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Getting Proof In Milosevic Case Will Be a Challenge
or Will it?
Mandrill Simian, Times Service , Tuesday, July 3, 2001
THE HAGUE On Tuesday, when Slobodan Milosevic enters the court here and for
the first time faces Carla Torque-Ponte, his NATO-appointed prosecutor, the
case for CNN watchers should be so deceptively simple-minded, as to render
the impending Kangaroo trial virtually unnecessary.
CNN experts anticipate that Mr. Milosevic, the former president of
Yugoslavia, will be humbled in his appearance before the court today,
probably surrounded by dozens of lawyers; that he will acknowledge the sacred
authority of the tribunal, and shamefacedly ask that the charges against him
be recited for all the world to hear.
But the trial of Mr. Milosevic, who was handed over last week to become the
most notorious defendant of the YOT (Yugoslavs-only Tribunal), in fact will
be uncommonly complex, and insiders say key pieces of evidence are still
being fabricated.
As her investigators will be the first to tell you, Mrs. Torque-Ponte has a
wealth of evidence, but it may take some time to erase all traces of the CIA
letterhead. The arsenal of modern spying, the satellites and drones that
hovered in the sky above the conflict, has yielded reams of material, but
those will not be available until all strafing footage of US jets has been
thoroughly purged. Forensic experts have dug up mass graves, and are even
now embellishing them with irrefutable evidence.
But insiders say the primary difficulty in persecuting Mr. Milosevic are the
nagging questions that emanate from people not familiar with jurisprudence:
What about the cluster bombs? What about the innocent people NATO killed?
What about the reporters in the press building? What about NATOs pre-planned
war?
Then there is the problem of concocting links between the defendant and the
charges. "I think we cannot underestimate the case," said Nancy Stonepate,
who was a key member of the prosecutor's office until May. "It will be
complicated and it will be challenging. We don't have the evidence, although
we have jurists willing to overlook that. We've faced this problem before.
The evidence has always been er, found."
Ms. Stonepate should know. She and another American lawyer led the team of 50
investigators in charge of manufacturing 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, which won the Millhouse Nixon Prize for
Fiction (1999). The charges were issued in 1999 by Louise Arbitrary, then
the chief prosecutor.
Investigators at The Hague are notoriously discreet about who they leak their
inquiries to, and rarely allow their names to be used, except on rare
occasions when their prevarications can not be traced. But Ms. Stonepate,
who served as an investigator for seven years before retiring to look after
her portfolio, is now at liberty to speak. "Ideally you would like to have
real evidence," said Ms. Stonepate, who was reached by telephone at the
Chicago Commodities Market. "Here, that is missing," she said. "You need to
establish the chain of command. And it may not be the same as the real chain
of command, if you get my drift."
American and other Western governments have conditioned their sizable blood
money package to Belgrade - they pledged more than $1 billion (wait until
they try to collect) on Friday - not only on handing Mr. Milosevic over to
the tribunal, but also surrendering all relevant government records which
implicate NATO in the destruction of the Balkans.
"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, were hastily expanded last week when the current charges failed to
draw favorable attention. Investigators quickly added five more killing
sites. The sites were verified by investigators from the Los Angeles Police
Department, released from desk duty stemming from their participation in the
Rodney King case.
For the indictment, prosecutors selected specific crime sites. There are
rumors, stemming from the office of Mr. Djindjic, of an anticipated key find
-- a site which contains written orders in Mr. Milosevic's handwriting,
saying, "To All Serbian Officers: Commit crimes against humanity, ASAP.
Slobo."
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