¹⁸⁴³² Wednesday, 21 March 2012

(Open session)

[The accused entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.08 a.m.

JUDGE ORIE: Good morning to everyone in and around this courtroom.

Madam Registrar, would you please call the case.

THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. This is case IT-03-69-T, the Prosecutor versus Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic.

JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Madam Registrar. Before we continue to hear the evidence of Mr. Browne, I'd like to move, briefly, into private session.

(Private session)

(11 lines redacted) ¹⁸⁴³³

(page redacted) ¹⁸⁴³⁴

(7 lines redacted)

(Open session)

THE REGISTRAR: We are in open session, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Madam Registrar. Yesterday, 1D5072 was admitted as D778. There was an error there because the same document had already been MFI'd as D443. Now, it's -- I'm not talking about the comedy of errors, but it's what apparently was sought to be admitted was not the number I just mentioned, but it was 1D5472, and that is the document that should have received number D778 and is admitted into evidence under that number. And it is the protocol that was discussed yesterday, the protocol between the Netherlands Forensic Institute and the expert witness. Having putting all this on the record, is -- can the witness be escorted into the courtroom.

Mr. Groome.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, could I just advise the Registrar, perhaps the director in the booth, that I will be seeking to use the ELMO very early in the -- in the -- in my examination, if that can be prepared. ¹⁸⁴³⁵

[Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

[The witness takes the stand]

JUDGE ORIE: Good morning, Mr. Browne. Please be seated.

THE WITNESS: Good morning, Your Honour. Thank you.

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Browne, I'd like to remind you that you are still bound by the solemn declaration you've given yesterday at the beginning of your testimony. And Mr. Groome will now continue his cross-examination.

THE WITNESS: I understand, Your Honour. Thank you.

MR. GROOME: Thank you, Your Honour.

WITNESS: DAVID BROWNE [Resumed] Cross-examination by Mr. Groome: [Continued]

Q. Good morning, Mr. Browne.

A. Good morning, sir.

Q. Mr. Browne, yesterday you undertook to enumerate on a list the misaligned pages and missing pages or the fully disassociated pages from book 16. Did you have an opportunity to do that last evening?

A. I finished my homework, yes, Your Honour.

Q. Thank you. I'm going to ask if the Court Officer could assist us and prepare the ELMO so that Mr. Browne can put the -- whatever it is that he was able to do yesterday evening on the ELMO so that we can all take a look at it.

And while that's being done, can I just ask you the very technical question of: How many pieces of paper does this information require or consume? ¹⁸⁴³⁶

A. I'm sorry, you'll need to explain that a bit better.

Q. The list that you made, how many pieces of paper did you use?

A. Well, I didn't. I annotated the notes I took in the MFI. Let me show you.

MR. GROOME: If we could perhaps zoom out a little bit so we can ...

Q. So on the ELMO we see now two individual pieces of paper that have notes in black ink and red ink; is that correct?

A. Pencil and red ink.

Q. Pencil and red ink. And are the notes on these two pieces of paper the entirety of the pages that were misaligned or detached from book 16?

A. Yes.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, at this stage I won't bother reading them into the record, but I would ask that this be admitted as an exhibit in the trial so that we can all view it later.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Now, from a very technical point of view, will it be copied from the ELMO, or are we inviting the witness to provide his originals? Or ...

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, since it is an original document, I am tendering the original document if Mr. Browne is willing to do that. If --

THE WITNESS: Then I need a copy before I leave, because that's the only copy I have.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Okay. That's -- that's exactly the kind of ¹⁸⁴³⁷ questions I wanted to raise. Would you be willing to -- to give those two sheets of paper to the Court Officer, that they be copied? And I take it, since there's colour in it, that you would prefer to have a colour copy.

THE WITNESS: Preferably yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

THE WITNESS: And I have no objection, of course.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And then the original would remain with the Registry. And we even could consider whether we finally need the original or whether it could be scanned and be uploaded in e-court and that the original be returned to -- to Mr. Browne, because this document in itself, the original, doesn't add anything to what a copy would tell us, isn't it?

MR. GROOME: I think Your Honour is correct and it would just be a matter of verifying that the scanned copy was legible enough.

JUDGE ORIE: Okay. Then we don't need it at this moment on the ELMO anymore?

MR. GROOME: Could I ask just two more questions about it, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, please.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Just so the record is clear: Is there anything on the reverse side of these pages or are they blank?

A. No, Your Honour.

Q. Okay. And if we could maybe turn them back so we can see the ¹⁸⁴³⁸ text. And can you explain, What is the significance of the pencil text and what is the significance of the red text?

A. Well, under the protocol, Your Honour, we um -- uh, the -- let me just sort myself out here, I beg your pardon. The protocol required that certain rules were obeyed during the examination. And no objection to that, but it meant that I couldn't take my own notebook in. If I was to have an area in the room where I could have access to my notes, it would have meant changing gloves and so on every time I went to make a note. So the only writing material I had was a pencil, which was cleaned and sanitized between each document. And the only paper we had were these large sheets of sterile paper that was provided for using as a basis for carrying and moving things around. So I took a sheet of that every time and wrote my notes next to the VSC and where I was at the time in pencil on that. And, of course, they -- actually they're a -- one sheet of paper, so these are just trimmed up so that we can get them in the file after the event. That is why they appear the way they do.

Q. And the red ink?

A. The red ink was me yesterday going through and checking that I was right, if you see what I mean.

Q. Okay. And just if I could, so these are actually separate pieces of paper which you recorded notes which you then inserted into your working notebook or whatever it is --

A. Yes, indeed --

Q. I --

THE INTERPRETER: Speakers are kindly asked not to overlap. ¹⁸⁴³⁹ Thank you very much.

THE WITNESS: My fault.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Just some very brief questions. There's a logical explanation for you having separate pieces of paper, recording notes, and then inserting it into your ordinary notebook, correct?

A. Yes. Different functions. Took a clean piece of paper and made notes. And sometimes if we went over a session, because we broke, obviously, during the day, as the Court breaks, and before we left the room we had to clean everything, we had to put everything back in its box, and make sure it was all secure and then --

Q. Sir --

A. -- come back and resume.

Q. Well, the point I want to make, though, is, the fact that they're separate pieces of paper doesn't mean they're not authentic, and it's not evidence that they're per se fraudulent, it's just that's what you needed to do given the circumstances you found yourself in; right?

A. Absolutely.

Q. Okay. Thank you.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, I have nothing further with these documents, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Then could we invite the -- Mr. Browne to provide the documents to the Court Officer so that they will be given to Madam Registrar.

Madam Registrar, may I take it that you'll be able to make colour ¹⁸⁴⁴⁰ companies still today before the end of the testimony of Mr. Browne. Now, once we've done that, Mr. Groome, you're the one who will upload them into e-court?

MR. GROOME: Yes, Your Honour, we can do that.

JUDGE ORIE: Very well. And then, Madam Registrar, the number reserved for those documents not yet uploaded in e-court would be ...

THE REGISTRAR: The reserved number will be P3110, Your Honours.

JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. I could already -- of course, if we are talking about the originals, we could already decide on admission. Is there any problem with the Prosecution at a later stage making up its final mind on whether the originals would be needed or whether we could do with a copy? I'm looking at you, Mr. Jordash, and you, Mr. Petrovic. I mean its content rather than --

MR. JORDASH: No problem.

JUDGE ORIE: No problem. Then I suggest, Mr. Groome, that we work with the copies so that Mr. Browne is keeping the originals. I take it that you'll keep them anyhow, Mr. Browne.

THE WITNESS: Always. Yes. Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Okay. Then once uploaded, P3110 is admitted into evidence.

Madam Registrar, you'll take care that it is a accurate copy that will be uploaded and will be part of e-court.

Please proceed, Mr. Groome.

MR. GROOME: Thank you, Your Honour. ¹⁸⁴⁴¹

Q. Mr. Browne, I'd first like to deal briefly with ESDA. There was some amount of discussion yesterday. And my question is, is simply this: Do the indentations that an ESDA machine could reveal and record deteriorate over time? In other words, if you were allowed to use the ESDA machine now, would you still be able to recover and record the indentations in the pages of the book which you wished to look at?

A. That's a pretty broad question, Your Honour, and I'm not trying to avoid to answer it. It depends how the documents have been treated or how they've been preserved. I mean, if the documents, any particular page - and I'm not talking in this place, I'm talking generically - if any particular pages got wet, then the ESDA process wouldn't work. It's as simple as that. If -- it is for this reason that pages that have been treated for fingerprints cannot be ESDA'd because, of course, the process of dipping for finger-prints wets the paper and all the indentations remain secret --

Q. Mr. Browne, maybe it will be more efficient, rather than going into all the possibilities, if I simply tell you that no one has touched those books since you last touched them and there's been no water damaged. They've been stored in the way that you found them and the way that you returned them.

A. I would expect that if there were any indentations in those pages that the ESDA machine ought to be able to reveal them.

Q. Thank you. Now, you first did a cursory examination of a few of the books to determine whether a comprehensive examination was merited; correct? ¹⁸⁴⁴²

A. Yes. To see if there were any anomalies that were in any of the books.

Q. And how many of the books did you examine on that first occasion?

A. May I refer to my report? because it's the easiest way I've actually ...

THE INTERPRETER: Could the interpreters kindly remind the parties to pause between questions and answers. Thank you.

THE WITNESS: I examined 14, 16 to 19, 22 and 23, or viewed them in -- on the 1st and 2nd of March at the NFI in the presence of investigator Erin Gallagher.

MR. GROOME:

Q. And when was that?

A. The 1st and 2nd of March. 2011, I beg your pardon.

Q. And the emphatic conclusion that was in the original court, that no reliance could be placed on the books and modified yesterday to limited reliance could be placed upon them, you did not reach that conclusion after your cursory review in March 2011, did you?

A. No. Because what I had was a few books with anomalies, what appeared to be anomalies, in some cases -- well, in one particular case a great many anomalies. But if learned counsel will remember from yesterday his learned question about Mr. Jones's letter, in isolation it's not possible to form any conclusion. We need reference material. I had 20 other books to use as reference material, and that is why I asked to examine all of them to see what the norm was, effective.

Q. And in March -- ¹⁸⁴⁴³

THE INTERPRETER: Would the speakers kindly not overlap for the sake of interpretation.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Mr. Browne, perhaps it would be easier if you could try to answer my question specifically and then if there's a further explanation warranted, I'll ask you or Mr. Jordash may ask you some more details about it. And, of course, I'm not trying to cut you off, I'm just trying to get to the point that I'm trying to get to.

When you did this initial examination, did you use the VSC 6000?

A. No. The VSC wasn't available at that time because -- there was a UV light, but the VSC was not available at that time because it wasn't requested because it was only a viewing.

Q. And at this stage had you reached any --

JUDGE ORIE: What -- Mr. Groome asked you to focus on the question. So the answer is simply "no."

THE WITNESS: I understand, Your Honour. I apologise.

JUDGE ORIE: And you started explaining. And it may well be that Mr. Groome would have asked for such an explanation, but that's what he invited you to do, isn't it?

Please proceed, Mr. Groome.

MR. GROOME:

Q. At this stage, after the initial cursory review, had you reached any considered view whether the books were the product of deception?

A. I was unable to do so.

Q. Did you only reach this conclusion after conducting the more ¹⁸⁴⁴⁴ comprehensive examination in October and November of 2011?

A. Yes.

Q. Now, Mr. Browne, I'm going to divide my examination of you into two major sections. First I would like to deal with your observations and conclusions about individual books, and then I would like to focus on your more general conclusions and observations. Do you understand that?

A. Your Honour, yes.

Q. Yesterday I asked that you be given a copy of a chart. And this is uploaded as 65 ter 6438. The chart summarises the conclusions you have made with respect to individual notebooks you examined. Have you had a chance to review that chart?

A. I've read it, yes.

Q. And does it accurately summarise your conclusions with respect to individual books?

A. I think so, yes.

Q. And it's only in English. Can I ask you to look at the screen to your right, and can you see the chart now before you?

A. I can.

Q. When I studied your report, I could see that your findings related to the individual notebooks, that they could be broken down roughly into five different categories. And I'd like to go through each of these categories with you now.

MR. GROOME: At this time, however, Your Honour, I would seek to tender 65 ter 6438 as a demonstrative exhibit. It has no evidential value in and of itself, but summarises other evidence. ¹⁸⁴⁴⁵

JUDGE ORIE: I hear of no objections. Madam Registrar.

THE REGISTRAR: Document 6438 will receive number P3111, Your Honours.

JUDGE ORIE: And is admitted into evidence.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Now, there are nine books which you accept as being written by Mladic and for which there are no anomalies of any significance that you could detect after examining them; correct?

A. That is correct, Your Honour.

Q. And these books are referred to in your report as books 2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 23; correct?

A. You missed out 12.

Q. I apologise. And 12.

A. Yes.

Q. So for these nine books, you accept that they were written by Mladic and there's no scientifically observable anomaly that should cause us concern; is that correct?

A. That is correct, yeah.

Q. Now, Mr. Browne, you are an expert, and I am permitted to ask you hypothetical questions, and I want to do that now. I want you to imagine that the only books you were asked to examine were these nine books. No other books in the collection. And these had been the only nine books that you were asked to examine. Based upon your acceptance of the handwriting and your observation of no anomaly, what conclusion would you ¹⁸⁴⁴⁶ have drawn in your report?

A. Basically that I could find nothing wrong with the books. There was nothing that indicated that they were fraudulent.

Q. Now, in your findings related to book 9, you do not specifically say what the results of your examination using ultraviolet and infrared light were. Does this mean that your examination using these techniques did not reveal anything remarkable?

A. Yes, that is correct. The --

Q. That's sufficient. Unless there's something that you think --

A. No.

Q. -- is misleading about me not allowing you to continue. Would you like to verify in your notes?

A. I'm just checking my notes now, and there was nothing -- no significant faults with the book that would be an anomaly that would cause me to pause.

Q. Now, when I studied your report, a second category emerged. A group of ten notebooks which you observed had from one to ten pages torn from them, and apart from the missing pages in this group of ten notebooks, you did not find any other significant anomaly; is that correct?

A. No, that is correct, Your Honour.

Q. And these are books 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 18, 20, 21, 22, and 24; is that correct?

A. That is correct, Your Honour.

Q. Now, in some cases you were able to determine that there was ¹⁸⁴⁴⁷ nothing written on the pages --

A. -- that we could see.

Q. So, for example, in book 8 you write in paragraph 38 of your report:

"There is no evidence of any indentations from the missing pages, and they have been removed blank."

Correct?

A. Yes.

Q. So in this instance it may have simply have been one of Mr. Mladic's colleagues at a meeting saying, "I forgot my notebook, could I have a sheet of paper," to which he obliged by pulling out a piece of paper from his notebook. It may be as innocent as that.

A. Or even more. He needed a piece of paper to write a note for somebody else to take somewhere else. Yeah. We are speculating there as to why this would happen, but I don't see anything fraudulent in it, to put it that way.

Q. For five of the books, books 4, 6, 7, 21, 22, you found that a single page had been torn out; is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. For book 24 you found that three pages had been torn out.

A. Yes.

Q. Now, in your examination of the books, and in particular of the pages torn from them, did you see any evidence that efforts were made to be deceptive about removing the pages; in other words, were they taken out in a way that was consistent with someone simply tearing a page out ¹⁸⁴⁴⁸ of a book, or were they removed in a manner designed to conceal their removal?

A. None of the book -- none -- I beg your pardon. None of the pages were cut out. They were all torn out and fragments remained. No. No, there was no apparent attempt to hide the fact that they were missing.

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Groome, if you would allow me, because we're now on the subject and we just dealt with paragraph 38 of the report. You said, and you repeated that just in your testimony: There is no evidence of any indentations from the missing pages. And then you add "and they have been removed blank." What do you mean exactly by "removed blank"?

THE WITNESS: Your Honour, if -- one moment, Your Honour. If the front page of this pad which I have written on was removed and I examined the page underneath, if I found indentations, I would be able to establish that something had been written on the page that had been removed.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

THE WITNESS: Unless, of course, the indentations prove to have come -- or were -- we were able to satisfactorily, not evidentially, as it were, but satisfactorily establish that the indentations we are seeing might have come from writing elsewhere in the book.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

THE WITNESS: Then that is -- that is how we're able to say. Now --

JUDGE ORIE: That leads me exactly to my question, Mr. Browne, ¹⁸⁴⁴⁹ which is the following: You say there's no evidence of any indentations from the missing pages, so therefore there's no evidence of writing on the missing pages?

THE WITNESS: That's -- that is.

JUDGE ORIE: So whether they have been removed blank or not, we might not know, because either there was writing which did not leave any indentations, and you explained to us, yesterday, that, for example, pencil writing would not leave any indentations. So therefore, the conclusion that they have been removed blank is based on an assumption that if there had been any writing on it, it was such writing that would have left indentations. Because we do not know whether they were removed blank or not. Would you agree with that?

THE WITNESS: Yes. The majority of the books had been written in ball-point pen. And they do indeed leave indentations. So if we had been able to detect - and we were only using the oblique light method, if you recall, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yep.

THE WITNESS: - we couldn't see indentations in the pages which couldn't be unexplained, shall I say.

JUDGE ORIE: As a matter of fact, there is no evidence of the opposite, that something was written on them.

THE WITNESS: No, correct.

JUDGE ORIE: That's the right conclusion. And not that they were removed blank, because it's a lack of any evidence that there was any writing on it, which led you to conclude that there was no writing on it. ¹⁸⁴⁵⁰ Whereas, the most we could say is that there was no evidence of any writing. Whether there was any writing or not is not for the full hundred per cent established by that fact.

THE WITNESS: Fair enough.

JUDGE ORIE: Would you agree with that?

THE WITNESS: I would.

JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed, Mr. Groome.

MR. GROOME:

Q. So my next question is somewhat different: In your examination of the books, did you see any evidence that pages had been deceptively inserted into the books?

A. No evidence.

Q. So as far as you could tell there was no effort to insert a page that was not there when the original book was written; correct?

A. There was no evidence of such.

Q. In the conclusion section of your report, you say the following: "The supply of the books indicate how easy it is to either rewrite events in a new book or to write up events and then cut the pages into another book."

Since you did not see any objectable -- objectively observable insertions, this conclusion in your report is simply a statement of what is possible and not what was indicated by your study of the books; is that correct?

A. Possible, but not provable.

Q. Now, with respect to books 3, 21, and 24 in this category, you ¹⁸⁴⁵¹ again neglect to indicate whether your examination using infrared or ultraviolet light revealed anything. Should we understand from the absence of any observations that these techniques revealed no anomalies in these books?

A. May I just confirm that a moment, Your Honour. That's correct.

Q. Further, with respect to your last -- to the last notebook, which you refer to as number 24, and discussed in paragraphs 78 to 79 of your report, you have not recorded a conclusion as to whether you consider that that particular notebook has anomalies or not. Did you come to a conclusion whether there were any significant anomalies in book 24?

A. This is book 24. This is the notepad. The -- I -- it could -- the only anomalies I've mentioned, and this is it, it's a very thin notebook, is that possibly three pages have been removed. There is evidence of one page, certainly, having been removed. And that is it. There's nothing else to say. It's a single-entry book, as it were. It's not dated. It's just a notepad that's been written in one go, so to speak.

Q. And that --

A. And that's it.

Q. If we could move to category 3 in my chart, and if we could advance to the next page.

A. Um-hm.

Q. I would like to now move to those books in which you found anomalies. And there were three categories, as I could discern. The ¹⁸⁴⁵² first category are a group of four books which you determined had entries that were made during the same period as entries made in other books; correct?

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Groome, if you would not mind, because otherwise we have to go back to specific books, that I add one or two questions to the last category, especially book 24, which we discussed a minute ago. In your report, you say:

"I consider that the book could have been made with 30 pages, indicating that three pages have been removed."

Now, what, in your expertise, makes it more likely that it was 30 pages than 32 or 28 or 34? You make it -- apparently there's some likelihood for you to refer to 30 pages, where it's not clear to me on what that is based.

THE WITNESS: Your Honour, yes. The -- the -- this is a wire-bound reporter's notepad. In other words, we call them wire at the top. And a very, very tight wire. It's a very small circle. There isn't much room for many document -- many pages, anyway. 27 is an unusual number of pages. In the general scheme of things, they tend to go for even numbers. You have the cover at the front, the cover at the back, and you have pages in between. 27 is an unusual number of pages, in my experience. And I've seen a lot of reporter's notepads in my time. We have evidence of a shred showing that at least one page has been removed --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

THE WITNESS: -- so that would bring it up to 28. 28 is also an ¹⁸⁴⁵³ unusual number. I would have expected it to be round figures up to, but no more than, 30. I don't think the spring would take more than 30 pages. And that is why it is -- that -- that -- that three pages have been removed rather than just one, we only have the evidence of one, but the size of the pad and the unusual number of pages that would remain, and that is all. That's the only basis of my assertion that 30 pages is likely to be. What it means is completely beyond me. Just a use of pages.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And you say it's general experience, so you have no statistical data which says --

THE WITNESS: No.

JUDGE ORIE: -- it's only the 30, and not 32 or 34 or ... it's a -- it's a -- could I say it is a conclusion as far as the number of pages is concerned, not one missing, but is relatively loose conclusion, although it should not be much beyond 30.

THE WITNESS: I would suggest not. I've never seen a book so tightly wire bound, in other words, with so few pages. It has to be said. So that -- that specific size is new to me, or was new to me when I first examined that book.

JUDGE ORIE: So it's difficult for you, anyhow, to compare, because it's the first time that you saw a book --

THE WITNESS: And there's nothing else -- I beg your pardon, I'm speaking over.

JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. Please proceed. ¹⁸⁴⁵⁴

MR. GROOME:

Q. Mr. Browne, I visited our supply closet on the way to court today. Is this the type of wire-bound book that you were now referring to? Reporter's notebook?

A. Could you take it that way. No, no. Yes, but a lot bigger spring than --

Q. Than you had?

A. Well, than book 24.

Q. And as you've just testified, this particular book has the round number of a hundred pages listed on the cover.

A. Yes, indeed.

Q. Can I ask you, In trying to determine how many pages were in the wire-bound book that you saw, did you seek any assistance in trying to translate what may have been written on the cover which may have indicated how many pages were in the book?

A. No.

Q. Now, if we could return to the third category, as I've categorised them, books that were used concurrently with other books, you've identify four; is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Those being 15, 17, 21, and 22; correct?

A. Yes.

Q. We've discussed this yesterday, so there's no need to spend any additional time on it today. I would, however, like to take you to a page in one of these particular books. ¹⁸⁴⁵⁵

MR. GROOME: And could I ask that P394 be displayed on the screens before us. And if we could please go immediately to page 20 in the original and page 15 in the English.

Q. And, Mr. Browne, I'm going to show you an entry from book -- sorry, book 21, and it's dated the 30th of June, 1995. Now, we have understood your concerns about this book, namely, that it has entries during the same time-period as another book. My question to you is simply focused on page 20 of the original book. And my question is simply this: Did you make any specific observations about this particular page which would lead you to believe that it is fraudulent?

A. Sorry, which book are we talking about? Oh --

Q. This is --

A. Oh, book 21. I beg your pardon. I was looking at the wrong -- wrong place. I do apologise. This is -- this page here?

Q. Yes. So my question is focussing on this page, and, again, it's from a book that overlaps in time-period with another book.

A. Um-hm.

Q. Is there anything about this page that after examining it using the scientific instruments that you did, is there any observable indication that it is the product of fraud or deception?

A. There was the one page missing, but it -- um --

Q. Well that --

A. Which we discussed, yesterday. Which I didn't -- I've recorded and noted that it was missing. It didn't impact on my examination, so to ¹⁸⁴⁵⁶ speak, because it was the page after the area I was specifically looking for. On this page there is an alteration, as was observed yesterday, but there was no infrared evidence that it was done in a different pen or a different ink, and therefore that's it.

Q. So that would mean that if someone were to have made an alteration to this page, where we can see the cross-out at the bottom, if it was done at a time differently than when this original entry was made, that person would have had to have remembered to use the same pen that they used in the original entry?

A. Pen or the same ink. It's the chemical composition of the ink that is important.

MR. GROOME: Thank you. I'm finished with this exhibit.

Q. The fourth category of findings in your report relates to the text of a book that's been altered. In this category we find book number 19. With respect to this book, you found that on page 1429 of the book, in an entry for a meeting of the 7th of October, 1994, the time had been changed from 1120 to read 1320 hours; correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Any reason to think that this was any reason other than simply a mistake recording the time that was then corrected?

A. No. It was done in the same pen again.

JUDGE ORIE: The same ink, I take.

THE WITNESS: I beg your pardon. You're correct.

JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.

MR. GROOME: ¹⁸⁴⁵⁷

Q. Now, the last category deals with book number 16, a book that in your view was heavily damaged; correct?

A. That is correct.

Q. Before we get to book 16, let me put my hypothetical question to you again: If you had looked at all these books but did not have book 16 - you were not asked to examine that - based on what you found in these books, what conclusion would you have put in your report?

A. It would have been a pretty bland report, to be fair. The -- the entries that caused me some concern because they differed from what had been established as the norm from the earlier numbered books which were outside the scope of my examination but were used by me for comparison purposes, there were very few anomalies per se that one would refer to.

Q. And would you have had a conclusion? Well, yesterday you said that your conclusion now would be that there could be limited reliance on the book. Could I ask you to redraft that sentence if you looked at every book, examined every book but book 16: How would you draft that sentence then?

A. I would have to draft it in a -- in a -- rather than saying it's a limited reliance, basically absent the -- the problems of continuity and so on and so forth with these books, the -- there are a few anomalies -- possible anomalies within them, but, um, no substantive evidence of fraud.

Q. Now we can turn our attention to book number 16. You identified several distinct features of damage to this book, and I'd like to go through them one by one. The first type of damage to the book is that ¹⁸⁴⁵⁸ the cover is completely disconnected from the contents of the book; correct?

A. Correct.

Q. The second type of damage is that there are 28 pages that are loose --

A. Correct.

Q. -- as you described "barely attached at all"; is that correct?

A. That is correct.

Q. The third type of damage is that "54 pages are in misalignment with their neighbours."

A. Correct.

Q. We have discussed this at length yesterday. Anything you would like to add to your evidence yesterday - no need to repeat anything - but is there anything else you would like to add to what you've said on this issue yesterday?

A. No, I don't think so.

Q. It seems from our discussion yesterday that this misalignment could be either the product of deception or a less than perfect manufacturing process; correct?

A. That is possible.

Q. As I understand your evidence, most of these misaligned pages are still attached to the book; is that correct?

A. Yes, to a lesser or a greater extent.

Q. Now, the fourth type of anomaly is that you believe it is possible that some of the pages found loose in the book are not from the ¹⁸⁴⁵⁹ book itself but were from a separate source and were placed between the covers of the book after they were written on; is that correct?

A. That is a possibility.

Q. Now can we please take a closer look at the first three types of damage: the disassociated cover, the 28 pages that are barely attached, and the 54 pages that appear loose. Did you make any objective observation that indicated that someone did this in an effort to deceive the reader?

A. It's very difficult to make an objective observation under these -- the terms of the protocol, because some of the examination I would have liked to have done would have possible been construed as arguably destructive. There are other tests I would have done, and we all know the one I'm going to mention, so I'm not going to bother mentioning, I mean ESDA. But the --

Q. So is it your evidence that you are unable to draw a conclusion, based upon your examination, whether or not there was deception involved with respect to these three types of damage found in book 16?

A. I'm unable to state with certainty that they have been -- that they are forgeries, that there has been forgery. But I'm also unable to say that this document has not been forged.

Q. And based upon the test that you were able to conduct, were there any objectively observable indicators that the damage to these books was done with the intent to deceive?

A. Mens rea is very difficult to establish. Um ...

Q. I'm not asking you to put yourself in the mind of the person. ¹⁸⁴⁶⁰ I'm asking for objectively observable indications.

A. But just said "intent to deceive," which is a little more woolly, as it were. Different pens have been used. They've not -- they weren't observed to have been used across pages, that is, from one page to the other. Well, no, sorry, they weren't observed the other way, I mean; not used across pages. There were evidence of pen -- there were pen 1 being used at the top of a page, pen 2 being used at the bottom of the page and on the page -- the next page along, so that basically they did run through.

So there were no anomalies reference the inks per se. There were no indications of alterations on the -- some of the pages, but I couldn't exclude the possibility that pages had been substituted. This is where the amount of glue comes in. It's easy to just put them in with a little touch of glue rather than anything else. We can't analyse the glue. We couldn't analyse the glue at that time.

Q. Let me ask my question a different way: Yesterday you said, at transcript page 31, quote, in reference to this particular book or these type of books:

"They are not exactly top-of-the-range books." Is it possible that the damage you saw could simply be wear and tear on the books under the conditions in which they were used? Is that a possibility?

A. It is. Except we have the -- the -- the earlier book which, although Your Honour, I think, made the comment about the different period that the earlier book was used. There was one other -- only one ¹⁸⁴⁶¹ other example of this book, with the insert, the page inserts. It's an awful lot of wear and tear. It has to be said, we don't know how much damage might have been done during the scanning processes, because this book hasn't been properly glued together, perhaps, and some of the pages became detached after the seizure. I can't tell.

Q. So it's possible that the damage you saw has nothing to do with the author of the document but is simply the product of efforts to seize and record the evidence after it came into possession of the police and then the Office of the Prosecutor. Is that what your evidence is now?

A. Well, that's -- that's a possibility. We have no chain of evidence regarding how the documents were handled after they were seized, so that is pure conjecture. I mean ...

Q. Now, this particular book is bound by what is referred to in the trade "a perfect binding"?

A. That is correct.

Q. Now, as I understand your report, the books you examined were bound in one of three ways: Signature binding, wire spiral binding, and perfect binding; correct?

A. Correct.

Q. Now, as I understand the process, perfect binding is a manufacturing method in which glue is applied to the edge of individual sheets of paper and a cover is glued around it; correct?

A. Correct.

Q. And the glue is thermally activated --

A. [Overlapping speakers] ... ¹⁸⁴⁶²

Q. -- that is, it is heated as part of the process, and as it cools, it sets forming a bond between the sheets and the covers; correct?

A. Correct.

Q. And again, going to the samples that I took from the supply closet, this particular book that I'm holding up now would be an example of a notebook that would be perfectly bound, would use the perfect binding method; correct?

A. Yes, perfect bound.

Q. And I've already showed the wire spiral bound. Another method of manufacturing books, in fact, an older method, is to take several sheets of paper, fold them, stitch them with thread to create signatures of multiple pages, and then stitch the signatures together with thread and to use glue and thread to attach all of this into a cover, very often a hard cover; is that correct?

A. Yes. Very often the signatures are glued as well together.

Q. And this particular notebook that I'm holding up now would be an example of a signature-bound notebook, would it not? I can pass it up to you for a closer examination.

A. Please.

MR. GROOME: Could I ask that the witness be shown -- it's a blank notebook.

THE WITNESS: Thank you. Yes, there are six -- six -- six signatures in this book.

MR. GROOME: Okay.

THE WITNESS: And cloth-bound. ¹⁸⁴⁶³

MR. GROOME:

Q. Now, if we consider the average novel that we can buy in a book store, the signature method is used to create the hard-cover edition of the book, and the perfect binding method is used to create the paperback edition of the book; correct?

A. Yes. All paperbacks are perfect bound.

Q. The signature method is much more durable than perfect binding; correct?

A. Yes. It's very often used for thicker books as well. It's the only safe way, otherwise the pages pop out.

Q. Now, in paragraph 55 of your report you note a disparity between the amount of glue visible on the spine and the paucity of glue on the individual pages; correct?

A. Correct.

Q. This could indicate an error in the manufacturing process, could it not?

A. Yes. It may be that it wasn't heated properly and the pages weren't set. On reflection, I don't know. But if that were the case, I would expect to see fewer marks in the spine with the pages. I'm not sure about that. I'd have to look at it again, which isn't going to happen.

Q. If the pages you have identified as misaligned but attached to the book, if these pages were inserted afterward by a person attempting to deceive the viewer of the book, this person would have to have access to a machine used to make the perfect binding, to heat the glue and to ¹⁸⁴⁶⁴ put it in that book; is that not correct?

A. No, not necessarily. He doesn't have to use the same glue, does he? He just has to have enough to touch whatever adhesive he uses to hold the page in place at the moment, so to speak -- for the moment.

Q. And based on your experience as a documenter examiner, would it be possible, perhaps another type of expert, would it be possible for an expert to look at the glue and determine whether it was thermally activated glue used in a perfect binding machine or some other type of glue used to affix the pages to the book?

A. It ought to be possible, yes. Chemical analysis of the glues would be a useful exercise.

Q. Now, in the perfect binding process, as much as we might try to align all of the edges of the pages before they are glued, it is impossible to do that perfectly, and it is for that reason that after the glue has dried, the edges of the book are trimmed with what's known as a guillotine - a machine with a very large, very sharp, very dangerous blade that can slice through the book and trim the edges so they are all flush; correct?

A. Correct.

Q. Now, your report does not say that there was any irregularity about the edges of these misaligned pages. And I take that fact that you did not find anything remarkable about them that they were flush with the other pages in the book as would be expected in any other perfectly bound book.

A. That's correct. ¹⁸⁴⁶⁵

Q. So if these misaligned pages are not the result of the manufacturing process but were inserted after the manufacturing process, the person doing so would have to have the technical knowledge and the access to a printing shop to trim the edges of the paper so that they would be flush; correct?

A. Why?

Q. How would it be possible -- I'm holding up a paper back here, and we can see that the edges are flush. If the edges are flush on the misaligned pages that you've identified with the remainder of the book, doesn't that mean that if a person inserted them after the fact, they would have to have access to a guillotine and retrim the entire book so that the pages were flush again?

A. No, I'm sorry. Not necessarily. If he's got a book from the same -- of the same manufacture, then he can take a page out of that book, it's going to be the same size and shape, and put it into this book. He doesn't necessarily need to make -- all he has to do is make sure they align.

Q. Well, presumably when they made the original book - and I think you spoke about trimming the books yesterday --

A. I did.

Q. -- and you spoke about the process of trimming the books - if what you're saying is correct, the printer is using the same paper, why is trimming needed after the book is glued together?

A. You mean at the time of manufacture?

Q. Yes. ¹⁸⁴⁶⁶

A. Because at the time of manufacture the paper will be rough-cut around the edges. They won't necessarily be squared-off at all. They'll be glued in but only after they've finished it. It's like passports. Passports are put together, and only after the cover is affixed and everything is set are they guillotined to make sure all the pages are flush. And the same applies to this. They don't need to take care with the outer edges of the pages until the whole thing is glued together, then they trim it.

Q. Is it your evidence that a person could take a number of pages from another book, glue them into a perfectly bound book, and they could do it in such a way that all of the edges of the page, inserted pages, would be flush?

A. With a bit of care, yes. I mean, you're taking pages from one perfectly bound book of the same design and manufacture, presumably, because it doesn't work any other way, and you can put it into another book. Page substitution is very common. It's common in contract law, actually.

Q. Now, book 16 was used several months in a war zone. Is it possible that some rough handling could account for much of the degradation?

A. It's possible. I have no knowledge of when it was used and where it was used, but don't forget it is protected by the other cover.

Q. But you have --

A. [Overlapping speakers] ...

Q. You have no way of knowing whether it fell repeatedly to the ¹⁸⁴⁶⁷ ground, was tossed in the back of a jeep with ammunition boxes, or was in Mladic's hand when he dove for cover. There's just simply no way for you to know any of this, is there?

A. Well, the outside of the cover of the book - I can't show you because it's -- the outside of the cover of the book doesn't give any indications of people under fire and thrashing themselves to the ground to escape death or injury.

JUDGE ORIE: Could I then ask you: If people are under fire holding a book, what kind of visible effect would that have on the book?

THE WITNESS: Well the -- the -- the -- I'll explain. The paper, the -- as it were, the content of the book, is a separate book, perfectly bound, inserted into this leather cover. And the leather cover is padded. It's quite a smart piece of book, actually. And the book, the inserted pages, are significantly smaller than the leather cover. So the leather cover is actually covering most of the pages. I would expect, if you're -- if -- if you have to dive for cover or ... you can't get this book into your back pocket --

JUDGE ORIE: No, but --

THE WITNESS: -- in any event.

JUDGE ORIE: -- you told us the following, you said: "The outside cover of the book doesn't give any indications of people under fire and thrashing themselves ..."

What I was wondering is whether that makes any difference for a book which -- I mean, being under fire, does it make any difference, whether you have book A or book B, whether the pages are well covered ¹⁸⁴⁶⁸ by ... I have difficulties in imagining how being under fire has a direct affect on a book, whether the pages are well covered by the leather cover or not. I'm just trying to imagine what you are saying, that is, that you expected, apparently, a certain kind of effect on a book if you're under fire, which is very difficult for me to understand.

THE WITNESS: The concept of the book being used under fire, as it were, came from learned counsel a few moments ago.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

THE WITNESS: I had assumed the book would be in brief-case --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

THE WITNESS: -- or something of that nature, or some bag. But the concept that learned friend counsel -- and I haven't got his thing here.

JUDGE ORIE: Well, I can take you to that, and that's maybe part of my concern. What Mr. Groome said is -- let me find it again. He said:

"Now, book 16 was used several months in a war zone. Is it possible that some rough handling could account for much of the degradation?"

So Mr. Groome was not --

THE WITNESS: I thought he mentioned diving for cover to avoid injury or something, did he not?

JUDGE ORIE: Let me see.

MR. GROOME: A bit later on I did.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, yes, that's -- or was Mladic -- what he said ¹⁸⁴⁶⁹ is:

"You have no way of knowing whether it found [sic] repeatedly to the --" it's not perfectly clear what the transcript says there.

MR. GROOME: Fell repeatedly to the ground.

JUDGE ORIE: To the ground, yes. Was to find in the back of a jeep with amounts --

MR. GROOME: Ammunition boxes.

JUDGE ORIE: -- ammunition boxes, or was in Mladic's hands when he dove for cover. I understood this question to be that you have no knowledge whatsoever about the circumstances under which the book was handled. And if you say your response is, I do not find any indications -- so as if you would be able, apart from a general description of damage, degradation, whether you could find anything as what happens to a book if it's under fire.

You started explaining that it was the leather cover which might have protected it, and at the same time you say it may have been in a suitcase. I think, could we agree, that, first of all, the type of damage a book would suffer, in whatever way it's bound, is very difficult to describe in general terms and that apart from that we have got no idea about the circumstances under which it was handled and that therefore no conclusions, neither positive nor negative, can be drawn?

THE WITNESS: May I be permitted to --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Please.

THE WITNESS: -- try and explain better what I was trying to say, Your Honour? ¹⁸⁴⁷⁰

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

THE WITNESS: The book I examined was in fact the paper insert. The book, as a whole, of course, is inside the leather covers. There are no -- there are no unusual scratch marks or scuffing on the outside of the leather cover. I would expect the book itself, the book I examined, to be largely protected by the cover. That is the point of covering books. All -- all books have a cover, the cover protects the contents of the book. In this case, the leather cover is significantly bigger, it is padded, and therefore I would expect a degree of protection to be afforded to the book.

The mishandling of the book per se - and it is held within the cover - the mishandling of the book that I examined, as it were, the one with the paper cover and so on and so forth, I wouldn't expect to see any particular damage there, because it's protected by the leather of the outside, but that doesn't mean to say it didn't have rough handling. But the rough handling of the book would have to be during the opening of it, because otherwise it's just held, it's a book. There were no stains on any of the pages, you know, from mud, or whatever, that would show that the book had opened -- had been thrown and opened and landed in a puddle or in some dirt. There was no unusual sustaining or dirt in the book. So I can't see - and you're correct, Your Honour, of course, to say that I'm not an expert in what effect warfare has on a book - but there is nothing in the book that would indicate that handling through military purposes, as opposed to just handling by writing and opening and closing. And I can't comment on that latter point either, because I wasn't there. ¹⁸⁴⁷¹

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Jordash.

MR. JORDASH: And I was wondering if we might be assisted. I know my learned friend is entitled to put hypotheticals, but if my learned friend has a particular has a particular example in mind of the commander of the VRS actually being involved in this way, in combat, diving for cover, then it might assist the witness with a concrete example. From this trial or any other trial.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, my point is, it's not that I have. It's -- my point is that we just don't know, and that's simply my point. Your Honour, if I could continue my --

JUDGE ORIE: I think we have to accept that, Mr. Jordash, although it would have assisted you, I mean, to invent now an example where Mr. Groome says he has no specific --

MR. JORDASH: Sorry, Your Honour, I'm not asking him to invent one --

JUDGE ORIE: No, no.

MR. JORDASH: -- I was just wondering that if that was their case that this did happen, that we might be pointed to the evidence of that happening, because I couldn't recall any.

JUDGE ORIE: But I do understand that Mr. Groome has no such specific examples of circumstances under which the book were handled which would allow him to put a more concrete question to the witness. Is that correct, Mr. Groome?

MR. GROOME: That's correct.

MR. JORDASH: Thank you. Thank you, Your Honour. May we take a ¹⁸⁴⁷² break, please?

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. We are already a bit late. Mr. Groome, could you give us an estimate as to how much time you would need after the break?

MR. GROOME: It's going a bit slower than I thought, Your Honour. I think I definitely will finish well before the end of the next session, but I'm unable to say with any greater precision than that. As you can see, some questions have led to very long exchanges. I'll do my best to try to keep the witness focussed, but --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

MR. GROOME: -- I don't want to cut him off either.

JUDGE ORIE: And perhaps in view of my own questions I should take more care that I'm not mixing up net time and overall time. And I'll ask the Registrar for further details.

We take a break. And we resume at 10 minutes to 11.00.

--- Recess taken at 10.22 a.m.

--- On resuming at 10.54 a.m.

JUDGE ORIE: Before we continue, a colour copy has been made of the notes of Mr. Browne. They have been given for inspection to the parties during the break. I do understand that all parties are satisfied with their quality of the photocopy; therefore, I would like to return the original to Mr. Browne and to give the photocopy to Mr. Groome to be uploaded. And being the document covered by P3110 and then finally admitted into evidence.

MR. GROOME: Thank you, Your Honour. The Prosecution will do ¹⁸⁴⁷³ that.

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Browne, we'll return the original of your notes, your pencil notes with red ink.

THE WITNESS: I'm grateful, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed, Mr. Groome. I think you were informed about the time you have used until now.

MR. GROOME: Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Mr. Browne, just returning again to my perfect-bound notebook which I took this morning from the supply cupboard, I could go into a stationery store and buy a leather cover that I could stick this in, couldn't I?

A. I suspect so. I don't see any reason why not. That's had a head-bound book, though, isn't it?

Q. Yes.

A. The books we're dealing with in book 24 is a side-bound book, so you would need a -- as I say, it's like a cover you get for a passport. You need the opening the right way around. But there's no reason why you -- I don't know what sizes these leather --

Q. I'm not really shopping for a leather cover for this book.

A. I guess not.

Q. My point is the following: How are you so sure that Mr. Mladic had a leather cover on this book from the day he started using it? Isn't it equally possible that the book began to the fall part and when it was ¹⁸⁴⁷⁴ in tatters, either he himself or someone else said, Look, here's a cover to put all of that in so you don't lose any of it? Isn't that equally possible?

A. Well, of course it's equally possible. It seems rather pointless. The -- book 12 comes in a similar leather cover, in fact, an identical-design leather cover. And again, the book is inside. I mean, the book and the cover come together, I would suggest. But I have no evidence as to what that -- I mean, that is speculation.

JUDGE ORIE: Let's refrain from all kind of speculation. I mean, I could say: When 16 was falling apart, one would have thought, Let's protect 12 as well with the same leather -- I mean, it's all in the realm of speculation. Where whatever happened to the books before they were found, and to some extent even after they were found, is relatively unclear. And we have to -- unless we receive any additional evidence, we have to live with that for the time being.

Mr. Groome.

MR. GROOME:

Q. I guess, Mr. Browne, my point is, is your assumption that it had been in the leather cover from the beginning has an impact on how much weight should be put on your conclusion about the damage we find in the book; correct?

A. To a certain extent, yes. It's an informed assumption that at the time of discovery, the book was in the leather cover.

Q. Now, at page -- transcript page 36, you said: "I assumed the book would be in a brief-case." ¹⁸⁴⁷⁵ Is that another informed assumption that you made in evaluating this book?

A. Well, no. Well, yes, it is, of course. But it's based on the fact that senior generals -- I just wonder -- we were going back to your hypothesis of a senior general being in action, having to dive for cover, and so on and so forth, would he be wondering around with his diary in his hand in that situation, or would it be in a brief-case? I mean, that's -- it's as much speculation as the original question.

Q. And the assumption that you have made in your analysis is that Mr. Mladic travelled around over the course of his work with a brief-case containing his notebooks; correct?

A. I have no idea how much travelling Mr. Mladic did.

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Groome, can we move on? The point is perfectly clear. Let's move on.

MR. GROOME:

Q. If I can return for a minute to the perfectly-bound issue that I was discussing before. You agreed with me that a guillotine is used to trim the edge of the book; is that correct?

A. Correct.

Q. Now, is it not possible, under microscopic examination, to see slight imperfections in the blade, and as it cuts across the paper, if there's a slight microscopic bump or indentation on the blade, it leaves its mark on the paper it cuts, does it not?

A. Yes, it can do.

Q. And my question to you then is: Given the microscopic capability ¹⁸⁴⁷⁶ of the VSC 6000, did you ever attempt to look at the microscopic edges of the misaligned pages to see whether or not the imperfections left there from the cutting blade were either from the same knife or from a different knife?

A. No, I didn't. And the reason for that is, it's terribly difficult to put pages back together again to establish whether there's any disparity. I know exactly the point learned counsel means, but it is very difficult to reconstruct, to establish bustration [phoen] cuts in the cutting. If we'd seen it in original form, you can see the blades. But once it's been taken apart, putting it back together again so that you can meaningfully establish it is very, very difficult.

Q. That would resolve the question of whether these pages were inserted after the fact, wouldn't it?

A. Yes. I mean, you would have to actually compress, once you've assembled the pages, so that it's square. You have to then compress them so that you can see the pattern and then you have to put them under a different microscope. The VSC hasn't quite got the depth to be able to do that. I would have to be done under a different microscope with a slightly larger -- a slightly lower magnification, that is to say, a wider field.

Q. Now, if I can address the conclusions you draw about book 16. You say, quote, in your report:

"The damage to book 16 is the strongest indicator of fraud in the whole series."

A. I'm sorry, where are we? ¹⁸⁴⁷⁷

Q. In the conclusion section. It's page 4. You haven't numbered those paragraphs.

A. I beg your pardon. Yes, I have it here. Yes.

Q. Now, when you asked you what your report would look -- have looked like had you had all the books besides 16, you said today, at transcript page 25:

"No substantive evidence of fraud." Is it my understanding that because you found damage on 16 it somehow poisons the authenticity of all of the other books? Is that your evidence?

A. No. I mean, the damage to book 16 is still the strongest indicator of fraud. Now you've put it back into the equation. We have the duplicate books, we have the chronology issue, so that's covered earlier. It's not necessarily that the damage to book 16 poisons every other book. It's a corpus of findings that enables -- that not enables me but persuades me that there are -- that there are problems with the veracity of these books.

Q. At paragraphs -- now, I want to now move to the second part of my examination, the general points and conclusions that you draw. At paragraphs 89 to 90 of your report, you refer to the documentation regarding the recovery of the notebooks, and state:

"The Marinkovic letter mentions that Mrs. Mladic was allowed to have the exhibits given back to her so she could number all the pages of all the books in the presence of her lawyer before they left the premises. This cannot be true. If it is not true, then it is a lie. If ¹⁸⁴⁷⁸ that is a lie, then the whole of the evidence surrounding these books is suspect."

A. Yes.

Q. This conclusion jumps off the page partly because of its unequivocal nature and partly because it's difficult to work out the reasoning process behind it. Can I ask you to explain what exactly you meant by this sentence?

A. Which sentence, which one?

Q. The quote that I've just --

A. Oh, the whole, the -- both paragraphs. How long did the raid take?

Q. I would have to check the paper work. And unfortunately you're the one in the witness box, not me.

A. Well -- exactly.

JUDGE ORIE: It's my recollection it was anything between four or five hours. That's from the early morning until early afternoon.

MR. JORDASH: I think 7.40 until 2.00 in the afternoon.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, that's what is on -- is my recollection. Let's --

THE WITNESS: It -- every one of these books has had a ball-point pen number added near the top of each page, each side of each piece of paper. Now, I haven't counted up how many pages are involved in that exercise. I don't know if anybody else has. Presumably the scans would -- the scan numbers would be able to tell exactly how many pages are involved. The idea is that at some stage, and before the books were ¹⁸⁴⁷⁹ removed, Mrs. Mladic, according to the letter, said, Hang on, before they leave, I want to number all of the pages in all of the books.

MR. GROOME:

Q. So it's your conclusion that that cannot be true because that -- in your view that would have been impossible to achieve in six hours. It seems --

A. Well, it's unlikely to have been six hours because I don't know precisely -- because we have absolutely no detailed information about the raid itself and who discovered what and when, and so on and so forth, and when all the evidence was gathered together. But at some stage, according to the Marinkovic letter - and somewhere I have that, a copy of it --

Q. Well, let me ask my next question. We now know why you've concluded that that cannot be accurate. You go on to say: "This cannot be true. If it is not true, then it is a lie." Who is it that you suggest is advancing a lie in this manner?

A. Well, this is the difficult bit, isn't it? Because this letter is actually -- the letter from Marinkovic is actually reporting what has happened by some other person in some other circumstance. I don't think that Marinkovic was actually present at the raid. Therefore, it's -- it's -- it has to be a false statement. I mean, if we go into the paragraph after the notebooks were found, they were shown to Mrs. Mladic - I can't pronounce her name, I'm afraid - and she did not deny that they belonged to her husband, Mr. Mladic. However, she said that being aware of their importance, she was going to paginate them by ¹⁸⁴⁸⁰ hand. And then the exhibits, having been recovered, the result of the search, they were actually given back to the householder.

Q. Mr. Browne, perhaps that shouldn't have been done in your view. Perhaps -- well, I guess what I'm -- my question is simply focused on: Who are the possible candidates to have advanced this lie, in your mind? Is it Mr. Marinkovic and possibly some unnamed police officers that were also involved in the seizure? Is that who you are saying lied?

A. Mr. Marinkovic appears to be just the reporter of the lie, in that the letter is describing something at which he was not present.

Q. So is it your evidence that you believe the people involved in the seizure have advanced a lie in this regard?

A. That is a strong possibility.

Q. Now you go on, then, to make a leap in logic by saying: "If that is a lie, then the whole of the evidence surrounding these books is suspect."

Can I ask you to explain the logic of, if it's true that someone involved in the seizure process did not say something true, said it took shorter than it did, or whatever - I'm not exactly sure what you think they lied about - but if, let's say, there's one individual in that seizure process who lied about the amount of time it took for numbering these books, how does that affect the whole of the evidence surrounding these books?

A. Well, it's -- it's the domino affect, isn't it? Once you start with a false statement on the -- the production of these books, the -- the recovery of these books, shall we say, the whole matter then ¹⁸⁴⁸¹ becomes -- is suspect. We have no real idea. We have imperfect photographs. We have imperfect chain of evidence. We have imperfect statements. And then we have this thing. If Mrs. Mladic signed the back of every book, and I believe that is the case, that's not going to take her very long to achieve. But actually physically numbering every page, I don't think she has enough time in the period of that raid to be there with a lawyer as her witness --

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Browne, you are now revisiting what raised your suspicion in the accuracy of the report, whereas the question put to you by Mr. Groome now is a different one. It is that if one person has given inaccurate information, even false information, to what extent that affects all the rest. And what you are doing at this moment is to repeat the reasons for your suspicion, isn't it?

THE WITNESS: I apologise.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. So could you please focus on Mr. Groome's question when answering it.

THE WITNESS: Of course. If there is a lie, then we -- the whole basis of the discovery is suspect. It has to be suspect, because we don't know how many else -- how many other factors have been misleading. It may just be that this paragraph is a misunderstanding, in which case that's fine. But we have no evidence on it. We just have the paragraph as it stands.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Mr. Browne, what I want to suggest to you is that you have applied the analysis that I think has given you a successful career in ¹⁸⁴⁸² the immigration services in that once you identify one element or one serious anomaly, you need to go no further. I think you said yesterday, once you identify one false stamp in a passport, the entire document is considered a forged document. Isn't that the analysis that you have applied here? That you've examined these books, they were imperfectly handled, no doubt, you have found a mistake in the handling, and you have written off the entire books, the authenticity of the entire books, in one fell swoop. Isn't that what has happened here?

A. No. I've reported the books I found the anomalies with, and I've reported the books that I found no anomalies with. The handling of the books is something else again, and there are apparently serious anomalies. It may be misreporting, I don't know. The continuity of these books is, frankly, a nightmare. And the continuity in the facts surrounding the search is -- are just limited in the extreme.

JUDGE ORIE: Could I interrupt you. You said "The continuity of these books is, frankly, a nightmare."

You are referring to the overlapping time-periods, is that ...

THE WITNESS: No, I beg your pardon. The way the -- what has happened. The circumstances of the search.

JUDGE ORIE: Okay.

THE WITNESS: The recovery of the books. That continuity.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Okay.

THE WITNESS: No reporting.

JUDGE ORIE: That was unclear to me, but --

THE WITNESS: I apologise. ¹⁸⁴⁸³

JUDGE ORIE: -- thank you for your explanation. Mr. Groome.

MR. GROOME:

Q. I'm conscious of my time, so I don't want to delve into too many ancillary areas, but today at page 29 of the transcript, you stated: "But we have no chain of custody regarding how the documents were handled after they were seized."

Isn't it a fact that you were given the chain of custody form for the books, examined it, and even commented on it and inquired who Ms. Tilly [phoen] was?

A. Oh, that's after it arrived here. Sorry, I meant custody from the moment they were recovered. Ms. Tilly was -- apparently had reopened the books, or the boxes, after -- and resealed them after they -- my viewing of the books in March last year --

Q. I am not asking you to go into --

A. No, but that was --

Q. -- what Ms. Tilly did. What I'm asking you to deal with is, it seems that, even today now, you've made a rather blanket statement about being no chain of custody, when, in fact, you were actually provided forms of chain of custody, albeit from the time the books came into the custody of the Office of the Prosecutor.

A. Yes. The chain of custody I'm talking about is from the moment of recovery.

Q. I'd like to now move to general conclusions section of your report, and I want to deal at some length with your conclusions based on ¹⁸⁴⁸⁴ the perceived neatness of the entries.

As I understand this particular conclusion, it is your evidence that although you accept that the books were written by Mr. Mladic, the neatness of the handwriting is a clear indication to you that the entries were not written contemporaneously but written up after the events they describe; is that correct?

A. It is an indication, yes.

Q. Apart from your observation of the handwriting, that the handwriting is neat, was there anything else that observed -- that you observed that led you to this conclusion? For example, the age of the ink, or any other scientific observation.

A. The age of the ink was not something I could comment on in any event, but no.

Q. So there's nothing other than your perception of the handwriting as neat?

A. That's right.

Q. And you accept that the impact of this perception is rather significant in the conclusions you draw in your report, do you not?

A. Ah, yeah -- well, yes, it's part of the conclusions.

MR. GROOME: Can I ask that we see 65 ter 5016. It is an entry from book 21. And I'd ask that we go immediately to e-court page 227 in the original; and in the English, 200.

Q. Now, while it's being brought to our screens, let me just explain to you that we have the capacity with the monitor in front of you for you to draw or make annotations on the exhibit that we see, and then we can ¹⁸⁴⁸⁵ preserve it so that we can look at it later. We're still trying to get up 227. This is in fact 227 before us.

MR. GROOME: I would ask that we not zoom in on any portion of the page.

Q. I'm going to ask, if you can, with the assistance of the Court Officer: Can you take the pen and can you circle the types of characteristics, specific characteristics, that you refer to when you say "the handwriting is neat."

A. Well, I don't need to zoom in. We have an alteration to the date at the top, and that's it. We have a change of pen at the bottom. And that's that. But by and large there are no -- it is neat writing. There are no alterations, crossings out. I don't know what it means, obviously. What's to say?

Q. So it's in a general sense that it's neat. It's not that you were able to spot any particular thing that you could say was neat. Is that how I should understand your evidence?

A. Yeah. I mean, that -- that -- it is the look and the appearance.

Q. Okay. Thank you.

MR. GROOME: I won't ask the witness to mark on it based on that answer. So the record should reflect that he has not.

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Browne, could I then ask you one additional question. It appears to me, and again I've not gone through all of the notebooks, that, for example, the size of the letters is on the -- well, let's say, at the end of the first portion of this is quite different, for example, from the second portion. ¹⁸⁴⁸⁶ And one of the other things that strikes me when looking at it, that if you would - and that is apparently your suggestion - if the text would have been copied on the basis of rough notes, that you might - and I don't know whether you have compared that - you might not enter into the bottom area where there is some -- where there is some printing in red but, rather, stop and go to the next page. These are just some general observations when looking at this which would, at least, need an explanation for your suggestion that it was all copied on the basis of rough notes.

We find other pages where the handwriting is always same size, et cetera. Could you please comment on some of the things I observed at this very moment in relation to this page?

THE WITNESS: Yeah. I assume you mean the three lines of blue that can be seen near the bottom in an obviously different colour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, they seem to be of a different colour. Yes.

THE WITNESS: Well, that is an inkling. Is it possible to bring up the page after, below this? 553 and -- according to the number at the top.

MR. GROOME: Certainly. With the Chamber's position.

JUDGE ORIE: The simplest thing --

THE WITNESS: [Overlapping speakers] ... I'm sorry, I --

JUDGE ORIE: -- is to go to the next page. That's --

THE WITNESS: Yes, thank you.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

THE WITNESS: And we revert. And again, down at the bottom, we ¹⁸⁴⁸⁷ have another line in the similar ink as we had at the bottom of the one before. I have no idea what they mean, again. And even with rough notes it may be necessary to add something at the bottom that you thought you'd covered but you haven't. It's still neat writing.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, although -- and the comment on the size of the letters on the previous page?

THE WITNESS: The writing is all pretty uniform. The headings are all bigger, of course, and they appear to be in what might be block capitals.

JUDGE ORIE: Let's -- let's go back to the previous page. Would you agree with me that we see that at the top right-hand we see a date and a place, Belgrade --

THE WITNESS: Oh, is that right?

JUDGE ORIE: -- then we have a clear heading underlined. And then we have some text which is translated for us. And then we have another heading which is by far smaller than the first one, and it seems the letters following that also seem to be by far smaller than the text which is found on the remainder of the page.

THE WITNESS: I wouldn't agree with that. I think the -- the two headings near the top, the one that looks as if it begins with the P and the one that looks --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes --

THE WITNESS: -- as if it begins with the C. Those are of a size.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. ¹⁸⁴⁸⁸

THE WITNESS: The place, if that is what is written above the dates, and the dates - and there are two dates on the page - are of similar size. The handwriting beneath the headings is all of a similar size.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

THE WITNESS: And then we have this third type of heading, which I -- which has an asterisk in front of it, a star in front of it --

JUDGE ORIE: But I --

THE WITNESS: -- and that is not in capitals.

JUDGE ORIE: I would like to focus on the second underlined, if we could say, subheading, where it seems that the size of the letters is rather different. Do we have the translation here? Apparently not. The translation related to this page.

THE WITNESS: I'm glad you said that, Your Honour. I couldn't see the translation fitting.

MR. GROOME: The translation for this page is 200 in the English e-court page.

JUDGE ORIE: Could we have a look at it so that we are better able to ...

THE WITNESS: I don't think so.

JUDGE ORIE: One second, please.

THE WITNESS: Sorry.

[Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, I believe I know the error. It's e-court page 200, not 200 on the bottom of the page. I think we have ¹⁸⁴⁸⁹ 200 --

JUDGE ORIE: Could we -- let me say it very simple: Could we have the corresponding page in English.

MR. GROOME: I apologise. It's 220, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That seems to fit. What I'm referring to, Mr. Browne, is the text which is translated as "Mr. Bildt," and then military matters. You see that? We have a heading at the top, "talk with Bildt and de Lapresle," and then we have a kind of a subheading, and I'm focussing on the text. "Military matters are becoming more and more urgent." That text seems to me to be by far smaller than what we found under the heading -- following the heading "meeting." Or there is even one underlining missing: "Lieutenant-Colonel Karremans."

THE WITNESS: Yes.

JUDGE ORIE: All the text following there seems to be of a difference size compared to the line following immediately "Mr. Bildt."

THE WITNESS: The entry that I'm assuming translates as "military matters are becoming more and more urgent" is a little bit smaller, but not much, than the "with Bildt and General de Lapresle." The heading is just a name, and I'm assuming that it's not really what you would call a full heading.

JUDGE ORIE: And compared to what follow after "meeting"?

THE WITNESS: "Meeting with the UN commander in Srebrenica and representatives of the Muslim side."

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That text after the word "meeting" seems to be ¹⁸⁴⁹⁰ by far larger.

THE WITNESS: It's the same almost with "Bildt and General de Lapresle," is it not?

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but I compared it with something different, Mr. Browne. I think that was clear to you.

THE WITNESS: Yes.

JUDGE ORIE: I was comparing the one line, "military matters are becoming more and more urgent," I compared that with other text on this page, and I specifically drew your attention to the line following the word "meeting," "with the UN commander in Srebrenica and representatives of the Muslim side." And I'm inclined to believe that the first line I draw -- drew your attention to is by far smaller than the second line I drew your attention to.

THE WITNESS: Physically, yes. But I can't see it out of keeping with the rest of the entries on the page per se. That is my perception of the page.

JUDGE ORIE: No, but if you sit down and if you are copying on the basis of rough notes, would you change the size of the letters halfway the page -- is that -- I mean, you are very much involved in logical explanations as far as the neatness of the -- and you're drawing some far-reaching conclusions on that. So I'm now trying to analyse what I see and ask myself to what extent that would support or perhaps be less supportive of your conclusions.

THE WITNESS: I personally consider there is very little wrong with the writing on this page in terms of size and appearance. It is ¹⁸⁴⁹¹ possible - and this really is speculation - that the importance of the line being written as a -- as a subtext, as it were, might indicate a change in the size. I don't know. I can't possibly know what his thought processes were when he wrote them. But by and large this page is neat. It's in keeping.

The fact that we have entries at the bottom in different ink is possibly enough to thought taken from rough notes. Maybe the top of the page was neat and tidy, easily done, and the rest of the page isn't. I don't consider, personally, that there is any significant difference with the writing across this page, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I'm trying to follow your logic in this respect. You say, Well, if there's writing in different ink at the bottom of the page, that could well be in line with writing it down on the basis of rough notes. Wouldn't it be equally true that it would -- could well be in line with adding something if the original text was not copied from rough notes but was original initial handwriting?

THE WITNESS: Yes, it could be that as well, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Which brings me to another matter. That is -- and I'm trying to follow your logic. You say the availability of these kind of booklets, well, you could use them to -- because it's so easily available, it would facilitate any tampering, any fraud. Let me put you a -- what I consider to be a similar conclusion. If I say, Gasoline is available widely in the Netherlands, of course, everyone would agree that this facilities the theft of gasoline, wouldn't it? ¹⁸⁴⁹²

THE WITNESS: Yes, under certain circumstances, yes.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Of course the question is what the compelling logic is. You understand what I mean?

THE WITNESS: Not exactly -- [Overlapping speakers]

JUDGE ORIE: Well, if you say, These books are available, so therefore it -- it would be easy to replace them. If I say gasoline is widely available, so it would be easy to steal it, it doesn't say anything about whether gasoline is stolen and with what frequency, just as the availability of the books might not say anything about the probability of pages being replaced.

THE WITNESS: Well, that's -- that, of course, is true. It's -- it's a possibility, though, isn't it? It remains a possibility.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. You couldn't exclude for that possibility. If that's your conclusion, I would be inclined to -- to adopt that as a conclusion. Although, of course, I have to -- can't do it myself. We are here as a Bench.

Mr. Groome.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Mr. Browne, in the English language we rely on the Latin script. This text is written in a completely different alphabet, is it not?

A. It's written in Cyrillic.

Q. You don't have any real working familiarity with Cyrillic script, do you?

A. I've made that quite clear very early on in my evidence.

Q. Well, don't you need to be familiar with what a properly drawn, ¹⁸⁴⁹³ let's say, for example, letter A, looks like, and have some experience of what a hurriedly drawn letter A looks like before you can give some scientific opinion as to whether or not one A is neat and one A is not?

A. No. If I'm looking at the appearance of the books, I'm looking at the -- the pattern, if you like, of the books. I don't -- I don't pretend to be able to read the writing, and I don't believe that is necessary from just the pattern of the books. They appear neatly, they appear tidy, they appear not to have been overwritten. In particular cases we've got dates that have been altered. You can see one on the page in front of you.

Q. Do you consider yourself competent to give an opinion about whether a passage of, let's say, Korean text is neatly written?

A. No, I actually have some experience of Korean text, so -- [overlapping speakers] ...

Q. Let's take another example. Let's say Thai text.

A. No.

Q. So you would not consider yourself competent to evaluate the neatness of Thai --

A. Oh, the neatness, yes. I can -- I mean, you don't have to have a working knowledge of the language to be able to establish whether the writing is neat and whether it's sticks to -- conforms throughout all of these books. We have a lot of pages to look at right the way through.

Q. Okay. Now, as it turns out, we actually have a video of Mr. Mladic writing these pages. I'm going to ask --

A. These pages? The diary pages? ¹⁸⁴⁹⁴

Q. The pages that we've been discussing for the last several days.

A. Okay.

Q. Now, to assist everyone in viewing these, to watching the video, Ms. Javier has made hard copies of the pages. So I'd ask that they be distributed now. These are the pages that we have been looking at on our monitors, and I would ask that we now play, or we prepare to play, 65 ter 6437. It is a video taken at the Hotel Fontana on the 11th of July, 1995.

JUDGE ORIE: And before we do so, Mr. Groome. Could I inquire with you whether you were informed about any evidence in relation to this handwriting, apart from the sources that were given to you and the documentation that was given to you in terms of search and seizure, any evidence, any testimony, or any videos? Were you --

THE WITNESS: No.

JUDGE ORIE: -- informed about it in any way?

THE WITNESS: I knew videos had been recovered in the search, because they're also in the photographs, and the audiotapes as well. But the content of the them, not at all.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Yes, not to say that this was part of what was seized. I don't have a clear recollection on that.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, in the interest of time, I'm going to ask that we only display in Court one minute twenty -- one 1 hour, 23 minutes, 57 seconds, to 1 hour, 24, 55 seconds. I am tendering the video of the entire meeting, and this will enable the Chamber to actually ¹⁸⁴⁹⁵ follow what is said in the meeting and to see how it appears in the -- the entry of the book. And it's the Prosecution's submission that the Chamber will be able to see that they are, in fact, contemporary notes taken. So could I ask that we play this video-clip at this time.

[Video-clip played] "Ok, then I have to sort it out.

"Our own medicines are almost zero. "The only thing what I can do is the two surgery teams. "They have done it in the afternoon and tonight is a big surgery, but that's only for a couple of persons and then the medicines for those special surgery is left as well."

MR. GROOME: You can see first Mr. Mladic's hand in the lower left-hand corner.

[Video-clip played] "If I may say so, sir ... I think that the evacuation of the wounded could be the second thing to be organised."

MR. GROOME: [Microphone not activated] Could I now ask that the --

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. -- Mr. --

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

JUDGE ORIE: I have to look at the transcript first, because there is text spoken. I do not know to what extent it is transcribed, but I heard some French translation of the words spoken there. And you started speaking in the middle of the video. And I'm just -- Yes, I don't know whether anything was lost. But I take it that ¹⁸⁴⁹⁶ we are not primarily interested in what the words spoken by those present, because I see that the transcript is interrupted, where you say: "We will see Mr. Mladic's hand in the lower left-hand corner." By the way, I see that "Mr. Knoops" also reappears in this transcript, so it needs a bit of working.

Unless there is any concern by the parties about the text spoken by those present during the meeting in Hotel Fontana, I suggest that we continue. We do.

Please proceed.

MR. GROOME: Could I ask that we now show a still from the video. It is 6437.1.

Q. And, Mr. Browne, we are going to just show a capture, a screen capture, from the video.

MR. GROOME: That's 6437.1. And if we could just zoom in on that, perhaps on the book itself.

Q. Then we can see here, we can see the same watermark, or whatever it is, in the upper right-hand corner of the page. Having seen Mr. Mladic take the notes, as we can -- we all observed, he seems to be looking directly at the notebook and writing constantly as others are speaking, does this change your opinion as to whether or not at least some of the notebooks could contain contemporaneous writing?

A. This is the most common of the books, this design with the pen up here. I am not sure that I saw him write to the bottom of that page. And as the writing at the bottom of the page refers to the number of people, 20.000 men in Potocari, 15- to 20.000 men, which has been written ¹⁸⁴⁹⁷ down here in a different pen, it occurred to me that he was writing at the -- right the way down in the video -- sorry, he was writing right the way down in the video.

JUDGE ORIE: Could I try to avoid whatever confusion. There are two questions, I think. And I think the first one, which was put by Mr. Groome, is whether seeing Mr. Mladic writing in this book on the video, whether that would cause you to reconsider your position that it must have been on the basis of rough notes, writing later. That's one question.

The second question is whether all of the text on this page, including the last one, would have been written at that specific time. I think these are two separate questions, and I think that Mr. Groome was first of all focussing on the one question and that your answer started by commenting on what may be the second question.

Let me first check. Mr. Groome, is my analysis of what you asked the witness accurate?

MR. GROOME: Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Browne, would you agree that you focused on what I phrased as the second question rather than as the first one?

THE WITNESS: May I just check on the writing consul. [Indiscernible] ... whether or not at least some of the notebooks contained contemporaneous writing. They could, but I'm not convinced that this is necessarily not a rough notes book.

JUDGE ORIE: This is not a ...? ¹⁸⁴⁹⁸

THE WITNESS: Not a rough notes book. I'm not convinced that it is not a rough notes book. This may have been -- [overlapping speakers] ...

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, you would say a similar size. You could -- the same book for rough notes --

THE WITNESS: That's a possibility.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. You say "I'm not convinced."

THE WITNESS: I'm not --

JUDGE ORIE: "I'm not convinced it's not a rough note." That's all on the assumption that there must be rough notes, isn't it?

THE WITNESS: Well, I'm sorry, I was trying to explain why I was coming to that conclusion, Your Honour. I mean, I would need to see the video again, because one viewing is perhaps not enough. But we know, at the bottom of this page, if that is the page he's actually writing, if that is the contention, that he's writing this page, 552, is that -- is that the page that is -- has been written live in this film, this video?

MR. GROOME: If I may ask a question -- [overlapping speakers] ...

JUDGE ORIE: I think for the --

MR. GROOME: -- the Chamber will have to --

JUDGE ORIE: I think for the first question, and I want to clearly distinguish between the first question, whether this video causes you to reconsider your rather firm conclusion that there must have been rough notes. I don't think that Mr. Groome is inviting you to say that you exclude for the possibility that there were rough notes. But where ¹⁸⁴⁹⁹ you apparently positively establish that there must have been rough notes, whether this video causes any reconsideration or -- well, say, Well it even becomes stronger. Or, My conclusion would become weaker. Or ... That's, I think, the first question.

THE WITNESS: It doesn't change my view.

JUDGE ORIE: It doesn't change your view.

THE WITNESS: It does not change my view.

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Groome, I don't know whether you want to consider with the second question or not, but ...

MR. GROOME: I'll move to --

JUDGE ORIE: You haven't asked it to the witness, but ...

MR. GROOME:

Q. Let me ask you this, Mr. Browne: This Chamber has heard the evidence of General Manojlo Milovanovic, a colleague of General Mladic since 1981. General Milovanovic was Mladic's Chief of Staff and had occasion to see his writing. In fact, he testified to the following on the 23rd of April, 2010, at transcript pages 4430 to -31: "Q. Can you give us some approximation at the frequency with which you would see his handwriting?

"A. From the first time we saw each other, then every day, especially during the war.

"Q. Did you ever have occasion to be present at a meeting and observe General Mladic make notes in a diary during that meeting? "A. Yes. We all did that regularly.

"Q. Do you know whether it was his practice to make notes as the ¹⁸⁵⁰⁰ different participants in a meeting spoke, or to wait until a meeting had ended?

"A. When he was not speaking, he was constantly writing down, writing down what others were saying."

General Milovanovic then goes on to verify that the writing in the notebooks was, in fact, that of General Mladic, and that he had the opportunity to see him write in notebooks during the course of meetings they both attended.

Did you have this information when you reached your conclusion that the handwriting was too neat to be contemporaneous?

A. No.

Q. Would having had this information have had a bearing on your findings?

A. No.

MR. GROOME: Can I ask that we now can call to the screen 65 ter 6439.

Q. It is a document -- it's a copy of your curriculum vitae that we located on the internet.

A. Mm-hm.

Q. It appears to be written in the first person. So I'm asking you to take a look at it and verify whether you recognise it, and is it something that you wrote?

A. Looks like it. It looks like an old, as you say, CV. Where am I? Where does it finish up?

Q. There are several pages. We can -- ¹⁸⁵⁰¹

A. Yes, I know it goes on and on.

Q. It has some of the cases that you gave evidence. Would that assist you in knowing --

A. No, I know. I did. But what -- yes. Go to the bottom and it'll tell you the last date when I last updated it.

MR. GROOME: May I ask that we go to the last page.

THE WITNESS: 2010.

MR. GROOME:

Q. So it's about two years old at this stage.

A. Yes.

MR. GROOME: I would ask that this be -- tender this into evidence as a Prosecution exhibit.

JUDGE ORIE: Apparently no objections of relevance exactly. Should we draw any conclusions from Regina versus Taylor and Bourne [phoen] of the Crown Court? I mean, what are supposed to do with it, Mr. Groome?

MR. GROOME: I think that will be clear with my very next question, Your Honour -- [overlapping speakers] ...

JUDGE ORIE: Okay. Then I leave it -- I leave it there for time being. In the absence of any objections, Madam Registrar, the number would be ...

THE REGISTRAR: Document 6439 will receive number P3112, Your Honours.

JUDGE ORIE: And is admitted into evidence. Mr. Groome, my apologies, but, of course, when admitting anything ¹⁸⁵⁰² in evidence, the relevance should be, if not clear, at least we should have an idea that it may be relevant. Yes.

MR. GROOME: I was actually surprised, Your Honour. It's usually a common practice to tender -- the party advancing an expert to tender their CV, that's why we set out to find it. But I think my point will be very clear --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

MR. GROOME: -- with this question.

JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Mr. Browne, can you please point to us where in your resume may it indicates that you have any training or expertise whatsoever in the analysis of handwriting. And maybe we'll go back to the first page --

A. Thank you.

Q. -- and go through page by page.

A. I received training while I was in the immigration service. I received further training when I left the immigration service in 1994.

Q. I am asking you -- the question I'm asking you is: On your resume, your curriculum vitae, which you wrote and is publicly available, can you indicate where on this you discuss or summarise your training or expertise in handwriting analysis?

A. No, it -- in this one. Can we go to page 2 a minute? Thank you. Something wrong there. I received training from the --

Q. No, but, sir, my question is: On this document, your curriculum vitae -- ¹⁸⁵⁰³

A. Does it say training and education there on page 2?

Q. Does it say anything there about handwriting, any specialised training or expertise in handwriting?

A. No, because I haven't mentioned it. But I did receive the training. From the forgery intelligence section, from the forensic science laboratory of Birmingham, form the central UK laboratory of the metropolitan police.

Q. And is there a reason why you do not have that on your resume?

A. Well, it's there, encapsulated. I haven't actually listed what I actually received the training in. I haven't mentioned that I received training in paper manufactury and ink manufactury, in printing and binding, and so on, but I haven't put it in.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, before I get too far away from it, could I also tender at this time the clip 6437 and the still 6437.1.

JUDGE ORIE: I do understand that 65 ter 6437 is not at this moment in the possession of the Registry. Could we --

MR. GROOME: We have it here, Your Honour, and I can pass it up, if the Court Officer would assist me.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Madam Registrar, the clip and the still would receive number ...

THE REGISTRAR: Video-clip 6437 will receive number P3113, Your Honours.

JUDGE ORIE: And is admitted into evidence. And the still ...

THE REGISTRAR: Video still number 6437.1 will receive P3114, Your Honours. ¹⁸⁵⁰⁴

JUDGE ORIE: And is admitted into evidence. Please proceed.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Mr. Browne, I want to challenge your conclusion about the neatness of the handwriting. Yesterday you made some very blanket statements about the neatness of the handwriting. For example, you said, at transcript page 46:

"They are very, very neat throughout." At page 47, you said:

"It's their neatness. It is considered handwriting. It is neat. Somebody has thought about it and they have put it on paper. It's all very neatly laid out again and again and again."

There are at least five other emphatic characterisations of the books as neat. I'd like to take a look at one book with you now, and that is book number 4.

MR. GROOME: Could I ask that we have 65 ter 5597 on our screens.

Q. While that's being done: With respect to this particular notebook, referenced as book 4 in your report, you say, at paragraph 26: "Apart from a single torn out page, there were no other anomalies in this book."

MR. GROOME: Can we first see e-court page 7 in the original. And I can put up the English translation if the Chamber wants, but I think it might be more helpful, since we're simply focussing on the neatness of the handwriting, to look at the -- or perhaps we'll -- the e-court page is 6. ¹⁸⁵⁰⁵

Q. Is this what you meant by neat?

A. No, this is a list. This doesn't -- this isn't the text of the book. This is a list of telephone -- is it a telephone list? And it has clearly been added to a -- oh, right, they are telephone lists. This is not part of the book that I would have paid any real attention to, because it's -- it's not the content. It's not the diary entry, so to speak. It's a list of telephone numbers, so it's probably been built up over a period.

Q. Let's look at another page, then. Let's look at page 16.

MR. GROOME: E-court page 16 in the original, and 15 in the translation.

Q. Here there appears to be a doodle --

A. Yes.

Q. -- over the number 1. The number 3 seems to have been initially numbered 2 but then overwritten with the number 3. And we can see two cross-outs over the course of the page. And the handwritten notes appear to sag to the right as it moves down the page. Perhaps because the paper is not lined. Would you agree with my observations about this page?

A. Absolutely.

MR. GROOME: Can we go a few more pages, to page 26 in the original, page 25 in the English.

Q. Again, on this page we see what appears to be some idle scribbling or doodling at the top, and at the bottom it is clear that he intends that the second passage of notes be first, and indicates this with a number 1 and an arrow to where it should be inserted. ¹⁸⁵⁰⁶

A. Yes.

Q. Have I correctly characterised what's contained on this page?

A. Yes.

Q. Is this what you meant yesterday when you said "It's all very neatly laid out again and again and again"?

A. Well, by and large it is. The writing in itself is neatly laid out. The fact that he's reformatted the paragraphs and he's altered the number, presumably 1 to 2, 2a, it's still neat writing, isn't it? It's the one alteration, a deletion if you like.

Q. I don't deny that it could be characterised as neat handwriting. I guess what I'm challenging is, why must it be done after the fact because it's neat? That's the part that I'm challenging you on. So is it your evidence now that these corrections, the reinsertion of number 1 above 2, that that's all part of this process of turning rough notes into a very neat final product?

A. I don't think this necessarily detracts from that view.

Q. Let's take a look at just one more, and then -- this is from book -- or 65 ter 5596. Another book that you examined.

MR. GROOME: And if we could go immediately to e-court page 35.

MR. JORDASH: Sorry, while -- sorry to interrupt. Whilst that's being done, could Mr. Stanisic have a break, please?

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, let me -- that would be a bit of an earlier break than usual. Is it just for Mr. Stanisic at this moment, or would we have to break now and ...

MR. JORDASH: It's for Mr. Stanisic because earlier on I saw he ¹⁸⁵⁰⁷ had a nosebleed and I think that he's not feeling terribly well.

JUDGE ORIE: And would you want us to take the half-hour break now as well, or would we --

MR. JORDASH: I think that might be --

JUDGE ORIE: -- might be the wisest thing to do.

MR. JORDASH: Yes.

JUDGE ORIE: Then, Mr. Groome, I would like to explore how much more time you would need.

MR. GROOME: I'm really in the final stretch, Your Honour. I have 20 questions after this.

JUDGE ORIE: Only 20 questions. We'll take a break. Maybe assume that a question a minute would do, approximately, so that we -- you would conclude at a quarter to 1.00 so that there would be sufficient time available for questions either by the Bench or --

MR. JORDASH: I have a submission to make after. I don't think I'm going to have any questions, but I do have a submission to make.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. So no questions as far as you're concerned, which loosens the time pressure for Mr. Groome slightly.

MR. JORDASH: The submission will probably take ten to 15 minutes, so probably about the same time as I anticipated for questions.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, as you had on your mind. Then we'll take the break first. And we'll resume at 12.30. But before doing so, I would like to put one thing on the record in private session. ¹⁸⁵⁰⁸ Mr. Browne, could you already follow the usher.

We move into private session.

[The witness stands down]

(Private session)

(18 lines redacted)

(Open session)

THE REGISTRAR: We are in open session, Your Honours.

JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Madam Registrar. We take a break. And ¹⁸⁵⁰⁹ we will resume at 12.30.

--- Recess taken at 12.00 p.m.

[The witness takes the stand]

--- On resuming at 12.34 p.m.

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Groome. Twenty questions.

MR. GROOME: Thank you, Your Honour.

Q. Mr. Browne, paragraphs 83 to 92 of the report are a section called "continuity." In this section you present a criticism of the way in which the books were recovered and the inadequacy of reports recording the recovery of the books. As I understand it, you have several significant areas of criticism. First, the description of where the books were recovered from was insufficiently precise; two, the photographs of the scene were not taken in a way to allow easy conceptualisation of the layout of the premises; third, some photographs of a dresser have aroused your suspicion; fourth, a picture depicting the books and a compartment was, in fact, posed, because, in your view, the books were clean and there was dirt around the panel. Is this an accurate summary of the main points of criticism you have with respect to the continuity, as you call it?

A. Yes.

Q. Now, most of us, either by virtue of our work or watching television or movies, are aware that there are very specific procedures the police follow when processing a crime scene or investigative scene; correct?

A. Absolutely. ¹⁸⁵¹⁰

Q. You do not have any specialised expertise in this area, do you?

A. I have assisted the police on a number of occasions. Entering premises, looking for forged documents, and also searching printing works and forgery factories, yes.

Q. So you would consider yourself an expert in the field of crime scene processing or investigative scene processing?

A. I would consider myself experienced in it. Whether I'm an expert in it is another matter. It's not something I do every day, so that would be wrong to say "expert." But I have experience of it.

Q. Have you ever been recognised by a court in the United Kingdom as an expert in the processing of a crime scene or investigative scene?

A. No.

Q. So would we be correct that this entire section does not carry the weight of your expertise but is simply a list of concerns that you have articulated based upon your general life and professional experience?

A. Certainly based on my professional experience. And I am asked in England to undertake continuity reviews from time to time.

Q. But never as an expert.

A. No.

Q. And if we are to go back to your curriculum vitae, would we see anything about specialised training in this, or specialised expertise in this field?

A. No.

Q. Now, how do what the -- what you perceive as the shortcomings of ¹⁸⁵¹¹ a seizure process demonstrate that the books are fraudulent? How do these shortcomings translate into: the books are fraudulent?

A. Well, they don't. It's just that we don't know enough. I mean, we have no evidence of when they were found, where they were found, precisely. The -- as the paragraphs 84 to -- I can't remember which numbers you went through. It's the general recovery of these books that just adds another area of doubt.

Q. So am I correct in summarising, in essence, your conclusion: It's not that there's demonstrable objectively verifiable evidence of fraud; it's simply that we cannot be sure, given the problems you've identified?

A. Yes, that's fair.

Q. Now, your ultimate conclusion is that "until a number of points have been satisfactorily answered, I consider little credence can be given to any of these books." This conclusion does not answer the question you were asked to answer, which is to evaluate the likelihood that the notebooks were tampered with based on your physical observations of those notebooks. More importantly, your observations, using scientific methods and tools, within your area of expertise. What I'm asking you now is to answer that question. Based your examination, using the tools -- the scientific tools, is there anything demonstrably -- any demonstrative evidence that you can provide that the books have actually been tampered with?

A. I consider a number of the books have anomalies that I have been unable to answer. ¹⁸⁵¹²

Q. I'm not asking whether you are un -- able to explain them. Any positive proof that you can see that a forgery has been perpetrated here?

A. No.

Q. Mr. Browne, you have told us today that you only reached the conclusion that the books could not be relied on after your comprehensive examination of them at the NFI in November 2011. Four months earlier, on 15 June 2011, Mr. Jordash said the following in his opening statement in this case, T11601. Quote:

"Mr. Mladic's crude attempt to implicate Mr. Stanisic through a set of doctored diaries will be exposed."

Mr. Browne, the inescapable inference from Mr. Jordash's statement is that you expressed a view of these -- a view that these notebooks were doctored before you actually conducted a full examine of them. Is that --

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Jordash.

MR. JORDASH: Sorry, I object to that. It's --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes --

MR. JORDASH: First of all, it's not an inescapable conclusion. I may have said that for a number of reasons. And to ask the witness to disclose, effectively, what may be private Defence conversations under the guise of cross-examination is improper, in my submission.

JUDGE ORIE: Well, whether that's true or not, I mean, I don't know whether it falls under private Defence conversations, but for other reasons I would say to -- let me read it again.

The opinions of Mr. Jordash expressed in Court at a certain ¹⁸⁵¹³ period of time are not the subject of the expertise of this witness unless the witness would have expressed himself clearly to that. And I would not explore, and I don't think it would be wise to explore, the dealings, the conversations, between the Prosecution -- the Stanisic Defence and Mr. Browne. But, unless he says, "No, I've given that as my opinion at an early stage, even before having examined the documents themselves," if he doesn't say that, he should not be bothered by what Mr. Jordash has told the Court at any point in time. Do I understand you well that there was no reference to this expert when Mr. Jordash expressed these words, Mr. Groome? I -- you'll forgive me that I don't have a recollection.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, there is no express reference to Mr. Browne, but it is a clear statement that the evidence - and this is the only expert in this case - would be --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but could be --

MR. GROOME: -- saying that the diaries were doctored.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but Mr. Jordash may have consulted ten experts in this field and may have formed his opinion on a wrong or right understanding of what they told him, or even just on his own -- on his own authority. Therefore, what we could ask the witness is whether he ever expressed a firm opinion about the matters you're raising at this moment, that they're doctored, before he has examined this material. And if not, you should stay out of the -- or at least we shouldn't bother this expert witness with what Mr. Jordash said.

MR. JORDASH: And, Your Honour, could -- I'm very happy to ¹⁸⁵¹⁴ address Your Honours in the absence of the witness as to why I did say that and the basis for it.

JUDGE ORIE: I mean, in view --

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, if I --

MR. JORDASH: In view of my ruling, I think there's no need to do that.

MR. GROOME: I think it's -- I understand the Chamber's ruling, and I'll accord by it. I would point out that all access to the books came through the Office of the Prosecutor. Mr. Browne was the only person who's had any opportunity to have access to them.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, I was talking about consultations. Which do not necessarily mean that the persons consulted by Mr. Jordash, or he may have consulted, had access to any of the books at the -- but let's --

MR. GROOME: I will put my question separately.

JUDGE ORIE: -- stay out of that. Let's stay out of that. What Mr. Jordash said is for Mr. Jordash.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Mr. Browne --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, please proceed.

MR. GROOME:

Q. Mr. Browne, isn't it a fact that you had reached the conclusion that the books had been doctored prior to having done a comprehensive examination of the books, aided by scientific equipment?

A. No.

Q. Is it also not the case that once having examined the notebooks ¹⁸⁵¹⁵ and found no tangible evidence that they were fraudulent, you looked to areas outside your expertise - neatness of handwriting, adequacy of seizure procedures - in an effort to support the conclusion that you had anticipated prior to your full examination of the books? Is that not in fact what's happened here?

A. No.

MR. GROOME: I have nothing further, Your Honour.

Q. Thank you, Mr. Browne.

JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Groome. Mr. Petrovic.

MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, we have no questions. Thank you.

JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ... have no questions.

Mr. Jordash, no further questions?

MR. JORDASH: May I just have 30 seconds, please.

JUDGE ORIE: Forty-five, if you wish.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Groome.

MR. GROOME: I apologise. I had asked a question before I -- before the break, but I never received an answer. If I could just get an answer to my question. It has to do with what's on the screen. It was the --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, I do remember that. We -- it was by an intervention of Mr. Jordash that we got to the break, to say so. ¹⁸⁵¹⁶ And, Mr. Jordash, may I take it that where we interrupted Mr. Groome before the break, that he could again put that question to the witness.

MR. JORDASH: Certainly, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Please do so, Mr. Groome.

MR. GROOME: Can I ask that we go back to page 35 in e-court of 65 ter 5596.

Q. Mr. Browne, can you see that on the screen before you?

A. Yeah. Which book are we dealing with, please? In my report.

Q. This is book 3.

A. Oh, I'm grateful. Thank you.

Q. Do you consider the page that we're looking at neatly written?

A. No, this is definitely -- I mean, the writing itself is neat, but the page is not neat. It has been seriously amended and altered.

Q. And do you think that's the product of contemporaneous writing or the product of someone using rough notes to reconstruct a meeting and then ending up with something like this?

A. This would appear to be an alteration to an already written page. Obviously altered after the event. The timing I can't tell. But it's -- it appears to be contemporaneous writing that has been altered.

Q. So do you accept that your blanket statement earlier in your testimony that all of this was the product of writing after the fact was incorrect and that the books, in fact, do have some contemporaneous writing?

A. It impacts slightly. My -- I thought my evidence was that the ¹⁸⁵¹⁷ writing was neat throughout, and that introduced the possibility, did it not, of rough notes which --

JUDGE ORIE: That's -- that's --

THE WITNESS: -- obviously doesn't apply.

JUDGE ORIE: That's not what the report says. The report says there must have been rough notes, isn't it?

THE WITNESS: Right.

JUDGE ORIE: And do I understand that you amend that conclusion?

THE WITNESS: Certainly in the case of this page, yes.

MR. JORDASH: But the witnesses amended that conclusion yesterday.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, yes --

MR. JORDASH: And used the words --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but he now quoted his opinion, and it was unclear to me whether it was his report or not.

But, yes, Mr. Groome.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, just so we can be clear: Yesterday at transcript 79 I sought to clarify, so I asked the following question and got the following answer:

"Q. So it's your evidence that all of the books, in your view, were written after the fact?

"A. Yes."

Q. Do you recall being asked that question and giving that answer?

A. I don't in detail. But I don't question learned counsels in their current statement, so I accept that that obviously doesn't apply in ¹⁸⁵¹⁸ this case.

Q. Are there any other cases in which it doesn't apply? Are there any other pages in the books that you would admit or recognise may likely have been the product of contemporaneous note-taking?

A. I can't recall completely. It -- it may be possible there's another one like this.

Q. Just one or two, that's all?

A. That's fair enough.

Q. So you think in this particular book, book 3, that the rest of book 3 is the product of a rewrite, but this particular page is the product of a contemporaneous note?

A. No. I mean, clearly this indicates that this book must have been contemporaneously written.

Q. So now --

A. And I would accept that -- that I was at fault before.

Q. So you accept that book 3, at least, contains contemporaneous notes?

A. Yes.

Q. And there may be other books?

A. I don't recall any.

MR. GROOME: Thank you, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Could I ask you, then, one question about this specific book 3.

There are a lot of neat pages in book 3 as well, isn't it?

THE WITNESS: Yes. ¹⁸⁵¹⁹

JUDGE ORIE: Which means that the neatness of the handwriting, apparently, is not indicative of whether it's contemporaneous writing or not. I mean, if you say, Well, this page, of course, is not. You start rewriting and then have one page in contemporaneous and then we continue to copy from the rough notes, which to some extent might affect your conclusion that the neatness of writing ... because if we find one book with similar neatness on most of the pages, where you say, Well, on the basis of one or two or three pages, it must have been contemporaneous writing, that would be indicative for the neatness not to be a decisive factor in whether the book was contemporaneously written or whether it was the product of rewriting on the basis of rough notes.

THE WITNESS: I'm trying to work out your original question, Your Honour. I do apologise, of course.

JUDGE ORIE: Well, if I -- if I have a book, and as you say, Well, these pages give the impression that it's contemporaneous writing. They appear somewhere in the middle of the book. And I think you more or less accepted that that would be an indication for the whole of the book to be contemporaneously written rather than to be the result of copying what was found in rough notes. That means that - let's just assume that these are three pages out of a book of 50 - I don't know exactly what's the number - which means that 47 of neatly written pages are the result of contemporaneous writing. And therefore, the neatness of what is written down is apparently not indicative for whether it was contemporaneously written, yes or no.

THE WITNESS: Indeed. I take that point, Your Honour. The only ¹⁸⁵²⁰ other point I would make is that we have no idea when these alterations were made.

JUDGE ORIE: Which alterations do you mean?

THE WITNESS: The alterations to page, say, 2409. They could have been done a day after, they could have been done years after. We don't know.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but whether -- it's not only the alterations. It's also the neatness of that page, isn't it?

THE WITNESS: Well, the general overall writing underneath, if we can see underneath that, appears to have been neatly laid out and written. Then the alterations have been scribbled in. It's fair enough. I don't argue with Your Honour on this.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. No argument. I'm trying to understand your testimony --

THE WITNESS: No, I understand --

JUDGE ORIE: -- to the best of my abilities.

THE WITNESS: -- and that's fair enough.

JUDGE ORIE: Then one question, Mr. Groome. Earlier you asked the witness to how he reached a conclusion on the basis of A, B, and C, that it was all fraudulent. I never understand the conclusion of this expert witness to be that the books were fraudulently produced, although he does not exclude for the possibility on the basis of the anomalies he has established that we cannot exclude for the possibility that there was some fraud involved in the final appearance of these books. ¹⁸⁵²¹ Mr. Groome, is that how you intended to phrase your question to the expert witness? Because then I have some problems. You said, How could this -- I want to avoid whatever misunderstanding about what the position of the -- you remember that question? It was recently. Let me just --

MR. GROOME: I --

JUDGE ORIE: You used the word "fraudulent," that's what I still know. Let me just check. Yes. You said on page 75:

"Now, how do you perceive shortcomings of the seizure process demonstrate that the books are fraudulent?"

Now, that's not, as far as I understand, what the expert told us. You more or less -- how do these shortcomings translate into the books are fraudulent. I think that in the report I do not read any line that he concludes on this basis that they are fraudulent.

MR. GROOME: The -- the line that I was referring to, Your Honour, I believe it's in page 12, which I seem to have misplaced at the moment, is he says that the damage to book 16 is the strongest indicator of fraud.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

MR. GROOME: And that's from my memory.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. An indication of fraud is not the same as a conclusion that it's fraud. If -- if -- an indication of fraud isn't the same as it to be proven fraudulently. And I don't agree with you that indication is perhaps a bit of an ambiguous term in this respect, but I wanted to make it clear that in my understanding the expert witness never ¹⁸⁵²² reached a conclusion that the books were fraudulently produced, although he has seem some indicia which should make us very cautious about the possibility that there was any fraudulent element in the production of the books. That's how I understand.

And in your question you more or less implied that the witness, his opinion was that they were fraudulently produced, whereas he only pointed at signs which might be --

MR. GROOME: Perhaps since the witness is here, it maybe would be best to ask him.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, I would -- Mr. Browne, I was commenting to some extent on something that was implied in a question put to you. I explained to you how I understood your evidence. If that is where you say, Indicia, fraud, I did not understand that to be that, these are signals which could well be -- signals that could well hint at fraudulent production, although in themselves certainly not sufficient to conclude that they were fraudulently produced. Is that a proper understanding of your --

THE WITNESS: That is a proper understanding, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Now ... Questioned by the Court:

JUDGE PICARD: [Interpretation] It has to do with -- I have a question about number 21 which has to do with the meeting that General Mladic had in Hotel Fontana. At the same time we were able to see some of the diary pages in that footnote where Mladic was shown as making notes in his diaries, and you said that two different inks could ¹⁸⁵²³ be seen on that page. In your view, and it had to do with the bottom of that diary page, the portion of the page which is underlined, you can see two different types of ink. And if you want me to, I can give you the proper references as well. It's document 5016. It's a 65 ter number. Page 227 in e-court.

And my question is simple. The photocopy we have of the two pages does not show any difference in the ink used. At least I can't see it. And I didn't see it any anywhere in your report mentioned that there was any difficulty with the ink, or, rather, that there were two types of ink used on that page. In your view, this difference shows that -- or is an indication of the fact that the notes made at the bottom were added subsequently, at a later date, whereas I, of course, I can't see the difference in the ink. You must have tested it somehow, although this does not transpire in your report.

A. Right. Is this the page Your Honour is talking about?

JUDGE PICARD: [Interpretation] That's exactly the page.

A. These lines here are written in a different ink. They're a different colour ink.

JUDGE PICARD: [Interpretation] That's not visible on the photocopies we have. We have a blue ink notation which seems to be much bolder than the one that was initially placed there. What I'd like to know is: Did you draw upon this -- or, rather, did you discover this difference in ink when you were making the tests that you did?

A. Yes, but I didn't consider in the overall document that they were of any forensic value. I didn't consider the entry was anomalous because ¹⁸⁵²⁴ it was written in the different ink. The same ink is used at the bottom of the next page as well. So we have those three lines there are in different ink. We have these two lines here in a different ink. I can't read them because they're in Cyrillic, and I didn't consider there were any significant anomalies in this book apart from the missing page, which I have described in my report, in any event.

JUDGE PICARD: [Interpretation] I am putting this question to you because you said of the other notebooks that there were indications of different types of ink used on the same page, and you believed those to be an anomaly. But not so in respect of notebook number 21.

A. Well, there are a number of books in which the entries in different inks appeared to be anomalous rather than this one. I didn't consider this to be anomalous.

JUDGE PICARD: [Interpretation] What I'd like to know is this: If different inks are used, if, say, there are two different inks on a single page, can this be considered an anomaly? This is something that you didn't include in your findings.

A. Not necessarily -- not necessarily. I was looking for anomalous use of pens. I was looking for anomalous entries that -- from appearance, and I -- there are a number of books where there have been changes of pens, which I didn't consider to be anomalous, and therefore I didn't report them in detail, because I was asked to look for anomalies. And I didn't consider the -- the anomalous -- the writing in the -- the -- this book and the change of pen in this book to be a problem.

JUDGE PICARD: [Interpretation] Very well. Listen, I only wanted ¹⁸⁵²⁵ to know if you used the ultraviolet test to establish that two different inks were used.

A. Yes, I did. And they confirmed, in fact, the visual findings of that they were different inks. But that, I still didn't consider it to be an anomaly.

JUDGE PICARD: [Interpretation] Well, if that is your conclusion, so I agree with it, then. Thank you.

JUDGE ORIE: I have a few more questions for you, Mr. Browne. If I could take you first to paragraph 81 of your report, which is part of the general observations. You say: The books seem also to be a ready-use supply of paper for one reason or another. There is little evidence that the pages were written on at the time they were torn out, and only ESDA would be able to confirm that. You say there's little evidence. What is the evidence, or is there no evidence at all?

A. No, sometimes there were. If you recall, we covered this with the indentations which we could see under oblique light. Some of the pages we saw -- then, again, we can only examine the pages on either side of the missing page. The missing page we can't see, of course. So the only way to see whether there was right on the page is by examining under oblique light the page on one side and the page on the other to see if there are indentations that cannot be resolved with the writing on the other pages. If that makes sense.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but what -- that was anything written on the --

A. -- missing page.

JUDGE ORIE: Missing page is -- ¹⁸⁵²⁶

A. That's what we're trying to establish. And if I do find indentations on the other pages, we know the indentations were caused by writing somewhere --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but it could be any other piece of paper that ever was --

A. Of course.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

A. But there was some -- there were indications on some of the -- in some of the gaps, shall we say, that were left by the missing page that there had been indentations, but I can't tell what those indentations were. I can't establish exactly where they came from. So when I say there is little evidence that the page was written on, we don't know, to be fair. ESDA would be able to confirm it precisely, but that's all that paragraph says. It stands as it is, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That would be my next question. You say only ESDA would be able to confirm that. I do understand if ESDA confirms it then we have a match between the -- at least we have indentations which then would allow for a conclusion that there has been one sheet of paper or perhaps even several pieces on which text was written. Now, ESDA would -- if you wouldn't find anything with ESDA, it couldn't deny it. It can confirm it only. But it couldn't say that nothing was written on it or it -- it's only what is positively found that can be established by ESDA --

A. Yeah --

JUDGE ORIE: -- but it could well be that after you've used the ¹⁸⁵²⁷ ESDA machinery that you would say, I still do not know.

A. Yes. We either find indentations or we don't. That doesn't mean to say --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

A. -- there wasn't writing on there.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Yep. Thank you. Yes, I'm -- my next question is about mainly the language you are using. And I'm taking you to paragraphs 89 and 90.

You say the pages of all the books could not have been numbered within that time-frame. So if that is reported, this cannot be true. And you say: "If it's not true, then it is a lie." And then you start 90 by saying: "If that is a lie, then ..." Now, I do not understand the "if" from paragraph 89. I clearly appears. If you say it's not true, if it's not true, it's a lie. So why, then, to say, on 90, if it is a lie? Because you have already established that in your view it is a lie. Isn't it? So I'm -- I'm asking why this complex construction is chosen here instead of saying, Cannot be true, is a lie, and therefore the whole of the evidence surrounding those books, apart from whether that's the right conclusion, yes or no, but -- but why do you make it so complicated?

A. It's a reiteration to balance a sentence, frankly. It it's a lie then, the whole of the evidence surrounding these books is suspect. Um --

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but you have established that it is a lie, isn't it, in paragraph 89? ¹⁸⁵²⁸

A. Yes. Sorry, that just a constructional issue, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not trying to [indiscernible]. I mean, it has to remain, doesn't it, the possibility that the Marinkovic letter -- Marinkovic letter is a reporting of something that was imperfectly reported, if you like, to the author, and therefore that is the problem. We know that Mrs. Mladic signed every page -- every book, which takes significantly less time than numbering every page.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Now, numbering every page. We just looked at the big -- the big copy. Is that numbered? Or is -- am I not understanding the --

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, so there's no confusion: The book that you have a copy of was seized in 2008 and is not one of the books that Mrs. Mladic numbered.

JUDGE ORIE: Not one of the books Mr. -- Mrs. Mladic numbered. So that resolved that. And you said the numbering was always done in ball-point; is that ...

A. That is correct, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I saw, because we were provided yesterday with a part of a book and a cover page says 44 --

A. Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And that is -- the numbering is in ball-point and not in pencil or --

A. Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Thank you. I think these were all my questions. Have the questions by the Bench triggered any further need ¹⁸⁵²⁹ for questions?

MR. JORDASH: I wanted to just to re-examine very shortly on Mr. Groome's cross-examination. It would only take, I think, two or three minutes.

JUDGE ORIE: Two or three minutes. That's -- that sounds promising.

MR. GROOME: Would it be advisable -- I have one question based on Judge Picard's question whether -- I -- I'm --

MR. JORDASH: I'm happy for Mr. Groome to go first.

JUDGE ORIE: Okay. Thank you.

MR. GROOME: Thank you.

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Groome, you go first. Also not more than two to three minutes, isn't it?

MR. GROOME: Yes. And I don't think it should take more than a few seconds, actually.

Further Cross-examination by Mr. Groome:

Q. Mr. Browne, Judge Picard asked you about whether you examined the ink on the pages of the hand-out, the large thing that went out today, and you said that you had and that you determined that they were different inks.

A. Yes.

Q. This is from book 21, and the page ends in 0552. Can I ask you to simply just put the notes where you recorded that on the ELMO there so we can see it and you can explain to us exactly what you found.

A. I've got to find them. Hold on. Let's put these up first. ¹⁸⁵³⁰ These are the -- these are concerning the meeting of the 30th of June, which is the main question for me on this -- [overlapping speakers] ...

Q. So if you could indicate where on this page, 0552, you recorded your analysis and determination that two different inks were used on this page.

A. Well, this -- sorry, these don't cover that page. My UV and infrared --

Q. It's only that page that we're concerned with.

A. Yeah, that's right. Here are my findings for this. The fact that I put "UV-neg" means there are no anomalies. The "IR-neg," there's no -- it means there are no anomalies. And "the ink is okay" means I've examined it but I haven't made specific notes because I didn't detect any anomalies. I don't consider the change of the ink in the bottom of this page to be anomalous.

Q. No, but this is a different number on this one. This ends in 0326. That's a different page. What I'm asking you is to put the page that ends 0552 and to show us --

A. Because I haven't got a specific note for that page, Your Honour.

Q. So when you answered Judge Picard's question about having done this test and knowing that you found a positive anomaly, different inks, you answered her based on your recollection, or on a note that you have and that we can look at now?

A. No, it's my recollection. I tested all the different inks just to check that they were different inks. If I considered it to be anomalous, I would have made a specific note. I didn't make a specific ¹⁸⁵³¹ note of that finding, but I did check them.

Q. But did you say, didn't you, to Judge Picard that there were two different inks on this page, didn't you?

A. Yes, there are. And there are two different inks on the page below as well.

Q. And you're answering that based on your recollection of this page? Or do you have a note that you can show us where you recorded: page 0552, two different inks used?

A. Not a page specific, because I didn't consider the entries to be anomalous, so I didn't write 552 or 553.

Q. So that is from your own recollection?

A. Yes. It would have noted -- had it been anomalous, I would have made a specific note and we'd have had the readings.

MR. GROOME: Nothing further.

JUDGE ORIE: Could I ask one additional question in this context as well, again focussing on those two pages which have been copied. You say the last two lines are in a different ink.

Now, on the next page, is that continuing in the different ink, or are we back to the normal ink? Because you said --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We're back to the normal ink, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: We are back to the normal ink. Now, if I look at my translation of it, the last line saying there are 15- to 20.000 men in Potocari, 88 wounded persons of which in very serious ... and eight more have stayed in Srebrenica. It seems that the last two or three lines of ¹⁸⁵³² the first page are in a perfectly logical context with the top line of the next page.

THE WITNESS: Yes.

JUDGE ORIE: And then this would suggest, then, that someone would change ink, perhaps by changing pens, and two lines, and then in the middle of a sentence -- or at least in the middle of a logical development of thought, then move back to the original ink again, which I would consider, on the basis of the -- of the content, very much of an anomaly.

THE WITNESS: Well, that is true, isn't it? Because obviously I had no idea of the content.

JUDGE ORIE: No, but if you see that writing is at the bottom of a page, changes ink, and then immediately moves to the old ink again, where the whole content of it, of course, it's all bullet marks. Well, the last bullet mark is found on the bottom of the page.

THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.

JUDGE ORIE: Whereas no new bullet mark starts at the top of the next page --

THE WITNESS: Yes.

JUDGE ORIE: So even without knowing anything about the Serbian language, it comes as a surprise that in the middle of what seems to be one bullet mark, suddenly the ink changes. Which is so -- I mean, I'm asking you because it -- it would have surprised me if I would have had a look at it even without knowing what the text is, but just looking at the structure of the use of bullet marks, and then to change ink in the ¹⁸⁵³³ middle of a bullet mark.

THE WITNESS: I agree. I didn't actually detect this as an anomalous entry when I examined it, or the one at the bottom of the next page.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Unfortunately we do not have the page after that. I could find it, but that --

THE WITNESS: No, I understand that.

JUDGE ORIE: -- might lead to similar observations. Any further comment on my observations in relation to specifically this page?

THE WITNESS: I am unable to help Your Honour on that.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ORIE: Perhaps I ask one question again in relation to the same. Is there any way that the difference in background, because you have no notes about testing with specific light, that the difference in background may deceive our eye in terms of the colour of the ink, that all the rest being written on a reddish background and those lines not?

THE WITNESS: I have taken that into consideration, Your Honour, throughout the book, but it doesn't necessarily follow that because of the background printing that the ink will appear different when it's written on white paper.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but especially since the different ink you observed appears on the different background. You said you have no notes --

THE WITNESS: I beg your pardon.

JUDGE ORIE: -- as to -- I don't know whether it would be ¹⁸⁵³⁴ ultraviolet which would --

THE WITNESS: No, infrared.

JUDGE ORIE: Infrared. -- whether you have any notes or recollection that it really is a different ink, whether you tested that with the technical means available, or whether it was just your personal impression of the colour of the ink.

THE WITNESS: No, the -- what will -- could -- let me get this straight, I beg your pardon. What could affect the infrared result of -- of ink is the substrate, not the printing, not the background printing of the paper.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes.

THE WITNESS: If the paper comes from a different source, it has a different chemical compound itself and that could affect the way it is written, but then that would be the whole page.

JUDGE ORIE: But have you used infrared light to come to the conclusion that the last three lines were of a different ink?

THE WITNESS: Yes, we did. I did. But I didn't consider it anomalous. I didn't make a note of it. And I apologise for that.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. So whether you tested it by those means is not recorded in your notes --

THE WITNESS: No, it's no recorded.

JUDGE ORIE: -- but it's your personally recollection that --

THE WITNESS: Yes.

JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.

MR. GROOME: Your Honour, if I might assist Chamber. I've ¹⁸⁵³⁵ considered the same thing. And we are fortunate in that on the first page, the last line of the old ink is actually some of the characters come down and align themselves very closely with the different ink, and I think it's a fairer comparison to examine the two different pens side by side. And I won't comment on my perception of it, but that might be of some assistance to the Chamber.

JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Groome. I have no further questions. Have the questions by the bench and by Mr. Groome triggered any need for further questions, Mr. Jordash.

MR. JORDASH: Thank you. Re-examination by Mr. Jordash:

Q. It's a question, really, Mr. Browne, about methodology. On the one hand you examined the books themselves. On the other hand you appear to have taken cognizance of certain external factors, such as the fact that there's no statement from a police officer involved in the search to say that they found the documents where they are asserted to have been found. Or the absence of photographs of the documents where they're said to have been found. Or any explanation from Mrs. Mladic, and so on.

And the question: Is what weight -- or are you able to explain and quantify what weight you gave to those external factors which you concluded brought certain questions about the reliability of the origin of the document to your overall conclusions?

Do you follow my rather long question.

A. Yes, I'm rereading it now. The -- at the end of the examination ¹⁸⁵³⁶ in the NFI, I end up with a number of factors which I've reported in my report, and basically the third paragraph of my conclusion sums it up. The damage to book 16 is the strongest indicator of fraud in the whole series. Because of the state of the book, it's not possible to be precise as to what happened. To establish this, I would need to examine the book properly, i.e., outside the protocol, which is fair enough. To that, then, we -- I have problems with at least one of the books, and it's a great many problems, obviously, in that particular one book, and it's a -- a handling issue. And, therefore, it would have been useful to consider that handling issue within the context of what happened to the books, where they were found, how they've been stored, how they were found, and what happened to them thereafter. And so it's just, as it were, another brick in the wall. It's not possible to give you an absolute measure as to what adds -- you know, what it all adds up to, and which is more important. Certainly the scientific findings are there. It's a matter of interpretation of those results, and it's very difficult to say anything beyond an indicator of fraud when we don't know anything about what happened to the books.

Q. Well, let me just -- finally to --

JUDGE ORIE: Could I first -- indicator of fraud, we've used that word many, many times.

THE WITNESS: Yes.

JUDGE ORIE: Do I understand an indicator of fraud to be an indicator of possible fraud? Is that just for my own understanding of what an indicator of fraud means. ¹⁸⁵³⁷

THE WITNESS: Yes, that's fair enough.

JUDGE ORIE: Indicator of what possibly could point at fraudulent production.

THE WITNESS: Indeed, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.

MR. JORDASH:

Q. Let me just posit a hypothetical. If, for example, the Prosecution had called, say, the police officer to testify who'd apparently found the documents the Prosecution has suggests they were found, and the police officer had been cross-examined and you'd read that evidence and come to a conclusion about the reliability of that evidence, could you have seen that conclusion overturning your overall conclusions that you presented to the Court? Would that be something that could occur with your methodology?

A. Yes. I -- only it could do, because it might militate the effect of my scientific findings. If we have a statement of fact - I came, I saw, I did, this happened, we found these here, they were there, they were in this state, and so on and so forth - then one may have an explanation. But we're speculating here as to what the officer might have said. And we -- therefore, I would be able to add that to the -- the findings. And it may be that the damage occurred in the findings. It may be they were damaged when they were found. We just don't know. And if they were damaged after discovery, then that might explain - and, as I say, militate - the effect of the scientific findings.

Q. You make a distinction there, it seems, between the type of ¹⁸⁵³⁸ evidence which might explain or outline where the documents were found and a statement which might explain the damage. Are you putting greater weight on the latter as important for you?

A. Yes. Clearly the requirement -- the information as to the state of the documents on discovery and what may have happened to them after that would have greater weight as to the precise location. Although, the precise location may give an indication of what has happened, in other words, the storage of them, and so on and so forth.

Q. So of the external factors, are there any more important external factors than evidence which demonstrates or might explain damage?

A. Yeah. I understand - and clearly we know - that the documents were all scanned, high quality scans, high resolution scans, I believe, were conducted here in the court. And I understand that they were also scanned in Belgrade first. But I'm not sure where I got that from.

Q. I think that's agreed evidence. That's right.

A. Right. Okay. So they've been scanned twice. But we have no actual information as to -- just the fact they were scanned. There's no information as to: and during that scanning we noted this, this, and this. Or that during that scanning the book exploded and pages fell out. I don't know. I mean, we just don't have that information.

Q. Thank you. No further questions. Thank you, Mr. Browne.

MR. JORDASH: Thank you, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Jordash. This concludes your evidence, Mr. Browne. Thank you very much for coming to The Hague, not even once but several times, although ¹⁸⁵³⁹ invisible for us at that moment.

I'd like to thank you for having answered all the questions that were put to you by the parties and by the Bench, and I wish you a safe return home again.

THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: You may follow the Usher.

[The witness withdrew]

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Jordash, you asked an opportunity to address the Court.

MR. JORDASH: Yes, Your Honour. It's an application pursuant to Rule 89(b) for the Trial Chamber to order the Prosecution to answer certain questions in relation to these notebooks.

And the questions are: One, does the Prosecution say that the notebooks represent a complete, comprehensive, and contemporaneous record of the notes Mladic took during the relevant periods; two, do they accept that Mladic altered or may have altered or removed some of the notes with an intention to deceive; and three, do they accept that any of the damage was or may have been caused by Mladic altering or amending any of the notes with the intention to deceive, or do they attribute all damage to wear and tear and/or handling since seizure, since seizure by the Serbian MUP?

We submit that this, these questions, are critical in order for the accused to understand the case that he must meet. In particular, number one, Mr. Groome has cross-examined on an implied premise that all the notes are reliable and that the notes represent a comprehensive ¹⁸⁵⁴⁰ record of what Mr. Mladic experienced. In particular, but not exclusive, they relied upon Milovanovic's evidence and suggested that his observation that Mr. Mladic always took notes during meetings somehow suggested that the notes, therefore, must be complete. The tenor and thrust of the cross-examination was that these notes are accurate, reliable, contemporaneous, and have not been in any way been altered. That implication should be made explicit, in our submission, if that is the Prosecution position.

JUDGE ORIE: Could I perhaps, already here, seek some clarification. You say the tenor and the thrust of the cross-examination was that these notes are accurate, reliable, contemporaneous, and have not any way been altered. Forgive me, but my understanding of the tenor and the thrust of the cross-examination was that the expert witness had -- that the reasons on the basis of which the expert witness concluded that they may well have been not contemporaneous, et cetera, the whole list, that it was a challenge to the reasoning underlying the conclusions, rather than to a -- at this moment, on the basis of this cross-examination, a positive finding.

MR. JORDASH: Well, if -- that wasn't my understanding, but if Your Honour is right --

JUDGE ORIE: Perhaps we could check that. Mr. Groome, was the tenor and the thrust of the cross-examination to establish that they were contemporaneous or that the witness had insufficient reasons to express the doubt as he did?

MR. GROOME: It's precisely the second premise, Your Honour, that ¹⁸⁵⁴¹ the witness did not have sufficient reasons. And I can address the others as soon as Mr. Jordash is done.

JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I wanted just to seek whether we are understanding the situation in a similar way.

Yes, Mr. Jordash.

MR. JORDASH: If -- I accept Mr. Groome's submission. But that doesn't alter the situation. Mr. Groome must have a case and he must cross-examine on the basis of a case. And what we're asking for is that that case on the diaries in totality be made explicit. It's one thing to challenge a witness. It's another thing to do it from a principled basis. And what we're asking for is that principled basis to be made clear.

Yesterday Mr. Groome rightly pressed the Defence to make our position clear. And I would -- and that's all we're asking for, is for the Prosecution to do exactly the same thing. And particularly given their duty of disclosure and particularly given that these documents originate from their 65 ter list.

Secondly, why it's important, in our submission, is that there is a possibility - and we cannot exclude it - that the Serbian MUP have damaged these documents in complete bona fides. There is a possibility that the Prosecution have also done the same. The Prosecution will rely upon that damage to rebut the Defence submission that that damage may be evidence of fraud. In order to rely upon that, in our submission, the Prosecution have a correspondent obligation which is to say what their position is now so that we may meet those arguments before the closing ¹⁸⁵⁴² brief.

I would also add to that, these documents were shown to Milovanovic by an OTP investigator on the 8th of July, 2009. We've heard no evidence as to how that occurred or what precautions were taken. Damage may have occurred during that examination.

The Prosecution, in our submission, cannot have it both ways. To rely upon that potential damage, to remove the specter of fraud, but at the same time remain silent, as they do now, and as they have since these documents were introduced, in relation to what their position is. Fourthly, there are notable omissions in these diaries - the massacre at Srebrenica, the shelling of Sarajevo; two of the biggest crime bases in this unfortunate conflict. The Prosecution ought not to be able to simply stay silent when these omissions exist. When these issues relating to reliability have become, if not central, then at least an important part of this case.

Finally, we would say this: That the Prosecution have a duty as ministers of justice to ensure that the evidence that the produce and rely upon is reliable and that they assert it's reliable or indicate when they accept there may be questions concerning that. Rule 89(d) also provides Your Honours with a -- a rule which allows you to exclude evidence if its prohibitive value is substantially outweighed by the need to ensure a fair trial. The Prosecution have a corresponding obligation to indicate that clearly when they say their evidence produced in -- especially in these circumstances late in the day in what are, well, circumstances which give rise to various questions concerning how these ¹⁸⁵⁴³ documents appeared at Mrs. Mladic's premises and so. They have a correspondent obligation to deal with that in a straightforward way. The alternative is that we finish this case and we all retire to write our closing briefs and at the last minute the Prosecution specify in the closing brief what their position is in relation to these books, giving us no opportunity or no adequate opportunity to deal with that now, whether through submissions in our own closing brief or whether we want to consider, for example, applying to call evidence maybe from the Serbian MUP or Mrs. Mladic or, in fact, asking Your Honours to call that evidence as Court witnesses. We need to know, for these reasons, and for the reasons I've outlined, what the Prosecution position is going to be in fairly clear terms.

Do they accept that any of the questions we've raised are legitimate or not, or are they simply going to stay silent until the last minute and ambush the Defence with final submissions? Finally, we would submit that this information is critical if we are to defend our client properly from these allegations contained within these notebooks.

In the absence of that information, we are wandering in the dark. And, Your Honours, we would ask, if Your Honours decline to order the Prosecution to answer these questions, we would respectively ask for a written reason decision so that we may deal with that at an appellate level, if necessary.

JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Groome, I would not expect you to immediately respond unless you would have a few one- or two-liners, but the matter ¹⁸⁵⁴⁴ raised by Mr. Jordash is -- is not a simple one. Apart from that, he asks us to deliver a written decision. So I would suggest that you respond briefly in writing, if you're able to do that, unless you would prefer at this moment to already respond briefly. We have only two minutes left.

MR. GROOME: I wouldn't want to let my silence suggest that I believe there's some merit in the argument, so I would thank the Chamber for an opportunity to respond in writing. I would simply say the following.

With respect to the first question, whether these are the entirety of the contemporaneous notes: Well, we know from General Milovanovic's evidence that they're not. There's also a book called a diary which he said every officer was required to fill out. Whether they have been altered or may have been altered: I certainly concede that the possibility is that they may have been altered, they may have been damaged. We simply do not know. My examination of the witness was confined to the demonstrative indicators of that.

With respect to whether we rely on all of the diaries or all of the notebooks: I think it's been clear we've only tendered very select portions and only those portions which we believe were corroborated by other evidence that the Chamber has heard.

With respect to allegations of damage: Mr. Jordash knows, but the Chamber's not aware, but when they came back from Mr. Browne's examination, there were reports of damage caused by Mr. Browne's ¹⁸⁵⁴⁵ examination. The nature of working with these old documents is that when you manipulate them, when you put them in machines, they degrade. With respect to notable omissions: I have no explanation for why Mr. Mladic does not write extensively about what he did in Sarajevo or Srebrenica.

And with respect to the reference to 89(d): I'm confused because that is the basis of a motion to exclude the evidence, and Mr. Jordash has moved to tender all of the diaries in his bar table motion, which we are working on and we are not going to oppose. So I'm confused about what exactly his position is with respect to that.

Your Honour, I'll finish it there, but I do want to say one other thing. I'm going to ask that the expert report of this witness be remarked to MF-- to be marked for identification, and that the Prosecution be able to make some further submissions on whether or not it ultimately should be admitted into evidence. And I won't go into all the details of that now but would ask for an opportunity to be able to do that.

JUDGE ORIE: I think I was admitted. But you want to file a motion to reconsider the admission to evidence; is that --

MR. GROOME: Yes, Your Honour.

JUDGE ORIE: -- how I understand it? That's -- then we'll wait for such a motion. We'll further wait for your written response to the application made by Mr. Jordash.

And I take it that if I look at the number of eyebrows raised when you said something about damage caused by Mr. Browne's report, that ¹⁸⁵⁴⁶ it really needs a cup of coffee or a cup of tea to see where exactly this -- could I say this fundamental disagreement,

disunderstanding [sic], comes from, and to see what remains and then make that part of the further submissions.

MR. JORDASH: Yes. Although I would say, but maybe I've missed this or maybe I've read it and not taken notice of it, but I wasn't aware that damage had been caused.

JUDGE ORIE: No. I referred to all the eyebrows braised in this courtroom, and that's usually a moment to sit together and to see what caused that.

We will adjourn for the day. And will resume -- let me see, Monday, the 26th of March, at a quarter past 2.00 in the afternoon in this same courtroom, II.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.46 p.m., to be reconvened on Monday, the 26th day

of March, 2012, at 12.00 p.m.