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(1)Tuesday, 26 June 2001
[Prosecution Closing Statement]
[Open session]

--- Upon commencing at 9.26 a.m.
(5) [The accused entered court]

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Good morning to you all. Madam Registrar, can you call the case, please.

THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. This is case number IT-98-33-T, the Prosecutor versus Radislav Krstic.

(10) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] May we have the appearances. The Prosecution, please.

MR. HARMON: Yes. Good morning, Mr. President; good morning, Your Honours. My name is Mark Harmon, and behind this board are my colleagues who have assisted me throughout this trial; Mr. McCloskey, Mr. Cayley, and (15)Ms. Karagiannakas.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] And for the Defence, please.

MR. PETRUSIC: [Int.] Good morning, Your Honours; good morning, my learned friends from the Prosecution. My name is Nenad Petrusic. I have been assisted throughout this trial by Mr. Visnjic as (20)the Defence team.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Thank you very much. We are here today, pursuant to the provisions of Rule 86, to hear the closing arguments of the Prosecution and the Defence. Therefore, I now give you the floor, Mr. Harmon.

(25) MR. HARMON: Thank you very much, Mr. President.

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(1)As the curtain drops on this trial that has lasted over 15 months, and before I begin my remarks about the case itself, I would like to publicly acknowledge the contributions of many people who have participated in this trial. (5)First of all, I would like to acknowledge the contributions of my colleagues, Mr. McCloskey, Mr. Cayley, and Ms. Karagiannakas, who have worked diligently in preparing the case for trial and presenting the evidence to you, and in preparing legal submissions and briefs. I would also like to acknowledge the participation of two other members of my (10)staff, Ms. Kirsten Keith, who is behind me, and Ms. Janet Stewart to my right, who have been instrumental in preparing each of the exhibits that have been presented to you and have managed them so capably throughout the course of this trial. In addition, Mr. President and Your Honours, I would like to (15)acknowledge the contribution of Mr. Jean-Rene Ruez and all of the investigators in this case who have worked for many years investigating these tragic events at Srebrenica. They have done a magnificent job in investigating this case. The military analysts in my office who have analysed literally thousands of documents, Mr. Richard Butler, Ms. Amanda (20)Brettell, and others in that section have analysed the evidence that we have presented to you. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the professionalism of my two distinguished colleagues from the Defence, Mr. Petrusic and Mr. Visnjic, who have always shown the highest level of professionalism in (25)dealing with the Prosecution and with the Court.

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(1)One group of people who deserve a great deal of credit are the people in the language booths because they have one of the most difficult jobs in trying to simultaneously translate for lawyers who like to speak in the first place and oftentimes speak too fast. They have done a (5)magnificent job under difficult circumstances, and particularly under the difficult circumstances during some of the most painful testimonies that we've heard in this case. In addition, the Language Service Section has translated for us a large number of documents and have always done so with great care and attention. (10)The technical booth as well deserves a lot of credit because we sit here in this modern courtroom, a courtroom that has television monitors, has video equipment, audio equipment, and frankly, I'm used to the courtrooms that have merely a board and a piece of paper and a pencil, but these people who work in the audio booth have done a magnificent job (15)as well in preparing the equipment so it's ready for us every day. The court reporters as well deserve credit because they provide us with the simultaneous transcripts that assist us as we review the testimonies of the witnesses. And the members of the registry as well deserve credit for assisting us in this courtroom and managing the (20)paperwork that comes through it. Also, I'd like to acknowledge the Victim/Witness Unit who has dealt very professionally with all of the witnesses for the parties. And I'd like to acknowledge the services of Olivier Fourmy, who is the Trial Chamber's legal officer, and has always been of assistance to both parties (25)throughout the 15 months.

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(1)And finally, Your Honours, I'd like to thank you for the patience you have shown throughout these proceedings and the dignity in which you have conducted them. I now turn my attention to the case. In 1993, as the Bosnian Serb (5)army conducted a counteroffensive in Eastern Bosnia and swept unchecked through Eastern Bosnia, the UN adopted resolutions and called for the creation of safe areas. After agreement of the parties which called for the demilitarisation of safe areas, three such areas were created. One was in Srebrenica, one was in Zepa, and one was in Gorazde. The UN (10)deployed small contingents of troops to each of these safe areas, and in 1995, a Dutch battalion was assigned to the enclave of Srebrenica. Now, the Srebrenica enclave was not fully demilitarised, and on the 6th of July, 1995, the Bosnian Serb army, which I will occasionally refer to as the VRS, attacked the Srebrenica enclave. This operation was (15)known as operation Krivaja, and by the 11th of July, 1995, the enclave had been captured. Now, the Muslims who were in the enclave took two courses of action. Approximately 15.000 Muslims, mostly males of military age, went -- took a northern part of the enclave to an area around Susnjari and (20)Jaglici. There were approximately 15.000 men and boys in that group of people. Approximately a third of that group was armed with small arms. The remaining members of that group were unarmed and were civilians. On the evening of the 11th of July, these people who were in the Susnjari area formed a large column and attempted to break out of the (25)enclave and proceed north to the area, ultimately, of Tuzla. These people

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(1)in this column were quickly detected, and they were attacked by the Bosnian Serb army, and the Bosnian Serb army set up along this road that I'm indicating that runs from Bratunac through to Konjevic Polje and Nova Kasaba, set up a steel curtain that interdicted this column. Only a small (5)portion of the column was able to succeed in breaking through that line and ultimately proceeded north, and I'll discuss that a little bit later. The remaining Muslims who were members of the column were essentially stuck behind this interdiction line, and they surrendered ultimately to the VRS by the thousands. People who surrendered from the column were (10)later executed. Now, the Muslims who had remained in the enclave during the attack on Potocari took a different course of action. They initially sought refuge from the United Nations Bravo Company base in the town of Srebrenica, and then ultimately they fled en masse to the UN base in (15)Potocari. And ultimately on the 11th of July, there were approximately 25.000 to 35.000 Bosnian Muslim women and children, primarily, but some men as well. The Bosnian Serb army arrived in Potocari on the 12th of July, on the morning of the 12th of July, and they started immediately intimidating (20)the refugees. At about noon on the 12th of July, a large number of buses and trucks arrived in Potocari, and before the refugees were permitted to get on those buses and trucks, the men and the boys who were with the refugees were separated, and they were taken aside and they were detained in a location known as "the white house." Thereafter, the women and the (25)children and some men were put on buses and they were deported from the

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(1)enclave and taken to a location near the front line known as Luke where the women and children and the few men who had managed to get on the buses disembarked. At that location, there was another separation process, and the men were separated, and then the women and children were permitted to (5)cross no-man's-land into the free territory. The men and the boys who had be separated in Potocari and the men and the boys who had been separated at Tisca were later executed. Now, we have charged General Krstic, a senior Bosnian Serb officer, with crimes relating to those tragic events. General Krstic was (10)first the Chief of Staff and later the Commander of the Drina Corps when these crimes occurred. The indictment against him contains eight counts: One count of genocide; and alternatively a second count, complicity to commit genocide; a crime against humanity, murder; a violation of the laws and customs of war, murder; a crime against humanity, extermination; a (15)crime against humanity, persecution; a crime against humanity, deportation; and an alternative count, a crime against humanity, forcible transfer. Under Article 7(1) of our Statute we have charged General Krstic with planning, instigating, ordering, and otherwise aiding and abetting in (20)the planning, preparation, and execution of the crimes that are indicated in the indictment. We've also charged him under Article 7(3) of our Statute, which makes a commander responsible for the acts of his subordinates if he knew or if he had reason to know that the subordinates were about to commit (25)criminal acts and he failed to take reasonable and necessary measures to

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(1)prevent them from occurring or from punishing the perpetrators who committed them. All wars come to an end, and it is in their aftermath that the objective facts relating to the causes and to particular events that (5)occurred in them, particularly shameful and disgraceful events, are distorted and dismissed. This is true with the war in Bosnia, and we've seen a reflection of that in this particular case in the testimonies of two Defence witnesses who testified under pseudonym, Witness DA and Witness DC, both of whom were Bosnian Serbs and both of whom served in the (10)Drina Corps at the time of the events described in the indictment. Despite overwhelming evidence that thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed, these witnesses demonstrated a dogged closed-mindedness in accepting this fact. Witness DA was a well-educated Bosnian Serb who had been a (15)journalist before the war. He served in the command of the Drina Corps exclusively with information affairs, and in that capacity he had access to journalists and news media, the media being CNN, CBS, Reuters, French television, and he had access to objective information relating to the events that were occurring in Srebrenica at the time. This was (20)independent, third-party information. He also lived in the area where these crimes had taken place. He claimed, "first and foremost," and I quote, "first and foremost a humanist by vocation and choice." And yet when he was asked by Judge Wald about these crimes, his answer was as follows: "I said I don't wish (25)to believe it, neither can I, because who I am, the personality that I am,

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(1)can I believe all that." Now, Witness DC echoed those thoughts, and I'm quite sure that those sentiments are not unique to people who remain in the Republika Srpska. As an American Baptist minister, Harry Fosdick, aptly observed, "I (5)renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the underlying hatred it arouses ... for the starvations that stalk after it." Purposeful ignorance of these terrible deeds and an unwillingness to confront them in a responsible way can only create fertile grounds for (10)future misunderstandings between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Muslims and may poison the future for the people of Bosnia who deserve a respite from the ethnic strife that has characterised this conflict. The nations of the world created this Tribunal in an effort to ensure peace in the region, and part of our mandate is to ensure that (15)evidence of crimes is objectively presented, tested in a court of law to ensure that the wrongs committed in the former Yugoslavia do not go unpunished, and to permit future generations to have access to the objective record of these events so that they may be inoculated against the calculated deceptions that thrive in the milieu of chauvinism, blind (20)ethnic pride, and ignorance. The truthful record of these events can assist in the recovery of the victims and also in the future reconciliation of the peoples of Bosnia. This was touched upon by a witness, Ms. Teufika Ibrahamefendic, who was the clinical coordinator from Viva Jene, a non-governmental (25)organisation that has been treating the surviving women and children from

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(1)Srebrenica. In the context of her testimony about treating children, Your Honour Judge Rodrigues asked her if the teaching of history was relevant to their recovery, and she replied and I quote: "An explanation needs to (5)be given as to what happened. Children cannot understand what it is that happened; even adults, many adults don't understand. I know that whenever I had a group therapy and tried to give an historical explanation for what happened, that the rational acceptance of what happened was far more successful and contributed to the recovery of those women. It was very (10)important for them to receive the proper information and to rationalise the events." I will therefore, Mr. President and Your Honours, review in some detail the evidence about where these executions took place, about evidence linking the Drina Corps to these executions, and about the (15)findings of international experts relating to them. I have three purposes in doing this: First, to demonstrate the nature and the scale of these terrible crimes so that General Krstic's responsibility for them can be placed in the proper context; second, I would like to summarise the evidence linking the Drina Corps and the Main Staff of the Bosnian Serb (20)army to these crimes; and third, I would like to clearly set forth the objective record of what happened in Srebrenica so that it might assist in the recovery of the victims and might be the basis for permitting people like Witnesses DA and DC to one day, in the words of Mrs. Ibrahamefendic, "be able to speak out so that we all can have a future, so that all can (25)have a basis for a common life together one day."

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(1)Now, Mr. President and Your Honours, I'm going to concentrate my remarks on the large-scale mass executions that have been identified in this case. I will not go into detail about other killings perpetrated by the VRS about which Your Honours have heard testimony. I don't do so (5)because I don't think they're important, only that time constrains me. We consider these other killings that took place to be an important part of our evidence in this genocide. Let me begin by at least identifying quickly the killings that have been identified in this courtroom and testified about. (10)The first were killings that took place in Potocari on the 12th and 13th of July. A witness by the name of Bego Ademovic testified that in Potocari, in excess of 100 persons were decapitated. He identified the perpetrators of those crimes as soldiers. On the 13th of July, Your Honours have received the transcript of (15)a Dutch soldier, Corporal Groenewegen, who described observing an execution of a refugee who was in Potocari. Your Honours have heard evidence about executions that took place on the 12th of July, the 13th, and the 14th of July in locations such as the warehouse and the Vuk Karadzic school, located in Bratunac. That was (20)Witness N. Those locations, as Your Honours are aware, were locations that were very, very close to the Hotel Fontana and the Bratunac Brigade headquarters, where General Mladic and General Krstic were convening meetings and where they were staying. Your Honours have heard also testimony about a number of killings (25)that took place in various schools that were used as detention facilities

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(1)in the Zvornik municipality. Again, Your Honours, those testimonies were from the surviving victims from various massacres, and the perpetrators of those killings were described as soldiers. Then Your Honours heard testimony about killings on the 19th of (5)July at Nezuk. Now, there Witness R testified and identified a significant piece of evidence that related to one of the killers. He observed a Krajina patch, a Krajina Corps patch on the sleeve of one of the killers. And as Your Honours are aware, the Krajina Corps was a corps that was from outside the area of responsibility of General Krstic, but (10)one unit from the Krajina Corps had been resubordinated to the Zvornik Brigade so they were acting with the Zvornik Brigade. Your Honours also heard testimony about the separation of men in Tisca on the 12th of July, and Witness D, who testified before you, said that after he had been separated, he and a group of other men were taken (15)to an unknown location and executed. Your Honours have also heard about a series of killings that took place at various sites where the Muslims who had surrendered from the column had been detained. I'm talking about various locations such as the Sandici meadow and other locations along the Bratunac-Milici road. (20)Lastly, Your Honours heard the testimony of a witness who described the killing of 16 men along the Zadar River. One of the killers was identified as belonging to the police. But a study of that execution reveals that not only did the police participate in the killings, but this was well coordinated. Army units were involved in the transportation, the (25)detention of these people, these victims.

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(1)So these are a series of killings that I could talk about at length but will not. Instead, what I would like to do is concentrate my remarks on the principal known sites where thousands of Muslim men and boys were executed. I should add that all of these execution sites that I (5)will be talking about were within the Drina Corps area of responsibility, in other words, the area that was commanded by General Krstic. Now, let me identify on the board behind me where these executions took place. I'll first discuss the executions that took place in the area of the Bratunac Brigade's area of responsibility, those occurring on the (10)13th of July at the warehouse in Kravica, and on an isolated road in the direction of Cerska. Those executions took place on the 13th of July. Then on the 14th of July, moving north on this map to the area of- the Zvornik Brigade, on the 14th of July mass executions took place at Orahovac and a location referred to as the Dam near Petkovci. Sometime (15)between the 15th and the 17th of July, a mass execution took place at Kozluk, and then further north on the 16th of July, a mass execution of 1200 men took place at the Branjevo Military Farm, and that same day in the village of Pilica another 500 men and boys were executed. Now, Mr. President and Your Honours, these locations have been (20)identified by us through a series of sources. First of all, there were survivors from these massacres, and they recounted to us and identified and attempted to identify the locations where these crimes had occurred. Using aerial imagery supplied by the United States, we were able to locate some of these locations. We also received information about them from (25)confidential sources. And lastly, we received informs about these

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(1)killings from Drazen Erdemovic who was a member of the Bosnian Serb army and the 10th Sabotage Division which was part of the Main Staff of the Drina Corps. Now, I will start by discussing the massacre that occurred at the (5)Kravica warehouse. Earlier in my remarks, I described the large column that attempted to break through to the free territory and that was interdicted along the Bratunac, Sandici, Konjevic Polje, and Nova Kasaba road. Thousands of Muslims were stuck in this area. As Your Honours have heard, it was extremely and unusually hot. These people had been attacked (10)by the Bosnian Serb army. Your Honours have seen footage of anti-aircraft guns being directed into the area where these people were. The army lured the survivors out of the woods, oftentimes using UN uniforms that they had stolen, on UN vehicles that they had stolen, using victims who had been -- who had surrendered, forcing them to call into the woods, saying that -- (15)to come down, everything was okay. Now, according to film that we submitted to Your Honours, it was an interview of one of the Bosnian Serb military or police persons who was manning the interdiction line, he was interviewed by a journalist and he was asked, "How many people have you captured?" This was on the 13th of (20)July, that interview, and his response was 3.000 to 4.000 people had surrendered that day to him. We also have submitted to Your Honours an intercept from the 13th of July where, and I'll describe this a little bit later, but where the -- one of the correspondents says that they had captured 16.000 people on the (25)13th of July, and that they were at various locations such as the

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(1)intersection at Konjevic Polje and at Nova Kasaba. Now, these people, when they came out of the woods, they were tired, thirsty, they were hungry, and they were frightened. And if we could go to a film, we will see a small piece of evidence we presented to (5)Your Honours, which is a film of a portion of the column surrendering to the VRS. And the booth should have a copy of the transcript of the interview of a man in this film, and if they could read the -- or translate the interview that takes place. (10)So if we could have the film, please.
[Videotape played]

MR. HARMON: This shows the abandoned goods by the side of the road.
[Videotape played]

(15) MR. HARMON: Those are two brothers who have been identified. This is on the 13th of July.

THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "... I don't know, from some desert... How long have you been there? We were there two days and two nights. Completely surrounded... What... Where are your rifles? I don't (20)have a rifle, I'm a civilian. Civilian? All right, then have no fear... Were you very afraid? Who wouldn't be afraid... Go ahead freely. Hey, journalist, can you hear that sound? ... how come he already arrived, before they did... Hey, take off that shirt! This one? Yes!"

MR. HARMON: As Your Honours know, the young boy in that film (25)survived. He was the only one of the people who have been identified in

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(1) Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and English transcripts.

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(1)that film to have survived, and he did so only because he used his wits and was able to board a bus that had fortuitously stopped near his detention location. You've heard the testimony, Mr. President and Your Honours, of two (5)witnesses who survived from the Kravica warehouse massacre, Witnesses J and K.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Mr. Harmon, excuse me. There seems to be a problem with the transcript. No, it's all right now. I beg your pardon. Please continue.

(10) MR. HARMON: Now, both of those witnesses describe surrendering and being taken to the Sandici meadow where thereafter they were either marched to a warehouse, the Kravica warehouse, which was about a kilometre away, or they were transported by bus on the 13th of July. Now, this warehouse is located in the Bratunac Brigade area of (15)responsibility, and if we could have the next image, please. Yes. Now, the area that is going to be circled right here is a picture of the Kravica warehouse, and this was taken by the Office of the Prosecutor investigators and it shows the size of this warehouse. Now, the fact that these witnesses also say that they had been (20)transported by buses was confirmed by an aerial image that was taken, and you will see, first of all, buses in the area of the Sandici meadow. And my colleague will also draw a circle around the area of prisoners, this large body of detainees. And you can see that this image was taken on the 13th of July at about 1400 hours, confirming what the witnesses told you. (25)If we could go to the next image, you'll see now an image of the

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(1)Kravica warehouse on the 13th of July at about 1400 hours, and consistent with what they testified, you'll see two buses in front of the warehouse. Now, at the warehouse, the Muslims were packed into two large rooms. According to Witness J who was in one of those rooms, "The (5)warehouse was completely full. If you had thrown a lighter or match inside, it would have stayed on someone's shoulder or in somebody's lap, it couldn't have fallen to the ground." Witness K, the other survivor from this massacre, testified that he estimated there were approximately 1.000 to 1.500 people in the section of the warehouse where he was (10)detained. And after being collected and gathered at the warehouse, the Bosnian Serb army opened fire on the detainees inside the warehouse using machine-guns, automatic rifles, grenades and other forms of explosives. After the initial fusillade, the VRS approached the mass of bodies and called out for survivors, and if any identified themselves, they were (15)taken outside and executed. Shortly after the mass execution had occurred at the Kravica warehouse, heavy equipment arrived. It broke the walls and doors down to part of the warehouse, the bodies were loaded like cordwood into trucks and driven away. Now, only two people survived this execution. (20)This is a location where General Krstic drove by on the 13th of July. Now, upon learning of this execution from the survivors, the Office of the Prosecutor sent -- first of all, we tried to identify this location and we did, and then we sent investigators to the warehouse and (25)we examined the warehouse, the exterior walls and the interior, and we

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(1)found that the exterior walls and the interior walls were pockmarked with bullets, and the wall and the door frame of the entrance was missing. And this is a view of the front of the warehouse, showing the pockmarks caused by bullets that were directed towards the warehouse. (5)If we could go to the next image, this is the interior of the warehouse, one of the rooms where the massacre took place, and you'll see the walls, again, are pockmarked with bullets. Now, in inspecting the inside of these rooms where these massacres took place, investigators also found what they suspected was human blood (10)and human tissue adhering to the walls and ceiling of the building, and this is a picture of one of the walls, and you can see the dark stains on the wall are human blood. And if we could go to the next image, this is an image of the ceiling in which you'll see blood on the ceiling. Now, on the 30th of September, 1996, the suspected blood and (15)tissue samples were collected by experts from the United States Naval Investigative Service and they were submitted for analysis to the Ministry of Justice, Netherlands Forensic Institute, for analysis. And the analysis confirmed that the samples that had been taken were of human origin. Both of those expert reports have been submitted to Your Honours (20)as Exhibits 181 and 150 respectively. Exhumations were conducted in the year 2000 at the Glogova 1 site, which is a location about a kilometre or less away from the warehouse. At that site, 191 bodies were recovered as well as painted reinforced concrete that was identical to the front of the warehouse. (25)This site, according to the experts, had been robbed, had been

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(1)massively disturbed. And when I say "robbed," and I'm going to be using that term through the day, I'm referring to the removal of bodies from the Glogova 1 site to sites unknown. We ultimately were able to discover these secondary sites, the secondary grave sites - I'll discuss that in (5)greater detail - but in one of the secondary sites relating to the Glogova 1 site that was located -- and this secondary site was at a place called Zeleni Jadar, we did an exhumation, and 145 additional bodies were recovered from that location. Now, I'll turn now to the next mass execution that took place on (10)the 13th of July at Cerska, and Cerska is a little to the northwest of the interdiction line where the Bosnian Serb army was restraining the Muslims inside. Now, this also is located in the area of responsibility commanded by General Krstic, and we were made aware of this site by somebody who had (15)attempted to flee with the column. In fact, he was on a road on a hillside, trying to figure out how he was going to get across the interdiction line when he saw three buses full of Muslims from Srebrenica driving up a very isolated road in the direction of Cerska. Those buses were followed by an armoured personnel carrier with soldiers on it, and (20)quickly followed by heavy earth-moving equipment following immediately behind. He then heard a series of gunshots consistent with automatic weapon fire, and then he saw the three buses return empty. Ultimately, that witness, Witness M, was able to cross the road, and he lived in the woods around Cerska for a period of time. He came (25)across an area where he noticed there was large amounts of blood on the

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(1)ground, and then ultimately he told us what he had seen and what he had heard. Using aerial images of this isolated road, again provided by the United States, we were able to pinpoint this location. If you look in the (5)monitors, you will see this isolated road that I'm talking about. In the left image, you'll see an image that was taken on the 5th of July, 1995, where there is no disturbance, and if you look at the image on the right, the 27th of July, you will see that there's been a considerable disturbance of earth. (10)Now, thereafter, we went to that location and it appeared -- we took Witness M to that location as well, and he confirmed that the area that is shown in this next image was the area where -- or on the road, at least, where he had seen these pools of blood. So in this image, it appeared after the investigators arrived at this location, it appeared (15)that heavy earth-moving equipment had taken the bank on the left-hand side - up to the other side of the truck, please, Ms. Keith - had taken this bank and up above off of -- removing earth and dumped it over the edge on top of bodies. As you can see in this image as well, you'll see two investigators (20)on the right-hand side of the image on the down slope, examining. What they found when they arrived, if we could have the next image, please, was this: Human remains. Now, exhumations were conducted at Cerska in 1996 by a multidisciplinary team of international experts, and the bodies of 150 (25)males were recovered. Pathologists who examined their remains determined

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(1)that 149 of them had died as a result of gunshot wounds. Many of their hands were bound with wire ligatures, and you'll see this image taken from the grave site with a wire ligature around the wrist. If we can have the next image. A total of 48 of these wire ligatures were recovered from (5)this site. The exhumation report relating to the Cerska exhumation is Prosecutor's Exhibit 206. Now, it's our submission, Mr. President and Your Honours, that these two early mass executions show both coordination and planning. As Your Honours are aware, on the 13th of July, when the deportations were (10)occurring, buses were at a premium. Both of these executions involved the use of buses, and the use of heavy equipment quickly following the intended victims shows a degree of coordination and planning. It is our submission that both of these killings demonstrate that. Now, by the 13th of July, decisions had been taken to murder the (15)men and the boys from Srebrenica far, far north, far away from the possible intruding eyes of third parties such as members of the Dutch Battalion. The area which was selected was in General Krstic's area of responsibility. It was in an area far north, in the area of the Zvornik Brigade. (20)Evidence that we've presented to Your Honours show that on the 13th of July, vehicle logs of the Zvornik Brigade that were seized by my office in a search show that a vehicle belonging to the Zvornik Brigade and driven by brigade military policemen travelled to locations in the Zvornik area that were later to be used as detention sites, where the men (25)and the boys were held prior to being murdered.

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(1)I will now turn to the first of the killings, the massacre sites that occurred in the area of the Zvornik Brigade, and that site I'd like to discuss is the massacre that took place on the 14th of July at Orahovac. (5)Again, Mr. President and Your Honours, the first information we had about this killing site was through the testimony or through the statements of survivors. These survivors related the same story. They had been captured along the road, surrendered along the road, or they had been separated in Potocari, and they were transported to the Zvornik area (10)and detained in a school, the Grbovci school. Here they were guarded by VRS personnel. Some were killed at that location. On the 14th, they were summoned out of the gymnasium where they had been held, blindfolded, given a bit of water, and transported to Orahovac, where they were lined up and systematically executed. (15)The testimony of these survivors show that these executions continued late into the darkness of the 14th, and that the headlights from heavy earth-moving equipment was used to aid in spotlighting the victims for their killers. Both Witness L and Witness N, the two survivors of this massacre, testified before you. The exact number of people who were (20)murdered at this location is unknown. When we asked Witness N to estimate how many people had been killed at that location, he estimated 2.500 people had been in the gymnasium and at least that many people had been killed. Now, we believe that that estimate is an overestimate. We believe that approximately a thousand men and boys were murdered at (25)Orahovac.

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(1)Now, again, using aerial imagery in trying to find these locations, you will see in this image the locations of these murders. On the left of this image, taken the 5th of July, you'll see that there's no disturbed earth in the image. But if you turn to the image on the right, (5)on the 27th of July, you'll notice that two large patches of earth had been disturbed. These are what we refer to as the grave sites Lazete 1 and Lazete 2. Now, we then went to these locations and did an inspection, and what we found - this is only one of the images - we found human remains on (10)the surface. You'll see a femur in the lower part of the image, and there were bullets and bullet cartridges all around the area. In addition, we found empty ammunition boxes that were at the area of the executions. In probing the site, we found that these contained human remains, both of these sites. (15)Now, in 1996, an international team of experts again went to this location and they exhumed the Lazete 2 site. There the bodies of 165 male victims were recovered. Their ages ranged from 13 to 70. And 158 of those bodies were determined to have died as a result of gunshot wounds; 107 blindfolds were recovered from the grave site and another 117 were (20)located nearby on the surface. Investigators also determined that this grave had been robbed and the bodies had been transported elsewhere. Now, three of the secondary grave sites associated with this grave site have been identified and exhumed and revealed an additional 184 bodies and 90 blindfolds. Not all of the known secondary grave sites have (25)been exhumed to date, and I'll discuss the secondary grave sites a little

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(1)bit later in my remarks. In the summer of 2000, international experts again returned to Orahovac and conducted exhumations at the second grave site, Lazete 1, and there they recovered 130 bodies, 129 of which were male; 125 of those were (5)determined to have died from gunshot wounds; 100 of the bodies were found with blindfolds on their heads or near their bodies and 38 additional blindfolds were found loose in the graves. This is an image that was taken from that exhumation, and you will see a blindfold that remains in place on the head of this victim. (10)At the same time, a further exhumation was conducted at the unexhumed portion of the first mass grave site at Orahovac, and 17 additional bodies were recovered; 15 were determined to have died from gunshot wounds; eight of the bodies had blindfolds; and 32 additional blindfolds were found loose at the site. (15)Now, the Zvornik Brigade was directly involved in these executions and the Zvornik Brigade is a brigade that was under the command of General Krstic. Witness L, who testified before you and was one of the survivors, identified one of the people who was an executioner, a man by the name of Gojko Simic. Now, Gojko Simic, we know from the Zvornik Brigade records, (20)held a rank of sergeant. He was platoon commander in the 4th Infantry Battalion of the Zvornik Brigade. The survivor, Witness L, had worked with him for 15 years. Witness L also identified by first name only two other of the executioners, and when we went and looked at the roster for the 4th (25)Infantry Battalion of the Zvornik Brigade, we found people bearing those

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(1)first names. Now, a document that was seized from the Zvornik Brigade pursuant to a search warrant that was executed by my office confirmed that the commander of the Zvornik Brigade Military Police Company and 13 members of (5)his company were at Orahovac on the 14th of July. That particular document had been altered, and it was submitted to the Ministry of Justice, Netherlands Forensic Institute, for an examination. What had been altered from that document, what had been removed from that document was an attempt to erase all traces that that unit had been at Orahovac. (10)That was confirmed then in the expert report that Your Honours will find as Prosecutor's Exhibit 569. In addition, the Office of the Prosecutor seized engineering work logs and engineering daily company orders of the Zvornik Brigade that indicate that the engineering company personnel were operating (15)earth-moving equipment and trucks in Orahovac on both the 14th and the 15th of July. You will see that in this next image. If you look at the top long horizontal column, this is a vehicle work record and it indicates that on the 14th of July, this equipment was digging trenches at Orahovac for five hours. This is the work record for what's known as a Torpedo (20)excavator. Now, let me turn my attention to the next mass execution that took place on the 14th of July, the execution that took place at the Petkovci Dam, again an area that's in the area of responsibility of General Krstic. (25)Now, the story of the few survivors from that execution are

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(1)similar. These people had either surrendered along the Bratunac-Milici road or had been separated from the other refugees in Potocari and had been transported to a school near the execution site, a school that was known as the Petkovci school. This site is only 100 metres away from the (5)headquarters of the 6th Battalion of the Zvornik Brigade. Now, at the Petkovci school, the Muslim men and boys were seriously abused and mistreated; some were executed there. On the afternoon of the 14th and in the early evening of the 15th, the Muslims who had been detained in that school were transported to a nearby dam (10)where they were lined up and summarily executed. Those who had survived the initial fusillade testified that the VRS soldiers then went down and systemically shot in the head the people who were either still warm or who were making and giving signs of life. The two witnesses who testified before Your Honours were Witnesses O and (15)P. According to Witness P, 1.500 to 2.000 men and boys from Srebrenica were executed at the Dam. Now, based on those reports, we attempted to locate the Dam and attempted to verify that there had been traces that an execution had taken place. Now, the image that you see in the monitor, this is an overhead (20)image of the Dam. You'll notice the red colour which is the water. This is an industrial waste dam. The white area directly above the red area is both the Dam and the surface. There's a flat surface where the executions took place. If we can have the next image. You'll see, looking directly down (25)from above, on the far left margin of this image, you'll see the water

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(1)which is where -- and then you'll see the Dam. This first image was taken on the 5th of July, and you'll see that there appears to be no disturbance on the surface. But on the 27th of July, the same image, the same area is captured in an image, you can see where the area of recently disturbed (5)soil is located. Now, with that information, we then travelled to this location and we did -- we conducted a superficial inspection of the surface, and a very superficial subsurface inspection. And we found one skull at that location, and the surface area of the Dam was littered with literally (10)hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of shell casings, in addition to which we found a ligature on the surface. We subsequently returned to this location with the survivors of the execution, and they confirmed for us that this was the site where the execution had taken place. (15)In 1998, an international team of specialists went to the Dam in order to conduct an exhumation, and they initially conducted a surface investigation, a surface inspection, and what they found on the surface were 464 rectangular and triangular skull fragments, which is entirely consistent with what the victims who survived said, that these Bosnian (20)Serb soldiers were shooting people in the head after the initial fusillade. They also found 750 shell casings on the surface. They could have collected a considered number more, but they only took 750 shell casings. And when they conducted the exhumation, they -- the site itself revealed the remains of 43 persons in the grave. (25)Again, experts informed us that this grave had been robbed. Now,

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(1)we were able ultimately to locate a secondary grave site, known as the Liplje 2 site, where some of the bodies from this mass execution of the Dam had been taken. And that Liplje 2 site was exhumed in 1998, and 191 individuals, bodies -- the remains of 191 bodies were recovered, as were (5)23 ligatures. Now, the majority of the bodies from this mass execution have never been located. The expert reports associated with this exhumation are also part of the trial record. Zvornik Brigade military work logs confirm that on the day of the (10)execution, a TAM 75 truck, a large truck, made four journeys between Petkovci and the Dam, and the engineering company commander's log confirms that heavy earth-moving equipment was sent to Petkovci to work. That's Office of the Prosecutor's Exhibit 584. The people who were operating that heavy machinery were members of the Zvornik Brigade. (15)Mr. President, I don't know what the schedule is in terms of a -- when you'd like to break. I'm prepared to continue, but I just -- if you could give me some guidance on that, I would appreciate it.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Yes, Mr. Harmon. We're going to work for more or less an hour and a half and respect the same timetable (20)that we're used to, unless there are any problems regarding Mr. Krstic. So you can go on until ten to 11.

MR. HARMON: Thank you very much. Now, the next mass execution site I will be discussing is the mass execution which took place between the 15th of July and the 17th of July (25)at Kozluk. There are no known survivors from this massacre.

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(1)We learned about this massacre from a confidential source, that there had been a massacre in the area of Kozluk, and based on that information and the general information that we had received, we again used aerial imagery to locate the site of this massacre. And this image (5)that now is on the monitor shows -- first of all, the Drina River is on the left. So the light area that is being pointed to by Ms. Keith is the Drina River, and along the river banks on the 5th of July, 1995, there was no major disturbance. But on the 17th of July, the image to the right, you will see that there has been major earth disturbance. (10)So members of my office travelled to that location. It was on the Drina River. It was less than a kilometre from the 1995 headquarters of the Drina Wolves. The Drina Wolves, as you know, was one of the units that had participated in the takeover of Srebrenica. And this image shows two features that I'll point out. The building on the right is the (15)headquarters for the Drina Wolves, and on the left you'll see a large pile of boxes because this headquarters was located right next to the Vitinka Glass Factory that made bottles, and they labelled bottles. Now, we went then to the site. We drove past this location, we went to the site, and the site, it turned out, was a refuse dump for (20)broken bottles from the Vitinka Glass Factory, and on the surface we were able to observe human remains. And this is a leg and pants, with bones still intact. And after confirming the existence of human remains at this site, the Office of the Prosecutor exhumed that site in 1999, again using (25)international experts to conduct this exhumation. And when they dug

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(1)through the site, this is what they saw, this is what they found: This is one small image of a larger image showing a pile of bodies, and above those bodies you'll see broken glass, green glass. Now, the exhumation at this site produced 340 bodies. All were (5)males. 237 of the 292 bodies were determined to have died from gunshot wounds. Fifty-five blindfolds were recovered from the faces of the victims. And this is an image of a body that was taken in Kozluk, and you'll see the blindfold on the face, and you'll notice the positioning of the arms which are behind the body, and you can still actually see a (10)ligature on the arms. Now, 168 ligatures were recovered from this site, 137 of which were binding the victims. And this is another image from the massacre site at Kozluk, and what you'll notice on this body, first of all, you'll notice around the arms are the ligatures that bound this victim at the time of his death, (15)and around his head you'll notice that he has been blindfolded. Now, this grave also had been robbed, and the bodies were removed from this grave site and transported and concealed at a grave site on the Cancari road, which was a considerable distance from Kozluk. Only one of the secondary sites associated with the Kozluk massacre has been exhumed. (20)It was exhumed in 1998, and it was found to contain the remains of 158 individuals, 126 of whom were males. The remainder were undetermined. Of the 35 complete bodies, 29 had died of gunshot wounds. Four of the victims in the secondary grave were blindfolded, and four other blindfolds were found loose in the grave site. Twenty-six of the victims had (25)ligatures on their hands and arms, and 11 other ligatures were found at

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(1)the site. When another secondary grave site, that is yet to be exhumed, was probed by members of my office, it revealed both the presence of broken glass, green glass, and human remains. (5)Now, the Zvornik Brigade Engineering Company logs show that a bulldozer, a brigade bulldozer, dug for eight hours at Kozluk on the 16th of July, and the heavy truck was in Kozluk on that same day. The persons who were operating those pieces of equipment were members of the engineering company of the Zvornik Brigade. (10)Now I'll turn my attention, Mr. President and Your Honours, to the 16th of July to the Branjevo Military Farm, and the Branjevo Military Farm is located far to the north in the Zvornik municipality, again, an area within the responsibility of General Krstic. This is a very remote area. The farm itself, you can see in the (15)image before you, is a military farm. It's an asset of the Zvornik Brigade. It's a farm that was used to produce food for the Zvornik Brigade, and you can look at the image and you can see how remote this is. And I will be discussing some executions that took place here. They took place to the right-hand side of the last building, last small (20)building on this image. And if we could go to the next picture. This is an area, you'll see the last building, just one of the last buildings I described, and this, again, shows the remoteness of this area, and the area where these bodies were buried my colleague Ms. Keith will circle. (25)Now, we learned of this site through the minuscule number of

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(1)survivors who miraculously had survived this execution, and they provided to us information about this execution site. Your Honours heard the testimonies of two of those four survivors, Witnesses Q and I. Their testimonies were similar to what Your Honours have heard before. The (5)people who were executed here were from Srebrenica. They had been -- they had either surrendered along the road, the Bratunac-Milici road, or they had been separated from their families in Potocari. They were transported to the area and detained in what was known as the Pilica school, which is a school which is a very short distance (10)from this execution site, and there they were guarded by members of the Bosnian Serb army. They were mistreated; they were abused at that location. And after the gymnasium where they had been kept at that school could not accommodate any additional Muslims, another busload of Muslims from Srebrenica arrived. They descended from the bus, and they were (15)executed at the school. And Mr. Ruez, the Office of the Prosecutor's lead investigator on this case, presented evidence to Your Honours corroborating that account of the massacre. Now, on the 16th of July, the Muslims prisoners who had been detained at the Pilica school were ordered on the buses. They were (20)guarded by Drina Corps military police, and they were driven to the Branjevo Military Farm where they were taken off of the buses. Many of the prisoners were abused before they could walk the last hundred metres to the site of their execution, and once they passed the last of the buildings, they were lined up in rows and they were executed. (25)Your Honours heard the testimony of Drazen Erdemovic who was a

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(1)member of the 10th Sabotage Detachment who participated in these executions. The 10th Sabotage Detachment is a military formation that is part of the Main Staff. And according to Mr. Erdemovic, between 10 a.m. on the 16th of July and 3 p.m. that same day, busload after busload full (5)of Muslim men and boys arrived at the Branjevo Military Farm. Mr. Erdemovic estimates that 1.200 people were murdered in those five hours. Mr. Erdemovic entered a guilty plea for his participation in those events. (10)Now, Mr. President and Your Honours, once again when we had received this information, we attempted to corroborate the accounts of the victims and, using aerial imagery, we were able to do so. Now, this image is taken on the 17th of July, the day after the executions took place, and it has been annotated, and you will see the buildings from above, and then (15)to the left of the last building you'll see a large circle that says "bodies," and these are the bodies of the people who had been executed, and their location was consistent with what the witnesses had told us and what Mr. Erdemovic had told us. And then the bodies were transported down to an area where -- you'll see at the bottom of the image a mound of (20)soil. You'll see in this area is the area where these people were ultimately buried. Now, members of my office then travelled to the Branjevo Military Farm and, again, did a surface inspection, initial surface inspection, and what they found were both human remains and clothes and boots and shell (25)casings that indicated that something had taken place at that location.

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(1)The area was probed. It was found to contain human remains, and in 1996, international experts again travelled to this location and they conducted an exhumation where they recovered the bodies of 132 male victims. The ages of those victims were estimated to be between 15 and 61. (5)When they dug, this is what they found - this is only one image of what they found at the Branjevo Military Farm - of the 132 male victims that were found at this location, 130 died from gunshot wounds. Seventy-six of the victims were bound with ligatures; seven other ligatures were found in the graves. Two of the victims had blindfolds. (10)Now, the experts determined that this grave site as well had been robbed. A secondary grave site that has been associated and identified with this mass execution was located on the Cancari road and was exhumed in 1998. At that location, 171 individuals were recovered, eight blindfolds, 16 ligatures. Your Honours have as part of this trial record (15)the reports of the experts who conducted these exhumations. Now, members of the Bratunac Brigade escorted these prisoners from the area of Srebrenica to the Pilica school. We have that, again, reflected in the records that were seized by my office. The first is a daily log of the Bratunac military police for the 14th of July that (20)indicates that members of the military police from Bratunac were engaged in escorting the refugees. Now, we know, Mr. President and Your Honours, that the deportations of all of the refugees from the enclave ended on the 13th of July at 8.00 in the evening. So this record indicating that the Bratunac military police were escorting Muslims can only reflect that the (25)Muslims who were being escorted were being escorted north to the execution

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(1)sites. And that has been confirmed in another daily log entry for the 17th of July that indicates, and I quote -- and it indicates the activity for the day before, and I quote, "One police patrol remained in Pilica to (5)secure and guard the Muslims." That exhibit is Exhibit 404, tab 61. So we know that military police from the Bratunac Brigade were involved in transporting the Muslims up to the area of Branjevo and were involved in guarding them. Furthermore, our evidence shows that members of the Main Staff, the 10th Sabotage Detachment, and -- first of all, (10)members of the 10th Sabotage Detachment participated in the executions; Mr. Erdemovic testified to that effect. And that on the morning of the 16th, he and other members of his execution squad travelled first from the area around the southern part of the area of responsibility north to Zvornik where they stopped at the Zvornik Brigade headquarters in Zvornik, (15)and there they were greeted by a Lieutenant Colonel, unidentified, and escorted by two military policemen from the Zvornik Brigade. They were transported and directed from the Zvornik Brigade headquarters to the Branjevo Military Farm. And Mr. Erdemovic testified as well that when the buses transporting the victims to the farm came, they were guarded on the (20)buses by Bratunac -- by Zvornik Brigade military policemen. Now, we also know, according to Mr. Erdemovic, that men from Bratunac came midway during the executions and participated in those executions. After the 1.200 people had been massacred at the Branjevo Military Farm, the unidentified Lieutenant Colonel, again accompanied by military (25)policemen, came to the farm and asked them to participate in additional

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(1)executions, which I'll describe in a minute. We know, Mr. President and Your Honours, that Drina Corps equipment belonging to the Zvornik Brigade Engineering Company and operated by their personnel buried the bodies at this site. This has been (5)confirmed by the seized vehicle work log records that we recovered in a search. We also know, Mr. President and Your Honours, that fuel for these vehicles was authorised by Major Basevic of the technical services of the Drina Corps for Department for Rear Services and was provided to (10)Lieutenant Colonel Popovic, General Krstic's direct subordinate and one of the persons whom General Krstic has identified as being responsible for these killings. I'll discuss this particular aspect of the case in a few minutes. Now, as I mentioned -- I see the time, Mr. President. It's a good time to (15)take a recess.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Yes. We are now going to have a half-hour break.

--- Recess taken at 10.51 a.m.

--- On resuming at 11.25 a.m.

(20) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] The hearing is resumed, and we'll go on for another period of one and a half hours, unless somebody is in need of a break, in which case you will inform me. Mr. Harmon, please proceed.

MR. HARMON: Thank you, Mr. President and Your Honours. (25)When we had left off before the break, I was describing the mass

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(1)execution that took place at the Branjevo Military Farm. Now I'll turn my attention to the mass execution that took place on the heels of the Branjevo Military Farm execution, the massacre that took place at the Pilica Cultural Dom. That, Mr. President and Your Honours, is located a (5)very short distance away from the Branjevo Military Farm. Your Honours heard testimony about this massacre. There are no known survivors of this massacre. The Office of the Prosecutor was completely unaware of this massacre and learned about it only through information provided to us by Drazen Erdemovic. Mr. Erdemovic testified (10)before Your Honours. What he testified about is what he told us about previously, and that is that on the 16th of July, at the end of the massacres that had taken place at the Branjevo Military Farm, the unidentified Lieutenant Colonel returned to the Branjevo Military Farm along with Zvornik Brigade (15)military policemen and he told Erdemovic and his fellow executioners that their work for the day wasn't done, that there remained an additional 500 Muslims being detained in a nearby village, in a cultural centre, and that they too had to be murdered. Mr. Erdemovic refused to participate in those executions, but his colleagues, particularly those from Bratunac, (20)willingly agreed. So Mr. Erdemovic and the Lieutenant Colonel and the military policemen and the men from Bratunac drove to the village of Pilica, which is a very short distance away. Now, the executions took place in a very public place, and my colleague, Ms. Keith, will illustrate where these executions took place. (25)You can see that this is the main road that travels through the village of

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(1)Pilica. It's one of the main roads in Eastern Bosnia going between Zvornik and, I believe, Bijeljina. Now, there was no secret in the Republika Srpska, in the village of Pilica; there was no effort to conceal this mass execution. People in (5)this village and the surroundings clearly knew what had happened at this location. Now, if we go to the next image, this is an aerial image taken by my office of the Pilica Cultural Dom, and you will see that it is the building behind the buses. Now, upon our learning of this mass execution (10)site, investigators from my office went to Pilica, to the village, and tried to find the Pilica Cultural Dom. What they found then - if we have the next image - this is the Pilica Cultural Dom, photographed by members of my investigation staff. In the front, you'll see a large memorial. This is a memorial that was (15)recently put in to honour Bosnian Serb soldiers who had been killed during the war. It sits directly in front of one of the principal mass execution sites in this case. When investigators from my office got to this location, this cultural dom was abandoned and it was locked. After Mr. Ruez and other (20)investigators gained entrance to this building, they confirmed that in fact the massacre had taken place at this location. This is what they saw: The walls of the interior of the building are pockmarked with bullets. There were shell casings on the ground. Human blood and tissue was found adhering to the walls. Empty shell casings littered the floor. (25)This image right here is just one of the very small images that was

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(1)taken. It shows the pockmarked wall and it shows blood on the wall. The next image you will see is detonation traces, the black area directly in the middle of this. You will see blood traces, splatter marks that go up from that area. As Mr. Erdemovic described in his testimony, (5)the executions that took place at this location were not only with small arms but with -- also with explosives. Now, members of -- on the 2nd of October, 1996, members of the United States Naval Criminal Investigative Service, along with investigators from my office, returned to this location and they collected (10)samples of what were suspected to be human blood and human tissue that was adhering to the walls. This is just one image taken during that collection process. Also collected were human bones that were found in the Cultural Dom. Now, these blood and tissue samples were submitted to the Ministry of Justice, the Netherlands Forensic Institute, for analysis, (15)and they confirmed that the blood and the tissue samples were human. Again, laying out the objective record in this case, Your Honours have received copies of these investigative reports and the expert forensic analyses associated with this particular site. Now, aerial images that were supplied by the United States (20)confirmed that the bodies of this massacre location were probably removed on the 17th of July. And this is an aerial image that is taken of the Cultural Dom - you can see it indicated on the bottom part of the photograph - and you'll notice that there's an unidentified vehicle where my colleague Ms. Keith has circled. And you can see, Your Honours, as (25)well, you can see -- it's hard to see on this image, but there are traces

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(1)of heavy vehicle tracks that go toward the bottom, around the building, and to the side of the building, where it says "cultural hall." These images then confirm what Mr. Erdemovic said. He was sitting in the cafe that is marked on this image. (5)Now, Zvornik Brigade vehicle work logs that we have submitted to Your Honours show that a TAM 130 truck was in Pilica on the 17th of July, and it's our submission that that is what is depicted in this particular building. That is Prosecutor's Exhibit 647. Now, I'm going to take just a moment, I'm going to remove this (10)large board behind me and replace it with another. Thank you for your assistance. Now, in the course of my remarks I frequently referred to the robbing of primary graves. General Krstic's testimony before Your Honours was that he was not aware of this large-scale operation that we know (15)occurred in September and October of 1995 when he was the commander of the Drina Corps. All of the known secondary reburial sites are located within the Drina Corps area of responsibility. Now, as I said to Your Honours, the experts, as they were conducting these exhumations at these various primary grave sites, had (20)concluded that these sites had been robbed. They did that by examining the physical configuration of the grave site, and they could determine, for example, that there were traces left in the earth. And you'll see in this image such an example, because this is a grave site at Kozluk, and after the body -- after the earth had been removed from the tops of these (25)bodies, it was apparent that there was an additional set of trenches, and

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(1)this is one of the trenches that was made during the reburial process. And we were able to determine, also, that this reburial process had occurred because, if we take a look at the next image, you'll notice this is another trench that was made during a reburial. The heavy (5)equipment blades would cut through the bodies, and these bodies are left in site in the manner in which they fell, and suddenly there would be part of bodies that had disappeared. So these are examples of what our experts found in primary grave -- in a significant number of the primary graves, these kinds of traces. (10)We also found in the secondary graves fragmented body parts that showed that the bodies that had been removed, the parts of the bodies that had been removed, it been disarticulated, and many times there were just fragments in the secondary sites. Now, as we became aware of this massive cover-up attempt by the (15)Bosnian Serb army, we tried to determine when these removals had taken place, and we were able to do so using imagery once again. So this is an image that we have previously seen, and as you can see, this is the image taken on the 17th of July at the Branjevo Military Farm, and it shows the bodies and it shows the general configuration of the area. (20)Now, we know that the bodies were dug down by the area where the mound of soil took place. So if we go from the 17th of July to the next image, which is the 21st of July, one can see in this image that it doesn't appear to be disturbed. This is the burial site that is indicated by the marker, and if we turn to the next image -- and this is dated the (25)21st of September. On the 27th of September, we can see the grave robbing

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(1)in action. And you will see in this image, Mr. President and Your Honours, at the left-hand side you'll see a newly-excavated trench, and you'll see on the right there's a box in the middle of the image that has been expanded at the bottom, you'll see both a backhoe and a front loader. (5)Now, we know, therefore, from those images that this reburial process, this grave robbing, took place in September of 1995. Let me show you some other examples of how we are able to show and determine when these sites were robbed. In is an image of the Glogova site. The Glogova site was the site (10)where the remains of the people who had been killed at the Kravica warehouse were buried. And on the 30th of October, we can see from this image that the graves are in the process of being robbed. At the bottom of the image, you'll see a front loader that is in the process of digging out the bodies. (15)The next image we'll take a look at is the area of Orahovac. Again, by a comparative analysis, on the left, the image is the 7th of September and there appears to be some disturbance, but if you turn to the image on the 27th of September, you can clearly see additional disturbance. So we know that the Orahovac grave site was disturbed (20)between the 7th and the 27th of September. Now, as I say, all of this activity took place while General Krstic was the commander of the Drina Corps. The next challenge that confronted us was to try to determine where the bodies from these primary grave sites had been taken. Again, we (25)attempted, through imagery, to determine the locations of possible

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(1)secondary grave sites. Now, we know - and I'll explain this in a few minutes - we know that the mass graves that were in the Zvornik area were robbed and we know that ultimately many of the bodies and many of the locations of the (5)secondary sites were a considerable distance away. They were located on the Hadzici, Liplje, and Cancari roads. This is the Hadzici road where many of the secondary grave sites - seven, to be exact - were located. You can see in this image, although it's a very small image, that this area is isolated, remote. So the (10)bodies that were taken out of the primary grave sites were taken to very remote locations in an attempt to conceal them. We were able to determine these locations because, if you take a look at the arrows, you'll see, although it's very hard to see on this image, but there are sites where the earth has been disturbed. (15)If we go to the next image, these are sites on the Liplje road. Again, it's hard to see from this particular image, but there are disturbances in the earth. If we go to the next site, this is the Cancari road, where 12 secondary graves were located. (20)Now, we also went to -- now, these areas, as I say, these three areas are all located in the northern part of the Drina Corps area of responsibility. We were also able, Mr. President and Your Honours, to locate secondary grave sites in the southern part of the Drina Corps area of responsibility, exactly south of the Srebrenica enclave, at a location (25)known as Zeleni Jadar. Here, again, you can see, although it's difficult,

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(1)that there are disturbances in the area, and these arrows indicate the locations of the six secondary grave sites that were identified. Now, after we were able to pinpoint these locations, investigators from the Office of the Prosecutor went to these various locations and (5)probed these possible secondary sites. When I say "probed," they did a shallow surface examination. If the probe revealed human remains were present, the sites were closed and, later, international experts returned to exhume some of these sites. Now, the next image that's on the screen is an image that shows (10)which of the known mass grave sites, both primary and secondary, have been exhumed to date. On the left-hand column, there is a long list. There's a date. For example, at the top it says "1996," and in that image, you'll see these are the mass graves that have been exhumed in 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000. The ones that are marked in the dark are primary graves; the (15)ones that are unmarked are secondary grave sites. If you look on the right-hand column, this column shows the location of grave sites that have been examined for human remains and confirmed by our investigators to contain human remains but have not yet been exhumed. You can see from this chart that there are a considerable number of graves that have yet to (20)be exhumed. Now, again, using aerial imagery, it was possible to bracket by time when these secondary grave sites were created. Again, using this image, Prosecutor's Exhibit 166/8, the top image, taken on the 7th of September, shows no disturbances in the earth; the bottom image, dated the (25)12th of October, 1995, has disturbances that are shown with the yellow

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(1)arrows, ZJ-4 and ZJ-5. So we know, based on this, that the secondary grave sites at Zeleni Jadar, which is south of the enclave, were created sometime between the 7th of September and the 12th of October, 1995. Now, obviously having found grave sites on these isolated roads, (5)the next challenge for us was to try to link those grave sites with the primary sites. In other words, we had to connect the secondary sites that contained human remains to known locations where mass executions had occurred and where the graves had been robbed. We solved this problem by using international experts who came and (10)examined a variety of material related to the primary and the secondary graves. For example, we took the blindfolds that we had found in primary grave sites and compared the textile to the textile of blindfolds found in secondary grave sites, and we were able to also compare ligature material from the primary sites to secondary sites. (15)Those expert reports matching the ligatures and blindfolds from the primary sites to the secondary sites have been presented as exhibits in this case. The Ministry of Justice, again, the Netherlands Forensic Institute, made those comparisons. In addition, we took spent cartridges, shell casings, that were (20)found at the primary mass execution locations and conducted ballistics tests with those spent cartridges that were found in the secondary grave sites, and we were able to match that cartridges found at the primary site with shells that were fired by the same gun and were found in the secondary site. Those comparisons were done by the United States Bureau (25)of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and those expert reports have been

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(1)presented and are part of this record. In addition, we took samples of the soil from the area of the primary sites and compared the soil with the contents of the soil from the secondary sites, and those also were found to be matching, both the soil (5)type and the pollens within them. That work was done by Dr. Anthony Brown, who was a soil specialist from Exeter University in the United Kingdom. In addition to that, we were able to link physical evidence from within a primary site to a secondary site. This image that is on the screen now is an image from the Kozluk (10)massacre site, and you'll see a body in this image who has ligatures on his wrists. But you'll notice to the left, you'll notice that there's a large amount of broken glass. These people, they were executed on essentially fields of this broken glass, and when the bodies were removed - in this case, the bodies from the Kozluk site were removed to a (15)location on the Cancari road - experts exhuming the Cancari road site were able to find broken green glass. It's hard to see in this image, but it is to the left-hand side. Perhaps my colleague could circle that. You can see the broken green glass at the Cancari road secondary site. Now, through this type of analysis, we were able to link these (20)primary sites to the secondary sites. This image illustrates what primary sites are linked to what secondary sites and what evidence there is linking them. So if, for example, one starts at the left side, the Branjevo Military Farm, what linked the Branjevo Military Farm to the Cancari Road 12 site were soil and pollen samples from the expert who (25)conducted that analysis, and blindfolds and ligatures.

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(1)As you go through this chart, which is part of Prosecutor's Exhibit 140, you'll see the other connectors, the green glass, the shell cases, the soil. What is evident from all of this effort from these and became (5)apparent to us, knowing where the primary sites were located, knowing where the secondary sites were located, was it was apparent to us that the cover-up operation was a massive operation. It entailed planning and coordination over a large geographic area. It required the transportation of heavy equipment to the primary grave sites for use at those locations. (10)It required locating secondary sites and digging the grave, the new grave sites. It required transporting these bodies across long distances within the Drina Corps area of responsibility. And this chart that is behind me, which is Prosecutor's Exhibit 135, shows the scale of this operation. You'll see in this chart the (15)Branjevo Military Farm at the top -- can Your Honours see that? The Branjevo Military Farm. The bodies from this location were transported a considerable distance to 12 locations in the Cancari road. The bodies at the Kozluk mass execution site were also transported down to the Cancari road. The bodies from the Dam near Petkovci were transported to the (20)Liplje area, and the bodies from the Orahovac execution site were transported to the Hodzici road. Now, if we go down to the massacre that took place at the Kravica warehouse, the bodies that were buried at the Glogova site were transported south, below the enclave, to six locations along Zeleni Jadar. (25)This, Mr. President, was no small operation. And when I say the

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(1)bodies from these various locations, there may be other locations as well where these bodies have been buried and we simply don't know about them. For example, the bodies from the Dam I mentioned earlier, we simply have not found the majority of those bodies. (5)Now, throughout my comments this morning I've been discussing exhumations, and for purposes of the objective record in this case, Your Honours are aware that exhumations were conducted in 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000. The teams that were involved in these exhumation efforts were multinational, multidisciplinary teams. They were composed of specialists (10)in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, pathology, radiology, dentistry, and these locations were also visited by scenes of crime officers of many countries, and forensic photographers. Now, Your Honours have heard the testimonies of some of these experts in this case: Dr. Richard Wright, who was an Emeritus Professor (15)of anthropology from Australia; Dr. William Haglund, who was a physical anthropologist from the United States; Jose Baraybar, who is anthropologist from Peru; Dr. Christopher Lawrence, a pathologist from Australia; Dr. John Clark, a pathologist from Scotland. You've also received expert reports from Fredy Peccerelli, who was the director of the (20)Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation. And all of these experts who have testified before you were supported by specialists from at least 24 other countries. In addition, Your Honours have received expert reports relating to the collection and analysis of evidence retrieved from all of these sites. (25)These reports were prepared by forensic specialists from around the

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(1)world. I've mentioned many times the Ministry of Justice, Netherlands Forensic Institute, which performed textile analyses, in other words, comparison between the blindfolds found in one site and others, explosives residue analyses, human DNA trace analyses from the tissue samples (5)collected at the Kravica and Pilica Dom; the United States Naval Investigative Service that collected blood and tissue samples from the Pilica Dom and the Kravica warehouse; the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that did ballistics testing in this case; Dr. Anthony Brown, who is a soil expert from Exeter University; and Mark Mills, who is (10)a horologist or a watch specialist from Seiko. Now, I want to emphasise, first of all, that Your Honours have these reports, and they're part of this record and can be examined by the public if it wishes to know what happened at this -- these terrible crime scenes. (15)I emphasise to Your Honours that none of these experts are associated in any way with the parties to this conflict, nor are any of them from the former Yugoslavia. From these expert reports and testimonies, I think it's fair to say that you have received an excellent, objective, and balanced view of the findings at these locations. We (20)certainly are indebted to all of these experts and the countries that made them available to us, and we are indebted to the United States government for aerial images that were made available to us that helped us in our investigations. Now, what are the findings of these experts who participated in (25)these exhumations? I mentioned to Your Honours and I've shown Your

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(1)Honours the partial list of known sites that had been exhumed, but thus far, Mr. President and Your Honours, we know that a minimum number, and this is a very conservative number, of 2.028 bodies have been recovered from the sites thus far exhumed. At virtually all of these sites, (5)blindfolds or ligatures were found. Twenty known secondary sites and one primary site have yet to be exhumed. When exhumations are completed on all of these sites, it is quite clear that the number of victims discovered in those sites is certain to increase. Dr. Richard Wright estimated, and a very (10)conservative estimate, that another 2.571 bodies remain in the known, unexhumed sites. Now, there has been some suggestion by Defence witnesses that these grave sites contain battle casualties; in other words, people who lost their lives in active combat or were collateral damage, collateral (15)casualties. Now, as the experts who have testified about their findings have made clear, it's preposterous, utterly preposterous to suggest that the people who were blindfolded and who had their hands bound behind them were battle casualties. It's also complete nonsense to suggest that the Bosnian Serb army (20)would exhume battle casualties two months later in the dead of night and relocate those bodies at small, out-of-the-way, isolated, remote areas. Had these been battle casualties or had there been a justification, any justification to move those bodies from the primary sites, either for hygienic reasons or otherwise, or any other neutral explanation, evidence (25)of that would not have been difficult to present. None was. And the

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(1)reason none was, was because this was a part of a cover-up operation. Now, it's our submission that the bodies that Your Honours have heard evidence about that have been recovered from these primary and secondary grave sites are the mortal remains of Muslim men and boys who (5)had been executed by the Bosnian Serb army following the fall of Srebrenica. It's our further submission that the Bosnian Serb army made a conscious decision to cover up these crimes and executed the cover-up operation in September and October of 1995 in reburying these bodies (10)throughout the area of the Drina Corps area of responsibility. They did so, it's our view, after United States Ambassador Madeline Albright, on October the 10th, 1995, informed the UN, and later the public, that aerial images were available showing massacre locations. She did that on the 10th of October -- 10th of August, I stand corrected, 1995, and within a (15)month, the massive cover-up operation took place. Now, Mr. President and Your Honours, I have undertaken this rather lengthy and detailed account of the evidence so that there will be no doubt as to the nature and the scale of these terrible crimes that occurred following the fall of Srebrenica and so that the criminal (20)responsibility of General Krstic can be put into proper context. I hope that the objective record created in this trial will be of assistance to the people in Bosnia, including the victims who need to know what happened to their husbands, their sons, and their brothers. And I hope that an objective record will help them in the healing process. (25)I also hope that the objective findings of the experts will permit

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(1)people like Witnesses DA and DC and others like them to understand what happened, to confront, deal with this tragedy in a responsible way, and to hopefully assist in the ultimate reconciliation of the Bosnian Muslim people and the Bosnian Serb people. (5)Now that, Mr. President, concludes my description of the findings of the experts and the mass grave and an examination of that evidence, and I would now like to turn to another topic and that is the topic that has been disputed in this case as well, and that is Counts 7 and 8. In Counts 7 and 8, we charge General Krstic with crimes against humanity. Count 7 (10)is a crime against humanity for deportation, and Count 8 is an alternative count for forcible transfer. The first question that arises in this context is whether the movement of the Muslim people from the enclave and its environs on the 12th and 13th of July constitute deportation and forcible transfer within (15)the legal meaning of the terms contained in Counts 7 and 8. We know from the facts that have been presented in this case that between approximately noon on the 12th of July until 8 p.m. on the 13th of July, a period of about 36 hours, 25.000 to 35.000 Muslim women, children, and some men were deported from the enclave. We also know that (20)separations of these men took place, and the men who had been separated were also deported to the areas north of Srebrenica, and they were massacred. Now, the law that applies to this case to deportation as a crime against humanity is defined as the forced displacement of civilians from (25)an area in which they are lawfully present without grounds permitted by

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(1)international law. Under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and under Article 17 of the Second Protocol, the individual, and I emphasise individual, or mass forcible transfers and deportation of civilians is prohibited except in two limited cases: "if the security of the civilians (5)or imperative military reasons so demand." Now, in the context of this case, a number of questions arise. The first question, I think, is whether the movement of the Muslim population from the Srebrenica enclave on the 12th and 13th of July was justifiable under international humanitarian law. It's our submission (10)that it was not. Neither the security of the civilians nor the military situation demanded the forcible movement of civilians. If we look, first of all, at the military situation, the evidence that's been presented to Your Honours shows that by the 12th of July, the Bosnian Serb army was in firm control of the enclave. Hostilities within (15)the enclave had ceased. We know from intercepted radio communications that the VRS was aware of the 15.000-person column that had moved out of the enclave in the direction of the road -- in the direction of Tuzla. We know that. Those exhibits are 501 and 502. Now, by the time the VRS entered Potocari on the morning of the (20)12th, they had an opportunity to assess the composition of the 25.000 to 35.000 refugees who were in and around the enclave. They were fully aware that the majority of the people who were around the Potocari UN base were women and children, although they were also aware that there was a limited number of men. These people clearly did not pose a military threat. (25)We've seen film of the desperate condition that these people were in.

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(1)Indeed, Your Honours, so secure were the Bosnian Serb forces that they, the people in and around Potocari, didn't pose a threat nor did the situation in the enclave pose a threat, that General Mladic ordered the Drina Corps units that had captured the enclave to withdraw to Zepa to (5)start new offensive operations against the Zepa enclave on the 14th of July. Thus, by the 13th of July, the VRS units that had been involved in capturing the enclave were withdrawing and going south to Zepa. So it's our submission that the military imperatives did not warrant deportation of the refugees. (10)Now, if we examine, then, the issue of did the security of the refugees, did that situation justify the deportation of the refugees. Your Honours have heard from the victims who were in Potocari, you've seen film of those dreadful days, and you've heard testimonies of Dutch Battalion soldiers who were present. It's clear that the security -- it's (15)certainly clear that the condition of those refugees was that they were frightened, they were exhausted, and they were in need of proper shelter, food, water, and medical care. DutchBat endeavoured to provide their limited resources to assist the refugees. Now, under the circumstances of that situation, the VRS had an (20)obligation to provide assistance to the refugees who were in and around Potocari. They were in complete control of the area, they had resources at their disposal, and quite frankly, deportation was not an alternative to not providing assistance to those refugees. The other alternative that was available to the VRS was to let (25)these people go back to their homes within the enclave. They certainly

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(1)weren't a military threat. Their homes were available; they could have gone home and could have had at their disposal the shelter, food, or at least some food, to care for their needs. It's our submission, Mr. President and Your Honours, that the (5)security situation of the refugees didn't justify their deportation between the 12th and the 13th of July. Now, I think the next issue that we have to confront in this case is what is the definition of force within the meaning of the terms "deportation" and "forcible transfer"? And the answer to that, I think, (10)can be found in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998, Article 7, where it says that deportation and forcible transfer means forced displacement of persons concerned by expulsion or by other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted by international law. (15)Now, one of the commentators on the Rome Statute, a gentleman named Otto Triffterer, has said, and I quote: "Expulsion or other coercive acts must include the full range of coercive measures on people to flee their homes, including death threats, destruction to their homes, and other acts of persecution." (20)So using that framework, we must now look at the facts and attempt to determine whether or not the mass movement of the 25.000 to 35.000 women and children from the enclave that occurred was effectuated by force, and whether the movement of the men who had been separated in Potocari or who had surrendered along the road was also effectuated by (25)force. Our submission to Your Honours is that force within the framework

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(1)of these definitions was, indeed, used. Now, to understand, and I have to go back a little bit in history, but to understand the motivation for the deportation of the Muslim population from Srebrenica in 1995, we must first cast an eye on what were (5)the political and strategic objectives of the Republika Srpska. We can take a look at that. It's in writing. It's Prosecutor's Exhibit, I believe, 746. This particular document is a decision that was taken in 1992 on the strategic objectives of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is dated the 12th of May, 1992, and you can see that (10)these strategic objectives that have been embedded in law include in point 1 to "Establish State Borders separating the Serbian people from the other two ethnic communities." In point 3, to "Establish a corridor in the Drina River valley, that is eliminate the Drina as a border separating Serbian States." (15)Of course, these objectives, as we know, were not achieved. In 1993, despite an effort by the Bosnian Serb army to completely separate the ethnic communities in Eastern Bosnia and establish a corridor, the UN established safe areas. As a result, of course, the Bosnian Serb community had in its bosom one of the ethnic groups from which it had (20)hoped to be separated. Now, in March of 1995, the Supreme Commander of the Republika Srpska army, Dr. Radovan Karadzic, issued Directive 7 to the VRS, and in that directive, it included instructions and directions to the Drina Corps. Dr. Karadzic, in this directive, is directing the implementation (25)of the strategic objectives that were announced in 1992. If we examine

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(1)this directive, which is Prosecutor's Exhibit 425, we can see that Dr. Karadzic specifically directs the Drina Corps - this is a little bit below the middle of the page - "by planned and thought out combat operations, create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no (5)hope of further survival or life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica and Zepa." Now, further down in this document, paragraph 6.1, under the area "Support for Combat Operations," 6.1 is "Moral and Psychological Support." This says that the state and military organisations shall do, (10)among other things, they shall "reduce and eliminate logistics support of UNPROFOR to the enclaves and the supply of material resources to the Muslim population." It was thus in 1995, in March, that the enclave was slowly strangled by the VRS. Your Honours have heard considerable evidence about (15)the effects of paragraph 6.1 on both the Dutch Battalion that was serving within the enclave and the occupants who lived there. Colonel Karremans, whose testimony was provided to Your Honours - he testified during a Rule 61 hearing and we submitted the transcript and the film of that testimony - Colonel Karremans characterised what happened (20)from March onwards as "convoy terror," which first restricted the amount of humanitarian aid that came in and then prevented it from coming in. This also prevented the Dutch Battalion from effectively fulfilling its mandate, because every time Dutch Battalion soldiers who were in the enclave rotated out of the enclave, no replacements were permitted to come (25)back in; in addition to which, the convoy of terror, the blocking of

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(1)terror, blocked the Dutch Battalion from receiving sufficient means in which to fulfil their mandate, that is, equipment, gasoline, ammunition. The other effect that this had on the enclave was that humanitarian aid did not arrive into the enclave. If it did, it was in (5)very small amounts. Indeed, Your Honours have heard testimony that the people within the enclave slowly starved or were starving. Now, this image, Prosecutor's Exhibit 85, is an image that was provided to us by a member of the Dutch Battalion. What it shows is the white truck was a United Nations dump truck, and this picture was taken in (10)winter at the dump site. The people around this dump truck are scrounging for the remains of whatever they could find useful, including food, so they could sustain their lives. Your Honours have received as well internal Bosnian army documents, Prosecutor's Exhibit 898 to 904, describing the effects of this (15)strangulation, including the deaths due to starvation. Now, this kind of coercion was protracted, it was subtle, and then it was a factor that contributed to making life unbearable. Against this, as I say, Your Honours should consider the strategic objectives, then, of Krivaja 95, which was the Bosnian Serb army military (20)plan that implemented Directive 7. It had as its initial goal the reduction of the enclave to the urban areas. In other words, the urban area of Srebrenica was approximately a kilometre square. In reducing the enclave to its urban areas meant that the thousands and thousands of Muslim people who remained in the enclave would be forced to live within (25)that one square kilometre, thus creating a humanitarian disaster.

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(1)Now, if we focus our attention on the actual attack in 1995, starting on the 6th of July and the attack itself ended on the 11th, we can see that the Bosnian Serb army targeted civilians. There were acts of physical violence which were directed against the civilians that were (5)committed in the presence of thousands of other refugees who were in and around Srebrenica and in and around Potocari. Taken individually and collectively, these acts, which I'll describe in a minute, had the effect of terrorising the civilians who had remained in the enclave. DutchBat soldiers who testified before you testified that these (10)people were so terrorised that some actually committed suicide. They recounted cutting the bodies down of the people who had committed suicide in and around Potocari. And Your Honours heard the testimony of one very courageous woman, Camila Omanovic, who testified before you, about her own attempt to take her life. She had participated in the negotiations with (15)General Mladic and General Krstic on the 13th where the Muslim representatives were intimidated. Now, let me summarise some of this evidence that relates to the use of force, and I'll start first of all by just touching upon the VRS attacks on civilians during the attack. Now, Your Honours have heard the (20)testimony of Colonel Kingori, who was a United Nations military observer from Kenya who was stationed within the enclave, and from Major Franken from the Dutch Battalion, and Your Honours also have before you Prosecutor's Exhibits 898 to 904 and the testimony of a witness General Hadzihasanovic. It is clear from the testimony of those witnesses and (25)those exhibits that the artillery fire during the attack was directed at

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(1)civilian targets as well as military targets. Captain Egbers, who was a Dutch Battalion representative, testified that the artillery fire that was directed -- it was directed in such a way as to herd the Muslim refugees from Srebrenica to Potocari, and (5)Your Honours have also heard the testimony of both Captain Egbers and Witness B who testified that the UN compound in Srebrenica where the civilians had initially gathered was shelled, causing civilian casualties. Witness C, Nesib Mandzic, Dutch Battalion soldier David Vaasen, and a witness by the name of Hajdarevic testified about the burning of (10)Muslim homes that was particularly evident and in the plain view of Muslim refugees who were in and around Potocari. Drazen Erdemovic testified that he participated in the attack on the enclave, his unit being one of the first, if not the first, to enter into the town of Srebrenica on the morning of the 11th, and he described (15)how his unit came across a young, military-aged Muslim - he was captured, he was unarmed - and how Miso Pelemis, the leader of Mr. Erdemovic's group, gave the order for that man to have his throat slit, and how members -- one member of the 10th Sabotage Detachment did just what Pelemis ordered, and how the body of that victim remained in town for all (20)to see. Now, once the refugees had fled to Potocari and sought protection in Potocari, the VRS directed acts of physical violence against them. First of all, the testimony in this case has been that upon the entry of the VRS units into Potocari, there were verbal threats, menaces, and other (25)intimidation from VRS soldiers to the refugees. In addition, Dutch

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(1)Battalion soldiers testified -- and Dutch Battalion soldiers were supposed to be the protectors of these people. They had gone to Potocari seeking the protection of the Dutch Battalion. And Dutch Battalion soldiers testified in this case about how they would go out on patrol amongst the (5)refugees to monitor the refugees, and how they were systematically disarmed by Bosnian Serb soldiers in the presence of the refugees. They were held at gunpoint; they were stripped of their blue helmets, their vests, their weapons. And ultimately the command from the Dutch Battalion let the soldiers go out, the Dutch Battalion soldiers go out unarmed (10)because to be armed was only an invitation to take the arms of the soldiers. So these actions in front of these refugees made them certainly feel more vulnerable as their protectors were being slowly and systematically disarmed. In addition, Your Honours have heard testimony about the murder in (15)the presence of the refugees of men and children by members of the VRS. Let me cite some of those examples for Your Honours. There was the testimony of many of the witnesses who were refugees around Potocari who described for Your Honours the constant shooting in and around and nearby the enclave; the testimony of Corporal Groenewegen who actually saw a (20)refugee lined up against a wall by VRS soldiers and executed; the discovery of nine to ten bodies at two separate locations near a river. Those people had been murdered. The testimony that I direct Your Honours' attention to are the testimonies of Dutch Battalion soldiers, Rutten, Witness F, and Major Franken. (25)The decapitation of over 100 Muslim civilians near a hangar where

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(1)thousands of these refugees were seeking shelter. Bego Ademovic testified to that. He also testified about observing an infant who was taken out of her mother's arms in the presence of the refugees and stabbed to death. Now, fear in this media and the threat of death was omnipresent. (5)These actions that were taken were like eventually throwing a match in a bottle of kerosene. Let me remind Your Honours about the testimony of Witness F who described for Your Honours his encounter with the young Muslim soldier who had been wounded in a fight with the VRS at some earlier occasion and who (10)Witness F knew from his patrols and whom he encountered in Potocari on the 12th of July. And I quote Witness F: "He asked me what's going to happen to me? And I couldn't give him a direct answer to that. I could have done so, but it's very difficult to tell him that he, being a man, will be taken away, because separations are taking place. So I didn't tell him (15)much. He said to me, `You don't have to tell me. I know what's going to happen. I'm going to be taken away and killed.' So I just nodded my head and I saw the fear in his eyes. There wasn't much I could do. I stood powerless. And I haven't seen him since." Now, then Your Honours also heard the testimony of David Vaasen, a (20)Dutch soldier, who described coming upon VRS soldiers raping a young girl in the presence of countless other refugees. Your Honours are also aware of the inhumane conditions that existed in and around Potocari. There is no dispute that the temperature was exceptionally hot, and the VRS had absolute control over the environs (25)of Potocari and the area. They were fully aware of the conditions of the

• Page 9896 • {67/105}

(1)refugees, and despite having the ability to provide the basic necessities to them, they only provided one tanker of water and a small amount of bread for the 25.000 to 35.000 refugees. It was quite obviously inadequate. As a result of that, many babies died of dehydration. (5)Now, the VRS did use this situation, however, to callously exploit the refugees for propaganda purposes and to deceive the world about what was really going to happen. I'm going to show Your Honours a piece of what I consider to be a disgusting propaganda film that was filmed on the 12th of July. It's a rather benign scene. It's a comforting scene, and (10)it shows the VRS soldiers giving candy to the refugee children. So if we could put that on the film, if we could play it right now. It's very quick.
[Videotape played]

MR. HARMON: That is a very short clip of film, and it's a very (15)comforting scene. But Your Honours also heard of -- from four witnesses who were present when that rather benign scene was being filmed: Colonel Kingori, who was the Kenyan United Nations observer, and Dutch officers Rutten, Vaasen, and Witness F. All of them testified about seeing this film being filmed in the presence of General Mladic and other members of (20)the Bosnian Serb army. After the cameras were turned off, they all testified about what happened next, and I will only quote from Witness F whose testimony is found at page 1521: "After the camera crew stopped filming, the General turned around and laughed. The soldiers took the candy back, took the (25)cigarettes back. They spit at the children and at the women and they were

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(1) Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and English transcripts.

• Page 9898 • {69/105}

(1)taken away directly." Now, let me continue describing the force in those days in Potocari. As we know, Mr. President and Your Honours, the men who had accompanied their families to Potocari were separated from their families (5)in the presence of thousands of other refugees. This separation process was terrifying, absolutely terrifying. How terrifying was it? Well, I can never give words to what occurred those five years ago. I can't convey what it was like, but let me play for Your Honours the testimony of Witness DD who was a deportee and who testified about the day the Bosnian (10)Serb soldiers took away her 14-year-old son.
[Videotape played]

MR. HARMON: Mr. President and Your Honours, you've also heard testimony about the brutal treatment that took place in respect of men and boys who had been separated and who had been detained at the "white (15)house." When DutchBat soldier Rutten, who had gone into the "white house" was asked to describe the condition of the men he had seen in the "white house," he answered, and I quote: "You could see the total fear and I never thought that it really existed. But you could even smell death there because it was total fear, what you saw in the faces of the men and (20)the young boys." Also, Your Honours have heard the testimony of Dutch Battalion soldier Witness F who described observing members of the Bosnian Serb army pushing, kicking, beating, shouting, and spitting at the refugees in order to force them onto the buses. (25)Now, if any doubt remains as to the Bosnian Serb army's intention

• Page 9899 • {70/105}

(1)toward letting the Muslims remain in the enclave, it is clearly dispelled by an intercepted communication in which General Mladic was intercepted. This conversation took place on the 12th of July, if we can have that on next. In this intercepted communication of the 12th of July, you will see (5)that General Mladic is conversing, and in the highlighted portion he says: "Good, excellent. Continue to monitor the situation. Don't let small groups of them sneak in. They've all capitulated and surrendered and we'll evacuate them all - those who want to and those who don't want to." And the other party answers, "I understand, General." (10)Lastly, I would like to draw Your Honours' attention to the testimony of Martin Van der Zwan, who was a Dutch Battalion soldier and who described the conversation he had with a dog handler who was associated with a unit that was trying to find Muslims who had remained in the enclave. This conversation took place after the deportations had (15)continued. Mr. Van der Zwan testified that the young VRS dog handler who was conversing with him was very upset. He was crying, and he described the events of the day. He described how his unit had been in Srebrenica and how they had come across an old Muslim man and a young girl, and how the (20)dogs chased down the old man and how the platoon leader of that squad, a man known as "the butcher" killed the old man with his knife. And then "the butcher" turned his attention to the young girl, and according to the soldier, Mr. Van der Zwan said he told him the following: "He killed her by slitting, cutting her open with a knife, starting between her legs (25)and up to her throat."

• Page 9900 • {71/105}

(1)It's clear from the evidence, Your Honours, that no Muslims were to remain in the enclave. There was no choice. Any attempt to characterise the mass deportation of Muslim women and children and the elderly males from Srebrenica on the 12th and the 13th as a humanitarian (5)gesture designed to avert a humanitarian crisis, or that the refugees had any choice in the matter, that they were exercising their free will, has been starkly refuted by the evidence. Furthermore, any legal justification for the deportation of the men and the boys who had been separated in Potocari, had been captured (10)along the road, or who had been separated at Tisca and transported to the execution fields, utterly fails. Those men, those boys were transported out of the enclave and to the distant killing fields by brutal and raw force and nothing else. As the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, (15)characterised the removal of the Muslims from the enclave, as found in our Exhibit 113/1, and what she said was that the removal was "one of the most blatant examples of ethnically-motivated forced displacement we have seen yet in the war." It is our submission to Your Honours that, indeed, force within (20)the meaning of Counts 7 and 8 was used to remove the Muslims from the Srebrenica enclave and its environs. Mr. President, perhaps this would be a good time to break because I'm about to go to a wholly different section. I will be addressing General Krstic's role in the deportations.

(25) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Yes, Mr. Harmon, I think that

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(1)this would be a good time to adjourn for 50 minutes.

--- Recess taken at 12.53 p.m.

--- On resuming at 1.50 p.m.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Before we resume, I should like (5)to check. I think there was a misunderstanding regarding the timetable. Are we going to respect the normal hours that we had throughout the trial, or are we going to work until 5.00 or 5.30? What is your understanding of the matter, Mr. Harmon, to check with you whether we're going to work longer hours or as we used to?

(10) MR. HARMON: Mr. President, I had no particular understanding one way or the other. I knew that we would be given two days to complete our summation, but I never gave thought to the number of specific hours.

JUDGE RIAD: But two days can be two full days or two days till 3.00. What was in your mind?

(15) MR. HARMON: Again, Judge Riad, I had prepared what I thought would finish within, reasonably within two days, perhaps less than two of our normal court days.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Mr. Petrusic, your response to the same question, please.

(20) MR. PETRUSIC: [Int.] Mr. President, the Defence thought that we would be respecting the normal hours, that is, from 9.20 until 3 p.m. during these four days that have been planned.

JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Very well, then. Having clarified the matter, we can now continue. (25)Mr. Harmon, please go on. We'll be working until 3 p.m. We need

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(1)maybe ten minutes to deal with a particular point, so perhaps you can work a little longer. We'll go on a little longer than three.

MR. HARMON: Thank you, Mr. President, Your Honours. What I'd like now to turn my attention to is the role of General (5)Krstic in these deportations. According to the Prosecutor's military expert, Major General Francis Richard Dannatt, a distinguished British career officer who testified for the Prosecution, General Dannatt testified that the movement of 25.000 to 35.000 people would be "a significant military undertaking and would require significant planning." (10)According to General Dannatt, the quicker it was done, the greater degree of planning that would be involved. When the deportations from Srebrenica, from Potocari were occurring, General Krstic held the position of Chief of Staff of the Drina Corps. According to General Dannatt, such an operation could not have (15)taken place without the involvement or the knowledge of the corps staff or the Chief of Staff. That testimony is found at 5265 and 6. Indeed, our evidence shows that General Krstic played an important and significant role in the deportation of the Muslims from Srebrenica. General Krstic testified under oath in this trial. My colleague, (20)Mr. McCloskey, cross-examined him and asked him about the subject of buses that were used to deport the refugees. That testimony is found at page 6584, and this is the question and these are the answers that were provided. Question by Mr. McCloskey: "Do you recall the testimony that (25)numerous buses started arriving in Potocari at 1:00 p.m.?" General

• Page 9903 • {74/105}

(1)Krstic: "Well, I don't know anything about the arrival of the buses." Question: "Is it fair to say that there must have been a lot of organisation going on to get those buses and to make the arrangements to get the people transported?" Answer by General Krstic: "I don't know (5)that. I did not in any way -- I was not in any way included in securing the buses." Now, that testimony was untruthful. General Krstic had a direct role in ordering the buses, and after they left the enclave, he monitored their progress to the destination of Tisca, where the Muslims were (10)disembarked, where the men were separated. Now, if we turn initially to Prosecutor's Exhibit 435, this is an intercepted radio communication. Your Honours received a lot of evidence of intercepted radio communication and Your Honours have heard the testimonies of those radio intercept operators and have seen them, have (15)been able to assess them, and have been able to understand and comprehend the manner and methods that they used. This is an intercepted radio communication from the 12th of July, 1995, the day the deportations started. It involves two people: General Krstic and it also involves Lieutenant Colonel Krsmanovic. (20)Now, Your Honours, this is an organigramme of the VRS Drina Corps structure, and Colonel Krsmanovic, Lieutenant Colonel Krsmanovic, is found here where he is the -- he is in one of the Corps branches, in the Transportation Service. This conversation essentially was a conversation, and you can see it on the monitors and on the board before you, this is (25)General Krstic saying: "Hello, is that Krsmanovic?" And down below,

• Page 9904 • {75/105}

(1)General Krstic, as you can see, is ordering the buses. He's making an order here. He says, "Now: this, from all these places, 50 buses in total are to be at the stadium in Bratunac by 1700 hours." Later he says, "Make very sure this is done! Is that clear?" And Krsmanovic says, (5)"Understood." Now, if we refer then to the next intercepted radio communication, this at 1210 hours, again between General Krstic and Lieutenant Colonel Krsmanovic, this is a summary of a conversation. As Your Honours heard from the intercept operators, sometimes they would merely summarise the (10)conversations. But at 1210, shortly before the deportation started, it's another intercept, a summary: "Krstic wants the buses to start moving right away." The next intercept, again from the 12th of July, 1995, involves two correspondents, X and Y, and they are unidentified. But if you go (15)down, close to the bottom, you'll see X saying, "I have it from Krsto, where he ... ordered directly. That request went up there and I am thinking that it can't be 200 litres ... 200 tonnes." The last intercept in this series is also from the 12th of July, this at 1305 hours, and it's with General Krstic and an individual Sobot. (20)General Krstic is now monitoring the transportation, making sure that the route to Tisca has been cleared, and he says to Sobot: "Get in touch with those guys from the ... Ministry of the Interior. That means you, your brigade and them." He goes on to say and he directs Sobot to "secure the road first, from the crossroad below ... where you are, 12 kilometres (25)towards ... up to the tunnel." And he says that, while they're

• Page 9905 • {76/105}

(1)disembarking, make sure that nothing must happen to anyone. "Is that clear?" Now, this intercept parallels another intercept that we'll see later with General Mladic. And clearly this expression, "make sure that (5)nothing must happen to any of them," is understood in the context of what was happening, because the last thing the VRS wanted was to reveal the plans to annihilate the men. The women had to arrive safely, provided them with cover to conduct the massive killing operation that they had planned and were undertaking at the time. (10)Now, when confronted with this series of intercepts during the course of the trial, General Krstic identified the Krstic in these intercepts as a Lieutenant Colonel in the logistics base at Sokolac. His testimony can be found at 6609. And this, Your Honours, it's our submission, was an attempt by General Krstic to shift the blame, to shift (15)the responsibility, to others. It was a consistent pattern of General Krstic's throughout this trial. Now, when you consider General Krstic's knowledge, his participation in, and his role in these deportations, I would direct Your Honours' attention to closed session testimony that is found at pages 9157 (20)through 9161. Lastly, I would like Your Honours to consider the following film clip that I'm going to play in a moment. General Krstic gave a statement to the Office of the Prosecutor in February of 2000, and in that interview he was asked whether or not he was in Potocari, the location where these (25)deportations took place. And if we could play that film, then you will

• Page 9906 • {77/105}

(1)see the questions that were asked of him and his answers.
[Videotape played]

MR. HARMON: The answer, "No, absolutely not." Now, let's examine the next piece of film, which is -- and I'll (5)play it in just a minute, which is an interview of General Krstic in Potocari on the 12th of July. And when you look at this film you'll notice behind General Krstic are the very buses that he ordered, the very trucks that he ordered to transport, to deport, these refugees. And if the language booth could also read, translate, the (10)interview of General Krstic. So if we could play that film now.

THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "This operation was very successful. We didn't stop with the operation. We are going on to liberate the territory of Srebrenica municipality. We guarantee to the civilian population their security. They will be safely transported to where they (15)wish to go. "How do you comment on the NATO plane attacks on the Serb army, though it is well known that the Muslims from this former enclave kept making attacks and inflicting losses on Serb civilian targets? "Regarding the NATO air shelling, the reason is that they know (20)that most of the Dutch Battalion has crossed over onto our territory. They have asked us to guarantee their security. We are not afraid of the NATO planes. We will go on until the end."

MR. HARMON: You can see, Your Honours, that General Krstic was not only present in Potocari on the 12th, he was participating in another (25)one of those comforting exercises, assuring the world and assuring the

• Page 9907 • {78/105}

(1)public that the Muslim population would be taken to locations wherever they wanted. Now, the testimony of many witnesses who have appeared in this Chamber before you when the Muslims were being deported on the buses (5)testified about seeing General Krstic in Potocari, testified about seeing General Krstic present when the men were being separated. According to Witness F, who was a DutchBat soldier, Krstic was "at the centre of all the happenings around the refugees, so he was in the centre between the main entrance, the bus complex, and the white house around the compound." (10)Our evidence shows that General Krstic remained in Potocari between one and two hours on the 12th of July. According to United Nations military observer Colonel Kingori, General Krstic was giving orders to his subordinates while he was in Potocari. He was not a passive observer. The film that we've just seen put him right in the heart of the (15)deportations, right in front of the very buses that he ordered. It's our submission to Your Honours that the removal of the civilian population from Srebrenica was consistent with the decision taken in 1992 to separate the Muslim ethnic group from the Serbs and to establish a corridor in the Drina river valley. It's our further (20)submission that force was used by the VRS to remove the men and the women and the children from the enclave, and to remove the men and the boys who had been separated in Potocari and the environs. Further, we submit to Your Honours that General Krstic was untruthful about his involvement in securing the buses, and he was so in (25)order to conceal his involvement in these crimes.

• Page 9908 • {79/105}

(1)Now I would like to turn my attention next to General Krstic's role in the mass executions. First, it's important to address one issue that was contested quite vigorously in this trial, and that is when did General Krstic assume command of the Drina Corps. (5)In brief, General Krstic's position is this: He was formally designated to become the commander of the Drina Corps by a decree of President Karadzic on the 14th of July, his role as commander to be effective the 15th of July, 1995, but he didn't actually assume actual control over the Drina Corps until the 20th or the 21st when command was (10)formally passed over to him. The Prosecutor's position is that General Krstic assumed command of the Drina Corps on the 13th of July, and that that pass-over of command ceremony took place at the Drina command headquarters in Vlasenica. Now, why is that date important? And Your Honours will see on the (15)monitors before you or on the board in front of you a visual aid that puts clearly the matter at issue, because when General Krstic became the commander of the Drina Corps fixes in time who had direct command authority over the Drina Corps units that participated in the mass executions. So on this visual aid, Your Honours will see that General (20)Krstic, according to the Prosecutor's Office, became commander on the 13th of July. Now, you'll see a shaded area above that and the killings that took place before General Krstic actually assumed command of the Drina Corps. It's important to note that at the time that the killings on the (25)12th and 13th took place, those identified in the shaded areas, that

• Page 9909 • {80/105}

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• Page 9910 • {81/105}

(1)General Krstic was a Chief of Staff of the Drina Corps. After he became the commander on the 13th of July, you'll see then a series of mass executions that took place while he was the commander. Now, if you take General Krstic's version of when he became the (5)commander, that is, the dotted line at the bottom, and you'll notice that, according to the time period General Krstic says he became commander, all of the mass executions had finished. The only events that remained were the cover-up, the reburials that took place in September and in October. Now, Mr. Petrusic, my distinguished colleague from the Defence, (10)said in his opening statement at page 5955 that the report on the hand-over of duty fixing the date when General Krstic assumed command of the Drina Corps is missing and, "That is why General Krstic is here before you." The Defence expert witness, Professor General Radinovic, testified (15)in response to a question by Your Honour Judge Rodrigues that the date when General Krstic became commander of the Drina Corps was important because, "The assessment of responsibility depends on that fact." That is found at 8388. Now, let's examine the evidence that supports General Krstic first (20)in his assertion that he only assumed command on the 20th or the 21st. His evidence depends on three pillars. The first pillar is the presidential decree by Radovan Karadzic appointing him formally to that position; the second pillar is his sworn testimony that, following the presidential decree, a period of transition was required before the actual (25)assumption of command was passed from General Zivanovic to him; and third,

• Page 9911 • {82/105}

(1)his sworn testimony again that the pass-over of command ceremony took place in a restaurant in Han Kram on the 20th or the 21st of July, at which point General Zivanovic passed command authority over to General Krstic. (5)Now, in that latter element, the Han Kram ceremony, the only supporting evidence presented by General Krstic is hearsay testimony of, I believe, two witnesses who came before Your Honours and said they had heard of the ceremony; they had not actually attended it. So let's -- why don't we examine, then, the evidence. We'll take (10)the first pillar of General Krstic's story, that is -- and it is the -- if we could have the next -- on the monitor, I see. This is the critical and immutable starting point on the issue, according to General Krstic, when he became the commander. It is the decree. And you'll see it's dated the 14th of July, and it is -- appoints to the command of the Drina Corps (15)General Krstic. It appoints as well, as the deputy commander, Svetozar Andzic. The appointment is to be effective the 15th of July. Now, according to General Krstic, this decree did not confer immediate or actual control of the Drina Corps to him. There had to be a transition period, as I said, and that transition period was required both (20)by custom and required by military regulation. According to Professor General Radinovic, he testified that, before that date, which is the date of the decree, he should not or he is not permitted to take over such duties. Now, we, of course, reject this hypothesis both on the basis of (25)common sense and on the basis of the testimony of General Krstic's own

• Page 9912 • {83/105}

(1)witnesses. His assertion that the assumption of command can only occur after this decree has been issued is illogical, because during wartime it is inconceivable that an individual in command authority could not take over command responsibility prior to the issuance of a piece of paper. (5)Wartime conditions being what they were create exceptional situations. Indeed, Your Honour, battles, wars, campaigns could be lost awaiting the fulfillment of a bureaucratic detail like the issuance of or the signing of a piece of paper.
[redacted]
(10) [redacted]
[redacted]
[redacted]
[redacted] One of those examples was not adhering to the formal requirements of a communications plan that would form part of an (15)operational attack plan. He also said that numerical designations of officers' status again wasn't followed because of wartime conditions. But more importantly, Your Honours, he testified that a commander could assume de facto command prior to the issuance of a presidential decree formally designating that individual to the command position. (20)Now, Your Honours should also consider the testimony of General Francis Richard Dannatt, the Prosecutor's military expert. He was asked by Judge Rodrigues at page 5703 and 4 about this very same issue, and he was asked whether in the British Army it was possible for a commander to be appointed by someone else except for the person who was empowered by (25)law to appoint him as the commander, and General Dannatt said yes. And he

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(1)gave Your Honours an example in his own command when he acted prior to the authorised person issuing the piece of paper, the decree. So it's our submission, Mr. President and Your Honours, that in the Bosnian Serb army, an officer could assume command of a unit before he (5)was formally designated to that post. Now, the next pillar upon which the accused says he couldn't have assumed command until the 21st was the issue of the transition period. Now, what is the transition period that's required? According to Professor General Radinovic, once again, and according to Witness DB, a (10)transition period is a period of time that it takes the new commander who is coming into a new unit to familiarise himself with the elements of the unit, the officers, the operations in which they're involved. He has to go visit the units. He has to become fully acquainted with the unit he's about to command before he can take control over them. (15)Now, we also know that General Krstic had been the Chief of Staff of the Drina Corps since the 28th of September, 1994, and he was intimately familiar with the personnel of the Drina Corps and all of their operations. According to General Professor Radinovic, familiarity with the Drina Corps personnel would permit someone like General Krstic only an (20)"operative pause" in which to effectuate the transition. In other words, somebody who was familiar with a unit wouldn't need a long period of time for transition. Now, it's our submission that with regard to the transition period, that indeed all that was required was an operative pause, given (25)General Krstic's familiarity with the unit. It did not require a

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(1)transition period of the number of days that General Krstic says was required. From the 14th until the 20th or the 21st of June, he had been the Chief of Staff; he was familiar with the unit and the Corps. The third prong of General Krstic's argument on this issue is that (5)there was a formal pass-over of command ceremony that took place at Han Kram at a restaurant on the 20th or the 21st of July. Now, what is a pass-over of command ceremony? Witness DB enlightened us on that, and he said, "The ceremony is prescribed ... in the rules of the service of the Republika Srpska army and is entitled (10)'Handover of Duty,' handover/takeover of duty. Briefly, it implies that in front of a lined-up unit, the old commander and the new commander shall come, accompanied by someone from the superior command, preferably a commander who is elder to them ..." General Krstic testified that this pass-over of command ceremony (15)at Han Kram was attended by numerous high-ranking VRS military personnel and civilians. He named some of them. General Boric, who was the commander of the military schools in Banja Luka; General Gavric, Chief of Staff of the East Bosnian Corps; General Gvero from the Main Staff; General Skrbic of the Main Staff; General Tolimir; the outgoing commander, (20)General Zivanovic. Not one of those people came before Your Honours to testify; not one of the attendees he identified testified before Your Honours that on the 20th or the 21st of July, there was a formal takeover of command at Han Kram. The only evidence before you, Your Honours, is hearsay testimony (25)of, I believe, two witnesses who said they had heard of this ceremony.

• Page 9915 • {86/105}

(1)One of those witnesses was Witness DB, who was again a senior officer on General Krstic's Drina Corps staff. He did not attend this meeting, this ceremony. He had heard about it. He testified before Your Honours that he heard that that ceremony (5)had taken place on the 20th or the 21st of July. On cross-examination, he was truthful when he said to Your Honours, when he was asked by the Office of the Prosecutor some considerable time before he actually testified, he had researched the problem, he knew he was going to be asked about that, and when asked by the Office of the Prosecutor when General Krstic became (10)the commander of the Drina Corps, his answer to the investigators was on the 13th of July. He also said to Your Honours that between the time of that interview and the time he came to testify in court, he had been given a 30-page summary of General Krstic's statement before -- his interview statement that was part of the Prosecutor's evidence, and he had been (15)given that by his superior officers. In this regard, Your Honour, the characterisation of the event at Han Kram thus virtually exclusively depends on the credibility of General Krstic and the reliability of the hearsay that was testimony that was presented to you. (20)Now, it is going to be our submission to Your Honours that the event at Han Kram was a going-away party for General Zivanovic, and that the formal ceremony, passing over of command, took place on the 13th of July, at the Drina Corps headquarters in Vlasenica. Lastly, I would like to comment on one other item mentioned by (25)Professor General Radinovic when he discussed the ceremony and said that a

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(1)document was normally executed by both the outgoing commander and the incoming commander. He testified that normally that's a document that should be maintained by the officers involved in the command ceremony. In other words, General Krstic should have that document and should have kept (5)that document. Now, if such a document was actually executed, if such a document exists for this occasion, General Krstic could not and did not produce it to Your Honours. So that, in sum, is the totality of the evidence of General Krstic. (10)I'd like to turn Your Honours' attention to the evidence of the Prosecutor, again our position being that on the 13th of July, at the Drina Corps command headquarters, in the evening, General Krstic became the commander of the Drina Corps. If we could turn to our next exhibit, this is a document, (15)Prosecutor's Exhibit 905, that was submitted late in the course of this trial. This is a document that Your Honours can see is dated the 13th of July, 1995, and it is a notification by Lieutenant Colonel Jovicic, who is of the personnel section of the Drina Corps, to the subordinate units in the Drina Corps, that General Krstic had become the commander of the Drina (20)Corps. It says that in the presence of General Mladic, the hand-over of duties of the Drina Corps was carried out on the 13th of July. It indicates that General Krstic was named the commander and that General Zivanovic was appointed to new duties in the VJ, the army of Yugoslavia, and in the VRS. It is notification that all the members of the Drina (25)Corps should be notified to that effect.

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(1)Now, this document, you'll see at the bottom, there's a stamp at the bottom, and this document is received on the 13th of July by the person who was to transmit this at 2000 hours, and it was processed on the 13th of July at 2035 hours. (5)Now, this document was -- the original document was presented in court. It was a document that was -- we received, the Office of the Prosecutor received, from General Zivanovic after the case closed, the man that General Krstic was trying to say was the commander of the Drina Corps when all of those mass executions occurred. (10)Now, at our request, the original document that we had received from General Zivanovic, bearing the signature of Radenko Jovicic, was submitted for forensic examination to the Ministry of Justice, Netherlands Forensic Institute, for comparison of the signature that appeared on the bottom, of Mr. Jovicic, with Mr. Jovicic's signatures that appear on other (15)original documents we had in our possession; and we asked the Netherlands Forensic Institute to do a handwriting comparison on the document that is Exhibit 905 and the comparison documents. And they concluded that the signatures were identical. Now, those other documents we had seized in searches at the Zvornik Brigade headquarters. (20)In addition, the Netherlands Forensic Institute compared the inks on the stamp of this 905, the comparison of the stamp itself; we compared the typeface; and those comparisons were positive to a varying degree; some were possible. We also compared the signature that appeared in the original date (25)stamp that appears on the bottom of this document with the handwriting

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(1)that appeared in General Krstic's first order, that I'm going to discuss in a minute, that was issued from the Vlasenica headquarters moments later, and the handwriting comparison was considered possible. Now, there's one other fact that needs to be mentioned, and that (5)is the signator of this document is on this organigramme. This is Lieutenant Colonel Jovicic who is the chief of personnel in the corps staff and who is a direct subordinate of the Chief of Staff, and therefore under the commander. Now, the Defence did not contest the expert findings from the (10)Netherlands Forensic Institute about the validity of this document. Now, notifying, of course, the subordinate units before the attack was about to take place on Zepa, which was to occur on the 14th, and after the attack had taken place on Srebrenica was, was normal, frankly. It made eminent sense. Given there was an attack due to start the next (15)morning on Zepa, due to the fact that there had been a large column of people trying to break through the northern part of the Drina Corps area of responsibility, the subordinate units had to know who was commanding them. Now, despite the irregularities on this document that were (20)identified by Professor General Radinovic, he testified that he didn't feel that this document was "contrived or falsified." Indeed, Your Honours will see that this document acknowledging -- notifying the Drina Corps units that command -- a pass-over of command had occurred on the 13th, was corroborated by other evidence that we presented to Your Honours (25)on this issue.

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(1)One is an intercept, and if Your Honours examine the next document, this next document is an intercept from the 13th of July at 1822 hours, and this document -- we know that according to the notification, that General Mladic was at the forward -- I mean, at the command (5)headquarters in Vlasenica. And this intercept indicates that at 1822 hours there was a conversation in which General Krstic, who was due to start the operation, to man the operation in Zepa the next morning, there was an inquiry as to whether he was there at the Vlasenica headquarters. And: "Is Krstic there?" Next correspondent: "He's outside in front of (10)the building." "X: Tell him to come. The men can't wait. Night is falling. They have to work. The operation is at stake." The next correspondent: "He is here with General Mladic." Now, I also direct your attention on this point to testimony that occurred in closed session. I won't discuss that further. (15)Let me digress for just a moment, because General Krstic testified about being present in Vlasenica on the evening of the 13th of July. Indeed, he said that General Mladic assembled all of the available staff there and announced to the people at the corps headquarters that General Krstic was to become the commander of the Zepa operation, not commander of (20)the Drina Corps. And again, it's our submission that this testimony was untruthful based on what I just mentioned, and based on the fact that not a single other witness came on behalf of General Krstic to support that characterisation of what happened on the 13th. Your Honours should also again consider the testimony of Witness (25)DB who contradicted General Krstic on this point. According to Witness

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(1)DB, General Krstic had been present in the Bratunac Brigade headquarters sometime prior to that. General Mladic was present, General Zivanovic was present, Witness DB was present, the brigade commanders of the Drina Corps were present. And it was at that particular meeting that General (5)Krstic -- General Mladic announced to the subordinate commanders that General Krstic was to become the commander of the Zepa operation. Now, let us examine for a moment the two orders. Let's compare two orders. One is the last known written order issued by General Zivanovic, and the other is the first known order issued by General Krstic (10)as commander of the Drina Corps. Both of these orders are dated the 13th of July. And if we take a look at the first of these, this is Exhibit 462, and this is an interesting order because it is, as I say, what we believe or, at least, have in our possession as the last known written order of (15)General Zivanovic. As you can see at the top, it's issued from the Drina Corps headquarters, the command of the Drina Corps. It's dated the 13th of July, and it's an order from General Zivanovic whose signature appears on the right -- on the second page. And he identifies himself as commander. (20)Now, the content of this order is also interesting. I will direct your attention to three points on this order. The first is point 1 where, "The brigade commands in their areas of responsibility will employ all able-bodied men to discover, block, disarm and capture any Muslim groups observed and prevent their crossing into Muslim territory." Point 3, "Put (25)captured and disarmed Muslims in suitable buildings that can be secured by

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(1)small forces immediately and inform the Superior Command." In other words, inform the Drina Corps command. And point 8 talks about three interim reports, making sure that all the units are kept informed. Now, the other interesting feature about this order by General (5)Zivanovic is the time that appears on the date stamp, and you'll see that it was received at -- on the 13th of July at 1600 hours; in other words, it was received by the person who was to encrypt it and transmit it. And it was processed on that same day an hour and 20 minutes later. Now if we turn to the next order, this is an order that is dated (10)the 13th of July. It is an order from General Krstic, and you will notice that it was first of all issued from the Drina Corps, the headquarters of the Drina Corps on the 13th of July, which is consistent with the notification I've previously discussed; and you will notice that it is signed by Major General Radislav Krstic in the position of commander. Not (15)Chief of Staff, but commander. And if you look again at the date stamp and compare it with the previous exhibit, this exhibit was submitted to the encryptor four hours later, four hours after General Zivanovic's last order. Another order that demonstrates that General Krstic was the (20)commander of the Drina Corps before the time he testified he became the commander is Prosecutor's Exhibit 481. Again, Your Honours, this was an order that was issued from the Drina Corps command. It is dated the 17th of July, and it is an order in respect of mobilisation. You'll see at the bottom, very importantly, the person who has signed this: Major General (25)Radislav Krstic, as commander.

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(1)Now, on the lower left side there is a transmission stamp, and you'll notice the disparity between the date in the transmission stamp, the 24th of July, 1995, and the date when this order was initially issued. General Krstic attempted to explain away this order. What he said (5)when confronted with this order was, that he "most probably signed this order on the 22nd or the 23rd of July because the document bears a dispatch stamp dated the 24th of July." However, the disparity between the dispatch stamp and the date the order was issued was explained by General Krstic's own witness, Witness DB, who was an expert in the field (10)of communications within the Drina Corps. What Witness DB said was, and I quote, "The documents not marked as urgent or operational could wait to be dispatched for several days and to be delivered only then." That testimony is found at 7323. Now, if you examine this document, you will note two things: It's (15)not an operational order, nor is it marked "urgent." So this is the kind of a document that could be issued on the 17th, but because it was neither operational nor urgent, it could remain in the dispatch pile until later. Neither one of General Krstic's orders, the one dated the 13th of July nor the order issued the 17th of July, are signed for the commander. (20)Now, if we turn to Prosecutor's Exhibit 830, which is on the screen before you, you'll notice, and my colleague will put a circle around it, the word "Za." We have heard testimony in this trial that under the rules and regulations, when somebody signed for the commander, they had to indicate on the face of the document whether they were signing for the commander, (25)and this is one such example where somebody signed for General Zivanovic.

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(1)You'll notice that neither the document on the 13th nor the 17th of July has any limitation whatsoever as to the authority of the signator. In other words, it's not signed for the commander; it's not signed as the commander of the Zepa operation; it's not signed as the Chief of Staff. (5)It is signed clearly "commander." That is the role that General Krstic had on the 13th of July. Now, let's take a look at some additional evidence to support the fact that General Zivanovic was no longer the commander, and these -- we'll look at a series of exhibits next. The first of these is an (10)intercept, an intercepted radio communication from the 14th of July at 9.35 in the morning. This is a portion of that -- or this is the intercept, and it is General Zivanovic who says, "Thank you so much. I'm here at the command post, but I'm slowly packing my backpack. They've already asked me to go somewhere else." (15)If we turn to the next exhibit, which is Prosecutor's Exhibit 467, this is a seized document from the Bratunac Brigade. It was issued from the Bratunac Brigade. You'll notice that the date is the 17th of July, but the transmission stamp at the bottom is the 14th of July. This document was issued on the 14th of July. Your Honours have before them (20)the companion handwritten original document from which this typed copy was taken, and on the handwriting document -- handwritten original, it says that the order was issued on the 14th of July. So let's take a look at this document. This is a document from the Bratunac Brigade headquarters -- I'm sorry, from the Bratunac Brigade (25)to the Vlasenica -- the Drina Corps headquarters referencing an earlier

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(1)communication. And what they say in this document is that they're informing the command that -- I'll read it: "We wish to inform you that we shall be able to secure the presence of the General and representatives of the municipal authorities for the official farewell of General (5)Zivanovic hitherto commander of the Drina Corps, at 1300 hours on 23 June 1995." Now, if we go to the next document, Your Honours, this is a document that is from the 15th of July. It is at 9.52. It's an intercepted -- it's a summary of an intercepted communication, and in this (10)case Colonel Beara from the Main Staff was looking for General Zivanovic, but General Zivanovic wasn't at this location, and he was -- Beara was directed to telephone extension 139. Now, two minutes later, the next intercepted communication has a conversation between General Zivanovic and Colonel Beara in which Colonel (15)Beara -- who, incidentally, was one of the people General Krstic identified as being responsible for the genocide. This conversation with Colonel Beara is a complaint to the person Colonel Beara thinks is still or believes is the commander. He says: "Look, Furtula --" he's referring to a person who was in the Drina Corps -- "didn't send some men to a (20)particular location." And Beara says: "Have him send at least half." Zivanovic says: "Yes, yes." Beara says: "Say again" to Zivanovic. "To send them immediately." Beara: "Yes." And then General Zivanovic says: "I can't decide that anymore," and directs Beara to call 385. "Ask for extension 385." (25)If we go to the next exhibit, and six minutes later there is an

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(1)intercepted telephone call between General Krstic and Colonel Beara where the same problem is presented, this time to the actual commander of the Drina Corps, General Krstic. I won't go into the content of this particular intercept - I will return to it shortly - but a decision is (5)taken in this intercept by General Krstic to assist Colonel Beara. The last exhibit that demonstrates that General Zivanovic was no longer the commander of the Drina Corps, when General Krstic says he was, is a Defence exhibit. It's Defence Exhibit 181, part 5. This is a document that was issued from the Drina Corps headquarters on the 17th of (10)July by General Zivanovic. You'll note that there is no title over General Zivanovic's name. He has not identified himself as the commander. What this is about, this document, is a send-off ceremony for the corps commander. It's an announcement. It says: "The Bosnian Serb Army General Staff plans to give a send-off to the hitherto corps commander (15)Major General Milenko Zivanovic at noon on July 20, 1995, in Motel Jela located in Han Kram." So this series of exhibits clearly shows again that the commander of the Drina Corps on the 13th of July was General Krstic, not General Zivanovic. (20)Another series of exhibits that I will go through very quickly are exhibits that deal with the responses to Commander Krstic's first order issued on the 13th of July. So if we go back to that, it appears on your ELMO -- I mean on your monitors, this is General Krstic's first order issued the 13th of July. It's dated -- it's titled, "Search of Terrain," (25)and it directs certain units of the Drina Corps to sweep through certain

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(1)areas within and around the Srebrenica enclave. One of those units that is directed is the Bratunac Brigade. You'll see that in the first numbered item. Now, if we go to the next exhibit, this is dated the next day, and (5)you can see from this exhibit, Your Honours, that Colonel Blagojevic -- Blagojevic was the commander of the Bratunac Brigade and he appears here on this organigramme and was in one of the subordinate units to the Drina Corps. In this situation, in this document, Prosecutor's Exhibit 464, you can see that Colonel Blagojevic is responding directly to the order that (10)was issued by Commander Krstic. He references that in the first paragraph, and he then orders his men to act accordingly. If we go to our next document, Prosecutor's Exhibit 536, this is dated the 15th of July, and it is from, again, Colonel Blagojevic, and it is directed first to the command of the Drina Corps, the IKM, which was (15)the forward command post of the Drina Corps, where we know that General Krstic was directing the operation in Zepa. Colonel Blagojevic in this response again refers to Commander Krstic's order of the 13th, and he's acting according to it. You'll see that referenced in item number two in the document: "Our forces are still searching the terrain in accordance (20)with your strictly confidential order ..." and the order number is given. Next, we'll turn to a proposal. The next exhibit is Prosecutor's Exhibit 537, and this is from Colonel Ignjat Milanovic. Ignjat Milanovic appears on this organigramme. At the moment I'm unable to locate exactly where he is, but he's on this organigramme. He was the head of the -- (25)chief of air defence for the Drina Corps.

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(1)This document is a proposal from Colonel Milanovic and it is directed to the corps, the forward command post of the Drina Corps, to the attention of the commander. Now, the commander was General Krstic. It says in the first full paragraph, "In accordance with your orders ..." so (5)this is Colonel Milanovic, a subordinate, operating to the orders of his commander. Colonel Milanovic says, lower, he says, "I have ordered," and under point 2, "The assignment you have given to the commanders ..." And then he makes a proposal, and this is a subordinate making a proposal to a (10)superior. You'll see on the right-hand side of this exhibit, point 2, "If you agree with the proposal." So a subordinate is now doing precisely what the chain of command in an army does: Subordinates make proposals to commanders. This proposal has been directed to the commander of the Drina Corps who is at the forward command post in Zepa. (15)Now, all of these documents that I have shown you - and there are many more, I could go on - are documents that have been addressed to General Krstic; they clearly reflect a functioning chain of command with subordinate units operating to his orders, showing subordinate officers are making proposals to him, furnishing him with information, keeping him (20)abreast of what's happening within his area of responsibility. General Krstic acknowledged receiving these reports and issuing orders based on what he had received. That's found at pages 6699. I want to show Your Honours one additional series of exhibits very quickly that demonstrate that General Krstic, during the time he says he (25)was not the commander, was exercising control over units that were clearly

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(1)outside of the Zepa area of responsibility. You'll recall, Your Honours, that in his statement to the Office of the Prosecutor on the 18th of February, 2000, General Krstic said that from the moment he arrived in Zepa to command that operation, he had only (5)one contact with the Zvornik Brigade. That was on the 14th of July. And he had no contacts with other units outside of the Zepa operation. He contended that he didn't have any authority or need to give orders that were not related to the Zepa operation until after he had assumed command of the Drina Corps on the 20th or the 21st. (10)Now, three intercepts, one dated the 17th of July and two dated the 19th of July, directly contradict what General Krstic told the Prosecutor's Office. If we turn to the first of these, you'll see this is Exhibit 652, and this is an intercept of the 17th of July in which General Krstic orders Colonel Vlacic to return to his units. Your Honours have (15)heard other evidence relating to the identity of Colonel -- I'm sorry, Colonel Veletic, Veletic. Colonel Veletic was the commander of the 4th Drinski Brigade, which was a temporary formation that was operating outside the Drina Corps area of responsibility. He was operating in and around Sarajevo as part of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps. This intercept (20)shows that the commander of the Drina Corps is asking for one of the personnel from a unit outside of his complete area of responsibility but still attached to his corps command, to return. The next document is Prosecutor's Exhibit 364/2/19 July, tab 1. Now, this is an intercepted communication in which Major Eskic called (25)Colonel Cerovic. Now, Colonel Cerovic is an individual who is the head of

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(1)one of the Corps branches. He is in charge of moral guidance and legal affairs. And there's a conversation that takes place. Major Eskic called Colonel Cerovic because he was informed that Vinko - and Vinko here is Vinko Pandurevic who was the commander of the (5)Zvornik Brigade - was regularly rotating men up to Trnovo. Now, Trnovo was a location which was outside the Drina Corps area of responsibility. It wasn't anywhere near Zepa. And Colonel Cerovic tells Eskic that there was an order, a commander's order, it says, about rotating men from Trnovo. Colonel Cerovic then at the end of this conversation says that, (10)"I will call the General down there." Now, this intercept is at 8.07 on the 19th of July. The next exhibit, Exhibit 694, is an intercepted communication five minutes later involving the same Colonel Cerovic, and the other correspondent is Vinko, that is, Vinko Pandurevic, the head of the Zvornik (15)Brigade. And you'll see that, first off, Vinko Pandurevic says in a highlighted area that is two lines down from the vertical broken line, "I don't have a shift for Trnovo." And down below, Cerovic says, "I'm telling you, the report he sent, there's no way it can be done. That's Krstic's order, there are no shift rotations until further notice." (20)Now, this is Commander Krstic's order about a unit shifting in Trnovo, far, far, far away from the Zepa area of operations where General Krstic says that was the only area that he operated in and gave orders about, prior to his becoming the commander on the 20th or the 21st. You'll also notice at the bottom of this particular intercept, (25)Cerovic says, "Yes, and I presented that to Krstic and wrote him special

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(1)report based on your interim and daily reports." In other words, Colonel Cerovic is keeping Commander Krstic fully informed of what's happening in Vinko Pandurevic's area of responsibility by sending him special reports to that effect. So contrary to what General Krstic says, The only thing I (5)heard about outside -- "The only communication I had with units outside of my area of responsibility occurred on the 14th of July," these intercepts prove that's directly contrary to what General Krstic testified. I would also direct Your Honours' attention to the testimony of Chief Warrant Officer Richard Butler, a United States army officer and a (10)military analyst with 19 years of experience, and I'd ask you to review his expert reports as well, because Mr. Butler, after an exhaustive and comprehensive review of all the documents, the VRS documents that were in our possession, opined that General Krstic became the commander of the Drina Corps on the 13th of July. (15)And lastly on this issue, Mr. President, I would like to refer Your Honours to the testimony of General Francis Richard Dannatt who, in response to a question posed by Your Honour Judge Rodrigues at page 5056 and 57, the question being, "How is it possible to explain the substitution of General Zivanovic by General Krstic if such a substitution (20)occurred," General Dannatt's answer was as follows: "It would be most unusual to remove a commander in the middle of an operation and most unusual to remove him in the middle of a battle other than if he became a casualty. However, the operation to capture Srebrenica was undoubtedly completed 11th, 12th, in that sort of time frame, and the operation to (25)move to and to try to capture Zepa was going to start 13th or 14th.

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(1)Therefore, if I was going to change a corps commander, I would do so between these two principal operations. And given that General Krstic, as chief of staff, would have been principally responsible for the planning of the operation in Zepa, he was then very well informed, very well (5)briefed, and very well positioned to become the commander in order to command that operation. So to me, just looking at the practicality of it, once a decision had been made to remove General Zivanovic, the logical military time to put a new commander in place would have been the 13th, 14th, in order that the new commander was there at the command post to (10)lead the attack on Zepa. That is my military deduction." Now, General Dannatt's deduction about the optimum time when command should logically take place has been confirmed by witness testimony, by a notification, by intercepted radio communications, all proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the change of command, when General (15)Krstic took command of the Drina Corps, was in that "operative pause," that period before the Zepa operation took place. And so, Your Honour, it is our submission to Your Honours that General Krstic did indeed take actual command of the Drina Corps on the 13th of July, and it's our further submission to Your Honours that when (20)General Krstic testified under oath that he was not the commander in actuality until after the 13th, that his testimony in that respect was untruthful. Now, Your Honours, I notice the time, and this is a convenient time to break.

(25) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Yes, very well. So we are going

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(1)to adjourn for today and resume again tomorrow at 9.20, as usual.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 3.09 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 27th day of June, 2001, at 9.20 a.m.