Prosecutor Geoffery Nice continued his cross-examination of Professor Ratko Markovic at the Hague Tribunal’s trial of Slobodan Milosevic on Thursday.

Mr. Nice did not challenge the evidence put forward by the witness during his examination-in-chief, instead Nice embarked on an unsuccessful quest to assassinate the character of the witness.

Professor Markovic’s examination in chief dealt almost exclusively with verifiable facts. He testified to facts and introduced documents corroborating those facts. Almost none of his evidence had to do with his personal opinions or beliefs. Professor Markovic essentially served as a vehicle that President Milosevic used to produce documents and prove facts for his defense.

Because of the irrefutable nature of Professor Markovic’s testimony in chief, Mr. Nice cross-examined him in an underhanded fashion. Mr. Nice adopted the “are you still beating your wife?” approach to cross-examination. Mr. Nice based questions on a false premise, and then tried to trap the witness.

When dealing with Kosovo Mr. Nice frequently based his questions on the premise that it was exclusively the Albanians who suffered during the war, and that all of their suffering was the result of policies pursued by the Serbian Government.

Many of Mr. Nice’s questions would be formulated in the following fashion. Mr. Nice would establish a premise by asserting (falsely in most cases) that a certain crime was perpetrated against Kosovo Albanians, then he would ask the witness which policy of the Serbian government caused the alleged crime to be committed.

In philosophical terms the strategy employed by Mr. Nice is known as the fallacy of presupposition. Mr. Nice's questions presupposed a definite answer to another question which had not even been asked, or they asked for an explanation of something which was untrue or not yet established.

The only way to effectively answer the types of questions that Mr. Nice was asking is to refute the premise that they're based on. Unfortunately, whenever Professor Markovic attempted to correct the false premise of the prosecutor’s questions, Mr. Nice would complain to the judges that the witness was being non-responsive to his questions.

In one case, Nice referred to the fact that Milosevic had said that Markovic was “undoubtedly the best expert in constitutional law in the former Yugoslavia.” Then the prosecutor asked the witness if that was how he describes himself. This was a typical example of Mr. Nice’s conduct, if the witness says “no” then his qualification to testify is called into question, and if he says “yes” then he looks arrogant and pretentious.

Mr. Nice’s entire strategy was to try and trick the witness into saying something incriminating. Watching the court proceedings (if you can call them that) was like watching a linguistic version of a “Wiley Coyote & Roadrunner” cartoon. Mr. Nice, playing the part of Wiley Coyote, would carefully lay a trap by putting a loaded question the witness. But the witness, playing the part of the Roadrunner, never fell for the trap.

In addition to asking loaded questions, Mr. Nice wasted a lot of time asking the witness about events where he wasn’t present and therefore had no knowledge. Mr. Nice also asked a number of hypothetical questions about events that could have happened but ultimately never did.

Mr. Nice did not complete the cross-examination. Professor Markovic will have to come back and conclude his testimony on Monday.