MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 21, 2004: "EXPERT WITNESS" TESTIFIES ABOUT WHAT "GENOCIDE" MEANS TO HIM
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 24, 2004
 

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 21, 2004 - Dr. Ton Zwann, a so-called “expert witness” from a newly established center for Holocaust studies in Amsterdam was cross-examined by President Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday.

Zwann wrote a report about “genocide” of course he didn’t use any legal definition of the word. Instead Zwann’s report concentrated on his own ideas and personal feelings about what he considers genocide to be.

President Milosevic observed that this witness’s evidence was totally irrelevant because it constituted nothing more than an opinion that wasn’t based on any legal definition. Mr. May repeatedly reminded Milosevic that he wasn’t supposed to make legal arguments, apparently Mr. May feels that his so-called “courtroom” is no place for making legal arguments. We wouldn't want something so trivial as the law getting in the way of this show trial would we Mr. May?

Zwann complained in his report that the legal definition of genocide was too restrictive. Therefore, he made up his own personal definition that he used for his report. I’m not sure what exactly Zwann’s definition of genocide is, but in Dr. Zwann’s world the Partisan Army of Josip Broz Tito committed genocide against the Ustasha, so that should tell you something.

In Mr. Nice’s re-examination he asked Dr. Zwann if he could think of any examples where Serbs engaged in genocidal activity and the witness replied that the Partisan Army, which contained many Serbs, committed genocide against the Ustasha.

In addition to claiming that the Ustasha was the victim of genocide at the hands of the Serbs. Zwann sought to minimize the number of people killed at the Jasenovac concentration camp by the Ustasha.

President Milosevic quoted data he obtained from the Simon Wiesenthal Center stating that 600,000 to 700,000 Serbs, and 30,000 Jews and Gypsies were massacred by Ustasha fascists at the Jasenovac camp, and Zwann dismissed that data as being exaggerated. Zwann suggested that the numbers were being inflated for propaganda purposes and that the “real number” was between 100,000 and 120,000 victims in total, including the Jewish victims.

Seeing as how the Simon Wiesenthal Center is the one of the most respected institutions in the field of Holocaust studies in the world, and has been studying the Holocaust ever since the Second World War. In view of this fact President Milosevic asked the witness if, he (whose institution has only existed for 4 months) considered himself to be more competent than the Wiesenthall Center to assess the holocaust, and the witness said that he considered their research to be wrong.

Zwann never explained how come the Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, would be making propaganda for the Serbs. Nor did Zwann explain where he got his numbers from.

At any rate, Dr. Zwann’s feelings don’t matter. As far as I am concerned he can take his report and sit under a tree with a bunch of dumb hippies; they can take some bong hits, they can sing “Kumbaya,” and they can all discuss what “genocide” means to them. For all I know that’s how he came up with his ideas in the first place.

Never mind that genocide already has a clear definition set out in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the U.N. General Assembly on 9 December 1948, and the definition is this:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 

What happened here is obvious, seeing that they have not a single shred of proof to accuse Milosevic of genocide, the prosecution has decided to try and change the definition of genocide. They got some jackass with a PhD. (Dr. Zwann) to come and put forward a bunch of touchy feely psychobabble about what he thinks “genocide” is. This has got to be one of the dumbest thing’s I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some pretty stupid things over the course of this fiasco they call a “trial.”

After Zwann withdrew some administrative matters were discussed. Even though they are nearly done presenting their pathetic excuse of a case, the prosecution is still “unable” to provide Milosevic with the documents for the upcoming witnesses. This is inexcusable, with only 11 days to go, that they can’t have the documents together.

Over two weeks ago Mr. Nice said that they had acquired a number of documents from the Yugoslav Supreme Defense Council. Milosevic asked for copies of those documents and still two weeks later he doesn’t have them. All he wants are some lousy Xerox copies and the prosecution, ignoring their own Rule 68, won’t give them to him.

After the break, Hrvoje Sarinic, Franjo Tudjman’s former Chief de Cabinet, was examined by the prosecution. As one would expect, this witness attributed God-like power to Slobodan Milosevic. This witness’s basic claim was that every Serb everywhere was a mindless automaton under the control of the all seeing and all knowing Slobodan Milosevic.

Slobodan Milosevic’s cross-examination of Sarinic was conducted on Thursday and will be covered by this website in Thursday’s synopsis.   
 

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