¹¹⁸⁶⁰

Wednesday, 7 September 2005

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

[The witness entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, there are two documents to be exhibited from yesterday.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, yes. I think we do. And I believe that one of them is the short part of interview with this witness made as preparation for, but not as part of, The Death of Yugoslavia film, and that's one matter which ought to be exhibited, with your leave. It's the passage, just to remind everybody, a translation difficulty over national/nationalistic.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Will the court deputy give that a number.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be 878.

MR. NICE: And, Your Honour, the other document, I think, that Your Honours may have had in mind as not yet having been produced was a document that had three excerpts we looked at from the accused's book -- the witness's book, Politics as a Conscientious Challenge, which contained entries, to remind you, the entries, "Bosnia is undoubtedly Serbian, and if any fundamentalists don't like it, they must pack their suitcases and leave." That's that one.

JUDGE KWON: Politics as a Conscientious Challenge was admitted already. It is 876. I think it is Horvat's Ustasha Phantasmagorias.

MR. NICE: In which case, Your Honours, that one, indeed, hasn't ¹¹⁸⁶¹ yet been admitted and I've still got further questions to ask about it, because we've only looked at one excerpt.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. And we have to keep abreast of the documents' exhibition. We don't want them to pile up. Now, Mr. Seselj, yesterday you commented that the cross-examiner was rude, or something to that effect. I want to make it clear to you that cross-examination can be vigorous and aggressive, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and that it in no way absolves you of the responsibility to be courteous in your replies. It's not rudeness. Vigorous and aggressive cross-examination is not the same thing as being rude. The cross-examiner has a right to put his case to the witness of the other party.

Mr. Nice, please start.

WITNESS: VOJISLAV SESELJ [Resumed]

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

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Don't reply. Mr. Nice, continue with the examination.

MR. NICE: I'm grateful.

Q. Yesterday we were looking at extracts from Horvat's Ustasha Phantasmagorias, and, Mr. Seselj, if you'd be good enough, please, to go to the third of the three marked passages, which on the English is page 15 of 16, and in your version, Mr. Seselj, is the last sheet. We come to a passage within an overall heading "Serbs to Rally in Kumanovo Soon" but ¹¹⁸⁶² the highlighted passage, which of course you can always refer to the setting if necessary, reads as follows.

And if Mr. Nort would place the English on the overhead projector, page 15 of 16. Don't worry if you haven't got it, I'll just read it out: "All those with an unclear conscience should fear us Serbs. They have reason to fear us. Us Serbs have forgotten and forgiven too much in history. We have told the Croats: Should they ever again resort to genocidal activities against the Serbian people, not only shall we take revenge for every victim but we shall also settle scores for the victims from World War I and World War II. However, we have not threatened them yet. We have not attacked a single Croatian village. We have only defended the Serbian villages. If we are not present in some villages or we are unable to defend them, we shall take revenge wherever the Croats are the weakest. We speak the language of force, the language of power, because the Serbian people are strong and powerful only when Serbia is united, when the Serbs are united."

First of all, are these your words?

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Microphone for the witness, please.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Those are my words from a text within the framework of a collection of works published under the title of "Horvat's Ustasha Phantasmagorias." The main text in the book is the text about Branko Horvat himself with respect to his book about Kosovo, and I say that from Ustasha positions he asked that Kosovo secede from Serbia and become a separate federal unit, or rather, republic. This is ¹¹⁸⁶³ just one of those articles or texts and these are the words from that text.

Q. Yes, but these were views you expressed; is that right? And are they views which you still hold?

A. Those are the views and positions that I will adhere to to the end of my life.

Q. And when do you believe this text was first published? It may be a little difficult from the book to identify the first publication date. You may be able to help us.

A. It says it there for you, but you're not reading. Here we have the title of the text, the pre-electoral speech in Rakovica on the 4th of June, 1991. It says so there, above the text itself.

Q. Thank you very much. You've been looking at it in the original. We've been looking at it in the translated passage. Very well. So in 1991, you thought it a responsible thing, did you, to say that you would take revenge --

A. Yes.

Q. -- in respect to the victims of World War I and World War II, on people who hadn't presumably even been born until after the Second World War. Can you justify an educated person making such statements at a time of political difficulty?

A. The problem is in your interpretation of it. Your interpretation is highly malicious. I am threatening here and saying: If the Croats dare and go ahead and engage in genocide activities against the Serbs, so I'm warning them, I'm cautioning them. So I am issuing the threat within ¹¹⁸⁶⁴ a caution. This is the conditional again. And previously, on several occasions, I said, and you quoted one of my quotations, that I said that states and nations are punished for their crimes by loss of territory. We spoke about this yesterday, discussed it yesterday. So all my texts are a continuum. They follow on from one another. They are the development of one idea in detail, one detail after another. But you have to view everything within that context. So what is the purpose of this speech? It is a warning: Don't engage in genocide again. I did not say we will take revenge on individual Croats - that's not what I said - who were born after the war, but Croats as such, per se, Croats as a category.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... settling scores for the victims of World War I and World War II? Well, how are you going to settle those scores unless you settle them against those born after the Second World War, Mr. Seselj?

A. I don't know what is lacking there for you. A higher intelligence coefficient, Mr. Nice, IQ. I said how we were going to settle accounts; settle for war damage, the killing of civilians, looting and pilfering in Serbia during World War I, and that is highly documented. Then to settle accounts as far as World War II is concerned, the killing of a million Serbs under the Ustasha Croatian regime. And how are we going to take our revenge? By bringing Croatia down to three counties; Varazdin, Zagreb and Krizevac, which is, in fact, the true Croatia. All the rest was seized from the Serbian people along with the Vatican policy and turning the Serb Catholics into Croats. So that should be quite clear here.

Q. And so when we just look - and this is the last question I'll ask ¹¹⁸⁶⁵ you about this passage - when we look at the last sentence and a half: "... we shall take revenge wherever the Croats are the weakest. We speak the language of force, the language of power, because the Serbian people are strong and powerful only when Serbia is united." That sentence and a half shouldn't have put any post-World War II occupants of Croatia in physical fear; is that right? It should just have exposed them to some anxiety about peaceful reoccupation of territory they improperly called Croatia. Is that what you're suggesting, something along those lines?

A. Firstly, as far as peaceful, you can't ascribe that to me. I'm not particularly peaceful. I am in principle in favour of peace, but not at all costs, at all price, not at the price of Serb national interests and jeopardising those. And I never expressly spoke of peaceful policies. You can disqualify me for not being a peaceful man to your own taste, however, here what I'm saying is this: That we Serbs are powerful when we are united, and I am appealing for the highest possible degree of national unity among the Serbs, and I am fully conscious of the fact that the Croats would not even dare to secede and enter into a conflict with the Serbs had they not had powerful support from abroad. And every time when the Croats had an onslaught against the Serbs and engaged in genocidal activities, they had support, whether it be Austro-Hungary or Hitler's support. In this case, it was the Vatican's support and the support of all the Western powers. But countless times, in various speeches of mine and in this book, indeed, and in what you showed us yesterday, which was a speech -- ¹¹⁸⁶⁶

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. I think you have responded to the question.

MR. NICE:

Q. What's significant for this trial is this, and I'll deal with it in two parts. First of all, my suggestion to you is that you were a dangerous and wicked man, generating anxiety on the parts of Serbs and generating the circumstances for violence. That's my allegation generally against you. The second part is that the accused did nothing to stop your -- or discourage --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Let him deal with the first suggestion that you are putting.

MR. NICE:

Q. Very well. Dangerous and a wicked man, generating anxiety on the parts of Serbs and generating the circumstances for violence. That's what you were about.

A. Whereas I think, Mr. Nice, that you are an underhand person, the most underhand person in the Hague Tribunal, and perfidious.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I have explained to you, Mr. Seselj, that the cross-examiner can be very strong, he can be vigorous, he can be aggressive in putting questions to you, and questions about your character. You're a witness for the accused, for the other party. And he's entitled to put his case to you. His case is that you're a dangerous person. That doesn't mean that he's perfidious. You are not allowed, by the Rules of this Court, to suggest that the Prosecutor is perfidious. You may say that about one of his witnesses, but not about him personally. ¹¹⁸⁶⁷ So let us get that very, very clear. I will not allow you to make allegations about the character of the Prosecutor. That's not allowed in the system that we operate here.

You perhaps come from a system where you're not accustomed to vigorous cross-examination. There is absolutely nothing wrong in what the Prosecutor has put to you. That is his case. And you must respond to it without suggesting matters which, in your view, reflect adversely on his character. And I will absolutely insist on that. So let us have an answer to the allegation that you're a dangerous person.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Nice said that I was a dangerous person and wicked and vicious, and he is an underhand and perfidious man and he can't be rude to me and insult me.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I have cut you off there. If you continue like that, it will not be for the benefit of the accused, and you are here appearing on his behalf. When Mr. Nice says you're dangerous, he is putting his case to you. That is the Prosecution's case. It is not personal. It is his own assessment of what his case is on the evidence. And you must reply to it without making allegations about the Prosecution. That is the system which we operate here. That's how the adversarial system operates.

So let us have an answer to the allegation that you're a dangerous person and that generally your conduct generated circumstances for violence. Is that true or is that not true? What is your response to it?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My response to that is this: ¹¹⁸⁶⁸ Mr. Nice is a perfidious --

JUDGE ROBINSON: We're not getting -- I've stopped. I've stopped you. I've explained to you that you're obliged to reply without suggesting that Mr. Nice is himself perfidious. That is not how the Court is run here.

So I'm asking you again: What is your response to the allegation that you are a dangerous person and that, in general, your conduct generated the circumstances for violence? I am asking you the question. Forget that Mr. Nice asked you. I am putting it to you.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Whoever says about me that I am a wicked and dangerous man is an evil man, an underhand man, and a perfidious one.

JUDGE ROBINSON: We are not getting anywhere, Mr. Seselj, and I have to --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That is my answer to the question.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I have to let you know that you're not acting in the best interests of Mr. Milosevic, who has brought you here to assist him in his case.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Milosevic brought me here to testify truthfully about the facts, upon the assumption that my truthful testimony about the facts could contribute to his Defence. And my response to Mr. Nice --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I have cut you off. I have cut you off. You must give a response which is devoid of any suggestion that relates to the character of the Prosecutor or that relates to my character or to the ¹¹⁸⁶⁹ character of any member of the Bench. That is how adversarial proceedings are conducted and these are adversarial proceedings. If you do not have an answer to that, the Trial Chamber will instruct the Prosecutor to move to the next question and we will make a judgement. We will make our own decision as to the way you have responded or not responded.

Mr. Nice, move to the next question.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, yes. And it may assist the witness in his deliberations, perhaps in respect of later questions, also to have in mind that by being confronted with the propositions that the Prosecution may argue in its closing arguments, he is being given an opportunity to meet them, which is only fair to him. If he chooses not to meet them, we will invite, of course, the inference that the proposition is well-founded. May we produce this document, then, that we've been asking questions about, give it an exhibit number.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. What's the number for that?

[Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

JUDGE ROBINSON: I understand the numbering at this stage is not very clear and we'll get a number for that later. Can it be sorted out now?

THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. Sorry about the messed up -- the document of this Ustasha -- Horvat's Ustasha Phantasmagorias should be 877, and the Politics as a Conscientious Challenge should be 876.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. ¹¹⁸⁷⁰

MR. NICE: Your Honours, it's probably been my fault for trying to short-circuit matters and I will take responsibility for dealing with each exhibit as we come to it.

And the next one is a video clip for which there is a transcript being distributed. It comes from April 1991 and it's a Sanction clip, if the booth would like to be assisted by that.

[Videotape played]

MR. NICE:

Q. There you are. That's the way you presented these arguments. Do you think that's an appeal to rational response or an appeal to passion in your audience?

A. Firstly, I am a very passionate man, and I count upon human passions. But my speech before the war was held before the war in the form of a warning, a caution. I am in fact cautioning that there will be revenge if genocide against the Serb people is repeated. And that threat was stated publicly. It couldn't have been clearer than it was. But it was to have them deterred.

Q. You say in the course --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute, Mr. Nice.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: May that last clip be exhibited, please.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be 878.

MR. NICE: Can we look now at another short -- ¹¹⁸⁷¹

JUDGE KWON: 878 was allotted to The Death of Yugoslavia.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, I think you're right. Then it will be 879. But I didn't receive 878 yet.

JUDGE KWON: We saw it yesterday.

MR. NICE: May we now look at an excerpt from the programme, a short excerpt from the programme The Death of Yugoslavia, featuring this witness.

[Videotape played]

MR. NICE:

Q. Are you aware that the danger of propaganda lies in overstating the risks that people you wish to mobilise may be facing? Are you aware of that obvious problem with propaganda?

A. This is not propaganda at all. I'm talking about actual facts, and I did not exaggerate anything.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Seselj, where was that speech made?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know. It was blurred, and I couldn't really see.

JUDGE BONOMY: It seems to me pretty basic to know where it was made and who you were speaking to.

Can we get that clarified, Mr. Nice?

MR. NICE: I'm not sure that we can get it clarified immediately because --

JUDGE BONOMY: You see, these sort of TV broadcasts are just throw in a piece -- please, please.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We can clarify it if they play it ^{11872 BLANK PAGE 11873} better.

JUDGE BONOMY: Without reference as to where it is, it doesn't actually assist, I don't think.

MR. NICE:

Q. Mr. Seselj, help us: At what part of the 1990s were you urging your people on by reference to Ustasha hordes attacking Serbian villages?

A. Mr. Nice, you can see probably where the speech was made, and I heard some introduction in English, and that probably shows when and where. Judging by this particular footage, I think that it was made in Serbia, but I cannot remember each and every one of my speeches.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic.

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Oh, now they turned it on. I think it would be proper to interpret the English part of the text to Mr. Seselj too, and we did hear the soundtrack from the video footage that Mr. Nice had played.

MR. NICE: I'm happy to play it again.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Let's play it again.

[Videotape played]

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's very blurred, the image I see here.

[Videotape played] "[Voiceover]... set about provoking a conflict between Serbs and Croats."

MR. NICE: ¹¹⁸⁷⁴

Q. Now, then, that has to be, doesn't it, in 1990 or 1991, before the conflict starts?

JUDGE BONOMY: Can I ask, first of all, why the transcript that we have is different from what's on the screen? Is there a reason for that?

MR. NICE: Yes. Your Honours may recall that with The Death of Yugoslavia and the programme itself, we often discovered that the programme subtitles were more a summary of what was said than a transcribed and interpreted version of what was said. So what you have is a transcribed version of the precise words and then translated.

JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

MR. NICE:

Q. You see, the reason I'm asking you about this, Mr. Seselj, is --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I have an objection to what Mr. Nice said just now. He explains that in this BBC programme, in the subtitles, there is more of a summary. That is not true. What the subtitles present are brutal lies. You have seen forgeries of what I had said, and I told you that I noticed mistakes and then your interpreters here had it replayed for them five times and they interpreted it right. And very often, tendentiously, in The Death of Yugoslavia, the translation is a brutal lie and a falsification. Because they're counting on the fact that their audiences do not speak Serbian, and they don't care about the Serbs themselves. So this is worthless evidence. It's only evidence of the anti-Serb propaganda waged here.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, then if we are to admit as evidence this transcript, it will have to be admitted subject to the qualification ¹¹⁸⁷⁵ that you have made and which Mr. Milosevic has just emphasised. And it is also open to Mr. Milosevic to deal with the matter in re-examination.

MR. NICE:

Q. And it would appear, would it, that this was in the federal parliament -- in front of the federal parliament in Belgrade, from what we can see, Mr. Seselj?

A. Possibly in front of the federal Assembly, judging by the big masses of people there. It is somewhere in Serbia. It was impossible to get this many people together at the rallies in Serb Krajina. It was in Serbia. Possibly it was the rally in front of the federal Assembly on the 15th or 21st of May, 1991.

And I don't know what kind of image you have on your screens, but mine is highly blurred. It's highly blurred even now. Perhaps something can be done about this. It is totally blurred. The guard can tell you.

Q. We're only concerned in, not in a limited extent, but to a different extent, in what you were doing and why. We're more concerned in what effect this had for the responsibility of the accused. But you were allowed, without any complaint, to be addressing people on the basis that there were Ustasha hordes trying to finish up the genocide. Well, who were these Ustasha hordes that you were referring to?

A. Ustasha hordes are, first and foremost, members of Tudjman's ZNG, National Guards Corps, the paramilitary unit that attacked the Serb civilian population and all the Western Serbian lands within the Croatian federal unit. That's what Ustasha hordes are.

Now, as for your position regarding the fact that I was allowed to ¹¹⁸⁷⁶ do so, there was full freedom of speech in Serbia in Mr. Milosevic's time. Nobody could allow me or prevent me from presenting my opinion. According to the laws of Serbia, that is not a criminal offence at all.

MR. NICE: May that clip with the printed transcript be exhibited, please.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. And the transcript subject to the qualification that I've made.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be 880.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, who provided this transcript?

MR. NICE: It was done by us. And I think it's -- well, it counts as a draft translation. It wasn't done by CLSS, but a lot of translations are draft, to that extent draft. It was done by us.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay.

MR. KAY: May I suggest, because there have been problems over translations and the accuracy of them, that if video clips are being shown, that we have the booth here interpret the language so we get it on the transcript, and that avoid problems in what text was actually used. We have found, as Mr. Milosevic has raised, that the subtitles have been inaccurate. I'll leave it at that.

JUDGE KWON: We didn't hear any opposition in relation to this specific transcript.

MR. KAY: It may be better if we just play the clip again.

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for Mr. Kay, please. ¹¹⁸⁷⁷

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Your interpretation is good.

MR. KAY: [Previous translation continues]... again so that we have a translation for the record.

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Milosevic -- the accused says this is good.

MR. KAY: Fine.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The position will remain as we had determined. Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: If that clip can be exhibited and given a number.

THE REGISTRAR: That's 880, already given.

MR. NICE: And the next one, please, is a short clip from a programme first, I think, screened in Serbia.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Can you get this video monitor to work better before you proceed? It is very blurred. It is very hard for me to discern anything. Can a technician of yours come and see this, and they can see that it is very hard to follow this way.

JUDGE KWON: I think it's the angle you are watching from. So if you could stand up a little bit.

MR. NICE: Yes. Can the monitor be inclined?

JUDGE KWON: Yes, that's the way.

MR. NICE: This one, Your Honours, was first screened in Serbian television. It was reproduced in a later programme called Pictures of Words and Hate, Year Two, produced by the television programme B92 in Belgrade. But it has the RTS logo on the footage, so that would indicate its original broadcast company. And I hope that the transcripts provided by us have been distributed. ¹¹⁸⁷⁸

THE INTERPRETER: Could the interpreters please have a specific reference, thank you.

MR. NICE: It's 23A, for the interpreters.

[Videotape played]

MR. NICE:

Q. That's better. Can you see it now, Mr. Seselj?

A. Hardly. I can barely see it. Due to the microphones, I can only assume that this is the National Assembly. But your technician can come and see for himself. It is barely --

MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues]... stand to view these because I think it's just a matter of angle, unless his monitors are in some way deficient. I can see, on the monitors of the same kind that he has, a perfectly clear picture. But I think if you sit down, it goes down so you can hardly see.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your technician is standing here, and he can tell you what is looks like on this screen. If he says that it can be seen fine, then I will accept it too. And whether it's a matter of getting up or sitting down or whether it's a question of image quality.

JUDGE ROBINSON: If you were to -- well, the technician is coming, Mr. Seselj.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I hope that your own technician has told you that this was not right.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Remember, the picture is not going to be 100 per cent clear.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This image is not clear even 2 per ¹¹⁸⁷⁹ cent. You can only see the silhouette of a white shirt, and nothing else, and the microphones in front.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Can't you see the face?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. Well, ask your technicians whether they can see it. Can they see anything here? Now it's somewhat better.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Our thanks to the technician.

MR. NICE: With the transcripts to hand, as distributed, may this now be played.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] The line between Karlobag-Ogulin-Virovitica has to be our goal and that is the line where the Yugoslav People's Army has to put its troops. If the army is unable to move the troops to this line peacefully from Zagreb then they should do this with force and with the bombing of Zagreb. The army still has capacities which it has not used yet. If its troops are endangered it has the right to use Napalm bombs and anything else they have available. We cannot play games here. It is more important to save one army than to worry if there will be some accidental victims. Who is to blame here? They wanted war, so now they have it."

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, Mr. Seselj said very clearly that this is a line where the army has to withdraw its troops, and the word used here is to "put" its troops, as if it were coming from somewhere and putting its troops there. The army is withdrawing from Croatia and he uses the word twice, to "withdraw" its troops to that line. ¹¹⁸⁸⁰ Once again, this is incorrect.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Milosevic. That's a very bad mistake. Let's play it again.

MR. NICE: Play it again.

JUDGE BONOMY: It is the only way it makes sense, I have to say.

MR. NICE: If the interpreters could interpret as the text -- as the words --

THE INTERPRETER: It is very hard for the interpreters to follow the soundtrack as it is spoken if they're interpreting. They cannot get everything in. Perhaps, if you like, we can listen to this particular word if we hear it. Thank you.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Play it again.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters note that the word used was to "withdraw" troops.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

MR. NICE:

Q. This is in the parliament, so this is you in a slightly more restrained mode; correct?

A. No. This is in the Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, sometime in the beginning of July 1991. I'm speaking here as an opposition MP and presenting my political views.

Q. And amongst other things at this stage, advocating the right to use napalm?

A. I am advocating the withdrawal of JNA troops from Croatia, from ¹¹⁸⁸¹ Zagreb, first and foremost, and other towns, and that that withdrawal should be carried out even if it involves fighting. To use all the means they have available in order to get out.

Q. Again, identifying the Karlobag line as the line from which troops should be withdrawn; correct?

A. Of course. Since the Croat paramilitary forces are attacking all barracks in Croatia, I'm asking in a timely manner for the JNA to withdraw from Croatia to the Karlobag-Karlovac-Virovitica line. Unfortunately, no one heeded or accepted my call.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, you put that as identifying the line as the line from which, but it's the line to which.

MR. NICE: I think the sense is clear. May that be exhibited as well, please.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be 881.

MR. NICE: And I have a few more on the same topic before we turn to another topic. Can we look now, please, at what, for the interpreters, will be 23B and is a copy of part of one of your magazines, or your newspapers. This one published in 1992, I think. And for the Court, it's the second sheet, page marked 29. At some stage the whole document was translated but you haven't been--

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, the last one, before we move on from it, has a date September 1991 at the top of it. What does that date refer to? Is this when it was broadcast as a compilation in some --

MR. NICE: No, no, no. This was the original date of broadcast. ¹¹⁸⁸²

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, the witness has given evidence that it was in June 1991, so you ought to bear that in mind.

MR. NICE: Certainly. We can look at this document. This is from Velika Srpska.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I've already said July 1991.

MR. NICE: The document we're now --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I was elected only in June as a member of parliament. It could not have been in June, it could have been only in July.

JUDGE BONOMY: You're absolutely right. It was my mistake.

MR. NICE:

Q. So what we're now looking at, please, is I think perhaps published in 1991, but when you look at it, you may be able to help us, if you look at the original. It's November 1991, I think. And the outlined passage on our page 29 in the text says: "Today, dear Gradimir, as we say goodbye to you on your final journey -" perhaps you can find that in the outlined text - "we can repeat our Serbian and Chetnik pledge you will not remain unavenged! Our enemies will feel the punishment of the Serbian people. We shall no longer forgive as we did after World War I and World War II. The time has come to settle old scores... to avenge all Serbian victims and to unite all the Serbian lands."

By statements like this in the publications that you produced, are you generating hate?

JUDGE BONOMY: Can we have the factual basis, first of all? Is it in a publication, and what's the date of the publication? ¹¹⁸⁸³

MR. NICE: Very well.

Q. You can identify this as from your own magazine, Velika Srpska; is that correct?

A. Yes. This was published in the newspaper Velika Srbija, sometime in the summer of 1991. It is number 11, not the 11th month, as Mr. Nice thought. Then I published the text again in my book the Serb Chetnik Movement, in 1994. This is a speech of mine, made on the 27th of August, at Mount Cemernik, in the village of Pavletina, in an area that is called Crna Trava - this is the south of Serbia - at the funeral of the first volunteer of the Serb Radical Party who got killed, Gradimir Pesic. In order to understand the context, I demand that the entire speech be read out. It's not long.

MR. NICE: A matter for re-examination.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Mr. Milosevic can have that done in re-examination. That's one of the purposes of re-examination.

MR. NICE: Can we have this document exhibited?

Q. But my question to you is this: By these sorts of words, and we've probably come to the end of a sufficient example of this particular type of topic, were you not simply doing your best to generate hate that would lead to violence?

A. No. I was not disseminating hate. I am talking about Serb foes. You know what foe, enemy, means in the Serbian language. The word is "dusmanin," but it comes from the Arabic or Persian language. That is the worst enemy of all. That is the worst enemy of all, the dusmanin is. That's the one who wants to destroy your very essence, the essence of your ¹¹⁸⁸⁴ nation. The word is used to refer to Ustashas. That's quite clear. As for the reference to the First and Second World War, in the Second World War, the top Ustasha leaders, with the assistance of the Catholic Church, through the well-known rat channels of the Vatican, fled from Croatia to South America. Books were written about that. They all remained unpunished. This time, I am saying that no one should remain unpunished. Revenge is punishment for the perpetrators of genocidal crimes. But not in a single text of mine will you find anything like having to kill Croat civilians. You won't find that anywhere. In the Second World War, just think of all the terms that the British and the Americans used for Germans. They said that they were Huns, they were barbarians, and --

Q. And perhaps one more moment and then I'll move to another topic, I think, to look at the other side of what you were doing, I'm going to suggest to you. Can we look at 23C.

MR. NICE: I'm sorry. Exhibit number for the previous exhibit, please.

THE REGISTRAR: 881.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Is it 881 or 882?

THE REGISTRAR: It should be 882.

MR. NICE: The exhibit that's -- potential exhibit that's being distributed has not been marked with the text, so I'll withdraw it for the time being, ask you to lay it on one side. Otherwise, it will take too much time finding the passage.

Q. Now, the short position is, Mr. Seselj, that over the period of ^{11885 BLANK PAGE 11886} time we've been looking at or focussing on, you were drawing to people's attention the suffering of Serbs historically, weren't you?

A. Yes. I was incessantly drawing people's attention to the suffering of the Serb people through history, especially the suffering of the Serb people in contemporary times, when I myself was an observer.

Q. You were categorising basically all Croats as Ustasha. You hardly distinguished between, as it were, the good and the bad; they were all Ustasha, lumped together.

A. That is not correct. You yourself quoted a text of mine yesterday where I actually praised the true Croats who still lived in Istria, Kvarner, Rijeka, where there were no persecutions of Serbs. In the first half of 1991, practically throughout Croatia, the systematic persecution of the Serb people started and hundreds and thousands of Serbs already started fleeing to Serbia. I bear in mind yet another fact, that there was mass Ustasha hysteria in Croatia at the time, similar like in 1941. I would like to draw your attention to historical testimony provided by eyewitnesses, that the Croats in Zagreb welcomed Hitler's troops in 1941 with more enthusiasm and delight than --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thanks.

MR. NICE:

Q. Apart from praising those people who you defined as Croats because they lived in the two bits of Croatia that you were prepared to accept as being Croatia, am I right that you were categorising the left basically as all Ustasha and generating emotion by doing that?

A. It's not correct that I was categorising the rest of the Croats as ¹¹⁸⁸⁷ all Ustasha. However, I am telling you that mass Ustasha hysteria prevailed in the largest part of Croatia. And at one point, most Croats actually declared that they were adherents of the Ustasha Tudjman regime, it had become so powerful in Croatia. And that's what I was warning the Serb public about.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Perhaps I cannot find this, but I don't know what Mr. Nice is referring to. This is a large text, some 50 or so pages.

JUDGE ROBINSON: That text has been withdrawn. Is that the text headed "A guest of radio --"

MR. NICE: That's right. I'm just identifying the passages I want to ask about and I may come back to it. And I've got one more question to ask this witness before I do. I think I can find the text in time.

Q. That's one side, the emotions you're generating. So far as on the other side is concerned, Croats and then, later, Muslims, your concern was to make them fear the consequences of what was to come, and so far as the Muslims was concerned, your intention was to make them think they would be booted out of the country in certain circumstances; is that right?

A. No. I never said that the Muslims could or should be booted out of the country. In the year 1990, I wrote an appeal to the Serbs of the Islamic faith, which I started with the words "Brother Muslims." I exerted my utmost efforts to avoid a war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, like the one that had broken out in Croatia. However, I constantly attack ¹¹⁸⁸⁸ Islamic fundamentalists and pan-Islamists. And I am not stirring up emotions of that kind; I am simply warning that the crimes against the Serb people in Croatia are being repeated and taking the same form they had taken in World War II.

I was bearing in mind, at the same time, that a Croatian member of parliament spoke in the Croatian parliament - we all saw this on television - and he ended his speech with the old Ustasha greeting, which was exactly the same as Hitler's and Mussolini's greeting had been. And he was speaking in the Croatian parliament. You think you can pull things out of context, but every speech of mine is a response to even worse things that were happening in Croatia. In the Croatian parliament, an MP came forward and raised his arm.

MR. NICE: We'll now turn to the last document we're looking at in this passage, and perhaps it can be either distributed or picked up - I think I can deal with it - and made available to the witness. And if he'd like to look at the Serbian version and at the cover page, he can tell us what it is.

JUDGE ROBINSON: This is a document headed "A Guest of Radio Index."

MR. NICE: That's the one, yes.

Q. If you'd like to look at the front page of the Serbian version, Mr. Seselj, remind yourself of what this document is.

A. This is my book entitled "Through the Political Galimatias." This is a collection of my radio and television broadcasts, and it was first published in 1993 in Belgrade. ¹¹⁸⁸⁹

Q. Two passages I want you to look at. In the English it's at page 20, at the foot. And I think in the Serbian, Mr. Seselj, if you'd go, please, to what is page 263. I think this is the right passage. Would you start --

A. Nothing is marked on that page for me.

Q. Well, would you just read the first -- go to the foot of 263 and see the paragraph there. There's maybe an additional paragraph that I want to ask you about. And would you just read the first three words of that paragraph so I can make sure I'm in the right place.

A. "Television is the most powerful medium. It's a very dangerous medium..."

Q. Would you now just please read on and we can follow it in the English. "It is a very dangerous..."

A. "Television is the most powerful. It is a very dangerous weapon, too, and this was evident in the West. Television can be a source of a much more dangerous type of totalitarianism than Fascism and Communism combined, those who rule television rule human thoughts and emotions. On television, controlling two or three television companies, you can serve up political standpoints to all citizens of America, you can simply shape their minds, their behaviour and so forth. This is very dangerous but it calls for far more studious scientific approaches."

Q. You therefore recognised the potential for television. At the time with which we are concerned, what influence do you say the accused had over those who ran the major television stations?

A. Very little influence. He could have influenced only one ¹¹⁸⁹⁰ television station, and that's ETS, the state television of Serbia, because the editor-in-chief and director of that television station was a member of his party. All the others were their competitors and opposed Mr. Milosevic. That is a very different situation from the one prevailing in America. All Western television stations, in unison, were waging an anti-Serb policy.

Q. Was there a difference in your access to television, depending on how the state of your relationship was with this accused? When you were in favour with him, you were allowed access to television; when you were out of favour, you were denied it?

A. I was never in favour or out of favour with Mr. Milosevic. We had periods of cooperation which were much shorter than our periods of deep conflict. At those times when we were not in conflict, I and the Serb Radical Party appeared on the state-run television more often. However, our presence on other television stations did not depend on this.

Q. And when you appeared on state-run television, as you explain and as we've heard in evidence from other witnesses, more often when you were not in conflict with the accused, he didn't restrain you, did he, in any way as to the things you might say? He allowed you to say whatever you wanted to say.

A. I told you yesterday, Mr. Nice, that I am not a horse for Mr. Milosevic to rein me in. Whoever appeared on state-run television was free to express his opinions. I appeared far less on state-run television than other opposition politicians. On the state-run television, these were most often duels, debates, and round tables. No one ever suggested ¹¹⁸⁹¹ to anyone else what they should say, or prohibit them from saying anything. The broadcasts were aired live. I never agreed to pre-record a broadcast. There were attempts to make me agree to that, but I always refused. I only agreed to participate in shows that were broadcast live.

Q. The next passage I want to refer to, which is marked, and the Chamber will find it -- you've got it on page 266, Mr. Seselj. If the Chamber would be good enough to go to the top of page 26, or possibly the bottom of page 25, I think.

You'll find a passage, a paragraph there, Mr. Seselj, that begins with: "As for the Krajina, if the Bosnian Serbs capitulate..." Can you find that paragraph?

A. Yes.

Q. And if you go on in that paragraph to what we can find on our page 26 and you'll see marked, you say this: "And these Serbs, our folk, cannot stay in the Islamic Jamahirija either, nor in Tudjman's Ustasha Croatia, they are certain to be expelled if not killed. Serbs are now fighting for their survival and in this fight they have run out of options, the alternative is either capitulation or total victory. If they resist, they have a chance of winning, and if they capitulate they will lose everything."

Did you say that?

A. Yes.

Q. Winding up the emotions or not?

A. I cannot understand that the translator first says, Do you see this passage, and then corrects him or herself and says "interpreter's ¹¹⁸⁹² correction." How can such a mistake be made? In both cases, my response is "yes." But how can the interpreter falsify the question in this way? It could have been something more sensitive. It could have been something where my answer would have been "no."

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, there is no basis at all, as you must know, for suggesting that the interpreter is falsifying the question. If a mistake is made by the interpreter, then so be it. Why must you attribute ill motives to the interpreter? Let's move on. Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: May that be exhibited. The first passage provided particularly interesting and the rest of it may become valuable. May that be given an exhibit?.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be 883.

MR. NICE: Thank you very much.

Q. Let's now turn then to a different topic, but again at this stage through the things you have been saying. Can we have 25A-5, please. I'm looking now, Mr. Seselj, at things that you said, in particular insofar as they reveal acts of those named as co-perpetrators. Let's go to 25A-1. This is -- 25A-1, for the interpreters, who have the materials. This is part of an existing exhibit, 469, tab 3, a meeting of the Council for the Coordination of Positions of State Policy. Now, were you aware of the existence of something called the Council of Coordinating Positions of State Policy?

A. No.

Q. It's a body we've heard about. It met in the course of 1993, ¹¹⁸⁹³ certainly, I think 1992, 1993. And this one was from a meeting held on the 21st of January of 1993, involving, amongst others, this accused and Radovan Karadzic, but many others as well; Mladic, for example. Now, have you got the document in front of you? You'll see that the evidence before the Court --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] More than once I warned Mr. Nice, and you here, not to twist the explanation of this Council for Coordination of Positions of State Policy. It was established by the then president, Dobrica Cosic, and its members were --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm not testifying.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Let us hear the question that Mr. Nice has to put in relation to this council, and then if you have an objection, then you may raise it. We haven't heard the question yet, so you're premature.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, given the difficulties there have been with interpretation and translation, where an original text in Serbian exists, it may be better to ask the witness to read it out, even though it's not his own words, if the Court is happy with this, and we can follow the translation, the interpretation, and hear it against the translation we already have.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The witness should know what he is reading from. He cannot have page 21 taken out of the transcript of some ¹¹⁸⁹⁴ kind of minutes that he knows nothing about and then be told to read out a sentence. I think that is completely improper, and I don't think that this is the way in which Mr. Nice can present evidence here. Let him bring the minutes from that meeting so that he can see who the members of this body are, who was invited, what was discussed, and then he can read out a sentence.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, let us hear the question. Let us hear the question first. That's how we will deal with it.

MR. NICE: Well, whether the witness reads it or not, perhaps I'll read it this time and we'll see how we go.

Q. You'll see here Karadzic is recorded as saying this --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Where is that?

MR. NICE: It's at the bottom of your page 20 and it's on page 21 --

JUDGE KWON: Bear in mind that we don't have it at this moment.

MR. NICE: You don't have it? It's on the overhead projector. That's right. It's an existing exhibit.

MR. KAY: Is it 469, tab 3? Because I'm looking at 469, tab 3 and don't --

MR. NICE: Tab 39. My apologies if I read out tab 3.

Q. You see, what Karadzic said is this: "I think that this which Jovanovic is talking about has already happened, to a huge extent. There was 50/50 of us in Zvornik. The number of inhabitants in Zvornik is now the same, approximately 50.000, and they are all Serbs. More than 24.000 Serbs from Zenica and Central Bosnia have arrived and stopped in Zvornik. ¹¹⁸⁹⁵ If only Serbia would help us by not accepting refugees, which it does not have to accept, and returned them, that would be a great solution. For example, if all the people from Western Slavonia --"

JUDGE ROBINSON: You have to move to the next page.

MR. NICE: Next page, top of the page, Mr. Nort. Thank you.

Q. "-- and returned them, that would be a great solution. For example, if all the people from Western Slavonia were to return and all those from the former Bosnia and Herzegovina who are in Serbia, people from Doboj, Derventa, Odzak, et cetera, that would be the factual state of affairs which nobody could change any more. Not only should the military conscripts be returned, but the families should as well, to locations where there is no war and where freedom exists." First and generally, is there anything in what Karadzic said that you disagree with factually?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Have we identified the occasion on which this statement was made?

MR. NICE: This is from the meeting of the 21st of January, 1993, and it's an existing exhibit and it's the Council for Coordinating Positions on State Policy, sometimes described as the Council for Harmonisation.

Q. Mr. Seselj, is there anything in what I've read out to you with which you disagree, factually, coming from the mouth of Karadzic?

A. First of all, you have given me no evidence that Karadzic really said this. Even if this meeting was held, I did not attend it. I don't know if Karadzic attended it or whether he said this. You have not given ¹¹⁸⁹⁶ me the entire document either. You should ask the people who allegedly participated in this meeting about this.

As for the facts, what is there for me to confirm or deny here? What facts are these? Allegedly, he is expressing his positions, not facts. There are no particular facts here.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The question, Mr. Seselj, from the Prosecutor is whether you disagree with that position as expressed by Karadzic.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know whether Karadzic said this at all. I can neither agree or disagree.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, you can assume that he said it. Assuming that he said it, do you disagree?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What should I agree to? Can you be more precise?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, put it more precisely.

MR. NICE:

Q. If you're having difficulty with seeing the factual content of this passage, just tell us this: Were you involved in events at Zvornik in 1992?

A. I was not involved in any events in Zvornik in 1992. But volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were, as part of the JNA, at the very beginning of the war.

Q. Did you make any speeches in respect of events that happened in Zvornik in 1992? To encourage your troops, perhaps?

A. No. I did not visit Zvornik or give any speeches there.

Q. But nevertheless, troops of the Serb Radical Party were there and ¹¹⁸⁹⁷ you must have known what happened, because you told us you --

A. No.

Q. You see, what's described here is a complete change of the ethnic composition of Zvornik from 50/50 to 100 per cent Serb, first of all, and this is the factual part of what Karadzic was saying. Was he right?

A. First of all, there were no troops of the Serb Radical Party there, nor did the Serb Radical Party ever have any troops of its own. The volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were in Zvornik, but as part of the JNA, while the JNA was still there.

As for the ethnic make-up of the population of Zvornik, according to my knowledge, before the war, there really were approximately half Serbs, half Muslims, more or less. However, during the war, many Muslims left Zvornik. Serb refugees from areas under Muslim control moved into Zvornik. That is a fact, yes. And I can testify about those facts. But I cannot say whether Radovan Karadzic actually said this or not. You are trying to tender this document through me as if I was confirming that he said this and that I agreed with him. Had I agreed with Karadzic, we would have been members of the same party.

JUDGE BONOMY: I find it constantly frustrating when you don't answer the question. You have now answered this question, and you've answered it very well and very clearly. And what I find difficult to understand is why you constantly misinterpret what's being asked of you. This is already a document which is exhibited in the case. It's not being exhibited through you. You're simply being asked whether these facts as set out in this document are accurate. At no stage have you been asked to ^{11898 BLANK PAGE 11899} confirm whether Karadzic said it or not. So please listen carefully to the questions you're being asked and answer the question you're actually being asked, and we'll get on far better and far more quickly.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, when a precise question is asked of me, I give a very precise answer. If the question is about the ethnic make-up of the population of Zvornik, I can answer to the best of my knowledge. But these two pieces of paper represent no kind of document, in my view.

JUDGE BONOMY: We shall simply have to differ on whether you actually do answer the questions that you're asked. Please try to do so, though.

MR. NICE:

Q. Can you explain, from your broad knowledge of events, then, how it came about that 50 per cent Muslim population of a town like Zvornik suddenly disappears -- not suddenly, but over a short period of time disappears?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, Mr. Nice's question is improper because Seselj did not say that 50 per cent of the inhabitants of Zvornik went missing.

MR. NICE:

Q. Mr. Seselj, I think you understand what I've asked you. Will you answer the question, please.

A. First of all, in Zvornik, some crimes were committed, as far as I know. Some of these crimes were tried in 1993, and trials for some of them are now being held in Belgrade. And for some, trials have yet to be ¹¹⁹⁰⁰ held. So I'm not excluding the possibility that there were crimes. However, the vast majority of the Muslim population left Zvornik. Some came to Serbia. Some crossed the River Drina to Mali Zvornik, where they had friends and relatives who were also Muslims and where they felt safe. I assume most went to Muslim-controlled territory.

JUDGE BONOMY: You see, this is a perfect example, because the question was: What caused this to happen? And you haven't addressed that.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What could have been the possible reasons? First of all, the atmosphere of war. Before the war, many people left Zvornik, both Serbs and Muslims. During the war, many Muslim civilians withdrew when their paramilitary formations withdrew. Some crossed over into Serbia. Some, after the fighting in Zvornik, left Zvornik and went to territories under Muslim control. That's how I see what happened.

If your question is whether some of them were expelled, perhaps they were. I don't exclude that possibility. Some Muslims may have been expelled, but which ones? As far as I know, it was certainly not the JNA.

MR. NICE:

Q. Well, then who? You see, you've claimed the broadest knowledge, and when it's -- on many occasions the most detailed knowledge of all events on the accused's indictment. You tell us that you've read broadly. Here a population changes its ethnic composition completely. Who drove these people out?

A. I'm saying once again that most of them were not expelled. Some ¹¹⁹⁰¹ of them might have been expelled, but I wasn't there so I cannot testify about it. You want me to say so-and-so expelled Muslims from there. If I knew that, I'd tell you right away. I know a little bit about the Yellow Wasps. I might know something about some other paramilitary units in certain places, but as for every detail that happened in Zvornik, I can't know that.

Q. You claim this omniscience and omnipresence, in many ways, certainly omniscience. Who would have been directing paramilitaries to drive people from Zvornik? Please help us.

A. If you mean that some factor of the authorities led them to do so, then I don't believe that. But you know full well that the paramilitary formations were usually ordinary criminal gangs. So the general mood that prevailed was such that paramilitaries could perhaps have influenced people and made them leave, and things like that did happen. But concretely speaking, specifically speaking, Zvornik, you're asking me to answer the impossible and you once again claim that I am saying that I know everything, that I am omniscient. Only God knows everything. I know far, far less than him. I know more than you, but that of course doesn't mean that I know everything myself. And now you're asking me to testify about something that I have absolutely no knowledge about.

Q. You've told us in your own evidence about the danger of paramilitary formations. We've heard about the power of television, through your own words. And we know from evidence in this Court that circumstances can come together to allow the most terrible crimes, genocidal and other, to be committed in various locations as a result of ¹¹⁹⁰² what politicians and others do at the top.

If, as you say, it was free-floating paramilitary groups that kicked half the population of Zvornik out, or whatever percentage it did remove, who had been creating the atmosphere in which that could happen, Mr. Seselj? Was it you? Was it this accused? Tell us.

A. First of all, and once again, you are misinterpreting what I said. It is not that the majority of Muslims were expelled from Zvornik. I don't exclude the possibility, of course, that some of them were expelled, just as some of them were killed. I don't think we can challenge those facts that there were Muslims civilians who were indeed killed. However, the majority left, for different reasons. Many left before the war, like the Serbs did. The mood was such that prevailed them to do so. Some of them withdrew with their paramilitaries. Some of them left later on. But what this process was in specific terms, how do you expect me to testify to that? And then you misinterpret it and say everybody was expelled or the majority was expelled. I just don't believe that. And I state this: There were situations where incidents took place, there was killing, there was looting, there was persecution. Now, as far as the paramilitary formations are concerned, once the JNA had withdrawn, you know, this is what happened. The situation with respect to the functioning of power was fairly chaotic at the time and this kind of situation creates conditions conducive to the appearance of paramilitary formations because criminals want to make use of the war situation for their criminal aspirations. So there's no doubt on that score. And somebody even from the authorities could have been in cohorts ¹¹⁹⁰³ with the paramilitary formations. But I can't give you specific facts about that here.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] How should I know who? From the local authorities, perhaps. I'm just guessing now. You're making me guess.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Seselj. We'll adjourn now for 20 minutes.

--- Recess taken at 10.35 a.m.

--- On resuming at 10.59 a.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE:

Q. Mr. Seselj, staying, for a few minutes, with Zvornik, you know from the pre-trial brief served in your case, because you dealt with this in part, I think in your own evidence, that a witness or potential witness called (redacted) says that you gave a speech at Mali Zvornik in the spring of 1992, saying words to the effect of: "Dear Chetnik brothers across the Drina, you are the bravest ones. We are going to clean Bosnia of pagans and show them a road which will take them to the East, where they belong."

Now, tell us: Did you make a speech in Mali Zvornik, across the Drina, in the spring of 1992?

A. To the best of my recollection, at the beginning of 1992, I was at a church near Mali Zvornik when it was being consecrated. But I can't remember what period of time that was exactly. A long time before the ¹¹⁹⁰⁴ war, at any rate. But that witness is a false witness, because I never said that in any of my speeches.

Q. Is there anything that you might have said by way of encouraging the Serbs across the river in Zvornik itself?

A. It might have been. As far as I remember, there was a problem there already because some Serb taxi-driver had been killed. So possibly I was speaking about that. But then you should have my whole speech and not somebody's false interpretation, untruthful. But quite certainly, I couldn't have called anybody in Bosnia a pagan. That is absolutely impossible. I'm not as stupid as that. I'm not as uneducated as that to be able to do so. And that would have been completely wrong. I would have turned out an idiot had I said that they were pagans because Islam is a monotheistic religion, is much more monotheistic than Christianity itself is. In Islam there's just one God and there's no Holy Trinity, there are no saints or anything else. So it would have been impossible for me to have said something like that, absolutely impossible. But I could have attacked the pan-Islamists who wished Bosnia-Herzegovina to secede from Yugoslavia. That is all quite possible. But then you would have had to have had the original speech. What your false witness is saying is absolutely impossible.

Q. There's so many books of yours, it's not possible to research them in the way that might be desirable. Can you remember whether you've published anywhere a speech of yours given in Mali Zvornik in 1992?

A. Mr. Nice, I have many books, but it is possible to look into them all. You have the resources. At present, I don't have the resources to ¹¹⁹⁰⁵ delve in that study. But in principle, all speeches which any of my associates recorded, I published. There might have been some speech that wasn't recorded and therefore not made public, not published. For example, I had a television programme in Leskovac, in the south of Serbia, in Bojnjak, the place name was, I believe, but --

Q. Two preliminary questions for you before I show you a little bit of a videotape. You sent your volunteers, or your volunteers were sent, or whatever happened, to go to Zvornik, which is across the Drina. What were they going there to do?

A. They were sent as soldiers of the JNA, as volunteers in JNA units. And before they were sent, I didn't know that they were going to Zvornik at all. They went where the command of the JNA thought they ought to be deployed. And we were just told the wishes, that is to say, how many volunteers and when they were supposed to arrive in the Bubanj Potok barracks, for example.

Q. How many volunteers were required?

A. I don't know exactly who. Someone from the General Staff.

Q. Don't you know who asked you for your volunteers to be sent?

A. Listen, it's like this: We had a wartime staff in the Serb Radical Movement and at the head of that staff was my vice-president and he went in my name to the General Staff to reach an agreement. And on the basis of that, the volunteers were convened. I didn't deal with these technical matters. But behind the sending of volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party was me, I myself, as president of the party. But there are technical details of how many, when and so forth. ¹¹⁹⁰⁶

Q. [Previous translation continues]... comes from the soldier and not the General Staff. I mean, for example, no politician could ever have been involved in a request for volunteers to be sent to Zvornik; is that right?

A. No. Not a single politician. My vice-president, Ljubisa Petkovic, whose statement you have, contacted the General Staff and mostly his contacts were with General Domazetovic. And he would report to me from time to time about those contacts. But not all the technical details, because that wasn't essential. The essential thing was that the General Staff would tell us their wishes and needs and requirements, and within the frameworks of our possibilities, we would bring in volunteers from various parts of Serbia, even Montenegro, and we would send them where the General Staff told us to.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... ask you for volunteers to be sent?

A. No. Radmilo Bogdanovic, the former minister of the interior; is that who you mean? Bogdanovic. I don't know another Bogdanovic.

Q. And the accused wouldn't ask you for the volunteers to be sent, would he?

A. No.

Q. Another little matter that you might help us with before we look at the piece of footage I want you to review with us is this: The Red Berets, just define for us what you say they were.

A. The Red Berets were of different types, different types of units who wore red berets on their heads. So only that concept would be the ¹¹⁹⁰⁷ right kind of concept.

Q. Was there ever a particular unit commanded by a particular person that was known as the Red Berets?

A. A unit with the official name of the Red Berets did not exist. What did exist were different units whose members wore red berets. The ones who were in Golubic in the Captain Dragan training centre and I clashed with them and I attacked them publicly, I already told you that in Republika Srpska I found in a judgement there -- in the judgement of this tribunal that in several places mention is made of a reconnaissance or intervention platoon of the Red Berets within the Bratunac Brigade, for example.

Q. You told us about a unit that was formed in 1996, I think. Now, what was that all about? Was that the Red Berets or something like that?

A. They did have in the public -- or rather, the people called them the Red Berets, but their official title was the Unit for Special Operations of the State Security Service of Serbia.

Q. Under the control of?

A. Under the control of the State Security Service of Serbia. And I think the first commander was Frenki Simatovic.

Q. First of all --

A. I think that the first commander was Franko Simatovic, nicknamed Frenki, if I remember well. And then after that, it was Milorad Lukovic, known as Legija.

Q. And he and his unit first sprung into being or came into being in 1996 and not a day before; is that right? ¹¹⁹⁰⁸

A. No. Franko Simatovic, Frenki, did not begin to exist in 1996. He existed prior to that. And to the best of my knowledge, he was even a volunteer in Srpska Krajina. But I can't say for sure where, because I never saw him. I never met him until he came to the prison here.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... question and we'll go back to it and I'll rephrase it. Did the formal unit, headed by Simatovic, exist only in 1996 or did it exist before 1996?

A. That unit existed only as of 1996 onwards. The people who joined it in 1996 were mostly war veterans who had fought previously. Some of them were with Captain Dragan. Others were Arkan's Tigers. Quite possibly there were some volunteers from the Serbian Radical Party, although no name comes to mind just now. And there were some other people too who made a name for themselves in the war. And the object was to select the best fighters, to the best of my knowledge.

Q. Please don't fall into the trap of giving the answer you think is wanted of you. Just think about this: Given your positions, your role with your own party and your relationship with this accused and so on, is there any possibility that you could have been kept in the dark, kept ignorant, of the existence of a special unit under Simatovic between 1991 and 1996?

A. First of all, nobody had the duty of informing me, because I wasn't a man in authority. I was an opposition politician. Secondly, I make a clear distinction between the Red Berets, formed in 1996, and various other units who were known popularly by that name which had existed earlier. From the very beginning, Captain Dragan ¹¹⁹⁰⁹ wore a red beret and that's what his men were referred to as. And I even clashed with him and attacked them publicly because of certain things. And you'll be able to find that in some of my books.

Q. I'll try to give you an opportunity to consider it really calmly and take moments for reflection if you need to. I'll ask you the question again. Is there any possibility that you could have been kept in the dark, kept ignorant, of the existence of a special unit under Simatovic that existed between 1991 and 1996?

A. First of all -- well, I'm very calm, so what you're saying is no good to you at all. Nobody had the duty of informing me about anything. That's the first point. Especially not giving me information of that nature. To the best of my knowledge, Franko Simatovic, Frenki, was a volunteer in Krajina, and to the best of my knowledge, he was the commander of some unit over there. However, I never met him until he came here to the prison. I knew about him, I had heard of him, and very often I attacked him, as far as I remember.

JUDGE BONOMY: I have just one question about volunteers. Did the Socialist Party of Serbia have a structure for providing volunteers for the JNA?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] To my knowledge, no, never. To the best of my knowledge, the Socialist Party of Serbia never dealt in providing and assembling volunteers.

JUDGE BONOMY: So this was a feature of parties which had more nationalist tendencies?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Not only that. Nationalist and ¹¹⁹¹⁰ oppositional as well. But they could have been parties of a mass character. The Socialist Party of Serbia, however, in my opinion, was a party of a bureaucratic nature. You see, it included the white collar workers of the state, the authorities. It had sort of inherited power, a party which had inherited power from the League of Communists of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Alliance, when it was disbanded, to become the party of Serbia. Then the same cadres which were already in the state structures, mostly, I say, continued working within the Socialist Party. So it wasn't a party in the sense of being a spontaneous, mass party, such as the opposition parties.

JUDGE BONOMY: Would it be wrong of me to think it strange that a political party should be charged with or take on board the duty of organising volunteers for the army, the army of the federal republic?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's not strange if you bear the situation in mind, the situation that the state was in at the time. The situation was highly confusing, chaotic, and the response to mobilisation in Serbia was pretty low, the mobilisation as pursued by the JNA, for ideological reasons. And we, in some way, tried to break up the ideological taboos that prevailed.

JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

MR. NICE:

Q. You see, going back to the Red Berets, you actually know the Red Berets as a unit under Simatovic existed from 1991, don't you?

A. To the best of my knowledge, Franko Simatovic was a volunteer over there for a time, and he was linked to that training centre of Captain ^{11911 BLANK PAGE 11912} Dragan's in Golubic. And the people who had passed through that training centre had on their heads red berets, and for that reason they were called that way. There were even some cases when, from time to time, our volunteers were sent there too.

Q. And do you know, from what you told us yourself in evidence in chief, that to create something like a paramilitary organisation in 1991, disturbing the proper holders of power and the proper what's called monopoly of violence, police and the army, disturbing that monopoly, is something that was never proper for this accused to do. You know that, don't you?

A. Yes.

Q. And it is essential for the Defence of this accused to try and establish that no such unit was formed in 1991, because there would be no excuse for it, and that is why I'm going to suggest to you you're being entirely dishonest with the Court when you say you didn't know it existed.

A. I state that it is you who are completely dishonest, Mr. Nice, and I also claim --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Do not persist in that kind of answer. It is perfectly proper for Mr. Nice to put to you that you are dishonest. It is not, on the other hand, proper for you to suggest that Mr. Nice is dishonest. He's putting his case to you, and you must appreciate the difference. On the basis of the instructions that he has and on the basis of the evidence in the trial, he's putting to you that your answer is dishonest. So answer that without suggesting that Mr. Nice is dishonest.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In response to every abuse by ¹¹⁹¹³ Mr. Nice, I will respond in like kind.

JUDGE ROBINSON: If you do that, if you do not answer the question that is properly put to you, we will move to the next question, and it will be for the Chamber to draw whatever inference is appropriate in the circumstances.

JUDGE BONOMY: I don't know if it will help or not, Mr. Seselj, to make this comment, but I'll make it anyway in the hope that it does. One crucial difference between a politician and a lawyer who presents a case in court is that politicians express personal opinions, and lawyers presenting cases in court don't. They make propositions based on evidence and argument -- as a foundation for argument that will arise later. And if there is a foundation somewhere in the evidence in this case which has gone on, as you know, since February 2002, for the proposition that the lawyer makes, then he's entitled to do it. If you were to respond like any other responsible witness, you would respect that, just as you would expect us to respect the way in which politicians undertake their exchanges.

So I hope you will be able to answer the questions which are put perfectly properly in a constructive manner. Because only then will you be assisting the Court.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, rephrase the question. And if we do not get an answer to it, then we'll move on. And as I said, it will be for the Chamber to draw whatever inference is appropriate in the circumstances.

MR. NICE: I'm grateful. ¹¹⁹¹⁴

JUDGE ROBINSON: The issue has been explained time and again to this witness.

MR. NICE:

Q. My question to you is this: It is essential for the Defence of this accused to try and establish that no such unit, that's the Red Berets under Simatovic, was formed in 1991. It's essential to do that, because as you've conceded, there could be no excuse for creating such a unit. And that is the foundation for my suggestion to you that you're being entirely dishonest with this Court when you assert that you didn't know it existed.

A. Mr. Nice, you are a completely dishonourable man, perfidious, and a liar.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Move on to the next question.

MR. NICE: I have to make the point that it's still obvious from the beginning that the witness would attempt to deflect attention by personalising issues. He will carry on doing it as long as he thinks it's in his interest, I suppose. Can I have a look --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute.

[Trial Chamber confers]

MR. NICE: For the interpreters, I'm going to run through four video clips; 25B, C, D, and E. In each case, they come from the interview with this witness prepared for The Death of Yugoslavia film. In each case I think they are re-translations. But, Your Honours, we know the difficulties we've encountered, difficulties the interpreters have understandably encountered. Can I propose this as a solution: That we ¹¹⁹¹⁵ listen to the tape with the new translation in our hands, and if the interpreters are not able, as I suspect will be the case, to interpret as they're going along, if they can draw to our attention any errors that they perceive in the translation, and then I can ask questions of the witness.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

MR. NICE: So if we could distribute the first one, which comes from this interview. As there's no text on the actual monitor, or there's no text on the video film, someone, I think, should read -- if one of the interpreters would read the translation that has been distributed. And if they're not able to correct it as it's going along, if we could ask them if there are corrections at the end. I'll try that as a method, with the Court's leave.

Ms. Dicklich suggests - and this may be a very useful proposal - that if I pause after a couple of sentences, or pause the tape and check for corrections at that stage, that would be better. I see nods from the booth. So if Ms. Dicklich could play this, please. It's in Sanction.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters note that they cannot hear the soundtrack.

MR. NICE: The soundtrack, at the moment is the question from --

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] In 1990 we were not acquiring weapons, we were only enlisting volunteers, and occasionally, when necessary, from time to time, we would send them to the front, but those ¹¹⁹¹⁶ were all very small groups. In 1991, we began organising volunteers on a larger scale and sending them to already established front lines, particularly to eastern Slavonia - here in the east of the Republic of Serb Krajina. Our volunteers..."

MR. NICE:

Q. Having paused at that sentence, I don't know if I can check whether there's any correction to the transcript so far.

THE INTERPRETER: As far as the interpreters could hear - it is very fast - it was all right.

MR. NICE: Press on.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] Our volunteers distinguished themselves especially at the battle in Borovo Selo, which took place on May 2nd, 1991, when they defeated the stronger Croatian forces - Croatian police and para-police forces. We were getting..."

MR. NICE: Again, that sentence, any corrections?

THE INTERPRETER: As far as we could hear, it was all right.

MR. NICE: Okay. Press on.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] We were getting weapons from Milosevic's police, from the then -- first from the then Foreign -- Minister of Internal Affairs Radmilo Bogdanovic, and then when he was replaced, from his successor. We were getting old weapons from the warehouse of the Territorial Defence. There were old American Thompson guns, which had been withdrawn from use long time ago. Then there were ¹¹⁹¹⁷ old M-48 guns, the so-called Tandzare.

MR. NICE: That passage?

THE INTERPRETER: As far as we could hear, it was all right.

MR. NICE: And the last passage, please.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] Therefore, it was pretty much everything that was obsolete, what the army had stopped using a long time ago, what was kept somewhere in the warehouses of the Territorial Defence. They felt sorry to destroy it all, so they just gave them to us. But it was with those weapons that we beat the modernly equipped Croats."

MR. NICE:

Q. Mr. Seselj, in the course of that answer to Laura Silber on The Death of Yugoslavia tape, you said that you were getting weapons from Milosevic's police, from the then Minister of Internal Affairs, Radmilo Bogdanovic, and then from his successor. True or false?

A. This entire interview, which lasted about one hour, is one I published in one of my books. And you could have found that too. So I'm not challenging the fact that I gave this interview, however, for reasons of political propaganda, I threw Mr. Milosevic and Radmilo Bogdanovic into the entire story, wanting to annoy them and to cause on their part an improper political reaction.

Q. Mr. Seselj, I'm going to make this proposition once, although it is going to apply to the remaining passages we're going to look at. This account that you're giving of lying to Laura Silber on these particular topics that you mentioned in your evidence in chief is something you and ¹¹⁹¹⁸ the accused know you have to say to get round the revelations that come from these tapes, and you're lying to the Court in saying that you said these things about Milosevic and Bogdanovic for the reasons you've just given, in 1995. Do you understand me? This is all part of an intent to mislead this Court when you say you were lying to Laura Silber.

A. First of all, there is nothing that I have to wiggle my way out of here. I'm proud of the volunteers in Borovo Selo, the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party, and to the end of my life, I will remain proud of that.

Secondly, the weapons were found in the village when the volunteers arrived. As I was engaged in a propaganda war against Mr. Milosevic, every time I spoke in public I tried to draw him into something that he would find most uncomfortable. Also, the regime was fighting a propaganda war against me in a similar way.

Q. I'm giving you opportunity to deal with these things in detail.

JUDGE BONOMY: Can I ask: In what way would that make Mr. Milosevic feel uncomfortable?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Because at that time Mr. Milosevic had very good relations with the Western powers. He accepted Western peace initiatives, purportedly peace initiatives, and also there was the Vance-Owen Plan and all the way up to the beginning of 1998, that was the period of time just before the Dayton agreement. When was this TV show actually -- or rather, when was this interview made? Mr. Nice can help out with that. I think it was on the eve of the Dayton agreement. So why was I saying all of this? In order to harm Mr. Milosevic politically. ¹¹⁹¹⁹

MR. NICE:

Q. In March 1995.

JUDGE ROBINSON: This is an example, then, of bombast?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes. In March 1995, I had just got out of prison, that Mr. Milosevic's authorities had put me into. I left on the 30th of January, or rather, the 29th of January was when I was released. I was released from prison with a couple of thousand people. I passed by the seat of the Presidency of Serbia, where Mr. Milosevic was sitting, and I made a speech. And I attacked him with the worst possible vocabulary, whatever crossed my mind. Whatever my imagination gave me, I said against Mr. Milosevic in those days. And I was always mindful of using whatever might harm him the most politically, in view of his political positions. If you look at my speeches from that period, from 1995, you will find a great many of this kind.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Seselj, bear in mind that the reference here is to events in 1991. Now, a lot happened in Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. How could this account, which would show to the Serbian people Mr. Milosevic assisting in a successful campaign in 1991, how could that be seen to be to your political advantage and to his political disadvantage in 1995?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's very logical: I am giving an interview to a BBC journalist. Her bosses sent her to Serbia to collect material for the TV programme of theirs that had God knows how many installments. I am repeating something that the Western media and the anti-Serb media at home were saying in the propaganda campaign in 1991, ¹¹⁹²⁰ 1992, and 1993. In mid-1993, they stopped their propaganda campaign. Then I highlighted all these arguments that had already been presented. Everything that I said in 1995 against Mr. Milosevic is what you can find in the Western media and the anti-Serb media in Serbia over the previous years. They stopped that, but I kept grinding --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Lower the volume and reduce the speed.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In that same year, 1995, I went to prison again. Sometime around the 2nd of June, I was arrested in Gnjilane and sent to prison with my associates for about two months. Mr. Milosevic's government sent me to prison and I made speeches that had to be the most uncomfortable for Mr. Milosevic.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, you see, maybe you can't help me, but you didn't answer the question at all just now. Because I was anxious to know how this would embarrass Mr. Milosevic in 1995, not to hear another account from you of your great success and your great ventures in trying to embarrass him, but how would these events of 1991 being recounted in 1995 cause difficulty for him in his dealings with the West, or even with the people of Serbia? It seems to me it would do nothing but bolster his position.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. This story could not reinforce his position in any way. This story actually disturbed the political atmosphere in Serbia. In that year, Mr. Milosevic's party was appearing with the thesis that peace had no alternative, and they were clamoring about that. Whereas we, the Serb Radicals, felt existentially hurt by the acceptance of the Vance-Owen Plan and also the relationship between the ¹¹⁹²¹ authorities in Serbia and the authorities in Republika Srpska. There was this blockade of Republika Srpska. When I had a big rally in Loznica, when we organised a march at the Drina River, we practically used force to cross the Drina River. So the atmosphere was a very heated one. Everything I think that might be useful, I resorted to at that moment. Now, where is the problem here? Mr. Nice is just looking at very short excerpts from the campaign that we were waging then. If you would look at the entirety of all my speeches from that period of time that Mr. Nice does have, then you could have an overall picture of that campaign. If you just single out two or three sentences, that's what you see. I attacked Mr. Bogdanovic as one of the members of the leadership of the Socialist Party, bearing in mind the assumption that he took part in the taking away of our seats in parliament.

In 1993, I accused him of being one of the participants of the putsch against Karadzic in Banja Luka.

JUDGE BONOMY: You're moving away from the subject again. Just one other matter in relation to this contribution to the programme, or to the film: The impression one gets from this is that the volunteers were a group themselves. "Our volunteers proved themselves especially in the battle... when they defeated the stronger Croatian forces." And then at the foot: "But it was with those weapons that we beat the modernly equipped Croats."

Now, would it be wrong to form the impression from that that this conflict occurred between forces of Serbia who were more or less exclusively your volunteers? ¹¹⁹²²

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Absolutely wrong, Mr. Bonomy. The volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were within the Territorial Defence of Borovo Selo under the command of Vukasin Soskocanin, and it was when he asked for them that I sent my volunteers. I'm sure that the OTP has my speech from the rally in Borovo Selo in April, when I promised that we would send volunteers at the invitation of Vukasin Soskocanin. When I say "we," I identify myself with all Serb war efforts in this war, regardless of whether it's the JNA, the army of the Serb Krajina, the Army of Republika Srpska.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, let me see whether I understand the explanation that you're giving. By saying "We were getting weapons from Milosevic's police," you were reinforcing a view that the West had of Mr. Milosevic as a person who was promoting conflict with Croatia. You were thereby reinforcing an unfavourable impression that they had of Mr. Milosevic; is that what you're saying?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. I kept renewing that at the time when the West lost that impression and when they started calling Mr. Milosevic the main factor of peace in the Balkans, I actually brought up again what the West had been saying about him two years prior to that. I am taking over the arsenal in the belief that Mr. Milosevic changed his policy, and I attack him with the same arsenal that the West had attacked him with before.

I'll give you another example, to make things clearer. In 1995, we, the Serb Radicals, were categorically against the Dayton accords. In Studio B and some of the other media in Serbia, we made propaganda ¹¹⁹²³ speeches, we organised TV programmes, et cetera. Warren Christopher came, the US Secretary of State. He came to Belgrade. Mr. Milosevic complained to him about the campaign that the Serb Radical Party was waging against the Dayton agreement, through Studio B, which was considered a pro-Western TV station. Mr. Milosevic never confirmed this to me, but then, as I found out then from some other sources, Mr. Christopher said to him: "Why are you tolerating that?" After that, Nebojsa Covic, one of the key persons from the socialist regime, now an opposition person, or rather, now a member of the new regime, Nebojsa Covic annulled the privatisation of Studio B and put in an administration to be in charge of Studio B so that the Serb Radicals would totally be sealed off from the media. Why am I explaining this at such great length? It is necessary to have the historical context in mind. Everything that the regime was saying against me at the time and everything that they were accusing me of. Just as you had the opportunity of seeing today: When Mr. Nice says that I am a liar, I say that he's a liar. When one of Mr. Milosevic's top people says something like that about me, I am trying to think of the most painful thing I can think of to retaliate with.

MR. NICE:

Q. Three questions, I think, before we move from this passage, and I'd like you to deal with them, if you wouldn't mind, with yes or no answers, because I think they're all susceptible to yes or no answers. Your observations here about Milosevic's police and Bogdanovic are both untrue; is that correct?

A. Yes. Yes. What I said in this TV programme is incorrect, and it ^{11924 BLANK PAGE 11925} was within my propaganda war against Mr. Milosevic. I am not going to give you yes or no answers simply to any one of your questions, because that's impossible.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, in the circumstances, I think the witness is entitled to add an explanation. What's the next question?

MR. NICE: If Your Honour pleases.

Q. The next question is a very simple one, Mr. Seselj: And it was your intention at the time to say something that was untrue; yes?

A. Yes, within the propaganda efforts of the Serb Radical Party against the authorities of Mr. Milosevic and him personally. This is the mildest kind of thing I said then. There are things that are far more vigorous than that.

Q. It was a lie.

A. No, Mr. Nice. If you were an educated person, then you would have read Hannah Arendt's book, Truth and Lies in Politics. Oh, fine. So that's the best thing to do, to turn off the witness's microphone because you don't like the answer.

JUDGE BONOMY: Bear in mind, Mr. Seselj, that this was being -- you knew this was an interview for broadcast. So when I'm sitting in front of my television, watching it, then this information, to me, coming to me, would be a lie. You might see it as propaganda within Serbia, but to someone outside of Serbia, watching television, it would be a lie.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. But you who are sitting and watching television in Great Britain are used to that type of lying through your own media, because they keep lying all the time. Especially ¹¹⁹²⁶ as far as the Serbs are concerned, you are snowed under with that kind of lying.

JUDGE BONOMY: I, speaking for myself, find that not an appropriate way to expand upon an answer. I agree that there are certain occasions when a yes or a no may not give a complete answer, but that is an example of gratuitous abuse that you had absolutely no need to give.

MR. NICE:

Q. Mr. Seselj, yesterday - you may not remember this - but I invited your explanation of your dishonest answers in the period after 1993, and you then restricted your -- you explained that you wanted to say things that weren't true about the accused Milosevic. It's now clear that you also, on your account, wanted to say things that were untrue about Bogdanovic. Who else did you want to say untrue things about in the period leading up to the giving of this interview? Who else did you wish to misrepresent? Milosevic, Bogdanovic. Who else?

A. Everybody from the then regime. Sometimes I would make combinations between truthful facts and fabricated facts. Sometimes the combination was more convincing, sometimes less. But for the most part, everybody realised that I was saying that for the sake of attacking as effectively as possible, not because these were realistic facts. In the case of all -- or most of my attacks against Mr. Milosevic, the majority of Serbia was laughing. I got the aura of a brave man, a courageous man, and that contributed to the popularity of my party. Wow, he dared to say this, he dared to say that, he dared insult him.

Q. The book in which you tell us this interview is reprinted, the ¹¹⁹²⁷ title of that book so that we could locate it from the number of volumes you say you've provided us? What's the title of the book in which this interview is reprinted?

A. You got that in one of my 80 books. I cannot remember the exact title now. But these are the books that are collections of my interviews from roughly 1995. It's not hard for you to find that. I published them in their entirety. It's about one hour's worth.

Q. If we're able to find this book, are we going to find in it an account by you that the interview was intentionally dishonest, in part, or not?

A. No.

Q. Why not?

A. Because that book came out at the same time. And while I was in prison - I was in prison for four months under Mr. Milosevic's government - I published a book of such interviews entitled The Red Tyrant from Dedinje, The Dizdar from Dedinje, Are We in Danger of a Slobotomy? Four books altogether. Those books I published while I was in prison, and you've got all four of those books. I handed them in. So even in prison, I tried to attack him, I tried to insult him, I tried to score political points against him. So this is no exception. All my books that contain interviews from that time are similar or identical. Now, why did I publish this? I published it at the time to cause that particular effect. But later, when I published my collective works -- oh, you don't like the answer.

Q. Before we move to the next clip, just then this: Is it right, as ¹¹⁹²⁸ I think you confirmed yesterday, that --

JUDGE BONOMY: I can't let a comment like that go, you see, I'm afraid. You're not being cut off from answering. You're being cut off because you're not answering. You have to answer that.

MR. NICE: I'm grateful to Your Honour.

Q. Can you confirm, as I think you --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Should I continue answering now?

JUDGE ROBINSON: No, just answer the question which is being asked of you.

MR. NICE:

Q. Is it right, as you I think confirmed yesterday, that until the moment that you started to give evidence on behalf of this accused, you had never publicly sought to correct the record you left behind in The Death of Yugoslavia interview?

A. That's not correct. I explained that in several interviews that I gave in 1998, 1999, and in the years after that. Last night I told my legal advisors to prepare by Monday all the relevant information for me, and I hope that on Tuesday I will be able to provide you with accurate information as to when I explained all of that. Because I do not have the time to go through all this voluminous material now. But several times I explained all of that in public.

JUDGE ROBINSON: You explained, as you said, in 1998 and 1999 that much of what you said earlier was just bombast, was propaganda.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, then it's in the interest of the accused to ¹¹⁹²⁹ have that material to put to you in re-examination.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, as a matter of technicality, not for an observation by the witness at the moment, but for a witness to be discussing his evidence in the course of the evidence, even with his own legal advisors, is matters upon which the Court might want to consider the terms of his doing so, because of the usual injunction. May the last document be produced and given an exhibit number.

THE REGISTRAR: The transcript will be 884.

MR. NICE: May we now please distribute what is 25C, for the booths.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, may I say something now? It's very important.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] With no one do I discuss the content of my testimony. What I needed here was technical assistance. Every Tuesday I have conversations with the members of my expert team assisting my Defence, and I instructed them to do a technical job for me. As to what I discuss with them, it might refer to what the media are reporting, and so on and so forth. I never discuss the content of my testimony with anyone, although you never told me I shouldn't do that. However, I have heard that that's the practice and that it mustn't be done.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I hear the explanation.

MR. NICE: May we now, then, play this part of the same recording. It's very short, and if we can deal with it on the same basis and we'll play the whole excerpt, somebody reading it in the transcript available, ¹¹⁹³⁰ and seeking indications of corrections at the end. There's one particular word that the Chamber will want to possibly just be sure about in the antepenultimate line, the colour that's referred to there. We'll see what comes out of the interpreters.

Again, I think the question will not be audible, but the question that can be discerned is, "When you received the weapons, was that with Milosevic's knowledge or via the police?"

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] That was 'all with Milosevic's knowledge.' There's no doubt of it. And as for the request, Milosevic should ask Radmilo Bogdanovic, Mihalj Kertes, General Domazetovic, for example, or somebody else, they would say --"

The interpreters cannot find the reference.

MR. NICE: I think that will have to be started again and played again. And provisionally, I'm told that the colour referred to in the antepenultimate line is incorrect, but we'll have to listen to it again, if we can.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters have found the reference now. "[Voiceover] That was 'all with Milosevic's knowledge.' There is no doubt. And key people from the police, with whom we had established cooperation at the time, were Radmilo Bogdanovic, Mihalj Kertes, and others. Franko Simatovic, also known as Frenki, who commanded... Therefore, from the General Staff, we mostly cooperated with General Domazetovic, who was the deputy chief of General Staff at the time, if I'm ¹¹⁹³¹ not mistaken."

MR. NICE: There was a gap in the antepenultimate line. We'll come to that in a second. If, through the Chamber, I can seek the assistance of the interpreters as to whether, so far as they could discern, there were any other errors in the translation.

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters were unable to hear the colour. But apparently we believe there are no other errors -- no errors, as far as we can tell.

JUDGE KWON: So it is that the interpreters just read these transcripts prepared by the OTP.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, what's been happening is one person has been reading it, because, of course, there's no script on the monitor, the others, I think, have been listening to it and have been asked to say whether there was any error.

JUDGE KWON: I see the nodding.

MR. NICE: Yes. They've been able to discern at the speed at which they're having to work, no errors. We have yet to deal with the question of the colour on the antepenultimate line. What we've been able to hear on this bench is not authority, and it may be that the interpreters will want to listen to it once more just to deal with the colour that's referred to. And if we could do that, I'd be grateful. We don't need, at this stage, to have it read over in English again and the interpreters can concentrate on what they hear.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters heard "red berets." ¹¹⁹³²

MR. NICE: Thank you.

Q. Mr. Seselj, on this part of the interview, you said that receiving the weapons was all with Milosevic's knowledge, there's no doubt, and that people with whom cooperation was established included Radmilo Bogdanovic, Mihalj Kertes, and others. Was that true or was that untrue?

A. That was untrue, with a clear political intention. The truthful part is the part that says that we cooperated with General Domazetovic, from the General Staff of the JNA. As for Borovo Selo, that weapons were found in the Territorial Defence of Borovo Selo, I was trying to accuse Radmilo Bogdanovic and Mihalj Kertes. And I insist that never in my life have I ever met Franko Simatovic. If you find a single piece of information showing that I met Franko Simatovic anywhere, then I will concede everything that you have said against my testimony. I don't even know what the man looks like in real life.

Q. Help us, please, then, with why you named Franko Simatovic, also known as Frenki, who commanded the Red Berets later, why did you name a man you had never met?

A. Because the unit that was formed in Golubic was called by that name. That was one unit. There was another unit formed in Serbia in 1996, and Franko Simatovic became its commander because he had a lot of war experience.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... unit formed in Golubic? When was it formed in Golubic?

A. I don't know when it was formed, but it existed there in 1991. It was already there. And it existed after Captain Dragan was driven out of ¹¹⁹³³ the Serbian Krajina.

Q. Forgive my difficulty, but you said in your last answer but one: "The unit that was formed in Golubic was called by that name, the name of the Red Berets." Do you remember I asked you not so very long ago to define the Red Berets for us and you excluded anything except the 1996 version. So what has this got to do with it? What's the Golubic Red Berets got to do with all this?

A. You are misinterpreting what I said. What you're saying is simply not true. More than once I've told you that there were various units popularly referred to as the Red Berets. Not a single one was officially called the Red Berets, not a single one, neither the one formed in Serbia in 1996 or the one formed in Serbian Krajina or the ones that existed in Republika Srpska. I insist that none of these units bore officially the name Red Berets. It was the people who called them the Red Berets because they wore red berets on their heads. However, none of them had that as an official name. Captain Dragan paraded around all the time with a red beret on his head.

JUDGE BONOMY: The answer you actually gave at the time was, "I make a clear distinction between the Red Berets formed in 1996 and various other units who were known popularly by that name." Now, do you want to change that answer?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. Everything I've said now agrees with that, Mr. Bonomy. But the ones established in 1996 were not officially called the Red Berets either. The people referred to them as the Red Berets. Their official name was the Special Operations Unit. So ¹¹⁹³⁴ there is no discrepancy between what I said previously and what I'm saying now. It's all -- it all matches.

MR. NICE:

Q. And what was the first, if any, Red Beret unit that was a part of the state security, a special unit of the State Security Service? Which was the first one that was so formed?

A. It's hard to answer this question. I don't know for certain which was the first. One of the first was certainly Captain Dragan's unit. But whether it was the first or not, I couldn't swear to that. It might have been the first unit to be popularly called by that name among the people. But it was part of the Serbian army of the Krajina.

Q. But let's go back to this passage --

JUDGE KWON: I'm sorry. I'm not sure whether the witness understood the question. The question was as to the first Red Beret unit that was part of the state security. So your answer was that Captain Dragan's unit was the first unit which is a part of the state security. Are you saying so?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's not how I heard the question. I think the question was which unit apart from the one in the State Security Service was the first to bear that name. Did I understand the question correctly?

MR. NICE: I think, Your Honour Judge Kwon has identified what the witness is saying as a misunderstanding, and I'm grateful. I'm happy for the Court to conclude this line of questioning, or I'll take it over, whichever the Court prefers. ¹¹⁹³⁵

Q. His Honour's query is indeed a pertinent one, Mr. Seselj, and one I was trying to deal with and no doubt my shortcoming in the questioning. When, on your evidence, was the first occasion when any Red Beret unit could have come into existence as a special unit of the State Security Service? 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996? When?

A. According to what I know, it was in 1996. That's when the JSO was established. Before 1996, there was no unit called the JSO, the Special Operations Unit. I'm certain of that. But within that unit, there were many who had previously fought in the war in various other units, including those referred to as the Red Berets.

JUDGE BONOMY: So when you talked about the Red Berets, what did you have in mind?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] While I was in conflict with those Red Berets in the Srpska Krajina, I was in conflict with Captain Dragan.

JUDGE BONOMY: But when you talked about Red Berets commanded by Simatovic, who did you have in mind?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, you see, one should distinguish Simatovic's role in the war in the Krajina, where he turned up as a volunteer, from the role he had in 1996 onwards.

JUDGE BONOMY: But when you were talking about the Red Berets in the interview, who did you have in mind?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, him. You see, as far as I know --

JUDGE BONOMY: What do you mean by "him"?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Franko Simatovic, also known as ¹¹⁹³⁶ Frenki.

JUDGE BONOMY: But who are these Red Berets that you were talking about him commanding in the interview?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Those were the Red Berets fighting in the Krajina.

Let me tell you something else: As far as I know, even volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were occasionally sent by plane to Udbina, to the Krajina, and some of them were then directed to report to the centre in Golubic. Captain Dragan publicly boasted that he had sent some of them back because they had not had a haircut, they hadn't shaved, and so on. Those are the facts. But if you want to construct something else out of those facts, that's a different matter.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, plainly they're not facts, because you say this is inaccurate information. I mean, if they're facts, then I'm trying to be clear about them. And if, as a matter of fact, when you gave this interview, you were referring to a group known as the Red Berets, commanded by Simatovic, I would like you to tell me who that group was.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm telling you: Those were the Red Berets, active as part of the army of the Republika Srpska Krajina.

JUDGE BONOMY: And Simatovic had a role in commanding them?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. For a time, he was there as a volunteer. I cannot clearly define the time, but according to what I know, he was there as a volunteer and participated in the fighting. And the experience he gained in the war there helped him get the position of commander of the JSO in 1996. ^{11937 BLANK PAGE 11938}

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice.

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Nice, if you could remind me of the date when this interview had taken place.

MR. NICE: Yes. It's March of 1995, as we are advised by the transcript provided by the television programme.

JUDGE BONOMY: The witness confirmed that.

JUDGE KWON: It was before the JSO was created?

MR. NICE: Mm-hmm.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

MR. NICE: On our evidence, that is, Your Honour; evidence that the witness challenges, of course. Sorry, 1995, before it was established on his evidence. Your Honour is quite right.

Q. And indeed you might like to answer His Honour's question, you see, Mr. Seselj.

A. What question?

Q. You're an educated man. You heard what he said. You understand your difficulties, don't you? If something is brought into existence in 1996, omniscient though you may or may not be, you can't know what's coming in the future. So could you explain, please, to the Court how you were able to say Frenki Simatovic, who commanded the Red Berets later on? Did you have the power of foresight?

A. First of all, I have never seen such insolence in my whole life. It says here who commanded with the Green Berets later. Who commanded the Red Berets later. I'm not saying he will do that in the future. I didn't say who will command. And in your translation here, I don't say he will ¹¹⁹³⁹ command the Red Berets. Later on, he did command the Red Berets. There was no such unit at the beginning of the war.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... your volume, please. Will you now go back to the question, and we'll break it down into simple stages so that you can follow. You've given clear evidence that Simatovic controlled a unit that came into existence in 1996. The Prosecution's case, as you know, is that, on the contrary, Red Berets came into existence as a unit in 1991. Here you are speaking back to the period early 1991, and you use the phrase, "Frenki, who commanded the Red Berets -" there's a correction to the transcript - "later on." On your case, on your evidence, "later on" could only be in 1996, and you couldn't be giving this answer in 1995. Your answer does fit with the Prosecution evidence that in 1990 or the very beginning of 1991, Frenki would be somebody who would be later on commanding the Red Berets. What we want to know is: How come you were able to say something that fits with the Prosecution case?

A. First of all, Mr. Nice, you have not caught me out in anything. I have caught you out. I raised my volume for a rhetorical effect, to be more impressive.

Secondly, at the very beginning of the conflict, the unit popularly referred to as the Red Berets did not exist. It was formed during the conflict, when the Golubic centre for training was formed under the command of Captain Dragan. When I say "who later commanded the Red Berets," I'm not saying he's going to command from 1996 and I am predicting it. It was then that he turned up there as a volunteer and was ¹¹⁹⁴⁰ a commander there. The fact that Frenki was in Serbian Krajina is no secret to the local people there, nor does he deny it, as far as I know. There's another problem here. You are trying to prove that this unit which Frenki commanded in the Krajina was, in establishment terms, part of the State Security Service of Serbia, and that is not true. That is not true.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, we're going to take a break now.

MR. NICE: I've finished with this. Can we produce it, with the transcript -- and you've got a revised version.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Revised transcript.

MR. NICE: With the word "red" in already.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be 885.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. We'll adjourn for 20 minutes.

--- Recess taken at 12.18 p.m.

--- On resuming at 12.41 p.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: May we turn to the next passage from the same interview, please, which for the interpreters' assistance, although they may be getting another translation - I'm not sure - is 25D. And, Your Honours, with your leave, I'll deal with one question and answer at a time, asking the booth to read the translation that's been provided and then checking after each answer whether it is accurate. And having gone through the whole of the transcript, if again this is acceptable, I'll ask my questions of the witness. If Ms. Dicklich would play the tape, please, the first question ¹¹⁹⁴¹ and answer.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I haven't received the transcript in the Serbian language.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] Yes, our volunteers were in Zvornik. Arkan's volunteers participated, too, as did another formation of a certain Zuca who was under the command of the police and who is now being tried for war crimes by the Tribunal."

MR. NICE: Can the interpreters confirm or not whether the translation appears to be accurate?

THE INTERPRETER: We would have to hear the soundtrack again. Sorry.

MR. NICE: Play it again, please.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: Yes.

MR. NICE: Thank you. Next question and answer, a little longer.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] And how did all this come about? "Yes. We never received any orders. These were always 'requests.' Milosevic would ask us, Radmilo Bogdanovic would ask us, some general would ask us, Domazetovic for example, or somebody else. They would say: 'We need so and so many volunteers for this and that location,' and we would gather that many volunteers. When they say they need the most experienced ones, we send the most experienced ones. When they say they could also use those with not too much experience because ¹¹⁹⁴² it's nothing dangerous, then we send such people. It was always like that."

That's all right.

MR. NICE: I see nodding from the booth. And then the next question and answer.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] In May 1992, I began having intensive meetings with Milosevic on a more regular basis, and back then, it was always Milosevic himself who asked for volunteers to be sent out. I mean, one did not have to convince us very much. We took this as our duty, our responsibility... except when it came to the deployment, where they were most needed... because they were known as the bravest, the most capable, and the most disciplined men."

That passage is all right.

MR. NICE: And then the last very long answer to the last question, please.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] There were always quick agreements. For example, when Tudjman attacked Pocitelj, Divoselo and Citluk in 1993. Milosevic had some sort of agreement with him about that, but it seems Tudjman did not keep his end of the deal. They had some underhand dealings there. Milosevic was disappointed by Tudjman's actions, and therefore decided at last minute to send volunteers there. He called me and I went to him right away. He said: 'Three or four thousand volunteers need to be sent to Divoselo, Citluk and Pocitelj.' We had ¹¹⁹⁴³ around 3.000 - 3.500 volunteers within two days, and Arkan brought along with him around 300 more. They were sent out from Belgrade in literally two days. There were never any problems with that. We would agree on this very quickly. This was always agreed upon in a few words. We need to go? Let's go."

That seems to be all right.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, in relation to the last answer, for the purposes of the transcript, the interpreters didn't read any part of the questioning. It may be that it was inaudible at the time and I don't know if they were able to check it.

THE INTERPRETER: We could not hear the beginning very well, and perhaps the year was not right.

MR. NICE: The question that preceded the answer that I was concerned about, Your Honours, I'll just read out what's on the printed transcript and then it can always be challenged or queried. The printed transcript of the question that led to the last answer is to the following effect. Laura Silber says: "Could you tell us about one such conversation, regarding any places where you went, or where you sent your units. How would the conversation with President Milosevic go regarding that?" And then the answer was as read out: "Those were always quick agreements..." and so on.

Q. Mr. Seselj, dealing with the four answers that are contained on this part of the transcript, asked if you or your units were in Zvornik in 1992, you answered: "Yes... Arkan's volunteers participated, too, as did a formation of Zuca who was under the command of the police and who is now ¹¹⁹⁴⁴ being tried for war crimes."

Was that answer correct and accurate?

A. No. The accurate part is only the first part of the answer, that our volunteers were in Zvornik and that Arkan's volunteers were in Zvornik. It is also correct that Zuca was there. The trial of Zuca had already started, and of his brother too, and I'm trying to link him up with the police and attack the regime in a forceful manner. I don't say which police, whether it was the local police or the police from Serbia. All I'm doing is launching an intrigue, a bit of intrigue, with the hope that it will lead to a political reaction and a bit of political chaos.

Q. If he wasn't under the command of the police, under whose command was he?

A. In my opinion, he established a paramilitary formation of a criminal nature. Now, whose command he was under, well, I assume that will come up in the trial that is being waged in Belgrade now. I wasn't there personally for me to be able to see. But what I wanted to do was to launch this intrigue, to go public with this intrigue, and to stir the water up a bit.

JUDGE BONOMY: Where did you understand the programme would be broadcast?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, I thought it would be broadcast right away.

JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry. The question was: Where did you understand the programme would be broadcast?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As it was a BBC series, I thought ¹¹⁹⁴⁵ that it would first be broadcast on the BBC network and then, through its service, be distributed who knows which television station, as was indeed what happened. So I had a very broad public before me, and I used it to target the regime. And I did that by insinuating the kind of things that I thought would be very hurtful to Mr. Milosevic and the other leaders in power.

JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

MR. NICE:

Q. If you wanted to hurt the accused, Milosevic, why didn't you say under the command of Milosevic? Because you dealt with him specifically later on. Why did you specifically put it under the command of the police?

A. Well, because then it wouldn't be convincing. Even if I had concretised the police force, said specifically, it wouldn't be convincing enough. In this way, I just mentioned the police and then you don't know which police it is; this police, that police, this way, that way. So it's easier to digest and serve it out that way. If I said Mr. Milosevic in Zvornik in command of the Serb forces, well, then the journalist would say this man is mad. But since I knew how to present this kind of thing, that's what I did. I wrapped it up. And I had a political goal. I didn't have to pay attention to what Mr. Milosevic and the powers that be at the time would think about that. And I targeted him. As soon as I left prison, at the prison gates, I held similar speeches in January and I used all manner of abuse and abusive language.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... understand the way you present ¹¹⁹⁴⁶ yourself to an audience, in this case, Laura Silber, you're quick enough to be able to think, "I can change the reality just a little bit by this little lie and that will have some subsequent effect on the audience." Is that really the sort of way your mind works?

A. Well, that's how the theory works of special warfare which in the West is systematically being developed and which I systematically learnt and studied from the well-known book by Liddel Hart, for example, The Strategy of Special Action, dating back to the '50s, and to the end of the 1970s, everything about special psychological warfare is something that I read. I have read all the books on that subject.

Q. There are other things that we can see from the video with you there in your grey suit, looking straight into the eyes of the interviewers, that you're able to tell a lie like this without any change in demeanour. You can be quite convincing, can't you, Mr. Seselj, at lies, on your own account.

A. Mr. Nice, I'd like you to be as convincing as that when you're lying, but you're never convincing when you lie.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, I've time and again warned you about that kind of comment.

MR. NICE: I'll move on to the next question, with Your Honour's leave.

Q. Your volunteers were in Zvornik, Arkan's volunteers are there. Under whose instruction would you have said they were there if Laura Silber had pressed you further?

A. What would I have said then? Well, how do I know what I would ¹¹⁹⁴⁷ have said then? Here you can see what I did in fact say. The volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party went there within the composition of the JNA, and I can guarantee that. And you cannot find a single material piece of evidence stating the contrary. They came there in JNA vehicles, JNA uniforms, and they fought there under the command of the JNA.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... at whose instruction were your volunteers sent to Zvornik?

A. What does it mean under whose instructions? We received a request from the General Staff for a certain group of volunteers. We gathered up that group of volunteers, and I suppose General Domazetovic took part in that. How can I remember who it was specifically after such a long time?

Q. We'll go to the next question.

A. I was informed that they needed volunteers, I agreed to rally the volunteers and to send them there.

Q. The next bit, the next answer, was: "We never received orders, requests," and then you list Milosevic, Bogdanovic, and Domazetovic, as examples of those who would say we need so-and-so many volunteers for this and that location. What is this? False, true, completely false, completely true? Tell us.

A. This is once again partially true, not completely true. This is partially true, partially correct, as far as Domazetovic is concerned, and as far as Milosevic and Bogdanovic, I am putting them all there artificially, as a spanner in the works, and then they can be angry at me for having thrown them in there, into that pile, and they're impotent. They can't do anything to react properly because they tried prison and ¹¹⁹⁴⁸ prison didn't help, just like this prison hasn't helped you to restrain me and rein me in, as you say.

Q. I have here part of your answer, which says, "When they said they needed the most experienced ones, we sent the most experienced ones, then they said we could also use those with not much experience, we'd send those people." Is that true? Were the requests different as between the experience required?

A. For the most part, that's how it was, because the most experienced ones were used for the most dangerous combat operations. If they were less experienced, then they might have been somewhere in the rear or some auxiliary troops, and so on. But the most experienced and the bravest went into the most serious operations. And as at the beginning we had already assumed the position that nobody who had not done their military service could go, which means they all had some sort of military training to begin with. And now it was a question of experience, how they were going to be used and deployed for certain actions, combat actions. Because some volunteers went several times, some just went once and then didn't go again. So there was fluctuation in that respect.

Q. It's just the lines or the words "Milosevic and Bogdanovic." That's just the only false bit; everything else is true?

A. Yes. Yes. As I say, I artificially put that in to target those two politically.

Q. The next question and answer: "Who, then, asked you to send your units?" and you said this: "In May 1992, I began having -" I think the word "intensive" was added - "meetings with Milosevic on a more regular ¹¹⁹⁴⁹ basis." Just pausing there. Is that true? It is it true that you began having more intensive meetings with Milosevic in May of 1992?

A. Yes. From May 1992 to September 1993, we had more frequent meetings.

Q. The next half of the same sentence says this: "... and back then, it was always Milosevic himself who asked for volunteers to be sent out."

A. Ah, now, that's part of my intrigue. And Mr. Milosevic couldn't deny it, because there wasn't a third person at the meeting. So I did that very consciously. I launched that piece very consciously. I know that he couldn't deny it and say that he said one thing and I said another.

Q. You're lying, aren't you, Mr. Seselj?

A. So it was to annoy him.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... the realities of what Mr. Milosevic did and you know that you've got to try to get him out of it. Very simple.

A. No, Mr. Nice. You are lying. I did not say the truth in the interview, but here, under the solemn declaration, I am exclusively telling the truth.

Q. Look at the next bit of this answer: "I mean, one didn't have to convince us very much. We took this as our duty, our responsibility..." Is that correct, that you were only too happy to send your volunteers, or have them sent?

A. Yes, that is very true. We considered it to be our duty to help the Serb people whenever they were in jeopardy, and that's what we did ^{11950 BLANK PAGE 11951} with great enthusiasm.

Q. The last question and answer. This is the question and answer which had Laura Silber asking you to give an account of a conversation, and you said this: "They were always quick agreements." Then you dealt with Tudjman's attack on Pocitelj and Divoselo and Citluk in 1993. You said: "Milosevic had some sort of agreements with him about that, it seems Tudjman didn't keep his end of the deal... underhand dealings. Milosevic was disappointed by Tudjman's actions and ... decided at the last minute to send volunteers there. He called me and I went to him right away."

Let's just pause there, shall we? Did you, in 1993, have a meeting with Milosevic about the deployment of volunteers to deal with the attack at Pocitelj, Divoselo or Citluk?

A. Categorically, I say no. With respect to the attack on Pocitelj, Divoselo and Citluk, we had an agreement with the representatives of Republika Srpska Krajina in Belgrade, and those representatives, or the representative offices organised buses and it was in those buses that we sent out the volunteers. However, Tudjman's attack on Pocitelj, Divoselo, and Citluk at the time stopped, the volunteers were there for a few days. As the fighting ceased, they returned without having joined in the combat. And that happened in 1993. And you can check that out very easily.

Q. Let's read the whole thing, the last part of this, but without any reference to the name "Milosevic," and see whether the rest of it is true. "[Someone] called me and I went to him right away. He said: 'Three or four thousand volunteers need to be sent to Divoselo, Pocitelj, Citluk.' ¹¹⁹⁵² We had around 3.000 - 3.500 volunteers within two days, and Arkan brought along with him around 300. They were sent out from Belgrade in literally two days. There were never any problems with that. We would agree on this very quickly. This was already agreed upon in a few words. We need to go? Let's go."

Now, as I've read it, substituting on one occasion the word "he" for "Milosevic," would it be completely accurate?

A. No. Nobody called. Somebody came to the headquarters of the Serbian Radical Party from the represented offices of Srpska Krajina in Okreska Street [phoen]. I can't remember who it was, somebody from their representation there. They came to our war staff. I was informed that that was necessary, I agreed, and the volunteers were rallied and sent.

Q. Mr. Seselj, you have got a famously good memory, as you've told us. Just think back, please. Who was it who came to your office and asked for these three or four thousand volunteers?

A. Didn't come to my office. He came to the war headquarters or staff and he was a functionary of the representative offices of Srpska Krajina in Belgrade.

Q. Your political party had a department called the war staff, didn't it?

A. Yes.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... interest, it's a bit of a digression, but in light of an earlier question from the Bench, why should a political party have a war staff?

A. Because there was a great national need for that political party ¹¹⁹⁵³ to rally volunteers and send them to the JNA, for the war, of course.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... or just the war staff, Mr. Seselj?

A. All the other institutions of the party were peacetime ones, and the war staff dealt with rallying volunteers and sending them to the JNA.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... send volunteers to do peaceful things in countries, Mr. Seselj, not in countries in the other part of the former Yugoslavia, did you, or did you just send people to engage in fighting?

A. We sent them to engage in fighting and realise the tasks and goals of the JNA. So don't attach any peaceful policy to me. I was never an advocate of peace at every price, at all costs. I'm an adversary to that now. I don't accept a pact with the Americans, and what the Americans are doing today in the Balkans are only creating conditions for a new war. No, I've just said that for the first time now.

Q. Who came to your office and asked you to do this? You deployed three to four thousand volunteers. Who asked you?

A. Yes, but I can't remember after so much time all the names. Somebody did come, a high-ranking official of the representative offices of Srpska Krajina from Belgrade. They had their headquarters in Terazija Square, the centre, the very heart of Belgrade.

Q. Do you understand the significance of these questions, Mr. Seselj? You see, if you give me a name, I can go and find out from that person what he, or it may even be a she, would say. If you don't give me a name, it's rather like your previous answer about two people in a room; one can ¹¹⁹⁵⁴ never deny the other. We can never prove it, you see. Can you give us a name so that we can go and check?

A. How do you expect me to remember the name of the person who worked in the representative offices of Srpska Krajina in 1993 in Belgrade? Go on. Tell me that. How can I be expected to do that? In these two and a half years that I've been in prison, I've forgotten many of the names of the people I knew. I can't remember a single telephone number any more. Now you want me to remember the name of the man who came from the representative offices of Srpska Krajina. I can't remember the name of a single army officer, high-ranking army officer who came to our party headquarters, and many colonels came, captains of frigates, et cetera. Why would I have to remember them, their names? Only stupid people remember numbers and names.

Q. Mr. Seselj, these answers you gave reveal the truth about the accused's active, knowing, and criminal involvement in the sending of volunteers to fight in other parts of the former Yugoslavia, and you know that to be true.

A. That is not true. First of all, the sending of volunteers was absolutely not criminal; it was patriotic.

And secondly, in sending volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party, Slobodan Milosevic never took part in that. He never had any part in sending that.

MR. NICE: Could the tape please be given an exhibit number.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be 886. ¹¹⁹⁵⁵

MR. NICE: If we now turn to -- can we now look at the next passage, which is 25E, for the interpreters. A fresh translation is being distributed. And I think with the length of the first answer, if we can break it into perhaps two segments and have the comments of the -- not the comments, the help of the interpretation booth, I'd be grateful.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] In May 1992, Milosevic took definitely the whole control over the JNA. That's when the new constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed, and that's when he really and formally and literally became the most important man in the country. The man who makes all the decisions. ... And the Zvornik operation..."

MR. NICE: As to those first couple of sentences --

THE INTERPRETER: Everything appears to be correct.

MR. NICE: Before I move on, there was nothing read out from the question because there was nothing audible over the machinery here in court. But it will help the witness to know that the question in the transcript, from those who have been able to listen, I think, with magnified sound, was: "How did things proceed when you headed towards Zvornik? Who told you to go there? How did that work?" And then we have the first part of the answer. If we can pick it up from there, please

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] Everything was planned in Belgrade. Bosnian Serb forces took part in it, and they comprised a greater part of it. Meanwhile, the special units, and the best-equipped units came from ¹¹⁹⁵⁶ this side, they were direct police units, the so-called Red Berets, special units of the Security Service of Serbia."

MR. NICE: Thank you. Pausing there, those four lines, any comment from the interpretation booth?

THE INTERPRETER: Everything appears more or less correct.

MR. NICE: The way it appears in the translation, and maybe you won't be able to remember this - I ask the question through the Court, of course - is that it starts off with the sentence: "And the Zvornik operation was planned in Belgrade," with the word "Zvornik" included. I don't know if you can remember, through the Court, whether the word "Zvornik" was actually used.

THE INTERPRETER: Yes, in the first playing of the tape.

MR. NICE: Thank you. Very well. Let's move on to the next section.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] There were volunteers from the SRS, Arkan's volunteers, and another smaller group of volunteers under the control of the police. The army engaged little in that operation, it mainly gave artillery support where it was needed. The operation was well thought out over a long period of time, so nothing was done in haste or anxiety with last-minute urgent requests for this or that. It was all well organised and well carried out, until... once the looting started then nobody could control it any more."

MR. NICE: And as to the accuracy of that passage?

THE INTERPRETER: "Until the end of hostilities." It says was, ¹¹⁹⁵⁷ "well carried out until..." and the three dots were "the end of hostilities, once the looting started..." That's just a phrase that was left out.

MR. NICE: Thank you. The next question, then, please, if we can play the next question and answer in one. Whether the question comes out or not, I'm not sure.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] Who devised this and how was it carried out?

"This was devised by key people of the SDB, among whom was Franko Simatovic, Frenki, and he was one of the main executors. There were others whose names I haven't even memorised. Our volunteers gathered and their central meeting point was in Loznica from where they headed to Zvornik. Duke Cvetinovic was in charge of them, and he directly received orders from the Commanders of the Special Forces."

MR. NICE: Thank you very much. Accuracy of that?

THE INTERPRETER: "Special Units." Otherwise it is more or less accurate.

MR. NICE: "Special units" comes in where?

THE INTERPRETER: "... from the Commanders of the Special Units," and we heard "commanders," in the plural.

MR. NICE: Thank you very much.

Q. Mr. Seselj, "Duke," is of course the translation for Vojvoda Cvetinovic. Let's just deal with the answers that you gave, starting at the bottom and working back up. Is it right that Vojvoda Cvetinovic was ¹¹⁹⁵⁸ in charge in Zvornik?

A. First of all, he was one of the volunteers there, and he did command a certain number of men, I don't know how large. But he was prominent in the fighting.

Secondly, all those volunteers were within the composition of the JNA and I here am ascribing this to the security service, targeting it, because that service on the opposite side -- on the other side was trying to destroy the Serbian Radical Party. You have heard about Ljubisa Petkovic, my vice-president, who was chief of the war staff. At the end of 1993, the state security system wanted to recruit him and to break up -- as a Trojan horse, to break up the Radical Party. Those were the methods used by that service against us. So I am attacking the service for anything I can think of.

Q. So where you said that he directly received orders from the commander of the special units, what should you have said, to tell the truth?

A. It was from the JNA command in charge that he received orders. Who it was exactly is not hard to establish. Do you really think that so many names can be memorised?

Secondly, I wasn't there, so it wasn't for me to remember all those names. I just know that volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were disciplined there and -- that they were highly disciplined, and as soon as the Zvornik operation was over, they returned.

Q. The previous sentence says: "Our volunteers gathered at their central meeting point, which was Loznica, from where they headed to ¹¹⁹⁵⁹ Zvornik." Is that true?

A. They gathered together in Belgrade, and they went to Zvornik from there. Before Zvornik, they stopped in Loznica. Cvetinovic is from Loznica.

Q. Previous sentence gives this answer: "This was devised by key people from the SDB..." True?

A. That's not true. I'm trying to impute this to the key people of the SDB, attacking the State Security Service, because I'm actually returning the blow. I'm categorically stating that the reservists --

THE INTERPRETER: The volunteers went to the JNA, interpreter's correction.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] -- and that is part of their service booklets. But this is the time when I was waging a campaign against the SDB, and that was a question of survival for us in the Serb Radical Party. Because the security service used different perfidious methods to cause discord among us. They tried to recruit people and stir trouble in our ranks. We were clashing so violently with the SDB then that they really did not choose their methods.

JUDGE BONOMY: Can you help me how this would upset the SDB?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It would politically compromise them. That was the time of peace initiatives. It was 1995. It could compromise the authorities of Slobodan Milosevic, and so on. That was the time of not shying away from anything in our mutual conflicts. Mr. Milosevic himself did not appear, but his authorities spared no effort to attack us. Mr. Nice is not really up to date. In addition to this TV ¹¹⁹⁶⁰ programme, he could have found at least 100 similar TV interviews of mine within that campaign.

JUDGE BONOMY: We've got this one. Can you remember if you were able to come up with anything more recent than 1991 to upset them?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] And what could that have been? This wasn't in 1991, sir. This was in 1992. I was saying other things as well. I was waging a campaign in various fields.

JUDGE BONOMY: In 1992, did you come up with anything more recent that might upset them in the course of this interview?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, but that had to do with domestic policy. In 1995, there weren't war conflicts of this kind. After all, there was a considerable lull in the fighting then. This was before the Croatian Operation Storm and Flash. April and May was a period of a lull in the fighting, when the battle for Bihac ended, late in 1994, beginning of 1995. Then there was a lull in the fighting on all fronts. But in the economics sphere, I launched similar attacks, and also in the field of domestic policies and so on. So there is an abundance of interviews of mine in that area.

MR. NICE:

Q. You understand, don't you, that if somebody says things that are different from one occasion to another, it may be a sign that he's a liar. And you've told us you're telling us the truth here. So let's just focus on that, shall we? You say, in respect of pinning this on the SDB -- I think it's just gone off the screen. Only five minutes ago, I think, when I suggested to you that you were covering up for the accused ¹¹⁹⁶¹ because what he was doing was criminal in sending volunteers to fight in the other parts of the former Yugoslavia, you said: "It's not true. Sending of volunteers was absolutely not criminal. It was patriotic." Let's go back to see what you said about the same period of time precisely and why this would compromise the SDB because you may like to consider your position and tell us which is the truth. You say -- you're attacking -- by putting this false account in, you're attacking the State Security Service, waging a compromise against them. And then His Honour Judge Bonomy said: "How would this upset them?" And you said: "It would politically compromise them." Explain, but preferably in a quiet voice so that we can follow it, the contrast between your two answers: It would have been lawful for the accused to do it, but that by lying about it and saying the SDB did it, you're compromising them on a patriotic duty. Go on, tell us.

A. No. Then I was trying to spoil the peaceful policy of Slobodan Milosevic, by resorting to all means. At that time, in the spring, I had 20 rallies all over the Serb Krajina, attacking, attacking, attacking, attacking.

Q. We don't have forever. The question is actually quite a simple one. You said you lied about the SDB because it would compromise them. You said the same action would have been legal if it had been done by Milosevic, because it was lawful at the time to send volunteers. Now, which is it, please?

A. Well, quite simply, that's not true. You are making up a false construction here. First of all, it is patriotic duty to help the Western ¹¹⁹⁶² Serbs. But since international recognition followed, that is to say, both of Croatia and of Bosnia-Herzegovina, institutionally Serbia could not interfere. But here, in this interview, when I was clashing with Mr. Slobodan Milosevic, I'm claiming that they were interfering institutionally, and in that way, I'm compromising him and his government. For any normal person, this would be very clear. And I'm speaking in a normal tone of voice. And for me, this is a normal tone of voice.

Q. Incidentally, I'm just going to deal with that very briefly. You've been shouting at this Court for several days and you've been maintaining the fiction that you can't speak quietly. It is a fiction. You can speak perfectly quietly if you wish to. And you gave the game away in your very last answer before the last break when you explained that you'd raised your tone for rhetorical purposes. The truth is, you've been shouting at this Court in an endeavour to add rhetorical force to the assertions you're making; true? You're quite capable of speaking quietly if you want to.

A. I have perfect self-control, and I can control everything I do, physically and verbally.

Secondly, I speak normally. I do not shout. I speak loud and clear and precisely.

Now, you are envious because of the depth of my voice and because of the quality of my voice. You have to ask for hormonal therapy in order to improve upon your own voice.

Q. I must say, we were expecting you to make a sort of cheap personal ^{11963 BLANK PAGE 11964} remark at some stage and we're really pleased that you've done it, and thank you for meeting everybody's expectations.

But tell us this: Did you shout at Laura Silber? Because we've seen a lot of tape. Has there been some change in your self-control or have you got hard of hearing or has your voice-box changed? Just tell us. Have your hormones changed? What is it?

A. Mr. Nice, you are dying of laughter at my cheap tricks. Now, what would happen if I resorted to more expensive, dear tricks? You might burst of laughter. Laura Silber seemed like a youngish woman to me, quite good-looking, even with feminine curves, and I adjusted my voice to that. If I were talking to these ladies here, I would adjust my voice to that. I'm talking to you as to a haughty Prosecutor, and I'm trying to show that you are not all that smart. I'm not saying you're stupid. You're just not all that smart. I'm speaking in a particular way because I'm in a courtroom. I speak in a different way when I'm visited by people in my office, and I speak yet in another way --

Q. For the first eight days, you weren't speaking to me at all, you were speaking in what you've been telling us was an endeavour to tell the whole truth to the three Judges, and you shouted at them for rhetorical purposes. Am I not right?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Let's move on, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Let's go back to the first answer to this --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You are not right. I did not shout at them. I spoke as one does in a courtroom.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Let's get on with the cross-examination. ¹¹⁹⁶⁵

MR. NICE:

Q. In the middle of the answer, there's this interesting passage. Having said that Milosevic took control of the JNA completely, you said that the Zvornik operation was planned in Belgrade. Bosnian forces took part and comprised a greater part of it. "Meanwhile, the special units and the best equipped units came from this side, and they were police units -" and then this - "the so-called Red Berets, special units of the Security Service of Serbia."

Now, it's the same point that was raised in the last tape, or the last tape but one, indeed by a question initially from His Honour Judge Kwon. On your account, Mr. Seselj, how could you, in March 1995, have been speaking of Red Berets, special units of the security service of Serbia?

A. I construed that on the basis of the fact that Frenki was a volunteer in the Krajina. As a matter of fact, in the government of the Serb Krajina, he was in charge of security and intelligence affairs or something like that. I don't know exactly what the official name of his position was. I was speculating, because a large number of people had been earlier on among the volunteers in the Serb Krajina, and I was again creating an intrigue, and again I expected it to be a political bombshell and to go off. And the Red Berets from the Krajina were something that people had heard of by then. So I was using Frenki's name to link this up to the State Security Service of Serbia. I construed that. And quite successfully, at that, because even you swallowed it and you based your indictment against Mr. Milosevic on that, and look what's happened now; ¹¹⁹⁶⁶ it's gone down the drain. And you have my statement that was given for political reasons. It was preconceived. It was calculated to cause political damage. But you haven't got a shred of material evidence.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... that answer, then we'll look at something different. You make it clear that the Red Berets to whom you're referring in this part of your answer was indeed Frenki. So we can exclude all consideration of Dragan and his men. This is Frenki. Yes?

A. No.

Q. I'm just reading your answer.

A. No. No, you're not reading it well. First of all, I don't know whether Frenki was in Zvornik at all. I doubt it. I think he wasn't. I'm just construing things. I'm putting him in a particular context, knowing that Frenki is a nervous man, that that would really irritate him. So I am trying to provoke him, rile him. I know that Frenki was in Krajina, and that is a fact.

Q. When did you first meet Frenki?

A. I first met Frenki here, in Scheveningen, in prison, when he was here -- when he arrived in the summer of 2003.

Q. How did you know he's a nervous man?

A. I heard stories about him. He was considered to be a man with a very short temper, nervous and so on and so forth. Those are the kind of stories I heard about him. It's not that Frenki is an unknown person altogether. But I don't know him, and you haven't got a shred of evidence to the effect that I had met him anywhere. Even if he wanted to prove something like that, he'd be powerless. ¹¹⁹⁶⁷

JUDGE BONOMY: I may have missed this, I probably have, but what was it you had against Frenki at that time?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What I had against Frenki was the fact that he was a high official of the State Security Service. He was one of the best-known associates of Jovica Stanisic in the public, and I was targeting the service because they were doing their best to destroy the Serb Radical Party. That was a clash between their service and a political party. If I were to tell you about all of that, everything that the service fabricated against me and said in public about me, it would take up a lot of time, starting with them saying that I was a Croat. And to tell you the truth, that afflicted me the most. You know, when they said that I was a Croat, the State Security Service used an opposition party, Vuk Draskovic, the Serbian Renewal Movement, through Milan Komnenic, Aleksandar Taskovic and other agents in their ranks. And I could tell you about that all day, everything that the service did against me, in order to understand the context when I lash out at the service. But my books are full of that, when I write about everything that the service did against me.

Q. The only other questions on this answer, I just have it in mind, is this: That therefore, on your account, when you were talking to Laura Silber in March 1995, you were able, but entirely by coincidence, to say -- to speak of a Red Beret unit connected to Frenki - because you acknowledge that it's connected to Frenki - of the security service of Serbia, it was entirely a matter of coincidence that you were able to say that when such a unit came into existence in 1996; is that right? ¹¹⁹⁶⁸

A. First of all, you have to take a look at my other interviews from that time and you will see that this is no exception. Secondly, the fact that Frenki was a high official of the State Security Service and that he was a volunteer in the Serb Krajina and that at that time he had that unit there. I don't know exactly what his position was in it. He had that unit of the Red Berets. It's enough for me to link all of that up together. Look at what you've linked up here without a shred of material evidence. But I stand by the fact that the Special Operations Unit was founded in 1996 and that this unit of the Red Berets from Krajina had no institutional links to the State Security Service of Serbia.

Q. The last question on this answer is this: A couple of sentences, or one sentence later on, you speak of the operation in Zvornik and in Belgrade, and you say: "The army engaged little in that operation, it mainly gave artillery support where it was needed." True?

A. The army was engaged. They also gave artillery support. It was the fort above Zvornik that the army targeted with the artillery. And that the army was engaged little, well, the army was the one that was in charge of all of this.

Q. On this answer, I'm just going to finish with this, for this question. On this answer -- we know what you say is untrue, but on this answer, Milosevic, the army, the police, Frenki Simatovic, the Red Berets, and indeed Arkan, and your volunteers, all involved together in the attack on Zvornik. That's the account you gave to Laura Silber. I'm going to ¹¹⁹⁶⁹ suggest to you that it was true.

A. I am asserting that that is not correct. I claim that the JNA was carrying out operations in Zvornik, that the forces of Republika Srpska were taking part in these operations, and they had just been established. Also, the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party took part, as well as Arkan's men.

MR. NICE: May this be given an exhibit number?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be 887.

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Seselj, as for Mr. Simatovic, do you know from when he engaged himself in security service work?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know. I think that he was there for a long time as a professional and that he worked his way up from the lowest ranks of agents all the way up. But I don't know exactly how long this took.

JUDGE KWON: So was he involved in security work before he went to Zvornik as a volunteer?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I never said that he went to Zvornik as a volunteer. He went to Republika Srpska Krajina as a volunteer.

JUDGE KWON: It's my mistake. Except for that, could you answer the question.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I could not give you an exact, reliable answer to that now. I know that he did work for the State Security Service and then went to the volunteers. But we had an even higher-ranking person from the police; Radovan Stojicic, Badza. Later on ¹¹⁹⁷⁰ he was a colonel-general in the police. He went as a volunteer to the eastern part. I think that Frenki's case was fairly similar to that, but I don't have any reliable knowledge to that effect.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

MR. NICE: I'm going to play you a short extract from an exhibit. We've just produced for the assistance of the Court English translations of the relevant part. The document is a video taken of a ceremony, Exhibit 390.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They're giving me everything in the English language. That is wrong altogether, and I don't know English.

JUDGE ROBINSON: But you'll hear the translation.

MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues]... aside, Mr. Seselj, and listen to what's going to come over the loudspeakers.

Q. First of all, do you have a picture yet on your screen of Frenki Simatovic? Do you see him?

A. Yes.

Q. Now would you listen to what he says and we'll follow it in our transcript.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] Mr. President, we thank you for accepting the invitation to attend the ceremony marking the anniversary of the formation of the Special Operations Unit of the State Security Service. It was constituted on the 4th of May, 1991, at the time of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, and since it emerged has constantly worked to protect national security in circumstances where the existence ¹¹⁹⁷¹ of the Serbian people was directly jeopardised throughout its entire ethnic area. Its combat operations were anti-terrorist, directed at preventing war crimes, mass retaliation and genocide. "From the first moment of its existence..."

MR. NICE:

Q. Have you seen this video before yourself, Mr. Seselj?

A. I saw it when you played it during Mr. Milosevic's trial. I think that I was still in Belgrade at the time.

Q. Do you know that this video shows the accused, Milosevic, reviewing the Red Berets, and it shows, although we can easily find it for you if you want it to be confirmed, shows him standing in the room while this speech is being addressed to him by Frenki Simatovic? So he speaks of formation in May of 1991; true or false.

A. Franko Simatovic, Frenki, speaks of that, but his speech is not clear, what he means by it. He continues his warrior tradition in a unit that was institutionally established in Serbia in 1996 as the JSO. In the Krajina, it did not exist as the JSO and as a State Security Service unit of Serbia. In Krajina, Franko Simatovic was in charge of security and intelligence affairs on the Republic of Serb Krajina.

Q. We don't want to take too much time, but just to remind the Court and to remind you, since you've seen it, and we have - those of us reading the English, but you must take it from me - we have the English translation of the first part in front of us. He speaks of the enormous contribution of the unit, the 47 killed, the 250 wounded at 50 locations. He gives the history of the unit, of its formation, of its engagement in ¹¹⁹⁷² battles from October 1991 with Croatian forces in Benkovac, Stari Gospic, Plitvice, Glina, Kostajnica and others, and so on. This is the Red Berets, under Simatovic, a special unit that you describe in your interviews, and this shows that what you were saying to Laura Silber, far from being false, was absolutely correct insofar as it referred to the Red Berets, doesn't it?

A. No, that is not correct. In order to explain this more easily, I'm going to compare this to something that happened within the Serb Radical Party.

With some political friends of mine, in January 1990, I established the Serbian Freedom-loving Movement, and we united with Vuk Draskovic into the Serbian Renewal Movement and we removed Draskovic and he set up the same party, or rather, a similar party under the same name. And then we changed our name into the Serb Chetnik Movement. In then February 1993 we united with the National Radical Party into the Serb Radical Party.

I keep invoking my previous party efforts from 1990, and I made this part of our statute. Formally, it was in March 1992 that the Serb Radical Party was registered and we celebrate our jubilee over a year before that. So people who had already taken part in the war, and probably the majority of the members of this unit were in that unit in the Krajina, they're simply building on that tradition. But how can that be explained to Arkan's people, who are also included in 1996? How can you explain the rest?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Another five minutes. ¹¹⁹⁷³

MR. NICE:

Q. If you look at the video as a whole, it's clear that he's describing a unit of single identity, setting out its history and ultimately people are rewarded, people who died years before are referred to, and so on. And the accused Milosevic is standing there, honouring this group of people. Was he taking part in a sham, do you say?

A. Why wouldn't Mr. Milosevic pay tribute to all the Serbs who died in the war, honour them? They are members of our nation. But I'm saying there was no institutional link. And I'm referring to the traditions of Vojin Popovic and Tankosic, the Chetnik vojvodas, before World War I, Vasilije Trbojevic and some others, and then the traditions of Drazen Mihajlovic as well. But I cannot say, ah, now, there's an institutional link between us here now. We Serbs are a united people and a position presented this way by Frenki Simatovic, Frenki, emerges from the fact that we are a united nation. But institutional links between those units, the Red Beret units in Srpska Krajina and the State Security Service of Serbia, never existed, to the best of my knowledge. Now, the fact that the State Security Service, once the war was already over, took over most of these members and took over many of Arkan's men and took over many fighters from Serbian Krajina who fled, is something quite different. But to divide us Serbs and to say that we're not one people, one nation, and look at it that way, that's impossible. There was no institutional link, and I insist upon that.

Q. It shows quite clearly that creation in 1991 of a unit that was then partly transferred in September 1991 to Serbia, as we can see, and ¹¹⁹⁷⁴ took over a building in 1995, which was named after Radoslav Kostic, who died years earlier, this shows the creation in May 1991, by this accused, who honoured it, of an organisation that, on your own evidence, because you'll remember telling me this, could never have been justified lawfully, and that's why you're lying about it, Mr. Seselj, isn't it? You know you've all been caught.

A. That -- no. No. You didn't catch me out lying. I'm catching you out all day today lying, and I did so yesterday too, Mr. Nice. You're the only person lying here. And I testified --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, you know very well what I'm going to speak to you about. It's a common practice in courts for counsel for one side to put to a witness for the other side that he's not telling the truth. That's his professional duty. It's not a personal matter. He does so on the basis of the evidence and instructions that he has. It is not proper for you to respond in the way that you have done, and I've explained that to you time and again.

We will adjourn now and resume on Wednesday of next week at 9.00 a.m.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.49 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 14th day of

September, 2005, at 9.00 a.m.