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/ Colormap • Page 8614 • {1/95} (1)Monday, 19 March 2001 [Open session]
--- Upon commencing at 9.38 a.m. (5) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Good morning, ladies and gentlemen; good morning to the technical booth and the interpreters; good morning to the staff of the registry. Madam Registrar, could you call the case, please. We haven't been sitting for some time. (10) THE REGISTRAR: Yes. Good morning, Your Honours. This is the case number IT-98-33-T, the Prosecutor versus Radislav Krstic. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] May we have the appearances, please. The Prosecution, Mr. Harmon, first. MR. HARMON: Good morning, Mr. President; good morning, Your (15)Honours; and good morning, counsel. My name is Mark Harmon and assisting me in the Prosecution is Mr. Peter McCloskey. Thank you. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Thank you, Mr. Harmon. Mr. Petrusic, please, the Defence. MR. PETRUSIC: [Int.] Good morning, Your Honours. The (20)Defence is represented by me, Nenad Petrusic, and my colleague, Mr. Visnjic, Tomislav Visnjic, as has been the case hitherto.
JUDGE RODRIGUES:
[Int.] Thank you very much. We have
two decisions, two rulings to make, and we are going to render those
rulings orally. And there will be no written ruling.
(25)On 26 February 2001, the Defence submitted two motions. The first
MR. VISNJIC: [Int.] Good morning, Your Honours; good morning my learned friends opposite. Mr. President, from the moment the Defence submitted this request (10)or this motion to the present, the Prosecution has in the meantime disclosed to the Defence a certain quantity of documents which would meet almost all the requests of the Defence as listed in our motion. The only thing that remains substantially disputed between the Defence and the Prosecution are the statements of two witnesses, and they are witnesses DB (15)and Obrenovic, with whom the Prosecution has conducted interviews. And in connection with our motion for disclosure, we were informed by the Prosecution that both witnesses during their interview were not questioned at all in connection with the critical intercepts of the 2nd of August. If the Prosecution confirms that to us, in that case we consider that the (20)majority of our requests have been fulfilled and we would therefore withdraw this motion. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Very well, Mr. Visnjic. Mr. Harmon, have you any comments to make in response to this statement regarding the withdrawal of the motion? (25)
MR. HARMON: Mr. President, we understood footnote 1 to be a
JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Very well. Thank you very much. So we don't need to make any ruling about this since the Defence (10)has confirmed that it has withdrawn its request. It is now time for us to resume our case. As you have seen, after the Prosecution's rebuttal and the rejoinder of the Defence, we will then decide on the admission of this document which was the object of discussion between the parties. (15)I see that Mr. Visnjic has a question to raise. MR. VISNJIC: [Int.] Mr. President, I just wish to notify the Chamber that the Defence intends to appeal this ruling by the Chamber, and therefore the Defence suggests that the proceedings be suspended until a final ruling on appeal. However, in the meantime, we can continue with (20)some other evidence that has been part of the Prosecution's rebuttal case. So I'm referring to the decision rejecting the motion for the elimination of the alleged statements of the accused.
JUDGE RODRIGUES:
[Int.] Thank you very much,
Mr. Visnjic.
(25)Mr. Harmon, do you have any response to make? Not regarding the
MR. HARMON: Yes. Mr. President, we oppose the motion to suspend these proceedings. We have, I think, 15 or 13 witnesses who are coming, who have been scheduled. We are prepared to present their testimony. We (5)have a finite amount of time - one week - in which to present our case and we're prepared to move forward. It would be a huge disruption in the orderly proceedings at this point to suspend the proceedings that have been scheduled to allow the Defence an opportunity to file an appeal. It's their right to file an appeal, they can do so when they want, but to (10)suspend these proceedings would not be a very prudent decision at this point in time and we oppose the application to suspend these proceedings.
JUDGE WALD: I would just like to -- Mr. Visnjic, I would just
like to make sure that you understand -- your understanding is the same as
mine of the President's ruling, and that is that thus far his only ruling
(15)has been that these intercepts do not fall within Rule 66 definition of a
statement. It is yet -- the question of authentication of those, which
would be prior to any admission, has not been reached, or indeed the
evidence hasn't been put in by the Prosecution; and secondly, we have not
yet ruled on whether, despite -- assuming they are properly authenticated,
(20)they are indeed appropriately put in in rebuttal as opposed to the case in
chief. So those rulings, which will be forthcoming, have not yet been
made. I just want to make sure that we all understand that.
MR. VISNJIC:
[Int.] Your Honours, I must admit that that
(25)was not my understanding of the ruling. I have just consulted with my
JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Very well. Thank you very much, Judge Wald. Thank you, Mr. Visnjic, too. So we are going to continue our work and our proceedings. And of course you are fully entitled to appeal. (10)I would now like to give the floor to the Prosecutor to present, in line with Rule 85, its rebuttal.
MR. McCLOSKEY: Good morning, Mr. President, Your Honours. Our
first witness today is Dr. Peter French. He has been asked to review the
tape for a voice comparison matching analysis and a voice tamper analysis.
(15)We call him as our first witness slightly out of order because he has
court engagements in the UK on Wednesday, and so as opposed to the
intercept operators that took down this material and listened to these
tapes, we would ask him to be the first witness.
And because it's slightly out of order, I think I should give you
(20)a little bit of background because there is a new exhibit in this case.
And as you may recall from the motions that went back and forth in, I
think, especially the footnote material, the Prosecution at about shortly
before General Krstic's testimony, another team had a consent search of
the Bosnian Muslim army archives and where they recovered from the
(25)archives in Sarajevo numerous reel-to-reel tapes, much like the tapes that
JUDGE WALD: Does the Defence have the second tape? Do they know about it? (10) MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes, Your Honour. As soon as we found out about it, we gave them a copy, a transcript, and fully informed them of that tape. And we have actually been working with the Defence and their expert and our expert to make sure they had a full chance to review the material. In fact, their expert did go to the UK and spend two days with our expert (15)reviewing the material, and we have not received a report from their expert yet, but if there is one, we hope to get it. So as far as I know, they are fully apprised of all the material, the notebooks, the printouts, the tape. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Mr. McCloskey, allow me to ask (20)the Defence whether they have any objections outside this order. MR. VISNJIC: [Int.] No, Mr. President. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Very well, then. We can then call the witness, Mr. McCloskey.
MR. McCLOSKEY: Dr. French, please. And perhaps we could have his
(25)CV ready for him. It's Exhibit 840/A.
JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Good morning, Dr. Peter French. Can you hear me? THE WITNESS: I can. Thank you, Mr. President. (5) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] You will now read the solemn declaration given to you by the usher, please. THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. WITNESS: PETER FRENCH (10) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Please be seated. THE WITNESS: Thank you. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Thank you very much for coming, Dr. French. You will first be answering questions put to you by the Prosecutor. It is Mr. Peter McCloskey, who is standing to your right. (15)Mr. McCloskey, your witness. MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Mr. President. • EXAMINED by Mr. McCloskey: • Q.: Dr. French, could you first tell the Court what your professional position is, and then if you could tell the Court your educational (20)background and your training background that led you to that profession.
• A.: Certainly. I'm an independent forensic consultant specialising in
the analysis of tape recordings, speech, and language samples. I have a
higher degree in linguistics with phonetics - phonetics being the science
of speech sounds - and a doctoral degree - that's a PhD - in the analysis
(25)of tape-recorded conversation.
• Q.: And that's Exhibit 840/A that you should have in front of you, and the Court will also have access to it. • A.: That's correct. (15) • Q.: I think that's a good idea. Can you briefly, though, tell us, have you testified in court before on your profession? • A.: Yes, I have. I say in the written CV that it's about 200 times. I think it's probably around 300 now. I've been consulted in 3.000 or more cases which have involved many more thousands of examinations of (20)individual tapes. In criminal cases, I act for both the Prosecution and Defence I like to say in roughly equal proportions, but I probably do just slightly more Prosecution work.
• Q.: Now, you mentioned phonetics and linguistics. Can you give us a
brief, a little more detailed brief description of what it is you really
(25)do in practical terms for the Prosecution and Defence.
• Q.: So I take it your voice expertise is mainly in English, your (20)mother tongue? • A.: Yes, it is. • Q.: Now, when you are analysing the voice or language of someone in a foreign tongue, do you generally bring on a consultant that's an expert in that foreign tongue? (25)
• A.: Yes. I would want someone who was -- who have thorough knowledge
• Q.: And in this particular case, I believe you consulted with a (10)witness who we will have as a protected witness, so we would refer to him as Witness EE. Is that right? • A.: I did, yes. • Q.: And what did we ask you to do in this particular case, and then what did you review and what did you do? (15) • A.: I was asked to undertake two main tasks. The first one was to examine a tape recording which occurred on two different open-spool tapes. And I don't know whether we should identify these for the Court now, Mr. McCloskey. • Q.: Yes, that's fine. (20) • A.: Yes. These are the tapes in front of me; one known as, I think, tape 48, and one known as tape 32.
MR. McCLOSKEY: And for the record, tape 48 is Exhibit 789, and
that is the new tape you'll be hearing; and tape 49 was Exhibit -- excuse
me. Tape 48 was the old tape, the first one you heard, and tape 49 is
(25)Exhibit 835, and that is the new tape.
JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Excuse me, Dr. French, for interrupting, but I think there's something we must clear up now. I think that you mentioned a tape 48 and 32, I think you mentioned, and Mr. McCloskey spoke of tape 49 and 48. So could we clear that up, please, (10)and the correspondence between those numbers and exhibit numbers. So Mr. McCloskey, please, could you clear that up. MR. McCLOSKEY: You're right, Mr. President, and I'm sorry. The witness is well familiar with the different numbers that have been assigned to these tapes. (15) • Q.: So perhaps you could -- tape 32 is also tape 49, which is Exhibit 835. • A.: That's correct, yes. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Please continue. Thank you. MR. McCLOSKEY: And that is the new tape. (20)
• A.: As I said, there was a transcript of the conversation in question
and, on the transcript, speech had been variously attributed to General
Krstic, Major Obrenovic, and Major Jevdjevic. I was asked to consult
other tapes that were provided to me - these were tape recordings of UN
interview proceedings in which the three officers had been interviewed -
(25)and to compare the voice and speech patterns found on the questioned
JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Mr. McCloskey, I think it is up to you, perhaps, to answer that question. MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes. If that would assist your testimony, please do. (25)
• A.: Thank you.
(5)
• A.: Yes. As I mentioned earlier, the recording occurred in two forms,
one on each of two tapes. The one on the first tape, as it's been
referred to, that's tape 48, there was little speech energy at frequencies
above 2.3 kilohertz. That's 2.3 vibrations per second. I used that tape
to look at the questioned voice of Major Obrenovic.
(10)The other tape, tape 32, there was a slightly better signal on
that tape than there was on tape 48 of the speech attributed to General
Krstic and Major Jevdjevic. And on that tape there was little speech
energy at frequencies higher than 1.7 kilohertz. Now, these are very
thin, narrow, restricted frequency bands, and that will become clear if
(15)one considers that a telephone conversation, which is also frequency
limited, extends normally up to about 3.4 kilohertz. So these were very
narrowly restricted in frequency band, which detracts from the quality and
it detracts from the amount of analysis that can go into them.
So the spectrographic tests could only be done on the voice of
(20)questioned Obrenovic on tape 48, and then only a small amount of work
looking at energy at the low speech frequencies.
The second factor which restricted the amount of testing on the
strength of the conclusions was the fact that in the military
interceptions, the people appeared to be shouting. This was less so
(25)perhaps with General Krstic than with the other two speakers, but the
• Q.: All right, [redacted] Thank you for that analysis on the voice comparison. On the technical side of the comparison, the spectrogram and (10)the other technical aspects, you did that yourself, all by yourself; is that correct? • A.: That's correct. For limited parts of it, looking at, for example, fundamental frequency, Witness EE was present, and I would describe to that witness what was there on the computer screen and we would discuss it (15)together. • Q.: All right. Let's go into your report and your analysis of the -- between the two tapes and whether or not there was any indications evidence of tampering or authentication analysis, as we've called it. And we're both obviously speaking the same language. We need to (20)slow down a bit so the interpreters can keep up. • A.: I do apologise. Perhaps, Mr. McCloskey, just before coming to, I can point out that there is an error in the report that we've just referred to, if I may. • Q.: Please do. (25)
• A.: This is in the speaker identification report, 840/A, the one
• Q.: I believe you would be looking to -- • A.: Page 2 of that report. (5) • Q.: -- 839/A, "Examination of Speech Samples." • A.: It could be. I don't have one with a number on. • Q.: You should have one with a number right in front. • A.: I think not. • Q.: Well, one is on its way. (10) • A.: Thank you very much. Yes, this is 839/A. I turn to page 2 of that report, page 2 being the first text page after the cover, looking about a quarter of the way down the page to the second major heading, which says: "2. Material Examined and instructions," five lines down under (i), I say: "An Agfa brand open spool audio tape..."; and on the (15)next line, under (ii), I say that: "A BASF brand open spool audio tape..." In fact they should be reversed; it's tape 32 which is the BASF brand and tape 48 which is the Agfa brand. • Q.: Thank you. • A.: The second exercise that I was asked to undertake involved (20)examining the two versions of the recording for any evidence of them having been edited or tampered with. I just wonder if it's possible to have an indication from the interpreters as to whether this is the appropriate speed for delivery?
• Q.: We hear from them that it's not, so I think you're doing just
(25)fine.
(15) • Q.: Just to clarify -- • A.: Sorry. • Q.: -- how much of Jack Hunter material did you rely on in your tamper analysis?
• A.: Very little, very little. I was given certain information to help
(20)with the examinations. Firstly, I was told that the first recording to
come to light had been the one on tape 48. Once the recording on tape 48
had come to light, the transcript had been made of it, and it was only at
a later date, I think in some archives in Sarajevo, that it was explained
to me that tape 32 had been found during the execution of a search
(25)warrant, and it also transpired that tape 32 contained the same recording
• Q.: Yes. I think you'll get some help from the usher, and that's Exhibit 789/A, which is -- (20) THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Mr. McCloskey. MR. McCLOSKEY: Excuse me. • Q.: Yes, that's Exhibit 789/A which is tape 48, which is, again, the first -- the tape that first came to light.
• A.: Yes. This is the transcript of the tape 48 version of the
(25)recording, and here --
• A.: Sorry, can you just give me a moment to look at another version of the transcript before I, before I move on with that? (5)Would it be possible to do this from the B/C/S version of tape 48 as opposed to this transcript? • Q.: Certainly. And that should be underneath it as 789/B, or close by somewhere. • A.: That's the one. Yes, in this version here, the tape 48 version, (10)it wasn't entirely clear to me whether the recording began at that point there just before "Obrenovic sa Palme," or whether it began two lines later, around ten seconds later, because we have here at the beginning of the recording what could be the switching transient, the click sound for the recorder going on; but here at this line there are three further (15)possible transients, three further possible clicks, which could indicate that that is not the beginning of the recording but this is. • Q.: I'm sorry, Dr. French, for the record, when you point, if you could just explain where you're pointing so the record will accept it as opposed to "this" or "that." (20)
• A.: I do apologise. I'll go through that again.
At this point here we're about 20 minutes and 15 -- sorry, at line
1 of the transcript we're at about 20 minutes and 15 seconds into the
running time of the tape. Just prior to line 1 there's a click sound
which could be a switching transient. A switching transient is a click
(25)resulting from a surge in electrical energy introduced onto the tape by
• Q.: Okay. Could we just, for the record, establish that tape 32 is
Exhibit 835. And perhaps on that third arrow that you've written down
there, which is where you're telling us tape 32 started, could you just
put a little 32 there so that will give us a reference that this
(25)is -- instead of bringing out the other transcript right now, this will
• A.: Okay. I have done that. What appears to happen, then, is that the pause button is lifted, which allows the word "momenat" to be recorded. But after the recording of the word "momenat," the pause (5)button is again depressed, it's pushed down, stopping the tape. It's only stopped very briefly, I think for 1.35 seconds, which is the time in which the word "halo" occurs, which is attributed to Krstic here, just below "momenat" on the transcript. But by pressing the record button, what happens -- sorry, by pressing the pause button, what happens is when (10)that person is saying "halo," the recorder is stopped; therefore, the "halo" doesn't go onto the tape. The pause button is lifted immediately after "halo" and the recording continues as on the tape 48 version. So just to be clear on that, on the tape 32 version the "halo" doesn't occur, and I'm going to strike it out just for the record. The (15)tape has the word "momenat" on, and then the next thing that one hears is the person claimed to be Obrenovic saying this line here, which I can't pronounce because I'm not a B/C/S speaker, "sta" -- whatever. • Q.: Could you, just for clarity, if we see Exhibit 835/B, which is the tape 32 section that is missing this particular part. They should have (20)it. They will bring it up. • A.: I have a version here. • Q.: Well, let's use the one with the exhibit on it, is our practice. • A.: I think it is the one with the exhibit on it.
• Q.: If you've got it, great. Let's use that one. If you could just
(25)go to the B/C/S section and point out what you were talking about.
• Q.: Why do you conclude that the "halo" is missing on the one version because of the pause button? How are you able to make that conclusion?
• A.: On two bases: There is a click there which has a particular shape
when one looks at the wave form. On some recordings sent to me by
(20)Mr. Jack Hunter, he had made experimental recordings in which he had been
lifting and putting down the pause control on a newer tape-recorder.
There were clicks on those recordings associated with the action of using
the pause button which was similar in shape to or in configuration to the
one that occurs at that point on the tape 32 version. The second reason
(25)is I made an experimental recording on another Uher 4000 tape recorder,
• Q.: Did you also have a chance to briefly question one of the intercept operators about their practice? (5)
• A.:
[redacted] • Q.: Excuse me. If we could be careful of the -- • A.: I do apologise. I hope that's -- • Q.: That's okay. Keep going. (10)
• A.: The intercept operator that I spoke to gave me the information
that it was common practice when monitoring conversations to have the Uher
tape recorders running in the record mode but with the pause control down
so that the tape wasn't actually recording. It was at points when they
heard something worthwhile that they would left the pause button and
(15)record onto the tape.
Now, very often, he tells me, once radio contact between two
people had been established, the person initiating the contact or
initiating the transmission, would say, "Could I speak to Major X?" and
the voice at the other end would say, "momenat," or "moment, please."
(20)What they would then do, they would press the pause button again, because
sometimes it might take 10 or 15 minutes, he told me, go and get the
person concerned, and then when that person came on the line, or they
could hear them coming on the line, they would lift the pause button. So
in the light of what he told me, the pausing of the tape recorder
(25)after "momenat" would be exactly where one would expect it to be paused,
(5) • Q.: Is there any other sort of reasonable, more suspicious explanation for these clicks and the various things you've talked about? • A.: I couldn't really, on a common-sense basis, conceive of why somebody would want to edit the word "halo" out of the tape. It would seem to me to be one of the -- to be a benign feature of the conversation. (10) • Q.: And if you could just continue your analysis. • A.: Certainly, yes. In the position of Mozart; too many notes. With the exception of the click and the missing "halo" in tape 32 -- • Q.: I think we're through with the ELMO for a while. (15) • A.: Yes. • Q.: Thank you. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Mr. McCloskey, would this be a convenient moment to take a break? MR. McCLOSKEY: I'm sure it is, Mr. President. Thank you. (20) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Let us take a 20-minute break. We adjourn for 20 minutes. --- Recess taken at 10.56 a.m. --- On resuming at 11.24 a.m. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Mr. McCloskey, please continue. (25)
MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Mr. President.
• A.: I left off almost, I think -- THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Doctor. (5) MR. McCLOSKEY: I'm sorry, Dr. French. The microphones got turned off.
• A.: I was just arriving at my conclusions, I think, before the short
adjournment, which were, firstly, that with the exception of the -- what I
believe as a pause transient after the word "momenat" in tape 32, the
(10)recording signals in both tapes appeared to be continuous. In short, I
can find no evidence of either of them having been tampered with or
edited.
Now, having said that, I should just add a caveat, which is that
nowadays it's usual for an audio expert to say, and this is quite correct,
(15)that the failure to find evidence of editing doesn't necessarily imply
that the tape definitely has not been edited. And the reason I say this
is because there are nowadays available digital systems, computers,
whereby one could record a conversation from a tape, re-record it from a
tape to the computer, and then, within the specialised sound analysis or
(20)sound processing or editing programme of the computer, one could edit up
the recording, deleting sections perhaps, whatever, and do this more or
less without trace. The edits are almost seamless if they're done in a
very competent way. And the material could then be re-recorded back from
the computer to a tape and passed off as an unedited version of the
(25)recording. In other words, it would be possible, I believe, and I think
(15) • Q.: If one was to create a conversation like this, if you were asked to create a conversation like this, how could you do it?
• A.: With the assistance of actors, perhaps, or people who were simply
going to adopt the roles of those they were projecting into. I must say,
in the past I've had a number of tapes which have involved actors who've
(20)got -- not actors, but people who have got together in order to improvise
conversations, perhaps reading from scripts, perhaps just improvising as
they went along, in order to manufacture evidence for a tape-recorder
which is later being presented in court. In those cases, it has always
seemed to me perfectly obvious that the performance, the language has been
(25)wooden, it has been stilted.
• Q.: Besides just excellent actors overlapping speech, what else would have to be created to give the same kind of tonal qualities that we hear (15)on these tapes? • A.: Well, it would have to be done over radio transmission channels and recorded over them, or at least over some kind of electrical and electronic circuitry that mimic their characteristics. It would be a very elaborate hoax. (20) • Q.: Is there a possibility that if a person had a library of several conversations of particular people that they could take individual words and phrases and splice them all together on this computer and make completely fake sentences? Is that possible?
• A.: I have seen in a previous case a tape which was -- exactly that
(25)had been done with it. When one read the transcript of the conversation,
(10) • Q.: So what is your final opinion about these two particular tapes regarding whether they've been tampered or faked? • A.: I can find no evidence of tampering or faking, and I think those comments must be bore -- interpreted in the light of what I've just said about the difficulties of play acting and montage. (15) MR. McCLOSKEY: I have no further questions. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Thank you very much, Mr. McCloskey. Mr. Visnjic, I see it's Mr. Visnjic who is going to cross-examine. • CROSS-EXAMINED by Mr. Visnjic: (20) • Q.: [Int.] Good morning, Dr. French. • A.: Good morning. • Q.: Dr. French, in your report, exhibit number 838, on page 2 you say that the tapes that you examined were received in your laboratory on the 9th of November, 2000. (25)
• A.: Yes.
• A.: I believe so, but if I can just consult my records. I've certainly had copies of the tapes -- copies of the conversations before that. Is your question these physical tapes, these actual ones rather (5)than copies? • Q.: My first question would relate to the actual physical existence of the tapes that you now have before you. • A.: "Momenat." Yes, I believe so. • Q.: Did you receive copies of those tapes earlier on? (10) • A.: Yes. • Q.: Could you tell the Trial Chamber when you received those copies? • A.: Yes. The 3rd of February in 1999. And that was a copy only of the recording from tape 48, plus some other material. • Q.: Did you prepare any preliminary reports on the basis of the (15)copies, those copies, those that you received in February 1999? • A.: No. • Q.: Was it possible for you to work on some preliminary findings on the basis of those copies? • A.: It was possible to do some preliminary work. At that point in (20)time, I was working not with Witness EE but with another linguist who was, in fact, a native speaker of B/C/S. But as time went on, it became clear that I needed a different collaborator.
• Q.: On the same page, page 2, you say, in the last paragraph, that
joint investigation between you and
[redacted] was carried out at your
(25)laboratory in York in the week from the 19th to the 26th of November,
• A.: Yes. I think that is the week when myself and Witness EE examined the recordings. • Q.: Are you aware that Witness EE -- do you know that he saw the tapes (5)for the first time then? • A.: I don't know. I don't recall. He may have had a copy of the recordings prior to our meeting in York. It's possible. • Q.: Dr. French, did you know whether these tapes had been given to any other expert; and if so, did anyone else work on an expert finding, a (10)forensic examination, and are you familiar with the results of those examinations? • A.: As far as I know, no such examinations took place, unless I wasn't told about them. • Q.: On November 1st, 2000, at a hearing, my learned friend (15)Mr. McCloskey stated on pages 6803, 6804 of the transcript, that this copy of the audiotapes had been given to an expert and that the Prosecution has for months been trying to get hold of a final response from the expert. Bearing this in mind, do you assume that that perhaps relates to you or to somebody else? Because this was on the 1st of November, 2000. (20) • A.: I really feel it isn't a matter for me to say what was in Mr. McCloskey's mind, but it could well have related to me. I know of no other expert that's been involved.
• Q.: Thank you. Dr. French, on page 6 of the English version of your
report on the audiotapes, Prosecution Exhibit 838, paragraph 4, "Editing
(25)and Tampering," you explained that modern devices make it possible to do
• A.: Certainly it existed in 1998. (5) • Q.: On condition that all the technical requirements existed, those that you referred to regarding editing and tampering, on the basis of your own experience, would a period of six weeks be sufficient to do such montage or editing? • A.: Well, the problem with it is that you would have to do it on two (10)versions of the same recording in exactly the same way, and if one were to be chopping out sections and inserting material from other recordings, one would have to do it in exactly the same way in two versions of an original recording, getting the timings exactly, precisely the same in both -- or not the same, but relatively the same. If you remember, one tapes runs (15)slightly faster than the other. Am I saying too much? • Q.: Dr. French, perhaps we didn't quite understand one another. I quite understand the procedure that you just explained to the Trial Chamber. My question is: Could that whole procedure have been completed in a period of six weeks? (20) • A.: I think the question maybe should be whether it could be completed at all, rather than within six weeks, to produce this. I really don't -- can't comment on the time scale that would be needed. All I can say is that, in my view, to produce these two recordings would be an extremely difficult feat, in six weeks or any other time scale. (25)
• Q.: Could six weeks be used as some kind of framework for doing this,
• A.: It would depend upon the sophistication of the technology, the skills of the manpower, how many people were involved, whether or not one had sound engineers, perhaps phoneticians, computer operators. I really (5)can't answer the question in the abstract without knowing about the circumstances of that sort, really. It's very difficult. • Q.: Thank you. Dr. French, in your report -- or rather, you received a Mr. Hunter's report? • A.: Yes. (10) • Q.: I'm referring to the report dated the 23rd of March, 1998. I don't know if you have it at hand. • A.: I think I do. Yes. • Q.: Dr. French, before I put my question to you, may I just say or ask whether Mr. Hunter is also familiar with the actual technology of tape (15)collecting, examination, and so on? Is he an expert in the area? Am I right in saying that? • A.: I don't know. I don't know what his background or expertise or experience is. • Q.: In his report of the 23rd of March, 1998, page marked 00889128, (20)this would be the page 2 of his report, actually, in paragraph 4, the last sentence says that all recordings were of good quality. • A.: Could you just give me a moment to reread this report in full. • Q.: Yes, yes.
• A.: I'm not clear which recordings he's referring to in the end of
(25)paragraph 4. You see, the recordings that he refers to there clearly are
(5) • Q.: But it is a report which refers to the reception of the first 19 audio open spool tapes, one of which is in front of you, the tape that you received first marked as 48. • A.: I really can't be accountable for Mr. Hunter's work, but the recordings on that tape are not at the speeds he lists here. They're at (10)4.7 centimetres per second, and they're not of good quality. Whether Mr. Hunter has overlooked that or not listened to all the recordings or perhaps -- I don't know want to impugn him in any way. I really don't know what he's seen. If you're telling me that this was among the first -- sorry, among the first 19, or what you tell me or what (15)I read here doesn't square with what I found on the tape. • Q.: And if I may repeat what you say in your report on page 3.3, that the tapes were of poor quality. This is the report? • A.: Yes, they were of poor quality. • Q.: Thank you. Dr. French, in your report on the audiotapes, on page (20)3 of the English version, under (vii), you say that Mr. Hunter gave you three audiotapes, open spool Ampex brand audiotapes containing experimental recordings which Mr. Hunter had made on Uher tape recorders? • A.: Yes.
• Q.: On the other hand, also in Mr. Hunter's report, dated the 24th of
(25)April -- we have a large number of documents, but we'll go through them
• A.: Yes, I have his report in front of me. • Q.: I'm referring to paragraph 7 from the top, page 2. • A.: Could you read the first words of that paragraph to me? (5) • Q.: "At the site I requested to see --" • A.: I have it, yes, yes. I have it. • Q.: Mr. Hunter says that he took experimental tapes for all the machines that he had, and then he identified those tape recorders with numbers from K1 through K7. (10) • A.: Yes. • Q.: He did the same on the next page, page 3 -- • A.: Yes. • Q.: -- where at the other position from which allegedly conversations were intercepted, he also took specimen tapes and marked another three (15)Uher tape recorders. • A.: Yes. • Q.: My question, Dr. French, is, on the basis of the samples provided to you by Mr. Hunter -- • A.: Yes. (20) • Q.: -- were you able to determine the tape recorder on which any one of these tapes was taped? • A.: No. In fact, that would have been a very large enterprise to try and -- to try and do that. I think I still wouldn't be here with my final report. No. (25)
• Q.: But each of these machines has a specific result on the tape;
• A.: Not necessarily so. There are a couple of factors here. One is that it is by no means -- research has by no means established that each individual tape recorder has its own unique signature or fingerprint. (5)That's the first aspect. The second aspect is that I did have a conversation with Mr. Hunter, and he did tell me over the telephone that it was possible that none of these recorders had recorded the tape or either of the tapes, that in fact machines might have been scrapped. The other thing that he (10)told me is that the recorders that he looked at, that some of them - and I think he based this on his interviews with personnel in Bosnia - had had repairs to them and perhaps even to the heads of the machines. So even if one of those machines had been used and even if it did have some individual characteristics, there would have been no guarantee that at the (15)point at which he saw it or found it, it had the same characteristic that it had when these tapes were made. It really would have been such an open-ended exercise to try and tie either one of these tapes down to any of the recorders that it just was not embarked upon. (20) • Q.: Dr. French, from the scientific point of view, is it easier to identify the machine, the tape recorder, or the speaker? Which is more precise? • A.: Neither is precise, and I couldn't given a weighting of the precision to one relative to the precision of the other. (25)
• Q.: Dr. French, let us go back to the report on the audiotapes,
MR. McCLOSKEY: Excuse me. 839 is the examination of speech samples; 838 is the report on audio recordings. THE INTERPRETER: The interpreter corrects herself. It was speech (5)samples that Defence referred to. MR. VISNJIC: [Int.] Maybe it was a misinterpretation, but I was referring to the report on speech samples, OTP Exhibit 839. • Q.: Dr. French, on page 4 of the English version of your report -- • A.: Yes. (10) • Q.: -- the last paragraph -- it is page 5 of the Serbian version, paragraph 2. Allow me to read this sentence: "Owing to the non-equivalence of the known and questioned samples (normal voice vs raised voice), the most one can say from the voice quality comparisons is that they failed to eliminate any of the three (15)known speakers." Dr. French, could the same conclusion be the same as saying that not one of the known speakers was confirmed? • A.: Yes. It's a question of the Prosecution perhaps saying that my glass is half full and you would say it's half empty. (20) • Q.: Dr. French, we're still dealing with the same report, but let me ask you: Do you know, are you aware of the International Association for Identification? Are you familiar with that institution and the standards adopted by that institution for speech comparisons?
• A.: I'm aware of some of those standards in outline. I'm aware of the
(25)existence of the institution.
• A.: Yes. (5) • Q.: You also, and quite rightly so, stated that there was very little speech energy found at frequencies above 1.7 kilohertz. • A.: Correct. • Q.: Are you aware that some institutions -- or rather, that the standards of the International Association for Identification is such that (10)tapes that have a lower frequency, below 2 kilohertz, are considered absolutely unsuitable for making any kind of comparisons because they are technically of poor quality?
• A.: I'm not aware of that, but I would say two things in relation to
it. One is, firstly, that the organisation that you refer to is by no
(15)means an internationally accepted one, particularly within the European
forensic speech community. Indeed, its activities have caused a few
eyebrows to be raised.
Secondly, I would point out that in order to -- what one is not
concerned with is necessarily identification. As an objective, impartial
(20)scientist, my task in this case was not to identify your client or his
colleagues; it was to determine whether they were on the tape. In other
words, when I do these examinations, I have in my mind the possibility of
elimination just as much as the possibility of identification. And the
importance of that remark is this: that it is sometimes possible to
(25)eliminate speakers if they have very different voices from the ones on the
• Q.: Are you aware, Dr. French, that, for instance, the FBI laboratories do not do these comparisons with tapes whose quality is below (15)2.5 kilohertz? • A.: Well, I'm not aware of that, but if that is the case, I can't see how they can be proceeding with the view of elimination in mind, as well as identification, as equal possibilities. • Q.: In your expert report, on page 5 of the English text, under the (20)heading of "Pitch/Fundamental Frequency Measurements," you list some of the elements which lead to a change in the height of the tone of the main frequency, or pitch of the main frequency, and one of those elements would be a raised voice. Am I correct in making that assumption? • A.: That is correct. (25)
• Q.: Anger, fear, or sorrow, in one and the same person or speaker, can
• A.: They are just a few of the things that can. • Q.: Is that also true of stress, emphasis, semantics, intonation of words and sentences, that kind of thing? (5) • A.: Are you asking whether those emotions can affect intonation? • Q.: Yes. • A.: Emotions do affect intonation. I don't think it affects semantics. Semantics is the study of word meaning. • Q.: The way in which words and sentences are enunciated, the speed of (10)speech, et cetera? • A.: Would be subject to emotional factors, yes. • Q.: With one and the same person, would there be a difference in fundamental frequency of speech, from morning till night? That is to say, if we look at it over the course of one day, would fundamental frequency (15)be the same throughout for a given speaker? • A.: It might or it might not. • Q.: If the same text were repeated again and again by the same person, could there be a difference in fundamental frequency? • A.: There could. (20) • Q.: May we then conclude that part of your report measuring pitch/fundamental frequency measurements, shows in actual fact that there is no similarity between the basic sample and the comparative sample, and that there are numerous reasons for that or that numerous reasons can exist? (25)
• A.: Yes, one could conclude that. The reason for doing the
(20) • Q.: On condition that the known sample was performed under conditions in which that person was not under stress or anger, emotional changes or similar things. Am I right in saying that?
• A.: No. You can tell from the known sample that the person -- I don't
know what internal stress they were suffering. I mean people, some people
(25)have enormous internal stress and emotion, and they don't reflect it much
• Q.: But the conclusion of the test, the fundamental frequency test is nonetheless inconclusive; am I correct in saying that? (15) • A.: Yes, exactly, exactly. • Q.: Dr. French, on the last page of your report or the addition to the report, you give a scale of judgements -- • A.: Yes. • Q.: -- and it follows a certain logic of determining degree. (20) • A.: Yes.
• Q.: Under -- or rather, can you tell me what the difference is, or
rather, is there a scientifically defined difference between, say, 2 and 3
on your scale? Is it a percentage of similarity or on the basis of
similar words, or what are the elements that go towards determining this
(25)scale?
• Q.: Following on from the logics of this scale of judgements, if we (10)look at the zero position, it states, if I'm right, that it is possible that X and Y are the same speaker. Now, bearing in mind one of my previous questions, would you agree with me that a possible definition is, "I think it is possible that X and Y are not the same speaker," by the same token? (15) • A.: With the corollary of that statement at point zero, it is, in my view, possible that X and Y are the same speaker would be as a corollary that they are different speakers. That would be possible too. I would agree. • Q.: Dr. French, may we then conclude that your eight-page report in (20)fact leads to a conclusion which in English could be termed inconclusive? • A.: An inconclusive conclusion. MR. VISNJIC: [Int.] Thank you, Mr. President. The Defence has no further questions of this witness.
JUDGE RODRIGUES:
[Int.] Thank you very much,
(25)Mr. Visnjic.
MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Mr. President. • RE-EXAMINED by Mr. McCloskey: • Q.: Dr. French, did a Defence expert have a chance to come to your (5)laboratory and review this material, and if so, when? • A.: I don't have the specific date in front of me, but a Defence expert did come to my laboratory and examine the material in the presence of the gentleman who has just been cross-examining me. I could get the particular date. My recollection is it was about two to three weeks ago. (10) • Q.: So Mr. Visnjic came along with the expert to your laboratory? • A.: That's right. And the expert, a Mr. Koenig, or Koenig as Anglicised here, from the United States, an ex-FBI examiner who is now a private expert, came along with Mr. Visnjic and carried out examinations of the recordings and made copies of them and took them away as well. (15) • Q.: How long were they with you? • A.: From 10.00 in the morning until 5.30, with possibly a gap for lunch, an hour or something like that. • Q.: You're aware that Mr. Koenig has testified in this Tribunal as an expert for the Defence in a case? (20) • A.: Yes, I am, yes. MR. McCLOSKEY: Nothing further, Mr. President. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Thank you very much, Mr. McCloskey. Judge Fouad Riad has the floor. (25)
JUDGE RIAD:
[Int.] Thank you, Mr. President.
JUDGE RIAD: Dr. French, good morning. • A.: Good morning. JUDGE RIAD: I've been listening with great interest to your very (5)knowledgeable expos‚, and I would just like to have some clarification which you can perhaps give to a layman. • A.: Certainly, Your Honour. JUDGE RIAD: As I see, you mentioned that there is an open possibility that the three speakers were the same. (10) • A.: That's right. JUDGE RIAD: And when discussion with the Defence lawyer, you said that of course you can always say that a glass is half empty or half full, of course if it is exactly half, half, 50-50. Now, then, you can say that also there is an open possibility that (15)the three speakers are not the same? • A.: One could say -- I couldn't say it was an equal possibility. I could say that it's possible that it is the three people it concerned, but there is an indeterminate number of other people, other males within that population. I couldn't put my -- I couldn't specify how many that it (20)could also be. JUDGE RIAD: Now, there are possibilities of identification, and there are possibilities of elimination? • A.: That's right.
JUDGE RIAD: What is more accessible to you? Is it easier to
(25)eliminate, or is it easier to identify?
JUDGE RIAD: And when you spoke about the fundamental frequency test which -- does this -- could this test lead sometimes still to identification? (15) • A.: Not in itself, Your Honour, no. It would -- it's only one test which is used as an indicator with -- among a much larger battery or package of tests. JUDGE RIAD: But in our case it was inconclusive? • A.: It was inconclusive. (20) JUDGE RIAD: But in many cases it is conclusive?
• A.: It can be conclusive in elimination. For example, I've just
concluded a case for the moment for the Prosecution in England where there
is -- there are recordings of a youth speaking over a telephone line,
reporting an arson. He set fire or somebody -- they believe the caller
(25)has set fire to a building and then phoned the emergency services for a
JUDGE RIAD: So your tools for elimination are more at hand? • A.: In this case one could say that, yes. JUDGE RIAD: Now speaking of the possibility of a montage, you (10)mentioned that one tape would run slightly faster than the other. Would this be any -- indicative of any tampering? • A.: Oh, no, Your Honour. One could take several different instances of the same make and model of tape recorder which had been subject to different degrees of use and wear. None of them would run at exactly the (15)same speed spot on. JUDGE RIAD: And you mentioned that certain features were benign features, like the difference in clicks and the differences in the opening sections, but then you mentioned something about the strength of the voice signals. And in that regard, you -- comparing, comparing the two tapes 48 (20)and 32, you said that the speech of General Krstic was louder than Obrenovic, and in tape 48, the speech of Obrenovic was of greater amplitude. • A.: The same thing.
JUDGE RIAD: All right. Now, does this entail that there could be
(25)two different people?
JUDGE RIAD: So there was nothing in the timbre of the voice, difference in timbre or -- (5) • A.: Nothing that I noticed at all. It was simply we have two recordings. On one, one end of the radio channel is louder, but on the other recording, the second end of the radio channel is louder. JUDGE RIAD: But what you call the voice quality is the same? • A.: As far as one can assess, it's the same recording. (10) JUDGE RIAD: And the rhythm of speech? • A.: Yes. JUDGE RIAD: I think I have no other questions for you, but definitely there is a lot to learn from what you said. Thank you very much. (15) • A.: You're very flattering, Your Honour. Thank you. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Thank you very much, Judge Riad. Madam Judge Wald has the floor. JUDGE WALD: Dr. French, is there any way to tell whether two tapes, like tape 48 and 49, were made in roughly the same time period, or (20)is that just totally outside the -- • A.: No. I couldn't tell you that, Your Honour, no. JUDGE WALD: Yes. Okay. • A.: There's no way that I would know that.
JUDGE WALD: All right. You said that -- you gave the zero on the
(25)rating scale, evaluation for recognition of the voices of all three of the
(5) • A.: Your Honour, it wasn't. It was about equivalent for all three. JUDGE WALD: Okay. Now, let me ask you a hypothetical, with which I'm sure you're very familiar, having testified in court. You told us all the difficulties there would be in trying to recreate a tape like this after the fact and how your experience had led you to believe that -- or (10)in some other instances it was kind of easy once you listened to the tape -- not kind of easy, but it was not impossible to discern that it was indeed a play-acting. But let me just hypothesise and see if you would have this -- if it would be as easy in the following instance. Suppose this was -- I say, again, totally suppose. Suppose it was (15)not a recreation, but suppose somebody wanted to set somebody else up originally, and they initiated a regular intercept, and then, by prearrangement, they had somebody else take the place of one of the people - we'll use as an example General Krstic - just had another person step in there and take. And I suppose the motive might be something like (20)disinformation. At some point in the intercept, they say, "The Turks are probably listening to us. Let them listen." Would that be as easy to discern as the later created or would it all depend on how well the actor was playing that one role?
• A.: Your Honour, if one had a reasonably good actor who sounded rather
(25)like General Krstic, I think it would be possible, yes, for that person to
JUDGE WALD: Okay. Thank you very much. • A.: Thank you. (10) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Thank you very much, Judge Wald. Dr. French, I would like to go back to the question raised by my distinguished colleague Madam Judge Wald a moment ago. If you were asked to recreate a conversation like the one we have, how could you do it - and this is what Mr. McCloskey was asking - but in giving us -- that (15)is to say, could this be done in a completely confidential manner? That's the first point. How many people would have to intervene to accomplish that task, and could all that be done in the same laboratory or would you have to involve other participants from different places, if I can put it that way? Well, those are my questions for you, Doctor. (20)
• A.: I think the answer to that is -- would be dependent on how one was
going to construct it. One possibility that Mr. McCloskey put to me was
that there was a sort of library of tape recordings of General Krstic, of
utterances, and that the -- how likely would it be that someone could pick
a sentence out here and a word out there, and yet another sentence from a
(25)third tape and five words from a fourth tape and six words from a
JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] How much time would you need to do that? • A.: Just to delete the odd word and then re-record it to a tape? It would depend how much I deleted, but to do that I could perhaps do it (20)within a day. Except in this case one would have to do other things, such as, well, intersperse it within a whole series of other military conversations on two different tapes. No, it would take several days, perhaps. I don't know. I really -- it's open-ended.
JUDGE RODRIGUES:
[Int.] Okay. Very well. Thank you,
(25)Dr. French. We thank you very much for coming here to the Tribunal. You
(5) THE WITNESS: Thank you very much indeed, Mr. President, Your Honours.
MR. McCLOSKEY: Mr. President, this may be a good time to take a
break. Our next witness will require some protective measures. (10) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Before taking a break, if we may, Mr. Petrusic, could I ask you, with respect to General Krstic's health, would you like to have shorter breaks, that is to say, shorter working sessions and shorter breaks - for example, 45 minutes of work with a 15-minute break - or do you prefer us to go on working for one hour, 20, (15)and then have a 20-minute break, or one and a half hours with a 30-minute break? How would you like us to work, in view of General Krstic's health? If you don't wish to answer now, you could talk to the General, perhaps, ask him during the break, and then come back to us with your answer after the break. (20) MR. PETRUSIC: [Int.] Yes, Your Honour. After the break, we shall inform the Chamber. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Very well, then. For the time being, let us take a 50-minute lunch break at this point. Let us adjourn for 50 minutes for lunch. (25)
--- Recess taken at 12.33 p.m.
JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Witness, can you hear me? THE WITNESS: Yes, I can. (5) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] You're going to make a solemn declaration now. I'm not quite sure how you're going to do it. Do you have a braille edition of the solemn declaration? THE WITNESS: Your Honour, I've memorised the declaration. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] That's fine. So please make the (10)solemn declaration now. THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. WITNESS: WITNESS EE JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Very well, thank you. Please (15)sit down. THE WITNESS: Thank you.
JUDGE RODRIGUES:
[Int.] Make yourself as comfortable as
you can. Thank you for coming, and first you will be answering questions
which Mr. McCloskey is going to put to you.
(20)But before we start with that, I beg your pardon for a moment, it
is necessary for you to confirm your name on a piece of paper, but I don't
know how I'm to do that.
Perhaps, Mr. McCloskey, you could help us.
As you are a protected witness, and you will be known as Witness
(25)EE so we can't use your name, but you need to confirm whether we have your
(5) MR. McCLOSKEY: Actually, I'm ready to go when you are, Mr. President. I just wanted to confirm, are we in closed session? Okay. We're not in closed session yet, so it's my understanding that the usher whispered the witness's name in his ear. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Yes, but allow us to hear from (10)Witness EE whether the name that the usher whispered to him was indeed his name. THE WITNESS: The usher did not whisper my name in my ear; he told me what my alias is. I'd be happy to write down my name. MR. McCLOSKEY: That's a good idea. (15) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Yes, yes. Yes, that will be fine. I think that is a good way of proceeding. We'll begin with the testimony by Witness EE. Mr. Petrusic, have you any response to my previous question prior to lunch so that we can organise our time and make the breaks? (20) MR. PETRUSIC: [Int.] Yes, Mr. President. Having consulted General Krstic, the Defence would suggest that we preserve the same rhythm that we applied up to now, that is, a break before lunch, a lunch break, and then perhaps we could divide the rest of the time after lunch into two as well and have another break in between. (25)
JUDGE RODRIGUES:
[Int.] Very well.
MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Mr. President. And if we could go in
(5)closed session for the first part of the testimony. We've talked to the
Defence about this, and it will be evident why.
Yes. Let us go into private session.
JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] We are in open session now, so (20)you may continue. MR. McCLOSKEY: • Q.: And before we get into the -- some of the relevant dialects, let me just ask you, do you -- based on your studies, have you travelled extensively in the former Yugoslavia? (25)
• A.: Yes.
• A.: I visited the former Yugoslavia at least -- for research at least six or seven times. The most extensive stay was when I -- in 1989, 1990, (5)when I spent 13 months researching for my dissertation and travelled -- worked in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the institute for language and literature in Sarajevo, Institut za Jecik e Knjizevnost, and also at the Bosnia-Herzegovina academia of arts and sciences, and I also spent a lot of time researching at the Serbian academy of arts and sciences in (10)Belgrade. Since then, I had two more research trips after the war in 1997 and in 1998. 1997 took me to Belgrade, and 1998 took me to Bosnia again, to Sarajevo and its environs, to Belgrade and to Montenegro. • Q.: Based on your studies and your knowledge, is it possible to (15)identify indicia of ethnicity from listening to the speech of a Yugoslav? • A.: Yes. My feeling is that you really have to be very knowledgeable about the language in order to be able to do so. I think a layperson or a person -- or average person might not notice all these differences, but when you study and learn a lot of the dialect studies, and there were many (20)written about ethnic dialects, dialective Muslims or dialective Serbs in this particular area, let's say, of Bosnia or of Croatia, then you begin to note some of those small but still, I would say, audible differences between -- I mean, among the various ethnic groups.
• Q.: All right. And having that in mind, can you explain to the Court
(25)what the Prosecution asked you to do, and what you were able to do; and if
• A.: The Prosecution asked me to examine tapes which -- with -- and I
had both the tapes and the transcripts of conversations that were
(5)attributed to some officers in the army. They were attributed to General
Krstic
[redacted] • Q.: And who did you work with in that project? • A.: I worked with Dr. French. • Q.: And you've reviewed the overall report that you and he (15)co-authored? • A.: Yes, I have. • Q.: And you've seen his final evaluation for the speech part of that report, reflecting his zero result? • A.: Yes, and I would concur with it. (20) • Q.: All right. Now, if you could tell us, were you able to identify any particular ethnic speech tendencies from any of the three speakers on the two tapes that you were provided?
• A.: Yes. I have to make one caveat, that the speech sample is rather
short; but even in such a short speech sample, I was able to find a few
(25)tendencies which make me make some -- draw some conclusions.
• A.: Well, my basic conclusions are that the speakers reveal some features typical of some ethnic Serb, either dialects or ethnic -- or Serb (5)speech from Serbia itself. I did not find any what I would call classic Muslim speech features which are spoken about in many of the dialect studies. • Q.: Could you please now just tell the Court what your examination of the two tapes revealed, what tendencies did you see, and just explain it (10)as you would your class? • A.: Okay. Well, perhaps I'll use this overhead, the ELMO for that, if that's okay at this point. • Q.: And let us make sure it's up there. MR. McCLOSKEY: Okay, I think we can -- this is OTP Exhibit 847, (15)and the two or the three yellow dots are there to assist the witness and don't have any significance. • A.: May I -- is this now visible to everyone? • Q.: Yes.
• A.: Well, the basic division in this former Serbo-Croatian speech
(20)territory is the three main dialects. I'm only showing you one of the
main dialects; that's why there's an asterisk. I'm showing you the
Stokavian dialect which is the largest of the dialects of this area. The
other two dialects, Cakavian and Kajkavian, are purely Croatian dialects
and do not interest us in this particular instant.
(25)The main or traditional subdivision of Stokavian is into these
• Q.: So can you tell us now as you went through the tapes, were you able to pick up any speech tendencies, patterns, pronunciations, and identify them as possibly Serb or Muslim?
• A.: Well, one of the first things I did is I noted in some of the
(20)conversations, and not in and among all the speakers simply because I
didn't have enough time -- enough speech material from all the speakers,
but I noticed some features which placed -- at least, seemed to place
these speakers in Bosnia.
One of the features in Obrenovic, what is attributed to
(25)Obrenovic's speech, which is about 53 seconds on the tape, we have three
• Q.: Witness EE, would you expect ekavian speech patterns in a Muslim in this situation? • A.: Normally not. • Q.: Is it possible, and if so, how? (25)
• A.: It might be possible if a Muslim from Bosnia spent time, say, in
• Q.: What specifically can you tell us about the speech on the tapes (5)attributed to General Krstic?
• A.: Yes. General Krstic has -- in the speech attributed to General
Krstic we have only about 28 seconds, but there are a few things that I
picked up which I think are significant. In the line in which he
says -- the speaker says, "Don't leave a single one alive," the first time
(10)I believe it's, "ni jednog nemojte ostaviti zivoga."
We see a form of prohibition, and as I have told you earlier, this
was something I have researched quite extensively, which would be typical
of speakers west of the Drina River, meaning in Serbia - I'm sorry.
Strike that - in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Croatia. It is the use of the
(15)infinitive, "ostaviti," after a prohibition particle, "nemoj" or
"nemojte." Now, when that line is repeated, however, more emphatically,
it seems to me, where it's, "ni jednog zivog nemoj da ostavljate," the
form has changed, as you can tell, if you have the transcript, and no
longer are we looking at a typical west of the Drina form, but what I have
(20)found in my research to be typical of Serbs in Serbia, and Montenegrins,
which is the loss of the infinitive, "da ostavljate," and also the
reduction of the prohibition particle from "nemojte," which is a plural,
which was in the line above, to a singular, "nemoj," and this is
something that I have documented and have found this same phenomenon in a
(25)variety of dialects from, I would say, Serbia and Montenegro.
• A.: I had a questionnaire on specifically this form which I had passed around to Muslim speakers of Bosnia, and they indicated that they would (5)not use that particular form. • Q.: Is there anything else that you'd like to highlight as significant speech tendencies of General Krstic or any other speakers in the tapes? • A.: I think that one another feature that needs to be spoken about is the status of a phoneme "h", which has been indicated in many of the (10)dialect studies as being more frequent, more frequent -- now, that doesn't mean it's absolutely there all the time, but more frequent among Muslim Slav speakers, and that the Serb speakers have tended more often to lose that phoneme. And I have found in the speech sample that the phoneme "h" is lost in several places. All three, I believe, all three speakers on (15)the tape have lost it, and especially in the word, say, "ajde," instead of "hajde," which is "come on," which was also, by the way, a subject of my research. I looked extensively at the dialects for that one. And also in the -- there's one, I think, what we call genitive plural, "gori nema," "gori nema." I think it should have been "gorih nema," with an "h." (20)So there is evidence also in the word "hello," "alo" instead of "halo," that the "h" is lost or the "h" sound is lost. This suggests again that the speakers perhaps were indeed of Serb ethnicity rather than Muslim ethnicity.
• Q.: Can you tell us -- you mentioned that you relied on studies,
(25)dialect studies for that area. Can you just briefly tell us the time
• A.: Okay. That's quite an interesting subject. From around 1970 through the beginning of the war in 1992 in socialist Yugoslavia, there were at least 18 or 19 studies that I'm aware of that are of ethnic (5)dialect rather than of geographic dialect, so that the writers of these dialect studies looked specifically at the speech of particular ethnic groups, be it Serb, Muslim, or Croat. So within Bosnia I believe - I can check this on one of my articles - I believe I counted at least 14 such what I call ethnocentric dialect studies. So I've used many of those. (10)I've looked at all 18 of those studies, actually. And I've looked also at specific dialect studies for specific regions. One article I have is about Western Bosnia, another article is about an ethnically-mixed area in Croatia, and recently I've also looked at two dialect studies specifically for Eastern Bosnia, one of which is the dialect of Serbs of a town in (15)Eastern Bosnia, the town of Kladanj. And another one is the dialect of Muslims of the town of Tuholj, which is right near Kladanj. And so I've been able to compare those two studies and see what are some of the differences posited specifically for eastern Bosnia. • Q.: Who authored this study of Kladanj Serbs that you spoke of? (20) • A.: Professor Slobodan Remetic. • Q.: And is he a respected Serbian expert in this field? • A.: Yes. • Q.: And the other studies that you talked about, the pre-war studies, did you find them at all jaundiced by nationalism? (25)
• A.: I think the subtext of some of these was nationalism. However, I
(5) • Q.: You've had a chance to review a report of a Defence expert in this case, a Mr. Simic. Having reviewed that report, do you find it -- have you chosen to respond to anything in particular in that report that you think needs to be brought out in your testimony?
• A.: To a great extent I believe we have some similarities in our
(10)conclusions. One thing I might want to clarify, which might not have been
clear in my own report, is about the East Herzegovina dialect. What I
probably should have written in that report is that the Serbs of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, and even of Croatia, speak an East Herzegovina-type
dialect, which means it's not identical with what is currently spoken in
(15)East Herzegovina, but it had probably gone through some local modification
but is based on East Herzegovina. For evidence of that, I have looked at
a book published 1984 in Sarajevo called "Phonological Descriptions,"
"Fonoloski Opisi," and specifically, two villages or two locations in
Eastern Bosnia, the town of Zepa and Milici, the village, I guess, or the
(20)town of Milici, are said to have East Herzegovina characteristics.
So that's one thing I want to clarify based on that report. So
I'm not necessarily saying that the speakers on the tape speak the way
that they would speak in eastern Herzegovina, but they display some
eastern Herzegovina characteristics.
(25)The other thing I would like to respond to is the notion that
(15) • Q.: And did you find any indications of classic Muslim speech tendencies or patterns in the tapes?
• A.: No. One thing that is apparently characteristic of ethnic Muslim
speech is not only the preservation of the phoneme "h," but occasionally
also the addition in words where it wasn't supposed to be of the phoneme
(20)"h." So that, for example -- again, given the short speech sample, there
were no such words, but on the other hand there was also no tendency to
preserve "h" among the speakers.
In addition, the merger of the affricates or consonants which the
language admits, which are "che"
[phoen] and "tch"
[phoen], a kind of hard
(25)and soft "che"
[phoen], these were not -- there is quite extensive
• Q.: That's okay. Besides the two military-type tapes, or those fuzzier tapes that you were listening to, you were also provided with clear tapes of the various parties. Did you use those tapes in your (10)analysis in any way? • A.: I certainly listened to them, but the quality is so different, and also I think the context was so different. Speakers in a more formal context are likely to use a more standard form of the language. And in the context of the tape, where this is not a formal context, they tend to (15)bring in more dialect forms. Occasionally in some of the -- well, quite frequently, actually, in the speech samples from the testimonies here, I did hear that "h" lost, but perhaps in some instances it was preserved, and that is a difference, I think, in style. When you're trying to speak a more literary form of the language, you will, from your schooling and (20)education, you will insert those elements. I think we all can do that kind of code switching in any language.
• Q.: I don't know if you wanted to speak to the issues of the
differences of the "cha" pronunciations. If that was not the one you were
thinking about just ignore that question, and if you think you've got it
(25)all, then if you could briefly summarise what you were able to gather from
• A.: Right. My overall conclusion is that, given the limited time, limited period of speech, limited -- I mean, the fact that these speech samples were so short, I could notice some tendencies which made me (5)believe that the features here were more often associated with speakers that are of ethnic Serb background rather than any other ethnic background of Bosnia or of the former Yugoslavia. • Q.: Thank you, Witness EE. MR. McCLOSKEY: No further questions. (10) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] I think this would be a good opportunity to have a ten-minute break, so we're going to have a ten-minute break now. --- Recess taken at 2.17 p.m. --- On resuming at 2.29 p.m. (15) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Mr. McCloskey, you are not going to restart? MR. McCLOSKEY: Well, Mr. President, I've spoken to Mr. Visnjic, and the witness has recalled the last point he wanted to mention, and it should be very brief. If he could just recall to the Court his last (20)point, and Mr. Visnjic and I agreed that that would be appropriate. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Very well. Please proceed. MR. McCLOSKEY: • Q.: Witness, if you could tell us about this last point that you just recalled. (25)
• A.: Yes, it is relatively minor, but it's still something I confirmed
• Q.: Do you recall who was speaking on the tape that you heard this (10)tendency? • A.: I think it was definitely the voice attributed to Obrenovic, and I would have to review the tape one more time to make sure, but I have a feeling it might have been also the voice attributed to General Krstic. MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Mr. President. (15) JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Thank you. Mr. Visnjic, your witness. • CROSS-EXAMINED by Mr. Visnjic: • Q.: [Int.] Good afternoon, Witness EE. You are the only expert witness who understands our language, and therefore let me ask you (20)to make pauses between question and answer to give the interpreters a chance to interpret us. • A.: Very well. • Q.: Witness EE, have you appeared as an expert witness before, before the Tribunal with respect to an analysis of voices? (25)
• A.: Not before the Tribunal, no.
(5) • A.: I think you would need to clarify what you mean by the same environment. Are you talking about two people who are potentially neighbours in the same area, or people maybe in the same town but who live in different neighbourhoods? • Q.: I am thinking of the same area. Hypothetically, let's look at (10)Eastern Bosnia. Let's start off with that, Eastern Bosnia. • A.: Well, one of the interesting things that I found, they could be from the same region but speak differently, and this is confirmed in dialect studies of Eastern Bosnia that I have read, one by Senahid Halilovic about the dialect of Tuholj, there could be -- and the other one (15)that I mentioned earlier about the Serb dialect of Kladanj. So there can be differences. They're from the same region, and they speak somewhat differently. • Q.: I assume that they can come from different -- originate from different areas but speak the same? (20) • A.: Can you clarify what you mean by "different areas"?
• Q.: Referring back to the study you mentioned a moment ago about the
Serbian dialect in Kladanj, is it possible for Serbs from Eastern Bosnia,
one from Kladanj, for example, and the other one from Zvornik, or two
individuals not necessarily Serbs, that they speak with the same
(25)linguistic characteristics, speak in the same way?
• Q.: What about social status, education, other social elements? Do they lessen the gap, this distinction, or increase it?
• A.: That's a very good question. I think that in most, most cases,
education could have that effect indeed, but what I would like to argue
(20)and what is true even of my own, let's say, American background is if I
speak a native dialect, let's say of Chicago, and I try to learn -- speak
-- through my education, I pick up a standard American dialect, not a
Chicago, then when I'm back in Chicago I will tend to speak like a
Chicagoan.
(25)Similarly, I believe that even with education and even with high
• Q.: Witness EE, is it possible that a Bosnian Croat, a Bosnian Serb, a Bosnian Muslim speaks the same? Can they all speak the same? • A.: It's a theoretical question. It depends where and depends in what context. I think that it's entirely possible, say, in -- before the war, (10)that in Sarajevo, urban centre, you might not have been able to tell the differences among the three groups; however, if you go into the provinces, you tend to be able to hear more of the differences. And one of my studies was particularly of Western Bosnia where I looked at Croat speech, Muslim speech, and Serb speech, and I identified sort of what I called (15)seven primary speech features which are used which have been said to differentiate these groups. With the new reality of these three separate languages, Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian, today, for example, a Bosnian Croat is likely to use more forms from standard -- from the new Croatian. So that could be in (20)terms of words or lexicon, say, they might say instead of "avion" they might say "zrakoplov," which would mark them; or they will say "poduzece" instead of "preduzece," et cetera, et cetera. "Avion" being airplane, "poduzece" meaning -- I can't think of the word, sorry. I'm blanking on the word in English, but -- (25)
THE INTERPRETER: Company.
• Q.: This last portion, I have understood as something happening now, how new languages or a new language is being developed. Am I right in saying that? (15)
• A.: Yes, but if we're looking at speech samples from after the breakup
of Yugoslavia, we have to, to some extent, take that into consideration.
Prior to the breakup of Yugoslavia, there were already some --
quite a few differences between the speech of Croats and Serbs, and also
the Muslims would vacillate. They would use, say, in Bosnia they would
(20)use some Croatian pronunciations, but they'd use some verbal forms or some
what we call lexical items or simply vocabulary words which were of Serbs
origin, so they had a kind of mixed speech. And -- but you could still
see, according to the dialect studies, and I've looked at many written in
the 1970s and 1980s, and even in some urban areas like Tuzla and Visoko in
(25)Bosnia, where they are differentiating Muslim speech from other speech
• Q.: Let us go back to the situation in Eastern Bosnia where the vast majority of the population - and we've heard statements from different witnesses about this - was economically and educationally focussed on (5)Serbia. And many people who were heard here as witnesses actually worked in Belgrade. They were either construction workers or work in different companies. So do you allow for the possibility that the use of their -- or the fact that they had spent a significant portion of their time in Serbia (10)and the fact that the border is nearby, close by, and the fact that by their education and training and their military service as well, that in their speech, in the way they speak, the differences that you are talking about have been considerably lessened?
• A.: Frankly, I believe that that would, to a great extent, depend on
(15)individuals, and again, I think it's a question of code switching. If
these people lived extensively in Serbia or worked in Serbia but would
come home frequently to their parents and their family and their relatives
in Bosnia, that they would preserve or even return to the native -- their
native dialect.
(20)You have to realise that I think to great extent -- I mean, I've
known a lot of people in Belgrade who have lived there for many, many
years, don't have too many relatives outside of Belgrade by now -- and I'm
thinking of Montenegrins, for example, who have totally adopted ekavian,
and certainly if it's a second generation individual whose parents might
(25)be ijekavian speakers and they live within Belgrade, that the children
(10) • Q.: And a native dialect for the Serbs in Eastern Bosnia, it is ijekavian, am I right? • A.: Yes, the native dialect for Serbs is ijekavian; however, however, there was a lot of pressure in Republika Srpska for Serbs to adopt ekavian of Belgrade. And this admittance of ekavian of Belgrade is a kind of -- (15)one of those links that might link them, these Serbs, to their kin across the Drina River in Serbia, and for that reason, there might be some conscious reasons to want to maintain ekavian because ekavian is identifiable with Serbian. • Q.: Does that mean that people are conscious of the difference in (20)pronunciation, that is to say, whether they're speaking ijekavian or ekavian, and can they correct the difference or speak differently?
• A.: I think there was an increased awareness about this over the
years. I'll give you a few examples from my own experiences when I would
travel in different parts of Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslavia, and might
(25)slip into -- my own dialect that I studied was ekavian, and when I would
• Q.: Does that mean that people are conscious of the difference in pronunciation?
• A.: It would be difficult to make a generalisation, but I think that
(10)many people could very well be, but this is based on my feeling rather
than necessarily on something that I have spent a lot of time studying,
and also from personal experience.
I've talked to a lot of people who have moved around and have
gone, say, to Belgrade, especially when I was there in 1998 and spoke to
(15)some Serbs from Bosnia who were in Belgrade; they maintained their
ijekavian pronunciation quite clearly and quite deliberately. They said
they really don't want to switch. They feel that that -- but their
children are already totally ekavian speakers. So I think -- and also
many people in Belgrade at the time said that since there are so many
(20)refugees from the other parts of the former Yugoslavia, that ijekavian is
used quite a lot and that they notice these differences.
So I think the differences are noticed. Whether it's noticed if
an individual makes a political -- quote unquote, political statement by
speaking ekavian or ijekavian, there is some precedence for that. We know
(25)the examples of especially Bosnian Serb political leaders trying to force
• Q.: Does that mean that if the individual wishes to give the (5)impression that he or she is a Bosnian Serb, in their speech they will, of course, use partially or wholly the ekavian [Realtime transcript read in error "ijekavian"] dialect? You can say yes or no, give us a yes or no answer. • A.: I'm sorry, was it ijekavian or ekavian? (10) • Q.: Ekavian, "E." • A.: Could you please rephrase the question, because that made a difference for me. Yes. • Q.: Does that mean that an individual who wishes to give the impression that they are talking like a Serb, will that individual in (15)their own speech consciously use elements of the ekavian, e-k, ekavian, either partially or wholly?
• A.: Okay. I read -- there was a major controversy in Serb linguistics
about the status of ijekavian after the decision by the Bosnian Serb
leader at that time to declare ekavian as a language, as the dialect,
(20)official dialect of the Serb-held areas of Bosnia; and this individual, I
think his name was -- well, I don't want to make a mistake, so I won't
tell you right now but I've got it in my notes. This individual said that
most Bosnian Serbs would speak ijekavian, but that intellectuals or those
who want to make a point and show that they are true Serbs, and they were
(25)not a large number, would only speak ekavian, and not a mixture of
(10) • Q.: Does that refer to speakers who can be Muslims and Croats as well but originated from Eastern Bosnia? Would I be right in saying that? • A.: The literature shows that the Muslims of Eastern Bosnia, the literature that I have read, have fewer ekavisms in their speech and often they don't have -- they're certainly much less frequent in their speech. (15)And specifically, in the words that I have found in the tape recordings, I found a variety of other forms that had -- did not have the ekavian reflex. So such as in the word "ovde" or "gde," I found -- in some villages or some areas I found "dje," which is indicative of ekavism, and I found "ovdje" or "ovdi" even, but not "ovde." (20) • Q.: The frequency of the use of ekavian can be the result of military or police training; am I right? • A.: It's a possibility.
• Q.: Witness EE, how much time is needed, in your opinion, and you said
something about this at the beginning of your testimony when you were
(25)explaining the phase of the disintegration of Serbo-Croatian into separate
• A.: I would like a clarification, please, yes. • Q.: At the beginning of your testimony, you mentioned as a general (5)question for consideration the disintegration of the Serbo-Croatian language into separate languages, and my question is, how long does that process last until a final version of the language is formed? • A.: Right. • Q.: How long does this take? (10)
• A.: It's impossible to predict, but what I can tell you is that the
process did not just begin in 1991.
The process had begun already, I would say -- well, there are two
things I could say. We already have an example of a separate Croatian
language which was part of the fascist state of Croatia, '41 to '45, which
(15)of course Croatian was declared the official language, and a pre-1892
orthographic system was imposed on that territory. But more to our point,
already in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and throughout, the Croats had
been forming a separate language and had actually declared in the
declaration on the position and name of the Croatian literary language
(20)that Croatian is indeed a separate language. So that process has been
going on for -- well, had been going on for at least 20, 25 years before
the breakup of Yugoslavia, and is likely to continue. And I'm not a
prophet, so I really can't say for how much longer.
With regard to the Bosnian language as a separate language, I
(25)would say that that process began with the 1974 Federal Yugoslav
(15) • Q.: Witness EE, during the examination-in-chief, you mentioned that if somebody spent a longer space of time outside his environment, it is possible that he can take on the characteristics of speech of that region; but when they go back to their original region, the characteristics and this influence from outside is lost. Now, my question to you is the (20)following: How much time is needed for an individual to go back to his original way of speaking?
• A.: I would like to just make one correction to what you just said. I
didn't say that the older characteristics are immediately lost. I meant
to say that the person is familiar with both ways of speaking, but it
(25)seems to be almost an instinctual thing for that speaker, upon return to
• Q.: I assume that the period is, say, less than three years? • A.: Do you mean the period of returning to your native dialect? • Q.: Precisely that. (15)
• A.: Much less than three years, I would have to say. And of course, I
have to add the caveat that there could be -- it does vary from individual
to individual. I would think that this is something that in many
individuals is probably just a given characteristic of code switching.
It's well known that speakers of a dialect are able to code switch, either
(20)between their native dialect and the standard language, or their native
dialect and another dialect they might have picked up when they were
living elsewhere. I would say it's definitely -- well, most definitely in
much less than three years I would think there would be a return to a more
native form of speech. Again, also I might add, it depends. If that
(25)person spends only a week at home and then returns, it's another story.
(5) • Q.: In the transcript of the conversation which is the subject of your expert report, the word "bolan" is mentioned. This word is characteristic for those belonging to all three ethnicities in Bosnia. Am I right when I say that? • A.: I'm not a hundred per cent sure about the Croats, but I certainly (10)can vouch for the Serbs and the Bosnian Muslims, yes. MR. VISNJIC: [Int.] Thank you, Witness EE. Mr. President, the Defence has no further questions of this witness. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Thank you very much, (15)Mr. Visnjic. Mr. McCloskey, any additional questions? If you have, please proceed. MR. McCLOSKEY: Thank you, Mr. President. • RE-EXAMINED by Mr. McCloskey: (20) • Q.: In your review of the evidence tapes, of the fuzzier tapes, did you notice any bad acting, any awkward, wooden moments, anything that might lead you to believe this was a put-on? • A.: No, I did not. MR. McCLOSKEY: I have no further questions. (25)
JUDGE RODRIGUES:
[Int.] Thank you very much,
• QUESTIONED by the Court: JUDGE RIAD: Good afternoon, Witness EE. (5) • A.: Good afternoon, Your Honour. JUDGE RIAD: You highlighted the idiosyncracies between the way of speech, especially between Muslims and people of Serb ethnicity, indicating many words, the "h," and the "j," "yot," and so on. Suppose somebody wanted -- a Muslim wanted to imitate the speech of a person of (10)Serb ethnicity. Would he find any difficulty to overcome these obstacles? As much as a French would like to imitate a German, for instance? • A.: I think it would be quite difficult. I think they would have to have adequate -- an expert to train them on doing that. I don't think (15)it's something that they would naturally be able to do. JUDGE RIAD: So it can be detected. If one of -- one ethnicity, especially Muslim, tried to imitate a Serb ethnicity, an expert can detect the nuances? • A.: I believe so. What I found in these texts is that -- in these (20)transcripts - I'm sorry - in the tapes was a kind of consistency which made me believe that these people were authentic rather than acting. JUDGE RIAD: So in your overall conclusion, which you said that the features were more often associated with speakers of ethnic Serb background, you think it is a very firm conclusion? (25)
• A.: Well, I would have felt more comfortable had I had a longer speech
(5) JUDGE RIAD: Thank you very much. THE WITNESS: You're welcome. JUDGE RODRIGUES: [Int.] Thank you very much, Judge Riad. I see that Madam Judge Wald has no questions, and neither have I. Therefore, we wish to thank you very much, Witness EE, for coming, and we (10)wish you a safe journey and success in your future work. Please don't move for the moment, because we have to bring down the blinds to protect your identity. We will meet again tomorrow at 9.20. For now, the hearing is adjourned. (15) --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 3.07 p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 20th day of March, 2001, at 9.20 a.m. |