Getting Proof In Milosevic Case Will Be a Challenge Marlise Simons New York Times Service Tuesday, July 3, 2001 THE HAGUE On Tuesday, when Slobodan Milosevic enters the court here and for the first time faces Carla Del Ponte, his UN prosecutor, the case against the man whom the world has seen stoke a decade of war and bloodshed in the Balkans may seem deceptively simple. . But the trial of Mr. Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia who was handed over last week to become the most notorious defendant of the international war crimes tribunal here, will be uncommonly complex, and insiders say key pieces of evidence are still missing. . As her investigators say, Mrs. Del Ponte has a wealth of evidence to buttress the list of Mr. Milosevic's alleged war crimes in Kosovo, the Serbian province where thousands of ethnic Albanian civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes while NATO bombed Yugoslavia in 1999. . Kosovo is a small place, and the violence against its civilians, along with those of Bosnia, no doubt ranks among the most thoroughly recorded war crimes of modern times. . The arsenal of modern spying, the satellites and drones that hovered in the sky above the conflict, has yielded reams of material. There are intercepts of telephone and radio conversations between commanders in the field. Forensic experts have dug up mass graves. And the world press, as well as the investigators, have recorded the stories of scores of victims and survivors. . But insiders say the primary difficulty in prosecuting Mr. Milosevic over Kosovo will be to establish the credible links between the defendant and the looting, raping and killing attributed to the Yugoslav forces on their rampage through Kosovo. . "I think we cannot underestimate the case," said Nancy Paterson, who was a key member of the prosecutor's office until May. "It will be complicated and it will be challenging. It will take time, and there are pieces missing. But I'm confident it can be done." . Ms. Paterson should know. She and another American lawyer led the team of 50 experts in charge of collecting and processing evidence against Mr. Milosevic and his inner circle. . As the team's chief strategist, she was a co-author of the indictment against Mr. Milosevic that was issued in 1999 by Louise Arbour, then the chief prosecutor. Investigators at The Hague are notoriously discreet about their inquiries and rarely allow their names to be used. But Ms. Paterson, who served as an investigator for seven years before her departure, is now more at liberty to speak. . "There is no classic paper trail that ideally you would like to have," said Ms. Paterson, who was reached by telephone in the United States. . "There are pieces missing," she said. "You need to establish what the real chain of command was. And it may not be the same as the chain that is written on paper." . American and other Western governments have conditioned their sizable aid package to Belgrade - they pledged more than $1 billion on Friday - not only on handing Mr. Milosevic over to the tribunal, but also surrendering relevant government records. . Insiders say that Belgrade has promised to send military and police archives, but the prosecutor's office declined to say if any have arrived in The Hague. . By some accounts, boxes of documents have already been received from Belgrade. . Deciphering them is an enormous task, said one investigator. "They have to be translated and analyzed." But if the past is any guide, they will contain missing links, as they have in trials relating to Bosnia. . Even though Bosnian Serb forces destroyed many of their records, North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Bosnia swept through army barracks and police stations and seized thousands of documents that proved useful to the tribunal. They listed tasks, appointments and travels of individuals under indictment. . "Milosevic's fall in October was so sudden we don't know how much has been destroyed," the investigator said. . The 54-page indictment against Mr. Milosevic, expanded last week when the prosecutor added five more killing sites, has drawn no criticism from the experts who follow the tribunal. It was approved by David Hunt, an experienced Australian criminal trial judge. . "His role in this case is comparable to an American grand jury, providing a check and balance on the prosecution," said Michail Wladimiroff, a Dutch lawyer who has been the defense counsel in several cases. "So far, prosecutors' indictments have been very solid. Proving something in court is another matter. Judges have set high standards and have been evenhanded." . For the indictment, prosecutors selected specific crime sites for which there was ample testimony and evidence to meet the criteria for "crimes against humanity" that were "widespread and systematic." . For example, it relates that 105 named boys and men from the villages of Velika Krusa and Mala Krusa were assembled in a house and killed. The police then burned the bodies. . "Of course, crime sites and mass graves prove what happened, but it does not prove a president's responsibility," Mr. Wladimiroff said. The legal challenge will be to prove just that, he said, by linking Mr. Milosevic's "de jure and de facto authority." His responsibility according to law is evident: As president of Yugoslavia, Mr. Milosevic was the commander of the country's military and police forces that have been accused of much of the killing, raping and robbing of unarmed civilians. . But proving his actual, or de facto, authority in court will be a painstaking process, Ms. Paterson said. "It's not a matter of a single piece of evidence, but a combination of many pieces," she said. "You don't have to show that Milosevic ordered killings. But you must show that he had actual control over commanders, that he knew that atrocities were happening and that he did nothing to stop the crimes or to punish the perpetrators." . That requires knowing what happened up and down the chain of command, she said. In the police, she added, the command structure was far less clear-cut than that of the military. . For example, she said, Mr. Milosevic was using his deputy prime minister, Nikola Sainovic, "as his trusted man on the ground." . Mr. Sainovic, who has also been indicted, had "no title in the police," Ms. Paterson added, "but he was willing to do the dirty work and was very much part of the chain of command." . Lawyers at the court have said the case against Mr. Milosevic may also hinge on key witnesses. Ms. Paterson agreed. "We probably need a couple of real insiders," she said. . That is one reason, some lawyers suggest, why four close associates of Mr. Milosevic were indicted at the same time: They would be able to provide crucial evidence in the case of their former boss. Miroslav Antic, http://www.antic.org/ Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
