{"id":2408,"date":"2022-05-26T21:44:08","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T20:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.balkan-conflicts-research.com\/archive\/?page_id=2408"},"modified":"2022-05-26T21:44:08","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T20:44:08","slug":"if-this-man-is-a-war-criminal-where-is-all-the-evidence-john-laughland-mail-on-sunday-july-2002","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.balkan-conflicts-research.com\/archive\/if-this-man-is-a-war-criminal-where-is-all-the-evidence-john-laughland-mail-on-sunday-july-2002\/","title":{"rendered":"If this man is a war criminal, where is all the evidence? John Laughland, Mail on Sunday, July 2002"},"content":{"rendered":"

If this man is a war criminal, where is all the evidence?<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Laughland for the Mail on Sunday<\/p>\n

There’s a scene in the great film Witness for the Prosecution, with\u00a0<\/span>Marlene\u00a0Dietrich and Charles Laughton,when the witness apears in the court and\u00a0<\/span>gives\u00a0exactly the opposite testimony from what was expected.<\/p>\n

You would not know it from our media, which passed over the event in\u00a0silence, but the same thing happened at the Hague recently in the most\u00a0important war crimes trial since Nuremburg – that of the former\u00a0<\/span>Yugoslav\u00a0President Slobodan Milosevic.<\/p>\n

One of the prosecutor’s star witnesses said precisely the opposite of\u00a0<\/span>what\u00a0he was supposed to say, dealing what seemed like a fatal blow to a case\u00a0which was already reeling from several previous blunders.<\/p>\n

The star witness in question was Radomir Markovic, the former head of\u00a0<\/span>theYugoslav secret services.<\/p>\n

Before he appeared in the witness box, the media universally hailed him\u00a0<\/span>as\u00a0the insider who would finally give the clinching testimony that\u00a0<\/span>Milosevic\u00a0had personally ordered\u00a0 <\/span>the persecution of the ethnic Albanian\u00a0<\/span>population\u00a0of Kosovo.<\/p>\n

This is the single issue which Nato uses to justify its otherwise\u00a0<\/span>illegal\u00a0attacks on Yugoslavia: without it, the moral justification\u00a0 <\/span>for Nato’s\u00a0<\/span>war\u00a0in 1999 completely disappears.<\/p>\n

The urge to hear Markovic’s testimony was all the greater because\u00a0 <\/span>the\u00a0prosecution’s last “star witness” had been a severe embarrassment.<\/p>\n

Radomir Tanic had presented himslef as another “insider”, and had\u00a0<\/span>claimed\u00a0he was actually present when Milosevic gave the genocidal order.<\/p>\n

Under cross-examination, however, Tanic was shown to be an agent of the\u00a0secret services of various Western countries, and to be so unfamiliar\u00a0with the corridors of power that he could not even say on which floor of\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0presidential palace Milosevic’s office had been.<\/p>\n

The embarrassment over Tanic was equalled\u00a0 <\/span>only by that caused\u00a0 <\/span>when an\u00a0Albanian witness produced a list of names which, he alleged, was of\u00a0Albanians whom the Serb police\u00a0 <\/span>were to execute.<\/p>\n

On closer examination, the list turned out to be fake, littered with\u00a0spelling mistakes.<\/p>\n

Enter therefore Radomir Markovic, the secret police chief who knew more\u00a0about what was going on in Yugoslavia than anyone else.<\/p>\n

But, in a painstakingly detailed testimony lasting nearly three hours,\u00a0<\/span>he\u00a0told the court that Milosevic had never ordered the expulsion of the\u00a0Albanian population of Kosovo; that the former president had repeatedly\u00a0issued instructions to the police and the army to respect the laws of\u00a0<\/span>war,\u00a0and to protect the civilian population, even if it meant compromising\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0battle against Albanian terrorists.<\/p>\n

The tribunal also heard that the mass exodus of Albanians during the\u00a0<\/span>Nato\u00a0bombing was caused not by Serb forces, but, instead,\u00a0 <\/span>by the Kosovo\u00a0Liberation Army itself, which needed a constant flow of refugees to\u00a0<\/span>maintain\u00a0the support of Western public opinion for the Nato campaign.<\/p>\n

‘Did you ever get any kind of report,’ Milosevic, who is conducting his\u00a0<\/span>own\u00a0defence’, asked Markovic, ‘or have you ever heard of an order,to expel\u00a0Albanians from Kosovo?’<\/p>\n

‘No, I never heard of such an order. Nobody ever ordered Albanians from\u00a0Kosovo to be expelled,’ Markovic replied.<\/p>\n

‘Did you receive any information about any plan, suggestion or de facto\u00a0influence that Albanians were expelled?’ asked Milosevic. Reply: ‘No, I\u00a0never heard of such a suggestion to expel Albanians from Kosovo.’<\/p>\n

Milosevic continued: ‘At the meeting you attended, is it true that\u00a0completely the opposite is said, namely that we always insisted\u00a0 <\/span>that\u00a0civilians be protected, and that they not be hurt in the process of\u00a0anti-terrorist operations?’<\/p>\n

‘Certainly,’ said the witness who, don’t forget, was appearing for the\u00a0prosecution. ‘The task was not only to protect Serbs but also Albanian\u00a0civilians’.<\/p>\n

‘Is it not true that we tried to persuade the flow of refugees\u00a0 <\/span>to stay\u00a0<\/span>at\u00a0home, and that the army and police would protect them?’ the former\u00a0<\/span>president\u00a0asked.<\/p>\n

Markovic replied: ‘Yes, that was the instruction and those were the\u00a0assignments.’<\/p>\n

‘Do you know that the Kosovo Liberation Army\u00a0 <\/span>told people to leave, and\u00a0<\/span>to\u00a0stage an exodus?’<\/p>\n

‘Yes,’ said Markovic. ‘I am aware of that’<\/p>\n

The media greeted this stunning evidence with complete silence.\u00a0Indeed, it even failed to report the most extraordinary assertion of\u00a0<\/span>all\u00a0made by Markovic, namely that he had been subjected to duress by the new\u00a0pro-Western authorities in Belgrade in order to make him testify\u00a0<\/span>against\u00a0Milosevic.<\/p>\n

Markovic claimed the new Minister of the Interior in the Western-backed\u00a0government in Belgrade had taken him out to dinner and offered him\u00a0<\/span>release\u00a0from prison- where he had been incarcerated\u00a0 <\/span>for more than a year now –\u00a0<\/span>anda new identity in a country of his choice, if he would agree to testify\u00a0against his former boss at the Hague.<\/p>\n

As Milosevic tried to point out in his cross-examination – until he wasinterrupted by the judge, that is – it clearly falls under the terms of\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0United Nations’ definition of ‘torture’ to imprison someone in order to\u00a0force them to co-operate.<\/p>\n

Markovic also alleged that the Tribunal’s own prosecutors had falsified\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0embellished\u00a0 <\/span>the written\u00a0 <\/span>statement he had given them.<\/p>\n

These were amazing allegations. With them, the whole prosecution case\u00a0<\/span>seemed\u00a0to crumble.<\/p>\n

But even more stunning was the reaction\u00a0 <\/span>of the British presiding\u00a0<\/span>judge, Sir\u00a0Richard May.\u00a0A judge is supposed to be a neutral arbiter between the prosecution and\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0defence.<\/p>\n

May, by contrast, has distinguished himself throughout the trail by his\u00a0belligerence towards Milosevic and in particular for his habit of\u00a0interrupting Milosevic, even sometimes switchhing off his microphone\u00a0whenever the former Yugoslav leader’s cross-examination shows\u00a0inconsistencies in a witness’s evidence.<\/p>\n

As May listened to Markovic, he tried desperately to stop him making\u00a0<\/span>these\u00a0allegations against the prosecutors and their allies in Belgrade.<\/p>\n

When Markovic began to describe his ordeal at the hands of the new\u00a0<\/span>Yugoslav\u00a0government, May silenced him, saying to Milosevic: ‘This does not\u00a0<\/span>appear tohave releance to the evidence which the witness has given here.’<\/p>\n

‘We are not going to litigate here with what happened to him (Markovic)\u00a0<\/span>in\u00a0Yugoslavia when he was arrested.’<\/p>\n

And when Milosevic insisted\u00a0 <\/span>that the Tribunal’s\u00a0 <\/span>own investigators had\u00a0falsified Markovic’s written evidence, May interrupted him tartly by\u00a0<\/span>saying\u00a0‘That is not a comment which it is proper for you to make.’<\/p>\n

In judge May’s book, therefore, it appears to be irrelevant if the\u00a0prosecution is lying, or if it is an accomplice to torture.<\/p>\n

Judge Richard May is no stranger to political activity. Like the\u00a0<\/span>prosecutor,Geoffrey Nice, QC, he was a committed Socialist: he stood as a Labour\u00a0<\/span>Partycandidate for Finchley in the General Election in 1979, where his\u00a0Conservative opponent\u00a0 <\/span>was none other that Margaret Thatcher.<\/p>\n

But even this could not have prepared\u00a0 <\/span>anyone for the way he would\u00a0<\/span>react to\u00a0Markovic’s shocking claims.\u00a0These events have allowed critics to claim that the International\u00a0<\/span>Criminal\u00a0Tribunal is a political kangaroo court in the hands of the West.<\/p>\n

But political partiality can work both ways.<\/p>\n

Tony Blair has been a vigorous supporter of a clone of the Yugoslav\u00a0tribunal, the new International Court.<\/p>\n

But why shouldn’t the new court be as apparently politicised as the\u00a0<\/span>present\u00a0one?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Plenty of anti-Western countries, such as Iran, Sudan and Zimbabwe,\u00a0<\/span>have\u00a0signed the new ICC treaty.\u00a0If they decide to prosecute Mr Blair for attacking Iraq, say, there is\u00a0little to stop them – especially since the ICC defines ‘aggression’ as\u00a0<\/span>a war\u00a0crime.<\/p>\n

On his next trip abroad, therefore, Mr Blair might be wise to pack his\u00a0toothbrush. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If this man is a war criminal, where is all the evidence? John Laughland for the Mail on Sunday There’s a scene in the great film Witness for the Prosecution, with\u00a0Marlene\u00a0Dietrich and Charles Laughton,when the witness apears in the court and\u00a0gives\u00a0exactly the opposite testimony from what was expected. You would not know it from our … <\/p>\n

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