LT. COL. ODAK COMPLETES HIS TESTIMONY AS THE TRIAL ADJOURNS DUE TO ILLNESS
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - November 16, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Lt. Col. Zlatko Odak completed his testimony at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday. Odak served as the commander of the logistics battalion of the 52nd Air Defense Brigade of the Yugoslav Army (VJ). He also served as the deputy commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 549th Motorized Infantry Brigade. He was stationed in the Dakovica garrison from 1986 until the VJ withdrew from Kosovo in 1999.

He completed his examination-in-chief yesterday, and was cross-examined by Mr. Nice today. The prosecutor used his cross-examination to ask the witness questions about topics that he knew the witness would have little or no knowledge of.

For example, Mr. Nice asked the witness to cite documents to substantiate his testimony that soldiers were arrested and prosecuted for criminal misconduct, and when the witness could not provide such documents Mr. Nice acted as though he had caught the witness out.

Mr. Nice's behavior is really quite ridiculous, Lt. Col. Odak's testimony was not focused on the issue of criminal prosecutions, he merely confirmed that the army's policy was to prosecute criminal misconduct. Several previous defense witnesses such as, Gen. Farkas, Gen. Delic, Gen. Stevanovic, and Gen. Gojovic, have already presented several thousand documents detailing criminal prosecutions.

The entire point of Lt. Col. Odak's evidence was to testify about what he saw, and what he knew, as a soldier serving in the Dakovica area of Kosovo, not to analyze documents that are already in evidence.

Mr. Nice, citing the report of Mr. Andras Riedlmayer, accused Lt. Col. Odak of lying when he said that the NATO bombing had destroyed the Hadum Mosque and the old bazaar in Dakovica.

If I were Mr. Nice I would want to forget all about Mr. Riedlmayer since his testimony was such an embarrassment for the prosecution. For those who don't remember, the prosecution billed Riedlmayer as "a Harvard University expert," and attempted to use his "expert report" to prove that sites that the Serbian authorities claimed were destroyed by NATO bombing had actually been burned by Serbian troops on the ground.

But when Milosevic cross-examined Mr. Riedlmayer several embarrassing facts were revealed. It turned out that the prosecution's so-called "Harvard University expert" didn't have a PhD from Harvard -- he was just the librarian at Harvard. His cross-examination also revealed that he was not a trained ballistics expert. In other words, he was completely unqualified.

To see Mr. Nice arguing about ballistics with a soldier, especially when the only thing he has backing up his arguments is a report written by a librarian, is just pathetic. It's obvious that a soldier knows more about ballistics than a librarian.

Lt. Col. Odak explained that when a building gets hit by a bomb it often catches on fire. In Dakovica, the streets are very narrow and the buildings are built really close together. Therefore, when a building got bombed and caught fire; the fire would often spread to near-by buildings even though they weren't directly hit. This is how come Riedlmayer saw buildings that had burnt down, but didn't show any signs of bomb impact. If Riedlmayer had been a qualified expert, then he would have figured that out.

Mr. Nice ended his cross-examination by accusing Lt. Col. Odak of being a criminal and lying to cover-up his crimes. The witness denied those allegations, and refused to be bated into making the sort of childish insults that Mr. Nice resorts to.

Milosevic finished off the day by cross-examining the witness. During the cross-examination Mr. Nice accused Odak of violating international humanitarian law by taking over the convent of the Catholic Church in Dakovica.

What Mr. Nice didn't let the witness explain was that the clergy had given the army permission to use the convent and that it was not being used for combat purposes. All the Army did was use the building as a hospital, because the site they had been using was bombed by NATO.

During the cross-examination Mr. Nice criticized the witness because he didn't have documents detailing the time and location of all the NATO air strikes against Dakovica. Milosevic reminded the tribunal that Gen. Djosan has already presented documents detailing the time and precise location of each NATO air strike. Dakovica was bombed 236 times during the 78 days of NATO bombing.

Milosevic ended his re-examination by asking about the population in Dakovica. Mr. Nice claims that the population was chased out and that the city had been ethnically cleansed. Lt. Col. Odak said that that was absurd. He said that the city was flooded with refugees from other parts of Kosovo and that Dakovica's population doubled during the war, because the KLA did not control the city.

The hearing ended immediately after the conclusion of Lt. Col. Odak's evidence because Milosevic complained that he was feeling ill. Milosevic made it crystal clear that he objects to any hearings being held in his absence.

Milosevic, who suffers from high blood pressure, complained that he was feeling great pressure behind his eyes and ears. The pressure in his ears has gotten so bad that he is having trouble hearing properly.

What happened today highlights an urgent need for the tribunal to heed the doctors' warnings and grant Milosevic the immediate six week adjournment that his health requires. Unfortunately, the trial was only adjourned until next Monday. One almost suspects that the tribunal is deliberately trying to kill him by putting so much pressure on him that he gets a fatal stroke or a heart attack. The way the tribunal ignores the medical advice and forces him to work while he's sick is just criminal.

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