“Yes, of course.”
“And how many hours did it take?”
“I don’t really know.”
“Two? Ten?”
“Two perhaps, three.”
“And on that date, Colonel, do you remember where the regiment you commanded was stationed?”
“Not offhand.”
“You say you were in combat. Do you recall the last encounter your troops had been in?”
“We fought the Bosniaks. It must have been near Sarajevo.”
“And so you went from Sarajevo to Banja Luka in wartime in two to three hours? That would be impossible now, would it not?”
“I didn’t say it took only two to three hours.”
“I’m sorry, I thought you said that.”
“You said that.”
“I apologize. But from Sarajevo to Banja Luka, during the time of fighting, that would be a journey that could take most of a day, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, it could.”
“So in order to speak to President Kajevic, you would have been gone from your troops for two days at least?”
“But perhaps I was not in Sarajevo.”
“I see. And I forget. Do you recall where you had been when you started out?”
“Not really. It was more than twenty years ago. How am I supposed to recall anything?”
All of this took place, as in our court, with the elaborate process of translation making it feel as if everybody was trying to run with their shoes glued in place. But despite that, with just a few questions, Nara had pulverized the colonel. The only thing he really knew was that by blaming Kajevic he could get out of prison.
They were done shortly. Nara introduced me to Bozic outside their robing room and I congratulated both of them. The Court had taken the matter under advisement, but it was clear they were going to prevail on their motion. Nara giggled like a girl when I gave her the praise she deserved for her questioning.
“Yes, yes,” said Bozic, “a brilliant cross-examination.” He was tubby and no more than five foot three. Despite that and being over seventy, he was quite handsome, with high color and a full head of white hair and an appealing energetic manner. He had become the go-to lawyer for all the high-ranking Serbs who’d been arrested, and he’d won acquittals for three of them. Born in Milwaukee, his American English was entirely without accent. “Four counts gone,” he said. “Only 332 remaining.”
Because the hearing had taken longer than expected, Bozic was now late for his plane and asked me to walk with him to the door. Nara, as promised, left us to our discussions.
“Listen,” said Bozic, “my client believes he is a superhero. He has no appreciation of risk. At the end of all of this, he expects to put on his cape and fly out of prison. An insanity defense is called for, but it goes without saying, he would fire me on the spot.”
I nodded. I’d been there. We talked about the terms for Kajevic’s testimony.
As a matter of character, Laza Kajevic seemed to me extremely unlikely to admit authorizing the massacre of four hundred Roma at Barupra. Nonetheless, even that remote possibility had provoked some searching conversations at the ICC in the last several hours: Was it worth it, in a case where we had no reliable witness, to make promises of immunity to the arch criminal so that we could get evidence that would lead us to others who were also responsible? It was a question every prosecutor faced from time to time, and it was usually a very tough call. Yet since Kajevic’s conviction in this building, and his lifelong imprisonment, were a certainty, I was in favor.
In the event, it proved to have been a purely theoretical debate. Bozic was the kind of lawyer other lawyers loved, too busy and confident to bother with bullshit. While he was under no obligation to answer, he laughed out loud and wound his head in disbelief when I asked if Kajevic would take responsibility for Barupra. Given that, the rest of our negotiation took only minutes. The ICC by statute promised all witnesses, not just Kajevic, immunity from use anywhere of their statements against them. Bozic’s remaining concerns could be addressed by agreeing that the interview would be deemed an investigative matter covered by the Court’s rules of absolute confidentiality, meaning our meeting with Kajevic would remain forever secret. Having gotten everything he could want, Bozic was happy with the arrangement.
“Write it down, send it to me,” he said. He was returning to The Hague next week to confer with General Lojpur, whose case was now pending decision. If we could complete the paperwork, the Kajevic interview would take place then.
27.
Emira—June 17–19
On Wednesday, when I reached my office, the overnight envelope I’d sent to Esma at her chambers in London was lying on my desk with a notice that the addressee was unknown. I picked it up, checked the spelling and the street name, then wondered if there was any chance that Esma hadn’t answered my other messages because those communications also hadn’t reached her.
I went online to the sleek website for Esma’s chambers at Bank Street and found no listing for her. I was stumped for a second, then concluded she must have changed her business arrangements, like successful American lawyers, who these days sometimes declare themselves free agents, akin to athletes who offer their services to the highest bidder. If she’d moved chambers, her cell phone and e-mail might have gotten screwed up in the process, accounting for her silence.
I called the receptionist at Bank Street next, but she told me politely that she had “no information” on Esma Czarni, which is pretty much the tactic US firms utilize as an obstacle to clients who want to follow their attorney to the new workplace. So I called George Landruff, the silk—that is, senior barrister—whom Esma and I both knew at Bank Street and had spoken about for a second when we first met.
George had never mastered what parents with young children refer to as an ‘inside voice.’ He spoke at all times at the stentorian volume fitting for the centuries-old acoustics in the courtrooms of London. From the first blast of “Hallooooo,” I kept the phone two inches from my ear.
“George!” When talking to him, my inevitable reaction was to shout, too. I reintroduced myself, but he recalled me at once. We had enjoyed a couple of dinners, one in London, one in New York, during meetings of an international trial lawyers society we’d both been honored to join. George had the kind of understated wit that escaped, like a pleasing scent, through the ventilation of his very proper British upper-class manner, offering the assurance that he was neither a stuffed shirt nor a buffoon.
“George, I am trying to find a colleague of yours—perhaps a former colleague—who kept chambers at Bank Street.”
“Who might that be?”
When I told him, the phone gathered static and he finally asked me to repeat myself.
“Male or female?” asked George.
He took one more second to think and said, “Very sorry, Boom, but can’t say I recall her.”
“George, she knows you. We’ve talked about you.”
“Did you now?”
He repeated Esma’s name again, then asked, “Do you mean Emira Zandi?”
I spelled her first name. “Roma heritage.”
“Describe her.”
“Mid-forties. Very handsome. With what other women apparently would describe as a look-at-me hairdo.”
“Good man, I believe you’re speaking about Emira Zandi. Read law at Caius College?”
“Yes.”
“That’s Emira! And what did you say about her background?”
“She’s Roma.”
“Gypsy? No, no. This lady is Persian.”
“Persian?”
“Iranian exile family. But she hasn’t been around here in more than a decade. Married an Iranian billionaire thirty years her senior and moved with him to Manhattan. Fine barrister she was, but I can’t pretend, Boom, there wasn’t some relief when she departed. There always seemed to be several gents after her and a lot of hissing and scratching as a result. Actually had the first fistfight I can recall in the corridors here between two fellows who each believed they were her one and only.”