MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 20, 2004: A PRIJEDOR WITNESS TESTIFIES
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 23, 2004

JANUARY 20, 2004 - Karem Misanovic, a Muslim from the National Defense Secretariat of the Prijedor T.O. testified at the so-called "trial" of Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday.

He testified about the takeover of Prijedor, by the Bosnian Serb Territorial Defense forces, on April 30, 1992. The takeover happened without firing a single shot being fired. The Serbs were endeavoring to prevent war from breaking out.

President Milosevic produced a telegram from Alija Mustafic of the B-H Defense Ministry ordering the Prijedor T.O. to attack the JNA. The telegram was sent on April 29, 1992 and it was the reason why the Serbs took over the town the next day.

There were seven Muslims in the Prijedor T.O., including the witness, and six of them kept their jobs after the take over. From this example we can see that even after the Serbs took over there was no discrimination against the Muslims.

The witness eventually left Bosnia and went to Serbia. He stayed in Serbia until he could go to Germany. He didn't have any problems in Serbia and he couldn't identify a single Muslim who did.

All in all he was a pretty insignificant witness. You would think that with just a few days left to go to present their case that the prosecution would try to come-up with something more than they presented here.

After Misanovic withdrew Tom Zwann, a social scientist from the Netherlands took the stand. Mr. Zwann wrote a report about genocide. The point of his coming to testify was to try and broaden the definition of genocide for the prosecution.

The prosecution seems to realize that Milosevic isn't guilty of what most people understand genocide to be, so they are going to use this witness in order to try and broaden the definition of the word.

Dr. Zwann bemoaned the fact that people measure genocide against the Jewish experience during the Second World War. He thinks people set the bar to high when it comes to genocide. He believes that genocide doesn't have to be a large scale affair. More over he complains that the legal definition of genocide is too restrictive.

Unfortunately, for the prosecution, Zwann put a caveat on his own definition of genocide. If the supposed victim is armed and is fighting a war with the other side then they aren't victims of genocide.

The Bosnian Muslims were armed, and they were fighting a war that they started themselves against the Bosnian Serbs. So even under Zwann's excessively broad definition of genocide the Muslims still aren't victims.

Zwann's examination in chief was completed on January 20th and Slobodan Milosevic will cross-examine on January 21st.

# # #