1 Tuesday, 23 July 2002

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.

5 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

6 MR. NICE: Very briefly on timetable: After this witness, there's

7 a witness Radojkovic. On your list, that witness would be followed by K33

8 and K34. For reasons that we explored a little yesterday, K33 will have

9 to be put back until procedural issues are dealt with, and I understand

10 the lawyers for the Federal Republic are coming up tomorrow morning and

11 perhaps we'll be in a position to argue the matter on Thursday were that

12 otherwise to be convenient.

13 K34 is not in a position to start today. It simply isn't possible

14 for other reasons. Accordingly, were we to finish both those witnesses

15 whom I've named, it would be necessary to look beyond those K33 and K34.

16 We come to two witnesses, two crime-base witnesses. Jemini, although he's

17 gone through the 92 bis process here, we haven't yet made an application.

18 If I make a formal application now, the matter can at least be dealt with

19 although he's absolutely the sort of witness whose evidence should be

20 given live as to the very matter upon which he's being called here which

21 is conversations overheard. So it may be that he might be subject to 92

22 bis for part of his evidence.

23 Then there's Krasniqi, who is in a position to go ahead but we

24 have yet to have a ruling from you in relation to 92 bis.

25 I think the accused has been told this morning by the court

1 officer of the possibility of calling one or other of those crime-base

2 witnesses this morning, but I ought to put the matter on the record.

3 JUDGE MAY: The timetable will be this: The accused will have one

4 hour and three-quarters, up to that time, for cross-examination of this

5 witness.

6 We have considered Mr. Musa Krasniqi. He deals with new matter

7 which we haven't had evidence about, the prison, and therefore should give

8 evidence live.

9 The programme we have in mind is that on Thursday, we should hear

10 the submissions about Mr. Lilic. We should also bring forward -- it

11 seemed to us convenient to bring forward the Pre-Trial Conference. So we

12 don't deal with that in a rush, bring that forward to Thursday.

13 I don't know if you've seen the medical report on the accused yet.

14 MR. NICE: I have, and I was disturbed to discover that it hadn't

15 found its way to the Court by yesterday morning because I assumed you had

16 it in mind, but, yes, I have seen it.

17 JUDGE MAY: Yes. That clearly is a matter which will need to be

18 addressed, and I would have thought we need to allow an hour and a half

19 for those matters together.

20 MR. NICE: Certainly. Your Honour, the good news is that we'll

21 probably be less time with K34 than I'd originally thought. So if we

22 start him tomorrow but don't conclude him tomorrow, he may be perhaps, in

23 the vernacular we've been developing, wrapped around the procedural issues

24 on Thursday, concluding on Thursday or Friday, and then I'll lay plans to

25 use any balance of time on Friday.

1 JUDGE MAY: Well, he clearly must be finished by Friday, as indeed

2 must any other evidence, of course, that we embark on.

3 MR. NICE: Yes. Perhaps just by way of forecast, were we to find

4 ourselves with time to spare on Friday, it has occurred to us that it

5 might be useful to revert to the idea that I think came from the Bench of

6 taking the evidence of Philip Coo in chief, which would be a question of

7 going through such parts of the report as need legal argument and perhaps

8 touching on the parts of the report that need explanation in

9 examination-in-chief given that he's otherwise an expert whose report goes

10 in without much examination.

11 JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll have the witness.

12 MR. NICE: Thank you.

13 [The witness entered court]

14 WITNESS: DRAGAN KARLEUSA [Resumed]

15 [Witness answered through interpreter]

16 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Karleusa, I'm sorry you've been kept waiting.

17 There were some administrative matters we had to deal with. You will now

18 be cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic. We have ruled in your absence that he

19 would have up to, if he requires it, an hour and three-quarters. We will,

20 of course, have the breaks at the usual time.

21 Could you remember, please, and Mr. Milosevic, could you remember,

22 please, that since you both speak the same language there is a real risk

23 that the interpreters get behind, so would you leave a pause between

24 question and answer.

25 Yes.

1 Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

2 Q. [Interpretation] The matter that you speak to in your written

3 statement and yesterday during your testimony, all that is based on

4 indirect knowledge, not based on your personal experience but based on

5 what you heard from different people regarding these events which

6 allegedly took place in 1999; is that correct?

7 A. For the most part, yes.

8 Q. Your first knowledge about that refrigerator truck, although you

9 had a long career in the Ministry of the Interior, was derived from the

10 article of the "Timok Crime Review" published in 2001.

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Did you also deal with other articles published in the Timok

13 region about the same event with different -- or the same interlocutors

14 but with different conclusions?

15 A. No.

16 Q. Did you deal with information published in the "Timok Crime

17 Review" of June 2001 where the diver, Zika Djordjevic, gives a different

18 explanation of the event than the one you gave?

19 A. I can't remember exactly, but I don't recall that his conclusions

20 were completely opposite to what we found.

21 Q. He says, "We've opened this refrigerator truck and we found bodies

22 but we don't know how many." He says he doesn't know how many.

23 A. It's possible that he doesn't know.

24 Q. So you think that's possible too. And are you aware that at that

25 time, regarding what you've just mentioned, it was published in regard to

1 Petrovo Selo that those mass graves date back to 1945 or 1955 when there

2 was some sort of liquidation operation after the Second World War. I

3 don't know what exactly it refers to. Do you know about that?

4 A. No, I don't. However, our insights and reports were not based to

5 that extent on his statement.

6 Q. Was it established to what time these graves in Petrovo Selo date

7 back?

8 A. I don't know whether that has been established, but if it has,

9 that should be in the report of the expert team who carried out the

10 exhumation and post-mortems.

11 Q. Did you deal with the information published in the newspaper you

12 quote by the same author, published in September 1999 - the author is

13 Vitomirevic - and he says that he had seen a lorry with Swiss licence

14 plates which toppled and had contained bodies, and the bodies allegedly

15 fell out of the refrigerator lorry when it toppled.

16 A. I don't know about that. There were various stories which

17 circulated about an alleged traffic accident, for instance, and it was

18 said that these bodies found their way into the Danube in that way.

19 Q. In newspaper Politika, the 20th of May, even before your report,

20 published an interview with a certain Petrovic about a refrigerator lorry

21 falling into the river. Why didn't you deal with that as well? Although

22 he says that you had visited him indeed. This Branislav Petrovic says

23 so.

24 A. At this moment, I don't know the name of that person. We did talk

25 to one person who allegedly had seen, at least that's what he says, how

1 the refrigerator truck fell into the river. However, considering the

2 objective circumstances on the site, as we concluded at that time in that

3 place, it was impossible for the refrigerator truck to fall into the river

4 in the way he describes.

5 Q. All right. But do you know about this statement - and he says you

6 do - it was published by Politika on the 20th of May, 2001, I quote:

7 "That night in March 1999, I was standing on the shore. About 20 metres

8 away I heard human voices. They carry well across the river at that time.

9 I didn't understand that language, but it wasn't Serbian or Romanian."

10 You know Romania is across the river. He says that the language was

11 neither Serbian nor Romanian. This man is a former smuggler of petrol.

12 And he knows, as he says in this article, very well about the contraband

13 of people across the Danube. Did you hear anything about this?

14 A. I am familiar with the statement of this person. On site we tried

15 to clarify whether something like that was possible. And I have already

16 said, considering what he said and the way he said it, and viewing the

17 site where he indicated where he was supposedly located at the time, and

18 without making any final conclusions, we thought that it was impossible.

19 And we are familiar with what he stated. He did state it.

20 Q. As a policeman who dealt with this matter of the refrigerator

21 truck, are you aware that there are cases when our police detected the

22 smuggling of people or illegal aliens hiding in refrigerator trucks or

23 other trucks and which are transported by the -- via the Vidin-Sipikovo

24 canal?

25 A. Yes, I am aware of that.

1 Q. I will read to you just one example from a briefing of the public

2 security office where it says -- state security office. It says: "Via

3 the canal Vidin-Sipikovo transport is taking place. Slobodan Vitomirevic

4 is involved in this --" that is the brother of the author engaged in this

5 crime review -- "Dejan called Zabar, and a certain Marinovic. Using

6 loopholes in the border crossing, and this is a well-used track, used for

7 the transport of gold and arms, the price asked of one person is 500

8 Deutschmarks."

9 He further says that: "Three informers from Sipikovo whose names

10 would be notified later regularly inform the chief of police, but so far

11 there had been no reaction." Are you aware of this?

12 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters ask the accused kindly to read more

13 slowly.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. I'm not aware of that. I am

15 aware of cases of smuggling of people, but I'm not aware of this

16 particular case.

17 JUDGE MAY: If you're reading, Mr. Milosevic, would you read more

18 slowly the interpreters ask.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, Mr. May.

20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. And have you established the following: The author of this

22 article from the Crime Review, which came as an introduction to my

23 transport to The Hague, his brother is involved in this transport and

24 contraband of people and forms part of a criminal group which is involved

25 in the contraband of people, heroin, cigarettes, vehicles, and so on and

1 so forth. Are you aware of that?

2 A. No, I'm not. But I know that SUP Zajecar has scored successes in

3 detecting such contraband.

4 Q. I will read to you again from the report of state security

5 offices, first about the contraband of arms. "Dragan and Slobodan

6 Vitomirevic at this time are in possession of the following revolvers and

7 pistols: Baretta 65, Browning, Walter, Skorpion, Heckler Koch, Colt Cobra

8 revolver, diamond-back rifle of a small calibre with a muffler, grenades.

9 SUP Zajecar has very precise operative information about arms, starting

10 from 1955 to date. All this information has been collected by Goran Tomic

11 together with his associates Mihajlovic and others."

12 And then on 8th July 2001 on border crossing Vrska Cuka, a truck

13 was halted - licence plates are indicated - it had a trailer driven by a

14 Bulgarian driver born in 1958, never mind where. He says the goods were

15 transported for Trnjekovo Enterprise owned by Slavisa and Suzana

16 Milenkovic, engaged in contraband of platinum and the importer was Aler

17 Cis importer, the forwarding agent was Dilertrans. When they were caught,

18 immediately Goran Tomic and this same Goran Vitomirevic showed up, they

19 intervened and the truck was allowed to cross the border. All this

20 information is in the possession of Slobodan Aleksic, chief of state

21 security Zajecar.

22 Are you aware of this information about the activities of this

23 criminal group and was there any investigation on the part of your working

24 group?

25 A. Regarding our working group, there has been no investigation nor

1 did we have this information.

2 Q. So you were not aware of this state of affairs.

3 A. No.

4 Q. And did you get the Official Note drafted by the municipal public

5 prosecutor's office in Zajecar, which I have in front of me, where it

6 says: "The public prosecutor's office in Zajecar knows that Slobodan

7 Vitomirevic is a recidivist -" which means that he has a long police

8 record - "and apart from that, the public prosecutor's office in Zajecar

9 is informed that Slobodan Vitomirevic is heading a group involving

10 Miroslav Marinovic, a man nicknamed Zabar, and others which is bringing

11 cigarettes and other goods smuggled in large quantities into the area of

12 Zajecar. An order has been issued to verify this information." This is

13 an Official Note of the public prosecutor's office in Zajecar dated, as

14 you see, year 2001. I will provide it to be included into the evidence if

15 it is accepted because anything I offer or tender is rarely accepted, but

16 that is their problem.

17 Are you aware of this Official Note, of this report?

18 A. No, I'm not.

19 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you're not getting away with that.

20 That is not true, as you well know. Many of your exhibits have been

21 accepted if they are admissible. Now, if you want to put this document in

22 and if it's relevant, first of all, and if it's admissible, of course it

23 will be exhibited.

24 Perhaps the usher could go and get it, please.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What we're talking about here is a

1 criminal group which has all the strings in its hands, including those

2 controlling the contraband and smuggling of people, and they practically

3 did not involve a witness who could tell them whether it was their

4 refrigerator truck containing people who had drowned in a refrigerator

5 truck that had toppled and fell into the river, which they later, with the

6 help of their agents in the police and elsewhere, presented differently in

7 a media story.

8 Let's go on, however.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. You said that General Djordjevic told you what happened

11 happened --

12 JUDGE MAY: No. Let the witness deal with the matter because it's

13 serious.

14 What is being suggested is that this truck did not contain corpses

15 from Kosovo but was in fact part of an operation to smuggle people, and so

16 the identification with Kosovo is incorrect.

17 Now, Mr. Karleusa, you carried out this investigation. Would you

18 like to comment on the suggestion which is now made, that you're mistaken

19 about this and really this was just part of a smuggling operation.

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In our documents, that is the

21 documents of the working group, there are Official Notes which reflect

22 what our interlocutors, possible eyewitnesses, and other people who may

23 have been involved had told us. Based on those documents, we drafted two

24 communiques which we presented to the public. We did not go at that

25 moment into any conclusions as to whether those corpses belonged to people

1 of Albanian nationality or not, whether they were from Kosovo or not.

2 Instead, judging from all we could see on the site, we accepted that, and

3 we concluded, for instance, the following: Judging by the lettering on

4 the truck, Prizren Exporting Slaughterhouse Progres, we thought that it

5 might have been from Kosovo. We did not make any judgements about the

6 origins of the corpses.

7 We also tried to look for other facts which could corroborate this

8 indicia about the possibility that the people came from Kosovo. We waited

9 for the exhumations to be completed. But we said that once the bodies are

10 exhumed and autopsies carried out, it will be possible at that later stage

11 to establish where those people came from.

12 In the communiques, we said we had no basis for concluding that

13 the corpses belonged to people who came from Kosovo. We said we needed to

14 establish relevant facts first, which would probably indicate the origin

15 of those people.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Can I continue, Mr. May?

17 JUDGE MAY: Well, in fact, the witness should go on to deal with

18 this: Did you then have information as to where the corpses came from

19 after the exhumation?

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I would like to point out that

21 according to the results that were obtained by the expert team that

22 carried out the exhumation in the territory of Batajnica, and we know from

23 before or, rather, we have information from persons who transported these

24 bodies to Batajnica, that that is where they were buried as well.

25 According to the report of the expert team, we did not come to the

1 conclusion that these were bodies that were transported from Tekija or,

2 rather, from the refrigerator truck mentioned. That can be concluded on

3 the basis of the characteristics that we got from eyewitnesses or, rather,

4 from the technician who worked then and who works now and who was on the

5 site itself. And he could give us a description of the bodies, the

6 structure, rather, the number of men, women, children respectively, and

7 also the number of objects that were found there, and they were all buried

8 together. Therefore, we do not know where these bodies actually come

9 from.

10 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

11 MR. SHIN: Just to deal quickly with the document provided by Mr.

12 Milosevic. The Prosecution notes that we are not able to deal with this

13 right now because it is only in Serbian, without a translation. One minor

14 observation; there's a fax line across the top indicating the date of

15 August 16th, 1999, whereas it appears that the document is from August 21,

16 2001. There may very well be a simple explanation for that.

17 JUDGE MAY: Mark it for identification and it can be translated.

18 Yes. Judge Kwon suggests rightly; let's put that to the witness and can

19 he help.

20 Mr. Karleusa, could you just have a look at that. If you've got

21 any comment about it, perhaps you could make it.

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Approximately Mr. Milosevic

23 did read some segments from this text, this document of the public

24 prosecutor's office of the municipality of Zajecar. As I said already, I

25 did not see this. I did not hear about this either.

1 The document is dated the 21st of August, 2001.

2 I don't know what else I should say in relation to this.

3 JUDGE MAY: It's the sort of document you've seen before, is it?

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have seen similar documents

5 before. This is the form used to compile Official Notes by public

6 prosecutors offices, the police, et cetera. However, I have not seen this

7 note, and I'm not aware of its contents.

8 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Thank you very much. If we get an exhibit

9 -- just a moment. Let's get an exhibit mark for it.

10 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be marked Defence Exhibit

11 D27, actually marked for identification.

12 JUDGE MAY: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. I hope, Mr. Karleusa, that you have noticed that at the end there

15 is a stamp and a signature, that is to say, of the public prosecutor.

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. I mean it is a regular type of Official Note compiled by the

18 public prosecutor's office as usual. Registered, signed, sealed, and

19 stamped. I hope that you managed to see that much.

20 A. Since this is a fax and since the elements that you are referring

21 to can be seen, it is possible that it may be so.

22 Q. In your statement, you said that General Djordjevic said to you,

23 "What happened, happened." If that is true, then why did you state in

24 your interview that you gave on the 1st of November to the newspaper Vreme

25 that Djordjevic did not say anything to you? I have a quotation here.

1 They ask you about Djordjevic, and your answer reads as follows: "Yes.

2 We tried to get in touch with him. He had been retired. While I still

3 did not know what was going on, I called him," and then you quote

4 yourself, "Rodjo, come, I have a truck and rumour has it that it has

5 something to do with the police. And when he came, I asked him --" again

6 you're quoting yourself -- "Do you know anything about the refrigerator

7 truck? He mumbled something. He didn't really say anything to me." Full

8 stop.

9 Is that right or is that not right?

10 A. That is what was written by the journalist who talked to me.

11 However, the truth is what I said in my statement and in my testimony here

12 before the Court.

13 As for journalists, I may have said things to them, and I may have

14 not said things to them. And whether they correctly transmitted it or

15 not, I don't know. I don't know whether I told them exactly the same

16 things I said before the Court, but sometimes I tell journalists a bit

17 less, sometimes I tell them a bit more.

18 Q. All right. But do explain this to me: What does it mean you -- I

19 mean, I keep saying your Official Note, but I don't mean you personally,

20 it's some kind of working group that signs this. And the Official Note is

21 signed on the 15th of May, the interview with Milan Stevanovic which you

22 submitted here as evidence. What does it mean that Frenki's men and

23 others were there? I mean, what's the point of that statement? Are you

24 trying to link them up with what you have been claiming here?

25 A. I wish to give you a twofold answer. First of all, I did not

1 submit a single document. That document was submitted by the court. And

2 how the court obtained that was for the Court to say, and they did.

3 Q. Excuse me for interrupting, but for all these documents that are

4 here attached to your statement were not attached by you but they were

5 attached by this other side over there; is that right?

6 A. I submitted these reports like all others with an appropriate

7 letter of the Ministry of the Interior and the then administration of the

8 crime police where I was deputy head. We sent all of that to the public

9 prosecutor's office. That is the truth.

10 Can I give you a further explanation and answer? What is recorded

11 in the Official Note is not what we stated. That is what the person we

12 interviewed stated. Whether that is correct or not is something that has

13 to be dealt with through future checks and the checks that were carried

14 out then.

15 Q. All right. When you took statements from various people, you did

16 not really take anything in writing or, rather, did you not take signed

17 statements. Why not?

18 A. Because it was our assessment that we should work this way.

19 Later, if necessary, statements could have been taken subsequently in the

20 form stipulated by Article 151 on the Law on Criminal Procedure. We

21 decided to do that by way of Official Notes because this was police

22 working material.

23 Q. So it is your testimony that you are giving here only on the basis

24 of police working materials.

25 A. Yes. On the basis of what we did, on the basis of what we heard,

1 and on the basis of what we obtained perhaps through the checks that we

2 conducted after interviewing people and maybe these checks corroborated

3 this.

4 Q. Do you know that this is within the province of work of the

5 investigating judge?

6 A. At that time, we did not have any request put forth by the

7 investigating judge, because the investigating judge had no knowledge

8 about this. It was only later in relation to the knowledge that we

9 obtained, when we obtained certain indicia, that is, and when voluminous

10 material was compiled - I'm referring to Official Notes - it was only then

11 that the public prosecutor's office was informed and the investigating

12 judge, et cetera, as I have already said.

13 Q. All right. So what you have been saying is that all these

14 statements that you compiled were not signed, and you sent them to the

15 public prosecutor in Belgrade and then the public prosecutor started

16 dealing with this matter and that's all; is that right?

17 A. I told you, we did not submit statements. These are Official

18 Notes conducted by the police, and they contain what people said during

19 their interviews. As for what we had, we submitted that to the office of

20 the prosecutor.

21 Q. All right. In your statement, on page 2, paragraph 5, you say

22 that only a few days after the article appeared on the 1st of May, you

23 were invited to a meeting and you were informed that a working group would

24 be established with the assignment of establishing relevant facts that had

25 to do with the refrigerator truck. However, already on the 25th of May,

1 that is to say the very same month, after about two weeks, as far as I can

2 tell, I mean after the working group was established, you already gave a

3 press release where you presented the facts that you allegedly had

4 ascertained. Is that correct?

5 A. I was not informed that a working group would be formed. I got

6 instructions through General Sreten Lukic, and the instructions were

7 actually given by the minister to have a working group established, and

8 this was done. And it was not only two weeks that had gone by, much more

9 than that. I would like to point out that the working group straight away

10 started carrying out activities related to this matter, and that was about

11 20 days, it was not two weeks, as you had put it.

12 Q. All right. Let it be three weeks, Mr. Karleusa, but it is not

13 being contested that the working group was established in the beginning of

14 May and that your press release about what you allegedly found out was

15 released on the 25th of May. That is what is here within these dates.

16 So if the working group was established only in May and if you did

17 not have formal statements, if you only made these notes and you submitted

18 all of that to the office of the prosecutor, then why did you hastily make

19 such statements, press releases? Is this the usual practice?

20 A. If you look at the dates, if you look at the dates when the

21 interviews were carried out or, rather, if you look at the dates on the

22 Official Notes, you can see that this was considerably earlier, not when

23 the press release was made. The entire documentation in this regard was

24 not submitted in the month of May to the office of the prosecutor but

25 considerably later, and we then gathered what we call information, and

1 then we carried out checks with regard to what we had learned.

2 What we had, we presented to the public, because there was great

3 public pressure that was brought to bear so that people could find out

4 what had actually happened.

5 Q. Tell me, please, because I imagine it is not being challenged that

6 you gave this statement on the 25th of May. Actually, this is your press

7 release; is that right? The information you provided to the public.

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. And you started working sometime in the beginning of May. So on

10 the 25th of May, you made this statement. Can you answer the following

11 question: Was there a political reason behind this, a reason related to

12 political marketing? Was that behind this press release? Was this media

13 preparation for my hand-over to The Hague, because your press conference

14 was roughly just before that.

15 JUDGE MAY: One thing at a time. The first question is the

16 political marketing, as it's put. Was there a political reason for it or

17 political pressure?

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We did not have any political

19 reasons. We, as policemen and also my working group - and I am proud of

20 its work - we were not engaged in politics. We presented what we learned

21 during the course of our work, and we did present that.

22 Now, why was it necessary then? Already during the month of May,

23 immediately after this was made public or, rather, after the article was

24 carried in the Zajecar crime review, the prosecutor also spoke in public.

25 This is the district public attorney in Negotin.

1 All these writings caused considerable unrest among the public,

2 and we thought that we should show that we are not remaining silent in the

3 face of this. We want to check this out and investigate it. That was my

4 job. And I personally do not see this as politics, and I personally don't

5 want to have anything to do with political matters.

6 Q. All right. You said that you did all of that in May, and there

7 were 30 interviews, as you said yesterday. Information was gathered. A

8 lot of other things were done in May. All right, let's not say 14 days, a

9 bit more than 14 days.

10 Now, tell me, from that moment onwards, as far as I can see

11 according to this information you provided when you made this public

12 statement, to the present day you did not make any headway in your

13 investigation. There are no new facts except for what you published then.

14 A. I would not agree with you. There are certain facts and certain

15 data that are still being processed, and this could be called headway, as

16 you had put it. I cannot speak about that right now. I will speak about

17 it if I am required to do so when we have sufficient arguments for that.

18 Q. All right. So when you gave your statement, you did not have

19 sufficient arguments, so you gave what you could give on the basis of what

20 you did within 14 days. And then 14 months went by and you did not make

21 any statement as to what you had done during those 14 months. I assumed

22 that after I was handed over to The Hague there was no further motive to

23 insist on it any longer; right?

24 A. I have to tell you the following, and that is from the moment when

25 we informed the office of the prosecutor, the prosecutor's office or,

1 rather, the district court in Belgrade took over everything that had to do

2 with press releases and statements made to the public. We acted only on

3 the instructions given to us by the prosecutor's office. We are not

4 authorised to give the results of possible conclusions and investigations

5 that we came to in this regard. If necessary, the office of the

6 prosecutor in Belgrade can give their views on this.

7 Q. All right, let me ask you as a policeman with vast experience - if

8 I remember correctly, you've been working in the police force for 27

9 years, that's what we heard yesterday - isn't it logical to establish

10 first and foremost who these people are, where, how they were killed, and

11 who killed them, and only then to draw conclusions? I should think that

12 every investigation regarding a body that is found has to give answers to

13 these questions first.

14 A. Yes. We have got that problem, because if we are talking about

15 the refrigerator truck, the bodies have not been identified yet. That's

16 the problem. Not only in the case of the refrigerator truck but also

17 other bodies that were found. This does not depend on us. The

18 identification of such a large number of bodies that was referred to here

19 is something that goes very slowly, as is well-known. And we, as the

20 police, expect to obtain the results of this identification process so

21 that we could work in the following direction, that is to say where these

22 people come from, and then we will see what happened, if anything, in that

23 area, who is missing, who worked there, and who the possible perpetrator

24 may be. We are working on the establishment of all relevant facts. First

25 of all, who perpetrated the crime; secondly, where these people come from;

1 and thirdly, that the perpetrators be established individually.

2 Q. I assumed that this is the task of the judiciary organs and the

3 police to answer these questions, who they were, where they were killed,

4 who killed them, in order to make further progress. I'm glad that you

5 agree with this.

6 Now, tell me, please, in the public release, in the press release

7 you quote on page 3, you say that Vlajko Stojiljkovic, the then Minister

8 of the Interior and the head of public security, Vlastimir Djordjevic,

9 proclaimed that the entire case was a state secret, and in this

10 connection, they started an action called Depth 2, Dubina 2. Did any

11 markings in this relation exist anywhere? Did you ever see anything of

12 this nature?

13 A. No. If -- actually, we found out that this was a state secret

14 because it was said then that this should be considered strictly

15 confidential, a state secret, and that no information should be given to

16 the public. We got this information from the then head of the SUP of Bor,

17 from the then district public attorney in Negotin, and other persons who

18 were all invoking that order.

19 There is a document on which there is this kind of marking,

20 "strictly confidential, state secret," and it speaks of payments made

21 subsequently for the physical work of the persons who were carrying the

22 bodies out of the refrigerator truck.

23 Q. Tell me, please, what kind of secret information is this, engaging

24 workers from the company called Higijena or Komunalac or whatever, that is

25 to say, street sweepers or grave diggers? What kind of operation is this?

1 A. According to the statements given to us by persons who took part

2 in this, that's the way it was. At that time, that's the way it was. We

3 could not influence it then.

4 Now, why it was so, I do not know.

5 Q. All right. Let me just look up one thing. On page 4 of your

6 statement, you say, inter alia, that operative information gathered by the

7 working group indicate that in March 1999, a meeting was held in my

8 office, attended by Vlajko Stojiljkovic, Vlastimir Djordjevic, and Rade

9 Markovic, that Djordjevic raised the issue of mopping up the terrain and

10 that I allegedly ordered Vlajko Stojiljkovic to undertake measures to

11 remove any traces that could be potentially indicative of the existence of

12 evidence regarding the committed crimes.

13 Here it is on page 4 of your statement. You say: "On that

14 occasion, General Djordjevic raised the issue of mopping up in the

15 territory of Kosovo and Metohija as a problem. That is, a clean-up of

16 terrain in the area of Kosovo and Metohija. In this connection, Slobodan

17 Milosevic ordered Vlajko Stojiljkovic to take measures for the removal of

18 all vestiges potentially indicative of the existence of crimes..." and so

19 on and so forth.

20 First of all, he speaks about a clean-up operation and then I do

21 not respond to what he says, I instead give different orders, and then

22 comes a senior staff meeting of the Ministry of the Interior where the

23 same problem of clean-up actions is reviewed.

24 Did you attend this meeting, first of all?

25 A. Which meeting?

1 Q. This meeting that you say -- where you say I ordered the removal

2 of all traces of crimes.

3 A. Do you mean the meeting that was said to have been held in your

4 office?

5 Q. Yes.

6 A. No, I did not attend that meeting.

7 Q. Do you make any distinction between a clean-up of the territory

8 and removal of traces of crimes?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Do you assume, then, that the head of state issues such orders in

11 response to a problem of mopping up being raised, that he issues orders to

12 remove traces of crimes? Do you know how many times it has been insisted

13 on precisely the opposite, to apprehend all perpetrators of crimes, to

14 call everyone to task for any infraction or violation? Do you know about

15 such orders and instructions?

16 A. You asked several questions in one. I will try to answer them in

17 sequence. Saying that such a meeting was held in your office in March is

18 not something that we did or invented. That is something that Rade

19 Markovic stated. What we know, we know from Mr. Rade Markovic, and he is

20 the source of this information, of this allegation, if you want.

21 Then you talked about the mopping up or clean-up operation --

22 Q. Let us --

23 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness finish what he's saying.

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have no doubt in my mind what the

25 mopping-up or clean-up operation means. That term was used properly and

1 improperly in the media. But I'm not here to make any conclusions. It's

2 not my job. My job was to report what was said, and that's the way we

3 conveyed it.

4 In my statement given to the investigators of this Tribunal, I

5 only repeated what we stated in our press release, the way we were

6 informed of the matter, and quoting operative information that had been

7 collected - that's all we had at the time - we said all we could say,

8 although we can today indicate the source of this information.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. You say this information came from Rade Markovic. I don't believe

11 he could have stated anything of the kind, nor than anyone else could have

12 said it considering that it is absolutely untrue. But please, would you

13 answer the question I asked you regarding your own statement that I

14 quoted.

15 You say further on in your statement: "I am not certain who the

16 source of this information is, although I was apprised of it at a MUP

17 meeting. It was my understanding that the information most likely came

18 from one of the participants of the meeting held in Milosevic's office."

19 Then you go on to say further below: "We also talked with Obrad

20 Stojanovic but he basically denied any involvement in these events. We

21 also spoke to General Dragan Ilic, Stojan Misic, and Petar Zekovic but all

22 denied any involvement. We in fact spoke to many of the administration

23 chiefs, the assistant minister, and the chef de cabinet but they all

24 denied any knowledge. None of them offered the working group any

25 information relating to the mopping-up operation in Kosovo or any

1 knowledge of the refrigerator lorry case."

2 In this statement, thus, you say that you have no idea who the

3 source of information is, it was just conveyed to you at the time, and

4 here you are saying that your source is Markovic.

5 JUDGE MAY: You must put a question to the witness so he can deal

6 with it fairly.

7 Mr. Karleusa, have you heard what's been read out?

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I've heard it, but I would like

9 to hear a specific question.

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. So in your statement, you said that you did not know where the

12 information originated, this piece of information which you now claim you

13 received from Rade Markovic.

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Did you speak to Rade Markovic?

16 A. No.

17 Q. Did the working group speak to him?

18 A. No.

19 Q. Then on the basis of what did you as the working group conclude

20 that Rade Markovic had told you about a meeting held in my office and

21 orders issued not to conduct a mopping-up operation but to remove traces

22 of crimes? How did you or the working group come to such a conclusion?

23 A. At a meeting which --

24 Q. What?

25 A. At a meeting which I mentioned both in my statement and in my

1 testimony, I saw with my own eyes a signed statement made by Mr. Rade

2 Markovic which states specifically what I quoted here. At a time when two

3 -- I gave my statement to the investigator of the OTP in Belgrade. I did

4 not specify the source. I specified the source here. That, too, is

5 correct.

6 Q. Fine. Then how did you establish, considering that the working

7 group had not spoken to Markovic, that he had given that statement?

8 A. I saw a signed statement by Mr. Rade Markovic with my own eyes,

9 and I had the opportunity to read it. It was an official statement,

10 properly recorded by a recording secretary, bearing a date and signature,

11 and so on and so forth.

12 Q. So you saw this statement. You say: "I have a record of a trial

13 proceedings dated 28th of May, 2002, drafted in the District Court of

14 Belgrade. It concerns Rade Markovic."

15 It explains, for instance, that a witness, Goran Petkovic, an

16 official of the state security office, he says a meeting was held on the

17 31st of May and was held at the headquarters of the state security sector

18 in Banjica, Belgrade.

19 Then it says Markovic was brought to the meeting by Mijatovic and

20 Galic, then chief of the state security sector. Further on, the witness

21 explains that no record was made nor was an Official Note drafted of that

22 interview because the accused Markovic did not state anything of

23 importance which would require such an action, that is, the drafting of an

24 Official Note.

25 Q. Furthermore, in response to the question by accused Markovic to

1 the witness whether he remembers what he was told in the corridor, the

2 witness said it was an irony of fate that he and Mijatovic were in the

3 process of attempting to get the accused Markovic out of gaol. It is

4 noted the accused Markovic says he can swear on his child's life about all

5 he says about the contents of that conversation.

6 This is not a note. This is a record of a child.

7 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, we must come to the point. What is the

8 point of what you're reading out?

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The point is, Mr. May, that

10 witnesses at trial claim that there was no record of that interview when

11 Markovic was taken out of gaol without any court order, illegally, to make

12 statements. No record or Official Note was made. And it was subsequent

13 orchestration and engineering and fabrication of something that Markovic

14 allegedly said, a man who is in the dungeons of the central prison for

15 more than a year now.

16 JUDGE MAY: Let us try and understand what's being put. Are you

17 saying there could have been no statement which the witness could have

18 seen because Markovic was in prison at the time and there's no record of

19 him being removed? Is that the point?

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm only saying that if this witness

21 ever saw something, it must be a fabrication. It can't be the truth.

22 I'll tell you what the Minister of Interior Affairs says.

23 JUDGE MAY: No. You let the witness deal with these matters.

24 Mr. Karleusa, you've heard what's being suggested. Can you

25 comment on that?

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The truth is that I have seen a

2 statement by Mr. Rade Markovic bearing his signature - I suppose it was

3 his signature - indicating all his personal details, and the statement was

4 in the proper, due format, typical of such a statement.

5 It is true that in my statement given to the investigators of the

6 OTP and my testimony before this Court is true. I would not like to make

7 any comments upon your allegations. What I saw at the time as a

8 representative of the working group was the basis for my information.

9 That's the way we gathered information. We didn't have to go there

10 ourselves.

11 I told you how we came by this piece of information. We got it

12 that way, and that is the truth. We received it in May 2001, before we

13 went public with it. That is the truth.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. Dusan Mihajlovic, according to this record, says the witness

16 agreed to conduct an interview with Markovic, which was published on the

17 31st of May, 2001, and this interview was conducted on the premises of the

18 State Security Service in Banjica. It was attended by both Mijatovic and

19 Petrovic, and he says: "I don't know whether a record was made of this

20 interview or an Official Note, because there was no information revealed.

21 No promises were made to Markovic in the form of possible release or

22 financial assistance. Therefore, my point is, he says no record was made.

23 And he says it was precisely Mijatovic who told him that the subject of

24 the conversation was Slobodan Milosevic.

25 Do you know, according to what the parliamentary investigative

1 committees published, what pressure was brought to bear on Radovic -- on

2 Rade Markovic to accuse me of something in the circumstances of extreme

3 duress which lasted for over a year, and torture?

4 A. That's what I learnt from the media.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I hope, Mr. May, that you will

6 accept this record of trial proceedings before the District Court in

7 Belgrade.

8 JUDGE MAY: We will deal with it in the same way. Collect it, the

9 Prosecution can see it, it will be marked for identification.

10 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karleusa, do you think you know where the alleged

11 -- the statement of Markovic is now?

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, I don't know where this

13 statement by Mr. Markovic is now.

14 JUDGE KWON: Who showed you the statement at that time?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I saw that statement personally at a

16 senior MUP staff meeting at which I was presenting my progress report in

17 the refrigerator lorry case. That statement was shown to me in the

18 context of the reason for my presence at that meeting. I don't have it in

19 my possession, nor does the working group have it.

20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. All right. Will you please answer this question: Since I quoted

22 to you part of your own statement underlying this testimony where you say

23 you ignore the source of this information concerning the meeting in my

24 office and then you say that you had spoken to all the participants,

25 Stojiljkovic, Djordjevic, Obrad Stojanovic, Dragan Minic, Stojan Misic --

1 JUDGE MAY: You've read all that out. There's no need to read it

2 again. If you have a question, ask it.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. None of these people gave you a single piece of information that

5 would corroborate what you said in your statement, in your press release.

6 You didn't get a single piece of information corroborating the claims made

7 in your communique. Why, then, did you present this lie?

8 A. We presented that in order to give the public our findings. We

9 did not say that that was the truth. We presented what we had learned

10 until then. And that operative activity in terms of the establishment of

11 all facts was still under way. That's the truth.

12 Q. All right. But you said that there is some kind of information

13 with regard to some alleged meeting held in my office sometime around the

14 25th of May; is that right?

15 A. We found out about that. I personally -- I personally attended

16 that meeting, and this was before the 25th of May.

17 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Shin, please.

18 MR. SHIN: Your Honour, this document, this last document as well

19 is only in Serbian so the Prosecution will not be able to deal with it at

20 this time.

21 JUDGE MAY: It can be marked for identification.

22 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this will be marked for

23 identification as D28.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. So you found out, on the basis of the statement made by Rade

1 Markovic, as you said now before the 25th of May, and he was talked to, as

2 it can be seen here, after that date. How could you find out about that

3 before he was actually talked to?

4 A. I am telling you and I am stating before this Court what I saw.

5 What I'm saying is the full truth. I saw the statement made by Mr. Rade

6 Markovic, a regular type of statement. The way a statement should be.

7 I don't know what you have been saying, that there is a statement

8 dated later. Perhaps he was interviewed several times with regard to this

9 same subject.

10 Q. All right. Does it seem to you that this was also within the

11 preparations for taking me to The Hague? And you know that that was

12 illegal, unconstitutional, and criminal.

13 JUDGE MAY: It's not for the witness to comment on that.

14 Mr. Karleusa -- this will be the final question on this topic, Mr.

15 Milosevic. It's suggested that the comment or the comments about Mr.

16 Markovic and the report of the meeting was part of the preparation to send

17 Mr. Milosevic here. Is there any truth in that or not?

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I am not involved in any such thing

19 and I cannot say anything about this. That is not my opinion, though.

20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. You say in your statement, on page 5, that the statement contains

22 information obtained from Bosko Radojkovic, and also that he got the

23 impression that all the corpses had sustained injuries by blunt objects,

24 et cetera. So my question is: Why are you relying on Radojkovic's

25 statement only in your communique when he is not an expert in how injuries

1 are sustained?

2 A. Mr. Bosko Radojkovic is an exceptionally experienced technician.

3 As far as I know, since I took part in the interview on the basis of which

4 an Official Note was made with Mr. Bosko Radojkovic, I know and I came to

5 the conclusion that he has vast experience and that what he said is based

6 on considerable arguments. My impression was that his statement about

7 this was truthful.

8 I asked him how he came to this conclusion, and he said that in

9 his practice, he had seen hundreds of consequences of death and

10 investigated hundreds of such cases. And since he is in that area, he has

11 dealt with many cases of bodies that were taken out of the water, of

12 people who had drowned. So that is not my statement, that is what he

13 stated.

14 Q. Oh, does that mean that these people had drowned?

15 A. No. I said that he had experience with people who had drowned and

16 with corpses. He gave his preliminary findings at police level. It is

17 quite clear that, subsequently, it was for forensic experts to establish

18 the cause of death in the case of the bodies found.

19 Q. Could you please explain to me what the criteria were that you

20 used in terms of establishing which information you will take as valid and

21 which information you will not consider as valid?

22 For example, yesterday you said that somebody had stated that

23 these bodies had KLA uniforms on them, and afterwards, you said that these

24 bodies did not have KLA uniforms on them. How did you opt for one of the

25 two, whether they did wear KLA uniforms or not?

1 Or another example: You say that Radojkovic --

2 JUDGE MAY: Let him deal with one at a time. No. No. Let him

3 deal -- you've put the example to him, let him deal with it.

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What is your question?

5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. You use statements; right? Statements are the only basis for your

7 reports. You don't have material facts. You have statements.

8 So you have a statement that they wore KLA uniforms, and then you

9 have a statement that they were not wearing KLA uniforms, and then you opt

10 for the statement that they did not wear KLA uniforms.

11 So according to what criterion do you decide which statement you

12 are going to accept as relevant, to use your words? I mean, I'm not

13 insisting they were wearing KLA uniforms. I'm not insisting they were

14 from Kosovo at all. I'm not even insisting on that particular year. I'm

15 not insisting on anything. I'm simply asking you what your criteria are.

16 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness answer.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] According to the same criteria on

18 the basis of which we came to the knowledge that some of the corpses had

19 KLA uniforms, according to the same criterion, we had to rectify this,

20 that bodies with KLA uniforms had not been found, because Mr. Radojkovic

21 was the direct source of that information. So this was a mistake. Either

22 he said it that way and that was recorded, but at any rate, he revised it

23 afterwards. In this connection, we could not invent anything nor did we

24 have any reason to invent anything.

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

1 Q. I'm not asking you whether you invented anything. I'm just asking

2 you according to which criterion do you accept some information and

3 respect others and put it all together?

4 That was just one example but here's another example: Radojkovic,

5 in his statement that you took down, said that in his assessment, these

6 people had been killed two days before that. And for example, according

7 to the statement that you took from Nenad Popovic, a crime operations

8 officer of MUP Kladovo, on the last page of that statement, it says that

9 the bodies were in a state of decay.

10 Now, could you explain that? Why is it important that your

11 conclusions should be based on one statement and not on the other one?

12 Because obviously both saw these corpses. That is what both of them

13 claim.

14 A. In this case, it is not a question of findings, it is a question

15 of knowledge.

16 Mr. Bosko Radojkovic presented convincingly the position that

17 these were bodies that were not in a state of visible decay. What he said

18 was recorded in the Official Note and that is how we conveyed that. We

19 thought that other persons had not been in such contact nor could they

20 speak with the kind of knowledge that Mr. Radojkovic had.

21 Q. All right. But this Nenad Popovic, this crime technician, he also

22 saw that, or, rather, he is a crime operations officer. So why do you

23 give advantage to one and not the other? Both are approximately qualified

24 to the same extent to infer such things, or perhaps equally unqualified to

25 infer such things because neither of them are forensic experts.

1 A. I pointed out that Bosko Radojkovic is a crime technician, a

2 professional crime technician with vast experience.

3 This other gentleman, the operations officer, most probably did

4 not have that kind of experience but he said what he said, and Bosko

5 Radojkovic said what he said, and all of this is contained in their

6 statements. As far as I know, all of this is presented here before this

7 Court in the annexures.

8 Q. All right. In your statement on the 25th of May, the press

9 release, you say that there were over 50 bodies, and then you say that

10 Radojkovic said that there were 86 bodies, and the one who opened the

11 refrigerator truck said that there were 30. Who established how many

12 corpses there were there? How did you establish that? Again, is it only

13 Radojkovic's assertion that is taken into account or the assertions of all

14 others?

15 A. The knowledge that we have that there was 50 or that there was 30

16 is actually a question of free estimates of the persons who were there.

17 What it looked like, to put it that way.

18 As for the definite count, that was carried out when the bodies

19 were being placed in the truck. In the first one, there were 30; in the

20 other one, there were 58.

21 In addition to Bosko Radojkovic, this was counted by somebody

22 else.

23 I remember now that, in his statement, Bosko Radojkovic said

24 unequivocally that there were 58. And everything else was the way he had

25 put it in his statement.

1 Q. All right. Let us try to keep this time as short as possible.

2 You did not attend the exhumation of the corpses; is that right?

3 A. I did attend the exhumation of the corpses.

4 Q. All right. It was my understanding that the police can only

5 provide security on the exhumation sites, that they did not have the right

6 to attend exhumations because this is expert work carried out by persons

7 in charge of that. Isn't that the way it is, according to regulations?

8 A. No.

9 Q. All right. Do you know what the results of the analysis were

10 after the exhumation of the corpses that were found in Batajnica?

11 A. I did not read the report of the expert team that carried out the

12 exhumation. This report was submitted to the district public attorney who

13 was in charge of the proceedings related to the exhumations.

14 Q. Is it true that until the present day the cause of death was not

15 established?

16 A. Possibly. I did not read the report. The bodies were not

17 identified. And I pointed out then that that was a major problem.

18 Preliminary identifications were carried out, incomplete, and in our

19 opinion, this is only an indication that perhaps most probably these are

20 persons whose identification documents we did find on the actual site, but

21 the bodies were not identified the way they have to be identified in order

22 to treat this seriously and with certainty.

23 Q. Is it correct that the identity of these corpses has not been

24 established until the present day, or the place of death or where the

25 bodies originate from?

1 A. I do have some knowledge in this regard, but I also have

2 information that some have been fully identified by now. I don't know

3 exactly.

4 Q. All right. But everything that you mentioned in connection with

5 Batajnica again has nothing to do with these corpses from the refrigerator

6 body, because you did not -- you did not find them yet and they were not

7 exhumed.

8 A. As far as I know, according to the description provided by

9 Mr. Radojkovic in terms of the number, characteristics, structure, et

10 cetera, it seems to me that we have not found these bodies, or, rather,

11 that they had not been found during the exhumations that were carried out.

12 Please, may I just correct one more thing? I am relying on the

13 exhumation called Batajnica 1. I don't know whether during the course of

14 the exhumation of the mass grave BA2, Batajnica 2, bodies were found in

15 this connection, because there is a large number of exhumed bodies there.

16 Q. As you say in your statement, on page 9, in connection with what

17 you are saying about Batajnica, you had the impression that these bodies

18 originate from Kosovo. Based on what did you have this impression?

19 A. I wouldn't put it that way, that it was my impression. I was just

20 trying to conclude based on what had been found on the site and presented

21 officially, such as ID cards and other documents, that much has been

22 established and documented; namely, these documents were issued in the

23 name of ethnic Albanians, and they were mainly issued in a locality called

24 Suva Reka in Kosovo.

25 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, the time has come for the adjournment.

1 Mr. Karleusa, we're going to adjourn now for 20 minutes. Would

2 you be back, please, at the end of that.

3 --- Recess taken at 10.30 a.m.

4 --- On resuming at 10.55 a.m.

5 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. So, Mr. Karleusa, let us just clear up this matter. You've just

8 mentioned ID cards from Suva Reka. But you are saying that, based on

9 that, you think the bodies are from Kosovo. How can you claim that the

10 bodies from the refrigerator lorry were from Kosovo when they haven't been

11 even found yet?

12 A. I am not claiming either. We are not claiming that the bodies

13 from the refrigerator lorry are from Kosovo, but there are statements and

14 information which indicate that it is so.

15 And as for the ID cards that have been found, we, the police, know

16 that if a certain document is found next to a body, it doesn't mean it

17 belongs with the body. That is why I underlined the importance of full

18 identification of the bodies so that we can establish where they come

19 from, which would enable further proper investigation in the right

20 direction.

21 Q. But is this claim of yours quite clear, that the bodies from the

22 refrigerator lorry haven't been found yet?

23 A. As far as I know, the elements which could be acceptable as proof

24 have not been found. I have stressed that I am not familiar with the

25 forensic report on Batajnica 2 where about 270 bodies were exhumed. It is

1 possible that some of these bodies were related to our case but I don't

2 know for sure.

3 Q. So you don't know whether the bodies relating to your case have

4 been found.

5 A. No.

6 Q. All right. Since you say that an ID card can indicate that the

7 bodies are from Kosovo, what do you think of this paper enumerating

8 various objects and documents? One of them is the membership card of a

9 deputy from -- to the Congress of the Socialist Party of Serbia. What do

10 you think of that as an indication?

11 A. I can't say. I don't know about the existence of such a document.

12 Q. Well, here it is on the list of objects recovered in Batajnica.

13 You have said a moment ago that you attended the exhumations. I

14 have a record here of the district court in Belgrade on the exhumations

15 and post-mortems conducted on the premises of police headquarters, dated

16 the 19th of July, and the report indicates the names of the teams of

17 experts and the other persons present. Your name is nowhere here.

18 Don't you think that if you attended, your name should be on the

19 list of those who attended?

20 A. I was not a member of the expert team nor was I officially

21 supposed to attend as a policeman. I was present from time to time for a

22 while, which is quite enough to gain an impression of what it is all

23 about. And I was continuously informed of the progress made on the site

24 relating to the exhumations, considering that one of the members of the

25 forensic team was our own crime technician of our crime investigations

1 technical centre who photographed and otherwise documented everything that

2 he was required to by the leader of the expert team.

3 Q. Since you say on page 9 that the data collected through the work

4 of the working group indicate that the bodies from the refrigerator lorry

5 have not been exhumed to date, how did you establish that?

6 A. I told you, we haven't established it. We just have no

7 confirmation that they were exhumed.

8 Q. You say on page 9 that 70 something bodies were exhumed in Petrovo

9 Selo, that they were examined and that the impression was they originate

10 from Kosovo. How could you have that impression if you did not attend the

11 exhumation?

12 A. Based on the expert team's report and the fact that a number of ID

13 cards were also found on that site in addition to other documents issued

14 in the names of ethnic Albanians. And second, according to witness

15 statements, that is, a statement of one particular witness who said that

16 he brought to that site a truck containing human bodies.

17 Q. What?

18 A. Human bodies.

19 Q. Is it true that the cause of death has not been established to

20 date?

21 A. I haven't read in detail the post-mortem reports for these bodies,

22 and I cannot say anything specific about that. But I do know that with

23 the exception of three bodies, the rest have not been identified, and the

24 identification process for these bodies is under way using DNA analysis.

25 Q. About those three which you say were identified, where do they

1 come from?

2 A. Those are three persons, Bytyqi brothers.

3 Q. So the identities of the others have not been established?

4 A. No, not as far as I know. I know only about those three persons,

5 and their identification was contributed to by foreign forensic teams.

6 Q. You say in your statement that on Bajna Basta site another

7 exhumation took place, and again you state your own assumptions, which I

8 don't see any grounds for, to the effect that they may originate from

9 Kosovo. Is that correct?

10 A. Yes. It is true that on the bank of Perucac Lake we identified --

11 Q. That is not disputed. How do you claim they are from Kosovo if

12 you have no information to corroborate it?

13 A. I don't claim anything. I'm conveying certain insights and

14 indicia regarding that, and that will be established definitively in the

15 future when the bodies are identified.

16 Q. So it is true that to date these bodies have not been identified

17 or their origins or cause of death or anything else primarily; how they

18 met their death, who killed them and so on and so forth.

19 A. As far as I know, the bodies have not been identified to date.

20 Q. And you are not involved in any investigation regarding mass

21 graves or war crimes, are you?

22 A. I don't understand your question.

23 Q. I'm saying you're not involved in any investigations concerning

24 war crimes or mass graves. You say that on page 8.

25 A. When the administration for combatting organised crime established

1 and manned a section for the investigation of war crimes and tracing of

2 missing persons, my job in the working group was terminated and was taken

3 over by an expert team within the section I mentioned. It is composed of

4 police officers and experts.

5 Q. But is it true that in 1999, as you say, when the on-site

6 investigation was conducted, in addition to police officers, there were

7 also representatives of judicial bodies, deputy public prosecutor, and so

8 on?

9 A. That's correct.

10 Q. Is it true that both the judges and the public prosecutor

11 officials said at the time that it was not in their jurisdiction, it was

12 in the jurisdiction of Negotin and Kladovo public prosecutors' offices?

13 A. That's correct.

14 Q. You say also that General Djordjevic was informed of that by the

15 chief of SUP. He was told that post-mortems or burials could not take

16 place on the territory of Kladovo. Is that report correct?

17 A. That's how we came by that knowledge, and that is written in the

18 statements.

19 Q. Is it true that Djordjevic then ordered to secure the place and

20 extract the refrigerator lorry?

21 A. In the words of the then chief of police, that's how it was.

22 Q. Is it true that Djordjevic then also ordered the extraction of

23 bodies and preparations for transport where post-mortems and burials would

24 have to take place?

25 A. That's what the chief of SUP at the time said.

1 Q. In your communique, you mention it was over 50 bodies. It was

2 assumed that they were from Kosovo and Metohija. My question now is:

3 From the Official Note made by your working group concerning the interview

4 with the diver who said that there were about 30 bodies in the

5 refrigerator lorry, how come you said it was over 50 when the man who

6 opened the truck said it was 30?

7 A. That's what he said in his statement during the interview. It was

8 his rough estimate. We later found out, however, that there were many

9 more bodies. And the figure of 50 was voiced and generally accepted by

10 many, including Mr. Bosko Radojkovic at that time, until the moment he was

11 able to make a final body count.

12 Q. Why doesn't your press release contain any information which

13 precedes from your interview with the chief of SUP, as you say on page 2,

14 of your interview with him, that is, that General Djordjevic said that

15 post-mortems should be conducted of the bodies?

16 A. That's not what it says in our Official Notes, as far as I

17 remember. It says the order was to extract or pull out the refrigerator

18 lorry, to remove the bodies, and that transport would be organised, and

19 that burial and post-mortems would be conducted in Belgrade, or to be more

20 precise, in a different location.

21 Q. All right. You have, then, a variety of statements. Zivadin

22 Djordjevic says that the lettering on the truck said "Export/import."

23 Other witnesses do not remember any lettering at all.

24 Sperlic Vukasin, who says about it on page 2, says the lettering

25 said "Pec" or "Prizren."

1 How did the working group opt for one version in favour of another

2 when there are many of them?

3 A. In the statement of Mr. Radojkovic, a technician of the internal

4 affairs office of Kladovo, you can see exactly what he said. Mr.

5 Radojkovic made available to us during the interview in which I personally

6 participated ten shots from the negative of the film which was used to

7 film the refrigerator truck. All of them were published. And these

8 photographs, as far as I know, have been filed with the Court, with the

9 Tribunal, as evidence. And all these photographs, together with other

10 documents, were submitted by us to the competent public prosecutor's

11 office in Belgrade.

12 From what you can see on those photographs, the lettering is

13 distinctly visible, "Exporting Slaughterhouse, Prizren," some fax and

14 telephone numbers. Checks have been run in this regard.

15 Q. Mr. Karleusa, tell me now, you have just a moment ago expressed a

16 number of compliments addressed to this crime investigations technician

17 who is a highly qualified professional, a hard-working person, et cetera,

18 things that I do not intend to dispute at all.

19 Since I have received this photographs annexed to your statement,

20 ten of them to be precise, and one after the other they show the trailer

21 protruding from the water, the truck being pulled out. Photograph 4 shows

22 chains and padlocks on the door of the trailer. On photograph 5 you see

23 the refrigerator lorry from the profile. Photograph 6, a close-up of the

24 cab --

25 JUDGE MAY: I'm going to interrupt you for a moment. It may be

1 better to put these photographs to Mr. Radojkovic when he comes. He

2 refers to them. It may be more sensible to put them to him, whatever the

3 point is.

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] My question to Mr. Karleusa, who led

5 the investigation as head of the working group, is as follows:

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. How come that an experienced crime investigation technician who

8 made these photographs, put them in a sealed envelope and submitted it to

9 the police concerning the refrigerator lorry containing bodies has not a

10 single photograph among them which shows a body? All we see is a

11 refrigerator lorry. But the point is in the bodies, not the lorry.

12 Is it possible that the procedure for gathering evidence about

13 something that possibly happened there could be documented by photographs

14 of a cab, a trailer, tyres, et cetera, without a single body of a corpse?

15 How do you explain that?

16 A. That was precisely my question to Mr. Radojkovic when I talked to

17 him. He explained that he had started his on-site investigation applying

18 regular procedure. He made the photographs he made, and then he was

19 suddenly ordered to stop doing what he was doing, that there would be no

20 on-site investigation, and that's where it was all terminated. I think

21 Mr. Radojkovic's is in better place to explain this in detail.

22 Q. Did you establish when the people who were exhumed had been

23 killed, and do you know, according to the first forensic estimates, that

24 certain bodies date back to a long time ago, even before the war?

25 A. We - that is the working group - have not established that. That

1 may have been established, as far as I know, by members of the expert

2 team.

3 From what I know from speaking to them at the time, the bodies do

4 not date back to a long time ago. They date back to a recent time. There

5 is no great difference between their times of death.

6 Q. All right, Mr. Karleusa. In addition to a great number of

7 discrepancies and clarities, ambiguities, you took only a few days,

8 allegedly, to establish the relevant facts and hold a press conference,

9 and created an impression that the bodies concerned were from Kosovo. So

10 I'm asking you now, was it a politically motivated campaign which should

11 have served as a preparation, as paving the way for my illegal extradition

12 to The Hague?

13 A. We gave a press release when we gave it, and neither I nor anyone

14 else from my working group was motivated by political agendas that you

15 mention.

16 Q. Tell me, please, since you yesterday talked about the composition

17 of the working group and from that composition, without naming any names,

18 we can see that there were two lieutenant colonels and one major in that

19 working group; is that correct?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Is it correct? I didn't hear you.

22 A. It is.

23 Q. So two lieutenant colonels and one major. Does it seem logical to

24 you, that you as a captain, the lowest ranking member of that working

25 group, be the leader of that group, superior to the lieutenant colonels

1 and the major?

2 A. I was leader of that working group not because I was captain by

3 rank but because I was deputy head of the criminal investigations police

4 force at the time, and I don't see anything irregular or illogical about

5 the fact that I was the leader of the working group.

6 Q. Does it have to do anything with the fact that professionally and

7 otherwise, in business terms, you were related to the then Minister Dusan

8 Mihajlovic, bypassing regular official links?

9 A. That is not correct.

10 Q. All right. Tell me then, Mr. Karleusa, is it true that the

11 enterprise whose co-owner is your wife is engaged in supplying private

12 companies owned by Dusan Mihajlovic, your minister? Supplying security

13 guards.

14 A. That's not correct.

15 Q. What is not true, that your wife does not co-own this enterprise,

16 this company --

17 JUDGE MAY: That's enough. It has nothing to do with this trial.

18 You've heard what this witness has said.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please. Here is an exhibit. The

20 registration with the business relations court in Belgrade of an

21 enterprise which names among its activities physical and technical

22 security services. Fito Centar is his name. Svetlana, father's name Jan,

23 Karleusa. That's your wife, isn't she?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Address Pariske Komune 61. Here we read: "Unlimited

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank pages inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French

13 and English transcripts. Pages 8450 to 8458.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 authorisations," and so on and so forth. Svetlana Karleusa, acting

2 director without limitation of authority, and so on.

3 JUDGE MAY: The witness has answered. He said it has nothing to

4 do with his evidence or the fact that he was made the leader of the group.

5 Now, that's his answer. The fact that his wife may have had a

6 relationship with somebody else is irrelevant.

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, it is very relevant what

8 kind of relationship he has with the current member of the government and

9 his own minister, apart from the fact that he is employed with the MUP,

10 and all these parallel links are very relevant because it is precisely

11 that government which is extremely involved in what I call

12 self-humiliation and self-degradation.

13 JUDGE MAY: You know that political speeches are not allowed here.

14 Just one moment.

15 [Trial Chamber confers]

16 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Karleusa, what is suggested is this, and perhaps

17 we could deal with it in various forms: First of all, does your wife have

18 this company? Is she a director of this company?

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] She is co-owner and director of that

20 company.

21 JUDGE MAY: And the Minister of the Interior, what is his

22 involvement with it? So we can understand the position.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That company that is managed by my

24 wife does not provide security for any companies or premises that have

25 anything to do with Mr. Dusan Mihajlovic.

1 JUDGE MAY: Is there any business relationship between them at

2 all?

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As far as I know, no. No.

4 JUDGE MAY: It may be suggested that your evidence in this case is

5 affected in some way by some sort of relationship, business relationship

6 of some sort. Is there any truth in that?

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. There is no truth in that.

8 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic. You can ask two more questions

9 and then your time is up.

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, Mr. May. That is

11 customary practice.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Could you now answer me a question that has to do with the end of

14 your statement. I'm going to read the last paragraph to you: "I have

15 been advised that my statement may be sought by other law enforcement

16 agencies and/or judicial authorities for the purpose of prosecution."

17 Full stop. And then another sentence: "I hereby do not," underlined,

18 "do not agree to the release of any part of my statement to such

19 authorities at the discretion of the International Criminal Tribunal for

20 the Former Yugoslavia." And you speak of their discretion.

21 Why do you not give this agreement, Mr. Karleusa? Is it because

22 the sole purpose of this is for testifying in this trial, this illegal

23 trial against me, or is there some other reason for that?

24 A. At the moment when I gave this statement, I used my own words, and

25 they are, for the most part, contained in that statement.

1 At the end of that statement, as far as I can see, it says that I

2 am not giving the kind of agreement that you have just referred to, as it

3 has been put here. However, I did not understand that or have I ever

4 heard of any such situation existing.

5 This did not pertain to Yugoslav judicial authorities, because

6 Yugoslav judicial authorities, starting from the court of law and the

7 prosecutor's office, can obtain this at any point in time, because my

8 statement is in the hands of the National Committee of the Federal

9 Republic of Yugoslavia for Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, then also

10 the team that works at the level of the Ministry of the Interior. And I

11 thought at that time that that was supposed to mean that it is not

12 supposed to be made public. I did not know how all of this would evolve,

13 but it is true that that's what I said so let me explain now what I meant

14 by it. That's the way it is.

15 Q. All right. Tell me, Mr. Karleusa, in view of such an alleged

16 operation of removing corpses that is being ascribed to the very top

17 echelons of the state, does it seem to you that such a decision can be

18 made by any sensible person?

19 JUDGE MAY: Now, that's a comment.

20 Mr. Karleusa, you needn't deal with that.

21 That's something, Mr. Milosevic, that we will have to consider.

22 You can make that point to us in due course.

23 Now, Mr. Kay.

24 MR. KAY: Thank you, Your Honours. Dealing with paragraph 8 of

25 the summary, last sentence in paragraph 8.

1 Questioned by Mr. Kay:

2 Q. Mr. Karleusa, you gave evidence today that you saw a statement by

3 Rade Markovic in which information was contained that Mr. Milosevic had

4 ordered the removal of crimes from the Kosovo area. Do you remember that?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. I'm looking at a statement made by you this year, which was an

7 interview on the 27th of May, 2002, and the 3rd of June, 2002, and in that

8 statement you recite the same fact about Mr. Milosevic's order, but you

9 say in the statement: "I am not certain of the source of this

10 information, although I was advised of this at a MUP meeting. It was my

11 understanding that the information most likely came from one of the

12 participants of the Milosevic meeting."

13 Can you explain the contradiction between your statement that I've

14 just read out and the evidence you gave today?

15 A. At the moment when I gave my statement to Mr. John Zdrilic,

16 investigator, I did not wish to state the source, knowing that the

17 document bore the marking "strictly confidential." At that moment, I

18 thought I was not allowed to disclose the source. Later, I saw that I

19 could state that and that that is not contestable, so I did that here.

20 MR. KAY: No further questions.

21 Re-examined by Mr. Shin:

22 Q. Mr. Karleusa, do you recall approximately when the accused arrived

23 at The Hague Tribunal?

24 A. On St. Vitus's Day.

25 Q. And what year was that?

1 A. 2001.

2 Q. Did the investigations that were carried out regarding the

3 refrigerator truck by the working group, did they continue after that

4 date?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Are they continuing currently, as far as you know?

7 A. Yes, they are continuing upon instructions of the prosecutor's

8 office in charge.

9 Q. Who or what organ is carrying out those investigations apart from

10 the prosecutor's office which you've just mentioned?

11 A. According to the request of the prosecutor in charge, regardless

12 of whether it is a case of Belgrade, Negotin, or Uzice, the collection of

13 information that is required is being carried out by a department for

14 combatting organised crime, and it is within the ministry, as I've already

15 mentioned. It is called the Department for the Investigation of War

16 Crimes and Searching for Missing Persons.

17 Q. Are you still in -- are you still in charge of these

18 investigations? Are you personally still in charge?

19 A. I am not in charge personally, but since I am deputy head of the

20 administration within which this department is, I am indirectly involved.

21 But I am not directly engaged in carrying out any investigation nor am I

22 regularly informed about this.

23 Q. Is the working group still in existence?

24 A. The working group no longer exists in that form and with that

25 membership as was the case then. All of the tasks carried out by that

1 working group have now been incorporated into the department I've just

2 referred to.

3 Q. You had mentioned in your direct testimony that exhumations are

4 continuing this summer, even now, at least with respect to one site in

5 Batajnica. Is that true?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Do you know -- are you aware of other exhumations that will be

8 carried out in the future? Just if you know. I'm sorry, I -- just to

9 explain, exhumations in connection with the three sites you mentioned;

10 Batajnica, Petrovo Selo, and Perucac Lake.

11 A. As far as I know and as far as the working group knew, it is

12 possible that other exhumations will take place in the Batajnica locality.

13 That is what we stated. And the exhumations will probably go on until

14 this locality and this terrain are fully searched.

15 Q. Thank you. Mr. Karleusa, with regards to the March 1999 meeting,

16 I'd like to show you a document.

17 MR. SHIN: Usher, if you could, please.

18 Q. Please look at the document carefully, and I will ask you some

19 questions after that.

20 MR. SHIN: Your Honours, would it be possible to have this

21 document marked for identification? The Prosecution intends to put this

22 document in as evidence through a later witness and this is a document

23 that is in fact the subject of disclosure today.

24 JUDGE MAY: What is the document first? Tell us what it is.

25 MR. SHIN: The document is a statement that Radomir Markovic

1 provided to -- to the police in Serbia.

2 JUDGE MAY: Perhaps if the witness can identify it first.

3 MR. SHIN: If I could just ask him some questions then.

4 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

5 MR. SHIN:

6 Q. Mr. Karleusa, do you recall having seen that document before?

7 A. No. I have not seen this document in this form before. What I

8 did see is a similar statement but in different form at the meeting that I

9 referred to.

10 Q. Mr. Karleusa, what is the date of this document that you see

11 before you?

12 A. The date is the 2nd of June, 2001 or 2002. I can't see exactly.

13 2002. 2001. It says in the text the 2nd of June, 2001, whereas what is

14 handwritten is a bit illegible.

15 Q. Mr. Karleusa, could you explain very briefly what this document

16 is.

17 MR. KAY: Your Honours, I must rise here. It's not his document,

18 he doesn't recognise the document, and I'm not sure what the purpose of

19 this exercise is.

20 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Shin, I don't think you can really take this any

21 further. You can, of course, deal with it with another witness, if you

22 wish.

23 MR. SHIN: What I would seek to ask the witness is whether from

24 what he has seen here, whether it's consistent with the document that he

25 has testified that he saw prior to his communique in May of -- I believe

1 that was 2001.

2 JUDGE MAY: But he said it's similar. Perhaps you could ask this:

3 Were the contents of the document similar?

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes. The contents of this

5 document are, for the most part, the same or similar to the document that

6 I had seen and on the basis of which we gave our statement and on the

7 basis of which our knowledge was obtained. However, the form was

8 different. I think that that particular record was different. It had

9 more pages, not devoted to this subject but perhaps to something else. I

10 saw only that which pertained to questions related to my own province of

11 work.

12 So that's about it. Perhaps there is a bit more here or perhaps I

13 do not remember enough.

14 JUDGE MAY: Yes. I don't think you can take it any further.

15 MR. SHIN: Okay. Thank you. If I could please just have that

16 document marked for identification.

17 JUDGE MAY: No, I don't think you can for the moment.

18 MR. KAY: I was just going to raise a matter concerning the date

19 which the Prosecution should perhaps look at again on the second page and

20 third page of the document for the year; 2002.

21 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Yes. The witness can't identify it. Let the

22 Prosecution have the document back.

23 MR. SHIN: Your Honours, the Office of the Prosecutor has very

24 recently received a report from the Spanish National Institute of

25 Toxicology, within the past week, which will explain the results of some

1 of the DNA samples that Witness William Fulton testified about and will

2 indicate that the bodies found in that Batajnica site do -- to a high

3 degree of probability do relate to persons from Kosovo. I'm not sure how

4 Your Honours would like us to proceed with this. We could, for example,

5 have another investigator come in to put in these documents, if that's --

6 JUDGE MAY: That might be the most efficient way to deal with it

7 and there can be any examination about it. This witness can't clearly

8 deal it because he doesn't know anything.

9 MR. SHIN: Thank you. No further questions.

10 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Karleusa, that concludes your evidence. Thank you

11 for coming to the International Tribunal to give it. You are free to go.

12 [The witness withdrew]

13 MR. RYNEVELD: The Prosecution calls Bosko Radojkovic, Your

14 Honour.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Ryneveld, apparently a milestone has been

16 reached with the calling of this witness: 100.

17 MR. RYNEVELD: I'm sorry, Your Honour, I had the earphones on and,

18 unfortunately, it was a different channel.

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: I was just saying that a milestone has been

20 reached in the Prosecution's case: This is the 100th witness.

21 MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you for pointing that out. I'm sorry, I lost

22 track of the numbers. 100. Thank you.

23 If it assists while we're waiting for the witness, Your Honours,

24 during the course of his evidence I do intend to show him a series of some

25 ten photographs in a bundle, and the Court may in fact have already

1 received a copy of those photographs, along with the summary which I

2 prepared, in advance.

3 And does the Registrar have copies available now or do we -- I'm

4 just trying to save time, if I can.

5 [The witness entered court]

6 WITNESS: BOSKO RADOJKOVIC

7 [Witness answered through interpreter]

8 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the witness take the declaration.

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

10 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

11 JUDGE MAY: If you'd like to take a seat.

12 Examined by Mr. Ryneveld:

13 Q. Mr. Radojkovic, could you state your full name for the Court,

14 please.

15 A. Bosko Radojkovic.

16 Q. Sir, I understand that you're 46 years of age and you're currently

17 a policeman employed as a senior crime technician in the Serbian Ministry

18 of Interior in Kladovo; is that correct?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And the course of your duties as a crime technician or a crime

21 scene identification officer, do they include such things as taking

22 photographs and fingerprints and attending the scene of what are suspected

23 to be crimes?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And how long have you been doing that kind of work with the police

1 in Serbia?

2 A. Twenty-five years.

3 Q. During your career as a crime scene examiner, sir, have you had

4 any experience with bodies that have been in water?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. In particular, is there a particular body of water with which you

7 have had considerable experience in terms of finding bodies?

8 A. In view of the place where I work, it mainly had to do with

9 corpses in the river of the Danube, the Danube River.

10 Q. And in the course of your duties, sir, I take it you found various

11 bodies that had been dead ranging from fairly recent to long periods of

12 time?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And in the course of your duties, did you ever have the occasion

15 to tentatively give estimates of how long these bodies had been in water,

16 or had been dead?

17 A. Yes, together with the doctor and the rest of the team which

18 conducted the on-site investigation.

19 Q. All right. That's in generality. I'd like you now, if you would,

20 please, to turn your mind to an incident on the 5th of April of 1999. In

21 the course of your duties, were you called upon to attend the scene in the

22 Danube River near the village of Tekija near Kladovo? Or Tekija.

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Tell us, sir, about how it is that you went to the scene of the

25 Danube River and what is it that you saw when you arrived on the 5th of

1 April, 1999.

2 A. The police officer on duty informed me that in the Danube River

3 near Tekija village, a fisherman noticed an object floating on the water,

4 something that looked like a trailer box on a truck. Since it was not

5 unusual for vehicles to skid off the road and into the Danube, I invited a

6 policeman from the Kladovo police station to accompany me to the site to

7 investigate.

8 Q. Do you remember approximately what time of day it was? Was it

9 morning, afternoon, late afternoon? Do you remember?

10 A. I remember that the officer on duty called me on the telephone

11 around 1300 hours. It may have been a little earlier, but after 12.00.

12 Between 12.00 and 1300 hours.

13 Q. And you went out to the scene that afternoon, did you?

14 A. Yes. As soon as I was notified, I went there straight away.

15 Q. And what, if anything, did you see when you got there?

16 A. At a distance of about 20 to 30 metres from the bank, I saw

17 something protruding from the water. It could have been a large box, that

18 is, the trailer part of a truck. A closed container. It was just the tip

19 of the trailer box.

20 Q. When you say it was just the tip, was there a lot of it visible?

21 Could you identify from where you were on the road what it for sure was at

22 that point?

23 A. You could assume that it was a lorry, a trailer with a closed

24 container behind, inside the river, in the water.

25 Q. When you saw that, what happened next? Did you give instructions

1 to anyone to do something or did you investigate in some way to see

2 whether it was in fact a truck or a lorry?

3 A. Yes, I did. The diver put on his equipment and dived into the

4 water, and when he re-surfaced, he told me that it was a lorry, that there

5 was no one in the cab, that the front windshield had fallen out, and that

6 it was probably a Mercedes lorry and its trailer box looked like that of a

7 refrigerated lorry.

8 Q. About what time of day was it now?

9 A. It might have been around 1600 hours, because the diver took

10 rather a long time to get ready to dive to view the vehicle under water,

11 et cetera.

12 Q. What was the water level in the Danube at that particular time?

13 Was it a high river or low or was there run-off or can you tell us?

14 A. I can't recall exactly right now, but I think the level of the

15 water was slightly above average at that time.

16 Q. Did you take any photographs that afternoon or evening of the 5th

17 of April, 1999?

18 A. No. I don't think I took any photographs then because it was

19 getting dark by that time.

20 Q. Since it was getting dark and since you had found there were no

21 occupants in the cab, what did you do next?

22 A. The diver went in again and used a length of rope and a plastic

23 bucket to mark the location so that we could return in the morning and

24 find the place in case the water level rises and the object moves. I

25 think we tied it with this rope; I'm not sure about that part.

1 Q. So after having checked it out and marking the location of the

2 vehicle since it was getting dark, did you leave for the evening?

3 A. Yes. We went to the police station.

4 Q. You told us that you intended to return the next day. Did you do

5 so, and if so, what did you do upon your return?

6 A. That evening, we made arrangements for a crane to be given to us

7 from the hydro power plant of Djerdap to help us pull out the vehicle from

8 the water. And the next morning, the same diver, a colleague of mine from

9 the police force, and myself went there again. The crane was already

10 there together with ten or 15 employees of the hydro power plant.

11 Q. What was accomplished with the crane? Were you able to lift the

12 vehicle out of the water?

13 A. Yes. Slowly, step-by-step, we pulled the lorry out. The diver

14 got into the cab and tried to straighten the wheels by turning the wheel,

15 and the wheels were stuck in the mud on the bottom of the river, and it

16 took a long time and a lot of effort to pull it out.

17 Q. You finally managed to get it to the edge of the river bank, did

18 you, sir?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And at some time after that had been accomplished, did you start

21 to take photographs of this vehicle?

22 A. I did. On the 6th of April, when I returned to the site, I made

23 several photographs of the vehicle in the position in which it was

24 originally found and then another series of photographs showing

25 progressively the process of pulling it out.

1 Q. Yes. And of the photographs that you took that day, I now have --

2 that day and the next, I now have a series of ten photographs that you've

3 supplied to us.

4 MR. RYNEVELD: Might the witness be shown the bundle of

5 photographs at this point, please.

6 My proposal, Your Honours, is to mark these as one exhibit and

7 have them marked. They actually are labeled 1 through 10, and they bear

8 our internal numbers K0226128 right through to the last one, 6137. If

9 that meets with your approval, rather than giving them separate exhibit

10 numbers.

11 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll have the exhibit number.

12 THE REGISTRAR: Prosecutor's Exhibit number 275.

13 MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you.

14 Q. Now, Witness, you've seen these photographs? These are the

15 photographs that you took on the 6th and 7th of April; is that correct?

16 A. That's correct.

17 Q. All right. Sir, looking at the first photograph, numbered 1, it's

18 now on the ELMO, you see it there? Can you point out to us -- there's not

19 too much to point out.

20 Is this the first photograph that you took after of the vehicle

21 had been dragged, by the crane, out of the water?

22 A. I think it is the first one.

23 Q. All right. And the second photograph. Is that a close-up of the

24 same truck?

25 A. Yes. From a shorter distance.

1 Q. And just so that we're clear, sir, when you attended the evening

2 before, the 5th of April, can you perhaps indicate with your pointer how

3 much of this vehicle was visible to you when you attended the day before,

4 before the truck was pulled out of the water level? Could you perhaps

5 just show us with the pointer?

6 A. Yes, I can. You see this dark strip here, the right upper corner

7 of the side of the lorry. This was made by the dirt in the water.

8 Q. So if we're looking at the lorry box, as it were, the triangle

9 that is left by that black mark, only that top little triangle was visible

10 to you? The rest of the vehicle was submerged?

11 A. Correct.

12 Q. I see. Turning to the third photograph, sir, is that a close-up

13 of the vehicle once it's been pulled even further out of the water?

14 A. Yes. The rear wheels are already on the bank.

15 Q. Now, I'd like to spend just a little bit of time with respect to

16 this photograph.

17 When you looked at this truck, what, if anything, did you note

18 about the back of the -- the door area of the vehicle?

19 A. I noticed that the right half of the door had been broken into,

20 that through this slit, there were two human legs and one arm protruding.

21 Q. Now, it's difficult to see on the screen, but could you use your

22 pointer -- first of all, are any parts of the bodies that you've just

23 described visible in this photograph?

24 A. Yes. You can see one leg. Here it is.

25 Q. You're now pointing just to the left of the little stair hanging

1 down from the right corner of the box of the truck; is that correct?

2 There is what appears to be a foot immediately to the left of that. Could

3 you put your pointer right on the object that you say is a leg.

4 A. Yes. That is the object. This, the body part.

5 Q. What did you do with respect to that body part or any other body

6 parts?

7 A. I have to add that the diver had informed me even before the rear

8 of the truck was pulled out that there was a hole in the rear of the truck

9 and that something was protruding, something that looked like a human foot

10 or an arm, and he asked me what to do. He told me it was still in the

11 water. And I said, "Well, there's nothing you can do. Let's pull it out

12 and see."

13 And when the rear of the lorry was pulled out onto the bank of the

14 river, I saw this one foot protruding, and there were another foot and an

15 arm less visible right there. I pushed them back inside the lorry. I

16 fastened the interior using some planks I had handy and some nuts and

17 bolts.

18 Q. So you pushed the body parts back inside and then attempted to

19 cover up the hole, did you?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Now, once you had done that, sir, what time of day is it now on

22 the 6th of April? Has some time passed?

23 A. I think it was already 12 or 1300 hours by that time, maybe even

24 later.

25 Q. Did you attend the scene only with a diver or did other police

1 officers or other officials also come to the scene of this, where you

2 found the truck?

3 A. I had a colleague with me also from the crime investigations

4 department, and there were two other policemen who controlled traffic on

5 the road, and there were ten employees from the hydroelectrical power

6 plant who operated the crane, the other equipment.

7 I must say that when the lorry was pulled out, just before it was

8 pulled out onto the bank, we informed the investigating judge, the coroner

9 of the medical centre in Kladovo, and the office of the public prosecutor

10 to come to the scene and to witness the final stages of extraction of this

11 refrigerated lorry.

12 Q. So you called for them once you realised that this vehicle

13 actually contained bodies; is that correct?

14 A. Correct.

15 Q. Did you wait for their arrival or did you do something in the

16 meantime? After putting the body parts back in and covering the hole, did

17 you wait for their arrival or did you do something further?

18 A. No. I don't think we did anything else. We were waiting for the

19 investigating judge and the prosecutor.

20 Q. Were they far away, and did it take them long to arrive?

21 A. No. We didn't wait long. I think they actually arrived a short

22 time before the lorry was pulled out finally onto the bank, because the

23 extraction was extremely difficult and slow.

24 Q. All right. Sir, I'd like you to turn to the next photograph, if

25 you would, please. There appears to be a photograph of that same truck

1 before you covered the hole but it seems to have a chain on it. Was it in

2 that condition when you saw it?

3 A. Yes. Along the centre of the door, somewhere in the middle, they

4 were secured with a padlock and a chain.

5 Q. What, if anything, did you do in regards to that chain and why?

6 A. When the investigating judge and the public prosecutor arrived, I

7 tried to cut this chain but I failed, so I had to break through to break

8 the padlock in order to open the door.

9 Q. I take it you accomplished that objective, and were you able then

10 to open the doors to this vehicle?

11 A. Yes. I opened the door.

12 Q. Tell us what you saw when you opened the doors.

13 A. I saw a heap of corpses.

14 Q. When you saw that, what did you do, if anything?

15 A. When I saw that, I shut the door immediately, and I informed the

16 investigating judge, who was close by, about the contents of the lorry.

17 Q. And did you receive any instructions or any indication as to his

18 interest or lack of it?

19 A. The judge asked me how many bodies there were inside. I answered

20 there were a lot. And then the judge said it was not within the purview

21 of the court in Kladovo. A case like that was not within their

22 jurisdiction and that we should inform the district court in Negotin. I

23 offered to open the door for him to see what's inside, but he declined,

24 and he said there was no need for that.

25 Q. So what did you do next?

1 A. He told the policemen to seal off the site, and I went to the

2 police station in Kladovo together with my colleagues from the police.

3 Q. Before you shut the doors again, did you show any of your

4 colleagues what was inside this box?

5 A. Yes. One or two of my colleagues saw the inside when I opened the

6 door, and perhaps some others saw it from a distance.

7 Q. In any event, I understand you then shut the doors again. You'd

8 covered the hole, as you indicated. Did you secure -- did you secure the

9 truck?

10 A. Yes. The employees of the hydro power plant used a cable to tie

11 the chassis of the lorry to a large tree on the bank of the river.

12 Q. I'm just going to go very quickly and lead you through this --

13 JUDGE MAY: We'll adjourn now. It's time for the break.

14 Mr. Radojkovic, we're going to adjourn now for 20 minutes. Could

15 you remember in this and any other breaks there are in your evidence not

16 to speak to anybody until it's over about it, and that does include the

17 members of the Prosecution team. Could you be back, please, in 20

18 minutes.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour.

20 JUDGE MAY: We'll adjourn.

21 --- Recess taken at 12.17 p.m.

22 --- On resuming at 12.42 p.m.

23 MR. RYNEVELD:

24 Q. Now, Witness, just before the break you had just told us that

25 after calling the local officials down to have a look and they declined to

1 do so, you showed your colleagues what was in the truck and then you

2 closed the doors and then you -- I understand you eventually went to the

3 police station. Just before you did that, did you take some more

4 photographs of the doors of this truck? And if so, would you please look

5 at photographs number 5 and 6. Would you look over there.

6 A. Yes, I made a few more photographs. This was while the truck was

7 being dragged out.

8 Q. Yes. And on the passenger's side, if I can call it that, of this

9 door, we see some lettering. And if you will turn to photograph number 6,

10 we see it a little closer. Was that the condition that the door was in on

11 the 6th of April, as it was being taken out of the Danube River?

12 A. Yes, in this state. The front wheels were still in the water.

13 Q. And what is it that it says on the door? We can read it, but

14 perhaps you could read it for us.

15 A. On the door, it says the following: "PIK Progres Export

16 Slaughterhouse. Telephone number, telefax number, Prizren."

17 Q. And had you noticed any licence plates on either the front or the

18 back of this vehicle?

19 A. No, there weren't any licence plates.

20 Q. Anyway, sir, after you secured the scene, do I understand that

21 that particular day, the 6th of April 1999, you returned to the police

22 station?

23 A. Yes, in the evening, in the afternoon.

24 Q. And when you got there, sir, did you advise the people in charge

25 of the police station what you had seen and what you had done?

1 A. Yes, I did inform the head of the local police there, the chief of

2 the crime prevention service in the police station in Kladovo. The two of

3 them, at any rate. I don't know if any of their associates were present

4 as well.

5 Q. Do you recall their names?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Could you tell us.

8 A. The head of the SUP in Kladovo was Vukasin Sperlic. The head of

9 the group for combatting crime was Stevanovic, and Nena Popovic, Momcilo

10 Sujranovic, my colleagues.

11 Q. Now, after giving your report, did you receive any instructions

12 with respect to what further steps, if any, you ought to take?

13 A. Yes. According to customary procedure, we sent a letter to the

14 Secretariat of the Interior, that is to say the regional SUP in Bor. We

15 sent a written report as to what we had found in the Danube and what was

16 in the truck. In view of the fact that all of this during the NATO

17 bombing of Yugoslavia, the entire event was taking place right by the

18 border with Romania. And Romania had then allowed the use of their own

19 air space for NATO aircraft very close to the site where this occurred,

20 it's perhaps only 1.000 metres away, that is a very short distance in

21 terms of waterways. On the Romanian side, there were Romanian patrol

22 boats and bigger ships.

23 Bearing in mind the fact that they had the technical devices to

24 see this truck and perhaps even see the lettering on the door, and also

25 bearing in mind the fact that this was close to the town of Tekija and

1 that this lettering on the truck may be reminiscent of certain events in

2 Kos