The Milosevic Files

Watson: Well, it's been a wretched start for the prosecution hasn't it.

Holmes: It's hardly the "hitting the ground running" kind of start we were told it would be, certainly. However, maybe things will pick up with this witness.

Watson: Hurrah!!!!!! Slobo about to be sent reeling by a young Turk.Some background blurb per chance.

(

( 1848 )

Question: Mr. Tac, what is your ethnicity?

Witness: Turkish.

Question: Mr. Tac, where was your place of birth?

Witness: I was born in Mamush.

)

Holmes: To cut a boring story short, our hero was born in 1954 did his military service like a good little boy

(

( 1850 )

Question:Today, are most of the residents of Mamusa of Turkish ethnicity, like you?

Witness: Yes. Yes. Ninety per cent Turkish and 10 per cent Albanian.

Question: Did any Serbs live in Mamusa in 1999?

Witness: There have never been Serbs in Mamusha.

)

Holmes: He added that the population of the town was a princely "5.500 to 6.000"

Watson: Nods off.

(

( 1852 )

Question: Thank you. Mr. Tac, apart from Mamusa, were there any other towns or villages -- are there any other towns or villages in that area of Kosovo where the population is mostly of Turkish ethnicity?

Witness: Apart from Mamusha, there were Turks in Prizren, in Prishtina, and in other towns a few, but really only in Mamusha there were Turks.

)

Watson: Okay, coke head, how about when the Serbs torture the ethnic Turks and impale the heroic KLA freedom fighters on sticks.

Holmes: Here it comes. Kind of.

(

( 1853 )

Question:What happened, Mr. Tac, in Mamusa on the evening of the 25th of March, 1999? Do you recall?

Witness: On the 25th of March, in Mamusha, at about 10.00 at night, a whole group of refugees came, about 1.000........They came from the surrounding villages. They all came from the villages round about to Mamush.........They were Albanians.

Question: Did any of these refugees stay in your house that night?.......... And did they tell you -- did any of them tell you why they came to Mamush?

Witness: Yes. They said because it was quiet. To save their lives, that was why they came to us.........Mamusha was very quiet at this time. There had been no conflicts. They had come to save their lives.

Question: And approximately how many people of Albanian ethnicity sought

Judge: He has said a thousand.

Witness: No. No. On that day, we didn't see, but when we came out after two days later, there were about 30.000.

)

Watson: So we get to hear some second hand testimony.

Holmes: Yup.

Watson: Goes back to sleep.

(

( 1854 )

Question: What happened on the 27th of March, 1999 in Mamusa?

Witness: On the 27th of March, 1999, at about 10.00 or 11.00, the army came, with tanks, and
entered Mamush........They came to the middle of the village -- into the middle of the village with tanks, and the refugees were among the houses, and they told us all to come out into the centre of the village.........We all went out with all the refugees and all the villagers of Mamush into the centre of the village.........There is a road. It is a long one, and all the road was full of people........The soldiers came in among them. I don't know who they were, but they came in, in around the people........Everybody was ordered to go out into the middle of the village, the residents and the refugees alike.

Question: And what happened when all the people had gathered in the middle of the village?

Witness: Yes. We went out of the houses and left the houses empty, and we went out into the middle of the village and they said to us, "You of Mamush go on one side, and you refugees on another side."........The population of Mamusha at one side and then the Albanian refugees separately.

Question: And when the people were divided into two groups that day, what did the soldiers or
their commander, if there was one, say to the people?

Witness: They said, "You people of Mamusha bring out your carts, buses, trucks, everything you've got, and fill them with refugees and take them away from here.".........He told me to get trucks and fill them with refugees, and all our friends came out on the street with these vehicles and parked them there and started to fill them up with people, all the buses and trucks.

Witness: All our vehicles were filled up, and they said, "All right. Don't you use your carts, but let them go out with all their own carts and let them all go out in the streets with what they have."Those who had their carts went back and fetched them, whatever they had, and they got on board, and then they set out.

Question: Did you see a battle going on or hear the sounds of a battle taking place on that day?

Witness: No. In Mamusha village, there was never any fighting, not only that day, but never; never in the past did we have any fighting there.

Question: At some point was a convoy made of the vehicles owned by the refugees in Mamusa?

Witness: Yes. There was a convoy of refugees. We, the inhabitants of Mamusha, were sitting aside........We all saw them leave for Prizren or I don't know where they were taking them.

Question: On that day, did the Albanian residents of Mamusa remain in Mamusa or did they also join the convoy?

Witness: They were in Mamusha together. We were all together there.........They stayed together with us, the Albanians of Mamusha.

)

Watson: So only the refugees NOT from the village were told to move on. So what's the big deal?

Holmes: What indeed? And note that, as the Kosovo Albanians who lived in the village didn't leave, we can safely assume this was no "expell all the Kosovo Albanian" policy that the MSM would have us believe.

Watson: My god, such god awful testimony.

Holmes: God awful it is.

(

Question: Let's talk now, Mr. Tac, about the evening of 27 March, 1999. What happened in Mamusa that evening?

Witness: That night - it was about 6.00 in the afternoon - we saw that the houses of the village started to go in flames........ We were in our own homes and then we saw flames coming out of some houses. We were inside. It was from a distance. We could see the smoke and the flames. We were -- we went to our cellars to hide there.

Question: About how many houses were burned in Mamusa that night?

Witness: About 30, I think........That night, we didn't know what was happening, I mean in terms of people who got killed or injured. On the next day, we found out that seven people had been killed.

Question: What was the ethnicity of the persons who perished that night in Mamusa?

Witness: Three Turks, four Albanians.

)

Watson: That's it?

Holmes: Yup.

Watson: If that's evidence then I'm Britney Spears.

(

( 1864 )

Question: At some point during that evening, the 27th of March, did a tank come near the village of Mamush?

Witness: Yes. A tank was coming in the direction of Mamusha. When it came in the village, we went to a brook nearby. No. I'm sorry. The tank had an accident and rolled over......... It rolled over about 200, 300 metres above the village it was.

Question: After this tank rolled over, were more homes set on fire in Mamush?

Witness: We didn't know what was happening, but we found out that this burning stopped.......... I didn't see the tank that night, but on the next day when they came to pull it over with a crane, we saw the army troops passing by in the middle of the village to go to the place where the tank had the accident.

Question: Were you able to see who started the fires in Mamusa on the evening of 27 March?

Witness: I didn't see who set the fire, but people there know.........They left, and then the army came and they set fire to the houses, and they drove us away from our homes. It was the Serb Yugoslav army that did that.

Question: Who told you that? Do you recall who told you that?

Witness: Our villagers who left their homes, they told us.

)

Watson: So, some MORE hearsay. Aaaaagh! I'm being submerged in a tsunami of hearsay.

(

( 1865 )

Question: At about noon on April 2nd, what happened in Mamusa?

Witness: On the 2nd of April - it was in the afternoon at about 12.00 or 1.00 - the police came to the centre of the village. Five or six, I think.

Question: And what, if anything, did the police tell the people in the centre of the village to do?

Witness: They wanted us to bring out our trucks to the road........I was at home, and someone told the villagers who went to the middle of the village. He said, "All of you bring out your trucks to the road.".........Some of the trucks were about to leave, and a neighbour of mine came up to me and said, "You, too, should come out with your truck.".......... When we reached the road, we parked beside the road and we were waiting for them to tell us what they wanted us to do.

Question: When you were parked in a line along that road, did you see the policemen there on the road?

Witness: Yes. The police were coming around the cars and trucks.

Question: Dd you learn the identity of any of the individual policemen who were in Mamusa on that afternoon?
Witness: I didn't know any one of them, but some of my friends said that this policeman is called Sipka.

Question: Were you close enough to hear him?

Witness: Yes. I was just there by my vehicle and he was forced to bring his vehicle and come.

Question: Eventually, Mr. Tac, about how many trucks were lined up along that road?

Witness: There were 12 of us........We started the trucks up and got into the vehicles, and he was in front and we were behind him.

Question: And did you and the other drivers follow Mr. Sipka in your trucks?

Witness: Yes. We all went after him.

Question: And when the trucks left the village of Mamusa on that day, where did they go?

Witness: To Medred, Xerxe, and then to Pirana........2 A. We went on towards Rahovec, and
when we arrived in Xerxe, the police stopped us.

Question: And what did the police who stopped you in Zrze tell you to do?

Witness: In Xerxe, they pointed us towards Rahovec.

Question: And what did the police who stopped you in Rahovec tell you to do?

Witness: They told us to go to Malisheva.........We went to Malisheva.........There were a lot of refugees in Malisheva, and Serbian police and soldiers surrounding the refugees there.

Question: When you arrived in Malisevo that day, did you see any planes dropping bombs?

Witness: No. We didn't see anything like that.........Then they told the refugees, "Go on. Get into
the trucks." and the trucks were filled up and we closed them........They were refugees. Malisheva was absolutely full. All the area -- the entire area of Malisheva had gathered there.

Question:How did you know that these people were -- that these people were refugees who had gathered in Malisevo? Did you speak to any of them?

Witness: We spoke to them and said, "Here you go. Go on, get into our trucks." They said, "You set off for Prizren." They said, "Go on. When they're full up, off you go."

Question: Well, how did you and the other drivers know where to go?

Witness: They said -- beforehand they said, "Fill up the trucks and then go to Albania." They told us........We set off from Malishevo to Rahovec, Xerxe, Pirana, Prizren........They stopped us at Ostrozub. The Serbian army stopped us at Ostrozub, about ten kilometres from Malishevo.........They stopped us and asked for money from us.........We continued on toward the Albanian border.

Question: Along the way, did you see any planes dropping any bombs? Along the way, did you see any battles taking place or hear the sounds of a battle?

Witness: No. I didn't see anything like that.

Judge: Mr. Saxon, while they were driving to the Albanian border, was there any Serb police or army with them?

Witness: No. They -- they weren't with us along the road.

Question: If there were no Serb forces driving with you along the road, why did you continue to drive towards the Albanian border?

Witness: There wasn't, but they told us to take these people straight to Albania. So we were forced to take them. There was nothing else we could do.

Question: So the road between Zhur and the boarder was full. So you couldn't go any further; is that right?

Witness: We told them, "Okay, friends, we have reached Zhur. We can't go any further. We'll have to wait for two days. Can you get off and go on by foot towards Albania?"........They said, "Where are we?" "We're in Zhur." "Is the border far?" And I said, "It's six or seven kilometres, no further than that."........ "All right," they said, "Thank you for taking us this far." And they got off and got out of the truck......... "Thank you for bringing us this far. You brought us as if by plane." And we said goodbye and we said, "Safe journey," and we went one direction, they went in another. And we said, "God willing, you'll be all right," and we went back.........We were 12 trucks and we returned to Prizren again.

)

Holmes: THAT"S IT

In summary, the guy said that some refugees came to the village, then the Serbs moved them on, he saw some flames and some dead bodies a day or so later, and then a couple of days later still, he and several villagers went to Malishevo to move some Kosovo Albanian refugees away from the fighting. THAT'S IT FOLKS.

Well, Slobo didn't need to do much to knock it into touch, considering the witness wasn't really saying anything.

(

( 1877 )

Slobo: In your opinion, were those refugees able to be put up somewhere there in Malisevo?

Witness: They were outside. When I saw them, they were gathered in the middle of Malisheva. There was no place they could go to.

Slobo: That means it was logical that somebody should take them away from that place, where they had nowhere to go, nowhere to be put up, to be evacuated somewhere, to be taken away to safety somewhere; is that right?

)

Watson: So the Serb forces were helping them get to a place where they could find shelter, etc. So where's the crime then?

Holmes: Where indeed. The treatment of the ethnic Turks under Belgrade rule. Life was pretty good it seems.

(

( 1886 )

Slobo: According to my information and the figures, up until the war, the whole village of Mamusa lived in a normal way, as loyal citizens to Serbia, and I also have information that you would go out to all the elections that took place from 1990 to 1997. Is that correct?

Witness: For myself, I didn't go to the polls. I don't know what the rest did.

Slobo: Do you know that the locals from Mamusa went to the polls regularly, regardless of the fact that you say that you yourself didn't? All right. In the village, the director of the clinic in the village is also a Turk; is that right?

Witness: Yes, a Turk.

Slobo: And the director of the post office too, also a Turk; right? Director of the chicken farm,
Refki Mazik [phoen], also a Turk; right? The thing is that in normal life with normal interrelations and an indubitable display and exercise of human and political rights that was enjoyed by Turks in Kosovo and Metohija. Do you remember that, just before the aggression, that Prizren was twice visited by representatives of the Turkish embassy, who talked to Turkish political parties both from Prizren and Mamusa and that at that time mutual satisfaction was expressed between -- with the relations between the authorities and the members of the Turkish minority? Do you remember that?

)

Watson: WOW! It seems that the ethnic Turks were treated really really well under Slobo's rule.
Holmes: Certainly seems that way.

(

( 1889 )

Slobo: And do you remember that on the 11th of April, and that was a Sunday, the 11th of April, when you were in Mamusa, according to your own words, do you remember that that day the members of the Turkish ethnic community from the village of Mamusa and from Prizren organised in Prizren a rally to convict -- condemn the aggression of NATO, and it was attended by 15.000 citizens?

Witness: There was no rally in Mamusha, but the police forced us to hold a rally. They forced us. They sent us to Prizren. And if we wouldn't go, they would burn our houses. We couldn't do anything else. What else could we do?

Slobo: Mr. Tac, 15.000 people were at that rally. Are you claiming that all of them were forced to go there? And they were mainly Turks.
Witness claims the numbers were different and they were forced to attend or their houses would be burnt down.

Slobo: I said from Mamusa and Prizren. And the rally was held in Prizren, and almost the entire Mamusa attended. Are you claiming that that was not so? So you participated in that rally against NATO on the 11th of April because you were forced.

Witness: Yes. Of course we were forced. There's nothing else I could do. I had no other way out.

Slobo: Do you remember that Adem Koc addressed the rally, among others? He was president of the local commune in your village and also a representative of the Turkish Democratic Party, a Member of Parliament in the Municipal Assembly of Prizren?

Witness claims he had no idea who he was. He also said he couldn't hear what he said too.

Slobo: And do you know that, at the same rally, Sadik Tanjoll also addressed the rally? He was president of the Turkish Democratic Party of Yugoslavia, an attorney-at-law.

Witness: I don't know who spoke.

Slobo: And do you know who Zenel Abedil Kures is? Have you ever heard of him? He's also a Turk.

Witness: I know that he's a Turk, but I don't know what he said. I'm not interested in this. I'm not a politician. I'm a peasant. I mind my own business.

Slobo: You must know that he was -- that Mustafa Bakir was headmaster of the primary school Zenel Abedil Kures.

Witness: I don't know.

Slobo: And do you remember that Sokol Kushe [phoen], an Albanian, made a speech there? He's a director of a cultural institution in Prizren.

Witness: I don't know who he is. I don't know. I don't know him at all. I don't know.

Slobo: Do you know Franjo Prenglusha, also an Albanian, also a deputy of the Municipal Assembly?

Witness: I don't know any of these people.

Judge admonishes Slobo for asking such stupefyingly difficult questions.

Slobo: All right. I won't ask him any more about the Turks who addressed the rally, but I do wish to ask him, in this connection, if he remembers that the transport from Mamusa to Prizren was organised by private hauliers from the village of Mamusa, namely, Mamusha Tours and Birlik. Transport to Prizren, to the rally. The hauliers were your ownfrom Mamusa. The Birlik enterprise and Mamusha Tours. Do you remember that?

Witness claims it was all a lie.

Slobo: So you went in your own vehicle to the rally, where you went under duress?

Witness: Yes, by force.

)

Watson: MY! It seems that anyone who was anyone in ethnic Turk society in Kosovo spoke at that rally.

Holmes: It does indeed.

Watson: And the witness makes a complete Turkish kebab of himself with such "Oim a peasant" routine.

Holmes: He be bumpkin he be. Oooooo arrrrrrr.

(

( 1890 )

Slobo: And do you remember certain members of the KLA from Mala Krusa, Pirana, Samodreza, and Studencane who hid for a while at your place?

Witness says he doesn't know.

Slobo: Are you asserting that not a single time before the war were there any members of the KLA who found shelter at your house, from the villages I mentioned?

Witness: No, there wasn't. There weren't. Not at my place, and I haven't seen any in the village.

Slobo: And do you remember the time when just after those members of the KLA were there, the police made a search of a part of your village? Do you remember that?

Witness: You mean the KLA was in the village and the police searched? No. I never saw anything like that. The police often came, and I am a peasant, and I was in the fields and at home, and I never saw things of this kind.

)

AND

(

( 1893 )

Slobo: All right. Do you know anything at all about the 30th of May; that is, after that, the KLA kidnapped the president of the local commune and a deputy to the Assembly of Prizren, this Adem Koc person I already mentioned, and Morina Mahmet, who were held for questioning for several days in a basement in the village of Celina. Do you remember that?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: But you know those people and you know they were kidnapped? Yes or no.

Witness doesn't know

Slobo: And do you remember that one of the most wealthy people had all his trucks confiscated? When did you come back from Turkey to Mamusa?

Witness: I came back in January 1999.

Slobo: But that happened precisely at that time. How come you don't know about it?

Witness: When I returned home, I never heard of that.

Slobo: And are you aware that even before the aggression, and even now, the KLA took money to finance its terrorist organisation from the citizens of the village of Mamusa, that it racketeered the people of Mamusa?

Witness: I don't know. They never took any money away from me. I haven't heard about that.

)

Watson: Oh. What a sorry spectacle

(

( 1894 )

Slobo: And are you aware that during the war the work organisation Liria, from Prizren, opened a shop in Mamusa to supply the locals with essential products? Do you remember that?

Witness: We had our shops in Mamusa, and we still have the same shops.

Slobo: I'm saying that during the war, Mamusa was supplied in the way I described. Do you remember that? Yes or no.

Witness: That I don't know. I don't remember that.

Slobo: And do you remember the wounding of a Turkish woman, Suzana Taskra, during the bombing? In Prizren. She worked at the TV station, broadcasting in Turkish.

Witness: No, that I don't know. I know nothing about any other place.

Slobo: And do you remember that in the Turkish language, Radio Pristina, Radio Prizren, Radio Mitrovica, Radio Gnjilane broadcast in the Turkish language? Do you remember that?

Witness claims to have NEVER heard or seen these programs in the Turkish language. NEVER.

Slobo: All right. If you didn't watch television or listen to the radio, do you remember that there were newspapers in Turkish, such as Tan, Cergetush [phoen], Bai Cevrin, Esin, and Sofra?

Witness: I don't know. I don't read papers. I am a farmer. Those who read know.

Slobo: Do you remember the Sofra newspaper, published in Mamusa in the Turkish language?

Witness: I knew that it came out, that paper was published, but I don't read. I said, I don't read.

Slobo: And do you remember that the Turkish Democratic Party had its own offices in the centre of Prizren? Were you a member of any party?

Witness: I have never been a member of any party, so I know nothing about this party. I am a farmer. I mind my own business. I work. I don't care about parties.

Slobo: And have you heard of the death of an entire Turkish family on the 7th of April, the Gash family; mother, father, and four daughters? They were Turks. They were not killed in Mamusa. They were killed during the bombardment somewhere in town. Have you heard of that family?

Witness: Where were they killed? I don't know that. I never heard of that.

Slobo: Have you perhaps heard that the Turkish journalist Sarife Turgut, a correspondent of the ATV television, a Turkish television, described the rescuing of a 2-year-old girl who was saved by Dr. Andric from Pristina? Do you remember that event? There was a special programme on Turkish television about that.

Witness: I'm not aware of that.

)

Watson: MY! Such ignorance. Ignorance about matters that they should definitely know about is a hallmark of nearly all the prosecution witnesses isn't it.

Holmes: An observant observation my observant friend

(
( 1897 )

Slobo: And do you know anything about, after the arrival of NATO troops in Kosovo, the 7-year-old daughter of Orana Kasma, from Prizren, was kidnapped and a very large ransom was demanded?

Witness: That I don't know.

Slobo: You know nothing about it? And do you know about the rape and killing of a married Turkish woman, Ajsa Altiparmak, again after the arrival of NATO troops, and that was done by KLA terrorists?

Judge gets upset that Slobo is confusing the witness with such difficult questions.

Slobo: Well, you are probably right. As you see, the witness doesn't know anything about what had been going on atthe time. Is it true that in the village of Mamusa itself -- please listen carefully. In the village of Mamusa itself, on the critical day which you discussed a moment ago, that a large group of armed KLA terrorists from the villages of Studencane, Mala Krusa, and Pirane opened fire on the patrol of the MUP of Serbia, harming even innocent passersby?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: You said a moment ago that you don't know who had killed them, that you didn't see that, you just heard of it. So how do you know that Serbs killed them?

Witness: You said -- you said these people were killed, but they were not killed in the roads, in the streets somewhere. They were killed in their very homes.

Slobo: And how were they killed?

Witness: That night we were at home. On the next morning, they were found. Their bodies were found in their own homes. And we buried them on the 28th of March, on the Bajram day.

Slobo: How did they die? How were they killed? Were they killed by a bomb, a bullet, a stone?
Witness: By the bullet, not by the bombs. We didn't have bombs in Mamusha. By arm -- by gunfire.

Slobo: You are now saying that they were killed from firearms, and a moment ago you said that you had never heard any shooting in Mamusa, whatsoever. So how could they have been killed by firearms? Let me note that he first said that he had never heard any shooting whatsoever, and a moment ago he said that people were killed during a shoot-out.

Judge: Very well. Let the witness deal with that. Mr. Tac, what he said is that members of the KLA were in your house. Is there any truth in that?

Witness says there were no KLA in the house.

Slobo: Does he know that the Albanian terrorists burnt the Serb village of Novak, only four kilometres away from Mamusa, with 80 Serb houses? Do you know about that?

)

Watson: La di dah.

Holmes: La di dah indeed.

(

( 1900 )

Slobo: All right. Did you go to Prizren? Did you see that a tombstone of Nari Rexhalebia [phoen] was demolished in Prizren? Did you see that?

Witness says it's a lie.

Slobo: Did you see the Turkish fountains in the yard of the mosque in the Tahban settlement destroyed?

Witness didn't see it.

Slobo: Do you know that the Osman Efendi mosque in Novo Brdo was completely destroyed? Did you hear about that from anyone, for example?

Witness professes ignorance.

Slobo: All right. Did you hear about the fact that, in Prizren, people were sacked? Now, I'm talking about now, after KFOR, that Turks were sacked from their jobs, and their name was Xhala Jash [phoen], Fikrija Nush [phoen], Mehi Bekazaz [phoen], Nurik Malta [phoen], Jaku Plav, Mustafa -- from the Mustafa Bakija primary school, as well as Jakusha Mamushe [phoen]. Do you know about all of them or any one of them who were fired from their jobs?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: Did your children go to school? Which language was tuition? Was it in Albanian when they went to school?

Witness: It was in Turkish. They didn't go on to studies. They went on to be farmers and went to school in Turkish.

Slobo: So you had a school in the Turkish language. Do you know that there were in fact six schools in the town and in the village of Mamusha itself with tuition in Turkish? Are you aware of that? I said one in Mamusa and the rest were in Prizren. Do you know about four secondary schools in your municipality where pupils were taught in the Turkish language as well?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: All right. And do you know about doctors, Turkish doctors, Bulent Krilje, Dr. Isak, Muxhada Kovic [phoen], Resmije Shata, Dr. Valkan [phoen] and others, all of them Turks, all of them working and offering treatment to patients? Have you heard of them?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: Do you know about Judges, Sas Kofiki [phoen], and Skender Musbeg, those two Judges? Have you heard of them? They are also Turks.

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: What about Abdul Tac? Was he the headmaster of the primary school in the village of Mamusa?

Judge tries to help the hapless witness.

Slobo: Do you know that in Prizren two Turkish drama theatre companies were functioning, with performances all over Yugoslavia and in Turkey and in Germany too? Have you heard of those?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: Do you at least know about the village of Mamusa and the cultural and arts society Askferki that functioned there in your own village? Do you know about that? In Turkish, the Turkish Cultural and Arts Society. Have you heard of that one?

Slobo: Do you know of any Turks who were members of the government of Kosovo and Metohija, members of the Executive Council, as it was called, of Kosovo and Metohija?

Witnes doesn't know.

Slobo: I'm asking him whether he's heard of Zenel Abedil Kures. He was a minister there and a Turk. He must haveheard of him.

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: Have you heard about a lady, also a Turkish lady, Bude Hasaru?

Judge puts a stop to the slaughter.

Slobo: Well, all this has to do with his evidence, but he doesn't seem to know anything about anything that went onexcept the fact that he helped a group of Albanian refugees to get out of Malisevo.

Do you know about Adem Koc, Sadik Tanjoll, Zenel Abedil, Muhammed Ustaibar [phoen], Ilija Micamil [phoen], Hasan Merdan? Do you know of any of those individuals? They're all Turks.

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: And do you know about Mahmet Morina and Haim Shala, those two names? Also two Turkish gentlemen kidnapped by the KLA.

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: Why do you think they would be in prison in Serbia? They were loyal citizens of Serbia and didn't come into conflict with the authorities at all.

Witness makes the slightly ridiculous claim that they were kidnapped by the Serbs.

Slobo: ATurk appeared who was in prison in Serbia. Is that what you're saying? What was the name of this one Turk?

Judge stops Slobo from any more piss taking.

)

Watson: Overall, an F minus for credibility.

Holmes: And now it's time for Mr. Tapuskovic to get into the fray

(

Mr T: Mr. Sakir, first of all, let me start off by asking you the following, something you talked about at the beginning of your testimony. You said that your village was quiet, that there were never any conflicts there - you used the word "conflict," I believe - and that these people came to your village to take refuge. Did you hear from them or anybody else that in other places, in other villages, there were conflicts?

Witness: If they didn't have any conflicts, they wouldn't have run away from their homes and come over to us.

Mr T: So conflicts between the KLA and the army; is that it?

)

Watson: So the people left because of KLA fighting with Serb forces then.

(

( 1908 )

Mr T: Thank you. Did members of the KLA ever come to your village?

Witness: No. I've never seen them. I don't know.

Mr T: But you said previously, in paragraph 3 of your statement that Mr. Sakir gave on the 10th of June, 2001, in that third paragraph, it states the following: The KLA did not have a stronghold here, but they did come from time to time. There was no stronghold here, but they did visit from time to time. That is what you say in your statement, that they came from time to time, in your statement of June 2001. Is that what you said or not?

Witness blubbers something incomprehensible.

Mr T: Can you explain, then, how come this sentence exists in your statement, the statement you made at that time?

Witness doesn't know.

Mr T: On the 27th, the event took place which you have described to us here. On that day, the army or the police - it doesn't matter - searched houses; is that right? And all the houses were searched. Nothing was stolen from your house, but it had been ransacked; is that right?

Witness: Yes, it was ransacked, but they hadn't taken anything away.

Mr T: Does that mean -- you know that they said that they were looking for weapons, just weapons, and as they found no weapons, did they take anything else from the house or not?

Witness: I don't know what they searched for. We never had any weapons, nor do we have today. But I know that they searched. That is all I know.

Mr T: Thank you. You said that there were casualties and that you buried them the next day.

Do you know the names of any of those people from your village who were buried on that particular day?

Witness: I don't know the names of all of them. I know the names of the Turks, but I don't know the other four. I don't know the names.

)

Watson: Pitiful stuff. He changes his story as the wind changes direction. He knows nothing about his village even though he claims he's lived there all his life.

Holmes: Etc etc etc.

Watson: So are you telling me that

Holmes: YUP. Slobo wins

Monday, September 24, 2007

The Cat Ate It

"THE CAT ATE IT"

Witness 14: Sabit Kadriu

WITNESS 14: Sabit Kadrui
Testimony begins on page 1609
http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/020306ED.htm
Continues on the next day
http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/020307ED.htm
Slobo's cross begins on Page 1736 at the beginning of the final day's testimony
http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/020308IT.htm

Background blurb

Watson: I say, Holmes, I heard that this witness got rave reivews in the MSM.

Holmes: You're right there, honourable doc, they had orgasms commenting about the wee lad. Orgams they had. For example, CNN reported breathessly that "The war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic has heard a horrific witness account of the atrocities committed in Kosovo during the war".

Watson: Some background per chance?

Holmes: No problemo.

Watson: Top ho, Holmes.

Holmes: Ooookey doooookey. He was 41 years old when he gave his teismony, a Kosovo Albanian Muslim. He lived most of your life in Brusnik in the municipality of Vucitrn which is north or the capital, Pristina and south of Mitrovicia, with his parents and nine siblings. A relative was a member of the KLA

(

( 1610 )

Question: Has any member of your family been involved with the KLA?

Witness: Yes, one of them. Kemajl, who studied in Tirana. After he finished his studies, hewasn't able to return. He was involved there in Tirana.

)

He bacame a member of an HR group.

Watson: Aaahhh! The curse of the NGO.

Holmes: Indeed.

(

( 1609 )

Question: Did you, in 1990, become a member of the Council for Human Rights in Vucitrn.....( and )....did you become its president?

Witness: Yes, I was its president, the president of the Council of Human Rights.

Question: And have you more recently worked as assistant to the president of the municipality?

Witness: Yes.

Question: And as a result of that, did you cease your work for the Council for Human Rights?

Witness: Yes.

)

Holmes: He talked about the Kosovo Albanians rioting.

Watson: What over?

Holmes: A book

Watson: Oh

(

( 1612 )

Question: And again briefly, in 1981, was there an encyclopedia of the history of the peoples of Yugoslavia published and was that a document thought by some to be significant in its - just yes or no - in its reflection of Albanian interests?

Witness: Yes.

Question: Thank you. In March or April of 1981, were there student protests?

Witness: Yes, there were protests and demonstrations, because of the situation that was created --

Question: Were you involved in those demonstrations yourself?

Witness:I was involved because of the dissatisfaction that was created by the Yugoslavia Encyclopedia that was published then. My people -- which was the third from the point of size --

)

And some more demos

(

Witness: In these demonstrations, we did not demand anything other than Kosovo to be a republic, with a similar status to the other republics of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. And the protests continued on the 26th of March and 1st and 2nd of April, and they ended up with mistreatment and, in some cases, killings of those who participated.

Question: And who, what group or organisation, was controlling or trying to suppress, or whatever it was, these protests?

Witness: It was the Yugoslav government who had engaged all the state apparatus in Kosovo, including other assisting forces from Serbia and the rest of Yugoslavia.

Question: Were troops involved?

Witness: It was mainly special units, but on certain cases there were certain failed moves on the part of the Yugoslav army.

)

Holmes: He talked about the supposed segregation of the education departments. APARTHEID no less.

Watson: But Holmes, numerous witnesses have already admitted that this was a complete lie. That Kosovo Albanian and ethnic Serbs were education in the same place, the same curriculum, etc.

Holmes:Yes I know. But these witnesse are slow people and this one is no different. Anyway, our hero tried to get a job.

(

( Page 1614 )

Witness: After I finished my studies, I returned to my village.

Question: Did you have difficulties finding work at that time? Just yes or no.

Witness: Yes, I had difficulties.

Question: Turning again to Brusnik, where you eventually gained work as an Albanian teacher in the Vushtrri school in December 1988 --

Witness: Yes.

Question: the ethnic composition of that school being how many Albanian and how many Serbian students, approximately?

Witness: There were about 2.700 pupils, students, of which about 250 were Serbian, of Serbian nationality.

)

Watson: So he had problems getting a job? Along with practically everybody in the world.

Holmes: I know, it's all dreary stuff. The job seeking hero deals with events up to 1998

(

( 1615 )

Question: Was there also any population movement, one way or the other, or in perhaps two ways, that you became aware of?

Witness: Yes. There was a major movement of the population from Pristina to Mitrovica. All the people rose to their feet out of their discontent resulting from the amendment of the constitution of Kosova. The students in their township, the people at large, they were all moving towards Pristina.

Question: Was there any movement of Serbs in all within Kosovo that you became aware of?

Witness: During that time - in Vushtrri I'm talking about, in Prelluzhe village - because of this discontent, and in order for it to stop, the Serb population of the village had the reason and the Albanian -- and had driven out the Albanian students out of the school. I think that was the first sign of separating the Albanian students from the Serb students.

Question: Thank you for that. And as a matter of fact, where did most of the relocated students from Prelluzhe go?

Witness: Albanian students who were driven out of their school had to have their lessons in Stanovci i Poshtem school.

)

Holmes: He talks about the supposed transfer of huge numbers of ethnic Serbs from Bosnia and Croatia to Kosovo

(

( 1617 )

Question: Going back to the question of population movements in general, was there any movement into Kosovo of Serbs at any time, or at about this time, of which you were aware?
Witness: During 1987 to 1989, I was a soldier. I was doing my military service. And I remember very well when the accused came to power, there were Serb movements, not only in Prelluzhe, but also in other towns of Kosovo. A very extensive movement was under way, during which women were instrumentalised [as interpreted], demanded the resignation of Fadil Hoxha. I think it was 1987, 1989 -- 1988, sorry.

Question: Finally on this, because I don't want to take too long on it: Do you remember any movements in relation to Velikoreke, which is a village the Court can find south and east or east of Brusnik, on the other side of the railway track?

Witness: During this time, but especially after the wars in Croatia and in Bosnia, but even earlier, a village had started to be built, with all the necessary town-planning facilities, in Velikoreke, and in this village, the population which had left Croatia and Bosnia were settled in this village with the purpose of, I think, changing the ethnic structure of the population.

)

Watson: Oh, I do remember the prosecution talked about many zillions of ethnic Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia being resettled by that all round naughty boy, Slobo. Here, the witness only talks about one piddling little village.

Holmes: Yup. And in Slobo's cross examination the whole sorry topic is kicked out of touch. Now we'll talk about a really pathetic fraud, a supposed poisoning on Kosovo Albanian students in 1990.

(

( 1616 )

Question: Was there an incident at a school or schools involving gas, apparently? If so, can you give us a date and then tell us about the incident, but only in a couple of sentences.

Witness: Yes, there was. It happened in 1990. I think it was April. I'm not very sure about the date. At that time, our students were poisoned. There were over 250 students - 253, actually - who were poisoned with a poisonous gas which was used in our school and in other schools of Kosovo. This was public knowledge. You could find it in all information media.

)

Holmes: And now for some more parrallel schooling bollocks and start of his little wee NGO, being arrested, blah di blah di blah di blah.

(

( 1625 )

Question: At that time, were Albanian and Serbian students attending school at the same times or was there some segregation in the time at which theyattended?

Witness: No. At that time, the principal was a Serb. The Serb students had their lessons in the morning, and only in one part of the school. But in the morning. And in the afternoon, parallel with it, there were the Albanian students who had their -- who went to their classes.
Mr Nice: Your Honours, the document referred to, SK1, for the purposes of the summary is a document that has not been translated. It is a document that deals with this. It is available for inspection if anyone wants to see it. I move on to the Council for Human Rights.

)

Watson: So the prosecutor, Mr Nice, submits the SK1 report, talks about it for a sentence and then quickly, oh so quickly, moves on. All rather telling about the credibility of the apartheid claims made by the Albanian nationalilsts. And it wasn't even translated it was so worthless.

Holmes: Very telling indeed. About his NGO

(

Question: You've told us about that. Was it formed in 1990? We know about your position. How many members in Vushtrri did it have?

Witness: At the outset, there were 77 members of the local branch of Human Rights Council of Vushtrri. But later, because of fear and reprisals, the number started to reduce.The purpose and the functions of this council in Vushtrri was to make public -- to report on the violence, reprisals that were being committed after the deprivation of Kosova's autonomy by the Yugoslav government.

Question: And to do so, did you conduct inquiries and receive information from others on a regular basis?

Witness: Yes, I did, on a regular basis, because our representatives who were spread out in villages and in towns collected information and then they reported them to Pristina, to the central branch of the Human Rights Freedoms Council.

Question: Were you able to record and deal with any violations of the human rights of Serbs? If not, why not?

Witness: At that time, there were no cases of violence exerted against Serbs. However, in some cases, we have taken note of those cases and have reported them to the Council on Human Rights and Freedoms. In some cases, however, we were unable to do so because Serb police forces did not let us go near to the site of the crime or the event and find out what happened. So we did it in semi-unlawful way, I would say, or illegal way.

)

Watson: So this most esteemed NGO was somehow unable to document a single case of an ethnic Serb being the victim of violence? Not one?

Holmes: Yup. Not a single case. He was arrested by the police for giving out fake educational certificates.

(

Question: You yourself, were you arrested? If so, on how many occasions?

Witness: I remember I was arrested over seven times and sentenced to Mitrovica prison.

Question: For how long and for what alleged offence?

Witness: I was sentenced to 20 days. Usually the accusations, the charges, were so absurd that you cannot imagine. We were accused, for example, as if we were holding illegal lessons. This is what the charge read. I used to have all those documents, but unfortunately they got burned during the war. And then we were sent to the Court. Sometimes we were sentenced to prison. Sometimes we had to pay a ransom and then we could leave if we were sentenced to 15 days or under 15 days.

)

Watson: Wonderful. He couldn't produce the documents for they were all destroyed in the war. I remember, when I hadn't done my homework in Med school, I'd say the cat ate it.

Holmes: Snigger.

(

Question: As a matter for record, for our records, can you tell us the month and year upon which you were imprisoned for 20 days?

Witness: Yes, I can. It was May.........We were obliged to do that. We wrote our own certificates which we gave to the students to certificate their performance in school. Those certificates -- if the students were caught having these certificates on them, then they were subjected to violence. They might even be detained in police stations. I myself was arrested for that........ I was arrested along with Professor Xhafer Merovci. He taught French. They arrested us in front of our students, who felt very sad seeing us being taken away by the police. When we were in the police, they started to interrogate us. "Look what you are doing. You are issuing certificates on which you write a `Republic of Kosova.'" Then they started to offend us and to beat us up. I will never forget that moment. They beat me on -- struck me with a chair on my back. One held me and the other bit me. Even the other professor was mistreated. And on the next day, even it was Saturday, they took us to the court and the court sentenced us.

)

Watson: He was bitten? Quick, war crimes list includes mass executions, concentration camps and biting.

Holmes: Snigger. He now turns to his NGO work

(

( 1623 )

Question: Moving on from your work as a teacher and focusing on your work for the Council of Human Rights, did you suffer any intervention by the police in respect of your work for the Council of Human Rights?

Witness: Yes. As I said, even earlier, in Vushtrri at least, we operated almost semi-illegally because we were prosecuted as a result of our activity. In 1997, we -- some of the activists were arrested. I was one of them too. We were in a cafeteria, in the coffee-shop of the city. It was Friday, if I remember correctly. Large police forces surrounded us. We were drinking a tea. It is a traditional drink in our town. They took us with them. They took us to the police. And then there in the police, they started to interrogate and investigate us, and then me and a colleague, who was forced to leave Kosovo later and he is to this day in Switzerland, they sent us for three days to the secret service of Yugoslavia where we were interrogated because of our activity........)

)

Holmes: The emergence of the KLA starts

(

( 1625 )

Question:The KLA, so far as you were concerned, when did you first hear about it as a body?

Witness: If I am right, it was 1991, when, for the first time, through some newspapers, I heard about the creation of the Kosovo Liberation Army.........At the beginning, I think, it was not an organised body, as such. For the first time, it appeared in November. I don't remember the exact date. In November, it was, of the last years before the war it came out publicly as the Kosovo Liberation Army.

Question: Did it in some period before the war start the process of controlling areas?

Witness: The KLA started, by the end of -- the beginning of 1998, started to expand its activity in Drenica region.

)

Holmes: More fighting in 1998

(

( 1628 )

Question: Mr. Kadriu, was there an incident at Cirez and Likosane sometime in February 1998? And if yes, can you give us the date?

Witness: Yes, there was an incident. If I remember well, it was the end of February. It must have been 28th of February. In the morning of that date - hopefully I am not wrong about the date - we heard fire shots coming from heavy machine-guns, artillery fire, from the direction of the village of Cirez. Someone came - I was sleeping - and told me that from the direction of Cirez and Likoshan, fire shots are being heard. When I went out, they were very distinct. They were heard not only in our village but also in the Vushtrri town, which is a couple of kilometres away from these villages. They were heard. They came mainly from light anti-aircraft artillery, but also other kinds of fire, artillery fire........Once we heard the shots, since I was a human rights activist, I was eager to know what was happening. With a brother of mine, we went in that direction. Once we arrived in Dubofc village, we met some people who managed to flee. They were mainly family people.........Once we arrived in Dubofc, we met some residents of those villages who had managed to flee. Not only inhabitants from that village, but also from surrounding village. They told us that the Yugoslav troops had surrounded these villages, especially Cirez and Likoshan, but other troopswere from the direction of Cirez, and Dukoshan [as interpreted] was -- were moving in the direction. A war had taken place, they told us, but they didn't know what exactly happened.........It was clear that military troops were involved. They were in the rear, because we could see the movements of military troops all around. But mainly there were police forces that I think came to the rescue of the local forces from Serbia........ I may tell you that during this action in Cirez and Likoshan, there were also two helicopters which also shot and fired, but I can testify to the participation of the army in other actions, when, in 1998,22nd of September, the region of Cicavica --

Question: Before we move from the 28th of February, if it was, were there any reported Serbian deaths coming to you on this occasion?

Witness: Yes. I remember that it was somewhere in Drenica, in a village there, that the police forces had begun to search the house of a person whose name I don't know because they are distant villages. When they went there, they used violence, and the owner, in self-defence, shot back at the Serbian forces. But I can't tell you if there were any casualties.
Question: Very well. The following day, the day after your first visit to Dubovac village, did you go back the day after; and if so, where to, what did you see? Remember, try and keep it very concise for the learned Judges.

Witness: Yes. I wanted to go there myself and find out what happened, because the day earlier I was not very clear about what had really happened. But in my home, an activist of the humanitarian fund, a lady, whose seat was in Pristina - but the centre was in Belgrade, the local seat was in Pristina - came to me........we went together there. We visited Cirez and Likoshan villages. We saw there were several casualties from the Sejdiu family. There were four killed, if I'm not mistaken. Two others were killed from the Cirez village. In Likoshan too, there were 12, not only casualties, but people who were massacred, and it's from the Ahmeti family. You may remember that.

Question: Now, as to these two families that suffered loss, and maybe one or two others, did you see all the bodies yourself?

Witness:Yes. I remember that at the beginning I visited the Sejdiu family, and I paid homage to those students who were killed. And not far from that house, I went to the family of Rukije, and the woman was shot on her head by a machine-gun operated from a tank. She was observing from the first floor of a house, and half of her skull was destroyed. Later on, after the bodies of the Ahmeti family were taken away by the police, we also saw those bodies and we saw that they were massacred, and we buried them in the middle of the Cirez and Likoshan villages.

Question: How many members of the Ahmeti family was it?

Witness: Twelve members of the Ahmeti family, I think. It was only the women who had survived. The rest of the Ahmeti family, the males, with the exception of one of the sons who was working abroad, all the rest were executed, were shot. Just one of them survived, one of the males survived.

Question: And at that time that you saw them, was there any evidence of any of them being armed, weapons around them or anything of that sort?

Witness: No. The burial, the funeral was quite grand with the attendance of people from all parts of Kosovo, but there were also representatives of the NGOs who were there. We took several pictures, and we passed all the accompanying reports to the Pristina headquarters, and some people from other municipalities joined me in producing the pictures and we took all those pictures to the headquarters in Pristina.

Question: Now, in the Ahmeti compound, as well as seeing some dead bodies straight away on your visit, did you also visit a scene where there was a large amount of blood and some other human remains?

Witness: When we went together with the member of the humanitarian fund, we saw the scene where the people -- the site where the people were executed. There were some bushes there, and the people were driven out of their homes and at that very site they were shot. We could clear see the blood. And not only us, everybody could see it. On several occasions we saw limbs, we saw jaws, and it was quite clear that the terror had continued all through the night. And.........We didn't find the bodies there because they were taken to the Pristina hospital.

)

Watson: So they went to the site where they were executed? So they visited a place? How oh how is this proof that anyone was executed?

(

Question: Did you subsequently see the bodies, and can you explain something of the condition in which you found them or you saw them when you did see them?

Witness: I remember that they reached the place in lorries, and as far as I remember, some of the relatives of the Ahmeti family were interested to take the bodies from the hospital in Pristina, and they were brought there eventually. So we had to act quickly to take pictures of the bodies, and we noticed that most of the bodies were mutilated. They were in a terrible state. Their genital organs were cut off. And you can see this in the pictures which are now with the Council for Human Rights in Pristina.

Mr. Nice: Your Honour, those we don't have here. If anybody wants them, we can seek to obtain them.

)

Watson: So the cat ate it. AGAIN. That's the second time.

Holmes: Hungry Whiskers. Snigger. About the Jashari clan

(

( 1634 )

Question: Can I move on to an incident a little later on in the same month or thereabouts, perhaps at the same time, concerning the Jasharis? Can you tell us about that, please.

Witness: Several days later, in the same way, in the morning, it was the Jashari family living in Prekaz. Their family home was surrounded, and in the same way, in the morning, we heard gunshots directed towards that house. As we learned later, there were heavy machine-guns, explosions. And we realised that somewhere something was going on.........and that the house was surrounded by the Serb forces.

Question: You brought us to the account you had received of the house being surrounded by Serb forces. We can take this comparatively briefly. How many dead people were found there?

Witness: Together with some other activists from Vushtrri, we went there a day or two after the incident had happened when the police forces brought the bodies of the people who were executed in the most savage way at a site where building material was being sold, and that was between Skenderaj and Polac villages, and there we saw the bodies on display. And we helped our colleagues from Skenderaj to take the pictures of these bodies. All of them had been executed, women, girls, men. Some of them were also mutilated, massacred. I had some of these, but some of the material was burned together with my house. But the Council for Human Rights and Freedoms in Pristina has those pictures.

Question: Before we turn to survivors, were there -- are there some members of the Jashari family yet unaccounted for? If so, how many?

Witness: Yes. In addition to the bodies that were on display, I don't know of the fate of the members of the Sadik Jashari family. Some of the relatives and members of the family of Sadik Jashari went to the police station in Mitrovica because Skenderaj is part of Mitrovica. They asked the police to help, to help them and come closer to the region to find out about the fate of the rest of the Sadik Jashari family. And they went to the scene of the incident. And I'm talking always on the basis of what an eyewitness told me, but the eyewitness was not allowed to go to the very scene of the incident to see for himself what had happened. And to this day, we don't know what has happened to some of the members of the Sadik Jashari family.

Question: How many members then unaccounted for, and can you also tell us how many bodies altogether were found at the scene by you as a result of this massacre?

Witness: In Prekaz, there are open graves for some, because people hope that one day they will be returned to be buried there. But it seems like there were some -- some about 60 bodies on display at the site I mentioned where building material was being sold. I can't know -- I can't remember exactly what the figure was.

)

Watson: So he wasn't there, didn't see how any of the clan died.

Holmes: Yep. Dreary dreary stuff. Refugees on the move.

(

( Page 1636 )

Question: Very well. As a result of these events or perhaps for some other reason, did people move from the Drenica area?

Witness: Yes. There was mass movement of the people from the Drenica area. Most of them were coming towards Vushtrri because it was still a safer place. And the road is -- the road passes by the villages where my village is, and we saw a considerable number of people who settled in the Vushtrri municipality, and there we registered the population who was displaced by this action taken against the village of Prekaz and the surrounding villages.

Question: Was a register created for refugees and are you in a position to produce that as an exhibit? A copy of it, I think.

Witness: At that time, the Red Cross headquarters was interested about the numbers because we could not do everything ourselves. So a list was compiled by that association, and they were telling us about the numbers of the people who had settled there, but that was a very small list because not everybody was listed. And that is a document which shows just the beginning of the displacement of the people from their own villages, and it was a difficult operation to register every single individual who was leaving their homes due to the repression and the reprisals.........The Red Cross was involved in registering the displaced people, but it was not possible to register every single individual because the movement of the -- the moving around was difficult because there was an increased number of forces in the area. This is just a sample of the big, large numbers that were displaced. And here we have the name of Dr. Ismet Shaqiri who was the president of this association who was providing me with information. And I'm sorry that this kind of material was burned and has disappeared.

)

Watson: The cat ate it. Third time.

Holmes and Watson: Arf!!!! The slaughter of the innocents continues

(

( 1640 )

Question: June, July of 1998, was there a conflict in the same area of Drenica between the KLA and the Serb forces?

Witness: Yes. It's true that at that point, the conflict was expanding and there was an armed conflict between the forces of the KLA and the Serb forces. The artillery fire could be heard several -- from several kilometres away, from Stavalj to Vushtrri. It's many, many kilometres away. I don't know exactly how many. There was a very severe conflict which was accompanied by the displacement of the population there........In our village, as soon as the military forces settled, deployed there, a few days after that, after they had taken firm hold of the area, they started shelling the Cicavica region. The shelling was towards the Cicavica region, and that was two, three times a day. And the shellings were flying over our village, and our houses are located in that area. And they fell, the shells fell somewhere towards Drenica. It was difficult to establish exactly where they fell.

)

Watson: So the Serbs had artillery. Big deal.

(

Witness: In this case we had the largest displacement of people, the largest-scaled displacement of people. It was residents of thevillages of the Drenica region, and they started to move towards Vushtrri, and the influx was huge. And during that period, there were deaths as well. There was an eight-month-old child, and the child was buried in our village, and that was because of the high temperatures, because of dust, and the child died as soon as it arrived in the village that night........The movement from the region of Drenica was not only towards Vushtrri, because Vushtrri did not have enough space for all that, and there was movement towards Pristina too. And I can say that. There was a figure of 30.000 to 40.000 people which was said to have left their own houses and homes in the villages, thereabouts, and that was a figure which was being quoted by the media.

)

continues on the next day

(

Witness:Before the 22nd of September, there were attacks on the village of Sllakofc and Pasome. On that occasion, a 55-year-old was killed and another one was injured.

)

Watson: But he doesn't give any names of those killed or how they were killed. He just gives his name. How is this evidence. And of course he saw nothing.

Holmes: Less than useless.

Watson: Indeed.

(

Witness: From our village, they withdrew on the 24th, whereas from the other surrounding villages on the 25th, because there were two circles of encirclement, as it were, in the villages who were along the road which leads to Obilic.

Witness: In Oshlan, there were about more than 70 per cent of the houses were burnt, as far as I remember.........In Balinca, it was approximately a similar situation........In Dubofc, it was more than 80 per cent of the houses........In Okrashtica, there were fewer, comparatively fewer houses which were burnt down........Pantina was most affected by the burning. More than 90 per cent of the houses were burned........In Zhilivode, too, 80 per cent of the houses were burned.

Question: Did you make inquiries in relation to the neighbouring municipalities; Mitrovica, Skenderaj, Gllogofc?

Witness: Yes. These municipalities, too, were surrounded from the 22nd to the 25th of September. They were surrounded like in a quarantine. And it was an iron encirclement in two layers. The second was the army. The second layer was the army with all the armoured vehicles and weapons. If you allow me to explain. On this occasion, there were killings in the mountain region of Cicavica and people were mutilated. It was the 22nd of September, 1998. Between the 22nd and the 24th, the people were displaced and had settled in Cicavica. That was before the police intervened, before the police raided their houses. And they left their houses to settle in the mountainous area Cicavica where they found many residents of the region.

)

And

(
Witness: I got the information from a young man who said that in the village of Cicavica was terrible because the massacred bodies were placed one on top of the other. And we went there to see for ourselves. It was really terrible. There were young people who were mutilated. They had stuck their eyes out, and they had cut off parts of their bodies, and they were placed one on top of the others........It was less than a kilometre away. There were four bodies. We investigated this with other people too. They were there. And from the horror they saw, because the crime was -- was committed with knives. There was -- they had slit their throats. They had been hit on their heads with a hammer and their brains were scattered around. And we have photographed this, and all the material is with the Council for Human Rights and Freedoms in Pristina.

)

Watson: The cat ate it. Fourth time.

Holmes: AGAIN. Hungry Tabby.

Holmes and Watson: ARFFFFF!!!!!!

(

Witness: Also in the village of Oshlan -- I went to Oshlan a bit later, though, because it was very difficult to move around because everywhere there were bodies. I went there in the evening. I didn't see the bodies because they were being prepared for burial, and there were women among those who were executed by the Serb forces, and they were buried that very night.

)

Watson: But he hadn't actually seen anyone being executed by the Serb forces.

Holmes: Quite right, Watson.

(

Witness: At the same time when the burial of the bodies in Galice took place, I forgot to say that in the Cicavica mountain, those people who were executed in Galice, two or three of them were pupils, were students in our school. And for this we have documents to prove --

Question: How many bodies did you see there or how many bodies were you told about there?

Witness: About 15 bodies. The bodies of Oshlan, I couldn't see them for myself because they were prepared for burial.

)

Watson: He didn't even see them dead, let alone alive. Arf.

Holmes: Well laughed at, Watson. Some more hearsay.

(

( 1651 )

Question: Did you speak to an elderly woman and her son?

Witness: As they were going up the mountain, the wife of the late person explained to us that they were surrounded on all sides, and they were approached by people who were wearing kerchiefs on their faces, and a policeman, as they say. She sometimes said "policemen," sometimes said "soldiers," but she's not educated. She begged them not to kill her husband because, before, they had killed the mother of her husband, and she wanted her husband to be safe. And as she was begging them not to kill him, they shot him dead.

)

Watson: More hearsay indeed.

Holmes: Well said, that man.

(

Question: All right. We move on briefly. In Zhilivode, did you see one body of a man? If so, his age approximately?

Witness:He was a very old man, between 70 and 90 years old. It was the body of a 70- to 90-year-old man..........His body did not have any limbs and it was difficult to bury him.

)

Watson: More nonsense. The witness has absolutely no idea at all how the man died. None.

Holmes: Well said, that fictitious doctor

Watson: I'm not a fictitious character, Holmes. I'm as real as you.

(

Witness: In Bivolak, in addition to a young man who was shot by guns, firearms, there was an adolescent girl. She was in her teens. She was shot. A shell had hit the trailer and she died as they were fleeing the village. Vitore Klinaku is her name, as far as I remember.

Question: Did you see the body of an old man there or not?

Witness:Yes. In Bivolak and Zhilivode, there were killings. Some of them were discovered later. One of those killed was buried later, because the people tried to preserve the bodies so that they could identify them. Because some of them were so badly mutilated and transformed that they could hardly be identified.

)

Watson: More lack of evidence. Again, he has no idea, none whatsoever, of how the people died. In crossfire? By the KLA? By the Serb forces? etc. None at all.

Holmes: Well said. Note the complete lack of any names.

(

Question: I'm going to summarise the balance, coming back to it only if we have time at the end of the morning. Did you discover evidence of killings in Beciq, Balinca, Smrekovnica, and indeed in other places? Just yes to that if it's true.

Witness: Yes, with the exception of the body in Beciq, who I did not manage to see for myself, but I have it in my documents, and the victim there was a 60-year-old woman.

)

Watson: So he has the information in his documents, which are back in Kosovo.

Holmes: Yep. The cat ate it. Fifth time.

Watson: That's my line, Holmes.

Holmes: Sorry.

(

Witness: I was informed by two or three people who were coming from there, and they told me that an unprecedented number of people had managed to leave Cicavica, because many killings had happened there and they didn't dare stay there. They came to settle in Reznik. I tried to go there, but it was difficult to move around. It was difficult to reach the area because I had to go through several villages which were inhabited by Serbs, and the Serb police was still there, and I didn't succeed in going there. I was told that there was more than 50.000 people. They were hungry, they were frightened, wounded. And I phoned on my mobile to the Council of Human Rights that there a considerable number of people was being surrounded, so do what you can, because we are on the verge of a catastrophe. And the male civilians were separated from women and they were executed later.

)

Watson: Notice the complete lack of evidence that any of the refugees, let alone all the males, were executed. He just says it that's all. An opinion with no foundation, supporting evidence, nothing.

(

Witness:Later I informed the American office with the same mobile, because I thought that the Council for Human Rights and Freedoms did not have the authority or the strength or the power to do anything for those people, and later I was told that some bodies which had some influence had intervened to save these people........Later, the Council of Human Rights of Freedoms told me not to worry about the fate of those people because in Pristina, Sadak Ogata happened to be there at the time, and she was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. And on that occasion she had intervened, and with her arrival, the Serb leadership and the Serb army and police began to withdraw their forces and to put several buses from the Kosova Trans company to distribute the people from the area, to spread them around.

)

Holmes: A listeth most importanteth

(

Question: 12 May the witness now please have the next exhibit, which we've called SK3, in its original form and with the translation available. That's in Cyrillic. We can see it has a list of names. We'll look at the translation in a second, but before we move from that: Is the signature one that you recognise?

Witness: Yes. It is signed by Slobodan Doknic. I know this signature, because the person who has signed this was a professor of mine when I was a student. members of the Vucitrn Municipality Crisis Staff and 11 names.

Question: Are those names all Serbs or are there any Kosovar Albanians listed there?

Witness: No, there isn't any Albanians listed here. No, not a single one.

)

Watson: MY! A list of people's names.

Holmes: Yep

Watson: And they're all Serbian names too

Holmes: Yep.

Watson: It's all rather pathetic really

Holmes: Yep. The OSCE arrive up to NATO's bombing

(

Question: Can we move on to the arrival of the OSCE, KVM. Was that mission deployed between October 1998 and February 1999, and in your area, were things relatively quiet for some or most of that period?

Witness: No. The situation was not completely calm. It was relatively calm, with conflicts occurring now and then. The chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms, I asked this monitoring mission to open an office in Vushtrri too, because until then, the office was only in Mitrovica. Because of the violence, we asked them to be placed under their monitoring and control.

)

More naughtiness from the Serbs once the famed OSCE, KVM leave

(

Question: Thank you. In February 1999, was there shelling again in the Cicavica Mountains?

Witness: Yes, there was. At the end of February 1999, there was shelling of Cicavica, and the local Serbs of the villages thereby, together with police forces, were organised and patrolling the streets which were leading to our villages, to Albanian villages, that is. That was the same also in Novolan, Troje ose village, and so on.........It probably was the third time for even my own family members to leave their home. In this case too, they were forcibly evicted from their house by the police, who entered to every house and forced the people to leave. The same happened with my family in March. They settled in Vushtrri, all of them, while once the people left, the houses were set fire to. We could see from Vushtrri our homes on fire and in flames. The smoke and the smell came up to Vushtrri town.

)

Holmes: About the leaving of the OSCE

(

( 1658 )

Witness: The OSCE did a great job to mediate and to prevent conflicts arising between the Serb army and people who were fleeing their homes, as well as the KLA. That was settled in Cicavica. From what I remember, it was 19th of March when the OSCE left Vushtrri........It is interesting to know that, once they left, on the next day, the first house that was set fire to in Vushtrri was the house which used to be the offices of the OSCE, and then the houses where its official representatives lived also was burned. Then the largest part of the town began to be torched every day.

)

Watson: That's interesting? Why?

Holmes: Search me.

Watson:....... ( Searches Holmes ) ........

Holmes: Stop, I'm ticklish.

(

Question: Between the 24th and -- I beg your pardon. Between the 22nd and the 24th of March, did you receive reports of people being injured or killed?

Witness: Yes. There were injured people and people who got killed every day. I think it was the 22nd of March. I was in town, together with my family. We were staying with my uncle. I heard that a colleague of ours, a professor - his name is Skender Bllaca - he was executed in the most mysterious way near the road and his body was thrown in a ditch. I may inform you that Skender was being wanted by the police even earlier, who kept demanding money from him. They asked him to give them about 20.000 Deutschmark. I don't know what that was. He had managed so far to escape the police, but on the 21st of March, a jeep of green colour had taken him away and had executed him. The next day I saw his body with Miran Halili and took him to his family.

)

Watson: That's just more hearsay crap.

Holmes: Yep. Crap it is. Now this is funny

(

( 1659 )

Question: And apart from that one person, just by number, how many other deaths in like or similar circumstances were reported?

Witness: I can't give you an exact number, but I know that another man was killed in Vulan [phoen].

Question: If you can't give an exact number I'm going to move on. Or even an estimate. Can you give an estimate of how many people were killed in that two-day period or three-day period?

Witness: From the 22nd of September, I wrote a report for the OSCE, and you perhaps can find that report in their documents. The number of killed was about 70. Some were injured, some were arrested. As of 22nd of September, they were in Mitrovica prison. Some were sent to Serbia. The number of the arrested persons might be about 30. Most of them were released from gaol. Some of them, maybe five or six, were taken to Serb prisons where they served their sentence until late.........As of 22nd of September up to now that we are talking, there were about 70 persons........Okay. You mean the 22nd until the 24th of March. I can't give you an exact number. People were killed, but the relevant document on that incident got burned, so I don't have the number.

)

Watson: So, he says 70 people were killed. But how? That's the important thing here. And the wee lad has absolutely no idea at all.

Holmes: Yep. None.

Watson: What a sorry fool. And note that the cat ate it excuse is used when explaining away the complete lack of documentation.

Holmes: Hungry Tiger. Sixth time.

Watson and Holmes: ARF

(

( 160 )

Question: Did NATO bombing begin on the 24th of March?

Witness: Yes. It was the evening of 24th of March when NATO bombing began.

Question: Were the Albanian people happy or sad about that?

Witness: The Albanian people were very happy.

Question: Thank you. Thank you.

)

Watson: Great! I'll drop a bomb on you and expect you to be happy.

Holmes: Strange folks. A list of names

(

( 1663 )

Question: Dealing with things chronologically, Your Honour, I'm going to ask the witness, with the Court's indulgence, to look at the next exhibit, indicated as SK4 in the summary. It is a handwritten book for which there is no translation, but the only thing I desire to have translated, if the witness can read it out from the original and we can follow, is the heading of what is a list of names.

Witness: The first line reads: "The list of tasks........List of tasks and commitment to ensure the general protection of the population in Vushtrri."

Question: ....... Then we see a list of names with dates starting on the 23rd of -- 25th of March and spanning periods until April of 1999. We have those lists. We have those names before us. Where did this document come from, please?

Witness: We found this document after the war in an office of the municipality where the popular defence staff was staying during the war, in room number 8 of the municipality building.

Question: And the names here, are they names of Serbs or are there names of Kosovo Albanians?

Witness: Generally, they are Serbs. And among these names, I know someone who is from Novolan village, a village nearby my town. I know the names of one or two Serbs whom I know really existed.

)

Watson: Erm. A list of Serb and Albanian names. And of course no translation which sums up the whole sorry performance.

Holmes: Succinctly summed up. A list of names. Some Serbian, some Kosovo Albanian.

(

Question: Can we then look at Exhibit SK5, as it's described, for which there is a draft translation. I beg your pardon; the final translation is available..........titled "The Republic of Serbia, Ministry of Interior, Secretariat of the Interior for Kosovska Mitrovica," and then coming down, being the police station at Vucitrn on the 11th of January, 1999, listing something called "RPO," or, "OUP, members who were issued with automatic and semi-automatic rifles"? And then there are a number of names with rifle numbers and the bullets they were provided.

)

Watson: A list of people who were given guns and bullets. The point being?

Holmes: I think you sum this kind of thing up very well with.......Erm

Watson: Yes. Erm.

(

( 1665 )

Question: And then next in the small collection of exhibits produced at this stage, may the witness have the document identified in the summary as SK6, a report of the 29th of March. Is this a document signed by the same Slobodan Doknic........Being a decision apparently of the Vucitrn municipality Crisis Staff, recording at a meeting held on the 29th of March, pursuant to an Article 2 of the decision on education and so on, that an order issuing authority is appointed for execution of Crisis Staff under war circumstances of the Vucitrn municipality, and it says the transfer account number. And it says "Slobodan Doknic, the President of the Crisis Staff under war circumstances."

Witness: I would like to make an explanation, if possible. As of 1998, according to the previous documents, from the 16th of June, all the regular body which was the Municipal Assembly in Vushtrri, after the establishment of the Crisis Staff, this Assembly was overruled by this body. The Crisis Staff assumed all the powers then. It was called the Political, the Military, and Civilian Staff. Sometimes it was called the Staff for Military Affairs, sometimes the Crisis Staff. That is, in all the documents you will see it named by civilian names. The fact is that there were -- there was no more Assembly of the municipality after that.

)

Watson: A document with the name of "Slobodan Doknic" on. And it talks about the establishmen of a "Crisis Staff". That's it?

Holmes: Erm, yes.

Watson: I say that.

Holmes: Sorry. Refugees leave and hide

(

( 1668 )

Witness: On the 2nd of April, from the centre of the city, police started to go house -- to every house and tell the inhabitants to leave. Therefore, like all the other inhabitants, we too decided to leave. We went to the road where we were told to go. Everybody knew that we were supposed to get together at the cemetery. And then we didn't know what would happen afterwards. Once we arrived at the cemetery, there was a large group of people there. It seemed to us that the whole city had turned out there. Three buses came belonging to Hajra Tours, which the -- the drivers of which said that we were supposed to go to Macedonia........People were really scared. They moved by their own cars. Someone walked. They all went to the cemetery, as I said, where the buses came. I felt deep pain. I thought that this was the last time we were seeing Kosovo and would not return there any more. So I talked to someone: Why should we leave Kosovo? Let's go to some other place. And if they are going to execute, let them execute all of us. Some people tried to respond and think about what I said, and then later I realised that I was not right. They were right, because if we went to the cemetery, many people would have been executed. So we got on buses. Some went by their cars, some by tractors, some on foot. Despite the rain, they walked towards Macedonia.........I settled in a village outside Vushtrri. At the beginning I went to Studime e Eperme, and the second night I spent between the village of Sllakofc -- at a friend of mine who is the local president of the Council for Human Rights and Freedoms, and there I stayed for a month.........There were three areas where the people had amassed. There were people from Podujeva, Vushtrri, and Mitrovica. They had settled in this mountainous area because it was more relaxed and safer there. It was controlled by the Kosovo Liberation Army. And we thought that we could be safer, a great safety there. But there was no food. Food was not sufficient........There were residents from more than three communes. More than 30.000. And that was the region stretching from the vicinity of Pristina. And all the houses there were full of people, but there were people who were staying the nights in trailers, in a very difficult situation, without water, without food........We heard bombing. We didn't know what was going on. That night we were informed that there were killed people, people who were killed. And we went to Popova, together with my friend, and there we saw two Mig aircraft which had flown over the valleys and dropped bombs, thinking that there was the headquarters of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Several people were killed on that occasion, and among those killed there were girls, as well as males, and we attended the funeral.

)

Holmes: Another document

(

( 1673 )

Question: Can you look, please, at SK7, to see what was happening elsewhere........This document, then, again over Doknic's signature, 17th of April, Crisis Staff decision, just as an example, that Milislav Kostic, the owner of an enterprise, would be mobilised and the lorry would be placed at the disposal of the Crisis Staff........And indeed, do you remember we looked earlier at a document showing the distribution of rifles and ammunition.

Judge: Mr. Nice, just a clarification in the document just admitted. The lorry that would be placed at the disposal of the Crisis Staff is a lorry belonging to the enterprise Cobanka?

Mr Nice: As I understand it, yes.

)

Watson: Erm. So the document talks about a lorry/truck being provided for the Crisis Staff, if they needed it? That's it?

Holmes: Spot on comment as usual

(

( 1675 )

Question: The next document we'll look at shortly, SK8. The document at which we are now looking is the 21st of April, 1999, and this doesn't come from Doknic. It's from someone else. But it says as a consequence of war actions in the territory of your municipality, there are abandoned cattle and nobody to look after them. So to prevent the cattle from straying, perishing, and since there are citizens interested in grazing and breeding cows in the area of Leposavic municipality, we would appreciate if you would approve of providing 200 head of dairy cows from your area, would be allotted to citizens for grazing and breeding. And then it's signed by President Dragan Jablanovic for the Leposavic Crisis Serb area, and that's going to the crisis headquarters in Vushtrri. Is this from one crisis headquarters to another, or something like that?

Witness: This was issued by the same Crisis Staff, but I must explain that Leposaviq is a town which is north of Kosovo and largely inhabited by Serbs. And the Albanian property, which were the properties which were looted from the Albanians, were sent -- stuff looted was sent to Leposaviq for the needs of the citizens there or for the needs of the army there. There was large-scale crime in this respect. This is just a document, but at that time there were many cases when the property of the Albanians was used for the needs of the Serbian army and police.

)

Watson: Erm, so the document deals with the removal of Daisy the cow and her family from the area of fighting? That's it?

Holmes: It's almost uncanny, Watson. Your comment just so perfectly captures the essence of the documents being admitted. Refugees move , fighting , captured, blah di blah di blah.
(

( 1676 )

Witness: It was on the night of the 1st of May when we were informed that the Serbian forces were advancing on all fronts, and some members of the army, of the KLA, said that because of the lack of ammunition and weapons, they were no longer in a position to cope with the offensive. So they advised: Do what you can to go to safer places, because if you stayed there in that area, that would be dangerous. So many people decided to go towards Vushtrri and then to Macedonia. So the offensive progressed and approached the area.........A woman from the village of Kolle had been to get some food in Vushtrri, and as she was coming back, where the river passes, the Serbian forces which were deployed in the hills nearby, they shot and killed her. Three other people were also killed in similar circumstances. But the situation was very difficult from the point of view of lack of food and water, and it was made worse from the intervention of the police and army, of the Serb police and army, and now the column was on its way towards Vushtrri.

)

Watson: Note that he doesn't say he saw the women being killed. Or he doesn't say how exactly she died. From crossfire in a KLA Serb force firefight perhaps? No, we get nothing.

(

Question: Yes. Now, this convoy is the subject of an amateur video; is that correct?

)

Holmes: And we'll soon be shown an excerpt from the video. You home video recording of the summer vacation has more human rights abuses than the crud on this particular video.
Watson: Suntans, cheesy souvenirs, crappy evenings watching unemployed locals do a local dance, that kind of thing?

Holmes: Yup. Back to the convoy.

(

( 1666 )

Witness: As the rest of the population -- and myself and my friend were the last to join this column. There was an unprecedented number of people, and the column was kind of stood put, was staying in place, because the road was overcrowded.

Question: We have prepared a technical report describing the route of the convoy before the shelling started. Your Honour, we have managed, although this document only arrived recently, we have managed to have it copied

Witness: It was prepared by a group of experts, lawyers. From the technical point of view, there was another person who, before he was sacked from his job, he worked for the Kosovo police. He did not have good equipment, but he was the one who managed to produce this technically.

Question: You have a look on this document. It has in the front part of it on yellow paper - white paper in the photocopy - a long map showing theroute of the convoy. Yes?

Witness:Yes.

)

Watson: Gosh. A map, with lines to show the convoy's route. Devastating stuff. How can Slobo defend this kind of incrimminating evidence?

Holmes: Indeed.

(

Question: And there's a little part that's that lifts up from that in the middle of it, showing where bodies were buried and later exhumed, I think, by the ICTY; is that correct?
Mr Kay: Perhaps it should be made clear whether any of this work is this witness's work or the work of someone else. It's certainly not clear to me at the moment. I think the Trial Chamber should be satisfied as to the nature of the document that's now being presented for it and whether this witness can properly speak to it. There's been no notice that he's an expert witness or anything like that.

Judge May: No. And it's untranslated.

)

Watson: And no translation either. It's almost as if the prosecution are trying to hide behind the shoddiness of the report.

(

Question: Your Honour, there is a legend, and if it hasn't been distributed, that's an oversight. Here comes the legend. But I'll get the witness to deal with his contribution to the document in any event.

Judge: What is on the front? Do we have that translated?

Mr NIce: If we haven't got that translated, that's an oversight.

Witness: It writes: "The sketch with pictures on the case of Studime e Eperme and Studime e Ulet on the date of the -- dated May, 1999," it's the, "2nd of May, 1999, where people who have been Albanians who were leaving the area were executed."

Question: And the title in printed script, or in print, rather, what does that read? Can you just read that out, please.

Witness: Yes. It writes in both languages because at that time we did not have relevant documentation. It writes in Albanian: "The bundle of documents," and then it's in Serbo-Croat, which is the same material. These files were used for the needs of the commission.

Mr Nice: If I said it was a final translation, I was wrong. It's a draft translation. And I'm grateful to the interpreters in the booth who unraveled the dilemma a little bit. The word "education" is a mistranslation. A similar word, but in fact it's "establishment." So that in the first line, the document should read: "At its meeting on the 29th of March, 1999, pursuant to Article 2 on establishment of the Municipal Council." That, I think, renders the document more intelligible.
)

Watson: And what little which has been translated seems to have been done by

SpongeBobSquarePants.

Holmes: And his friend, Patrick.

Holmes and Watson: Arf

(

Mr NIce: Your Honour, if we can return to the evidence of the witness. The video of which he speaks is one that I think the Chamber has already seen. The six-minute extract that has been carefully and helpfully compiled is one I will not play unless I find I have time before the end of the morning.

)

Watson: MY! What an awfully put together report.

Holmes: It's certainly less than professional

Watson: And the ICTY have a cool quarter billion bucks a year to play with?

Holmes: It does make you wonder about the quality of the report that was presented. I mean, it's almost as if the prosecution are embarrassed by it and so don't bother to have it properly translated.

Watson: Yep. Shoddy job all round.

(

( 1683 )

Witness:The column, convoy, was stopped at at 5.00 in the afternoon.......... In Upper Studime, when we heard fire coming from all sides, this young girl was injured and died afterwards. She was injured in Upper Studime --

)

Watson: So? Crossfire? Serb fire? KLA fire?

Holmes: Who knows.

(

( 1685 )

Question: Thank you. Did you, at 9.00 p.m., hear sounds of forces, Serbian forces?

Witness: Yes. When we were settled there on the fields, some sitting on their tractors, at the end -- by the end of the convoy we heard some shouts. We thought they were police and soldiers' shouts. Then people's shouts, then the roar of the engines. Then we heard fire shots, gunshots, and people were getting killed........When we were hearing people being killed at the end of the convoy, we didn't know why, but later found out why. We saw that -- I mean, some Serb forces had entered the convoy. It was night. We couldn't be sure who was in the convoy: who was police, who was soldier, and so on. I heard them saying -- there were three people. I saw one of them as a silhouette. He was accompanied by two others. They said, "The convoy should come after us," and they were insulting us. And this is what we did. At the beginning, I didn't leave right away, but then we did follow them........We had not made a long way before I heard some policeman or soldier. I'm not sure, because it was dark, very dark. He smelled of alcohol. I heard that he was talking on the radio. Before that, he killed someone ahead of us. It was about 20 metres before us. He placed a battery in front of people's faces -- he placed a torch in front of people's faces, and then we saw him kill one of the people in the convoy. He threw his body on the river bank. We were very scared and feared that he would recognise us and kill us too. Then after about 50 metres, we could hear very well the sound of the radio. He was asking someone, "How many until now?" That was what he said. This was heard not only by me but by others. And we heard him saying, "Sixty." I thought he was talking about people being killed --

)

Watson: So it was pitch black, he hears some gunshots and some people are killed. He can't give any names. Or anything, really.

Holmes: Yup.

(

Witness: They escorted us for a time and then this guy stopped behind. The others were at the beginning of the convoy. For a moment we heard some shots. I think it came from some mortars [as interpreted]. I have done the military service. I think they were grenades. The first grenade fell in the river. I heard children cry. The cries were so horrible that I could never forget them, even when I was in gaol. Then we heard two other grenades fall, but I wasn't sure where they did fall or where they did come from, and then I saw the convoy stop.

)

Watson: Well, if the Serbs were guarding the convoy, then I very much doubt that it was Serb mortars bombing their own men. It was sounds like the KLA were mortaring the Serb soldiers who were guarding the convoy.

Holmes: Yep.

(

Question: Now, we've come, as it were, to the end of the convoy, because you're in Vushtrri, in the cooperative. The Judges have the report that was prepared. Can you just help me with one detail so that we can understand it. In the map that is produced as part of the report, there's the pop-up or fold-out part that deals with the graveyard and has a legend attached to it starting at numbers 9, I think, roughly, dealing with the graveyard.

)

Watson: A pop up section to the report. Snigger

Holmes: Positively Blue Peterish.

Watson: Where's the sticky back plastic too.

Holmes: Down Shep. Down boy.

Watson: Arf.

(

( 1687 )

Witness: The murders started at about 9.00 in the evening and continued even after midnight, while the convoy kept moving and people kept being shot. People were shot mainly in the road between Studime e Eperme and Poshtme, where we had decided to spend the night so that we could find out what happened next morning. While the executions were taking place, Studime e Eperme and other villages were being torched. We could see this very well because of the flame that shone in the sky that night.

)

Watson: So the fighting between the KLA and Serb forces ends with some villages burning. Big deal

Holmes: Yup. It what happens when a battle commences. Houses burn.

Watson: And although he claims they were executed, there's absolutly no evidence that anybody was

(

Witness: There were 109 people who got killed that night in a short period of time. One hundred and four or one hundred and three were buried in Studime e Eperme on the next day, after their bodies were collected by some people who were sheltered in the mountains, ordinary people, but also by the KLA, who returned one day later. Some of the soldiers of the KLA returned on the next day and helped the farmers bury the dead bodies executed on the night of the 2nd of May.

)

Watson: Yet again, it's just his claim. No foundation, no nothing.

Holmes: Double negatives, Timothy. Well, the KLA were obviously in the immediate vicinitiy for the very next day, the KLA bring their dead to be buried. The refugees were taken to a warehouse

(

( 1688 )

Witness: While we were entering the cooperative -- because the cooperative and the factory that there is there are divided by a road. While we were entering it, we saw a motorised convoy of Serbs. I think it was led by two tanks. Then the others were armoured cars and APCs. There were about 17 of them. When they were driving past us, they told us that, "We have orders to kill all of you, whereas your wives, your sisters, we have raped all of them up there," up there when the crime scene was........My group -- I told you the convoy was separated in two parts. My group didn't have more than 1.000 persons. They pushed us. "Go to this warehouse."........There were some injured and some killed who people had brought, their bodies, had brought in their trailers. People who had been executed in those very trailers, and they had kept them there.

)

Holmes: Our hero stated that the men and women were seperated, there was no water

(

( 1692 )

Question: In the course of operations at this time, did something happen to a man called Ali Mernica?

Witness: While we were waiting for the trucks to transport us to the prison of Smrekovnica, there is a narrow street that separates the yard. Then we saw two policemen calling -- talking with family members of Ali Mernica. Then we saw him being taken away. Then they crossed the road and went to the extra factory yard. Then we saw -- I remember that at the time when we were dismissed from schools during 1991, he gave his three houses for -- put them at the disposal of Albanian teachers to use them for education purposes........One of the police stopped. The other accompanied him behind the factory where we couldn't see what was happening, but we heard the gunshots. Then we heard the policeman returning alone. The other part of the population were being registered on the other part of the road where the civilian population.........We heard that Ali Mernica was executed that day. And his body was exhumed by the ICTY. His corpse was found, because we didn't know where he was buried.........They ( the Serb police ) didn't tell us anything. Many people went to police and offered them money, up to 2.000 Deutschmark, just to let them escape. I remember that other people on the other side of the street were shot.

)

Watson: An amazing piece of testimony. The witness claims that he saw people being executed yet the prosecution want absolutely nothing to do with it. Nothing.

Holmes: Yes, it's almost as if the prosecution are really embarrassed about the quality of their own witnesses.

Watson: It certainly seems that way.

(

( 1697 )

Question: You were then, I think, taken to Smrekovnica prison. And how did the police treat you on arrival or when you were pushed against the wall?

Witness: Very badly. Someone has hit his head or his forehead on the wall, if you were not careful, because they forced us to face the wall -- We were placed in a hall in the second floor, and in the cell where I was taken, it was 4 by 5 metres. We were not more than 17 or 18 people at the beginning, but then when other inmates came, we became 63 people shut in one -- in the same cell. Even the corridors were full of prisoners. People used to sleep in the toilet too.

)

Watson: Over 60 people in a 4 by 5 metre cell?

Holmes: Impossible.

Watson: Unless these Kosovo Albanian chappies are all midgets.

Holmes: Or dwarfs.

(

Question: And how many days were you kept in a cell in those numbers?

Witness: From the 3rd of May up to the 23rd of May when we were released and deported to Albania.

)

Watson: So he's claiming over 60 people were locked up in a tiny toilet sized room for almost a whole month?

Holmes: Yep.

Watson: Liar, liar pants on fire.

(

( 1697 )

Question: This is a document from Vucitrn Department of the Interior, dated the 3rd of May, to the -- with the department heading that's -- an expansion of which is unknown, to the Secretariat of the Interior and to the heads of the Department of Police, the Criminal Investigation Department, as well as to the duty service shift leader for Kosovska Mitrovica. And does the document we all see is signed by someone called Ljubisa Simic, assert that on the 3rd of May, 1999, members of the police force engaged in breaking up Siptar terrorist gangs in the sector of the Gredec mountain, retaining a total of 887 individuals who are strongly suspected of participating in the armed attacks against members of the Republic of Serbia MUP and Yugoslav army. All of those taken to the KPD penal and correctional facility in the village of Smrekovnica for further operative processing. Then it records 17.000 to 19.000 inhabitants willingly left the territory of Vucitrn municipality in their own vehicles. The municipal authorities of local self-government registered a total of 716 families and 7.969 members who were put up on their own accord in the villages of Karace, Donja Sudimlja, Smrekovnica, and Kicic. The municipal authorities distributed food, water, and medicine. Just help us with this: So far as you were concerned, were the people detained, if it's the same people identified as the 887 here, terrorist gangs attacking the MUP and the Yugoslav army?

)

Watson: So the prosecution are admiiting that the Serb forces fed the refugees?

Holmes: Yep. With a prosecution like this, who needs a defence?

Watson: Who indeed.

(

Witness: A day before they brought bread to us, they also allowed water to come to the area, and everybody rushed to there, but after drinking that water that they brought to us, we had diarrhea.

)

Watson: They got the shitty squitters?

Holmes: Yep. Slobo found guilty of making the Kosovo Albanians do runny number twos.

Watson: You heartless beast, Slobo....... ( waves fist at Slobo )...... Grrrrrrrrrr !!!!!!! How dare you make people do runny plop plops.

Holmes: Still talking about the document.

(

Question: And does it record: Since we've been dealing with an enormous number of detained people in need of food and supply in the correctional institution in Smrekovnica, ask the headquarters to provide -- and then potato flour, oil, and so on. In view of the transport requirements under war circumstances and lack of vehicles, asking for passenger, car, van, and a water system. And then for food requirements, 15 to 20 head of cattle and three dairy cows, laying hens........of the Municipal Crisis Staff of Vucitrn, a decision was made that 150 to 200 head of cattle would be fattened and used for the requirements of the Yugoslav army and police, and that a copy of that decision should be delivered to the veterinary service, the farming cooperative, the army, the Ministry of the Interior, and signed again by Slobodan Doknic? Is that correct?

Witness: Yes, that's correct. There are other cases when things were sent towards Leposaviq for the needs of the army and the police, and they wereconsidered as free cattle.

)

Watson: So the prosecution introduce a document which deals with the Serbs providing huge quantities of food for the detained Kosovo Albanians. Guilty of feeding prisoners? I'm confused.

Holmes: Mois aussi, Monsieur. Moi, aussi

(

( 1703 )

Witness: And he was dictating and his secretary was writing, and we were forced to sign that document. And I remember a person, 68 years old - he was ill. He was very ill - in the prison cells, and he did not know how to write. And so they forced him -- they got his finger and he put his finger as a kind of signature or stamp on the document.

Question: Now, these documents that you were compelled to sign, were you given a copy of them........And if I understand you right, he got you to sign adocument.........And what was on the document?

Witness: They gave a copy of that document to us, me included, and we had a copy of the document with ourselves. But then on the 23rd of May, they forced us to hand them back.

)

Watson: The cat ate it. Seventh time.

Holmes: Hungry Tibbles. Another document

(

( 1705 )

Question: From the department of the Interior at Vucitrn on the 16th of May, to the head of the police department and to the duty service shift leader, under the heading "Kosovska Mitrovica," says: "On the 16th of May, 1999, in the course of their work aimed at suppressing the activities of the Siptar terrorist gangs, members of the police force of the Kosovska Mitrovica Secretariat of the Interior detained a total of 830 men of military age who were members of the Siptar national minority. All of them were put up in the penal and correctional facility in Smrekovnica, where operative work will be conducted with them to determine whether they were possibly involved in crimes as members of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army."

Witness: Probably at the beginning, when we were taken to prison, we were about a thousand in there, but later, when the other influx was taken to the Smrekovnica Prison, we could say there were about 3.000 people, and that was also explained by the enormous amount of food that was required.

)

Watson: So the Serbs kept a record of the people detained. People they suspected of being KLA members. That's it?

Holmes: Yup. And note that the Serbs were feeding the prisoners because the witness talks about the "vast quantity of food" the Serbs ordered. Leaving Kosovo

(

( 1710 )

Question: And after that, where were you taken and how?

Witness: After all this that we went through in the prison of Smrekovnica, they loaded us on some buses. I'm not sure of the number. We had to wait for some time. Then they drove us to some unknown direction but passing through Vushtrri. We didn't know where they were taking us........We were all the time with our hands tied behind our back. When we arrived in Shtime, in the town of Shtime, which is situated in the vicinity of Ferizaj along the way from Pristina to Prizren, the buses stopped. There were also policemen in the buses who were taking away the last money we had on us. And they started to speak to some Gypsies who were close by and were watching. Then they threw open the doors of the buses and those Gypsies entered the buses and started to beat us up........Then we left for Suhareke and Prizren.........Those who were there, those guards, when we were waiting to go to the border, one of them came and cursed us and said, "You want to be with Albania," while he was speaking ill of our mothers, saying words about our mothers. He said, "Go to Albania, and you'll never return." We felt in a very bad situation, because we felt this was the last time for us to see Kosovo.

)

Holmes: Hilarious document

(

( 1715 )

Question: This first document is dated the 26th of May of 1999. So just about the time you were leaving for Albania. And from the Vucitrn Municipal Administration here to the "Municipal Council of the Municipality, Displaced Persons, Municipal Headquarters," and it reads as follows: "On the basis of the felt need, we ask you to provide the following items to meet the requirements of the conscripts of the 54 /VTOd, Territorial Defence Platoon in Vucitrn," and it sets out various items. The -- the Territorial Defence Platoon of the Territorial Defence, did you see anything of them in the course of these events?

Witness: Yes. I have seen many civilian persons. I mean, many members who used to be working in various civilian offices, were recruited in these Territorial Defence platoons.

Question: And the second question: This document, what does it show us, from your knowledge, of how the Territorial Defence was obtaining its equipment?

Witness: The Territorial Defence were obtaining their equipment through the Crisis Management Staff, for anything they wanted.

Question: Thank you. The same. So that's the same staff as we've been looking at earlier.........If we can now look at the English version on the overhead projector. This is a document, I think, that's a note signed by the same Slobodan Doknic, and the note records that the Vucitrn Municipality Crisis Staff confirms the purchase of ten combat jackets for the Yugoslav army. The note is issued for tax exemption and so on. So here we have a document from Doknic providing or arranging for the provision of the material for the army.Does that fit with your understanding of what the Crisis Staff was doing?

Witness: Yes. The Crisis Staff coordinated its work very well with the military authorities. This certificate proves this to the best.

Judge: While you're waiting, the 18.200 dinars would be how much in US dollars, or something like that?

Witness: One thousand, eight hundred dinars would be equivalent to - an approximate figure - of about 6.000 Deutschmark. That was the rate of dinar to the Deutschmark then, around this figure.

Mr. Nice If right, a rather expensive jacket.

)

Watson: So the Serb authorities bought expensive jackets?

Holmes: Yep.

Watson: I really don't get it. Really I don't, Holmes.

Holmes: Join the gang.

(

( 1716 )

Question: Can we look at the next document, then, SK16. If the original now can go to the witness, having been displayed on the overhead projector. The English version tells us that this is a document recording a meeting on the 28th of May -- a meeting of the coordination of Civil, Army, Police, and Humanitarian Affairs headquarter, a decision about the establishment of a commission for abandoned vehicles. The composition of the commission is identified, and its duty is identified as gathering abandoned vehicles, and so on. There is also, I think -- let me just find it.

Witness: It's the same signature, the same name of the person who has signed it, but only the heading is different. The staff for civilian, military, police, and humanitarian coordination of the Vushtrri municipality.

)

Watson: So the witness produces a document that talks about the Serbs setting up a group to deal with abandoned vehicles. I'm sorry, Mr Holmes, but I'm really not getting it. At all.

Holmes: ( Shrugs shoulders )........ And the documents haven't been exhausted.

(

Mr. Nice: Thank you very much. SK17. This document, then - English version now, please, to the overhead projector - 6th of June, from the Vucitrn municipality coordination headquarters, signed by Slobodan Doknic again, a request for release from conscription, asks that the above-named war unit, which is set out above, release conscript Petar Toplicevic from conscription since he is.........indispensable to the Vucitrn Prevos [phoen] company due to public transport requirements under war circumstances. So that here we have the same president of the Crisis Staff, or otherwise described, being required for the transportation of public transport requirements under war circumstances.

)

Watson: So, the Serbs wanted a guy who was important for transporting people hither and thither?

Holmes: Seems that way.

Watson: ( Starts to blub uncontrollably )

Holmes: Chin up old chap. Chin up. Now for some nautiness from the prosecution regarding the introduction of evidence.

(

( 1718 )

Question: So, you've managed to bring some reports with you. We've looked at the one on the convoy and we may look at a little bit of video if we have time in due course, but can we go now to the - I'm not sure of the pronunciation - Gerxhaliu family massacre, please. First of all, what's the correct pronunciation of the family's name?

Witness: Yes. It is Gerxhaliu.

Question: Gerxhaliu. Thank you. And have you brought with you a report that was prepared in respect of what happened to that family on the 31st of May, when, of course, you were already in Albania yourself?

Witness:Yes, I was in Albania myself, but the documents about this massacre we prepared after my return from Albania, on the basis of photos and evidence. It was a very tragic event that occurred on the morning of 31st of May. The house of Selatin Gerxhaliu was surrounded by Serb forces stationed in Rashica neighbourhood. After they surrounded the house, all the family members were put in a room. Selatin and two others were taken to another place. The other members, including women and children, were all executed in a couple of minutes.
Mr Kay:Your Honours, again an evidential point arises about the status of this evidence. It's quite clearly based entirely on information provided for this witness, it hasn't been served as an expert's report on any of the other parties in this case, it's completely without notice. It's coming through the witness as he's giving evidence, and one really wonders what the usefulness of this evidence is to the Trial Chamber.

Judge: It is the practice in the Tribunal to receive reports of this sort. It will be for the Tribunal to assess what weight to place upon it.

Witness: Yes, there were over 33 people who were executed that day.

Judge: But in the indictment, it said 104 persons were killed at the murder site, and that seems to me that it means the convoy massacre of the Gerxhaliu family. So could you clarify later........Yes. And the date of the murder was written as May 2nd, not 31st.

Question: On both of those points, can you help, us, please, about the date of this massacre, the Gerxhaliu family massacre.

Witness: Yes, I can. The people executed from Gerxhaliu family comprise over 30 persons. They were executed on the 31st of May, but of the overall number of people killed on the 2nd of May, this is not -- the number 104 is not included. One hundred nine were executed, but 104 have the graves in this mass cemetery that the ICTY has exhumed.

)

Watson: Can anyone make sense of that comment by the witness?

Holmes: Nope. It's gibberish.

(

( 1722 )

Question: If we can look at this document, and showing the photographs as necessary on the ELMO and working through it.........The first page is a plan which shows the house, the heading being that the -- it's called "Selatin Family." Can you explain that to us?
Witness: Yes. This is the scheme of the house of Selatin Gerxhaliu. In the legend it says -- number 1, it says it shows the door of courtyard, because we have yards, courtyards in our homes. Number 2 shows the door of the house which leads to a corridor. Then number 3, the door of the corridor where the massacre was perpetrated of all the members of the family........Number 4 shows the beds on which the family members were sleeping. It was still early morning.

)

Watson: Some photos of rooms?

Holmes: How oh how does a series of photos of rooms prove anything? Is this man a pathologist?

Watson: Hey, I ask the questions, you give me the answers....... ( pounds fist on table )

Holmes: You're losing it old Boy.

Watson: It's this bloody god awful witness.

(

( 1703 )

Witness: F1........That's Fegjria Gerxhaliu. F2........It shows from another angle the place where several members of the Gerxhaliu family were executed, the state in which they were found after they were executed........F3 shows the listless body of Sofije Gerxhaliu, who was at this posture where she was after the execution. F4........Shows the place where Selatin and Shaban Gerxhaliu were massacred outside the house. They were taken out of the house, taken to another place where they were executed and massacred. You can see on their forehead.

)

Watson: It shows the place where some people were massacred?

(

Witness: F5 shows the bed on which a young girl, Mybera Gerxhaliu, was killed. You see she was trying to reach her mother when she heard the shots, automatic shots. She has tried to reach to her mother.

)

Watson: So he knows what she was trying to do from looking at a photo?

(

Question: Now, we see there an open grave, and we see some boards, slats of wood, to the right, cut to perhaps a uniform length. Can you just explain -- it may turn up later in other witnesses. Can you explain, please, how these boards are used for the process of burying bodies in Kosovo?

Witness: Yes. The police executed them and left. Then this grave shows that because of the shortage of time, people were scared that something else might happen to them. They dug up this grave quickly, and the planks of wood usually are used before throwing the earth over the dead body. Instead of the coffin, that is, I would say.

)

Watson: But the grave certainly doesn't show that the person had been executed. How on earth can a grave show if someone had been executed. FFS

(

( 1725 )

Question:Thank you very much. Now, Your Honour, if we look at the -- if Your Honour would be good enough to look at the summary. Although that particular event happens to have been documented here, the witness is also able to tell us about a great many other killings of which the most important ones have been highlighted in the summary. The others come without documentary support so that they would be effectively the same but it would simply be coming from his mouth. And I would ask leave to make very brief reference to each of them, and I will ensure that the witness is brief in dealing with them.

Witness: Seventy-four people on the 22nd of May are still unaccounted for. And on behalf of their families, I would ask this Court to do something to know -- to find out about the destiny of these people. But number -- the overall number of those who are considered disappeared are 109.

Question: And you'll -- but as to these 74, the material you collected suggested that shots were heard and that blood was found in the area.

)

Watson: What an unusual choice of words by the prosecution to use " the material you collected suggested that shots were heard and that blood was found". Talk about being evasive. "Suggests"? That's the best the prosecution can do? "Suggests"?

(

( 1727 )

Question: Was the body of a man called Shefki Dallku found in the house of Dr. Ramadan Xhoni?

Witness: Yes, that's correct. Not far from the house of Sezaj Pasome, 50 metres away. His body was exhumed from the ICTY.

Question: Then over the page. Reznik, on the 6th of April, according to your inquiries --6th of April, in the afternoon, were members of the Ujkani family. How many people were involved?

Witness: Mainly nine, nine members of the Ujkani family were executed. Among the nine, as far as I remember, three were women. There was a couple, a married couple, and some others. They were brothers of the same family, Ujkani family. Some of the bodies were even burned, because the houses were torched and the bodies were inside. According to the eyewitnesses who made statements on this, on this case, on this occasion there were gunshots and then houses torched, and there were people inside, those who were executed.

)

Watson: Hearsay.

(

Question: Finally on this topic, and subject to the tape of the convoy, on the 24th of May of 1999, near Studime e Eperme, according to information were there women who were attacked?

Witness: Yes, that's correct. They were coming to collect food for their children and to take food to the Studime e Eperme village.

Question: The -- I think it was a local KLA commander who collected the bodies. Would that be right?

Witness: That's correct, because no one dared to come and collect the bodies. That's why soldiers from the KLA went there to collect the bodies, the lifeless bodies of the women, because the Serb forces were not far from the scene of the crime. Probably 200 metres away.

)

Watson: So the KLA were nearby. This strongly suggests there'd been a huge firefight with the Serb forces.

(

( 1728 )

Witness: There were eight, eight women, as far as I remember. They were not all women. Some of them were girls, little girls. They were raped, mutilated, completely mutilated, and they were found -- the bodies were found in a terrible state. And the surviving members of their family are still suffering from shock, from the trauma they suffered.

Question: When you say "mutilated," just give us a couple of examples of what was done to them.

Witness: According to the testimony of family members, of the surviving family members, the girls and women had bruised the parts of their bodies, and they were stained with blood. Some of them did not have fingers, things were cut off, and some bodies lacked certain limbs. Initially they were -- they were raped - and I'm sorry to say this in public - and they were shot afterwards in the most savage, inhuman way. The bodies were found in the village of Studime e Poshtme, as they were crossing the river, because the riverbed was the area which gave you the opportunity to -- to walk along and move around unnoticed. But they were ambushed and killed.

)

Watson: How does he know they'd been raped? He doesn't talk of any examination of the bodies does he?

(

Question: Can I ask you, please, Mr. Kadriu, to take your memory back to the September offensive and just to say yes or no to these questions: In the September offensive, was there the killing of a 50-year-old man in the village called Beciq? Did that include one man in Beciq whose name you've provided? And two men in Balinca?

Witness: Yes, that's correct.

)

Watson: But HOW did they die?

Holmes: Well said. The barest of bare information. Not even the suggestion that their deaths were a war crime.

(

( 1729 )

Question: You saw these men, and I think you estimate their ages as what?

Witness: Hyseni was about 60 years old, and I saw his body, his mutilated body, lifeless body. They were buried on the same day when the funeral took place in Oshlan, because Balinca is not far from Oshlan. They're very close to each other.

)

Watson: So he just saw the body. As already previously mentioned, this guy is no pathologist. He saw dead people. He's not a pahologist is he? So how does he know how they died? Or who killed them?

(

Question: Thank you very much. I think I still have to deal with in Smrekovnica there was a man I think you saw there killed in his yard.

Witness: Yes. That was before the 22nd of September. One was killed as he came out to the courtyard of his house. Initially he was wounded. And then from a close distance, he was shot behind his ear.

)

Watson: So why the sketchy details. If you saw someone essentially being executed at close range, you'd give a good description of the circumstances leading up to the murder, the description of the murderer and victim, etc.

Holmes: But here, nothing. Just the barest of descriptions.

(

( 1730 )

Question: Back to page 16 of the summary. Can you help us with the total figures of victims for your municipality as revealed in the exercises you engaged in? How many people killed in 1999? Forget 1998. In 1999, how many civilians killed by Serb forces?

Witness: According to the statistics, which are also in possession of the Pristina Council for Human Rights and Freedoms in Pristina, there are 594 civilians killed by the Serbian forces.

Question: How many of those under the age of 18 at the time of death?

Witness: I can't remember exactly those figures. I couldn't say that. I have had to remember very many figures and dates. I'm sorry, I can't remember that.

Question: Can you remember the number injured by -- injured in some significant way by Serb forces? And if not, just say so.

Witness: More than 300 wounded, injured civilians.

)

Watson:But he doesn't know if they were wounded in fighting with KLA forces? He has no idea does he?

Holmes: Well spotted. And it's all hearsay of course too.

(

Question: How many civilians still missing, not accounted for?

Witness: There are 109 civilians missing, and there are 74 only from a date in May. And I have pictures of each and every one of them.

Question: As a result of these events, what number of children have been identified as having one or both of their parents killed in 1998 and 1999?

Witness: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't remember the figures. If you allow me, I do have the exact statistics, but I can't remember them.

)

Watson: So he has the exact numbers but can't remember...cough...the exact numbers.

Holmes: He doesn't have a clue.

(

Question: The total number of houses burnt? Do you know roughly or precisely what that was?

Witness: It's more than 8.000 houses were shelled, were demolished, were torched. And they have been classified into three categories; one, two, three. More than 4.000 houses belong to a fifth category, to a fifth group, which is that of houses which need to be rebuilt from scratch, morethan 4.000 houses.

)

Watson: So? All that proves is that there were full scale battles between very heavily armed KLA and Serb forces.

Holmes: Yep.

(

Question: How many mosques destroyed?

Witness:I can't remember, because there were also many cattle, sheep, and other livestock which was destroyed then, but I wouldn't like to guess.

)

Watson: So he has no idea how many mosques were destroyed. But he says Daisy the cow and her best friends suffered terribly.

Holmes: All vitally interesting stuff of course. Anyway, Mr Nice proceeds to play a small section of the tape.

Watson: Ah, the video is played. Let's see what damning evidence it holds against Slobo.

Holmes: Yes, children. Watch with Mother.

(

( Section of videotape is played with Mr Nice's comments )

Mr Nice: First of all, we see villagers gathering in a field and a tractor coming down a hill. This is the second excerpt, and it shows clearly soldiers talking to the villagers. There's a general view of villagers and displaced persons in a field, including, I think you may already have seen, a picture of a very young child. Now you'll see some evidence of destruction following an attack. A destroyed tractor is immediately apparent, and smoking houses in the background........Houses destroyed after the attack, the convoy, and a man collecting timber for the purpose of the burial that I dealt with in the still photograph, not the particular funeral, but.........Now looking at some bodies that were killed in the attack on the convoy. Burial of some of the victims. There's a woman.

)

Watson: So that's it?

Holmes: Yes. The video operator made a point of recording Serb soldiers talking with villagers and then when the battle started, the video was switched off. It was then switched on again when the battle had finished.

Watson: Now then, why wouldn't they record the so called incriminating Serb killings?

Holmes: Why indeed?

Watson: Because it's all a pile of the witness's diahrea?

Holmes: Gosh. You could have a point.

Slobo's Cross

About the book.

(

( 1738 )

Slobo: You spoke about your dissatisfaction with the Encyclopedia of Yugoslavia. Do you know that that encyclopedia was published by the lexicographical institute in Zagreb, in fact?........( and )........Do you know that from Kosovo and Metohija, the president of the encyclopedic committee was your own man of letters, Esad Mekuli?

Witness: I don't remember that. I only know that it gave rise to discontent because the Albanian population of Kosovo were not given a deserved place in this encyclopedia.

Slobo: All right. And do you know who Esad Mekuli is?

Witness: Certainly, I knew who he was, because he had published collections of poems, and I used to read them. And I was educated in the humanitarian spirit that he preached through them.

Slobo: All right. He was the president of the encyclopedic committee for Kosovo and Metohija, and anybody could read about that. You said that you complained and that you asked to have a meeting with Bakalli. Do you remember that it was precisely Bakalli who said that the demonstrations were hostile? He termed them as being hostile himself?

)

The Other Demos

(

( 1739 )

Slobo: And do you remember that all the political structures of the times in Kosovo and Metohija assessed the demonstrations as being hostile and an act along the lines of Albanian nationalism and separatism? Do you remember that?

Witness: Not all of them, only some. Yes

)

Funding of Kosovo and Nazi Supporters.

(

( 1740 )

Witness: All these, as well as discontent that was created right after the Second World War, when you imposed a state of siege in Drenica, all these forces obliged us to ask for a Republic of Kosova in the context of the then Yugoslav Federation, because we thought that we were the third people in terms of size in Yugoslavia, and we were not treated equally to the others. The Montenegrins are one-third in numbers compared to us, but they had their own republic, which we didn't. I think that would have been the best solution even for Yugoslavia then, because in this way democracy would be perfected. It would be an act of philanthropy, I think, to give our people equal rights to other peoples.

Slobo: You mentioned just now the siege of Drenica after World War II. Do you know what kind of siege of Drenica that was, in fact?........( and )........And if you know it pretty well, do you know that in that locality, the Drenica locality, after the Second World War, after the fall of fascism, for several years after that, in the forests, there were bands of balijas who were collaborating -- Balistas collaborating with the German occupiers and killing people, not only around Drenica but outside Drenica as well, wherever they could get hold of somebody and leave them headless? Do you remember that?

Judge: What is the relevance of this?

Slobo: The relevance of this is in the fact that the witness said a moment ago that an injustice had been done to the Albanian people because of the so-called siege of Drenica after the Second World War. Let me remind you that Drenica is the area around Srbica which they called Dukagjin, or rather, Drenica, and that an injustice occurred there. The truth is that part of the quisling formations who fought on the side of Hitler withdrew to the hills around that area, and for several years after that, the army made every effort to liquidate them.

)

And

(

( 1743 )

Slobo: And you said you were right because you were the third in size, as you say, the third ethnic group or nationality in Yugoslavia by virtue of size. Yesterday -- the day before yesterday, you said you were second in size. Today you say you were the third largest, but that's not true either. You come after the Serbs, the Croats, the Muslims and Slovenians, so you would be, in fact, by virtue of numbers, fifth in line. So you don't even operate with exact elementary figures.

Witness: First, I didn't say that we wanted to secede from Yugoslavia but that we wanted to have a republic in the context of the Yugoslav Federation.

)

Crimes against Serbs

(

( 1745 )

Slobo: What I'm asking you about is the following: Do you know about the violence against the Serbs over the past 20 years? Let me be more precise and specific. Do you know about the killings and burnings and rapes and cutting down orchards, the destruction of churches, the digging up of cemeteries and graves and beatings up, all the other kinds of violence that have taken place these past 20 years, from 1981, when you yourself began to be in politics, the violence against the Serbs? And over 40.000 of these Serbs --

Witness: If there were, there were very few cases, extremely few, and the Council of Human Rights and Freedoms recorded them........I do not remember any cases apart from cases that were manipulated by the Milosevic regime.

)

Funny exchange

(

( 1746 )

Slobo: Let me ask then before Milosevic, in the 1980s. Do you know about the -- those violences -- that violence, say, from 1980 to 1990?

Witness: I do not know, because at that time, the Council for Human Rights didn't exist, and there was no violence.

Slobo: We usually count time from the days of Christ, Anno Domini, and not the Council for Human Rights. But as you lived before the time of the Council of Human Rights, do you know how many inhabitants of Kosovo and Metohija under pressure, under violence from the Albanians had to leave the province?

)

Education within Kosovo

(

( 1748 )

Slobo: In Kosovo and Metohija, there was a total of, in Serbian, tuition in the Serb language in schools, a total of 45.279 students. That is students attending tuition in the Serbian language. And at that time -- My question is whether he knows that at that same time, 235.881 students were studying in the Albanian language, at the beginning of 1999, that is, 235.881.........In the municipality of Vucitrn at the beginning of 1999, that is to say, your municipality - I have heard that you are now president of that municipality, or vice-president of that municipality - 12.258 students studied in the Albanian language, and in the Serb language, 39.

)

Slobo gets rebuked and answers.

(

( 1756 )

Slobo: I have to tell you that this subject about this alleged discrimination against Albanian children, and as the first witness, Bakalli, put it, apartheid is a subject that is very closeto the gravest accusations that have been levelled here. These are total lies. Hundreds of thousands of Albanian children that studied in the Albanian language are figures that are generally known, and --

Judge: You've been told to move on, Mr. Milosevic. We have heard these arguments and no doubt we'll hear more about them.

Mr Ryneveld: Yes, Your Honour. I am not aware that we are planning on, beyond what we have done so far, to call further evidence with respect to the issue of education, except perhaps through some expert witnesses that are to be called in due course, but certainly not through these types of witnesses.

)

The prosecution are in effect agreeing with Slobo that Kosovo Albanian childrend could be educated in state schools in their own language. Serbs being moved from Bosnia and Croatia to Kosovo

(

( 1757 )

Slobo: All right. You've answered the question. You mentioned Velika Reka and the refugees who were staying there and that this was a programme for changing the ethnic pattern. Do you know that this settlement for refugees in Velika Reka was part of the habitat programme and was assessed as one of the best of its kind by the international community and that ithas a total of 84 houses? Do you know about that?

Witness answers a completely different question.

Slobo: I asked you whether you know that this settlement has a total of 84 houses.
Witness says he doesn't know.

Slobo: In relation to this alteration of the ethnic composition, do you know that the number of refugees in Kosovo and Metohija totalled 5.000 altogether?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: And do you know that these 5.000 comprise 0.7 per cent of the total number of refugees who came to Serbia, that is to say, less than 1 per cent, a lot less than 1 per cent? Are you aware of that?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: Then the government carried it out in the contrary way, if that was the objective, because do you know that the territory of Kosovo is 10 per cent of the total territory, and only 0.7 per cent of all refugees went to that area? Can you do the relevant math?

Witness answers completely different question. Judge scolds Slobo for confusing the witness with this high powered advanced nuclear physics.

Slobo: The witness says that he cannot deal with this math. On the other hand, he's dealing with the Academy of Sciences and Arts, so I don't understand how come he can't do this math that goes up to 10.

)

Naughty Offences

(

( 1759 )

Slobo: You said that you were arrested and interrogated because you were struggling for a Kosovo republic and because you were issuing documents on which it said "Kosovo Republic," "The Republic of Kosovo." You said that you were sentenced to 20 days in prison. Do you know that this is an administrative sentence, not a criminal sentence, and it was actually a magistrate for minor offences that had sentenced you to it? Yes or no.

Witness answers a completely different question. The judge has to repeat Slobo's question.
Witness: Not only myself but all the Albanian teachers underwent -- or went through those doors of your police, and we were all mistreated. I'm telling you that Riza Bilali, who was the professor and the principal of the secondary school then. Qazim Azemi.

You see, he's answering a completely diffferent question AGAIN.

Slobo: As far as I'm concerned, he can say whatever he wants, but you should make sure that he actually gives an answer to my questions.

Judge: Yes.

Slobo: So what about my question? Was this an administrative sentence?

Judge: Well, what difference does that make? What difference does it make?

Slobo: The difference is that he was not prosecuted in terms of having criminal charges brought against him at all. Administrative sentences are pronounced only -- Do you know that this kind of administrative sentence is pronounced for violating public law and order?

Witness answers a completely different question.

Slobo: You have already stated that Albanians did not use school buildings in Kosovo and Metohija. Since that is an untruth that can easily be disproved, and there are hundreds and hundreds of examples to prove that, I need no further explanation. I am asking you whether you know that these administrative sentences are pronounced if you, for example, do not pay the fine for parking in the wrong place and --

Judge interrupts Slobo.

Slobo:Did he believe then and does he believe now that the documents that they published entitled "The Republic of Kosovo," are legal documents?

Witness: They were legal for us. We had our administration

)

A classic. The Mujahideen

(

( 1763 )

Slobo: Do you know about the Mujahedin and their atrocities in Kosovo and Metohija........I'm going to read to you a passage, and you'll be able to tell me whether it's correct or not:"Al Qaeda [Previous translation continues] ... [In English] some terrorist organisations that operates under its umbrella or which it supports, including..." [Interpretation] I'm going to skip over this next bit, [In English] "... Croatia, Albania," et cetera. [Interpretation] Do you consider that to be correct?........ Congressional statement, Federal Bureau of Investigation. [Interpretation] Congressional statement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That's what this is........December 18, last year. After September 11........And now I am going to ask you the following, is this correct: [Previous translation continues]... [In English] "... Afghanistan, Bosnia, then Cechnya and Kosovo." [Interpretation] Is that passage I have quoted correct........The last passage I quoted was the Congressional Research Service Front Line. That was the source.

Witness doesn't know.

)

Cirez.

(

Slobo: You spoke about an attack on the village of Cirez. That is incorrect, because everything else you said is incorrect too. But as far as this concrete event is concerned, I want to ask you the following: Do you know on the 3rd of March, 1998, in the village of Cirez, KLA terrorists killed four policemen? Do you know that?

)

and

(

( 1775 )

Slobo:As for massacres, we know whose specialty that is. That is why I asked you whether you knew about Al Qaeda branches in Kosovo. It is known very well who massacres and who cuts heads off.

Slobo: Do you know on the 3rd of March, 1998, in the village of Cirez, KLA terrorists killed four policemen? Do you know that?

Witness: I'm not aware of that. I know that there was an exchange of fire, but I know that your forces killed people there. How can I know that, who was killed there? I only know that people, civilians, even women, were killed there.

Slobo: You don't know anything about that, about the fact that four policemen were killed in a horrible manner from an ambush in the village of Cirez, before the event that you talked about? In the village of Cirez.

Witness: What did your policemen want to do in the houses of the Albanian inhabitants of Cirez?

Slobo: Well, although I'm not here to answer your questions, let me tell you that they were looking for weapons. And that is their legitimate right. And do you know that the policemen were searching for weapons and confiscated a large number of weapons, in fact? Do you know about that?

Witness: They didn't confiscate any weapons. They went and provoked and mistreated people in their own homes. Just to give you an example, when they searched my home, even my library was a problem for them.

Slobo: You used the word "self-defence," that in self-defence he had killed a policeman, a policeman who had come to search for weapons or to ask for documents and to check something out. You say that that is self-defence. Do you say that anywhere in the world to shoot a policeman that comes to arrest you, for example, not even just to search your apartment, to ask for documents, but can that be treated as self-defence anywhere in the world? Anywhere in the world, is shooting at a policeman considered being self-defence?

Witness: I don't know if the policeman was killed then, because it was impossible for me to get any information. I remember, however, that in Vojnik village in Drenica region, the police, accompanied by armoured cars, had gone to search a house there, an Albanian house. And then they went up to that conflict. How the conflict evolved or how it happened, I don't know, but I only know that there were casualties there in Vojnik too..........The police constantly used this pretext to search all the Albanian houses and villages, every day. Theymaltreated people every day in their own family members' eyes, right from not only 1998, but as of 1991, this kept occurring all the time. I have the chronology of the Council for Human Rights on this matter.

)

The Ahmeti family

(

( 1769 )

Slobo: I said precisely that. He claimed that they were killed by the Serb forces. I want to say that the Ahmeti family lost their lives in a clash between the KLA and the police. That'swhat it was all about, and no terror on the part of Serb forces against this family. No Serb forces, as you call the police and army, undertook the maltreatment of the population. The army and the police force did not engage in any war crimes.

Judge: It's suggested that they were killed in a clash between the KLA and the police. What do you say about that?

Slobo: There are facts which exist, and the facts are that in the village of Cirez, in that particular village, on the 3rd of March, the terrorists of the KLA.......... I have put them forward, that is, that on the 3rd of March, 1998, in Cirez, the KLA terrorists killed four policemen, and that on that occasion, therefore, as a consequence of the killing, there was a further escalation of the conflict between the KLA terrorists and the police, and that the Ahmeti family was the victim of that clash.

Witness: Your Honours, I am entirely convinced and sure that nobody of the members of the Ahmeti family were in the KLA. I can swear this on my life. None of them were involved in the KLA. All the men were killed, with the exception of one, who was working in the West. They were taken in their own homes.

Slobo: We're not staying here -- we're not talking about the fact whether they were members of the KLA, but they were killed in a clash between the KLA and the police. But let me take it from the end, because this question was raised at the end yesterday, the killing of the so-called Gerxhaliu family, and we saw pictures here and all the explanations, attendant explanations. There are witnesses who claim that the Gerxhaliu family was precisely caught between the forces of the police and army, on the one side, and the Albanian terrorists and bandits of the KLA on the other side, and that they were sending out warnings to the Gerxhaliu family, cautioning them, saying that it was very dangerous to stay in the army because the KLA was shooting at the army precisely from that side. I have a record here, a note here, which says, according to the statement of Sali Gerxhaliu, a member of that same family, given to the Human Rights Watch, and it was published in their book of 2001. The book is called "Under Orders." It says that the investigating judge, accompanied by the police, went to the site straight away to investigate, and during the investigation, the people photographed were killed. And you're probably taking this information. And the investigating judge wasa lady. She was a Serb. And when this occurred, there was serious fighting between the KLA forces and the Serb forces. The KLA was both in the village and around the village, and --

Judge: No. Just a moment. Mr. Milosevic, how is it suggested that this family that we've been dealing with, and the photographs of which of the bodies we have seen, and the position, how is it suggested that they were killed in the clash with the KLA? Can you tell us that?

Slobo: Yes, I can, but you didn't let me read out this note that I received. It says: The army of Yugoslavia and the KLA were fighting. They were in and around the village, that is tosay, the members of the KLA, and while they were leaving the house from which they opened fire on the army, they liquidated the Gerxhaliu family; the KLA did. Now, how they took in and brought out the bodies, that's another question. So in the same book - and the book is called "Human Rights --" - and it says on the same day, at 4.00 in the morning, he heard two NATO explosions which --

Judge: That's far enough. You've heard the suggestion which has been made, Mr. Kadriu. Do not comment upon it, or the source, but help us with this: As far as you know, is there any truth in that suggestion? And can you assist us with any more detail about how this event happened?

Witness: On the 31st of May, in the early hours of the morning, military and police forces concentrated on the Rashica neighbourhood, not more than 200 metres away, went down andentered among the family of Selatin Gerxhaliu and then committed a crime, executing the entire family. There were no forces of the KLA in Studime e Poshtme because that was where Serbian forces were concentrated. This is the truth. You might know the point where the Serbian forces were concentrated........Yes. In this case, in his own house -- not very far from his house, Shukri Gerxhaliu was there - and he should be coming here as a witness - with his wife.

Slobo: Now we have heard an absolutely fantastic assertion here, and for purposes of clarity and for the record, I would like to ask another question to make things clear. The witness is saying that the police entered the house and killed, in cold blood, the Gerxhaliu family, and then sent for the investigating judge to come and ascertain what they had done. Or perhaps the other variant is the following: that the police entered, saw that the family had been killed, and called the investigating judge to see the crime that had taken place over a family. What do you, gentlemen, as men of the law, think is more logical, particularly in view of the explanation we've just been given?.......Does he claim that the police came and killed the family and then called the investigating judge to come and ascertain how the family had been killed?

)

KLA Terror

(

( 1776 )

Slobo: As you have claimed on several occasions that there was no violence committed against the Serbs, that is to say, you have claimed that this false indictment claims that it is the Serbs who are the culprits, do you know how many terrorist attacks were performed in Kosovo and Metohija from 1991 until June 1999?

Witness: I don't know about attacks, because the state apparatus was in your hands. I don't know. Things were staged, improvised, for certain purposes.

Slobo: Did you perhaps hear of the fact that in 1998 alone there were 1.885 terrorist attacks in that year alone? Just in that year, 1998, when the terrorists were assisted by the German services and other services and when they started all this. One thousand, eight hundred and eighty-five attacks in 1998. Do you know about that?

Witness: I don't know.

Slobo: All right. As you weren't interested in what was going on and being done against the Serbs, the police, and the army, or anybody else, and you say that you were interested what was happening to the Albanians, do you know the following: How many terrorist attacks there were on citizens of Albanian ethnicity? Do you know how many of those were performed in Kosovo and Metohija against Albanian citizens?

Witness: I know that attacks on Albanian citizens were made by your army, escorted by your secret police in a jeep which -- of a dark olive colour, who killed people on the streets, just as my workmate Skender Bllaca was murdered.

Slobo: So my question was does he know about the crimes of the KLA terrorists committed against the Albanians, and I did not get an answer.

Witness repeats the answer.

Slobo: My specific question in the context of these crimes of the terrorists against the Albanians was what I asked you. There were also inter-party killings. That's well-known. This was committed by Hashim Thaci against Rugova's supporters. Does he know of the following incident: The killing of Rexhep Bajrami, Rexhep Bajrami from the village of Cecelija, who was an activist of Rugova's in that village and who was killed on orders of the local KLA commander whose name is Krasniqi? Otherwise, he is the uncle of Hashim Thaci. The killing of Rexhep Bajrami was ordered by him only because Bajrami would not take Rugova's picture off the wall. Does the witness know about this event in the context of his work in the field of human rights?

Witness says the man doesn't exist.

Slobo: Does he know that in 1998 there were 327 terrorist attacks against members of the Albanian national minority who were loyal to the Republic of Serbia? In 1998, 327 attacks.
Witness: I don't know about that. I don't believe that there were Albanians who were loyal to Serbia.

)

Note that. The witness refueses to believe that a single Kosovo Albanian was loyal to Serbia. Not one.

(

( 1780 )

Slobo: Do you remember, for example, that a member of the Executive Council, that is to say, the provincial government, an Albanian, Faik Jashari, when you were expelling Serbs from Kosovo, stated: "The columns of Serbs from Kosovo have been joined by 30.000 Albanians as well, those loyal to the Republic of Serbia." Do you remember this statement made by Faik Jashari, an Albanian who was a member of the provincial government at the time when Serbs were expelled from Kosovo after UNMIK and KFOR came?

Witness says he's never heard of the man and claims he doesn't even exist.

Slobo: And do you know that several Albanians were members of the provincial government during the years of 1998, 1999, and during the war?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: Well, do you know about Faik Jashari? Was he an Albanian? Is he an Albanian? What is he?

Witness: This is the first time to hear such a name, in this very court. I say it in full responsibility.

Slobo: You never saw him, not even on television, or you never heard him over the radio? You don't know of him at all?

Witness: I say it in full competence, I have never seen or never heard anything about this man. It's the first time for me to hear it, in this very court.

Slobo: And do you know about Albanians who were members of the delegation of Serbia at the negotiations in Rambouillet? Have you heard of them? Have you seen them on television?
Witness can't help with that one.

Slobo: And do you know about another member of the government, also an Albanian? There were a few of them. I'm not going to mention them all right now, and Xhafer Gjuka is the one I'm referring to now. Your members of the KLA slit his throat after the members of UNMIK came to Pec. Have you heard of him? Have you heard of Xhafer Gjuka?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: I knew Xhafer Gjuka personally, so this bit of information I have certainly is not wrong. I'm just asking you whether you know about it.........And do you know about hundreds of kidnapped civilians by the Albanian terrorists, and do you know of the consequences of these kidnappings? Do you know anything about it?

Witness doesn't understand this fiendishly complex question.

Slobo: I don't know what is unclear about this. As far as I know, everything I'm saying is being interpreted to you in Albanian. I'm talking about kidnapped civilians, civilians who were kidnapped by the KLA, and many were killed later as well. Do you know anything about that? That's what I'm asking you.

Witness: I don't know of such a thing. This is the first time for me to hear that.

Slobo: All right. And do you remember the attack on the police station in Prelluzhe on the 28th of August, 1998?

Witness: There wasn't any attacks mounted there. This village is inhabited mainly by Serbs. I don't remember anything, but I can tell you that there hasn't been any such case, otherwise, I would have remembered that. How could Albanians enter a Serb-inhabited village?

)

Watson: What a bizarre answer. He thinks that just because a village has no Kosovo Albanians in it, it's impossible for the KLA to target anyone in that village. Has the good man heard of cars? Legs even?

Holmes: Yes, things that propel people at various speeds from A to B.

(

( 1783 )

Witness: I remember also the speeches, the extraordinary address you gave then, in which you called for a Greater Serbia, and so on and so forth. You would just be --

Slobo: Where did you see this speech of mine, the speech that I made? Where did I take this speech?

Witness: I remember very well. I said I was doing my military service, and then we had to follow all your speeches. Your officers forced us to do that.

Slobo: Where did I make this speech? You said that you had to follow my speeches. Where did I make that speech?

Witness: You made that speech in Belgrade. We were obliged to see it on television. And your officers started to take pride in you after that.

Slobo: What did I say in this speech?

Witness: I remember very well you saying that either Serbia will lie from Mali i Gjoshit to Gjergjeli or it will not exist at all, and I am certain about that.

Slobo: Serbia does begin from the border with Hungary and it ends at the border with Macedonia. I don't understand what you tried to say. That I said that Serbia would be in Macedonia as well: Is that your assertion?

Witness: This is what you said then, in 1998. That was your claim then, not only about Macedonia, but you wanted to have a Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia as well.

)

Watson: What bizarre claims. And of course neither he nor NATO, nor the ICTY nor the UN have produced a single document to confrim any of these foaming ravings.

(

Slobo: All right. Do you know about what happened on the 19th of September, 1998, in the village of Makmal, on the road between Glogovac and Serbia, the attack against policemen, when three policemen were wounded?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: Excellent. And do you know, then, of the attack in the village of Oshlan, in the municipality of Vucitrn, on the 22nd of September, 1998, when the police were attacked by automatic rifles and hand-held rocket launchers, and when Milos Radic, a policeman, was killed? Do you remember that incident? On the 22nd of September, 1998, the municipality ofVucitrn, the village of Oshlan. Do you remember that?

Witness: On 22nd of September, 1998 -- and in my evidence yesterday, I informed the Court that all the villages on both sides of the mountains of Cicavica were attacked by police and military forces. This was a very extensive offensive, involving both the police and the Yugoslav army.

Slobo: Well, yesterday, you yourself, as you were explaining something else, that the KLA was stationed - these are your words - stationed in the area of Cicavica. That is what you said yourself yesterday, of course, not in this respect, but while you were explaining other things, but that is also recorded. So the KLA was stationed in the area of Cicavica. Howcan you then speak about attacks on villages and villagers?

Witness: I don't deny what I said. I said that the KLA had various positions in this area. However, the attack by the police and military was on the civilian population. Civilians were killed, and I have their names here with me.

Slobo: the army and the police went to shoot at civilians there, not the KLA?

Witness: The KLA was not a terrorist army; it was a liberation army for Kosovo. And you killed civilians there, and I have their names here. Not only killing them, but mutilating them.

Slobo: As for massacres, we know whose specialty that is. That is why I asked you whether you knew about Al Qaeda branches in Kosovo. It is known very well who massacres and who cuts heads off.

Slobo: Do you know that on that very same day, the 22nd of September, 1998, there were several attacks against the police in the village of Oshlan, that is to say, between 1200 and 1500 hours, when two policemen were wounded, Marko Galo [phoen] and Milutin Ivkovic in the village of Oshlan, that is to say, on the 22nd of September, 1998, in the municipality of Vucitrn, that is to say, your municipality?

Witness: As I said before, on the 22nd of September, the offensive started against 27 villages to the east of Cicavica, and other villages beyond Cicavica, and this offensive caused more than 200 people executed, all of them civilians with the exception of one, who was a soldier of the KLA. With one exception. The others were civilians.

Slobo: And in the same village, on the 23rd, that is to say, the next day, again the police were attacked. Slavoljub Ivkovic and Micko Vranic were the victims. Do you remember that?

Witness: The police were not attacked, because these villages are mainly inhabited by Albanians. But it was the Serbian police and military surrounded these villages on both sides of Cicavica and kept them as if in quarantine until the 25th of September, until they were freed.

Slobo: So your claim is that in all these incidents, on the 22nd, on the 23rd of September, when all these policemen that I have mentioned were killed or wounded, that all of this was actually in the police campaign against civilians?

Witness: I don't know that there were Serbian soldiers or policemen wounded or killed, as you claim. However, I do know that the Serbian army and police exercised terror against 27 villages in Vushtrri municipality and other villages in Gllogovc municipality, and this led to the massacre of many civilians.

Slobo: So you claim that the KLA did not kill anyone, did not wound anyone, that it was the police attacking civilians and even attacking and killing themselves.
Slobo: Do you know that on the same day, on the 23rd of September, in the village of Dubofc, Radoje Cvetkovic, a policeman, was seriously wounded in this series of attacks against the police?

Witness answers a completely different question AGAIN. The judge has to have a wee chat with the errant witness.

Judge Kwon: That's not the answer to the question you were asked.

)

Watson: Oh dear. Even the judges are getting irked by the irrascible witnesses irrelevance.

Holmes: Indeed.

(

( 1813 )

Slobo: Do you know about when Ljubomir Knezevic, a correspondent of Radio Pristina and correspondent of Politika, the newspaper Politika, was kidnapped while on duty and taken to the village of Likovac at Cicova and after a lot of torture, cutting off his ears and fingers, he expired on the 6th of May, 1999 [as interpreted]? Have you heard about that event?

Witness thinks that the village doesn't exist.

Slobo: Ljubomir Knezevic is the first and last name of the correspondent of Radio Pristina and correspondent for newspaper Politika. He was from Vucitrn. He was kidnapped and taken to the village of Likovac at Cicova, and after a lot of torture, which I described, expired in his misery on the 6th of May, 1995 [as interpreted]. Do you know anything about him? Witness says that, as he was in prison at the time, he can't possible have any idea about this event. None.

Slobo: All right. Do you know, then, that in Likovac, generally, there was a well-known prison where many Serbs were killed, not only from the Vucitrn municipality but many others too?
Same "I was in prison so I can't possibly even have the faintest idea about any of these events" line.

Slobo: And do you know about the prison of the KLA in a basement of the department store in Vucitrn, your place, where Serbs were detained - not only from Vucitrn, but others too - and then were taken to be liquidated? It is a prison that was in the basement, in the cellars of the department store, when KFOR and UNMIK arrived, and that prison was held by the KLA. You were back by then. You would have to have known about that.

Witness denies it all. Just a cunning plan, foiled by this brilliant witness.

Slobo: So you say you know nothing about the KLA prison in Vucitrn in the basement of the department store; is that what you're saying?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: Do you know about another case that took place on Bajram, before the NATO aggression, on the Bajram holiday, when masked members of the KLA in Vucitrn, in front of the family, seized Behmi Muljanu [phoen] - Fehmi Muljanu [phoen] is the name. He was an employee of the republican administration of public income in Vucitrn - only for the sole fact thathe didn't want to leave his workplace? Do you know about that? His daughter succeeded in pulling down the mask of one of the KLA members and she recognised a man called Delija, but Uljan Muljanu [phoen] was never found. All he found was his head, which had been cut off, a cut-off head. Do you know about that Albanian in Vucitrn?

Witness: I have never heard of this surname, Munjani.

Slobo: Do you know when, in mid-1998, in the village of Dervare, at Cicavica, a forester by the name of Milan Zivic [phoen] was killed in his own home, in his house?

Witness claims he was killed by his fellow Serbs because he was on good terms with Kosovo Albanians.

Slobo: Not a single one suffered because of that. Milan Zivic was killed by terrorists, and you know that full well. You know that very well. The terrorists killed Albanians too who were on good relations with the Serbs, not Serbs alone, and you know that full well. Now, do you know the following: That a reserve policeman by the name of Momcili Zivic, from Samodreza, was killed in the yard of his own house?

Witness has no idea.

Slobo: And do you know when, as soon as KFOR arrived, an active policeman Srdjan Stojkovic from Prelluzhe, was kidnapped on the bridge at Ibar which joins the two parts of Mitrovica? He was taken into the southern part of town and disappeared. Do you know anything about that?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: In the village of Pantina, on June 1998, an eight-member family by the name of Miljkovic was kidnapped, the parents and six children, in the village of Pantina. In June 1998, an eight-member family. The name was Miljkovic; the parents and six children. You know or you don't know.

Witness doesn't know and blames his ignorance on the Serbs.

Slobo As far as I can see, you're well acquainted with the event that took place in Pantina. What is true that all eight members of the family were kidnapped. Just the mother and father were killed. The children were later released.

Witness pretends to misunderstand what Slobo had said.

Slobo: Do you know about Milorad Milic from Prelluzhe, at the end of 1998, when they hit him with a sniper from the Cicavica area which is a KLA bunker was later found? Do you know about that? Just say yes or no.

Witness says it can't be true.....erm.....because he says so. So there.

Slobo: All right. You don't know. Not to lose time. And even they are -- refused to allow you to commit those atrocities against the Serbs. You have a piece of information -- the next piece of information. The village of Mijalic, Mijalic under Mount Cicavica, two Mitrovic brothers, Ljubisa and Radivoje, are killed. And on the same day, while he was walking along the railroad, the brother of one of these, Miljan Mitrovic, a soldier who had come home on leave. After two months of torture, he managed to escape the KLA prison in Cicavica, this son. But his father and uncle were killed. Do you know about that event?

Witness: The truth is that one morning the OSCE found out that a soldier of the Yugoslav army had deserted the army with the aim of going to the area controlled by the KLA where he had his family. This family lived in the area controlled by the KLA and had never had any problems. However, how the murder happened that day when this -- this soldier had deserted and wanted to join his family, you will know this better than me, because until that day, this family had never had problems. And the OSCE knew about this and knew that the family lived in KLA-controlled territory.

Slobo: That's where you helped -- where you killed Ljubisa and Radivoje both brothers, right there in the Mijalic village, KLA-controlled. Do you know about Velika Vucetic, 65 years old, a woman from Toradza, not far from your own village. She was kidnapped, raped, and she died through burning. Together with her was her daughter Milica. She was burnt too. Do you know about that event?

Witness: This is the first time I've heard of this. And in which place did this happen? Could you make this clearer?

Slobo: Have you heard about another case, that of an Albanian, Zejnil Munaku -- Zejnil Bunjaku from Vucitrn? That the KLA in Vucitrn, immediately after KFOR's arrival, lynched him in front of a mass of Albanians who had collected there in front of the Kosejda cafe. They killed him because his wife was in fact a Serb. Do you know about that incident?

Witness the guy is still alive.

Even the judge is getting put out by this. and says " I haven't rebuked you before, but don't address the accused in that way."

Slobo: Do you remember when two brothers died, Zoran and Dejan Milic, in April 1999, by the village of Gojbulja?

Witness gives rather bizarre information. Just for a change mind. Just for a change

Slobo: They were killed by a KLA bomb. They didn't die of natural causes. They were killed as a result of a KLA bomb.

Witness: How could the KLA throw a bomb into the village of Gojbulja when the entire village is Serbian inhabited and the police and the army control the entire area? This is a frame-up.

)

Watson: So, if a village is completely Serb, then it's simply impossible, IMPOSSIBLE DO YOU HEAR, for any KLA to murder any of the villagers.

Holmes: Yup.

(

( 1822 )

Slobo: All right. And as everything has been made up relating to the times you're talking about, do you know -- and don't just say you were young at the time, I'm asking you whether you know about this next fact, that is to say, the demonstrations that took place in 1968 in Pristina and other towns in Kosovo and Metohija under the Albanian flag, and the tankbrigade arrived from Skopje to Pristina in 1968, do you know about the demonstrators, when they went back to their demonstrations that they pledged to kill a Serb? And according to the oath they took after the demonstrations, Bora Djordjevic was killed from --

)

Some more naughtiness.

(

( 1825 )

Slobo: Out of 45 villages in the municipality of Vucitrn, ethnically Serb or mixed villages where Serbs lived until KFOR arrived, Serbs remain only in six villages now, and in the remaining 39 villages where there are no more Serbs left, Serb houses were either torched or destroyed or taken over by others. Is that true or not?

Witness says it's all a lie. He did say some Serbs were killed but only those who deserved it.
Witness gets rebuked, again, from the judge.

Judge: I told you, Mr. Kadriu, not to address the accused in that way during the trial.

Slobo: I said that Serbs remain only in six villages. Of course in Prelluzhe, Grace, Gojbulja, Mijalic, Banjska and -- but I spoke about 39 villages where there are no Serbs left. As for Vucitrn, where you are vice-president of the municipality, there is not a single Serb left. Is that correct or not? Is there a Serb in Vucitrn?

Witness: At the moment, there is not. In the town, there is not.

Slobo: So you cleansed the entire town of Serbs. There's not a single Serb left.

Witness: We haven't cleansed it. We haven't cleansed it. They went themselves after they committed crimes against their fellow citizens and dug all those mass graves, all those acts of arson. They went before -- themselves before KFOR came. We didn't send them away.

Slobo: You talked a lot about refugees here. Do you know about this big gathering of refugees that was mentioned here in the village of Resnik, underneath Cicavica, where allegedly there were 50.000 refugees, and in February 1999, they were visited by Sadako Ogata, tens of thousands? And when she left, all of them went to their own homes. And the next day when people from the municipality of Vucitrn came, there was no one left there except for three young men in this field who said that the KLA organised this gathering so that they could introduce these people as refugees. There was no one left the next day. This was carried by the mass media at that time, after this visit. She had been fooled. Do you know aboutthat?
Witness denies it

)

Jashari family

(

( 1789 )

Slobo: You spoke about the events that took place in the village of Prekaz when a bandit group of Adem Jashari died, and that's a very good example of how killers and terrorists are being proclaimed to be civilians. And you yourself said here, and it says so in your written statement as well, that Adem Jashari was overcome, overpowered when he ran out of ammunition. Therefore, you yourself here in this place quite clearly indicate the fact that Jashari and his group fought against the police and shot at the police. And as you know, there were several tens of them in numbers. Is that true or is it not?

Witness: Adem Jashari defended his own home and defended his own doorstep. I do know that. But I also know another truth, and that is that in Adem Jashari's house, women, girls, and children, were massacred. Sixty-three graves were dug, mainly of civilians. I do not know -- I do not deny that Adem Jashari defended his own home, but you attacked it. You attacked him in his own home.

Slobo: Do you know how many Serbs and Albanians Adem Jashari killed and looted with his band of men before the police came to arrest him?

Witness: On that day when Adem Jashari was killed alongside his family in his home, there were women, children, and elderly people who were massacred. There was a large family and a lot of them were killed, with the exception of one small girl who survived.

Judge: Did he have a band of men who looted?

Witness: I don't know. It's not true that he looted. He fought a liberation struggle. These were

people defending their own hearths from Chetnik forces coming from Serbia.

Slobo: When the police came to arrest him, do you know that the police did not shoot but asked them to come out and to surrender themselves, to give themselves up to the police?

Witness: I don't know, but I'm glad that you are aware of this because it shows that you knew everything that was going on there.

Slobo: I saw a report about it. And the witness that testified here before you criticised the procedure undertaken by the police, that it only gave two hours to Jashari and his band to surrender. Do you know about that?

Witness: I've heard this for the first time today, because all the people who were surrounded were executed in the most barbaric manner. Only a small girl survived. They were also mutilated. Who could survive to tell the tale?

Slobo: It's not true that only one small girl survived, because in those two hours, during those two hours, a number of family members managed to leave the house, and Jashari and his members, his band of men -- you refer to them as a family, but of course there are other instances in the world where bands are referred to as families, but anyway, Jashari and his band opened fire on the police force from heavy machine-guns and automatic weapons. Several tens of automatic weapons were used to fire on the police. Do you know about that?

Judge: The first question is: Do you know if any family members managed to leave the house?
Witness: I don't know that anybody got out. Everybody was executed except for this girl who survived and is still among us today.

Slobo: You can take a look at the report about the event, but it is correct not only that they managed to leave but the police appealed to everybody to come outside, to leave the house and to give themselves up to the police. Now, do you know that he, that is to say, he killed a nephew from behind, in the back, because he wanted to surrender to the police and hethought that this was being -- that he was being a traitor and therefore shot him in the back, the son of his uncle?

Witness: This is not true, because you executed the entire Jashari family apart from this small girl who survived by chance. This is a fiction of your imagination. And you were involved in this event yourself.

Slobo: We are not contesting the fact that Jashari was killed in the clash with the police. That is not being put into question. But obviously from what you're saying, another thing is not being put into question and that is that he didn't want to be arrested but he fired, he shot, together with all the members of his band of men or bandits. Do you think that the policemen should have killed -- kamikaze policemen, for Jashari to kill them first and then --

Judge: Is it suggested that they were killed in gunfire, in exchange of gunfire? Is that the suggestion?

Slobo: Of course. It's common knowledge, a generally known fact. You don't know what the house looks like. And I read the report.

Witness: I don't deny that Adem Jashari was a member of the KLA. However, Adem Jashari's family were killed. They were executed by the Serbs, including girls, children. I saw mutilated children with my own eyes. How can this be excused, killing women, two elderly men in the family, almost 80 years old? They were -- according to Milosevic, they were on some barricade.

Slobo: They weren't at a barricade but in a reinforced house, and you yourself said that from that house they shot at the police.

Witness: They were in their own house. They were asleep when they were surrounded by the Serbian police and army. They were asleep when you surrounded them.

Judge: Mr. Kadriu, what's the source of your information about this incident?

Witness: Your Honour, it was early in the morning when Adem Jashari's family was surrounded. Not only the family but the whole neighbourhood in Prekazi i Poshtem. And then they were executed. No, I wasn't there, but we saw from a distance, perhaps a few kilometres away, but I know that there were three rings of encirclement. It was true that we couldn't go there.

Judge: But what sort of age were the bodies that you saw?

Witness: They were all of all ages, Your honour. I saw the corpses when the police had taken

them to a warehouse of building materials while the house of the Jashari family in Prekaz was still surrounded.

Judge: Did you actually witness how they were killed?

Witness: No. How they were killed? No. But I saw the corpses. They were burned, mutilated, and they had been executed by gunshots. I went with several human rights representatives from Vushtrri, and there I met Mr. Barani, who was filming, and the representatives of the Human Rights Council from Skenderaj.

Slobo: You just said a moment ago that you were two or three kilometres away, watching the event. How long did you watch it go on for?

Witness: I went there several times, because this went on. And I had to go back to -- to return to Vushtrri to report what I had seen with my own eyes. I saw smoke. There were gunshots, anti-aircraft artillery firing. For three days on end, they were subjected to Serbian artillery fire in the Jashari family.

Slobo: You say three days?

Witness: It seems to me it was three days. You kept the house surrounded even later. Even later, it was kept besieged. There were victims who were drawn -- who were pulled out of the ruins, out of the ruins of burned houses, and they still haven't been identified to this day these members of the Jashari family.

Slobo: So according to your testimony just now, the police surrounded the house and for three days fought with a fortified -- with the fortified forces of Jashari, is that it? And there were a lot of policemen, as you yourself said. How large should the forces be, then, that were shooting at the police if the police needed three days to overcome them? How largewere those forces, then?

Witness: No. They were executed on the first day, but you kept the house under siege because you had to prepare the minutes of what happened, which you then presented to the media. You kept the house encircled for certain purposes so that when you presented it to the international opinion, you had a version for that, a false version of that.

Slobo: And in your opinion, how long did this fighting go on between the Jashari group and the police? How long?

Witness: I don't know. I can't say for sure how long it lasted, but I know that they were attacked early morning, and people were killed also early morning. But you kept the house under siege. All the neighbourhood, in fact, preventing anyone from going near until you took the corpses to this construction materials warehouse in the vicinity of the Skenderaj.

Slobo: All right. This is quite clear. Your position is quite clear in that respect, and you yourself were not able to deny the existence of fighting between the police and this group of bandits of his. You said that after these events --

Witness: There was not any group of bandits. Excuse me, Your Honours. There wasn't any group of bandits.

)

FBI report

(

( 1798 )

Slobo: Mr. Robinson, I will say that once he answers my question. I will reveal it straight away. But I don't want to tell him in advance where the passage comes from. I want to ask himthe question first, to ask him about it - I assume that's my right - and then I'll disclose the source later on. He claimed that it was not true that I told him in advance that the official congress testimony of the Federal Investigation Bureau of the American Congress, he probably said that -- would probably say that that was not true either, that it was a fiction of my imagination, had I not quoted it to him. This is the passage. I'm not going to hide the source. Of course not. [In English] [As read] "Explicit political persecution linked to Albania ethnicity is not verifiable. The east of Kosovo is still not involved in armed conflict. Public life in cities like Pristina, Urosevac, Gnjilane, et cetera, has in the entire conflict period continued on a relatively normal basis. The actions of the security forces not directed against the Kosovar Albanians as an ethnically defined group but against the military opponent and its actual or alleged supporters." In your opinion; is that correct or not?

Witness: I don't know what they have written there, but I do know that your army and police killed about 15.000 civilian people, Mr. Milosevic. I don't know who wrote that report.

)

OSCE and Reports

(

( 1800 )

Slobo: "As laid out in the previous status report, the KLA has resumed its position after the partial withdrawal of the security forces in October 1998, so it once again controls broad areas in the zone of conflict. Before the beginning of spring 1999, there were still clashes between the KLA and security forces, although this has not until now reached the intensity of the battles of spring and summer 1998." [Interpretation] Is that true?

Witness doesn't answer.

Slobo: All right. This is once again a report [In English] March 15, 1999, to administrative court Mainz. [Interpretation] I'll skip this, because you say you are not a KLA commander. As you spoke about the Kosovo Verification Commission of the OSCE, do you know that there was a commission of the federal government for cooperation with this Verification Mission and that all the incidents that occurred in the space of those several months while the Verification Mission was on site, that minutes were kept between the federal government of Yugoslavia and the Verification Commission, that is to say, the government body for cooperation with the Verification Mission, that minutes existed? Do you know that? Do you know that that kind of assertation of the incidents and the minutes made by the Verification Commission and the federal government commission, that a report was written in connection with each of the incidents that took place? Do you know that?

Witness: I don't know that there is, but if there is, I don't have any information from the OSCE about that. Of course, its work was to draft a report on the situation that prevailed then, when it was in Kosova as well as in our municipality.

Slobo: Yes, but do you know that -- what you say during your testimony, there is practically nothing -- nothing is contained of that in the reports, or rather, the minutes that were compiled between the Verification Mission of the OSCE and the representatives of the commission of the federal government for cooperation with this commission in Kosovo and Metohija?

Judge tells Slobo to stop asking such difficult questions.

Slobo: I'll have to sift through my questions and cut down on them, because the witness

doesn't know anything about this, as you say. But I should like to draw your attention to the very clear contradictions that occurred at different points during the witness's testimony. First of all, he spoke about the stationing of the KLA in the area of Cicavica and the activities, but on the other side now, of the police and army in the Cicavica area, which is undoubtedly a conflict between the KLA and the army.

)

More Deaths From OSCE

(

( 1802 )

Slobo: All right. Let us go back to Vucitrn. I want to know, because he deals in human rights, whether he knows that after UNMIK and KFOR arrived, precisely in his municipality, the municipality of Vucitrn, 27 Serbs were killed. Does he know about that?

Witness doesn't know.

Slobo: This did not happen now; it happened when KFOR and UNMIK came, and at that time

you were chairman of the council. Do you know that on the 18th of May of 1999, where there is a forest by the village of Buzh [phoen], that the KLA killed six Serbs on a tractor who went out to the forest to cut wood: Slobodan Brajkovic, the father of three children; Slavujko Miletic, father of three children; Predrag Zdravkovic, father of three children; Slavisa Zdravkovic, a young man; Milovan Zdravkovic, father of four children; and Svetislav Zivkovic? Are you aware of this? Are you aware of the killing of these people who were going to the forest to cut wood? They were in a tractor.

Witness doesn't know

Slobo: How could you know about all sorts of events that you testified about here and that you said that you had heard about, that they told you about them, that you coordinated work in this area, et cetera, in the very same way, therefore?

Witness repeats that he doesn't know of this mass murder.

)

Worthless Reports

(

( 1805 )

Slobo: You brought here a considerable number of documents. Before I move on to these documents, I would like to ask you something. As far as I could notice here, at least six times during your testimony you said that your documents burned. So these documents of yours that did not burn are quite worthless. We will establish that. And it so turns out that only documents that pertain to certain crimes burned. And now documents that relate to potatoes and things like that did not burn down, and on the other hand, documents relating to crimes did burn down. How could these documents be separated in this way? You refer to this at least six times, that all your documents burned down except for the documents relating to

Slobo: The question is: How come these documents that are worthless he did manage to salvage and the documents that he had relating to crimes and that he mentioned --

Witness: Your Honour, the technical secretary of the Council of Human Rights and Freedoms concealed the overwhelming majority of the council's documents in a house that was later burned. I can also give you the name of the secretary of the council, while these documents which Milosevic is trying to cover up were taken from the office of the municipality where the Serbian administration worked. They were taken after the war. There were very few documents that survived. There were some that were in copies that a colleague had but very few. And I would be very happy if I had all these documents at my disposal that I had before the war because they would help me a lot. It's my misfortune here that I don't have these documents, but the Council for Human Rights and Freedoms has the time scale of all the acts of violence, and I brought a copy here.

)
Watson: ARF! The cat ate it AGAIN.

Holmes: Numer

(

Slobo: Well, I would like to ask you about these documents, because the Prosecutor has presented them so pompously here, worthless documents, and he cannot make up for their value.What do you prove by a list of members of the Crisis Staff of the municipality of Vucitrn when there is a crisis and when there has to be a Crisis Staff of the municipality of Vucitrn? What do you prove with a list of the members of the Crisis Staff? By the way, I see up here in the heading........Well, he brought it with some intention, some purpose. I'm asking you what he's trying to prove with this document. That a Crisis Staff exists? It exists in every municipality. Does he know that this staff was organised for the Civil Defence, for evacuation, for taking care of the population, for providing food supplies, water, electricity, public goods, for taking care of the livestock that was killed, that all of that is the duty of the Crisis Staff? Do you know about that?

Witness: No. The Crisis Staff which was formed in 1998 was called a Staff for Police and Military and Civilian Issues. I also have other documents, and if the Court requires, I can show you that this is what it said.........

)

Watson: The cat ate it AGAIN.

Holmes: Numero

(

( 1808 )

Witness:........It was formed in order to replace all the other authorities that had previously existed and created a state of emergency. It was responsible for everything, even for the potatoes that Milosevic mentioned. Meanwhile, we know what it did to a civilian population where people are concerned.

Slobo: Let it be quite clear. It is correct that the Municipal Assembly did not work properly. It is true that they did not work properly because of well-known squabbling amongst the Serbs themselves and that this is why this council was appointed. And this temporary, provisional council appointed the Crisis Staff precisely for the protection of civilians andprecisely because of the issues that I refer to. That is why these documents are totally worthless from the point of view of what he's trying to prove. Please. This is a question I'm putting now: The list of certificates for persons that were engaged in the Territorial Defence of Vucitrn, and then there is the name and surname and then the time period in which people were engaged, for one month, from the 25th of March until the 25th of April. That is to say, people who were engaged to transport food supplies, different materials in their own vehicles. This is mobilisation by the Crisis Staff. What is being proved by this?

Judge: What is being proved is what -- what -- what is being proved is what the document states. What the weight to be attached to it or its importance is a matter for the Trial Chamber in due course. The witness can't answer it. He's here simply to say that he's found it. And it will be perfectly open to you in your closing address to say to us that it is a worthless document, but this is not the occasion.

Slobo: This is the occasion to the extent to which the Prosecution attaches - how should I put this? - top importance to this by presenting these documents on the overhead projectorand things like that. They show a list of persons who were mobilised to transport in their own vehicles various supplies that were needed by the civilians. For example -- Let me ask you another thing. This decision of the Crisis Staff, that a person who is authorised to use the financial resources of the Crisis Staff, do you know what this that you call the order issuingauthority is? That is the person who actually has been authorised to use financial resources from a certain bank account for a certain company. This person has the right to sign cheques, to make payments, and who is therefore responsible for the use of these financial resources. So what is wrong with that? If the president of the municipality is the one whois authorised to use financial resources -- hat is being proved by this kind of thing? The Prosecution presented this so pompously.

)

Tapsukovic: Greater Albania

(

( 1830 )

Question: Did the movement operate in Kosovo, Macedonia, and everywhere else where Albanians lived?

Witness: I know that this movement operated in Kosovo. That is what I know. This was a student movement.

Question: Was its primary objective to have an Albania in which the entire Albanian people would live?

Witness: Our aim then was to advance the status of Kosovo from a region into a republic in the context of Yugoslavia.

Question: I would like to point out one thing to you. You told the investigator that this movement operated in Kosovo and in Macedonia and everywhere else where Albanians lived, and that in addition to that, in addition to Kosova becoming a republic, your objective was to have an Albania where the entire Albanian people would live. That is what you stated on the 2nd of December, 2000. Is that true or not?

Witness: That does not mean that there weren't other organisations that had such aspirations, but I'm talking here about the student organisation where I was a member. I cannot rule out the possibility for the existence of such organisations.

Question: No. You said that that was your dream.

Witness: No. You are wrong. Our dream would be to unite Kosova with Albania.

)

Watson: So the witness admits that there is a concept of a Greater Albania and that he supports it too.

Holmes: Interesting.

Village of Cirez

(

( 1832 )

Question: You know what happened on the 28th of February, in the morning, on the 28th of February, 1998? You know what happened then? What did happen then on the 28th of February, 1998?

Witness: On the 28th of February, 1998, I am repeating here for the umpteenth time that Serb police and army attacked the villages of Cirez and Likovc [phoen], and they killed many people, many civilians there. Likoshan, sorry. All were civilians.

Question: No, no. But the Serb forces came to that village only on the next day, after two policemen had been killed; is that correct?

Witness: I don't know. I am repeating. I didn't know who got killed. I just got the news from the people who were fleeing the scene, who had left their own homes and were heading towards Vushtrri.

Question: What I said to you is what you said to the investigators on the 2nd of December, 2000. What I just said to you now, that is what you said then, the way you had heard it read by me.

Witness: I don't know -- I don't see the point here. I do not deny that I didn't know who was killed, whether I found out that ten members were killed from Ahmeti family and some others from Sejdia family, but then I didn't know.

Question: This is what I'd like to read to the witness. He said the following on that occasion: "I first heard of the KLA in 1991." That's what he said here. "But only in 1997 they were in a position to organise themselves sufficiently and start guerrilla attacks against the Serb army and police. However, only in 1998 the KLA really became a true force, because they managed to take the area, the entire area, that of Drenica." Is that correct, that the entire area of Drenica was taken by the KLA?

Witness: I am repeating what I already said. On the 28th of November, 1997, the Kosovo Liberation Army became a public phenomenon.

)

Refugees in 98

(

( 1834 )

Question: And now, why am I asking this? On page 7, in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth paragraph, you said to the investigators: "Earlier on, the war between the Serbs and the KLA broke out in Drenica in 1998. I think it was sometime around the month of June. I had to register all the refugees who came to Vucitrn, from the area of Drenica. The municipalities of Vucitrn and Mitrovica, there was a flood of refugees that was coming in. I think that from the war zone, about 40.000 refugees came." And this was in 1998. That is not what was happening in 1999, when people set out to Macedonia and Albania, but in 1998. From that area, where there were skirmishes between the KLA and the army, 40.000 refugees fled from that area, and you registered them and you received them in Vucitrn, where there was peace. Is that correct or not?

Witness: It is correct that during June, July 1998, the Albanian population of these areas had become prey to artillery fire by the Serb army and police. Therefore, they were obliged, because of this fighting - because now even the KLA had entered into the war with the Serb forces - because of the fighting, the population had started to leave in the face of theviolence that was being exercised by the Serb forces that entered from one house to another. They came and found shelter in three municipalities: Prishtina, Vushtrri, and Prizren.
Question: Earlier, you said that because of this war between the KLA and the army and the police, that the population fled and came to Vucitrn. That is what you said in your witness statement earlier on.

Witness: I don't know how you have taken the statement. The truth is that the population were forced to leave and to flee their homes and settle in these three municipalities. Because numerous forces, with tanks, armoured cars, had encircled the villages; therefore, they had to flee and settle in the above-mentioned communes: Prishtina, Vushtrri, and Mitrovica [as

)

After NATO Starts Bombing

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( 1836 )

Question: All right. Then the bombing started. And now we are coming to the 1st of April, when, together with your family, you set out. You said what you did with your family. They boarded a bus, but you went to Gornja Studime with your friends. Is that right? You went to Gornja Studime?

Witness: That day I went through Studime e Eperme and settled in between Veseli and Sesekov village, at a friend of mine's house who is a professor.

Question: You said earlier on that you went to Gornja Studime in order to spend the night there in the house of Musa Terbunja, who was commander of the KLA for that area. "This area was under KLA control and then we went to Cecile, where the KLA had some kind of headquarters." Is that correct, what you said a while ago?

Witness: In Studime village I went. It was the 2nd of April when I went there. There I only passed. I was there in passing. I rested a while. There was no staff of KLA there in Studime e Eperme. From there I went to another village, Vesekovc, in a neighbourhood between the two villages that I mentioned, at a friend of mine, a professor.

Judge: What your statement says, Mr. Kadriu, is that you stayed at the house of Musa

Terbunja, who was the KLA commander of the area. Did you stay with the KLA commander?
Witness: I stayed there for a while and then I went on my way..........The KLA commander was not then -- he was not in Studime e Eperme. I met him, as I did many other people, on the way, and then I continued my way. I had to go somewhere else to pass the night, whereas that commander was one of the people I met.

Question: "I remained there for the following month," not two days. "I stayed there for another month. The houses in Cecelija were full of refugees from different places, because this area was considered to be safe, as it was under KLA control." And the last sentence there: "I don't know the exact number, but I think that in different small villages in this area under the control of the KLA, there were over 30.000 refugees." Is that the way you described it then?

Witness: Yes, that is correct. Over 30.000 refugees were there, and I was one of them.

Question: The KLA resisted the Serbs there where they were protecting these refugees. How did they do that? That's what I'm asking you. First of all, is this correct?
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Migs?

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Question: All right. That's what you explained last time as well. Now, before I move on, I would like to go back to this other paragraph here on that same page. Yesterday, here in Court, you said that you saw those two MiGs above Popovo. Can you explain this in greater detail? How did you see those two MiGs?

Witness: You're wrong, either the translation is wrong. I didn't say I saw the MiGs. I only heard the detonation. In Popova, Sahit Surdulli had seen the MiGs. He's an economist. He stayed as a refugee in Popova, and he had seen those MiG planes with his own eyes throwing the bombs over this village, as they did in Bajgora village too. I didn't see them with my own eyes. I was in Samadrexha and Cecelia then, in that place between these two villages. I heard the noise.

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KLA

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( 1839 )

Question: But on the 2nd of May, which means when you were in another place, with Sllakofc with your friend, Fadil Beqiri: "I went there because Fadil's nephew, Faruk Beqiri, a KLA soldier, was to be buried there," although you said you went to attend the funeral of a woman who died at the front line - and that's why I'm asking you - from Serb fire........What I'm interested is was how far that front line was from the place you were at to attend the funeral. How far was the front line from you and from the rest of the refugees?

Witness: The Serb army had captured some positions in Bajgora Mountains and had come closer to the villages where we were, but at about 12.00 the burial ceremony took place. The nephew of Fadil was buried there. At the same time, the refugees who were settled in villages in which the Serb army had started to deploy had begun to evacuate from those villages, so while the burial ceremony was going on, they kept moving away from these villages........Some soldiers who were leaving at that moment. I saw them leaving. On the opposite side, the population took to the Shala hills and mountains, on the opposite of the column. That is a fact.

Question: So you said that you had the possibility of going with members of the KLA, but you took to the hills; is that right? So you went to the top of the hill, by Cecilia, is that right?You went to the top of the hill and went further on?

Witness: The entire column went in that direction, to the top of the hill. And when we arrived there, Serbian forces started machine-gun fire from the village of Skocna, at the convoy. There, there were two KLA soldiers.

Question: But that's not what you said. You said that you came across soldiers there, three KLA soldiers, in fact, who told you to go to Gornja Studime and to take a different route. They instructed you. They sent you there. That's what you said before.
Question: Just the main points. So this convoy of 30.000 people went on, and while it was going onwards, you didn't mention that anybody shot at you, but some people arrived and told us that by the transformer station nearby Gornja Sebenia [phoen], that some people were killed by Serb fire. That's what you said. You didn't say that anybody actually shot at the column there.

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KLA With The Convoy

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( 1842 )

Witness: Serbian forces continually fired on the convoy from Skocna and so those two KLA soldiers were positioned there to point people into a -- in a direction away from the one where they could be seen. When we arrived at Studime e Eperme, a girl was hit from firing from the hills, and we were continually under the fire of Serbian forces. The convoy was so long that you couldn't find out what was happening at the beginning and at the end, but we were always under fire. It was a great crowd of people, 30.000 people on the move......... I didn't put out the white flag. You must get a better translation. There was somebody else who was carrying the white flag at the head of the column, and I gave them first the name and surname of the person yesterday.........It was put in a tub full of gravel. The Serbs were only 300 metres away from the place where the white flag was, and they could see the white flag.

Question: And it was only then that the Serbs arrived, only after that?

Witness: No. No. People had started to settle in and to make themselves -- dig themselves in at that area, and meanwhile Cecelia had started to burn. Meanwhile, Serbian forces had started to arrive at 2100 hours. I explained that too.

Question: Up until then, there were no Serbs. Who was with you until that time? The KLA.

Witness: The convoy -- the KLA, between Samadrexha, and Studime e Eperme, had the two last soldiers that you can see on the video, and nobody else arrived at the convoy.

Question: That's precisely what I wanted to say. You said that there were no KLA soldiers, whereas they escorted you up to that spot, and on the film that you brought, you could see the members of the KLA approaching you.

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To The Border

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( 1844 )

Question: First, when you went to prison, you were questioned there to see whether you were perhaps a member of the KLA, because -- but once it was clarified that you weren't a suspect, you were released and you went off in the direction you left in; is that right?

Witness: We were accused of terrorism. We were all released with the exception of one whose fate I don't know. All of us, young and old, were accused of terrorism.

Question: And now I should like to read out something else you said when you were at the border itself, when you were at the very border, and that is paragraph 3, page 19. You say: "We ran along the main road. On one side were the Serb bunkers. We were lucky because NATO planes were flying over the area and bombing it so that the Serbs didn't touch us." That's what you said at the time. Is that true, because of NATO's bombing that was taking place, that you fared as you did?

Witness: On the way from Prizren to -- from Shtime to the border, we were escorted by Serb

paramilitaries who used us as cannon fodder.

Question: I'm not asking you that. At the border, when you were at the border itself, because of NATO bombing which you confirm here -- you went on your way and that the Serbs didn't touch you because of that.

Witness: The Serbs, while we were walking from Zhur village to the customs point, some

Serbs tried to waylay us. They were soldiers in uniforms. They tried to do that, but the NATO aeroplanes moved constantly, were flying constantly. I think that was the reason for our salvation. Otherwise, we would have been looted or something else would have happened to us.

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The Milosevic Files

Friday, November 9, 2007

Thomas the Tank Engine

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Witness 16

Tic Tac Toe

Monday, September 24, 2007

The Cat Ate It

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