17 Q. Okay. And all this -- all these things that Nedzad Herenda told
18 you that you recounted to the Court today, those were all things that he
19 told you during the course of your interview with him in June 1996; is
20 that right?
21 A. Correct. Within the space of three days, that is to say, the
22 72 hours that we had the right under the law to interrogate Herenda in
23 the Agency for Investigations and Documentation.
24 Q. Right. Because he was under arrest at the time; right?
25 A. Correct.
Page 33404
1 Q. And before his arrest, you had never spoken to Herenda; right?
2 A. One month before his arrest, we initiated the Eagle operation,
3 whose purpose was to carry out surveillance on and document the
4 activities of Nedzad Herenda and other members of the Seve unit. Within
5 those 30 days, we kept Herenda under surveillance. We documented his
6 activities, that he had a service vehicle, a service weapon, et cetera,
7 although officially speaking, that unit did not exist.
8 Q. Sorry, Mr. Garaplija. My question was simply to have you confirm
9 that before his arrest you had never spoken to Herenda. That's right,
10 isn't it?
11 A. No. No, I did not. I never talked to him before the arrest.
12 Q. Okay. And you referred in your direct examination to your arrest
13 and conviction following this interview with Herenda. Just to be
14 precise, you were arrested specifically for the mistreatment of Herenda
15 in the course of the interview, in particular abduction, maltreatment in
16 discharge of duty, and attempted murder; right?
17 A. Yes. That was a bogus indictment that was quashed later before
18 the Human Rights Hall, and the domestic judicial institutions were
19 ordered to conduct a retrial where a verdict, a conviction, was handed
20 down for overstepping official authority and the unlawful imprisonment
21 that we endured, one year, one month, and one day. After that, I
22 personally instituted another proceedings before the Human Rights Hall
23 that resulted in the quashing of the entire judgement, and I have since
24 never been tried for anything.
25 Q. Well, in fact, Mr. Garaplija, what you've just described is
1 untrue. You were initially convicted, as you say. Your case did go
2 before the Bosnian Human Rights Chamber in 2000. They did find a
3 violation of your rights. There were then further proceedings at the
4 Bosnian Supreme Court in 2000 where they quashed the conviction for
5 abduction, maintained the conviction for mistreatment in discharge of
6 duty and attempted murder, and then you brought a further application to
7 the Bosnian Human Rights Chamber and, in 2002, that chamber found that
8 there had been no violation of your rights in the 2000 Bosnian Supreme
9 Court judgement that had convicted you for mistreatment and discharge of
10 duty and attempted murder. That's actually what happened, isn't it?
11 A. That's precisely what I said, except I didn't mention that in the
12 second proceedings I was found guilty of overstepping my official
13 authorities, not attempted murder. So the abduction and attempted murder
14 did not feature in the appeals proceedings. And shortly afterward, I was
15 released from the state prison.
16 Q. Well, in your earlier answer you had said that in the second
17 proceedings before the Human Rights Chamber, that those proceedings
18 resulted in the quashing of the entire judgement. That's entirely false.
19 That Human Rights Chamber decision upheld your conviction; right?
20 A. That is correct. Perhaps I told it wrong, but I said I was never
21 again tried in this case. That's what I meant.
22 MS. GUSTAFSON: Okay. Could we have 65 ter 24563, please.
23 Q. The document that you're about to see, Mr. Garaplija, on your
24 screen is this second proceeding before the Bosnian Human Rights Chamber,
25 and this is dated the 12th of April, 2002.
Page 33406
1 MS. GUSTAFSON: And if we could go to page 3 of this judgement,
2 decision.
3 Q. And here the chamber sets out the lengthy prior proceedings
4 including its -- at paragraph 14 it describes its own earlier decision
5 where it had found a violation of your rights in your first trial. It
6 then goes on to describe the further proceedings in the Bosnian state
7 courts, and at paragraph 18 describes the Bosnian Supreme Court
8 proceedings of October -- decision of October 24, 2000. And it explains,
9 in the second sentence, that the Supreme Court found it established that
10 the applicant, and that's you, "hit the injured party with his fist,
11 bound him to the pipe of a radiator, inserted a wooden club between his
12 hands when he was already cuffed and hit him on different parts of his
13 body."
14 And then it goes on to explain how the Supreme Court overturned
15 the conviction for abduction and maintained the conviction for
16 maltreatment in discharge of duty and attempted murder and reduced your
17 sentence.
18 Now, this is what the Supreme Court of Bosnia in the final
19 judgement against you found that you had done to Mr. Herenda in the
20 course of the June 1996 interview; right?
21 A. The Human Rights Chamber did not deal with the details of the
22 conviction. Instead, as the highest judicial body ordered a retrial, and
23 in this case the Supreme Court did not want me to be present and testify
24 in appellate proceedings, and thanks to a legal advisor from the ICTY,
25 Carl Kenning, who was present in the courtroom when that was said, he
Page 33407
1 informed the Tribunal in The Hague which, as far as I know, issued a note
2 to the Bosnian judiciary and then the Supreme Court held another session
3 where I was allowed to give evidence.
4 In that testimony, I put into the record the written orders for
5 Operation Eagle, which identified us as officers of the Agency for
6 Investigations and Documentation assigned to carry out the arrest of
7 Nedzad Herenda. I maintain with full responsibility that there was no
8 mistreatment of Nedzad Herenda. Instead, one of the operative workers
9 who were in the room with him --
10 Q. Mr. Garaplija, I'm sorry to interrupt you but you're not
11 answering my question. And my question was simply to have you confirm
12 that this description of what the Supreme Court of Bosnia found in its
13 final judgement against you was indeed an accurate description of its
14 findings, not whether you agree whether the findings were correct or not,
15 but whether that indeed reflects what the Supreme Court found.
16 A. I was just trying to explain the role of the Human Rights
17 Chamber, and what is written here corroborates what I've been saying.
18 The Chamber did not go into the details in its second proceedings.
19 Instead, it found that the original error committed by the Supreme Court
20 by failing to invite me to the session when deciding about the validity
21 of the judgement constituted a violation of my human rights, and this is
22 precisely what is said here.
23 The second-instance decision of the Human Rights Court, the Human
24 Rights Chamber, orders the Supreme Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina to allow
25 me to testify.
Page 33408
1 Q. Mr. Garaplija, this is the second proceeding before the Bosnian
2 Human Rights Chamber. It's quite clear because they reference their own
3 earlier proceeding in your case. So this is the second proceeding. And
4 if we go to page 12 of this decision, under "Conclusion" at the bottom,
5 the Chamber concluded unanimously that your complaint of a lack of
6 impartiality was manifestly ill-founded and, by 12 votes to 1, that there
7 had been no violation of your rights. So contrary to what you've just
8 stated, the second proceeding in the Bosnian Human Rights Chamber found
9 no violation of your rights in relation to the Supreme Court's final
10 judgement against you in 2000; right?
11 A. That is precisely what I was trying to say, that this is the
12 second proceedings before the Human Rights Chamber, not the
13 Supreme Court. The Human Rights Chamber did not go into the details of
14 the judgement of the Supreme Court except in the part that my right to
15 attend the session and present my defence was violated. And provide new
16 evidence.
17 MS. GUSTAFSON: Thank you, Mr. Garaplija. I have no further
18 questions. I'd just like to tender this judgement. Thank you.