July 10, 2004<\/p>\n
The Spectator<\/p>\n
www.spectator.co.uk<\/p>\n
Let Slobbo speak for himself<\/strong><\/p>\n John Laughland says that the case against Milosevic has all but\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n collapsed for lack of evidence<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n For a few hours on Monday, the worlds human rights establishment was\u00a0<\/span>seized by terror. \u00a0Slobodan Milosevic had been due to begin his defence at theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in TheHague, but instead discussion focused on the former presidents fragile\u00a0health, which has been made worse by the rigours of the trial. When the\u00a0presiding judge, Patrick Robinson, said that a radical review of the\u00a0proceedings would now be necessary, many do-gooders feared that their\u00a0<\/span>worst nightmare was about to be realised\u00a0 <\/span>that the international community\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>main trophy in its crusade for morality might, if only on medical grounds,\u00a0<\/span>be allowed to walk free.<\/p>\n Few human rights activists had ever contemplated such an outcome, still\u00a0<\/span>less an acquittal. The presumption of innocence has never counted for much\u00a0<\/span>in the highly politicised world of international humanitarian law. One war\u00a0<\/span>crimes expert, James Gow, said on Channel 4 on Monday that it would be better\u00a0<\/span>if Milosevic died in the dock, because if the trial ran its course he might be\u00a0sentenced for only relatively minor charges. That ought to be awfully\u00a0embarrassing for those like Gow who have assured us that he is as\u00a0<\/span>guilty as hell. Fortunately for them, the ICTY is not really in the business of\u00a0acquittal. As one academic specialist on the ICTY, Professor Michael\u00a0<\/span>Scharf, has noted approvingly, the ICTY’s rules were designed to minimise the\u00a0possibility of a charge being dismissed for lack of evidence, a sentiment\u00a0of which the Queen of Hearts would have been proud.<\/p>\n As it stands, the judges seem poised to impose a defence counsel on\u00a0Milosevic. Far from helping him, of course, the intention here is to\u00a0<\/span>weaken his defence by requiring him to be represented by a lawyer who knows\u00a0<\/span>the issues far less well than he does. Such a move would fly in the face of\u00a0<\/span>the judges earlier rulings against this idea\u00a0 <\/span>and the new presiding judge\u00a0himself was, in the past, especially firm that this would be contrary\u00a0<\/span>to the defendant’s rights.<\/p>\n It would at least provide comfort to the beleaguered\u00a0prosecution. When he is not trying to get the court to force Milosevic\u00a0<\/span>to give up smoking\u00a0 <\/span>a certain death sentence for any Serb,\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Geoffrey Nice\u00a0<\/span>QC, the lead prosecutor, has repeatedly sought to accomplish this switch,\u00a0<\/span>not least because the two-year prosecution case has been a nearly\u00a0<\/span>unmitigated disaster.<\/p>\n Since the trial started in February 2002, the prosecution has wheeled\u00a0<\/span>out more than 100 witnesses, and it has produced 600,000 pages of evidence.\u00a0<\/span>Not a single person has testified that Milosevic ordered war crimes. Whole\u00a0swaths of the indictment on Kosovo have been left unsubstantiated, even\u00a0though Milosevic\u2019s command responsibility here is clearest. And when theprosecution did try to substantiate its charges, the result was often\u00a0<\/span>farce. Highlights include the Serbian insider who claimed to have worked in\u00a0<\/span>the presidential administration but who did not know what floor Milosevic\u2019s\u00a0office was on; Arkan\u2019s secretary, who turned out to have worked only as\u00a0<\/span>a temp for a few months in the same building as the notorious paramilitary;\u00a0the testimony of the former federal prime minister, Ante Markovic, dramatically\u00a0<\/span>rumbled by Milosevic, who produced Markovic\u2019s own diary for the days when\u00a0<\/span>he claimed to have had meetings with him; the Kosovo Albanian\u00a0peasant who said he had never heard of the KLA even though there is a\u00a0monument to that terrorist organisation in his own village; and the\u00a0<\/span>former head of the Yugoslav secret services, Radomir Markovic, who not only\u00a0<\/span>claimed that he had been tortured by the new democratic government in Belgrade\u00a0<\/span>to testify against his former boss, but who also agreed, undercross-examination\u00a0<\/span>by Milosevic, that no orders had been given to expel the Kosovo Albanians and\u00a0<\/span>that, on the contrary, Milosevic had instructed the police and army to protect\u00a0<\/span>civilians. And these, note, were the prosecution witnesses.<\/p>\n Serious doubt has also been cast on some of the most famous atrocity\u00a0stories. Remember the refrigerator truck whose discovery in the Danube\u00a0<\/span>in 1999, full of bodies, was gleefully reported as Milosevic was transferred to\u00a0The Hague in June 2001? The truck had allegedly been retrieved from the\u00a0river and then driven to the outskirts of Belgrade, where its contents were\u00a0interred in a mass grave. But cross-examination showed that there is no\u00a0proof that the bodies exhumed were the ones in the truck, nor that any\u00a0<\/span>of them came from Kosovo. Instead, it is quite possible that the Batajnica\u00a0<\/span>mass grave dated from the second world war, while the refrigerator truck may\u00a0<\/span>have contained Kurds being smuggled to Western Europe, the victims of a\u00a0<\/span>grisly traffic accident. The realisation is now dawning that lies were peddled\u00a0<\/span>to justify the Kosovo war just as earnestly as they were to justify the attack\u00a0on Iraq.<\/p>\n The weakness of the prosecution case was underlined by the fact that\u00a0<\/span>its triumphant conclusion in February was to broadcast a TV documentary\u00a0<\/span>made several years ago. This suggests that its two-year marathon has not\u00a0<\/span>served to advance knowledge of the truth beyond the tall stories peddled by\u00a0<\/span>telly hacks at the time. Even professional supporters of the ICTY now admit\u00a0<\/span>that the only proof of Milosevic\u2019s guilt has been General Sir Rupert Smith\u2019s\u00a0stated impression that Milosevic controlled the Bosnian Serbs, and\u00a0<\/span>Paddy Ashdowns statement that he warned the former Yugoslav head of\u00a0<\/span>state that war crimes were being committed in Kosovo. In February, the chief\u00a0<\/span>prosecutor herself, Carla del Ponte, admitted that she did not have enough\u00a0<\/span>evidence to convict Milosevic on the most serious charges.<\/p>\n The supposedly impartial judges have been deeply complicit in this\u00a0prosecution bungling. The ICTY has long been characterised by an\u00a0<\/span>unhealthy community of interests between the judges and the prosecutors;\u00a0<\/span>I have myself heard the first president of the ICTY, Judge Antonio Cassese,\u00a0<\/span>boast that he encouraged the prosecutor to issue indictments against the\u00a0<\/span>Bosnian Serb leaders, a statement which should disqualify him from serving\u00a0<\/span>as a judge ever again.<\/p>\n In the Milosevic trial, the judges have admitted a tawdry\u00a0<\/span>parade of expert witnesses who are not, in fact, witnesses to anything. In\u00a0Britain, the role of experts is rightly under the spotlight after the convictions\u00a0<\/span>of some 250 parents found guilty of killing their babies have been thrown into\u00a0<\/span>doubt precisely because they relied on this kind of testimony; but in the ICTY\u00a0<\/span>you can be a witness without ever having set foot in Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n Numerous other judicial abuses have been legitimised by the ICTY. The\u00a0<\/span>use of hearsay evidence is now so out of control that people are often allowed\u00a0<\/span>to testify that they heard someone say something about someone else. It is\u00a0common for the ICTY to offer reduced sentences (five years in one case)\u00a0<\/span>to men convicted of hideous crimes, mass murder for instance, if they\u00a0<\/span>agree to testify against Milosevic. The use of anonymous witnesses is now\u00a0<\/span>very widespread, as is the frequency of the closed sessions: a glance at the\u00a0ICTY transcripts shows pages and pages blanked out because sensitive\u00a0<\/span>issues have been discussed in court\u00a0 <\/span>sensitive, that is, to the security\u00a0<\/span>interests of the Great Powers which control it, the USA in first place. The\u00a0<\/span>ICTYs nadir came last December, when the former supreme commander of\u00a0<\/span>Nato, Wesley Clark, testified in the Milosevic trial; the court agreed to let the\u00a0Pentagon censor its proceedings, and the transcripts were not released\u00a0<\/span>until Washington had given the green light. So much for the ICTYs\u00a0<\/span>transparency and independence.<\/p>\n Ironically, Slobbo has one objective ally: the British prime minister.\u00a0<\/span>The possibility is now real that a conviction of Milosevic can be secured\u00a0<\/span>only on the widest possible interpretation of the doctrine of command\u00a0responsibility: for instance, that he knew about atrocities committed\u00a0<\/span>by the Bosnian Serbs and did nothing to stop them. But if Milosevic can be\u00a0convicted for complicity in crimes committed by people in a foreign\u00a0<\/span>country, over whom he had no formal control, how much greater is the\u00a0<\/span>complicity of the British government in crimes committed by the US in Iraq,\u00a0<\/span>a country with which the UK is in an official coalition? This is not just a cheap\u00a0<\/span>political jibe but a serious judicial conundrum: the UK is a signatory to the new\u00a0International Criminal Court, and so Tony Blair is subject to the jurisdiction of\u00a0<\/span>the new Hague-based body whose jurisprudence will be modelled on that of\u00a0<\/span>the ICTY. So if Slobbo goes down for ten years in Scheveningen jail because\u00a0<\/span>of abuses committed by his policemen, then by rights his cell-mate should,\u00a0<\/span>in time, be Tony.<\/p>\n ———————<\/p>\n