1 Wednesday, 27 August 2008
2 [Prosecution Rebuttal]
5 [The Accused Pavkovic and Lazarevic not present]
6 --- Upon commencing at 10.47 a.m.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: Good morning, everyone.
8 We shall move straight away to the rebuttal submissions of the
9 Prosecution.
10 Mr. Hannis.
11 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour.
12 I will try and proceed in the order in which the Defence
13 presented their arguments, so I'll address Mr. O'Sullivan's remarks first
14 and proceed accordingly; and in some cases where later speakers raised
15 some of the same issues I'll try to address those at the first juncture.
16 The first point I wanted to raise in connection with
17 Mr. O'Sullivan's remarks related to his discussion about the Supreme
18 Command. At page 26996 he talked about the overwhelming evidence they
19 presented suggesting there was no Supreme Command and noted that we had
20 only referred to a couple of witnesses. One was Colonel Mucibabic and
21 Mr. O'Sullivan said, well, he was at too low a level, he wasn't a member
22 of the collegium, and his personal opinion should be disregarded.
23 The second one was General Obradovic and he pointed out that
24 General Obradovic was appointed to become commander of the 2nd Army at
25 the end of March and left so he was not really a member of the staff of
1 the Supreme Command and he wasn't there. I disagree. I would say that
2 Colonel Mucibabic in taking notices about the evening briefings was in a
3 position to know what was happening in connection with a Supreme Command
4 and that General Obradovic, indeed he didn't leave until after the 30th
5 of March. We see him attending the evening briefings between the 25th
6 and the 30th of March. Indeed he seems to be heading some of those
7 briefings, particularly the one on the 29th -- or before the 29th of
8 March, and on the 29th of March we have that evening briefing where
9 General Ojdanic makes reference to the fact that he had not been able to
10 attend an earlier meeting because he had to attend at the Supreme
11 Command.
12 But he failed -- Mr. O'Sullivan failed to mention one of the
13 third witnesses we noted for our proposition about the Supreme Command,
14 and that was General Andjelkovic. You'll remember General Andjelkovic
15 was the member of the collegium and General Staff who was responsible for
16 communications. I refer you to the transcript of his testimony at pages
17 16425 and 426, and I had asked him about that session where General
18 Ojdanic said: "I will not be here all the time being a member of the
19 Supreme Command Staff."
20 And I said: "This sounds to me like the Supreme Command Staff is
21 something different from the collegium."
22 His answer was: "The Supreme Command Staff is a different body,
23 it's not the same as the collegium."
24 And then I said: "And we've also heard sometimes the term
25 supreme commander, which everyone seems to agree referred to President
1 Milosevic. Would you agree with that?
2 "A. Yes, in general terms the Supreme Command had a number of
3 equal members but Milosevic was the most senior one so he was the supreme
4 commander."
5 And then I asked: "And then along with him who were the other
6 members of the Supreme Command as you understand it?"
7 His answer: "The presidents of the republics."
8 We would also direct you to Exhibit P1481 which is that 9th of
9 April, 1999, directive from the Supreme Command Staff and General Ojdanic
10 and the paragraph that related to communications and command. We've
11 talked about it before, but it did talk about setting up communications
12 with the Supreme Defence Council and particularly references to setting
13 up communications with the offices of the president of the Republic of
14 Serbia and the president of the Republic of Montenegro. And, as I said,
15 General Andjelkovic is the communications guy, so you should give some
16 weight to his evidence on this point.
17 Now, also there was a point about the Supreme Defence Council in
18 a colloquy with you during his closing remarks. You asked whether the
19 Supreme Defence Council existed during the state of war. Mr. O'Sullivan
20 said it did exist but he said there was no need for them to meet during
21 the state of war. Now, we would suggest during the state of war is a
22 time when the Supreme Defence Council may most need to meet. We say it
23 did continue to exist in the form of a Supreme Command, simply a name
24 change, and that Mr. Milutinovic continued to be a part of that.
25 We refer you to paragraphs 142 to 147 of our brief on this point
1 for more detail.
2 You, Judge, asked a question about whether Mr. O'Sullivan
3 remembered a witness who suggested the Supreme Command Staff did not
4 necessarily turn the Supreme Command orders into action and that there
5 was a much greater measure of discretion than we might have thought. I
6 thought there was something like that too, frankly, Your Honour. I've
7 looked, I haven't been able to find that precisely. I did find something
8 related and I'll mention it now while we're on the point, this was with
9 General Curcin and you asked him a question about -- you said at page
10 17041: "I'd like to be clear to your answer to the last question. You
11 say that in response to the suggestion that the subordinate was in
12 charge, you said that subordinate is the commander of the 3rd Army and
13 he's entitled to carry out operations in his area pursuant to his own
14 decisions."
15 And General Curcin said: "Yes, I'm referring to the commander of
16 the 3rd Army who has the right in his area of responsibility to carry out
17 combat actions on the basis of his decision, also the commander of the
18 Pristina Corps in his area of responsibility on the basis of the
19 decisions of the commander of the 3rd Army on the basis of yet his own
20 decisions and he's held responsible for that. May I just say one more
21 sentence, it won't do us any harm. Not all actions are carried out on
22 the basis of orders and decisions of the Supreme Command Staff. They
23 issue a directive and then subordinate commanders take action."
24 Your Honour went on to say: "In particular you're saying if we
25 interpret the order as being authority for commanding the armed
1 non-Siptar population that General Pavkovic was entitled to decide on his
2 own to engage the armed non-Siptar population; is that correct?"
3 Curcin: "In the suggestions there's no mention of the armed
4 non-Siptar population as far as I can remember. I'm making these
5 comments outside that context. I'm only talking about the document that
6 I had occasion to see and testify about." This is 1878 and 1487.
7 And you went on then, Judge, to say: "I understand that. You
8 know how the army operates so just forget for a moment about the
9 suggestions document and tell me as a matter of principle whether you
10 went to say in your answer that the commander of the 3rd Army can carry
11 out operations in his area pursuant to his own decisions that would
12 include commanding the armed non-Siptar population."
13 Curcin's answer: "In certain situations for certain tasks in a
14 certain area in terms of carrying out a concrete operation he could have
15 assigned them assignments or tasks, or rather, authorised a subordinate
16 to do that. These are specific orders, that is to say securing
17 facilities of particular importance, securing roads, communication lines,
18 even material facilities as well."
19 And you then said: "Could that even be without mention of such
20 authority in a directive?"
21 Curcin's answer: "Yes, a commander in his zone of responsibility
22 can bring together all the forces that he has available for carrying out
23 a particular task."
24 I know that didn't address your specific question but I thought
25 it was related and worthy of bringing to your attention.
1 JUDGE BONOMY: I do remember making a note of the point at the
2 time, and once I've had a chance to go through the various notebooks I
3 have on the case, Mr. Hannis, I'm sure I'll find the bit that was
4 concerning me, but thank you for your assistance.
5 MR. HANNIS: Then there was Mr. O'Sullivan's argument about the
6 decree signed by Mr. Milutinovic during the war. And we've had some
7 debate about the decree on identity cards. We refer you to Exhibit 1D144
8 and Exhibit P993 at page 5. With Professor Markovic we addressed this
9 issue. 1D144 contains the cover letter from Professor Markovic when the
10 proposed agreement is forwarded to Milutinovic and the cover letter was
11 dated the 6th of April, 1999, but we note that the -- Mr. Milutinovic's
12 signature and the date on the decree is the 31st of March, 1999. When I
13 asked Professor Markovic about how he explained that, that the decree is
14 signed on the 31st but the proposal was sent a week later, at transcript
15 page 13248 he said, he said he "... wouldn't be able to explain" and he
16 didn't.
17 We -- Mr. O'Sullivan argued that, well, that decree is just part
18 of that package of four to enable the Ministry of the Interior to do
19 their work more effectively and perhaps with regard to lowering the age
20 from 16 to 14, it might be to deal with questions of delinquency. I
21 suggest that during the wartime juvenile delinquency is probably a matter
22 of somewhat lesser importance. We say the better interpretation is that
23 this decree was for the purposes that we suggest, to assist in the common
24 purpose, the plan, to remove those Kosovar Albanians from Kosovo and to
25 help ensure that they won't be able to easily come back or come back at
1 all. There were only decrees issued during the 78 days of the war --
2 JUDGE CHOWHAN: I'm sorry, what would be your -- I'm sorry I
3 intervened.
4 MR. HANNIS: No problem.
5 JUDGE CHOWHAN: What would be your comments on this date issue?
6 I mean, what would you like to say?
7 MR. HANNIS: Well, Your Honour, I don't know. I don't know if it
8 was some document prepared after the fact to show that it was -- there
9 was a justification for these new things. Maybe it's a -- maybe it
10 was -- had the signature and the date on it and it didn't get delivered
11 for some time because of the war. There are possible innocent
12 explanations, but I note that there is that week difference in the dates
13 and I don't know how that happened or why that happened.
14 JUDGE CHOWHAN: You mean the proposal, while it was being
15 forwarded, and the date of the decree, that's ...
16 MR. HANNIS: The way I understood Professor Markovic's testimony
17 was that the government got together, the relevant departments made
18 suggestions about proposed decrees, that was written up along with a
19 justification for the proposed decree, which was then forwarded by the
20 ministers, the deputy ministers, from the government to the president
21 with their recommendation that he sign a particular decree.
22 JUDGE CHOWHAN: So is it your suggestion that there was some
23 aberration from the rules, is it, or the procedure in that respect?
24 MR. HANNIS: I'm sorry, Your Honour, I didn't hear the word that
25 you said, so is it my --
1 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Well, I mean --
2 MR. HANNIS: -- suggestion that there was some deviation from the
3 rules?
4 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Yes.
5 MR. HANNIS: Possibly. I don't know what happened there. I only
6 bring it to your attention for your consideration about why that might
7 have happened and what Professor Markovic said about it.
8 JUDGE CHOWHAN: But your views are maybe of use.
9 MR. HANNIS: Well, my view is that, as I said, there were only 16
10 decrees during the entire war. 12 of them were by Mr. Seselj for
11 financial matters mostly and these four decrees all related to the
12 Ministry of the Interior and this one, as I said, seemed to be directed
13 to something that we point out is a significant issue in this case, and
14 the fact that there's some irregularity with it in my view is consistent
15 with it being part of the plan of common purpose to do something that
16 those doing it were aware was a crime.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, I thought the point was more specific
18 than that, that the Defence position is that Mr. Milutinovic was bound to
19 do what the government had decided or was simply enacting what the
20 government decided, whereas if he was seen to be signing one before it
21 was submitted to him by the government that would indicate that it was
22 his intention rather than theirs that was being implemented. Is it --
23 does it not go as far as that?
24 MR. HANNIS: Yes, I think I made that suggestion earlier on when
25 we argued about this document.
1 Does that answer your question, Judge Chowhan?
2 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Thank you. I'll get much beyond that. Thank
3 you.
4 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
5 Mr. O'Sullivan also at page 27017 referred to our brief where we
6 talked about Mr. Milutinovic preventing others from investigating in
7 Serbia, talking about Radonjic Lake and Racak. He said this was an
8 internal matter and there was no ICTY jurisdiction because there was no
9 armed conflict, but I note, Your Honour, we've had prosecutions of
10 Mr. Haradinaj and Mr. Limaj and their co-accused and they would be
11 surprised to learn there was no conflict in Kosovo in 1998.
12 Regarding statements about bombing for the war, Mr. O'Sullivan
13 addresses the remarks attributed to Mr. Milutinovic by Mr. Petritsch.
14 There's a reference about Mr. Stambuk also having made a comment about
15 the bombing. I remind you there's another reference to a comment about
16 Mr. Stambuk and bombing. That's in the transcript at page 6377 where
17 Mr. Tanic tells you about an occasion in approximately October 1998 where
18 he and the English and German ambassadors were engaged in conversation
19 with Mr. Stambuk, who at that time said: "We wouldn't mind a few bombs
20 from NATO." Mr. Tanic told you then he later spoke one on one with Mr.
21 Stambuk and asked him why he was making such a statement in front of the
22 foreign ambassadors. Stambuk in that conversation said: "It was a good
23 excuse to cleanse the Albanians."
24 And with regard to that memo prepared concerning the conversation
25 that Mr. Petritsch noted, Mr. O'Sullivan said this memo was prepared at
1 6.00 in the morning on the 20th of February by Kickert, who wasn't even
2 present at the meeting, but I think you'll see from the testimony that
3 Mr. Kickert told us at transcript page 11231 that that particular
4 paragraph was inserted by Petritsch, the one who overheard the remarks.
5 The Milutinovic Defence challenges the authenticity of one of my
6 favourite exhibits, P2166, as did Mr. Ivetic yesterday. To paraphrase
7 Mr. Bakrac when he said if it looks like an order and sounds like an
8 order, it's probably an order. I would suggest the same thing applies to
9 this document. It looks authentic, it sounds authentic, you have lots of
10 other evidence that there was a meeting of these people on that date
11 talking about those kinds of things.
12 Looking at the document itself I referred you to the numbering
13 and this is dash 5, suggesting that that's the fifth meeting of this
14 group of the operations inter-departmental staff, as consistent with what
15 General Pavkovic tells you in the suspect interview about four prior
16 meetings, one on the 30th of May, one on the 21st of June, one on the 4th
17 of August, and one on the 31st of August. The attendees who came here
18 and testified don't deny that there was a meeting and don't deny the
19 general contents. They take issue about whether the word Joint Command
20 was mentioned.
21 Also, there's another document that suggests that there was this
22 meeting, P1011 at page 72 of the English. This is that document about
23 how the VJ complied with rules of international war, but I think, Judge
24 Bonomy, you noted this. There's a document referred to in there as a
25 report of the Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija dated the 29th of
1 October, 1998.
2 The Defence argument about why they say this is not an authentic
3 document is basically in reliance on the testimony of General
4 Dimitrijevic, who says he was at this meeting and he sat next to Colonel
5 Susic, the note-taker, and he says he didn't see him taking any notes and
6 therefore from that we're supposed to conclude that this document is not
7 authentic. He notes that the document itself says that the meeting was
8 not stenographically recorded; however, Your Honour, there's no
9 indication that the meeting was not otherwise recorded, perhaps tape
10 recorded.
11 Colonel Susic also would have had in hand, we say, the report
12 that is contained in exhibit -- or referred to in Exhibit P1011, from
13 which he could have gotten the detailed information about numbers of
14 ammunition and numbers of soldiers and numbers of KLA killed, et cetera.
15 There is no reason not to believe that that document's authentic, and we
16 believe you're fully entitled to rely heavily on it.
17 I want to go to Mr. Fila. One of the points he takes issue with
18 is Mr. Stamp's remarks that Mr. Sainovic was sort of a political director
19 of what was happening in connection with the Joint Command. He said if
20 there -- at page 27045 he says: "If there's someone who exercised
21 political control, as the Prosecutor claims Sainovic did, then there must
22 be some reports." We say quite likely between Sainovic and Milosevic any
23 of those reports would have been oral.
24 Also look at Exhibit P1468, you'll see the dates when
25 Mr. Sainovic is absent from Joint Command meetings in Pristina. Several
1 of those dates match up with the dates that Pavkovic tells us there were
2 meetings of what I say were the operations inter-departmental staff. For
3 example, on the 4th and 5th of August -- the 4th or 5th of August and the
4 31st of August, 1998.
9 Mr. Fila also suggests that Vasiljevic never said Sainovic was a
10 member of any Joint Command and said that he didn't know what Sainovic
11 was doing there. We say, Your Honour, General Vasiljevic stood by his
12 original statement that this was a Joint Command and that Mr. Sainovic
13 seemed to be the lead person in that meeting. Mr. Fila talked about the
14 Joint Command in connection with the ten examples that Mr. Stamp pointed
15 you to that show that this was more than information sharing and that
16 Mr. Sainovic was playing a more active role in talking about taking
17 actions, making decisions.
18 He then goes on to do some unusual math, say you have 69
19 meetings, at each of them five or six people take part, which means 400
20 various pieces of discussion and Sainovic takes part in 10. The ten
21 examples presented by Mr. Stamp in his closing were not the sum total of
22 remarks made by Mr. Sainovic in those meetings. You read P1468 and
23 you'll see how often and to what degree and in what nature he was
24 speaking and participating in those meetings.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, can I interrupt you just for a moment.
1 MR. HANNIS: Certainly.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: And we shall go into private session very briefly
3 to avoid a repetition of something that's just happened.
17 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session, Your Honours.
18 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
19 Mr. Fila also raised the issue regarding Djakovic and saying that
20 when he was there nobody took any notes at all. We haven't had any
21 evidence that I'm aware of, Your Honour, that in the part of 1998 during
22 which General Djakovic was taking notes up until the time he turned it
23 over to his colleague that there were any meetings that Djakovic did not
24 attend. So it's an invalid assumption to say that there were meetings
25 that he did not attend prior to the time he handed his notebook and the
1 duty over to his colleague.
2 Mr. Fila went on to say at page 27064 that what bothers me is
3 that the Defence witnesses are said to be not telling the truth. It's
4 very hard for me to utter the word lie. You'll recall at some point in
5 the case when we were having the discussion about using someone's
6 interview, Mr. Fila told us earlier about what he would refer to as the
7 right to lie in the Serbian system regarding suspects. So when reviewing
8 the evidence of witnesses who came here who might be considered to be in
9 the position of being suspects or co-perpetrators or aiders and abettors,
10 we ask you to bear that in mind in weighing credibility.
11 On the other hand, he pointed to Prosecution witnesses and in
12 particular referred to Baton Haxhiu, pointing out that recently
13 Mr. Haxhiu has been found guilty of contempt in this Tribunal. Your
14 Honours, I would refer you to the judgement in that case dated the 24th
15 of July, 2008, and I suggest to you that that conviction for contempt had
16 nothing to do with credibility.
17 Mr. Fila referred to the Joint Command in relation to
18 instructions for the defence of populated areas and paragraph 107 I think
19 of our brief. He says its doesn't say anywhere that these units were
20 being subordinated to the MUP as the Prosecutor claims. Your Honour, we
21 ask you to look at Exhibit P1064 that does specifically talk about those
22 Ministry of Defence units being subordinated to the MUP, and those
23 instructions were issued by the Joint Command according to Exhibit P1064.
24 Mr. Ivetic also raised a point about this.
25 Mr. Fila raised an issue concerning Mr. Cvetic and his remarks
1 about the Joint Command. Cvetic allegedly heard something about the
2 Joint Command as early as the 10th of July, 1998, and he suggests that
3 therefore he's not telling the truth because nobody in the MUP would have
4 known about that before. We note that what he said was he heard that it
5 had been agreed at the highest level to set up a Joint Command, and in
6 General Pavkovic's suspect interview he tells you that it was at that May
7 30th, 1998, meeting where a Joint Command was discussed and the idea for
8 a plan to combat terrorism was first proposed.
9 One matter that I will agree that Mr. Fila is right about has to
10 do with paragraph 203 of our final brief where we quoted General
11 Vasiljevic in connection with that 1 June meeting of the Supreme Command
12 as saying to Pavkovic and Lukic: "Do as we've planned" was our
13 quotation. We were wrong, Mr. Fila is right. What Vasiljevic said in
14 his statement was: "Do as you've planned ..."
15 We apologise. I've checked, that was an oversight, a mistake on
16 our part, and we stand corrected.
17 Mr. Fila also says that even though he doesn't like to use the
18 word lie, he did say that we make a flagrantly inaccurate assertion in
19 paragraph 673 of our indictment [sic] where we say that the Joint Command
20 started in June 1998 and existed until June 1999. He claims that there's
21 no grounds for this exertion because nobody said that. We say Exhibit
22 P1317 is evidence of that start date noted in our brief. General
23 Vasiljevic is our evidence for that ending date in June 1999 and Exhibit
24 1459 indicates that a Joint Command was still in existence as of around
25 the 25th of May, 1999.
1 And then near the end of his remarks Mr. Fila makes reference to
2 General Dimitrijevic and suggests at page 27098 that the Prosecutor
3 avoided saying that what Dimitrijevic has testified to before this Court
4 and instead we were relying on ambiguous, unclear, vague sentences from
5 the collegium of the General Staff and other documents. Well, Your
6 Honours, to paraphrase Shakespeare: Me thinks Mr. Fila and General
7 Dimitrijevic both protest too much.
8 You asked General Dimitrijevic about the remarks attributed to
9 him in those diplomatic documents from Colonel Crosland and Ambassador
10 Donnelly where he referred to meetings with Dimitrijevic, where he seemed
11 to be distanced -- he and General Perisic seemed to be distancing
12 themselves from what was happening in Kosovo and in connection with
13 Mr. Sainovic. And he was -- he was quick and strong in denying those and
14 saying that Mr. Sainovic had no authority to do anything like that, that
15 he never would have said anything like that, but you pointed out and I
16 agree that, well, what he was saying -- what he's reported as saying by
17 Crosland and Donnelly is consistent with what he is recorded as saying in
18 the VJ collegiums.
19 And we say that his contemporaneous statements in the VJ
20 collegium are more reliable evidence about his position at the time, he
21 had no motive to lie there and then in those collegium meetings, and here
22 he did. We say his demeanour and his explanations regarding Sainovic and
23 his denials of what Crosland and Donnelly claimed he said, those denials
24 are not credible.
25 Finally, again Mr. Fila asked you to take the evidence of General
1 Dimitrijevic and General Djakovic as being the ultimate and final and
2 most reliable evidence about the Joint Command. We say the most reliable
3 evidence about the Joint Command was Dimitrijevic's comment regarding
4 Pavkovic wanting something to point to. At transcript page 26595 General
5 Dimitrijevic said, regarding Pavkovic and the Joint Command: "At a later
6 stage it was supposed to serve somebody's purposes, and by that I mean
7 General Pavkovic, to cover some of his activities so that he could say I
8 have the Joint Command behind me."
9 And we say that's precisely what happened. Look at some of the
10 documents we'll talk about in a little bit in connection with General
11 Pavkovic and you'll see that is what happened. And that served, we say,
12 Mr. Milosevic's purpose to achieve what he'd originally proposed in that
13 meeting with Perisic and Dimitrijevic when he talked about putting
14 Pavkovic in charge of all the forces in Kosovo.
15 Let me move now to General Ojdanic, and my compliments to
16 Mr. Sepenuk on his fine presentation for the arguments for General
17 Ojdanic. He said the Prosecution has claimed that General Ojdanic was
18 one of those individuals willing to follow the course intended by
19 Mr. Milosevic. And he said this claim is grossly unfair to Mr. Ojdanic
20 as a man, as a soldier, and as Chief of the General Staff. We're not
21 saying General Ojdanic was not a good soldier; what we're saying is he
22 was more willing to go along than Perisic had been.
23 Mr. Sepenuk points to remarks in earlier VJ collegiums in 1997
24 and early 1998 to support his argument that Ojdanic was just as opposed
25 as Perisic or maybe even more so to the inappropriate use of the VJ and
1 to trying to solve the Kosovo problem by force. We take no issue that he
2 did say those things in September 1997 and April 1998. He pointed you to
3 the initial introductory statement General Ojdanic made when he attended
4 his first meeting as Chief of the General Staff in November 1998 and he
5 quoted him: "Rest assured that in your colleague who's been given this
6 difficult task of leading you, you have a man above all who thinks with
7 his own head and who is his own man."
8 We agree he said that, but we say he failed to carry on with that
9 independence of mind in later 1998 and 1999, especially when it came to
10 Pavkovic and Milosevic and the Joint Command. Why else did he fail to
11 take actions against Pavkovic after several clear indications of
12 problems? Why did he accept the map and write the suggestions in Exhibit
13 P1487 to that Joint Command order in P1878 if he was a man who thought
14 with his own head and was his own man? And I've thought about that.
15 That document, those suggestions and that whole -- that whole incident, I
16 suggest to you there's some questions that you should have about Curcin's
17 testimony explaining how that all came about, but it's clear that Ojdanic
18 got that document, that Joint Command order or at least the map and that
19 he wrote suggestions. We say that it must have been more than just the
20 map because how would he know to change the date or the time for the
21 beginning of the operation?
22 But why would General Ojdanic get involved in that? He's in the
23 middle of a war. He's the top guy. He's got other things to do. And
24 out of all the Joint Command orders that we've seen in this case in
25 connection with that time-period during the war, why this one? What's
1 different about this one that Pavkovic would bring it to him? Just last
2 night I noticed something about it. You know what happened -- that
3 wasn't a very big action. That talked about some really relatively minor
4 action, but it -- it required the involvement of the 2nd Army, the army
5 from Montenegro. And I suggest to you that's why Pavkovic went to
6 Ojdanic with it, because Pavkovic and the Joint Command were for Kosovo
7 and Metohija.
8 There was a Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija, we say
9 Pavkovic had full range there in conjunction with Mr. Sainovic but there
10 was not a Joint Command for Yugoslavia, there was not a Joint Command for
11 Serbia, and there certainly wasn't a Joint Command for Montenegro.
12 Some support for that suggestion, Your Honour, is also found in
13 Exhibit P1746. We didn't talk much about this. I think it was shown to
14 Curcin. It's a document from the Supreme Command Staff dated the 20th of
15 May, 1999, it's an order relating to destroying the Siptar terrorist
16 forces in particular sectors, and item number 1 says: "Proceed in
17 keeping with Supreme Command Staff order number" such and such "and the
18 suggestions strictly confidential number 01/1965-1 of 17 April 1999,"
19 that's P1487, "which assigned tasks and regulating cooperation between
20 the 2nd and 3rd Armies to smash and destroy the STS," Siptar terrorists.
21 So, Your Honours, take a look at that. I think that sheds some
22 light on this whole issue of the inter-relationship between the Joint
23 Command, the Supreme Command Staff, the 3rd Army, Pavkovic, Ojdanic,
24 Sainovic, et al.
25 Mr. Sepenuk points out to Ojdanic's instructions on 24th of
1 December, 1998, to all commanding levels should study the Security
2 Council resolutions and the agreements, and he demands that they be
3 strictly observed, nobody in the army has the right to violate those
4 agreements, but we note that in our brief we pointed out some instances
5 where we say General Ojdanic violated agreements or was aware of
6 violations and did not take actions to correct them.
7 Mr. Sepenuk again reminded the Trial Chamber about a collegium
8 in -- on the 26th of October, 1997, and Ojdanic's remarks about how the
9 army should act in connection with certain demonstrations that had been
10 going on at the time. We note again, that was 18 months before the
11 crimes in this case occurred, and what he said in October 1997 is not how
12 he acted in late 1998 and in 1999.
13 Mr. Sepenuk points to some testimony and the report of their
14 military expert General Radinovic in connection with a collegium on the
15 10th of July, 1998, where Ojdanic talked about not being aware of
16 anti-terrorist action that had been going on and then when hearing about
17 it from General Dimitrijevic, Ojdanic opposed the direct use of the VJ
18 for the defence of civilian population in settlements, for that would
19 surely lead to a general war. We say in spite of these statements, he
20 did use the VJ in those ways later on in 1998 and 1999 when he was Chief
21 of the General Staff.
22 Mr. Sepenuk points out that Samardzic became the chief inspector
23 of the army and that's not consistent with our claim that he was one of
24 those individuals that was demoted or moved because it thwarted what
25 Milosevic wanted to do. Whether it's a demotion or not is subject to
1 some debate, but we do say he was removed from commanding the 3rd Army
2 and that got him out of Pavkovic's way.
3 And with regard to that July 1998 collegium, if Ojdanic wasn't
4 aware of anti-terrorist operations in Kosovo, joint actions between the
5 VJ and the MUP before that point, from then on he was aware.
6 The Defence says the Prosecution didn't prove the commission of
7 any specific crimes by the Serb forces in the year 1988, I'm sure that
8 was a typo, 1998. We say given his position, given the widespread public
9 discussions about this, the UN resolutions, what was discussed in the VJ
10 collegiums, in the internal reporting system in the VJ that he must have
11 known. One example has to do with Obrinje. In late September 1998 you
12 see that matter being discussed or referred to in the National Assembly.
13 You heard Fred Abrahams talk about that. That was a matter of some great
14 notoriety and he must have been aware of that one as well.
15 With regard to General Pavkovic Mr. Sepenuk refers you to the
16 collegium where General Ojdanic said that he would speak to the 3rd Army
17 commander about this issue and then he notes as General Dimitrijevic
18 testified when Ojdanic said he intended to accomplish a task, he followed
19 through on it. Well, that was a general comment by General Dimitrijevic
20 and it was not specifically addressed to this particular item. We say
21 there is no evidence that General Ojdanic ever followed through on his --
22 on this particular task to speak with Pavkovic about these recurring
23 problems noted in the VJ collegiums about not reporting or misreporting
24 and using VJ units in Kosovo without authority of or permission or
25 sometimes knowledge of the General Staff. And later on, just prior to
1 war, bringing additional units into Kosovo without informing the General
2 Staff.
3 There's no evidence he followed through; and if he did, there's
4 no effect shown as evidence by what led up to the May 16th and 17th
5 meetings when General Ojdanic called Pavkovic to come in and explain
6 about these crimes that Ojdanic was hearing about for the first time from
7 Generals Vasiljevic and Gajic and Farkas.
8 There's a discussion at the collegium of the 9th of April, 1999,
9 Mr. Sepenuk referred to you that and said this shows what General Ojdanic
10 knew about the movement of the population, refers to General Krga's
11 comments about the movement as "the planned withdrawal of the KLA and the
12 Siptar people which has realistically created a difficult humanitarian
13 situation."
14 But then he also notes the comments of Colonel Gajic.
15 "After crushing the terrorist forces of -- in Kosovo, some of
16 them managed probably in a planned way to withdraw to Albania, Macedonia,
17 and a few to Montenegro."
18 And Mr. Sepenuk noted that Gajic then predicted that the
19 terrorists will force Albanian and non-Albanian citizens to move out.
20 So as late as the 9th of April, Gajic is predicting what will be
21 done with regard to civilians moving out. We say by the 9th of April the
22 overwhelming majority of those expelled had already left Kosovo. Again,
23 Mr. Sepenuk takes you back to comments of General Ojdanic in a collegium
24 in early 1998, April 1998, and talked about how -- he said: "I, General,
25 will not go into international politics, I will give an assessment from
1 my point of view so that is what the FRY will not preserve Kosovo by
2 fighting a war. We must look for political and diplomatic solutions."
3 Again, keep in mind that these remarks are six months before we say the
4 joint criminal enterprise came into being and seven months before Ojdanic
5 became Chief of Staff. We say Serbia did not necessarily have to win the
6 war with NATO. We say they just had to hold out long enough for the NATO
7 coalition, which was somewhat shaky from the beginning, as you heard, to
8 fall out among themself. They didn't have to empty Kosovo of all the
9 Albanians but only enough to alter the ethnic balance sufficiently to be
10 able to maintain control. And we say that Slobodan Milosevic and his
11 close associates thought they could achieve that.
12 Mr. Sepenuk points out that he says every member of the General
13 Staff who testified at this trial denied plan to deport. And, first of
14 all, we say they're not going to call anyone who would say there was a
15 plan. If they came across such an individual they wouldn't call him as a
16 witness. And perhaps plan is too precise a word. The plan or the common
17 purpose was to expel sufficient numbers of Albanians to alter that ethnic
18 balance.
19 He also points out that General Hannis and General Stamp want to
20 substitute their judgement for that of General Ojdanic, and he notes that
21 it would have been ill-advised and irresponsible to change commanders in
22 the middle of the war. I see the logic of that but we say he never took
23 steps either before the war when he had, we say, adequate notice of a
24 problem nor after the war. After the war he's still a superior to
25 Pavkovic and he didn't take any action, no discipline, no removing him
1 temporarily from command while there's some investigation. He took no
2 action.
3 Just a slight comment, he talks about the meeting with Milosevic
4 in -- on the 17th of May after the crimes had come to his attention. He
5 talked about how Pavkovic suggested a Joint Commission be formed and he
6 joined in that as well as did Sainovic. Remember what Dimitrijevic said
7 about commissions. He told you when he had this meeting with
8 Mr. Milosevic after he had raised the issue about the Pristina Corps
9 command having their telephones bugged, being intercepted by state
10 security, and in that meeting he told you he knew that Mr. Milosevic was
11 going to suggest that the commission be formed to investigate that, and
12 you'll recall his view of those kinds of commissions which we say was
13 that such commissions are often formed to serve the purpose of
14 white-washing something that those who form the commission don't want
15 fully exposed to the public.
16 And then he makes a reference to General Perisic. If he was --
17 if Perisic was really concerned, says Mr. Sepenuk, that Pavkovic was
18 somehow using the VJ illegally earlier in 1998, all he had to do was
19 remove him. He didn't take the first step to do that. You'll recall the
20 testimony of General Dimitrijevic, page 26623, when Samardzic tried to
21 discipline Pavkovic in June or July of --
22 MR. SEPENUK: Your Honour, excuse me, I truly hate to interrupt
23 and I'm sorry about this, but that -- I really think Mr. Hannis, Your
24 Honour, that was not a correct reference. I think that reference was to
25 Mr. Ackerman's comment. I didn't make that comment.
1 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis.
2 MR. HANNIS: Well, Your Honour, if that's true, I may stand
3 corrected. It's at page 26 -- I'm sorry, 27181 of the transcript, so if
4 that's Ackerman, I apologise to Mr. Sepenuk --
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Which day is that, sorry?
6 MR. HANNIS: It's on the 22nd of August.
7 MR. SEPENUK: Yes.
8 MR. HANNIS: And that is the day when there was a transition.
9 MR. SEPENUK: Yes, that is Mr. Ackerman's comment. That was not
10 my comment, Your Honour.
11 MR. HANNIS: My apologies to Mr. Sepenuk.
12 But the point I wanted to make was that --
13 JUDGE BONOMY: Could you give us again the page at which the
14 submission was made?
15 MR. HANNIS: My note indicates page 27181.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
17 Please continue, Mr. Hannis, and we'll note that this relates to
18 the submission of Mr. Ackerman.
20 And we note that General Dimitrijevic said in connection with
21 that when disciplinary proceedings were attempted to be implemented by
22 General Samardzic that what happened was Pavkovic got promoted and he was
23 the one to present the plan to suppress terrorism at that July 1998
24 meeting.
25 Now, Mr. -- I will then move to Mr. Ackerman and General Pavkovic
1 since I apparently already have.
2 One thing that came up in connection with him, Mr. Ackerman at
3 page 27198, was talking about the evidence concerning General Pavkovic
4 having seen Skorpions in the early days of the war in 1999, and
5 Mr. Ackerman said "and he informed Sainovic of this. So there's Pavkovic
6 when he knows something reporting it all the way up to Sainovic."
7 We note that this was referred to in that -- either -- I think it
8 was the May 16th meeting where Pavkovic talked about having seen those
9 Skorpions, and he told General Ojdanic at that time that he had informed
10 Sainovic about it. It raises the question exactly where in Pavkovic's
11 chain of command was Mr. Sainovic that Pavkovic reported to him instead
12 of General Ojdanic. We say that relates to what we've been saying all
13 along about the Joint Command and how that worked.
14 There was testimony about the bottleneck. Mr. Ackerman at page
15 27203 and 204 says the OTP got it wrong. We say we got it right. Farkas
16 says that Pavkovic and the 3rd Army were the bottleneck in connection
17 with the reporting of crimes. We refer you to transcript page 16363 and
19 At page 27205 Mr. Ackerman raises a point about the Prosecution's
20 brief at paragraph 312 where we talked about rapes. He says rapes were
21 isolated acts. He says: "Of course there were rapes. You just look at
22 any war. You're dealing with young soldiers, not pillars of society
23 especially and those kinds of things just happen no matter what you do to
24 try and keep them from happening."
25 Your Honours, this is a point also raised by the Lukic Defence
1 and we say recall this is a JCE 3 case. We make the argument that these
2 acts were the foreseeable consequences of the forcible expulsion of the
3 civilian population under the circumstances which had occurred.
4 You asked, Judge Bonomy, at page 27206 when I came to respond you
5 indicated it might assist you if I could identify who if any among our
6 witnesses actually lost their documents. I would refer you to several
7 individuals, Dr. Ali Hoti, H-o-t-i, who testified at page 4157, said:
8 "We were forced to take off the licence plates from the vehicles and we
9 had to hand over all our IDs and documents."
10 Halit Berisha in his statement at page 2326, page 4, said that
11 when they reached Morina at the border the police took everyone's
12 identification and licence. He notes that some others had their IDs
13 taken away on the way to the border but his was taken at the border --
14 JUDGE BONOMY: I may say, Mr. Hannis, that since making that
15 comment I have noted quite a number where one might infer from the
16 evidence that the individuals themselves did lose their documents.
17 MR. HANNIS: Okay.
18 JUDGE BONOMY: But it is helpful to have these examples.
19 MR. HANNIS: If I may then I'll mention a few more for the
20 record.
21 Sabrit Kadriu in his statement at page -- which is Exhibit P2377
22 at page 20, he and others with them had their IDs seized by the Serb
23 police. Halil Morina, this is a 92 bis (D) witness who didn't testify,
24 Your Honour, but his statement is in evidence as Exhibit P2523 -- that's
25 his prior testimony in Milosevic is P2523 at pages 36 and 37, he mentions
1 handing over his and his wife's IDs.
2 Mahmut Halimi, transcript 4459, handed over his own ID and car
3 registration plates. Ambassador Vollebaek didn't hand over his ID but he
4 did tell you about that at transcript 9523 some of the people that they
5 talked to reporting about that. And Sadije Sadiku, we'll talk about a
6 little later on.
7 Mr. Ackerman also challenged the testimony about the deportations
8 from Pristina and what Mr. Bucaliu said. He challenged Ms. Kravetz's
9 remarks about the civilians who were transported from Pristina to the
10 Macedonian border. We say look at the evidence not only of Bucaliu but
11 also of Emin Kabashi and Nazlie Bala. Kabashi said there were five to 12
12 trains a day with lots of cars and estimated tens of thousands were
13 expelled on those trains. That's at transcript 2053. Ms. Bala noted
14 that when she went down and had to get on the train that there were some
15 30 cars attached to that train. That's in her statement, her transcript
16 2184 to 2185.
17 Mr. Bucaliu in his Slobo testimony Exhibit P2287 which is page
18 17, and those are pages 2055 to 2057 in the Slobo transcript, talked
19 about that there were additional cars on those trains that were running
20 on the 31st of March in the first few days of April.
21 JUDGE CHOWHAN: I'm sorry to intervene. The Defence had taken up
22 this position that in fact the number of trains were reduced. Could you
23 kindly comment on that, please.
24 MR. HANNIS: I will, if you'll permit me. Mr. Ivetic raised that
25 point and he too must have gone to the same course for math that Mr. Fila
1 did because -- and I may have gone to the same class too because I'm
2 having a hard time finding my note, but we ask you to look at Exhibit
3 P1331. Between I think the 25th and the 30th of March no trains ran. We
4 say that's because of the bombing. On the 31st, you'll see the trains
5 beginning to run again. I think the high number of trains recorded in
6 the log was either eight or nine I think on the 3rd of April going toward
7 Djeneral Jankovic. And then after I think after the 3rd of April the
8 train numbers reduced again and sometimes you didn't see more than two a
9 day and some days, none at all. But we see that peak period, the 31st of
10 March, the 3rd of April, was when these folks, Bala and Kabashi and
11 thousands of others were being transported out of Pristina to the border
12 at Djeneral Jankovic. Okay.
13 Regarding the Joint Command and whether it existed in 1999, we
14 direct you to -- in connection with General Pavkovic we direct you to his
15 suspect interview. He does make reference to a couple of meetings in
16 1999, that's at pages 113 to 118 of his suspect interview, Exhibit P949,
17 and in discussing one of those meetings he does talk about Mr. -- or
18 General Vasiljevic attending. And so that corroborates the testimony of
19 General Vasiljevic.
20 Then Mr. Ackerman raised the point about Pavkovic carrying out
21 the orders of the Joint Command and he refers you to Exhibit P49 -- I'm
22 sorry, Exhibit 4D91 for the proposition that Pavkovic wasn't following
23 the directions of the Joint Command but he was getting proposals from the
24 Joint Command, taking them back to the 3rd Army. In this light we ask
25 you to look at Exhibits P1435 and P1439. This also relates to an
1 argument raised by General Lazarevic about that. P1435 is dated the 22nd
2 of September, 1998, from General Pavkovic, head of the Pristina Corps
3 command at that time, to General Samardzic. He's making reference to a
4 meeting in Belgrade on the 31st of August, 1998. This is one of the
5 five, we say, inter-departmental staff for suppression of terrorism
6 meetings. Item number 4, page 2 he says: "During the briefing on
7 implementing stage 5 of the plan which was given at the meeting of the
8 ZK," which we say is the acronym for Joint Command for KiM, "on 10
9 September 1998, the other command organs pointed out that the VJ had not
10 carried out two of its duties under the plan, namely, number one, it had
11 not formed rapid intervention helicopter units as the FRY president had
12 ordered at the meeting on the 31st of August, 1998; and number two, two
13 battle groups had not been moved down to Kosovo."
14 Near the bottom of the page Pavkovic notes: "We are giving the
15 members of the ZK," the Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija, "the
16 opportunity to report to the president of the FRY that the VJ has not
17 carried out its duties under the plan."
18 And related Exhibit P1439, again from General Pavkovic, head of
19 the Pristina Corps at that time, dated 5 October 1998, item number 2,
20 paragraph 2: "On my return from the reporting session with the Joint
21 Command -- ZK for Kosovo and Metohija on 19 and 20 September 1998, I
22 informed you personally by telephone of the decision to form rapid
23 intervention forces."
24 We say that's a decision of the Joint Command. "As part of the
25 conclusions from the ZK," Joint Command, "I sent you the decision to form
1 rapid interventions which you forbade."
2 In item number 3 he says: "We have decided upon this decision
3 bearing in mind that the forces stipulated in the order on special
4 measures for constant combat-readiness are already engaged on other axes
5 and currently cannot be engaged." So we ask you to take a look at that
6 in evaluating the relevant positions and roles of the Joint Command and
7 the accused in this case.
8 Then later Mr. Ackerman talks about General Pavkovic's awareness
9 of the confiscation of identity documents, and he chastises us, the
10 Prosecution, for having failed to mention what Pavkovic did when he
11 became aware of this. You have to look at Pavkovic's suspect interview,
12 P949, at pages 91 to 92. He is aware. He talks about on the road to
13 Macedonia being jammed with people leaving, and he says he informed the
14 Supreme Command about it.
15 Ackerman's point is it was clear that Pavkovic was determined to
16 make an end of this, but he found out that this was being done by the MUP
17 and so he didn't do anything else. There's no evidence to suggest that
18 Pavkovic really investigated, and if he thought there was something wrong
19 about it, we suggest he should have done something more in connection
20 with the MUP.
21 One issue raised by Mr. Ackerman regards paragraph 905 of our
22 Prosecution brief, talking about the indictment against Milosevic,
23 Milutinovic, Sainovic, and Ojdanic being made public. He did cite you
24 something in his brief, indicating that there was an order here in the
25 ICTY that ordered delayed disclosure of that indictment to a date, I
1 think the 26th or 27th of May. That was not evidence presented in the
2 case. I was not aware of it until Mr. Pavkovic -- Mr. Ackerman cited it
3 in his brief. I've looked at it. I'm troubled by what to do with it
4 because I say it's not evidence in the case but it does seem to be there.
5 And so I suppose that's a factor that you will bear in mind when you're
6 considering what P1723, General Lazarevic's report dated the 24th of May,
7 1999, and P1459, General Pavkovic's document reporting about MUP crimes
8 dated the 25th of May. And as you know, there are issues concerning the
9 authenticity and the dates when those documents may have been produced,
10 both of them, lots of testimony presented by the Ojdanic team concerning
11 General Pavkovic's document. And with regard to P1723 we refer you to
12 the Exhibit 6D1486 which is the Pristina Corps log-book of documents in
13 the 455 series. And you'll see that P1723 is a document that bears the
14 number 455-172/2. And you go look to see what 455-172 is, there are two
15 documents numbered 455-172 in the log. One refers to the order on
16 subordination of the MUP but the other refers to something totally
17 unrelated about setting up and arming volunteers in a particular village
18 based on a proposal or a suggestion from the 549th Brigade. So there is
19 an issue about when those were created, how they were created, whether
20 they were backdated. I bring it to your attention. I don't have the
21 complete solution to that mystery.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Hannis, is it not appropriate for the Court to
23 take account of the existence at least of any order that was made at any
24 stage in the proceedings that the Court is concerned with without having
25 to hear evidence about that?
1 MR. HANNIS: I agree with that, Your Honour, and that's why I
2 raise it to you because it exists and I see it's there. I suggest based
3 on -- what troubles me was that it was not raised until the Defence's
4 final brief. Maybe he didn't know until then and so I can't say anything
5 about it. But this was a very hotly contested issue and we were taking
6 the position all during the trial that these documents were created
7 shortly after the date that we believed the indictment was made public,
8 which I thought was the 23rd of May based on information I had. And so
9 we say it should have been raised earlier in the sense we feel ambushed,
10 but it is in the record, that is the evidence. We suggest there is a
11 possibility, however, given the quantity and nature of intelligence that
12 the VJ and the MUP had about not only the activities of NATO but also the
13 activities about the ICTY that they could have been aware of it before it
14 was made public. And we also suggest, given the questions about those
15 two documents they could have been backdated as well.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: Going back to the archive logs, is there a
17 practice -- I should remember this but I can't. Is there a practice
18 disclosed by these of using a 1 in the recording of an additional
19 document? You've got two documents there that are 455-172/ -- well, in
20 fact, 455-172, you say there are two documents and then there is one
21 that's 172/2.
22 MR. HANNIS: Yes.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Would the normal course of events in the archive
24 mean that there should be a 172/1?
25 MR. HANNIS: I believe so, Your Honour, and I refer you to our
1 exhibits P1966 and P1967, the first Joint Command orders from the 22nd of
2 March. P1966 is 455-56 and then General Lazarevic's amendment is
3 455-56/1.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Yeah. Now, in this instance we don't have a
5 document with that reference, 172/1. But do we have the log that records
6 these documents?
7 MR. HANNIS: We do have the log --
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Yeah.
9 MR. HANNIS: -- that purports to record all the 455 documents
10 from the first one --
11 JUDGE BONOMY: And was there any evidence about the absence of
12 /1?
13 MR. HANNIS: No, we no evidence about that that I'm aware of.
14 JUDGE BONOMY: And that's because the evidence concentrated on
15 General Pavkovic's report rather than the report from General Lazarevic;
16 is that right?
17 MR. HANNIS: Well, primarily, although when General Lazarevic
18 testified I did show him I think the other document -- the two documents
19 bearing the 455-172, the one that referred to subordination of the MUP,
20 which was a follow-on from General Ojdanic's and General Pavkovic's
21 around the April 18th, 19th, 20th, and the other one which was that
22 unrelated document about General Delic or Colonel Delic's proposal to
23 form a unit and arm a unit in a particular village. And his testimony, I
24 don't have the transcript reference at hand, but his testimony was to the
25 effect, well, that was just a -- you know, that was just a clerical
1 mistake and the same number was used twice, to that effect.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.
3 MR. HANNIS: Now I think I have moved on -- I'm a little gun-shy
4 now. I think now I'm on to the comments of Mr. Bakrac.
5 Just to be to the safe side, I will move to Friday, the 25th of
6 August. It is Mr. Bakrac talking on behalf of General Lazarevic, and
7 we're talking about the issue of Joint Command and these Joint Command
8 orders. Mr. Bakrac points to the testimony of General Delic to say,
9 Well, this really wasn't any big issue that the brigade commanders like
10 Delic understood that even though the documents said Joint Command, it
11 was coming from the Pristina Corps and they had no problems. That's from
12 my commander, I don't know why it said Joint Command, but I'll go along.
13 And we had several army witnesses talk about that. We say that's
14 an issue for you to consider. I think Your Honours had some of the same
15 questions about that, these professional soldiers who I believe and
16 suggested to you the words command have a special significance that
17 resonates more with them than perhaps it does for us civilians. We had
18 witness after witness come in and say, Well, no, I saw that, I wasn't
19 concerned about it, it didn't mean anything to me.
20 The only one that I can recall who did what I would have expected
21 all of them to do when they saw some document referring to the Joint
22 Command, a body that doesn't exist in the Rules of Service or the
23 constitution or the Law on Army or anywhere, to at least be curious and
24 inquire. The only one that did was General Zivanovic, and I say he's
25 credible. He told us at transcript pages 20507 to 20508 what happened
1 back in July 1998 the first time he got an order that made reference to
2 the Joint Command. And he said: "Well, that's the term. I asked what
3 this was about and this is why I wanted to hear personally from the
4 commander and he wasn't there, so I called the operations officer and he
5 explained to me it's all right, it's a document from the Pristina Corps
6 command, act pursuant to it. And in future, you can act pursuant to all
7 the documents containing this term in the same way that you would do with
8 documents coming from the Pristina Corps."
9 And I asked him: "So I take it this was the first time you heard
10 or saw that term Joint Command for Kosovo and Metohija was when you
11 received that order dated the 6th of July, 1998, right?
12 "A. Yes, this is why I called the commander."
13 And he told us he made that call before he issued his own
14 follow-on order. And he said: "I got the operations officer.
15 "Q. Who was that person?
16 "A. That's Colonel Djakovic," who he heard testify here. And he
17 did tell us about he and Pavkovic using that term, Joint Command, in
18 early July 1998.
19 But Curcin and the other members of the Supreme Command Staff,
20 those guys at that level, they all came in and said they weren't -- they
21 didn't know what it was and they weren't worried about it. That strains
22 credibility, I suggest, Your Honours, that a professional soldier at that
23 level would not want to know what Joint Command was. And Curcin even
24 after being involved with Ojdanic and sitting down and writing the
25 suggestions to follow on an order from the Joint Command didn't seem to
1 be curious about what it was. That doesn't make sense.
2 We say, as I said before, me thinks these generals and my learned
3 friends across the hall doth protest too much about what they keep
4 referring even at this stage, after two years and after all these
5 witnesses and all this evidence we've had about the existence of a body
6 called the Joint Command, they still call it the so-called Joint Command.
7 And if that was only an information-sharing body, as they would
8 like you to believe, why does President Milutinovic, when he's addressing
9 the MUP staff meeting on the 5th of November, 1998, at page -- at page 4
10 of which Exhibit 2805, say -- and note, this is like a week after the
11 meeting of the inter-departmental staff on suppression of terrorism in
12 P2166, he's telling the MUP staff: "Everything will stay the same as it
13 has been up to now, a Joint Command, VJ won't withdraw," et cetera.
14 Why is the president of the republic telling the MUP staff that
15 everything is going to remain the same, the Joint Command, if it's only
16 an information-sharing body? That doesn't make sense either. And it's
17 not a so-called Joint Command, it's a Joint Command. If it's a so-called
18 Joint Command, then we're a so-called Tribunal and I'm a so-called human
19 being. That existed and it boggles the mind that that position is still
20 being taken.
21 At these meetings we say -- at these meetings of the Joint
22 Command we say decisions were made, as I pointed out earlier regarding
23 Exhibits P1435 and 1439.
24 Regarding the Slup and Voksa action, this is something that
25 occurred in mid-August 1998. This was addressed with General Lazarevic.
1 You'll recall we had that document, that decision, in Exhibit P1428
2 signed by General Lazarevic and which said that these combat operations
3 would be commanded by the Joint Command from the forward command post.
4 And we pointed out to you in Exhibit P1468 at a Joint Command meeting a
5 few days prior to that action that General Pavkovic informed the members
6 or those attending the Joint Command meeting that that action would be
7 commanded by General Lazarevic. When he testified we discussed that with
8 him and tried to ask him what happened. He denied that he commanded that
9 action, and he tried to explain that well, he just signed it because
10 Pavkovic wasn't available because he was touring around with I think the
11 visiting General Perisic and others. We ask you to closely review the
12 transcript of his testimony from pages 18295 through 18312 regarding that
13 issue.
14 Another area where I argued that General Lazarevic was not fully
15 candid with you related to Exhibits P1966 and P1967, the Joint Command
16 orders, 1967 being his signed amendment to the order in P1966, one of the
17 issues I raised about that was the fact that he did not make any change
18 in his amendment regarding that operation being commanded by the Joint
19 Command nor where the command post was going to be. He tried to tell us
20 that, Well, no, no, no, in this amendment the command post is changed and
21 that the command of that action was going to be commanded from the same
22 command post that's listed for the 354th.
23 And he had another witness or two back him up on that, but I say
24 the more credible witness on this again is Colonel Zivanovic. I showed
25 him these documents and it was pertinent to do so because his brigade,
1 the 125th, was given tasks in this Joint Command order and I asked him
2 about reading those two documents together, transcript page 20570 and
3 20571. And I handed him P1967 and I said: "This appears to be an
4 amendment."
5 He said: "Yes, that's what it seems to be."
6 I said: "This one is actually signed by General Lazarevic and it
7 indicates it was delivered to the 125th."
8 He says: "Yes, that's right, that's right," he says, "in code to
9 the 125th."
10 And my question is this amendment appears to have only item
11 numbers 4 and 5 in it. There's no item 1 through 3 and no item 6 through
12 13."
13 His answer: "That's right because of the urgency. If there was
14 an amendment to be made to a decision, it had to be done quickly." And
15 you'll see both those documents are dated the 22nd of March. And I said:
16 "And there's no need to put in the things that are not being changed, you
17 only need to put in the parts that are different, that are being changed,
18 being amended; correct?
19 "A. As a matter of principle, yes."
20 My question: "Reading these two together, the original order and
21 the amendment, isn't it true that the command post for this action is
22 stated in the original document under item number 11, the Pristina Corps
23 command in its peacetime location?"
24 "A. It's only logical that it remained the same as in the
25 decision it refers to.
1 My question: "And you would have no reason to believe that the
2 command post for the overall action was in the village of Lausa as is
3 listed on the last page in the amendment because that command post refers
4 to the 354th in item 5.4, does it not?
5 "A. That's right, 354th artillery -- or infantry brigade."
6 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Can I --
7 MR. HANNIS: Yes.
8 JUDGE CHOWHAN: -- request for some more views, particularly if
9 you like to focus on -- in the year 1999 with respect to Joint Command.
10 Could you speak more on that, please, 1999.
11 MR. HANNIS: I will, if Your Honour permit me if I can address
12 that when it comes up. I would refer you --
13 JUDGE CHOWHAN: At your convenience.
15 JUDGE CHOWHAN: But that is really the crucial period and you can
16 refresh our memories and help us with that period, that would be very --
17 MR. HANNIS: I understand, and thank you for bringing that to my
18 attention.
19 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Thank you very much.
20 MR. HANNIS: I would refer you to our final brief where we
21 address that and my initial remarks where we talk about references to the
22 Joint Command in combat reports of the Pristina Corps and the 3rd Army
23 and some other things I think I'll touch upon.
24 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Well, I did read the brief, I must tell you.
1 Now, Grom 4, Mr. Bakrac accuses us of spreading doubts and
2 suspicions because of the date in General Lazarevic's document concerning
3 Grom 4. This is Exhibit 5D175. Now, you'll recall in my opening closing
4 remarks I went through in some detail, perhaps too much, how the
5 directive on April 9th came from the Supreme Command Staff, there was a
6 preparatory order to General Pavkovic to prepare his order in line with
7 the directive, and then I think it was on April 10th -- 10th or 11th we
8 saw Exhibit -- Pavkovic's Grom 4 document.
9 And then we came to 5D175, which is Lazarevic's Grom 4 document
10 but it's dated 6 April, which is some days before Pavkovic even got the
11 preparatory order to present one. And Mr. Bakrac suggested, Well, maybe
12 it was just a technical problem in the chaos of the war. But again, I
13 refer you to Exhibit 6D1486, which is that log of Pristina Corps
14 documents under the 455 series. 5D175 is 455-123, and in the log-book
15 the date listed for it is the 4th of April even though on the document
16 itself it says the 6th of April.
17 Now, I thought, Okay, well, maybe there's some typographical
18 error of the clerk putting down the 6th of April when he really meant the
19 8th or the 9th, but if you look at the log-book it appears to be
20 systematic and that the sequential numbers are also lined up
21 chronologically. So number 1 is the earliest one and number 200 is, you
22 know, in late May. So I looked around for Exhibit 450 -- order number
23 455-123. Other documents dated the 4th of April are 455-121 and 122.
24 And by the 10th of April we're already up to 455-133.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: What's the date on 455-124?
1 MR. HANNIS: The date on the document itself is the 6th of April.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: And in the log?
3 MR. HANNIS: In the log-book, the 4th of April.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: No, no, that's 123, but what about 124?
5 MR. HANNIS: 124 is dated the 5th of April, as is 125 and 126.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: All right. Thank you.
7 MR. HANNIS: And so on. You'll see that.
8 So we say it's not an error. I'm not sure how much farther I can
9 go with that, but I ask you to take a look at that.
10 Finally or next, with regard to General Lazarevic, I have to
11 address the issues concerning Nike Peraj and his testimony about seeing
12 Mr. -- or General Lazarevic at the forward command post in Djakovica on
13 the 28th of April. We've heard a lot of evidence about that. I think
14 the best that I can make out of that evidence, I believe Nike Peraj is
15 credible about seeing General Lazarevic there, but I believe it's
16 possible he may have gotten his date off by one day and that he saw him
17 on the 29th of April.
18 We do have evidence that Lazarevic was in that area on the 29th
19 of April. Exhibit P2026 is a combat report of the 125th Brigade which
20 indicates Lazarevic was in the command between 9.00 and noon that day.
21 Now, Mr. Bakrac will tell you and has told you that the Operation Reka,
22 which relates to Meja, was completed on the 28th; however, we say that
23 Operation Reka was a smaller part of a bigger, overall operation. And we
24 refer you to Exhibit 4D122, a combat report for the 29th of April, which
25 notes that the Pristina Corps operation in the Kosare border post sector
1 is ongoing. And we say that is part of the larger operation in that area
2 at that time, and that is where there is a discrepancy between General
3 Lazarevic's testimony and what Nike Peraj said. I think he was off by
4 one day.
5 I'm sorry, Your Honour, I'm trying very hard to finish before the
6 break but I may run slightly over.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I don't think you're going to do that,
8 Mr. Hannis, so just take your time.
9 MR. HANNIS: Okay.
10 There was testimony -- Mr. Bakrac referred you to testimony about
11 the number of criminal reports and violations of international
12 humanitarian law. At page 27269 he refers you to the figure of 492
13 violations of international humanitarian law. Your Honours, we have some
14 questions concerning that number. With so many reports about those
15 crimes, the numbers of indictments and convictions seem very small. We
16 asked I think General Blagojevic -- I'm sorry, we asked Djuro Blagojevic
17 about this, in his transcript at page 21613 he said this was not a
18 precise figure, this number. He says it's a tentative figure, it's of a
19 tentative nature and had no further explanation of where the number came
20 from or how they got it.
21 Mr. Bakrac pointed to Exhibit 5D379, General Lazarevic's 26 April
22 1999 request for forensic pathologists to be sent out because there were
23 indicia that some crimes had been perpetrated by members of the army. He
24 says: "So where is the cover-up in that?"
25 First of all, I say the cover-up is not in requesting expert
1 personnel for exhumations where there is indicia the VJ may have been
2 involved in crimes. The cover-up to the extent there is one lies in what
3 was not done after the request. And in Izbica we asked some of the
4 military prosecutor witnesses about that, what happened with that,
5 because the army was involved in having those bodies dug up and examined.
6 And we were told that there was a conclusion that the VJ was not
7 involved. But when we asked the witness how that conclusion was reached,
8 there was no good explanation about who reached that conclusion and how.
9 And they simply turned it over to the civilian authorities.
10 We say based on what was known at that time that that was very
11 much a case that needed further investigation by the army.
12 And there's an issue about the border belt. I think this was
13 actually maybe Mr. Cepic who raised this, and I could show you an
14 illustration that Mr. Reid has prepared to sort of illustrate where the
15 border belt would have been after the area was expanded to 10 kilometres.
16 This is for illustrative purposes only, and when it comes up I hope Your
17 Honours will see that when the border belt was increased to that size
18 that there were some of the populated areas. And this relates to
19 Mr. Cepic's explanation about how outside the built-up areas, it was the
20 army's responsibilities, whereas in settlements within the border belt
21 other tasks were performed by the Ministry of Interior. I don't know if
22 you're seeing that on your screens, Your Honour.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Nothing on the screen at the moment, Mr. Hannis.
24 MR. HANNIS: All right, Your Honour. I'll move on.
25 Mr. Cepic challenges the point I made in my opening -- oh,
1 there's the map before I move on, and it also shows some of our crime
2 sites as well.
3 Mr. Cepic challenged some of my arguments concerning Izbica and
4 the map that we used. We only ask Your Honours to check Exhibit P1968,
5 which is the Joint Command order for that action in that area, and that
6 you can draw some of your own lines and own circles and see the relative
7 locations and movements of the VJ and MUP forces in that area and how
8 that relates to the thousands of people who ended up in the field outside
9 Izbica on the day when the crime alleged in the indictment occurred.
10 Mr. -- well, I'm not sure whether it was Mr. Cepic or Mr. Bakrac,
11 but they made a point that General Lazarevic's Defence and the other
12 military defence teams had adduced a number of combat reports and interim
13 reports and say that in not a single one of those reports does it say
14 that a single MUP unit or a single member of the MUP was resubordinated.
15 We ask you to look at General Kotur's order regarding Operation Sekac, I
16 think it's the 20th or 22nd of May, 1998. We saw that one before, I
17 think it's Exhibit 2011, P2011, where Kotur was directing specific tasks
18 for MUP units.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: Do you mean to say 1998?
20 MR. HANNIS: I'm sorry, I meant to say 1999, yeah.
23 And I think it was Mr. Cepic who talked about Izbica and referred
24 you to Exhibit P2457, a map that was used in connection with the
25 testimony of Mr. Zyrapi to try and argue that, well, the population was
1 being moved pursuant to the orders of the KLA and that Izbica couldn't
2 have happened or at least couldn't have been army involvement because
3 they were moving in another direction. As I said before, we ask you to
4 refer to the exhibits we've cited and do your own review of the maps and
5 the line-drawing and don't forget to consider the testimony of the live
6 human beings from Izbica, Mustafa Draga, Mr. Thaqi, and the others. You
7 can't ignore that testimony in deciding what happened in Izbica at the
8 end of March 1999.
9 One of the last points raised by the Lazarevic Defence is
10 pointing to the numerous orders issued by General Lazarevic that talks
11 about providing for or taking care of the civilian population. There's
12 no mention of ethnicity in connection with the civilian population, it's
13 a generic term. We admit those documents are in the record, but we would
14 ask you in considering what Lazarevic's position was concerning
15 civilians, consider the testimony of K-73. And, Your Honour, I guess I
16 need to go into closed session for this because his testimony was given
17 in closed session and I want to direct you to a couple of specific
18 points, or private session.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: Is this the last point you have on Lazarevic or is
20 there more?
21 MR. HANNIS: It is.
22 JUDGE BONOMY: But we shall go into private session.
11 Page 27436 redacted. Private session.
12 THE REGISTRAR: We are in open session, Your Honours.
13 MR. HANNIS: So, Your Honour, in light of that if General
14 Lazarevic was really so good and concerned for civilians, why was he
15 issuing orders that were implemented in that fashion? And if he was so
16 concerned for civilians, why after in Exhibit P1723 on the 24th of May
17 he's reporting about MUP individuals and MUP units committing crimes like
18 murder and rape and robbery and looting of Albanian civilians does he
19 take no action other than sending a report to General Pavkovic? No
20 indication that he contacted MUP superiors or alerted anybody to
21 investigate those guys, no action to physically detain them, which we say
22 other evidence supports could be done and was done on other occasions.
23 And that concludes my remarks concerning General Lazarevic. I'll
24 move to General Lukic.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, I think our time is up for the --
1 MR. HANNIS: Oh, I'm sorry, Your Honour, you're right.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: -- morning session.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: It looks as though we'll have to try to secure
6 time for tomorrow, does it, as well, the way things are moving? Because
7 I can't sit after the next session this afternoon. I did make
8 arrangements assuming we would finish by then.
9 So we shall inquire about the availability of necessary time --
10 of time if it -- tomorrow just in case it turns out to be necessary, and
11 meanwhile we shall adjourn and resume at 20 minutes to 2.00.
12 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.37 p.m.
14 JUDGE BONOMY: With a great deal of generous cooperation from
15 many sources, we've been able to arrange that we'll sit now until 3.30,
16 we'll have a half-hour break when I will deal with the business that was
17 going to prevent me from continuing and I will return, no matter what the
18 situation, at 4.00 and we'll sit on from 4.00 until 5.00 and hope that
19 that will be sufficient. If there's a continuing problem, then we will
20 have to review the situation at that stage.
21 So, Mr. Hannis, please continue.
23 Turning to General Lukic, one of the first comments by Mr. Ivetic
24 at page 20 from yesterday was: "We have also seen that all the witnesses
25 of Albanian ethnicity deny that the KLA was present in the villages."
1 That's simply not true, Your Honour. As a matter of fact, it
2 came to my attention when Mr. Lukic came up for his second comment at
3 page 79 he was dealing with the deportation from Srbica and referred to
4 the witness Hadije Fazliu who in her witness statement which is Exhibit
5 P2241 and you also see in the transcript at page 1968 talked about the
6 existence of a KLA headquarters in her village of Turicevac.
7 Also early on Mr. Ivetic criticised Mr. Stamp for his referral to
8 Podujevo and the testimony of Mr. Stoparic about the killings there and
9 pointed out that none of those killings were planned or ordered. Misses
10 the point of our position, this is a JCE 3 case. Our argument in
11 relation to that event and those individuals, these were elements with a
12 criminal propensity, Skorpions sent to Kosovo to reinforce the MUP and it
13 was foreseeable that crimes like the killings in Podujevo could or would
14 occur. And in our submissions with regard to Lukic we allege that he
15 contributed to the joint criminal enterprise by using paramilitary groups
16 and volunteers.
17 Further on in connection with Mr. Stoparic the Defence pointed
18 out that all the other evidence from Stoparic was that there were no
19 other crimes through the SAJ reservists or the former Skorpions during
20 their entire stay in Kosovo. We would direct you to the statement of
21 Mr. Stoparic, P2224 in paragraph 64 through 68 where he tells us that
22 other members of the Skorpions were redeployed to Kosovo in mid-April and
23 engaged in cleansing villages. And he says in paragraph 68 of his
24 statement: "Houses were burnt with the intention to deprive any
25 Albanians or any terrorists of shelter if they returned. It was the
1 intention that no Albanians return to their houses."
2 JUDGE BONOMY: I think from memory, Mr. Hannis, the contrast was
3 between what was in that statement and what was said orally.
4 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, then Mr. Ivetic referred to
5 Ms. Kravetz's closing arguments about Mala Krusa and Mr. Stamp not
6 talking about Mala Krusa. He made reference to annex C, stating that it
7 demonstrates that none of the victims scheduled in the indictment for
8 Mala Krusa have been proven dead and in fact one of them was proven
9 alive. In schedule C we did note that one of those individuals named was
10 indeed alive. But with regard to Mala Krusa we say there's lots of
11 testimony concerning those individuals from which you could determine
12 that people died either by shooting and/or by burning in that barn.
13 JUDGE BONOMY: I note also that you withdrew the indictment or
14 that part of the indictment relating to the alleged victim who survived.
15 That --
16 MR. HANNIS: We did, Your Honour.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: That was done early in the trial I think.
18 MR. HANNIS: That's correct.
19 And the individuals who testified about that are Lutfi Ramadani
20 in Exhibit P2357 at page 3 and Mehmet Avdili in P2341 at page 12 and
21 their transcript Ramadani at 4295 and Avdili at I believe at 4396 and
22 4397.
23 Another example where a Defence counsel got it wrong is at page
24 38 from yesterday. He said Ms. Kravetz on behalf of the Prosecution
25 talked rather briefly about the Milosh Giliq Street in Djakovica incident
1 and curiously she claimed that there was no KLA in Djakovica in April.
2 What Ms. Kravetz said was: "No KLA presence at 157 Milosh Giliq Street.
3 Dren Caka and his mom and his baby sister and others, civilians, in the
4 basements were not KLA."
5 In relation to that and this point he wanted to make about KLA
6 being in Djakovica in April he referred to their exhibit 6D1637, 1638,
7 and 1639. We would direct you to their documents themselves which
8 contain disclaimers about the information contained in there. 6D1637 and
9 6D1639 both contain the disclaimer that says: "Much of the information
10 cannot be confirmed." And 6D1638 says that the information contained was
11 gleaned from KLA sources.
12 One other reference to the Pristina folks, Mr. Ivetic makes
13 reference to the term "identity cleansing." And he says there was no
14 information that the people sent out to Djeneral Jankovic had their
15 personal documents destroyed. I guess he was saying Ms. Bala, and
16 Mr. Kabashi, K-62, and 63, none of them testified that they had their
17 personal documents destroyed, but I would direct you to the statement of
18 Ms. Bala in Exhibit P2262, page 8, where she talked about at the border
19 at Djeneral Jankovic, seeing the border police take documents from 100
20 men and later other men told her that they had had their identity
21 documents taken as well.
22 With regard to Sadije Sadiku you'll remember the young woman in
23 the wheelchair who testified here. He says the Prosecution cannot change
24 her testimony and change the fact that this testimony was shown to be
25 false from the official response from the government that she did not
1 have previously issued identity documents. I guess that presupposes she
2 said that her identity document was taken. I believe her testimony and
3 her statement was to the effect that the group she was with had their
4 identity documents taken away, and argues that, you know, since we were
5 able to obtain her identity document in the year 2008 somehow rebuts our
6 theory of the case. We say that the documents in 2008 are no reflection
7 of the intention in 1999 and what happened then.
8 And you'll recall that we had evidence earlier in the Defence
9 case where it was purported that Sadije Sadiku did not exist, that there
10 was no record regarding her, which was rebutted by evidence we obtained
11 later in the case.
12 There's a reference to Mr. Lukic's interview, Mr. Ivetic claims
13 that regarding paragraph 228 of the Prosecution's brief we claim that the
14 Joint Command issued orders for joint action and say that Lukic
15 acknowledged this and his role was to ensure that the orders were carried
16 out but there was no citation for that proposition as to what his role
17 was. In the brief at paragraph 228 we say his role was to ensure that
18 the Joint Command plans involving MUP units were carried out. There's no
19 citation to that sentence, but in the very next sentence we say: "He
20 would determine units needed for specific actions and task his
21 subordinates to provide the required personnel." That's cited -- that's
22 then footnoted in footnote 57 with a reference to Cvetic and his
23 transcript at 8075, 8080, 8194 to 8195.
24 And regarding paragraph 228, footnote 57, there's also a
25 reference to Mr. Lukic's interview at pages 48 and 49 and page 72. The
1 reference to page 72 in the interview in footnote 57 is a mistake. That
2 should read page 77. I think 72 is a reference to his earlier statement
3 before we merged the English and the B/C/S.
4 And likewise, in paragraph 1013 of our brief at footnote 2448 we
5 make a reference to Exhibit P949 and pages 35-36; that was another error
6 in the page numbering, that should be pages 48 and 49 of the interview.
7 Then there is an attack on the credibility of a couple of the
8 Prosecution witnesses, particularly Shaun Byrnes and General Vasiljevic.
9 Regarding General Vasiljevic, Mr. Ivetic mentions one of the falsehoods
10 committed by him. At page 71 yesterday he said one falsehood that he did
11 not get around to correcting was his that among the SAJ were persons who
12 had a combined 150 years of jail sentences. I don't know if it's SAJ or
13 JSO. It's actually JAS in my transcript and I'm not sure which he
14 referred to. According to information from his service he says at the
15 time. Unfortunately for him and the Prosecution General Dimitrijevic
16 refuted Vasiljevic, saying that VJ intelligence had no such information.
17 That's not quite an accurate statement of what Dimitrijevic said.
18 He was asked if he knew about any such information and he said no. But I
19 would note that Dimitrijevic was no longer the head of intelligence as of
20 the start of the war and that Vasiljevic returned in late April 1999. So
21 he had access to information at a point in time after Dimitrijevic was no
22 longer there.
23 Byrnes and Vasiljevic, we simply ask you to review their
24 testimony and their statements and judge for yourself their credibility.
25 And regarding those citations there's another one raised by
1 Mr. Ivetic in our brief. He says the Prosecution asserted that the RDB
2 chief in Kosovo, David Gajic, was a member of the staff and JSO commander
3 Legija was also a commander. He says: "I ask you to note that the
4 citation given for these assertions which gives the impression that the
5 citations are supportive is 180 degrees counter." They cite to Joksic
6 who spent a great deal of time negating this assertion.
7 Your Honour, perhaps there's some possibility that Mr. Ivetic
8 didn't read it closely, but if you'll look at that citation in the brief
9 and the footnotes you'll see that Joksic is cited for the proposition
10 that David Gajic was the head of the RDB in Kosovo and Legija was the
11 commander of the JSO. The citation supporting the proposition that those
12 two individuals were members of the MUP staff is a reference to Exhibit
13 P1505, which is the Minister of the Interior Stojiljkovic's decision
14 creating a MUP staff for the suppression of terrorism. So that's another
15 instance where he got it wrong.
16 Finally, Mr. Lukic returned to speak briefly and one point he
17 raised was concerning the wearing of coloured ribbons and he refers to
18 our witness Abdullah Salihu who testified that on the 29th of March there
19 were Serb forces wearing ribbons, red, blue, and yellow. In his
20 statement in P2255 Mr. Lukic says: "As far as members of the MUP are
21 concerned the bands began to be worn on the 15th of April and there were
22 never three colours," referring to Exhibit 6D237. Your Honour, you will
23 recall we have evidence that in July 1998 the MUP were wearing ribbons
24 for the purposes, as testified to by some of the witnesses, to identify
25 themselves and to avoid the dangers of friendly fire. He explained that
1 that practice took place after one of their members had been kidnapped, I
2 believe.
3 And then we heard and saw documents indicating that from the 15th
4 of April in 1999, ribbons were worn once again. But I suggest to you
5 that if the logic of wearing ribbons is to avoid friendly fire and to
6 identify yourselves and you're doing that in July 1998, that when the war
7 starts in March and you're engaged in these anti-terrorist operations
8 from before the beginning of the war on the 24th of March, the logic
9 still pertains and there's no reason to believe that they didn't continue
10 to wear ribbons. The fact that we don't have a document or a chart
11 showing the schedule for which colour ribbons to wear on which days prior
12 to April 15th does not negate the wearing of ribbons. And we have
13 eye-witness testimony from victims in the village who say that the forces
14 that came to their villages and committed the crimes were wearing
15 ribbons.
16 And related to his discussion about the evidence of Witness Sali
17 hu at page 84, line 9, yesterday Mr. Lukic said in a statement Witness
18 Salihu explains that he was taken prisoner on the 20th of September,
19 1999, I don't know if that's what he said but that's what's recorded in
20 the transcript and that can't be right. His statement says it was the
21 29th of April.
22 Your Honours, with that I only want to refer to Mr. Ackerman's
23 old saw, at the end of his remarks he talked about the young prosecutor
24 and the old crusty judge who told her at the conclusion of her case that
25 dog won't hunt. We say that in this case, our Prosecution case is a dog
1 that will hunt and indeed it's baying at the base of the tree of which
2 these six accused are perched. We ask you to find them all guilty.
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Hannis.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. O'Sullivan, do you have rejoinder?
7 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Thank you, Your Honour. Yes, I do, and I'll be
8 brief.
9 I'll respond in turn to the points made by Mr. Hannis in the
10 order he made them. First on the issue of the Supreme Command we would
11 just redirect the Chamber to our final brief, paragraphs 62 to 116 and
12 our previous submissions, and of course we do rely upon, as Mr. Hannis
13 encouraged you to do, Mr. Milutinovic's interview, 604, on Supreme
14 Command as well as the numerous VJ officers including Prosecution
15 Exhibit -- Witness General Vasiljevic and the other members of the staff
16 of the Supreme Command who testified on the issue.
17 We note as well at paragraph 115 of our brief that there is seven
18 or eight other members of the staff of the Supreme Command who are not
19 questioned by the Prosecutor on this point and we say that's a matter
20 worthy of comment which we make at paragraph 115.
21 And the last point is that the Prosecutor remains silent in
22 relation to 3D670, the subordination order of the 18th of April, 1999,
23 and the conclusions of the VSO of the 4th of October, 1998, which we say
24 goes to the heart of the issue.
25 The second point I wish to make was in relation to the question
1 you had for me, Judge Bonomy, on whether or not the staff of the Supreme
2 Command had discretion or whether or not it implemented strictly the
3 orders of the supreme commander. And there we refer you to paragraph 103
4 of our final submissions. There we have the evidence of Gajic and
5 Curcin, who clearly state that every day, in the morning, General Ojdanic
6 met with President Milosevic and the commander commanded the army through
7 his staff, that is to say that the staff implemented the orders of its
8 commander, paragraph 103 of our brief.
9 [Defence counsel confer]
10 MR. O'SULLIVAN: The third point was the wartime decree on ID
11 cards. We agree with the Prosecutor that there are innocent explanations
12 to this, as he stated. And on the dates involved we do direct you to
13 1D144, which contains the draft of that decree, the letter from Professor
14 Markovic, the deputy prime minister, to Mr. Milutinovic. The draft
15 decree is dated the 31st of March, 1999, and that draft decree was sent
16 to Mr. Milutinovic for signature on the 6th of April, 1999, and according
17 to P993, the Official Gazette, it came into force on the 7th of April,
19 The evidence of Professor Markovic on re-examination is
20 transcript 13626 to 13628. There he explained that the draft decree of
21 the 31st of March would have been prepared within the Ministry of the
22 Interior, it would have been sent to Mr. Milutinovic on the 6th of April
23 following the government meeting, and it came into force on the 7th of
24 April with its publication in the Official Gazette.
25 The fourth point I wish to make is in regards to --
1 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm not sure I've completely grasped that. Are
2 you saying that a mistake in date was put on it and it was signed at the
3 later date?
4 MR. O'SULLIVAN: The Official Gazette is the 7th of April, but
5 the text of the decree says the 31st of March.
7 MR. O'SULLIVAN: And --
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Albeit it was sent, you say, on the face of a
9 document on the 6th of April --
10 MR. O'SULLIVAN: But we say there's no problem with the dates.
11 JUDGE BONOMY: That still doesn't explain why it continues to
12 have the date the 31st of March.
13 MR. O'SULLIVAN: The 31st of March is the date the decree was
14 actually drafted, the draft of that decree.
15 JUDGE BONOMY: Yeah, all right.
16 MR. O'SULLIVAN: If you look at 1D144, and I invite you to peruse
17 the original, the B/C/S, in the top right-hand corner is the word
18 "predlog," p-r-e-d-l-o-g, which hasn't made it into the English
19 translation, we noted this morning, but that word means "draft" in
20 English.
21 JUDGE BONOMY: Does the Official Gazette contain any reference to
22 the 31st of March?
23 MR. O'SULLIVAN: The Official Gazette text of the decree does say
24 31st of March.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: You see, we constantly here are having to alter
1 documents because when they're signed a day has passed or a few days have
2 passed and you make sure that the one you sign has the date of signature.
3 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Well, you had in the witness box the deputy
4 prime minister who explained the circumstances and he said part of the
5 problem is likely the chaos of the war.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Very well. Thank you.
7 MR. O'SULLIVAN: The ...
9 MR. O'SULLIVAN: The next point I wish to address briefly is
10 the -- Mr. Hannis's comments about the investigations which took place in
11 late 1998 and 1999. The point there that we were making is that it was a
12 legitimate position for the domestic authorities, including Dr. Dunjic
13 and his colleagues, as well as the international forensic people from
14 Finland to investigate those matters.
15 The next point is the evidence around Ambassador Petritsch's
16 testimony on bombing and massacres. The evidence is clearly set out in
17 our brief, but in response to what Mr. Hannis said we know that
18 Mr. Petritsch has no recollection that Mr. Milutinovic actually uttered
19 these words. Petritsch testified that Mr. Kickert prepared the memo, and
20 at transcript 11239, I believe it's 239 and not 231, Mr. Kickert said
21 that Petritsch must have added the reference to bombing and massacres.
22 So there's even confusion on this point of who prepared the memo, who put
23 the words in, which we say is further evidence of the unreliability of
24 this memo.
25 The next point I wish to make is in relation to P2166, the
1 purported minutes of the inter-departmental staff. I refer you to
2 paragraphs 176-178 of our brief. And you recall that when this document
3 was first tendered in evidence during the testimony of Vasiljevic we
4 objected. And, Your Honour, you asked me whether our position is whether
5 it's a clever forgery and the answer to the question is: Yes. Now, four
6 witnesses have testified in relation to that document, four of whom were
7 present on the 29th of October. That's General Dimitrijevic,
8 Mr. Matkovic, Mr. Minic, and Mr. Andjelkovic. As we suggest in our
9 brief, they cast serious doubt on the authenticity and reliability of
10 P2166.
11 And as a matter of law I would direct the Chamber to the
12 Trial Chamber judgement in the Prosecutor versus Delalic, 18 November
13 1998, IT-96-21, paragraph 704, and there the Chamber sets out the law we
14 say on the distinctions to be made between the admissibility of an
15 exhibit and its probative value and the weight that should be accorded an
16 unauthenticated document. In this case we say you should give no weight
17 to P2166.
18 And --
19 JUDGE BONOMY: When you say "clever forgery," do you rule out
20 Susic as having any part in that?
21 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Well, the evidence is that Susic was not taking
22 notes at that meeting.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: No, indeed, but the document bears to be his
24 document, doesn't it?
25 MR. O'SULLIVAN: On the face of it, yes.
1 JUDGE BONOMY: I know that you don't have to prove anything,
2 Mr. O'Sullivan, but it does help if one can take the criticism all the
3 way. But you go part of the way really; is that right?
4 MR. O'SULLIVAN: No. I say that the burden is on the Prosecutor
5 to convince you and he --
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Indeed.
7 MR. O'SULLIVAN: -- can't do it because the four people who
8 testified told you otherwise.
10 MR. O'SULLIVAN: And I will conclude at this point and on behalf
11 of Mr. Zecevic and I, we would like to publicly acknowledge the tireless
12 work and dedication of our Defence team, in particular our case manager
13 Mr. Srdjan Mujanovic, and our legal assistant; Ms. Deirdre Montgomery,
14 who worked primarily here in The Hague; as well as our team back in
15 Belgrade Ms. Jelena Kuveljic-Dimitric; Ms. Mima Kovacevic; and Mr. Dragan
16 Bacanovic. And finally, it's been a pleasure for me to work with
17 Mr. Zecevic and an honour for me to appear before you. Thank you.
18 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. O'Sullivan.
19 Mr. Fila, do you have rebuttal -- sorry, rejoinder?
20 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I'm going to enumerate, one, two,
21 three, four, that's how we'll get through it the quickest.
22 The Prosecutor determines the beginning of the work of the Joint
23 Command on the basis of a document P1317. That document contains the
24 termination of the work of the Joint Command and handing over the
25 military documents as well. The Prosecutor uses the exhibit just like a
1 smorgasbord for breakfast, you take what you want and leave the rest. So
2 either the document is a good one or it isn't. They take General
3 Vasiljevic as proof and evidence that the Joint Command ceased to work on
4 that date. General Vasiljevic expressly says that he knows about the
5 Joint Command for 1998 because he was informed by General Stojanovic. As
6 for 1999 he has absolutely no idea at all, doesn't know about it at all,
7 knows nothing about the composition. At the meeting there was a minimum
8 of 15 people. He does not say who those 15 people were, he doesn't claim
9 that they were the Joint Command, and he says in a notebook, this is what
10 he writes, that it was a meeting in PRK, in the PRK, not the Joint
11 Command, and that he doesn't know what Sainovic did there.
12 Let me remind you that nobody said that it was a Joint Command
13 meeting of all the people who were the participants at the meeting.
14 Number two, with respect to Djakovic, the Prosecutor states that
15 I said arbitrarily that when the meetings were held of the so-called
16 Joint Command without the presence of Djakovic that no notes were kept,
17 no records were kept, because there's no evidence that any such meetings
18 were ever held. I would like to ask the Court to look at the Djakovic
19 testimony on page 26383 which speaks about a number of such meetings,
20 numerous such meetings, which were held, and since he wasn't there, there
21 were no records. Let me remind you also of all the other things that
22 speak about daily meetings.
23 Point three, according to the Prosecutor, General Dimitrijevic
24 lied before this Trial Chamber now, he lied now, and when he talked to
25 Crosland they say he had no reason to lie. So that what the Prosecutor
1 is doing is presenting a claim and then he doesn't tie himself in trying
2 to prove the grounds for which he says that.
3 Now I'm saying the opposite, that General Dimitrijevic, old and
4 infirm as he is, ten years on, a retired person, a pensioner, has no
5 reason to lie now, whereas he might have had a reason then and that is no
6 empty claim because then I'd be the same as the Prosecutor. But what I'm
7 going to provide you with proof and evidence. Take a look at the
8 telegram, for example, of Witness Crosland, it is Exhibit P684, paragraph
9 5. There Crosland has doubts about General Dimitrijevic's words.
10 Perhaps he wasn't telling the truth to justify himself for some reason,
11 and then General Dimitrijevic perhaps has reason not to tell the truth
12 and justify himself with respect to the events that took place then. But
13 what reason would he have for doing something like that now, for saying
14 something like that now?
15 You know, to insult somebody of that calibre and standing and of
16 that age, saying that he's not telling the truth, isn't the nicest and
17 fairest thing that you can do. Provide evidence, go ahead.
18 Then the Prosecutor correctly quotes what General Dimitrijevic
19 said with respect to Pavkovic and the Joint Command. Now suddenly he
20 likes certain portions, and from there I conclude that General
21 Dimitrijevic doesn't seem to be quite unimportant. So where it suits the
22 Prosecutor he says that he's telling the truth. Now, how does he explain
23 and interpret this?
24 Look at the whole sense of the testimony of what was stated
25 because you can't just extract excerpts. General Dimitrijevic constantly
1 claims that Pavkovic invented this Joint Command to justify the bad way
2 in which he functioned and worked, and in that respect he mentions the
3 document that my colleague Mr. O'Sullivan brought up a minute ago that he
4 thought up this inter-departmental staff which was called the Joint
5 Command and he questions and challenges ...
7 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] -- P2166 and P1317, Sakic's letter
8 that he mentioned a moment ago because he claims it was written under
9 Pavkovic's influence so that this Joint Command which he invented could
10 be shoved into Milosevic's square.
11 Let me repeat, we're dealing here with directness here, but that
12 the Prosecutor is trying to lead the Trial Chamber to ignore the two
13 years of bloody warfare that went on. I don't know what we were doing
14 here otherwise.
15 Point four, point four, the Prosecutor says that the Defence
16 claims that Sainovic only spoke ten times at meetings of the alleged
17 Joint Command. That's not what I said, Mr. Prosecutor. All I said was
18 this: That ten sentences uttered by Sainovic, ten times he took the
19 floor, this was extracted because it had some sort of command character
20 or resembled some sort of command character whereas nothing else suited
21 you. That's what I said. And that I don't know arithmetic, I agree with
22 Mr. Hannis there, I studied something else but I never got far from the
23 multiplications table.
24 Point five, with respect to the defence of inhabited areas,
25 P2086, the Prosecution mentions P1064 as proof and evidence that the
1 units of the federal Ministry of Defence were resubordinated to MUP
2 pursuant to a decision of the Joint Command. The Defence would like to
3 indicate that this kind of resubordination never took place of the
4 conscripts, first of all, because in P1044 -- 64 it is not units that are
5 referred to, it's conscripts that are referred to, individuals therefore,
6 and that was never agreed because the RPOs were formed soon afterwards
7 and it's quite obvious that in 1999 there was no resubordination of units
8 of the federal Ministry of the Interior [as translated] to MUP, no
9 evidence and proof has been provided.
10 Odalovic and Andjelkovic were here, they were commanders of the
11 civilian protection system and from their testimony it is impossible --
12 there's been a mistake. I was talking about resubordination of units of
13 the federal Ministry of Defence, not the interior but defence, to MUP.
14 As I say, we heard Odalovic and Andjelkovic here, their
15 testimonies, they were commanders of the civilian defence, and from their
16 testimony it is impossible to draw the conclusion that they were
17 subordinated to the MUP, as the Prosecutor's interpreting P1064.
18 Now where have we got to? Ah, yes, point six.
19 I'm worried again because when the Prosecutor speaks about
20 Sainovic he uses Pavkovic's interview as proof of the existence of a
21 Joint Command, where we agreed that that is something that cannot be
22 stated and doesn't follow. The Prosecutor says that Pavkovic took
23 reports to Sainovic and the source? P2060, paragraph 62, where it says,
24 that's Vasiljevic's statement, where it says that in -- yes, it is P2600,
25 2600 is the correct number of that exhibit, paragraph 62 where it says
1 that Pavkovic said to Ojdanic that he had told Sainovic that he had seen
2 the Skorpions in Prolom Banja.
3 First, it doesn't stand that Pavkovic reported Sainovic and had
4 this duty to inform. He might have met him and told him that way.
5 Secondly, Prolom Banja, shall we understand this once and for all, it's
6 not on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, and if it's not in Kosovo
7 and Metohija, then what has that to do with the Joint Command at all?
8 Something that isn't on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija. The third
9 point, from one sentence which stands in General Vasiljevic's statement
10 where it is recounted -- where Pavkovic allegedly said -- Sainovic draws
11 the conclusion that Pavkovic -- I apologise.
12 From one sentence that can be found in Vasiljevic's statement
13 where he recounts what Pavkovic allegedly said, Sainovic draws the
14 conclusion that Pavkovic is responding to Sainovic and is submitting a
15 report to him from one sentence. Now, you can't draw a conclusion on the
16 basis of one sentence like that. There are combat reports, orders,
17 hundreds of other exhibits that the Prosecution and Defence used to see
18 who Pavkovic reported to and informed and who he was receiving orders
19 from. So one sentence has been extracted and juxtaposed to hundreds of
20 combat documents of indisputable authenticity, let alone the fact that
21 they didn't go a step further.
22 How do I know whether Pavkovic actually said that to Sainovic?
23 Because there are different documents by Pavkovic where we find that that
24 was not the case.
25 Point seven, the Prosecutor mentions another exhibit, P1435 and
1 P1439, and he refers to page 29 and says that this is proof and evidence
2 that the Joint Command issues orders. The Prosecutor, however, is
3 ignoring the substance of those documents and the substance is this, that
4 regardless of what anybody said or asked for, as the Prosecutor said
5 ordered, the sovereign decision lay in the hands of the commander of the
6 3rd Army. He is the person who makes the decisions, who decides. The
7 commander of the 3rd Army, let me remind you, forbade the forming of
8 units for rapid intervention and the deployment of helicopters MiG 8,
9 regardless of what anybody else said at the meeting of that so-called
10 Joint Command.
11 A rapid intervention unit mentioned in these exhibits were never
12 formed and helicopters were never used as was proposed, as was put
13 forward. The substance of the matter is this, what was stated at the
14 meetings of this Joint Command influences the situation on the ground or
15 not, how does it influence it or not, and this is proof and evidence
16 precisely that the Joint Command represented none other than a debating
17 club because matters stood as the commander of the 3rd Army ordered. And
18 I remind you of what I said yesterday with respect to what Mr. Ackerman
19 said, that when the commander of the 3rd Army said that something should
20 cease to exist, then the documents were handed over to Slobodan
21 Milosevic's cabinet or offices.
22 And that's completely in keeping with 4D91 and in keeping with
23 the testimony of General Simic and Djakovic. Therefore, Judge Chowhan
24 rightly asked the Prosecutor to explain what the Joint Command was in
1 There is no reasonable or meaningful explanation on the part of
2 the Prosecution and the Defence claims once again that 1998 is not the
3 same as the year 1999, they are two different years, and regardless of
4 what went on in 1998 you must prove what went on in 1999. The difference
5 is a war and the difference is NATO and analogies in criminal law is
6 something that is absolutely not allowed.
7 Now I'm going to say one more thing and that is this. I heard
8 Mr. Hannis raising his voice for the first time today and when did he
9 raise it, when he was talking about the Joint Command. How can we on the
10 basis of all this evidence, et cetera, et cetera, and then the Court and
11 then the Trial Chamber, and then Mr. Hannis, and so on and so forth? So
12 Cicero, the Greek slave went down in history, Cicero prepared his
13 speeches and this -- the Greek slave prepared evidence for him and
14 whenever there was proof and evidence he would write a footnote; when
15 there was no proof and evidence he would put a little note and say we're
16 very low on evidence here so just raise your voice, raise the tone, and
17 it seems that Mr. Hannis went to this same school of thinking because
18 what is he offering, what is he offering up? There's -- I claim that
19 that is so because I say so. Now, if the facts speak differently, then
20 woe betide the facts. Now, I hope this kind of philosophy won't pass
21 muster with you. Now, the basic question I raised and Judge Chowhan
22 raised is did a Joint Command exist in 1999 led by Nikola Sainovic? Show
23 me the proof, show me the evidence, I said that in 98 bis and I'm
24 repeating that now. Show me the proof, let's see the proof and evidence,
25 and instead of that, all I received was a raised tone or a louder voice.
2 JUDGE BONOMY: One matter, Mr. Fila, before you sit down, page
3 64, at the beginning of that page you deal with origins of the Joint
4 Command and then you refer to the document my colleague Mr. O'Sullivan
5 brought up a minute ago and then there's a gap when you confer and then
6 you refer to P2166 and P1317, Sakic's letter that he mentioned a moment
7 ago. What is it you're referring to there?
8 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] I was referring to 2166 the way
9 General Dimitrijevic explains it and Mr. O'Sullivan spoke about this, and
10 the rest is a letter from the federal Ministry of Justice from which the
11 Prosecutor extracted only the beginning, that the Joint Command began and
12 the rest of the letter seems to be non-existent in his view.
13 JUDGE BONOMY: So Sakic's letter is the letter in answer to the
14 RFA; is that correct?
15 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Yes, I offered you another letter but
16 you didn't accept it. It was better, believe me.
18 Mr. Visnjic, do you have rejoinder?
19 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour, several points
20 raised by Mr. Hannis today.
21 On pages 4 and 5 of today's transcript Mr. Hannis referred to
22 your question on a certain amount of discretion that the supreme staff
23 might have had in its work and he referred to the testimony of General
24 Curcin. It is our assertion, Your Honours, that these references which
25 Mr. Hannis made do not constitute a response to your question. They are
1 an addendum to paragraph 232 of Ojdanic's letter, speaking of a certain
2 amount of autonomy and discretion of the level of command. I will draw
3 your attention to transcript pages, General Radinovic's testimony, 17247,
4 line 22, to 17251, where he explained the role of the Supreme Command
5 Staff in relation to the supreme commander and in relation to the
6 commanders of the strategic groups.
7 JUDGE BONOMY: [Microphone not activated].
8 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Your Honour, please.
9 JUDGE BONOMY: On what date was that evidence given?
10 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] The 18th of October, 2007.
12 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Now that we're talking about the
13 interrelations between the Supreme Command Staff, we come -- and others,
14 we come to the other topic raised by Mr. Hannis today and that is a
15 document entitled: "Suggestions and relations of General Ojdanic towards
16 the operation in Rugovska Klisura." Mr. Hannis devoted a significant
17 part of his presentation to this topic. He spoke about the relations of
18 General Ojdanic and others command over the Pristina Corps command, over
19 the 2nd Army, and so on. And we assert that Mr. Hannis is wrong when he
20 states that the key for the issuing of this document is the fact that the
21 2nd Army was involved in this operation, and I'll tell you why. Because
22 the suggestion was issued on the 17th of April and the order of the Joint
23 Command on the 15th of April, two days previously. For there to be
24 coordination between the 2nd Army and the 3rd Army the order on
25 coordination would have had to be issued before that.
1 I will also draw your attention to a document we did not mention
2 in our brief but which we dealt with. It has to do with the Joint
3 Command and the suggestion document in paragraphs 208 and 204. The
4 document I wish to mention now is 4D412 --
5 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: 420.
6 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] -- it's report by the 3rd Army to
7 the Supreme Command Staff where in paragraph 1 it is clearly stated.
8 4D420, I suggest we look at it perhaps.
9 It is clearly stated here that the order for the operation was
10 issued by the supreme commander, that as early as on the 12th of April.
11 And, Your Honours, this fits in and it confirms our case that the Supreme
12 Command Staff as the expert staff organ formulated the orders issued by
13 the supreme commander.
14 In addition to this, in the same document on, or rather, in point
15 2, I don't know whether it's in e-court or not, there is reference to the
16 ultimate fate of this suggestions document. The suggestions never
17 reached their destination for the reasons mentioned here, General
18 Pavkovic was absent at his command post and so on and so forth. So no
19 wonder that this document is mentioned again in the order of the 20th of
20 April when coordination is being done again for the same operation.
21 I also wish to draw your attention to the footnotes, or rather,
22 to the testimony of General Radinovic in connection with this topic on
23 pages 17335 and 17335 of the transcript and that's the 19th of October,
24 2007 -- 17335 and 17336.
25 May I continue, Your Honours?
1 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, please.
2 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] I'll move on to the next topic
3 raised by Mr. Hannis, and that is the statements of General Ojdanic in
4 the course of 1997 and 1998. Mr. Hannis says that subsequently General
5 Ojdanic changed his purpose. There is no evidence to show that General
6 Ojdanic changed his standpoints. There is evidence to show that in early
7 1999 the conditions in which General Ojdanic was operating changed, and
8 we spoke about these conditions sufficiently in our letter. They include
9 the growth of the KLA and the external threat of NATO aggression.
10 The next topic raised by Mr. Hannis was knowledge of possible
11 crimes committed in 1998, and he gives as an example Gornje Obrinje and
12 he makes a link between this and General Ojdanic. I wish to draw the
13 Chamber's attention to the fact that in at least one military document,
14 and that's P1440 in point 2, it says what the military organs knew had
15 happened or not happened in Gornje Obrinje and this would be the basis of
16 any knowledge that General Ojdanic might have had, if he indeed did have
17 any knowledge.
18 As regards the general knowledge gleaned from the media and
19 common knowledge, in my view the Court should be extremely cautious.
20 Today we had a typical example of this showing what publication in the
21 media means. Mr. Hannis said that he learned relatively late about when
22 the indictment in this case was published. I have an information sheet
23 for every visitor entering this Tribunal and it says on the 27th of May,
24 the Prosecutor Louise Arbour published the indictment. I'm saying this
25 not because it's evidence but because sometimes even persons as highly
1 interested as Mr. Hannis was in this case or General Ojdanic in the
2 Gornje Obrinje case might pass someone by without being noticed.
3 The next topic I wish to raise is the movement of the population,
4 and here Mr. Hannis said, referring to the collegium of the 9th of April,
5 that General Gajic envisaged what would happen with the refugees. But he
6 omitted to mention that in our letter in paragraph 263, point G -- [In
7 English] I'm sorry, in our brief, it should be.
8 [Interpretation] In our closing brief in paragraph 263 from point
9 G to J we enumerated the previous knowledge and discussion concerning
10 refugees. So General Gajic wasn't talking about this as something that
11 would happen in the future. This had already been discussed. So what my
12 learned friend did was misinterpret General Gajic's statements at the
13 meeting of the 9th of April.
14 The next topic is the establishing of the commission on the 17th
15 of May at the meeting. Mr. Hannis said that this was in fact a
16 suggestion. He said that the commission was to be formed in order to
17 hush up what had happened and this had to do with what happened sixth
18 months previously concerning the wire-tapping, listening in to the army.
19 This would mean that the setting up of any sort of commission constituted
20 an attempt to hush things up.
21 And secondly, if General Ojdanic really wanted to put a stop to
22 this issue and to have it end at the establishing of the Joint
23 Commission, why then did he send Generals Vasiljevic and Gajic out into
24 the field? Why did he form his own group to go out into the field and
25 conduct an investigation? Why did he order on the 7th of July that
1 priority should be given to war crimes? [In English] I'm sorry, it
2 should be 7th June.
3 [Interpretation] Why did he order that actions where
4 international humanitarian law had been violated should be given
5 priority? I also wish to mention that this is completely contrary to the
6 impression and testimonies of Generals Gajic, Vasiljevic, and Farkas
7 before this Tribunal; they were direct participants of the meetings on
8 the 16th and 17th of May, and General Dimitrijevic who in his general
9 assessment of General Ojdanic said that General Ojdanic wanted to learn
10 the truth.
11 Now that we're mentioning witnesses, Mr. Hannis said he didn't
12 expect us to call witnesses who would confirm there was a plan, but it
13 wasn't only our witnesses. Our witnesses, in fact, only confirmed what
14 Mr. Hannis's witnesses had said, what Vasiljevic, Dimitrijevic, Loncar,
15 and Pesic had said, that there was never a plan.
16 And finally, Your Honours, on my own behalf and on behalf of
17 Mr. Sepenuk, I wish to thank all those who worked with us over the past
18 six years, our case managers, Ms. Zivkovic, Mr. Ivanovic, the legal part
19 of our team, Mr. Selezan, Ms. Janjic, Mr. Brent Hicks, Mr. Russell
20 Hopkins, and Mr. Peter Robinson, and Ms. Danijela Borjektarevic; to our
21 investigators, Ilija Isak, and Ratko Djukanovic; and I also wish to thank
22 Mr. Sepenuk for his cooperation.
23 Your Honours, it was an honour to defend General Ojdanic before
24 this Tribunal. Thank you.
25 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Visnjic.
1 Mr. Aleksic.
2 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.
3 My learned friend Mr. Hannis spoke today about General Ojdanic
4 omitting to take disciplinary measures or punish my client, and he
5 referred to General Dimitrijevic's testimony who allegedly said that
6 General Perisic initiated these proceedings. But as my client had been
7 promoted, all this got lost somewhere. So in connection with that, I
8 wish to draw the Trial Chamber's attention to some exhibits and a
9 chronology of events and of General Perisic's and Dimitrijevic's actions
10 in 1998; and then on the basis of this, I wish to -- and on the basis of
11 the exhibits in this case, Your Honours may decide what really happened.
12 In 1D760, Exhibit 1D760, these are stenographic notes from the
13 5th Session of the Supreme Defence Council. On page 9, paragraph 4 of
14 the English version General Perisic says in relation to the frequently
15 repeated claim that he was in favour of declaring a state of emergency,
16 whereas my client and some others were opposed to this. He says the
17 following. He's saying that: "The KLA's on the increase, that terrorism
18 is on the increase, and he says everything should be done to prevent this
19 by political negotiations. If it is not prevented, then we will have to
20 engage the peacetime army according to the measure of escalation and if
21 there is a threat of aggression from outside we will have to go for
22 mobilisation." So General Perisic here is drawing a clear distinction
23 between external aggression and dealing with the terrorists, the KLA, as
24 an internal enemy, so to say.
25 At that same meeting, and that's the same exhibit, page 14 in
1 English, in the Serbian language it's page 15, there is mention of some
2 staffing issues and General Perisic is speaking again and he proposes the
3 following, that Slobodan Antonic should become deputy commander of the
4 Pristina Corps so that that could be -- that part of the job could be
5 strengthened with a very able man who had certain wartime experience so
6 that one of them, and I'm adding here now, General Lazarevic was already
7 the Chief of Staff and the deputy corps commander, so General Perisic is
8 proposing another deputy for General Pavkovic so that one of them, either
9 Antonic or Lazarevic, could always be where the focus of combat actions
10 were or on the terrain while the other could be dealing with business in
11 the command. And that's the 9th of June, Your Honours, and General
12 Perisic is the one saying this.
13 Furthermore -- in 1998, that is.
14 Furthermore, in chronological order on the 18th of June, that's
15 Exhibit 4D139, and this is a commendation by General Perisic for General
16 Pavkovic as a good soldier and supreme professional, and one can say,
17 well, he wasn't the only one who received this, but if they had something
18 against him and if my client was acting contrary to the way he should
19 have behaved, then there was no reason for him to be commended,
20 especially commended.
21 Furthermore, my learned friend Mr. Hannis, and I don't have the
22 precise reference because I'm on my own, I had to do something else, but
23 he said that it was up to the General Staff to issue a directive as the
24 basic document and then the lower levels, armies and corps, would draw up
25 other documents for specific actions. Well, on the 28th of --
1 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speaker please slow down, the
2 interpreter did not catch all the numbers.
3 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Aleksic, the interpreter's having difficulty
4 keeping up with your pace. Can you give these numbers again. The
5 interpretation breaks off at "on the 28th ..."
6 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] I apologise, Your Honours.
7 On the 28th of July, 1998, the directive of General Perisic which
8 is Exhibit Number 4D137 was issued.
9 After that we have an order by General Samardzic three days later
10 but let's leave that to one side for the time being. After that General
11 Perisic tours the units in Kosovo, on the 13th of August, and that is
12 Exhibit 4D143, that is to say General Perisic issues oral orders at the
13 forward command post of the Pristina Corps in Djakovica and says - and I
14 don't want to repeat this because we've already dealt with it - when he
15 went back to Belgrade three days later on the 16th of August he issues a
16 new order and that is Exhibit 4D416. One of the points in that order
17 states as follows: Prevent the Siptar terrorist forces from overflowing
18 into the area of Raska, the south Morava area, and another area and
19 General Mladenovic testified about that, Tomislav Mladenovic, so those
20 three areas are outside of Kosovo and Metohija.
21 Now, I'm wondering how is it possible for General Perisic to
22 order -- issue this order to General Samardzic and then General
23 Samardzic -- General Pavkovic to perform that assignment, whereas those
24 three geographic wholes, geographic areas, are, in fact, outside of
25 Kosovo and Metohija. And that's precisely what he's ordering, not in the
1 border belt or whatever other area that the Prosecution claims.
2 As far as General Perisic is concerned, just two more points that
3 I'd like to focus on, could you look at Exhibit 3D757, focus your
4 attention on that, it's an expose by General Perisic, a very long one,
5 extensive one, so under Roman numeral II points 1 to 6 General Perisic
6 sets out the involvement and deployment of the Army of Yugoslavia thus
7 far. That's the 1st of October, and after that you have Exhibit 3D697 of
8 the 2nd of October which is an analysis of the 3rd Army about what was
9 done during the three or four previous months.
10 Now, why have I said all this? Your Honours, I think that from
11 these exhibits, the ones that I've just mentioned, it follows quite
12 clearly that General Perisic was in favour of the deployment of the army,
13 he was conscious of all the actions and everything else, and that he had
14 knowledge about what the Pristina Corps and the 3rd Army were doing in
15 the previous period and that everything was done, all this was done on
16 the basis of his directive and orders from the General Staff.
17 As far as General Dimitrijevic is concerned, we deal with this in
18 several paragraphs of our final brief, we discuss his testimony, and let
19 me just add this to what I've already said. During my cross-examination
20 General Dimitrijevic said that he did not know of a single specific
21 action performed by Pavkovic outside General Vasiljevic's knowledge.
22 Sepenuk -- Mr. Sepenuk said in part of his presentation that --
23 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speaker kindly slow down. Thank you.
24 [Defence counsel confer]
25 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] Page 78, line 16, instead of Mr. --
1 General Vasiljevic, it should be General Samardzic, of course.
3 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] And I apologise once again for
4 speaking so quickly.
5 My colleague Mr. Sepenuk in his closing arguments said that the
6 only two cases in which General Dimitrijevic was against something at the
7 beginning was in Podujevo and Racak; however, those two cases I think we
8 have dealt with and seen that the army was not involved in any way on the
9 basis of the exhibits that were presented, that the army did not violate
10 the October Agreements. So except for those two incidents, General
11 Dimitrijevic did not say anything else in his testimony against my
12 client, and we have supporting material to prove that.
13 Now, as far as bringing in the units to Kosovo and Metohija I
14 think that Mr. Hannis had in mind there after the OSCE mission the --
15 Mr. Hannis said that my client even without the knowledge of the General
16 Staff brought in units to Kosovo. I think that Mr. Ackerman, my learned
17 friend, addressed this, I don't think that is correct, so please look at
18 exhibits P1947 and P1948, and they are illustrative of the situation.
19 Now, as far as reporting is concerned, Mr. Hannis said that
20 Witness Farkas said during his testimony about the blockage -- well, I
21 think that Mr. Ackerman was right [No interpretation] --
22 JUDGE BONOMY: Just a moment, Mr. Aleksic, we've lost the
23 interpretation.
24 There was astonishment I think when you said that you thought
25 Mr. Ackerman was right.
1 MR. ALEKSIC: [No interpretation].
2 JUDGE BONOMY: A moment, the interpreter still has not recovered.
3 THE INTERPRETER: Can you hear the English now?
4 JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, thank you.
5 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] I said that what is much more
6 important and something that Mr. Ackerman mentioned was part of the
7 testimony of General Farkas and Vasiljevic and Gajic, that after all the
8 inspections had been carried out, as Vojinovic sent them to establish,
9 that they established that 95 per cent of the cases were investigated in
10 fact and that's the point of that testimony. And in addition to that, I
11 think that during the presentation of evidence we showed that at least
12 two or three other systems of reporting existed which were independent of
13 General Pavkovic, and you can see that evidenced in 4D -- just a moment,
14 please, let me find the number, 4D499, which is the statement by Colonel
15 Velimir Obradovic.
16 And just briefly, a few words on two points. Today my colleague
17 Mr. Hannis on page 43, lines 7 onwards, 7 to 9, said that the army took
18 part in digging up and examining corpses in Izbica. That is not correct,
19 and in connection with that take a look at Gordana Tomasevic's testimony.
20 Her statement is P2490, paragraph 30, in which she says that the
21 instructions were given for that location from the investigating judge of
22 the district court in Kosovska Mitrovica and so on and so forth. She
23 spoke about that in great detail and raised some of the problems in that
24 regard. But quite obviously it was the civilian court and not a military
25 court that ordered this exhumation and the examination of those bodies.
1 As far as disclosure is concerned of the indictment against
2 Milosevic, my colleague Mr. Visnjic talked about that. We arrived at
3 that information during our work on the final brief, so that's the reason
4 why we did not raise that as an argument earlier.
5 And finally with respect to the existence of -- alleged existence
6 of the Joint Command in 1999, my learned friend Mr. Hannis used an
7 interview given by my client to the Prosecution, to the OTP, P949, but on
8 pages 113 and 114 General Pavkovic says the following: "From the
9 beginning of the ground campaign we met once or twice but not with those
10 people present."
11 And on page 114 he goes on to say the following: "It was no
12 official meeting. We just happened to meet, quite simply, because we
13 were in a position to bump into each other and be at the same place at
14 the same time."
15 And in one of those meetings General Djakovic speaks about this
16 in his testimony and says that that was on the 19th of April in some bank
17 building and that is to be found on transcript page -- just a moment,
18 please, I need a moment to find it, 26494 to 26496. But that was a
19 meeting about the resubordination of the MUP which they held with the
20 officers of the MUP, of course without the presence of anybody else, just
21 the military and police officials.
22 Your Honours, that would be it. Thank you.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Aleksic.
24 Just one transcript matter. Page 81, line 5, I think you said
25 from the beginning of the Grom campaign; is that right?
1 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] No, the NATO campaign. It seems
2 just campaign was recorded, so that must be my error.
3 JUDGE BONOMY: No, no, the quotation you gave is from the
4 beginning of the ground campaign, and that's accurate, is it?
5 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I meant the transcript
6 of the interview of my client, P949, it just says from the beginning of
7 the campaign there, that's what I was referring to, not this transcript.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Aleksic.
9 Mr. Bakrac.
10 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.
11 Mr. Hannis, in responding with respect to our closing arguments,
12 he began by showing P1723 or mentioning 1723, and by that exhibit in
13 actual fact he rounded off that area. It is the report of the 24th of
14 May, and Mr. Hannis pointed out to the Trial Chamber some of the errors
15 and inexactitudes with respect to the way in which this document was
16 registered. And I would like to remind the Trial Chamber that many
17 exhibits in this case and witnesses told us that the command of the
18 Pristina Corps during the bombing very frequently would relocate from one
19 place to another, from one day to the next, which meant that the
20 documents followed them too and the log-books, et cetera. And just this
21 possible mistake or the lack of logics in the way this was logged and
22 recorded cannot be proof and evidence that this was something that did
23 not happen, especially if we bear in mind that General Lazarevic did
24 testify about this document and said that he had compiled it on the basis
25 of certain information that he had from the 37th Brigade and that in that
1 sense he sent a commission to examine the situation. These statements by
2 General Lazarevic were borne out by Witness Radojko Stefanovic, who
3 together with officer Paprica went to the 37th Motorised Brigade to try
4 and establish what the situation was, what it was all about, and Momir
5 Stojanovic, a Defence witness, and he was a security chief. So from this
6 testimony we can see that it was an authentic piece of evidence and an
7 authentic exhibit.
8 Mr. Hannis began with that exhibit and then ended by saying that
9 in addition -- beside the fact that the general on the 24th of May wrote
10 the document, that nothing further was -- no further steps were taken by
11 him. Well, General Lazarevic was a corps commander, he was the commander
12 of the army, an army commander, so not by law or by the chain of command
13 did he have any power and authority vis-a-vis MUP members. Moreover, he
14 wasn't in -- at a strategic level for him to be able to do anything other
15 than inform his superior commander. And general -- that is precisely
16 what General Lazarevic did, with the information that he received,
17 checked out or not, he informed his superior commander about that.
18 The second point is this, my learned friend speaks about Exhibit
19 P1428, and that is the action of Slup and Voksa. I would like -- and the
20 order for that action was signed by General Lazarevic. I would like to
21 point out to the Trial Chamber that they should look at paragraphs 542 to
22 575 carefully, that is to say paragraphs in our final brief, where you
23 can clearly see the chronology in which these tasks were issued. So as
24 for this order we can see exactly that it was issued, that it was
25 ordered, within the frameworks of the chain of command of the Army of
1 Yugoslavia.
2 I've already said once when Mr. Hannis put something to a witness
3 and he reacted and said that in P1468 it did not state that General
4 Lazarevic would be in charge and command the operation, what it says that
5 General Lazarevic might or could be put in charge of this operation. And
6 that's something that General Pavkovic said at a meeting of the Joint
7 Command and I still claim the so-called, alleged Joint Command of course,
8 where we see that as to the action that was decided upon in the 3rd Army
9 he was just informing the meeting about that. He was just providing
10 information and saying that that action could be commanded by General
11 Lazarevic before the action went ahead. However, I'd like to point out
12 to the Trial Chamber the testimony of General Lazarevic and Goran
13 Jevtovic's testimony, who at the time was the operative at the forward
14 command post, where we can clearly see that General Lazarevic was at the
15 border when this action was actually taking place.
16 And let me say, even had he been in command of this action, if he
17 had commanded and led this action, so what? What then? The action took
18 place within the border belt, the action led to no casualties or crimes,
19 and General Lazarevic as the Chief of Staff at the forward command post
20 was authorised by law to lead the action. So what does the Prosecution
21 thesis and case prove in this respect, even if it were correct that he
22 was in command of the action? And we claim everything that we've
23 indicated to you so far. We've already stated what we claim.
24 As regards Exhibit 5D175, my learned friend Mr. Hannis repeats
25 that there is a strange discrepancy between the date and the log-book.
1 Let me repeat that this was happening in a state of wartime chaos in
2 early April, the very beginning of fierce NATO air-strikes, the command
3 was relocating, and this is a more logical explanation for a discrepancy
4 in dates than it would be to assume that then, on the 6th of April,
5 General Lazarevic, as the commander of the Pristina Corps, ordered the
6 3rd Army which sent the order on down the chain of command to the staff
7 of the Supreme Command. Is that a logical supposition? Analyse the
8 directive, the order, the orders and you'll see what the sequence of
9 events actually was.
10 My colleague -- my learned friend Mr. Hannis speaks of witness
11 Nike Peraj and his assertion that he saw General Lazarevic one day
12 towards the end of April in Djakovica. And now faced with all the
13 Defence arguments my learned friend Mr. Hannis says, no, that was on the
14 29th of April in the context of a broader action, although the Reka
15 action was already finished. Your Honours, I invite you to look at the
16 context of Nike Peraj's statement, to look at what happened immediately
17 prior to his seeing General Lazarevic and immediately after his having
18 seen him. He says that after he saw him on the 28th in the morning and
19 received permission he went to Osa Hilja to see how the Reka action was
20 progressing. So he could not have been mistaken as regards the 29th of
21 April. His testimony has to be viewed in the context of everything he
22 said, and you will see that there's no possibility that this was the 29th
23 of April. I refer you to paragraphs 465 to 468 of our closing brief, our
24 final brief, where we analyse the testimony of Nike Peraj.
25 On the 29th of April, that is, the Reka action was already
1 finished and there's no possibility that the sequence of events mentioned
2 by Peraj could have taken place on that day. In addition to this, Your
3 Honours, we repeat that on the 29th of April General Lazarevic was on the
4 territory of the 125th Motorised Brigade, that's the Pec area, not the
5 Djakovica area. And we have already explained that in the combat report
6 of that brigade it says from 9.00 to 12.00. Minutes are not entered into
7 combat reports. And General Zivanovic said here, testifying as a
8 witness, that the place where General Lazarevic saw elements of the 37th
9 at 9.00 a.m., it takes 15 or 20 minutes to reach his staff in Pec and
10 we've already drawn your attention to this testimony.
11 My learned friend Mr. Hannis in Exhibit 5D379, or rather, in
12 connection with this exhibit he says, Yes, we see that on the 26th of
13 April General Lazarevic did ask for a team to come because there was
14 suspicion that soldiers were mixed up in some crimes, but he did nothing
15 else subsequently.
16 We have presented much evidence here, abundant evidence, and we
17 quoted Witness Vasiljevic which shows that General Lazarevic's duties and
18 authorities stopped there. I draw Your Honours' attention to two
19 exhibits, one is Exhibit P2029, item 4, where as early as on the 1st of
20 April General Lazarevic orders his units to form temporary units
21 consisting of tried and tested selected men who would be included in the
22 military police in order to assist in catching and identifying
23 perpetrators of negative phenomena.
24 In 5D365, items 3, 4, and 5, and that is an exhibit dated the 5th
25 of April, General Lazarevic demanded from his subordinate units that
1 unobstructed engagement and the safe works of military investigative and
2 judicial organs should be provided for and that these orders were to be
3 strictly complied with. On the 5th of April, before that, as soon as the
4 military war courts were established General Lazarevic is ordering his
5 units to make sure that the military investigative and judicial organs
6 were able to do their work, and he invited the exhumation teams. What
7 else could a military commander when his corps was attacked from outside
8 and from within, what else could he do? If he invited the exhumation
9 teams, if he asked his units to provide unhindered access and safe work
10 to the investigative organs, what else was he supposed to do? Should he
11 have gone and done the exhumations himself, dug up the graves himself?
12 No, that was not his duty. He fulfilled his duty, as Witness Vasiljevic
13 already testified.
14 And furthermore, my learned friend Mr. Hannis said that our
15 Defence did not prove that there was no resubordination and he says on
16 the 20th to the 22nd of May Colonel Kotur issued an order from the
17 forward command post for the Sekac action. We say that on the 20th,
18 21st, and 22nd of May that information sheet had not yet been compiled
19 and the decision on resubordination, or rather, the order on
20 resubordination had not been withdrawn, it was still in force. The Sekac
21 action was being planned as a joint action of the army and the MUP, and
22 as evidence to the contrary I draw Your Honours' attention to Exhibit
23 5D1382, that's a combat report of the 22nd of May, 1992 [as interpreted],
24 from the forward command post of the Pristina Corps and in paragraph 2 on
25 page 2 it says that control of the Sekac action Colonel Milan Kotur with
1 the chief of the SUP of Djakovica on Suka Vogelj facility where there's
2 an observation post. So on this document you can see there's no
3 resubordination because Milan Kotur is in charge for the army and
4 Kovacevic, the chief of the SUP is in charge for the MUP.
5 Your Honours, in line 19 it says 22nd of May 1992. I said 1999.
7 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] My learned friend Mr. Hannis
8 referred to numerous exhibits we showed concerning the orders issued by
9 General Lazarevic, showing his concern for the civilian population and
10 that they should be taken care of. And my learned friend Mr. Hannis, if
11 I understood him correctly, said, well, it doesn't say anything about
12 what population this refers to. Had there been any intention of
13 separating the population at least one of those orders would have said
14 that it was the Serbian civilian population that had to be assisted, but
15 here it just says civilian population.
16 I draw Your Honours' attention to the testimony of Zoran
17 Andjelkovic on transcript pages 14668 and 14669. He was shown Exhibit
18 5D412 which is a request by General Lazarevic that the interim Executive
19 Council should assist civilians with food and medicines. When I asked
20 whether he was familiar with the document, the witness confirmed that he
21 was. When I asked him what civilian population it referred to he said
22 the population from the town of Glogovac. When I asked him what the
23 ethnic make-up in the town of Glogovac was, he said, Well, there are one
24 or two Serb families; all the others are Albanians.
25 There are numerous other pieces of evidence, numerous other
1 exhibits, Your Honours, but our time is very short. But you can see from
2 all this that assistance to the civilian population was intended for all
3 civilians regardless of their ethnicity or their religious or national
4 affiliation.
5 And finally, Witness K-73 --
6 JUDGE BONOMY: I think, with respect, Mr. Bakrac, you've
7 misunderstood the submission that Mr. Hannis made. He thought it was a
8 point favourable to you that there was no reference to ethnicity in
9 relation to the civilian population. His argument related thereafter to
10 conduct, not the content of the document. However, we have your
11 submissions on that.
12 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour, I did allow for
13 the possibility that I misunderstood him. And as for subsequent actions,
14 we dealt with this in our final brief and you will see that the reports
15 of lower-ranking units showed what was done pursuant to these orders, for
16 example, Exhibit 5D516 and other exhibits we referred to in our final
17 brief.
18 And my learned friend Mr. Hannis quoted Witness K-73. I won't go
19 into his ethnic affiliation or other affiliations, so we need not move
20 into private session, but I will just invite you to look at paragraphs
21 381 to 386 of our final brief where we analyse in detail his testimony.
22 And I invite you to look at transcript -- the transcripts, pages 3412 to
23 3415, these are the transcript pages of his testimony. After what was
24 quoted and presented to you by my learned friend Mr. Hannis you will see
25 that with respect to his unit and the unit that participated alongside
1 his, he stated in cross-examination that these were honourable men, that
2 these were real soldiers who never violated anything, or rather, never
3 committed an offence. So please look at these transcript pages and I ask
4 you only for two or three minutes of your patience, because my colleague
5 Mr. Cepic will address you briefly. Thank you, Your Honours.
6 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, we could deal with that I think after the
7 break, Mr. Cepic.
8 MR. CEPIC: Thank you, Your Honour
10 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Ivetic, you can assist us by giving some
11 indication if you can of how long you might be.
12 MR. LUKIC: Your Honour, less than half an hour.
13 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you very much.
14 So we'll resume at 4.00.
17 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Cepic.
18 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I will be
19 very brief. I wish to refer to the issue of whether there was any
20 distinction drawn in providing humanitarian assistance to civilians, or
21 rather, I wish to point out that there was no distinction drawn with
22 respect to ethnicity as to humanitarian assistance. I wish to refer to
23 5D615, item 9 of this exhibit, which clearly shows that on that occasion
24 assistance was provided to Albanians and all the other documents shown
25 here show the same.
1 The next issue I wish to talk about is the issue of Izbica which
2 was mentioned by my learned friend Mr. Hannis, who said that the military
3 judicial organs conducted an investigation in that area in connection
4 with that incident, and I will refer to the testimony of Witness
5 Bogunovic, 2518 and 2509 --
6 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: 25108 and 25109 are
7 the transcript pages.
8 MR. CEPIC: [Interpretation] And he says that the necessary
9 actions were undertaken by the MUP and this is in Exhibit 6D613. And the
10 last topic I wish to refer to is the topic of the border belt. My
11 learned friend Mr. Hannis showed a schematic here which was supposed to
12 show that area, and I will refer to the testimony of Colonel Cucak, a
13 Defence witness of General Ojdanic's Defence, who gave us a detailed
14 explanation of this matter inter alia pointing out that the breadth of
15 the border belt was not the same everywhere in all parts, that in some
16 places it was considerably narrower than elsewhere. And his statements
17 are supported by Exhibit 3D739, which is a map of the border belt in the
18 southern part of the FRY. This is diametrically opposite to what we saw
19 in the diagram or schematic drawing shown to us by my learned friend
20 Mr. Hannis which shows the border belt for all of Kosovo and not just the
21 border towards Albania and Macedonia.
22 I wish to thank you again for your attention and that's all I
23 have to say. Thank you.
24 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you, Mr. Cepic.
25 Mr. Lukic.
1 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
2 [Interpretation] First of all, we'd like to deal with -- well,
3 I'll be giving transcript references. Today's transcript page 10, line
4 25, where Exhibit P2166 is mentioned and colleague Hannis today proposed,
5 or rather, put that Colonel Susic probably had a report which was P1011
6 and he gained information from that about the number of ammunitions and
7 men. And in our opinion this is yet further evidence, even if that
8 theory were to be accepted, that it wasn't a minutes but a compilation.
9 So Susic according to these assertions did not record the words of the
10 speaker. This OTP position challenges the authenticity of P2166 as well.
11 Page 14, line 14, what is proposed there by the Prosecutor is
12 that the plan, the general plan or five-phase, five-stage plan was
13 designed after a meeting of the 30th of May, 1998. That is not correct,
14 it's not true. We have testimony from Milan Djakovic on page 25541 of
15 the transcript where he says that his task was the task he was given --
16 he was given a task after the meeting of the 9th of June with Milosevic,
17 the Supreme Defence Council meeting.
18 Transcript page 20, Gornje Obrinje is mentioned, and linked to
19 that we would just like to state and ask the Trial Chamber to look at Jan
20 Kickert, a Prosecution witness, who explained in his testimony that there
21 were several attempts to investigate the area, to conduct an
22 investigation there but that that was impossible because of a strong KLA
23 presence there who did not -- which did not allow access to the organs of
24 Serbia to go on site and this was testified to by Danica -- Judge Danica
25 Marinkovic as well.
1 Transcript page 26, line 14 speaks about the confiscation of
2 documents. The Defence claimed, opposed to what the OTP presented and
3 Mr. Hannis said today, that not a single witness said, actually said that
4 documents, ID documents, were personally seized from them at the border
5 crossings, at Djeneral Jankovic, Cafa Prusit, and Globocica. They did
6 mention -- some of them at least mentioned having seen, or rather, that
7 somebody told them that their documents had been taken away from them.
8 Everybody who testified in this court and had crossed over these three
9 border crossings can be stated to be persons whose personal documents, ID
10 documents, had not been confiscated. So we put the following question:
11 What plan could there have been to seize documents at one border
12 crossing, Vrbnica, without having confiscating them at other border
13 crossings, and I think that the chief of border police at Vrbnica himself
14 explained the situation at the border crossing sufficiently and he says
15 that he left the documents there, that Albanian civilians were leaving
16 behind documents, that they were in sacks and handed over to the
17 international forces when they came in.
18 Page 27, line 17 speaks about the departure of people from
19 Pristina first of all linked to the trains. His Honour Judge Chowhan
20 asked Mr. Hannis whether there were more or fewer trains and he was not
21 given an answer to his question, but I'll tell you, Judge, there were 228
22 instead of 780 trains, which was the normal number of trains as testified
23 to by Witness Bucaliu. So in the period after the bombing, after the
24 start of the bombing, not on any single day were there ten trains, which
25 was normal, just on one day during the bombings there were nine trains.
1 There were some days where there were no trains, other days there were
2 two trains, one or two trains, and so on and so forth.
3 Now, on that same page, page 27, Kabashi's testimony is
4 mentioned, who claimed that on a daily basis there were nine to 12 trains
5 leaving. That is not correct, it's not true. And we can see that
6 during -- we saw that during the proceedings. It was proved and shown
7 that the log-book that Bucaliu brought with him here into court and which
8 was Exhibit P1331 registered the passage of trains correctly and the
9 Prosecution witness Bucaliu did state that and the Defence didn't
10 challenge it.
11 Otherwise, until the departure of the civilians, or rather, the
12 departure of the civilians took place after the 28th and 29th of March
13 when the centre of Pristina was bombed and the MUP building was hit, and
14 once again when the centre of Pristina was hit on the 7th of April, when
15 the post office building was hit. In those intervals we see the greatest
16 departure of civilians from the town of Pristina itself. That's when
17 most of the people left. And Mihajlovic testified to that, Mihajlo
18 Mihajlovic -- no, his name is Milivoje, Milivoje Mihajlovic. His
19 statement was 6D1530, paragraph 35, transcript page, page 29 of the
20 transcript, and I'm moving on to another area, lines 14 to 21, it says
21 what General Pavkovic reported on and subjects discussed at the Joint
22 Command meetings. We would like to ask you to take a look at the dates
23 in the notebooks and minutes of the meetings denoted as Joint Command
24 ones. And as far as we've been able to check out so far, nothing was
25 recorded about this at those meetings, nothing about the subjects that
1 Pavkovic says were discussed.
2 Now page 31 of the transcript, there was discussion about number
3 455-172, the entry there, and as far as we were able to check out in the
4 operative log-book, that number does not deal with resubordination at
5 all. Page 31, line 4 this time, discusses two documents, P1458 or
6 another number that is used in these proceedings P1723. It is a document
7 of the 24th of April and another document P1459 and the other number is
8 P1724.
9 Then we'd like to make the following comments. At that time
10 there was control underway of the Pristina Corps by the Main Staff.
11 Witness Simic claims that neither Lazarevic nor Pavlovic [as interpreted]
12 said anything about the Pristina Corps control in the documents and that
13 it doesn't exist in 3D692 either. Simic testified to that on transcript
14 page 15674, lines 14 to 21. And we'd also like to add that not a single
15 military witness for the Defence agreed with the contents of the letters
16 which were presented and mentioned here.
17 There's another document, P1725 dated the 4th of June, 1999,
18 issued by the 3rd Army command which speaks about resolving the problem
19 and nowhere in that document is it stated -- nowhere there can you see
20 what is stated in the documents of the 24th and 25th, the previous
21 documents, that is to say crimes committed by the MUP.
22 Transcript page 43, line 16, the crossing of state borders,
23 that's a subject Mr. Hannis referred to as well as my colleague Mr. Cepic
24 on page 91, line 3. We would like to stress that the law governing
25 border crossings and control in the border belt has nothing to do with
1 the defence of the state border from a ground aggression and rules that
2 apply in wartime. And we'd ask the Trial Chamber to look at P1007, page
3 136, paragraph 520 to 536, where mention is made of inhabited areas.
4 On page 49, line 11, the Skorpions are mentioned, and we stressed
5 this several times during the proceedings and we'd like to reiterate
6 this, that nothing was known of the crimes of the Skorpions until the
7 Slobodan Milosevic trial came about, when a video was shown to Obrad
8 Stevanovic, I think it was. They were crimes committed by the Skorpions
9 in Bosnia, however. The people who went to Kosovo weren't the same
10 people who had been in the Skorpions in Bosnia before the war. Stoparic
11 himself says that 50 per cent of those people who went to Kosovo had no
12 combat experience at all. So 50 per cent of those people quite certainly
13 had not been in Bosnia because they hadn't had any combat experience.
14 Now, as far as the allegations of the Skorpion crimes as alleged
15 by the Prosecution are concerned, Judge Bonomy rightly noted, and we'd
16 like to draw the Trial Chamber's attention to the following pages, I
17 think page 154 -- I just have to give a justification here. It is line
18 [as interpreted] 51 of the transcript, line 7 where it says that my
19 colleague Mr. Ivetic erroneously quoted Ms. Kravetz, and I can say that
20 both Ivetic and Mr. Hannis are right because in the corrected transcript
21 we saw that Kravetz was right -- Ms. Kravetz was right. However, in the
22 transcript we had we received after the court proceedings, we couldn't
23 see this section where she says that there was no KLA at Milosh Giliq
24 Street number 157. So I accept that correction.
25 Page 52, line 17, paragraph 228 of the Prosecution brief was
1 discussed, where they claim that the Joint Command issued orders for
2 joint actions and Lukic's role was, they say, to see to the plans passed
3 by the Joint Command which included MUP units be put into practice and
4 that he determined which units would participate. And as a source they
5 quote Cvetic. Let us repeat again, Cvetic was not a member of the staff
6 nor a member of the Joint Command, he never attended any Joint Command
7 meetings either or meetings designated as such. He never explained where
8 he got the information from, the information that the Prosecution refers
9 to and information he clearly stated during his testimony. We say to you
10 that that is not correct and that he could not have had that information
11 in the first place.
12 Page 53, line 12 refers to the fact that Vasiljevic said that the
13 members of the JSO had 150 years of imprisonment when it was
14 established -- JSO, when the JSO was established, and the fact that in
15 1999 Vasiljevic went back to the service and Dimitrijevic was retired.
16 However, that was not the period that this addresses. It is the time
17 when the JSO was founded, which is 1996 and not 1999. And at that time
18 Vasiljevic was already a pensioner. At that time he had no official
19 information whatsoever. At that same time Dimitrijevic had all the
20 information relating to the military and security situation because he
21 was the chief.
22 Transcript page 54, line 21, the OTP here proposes that he --
23 even before the 15th of April, 1999, the police wore bands and was
24 designated with bands and this was supported by Prosecution witnesses.
25 They say that they were marked in 1998, had the markings in 1999 -- in
1 1998 and then that was the case when the war started as well.
2 May we have in e-court now 6D237, please.
3 What is the Prosecution asking the Trial Chamber? The
4 Trial Chamber [as interpreted] is asking you once again to draw the
5 following conclusions and inferences at the debit of the accused without
6 in dubio pro reo. We say that every time you draw conclusions you must
7 do so to the advantage of the accused. For us to facilitate your quest
8 in this instance we're going to show you by looking at a few sentences
9 that the assertions and claims made by the Prosecution are not the right
10 ones and that you're not to draw those conclusions. The document is
11 quite clear and I'm sure you'll agree with us that the document states
12 quite the opposite to what the Prosecution claims and the first point is
13 this.
14 You will see that the document is dated the 13th of April, so not
15 the beginning of the month, not the middle of the month, it's the 13th of
16 April, that's the date. And what it says is the following.
17 "We are forwarding armbands for policemen," so only at that point
18 are they forwarding these armbands. They weren't thrown away, they were
19 used non-stop. And it says: "... for their distribution in units."
20 In the next paragraph it says: "We are forwarding the
21 instructions on armbands for policemen in April 1999."
22 It doesn't say the second half of April, it says "in April."
23 These armbands should be used as of the 15th of April, 1990 [as
24 interpreted] at 0001 hours. The armbands are to be worn as of, it
25 doesn't say continue to be worn, it says that they should start to be
1 worn as of the 15th of April, 1999.
2 And one further explanation by our Defence and you'll weigh it
3 up, it is linked to the term and body of the Joint Command. The body the
4 Joint Command does not exist in the sense as explained by Mr. Hannis.
5 Why was it called that? Well, it was called that, for example, because
6 our client denoted it that way when he first talked to the OTP, he kept
7 referring to this body as the so-called because according to him and
8 according to us, meetings for an exchange of information cannot be called
9 Joint Command.
10 Line 20 and 21, it should read "so-called Joint Command," the
11 term and the body of the so-called Joint Command.
12 And I have one more point and for that one more point to make --
13 JUDGE BONOMY: Before you move to that, could you go back briefly
14 to the document which is still on the screen.
15 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour.
16 JUDGE BONOMY: And if you go to page 3 of that, you'll see
17 there's reference there to PJP.
18 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour. Those units apart from SUP members
19 were also receiving those ribbons.
20 JUDGE BONOMY: Yeah.
21 MR. LUKIC: For example, on the first page you can see Pristina
22 to SUP it was distributed some number and then to PJP and other numbers.
23 JUDGE BONOMY: Yeah. And what we have here is the MUP staff
24 issuing orders, is that right, which encompass the PJP?
25 MR. LUKIC: As we can see, they are distributing ribbons.
1 JUDGE BONOMY: But you're founding strongly on the fact that
2 they're only now ordering their use and saying, Well, it's only following
3 the order that the use can come into effect; is that right?
4 MR. LUKIC: We don't see it that way, Your Honour, I have to --
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Pretty plain in English as it stands.
6 MR. LUKIC: We can read here that they just distribute. It says
7 in Serbian. [Interpretation] It says "we deliver to" in Serbian.
8 JUDGE BONOMY: Let's go back to page 1 then again.
9 MR. LUKIC: It says forwarding -- we are forwarding armbands for
10 policemen.
11 JUDGE BONOMY: "All uniformed policemen moving outside these --
12 their premises in the open must wear armbands."
13 MR. LUKIC: Maybe somebody ordered it before -- we are forwarding
14 the instructions on armbands.
16 Please continue.
17 MR. LUKIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
18 [Interpretation] I will go back for a second to something I've
19 already talked about and those are two documents. So let's compare the
20 documents, P1459 and P1725. We can see that the same matter is talked of
21 in two different ways. In the first document of the 25th of May it says
22 that the only positive thing being done by the MUP is that it is bringing
23 in military conscripts who are failing to respond to the call-up.
24 Several days after that in P1725 of the 4th of June, in item 3 it says
25 members of the MUP are insufficiently engaged in bringing in conscripts
1 who are failing to respond to the call-up and they are even hiding them,
2 covering up for them. So we see that these two documents differ.
3 And could we now move into private session because I wish to
4 comment on something that was said in private session.
5 JUDGE BONOMY: Very well.
19 JUDGE BONOMY: Does that complete your submission, Mr. Lukic?
20 MR. LUKIC: Yes, Your Honour, I said it in closed session. I
21 should say it probably in the open session.
23 MR. LUKIC: I thank you for your patience and for listening to
24 our arguments. Thank you.
2 JUDGE CHOWHAN: Well, we are about to finish the proceedings and
3 I thought my bound and duty to convey my sentiments and these are my --
4 through these sentiments I wish to congratulate all of you for this
5 wonderful period that we spent, this skillful and erudite presentations
6 and handling and the courtesies which were shown by everybody. I also
7 take this opportunity of paying my respects to my learned colleagues, and
8 now as you are going home I wish you all well. Thank you.
9 JUDGE BONOMY: The other members of the Trial Chamber join Judge
10 Chowhan in thanking counsel for assisting us with your submissions, and
11 we're grateful to counsel and indeed to the parties for the generally
12 professional and dignified way in which the case has been conducted.
13 That brings us to the end of the hearing of the case. When we
14 retire, we shall immediately embark on our deliberations and pronounce
15 judgement as soon as possible on a date which will be announced by order
16 in due course.
17 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 4.41 p.m.