⁴²⁰⁵⁷

Monday, 11 July 2005

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

[The witness entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, you may continue.

MR. NICE: Thank you.

WITNESS: BOZIDAR DELIC [Resumed]

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

Q. Mr. Delic, on Thursday of last week, right at the end of your evidence, you told us that you'd been on the battlefield in 1993 and 1994. What were you doing on the battlefield in 1993 and 1994?

A. In 1993 and 1994, I was an officer in the organ for civilian affairs in the town of Cavtat. That means that my task was -- because in that territory there wasn't any schooling organised due to war operations, my duty was to establish schools and public utilities, everything that was required by the civilian population in that area.

Q. 1993 and 1994 or 1991 was that?

A. Well, in 1993 and 1994, that is to say from the 19th of April, 1993, until the 31st of January, 1994, well, that's Bosnia-Herzegovina. I was in the area around the area of Ljubinje, and at that time I was Chief of Staff of the 715th Brigade for two months, and after that, head of the information security organ of the brigade.

Q. Did that involve your leading troops in combat? ⁴²⁰⁵⁸

A. At the time when I was in the 715th Brigade there was no fighting in that territory. Fighting was in the area of Mostar between the units of the Croat army and the Muslim units, whereas in the part of the theatre of war where I was vis-a-vis the Croat and the Muslim units, there was no fighting.

Q. And then you're telling us that after that period in Bosnia in 1994, you returned where?

A. After that, I returned to Belgrade, to the military academy where I was an officer in the organ for teaching and operations, and I was there until the 16th of February, 1995.

Q. And from the 16th of February, 1995, where were you?

A. Correction. Not from the 16th but from the 6th.

Q. Where were you?

A. From the 6th of February, 1995, until the 3rd of September, 1996, I was Chief of Staff of the 549th Motorised Brigade in Prizren.

Q. There were two spells when you were working out of Serbia, one in the 1991, and I think you said 1992 period, when you were in Croatia in the area of Dubrovnik at Cavtat doing administrative matters; is that right? Civil affairs.

A. Yes, yes.

Q. And by whom were you paid then, 1991, 1992?

A. In 1991 and 1992, I was within the Yugoslav People's Army. Croatia was a part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Q. 1993, 1994, when you were in Bosnia-Herzegovina, how come you were working there? ⁴²⁰⁵⁹

A. In 1993 and 1994, I was in Bosnia-Herzegovina at my own request, in the area around Ljubinje and Bileca, because my parents were born in that territory, so I hail from that area. For ten years I served in Bileca, from 1977 until 1987. That was the reason I was in that territory.

Q. You haven't answered my question. By whom were you paid when you were working in the area of Bileca, which is of course right next door to Trebinje, isn't it? By whom were you paid when you were there?

A. I've already said that I went at my own request. For a while, naturally it was the army of Yugoslavia that was paying me, and after that, they severed my pay.

Q. When did they sever your pay, and why?

A. Well, they severed my pay. I never saw an actual paper. I never got an order severing my pay, but for a few months I did not receive any salary. When I returned, I was told -- rather, if I did not return to the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that my professional service would cease. After that I returned. That was on the 31st of January, 1994.

Q. Who told you that you'd have to return or your service would cease?

A. At my unit, the military academy in Belgrade, where I was one of the employees.

Q. So just an oral communication, was it?

A. From time to time I would call my superior in Belgrade to give him a call, because of course I communicated with my family in Belgrade as ⁴²⁰⁶⁰ well. He told me that I had to return to Belgrade, or if I stayed on, I can stay on where I am but that my professional service in the army would cease. That is why I returned again.

Q. When you were working in Bosnia-Herzegovina, paid by the army of Yugoslavia, what was the mechanism by which you were paid?

A. I was not paid in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I had my own bank account in Belgrade, and in Belgrade I received or, rather, my family, of course, received my salary in Belgrade until it was severed.

Q. And you were there as the Chief of Staff of the 715th Brigade. What showed up in your record as the unit to which you were attached for this period of time?

A. I worked at the military academy, and I did not receive the salary of a chief of staff, and that is a post I held for a rather short period of time. I received the salary for the actual post within the establishment where I worked in Belgrade.

Q. Were you nominally attached to something called the 30th Personnel Centre?

A. The 30th Personnel Centre was -- or, rather, they probably wrote a temporary order, a temporary order, because my basic workplace was in Belgrade and it was there waiting for me, but I just received an order, and I believe it was the 30th Personnel Centre that wrote it, about my appointment to that unit where I was, actually.

Q. Let's see if we can put this all together. You maintain that you were a volunteer but that they wrote an order associating you with the 30th Personnel Centre, and you then went to serve in Bosnia. What did the ⁴²⁰⁶¹ 30th Personnel Centre have to do with all of this?

A. As far as I'm concerned personally, it had nothing to do with me. The only thing was that they knew of my wish to go to Bosnia-Herzegovina. They probably established contact with the command of the Herzegovina Corps in Bileca, and when I came to that corps I expressed my wish to go to a unit where officers with whom I had worked before were serving, and those are persons who are from there, too, from Bosnia-Herzegovina. They only assisted me in that sense, that I could serve on the unit where I wished to be.

Q. The 30th Personnel Centre was the fiction whereby VJ soldiers served in Bosnia and were paid. It's as simple as that, isn't it?

A. That's your opinion.

Q. Tell me in what way I'm wrong. You see, you as a --

A. I mean I don't know what kind of way of expressing yourself this is, fiction, invention. The 30th Personnel Centre did exist. There were persons who were born in Bosnia, and these people certainly went there to defend their homes and their people in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The 30th Personnel Centre primarily took care of these people. They didn't have to take care of me because I wasn't the one who was born in Bosnia-Herzegovina. My parents had been born there. I worked in Bosnia-Herzegovina for ten years, and I wanted to be with the people whom I had met over those ten years and the unit where I worked for those ten years. So the 30th Personnel Centre does not have anything to do with me personally really.

Q. You're from Kosovo and from Serbia, and we've heard the accused ⁴²⁰⁶² say many times that Serbia wasn't in any way at war. It wouldn't have been appropriate or right, would it, for the VJ of Serbia to send you to serve in another country, like Bosnia, and to pay you. It wouldn't have been right to do that, would it?

A. The army of Yugoslavia certainly did not send me. It was my wish.

Q. If it was your wish, it still wouldn't be right for the taxpayers of Serbia to have you paid by the army to go and serve in another country, would it? No justification for that.

A. But I did not defend Americans in Bosnia. I defended part of my own people. I defended my relatives.

Q. I wonder if you could just listen to the question for a second. It wouldn't have about appropriate or right, would it, for the army of Serbia to send you to serve in another country, because Serbia wasn't at war.

A. Well, I'm telling you that the army did not send me. The army could not even send those people who had been born in Bosnia, who had their families there, their parents there. They could not send anyone by force if the said person didn't want to go. I know many people who were born --

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... to pay you to go and fight in somebody else's country?

A. You say that Bosnia is somebody else's country, some other country. Until that time, Bosnia was an integral part of Yugoslavia. Let us not go into politics now, the kind of politics that led to the break-up of -- ⁴²⁰⁶³

Q. You're a senior military official. You've told us about your Ph.D. You volunteered opinions about political matters in the extensive evidence to the accused. What was the status of recognition of Bosnia by 1993, 1994? Was it recognised internationally?

A. Yes.

Q. I repeat the question so you can have a chance to answer it. How could it have been right -- I'll change it so you can have another way of looking at it. Can it have been right for the VJ to pay for you to go and serve in the army of a different -- on a different country; in Bosnia?

A. Obviously you don't understand a great many things regarding the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. It was possible. At that moment when I received information that the army severed my pay and that they put this condition forth that I should either return to Yugoslavia and be with the army of Yugoslavia or remain in Bosnia without any links to the army of Yugoslavia, at that juncture, I returned to Belgrade.

Q. Your personnel file exists somewhere. Have you seen it?

A. Well, it's not customary for officers to be able to see their own personnel files. It was in the personnel administration of the army of Yugoslavia.

Q. But it still exists, and so we should be able to obtain it, shouldn't we?

A. Well, certainly, if you ask for it.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... no objection to us looking at it, would you? And is this --

A. There's no reason -- ⁴²⁰⁶⁴

Q. And is this going to show the pressure put on you to return from Bosnia to Serbia, or is that oral request not going to be evidenced by any part of your written record?

A. Well, you see, such things cannot be seen in one's personnel file. Perhaps, perhaps there may be a telegram, but I'm not sure. I know there was a telegram, though. If it was kept, perhaps it still exists in my personnel file.

Q. Then to summarise the position with the two wars that were fought in Croatia and in Bosnia, although you were present at the area of Dubrovnik at the time of the shelling of Dubrovnik, you took no part in that?

A. I was in Dubrovnik or, rather, I was not in Dubrovnik. I was in the area surrounding Dubrovnik from the 9th of December, 1991. Allegedly, the alleged shelling of Dubrovnik occurred earlier.

Q. Don't -- don't hesitate to tell us if you think that the evidence of the shelling of Dubrovnik is incorrect. You were there with other officers. Is it your case there was no shelling of Dubrovnik, or do you accept, with all the knowledge you must have had, that there was shelling of Dubrovnik? Which?

A. A lot of time is required in order to answer that question. Of course I have knowledge. It was military objectives that were targeted in Dubrovnik. If I had a map here, I could show --

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... they were shelled then. Please, yes or no: It was shelled.

A. At that time, military objectives were targeted. Not the old ⁴²⁰⁶⁵ city, not by any means.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... was it shelled? Yes or no.

A. Dubrovnik was not shelled.

Q. Very well. What was shelled in the area of Dubrovnik?

A. In the area of Dubrovnik, artillery positions and mortar positions of the Croatian army were targeted.

Q. And the Old Town was never shelled at all. Is that your case? Is that your evidence?

A. The Old Town was never shelled at all. One of the positions, I know now that these were four mortars of 82 millimetres. One was right by the north-western ramparts of the old part of Dubrovnik. One anti-aircraft gun was, from time to time, on a tower in the old part of town. Mortars positioned on vehicles, TAM 75 that the Croats called Charlie, often entered the old part of town and opened fire from the old part of town. There is no need for me to explain --

Q. So if they entered the old part of the town, then I suppose it would have been justified to shell it, but you say it was never shelled; is that right?

You see, we've seen video footage of the damage done to the Old Town of Dubrovnik, but maybe it's all a mistake. Never shelled?

A. International observers were there, and I talked to them. So you are asking me about some things concerning which you have reliable information received from the European observers. You know that in the hotels of Dubrovnik, on the upper floors of these hotels there were refugees from the territory of the area of Dubrovnik, and downstairs there ^{42066 BLANK PAGE 42067} were troops of the Croatian army. That is what was established by the European Monitors too.

Q. Okay. So we may come back to this if time permits, but you had no active role, no combat role in the area of Dubrovnik at all.

A. My role was to assist the civilian population.

Q. Then in 1993, 1994, in your second deployment, this time to Bosnia, you had no active role in combat at all; correct?

A. I did not take part in combat, because at the time there was intensive fighting between the Croatian and Muslim units, whereas as far as the Serb side is concerned, there weren't any operations directed against it by either one of the two other sides.

Q. When you --

JUDGE BONOMY: Could I just clarify one thing, and it's probably my fault.

General, in 1993 and 1994 when you were in Bosnia, of which army was the 715th Brigade part?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It was part of the Herzegovina Corps of the army of Republika Srpska.

JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

MR. NICE:

Q. Yes, and I am indeed grateful for being reminded to ask you a question that I had intended to ask you a few minutes ago. You weren't working with the recognised army of Bosnia, were you? You were working with an army of an entity that was not recognised internationally at all; correct? ⁴²⁰⁶⁸

A. I worked for the army of Republika Srpska. As for recognition of that entity, that was recognised. That is part of the policy that led to the break-up of the state and later on to the break-up of Bosnia-Herzegovina. I'm a Herzegovinian by descent, I was in Herzegovina, and that is my right.

Q. Now, when you became a general, what date was that?

A. I became a general on the 31st of December, 1999.

Q. At that time, I think you were the youngest or one of the youngest generals in the army. Martinovic or Obradovic might have been about the same age, but other than that, it was you. Is that correct?

A. Well, at that time they were already not in the army. I was the youngest general.

Q. And you then indeed took over in Belgrade, didn't you, in charge of the unit in Belgrade?

A. Yes. On the 15th of January, 2000, I transferred to Belgrade and became Chief of Staff of the Belgrade Corps.

Q. And do we take it that this reward was built entirely on your performance in Kosovo, that there was no earlier combat record that was to justify your promotion at such a young age to general?

A. No, we cannot take it that way. I became colonel in 1996, and I was the youngest colonel of the army of Yugoslavia. So --

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... you done by 1996 to become the youngest colonel? Because we've looked at what you did in 1991 to 1993, 1994, and there doesn't seem to be any combat. So what combat had you done by 1996? ⁴²⁰⁶⁹

A. It is not required to participate in combat. I became a colonel in 1996 quite regularly, because I had served four years as lieutenant colonel before that. That is the normal legal procedure. I spent four years in the rank of lieutenant colonel, and in a quite regular way I became -- I was promoted into colonel in 1996. No special merits are required for their promotion. If you know anything about interrelations in the army, that is a regular promotion.

And because I was the youngest -- I was youngest, by the way, when I was 2nd lieutenant in the army of Yugoslavia.

Q. I asked you a couple of minutes ago if there was no earlier combat record to justify your promotion at such a young age apart from your performance in Kosovo, you said we can't take it that way, suggesting there was earlier combat. Now you say there wasn't. Let's just have it clearly, shall we?

Until Kosovo, were you ever engaged in combat; and if so, where?

A. You're obviously twisting my answers, and that's not appropriate. I said quite clearly --

Q. Sorry, Mr. Delic. I'm not going to allow you to say that. I simply read back to you the answer as translated so that you would have a chance to deal with it, and since you choose to make the observation you do, I'll give you a chance to have it exactly as it appears on the transcript.

What I asked you was this: "Do we take it that this reward was built entirely on your performance in Kosovo, that there was no earlier combat record that was to justify your promotion at such a young age to ⁴²⁰⁷⁰ general?" You said: "No, we cannot take it that way. I became a colonel in 1996." And I simply questioned: "Was there combat before 1996 of which we have yet to hear?"

A. There were no combat activities prior to 1996. However, I was one of the best recruits in the school of national defence, and I spent the required time in the rank of lieutenant colonel; four years. So one cannot conclude that my stint in Kosovo was the only thing that helped me become a colonel. My entire service served as a guarantee for my promotion into that rank.

Whether my stint in Kosovo had some influence, I don't know. I believe it had.

Q. My last question at the moment on your career is this, for the time being, at least: Did your time serving for the army of Republika Srpska count towards the time required to justify your promotion to lieutenant colonel? Did it?

A. No. No. That period had no significance whatsoever, because it is only my superiors in the army of Yugoslavia who rate my performance.

Q. Did the time in the RS count towards the total period of time needed to justify your promotion? That's all.

A. I was there for only eight months. That time does count into those four years required for a promotion into the rank of colonel.

Q. And I suggest so - quite an easy question and an easy answer: The VJ recognised your time in the RS as time that could be added in to justify your promotion.

A. I do not see anything contestable about this. ⁴²⁰⁷¹

Q. When did you first accept, Mr. Delic, that ten years ago today thousands of Muslims were killed by Serbs at Srebrenica?

A. That is your observation. I do not accept your story.

Q. Well, maybe, in which case that will make matters much shorter. Do you not accept, even today, that 7 or 8.000 men and boys were killed in Srebrenica by Serbs?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I think it is inappropriate to ask this witness questions about Srebrenica. Mr. Nice is doing this looking only at the media. The witness has explained what he did there, and this has nothing to do with his testimony. Mr. Nice is making comments that go totally beyond the scope of this testimony for reasons that are well known to him and to the public as well.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: It's relevant to his credibility, Mr. Milosevic. The question should be answered.

MR. NICE:

Q. Do you accept even today that 7 or 8.000 men and boys were killed in Srebrenica by Serbs?

A. I accept that in the area of Srebrenica 2 to 3.000 Serbs were killed and several thousand Muslims.

Q. Several thousand Muslims were killed by Serbs, weren't they?

A. A large number of those Muslims were killed in combat with Serb forces. ⁴²⁰⁷²

Q. And you know that, do you?

A. I was not there. All I know I know from the press, a bit from this trial.

Q. My question was very carefully constructed as first asked, and the question was when did you accept this. And did you accept this reality in 1995 when the first evidence about it surfaced, or did you accept it later when people like Mladic got indicted, or did you accept it later when people here pleaded guilty? Help us understand the environment in which you operate by letting us know when you, Mr. Delic, first recognised that that atrocity had occurred.

A. Well, you see, you're absolutely unfair on this issue. I was never there. I've never been there. My knowledge about this is the knowledge of a man who read about it in the newspapers, and now you want me to tell you when I accepted that.

I do not accept that what happened there happened in the way you are trying to represent here. I told you, several thousand people were killed there, Serbs and Muslims, but let this Court decide about that. And of course I will be happy to know the real truth about that event one day.

Q. You see --

A. As for -- as for my attitude towards crime, I condemn every crime, Mr. Nice. So this segment of your questions I believe was completely unnecessary and very unfair.

Q. There is in Serbia denial, isn't there, of the past? People have been for ten -- ⁴²⁰⁷³

A. That is not true.

Q. Well, for example, apparently until about a few months ago, or a few weeks ago, a majority of Serbs, in answer to a poll - you may know this - would deny that Srebrenica happened. And what I want your help with as an intelligent person is what were the influences that led people to deny the obvious? Can you help us? It's your country.

A. In the case of Srebrenica, there is only one-sided bias, and there is only obvious insistence on the casualties and victims of one people. That problem was never approached with equanimity. 63 Serb villages were destroyed in the area of Srebrenica, a fact that you will seldom hear. I know, therefore, that my people condemn every crime, and these days, reading the newspapers, I know that crimes are being primarily condemned committed by my people. And it is also my approach, my belief, that all criminals should be brought to justice, including individuals from my people who committed crimes. That has always been my belief, and please do not try to put other words in my mouth.

Q. Well, I ask you these questions with a particular purpose in mind that relates to the evidence you've given and to which I'm going to turn, but I'm going to start my questioning on this topic in this way: Are you -- have you yourself, do you think, been involved in the process of trying to adjust or control the recognition of reality? Have you been involved in trying to affect the way people think about these affairs in any way?

A. I'm not a public figure. I simply do not have access to the mass media in order to be able to influence public opinion. The only impact I ⁴²⁰⁷⁴ could have had was in contacts with my colleagues or with regular citizens who are my friends or acquaintances.

Q. Ten thousand four hundred documents were assembled to assist this accused in his defence. Can you please tell us how they were assembled?

A. As far as documents are concerned, that is the job of legal assistants. When they contacted me, I was given certain subjects, themes to prepare and to which I would testify, but I said that in order to testify to these subjects, I need certain documents. I suggested some of them, others I received by the legal assistants --

Q. Well, that's --

A. -- the legal counsellors, and it was their job to provide the documentation.

Q. When did this process start?

A. The first contact was made sometime in 2002.

Q. 2002. What month, roughly, in 2002?

A. Early 2002, I believe.

Q. And were you then in regular contact with the legal counsellors, as you describe them, in gathering, reviewing the documents that were to be relied on and to become the binders of exhibits we have here? Is that right?

A. No. I was not in regular contact with them. Sometimes we would not hear from one another for six months on end.

Q. Starting in 2002, you knew you were going to be giving evidence, or might be giving evidence, for this accused, and you and his counsellors were identifying the documents to be used. Would that be fair? ⁴²⁰⁷⁵

A. I was aware of the subjects on which I should speak, and regardless of legal counsellors, I reflected on these subjects, and at the end of the day I am familiar with these subjects because they related to my work in the area of Kosovo and Metohija.

Q. Now let's hear about the role of the Commission for Cooperation with the ICTY in the assembling of this 10.400 documents. Can you tell us about that?

A. The Commission for Cooperation, while it existed, was a very representative institution counting about 40 members, including several generals and several people with Ph.D.'s, and this commission received requests signed by you and sent by you to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs forwarded these documents from you to the Commission for Cooperation with the ICTY, and then that commission, which had its own teams of experts depending on which segment of the indictment was concerned, Croatia, Bosnia, or Kosovo, worked to collect this documentation.

I had a specific duty. In that job I received several requests for -- from that commission concerning specific documents. The commission, however, gathered the documents and gave them to the National Council for Cooperation, which later decided on their sending to the ICTY. But you know that commission was abolished in the first half of 2003. And after that --

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... by Mr. Tadic, and we'll come to that a little later. But so that the Court can fully understand the position, the National Council for Cooperation, which deals with requests ^{42076 BLANK PAGE 42077} on cooperation, then had a further filter, or found itself facing a further filter in respect of the VJ and in the form of this commission; correct?

A. No. The first thing you need to understand is this: As far as the documentation of the VJ is concerned, there are several things you need to know. The General Staff and various commands of the army of Yugoslavia were bombed on more than one occasion and several hundreds of square metres of their premises were destroyed. The documentation is stored in six to eight locations, in an adequate space, in premises distant from one another. There was no system of electronic processing of documentation. So when you request something - and I know this because some of your requests reached me, and I have one of your requests here in my bag - in order to respond adequately to your request months and even years are required and enormous resources because you almost never say, "I need this and that document." For instance, the request I have in my bag, you say you need from the General Staff everything from the army, from the corps, and from brigades. Those are millions and millions of paper.

Q. Can you tell me why an international criminal court, investigating an army against which there is evidence of criminality, should not have access to its records?

A. You have received a huge quantity of material from the army. Since I was brigade commander, I said if the International Tribunal needs documents from my brigade, let them have everything down to the last bit of paper. ⁴²⁰⁷⁸

Q. Thank you for that. Have you, by any chance, got any more documents with you here today? I don't mean here in this room but here in The Hague, beyond the binders we've already seen?

A. Well, leaving Belgrade, I was thinking about what else I might perhaps need, and I do have certain other documents with me.

Q. What other documents have you got with you? Give us the general list. I don't want suddenly to be presented with things at the last minute, you see. What other documents in general have you got with you?

A. It's difficult to give you a list, but I have, for instance, my war journal, my combat reports. I have the war journal of my commander. I have reports from my subordinate commanders, including the subordinate commander who was the most remote from my unit. I have various telegrams exchanged and a number of smaller orders.

Q. What volume of material is this?

A. Those are notebooks, photocopied notebooks, several of them.

Q. And is the journal the war diary that we've been seeking?

A. Yes. Yes. You asked for it. In fact, you asked for all war diaries.

Q. And we were never provided with them, were we?

A. I don't know whether you received them. You probably received some of them. But you should have short-listed the documents you required, from which units you wanted war diaries. The way you formulated it, not a single sovereign state will give you that.

Q. Yes. We're obviously grateful to you for your assistance in how we should do our work, but you know that one of the requests was indeed ⁴²⁰⁷⁹ for the war diary of your unit. We haven't seen it, and I take it you have it with you. It's available for inspection, and it's not translated. Would that be about right?

A. Let me correct you right away. If you had required the war diary of my unit, you would have received it immediately, because I was never opposed to you receiving any paper from my unit. It was always available to you. But what you said was war diaries of all brigades. You didn't say the war diary of 549th Brigade. If you had requested anything specifically from my unit, I have nothing to hide. Every document should be accessible to you if my state should decide so.

Q. The commission that you've told us about actually has created a whole lot of new material, as we'll see when we come to the relevant tabs, and has not provided us with the contemporaneous material. Can you explain that?

We've got maps and we've got statements from your commanders, but what we don't have from the commission is the contemporaneous material. Can you explain that?

A. I cannot say with any certainty whether the commission was tasked to do this by the state to clarify certain points in the indictment or it was requested in order to be submitted to the Tribunal. At any rate, that job began and was done for several months, because when the commission was abolished, the process of abolishing it did not take months. When the new minister took office, he immediately took the decision to cancel it. Within ten days, most people were let go. Only four officers remained and one technical expert. The others retired. And those who remained did the ⁴²⁰⁸⁰ best they could. Whenever they would receive a request from you, they would search for documentation in order to forward it to the national council or to you.

Q. As long ago as the 16th of October, 2002, we requested war diaries of the General Staff of the Yugoslav army, Supreme Command Staff, the 3rd Army, the Pristina Corps, and of all brigades and independent battalions subordinate to the Pristina Corps during the state of war. So that would have been your war diary.

Now, we asked for it whenever it was, three years ago, and we have yet to receive it. And you've got it there with you, have you?

A. What I have here is my own diary.

Q. No. I want the war diary.

A. Well, yes, the war diary, but I only have the war diary of my own unit here. I have every right to it. I had the right to take the war diary of my unit.

Q. Let's explore that in a little bit more detail. Units subordinate to your brigade would keep written records of everything that they did, and so far as possible, they'd keep written records of every radio and telephone communication that went up to your brigade; correct?

A. No. Just the unit which was in the other garrison, that is to say the Djakovica garrison, which was my 2nd Motorised Battalion, which did not have direct communication like the other commanders did. So it was duty bound to keep a notebook of all incoming telegrams from me and all outgoing telegrams and dispatches, and they were required to -- or he was required to send in his reports. The other commanders who were in the ⁴²⁰⁸¹ same location where the brigade was, that is to say they just kept a war diary. The other documents and records they had no need of keeping because they were on a direct telephone communication with the duty officer.

Q. Let's just look, shall we, at --

MR. NICE: Mr. Prendergast, if you could show that page to the witness, and we'll display on the overhead projector this. Mr. Prendergast, if you would put page 202 of this on the overhead projector.

Q. This, I trust, is a document you recognise. Command and control dated 1997, and we're looking at a chapter, 4.2, and that will go on the overhead projector, please.

Follow with me, please, as I read: "An operational log is a combat document into which, during a war, in chronological order, per day, are entered: All important events (state of the enemy and one's own forces and losses), a short summary of all the commandant's commands, the more important orders, data from the reports of subordinates, notifications received and sent, requests, and so on." Was that requirement effective in your brigade and in its subordinate parts?

A. You have here in my opinion a textbook for the training at general staff schools and the military academy which is setting out the principles, which means that this is not a rule. It is a textbook for teaching and training. But the units keep war diaries, and the contents of a war diary is, roughly speaking, as you read out. ⁴²⁰⁸²

Q. And it goes on to say: "It is kept by units of the level of the battalion or artillery battalion or higher." So that's your unit. "It is safeguarded as a document of permanent value, so as to enable, after the war, study and analysis of combat operations of the units; it also serves for the writing of history."

So the operational log for your unit is a document you provided to us, or not?

A. I did not provide you with it, of course.

Q. Why not?

A. You did not ask for it. You did not request the document from my unit.

Q. Forgive my naivete if it is, but wouldn't an operational log be about the best document as a starting document to work out what happened in the course of a war?

A. A war diary is the basic document in wartime. In wartime, war diaries are kept, and the operational or whatever you called it, the operational log or diary is not kept during a war. It is written -- or, rather, combat reports are written. As soon as a war starts, the operational logs ceases -- log ceases to be kept and combat reports are written and a war diary kept.

Q. Well, have we got all the --

A. But they're very similar.

Q. Have we -- very well. Incidentally, for the benefit of the Court but also for you, Mr. Delic, on the same 16th of October, 2002, we requested operations logs of all brigades and independent battalions ⁴²⁰⁸³ subordinate to the Pristina Corps. So if I may say so, we were after your documents three years ago, or just under.

Now, are they here today, the operational logs or what you describe as combat reports? Are they all here?

A. Well, you can answer that question for me whether you received it or not. My operational logs and my war diary is here, and the report by one of my commanders who wrote it is here. That I have here with me. Now, whether you received what you requested, I really can't say. I don't know.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, your answer a moment ago, Mr. Delic, was that your operational log was not handed over because it wasn't asked for. Now it appears, if that extract is accurate that's been read to you, it appears it was asked for.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They asked for the documents of practically the whole army, referring to the whole army. What they should have done was to ask specifically which document they were interested in; which unit and which specific document. Just imagine for yourself somebody asking for several million pages of material. If Mr. Nice requested --

JUDGE BONOMY: [Previous translation continues] ... the question I've asked. Could you please deal with the point I'm making to you rather than entering into some political polemic about how the Prosecutor here has carried out his work in general and deal with the point I'm asking you about, which is: The quotation we've just had from the Prosecutor suggests that your operational log was requested. Do you accept that? ⁴²⁰⁸⁴

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Specifically, no, not specifically. It wasn't asked for specifically, the war report and war diary of my brigade. My brigade was not mentioned anywhere in the requesting -- document for request.

MR. NICE: Shall I just lay this on the overhead projector.

JUDGE BONOMY: So it is not a brigade that is within the Pristina Corps.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It is a brigade within the Pristina Corps, certainly.

MR. NICE: Put this on the overhead projector.

Q. I'm sorry this doesn't come to you in translation, Mr. Delic, but you'll have to trust my reading of the translation.

MR. NICE: Can we just see the date, Mr. Prendergast.

Q. 16th of October, 2002. "The Office of the Prosecutor wishes to request the assistance of your government to provide... "1. War diaries.

"2. Operations logs of: General Staff of the army, Supreme Command Staff, 3rd Army, Pristina Corps, all brigades and independent battalions subordinate to the Pristina Corps during the state of war." That covers you, doesn't it?

A. Yes.

MR. NICE: Could I have the document back, please, Mr. Prendergast. Thank you.

Q. Well, now, let's just try and stick with the sort of material that was in fact available and may be, for all we know, in your briefcase at ⁴²⁰⁸⁵ the moment. But you gave an answer not so very long ago -- let's just see what you said.

You said this to me. You said: "You can answer that question whether you've received it or not. My operational logs and war diary is here, and the report by one of my commanders. That's what I have here with me." Now, you said I should be able to tell you. In the nearly 30 hours of evidence that you gave, you produced eight binders of material, and you will understand that we, the Prosecution and the Judges, are working on that material as being the material that has been provided and is relevant. Do you understand me?

A. Yes, fully.

Q. You've now told us a little bit about what's in your briefcase, but if we take temporarily and out of sequence so I can explain my concerns -- yes. Would you be good enough, please, to take your own tab 430. We'll come back to this much later, but it's -- sorry, volume 6. Have you got volume 6? And perhaps Mr. Prendergast would lay --

A. What tab number did you say?

Q. 430.

JUDGE KWON: There are several maps.

MR. NICE: Any of these little maps will do. Lay one of them perhaps on the overhead projector.

Q. You see, what you've told us, Mr. Delic, is this, that these maps which we're now looking at were constructed by the commission, weren't they?

A. I never said that. ^{42086 BLANK PAGE 42087}

Q. Well, by whom --

A. How can you claim anything like that?

Q. By whom were they constructed?

A. They were drafted pursuant to the request of the commission, and they were drawn up by my officers.

Q. Very well. Which officer -- let's just take this one that's on the overhead projector at the moment so we can go and speak to him if we need to. Who was it?

A. I accept this map just as if I had drawn it myself, but it was drawn by my operative officer.

Q. When?

A. I've already said; sometime towards the end of 2002.

Q. Yes. So these documents that we've been looking at were constructed by, at the moment, an officer who you have not named and on the basis of, no doubt you will tell me, contemporaneous material. Yes?

A. Yes.

Q. And although this comes to us via the legal associates of the accused and from the commission, you were actually actively engaged, were you, in getting a subordinate to draw the map?

A. Like all the other commanders, I, too, was given the assignment from an expert team of the National Council. I therefore received the events that I was supposed to deal with, both in graphic form and in textual form. So it's not only this map. I -- my assignment was to work it out for a number of places where my unit was, to explain the effects of my unit as related to this particular place on the map, and that I was to ⁴²⁰⁸⁸ draw that and to give statements about that event.

Q. And then --

JUDGE BONOMY: General, can you clarify just one thing for me before we go further. I asked you about this earlier. My understanding was that you had personally drawn these maps. Are there some that you drew yourself or did you delegate the job of drawing each one to another officer?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm a general, Mr. Bonomy. I don't actually draw maps. But there are people whose profession and special training it is to draw maps, draft maps. And the man who drafted these maps in wartime was -- did so when the -- in the presence of the commanders of the units shown on the map here. And so we had maps and our documents, contemporaneous documents, as Mr. Nice says, relevant documents, relevant to the event. Now, the actual technology of drawing a map, the maps were actually drawn by the person who drew them during the war, the operations officer.

JUDGE BONOMY: So when it comes to the large maps which are reproductions of the submission you made for approval and the approval which came back, these were also reproduced by other persons, not by you personally; is that right?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Let's understand one another. If you mean these maps, these copies, the copies went through a photocopying machine. They weren't drawn by other people.

JUDGE BONOMY: No, no. But the marks that are on them were simply -- are simply photocopies, you say, of the original map used during the ⁴²⁰⁸⁹ war.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Please. If you copy something in the Geographical Military Institute, if you copy a map, then everything on that map, everything that exists on that map is copied. There are no other markings. Everything is copied at once altogether. It's like placing it on any other photocopy machine in colour except this is special technology, state-of-the-art equipment that only that institution has.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I remain confused, I'm afraid, but no doubt it will become clear in the course of the cross-examination.

MR. NICE:

Q. Staying one more question with these maps, these maps have not been photocopied from contemporaneous maps. They've been constructed from some kind of information, haven't they?

A. No. I've already told you a number of times these maps are not contemporaneous. They date from 2002 and were drawn up pursuant to a request. And you can see from the statements who requested that those maps be drawn up. So the graphical representation and the textual representation was drawn up for a particular event.

Q. Well, I don't understand that either. I'll try it once more. I'll hold it up so you can see what I'm talking about. This map - I'll break it into two parts - was not copied from a contemporaneous map, was it?

A. I've already told you that a hundred times. If I need to, I'll tell you 101 times. It was compiled in 2002. That is to say, it wasn't -- it didn't originate in -- earlier. ⁴²⁰⁹⁰

MR. KAY: The word "copy" and "photocopy" might be distinguished to help in the answers.

MR. NICE:

Q. It was constructed on the basis of information provided to the map drawer in 2002.

A. The drawer of the map is the direct participant in the events as well, and the basis, the groundwork for that map was the map that exists here in the documents.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... name yet, but no doubt you've got his name because you said he was a participant in the events. So --

A. Of course I do.

Q. Very well. So who drew the map?

A. The maps were drawn by my operations officer in wartime, Colonel Konjikovac.

Q. That's the first time we've heard about that, you see, but now we know. Colonel -- the name again -- oh, Colonel Konjikovac had -- had --

A. Along with the suggestions of all the commanders who were at that time, in 1999, in that location, and along with suggestions from me as well.

Q. So what, was this a group meeting where you all sat round a table and Colonel Konjikovac drew up the map? Is that what happened?

A. We received our assignment from the expert team and the Commission for Cooperation, and then we called on all the officers who -- and most of them were in Belgrade, and we did the job in my office.

Q. Right. We're gradually getting there. How many people sat round ⁴²⁰⁹¹ the table?

A. I think that is of no importance whatsoever how many people were sitting round the table. There might have been five to six of us.

JUDGE ROBINSON: You must answer the question, General.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I've already said; five to six people.

MR. NICE:

Q. And did you, as one of the five to six, have the contemporaneous documents with you on the basis of which Colonel Konjikovac was able to draw his map?

A. Yes, we did. We had all the documents from the relevant period.

Q. But the curiosity is that we don't have those documents, do we? Because they're not included in the nearly 20 hours of testimony or in the eight volumes of paper. All we've got is this reconstruction; correct?

A. All the documents are documents that you had, all the relevant documents in my testimony, and all are shown here on the easel.

Q. So that I'm going to be able to find, am I, if I ask you, the documents that will show, because they're in writing, all these troop dispositions for this map and all the troop dispositions for all the other maps? Am I going to find those in the eight volumes of materials that I've got?

A. Well, what you're holding up there in your hand is something that is in the binders as well.

Q. Am I going to find all the material going to show all those troop dispositions in the documents that have been provided? ⁴²⁰⁹²

A. I said clearly here to one and all that there are three basic documents for each operation; an order, a decision on the map, and an analysis of the effects of the operation. And you had that on the map, and you do have that in your tabs. So you have all the relevant documents on the basis of which the maps were drawn.

JUDGE BONOMY: I take it from the answer you've just given about three basic documents that in relation to a particular order there was a map which set out the decision on the map; is that correct?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

JUDGE BONOMY: Now, do you understand why a Judge in a Tribunal like this - and I'm speaking only for myself at the moment, I'm only expressing my personal position - but do you understand why a Judge in a Tribunal like this might actually like to see the original document used during the conflict to compare it with what you've reproduced and how, if there were a few examples of that, at least - and I'm not suggesting that it would be enough for you to do that, that that's all you should have done - but at least if there were a few examples, how it might be reassuring to me?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, in this Tribunal does that mean you never received a single original document? You received photocopies of documents. So my maps here, as far as I'm concerned, are completely original because they are photocopies of the original maps. And as far as I know, the photocopies are fully relevant.

JUDGE BONOMY: We know that tab 430 isn't a photocopy. We're clear about that. That's the one that Mr. Nice has been showing to you. ⁴²⁰⁹³ It may be you're now clarifying the other thing that has been certainly causing me difficulty.

The one on your left-hand side, on the easel - I don't know the number of it offhand - including the marks that are plainly handwritten or meant to be handwritten representations of where forces were at particular stages and identifying these particular forces, are you saying that what we have here is a photocopy which includes these troop dispositions as they were on the map used at the time of the conflict and that nothing has actually been written onto the photocopy at all by anyone else after the photocopy was made?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, you can check that out. That means just one single -- you can't add one single spot or place on a map. Between this map and the original map, there are absolutely no differences whatsoever.

JUDGE BONOMY: Look, General, I know that's what you're saying. I've got that point. What I want to know is whether that is purely and simply what was photocopied from the original and that after the photocopy was made nobody took a coloured pen and added anything, no one took an ordinary pen and wrote anything. That is as photocopied without any alterations, and what it's photocopied from was a map used during the conflict. Yes or no.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Absolutely. I can absolutely confirm and sign everything that I said as being true and correct.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that's not even an answer to the question.

JUDGE ROBINSON: That's apparently inconsistent with what was said ⁴²⁰⁹⁴ earlier. I thought you said it was based on -- based on information from 1999 and which left me with the impression that it was not an original. We'll take the break and then try to resolve this when we return. Twenty minutes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's ludicrous.

--- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.

--- On resuming at 10.55 a.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: General, I'll just ask you to confirm two matters in relation to the maps, and hopefully this will clarify the matter. The maps are copies of originals. That's the first thing. Just yes or no.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Okay.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The big ones.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The big ones, yes. And the originals were made contemporaneously with the events of 1999?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Those are decisions taken before each and every event, as is usually done in the military.

JUDGE ROBINSON: In which case the question arises as to whether we would be able to have access to those originals that were made in 1999.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, since you have your own office in Belgrade, a request should be presented in order to see what this original looks like. Nobody can actually get the original from the military archives, but they can have a look at it. They can compare it, ⁴²⁰⁹⁵ this map to the original map, that is.

JUDGE ROBINSON: All right. Mr. Nice, you can take it from there.

MR. NICE:

Q. The large map we've been talking about is a map of what was planned. It is not in any sense a record of what actually happened; correct?

A. According to its own rules, the army, before carrying out an operation, adopts decisions in written and in graphic form.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... my question was capable of --

A. It's quite clear.

Q. -- this map is not in any sense a record of what actually happened. Yes?

A. That's right. It is a record of what is supposed to happen.

Q. For a record of what happened, we have these little maps, produced by the committee sitting around the table, and may I take it that the MUP were not present to contribute what they'd done?

A. May I just correct you. You said Commission for Cooperation. It wasn't the Commission for Cooperation that drew up these maps. They were drawn up in accordance with the request that it had made.

Q. In this case an error in translation. I was referring to the committee sitting round the table, which was the group of five or six people, and I used the word "committee" to describe in an informal way that meeting. So I'll go back, get it absolutely right. For what actually happened, we have these little maps produced by the group of five or six sitting round the table; correct? ^{42096 BLANK PAGE 42097}

A. Please just don't use the word "committee." Let it be a group of officers, but not a committee.

So this group of officers had before it the original documents. They had an order, they had the decision on the map, and they had the analysis of the operation, and --

Q. We in this Court, all we have is the map, and would you now please, just to remind the Court, go to tab 432 as an example. If the -- if you could take 432.

MR. NICE: And if Mr. Prendergast would just lay that on the overhead projector. It's the same volume. It's volume 6.

Q. So we've also been provided with these things, statements taken in either 2002 or 2003, apparently for the Commission for Cooperation's expert team, and then signed in this case by Nikolic. Were these statements taken in 2003 or 2002, were they prepared at the same table with the group of officers sitting round it, or how were they prepared?

A. No. Perhaps one of these five or six persons did it, but I myself wrote my own statements. Each and every one of them wrote a statement for himself. They were not prepared at that same table.

Q. Well, we may have some postoperative analyses, I think, and I'm not going to go to it because I can't immediately find it and I don't want to take the time at the moment, but 359 is one, but that is the totality of the material, the written material, that you have brought to Court to tell us about the important events into which this Tribunal is inquiring; is that right?

A. Yes, this is part of the material. ⁴²⁰⁹⁸

Q. Now, let's go back -- sorry.

JUDGE BONOMY: Before you do, can I just, in case I lose track of it, clarify one matter again.

You said, General, that the five or six people who did discuss the preparation of the plan, an example was tab 430, had access to the original plan in doing so. But in answer to Judge Robinson a moment ago, you said no one can get access to the original plans because they're kept in the military archive.

Now, are you saying that in spite of that your group were able to get the originals to work on?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know, Mr. Bonomy, what kind of translation is coming out, but the question put by Judge Robinson was whether this is the original. You or I or anybody else can have a look at the original document. I would like to ask Mr. Milosevic to follow the interpretation of what I'm going to say now.

So in the military archives you can see the original document, but you cannot take the original document away with you.

JUDGE BONOMY: That is what -- that is what we were told. That was clear. But when you were preparing, as an example, tab number 430, you said that you had the original. Now, what did you mean by that?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I had what I had already received from the military archives, because that's it. For me, this is a colour photocopy of the original map.

JUDGE BONOMY: So you got the photocopy from the archives; is that correct? ⁴²⁰⁹⁹

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

MR. NICE:

Q. On that last point, there's a matter of detail. Are you aware that the OTP has offered to go and inspect the archive and has never been invited or allowed to do so, to look at things like maps?

A. I don't know about that.

Q. Let's go back, then, please, to what is our Exhibit 309, which we were looking at before.

MR. NICE: If Mr. Prendergast could help. It's the operational log passage. It was page 202.

Q. And just see what range of contemporaneous written material should exist. We got down to the second paragraph, and it says this, third paragraph in 4.2: "After a certain time combat documents are arranged and made complete in a special dossier, to which is appended a list of the documents. Into this list in chronological order, by numbers, the combat documents are placed (plans, commands, orders, directives, instructions, reports, notifications, working maps, recordings and so on) for this period of time. Documents thus arranged can be photographed (negatives are safeguarded ..."

Was that practice followed at your brigade?

A. Again, I am saying that you have a textbook, and this is a photocopy of a page from the textbook. So what it says here is fine. That's the way it's done. But not at brigade level. A brigade does safeguard its documents, and after awhile the archives of the brigade are handed over to the archives of the superior command. We do not have the ⁴²¹⁰⁰ possibility that is referred to here, that is to say that documents are photographed and negatives safeguarded. That is only at the level of the military archive. Other levels do not have the possibility of taking photographs and safeguarding negatives. That is only done at the level of the military archive.

As far as I know, in this period there was an enormous amount of documentation, so it required a lot of money, too, and this was not done for this documentation.

Q. And your subordinate units -- we can go through the textbook if it's helpful or we can just deal with it in general. Your subordinate units would themselves be keeping extensive written records of what they did, of the ammunition they used and needed to be replaced, and so on.

A. Yes. Units at battalion level had their own war diary.

Q. And at your level there would be somebody sitting beside the radio or the telephone, keeping a log, so far as possible complete, of incoming and outgoing telephone and radio messages from your subordinates to you and back, and from you to your superiors and back; correct?

A. This operations duty officer sitting by the telephone receives messages from units, receives messages from me, receives messages from the superior command and, if necessary, transmits these messages to me. He just has his work log. He records what happened during the course of the day, and then he makes entries of the most important events in his record, report.

Q. And is that operations log with you in your briefcase today, covering the relevant period? ⁴²¹⁰¹

A. Yes. Yes, I have it.

Q. And who made the decision not to include it as one of the documents that we were going to be provided? Was it you or was it the commission or was it the accused's associates, or don't you know?

A. At any rate, I wasn't the one who made that decision. I took these documents along so that they would assist me, primarily in this examination. The legal advisors, I don't know. They didn't decide on using these documents.

Q. You would accept, wouldn't you, that you as a brigade commander need to be aware pretty much on a minute-by-minute basis as much as possible of what your units in the field are doing, where they are, where the KLA was?

A. Yes.

Q. This exercise in the course of which the accused tells us 10.400 documents were assembled and then the subject of selection, over what period of time did that exercise last?

A. The assembling of documents has nothing to do with this accused. I said at the outset that from 2002 onwards I've been collecting documents for cases of this Tribunal against the KLA, and that I am the only officer of the army of Yugoslavia who was appointed to testify in cases against the KLA. Therefore, I was given the possibility to have access to all documents that I deem relevant for such cases. So I had access to my own documents and documents that come from other organs.

Q. Precisely. At the same period of time as you were working with the group of officers round the table to prepare for the defence of this ⁴²¹⁰² accused, you had unrestricted access to material because you were going to help the Office of the Prosecution in the prosecution of the KLA. That's correct, isn't it, completely correct?

A. The first part is not correct. I and my group of officers never worked on helping this accused person. We were given an assignment, like all other units. I don't have the order here, but I think I can get it in Belgrade.

So we got an order, we got an exact list of locations and events that we had to explain, and the method according to which this had to be explained through these maps. That's what I was supposed to do with my own officers.

What I did at the request of the OTP for cases against the KLA is a completely different matter. I did that on my own.

Q. How do you mean you did it on your own? Didn't you seek or didn't you need approval to get unrestricted access to the archives?

A. Three senior staff meetings of the Chief of General Staff were held where my request was discussed, so that all of those who have certain documentation related to the KLA would allow me to get such documents so that I could go to the archives and request such documents. Of course I received this permission.

Q. Remember I asked you a question about denial earlier, and it was done with a purpose, and I can deal with it briefly now and in more detail maybe later.

In your investigations into all the documentation to which you had access, you have found, I think, nothing that shows wrongdoing by any ⁴²¹⁰³ senior Serb military or political figure; correct?

A. Well, I think that you have here the most important document, starting with the General Staff, all the way down to the corps. Every one of these documents can show the professional approach to every task by the officers of the army of Yugoslavia irrespective of level.

Q. By all means give a long answer if you like, but I'm quite happy with a short one.

From all your investigations have you found anything that shows wrongdoing by any senior Serb military or political figure?

A. No, I have not found anything in the archives where I looked.

Q. And we heard endless accounts by you -- not endless but many accounts by you of what the KLA did. In your inquiry you found a very large number of documents, and you have a lot of personal experience of the bad things that the KLA and the KLA leaders did; correct?

A. Well, since that was the task that I was involved on, and I already said that I spent about 3.000 hours working on that task, that was my primary task, to focus on these maps. I took this very seriously, and I did my work professionally and seriously.

Q. Well, is the position this, that you, working with or for the commission, were engaged in the process of slanting history in the documents you provided in a way that will, as I suggested, encourage the continued process of denial? Is that what you were doing?

A. Well, perhaps you, Mr. Nice, are trying to slant history, but independently of you and me it is going to take its own course. I would never do anything such thing, what you are trying to accuse me of. ⁴²¹⁰⁴

Q. In the course of your work to find material to help the prosecutions of the KLA offenders, you made a statement. We needn't look at it, but it's right, isn't it, that you made no mention to the investigators dealing with you then of the work you were doing to help this accused or at least to be responsive to the accused's indictment, did you?

A. That's not right. That's not correct. When I was first asked to get in touch with the investigators of the Tribunal who were dealing with indictments against the KLA, I had already given my agreement to testify in this case. The investigator working in Belgrade was informed that when the time came and when I was called by the legal advisors I would testify in this case too. It was no problem then. After all, there is only one truth, regardless of whether I'm testifying for a Defence case or for a Prosecution case. There is only one truth always.

Q. I'm not a position to accept or reject the last point having only documents to go with and the investigator concerned not being immediately available, but when you were interviewed, you were interviewed in the presence of the man Radomir Gojovic, the general who's already given evidence in this case, weren't you?

A. Yes. Radomir Gojovic was on the Commission for Cooperation with The Hague Tribunal. So it was in that capacity that he was present together with me as a member of the commission.

Q. He was its legal advisor, wasn't he?

A. Yes. I think that in addition to him, the commission had other legal people, too, but I know that he was a legal man in the military and ⁴²¹⁰⁵ that he worked within that commission. But I think that in addition to him there were one or two other lawyers there, too, who had worked in the army beforehand.

Q. Is it right that in your written statement to the OTP you made no reference whatsoever to your service in Croatia in 1991, 1992, or your service in Bosnia in 1993, 1994?

A. I made that statement quite awhile ago. Quite awhile ago. I'm not sure whether it says whether I was in Croatia or Bosnia or not, but I did talk about that to the investigator. There was absolutely no doubt, but it was not relevant to the case that the investigator was interested in. The investigator was very fair, and he never asked me any question that had to do with the operation of my unit or the army of Yugoslavia. He said, "My questions will be only geared towards what you know about the Kosovo Liberation Army."

Q. The last few questions about the commission: It was discharged by Defence Minister, as he then was, Tadic on taking office because? For what reason?

A. Believe me, that question is not for me after all. I personally saw the dissolution of that commission as a surprise, because it had 40 members, and it had just started to work very well and in a high quality manner. However, Mr. Tadic's first order as minister was to dissolve the commission, and then only the technical staff of the commission was left. That was the way it was all the way up to the beginning of this year. A different body was set up now. I think it's called The Centre for Cooperation with the International Tribunal, and it's attached to the ^{42106 BLANK PAGE 42107} ministry, whereas our commission was functioning along with the General Staff of the army of Yugoslavia. I cannot tell you anything about the dissolution of that commission, but we were all impeded by that; the Office of the Prosecutor, everybody.

Q. The --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice -- oh, well, just before I forget, you accept, then, that the reason for his statement not mentioning his service in Croatia or Bosnia was that the questions put to him by the investigator were only concerned with the KLA.

MR. NICE: I'm in no position to accept or reject that at the moment for the same reason; the investigator's not available.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Okay. I see.

MR. NICE: But if I'm able to track him down, it's a question of leave, I'll deal with it.

Q. The commission was a body charged nominally with assisting army officers who voluntarily surrendered to this Tribunal in their defence. Would that be about right?

A. In the briefest possible terms, I don't think that can be completely correct because the name of the cooperation was the Commission of the General Staff for Cooperation with the Criminal Tribunal. It had the task and it received your requests through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and its task was to find documents, to gather all the relevant information and submit it to the National Council for Cooperation with the ICTY.

Q. In fact, far from cooperating, it was effectively a council for ⁴²¹⁰⁸ obstruction of the Tribunal. Isn't that the truth?

A. That is what you say. I, since I personally received a number of documents wherein I personally and my administration were requested to find certain documents, certain rules, et cetera, which we did in order to submit them to them to be forwarded to the Tribunal. You invoke this textbook. I believe that this textbook, for instance, originates from my administration, and that it was the commission that submitted it.

Q. Included in the members of the commission were such retired generals as Gvero, who is now indicted and here; is that correct?

A. I think he was on one of the teams that dealt with Bosnia.

Q. Its presiding judge was the active, the only active judge, Lieutenant General Zlatoje Terzic. Although he may have kept a low profile, he was in fact the chairman.

A. Please. I don't think the interpretation is quite correct. You said the only active judge, didn't you?

Q. The only active -- if I said that, it was my mistake. I meant the only active army officer.

A. That is the interpretation I got.

Q. The only active army officer.

A. No. The commission comprised for the most part of active duty members of the army out of all the 40 members. They were in the ranks of colonel, lieutenant colonel, there were several majors, and maybe two or three captains. And there was also a number of those who were retired, five or six. ⁴²¹⁰⁹

Q. But Terzic was involved. Can you please just display the letter of the 14th of April.

A. Yes.

MR. NICE: Again, Your Honours, this is a document like the ones I've used so far that are either existing exhibits or not, documents I'm going to seek to produce.

Q. This is a letter of the 14th of April from the Prosecutor to Mr. Svilanovic, and we can see -- a little further down the page, please, Mr. Prendergast -- that it records the following: "On the 21 November 2002, during a meeting with the acting Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav army, General Branko Krga, attended also by the president of the Commission for Cooperation with the ICTY of the Yugoslav Army, General Zlatoje Terzic, it was firmly asserted that the Yugoslav army did not have any personal file on Ratko Mladic since he had been a member of the army of the Republika Srpska at the time of the conflict." Just help me at this stage with this question: That assertion, is it true or untrue?

A. On this issue I really cannot be of assistance to you because the personnel documentation is kept not in the military archives. It is kept in the personnel administration for all the branches. So I don't have any such knowledge.

Q. And just staying for a moment with what's public knowledge, are you aware of any public pronouncements in Serbia about Mladic's personnel file, where it is and who possesses it?

A. I think it was mentioned. I don't know whether the press wrote ⁴²¹¹⁰ about it as well.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

A. Well, the question was precisely what you just said, whether it was in the Republika Srpska or in Yugoslavia.

Q. Very well.

MR. NICE: I'll have the document back, please, Mr. Prendergast.

Q. Let's move to something entirely different.

MR. NICE: If Your Honours just give me one minute. Your Honours, this is a translation of the thesis of this witness, graduation thesis at the Yugoslav army military school centre, dated 1997. I just have a few questions to ask him about it.

Q. This is the thesis that you wrote. Is that for your Ph.D. in 1997?

A. Yes.

Q. Would you be good enough, please, to go to the opening pages of text, 1.2.

MR. NICE: The Chamber will find it, I think, on the second segment.

Q. Demographic study of Kosovo. This, I take it, was a serious and scientific study?

A. This is not a scientific study, and it does not have the character of a scientific study. It is the expert work of somebody attending a technical school on a given subject --

Q. So let's look --

A. -- assigned subject. ⁴²¹¹¹

Q. Let's look at 1.2, Demographic study structure of Kosovo and its changes in the 20th century.

"In Kosovo and Metohija, the mother country of the Serbian people, the ethnic space of Serbs was continually reduced in the past centuries by the systematic advance of Albanians from the neighbouring Albania and the expulsion of the Serbian population. In the past decades, the process culminated in a phenomenon unique in Europe," and then this sentence or phrase, "whose goal is to expel the remaining Serbian population through biological (demographic) expansion based on a high birth rate among the Siptars..."

So was that your belief in 1997, that the high birth rate amongst Kosovo Albanians was deliberately aimed at expelling the Serbian population?

A. That is a fact. It is an incontestable fact.

Q. What I'm interested in, and there's sometimes problems with translation, you're actually of the view or you were of the view that the population of Kosovo Albanians as a whole had as a goal, an objective, to dominate the territory by having lots of babies. Is that really what you're saying?

A. You are saying this in such simplified terms. I wouldn't put it that way, "by having lots of babies." It is the characteristic of the Albanian population that their birth rate is the highest in Europe.

Q. Yes, it may be, but if you're simply saying that it's a matter of fact that they had a high birth rate, why do you say it was their goal to expel the remaining Serbs through expansion based on the high birth rate? ⁴²¹¹² Why do you say that?

A. Because in that way quite peacefully, without war, the Serbs who had been jeopardised by then for many years by the growing majority of Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija, and they were the majority during the Ottoman Empire and the First World War and after the Second World War.

Q. We'll return to this topic in a couple of pages, but let's just stay on this page and go down two paragraphs. You said this: "According to the estimates for the population in 1991, the Siptar population is in the absolute majority with 1.655.294 inhabitants or 82 per cent." And then you go on to say that there are some 1.730.000 Siptars in Yugoslavia. But sticking with Kosovo, 1.655.294. That's your figure, is it, and you stick by it?

A. Well, while you were reading that estimate, it says according to the estimates, because the Siptars did not take part in the last census. But the estimates are not mine. They come from the statistical institute of Serbia whose data I used.

Q. You put this estimate into your thesis. If you'd had any reservations about it then, apart from the fact it's an estimate, you would have said so. May I take it you had no reservations then and you have no reservations now, so that we can work on this as a reasonable estimate for the population?

A. Just look at --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, as usual Mr. Nice is taking a quotation out of context and then using it to prove something that he ⁴²¹¹³ would not be able to prove if he had been -- if he had read the previous paragraph. The previous paragraph says that the Albanians boycotted the previous census and all the --

MR. NICE: We've heard that already through the witness, and --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Look towards the bottom of the page. There is a footnote. Footnote 8. Attachment 2, footnote 8. Estimate by the Kosovo Province Statistical Unit.

Q. Let me just explain this to you, Mr. Delic: The accused's evidence -- please listen to me. A lot less Kosovo Albanians there and it's one of the issues that the Chamber may have to deal with, demographic evidence. Here you are doing a learned study, 1997, although it's estimates and all the qualifications, that was your recording of the estimates then. Do you have any reason to doubt its accuracy? Yes or no.

A. This is an estimate from the Kosovo Province Statistical Institute, and I accepted it in my work. But if you continue reading my work, you will see that in addition to this figure, there were 300.000 inhabitants living outside of the country.

Q. Can we go on then, please, to the English page 3, and if you would go, please, in the original text, probably a couple of pages on, to the passage immediately below the box that sets out in six rows the demographic structure between 1918 and 1971. So you come to a sentence that begins "Under strong pressure..." Have you found it? It's about two pages on.

Now, here you record --

A. Yes. ⁴²¹¹⁴

Q. -- "Under the strong pressure of the Siptar settlement and a totally wrong policy of the state between 1941 and 1991, the demographic structure in Kosovo and Metohija was turned upside down. The Serbian people were forced to emigrate ..." and so on.

And then if we look a little bit further down, we find this, towards about halfway down the paragraph, a bit more: "Furthermore, in the entire post-war period, there was the planned policy of high birth rate among Siptars in Kosovo and Metohija, motivated primarily by national interests."

So in order to understand your thinking, would it be fair to say that you believed that the principal motivation for high birth rate was the national interests of the Kosovo Albanians?

A. You are again taking two sentences out of context. If you have read my entire work, you can see from it very clearly all the elements that influenced the creation of that situation as it was in Kosovo and Metohija. Why didn't you, for instance, read the second paragraph of what you just started reading, which reads: "The measures of the government --"

THE INTERPRETER: Could we have a reference, please?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] "Measures instituted -- measures instituted by the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia in 1948 banned the Serb colonies from returning to their homestead, thereby legalising the settlement of 60.000 to 120.000 Siptars from Albania."

JUDGE BONOMY: That wasn't the question you were asked, if I may say so. That's a different issue. Can you not deal with the simple ⁴²¹¹⁵ question that actually was asked?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, Mr. Nice set a goal to himself, and he wants to prove something through a school study, schoolwork. First of all, he should explain how he managed to get his hands on something I wrote in school.

JUDGE BONOMY: What he wants to do, I suspect, is find out what your state of mind is on these matters, and the simple question was would it be fair to say that you believed that the principal motivation for high birth rate was the national interest of the Kosovo Albanians? It's a simple question.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That was not the main motivation. Kosovo and Metohija is the most underdeveloped part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The most underdeveloped part. And like in all countries where the economy is underdeveloped, the birth rate is high. But one of the reasons was also the one I mentioned here, demographic expansion motivated by national interests. In addition to backwardness, economic underdevelopment and the fact that Kosovo and Metohija was mainly a rural land with poorly developed infrastructure, poorly developed economy, this is also one of the motives.

JUDGE BONOMY: From -- from what you said a moment ago about writing this when you were in school, the date, the indicative date of writing is 1997. Is that inaccurate?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It was written in end 1996 and early 1997, by July 1997.

MR. NICE: ^{42116 BLANK PAGE 42117}

Q. It's just to explain the position to you and to show the relevance of this to later questioning, as you know, there's evidence before this Tribunal that you and the forces under you engaged in ethnic cleansing and that you gave direct instructions as to the killing of individuals when you shouldn't have done. You understand that's the state of the evidence before this Tribunal?

A. If such evidence exists, it is fabricated. I was there throughout that time, and I know very well that both I and my unit acted all the time in keeping with the law, and my conscience was -- is completely clear with regard to everything I did in Kosovo and Metohija.

Q. What I'm doing with this thesis of yours is exploring whether you had the state of mind that would have allowed to you do that sort of thing. Do you follow me?

A. Somebody else decided in good time on my state of mind. That is not your job. But if you read this thesis, you could have learned a lot about Kosovo and Metohija.

Q. Well, shall we go on, English page 15 at the bottom, and chapter and subparts 7.6 for you, please. If you can find chapter 7.6. And having found it -- have you found 7.6, Use of Security Organs and Forces? Now, if you go down one, two, three, four, five, six, seven paragraphs, you come to something that begins at the foot of our page 15. Mr. Prendergast, please, right at the bottom: "In recent times due to problems in the sphere of international relations, security services of the member republics have had totally different views of the same events determined by the views of the political leadership of the republic to ⁴²¹¹⁸ whom the security services in question are accountable. It is clear, then, that such a decentralisation of the security service and organs is untenable and that they must be unified at the level of the SRJ, because instead of being a factor contributing to stability, they are often a factor contributing to instability ..."

Does this reflect, this passage, your belief that everything should be unified under Belgrade or Serb control?

A. In a very strange way, you are drawing certain conclusions. This speaks to certain problems that existed in my country; the fact that there were in existence two republics, that the services and organs of security were primarily determined by political views. And from the viewpoint of the tenability of the entire country, it was completely impossible. I am saying here that on the level of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia there should be security organs that would care primarily about the interests of the whole state, not the individual members of that state. And this decentralisation of those two security systems was affecting negatively the security of the federal state.

Q. But is it right, if we look at the beginning of this passage, that within the security systems available at the time, or working at the time, there were different views as to, for example, the rights and wrongs of the KLA or the rights and wrongs of the Serbs? Would that be fair?

A. Please, this is a graduation thesis written in 1996 and 1997. The KLA appeared on the scene in end 1997, more precisely in 1998. So the subject here are some other problems.

Q. I can't find it immediately, but you described an enemy in this ⁴²¹¹⁹ paper. I will find it in a second. Who was the enemy you were referring to in this paper?

A. You have to find a specific passage. Give me a page and then I'll give you a specific answer.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... yourself as writing this about an existing enemy?

A. This graduation thesis is entitled "Preparation and engagement of defence forces in the prevention and crushing of armed insurgency in Kosovo and Metohija." This is a thesis written in a school in which, as you see, all the units and all the other things were dealt with not in terms of the actual situation in Kosovo and Metohija. It reflected things in the way that was possible at school.

Q. Go to English page 21, and could you find chapter 8.4. But you emphasise that this was school work. In 1996 and 1997, what rank of officer were you?

A. Well, I've already said. I had the rank of colonel.

Q. The youngest ever colonel appointed, or one of the youngest?

A. In 1996 I was the youngest, yes.

Q. And colonel's quite a senior rank in the army, isn't it?

A. Certainly.

Q. And to write a thesis for a doctorate is a serious -- it should be a serious intellectual and academic exercise, shouldn't it?

A. At all events, this is work that was required of me by the school, and to complete that school, to graduate, you would get a degree equal to a Ph.D. ⁴²¹²⁰

Q. Let's look at 8.4 on page 21. "Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo and Metohija who have not been given their assignments as v/o --" "v/o" is what, volunteers?

A. Military conscripts, "vojni obveznici."

Q. " ... in the units of the VJ and the VTK and the MUP have been issued light infantry weapons with a single of ammunition. "Thus the resistance in the settlements where Serbs and Montenegrins live has been ensured, as they can offer resistance and defend their homes and families." You then detail the types of weapons that have been issued, said they were inspected, dealt with personnel organised into squads, platoons, and companies. Unit commanders have been appointed, and these forces number 16.000 armed people. "If necessary (but only in exceptional cases)" you go on, "university students and third and fourth-grade students in secondary schools ... can be counted upon as the source of the reserve for the defence forces ... They are numerous, because only students in the Pristina University number about 22.000."

So by the end of 1996, beginning of 1997, Serbs and Montenegrins had been armed, had they, in the way described?

A. Armed, that is to say Serbs and Montenegrins armed in this way were within the composition of the units of the civilian defence.

Q. Can we go on to paragraph 9.1 on the following page, page 22. You set out here under 9.1: "Use of the VJ in the suppression of the armed insurgency." And if we then go on in the original to headed paragraph or chapter -- I'm sorry. Beg your pardon. ⁴²¹²¹ Can you go to a later paragraph, 9.1.2, which the Chamber will find in its extracts at page 27. Can you find 9.1.2, please. And here we come to a categorisation of yours, if you have that passage, which is headed "Use of the Yugoslav Army in the 2nd stage of insurgency." Can you find that?

A. Yes, yes.

Q. By "the second stage of insurgency" - you somewhere define three stages - what did you mean by the second stage?

A. The second stage of armed insurgency, when the rebel forces had become so strong that they had under their control a considerable portion of the territory.

Q. Now, there is no doubt, is there, that by 1998, on your analysis, the KLA had achieved that.

A. Yes.

Q. Because you make this point clear in your paragraph 9.1.2: "One of the particularly important aspects which has a substantial impact on the use and activities of the defence forces in the 2nd stage of the armed insurgency is the fact that the activities will be carried out at the time when a state of emergency has been declared or in an even more serious situation, that of an imminent threat of war."

So on your own analysis and understanding, once you reach the state of affairs that you were in in 1998, second stage insurgency, for the army to be involved there will have to be a declared state of emergency; correct?

A. No, that is not right. ⁴²¹²²

Q. Explain why not.

A. What I wrote down here relates and happened or, rather, was proclaimed -- a state of war had been proclaimed in 1999, which means that the rules of service, and the rule of service, I can't say that its point -- it's point 400 and something of the rules of service and if I had them I could find the exact paragraph now, but one of the tasks of the army among all other things was the fight against the rebel and terrorist groups which were jeopardising military facilities and the territory as a whole and communication lines without the proclamation of a state of emergency.

Q. The point you're referring is probably article 470 which was relied upon by those of you who attacked General Perisic after he left office. Is that the section you have in mind, 470?

A. Well, if you were to show me the rules of service, I would be able to find the article.

Q. But --

A. And tell you like this off the top of my head, I can't be specific as to which particular article it is, but the rules of service allows for the engagement of the army in peacetime, without the proclamation of a state of emergency.

Q. You see, I wasn't asking you about 1999. I was simply reading from your own thesis. And when I asked you about 1998, when I asked you about the state of emergency, it would have appeared at that stage that 1998 merited a state of emergency and I'm going to suggest to you that for the use of the army a state of emergency should have been declared. ⁴²¹²³

A. That is one possibility. A state of emergency is, therefore, proclaimed by somebody else. A state of emergency is proclaimed by the Assembly. That is the political part and not to do with me. But the army, in its rules of service and in other of its documents, it has a mechanism in place to respond to an armed uprising and terrorist action. So probably that is the article that you yourself mentioned.

Q. What should be the reaction of an army officer, a commander, facing an unconstitutional, or potentially unconstitutional use of force; i.e., when he's told to act without a declared state of emergency, what should the army officer's reaction be? Should he obey his superior officer or should he say no, this is unlawful?

A. I didn't have a situation like that in practice and it did not take place in either 1998 or 1999. We acted pursuant to the constitution and the law.

Now, had what you stated happened, certainly an officer should not carry out the order which was unconstitutional and unlawful.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... easy to give you a hypothetical because of course you were in charge of the tanks that would have rolled into Belgrade to quell the people on the street at the time that this accused was toppled from office. All you would have needed was an instruction from General Pavkovic. By then, in fact, he'd changed sides, but it doesn't matter.

If General Pavkovic in 2000 had told you to take the tanks onto the streets to quell the demonstrations that toppled this accused, would you have complied? ⁴²¹²⁴

A. I would not have carried out that except in a situation where there was the danger of a civil war breaking out and large scale conflicts and clashes. If all forces needed to be made available to prevent a civil war. Otherwise, the army is not engaged for anybody's needs, not the individual certainly but only in the interests of the state.

Q. Very well. So where you need a state of emergency, it is improper -- and one has not been declared, it's improper for a commander to do as he is instructed; correct?

A. Give me a specific case or situation.

Q. There are two significances in this point and I'm going to deal with both of them. The first is that if you were turning tanks onto civilians in 1998, you were acting without a state of emergency and what you did was, to your knowledge, unlawful. Correct?

A. Except that that never actually happened. So I really can't give you an answer. I would never aim tanks at civilians because that would have been unlawful. And as you yourself say, it never actually happened.

Q. The second point intertwined with the first is this: You remember answering a lot of questions, to the Judges in particular but also to the accused, about the existence of the Joint Command. Do you remember doing that?

A. Yes, yes, I do remember.

Q. In particular I drew to your attention that right at the end of the last day of hearings you gave a very long answer explaining the Joint Command. Do you remember that?

A. Yes. ⁴²¹²⁵

Q. The Joint Command is problematic for both you as a senior, or then a comparatively senior and then later very senior military man, and for the politicians, because the Joint Command was a political body exercising control over armed and police forces in circumstances where it had no authority to do so. Isn't that right?

A. That is not right.

Q. I'll just finish the question and then you can give a longer answer. And I'm going to suggest to you now and in more detail when we look at the documents that that is why it is impossible to tie the Joint Command down, because both the military, the police, and the politicians have had to hide its real existence, knowing that it was unlawful. Do you want to add anything to your observation that my suggestion is not right?

A. Certainly I wish to present my observations and knowledge and position which corresponds to the truth. If we use the word "command" at all, then command implies that you have to have something formed by an order or decree. There was no order establishing a Joint Command. There was no decree by the president to form a Joint Command. Then the next point is this: Every command at whatever level must have a commander. What you refer to as Joint Command is something that did not have a commander, and there are no signatures anywhere on any documents. And if something is called or termed "command" of any unit, even this Joint Command option, then it must have its bodies. It must have its branches and services performing certain affairs and operations for them. So each of our commands has their military post and their stamp. There is the military post, you can see that written up on any ^{42126 BLANK PAGE 42127} document, and at the bottom of the document you have the stamp. So this Joint Command did not have a post or a stamp.

And going on to my next point, you have to have some records where part of the Joint Command operations are recorded, logged. Every document put out by the Joint Command must be recorded. Here everything was done in the Pristina Corps, for example. The group of people who were from Belgrade, that is to say politicians at a federal and republican level, and some of them I know and I mentioned some of their names earlier on, they then were on the territory of Pristina. They were sent there from Belgrade to be closer to the situation. That means to talk to the Albanian side, that means to talk to the diplomatic representatives, that means to talk to the international humanitarian organisations, and via the command of the Pristina Corps and through the MUP staff to exchange information about the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, and probably to report back to Belgrade about it.

And they had some meetings. I never attended those meetings, but as I say, to link up the Joint Command to any order going down to the units would be quite erroneous, quite wrong, because I would never carry out an order from someone over there, any politician, for that matter, whatsoever.

Q. Now, may I suggest your answer again reveals the truth; that you struggle to identify a body that has no command function when there was the need for a clear command function, and you struggle because you knew and you know that you were all responding to the private club of this accused in controlling events in Kosovo, and that's the embarrassment for ⁴²¹²⁸ you.

A. That story of yours is really very unpleasant, especially for an officer and a general. There are no generals who belong to anybody and are privately owned by anybody, and I can never and will not ever be anybody's appendage, any politician. I'm a general of the Serb army and of my own state. And I'm trying to tell you that a coordinating body -- to this day we have a coordinating body for the south of Serbia, for instance, with a coordinating function to perform before that body, and it was called the Joint Command. There was something -- another body that was called interdepartmental staff. But you're not following what I'm saying now, are you?

Q. I'm following what you're saying. Please carry on.

A. As I was saying, before the Joint Command, there was something that was called an interdepartmental staff, and I've already explained, and I will do so again if need be, how I as a commander understand it, why in certain documents it -- you do come across the term "Joint Command." Only so that on the ground coordination can be carried out between the army, that is to say between me as the brigade commander on the one side and the commander or chief of the Secretariat of the Ministry of the Interior, for instance, for that particular purpose because that man from the Ministry of the Interior does not want to carry out orders if it says coming from the Pristina Corps. All documents where it says Joint Command were recorded into the logbook of the Pristina Corps.

Q. You do remember, don't you, the passage of questioning where His Honour Judge Kwon identified for us a serial number on a Joint Command ⁴²¹²⁹ document that was in sequence with command documents of other bodies? Do you remember that passage?

A. Yes. Mr. Bonomy asked me, but that was not related to the Joint Command. It was a question related to my brigade directly.

Q. I'll come back to the Joint Command as a segment later. I want to conclude --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, maybe this would be an appropriate time to adjourn for 20 minutes. We're adjourned.

--- Recess taken at 12.17 p.m.

--- On resuming at 12.41 p.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE:

Q. In fact, there are still a few more questions I will ask at this stage about the Joint Command. Could you be good enough, please, in your thesis to go to chapter 10, headed "Exercise of command over the Defence forces of the SRJ in Kosovo and Metohija." It's Court's page 45.

A. Could you give me a page reference, please.

Q. Page -- chapter 10. He may be able to find it for you, but it's chapter 10, "Exercise of command," towards the end. Just before that, I can see the page. That's it. So here's a chapter headed "Exercise of command."

If the Court would be enough to go over one page, and if you would go over one page to English page 46, we there see the tabulation of three stages of insurgency but I've asked you the only question about that that I want to, and you end this part of your thesis saying - at the foot of ⁴²¹³⁰ the page, please, Mr. Prendergast - "According to this proposal --" "The existing proposal for the resolution of the issue of the command over all the defence forces in the context of the armed insurgency ensures the implementation of all the principles of command and should be further elaborated, particularly at the lower-tactical level. "According to this proposal," you said, "a command and control organ exercising these functions in the context of a state of emergency ... is established at the level of the Main Staff of the VJ." And if we then go over the page we find, do we not, a chart, your proposal in your thesis, which has the Supreme Defence Council running through the General Staff, running through the MUP on the right-hand side, the 3rd Army on the left, and coming to something which is here the Pristina command, which it says "Unifies the command over all the defence forces in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija," and then it goes from there, from the unified command, to subordinate VJ units or subordinate MUP units.

Now, I'm not suggesting that this organigramme reflects the Joint Command, but what it reflects is the overwhelming imperative to have to have a unified command, in this case it is the Pristina command on the ground, with all forces answering to it, doesn't it?

A. You probably haven't forgotten that this was my Ph.D. thesis and not some combat rule relating to combat. So these are my thoughts on the subject, that is to say what would be the most efficient way of commanding in Kosovo and Metohija. And I'd be very happy indeed if some of my deliberations were to be applied in practice. ⁴²¹³¹ However, if you follow this schematic, the diagram on the overhead projector, you will see that we can see here that from the 3rd Army command there should be a sort of command team to come and join up with the Pristina Corps.

In 1998 this did not happen in the way -- in that way, but in Pristina a forward command post was established of the 3rd Army. So it didn't come within the composition of the Pristina Corps, become part of that. What did exist was the MUP staff of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija. It did exist. However, it did not provide its team to the Pristina command corps, but it existed throughout as an independent organ. And I still consider to this day that when there are different forces in play, that the best thing to do is to have one unit of the army which is responsible for a particular territory to comprise and combine all those forces. And today in the south of Serbia, for instance, we have a coordinating body working in similar fashion, because it includes members of the army and members of the police.

Q. Well, my suggestion to you is that what is revealed in your thesis at this stage is a simple and obvious point that if you've got more than one type of force in the same territory, for a whole range of obvious military reasons, you need a single command. And then my second point is that that single command was the Joint Command. Do you reject both points or just one of them?

A. I reject your second assertion. You know that in 1999, a decision was taken on the resubordination of the MUP forces to the forces of the army as provided for by Article 16 and Article 17 of the law on defence, ⁴²¹³² which means that that was what happened in 1999. What was done was pursuant to the law. On the 20 something of April. I think it was the 24th of April, in actual fact, when an order was given for the MUP forces to be resubordinated to the units of the army as provided for by Article 16 and 17.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... later. Mr. Prendergast, please. It's still your position, is it, that in 1998 the Joint Command was simply an advisory or coordinating body.

A. That means a coordinating body providing -- giving advice, advisory body.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... which is referred to in the addendum to Mr. Coo's report - I haven't got an exhibit number for it at the moment - it's a letter in the original -- or the Serb version is before the witness. It's dated the 12th of July of 2002, and it says in answer to a request: "The Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija was formed on the order of the FRY President in June 1998 without any specific document;

"The above command operated until the October of that year following which several unofficial meetings were held where the current security situation was analysed."

It goes on: "According to the military organs' knowledge, the documents from the Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija related to military issues were delivered to the incumbent Chief of the Cabinet of the FRY president upon the termination of its work, late in 1998." And then this: "The buildings where these documents may have been ⁴²¹³³ housed were demolished and destroyed during the NATO aggression..." Two points. In fact, the careful use of the phrase "may have been housed" has been overtaken by events because you've been able to provide these documents, haven't you, or some of them?

A. As far as I know, you were provided with the documents of the Joint Command and the minutes from those meetings. You have them in your possession, I believe.

Q. And secondly, the Chief of Cabinet of the FRY president is being prosecuted for the hiding or destruction of documents, isn't he? Do you know about that? Mr. Milinovic, Goran Milinovic.

A. I don't know that that person is being prosecuted.

Q. Never heard about that, have you?

A. As for that individual, I have heard about the individual, but I haven't heard about any -- him being prosecuted.

Q. Binder 2, tab 66, please. That's my last question for the time being on the Joint Command, the last couple of questions. So in 1998 the Joint Command, a coordinating body.

Right. If we could possibly lay it on the overhead projector. Thank you very much.

This is dated the 7th of July of 1998, and it comes from your brigade and indeed is signed by you. And we see that it's titled "Prohibition on conduct of operations without the knowledge and authorisation of your own command." Is that correct? Right.

A. Yes.

Q. It goes on to say: "Pursuant to the order of the Joint Command ⁴²¹³⁴ --" oh, order of the Joint Command. Can you explain that?

A. For me there was never any contest that my Pristina Corps stood behind this Joint Command. 1104, dated the 7th of July, 1998, and that is the number under which this was registered in the Pristina Corps. For me, what it says here, Joint Command, is irrelevant.

Q. Have you got this document? 1104-6 of the 6th of July, because it's being described as an order. Have you got it?

A. Yes. Yes, I certainly got it.

Q. Is it in the papers we've got? I've done my best to consume them, but it's -- there's quite a lot of material here, and --

A. I'm not sure. But if it's not here, then it's in the archive.

Q. You see --

A. In the archive where the documents of my unit are. After all, this document, even if it's not in the archive of my unit, it was sent out to all other units, and it's in the archives of the Pristina Corps.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

A. Under this number.

Q. I'm only concerned with you, you see. Let's go on a bit. "Bearing in mind previous experience of carrying out combat operations and the damage suffered by units due to operations not being prepared and being poorly executed and in order to increase the efficiency of carrying out tasks at all levels and to improve organisation," et cetera, "I issue the following," and then your order says: "The conduct of any operations by units formed from the former force without the knowledge and authorisation of the 549th command is hereby prohibited." ⁴²¹³⁵ So what can we infer as to what that confidential number 1104-6 of the 6th of July said? What do you tell us that document said?

A. Well, in that document or, rather, the further content of the document is more or less like in my order, except that in my order I actually address my commanders, and in this order the commanders of the other brigades.

Q. What did the Joint Command, which isn't a command, what did it say to you, "Please ensure that your troops don't behave without an order from you," or might it have said, "Please ensure that your troops behave, don't do anything without an order from us, the Joint Command"? What would it have said?

A. Perhaps it's not identical in my order from one letter to the other, but it's the same points that are made. It's the same points that are made. The order that was written at this higher level pertains to brigades, whereas I am writing to my battalions here. As for my commanders --

Q. The Joint Command couldn't give orders, could it, because it was only a cooperation body? The Joint Command couldn't give you an order. Although it says order here, but it couldn't give you an order.

A. No. The Joint Command could never issue me an order. Whenever you say "Joint Command," I see the Pristina Corps here.

Q. What we want to know is in its letter headed "Joint Command," which we haven't got because it's in the archive and hasn't been provided to us, in its letter what did the Joint Command say? Just try and help us. ^{42136 BLANK PAGE 42137}

A. In that document, it says approximately everything that is here in this order from paragraphs 1 through 7, but it pertains to other units. All units, all brigades got this order.

Q. All units and all brigades have got to behave themselves and the subordinate parts mustn't act without a proper order from the commander; is that right? Something like that?

A. Yes, of course.

Q. Very well. Well, as you correctly observed, the document will have gone to other brigades, and we can have a look at their interpretation.

MR. NICE: Perhaps you'd provide the witness with the original of Exhibit 319 tab 65. Or Exhibit 282. I think it's the same document.

Q. You see -- you see, this document comes from the commander of the 125th Motorised Brigade, not yours, but it's got the same date. We see that it's -- refers in its first substantive paragraph to confidential order number 1104-6 of the 6th of July. So it's referring to the same document. Now let's look how it's headed: "Ban on operations without the knowledge and approval of the Joint Command. Order: "Pursuant to the order of the Joint Command... with the aim of increasing efficiency in carrying out tasks..." and so on, "I hereby order..." And he then, number 1, prohibits "the execution of any operations by units and formations without the approval of the Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija and my own approval." This is signed by your colleague, as it were, Dragan Zivanovic.

A. Yes. ⁴²¹³⁸

Q. Seems to have misunderstood the order, doesn't he, or the document he received?

A. The document hardly differs from my document at all. The points are the same. It's true what you say about the first point. If I receive an order as brigade commander, I am responsible for carrying out that order, and I no longer need any kind of superior command or as he wrote this here. He verbatim copied paragraph 1 from 101/6. And then he also added my own order too. I wrote what I think every commander should have ordered. I, as commander of my brigade, issued this kind of order to my brigade. I am responsible for every order, and I am the only one who can order the use of my brigade, and I can be ordered to do so only by my superior commander. As for all the other paragraphs, perhaps it was written in another way, but it was more or less the same thing.

JUDGE ROBINSON: General, were you free not to carry out the order of the Joint Command number 1104-6 of 6 July 1998?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The order of my superior command, of course, like any other officer, I always carried it out. I'm telling you now that the Joint Command is just a notion. It is not a command. It does not have the attributes of a command existing in any army. If I got this order, and I did get this order from a messenger who brought it from the command of the Pristina Corps, I know that my commander, commander of the Pristina Corps, stands behind it. And of course it never crossed my mind not to carry out an order given to me by the corps commander or his deputy. And I've already told you that no one outside that chain has the right to give me any kind of order. I would ⁴²¹³⁹ not have carried out anybody else's order.

Down the vertical line, there's the -- or, rather, up the vertical line there's the commander of the army, et cetera. So this is strictly in accordance with military rules.

As brigade commander, I cannot accept the existence of any kind of Joint Command.

JUDGE ROBINSON: What's the answer to the question that I asked? I asked whether you would have been free not to carry out the order of the Joint Command of 6 July 1998 that is referred to in tab 66.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It depends on what you mean by Joint Command and what I mean by Joint Command. Mr. Nice is trying to say that the Joint Command is something, and on that basis I'd never carry out that kind of order. But for me the Joint Command is just a notion behind this document 1104-6. This document was registered in the office of the Pristina Corps, and I know that because I follow the numbers involved, and I certainly have to carry out an order that was registered under this number.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Why, then, did the communication not refer to the Pristina Corps?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Most orders, an enormous majority, 99 per cent, were of the Pristina Corps. And you see in some places it does say the Joint Command. For me, even at that time, that had no significance whatsoever. Since I was not in Pristina, I cannot give you a concrete answer to why the person who wrote this wrote Joint Command, because this is a plain military order. There is nothing political about ⁴²¹⁴⁰ it.

JUDGE ROBINSON: So for you the term "Joint Command" is synonymous with Pristina Corps.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] If we're talking about the documents that I received as brigade commander, everything where it says Joint Command and was sent to the -- to my brigade for execution was from the Pristina Corps. I'm not talking about documents that I never got and that never reached me.

Joint Command, according to my understanding of the term, was just a coordination body. The command of the Pristina Corps was in Pristina in 1998, and the forward command post of the 3rd Army. So those were the levels of command that I was responsible to and no one else apart from that.

MR. NICE:

Q. I have a couple more points to make on your thesis on a different topic. I'm sorry it's going to take you back to only three very short references.

If the Chamber would go to page 31, and if you would back in your thesis, please, to the chapter heading or sub-heading "Controlling the population and resources and blocking the territory." It's about half-way through, I think, maybe a little over half-way through. I'm sorry not to have marked the pages for you on this occasion but normally I will manage to achieve that, but on this occasion it wasn't possible. Have you found the passage that heads "Controlling the population and resources"? ⁴²¹⁴¹

A. I think that there is no such name.

Q. Can I read you what it says, because I think on this topic you may not need the text and we can follow it in English and it can be checked for re-examination if necessary.

On page 31 in the English, you speak of "Measures and procedures used to control the population and resources and to block the territory ..." And then, Mr. Prendergast, over the page, it deals with --

A. Yes.

Q. -- refugees and displaced persons. If the Chamber would be good enough to go on to page 42 under a heading that is "Use of the CZ and CO forces in the suppression of the armed insurgency," what you said here, Mr. Delic, was that in the second and third stages of armed insurgency, CO and CZ forces carry out the following tasks, and it says rescue and care for the victims and endangered population and evacuate them.

A. Please let me just find this, because you've already moved on to --

JUDGE BONOMY: Does reference to footnotes help, Mr. Nice?

MR. NICE: Yes, footnote 35. Your Honour, that's very helpful. Footnote 35, if you can find it.

JUDGE BONOMY: It doesn't help us. It's 108 in mine.

MR. NICE: Ah. Sorry about that. I think immediately before 9.4, so I think it's probably part of 9.3. Yes, it is part of 9.3.

Q. Here you say that "In the second and third stages of armed insurgency..." ⁴²¹⁴² Bullet point 3, there will be a duty to "rescue and care for the victims and endangered population and evacuate them." And then if you go to 9.4 and the Chamber goes to --

A. Yes, I've found it yes.

Q. -- page 43, a little bit. So it's in 9.4, about a page on, you have this: "Units composed of the armed Serbian and Montenegrin population..."

"... will carry out the following tasks in the context of the armed insurgency."

And then bullet point 4 is: "Providing food and accommodation for the refugees in the areas threatened by the armed insurgency." So those are just three passages, and it's a very simple point which we'll come back to in a much later stage in questioning, but a flow of refugees --

A. Please let me find what you're asking me about exactly. Where is this exactly?

Q. 9.4, and it's about a page on in 9.4.

A. All right.

Q. And it says, "Units composed of the armed Serbian and Montenegrin population will carry out the following tasks: --"

A. Yes.

Q. "[Previous translation continues] ... food and accommodation for refugees." And the simple point I want to be quite sure about --

A. Yes, yes.

Q. -- is -- ⁴²¹⁴³

A. Yes.

Q. -- you fully understood in 1996 and 1997 that an armed insurgency, first, second, or third stage but say the second stage, an armed insurgency would inevitably involve and lead to substantial flows of refugees. Do you accept that?

A. What is your question?

Q. My question is did you accept in 1996 and 1997 that an armed insurgency will inevitably involve and lead to substantial flows of refugees?

A. What is referred to here is the engagement of the Serbian Montenegrin population. In paragraph 4 it says that if there is an armed insurgency, the Serbian and Montenegrin population that is jeopardised will leave their villages, and that is what it pertains to. And that's what happened in practice.

Q. There was always to be expected that there would be a large flow of refugees.

A. Every war in any territory gives rise to refugees.

Q. Finally on your thesis, please, page 54 in the English, paragraph 12, the conclusion. What you said was this at this stage: "Kosovo and Metohija are an integral part of the Republic of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; in historical, cultural and civilisational terms, it is the heartland of the Serbian culture ... the 'sacred Serbian land.'" Was that the sort of view that informed your thinking and your actions in the years that were to come?

A. No. What is written here is simply a fact that all monuments of ⁴²¹⁴⁴ the Serbian culture are in Kosovo and Metohija. Centuries of history and culture are there. That is why it is called sacred Serbian land.

Q. And this is the document -- I think you said it wasn't an academic or intellectual document but this was the document upon which you got your entitlement to status of general, is it?

A. You are really playing with words. This is the expression that we use. Certainly a person who works in a top-rated military school writes documents that are intellectual documents, but that was only done for the purposes of that school. This is not a document that was published anywhere, so it's only contained in the archives of that school. Those who appraised this document, you see here that I had a mentor, Major General Vukadinovic, and a commission that assessed how I dealt with the subject assigned to me, gave me an appraisal.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, I think that probably better become an exhibit, with your leave. I've asked a number of questions about it.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes, it will be exhibited.

MR. NICE:

Q. Mr. Delic, as you would expect, I'm in no position to deal with all the exhibits you produced. I have some questions about some of them, and in the balance of this morning I'm going to try to deal with some of the earliest ones and to deal with them swiftly. So if you would be good enough to take volume 1.

MR. NICE: And Your Honours, my hope is that having dealt with the preliminary issues to some extent today and other matters that aren't absolutely specifically crime base related, I will be able to turn to ⁴²¹⁴⁵ crime base -- horrible phrase; related to the crimes alleged in the indictment. I will become much more specific in the course of tomorrow. But I'm going to be restrictive in the questions I ask.

Q. Just look at tab 4, please. Now, this is the intelligence report that we've discussed a little bit. In some detail, actually. We know from the way it's headed that it's been specially prepared, because if the Chamber looks at the title page in the B/C/S or the Serbian, or in the English, we see a special title page which announces this as an excerpt from the annual intelligence report.

You told us that you'd seen this, I think, in 2002 when working with or for the Defence. Who decided what to excerpt? Who decided what to choose?

A. You said a few inaccurate things here. First of all, when you say this was done for this case, that absolutely does not correspond to the truth. When it says "Excerpt," that means that from a large number of documents certain documents are taken out.

Also, what you said that I saw it in 2002, that is correct but not because of this case but because of the case that had to do with the indictment against the KLA. Your investigator from Belgrade asked me, if possible, to provide to him this intelligence information and tapes in particular, where the actual speech can be heard. And this has to do with concrete people from the KLA. I'm not going to name any names now. I got this material but not this particular material, the material in its entirety. But at that time that did not suit the investigator because he was looking at material for concrete people and the actual ^{42146 BLANK PAGE 42147} audio recordings of what they said on air and what was registered, but at the time I could not provide him with that.

Q. And who made the selection?

A. The selection was made by the Pristina Corps or, rather, this unit that recorded these conversations.

Q. And that knew that was making it either A for the KLA cases or case, or B, I suggest, for the defence of this accused. Would that be right?

A. You see, what is primarily referred to here is the Kosovo Liberation Army, because the overall activity of that unit was aimed at following the Kosovo Liberation Army and their communications on air. So it is absolutely irrelevant who this was prepared for. These are documents and an analysis of the work of that unit in 1998. They are quite the same for KLA cases and other cases.

JUDGE BONOMY: There may be confusion in the concept of excerpting. I'm forming the impression from the answer that the main, the entire document consists mainly of excerpts and then there's been a further excerpting exercise and I think your question is related to the second of these.

MR. NICE: Yes. And I hadn't necessarily picked up on the first interpretation. Perhaps the witness can help us.

Q. Was there a first summary, a first excerpt and then a second process of summarising or selecting or excerpting?

A. I had insight into the complete document in 19 -- sorry, 2002, and what was provided to the legal advisors is something else. It's not a ⁴²¹⁴⁸ complete document, because the complete document speaks of the units, their equipment, their establishment, of various other tasks that the unit was performing, and this was only one task that they were doing, monitoring terrorist forces.

Q. The selection was done by the special group of the commission which was responding to allegations in the indictment against this accused.

A. That claim is absolutely not corroborated by this document, by this documentation. The people from that unit received a different task. They were asked to make a summary of that documentation that would pertain to the KLA. In the army, it is not customary to associate such assignments with either me or Mr. Milosevic or anybody else. That's the kind of request they received, and that's what they did.

Q. Just a few characteristics of this document. For example, no page 31. That's all -- if we look at the English pages at the bottom, that's page 3. So there simply is no page 31. That's been kept back. We go to English page 5, there's no pages 34 and 35. They've just been kept back.

If we go to English page 9, there is no pages 39 and 40; right? And you can't explain why, can you?

A. If the request was to prepare a document giving an account of the most typical cases in relation to the KLA, then the pages that are missing that you mentioned probably do not contain many interesting details. And anyway, if this document was received and if somebody considered these pages to be important, it is not a problem to get the other pages, the ⁴²¹⁴⁹ missing pages, if they pertain to the KLA, and it is up to the legal advisors to do that.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... wrongdoing by the Serbs? Supposing they reveal wrongdoing by the Serbs? We'll never know, will we, because they haven't been produced.

A. You can make the assumptions that you want to make, but I don't think that it is a problem to get the missing pages and have the complete document.

Q. And if we're looking at page 41, English page 9, just to take some examples, we see on the second entry, 22nd of April, "Fire was opened on MUP personnel from sniper rifles and hand-held launchers, while they were seizing the sector of Erecka Suka; firing went on until the evening. The next day, MUP units seized this feature with the help of VJ units. On the same day, terrorists attacked two Serbian families in Djakovica area. They were kept surrounded until MUP personnel came to help them." Well, what I'd like your help with is this: All that material would appear to be material that should be simply available from army or MUP records. What's it doing in a security report? All of this stuff should be in a MUP record, a VJ record, shouldn't it? Why does it need to be in security?

A. If you have a booth eavesdropping on communications on the air and there are people in it listening to both conversations on the radio waves of the terrorists and the radio waves of the army and the radio waves of the MUP, these people write this sort of summary from all of that. And certainly in the report of the MUP for that day, the MUP of Djakovica, ⁴²¹⁵⁰ this should be recorded.

Q. Look at the second sentence: "The next day, MUP units seized this feature with the help of the VJ units." Are you suggesting that somehow the KLA was speaking over their radios or intercepts, saying, "Oh, watch out, the MUP units who seized this feature with the help of the VJ units." This looks as though it's a record not of overheard conversations but of something else, doesn't it? Do you see the point?

A. Those units, they don't only monitor the communications of the KLA but also the communications of the army and the police. They monitor everything that is going on on the air. The person in that booth is far from the place where the events are taking place, but he is making notes.

Q. So --

A. Whatever he can hear in his headset --

Q. In addition to the daily records being kept by your unit, by the unit below, and by the -- and by the body above, Pristina Corps, there's yet another record of what actually happened in that the intercept listeners would pick up commands and responses to command from the territory; is that right?

A. You say that there are other documents. Well, every unit of the army, if it set out on an assignment, has an order and a command for that mission. Unless it was attacked on the road and responding to fire, then --

Q. Lord Ashdown - and we'll come to his evidence a bit later - gave evidence of tanks firing at houses when he says they shouldn't be. Apart from the daily orders and the daily records of the tank, which will cover ⁴²¹⁵¹ what it did broadly or in detail, what ammunition it used, what orders it was responding to, there might also be evidence from the people on the radio listening in to the tank commander saying, "I've just fired at some houses." This is part of the record, isn't it?

A. Let me correct you on one point immediately. As far as military terminology is concerned, people would have a good laugh if they heard what you just said. Tanks as a combat resource and their crews are not obliged to keep any records, and they don't. The commander of a tank battalion is duty-bound to keep prescribed records. One single tank does not have any records of its own. But certainly if something is being said on the air, regardless of which unit it comes from, the KLA, the MUP, or the army, the surveillance unit keeps a record of these communications.

Q. Well, I'm grateful for that, and I'm sure you would like to review your last answer to this extent: It would be no laughing matter, would it, for a tank to fire on a house occupied by civilians and to leave no record or trace of what it had done, would it?

A. Certainly. Just give me one concrete case where that happened.

Q. We'll come to it in Lord Ashdown's evidence soon. Can we stay with where we were? We were on English page 9, page 41 of the record. If we go over to page 10, this excerpt also contains at the partway through page 41 it is, an alleged quotation from something that's been overheard by two people speaking: "Many Serbs are moving out of this area. "Just let them go. We don't need them here, this is ours. "Yes, if we keep on frightening them like this, no one will stay." I'm not saying it's impossible that that was said. I'm not ⁴²¹⁵² necessarily challenging it. But it's easy to write without having the tape recording to listen to, isn't it?

A. If I tell you that my country was bombed for 78 days and that every single barracks was bombed from the General Staff to the smallest unit, what shall we do with that? What if many documents were destroyed? The units that gathered this information was bombed on a number of occasions precisely because it has electronic equipment of such potential that it is immediately detected from the air.

Q. Well, two last entries on this, I think, or one. If you would go, please, to page 17 in the English, page 50 in your version, please.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, I'd like you to stop at about twenty to so I can give the decision on the exhibits --

MR. NICE: Oh, yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: -- in the evidence in chief.

MR. NICE:

Q. 28th of September. You see that entry there on page 50 or our page 17. "Siptars who intended to run away were advised to go in groups of 1.000 or 2.000 because that way our people would not shell them ..." How come they'd shell them if they were in smaller numbers?

A. The record here reflects what the Siptars are talking amongst themselves. Just find me one situation in my area of responsibility where any group was bombed. This reference to a thousand or 2.000 I would explain in a different way.

Q. You see, obviously this is, if it is accurate, it may well be, is what's overheard from the Kosovo Albanians. Why should they harbour this ⁴²¹⁵³ belief that only by being in bulk are they likely to be free of the risk of shelling? Can you give any explanation for that?

A. I cannot place myself in their shoes now and explain to you what the Albanians were thinking. Of course this happens only when we would come across larger groups, because with larger groups we could not make a triage. In a smaller group we could use the paraffin glove test and other tests to see which people, individuals in the group opened fire. In a smaller group, it is easier to escape by shedding uniforms and putting on civilian clothes and disappearing. With a larger group, that's more difficult. But I don't know that any group was shelled in my area.

Q. On the 28th of October, page 19 in the English: "Some Siptar civilians said --" this is now a reported speech rather than a quotation, "that KLA members who were near Kramovik behaved in a cowardly way, because they shelled a police column after it had withdrawn, and when the police fired back, they withdrew to the woods, leaving the population to the mercy of their shells." Does that sort of make sense to you, that the population could have been left, the civilian population might have been left to the mercy of the shelling?

A. If you look at the date, the 28th of October, this is associated with the agreement with the OSCE mission, according to which the police was first to abandon its checkpoints on roads, and later a certain number of policemen were to leave the territory of Kosovo and Metohija. I believe it was on that date, the 28th of October, that a motorcade of police buses leaving Kosovo and Metohija were attacked between Djakovica and Klina, and there were a number of wounded policemen. ⁴²¹⁵⁴

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... very briefly, the last paragraph, paragraph 5 of tab 5. An order of yours. I think it's an order of yours. No, it's a report of yours, I beg your pardon. And it simply says at paragraph 5: "If measures are not taken in time to place this and other similar territories in Kosovo and Metohija under control, if we are not authorised or ordered to use units now when the terrorist forces are not yet massed and equipped, we could find ourselves in a situation where we cannot carry out the task set - to defend Kosovo and Metohija - which is too great a responsibility for any unit commander." This paragraph reflects your understanding that you needed a declared state of emergency to become engaged with the civil population, didn't it?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I am getting no interpretation. I don't know if the witness received any interpretation of this last --

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... hear it?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I heard the interpretation. But this has nothing to do with the state of emergency.

MR. NICE:

Q. Well, I ask you that simply to try to get your interpretation of your own writing. "If measures are not taken in time to place this and other similar territories in Kosovo and Metohija under control, if we are not authorised" is what it says in the English, "or ordered to use units now," and so on. Wasn't this a reflection of the fact that under insurgency state 2, as you describe it in your thesis, ⁴²¹⁵⁵ you needed the state of emergency that the accused always declined to obtain or seek to obtain?

A. This is not the second stage of an armed uprising. It is the first stage of the initial insurgency. And when you say to place under control territories, that means to order or allow units to come out or, rather, certain MUP organs which for the critical territory, and that territory here is limited, which will, by their presence on the territory, prevent any mass terrorist movement from taking place. So that's the first stage, and there's no need for a state of emergency.

Q. If I can just ask one more question before I have to finish. I'm going to suggest that -- you were dealing with tab 9. We needn't look to it, but when dealing with tab 9, you were asked about events in Bec village and you were asked if this happens in the area of your responsibility and you inform the commander of the Pristina Corps about it but you don't intervene, and you replied this in tab 9 in the same rough date period, you said: "Those were not our orders. The army was still in place, and after all, this would be a matter for the MUP to deal with." Now, that was part of your evidence in answer to this accused, and I'm suggesting that when you said that you made it clear you realised the army had to stay in its place performing its peacetime functions without a declared state of emergency and otherwise leave matters to the police. Is that right?

A. Read the rules of service of the army of Yugoslavia again and that Article 470, I think you said it was, how the army can be deployed in peacetime and in what situations. ⁴²¹⁵⁶

Q. Mr. Delic, you're the military man. You're the expert. You've written the thesis, and here you are saying the army was in place, it was for the MUP to deal with.

Isn't the position exactly as I described, that you needed a state of emergency and you never got one?

A. I opened tab 9 and none of that, of what you're saying is contained there.

Q. No. What you said when you were being questioned about tab 9. That was just to explain the time of the testimony for the learned Judges.

MR. NICE: Perhaps tomorrow, then, Your Honours.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Nice.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I would -- I would like to have that in front of me, since you're asking me, so that I can respond and have it in my own language.

JUDGE ROBINSON: That can be done tomorrow. I'll now give the ruling on the remaining documents submitted by the accused. We had dealt with the admission of documents up to tab 480. Tabs 481 to 497 will be admitted except for 489 and 493, which are summaries of newspaper articles that were not dealt with.

Tabs 498 to 607 are admitted as a group. After tab 608, the accused indicated that he would be dealing with the documents individually. We admit all of those documents after 608 except for 608 to 615 and 617, which were not referred to. I am to say that tabs 618 to 621 are admitted by majority. These relate to intercepted communications. Judge Bonomy dissents. ⁴²¹⁵⁷ Tab 630 is a map challenging the evidence of Mr. Ashdown, and that's admitted.

We are adjourned until 9.00 tomorrow morning.

MR. KAY: Your Honour, before we adjourn - we've still got two minutes - there's a matter that needs to be raised concerning the Seselj issue. If Ms. Higgins could just briefly address you on it as it is quite urgent.

MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, very briefly. We have reviewed the report which was issued by the Deputy Registrar pursuant to the Trial Chamber's order, and we have also noted your own order that was issued on Friday. The assigned counsel would wish to put the following very brief submissions to you orally when deciding the matter: Firstly, Your Honour, you will be aware that in paragraph 5 of the Deputy Registrar's report the main concerns of the Registry are outlined and summarised there. You will also be aware that Mr. Milosevic, since the communication restriction on Mr. Seselj came into place in June, was allowed to proof Mr. Seselj afterwards, that being a decision that was made by the UNDU. I don't wish to outline the concerns of the Registry, as Your Honours will be fully familiar with them, but in our submission this is indeed a fair trial issue. It is for the following reasons: It is a fundamental right of Mr. Milosevic's to be able to continue to prepare his case and to proof the witnesses which he would asked to be called before this Trial Chamber. Mr. Seselj was on the and is on the 65 ter list, and one of the objections of the Registry is in fact that he has not appeared on the weekly witness list. The problem there and it's one we say is a ⁴²¹⁵⁸ matter of formality, that the Trial Chamber will be aware that the list only comes out the week before, and the Registry have been informed fully that Mr. Milosevic expects and wishes the witness to testify on the 18th, which is next week, leaving not much time for him to continue in his preparations.

It is of concern to us that the Registry determined that it is a matter for them to determine how long an accused can proof a witness, and where it seems to be that there is a simple solution to this, and we propose that it is as follows: If the Registry has concerns, and the UNDU, as to the good and proper conduct within their prison and as to how that is to be pursued, then communications between the two men can surely take place in the confines of a normal office which does not have communications with the outside world, for example, telephone and fax. We would ask that the Trial Chamber, if it were so minded to do so, communicate their view of the importance of the continuation of this trial and that there be no disruption to witness scheduling and that the accused be allowed to continue to know the full extent of the evidence that Mr. Seselj may give and to make a final determination as to whether he may call him, to convey the message back to the UNDU that it is important for this accused to continue his proofing.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thanks for your submissions. I'd like to say that I see the matter in the very same light. It is a fair trial issue. It goes to the right of the accused to prepare his case, and we are grateful for your submissions, and we --

MR. NICE: Ours will be in writing this afternoon. ⁴²¹⁵⁹

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. We are, of course, expecting submissions from the other parties.

We are adjourned.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.47 p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 12th day

of July, 2005, at 9.00 a.m.