⁴⁴²⁰⁴

Friday, 16 September 2005

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

[The witness entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice. Will you be concluding today?

MR. NICE: I certainly hope so. The position is that the answers of the witness have taken, of course, a great deal of time, and despite efforts to restrict them they've gone on longer than in some cases I would have liked. In the circumstances, I will inevitably be just necessarily selective about the topics I cover, but if I fail to cover every topic it's not on the basis that I accept the accuracy of what the witness says however I should point to most significant challenges.

WITNESS: VOJISLAV SESELJ [Resumed]

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

Q. Mr. Seselj, following yesterday's questions about Srebrenica, can you now please tell us in simple, short, clear terms what is the evidence that goes to show that the video we looked at one still from is a forgery?

A. The first evidence is the fact that it was carried out in Trnovo, 200 kilometres away from Srebrenica. Now, why did a group of paramilitaries --

Q. What evidence have you --

A. But it is evidence.

Q. What evidence have you got that this is a forgery? ⁴⁴²⁰⁵

A. It is the members of the expert team from my Defence who have the evidence, and I will bring it when my trial is on, and I don't have any evidence in my cell.

Q. Can you tell us what the evidence is? Is it a witness? Is it a document? What is it?

A. Judging by the content of that text, it's a complete videotape.

Q. Of what?

A. Well, it says there on that piece of paper. Videotape of the staged execution.

JUDGE BONOMY: Do you actually say that these apparent victims were not executed as shown on the video?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The members of my expert team, to assist my Defence, have information at their disposal that the victims were not killed on that occasion. This was all acting for the purpose filming an alleged execution.

JUDGE BONOMY: You see, the answer to that question was yes, wasn't it, because it was carefully phrased. But you've got to give us about two or three sentences to use up the time apparently.

MR. NICE:

Q. You see, --

A. No, I'm not trying to use up the time, Mr. Bonomy. I'm only trying to give a exhaustive and reliable response.

Q. Mr. Seselj, you see, evidence exists of DNA matching, statements from parents and loved ones whose young male relations have been killed, sightings of them in Srebrenica shortly before they were taken away, going ⁴⁴²⁰⁶ to show and the evidence may come before this Trial Chamber before the end of the trial, and if you're really saying this is a forgery this may go deeply to your credit. The options are -- not options, just think. Are you actually saying that you have evidence to show that this is a forgery in the form of some other videotape?

A. I told you what I have at my disposal. The key issue is where their bodies were found. If so, were they found in Trnovo? Were they taken somewhere else after the filming of the execution? If you say that the corpses were found in Trnovo and you can prove that, then I will accept that that's where they were shot, which doesn't mean that they were shot at that point of time.

Q. Please stop shouting. Let me just tell you this: People have been back to Trnovo. They have photographed and have filmed the precise location which matches exactly with what can be seen -- can be shown to be seen on the film. Now you raise the issue about why Trnovo and I'll ask you a question since you've apparently made inquiries. The significance of this film as you and this accused must know is that it reveals taking bodies from Srebrenica -- sorry, taking -- taking Muslims from Srebrenica to comparatively distant locations which may be termed hubs, from which they were then parcelled out to be killed in small numbers. Now, that, you see, I'm going to suggest to you, is what your inquiries must have revealed and that shows a high level of prolonged organisation in the killing of the victims of Srebrenica. Do you know about, and I repeat the way I've expressed it, a high level of prolonged organisation of the killing of victims from Srebrenica? ⁴⁴²⁰⁷

A. You're making this up. You're making up the killing of victims from Srebrenica. This was not organised by the Serbian authorities, whether civilian or the killing of the victims in Srebrenica was organised by Western intelligence agencies. The purpose was to achieve something that would upset the world public --

Q. Mr. Seselj, stop. The people who are filmed and who are now of course detained in Belgrade were people filmed killing come from the Skorpions which was a unit subordinated within Serbia, and you and the accused know that.

Now, tell us this: Do you accept that the people like Slobodan Medic shown on that film, members of the Skorpions, are subordinated within Serbia to the SAJ?

A. No. That is your fabrication. The Skorpions have nothing to do with Serbia. They were acting warriors who for your purposes shot propaganda material with horrific scenes of crimes so that this could be used against the Serbian state and the Serbian people. That's what I'm saying.

Q. Let me understand your state of mind in light of that last answer and your use of the word "your." Are you now suggesting that the film that's been screened, and incidentally for the sake of the record the assertion that it was provided to the Tribunal by Natasa Kandic is not, of course, one that is adopted by the Prosecution and the matter will be shown to the Chamber through other routes. For the sake of the record, are you saying that in 1995, in July, for the purposes of this Tribunal, Skorpions engaged in a propaganda exercise shooting or appearing to shoot ⁴⁴²⁰⁸ victims? Is that really what you're saying so we can judge your credibility?

A. I am convinced of this, that this was done for your purposes and for anti-Serb purposes, because what madman would agree to kill? Anyone who did crimes in this war knows -- knew he was committing a crime. There is no one who committed a crime who can say he didn't know that this was prohibited and that it was a crime. All the crimes contained in the Statute of this Tribunal existed in the legislation of the former Yugoslavia.

Q. No. Pause, please. Your maintaining that it would be appropriate at any cost to recover the territory of the Serbs, your rivers of blood speeches? How does that fit with your assertion here that everybody knows what they would be doing would be a crime if they killed someone?

A. First of all, these are two absolutely different matters. Rivers of blood were already spilt, had already been spilt on several occasions for Kosovo and Metohija, and what I said was that we would defend Kosovo and Metohija again even if it meant spilling rivers of blood. But I was referring to fighting on the battlefield. From 1382 until today many rivers of blood have flown because of Kosovo.

Q. Why do you say, then, that this -- you say these killings filmed would be a crime, yes, and how does that lead to your conviction that this film is not genuine? Please tell us.

A. First of all, it's evident that those who actually did the shooting or acted shooting were doing this because they were paid by whoever was filming. Since this could not have been done in Srebrenica or ⁴⁴²⁰⁹ nearby, they collected a group of Muslims and drove them off 200 kilometres away. You have no other case of Muslim prisoners being taken far away from Srebrenica. They were taken to Bratunac and other nearby areas. This is 200 kilometres away. You have to go through Bratunac, Vlasenica, Han Pijesak, Sokolac, Pale, all of Mount Trbevic, Vukovica and then arrive in Trnovo.

Q. As you know, the evidence in this case shows at least 4.000 dead, that's on the most conservative estimate, and we all know that the public assessments include seven and 8.000 dead of whom only a limited number, a couple of thousand, may so far have been exhumed. Come back. Is the reality that you with your access through government when you were a deputy Prime Minister and through your contact with this accused know that the organisation to kill the victims of Srebrenica was both wider and longer in duration than might originally have been thought reflecting high levels of government organisation within Bosnia and maybe within Serbia? Is that what you've now discovered?

A. That is not true. You're fabricating this. You're falsifying the information about the number of people who were executed. It's not true that there were 4.000 of them. You don't have that number of bodies. Among the bodies found were also bodies of Muslims killed three years previously. I assert that.

According to information from Dutch officers, a thousand or maybe 1.200 were killed, maybe a little more. I assert categorically the number was not 4.000. I also assert categorically that all this was organised by Western intelligence agencies, primarily the French agency, because ⁴⁴²¹⁰ Clinton needed --

JUDGE ROBINSON: We have heard that already, Mr. Seselj.

MR. NICE: Incidentally, Your Honours, in the documents he provided yesterday, his later publications, he does at certain places - I haven't got them available - refer to the French intelligence account on earlier occasions. I've got something else to say about that document when I've got more detail to hand. Very well.

Q. I'm going to move on from that. The only -- the only -- the only body you refer to as being involved is the 10th Sabotage Detachment and you've suggested in some way that this was acting independently. Just might like to have a look briefly at this, please. And it's a Sanction for the booth, please.

I want to take it very briefly. You'll see what's going on here.

[Videotape played]

THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "Fighters of the Sabotage Detachment, Serbian heroes, allow me to greet you on behalf of the Knin Corps and the Main Staff and to congratulate you on the day of the formation of the units.

"Thank you. "Through your activities so far you have shown how a soldier of the army of Republika Srpska should fight. Up to now you have completed your assignments with great success, without any losses, which is to be commended. We are in a situation when the actions you are taking in the future have to be planned as operations of wider proportions. From this arises the need that units at the corps level within the army of Republika ⁴⁴²¹¹ Srpska, similar units be formed. Right at this moment, we are working on forming a sabotage unit within the Drina Corps. We have just discussed this in your commander's office, and he said, 'Great, now we can have a competition.' I told him, 'I accept the challenge and may we end up at Bratilo as soon as possible and you know where that is.'"

MR. NICE:

Q. Now, this is Krstic. It's October 1985 [sic]. It's after the atrocities of Srebrenica and he's treating them, is he not, as a formal unit, not as a mercenary unit. Can you explain that?

A. First of all, mercenaries fighting for money were also in a unit. I never said that that the 10th Sabotage Detachment was an informal unit. This was a detachment in the structure of the army of Republika Srpska. It was made up of mercenaries. Secondly, you are giving me a speech made by General Krstic. What have I to do with this? I have only met General Krstic once in my life and that was here in the detention unit and that was by accident.

Q. [Previous translation continues]...

A. The essence of response to your question is the following.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... you do understand what a response is, don't you? Let's have it.

A. Why are you so nervous, Mr. Nice?

Q. [Previous translation continues]... don't credit me with qualities that I don't have but answer the question, Mr. Seselj.

A. The main people in this detachment are Dominik Petrusic and Milorad Pelemis. For your interests, they abducted Stevan Todorovic at ⁴⁴²¹² Zlatibor and transferred him to Bosnia in order to hand him over to the Americans. You never issued an arrest warrant for Milorad Pelemis and Dominik Petrusic, nor are you requesting that the national courts prosecute them.

JUDGE BONOMY: I'm not clear about the answer at all. Did you say at the beginning of that answer that you accepted that the 10th Sabotage Detachment was formally a part of the army?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As far as I know. I can't prove that now but I assume that formally it was part of the army. It was part of the structure.

JUDGE BONOMY: [Previous translation continues]... did you say, that it was formally part of the army?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I assume it was formally. I don't have any evidence for that.

JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

MR. NICE: As a relevant part of the evidence, please.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be 917.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The question was not clear of what army.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The army of Republika Srpska. That was its official title. The 10th Sabotage Detachment of the army of Republika Srpska. It was not part of any corps. ⁴⁴²¹³

JUDGE BONOMY: The answer was clear to me. Thank you.

MR. NICE:

Q. All right. Let's just move on. I've given you many opportunities and I'm going to give you a last one to tell us of anything you know, not guess or work out, anything you know in evidence that you've seen or indeed people you've spoken to that reveals concern by the Serb authorities, inquiries by the Serb authorities between July 1995 and February and March of 1996. Any document, any report showing an inquiry into Srebrenica?

A. You don't have any evidence that the authorities in Serbia at that time even knew about the shootings in Srebrenica.

Q. [Previous translation continues]...

A. Information about that execution arrived later on, but I don't know where or to whom.

Q. You really saying that you -- were you unaware of the degree to which Srebrenica was publicised in the United Nations? Were you unaware of the indictment against Mladic? Are you seriously saying that?

A. Well, we heard about indictments against Mladic and Karadzic. When the indictment was issued, I was convinced that anything that was being ascribed to them in the indictment was fabricated, and I abide by that today. The reasons for the indictment were political, but some kind of grounds had to be constructed, and this was done artificially --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj.

MR. NICE:

Q. You see, before I move on very briefly to Erdemovic again just to ⁴⁴²¹⁴ tidy that up, and of course though you were not in Srebrenica at the time, and although, of course, Mr. Seselj, you're not charged in relation to Srebrenica which makes your bringing the film about the Skorpions a little hard to understand, you know that the environment in which these crimes were committed was an environment you had created in part by your engagement of innocent civilians in hate. You knew that, didn't you?

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, what's the --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's not true. You're making that up.

JUDGE BONOMY: What's to be gained by that question at this stage in this cross-examination when we know exactly what the answer will be?

MR. NICE: Well, Your Honour, I wish to establish why he's -- oh, very well. If Your Honour doesn't find it helpful, I'm going to move on.

JUDGE BONOMY: It may just be me, but I -- [Microphone not activated]. It may just be me, but I feel we've been over and over it so often that it's pointless going over it again.

MR. NICE: Let me just make it plain, because I don't wish to fall out with the Court. The significance for the Prosecution of the mechanics whereby these crimes were committed, mechanics that included the environment created by people like this witness with the consent or without the resistance of the accused is something that is of central importance. That's why I've concentrated on it. I've -- and I wanted to give this witness the opportunity in relation to this most serious crime where I will be asking the Court to say in due course that his answers are not only nonsensical but wickedly dishonest. I want him to have an ⁴⁴²¹⁵ opportunity to know exactly the basis upon which I'm putting it to him. But I will move on. And my last questions in relation to Srebrenica are rounding up what I've said before and that is that the account of the inquiry -- or not the inquiry, the proceedings that were launched in the spring of 1996 are, I suggest to you, an account that reflects -- doesn't reflect but if the inquiry was more deep, Mr. Seselj, would have shown or would show that the authorities only acted because journalists were about to reveal what Erdemovic had told them. Can you counter that? Can you say that's incorrect?

A. As everything we have been hearing from you for days, years, and months is untrue, Mr. Nice, I'm convinced that this, too, is untrue. But you're asking me to talk in detail about something in which I did not participate because I was not in the government in 1996. All I know is that our police immediately arrested Erdemovic as soon as they heard that he was involved in the execution, as soon as that came to light. How it came to light, that is something that has to do with the methodology of policework.

You are now insinuating and asking me to confirm your insinuations.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... in any sense counter to the proposition that I made. Let's move on, then, to Kosovo.

A. As for your assertion, I'll respond at once, Mr. Nice. As for your assertion, it is also a pure fabrication, because neither I nor any other politician from Serbia ever advocated the killing of prisoners of war, the killing of civilians, looting, robbing, and all the rest. ^{44216 BLANK PAGE 44217}

Q. The --

A. And anyone who committed crimes in this war knew he was committing crimes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, can you comment on Mr. Nice's suggestion that the authorities only acted because they knew that journalists were about to reveal what Erdemovic had told them?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't believe that assertion of Mr. Nice's. I think the authorities responded because they came by information that one man was involved in a mass execution, and they responded immediately.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thanks. We have your response. Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE:

Q. Staying briefly with the Skorpions, the Skorpions were based, by the time of the start of the Kosovo conflict, in Sid, were they not?

A. That's the first time I hear that, that the Skorpions had a base anywhere in Serbia. I don't believe they did. And the Skorpions in Kosovo did not take part as the Skorpions but they came forward as volunteers in regular units. Some of them, not all of them.

Q. See, and I only wanted your help with this because there is an entry in Stevanovic's diary dealing with the men from Sid are coming in PJP uniforms, and I want you to confirm if you can that the men from Sid is and must be known to be the Skorpions. You say you don't know that?

A. No. And I don't believe it either.

Q. Don't you? Very well. Next thing, then. ⁴⁴²¹⁸

A. I really don't believe that.

Q. So far as Kosovo is concerned, how intimate with all government matters were you as a deputy Prime Minister? Do you say you would have known everything that happened concerning Kosovo or did you only get privilege to learn of certain things?

A. In principle, I knew everything that was essential. I received daily reports, special daily reports, in fact, about the war actions as deputy Prime Minister, which means every day in the government of Serbia I would receive such information, where combat operations took place, what the results of combat operations were for our side and the adversary.

Q. Racak, then. One of the things the Court has been looking for, or at least the Prosecution has been looking for, is a comprehensive account in written form from those who went into Racak and who, as you would have it, killed terrorists. Where is there such a report?

A. Well, the report on the operation in Racak must be in existence in the MUP, because the report was tabled, filed, and on the day that this battle in Racak took place, I was in Pristina attending a meeting of the government of Serbia.

Q. I just want to know where the report is. Tell us, please, since you're so intimate with all these matters, for an event like Racak, properly conducted, would you expect to find the commanding officer or the officer in charge producing a detailed report where 30 or so KLA activists have been killed?

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, you already have the answer that there was a report tabled and filed. That's what the witness has said. So it's ⁴⁴²¹⁹ finding it that's the thing. It's -- we're already past the stage of establishing it exists.

MR. NICE:

Q. Where is it, then, Mr. Seselj? Can you help us? Who wrote it and have you seen it?

A. Perhaps at my cell at the Scheveningen prison. I can't imagine a more nonsensical question, asking me where the report is. The way the police worked it was quite normal that after every operation a report was compiled. Now, as this was an operation of the greatest importance, that report must have been sent up to the minister. As far as us members of the government are concerned, while we were at Pristina we were informed of that orally.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... Pavlovic on the same "Death of Yugoslavia" programme in which you participated says in terms to the camera that it was a joint action in involving the military as well as the police. Can you tell us, please, about the police involvement -- about the army involvement. I beg your pardon.

A. As far as I know, in the operation itself it was just the police that took part. Now, that the army was close by and that it assumed certain tactical positions in the rear, to the rear of the police, that is quite probable but I can't tell you anything more precise on that score. But to the best of my information, it was the police that engaged in that action.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... shells into Racak?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Will you repeat -- ⁴⁴²²⁰

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters did not hear you.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Repeat the question. We didn't --

MR. NICE:

Q. Did they fire shells into Racak, the army?

A. This is the first time that I hear of any such thing. I don't think so, no.

Q. You haven't seen a report from the army?

A. No. I hear that for the first time and I don't believe it.

Q. Is there any reason that you can think of for the representatives of the military or the police on the ground on the day to deny the involvement of the army in a joint exercise of this kind?

A. There's no reason. Had there been a necessity for the army, the army would have been deployed. According to our constitutional system, the army can be deployed against an outside enemy and against internal rebels and terrorists. That is without any doubt. So any use of the army in that sense would have been legal and lawful. But I'm hearing from you for the first time that there was -- there were suspicions that the army took part.

Q. Moving on after the bombing began, we've had great deal of evidence - so I'm not going to go through it with you in any detail - from people who give accounts of being driven from their homes, people being killed, people being expelled by military and police forces. Do you say all that evidence is false, or do you say there was some driving of people from their homes by the processing of killing them, or killing some of them first, and then driving the others out? What do you say? ⁴⁴²²¹

A. The witnesses which you produced are more or less all false witnesses. There was no systematic expulsion of the Albanian population by the authorities, and I state that quite categorically. There were individual crimes, individual killings, beatings, and looting. And our military and police forces had strict orders to take the necessary steps in cases of that kind and prosecute the perpetrators of such crimes, and that is what I state.

Q. Sorry, go on, yes. The --

A. And that was the policy of the republican government of Serbia as indeed the federal government.

Q. Whether accounts of really substantial killings these must be all entirely fabricated, must they? Suva Reka, all that sort of stuff, just entirely made up?

A. There were no really substantial killings. If you look at the overall number of victims of casualties in the three months of bombing, for example, and if you were to compare how many people -- how many Albanian died and how many Serbs died and members of other ethnic groups, you will actually see that the real killing in the form of repressive measures did not exist.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... being organised to take people across the border into Albania or Macedonia, all false, is it? No such trains were organised? What was your take on that as the deputy Prime Minister?

A. I have information as vice-Premier that our authorities in a local -- at a local and regional level tried to convince the Albanians not ⁴⁴²²² to leave. When it was not able to convince them not to leave, then it may -- it facilitated their departure by supplying them with water, bread, some more basics, possibly medical material and sometimes transport. I can't go into the details. I don't know them all now.

Q. So as the Prime Minister you might know this. Special trains were laid on, were they, to take them out because they wanted to go?

A. I don't believe there were special trains laid on, but that the authorities did make an effort to facilitate their departure and their position generally; that is true. But no trains which would force them to leave. And there was no forcible expulsion. That's what I'm claiming.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Seselj, I take it that you were against this policy of trying to convince the Albanians not to leave.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, that was the uniform, united policy of the government. You're now bringing, linking up one of my speeches dating back to 1991 which could be called in a sense anti-Albanian in character with my conduct in the government of Serbia in 1999. The government was united. All three parties in the government as coalition partners were united in their positions on all key issues, and we were united in being against the Albanians leaving Kosovo. What we wanted to do was to ensure protection for them to stay on.

JUDGE BONOMY: So your policy had changed.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, I told you what the policy was of the Serbian Radical Party in 1991 as well. One of my excursions caused by certain events which had happened prior to that did not mean even in 1991 that the general orientation of the party stand had been changed, but ⁴⁴²²³ here we paid particular attention to the fact that the mass exodus of Albanians would be made use of by the Western powers against Serbia. It would be used as a pretext for aggression and justification for aggression, and that is why we did everything in your power to prevent a mass exodus, not to give the Western powers an ace up their sleeves. I don't want to say that I like Albanians, but I want to convince you that our behaviour and conduct was rational from the aspects of national interests and from the aspects of state interests of Serbia. It was in Serbia's interest that the Albanian population remain in Kosovo and Metohija, to thwart the terrorists and to stand up to the aggression.

JUDGE BONOMY: Does that mean that at heart your policy remained the same, your view remained the same that the Albanians should leave but for pragmatic political reasons you supported the idea that they should stay just in case the West made use of their departure for propaganda purposes?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My permanent idea and desire is that the Albanian immigrants should leave, those of them who do not have our citizenship and who caused the worst ills to befall Kosovo and Metohija.

JUDGE BONOMY: I see. Thanks.

MR. NICE:

Q. But just to follow on from His Honour Judge Bonomy's point. In the short time, you would have even preferred the illegal immigrants dating back to the Second World War to stay; is that right?

A. Yes. Because the situation had not been settled and ordered. It was difficult to identify who was a citizen and who was not. It was our ⁴⁴²²⁴ aim to have the peaceful Albanians to stay in Kosovo, in peace, not to rise in rebellion, to convince them to stay, to remain, so as to avoid having two wars, because NATO used the Albanian terrorists as their infantrymen. So we prevailed upon the Albanians and wanted to convince them. We even gave out weapons to certain Albanians in villages that were not in favour of the terrorists to be able to defend themselves. You had talks with people like that who took part in things like that. So what we wanted to do was to get the Albanians on our side and to convince them that the Western powers were not their friends and that they were just going to use them and abuse them for their own purposes which were anti-Serb.

JUDGE BONOMY: It seems to follow from what you've said that if there hadn't been the threat of war, you would actually now, 1999, have got to the position that you wanted Albanians to stay. I'm now confused. You seem to describe them all as peaceful Albanians apart from the terrorists, and we know that they are a fairly small proportion. How do you distinguish?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, the overall policy of the government throughout 1998, which was prior to the bombing, was that we should find a peaceful, democratic solution together with the Albanians, to reach an agreement, and thence we had this initiative on the part of Serbia for talks, and in these talks and agreements I would even give up my stand for the immigrants to return to Albanian if that would have meant a peaceful, democratic solution could be found in which the interests of other ethnic groups in Kosovo would be protected. And in your system, ⁴⁴²²⁵ too, for example, a politician, once he's in the opposition, can support certain stands, but when he gets into power he behaves far more realistically. So what I was preoccupied at the time as vice-Premier was a peaceful solution for the Kosovo issue and a normalisation of the situation, that is, to bring life back to normal.

MR. NICE:

Q. What you're telling us is not --

A. And of course to avoid interference on the part of the Western powers.

Q. What you're telling us is not true. You all knew from 1998 at the very latest with things like Lord Ashdown catching you, the army out shelling houses, that you descended into a gross illegality in your treatment of Kosovar Albanians and that with the bombing there was a chance to kick them out in huge numbers, and that's exactly what you went about and did, isn't it?

A. Lord Paddy Ashdown is an ordinary liar, and recently information was -- has been published that he worked as an agent of the British intelligence service throughout. And he showed himself to be a liar in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was an anti-Serb politician who tried in all ways to abolish Republika Srpska. And that Lord Paddy Ashdown of yours as a liar and as a criminal does not deserve any confidence to be placed in him.

Q. You see, we note your observations about Lord Ashdown, but we still have to come through Racak which predates the bombing. Now, you've given a generalised account. I wasn't going to descend into particulars, ⁴⁴²²⁶ but apart from the military involvement, just help us with this in respect of Racak: You suggested that bodies were repositioned so as to make it look like a massacre. Do you have any evidence, Mr. Seselj, do you have your hands on a piece of paper, a document, a film, that can explain how it was in respect of the largest number of people killed there that where they died there were bullets in and around them but on the banks surrounding where they died there were the shell casings consistent with them simply being mowed down in a prepared way? Can you point us to any evidence you've got that explains that forensic, scientific fact?

A. All that was extremely well explained by the prominent Austrian publicist, Austrian marquis, who lives in Vienna, and his name is Malte Olsevski, in his book "The War for Kosovo." And in that book he explains that Racak was supposed to be a trigger event, too, to justify the intervention. And those things have been cleared up in world -- by the world publicist. Look at Olsevski's book, "The War for Kosovo." Well, you're asking me about the traces of shells.

Q. Come on, descend to details, because this Court will not be making its decision on generalities but on evidence. Help us with the details. How can it be that all these bodies are lined up with bullets where they died -- or where they lay, sometimes under their bodies, sometimes under the ground with teeth and all sorts of things like that, and the shell casings are at the placements round about where they died consistent with them having been mowed down in an execution? Tell us, please. Or if this is something on which you don't have evidence, you can always say so.

A. Neither the team of Finnish pathologists could have confirmed that ⁴⁴²²⁷ lie of yours.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute. Mr. Milosevic has a point, I believe.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, Mr. Nice is consciously and intentionally asking a question that is not truthful and correct, because we heard one of the best forensic experts here, Professor Slavisa Dobricanin was his name, and he precisely proved through material fact that what Mr. Nice is claiming could never have happened. So Mr. Nice is once again asking the question in this way and asking it of a witness who is not placed to answer that question.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, I must say that I don't see that this witness is in a position to help very much with these matters.

MR. NICE: Very detailed accounts on general information and I think the position is clear. My last question to him on this topic at this stage is this:

Q. Have you seen or read either of these books "Under Orders" or "As Seen, As Told"? We certainly know that one of them is in Serbian or B/C/S or however we should describe it.

A. First of all, there is no language which is called B/C/S. There is no such language. And in that language, B/C/S, I have never read anything nor do I understand that language.

Secondly, if you're asking me about some books, you have to tell me the authors.

Q. Have you read these books? If not, I'm going to move on.

A. Which books? ⁴⁴²²⁸

Q. OSCE "As Seen, As Told." Human Rights Watch, "Under Orders." Have you read them?

A. I absolutely place no confidence in the OSCE or that so-called non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch. Mr. Bonomy asked me earlier on whether I have any evidence and proof that non-governmental organisations, NGOs of a humanitarian nature, took part in spy and subversive operations. At that time I wasn't able to tell you something specific, but I am able to do so now, Mr. Bonomy, if you're interested in hearing it. The non-governmental organisation Medecins sans Frontieres took an old Albanian man - his name was Osman - and instructed him in how to provide false statements for the Paris Le Monde to the effect that the Serbs were slaughtering Albanians. Secondly, Natasa Kandic who was mentioned here bandied about a conjured up diary of a conjured up colonel, Vojislav Antic of Yugoslavia, and gave false information to a journalist the US Today paper and he published that. The editorial offices launched an investigation. The evidence was seen to be false and that journalist was dismissed. And I sent in a report on the work of Natasa Kandic to the OTP waging their case against me.

The OSCE mission was William Walker, missionary was William Walker. William Walker was trained in intelligence, spy business, dirty business, subversive business, and was shown to have his hands involved in dirty business in South America, Salvador, et cetera, and what he did there he repeated in Kosovo.

Q. The question on details in respect of Kosovo concerns Dubrava ^{44229 BLANK PAGE 44230} prison.

THE INTERPRETER: And Nicaragua, the interpreter adds.

MR. NICE:

Q. You as deputy Prime Minister owe a special -- well, not particularly you but a government generally of course owes a special duty to those it detains to care for them and to look after their safety. As you know, many men died at Dubrava prison. You haven't told us about that. Just tell us, what do you know about that?

A. You never asked me about that. The Dubrava prison was attacked by NATO planes. The prison was hit and a certain number of people were killed as a result. I don't know how many. Some of the detainees stayed, some used this NATO targeting of the prison to escape. That is what I know about that.

Q. And that's all you know, is it?

A. That's what I know.

Q. Never seen any reports coming to government of any detail of what happened? You see, we've got evidence in written form from documents provided in part by the accused's own witnesses that a special group of police went in at 5.15 in the morning of the 22nd of May, and according to evidence before this Court, which had no knowledge that this material, this written material existed, it was at half past 5.00 that the bulk of the prisoners were subject to attempts to execute them and many were executed. What do you know as a government official about sending in a special group of police at 5.15 on the morning of the 22nd to Dubrava prison? You seem to know a great deal about other things. Tell us about ⁴⁴²³¹ this.

A. This is the first time that I hear --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] If the witness who was vice-Premier at that time is asked by Mr. Nice mentioning a government document, then he is duty-bound to show him that document and not to construct things on the basis of that document, to construe things that cannot be deduced from the actual document. Let him show the witness the document and ask the witness to explain, to say whether he's seen the document, what he knows about what it says in the document, but he has to show the witness the document.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, I think you should reconsider this -- this line of questioning. You don't have to put the length and breadth of the Prosecution's case to this witness.

MR. NICE: I don't. I have a particular reason for putting this part of the case and it will become clear in my next question.

Q. You see, at the moment, Mr. Seselj, we have evidence going to show what I've just suggested to you and it came in several documents from the accused. There may be evidence to show that this -- and this has been raised before, that this deployment was known to the assistant minister Stevanovic. That's not Obrad Stevanovic, it's the other assistant minister, on the 21st. Do you know anything about the deployment of these police being dealt with at the level of ministers on the 21st?

A. This is the first time that I'm hearing of something like that. ⁴⁴²³² And bearing in mind just how many lies you have uttered over the past few days, I don't believe any of that either.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, that is not an appropriate response. You must respond to the Prosecutor's question in a manner other than suggesting that he's lying, and we have been through that before. He is putting his case to you.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, he has responded. He knows nothing about it.

MR. NICE: Very well. Let's move on. Your Honours, I make it clear from the questions I've asked that this is a matter I will be pursuing wherever possible, and it will become clear why I give everyone a chance to deal with it a little later.

To help the Chamber a little bit with the issue of Greater Serbia, we've touched on it. Let's touch on it briefly again.

Q. And I want brief answers if possible. The terminology or the term "Greater Serbia" applied in the way that you apply it, can be traced back at least to the middle of the 19th century; correct?

A. Even before that. But the first time it was explicitly registered as a term was in 1803. It was written by or Arsenije Gagovic to the Russian emperor. Stevan Stratimirevic from Srem also mentions a Greater Serbia in his memorandum to the Russian emperor, later on.

Q. The development of the notion of Greater Serbia, this is the formal use of the word "Greater Serbia," can be traced through various events and movements. The term changes from time to time in detail, but one could track it through Nacertanije, is that right, in the mid-19th century? ⁴⁴²³³

A. No. The term Greater Serbia is not mentioned in Nacertanije. Nacertanije is a document that primarily pertains to the liberation of the southern Serb lands. There is no mention of the northern Serb lands. Garasanin wrote it under the influence of a Czech called Zha [phoen], as far as I remember, and he lived as an immigrant in Belgrade.

Q. Nacertanije of Greater Serbia find itself reflected in Nacertanije or not? Just yes or no.

A. Not in the exact sense of the word.

Q. The concept then in the 20th century finds itself expressed does it, through the Black Hand? Would that be right? Perhaps through the Balkan wars? What do you say?

A. No. You've skipped the most important by the from the 19th century, and that is the great Serbian poet, Stevan Knicanin, and the association called Greater Serbia. This association called Greater Serbia explained in detail what the concept itself meant. In the 19th century, from 1888 until 1893, a weekly paper was published entitled "Greater Serbia." We, the Serb Radicals, have collected all the copies of that newspaper, and we published it as a reprint edition. You can get a copy if you want.

Q. Then before the Second World War, moving very quickly --

A. As for the Black Hand organisation, there is no reference whatsoever to a Greater Serbia, not in a single one of their documents. This is a secret organisation of military officers that led to the top link of the Obrenovic dynasty in 1903, and there is no reference to a Greater Serbia in their documents. ⁴⁴²³⁴ Regent Aleksandar Karadjordjevic in 1914 at the beginning of the First World War refers to a Greater Serbia. After that comes the declaration of Nis. The National Assembly of Serbia met in Nis and proclaimed that the objective of the struggle of the Serb people was the liberation of all our Slav brothers and --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, in a sense you have set yourself up for a lecture from the witness.

MR. NICE: I'm trying to --

JUDGE ROBINSON: This is his favourite topic.

JUDGE BONOMY: Before you -- can you help me because --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My most favourite subject. I do not have a subject that I like better, Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, can you help me, what is the point of this?

MR. NICE: The Court was concerned about the terminology "Greater Serbia." It is actually quite important, and I'm desiring through this witness to put in a very succinct way what our position is reflected in the pleadings and in the evidence we've led. If the Court doesn't --

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, so for most of the questions have got the answer that you were wrong, but if you think it's going somewhere useful, then please carry on.

JUDGE ROBINSON: But, Mr. Nice, do you accept the more pragmatic -- suggested a more pragmatic term extended Serbia, I think. "Expanded Serbia"?

MR. NICE: Our pleadings, our filings make the position clear and ⁴⁴²³⁵ my questions make the position clear, but it may be that I can make things helpfully clearer for the Chamber now in a few minutes. But if I can't, then it's unfortunate. But I'd like to just ask a couple more questions because I'm interested in the development of the concept until it comes to the time when, as you say, you and the accused were at ideological opposite ends, as you've said that, you were ideologically different. So that other events we've heard, which I am going to ask of you very shortly as to whether they encompass in some way the Greater Serbia notion, the writings of Cubrilovic in -- shortly before the second war, and then the maps of Moljevic at and after the Second World War. Do those writings and those maps and so on reflect the Greater Serbia concept of which you were now the inheritor, as you would have it?

A. No. First of all, the answer has to be an exhaustive one. Vasa Cubrilovic held a lecture at the Serbian cultural club before the Second World War about the Albanians moving out. This was a wondrous intellectual speech and it was referred to very often after that. There was a great deal of mystification involved, but we in our newspaper, Greater Serbia, actually published the text of that lecture. Vasa Cubrilovic is one of the few Serbian academicians who at the Assembly of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts that was devoted to the famous memorandum opposed the writers of the memorandum. It was only him and Pale Savic and perhaps only another person or two. So a Greater Serbia cannot be linked to Vasa Cubrilovic in any way.

As for Stevan Moljevic, he did not belong to the Serbian ⁴⁴²³⁶ intellectual elite. I know a lot about him. I can't say that I know everything about anybody, but I know a lot about him. Stevan Moljevic, though, was not among the top officials of the Ravno Gora movement of General Draza Mihajlovic. He had some ideas that proceeded from the concept of Greater Serbia, but he also gave these ideas a personal touch which we found unacceptable.

After the Second World War, Stevan Moljevic was sentenced to a prison term and perhaps even died in the Sremska Mitrovica prison. However, the main ideologist of Draza Mihajlovic's movement was Dragica Vasic. The Ravno Gora movement included Catholics and Muslims too.

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues]...

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Obviously you find this subject boring but --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, regrettably we cannot allow you to give an exhaustive an answer as you would wish.

Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE:

Q. Yes. Now, there are a few points that I want -- you've given your account as to whether the Greater Serbia concept exists in these various events of which we've heard largely through witnesses of the accused but sometimes through the evidence of the Prosecution expert, are characteristic of some of the things I've mentioned, for example, Nacertanije and Cubrilovic, and even the Black Hand is that they were secret either documents or ideas or movements because whatever concept they reflected it was known that it could only be reflected by violence, ⁴⁴²³⁷ by killing, and that's why these -- I'm not suggesting Nacertanije itself was a proposer of violence, but to adhere to the ideas of Nacertanije and the Black Hand or the ideas of Cubrilovic they were known to be violent in their consequences, yes?

A. That's not the true. In the 19th century, the association Greater Serbia functioned publicly and legally. For five years a newspaper called "Greater Serbia" was published.

At the beginning of the 20th century, in 1903, Dragutin Ilic, a writer again started this newspaper. In 1914, there were two different editions of Greater Serbia, one in Valjevo, the other one in Nis. At the Salonica front, where the Serbian army was getting ready for its victorious break through, it was published as a daily newspaper in 1916, 1917, and 1918. In the 1920s the newspaper Velika Srbija, Greater Serbia was published two times in Belgrade. So the concept of a Greater Serbia was never a secret project. And what are you doing? Secret organisations that were never explicitly in favour of a Greater Serbia. You're trying to say that they were an advocate of a Greater Serbia. You cannot find a Greater Serbia anywhere in Nacertanije, in Garasanin's writings, or in the Black Hand organisation and its documents.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... is this: After the Second World War and under communism, espousing Greater Serbia would have been almost unlawful. It would have been unacceptable. And the reason it would have been unacceptable is, amongst other things, because I must suggest to you, it would be known to be something that would bring violence. Is that right? ⁴⁴²³⁸

A. No. That was unacceptable as they opposed the communist ideology and communism could not tolerate any other view of the world. Every other ideology was banned. Every attempt to advocate a multi-party system took people to prison. Every attempt to advocate the freedom of speech and thought took people directly to prison. Communists executed tens of thousands of intellectuals when they took over in order to establish their ideological monopoly. And what are you saying here? You are speaking of the categories of the Communist Party which was totalitarian by its very nature.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, you seem to agree with Mr. Nice's proposition that after the Second World War any idea of a Greater Serbia would have been unacceptable, or perhaps for different reasons.

JUDGE BONOMY: Yes. It was based on violence, the question.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] All ideas that competed or, rather, those that were rivals of the Communist Party were banned regardless of whether they would generate violence or not. I have another piece of information.

After the Second World War, a group of Serb intellectuals, including the late academician Miodrag Jovicic, illegally published a paper called Greater Serbia but only on a Xerox. This was after the Second World War. It was only 18 copies but they could go to prison for that. Even Freemasons were involved, but they were all of a democratic orientation. So it's not true that the communists, because of this threat of violence --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice. ⁴⁴²³⁹

MR. NICE:

Q. Now, separately, and this is why the background is important or may be important, but separately from those who carried in their hearts and minds the idea of Greater Serbia, there was from, say, 1966 at least with the removal of Rankovic, there was in the former Yugoslavia a movement of Serbs who were concerned to achieve certain things for Serbs but different from that which was reflected in the motion of the Greater Serbia; correct?

A. No, that's not correct. There was no Serbian movement after Rankovic fell. And Rankovic could not have been a symbol of Serbian nationalism in any way. There were only individual Serb dissidents who were arrested by the regime. Some were tolerated a bit, others were used to treading gently. They didn't dare overstep and go to prison. But I claim that there was no organisation all the way until the end of 1989 or 1990. Under communism there was no Serbian movement in Serbia, because the repressive measures of the regime were such that it was absolutely impossible. There could not have been even a trade unions movement outside the regime's control.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... and tendencies don't have to be fully organised, but I'm going to suggest to you that the movement that the accused came to manage or maybe to lead in 1987, more particularly in 1989, is the movement that can be traced, and it's separate from a Greater Serbia movement, starting perhaps in 1966 going through 1968 to 1971 and 1974, the constitutional changes which made Yugoslavia much more confederal, going through the blue book, coming to Tito's death when ⁴⁴²⁴⁰ things were more easily spoken about, and then coming in 1986 to the memorandum which had features of the SANU memorandum. That's the sort of movement -- that's, I'm suggesting to you, separate from the Greater Serbia movement or tendency. Do you accept that?

A. It's not true that anything such thing existed. The blue book was made within the leadership of the Communist Party of Serbia. It had nothing to do with any kind of opposition or a dissident movement. You cannot artificially link up such things. The initiative of the Academy of Sciences and Arts was derived from the academy itself. The academicians were concerned over the situation in the state. They were trying to formulate their own opinions. I have a great deal of criticism as far as the memorandum is concerned, but it wasn't even completed, that text. The police got hold of it, they published it in a Belgrade daily newspaper, and it was never completed. The unfinished version was published, and I have a great deal of criticism with regard to that text. You know, many of the authors spoke from the positions of a communist ideology, even in that text, that there was a great deal of dissatisfaction in Serbia because of Serbia's constitutional position, that is true. I can agree with that. But that something was organised formally or informally by way of opposition, that is not correct. There was a circle of dissidents in Belgrade and for a while I belonged to it too. It had contacts with the dissidents in Zagreb and Ljubljana. However, these people had completely different ideologies. There was just one single thing that in a way brought us together, the fact that we were all opposed to the regime and nothing else. As soon as ⁴⁴²⁴¹ a multi-party system was established, everyone was dispersed in different parties.

THE INTERPRETER: Could the speaker please be asked to spoke slower. Thank you.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I have to ask you to speak more slowly. The interpreters are asking you to speak more slowly. Mr. Nice, I think I see where you are going and you consider it to be necessary for your case.

MR. NICE: I think it may be helpful, as a matter of fact, for the Chamber because it has had all this material in bits and pieces, and it hasn't had an opportunity of seeing it together. Now, the witness doesn't accept the propositions I'm putting but I've come nearly to the point where I can start to draw some conclusions.

Q. We're having to move very fast, Mr. Seselj, because of the time that questioning and answer takes, but before we look at the difference in practical terms between your concept of Greater Serbia and whatever if was the accused was aiming at, we can certainly identify these essential matters of difference between the Greater Serbia concept and his thinking. He, for example, never claimed a connection between his politics and the Greater Serbian history, did he?

A. It's not only that he claimed that it never existed. It actually did not. I think that in those 1980s Mr. Milosevic did not even know what this concept actually meant. He was not involved in that at all. He was dealing with other things. I don't want to offend him in any way, but I assumed that he had other things on his mind and that he didn't even know ^{44242 BLANK PAGE 44243} what this was.

Q. And the movement he managed or led starting in 1960 -- 1987, 8, 9, was concerned at those stages to centralise power within Serbia initially by taking away the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina. Would that be right?

A. No. Regrettably Mr. Milosevic's government never took away the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina. Had I come to power then, we, the Serb Radicals, would have abolished both provinces, because we oppose that concept of breaking up of a state. The Serb Radical Party is a centralist and unitarian party from that point of view. Regrettably Mr. Milosevic was not and perhaps that created additional difficulties for us later on. Had I been in his position and my party in 1990 when the new constitution was adopted, we would have completely done away with the autonomous provinces because there was no point in having them exist. However, we would have given a high degree of national rights to the national minorities.

Q. He never pursued the line that you pursue and pursued here of asserting that everyone who spoke the Shtokavian dialect, one of the three or four dialects in the region with which we might be concerned, was a Serb. He never took that position. He accepted that Croats existed separately from Serbs, didn't he?

A. First of all, towards the end of the 1980s Mr. Milosevic was not only a communist but the president of the League of Communists of Serbia. As far as I can remember, he even recognised the Montenegrin nation as a separate nation. He recognised the Muslim nation. He recognised that Shtokavians were Catholic Croats. He never brought that into question. ⁴⁴²⁴⁴ Absolutely. I'm not even sure that to this day he's given up on this idea that all of them are different nations, but I didn't really have the time to discuss that matter with him.

Q. And you see, and I'm going to go very quickly because at one stage His Honour Judge Bonomy was interested to know whether the geographical aspirations of those of Greater Serbia were identical with or similar to those of the accused or whether they were different. The aspirations were always different because your aspirations, the Greater Serbia aspirations, are rigidly fixed at the Karlobag-Virovitica line at one end and rigidly and still envisaging encompassing parts of Macedonia at the other. And that has not been the accused's position at all times, has it?

A. No. First of all, it does not mean that parts of Macedonia would be included. All of Macedonia would be included. You see, the present day Macedonians have nothing to do with the Macedonians of Alexander the Great.

Q. Stick with the last point we can do it with a map, if necessary, but I'll try and do it by words. The nearest that the accused's aspirations in territorial terms ever reached to the territorial aspirations of the Greater Serbians was probably when he launched the Belgrade initiative in the summer of 1991, it eventually failing by the beginning of 1992. But to remind the Court, Mr. Seselj, the Belgrade initiative was a plan whereby there would be a unit that encompassed Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia by consent, and the territories taken in Croatia, Knin, Vukovar, and it was hoped Dubrovnik. Now, that part of the Belgrade initiative plan of the accused was ⁴⁴²⁴⁵ as near as geographical aspirations he had would have matched the Karlobag-Virovitica line that you planned. Would that be about right?

A. That's not true. The Belgrade initiative was based on the following: If the secession of Slovenia and Croatia cannot be prevented, then the remaining four federal units should remain in a different Yugoslavia. Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia; that was the essence of the Belgrade initiative. As for the Serbs, they would not opposed to having the Serb Krajina join in as well, but Izetbegovic didn't like that idea. And the authorities in Serbia thought that the Western powers would oppose that.

Therefore, the governments -- the government in Serbia helped the Serbs in Krajina to establish a certain degree of autonomy either in Croatia, if it were to secede, or in Yugoslavia in order to have their rights protected. That is the essence of the Belgrade initiative. Izetbegovic would never agree to a Greater Serbia, but he did agree to a smaller version of Yugoslavia, and then the Americans later on persuaded him to break up this project and to declare independence and that is what caused a civil war.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The document of the Belgrade initiative was admitted into evidence here. I can't remember now whether it was me or Mr. Nice who did it, but I think it would be a good thing if it could be shown to the witness.

Mr. Nice is asking something about the Belgrade initiative that is ⁴⁴²⁴⁶ a total fabrication.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The witness seems to be very familiar with the document. If he needs it, it can be shown to him.

MR. NICE: We can find it --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm not sure that I'm familiar with it. I'm presenting my opinion. I do not know anything about a particular paper. I am speaking from memory about things that happened in 1991 and 1992. So please bear that in mind, Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE ROBINSON: If you're going to pursue this, then, Mr. Nice, it may be as well to have the document shown to them.

MR. NICE: There's only one more question I want to ask because I'm trying to clarify through the witness, although he don't necessarily accept the propositions, the reason for the approach that the Prosecution has taken throughout.

Q. And I think your last answer, Mr. Seselj, does actually to some degree confirm what I'm saying, if Bosnia by consent stayed with Serbia and the other countries, so that's a large chunk, and if the Serbs in Krajina and indeed the Serbs in Vukovar and in Dubrovnik had been established as Serbian territories, then although not everything of -- south and east of the Karlobag-Virovitica line would have been incorporated in that state, a lot of it would have been, and it would have been, comparatively speaking, similar to your Greater Serbia.

A. That is not true. Several times the Serbs from the Serb Krajina and Slavonia, Baranja, and eastern Srem and from Baranja in general adopted resolutions, documents, laws, to join Serbia to remain in ⁴⁴²⁴⁷ Yugoslavia, et cetera. Mr. Milosevic's government kept refusing all of that. In the National Assembly when I spoke from the rostrum I asked to have these initiatives accepted, but the authorities in Serbia did not want to accept that, and Mr. Milosevic's party had an absolute majority in the Assembly and they were not in favour of that. The Western Serbs wanted that. Mr. Milosevic did not agree. Mr. Milosevic did support the Serbs in Krajina from the point of view of protecting their existential rights, including their right to be a constituent people. However, he did not accept their initiatives that the Krajina be annexed to Serbia.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... will grant me that before it takes the course it often takes at half past 10.00. Once it became clear in 1992 that there was no prospect of Bosnia linking up with Serbia consensually, then the plan of the accused changed, I must suggest, moving from just support for the regions in Croatia to support for the regions that could be Serb-dominated in Bosnia, and from that moment on, going back to the inquiry that had come from the Court at an earlier stage in these proceedings, from that moment on there was no chance of the state that the accused wanted to match in any particular -- in any way the Greater Serbia map because it couldn't include all of Bosnia. It could only ever include part of Bosnia. Would that be right?

A. No, that's not true either. You're fabricating again. The plan was not to link up Bosnia with Serbia but for Bosnia to remain within Yugoslavia as an equal federal unit, and Alija Izetbegovic was even supposed to be the first president of this Rump Yugoslavia. It's one thing to link up with Serbia and another to remain within Yugoslavia. At ⁴⁴²⁴⁸ that point, Yugoslavia was the only legal internationally recognised state in the whole area. That is the essence of the matter. And those who wanted to separate Bosnia and Herzegovina from Yugoslavia must have known in advance that this could not be done without a war. That's a fact too.

Q. Finally I want you to listen to two sentences in which the words "Greater Serbia" are not used in the way you used them but just in a factual way for a larger or an enlarged Serbia but I'll quote specifically, is this the truth: "As the accused never used words to the effect of conducting the policy of Greater Serbia, what he did between 1987 and 1999, 1999, amounted de facto to planning for a Greater Serbia," an enlarged Serbia, I paraphrase. "There was not a single fully articulated plan from the outset, and the plan changed with changing circumstances, mostly responding to external forces." Now, in summary and looking at the influence of Greater Serbia, does that accord with your understanding of events? He never used the words. What he did amounted to planning for an enlarged or a Greater Serbia, and he was conditioned by external events.

A. Never did Mr. Milosevic have any kind of plan, either for a Greater Serbia or an enlarged Serbia. Absolutely never.

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, what's the source of these sentences?

MR. NICE: That's the 98 bis submission that I was putting to the witness because it was one of the documents on which the Court had relied. And, Your Honour -- sorry. I may have other questions to ask about it, but I've probably come to the end of this, but I wanted the Court to have, first of all -- ⁴⁴²⁴⁹

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Whose statement is that? Why don't you tell me.

MR. NICE: I am addressing the Court.

JUDGE ROBINSON: No, Mr. Nice, the question is an appropriate one. You mean the statement which Mr. Nice just read to you?

MR. NICE: Yes, he is entitled to the answer to that.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] He read something. I don't know what it was.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, he told the Court what it was. It was part of the submission of the Prosecution under Rule 98 bis.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As far as I know, Mr. Robinson, under Rule 98 bis it is statements that are not directly charging the accused. Am I mixing this up with another Rule?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, you're mixing it up. It's the Rule 98 bis, the motion for acquittal by the accused at the end of the Prosecution's case, and this would have been part of the Prosecution's response.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, if that's a convenient moment, may I conclude in this way, I have a few more questions but I hope very few, in light of this witness being the present-day --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I can't hear the interpreters.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just let --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I can't hear anything.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, let us take -- Mr. Nice, are you going to finish?

MR. NICE: No. I was just going to explain things then move on ⁴⁴²⁵⁰ possibly to something else after the break and very shortly. I was simply saying that in light of the interests of the Court --

JUDGE ROBINSON: The witness is not hearing so --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I can hear now, yes.

MR. NICE: In light of the interest the Court has shown in the Greater Serbia issue, in light of the fact that you haven't had these matters put together before in any comprehensive way, and in light of fact that this is the witness who would claim to know all about Greater Serbia, it seemed appropriate ahead of the submissions you'll receive of course in writing or maybe orally at the end of the case to give him an opportunity to comment on the main themes that I will be eliciting from the evidence and that's one of the ways for dealing with this.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Nice. We'll take the break for 20 minutes.

--- Recess taken at 10.35 a.m.

--- On resuming at 11.01 a.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE:

Q. Just one matter of detail about Kosovo that I wanted assistance on, Mr. Seselj, because I found your answers hard to follow. The movement of bodies to Batajnica. Now, please, first of all, tell us what you are saying as a basis -- on the basis of your investigations happened. What happened?

A. Based on the efforts I made to get information, on orders from Western intelligence agencies, certain political factors in Serbia ⁴⁴²⁵¹ collected a number of Albanian bodies, transported them to Batajnica, buried them there so that at a suitable moment they might be discovered so that the public might be horrified and thus accept more easily first the arrest and then the extradition of Mr. Milosevic to The Hague Tribunal. So everything was calculated to achieve that end.

Q. Just a bit more detail. Which were the political factors in Serbia?

A. I said police factors.

Q. Sorry. The transcript. Certain police factors.

A. Those were -- I cannot name them, but they were among the people who took part in the 5th of October Mafia putsch and whom the new authorities retained at high-ranking positions in the police. I could give you a lot of names of police functionaries who retained their high positions because they were trusted by the new government, but I could not tell you which of them in particular organised the transfer of bodies.

Q. I wanted to know if you're saying you can't name the policemen or you won't name them. Are you -- can you -- do you know the name of the policemen who engaged in this scheme?

A. I cannot specify any particular policemen because I am not certain of their names. I have never yet said, Mr. Nice, that I refuse to answer any question of yours, but in this case I cannot be sure that it's so-and-so precisely.

Among the people who remained at high-ranking positions in the police after the change of government certainly some of them organised the transport of bodies. Nobody else could have done it. ⁴⁴²⁵²

Q. Which were the Western intelligence agencies involved?

A. I told you what I know in general. I cannot tell you specifically which intelligence agencies, but the Americans used AWACS to follow and film every event on every square foot of Serbia, and they can tell you who did this and how.

Q. Finally on this part of this questioning, what was the source of your information about this plan or scheme?

A. Well, I made inquiries. I'm a very communicative man. After the putsch of the 5th of October, I was both a federal and a republican deputy. I was in the centre of political life.

Q. Mr. Seselj, if you spoke to Mr. X and Mr. X told us, please say so. If you read a document in an archive, please tell us. What were your sources of information about this scheme?

A. I couldn't tell you precisely. Not because I don't want to but because I truly cannot. But as soon as the news was published that the bodies had been found, I started dealing with this matter intensively. At first I didn't believe it. I thought maybe they had unearthed some bodies from World War II. I thought maybe -- jokingly I said maybe even from the time of Attila the Hun.

Q. So you made some inquiries. You're a man who has been educated, and you've written a lot of books. You must have made some notes about these inquiries. Where are the notes?

A. No, I didn't make any notes.

Q. Forgive my suggesting, but it would be a little surprising that this is something you haven't published or have you published it? ⁴⁴²⁵³

A. It's not impossible that some details could be found in my books which were published after my arrival in The Hague where I published some police or semi-police information. You know, on two occasions I formed a certain kind of intelligence service. The first time in 1993, if you want a detailed response to that question. I don't want to take up your time.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... you published anything about this ever so that we can go to that and find out, trigger your memory or read what triggered your memory if you can't point me to a publication.

A. Not as a reliable document, but I spoke about this in public more than once.

Q. Next question --

JUDGE KWON: Mr. Seselj, if that had been done by some police factor, as you put it, then Mr. Radomir Markovic should have known about the fact, shouldn't he?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know whether he would have known about it or not. He was not trusted by the new government. He was retained at his post for a while, but had he done this, he would not have gone to prison. This was done by someone whom the new government in Serbia trusted. I assume he must have had the rank of general. But because I don't have any reliable facts, I cannot identify the person. I may have named some people in public, maybe Goran Radosavljevic or Sreten Lukic or somebody else. It's possible I named them in public, but my public suspicions are one thing and testimony in court is another. So I cannot assert that I know who in particular did this. Perhaps Mr. Nice has a public speech of mine where I do name names, but that was simply ⁴⁴²⁵⁴ guesswork really.

MR. NICE:

Q. Can you tell us, please, when your inquiries revealed that these bodies had been removed?

A. Well, you know, to begin with, I doubt it that they had been moved at all. I thought these were old bodies from a previous time. When it was confirmed that they really were the bodies of Albanians, when their identification started, well, I can't be precise about the time when. The government changed on the 5th of October, 2000. I arrived here in 2003.

Q. Mr. Seselj, you made some inquiries of either a human resource or a documentary resource. Now, one or other of those or both is going to reveal that the bodies were moved either, A, in the course of the bombing and before Kosovo was the subject of international military oversight, or after the time when it was the subject of international oversight. Tell us, please, which it was. Were the bodies moved before or after the end of hostilities?

A. It's much more probable that they were moved after the 5th of October, 2000. Much more probable, but this is not reliable information. I can't tell you exactly when.

Q. Mr. Seselj --

A. How can I tell you that?

Q. Let's -- if you've got the picture clearly, the whole plan, probably, was to move the bodies after the end of hostilities. So there can be simply no significance whatsoever in the evidence you gave about the bombing or non-bombing of Batajnica, can there? I just wanted to know ^{44255 BLANK PAGE 44256} with you'd mentioned it.

A. I said that Batajnica was bombed every night, but the location where the special anti-terrorist unit was, the so-called SAJ, in the yard of which the bodies were buried, was never targeted during the war. That's what I said.

Q. [Previous translation continues]... this to be very significant or are you saying that the international community had already targeted its grave site so that it was leaving it unbombed? You do understand the illogicality of your own evidence on this, don't you? If their bodies are moved after the bomb, then unless they -- unless they planned to use Batajnica --

A. First of all, it wasn't the international community who bombed, it was NATO. NATO is not equal to the international community, although it often has the international community under it's control. Secondly, what I presented were indicia. I didn't say that's the reason they didn't want to bomb. I was just pointing out something that's very impressive and serves as indicia.

Q. You see, we've had evidence here in open court about the refrigerator truck and about the inquiries that were made by Mr. Karleusa. We've seen statements that were produced by Rade Markovic, by Slobodan Borisavljevic. We've seen the notebook of Obrad Stevanovic which will fall for determination whatever interpretation he puts on it. We've heard of statements made by Ilic. All going to show that there was a plan launched in March of 1999 by this accused to move the bodies. Are you saying that all those pieces of evidence are just made up? Or may it be, ⁴⁴²⁵⁷ Mr. Seselj, that the accused didn't inform you of this part of his planning? Which is it?

A. Anyone who claims that Mr. Milosevic had a plan to transfer Albanian bodies from Kosovo to the interior of Serbia is lying. I'm absolutely sure of that. I can guarantee that with my life. I gave you the example of an Albanian called Dibran Dibrani who was killed in Kosovo and was given a proper burial there. His grave was marked. And then somebody dug up his body so that it could be found in a place on the Danube. What it's name? The Mackov Kamen, I think. So what I assert is that Mr. Milosevic had no reason to order the transfer of Albanian corpses from Kosovo to the interior of Serbia. It's completely irrational to even think such a thing. Why?

Q. Finally you do understand this, don't you, that on your evidence everything that happened, apart from a limited number of random and independent crimes, everything that happened in Kosovo was lawful at the hands of the Serbs, and I am going to suggest to you that you are lying throughout your evidence on this and many other topics, because you know that there were civilians killed in Kosovo and you know that the accused organised a no bodies-no crimes cover-up, and that's why you're giving the utterly ridiculous account you've treated us to.

A. That is absolutely not true. As evidence to support my thesis, I say that today's government certainly had the possibility of investigating exactly which police officer organised the transfer of bodies and today's pro-Western government of Serbia has never done this. Had they wanted the truth to come to light, it would have come to light, but it's not in their ⁴⁴²⁵⁸ interest for the truth to come to light, which is why it's all being swept up the carpet. These bodies were sent there during Mr. Milosevic's time, then they were sent back, but the investigation never discovered the names of the people who participated in the transport. So it's your case that's incorrect, not my testimony.

Q. The last matters of detail concern one but only one --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, that's a proper way of putting it. His case is incorrect.

Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE:

Q. My last matters of detail concern, I think, three questions in respect of one only of the many people who you have said adverse things about, and I've dealt with the generality of that, but for just one of them I'm going to deal with the detail, a little bit of detail, and that's General Vasiljevic who gave evidence here. You said an enormous number of things, or a large number of things about him, one of which was about the theft of money there Vukovar.

Now, of course Vasiljevic was investigated and indeed detained for a time.

A. Yes.

Q. In respect of that investigation, the question of money from Vukovar was never raise the at all, was it?

A. The proceedings against General Vasiljevic have been suppressed by the highest command structures of the General Staff. It's been covered up. ⁴⁴²⁵⁹

Q. This was in -- this was in rather earlier days, wasn't it, that he was dealt with for Vukovar? At the time --

A. I can't remember exactly when he was in prison, whether it was 1992 or 1993. I know he was in prison under investigation for a time, but I know that after that nothing came of it, and he was given a symbolic sentence or no sentence at all. I can't remember the details in order to account for the time he spent in prison, and he was rehabilitated in a while after a time.

Q. And indeed, he was reappointed by this accused at one stage. But still, at the time it was established that the money from Vukovar had gone into the Serbian public auditing service, and that was a source of money available to this accused, and there was no question of investigating money that landed up there. Would that be right on your experience of things?

A. That case is false. The money could not have been taken to the SDK because the SDK had nothing to do with the financial affairs of the JNA. The money had to be handed over to the military service of the National Bank of Yugoslavia. Afterwards, General Vasiljevic's crimes were covered up. Previously, he had been the chief of the military security service. I don't know who he had information against to get him to participate in the cover-up. I don't know. But General Vasiljevic stole the money from the Vukovar bank.

Q. Your suggestion that he was involved in some way in crimes committed at Vukovar, do you have any piece of evidence to show that he was present at any of the places where crimes were committed at Vukovar? ⁴⁴²⁶⁰ A piece of evidence, someone who has spoken to you, statement, document? It's very easy to say -- do you?

A. You're asking for a document. It's impossible to find a document of that kind. I know for certain that he was in Vukovar during the crime in Ovcara and that he was in Western Slavonia when Western Slavonia fell.

Q. You see, you make these terrible allegations against people, Mr. Seselj, in the same way as you lied as a propagandist. Now, you tell us where the evidence is. Will you do that? Will you?

A. That is my information and I'm -- it is not I who is lying. It is you who are lying, Mr. Nice. Why didn't you investigate the question of the mining of the Jewish cemetery in Zagreb, for instance, and the municipal -- the Jewish municipal building in Zagreb. Do you have any evidence there that the main organiser was General Vasiljevic perhaps?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, you have demonstrated that you know how to speak properly to the Prosecutor when you said his case was incorrect.

MR. NICE:

Q. I'll give you one last chance --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, a moment ago the Prosecutor's conduct was very proper. It is one thing when the Prosecutor says that my testimony was not correct and it's quite another thing when he tells me that I'm lying.

JUDGE ROBINSON: That's not for you to determine. Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: ⁴⁴²⁶¹

Q. Mr. Seselj, you give rise to two questions where there was going to be one. But the first one is this: This is one example, you see, of many terrible things you've said about witnesses who gave evidence against this accused, and I'm asking you simply to point us to the evidence on the basis of which you tried to implicate General Vasiljevic in crimes against Vukovar. Can you tell us what the evidence is?

A. You should ask General Mrksic. You should ask General Nedjo Boskovic who came to head the military security service after Vasiljevic and so on. Whereas my knowledge and information is based on talks with a large number of competent individuals as opposed to your witnesses who 15 years on can remember every single conversation in detail. I can't remember any conversation in detail after all that time.

Q. Please, then, name us one person, will you do that, one person who for this one allegation against one of the many people you've said adverse things about, just give us the name of one person who named General Vasiljevic on this topic, please.

A. I cannot name names now, because they were conversations that took place 10 and 15 years ago. But the overall knowledge on the basis of a number of conversations, and I did talk to General Mrksic, and I did talk to General Nedjo Boskovic, I even had quite close relations with General Boskovic at a time, in 1992 for example, we were on close terms. But I cannot say -- tell you now so-and-so told you that. It is only your witnesses that can do that, the ones you instruct about how they are to testify, and now you expect me to remember exactly who told me what. How can anybody do that, any human being. ⁴⁴²⁶²

MR. NICE: Yes. I don't think I need trouble this witness any longer.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Nice. Mr. Milosevic, how long will you been in re-examination?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I don't think I'll be able to complete it today, the re-examination today. I see that we have about two more hours left to go, which won't suffice, I'm afraid.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I am very disappointed to hear that, Mr. Milosevic, but commence.

Re-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, I'm going to try to save as time as possible, yours and mine. I'm going to ask you just those questions which have to do with the cross-examination conducted by Mr. Nice. I'm not going to open up any new topics.

Somewhere at the beginning, I can't say whether it was one of the first questions or not, but amongst the first questions anyway, Mr. Nice asked you whether you recognised this Tribunal. To tell me now, please, whether you explain the reasons for which your answer to that question was negative.

A. Well, I didn't explain my reasons in full. When the so-called Hague Tribunal was first established for dealing with the crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, the Secretary-General himself of the United Nations, in his address to the Security Council, in writing recognised the fact that this court and Tribunal was not being formed pursuant to international law, that it was -- had it been formed pursuant to ⁴⁴²⁶³ international law, then it would have been formed and established in the same way in which the permanent criminal Tribunal was formed with its so-called statute of Rome. So there the establishment procedure was fully followed. This Tribunal has not followed it. It was set up as an ad hoc Tribunal, which is contrary to the basic principles of criminal law. Third, this court was given the authority to prosecute crimes which took place before its establishment, which is also unlawful. Fourthly, this Tribunal, at the very outset, began to violate one of the elemental legal principles which reads as follows: Nullum crimen sine lege, that is to say, there is no crime and punishment provided for by the law as such and in the quantity it is provided for. Now what does that mean? Every perpetrator of a crime, of a war crime in fact --

JUDGE ROBINSON: You have given the explanation. Next question.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I haven't stayed this and it's an important point and that will be my final explanation.

JUDGE ROBINSON: We have had the explanation. Next question, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. Robinson.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, in answering questions put to you by Mr. Nice, you spoke about false witnesses. On the basis of what knowledge were you able to speak about false witnesses? And I set aside at this moment the series of witnesses which I quoted during the examination-in-chief, my examination-in-chief of you, for whom you testified and said that they were not telling the truth. So how were you able to speak about false ⁴⁴²⁶⁴ witnesses in general?

A. On the basis of my own personal knowledge, when those false witnesses happened to mention my own name, for example. For example, Milan Babic, during his testimony mentioned my name on several occasions in a completely false context. And I'm conscious of it being a false context. For example, that he -- that the minister of defence of -- General Marko Negovanovic provided me with helicopter, whereas I know for certain that he wasn't the defence minister of the republic at that time. So that was my own experience that was highly valuable to me in assessing that.

Secondly, I was an eyewitness in the prison of The Hague Tribunal as to how Miroslav Deronjic was broken down by The Hague Tribunal, how they blackmailed him and the process of breaking him down. I was on good terms with him to begin with. He told me how he was arrested, how he was beaten, how they put him in a barrel of water and so on and so forth. He confided in me, and they -- it took months to break him down. And they didn't succeed in breaking him down until Momir Nikolic, in his testimony before the Prosecution said that Deronjic was present at a conversation where an execution was agreed.

Well, then Deronjic broke down completely and agreed to testify on any subject whatsoever and against anybody whatsoever. He agreed to falsely testify against Karadzic. It was then that he said that Karadzic spoke about the execution of prisoners, that at Pale he called him aside to whisper that to him in his ear. He said you know those people should be executed and things like that. And at the beginning -- Miroslav ⁴⁴²⁶⁵ Deronjic told me that they were asking him to give false testimony. He confided that in me and said that he would not agree to testify falsely.

JUDGE ROBINSON: You will not be allowed to answer ad infinitum. So next question, Mr. --

JUDGE BONOMY: Could I just ask one thing. Where was it these various things were done it him?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] While he was arrested. He was arrested somewhere in Bratunac. Although previously he had contacts with The Hague investigators. He had talked with them on several occasions, and he promised that if they called him he would be ready to come at all times. Despite that, they beat him up when -- in the process of arresting him to expert pressure and to exert fear and they immersed him in a barrel full of water apparently.

JUDGE BONOMY: And that all happened where?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In Bratunac, I assume. He was arrested by members of the international force.

JUDGE BONOMY: And can you specify who -- so you say this was soldiers who do this to him?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. That's how I understood the gist of his story.

JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, for the record, the question that gave rise to this answer was general. I don't think I asked a question about Deronjic myself in the course of cross-examination.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Next question, Mr. Milosevic. ⁴⁴²⁶⁶

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. In answering Mr. Nice's questions, you mentioned bargaining [no interpretation]?

JUDGE ROBINSON: We're not having any translation, any interpretation.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Shall I repeat my question?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, in response to Mr. Nice's questions, you mentioned plea agreements. Can you tell us something about your knowledge with respect to the plea agreements and what you base them on?

A. Yes. Up till now, I have read almost all the judgements passed by The Hague Tribunal. I just did not read the Prijedor group second instance judgement and the Kordic one, perhaps one or two others, but otherwise I've read all the other judgements and I learnt a lot from them. And I read some of the plea agreements that people happened to show me. And from reading that, I gained the knowledge that most often the Prosecution looked at notorious criminals, that is to say, people who were undoubtedly criminals --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, this line of questioning is not helpful. His view of the plea agreements is neither here nor there. Move on to another question.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I'm not asking the witness's his position on the issue but his knowledge of it, and my question is quite legitimate because it emerges from the cross-examination ⁴⁴²⁶⁷ conducted by Mr. Nice.

JUDGE ROBINSON: What aspects of his knowledge are you seeking to ascertain?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I wish to hear from him how he is able to speak about plea agreements, what the basis and knowledge of that is. He said he read a lot of material on the subject.

JUDGE ROBINSON: What is the relevance to this case?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, the relevance is in view of the overall credibility of the other side and the way in which the opposite side works and construes indictments and charges. That is highly relevant because the question of credibility arises in that kind of work.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The credibility of the Prosecution? That's not an issue --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Of course.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The credibility of the Prosecution is not an issue in the case. Ask another question, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Very well, Mr. Seselj. So in answering the initial questions put to you by Mr. Nice, you indicated that this particular institution here, in addition to being an illegal and unlawful one, has an expressly anti-Serb character. What were the grounds for you to say that?

A. Because of two Serbs brought to trial --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic.

JUDGE BONOMY: Please stop.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Please stop. When I start speaking you must ^{44268 BLANK PAGE 44269} stop. I'm not allowing that question. It's not relevant. And, Mr. Milosevic, you very well know if you are going to use your time in re-examination in this way I will terminate it. The line of questioning is improper. You're using it for non-forensic purposes, and I will not allow that. So you determine whether you wish to continue or not. You have a number of matters on which you can re-examine properly. So far you have wasted the time of the Court.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. Robinson. Fine.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, let's now deal with questions put to you by Mr. Nice by placing before you certain documents. You expressed the wish when you were shown a document from your book the Serbian Chetnik Movement, the title of that is, Mr. Nice asked you to read out one sentence from page 346. I hope you have that. Do you?

A. Page 346?

Q. Yes, the Serbian Chetnik Movement, page 346. He asked you to read out one particular sentence from that page --

JUDGE KWON: You should give us the --

JUDGE ROBINSON: What's the number, Mr. Milosevic, the exhibit number, so we can find it?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't have the tab number here unfortunately. I'm looking at the English translation of it as well and the Serbian original. But it is 03482217, the ERN number.

MR. NICE: 882.

JUDGE ROBINSON: 882. ⁴⁴²⁷⁰

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Have you found it, Mr. Seselj?

A. Unfortunately not yet.

JUDGE BONOMY: Just before going on to that, if I can go back to a matter that was dealt with earlier in this -- at the start of this re-examination in relation to the reasons given by Mr. Seselj for not recognising the Tribunal, and I'm looking at the moment at the Secretary-General's report prior to its establishment in which he says that the appointment by a decision of the Security Council would be legally justified.

You suggested to us that the Secretary-General had reported in writing that it was contrary to international law. Can you tell me where that -- where I will find that written statement by the Secretary-General?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You will find it in the UN Secretary-General's address to the Security Council, perhaps in that same text where he says that it would be best if the Tribunal were to be established by first --

JUDGE BONOMY: That's not my question. My question is where would you find this straightforward statement that would assert the establishment was contrary to international law?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You will find that in the material of the UN Secretary-General where he explains how that ought to be done under normal conditions, and then ultimately he interprets it as being reliant on Article 7 of the UN charter. You have that in the UN Secretary-General's address. And he goes into the political reasons why the following steps should be taken rather than something which would be ⁴⁴²⁷¹ most align with international law. I read that personally, and I'm sure he has that. It is contained in his address.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, your answer is certainly not consistent with what I've read, and if Mr. Milosevic wants to explore it further, he may wish to consider the position for that.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Have you found the page, Mr. Seselj? 346.

A. Yes, I have it here before me on the monitor, but I haven't taken all the documents with me, but I've got it on the monitor anyway now.

Q. Mr. Nice quoted one sentence, and you asked to read the whole speech. Mr. Robinson then said that this could be done in the re-examination. So you can do that now. Because on page 346, it is very brief, can you read it and explain to us why you insisted on reading the entire paragraph and not just the paragraph that Mr. Nice wanted?

A. Because from my whole speech held at the funeral of Radomir Stojakovic, the first volunteer to be killed of the Serb Radical Party, you can see the sense of it and not only on the basis of what was highlighted and emphasised here by Mr. Nice. So that I would like to read out the portions which Mr. Nice didn't read out here.

Q. Yes, please go ahead.

A. It says: "Serbian brothers and sisters --"

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute. Let us look at the speech that you are planning to read. How long is this? This is one page?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Less. Just half a page. Just a little more than half page, on 3 -- page 346. ⁴⁴²⁷²

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Do you wish me to read the introductory part and then the highlighted part highlighted by Mr. Nice?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That was what Mr. Robinson's instructions were when you asked to read the whole passage out.

A. Yes, I see. So just the portion above the highlighted portion.

Q. Yes. It's a third of the page.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I will allow you to read just the portion above the highlighted portion.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Very well. That will be sufficient, I hope.

"Serbian brothers and sisters, today we take our leave of our brother, Gradimir Pesic, who died a hero's death defending Serbia and Slavonia. Many other Serbian sons have fallen. Serbia today laments its dead. Serbia today is once again in flames, and our brother Gradimir left his village and went off to distant Slavonia to defend Serbian homes, Serbian women, and Serbian children there, and he died a hero, victim of the treacherous Ustasha hand while taking down the Ustasha flag that had been stuck up in a Serbian village."

And this is how he died: The Ustashas stormed the village by night and set up their own flag on a silo which was located in the village, and the next day when he saw the flag he got up to take the flag down and a Ustasha sniper hit him. So there was no fighting. It was a sniper hit that hit him while he was trying to take down the flag. "Yet another of our bravest sons have fallen. The bravest always fall. The bravest always die. Those who are worth the most always die. ⁴⁴²⁷³ Gradimir waited 15 days in Belgrade before being sent to Slavonia. He was waiting for his group, waiting for his journey without return. Serbian brothers and sisters, Serb fell during centuries past, always dying like men, always heroically, and today our brother Gradimir has shown through his death that Serbian mothers have not ceased to bear heroes."

So that is a farewell at the graveside of the fallen hero.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, is the point of all this, of what you have been saying --

JUDGE BONOMY: [Previous translation continues]... question coming?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, reformulate.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Okay, I'll reformulate.

Q. What is the significance of the fact that you say here, "Our brother Gradimir went to defend Serb houses, Serb families, Serb children," and so on and so forth? He went to defend, Serb women, children, and so on.

A. The point is that Gradimir and the other volunteers did not go out there to attack. They did not go to loot other people's homes, to jeopardise other people's children. They went there to defend Serb homes, Serb women, Serb children. That is the core of the matter. He went there to defend his brothers who were imperiled. He Did not go there to jeopardise others, and he did not go because he simply felt like it.

Q. Thank you, Mr. Seselj. ⁴⁴²⁷⁴

JUDGE BONOMY: Can I ask, how on earth does that alter the context of the statement that follows: "You will not remain unavenged"?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] When it says "unavenged," or when one says unavenged, that means that there will be enemies who will fall in battle with Serb soldiers. There is no reference to any kind of vengeance against other people's prisoners of war or whatever. In many of my speeches, and Mr. Nice can find that, too, how many times I spoke of chivalry, that is to say, an honourable attitude towards civilians, prisoners of war, et cetera.

You know, in a war when you talk about revenge and avenging people, in our literature that is the usual term. The enemy dealt us a grave blow in the battlefield, and we will avenge that by a blow of our own against the enemy.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, that depends on whether there's a conflict actually ongoing at the time. But you have said here: "You will not remain unavenged. Our enemies will feel the punishment of the Serbian people. The time has come to settle old scores. The time has come to avenge all Serbian victims."

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] And who are the enemies, Mr. Bonomy. This is quite clear, isn't it. The enemies are the Croatian fascists, the Ustashas.

JUDGE BONOMY: What this sounds like to me know is taking vengeance for the death of this young man, now that you've put it in its complete context.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. But look, now, why shy away ⁴⁴²⁷⁵ from revenge? What does revenge mean? If Gradimir got killed, tomorrow three or four Ustashas will get killed in a conflict with the Serb defenders. That is the revenge for his death, not against civilians or prisoners of war. You cannot find that anywhere that I ever said any such thing. That is why I thought that it was important to read out the whole passage.

JUDGE BONOMY: What you seem to be failing to understand is that what we then do is look at what happens on the ground following statements like this to see what the effect has been and what the relevance of the statement actually is.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, you have to narrow down the effects of these statements to the conduct of the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party, and I'm convinced that you will not find a single volunteer who perpetrated crimes. That is my superiority over this Office of the Prosecutor. I am truly convinced of this because I have knowledge to that effect that they had the highest morality and integrity in this war. And that is why I'm so proud of that. And that is why I personally identify myself with the struggle of the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party.

And now if a crime was committed out there by someone else, you cannot ascribe it to me as an effect of a speech that I made. Well, that is impossible, Mr. Bonomy. Instigation to crime has to be direct. Some tried to accuse Schelling and Nietzsche of Hitler's crimes. However, that was untenable in philosophy. If you look at Schelling, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, you can certainly find things that -- ⁴⁴²⁷⁶

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, thank you.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Since Mr. Bonomy raised this question of vengeance, does it relate to what it says here and does it have any significance what I already quoted, that he was a victim of the treacherous Ustasha hand?

A. Yes, of course, everything is aimed against the Ustashas. The Ustashas are the symbol of all evil in the entire Serb consciousness. There is no greater evil than the Ustashas. The Serbian people clearly identified the Ustashas. They are Croatian fascists that are carrying out a genocide against the Serbs. The definition of Ustashas is perfectly clear, like that of the Nazis in Germany.

Q. All right.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Next question, please.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Let's just deal with this briefly. I'll take it more or less in the order in which I took notes while Mr. Nice was examining you. Several times he went back to this unit that was popularly called the Red Berets. Mr. Seselj, our state, and when I say our state I'm referring to the Republic of Serbia in this context, did our state have any paramilitary unit during any period while the war conflict was on, that is to say, from 1991 until the end of all conflicts? Did our state have any paramilitary unit?

A. The Republic of Serbia never had any paramilitary units. I state that categorically. However, there is a great deal of confusion that is being introduced, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally, ⁴⁴²⁷⁷ due to the fact that there were several units that were popularly known as the Red Berets. I'm going to give you yet another example that I haven't mentioned before because my memories are coming back. Sometime when the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina had just started, the local followers of Vuk Draskovic took all of Sipovo, and they established their own arbitrary government there. It's somewhere between Central Bosnia and the Krajina. It's a town where the Serb majority -- where there was always a Serb majority among the population. The 1st Krajina Corps had to intervene in order to disarm these people, Draskovic's followers, who were behaving in a very unruly way. That Krajina Corps had as a unit of the military police a unit called the Red Berets. I know that for sure. After the war the unit was disbanded or transformed or whatever, but at that time they had a military police unit under that name. So it could have been an intervention platoon, like in the Bratunac Brigade or a reconnaissance platoon, it could have been a military police unit or whatever. It's the caps that the soldiers wore that create all this confusion.

Q. Mr. Seselj, to the guess of all your knowledge, the state security service, which is sometimes called the secret police and so on, do they also have their own rules, their own very precise norms and their records?

A. Yes, and that is very strictly elaborated. Even during the communist period that was very strictly done and also afterwards when communism fell.

Q. The existence of that kind of unit that Mr. Nice ascribes to the state security service, would that have to exist in the documents of the ⁴⁴²⁷⁸ state security service?

A. I categorically state that it would have to be in the documents. It would be impossible for it not to be in the documents.

Q. Have you heard of any evidence or document concerning the existence of such a unit apart from what Mr. Nice presented here, namely a speech made by Franki Simatovic in 1997 at the celebration of the anniversary of the JSO?

A. I tried to make a joke the other day, and I remembered the old scholastic debate on the number of teeth a donkey has. If you ever studied philosophy, that is a very characteristic example. For days and months they were debating the issue, and then one of them remembered and said, "Well, let's open the donkey's mouth and count his teeth." Franki Simatovic was here for months. He was accessible to the OTP. Instead of asking him, they asked people who haven't got the faintest idea perhaps.

JUDGE ROBINSON: What is the answer to the question.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The answer is that Frenki Simatovic, Frenki, was perhaps bragging a bit, speaking of his own merits during the war and defending the Serb people, and he talked of his comrades in arms who became members of the unit for special operations of the State Security Service of Serbia. He was proud of his participation in the war. And he is entitled to feel that way and who can stop him from feeling that way? Frenki's participation in the war is one thing, whereas the formal establishment of a unit of the State Security Service of Serbia is completely different thing. These are two completely separate matters. ⁴⁴²⁷⁹ But you see, although the Serb Radical Party was officially registered in 1991, I sometimes --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Seselj. Mr. Seselj, thank you. We're digressing.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, a well-known Serbian and European historian testified here, the academician Cedomir Popov, and at one moment he indicated that historical phenomena can only be interpreted in the time and circumstances when they actually occurred. I assume that you as an intellectual and a university professor are well aware of that rule.

A. I absolutely agree with that. Every fact, every act, and every speech, for that matter, has to be interpreted from the point of view of the context in which it took place. You cannot look at a particular act individually disregarding all other acts in time and space. You cannot look just at one speech that was made 15 years ago without looking at other speeches that --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, what is your question arising from that?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, quite a number of questions will arise, but I'm certainly not going to use as much time as Mr. Nice did. I'm just going to look at a general definition of the questions raised by Mr. Nice. Namely, Mr. Seselj, Mr. Nice presented a heap, or, say, a large number, let's not exaggerate, of quotations from different speeches in which you attack me.

A. Yes. ⁴⁴²⁸⁰

Q. Do you remember that?

A. Yes.

Q. Not to waste any time, I'm not going to repeat those quotes and I'm not going to present them to you document by document as Mr. Nice did. You responded to that by giving explanations that have to do with the time involved and the conflict that you had at the time with the authorities, and I was at that time head of those authorities.

A. Yes.

Q. Mr. Nice asked you to show certain texts from your books because, inter alia, you looked at that as evidence where you said that earlier, that is to say before this testimony.

A. I gave him seven or eight concrete examples.

Q. As you and I saw and everybody else who is following these proceedings, Mr. Nice himself asked for these examples during the cross-examination, but he did not quote them at all. He did not want to quote them obviously. And Mr. Bonomy put some questions, too, in relation to that.

So now I'm going to make up for what Mr. Nice omitted to do, namely in relation to this --

JUDGE BONOMY: Before you do that, I thought we were to get copies of these.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, if you haven't got copies of them, I'm sorry.

JUDGE BONOMY: Which I haven't seen.

MR. NICE: I've been pursuing them -- ^{44281 BLANK PAGE 44282}

JUDGE BONOMY: Only if you have able to get them translated. Now it may be that that hasn't happened.

MR. NICE: That hadn't happened.

JUDGE BONOMY: All right.

MR. NICE: Indeed, I was going to inform you that my information is that one of them uses the word exaggeration, but I've been trying to get context for that. And I put, as you will recall, a reference to the effect of those that there are some of them that deal with the French intelligence allegation, but I haven't been able to deal with them exhaustively simply for want of time and absence of translation.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic. Mr. Milosevic, I'm trying to determine how to manage this. I think it will have been put on the ELMO.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, it's very simple to resolve this. Like you, Mr. Robinson, and like all the rest, I got this through the kindness of Mr. Nice, who took it upon himself to look at Mr. Seselj's seven books and have the marked sections photocopied. So I got these examples when you did. I assume that your service has them, too, because I would like to keep this, and could the service give it to Mr. Seselj?

JUDGE ROBINSON: The problem is that we don't have copies.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Then I'm going to give this to the usher so that Mr. Seselj can quote these sections from his books by himself. I don't know whether --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Do you have a copy for me? I cannot carry seven books around every day.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] ⁴⁴²⁸³

Q. This is from the book "Serbia Under American Bombs." That is one of the books you brought here?

A. Yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic --

JUDGE KWON: Would the usher give the documents to the witness so that he can sort out the relevant documents.

JUDGE ROBINSON: And I presume, Mr. Milosevic, these are short or relatively short passages.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Robinson.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Now we have excerpts from the book "Serbia Under American Bombs."

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Could you please have a look at this. You marked it yourself. Let me just look at the page number. The copy is not a very good one. 118 is the page number.

A. Yes. But, Mr. Milosevic, I have to tell you something. You have the contents at the end, and you can see that these are my public speeches from 1998. All of these TV interviews are from 1998. So I'm saying this for the benefit of the Trial Chamber so they would know when this happened.

Q. Mr. Seselj, I am particularly grateful for the fact that you've indicated the time, because in presenting evidence it's very important when something was said. So can you follow this on page 118, in the second paragraph, where the journalist is asking you something. I'm not going to read all of this. ⁴⁴²⁸⁴

THE INTERPRETER: Could the interpreters please have a copy on the ELMO. We don't have the document.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute, Mr. Milosevic.

JUDGE KWON: It's on the ELMO.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The interpreters are asking for a copy, but it's on the ELMO. It's on the ELMO.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So the host of the TV show is putting a question to you in 1998. It has to do with your joining the government and the coalition with the SPS and the Yugoslav left.

"Do you remember what you said about Slobodan Milosevic and Mira Markovic? You called them thieves and traitors. What are the names of peoples who associate with them? Let us clear this up once." "Dr. Seselj: I remember everything. This was a fierce political battle. I was responding, attacking. They were attacking. They responded in kind. Sometimes it was hard for me. I was in prison several times. This political battle, especially in the Balkans, was always linked to such versions of conflict too."

So is that linked to what you were saying over these past several days?

A. Would you look at the rest of the text.

Q. There is another part that is marked in the one but last paragraph: "As for political conflicts, we haven't forgotten any of that," et cetera, et cetera. I think that we don't have to go through all of this, but please look at the next page now. If you look at the next ⁴⁴²⁸⁵ page now. At the beginning of the second half.

A. Yes.

Q. Even years are referred to here. What does is say: Dr. Seselj: Throughout 1993." You read it out.

A. "In all of 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1996, there was a fierce clash between the Serb Radical Party and the SPS, the Yugoslav left, previously the legal of communist movement for Yugoslavia. This was a fierce political conflict. In that clash there was only words, strong words that were our only weapon and they arrested us, persecuted us, mistreated us, and I was sentenced to prison several times," et cetera. This is an indicator of how fierce the clash was, and every time when they took any repressive measure again us, we made even more forceful statements. Every time when I made a speech when exiting prison, I would always speak in stronger terms than I did in the speech when I went to prison.

Q. Mr. Seselj, please look at the next page, at the very beginning.

JUDGE ROBINSON: All of this, Mr. Seselj and Mr. Milosevic, is to show that Mr. Seselj's relationship with the accused at this time was one of conflict, bitter conflict?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It does show that. But the short passage on the following page is also very significant, Mr. Robinson. I think it would be very interesting for you.

I'm explaining here again. First I spoke about that clash between us and the socialists, the previous clash. "Just remember who started attacking whom first with these terrible words. The socialists attacked us. Remember September 1993, on the eve of our toppling of ⁴⁴²⁸⁶ Sainovic's government. The statement made by the Main Board of the SPS where I was said to be a war criminal, a criminal, that I was this and that, isn't that right? That's when it started. And then, you know, insult follows insult, and then you start competing. So I gave them tit for tat. But all these are facts. None of us are hiding from it. We cannot now go and say what said what to whom, who was exaggerating in their insults and who was more vehement. I said I go to prison. I get out and hold a speech at the very exit of the prison and say even worse insults. People a rally round, come and meet me. I don't know whether you have seen it on TV. I'm holding a new speech. I didn't like Draskovic write letters showing remorse in prison. Whenever I came out of prison, I was even more defiant than I had been before. That was just another stage in our mutual political conflicts."

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, you say here: "We can't now look at who was exaggerating how much in their insults."

Mr. Nice has quoted to you many of your statements made against me where you explained why you made those statements. He even said that you had been lying and you were explaining that this was not lying, that this was simply a political struggle where if various untruths are spoken and everybody knows they're untruths, this is only a part of the political struggle. Did you explain this in the same way here in this book as you did during your testimony?

A. Yes, in exactly the same way. That's the truth. I took an oath here to speak only the truth and that's what I'm doing. ⁴⁴²⁸⁷

JUDGE BONOMY: Are you going to point us to a passage that does explain it that way? Because the ones we've read certainly don't.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't know what else there is to explain, Mr. Bonomy. If he says that exaggerated insults were bandied about, each one more vehement than the previous one, and that's in response to a question about his attacks on me. Because the question before that was about how he attacked me, saying I was a criminal and so on and so forth. So these are the same questions as the questions that Mr. Nice put here practically, not in so many words but the gist is the same, and he is here explaining why he said those things at the time. Not because they were true but because he was in a conflict with me and he was trying to sling mud at me.

I'm trying to save time, but these questions are more or less the same as the questions put by Mr. Nice.

JUDGE BONOMY: The evidence on this will obviously require careful analysis, but there is a difference between expressing opinions strongly about whether someone's a criminal or not and issuing misinformation or misleading inaccurate statements for political purposes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, the spreading of disinformation has always been a means of a propaganda war ever since the concept of propaganda war came into existence. Propaganda wars are always based on disinformation.

JUDGE BONOMY: I'm not here to debate that with you at the moment. The question is let's look at the facts and that's what we're doing, and Mr. Milosevic then tends to make speeches after he's referred to come of ⁴⁴²⁸⁸ the facts, and he ought to be under no misunderstanding about the view initially formed of the facts that he's presenting.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

JUDGE KWON: By the way, Mr. Seselj, what were the charges you were prosecuted at that time? You were punished for misinformation at that time?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. I wanted to be tried for these insults and this disinformation in order to create a show, a spectacle of the trial. However, the government used other means. So first in 1994 I was sentenced to a month for insulting the Speaker of the Federal Assembly, but this was because some MPs from rival parties falsely testified that I had physically assaulted him. One of these witnesses was from Mr. Milosevic's party and the other one was from the ruling party of Montenegro, and they testified that I had physically assaulted him, which was a lie. That's why I was sentenced to a month in prison. Then after that, the Speaker prevented me from speaking in the Assembly. One of the MPs from my party threw water at him. He was ordered to leave the room. He refused. The police came to throw him out. We protected him with our bodies, so we started wrestling with the police, and that's why I was sentenced to three months.

Mr. Milosevic did not want to go to court because he knew what I wanted, but the people from his party found roundabout ways to get me in prison. Mr. Milosevic quite correctly guessed that I actually wanted a trial where I could make a big show so he avoided it.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, we're going to take the break ⁴⁴²⁸⁹ now. It's 12.15. I am to say that the Chamber will admit the two Prosecution documents, requests for assistance from the Office of the Prosecutor and the response from the Serbian and Montenegrin Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

MR. NICE: May they be appropriately numbered.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

JUDGE KWON: Microphone is not on. 918 and 919.

THE REGISTRAR: [Microphone not activated]. And 919 is the response from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Serbia Montenegro.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. We are adjourned.

--- Recess taken at 12.17 p.m.

--- On resuming at 12.41 p.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, the reply you quoted on page 173 is much clearer when you also read the question that precedes it, because the viewer -- a viewer who called in said: "I wanted to ask a question of Mr. Seselj. I remember when he came to Smederevska Palanka. He said that Slobodan Milosevic was the greatest criminal," and so on and so forth. And then you say what you read out in 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996. You say that there was a vehement political conflict, a clash, and so on. Is this what you were explaining to Mr. Nice here? Is this consistent with your explanations as to why you said this?

A. Yes. And my reply to Mr. Nice, to everything he brought up from those attacks of mine against you, is that everything I said then was ⁴⁴²⁹⁰ incorrect. It wasn't correct. It done mean that I made it all up myself, Mr. Milosevic, because many journalists in the pro-Western media were saying the same things, accusing you for this and that, of this and that, and it wasn't just my imagination. I gathered and combined this from their attacks, and perhaps I was the most skilful of all in construing these attacks on you.

Q. You have a brief excerpt from the book "The Power of Argument." I hope you have it before you. It's on page 347. You say: "As soon as he changed his policies in mid-1993," you're speaking about me, you have this answer.

A. Yes.

Q. "We set out to settle accounts vehemently with Slobodan Milosevic, and this settling of accounts is still going on, although in the past few years it has become somewhat milder because the repressive measures of the regime in Serbia have been mitigated."

A. Yes, I think this is important. As soon as the repressive measures grow milder, our rhetoric changes. We deal in arguments more than strong words or slogans. We attack people directly. So what I'm highlighting here is that the regime was -- was implementing repressive measures against us and arresting volunteers. The arrest of volunteers in 1993 was something that I found harder to bear than when I myself was arrested. It was harder for me to bear having others arrested because of me than being arrested myself. Mr. Milosevic, we even made up verses mocking you at the time. When I was in prison, I provoked the guards, singing every day "Slobo is ⁴⁴²⁹¹ hanging from a lamppost in Terazija and the police are weeping over him." This is something someone in our party wrote as a little voice to jeer at Slobodan Milosevic. And we were in a situation where the regime was acting improperly towards us. I know you don't like the little poem. I don't like it either, but at that time it seemed like a good way of defying you.

Q. Well, your defiance is well known. Try to remind me. I don't know that you were ever in prison for insulting me or my wife.

A. That's what I explain. You don't want to give me -- you didn't want to give me a chance to go to prison for that, but then your people would put me in prison for other reasons, very often fabricated ones. For example, General Badza, Radovan Stojicic, staged an attack on me in Gnjilane. We were attacked by the police for no reason at all. And there was even shooting. A policeman shot towards another policeman and hit him. This other one was wearing a flak jacket and he had bruises. And then Badza decided to ascribe this to me and my men, but none of us had weapons, so it fell through. They thought that as we were going to Gnjilane in Kosovo we would be armed to the teeth because we'd be in danger, but we -- as if we knew what was going to happen. We were all unarmed or who knows what might have happened in this construction of theirs. So I cannot justify what the police did in those years against us, either Badza or Jovica Stanisic or anyone else. The conflict that arose between Jovica Stanisic and us in those first years was even continued in the Detention Unit in Scheveningen so that the warden had to intervene. And later it died down a little and ⁴⁴²⁹² relations became more normal. But the first time I saw him I met with provocations.

JUDGE ROBINSON: If you're going to exhibit these documents, the time to do that is now, Mr. Milosevic, so we can just deal with them.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. I wanted to go through these books of Mr. Seselj's and then tender them all in a bundle so as not to waste a lot of time.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, look at this book now, "The Government of National Unity." I won't even quote everything you marked. On page 146, towards the end you say: "I thank Mr. Dretsen [phoen] for corroborating what I previously said, that no one attacked Slobodan Milosevic and the regime in Belgrade more vehemently than I did, and it's quite natural for members of opposition parties to attack and criticise the regime. And when the regime implements repressive measures that they should be as critical as is possible to be and to not choose words when attack being the regime. That's very natural."

A. Another thing is important, Mr. Milosevic. I am saying this on television in Montenegro, for Montenegrin television. So there is no need for me to explain this to the Serbian public. I'm saying this in Montenegro and everywhere else.

Q. Well, then, on page 1 -- no, 351, you're asked: "Do you still think that Milosevic is the biggest criminal?" And you don't answer this. And then he says: "You haven't answered my question. Do you still think that?" That's on page 351. And you say: "Seselj: That was ⁴⁴²⁹³ defiance to the regime and a vehement attack on the repressive policies of the regime. If you remember when in late 1993 we entered into a conflict with the socialists and the parliament met for days."

A. We were attacking the government of Nikola Sainovic for days with arguments vehemently, but none of us mentioned Slobodan Milosevic, even when the Socialists mentioned him. Sometimes Tomislav Nikolic would take the floor and say, "Don't touch the president." This is a showdown between our two parliamentary groups, our two parties, the government and the opposition. That was the first stage of the conflict when we spared you. But then our members were arrested, our volunteers in Srem, Sombor and some other places, and then they said the radicals were found with weapons. And various footage was shown on state-run television, even footage of weapons confiscated who knows where and ascribed to us. That was when we set out vehemently not choosing our words, and the more repressive the regime was towards us, the more brutal we were towards the regime. And the quotations from my speeches mirror this, the ones Mr. Nice referred to. I admit I was brutal in my showdown with you. Of course you personally did not appear on the other side, but it was your people who were also brutal in their showdown with us from your party and from the government structures.

THE INTERPRETER: Could there be a pause between question and answer.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. And then --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic. Mr. Milosevic, the interpreters ^{44294 BLANK PAGE 44295} are asking for a pause between question and answer. And for you also Mr. Seselj.

THE INTERPRETER: And could Mr. Milosevic's microphone be adjusted also, please.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a second. Mr. Milosevic, sorry to interrupt you. The interpreters are asking for your microphone to be adjusted.

THE ACCUSED: Okay, okay. Thank you.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, the presenter was saying: "Does that mean you didn't mean it seriously?" And you said: "It means that we wanted to insult and defy and annoy and provoke the other side. That's what we did."

A. Yes. We provoked the regime so much that at the end of the 1994 they even arrested me. And in 1995, at any rate, when they mounted the event in Mjlani [phoen], if you remember I mentioned that. The regime applied repressive measures towards us, and we were brutal towards the regime. And this defiance showed our resolve and strength. And then the regime at one point came to understand that it was no use fighting the radicals in that way. With Vuk Draskovic they could do that. All they had to do was arrest him, and the first time he was arrested in 1991 he peed on the spot, wet his pants. And he would write apologetic letters of remorse asking for mercy. So they had achieved their effect. And I'm referring to Draskovic's case.

With the radicals there was no effect. They could kill us. That's all they could do, otherwise nothing would have any effect. And as they couldn't use those tools with the radicals, then they had to act ⁴⁴²⁹⁶ normally towards us and we would act normally too, because it wasn't -- we didn't want to insult them at all costs, but when they get us into a corner we won't relent. So that's the sense of it. It -- our conduct depended on the repressive measures resorted to by the regime, but we did the same after the 5th of October when the authorities changed. The regime was repressive towards us. We staged parliamentary obstructions, they would expel us from the Assembly, and so and so forth. Now the situation has normalised somewhat in the parliament of Serbia, and the radicals behave in quite a different manner. When they're brutal towards us in parliament and they stifle our rights, then we respond in like kind. There is nothing else that we can do. So under those authorities, we had -- we wore yellow bands on our sleeves for a week because the -- their persecution of us we linked to the Nazi persecution of the Jews in their day.

So you should understand that that was -- that Serbian political folklore. Perhaps you can't find something like that in other countries, but we do have this political folklore and we are quite proud of it in actual fact.

Q. And then you have here on page 352. You say: "Do you still tell tales about the Milosevic family or was that a pre-electoral campaign?" And you say: "I never talked about the Milosevic family. I attacked the president of the Socialist Party of Serbia and the president of the direction of the Yugoslav left as political personages."

A. Yes, that's right. I never mentioned your son, for instance, because he didn't delve in politics. I never mentioned your daughter ⁴⁴²⁹⁷ because she never dealt in politics. But your wife was the president of a political party. Previously she was a high-ranking official of the party and later the president of the party, and that is why she was the subject of my attacks as a political personage, not because she was your wife. So the fact that those two facts coincided is how this arose. But I also say afterwards that they were insulting terms that we used. They used insults to hurl at me. Milan Markovic called me a Turk and so on and so forth. You know, your wife had -- had an article in a magazine, so she would attack me fiercely. But all that was in the heat of the political debate and argument. You were intelligent enough to avoid or, rather, not to enter into these disputes personally, and I have to pay tribute to you for that, because had you delved in those political debates, you would have fared worse.

Q. Mr. Seselj, in all those ten years, was I attacked fiercely, not only by you but by all other opposition politicians and their media?

A. Absolutely. They attacked you with all the tools they had at their disposal.

And let me give you an example. When we were in the government of Serbia in the year 2000, after the crime at the Ibarska road, Vuk Draskovic held Studio B under his control because he had authority in Belgrade, and from one day to the next they kept repeating accusations against you for having been -- for having organised the crime only the Ibar road motorway and that I drove a red Golf and took the perpetrator of the crime away from the scene of the crime, and this was so important that Aleksandar Vucic had to enforce rule in studio B to stop them emitting -- ⁴⁴²⁹⁸ broadcasting news like that. So us radicals were more prone to actions of that kind. We --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] -- were in charge of Studio B after that.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, you said here what you mentioned a moment ago, and it says that here too. You say the following: "But I never touched their children, attacked their children." And then the presenter says: "Nor did they harm you." And you say: "No, they didn't, and I didn't harm them. Some other people do attack them," et cetera. We're not going to enter into that now. But in -- over the past ten years, that is to say, from 1990 to 2000, in that ten-year period, was that a time when I was attacked and my wife was attacked with all possible instruments and tools by the entire media and the opposition?

A. My attacks on you were far weaker and milder than the attacks hurled against you by the pro-Western politicians later on. And here is an example in point. Just these days I've been reading in the Belgrade press that the former minister of the interior in Djindjic's government, Dusan Mihajlovic, said the following. This appeared in the papers just a few days ago. That you were not involved in the crime on the Ibarska Magistrala motorway.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Once a party -- ⁴⁴²⁹⁹

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What did you say?

JUDGE ROBINSON: A party is on his feet, you have to stop. Let us here what he has to say.

Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: The --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't do it intentionally. I Just didn't notice that he was on his feet.

MR. NICE: The question was out. It was almost too late to challenge it. But nevertheless, it is a leading question, and I don't know what the answer has that's relevant to these proceedings in any event. And we have to be careful that there aren't oblique purposes being served outside the objectives of this Court by what's being said by this witness.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, those ten years when I was under fervent attack, me and my wife together, did I ever in those ten years deny any of those attacks or refute them?

A. No, never. Not once.

Q. Did I deal with the attacks at all that were hurled at me practically daily?

A. No, not you personally. You never responded to any of the attacks hurled against you. However -- well, I have something important to say, Mr. Bonomy, and I think you'll wish to hear it. You were always tolerant here, and if Mr. Robinson and Mr. Kwon agree, I have two very important ⁴⁴³⁰⁰ sentences to say with your permission. If not, I won't. May I go ahead, Mr. Robinson, please?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Two sentences, yes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Several days ago, the Belgrade press, the papers, published a statement by the former minister of the interior, Dusan Mihajlovic is his name, and he was in Djindjic's government to the effect that Mr. Milosevic had nothing to do with the crime committed on the Ibarska motorway and the killing of Ivan Stambolic. And before that - this is the second sentence - all the officials of pro-Western parties, including that man Mihajlovic, strongly accused Mr. Milosevic precisely for those crimes for which it turned out that they had been commissioned by somebody else, the same people who had Milosevic toppled from power.

Well, maybe a little longer than two sentences, but anyway it was two sentences.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, I'm not going to deal with your books anymore from which we can see the attacks and how you explained the attacks hurled there. But let me ask you one question: Is any of what -- of the things that you uttered against me and my wife, was any of that correct?

A. All the things that Mr. Nice mentioned, none of that was correct.

Q. All right. Thank you. That's the only reason I asked you, because my question refers to Mr. Nice's cross-examination. Take a look at your book now, please, and could those three excerpts, the excerpts from three books be tendered into evidence as ⁴⁴³⁰¹ exhibits, please?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be under one number, D309 MFI.

JUDGE ROBINSON: They will be under one number.

THE REGISTRAR: D309.

JUDGE ROBINSON: D309 and marked for identification since they are not translated.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. You have it in this book "Not Mincing Words" and it's on page 800 -- 684 -- 864.

THE INTERPRETER: Could Mr. Milosevic please slow down.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, just look at the transcript. The interpreters are asking you to slow down.

JUDGE KWON: And identify the book.

JUDGE ROBINSON: And please identify the book.

THE WITNESS: Last document which you had here. [Interpretation] We have the book and we have the excerpt.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. The portion where you say there are certain situations in life where a politician especially must resort to such qualifications. What else can I say? When Milosevic's police arrest me, and so on and so forth. And then our resolute defiance and our courage and bravery we prove by resorting to the worst possible expressions and insults that we utter at that point in time.

Not to dwell on that any further, but that's all along the same ⁴⁴³⁰² lines of the explanations you've already given us. Now, with respect to these seven books that you referred to and from which Mr. Nice drew the extracts and the photocopies were made of them, there were a number of quotations which relate to Srebrenica, because that's one of the questions you were asked. However, he didn't want to ask you certain aspects of that. As far as I can see, one is the Fifth Fatherland Congress.

JUDGE KWON: It is for the accused to identify the passage. The book.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They are photocopies made by Mr. Nice.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Yes, and I received them from him. But they are taken from your book entitled the Fifth Fatherland Congress or Homeland Congress. Just let me see if I have the contents of that here.

JUDGE KWON: Is it one of the seven books, Mr. Milosevic?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. However, we only have four here and we're lacking three. Your usher only has four of them, and I handed over all seven at the same time.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I have them here, and I'll provide them to Mr. Seselj to save time so that it can be placed on the overhead projector. Here we have it, Mr. Seselj. From this entire book entitled, "The Fifth Fatherland Congress" I'm going to ask you to look at the passage highlighted in blue. You highlighted that portion, too, but just read ⁴⁴³⁰³ that out for us, please, would you?

A. It says here, and this is my speech, in fact, I think it's my speech at Fifth fatherland Congress of the Serb Radical Party held on the 23rd of January, 2000: "It is difficult to resist Western lies that are being launched via the instrumentalised media. They are lying that the Serbs attacked the Markale marketplace in Sarajevo and then one month later we learned that it was one great lie. However, in the meantime they introduced criminal sanctions against us and they have lied about many other things. They organised through their friends from the French intelligence service the killing, the murder, of about 1.000 Muslims in Srebrenica in order to ascribe that to the Serbs. And now we know that they tried to recruit some Serb criminals as well, Serb criminals in order to do their dirty work for them so that everything could come down on the shoulders of the Serb people to proclaim the Serb nation as a genocide nation by the world press and world media."

This, then, is my speech before the information minister --

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

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] -- spoke.

JUDGE ROBINSON: -- that arises from that passage?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, Mr. Nice asked you whether you had previously spoken about the background to the crime in Srebrenica, and I'm presenting you here with the book written by yourself and presented here. That is to say, that what you testified a bit -- about here you spoke about earlier on and that it was introduced into your books, that they were published, ⁴⁴³⁰⁴ printed, and so on and so forth. So is that material evidence? I assume that a book is public property?

A. Yes. And all that took place before the Pauk or Spider group was arrested.

Q. Now, in this other book of yours, the next book that was provided amongst those seven books that you handed over, which is entitled "While Patriots are Reconstructing, Traitors are Destroying." The page is 294 and 295. I have highlighted the portion. And then I'm going to ask you the question of how far this differs from what you said a moment ago -- not a moment ago during your testimony, but what you said during the past few days about those events and the way in which the Pauk group or Spider group was arrested and the documents that were presented.

A. This is way it was. This was a group of spies of the French intelligence service that was arrested. An investigation is going on. Different things are being revealed, including that intended assassination. Now the investigation is supposed to reveal how far the preparations for the assassination had gone, to what extent it was just an intention, plan, or whether it was a premeditated action. We will see these details in court. The investigation continues intensively, and every day more and more facts are emerging. However, it is very dirty work involved and that is more than obvious. These are people who have blood on their hands, the blood of thousands of victims, and that's a fact. And that Western intelligence services, in this case France, the French service, and many others tried to blame us for things in Bosnia, in Kosovo, to blame us for war crimes, genocide, and other things. That is ⁴⁴³⁰⁵ more than obvious.

Look at the case of Srebrenica. The Serb army started out towards Srebrenica and Srebrenica was liberated. Several thousand Muslims were taken prisoner, and Ratko Mladic came to Srebrenica and promised all Muslims that they would be escorted towards Tuzla, that all their lives would be guaranteed. He gives children chocolate, et cetera. In whose interest was it to single out a couple of hundred Muslims and execute them? Was it in the interest of us Serbs? No. Our interest was to have these Muslims treated in the nicest possible way, even those who we knew were criminals, and to give them safe passage to Tuzla. Many left. Many went and several hundred --

Q. Mr. Seselj, I see that the transcript is somewhat delayed, so could you please slow down so that we would have an exact interpretation of what you're saying.

A. I am going to slow down. "It was in our interest for all to leave, and then Zepa fell, and the same kind of action was taken in Zepa. Then Gorazde would surrender, and the Muslims themselves would see how well the Serbs behaved. Why would they shed any more blood? In the surrounds of Gorazde there was no bread, no water, nothing. They would surrender nicely. They would be escorted towards Sarajevo and that would be it. The objective of the Western intelligence service was a double one, first to kill as many Muslims as possible in order to indicate to the Muslims in Gorazde what the situation would be like for them if they surrendered to the Serb army, and then the Muslims from Gorazde were prepared to fight to the last man. Why would someone do that if he knew ⁴⁴³⁰⁶ what awaited him was certain death? Then he fights to the bitter end. Their objective was to stage an example of genocide, a war crime in order to accuse the entire Serb people and Serb leadership. Imagine now that is a small -- that is a group, a small group of people, the so-called 10th Sabotage Detachment."

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, I think you have read enough. Please ask a question arising from that, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Let him finish just the quotation, please, Mr. Robinson. This is a very important quotation. I would like Mr. Seselj to compare what he said then to what he testified about here on the basis of facts. He himself said that at that time he did learn of those facts, that he received this information.

JUDGE ROBINSON: It is rather long.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] But there's very little left, Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Go ahead.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] "The so-called 10th Sabotage Squad. That is what it was called, where there were both Muslims and Croats. This Drazen Erdemovic was also in that group. Now, what happened to him? He was in that group here. Our police revealed that, arrested him, and then he asked to go before The Hague Tribunal, and our people let him go there, and there he was sentenced to five years. He executed so many people and he was sentenced to five years only. What does that mean? And how much money did they promise him? They told him he would spend a few years in prison. They -- we are giving you this money but we need you now ^{44307 BLANK PAGE 44308} in order to use you against the Serb people and Serb leaders. That's the core of the matter. That's the same thing they tried to do in Kosovo. They accused us. They said 100.000 Siptars were killed, and then later on they reduced the figure. They said 10.000. Now they cannot find even 1.000 corpses. Where are they, then, if these people were killed? There aren't any. A person is not a fly and cannot just disappear. You know, that cannot be hidden. There were Siptars who got killed but they got killed in battle. What did our army and police do? Sometimes they would bury them in collective graves, but they marked them properly, according to regulations. Then there were Siptars who got killed during the bombing, several thousands of them. More Serbs got killed in Kosovo since NATO troops entered the area than the number of Siptars killed in battle --"

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter did not see the end of the sentence.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think it's very important to give the date. That's my interview given to TV Knjazevac in Serbia. The 8th of December, 1999.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. What is the question, Mr. Milosevic?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, Mr. Nice asked you what kind of investigation we carried out. Did we know anything about the crime in Srebrenica until Erdemovic was arrested and generally speaking until those first events at that took place then?

A. Before the Erdemovic arrest, I don't think that the authorities ⁴⁴³⁰⁹ had any kind of reliable information, and that's a very short period from July 1995 until, when was it?, February 1996 when Erdemovic was arrested? Some things were learned but I cannot say how much.

Q. Tell me, Mr. Seselj, do you know when the Dayton agreement was signed in?

A. November 1995 as far as I can remember.

Q. Saint Archangel's Day, the 21st of November, 1995.

A. Yes.

Q. Do you know that IFOR entered the entire territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina only a month after that?

A. Yes, immediately.

Q. Was it not the duty of those forces and the authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina to investigate that in their territory? What was it that Yugoslavia was supposed to investigate unless some of its citizens participated in something?

A. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia did not have any legal jurisdiction to investigate the crime in Srebrenica. That became the jurisdiction of international forces and of the occupation governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was Westendorp then or whoever. However, it was the obligation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, if it found out that a citizen of Yugoslavia took part in such a crime, to start an investigation and to bring him before a court of law. If also Yugoslavia learns that a foreign citizen did that and that person is in its territory, then they should do that too.

So that is -- those are the only two cases when Yugoslavia should ⁴⁴³¹⁰ have investigated such a crime.

THE INTERPRETER: Could the speakers please be asked to slow down.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I have to stop you. I have to stop you again. The interpreters are asking you to slow down. You must observe a pause between question and answer.

Mr. Nice, did you lead any evidence as to the constitutional authority to carry out investigations in Srebrenica?

MR. NICE: If you mean did I lead any, I'm not sure. I simply couldn't say whether any evidence was given one way or another. But of course the questions that I asked which this examination should, it might be thought, be reactive to are questions that arose from the witness's own volunteered account in examination-in-chief of his knowledge of these matters, my inquiring into what -- what inquiries, if any, existed and what documents existed, if any, upon which he based his conclusions. As to the question currently being dealt with, of course the body or one of the bodies in any event with jurisdiction was this body in 1995, and indeed we know about the indictments that were issued. That doesn't stop other bodies having either a duty or an interest in conducting inquiries themselves, especially given in the circumstances the person who had been charged so far as this court was concerned and his known -- as we now know his known employed or retained status within the forces of Serbia via the 30th and 40th personnel centres. So there was a range of issues that might have been explored, but of course the ones I explored were very limited, and I'm not sure this re-examination is reactive to those.

[Trial Chamber confers] ⁴⁴³¹¹

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, the line of questioning is that it was neither the function of Serbia or the FRY to carry out investigations in 1995 into crimes such as Srebrenica, then that belonged to an international force.

MR. NICE: Yes. Well, Your Honour, the points I've made I can simply repeat. First of all, he gave an account of Srebrenica based on information and I wanted to know what reports, if any, existed and what information, if any, existed on the basis of that. Second, not asked but nevertheless relevant to this topic here, as the Court knows, via the 30th and 40th personnel centre, Serbia had an established continuing interest in the criminality of those like Mladic who feature in that chain of payment and it may be of command, he having been indicted, it would have plainly fell on Serbia to get on and conduct an investigation into him. And, indeed, at a later stage, we will be looking at the absence of any reference to that from the documentation.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, first of all, I have to object to what Mr. Nice has been claiming, because that is totally untrue. The then president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Zoran Lilic testified here, and I think that some other witnesses also clearly explained what the 30th and 40th personnel centres were and that this had to do with giving assistance in terms of the salaries to the officers of Republika Srpska, that it had nothing to do with command, and that was proven a million times.

The fact that somebody gave assistance, material assistance, which ⁴⁴³¹² was explained very nicely here, well, that would mean that everybody who received assistance and committed a crime somewhere was actually linked to the person who had given the material aid. That is total nonsense.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Is it your case, Mr. Milosevic, that Serbia did not have the constitutional authority to carry out an investigation into -- into crimes such as those allegedly committed in Srebrenica and that that jurisdiction rested with some other body?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, what you are saying is partly true. However, at that time in 1995 --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm asking you a question.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, why would Serbia, if it does not have concrete information about a citizen of its own, interfere in what happened in the territory of another state after Dayton international forces came there, not forces from Serbia. Before Dayton there weren't any force there is from Serbia. I'm going to put the question to Mr. Seselj.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. To date has it been established that any citizen of Srebrenica -- of Serbia took part in what happened in Srebrenica?

A. No, not for a single citizen of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that is to say Serbia, Montenegro. No citizens of Serbia and Montenegro took part in the execution of Muslim prisoners of war in Srebrenica. There has not been a single case of this kind.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I wish to draw your attention to the following, that at the time when the international forces ⁴⁴³¹³ came in after the Dayton agreement, it was still totally unclear what had happened in Srebrenica. That was not mentioned at all in Dayton. What was discussed in Dayton was the peace agreement. This question simply was not brought up because no one knew about it. And then the international forces came in. That was under their jurisdiction. Now, what did Serbia have to do in that context? Why would Serbia deal with this? The first person that came onto Serbian soil --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Milosevic. Please move on.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I have just another book provided by Mr. Milosevic [as interpreted], and that is the "Dosmanli Evil Committed Against Serbia." That is one of the books that you gave here, Mr. Seselj. Please find a page --

A. Unfortunately I haven't got it in front of me.

Q. I'll give it to you then. It is page 3 -- or, rather, 434, that's the page number. And I would like you to quote what you said yourself. Again, this is a talk show on television, you and a talk show host. It starts with Srebrenica. Have you found it?

JUDGE ROBINSON: What is the title of the book?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It is page 435 maybe.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Yes, it is.

A. I found it.

Q. The Dosmanli evil committed against Serbia.

JUDGE ROBINSON: What is the title of the book? ⁴⁴³¹⁴

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] "Dosmanli Evil Committed Against Serbia"? "Evil" is a word I used. "Zulum" [phoen] means "evil." It's an archaic word. Perhaps it's even from the Turkish language. And now why I do I use the word "Dosmanli" --

JUDGE ROBINSON: You have a natural pedagogic tendency which you should seek to curtail, Mr. Seselj. I don't need to know. I just wanted to have the title.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Very briefly, I am mocking the current authorities in Serbia. That's the Dosmanli.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. And what is the passage now?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] "As for Srebrenica, first light should be shed on all the circumstances involved. There is no doubt that a large number of Muslims were killed. That is a fact. Why? I don't know how many. I know that the number was exaggerated, and I know that some who were on the list previously later even appeared in lists of voters and voted in the elections. But whether 1.000, 2.000, or 3.000 people were killed, I cannot just bid like that. It would be unfair of me to engage in this kind of guesswork.

The first question that comes to my mind is who issued the order to execute those Muslim prisoners?"

I am omitting the question, and my answer that follows is: "First, I don't know who gave the order, but those who gave the orders greatly harmed Serb national interests. If a Serb did that, he was either a total madman and psychopath or he worked on instructions from Serb enemies. Why? Serb -- Srebrenica fell practically without any fighting, ⁴⁴³¹⁵ isn't that right? What was the basic Serb interest then? That all Muslims be safely taken to Tuzla, that all Muslim lives be saved both of civilians and soldiers and women and children. Why? Because then Gorazde would certainly have fallen too. Had the Muslims from Gorazde found out how fairly the Serbs had treated the Muslims from Srebrenica and Zepa, they would have no further motive to defend Gorazde at all costs, although for Muslims it does not have any strategic interest any longer. It will always be a dead end. It is impossible for it to develop economically. It is impossible to live there normally, isn't that right."

JUDGE ROBINSON: Do we need any more of this? Just a minute. Do we need any more of this, Mr. Milosevic? You should ask a question now.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation].

Q. Mr. Seselj, are you speaking here about who issued the order for the execution of Muslims and then mentioning the military police platoon among whose members was the Croat Erdemovic directly subordinated to the French intelligence service?

A. Mr. Milosevic, there are two very brief passages that follow and then everything becomes clear. By your leave.

Q. Well, then go on and read them.

A. "Well, now, he who was in charge of Serb policies and military strategy had this in mind. Who could have ordered the liquidation of Muslims? He who wanted the Muslims in Gorazde to defend themselves until the last man at all costs. Our government had indicia that the French intelligence service was involved in this. This military police platoon ⁴⁴³¹⁶ which participated in the liquidations, among whose members was a Croat called Erdemovic, was directly subordinated to the French intelligence service. Our investigation arrived at this result, and I hope that one day all the circumstances surrounding the Srebrenica tragedy will be clarified, that light will be cast upon them. You know, I cannot deny that war crimes were committed in Srebrenica."

Only two more sentences: "But let us see who ordered those crimes, who organised them, and in whose interest they were committed. He who do this was --"

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, yes. What's the question now?

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Seselj, you quoted a brief sentence here, inter alia, which I will repeat. "Our investigation arrived at this result." That means that you were familiar with the result of the investigation of the Spider group.

A. Yes. Because this interview took place after the arrest of the Pauk group, the Spider group.

Q. I was about to ask you whether you were referring to that investigation.

A. Yes.

Q. We can establish the date, only tell me what the book was.

A. "The Dosmanli Evil Committed Against Serbia." I'll tell you right away. This is a statement I made for the Muslim television OBN from Sarajevo. A team of journalists, on the 25th of June, 19 -- 2001, came to ⁴⁴³¹⁷ Belgrade to interview me. That was in 2001.

Q. Mr. Seselj, Mr. Nice has put forward the case on more than one occasion that our government was trying to cover up the crime in Srebrenica. We have submitted here public documents referring to statements made by the federal government about the crime in Srebrenica which correspond to that investigation.

Tell me now, as you, not you personally but your party --

A. Yes, Tomislav Nikolic was the deputy Prime Minister.

Q. Yes, your deputy Tomislav Nikolic was the deputy Prime Minister of the federal government. Was there any public way for the federal government to issue a statement about the results of the investigation of the Pauk group, the Spider group, and its links with Srebrenica apart from the method that was used, and that was for the spokesperson of the federal government to hold a press conference on behalf of the federal government and state all this?

A. No. They could only accuse us from a counter-position. Why are we giving out this information before a court judgement was reached? That was the only way they could have objected to what we were doing if they were going to nitpick.

The crime in Srebrenica horrified all of Serbia, and there was not a single person in Serbia who justified that crime or tried to cover it up. At least not in public.

Q. Thank you, Mr. Seselj. And that was what was contained in these seven books that you brought in response to Mr. Nice's question that you should say when, on what occasion you spoke about this. ⁴⁴³¹⁸ We will now move on to a completely different topic. At the outset --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, if we're moving to a new topic there's an administrative matter in relation to this witness who it appears now will be coming back next week and a similar administrative matter in relation to a future witness that I'd like to raise, and I note the time and I can raise it very briefly now.

In relation to this witness, he has suggested as possible that there exists in his cell at Scheveningen a report on the incident about Racak. Our interests in having the completest documentation for Racak is such that I invite the Court, if he's going to be here next week, to bring such a document with him if he has it.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, let's me ask you, Mr. Seselj. Do you have documentation in your cell --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I was speaking ironically. It should have been clear to everyone. I think it was clear to you and your colleagues. It was only not clear to Mr. Nice. How could I have that in my cell? I don't even have enough oxygen in my cell.

MR. NICE: Very well. Then the second point relates not to this witness but to the next fresh witness to come who is presumably -- if he hasn't travelled already will be travelling soon, Janicevic, and he is a witness who could clearly assist in relation to documentation on the topic of Racak. We've been able now to review the exhibits that the accused has ⁴⁴³¹⁹ provided. They seem to be rather spare.

We would like to invite the accused, through the Court, to arrange, because we don't have, otherwise, direct relationships with him, to arrange for that witness, if he so chooses, to bring with him, and then there's a list of about eight topics which we'd like the accused to have in mind, he can have them in mind off the transcript, and in particular for the witness to bring all orders, plans and minutes of the SUP concerning Racak, all orders from the MUP to the -- MUP to the MUP staff and the SUP staff about Racak, all orders from the SUP to the units conducting the operation in Racak, all post-operation reports from the SUP to the MUP staff and to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. And then because we've been provided with a selection of daily reports from the Urosevac police station, we would ask for the witness to bring the balance, which would be for the relevant period the following dates in January of 1999, 15, 19, 20, 23, 24, 27, and 28th of January. We'd ask him to bring orders from the PJP unit commander about the operation, and post-operation reports issued by the PJP. And we'd invite him to bring daily reports from Stimlje police station from the 13th to the January -- to the 19th of January.

Now, this material, if this witness brings them next week, should enable us to go -- to have a more complete collection of documents in relation to this event, and I'm grateful for you allowing me the time to make that request.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, Mr. Milosevic has heard it. It's an unusual request, Mr. Nice, but the case itself is unusual for a Prosecutor ⁴⁴³²⁰ to request a Defence witness to bring certain documents, but it would expedite matters, and as I said, that is unusual case. Mr. Milosevic would have heard the request, and to the extent that he can accede to it, the Court would appreciate it if he would do so. Mr. Milosevic, very quickly, because we will now have to adjourn.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I hope that this witness will bring all the documents he has available, but this anti-terrorist operation in Racak was not the battle of Stalingrad, so it didn't have all those documents and reports that Mr. Nice mentioned. I think not even D-Day has all those documents that Mr. Nice mentioned.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, do you wish to have exhibited the remainder of those books?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, all of them.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes, in one exhibit number.

THE REGISTRAR: That will be D309, consist of seven tabs. All the excerpts will be into the D309.

JUDGE KWON: I'm not sure that you used six excerpts or seven excerpts. You cited only six from them. Yes. Only those six excerpts will be admitted.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. We are adjourned until next Tuesday at 9.00 a.m.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.44 p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 20th day

of September, 2005, at 9.00 a.m.