"TRIAL" SYNOPSIS: SEPTEMBER 9, 2003
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - September 9, 2003

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

The proceedings opened today with President Milosevic lambasting the so-called "tribunal," especially Geoffrey Nice and Richard May for the scandalous insinuations made by Mr. Nice last Thursday. In which Mr. Nice implied that the president was only "playing hooky" and that there was a pattern to his absences.

Three 92-bis witnesses testified today. The first was a secret witness testifying under the pseudonym of "B-1058."

B-1058 was a woman from Zvornik who lost her husband and her 2 sons during the war. B-1058 claims that masked men wearing camouflage uniforms, who spoke with Serbian accents, burst into the cellar of her apartment building where people were sheltering from the fighting, and that these men separated the women and children from the men.

B-1058 claims that her husband and her sons were executed by the masked men outside of the apartment block.

In B-1058's statement she claims that Seselj's men carried out the killings and that Arkan's men helped to evacuate the women and children to Serbia, but in her oral testimony she claims the opposite. She claims that Arkan's men carried out the killing and that it was Seselj's men who evacuated the women and children.

President Milosevic asked B-1058 to describe the uniforms that these masked men were wearing. B-1058 could only say that they were camouflage uniforms, she didn't identify any insignias, patches or anything of that sort, when the President tried to press her to be more specific she refused to answer the question and only said "you know what the uniforms look like."

B-1058 identified these masked men as Serbs on the basis that "they spoke with Serbian accents."

She was miraculously able to identify the masked men by looking at photographs. The logical question here is how she could identify them by photographs if they were wearing masks. President Milosevic asked her that very question. She answered by saying that she saw their faces later on.

She said that when she went to Bijeljina she saw one of them there, and that on another occasion she saw one of them in her sister's yard in Janja, and on another occasion still she saw another one at some unknown location in Zvornik. The president asked her where in Zvornik she saw him, but she didn't know. She didn't see any of their faces at the time of the alleged killing, and so the question remains how even if she saw the men in the pictures in Bijeljina, Janja, and Zvornik -- how does she know that they are the ones who did the killing, if the killers were wearing masks?

There is no evidence to prove that this killing took place. She never saw the bodies, and the bodies have never been found, she heard shooting and later on she heard from others that her husband and sons were part of a group of 10 men that were killed.

B-1058 is the 2nd witness to testify about this alleged event. A family friend of B-1058's previously testified under the pseudonym of B-1237 that he saw this alleged killing taking place.

Unfortunately B-1237's testimony wasn't much better than B-1058's. I looked-up B-1237's transcript to see if I could find out if his testimony jived with that of B-1058. According to B-1237 he was able to identify from 1 kilometer away both the perpetrators and the victims of this alleged crime.

B-1237 was asked "You even managed to recognize from this distance of 1 kilometer the persons who were being taken out and executed. That's what you're asserting too, isn't it?" and B-1237 replied, "I recognized Sabit Bilalic and his son."

B-1237 explained the following to the prosecutor:

B-1237: I saw them taking people out. I saw them removing women and executing a group of about ten men.

PROSECUTOR: Were you able to tell from your vantage point whether or not the men that you say were executed were armed at the time of their execution?

B-1237: Those people were civilians who were unarmed.

PROSECUTOR: Were you able to recognize any of the people that were executed?

B-1237: Yes. I recognized late Sabit Bilalic and his son whom I can't recall now.

PROSECUTOR: How were you able to recognize those two among the group?

B-1237: Sabit was one of the biggest men in Zvornik. He had extremely -- he had an extremely thick moustache. And his son was very tall and played basketball in the first village. I knew them personally.

///END TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT///

So B-1237 could tell from a kilometer away that not only were the people unarmed but that two of them were his acquaintances, Sabit Bilalic and his son. He could even see Sabit Bilalic's moustache from this distance.... AMAZING! B-1237 must have the best eye sight in Bosnia.

It was hard to believe, but B-1058, claimed to have no idea that her friend B-1237 had previously testified about the same event that she was there testifying about today, will coincidences never end?

B-1237 had testified that from his vantage point of 1 kilometer away, he could identify the perpetrators. He said: "Men [Arkan's men] in camouflage uniforms killed them, the ones that I had seen the previous day, the previous night at the Jezero Hotel in Mali Zvornik."

Is it possible that B-1058 changed her testimony from saying that it was Seselj’s men to saying that it was Arkan’s men in order that it could coincide with her friend B-1237’s testimony? Or is it possible that B-1058, and her friend B-1237 conspired to lie in order to cover-up the fact that her husband and her son were actually killed in battle, and not executed by anybody?

Both witnesses claim that the shooting occurred in different places. B-1058 says that it happened right there at the apartments, whereas B-1237 claims that the same group of men were marched out away from the apartments, towards the center of Zvornik, and killed there.

Other interesting points in the testimony came when president Milosevic asked B-1058 if her husband and sons’ bodies had been found so that a forensic exam could prove how they were killed. B-1058 answered that they had not been found and so there was no way to prove how they were killed (unless you believe eagle-eye B-1237).

B-1058 went on to explain that the bodies were not found because Branko Grujic (President of the SDS in Zvornik) had all of the bodies hidden, and moved them from gravesite to gravesite. B-1058 claimed that she knew this because she claimed that she heard that some unknown people with binoculars in Mali Zvornik watched this going on, and she knew that Grujic must have ordered it because, according to B-1058, he ordered everything.

The next witness was another 92-bis secret witness codenamed B-1610. B-1610’s examination-in-chief consisted of handing in a written statement. The prosecutor did not even bother to read out the “essence of the testimony” with this witness and so it is difficult to tell what he was there to testify about.

B-1610 was a Muslim and a member of the T.O. The T.O. manned check-points. Nobody could pass the check-points without a pass, not Serbs, not Muslims, and not Croats. B-1610’s T.O. unit manned some of the checkpoints. B-1610’s unit was almost purely Muslim. In spite of admitting to all of this B-1610 still claimed that the check-points were only put in place to harass Muslims.

Another useful tidbit came when he said in his written statement that as a T.O. member and a reservist he kept a JNA uniform at his house. This means that anybody in the country who did their military service could have a JNA uniform whether they were actually carrying out JNA activities or not.

Another final interesting piece of information came when B-1610 claimed that a practice exsisted among some Muslim girls where they would prostitute themselves to the soldiers, and later on they would claim to have been raped.

The final witness of the day was Mustafa Ramic. Mr. Ramic was the mayor or Brcko when the war broke out. Ramic was a leading figure in the SDA. He was one of the first members of the SDA main board.

Ramic testified that the League of Communists won the 1990 elections in Brcko, but that the SDS, HDZ, and SDA all formed a coalition and overthrew the LC in Brcko.

Of course being a leading SDA figure has its obligations. You have to blame the Serbs for everything and blame the Muslims for nothing, and of course Mr. Ramic tried to live up to his political obligations, but he was no match for Slobodan Milosevic.

First President Milosevic got the Mr. Ramic to say that he was very well informed about what was going on in Brcko. Then the President got Ramic to say that it was the Serbs who were starting the war, and that the Muslims were unarmed. This was not a difficult task, but it left the witness with his neck stuck way out.

Then Slobo dropped the guillotine on the witness’s overextended neck. He started to produce documents that were issued by the witness’s own Public Security Service, which as the mayor he oversaw.

The documents showed that there was arms smuggling a foot in Bosnia. The documents showed that in 1991 (prior to the war), large quantities of weapons and explosives were coming over the Croatian border destined for Bosnian Muslim extremists.

In one case the smuggled explosives were going to be used to blow-up a JNA rail transport that was headed for Serbia from the Brcko railway station.

President Milosevic produced even more documents which stated that Muslim extremists were using infantry weapons at the gun range in Brcko for training purposes as early on as 1991.

The documents also stated that Ibrahim Ramic (the brother of the witness) erected a war hospital long before the war ever began.

All the witness could do was say, “this is the first time I’ve seen this,” and then try and change the subject by trying to accuse the Serbs of something.

President Milosevic will have another 45 minutes with this witness tomorrow.