FREEDOM ASSOCIATION SPECIAL BULLETIN No.9
May 28, 2002
WITNESSES PROVE PROSECUTION’S IMPOTENCE
The impotence of The Hague Prosecution is more
and more obvious as days go by. As greater
importance is given to some of the witnesses,
as more evident is that the indictment is based
on mounted and constructed evidence. The best
proof comes from today's cross-examination of
the protected witness K-5, whose identity is no
secret to Yugoslav press, since in yesterday's
papers appeared to be a certain Afrim Sijaku from
the town of Urosevac.
In any case, as the witness himself had said in
his written statement, it is a man who has been
charged for heavy felonies, such as thefts and
assaults, who was a notorious drunkard, while
as a police informer he was well into smuggling
of narcotics and other mafia business. His
testimonial was based on allegations that as
a police informer he tipped the houses of Albanians
linked to the KLA, either the individuals active
within the terrorist organization, on the basis of
what the Police executed alleged liquidations,
arsons and plunders.
However, on Milosevic's questions this witness,
almost evidently scared, denied everything related
to KLA crimes, under whose "treatment" he had been
for several days, as he himself had admitted. While
in his written statement he mentioned having been
afraid of the KLA and of some other Albanians, today
he denied it, even when judge May tried to help
him by asking him whether he was afraid in the
beginning, but not at this moment.
Slobodan Milosevic asked the witness regarding
criminal charges that have been pressed against
him for several times, but he kept denying, even
when Milosevic read the document numbers under
which these charges were pressed - there had been
ten in 1990 only, as was the case in all of the
following years till 1995 - when he had spent
nine months in prison. Those charges were mostly
related to thefts, burglaries, assaults, etc.
The witness, however, had no other explanation but
to deny those facts.
In his written statement, given to The Hague
Prosecution representatives two years ago, this
witness mentioned that, as a Serbian police informer,
he was producing data on drug dealers and thieves.
Still, he had no explanation whatsoever, how could
he have had such data, if not because of being
himself involved in the narcotics business. The
same applied to him recalling the reasons for having
been in prison in 1995 and how come the Serbian
Police could not release him from serving his sentence.
Beside that, his answers to Milosevic’s question
about a Serb, with whom he allegedly had opened a
restaurant and shared stolen goods, proved to be
rather contradictory. He claimed the Serb was one
of Arkan’s "Tigers", but later he testified that
the man in question had served a four-year term in
the Lipljan penitentiary, a period coinciding with
the very length of existence of the so-called
"Tigers". The witness never answered to Milosevic’s
questions - has he been an informer for the sake of
committing crimes much easier and has he been a
thief himself. Sijaku’s testimonial has raised
once again the issue of credibility of The Hague
Prosecution, as well as of credibility of the very
indictment against Milosevic, since it was obviously
based on constructed facts and on witnesses
especially trained for the job.
===*===
FREEDOM ASSOCIATION SPECIAL BULLETIN No.10
May 30, 2002
THE MASSACRE IN RACAK FABRICATED
As far as the cross-examination of the witnesses
of The Hague Prosecution by Slobodan Milosevic goes
on, it gets clearer that the alleged massacre of
civilians was fabricated in order to serve to NATO
aggressors as some kind of pretext to start the
bombing of Yugoslavia.
Yesterdays and today's testimony of the Canadian
general Michel Maisoneuve, who was member of the
OSCE Verification Mission and Head of the Prizren
Regional Center, has shown that, too. From his
testimony one could see that one of the key tasks
of the Prosecution is to present Racak as a crime
against civilians, in order to justify the NATO
aggression. However, as much as the general tried
to respond to the suggestive Prosecutor's questions
and present the Racak events as a brutal crackdown
of the Police with the locals, confronted with
Milosevic's questions he seldom had to confess it
was a conflict between the Police and the KLA
terrorists. After all, the OSCE Mission itself
confirmed that among the deads were KLA members as
well.
General Maisoneuve, for instance, on Milosevic's
question could not deny that the Verification Mission
made efforts to affirm the KLA as a legitimate side
in the conflict, since he was the author of the mission
document where this was explicitly specified and which
Milosevic had quoted. Maisoneuve tried to present this
as an attempt of the mission to establish trust. This
way he also tried to justify the complaint raised by
him and the mission as to why the investigation judge
came to Racak the day after the event escorted by the
Police. However, when asked if it meant that him and
the mission are denying the sovereignty of Yugoslavia
and Serbia on that part of their territory as well
as the right of the legal authorities of the State
to eliminate the terrorists who are violently
struggling for secession, Maisoneuve had to confess
that this would not be right and that he does not
consider this was the task of the mission.
Maisoneuve had to confess that in all of the
occasions when OSCE Mission's verifiers were
present, the Police behaved in a correct and
professional way. In the OSCE reports, however,
brutal crackdowns of Albanian civilians by the
Serbian Police were mentioned, which was done
according to the witness on the basis of
testimonies of the Albanians. Maisoneuve had
problems while explaining the allegations from
the mission reports about Army tank and artillery
attacks on Racak civilian homes from distance.
On a direct question if there were any victims
in Racak of these mortar attacks, the witness
had to admit there were not, reducing his whole
story on Army involvement to him being told by
one of his verifiers that one tank had hit a
house. He was also forced by Milosevic's cross-
examination to deny that Army individuals have
accused the Police for intervening in Racak.
General Maisoneuve tried not to avoid answers to
direct questions, so that Milosevic succeeded to
make his answers more useful to the Defence than
to the Prosecution. That is why judge May did his
best to avoid such a situation. When asked by
Milosevic if, after everything he found out so far
about the Racak events he still personally considers
there had been a massacre, May promptly intervened
and explicitly prevented him from answering that
question.
A totally separate story are the Racak victims,
for whom the OSCE mission chief William Walker
affirmed they were civilian ones killed from a
close range on the same spot, where the day after
dead bodies were found. After the cross-examination
of this witness, as well as of other ones before,
it came out rather evident that these people
perished in combat and were brought to one single
spot in order to make it look as if they were executed.
Milosevic has proved that serious fighting took
place between the Police and the KLA forces,
trenched around the village, and that the bodies
were brought and grouped up after the Police and
OSCE verifiers had withdrawn. This was evident from
the position of the bodies, as well as from the
findings of the forensic teams who examined them.
After a series of usuccessful attempts to build-up
a Walker's fabricated story about Racak through
testimonies of witnesses, the prosecution attempted
to bring one of its own investigators to appear as
witness with special goal - to present to the court
a "summary" of the events in Racak, based on written
statements of "many witnesses" who did not appear,
as well as on tons of "documents" collected by
prosecution. After a sharp complaint by President
Milosevic against the "indirect witnesses", the
"trial chamber" decided not to accept testimony
of the prosecution investigator Barney Kelly. This
was considered by many as one of the greatest defets
of the prosecution, since the begining of the "trial".
===*===
To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sps.org.yu/ (official SPS website)
http://www.belgrade-forum.org/ (forum for the world of equals)
http://www.icdsm.org/ (the international committee to defend Slobodan
Milosevic)
http://www.jutarnje.co.yu/ ('morning news' the only Serbian newspaper
advocating liberation)
May 28, 2002
WITNESSES PROVE PROSECUTION’S IMPOTENCE
The impotence of The Hague Prosecution is more
and more obvious as days go by. As greater
importance is given to some of the witnesses,
as more evident is that the indictment is based
on mounted and constructed evidence. The best
proof comes from today's cross-examination of
the protected witness K-5, whose identity is no
secret to Yugoslav press, since in yesterday's
papers appeared to be a certain Afrim Sijaku from
the town of Urosevac.
In any case, as the witness himself had said in
his written statement, it is a man who has been
charged for heavy felonies, such as thefts and
assaults, who was a notorious drunkard, while
as a police informer he was well into smuggling
of narcotics and other mafia business. His
testimonial was based on allegations that as
a police informer he tipped the houses of Albanians
linked to the KLA, either the individuals active
within the terrorist organization, on the basis of
what the Police executed alleged liquidations,
arsons and plunders.
However, on Milosevic's questions this witness,
almost evidently scared, denied everything related
to KLA crimes, under whose "treatment" he had been
for several days, as he himself had admitted. While
in his written statement he mentioned having been
afraid of the KLA and of some other Albanians, today
he denied it, even when judge May tried to help
him by asking him whether he was afraid in the
beginning, but not at this moment.
Slobodan Milosevic asked the witness regarding
criminal charges that have been pressed against
him for several times, but he kept denying, even
when Milosevic read the document numbers under
which these charges were pressed - there had been
ten in 1990 only, as was the case in all of the
following years till 1995 - when he had spent
nine months in prison. Those charges were mostly
related to thefts, burglaries, assaults, etc.
The witness, however, had no other explanation but
to deny those facts.
In his written statement, given to The Hague
Prosecution representatives two years ago, this
witness mentioned that, as a Serbian police informer,
he was producing data on drug dealers and thieves.
Still, he had no explanation whatsoever, how could
he have had such data, if not because of being
himself involved in the narcotics business. The
same applied to him recalling the reasons for having
been in prison in 1995 and how come the Serbian
Police could not release him from serving his sentence.
Beside that, his answers to Milosevic’s question
about a Serb, with whom he allegedly had opened a
restaurant and shared stolen goods, proved to be
rather contradictory. He claimed the Serb was one
of Arkan’s "Tigers", but later he testified that
the man in question had served a four-year term in
the Lipljan penitentiary, a period coinciding with
the very length of existence of the so-called
"Tigers". The witness never answered to Milosevic’s
questions - has he been an informer for the sake of
committing crimes much easier and has he been a
thief himself. Sijaku’s testimonial has raised
once again the issue of credibility of The Hague
Prosecution, as well as of credibility of the very
indictment against Milosevic, since it was obviously
based on constructed facts and on witnesses
especially trained for the job.
===*===
FREEDOM ASSOCIATION SPECIAL BULLETIN No.10
May 30, 2002
THE MASSACRE IN RACAK FABRICATED
As far as the cross-examination of the witnesses
of The Hague Prosecution by Slobodan Milosevic goes
on, it gets clearer that the alleged massacre of
civilians was fabricated in order to serve to NATO
aggressors as some kind of pretext to start the
bombing of Yugoslavia.
Yesterdays and today's testimony of the Canadian
general Michel Maisoneuve, who was member of the
OSCE Verification Mission and Head of the Prizren
Regional Center, has shown that, too. From his
testimony one could see that one of the key tasks
of the Prosecution is to present Racak as a crime
against civilians, in order to justify the NATO
aggression. However, as much as the general tried
to respond to the suggestive Prosecutor's questions
and present the Racak events as a brutal crackdown
of the Police with the locals, confronted with
Milosevic's questions he seldom had to confess it
was a conflict between the Police and the KLA
terrorists. After all, the OSCE Mission itself
confirmed that among the deads were KLA members as
well.
General Maisoneuve, for instance, on Milosevic's
question could not deny that the Verification Mission
made efforts to affirm the KLA as a legitimate side
in the conflict, since he was the author of the mission
document where this was explicitly specified and which
Milosevic had quoted. Maisoneuve tried to present this
as an attempt of the mission to establish trust. This
way he also tried to justify the complaint raised by
him and the mission as to why the investigation judge
came to Racak the day after the event escorted by the
Police. However, when asked if it meant that him and
the mission are denying the sovereignty of Yugoslavia
and Serbia on that part of their territory as well
as the right of the legal authorities of the State
to eliminate the terrorists who are violently
struggling for secession, Maisoneuve had to confess
that this would not be right and that he does not
consider this was the task of the mission.
Maisoneuve had to confess that in all of the
occasions when OSCE Mission's verifiers were
present, the Police behaved in a correct and
professional way. In the OSCE reports, however,
brutal crackdowns of Albanian civilians by the
Serbian Police were mentioned, which was done
according to the witness on the basis of
testimonies of the Albanians. Maisoneuve had
problems while explaining the allegations from
the mission reports about Army tank and artillery
attacks on Racak civilian homes from distance.
On a direct question if there were any victims
in Racak of these mortar attacks, the witness
had to admit there were not, reducing his whole
story on Army involvement to him being told by
one of his verifiers that one tank had hit a
house. He was also forced by Milosevic's cross-
examination to deny that Army individuals have
accused the Police for intervening in Racak.
General Maisoneuve tried not to avoid answers to
direct questions, so that Milosevic succeeded to
make his answers more useful to the Defence than
to the Prosecution. That is why judge May did his
best to avoid such a situation. When asked by
Milosevic if, after everything he found out so far
about the Racak events he still personally considers
there had been a massacre, May promptly intervened
and explicitly prevented him from answering that
question.
A totally separate story are the Racak victims,
for whom the OSCE mission chief William Walker
affirmed they were civilian ones killed from a
close range on the same spot, where the day after
dead bodies were found. After the cross-examination
of this witness, as well as of other ones before,
it came out rather evident that these people
perished in combat and were brought to one single
spot in order to make it look as if they were executed.
Milosevic has proved that serious fighting took
place between the Police and the KLA forces,
trenched around the village, and that the bodies
were brought and grouped up after the Police and
OSCE verifiers had withdrawn. This was evident from
the position of the bodies, as well as from the
findings of the forensic teams who examined them.
After a series of usuccessful attempts to build-up
a Walker's fabricated story about Racak through
testimonies of witnesses, the prosecution attempted
to bring one of its own investigators to appear as
witness with special goal - to present to the court
a "summary" of the events in Racak, based on written
statements of "many witnesses" who did not appear,
as well as on tons of "documents" collected by
prosecution. After a sharp complaint by President
Milosevic against the "indirect witnesses", the
"trial chamber" decided not to accept testimony
of the prosecution investigator Barney Kelly. This
was considered by many as one of the greatest defets
of the prosecution, since the begining of the "trial".
===*===
To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sps.org.yu/ (official SPS website)
http://www.belgrade-forum.org/ (forum for the world of equals)
http://www.icdsm.org/ (the international committee to defend Slobodan
Milosevic)
http://www.jutarnje.co.yu/ ('morning news' the only Serbian newspaper
advocating liberation)