http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/tri/tri_418_1_eng.txt
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Tribunale Update (TU)
Courtside: Milosevic
Eccentric witness tries patience of prosecutors and judges.
By Michael Farquhar in London (TU No 418, 27-Aug-05)
Judges in the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic
continued to hear wide-ranging testimony this week from maverick
ultra-nationalist Serb politician Vojislav Seselj.
Seselj is currently awaiting trial at the war crimes tribunal, charged
with responsibility for atrocities including murders, torture and
deportations in Croatia and Bosnia in the early Nineties.
He first took to the stand last week to testify as part of the defence
case being mounted by Milosevic, who is representing himself in court.
His evidence has since touched on events in each of the three areas
where the ex-president is accused of responsibility for war crimes –
Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
Apparently enjoying the break from the tribunal's detention unit,
Seselj this week rubbished allegations made by prosecutors against
Milosevic. He even went so far as to criticise the accused for having
been too soft during the Balkans conflicts.
Judges interrupted on a number of occasions, however, to warn that
much of the witness's rambling and often apparently groundless
evidence had little place in a serious legal defence.
Seselj's testimony began by focussing on events in Kosovo in the
run-up to the spring of 1999, when security forces under Milosevic's
control allegedly used brutal tactics to drive hundreds of thousands
of ethnic Albanians from their homes.
The witness, who was deputy prime minister of Serbia at the time,
dismissed the claim that the corpses of hundreds of Albanian victims
were transported to Serbia and dumped there in an effort to cover up
war crimes in Kosovo.
Bodies later recovered from mass graves across Serbia – including in
the grounds of a police training centre near Belgrade – were planted
there by conspirators, he insisted, who were determined to see
Milosevic go to The Hague.
Seselj offered no solid evidence to back up his claims, however, and
Presiding Judge Patrick Robinson – who had at first expressed interest
in hearing evidence on this important issue – eventually warned
Milosevic that such speculation would do little to help his case.
Later in the week, Seselj's testimony concerning the conflicts in
Croatia and Bosnia descended into a protracted debate about the
meaning of the term Greater Serbia, often used in connection with the
Milosevic trial.
In the Nineties, Milosevic allegedly sought to establish a state that
would bring together all Serbs under a single government.
Seselj claimed in court, however, that the term Greater Serbia had
been misconstrued in proceedings before the tribunal.
In fact, the witness said, his own Serbian Radical Party had been
alone in aspiring to establish a Greater Serbia. The notion, he
explained, referred to the aspiration that those who think of
themselves as Muslims and Croats would come to recognise their true
Serb heritage and would live together in unity with Orthodox Christian
Serbs.
The accused, Seselj added, had never held such an ambition.
Prosecutor Geoffrey Nice responded that his team had never in fact
suggested that Milosevic bought into any such an ideology. References
to Greater Serbia had only been intended to show that the accused had
territorial ambitions over a certain geographical area, he said,
without suggesting what ideology motivated those ambitions.
Milosevic, for his part, jumped at the chance to attack the
prosecution case, dismissing Nice's explanation as nonsense and
accusing him of trying to hold two positions at once.
"It is my fundamental right to know what I'm being accused of in order
to answer these accusations," he insisted.
A disgruntled Milosevic later went on the offensive again by asking
Seselj to explain why Hague prosecutors had not taken more action
against those responsible for ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Croatia.
When the question was disallowed by Judge Robinson, Milosevic, clearly
determined to score a political point, declared, "Not everyone
listening to this is an idiot."
He then took advantage of the last seconds of the session to launch
into a tirade in which he assured Nice that he would one day be held
accountable for his "crimes" in the courtroom. An unimpressed Judge
Robinson cut the accused short in order to adjourn proceedings for the
day.
The panel of judges in this case, while used to dealing with
Milosevic's belligerence, have had twice as much to put up with over
the past few days, with Seselj in the witness stand.
Earlier in the week, Judge Robinson demanded to know why Seselj was
refusing to rise to his feet like everyone else when the judges
entered and left the room, in accordance with court protocol.
The witness, obviously relishing the chance to have a dig at the
court, declared that he was uncomfortable about what he claimed were
parallels between the bench's red and black robes and the outfits worn
by priests during the Catholic Inquisition.
He added that the judges' practice of bowing before taking their seats
also reminded him of a "satanic ritual", which only increased his
reluctance to take part.
Seselj eventually agreed to set aside such concerns, after Judge
Robinson reminded him of the possibility of bringing his testimony to
an early close.
Milosevic will continue to question Seselj when the trial resumes on August 30.
Michael Farquhar is an IWPR reporter in London.
Serbian News Network - SNN
[email protected]
http://www.antic.org/
