Posted on 03/12/2003 8:41:32 AM PST by vooch
For the last two days the Prosecution was busy with 3 new witnesses and few technical/legal debates in open court. This all was just quantity and their case further caved in.
First, they invited our Government representative to discuss documents needed for this 'trial'. I saw a piece of this argument, read reports of it in our press and heard bits on TV, and I also read a JCI article on that.
It is always far more significant what JCI omits to report than what it actually reports. In her last piece, titled 'Trial Chamber Declines to Order Serbia-Montenegro to Produce Documents', Judith Armatta writes just about everything but the crucial thing: that May & friends refused to order a free physical access to the State archives by the Prosecution.
The request from Nice was that the Prosecution wants to 'examine the archives and find' what they need.
The Yugoslav representative at the session, the Foreign Minister's Adviser Djeric, argued this would be a 'document fishing' and 'frisking another country'.
The exact words by May were: 'The Trial Chamber is not convinced that the Prosecution should be allowed such physical access.'
This is a step even the ICTY is reluctant to take, so Yugoslavia has been only ordered to answer to a 'priority list' of the requested specific documents by the Prosecution within two months time. Therefore, it has been ordered to produce documents, thus exactly the opposite of what the title of the article claims. You will not learn this by reading Ms Armatta's 'informative' piece.
As regards 3 witnesses, it was significant that the first witness for Bosnia & Herzegovina segment appeared, then there was another General/'insider' and finally another Dubrovnik witness started to testify today and will finish tomorrow.
Do you know that at the end of today's session May read out a list of some 20 more Dubrovnik witnesses and asked the Prosecution with exasperation in his voice: "Do you really need that amount of witnesses?! We have already heard plenty of witnesses regarding Dubrovnik. Think about that."
The first Bosnia-witness was one Mrs Malesevic, a Chairperson of the Bosnia & Herzegovina Prison Camp Inmates Association. She described in gruesome detail (or else, confirmed the descriptions provided by Nice) all 63 ways and means of maltreatment and abuse against the prisoners in 520 Serbian prison camps.
The problem was she had not a single evidence to substantiate that vivid sadistic imaginativeness: no names nor dates were given, the locations were dubious (e.g. she had mentioned a prison camp in a fortress in Bijeljina, whereas no such place exists there), and she herself knows nothing about all those places, because she was imprisoned in a Croatian camp for nine months!
She claimed all has been documented by the 'statements from witnesses' but was unable to produce a single one, arguing 'all has been still under investigation' (after 12 years?!).
The most ridiculous moments with this confused woman were when Milosevic, well-informed as usual, had put to her that her claims of 2,500 Muslims being in that Croatian camp Kresevo where she had been kept were equal to the total number of Muslims in that municipality and that her own earlier statement in Sarajevo on 20 April 1994 was that there were only 500 civilians there.
"It will now turn out that I'm defending the Croats here', joked Milosevic.
The poor woman was finally reduced to such mumbled answers of 'I can not remember the details' (and she 'remembered' all the genital-cutting, excrement & body parts-eating and other events to which she was never present and to which she could not name a single witness).
In re-direct, Nice made her 'promise' to 'subsequently' find and submit 'documents'.
When will it be, I wonder? What were they doing for the last 12 years? So, the first Bosnian 'witness' finished in disgrace and stupidity.
The 'insider' General Milosav Djordjevic was completely useless: a long-time pensioner, who had been in a top position of the Serbian Defence Ministry for only 1 year, could not provide a single piece of information, apart from his own personal opinion that Serbian police was better equipped than the JNA.
The old army man resented Milosevic for not helping the JNA more (and he's been on trial for exactly the opposite, mind you!).
Milosevic teased him mildly: "You claim that I took more care about the Police than about the Army. Is it any wonder that I took more care about what was my job, instead of caring about what was not my job?"
And when Milosevic said: "You came here to testify against me. Do you claim that I hated the Army?".
The old man explained meticulously: "I did not come here to testify against you. The Federal Government allowed me on 3 March to testify of what I know; whether this would be against you or in favor of you, I would not enter into that."
That was the end of it. Insiders' business is definitely a wrong card for the Prosecution.
And yet another Dubrovnik witness?
This was a Director of the Institute for the Cultural Monuments Protection in Dubrovnik, Mrs Baca. She started with some maps of Dubrovnik, with 4-10 black spots on them, representing buildings that had been hit. Through her, the Prosecution introduced 4 more binders of documents, proving that Dubrovnik actually is on the UNESCO list of the world cultural heritage!
Here's something the Prosecution will be finally able to prove. She is to continue tomorrow.
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The above article is intellectual property of Vera Martinovic
Posted For Fair Use Only
Verdict first, evidence later. International law at it's finest, I see.
yeah notice how they dissapear whenever detailed quotations from the Tribunal are published.
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