⁴⁰⁷⁴¹

Wednesday, 15 June 2005

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

[The witness entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: The material sought by the accused last week in respect of the video was provided on Friday, directly handed to his associates, as I understand it. One statement has been provided in redacted form, and although not strictly necessary at this stage or anything like, for completeness and tidiness, an application for protective measures in respect of that witness on a confidential basis with appropriate ex parte attachments is already before the Court, and obviously any interrogation aimed at uncovering the identity of the witness whose statement has been redacted would be entirely inappropriate and improper.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Nice. Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] As Mr. Nice has just said, they provided a number of documents, alleged documents. They were provided to us as statements. Let me repeat this: As Mr. Nice has said, they provided a number of documents, the alleged documents, which were supposed to be statements of some persons and supporting material that goes along with the videotapes.

First, gentlemen, I would like to ask you the following: I have a statement of a witness here who was on the list of witnesses of Mr. Nice ⁴⁰⁷⁴² and was not called to testify. I suppose that he's a protected witness as well, even though the name can be seen clearly, whereas the other name has been redacted and cannot be seen. Based on reading this material, I concluded that the credibility of these witnesses is zero. So do you think that if Mr. Nice is going to use these witnesses he needs to bring them here in order for them to be cross-examined or not?

MR. NICE: Your Honours --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And do you --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Let me hear Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: May I alert the Court to what is likely to be the accused's intentions today, which will be for another audience to try and introduce judgements about this material. Can I invite the Chamber to confine him to public observations that are appropriate to what he's doing.

He has been provided with material because he asked for it. That material may or may not feature in due course, depending on what applications are made and what applications may or may not be granted. At the moment, the document, that is the tape, to the limited extent it was played in this Court is before the Court. Some questions were asked about identification of individuals of this witness who had indicated a willingness to assist. He hasn't yet technically answered those questions and we know that events have rather overtaken this Court in Belgrade, but that's another matter. But I would press the Chamber to recognise that this accused is likely to be using opportunities here to try and advance a case about this video for reasons other than the proper re-examination of ⁴⁰⁷⁴³ this witness.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, proceed with your re-examination.

MR. NICE: And one detail: If the accused is referring to document 32 as a statement of a named individual, I understand there are no restraints on him naming that person, but there would have to be some purpose and reason for his doing so in re-examination, a different issue, but that person does not seek any form of protection as I am advised.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, that would be a matter for the Chamber. Mr. Milosevic, let us proceed.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] If Mr. Nice said that this witness whose name is indicated here is not a protected witness, then I misunderstood the case. I thought that this was a protected witness. This witness was on the list of Mr. Nice's witnesses. However, he was not called to testify. Now Mr. Nice wants to bring him here to testify in relation to the testimony of General Obradovic.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you asked for some material. It has been provided. Move ahead with your re-examination. I'm sick and tired of this. I'm not having any more of it.

MR. NICE: If I can assist with the history. The accused is right that the witness was listed, and I think was at the time listed as a protected witness. He is one of the witnesses whose evidence was not reached at the time when the Prosecution's case was brought to early end in circumstances related to the late Judge May's health.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Re-examine if you intend to. If not, we'll conclude the witness's testimony. ⁴⁰⁷⁴⁴

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Certainly. I do intend to continue with examination.

WITNESS: OBRAD STEVANOVIC [Resumed]

[Witness answered through interpreter] Re-examined by Mr. Milosevic: [Continued]

Q. So this witness who Mr. Nice says is no longer under protective measures is called Goran Stoparic. In the very beginning let me say, General, I received only the English text. Very sorry, General, but I will have to quote from the English text. In item 4, it says: "[In English] In May 1991, after the events in Borovo Selo in which I did not participate, an office was opened at local community centre in Sid. This office was called TO of SBWS (Slavonia, Baranja, Western Srem.)" [Interpretation] Therefore, General, what TO does this refer to, based on what I have just read?

A. Based on the first part of that quotation, I understood that this was the TO of the Republic of Serbian Krajina.

Q. At that time --

A. It was the region.

Q. Yes, that's right, the region. And in the following passage -- in the previous one they mentioned the Serbian Radical Party, and in the following passage they mention dukes or vojvodas of the Serbian Radical Party and go on to say that each of them had 500 volunteers under their command.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, where is this leading?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I intend to ask the general, as it ⁴⁰⁷⁴⁵ is widely known that the Serbian Radical Party had no units of its own but, rather, sent volunteers to the JNA and to the army of Republika Srpska and Republic of Serbian Krajina. In addition to that, Vojislav Seselj is on the list of my witnesses and he will testify about that.

MR. NICE: Observations like something "is widely known," either accidentally or intentionally are designed to assist the witness. The question now having no value, might the accused be required to move on.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, move on.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Do you know, General, that -- are you aware, General, that the Serbian Radical Party had any units of its own?

A. I'm not aware of that. I know that there was some people who represented themselves as members of that party and who volunteered and went to volunteer in the units of Republika Srpska and Republic of Serbian Krajina.

Q. All right. Let's be as brief as possible. All I'm -- the only reason I'm bringing this up is that I want to show exactly what type of a witness this is. I will read count 99 now, or paragraph 99 now --

MR. NICE: Your Honours, this is not an appropriate re-examination of the evidence that -- of the material that's before you and of the evidence in the form of answers of this witness to that material. This is designed for another purpose, and if the accused wants the opportunity of examining these witnesses subject to applications, he may have it, but now is not the time for him to be engaging in this sort of question and ⁴⁰⁷⁴⁶ answer.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, I agree fully. Move on, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. I will just briefly cover paragraph 99 of the statement of this witness.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. As you can see, there are many paragraphs, and paragraph 99 reads as follows: "Boca has told me that there are plans to occupy or to take Sarajevo. However, that was not the goal of our operation in Sarajevo. The goal was to attack the city in order to create an impression that it is our intension to take Sarajevo so that the enemy would --"

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you're making statements. What is the question and what is the purpose of the question? This is re-examination.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The purpose of the question is --

JUDGE ROBINSON: And how does it arise?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This question arises from the fact that the notorious Boca is mentioned here. It is also stated that this man was allegedly a member of the Skorpion unit, Skorpions unit, and here he explains the strategy, either as he sees it or as they were told about what they were doing near Sarajevo. And then he goes on to say: "The elite unit of the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina were withdrawn --"

JUDGE BONOMY: This witness cannot deal with that. He's made it clear he doesn't know Boca in his earlier answers, and you're simply reading things out here under the guise of asking questions which are wholly inappropriate at this stage. ⁴⁰⁷⁴⁷

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Since he doesn't know him and since this witness was surprised to hear that this footage was allowed in during his cross-examination, which is what surprised me as well, why, then, wouldn't I be allowed to put questions to him about the matters brought up by Mr. Nice? That's what I would like to know. However, if you disallow, then I will discontinue this line of questioning and I will turn to something else.

This witness here is apparently protected because I can see that the name has been redacted. We can't see the first name or the last name. And on page 12 of the statement --

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters note that we do not have the statement.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] So on page 12 it is stated, pertaining to the incident, the following: "[In English] I learned about this incident because I was given a copy of the videotape showed during the killings --" no, no, "during the killing."

JUDGE ROBINSON: What is the question for the witness?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Let me please complete quoting two sentences. I can understand that you're impatient, Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE BONOMY: I want to make it clear that I am not prepared -- I personally am not prepared to listen to this. This is a wholly inappropriate way of proceeding and I dissent from any indication that my colleagues might give that this is appropriate.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Let me hear the question, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, this man says: "I ⁴⁰⁷⁴⁸ learned about this incident because I was given a copy --"

JUDGE ROBINSON: What is the question for the witness?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. General, can somebody testify about a tape on the basis of having seen its copy?

JUDGE ROBINSON: A nonsensical question. Move on to another area, otherwise I'll terminate the re-examination immediately.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, Mr. Nice said that this material proves the authenticity of the videotape, whereas the witness says that he confirms the authenticity because he himself made a copy. My associate, Professor Rakic, has also made a copy. How can making a copy in itself --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, if you do not have appropriate questions to put to the witness, I'm going to stop the re-examination. It has gone on long enough in any event.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. In that case, I will refrain from asking any questions about the material provided by Mr. Nice as some kind of a supporting material that supports something that he claims in relation to this tape. However, there is one piece of paper --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Let me make it quite clear: You can ask questions in relation to matters that arise, but they must be appropriate questions. You have not been putting appropriate questions to the witness.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't know whether it is inappropriate to ask this of a witness who is a police general, namely I'm ⁴⁰⁷⁴⁹ asking him whether somebody can confirm the authenticity of a tape on the basis of having made a copy.

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... utterly nonsensical, and you know it.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. I received a document, and unfortunately I cannot identify the number. However, it's 03653059, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a letter. The cantonal court to the cantonal judge personally, Mr. Bazdarevic. This is also something that I received within this material. It is a letter by Amor Masovic, who is the president of a commission. I will ask that this be shown, because this relates to the DNA analysis. I have only one copy that I received through my associates from Mr. Nice. I will ask that this be placed on the ELMO, including the English translation as well as the text in Serbian. I assume that the English translation was made by you. I will ask the witness to read this out.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Before you read this, Mr. Stevanovic, could you please answer a question for me. When did this occur in Srebrenica roughly, very roughly; year, month?

A. Summer of 1995.

Q. Summer of 1995. This is a letter of this president and vice-president of the commission sent to the cantonal court. See what it says.

A. "The 28th of April, 1993, at Godinjske Bare, municipality of Trnovo, in the smaller BH entity an investigation was carried out ^{40750 BLANK PAGE 40751} collecting the bodily remains of five N.N. victims. "The DNA analysis of the skeletal remains established that the bodily remains of at least one victim belonged to Fejzic (Sakib) Safet, born in 1978 in the village of Mosici, municipality of Srebrenica. He has been recorded as a person who went missing on the 11th of July, 1995, in Srebrenica."

Q. All right. That will do. He was recorded as being missing on the 11th of July. And could you read out from the beginning when were his bodily remains exhumed after the word --

JUDGE KWON: Just a second, General. Do we have an English translation? Why don't you put it on the ELMO and let the witness read the B/C/S version.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The witness read the version in Serbian.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. But yet again, he was recorded as missing, this man allegedly from Trnovo.

A. The 11th of July, 1995.

Q. When was he exhumed?

A. On the 28th of April, 1993. Obviously it's not logical.

Q. Fine. Thank you. No further questions with regard to that. You can put that document away. So he was exhumed two years before he was reported to be missing. That's what it says in this document in the original and in the English language. Is that what it says, General?

A. Yes, that's precisely what it says. ⁴⁰⁷⁵²

Q. All right. Now, could you please tell me whether you know and generally what was known about some of the perpetrators of executions in Srebrenica. Do you know whether any one of them were arrested in Serbia in some period of time?

A. The only thing I know is that in the Republic of Serbia, Drazen Erdemovic was arrested, suspected of having participated in the crimes in Srebrenica in 1995.

Q. Very well. I have a criminal report here that our authorities filed against Drazen Erdemovic. So could it please be placed on the ELMO, and could you please read what it says.

A. This is a criminal report filed by the Ministry of the Interior, the centre of the state security sector in Novi Sad on the 6th of March, 1996. "On the basis of article 151, paragraph 6, of the law on criminal procedure, the following criminal report is filed against Erdemovic, father's name Viktor, Drazen, born on the 25th of November, 1971, in the village of Donja Dragunja."

Q. All right. You can skip that. Oh, never mind. Read it.

A. "Municipality of Tuzla, the former Bosnia-Herzegovina, ethnicity Croat, married, father of one child, professional locksmith, unemployed, residence in Bijeljina, the street Radojko Lakic number 144, who has been detained since the 3rd of March, 1996, since 2200 hours."

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ...

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Proceed, General.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] "Because of the well-founded ⁴⁰⁷⁵³ suspicion that on the 20th of July, 1995, in the village of Pilica on the road between Zvornik and Bijeljina as a member of the 10th Sabotage Detachment of the army of Republika Srpska, as part of the armed conflict in the territory of the former Bosnia-Herzegovina, together with seven members of the army Republika Srpska, he murdered civilian population in the period between 1030 to 1600 hours, then 1.200 citizens of Muslim ethnicity by using firearms. They were previously brought in on buses to the execution site, and the reported person personally killed about 100 unidentified persons, shooting from an automatic rifle, M-70, and in this way he committed a crime, a war crime against civilian population as contained in Article 142 of the criminal law of Yugoslavia."

Q. Can we see who these other people are who committed this crime together with him?

A. "On the 20th of July, 1995, the reported person in the morning hours, as a member of the 10th Sabotage Detachment of the army of Republika Srpska on orders of his commander, Milorad Pelemis, together with seven members of the army of Republika Srpska, Gojkovic Brano, Stevanovic Stanko, Grolija Zoran [phoen], Goljanin Vlastimir, Voskic Marko, Kos Franc and Cvetkovic Aleksandar, travelled to Zvornik in a konbi van and reported to a lieutenant colonel of the military police of the army of Republika Srpska who they did not know."

Q. And so on and so forth.

A. And so on and so forth.

Q. Do you know -- or, rather, you did know that Erdemovic was arrested on the basis of a criminal report of our authorities. And you ⁴⁰⁷⁵⁴ read out the date; that was the 26th of March, 1996.

A. Yes.

Q. I think we can see from these documents that practically he was arrested only a few days after setting foot on the soil of our republic.

A. As far as I know, very shortly after arriving in the territory of Republic of Serbia he was arrested, as can be seen from this criminal report.

Q. All right. How was he handed over? How was he tried before the Tribunal here?

A. I just know that he was handed over from Serbia as a foreign citizen. As far as I know, he was extradited because he himself asked for it.

Q. He was handed over to the Tribunal as a foreign citizen and at his own request. That is your knowledge?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you know that here during his trial he admitted everything that is contained in the criminal report of our authorities?

A. I'm not aware of any details but I know that he confessed and that he was convicted.

Q. Do you know about the crimes you mentioned or, rather, that you read out here from this report? What is the punishment envisaged in the law of Serbia?

A. Death sentence.

Q. And what was his sentence here?

A. Four or five years in prison. I'm not sure. ⁴⁰⁷⁵⁵

Q. Do you know that he was set free after four years?

A. Yes, I know that he was set free.

Q. As for these documents that we've seen over all these days, all these documents that have to do with the Skorpion unit, could we see any link between the authorities of Serbia or the police of Serbia with that unit?

A. I said several times that at that time that unit had nothing to do with the Republic of Serbia.

MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... stop the last line of questioning but it's entirely irrelevant and this is speculative, irrelevant, and the answers aren't going to help you at all.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic. Ask another question.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. General, in this criminal report is there any mention of the 10th Sabotage Detachment?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you know whether our police or our security organs later arrested any of the members of this 10th Sabotage Detachment on our territory?

A. Well, I know - that's the only thing I know - that during 1999, in the Republic of Serbia, a few persons were arrested who belonged to the so-called group Pauk, Spider. Some of those members, perhaps even all of them, I'm not sure, belonged at some point in time to this 10th Sabotage Detachment.

Q. All right. At some point in time. General, do you know whether ⁴⁰⁷⁵⁶ after Srebrenica the members of this 10th Sabotage Detachment were sent abroad for some kind of intervention?

A. Yes, I know about that. Some of them went to Zaire as mercenaries, and there was a lot of footage shown about that on television.

Q. All right. During the NATO aggression in 1999, do you know whether our authorities in Serbia informed the public about having arrested them and that they were linked to the killings in Srebrenica?

A. I know that immediately after their arrest the public in Serbia was informed very quickly about the arrest of that group and the reasons for their arrest.

Q. Well, what I have here is a photocopy of the Politika daily newspaper dated the 12th of February. Now, is it the 12th of February or not? I can't really see properly. But the year is 2000, that's for sure. It is certainly the year 2000.

The federal minister of information, Goran Matic, had a press conference, and we can see that in several newspapers. Yes, it's the 14th of February. It's pretty obvious in one of these newspapers. I'm just going to read out one sentence to you. I'm going to ask you to look at some of this.

The federal minister of information, in relation to the arrest of that group of the 10th Sabotage Detachment that is mentioned in the criminal report against Erdemovic who was tried here says: "Resolving the case of the crime in Srebrenica is our debt to the truth." That's what Matic says. And then he explains about this group, which included Serbs, ⁴⁰⁷⁵⁷ Croats, Muslims, Slovenes, mercenaries who were murderers, manipulated by a foreign intelligence service.

MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... unless of course the accused is trying to advance at this stage, and given that he's not going to give evidence, some account of his acknowledgement of Srebrenica and what he did. If he wants to do that --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Let us not anticipate.

MR. NICE: -- another time.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Let's hear the question, Mr. Nice -- I mean Mr. Milosevic, let's hear the question.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could you please place this on the overhead projector. I have a few press clippings of this press conference. The 14th of February, 2000, is the date. Goran Matic, our federal minister for information.

I don't have two copies, unfortunately, but you can quote the basic --

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... Mr. Milosevic? You've already quoted the passage. What is the question?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. General, Goran Matic is federal minister. On behalf of the authorities, he has a press conference.

A. Yes, I know.

Q. Does he say there that it is our debt to the truth to find out what actually happened in Srebrenica? ⁴⁰⁷⁵⁸

A. Yes, what you quoted means that precisely.

Q. At that press conference, does he disclose the facts, namely that members of the 10th detachment -- 10th Sabotage Detachment are under arrest, those who are mentioned in the Erdemovic criminal report?

A. Yes, that is what he said.

Q. So twice, once as regards Erdemovic and the other time as regards the other members of that detachment.

A. Yes.

Q. Was there any knowledge about anyone else at that time that he -- he or she participated in Srebrenica?

A. No. There was no knowledge then, and had there been any knowledge, there would have been other arrests and we would have acted the same way.

Q. All right. General, with regard to Erdemovic and the members of the Pauk, Spider group, were they all arrested and was the public informed that these were persons who took part in the massacre in Srebrenica?

A. Absolutely, like in all similar situations.

Q. And tell me now, what happened to the people arrested, the Pauk Spider group that had taken part in the massacre in Srebrenica? What happened to them, the ones that our police arrested?

A. They were arrested, they were taken into custody, criminal reports were filed, et cetera, et cetera. But I know that they, during 2001, most probably, were released from detention and up until the present time I don't know what stage the proceedings against them are.

Q. So after the 5th of October, 2000, when the new authorities took ⁴⁰⁷⁵⁹ control, they released the detainees, the people who had been arrested; is that right?

A. Yes, that's right.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, do you know who actually released them?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They were released pursuant to a decision by the competent authority. Some court. Whether it was the district court or someone -- or another court, I don't know.

JUDGE BONOMY: Not the government, it was a court that released them; is that right?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The competent authority brought the decision. I think it was a court.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, are you going to allow me to show a brief excerpt, some footage from a film or, rather, a Dutch television programme where the head of the police of Srebrenica speaks, Hakija Mehonjic, and he appears in that footage --

JUDGE ROBINSON: What is its relevance and how does it arise?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, it comes within the frameworks of this topic, because he explains that the fall of Srebrenica was politically rigged, and it was montage and staging, and he explains his experience. And that it was politically staged is also borne out by the testimony of General Philippe Morillon in front of the French parliament. And it is also borne out by a number of other facts and pieces of information linked to that, and I'm linking it up to the release of these persons from the 10th Sabotage Detachment whom we had arrested initially. And I also link it up, Mr. Robinson, to the fact that everything is very ^{40760 BLANK PAGE 40761} well known. All this is very well known to Mr. Nice, and that Mr. Nice is in -- in trying now to represent the event in a different light, in a different way, quite consciously and intentionally is perverting the course of justice, and that should be quite well known to you because you have all of the documents at your disposal here in this Tribunal.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic. We'll consider it.

JUDGE BONOMY: May I ask -- first of all ask a question. Mr. Milosevic, I'm not following this, so perhaps you can assist me. Are you saying that there was not a massacre at Srebrenica?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No, I'm not saying that at all. As you can see, our government itself is saying, "We arrested Erdemovic," and in the criminal report it says 1.000 -- about 1.200 people were killed. That's what it says in the criminal report that was filed by our authorities back in 1996 against him whom you arrested.

JUDGE BONOMY: In that case, what's the relevance of something being politically staged?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, the relevancy is that behind this 10th Sabotage Detachment you had foreign services. And Philippe Morillon speaks about that. So that what is relevant is to determine who is responsible for Srebrenica, Mr. Bonomy. The relevance is to establish the truth. Please. And I have here the testimony of General Morillon himself before the French parliament.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. We're considering your request.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: We are not with you on this one, Mr. Milosevic. ⁴⁰⁷⁶² Move on to another area.

JUDGE KWON: The question would be whether this witness would be able to deal with this matter. You can bring the witness later.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. General, did you follow, in view of the job that you did, information coming in about the testimony of General Morillon with respect to Srebrenica?

A. I think I know some facts about that testimony, and if I remember correctly, he said that it was --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. --

MR. NICE: I hate to keep rising because it looks as though I'm concerned. My only concern is the extraordinary waste of time that we are suffering and we are suffering it in the other interests of this accused who is addressing a different audience entirely. If he had wanted to advance a detailed case on the good conduct of him and his government and his judiciary in dealing with Srebrenica, no doubt he would have done so. He studiously didn't. The document that was put to this witness for comment and for assistance in identification of Skorpions was put for that limited purpose and has been dealt with by the witness on that limited basis, and it's simply inappropriate to be consuming time in this rambling exploration of bits and pieces that the accused wants this witness, who it would be my submission will pretty well say what's indicated to him, try to give the Serbian government a good bill of health in respect to Srebrenica. That may be a very dangerous policy for this accused to start because I'll have ⁴⁰⁷⁶³ to deal with it in one way with one witness or another. And what he said, of course, earlier on about the purpose of introducing this evidence and the way of introducing this evidence is entirely without foundation and quite wrong but I rarely bother to challenge his characterisations of the Prosecution any longer.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I find your remarks very pertinent, Mr. Nice. Mr. Milosevic, I'm going to bring this re-examination to an end. It's not serving any purpose. We are wasting time. General, thank you for coming to the Tribunal to give evidence. I am bringing the re-examination to an end. You have wasted enough time. You have wasted enough time. I'm bringing it to an end. General, thank you for coming to the Tribunal to give evidence --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE ROBINSON: -- and you may now leave.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please, Mr. Robinson. Let's just understand each other over one point. Mr. Nice --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I am not hearing you on it. I am disgusted with your performance, absolutely disgusted.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] But I have a number of --

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... of this Court. You have abused it shamelessly.

[The witness withdrew]

MR. NICE: Your Honour, before any question of the next witness arriving is -- before the next witness comes in, can we deal with the issue of exhibits, at least in principle although I suspect not in ⁴⁰⁷⁶⁴ practice.

As offered last week, we've been engaged in an exercise of drafting a tabulated statement of our position so far as the accused's exhibits are concerned and also so far as ours are concerned. It has taken a very great deal of time because it seeks to cover in a way that will be helpful to you, or indeed to your staff, which exhibits have been mentioned at all and then it either says no objection to their production or raises issues with their production.

I think we're up to the 2 or 300s so far but we haven't got quite to the end of his list. There have been filings made by the assigned counsel and indeed by the accused's associates, but neither of those filings has been detailed, and therefore they've been able to come rather more swiftly than ours has.

JUDGE KWON: Could you correct me; filing by the associates?

MR. NICE: I beg your pardon. I had a courtesy document, a courtesy filing of a document. Ms. Dicklich tells me it hasn't been filed yet. I assume it will be otherwise it wouldn't have been served on us as a courtesy.

Ms. Graham's --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I understand it's being translated.

MR. NICE: Yes. Ms. Graham's been working on this topic since we were last here in Court together, and I'm optimistic that we should be in a position to have a filing ready, if not today, then I would hope tomorrow, and I would ask that in those circumstances, and indeed reflecting the fact also that the associate's document is not yet ⁴⁰⁷⁶⁵ translated, that we can put off dealing with these exhibits until those filings are all available to you.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Any comments from the assigned counsel?

MR. KAY: Yes. We put in a detailed document, as we see it, and a helpful document, as we see it, and we did to so you could get -- could have it by the time you came to the moment of the end of this particular witness's evidence so that it was to hand then. It's really a matter for the Trial Chamber. We're certainly able to assist you orally on matters that you may require assistance upon, but having now finished that witness, it is useful to get him out of the way in relation to his exhibits before we embark upon a new witness and what that holds for us.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, you have until the end of today, and we hope the translation will be ready by that time.

MR. NICE: We're also preparing a similar document for the documents we've proffered as potential exhibits, and I know that there are responses in respect of those by both other parties concerned. Thank you.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Your next witness, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. NICE: It's Jasovic. Jasovic is being recalled again.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

MR. NICE: Before he comes in may I just clear the ground a bit so far as documentation is concerned. The Chamber should have had two files of materials called binders 1 and 2. I don't know if it's had an opportunity to look at those.

They were prepared on the basis that they might have been useful ⁴⁰⁷⁶⁶ for another purpose, but they also, I think, will save time by being available for use with this witness, and if we can simply refer to potential exhibits as I -- or documents as I lay them before the witness for his consideration by the tab numbers of this collection of documents, I'd be very grateful.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Please bring the witness in.

MR. NICE: Before the witness comes in, just a couple matters, if I could. The accused has had the advantage of this material in advance. Of course, that's an unusual advantage for him and not required of us in any sense. Any interventions that he might make based on his pre-reading of the material should be, I would respectfully suggest, carefully considered before they are allowed to affect any answers that the witness might give.

Within the materials you have this chart. Can I identify it for you and explain its formulation because it's designed to do something that frankly could or indeed should have been done by those assisting the accused, because you were left with Jasovic with a very large amount of unscheduled material, as you will remember. There were some, whatever it was, 80 or 90 documents in two tabs.

Now, the Chamber will remember that at one stage the accused revealed that he had analysed the statements in order to find out which of the victims at Racak were identified within the materials of the witness Jasovic as KLA activists. The Court will remember that eventually there was an agreement between the Prosecution and the accused as to the number and indeed the names of people who were identified, but that was of course ⁴⁰⁷⁶⁷ only the beginning of the story, or should only be the beginning of the story because it would be impossible for a Chamber to deal with the material on that general and global basis. It seemed to me that you would most likely be assisted by some schedule of the information that has been provided on a witness or -- not witness, on a person-by-person basis and chronologically. And so what you'll see on this chart -- and I'll show the chart, probably, to the witness himself, but it will, I think, help you to see it in advance.

What's been prepared here is a chart that details as to the columns all those named Racak victims who have been apparently identified as KLA activists at all in the statements.

Going down the left-hand side and staying with the first page at the moment, you'll see the names insofar as known of those said to have provided information to Jasovic. And all of the statements that I hold up that he produced or seeks to produce have been listed there, even when the information provided nothing about any Racak victim. So that to make sense of what I've explained so far, if you look at the very first entry, there is an information -- or this is probably an information from Bajram Hyseni on the 9th of July. It can be found in Jasovic's documents at tab 2.1, and as we can see, there are simply no entries in respect of him. He didn't identify or his information didn't seek to identify any of the alleged Racak victims.

There's then, if you see how the document develops, if you come down to the fourth entry, there's the first of several informations from someone called Sali Emini. This one is to be found at 2.5 in the ⁴⁰⁷⁶⁸ documentation, and this information of the 11th of August of 1998 purports to identify Hajrizi Buja and Hajrizi Myfail as KLA activists. I shan't deal with the right-hand Comments column for the time being but I want you just to be able to understand the format of the document.

If you look at page 1, you will see that there are one, two, three more further references amidst many statements that contain no references to people dying at Racak.

Page 2, as it were, a nil return but simply going through all the informations.

We then came on page 3 to November of 1998, and you can see rather more entries, the crosses in different colours which are colour coded, then you see a black line which is the date of Racak itself, and then you see further entries. And over to page 4, further entries again. Well, now, it's not possible, if this is to be a manageable table, to do more than point towards the detailed material available to you. First of all, so far as the material produced by the Jasovic documents themselves, if you go to the last page, page 5, you'll see that along the top it has the names of the victims of Racak who have been identified, and then if you turn the document on its side you'll see in absolute summary form. Let's take the first one, Bajrami Ragip, that what's been said against him is that he ordered -- he ordered Racak citizens to provide food to the KLA, and that can be found in tab 1.35. He's said to be a member of the KLA with his brother Adem, 1.5. He's said to have been seen in uniform with insignia and weapon. That's 1.51. Or a member, 1.54. ⁴⁰⁷⁶⁹ This is not, of course, intended to substitute for the full statements, but it's intended to provide those who may be working with this material with a guide, if they find it useful, to which they can refer, because otherwise, with this number of statements it would be quite impossible, it seemed to me, to expect anybody to remember the detail. Looking at Bajrami Ragip, you'll also see that there is a reference "appears on the KLA list of fallen heroes." This is a document to which the accused referred some days ago and about which I made an observation. I'll just explain that to you now for this entry appears in about three, I think, entries.

There are published documents - I hold them up, although we've seen an extract from them, so they are open source, available material - that contain list of fallen heroes of the KLA and that contain indeed some biographies of individual people who died as members of the KLA. Now, that material was available to the accused, it didn't, therefore, have to be disclosed to him. But in our further inquiries into the Jasovic materials, it seemed that it might be helpful to identify and indeed to deal with the fact that some three of these people appear in the list of "fallen heroes," and thus you'll see references to that. For example, Bajrami Ragip, and if you look down to Lutfi Bilali, you'll see the same entry there.

Your Honours, the only other thing that I need to do to explain this document to you, if you'd be good enough, then, to come back to page 1, seeing that the schedule provides you with a clue or a series of trigger notes for what is said about each of the individual people dead in ^{40770 BLANK PAGE 40771} Racak but named as members of the KLA, you'll see that on the right-hand side there are summary comments which will be the subject of part of my cross-examination in relation to the providers of information. I'll deal with this with the witness when asking him questions, but if you cast your eyes down the column, you'll see various entries which have been drawn from various sources in the course of the investigation that has been conducted into the Jasovic documents.

I hope that document is helpful.

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Nice, if you could tell me again the meaning of the dates in the left column.

MR. NICE: Yes. That's the date of either -- or the alleged date of either the statement or the information. As the Chamber will recall, Jasovic's evidence is that people turned up at the police station or were taken to the police station and made statements. Alternatively, that there were discrete sources of information and intelligence available to him who provided information or intelligence on the dates given. So those dates are indicative of that.

JUDGE BONOMY: If a person is not named on the final page but appears in the first schedule to the indictment, that means that that person hasn't been mentioned in any of the 90 statements.

MR. NICE: Correct. Correct. The formulation of the files that you've got, again for your convenience, is as follows: The first tab contains witness statements of the investigators who have been dealing with this matter. First statement from Jonathan Sutch; and then tab 2, statement from Annette Murtagh; and tab 3 from Barney Kelly. They ⁴⁰⁷⁷² operated in broadly the same way, but there are some differences and therefore there are one or two annexures in tab 1. We'll look at those within tab 1, but otherwise tabs 2 and 3 are simply statements by the investigators, their materials being lodged in the appropriate place thereafter.

If you'd be good enough to go with me to tab 5 and to look at the first part of it. What we've done here is for every item of the Jasovic materials - this is 1.2 - where it is said that somebody's a member of the KLA or where for any other reason the provider of the information has been spoken to, we've provided materials in a common form, and I'll explain it to you, and it may be helpful to start work from the back. If you go to the last document in tab 1.2 of tab 5, so tab 1.2 will simply take you straight back to the Jasovic documents for cross-reference purposes, and if you go to the last document you'll see that is in B/C/S and English the Jasovic tab 1.2. Before that there's a green divider, and then you'll see the statement statements but they've now got paragraph numbers written down beside them and some other writing on them, and you'll see the significance of that later. If you come back, then, to the next document before that, you'll see in this case a statement from the person said to have provided the information that is Jasovic's tab 1.2. The statement deals with various matters in general terms, but if you'd be good enough to turn to page 4 of 6 of this statement, you'll see the following: The person has been asked to comment on the statement attributed to him in, again, a manageable and regular fashion so that, having numbered the paragraphs or parts of the ⁴⁰⁷⁷³ Jasovic statements, the witness statement says either, "It is true and I said it" or, for example, under paragraph 22 or paragraph 23 of the statement, "It's not true and I didn't say it," and then he makes comments about it. Paragraph 24: "Not completely true and I didn't say it." So again, in order to have good order in handling this large amount of material, the witness statements taken by the OTP investigators deal with the general circumstances of their encounter with Jasovic and then deal in detail and in a formulaic way with the statement that has been attributed to them.

The first document is a document that you may or may not find helpful, but it is a summary that had been prepared for our purposes of the witness's observations, and it's simply there to help you if you find it helpful, but it is a summary. It's not, of course, in any sense an original document.

And that pattern is repeated right the way through volume 1 and into volume 2. No, not in volume 2, I'm sorry. It stops at volume 1. Volume 2 we have a range of other statements, starting with a man called Kamberi, going on to Buja, Bilalli, and then to some people who are given pseudonyms and whose statements have been redacted so that, for example, at tab 9 you'll see a redacted statement as you will at tabs 10 and 11.

There's then a statement at tab 12 with quite a lot of annexures to it, quite a long statement at 13, and then as from 14 you're coming upon statements that were prepared for other proceedings, although one of them has been amplified by the investigators in this case, and there are ⁴⁰⁷⁷⁴ other documents later on.

But those are the materials, and I hope their being prepared in that way will help the Chamber and save time.

My last observation about materials is this: The witness was asked by me through the Court to bring with him on his return notes upon which the various statements or informations were prepared. Your Honour His Honour Judge Robinson clarified with great precision what was sought to be brought by the witness, and he plainly understood the request, explaining that he'd do his best to find them. As he said yesterday, he had his own internal notes which he noted down every interview, with the particulars of the individual, what the person said, and we were awaiting with interest provision of that material.

The request and the provision was to be dealt with through Registry, and we sought assistance with further particulars from the witness at some stage between his giving evidence and now but that was not a request that it was possible to satisfy, for various reasons, and eventually we were provided with a pile of documents - I think last week, I'm not sure now -- yes, the end of last week, I think - untranslated, and we were notified that it was for us to translate the material. We don't have the resources to do that in full. We've been able to make some limited analysis of the material, and insofar as it may touch on the exercise with which you're particularly concerned, Racak victims, I will do my best to have this material available for you in an integrated way, but it is not the material we sought. We've got no original notes from this witness of his described interviews with the people whose statements ⁴⁰⁷⁷⁵ he produces or with people who provided information to him as he says. Thank you very much.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Let the witness be brought in.

[The witness entered court]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Jasovic, you remain subject to the declaration that you made.

WITNESS: DRAGAN JASOVIC [Resumed]

[Witness answered through interpreter] Cross-examined by Mr. Nice:

Q. Before I turn to the topic of your evidence, I want your help with two matters relating to the case generally. Who was in charge of the police in Kosovo in the first six months of 1999?

A. Mr. Prosecutor, I'm not aware of that because they rotated every six months. They changed. So I couldn't say.

Q. Well, help us. You were a policeman, an investigator. What job did Mr. Obrad Stevanovic have? Do you know?

A. To tell you the truth, I really don't know what was his job. I know that he was the assistant minister of the Serbian MUP. As for the rest, I as a criminal investigator and a policeman really wouldn't be able to tell you.

Q. The other matter of detail relates to the video that, as you will know, was shown in small part in this Court and then extensively in Serbia. Are you aware of the published concerns before its display, its broadcast in Serbia, arising from efforts made to get at people who it was thought might have provided that video? Are you aware of that? ⁴⁰⁷⁷⁶

A. I'm not aware.

Q. Aren't you? But this much you can, I suspect, help me with: By 1999, the Skorpions were based in Sid, weren't they?

A. I don't know. I'm not aware of that, because I as a crime inspector didn't know that. I don't know that.

Q. Where do you live now?

A. I reside now temporarily in Kragujevac as a displaced person originally from Kosovo and Metohija.

Q. And when you're at home you watch television, do you?

A. To tell you the truth, after our departure, my family and I were in the street. I had many problems, private problems, two grown-up children, and it did not even occur to me to watch television until the situation improved somewhat.

Q. I see. So you know nothing of the playing of the Skorpion tape in Serbia, do you?

A. That is true, Mr. Prosecutor.

Q. Very well.

A. What I know is within the scope of my work, that had to do with my duties and tasks.

Q. And you're really telling me that you have not been acquainted even recently with the fact that the Skorpions were based in Sid?

A. To tell you the truth, I really don't know that. My family is in Kragujevac; however, I work in Leskovac and I travel continuously.

Q. Very well. To remind everyone, you're here in the following circumstances, as you will recall: Three statements or alleged statements ⁴⁰⁷⁷⁷ said to have been taken by you were produced as exhibits by Investigative Judge Danica Marinkovic. Do you remember that?

A. If you're referring to the statements, I remember the statement of Afrim Mustafa and another two persons whose names and last names I cannot remember now.

Q. Following the production of those documents through the investigative judge, as you will know, inquiries were made in Serbia, material was then brought back to The Hague and was then made available, as it had to be, to Defence counsel in the Limaj case where you were appearing as a Prosecution witness; correct?

A. That's correct.

Q. And you were, therefore, cross-examined by Defence counsel in the Limaj case on the basis of the material that had been produced by the Prosecution in this case; correct?

A. Yes, in relation to Afrim Mustafa.

Q. You were then seen by the accused and either because you had the documents here or because they were produced from somewhere else, I'm not sure which, you then were called as a witness in this case for this accused, and you produced a very large number of documents that you did on the last occasion. Yes?

A. Previously I did not bring any document with me, no documents linked to my testimony before the Court. However, on this occasion I brought 101 statements and 116 [as interpreted] notes and informations. On the first occasion, I did not bring these documents with me because I testified against the accused, and I didn't know that I would be ⁴⁰⁷⁷⁸ called to testify again.

Q. Let me see if I understand you. Are you saying you've brought further statements and notes today beyond those that you've provided before?

A. Yes. Not today but last Monday I sent it to the representative of the Registry. 101 statements, additional 101 statements and 16 notes and informations. And I can tell you that I have over 700 statements related to the movement and numbers of the KLA members as well as potential perpetrators of terrorist attacks. So I have over 700 statements. However, I did not prepare them all because it was difficult to make photocopies as our copy machine had broken down.

Q. Did you not understand the request from the Court last time to the effect that you should bring with you your own notes in respect of the informations that you had offered and the statements that you'd offered?

A. Mr. Prosecutor, I did understand that. However, I spent two, three days in a huge archives looking for my notebooks. However, I was unable to find them. These were my private notebooks.

Q. If they're private notebooks, what are they doing in an official archive?

A. Well, I had my private telephone numbers there, and in those notebooks I wrote in names and last names of the persons with whom interviews were conducted. This pertained to registered informers and friendly contacts as well as persons who came voluntarily to report certain things.

Q. You assured us on the last occasion that where an alleged source ⁴⁰⁷⁷⁹ of information was anonymous your notebook would be able to provide the name. Where did you think the notebook was on the last occasion?

A. I know that I put these notebooks together with other documents into the truck in June of 1999. That was done in Urosevac. And the notebooks were supposed to be together with the documents in Leskovac. I have no reason to conceal or hide these notebooks.

Q. Let's see then what your procedure would be in general. Somebody comes to the police station under arrest or voluntarily and you have a discussion with the person. What notes did you make in hand?

A. Briefly, regardless of whether the person was taken into custody or not or the person was a registered informant or friendly contact, I would begin by taking down personal particulars of the person, and then in this case I would put questions regarding the activities of the KLA, the creation of KLA staffs. I would put questions regarding persons that the interviewee saw in uniforms, in KLA uniforms. I would ask about the weapons, whether the interviewee was able to establish whether the other person was indeed the KLA member.

Q. Very well. This will all be in handwriting in a pocketbook of yours or a notepad of some kind. Yes?

A. Yes, that's correct. And I was authorised to do that. That was my method of work.

Q. Tell us, please, what the process was whereby these notes become converted into a typed record or statement. Tell us.

A. After conducting an interview, if we are taking a statement regardless of whether the person was taken into custody or not, we would ^{40780 BLANK PAGE 40781} take a statement from the person with the proper heading stating that on such-and-such day such-and-such person came in or was taken into custody, and then --

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... perhaps I wasn't clear. I actually want to know the mechanics of taking the statement. Did you, as people sometimes do, serve as your own typist, or did you have a dictating machine, or did you hand your handwritten notes to a clerk? What did you do?

A. I did not hand my handwritten notes to somebody else. Rather, in the presence of the interviewee, all the statements were recorded by Mr. Momcilo Sparavalo on a typewriter. I dictated the statement to him out loud, in the presence of the interviewee who listened to what was being dictated. If the interviewee did not understand the Serbian language, then that would be interpreted to him in his language. I did not hand over my handwritten notes to anybody else.

A. Mr. Sparavalo and I. Mr. Sparavalo typed it on the typewriter and I dictated it to him.

Q. Two points: Did you ever make use of a clerk or somebody performing the role of a clerk to type statements out of the rooms where people were being spoken to? Did you?

A. I did this based on the law on criminal procedure. All statements taken in my office were taken by Mr. Momcilo Sparavalo and myself. I dictated and he typed it.

Q. So you never -- this is your evidence, is it: You never used anybody else to do the typing? ⁴⁰⁷⁸²

A. No.

Q. Was there any clerk or assistant or secretary who served and worked for you and Sparavalo?

A. Except for the state security employees who would get involved sometimes. Not always, but sometimes they were there. In view of the conspirative nature of our work, there was no secretary or anybody else there.

Q. Do you speak Albanian?

A. Yes.

Q. Does Sparavalo?

A. Yes. He was born in Urosevac.

Q. So when interpretation was required, who provided it?

A. As for interpretation, since Albanians mostly knew the Serbian language, we would use interpreters only sometimes and only for certain details, for a few sentences. There is a difference in Albanian language between the standard Albanian and the Albanian spoken in rural areas. So rarely, on some occasions our Albanian colleagues would come, Avdi Musa and Haliti.

Q. Are you familiar with, as presumably you must be, the criminal procedure act that applied at the time you were doing this work?

A. I've stated earlier that all statements which were taken were taken in accordance with the law on criminal procedure in the prescribed form.

Q. I take it, then, that you are familiar with the act.

A. Yes. ⁴⁰⁷⁸³

Q. Can you confirm for our Court that none of the material that you produced to this Court would ever be admitted into a court in Serbia or in Kosovo at the time, would it?

A. Can you please repeat your question? I didn't quite understand it.

Q. None of the statements or intelligence reports that you've provided or sought to provide to this Court would have been admitted as evidence in your courts in Serbia or Kosovo at the time, would they?

A. I wouldn't agree with what you said, because these are truthful data coming from the source, and I believe that they would be admitted before any court, be it a court in Serbia or this Honourable Chamber or a court in any Western European state.

As I've said earlier, it is possible that I took over 1.000 statements from Albanians.

Q. Well, you tell me, then, what are the requirements under your law for producing a statement of a witness of this kind where it's a statement? What are the requirements under your law?

A. I wouldn't go into that because I'm not sure I can explain that. This is something that is up to the Prosecutor in court.

Q. Were you aware of any provision effective at the time or since whereby people being interviewed had the right to have lawyers with them when they were spoken to?

A. I am familiar with that. If the person has the status of a suspect, then, yes, such a person has a right to engage a lawyer. However, in this case, these persons were not suspects. They did not have ⁴⁰⁷⁸⁴ such status. These were the persons who could provide the information that we needed regarding terrorist attacks.

JUDGE ROBINSON: We'll take a break for 20 minutes. We're adjourned.

--- Recess taken at 10.34 a.m.

--- On resuming at 10.58 a.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: I realised that there were two or, in fact, three administrative matters, nothing to do with this witness, very short, that I ought to have dealt with, and with your leave will deal with now. The first relates to an inquiry that the Court made about -- in relation to the previous witness's evidence about the dismissal from work of a man called Djorovic. The materials we have and will distribute for consideration, and I say no more about it than that, are press releases by the Humanitarian Law Centre. They've actually got a different date on them. One's dated the 26th of April, and the B/C/S version is dated the 27th, but they're both the same content. And that will provide the material that the Chamber wanted and the best material presently available to me on that topic.

The second query that you raised related to the Cvjetan case and its appeal. May I have private session for one minute to explain the position there.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Private session.

[Private session]

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[Open session]

MR. NICE: The -- and I'm going to mention this just very briefly: The exhibit filing position, because we have to deal with both, would be, I think, impossible by the end of the day because the documents we're producing to assist the Court, and not to argue our position, simply to assist with a record of the history of the documents, is entirely different in character from the very short form documents provided by the other two parties. We would be very grateful for an opportunity of an extension until tomorrow.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, you've had a week. You've had a week in which to prepare this.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I am reluctant to reveal, because it always looks like some kind of special pleading, how much work is involved and the extent to which my colleagues and indeed I work at hours that are ⁴⁰⁷⁸⁷ not standard working hours. To reach the present position, one of my colleagues has already devoted a great deal of weekend and night work. What is involved here to identify what exhibits has been referred to and on what basis is a significant labour. And if I may respectfully say so, the document we will produce will be of considerable value to you if you are minded to deal with the exhibits as we invite you to say you should on an exhibit-by-exhibit basis rather than simply saying where an accused brings in 400 exhibits in an almost unmanageable way, many of them not translated, the easy option is to let them all in.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I hope it will not be so voluminous as to be intimidating.

MR. NICE: Not at all. It's a neat schedule prepared with precision.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: In the circumstances, we'll grant the extension.

MR. NICE: I'm very much obliged. And if the witness can now come back.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Let the witness be brought in.

[The witness entered court]

MR. NICE:

Q. Mr. Jasovic, we were considering your practices and procedures. Witnesses or potential witnesses or accused people could only be compelled to attend the police station by what means?

A. Specifically these are persons who made statements and who had been brought in by policemen or persons who came voluntarily to report ⁴⁰⁷⁸⁸ certain cases.

Q. Let's deal with compulsion. What's required procedurally to get a person to a police station compulsorily?

A. I don't know whether persons were brought into the police station with compulsion, that is to say the Secretariat of the Interior.

Q. Are you acquainted with the system of a summons?

A. System of summons, a court summons, yes.

Q. A summons being required to identify to the person who is required attend the police station identifying what he's wanted there for, setting out the reason for his being called to the police station; is that right?

A. Those are probably persons who happened to be near a theatre of war or at some other suspicious place. As for these summonses, not even court summonses, of course, if a person is supposed to provide information needed with regard to a particular event, of course as a policeman, as a crime inspector, of course I would send a summons.

Q. Can you point to any one of these hundreds of statements that you produce or seek to produce where a summons was actually issued and served?

A. Mr. Prosecutor, the situation was not normal then. It was not possible to send a summons to a particular village, to a person who could provide information for a particular case. Persons happened to be found by policemen.

Q. Why not in August of 1998 could you not issue a summons?

A. Because I'm talking specifically about the area of Stimlje. All villages were ethnic Albanian villages. In August, there were KLA staffs, there were KLA Albanian terrorists. I don't see who it would be who could ⁴⁰⁷⁸⁹ deliver the summons.

Q. I see. You couldn't even go to the territory to knock on the door and ask someone to come, still less could you go and knock on the door and hand them a summons. Is that what you're saying?

A. That's correct. Because in the village of Racak and in the village of Petrovo and in the village of Rance and in the surrounding villages there were armed Albanian terrorists of the KLA, and also there were staffs and substaffs that had been established.

Q. Is what you're saying this, that everybody who was brought to the police station was brought without a summons and by force effectively?

A. I don't think that force was used. I was not on the scene when persons of Albanian ethnicity were being brought in. I don't know whether there was any excessive use of force or whether there was compulsion. I don't know. I'm a policeman. I'm a crime inspector. I don't know. I have not heard of such cases.

If there were such cases, then probably their commander, deputy commander took disciplinary or other measures.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, let me understand from the witness. In the ordinary course of events, you're investigating a case and you want to get a statement from a witness, to get information from a witness. Ordinarily you'd summons that person or you'd invite that person to attend to provide the information?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In a normal situation, in normal cases, there are messengers. We had a messenger who did that. In normal situations, the party to be summoned was sent a summons through a ^{40790 BLANK PAGE 40791} messenger, and that explained why he or she was being summoned. If it's in the capacity of a suspect, then that is mentioned in the summons. In normal situations, yes, but the situation was not normal here. There was no way of delivering summonses in those villages, because there were armed Albanian terrorists there. They were not in one place all the time. They were on the move all the time.

MR. NICE:

Q. So let's see if this is right: For every piece of paper you seek to produce to this Court, there is no document that's going to explain how the person came to the police station, there is no document making legal the person's requirement to attend the police station, and there is no handwritten note of yours available to this Court to show what passed before the typed document was prepared. Am I right?

A. Well, you see, I said earlier on these are persons who were brought in by policemen. These were not persons who were brought in by policemen. These are persons who came voluntarily. They were friendly connections, acquaintances. It is only with the registered informer that I spoke to outside the secretariat premises.

Q. What level of violence by the police to people being interviewed do you say was acceptable in 1998 and 1999?

A. Well, I don't know about any level of force being applied or level of violence. I am talking about the office where I worked, where I interviewed persons.

Q. Very well. Is it your evidence, Mr. Jasovic, that you never used any violence on any person in the course of your duties? ⁴⁰⁷⁹²

A. I claim with full responsibility that I did not extort any statements, that I did not apply any force let alone torture. I claim that with full responsibility.

Q. Is it your evidence that in Urosevac police station throughout your duties there you never saw any other police officer apply any force or violence to any person being dealt with by the police?

A. Mr. Prosecutor, I did specific work. I interviewed persons in my office, office 59 on the third floor.

Q. Yes. The question is still quite simple: Did you ever see, did you ever hear, did you ever hear of any of your colleagues using any force on any prisoner -- not prisoner, on any person at the police station throughout your time at Urosevac?

A. I'm telling you that I did not hear or I did not see uniformed policemen using force against persons who had been brought in.

Q. I don't think you've answered my question, and I'm going to give you another chance to do so. And I'm going to use the same words because I think they're quite simple.

Did you ever see, did you ever hear, did you ever hear of any of your colleagues using any force on any person at the police station throughout your time at Urosevac?

A. I am telling you, and I think that I was clear and brief: I did not hear any such thing, I did not see any such thing.

Q. Very well. It would, of course, be a terrible thing for a police station to be reported on as one where violence was used, wouldn't it?

A. I haven't heard of that. I claim to you with full responsibility ⁴⁰⁷⁹³ that I have not heard of policemen using force against persons of Albanian ethnicity.

Q. What years were you at Urosevac, Mr. Jasovic?

A. From May 1981.

Q. Until 1999. Were you --

A. Yes.

Q. Were you the only policeman there with secondary education or were there others educated to your level?

A. There were other policemen.

Q. With education.

A. Yes.

Q. The majority less educated than you?

A. I don't know. I don't know. There are probably files on everyone.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Jasovic, did you always wear a uniform?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I wore a uniform from 1975 until 1986.

MR. NICE: Before I -- I'm so sorry, Your Honour.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Did your colleagues wear uniforms all the time?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My colleagues who were operatives, crime inspectors, they did not wear uniform. They wore civilian clothing. They did their work in civilian clothing.

I worked as a policeman in uniform, and then I was assistant commander from 1981 until 1986.

JUDGE ROBINSON: In answering the Prosecutor's question, you said ⁴⁰⁷⁹⁴ you did not see any uniformed officers, I believe, use violence. Why did you use the word "uniform"?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, probably I meant policemen, because he said policemen. A crime inspector or policeman is an operative, and that's different. That's what I meant.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE:

Q. The truth is that by the mid-1990s, under this accused, Kosovo and Serbia, but Kosovo in particular, was a police state where you policemen could do just what you liked. Isn't that the truth?

A. That's not the truth, Mr. Prosecutor.

Q. Tell me this: Did any one of the people who you have dealt with have a lawyer available to him?

A. Then, at that time, according to the law on criminal procedure, there were no provisions to the effect that an interviewee should have a lawyer. After that, some changes were introduced in the law on criminal procedure, but I cannot remember exactly when.

Q. Thank you for telling us that. I asked you earlier whether you were aware of the law on criminal procedure and you seemed to be a little less clear. Now you do recall the change in law that happened after the matters into which we are inquiring. But that wasn't my question, which was carefully phrased.

As a matter of fact, did any of the people you interviewed ever have a lawyer present?

A. I have already said that I interviewed persons who were not ⁴⁰⁷⁹⁵ suspects. I talked to persons who could offer the necessary information in respect of an event.

Q. Let's look at a document, please, which can be placed on the overhead projector. I'm afraid it's in English. We haven't tracked down the Serbian version, but I'll read the passage to you quite shortly. This is a document called Spotlight. We've seen it before, so as far as the Court is concerned, Mr. Jasovic, we can take it quickly, but I'll deal with it sufficiently slowly for you to understand.

MR. NICE: And, Your Honours, I've asked Mr. Nort to display first the foot of page 31, which reminds us that the report was sent to the parliament government, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Justice, Prosecutor's office, and President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and to the same institutions in Serbia, as well as to the United Nations and elsewhere.

Mr. Nort, if we could now come back, please, to page 15.

Q. Mr. Jasovic, this is a public report served on the organs of your government that deals with your police station, and I'm going to read it to you and I want you to tell us what it refers to. It reads as follows, foot of the page: "Electric shock at The Urosevac police station. "FE, an 18-year-old lives with his mother and younger brothers. On the morning of the 11th of April, 1994, he was awakened by the doorbell. Before he could get dressed and downstairs, the police were already in the house. They'd broken the glass in the front door and entered. They spoke Serbian."

MR. KAY: Shouldn't we have a question rather than just -- I can ⁴⁰⁷⁹⁶ see what's going to happen. We're going to be going down a route we've been down many times before, reading out vast tracks of allegations without a question for the witness --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Both Mr. -- both Mr. Milosevic and Mr. Nice have patented this approach, but a question now, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, with great respect --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

MR. NICE: -- I am presenting to this witness a report into his police station. I can do it in short form or I can do it in full form. In my submission, it's fair that he should know, if he hasn't in fact read it already, what is said about his police station because I'm going to ask him who were the policemen who attacked -- who attached electrocution items to the young man concerned. Now, I can put it in that short way and we'll --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just give him the gist of the report and then ask questions.

MR. NICE: As Your Honour pleases.

Q. This report, which was made public, Mr. Jasovic, do you understand this, refers to a young man taken into the police station at which you worked, beaten across the soles of his feet, 30 blows on each foot, I think, and then questioned again, told to take his trousers off, and having equipment that sent an electric shock through him attached to his sexual organs. That's what this report says. Your police station. Let's deal with it in order. What inquiry was made at the police station following the distribution of this report as widely as we see it ⁴⁰⁷⁹⁷ was distributed?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Why don't you ask him first whether he received it.

MR. NICE:

Q. Did you receive the report?

A. Mr. Prosecutor, I am not aware of this case at all. I don't know at all about this. I'm horrified if that was the case. I don't know whether this person was brought into the premises of the police where the uniformed police are or where the inspectors are and what measures were taken. I have no idea about this.

If this case did occur, then the commander of the police station probably knows about it.

Q. If a report like this had reached your police station, the officer in charge at the time - this is 1995, it's a long time ago - would have been bound to ask you about it, wouldn't he?

A. Well, how can I be asked by this? This would not fall under any obligation of mine. It would be my obligation only had I taken these measures.

Q. So if this report was taken seriously at your police station, it would be necessary for the officer in charge to discover who the offending policeman or police inspector involved was, wouldn't it, and no doubt dismiss him?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, the witness has not said that the report was received at his police station.

MR. NICE: Very well, Your Honour. My question was premised with ⁴⁰⁷⁹⁸ if such a report was taken seriously at his police station, certain actions would follow, and I'd be grateful for --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Prosecutor, if there was any excessive use of force, overstepping of authority, whatever violation, I'm sure that disciplinary and even more serious action would be taken by the commander against policemen regardless of whether they were in uniform or in civilian clothing.

MR. NICE:

Q. And that would be something that would stick in your memory, wouldn't it?

A. Well, I'm saying the commander of the police station. If I took these measures or had I taken such measures, then probably I would be interviewed. Not probably, I'm sure I would be interviewed.

Q. The reality, Mr. Jasovic, is that by the mid-1990s, your police station was a notorious centre for criminal violence by the police, and nothing was going to stop the behaviour of you and your colleagues in beating up and, as appropriate, you judged appropriate, using things like on the people in there. Isn't that the truth?

A. That's not true, Mr. Prosecutor. I'm stating that with full responsibility.

Q. We had a witness --

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Jasovic, are you saying that an allegation of that sort could have been investigated in your police office without you knowing about it? Is that your suggestion?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, it's possible. If this kind of ⁴⁰⁷⁹⁹ case occurred, as the Prosecutor said. I can not know about it, yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Where did you fall in the hierarchy in your police station? How many persons -- how many officers were above you and how many below?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, above me there was the chief of the general crime department, then the chief of the crime police and the superior officer, the head of the secretariat and his deputy or several assistants, although the head of the secretariat in the Urosevac SUP at that time did not have a deputy, but he had an assistant. So assistant.

JUDGE ROBINSON: How many officers would that be?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Above me? Well, that would make it four or five persons, because the uniformed police and the chief of police, the chief of the police station, the deputy and assistants in the civilian or plain clothes section, the head of the crime police, the head of the secretariat; they were my immediate superiors.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE:

Q. I want to move forward in time to 1999 briefly before I return to other matters, with this in mind: When the accused asked you questions on the last occasion, he raised, as you will recall, the reality that you were going to be asked about allegations of police brutality, and you said, well, people -- words to the effect of, you said, "Well, the Albanians will say that, won't they." Something along those lines. Now, I want you to help me with this: We had a witness in this ^{40800 BLANK PAGE 40801} Court who gave evidence a couple of years ago under the pseudonym of K5, and he worked in your police station. His anonymity means that there is a limit to how much detail I can give you about him, but he gave evidence before it was known that you were going to feature in the Defence case at all, and he said this of you, that in 1999, after Racak, there was the use of a cafe, a basement cafe at the Pranvera cafe. Do you remember the use of the Pranvera cafe?

A. That was after the NATO aggression, or during the NATO aggression.

Q. Correct.

A. Yes, that's right. Now there was the danger of our building being bombed, we were dislocated. The general crime department and its operatives were dislocated to the Pranvera cafe, or Spring cafe.

Q. And it was used as a sort of holding prison, wasn't it, in the basement?

A. Well, there wasn't a basement. It was a room where hotel food was stored or kept, and I didn't have a much better room or office either where we conducted our interviews. We stayed there for a few days.

Q. And this witness, you see, two years ago, having worked to some degree with your police, explained that he saw two security inspectors beating a man who was tied to a chair. The man was called Muhamed Bega. Do you remember dealing with Muhamed Bega?

A. As far as a protected witnesses goes -- go, I didn't follow the trial but an Albanian from Urosevac brought in the daily press to me. I think it was the Kosovo paper. And Muhamed Bega, I think -- no, that is to say I read his name and surname in the papers, although I don't ⁴⁰⁸⁰² remember what he looked like, but he was in that paper, I think.

Q. Was he one of the men you dealt with, Mr. Jasovic?

A. I don't know. If you have his statement, I can take a look at it and I'll be able to tell you then because I just can't remember. As I said, I took over 700 statements from Albanians.

Q. The evidence of K5 to this Court a couple of years ago was that the inspectors dealing with this man were called Dragan Jasovic and Momcilo Sparavalo. So that would be you and your colleague Sparavalo, wouldn't it?

A. This witness, K5, I can guarantee he never came to the premises of that building.

Q. How can you guarantee that, pray?

A. May we go into private session for me to answer that, please?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, private session.

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[Open session]

MR. NICE:

Q. Mr. Jasovic, this witness K5 revealed when it was incidental to his evidence that you and your colleague beat a man handcuffed to a chair.

A. That's not true. And let me say also that I do not know whether, apart from my friendly connections, whether anybody came to the Pranvera premises otherwise.

Q. If you don't know if anybody came there, how do you know that this man didn't?

A. I don't know. We conducted the interview on the premises of that building. The conversation did not take place within the compound of the Pranvera premises, in the courtyard, for example, but inside, in the so-called makeshift offices.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, may I ask something at this stage?

MR. NICE: Of course.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Jasovic, how were your contacts with the ⁴⁰⁸⁰⁷ friendly contacts, as you describe them, and the registered informants made?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I said last time that I had a registered informant and that the contacts were mostly outside the secretariat, in a place that we would decide on. They were held outside the secretariat, not on the premises. And the friendly contacts, as I said, the people who came to inform us on their own initiative, came to the office, the premises there.

JUDGE BONOMY: And apart from these categories, the other people who gave you information at the police office, how were arrangements made for them to be at the police office?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, it's like this, Your Honour: As I've already said, the interviews were conducted with registered informants, with our friendly contacts, contact or contacts, and an acquaintance. And I say that, for example, a friendly contact would bring in somebody or, rather, would come in and say that he could recount an event that had taken place, whether it was Racak, Petrovo, or some other village that it was related to.

JUDGE BONOMY: So everyone from whom you took a statement or from whom you got information which you wrote up in a note was either a registered informant or a friendly contact, a volunteer.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, a friendly contact. And there were individuals who came in of their own accord, voluntarily. And I could give you -- illustrate a few cases in point.

JUDGE BONOMY: I just wanted to be clear that all the statements ⁴⁰⁸⁰⁸ fall into that category according to you. Thank you.

MR. NICE:

Q. Before I turn to the next general matter, which the Chamber will find me dealing with from tab 12 of volume 2, but time will not allow me to deal with it in great detail. Before I turn to that, Mr. Jasovic, just help me with this: Do you know anything about, and in particular, anything adverse to the professional reputation of either Mr. Barney Kelly, Mr. Jonathan Sutch, or Ms. Annette Murtagh, who are investigators for the OTP? Do you know anything adverse to any one of those three investigators?

A. I'm not aware of that.

Q. Anything adverse generally about investigators of the OTP that you would like to bring to our attention before we look at statements that they have taken from potential witnesses? Is there anything you want to say about OTP investigators known to you?

MR. KAY: Just foreshadowing, to use Mr. Nice's words, what's about to happen, I think there are going to be arguments on the admissibility of the form of cross-examination that he wants to embark upon. And looking at the file, as we have done, we can see that in many respects we're going back onto the materials that we have frequently discussed in relation to cross-examination by the Prosecution of witnesses, and it might be as well if we have this matter sorted out right at the start of the cross-examination so that we know exactly what the rules are to be.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, what use do you intend to make of these ⁴⁰⁸⁰⁹ documents?

MR. NICE: The use I have made with the Court's approval so far, which is to explain to the witness what another potential witness says and to give him an opportunity to read or to have read to him the relevant detail. And that has been the consistent practice of this Court in its approach to this type of document.

Recent rulings that say that these documents may never become exhibits at the hands of the Prosecution have never changed the ruling that I can rely on -- I can put the matter to the witness. And the underlying suggestion of Mr. Kay that somehow -- it's a suggestion he's been making for a long time, that I'm going to be so confined that all I'm able to do is put general allegations is one that I'm happy to say the Court has never adopted.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay.

MR. KAY: Materials can be used to cross-examine a witness that the party may have in their possession. There is no objection to that at all. But we've consistently, witness after witness, had the Prosecution trying to make as exhibits such materials. We're glad to hear that Mr. Nice will not be embarking on that particular procedure, although we do note that -- the index nature of the two sets of files. If the witness is unable to answer or deal with his particular questions, then it may well be that's the end of the matter and we move on to see what the witness can deal with, what he can answer from his own knowledge.

I just foreshadow this because we have wasted a lot of time in the ^{40810 BLANK PAGE 40811} past embarking on avenues of cross-examination that have not been fruitful, have had materials ruled as being inadmissible, and it's of the greater interest of the trial that the witness is able to speak of matters of which they have knowledge.

Questions relating to OTP investigators such as Mr. Kelly, who is sitting in court, and other investigators as to what they have been told or what people have said to them may ultimately end up as being entirely fruitless as regards cross-examination of this particular witness.

JUDGE BONOMY: On the other hand, Mr. Kay, there is nothing that a person is more likely to have knowledge of than something he is alleged to have done himself.

MR. KAY: Allegations may be put and allegations should be put, and we've never disagreed with that. But if someone has said something to someone else something which he doesn't know about, we come to the time old problem that we've had throughout this trial. During the accused's cross-examination it was exactly the same, and as you go through the old transcripts you read about it. The Judges frequently say, "Well, he doesn't know about it. Move on. Let's move on to another subject." . I'm flagging it up here because we've got elaborate binders, we had an elaborate opening about it, and it's important, perhaps, that the groundwork should be properly set and laid, but I don't disagree with allegations being put to the witness and asked for his comment. That was perfectly proper.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Mr. Nice will no doubt steer clear of the impermissible areas of questioning. ⁴⁰⁸¹²

MR. NICE: [Microphone not activated]... voir dire; and secondly, no, time has not been -- I take a minute of my time to make this point. Time has not been wasted. If, as the Court has ruled, is possible, hearsay evidence on important matters may come in, then of course the witness may know that if he denies everything about it no further exhibits will go in, but it is essential that I put my case in detail to this witness because of the possibility that his hearsay material may stand as evidence, and I intend to put to him, not necessarily for every one of his statements but for many of them, exactly what it is is said about him, and with Your Honours' leave, I shall do it in the precise words of the people concerned, summarising where possible.

But I'm grateful for the leave that I have to progress, and what I'd like, please, with Mr. Nort's assistance and with the Court being in a position to look at tab 12 -- a couple minutes, Mr. Nort, I'm sorry, my mistake, a preliminary question.

Q. Not only did police take people into custody whenever they wanted to, but they could go and call on medical doctors of the Albanian ethnicity, seize their computers and seize their records, couldn't they?

A. No, that is not true. And we're not talking about taking people into custody. They were probably -- people who were detained were probably kept there until they were interviewed. Now, as far as doctors and so on, I don't know anything about that.

Q. Don't you? Do you know anything adverse to a doctor called Xheladin Racica? ⁴⁰⁸¹³

A. I don't know him personally, either positive things about him or negative things about him. I just don't know the man.

Q. I must suggest to you that this is a doctor who logged the medical consequences of the criminal behaviour at your police station, kept it secret on a part of his computer not available to you. Do you know anything about such a record being kept?

A. No, I don't.

Q. And indeed he published his findings at a conference later on. Do you not remember a conference where the wrongdoings at your police station were broadcast?

A. No, I don't know about that.

Q. Have a look at these photographs, please.

MR. NICE: Mr. Nort, if the video booth could be discreet as to the faces of the individuals in the parts that they display so that the --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay is on his feet.

MR. KAY: Well, he said he didn't know about it and we're going down the route again. Again, Mr. Milosevic was frequently told if the witness doesn't know about something, move on and find something to ask him about that he does know about. That should be something that pertains to the cross-examination of this particular witness. If he doesn't know about this doctor or his conference, then how can he deal with it further?

MR. NICE: Your Honours, may I be heard on that? May I be heard on that?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

MR. NICE: This is an astonishing effort to restrict legitimate ⁴⁰⁸¹⁴ and valuable cross-examination. Because of the somewhat upside-down nature of having those important matters dealt with in hearsay at this stage, the inevitable course that I may have to take is to seek to call this evidence in rebuttal. In rebuttal, I shall seek to show the nature of the injuries charted by the doctor following people's visits to this witness's police station. It is absolutely appropriate that I give him a chance to explain how such injuries could have been noted on people coming from his police station, and it would be quite wrong for this information to be suppressed under a technical approach that Mr. Kay is pursuing.

MR. KAY: This isn't a technical approach and I'm not suppressing anything, as I nearly knock my chair over in alarm. This isn't a technical approach at all. It is a matter of common sense. If the witness says he doesn't know about it, he's missed his chance to deal with it. And we're not attempting to stop the Prosecutor bringing evidence in in rebuttal. But if the object is to put matters to him that he doesn't know about, how can this possibly serve as material that should be used in cross-examination?

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Kay, this is rather different from some of the other occasions when the witnesses were able to say they did not know anything about something. What's being put here is that this is the -- or the material here relates to events within the police office that this witness worked in, and it can't, surely, be a complete answer to cross-examination in relation to something as close to you as that to say, "I don't know anything about it." Surely a prosecutor is entitled to explore that a little further before we can get to the stage where we can ⁴⁰⁸¹⁵ conclude that the witness genuinely knows nothing about it.

MR. KAY: Very well.

JUDGE ROBINSON: We will allow you to have a look at the photographs.

Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In the statement of this witness that I received, in the last paragraph, paragraph 30, it is stated: "[In English] The study is based on my analysis and review of documentation in relation to the examination of patients after they had been released from police detention. I presented my findings at an International Symposium 'Medical Emergency in War Conflicts in Kosovo' held at the Grand Hotel in Pristina on 28-30 September 2000."

[Interpretation] So this is year and a half after the witness had left Kosovo. This is when this doctor came out with these facts about what had happened during the war in Kosovo. This cannot be linked up in any way with this witness nor is there a way to prove that these photographs date back to that period of time.

Let me remind you, when witness Danica Marinkovic came to testify, an example was brought up that the lawyers, not in 1994 but in 1997 or 1998, sued somebody because somebody had been abused while in police custody. However, none of that is mentioned here. This doctor had all means available to him to file criminal complaints, just like others did, and you were able to see that in the case of Danica Marinkovic.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I hear the submissions that you're making, but we are going to proceed. These are matters that you may raise ⁴⁰⁸¹⁶ in re-examination to discredit the evidence that may be given. We. Will allow the witness to look at the photographs.

MR. NICE:

Q. I'd like you to look, please, at the photographs.

MR. NICE: If the audiovisual booth could avoid showing faces wherever possible, I'd be grateful.

Q. And as we go through them, first question is: Do you recognise any of these men insofar as you can see their faces? One at a time. Can you put them on the overhead projector, please, Mr. Nort.

All right. That's the first one. Next one, please.

A. No, I didn't recognise that one.

Q. Just pausing there, can you think of any innocent way a man leaving your police station could have bruises like that on his body?

A. I'm assuring you that nobody left my office with such bruises. I'm horrified by such images.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... please. How about that one?

JUDGE BONOMY: I'm not clear what's happening here. How do you recognise the person from this photograph?

MR. NICE: You can't.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, please, Mr. Nice, there is substance in the argument which has been made already in the case that there's an element of sensationalism in the way that some of this sort of material is produced. Now, can we get to material that will assist the witness to identify -- ⁴⁰⁸¹⁷

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I reject -- I'm sorry. I reject the suggestion of sensationalism.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, what's the purpose of this at the moment when we're looking at identification?

MR. NICE: We're looking at two points, one of which is identification and the other of which is the nature of the injuries of people leaving the police station, and I reject the suggestion of sensationalism for this reason: The circumstances with which we are dealing are circumstances in which people die and they are circumstances in which people do end up with injuries of this kind.

JUDGE BONOMY: But you've quote to first of all get to the stage where it's clear that this witness has a measure of knowledge that it's legitimate for you to explore, and I'm not convinced that you get there by showing pictures of the injuries.

MR. NICE: As Your Honour pleases, but I'll ask the question on this one, if I may, in this way:

Q. The same question, you see, Mr. Jasovic: If it's the case, as I suggest to you it is, that these are people who left the police station injured in this way, can you explain any innocent way that they could have come by those injuries?

A. I am not aware of these cases, and I couldn't explain.

MR. NICE: Could I have a look at the next two photographs, please, myself, just to see if they -- just hand them to me. Would Your Honour give me one minute.

Q. Have a look at this photograph, first of all to yourself. Just ⁴⁰⁸¹⁸ look at it. This is a man called Mehmet Kastankijeva [phoen]. Just look at it yourself. Is that a man you know?

A. No.

Q. Very well. I'll move on from that topic, for the time being at any event.

Does it remain your case -- not your case, your evidence, Mr. Jasovic, that people -- that nobody ever left the police station at Urosevac in an injured state?

A. I can assure you that nobody left my office with any kind of injuries. I don't know, though, what happened in other offices.

Q. Very well.

A. However, I believe that --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Jasovic, may I ask you, when you interviewed persons, were they present with you alone in your office or were other persons present?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. President, Mr. Sparavalo was with me at all times, and in most cases there were also operatives of the state security service. If they were present when the interview was taken, then they also signed the statement, these people from the state security. Otherwise, it was always Mr. Sparavalo who was with me when interviews were conducted.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Did your office have a door; and if so, was the door closed during the interviews?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. I state this firmly with full responsibility. There was no need to lock the door. Do you mean locked ⁴⁰⁸¹⁹ door? Is that what you mean?

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... the door was ajar?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The door was closed in order to preserve the secrecy of the whole procedure. I think that that applied to offices of the third floor.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, just give me a minute. If the Court would be good enough to turn, if it wishes to, to tab 9, I will explain what I'm going to ask next and how. There are -- here is a redacted statement, some of the contents of which I wish to put to this witness, and I have several, maybe not all, but several passages of the English text translated so that he may follow it in Serbian. As Your Honours will see, the paragraphs are numbered, and the witness will be able to follow the allegations I'm putting to him. It is, in my submission, entirely appropriate that on matters of this seriousness I should put to him the detail of the allegations that are available against him in evidential form in due course.

Q. Mr. Jasovic -- I'm going to cut through some of this to save time, though, I think. The allegations I'm putting to you come from a former colleague who for reasons of safety has to remain anonymous at this stage, but if you look, please, at paragraphs 15 and 16, these are specific allegations about you which I intend, with the Court's leave, to read. "Dragan Babic [sic], and Srecko Dogandzic's office, I saw a civilian male Albanian, aged about 20, lying on the blue carpeted floor ^{40820 BLANK PAGE 40821} without his shoes on. Dragan Babic [sic] was sitting on his legs and remained there when I walked in. Srecko Dogandzic had a baton in his hand and he froze when he saw me, he was standing behind Dragan Babic and it was obvious that he had been beating the young man's bare feet. Dragan Jasovic was in a crouched position at the guy's head with his hands either side of the young man's head, it was if he had let the guy's head go when I entered the room. Radomir Mitic was standing by the desk and he froze when I entered the room.

"Jasovic stood up --" Sorry. "Dragan Babic [sic] and Dragan Jasovic stood up. As Babic got up --" Dabic, I beg your pardon. I'm misreading it. "As Dabic got up, he practically stood on the young man's genitals and went over and stood by the wall. Dragan Jasovic was wearing a button down cardigan-type sweater which was open, and as he stood up, he stood on the right-hand side of his sweater, which caused him to slightly lose balance."

Now, do you remember an incident with Dragan Dabic, Srecko Dogandzic, and a young man who was being beaten?

A. Dragan Dabic and Srecko Dogandzic worked with grand larcenies and theft. That was their area of work.

I'm not aware of this case at all. And I never wore a pullover. I always wore a jacket. I am not aware of this case at all. I wore polo shirts or T-shirts in summertime.

Q. Very well. I'm going to move on, in order to save time, to paragraph 43. There are other paragraphs translated but we'll just go to paragraph 43 for the time being. ⁴⁰⁸²² The same former colleague says this: "In March 1999, I recall another incident when some Pustenik and Paldenic villagers came to my home. They were Ymer Lajci, Remzi Lajci, Driton Lajci and Rrahman Lajci from Pustenik village, Kacanik municipality. There were others but they didn't come to my house. In a SUP action the women were separated from the men and their houses were burned. They were taken from their homes and taken to Urosevac SUP for either two or three days and nights or three days -- three nights and two days. They told me they'd been beaten by Dragan Jasovic and Momcilo Sparavalo. They were black and blue from their injuries. They travelled through Varosh and Komogllav villages before they came to my house which is about eight kilometres away. It took them a week to get to my house and they were almost dead when they got there, they could not lie or sit down. They had stayed in other villagers' homes en route. They said that Momcilo Sparavalo beat them with a big wooden stick and Dragan Jasovic beat them with a stick and gave them electric shocks. They were asked about the KLA and if they were KLA members. They were asked questions and when they couldn't answer, they were beaten until they fainted, and when they recovered the beating started again." Now, there's a very detailed account against you naming individuals. Do you remember these people Ymer, Remzi, Driton and Rrahman Lajci?

A. I do not recall the names of these persons. If you have their statements, then perhaps you could show them to me. I don't remember whether they were there or not, because after all, six years have passed. Now, as for any force applied against them, I can assure you that ⁴⁰⁸²³ that was not the case.

Q. Let's look at --

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, do you have statements from these people?

MR. NICE: Not from the victims to my knowledge, no. I mean, Your Honour, there's an enormous number of statements that had to be processed before --

JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, but speaking for myself, I would be, I think, more impressed by the sort of material that's contained earlier in the earlier paragraphs you referred to, which is direct eyewitness --

MR. NICE: Certainly.

JUDGE BONOMY: -- account as against a secondhand account of an event, albeit a serious event.

MR. NICE: Can we therefore look at paragraph 45 in the same statement.

Q. Would you be good enough, please, Mr. Jasovic, to comment on this allegation by a former colleague about you in general: "As far as Dragan Jasovic is concerned, he beat people before, during and after the war. He beat a lot of people from Urosevac SUP region but he beat more people from Mullopolc, Racak, Godance, Carraleve and Petrove villages. He had a tendency --"

A. Crnoljevo is the name of the place.

Q. "He had a tendency to provoke people when, for instance, he went to a bar, he would verbally abuse them, saying things like, 'This is Serbia.' I heard him saying to civilians to speak in Serbian so God can understand you. He did this to provoke people to react so that he could ⁴⁰⁸²⁴ bring them to the police station. They didn't react to Jasovic's provocations because they knew what would happen, they remained quiet." And then it goes on to suggest that you were the only inspector with high school qualifications, something about which I asked you earlier.

But dealing with the general description of your use of violence, what do you say, Mr. Jasovic; any truth in this?

A. No truth whatsoever. Mr. Prosecutor, I claim with full responsibility. Now, what is stated here, this refers to before the war and after the war. When was it that after the war I beat the Albanians? After the war, we had to withdraw to Serbia.

Q. I imagine what's meant, but we can always get more detail, is in the period until you left, which would be during the hostilities. But let's just look at one last paragraph, which is --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Could I just ask the witness, though: Is there a bar to which you went sometimes?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I mostly went to Stimlje. In Stimlje to a tavern called Geneva.

JUDGE ROBINSON: And you would have a drink.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes. Mostly in company of Albanians. The owner of that establishment was an Albanian as well.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, it's time for the adjournment. We will adjourn for 20 minutes.

--- Recess taken at 12.19 p.m.

--- On resuming at 12.45 p.m. ⁴⁰⁸²⁵

JUDGE ROBINSON: Please continue, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE:

Q. Mr. Jasovic, my last question for the moment from the statement of the witness SS375 is paragraph 48 on the translated passages before you. What do you say to this analysis by your former colleague: "If a person was taken in for questioning to the Inspectors, it didn't matter whose office they were taken into, whether it was 61, 62, or 66, the Inspectors would all get together and beat the person. One would hold him down, the other cover his mouth, and the others would beat him. It was the regular, normal activity for these police Inspectors."

Your comment, please.

A. My comment to this is as follows: There is no truth in this at all. Offices 61, 62, or 66 are mentioned here. As I've told you, my office was number 59.

Q. Before I turn to the next series of allegations which I'm going to put shortly - the Chamber may wish to turn to tab 11 - just this single question: Did I hear you right that a thousand statements were taken of this general kind?

A. I'm sure that over 700 were taken, and it is possible that there were even more than that, because I did not put them in chronological order, the statements.

Q. Are you aware of the statements showing crimes committed by Serbs against Kosovo Albanians?

A. I don't know that Serbs committed any crimes against Kosovo Albanians. ⁴⁰⁸²⁶

Q. There are no statements to cover, for example, the burning down of Racak in 1998. In the summer of 1998 a lot of Racak was burnt down, as you know, don't you?

A. I'm not aware that the houses were burnt down in Racak.

Q. Weren't you. Well, are you aware of any example of an Albanian's house having been burnt to the ground in the period 1998 to 1999, Mr. Jasovic?

A. It is possible that it happened during the war, during the conflict between -- in which the Albanian terrorists and KLA members were involved.

Q. Very well. I'm going to return to Racak quite soon, but just so that I've got the picture, or we've got the picture clearly, 700 plus statements about alleged terrorist activity by Kosovo Albanians and to your knowledge not a single one about crimes by Serbs committed against Albanians?

A. These cases involved Albanians killed by the Albanian terrorists, members of the KLA, killed because they did not want to join the KLA, because they socialised with policemen, with the Serbs, and with those who worked or were employed by the state enterprises, or those Albanians who resisted their violence in any way.

JUDGE BONOMY: Did you never investigate any allegations of crimes committed by Serbs?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I have information concerning the abducted Albanians. All of this information indicates that these acts were committed by the KLA terrorists. In addition to that, we ⁴⁰⁸²⁷ also have information about Albanians killed by the members of the KLA.

JUDGE BONOMY: But my question was a simple one: Did you never investigate any allegations of crimes committed by Serbs?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't remember that I had such cases.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Even against other Serbs?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You see, we had different departments. We had a department for sexual assaults and department for homicide. So the cases involving murders or bodily injuries were handled by homicide inspectors. There were two of them, one was a Serb and the other one was an Albanian. My line of work involved the movement, activities, numbers, and the weapons held by the terrorists, as well as terrorist attacks committed by the KLA.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Are you saying, then, that your work did not involve receiving any report of crimes committed by Serbs? You were exclusively concerned with crimes committed by the KLA?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] If it involved a case of violence committed by Serbs against Albanians then, yes, my line of work would cover that as well. However, I do not remember such a case.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

MR. NICE:

Q. I'm going to turn very briefly to another of your former colleagues known as K56, tab 11. The translation is -- we don't have translations of these passages, and I'm going to put the allegations of this other colleague of yours very shortly to you, identifying the ⁴⁰⁸²⁸ passages for the Court, the accused, and my learned friends. This colleague of yours explains that during this accused Milosevic's time, a larger baton was introduced for use by the police. Is he right on that? Paragraph 38.

A. I'm not aware of that. I never even saw a larger baton.

MR. NICE: This witness, let it be noted - I don't seek an answer on this - didn't recall seeing baseball bats. The Chamber may wish to have that in mind just because of other things that emerge. That's his recollection.

Q. The same colleague of -- former colleague of yours, paragraph 40 -- sorry, paragraph 38, says that the majority of persons that were beaten in Urosevac police station were Albanians, but there were a few Serbs beaten too. Urosevac had an Albanian ethnicity majority and therefore it stood to reason that the greater number of persons being beaten would be Albanian. 99 per cent were beaten over weapons, drugs, and/or terrorist/KLA activity. More frequent between the end of 1997 and into 1998.

Do you say that's a totally false and groundless description of your police station?

A. That's not true.

MR. NICE: I'm going to turn briefly - I'm sorry to invite the Chamber to change binders - to tab 1, and here the Chamber will find associated with the statement of Mr. Sutch -- oh, yes. If Your Honours go through, you'll find -- I'm afraid it's not page numbered. It's sort of halfway -- no, towards the end of this tab you will find an internal ⁴⁰⁸²⁹ memorandum which records the content of an interview in the circumstances there not being the opportunity to take a full witness statement.

Q. So I'll explain the position to you, Mr. Jasovic. When the investigators for the OTP were seeking these people whose documents you seek to produce, they bumped into, literally, somebody while waiting to see one of the appointed -- to see by appointment one of the people, and the person they bumped into was somebody called Rasim Rushiti, and he explained the following in short order.

MR. NICE: And if the Chamber has it, you can see all this material on the second and third pages.

Q. This man explains how he and another had been arrested by police in early January 1999, told by the police that if the KLA started to shoot, they would themselves be shot, and told about the killing of a policeman in the village of Slivovo. Is it right that a policeman, a Serb policeman had been killed in the village or near the village of Slivovo?

A. Svetislav Przic is the name of the policeman from Slivovo. I think that he was killed perfidiously from an ambush on the 10th of January, 1999.

Q. They were then taken to your police station where they were dealt with by you and by Sparavalo. This is the second page, second paragraph, or first full paragraph. And this person, who was simply seen by the investigators by chance, says that he was beaten by you with your fists and with your feet.

Now, think back to the anger you felt at the killing of the policeman near Slivovo. Did this happen? ^{40830 BLANK PAGE 40831}

A. That's not true. As for this person, I don't know. Give me his document, give me his statement. I don't remember the person.

Q. Mr. Jasovic, you repeatedly required me to provide the materials for people I'm asking you about. You're the one who holds the records, and let me remind you, unless the position is different, you don't even have, you tell us, your handwritten records of who you dealt with. Now, would you be able to find a record of your dealings with this man Rasim Rushiti? Would you? He was in company with another man called Musliu, Sadik Musliu. Do you have a record of your dealings with him?

A. I cannot remember whether I do or do not. It's been over six years. I cannot. I told you, I took over 700 statements. I cannot remember specifically now.

Q. You see, this man goes on to explain how you pointed to sticks in the corner of your room, a baseball bat, which you referred to as the KLA bat, a rubber truncheon, and a police riot stick and you told him he could choose which to be beaten by. Has he just made that up or is that true?

A. It's not true. I tell you with full responsibility. I never had a baseball bat or an official baton or truncheon in my office.

Q. And finally, for I must take this briefly, he says that he was then confronted by Sparavalo and you with a box, the size, he says, roughly of, I think, a desktop computer hard disk box, to which wires were attached and by which he was then electrocuted by you.

A. That's not true.

Q. And indeed it was for the purpose of making you scream, and you -- and he -- sorry, of making him scream, and indeed he did scream. ⁴⁰⁸³² Completely false, is it?

A. Yes. It's not true.

Q. Now, before we come to the statements that are relied on by this accused taken by you, I must turn to Racak on which I'm going to seek some assistance from you; with the Court's leave, even some assistance overnight.

Racak happened on the 15th. Which day did you go to Racak?

A. I was not on the scene at all.

Q. Where were you when the Racak event was happening?

A. When the event in Racak occurred, I was on the premises of the Urosevac SUP, in my own office, number 59 on the third floor, that's for sure.

Q. What did you know about the event in advance?

A. In advance? As I said last time, what I knew in advance was that a substaff of the KLA had been established, headed by the commander Afet Bilalli, nicknamed Qopa. I knew that from the direction of Racak and the surrounding villages, from the fortifications that were there, a large number of terrorist attacks were carried out by members of the KLA. I knew that they had a large quantity of weapons. I knew that there were trenches, bunkers, and communication trenches that were dug up all over the place on the road from Stimlje to Prizren.

Q. What was the nature of the attack that was going to be mounted on Racak by forces of Serbia?

A. As regards this question, I would not be in a position to give an answer. It is only superior officers that can answer that question, the ⁴⁰⁸³³ former head of the Secretariat of the Interior in Urosevac.

Q. Well, help me with this one little detail for an area -- from your recollection of an area that's quite small geographically. Was this a police operation, was this a military operation, or was it both?

A. Mr. Prosecutor, I cannot answer this question either. I don't know.

Q. Let's just explore your answer. You're a short distance away from Racak. This is a huge operation that was mounted. Am I not right about that? This is a major operation.

A. You see, I was not a short distance away from Racak. I was in my own office at the Urosevac SUP. Urosevac is 13 kilometres away from Stimlje.

Q. Thirteen kilometres is not a great distance for police officers, is it, with radios. They know what's going on. They travel the area. Are you really saying you have no understanding of the nature of the attack or whatever it was mounted at Racak?

A. I don't know the answer to this question. It is only the superior officer who can give you answer, the head of the organ concerned.

Q. All right. You weren't there on the 15th, but what about the 16th?

A. I was not there on the 15th, on the 16th, or any other day. I was not in Racak.

Q. The statement of your former colleague, SS375 -- and the Chamber will, if it wants to, find this at paragraph 9 -- tab 9, volume 2, paragraph 58. The statement of your former colleague, Mr. Jasovic, gives ⁴⁰⁸³⁴ a lot of detail about radio traffic on the 16th, with call-signs and one thing and another. And he's in a position to say that in the course of one of those call -- one of those bits of radio traffic, somebody by the name of "Jedinica (number 1) said, 'You have a person who knows the terrain very well,'" and that you replied with a code saying, "I'm here, Boss." Paragraph 58.

Think back, please, because I'm going to want a lot of help from you on Racak. Were you there on the 16th, as a person who knew the terrain well?

A. I'm telling you that I was not there at all. How can you prove this to me? I was not in Racak at all when this happened. I was not there on a single day. It was not necessary. It was the policemen from Stimlje. Most of them hailed from Stimlje, were born there. They were more familiar with the terrain. I wasn't there at all. I was not there or my colleague Sparavalo.

Q. Insofar as it's possible, I will give you a chance to deal with all the allegations made about you by those whose statements you purport to have taken tomorrow morning, but I have things to deal with first, and I'm only going to deal with a couple of those statements today. But before I do, let me put a proposition to you in general terms. It was necessary, wasn't it, in 1998 and 1999, to have some material, however flimsy, to suggest that people were members of the KLA even when they weren't in order that they could be dealt with roughly, that they could be expelled, and if necessary, they could be killed. Is that the position? ⁴⁰⁸³⁵

A. That's not true. As for all the interviews that I conducted with persons of Albanian ethnicity, I did not conduct them for the purpose of this trial. I am sure and I am convinced that all my information is authentic, reliable, and truthful.

Q. Very well. I'm going to deal, then, with two, at the moment, and only two --

A. Because --

Q. Sorry, go on.

A. I just wanted to say that the village of Racak -- well, I'm not sure, but it must have a population between 2.500 and 3.000. I note that about 100 persons from the village of Racak were members of the KLA. I cannot say now that everybody from Racak was in the KLA.

Q. And the other part of -- the other part of your reasoning, which we'll see reflected in the distribution of statements that you took, is summarised in 235 -- 375, the same colleague's statement, at paragraph 60, where he says this of you: "I believe that Dragan Jasovic arrested so many people to obtain statements after the Racak incident because he wanted to cover up the actions of the Serbian forces who killed so many civilians."

That's a colleague speaking of you. Do you follow?

A. He is not telling the truth. This is not correct at all. What is correct is that we knew about the KLA staff in Racak and their weapons even before the incident in Racak and also after the incident.

Q. The same colleague in the same paragraph goes on to say that: "People were beaten by him in the station so badly that they would sign ⁴⁰⁸³⁶ anything to get out alive." True?

A. Not correct.

Q. He also makes this point, which relates to something you said earlier. He says that if you take a hundred statements, about five persons of the Albanian community, and only five, would speak Serbian but they would never dare to ask for it to be read to them, they'd just sign it to get out as quickly as possible. You suggested that they nearly all speak Serbian. Which is right?

A. What is right is that most Albanians say that they speak the Serbian language, just as I say that I speak and understand the Albanian language.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, if the chart -- if it helps you, I'm on page 3 of the chart which shows the general distribution, and I'm at tab 1.35 of general tab 5. No translation of this, I'm afraid, at the moment. Oh, there is some translation of it.

Q. Understand, Mr. Jasovic, that we're now in the territory of statements taken by ICTY investigators, and let me explain. They were taken either, wherever possible, unannounced, spoken to unannounced, even if witness statements were taken later, following an initial interview. Now, this man, 1.35, is somebody you should know about because he's one of your statements, so you might like to have your own exhibits before you. I have mine.

A. Yes, I'd like to see that.

Q. This is a statement taken in December 1998, before Racak occurred, and to remind you of its format, it says: "I live in the village of ⁴⁰⁸³⁷ Racak. ... I can state that my two sons Rifat and Nexhat have joined the so-called KLA and are in the village of Rance."

Let's just understand that. If we look at the original, I think that the phrase "so-called" shouldn't be overstated. It's a reflection simply, I think, of quotation marks. I'll correct that if I'm wrong. Can you explain how it would be that an Albanian facing a policeman like you would volunteer immediately that his sons were members of the KLA?

A. You can see here in the upper part of the text that this person was brought to the SUP of Urosevac by policemen. Now, I don't know where the person was in the first place, where they found him. Was it policemen from Urosevac or Stimlje? Ramadani Faik. The fact stated here is that this person was born in 1935, and during the interview the same person said of his own free will that his two sons were in the KLA. The fact is here, because the first KLA staff was established in Rance, but then after that, when the substaff was established in Racak, then all persons from Racak who had been in Rance transferred to Racak.

Q. Well, this man explains, in case this will assist you, that at this time, that is this date in December, the police were firing into Racak from Cesta Hill and that he and his family were trying to get out, indeed he was negotiating a price with a taxi driver when he was taken by police - this is is paragraph 8 - assaulted immediately and taken to your police station.

Now, do you remember police firing into Racak in December of 1998, attacking the place? ⁴⁰⁸³⁸

A. I'm not aware of that case. On the basis of statements, I do remember that at a place called Cesta, and this is a place on a hill above the old person's home, that there were Albanian KLA terrorist positions there and that they had automatic rifles.

Q. He explains at paragraph 11, taken to your police station, he was dealt with by you, and that he recognised you when he saw you on television in the course of your giving evidence in the Limaj trial. And then at paragraph 14 and 15 he says that which you have translated before you, and I'll read it. He says: "Jasovic called three uniformed policemen. He asked me, 'When you were coming up the stairs, did you see the blood?' And I replied 'Yes.' He said to me, 'Now you're going to clean the blood with your blood - your blood will be on the stairs.'

"The uniformed policemen began beating me all over my body in front of Jasovic and the other civilian-clothed inspector who had a large moustache. I can't describe him any better."

That's Sparavalo, isn't it? He had a large moustache.

A. It is correct that my colleague Mr. Sparavalo had a moustache.

Q. "While they were beating me, they asked me why I was running away, and I said because the children were petrified over the shooting from Cesta Hill. They continued to ask me questions, beating me severely with batons until I lost consciousness. I remember being dragged down the stairs by the police, and they took me to the taxi driver, who I was earlier making arrangements with for my family. I don't know who called him to collect me." ⁴⁰⁸³⁹ He explains how he was taken to a doctor, given an injection and eventually escaped to the place he wished to to get away from Racak. Do you remember anything about such an incident, Mr. Jasovic?

A. Specifically I do not remember, but the only thing that I can confirm here as authentic is the statement that I and my colleague Mr. Sparavalo signed and also Nebojsa Djordjevic. And the same one was signed by the person who I interviewed.

It is a fact that uniformed policemen never entered my office and applied any kind of force towards persons that I was interviewing. I would never allow that kind of thing.

Q. Now, would you look, please, at the original of the statement that's before you, and at the foot of the page -- perhaps we can put a version of this on the overhead projector, I'll make mine available. If you look at the foot of this page, Mr. Jasovic. Right. That's enough. Thank you. What do we see on the left-hand side?

A. You mean those numbers there?

Q. No. Bottom left, please.

A. In the left-hand corner there is a signature of the interviewed person.

Q. And just tell us, please, what characters is it written in?

A. I'll explain this to you. I will give you a truthful explanation. The letters are Cyrillic. The person was born in 1935. Not only this interviewee but all these persons. I also had the commander of a squad who was born in 1930, and he wrote Cyrillic most of the time. I guarantee that all these people over the age of 60 who I met, who came to deal with ^{40840 BLANK PAGE 40841} administrative business of their own, for instance, they all used the Cyrillic script.

Q. Well, this man's -- you were ahead of me on the point, Mr. Jasovic. You were ahead of me on the point. This man who fled the area says in his statement that he cannot write the Cyrillic alphabet and that it's not his signature. Did you make it up for him?

A. I am claiming to you with full responsibility that this is his signature. A handwriting expert can confirm all of this.

Q. Tell me - and this relates to paragraph 19 of this statement for those following it - when these people you say came voluntarily or were brought to the station and made statements and then let go or sent home, were they provided with any piece of paper that revealed what they'd been doing? Were they provided with a copy of their statement, anything like that?

A. They would not get a copy of their statement or a piece of paper. I don't know what kind of paper this is.

Q. And the reason that this man's signature had to be forged is because you'd beaten him into unconsciousness, dragged him down the stairs and put him in the taxi. That's why you had to forge his signature, Mr. Jasovic.

A. That's not true that force was used against him. I guarantee that to you that that's not true at all. I don't even remember whether he entered a taxi.

Q. Before I turn to the next witness statement, there's something else I've been meaning to ask you and it's this: In the course of the ⁴⁰⁸⁴² 1990s, how many deaths in custody were there at your police station?

A. I don't know of a single death in custody at my police station.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... bit harder. What about people falling out of, jumping out of, or being pushed out of the windows on the third or fourth floor? Did that ever happen?

A. I don't know about those cases. I don't know that anybody jumped out of a window or anything like that.

Q. A death in police custody would be something that you could never forget, yes? It's such an important event, it's hardly going to be something you could forget, is it, Mr. Jasovic?

A. Mr. Prosecutor, we're not talking about custody, we're talking about the detention room. And there wasn't anybody there, any individuals who as a consequence of beatings or anything like that died, succumbed, and there was no beating.

Q. I'm going to take you now to a statement of yours, or a document of yours, that's dated after Racak, but before I do and as we pass through the period of Racak, one other question of detail. In the course of the Racak event, Djordjevic, General Djordjevic came to your police station, didn't he?

A. I don't know.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

A. I don't know. To be quite frank, I really don't know. I don't know if he came. Probably he came to see the superior official. I didn't look through the window to see who was coming and going into and out of the building. ⁴⁰⁸⁴³

Q. Given your very limited knowledge of the gravity of the Racak event, would you expect to see someone of Djordjevic's rank on the ground at the police station at the time?

A. I just can't answer that question. I can't. I don't know what to say. I don't know.

Q. And would you expect -- do you know the man Sainovic?

A. Well, I don't know him personally, Sainovic, but I have heard of him.

Q. Very well. Let's look now, then, please, at 140 -- 1.49. And again, you may wish to refresh your memory with the original statement.

A. Tab 1.49 did you say?

Q. Yes. Naser Mujota. Now, of the 700 plus statements that you've taken and the selection that you brought to Court or you produced in Court, do you remember this one?

A. As for Naser Mujota, I say with full responsibility that he came himself to the premises of the secretariat to see me personally. To office 59, that is.

Q. Why did he do that?

A. He did that -- I know that he didn't come once, he came two or three times to see me. He told me that in the village of Mullopolc, there was a group of Albanian terrorists who had set up a substaff of the KLA, and I told him personally, I told him, I said, "Sir, go and think about it."

Q. Thank you.

A. "Is it true? Is it really true or not?" ⁴⁰⁸⁴⁴

Q. Well, you see, you told us on the last occasion that he came voluntarily. Let me tell you a detail and see if you can think about this. This man was living in Slovenia, so unlike the other people, he had the chance of escaping the dangers of Kosovo to which he returned from time to time.

Why should such a man -- can you give an explanation of why such a man should expose himself to the dangers of coming to your police station and giving information against his friends and neighbours? Could you explain that to us, please.

A. I am giving you an explanation: Because he wanted to. Probably he wanted to collaborate with the authorities of the Republic of Serbia, to cooperate with them, and he came personally to tell me that he couldn't live peacefully in the village and that he and his family would have problems if a conflict were to arise between the Albanian terrorists of the KLA and members of the police force of the MUP. And I tell you that quite certainly -- I don't remember exactly, but two or three times he did come to see me, and I even remember one occasion when he came to my office a colleague of mine came in and I asked him to wait, to wait outside in the corridor.

Q. This was after Racak, and this man was nearly to safety on his way to Skopje airport when he was arrested, and because of his coming from Stimlje, he was detained, brought back to Ferizaj and then taken to you, and I'll deal with it as quickly as I can. Go, please, to paragraph 8.

A. Mr. Prosecutor, if he went in the direction of Skopje, then there's no logic there, because you go to Stimlje via Urosevac. So there ⁴⁰⁸⁴⁵ was no logic in him going via Urosevac and then being detained in Stimlje and then from the police station of Stimlje to be sent to the police station in Urosevac. So I can tell you that he came voluntarily. I understand the man. I understand him.

Q. He was stopped at the border at Elez Han, allowed through the border, they kept his brother. He returned. They were both tied up, said they came from Stimlje, handcuffed, kept for three or four hours, and then police arrived in a Zastava vehicle, taken to Kacanik police station where there were some 20 or 30 police. Commanders swore at them and beat them consistently for an hour with iron rods and they were then told that the police at Ferizaj -- no. And then we come to Ferizaj police station at paragraph 8. That's the history. Would you follow paragraph 8, please. "At Ferizaj police station we were taken into an office. There were eight or nine policemen. One of them pushed a desk at me and I was losing my breath. Some had long hair, sang songs and swore. We were made to face the wall with our hands on the wall. They hit and punched us. I was yelling, I couldn't take the pain any more." Skipping little passages, for speed. "I was hit on the legs with a metal bar. I fell on the floor. One of them kicked me in the ear. There was another policeman from Slivovo, Dragan, last name unknown, he grabbed me and my brother by our hair, banged our heads together ... bad beating."

And then he says: "I recognised one of them as I've seen him recently testifying at The Hague Tribunal. I knew him then as Dragan Jasovic. I knew him previously from the police station. He was in charge ⁴⁰⁸⁴⁶ of Ferizaj, Shtime and Lipjan. When we were dragged upstairs, Jasovic was in civilian clothes and he said to the police officer to kill us. At one point I wanted to jump from the third floor ..." Now, think back. That's what Naser Mujota says about this encounter. Is there a grain of truth in that?

A. [French on English channel]... that I was in charge of -- [French on English channel].

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute. I think we're getting French.

MR. NICE: We did for a time but I've returned to English, but it may be different at your side of the Court.

THE INTERPRETER: Can you hear English on the English channel now?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

MR. NICE:

Q. Go on, Mr. Jasovic.

A. I said specifically that I was in charge of Urosevac, Stimlje, and Lipjan. Lipjan belongs to the Secretariat of the Interior of Pristina. Second point: It is not true that he was from Djeneral Jankovic, taken via Urosevac to Stimlje and then from Stimlje to Urosevac and I wasn't able to follow the whole route that you set out. Thirdly, it is not true and correct, and I say that with full responsibility, that he came -- a moment ago, you said a moment ago that he was brought to Stimlje --

Q. How do you know --

A. -- from Djeneral Jankovic.

Q. How do you know he didn't take that route? I thought you just sat ⁴⁰⁸⁴⁷ behind your desk, waiting for people to arrive? How do you know?

A. I didn't understand your question. A moment ago you said that when he was on his way he was stopped on the road towards Djeneral Jankovic and that from Djeneral Jankovic they took him to the police station in Stimlje and from Stimlje to the Secretariat of the Interior of Urosevac. And I know about that from Djeneral Jankovic to Urosevac via Urosevac you go to Stimlje or you take the byroad across Lipjan.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, we have translations down to paragraph 14, but I need to ask, if it's a 43 minutes past rise, I need to ask the witness some other questions on another topic to make use of his time if he's willing to help.

JUDGE ROBINSON: May I ask the court deputy, is the Limaj case here this afternoon?

There is another case this afternoon. So 1.43.

MR. NICE: Very well.

Q. Mr. Jasovic, we've heard from Danica Marinkovic, who did not investigate or conduct an investigation into the facts of this case. We've heard from Obrad Stevanovic who was not able to conduct an investigation into this case, and you are the policeman from the Racak area.

Do you have experience in your 20 years or so in the police of inquiring into crimes on your territory?

A. I do have experience, a great deal of experience.

Q. Have you reviewed at any stage any or many of the documents that deal with the Racak event? ⁴⁰⁸⁴⁸

A. You mean my documents.

Q. Not just your documents, other documents. Reports of what happened as well as your statements saying that people were members of the KLA. Have you looked at the other documents ever?

A. I looked at my statements personally, and my statements, my notes, my information notes, I saw through the documents that there were a number of statements from the state security sector.

Q. Statements of what kind; reports or witness statements?

A. Witness statements -- no. Statements from individuals who were interviewed by them.

Q. But they aren't available to us today; is that right? It's something different?

A. Well, that's the question you asked me.

Q. You see, we haven't had in this court, for example, a statement produced by the local authorities or by the Belgrade authorities or any other authorities from the Serb side explaining what happened in Racak. We've got a lot of bits and pieces of documents, but we haven't got a statement giving an overall account from somebody who was involved. Do you find that surprising, as a policeman?

A. Well, I can't say. Probably the person who was on the spot should have written a report about the event that took place in Racak. I mean, the person in charge of the action or someone designated by him. I don't know whether such a statement exists.

Q. That's Goran Radosavljevic, isn't it? He was in charge. You know that. ⁴⁰⁸⁴⁹

A. I'm not aware of that. I don't know whether he was in charge or not. I'm just not aware of it. I don't know. There's no reason why I should hide anything like that --

Q. You see --

A. -- if I knew about it.

Q. -- because as we haven't had anybody who's produced an analysis, if I were to give you as many documents as we've got in Serbian -- there are some of them in English but I would only ask you to look at the Serbian ones overnight, would you be prepared to look at those documents in order that we can save time in asking you questions about what the documents would show to a local policeman versed in the practices of the local police? Would you help us do that, Mr. Jasovic?

A. You mean today for tomorrow?

Q. Yes.

A. Well, I'd like to have a rest after these proceedings, after the trial. I'd be happy to help you, but not perhaps for tomorrow.

Q. It's only a question -- how big is the file, Ms. Dicklich? It's not a very big volume of material because we haven't been provided with a great deal, and half of this is in English so I wouldn't be asking you to look at the English, but if you would help us. It's a chronological compilation that we've been able to put together of what has been said or written by Serbs, authorities of one kind or another, about the Racak event. Would you be prepared to look at that for us?

A. Well, I really don't know whether I could do that today. I'd like to take a look at it, but whether I'll be able to get through that today I ⁴⁰⁸⁵⁰ can't say.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, the position, as the Court knows, is that there has been no single comprehensive document produced, and we have done our best drawing on all sources and in an entirely non-selective way to put a chronological collection together of the documents, and I would like to ask some questions about that. If the witness and the Chamber were disposed to read the material overnight, the questioning would take less time. If that's not possible, more time will be consumed.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The witness does not appear disposed -- to be disposed to reading it overnight. He's not certain whether he could get through that material tonight.

MR. NICE: Well, I've done my best, but can I ask him one or two more questions just so that we know what his position on Racak is -- sorry, Your Honour.

JUDGE BONOMY: Just before, could I ask one question? Mr. Jasovic, what position did Goran Radosavljevic hold?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] To be quite honest and frank, I really can't explain what work post and what position he held.

JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] He wasn't an assistant minister, so I really don't know.

MR. NICE: If I --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Just a couple of questions.

Q. Tell us in a sentence, Mr. Jasovic, what happened at Racak. ⁴⁰⁸⁵¹

A. You mean the 15th of January, 1999?

Q. Yes.

A. There was a conflict between the Albanian KLA terrorists and members of the police, the MUP of the Republic of Serbia.

Q. And who attacked whom?

A. Who attacked who. Well, certainly the members of the KLA opened fire on members of the police.

Q. And then? You see, you've spoken to so many witnesses who you tell us have told you the full truth about everything, it's impossible that you don't have some understanding of events. So tell us what happened next.

A. I don't know specifically what happened next on the spot. I can tell you -- I could tell you had I been there on the spot. Then I could explain the details of it to you. But as I said previously, all I do know is there was a KLA substaff. I know that there were bunkers, trenches and communicating trenches. I know that from the direction of Racak and surrounding villages a large number of terrorist attacks were launched.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, I hate to stop you midstream. Experience is when we stop at 1.45, the next case begins ten to 15 minutes late.

MR. NICE: Very well. I will --

JUDGE ROBINSON: You will have to take this up tomorrow morning.

MR. NICE: So be it.

JUDGE ROBINSON: We will adjourn until tomorrow, 9.00 a.m.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson. ⁴⁰⁸⁵²

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] ... to set out a number of topics.

THE INTERPRETER: Could the accused repeat what he said. The microphone wasn't on.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Start again, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, for the record, for the transcript, I would like -- today's record, I'd just like to enumerate a number of topics which Mr. Nice launched in his cross-examination, dealt with in his cross-examination of General Stevanovic and for which you interrupted me and did not allow me to ask General Stevanovic any questions about. You will recall, I'm sure --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Not now, Mr. Milosevic. If you wish to take up that matter, I'll consider it tomorrow morning at 9.00. We are adjourned.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.46 p.m., to be reconvened on Thursday, the 16th day

of June, 2005, at 9.00 a.m.