SECRET WITNESSES CAN NOW TESTIFY VIA WRITTEN STATEMENTS
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - May 8, 2003

At the end of the proceedings of 8 May 2003 administrative matters were discussed at the so-called "trial" of Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague Tribunal.

The administrative proceedings are usually dull and uninteresting, but not this day. The so-called "judges" took a decision that written statements from secret witnesses can be entered as evidence, and that no cross-examination need take place. In fact, these secret witnesses who allegedly write these statements never even have to come to the tribunal at all.

The so-called "judge" Richard May read out a list of the following secret witnesses: B-1542, B-1543, B-1121, B-1537, B-1538, and B-1540. Then he announced that there would be no cross-examination of these witnesses by the defense, and that their written statements would be entered into the prosecution's evidence under the "Rule 92 bis" of the Hague Tribunal.

It's bad enough that this so-called "court" uses secret witnesses that they conceal parts of the proceedings from public scrutiny with their extensive use of so-called "private sessions," and that they doctor the "trial" transcripts, but this is a new low even for this kangaroo court.

You don't have to be a legal expert to see how a prosecutor could abuse the use of secret witness testimony given via written statement. How is one to know if these witnesses even exist at all? Are they real witnesses or are they just figments of the prosecutor's imagination? How is one to know if the prosecutor isn't using the secret status of these alleged witnesses to put words into the mouths of real people? The "prosecutor" could say to the "judge" that you are one of these secret witnesses and then attribute to you, through a written statement, any manner of statement he wished and you'd never know it, because these are secret witnesses.

Only at the Hague Tribunal is it possible for you to testify against somebody and not even know it.