MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 27, 2004: A NATO SPY EMPLOYED BY THE PROSECUTION TESTIFIES AGAINST MILOSEVIC
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 30, 2004

TUESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2004 – Reynaud Theunens completed his examination-in-chief and was cross-examined by Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday.

The first thing you should know about this witness is who he is. Mr. Theunens holds the rank of commandant in the Belgian army, where he serves as an active duty intelligence officer. In other words he’s a NATO spy whose area of operation is the Balkans, and he is currently employed by the Office of the Prosecutor at the Hague Tribunal.

Mr. Theunens “expert report” was entitled “Armed Forces in the SFRY and the war in Croatia.” Even the title of his report was misleading because he didn’t talk about all of the armed forces on the territory of the SFRY who took part in the war in Croatia. He didn’t mention the Croatian forces at all. Practically no mention was made of the HVO, HOS, or ZNG forces, and when President Milosevic would ask the witness about these forces he would say that it was outside the scope of his report.

Mr. Theunens only dealt with armed forces that the Serbs were part of. He didn’t look at all of the warring factions. He tried to say that volunteer units were the same thing as paramilitary formations. He didn’t seem to, or want to, understand that a volunteer unit is subordinated to the command of either the army, or the territorial defense forces, whereas a paramilitary unit is an armed group that isn’t subordinated to any legal command structure.

Mr. Theunens had the opportunity to look over many documents from the JNA, VJ, VRS, and SVK forces. With this in mind President Milosevic asked the witness if he had seen any document where either he or the VJ main staff issued orders to the VRS or the SVK forces. Mr. Theunens reply was “just because we don’t have these documents it doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.”

The closest thing to an order that Mr. Theunens could come up with was a request that Milosevic sent to Martic asking him to let UNPROFOR pass through SVK territory, and the reason why Milosevic sent the request in the first place was because Akashi had asked him to.

The Yugoslav Army’s 30^th and 40^th personnel centers came up again and President Milosevic again had to explain that these centers existed to pay salaries, pension, and health benefits to the former officers Yugoslav People’s Army and their families. Nobody who didn’t first serve in the JNA got a dime from these personnel centers, and this is material that has already been confirmed and explained by the former Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic when he came to testify.

There is no proof that these personnel centers issued any orders. They were just personnel centers, and no army anywhere in the world is commanded by the personnel department.

This was a wasted day for the prosecution. Not even this NATO spy who works for the Office of the Prosecutor at the Hague Tribunal could say that Milosevic or the VJ main staff issued any orders to the SVK or the VRS or to any other soldier serving outside of the borders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

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