Alarm as former president gains the upper hand in war crimes tribunal
Milosevic on trial - Observer special
by Tim Judah Belgrade
Sunday March 3, 2002
The Observer
Fears are growing in Belgrade that the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague is going horribly wrong, turning him in the eyes of the public from a villain charged with war crimes into a Serbian hero.
The Serbian Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic, who took a serious political risk by ramming through last year's arrest and then extradition of Milosevic, has expressed anxiety about the 'unserious' conduct of the tribunal.
In an interview with The Observer, Djindjic said the trial had left an impression of 'low credibility', with witnesses 'unprepared and confused'.
Milosevic is charged with multiple counts of war crimes, including genocide in Bosnia. But far from revealing to Serbs the enormity of the crimes committed in their name, the trial has so far only served to reinforce the widespread Serbian prejudice that the tribunal is an anti-Serb kangaroo court and that Milosevic will emerge, as he has already declared, as the 'moral victor'.
The trial is being shown live on television in Serbia and has proved highly popular in the ratings wars. One poll has shown that 41.6 per cent of Serbs give Milosevic five out of five for his performance so far.
So far, said Djindjic, Milosevic's performance in the trial, which began on 12 February, had proved 'superior' and he now appeared to be playing the role of prosecutor and not that of defendant. Djindjic complained that before Milosevic's extradition to The Hague, tribunal officials had assured him that they had 'enough proof of his personal responsibility' and 'would show this within days'.
Instead, said Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco, the head of Belgrade's Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights, the prosecution's weak opening gambits have been 'a catastrophe' and 'people are starting to celebrate Milosevic's "excellent role" in defending himself like a "real Serb". Of course, they really blame Milosevic for losing the war, not for starting it.'
Despite much speculation that a high-level witness from Belgrade would appear in court to testify that Milosevic had indeed given orders which led to massacres, mass deportations and ethnic cleansing, none has so far done so.
In a taunt to chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte, Branislav Ivkovic, leader of Milosevic's Socialist Party in the Serbian parliament, said that he thought she would now need to get herself a 'lasso' to 'catch' someone in Serbia to testify against Milosevic.
Witnesses have floundered in the face of Milosevic's well-prepared attacks, and the prosecution weakened its case when its opening statements were shown to contain small but significant errors.
Sources in Belgrade have told The Observer they believe Milosevic is being supplied with detailed military and secret police intelligence information gathered during the Yugoslav wars.
Evidence is emerging that Milosevic, who refuses to recognise the legality of the court, has in fact been preparing his defence from as far back as the end of 1999. The Belgrade weekly, Nedeljni Telegraf, confirming reports heard by The Observer, says that Milosevic ordered the entire archives of the Yugoslav army's military intelligence to be transferred to his office.
After he fell on 5 October 2000 none of these was found and, says the paper, 'the assumption is that Milosevic personally hid all that somewhere safe in preparation for his meeting The Hague tribunal and its prosecutor.'
Even more intriguingly, Nedeljni Telegraf claims that in the three months after Milosevic fell, during which time his secret police chief Rade Markovic remained in office, Markovic copied the entire archive about the Kosovo Liberation Army on to CDs.
Alarmed secret police officials have been examining Milosevic's statements in court and have concluded that not only has he been using this information but he has also been using information compiled by Markovic's successor.
These claims have led Zoran Zivkovic, the Yugoslav Minister of the Interior, to say he does not know who has been supplying Milosevic with military intelligence information.
Friends of Milosevic have claimed that in the past few days their phones have been cut off, while Milosevic himself has complained that the only public phone available to him is also not working.
Nedeljni Telegraf , which is known to have good contacts with the Serbian secret police, says it has learnt 'that a team of experts is processing all the data and preparing it for Milosevic's use in rented offices in the Netherlands. According to unofficial reports, the experts are being financed by Milosevic's son Marko, from his hiding place in Kazakhstan.'
The court suffered a major setback last week when Nato operations in Bosnia on Thursday and Friday failed to capture Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader. Sources suggested that Nato had been set up by loyalists who had paraded a double of Karadzic in order to trap informers.
Perhaps in part because of fear that Milosevic's successes in The Hague will play into the hands of his political enemies, Djindjic has ruled out sending General Ratko Mladic, the wartime Bosnian Serb military leader, to The Hague. Although he says he will extradite a number of men indicted by the tribunal in the next few weeks, Mladic will not be among them.
Djindjic says it would simply not be worth the political cost to him if young Serb policemen died in the attempt. 'We are trying to create a democratic state, and it takes time. Now they say you should do that which 50,000 Nato troops did not do in Bosnia - it is not fair.'
More on the Milosevic trial
Milosevic trial: Observer special
Special report: Yugoslavia war crimes
Observer Worldview
