MR. NICE STRIKES-OUT DURING RACAK CROSS-EXAMINATION
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - October 4, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

The trial of Slobodan Milosevic continued on Tuesday with the continued cross-examination of Col. Bogoljub Janicevic.

Mr. Nice focused the majority of his questions on the events in Racak. Mr. Nice stuck like glue to the version of events contained in the indictment, and Janicevic was equally tenacious in sticking to the testimony that he gave during his examination in chief.

The best Mr. Nice could do was accuse Janicevic of attempting to mislead the OSCE/KVM monitors regarding the death toll in Racak.

Mr. Nice presented an unofficial dispatch sent by the Urosevac SUP to the Interior Ministry in Belgrade which estimated that approximately 60 terrorists were killed in the operation. The prosecutor then attempted to contrast that with a statement given to the OSCE/KVM the next day which concluded that “at least 15” terrorists were killed.

Mr. Nice and Judge Bonomy acted as if they had hit the lottery, they tried to build this up like it was a big deal, but it’s a completely irrelevant point. The OSCE/KVM was in Racak during the anti-terrorist operation and conducted its own investigation after the incident. They didn’t need to rely on Janicevic for information about who got killed. Secondly, initial casualty reports are usually wrong anyway.

Continuing his cross-examination, Mr. Nice attempted to argue that if KLA members had died in Racak, then they would have been counted as KLA war dead, not as civilians. The prosecutor claimed that it was unthinkable that the KLA would deny its fallen comrades “the honor of dying for the KLA.”

Janicevic responded by recalling the videotape that Milosevic played of the funeral for those killed in Racak. He repeated his observation that the caskets were all covered with Albanian flags and buried with full KLA “military” honors.

The only thing Mr. Nice only succeeded in doing was making a fool of himself. When one considers the overwhelming evidence that Racak was a stage-managed event it becomes difficult believe anything that comes out of the prosecutor’s mouth. Consider the following facts:

Videotapes have been exhibited proving that the KLA had an extensive network of trenches and bunkers in Racak;

Video filmed on the day of the operation proves that the KLA had the Serbian police pinned down with gunfire – thus making it impossible to round-up civilians and march them to the gully to be killed;

Forensic analysis proves that 37 of the 40 bodies found in Racak died with gunpowder residue on their hands – a sure indication that they had been firing weapons;

The trajectory of their bullet wounds proves that the “victims” could not have been killed in the gully;

The OSCE/KVM observers had an unobstructed view of the gully and didn’t see anything on the day of the alleged massacre;

30 of the 40 people killed were known by the police to be KLA members;

The television media, most notably Associated Press, was invited to accompany the Serbian police on the Racak operation;

The KLA prevented forensic investigators from carrying out an investigation in the village by opening fire on them and rather than preserving the so-called “massacre site” so that forensic analysis could be done the KLA moved all of the bodies to the village mosque after showing the site to the media;

Mr. Nice is fully aware of all of these facts, but he keeps insisting that Racak went down the way outlined by the indictment. He keeps on presenting the same story over and over again, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary. He may as well have been trying to argue that the Earth is flat. But evidence refuting the indictment has never stopped Mr. Nice before, and today was no exception.

In addition to Racak Mr. Nice put several questions to Janicevic about the treatment people received in the Urosevac SUP building. Mr. Nice has gotten several Kosovo-Albanians to give statements that Defense witness Dragan Jasovic beat them in the Urosevac SUP building – some of them even claimed to have been beaten in the basement that the building DOSEN’T have. Of course none of them had complained about the treatment Jasovic allegedly gave them until six years after the fact when he appeared as a defense witness for Milosevic.

Since Col. Janicevic was the chief of the Urosevac SUP, Mr. Nice asked him if people were subjected to torture and beatings in the police station. Janicevic denied that beatings and torture took place, and said that any policeman who engaged in such conduct would have been relieved of his duty, and likely arrested.

Janicevic will continue his testimony tomorrow.

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