⁴³⁶⁴⁷

Monday, 5 September 2005

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

[The witness entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 2.20 p.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: My monitor isn't working, but we can proceed. Mr. Kay, do you remember at the last session Mr. Milosevic was seeking to lead through this witness evidence which he said would discredit Prosecution witnesses Dulovic and Anastasijevic insofar as it would show discrepancies between the evidence that they had given in a special court in Belgrade.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I can barely hear this. The volume is down. I can barely hear the interpretation.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, it's better now. Yes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's not better. It's not better. [In English] You can try it.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Is it any better, Mr. --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, now it is better.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Okay. Yes, we'll proceed. I was recalling for Mr. Kay's benefit, and Mr. Milosevic's, the evidence which Mr. Milosevic sought to lead through this witness of what he said were discrepancies between Prosecution witnesses Dulovic and Anastasijevic's evidence given in this court and evidence which they gave in a special court in Belgrade. I had indicated to him that there are other ways of introducing that evidence which he felt was important to his ⁴³⁶⁴⁸ case, and I'm going to ask the assigned counsel to investigate this matter, to get hold of the transcript, and I would leave it to their discretion to -- whether to seek to lead that evidence through whatever means is appropriate.

MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honour.

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone please for Mr. Kay.

MR. KAY: It seemed to us on Friday whether we discussed this issue, Ms. Higgins and myself, that the obvious way forward was to have the original transcripts of the hearing set against the evidence that was given here so that the issues of the discrepancies can be seen from the primary material.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes. I would not want this evidence to be lost to the accused, and that is why I'm asking assigned counsel to investigate the matter.

MR. KAY: We will.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thanks. Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

WITNESS: VOJISLAV SESELJ [Resumed]

[Witness answered through interpreter] Examined by Mr. Milosevic: [Continued]

Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, at the end of the last day I put some questions to you that had to do with paragraph 28 of the Bosnian indictment, that have to do with the "Rump Presidency" as it's called here. You have partly answered that. It says: "The Rump Presidency carried out Slobodan Milosevic's policies," and so on and so forth, "had ⁴³⁶⁴⁹ effect and control over the JNA as its Commander-in-Chief." I'm not going to ask you to repeat what you've already said, but in relation to that please answer my question. The representatives of Serbia -- Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, why did they not take part for a certain period of time in the work of the Presidency of the SFRY, and were there any obstacles in Belgrade? Did they have any objective reasons that threatened them in any way and prevented them from carrying out their functions, or were there some other reasons for this? The question is: Why did the representatives of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia not take part in the work of the SFRY Presidency in Belgrade?

A. In Belgrade there were no problems in terms of them coming, staying properly, and carrying out their political duties. There was never a single incident involved. No one ever prevented them from carrying out their work. However, first it was Janez Drnovsek who stopped coming to the sessions, and in this way he showed that Slovenia had practically already seceded. Then he was similarly followed by Stipe Mesic, Bogic Bogicevic and Vasil Tupurkovski. At first they were saying that they could not come because they could not strike a balance in relation to the representatives of Serbia, Kosovo, Vojvodina, and Montenegro, because they would always be outvoted four to three. The representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia were not expressing the -- any separatist views at that point in time that was actually showed by their leaderships, and even Stipe Mesic did not display such feelings at the time. It's only when he left Belgrade and when he ⁴³⁶⁵⁰ came back to the Croatian parliament that he said, "I've completed my duty. Yugoslavia is no more."

He pretended to be a Yugoslav for a very long period of time. Also, as a person who wanted to engage in dialogue. He presented him sufficient as such to the representatives of the European Community and he condemned the Serbs of being uncooperative. He pretended to be the most cooperative of all. However, at the very end the mask fell and he was what he was.

I already said that according to the constitution of the then Yugoslavia it was not possible to have a Rump Presidency. Had only one single member of the Presidency been in Belgrade and had all others been prevented from coming, somebody could have gotten killed, somebody could have gotten sick, somebody could have been taken prisoner, somebody could have refused to come to attend a session, a single member of the Presidency was sufficient to pass legal decision because we represent the Presidency. That is the kind of general legal document that existed within the Presidency of Yugoslavia, and it was adopted considerably before Yugoslavia disintegrated. That is why I insist on the fact that a Rump Presidency is impossible. It is inconceivable to have the notion of a rump Presidency.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Seselj. Next question, please.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. In paragraph 56 it says, inter alia, that: "Slobodan Milosevic, in his capacity as president of the Republic of Serbia, declared that Yugoslavia was finished." ⁴³⁶⁵¹ Please, you've got that paragraph number 56 before you. I'm not going to read the whole paragraph out because that would take up too much time. Either after that session of the Presidency that is referred to here or before that or after that, did I in any way declare that Yugoslavia was finished?

A. I personally think that not even today you are prepared to say that Yugoslavia is finished. But while you held these high offices you never said any such thing. You expressed your dissatisfaction though. I remember that speech of yours that you made in 1991 concerning the behaviour of the members of the Presidency of the SFRY. When Serbia went through a referendum in 1990 and adopted its new constitution or, rather, constitutional amendments that had to do with its federal competencies, but then they were immediately suspended by a particular constitutional provision saying that it will only enter into force if Yugoslavia ceases to exist. I cannot quote it verbatim, but that was the gist of the matter.

The leadership of Serbia never acted against Yugoslavia and never did it contribute to the disappearance of Yugoslavia. When Slovenia and Croatia seceded, when the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia was recognised, the leadership of Serbia and Montenegro proclaimed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as a federation consisting of two federal units. So even then there was this very marked aspiration on your part to keep some kind of Yugoslavia alive.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] ⁴³⁶⁵²

Q. "In March 1991 the collective Presidency of the SFRY reached a deadlock on several issues." That is paragraph 56.

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues]... that sentence which is at the beginning of the paragraph. There's another allegation in that last sentence which is that you declared that Yugoslavia would no longer be bound by decisions of the Federal Presidency, so I want to ask Mr. Seselj whether that is so.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. No. As far as I can remember at that time, and this speech, which is generally known in the Serbian public, Mr. Milosevic did not say that Serbia would not be bound by the decisions of the Federal Presidency. His statement was to the effect that Serbia would think about what it would do in the future in that situation when the Federal Presidency was behaving rather irresponsibly. I would like to remind you that in that same month, March, there was a meeting of the Federal Presidency in the building of the headquarters of the General Staff of the JNA. There was a very long debate that went on; I think a day and a night. It had to do with the demand of the military to declare a state of emergency. The top echelons of the military was quite dissatisfied with the behaviour of some members of the Presidency, and when there was finally a vote not a single position prevailed. It was a draw. As far as I can remember --

JUDGE ROBINSON: You have answered the question I asked, thanks. Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] ⁴³⁶⁵³

Q. That is what is referred to here. It says the representatives on the Presidency from the Republic of Serbia, the Republic of Montenegro, the autonomous province of Vojvodina, and the autonomous province of Kosovo and Metohija all resigned from their posts in March 1991. So what was so controversial about this proposal that was presented to the Presidency and who was it that submitted this proposal?

A. The essence of this proposal was that the Presidency should also start the disintegration of Yugoslavia. I haven't got the document here so I cannot quote from it. But some members of the Presidency were actually instigated by emissaries from Western Europe and they already started putting forth such demands. Actually, they wanted to bring the Presidency into the position of declaring the end of Yugoslavia, for the Presidency to declare the end of Yugoslavia. Since the atmosphere was not very constructive, as far as I can remember three members of the Presidency resigned: Borisav Jovic from Serbia; then Nenad Bucin, was it, or Branko Kostic from Montenegro; and the representative from Vojvodina. I think the representative from Kosovo was Riza Sapundziju and he had been recalled in the meantime.

Q. All right, Mr. Seselj. A few moments ago you said after that session or before that session or in relation to that session I never declared that Yugoslavia was finish. What about other politicians? Did they declare that Yugoslavia was finished?

A. I've already said about Stipe Mesic. And then all Slovenian politicians were saying that Yugoslavia was finished and their policy was one of unison, that is to say of the Slovenian leadership, and it would be ⁴³⁶⁵⁴ hard to find anyone who was not speak along those lines. As for the Serbian leadership, no such thing ever happened; in Montenegro either.

Q. After these reactions, was the work of the Presidency returned to normal, because Borisav Jovic withdrew his resignation and Branko Kostic was elected on behalf of Montenegro, and Jugoslav Kostic represented Vojvodina at the time.

A. Well, it could not be put that way, that the normal work of the Presidency continued. The Presidency was reconstituted. It started working again, but Stipe Mesic was putting obstacles in the way of its work. Drnovsek never came back, I think, and the representative of Bosnia, Bogic Bogicevic, and the representative of Macedonia, Vasil Tupurkovski, started behaving worse and worse. There would be a new crisis soon after that in the month of May, when Stipe Mesic failed to be elected president of the Presidency.

There was a principle involved that the president of the Presidency was elected from a different republican province every year but nobody's election was guaranteed. There had to be a vote. Stipe Mesic did not enjoy the confidence of the Presidency, and then Western European envoys came and exerted great pressure on the members of the Presidency to elect him nevertheless.

Q. What was my attitude towards Yugoslavia?

A. Your attitude was always a consistent one in terms of supporting the preservation of Yugoslavia as a modern federation. You acted from those positions. I think that there is not a single exception to that. ⁴³⁶⁵⁵

Q. Do you recall what is referred to in paragraph 57 where it says that Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman met in Karadjordjevo and discussed on March 25, 1991 the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia?

A. Yes, I remember that. I was not present at that meeting, but I remember what the official press release was. And I also know that what was skilfully being bandied about was that you and Tudjman were reaching agreement on the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina primarily to upset the Bosnian politicians, Alija Izetbegovic and others, and also to create a situation that would be as unpleasant as possible, that would make it increasingly difficult to find a way out of the problems that beset the country at the time.

At that time, I -- as I've already said, the presidents of the presidencies of the different federal units had changed. European envoys had actually mediated in that effort too. It was very hard to reach agreement because Slovenia had already opted for secession and Croatia increasingly so.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Who was bandying this about and what -- through what medium?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, these rumours were skilfully being bandied about. I could not say exactly by who, but in several media this kind of idea appeared, and as a rule these were media that were already at that time being financed from the West by different Western intelligence agencies, so that's the kind of media I'm talking about. In Belgrade, for example, it was the Borba Daily. Borba before that was a ⁴³⁶⁵⁶ federal communist newspaper. During the time of the Ante Markovic government, it did not only have an opposition view towards the government in Serbia but it openly advocated a Western policy, the policy of the Western powers. It is possible that quite a bit of this came from Ante Markovic's government because Ante Markovic was afraid of a possible agreement between Milosevic and Tudjman, which would keep Yugoslavia together under certain conditions, but Ante Markovic would have been eliminated.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I wish to draw your attention, Mr. Robinson, to the fact that at one stage we had the transcript here from a secret meeting of the Defence counsel of Croatia presided over by Tudjman. He was meeting his closest collaborators and commenting on this story about Karadjordjevo. This denies the idea that what we discussed was some sort of division of Bosnia. I will, however, check whether this has already been admitted into evidence and if not we will find this transcript. However, what matters here, Mr. Seselj, is something to do with you as you were an active participant in all political events. This meeting took place on the 25th of March, and allegedly we discussed the division of Bosnia. Did I or any other politician from Serbia or any member of the leadership of the time in all of that year, at the beginning of which this meeting between Tudjman and me took place, did we in any way even indirectly raise the issue of a division of Bosnia?

A. No. On the contrary. You tried to convince Izetbegovic that even ⁴³⁶⁵⁷ if Slovenia and Croatia seceded Bosnia should remain in a Rump Yugoslavia as an equal federal unit, that the Bosnian Muslims would be recognised as a constituent nation as they had been before in the previous constitutional theory and practice, and that Izetbegovic would be the first president of such a Rump Yugoslavia, in order to demonstrate that it was not the aim of the Serbs to dominate but simply to preserve the joint state. At one point Izetbegovic agreed to this, but then the Americans persuaded him to call off the agreement.

Q. Look at paragraph 63 now. It repeats this allegation. It says: "On the 3rd of October, 1991, the four members of the SFRY Presidency from Serbia and Montenegro, Borisav Jovic, Jugoslav Kostic, Sejdo Bajramovic, and Branko Kostic, assume the function of the SFRY Presidency, circumventing the controls and responsibilities of the Presidency members from Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia."

On the 3rd of October, 1991, they assumed the function. Was this a kind of takeover of the function of the Presidency or were these functions being carried out by the legal representatives?

A. There was absolutely no takeover. When four of the members of the Presidency withdrew and some of them officially gave notice that they were no longer members, like Drnovsek, for instance, while others simply stopped attending the sessions. The Presidency continued working with the members who -- whom it was possible to gather together. I suggest that the Chamber get hold of this piece of legislation. I cannot quote it verbatim right now, but I'm absolutely sure it existed. ^{43658 BLANK PAGE 43659} And according to this piece of legislation, even if the majority of members could not meet, the Presidency under certain circumstances would continue working with the members who were present. Let me remind you that in the spring of 1991 or in the early summer, there was a vote taken to declare a imminent threat of war.

Q. In paragraph 65 it says: "On or around the 22nd of October, 1991, Slobodan Milosevic, together with other members of the joint criminal enterprise, continued to advocate for a unitary Serb state governed from Belgrade, Serbia. On the same date, the Rump Presidency called for the mobilisation of reservists in Serbia and other regions that want to stay in Yugoslavia."

First of all, let's establish when I began advocating a unitary Serb state, because it says here that I continued to advocate it. And secondly, was this anyone's idea that there should be a unitary Serbia, and is a unitary Serbia the same thing as Yugoslavia, and has Serbia ever been a unitary state?

A. No. You never advocated any kind of unitary state either as Yugoslavia or as Serbia. We Serb nationalists criticised you personally and your government in 1990 at the time the referendum was held to adopt the new non-communist democratic constitution of Serbia because the autonomous provinces were not abolished in that constitution. We, the Serb nationalists, felt there was no longer any need for the existence of autonomous provinces. I was one of the loudest advocates of such an option.

Furthermore, when the four former federal units had already been ⁴³⁶⁶⁰ recognised, and this ended on the 6th of April, 1992, you agreed with the Montenegrin leadership that a Federal Republic of Yugoslavia be promulgated and that Yugoslavia be preserved even if it was a Rump Yugoslavia and that it should remain a federation. In my view, it would have been possible for you to convince the Montenegrin leadership - because that was the mood of the Montenegrin people - to accept a unitary Serbian state to dispense with the federation. You could have done this but didn't want to, and I am sorry that you didn't do that, because up to the point when you left your position of power in the former Yugoslavia -- in Yugoslavia, none of the leaders advocated a separatist option. It appeared in Montenegro only after the 5th of October, 2000.

Q. Did you hear at that time or any other time either from me or any of my close collaborators, any government officials, including those who were allegedly together with me in a joint criminal enterprise that we had any kind of plan to create a unitary Serbian state?

A. No. No state official who belonged to your party or collaborated with you advocated such an idea.

Q. What do you know about the mobilisation of reservists? Because it says here that the Federal Presidency called for the mobilisation of reservists. So what do you know about this? What do you know about the reasons, the time, and the conditions under which this mobilisation was called for?

A. I'm not sure that the Federal Presidency called for a mobilisation of reservists at all, because it is the JNA organs who are competent to mobilise reservists. It was the Federal Presidency that ordered the JNA ⁴³⁶⁶¹ to take necessary measures to preserve the constitutional order, the territorial integrity, and the sovereignty of the country. I know that this mobilisation didn't go well. The response was very poor, because Veljko Kadijevic, as minister of defence, didn't want to remove the communist insignia from the military uniforms.

The Presidency, primarily the federal government but also the Presidency, at the insistence of Stipe Mesic and Ante Markovic, who was Prime Minister, issued a decision on the intervention of the JNA in Slovenia. As far as I know, the leadership of Serbia was not in favour of such an intervention. It was not in favour of sending additional troops into Slovenia, nor was it in favour of the JNA clashing with the then leadership of Slovenia in spite of their separatist tendencies. As far as I know, Serbia wanted negotiations. However, the Slovenian leadership which had been encouraged by the West no longer wanted to talk.

Q. Thank you. Witness B071 mentioned on more than one occasion your name, so just as I asked you about a whole number of witnesses, I will ask you now to briefly tell me whether what he said was true. B071, on 1st of April, 2003, on page 18347 of the transcript said that Arkan's and Seselj's men looted property and took everything off to Serbia. Do you know anything about this? First of all, did your people loot property and cart it off to Serbia; and secondly, did your men have any kind of cooperation with Arkan's volunteer guard?

A. No and no. First of all, the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party did not loot property anywhere or take it off to Serbia. When I assert that, I'm saying that there was no organised looting anywhere and no ⁴³⁶⁶² organised taking off of war booty. Perhaps certain individuals stole as much as they could stuff into their pockets or into their shirt-front. That's a different matter. But as far as the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party go, there was no organised looting or carting off war booty to Serbia. I guarantee that.

The volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were under strict instructions to avoid any contacts or encounters with Arkan and his Serb volunteer guard up to the --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm asking why was that instruction given to the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We were afraid of being compromised. We didn't want to lose our honour, our good name, our dignity. We didn't want people's awareness of our honesty and morality to be upset. As I told you, I already had conflicts with Arkan in the 1980s, long before the war, and this was repeated again and again. We had quarrels. I was even once told by the state security service that I was in danger of being assassinated by Arkan. Stanisic Jovicic repeated this in the Detention Unit of the Tribunal before many inmates.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, how can you be sure, notwithstanding that instruction, that your men, the volunteers, did not associate with Arkan and did not, in fact, loot? I mean, how can you be sure? You're not there with them.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I can't say that not a single volunteer of the Serb Radical Party cooperated with Arkan. There's one instance that I remember very well. In Eastern Slavonia, a certain man, a ⁴³⁶⁶³ teacher from Zemun, arrived there as a volunteer of the Serb Radical Party. When his group returned from the battlefield, it was a group of about 100 men who came home after a month, he decided not to come back but, rather, to remain, and he joined Arkan. He was killed as one of Arkan's men. Arkan and I met at his funeral.

So, yes, there might have been exceptions, but there was no joint military activity. There might have been individuals who cooperated with Arkan because they had interests of their own, but I constantly kept a distance from Arkan.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. That evidence is clear. Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. This same witness, B071 says, on the 10th of April, 2003, on transcript page 18949, the beginnings of the aggression against Croatia took place from Mrkovci and Jankovci and with infiltration of Seselj's White Eagles.

First of all, what kind of aggression against Croatia is this; and secondly, what kind much men were these, these Seselj's White Eagles?

A. There could have been absolutely no kind of aggression. The Serb people organised their own defence wherever they felt at threat. I have already said that before sending volunteers to the JNA we sent a group of volunteers to Borovo Selo at the invitation of Sacorcanin [phoen]. After that, as far as I can recall, because I visited Mrkovci during the war, we had volunteers in Mrkovci as well but only as part of the JNA. We never had anything to do with any group called the White Eagles. ⁴³⁶⁶⁴ There was one volunteer from the Serb national renewal in Borovo Selo but their name then was not the White Eagles but Dusan Silni, and he was killed as soon as the Croatian attack began even though he was not carrying a weapon at the time. After that, we had no cooperation and no joint military activities.

Q. Let's clarify this. It doesn't say here that you cooperated. It says here: "With infiltration of Seselj's White Eagles." So the White Eagles are being ascribed to you.

A. Unfortunately, this is not the only instance of Office of the Prosecutor bringing witnesses here who don't no anything about what happened on the ground. It's simply nonsense to talk of a group called Seselj's White Eagles. This simply serves to impeach both the witness and the Prosecutor who called such a witness, because this witness didn't know what he was talking about.

Q. This same witness, B071, B means Bosnia, on the 10th of April, 2003, on page 19003 of the transcript said that "Seselj collected men in Erdut, trained them there, armed them, and sent them to Bosnia." Is that true, Mr. Seselj?

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Milosevic, I have to tell you that it was B1493 who testified on 10th of April. Proceed, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. Well, perhaps I made a mistake in my notes. However, that is the assertion that is to be found on that particular page, and the page is 19003.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Now, did you rally people in Erdut, train them, arm them, and send ⁴³⁶⁶⁵ them to Bosnia?

A. During the war in Eastern Slavonia, only on one occasion was I in Erdut, and I think that I mentioned meeting Radovan Stojicic, Badza, nicknamed Badza there in Erdut on that occasion. So that is the only time. I would pass by Erdut in the car but without stopping. So I was -- we never sent any men there and we never had any training centre there either, and I can state that quite categorically. The people from the Serbian Radical Party who went prior to the war and at the beginning of the war to Bosnia and Herzegovina were exclusively within the composition of the JNA. They were JNA men. So I absolute -- they absolutely had nothing to do with Arkan's centre in Erdut later on. We never had anything to do with it.

Q. Witness 1070, on the 7th of May, 2003, and the transcript is 20294, says that Arkan's and Seselj's men shot above the heads of the civilians who had been taken prisoner in the gym -- secondary school in Bratunac. Now, did you have any men in Bratunac who did this, who mistreated and abused the civilians?

A. At the beginning of the war and never again later on the Serbian Radical Party never had any volunteers in Bratunac, and to the best of my knowledge Arkan didn't appear in Bratunac either. Arkan appeared in Zvornik, for example, and Bijeljina. As far as I know, he was never in Bratunac either. And I've already said that in Bratunac there was Deronjic who brought in the White Eagles. Now, what things they did there I was not a witness to, but I know what Deronjic did there, and I have very certain knowledge about that, reliable knowledge. ⁴³⁶⁶⁶

Q. That same witness, on transcript 20351 says that Seselj's men were in Bratunac on the 17th of April. Between the White Eagles and Seselj's mean there is no difference, says he.

A. That just shows how reliable the witness is. If he can't see any difference between the volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party and the White Eagles on the other side, then he is not well-versed in matters at all. And that's not the only case. I have seen similar instances in some judgements that were made whereby witnesses stated that they happened to see in some other places Seselj's White Eagles. But as I say, that is the problem of The Hague Prosecutor and the unreliability of the witnesses which it manipulates.

Q. Witness Dzemail Becirevic also testified here and mentioned you on several occasions, and this one is on page 20516. He says that he saw --

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I haven't been able to check this myself because the accused hasn't been getting the references correct, and it's quite difficult to follow this material, but I think, and I'm grateful to Ms. Dicklich, the last reference said to come from the same witness came (redacted).

But, really, I'm afraid we've got to have correct references for the witnesses. We can't simply just go to the page in the transcript. Frequently our page numbers don't necessarily coincide here in court, and without reference to the witnesses it's very difficult to pick it up later.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I ask you to be more careful in pinpointing the names of the witnesses to whom you're referring. Now, ⁴³⁶⁶⁷ Judge Kwon has already corrected you once, and apparently there is another mistake in the reference.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, perhaps there might be a mistake with the name, but there is no mistake with the quotation from the transcript, and my question relates to the material facts which are being mentioned here.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, we have to follow it, Mr. Milosevic. There is duty on you to be more careful.

Please proceed.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Certainly, Mr. Robinson. And I'll check this out to see whether indeed it is the same witness from page 20352, the transcript line and page, the quotation that I mentioned earlier on or, rather, 20351 is the exact number. I'll check that out during the break.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Now, Witness Dzemail Becirevic, on page 20516 of the transcript said that on television he saw the occupation of Bijeljina on the 31st of March, 2002 -- 1992 and Zvornik in which Arkan's men took part as well as Seselj's men and the JNA. Do you know anything about that, about the occupation of Bijeljina in fact? Did anybody in fact occupy Bijeljina on the 30th of March, 1992, and Zvornik, and what the participation was of your volunteers in those events or did they take part at all?

A. First of all, nobody occupied either Zvornik or Bijeljina. What happened there or, rather, in Zvornik there was an armed conflict between the JNA on one side and the Muslim paramilitaries on the other. The ⁴³⁶⁶⁸ Muslim paramilitary units in the town of Zvornik were routed very quickly. However, there was much fighting on the fortress above Zvornik. It went on for days. The fighting went on for days there. And in that fighting the volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party did take part. Arkan was there, too, as was the Serbian volunteer guards. To the best of my knowledge, they did not arrive with the JNA, but they came at the call of the local Territorial Defence there. And I think that it would be easy to establish that on the basis of documents and the way things stood on the ground there.

I know -- have reliable information that the commands and the officers of the JNA also tried to sidestep collaborating with Arkan's and the Tigers or, rather, the Serbian volunteer guard, and that there was a great deal of animosity between the two sides throughout the war, and very rarely did any JNA officer wish to collaborate with Arkan. As far as Bijeljina is concerned, to the best of my knowledge, over there the JNA was not involved in the local conflicts but Arkan did appear. To the best of my knowledge, most probably he appeared at the call of Biljana Plavsic. I can't prove that, but I do know that Biljana Plavsic arrived in Bijeljina subsequently and that she had a very friendly meeting with Arkan in front of the television crew and in public. The volunteers of the Serbian radical guards during the conflict in Bijeljina were not there, but there were people who had already joined up in the Serbian Radical Party, but they were locals from Bijeljina. They were residents of Bijeljina, and they rose to arms, and they took part in the conflicts in Bijeljina. But they also set a distance between themselves ⁴³⁶⁶⁹ and Arkan, especially with Mauzer who was Arkan's right-hand man. And in Serbia we didn't send a single volunteer to Bijeljina ourselves.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, may I ask you just to clarify something for me in relation to the Prosecution's case. In the Bosnia indictment the allegation is that the accused either alone or in concert with other members of the joint criminal enterprise committed certain crimes. As the Prosecution case unfolded, you're not saying, are you, that he acted alone. Your case is, as I understand it, that he acted in concert with other members of the joint criminal enterprise.

MR. NICE: Correct. I haven't reviewed each and every allegation to check that there isn't one there that may be susceptible to individual perpetration, but, no, the allegation is working with others.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Is that he's working with others.

MR. NICE: Yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. It seems to me that is -- that is virtually your case. It's not that he acted alone.

MR. NICE: Subject to the point I've just made.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Subject to the point you've made, yes.

MR. NICE: Yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Okay. Thank you.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Very well, Mr. Seselj. You've just heard that explanation too. Now, since you know the relationships very well between people at that time, you know the situation, you said that Arkan was in Bijeljina and Zvornik yourself. Now, did I or any organs of power and authority have ^{43670 BLANK PAGE 43671} anything to do with Arkan's volunteer guard?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice is on his feet.

MR. NICE: I was just reflecting on the initial answer I gave and I think perhaps there's this qualification, although I don't think it is a qualification: Of course one of the things that we say as against this accused is that by setting in train the things that he does at the top political level, he causes events to happen on the ground which are criminal in nature. It's the standard method of generation of genocidal-type acts as we revealed in, for example, the report of Mr. Zvar [phoen].

Now, of course, in those circumstances, one is acting with other people. The degree to which those people will be associated together may be minimal or non-existent on a personal and practical basis and so in those circumstances it might be appropriate to think of the accused acting alone in certain circumstances, but that's the only qualification I think I should make.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I think it's a point that will warrant some consideration later on, yes.

Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So Arkan is mentioned here as well as Mauzer. Did I or anybody else from the leadership of Serbia have anything to do with Arkan at all and with Mauzer separately? Could you explain that to us, Mr. Seselj?

A. I'm quite certain that you had nothing to do with Arkan or Mauzer. On the Serbian political arena, everybody held back from having any open ⁴³⁶⁷² contacts with Arkan.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you ask of this witness so many questions of a general nature without establishing the basis for the evidence he's giving. So that, for example, in relation to this, I mean, how is the witness able to say whether you had anything to do with Arkan or Mauzer?

He's giving evidence. He's saying that you had nothing to do with him. But in order for it to be more credible, it would be important to establish how he's in a position to make that statement.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, is it - how shall I put this - something secret that cannot be known by others or can we claim in any way that somebody from the authorities, I, myself, or somebody else had any contacts or relationship with Arkan or Mauzer?

A. In Belgrade you couldn't hide anything like that. It would be impossible to hide anything like that in Belgrade, because Belgrade is that kind of city. Even the biggest secrets trickle down and become public.

Second, Arkan on the Serbian political arena had close contacts only with Zoran Djindjic. And I've already spoken about the relationship between Djindjic and Mauzer. Mauzer was Djindjic's vice-president and the president of the party for Republika Srpska, and Djindjic took part in his pre-electoral campaign.

Q. Let's clarify one more point now. In Bijeljina, for instance, did you have the kind of structure of the Serbian Radical Party as would be ⁴³⁶⁷³ able to inform you precisely about all the events that took police in Bijeljina?

A. Yes. The Serbian Radical Party was not organised in Bijeljina sufficiently at that time. However, the people that we had there, including Mirko Blagojevic who is mentioned in some testimony during this trial, kept me well-informed and reliably informed about all the events that went on in Bijeljina. And at any rate, our Municipal Board in Bijeljina, for example, on a number of occasions made public statements and held press conferences at which they energetically condemned and severely criticised Mauzer's conduct, especially Mauzer's conduct towards the Muslim civilians, for example. And those documents exist, and I am preparing them for my own trial, which doesn't seem to be starting.

Q. The same witness, Becirevic, on 20521, says that during the attack on the area around Konjevic Pole, Cerska and Kamenica, in addition to the JNA and the so-called local Serb units, there was also participation by the Red Berets or, rather, Arkan's and Seselj's men. So that's the quotation. And now what is being linked and defined here is that Arkan's and Seselj's men were together with some Red Berets. What kind of Red Berets were they? What Arkan's men were they, Seselj's men were they around Konjevic Pole and Kamenica that the witness is referring to?

A. In testimony seems to be very confused quite obviously because the witness don't seem to know what the Red Berets are. Perhaps he happened to see some soldiers wearing red berets in the form of a cap, just a red cap, and then came to the conclusion that that was the name of the unit. And then he -- the witness doesn't know whether they were Seselj's men or ⁴³⁶⁷⁴ Arkan's men or it seems to be all the same to this witness. So it's highly imprecise, a highly imprecise testimony, a testimony off the top of his head. And I insist upon the fact that it is impossible to identify so-called Seselj's men and Arkan's men and these alleged Red Berets. As for the Red Berets, I've already given you reliable facts about them and said that name appeared in different situations relating to different military formations and units, starting with the Srpska Krajina area where these people were linked to the Captain Dragan camp, and then the army of Republika Srpska where the Red Berets were warn by members of the intervention or reconnoitering units, reconnaissance units, up until the special purpose units, too, belonging to the State Security Service of Serbia which was established in 1996. And there intentionally this misunderstanding is being developed so that certain things can be ascribed to people with -- which they had nothing to do with.

Q. Witness Osman Selak on page 22312 of the transcript says the following: "Seselj said that all the officers of the army of Yugoslavia who were Muslims and Croats had to be replaced and this part was done." That's when this witness claims.

A. Osman Selak is not somebody who is not serious. He's a colonel by rank, and throughout the war, as far as I know, he was the Chief of Staff of the 1st Krajina Corps of the army of Republika Srpska. So he was the number two man after General Momir Talic, for example, if that's the same Osman Selak that you're referring to.

Q. Well, I can't tell you that.

A. Osman Selak was a high-ranking officer of the army of ⁴³⁶⁷⁵ Republika Srpska, and when he says that I said something somewhere, made a statement somewhere, then he must say where I said it, when I said it, what the circumstances were in which I said it.

I did give a similar statement in Belgrade, for example, after the secession of individual federal units. I called from the JNA. Slovenia seceded, and I asked that the Slovenians step down from military service, and for the most part, including Admiral Stane Brovet retired, and he personally was against Slovenian separatism might I add. As far as the Muslims are concerned, the Muslims from Bosnia-Herzegovina no longer had any grounds for remaining in the army of Yugoslavia but the Muslims from the territory of Serbia or Sandzak and Raska they stayed on; they remained there. And we have a series of examples of Muslims of that kind who were officers of the Yugoslav army perform their duty very honourably.

So the citizens --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

JUDGE BONOMY: I would be assisted by knowing whether you are saying that you did make such a statement or you didn't make such a statement.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Bonomy, how can I know if you don't show me something like that here, where and when. Let us see the statement concerned. Let me identify it. I gave thousands and thousands of statements in public. They were publicly recorded. They were published. So let's see.

My objection is precisely in that. Why did this Osman Selak not ⁴³⁶⁷⁶ say where and when?

JUDGE BONOMY: That's helpful to some extent. Does it follow from the answer you've just given that you could have said it?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I could have said it along the following lines, that those in the army who came from the renegade republics in principle should not remain at positions in the Yugoslav army. You see, if Slovenia seceded and if all the Slovenian people live in Slovenia quite literally, then why would there be Slovenian officers in the army of Yugoslavia, and what kind of authority can they have as officers?

JUDGE BONOMY: That's simply confusing me further. The quote was that you said that all officers of the army of Yugoslavia who were Muslims and Croats had to be replaced and that was done. Now, are you saying that you could possibly have made that statement in these terms?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm not saying that I made that kind of statement. I did not give the kind of statement that Osman Selak testified about. I could have made a similar statement along very precise lines, but that statement has to be found. Where, to who, when? Osman Selak saw that in the newspapers or on television, but that has to be established. I assume that would be the practice of this Office of the Prosecutor as well, to fine the mentioned newspaper and to see exactly what I said.

I am never going to refute any statement I ever made to anyone, but it has to be a precise reconstruction. What you're asking me to do is to comment upon a version of an alleged statement that I made in Osman ⁴³⁶⁷⁷ Selak's view or how he perceives my statement. Well, I cannot really make my statements suit what he believes my statements might have been.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Seselj, I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm trying to understand the answer you've given to the question asked by Mr. Milosevic. And I think from what you've just said, the problem is that you've been studying this yourself, and you're trying to justify a position of your own without really dealing specifically with the question that's being asked of you, and the simple answer to the question appears now to be that you couldn't possibly have made a statement of that nature, although you might have said something much more specific about different people but not just in general about Muslims and Croats. Now, is that a fair summary of your position?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, I'm not sure, by think you're very close. However, in order to help you, I'm going to give you an example.

Throughout 1991 and even in 1992, from time to time we were informed of the following: Such-and-such an officer, an ethnic Croat, escaped from Serbia to Croatia. Many of them took carloads of confidential documents with them. As a matter of fact, sometime in 1998 we had the following situation: Robert Ivanovic, a Croat, commander of the military music band of the 1st Army District in Belgrade went with his family abroad legally and then he went to Croatia and he still lives there.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Seselj, this doesn't remotely sound as if it's going to be at all helpful to me, so we'll proceed with Mr. Milosevic's ⁴³⁶⁷⁸ questions. You have to bear in mind that the question that was put to you was about a statement made by a witness that was plainly a racist statement, and why it should be so difficult to deal with such a simple issue I'm not at all sure. However, Mr. Milosevic can explore it further if he wishes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Sir --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Let Mr. Milosevic ask the next question.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have to --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Please, Mr. Robinson. I protest in no uncertain terms because of the qualification made by Mr. Bonomy that any statement of mine could have considered racist. First of all, never in my life have I made a racist statement.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Judge Bonomy never said that, Mr. Seselj.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] He just did.

JUDGE ROBINSON: No, he never said that. Not at all.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, he just said so just now.

JUDGE ROBINSON: There's nothing for you to respond to. Mr. Milosevic, the next question.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, I'm afraid that this is a pure misunderstanding. I put a concrete question to you. In order to spell it out in more specific terms and in order to avoid any kind of misunderstanding it was stated ⁴³⁶⁷⁹ here that "Seselj had stated that all officers of the army of Yugoslavia who were Muslims or Croats would have to be removed." Did you ever state that?

A. No, I didn't say it that way.

Q. So you didn't say it that way --

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues]... matter.

JUDGE BONOMY: And why on earth it should take all this time to establish that simple issue, I do not know.

Perhaps it would help, Mr. Seselj, if you just listened to the questions and answer the question that's actually asked rather than try to make political statements about your own position.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm not making political statements, Mr. Bonomy.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, Witness Baron van Linden spoke about you here. He mentioned only a few facts, so I would like to ask you to check whether those facts are correct. And first of all, I'm interested in the circumstances involved if it did happen. The page is 26758. "Just after the bombing Seselj came to Pale." And then on page 26762 he says: "Seselj came to Pale immediately after the first NATO ultimatum to support the Bosnian Serbs." These are a few facts that referred to. Could you please explain the circumstances involved. What is this actually all about?

A. I went to Pale several times, and whenever the leadership of ⁴³⁶⁸⁰ Republika Srpska was under pressure from the West I publicly supported the leadership of Republika Srpska, because the Western powers were openly engaged in an anti-Serb policy.

As for the Markale Market, the two explosions, one at the market itself, and the other one near the market as well as the explosion in the street of Vasa Miskin at the partisan cemetery near the old brewery, these are explosions that were organised by the Muslim leadership, regardless of whether the explosives were planted on the actual spot or whether mortar shells were fired from elsewhere at one of these sites. This was a trigger event that was staged in order to accuse the Serbs and to justify the sanctions that were imposed immediately, the threats that were made, and so on and so forth.

Q. So, Mr. Seselj, if I understood you correctly, when you went there you did so only to give political support to the leadership of Republika Srpska in situations when they were exposed to pressure and bombing.

A. Yes.

Q. Witness B1445 said on page 27608: "In January or February 1992" -- please bear the dates in mind, January, February 1992, "Arkan's and Seselj's units arrived in Doboj."

Is this a fact? Is it founded on facts at all?

A. No. It is absolutely impossible. In January or February 1992, there were no military operations in Doboj and the surrounding area. Secondly, volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were not sent to Doboj even through the JNA. As far as I know, Arkan's Tigers never ⁴³⁶⁸¹ operated in Doboj either. This is a total fabrication.

Q. Now, could you please give as precise an answer as possible to this question. It has to do with witness Sead Omeragic who said on transcript page 27738, quite explicitly, "Mirko Blagojevic," that is to say, that official of yours that you mentioned a while ago, he says: "Mirko Blagojevic was the organiser of the conflict in Bijeljina, and he was a member of the Serb Radical Party and had contacts with Seselj."

I am not asking you whether he was a member of the Serb Radical Party or whether he had contacts with you, but this assertion made that Mirko Blagojevic was the organiser of the conflict in Bijeljina. So please deal with that assertion of this witness which is contained in the transcript. Is it correct or not?

A. First and foremost a conflict is not organised. An attack is organised, defence is organised, but a conflict is not organised. A conflict occurs when two armed formations clash. Mirko Blagojevic took part in the conflict that occurred in Bijeljina but only in the military armed conflict. When the Muslim formations were defeated, Mirko Blagojevic no longer participated in any conflicts. And I guarantee with my own life that he took part in no looting, no persecutions, no maltreatment of the civilian population and so on and so forth. I'm absolutely certain of that.

Q. Thank you.

A. I can fully identify with everything that Mirko Blagojevic did. It is to that degree that I'm certain that he never did anything against ^{43682 BLANK PAGE 43683} the law.

Q. Witness B1780, on transcript pages 28220 and 221 says: "Seselj's men tortured prisoners at the Ekonomija farm."

A. Where is this Ekonomija farm?

Q. My understanding is it's somewhere near Zvornik.

A. That's quite impossible too. The volunteers of the Serb Radical Party took part in the Zvornik operation while the JNA was operating there in brief fighting in town itself and somewhat longer fighting that went on for a few days on the fortress above the town where the resistance of the Muslim paramilitaries was quite strong. Once the conflict was brought to an end, the JNA withdrew, and the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party withdrew.

I preclude any possibility of having the volunteers engaged on guarding prisoners of war or detaining civilians. Had that kind of thing happened, I would have had to know about it.

Q. All right. Mirsad Kucanin, another witness, claims that you personally killed a Serb named Vasiljevic under the following circumstances: On transcript page 28966, he says the following: "Seselj, on Serb television, indicated a 7.9 calibre weapon and he personally fired it at Muslims in Sarajevo." This was shown on television, and he said that you permanently killed a Serb called Vasiljevic there.

A. First of all, I remember what happened very well. I was at Grbavica. At that time, under the protection of the so-called international observers, the Muslims tried by digging trenches to go around the Serb positions on the outskirts of Sarajevo and to attack the ⁴³⁶⁸⁴ Serb forces from the back. From Grbavica 1, from the building which was an apartment building but due to Muslim fire it was totally destroyed, I used a Browning machine-gun from there. It's a heavy machine-gun. I couldn't carry it anywhere. It is a heavy machine-gun. You cannot carry it around.

Q. But he says on page 28967 that you carried a Browning.

A. You cannot carry it. It's too long. It was installed in that building, and I used that Browning to target the Muslims in the trenches below the UN observation posts. I was firing from the Browning. Some of the volunteers from the Serb Radical Party from the Jewish cemetery was firing from a recoilless gun, and the trenches were still being dug, and the top of the trenches was hit. Whether somebody got killed there is something I don't know. It could have only been the Muslim soldiers who could have been killed, because -- and that would please me, because this small participation of mine in the war had thereby yielded some effects. A Serb in the Muslim army could have been killed there. In that case, he was the enemy. Also, it could have been a Serb who had been forced by the Muslims to dig trenches. Then his killing is the fault of those who in violation of international law of war brought him out there to dig trenches, not those who --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. What Witness Miroslav Deronjic said, is that true, on page 29626, that at the beginning of April Seselj's men arrived in the area of Bratunac and Zvornik. ⁴³⁶⁸⁵

A. That is an intentional fabrication on Deronjic's part. He knows full well who he brought to the Bratunac area. However, you see, knowing who he brought to Bratunac, he is linking up Zvornik and Bratunac and making this sweeping statement Seselj's men arrived in Bratunac and Zvornik. If they arrived in Zvornik, it's as if they were in Bratunac too. The volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were not in Bratunac, so Deronjic invented that.

In Bratunac there were the locals organised by Deronjic into the Bratunac Brigade. At the beginning of the war it was Deronjic who was commander of the Bratunac Brigade and then he had to withdraw because he was not a trained officer in any way. When the army was consolidated, then a professional officer came to be commander of the Bratunac Brigade.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Slow down. I think the interpreter is having some difficulty.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I will. You could have noticed, Mr. Robinson, that I have been trying as of late to speak slowly, but sometimes, every now and then, I may forget what you cautioned me about.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, I had noticed, and the -- we are appreciative of the effort you are making. You have answered the question.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In the meantime --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I think you have answered that question.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So they were not in Bratunac at all? ⁴³⁶⁸⁶

A. No. The volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were not in Bratunac.

Q. All right. So you are saying that he's not telling the truth. The same witness, Deronjic, on page 29737, said that he does not agree that Seselj was a true opposition.

A. The Hague OTP and Judge Schomburg on several occasions caught Deronjic lying. And even in Deronjic's judgement you can find about seven different points as ascertained by Judge Schomburg, namely that Deronjic was lying.

Secondly, in the case of people who are inclined to a pro-Western policy or are mercenaries of Western intelligence agencies, or in order to save their own skin they go into plea bargaining with the OTP and therefore appear as witnesses in the trials of other people, it can often be heard that those who are really opposition but are not prepared to serve the West --

MR. NICE: I'm not sure this is responsive to any question --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Are you interrupting me?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice is on his feet, Mr. Seselj, and he's entitled to make an objection if he wishes.

MR. NICE: He was simply asked if the man was telling the truth. We have his answer and he's now gone on to a long comment basically.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, you have moved into the area of comment. It's now time for the break.

Mr. Nice, I should say the question that I asked earlier related to the Bosnia indictment. ⁴³⁶⁸⁷ We will break for 20 minutes.

--- Recess taken at 3.41 p.m.

--- On resuming at 4.08 p.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, you told me to check the pages that Mr. Nice mentioned, 35 -- 20352 and 20351, that is. This was Witness 1070.

On page 20351 he says that Seselj's men were in Bratunac and that there was no difference between them and Seselj's men, the White Eagles, that is.

And on page 20352, he says that between the 20-something of April Seselj's and Arkan's men were in Bratunac together when some people were deported. And Mr. Seselj answered questions about this. In the meantime, the liaison officer had the transcript, and I have received a note saying that both references are correct, both as regards page 20351 and 20352, and these refer to Witness 1070. There was no error.

JUDGE ROBINSON: All right, Mr. Milosevic. We'll do our own check. Thank you for checking anyhow.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, this is the testimony of Miroslav Deronjic, who said that you were not truly an opposition politician or, rather, that you cooperated with the government and that therefore this idea of a joint criminal enterprise is thereby confirmed. Were you in the opposition or not?

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for Mr. Seselj. ⁴³⁶⁸⁸

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. I personally -- I switched it on.

Both the Serb Radical Party and I personally throughout this time were distinctly in the opposition. We were as far in the opposition as it's possible to be. From the ideological perspective now adopted by Deronjic, only foreign mercenaries were considered to be in the opposition. Western mercenaries, Western agents, this was a standpoint often expressed in the media that were financed by the West, by various government and non-government organisations. In their view, a true person of the opposition was only someone who took instructions from Zimmerman or Miles, the US ambassadors, in Belgrade. Who was the next one, Montgomery and so on. Those who always spoke from patriotic positions while criticising the government were not deemed to be proper opposition politicians, and this logic is completely upside down.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Witness Ahmet Zulic says, and that's on page 30000 of the transcript, he says that Seselj's men were stationed in the partisan cemetery in Pobrezje, that doesn't matter so much but what matters is the following, that they had come there to kill the Muslims.

A. Where is this place? Pobrezje? Where is it?

Q. I have a note here in Pobrezje. I can't be more specific than that.

But let me put a question to you: Did your volunteers go anywhere to kill all Muslims?

A. No. Nowhere did the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party go to ⁴³⁶⁸⁹ kill Muslims or Croats or any kind of civilians. Wherever they went, they were part of the JNA, and they went there to fight against the paramilitary units that wanted to break up Yugoslavia.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, it's important to know the location. I'm not sure whether Mr. Nice or Mr. Kay can help. Your note doesn't identify clearly the name of this place?

MR. NICE: I tried to make an electronic search but for various reasons it doesn't work at the moment or doesn't work for this witness on this particular part of his evidence. I'll try again.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

JUDGE KWON: You said Pobrezje. Proceed, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. The same witness, Ahmet Zulic, on page 30047, says in Sanski Most there was no fighting, but the civilians fled because Seselj's men were there.

Your men caused fear among civilians, although there was no fighting there, as he says, in Sanski Most.

A. That is pure fabrication, because throughout the Bosnian Krajina, throughout the Bosnian Krajina volunteers of the Serb Radical Party did not fight in any location.

This reminds me of a well-known anecdote which says that in a certain place inhabited by Muslims there was a notice on a shop saying that sugar was arriving. This was when there was a shortage of sugar. Somebody read this wrong and started yelling Seselj is arriving, Seselj is ⁴³⁶⁹⁰ arriving, and he spread panic.

THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note that the Serbian word for sugar resembles Mr. Seselj's name.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] So there were no volunteers anywhere in that area.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Look at paragraph 32 and what it says. In says here: "From the 1st of March or thereabouts until the 31st of December, 1995, Slobodan Milosevic, acting alone or in concert with other members of the joint criminal," and so on,"planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted," and so on and so forth, all these phrases, "the planning, preparation of the Bosnian Muslims as such living in territories of Bijeljina, Bosanski Novo, Brcko, Kljuc, Kotor Varos, Prijedor, Sanski Most, and Srebrenica."

Tell me now, Mr. Seselj, as you mentioned here as a participant in this joint criminal enterprise and you are being charged with alleged crimes in these places, is there any basis for these allegations made here?

A. No, there is absolutely no basis whatsoever, because no one from Serbia caused conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina were caused by those who one-sidedly, unilaterally, wanted to proclaim the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina contrary to the will of the Serb people who were a constituent nation and by those in the West who supported them. There was no planning, no preparation or execution or extermination. There was no plan. ⁴³⁶⁹¹ When the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina was recognised, in many places there was simply an assault on the local government, not only where the Serbs were in majority but also where the Muslims or the Croats were in the majority, although the Croats took a lot in 1991. In 1991, not a single municipality in Western Herzegovina where the Croats were the majority population recognised the central government in Sarajevo. They had already seceded from Bosnia and Herzegovina. That was in 1991.

Q. In paragraph 32, which I quoted, apart from Bijeljina where we have already established who was there, Mauzer and Arkan, that is, the other places mentioned are Bosanski Novi, Kljuc, Kotor Varos, Prijedor, Sanski Most, and Srebrenica. Was anyone from Serbia there participated in any kind of military activities?

A. As far as I know, no. You see, as regards Srebrenica, sometime in January, in early 1993, Srebrenica was already a UN protected area, but the UN troops did nothing to disarm the Muslim units in Srebrenica, although they were duty-bound to do so. The protection zone was established, provided that all Muslim armed units in Srebrenica be disarmed. That was the only way a protected area could function. The Muslim forces from Srebrenica made incursions into Serbian villages and killed many Serb civilians. In the beginning of 1993, there were two groups of volunteers from the Serb Radical Party who were active in the Skelani area, and they hurried to help the surrounded Serb forces in the area of Jezero. This was in 1993 in Srebrenica. And that is the only activity of volunteers of the Serb Radical Party in the Srebrenica area. It was in the beginning of 1993. ⁴³⁶⁹² As for Bosanski Novi, Brcko, Kljuc, Kotor Varos, and Sanski Most, I don't know anyone from Serbia who went to fight there. Arkan turned up only in 1995, when because of the NATO bombing, which was systematic all over Serbia, a Muslim-Croat offensive was launched where the regular army of the Republic of Croatia participated and led the offensive. Bosanska Krajina was about to fall, and that was when Arkan turned up with his volunteer guard, and I think that was his last involvement in the wars there, in Sanski Most and Prijedor.

Q. Mr. Seselj, you know very well what kind of policy we proclaimed and what kind of policy we implemented at the time. How does this policy that we implemented correspond to what is alleged here, the destruction in whole or in part, and then they list all these towns in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

A. This is absolutely impossible. There was no such policy, and there was no destruction that was planned. Everything that did happen happened because of incidents caused by individuals and groups acting on their own initiative, renegade groups, but there was no plan to commit murders or anything of the kind.

Q. As in this Bosnia indictment, everything that happened in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina is mentioned and charged against me and the other participants of the joint criminal enterprise as formulated by Mr. Nice.

Look at paragraph 33. We've just been discussing paragraph 32. I won't read the beginning of paragraph 33 because it's the same: "From on or about the 1st of March, 1992," and so on and so forth, and then it ⁴³⁶⁹³ says: "On the territory of Banja Luka, Bihac, Bijeljina, Bosanska Krupa, Bosanski Novi, Cajnice, Doboj, Foca, Gacko, Sarajevo (Ilijas), Kljuc, Kalinovik, Kotor Varos, Nevesinje, Sarajevo, Novi Grad, Sarajevo, Novo Sarajevo, Prijedor, Prnjavor, Rogatica, Rudo, Sanski Most, Srebrenica again, Teslic, Visegrad, Vlasenica and Zvornik." Please --

JUDGE ROBINSON: You are finished reading that list. Let me remind you, Mr. Milosevic, that the Rule 98 bis decision found that there was not enough evidence to support the allegation in paragraph 32 in relation to some of the villages or municipalities mentioned. In fact, as far as paragraph 32 is concerned, you need only concern yourself with Brcko, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Srebrenica, Bijeljina, Kotor Varos, Kljuc, Bosanski Novi. And I am checking to see whether the decision affected paragraph 33.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, could you please let me know what evidence, as you say there was no evidence for these places, but what was the evidence that Mr. Nice presented here about the other places linking me --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic. Mr. Milosevic, the Rule 98 bis decision was published and was available to you. But I bring that to your attention so we don't waste time. And I'll ask the legal officer to give me the information in relation to paragraph 33.

Go ahead, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. As I was saying, Mr. Seselj, I read out a list here. It's a long paragraph with all the names of the towns where I, together with others, ^{43694 BLANK PAGE 43695} am charged with working for the extermination of Muslims and Croats. You know the policy of Serbia from that day as you are of all the actions that referred to the course of the war in Croatia and Bosnia. Is this grounded in any fact at all, any fact that you could quote?

A. Absolutely not. Because nobody from Serbia, even had they wanted to, would have been able to cause a civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. A civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was caused by those who unilaterally wanted the Serb people over there to relinquish their status of a constituent people.

And the question arises from there where are the Serbs from Mostar, from Capljina, from Livno, the Serbs from Zenica, the Serbs from Travnik? Where are the Serbs from Maglaj, for instance, or the Serbs from many other places which were taken control of by the Muslims or Croats during that civil war?

After the civil war broke out there was a great movement in the population, both spontaneous, sometimes forceful. Sometimes crimes did take place, but there was this general aspiration for everybody to join, in figurative terms, their own birds of a feather flocking together, if I can put it that way. So in that war crimes were committed. Sometimes crimes were in response to crimes that had been committed previously, sometimes it was criminals committing crimes through base motives, criminal motives. Sometimes there was the urge for retaliation and revenge. But on the Serb side, planned organised and systematic crimes did not exist. That did not happen.

Q. Now, as this refers to me myself and the other members of the ⁴³⁶⁹⁶ joint criminal enterprise as it is alleged, including yourself, I'd like to draw your attention to the time from the 1st of March to the 31st of December, 1995, from 1992 to 1995, and in paragraph 32 and paragraph 33 and indeed paragraph 36 which I cannot understand because the same towns are repeated there. The same qualifications are given for those towns too. And then later on in paragraph 37 again.

So what was it that we dealt in? What was it that we did during that period of time, that is to say, between March 1992 and the end of December 1995, which was linked to the civil war in our neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina?

A. After the withdrawal of the JNA, on the 19th of May, 1992, Serbia or, rather, the authorities in Serbia and in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in no way whatsoever took part in the war and war actions. It did not send any armed units or formations, but it was its duty to help materially, in material terms, to help Republika Srpska and the Serbs living over there. So that was a period of time which showed different political relationships between Serbia and Yugoslavia and the leadership of Republika Srpska on the other side. Sometimes there was a period in which those relationships were good, and sometimes there were deep conflicts, and they didn't see eye-to-eye on many issues. So throughout that time, throughout this period covered by the indictment and that you -- they are trying to attempt to charge you with, the leadership of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia persevered in looking for solutions to the problem and sometimes went too far accepting the conditions of the peace plan which we Serb nationalists ⁴³⁶⁹⁷ attacked ourselves for our part.

So I cannot congratulate you on those aspects of your policy dating back from that time, but based on the facts I insist upon the fact that that policy was waged in order to find a peaceful solution at all costs. That is to say, the slogans of your party was there is no alternative to peace. You wanted peace at all cost, at any price, even at the price of making concessions which the Serbs were not able to accept because they were not able to take such great concessions.

Q. Very well. Now, bearing in mind that practice and the activities of that period, how can you explain that somebody can enumerate all these towns here in Bosnia in which allegedly the leadership of Serbia and I personally committed these crimes, ordered, aided and abetted, organised, et cetera, the wording of the indictment. Do you have any reason explanation?

A. Yes, I do, and that's explanation is the following and the fact that through you they are trying to try Serbia and the entire Serb people, and --

JUDGE ROBINSON: That is not an answer. In any event, it is not an explanation that it is appropriate for you to give. So please ask another question, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, paragraph 36 goes on to mention Banja Luka, Bihac, Bijeljina, Bileca, Bosanska Krupa, Bosanski Novi, Bosanski Samac, Bratunac again, Brcko again, Cajnice, Doboj, Foca again, Gacko, different places in Sarajevo, Prijedor, Prnjavor, Rogatica, Sanski Most, Sokolac, Srebrenica, ⁴³⁶⁹⁸ Teslic, Visegrad, Vlasenica and Zvornik. Do you have anything to say with regard to that point of the indictment?

A. I claim that in these places there was no systematic organised crime. However, crimes did happen. I don't know whether in all the places enumerated here but in many of them. There were crimes that took place in many of these places but it is not at all difficult for each individual crime to establish exactly who the perpetrator was and what the motives were. Because not too much time has gone by. Many people are still living both among the victims and the criminals, and everything can be established. Everything can be established both on the Bosnian side and the Croatian side as well. There is no goodwill to do so, to investigate all the crimes. And attempts are being made artificially to strike a balance, including The Hague Tribunal and its indictment with the number of Serbs, Croats, or Muslims brought to trial and charged.

Q. Let us now dwell for a moment on what you've said when you said that some crimes were committed in some of these towns. Let's look at that for a moment. What is the link between Serbia, the FRY, the army of Yugoslavia or the police for that matter or any kind, armed forces or formations or units of the Republic of Serbia with any of those crimes that you know of? Are there any links?

A. There could not have been any links at all. All the organs of power and authority in Serbia and in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as well, all serious political organisations and political parties of Serbia, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the cultural institutions stemming from the Academy of Science to the Association of Writers, et cetera, et cetera, ⁴³⁶⁹⁹ everybody was against and came out against crimes. They all spoke out against them, and they all supported the just fight of the Serb people for freedom. But all of them at the same time condemned the crimes that were being perpetrated on the Serb side, too, and appealed that no crimes should be committed. And the media were full of statements of that kind via the state organs, the church, the cultural institutions and political parties. There is not a single fact or organisation in Serbia which strove in favour of crimes, and all political, cultural, and other factors spoke out against crimes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Now, we -- let's look at paragraph 37, which talks about unlawful confinement or imprisonment under inhumane conditions of Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Croats, and then the following places are enumerated on the territories of Banja Luka, Bihac, Bijeljina, Bileca, Bosanska Krupa, Novi, Samac, Bratunac, Brcko, Cajnice, Doboj, Foca, Gacko, Kljuc, Kalinovik, Kotor Varos and Nevesinje, Prijedor, Rogatica. Sanski Most, Teslic, Visegrad, Vlasenica and Zvornik.

Tell us, please, Mr. Seselj, what unlawful confinement of these people in these towns did we take part in?

A. The power and authorities in Serbia and Yugoslavia could not have had anything to do with any such thing.

First of all, we should differentiate between the following: What the confinement of prisoners of war means and what the confinement of civilians means. It is unlawful to confine civilians. That is what is ⁴³⁷⁰⁰ unlawful, and there were such cases.

Now, how can I explain them to the best of my knowledge? First of all, there were individual instances in some of these places through the self-will of people from the local authorities. I mentioned the instance of Simo Drljaca, for example, who was killed when he was being arrested. And then many people bear responsibility through -- without any fault of their own because they couldn't influence him. He appeared as a factor, and there was no control over him. Nobody could control him, and his motives were of a criminal nature.

There were other such cases in some of these places whereby somebody confined people unlawfully, members of non-Serb ethnic groups in order to put them up for bribes, I mentioned Mauzer, in order to receive money and then release them once they received money for that. There were also instances of revenge and retaliation where somebody had suffered, somebody's family members had suffered at the hands of the Muslims or Croats, and they wanted to seek revenge. And the authorities very often were not able to prevent revenge of that kind.

Q. Which authorities?

A. The authorities in Republika Srpska.

Q. But what about the authority in Serbia? Could the Serbian authorities intervene?

A. No. The authorities in Serbia couldn't influence or involve themselves in any such matters.

So as I say, there were cases and instances of that kind, but one should take a look at each of these cases and see what the background to ⁴³⁷⁰¹ those cases are, hot perpetrators were, how the crime was committed and what the motives were and then the situation will become clearer. Now, what happens here? Here we have an enumeration of places where possibly some crimes had taken place and they are extracted out of context and then an a priori general phrases are used to accuse top-ranking politicians, not only of Republika Srpska but those of Serbian Yugoslavia as well.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, by this time it is becoming -- it has become a feature of your evidence that in response to the allegations you say that there may have been individual acts of criminality but nothing like the systematic, organised, group acts of criminality that are alleged by the indictment, alleged by the Prosecution.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You didn't understand me correctly, Mr. Robinson. There was -- there were group crimes, group criminality, but there was no systematic, organised criminality on the part of the top echelons of power, to be more precise. So first of all, it is absolutely impossible for the authorities in Serbia to have organised anything like that, and in Yugoslavia either. To the best of my knowledge, it is impossible that the authorities of Republika Srpska had organised any such thing, but there were individuals from those echelons of power who did commit crimes. And it wasn't only individuals who committed crimes. There was group -- there was group criminality, too, group crimes too. And I mentioned several examples that I know about on the basis of my information, but I can't be well-versed in everything, but I can in basics, and therefore I can claim what I just did, what I just said. It ⁴³⁷⁰² wasn't the policy of the authorities of Serbia and Yugoslavia to commit crimes, to persecute Muslims or Croats. It wasn't the policy of the leadership of Republika Srpska either, for that matter. Now, --

JUDGE ROBINSON: And it wasn't the policy of this accused in concert with other --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That certainly was not the policy of Mr. Milosevic. Quite the contrary. Mr. Milosevic constantly, continuously and openly and resolutely came out publicly against such crimes being committed, against any criminality appearing, especially the most serious form of war crimes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Paragraph 40 is too long for me to quote. There's an enormous list of towns there from Bosnia-Herzegovina, lots of towns in that list, and the subject here is deportation.

Now, Mr. Seselj, help me how here. Let's clarify that. Albeit in Serbia, according to official date, about 70.000 Muslims fled to Serbia, Muslim refugees fled to Serbia during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 70.000 of them when they were treated in Serbia awarding to the principle of non-discrimination like anybody else.

Now, I can't clear up this point here. Perhaps our leadership is being accused for taking in those refugees who fled from the war, or is it stated here -- it says: "Milosevic, acting alone or together with other members of the joint criminal enterprise, planned, instigated, ordered, ⁴³⁷⁰³ committed, or otherwise aided and abetted the planning, preparation, or execution of the unlawful forcible transfer..."

Now, Mr. Seselj, did Milosevic or any other organ of the Republic of Serbia did -- do anything to force anybody to move lawfully or unlawfully? If you have lawful forcible movement, then you have unlawful movement too. So did the -- an organ of Serbia even try to move one individual?

A. These organs of Serbia could not have had anything to do with anything like that. Second, the state organs of Serbia condemned these phenomena and similar phenomena if they knew about them. Thirdly, what did happen was that there was the desire on the part of one ethnic group to leave the area they had inhabited by another ethnic group, and that desire was expressed much before the armed conflict broke out. There were instances of that kind throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. That is to say, that people wanted to move out because they felt something in the air, something afoot. They felt that war might be imminent, bearing in mind what had happened in Croatia, the Croatian federal unit. They wanted to move out. Anybody who had relatives in other parts of Yugoslavia or perhaps abroad, and if they had enough money to do so, they left -- they were the first to leave. So that was something that could be proved, and in some trials before The Hague Tribunal this was proved and established in some of the judgements. And I know of a specific example, a concrete example, a case in point. This is what happened: A group of Muslims from Prijedor wished to move onto the territory under Muslim control, and a convoy was organised to transport them to Travnik, I think it was -- ⁴³⁷⁰⁴

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, I'm stopping you because you have answered the question. You are becoming a little too expansive.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think that this would be very important.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, what example do you know of personally?

A. I'm talking about one example when Muslims were transported because they wanted to go to territory that was under Muslim control. And then the policeman who was leading the convoy for security reasons, whose name is Darko Mrdja, he stopped the convoy at a particular site which is called Koricanske Stijene, if I remember correctly. He took out a large group of Muslims and executed them arbitrarily. When he returned, the authorities tried to arrest him. He fled to a completely different part of Republika Srpska, and under a different name he signed up with the army of Republika Srpska in order to avoid arrest.

Then he tried to explain this in a completely different way: Somebody ordered him to do so, but he cannot say who it was, so he's trying to shift blame elsewhere and things like that. Such people, when they were prosecuted before The Hague Tribunal, entered plea bargains with the OTP, then they get a mild sentence, and then they appear in other trials, and their statements are believed although they are invariably false because --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm stopping you. Mr. Seselj, no doubt you're a man of many virtues. Is omniscience one of them? How do you happen to know all these things? I have to ask myself that question, Mr. Milosevic. ⁴³⁷⁰⁵

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Where is your knowledge coming from?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, all my life I have been learning, learning, learning, and constantly learning. Even now in prison I read eight to ten hours a day, although the conditions under which I live are very poor because they want to prevent me from preparing my defence case properly. But I'm a constant learner, and I wish others were too.

JUDGE ROBINSON: It would help my appreciation of your evidence if only occasionally we were told of the basis for the information that you have about specific matters.

Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, a short while ago you said that the leadership of Serbia and I personally could not have participated in any such thing and that as a matter of fact we acted in a completely opposite manner. Upon what do you base this statement?

A. I have a series of sources of information and grounds on which I base my information and statements. First of all, the consistent statements made by the authorities of Serbia and Yugoslavia in that area. Secondly, the concrete behaviour of the authorities of Serbia. They never discriminated in terms of taking in refugees. They never discriminated against any ethnic group. It is impossible for the authorities from Serbia to take part in the persecution of Muslims in Bosnia whereas at the same time they were readily admitting them to Serbia ^{43706 BLANK PAGE 43707} and treating them the same way they treat Orthodox Serbs and others. So there is not a shred of common sense in this, no logic whatsoever. Why would the authorities of Serbia take part in persecution of Muslims against Bosnia while taking in thousands of Muslim refugees in Serbia and spending a lot of money on them? Refugees require a great deal of money. Perhaps not all of them were happy with what they got, but this involved major expenditure on the part of the state.

Q. All right, Mr. Seselj. But did the authorities of Serbia allow discrimination over any Muslim Croat or the member of any other ethnic group in Serbia during the civil war in Croatia and Bosnia?

A. No. Even if there were any incidents on ethnic grounds, the authorities acted in accordance with the law and brought such matters to trial. They simply did not allow things like that to happen.

Q. Please look at paragraph 42 now. Again it says here: "Slobodan Milosevic," and so on and so forth, on or about the 1st of March, 1992, until 391st of December, 1995, acting alone or in concert with members of the joint criminal enterprise, planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted the planning preparation or execution of wanton destruction and plunder of the public and private property of the Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat, and other non-Serb populations and then" --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, too fast. Too fast.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So I, Mr. Seselj, according to this paragraph 42, aided and abetted the planning, preparation or execution, I executed this. It wasn't that I only aided and abetted others, but I committed wanton ⁴³⁷⁰⁸ destruction and plunder of the public and private property of the Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat, and other non-Serb populations, and again all these municipalities are listed here where I committed wanton looting of property belonging to Muslims and Croats.

Please tell us not only what you know about this but also on the basis of what you know what you know.

A. This is sheer nonsense that you took part in any part of this in any way. However, such things did happen, looting and destruction of private and public property. Such things happened equally on all three sides, because in a civil war it is far more difficult to keep everything under control as compared to a war waged against an external enemy. What happened here was that a group of Serbs, Croats, or Muslims would loot houses, destroy property, et cetera -- or, rather, would have their own property looted, and then they would seek property in a similar way in other places. This is something that was part of this war, and no official authorities from Serbia could have done anything about that. No one personally took part in this or aided, abetted, planned, executed, et cetera.

There were paramilitary formations that had looting as their primary motive. The Yellow Wasps did not only steal from Muslims but also from Serbs. They would stop an entire Serb family on a road. People travelling from Republika Srpska to Serbia, for instance, they would seize their car, they would seize what was in the car, et cetera. There were such cases as documented by the police of Republika Srpska, and this Trial Chamber can obtain information to that effect. So there were cases of ⁴³⁷⁰⁹ looting, but spontaneously in a civil war which was waged in conditions that were rather chaotic.

There was no organised looting and destruction by any authorities. Not only the authorities of Serbia but also the authorities of Republika Srpska or, rather, the top authorities of Republika Srpska.

Q. In paragraph 43 it says that I, in concert with others, engaged in a military campaign of artillery and mortar shelling and sniping onto civilian areas of Sarajevo and upon its civilian population, killing and wounding thousands of civilians of all ages and both sexes. You were in Sarajevo, as opposed to myself, so could you please explain whether the authorities of Republika Srpska and, in particular, tell us what the authorities of Yugoslavia or Serbia or any organs of Yugoslavia and Serbia had to do with this.

A. In the trial of General Galic, in the judgement there was a dissenting opinion by Judge Navia. In view of the length of the conflict in Sarajevo, it was -- there were far less civilian casualties in terms of the duration of the war around Sarajevo than would have been the case elsewhere in the world. Civilians were being killed in Sarajevo, but on both sides when all this shelling was done. But there were far less casualties than would be expected elsewhere in the world, and that is what Judge Navia said in his dissenting opinion in the Galic judgement that I read.

I was in Sarajevo several times during the war. I witnessed the killing of Serb civilians, Serb children. Sometimes they were targeted intentionally and sometimes these killings were accidental. But often the ⁴³⁷¹⁰ Muslims from their side killed their own civilians in order to present this in the media as Serb barbarism. That was the Markale Marketplace, Vasa Miskin Street and a few other instances. Nobody in Serbia did not take part in the war operations around Sarajevo in any way. No official factors from Serbia, that is.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Did take part. On the transcript it's a double negative.

Yes, Mr. --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] There is a double negative in the Serbian language and it does not change the meaning of the statement. In English it might mean something different. I'm sorry I don't know English and I cannot really adjust to this.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, Witness B024 says, and would you please confirm or deny this -- well, he says that he has no information that the JNA took part in the attacks on Zvornik. He said that on page 21201. Can you confirm that?

A. Well, the JNA did not attack Zvornik.

Q. All right. Thank you.

A. In Zvornik the JNA clashed with Muslim paramilitary forces. The Muslim paramilitary forces attacked Zvornik while the JNA took part in the liberation of Zvornik from Muslim paramilitary units.

Q. Do you know anything about what (redacted) said in his witness statement? That is on transcript page 20414. That many Serbs, including women and children, left Zvornik in April 1992. ⁴³⁷¹¹

A. Well, when there is a war in an urban area, in a town, it is only logical that civilians, primarily women, children, and the elderly flee from war. They're fleeing from gunfire that comes from both sides. Very often in this war and in any other war civilians would get killed by stray bullets. So indeed Serb families were fleeing, too, from the conflict.

Q. All right. Well, as opposed to the Muslims who were expelled, the Serbs were leaving of their own free will. Is that the way it's supposed to seem?

A. Regrettably that is the way the Western forces always portray this, that Serbs are genetic criminals and everybody else are their victims. Even those who cause the war are victims of Serb violence. We are faced with an unscrupulous campaign of the Western powers that is based and anti-Serb grounds.

Q. How can you explain this that for all these towns where killings happened, lootings, torchings, movement of the population, et cetera, all of that can be found here in this indictment that I've been quoting to you, the entire civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Croatia.

JUDGE ROBINSON: That is not an explanation for the witness to give. Ask another question.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I am putting a question to you precisely because -- to him, rather, because I think that he can give an answer. He's a politician, an intellectual, a university professor, quite aware of the situation, very familiar with the situation, and he is in a position to give an answer to this question. ⁴³⁷¹²

JUDGE ROBINSON: And I've already ruled that he is not to answer it. So proceed.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. This same witness, (redacted), said that members of the JNA in Zvornik guarded the bridges between the two sides. Do you know about that? This is on transcript page 20408.

A. First of all, between the two sides there were no bridges. The two sides clashed within Zvornik itself. The army tried to keep the bridges under its own control and even more importantly the hydroelectric power plant, so that Muslim paramilitary formation would not try to destroy the hydroelectric power plant. In Zvornik there is an old hydroelectric power plant and also an artificial lake. The JNA fought the paramilitaries from the Muslim side within the town of Zvornik. The conflict ended quickly, within a day or two. I can't say exactly, I wasn't there, but the Serb Radical Party had its volunteers there. And then also the conflict was moved to the old Zvornik fort.

Q. The same witness said that members of the paramilitary units committed crimes in Zvornik.

A. I cannot confirm or deny this. There were some operations there that can be ascribed to paramilitary formations. Crimes did occur, but who it was that committed them and where I cannot say. Just like they are ascribing these crimes to you, they are ascribing them to me and to Karadzic, but all of this unfounded, without a shred of evidence. In Belgrade there is a trial that is under way against a group of ⁴³⁷¹³ people for crimes committed in the area of Zvornik.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Next question.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Do you know anything about taking non-Serbs prisoner and torturing them, that is to say, people from Zvornik, from April to July 1992? They are mentioned in different statements and in different documents provided by Mr. Nice. The factory of standard, the bricklaying factory, Ekonomija, Drinjaca, Celopek. These are localities that are mentioned. Have you heard anything about this and what do you know about it?

A. To my knowledge there were crimes in Zvornik. However, to my knowledge the crimes were not committed while the JNA was operating but once the fighting was over. Everyone of these crimes can be solved very simply, who the victims were and who the executors were.

Q. Do you have any particular knowledge, for example about the cultural centre in Drinjaca where, according to Witness B1455, many persons were taken prisoner and there were different parapolice force there is? Do you have any information about this? If not, I'll just go on.

A. I cannot give you the names of the exact places where crimes were committed. There were crimes, to my knowledge, but it wasn't the JNA that took part in it and the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party did not take part in these crimes. Who participated in this should be fully investigated. The protagonists are still alive and many immediate victims are still alive, and they can testify about this. The question is whether there was enough will to investigate this matter, and I've already ⁴³⁷¹⁴ referred to the trial that is underway in Belgrade and I personally expect a great deal from that.

Q. What about the cultural centre in Drinjaca?

A. No, I don't know anything about it. I wasn't there.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj and Mr. Milosevic, you are not observing the pause between question and answer, and you are thereby creating difficulties for the interpreter.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, this is the first time you have warned us about this today. As you see, Mr. Seselj and I are bearing this in mind.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We're practising.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Witness B1780 mentioned on page 28220 that during his imprisonment in this Ekonomija farm, among the people there there were members of your units. To be sure, he also mentions the White Eagles and Arkan's men. Do you have any knowledge of this and is it possible that members of your units were there? You've already explained you didn't have any units of yours, but is it possible that members of the JNA who were your volunteers were there?

A. I'm not aware that the White Eagles were active in the Zvornik area. I know that Arkan's Tigers were active there but to what extent and in what locations I couldn't say because I wasn't there. All the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were in the JNA. I do not doubt that this witness experienced all the sufferings and misfortunes he talked about, but evidently he's very confused when ⁴³⁷¹⁵ identifying the people who caused his sufferings. He's mixing up Seselj's men, the White Eagles, Arkan's men, and this shows that he's very confused and unable to identify the perpetrators. I had said that the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party did not participate in this, according to everything I know, and my knowledge is very good. I might even say very often it's beyond any doubt, impeccable, and it shouldn't be easy to establish who actually perpetrated this.

Q. He says that some of your men first tortured and then killed a certain Bego Bukvic in his presence, and this is on page 28221 of the transcript. Do you know anything about this?

A. I know of no instance where volunteers of the Serb Radical Party committed any crimes in that place.

Q. Well, do you have to know if they were volunteers of the Serb Radical Party?

A. Yes. Because the people who on behalf of the Serb Radical Party sent volunteers to the JNA would have forwarded this information to me , and as the competent command of the JNA would certainly have informed me had any of my volunteers done anything illegal. I'm sure of it.

Q. Would other volunteers have reported this?

A. Yes. They would have felt personally offended by such acts, and they would have asked for measures to be taken against such a volunteer, because this would have inflicted huge moral damage to them.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Did you receive on a regular basis reports about the conducts of the volunteers?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I wouldn't say the reports were ⁴³⁷¹⁶ regular, but they were exhaustive. I personally took steps to find out how the fighting was proceeding and how the volunteers were behaving. All the problems that I received reports about concerned less severe acts of indiscipline, usually drunkenness. And we would ask for such volunteers to be removed from the units so that they would not upset the discipline of the other men.

I was not informed of any serious crimes, and therefore I draw the conclusion that none occurred.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Were these reports in writing?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. They were usually just oral conversations.

I'm convinced that had serious crimes been committed, written reports would have been sent to me. I'm sure that the competent command would have told me had something like this happened.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, if you can't recall it doesn't matter, but is it true that in the indictment against you it says that around the 12th of May, 1992, Serbian forces, as it says there, including the leader of a group of Seselj's men beat up and killed a man called Dautovic? Is this correct?

A. Well, when they say a leader of a group of Seselj's men, then should be easy to establish his first and last name and then I could tell you whether such a man existed or not. It says here the leader of a group of Seselj's men but no mention is made of the name. How do they know he's the leader if they don't know his name? What does the term "leader" mean? ⁴³⁷¹⁷ Was he a squad leader, a company leader? I have stressed several times that volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were never grouped together in units larger than a company.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Milosevic, where is that reference?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I asked Mr. Seselj this because I have a note that this is mentioned in the indictment against him. So I wanted to ask him whether he recalls such an event as mentioned in the indictment against him, because previously he answered that he knew of no such instances, no crimes committed by volunteers of the Serb Radical Party.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, proceed, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. As you have answered with precision that there were no such instances, I will not put any more questions to you about the various allegations referring to the Zvornik area. It would simply be a waste of time.

Please tell us very briefly whether you have any knowledge about the events in Bosanski Samac in 1992, because it says that your men participated in taking Bosanski Samac in April 1992.

A. First of all --

JUDGE BONOMY: Where is that reference?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I quoted about half an hour ago, but it wasn't sufficiently clear. I will try to find it again. I'm simply trying to establish whether the witness knows anything about Bosanski Samac. ^{43718 BLANK PAGE 43719}

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have some knowledge but --

JUDGE BONOMY: The answer -- the question I have is -- what do you mean by "because it says," it says, "that your men participated in taking Bosanski Samac in April 1992." What is "it"?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I asked Mr. Seselj something about Samac before, but right now I can't find it.

JUDGE BONOMY: I take it it's not another reference to the indictment against Mr. Seselj.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't think it is.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You have Bosanski Samac mentioned in several places on your indictment, if I can be of assistance, and I can tell you what I know about the events in Bosanski Samac.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, that's the only reason I asked you whether you knew anything.

A. In paragraph 42 Bosanski Samac is ascribed to you.

Q. Well, all the municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina are ascribed to me. There aren't any which are not ascribed to me. But what do you know about the events there?

JUDGE BONOMY: I'm sorry, I don't understand this question. You can't just ask a question, take a municipality and say, "What do you know about events there?" There's got to be some point to the question. Now, what is this dealing with?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Very well. I won't ask you anything about that, then, because I ⁴³⁷²⁰ can't find the reference now.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Very well, Mr. Milosevic. If you find the reference, you can come back to it, but bear in mind that you undertook to complete the evidence in chief today.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm doing my best, Mr. Robinson, but there are many, many witnesses who mentioned Mr. Seselj, and I want to see whether there's any truth in anything they said.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, you may -- Mr. Milosevic, you may have other witnesses who may be in a better position to contradict the assertions in the Prosecution case than Mr. Seselj himself. Don't assume that because a Prosecution says something about Mr. Seselj that he's the best person to contradict it.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] So do many witnesses.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. On page 23520 of the transcript. I'll skip over the witness's name because I can't recall at present whether or not he was protected, Mr. Robinson. I don't think he was, because I don't have any note to that effect, but he says: "In actions in Bosanski Samac, the Red Berets, the White Wolves, and the JNA participated."

Do you know anything about this?

A. I have rather reliable information about that. First of all, there was a man whom I know as a volunteer of the Serb Radical Party from Eastern Slavonia and who is mentioned in several places, both in the indictment against me and the judgement against the Samac group and so on. His name is Srecko Radovanovic. He probably arrived there in a JNA ⁴³⁷²¹ helicopter, which would mean he was part of the JNA. However, he was accompanied by a group of men who were not volunteers of the Serb Radical Party, a certain man called Crni who was later a commander. I know for sure he was not a member of the Serb Radical Party. There was also Slobodan Miljkovic, also known as Lugar, who had a fighting group known as the Grey Wolves, not the White Wolves, as far as I know. This Lugar was charged with several crimes, and he was tried before the court in Banja Luka. At that time he was not a volunteer of the Serb Radical Party. In 1993 or 1994, he join the Serb Radical Party in Kragujevac and the party still has the original copy of his enrollment document.

Q. Was that in Serbia? Because the Judges don't know that Kragujevac is not in Bosnia.

A. That's correct. And he joined in 1993 or 1994. I'm getting ready to obtain the original copy of his application to join, but he was expelled in 1995 for slapping the president of the Municipal Board, Jovan Savic. And he was in the Grey Wolves unit. He had nothing to do with the Serb Radical Party. He was tried before a court in Banja Luka, and I gave my legal advisors instructions to get the entire transcript of this trial and all the accompanying materials.

As for Srecko Radovanovic, The Hague Prosecution has disclosed to me certain documents which are public, and you can see that this man Radovanovic entered into various private arrangements concerning his participation in the war. He was promised remuneration or received it. Those are the facts I know about. There was the JNA. The members of the JNA arrived in JNA helicopters. Among them was a man who I know ⁴³⁷²² had previously been a volunteer of the Serb Radical Party, and they even called him Chetnik duke, conferred upon him this title. His name was Srecko Radovanovic.

There was Crni who was holding a command position, and he was certainly not a volunteer. And Miljkovic, also known as Lugar, was certainly not a volunteer of the Serb Radical Party, because had he been he would not have about in the Grey Wolves. As far as I can recall, that unit was called the Grey Wolves.

JUDGE BONOMY: Now let me try and tell you what I've understood from that answer, if anything, that the JNA did participation in actions in Bosanski Samac. Is that a fair understanding of what you've said?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As far as I know, the JNA was there, yes.

JUDGE BONOMY: And that there was also a paramilitary group called the Grey Wolves active there?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, it's very problematic to say paramilitary unit, because when one says paramilitary unit one means outside the regular army. This group was part of the Samac Territorial Defence in some way, or part of the army of Republika Srpska. I'm not sure how, in what way. But this Slobodan Miljkovic, also known as Lugar, I think for a way was deputy battalion commander, and he was a very good fighter. He distinguished himself in the fighting. However, what happened happened outside the battle. I think the village was called Crkvina or something like that. I can't recall it all off the top of my head, especially place names. But he was tried before the court in ⁴³⁷²³ Banja Luka, he and this group called the Grey Wolves.

JUDGE BONOMY: And the Red Berets you haven't dealt with. Did they participate?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] How can I respond to that? What Red Berets? Were they soldiers wearing Red Berets on their heads?

JUDGE BONOMY: That's a perfectly legitimate answer for you to give, you see, because the question was in actions in Bosanski Samac the Red Berets, the White Wolves and the JNA participated. That was the quotation. And you gave us a long answer about Serb Radical volunteers, which on the face of it, and as far as I can still tell, they've got nothing to do with the question. So all I'm doing now is trying to find out what the real answer to that question is.

JUDGE ROBINSON: We will adjourn for 20 minutes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, it has nothing to do with the Red Berets.

--- Recess taken at 5.25 p.m.

--- On resuming at 5.57 p.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The reason for the late start is that the technical person needed more time to make the redaction that was necessary resulting from the inadvertent reference to the name of a protected witness.

Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You commented on the White Wolves or as you called them the Grey ⁴³⁷²⁴ Wolves and the Red Berets that were mentioned, that Mr. Bonomy also mentioned. Now, the witness, I don't know whether he was protected or not, I don't want to say his name, but anyway, on page 23520 of the transcript says that he saw 20 locals, and it's about Samac, wearing uniforms with Red Berets for which -- for whom he assumed -- he assumed they were locals who were trained in the Red Beret camp so they returned to Samac. Do you know anything about that?

A. Well, I don't have any information to that effect, and that is quite impossible. I'd like to point out once again that in different places they called people Red Berets for the simple fact that they had found some Red Berets and put them on their heads. So they could have been various units, especially as we're talking about locals in this particular case. Where were they going? Where were they trained? What does it all mean? They might have received some Red Berets from some warehouse and would display them in Samac and then people thought they were some sort of Red Beret formation and wanted to link them up with the Red Berets that were established in Serbia as a Special Purpose Unit of the State Security in 1996.

So quite obviously there is the intent to mislead and this term applies to different concepts.

Q. Thank you, Mr. Seselj. Now, is it correct that in March, and I think that is in the indictment against you but you'll put me right if I'm wrong, in March 1992 that you held a speech in Mali Zvornik, is that true, that is to say, on the territory of Serbia, the other side of Drina River, wherein amongst others you said: "Dear brother Chetniks, especially you ⁴³⁷²⁵ across the Drina, you're the bravest, and we're going to clear up Bosnia from the pagans and show them the road to the east where they belong." Is it true that you said that?

A. This is partially a falsification of my actual statement and partially it is a mistake made on the part of the Croatian translator, because -- or interpreter, because Croatian translators don't always know the Serbian language well enough, because they endeavour to speak an artificial form of the distorted form of the Serbian language which the Croats have been using for the last hundred years. So in that Croatian variation "pogan" means "pagan," where as in the Serb language "pogan" means "waste" or "faeces." And I attacked the Islamic fundamentalists and pan-Islamists who wish to have Bosnia secede from Yugoslavia, and I called them "pogani," which means faeces or waste. But I did not refer to the Muslims as pagans. I am not -- I am an educated man. I'm not a stupid man. For me to call a monotheistic religion a pagan religion, now, I have nothing against the pagan traditions, and I look up to ancient Greece more than I do to all the Christians afterwards, let's make that point clear, but I know that it is a monotheistic religion and one of the largest -- greatest Serbian theologists Nikolaj Velimirevic, considered the Muslims to be a Protestant variant of a Christianism, Christianity. So here because of inadequate translations, a monstrous assertion is being made, far from any thoughts of mine. What I did was to attack, and I've been doing so for more than 20 years or 30 years, pan-Islamists, Islamic fundamentalists, and I started attacking them first when they first appeared in Bosnia-Herzegovina for that matter. ⁴³⁷²⁶

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

JUDGE BONOMY: Where is a copy of this speech available?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Where you can find it. Well, if you haven't got if it in my books then the Prosecution probably has a copy because most of my speeches were published in my books, in my works so, if a speech does not happen to be there, if --

JUDGE BONOMY: Was this one published in your books? I apologise. I haven't read them all.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson [sic], two years ago I handed over to The Hague Tribunal 80 of my printed works.

JUDGE BONOMY: Is this speech in any of them?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Most probably, but it would be up to the Prosecution to find it, not me. I can't look through that whole matter myself, because I didn't make the statement only in one place. I made the statement in several places, on several occasions.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, normally the party presenting the evidence is responsible for getting it to court in some -- as official as is possible, but you're not aware of a copy of it being available for us as part of the papers in connection with your evidence.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, the side that has referred to my alleged speech is the Prosecution's side. So I'm just telling you where they made a mistake. So they can find the original of the speech and present it here. I can't do the work of the Prosecution. I can't be expected to do that. I am testifying to the facts and circumstances about which I have knowledge. I'm not here to help the ⁴³⁷²⁷ Prosecution out in its work. And for my part, I have contributed sufficiently by handing over all my books. They have far greater resources than I do.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, can you help? Where do I locate the evidence, readily locate the evidence in relation to this?

MR. NICE: I'm not sure you can locate it readily at the moment from our own database. It may be possible.

JUDGE BONOMY: It appears Mr. Seselj is suggesting that there is evidence of this speech led by the Prosecution in this case.

MR. NICE: It may be in this case or it may be in the pre-trial brief of his own case. I'll deal with it as soon as I can.

JUDGE BONOMY: All right. Thank you.

MR. NICE: We can't of course be guided in the way we are going to present our questions through his observations. We'll make our own decisions.

JUDGE BONOMY: No, no, no. That's nothing to the point. I'm just trying to clarify where I can read this speech, but if no one's going to help me, that's okay.

MR. NICE: We certainly will help you when we can.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Witness B1643 who testified pursuant to 92 bis, I assume you know the written part, mentioned torture and capture of civilians in the SUP building of the Territorial Defence in the primary school and secondary school in Crkvina, the warehouse there. Do you know anything about that? ⁴³⁷²⁸

A. Well, I already mentioned something about this. I said that the Crkvina case was probably processed in Banja Luka, which is where the Grey Wolves were investigated. Slobodan Miljkovic, nicknamed Lugar, was arrested, but I don't have any details about how the trial proceeded and the upshot. I asked my legal advisors to find the complete dossier of that trial, but I do know for certain that he was arrested and taken to trial in Banja Luka, prosecuted in Banja Luka.

Q. The indictment against you, in the indictment you are accused of an act on the 7th of May, 1992, which allegedly happened there which says that two leaders of your group under your command killed 18 males at the agricultural farm in Crkvina. Is that the event you are referring to?

A. Well, I assume so, although I was not in command. I wasn't there nor did the Grey Wolves have anything to do with the Serbian Radical Party.

Q. That's all I want to the hear from you, Mr. Seselj. I think your answer suffices.

You are also charged of an event on the 5th of July, 1992, when allegedly members of units under your control, once again it is stated killed 22 civilians in Jesovo [phoen]. Do you know anything about that?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you now seem to be concentrating on the indictment against Mr. Seselj. To what end?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Seselj, Mr. Robinson, was quoted as being one of the participants of the joint criminal enterprise. So it is up to us to assess how far there are grounds for posing this question of a joint criminal enterprise and for attempting to prove that ⁴³⁷²⁹ concept here, and Mr. Seselj has an opportunity of telling us why he stands accused, because he's testifying here.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The indictment against him is not necessarily relevant for that purpose.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Whatever you like. I'm not going to insist upon that, although I do consider it to be relevant.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You are also being accused of the fact that during the summer 1993 some members of your alleged --

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... you have continued. I want you to stop that line of questioning, because I do not see at the moment its relevance. It is not Mr. Seselj who is on trial here. I know that he's alleged to be a member of the joint criminal enterprise. I'm well aware of that. But that doesn't let in any and all kind of allegations from the indictment relating to his trial.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Robinson, if we can see here that the allegations against Mr. Seselj are not correct and not true, then that, once again, is proof and evidence that other things aren't true either, and he has refuted a number of witnesses' statements here that I quoted.

JUDGE ROBINSON: That's a non sequitur, Mr. Milosevic, and I know you know that.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, witness William Thomas Francis Roy on page 28882 of ^{43730 BLANK PAGE 43731} the transcript stated here that the Muslim snipers killed three pregnant women and only then did the Serb snipers respond by opening fire. Do you know anything about that event or generally speaking about events linked to killings by snipers in the Sarajevo area?

A. As far as I remember, that was the first instance of sniper fire in Sarajevo, and we must bear in mind the fact that in Sarajevo the front line stretched across the city itself. The city was divided into a part under Muslim control and another part under Serb control. Now, as far as sniper fire is concerned, one should bear in mind the following: When you say sniper fire, you implied any fire coming from rifles which wasn't a sniper fire in the true sense of the word because sniper fire is firing at a long distance, long range, with weapons with optic sights. However, that -- those kinds of weapons were rare on the Serb side. The Muslims, with the help of foreign powers, were able to come by much more sophisticated weapons, modern weapons, on the black market. I don't exclude the possibility of individual cases there being the need for revenge and retaliation, but fire from Serb positions was opened at army targets in Sarajevo because a war was being fought to gain control of the city, and the balance of forces was fairly equal. The two sides were fairly equal. The front in Sarajevo, the distance, didn't change for many years, and one or the other side would take control of certain sections, but there was death on both sides of the front line. On the Serb side of the front line there was no intentional killing of Muslim civilians under their control, whereas the Muslims killed about 4.000 Serb civilians near the cemetery and in other places, ⁴³⁷³² in Kazani and so on.

Q. Thank you. That same witness on the same page says that in the Sarajevo area both sides used snipers and that criminal acts were present on both sides. Is that true?

A. As far as crimes are concerned, criminal acts, I think that in Sarajevo there were the least number of criminal acts of this kind. The real snipers were -- real snipers were mostly used on the Muslim side, far more than on the Serb side, because as I said, the Muslims had more sophisticated and modern sniper weapons, whereas the Serbs had a more favourable geographic position for the deployment of their forces.

JUDGE BONOMY: I'm sorry, I've forgotten the evidence which I think there was earlier about your personal contact with Sarajevo. How much personal experience did you have of Sarajevo? By that I mean the conflict there.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I went to Sarajevo several times, to the Serb part of Sarajevo, the part of Sarajevo under Serb control that is. Most frequently I would go to Grbavica and tour the front line there. At Grbavica there were a considerable number of Muslims living there, and I met some of them as well. On one occasion I was there when a fresh shipment of bread arrived, for example. And I also met some of my colleagues from university and also people whom I'd been to school with, Muslims. And nobody complained about the conduct of the Serb forces.

JUDGE BONOMY: Were you there when there were exchanges of fire going on?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, while I was there, during my ⁴³⁷³³ stay there, there was individual sporadic gunfire. There was some dangerous spots where you had to pass by quickly in your car and where you had to rush past because of sniper fire, the danger of sniper fire, but there were no more serious conflicts at that time.

JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Did you hear about the event of the 19th of October, 1993, referred to by this same witness, Thomas Francis Roy, in his testimony on page 28884 of the transcript when the Bosnian Muslims dressed as Serbs fired at the command of the United Nations for Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo?

A. Yes. That was a generally known event, and the Muslims would open fire frequently and fire at international forces so that that could be ascribed to the Serbs, saying the Serbs had fired. And then they abused protected facilities in order to open fire, and this would bring reaction from the Serb side. And very often from the main hospital in Sarajevo they would bring in mortars and other weapons. They would open fire at Serb positions, and then they would collect up the weapons, drive them off in the boots of cars, and if the Serbs were to retaliate and open fire, then they would show the Serbs intention naturally aiming at hospitals. And there are a number of foreigners who testified to this, who were eyewitnesses, who saw the Muslims bringing in mortars to the hospital compound and open fire on the Serb positions then withdraw quickly, take away the mortars, and once the foreign controllers arrived they didn't come across any Muslim weapons but they saw the Serbs opening ⁴³⁷³⁴ fire in retaliation.

Q. Witness Alija Gusalic in his testimony states that you visited Bijeljina before the conflict broke out, and that is to be found on 8 -- page 8258 of Alija Gusalic's -- 18258, and I link this up with your indictment and Alija Gusalic's testimony saying that you visited Bijeljina and members of the Serbian Radical Party to plan the attack and to takeover the Bijeljina. May we have your comments to those assertions?

A. That I visited Bijeljina several times before the war is quite correct. However, that I planned any kind of attack, that is just nonsense.

Q. Witness Alija Gusalic says that in the area of Bijeljina there were Arkan's men and Seselj's men based in Amajlije. Do you know anything about that?

A. I categorically assert that not a single volunteer of the Serb Radical Party from Serbia was sent to Bijeljina. I'm absolutely certain of that.

Q. The same witness says on page 18260, "Seselj's men had beards and cockades. Seselj was the boss and he instructed Mirko Blagojevic to distribute weapons to people from the Serb Radical Party."

A. First of all, I was no boss. Secondly, the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party from time to time did have beards, but they were mostly clean-shaven like me. I never wore a beard in my life. And that does not bring into question my affiliation with the Chetniks, and a beard cannot be synonymous with Chetniks. It was so in communist movies that for ideological reasons portrayed Chetniks that way, but quite simply that was ⁴³⁷³⁵ not a customary thing. There were such examples. Why not? A soldier having a beard is no exception in the world. Secondly, I did not distribute any weapons, or did I hand them out, or did I have any role in these struggles in Bijeljina at the beginning of the war. Members of the Serb Radical Party did participate in Bijeljina but exclusively people who lived in Bijeljina anyway.

Q. Thank you, Mr. Seselj. On page 18277, Alija Gusalic says, and now I'm asking you whether you know anything about this, that persons who were not Serbs were detained between April and September 1993, and they were held at the MUP building and at the Batkovic camp near Bijeljina. Do you know anything about that?

A. I don't know about those particular localities, but I've already talked about Mauzer's and Arkan's conduct in Bijeljina, and it was for that reason that the local members of the Serb Radical Party often attacked Mauzer in public and opposed him.

Q. I'm sorry that I didn't draw your attention to this on time, Mr. Seselj, but I put this question to you because in the indictment you are being charged with the death of about 100 detainees at this camp in Batkovic.

A. I've already said that there were no volunteers of the Serb Radical Party there.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The question is not relevant.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, Alija Gusalic testified here, and he made those assertions here, and I'm linking that up with -- ⁴³⁷³⁶

JUDGE ROBINSON: Put it on the basis that a Prosecution witness made the allegations here.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I already have. The Batkovic camp near Bijeljina. And I've linked that up to what the indictment against Mr. Seselj says.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, but that's not relevant. Move on.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

JUDGE BONOMY: Are you saying that Alija Gusalic accused Mr. Seselj in this case, the present case, of causing the death of a hundred detainees in the camp at Batkovic?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No.

JUDGE BONOMY: Unless he did it in this case, it's not relevant to this case.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. But Mr. Nice did that on the basis of that same assertion, because Gusalic here in this case talks about Batkovic and about people being detained there, whereas in Mr. Seselj's indictment it says that 100 persons died due to inhumane treatment. If that is not linked up well and fine, but why is it in Seselj's indictment?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Proceed to another question, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, Alija Gusalic on page 18278 confirmed that the International Red Cross visited the Batkovic camp. Do you know anything about this? Was this camp supervised by the International Red Cross?

A. I don't know anything about the visit of the International Red ⁴³⁷³⁷ Cross. At any rate, volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were not there. Also, local Serb radicals never took part in arrests or the detention of prisoners of war or civilians or anyone else. They absolutely did not take part in any such thing.

As for the International Red Cross, if they did visit Batkovic and if there was any such thing like the camp of Batkovic, then there would have to be a report, a report in writing compiled by them.

Q. All right. I'm not going to ask you about this anymore. You mentioned that some of your volunteers were within the JNA in Mostar. Is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. Witness K2, in his testimony, mentioned some things about the activity of the Red Berets in Mostar. Since you are familiar with the situation in Mostar and the presence of your volunteers in the JNA there, do you know anything about any activity of the Red Berets there?

A. To my knowledge, in Mostar on the Serb side there were no paramilitary formations. Volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were in Mostar. The JNA brought them there in their own vehicles from Belgrade, from the barracks in Bubanj Potok. All the members of the Serb Radical Party were under the control of Momcilo Perisic, who publicly praised them as highly disciplined on Belgrade television.

If there were some soldiers wearing Red Berets, they could have been members of some platoon of the military police, an intervention platoon, a reconnaissance platoon, something like that. So I do not preclude the possibility of some JNA soldiers wearing Red Berets, but this ⁴³⁷³⁸ was not a formation, a unit called the Red Berets.

Q. Witness C17 says in his witness statement that at the Buna camp there were Seselj's Chetniks, the White Eagles and the Red Berets; transcript page 22016. Do you have any knowledge about that?

A. That is absolutely impossible. I've never heard of the White Eagles being in the territory of Mostar. I haven't heard of this Buna camp either. It is not impossible that volunteers of the Serb Radical Party, in accordance with orders issued by the command in charge, appeared in Buna. I don't know anything about this, but there should be proper records to that effect in JNA archives, but I never heard of the White Eagles appearing in the territory of Mostar or have I heard of any Red Berets.

Q. Witness K2 says on page 14578 that there were activities in Nevesinje. Do you know anything about that?

A. I was in Nevesinje but there was actually no fighting there. I was in Nevesinje in 1991. The fighting was in the territory of Mostar and in the Neretva valley.

Q. Was there any fighting in Nevesinje at any time during the war?

A. As far as I know, there was no fighting during the war in Nevesinje.

Q. That will do.

A. When I was there in 1992, in Nevesinje, there was a considerable number of Muslims as part of the local population. There were no conflicts. Everything was peaceful. Truth to tell, there was a large number of refugees, Serb refugees, from the Neretva River valley, and they ⁴³⁷³⁹ were put up at various facilities there.

Q. Do you know anything about a lake, Boracko Jezero, and a rest house there where about 19 persons were killed, according to the allegations made?

A. I never knew anything about this. And to my knowledge, volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were not to Boracko Jezero. That's close to Konjic. I've already said that there were members of the Serb guard there. Also, a Major Boro Antelj, a close associate of Vuk Draskovic was there, and we kept our distance from those areas where the Serb guard was operating.

Q. Did that Serb guard have anything to do with Arkan's Serb volunteer guard?

A. No. These are two different paramilitary formations.

Q. So what formation is this, the Serb guard?

A. Of Vuk Draskovic and the Serbian Renewal Movement. It appeared elsewhere in Herzegovina, too, like Trebinje. So the civilian authorities had a great deal of trouble with them driving them out of Trebinje because they stayed at the hotel and went out of Trebinje, went looting. Then they appeared in Foca, caused problems there, and the authorities had a lot of trouble getting rid of these guardsmen of Draskovic's. As far as I know, the Serb guard operated in those three places in Herzegovina.

Q. Mr. Seselj --

A. In Trebinje and in Foca when they appeared there, Branislav Lajnovic, Dugi, was their commander.

Q. You mean the commander of this paramilitary formation? ⁴³⁷⁴⁰

A. The Serb guard.

Q. Of Vuk Draskovic?

A. Yes. Otherwise a notorious criminal, a top-notch criminal from Novi Sad, almost equal to Arkan.

Q. Mr. Seselj, last week we had here some submissions that you made to the other side that have to do with Witness Dulovic. I've forgotten his first name.

A. Jovan.

Q. Jovan Dulovic who testified here. Mr. Robinson instructed me to find the original documents that can be linked up to your submissions since they refused to admit your submissions.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I am sorry, Mr. Robinson. If you're telling me to have copies made I will do that, but I've just received these copies. This is a series of photocopies of articles written by Jovan Dulovic and published in Ekspres Politika from the 16th of November, the 26th of November, all of that in 1991. Then the 18th of November, the 2nd of November. So from November 1991.

In these articles, he speaks very favourably of the JNA and commends their behaviour in the fighting around Vukovar. For example, he says that 118 inhabitants of Vukovar, Serbs and Croats, saw the light of the day after having stayed in cellars for many --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, what is the question?

MR. NICE: And, Your Honour, if I may interrupt, if there's going to be a reference to and quotation from a newspaper article, it has to be on the overhead projector. It then has to be available to us to read it ⁴³⁷⁴¹ in full should we wish to.

JUDGE ROBINSON: That's -- that's the practice, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, since I have only one copy of these articles and I've just received that, could the usher please place them on the ELMO, and then you can have a look at least at some of the parts that have been marked. Reference is made to Major Sljivancanin here, too, in a very favourable light. Gratitude for assistance to civilians, Croats, at that, and so on and so forth. Please look at this series of articles. In order to answer my question, are these at least partly articles that you relied on when you wrote those submissions to the other side about the untruthful testimony of Jovan Dulovic or, rather, the difference in -- between his reporting then and his testimony here about Vukovar?

MR. NICE: Your Honour, that was a leading but nevertheless it's interesting to see what the articles actually say. And if it becomes relevant to consider their admissibility as evidence, I know the Chamber will have in mind its open recent ruling in respect of the documents of Jasovic and the potential evidential value or not as evidence of these documents, but I'm most interested frankly in seeing what they actually say.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Let's get it on the overhead projector. There appears to be a technical problem. We're not seeing anything.

Mr. Milosevic, the technician is being called. He's coming in. ^{43742 BLANK PAGE 43743} So move on to another question. We'll come back to this.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I am sorry, but my next question also has to do with something that Mr. Seselj already testified about and the document that I obtained in the meantime and that would also have to be placed on the ELMO. That is --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, then move to the question after that, because the overhead projector is not working.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] After that I have no further questions except -- since I wanted to finish today by all means, except for this other thing that I want to have placed on the ELMO, and that is a decision related to members of the group Spider. Many statements were presented here about them or, rather, what the spokesmen of the federal government said in February 2000 about the crime in Srebrenica. So it was known who had committed it then, members of the 10th Sabotage Detachment. The 13th of November, 2000, is the date of this decision. So it is about 40 days after the coup d'etat of the 5th of October, 2000. It was then that they were all released, set free.

So wanted to show you this document, and I wanted to hand out copies to you. I've just received this. They are all in the Serbian language but they can be placed on the ELMO to show what the government spokesman had said was completely disregarded, and these persons mentioned in the criminal report against Erdemovic were set free.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The ELMO is working now, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, please take a look at this. This is a series of ⁴³⁷⁴⁴ articles from Ekspres Politika. Can you see the date of the newspaper?

A. It seems that this is the 16th of November or the 13th of November.

Q. 1991; right?

A. 1991.

Q. Unless this is a leading question.

A. It's illegible the date but I think it says November. This is one of the texts from Ekspres Politika that my legal advisors used when preparing that submission of mine which is a special part of my defence. That is what I submitted to the OTP in accordance with the Rules of Evidence and Procedure.

Q. What does it say in the heading and what does it say in the subheading?

A. It says above the title that 118 inhabitants of Vukovar, both Serbs and Croats, saw the light of the day after having been in cellars for a long time. "Light finally," is the heading. And then in the subheading: "Sniper shooters were silenced by Zoljas." And then there's another bit saying, "In the darkness of cellars from the 25th of August," and then Nada Juhas, obviously a Croat lady, stating, "I cannot believe that we are alive," and obviously they appreciate that the JNA liberated the town of Vukovar from the Croat paramilitaries.

THE INTERPRETER: The speaker is overlapping so the beginning of the question was not heard by the interpreters.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute, please. The interpreters have indicated that you're overlapping and so she did not hear the beginning of ⁴³⁷⁴⁵ the last question. Repeat the question, Mr. Milosevic. And please observe the pause, Mr. Seselj.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, please look at a few characteristic points here. Perhaps it's easier for you to see on the left-hand side where the text is.

A. For example, a characteristic point as Jovan Dulovic writes is as follows: "A river of people is flowing out of the huge cellars. A total of 118, both Serbs and Croats. No one is asking about their ethnicity." That's what Jovan Dulovic says, showing how the JNA treated Serbs and Croats equally. Civilians, that is.

I can't read the first paragraph because it's quite illegible, but it seems to be describing medical assistance which was given immediately, that several ambulances were waiting to help. "It would not be a good thing if the Ustasha attacked us with mortars just now." So Jovan Dulovic is writing about the liberation of one part of Vukovar before the fighting had stopped.

Q. Can you see the subtitle which says "The cruel major"?

A. Yes.

Q. Will you look at the bottom of the column and tell us who this refers to and what it says about this cruel major.

A. This is Major Sljivancanin, who treated these Croatian civilians very nicely. And then Jovan Dulovic comments on his nice behaviour that surprised this Croat woman, and he says: "No knows what she as a Croat heard about the cruelty of JNA soldiers." So he's describing the ⁴³⁷⁴⁶ behaviour of Major Sljivancanin as something quite the opposite of what Croatian propaganda depicted, which characterised JNA soldiers in a very bad way.

And then Major Sljivancanin says: "Whenever you need anything, look for me and I'll help you. Just ask for Sljivancanin. I now have to go, the Major said and left. He was followed by the gaze of mothers full of gratitude." This is somewhere near the end of the article. "He had followed by the gaze of mothers and daughters full of gratitude." All this was written by Jovan Dulovic about the then Major now Colonel Veselin Sljivancanin.

Q. Before that in this column where there is no photograph, Dulovic describes how Sljivancanin sent a child to hospital. He said, "Take this child to hospital immediately."

A. Yes, I see it. Sljivancanin says, "Take this child to the hospital in Negoslavci right away," Major Sljivancanin ordered, showing the ambulance driver the wounded girl of Vlatka. "Let her be given assistance and medicine."

A little later Vlatka's mother, Verica, is anxiously looking for her daughter in the crowd. "Where is my child? What have they done to her? Where have they taken her," Verica was crying out. "Don't be afraid. She is in hospital," Sljivancanin said. The frightened woman didn't believe it." This is followed by Dulovic's comment: "Who knows what she as a Croat heard about the cruelty of JNA soldiers."

Q. And what does it say then? ⁴³⁷⁴⁷

A. "Get into my car. I'll take you to the hospital so you can see your child and reassure yourself that everything is all right. They both entered the vehicle. In the meantime, the doctors have cleaned and dressed Vlatka's wound which was not life-threatening. The mother and the daughter embraced while Sljivancanin stood next to them."

Q. So this is Dulovic's report from the Vukovar war theatre.

A. Yes.

Q. Look at the next page. This is a newspaper article published on the following day. So look at the titles and tell us what the main points are. This large title, this heading, that is.

A. Yes. Now it's been adjusted. Milka Vidovic is making a statement, "I believed in the army." And what's in the subtitle. "A little less than 90 days in a shelter deep below the Catholic cemetery in Vukovar." And then there's a quotation.

A. "We hoped our army would liberate us. The expectations of the guards members were not met, and a mass grave, a common grave near the hospital. This refers to the grave where the Croats buried Serb victims."

Q. And look what it says in the article.

A. In the article Dulovic describes what happened and says the following: "In the beginning of August, shooting started in Vukovar and barricades were set up. Milka Vidovic from Borovo, Gacesina Street, house number 26, with her husband Djuro, took shelter with their neighbours, Milos Grudic, in a cellar together with the Grudic family. A few days later, the members of the guards burst into the cellar. These were members of the Croatian National Guard Corps. Get out or we'll throw a ⁴³⁷⁴⁸ bomb in. The Chetniks are coming. They're cutting everyone's throats. We're taking you to a shelter."

Q. It's quite illegible. Could you put some light on it? Look at the passages marked in yellow. You don't have to read it all out, just a few passages.

A. "Several of us -- or, rather, above us on the cemetery the guards members were stationed. Milka Vidovic said, 'When they visited us in the cellar, they said that the Chetniks were cutting everyone's throats. We Serbs kept quiet. We sensed that our people were getting close, and the only thing on our minds was whether we would ever get out of here. I believed in our army and I believed they would arrive.'"

JUDGE ROBINSON: What's the question in relation to this, Mr. Milosevic?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, what is the signature marked in yellow here?

A. Jovan Dulovic. The same Jovan Dulovic who four or five years later changed his version by -- he turned around by 180 degrees because he has become a mercenary of the Western intelligence services, and he writes for the magazine Vreme which is the Belgrade branch of Western intelligence agencies.

Q. Mr. Seselj, when you glanced through this article and you dealt with it in your submission, is there a single word here which does not speak favourably of the JNA and the people who fought in Vukovar?

A. No. The texts are all exceptionally favourable, full of praise for the soldiers and officers of the JNA during the fighting for Vukovar. ⁴³⁷⁴⁹

Q. Would you look at the next page, please. Let's just see what the date is.

A. The 18th, I suppose. The 18th of November.

Q. Well, move on. Move on.

A. Mr. Milosevic, Dulovic says here one day with volunteers and tank crews in the street fighting for the liberation of Vukovar. He praises the volunteers who participated in the fighting for Vukovar as part of the JNA. So this should be noted.

Next page, please. I think that it's very important to point this out.

Q. And the signature is Jovan Dulovic. What's the title of this article?

A. The title of this article is "The Knights of Vukovar."

Q. And who does it refer to?

A. The units of Major Borivoje Tesic on the front line in Vukovar. Major Borivoje Tesic I think -- says: "I think this is the last stage of the fighting. Crews carrying out their tasks successfully and the help of brave people is indispensable." It speaks of Croatian Ustasha and so on.

Q. Was this also written by Jovan Dulovic?

A. Yes.

JUDGE KWON: Just a second. In previous page you said Mr. Dulovic said volunteers as part of JNA. Could you show us the passage where Mr. Dulovic said so?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] He says here: "One day with volunteers and tank crews in the street fighting for the liberation of ⁴³⁷⁵⁰ Vukovar." This is above the headline.

Then he goes on to say: "Speaking favourably of Stanko Vujanovic, he says the commander of the 1st Company of the Territorial Defence of Vukovar who is said to be a man who knows no fear." It's quite difficult to read this. My eyesight is not so good and this is not very legible.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Can it be enlarged?

A. "With his group of cleaners is making great progress, making openings in the walls just large enough for the fighters to squeeze through and attack strongholds of the MUP and ZNG members. The house in which they stopped in Prugomijska [phoen] Street near the Brdo cafe is under constant fire by snipers whose positionings are very difficult to discern."

JUDGE KWON: Now, Mr. Seselj, I would like see to see the passage which shows that they were part of JNA as you indicated. Or was it your comment?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. Please. In the entire text the volunteers are spoken of as members of the JNA. We have passage here in the third column where it says it's in the late afternoon and the fighting is dying down. The volunteers --

JUDGE KWON: Could you use the pointer. And you indicate on the newspaper on the ELMO, not your monitor. Yes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] "It's late in the afternoon and the fighting is dying down. The volunteers have pierced deep, and they have conquered territory between the enemy forces. The fighters will stay here ⁴³⁷⁵¹ until the morning. There were no casualties today except for one soldier who was killed, and his name was Vignjevic."

He then says: "We are going back while shells are flying over our heads and Howitzer shells and so on."

This whole text implies that the volunteers why part of the JNA. Mr. Kwon, you have here an order showing that these volunteers joined the 1st Guards Brigade. The order was delivered to the OTP from Belgrade and it's beyond dispute.

In the Vukovar, there were no troops outside the JNA. There were no paramilitary units.

JUDGE KWON: It is your comment. I really didn't see any concrete -- the description these volunteers as part of JNA by Mr. Dulovic.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You have to read the whole text and everything will become clear to you.

JUDGE KWON: Proceed, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Look at the next page, please. The following text or this one again says the Knights of Vukovar, Major Borivoje Tesic's units on the front line, and this is a large article which seems not to be by Dulovic, but on the left-hand side there is a small one: "Brave commander falls, Borovo Selo." Would you look at the signature? I believe it's by Dulovic. Could you scroll up?

A. Yes.

Q. What does it say in the passage marked by yellow? ⁴³⁷⁵²

A. The initials "JD" mean Jovan Dulovic.

Q. And what does it say in this last passage?

A. To the inhabitants of the Crepulje -- "The inhabitants of the Crepulje village have been mourning since yesterday. Slavisa Milojevic, who with his volunteers, was the mainstay of the defence of this village and one of the bravest and most popular people in this area enjoyed the highest respect among the defenders of the Serbian villages."

Q. And he was killed?

A. Yes. Of course he deserves all this praise that Dulovic gives him. Next page.

Q. Is there anything else here by Dulovic? Would you please have a look? I haven't had time to look at it all carefully.

A. Yes. There's a big text. I think the date is the 8th of November. "Fierce artillery fighting in the operation to liberate Vukovar."

In these texts he always talks of the fighting to liberate Vukovar, and five years later he's saying something completely different. "Gunfire, hurricane, successful advance of the infantry in Vukovar, alarming messages by the guards members to Zagreb." And then it says: "The army in the centre of Vukovar ready to fight back," and so on and so forth.

So this is yet another text that speaks very favourably of the JNA.

Q. And the signature is again Jovan Dulovic? It's been circled.

A. Yes. ⁴³⁷⁵³

Q. Very well.

A. The 4th of November, 1991. "For two days fierce fighting has not stopped on all approaches to Vukovar and in the town itself. Streets in flames. The Vukovar-Borovo Naselje road has been cut off. The village of Njusta [phoen] under the control of the artillery of the JNA and the Territorial Defence. Advances by Territorial Defence units and volunteers from the direction of Trpinja stopped on the edge of Borovo Naselje." He then speaks of a Croatian mortar attack on Bobota [phoen] and so on.

Q. Is this another report by Dulovic?

A. Yes, it's signed by Jovan Dulovic.

Q. Is there anything else, any other report?

A. I'm looking at another text here but I can't see whether it's by Dulovic or not because it's not signed. It speaks of the Serbian volunteer guard but again a very favourable text. I couldn't see -- I can't see the name of the author here. I can't see it on this page.

Q. Is there anything else underneath, another report?

A. "Who are the volunteers," is the next title.

Q. Well, I can't see anything anymore.

A. Yes. How the volunteers, the territorials, the soldiers advanced through the streets of Vukovar. And then the title is "Through the holes to the Ustasha. How come so many snipers, Croatian snipers, in Vukovar? Unknown ammunition with inhumane bullets."

What happened in Vukovar was that the Croatian snipers used weapons with subcalibre filling which would cause very serious wounds ⁴³⁷⁵⁴ because the bullet would pass through the body and destroy the internal organs.

Q. Mr. Seselj, I can't see what it says here in yellow, highlighted in yellow.

A. He speaks favourably about Captain Radic. It's Major Radic now who also stands accused in The Hague. "Throughout the month of October, the fighting went on in that street, says Captain Radic, who took part in the clashes on the front lines. Every day the snipers would kill at least one person. And so prominent volunteers were killed such as Luganja [phoen], Rambo, Captain Trnovace and many others. They were killed in that way. Luganja for a moment appeared at window of a house they had taken control of but he was shot in the head straight away and he fell. The snipers often succeeded in keeping many streets under their own control and then a solution was found to move through the houses."

Q. All right. Now, who signed that? Is that Jovan Dulovic's article again?

A. Well, it's not legible but it is a series of articles by him. We can't find a signature here but quite obviously it is a series of articles by him.

Q. All right, Mr. Seselj. Is that a series of articles to which you referred when you made the submissions to the opposite side with respect to Dulovic's testimony?

A. Yes. But this isn't the complete material. My legal advisors found many more texts of this kind and they quote them in extenso, and in my submission I state my intention to disclose them in keeping with ⁴³⁷⁵⁵ Rule 67 of the rules of evidence.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, I have one more question [as interpreted] -- Robinson, I have a question for you. As my associates have managed to come by a set of these or at least photocopies of the papers from 1991 which Mr. Seselj refers to in his submission to the other side, the presentation of these photocopies, is that sufficient grounds for my request that they be accepted as exhibits, that Mr. Seselj's submission be accepted as an exhibit?

MR. NICE: Rather interesting issues, I think, arise on the validity of these documents as exhibits, and it may be necessary to go back and remind ourselves of what Mr. Dulovic himself said about these matters. So I would respectfully invite the Chamber to put that matter back. But may we see the -- may we have access to this material tonight in copy form in any event? It may be we have them elsewhere, but it will be a difficult task to find them and it may in any event not be an identical collection. I simply don't know.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, we'll have to consider the application that you're making. In the meantime, make -- have copies available to the Prosecution and to the assigned counsel and to the Chamber.

We'll have to adjourn now. It's 7.00. We will resume tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.04 p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 6th day

of September, 2005, at 9.00 a.m.