Judge Marinkovic Takes The Witness Stand

The Honorable Judge Danica Marenkovic took the stand, as a defense witness, at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday. Mrs. Marenkovic is an ethnic Macedonian, she was elected to her judgeship in 1984 by the Kosovo assembly. She worked at the district court in Pristina, and was the investigating judge who investigated the alleged massacre at Racak on January 15, 1999.

She began her testimony by answering questions about the status of Albanian and other non-Serbian judges in Kosovo. The indictment against Milosevic alleges that judges were dismissed because of their ethnicity.

Judge Marenkovic explained that the claims contained in the indictment were untrue. She said that no judges were dismissed, as that would have been illegal. The only way that a judge could lose their judgeship was to commit a crime, quit, or retire. She said that nobody in the judiciary was discriminated against because of his or her ethnicity. She pointed out that Albanian judges even sat on the Serbian Supreme Court and on the Constitutional Court, during the time covered by the indictment.

She testified that the KLA was legally classified as a terrorist organization, and that it was formed as early as 1992. She said that the Serbian authorities did not take any large-scale action against the KLA until March of 1998 when they killed Adem Jasari and his men. She said that Jasari had been accused of murder, and when the police tried to arrest him, he and his henchmen opened fire against the police. The police returned fire, killing Jasari and some of his men.

The witness described the KLA-s operations. She said that they carried out ambushes and hit-and-run attacks against police and civilians, as well as refugees from Bosnia and Croatia that were housed in Kosovo refugee camps.

On January 15, 1999 at about 9 AM, Judge Marenkovic received a report that the police had clashed with the KLA in Racak early that morning. She took a crime scene technician, Ismet Sufa (an ethnic Turk), to Racak with her in order to carry out an investigation.

Slobodan Milosevic played a video tape of the police operation in court today. On that tape one could see the police entering Racak on the morning of January 15th. The OSCE-s orange vans could clearly be seen on that tape as they watched the police operation from a hill overlooking the village. It was clear from the tape that the police were under fire. It would have been impossible for them to round up villagers and march them up to the ravine, let alone do it without the OSCE or the media seeing them.

Judge Marenkovic first arrived in Racak at approximately 2 PM on the 15th. She did not see evidence of shelling. None of the houses had damage that would indicate mortar fire. This is important because the indictment alleges that the Yugoslav army shelled Racak. She said that there was no evidence the army was anywhere near Racak.

When her team was about to go looking for people who might have been killed in the fighting they came under automatic weapons fire, and had to leave the village.

When her team attempted to return on the morning of the 16th of January, they were fired on again. She testified that her team was being fired on at the same time as William Walker was up at the ravine proclaiming that a massacre had happened.

Judge Marenkovic said that Walker-s conduct was improper. The KVM was supposed to be in Kosovo to monitor the work of the army and police, not to investigate crime scenes independently and draw conclusions.

She attempted to return to Racak together with her team again on the 17th of January. Again she was fired on. A video tape of the incident was played for the tribunal. The video depicted her and her colleagues hiding behind a car as automatic weapons fire was directed against them.

She testified that Gen. Drewienkiewicz, the British General in charge of planning for the OSCE-KVM in Kosovo, tried to obstruct her from carrying out an investigation in Racak.

On January 18th, Gen. DZ told her that she could not take members of her investigating team to Racak. He also said that she could not take the police, because the villagers (who he claimed were unarmed) would open fire against the investigators if the police were present. At one point Gen. DZ even threatened to report Judge Marenkovic to the Hague Tribunal if she attempted to carry out an investigation with her staff.

In spite of Gen. DZ-s belligerence, Judge Marenkovic went to Racak and was able to carry out an investigation on January 18th.

When she got to Racak she found trenches and bunkers that had been built by the KLA. These bunkers and trenches were video taped and the tape was played at the tribunal today. It was clear that the trenches had been used, they were littered with shell casings, and in one case a rifle tripod was left in a machine-gun nest that had been fortified with sandbags.

Her investigators also found weapons and KLA documents in the village itself. There were KLA uniforms, a large quantity of weapons, duty rosters, etc- and all of that was itemized and video taped. That videotape was also played at the tribunal today.

The topic of the bodies and the forensic investigation was broached at the end of the hearing today. The witness testified that 40 dead bodies, which had been placed in the mosque by the time she reached the village, were transported to the Institute of Forensics in Pristina.

She explained the composition of the forensic team that autopsied the bodies. The best experts from Serbia and Belarus were called in, and a team from Finland (led by Helena Ranta) joined the investigation later on.

She said that the forensic investigation revealed that the victims had been killed by gunfire that came from a long distance. That is where things ended on Wednesday. Judge Marinkovic will continue her testimony on Thursday.

It's not about confidence, Oh, I'm quite confident to shoot you full of holes like the swisscheese you are. It's about letting your lebal stand, and I will not. That's what men like you want. You can't discuss or debate the points so you attack people directly and then have the gull to demand that they not defend themselves. I also notice how there is no Balkans thread you aren't on defend islam. As a matter of fact, outside of the Balkan threads and your defense of Bosnian and Albanian muslims, there are precious few threads you're on. Hmmmm.

Hay, smart guy, besides being pro-KLA I doubt that you've ever worn any other uniform yourself. You make hot air and try to discredit every other poster but I've yet to hear a single word out of you. Oh and if you wanted proof (which you don't you're just out to character assasinate) you can look at my other postings and get all the damn proof you need.

Your name shouldn't be Hoplite but Janissary or Malmuk.

jb6, what you said: the Islamics were moving in secret weapons from other islamics getting ready to run us over to get at the Serbs.

What I said: nothing like that ever happened in the 8+ years since IFOR/SFOR arrived

You then posted a lot of info about weapons. We're talking past each other--my point was that in no cases did the Bosniaks or anyone else "run us over" or even try to and we never suffered a casualty to hostile action. Further, significant fighting between the factions was brought to a halt--the mission was a success.

As to how the hostile factions in the Balkans stockpiled & moved & hid arms and ammunition--that was well known--as General Joulwan described pinning down the locations of the arms caches in Bosnia (showing his age & the age of all of us who understood the reference), it was like trying to find Nathan Detroit's craps game.

Having said all that--again, what do your Bosnia experiences have to do with Racak?

He told me that he had heard through another source that the police had taken a group of people into the mountains near Racak and slit their throats. Apparently a boy had seen that and got away. I asked if he knew about a group of men being shot. He said he did not know that.

DTA, because first thing in the morning after the massacre that someone "had heard through another source" that "Apparently a boy had seen" people with their throats slit is normal confusion in a first report based on third-hand information and is irrelevant anyway since nobody is accused of slitting anyone's throat.

The fact that the KLA leader knew nothing about a group of men being shot actually supports that the massacre was not staged. If it was, that KLA leader would have certainly used his opportunity to tell the KDOM observer all about the massacred men in the gully.

around 35 names (20 + 15) were provided by KLA MP (UCK PU) BEFORE information about people killed in a gully CAME IN. When 23 (number of dead in a gully) is added to known number of 35 we get 58 dead civilians according to KLA. This is around 13 more than official ICTY toll.

You are assuming no overlap between the lists. Further, the bodies in the gully were discovered about 0400 and this incident occurred several hours later--the lists may have included names from those in the gully. Again, it is irrelevant anyway since the trial is about who killed the civilians the day before, not whether or not some local KLA leader in the next village over got an accurate report the next morning. If Slobo thinks that will help his case, he can bring it up. Paratrooper_501's posts came from his statements that were submitted to the ICTY and are available to Milosevic.

from "Serb police was in the village, they did it."

Uh, no. There's quite a bit more to it than that. The eyewitnesses saw the Serb Police round up the men and take them away. Some of the men survived by running away or playing dead and described how the Serb police opened fire on them in the gully. Their stories are corroborated in other details by the evidence provided by Paratrooper_501 and the other KDOM & KVM personnel.

An Albanian survivor's experience of the massacre was: "For six hours, Rame Shabani lay motionless, his face pressed to the dirt, while Serb police and army units shot and mutilated 25 men on a hillside above the Albanian village of Racak. He escaped by throwing himself into a ravine when they opened fire.'...'I heard their screams as they were being massacred. They were begging for their lives,'' Shabani said, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a spartan room decorated only with a photograph of the victims' coffins blanketed with Albanian flags. When they were finished they sang a nationalist song: ``Who is saying, who is lying Serbia is small? Serbia is not small. Serbia is not small.''

To which you responded that "Rame Shabani did not come to alert search party who were searching for the dead with torchlights."

Now, DTA, put yourself in Shabani's shoes. He just avoided being murdered by hiding in a ravine as Serb police roamed around him shooting his relatives and neighbors. After six hours of hiding, he fled. We don't even know if he saw the search party later that night and even if he did, do you honestly think that he was going to go running through the woods in the dark to see who was walking around on that same hill with flashlights? If it had been me after that experience and I'd later seen people with flashlights coming up the hill, I'd have set an Olympic record running in the opposite direction.

To which you responded that "Rame Shabani did not come to alert search party who were searching for the dead with torchlights."

Recak was a KLA fabrication in order to give NATO/US an excuse to enter Kosovo. Iraq had it's excuse as did Vietnam. Getting public support seems to be an important factor in pushing an objective in a certain direction. Usually the answer is pretty simple. Mark and the might is right crowd seem to support this philosophy simply by having nothing else to do but project the lies Walker had supplied the world. That was the dude one poster stated was walking all over the scene of the crime?? They will believe what has obviously been fed to them for what ever reason. Right now lets see what happens.....

Mark old boy considering you were one of Walkers boys how is it that you can be considered objective therefore credible. I have credible Albanian sources that say the UCK prevented the KVM patrols from entering RACAK on January 15th and with news of this the local villagers were incensed by what had happened causing the villagers and KLA to be a odds in a huge way almost resulting in violence. The Racak villagers were angry because they felt the KLA contributed to the so called massacre to happen by doing this. Why were you not called to testify Mark. It just so convenient that you have all the answers. Well you don't. You sir are just somebody else's messenger boy....

The other huge question here is if you have all this first hand observations documented, why the hell were you and your grid coordinates not at the Milosivic trial testifying on behalf of the prosecution at the Hague. Your not important enough? Mark, with so much so called great info why was this not published with the OSCE reports to the world? You are nothing but a smoke screen, a tool that is still attached to William Walker, your boss. Just so damned convenient.....

The regional commander of the UCK, Buja (first name unknown) arrived

The dudes name is General Shukri Buja. I find this spin about Buja being angry at you for allowing the massacre to happen. What was the name of the local UCK commander under Buja whose men where involved in the Racak incident. You would have to know this Mark.....

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