1. Role and Functions of the Operations Duty Officer
502. Under the regulations in force in the VRS in 1995, the operations duty officer1715 was considered part of the ‘organs of internal service’ of a VRS unit.1716 These organs served to ensure continuity and safety of operation of VRS units at all times.1717 In this respect, the 1983 Manual for the Work of Commands and Staffs (“Manual”) provides that:
A continuous and secure functioning of the command in all conditions is ensured through the setting up of operational duty, duty shifts in the operations room, duty shifts in the communications centre (CV), command post duty officers, duty couriers, drivers, and other organs of the internal service as necessary.1718
The English translation of Article 65(1) of the Manual as provided by the Prosecution further provides that:
The operations duty officer and his assistant are commanding officers in the command who are assigned to this duty according to a roster. If a duty shift is formed, the duty officer and his assistant are part of the shift.1719
1714 Jokić Defence Final Brief, paras 160-162, referring to Ex. D71/3, Rules of Service in the Armed Forces, Article 202. Article 202 reads as follows: “Organs of internal service may not carry out work that is unrelated to duty during the time they are on duty.”
1715 The Trial Chamber notes that the regulations in this respect use “operations duty officer” and “duty officer”
interchangeably. Also, in some translations the title is ‘operations duty officer’ and in others ‘duty operations officer’, without, as far as the Trial Chamber has been able to ascertain, any difference being intended. The Trial Chamber will use the term operations duty officer.
1716 Dragan Jokić’s military expert Dragoslav Lacković testified: “as far as I know all the regulations that were used by the former JNA were also applied by the units of the Army of Republika Srpska”. Dragoslav Lacković, T. 12130. This is supported by Richard Butler, T. 4276-77.
1717 Ex. D73/3, Report of Dragoslav Lacković, p. 22.
1718 Ex. P. 394. While this document contains the word “draft” in the title, the Trial Chamber observes that the Manual has been referenced by witnesses as being used by the VRS in 1995. Richard Butler, T. 4794-95; Report by Dragan Jokić’s military expert Dragoslav Lacković, pp 22 ff: “This Manual is applicable to all levels of command, starting with tactical, to the joint-tactical, to the strategic operative Commands and Staffs”, Id. p. 22.
The Trial Chamber further observes that Art. 65(3) of the Manual, as cited in Lacković’s report (p .29), corresponds verbatim to Art. 65(3) of the draft Manual in Ex. P394.
1719 Ex. P394, Art. 65(1).
The Defence of Dragan Jokić argues that this translation is partly incorrect and that the BCS version of the provision reads “[t]he operations duty officer and his assistant are officers of/within the command” thus implying that the duty officer did not exercise command authority except over the organs of the “internal service”.1720 The Trial Chamber finds that this is a more logical conclusion than that contained in the Prosecution’s translation for the reasons outlined below.1721 503. It was the responsibility of the chief of staff of a military unit to organise the operational duty at the command post.1722 The duty was to be served in an operations room or at any other location “where all information is received”.1723
504. The Trial Chamber has been furnished with two provisions that describe the duties of the operations duty officer: Article 66(1) of the 1983 Manual, and Article 218 of the 1985 Rules of Service in the Armed Forces (“Rules of Service”).1724 These Rules of Service, according to Dragan Jokić’s military expert Dragoslav Lacković:
provide for the basis of relations, rights and duties of the members of the Armed Forces and are referent to all other rules and regulations dealing more specifically with functioning of the components of the armed forces.1725
It is relevant to here cite the full list of duties as laid down in these regulations. Firstly, the Manual provides that it is the duty of the operations duty officer:1726
- to monitor the course of combat operations and to enter changes in subordinate or adjacent units into charts and the staff operation map;
- to inform the commander or chief of staff about any major changes or orders issued by a superior which require a decision of the commander;
- to be familiar with the disposition of the elements of the command post, the location of the commander, chief of staff and assistants to the commander;
- to control and maintain communications with the operations duty officers of the superior and subordinate commands;
- to receive and dispatch orders and reports when other organs are resting or when ordered to do so;
1720 Jokić Defence Final Brief, para. 138, fn. 106, referring to Witness DW1, T. 11802; Ex. D73/3, Report of Dragoslav Lacković, conclusions 5 and 6. See regarding the Prosecution translation, Richard Butler, T. 4332.
1721 See infra paras 504-508.
1722 Ex. P394, Art 65(2).
1723 Ex. P394, Art 65(4). Mirko Trivić, commander of the 2nd Romanija Brigade, testified that an operations duty officer may not leave the premises while performing his functions. Mirko Trivić, T. 7550.
1724 Ex. D71/3, Rules of Service in the Armed Forces.
1725 Ex. D73/3, Report of Dragoslav Lacković, p. 16. According to the same report, the Rules of Service were in effect in 1995. Ibid.
1726 Ex. P394, Art. 66(1). Art .66(2) and (3) are concerned with the various instructions and plans, which the duty officer must have accessible, and how the handover of duty is recorded.
- to advise the assistant commander for logistics or appropriate organs at the logistics command post about the orders of superior officers, reports and notices of the subordinates, adjacent elements, organs and organisations of socio-political communities, socio-political organisations and organisations of associated labour which have to do with logistics support;
- to monitor and verify measures for the immediate security and defence of the command post and to sound the alert in case of an attack.
According to Article 218 of the Rules of Service, the duties of the operations duty officer are as follows:
a) He shall monitor the organisation, formation, disposition and use of every unit under the command whose organ he is [sic]
b) He shall monitor the situation in the units and events in the territory significant to the Armed Forces
c) He shall maintain continuous contact with the duty organs of subordinated units and adjacent commands, the superior operations duty officer […]
d) He shall keep a log of the combat readiness of units and update it based on the information received in the reports from subordinated units
e) He shall keep a log of the disposition and activities of units and institutions in the barracks, camps, training grounds, works, and so on
f) He shall keep a log of the strength levels of units, especially of the units on a raised level of combat readiness
g) Within the framework of authority and order of the superior officer (operations duty officer of the superior command), he shall refer orders and signals to subordinated units
h) He shall be in charge of a plan of readiness and alerting for all units that are under his responsibility according to the alerting schedule
i) He shall report to the superior officer or the duty commanding officer (team) on the events and orders that require measures for which he is not authorised
j) Under unusual circumstances and in an emergency situation, he shall command units or institutions until the arrival of the superior officer, or responsible officer
k) He shall submit a report to the operations duty officer of the superior command on the situation in the unit and events in the territory
l) He shall receive the mail that arrives after working hours and act according to instructions given to him.
Additionally, the Rules of Service provide that “[o]rgans of internal service may not carry out work that is unrelated to duty during the time they are on duty.”1727
505. There has been some discussion among the parties as to whether the operations duty officer was entitled, or even duty-bound, to issue orders when the commander, his deputy or chief
1727 Ex. D71/3, Rules of Service in the Armed Forces, Art. 202.
of staff were unavailable or outside communications.1728 The Prosecution military expert Richard Butler testified that in his opinion this is the case and that this follows implicitly from Article 66 of the Manual, the relevant parts of which have been cited above. In his words:
The position as defined leaves open the possibility, at least with respect to my interpretation of it, that when critical orders have been passed down from the superior command, if the commander or chief of staff are not in the position to give the required orders, that the duty officer as, in effect, the commander's representative is in power to do so. That is why if one examines the duty officer rosters of the brigades, it makes it clear that the position is only held by those people who are considered to be superior commanding officers in deference to the fact that they may need to make these decisions and should be experienced people to do so.1729
Dragan Jokić’s military expert, Dragoslav Lacković, was of the opposite opinion. He testified that:
The regulations do not prescribe that the command role should ever be assumed by the duty operations officer. […] I would corroborate my opinion if you could allow me by showing you my position, and that is that experienced and less experienced officers are appointed to be duty operations officers in the command. So it may occur that the duty operations officer for the day is an assistant commander, but also it can be a lower ranking officer in the command.1730
506. Neither of the Parties has referred to Article 218(j) of the Rules of Service, which explicitly covers situations where an operations duty officer assumes command until a superior or responsible officer arrives. The Trial Chamber observes in this context Article 35(5) of the Rules of Service, which provides that:
If a unit or an institution should suddenly find itself without a superior officer, the command will be taken over by the person who is second in command, or the most senior officer in that unit or institution until a new superior officer is designed [sic].1731
Further, Article 33(1) of the Rules of Service provides the following:
According to relations in the service, members of the Armed Forces may be superior or subordinate to each other and according to ranks (classes) and positions they may be either senior or junior to each other.1732
1728 Richard Butler, T. 4330-31. In this vein, the Manual provides that “All internal service organs at the command post are subordinate to the operations duty officer”. Ex. P394, Art. 65(3) (emphasis added). This is supported by the definition of duty officer found in a 1969 Encyclopaedic Lexicon, Basics of National Defence, which provides “Duty officer: most senior organ of internal service within a unit, command, institution, military compound/barracks, etc., directly subordinated to unit commander who positioned him, and on whose behalf he issues requisite orders, directs activities of internal service, maintains order in the unit; duty lasts for 24 hours”
(emphasis added). Furthermore, the 1985 Rules of Service (Ex. D71/3) provide in Art. 201(1) that “Organs of internal service are subordinated to the officer who assigned them to duty, or the superior duty officer”
(emphasis added).
1729 Richard Butler, T. 5249-50.
1730 Dragoslav Lacković, T. 12137. In his report, Lacković notes that under Art. 218(g) of the Rules of Service an operations duty officer is only to refer orders and signals to subordinate units “within the framework of authority and order of the superior officer (operations duty officer of the superior command)”. From this, he concludes that the operations duty officer therefore does not have “authority to issue orders personally, as he deems appropriate”, Ex. D73/3, Report of Dragoslav Lacković, p. 26. Indeed, sub-section (i) requires the operations duty officer to report to the superior officer or the duty commanding officer on events and orders that require measures for which he himself is not authorised. See supra para. 504, Rules of Service, Art 218(i).
1731 Ex. D71/3, Extract of the Rules of Service in the Armed Forces.
1732 Ex. D71/3, Extract of the Rules of Service in the Armed Forces.
In line with Article 33(1) of the Rules of Service, Dragoslav Lacković states that seniority within a unit, absent the commander, his deputy or the chief of staff, is decided not only by rank but also by class or position within the command of a unit. Lacković explained this during his testimony:
When the commander is absent from his unit, his duties are assumed by the highest-ranking officer in the command, which is the Chief of Staff. If the Chief of Staff is not there, then it is the next officer, again the highest-ranking officer, who is there at the time. And that is one of the commander’s assistants. In practice – and this has been supported by certain solutions that I could explain – it is most often the assistant command for logistics, because in the command hierarchy this officer is the third ranking officer in every command.1733
507. General Dragomir Keserović, in 1995 a Lieutenant-Colonel and the Chief of the Police Section in the Main Staff, testified that a duty officer in a military unit at any level:
can deal with certain matters only in the absence of the actual commander or the person who is by establishment replacing him in that position or through some other measure is standing in for him. The duty officer may address certain matters. But he cannot take upon himself the role of command of the unit fully. He cannot fully replace the commander, nor can he decide on the use of the unit. For this [i.e. to be able to decide on the use of the unit], he has to get the approval of the commander for each and every operation that he intends to carry out.1734
An officer in the Bratunac Brigade confirms this view and testified that the operations duty officer may issue an order as a last resort when neither the commander nor his deputy or any other authorised person is available. The witness pointed out, however, that this can only happen after the operations duty officer has exhausted all possibilities for contacting the commander and stressed that this is “a very extreme situation”.1735
508. The Trial Chamber finds that the system in place in the VRS provided clear rules for the assumption of command over a unit in the absence of the commander, his deputy, or the chief of staff. Thus, while in extreme circumstances or emergencies it cannot be excluded that an operations duty officer would have to take decisions or issue orders for brief periods of time until matters of command and seniority within the command had been solved, this does not mean that the position of operations duty officer was a command position or that the operations duty officer in such situations assumed command of the VRS unit. In terms of the alleged individual criminal responsibility of the Accused Dragan Joki}, therefore, the Trial Chamber finds that a case-by-case analysis must be made of any decisions taken by the Accused as the operations duty officer.
1733 Dragoslav Lacković, T. 12137. See also D73/3, Report of Dragoslav Lackovi}, pp 16-17.
1734 Dragomir Keserović, T. 10684.
1735 Witness DP-105, T. 10211.
2. Dragan Jokić as a duty officer from the morning of 14 July until morning of 15 July 509. At about 9:00 on 14 July, Dragan Jokić took over as operations duty officer at the Zvornik Brigade command post from Streten Milosević. He relinquished it to Nenad Simić at approximately 11:00 on 15 July.1736
510. On 14 July, at 09:10, Major Jokić transmitted to General Živanović information he had received from Duško Vukotić about a very large group of Bosnian Muslims in the Zvornik Brigade area of responsibility.1737 In the conversation Dragan Joki} said that the intelligence officer sent “an info” concerning this group. Jokić subsequently was ordered by Živanović, who was not any longer commander of the Drina Corps, to transmit the information to Mane Ðurić,1738 deputy commander of the Zvornik CJB, which he did.1739 The Trial Chamber notes that Du{ko Vukoti} denied having had any communication with the duty officer at the Standard Barracks on 14 July.1740
511. The evidence shows that Dragan Joki} knew of the arrival of a large group of prisoners in the morning of 14 July.1741
512. For 14 July, the operations duty officer workbook of the Zvornik Brigade contains a fragmentary reference at 15:00 to “Orovoc”, meaning Orahovac,1742 Petkovci, Roćević and Pilica.1743 Major Jokić received information about the movement of the column during the day and the evening of 14 July,1744 and reported about the possible arrival of Colonel Ljubiša Beara at the Zvornik Brigade headquarters.1745 In the late afternoon of 14 July, Dragan Joki} received information that extra men were needed to secure the Bosnian Muslim prisoners at Orahovac. The requested extra men arrived in Orahovac on that same day.1746 At 21:02, Major Jokić spoke with Colonel Beara, transmitting a request to Colonel Beara to contact General Radovan Mileti}, the
1736 Ex. D73/3: military expert report of Dragoslav Lacković, pp 21 and 32; Dragan Obrenović, T. 2807; Richard Butler, T. 4562-63.
1737 Ex. P227, intercept dated 14 July at 09:10, conversation between General @ivanovi} and Dragan Joki}.
1738 Ex. P227; Richard Butler, T. 4562; Ex. P133, Zvornik Brigade Duty Officer Workbook, p. 8.
1739 Ex. P133, Zvornik Brigade Duty Officer Workbook, p. 9.
1740 Du{ko Vukoti}, T. 11464-65.
1741 See supra section II. F. 1. (g) and (h), in particular paras 343-344 and 347.
1742 Based on the evidence before it, the Trial Chamber concludes that ‘Orovoc’ means Orahovac. See also Dragan Obrenovi}, T. 2614; Richard Butler T. 4586.
1743 Ex. P133, Zvornik Brigade Duty Officer Workbook, p. 9; Richard Butler ,T. 4586. Note in this regard that there are two documents that were filled out by the operations duty officer, the logbook (Ex. P137) and the workbook (Ex. P133).
1744 Ex. P133. Zvornik Brigade Duty Officer Workbook, pp 9, 11, 13-15.
1745 Ex. P133, Zvornik Brigade Duty Officer Workbook, pp 9, 15.
1746 See supra section II. F. 1. (f) (i), in particular paras 325-326.
Main Staff Assistant Commander for Operations and Training. Dragan Jokić also informed Beara about problems with the prisoners in the Zvornik Brigade area.1747
513. At 20:38, Major Jokić received a combat order from General Živanović according to which Major Obrenović should surround an unknown location with combat equipment. Major Jokić also gave General Živanović information about two more lines and about the possible moves of the group of Bosnian Muslims.1748 At 22:27, Major Jokić contacted a “General Vilotić”, whom the Trial Chamber believes to be the above-mentioned General Miletić, and informed him about the movements of the Bosnian Muslims in the Zvornik Brigade area as well as their surrender to VRS forces.1749
514. The duty officer’s workbook contains a reference, written in the early morning of 15 July, that “Aco and his group”1750 were to be sent to Orahovac.1751
515. Major Dragan Obrenović testified that around 11:00 on 15 July, he returned to the Zvornik Brigade headquarters from Snagovo and that once inside the headquarters building Major Jokić told him that “he had a lot of problems with securing the prisoners of war and with burying them.”1752 The Jokić Defence submits that this meeting never occurred. The Jokić Defence refers to a Prosecution interview with Colonel Dragomir Vasić, chief of the Zvornik CJB, and the testimony of Miloš Stupar, commander of the 2nd Šekovići Detachment of the MUP Special Police
515. Major Dragan Obrenović testified that around 11:00 on 15 July, he returned to the Zvornik Brigade headquarters from Snagovo and that once inside the headquarters building Major Jokić told him that “he had a lot of problems with securing the prisoners of war and with burying them.”1752 The Jokić Defence submits that this meeting never occurred. The Jokić Defence refers to a Prosecution interview with Colonel Dragomir Vasić, chief of the Zvornik CJB, and the testimony of Miloš Stupar, commander of the 2nd Šekovići Detachment of the MUP Special Police