VOJISLAV SESELJ - DAY 13: MR. NICE ENDS HIS CROSS-EXAMINATION EMPTY HANDED
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - September 16, 2005
Written by: Andy Wilcoxson
Geoffrey Nice concluded his cross-examination of Vojislav Seselj at the
trial of Slobodan Milosevic on Friday. Nice continued questioning Seselj
about the now infamous Skorpions video, which the witness continues to
maintain, has been doctored. He says that his legal advisors have proof of
this, unfortunately the tribunal's rules prohibit him from speaking to them
about his evidence.
Mr. Nice has changed his definition of "Greater Serbia" again. He now claims
that the Belgrade Initiative was plan for "Greater Serbia." Under the
Belgrade Initiative, Bosnia would have remained in Yugoslavia and Alija
Izetbegovic would have been the first president of the new rump Yugoslavia.
Mr. Nice pointed out that Milosevic supported the Belgrade Initiative,
therefore, in Mr. Nice's deluded mind, Milosevic supported "Greater Serbia."
Dr. Seselj responded that Mr. Nice's whole idea was ridiculous because the
Belgrade Initiative envisioned Bosnia staying in Yugoslavia, not becoming
part of Serbia. Seselj said that it was absurd to think that Milosevic
wanted to expand Serbia's borders. He pointed out that Serbs in Bosnia and
Croatia passed several initiatives declaring themselves part of Serbia and
Milosevic always rejected them.
Mr. Nice repeated his case that the so-called "joint criminal enterprise"
was aimed at expanding Serbia's borders. He said that the plan behind the
conspiracy was "never articulated" and changed depending on the
circumstances. Of course such an idea can not hold any water unless Slobodan
Milosevic had a telepathic link with his alleged co-conspirators, and to the
best of my knowledge he doesn't have supernatural powers.
Mr. Nice concluded his cross-examination by asking Seselj about the
transport of nearly 800 bodies from Kosovo to central Serbia, specifically
about their transfer to the Serbian Anti-Terrorist Police (SAJ) base in
Batajnica.
Neither Mr. Nice nor Dr. Seselj knows who buried those bodies in Batajnica.
Nice claims that Milosevic's police did it to hide evidence of Kosovo war
crimes. Seselj claims that the DOS government did it to incriminate
Milosevic and provide political justification to hand their political foe
over to the Hague Tribunal.
Seselj noted several problems with Mr. Nice's theory. First of all, there
are cases where Kosovo-Albanians who have been dug-up in central Serbia had
already been issued death certificates by the Serbian Government. If the
Serbian Government had been trying to hide evidence of killings, then they
wouldn't have issued death certificates for these people.
The next major problem with Mr. Nice's theory is that nobody knew anything
about this until 2001 when the regime needed political justification to hand
Milosevic over to the ICTY. It defies belief that nobody noticed Serbian
policemen going around Kosovo, digging up graves, and then trucking the
corpses off to central Serbia. The KLA was active throughout Kosovo, the
province was crawling with Albanians, and on top of that NATO spy satellites
and AWACS had the capability to film every square inch of Serbian territory.
Seselj believes that the bodies were buried in central Serbia after the
withdrawal of Serbian troops from Kosovo. International forensic teams
(several of whom were from NATO countries) carried out exhumations when they
arrived in Kosovo, why couldn't they have handed a few hundred cadavers over
to the DOS government to use against their mutual enemy, Slobodan Milosevic.
It is interesting to note that NATO bombed every SAJ facility in Serbia
except for the one at Batajnica, even though they mercilessly bombed city of
Batajnica itself, killing several civilians in the process.
Milosevic spent the better part of the day re-examining Seselj. It emerged
in the re-examination that Miroslav Dejronic had been tortured to plead
guilty and falsely testify at the Tribunal. Seselj said that Dejronic told
him that the IFOR soldiers who arrested him had tortured him by repeatedly
submerging him in a barrel of cold water.
During Mr. Nice's cross-examination Seselj was repeatedly asked about the
statements he made against Milosevic during the mid-1990s when the two were
in conflict. Seselj has since disavowed those statements as being political
propaganda, but Mr. Nice insisted that they were true statements.
Under questioning from Milosevic, Seselj read out several passages from
interviews he had given in the late 1990s where he disavowed his earlier
statements. This proves that he was not denying his earlier statements for
the purposes of the trial, because he had already disavowed them before
there was even an indictment.
Mr. Nice had also asserted that Seselj never possessed information that
French Intelligence had directed the "Pauk" mercenary group to execute
nearly 1,200 Srebrenica-Muslims in July 1995.
Under re-examination Seselj was given the opportunity to read out the
statements he gave while he was Serbia's deputy prime minister. Those
statements were identical to the statements he gave during his testimony. In
addition he made reference to statements from the Federal Minister of
Information corroborating his testimony. This shows that there was
intelligence information that both he and the Information Minister had in
their possession at the time.
Milosevic will continue the re-examination when the trial resumes next week.
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