MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS: OCTOBER 8, 2003: TRIBUNAL ATTEMPTS TO HIDE IT'S SHAMEFUL FARCE FROM THE PUBLIC
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - October 8, 2003

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

A new procedure was initiated at the Hague Tribunal today. Prosecution witnesses can now give their examination-in-chief in whole or in part via statements written for them by the prosecutor.

The witness doesn't write the statement that is used for his evidence-in-chief, the prosecutor writes it, and it is treated as "evidence" by the so-called "trial chamber."

This so-called "trial" is secretive enough already. The extensive use of so-called "closed sessions" already hides vast portions of the "trial" from public scrutiny. The use of so-called "protected witnesses" keeps the public into the dark as to who the witness even is, thus making it impossible for the public to judge the credibility of a witness.

As for the secret witnesses, there have been occasions when these witnesses have divulged enough information about themselves, such as the position they held at a given time that one can figure out who they are, or at least who they are pretending to be. For example, the secret witness known as "B-24" claimed to have been a member of the crisis staff in of Zvornik from the inception of the crisis staff until 12 April 1992, while serving in the crisis staff “B-24” said that he was the commander of the police station. “B-24” also claimed that he was a member of the SDS, and president of the local government in Zvornik from February 1993 until September 1993.

Based on the information that "B-24" divulged about himself during his open-session testimony one can conclude that "B-24" is Dragan Spasojevic, or that he is somebody who is pretending to be Dragan Spasojevic. You can conclude this by just looking through media reports to see who held the positions that he claimed to hold at the times he claimed to have held them. His identity was revealed to me simply by using public information that I obtained from the information media. Anybody who wanted to could figure out who he was.

Armed with the identity of "B-24" one is able to find out that Dragan Spasojevic was threatened with an EU travel ban, due to his links with organized crime, but was able to avoid the ban because of cooperation with the Hague Tribunal. Spasojevic is accused of war crimes himself, he is alleged to have participated in the massacre of some 750 Muslims. On top of this, Mr. Spasojevic has a hatred for Milosevic, Spasojevic told the May 16, 1993 edition of The Sunday Times that "We [the Bosnian Serbs] have been betrayed by Milosevic."

With this additional information (that the tribunal wants to keep hidden from you) you can see all sorts of things. Since Spasojevic is accused by the Muslims of taking part in the alleged massacre of 750 of them it is possible that the "tribunal" told him that if he testified against Milosevic, who he hated anyway that they would let him off the hook and not prosecute him for his alleged war crimes.

Another possibility is that the "tribunal" offered Spasojevic a new identity in exchange for his testimony. A new identity could come in handy for a criminal couldn't it? It would allow him to avoid the E.U. travel ban and continue his criminal activities unhindered.

No doubt many of you have figured out the identity of certain secret witnesses yourselves. When the identity of the tribunal's secret witnesses is ascertained you can almost always figure out why their identity is kept a secret. If the witness is a criminal they become a "protected witness" and their identity is hidden from the public so that the public won't know that they are a criminal.

This new invention of admitting written statements that have been prepared by the prosecutor as "evidence", only hides the so-called "judicial" process even further. The examination-in-chief is practically abolished, and the point of the alleged "evidence" is lost as far as the public is concerned.

Mr. Nice even admitted that this new practice hides the "trial" from the public. Nice wants all witnesses to be dealt with in this fashion. Nice says that even witnesses whose testimony would be particularly damning to Milosevic should be dealt with in this fashion, and that he was willing to lose the advantage that publicly hearing these witnesses would give to the OTP in the eyes of the public. I hate to break it to you Mr. Nice, but in the over 250 witnesses that you have called not one of them has had any testimony that was damning in the least to President Milosevic.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the right to a public trial, but this is apparently something that the Hague Tribunal feels doesn't apply to it. The "tribunal" regularly hides its "trials" from the public. One has to wonder what they are so ashamed of? After all, if they had a case wouldn't they want the public to see that?

This new practice of using written testimony is based on Rule 89(f) which reads: A Chamber may receive the evidence of a witness orally or, where the interests of justice allow, in written form.

President Milosevic categorically objected to this new practice. President Milosevic's argument is that it is clearly not in the interests of justice to hide the proceedings from the public in this way, he also argued that Rule 89(f) says "A Chamber may receive," not must receive, evidence in written form when the interests of justice allow.

President Milosevic rightly argued that it can not possibly be in the interests of justice for evidence to be given against him where he is not present. He argued that witnesses must give their evidence live, in front of him, in front of the "trial chamber," and ultimately in front of the public.

President Milosevic correctly argued that it is definitely not in the interests of justice if evidence is only given in the prosecutors office. Who knows what sort of important information that the prosecutor might decide to omit from the "evidence" if it doesn't fit its case.

President Milosevic also argued that this is a way for the prosecutor to present more evidence than the defense can prepare for and deal with in the time allotted for cross-examination. The situation is bad enough already, President Milosevic is frequently denied the opportunity to complete his cross-examination. Because "judge" May's primary concern is the clock, and not conducting any sort of fair trial cross-examination is frequently cut short when the time limit imposed by Mr. May has expired.

President Milosevic pointed out that witness statements that are already prepared by the prosecution in much the same fashion as will be employed with this new practice are frequently inaccurate, with witnesses frequently claiming in court that they never said the things that the prosecution put into their statements.

The other side argued that there are safe-guards that ensure that this new process doesn't jeopardize the "fair trial" (which is a joke coming from them anyway). They say that the witness will be cross-examined, and they say that the witness will have to sign the written "testimony" and attest to its truthfulness after taking the solemn declaration.

Another point raised by Mr. Nice is that if the witness says something different in court than what is contained in his pre-written testimony, Mr. Nice says that the witness will be exposed to sanction. So essentially what we have here is witnesses who are testifying from a script that has been written for them by the prosecutor, and if they deviate from the prosecution's script they will be punished.

In yet another slap to the face of justice, the trial chamber ruled that this new practice is acceptable, and it was applied to the witness Milan Milanovic.

The interesting thing here is that Milan Milanovic doesn't speak English. His testimony was written for him in English by the prosecution. No Serbian version was available. Milanovic none the less signed his pre-written English "testimony", and attested to its truthfulness while under the solemn declaration.

The question here is how can Mr. Milanovic possibly sign a document and attest to its truthfulness if he doesn't even understand it? President Milosevic, and the Amicus Mr. Kay both raised this point, but the prosecutor and the "judges" didn't seem to give a damn.

This exposes this new procedure as a scam right out of the box. The Hague Tribunal has sunk to a new low. Secret witnesses, closed sessions, and now scripted testimony.

As for Mr. Milanovic the prosecution spent the last 2 sessions of the day asking him about things that weren't in his script. Apparently his claim is that the VJ was active in the Krajina, and that President Milosevic knew something about this. The most time was spent showing the witness documents and asking him if he recognized them as authentic.

Mr. Milanovic will be cross-examined sometime in the future, apparently a General Smith will be testifying tomorrow, but maybe not. At the end of the day Mr. Nice asked for a closed session to discuss when Milanovic would return and who was going to testify tomorrow. 

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