Witness: Jusuf Jasarevic (Resumed) (Open Session)Page 1
Examined by Ms. Chana (Continued)
1 Tuesday, 1 March 2005
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 2.22 p.m.
6 JUDGE LIU: Call the case, please, Madam Court Deputy.
7 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. This is case
8 number IT-01-48-T, the Prosecutor versus Sefer Halilovic.
9 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.
10 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
11 Good afternoon, Witness. Did you have a good rest?
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you for asking. I am ready
13 to perform my task.
14 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.
15 Ms. Chana, please continue.
16 MS. CHANA: May it please Your Honours.
17 WITNESS: JUSUF JASAREVIC [Resumed]
18 [Witness answered through interpreter]
19 Examined by Ms. Chana: [Continued]
20 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Jasarevic. We will now continue with your
21 testimony.
22 Before the adjournment yesterday, I was asking you about your
23 relationship generally and the attitude of both the 9th and the 10th
24 Brigade to military security, and in that context I asked you - and that
25 was the last question I put to you - was: Did you know a man named Amir
1 Deljkic?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Can you tell me who he was, please.
4 A. Amir Deljkic was a member of the 1st Corps' security service, an
5 operations officer.
6 Q. And what happened to him, if anything?
7 A. One day early in the morning, he was on his way to work. He was
8 ambushed in his own street by members of the 10th Mountain Brigade. They
9 took him to their command post and mistreated him - that is perhaps the
10 simplest way to put it - in a very brutal way.
11 Q. How did you get to know about this?
12 A. As far as I remember, someone from the security service of the
13 1st Corps told me. The same day or some hours later - I can't remember
14 specifically - his wife came over and complained to me, asking for help.
15 She was crying.
16 Q. And what did you do?
17 A. In a bid to help Mr. Deljkic and being unable to get in touch
18 with the commander of the 10th Brigade, since it was quite obvious that he
19 was the only one in a position to help or release Mr. Deljkic, I went back
20 to Mr. Sefer Halilovic, as Chief of Staff and a person I knew and valued
21 very highly as my former superior, appealing to him to help Mr. Deljkic.
22 Q. Why was it that you chose to go to Mr. Halilovic over this
23 matter?
24 A. In terms of his command position, he was in a position of
25 authority. Besides, he was a person I knew and trusted. It was the most
1 natural thing for me to go to him. Commander Delic was not a person I
2 knew well at the time; whereas, I knew Mr. Halilovic well and I trusted
3 him. I was hoping that he would be able to give us a hand.
4 Q. When you said "in terms of his command position," can you please
5 further elaborate on that.
6 A. Whose command position do you mean?
7 Q. You said in your answer, Mr. Jasarevic: "In terms of his command
8 position, he was in a position of authority." Is that what you had said
9 earlier in your -- in response to my question to you?
10 A. Yes. I didn't understand immediately that your question was in
11 reference to Mr. Halilovic.
12 You see, Mr. Halilovic represented an authority that went
13 unquestioned by any member of the army at the moment or any of the brigade
14 members. I expected that he would be the only person with sufficient
15 authority to -- to bear on the commander of the 10th Brigade.
16 Q. And what exactly is it that you asked him to do?
17 A. I probably can't remember the details, but the crux of the matter
18 was that I had been told that Mr. Deljkic was being kept at the command of
19 the 10th Brigade, that he was being physically abused, humiliated, and so
20 on. If possible, I said, "Please try to get involved to -- to help this
21 person."
22 Q. Was there any particular reason that Mr. Deljkic himself had been
23 chosen to be physically abused by this particular brigade?
24 MR. MORRISSEY: Could I object there.
25 JUDGE LIU: Yes.
1 MR. MORRISSEY: The witness said that he was abused by certain
2 members of it, and I object to the comment that he was chosen to be abused
3 by this brigade. The witness has been quite clear in saying that most of
4 the brigade was fine and that there were some difficult individuals, so
5 that question needs to be more specific, in my submission.
6 JUDGE LIU: Yes. But I believe that when the Prosecution said
7 "the brigade," it means some members of the brigade, not the whole
8 brigade.
9 And by the way, Ms. Chana, maybe I missed it from yesterday's
10 proceedings. Could you tell us about the time frame of this incident.
11 MS. CHANA: Yes. I will ask the witness, Your Honour.
12 JUDGE LIU: Yes, please.
13 MS. CHANA:
14 Q. Can you remember when it was when this took place? This Deljkic
15 incident, as I call it.
16 A. I can't remember the date. It certainly occurred before I was
17 appointed chief of administration, so it was while I was still chief of a
18 department within the security administration. It may have been June
19 1993, but I'm afraid I can't remember the specific date.
20 Q. Yes. Now, I'll go back to my -- my question: Why was it that
21 certain members of this brigade had chosen Mr. Deljkic to abuse? Do you
22 know?
23 A. I most certainly don't, but I have my assumptions. Mr. Amir
24 Deljkic, in terms of where he lived, where he resided, was quite near the
25 command of the 10th Brigade. That might be one aspect, to my mind.
1 Secondly, they knew that Mr. Deljkic was with the security
2 service of the 1st Corps, and they must have assumed that anything that
3 the security service knows about certain devious forms of behaviour by
4 members of the 10th Brigade -- as I say, their conclusion was probably
5 that this information was being forwarded to Mr. Deljkic and that Mr.
6 Deljkic was in possession of this information.
7 In my opinion, this was some sort of revenge against Mr. Deljkic
8 for that reason.
9 Q. Yes. Now I would like to show you a document. Its 65 ter number
10 is 162, it's 01474764, and that would be MFI209.
11 MS. CHANA: May I please give the witness the B/C/S version.
12 Q. Mr. Jasarevic, would you please look at this document and tell
13 us, is that your signature at the bottom of it?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And what is this document about generally? And then we'll go
16 into the substance of it in a minute.
17 A. This is the document that I spoke about some minutes ago. I was
18 wrong about the date. This is early July, so that's before I was
19 appointed the administration chief, and this is the document that I had in
20 mind when I said the things I said a while ago. This is an official note
21 that I produced myself.
22 Q. And this is on the 3rd of July, 1993; is that not correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. It documents the conversation you had with Chief of Staff,
25 Mr. Sefer Halilovic.
1 A. Yes. I was probably not able to quote the entire conversation,
2 but it corresponds with the general meaning of the document.
3 MR. MORRISSEY: Your Honour, I apologise to the witness for
4 interrupting. He doesn't know what the problem is. But Mr. Halilovic
5 can't see this on the screen. The Defence now can, but the accused was
6 unable to see it.
7 JUDGE LIU: Well, we'll ask Ms. Usher to check.
8 MS. CHANA: [Microphone not activated]
9 Q. Sorry, Mr. Jasarevic. We had a technical hitch there.
10 As I was saying, that this is -- it's a document of the
11 conversation you had with Mr. Sefer Halilovic. And if you look at the
12 document in which you said -- you requested Sefer -- "I asked Sefer to
13 intercede with Musan Topalovic, aka Caco, and Ramiz Delalic, aka Celo,
14 that Amir Deljkic, member of the military security service of the 1st
15 Corps be freed. In fact, I was informed that Mr. Amir Deljkic had been
16 unlawfully arrested by Musan Topalovic, aka Caco's men, and that he had
17 been savagely maltreated physically and practically beaten up."
18 Then you go on to say: "I knew that Mr. Sefer Halilovic would
19 sway Caco through Celo. So I rang up and asked him to intercede to set
20 Deljkic free. On 3rd July 1993, Sefer promised to do something. He said
21 he would try. However, the next day, when I rang Sefer up again and asked
22 him to save Deljkic because his life is in danger, Sefer replied to me in
23 a fairly rough manner, saying that he didn't want to intercede for anyone
24 individually. Even on the previous day, Mr. Sefer was more anxious to
25 know who had informed me about what was being done to Deljkic than
1 concerned by what was being done to him or thinking that he should be
2 helped. On that -- on the basis of all of this, I concluded that what
3 Caco and his villains were doing to officers from the 1st Corps command
4 suited him perfectly, especially when the person in question was a member
5 of the military security service, Amir Deljkic."
6 Do you confirm the information which I've just read out,
7 Mr. Jasarevic?
8 A. I confirm that I produced the document. I have to say, however,
9 that this obviously contains my own comments. This is an official note.
10 It's a very important kind of document for the military security,
11 especially given my position at the time, chief of counterintelligence.
12 In my desire to help Mr. Deljkic, I have taken a slightly emotional
13 approach to the problem. I'm not sure that you could state that
14 Mr. Halilovic was unwilling to help. I quoted these two things. The
15 first time round when we talked, he told me he would try. This is
16 probably true. I don't think I just made this up. And in the second
17 conversation, he probably replied that he did not wish to intercede on --
18 on the behalf of any one individual. This is probably also true.
19 The last passage is probably a conclusion, Your Honours, and I
20 believe it contains some emotional elements, all with the objective of
21 providing assistance for Mr. Deljkic. I can't challenge the entire
22 document, but certain emotional aspects of the document may be a trifle
23 over-emphasised.
24 Q. But nevertheless, these were your conclusions at the time, and
25 you documented them.
1 MR. MORRISSEY: Now, I object to leading. Your Honour, the
2 witness has given his answers. They're out there now. They can't be
3 changed.
4 JUDGE LIU: Yes. Yes, I believe the witness has answered your
5 question before.
6 MS. CHANA:
7 Q. Mr. Jasarevic, when you state - and that's at the -- the last
8 couple of lines in this particular document - I would like you to assist
9 Their Honours as to what you meant when you said, "On the basis of all
10 this, I concluded that what Caco and his villains were doing to officers
11 of the 1st Corps command suited him perfectly." What -- can you please
12 assist us in telling us how is it that you came to this particular
13 conclusion.
14 A. As you can tell, if you look at the date, this occurred
15 immediately after what happened between the 2nd and 3rd of July, the
16 incident caused by members of the 9th Brigade, their attack against the
17 operations centre of the General Staff. This conversation ensued on the
18 following day, as you can tell. There were different bits of information
19 floating about around me. Unofficially, I mean. Hearsay, not what I
20 heard in the office. People generally tended to express their opinions in
21 ways that were not entirely sober and sometimes without valid arguments.
22 My impression was, as I said earlier, that the only real authority with
23 power to do anything in relation to those brigades was Mr. Sefer
24 Halilovic, bearing in mind first and foremost his reputation as the army's
25 leading person. It was only natural that I should expect such a person of
1 authority to be able to do something. If it turns out that he was unable
2 to do anything, I couldn't think of anyone else who might. Since I failed
3 in resolving that issue, I provided this comment at the end of this
4 document. It is an emotional conclusion that I drew; namely, that Mr.
5 Sefer was simply unwilling because it was probably convenient for him,
6 also in view of the incident the previous day, the attack against the
7 operations centre. So this is a product of my own conclusion.
8 Q. And Mr. Rasim Delic, was he not the -- the head of the army at
9 that time? Why didn't you approach him?
10 A. Yes, he was at the head of the army, but I'm not sure if he was
11 in Sarajevo on that particular day. He would spend many days at the
12 forward command post in Kakanj. You will understand, given my position at
13 the time, I was not the administration chief but, rather, the chief of one
14 of its departments. I did not have an open line of communication with the
15 army commander. I felt personally closer and was inclined to trust
16 Mr. Sefer Halilovic much more, bearing in mind also the fact that
17 Mr. Sefer Halilovic would have been better able to achieve something with
18 the commanders of those two brigades, given the authority that he had.
19 That's one aspect of the entire matter.
20 Secondly, I'm not sure if that tallies with the date on the
21 document, but I did have some information, again based on information that
22 was coming in from the security service of the 1st Corps, and some
23 information from the Ministry of the Interior indicating that Mr. Delic
24 was not sufficiently respected by the brigades to have any influence over
25 them at all. So that would constitute some sort of an explanation.
1 Q. And, to your knowledge, was Mr. Sefer Halilovic respected by
2 these brigades?
3 A. Mr. Halilovic was respected by all the brigades and all the
4 commanders, as I've said already. He was the army's first man. He
5 enjoyed an enormous amount of authority. He certainly was respected
6 across the board.
7 Now, what happened here, were there perhaps some reservations
8 with regard to the breaches of discipline by these brigades, and perhaps
9 this was expressed in an unfavourable way, that was my conclusion.
10 Q. Can you please tell us: You said you had information about these
11 two -- two particular brigades I'm talking about, the 9th and the 10th.
12 What were the sources of that information?
13 A. Your Honours, I said that the source of the information, the most
14 important information, were the military security service of the 1st Corps
15 and institutions of the Ministry for Internal Affairs, primarily the State
16 Security Service.
17 Q. And how would this information be relayed to you?
18 A. I attached importance to written information. First of all,
19 probably there were oral -- there was also oral information from meetings
20 and so on, but I based my position on information which was contained in
21 documents which came from the 1st Corps Security Service and the State
22 Security Service. I cannot recall specifically this information, but I
23 know that such information existed.
24 Q. Can you tell us the general nature of this information? What
25 kind of information was filtering through to you about these two
1 particular brigades?
2 A. All the information mostly pertained to violations of military
3 discipline by individuals or certain parts of these brigades and sometimes
4 their commanders. This was qualified in that period as being a deviation
5 from the system of command and control, which is characteristic for a
6 military organisation. I'm talking about control and command, in which
7 the principle is of the singleness of command, military obedience, and the
8 execution of orders from superiors. These are the main principles,
9 main -- the mainstay of military organisation.
10 Q. Other than this military indiscipline and what you allege about
11 not following orders, was there any other information which was coming
12 through to you about these two brigades which was obviously of some
13 concern?
14 A. Yes. Information came which provided different indications of
15 deviant conduct by individuals from those brigades. Individuals from
16 those brigades and their commanders demonstrated reactions towards
17 individuals which were not quite proper, not in the trenches -- that was
18 inappropriate for behaviour in trenches during defence of the town.
19 A second characteristic of their dissatisfaction, based on the
20 information that I received, was very often demonstrated in relation to
21 members of MUP. They thought that members of the MUP were privileged in
22 relation to them, that they were better equipped, and that they were not
23 actually participating in the fighting. That's how they put it.
24 And perhaps a third point, if it's not contained in the first
25 point that I mentioned, is that they had their own convictions, and this
1 was something that bothered all the brigades, all the army members on the
2 lines, that individuals through certain connections were able to secure
3 their removal or being taken away. So they described that occurrence with
4 a certain term, "podrumasi," people who were in the cellars. This is
5 something which disturbed individuals in these brigades. So this would be
6 the gist of their feelings or their sense of injustice. I'm speaking
7 conditionally. This is how they felt at that time possibly. Of course,
8 they did not think out properly the way to resolve this issue which they
9 believed was unjustly dealt with, and that is why they resorted several
10 times on -- to collecting or assembling all these individuals from the
11 street or from cafes, wherever they found them. And it could be said that
12 they took them to the front lines through the application of force.
13 However, in the 10th Brigade, this was more drastic. We had
14 information that in the 10th Brigade people were being physically abused.
15 Q. What else would -- any other specific instances of this deviant
16 behaviour that you can give us before I show you a document?
17 A. I know one case, for example, and I recall that very well, that
18 members of the 9th Brigade either stole or seized - I can't really
19 remember the particulars - a vehicle from a unit of the French UNPROFOR.
20 After these gentlemen reacted to this from this UNPROFOR unit, after they
21 complained to President Izetbegovic, he requested that Commander Delic