1 Friday, 15 March 2002

2 [Open session]

3 [The witness entered court]

4 [The accused entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.31 a.m.

6 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, I wonder if I may make just a brief

7 statement before the Court starts its session.

8 JUDGE MAY: Well, Lord Ashdown, we don't usually allow the

9 witnesses to do so.

10 THE WITNESS: I hope it will be helpful to the Court.

11 JUDGE MAY: If it's relevant, yes.

12 THE WITNESS: The Prosecution counsel very kindly said yesterday

13 that I have a pressing engagement and I would wish to be away from here,

14 if at all possible, by 1.00. I just want to make it clear that my

15 engagements are not as weighty as the matters before the Court, and I

16 think it would be helpful if you were to know that I am at your disposal

17 for today as long as you wish, and any other subsequent day. It seems to

18 me that these matters are far more weighty than anything else I have to

19 do.

20 JUDGE MAY: Thank you.

21 WITNESS: PADDY ASHDOWN [Resumed]

22 Examined by Mr. Nice: [Continued]

23 Q. The system of -- listening to the French at a distance, Lord

24 Ashdown, apparently is causing a problem, because it feeds through to

25 them, so I'm going to give up that --

1 THE INTERPRETER: Could the counsel please speak into the

2 microphone. Thank you.

3 MR. NICE:

4 Q. -- speak sufficiently slowly and leave a long enough gap not to

5 cause a problem.

6 Yesterday we heard from you about your observations from the hills

7 above Suva Reka and how you spent an hour looking at villages being

8 destroyed. You gave us the account of the weaponry you believed to have

9 been deployed.

10 There's a short video, and may we now, please, see that. It lasts

11 about three minutes, and it may be that, providing there's no sound coming

12 over, you'll add the odd comment to it as it's coming, but it will largely

13 speak for itself, I think.

14 [Videotape played]

15 MR. NICE:

16 Q. This is you, of course, with binoculars. Now, at what are we

17 looking here?

18 A. You're looking at villages in the area, which I can point out to

19 you later on the map, but roughly in the area between Suva Reka and

20 Budakovo, and the villages are being fired --

21 Q. Just pausing there. My screen is almost impossible to see.

22 A. Yes, as indeed is --

23 Q. -- the same. It's too light. Perhaps the booth may be able to

24 help. I'm not sure.

25 A. Yes. That's better.

1 Q. Thank you. So here you'll be able to point out the villages.

2 A. I think they are self-evident there, the ones that are burning.

3 We're looking across the Suva Reka valley, and you can see various

4 villages burning, to the left and in the centre of the screen now. We

5 were able to see -- this is one of the houses taken later in the day. We

6 were able to see in amongst those fires the burst of shell fire. I should

7 point out --

8 Q. What are we looking at here?

9 A. This is really the following day.

10 Q. Let's pause there for a minute.

11 A. I wish perhaps to come to this on the following day.

12 Q. Thank you. Just pause there. We'll come back to that video in a

13 minute, and let's just deal with what we've already seen. As you say,

14 self-explanatory appearance of villages burning. And I think at the first

15 stage, what was your impression about the amount of destruction that was

16 going on?

17 A. Well, it was very extensive. I think I counted that day some 16

18 villages on fire. I should add that we were also able to see in the

19 valley occasional large articulated trucks driving down the road.

20 THE WITNESS: It may be helpful if you had the map, Your Honour --

21 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

22 THE WITNESS: -- at this stage. I may be able to point out

23 precisely --

24 MR. NICE:

25 Q. I can't remember the --

1 A. -- the location.

2 Q. -- number, I am afraid.

3 A. We were able to see a number of articulated trucks driving up into

4 the villages. The villages, it appeared to me --

5 Here we are. Thank you.

6 So I was positioned approximately here near the village of

7 Pecani. The -- as we calculated, the guns that were firing were up here

8 in the area of Blace. The villages we were looking at were the villages

9 of Budakovo, which is here, through to Vranic, which is over here,

10 Maciteve, which is here, and Krusica. Both Gornji Krusica -- Gornji

11 Krusica is up here, and Krusica is down here. All these villages were

12 aflame, subject to bombardment and had been put to the flame.

13 The trucks that we saw were in the area around here, which we were

14 looking down on, on the main road between Prizren and Pristina, and some

15 making their way up this small road here as far as I could tell. I'm

16 bound to say that -- my conclusion, as indeed was that of the British

17 Ambassador, was that this was indiscriminate in its nature, inconsistent

18 with precise military targeting, systematic, and of a nature designed to

19 terrorise or to drive out the general civilian population.

20 While I was there, the British Ambassador set up his satellite

21 phone on the bonnet of the Land Rover and contacted the Foreign Office and

22 said to the Foreign Office that, absolutely contrary to undertakings given

23 by then-President Milosevic and the Yugoslav government, that these

24 indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population conducted by main battle

25 units of the Yugoslav army, which had been taking place in the Drenica

1 area, would be stopped, the undertaking given that they would be stopped

2 that day or the day previously.

3 I heard the ambassador say to the Foreign Office in London that

4 contrary to that clear undertaking given to the international community,

5 these operations had not stopped but were still probably, in an

6 intensified fashion, continuing. Not in the Drenica region but had now

7 been expanded to the Suva Reka region.

8 Q. Thank you. The following day to which the video has already

9 brought us, and we'll ask them to turn the video back on in just a second

10 or so, you returned to the same Studencani area, did you?

11 A. It may be helpful if I relate a brief story before that. We were

12 met by a garage owner who showed us his house which had been destroyed and

13 his business, who informed me that previous to -- in the last couple of

14 days the village of Studencani, which is just below where we were -- where

15 we were standing --

16 Q. Yes, to the west --

17 A. It's just approximately --

18 Q. -- of Suva Reka.

19 A. -- just below -- it's here in this area. It had been visited by

20 the Serbs. He described them as the Serbs. I don't know whether they

21 were the MUP or the army - I suspect the former - who had informed the

22 village that they were to surrender weapons on the following day. The

23 village claimed they didn't have any weapons. They went out. They were

24 saying, "He told us to raise the money from the village, 10.000

25 Deutschmarks," as he described it, "to go and buy weapons on the black

1 market." The villager informed us that the specific threat made was to

2 point to the villages aflame around the rim of the valley during that day

3 and to point out that this is what would happen to them if they did not

4 surrender weapons.

5 The ambassador and I, together with a military attache, then drove

6 down into Suva Reka, sought to be able to get into the region that was

7 under bombardment, was stopped by, I think, MUP forces and decided that it

8 was time to return to Pristina so that we would get back before the

9 curfew.

10 We did so by going back through, as I recall, the Podgerusa

11 valley, which runs up to Malisevo. So back on the map again. It runs up

12 through here and then join the main Pec-Pristina road close to Kumerane.

13 At this point, we saw a large armoured convoy comprising perhaps

14 of 20 T55 tanks and associated military armoured vehicles moving out of

15 the Drenica area to the north of this road and moving, as we thought,

16 towards the Suva Reka operation.

17 We went back to Pristina that night and decided that it was

18 necessary to seek to get back into this area on the following day so that

19 we could observe these operations.

20 The ambassador had to return to Belgrade. I, however, met up with

21 the head of UNHCR, Mrs. Morgan Morris, and we arranged to leave the

22 following day at dawn to get back into this area of operations as early as

23 possible.

24 We did indeed do that the following morning, arriving in the

25 Studencani area I should think around about 8.30, having made a very early

1 start. The villages were still aflame. Indeed, by now, there were more

2 villages aflame across the amphitheatre I've described. We've --

3 Q. How did the -- how did the percentage of houses destroyed accord

4 with your earlier expectations when you had been seeing things from a

5 distance?

6 A. I was not able, I fear, to get into the villages at this time,

7 though we sought to do so. And if I may just explain how that happened,

8 but I think it is necessary for the Court to hear a little of the

9 preceding events, if I may describe them, Mr. May [sic].

10 We descended into the village of Studencani where we met with the

11 elders of the village, old men in their 70s or 80s. We questioned them

12 about the story we had heard the day previously in relation to arms. They

13 described to us again the story of how they'd been visited, been given a

14 deadline of noon that day, and after some persuasion agreed to show us the

15 arms they claimed to have purchased.

16 They took us to a house, to an upstairs room, and they showed us a

17 collection of arms that they were due to hand over to the Serb authorities

18 that day. These arms were in no way hidden. They were in a cupboard.

19 They were not in use. I inspected them. Some of them could have been

20 immediately serviceable, but many were rusted beyond use. There were some

21 hand grenades there which were fully armed, highly rusty, and in a deeply

22 unstable state, and I recommended that these should be handed over as soon

23 as possible.

24 JUDGE MAY: So we can follow this, they were saying that the Serb

25 authorities or somebody had told them to purchase arms?

1 THE WITNESS: No, sir. No, Your Honour. They were told that they

2 were to give up arms at a deadline, which was noon that day. They were

3 informed that if they did not, their village would be subject to what they

4 were seeing going on around them.

5 They claimed that they had no arms in the village. They claimed

6 that they therefore gathered together 10.000 Deutschmarks and went out to

7 purchase arms on the black market.

8 JUDGE MAY: They did that, as it were, of their own initiative --

9 THE WITNESS: They did that --

10 JUDGE MAY: -- having been told --

11 THE WITNESS: -- because they knew if they did not deliver up arms

12 to the Serbs when they returned, then their village would suffer the same

13 fate as the others.

14 They described - I have no way of knowing whether this is true -

15 that there was a sort of circular operation. And I -- I'm bound to say,

16 Your Honour, that I do not believe that this means there were not arms

17 being used by the KLA in any of these villages. I can only relate to what

18 I was- informed. They said that the routine was that the Serbs would

19 descend on a village - they described them as Serbs - descend on the

20 village like their own, demand arms against the deadline with the threat

21 that the village would be burnt.

22 They said that what happened was that they went out and raised the

23 money in the village, purchased the arms on the black market, handed the

24 arms over to the Serb authorities. Those arms then went back onto the

25 black market so that the next villagers had arms to buy. And it was a

1 circular means of removing the villagers from their money.

2 Now, I have no way of knowing whether that's true, nor does that

3 in any way indicate that there were not other forces of the KLA operating

4 with effective arms in that area. All I can say is that about 30 per cent

5 or 40 per cent of the arms that I saw, which were in no way hidden and

6 prepared to be handed over - indeed, we recommended they should be handed

7 over - could not have been usable and were not used and could not have

8 been usable in somewhat of a deeply unstable state.

9 Q. Right. Now -- sorry.

10 A. May I just continue so that the story is absolutely clear?

11 Following that, we sought to get into the area being bombarded by the

12 Serbs and the area of the burning villages. We moved onto the main

13 Suva Reka-to-Prizren road, which is -- Suva Reka-to-Prizren road. May I

14 just -- here we are. And we were stopped almost immediately by a MUP

15 checkpoint, interior police checkpoint, who ordered us to go to Prizren.

16 We did not do that, Your Honour. We decided that it was more

17 important that we should see what was happening at close quarters in this

18 area, and we therefore drove down the road and then turned off before the

19 village of Glinovc, which is here, and by my estimate, made our way across

20 rough tracks to the village of -- around the area of Sopina, which is just

21 here. And this is where we came across a dreadful convoy of refugees -

22 and the video shows what we found - on the back of tractor trailers,

23 sheltering under plastic sheets. A few old men, women, young children,

24 some babes in arms, a mother who was pregnant and due to give birth in the

25 very near future, tumbled together on the back of tractors under the

1 pouring rain. These were the human tide of refugees that had been pushed

2 out.

3 Q. Now, we've got the video and we've reached the place --

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, I wanted to find out from Lord

5 Ashdown: He has said that he had no way of knowing whether this story was

6 true, the story that they went to purchase arms in order to meet the

7 demand from the Serbs for arms. But in the circumstances, did you find it

8 to be credible?

9 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, it was consistent with other stories we

10 heard of the same sort, and I'm bound to say I did find that to be

11 credible. Now, I'm not saying that there were not other units operating

12 which were effective, military operations, but there were three factors

13 that made me believe this to be credible.

14 The first was that these weapons were in no way hidden. They were

15 not weapons that were, as it were, tucked away somewhere where people

16 couldn't find them. They had been gathered together in a cupboard, in a

17 house, in the village.

18 Secondly, that the weapons themselves were either wrapped in

19 greaseproof paper, i.e., showing no signs of immediately having been used,

20 or indeed rusty beyond use. And that led me to believe that they were

21 indeed weapons that could have been - could have been - passed from hand

22 to hand in the way described by the villagers.

23 Thirdly, that they were not deployed in any form which would have

24 been -- enabled them to be immediately used. They were not deployed in a

25 military formation or in the hands of people who would have been using it.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

2 MR. NICE:

3 Q. Was this something you heard only about on this particular

4 occasion that this --

5 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone for the speaker,

6 please.

7 A. Yes. It was a fairly --

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, the microphone.

9 MR. NICE: Sorry. Thank you.

10 Q. Was this something you heard about only in relation to this

11 particular site, or did you hear about it in respect to any other sites?

12 A. No. It was a fairly commonly expressed story about what happened

13 in these villages.

14 Q. Can we go back to the video? Because we've seen a burning house.

15 And where we pick the video up - and we're going to ask them to start it

16 again any second - you're talking about a woman in a street.

17 [Videotape played]

18 MR. NICE:

19 Q. First of all, without running back to it, can you remember where

20 the burning house was? It doesn't much matter in the sense that it's just

21 a burning house. Can you --

22 A. No, sir. I just can't remember. I saw so many burning houses

23 that day that I can't accurately remember where that was.

24 Q. Very well. The position where we're going to pick the video up,

25 can you tell us which village or town this was?

1 A. Well, my -- it's difficult, of course, in a map of such large

2 scale, but my view is that it was in the area of Sopina. We arrived in

3 this village, we saw the convoy at a distance, we came up to it. It was a

4 convoy of women, children, young babies, on the back of tractors. There

5 were some men in attendance, as you can see. And they said that they had

6 been moved out of the other villages; that they had been given a deadline

7 to go; that if they were told if they did not go, they would be subject to

8 bombardment; that they had left their village, they said, as the

9 bombardments began; that they had been driven by these bombardments down

10 the valley towards the village of Sopina; and that they had just received

11 information that this village too was about to be subject to bombardment,

12 and they were trying to flee desperately down the valley to get away from

13 this, and they begged our help to escort them down the valley.

14 Q. Well, let's play the rest of the video - it's very short - and see

15 what your comments will be. Thank you.

16 [Videotape played]

17 MR. NICE:

18 Q. Does this particular part of it trigger any particular --

19 A. Yes. I found it very difficult to cope with at the time, but this

20 woman here with the blue shawl is actually sheltering a young child in

21 arms, and you can see the old women and children around there sheltering.

22 It was pouring with rain. I'm talking here to the interpreter, to the

23 people we found. They were desperately frightened. And I found it a

24 deeply terrible sight. I think the rest of the video speaks for itself.

25 Q. [Microphone not activated]

1 A. They were absolutely clear, I should say, as indeed the soundtrack

2 on this shows, that they fled the villages because of the bombardment.

3 They described the routine to be that the bombardment -- the threats came

4 first, then the bombardment. Then, as they described it - and other

5 witnesses later on were consistent in their description - after the

6 bombardment, the Serb forces move in. They described them as Serb.

7 Whether they were Serb or Yugoslav army, I do not know. And first looted

8 the houses. The articulated trucks that we had seen were consistent with

9 their story that the houses were systematically looted and the goods taken

10 away in these large articulated trucks, after which parties of soldiers,

11 as they described them, came in and put the houses to fire.

12 Q. And here, what are we looking at here?

13 A. This is just another one of four or five trailerloads of desperate

14 people, frightened out of their skins about what was happening, and

15 fleeing from what they thought was an imminent further bombardment.

16 Q. Well, now, following your visit to that area, including the

17 village of Sopina, did you travel on, I think, the same day to Belgrade?

18 A. Yes, I did. But first of all, I should explain that we sought to

19 get further into this area. Having seen these refugees to safety, as we

20 thought, we sought to get further into this area and were subsequently

21 stopped a little further on than Sopina by an army checkpoint. They were

22 dressed in blue uniform. I think they were probably MUP, who were highly

23 correct but absolutely insistent that we should leave the area

24 immediately. By this time we were within --

25 Q. On the grounds -- what grounds did they give --

1 A. For our own safety. They said that terrorist operations were

2 taking place and that we had to be escorted from there. They absolutely

3 insisted that we should go. I was keen to press on. I subsequently

4 learnt that probably at about the time we were there in the village of

5 Vranic, which of course is very close -- perhaps I could just identify

6 Vranic again. Vranic is this village here. There was a massacre of

7 civilians taking place almost at the time we were there. However, we had

8 no alternative, not least because of the Albanian interpreters that were

9 with us were at this stage being threatened to leave.

10 So we left through Suva Reka, passing again up the Podgerusa

11 valley and back to Pristina. On the way, Morgan Morris, the head of the

12 UNHCR, took me to a group of 500 or 600 refugees she found in the forests,

13 living in the forests. We actually met up with these people. They had

14 been driven out of their villages in preceding operations. They had been

15 living, they said, for six weeks, hiding in the forests. They had only

16 recently been found, I think just clandestinely, by Morgan Morris, who had

17 supplied them with food. They were all old men, women, and children, and

18 they said they had been living off berries, cherries, at the time of year,

19 for some weeks. I took a bag of cherries from them and told them that I

20 was seeing then-President Milosevic the following day and would deliver

21 them to him.

22 We returned to Pristina that night and immediately left for

23 Belgrade, because I knew that I had an interview with President Milosevic

24 on the following day. So by around 11.30 that night we were in Belgrade.

25 Q. I'm going to deal with a report you've prepared of this visit of

1 yours a little later, because it encompasses everything, but I think

2 overnight you and Ambassador Donnelly took some legal advice; is that

3 correct?

4 A. It is correct. We had -- the Ambassador Donnelly had access to

5 some legal advice, and we described what we both had jointly seen. I

6 should point out that Ambassador Donnelly had gone back to Belgrade the

7 day before, and so he was not with us on the second day. He had been to

8 see then-President Milosevic. President Milosevic had said that none of

9 this action was going on, and he told him that it was. And he got access

10 to legal advice which indicated that what we had seen was clearly in

11 breach of international law and the options of the Geneva Conventions.

12 Q. You got a copy of a relevant document. As a politician and so on,

13 of course you've had a lot to do with the law, but you're not yourself a

14 lawyer, and therefore you got a copy of a Geneva Convention document, I

15 think.

16 A. Mr. Nice, I did, and I should point out that it's been quite

17 difficult for me to recall precisely what the document was, which was

18 subsequently suitably marked up and we took with us to see President

19 Milosevic. I've sought from my notes to recover what that document was.

20 Q. Your best estimate, I think, is that --

21 MR. NICE: Perhaps we can look at this and produce it as an

22 exhibit. Coming your way in a second.

23 THE REGISTRAR: Prosecution Exhibit 75.

24 MR. NICE: Thank you very much.

25 THE WITNESS: Mr. Nice, here I'm --

1 JUDGE MAY: Just one moment.

2 THE REGISTRAR: The videotape will be marked Exhibit 76.

3 MR. NICE: Thank you very much. If we can lay a copy of this on

4 the ELMO, just to begin with, the overhead projector, just to begin with,

5 so that viewers may see it. And this document, whether it is the precise

6 document or not, but this document is the protocol additional to the

7 Geneva Conventions of the 12th of August of 1949 and relating to the

8 protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts.

9 THE WITNESS: Mr. Nice, I wonder if I may interrupt you for a

10 moment. I'm at some embarrassment, Your Honour, because I gave the best

11 evidence I could to Mr. Nice when he was constructing this. I had a look

12 again at my notes overnight. I've always wondered whether or not this was

13 the actual document we referred to when, as I shall subsequently relate,

14 we went to see Mr. Milosevic. But on looking through my notes last night,

15 I am now able with greater certainty to establish what that document was.

16 Indeed, I'm almost certain that I'm now able to tell precisely what the

17 document was. My embarrassment is that it isn't this document.

18 Q. Very well. Having reviewed -- that's not a problem at all,

19 because we --

20 A. I have the document with me and I'm happy to produce it.

21 Q. Well, if you can produce it, we'll have it copied and that will be

22 preferable.

23 MR. NICE: Perhaps we can withdraw this exhibit, then.

24 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll return this document.

25 THE WITNESS: I'm bound to say that is my view, although I'm not a

1 lawyer, that the document I shall put forward, which I'm now almost

2 certain is the document to which I referred Mr. Milosevic, refers to this

3 document and indeed draws from it, so it's not wholly irrelevant, but --

4 MR. NICE: May I see it? Because obviously we haven't been in

5 contact at all since last night. May I just see the document myself first

6 so that I can know what it is. Is it something we can print without --

7 A. It is, in fact, the founding Statute of this Court. Article

8 8(2)(d) of the Statute of this Court is the one that which I referred to.

9 Q. Thank you very much.

10 A. It's on page 3.

11 Q. Yes, certainly. Well, the document you've produced has got some

12 handwritten annotations on it. Is that annotations you made last night

13 or --

14 A. It is.

15 Q. Very well -- and the underlinings are made recently?

16 A. Those underlinings were made last night and reflect the marked-up

17 document that I know I took to see Mr. Milosevic.

18 MR. NICE: I think our own Statute doesn't require to be

19 exhibited. May the witness have the document back?

20 Q. Lord Ashdown, you're now satisfied from further consideration of

21 your contemporaneous records that it was this document that you took with

22 you?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. It's, of course, a document of public record. Which parts of it

25 do you --

1 A. Shall I place it on the --

2 Q. Yes, do place it on the ELMO. You've underlined it in certain

3 places, and if you'll just take us to the parts --

4 A. The document is --

5 Q. -- you've underlined.

6 A. -- the Statute of the International Criminal Court, this court, of

7 July 1998. And although this says it was as amended by 10th of November,

8 1998, in fact the original passages to which I shall refer are in the

9 original document of July 1998.

10 Q. Very well. Well, let's have a look at the passages that you had

11 in mind overnight, having taken advice.

12 A. Having referred to my notes, actually. But Article 8, War

13 Crimes. "For the purpose of this Statute, `war crimes' means:

14 "(a) Grave breaches of the Geneva Convention of the 12 August

15 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property

16 protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention."

17 And then it highlights article subparagraph iv.

18 "Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not

19 justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully or wantonly."

20 Q. Thank you very much.

21 JUDGE MAY: It's the International Criminal Court.

22 MR. NICE: Ah. Sorry.

23 JUDGE MAY: So it appears from the top.

24 MR. NICE: In which case then it probably should be produced as an

25 exhibit, and we can deal with that. But I think it would be preferable

1 for the Chamber to have an unmarked copy as a --

2 JUDGE MAY: Yes, indeed.

3 MR. NICE: So we can deal with it.

4 JUDGE MAY: But for these purposes we can go on as we are.

5 MR. NICE: Yes.

6 THE WITNESS: My apologies to the Court for that confusion. It's

7 been -- I'm not a lawyer, and I'm afraid it took me some time to uncover

8 the precise document.

9 MR. NICE:

10 Q. Let's turn now to the meeting. Just reminding the Chamber that,

11 of course, you were permitted access to the country and it was known that

12 you were travelling. Would that be correct?

13 A. Correct.

14 Q. You --

15 A. I was also bearing a letter from Mr. Blair --

16 Q. Yes.

17 A. -- as indeed I had borne a letter from Mr. Blair to the presidents

18 of Macedonia and of Albania.

19 Q. Yes. Your meeting with the accused was at the presidential palace

20 in Belgrade. The meeting lasted about how long?

21 A. About an hour.

22 Q. The language?

23 A. The language was in English. We were in the presence of the

24 British ambassador, and as I recall it, a note-taker for Mr. Milosevic.

25 Q. Did the accused have any --

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1 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speakers kindly make pauses between

2 questions and answer for the interpreters. Thank you.

3 A. -- very high order.

4 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Nice, you were asked to have a pause between

5 question and answer.

6 MR. NICE: Sorry. Slow down. I will.

7 Q. Let's deal then, first of all, with that letter from the Prime

8 Minister. Did you hand that over to the accused at some stage?

9 A. I did. I think, if I recall, at the start of the meeting.

10 MR. NICE: Can we produce that, please?

11 JUDGE MAY: Do you have the date of the meeting for me?

12 MR. NICE: Yes, certainly.

13 Q. The date of the meeting, Lord Ashdown, please?

14 A. 29th of September.

15 THE REGISTRAR: This exhibit will be numbered number 75.

16 MR. NICE: Thank you. And if the usher could stand by the ELMO

17 and move the letter up as I read the text so that viewers may see it.

18 Q. Dated from the 24th of September to the Prime Minister:

19 "Dear President Milosevic. I wrote to you in June to express my

20 deep personal concern about the situation in Kosovo and to appeal to you

21 to take the necessary steps to work for a peaceful resolution of this

22 difficult problem.

23 "I have continued to take a close personal interest in

24 developments in Kosovo. I have to say that I have been disturbed and

25 perplexed by the evidence of continuing hostilities and the rapidly

1 worsening humanitarian crisis. As I said in my previous letter, no one

2 disputes your right to deal with security problems. But the excessive and

3 indiscriminate use of force by your security and armed forces is having an

4 intolerable impact on innocent civilians who are being forced to flee

5 their homes and whose livelihoods are being destroyed. The prospect of

6 tens of thousands of people facing the winter without proper shelter is

7 one which the international community cannot ignore.

8 "The Resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council on

9 23 September underlines the deep international concern at the impending

10 humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo and the lack of progress towards a

11 political solution. What is required is an immediate end to the current

12 violence and rapid action to address the humanitarian situation. Above

13 all, there must be speedy progress on a political dialogue, since only by

14 resolving the core problem of the status of Kosovo can there be a lasting

15 solution to the humanitarian problem.

16 "I am sending this message with Paddy Ashdown. I know that he

17 shares my concerns, and will wish to discuss these issues with you

18 following his visit to the region. I reiterate that Britain and our

19 Contact Group and EU Partners stand ready to work with you in the search

20 for a peaceful resolution. But the present situation is intolerable and

21 cannot be allowed to continue.

22 "Yours sincerely, Tony Blair."

23 You handed that letter over. Can you recall one way or another

24 whether the letter was perused and apparently read by the accused at the

25 time or not?

1 A. I think the accused, as I recall it, and it is difficult to recall

2 this four years later or so, but the accused, if I recall, looked at the

3 letter, read it, and I -- read it quickly but read it, in my view, in

4 detail.

5 Q. Now, the meeting lasted an hour, and we want it, I'm afraid, very

6 much in summary form because that's all we require.

7 Did you give the accused an account of what you'd seen on the

8 previous day?

9 A. I did.

10 Q. How did you describe it, in the most general terms, to him?

11 A. I said to him that what I had witnessed could only be described as

12 the actions of the main battle units of the Yugoslav army in an action

13 which could only be described as indiscriminate, punitive, designed to

14 drive innocent civilians out of their properties, could not be explained

15 by any targeting military operation, that this was, in my view, not only

16 illegal under international law, damaging to the representation of the

17 Serbs and his nation, but also deeply counter-productive.

18 Q. What was his response to the account of things that you said you'd

19 seen?

20 A. He first of all denied that these things were going on and said

21 that they were not happening, and I informed him that they were because I

22 was there on the previous day and saw them with my own eyes.

23 Q. Did he give any alternative explanation to things you'd seen on

24 the basis that what you'd seen may have been accurate?

25 A. No. He said that in that case, he conceded that they may indeed

1 have been going on but that they were the responsible -- they were the

2 actions of forces beyond his control and that he would take steps to put a

3 stop to them immediately and bring those responsible for any breaches of

4 international law to account.

5 Q. Now, you had a document, and you believe it to be the document --

6 or a version of the document that you've produced this morning. How did

7 you deal with that, and how did you deal with the issues of law upon which

8 you'd been advised overnight along with Ambassador Donnelly?

9 A. Here again, I have to tell the Court that there is a slight

10 difference of view here. It is my clear recollection and indeed was noted

11 in my diary afterwards that having specifically pointed to the Geneva

12 Convention, having specifically, as I recall it, referred to the

13 paragraphs I have shown to the Court, I left the document with

14 Mr. Milosevic.

15 I have subsequently checked the recollections of Ambassador Brian

16 Donnelly, who was present. He remembers me doing the first of those two

17 things, that is, specifically referring to the Geneva Conventions and

18 specifically referring to the passages that I have shown the Court, but he

19 does not recollect me leaving the document there.

20 Q. Did you, in the event, find yourself, as you recall it, still in

21 possession of the document you'd taken?

22 A. I was in a very hurried programme. I do not -- I cannot recall

23 having possession of the document, and I cannot recall leaving with that

24 document. I certainly haven't found it since, but that does not

25 necessarily mean that the only solution is I left it behind in the office

1 of Mr. Milosevic. But that is my clear recollection, and that's what I

2 put in my diary, dictated about 90 minutes after this meeting.

3 I should point out --

4 Q. What -- sorry, yes.

5 A. I should point out if I may, Mr. Nice, that Mr. Milosevic said to

6 me in response to my description, as I recall the conversation, that what

7 was happening was consistent with actions against terrorists and that his

8 state had a right to act against terrorists. I said I accepted that

9 right, that this was, however, not actions against terrorism.

10 Mr. Milosevic said to me I knew nothing about terrorism, and I told him

11 that I had indeed fought in four terrorist campaigns, had lost good

12 friends to terrorists, and I knew that the kind of actions he was taking

13 would not destroy terrorism. They would only create more terrorism.

14 Q. Can you remember any -- I'm sorry. I'm probably going too fast.

15 Can you remember any particular exchange or -- yes, exchange with

16 the accused about the Geneva Conventions or anything of that sort?

17 A. Yes. I recall specifically saying that the actions that he was

18 taking were, in my view, clearly in breach of the Geneva Convention. As I

19 have explained to the Court, I identified the passages of the Geneva

20 Convention to which we have already referred. And I told him that in my

21 view, if he were to continue with these operations, he would make himself

22 indictable for war crimes because he was personally responsible for any

23 further continuation after this meeting.

24 Q. You told us how on the previous day, when you visited the forest,

25 you had made a promise to the people there about what you conveyed to

1 their president. How did you deal with that?

2 A. I have to say, and I somewhat regret it since, that I did not

3 deliver -- I took the bag of cherries with me, but I did not deliver it to

4 Mr. Milosevic. I believed at this stage that it would be an act of

5 rudeness, but I did draw his attention to the condition of the refugees.

6 I said I found it disgraceful that the president of a country could treat

7 its citizens of whatever their ethnic origin, women, children, old men, in

8 such a fashion. I told him that in my view, there was, as the winter

9 approached, an impending humanitarian catastrophe of massive proportions.

10 Mr. Milosevic told me that he thought the number of refugees in the woods

11 was of a very small number. I said in my view there were probably, by the

12 UNHCR's best calculations, some 20.000 people living in the woods and

13 forests of Kosovo in similar conditions to those which I had seen and that

14 any impending humanitarian catastrophe, if these people were not fed and

15 housed, would --

16 Q. The last --

17 A. -- would --

18 JUDGE MAY: Just a moment, let the interpreters finish. Yes.

19 MR. NICE: I may have cut you off.

20 A. Would inevitably fall to his responsibility.

21 Q. Two more things about the meeting. What, if anything, was said

22 about the possibility of intervention by force by the international

23 community?

24 A. I said, in more blunt terms than I think is strongly hinted at in

25 Mr. Blair's letter, that if these gross, flagrant breaches of

1 international law continued, the international community would be left

2 with no option but to seek to intervene. And if Mr.,

3 then-President, Milosevic, were to underestimate the gravity of the

4 situation or the determination of the international community to ensure

5 that international law was upheld, then he would be making a very grave

6 miscalculation.

7 Q. You made a note of this meeting, of course, in your diary, and it

8 may be that it will be a good idea just to have this extract produced. I

9 don't know if we've got copies of it. If we have, I'll ask that it be

10 produced.

11 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I don't think I've got enough copies of it

12 in the form I think will be most valuable.

13 THE INTERPRETER: Could counsel please speak into the microphone,

14 please, for the interpreters.

15 MR. NICE: -- but --

16 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Nice, could you speak close to the microphone.

17 MR. NICE: Yes, certainly.

18 Q. I'll produce that over the break at the very latest, but you have,

19 I think, from your diary produced a little passage that is your best

20 recollection at the time of how you really ended the meeting with the

21 president; is that right?

22 A. Mr. Nice, I do have that. I can spend some time looking it up,

23 but it might be most helpful if I could use the one you have available. I

24 can, however, summarise it very simply to the Court.

25 Q. I think it would be better if we had the words as you best

1 recorded at the time.

2 A. Could I then just make it clear that, as is made clear in the

3 preface of my diaries, I do not pretend that these are verbatim. I merely

4 say they are reconstructions of the conversation as best as I could

5 produce it as I recall. My diary was recorded on the plane back, that is,

6 90 minutes after the end of the meeting. So although I cannot vouchsafe

7 that these are perfectly the word-for-word statement that I used when I

8 finished my meeting with Mr. Milosevic, it is, I believe, a very close

9 reconstruction of that.

10 "Concluded the meeting by saying, 'Mr. President, you have been

11 generous with your time, and if I may say so, also in allowing me to come

12 to your country. I shall have some harsh words to say about what I have

13 seen but I like the Serb people and I do not believe that you can condemn

14 a nation. I must tell you, however, that the international community will

15 act if you do not stop. You are, in my view, employing a policy that is

16 entirely counter-productive and allowing the good name of the Serb people

17 to be dragged down. I beg you to put a stop to this action which

18 besmirches the representation of your country.'"

19 I also made it clear to Mr. Milosevic that he was personally

20 responsible for any further continuation of these policies and that that

21 could lead ultimately to his indictment before this Court.

22 THE REGISTRAR: Prosecution Exhibit 77.

23 MR. NICE: May we now please look at, as the next exhibit, your

24 report or, to be precise, an extract from the report you made in respect

25 of this visit.

1 THE REGISTRAR: Prosecution Exhibit 78.

2 THE WITNESS: Perhaps it would be helpful, Mr. Nice, if I were to

3 point out that this extract is merely the extract published in my book and

4 that the editing of this was simply to take out extraneous matter which

5 was regarded by the editors as being boring.

6 MR. NICE:

7 Q. So the current -- thank you for that. So the current situation

8 is -- it's on the -- yes.

9 "While I was there, the Yugoslav army was ending its operation in

10 the Drenice area and shifting it to the Suva Reka region, south-east of

11 Pristina. President Milosevic told me that the operations had ended. I

12 told him this was not so as I had seen myself. However, since the main

13 Yugoslav objectives have now been achieved, I anticipate that Yugoslav

14 operations will end very shortly and their main units will return to

15 barracks, so as to give no pretext for NATO action ..."

16 That was your judgement at the time, was it?

17 A. It was.

18 Q. Then under the heading "What we should do: Military action."

19 Your report suggested that: "Troops on the ground in this phase would

20 not, I believe, be militarily possible."

21 A. Indeed this was, because that was a discussion much -- currently

22 going on in public and in private, and I believed that it was not a viable

23 option at this stage.

24 Q. "Though they will be needed to guarantee a cease-fire and oversee

25 the transitional phase that Hill," that's Ambassador Hill, "envisages."

1 Correct?

2 A. Correct.

3 Q. "With the weather closing in and the Yugoslav troops returning to

4 the barracks having achieved their objectives, it's almost too late to use

5 air power, too. However, the air power option should be maintained on

6 a `hair trigger' and used if Milosevic does not stop his current

7 operations and returns to the use of excessive force. In due course this

8 is bound to happen."

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: What was bound to happen?

10 THE WITNESS: My calculation was that the actions taken by the

11 Yugoslav forces were bound to produce a stronger, more aggressive KLA, but

12 contrary to what Mr. Milosevic claimed, the KLA would come back in greater

13 force and determined to exact revenge. In other words, that -- as I say,

14 that they were likely to re-occupy ground that they had been driven from

15 by the Yugoslav army. And my calculation was, I regret, that this would

16 provoke again Mr. Milosevic into the use of excessive force. In other

17 words, that we were bound to get to a position where that would happen.

18 MR. NICE:

19 Q. And indeed you set that out in the next sentence.

20 A. And indeed it is what happened.

21 Q. Yes.

22 "The KLA have not gone away, are likely to re-occupy the ground

23 they have lost and will certainly return to (more effective) aggressive

24 action.

25 "Urgent and unfettered access must be provided for accredited UN

1 aid agencies and diplomatic observers to all refugee or internationally

2 displaced persons sites. I was stopped by Serb police, in the company of

3 UNHCR and a British Embassy diplomatic representative, from accessing a

4 reported 18.000 IDPs in the middle of a battle zone `For our own safety'."

5 Pausing there, that's the incident you described to us this

6 morning?

7 A. It is.

8 Q. "This cannot be allowed to continue. The humanitarian drive

9 should be to get people back to their homes as quickly as possible, after

10 which large scale resources will be required to make these habitable and

11 to heat them. Since, in most of Western Kosovo, the crops have not been

12 harvested and the Serbs have been deliberately targeting grain supplies,

13 it is likely that food will also be a problem through the winter.

14 "The Hill plan," can you --

15 A. This was --

16 Q. -- remind us?

17 A. This was the plan currently being discussed by Ambassador Hill to

18 bring a space for a peaceful resolution to the Kosovo crisis. And as you

19 will see, I specifically recommend that that is the best way forward

20 rather than military action, that we should pursue that plan.

21 Q. Saying in this paragraph that:

22 "The Hill plan offers the only realistic proposal on the table.

23 It will need some adjustment to take a more intermediate position between

24 the Serbs and the Albanians. But it should be supported. There is not

25 time to `do a Dayton' where the West held the ring while the protagonists

1 produced their own solution. This time, the West must put its own plan on

2 the table together with appropriate sticks and carrots to encourage

3 acceptance from both sides. This needs to be based around a cease-fire,

4 an interim period, greater autonomy for Kosovo, along the lines of

5 a `third republic' and a strong and enforceable framework to protect

6 minority rights (in this case, those of the Serb population in Kosovo).

7 We should not exclude outright independence for Kosovo as a long-term aim,

8 even if we cannot yet foresee circumstances when it would be wise or safe

9 to achieve it."

10 I'm not going to ask you to expand on the opinions there. Others

11 may. But does that collection of opinions represent what you felt as a

12 result of what you had seen?

13 A. It does.

14 Q. You went on to conclude on this, and shortly, on the following

15 page:

16 "But Kosovo is not a Yugoslav problem. It is a regional one and

17 will need a regional solution. There will be no point in stabilising

18 Kosovo if, in particular, Albania, but also Macedonia, remain in such a

19 precarious state. Action to support the present Albanian government

20 against the mischief of Berisha is important -- "

21 A. Sali Berisha.

22 Q. " -- especially to enable Tirana to regain effective control of

23 the border area of Tropoje, which is, at once, Berisha's home and the area

24 through which the main route for arms to the KLA pass. Regaining control

25 of this area would diminish the power of Berisha and give us real leverage

1 over the KLA."

2 Of course, these topics you touched on yesterday --

3 A. Indeed.

4 Q. -- Macedonia's vulnerability --

5 A. Indeed.

6 Q. -- the area of lawlessness and the passage of arms.

7 A. Indeed.

8 Q. Your report, so far as the extract is concerned, concludes:

9 "The Hague trials have had a profound effect on senior Serbs. If

10 it is now too late to use military sanctions against the Serbs for their

11 latest actions, then the British should ask the International Court to

12 investigate the recent Serb operations in Drenica and Suva Reka and, if

13 appropriate, take action against any guilty parties. I believe that this

14 would have a profound effect, both on local military commanders and on

15 their political directors in Belgrade and could make them think twice

16 about doing it again."

17 The last point of the evidence that I want --

18 [Technical difficulty]

19 [Microphone not activated]

20 MR. NICE:

21 Q. -- is your follow-up visit on the 12th, and between the 12th and

22 the 17th of December of 1998. On that visit, did you go to some of the

23 villages that you had seen being attacked earlier on the occasion when we

24 see you with binoculars looking down from the hill?

25 A. I did. I paid in particular -- I wanted in particular to see the

1 village of Vranic, which I referred to earlier, and the site of the

2 alleged massacre there. I visited, I think, probably three or four of the

3 villages I had seen under bombardment.

4 Q. What was your impression of the damage done? How did it compare

5 with what you had expected?

6 A. Well, I had expected to see whole villages burnt down. That's

7 what I had seen previously. And indeed, if you've seen the video, you'll

8 see why I believed that was what I was likely to see. What I discovered,

9 however, was that although there was extensive damage to a large number of

10 properties - it's been estimated that in some of those villages up to 50

11 or 70 per cent of the houses were fired - in fact, it was individual

12 houses which had been deliberately fired by the troops who had moved in,

13 and these houses, I was told, were those which had been earlier earmarked

14 as houses where there were either KLA sympathisers or people who the

15 Yugoslav government believed should suffer reprisals. The houses

16 themselves, however, had been deliberately fired, and the evidence of

17 indiscriminate shell fire, which I had seen, whose purpose could only have

18 been to drive out the population, was also evident.

19 Q. Just yes or no to this, please, Lord Ashdown. I think you also

20 had a visit on one of the days, I think Thursday, the 17th, probably, with

21 Miroslav Sainovic?

22 A. Nikola Sainovic. I think there's a mistake there.

23 Q. Yes. Nikola Sainovic. Thank you. The mistake was indeed in the

24 original document. Thank you for the correction. He then being the

25 Deputy Prime Minister?

1 A. That's correct.

2 Q. You formed a view of him, which you've set out in your statement?

3 A. I'll need to be reminded of what I said in my statement.

4 Q. I'm not going to take you through it. I'm just observing that

5 it's there for others to ask you about it if they wish to.

6 MR. NICE: Your Honour, subject to producing a full version of the

7 witness's diary entry for the meeting with the accused, which is on its

8 way down, as a exhibit, that's all I ask of the witness. Thank you.

9 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

10 Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

11 Q. [Interpretation] Do you think that everyone who is responsible for

12 war crimes --

13 A. I wonder if I could have the translation of that again. I was on

14 the French at the time.

15 Q. Do you think everyone who is responsible for war crimes -- do you

16 think that everyone who is responsible for war crimes should be held

17 responsible?

18 A. That's a matter for the courts. I am against war crimes and I

19 believe that all those who are responsible should be subject to

20 investigation and, if the courts believe appropriate, to the Court

21 procedures.

22 Q. Everywhere in the world or only in Yugoslavia?

23 A. There is a legal statute that requires everybody who has signed up

24 to those legal statutes and international law to be subject to those

25 tribunals and investigations.

1 Q. I'm asking you about your opinion. I'm not asking you for a legal

2 interpretation; I'm asking you about your views on this. You're a

3 politician, a diplomat, a military man, according to your curriculum

4 vitae. So do you think that those who committed war crimes should be held

5 responsible?

6 A. That's exactly what I've said. The answer is yes.

7 Q. Yes. Everywhere in the world or only in Yugoslavia?

8 A. Everywhere in the world. The statutes are international and they

9 should be enacted.

10 Q. And what do you think? Why are people not being held accountable

11 for war crimes except for Yugoslavia? What are the reasons for that?

12 A. Mr. Milosevic, I'm not here to speculate upon the reasons for

13 that. You and I may have opinions. I'm here to give evidence about a

14 particular series of events, which I presented to this Court. You and I

15 can have a long, extensive political discussion about this, but this does

16 not seem to me to be the appropriate time for that. I have presented

17 evidence to this Court about specific events which occurred during the

18 periods that I have referred to. I'm happy -- I'm happy to --

19 Q. I understand what you are saying, but could you please just answer

20 my questions.

21 JUDGE MAY: No. The witness is right. He's come here to give

22 evidence, not to proffer opinions. Now, ask him about that.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That's what I'm asking him about.

24 He explained here that he had a conversation with me about all issues,

25 even the Geneva Conventions and the Second Protocol. These are the most

1 general of issues. So I'm asking him about that.

2 JUDGE MAY: Ask him about the conversation. That's what's

3 relevant in this case.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Are you aware of the war crimes of your country committed in the

6 territory of the former Yugoslavia, together with the crimes --

7 JUDGE MAY: That is a total irrelevance. It's not what he's

8 giving evidence about.

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] He represents a country that took

10 part in the war against Yugoslavia. I'm asking this witness, who is a

11 politician from that country, whether he is aware of the war crimes

12 committed by his country against Yugoslavia. Are you forbidding me to put

13 such a question?

14 JUDGE MAY: He is not here as a representative of any country;

15 he's a witness giving evidence about what he saw and heard, including a

16 conversation with you. Now, if you want to suggest he's biased in some

17 way, of course you can, but you've got to put the grounds for it.

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. You spoke about the Geneva Convention, about the Second Protocol.

20 You mentioned that now, during your testimony. Do you believe that the

21 aggression against Yugoslavia constituted a violation of the UN Charter?

22 A. Mr. Milosevic, if you're asking me for an opinion, I'll give you

23 one, but it is wholly irrelevant to the information I have provided here

24 today. I'm ready to be questioned on that information about a specific

25 incident and a series of incidents, and I look forward to hearing your

1 questions on those incidents, which perhaps you'll come to in a moment.

2 My opinions are completely irrelevant. Now, if you want my opinion to

3 your question, the answer is no.

4 JUDGE MAY: Just one moment. One moment, Mr. Milosevic.

5 [Trial Chamber confers]

6 JUDGE MAY: We've been considering this. The question you ask is

7 wholly irrelevant. Now, what may be relevant is your case that there was

8 aggression against Yugoslavia by the KLA. Now, about that, the witness

9 may be able to help, so you can ask him about that, but his general

10 opinions as a politician or as an individual are irrelevant to this

11 Tribunal.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] As concerns the NATO aggression,

13 that the entire world is aware of, that is irrelevant for you; did I

14 understand you correctly?

15 JUDGE MAY: You can ask this witness if he knows anything about

16 the NATO aggression, if he can give any evidence about it; not about his

17 opinions, which are irrelevant, but you can ask him if he knows anything

18 about it, the NATO aggression, as alleged by you.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you for this suggestion. That

20 is precisely how I'm going to put it to the witness.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. Do you know anything about the NATO aggression that was carried

23 out against Yugoslavia on the 24th of March, 1999?

24 A. Mr. Milosevic, the evidence I've given before this Court took

25 place before that date and is therefore -- that event is wholly

1 irrelevant, I would put it to you, to the evidence I have presented. This

2 took place six months before that took place. Furthermore, I think it's

3 worth pointing out that the estimates are that in this period, long before

4 the NATO aggression, more than 300.000 Albanians had been driven from

5 their homes by the action of your troops. So these were entirely the

6 responsibility of you, of your troops, or perhaps of some other reasons

7 that you may be identifiable -- that it may be able to identify. They are

8 nothing to do with the NATO aggression. Indeed, if I may remind you, the

9 very purpose of my visit was to seek to persuade you to take action which

10 would have prevented that intervention. I said to you, in specific terms,

11 that if you went on acting in this fashion, you would make it inevitable

12 that the international community would have to act, and in the end they

13 did have to act. And I warned you that if you took those steps and went

14 on doing this, you would end up in this Court, and here you are.

15 Q. Very well. Very well. This is the question that we are going to

16 explain right now. But could the witness please answer my questions

17 rather than make speeches.

18 JUDGE MAY: He's dealt with it. Now, move on to another topic.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Later on you are going to say that I

20 have used up the time that was used up by this witness, as you usually

21 do. That's why I'm saying this. Otherwise, as far as speeches are

22 concerned, he can make as many as he wants.

23 JUDGE MAY: We would all get on much more quickly if you asked

24 short questions. If the witness is too long in his answers, we will tell

25 him.

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1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] All right.

2 Q. So let us just briefly go through this. You believe that the NATO

3 aggression against Yugoslavia did not violate the UN Charter, the Geneva

4 Conventions --

5 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, we've already ruled that as

6 irrelevant. Now, go on to another topic.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Well, I'm going to continue along the lines of your speech, that

9 this action against terrorism caused an escalation. Are you aware that

10 until the end of 1997, it was quite calm and peaceful in Kosovo, until

11 before the end of 1997, that is to say, for a total of ten years? Are you

12 aware of that?

13 A. I am aware that although, as I recall this period, and I can't

14 pretend to be an expert on it, but as I recall this period, the province

15 of Kosovo, the Kosovo area, was relatively calm and peaceful, but behind

16 that there was what many regarded, certainly Kosovar Albanians regarded,

17 as a long campaign of discrimination against their nation.

18 Q. This, for instance, is an example of a question that can be

19 answered by a simple yes or no, without going into big explanations. Are

20 you aware that until before the end of 1997, it was peaceful in Kosovo?

21 Yes or no. So could you please save up time as much as possible. Because

22 you are the one who is opposing a discussion. As far as I'm concerned, I

23 can engage in a discussion, but as you can see --

24 JUDGE MAY: Let's not have a commentary.

25 Lord Ashdown, the question is simply: Were things calm, leaving

1 aside discrimination or anything of that sort, to your knowledge.

2 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. Are you aware that in October 1997, at Crete, a Summit conference

5 was held of the south-eastern European countries, a Summit conference,

6 including Turkey, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, at which

7 an exceptionally high degree of understanding was reached with regard to

8 mutual cooperation, including the establishment of proper cooperation

9 between Yugoslavia and Albania, and the statement of then-Prime Minister

10 of Albania Fatos Nano, that the problems of Kosovo are the internal affair

11 of Yugoslavia? Are you familiar with that and do you remember that, as a

12 politician who has been following events in the former Yugoslavia?

13 October 1997, the Summit in Crete: A high degree of understanding,

14 similarity of views, statement by the Albania Prime Minister, my statement

15 before the cameras, Nano's statement before the cameras, Kosovo being an

16 internal affair of our country.

17 JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation continues]... the question.

18 A. The answer, Mr. Milosevic, is no. But then I've never denied,

19 neither did the British government, nor did I, in any of the visits that

20 I've made, that the responsibility, the sovereignty, of Kosovo lay with

21 the Yugoslav government.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. I am putting this question to you because I would like to give an

24 introduction to the time that you say you have been assessing here and

25 now. Are you aware that at that point in time, and after ten years of

1 peace and prospects for a large-scale cooperation, that after about a

2 month or two, after that Summit, that is, an initiative was launched by

3 the German diplomacy Kinkel Vadrin - they wrote a letter expressing their

4 concern about Kosovo - and, at the same time, actions taken by the BND and

5 the other services in order to instigate, organise, train, and establish

6 terrorism in Kosovo under the guise of this so-called KLA? Are you aware

7 of that?

8 A. No.

9 Q. No.

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could you please be so kind as to

11 show this? You'll see. I have this here. It has explanations in the

12 English language. This is a survey of terrorist attacks in the Autonomous

13 Province of Kosovo and Metohija, dated January 1991 to the 20th of June,

14 1999. You will see what this looks like.

15 Let me just make a few notes in this regard. During all these

16 years - the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, even the seventh

17 year - involved terrorist attacks against policemen or buildings are in

18 the single digits, or double digits at the most. However, after the

19 seventh year, the number sky-rocketed to 1.865, as a consequence of what

20 I've been saying, and in 1999 it went down as a consequence of the

21 extinction of the KLA. But --

22 JUDGE MAY: Let us see this document. Yes. Let it be put on the

23 ELMO.

24 But Mr. Milosevic, you could tell us where you got it from, where

25 those figures come from.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] These are official figures that were

2 published every year. I can give you the exact source.

3 JUDGE MAY: Who by?

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] By the Yugoslav government, official

5 figures, the government of Serbia.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. Please take a look at this.

8 A. I'll need my screen on. For some reason or another, it seems to

9 have gone off. No, it doesn't appear. I can read it here, though.

10 Q. Yes. As you can see, all the way up to 1998 -- at the end of 1997

11 it went up a little bit, but that is nothing compared to the action that

12 was coordinated because the Crete Summit sounded an alarm for all of those

13 who wanted to destabilise Yugoslavia. All of a sudden, in 1998, there was

14 this immense terrorist activity launched. And, as you can see, I have

15 here another one that can perhaps give a better explanation of all of it.

16 Terrorist attacks against citizens belonging to the Albanian national

17 minority that were launched by members of the so-called KLA. In 1991,

18 1992, 1993, there aren't any; two in 1994; four in 1995; two in 1996; and

19 towards the end of 1997 it went up to 13; but in 1998, 327 Albanians were

20 attacked; and in 1999, of course, again it went down because the KLA was

21 neutralised.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please show both. Please show

23 both. You can see here both, both the charts and also the consequences

24 involved.

25 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the witness see this.

1 THE WITNESS: I'm not sure what the question is, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE MAY: We're waiting for the question. Would you look at

3 those two documents, please.

4 Now, Mr. Milosevic, the witness has seen the documents. What is

5 the question?

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. Is the witness aware of anything related to external activities?

8 I mentioned in this sense Kinkel's letter, and, along parallel lines, the

9 activity of the BND in order to render support to these terrorist

10 activities. So do you know anything about these activities coming from

11 the outside in order to destabilise Kosovo and thereby Serbia and

12 Yugoslavia as well?

13 A. Beyond that which has been given in my evidence, no, by which I

14 mean, of course, Your Honour, the evidence that I provided. Indeed, I've

15 provided the evidence to this Court as well, if it wants to use this at

16 some future time in similar trials, for instance, against those who

17 perpetrated these actions against the Yugoslav government and Yugoslav and

18 Serbian citizens, that there was KLA activity, that there was external

19 support through the northern areas of Albania. Indeed, I made

20 recommendations as to means to put that to an end. But beyond that, I

21 have no knowledge of the sort that Mr. Milosevic is asking me.

22 Q. All right. And why was it necessary, then - I'm getting to what

23 you've been saying - to establish the structure and the way in which the

24 KLA functioned? You spoke of your visit to Albania, when it was a

25 well-known fact that these were terrorists, that this was a terrorist

1 organisation.

2 A. Mr. Milosevic, I never denied that it was a terrorist

3 organisation. I've never in any sense sought to excuse the suffering, the

4 pain, the murder of innocent Serbs or Serb civilians by this

5 organisation. I took steps, indeed, to make recommendations as to how

6 that could be ended. I have never denied, either in my evidence or, so

7 far as I know, in any other speeches or articles that I've written, that

8 there was KLA activity, that innocent Serbs were suffering. But none of

9 this, none of it, justifies or excuses the use of excessive, outrageous

10 force by your armed forces, under your control, in an indiscriminate,

11 punitive manner, across the whole of the civilian population, in direct --

12 Q. You've already said that.

13 A. -- contravention of international law. So you can prove this --

14 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Lord Ashdown, you have said that.

15 THE WITNESS: My apologies.

16 JUDGE MAY: One more question, Mr. Milosevic, and then it's time

17 to adjourn.

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. This question that you've just answered when you said that you

20 never denied that this was a terrorist organisation, I can tell you that

21 you are the first person sitting in that chair who said during these

22 proceedings that he does not deny that the KLA was a terrorist

23 organisation. Everybody before you denied that.

24 JUDGE MAY: That's a matter of comment, and on which note we will

25 adjourn. We will return those documents. Mr. Milosevic, if you want to

1 produce those figures, you can do so in due course and they will be

2 exhibited as part of your case. Meanwhile, they will be returned to you.

3 Could you be back, please, Lord Ashdown, at half past 11.00.

4 --- Recess taken at 11.00 a.m.

5 --- On resuming at 11.30 a.m.

6 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. We saw on the previous graph in 1998 a figure of over 1.800

9 terrorist attacks. Does that figure seem to you be frightening and

10 alarming?

11 A. Mr. Milosevic, any single terrorist attack is frightening and

12 alarming. Having been the subject of them myself, I'm only too aware of

13 that. My case is simple, that none of these facts that you present to the

14 Court, and I can't vouch for the accuracy or inaccuracy of the figures you

15 have presented to us, though I note that you claim a decline in 1999 was a

16 significant fact. I think the significant fact was that things were so

17 bad at that stage that NATO was forced to intervene, and you presumably

18 were not --

19 JUDGE MAY: Lord Ashdown, I think we've said that's all

20 irrelevant.

21 THE WITNESS: The point is that these figures, accurate or

22 inaccurate, do not justify the actions that I saw on that day.

23 I wonder if I may, Mr. Milosevic, direct you -- return you to the

24 conversation you and I had on the 29th of September, 1998, in which I

25 reminded you that in Northern Ireland, we in Britain had fought a campaign

1 against terrorists, in which I was personally involved, for 30 years. I

2 dare say the figures of terrorist attacks, the numbers killed, the extent

3 of terrorist actions, was even greater than those you now present to us,

4 but the British government has never used tanks, artillery, looting,

5 burning, driving people away from their homes. And if we had, we would be

6 before this Court; and because you did, you are.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. You, therefore, consider that we in Yugoslavia perpetrated crimes

9 and that you didn't anywhere.

10 JUDGE MAY: It doesn't matter about anything that the British

11 government may or may not have done in Northern Ireland. What matters is

12 what happened in Yugoslavia.

13 Perhaps you could deal with that part of it, Lord Ashdown.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, the witness mentioned Northern

15 Ireland.

16 JUDGE MAY: Yes, but it wasn't relevant.

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. And it is common knowledge -- actually, the event is well known.

19 It was called the Bloody Sunday incident.

20 JUDGE MAY: We're not concerned with that. Now, the witness can

21 deal with Yugoslavia.

22 THE WITNESS: I merely drew the comparison as to whether or not

23 the actions of the Serb forces were justified on these days. None, it

24 seems to me, of the information Mr. Milosevic has presented to us so far

25 justifies actions which were in gross breach of international law.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. And did you during your stay and trip, which was designed to

3 inform you of the situation in the field, were you at all interested in

4 the facts and figures with respect to the victims of terrorist

5 activities? Were you interested in that?

6 A. Yes. As I've given evidence, I went to view an alleged site of

7 executions of Serb citizens, as I understand, by terrorist forces. I

8 collected that information. I've put that information before this Court,

9 and I stand ready to make sure that that information is used in this Court

10 against the perpetrators of those crimes too.

11 Q. You witnessed one event, as far as I was able to gather from your

12 testimony. There were seven or eight bodies, as you yourself said. It

13 was in the village of Gllogjani, which is where the execution took place

14 over large -- over many people. There were 39 bodies, in fact, 39

15 corpses. Did you happen to see that?

16 A. I didn't see any of the corpses, as my evidence made clear. I saw

17 the area after those bodies had been removed. Who perpetrated those

18 actions, how many corpses, how many people were killed, I do not know.

19 The evidence that I have indicates that this was an execution. It was,

20 therefore, a crime. The evidence I have is presented to this Court. But

21 none of that justifies the actions of your forces which I have described

22 to this Court.

23 Q. And did you have information at the time, amongst the other

24 information that you had with respect to victims and casualties,

25 information and facts and figures about the fact that the terrorists

1 killed Albanians, too?

2 A. I was aware of that claim. I cannot either substantiate nor

3 reject it. But again, none of that justifies the actions I saw your

4 forces taking on that day.

5 Q. Well, you've already said that, around your position is clear on

6 that point as to the explanations and justification for the NATO

7 aggression. What I'm asking you is: Did you ever ask yourselves why they

8 were killing Albanians civilians and policemen?

9 A. Of course I asked myself that question, but none of that is

10 relevant to the facts I presented to this Court, which is that --

11 irrelevant. It is not relevant as to what the provocation was. The

12 actions your forces took on that day were illegal under international

13 law.

14 Q. All right. A moment ago, you said that what was relevant or what

15 was irrelevant is something that the courts should ascertain. That is

16 what you declared a moment ago. So I assume that you wish to be

17 consistent in your position there on that point.

18 JUDGE MAY: There's no need to answer that.

19 What's the next question?

20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. Are you aware of the fact that at that particular time, precisely

22 when you were there in 1998, when you were visiting Kosovo, that in many

23 villages a police force was set up, made up of the Albanians themselves, a

24 local police force made up of local policemen, and these policemen were

25 elected by the inhabitants of the villages for these people to be able to

1 see to law and order in the village, and the state provided them with

2 uniforms and with weapons, but they were selected and elected by the

3 Albanians themselves in those villages to do the kind of things that the

4 normal police force does? Are you aware of that?

5 A. I was aware that that was going on, but I don't see how that

6 justifies the actions taken by your forces.

7 Q. You met - and you spoke about this a moment ago - Christopher

8 Hill, and I know full well that he was abreast of the broad drive to set

9 up this local police force in the Albanian villages. Did he speak to you

10 about that?

11 A. No.

12 Q. Do you know that the terrorists of the KLA very frequently

13 targeted the local Albanian policemen and that many of those local

14 policemen were either killed by them or wounded?

15 A. I know that many innocent people suffered on both sides. I know

16 that there were claims and evidence of terrorist activity against both

17 Albanians and Serbs. Nothing that I say here excuses that. But that is

18 completely irrelevant, it seems to me, to the central question, which is

19 that the actions taken by your forces on this day were contrary to

20 international law, irrespective of what actions had been taken by the

21 terrorists beforehand, that you were responsible for that and that you did

22 not take the steps necessary to stop that.

23 Q. Mr. Ashdown, you have repeated that several times, and I see no

24 reason for you to repeat it in each of your answers.

25 A. Mr. Milosevic, if I may suggest to you, it is the central point.

1 Whatever happened -- and I am not able to confirm or deny your conspiracy

2 theories or, indeed, such facts as you have that you can prove, but the

3 central question is this: Did any of these actions that you claim

4 happened or that did happen justify your forces taking indiscriminate,

5 excessive action against civilians in the way that you did, contrary to

6 international law? My judgement on that matter - ultimately, that's for

7 the Court to decide - is that they did not.

8 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Lord Ashdown, you've made the point. There's no

9 need to repeat it. And as you rightly say, it's going to be a matter for

10 the Court to determine that or not.

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. We'll come to that question of international law in due course. I

13 am talking about the legitimate right of a state to fight against

14 terrorism, and you are questioning that right.

15 JUDGE MAY: No. He --

16 Lord Ashdown, there's no need to reply.

17 He has made the point that the use of force was excessive. Now,

18 that is the point that he's made.

19 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, if I may, I most explicitly said

20 before, during -- during my meeting with Mr. Milosevic and afterwards,

21 that I did not question the right of the Yugoslav forces to take such

22 action as was consistent with international law to control the threat of

23 terrorism. I have never denied that. Indeed, I explicitly made that

24 right clear and my support for that right to Mr. Milosevic during our

25 meeting.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. Where's the problem, then?

3 JUDGE MAY: What does the question mean?

4 A. Mr. Milosevic --

5 JUDGE MAY: What do you mean, Mr. Milosevic?

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, the witness says that he

7 doesn't question the right of a state to fight against terrorism. The

8 state in this case did fight against terrorism, and in those battles

9 against the terrorists, of course, and necessarily the citizens who

10 happened to be in the area contained in the conflict fled from those

11 conflicts. Therefore, where is the problem? And it is, of course, quite

12 clear that the state took care of those refugees. It fed them, it

13 assisted them, it returned them --

14 JUDGE MAY: One thing at a time.

15 Lord Ashdown, what is put to you is that this was a fight against

16 terrorism, and the citizens who happened to be in the area of the conflict

17 fled. Now, in relation to what you saw in Kosovo and what you saw in the

18 various villages which you've described, is that a fair description of

19 what was happening or not?

20 THE WITNESS: No, Your Honour. What is a fair description of what

21 was happening is that excessive force was used, with the deliberate aim of

22 a policy of scorched earth, with the intention of driving innocent

23 civilians indiscriminately from their villages, burning their houses,

24 destroying their means of livelihood and looting their property, all of

25 which is illegal under international law, as I understand it.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. And on what basis do you conclude that it was the intention of the

3 authorities to exert pressure or commit crimes against the innocent

4 population? Why would anybody do that?

5 A. Well, Mr. Milosevic, I can only present the evidence that I have.

6 The refugees told me that they were fleeing from the bombardment of your

7 forces. I have no reason to doubt that. It may be that you will claim

8 that in the operations that I saw, it was necessary and part of a targeted

9 military operation to shoot cattle, to burn houses, to break up the

10 individual stoves in those houses, to urinate on or otherwise destroy seed

11 corn, that all of these were part of a targeted campaign. That is for you

12 to prove to this Court. I have to say to you that the most likely

13 evidence - indeed, I would have said to any rational person the only

14 conclusion you can draw from those actions - is that they were part of a

15 campaign of indiscriminate terror operated against a civilian population

16 as a punitive attempt to drive them from their houses, in ways which have

17 not been seen as perpetrated by a government since the days of the German

18 occupations, and that those are illegal, as is explicitly stated under the

19 terms of the Geneva Convention which I have quoted.

20 Q. This does not refer to what you are claiming, but we'll get to

21 that in due course.

22 Do you know anything about the activities of the Government of

23 Serbia and Yugoslavia to assist those refugees?

24 A. I know a little about it. I also know that I saw many hundreds

25 and believe there to have been many thousands of refugees who were so

1 unconvinced by that activity that they would prefer to have lived for

2 weeks, some claim months, in the forests off what they could gather. They

3 were so frightened of your forces that they put themselves under pathetic

4 forms of camouflage and lived under conditions of extreme privation

5 because they believed that that was the only and safest option open to

6 them to survive.

7 I know the testimony of a woman that I found amongst others, 500

8 or 600 others from a village, in the forests on the day that I referred

9 to, who when I asked her whether she would return to her village in the

10 forthcoming bitter winter of Kosovo said that she would rather die in

11 those forests of cold and starvation with her children than to submit

12 herself again to what you claim is the care of your government.

13 Q. I still claim that in the forests, apart from brief periods, there

14 were not many refugees. I still claim that, that there weren't many. Do

15 you know that when the citizens fled from the conflict area they usually

16 went to villages where they had family or cousins, or other cities where

17 there were no terrorists activities? They didn't wander around the

18 forests, as you claim, for days and weeks.

19 A. Mr. Milosevic, I know certainly that some did that. Indeed, I

20 referred to that in my testimony. But there were many hundreds. I saw,

21 as I said, a very considerable number who preferred, nevertheless, to

22 remain hidden from your forces, from your government that you claim was

23 prepared to care for them, and were prepared, as they described to me, to

24 die there than to return to the care of your forces and your government.

25 Now, I think you must reflect on whether or not that belief was

1 justified.

2 Q. You claimed that there were 20.000 of them, 20.000 who had fled

3 from the effects of those activities. A moment ago, you said that there

4 were even 300.000. Where do you come to this astonishing figure? Who

5 gave you that astonishing figure of 300.000?

6 A. Mr. Milosevic, you may have misunderstood or wanted to

7 misunderstand. I said I saw of the order of 300 - not 300.000, 300 - in

8 the particular forest which I visited. Not 300.000, 300.

9 I was told, on the calculation of UNHCR, who I believe probably

10 had a more accurate judgement of the total numbers, that in their views,

11 there were up to 20.000 either living in the forests - of which the 300

12 individuals that I saw were obviously a very tiny proportion - who were

13 either living in the forests or in the forthcoming winter would be at

14 jeopardy for their lives as a result of the conditions which your forces

15 brought about in Kosovo.

16 Q. That was our -- do you know that in the autumn of 1998, to all

17 practical terms the KLA had been defeated, that they returned weapons and

18 that all the refugees returned to their homes and that the state helped by

19 giving construction material and money for them to be able to rebuild

20 their houses, the houses which had been damaged or destroyed during the

21 terrorist activities? Are you aware of that fact?

22 A. I am aware from a return visit that I made in December that as a

23 result, I must say, of the enactment of the Hill proposals there was a

24 brief ceasefire and that during that ceasefire the KLA intensified their

25 operations, just as I told you they would as a result of what you did,

1 that there was some return of refugees to their houses. But I have to say

2 to you that that was nothing to do with the Yugoslav government. It was

3 far more to do with the internationally policed ceasefire in operation at

4 that time.

5 Q. And are you bearing in mind the following fact, and how can you

6 actually explain the fact that as terrorism had been defeated, as the

7 situation had quieted down and as the Verification Mission had arrived,

8 then once again terrorist activities began to be on the increase? Do you

9 bring -- do you connect those two facts?

10 A. I certainly believe that the ceasefire broke down in part because,

11 as I predicted to you would happen, the KLA returned to aggressive action

12 in part, in my view, because your own forces did what they could to

13 undermine the effectiveness of the international monitoring and indeed to

14 return to the aggressive action which, in my view, had caused this, at

15 least in part, in the first place. But with respect, Mr. Milosevic, I

16 don't believe that any of the events that happened subsequent to the days

17 of which -- upon which I have given evidence to this Court are at all

18 relevant to the circumstances that I have given evidence upon, and so --

19 JUDGE MAY: Let us be the judge of that.

20 THE WITNESS: Although we --

21 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. You therefore claim that these efforts, the efforts to maintain a

24 calm situation during the time of the Verification Mission, was destroyed

25 by the forces of Serbia and Yugoslavia. Am I reading you correctly?

1 A. Mr. Milosevic, you and I can wander the thickets of what happened

2 afterwards at very great lengths. We will have our competing views of

3 what happened. They are, I submit to you, not relevant to the events that

4 I have provided about these events on these particular days, and I really

5 would be very willing to answer any more questions you have on the events

6 about which I've given evidence to this Court.

7 JUDGE MAY: What you can tell us about -- just a moment. One

8 moment.

9 What you can tell us about, Lord Ashdown, what you saw or directly

10 heard yourself. If you have any evidence on those matters, you should

11 give it. But when I say "heard," I mean on visits and that sort of thing

12 or any direct knowledge which you have which can shed light on these

13 matters. But hearsay and the rest and what you read in the papers, that

14 sort of thing, isn't of any great assistance.

15 So if the -- the accused can ask questions about what happened

16 afterwards. If you've got any direct evidence about it, tell us. But if

17 you haven't, it's merely general knowledge, then say so.

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. I wanted to clear up one matter. You said a moment ago and what

20 you're saying here now is also part of your testimony, and a moment ago

21 you said that this situation of calm or ceasefire, as I think you said,

22 was disturbed by the Yugoslav side and violated by the Yugoslav side.

23 A. I said I had opinions that in my view that a subsequent ceasefire

24 which took place - what? - three months after the events which I am giving

25 evidence before the Court, was unfortunately -- did not, unfortunately,

1 hold, and that my opinion, if you seek them, as to the reasons for that

2 was that it was a combination of both a return to aggressive action by the

3 KLA and the actions of your forces in undermining that ceasefire. But

4 that's an opinion.

5 Q. Can I read out to you a passage which speaks of something

6 different? And it is the following --

7 JUDGE MAY: Lord Ashdown, do you have any direct knowledge of what

8 happened when the ceasefire broke down? Do you have any direct experience

9 yourself of it?

10 THE WITNESS: I visited Kosovo again in, if I recall, Your Honour,

11 December of the -- December of the same year, 1998, and made a trip

12 including, as I've already referred to in my evidence here, back into this

13 area to inspect the damage that was done. I spent some time with the KVM,

14 the Kosovo Verification Mission, in the Prizren area. At that time, I

15 watched the actions of the Yugoslav armed forces. I was there when a

16 terrorist outrage took place in Pec in which some Serb civilians were

17 killed. I condemned that action. I was there when there was a KLA

18 incursion from Albania. I have opinions as to why that ceasefire

19 subsequently broke down and why we then moved to the next stage of the

20 events which forced NATO finally to intervene, but I can only express

21 those as opinions.

22 JUDGE MAY: You can ask the witness about what he saw or heard,

23 but his opinions are completely irrelevant.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The witness is presenting his

25 opinion as testimony, and I should like to ask him a question after

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1 reading out a brief quotation by his Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth

2 Affairs, dated the 18th of January, 1999.

3 THE WITNESS: Mr. Milosevic, if I may -- I apologise for the

4 discourtesy of interrupting you. I'm seeking not to present my opinions

5 as testimony. That's exactly what I'm seeking not to do. I'm seeking to

6 present facts as testimony.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] But this is contrary to the facts

8 that you are presenting, contrary to them.

9 JUDGE MAY: What is it that you want him to comment on? Let us

10 hear it, and then we'll see if he can.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The basic point that the witness is

12 making and claiming is that disturbing the situation is the fault of the

13 Yugoslav and Serb government, and I would like to read out something which

14 speaks of quite the opposite being the case. May I read it out? It's not

15 a lengthy passage.

16 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Bear in mind the interpreters.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What? Yes, I will. I will bear in

18 mind the interpreters.

19 I'll skip over a portion, to make it briefer, but here it is. And

20 it is Robin Cook, at a meeting, an official meeting. This is a report

21 from the meeting:

22 [In English] "[Previous translation continues] ... Army has

23 committed more breaches of ceasefire and until this weekend was

24 responsible for more deaths than the security forces. It must stop

25 undermining the ceasefire and blocking political dialogue. Neighbouring

1 countries, in particular, Albania -- "

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, could you stop? We don't have on

3 the monitor who has committed, and I think that is quite important. That

4 didn't come out in translation. Could you just read that again, and give

5 us the date as well.

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is -- what you have on the ELMO

7 is the graph. The monitor shows the graph, and I see this on my screen,

8 too. What I'm reading out to you is a report, and they are the words of

9 Robin Cook, in fact. Have you got that?

10 [In English] "[Previous translation continues] ... Liberation Army

11 has committed more breaches of ceasefire and until this weekend was

12 responsible for more deaths than the security forces. It must stop

13 undermining the ceasefire and blocking political dialogue. Neighbouring

14 countries, in particular, Albania, must be more resolute in halting the

15 flow of weapons which fuels the conflict. The Kosovo Liberation Army

16 cannot defeat the Yugoslav army, and instead of liberating the people of

17 Kosovo, can only prolong their suffering. The Kosovo Liberation Army has

18 repeatedly broken the ceasefire, and last month seized a number of Serb

19 hostages. Part of the complexity now applying pressure to the Kosovar

20 Albanian side is that there are different perspectives from the elected

21 leadership of the Kosovar Albanian around Dr. Rugova and from members of

22 the KLA, who do not regard Dr. Rugova as someone from whom they will

23 accept leadership or as a representative of their people. That makes it

24 difficult to build a meaningful negotiating team from the Kosovar Albanian

25 side."

1 [Interpretation] There is a reaction to this by one of the

2 representatives.

3 JUDGE MAY: Just one moment. Let us find out: What is the date

4 of this statement by Mr. Cook?

5 THE ACCUSED: The date is 18 January 1999, 18 January 1999.

6 Mr. John ^ Randall:

7 [As read] "We are all aware of sanctions and threats that have

8 been used against Belgrade. As the Foreign Secretary said, that

9 responsibility for the breakdown of ceasefire could be placed equally with

10 the Yugoslav forces and KLA."

11 What sanctions and threats could be used against the KLA?

12 Mr. Cook:

13 [As read] "We have vigorously denounced the KLA in just about

14 every international forum. We have also, through Security Council

15 resolution, called on states neighbouring Kosovo, and on others in Europe,

16 to act to try to cut off the flow of both funds and weapons to the KLA.

17 We are actively reviewing what more we can do to apply pressure to the

18 checkpoints in the supply of weapons to the KLA. We are not dealing with

19 the state or, indeed, an organisation with any clear political leadership

20 or representation," and so on.

21 And then again Mr. Cook:

22 "The position taken by the International Community, in all its

23 different manifestations, including the European Union, the Contact Group,

24 and the Security Council, is that we do not support independence for

25 Kosovo. That is partly because the countries in the neighbourhood would

1 strongly resent and resist any attempt to establish an independent Kosovo

2 because of the destabilising effect on themselves, and we should always

3 remember that the agenda of the KLA is not independence for Kosovo but

4 Greater Albania."

5 That is Mr. Cook saying.

6 "It would also have an effect in Bosnia, about which all

7 Honourable Members should be concerned. It would be very difficult to

8 resist the demand of Republika Srpska for independence if Kosovo were to

9 succeed in achieving it."

10 And so on. So --

11 JUDGE MAY: What is the question for the witness? Now, you've

12 read out a very lengthy statement by the British Foreign Secretary in

13 January 1999. Now, what is the relevance of that to the evidence of the

14 witness about what he saw in Kosovo the previous autumn?

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The relevance is because this shows

16 that it is quite incorrect that the Yugoslav government, the Yugoslav

17 authorities, the Yugoslav army, the police of Serbia, attacked and

18 terrorised the population. This was a conflict with the KLA, and the KLA,

19 as a terrorist organisation, which even the witness is not questioning,

20 bears the responsibility for destabilisation and for the conflicts that

21 took place, not the army and the police, who legitimately tried to bring

22 law and order in their own territory. That is the relevance.

23 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Very well. That is -- that is -- just a

24 moment. Just a moment, so we can understand the position. That is your

25 case, and it is the case which this Trial Chamber is going to have to

1 judge to see whether that account is correct or not. It will be a matter

2 for the Trial Chamber, at the close of the case, to weigh the evidence to

3 determine what happened. Meanwhile, this witness can't answer for the

4 statements of Mr. Cook in January 1999. What you can ask about is what

5 he's told you: what he saw and heard in Kosovo in September, and in

6 particular, his meeting with you. Those are the matters you should be

7 asking him about, as opposed to a general political discussion. Now, have

8 you any questions about the evidence?

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is not any kind of general

10 political discussion. I have been presenting facts.

11 JUDGE MAY: You have presented your case and you've put a

12 statement which was made, which I have already described, and I'm not

13 going into again. What I've ruled is that it's not a matter for the

14 witness to comment on, and what you should ask him about are the matters

15 he can deal with, his evidence.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. We shall then continue

17 with direct testimony, because this obviously denies the essence of his

18 examination-in-chief, and this is quite logical to everyone. That's why

19 I've been saying it. That's why I've been presenting this.

20 THE WITNESS: Mr. Milosevic, again, forgive me for interrupting

21 you. To be honest, I'm rather disappointed that you've quoted Mr. Cook's

22 statement when you could have quoted mine, on many occasions over that

23 period, which said exactly the same thing. Now, what you didn't mention,

24 of course, was the massacre at Racak, and so on.

25 I never said that the breakdown of the ceasefire was wholly and

1 solely the responsibility of the Yugoslav government. It was a complex

2 matter in which both the Yugoslav government, in my view, and the KLA

3 contributed. But that is, if I may say so, completely irrelevant to the

4 evidence that I have given here. And I note so far that you have

5 challenged none of the specific evidence relating to these three days, not

6 January, but 27th, 28th, 29th of September 1998. That's what I'm here to

7 provide the Court with.

8 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. I shall challenge that. Don't you worry.

10 I am referring to your testimonies regarding your first mission to

11 Albania. Since it is quite clear that you consider the KLA to be a rebel

12 terrorist organisation and that it had its structure in Albania, in your

13 report, did you bring up this issue how a rebel terrorist organisation

14 that operates on the territory of a neighbouring state can have a

15 structure of its own in a neighbouring state which has its own army and

16 police and, therefore, this structure has to constitute an illegal factor,

17 as far as they are concerned?

18 A. Well, of course, Mr. Milosevic. That's precisely what I said in

19 my testimony, that in my view, the right way to control, to end, the

20 activities of the KLA was, as I clearly said, for the Western nations to

21 help Albania take control of the lawless spaces in north Albania through

22 which that organisation was getting arms.

23 Q. You were saying that you wanted to familiarise yourself with the

24 command structure of the KLA. On that occasion, with which high

25 commanders of the KLA did you talk to when you visited Albania?

1 A. On that occasion, as I recall, none.

2 Q. And on other occasions?

3 A. On another occasion, I think, when I visited Albania later on, I

4 had a meeting with somebody claiming to be a representative of the KLA in

5 Tirana, and I made it clear to them, exactly as I have to you, that the

6 actions of the KLA were, in my view, illegal, destabilising Kosovo. And I

7 said no more than I have said here.

8 Q. And in your statement in relation to your visits to Albania or

9 that particular visit, does it say that they were in a position to assist

10 logistically and in other ways? I mean, the state of Albania to help the

11 KLA, that the KLA was helped by the Albania government. Well, yes, answer

12 that part of the question first.

13 A. Mr. Milosevic, I can't answer to all of your conspiracy theories.

14 We heard some of them earlier on.

15 The reason why, in my view, the KLA was able to use Northern

16 Albania for the supply of arms was because that it was a criminal space

17 outside the rule of law of the Albanian government. And in recommending

18 to my government what action we could take about that, I recommended that

19 we should assist the Albanian government to take control of that space in

20 order to control that activity.

21 Q. Yes. But during your first statement, you said that the head of

22 the Albanian regional police indicated to you that a truckload of weapons

23 was intended for the KLA; is that right?

24 A. Correct. It wasn't, in fact, the head of the Albanian police, as

25 I understood. It was an Albanian politician who either at that time -- I

1 think actually beforehand had been the Minister of the Interior. He took

2 me to the area. He showed me the matters on which I have given evidence

3 here.

4 It became immediately evident to me that the police force that

5 were operating in that area were incapable, I mean physically incapable.

6 They didn't have the materials, and they didn't have the forces on the

7 ground to be able to assert the rule of law in Northern Albania. It was

8 for that reason that I recommended to my government that one of the

9 actions we could take to end the activity of the KLA was to assist the

10 Albanian government with materials and with advice and with positive

11 assistance to enable them to take control of that area.

12 Q. However, the fact remains uncontested that this entire operation

13 of procuring weapons for the KLA was taking place with the knowledge of

14 the Albanian authorities. If the chief of the regional police knows that,

15 it means that the Albanian authorities, the Albanian government, know

16 about that. That fact is not being contested; right?

17 A. I cannot attest to what the Albanian government knew, but I

18 imagine they knew that they had a problem of lawlessness in Northern

19 Albania. It would have been difficult enough for them to think

20 otherwise.

21 I don't contest for a moment the reason I went to Northern Albania

22 was to look at this. It was a deeply dangerous, lawless area in which

23 people were regularly shot.

24 My judgement, if you wish for it, is that the Albanian government

25 knew that. The Albanian government of that time was serious about seeking

1 to impose the rule of law in that area. It would not have been in their

2 interest to do otherwise since that area was controlled by Mr. Sali

3 Berisha, who was doing his very best to undermine the Albanian government

4 of the time, that the supply of weapons to the KLA through that area was,

5 however, principally organised by criminal elements who delivered weapons

6 to the area from where the KLA collected them. That is my view of what I

7 witnessed.

8 Q. Does that mean that it is your claim that the supply of weapons

9 for the KLA did not take place under the auspices of the Albanian

10 government?

11 A. Mr. Milosevic, I simply am unable to give a firm and definite

12 answer on that matter. I can only give you the opinion which I drew from

13 what I saw, and I've given you that.

14 Q. Since there was a UN Resolution 1160 that prohibited the supply of

15 weapons, did you think that the Albanian government was duty-bound to

16 abide by that Resolution?

17 A. Mr. Milosevic, again, I'm going to say to you that I think the

18 Albanian -- you asked me for an opinion, and I'll give you one.

19 I think the Albanian government was doing its best, that Albanian

20 government was doing its best to ensure that it had control of Northern

21 Albania and that it was seeking to apply the UN Resolution. That's the

22 impression I gained. But I cannot be considered to be an expert, and I do

23 not come before this Court as an expert on what the Albanian government

24 knew, what it thought, what it was doing, openly or secretly. I can

25 merely tell you of the evidence that I have presented this Court of what I

1 saw in Northern Albania.

2 Q. All right. But you drew a conclusion of your own. The Albanian

3 government did its best in order to prevent the KLA from doing things, and

4 the Yugoslav government did its worst in its domain and in suppressing

5 terrorism in its own territory. That is your own conclusion.

6 A. I did not draw that conclusion, Mr. Milosevic. I mean, I

7 understand --

8 Q. Well, that's what can be inferred. That's what can be inferred on

9 the basis of what you've been saying?

10 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness finish.

11 THE WITNESS: Mr. Milosevic, I didn't say that at all. I said --

12 I gave an opinion as to what was happening in Northern Albania. I merely

13 said that whilst it is the Yugoslav government's absolute right to combat

14 terrorism and lawlessness in its own area - I never denied that - some of

15 the methods that you used in order to do that were illegal under

16 international law. That's my case; no more, no less.

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. You mentioned also in your statement and now during your comments

19 that en route to Tropoje, or to be more precise, that point at the border

20 where you were viewing things from the Albanian border, you saw this black

21 market, this arms black market, with your very own eyes, and your comment

22 in this respect was that this is a zone, an area where there was

23 lawlessness.

24 Later on, you said that someone from the Serb police, when weapons

25 were being taken away from Albanians, returned these weapons to the black

1 market, if I understood you correctly.

2 Since there could not have been such a black market of this nature

3 in Kosovo or anywhere in Yugoslavia, are you trying to suggest that

4 Yugoslav policemen were taking these weapons to the black market in

5 Albania in order to resell it there? I mean, today for the first time in

6 my life I heard that, that the Yugoslav police were selling weapons in the

7 black market, weapons that had been seized. So I'm looking for some kind

8 of an explanation.

9 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness answer.

10 THE WITNESS: No, Milosevic, I never suggested that Yugoslav or

11 Serb police were operating a black market in Albania, as I think you very

12 well know. What I said was an account that was narrated to me,

13 subsequently repeated in consistent detail by others, that there was a

14 circulating internal market, that weapons were demanded from a village.

15 If a village could not provide those weapons, they had to go out and

16 purchase them locally. I don't say they went back to Albania. They did

17 those from the black market. They believed that the weapons they then

18 handed over to the MUP or to Yugoslav forces were then by some means

19 returned to that localised black market from which they purchased them.

20 I'm merely passing on a hearsay story that was given to me. I

21 claim it to be no more, although it was confirmed in consistent detail by

22 others. There was no involvement with Albania, and nor do I claim any.

23 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

24 Q. Fine, Mr. Ashdo