³¹⁴⁰¹

Monday, 26 January 2004

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

[The witness entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.

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

THE WITNESS: 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 would like to take a seat.

THE WITNESS: Thank you very much.

WITNESS: DEAN PAUL MANNING Examined by Mr. Nice:

Q. Your full name, please?

A. My full name is Dean Paul Manning.

Q. You're an investigator at the ICTY?

A. I'm an investigations team leader at the ICTY, yes.

Q. We'll come back to your curriculum vitae in a minute. This witness' evidence is admitted under Rule 89(F) pursuant to a oral order of the Chamber on the 2nd of December. His evidence is before you in the form of a binder of materials to be exhibited by -- we ask that be given an exhibit number.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

THE REGISTRAR: 642, Your Honours.

MR. NICE: The topic is bodies found in exhumation processes ³¹⁴⁰² following the killings at Srebrenica. I'm not sure in light of the accused's response to what extent this may be controversial or may not be controversial and I'm going to take it very briefly. The witness has, of course, referred to much more material in the course of his preparation of his reports than is revealed in this binder. That material has all been disclosed to the accused, but it's certainly not necessary for it to burden the Chamber as exhibits.

Q. Mr. Manning, you are indeed a team leader working here in the Office of the Prosecutor, originally working in Australia federal police?

A. The Australian federal police. That's correct.

Q. Coming here when?

A. I first came to the Tribunal in August of 1998.

Q. The rest of your curriculum vitae and the details of your experience are set out there?

A. Yes.

Q. Once here and before coming team leader of team 5, the team that deals with the Croatian investigation -- team 4 that deals with the Croatian investigation, did you have special responsibilities in relation to Srebrenica?

A. Yes. On commencing duties with the Tribunal, I was assigned to the Srebrenica investigation. Specifically I was tasked with coordinating the team's exhumation efforts from an investigative point of view. I continued to do that task until just prior to leaving the team in September of last year or the year before, sorry.

Q. And did you attend personally most or all of the exhumation sites? ³¹⁴⁰³

A. I attended all the exhumation sites which directly linked to Srebrenica either prior to their exhumation, at the time of their exhumation, or the exhumations that were conducted before I arrived at the Tribunal, I visited each of those sites in turn.

Q. As well as the direct experience you had from that work, what range of materials and indeed other reports have you considered in order to prepare your report?

A. Effectively for the entire exhumations period, I was responsible for not only the investigative role of the exhumations but also at the mortuary in Visoko examining all those records, evidence process and procedures. I also used the material gathered, the evidence, the reports, the processes of exhumation autopsy and provided those to numerous experts who were employed to assist the Tribunal. I assisted those investigators -- sorry, those experts in the field, and they prepared expert reports which I then reviewed and produced summary reports of those reports.

Q. There's one further report that we'll touch on just at the end of your evidence and which will have to become an additional exhibit. That's the report of Mr. Jose Baraybar, dated January of this year.

A. Yes. That report has only recently been received. He was the chief anthropologist for the ICTY.

Q. Your statement dated the 24th of November of 2003 is tab 1 of the proposed exhibit 642. Is the statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

A. The statement is true and correct. However, I would indicate that ³¹⁴⁰⁴ the number of bodies which is indicated in that statement has been amended by the report of Mr. Baraybar.

Q. We'll come to that later. Your curriculum vitae, tab 1A accurately sets out your history?

A. That's correct.

Q. If we can now lay on the overhead projector tabs -- it will be pretty much in order, so it will be tab 2 next.

You've spoken in general terms about the reports that you've reviewed in order to prepare your report, and so that we can have an idea of the scale of your task and the degree into which you have gone -- the degree of detail into which you have gone, do we see here four reports, two from Mr. Baraybar, one from there Clark and one from Mr. Hedley in 2001, four reports in 2000, and then a range of reports in 1996 to 1999? Correct?

A. That's correct. The reports continue to the second page, and many of the reports were multi-volume of many hundreds, if not thousands of pages per report.

Q. Thank you very much. We now go to tab 3. Again, to give an idea for those viewing these proceedings of the scale of work, this shows the graves exhumed and examined by the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICTY starting in 1996 with four sites, and then 1998 one major description with seven, I think it is, sub-descriptions. 1999, a further five sites; 2000, four; 2001, two.

You then turn in this tab 3 to exhumations by the authorities in BiH monitored by the ICTY. One in 2001 and many in 1998; correct? ³¹⁴⁰⁵

A. That's correct. I would indicate that the grave names in bold capitals are primary graves, and the other graves in lower case, non-bold are secondary graves.

Q. And to that distinction we now turn with the map that the Chamber can find at tab 4. It's the large map displayed in the courtroom and the technical booth with make its choice viewing from the overhead projector which can only take part of the map or alternatively viewing the -- probably better for the overhead projector where it is, but you can point things out. Yes. If the technical booth is going to use the overhead projector perhaps you'll point things out on the overhead projector with the pointer.

You make the distinction between primary and secondary graves. Is that a distinction between graves into which bodies were placed, in your calculation, immediately after death, and graves to which those bodies were removed in various processes of moving bodies from primary to secondary sites?

A. That's correct.

Q. The method by which the authorities first identified primary gravesites was what?

A. Specifically, there were two ways. One was from survivors of execution points at mass gravesites. The second was aerial imagery released by the US government which showed the creation of the graves, the primary graves, and also the creation of the secondary graves later on.

Q. So that the primary graves were seen by disturbance of the earth from aerial imagery to have been made very shortly after the killings at ³¹⁴⁰⁶ Srebrenica?

A. That's correct. Either made shortly after the killings or apparent from some images at the time of the killing and included large earth-moving machines which were visible.

Q. And then at a later date the other sites were seen to be in creation or use because of disturbance of the ground again revealed by sequential aerial photographs?

A. That's correct. At the time, in September and October of 1995, the primary graves were seen to be disturbed, that is, dug up. The secondary graves were seen to be created. And as that process continued, the primary graves were closed and the secondary graves were closed.

Q. Looking at this exhibit, tab 4 of Exhibit 642 and at the top part of the map, we can see various large -- not large, but red circles, solid red circles. Those are the primary graves starting at Branjevo Military Farm, coming down to Kozluk, the dam near Petkovci, and Orahovac; correct?

A. That's correct. For the northern part of the map, yes.

Q. If the usher would be good enough to show us the southern part of the map. We then see the primary sites Konjevic Polje, Cerska, Nova Kasaba, Ravnice and Glogova?

A. That's correct, yes.

Q. And we can see Srebrenica itself and the total approximate distance between Srebrenica which is on the south of this plan and the most northerly of the primary gravesites at Branjevo Military Farm would be how far?

A. Actually, from the bottom of the map where you see the graves in ³¹⁴⁰⁷ green to the top of the map, which is just above Branjevo Military Farm, is about 80 kilometres.

Q. That's as the crow flies?

A. Correct.

Q. You've been in this area. Very approximately, how far would it take to drive these roads to get from Srebrenica to, say, Branjevo Military Farm?

A. It's dependent, and the road conditions have changed, but I would suggest an hour to an hour and a half on a good -- a good run, if you like.

Q. We can then see the secondary graves. Again we might as well stay with the southern part of the map for the time being. Zeleni Jadar, and then if we go back to the northern part of the map, if the usher would be so good, we can see the various places at Hodzici Road, Liplje, and Cancari Road; correct?

A. That's correct.

Q. As well as seeing from aerial imagery that the secondary graves were created with the presumption that that may give, were you able to connect one site, a primary site, with a secondary site by forensic or forensic scientific methods?

A. Yes, we were.

Q. And is this marked on the map? And I hope it's visible. If we look at the arc of red going from Branjevo Military Farm down to Cancari Road, we can see set into the middle of that arc the legend, pollen and soil samples, blindfolds and ligatures. To the top left. ³¹⁴⁰⁸ There it is. That's just to the left of the map now. Explain, please?

A. On examination of the graves, we had an expert who examined the soil samples from both suspected primary and secondary graves that were connected. The result of that examination was that the soil in the secondary grave was foreign to the area, and that it matched the soil in the primary grave, thus showing that the material, the soil and the bodies from the primary grave had been removed to the secondary grave. Also, the blindfolds and ligatures in that grave were mainly made of cloth. The ligatures were cloth as well as string. The cloth ligatures and the cloth blindfolds were examined by the Dutch Forensic Institute, and found to be a match in colour, weave, pattern, material et cetera to the blindfolds and cloth ligatures found in the secondary grave. And that process was used for the majority of the primary graves to link them to the secondary graves.

Q. So, we can see picking up the legend from right to left as between Kozluk and Cancari Road there was the collection of bottle labels, glass, soil, or pollen samples, blindfolds and ligatures and shell cases?

A. In relation to Kozluk, shell cases were located amongst the bodies in the primary grave and on the surface of the grave. They're also located amongst the bodies in the grave, in the secondary graves. The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms examined the two sets of shell cases if you like between primary and secondary graves. They were able to identify similar ejecta marks or the same ejecta marks on those shell cases and were able to conclude that the rounds found in the primary grave had been fired by the same weapon that had been -- the shells had been ³¹⁴⁰⁹ found in the secondary grave. Also indicating in Kozluk that bottle labels and broken green glass were found which matched from Kozluk to the secondary grave of Cancari 3.

Q. The dam near Petkovci was connected, by soil and pollen samples in the way you've already described, to Liplje?

A. That's correct.

Q. And as between Orahovac and the seven sites at Hodzici Road, secondary sites, that is, soil or pollen samples, blindfolds and ligatures and shell cases; correct?

A. That's correct, although they're only linked to the three graves indicated. The other four graves had not been exhumed by ICTY.

Q. Before we pass from the top part of the map, Pilica Dom, just off the top of the map if the usher would just show it for us, is marked as an execution point. It's marked in black. Anything we need to say about that before we look to the bottom half of the map?

A. Pilica Dom was identified as an execution point and was examined by the US Naval Investigation Service. Clear evidence of a massacre was located in that building, including blood splatter patterns which were analysed for DNA, explosive residue which was found to contain TNT or high explosives, as well as personal identifications and indications that a large number of people had been executed in that building.

Q. We turn to the bottom half of the map again. The connection between Glogova 1 and 2 and Zeleni Jadar is by soil or pollen samples and shell cases.

A. That's correct. ³¹⁴¹⁰

Q. But between the execution point at Kravica warehouse you refer to artefacts that were found in Glogova 2. In a sentence, the nature of that artefact connection.

A. The Kravica warehouse was a large-scale execution and during that execution artefacts such as pieces of grenade and rocket-propelled grenade but also parts of the building which had been knocked down to -- to facilitate removing the bodies were transported with the bodies from the Kravica warehouse to the primary grave of Glogova 1 and Glogova 2. This material included door frame, front door, masonry and brick and other artefacts that we could from the warehouse.

Q. You could literally fit it into the top of the door frame, couldn't you?

A. Literally we found the front door frame and the front door from the warehouse at the Glogova site, and we could fit the damaged and broken door to the warehouse if we wished.

Q. This is where how many people were killed?

A. It's a difficult estimate. However there was a survivor who may have given evidence before this Chamber.

Q. Yes.

A. It was approximately 1.000 people.

Q. But the doorway wasn't apparently big enough to permit the vehicle to go in and pick up all the bodies; is that right?

A. A front-end loader was used to collect the bodies and because of the door frame it wouldn't fit in to collect the bodies so the operator has used it to tear up to the door, thus making it larger and allowing the ³¹⁴¹¹ machine in. In doing that, the artefacts and pieces of the building were knocked amongst the bodies collected up and deposited in the primary grave, and coincidentally, were subsequently in the secondary graves.

Q. Then you take the bits of masonry back and fit them in; it's like a jigsaw?

A. Effectively, yes.

Q. Thank you very much. Tab 5, please. We can deal with this now very swiftly. This is a chart that summarises the methods of connection of primary to secondary graves and we've already looked at the material really on the large map; just simply summarised Kozluk. It was by example by bottle labels, glass, soil, pollen samples and so on that connects it to Cancari roads 1 and 2; yes?

A. It's just a different method of showing the same connections from the maps.

Q. And if we look very rapidly to tab 6, this is one that focuses entirely on the shell case connection as established by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and shows where shell cases were found identical in two different sites?

A. Yes. This indicates the matches made by the alcohol, tobacco and firearms report and shows where shell cases were found and where they were matched to.

Q. And of course here we're not just going from grave to grave, at the top we're going from warehouse where people were killed to grave.

A. Yes. In effect we found a shell case at the warehouse which matched the shell at the Zeleni Jadar 5 grave. Now, because of the date ³¹⁴¹² of creation of that grave, it had to have gone through the primary mass grave of Glogova, so providing another link from the warehouse to Glogova to the secondary grave of Zeleni Jadar.

Q. Tab 7, please. I think you found 390 cloth blindfolds and ligatures from the mass graves in 1996 and 1998.

A. That's correct, a greater number have been found, but those blindfolds and cloth ligatures were taken to the Netherlands Forensic Institute where they were examined as I briefly detailed. The result of that examination was links found between the type of blindfold material used at the primary graves to those used at the secondary graves. And this chart indicates the result of that examination.

Q. You will see a little bit more of that in a montage in a couple minutes' time.

Photograph 5, please -- oh, sorry. Tab 5, which is a photograph, as an example of what you found. Sorry, not 5, 8. This is an example of a body, decomposed of course, but with the arms still in place behind the body tied by ligatures?

A. This is at the Kozluk mass grave, a bound individual. I would also indicate the green glass, the large amounts of green glass around the body.

Q. So that when we turn to tab 9, which may not, because of the colour, turn up quite as well as I'd hoped, tab 9 if you can just make that available. This shows a foot in a sock or what's left of a foot in a sock and the bone. Its significance includes what? And it's not so easy to see on the photograph, but I think just to the right at the end of the ³¹⁴¹³ toe of the sock, what do we see?

A. The significance of the photograph is the green glass which you can see here, here, here and other parts of the photograph. This is the Cancari Road 3 secondary grave. It shows the body part and the broken glass which we were able to match to the primary grave at Kozluk.

Q. Very well. One of your tasks was to make a best estimate of the total number of bodies found in the exhumations that you've dealt with?

A. Correct, yes.

Q. Tab 10, please. And while that's coming to the overhead projector, if you had a single grave which was never disturbed into which complete bodies were deposited, then it would be an easy matter to calculate the number of bodies that were there by adding up the number of skulls or the number of forearm bones or whatever?

A. Yes. Effectively the Cerska grave contained 150 complete bodies, very easy to count, because it had not been disturbed.

Q. Once graves have been disturbed, because the disturbance doesn't necessarily take all of a body away but only part of it, is there a potential problem with double counting?

A. Certainly the problem is even made worse by the manner that the bodies were removed from the grave using heavy machinery. They're transported in trucks across rough roads, they're dumped into graves, they're pushed into graves with heavy machinery, thus breaking the bodies up even more and making it very difficult to count complete bodies and the bodies aren't just broken up, the bones are smashed.

Q. You can give, if asked, your method of calculation, but if we look ³¹⁴¹⁴ at this chart, the site code is given, and then MNI. MNI expanded means minimum number of individuals; correct?

A. Minimal number of individuals, yes.

Q. Yes. And then there's MNI linked. Can you explain the difference?

A. I can explain this chart. However, the figures would be amended by Mr. Baraybar's report. The MNI is a calculated figure arrived at by the anthropologists and it tries to say the absolute minimum number of bodies which would be accounted for by the bones. When you have a primary grave and a secondary grave that you know are connected, the MNI for each grave then has to be added together or linked to try and provide a more accurate, albeit very conservative, figure. So we see with Cerska, 150 bodies. There was no necessity to link it because it was understood. With Orahovac and Hodzici 5, the bodies parts in two graves had to be merged together, because they were once a collection of bodies, to try and provide an accurate count of the individuals. However, that count is extraordinarily conservative, and doesn't take account of a lot of the body parts.

Q. The same chart reveals the number of blindfolds and the number of ligatures found at the various identified sites?

A. That's correct.

Q. Making allowance for the latest report of Jose Baraybar, to what extent do the figures at the bottom, the total figures, have to be amended?

A. In relation to blindfolds and ligatures, they do not change. That ³¹⁴¹⁵ wasn't part of the report. In relation to the MNI or MNI linked, effectively the figure has been amalgamated by Mr. Baraybar. It's taken all the graves, disturbed, undisturbed, primary and secondary, amalgamated those into a conservative figure which I would have to check the report. 2.541, I believe, was the figure that he gave.

Q. Before we move on to the remaining exhibits in -- or the remaining tabs of Exhibit 642, 2.500 approximately, substantially less, of course, than the figures notoriously related with Srebrenica. Explanation for the difference?

A. Explanation is quite understandable in the fact that that figure is very conservative. It doesn't, as I say, take into account the large number of body parts still to be assessed. It also does not take into account the secondary graves which have not yet been exhumed either by the ICTY or by the Bosnian Commission for Missing Persons. And in relation to the damage to the bodies, it may never be possible to give a complete account of the numbers. At the dam at Petkovci, one body bag could contain 20 individuals and be lifted by one person. Several hundred skull fragments were found on the dam, but only 30-odd bodies were found in that disturbed primary grave. It also does not take into account the existence of primary graves which we don't yet know about, and also suspected secondary graves that we do not know about, and as I detailed in my statement, a tertiary grave or a third stage of burial. So it is lower than estimates for the missing, but I believe that it accounts for a significant number more when you take in the body parts and the unexhumed graves. ³¹⁴¹⁶

Q. You'll now look very briefly at Exhibits -- at tabs 11A through to 22 so they can probably be handed over collectively as examples of the material with which you were working.

11A is an identification card, I think, found on one body. 11A -- 11. Sorry, my mistake, 11. Hard to see, but I hope it appears. You can see an identification card. You can see in the top left just a reference to Srebrenica, yes?

A. Yes. If you look just here, the place of issue of this licna karta, this ID was Srebrenica, and I would indicate that the details of this person from that card has been examined with the ICRC missing list.

Q. And that's what 11A is. If we place that on there, you can then see on 11A. Point it out, please, the identical name for us. It's on the left-hand side, isn't it, just about halfway down.

A. Yes, Mr. Nice. I'm just having difficulty seeing it. Dahmo Kadric with a date of birth of 1960, missing from Gladovici, Srebrenica.

Q. Thank you very much. Tab 12, please. A watch found bearing a Srebrenica reference.

A. That's correct. It was found in a secondary grave of Zeleni Jadar 6. It bears the title of a company that was associated with Srebrenica.

Q. Looks like a reference to ten years --

A. Of good service.

Q. -- or something like that. And then tab 13. Photograph of a small boy. The significance being?

A. This photograph was found in the primary grave at Lazete Orahovac. ³¹⁴¹⁷ It was a collection of photographs in a wallet bound together by tape. The significance of the tape is that it's Unis Feros the same company name as on the watch and you can also see in two parts Srebrenica, Yugoslavia, and Srebrenica, Yugoslavia.

Q. Tab 14, please, is your location of ligatures and blindfolds in more detail, a chart. Significance? Or is this duplicative of what we've already seen?

A. If you like, it's just an easier way of referring to the blindfolds and ligatures. It shows where each blindfold was located in the grave or on the person and the total of blindfolds and ligatures.

Q. Tab 15 is an example of the way in which blindfolds were found on a skull? And indeed in addition we also see some glass. Is it similar to the green glass that we were looking at earlier?

A. That's correct. This is the Kozluk mass grave and you can see quite clear the broken green glass.

Q. Tab 16 is a montage of all the blindfolds or I think it's all the blindfolds that have been found. To assist the Judges, if you look at the top part of it. The way it's been organised is that you've taken the site, if we look at the top left-hand corner immediately for Branjevo farm. There are then two blindfolds and those are two blindfolds found at that site; correct?

A. That's correct. Two blindfolds were found at the primary gravesite and the next grave is the linked secondary grave and you can see that a number of blindfolds are found at that secondary grave. And it continues on; primary grave, secondary grave related to them. And each ³¹⁴¹⁸ photograph represents a single blindfold.

Q. One of the things you were able to do was to connect by type blindfolds found at one site with blindfolds found in another. And I think one good example is blindfolds that appeared to have been cut out of a continuous loop or square of material; correct?

A. That's correct. If you look at that image there, it's what I call a frame. It's a square of cloth with the middle cut out and then used to be wrapped around the head many times. It occurs in many instances through this grave and further on through other graves, and the material is of a particular type and a particular cut that is very familiar and there's a piece of the square there as well.

Q. And indeed, we can see these recurring squares throughout this montage?

A. That's correct.

Q. Tab 17, please. I mean, there are other similarities you could draw to the Judges' attention if it becomes necessary but that's all we need for the time being?

A. That's correct.

Q. Tab 17 deals with the ligatures. Similar composition. And again, can you take us to some feature of similarity showing up on ligatures in different graves.

A. The ligatures were of three different types, wire, string and cloths, and in the cloth ligatures we had the same occurring pattern of the frame which was used to blindfold people. We also had material which is the same colour weave and texture that were used to bind people. They ³¹⁴¹⁹ were the matches made by the Netherlands Forensic Institute.

Q. Thank you very much. Tab 18, please. An example of how ligatures were found on a decomposing or saponifying, I think the word is, arm.

A. Yes, this is from the Kozluk mass grave and it shows a type of cloth ligatures. The other loop would have gone through the other arm. As I said, there were three types of ligatures mostly used.

Q. Indeed tab 19 shows another type, a wire type. Correct?

A. This image is from the Nova Kasaba mass grave. It shows an individual tightly bound by wire, which is fencing wire if you like. All the bodies that were bound that that grave were bound by wire as were the bodies in Cerska.

Q. Tab 20. Tab 20, please.

A. This shows a third type of ligature which is string. Interestingly in this photo - these bodies are from the Glogova primary grave - it represents two sets of individuals who were bound together. This is one set of forearms from one individual who was found together with his partner, and this is one set of arms from that individual. 12 twin -- six twins, if you like, of men were found in that grave bound together by string.

Q. And of course these photographs, subject to the necessary disturbance to move them to a place where they could be photographed are of the bones as found?

A. Yes. Those bodies were completely skeletonised and this photograph is taken at the mortuary where the bones were displayed if you like in an attempt to show how the ligatures were binding the body. ³¹⁴²⁰

Q. Tab 21.

A. This photograph is of an explosive residue pattern on the wall of the Pilica Dom. This is a similar type of pattern which was examined by the naval investigation service and shown to contain high explosive residue.

Q. And finally tab 22.

A. This is, again, a photograph from the Pilica Dom. It shows a blood splatter pattern. Again, these types of patterns were analysed and shown to contain human DNA.

Q. Thank you very much. We needn't look at but you prepared and produced as tab 23, your report of the 16th of May, 2000.

A. Correct.

Q. As tab 24 your report of February 2001.

A. That's correct.

Q. Tab 25, your report of the 24th of August, 2003?

A. That's correct.

Q. And then you have recently received the report of Mr. Baraybar of January 2004. Tabs 26 have already been accounted for with a CD that's been provided for parts of the exhibits. So may Mr. Baraybar's January 2004 report become tab 27.

MR. NICE: Thank you very much. That's all I ask of this witness.

JUDGE KWON: The tab number is not clear enough.

MR. NICE: Ms. Dicklich is quite right. If the CD accounts for tabs 26 to 52, then perhaps the latest report could become tab 53.

JUDGE KWON: And I understand the time constraint the Prosecution ³¹⁴²¹ is confronting but this time again you did not produce the index of the whole binder. It's very difficult to follow.

MR. NICE: So sorry if you haven't got an index. There should be one. We'll make one available.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: Yes. There will be one hour, ten minutes for the Prosecution on this. If there are any necessary matters that the Prosecution wish to raise. Yes.

Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Manning, during examination-in-chief you mentioned that you have reviewed, collected, and analysed a great number of reports. Is that correct?

A. That's correct, Your Honour.

Q. In any of those numerous reports that you reviewed, collected, and analysed, is there any report that is linked with any report emanating from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as a country or an individual agency? Is there anything linking anything in those reports to something in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia?

A. The reports that I examined did not mention or indicate that, no.

Q. Yes, okay. Thank you, Mr. Manning. Now, just a few details about yourself. What is your occupation? I understood that you are employed here as an investigator.

A. Yes. I was employed here as an investigator from 1998 and in September of 2002, I became a team leader, investigations team leader. So ³¹⁴²² effectively, I'm an investigator.

Q. You are working for the party which brought you here to the courtroom; is that correct?

A. That's correct. I work for the OTP investigation section.

Q. Very well. What is your narrow speciality in professional terms?

A. I joined the Australian federal police in 1983, and the majority of my career was spent as a detective involved in the investigation of serious crime within the Australian capital territory based in Canberra so my speciality is that of police investigation as a detective, which I've continued to do whilst at the Tribunal.

Q. I understand. So by occupation, by training, you are a policeman; is that correct?

A. That's correct, yes.

Q. On page 2 of your statement, paras 2 and 8, under the title "objectives of exhumation," you list eight objectives. I suppose that is not in dispute. That's what's written here. I would like to ask you, analysing them one by one, you say one of the objectives was to corroborate witness statements and the statements of victims of the massacre. Is that correct?

A. That's correct, although I don't have my statement in front of me.

Q. Very well. Since you are a policeman and you are a professional policeman, does that mean that you took the stories of witnesses and victims as truthful, a priori? Did you take them at face value?

A. Your Honour, it's part of the duties of a police investigation to find the truth. If a witness or a victim presents a story, part of the ³¹⁴²³ investigative process is to corroborate or disprove that story. Whilst I would treat the victims and witness with due respect, I don't form a view as to the truthfulness of what they tell me until I can verify that with investigations. Effectively, that's the underpinning of all police investigations, is to seek the truth whether it be from the witnesses, the crime scene, the accused, or whatever means available.

Q. Well, that is the reason why I'm asking, Mr. Manning. Since in view of your profession it is clear that the objective is always to first verify the statement, I was surprised to read here that your objective was to corroborate the statements of witnesses and victims. I suppose verification comes first and then you test those stories by comparing with other stories comparing to evidence, et cetera. Is that the process that took place?

A. Your Honours, to answer that question, I've worded it as to corroborate the account of the witness or victim. If in this case a victim tells us that they were present and subject to an attempt at massacre at an execution point and they describe the execution point and the damage to the building and the bullets marks and grenade marks and we go to that location and if we find that location is undamaged, has no indication of an execution, then I haven't corroborated the witness, I've proved the witness wrong. If I go there and I find evidence of such a massacre or such an account, then I've corroborated the account. By wording in that manner, I didn't mean to suggest that I went out to prove the witness or victim right. I went out to investigate the matter, and if possible corroborate the account of a witness or prove it ³¹⁴²⁴ wrong.

Q. Very well, Mr. Manning. Tell me, how many full statements did you find in the course of your work that you've just described?

A. That's difficult to answer this. There's several hundred, if not thousands, of statements connected to the Srebrenica investigation. I've taken a great number of statements, I would suggest statements and interviews, 50 to 60. Because of my joining the Tribunal in 1998, I didn't speak with at length, or interview the survivors of the massacres, so if that was your question, I've spoken to a large number of witnesses and read a large number of statements.

Q. No, Mr. Manning. My question was different, since you explained that you first tested the stories and then either corroborated them or not. I asked in how many cases did you find that the witness statement was false?

A. In relation to the exhumations, in relation to the crime scenes described by the witness or, sorry, witnesses and victims, I did not find any witness that was not able to describe the scene effectively, not able to indicate things within the mass graves execution points that corroborated his story. I don't recall dealing with a witness who was untruthful in relation to those execution points and mass graves.

Q. Or anything else, I suppose. You haven't found a single person whom you found not to be telling the truth in relation to anything linked to Srebrenica. Is that what you're saying, Mr. Manning?

A. Your Honours, that's not what I'm saying. On occasion, witnesses will indicate incidences that seem far-fetched, that didn't happen. We ³¹⁴²⁵ are approached by individuals who are clearly disturbed, and on occasion we'll examine their statements and discover that they're false or untrue. In relation to the mass graves and the execution points, none of those witnesses or victims were proven to be in any way untruthful, to my knowledge. And you must remember that there are several thousand witnesses and several hundreds and thousands of witness statements.

Q. All right. But based on your experience in the police, could you tell me, did it happen that witnesses for any reason, be it personal, religious, ethnic, nationalist, or any other reason, did it happen that a witness gave a statement contained untrue details or diverged from the truth or had a bias of any sort? I am talking about your professional work and assessment.

A. Your Honours, if Mr. Milosevic is asking about during my whole career, of course I've dealt with witnesses who have been false, and that's part of process of the investigation that I would undertake. I have had people who have complained of incidents in Australia, and on investigation have found that they were not the victim, that they were culpable or falsifying a story. That happens. It's part of human nature and part of my job is to identify the instances where the witnesses or complainants or the accused are not truthful.

Q. Very well. Now, if I've understood you correctly, I understand that you said that you take every statement with some reservations, and that is one of the principles of active investigation, to have your reservations, particularly in the police force. Isn't that right, Mr. Manning? ³¹⁴²⁶

A. That's correct.

Q. Is it also correct that the material evidence should be collected in order to establish the material truth and to check out and test the statements made by the alleged victims or witnesses who are claiming something? Isn't that also right, Mr. Manning?

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. All right, then. Now, I don't suppose you challenge this, in view of your statement to corroborate victims and so on, that your first goal, your first aim and the first thing you do is an a priori one, that is to treat statements of victims and witnesses as being truthful before proved otherwise and that the collection of evidence should be geared toward proving them right. Would that be correct, Mr. Manning?

A. Your Honours, that would be incorrect. The task and the role is to -- to seek the truth, as I've said. If a witness provides an account and you're able to verify that, say, by visiting a crime scene, your -- or certainly my attitude is to attend that area and examine that to seek corroboration of the statement but also to seek any material or evidence which would refute that statement. Perhaps the witness was wrong. Perhaps the witness has an ulterior motive. But you wouldn't attend an examination with an intent to proving the witness statement. You -- or I take the view that you perhaps should do the opposite and try to disprove it. If you find something that shows the statement is completely incorrect, that's part of your task.

Q. I don't understand you, Mr. Manning. The second objective that you state in your statement is to determine an accurate count of victims; ³¹⁴²⁷ is that right?

A. Yes, that's correct.

Q. Well, tell me then, please, Mr. Manning, the accurate count of victims from the Srebrenica area and the surrounding parts in July, what was it?

A. I can tell you the estimate of the number of bodies located within the exhumed graves conducted by the ICTY which has been amended by Mr. Baraybar to 2.541. My estimate, based on his previous work and the work of other experts, is 2.570. That is the minimal, absolute minimal number of individuals we say is represented by the graves which we have exhumed.

Q. Very well. I understand, therefore, that you haven't established the exact number. These are estimates, the 2.570 or 71 or whatever, those are estimates; is that right?

A. They're a scientific examination of the body parts and bodies which we have collected conducted by Mr. Baraybar. He has excluded a number of body parts and body collections because he was attempting to merge the different types of graves. So it's a scientific estimate of the number of -- the smallest possible number of bodies that would account for the bones which we have.

Q. Yes, I understand. I understand that, Mr. Manning. And I'm sure you know that immediately after the events that came to pass at Srebrenica that there were various statements by politicians of different kinds, about some 15.000 people killed. I'm sure you'll remember that Albright said for example that there were 12.000, she said 12.000 massacred ³¹⁴²⁸ Muslims. Then it was 10.000, then 8.000. Do you remember all these figures that were bandied about?

A. Your Honours, I've heard a number of figures, as Mr. Milosevic put it, bandied about. The figures I'm most familiar with are in the region of 10 to 8.000 missing and I am familiar with the estimate of missing presented in the Krstic case and from the Srebrenica investigation.

Q. All right. But now, and I'm really asking you about the material facts and evidence. I don't mean to say that a single person executed is not a war crime, but I'm just asking you about the facts and the material evidence. Is it clear, for example, that in 1996 or, let's say 1997, when the statements were made, we couldn't have even guessed, let alone given precise figures as to the exact figure? Isn't that right?

A. I don't believe that's correct. The estimate or estimates by the Red Cross early on in even 1995, 1996, and certainly 1997 were approaching, I believe, quite closely the ultimate figure of missing from Srebrenica. The figure of 7.500 to 8.000, I believe, was generally accepted from either 1996 or 1997.

Q. Yes, but I'm talking about the number that you established, the figure that you came by for persons dead. There are missing persons throughout the world, of course. I assume you are well aware of that.

A. I'm not sure I understand the question. I've indicated the number of -- the minimal number of individuals we have located within the graves. There is also another number which has been presented in evidence in other trials in relation to the number of executed or missing men following the fall of Srebrenica. ³¹⁴²⁹

Q. When we're talking about material evidence and facts, the number you quoted was 2.571, I believe. Is that what you said? All your teams from 1995 until 2004 or, let's say until the end of 2003. Isn't that right, Mr. Manning?

A. That figure represents exhumations from 1996 to 2001. It is, as I said, amended by Mr. Baraybar's report, but 2.571 was the figure prior to his amending the report. I think it's 2.540 something.

Q. All right. So 2.540. Let's take that to be the figure. Now, the third objective of the exhumations, as you define it, is to determine the cause of death and time of death of the persons' whose bodies were exhumed or parts of bodies exhumed. Isn't at that right, Mr. Manning?

A. That's correct.

Q. Tell me now, please, which causes of death were you able to establish with the corpses that you exhumed and also the time of death? What was the time of death and the causes?

A. As to the cause of death, that's detailed in various reports by the chief anthropologist employed by the ICTY over various years, including Dr. Haglund's report, various reports by Dr. Clark and other anthropological reports.

The major cause of death was gunshot injury, high velocity gunshot injury. It's described in the individual reports. I'm not a pathologist, and I don't wish to attempt to give that evidence in great detail. There was also evidence of blast injury to a large number of the bodies. There was also descriptions of blunt force trauma and in some instances unknown causes of death. ³¹⁴³⁰

Q. Very well. Mr. Manning, under point 65 of your statement, in the chapter cause of death, you say that 1.775 persons were killed by gunshot wounds, 169 probably or perhaps from gunshot wounds, 67 individuals died of shrapnel or blast injuries, 11 individuals died of gunshot wounds and blast injuries, 6 died of other causes, and 1.441 individuals died of undetermined causes. Is that correct?

A. That's correct, yes.

Q. And those are your facts and figures. Now, in view of the fact with the largest number the cause of death was through gunshot wounds, firearms, Mr. Manning, were you able to establish how many of those individuals were killed during battle, during the fighting, combat operations, when there was an exchange of gunfire in the fighting, and how many died in some other way?

A. I'll just correct you. Those figures are not my figures. They're simply figures produced from the reports of the experts. To answer the question, from reading the reports, they indicate that many of the bodies had multiple gunshot injuries. In some instances they were able to give an estimate as to which direction the fire came from, such as the rear. They're also able to indicate that the injuries in some of the anthropological -- sorry, pathology reports they indicated the cause of death was homicide. That was based on the examination by the pathologist.

In the majority of bodies that were exhumed particularly post 1996, the bodies were primarily skeletonised and a track of a bullet would not appear in the flesh and would only be represented by an injury to the ³¹⁴³¹ bone, and in those reports they've indicated that many of the injuries and the information that could be obtained from examining those injuries was not available to them.

In relation to whether people were killed in battle, we saw no indication of that. It cannot be, I assume, ruled out in some cases, but in the majority of graves, particularly the primary graves, there was evidence of ligature or blindfolding of the individuals. There was also evidence that the individuals had been killed in situ, that is they had been shot in the grave or beside the grave. Bullets were found under the bodies. Bodies were found in postures which indicated they'd been executed. The 12 bodies tied at Glogova, indications that they had been shot. Every single body had been shot in the head and some bodies additionally shot twice in the chest whilst they were bound.

Q. Mr. Manning, I assume that as an investigator and policeman, you analyse the relevant documentation that you have access to. So I'm going to ask you now, in view of the fact that before, a certain amount of time ago, there was a witness here who testified as a victim of the execution, and during the cross-examination, I asked him in view of the fact that he was in the column of the 15.000 men, soldiers of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was breaking through from Srebrenica, and he testified that there was a burst of artillery fire at them from Serb positions. During the cross-examination here when I insisted here, he said that in his part of the forest, he saw about 500 people dead, died in that shooting, in the fighting, in the shooting from afar in his part of the woods. ³¹⁴³² Now, were you able to assess what number of people who were buried in those graves actually died in that shooting and fighting and how many were executed? But let me repeat once again that even if a single person was executed that constitutes a war crime. There's no doubt there. But what I'm asking is were you able to establish the truth as to how many people were actually executed and how many died as a result of the shooting that was going on and fighting?

A. Your Honours, I've read numerous statements as to the attacks on the column and the number of deaths, perhaps large number of deaths as a result. I discussed the examination of the exhumed bodies, and in the majority of the graves, one of the tasks of the archaeologists was to assess how the bodies got into the grave or how they were moved in that they would in their expert reports provide a comment as to how they thought the bodies were delivered to the grave. In many instances they would say that there was evidence that the bodies had been picked up by apparent machinery as in scooped up, which would place a layer of soil under the bodies in various layers, or that in the case of the Nova Kasaba 99 grave, the bodies appeared to be thrown in by hand, a limited number of bodies.

But they indicate in their reports and discussions with me that if bodies had been collected from various locations through the forest, from separate locations, that they would have expected an indication of that in the deposition within the graves, that if bodies were being scooped up from a widely-spaced location, that there would be different pieces of soil and leaf litter and tree and whatever. An indication of that should ³¹⁴³³ be represented in the graves.

That sort of representation wasn't found. Indeed, there were indications that either they were killed in situ or in the case of the -- of some of the graves such as Ravnice, there appeared to be deposits from trucks. There seemed to be one flow of bodies dumped into the mass grave, or with Ravnice, down a cliff. And they indicated that they seemed to be collections of bodies with the same characteristics and not what you would expect from bodies that were killed in the open in wildly -- widely separated areas.

And I would also indicate that we did not examine or I did not examine in my report or statement any of the remains that were either found located or still to be found along the trail of the column.

Q. And tell me, please, since you mentioned that some people were tied, that then should indicate that the people who were tied were executed, I assume, although I'm not an expert of course in that field. So tell me now, please, how many people were in fact tied and for which you established were killed? What was the number?

A. I can indicate that approximately 448 -- sorry, 423 ligatures were located, and I've detailed in my statement and various reports those that were located on the bodies, those that were located around the arms or associated with the body. All those bodies were killed. I can indicate that some individuals were bound and blindfolded and had been killed.

If you wish, I can examine the table and advise you where they were located on the bodies. ³¹⁴³⁴

Q. Yes, I understand, Mr. Manning. So 420, did you say, they were bound, and that was the criteria upon which you were able to conclude that the people were executed. Now, what other criteria could be used for others so that you could be precise when giving a figure for persons executed apart from the ones who were bound? So what other criteria could distinguish these from the others who were killed in battle and exchange of gunfire, shooting, et cetera?

A. Apart from the similar nature of the bodies deposited in the mass graves in that they seemed to be from one collection rather than individual collections from a widely spread area, some of the individuals had blindfolds, some had ligatures, and some had both, and some showed evidence that they were shot at the execution point, that is, they had bullets below their bodies corresponding with injuries to their bodies, or in one individual, the posture indicated that he'd been shot in the head and slumped forward, and that was repeated particularly in graves such as Cerska. In Nova Kasaba there was evidence --

Q. You've already said that, yes. You've already told us that. And this cannot refer to those who were transferred to other gravesites, I assume. And judging by the map you provided, it would emerge that apart from one, as far as I remember during the examination-in-chief, one person, all of them were transported.

A. Your Honours, I apologise. I didn't understand that question.

Q. You explained during the examination-in-chief, and I listened to your answers, the ones you gave to Mr. Nice, that the bodies were transported to other sites. Now, for the bodies transported, and they ³¹⁴³⁵ were most of the bodies, as far as I was able to understand, and if not then tell me, that when the bodies were transported, you weren't able to find shell casings underneath the bodies or to establish everything that you're telling us about now in the secondary graves, which would indicate that they were shot, executed. Is that right or not?

A. Two things. The primary graves which were disturbed or robbed of the bodies, in every case except the dam, a large number of bodies were left there. In effect, they did a very poor job of removing the bodies from the graves. I can only imagine how difficult a job it would be. They left large numbers of bodies in the primary graves. And you're correct, when the bodies were taken to the secondary grave, evidence of rounds being found or bullets being found under the bodies which would indicate that they had been shot was mostly lost. However, bullets were lodged in bodies. Bullets were lodged in the clothing below the body. Some of that evidence was located at the secondary graves but also located at those graves were blindfolds and ligatures.

Q. Yes, but as far as I was able to understand, the people who were bound were about 420; is that right? That was the figure?

A. Your Honours, I provide the figure of 423 ligatures from all the mass graves, but as I indicate in my statement, that is a very conservative estimate of the number of ligatures. And in fact, I examined all the ligatures to try and establish what was and what was not a ligature. In that process, I rejected a large number of what I believe to be ligatures because I couldn't corroborate where they were found, the location on the body, or they weren't properly documented in the ³¹⁴³⁶ exhumation autopsy process. So that figure of 423 is very conservative, and I sought to err on the side of caution and rejected a number of what I believe to be ligatures in presenting that number as a very conservative number.

Q. Yes. Well, I'm using the figure that you yourself provided. But let's go back to the objectives. The fourth objective that you mentioned was to determine the identity of the victims and any link to the missing from Srebrenica. Is that right, Mr. Manning? Was that objective 4? Now, tell me this, please, the -- when you applied your different methods for identifying the victims, were you able to establish the identity of individuals? What number were you able to identify?

A. Your Honours, in relation to the identification of the victims, that process has been extraordinarily difficult, and up until, I think, 1999, we had only identified 70 individuals. That work had been based by a NGO called PHR, Physicians for Human Rights, and also the Bosnian government. That process effectively was taken over by the commission for missing persons in Bosnia and the Bosnian government. They continue now to identify individuals via DNA analysis which has been much more effective than the previous autopsy and attempts to identify bodies from clothing and physical descriptions.

I have not been involved in that process, and I understand that there are some 600 to a thousand individuals identified by the Bosnian commission for missing persons now. I would indicate that that process is made extraordinarily difficult by the damage to the bodies, and some bodies had more than one identification document in their possession, thus ³¹⁴³⁷ making it even more difficult to identify them and some bodies simply consisted of bodies parts which we would have extraordinary difficulty in identifying.

Q. All right, Mr. Manning. I asked you this because you quoted that as being one of the objectives of your involvement. You said -- have now said that you have managed to identify only 70 and say that there is information that between 600 and 1.000, and that's a big difference, whether it's 600 or 1.000 people identified. So you can't tell me the final number of people you managed to identify, and that was the one of the objective of the exhumation, but you don't have that figure, do you?

A. No, I don't have the up-to-date figure from the Bosnian commission for missing persons. That evidence is there's. I indicated that it was 70 individuals that was -- that the ICTY had been involved in and that then had been taken over by another agency who could be more competent to report on those numbers.

Q. Yes, I understand, Mr. Manning. All I wish is to establish what you say in your report and to try to establish the material truth and to get additional information about that from you.

Now, objective number 5 was to determine the gender of the victims. So the gender of the victims as you yourself state. And from your material and point 62 of your report, it would appear that out of all these individuals, just one individual was determined as being female; is that right?

A. Yes, from the Konjevic Polje 1 mass grave.

Q. Very well. Just one woman. So that is certain. Now, during your ³¹⁴³⁸ analyses, did you compare the number of women who were in the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina with the number of victims in the area of Bosnia-Herzegovina during the war conflicts? And the number of victims is much fewer than the number of women who actually took part in the army, and here you only found one female. Is that right, Mr. Manning?

A. I didn't comparing those figures. I have read figures in relation to the percentage of women in the column who one would assume could be captured. I would indicate that that is one identification, positive identification of a female. That identification of gender was made more difficult, again, by the break-up of the bodies, the transportation of the bodies, and the fragmentation of the body.

JUDGE MAY: We're going to -- we're going to stop now. It's time for the matter to adjourn for half an hour. I would be grateful if the officer, of course, didn't speak to anybody about it during this period. We adjourn for 20 minutes. Would the officer please come to the entrance. If you would come now.

[Trial Chamber and legal officer confer].

JUDGE MAY: We will adjourn now. Twenty minutes.

--- Recess taken at 10.31 a.m.

--- On resuming at 10.56 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Manning, you said a moment ago that this female person could have been in that column that was captured. Could you tell more precisely where she could have been captured or perhaps she died in combat in which ³¹⁴³⁹ that column was involved?

A. Your Honours, I can't indicate where that female may have been captured, but bodies within the Konjevic Polje 1 mass grave, and I will have to check the report, but I think it's one body was -- showed evidence that it had been killed in situ, and again there was nothing to distinguish the rest of the bodies from that killed body. I can't say that they weren't killed in battle, but there was an indication that at least one was killed in situ and the others were of a similar condition to that body.

Q. All right. So you rule out the possibility that this person could have got killed in combat rather than being executed, as you say.

A. I don't rule out that possibility, but everything that I saw at that grave and everything that I saw from the bodies in that grave along with the others indicated to me and to the experts that they weren't killed in battle, that they were killed either in situ or bound and blindfolded and killed in the mass graves. That grave does not have a survivor, but others do who indicate the execution of those people at those mass graves.

Q. I see. Tell me now, in the process of establishing particulars of that person, an important element is the people's age; is that correct?

A. Part of the exhumation autopsy process was an attempt to identify the age of the individuals to assist primarily in identification of the victims.

Q. Very well. Can we then say based on what is written in your report that the persons exhumed are exclusively men with one exception, ³¹⁴⁴⁰ aged 30 to 55? Is that correct?

A. That's not correct in that many of the bodies and body parts could not be -- their gender could not be determined. So there was a large proportion of the remains which were not able to be assigned a gender. And as to the age grouping, the -- I would agree that a large proportion of the men and boys in the grave were what has been termed military age, but I have seen, and it's recorded in the expert reports, individuals as young as 12 or younger, and old men certainly in their 90s, 80s and perhaps older, as well as a number of infirm individuals.

Q. I was not able to find that piece of information in your reports indicating anything of the kind, namely from what I see, you established that there are only 26 persons whose bodies were established to be aged 25 or less.

A. I'm unsure of which section of my statement you're referring to.

Q. We, I don't have your statement in front of me, but it is paragraph 71 that is titled "Age."

A. I indicate in that paragraph that the discussion of age and the estimates of age is quite a complex one, and I have erred on the side of caution and recommended that the individual reports of the experts be examined because different systems and different anthropologists and pathologists use different age ranges but the figure you quoted relates to an assessment made by Dr. John Clark of an individual grave, that is Glogova 1, and he said the age distribution for this grave potentially range from 12 to 75 years of age or older, the majority being between 30 and 55 years of age and 26 individuals were under the age of 25 or under, ³¹⁴⁴¹ and 11 were potentially less than 17 years of age. That is for one grave, and I would accept that as being consistent across the graves. But this is certainly the area for experts rather than myself.

Q. All right. It is indubitable that we are talking about the age of soldiers; is that correct? Military age?

A. I'd agree with you that a percentage of the individuals would be classified as military age, yes. I also indicated that there were very young individuals and very old individuals.

Q. Very well. Do you know, since you are employed with the party that brought you here to testify, that just before you came to the courtroom there were two young people here who were aged under 17 at the time of the events in Srebrenica, and they had been mobilised at least according to the testimony, to the evidence they gave here?

A. I'm not familiar with that testimony.

Q. Very well. You are not familiar with it, but the two of them did testify here, but they did give evidence that they had been mobilised when they were under 17.

Tell me, Mr. Manning, in how many places in the broader area of Srebrenica, since the beginning of July until the 25th of July, was there fighting between Serb forces and the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina and how many persons were killed in that fighting? Did you analyse any of that data?

A. Your Honours, I'm assuming the question relates to July of 1995. Effectively, no. I'm aware, as I said, of many statements in relation to attacks on the column, and indeed, fighting between the Muslim column and ³¹⁴⁴² the Bosnian Serb forces there and around Srebrenica. I didn't analyse those figures. I predominantly reported on the exhumations and the execution points, but I am familiar to a degree with statements and locations related to the column.

Q. All right. So if you are aware of those statements, do you know that in the broader area of Srebrenica there was fierce fighting all until the 16th of July between Serb forces and the 28th Division of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in that column that tried to break through, there were 16 -- 15.000 people. And people testified here as victims, and these 15.000 people were lined up and made a move to make a breakthrough. Do you know that?

A. Yes, I would agree with a majority of what you said. I don't believe there was fierce fighting for the whole period, but yes, a column did form. They did leave Srebrenica for Tuzla. There was fighting.

Q. Are you aware that that column was armed?

A. Your Honours, I'm aware of that. I'm aware that a part of the column was armed. I base my knowledge on witness statements and interviews that I've conducted but not particularly related to exhumations. I understood that the column was somewhat larger than Mr. Milosevic proposes, that the front of the column was armed, the middle and end were not.

Q. Yes, but from the information that was made public here, they had over 5.000 pieces of firearms, automatic weapons. Are you aware of that?

A. No, I'm not aware of that figure. I spoke to individuals who indicated that they had been armed by the military on some occasions. The ³¹⁴⁴³ majority that I spoke to indicated that they had hunting rifles, and I can't comment on the 5.000 pieces of automatic weapons.

Q. Very well. Do you know that in that column of 15.000 persons of men of military age, let us use that they were because we are talking about members of the 28th Division, in the directions of Tuzla and Kladanj on the 14th, 15th and 16th of July, the 2nd Corps came to their assistance and used artillery to try to make an opening for them to pass.

A. Your Honours, I'm aware of the broader aspects of that statement. Again, I didn't investigate that material to a great degree. My task was predominantly exhumations and general investigations.

Q. All right. But since you know the broader picture, you probably know that at the same time, a separate brigade fired on Serb positions from the direction of Zivinice with the same objective, to assist the column in making a breakthrough.

A. Again, I won't comment on that. I think that's perhaps the area to be addressed by military experts in relation to those aspects.

Q. Very well. Tell me, can we at least agree on one thing in view of the general information that you have, that in the relevant period, in the broader area of Srebrenica, there was a lot of fighting? Yes or no, Mr. Manning?

A. I would have to say no. There was fighting. The column did involve in quite heavy fighting. I don't think it was for the whole period, and perhaps not so much around Srebrenica but more towards the edge of Zvornik and moving away from Kula Grad. But there was heavy fighting, yes. ³¹⁴⁴⁴

Q. All right. Do you know that there were cases of internal conflicts, skirmishes among members of the armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at least judging by the evidence given by some witnesses who testified here?

A. I've read witness statements that indicated that some members of the column rather than risk capture committed suicide. I understand that that's a small number, but there are accounts of brothers shooting each other and men releasing grenades amongst a small group. That would be the extent of my knowledge as to the fighting amongst the group.

Q. All right. You say on a smaller scale within an individual group there was heavy fighting between that smaller group and the Army of Republika Srpska. Can you give us at least a rough estimate of the number of members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina who got killed in such fighting and where are they buried?

A. I can't give you the estimate of how many men and boys were killed in the attacks on the column or the battles with the column, but the figure of 7.500 to 8.000 missing from Srebrenica is indicated, and I've indicated absolute minimum we found in the graves. I think the answer would be somewhere between the number killed on the column and the number located within the graves. I can't tell you how many men were killed on the column. I can tell you that a large number, in the order of 4 to 5.000 perhaps, were executed. It's a matter of accounting for those bodies.

Q. On what basis did you pull out that figure now? You found 2.500 people in mass graves. You said yourself that some people must have ³¹⁴⁴⁵ gotten killed in combat, in fighting. So how did you arrive at the figure of 4.500 to 5.000 people executed?

A. I would perhaps say that's the number accounted for in the graves. I based that figure on an estimate conducted by Professor Richard Wright who was the chief archaeologist for a number of years with the ICTY in which he examined the number of graves exhumed and the number of graves yet to be exhumed and came to an estimate, and that's what it was, an estimate. But I also base it on my individual viewing of the remains and the sheer number of bodies that we have exhumed from the various graves and the number of bodies that would be represented but not counted by the body parts that we still retain or are still held in Tuzla. The figure of 2.500 is extraordinarily conservative, and I believe, and I believe that there is evidence to support that, that there are a number of more bodies in -- body parts and also in the unexhumed graves and in the undiscovered graves.

Q. Very well. But all of these are assumptions. Let us go back to your objectives as listed here. As the last objective you quote to identify links to the perpetrators; correct?

A. That's correct.

Q. Tell me, how many immediate perpetrators did you arrive at in your analysis?

A. Your Honours, that's a very general question. There is an ongoing investigation in relation to Srebrenica. A number of people have been indicted for their involvement in the Srebrenica case. Some individual killers have been identified including Drazen Erdemovic who provided ³¹⁴⁴⁶ testimony before these Chambers. An individual was identified who is deceased during the war, from witness statements and other accounts. But the involvement of the Drina Corps, the Zvornik Brigade, the Bratunac Brigade, and a great many officers and men from those units has been identified from the Srebrenica investigation. And as I say, a number have been indicted, but the investigation continues.

Q. All right, Mr. Manning. Since you mentioned Drazen Erdemovic, I suppose that you know that this perpetrator was arrested in Serbia and indicted for war crimes for killing prisoners during the operations in Srebrenica.

A. I understood he was in custody in Serbia prior to attending the Tribunal. I can't tell you what he was charged with in Serbia.

Q. All right. There are documents about that because he was indicted for war crimes. That's what he was arrested for in Serbia, and that's what he was tried for here.

Mr. Manning, on page 1 of your summary of May 2000, you say in the second paragraph: "After the fall of the protected area of Srebrenica, thousands of Muslim men surrendered to the Army of Republika Srpska in Potocari, or they surrendered or were captured while fleeing from their enclave, in a column."

A. That's correct.

Q. Since you are trying here to be very serious and precise, tell me, how many members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina surrendered to the Army of Republika Srpska? Do you have that figure?

A. I don't have that figure, and the reason I don't have that figure ³¹⁴⁴⁷ is the people who know that figure were either killed or the people who captured them aren't willing to provide that information. I can't give you that number.

Q. So you don't have that figure; is that correct? Do you have a figure of persons who were captured?

A. Many thousands were captured. There is perhaps evidence before this Tribunal of a conversation recorded along the Konjevic Polje-Bratunac Road where a Bosnian Serb soldier indicates that they have caught thousands of men. There are images from a film by a Serb journalist which indicates and shows the surrender of columns of men. There are aerial images which provide large groups of men held on Sandici meadow, and the meadow at Nova Kasaba. There is witness testimony from women being transported to Tuzla indicating the large number of men captured. There is also testimony from the survivors indicating the large number of men captured and executed. But I cannot give you a precise figure.

Q. All right. But when you say they were fleeing through the woods, through forests, did you establish in the geographical sense through which forests and woods and how many of them there were? Are you talking about the column of 15.000 persons or some other people as well maybe?

A. Your Honours, I indicate that there's two groups of people who were captured and the men were ultimately executed. Those men that remained in Potocari, perhaps men and boys is a better description, and those men and boys who were part of the column. The column, I believe, was -- and perhaps this again is a question for the military expert, was larger than 15.000. It's been quoted as up to 30.000, 20.000. I'm aware ³¹⁴⁴⁸ that a large number of men were captured in Potocari. They were transported in a large number of buses and that large number of men from that column, from the middle and rear of the column, were captured or surrendered, taken to collection areas such as Sandici meadow and then taken to execution points and executed. Perhaps the ultimate number of men who either were captured or surrendered is represented by all the graves and a final examination of all the bodies when they're identified.

Q. Very well, Mr. Manning. Tell me did you establish whether they were fleeing or trying to break through Serb lines, trying to make a breakthrough? And if they were trying to make a breakthrough, were they armed or unarmed, and if armed, how many pieces of weapons did they have?

A. They were fleeing from the area of Srebrenica with the intention, as far as I know, to travel to the safe area of Tuzla. As I indicated before, the front of the column to my knowledge was armed. The middle and end were not. Part of the lee of the column broke through the Bosnian Serb lines, and the rest were trapped and captured and in fact the capture and hunting down of the individuals continued for some time. I can't tell you the number of weapons.

Q. You say that the Army of Republika Srpska continued to carry out executions for several days; is that correct?

A. The mass executions continued for a number of days following the fall of Srebrenica. The first execution, large-scale execution at Cerska, continued for several days, but there is evidence and indications that sweep operations were continued for some time, and men were captured and men were killed. Men were not turned over. Men were not taken into ³¹⁴⁴⁹ custody. And I have spoken to individuals who fled through the forest up until December of 1995. I assume that the sweep operations continued for some time to a much lesser degree. Again, these are questions perhaps best answered by military analysts.

Q. But you did not have occasion to look at any military analyses that could give you answers to these questions, Mr. Manning. Is that correct?

A. I'm at a loss to what specific questions, the question you're just asking me, but I did not conduct the military analysis. I was predominantly involved in the exhumation and autopsy process. However, I did take statements from survivors as I indicated. From witnesses, sorry.

Q. I'm asking you this because I cannot understand from your assertions, from your evidence how many such exhumations have you established for certain and on what evidence.

A. I'm not sure I understand the question.

JUDGE MAY: If you can't follow, it doesn't matter. Yes, what is the point?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, since you claim, apart from the number of persons that are established exactly, you say that the estimate is conservative and that the real number is certainly much higher, I'm asking you on what evidence are you basing your estimate of a much higher number?

A. I'm basing that on the fact that we know that the bodies removed from the primary graves to the secondary graves were very badly damaged and broken apart and placed in a grave by heavy machinery, dumped with no ³¹⁴⁵⁰ ceremony in those graves. In some instances, the bodies were simply driven over by heavy machines, and we discovered that during archaeological process. The bodies were extraordinarily broken up. The first count, if you like, of bodies in such condition is going to be conservative, the second count more conservative, and so on. And Mr. Baraybar's final assessment is based on an attempt to match disparate collections of --

JUDGE MAY: Yes, two minutes left.

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

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You tell me that you established by probes that there are 2.000 more corpses underground. Is that it? Is that correct?

A. We established that the secondary graves which are unexhumed contain bodies. We did that by finding multiple body parts. And Professor Wright made an estimate, based on an average of the graves, as to how many might remain there. In my examination of the numbers, I think that's a conservative estimate which is probably right, but it is an estimate.

Q. I see. So the investigation is still ongoing; correct?

A. That's correct.

Q. On page 1, paragraph 5 of the summary from May 2000, you say that from the state authorities of the United States, you got aerial photographs showing various mass graves and showing also hundreds of bodies of persons who were killed at the Branjevo Military Farm. Is that correct? ³¹⁴⁵¹

A. That's correct.

Q. And you have those photographs, don't you?

A. Yes, I have them. They're in the possession of ICTY and I understand that they've been disclosed in various forms.

Q. I haven't had a chance of seeing them, but a moment ago during the examination-in-chief, you yourself said that the photographs were taken at the time of the executions, and I wrote that down. I made a note of that, that the aerial photographs were taken at that time, at the time of the executions.

Now, since you say that, did you ever ask yourself, because you say that hundreds of bodies can be seen, how is it possible for all the bodies to be photographed and not to have photographs of the execution act itself if they were taken when the executions took place? Are there any photographs in existence where the actual act of the executions taking place can be seen? Because if you can photograph corpses in the lying position, I assume that they could have been taken of people while they were still standing up.

A. I'm aware of photographs which show bodies at the Branjevo Military Farm, a large collection of bodies where that execution continued over many hours. That's been detailed by Drazen Erdemovic. I can only say that I am aware that there are bodies on that photograph.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, your final question. One question.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Let's leave aside what Drazen Erdemovic said, because he acknowledged that he killed many people, and he acknowledged that in ³¹⁴⁵² Serbia when he was arrested for the war crimes and later on, too, when he was brought -- taken to trial.

Now, do you know how many years Drazen Erdemovic got, what the sentence was and how many years he spent in prison?

MR. NICE: Relevance?

JUDGE MAY: Sorry, would you say that again?

MR. NICE: I can't see the relevance of the question that's just been asked.

JUDGE MAY: The final question.

MR. NICE: Yes.

JUDGE MAY: If you can answer, please do so, and if not, don't do that.

THE WITNESS: Your Honour, I think it was 10 years, and I think he ultimately served 6 years.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. It's something of that sort. We can find that. Yes.

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

Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Manning, I have to be brief and ask direct questions, specific ones in view of the time I have. Now, you have your report in front of you, the one you gave on the 20th of November, 2003. And as it is a very concise report, I'll do my best to ask concise questions relating to the report you have before you. In paragraph 59, for example, as we can see here, you said that the figure represents the minimum number of individuals found in ³¹⁴⁵³ Srebrenica, and you give the figure of 2.570 for the minimum number of victims; is that right?

A. Yes, located in the graves exhumed by the ICTY and one grave monitored by the ICTY.

Q. Yes. And expert witness Jose Baraybar, if I am pronouncing his name correctly, later on, that is to say after this report of yours that dates to the month of November 2003, and that report was 2004, provides us with the figure of 2.541 victims in actual fact; is that right?

A. That's correct.

Q. In view of the assumptions you presented here today, the estimates you gave related to the figures that have been determined exactly, how do you explain the fact that the figure and the facts established by you is considerably different or, rather, somewhat different from the ones contained in the later report, about 30 figures of 30 victims. The number of 30 is different.

A. Your Honours, briefly, my numbers if you like in this report were based on the work of Mr. Baraybar and other experts. He continued that examination, and the latest report is the final merging of all the sites, and in doing so he had to compare different types of body parts, and in doing so he had to ignore some body parts, as in if the body part wasn't the one he was looking for, he ignored that. And I discussed the report with him, and as a result, that figure, as I've said, is very conservative. It doesn't take into account the bodies that we have, but it was an attempt by him to provide an absolute minimal number of individuals that were consistent across the graves. ³¹⁴⁵⁴

Q. Yes. But it differs from your findings and does not indicate the possibility that perhaps the number of victims was even larger. So I think that that is something that you should explain.

A. Mr. Baraybar's report does indicate that, as do the other reports by him and other experts. In this instance, for instance, Mr. Baraybar has ignored eight bodies in one grave because they weren't made up of a bone type that he was trying to compare to the others. If you like, if it's -- it's like trying to compare apples and oranges. He wasn't able to compare them directly so he rejected some, hence the figure is lower. It's a very conservative figure.

Q. Mr. Manning, you've already stated that you were able to ascertain exactly that among the victims there was one female; is that right?

A. That's correct.

Q. And in response to questions from Mr. Nice, and I should like to ask you to focus your attention on paragraph 82 of your statement where you refer to a photograph showing a small child. Now, that photograph was found on a victim. If I understand correctly, it was the photograph that was found, not the body of a child, nor were there any children found among the corpses and victims in the Srebrenica case.

A. That photograph was found on a male victim's -- in a male victim's possession. It included quite a number of other photographs. That child was not found in any of the graves. I have seen the bodies of children, the definition of a children, a 12-year-old in the bottom of a mass grave is still a child. There were no children I would suggest under the age of 9 or 10 or 11 or 12 as indicated in the expert reports but still children ³¹⁴⁵⁵ nonetheless.

Q. Yes. Well, I don't need to enter into polemics with you under that score, because what was referred to was people under 17. Now, Mr. Nice insisted upon that photograph which depicts a young child. Were there any other children of that age and the term used is "young child." Were there other young children amongst the individuals found in the graves?

A. There were no children of that age or what apparently was the age of that child, which I would say is, you know, 4 or 5. As I say, the youngest was in the range of 9 to 12, not 4 or 5.

Q. Would you now take a look at paragraph 65 of your statement, please. Now, I understand you when you're talking about ligatures and blindfolds, and then you make your estimates on that subject as to how the people lost their lives. However, here in paragraph 65, you say that 1.785 victims died of gunshot wounds. Are you able to say at all and provide us with an analysis of whether those gunshot wounds are something which was inflicted during an execution or gunshot wounds with such a large number of individuals could they have been caused during battle to people who were armed?

A. Your Honour, I think the answered the question when it was put to me by Mr. Milosevic, and I would indicate the answers to those questions are best found in the expert reports. I can continue, if you wish, with more information.

Q. And the last figure that I wish to address, if I want to put it that way, for the 1.441 individuals, the cause of death was undetermined. ³¹⁴⁵⁶ Does that allow for the possibility that many of these people lost their lives precisely in those conflicts, because you mention six explosions here that led to individual deaths, blasts. Now, could these individuals not have been killed by something like that? And these things did exist in and around Srebrenica during that time. Yes or no?

A. I indicated that 67 individuals died of blast injuries and 11 died of gunshot wounds and blast injuries, which -- and you indicate the number of 1.441 individuals died of undetermined causes. Again, that may have been because, with the loss of tissue, the bullet wound for the shrapnel damage was not evident because it didn't impact on a bone, or indeed that the section of the body which had a cause of death was missing. This is effectively the number of body parts and pieces of individual which they can't identify as having a specific cause of death.

Q. Well, they're not my figures, Mr. Manning, or facts, they're ones you quote. And all I'm asking you is this: Can you exclude the possibility that the people who died from undetermined causes were perhaps killed during the combat and the fighting that existed, which -- and it certainly did exist in that area? And that's my last question.

A. Yes, I think I can. I've tried to explain that in answer to Mr. Milosevic's questions. The evidence taken as a whole, the collection of bodies having a similar manner, the blindfolds, the ligatures, the testimony of the killer, the testimony of survivors, the indication of executions within the graves themselves and the execution points lead me to a very strong conviction that the bodies in those graves were executed and were not the subject of battle casualties. ³¹⁴⁵⁷

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours.

Q. I cannot see, Mr. Manning, that you're linking this up. I do understand your explanation with regard to blindfolds and ligatures. That's quite clear. But can you explain to Their Honours -- actually you don't mention ligatures here for the 1.441 individual died of undetermined causes. You spoke of the ligatures when you spoke of the figure of 480 or 420, I believe it was. But here we have the figure of 1.441 individuals, which is half the total number of victims in fact, so why do you mention ligatures in this regard and blindfolds in this regard when we are dealing about one and a half thousand people? How do you explain that?

A. Those 1.441 body parts and victims were part of the larger collection. Your question indicated to me was: Could that percentage of the bodies have been killed in combat? I don't believe so. They are connected with the other bodies. They interdispersed between the bodies with blindfolds and ligatures. Some of those bodies were would have had blindfolds and ligatures. The grave as a whole indicated, and from other evidence such as witnesses and survivors that they were executed, and that it wasn't just the individuals who were blindfolded and ligatured who were killed. Indeed, the Kravica warehouse no one was blindfolded or ligatured but the entire warehouse bar one man was executed.

MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I should like to ask you to take a look at the statement, and it differs from what Mr. Manning is saying now and I'm sure you will come to analyse it, and it is in contradiction with what Mr. Manning is saying here today.

JUDGE MAY: We will determine the matter if it's true. Yes. ³¹⁴⁵⁸

MR. NICE: I don't know if Mr. Tapuskovic is seeking to put a figure of those whom he accepts were in the Srebrenica killings or not or if it's just a general inquiry, but if he does have a figure, I'm sure we'd all like to hear what it is.

JUDGE MAY: Let us move on.

MR. NICE: The matters arising from cross-examination. Re-examined by Mr. Nice:

Q. Mr. Baraybar's latest report, Mr. Manning, says at page 5 that the result -- figure result he achieves is something he now calls MMNI and says that this is the minimum minimal number of individuals, and he himself says it's the most conservative estimate; correct?

A. That's correct.

Q. You spoke of two photographs in cross-examination. One was the question you were asked by Mr. Tapuskovic about the young child photograph. It may be he was under misapprehension. The young child photograph is a photograph apparently carried by someone, his family member, inferentially the parent or relation being killed?

A. Yes. In effect, I would suggest that most of the court has a photograph of their child in their wallet. That's what that was. The connection was the tape.

Q. The aerial -- which showed a Srebrenica connection?

A. That's correct.

Q. The aerial photograph showing on your understanding of the photograph of bodies, is that available in one of your exhibits or not?

A. Yes, it is. It's marked in the report that I did in relation to ³¹⁴⁵⁹ the 1996 and 1999 exhumation reports. It's one of the photographs in that. And I also understand that a large name of the aerial images were marked for exhibits. I can try and find that page on the report.

Q. We'll come to that in a minute because I want to deal with exhibits at the conclusion of the couple more questions I have to ask you. Yes, I think in general but you may have answered this: Were any of the victims that you saw examined and discussed with the other experts, shown from what you could see on them by way of clothing or anything else to have been victims of combat?

A. No.

Q. The -- there's been references to the mechanisms of death. We've heard of blasting, and you've spoken about the Kravica warehouse. Was there some particular incident there unusual in its scale but nevertheless an unusual method of death?

A. Yes. The -- the use of hand grenades was clearly evident. We found evidence of that both at the site and at the mass grave, but also there was evidence of a rocket-propelled grenade being fired through the individuals and indeed impacting and piercing the back wall of the warehouse.

Q. Just give the Judges an impression. The inside dimensions of this warehouse where it said a thousand people were killed, compare it with this room.

A. The warehouse is divided into sections. The eastern section would be perhaps a third less than the Chamber itself with a very high ceiling sloping at an angle. Perhaps a third as wide again as this courtroom. It ³¹⁴⁶⁰ also had a guardhouse or -- we called it a guardhouse. A structure inside it which was demolished when moving bodies so it was sectioned off to a degree. But not a large area.

Q. And the rocket launcher you describe as being an additional method of killing beyond the hand grenades went, as it were, from one side right through to the other?

A. Yes, it was clear that it had to have been fired from the doorway, which is the same doorway I described as being broken down by the heavy machinery. It would have passed through the -- the victims inside the warehouse, I'm assuming, and then passed through the back wall of the warehouse. We also found parts of a rocket-propelled grenade amongst the bodies.

Q. So with a building of this size and a thousand people in it, how crowded would it have been at the time when this rocket went through it?

A. It's difficult for me to assess, but I think extraordinarily crowded, particularly as they were surrounded by guards and they were held together in an unit. One of the witnesses describes the number of men packed together, and he describes climbing over the bodies to leave the warehouse, to escape the warehouse, treading on a floor of bodies.

Q. Can we, before Mr. Manning leaves the witness box, make good the shortcoming, which is entirely my oversight and provide you with an index and then work out what you should be burdened with by way of produced exhibits, and at that stage Mr. Manning may be able to help us with the photograph.

I hope you've now had indices, and I hope Mr. Manning has got one ³¹⁴⁶¹ in front of him. The original bundle that came to you this morning went to tab 25, and then 26 and 52 were described as exhibits on a CD. Now, when I first had this file composed last year when Mr. Manning was first scheduled to give evidence, my intention had been to save you, your staff, and everyone else from having to deal with material that needn't be formally produced, and so 26 to 52, which is a very substantial volume of material, is the material that Mr. Manning has dealt with for purposes of his report but that we did not propose then to produce to you, unless it was shown by cross-examination to be necessary.

That's correct, isn't it, Mr. Manning?

A. That's correct, yes.

Q. So that I'm certainly not asking that you should have all of 26 to 52, and indeed, absent any argument to the contrary, would suggest that you have none of those and that they can simply be the underlying material.

JUDGE MAY: Very well.

MR. NICE: I understand Mr. Manning described to me that on the floor it would reach three or four feet high.

Q. Can you, nevertheless, Mr. Manning, identify the photograph? And we can perhaps just find this, if not now a little later, that shows the bodies, and if you can point us to it, so much the better.

A. Your Honours, it's in a report which I authored, titled "Srebrenica investigation summary of forensic evidence, execution points and mass grave -- graves from 16 May 2000." The page which relates to Branjevo Military Farm is ERN 00950942. And that's at page 15 of the ³¹⁴⁶² first part of that report. It is a small-scale photograph of a much larger photograph, and in that the bodies are marked as such along with various parts of machinery and a description of the graves. The copy I have is a black and white copy. The copies in the original report are also black and white but are of a better quality.

Q. We can see, therefore, in our tab 23 and unless the Chamber particularly wishes to go beyond the evidence of the witness to a better quality version of the photograph, we can leave the exhibits as they are.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: That leaves, then, for production and -- up and until Exhibit 25 and then Exhibit 53.

Q. Mr. Manning, there was also produced, and I think with the Judges at the moment, two volumes -- and with the accused, two volumes simply of photographs, rather large volumes, one of blindfolds and one of ligatures.

A. Yes. Those represent the blindfolds and ligatures represented in the collage, or at least parts of those. They're the -- the last set of exhumations and they show an A4-sized photo from that collage of blindfolds and ligatures.

MR. NICE: I don't know if the Court has seen those yet or not, and if it has a view on whether they need be produced. I would have thought that in light of the evidence probably not necessary, but it's entirely a matter for the Chamber.

JUDGE MAY: That's sensible. It seems sensible to return it.

MR. NICE: They can always be called for if they later become necessary. ³¹⁴⁶³

JUDGE MAY: Of course.

MR. NICE: That's all I ask of this witness.

JUDGE MAY: That concludes the witness's document. We're very grateful to the witness to give those documents, a great deal of work, Mr. Manning for his part on behalf of the witnesses. That will bring your evidence to a close.

[The witness withdrew]

MR. NICE: Your Honour, the next witness is Reynaud Theunens who produces the military analysis reports for Croatia and Bosnia.

JUDGE MAY: We need to discuss this in due course to know what there is and the length and how much there is invasion which the witness to ask about.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, yes. And can I assist in various ways. First the report has been served and therefore I don't need to go through it - it being an expert report - at all, but my expectation from the number of -- limited number of points I'm going to ask the witness about is that I would probably be an hour in examination-in-chief but I would hope not more. The witness -- are those the proposed exhibits? Don't distribute them yet. No, don't distribute them yet. Thank you. The witness in his report or in the two reports he produces relies on an enormous amount of material as indeed you would expect. I'm told that if we were to have binders of out documents it be over 30 binders, of which 15 would be of new documents, that is, documents new to the Chamber. And my initial proposal is that he being an expert, like any other expert allowed to refer to underlying material, that we should work on the basis ³¹⁴⁶⁴ that none of that material will be produced unless it's thought to be strictly necessary, all of it being capable of being called for and examined on the overhead projector in the course of his evidence.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We will require some of this to know what the position is.

MR. NICE: Yes, of course. But as to exhibiting the material, that's my concern. And so I'm going to have prepared for you a chart of his exhibits. I've got one but I gather it's -- it's this substantial just for the exhibits. And for some reason I haven't got the absolute up-to-date one at the moment, but I think it's coming. And it may be that the better course would be for us to reserve the question of exhibiting documents until after his evidence is over, if that's acceptable to the Chamber, rather than burdening everybody with another 15 binders at this stage.

JUDGE MAY: We will review the matter in due course. We'll hear what the witness gives as his evidence. We will then consider in due course by the accused to ask his questions.

MR. NICE: Certainly. Well, then may the witness come in and we'll start his evidence now?

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

[The witness entered court]

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

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

JUDGE MAY: Yes. If you'd take a seat, please. ³¹⁴⁶⁵

WITNESS: REYNAUD THEUNENS

MR. NICE: Your Honour, before I start the evidence, my other plan had been that we might identify a very limited number of exhibits to be produced, and it may be and I'm afraid I haven't checked on the composition of your bundles this morning, it may be that your bundles are slightly different from mine and do have some potential target exhibits. There will be no production of exhibits for the time normally fixed for the morning -- for the next break, and I can review the position then. We will be much assisted by knowing, perhaps at the end of the examination-in-chief of the witness, how long the accused is going to have in cross-examination, and the amicus, in order that we can plan to fill the time, if possible, with witnesses.

Examined by Mr. Nice:

Q. Your full name, please.

A. My name is Reynaud Theunens.

Q. Mr. Theunens, there is a file before the Chamber which contains expert reports and maybe that can be a general exhibit number straight away.

THE REGISTRAR: 643, Your Honours.

MR. NICE:

Q. And the seconds tab of that, Mr. Theunens, contains your curriculum vitae, which we can deal with shortly. You're Belgian, been in the military, and I think are still technically in the military, yes?

A. Yes, Mr. Nice. I'm still in the military, but there is a regulation that states that I'm outside of the budget. ³¹⁴⁶⁶

Q. And you were present rank is?

A. My rank is commandant. It's a rank that existed in the Belgian system and it's a rank between captain and major; it's an officer's rank.

Q. Educated having joined the military at the military academy between overall 1983 and 1988 and taking a masters of international or, rather, studying for a master of the international politics between 2000 and 2001, that course not yet having been concluded, examines yet to be passed and a thesis yet to be written; correct?

A. That's correct, Mr. Nice.

Q. We look at your work experience. That comes on the second page. 1988 to 1990, a platoon commander; 1990 to 1991, personnel officer; 1991 to 1992, something called a promotion commander. And then coming back to the first page in the reverse order in the way these documents are characteristically prepared, September 1992 to June 1999; a Balkans analyst; June 1999 to May 2000, head of the Europe desk and senior Balkans analyst at the Belgian Ministry of Defence; 2000 to 2001, deputy synthesis at the Belgian Ministry of Defence, Military Intelligence and Security Service; and then from June 2001, working here at the OTP of the, ICTY as an intelligence analyst?

A. That's correct, Mr. Nice.

Q. And your professional skills set out in paragraph 3, you went to staff course -- courses as set out there and did training in, amongst other places, United States and England, and over the page again at paragraph 5, involvement in peacekeeping work in the former Yugoslavia between December 1994 and October 1995, working at a desk job. July 1996 ³¹⁴⁶⁷ till April 1997 at the headquarters of UNTAES in Vukovar and Croatia; correct?

A. That's correct, Mr. Nice. I would like to correct the entry for December 1994 to October 1995. I worked at the UNPROFOR headquarters in Zagreb during that time period.

Q. Thank you. And then December 1998 to May 1999. Can you just explain that, please?

A. I was head of the Belgian national intelligence cell at the SFOR headquarters in Sarajevo. Without going into too much details, an international cell is a kind of intelligence liaison organ that ensures liaison in the intelligence field between the troops - so we had a battle group in Central Bosnia-Herzegovina - the SFOR headquarters, the national service and other relevant organisations.

Q. The military analysis team of the OTP has prepared the two reports, now merged as effectively one, that you're presenting, and you have authored and been involved in the preparation of these two reports.

A. That's correct, Mr. Nice. I wrote the first part, the theoretical part and the second part dealing with Croatia, and my colleague Allen Borrelli prepared the third part dealing with Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the course we worked together for the preparation of that third part.

Q. There is an index to your report which I've temporarily mislaid. There it is. And it may be helpful if Ms. Dicklich can take out the index so that those viewing can see the various parts of your report, which I think are being filed publicly. We will alight on a few matters in detail but not very many, the report having been available for reading as an ³¹⁴⁶⁸ expert document. But so that we can see the structure of the report for those viewing it, I'll just lay the index on the overhead projector, please, the first page - which is page number 2, but the first page - shows that you've dealt, first of all, in part I of your report with the structure, command, and control and discipline of SFRY armed forces, and you've broken that down into section one, the forces themselves; section two, command and control over the SFRY armed forces. And that's something upon which the witness following you, the senior military expert General Vegh may also be commenting.

A. That's correct, Mr. Nice. And the first part, especially in this section we looked -- I looked at the legal and doctrinal framework as it existed in SFRY, taking into account documents like the 1974 constitution, the 1982 law of All People's Defence and then the following military regulations, whereas the next witness, he will talk about command and control in general, as how it should be organised in a military organisation.

Q. Section three dealt with the -- or deals with the armed forces of the Republic of Serbia. And if we turn over the page from the general introduction, and the role of the President and the Ministry of Defence and the Territorial Defence, we see that you then come to a passage - next page, please - section four, where you touch on command and control within SFRY armed forces, and you set out the legal framework, regulations, the elements and principles of command and control along with the functions and the command structure; correct?

A. That's correct, Mr. Nice. ³¹⁴⁶⁹

Q. Then the next part of this first part, in fact, it's really a three-part report, this is a general introduction and then we come to Croatia and then to Bosnia, part five deals with the structure of the armed forces, the operational structure, the military-territorial organisation of the JNA, and if we can go over the page of the index, the organisation of the Territorial Defence. And then operational groups and tactical groups. It may be helpful, because we are nearly at the end of reading the index, we come to something more substantial, but I think you're concerned that we should have an understanding, at all stages, of the difference between operational and tactical groups, and perhaps you'd just enlighten us about that now?

A. Indeed, Mr. Nice. Especially to achieve an understanding of the second part of the report which deals with the situation in Croatia, it's important to understand what operational groups and tactical groups are. Operational groups are basically ad hoc, so temporary structures which are established for specific operations in a specific area in a specific time frame. The difference between an operational group and a tactical group lies in its size. An operational group can have the size of between a brigade and a corps, whereas a tactical group has generally the size of a brigade.

These two concepts are important for -- to understand the second part because -- because of the aim of these operational and tactical groups. The aim of them was to ensure in all circumstances single command and control of the forces that were involved, mainly JNA and TO, but as we will see in the second part, also volunteers, paramilitary groups and/or ³¹⁴⁷⁰ other armed formations.

Q. Going back to the index just to conclude the first part of the report. Section six of this is logistical procedures, and section seven deals with the military law and the laws of armed conflict, and eight with promotions.

And your report then turns, and the page numbering starts again at 1, to the SFRY armed forces and the conflict in Croatia. Many sections of this -- but we're going to pause and look at a couple of passages or, rather, more than a couple.

We can see from the index at the bottom of the page, if the usher would be so good, that you deal with the Rump Presidency of which we've heard, and the evolution of the mission and the objectives of the SFRY armed forces during the conflict in Croatia. And if the Court would be good enough to go to page 5 of this part of the report and we can see at the foot of page 5, there's paragraph 3 of this section and it goes over the page in subparagraph A and then B.

Did you explain, please, how we reach B, which is the change from A, summarise the position?

A. Actually, the mission of the SFRY armed forces -- SFRY armed forces, consisting of JNA and TO, was twofold. First of all, to maintain the integrity or the territorial integrity of the SFRY, and secondly, to maintain the serenity of the SFRY.

Now, when we look at the conflict in Croatia, and I analysed for that the book by Mr. Jovic, the book of General Veljko Kadijevic, My View of the Break-up, as well as various orders, and other official documents ³¹⁴⁷¹ of the JNA we have in evidence, it becomes obvious that this goal has changed over time.

Q. The goal initially is set out in Article 92 of the 1982 ONO law; correct?

A. Exactly, Mr. Nice, and that's then an reflection of what is explained in the 1974 constitution.

Q. Territorial integrity is a matter of significance. At subparagraph B you explain how, from the documents that you've identified, you can identify a new mission. Can you explain that, please?

A. Yes, Mr. Nice. And it may be helpful to look at the maps, or we can do that afterwards.

Q. Yes.

A. As I explained, the mission normally consisted of -- according to the constitution, consisted of the maintaining of the territorial integrity and sovereignty. Now, when we look, for example, at the entries in the diary of Borisav Jovic, it seems that there is a review of these -- of these two constitutional objectives. The book by Mr. Kadijevic goes much further, and he provides us with an analysis of the evolution of that mission between, let's say, spring 1991 and the acceptance of the Vance Plan which is at the end of 1991. This analysis by Mr. Kadijevic which has been laid out or at least summarised in my report corresponds with, on one hand, JNA orders that were issued during September 1991 until the end of the year, as well as public statements, for example, a statement contained in the report copied from the SSNO bulletin, the official information magazine of the Federal ³¹⁴⁷² Secretariat for People's Defence, as well as what we could see then or observe with regard to the situation on the field. Now, Mr. Kadijevic, I think it would then be helpful to have the maps.

Q. Then we go to page 10 in the report, for the Court, and we've got a map that's in page 10 which we can lay on the overhead projector. This one here. Thank you very much.

Mr. Theunens, these maps are maps that you have drawn, that is to say, you've taken a standard map and you've marked some arrows on it?

A. That's correct, Mr. Nice. The arrows are my interpretation, my analysis of what is written in the book, My View of the Break-up by Veljko Kadijevic.

Q. Using the pointer that's to hand, and remembering to point things out on the overhead projector, explain your understanding of the position of Kadijevic at the early stage?

A. Actually, this map represents what General Kadijevic -- Kadijevic calls the first stage of the second phase of the operations in Croatia, and according to him they started with the attacks on the Serbian Krajina and this phase then ended end of summer 1991, and Mr. Kadijevic or General Kadijevic talks about cutting through the territory of Croatia and along a number of axes. The first axis was from -- via Pakrac to Virovitica towards the Hungarian border. A second axis from Bihac, Karlovac, and then towards Zagreb. Another axis went from -- from the Knin area towards the coast, and the last one from the Mostar area towards Split. ³¹⁴⁷³ He explained certain operations that had to be carried out together with cutting through the territory of Croatia. First of all, a significant armoured force would have to advance from the east so towards the west this would be the 1st Military District and then line up with the forces that were already operating in -- more to the west in Croatia in order to actually advance towards the border with Hungary and Slovenia. If -- if --

Q. Thank you. The overall purpose of this deployment and use of troops at that stage being?

A. Like he describes it, it seems or it appears that actually the JNA was intended at maintaining territorial integrity of what was left of the SFRY. I mean by that SFRY without Slovenia.

Q. Shall we go to page 11 --

JUDGE MAY: Let us inquire as to when we're going to finish this case the next 20 minutes?

MR. NICE: I'm sorry Your Honour?

JUDGE MAY: Would you like to stop now?

MR. NICE: I'm entirely in Your Honour's hands.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. If the officer would bear in mind, of course, not to speak to anybody about it until it's over, until the matter has been produced. Meanwhile, we'll adjourn now for 20 minutes.

--- Recess taken at 12.17 p.m.

--- On resuming at 12.43 p.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: ³¹⁴⁷⁴

Q. Page 11 of --

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

MR. NICE:

Q. You really would think by this time I would remember to turn it on. I'm sorry.

Page 11 of the second part of your three-part report. There's a second map.

MR. NICE: And, Your Honour, I've now equipped myself with the index that everybody else has got, and it's -- although these maps are in the body of the report, they're also part of Exhibit 18 on the list of exhibits, and I've provided Mr. Theunens with a copy of the exhibit index to make sure that if I miss any documents as we're going through that he wants to draw to our attention, even though they are actually already provided to you.

Q. So page 11 or part of Exhibit 18. Here is a map that you've marked, I think, and can you explain from what you derived these markings?

A. Your Honours, this map is a graphic representation of what General Kadijevic called the second stage of the second phase of the JNA's operations in Croatia. According to Kadijevic, this stage started end of summer 1991 and lasted until the acceptance of the Vance Plan. Kadijevic mentions in his book that due to certain circumstances, and he identifies, for example, the poor response to mobilisation efforts, the objectives of the JNA had to be reviewed with a result that the operations were limited to liberating all the Serb areas in cooperation with the local Serbs in Krajina. The conclusion for Kadijevic is that as a result, 30 per cent of ³¹⁴⁷⁵ the territory of Croatia becomes or stays under control of the Serbs. The only exception is Western Slavonia, in the centre of the map, where not the completely -- not the complete Serb area was liberated according to Kadijevic.

Q. Over to page 12 of the report and to the third of the maps which Ms. Dicklich correctly reminds me is not Exhibit 18, but Exhibit 643, tab 18. And your arrows over a standard map reflecting what, please?

A. Your Honours, this is a graphic representation of an order of the 1st Military District of the JNA, the 1st Military District that covered in peacetime the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eastern Croatia, and largest part of Northern Serbia. This order states from September 1991 and talks about large-scale operations in the area of the 1st Military District in order to reach the border with Slovenia and Hungary in the area of Varazdin and further north. And this order seems to be in contradiction with what Kadijevic says, but take into account that Kadijevic talks about reviewing or reconsidering the objectives of the JNA, it seems to make sense that after September, October, November, these objectives were indeed altered.

Q. Mr. Theunens, will you have your eye on - I know it's a lot to ask of you - the exhibit list, it's on your right-hand side, and if you want to draw to our attention any one of these particular exhibits in relation to this, you will realise that they are available because they're already provided to the Judges.

Can we move on, then, to page 47 of your Croatia report, which is in the section headed "Command and Control within the SFRY armed forces in ³¹⁴⁷⁶ Croatia." The index may or may not be displayed if the usher finds it convenient to do so. But at page 47 of the report itself, paragraph 3A, you deal with the command relationship between the JNA and other Serbian armed formations. A word about that, please.

A. Well, this paragraph, Your Honours, is actually intended as an introduction, because the various documents that explain how this command relationship was put into practice are discussed later on in the report, but again as we were talking about Kadijevic's book, he talks about the normal legal subordination relationship, in a sense that JNA and TO when they were operating together, as is explained in the first part of the report in most military scenarios, most kinds of operations, the TO would be subordinated to the JNA. The only difference here is that when we're talking about TO in this context, it's the local Serb TO.

Q. Very well. Now, the next passage that you want to draw our attention to is as late as page 68, and if we go on to that page in your report, we find ourselves at the end of the section on command and control over local Serb forces, and it's paragraph -- subparagraph G of a lengthy paragraph of a section, subparagraph 3.

Now, talk to us about this particular document which we can find as tab 7 of Exhibit 643, but tell us about it first and then we can look at the document.

A. Your Honours, this subparagraph G deals with the situation in Eastern Croatia and more specifically the relations of the JNA in the Vukovar area. Operational Group South was one of the two main components of the JNA units involved there. The other Operational Group was ³¹⁴⁷⁷ Operational Group North which was responsible for Baranja and the northern part of Eastern Slavonia, whereas Operational Group South was responsible for the southern part of Eastern Slavonia.

This order is interesting because it actually explains how the relationship between the JNA, the local Serb TO and volunteers is being organised during the operations in Vukovar.

Q. Should we look at the exhibit itself then in those circumstances? If you can lay it on the overhead projector and it can be found at tab 7. And perhaps you'd like to explain its significant to your report.

A. The significance for the report, Your Honour, is that in the first paragraph of this order, the Volunteers Detachment, Leva Supoderica is mentioned. From other documentary evidence that is mentioned in the report or -- I will correct myself. Other documentary evidence in the report indicates that this detachment was made up of volunteers who were related to the Serbian Radical Party, the SRS. This Leva Supoderica detachment was subordinated to units of Operational Group South during the operations, and as you can notice from the date of this document which is in the upper-left corner, this order is dated 21st of November, at 6.00 in the morning. It is issued by the command of Operational Group South, namely Colonel Mile Mrksic, and it deals with the resubordination of this Volunteers Detachment, Leva Supoderica, to another JNA unit. The date is interesting because it's right after the events in Ovcara. When we look further down on the document, and I think it will be on the second page actually --

Q. Before we move on to the second page, of course, we can see a ³¹⁴⁷⁸ reference to the preceding date, the 20th of November, a preceding and connected order apparently?

A. Exactly. Operational Group South was subordinated to the 1st Military District during the operations, although the main unit of Operational Group South, the Guards Brigade, in normal circumstances was subordinated to the SSNO, so the Federal Secretary for People's Defence. Before the Guards Brigade was sent to the Vukovar area or at that time it was resubordinated to 1st Military District but from the documents, it is obvious that the Guards Brigade reports to both or informs both the 1st Military District, as well as the SSNO.

Q. You wanted to take us from Leva Supoderica, volunteer unit. You've made reference to General Mrksic and over the page you want to take us?

A. Yes, to the second payment of the order, Your Honours, because it identifies the addressees of the order. Now, an order is only sent to people who are concerned by it, and it's noteworthy to notice that the commander of the Seseljevci Volunteers Detachment is among the addressees. So this order supports that even before steps were made at the higher level, for example, the issuing 10th of December, 1991, by the SFRY Presidency, of an order or decree on the engagement of volunteers, already before that on the field in many cases volunteers and paramilitaries were subordinated to the JNA and operated in the framework of operational groups, tactical groups, or assault detachments. I haven't identified them, but assault detachments are a similar tactical arrangement. So operated in this framework during the operations in Croatia. ³¹⁴⁷⁹

Q. Very well, now, this paragraph that we have been looking at is part of command and control over local Serb forces and the next section of your report deals with JNA support to local Serb structures in Croatia generally. Before we turn to that, it may be -- it may be helpful if we come back to the -- keeping a finger, as it were, where we are, at page 68, to come back to the executive summary of your report at this stage of it, and to come back to page 7 of the executive summary which can be found at the beginning and to read three paragraphs or two and a half paragraphs of the summary conclusions you were able to make. If the Chamber has page 7 right at the beginning, the executive summary, 9 to 13, half of 9 to 13.

From all the material and about this time in your report you reached these conclusions picking it up from the middle of paragraph 9: "Orders were given to maintain this system during the conflict in Croatia. Documentary evidence indicates that (local) Serb Territorial Defence units and staffs operated under single, unified command and control with the JNA. The JNA established operational and tactical groups to restore and/or maintain unified and single command and control during the operations, involving JNA, local Serb Territorial Defence, Serbian Territorial Defence, and volunteers/paramilitaries." And is what we've just been looking at one example of that conclusion?

A. Yes, Your Honours. That's only one example. The report includes more examples.

JUDGE KWON: This is page of what -- ³¹⁴⁸⁰

MR. NICE: I'm so sorry, Your Honour. It's right at the beginning of the report, immediately following the table of contents. There's an overview and executive summary and it runs to, I think, 14 pages and this is page 7 of it.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

MR. NICE: I'm sorry not to have identified that before and if it isn't divided by a flag or something, I'm sorry. But I've just read from the second half of paragraph 9.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

MR. NICE:

Q. And paragraph 10 --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, within the command structure, according to this paragraph, are volunteers and paramilitaries. Would you like to expand on that? Is that something that you -- that is without controversy?

THE WITNESS: Your Honour, I will try to be brief. When -- when looking at the first part of the report which describes the theoretical framework, there -- there was a stipulation in the 1982 law on All People's Defence that allowed the integration of volunteers in certain circumstances. With volunteers, it was meant that it concerned people who were not under military obligations but still wanted to contribute to defence of the SFRY in case of an outside aggression. And that law or that article of the law was clearly talking about individual volunteers, who on an individual basis would join JNA and/or TO units. When the conflict in Croatia started, we see developments on two ³¹⁴⁸¹ levels. First on the legal level, from summer 1991, so from August 1991 until December 1991, three orders or decrees are being issued. The first decree is a decree by the Serbian -- by Serbia for the integration of volunteers or the augmentation of the TO, so the integration of volunteers in the TO of the Republic of Serbia. That is followed in September by a similar order from the SSNO, so the Federal Secretariat for People's Defence, for the integration or the mobilisation of volunteers into the JNA. The most significant order on the political level is the SFRY presidential decree of 10th of December, 1991. It's order number 73, and it has already been introduced in evidence, which talks about the integration or the incorporation of volunteers into the SFRY armed forces under a state of imminent threat of war.

Now, that's one aspect of the situation. The second aspect is that on the ground we noticed that based on the documentary evidence we have available that there may well have been problems in certain areas in the beginning to maintain or have this single command and control, but that subsequently efforts were made, orders were issued in order to impose the single command and control, and this was exactly done through the operational groups and tactical groups.

In a sense that operational groups and tactical groups existed already in JNA or SFRY armed forces doctrine prior to the conflict, but in order, I think, to legalise or to at least regularise the situation these volunteers or paramilitaries had to be integrated too or had to kicked out. It's also noteworthy that the 1974 constitution states that the armed forces, the SFRY armed forces, consist of the JNA and the TO, and ³¹⁴⁸² that all other armed groups or individuals who want to participate in the defence or the armed struggle will be considered members of the TO. So an effort needed to be made to regularise what I could call the de facto situation on the ground, both on the political levels with these three subsequent orders and decrees, and secondly, also on the field by operational groups and tactical groups. And you can find more orders, specific orders for the various areas of Croatia in the report, Your Honour.

JUDGE ROBINSON: You found documentary evidence in the form of orders and so on in relation to volunteers? The first part of your answer related to volunteers. Have you addressed the question of paramilitaries?

THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour. Now, it's difficult to make a distinction between volunteers and paramilitaries because the different names, the names volunteer or the name paramilitaries are used through -- or different groups are identified with different names at the same time. So sometimes, for example, Seseljevci are considered volunteers, and in other publications they can be considered paramilitaries. Now I haven't seen any JNA order that uses the name paramilitaries. They will be called volunteer detachments.

However, and those are also referred to in the document and maybe we come to those later. JNA security organs investigate the activities of some of these groups, and then they used the term paramilitaries, because paramilitaries, of course, has more of an illegal [Realtime transcript read in error "legal"] connotation. But to summarise for the JNA in the orders, for example, the one we saw from Operational Group South, they are ³¹⁴⁸³ called volunteers. Of course, the other side will always call them paramilitaries. If that answers your question, Your Honour.

JUDGE ROBINSON: So for you the two terms are almost synonymous.

THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour. If you really want to analyse it precisely, you need to take into account the name of the group, and also of course look at the source from which source the report emanates, because the names paramilitaries is not an official name. Again I haven't seen any JNA orders using it. I haven't -- I don't think that the SFRY presidential decree of 10th of December uses it. They talk about volunteers which is --

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... meant for.

THE WITNESS: Well, according to UB -- JNA security organs, actually organs at the SSNO or People's Defence level, they called them paramilitaries, and we have a few reports. Some of them are included in the report.

Now, personally, there is -- based on the analysis I made, there is a difference between for example, groups related to certain political parties in Serbia. For example, there are groups who identify themselves as White Eagles who were related to the Serbian Renewal Movement. There are groups who identify themselves or people's who identify themselves as Seselj's volunteers, they are related to the Serbian Radical Party, SRS. From the evidence we have, it appears -- it -- it is shown that Arkan's Tigers have a certain relationship with the Serbian Ministry of Interior. The conclusion I draw here is based on reports from the JNA security organs. So there is a distinction on that level. But ³¹⁴⁸⁴ interesting to mention too is that the Serbian Law on Defence, in its Article 118, states that only the legal authorities are allowed to plan, organise, establish, train, and so on armed forces. So whether these groups belonged or were affiliated with opposition parties or had another background, the law also applied to them.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Mr. Nice.

JUDGE KWON: And for the record, the transcript reads as if you said had that paramilitaries has a "legal" connotation, which is wrong. It should lead as "illegal".

THE WITNESS: It's an illegal connotation, Your Honours, because the term "paramilitaries" is not used in the legislation. I've seen only the term volunteers and again the legislation I've seen that dates prior to the conflict talks about individual volunteers and not the groups. And if I might add --

THE INTERPRETER: Could the speaker please slow down. Thank you.

JUDGE KWON: For the record, it's line 14 of page 81.

THE WITNESS: If I may add, Your Honours, I'm familiar with the order that dates from the Kosovo crisis in 1999 when volunteers were allowed to be included in the armed forces where it's explicitly included that volunteer groups are not allowed, only individual volunteers and if groups want to participate they have to be divided and spread out over VJ units.

MR. NICE: Mr. Theunens, you've been asked to slow down a little bit. If we look at the exhibit list, it may be that Exhibit 4 will assist a little in relation to the question His Honour has asked, and if so we'll ³¹⁴⁸⁵ have a quick look at that. While that's being produced, if His Honour Judge Robinson would like to go see more exhibits because we've been very conservative in the ones we've selected, if you can be given a copy of the latest version of the exhibit list overnight to mark such exhibits as you think may take this matter a little further, and if we're allowed to have communication with you to the extent of knowing which documents you would like further copied, we'll perhaps prepare a supplementary clip for consideration tomorrow.

Meanwhile, let's look at tab 4 of Exhibit 643 which refers to somebody by the name of Snedden but we know him rather better by another name. And if that's on the overhead projector, quite shortly explain the significance of this document?

A. Your Honour, this document is an information report, the security organs, and actually it's a security administration sends to the SSNO, Federal Secretary for People's Defence, Veljko Kadijevic. Of course it's only an information or an intelligence report but taking into account how intelligence services work, this report which probably has been collected, information has been collected by a lower-level security organ is then processed and reviewed and so on, before it arrives at the top level. And precautions are taken, of course, not to inform the most senior military authority, the SSNO, with unverified information --

Q. Not too much detail, and certainly not too fast. This report of the 28th of August speaks of information on Dragan and it says by mid-June of the current year, security organs gathered the initial information on Captain Dragan engaged in the training of the special unit of the SAO ³¹⁴⁸⁶ Krajina MUP.

Now, go on from there and in a sentence or so say what the significance of this document is in light of His Honour Judge Robinson's question and then we'll move on.

A. The significance of this order -- of this information, Your Honour, is that in addition to paramilitary groups or volunteer groups, you also have other individuals like Daniel Snedden, who according to this report, have been engaged by the Ministry of Interior of Serbia into the training of local Serb police unit also known as Martic's Police or Milicija in the area of Knin. And this information is sent to the SSNO.

Q. So we have a whole constellation of forces falling under the interest, and you would, I think, argue ultimately under the control of the unit command?

A. Well, when looking at the first part of the report, Your Honours, single command is one of the pre-conditions for a commander to not only to be successful but to be able to achieve his command. It means that there is only one person who issues orders, and there can only be one superior at one level because otherwise there is chaos. If there are too many -- if there are several people issuing orders or on the other hand several groups operating in an area and there is no single command, it's impossible to carry out military operations. So the local JNA commanders had all interests in trying to achieve this single command.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Earlier you made a distinction between volunteers as individuals and volunteers as a group. I think you were saying that ³¹⁴⁸⁷ volunteers as individuals would fall within the command structure but not volunteers as groups. So that Mr. Snedden here, Dragan, according to your understanding, would fall within the command structure.

THE WITNESS: Your Honour, maybe I didn't express myself correctly earlier. Volunteers as individuals were legal. The 1974 constitution and the 1982 All People's Defence law talk about volunteers as individuals and they can join the JNA under certain circumstances, or the TO under certain legal circumstances as individuals. So the people we are talking about are groups of volunteers, people who call themselves Seselj volunteers or maybe White Eagles or another name who arrive -- who are sent or dispatched to the conflict area as a group and stay within their own group, and for example, in an operational group you will have -- Operational Group will consist of tactical groups or assault detachments as was the case in Vukovar.

Looking at these assault detachments, for example, there was already an integration already at the company level of regular JNA units -- JNA company, then there would be, for example, Leva Supoderica detachment and there could be like a local TO detachment, and these three units would then be subordinated to a JNA command at the lowest level. Of course, this subordination at the lowest level would have to be ordered by a commander at the highest level. The commander at the lower level will only implement the orders he gets from a higher level. Mr. Snedden is another example because here we see an individual who according to this UB report who is acting on behalf of the Ministry of Interior of Serbia. In the report, you will also find other UB reports ³¹⁴⁸⁸ or OB, so security organ, reports talking about Arkan and his relationship with the Ministry of Interior of Serbia.

And that brings us back to the initial distinction that was made. Volunteers as individuals are purely legal. Then we have volunteers as groups which were -- or steps were made to legalise them if even if on the battlefield they were already -- efforts were done to subordinate them to the JNA, and then we have individuals or groups like Dragan or Arkan who again, according to JNA information, actually were related to the Ministry of Interior of Serbia, even if there could be doubts about the legality they were doing but that's probably outside of my knowledge.

JUDGE ROBINSON: So that according to your thesis then, Seselj and his men, Arkan and his men were within the command structure and subordinate to the lowest level in the JNA.

THE WITNESS: Based -- based -- Your Honour, based on the orders I've seen and the orders that have been used for the -- the report, the answer to that is affirmative. They were indeed subordinated to JNA units in the framework of the structure -- of the structure I discussed earlier in order to maintain single command.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Do you have orders from the JNA to people like Seselj and Arkan?

THE WITNESS: We don't have orders to --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I thought that's what you said.

THE WITNESS: No. What I say, Your Honour, when we take the previous exhibit, that groups which are affiliated to the SRS, for example this Leva Supoderica detachment in Vukovar, that during the operations ³¹⁴⁸⁹ they are subordinated to a JNA command. I'm not aware of any communication between the SSNO, for example, and Seselj about this matter. All I can talk about is the orders I've included in the report, orders issued by, for example, Mile Mrksic, who was the commander of an operational group. We have other orders in the report that deal with the situation in western Slavonia where it is obvious, at least from these documents, that there is a relationship between SRS volunteers in Western Slavonia, and the local Serb TO and units of that local Serb TO, some of these units are commanded by JNA officers.

Now, it could well be that this kind of subordination in that particular area was carried out on the lower level, but then still there is a reporting procedure, not only the JNA officer or the operational commander will report, but there is also a reporting chain of military police, there is a reporting chain of security organs and all that reporting comes together at a certain moment, so at a higher level they should still be -- there is reason to believe that there was awareness of that situation.

And that brings me back actually to this order of the 10th of December, 1991 of the SFRY Presidency. It appears that this is actually a reaction on the situation on the field that, indeed, in some areas the resubordination seems to be endorsed at the highest level, and I'm talking now about the situation in Vukovar, because Mile Mrksic, colonel, who was a commander of the Guards Brigade but during the operations in Vukovar he commanded an operational group which is -- consists of several brigades and reinforced with additional battalions, there he explicitly mentions, ³¹⁴⁹⁰ as we've seen, the resubordination of such a unit and he addresses his order also to the command of Seselj's units. For Western Slavonia, for example, there we only have lower level documents from lower level units.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Thank you.

Q. If we can return to the executive summary at the beginning of the report, page 7 and paragraph 10, and I'll conclude the summary that I want to extract, and then return to some matters of detail in Croatia before moving on to Bosnia. But Mr. Theunens, at paragraph 10 of the executive summary, you put the position like this:

"The local Serb forces in Croatia, consisting of MUP and SAO (later RSK) Territorial Defence, and subsequently the SVK, required support that was provided by SFRY, Serbia, and the JNA (VJ). The organised nature of this support and its extent (make-up, size, duration) indicate that the assistance provided by the JNA was authorised and endorsed by the supreme (political) command levels of the (S)FRY. "There are examples of Slobodan Milosevic, President of Serbia, being involved in the decision-making process to provide assistance to the local Serb forces in Croatia. The local Serb leadership in Croatia considered Milosevic as a person to have influence, and contacted him during the conflict in order to help implement their requests for assistance."

And then at paragraphs 12 and 13, this is as far as I need go. The SSNO to whom you've recently referred and the JNA or VJ General Staff, and its subordinate commands and organs were responsible for the planning, ³¹⁴⁹¹ establishment, and structuring or restructuring of the Territorial Defence of the SAO Krajina, and its transformation into the RSK Territorial Defence and subsequently the SVK. Probably that's all self-explanatory. Anything you want to add? Because at this stage it doesn't give much idea of the range of documents you've been relying on and material for these conclusions.

A. Your Honours, the paragraphs read out by Mr. Nice are a summary of section 3 of the second part of the report.

Q. To which we are coming. In which case we'll look at it in some detail as we go through one or two references but I'll just conclude the summary so we don't jump around through the documents. "Retired and active duty JNA officers served in the local Serb defence structures. These officers remained JNA officers (payment of salaries, promotions, et cetera) and were compensated for the time spent in the local Serb forces. The local Serb forces structures depended heavily on the JNA for the fulfilment of their logistical needs. "The JNA (VJ) continued to provide the aforementioned assistance to the RSK TO (and subsequently SVK) after the withdrawal of the JNA from Croatia between March and May 1992 under the Vance Plan, and the recognition of Croatia by the United Nations. Coordination mechanisms existed between the SVK and the VJ including meetings between their respective general staffs -- General staffs. In 1993, 1994 and 1995, the accused, President of Serbia, Lieutenant General Momcilo Perisic, the chief of the General Staff of the VJ, and the FRY Supreme Defence Council were informed of the military situation in the RSK, through SVK daily ³¹⁴⁹² combat reports that were sent to them."

As to the daily period of those reports, do you have any doubts about that and how did you derive that?

A. We derived that from documents we have. The correct name for that should be regular contact reports, but they seem to have been made up on -- been prepared on a daily basis. And these are typical military situation reports in a sense that they follow a layout which has been already agreed, I assume in the JNA, starting at first with a discussion of the enemy situation, and in this context it's a situation of the Croatian armed forces and what's happening along the confrontation line or separation line between the HV, the Croatian armed forces and the SVK. Then there are the various other aspects of military affairs are discussed, personnel, logistics --

Q. Very well. Not too much detail, Mr. Theunens. We have time constraints.

A. Okay.

Q. Section three of your report that we've already summarised starts at page 70 but the first passage you want to draw to our attention starts at page 82, I think. Relates to Colonel Celeketic. And we'll also be looking at page 83 as we will, so if those two pages could go to the overhead projector. This is within another long paragraph with many subparagraphs under the title, "Personnel Support," and is an example of an officer being allotted compensation for time served in the SVK. Your further comments, please.

A. I will try to be brief, Your Honours. As mentioned, the RSK ³¹⁴⁹³ didn't have its own officers and it's actually the same as happened to the other factions in the conflict, so they had to rely on officers who had served in the JNA, with the difference that for the SVK, so the armed forces of the Republic of Krajina, which was a successive structure up to the RSK TO, these officers were then also VJ officers who could have gone back and forth so they could spend some time in the RSK - in SVK, excuse me - and they could return to the VJ and then return back to the SVK. In this particular case, this is Colonel Milan Celeketic who sends a request to the VJ General Staff on the 14th of July, 1993, so Personnel Department, to request an official confirmation of the time he spent in the armed forces. And of course he gives his own listing - as you can see in the middle of the page - of his career. Noteworthy is the time he went on the battlefield in Western Slavonia, followed by the entry after the 1st of February. So he's commander of the 18th Okucani Corps, the Western Slavonia corps of the SVK.

Now he receives an answer from the VJ Personnel Department which you can see at the bottom of the page, and actually the interesting entry is on the next page where -- on the top of the next page, where the time spent in Western Slavonia is actually considered as time spent in the garrison in Belgrade. A kind of confirmation of this approach can be seen in the next subparagraph, paragraph D, when Celeketic, he sends another request for recognition of the time served in the SVK and this time on 27 of June, 1994, and a decision, or the information actually of the Personnel Department of the VJ General Staff is that Milan Celeketic, serving at military post 4001 in Belgrade is entitled with a number of ³¹⁴⁹⁴ years of duty. Now, military post 4001 is the military post number for the 40th Personnel Centre.

Q. Pausing there, because the 40th and indeed, the 30th Personnel Centre may feature in evidence over the next few days, the creation of those centres was when?

A. The order signed by General Perisic dates from November 1993 and is included as a reference in the report.

Q. So therefore, the first letter predates the creation of this centre with whatever function or purpose it had and is under the earlier regime. The second letter comes after the creation and within the second regime.

A. That's correct, Your Honours, but based on these two documents for Milan Celeketic, the actual implementation of the policy remains the same. It's only that a kind of administrative regularisation has taken place in order to from, at least administrative point of view, to come to stricter procedures. It is also interesting that after the creation of the 30th and 40th Personnel Centre, the time spent abroad, in this case Celeketic in the SVK, is considered as time spent at the 40th Personnel Centre so military post 4001 in Belgrade.

Q. The order creating the 30th and 40th is tab 38. Whether we need to go to it now, perhaps not. We'll see later if we need to produce it. Mr. Theunens, let's move on now to page 86 within the same section of your report. And Major General Novakovic. The point you want to make about this, please.

A. The point, Your Honours, is that again the situation was rather ³¹⁴⁹⁵ complicated in a sense there were indeed people who were born in Krajina or in -- in Croatia or Bosnia-Herzegovina whose relatives were still living there and they wanted to leave the JNA and serve then in the local Serb armed forces. There were other people who, for other motives, went back and forth. So they went some time in the SVK or the VRS and they went back to the VJ then.

A third category seems to be people who when -- did not want to serve in the SVK or the VRS, but nevertheless were ordered to carry out service in SVK or the VRS and, for example, in subparagraph 1, this is a letter sent -- excuse me, subparagraph 2, the second one, actually, this is a letter or a list Novakovic sent -- so Novakovic was chief of General Staff of the SVK, Serbian armed force of Krajina, sent to Momcilo Perisic, the Chief of the General Staff of the VJ in which he expresses his discontent with the fact that active-duty military personnel, so VJ personnel that was to serve in the SVK, has left or has not shown up and he wants these people to serve in the SVK.

The fact that it -- there is mention made of the 8 officers who responded to the summons in the previous document, it seems that this is an ongoing process that already before to this particular document Novakovic expressed his discontent with Momcilo Perisic.

Q. Page 112 is the last reference within this section which is section 3 of this part of the report, and at page 112, second half of the page, within paragraph 9, the situation after the withdrawal of the JNA from Croatia, May 1992, subparagraph B, your comment?

A. Very briefly, Your Honours. When the JNA was to withdraw from ³¹⁴⁹⁶ Croatia in the framework of the Vance plan, measures were taken at the highest level to prepare the local Serb armed forces, first RSK TO and then they were replaced by the SVK, to cope with that situation. And this is an example, this is a public announcement of the actions or activities undertaken to prepare for that withdrawal.

Q. We turn now to page 113 and subparagraph C. Your comment, please?

A. Without going into details in relation to the Vance Plan, still the Vance Plan foresaw the withdrawal of the armed forces both the JNA as well as the Croatian armed forces, the HV, from the disputed areas and for the JNA to withdraw from Croatia.

As I mentioned, measures had to be taken to prepare the RSK for that new situation and one of these measures is highlighted in this order from the 6th Operational Group talking about the transformation of JNA units into TO units. It looks like a kind of cover-up to keep not only people, but especially the equipment in the area notwithstanding that the Vance Plan stipulated the demilitarisation of the area, so the demilitarisation and demobilisation of the local Serb Territorial Defence.

Q. At page 114, subparagraph E, something we touched on looking at the executive summary. Subparagraph E at the top of the page. Thank you very much.

A. Your Honour, we -- in the report and there I explain more in detail in the following pages, we refer to this daily or regular combat reports that were sent from the SVK to the following people, not only the local Serb leadership, President Martic at that time, but also the office of the President of the Republic of Serbia, personally for ³¹⁴⁹⁷ Mr. Slobodan Milosevic, and the Chief of General Staff of the VJ, Lieutenant General Momcilo Perisic. The documents we have included cover the time period from November 1993 until the course of 1995. Just to close this topic, daily or regular combat reports are normally sent on a need-to-know basis. They're not just information reports. They were sent to people or individuals at a higher level to be used as information to prepare decision making in a better way.

Q. Page 116. I'm is not sure whether you want to add to what we see on page 116 at subparagraph F where you say that the SVK and the VJ developed and implemented procedures and mechanisms to coordinate their activities. Your further comment?

A. Actually, the following page, 117, is more relevant in this context.

Q. Very well.

A. This page just explains that the SVK will submit regular reports to the VJ.

Q. Very well.

A. To the --

Q. And on page 117?

A. Subparagraph 2 where Brigadier General Mile Novakovic, Chief of the General Staff of the SVK, he talks about a coordination of tasks, and as is explained in the report, from the November 1993 time period throughout 1994, we see exchange of orders of correspondence between the SVK and the VJ with regard to coordination mechanisms. So there seem to be -- there are regular meetings between senior officers of the staff of ³¹⁴⁹⁸ the SVK and the staff of the VJ to discuss various military topics, not only the military situation but also topics related to the operation of the SVK, logistical support. There are entries, for example, for the development of a joint air defence system. There is an entry, at a certain meeting which is discussed in the report, for the establishment of a secure communication system.

The documents are referred to are all -- originate all from the SVK, so the Serb armed forces in Croatia. We don't have the same documents for the VRS or for the armed force of the Bosnian Serbs, but in the -- in the agendas there is mention, often mention made of the VRS and one would assume that the same relationship existed between the VJ and the VRS as existed between the VJ and the SVK.

Q. Section 4 of the Croatia report starts at 121 and is entitled the implementation of the military law and the laws of armed conflict during the conflict in Croatia, but there are only two references, one at page 134, and one on the following page. I think it's all the same reference. And you draw to our attention at the foot of page 134, subparagraph C, how in July 1995, the Human Rights Watch at Helsinki published a 43-page report entitled "War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia," being a critical overview and analysis of alleged war crimes by the FRY Croatia, and the BiH focusing principally on was crimes in Croatia and we needn't -- it's all here available for quotation.

Their research indicated, subparagraph E on page 135, that only two trials of alleged war criminals had taken place and that's set out, and that no other trials of paramilitaries based in Serbia or members of ³¹⁴⁹⁹ the JNA et cetera had been dealt with. How does that compare or contrast with the researches you were able to make from contemporaneous documents?

A. Your Honour, we would have preferred to use original documents from the FRY military prosecutor or FRY military courts, but we don't seem to have these documents. A request for assistance was sent to the government of Serbia and Montenegro in this context, but so far we haven't received an answer. So the only -- the main source we have is a Human Rights Watch report, and basically we have documentary evidence from the security organ at low level, investigations were carried out of alleged violations of the laws of war. We know that these reports were being forwarded to the appropriate and the competent instances, but there is no information available about what happened -- what happened subsequent -- what subsequently happened with these reports. We are not aware -- we are not aware --

Q. In short, did you find any evidence of prosecutions?

A. Well, the main examples we found -- of the examples we found and are in the report deal actually with violations allegedly committed by low level perpetrators, volunteers for example, very isolated cases or members of the opposite armed forces, or the enemy armed forces. And, for example, there was in -- this is not explained in the report but based on previous work experience, I recall that in November 1993, when the political situation in Serbia changed to a certain extent, investigations were being carried out against certain SRS volunteers. However with the exception of the Human Rights Watch report there is no evidence of actual prosecution of these SRS volunteers. ³¹⁵⁰⁰

Q. The last section 5 of the Croatia report deals with promotions, commendations, appointments, and retirements. It's self-explanatory, but we focus on one entry on page 139 under subparagraph D, where you deal with officers indicted at the ICTY continuing to enjoy promotion, including major Veselin Sljivancanin, security officer of the 1st Guards Motorised Brigade whose name is associated with events at Vukovar; correct?

A. That's correct, Your Honours.

Q. And we see in the body of that paragraph that Sljivancanin was promoted colonel at the beginning of 1996, transferred to the military academy of advanced military schools where he served as a lecturer in tactics until 2001, having in 1997 been admitted to the VJ school for national defence, the most advanced institution for military education in the FRY; correct?

A. That's correct, Your Honours. I may want to add that in 1998, there was a Belgrade military court case related to the events in Ovcara. I didn't include the findings of that court case in the report, but they didn't affect the career of Sljivancanin.

Q. Can we now turn - and it won't take me very long although I may not quite finish today - to Bosnia report, and rather than go to the report, let's start off economic use of time with the summary, the executive summary at the beginning of the report. The summary for Bosnia starts at paragraph 15 on page 9, but it will be sufficient for me to go through with you paragraphs 24 and two or three other paragraphs starting on page 11. ³¹⁵⁰¹ And you've set out at paragraph 24 of the summary how besides support and assistance role -- before I come to this, Mr. Theunens, will you just be good enough, please, to look at the short index of exhibits. We've dealt with Exhibit 2, your own curriculum. We have not dealt with Exhibit 3, 5, or 6. We are pressed for time. Is there any one of those three that you particularly want to rely on in light of the questions I've asked you today?

A. I don't think there is a need, Your Honours.

Q. Very well.

A. And they're also used in the report.

Q. Very well. Then I return to the Bosnia summary on page 11, paragraph 24.

"Besides the support and assistance role, examples exist of the engagement of VJ combat units in Bosnia-Herzegovina. By early 1993, the Muslim-dominated government-controlled forces of BiH (ABiH) offensives in the Drina valley, along the border with Serbia, had proven so successful that in some areas Muslim troops held the western side of the border between BiH and Serbia. With the assistance of VJ troops, fire support and resupply, the VRS launched a series of successful counter-offensives in the Drina valley and around Srebrenica by mid-March 1993. At the same time, the United Nations Security Council declared Srebrenica a safe area. In May 1993, the Security Council expanded the safe area concept to five other areas (Gorazde, Zepa, Sarajevo, Tuzla, and Bihac). "Direct VJ involvement in combat operations in BiH after May 1992 was not limited to the Drina valley - Serbian border region. Operations ³¹⁵⁰² Pancir 1, 2, and 3 against ABiH forces around Sarajevo in October 1993 to September 1994 were conducted primarily by units of the VRS Sarajevo-Romanija Corps and other VRS formations supported by elements from the VJ. Operations in Western Bosnia-Herzegovina involved the active participation of VJ elements on several occasions. These operations were aimed at supporting and re-establishing the so-called Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia led by Fikret Abdic. In November 1994, a special military command, Pauk, was formed to conduct operations against the ABiH 5th Corps in the Bihac pocket. The Pauk Commander, Colonel General Mile Novakovic, a former JNA officer, coordinated his unit's operations with those of the SVK, MUP special units of the Republic of Serbia, the APWB" - that's the province of Western Bosnia forces - "armed forces and VRS units."

Paragraph 26 and then only a two -- couple of short additional sections. Paragraph 26:

"The VRS Main Staff produced a plan in November 1993 for combat operations under the code name Drina. The second phase of this plan consisted of a detailed contingency plan involving the VRS, VJ and SVK forces in the event of Croatian aggression against the RSK or foreign aggression, including NATO airstrikes against Serbian states. In this second phase, it was anticipated that the assistance of the VJ would be significantly enhanced. This was to include the involvement of VJ units in combat actions. Overall, the Drina plan clearly indicated the anticipated involvement of the VJ supporting VRS operations in late 1993, early 1994." ³¹⁵⁰³ And then briefly from paragraph 27 you deal with VJ personnel sent to serve in the VRS continuing to be paid and to be promoted by the VJ. You deal with the administration of those personnel by the 30th Personnel Centre, similar to the 40th and instituted at the same stage. And at paragraph 30 of the summary, you set out how in the late summer of 1992, the VRS Main Staff and the VJ General Staff agreed upon a plan of supply code-named Izvor, aimed at facilitating the delivery of large quantities of ammunition and fuel from the FRY to the VRS, leading to a standardised procedure later on for taking over of fuel and other supplies from the FRY.

Is that summary yours and is it correct?

A. The sum -- as I mentioned earlier, Your Honours, the report on Bosnia-Herzegovina has been prepared by my colleague, Allen Borrelli. We looked at the report together. We prepared the summary together, and we also selected the exhibits based on the extensive documentary evidence we reviewed relating to these topics together.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I have eight references in the report to take you to and no more.

JUDGE MAY: How long is that to take?

MR. NICE: I would have thought ten, 15 minutes. It might be a little longer.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. We will adjourn now.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, may Mr. Theunens be provided with an up-to-date version of all the exhibits in order that he can mark for our attention before he goes home which is what, of course, witnesses ³¹⁵⁰⁴ part-heard do, they don't stay in the office, and communicate to us any documents that he thinks may amplify his answers to Judge Robinson.

JUDGE MAY: Very well, this must be dealt with, of course. There's a matter of time.

MR. NICE: Of course.

JUDGE MAY: If we could deal with the matter as quickly as we can.

MR. NICE: And Your Honour, these lists of exhibits are now available for you, so that we can review the position at the end of the evidence to see which, if any, should be produced.

JUDGE MAY: Very well.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I don't know -- I don't know how much time it's forecast the Chamber may -- or the Chamber itself forecast it may allow the accused. General Vegh is timetabled for videolink evidence first thing on Wednesday morning, and it would obviously be convenient if he can be taken then. As I say, I don't forecast --

JUDGE MAY: Where is he coming from again, remind us.

MR. NICE: The evidence is from Budapest.

MR. NICE: So what you're asking for that witness to be put back; is that right?

MR. NICE: No I'm asking for arrangements -- first of all I don't know how long Mr. Milosevic will want -- the accused will want with this witness, whether that will take us beyond tomorrow or --

JUDGE MAY: Let's ask him. How long do you want? How long do the Prosecution, how much more they want, if there is very frequently to come to a conclusion, but let me ask. ³¹⁵⁰⁵

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, first of all, let me say that indirectly through my associate over the weekend, I happened to hear that the witnesses who had been planned for this week were struck from the list of witnesses from this week, and I received information that Mr. Manning was going to be taken today, and that the present witness Mr. Theunens would be taken tomorrow. So I didn't expect him to appear at all today, and that General Vegh would be the day after tomorrow, whereas all the others had been struck from the list for today. Now, I didn't make any objections because I never ask for any postponements to my cross-examination over the past two years and I'm not asking for one now, but I can't tell you off the bat how much time I'll need because I'll have to look at all the material because I wasn't expecting to hear this witness here today, but that's, of course, your affair; it's up to you.

But at all events, I shall use the afternoon to look through the material and will be able to give you an answer tomorrow.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll mention the time then, but as far as the other witness is concerned, the doctor who is himself ready for the particular matters, he's going to begin tomorrow morning; is that right?

MR. NICE: No, Your Honour. The only other --

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

MR. NICE: The only other witness definitely on for this week have General Vegh and his evidence is arranged to come via videolink from Budapest on Wednesday morning and provided we can be sure to take him or with your leave if we can be sure to take him at 9.00 that will be very ³¹⁵⁰⁶ helpful.

JUDGE MAY: Let us consider the position in due course about that witness. We will adjourn now. Nine o'clock tomorrow.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.50 p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 27th day of

January, 2004, at 9.00 a.m.