deal with.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't think that I can finish him in five minutes, Mr. May.

JUDGE MAY: You've had more than substantial time enough with this witness to ask him about a video recording. You've had more than enough time.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Maybe I'm not as efficient as you assume I am in asking him all the questions I need, but you didn't tell me that any of my questions were irrelevant.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Riviere, you said that they didn't give you their names, because allegedly if you knew their names, someone might kill you. But then they let you film them. They told you the name of their commander as being Marko, whom you also filmed. And throughout this film one can hear them calling each other by name. I heard those names myself; Bozo, Zeljko, Gaja, et cetera. So doesn't this also indicate that they were fooling around when they were saying to you that if you learn our names someone might kill you? You film them, they call each other by name on film, they tell you the name of their commander, the commander speaks to ²⁸¹⁶⁵ you. Doesn't this show that they were playing around with you even then?

A. I have only one answer to give, and that is it wasn't me who created that situation. I have to repeat that. It wasn't something that was commissioned or organised on my part. I had no reason whatsoever to call in question their attitude or functioning. I had no judgement, value judgement to make. And I didn't also call in question the testimony of the people of Kozluk, so I didn't call in question their own testimony or their behaviour. If they behaved in that way before the camera, it is because they created such a situation and I only recorded things, that's all.

Q. I'm just saying that they were fooling around with you. But as you're not calling into question what you are being told, or you do so selectively, in paragraph 55, it says that Commander Marko - and he was not drunk as far as I can see from what you say - that he told you that the Muslims were killing Serbs, that the Serb corpses were flowing down the Drina, that they were impaling them, and things like that. Is it true? Is what Marko told you -- was that true? Serbs were being killed by Muslims, crucified, Serb bodies flowing down the Drina? Commander Marko told you that; is that right?

A. If I have no reason to doubt the words of some, I also cannot doubt the words of others. If we call in question what is said by everyone, then I can also call in question the words uttered by Commander Marko. In my view, as this was very late at night when we had returned from Sarajevo and when Commander Marko lectured me ideologically, I accepted those words such as they were stated, and I conveyed them in this ²⁸¹⁶⁶ testimony in the same way. That, perhaps, was a way of justifying his attitude, his presence, and his ideological options. So I wasn't able to identify on the ground whether indeed Serbs were being cut up in pieces and crucified in a way and thrown into the Drina. I attribute those words to Commander Marko, and I have faithfully conveyed them.

Q. Very well. So you're faithfully conveying what you were told by some and others, and you attach equal credibility to all. Can we agree, then, that you attach equal credibility to what was told you by those drunken men?

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you know quite well it's not the witness's opinion as to who is telling the truth or not which matters. He's told you what they said. Now, how drunk they were and what weight to be given to it is something for the Trial Chamber to decide. It's not for the witness.

Now, you've got one minute left, so you must ask your question or questions quickly.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I would request a little more time for examining this witness, please.

JUDGE MAY: One moment. We'll consider it.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: Five minutes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That's very generous.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Riviere, on the film, 16:40, 17:20, there's a building. Isn't it obvious that as smoke is shown, that the smoke is on the hill and not ²⁸¹⁶⁷ down on the town and it is on the Serb-controlled side? So will you please just tell me yes or no. So the footage showing a lot of smoke.

A. I think that if you're referring to the picture round the Lukavica barracks, indeed there was fighting when we were there, and if that is the picture that you're referring to, well, there was fighting in both directions at that point in time. That was the front line. The front line was just behind the barracks.

Q. Precisely. That's what I wanted to hear; that was the front line. And you also filmed a part, 19:44 to 19:45, 19:46, and it's a close-up of the ruins of buildings. There's a building with the words Pantheon, then another building on the combat positions, 11:48, 20:50, 21:20. All those ruins are on the Serb side where you were and which you were able to take close-up photographs of; isn't that right?

A. Yes, quite, on the hills of Trebevic. So we're talking, I suppose, of the slopes of Trebevic where there were houses and places that were destroyed without me knowing who did what.

Q. Now, those ruins on the Serb-controlled side and the only combat operation that you filmed and that was coming from the Muslim side, that is the shots coming from Sarajevo, show that there was indeed shooting from Sarajevo to areas and facilities under Serb control in the surroundings of Sarajevo; isn't that right?

A. The shots that I filmed and that were targeted at positions on the heights were coming from Sarajevo with light weapons. As opposed to that, shots coming from the mountains towards Sarajevo were with heavy weapons. I cannot say that I filmed shots fired from heavy weapons against Sarajevo ²⁸¹⁶⁸ just then. However, having gone to Sarajevo frequently between 1992 and 1995, I did indeed suffer shots from heavy weapons towards Sarajevo, and I was able to witness what such shots could provoke on the other side later on.

Q. What you witnessed later on is not the subject of your testimony now, and I'm talking about your testimony.

So let us now focus for a moment on the difference that you identified yourself when you saw regular soldiers. You say that the soldiers appeared to you to be more professional, the ones holding positions. And at those positions, they took shifts. You noticed that, didn't you, Mr. Riviere? They worked in shifts.

A. Yes, quite. When I say "more professional," I said that this was an army that appeared to be regular as opposed to what I said with respect to the paramilitaries.

Q. Quite as opposed to the White Eagles. And you said that appeared to you as if they were going from their positions home and then coming back to their positions. Though they were working in shifts, going to and from home. Is that right?

A. Yes. That is the feeling I had, seeing them coming and going in buses or hitchhiking sometimes. And I picked up some of them in the car on the way back.

Q. Very well. So their homes were somewhere close by, in the villages around Sarajevo; isn't that right?

A. Apparently so. Regarding the persons wearing uniforms of the regular army or reservists, which were people of a certain age, one did ²⁸¹⁶⁹ indeed have that impression, that this was like a working day for them.

JUDGE MAY: That is your last question now.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Very well. In a part of the footage, among those soldiers one can see armed elderly men, peasants, one in a sweater, another one in a leather jacket, 22:30. This also confirms, in addition to what we already said, that these were local inhabitants there, living there, waging war there, living in the villages within the territory of Sarajevo; isn't that right?

A. That was indeed the feeling I had with respect to some of those people.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Mr. Kay. Questioned by Mr. Kay:

Q. Witness, I want to deal with Pale first of all. You arrive there with the intention of going on a mission to film, and so you went to seek permission from the local TV station; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. You didn't have to see any Ministers or anyone else in control or authority outside the TV station to obtain your permit?

A. No, I didn't, not at the time, because I had indeed had been given this permission in Belgrade, that Belgrade had phoned Pale, so I was recorded. I was registered in a copybook in which were recorded or registered all the correspondents or journalists in Belgrade.

Q. In Pale, you were not given a minder or escort. As far as they were concerned for the days filming that you had, you were able to go ²⁸¹⁷⁰ unaccompanied; is that right? That's what it seems from the situation.

A. I did not have the feeling that I could film anything I wanted, so much so that in Zvornik it had been prohibited. I had to take out the objective of the lens of the camera, I had to put it in the boot of the car. On top of that, I had a military assigned to me throughout the trip precisely to prevent me from filming. That's why between the Zvornik bridge and the time when I found myself in Pale I could not film anything at all.

However, once I was given this accreditation at the television centre in Pale, nobody came to check me from that television centre to the hotel restaurant which had been indicated to me. That's the reason why I was able to film and take some footage of the Red Berets without any control whatsoever. And indeed, the day after that and the day after that one, on the heights of Sarajevo, I was not accompanied, I did not have an interpreter, but nobody prevented me from filming. It was a bit sensitive. I did not know whether I was authorised or not to take any footage, so I filmed whenever I could.

Q. You recollect my questions to you were about Pale, not Zvornik, and that's what I'm asking you about.

The meeting in the restaurant of the men was then a chance meeting and chance conversation that you and your cameraman had with them?

A. Yes. It was a chance encounter with these people, because I initially intended to go to Kozluk.

Q. These men, at that time, perhaps you've experienced this before, did you get the impression were seeking to impress you, to show off to ²⁸¹⁷¹ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸¹⁷² you?

A. Well, listen, as to whether they were great artists and they wanted to impress me and my cameraman, I can tell you that they did a good job.

Q. Showing you how tough they were. These men were giving you that impression.

A. No, it is not at all my impression, and I do not think that they were trying to be tough, act tough. My feeling was that they were -- found themselves in a situation where they were allowed to do much more than what they would have been allowed to do in normal times, and that in that situation, everything would go. And you know perfectly well that, faced with this type of situation, anything is possible; there are no longer any rules.

Q. So you go on a mission with them, but they go on that mission without their commander, in a bus; is that right? The first mission.

A. Yes, absolutely.

Q. And on that mission, they didn't fire a shot. They did nothing.

A. No, they didn't indeed.

Q. So you go back to their base on a second mission, pick up the commander, and you take him on a mission -- or they take you on a mission, and again you didn't see them fire a shot; nothing happened.

A. Well, on the one hand, I do not think that they went to pick up their commander. The reverse is true. And when the trip was interrupted, yes, they were informed of the situation, and they were worried that it might just get out of hand. ²⁸¹⁷³ On the other hand, to answer the second part of your question more specifically, it is true that not a shot was fired by them, but that may have meant that on that part of the road, it had been a region already under their control. And you can imagine that me as a journalist, I was not going to ask them to start fireworks and to shoot at people.

Q. But what you did hear was that you heard them trading insults over the radio to their Muslim opposition, each side insulting each other over the radio?

A. Yes. Everybody was connected on the same airwaves, radiowaves as the other, so everybody could communicate with one another. As to that part of my testimony, that is the part regarding the time when I found myself with Commander Marko and his lieutenant outside the hotel parking lot after the trip to Sarajevo. So it was in the middle of the night.

MR. KAY: No further questions.

MR. GROOME: Just a few questions, Your Honour. Re-examined by Mr. Groome:

Q. Sir, can I ask you to estimate for the Chamber, in the four trips that you made, in the first mission there and back and the second mission there and back, can you estimate for the Chamber the entire number of checkpoints that the bus with these men travelled through?

A. Well, if you mean the trip from Pale to Sarajevo, I would say that there were five or six checkpoints there and back, all included. In other words, on that section of the road, it was probably under control.

Q. Were you able to see who it was that were manning these checkpoints, the type of unit that the people manning these checkpoints ²⁸¹⁷⁴ belonged to?

A. I remind you that we were in the middle of the night, and in addition to that, we were in an ordinary coach - it was a tourist coach, it was not a military vehicle - and we were forced to sort of duck and lower our heads in the vehicle precisely in order to avoid sniper fire in some sections.

I think that these few checkpoints that I was able to see were manned by the regular army.

Q. The military jeep that overtook the bus before it turned back, could you see how the people in the jeep were dressed? Were they dressed in uniform; and if so, please describe.

A. No, I was not able to see the people in the jeep. It just sort of placed itself, stopped in front of the car -- of the bus that had to make a sort of turnaround or turnabout, so I don't know who ordered this movement.

Q. My final query to you is: The headquarters that you were inside and spent some amount of time in, did that appear to you to be a temporary headquarters or did it appear to be something that had been used over a period of time?

A. I was under the impression that these people had been based there for quite a time because there were beds that were not recently set up, and indeed the entire equipment seemed to be stored in a few rooms which we couldn't access. So my feeling was that this -- that the soldiers had been there for quite awhile, and that at any rate this was very much an operational centre from which operations or actions were conducted. ²⁸¹⁷⁵

Q. And my final question to you is: Was there anything that you observed while you were at that headquarters that indicated that these men were trying to keep that headquarters hidden from the regular army?

A. I don't think that the presence of these men could be hidden from anybody, because they were moving around quite freely.

MR. GROOME: Nothing further.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Riviere, that concludes your evidence. Thank you for coming to the Tribunal to give it. You are now free to go. We will adjourn.

[The witness withdrew]

--- Recess taken at 12.25 p.m.

--- On resuming at 12.49 p.m.

[The witness entered court]

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

THE WITNESS: [No interpretation]

JUDGE MAY: I'm afraid we didn't get that. Could you do it again, please.

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

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

WITNESS: WITNESS B-1345

[Witness answered through interpreter]

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, I'd ask that this binder of five exhibits be given an exhibit number.

THE REGISTRAR: 575, Your Honour. ²⁸¹⁷⁶

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, the Prosecution would be tendering 575 pursuant to 92 bis (D). The first tab of that exhibit is an unredacted transcript of this gentleman's testimony in the Galic case, given on the 15th of March, 2002. The remaining tabs 2 through 5 are exhibits that were tendered under seal in that case, and I would ask that they be given the same protection here. I would note that a redacted copy of the transcript is available on the website so we have not provided that here. Your Honour, as the Prosecution will be relying solely on this transcript and Mr. B-1345 has appeared here simply to be cross-examined, I would just note the major points of that testimony, although I will not got into great detail.

In the prior case, he testified about a shelling that occurred on the 5th of February, 1994, and while in the garden of a relative's house, he heard the sound of a mortar being fired and then 15 to 20 seconds later heard an explosion in the town of Sarajevo, and he testified that the sound of that firing came from the direction of Mirkovci just behind Spicasta Stijena in SRK-held territory.

He also testified previously to a shelling incident on the 14th of October, 1993, during which his wife was killed and his mother was injured -- his mother-in-law was injured. There was another mother and son who were also killed in that shelling incident.

And then he also testified to a sniping incident on the 31st of March, 1993, during which his father was killed and his mother was shot. He also gave testimony in the Galic case generally describing the situation around the area in which he lived as being under constant sniper ²⁸¹⁷⁷ and shelling attacks from RSK territory.

Your Honour, I would just ask or make known that the witness, although he's protected, that one particular sensitivity that I would ask be taken in closed session is any precise details about the exact location of his house and the house of his relatives as that would identify him.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Groome. Anything further you want to lead?

MR. GROOME: No, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic. Perhaps in the circumstances, you might try and restrict your cross-examination of this particular witness, given the evidence which he has to give.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'll do my best, Mr. May, to keep my cross-examination as short as possible, although I do have quite a number of things to ask him.

Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

Q. [Interpretation] Mr. 1345, you say that on the 5th of February, 1994, you were in the house of your closest relatives or, rather, in the garden of that house; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. And you also say that the house was located parallelly to Spicasta Stijena, just 150 metres away, in fact; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. You say that sometime around 12.30 hours you heard a shell being fired.

A. Yes.

Q. And the sound came from somewhere behind that Spicasta Stijena; is ²⁸¹⁷⁸ that right?

A. Yes.

Q. And from what you say, you had become accustomed to hearing shells fired, and on that day you didn't hear a single other shell being fired; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. And you also say that the front line of the Serb sides were at Spicasta Stijena; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. And then immediately after that, as you yourself say, some 15 to 20 seconds later, you heard an explosion in town; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. And one hour later, when you went into town, you learnt that something had happened there.

A. Yes.

Q. And what is it that happened?

A. Well, it was the massacre that took place at the Markale marketplace.

Q. The explosion at the Markale marketplace; is that what you mean?

A. Yes.

Q. And then you told your friends that you heard the sound of a shell being fired, a grenade being fired and then someone told the police, I assume, and then they came to question you; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. During the interrogation by the police, you said that the sound ²⁸¹⁷⁹ had come from the Mirkovica area, Mrkovci, which is just behind the Spicasta Stijena area; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. But you didn't hear where the shell actually went; is that right?

A. I didn't see it, but I heard it.

Q. Well, you didn't see the shell being shot, you just heard the sound; is that right?

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. And you didn't see who was firing the shell, you're just making your conclusions; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. And so on the basis of the conclusions you yourself draw, you think that this explosion that took place at the Markale marketplace was caused by the Serbs; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. That is your conclusion, the conclusion you draw?

A. Yes.

Q. Immediately after the explosion, and if you remember, before you testified as -- before you testified, the government in Sarajevo accused the Serbs of having fired that shell; is that right?

A. Probably.

Q. Well, do you remember, for example, that on that occasion the chief of staff of the army of Republika Srpska, General Manojlo Milovanovic refuted that claim and accusation and demanded that an expert group be set up to investigate that matter? ²⁸¹⁸⁰

A. I have no idea about that. I don't know about that.

Q. All right. Do you know that on the 6th of February, that is to say the very next day -- when did they actually question you?

A. After the shell, two or three days later. I can't tell you exactly, but it wasn't on the same day anyway.

Q. All right. So you were questioned with respect to that incident, and allegedly you heard it all. You heard this shot when -- and the explosion as well. Do you remember that the commander of UNPROFOR for Bosnia at the time, General Rose, said that after analysing the crater, the experts weren't able to say which side actually fired the shell?

JUDGE MAY: This witness is not here as an expert. He's merely giving his evidence of what he saw or heard. He can go no further than that, and therefore it's not right for you to ask that sort of question of him.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I assume, Mr. May, that as he was directly included in the investigation, that he followed what happened with that investigation and where it led.

JUDGE MAY: He may have -- he may have followed, but it's no more point asking him questions such as that than it is any other bystander or somebody who read the newspaper. They can't help directly about that sort of matter.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Do you happen to remember the whole series of statements made by UN officials, high-ranking UN officials, that they were unable to ²⁸¹⁸¹ establish which side shot the shell?

JUDGE MAY: That is precisely the kind of question which I've ruled irrelevant for this witness. Now, ask a question which he can deal with.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Do you know anything at all about the statements that were made and the findings of the commission set up to establish --

JUDGE MAY: No; irrelevant. Now, just ask him something he can deal with.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] So he can't answer anything with respect to these events apart from the fact of whether he heard a shell having been fired and a shell exploding. Is that right, Mr. May?

JUDGE MAY: Yes. He didn't investigate it.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Now, do you know anything at all, Mr. 1345, about the existence of eyewitnesses who claim that the shell was fired from a Land Rover vehicle which had been adapted for firing shells?

A. I don't know about that.

Q. Very well. Then I won't ask you anything about anything in respect of that investigation. And there are a lot of facts about it anyway. I'll skip over all those questions.

Now, you say that your father was killed by a sniper on the 31st of March, 1993.

A. Yes. ²⁸¹⁸²

Q. And that the shot was fired Spicasta Stijena; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. I'm sorry that that happened to you, but I have to ask you this: How do you know that that is where the people fired from, that this bullet was fired from that locality?

A. Well, first of all, you can see Spicasta Stijena from my house, and you could see the Serb positions or bunkers at the rock, the Stijena. And so throughout the war, a sniper was active there, all the way throughout the war.

Q. All right. There were snipers working on both sides. I assume you know that.

A. What I know is that my father was killed by a sniper from Spicasta Stijena.

Q. And you even claim, in point 9, that he was killed by a fragmentation bullet. How do you know that that bullet was fired from Spicasta Stijena?

A. That was confirmed by the doctors in the hospital and the staff there.

Q. But you weren't actually there when that happened?

A. No. I arrived an hour later, approximately.

Q. So you arrived an hour after it had happened, and nonetheless you say with a certain measure of certainty who did the firing, where the firing came from, and what type of bullet he was hit with; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. Well, how can you claim that if you arrived on the scene an hour ²⁸¹⁸³ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸¹⁸⁴ later?

A. Well, after the death of my father, I asked around; asking how he had died, who had shot, what he had been shot with, and so on.

Q. This means that you made yourself acquainted with the results of the investigation later on?

A. It was the doctors' analyses, because the doctor at the hospital said that it was a fragmentation bullet.

Q. All right. Now, you arrived on the spot an hour later, and all the information you give are linked to information you learnt later on; is that right?

A. Yes. And my sister told me about it, and she was -- after my father's death, that is to say he managed to call out to my mother, and she and my sister ran out of the house. My sister managed to hide behind a wall, but the sniper hit my mother. And when we took my mother to the doctor, a fragmentation bullet was found lodged in her leg.

Q. Now, you're talking about the firing of a shell from Borije; is that right?

A. Yes. That was when my wife was killed.

Q. Did you see it happen? Were you present when that happened?

A. Yes. I was present in the house. Not in the house where my wife was killed but two houses below that, or, rather, 15 to 20 metres away, roughly.

Q. All right. Now, do you know that on that same day when that tragic event took place when your father was killed, that there was an intensive sniper fire exchange coming from both sides? ²⁸¹⁸⁵

A. I don't think anything could be heard on that particular day, that there was no fighting, no activities at all. And I can confirm that, because my mother was wounded perhaps one or two minutes later. She was hit in the leg, in a very unfortunate portion of the leg. Now, had there been fighting where lots of people were taking part in the fighting, her leg would have been amputated, but as the doctors didn't have a lot of work to do that day, they managed to treat her leg.

Q. I see that in Igmanska Mas street [phoen], near the petrol pump, according to my information, that another civilian was killed, this time from a sniper fired from the Muslim side.

A. I don't know about that. Vogosca at the time was under the control of the Serb authorities. They were in Vogosca. And Vogosca is about 10 to 15 kilometres away from my own settlement.

Q. Well, do you know that a couple of days after that there were casualties on the Serb side, casualties from sniper fire coming from the Muslim side? Do you know about that?

A. No, I don't.

Q. I should just like to establish what you yourself know about the events that took place, unfortunately tragic ones, precisely during those few days.

I have here a report of the army of Republika Srpska from which it can be seen that Muslim forces were using infantry and artillery weapons to shoot at columns of civilians fleeing, that in the area of Visoko, about 4.500 are encircled. They are from the village of Zince, Biskupici -- ²⁸¹⁸⁶

JUDGE MAY: What is the witness going to know about this? It's a report of the army of Republika Srpska. The witness can't possibly know anything about that.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I assume that the witness must know something about the operations that were obvious and that involved both sides when he lost his family members.

JUDGE MAY: You can ask -- you can ask the witness if he knows anything about these alleged operations by the Muslim forces. You can ask him that.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Do you know anything about those operations? Do you know that there were several truces? Do you know that the Muslim side did not observe the truces and that it constantly opened fire on Serb positions?

A. Are you asking me about Visoko?

Q. About Visoko and Dobrinja and other parts of Sarajevo.

A. Visoko is 30 or 35 kilometres away from Sarajevo. I have no idea what was happening even at Cengic Vila, which is four or five kilometres from the old city.

Q. So you don't know anything about what was happening in Visoko or Ilijas or Dobrinja or Vogosca or other parts of the city where Serb civilians were killed by fire coming from the opposite side? So you know nothing about that?

A. No.

Q. And do you know that virtually there wasn't a day without any shooting on the part of the Muslim side on Serb positions? ²⁸¹⁸⁷

A. I have no idea. Shots could be heard. Now, who was firing them from what side and at whom, I don't know.

Q. And do you know anything prior to the events you are testifying about, that is about very intensive Muslim attacks on Serb positions in the course of the month of January?

A. I don't know anything about that.

Q. Very well. Then there's no point in me asking you about any of these activities.

Do you know that there was infantry and artillery being used by both sides and that there were casualties on both sides?

A. Yes, I know that.

Q. Tell me, how were those forces deployed, both Muslim and Serb forces? The Serbs were in the areas in which they lived; is that right?

A. You mean in Sarajevo?

Q. Yes.

A. In the area of the town of Sarajevo, the Serbs were around Sarajevo. We all know that Sarajevo was blocked, that it was closed, that not a bird could leave Sarajevo. So on all the heights and mountains around town, there were Serbs, not Muslims, not the Bosnian army. The Bosnian army wasn't there.

Q. That is what I am talking about. The Serbs were in all those areas in which they lived anyway. Isn't that right, Mr. 1345?

A. No, it's not.

Q. And is it true that they didn't come to besiege Sarajevo but that fighting was being waged between areas in which the majority was Muslim ²⁸¹⁸⁸ and the areas in which the majority were Serbs, where they had lived as a majority for years before that?

A. I don't understand. Could you clarify that?

Q. You say that Serbs surrounded Sarajevo. Now, look at a map of Sarajevo made on the basis of ethnic composition, the Serbs being marked in blue.

JUDGE MAY: This isn't for this witness, these very broad questions. You can ask others about this.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, the witness claims that the Serbs had surrounded Sarajevo, and I would like to show that the Serbs lived in Sarajevo, and according to the 1981 census during the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the map shows the ethnic composition of Sarajevo. This is just Sarajevo, not Bosnia and Herzegovina. And I think it would be a good idea for you to see it on the ELMO, for you, too, to understand that there was fighting between Serbs and Muslims who were in their own areas, in the areas in which they lived in 1981.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, we'll put it on the ELMO. Yes.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. As you can see, Mr. 1345, this is a map of Sarajevo and all its municipalities. As you can see, a large portion of this entire area is coloured in blue, another large area in green, and a smaller area in yellow where the majority were Croats. But in the central parts of the city, they are not in evidence in large numbers. Would that roughly be the territories between which fire was exchanged?

A. Are you asking me? This map is not clear to me at all. What is ²⁸¹⁸⁹ it, in 1981?

Q. Yes. Without any effect of the war being reflected, this is the territory shown where the various ethnic groups are in the majority.

A. As this shows only Sarajevo, I really don't know where I am, where is my house, where is my municipality. If I could see it on the map I may be able to say something, but like this I can't.

Q. If you turn the map on the back, you will see your municipality and the number corresponding to your municipality, even your local commune. You will be able to find it if you look at the reverse side. Yes. It says. Everything is written there. He can even find his local commune.

As far as I understand, it's just below Trebevic, isn't it?

A. The other side.

Q. Well, look at the other side then.

A. It doesn't say anything here.

Q. There you can see municipalities written in bold capitals and, in smaller letters, the local communes, indicating the distribution of the population at the time.

Can you find your municipality, and then in your municipality your local commune?

A. My municipality is Stari Grad, and in this list of yours, these are the local communes, aren't they?

Q. Yes. Municipalities, and within them, local communes.

A. Those are local communes outside the municipality of Stari Grad, the centre of the Stari Grad. These are municipalities around, in the ²⁸¹⁹⁰ hills above the old town, where all Serbs lived.

Q. Well, that is the point. On the heights around Sarajevo, Serbs were living. That is what you are confirming. And they were the ones there where they lived.

A. You just mentioned the heights but not the central part of Stari Grad municipality.

Q. But you have it drawn there too. Nothing is left out.

A. Let us not polemicise. I am not competent to enter into any polemics with you. These are just Serbian local communes.

Q. No. Both Serbian and Muslim, the Serbian being marked in blue and Muslim in green.

JUDGE MAY: We're not going to get anywhere with this. If you want to put some evidence along these lines before us, you can do it by calling a witness in due course, but trying to argue with this witness who plainly doesn't -- is not, as he says, competent to deal with this, is not going to take us any further forward.

Yes, if you will return the map, please, to Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. This map shows the municipality of Sarajevo centre, Sarajevo Novi Grad, Sarajevo Novo, Sarajevo Hadzici, Sarajevo Ilidza, Sarajevo Ilijas, Sarajevo Stari Grad, Sarajevo Trnovo, Sarajevo Vogosca. So all those municipalities and local communes within them.

JUDGE MAY: What is the point you're trying to make, Mr. Milosevic?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm not trying, Mr. May; I'm ²⁸¹⁹¹ claiming that when we are talking about Sarajevo, the Serbs were situated and were fighting in the territories which they had inhabited, not to say for centuries, but for years, and this is a map for 1981. The same applies to the Muslims. They were fighting from the territories in which they were living as a majority and that this was a struggle, fighting between Serbs and Muslims and no siege of any kind.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We've heard you say that. Now, if you challenge any of the evidence about how the members of this witness's family were killed, you should challenge that now.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, as you know, I really couldn't have any idea as to how someone got killed in Sarajevo, including the family members of this witness. Many Serbs and many Muslims were killed in Sarajevo, and I do not see how I could know anything about that. The witness could claim whatever he wishes.

I'm just trying to establish from which areas the fighting was being conducted, what was actually happening. All this is the consequence of a civil war that could not be improved upon, nor could anyone manage or control it. The only thing that could be done was to put it to an end as soon as possible, and that is what all of us were trying to do.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We hear --

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Did you know --

JUDGE MAY: We hear all that. Now, have you any questions for this witness with a view to trying to finish his evidence today, if we possibly can. ²⁸¹⁹²

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] As far as I'm concerned, you will finish his testimony today. There will be no problem. As you yourself said that I can't ask the witness anything about this event and the investigation and the facts but only about the things he testified about.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. 1345, do you know that in Sarajevo, an entire corps of the BH army was stationed?

A. During the war?

Q. Yes.

A. There was the army and there was a corps.

Q. There was a corps of the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo --

A. Yes.

Q. -- on Muslim territory. And there was a corps of the army of Republika Srpska on Serb territory. Those are the two warring parties on the Sarajevo theatre of war waging war between them; is that right?

A. Probably.

Q. Do you know that in Sarajevo itself, it was not only the soldiers of the Sarajevo corps that were active but many paramilitary formations as well? Have you heard of them?

A. At the beginning there were until the army was being formed, and when it was formed, probably not any longer, but there were some.

Q. And there were various criminal groups that were killing and looting, et cetera.

A. I don't know about that.

Q. And are you familiar with Mujahedin units that were formed within ²⁸¹⁹³ that framework?

A. No.

Q. And were you personally, or any of your family members, engaged in any military unit of the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

A. I was in the army for seven or eight months until my wife got killed. When my wife was killed, I had a two-year-old child to look after, and I was a one-parent family. I was relieved of duty, and I was not interested in anything any longer except in the survival of my child and myself.

Q. When were you in the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina?

A. I can't remember exactly. I think it was from May, May or June, and then for the following seven or eight, nine months.

Q. Which unit were you in?

A. I don't know the name of the unit, but I was in a command where I was a kind of porter, receptionist.

Q. So you didn't really take part in combat activity. You had a duty that was more of a technical nature.

A. I don't know whether you'll believe me, but I didn't fire a single shot during the war.

Q. I believe you. Why wouldn't I? Couldn't you at least in very general terms tell us which command you were working in?

A. It was the command that was housed in the centre of town next to the department store, a building that was called Vranica. It was the building of a construction company, and that's where the headquarters were, and I was there. A driver, when necessary. I acted as a driver ²⁸¹⁹⁴ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸¹⁹⁵ because I had a car at the time. I would drive when necessary and I was a porter or receptionist. I was working at the entrance to the building.

Q. What kind of unit was it that this was the headquarters of?

A. I don't know exactly.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have no further questions of this witness, Mr. May.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] No questions, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Groome.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, I have no further questions, and I'm just doing a check to see if the other witness is in the building.

JUDGE MAY: It's fairly late, I think we might call it a day. But let us thank this witness.

Witness B-1345, thank you for coming to the Tribunal to give your evidence. You are now free to go. If you'd just wait for the blinds, if you would.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you too.

[The witness withdrew]

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We could finish -- deal with the witness in chief, maybe, if the witness is here.

MR. GROOME: I'm informed she's just arriving in the parking lot, Your Honour. Perhaps by the time she arrives here we may have exhausted the 15 minutes anyway.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. I think in the circumstances, we'll adjourn if she's just got here.

We will adjourn until tomorrow. ²⁸¹⁹⁶ Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff, you've just come in time for us to adjourn. We'll sit again tomorrow morning.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.32 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 29th day of

October, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.