MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS: NOVEMBER 12, 2003
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - November 12, 2003

B-1399 Finished his testimony at the Hague Tribunal. He recounted the story of how he allegedly survived execution at Srebrenica. He says that he was part of a group of men, that he was blindfolded, and that the executioners opened fire on the group. The corpses fell on top of him and the dead bodies shielded him from further gunfire. He later crawled out from the pile of corpses.

According to B-1399 armed men saw him escaping and opened fire on him as he ran away, but they missed.

He recounted that while he was at the execution site he saw trucks bringing Muslims for execution every 10 minutes.

B-1399 has given numerous statements about his alleged experience. The first statements that he gave were in 1995 and 1997, and in those statements no mention was made about trucks bringing in people to execute, nor was any mention made of the “fact” that B-1399 was shot at as he was fleeing.

We established yesterday that B-1399’s account of the military situation in Srebrenica was in direct contradiction of the UNPROFOR commander Rupert Smith’s testimony, and now we have B-1399 coming up with this new “evidence” 8 years after the fact.

It was obvious that B-1399 was lying. When asked about discrepancies between his testimony and his written statements he got very defensive. At one point he snapped at the Amicus Curiae, Mr. Tapuskovic, and told him that he should not ask those sorts of questions.

The next witness was the Canadian Major Roy F. Thomas. Maj. Thomas was the senior UN Military Observer in Sarajevo for 9 months spanning 1993 and 1994.

During Maj. Thomas’s tenure he did not see any attacks by the Serbs on Sarajevo, he claimed that the Serbs were in a holding pattern around the city, and did not try to take it.

Under cross-examination from President Milosevic, Maj. Thomas spoke of some of the underhanded strategies that the Muslims would employ.

For example, Maj. Thomas testified that there were occasions when the Muslim soldiers would open fire on the Serbs from behind the UNPROFOR position in order that the UNPROFOR soldiers would provide a sort of shield for their attack.

Maj. Thomas corroborated the testimony of David Harland (United Nations civil and political affairs officer in Sarajevo) that Muslim forces were using the Kosevo Hospital as a mortar plate. The Muslims were firing mortars at the Serbs from the hospital in order to provoke the Serbs into firing on the hospital.

On another occasion Maj. Thomas recounted that Muslims opened fire from the PTT building at Serb positions, with a view to getting the Serbs to fire on the PTT building. At the time, the PTT building was the UN headquarters in Sarajevo. The Muslims were trying to get the Serbs to shoot at the UN.

Maj. Thomas recounted yet another occasion when Muslims disguised themselves as Bosnian-Serb soldiers and tried to kill the UNPROFOR commander. Fortunately according to Maj. Thomas they weren’t smart enough to pull it off and got caught. So here we have Muslims plotting to kill the UNPROFOR commander, and engaging in a conspiracy to make it look like the Serbs did it.

The Muslims would not always wear military uniforms. According to Maj. Thomas he, the Senior UN Military Observer, had no idea who was a soldier and who was a civilian, and so he had no choice other than to regard all able bodied men as soldiers.

Maj. Thomas spoke of one occasion when the 10^th Mountain Brigade of the B-H Army, led by the notorious criminal Musan Topalovic - Caco, captured a group of UNPROFOR soldiers, and stole their equipment and their money.

According to Maj. Thomas the media did not portray a balanced view of sniping incidents in Sarajevo. He said that all sides engaged in sniper activity.

He said that the main objective of the Muslim snipers was to provoke the Serbs into abandoning cease-fires. As a case in point he gave an example where Muslim snipers shot and killed 3 pregnant Serb women during a cease-fire, and that the following day the Serbs shot at every Muslim soldier they saw.

Maj. Thomas accompanied General Rose (UNPROFOR commander) to the negotiations at the Sarajevo Airport. At those negotiations the Serb side, led by Ratko Mladic, proposed a general cease-fire throughout Bosnia. The Muslims, on the other hand, did not want a ceasefire.

Gen. Rose supported the cease-fire idea, because as he says in his book, and as Maj. Thomas confirmed that he said at the time, only with a ceasefire can negotiations take place, and a solution be found that can end the war.

None the less, after the negotiations failed, because the Muslims refused to agree to a ceasefire; NATO proceeded to bomb the Bosnian Serbs.

I believe that the prosecution brought Maj. Thomas to testify about the Markale Market incident but he didn’t really do them any good. He said that he couldn’t determine who had fired the shell at the market place.

There was however a document produced by one of Maj. Thomas’s men, and president Milosevic read it out, and it said that a 120mm mortar launcher on wheels was seen at a location in Muslim held territory from which it could have fired the deadly shell.

It was also borne out by Maj. Thomas that UNMO’s were permitted to investigate in the Serbian territory immediately after the incident.

In spite of evidence that the Muslims shelled their own people or at least in view of the lack of evidence that the Serbs did it; NATO used the Markale Market incident as a justification to bomb the Bosnian Serbs.

Maj. Thomas also corroborated David Harland’s testimony about the Muslim violation of the Mt. Igman agreement, when Muslim soldiers illegally took over positions on Mt. Igman that were supposed to be occupied by UNPROFOR.

After Maj. Thomas withdrew, Merced Kucanin a Muslim police officer from Sarajevo took the witness stand.

Kucanin alleged that the Serbs fired shells on a number of targets in Sarajevo, and he proceeded to enumerate them.

He also testified about Jusuf Prazina, called Juka. Mr. Kucanin confirmed that Juka was a criminal and that he commanded an armed unit, but Kucanin insisted that it was OK since Juka was working for the police!

So the Sarajevo police put a convicted criminal in charge of an armed unit, and this guy thinks it’s OK. What sort of police employs criminals? Apparently it is the sort of police that our gallant witness worked for.

When President Milosevic asked whether or not the Sarajevo authorities prevented the civilian population from leaving Sarajevo this guy’s answer was that he didn’t know if they did or not. He didn’t know? A man who, by then, had been a police officer for 10 years didn’t know?! Or is it that he did know, but he didn’t want to admit that civilians were prohibited from leaving, and so he said that he didn’t know?

President Milosevic has 30 more minutes to cross-examine Kucanin tomorrow. After Kucanin, apparently the witnesses B-1524 and Franken will be heard from.
 

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