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ERP KiM Newsletter 10-03-05 News Agencies on KosovoKosovo's prime minister joins Milosevic as he awaits war crimes trialStephen Castle in Brussels THE INDEPENDENT , March 10, 2005 http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=618444 Two cars believed to be carrying the former Prime Minister of Kosovo Ramush Haradinaj enter the U.N. detention unit in Scheveningen, near The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday March 9, 2005. Haradinaj is to face war crime charges for his alleged role in atrocities committed during the 1998-1999 war between ethnic Albanians and Serb forces. (AP Photo/Serge Ligtenberg) ONE DAY after stepping down as Kosovo's prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj was last night awaiting a court appearance...

After two persons from the Skopje emergency medical service testify that there were no wounded people or people with visible injuries from violence among the Kosovo refugees who came to Macedonia in the spring of 1999, Milosevic claims it is “clear that these people fled before NATO bombs, not before fire opened by the Serbian security forces or their batons.” THE HAGUE, 1.3. (SENSE) - If the Albanian civilians who were leaving Kosovo in the spring of 1999 were fleeing the Serbian security forces that had beaten them and opened fire on them, then - as Slobodan Milosevic noted today...

After a four-week break, the trial of Slobodan Milosevic continues with the testimony of a German reporter who covered the war in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999. THE HAGUE, 12.10. (SENSE) - Unlike Bosnia, where he was as a war correspondent from May 1995 until March 1996, German reporter Franz Josef Hutsch got the impression in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999 that "a lot of things were staged" or "orchestrated" and that the Kosovo Liberation Army had very good “PR advisers." The German reporter is one of the few witnesses from Milosevic's list contacted by defense counsel Steven Kay during...

THE HAGUE : The mammoth trial of Slobodan Milosevic resumed at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague, with testimony about the 1999 massacre of some 45 people in the Kosovo town of Racak. The alleged massacre of civilians by Serb troops in Racak is a key element in the UN court's indictment against the former Yugoslav president over the 1998-99 conflicts in the Serb province of Kosovo. German investigative journalist Franz-Josef Hutsch on Tuesday took the stand as the fourth defence witness after the case had been adjourned for a month to give Milosevic's court-appointed defence lawyer...

Berliner Zeitung, Saturday, January 17, 2004 No interest in fallen Serbs Work of the Hague tribunal in Racak case criticized Markus Bickel SARAJEVO/HELSINKI, January - Finnish pathologist Helena Ranta has expressed lack of comprehension regarding the work of the UN's Hague tribunal in the case of the so-called massacre of Racak. In an interview with "Berliner Zeitung", the head of the forensic team sent by the EU to investigate occurrences in the Kosovo village of Racak in January, 1999, criticized that indications of serious fighting between Serbian soldiers and Albanian fighters on the night of 15th to 16th of January,...

December 19, 2002 More Dirty LiesCourtesy of The Hague Inquisition Just recently, this column examined the many facets of falsifying history, noting in passing the role of the Hague Inquisition in currently the largest such effort in the world. Indeed, the ICTY is an endeavor more massive even than the current campaign to conjure a reason for invading Iraq, and it seeks not merely to modify history, but to rewrite it wholesale. Lubyanka, not Nuremberg Its main thesis, that Slobodan Milosevic and other Serb leaders organized a vast conspiracy, a "joint criminal enterprise," to murder, expel or conquer other...

The Milosevic trial is a travesty Political necessity dictates that the former Yugoslavian leader will be found guilty - even if the evidence doesn't Neil ClarkThursday February 12, 2004 It is two years today that the trial of Slobodan Milosevic opened at The Hague. The chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, was triumphant as she announced the 66 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity and genocide that the former Yugoslavian president was charged with. CNN was among those who called it "the most important trial since Nuremburg" as the prosecution outlined the "crimes of medieval savagery" allegedly committed by...

Madame Justice Louise Arbour didn't last long on the Supreme Court of Canada. Five years on the highest court, and still only 57, her career has been spectacular - and it's still on the rise. Her days of relative anonymity on the Supreme Court are likely over now that she's agreed to be the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, based in Geneva. The job became open last August when the UN headquarters in Baghdad was bombed and High Commissioner Vieira de Mello and 21 others died. Reaction to Arbour's appointment is mostly positive - she was hand-chosen by UN...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - The U.N. war crimes tribunal on Thursday imposed two defense lawyers on Slobodan Milosevic in an effort to end repeated trial delays and because doctors have warned that representing himself threatens the former Yugoslav strongman's health. The tribunal's judges named British attorneys Steven Kay and Gillian Higgins, until now court observers ensuring fair proceedings, as Milosevic's defense counsels. They will take over the case from Sept. 7 when his first witnesses are due to be called. The former Yugoslav president protested the decision to impose a lawyer on him and said he will appeal. Judges...

On 10th September 2004, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia imposed defence counsel on its most famous defendant, Slobodan Milosevic. This decision overturned previous rulings: the Prosecution had tried, at the beginning of the trial, to force a lawyer on Milosevic, and the judges had addressed the issue several times during the hearings. On 3rd July 2001, the very first day of the trial, the presiding judge, the late Sir Richard May, said, “Mr. Milosevic, I see that you’re not represented by counsel today. We understand that this is of your own choice. You do have the right,...

BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 30 - A senior American diplomat expressed frustration on Thursday that Serbia had yet to turn over a leading war crimes suspect months after the election of a new president who had promised "full cooperation" with the international tribunal at The Hague. Marc Grossman, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said the Serbian government had made no progress toward arresting the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, Gen. Ratko Mladic. General Mladic was indicted in 1995 on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from his actions during the 1992-95 conflict...

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) - The Geopolitical Problems Academy's vice-president Leonid Ivashov intends to speak as the witness for the defense at the criminal proceedings against Slobodan Milosevic, former president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, ongoing in the Hague tribunal, Mr. Ivashov, who had taken part in the endeavors to settle the Yugoslavian crisis as a representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, told RIA Novosti. "I agreed to participate in the court proceedings as the witness for Milosevic's defense, since I met him time and again and dealt with the Kosovo settlement process before and after the bombings...

Calgary filmmaker Garth Pritchard admits to being confused -- and angry. He has rejected Slobodan Milosevic's attempt to use him as a witness at his war crimes trial, but Pritchard says The Hague now wants him as a witness -- but not against Milosevic. Instead they want him as a witness for atrocities and human rights abuses committed by Croats when they overran the centre of Knin, capital of Serbian-occupied Krajina, which Croatia attacked and conquered in 1995. "I don't get it," says Pritchard. "Film footage I shot for the National Film Board around 1995 was turned over to prosecutors...

Judges at the Hague war crimes tribunal jailed a former Bosnian Serb general for 20 years on Friday for deliberately shelling and shooting civilians during the siege of Sarajevo in the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Stanislav Galic, 60, is the first suspect to be tried by the U.N. war crimes tribunal exclusively in connection with the 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital. Prosecutors said Bosnian Serb forces had plunged the city into a "medieval hell." Sarajevo became synonymous with war during the siege. Serb forces dug into surrounding hills rained down sniper and shell fire on buses, trams, gardens and funerals,...

Ground-Breaking Srebrenica Guilty Plea By Emir SuljagicInstitute for War and Peace ReportingMay 2, 2003 Key suspect provides unprecedented and chilling inside account of the Bosnian Serb atrocity. In a watershed confession on May 6, former Bosnian Serb security officer Momir Nikolic pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity for his role in the 1995 killing of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men from Srebrenica. Dressed in a dark green suit, Nikolic appeared visibly disturbed as he appeared before the tribunal. He bit his lips in agitation as he offered his plea. In exchange for his admission of guilt, the prosecution...

Milosevic predecessor arrested Lilic refused to go to the Hague voluntarily Former Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic has been arrested and flown to the Netherlands, his lawyer has said. The lawyer, Dragan Saponjic, said Mr Lilic was arrested after refusing an order to testify against his successor - Slobodan Milosevic - at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. He was president of the Yugoslav federation from 1993 to 1997, when Mr Milosevic took over. Mr Milosevic is on trial on charges of genocide allegedly committed during the 1990s Balkans wars. 'Forced' Mr Saponjic said Mr Lilic was subpoenaed by the...