Posted on 12/02/2002 5:07:33 PM PST by vooch
This trial is chaotic by design.
There are hundreds of witnesses, where 10 consistent, real ones would suffice; few hundreds of thousands garbled pages instead of few hundred to-the-point; deliberate skipping, jumping and superficially back-and-forth touching of issues where systematic covering of one issue after another is required. Quality is being replaced by quantity, orderliness by chaos.
But, of course, the opposite approach would reveal the utter non-existence of the Prosecution's case. Why, the Tribunal's spokespersons openly stated that it's not their task to properly investigate anything. That's how you get absurd sentences, like the Krstic one, where the Chamber is "satisfied" that there were 7-8,000 Muslim men and boys killed in Srebrenica, without ever finding/identifying all those bodies.
That's how you get a testimony like the current one, of C-061, over-extended, inconsistent and sometimes downright ridiculous for its superficiality, labelled as the testimony that "was enough to earn him the status of the most important Prosecution witness so far", as reports the official scribe of IWPR (or is it ICTY?), Mirko Klarin. The man even ventures to state that this is what "the majority of those that are covering the trial have agreed". Why don't they flash it all over their newspaper pages, then?
What attracted my attention in this common propaganda piece, however, was the reference to "Radovan Karadzic, who in 1991 alone had 24 intercepted telephone conversations with Milosevic, played last week before the court". He even quoted some sentences, but somehow I couldn't remeber I ever heard them being played. You know, I happened to watch last week's proceedings, and as far as I can remember, only 6-7 short segments of intercepted phone calls between these 2 were actually played. But then, Mirko Klarin is a senior editor of something, maybe he's right, maybe I made a mistake.
So, I took the trouble to read the transcript. I recommend the same exercise to anyone who can afford a bit of time - it's worth it. I confirmed my original observation: yes, only SEVEN little bits of intercepts were played that included Milosevic - the first one on Nov. 19, page 13040; they tried next day to play another 3 of other collocutors, but the sound quality was too poor - CD was a copy of a copy of a copy - too much editing?, so they gave up and continued with reading from the "transcripts" , which were found, in addition, not to be even properly translated (the witness compared it to the Serbian version of the text), so May said "we'll have this matter properly translated".
On Nov. 22 the Prosecution introduced another "reading class" of SEVENTEEN alleged transcripts of intercepts - only short bits, luckily (garbled reading, to say the least; but the second one provided some fun with another mentioning of C-061 name, this time by Uertz-Rezlaff, confused by Kwon - "You mean Milan Martic?" and pressed by Tapuskovic - no surname was mentioned, only the name Milan - page 13284); a piece of an intercept of Karadzic allegedly talking to Jovica Stanisic was played; then 3 intercepts of Karadzic talking to Milosevic re Martic's arrest by Izetbegovic (these 3 seemed the only genuine phone calls, perhaps edited just a dash here and there, but not a bit incriminating); the last few bits of intercepts played (page 13321-41) were obviously heavily edited, full of non sequitur sentences; and that was all regarding those "damning intercepts".
I also confirmed my impression of amicus curiae Kay and by extension his aide-de-camp Ms Higgins: those two are really trying to give this shameful show some (pretence of?) seriousness. After playing the first piece of an intercept, Uertz-Retzlaff proceeded calmly to read out transcripts of the alleged other intercepts. Ms Higgins stood up to object, May got angry: "Ms Higgins, do you really have a point you have to raise now? Because too much interruption is bad for the flow." (You see, from May's point of view, everything was flowing just swimmingly, the Prosecution was reading something nobody knew the origin nor veracity of and this was considered the witness' testimony.)
Ms Higgins was brave to speak: "Your Honour, the very brief point is that if the Prosecution do seek to rely on these intercepts, then perhaps an extract, a short extract, should be played." May: "No. We haven't the time to play 50 intercepts." This was all on page 13045, Nov. 19.
So, Mirko Klarin should also read trial transcripts sometimes, methinks. Because, there were not 24 intercepts played; and those quoted sentences were indeed NOT played, but read from the "intercept transcripts".
I also found some hilariously funny reading material, which I obviously missed live (probably making my coffee at that time). See for yourselves: Nov. 19, page 13047. Uertz-Retzlaff was gliding in full sail down yet another Karadzic-Milosevic "transcript", full of their plans for disintegration of YU and steps taken for the separation, asking the witness to explain "What they are talking about? What was the plan, so to speak?", when suddenly something was wrong with her papers and she said: "And I would like now to have a look at tab 24, and it is again a conversation between Mr Milosevic and Mr Karadzic, and again there is that issue of separation and who is doing it first…
Your Honour, I would now briefly have to go into private session, because a particular issue with the witness comes up… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I had a wrong script. It's not -- it's Mr Karadzic with the female person. It's not Mr Milosevic. I'm sorry. I had a wrong document in front of me. I'm sorry." [Private session] What!? Discussing separation and who is doing it first with a female person? Ending a love affair over a phone? That's so un-gentlemanly, Dr Karadzic, shame on you.
Seriously now, you see what the Prosecution is doing with those tapes: they obviously got all kinds of intercepts of all kinds of accused persons, private calls included, so they could liberally edit whatever they please, form "transcripts" of such concoctions to read from in the examination-in-chief and have them ready in case the Defence would insist on playing them, but have also judge May to ban them being played.
When there was a short discussion on admissibility of those tapes (page 13021-32), Robinson remarked to Nice "you said that you would be attaching the law authorizing interception, and that's not attached. That is what I would like to get." Nice: "Very well. I'll see whether we can get a hold of that… It's coming, but it's not here immediately." Ms Higgins: …"The Trial Chamber still does not know how, when, where the intercepts came from. There is no continuity evidence. We don't even know how the intercepts have been dated, or whether they came from a reliable source…Before the Trial Chamber has heard evidence on how these intercepts were recorded, preserved, transcribed, this material, in our view, should not be admitted."
May vented his anger by a nitpicking, acid remark: "Your submission, not your view. You're making submissions." Contrary to comments, Milosevic did not object only the legality of intercepting those phone calls; he said these are "allegedly intercepted conversations obtained in an illegal manner because they are montages, … it can be seen that parts of conversations were taken out of context and that the conversations are not logical in the way a normal conversation is conducted." As you know, our troika found a solution by ruling the tapes as prima facie admissible; they just need more details on their provenance. For the sake of appearance, Robinson again insisted on some law to be attached, and May repeated "provenance" is needed, because "We've simply got the authorization at the moment."
Milosevic embarrassed them by mentioning they only got a paper from a person called Bojan Savnik as some kind of authorization, and the only body in B&H authorized to make an exception in relation to the right to privacy was the Presidency (in Serbia it was the Supreme Court). Will Nice "see whether we can get a hold of" the decision by the then Presidency of B&H in due time, what do you think? I think it would be just forgotten.
Further on, Milosevic insisted that all those intercepts, if admitted, have to be played in the court and recognized by the witness; it's not enough just to claim that. "If evidence is admitted, it has to be adduced here." You saw what May answered to Ms Higgins when she insisted on a short extract only: "No. We haven't the time to play 50 intercepts." But, we obviously have time for the numerous "transcripts".
That day (Nov. 19, page 13039), May really blew the top, being rude even to poor, awestruck Uertz-Retzlaff, only because he himself was unable, as often was the case, to follow the proceedings; she gave him the paper listing the tab numbers of intercepts, but he didn't know where to look, so he returned the paper, barking: "No. Ms Uertz-Retzlaff, it's plain what I was referring to if you would listen to what I say." She meekly repeated the same thing as before, only the other way around: …"This document is just the assistance, so that you can follow…", and May finally understood, and never bothered to apologize: "That is all I needed to know. All right. Give it back to me."
Milosevic will be additionally personally hated by everyone in the courtroom before the end because May will continue venting his frustration on them all, for being obliged to participate in something so beyond his capacity.
http://swans.com/library/art8/elich006.html
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