October 7
No session.

October 8
For weeks during the prosecution's case, tribunal judges heard testimony from witnesses who were relatives of Dusko Tadic's alleged victims. Today, for the first time, the court heard from one of the defendant's relatives.

The 35-year-old Serb wife of the defendant, Mira Tadic took the stand and told the court that that she and her husband had many friends who were Muslims and Croats. She said relations between the various ethnic groups in Kozarac prior to the 1992 conflict were good.

The couple met in 1976 in Kozarac, moved in together in 1979, and married in 1980. She now lives in Prijedor with the couple's two daughters.

She described the various jobs the defendant has had over the years. When she got a nursing job in Libya in 1986, her husband followed her there.

Though they have a happy union, Tadic said she and her husband are no longer legally married. They obtained a "divorce of convenience" in 1987 because she was trying to get a nursing position in Switzerland. They felt she would have a better shot at the job if she were single, she said.

The divorce papers were filed, and even though she didn't ultimately get the nursing job, she and the defendant never bothered to get remarried. Nevertheless, "we've always been together," she said. Their youngest daughter was born two years after their marriage was legally terminated.

Preceding Tadic, witness "D," a Serb woman, took the stand and said she grew up with Dusko Tadic and for some four years Dusko and Mira Tadic lived in a house in Kozarac that she owned. She saw them in Kozarac several times a week before the conflict started and later in Prijedor, where she now lives.

D was an alternate member of the commission that inspected abandoned houses in the Kozarac region to determine their suitability for habitability. She claimed that this commission, of which the defendant was also a member, was only engaged in inspecting these former homes, and had no say in allocating them. She also claimed that Tadic was a good man who expressed sadness about the ethnic tensions that came to a boil in the former Yugoslavia.

Her cross-examination was conducted in a closed session.

Other highlights:

• Under cross-examination, Witness "Y," a Serb refugee who underwent direct examination last Friday, claimed to know little of the workings of the SDS party, even though he was a member of the local Kozarac SDS board. He did, however, admit that the Kozarac board was answerable to the main SDS board in Prijedor, and that Kozarac SDS board president Dusko Tadic was the one who coordinated with the higher authorities.
• Y strongly denied that reserve policemen or Serb refugees were involved in looting abandoned Muslim homes in the area, even when confronted with a work report written by the defendant that seemed to indicate that such looting had taken place.
• Y also denied that he or fellow policemen ever went searching for Muslims who might be hiding in the hills around Kozarac or took Muslims out of the Trnopolje detention camp to force them to surrender hidden stashes of money or valuables
• Like other defense witnesses, Y stressed that Trnopolje wasn't a detention camp, but merely a 'reception center'.

October 9
Mira Tadic spent the entire day on the witness stand, defending her husband, accused war criminal Dusko Tadic.

In her second day of testimony, Tadic continued to claim that relations between the various Kozarac ethnic groups were very good in the years prior to 1992. She named Muslim Emir Karabasic, one of the men whom Tadic is charged with torturing and murdering, as a particular close friend of Dusko Tadic. But she admitted that the relationship began to cool in 1991.

In 1991, she and her husband joined the SDS and helped organize a plebiscite for Serbs on whether or not Bosnia-Herzegovina should remain a part of Yugoslavia. But she denied that either of them studied SDS literature or theology. She blamed worsening tensions in the Kozarac area on the fact that Muslims and Croats wanted their own state, and said that everyone seemed to become very politicized.

She claimed there were rumors that Dusko Tadic refused to serve non-Serbs in his coffee bar, which led to a boycott and some broken windows. The Tadic family left Kozarac on May 3, 1992, feeling that it wasn't safe for them anymore.

Mira Tadic said Dusko Tadic moved to Prijedor on June 15, 1992, and she, their daughters, and Dusko's mother followed on June 27. At this time, her husband began to work for the traffic police in Prijedor; in August, he began to work out of the police station in Kozarac.

She said her husband didn't spend any time away from his family during this period, except for the nights he spent in Kozarac while on a police call. His political activities during these months were solely for the purpose of reviving the devastated town.

The witness moved to Munich in 1993, where she found work as a nurse. The defendant followed her and was arrested there in February of 1994.

Prosecutor Michael Keegan began his cross examination by reading the witness a copy of a letter allegedly written to her by her husband while he was in a German prison. It seems to suggest that Tadic was asking his wife to provide him with an alibi.

"Remember we spent every night together in Prijedor," he allegedly wrote, "I hope you can testify."

Mira Tadic, however, said she'd never received this letter, although she admitted it was in her husband's handwriting. Defense lawyers also claimed they had never seen the letter, though prosecutors insisted they should have had a copy of it.

After much wrangling, the tribunal ruled that the introduction of the document was appropriate for impeachment purposes. But this witness couldn't be asked further questions about it, since she claimed she'd never seen it.

October 10
Witness "Z" and witness "A", whose identities are being protected by the tribunal, testified in a closed session.

A's direct examination was scheduled to continue the following day.

October 11
Witness "A" and witness "B" testified for the defense in a closed session. The identity of these witnesses is being withheld by the tribunal.