PHONY INTERCEPTS AT THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL: MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" DECEMBER 10, 2003
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - December 10, 2003

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

In its only hearing this week the so-called “tribunal” sat for an extended period, and over the course of the day 2 secret witnesses and one open witness were heard from.

Before I deal with the witnesses I would like to discuss the matter of intercepts which was discussed today.

At this so-called “trial” the prosecution has exhibited 245 intercepts. The origins of the intercepts are unclear although it was revealed today that they came from the intelligence services of unnamed governments that are hostile towards Serbia.

It was also revealed that no steps have been taken to authenticate the intercepts. No technicians have been charged with the task of verifying the integrity or the authenticity of the recordings. The “tribunal” isn’t even following its own rules here. Rule 89(E) requires the authentication of evidence.

Neither President Milosevic nor his associates has been given access to the original recordings. In fact, all the OTP has are copies. The intelligence services maintain possession of the originals.

President Milosevic contends that the intercepts are forgeries. He says that the tapes have been doctored by the same hostile governments that produced them for the prosecution. He says that these governments forged the tapes in order to justify their own actions and policies against Serbia.

President Milosevic’s assertion is not beyond the realm of possibility. I have heard some of these intercepts played in “court.” I am a technician at a television station, and I have some experience with audio mixing, and it is very possible that these tapes are forged.

First of all, on every intercept I’ve heard, the background noise is very high, and the audio quality is quite degraded. This could be the result of generation loss. Intentionally re-copying the same tape over and over again will degrade the sound quality and it can help to cover-up the subtle details that a technician would have to look for in order to determine the authenticity of a recording.

The excessive background noise may be artificial, intentionally added using a mixer to mask the original background noise. A tell tale sign of a forged tape is subtle changes in the background noise. Different recordings will have a different noise floor. If a single recording is spliced together from multiple recordings, then you should be able to detect small changes in the amount of background noise, because of the changes in the noise floor generated by the recording equipment, and the amount of ambient noise that may be present on the different recordings.

If you add artificial background noise to a recording you can cover-up the original background noise provided that the artificial background noise is at a sufficiently high level to mask the original background noise. Thus, the artificial background noise will be consistent and evidence of splicing of different recordings can be eliminated.

In my view, the extremely poor sound quality of the intercepts raises the distinct possibility that they are forged, and given the hostile nature of the sources the tapes come from it is clear that no such tapes can be treated as any sort of evidence.

Recordings of such poor sound quality as these intercepts are can not be conclusively authenticated by a legitimate technician. In spite of this fact I would still suggest that technicians analyze the intercepts. A technician can prove a forgery, but he can not provide authentication, and if a forgery is proved then it can indicate a malicious intent by the prosecution.

Enough with the technical explanations though. The first witness to testify was a secret witness codenamed “B-1011.” B-1011 professed to be a Muslim from Brcko.

According to B-1011 Serb forces attacked Brcko on April 31, 1992. Obviously, nobody consulted a calendar because there is no such date as April 31^st, but this is a minor point.

B-1011 claims to have been arrested by Captain Dragan. B-1011 described Captain Dragan as being tall thin man with brown hair. Unfortunately for the witness, Captain Dragan is a short man with gray hair.

B-1011 claimed that Captain Dragan spoke with an English accent, and in particular B-1011 identified it as being an Australian accent. B-1011 does not speak English, so how he could manage to identify an Australian accent is rather a mystery.

Captain Dragan doesn’t even speak English with an Australian accent. You can see Captain Dragan speaking in both English and Serbian for yourself by watching the first segment of this Dutch television documentary. Captain Dragan is the short gray haired man who appears at approximately the 5 minute mark.

In spite of what he claimed in court, B-1011 was obviously not arrested by Captain Dragan. B-1011 claimed that “Captain Dragan” was wearing sunglasses, blue jeans, and a military shirt, and that “captain Dragan” was going around Brcko carrying out arrests along with 30 other men, none of whom were wearing the same uniform.

B-1011 claimed that he was taken to a hotel in Brcko, and that it was guarded by Captain Dragan’s men. At this point B-1011 claimed that Captain Dragan’s men all wore dark blue uniforms. 

If we believe B-1011 then the only one among Captain Dragan’s men who didn’t have a proper uniform was Captain Dragan himself.

While at the Hotel, B-1011 claimed that he saw four dead bodies when he went to use the toilet. He was at the hotel for 40 minutes before he went to the toilet, but he didn’t hear any shots, nonetheless he concluded that the men had been shot recently since there was steam emanating from the corpses.

This is the 4^th of May, it is spring time, and we are supposed to believe that it was cold enough outside for dead bodies to be emanating steam.

In his statement B-1011 claimed that a Serbian commander named Goran Jelisic was upset because some of his men had been killed by the Muslims. When Milosevic asked if these bodies could have been precisely those dead Serbs, B-1011, in spite of the fact that he couldn’t identify the bodies, said that they most certainly were not the bodies of those dead Serbs.

The next witness to testify was Mehmed Music, a Muslim from the Sarajevo municipality of Hajici. He claims to have been captured by the Bosnian Serbs on June 20, 1992 and held in custody until November 5, 1992 when he was exchanged.

While in custody Music alleged that he was the victim of some mistreatment. He gave three statements about the mistreatment that he allegedly suffered.

He gave his first statement to the B-H authorities in April 1993, he gave his next statement to the ICTY investigators in June of 1997, and he gave his last statement to the B-H Authorities in February 1998.

Music’s testimony ran into two problems. Mr. Kwon asked a question that should be asked about each witness. Mr. Kwon asked the prosecutor, Ms. Pack: “What relevance does this witness’s evidence have to the indictment?” Ms. Pack was at a loss for an answer, and so she confessed that there was no relevance.

The next problem was that Music had made these three statements and they didn’t jive with one another.

Music explained that he had given the statements by the process of recounting events as he remembered them, not by the process of answering questions which nicely eliminated the “they never asked me” excuse.

In subsequent statements Mr. Music claimed that he was mistreated by the members of the Red Berets, the JNA, and by Arkan’s men. In his first statement of April 1993 he never mentions the Red Berets, the JNA or Arkan’s men at all.

When President Milosevic confronted Music on this point the witness became irate. First he tried to accuse President Milosevic of lying, but that didn’t work because Milosevic challenged the witness to show him where in the first statement he mentions the JNA, Arkan’s men, or the Red Berets.

Music replied by telling President Milosevic to find those references for himself. To which Milosevic replied “I can’t find them, which is why I am asking you to find them.”

Of course President Milosevic was right and no mention ever was found of the JNA, Arkan’s men, or the Red Berets in Music’s first statement.

Another “minor detail” that never made it into Music’s first statement was the death of his own brother. In subsequent statements he said that his brother was killed in a JNA detention facility, and that he was forced to carry his own dead brother through an obstacle course where JNA soldiers along with Arkan’s men shot at them.

Maybe this is something that he just forgot. I imagine that a “minor detail” like being shot at while carrying your dead brother is an easy thing to forget. When Mr. Tapuskovic asked Mr. Music why he didn’t mention any of this in his first statement, he angrily snapped back saying “What have I got to explain to you?”

Maybe I misunderstand the purpose behind a witness appearing in a court. I thought that they come to court to answer questions and explain things. But what the Hell? This isn’t a real court it’s the Hague Tribunal, and besides by Ms. Pack’s own admission this witness’s testimony is completely irrelevant to the indictment anyway.

Ms. Pack’s re-examination was a comical display indeed. She only asked one question. She said that President Milosevic and Mr. Tapuskovic had indicated that Mr. Music was making events up, because he didn’t mention them in his first statement and only came up with them five years later in his subsequent statements. Based on this premise she asked him the following question, “Did you tell us the truth, or have you been making things up?”

Of course Music said that he was telling the truth, and perish the thought that he would lie. With that Ms. Pack’s re-examination was over with.

The final witness was a secret witness codenamed “B-1770.” B-1770 was caught swimming across the Drina River into Serbia.

He was trying to sneak into Serbia illegally, but he wasn’t sneaky enough. The VJ was waiting for him on the other bank and he was arrested and sent to the Mitrovica detention facility where a Muslim brigade was being held after they had fled from Bosnian territory. Although, B-1770 claims that he was not part of the brigade.

B-1770 said that he ran away from Bosnia, leaving his wife and children behind, because he wanted to get away from the Serbs. Of course he went to the most logical place that anybody seeking to get away from the Serbs would go. He went to Serbia.

B-1770 claims that he was mistreated in Serbia. He admits that he was monitored by the International Red Cross, and the UNHCR throughout the time he was in Serbia. He has no medical records to prove that he was mistreated, and he can’t identify the perpetrators of his alleged mistreatment.

The Red Cross, who monitored the detention facility on a regular basis, did not even file one report that there was mistreatment, and by the witness’s own admission they saw him twice a week.

He claimed that he lost a lot of weight while in custody, but apparently on his passport that was issued right after his release, but which we can’t see because he is a secret witness; it says that he is a healthy weight and in his picture he doesn’t look emaciated at all. B-1770 tried to explain that away by saying that they “fattened him up” before his release.

Of course what B-1770 is saying is absurd. The media and the diplomatic corps visited that facility all the time. Nobody was being beaten there, not the witness, and not anybody else.

B-1770 was the last witness of the day, and the so-called “tribunal” adjourned until next Monday. I will not be able to provide you with any details about next Monday or Tuesday’s proceedings because the Perfumed Prince, Wesley Clark, will be occupying the witness stand, and he gets to testify in secret, and after his secret testimony the U.S. Government will censor the transcripts.

I suppose it’s no great loss that we can’t see Clark testify. All he’ll do is lie anyway. The unfortunate thing is that we won’t get the pleasure of watching Slobo expose Wesley Clark for the lying terrorist that he is.
 

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