WELCOME TO IWPRS TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 544, March 28, 2008 WAR CRIMES FUGITIVES DEAF TO RELATIVES APPEALS They refuse to surrender despite dramatic calls from their families to do so. By IWPR and RFE staff in Sarajevo, Banja Luka and Belgrade
FUTURE OF HAGUE ARCHIVE DEBATED Leading NGO calls for all ex-Yugoslav states to receive copy of enormous body of evidence. By Aleksandar Roknic in Belgrade COURTSIDE: WITNESS CLAIMS BOSNIAN POLITICIANS UNDERMINED AUTHORITY OF ARMY COMMANDERS High-ranking Bosnian army officer tells Delic trial that some units took orders from the president, not the accused. By Simon Jennings in The Hague POLICE CHIEF IN GLAVAS CASE DENIES EXTORTION CHARGE He says officers who interrogated Glavas and his six co-defendants did not coerce them into giving false testimony. By Goran Jungvirth in Zagreb COURT TOLD SESELJ ZVORNIK SPEECH CAUSED INCIDENTS But Seselj claims it was made a year before war broke out and could not have affected events in eastern Bosnia. 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In a letter sent to newspapers in Banja Luka on March 18, Zupljanins two sons Pavle and Mladen and wife Divna apparently said they were in their own prison and that all their chances of a normal life have been taken away since Zupljanin had gone into hiding. The situation is worse then ever - and, believe us, it will not get any better because you are hiding, the family from Banja Luka reportedly stated in this letter. Friends and relatives that we have are afraid to be in contact with us fearing for their own safety. We are exposed to a great pressure from the police and international military forces, and as a result we cannot live normally. The family confirmed the authenticity of the letter to the Tanjug news agency in Banja Luka. In December last year, the Belgrade daily Blic also published a letter written by Mladen Zupljanin in which he called on his father to turn himself in. He told reporters that his family was under huge pressure and could not have a normal life because his father was on the run. According to Mladen Zupljanin, the family could not find work, could not sell their property and their bank accounts had been blocked, as well. During the 1992-95 Bosnian war, Zupljanin was chief of the Serb police in Banja Luka. He was first indicted at the Hague tribunal in December 1999, and is wanted for crimes against humanity and violating the laws and customs of war, including persecution, murder, torture and deportation of non-Serb population from north-western Bosnia. Zupljanin is one of only four remaining fugitives from the Hague tribunal. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his army chief Ratko Mladic, as well as Goran Hadzic, are also on the run. This week, Serbian police raided a house in the city of Nis in search of Zupljanin, but the operation did not result in any arrests. On March 26, European Union and NATO forces deployed in Bosnia searched the homes of the wife, daughter and neighbour of Radovan Karadzic in the Bosnian town of Pale. The raids were aimed at "putting pressure on networks" suspected of helping protect suspects, said an EU peacekeeping force, EUFOR. In January, Bosnian police confiscated the passports of his wife, son, daughter and son-in-law in an attempt to prevent them from leaving the country. Karadzic has been on the run since 1996. On July 29, 2005, his wife Ljiljana Zelen Karadzic urged him to surrender in a short, yet very emotional address aired by all TV stations in Serbia. I beg you to come to that decision for the sake of all of us, she said, holding back tears. Our family is under constant pressure from all sides, she added, in the interview recorded at her house in Pale. It's painful and hard but I beg you with all my heart and soul to surrender. However, none of the pleas of family members of the remaining war crimes fugitives have so far yielded results. Observers in Banja Luka and Belgrade are not surprised by that. Head of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights of Republika Srpska Branko Todorovic said since it was acceptable for the fugitives to sacrifice thousands of lives for their own goals during the war, their decision to sacrifice their families as well is hardly surprising. It seems that the only people war crimes fugitives are not ready to sacrifice are themselves, said Todorovic. They are not willing to defend their ideology or war time policy in the court, and theyll rather evade justice and hide in mouse holes. Not even the appeals of their relatives, wives and children can bring them out. Biljana Kovacevic Vuco, president of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, agreed. Why should we expect that people who are accused of such grave crimes and who are still convinced that they did the right thing to show empathy for anyone, including their families? she asked. I strongly believe that people who take part in such horrific crimes cannot love anyone, not even those close to them. However, supporters of the fugitives argue that the families have been unjustly exposed to pressure, which they say is unacceptable. Kosta Cavoski, president of the International Committee for the Defense of Radovan Karadzic, said that the 2005 televised appeal of Ljiljana Zelen Karadzic to her husband to surrender was forced from her. At that time, her own son (Sasa Karadzic) was detained by the international forces and he was exposed to terrible abuse, so she was told it would continue unless she called on her husband to give himself up, claimed Cavoski. Although many observers think the decision of the war crimes suspects to remain at large is cowardly, their supporters, especially those in rural areas, believe these men are actually heroes. The inhabitants of the small village of Sula in northwest Montenegro where Karadzic was born say they would never betray the legend of the Serb people. I would not hand over [Karadzic] for the whole world, not even for five million US dollars, said one villager, who wished to remain anonymous, referring to the award offered by the US government for information that could lead to Karadzic and Mladics arrests. That would be a betrayal of my own people, he added. The fact that three of the four remaining fugitives are believed to be hiding in Serbia has cost this country dearly. The signing of a key agreement with the EU which could open the doors for Serbias membership of the union has been conditioned on the arrest of the remaining fugitives. As a result, the agreement has already been postponed several times. I think it is really strange that people who were in the army and police do not feel the need to help their country by trying to defend themselves in court rather than hiding from justice, said adviser to the Serbian president for cooperation with the Hague tribunal Jovan Simic. They are probably convinced that they are real Serbs fighting for truth, despite the fact that no-one knows what that truth is. They also totally ignore the pressure their families are exposed to. From a human point of view, I find it unacceptable. But he believes that suspects families can still contribute to the states efforts to bring the fugitives to justice. Simic explained that the voluntary surrender of several Hague fugitives was successfully negotiated through their families, suggesting that most of those on the run have not cut ties with relatives. He emphasised that the fugitives decision to continue hiding in spite of the appeals for surrender from their families could be the result of several factors. Whether it is fear of the tribunal, or fear of the consequences of something they have done, or simply an incredible lack of trust in the system and the tribunal, I do not know. All I know is that I could not do it. FUTURE OF HAGUE ARCHIVE DEBATED Leading NGO calls for all ex-Yugoslav states to receive copy of enormous body of evidence. By Aleksandar Roknic in Belgrade The destiny of the Hague war crimes tribunals vast archive much of which is top secret was discussed at a conference in Belgrade last week. The Belgrade Humanitarian Law Fund, FHP, which organised the conference, said the only solution was to send copies of the archive - excluding protected documents - to all the former Yugoslavia states. FHP also backed the creation of a regional body to agree the criteria for the archives use - whether for academic research or new war crimes investigations. The future of the tribunals archive is the subject of intense debate: who should have it, who should be able to use it, and what should be public and what classified? Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia all have an interest in the evidence gathered by investigators, and are trying to convince the international community to give them the archive when the tribunal finishes work in 2010. All the states fear their neighbours could make use of secret documents if they possessed the archive. Bosnians say the archive should come to their capital of Sarajevo because the documents have an emotional, not just historical, significance for war crimes victims there. Croatia also wants to possess the archive, with some Croatians proposing that all former Yugoslav states should have a copy. Serbia, on the other hand, is most concerned about the secret documents it gave to the tribunal it wants them returned and kept away from the public eye. According to Serbias laws, any official or member of the military suspected of misusing the documents labeled as top secret could face criminal charges. Rodoljub Sabic, Serbias commissioner for information of public importance, thinks that the country lacks sufficient legislation to cope with such an archive. We dont have good legislation for the archive. The actual [archive] law is 20 years old, he said at the conference held on March 21. Serbias Security Information Agency, the BIA, recently gave the archive almost 300,000 documents and dossiers. They go from one basement to another. We dont know whether they are meant to be public or not. I saw a menu that was labeled secret. The final decision on the archives future will be taken by the United Nations Security Council. A work group, led by the tribunals former chief prosecutor, Justice Richard Goldstone, is considering both the future location of the material as well as the conditions of access to it. The groups first report is due in August this year. FHP director Natasa Kandic said that Serbian officials wanted documents given to the tribunal on special conditions to remain closed. Protected documents will remain closed and protected There will be no way to access the documentation that was presented in closed tribunal sessions. But the rest should be open to the public, said Kandic. She believes the archive could also help Serbian understanding of the past. Who will control war crimes trials in Serbia after the tribunal closes if the courts and prosecutors try to establish facts which are not true? In some indictments, prosecutors constantly repeat that the war in Bosnia was a civil war although [tribunal verdicts have stated] it was an international conflict, said Kandic. Matias Hellman, the tribunals representative in Serbia, pointed out that many documents were already available via the internet and that everything was public except for closed court sessions. FHP has already started making copies of open documents and recording a video and audio archive. It copied 35,000 documents from Slobodan Milosevics trial before his death in prison in 2006. Documents in the UN archive are marked public, confidential or in strict confidence. They keep those documents closed for 20 or 30 years. In Serbia, all classified documents are protected for 30 years, and only after that time can be made public. Aleksandar Roknic is an IWPR-trained reporter in Belgrade. COURTSIDE: WITNESS CLAIMS BOSNIAN POLITICIANS UNDERMINED AUTHORITY OF ARMY COMMANDERS High-ranking Bosnian army officer tells Delic trial that some units took orders from the president, not the accused. By Simon Jennings in The Hague A retired Bosnian general testifying in the case of General Rasim Delic told the tribunal this week that the late Bosnian president, Alija Izetbegovic, interfered with military orders and sanctioned financial incentives for some disobedient commanders. Vahid Karavelic described how his efforts to discipline a district official for financially rewarding commanders in his region were undermined by the president. I called him [the official] to task very vigorously, as a soldier. He was very frightened. Later on he complained to President Izetbegovic. Izetbegovic then took me to task and [attempted] to reconcile the two of us, Karavelic told the court. Delic was head of the Bosnian army during the war in this country and stands accused of failing to prevent or punish his troops crimes against Serb and Croat prisoners between 1993 and 1995. According to the indictment, Delic knew of executions and abuse but did not stop them or discipline those responsible. Karavelic testified this week about the state of the Bosnian army during 1993 when Delic was put in charge. The witness evidence reinforced the defences argument that some military detachments were not under the command of Delic and that Izetbegovic had direct control over some units. He told the court that the incident concerning the district official had come about due to a new law passed in April 1992 to involve civilians in the war effort. He said the law had led to numerous problems because of the interference of civilian bodies and district chiefs in the control and command of [military] units. Answering questions put to him by Judge Bacone Maloto, Karavelic said that by reprimanding him for disciplining an unruly subordinate, President Izetbegovic was also undermining the war effort. According to Karavelic, financial incentives offered to certain commanders diminished troops spirit throughout the Bosnian army. It turns out the disobedient ones (commanders) were being rewarded, directly impacting on the moral in other brigades, he said. And it was the armys chain of command, he said, that particularly suffered, If ..certain individuals are financially rewarded and.. are negative characters this has a severe impact on command and control. Such a breakdown in the chain of command, said Karavelic, was evident when Izetbegovic took him to task. Izebegovic rebuked him personally, rather than through Delic as army chief, as should have been the case according to military protocol. He [Delic] did not have anything to do with it, said Karavelic. Karavelic went on to tell the court about the burning problem of how to properly train and discipline troops and achieve a satisfactory level of discipline within the Bosnian army. According to him, most commanders in charge of military units in Sarajevo in 1993 had no military education whatsoever. He also said that many had criminal records before entering the army. But Karavelic told the court that Delic was well aware of the problem and did his utmost to address it. I say this with absolute certainty He (Delic) required that anyone who did not observe army discipline be removed. From his first to his last day in the army, he invested every effort to build up discipline. The witness also corroborated the defences position that it was the corps commanders and not Delic, as head of the army, who were directly responsible for independent military units. The former army chief is charged with responsibility for crimes committed by a unit of foreign Muslim fighters known as the El Mujahed detachment that was incorporated into the Bosnian army. The El Mujahed are alleged to have committed acts that included decapitating a prisoner and torturing and killing a number of Serb and Croat detainees. The witness told how a plan was made at a meeting of military commanders in October 1993 to bring such autonomous units under the armys control. The conclusion made was that these independent units, at all costs, should be assigned to various units of the corps so that they could be placed under control more easily in the period that followed, he said. Asked by defence lawyer Vasvija Vidovic why such a small unit had to be integrated into the corps, Karavelic replied, According to military rules, the staff commander deals with the corps commander and it is up to the corps commander to fulfil whatever request he receives from above and integrate the smaller units within the corps. Karavelic said it was the corps commander, and not the head of the army as alleged, who made decisions about the use of these units in combat. The defence this week further argued that the Bosnian army was not fit for purpose when Delic took charge. Vidovic presented a document to the court, signed by Delic, which assessed the state of the Bosnian army when he became chief of staff in 1993. The document pointed to an absence of clearly defined aims of armed combat and to the fact that the supreme command staff had not been established properly. Confirming the contents of this analysis, Karavelic said that there was a failure to provide basic necessities, especially a system of command and control. These are vital issues; prerequisites without which the commander of supreme staff was unable to charter a course to follow, he said. Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague. POLICE CHIEF IN GLAVAS CASE DENIES EXTORTION CHARGE He says officers who interrogated Glavas and his six co-defendants did not coerce them into giving false testimony. By Goran Jungvirth in Zagreb The police chief who led criminal investigations into Croatian politician Branimir Glavas and six others this week dismissed defence accusations that officers forced confessions from two defendants. Zagreb county court heard former chief of the Osijek police Vladimir Faber dismiss claims from Gordana Getos-Magdic and Zdravko Dragic that police pressured them into confessing involvement in the murder of Serb civilians. They now deny any involvement in the crimes. This war crimes trial has turned into a trial of the police, Faber told the court. Glavas and his co-defendants are charged in relation to two attacks on Serbian civilians at the beginning of the war in Croatia in 1991. Prosecutors say they were responsible for torturing civilians, forcing one to drink battery acid in the garage of a municipal building in Osijek. Other civilians were shot and thrown into the River Drava, their mouths bound with gaffer tape, say prosecutors. Glavas, the first Croatian politician to stand trial for war crimes, was a member of the ruling nationalist HDZ party. He was expelled in 2005 after clashing with Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, and his supporters say the trial is Sanader's attempt to take revenge after Glavass new party won local elections in Slavonia and Baranja. Following Fabers testimony, the court decided that Getos-Magdics first statement to the police, in which she says Glavas ordered the systematic killing of Serbian civilians in Osijek, would not be withdrawn. The court also dismissed the defence request to exclude a statement from Dragic, in which he admitted shooting at the only surviving witness of the killings at the River Drava. Like Getos-Magdic, Dragic later retracted his statement, saying the police forced him to give false testimony. During the interrogation of Gordana Getos-Magdic and Zdravko Dragic, Osijek police officers acted professionally and there was no mistreatment or extortion of statements, said the court council. Faber, who was originally sent to Osijek because as an outsider, he could handle the investigation independently, said Getos-Magdics father had told him of the influence he had with the police and secret services. He said he had very close connections with the highest state officials. He didnt threaten me but somehow he clearly suggested that I should not to do my work according to law, said Faber. Faber confirmed that he did not talk to Glavas himself during the investigation - something the first accused has criticised, arguing it is not normal to indict someone without questioning them. You were called in to talk in 2001 and then you organised protests, a media circus, in front of the police headquarters. You were called into the police headquarters during my mandate again there were protests and a media circus. I reasoned that calling you in as a suspect wouldnt help us, said Faber. I wanted to spare us all that - you, myself and the citizens of Osijek. All the defendants cross-examined Faber, except Getos-Magdic who was unable to prepare as she had been in prison hospital following a hunger strike. Ivica Krnjak, Mirko Sivic, Dino Kontic and Tihomir Valentic are also in the dock. President of the courts council Zeljko Horvatovic disallowed many questions from defendants and their counsel, saying what they think is important is not relevant to the case. Glavas, on the other hand, accused Faber of winking at the prosecution and laughing cynically. Goran Jungvirth is an IWPR-trained reporter in Zagreb. COURT TOLD SESELJ ZVORNIK SPEECH CAUSED INCIDENTS But Seselj claims it was made a year before war broke out and could not have affected events in eastern Bosnia. By Denis Dzidic in Sarajevo A Bosniak who was held in Serb-run camps told the tribunal this week that a speech made by Vojislav Seselj in the eastern Bosnian town of Zvornik before the war resulted in several ethnic incidents. Protected witness VS1013 said he had not listened to the speech himself, but had heard about it from a lot of people because it was shocking. I never thought a war would start in Zvornik. However, after that speech I remember hearing about incidents that happened, said the witness. The indictment against Seselj, leader of the Serbian Radical Party, SRS, says he espoused and encouraged the creation of a homogenous Greater Serbia. He is also charged with making inflammatory speeches in the media, during public events and during visits to the volunteer units and other Serb forces in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, instigating those forces to commit crimes between 1991 and 1993. The prosecution says Seselj made an inflammatory speech at a rally in March 1992 thereby precipitating attacks on non-Serbs in Zvornik. We are going to clean Bosnia of pagans and show them a road which will take them to the east, where they belong, he is quoted as saying. During cross-examination, Seselj admitted giving the speech but said it happened in 1991 - which the witness confirmed - and said his words could not have affected things that happened a year later. According to the indictment, in April 1992 Serb forces, including volunteers known as Seselj's men, took control of Zvornik. Afterwards, hundreds of non-Serb civilians were detained, beaten, tortured and killed in the Standard shoe factory, the Ciglana factory, Ekonomija farm, the Novi Izvor building and the Celopek Dom Kulture. The witness said he was captured on May 4 that year as he attempted to leave Zvornik and then taken to the Standard shoe factory. There were actually two groups of Serb volunteers in that building: volunteers from Loznica and a unit from the city of Kraljevo which all the Serb guards referred to as Seseljs men, but we were only beaten by the Loznica volunteers, he said. It was truly horrible. They would come several times a day to beat us in terrible ways. I was once beaten with an electric cord across my legs until I fell to the floor. After several days all the prisoners were transported to the Ekonomija farm, which the witness said was the worst time of [his] life. According to the witness, Seseljs men took part in the torture at the farm, along with the Loznica group and other soldiers. I was beaten with a wooden stick across the shoulder until it broke, and as a result I now almost cant use my left hand, he said. The witness said he overheard his captors conversations and so could identify their leader as Vojvoda Cele. There was also a major called Toro and several volunteers I only know by nicknames, he added. Vojvoda Cele was the worst of them. One night he stripped us all and told us to pray as Serbs to Jesus. He beat several men that night, and one old man died as a result of that beating. He wanted to kill us all, but a military official came in and said he needed strong people for work. Seselj produced a statement from Miroslav Vukovic, known as Vojvoda Cele, denying these accusations. I was not in Zvornik at the time of those crimes, and I look nothing like the witness description, said the statement. The witness said he found out that Seseljs men were from the SRS because he saw Major Toro holding a black leather army ID card with gold or silver writing on it which said SRS. Seselj said there have never been black SRS ID cards. Seselj showed the witness a statement from 1993 in which he refers to Seseljs men as unknown volunteers and accused him of being coached by the Bosniak Secret Service, AID. The witness replied that he had given many statements, but the one for the ICTY was the most complete. Seselj also read several of his statements from 1992 in which he advocated the arrest of various Serb paramilitary formations which were free to roam in Zvornik at that time. The trial continues next week with the testimony of protected witness VS1015. Denis Dzidic is an IWPR-trained reporter in Sarajevo. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** TRIBUNAL UPDATE, the publication arm of IWPR's International Justice Project, produced since 1996, details the events and issues at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, at The Hague. These weekly reports, produced by IWPR's human rights and media training project, seek to contribute to regional and international understanding of the war crimes prosecution process. The opinions expressed in Tribunal Update are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of IWPR. Tribunal Update is supported by the European Commission, the Dutch Ministry for Development and Cooperation, the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and other funders. IWPR also acknowledges general support from the Ford Foundation. TRIBUNAL UPDATE: Editor-in-Chief: Anthony Borden; Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan; Senior Editor: John MacLeod; Project Manager: Merdijana Sadovic; Translation: Predrag Brebanovic, and others. w: Executive Director: Anthony Borden; Strategy & Assessment Director: Alan Davis; Chief Programme Officer: Mike Day. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** IWPR builds democracy at the frontlines of conflict and change through the power of professional journalism. IWPR programs provide intensive hands-on training, extensive reporting and publishing, and ambitious initiatives to build the capacity of local media. Supporting peace-building, development and the rule of law, IWPR gives responsible local media a voice. 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