Da: ICDSM Italia
Data: Mar 28 Set 2004 15:29:14 Europe/Rome
A: icdsm-italia@ yahoogroups. com
Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] Milosevic denied universal right of self-defense
Milosevic denied universal right of self-defense
1. International Tribunal or Star Chamber? On the ICTY's decision to
impose counsel on Slobodan Milosevic
(BRITISH HELSINKI HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP)
2. Milosevic denied universal right of self-defense: U.S.-Created Court
Gags Yugoslav President
(Sara Flounders / INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER)
3. US Policy Analyst James Jatras: 'Groundwork For Terrorist Network'
Laid In Bosnia In 1990s, US Planned War On Yugoslavia In August 1998
4. Milosevic Trial Suspended As Lawyers Grapple With
Unwilling Witnesses
=== 1 ===
International Tribunal or Star Chamber?
BRITISH HELSINKI HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP
http://www.bhhrg.org/LatestNews.asp?ArticleID=47
http://www.artel.co.yu/en/izbor/jugoslavija/2004-09-18.html
Date: 13 September 2004
On 10th September 2004, the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia imposed defence counsel on its most famous defendant,
Slobodan Milosevic. This decision overturned previous rulings: the
Prosecution had tried, at the beginning of the trial, to force a lawyer
on Milosevic, and the judges had addressed the issue several times
during the hearings.
On 3rd July 2001, the very first day of the trial, the presiding judge,
the late Sir Richard May, said, "Mr. Milosevic, I see that you're not
represented by counsel today. We understand that this is of your own
choice. You do have the right, of course, to defend yourself."[1]
On 30th August, Judge May again said, "The accused is entitled to
represent himself."[2] The judge announced that amici curiae would be
appointed in order to ensure that the trial was fair. May emphasised
that the role of the amici would not be to represent the accused.
Despite these clear statements, the Prosecution again argued that
counsel should be imposed. Although Judge May had already ruled on
this, Judge Patrick Robinson intervened and made the following
statement:
"Mr. Ryneveld, I have heard your submission. However, I do not consider
it appropriate for the Chamber to impose counsel upon the accused. We
have to act in accordance with the Statute and our Rules which, in any
event, reflect the position under customary international law, which is
that the accused has a right to counsel, but he also has a right not to
have counsel. He has a right to defend himself, and it is quite clear
that he has chosen to defend himself. He has made that abundantly
clear. The strategy that the Chamber has employed of appointing an
amicus curiae will take care of the problems that you have outlined,
but I stress that it would be wrong for the Chamber to impose counsel
on the accused, because that would be in breach of the position under
customary international law."[3]
(Judge Robinson has since become the presiding judge, following the
death of Judge May.) After Robinson had made his intervention, May
returned to the subject a third time, saying "Let me add this, Mr
Ryneveld: Yes, that is the view of the Trial Chamber, that it would not
be practical to impose counsel on an accused who wishes to defend
himself."[4]
As if this were all not enough, Judge May returned to the subject again
on 11th December. "Mr. Milosevic," he said, "there's one matter we want
to raise with you. It's this: You haven't appointed counsel to defend
you. As you know, it's your right to defend yourself if you wish,
although you may wish to reconsider that in the light of the complexity
and seriousness of these charges. But that's a matter for you."[5]
The reason why the judges kept to this position is indeed that the
right of a accused person to defend himself is indeed enshrined in the
statute of the International Criminal Tribunal. Article 21.4.d states,
"The accused shall be entitled . to defend himself in person." No
qualification or exceptions are laid out here. Although the same
article also says that the accused is entitled "to have legal
assistance assigned to him, in any case where the interests of justice
so require, and without payment by him in any such case if he does not
have sufficient means to pay for it," it is quite clear that this
article does not mean the court has right to impose counsel, but
instead that the accused has the right to a lawyer if he needs one.
This interpretation is itself used by the ICTY's own "Directive on the
Assignment of Defence Counsel," dated 28th July 2004, which reaffirms
the right of an accused to defend himself (Article 5). This Directive
makes it clear that the assignment of counsel is a right enjoyed by the
accused, not a right of the court to assign one if the accused wishes
to defend himself.
The right to defend oneself is enshrined in other documents too. Using
the very words which have since been integrated into the ICTY's own
statute, Article 6.3.c of the European Convention on Human Rights
states: "Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following
minimum rights: . to defend himself in person." As with the ICTY
statute, no exceptions or derogations from this are provided for.
Perhaps the ICTY, being a UN body, does not think it is bound by the
European Convention even though it has direct legal force in many
European states. But even the United Nations' own documents also
provide for this right. Article 14.3.d. of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights also uses the same language: "In the
determination of any criminal charge against him, everyone shall be
entitled to the following minimum guarantees, in full equality: . to
defend himself in person". No exceptions or derogations are provided:
indeed the right to defend oneself in person is a "minimum guarantee".
It is a core right.
In spite of this, on 8th November 2002, the Prosecution again applied
for defence counsel to be imposed. It argued that the defendant should
have counsel imposed for health reasons. Again, the Trial Chamber
rejected this, in an oral ruling on 18th December 2002. On 4th April
2003, the Trial Chamber issued a long document laying out its reasons
for refusing to impose counsel.[6] It reviewed the ICTY's own statute
and concluded rapidly that "A plain reading of this provision [Article
21.4.d] indicates that there is a right to defend oneself in person and
the Trial Chamber is unable to accept the Prosecution's proposition
that it would allow for the assignment of defence counsel for the
Accused against his wishes in the present circumstances."
The Trial Chamber then launched into a long discussion of the relevant
law, drawing on cases from around the world. It argued that the
imposition of counsel was a feature only of inquisitorial systems, not
of the adversarial systems used by the ICTY. In support of its view
that the imposition of counsel was inadmissible, the Trial Chamber
quoted the US Supreme Court case Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806
(1975), which states, "We confront here a nearly universal conviction,
on the part of our people as well as our courts, that forcing a lawyer
upon an unwilling defendant is contrary to his basic right to defend
himself if he truly wants to do so." The Supreme Court held that
imposition of counsel would violate the spirit of the 6th amendment.
The ICTY Trial Chamber commented:
"It [i.e. the Supreme Court] pointed out that only the sixteenth
century Star Chamber in the long history of English legal history
adopted a practice of forcing counsel upon an unwilling defendant in
criminal proceedings, and recounted Stephen's comment on this
procedure: 'There is something specially repugnant to justice in using
rules of practice in such a manner as to debar a prisoner from
defending himself, especially when the professed object of the rules so
used is to provide for his defence.' "
The ICTY Trial Chamber went on, "There is a further practical reason
for the right to self-representation in common law. While it may be the
case that in civil law systems it is appropriate to appoint defence
counsel for an accused who wishes to represent himself, in such systems
the court is fulfilling a more investigative role in an attempt to
establish the truth.
In the adversarial systems, it is the responsibility of the parties to
put forward the case and not for the court, whose function it is to
judge. Therefore, in an adversarial system, the imposition of defence
counsel on an unwilling accused would effectively deprive that accused
of the possibility of putting forward a defence." [emphasis added]. It
also concluded that, "The obligation of 'putting a case,' i.e. putting
forward the defence version of events if it differs from that put
forward by a witness, is reflected in Rule 90 (H) of the Rules. As the
Amici Curiae note, such an obligation cannot be fulfilled by counsel
who is not instructed by an accused as to the defence to put forward."
The Trial Chamber then reviewed some of the other international
documents which uphold the right of a defendant to defend himself,
including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
mentioned above, the
American Convention on Human Rights (Article 8.2.d), the European
Convention on Human Rights (mentioned aboive), and the Statute of the
new International Criminal Court. (Article 67.1.d) In this statute, the
right to defend oneself is limited only when the defendant behaves in a
disruptive manner in the court room. (The Rwanda tribunal, indeed, has
imposed counsel on a defendant for this very reason.) The Trial Chamber
discussed the imposition of counsel in a case in Germany, a case which
went to the European Court of Human Rights,[7] but rightly found this
case to be irrelevant to the
Milosevic case because the defendant was not defending himself.
Discussing other cases too, the Trial Chamber concluded that the only
relevant case did not allow for exceptions to the general right to
defend oneself (paragraph
36). "The international and regional conventions (in similar language)
plainly articulate a right to defend oneself in person . In the Trial
Chamber's view, it is appropriate to be guided by the ICCPR and the
Human Rights Committee's interpretation of it, which confirms the right
to self-defence and rejects the imposition of defence counsel on an
unwilling accused." (paragraph 37)
The Trial Chamber then turned to practicalities and concluded that
imposition of counsel could simply not work because the defendant would
refuse to instruct counsel (paragraph 38). Winding up its discussion,
it says that the imposition of counsel can occur only when the
defendant behaves in such a disruptive manner that he has to be removed
from the courtroom (paragraph 40) and concludes (paragraph 41) that
although the Trial Chamber has the duty to ensure an expeditious trial,
it may do this only by respecting the rights of the accused as laid out
in Article 21 of its own statute, i.e. by respecting the right of a
defendant to defend himself.
All the main points of this reasoning were summarily thrown out of the
window when Milosevic's defence started. On 10th September 2004, the
Trial Chamber ruled that counsel would be imposed.[8] The reasons given
for this astonishing volte-face are simply disingenuous. Referring to
the 4th April 2003 ruling, Judge Robinson said, "the Trial Chamber,
while holding that the accused had a right to defend himself also held
in paragraph 40 that the right to defend oneself in person is not
absolute." This is disingenuous because the Trial Chamber explicitly
laid down the circumstances in which the right might be limited
(disruptive behaviour leading to expulsion from the court room). Even
though Milosevic's health had been an issue ever since the trial
started in early 2002, the Trial Chamber made no mention of this as a
possible reason for imposing counsel on 4th April 2003.
In September 2004, the Trial Chamber suddenly adopted the Prosecution's
argument that Milosevic had not been taking his medicine as prescribed,
but it seemed not to care that it is obviously a basic human right to
take medication as one sees fit - unless the defendant is mentally
incompetent either to stand trial or regulate his medicinal intake.
Crucially, the Trial Chamber offered no legal argument, i.e. by quoting
precedent or law, for using the health of the accused as a reason for
imposing counsel. It simply rescinded all its earlier decisions, which
had been grounded in law and precedent; it stated that international
and domestic law provided precedents for imposing counsel, without
quoting a single one; and it said that it was "in the interests of
justice" to impose counsel. No definition was given of these interests.
The Trial Chamber concluded, "The fundamental duty of the Trial Chamber
is to ensure that the trial is fair and expeditious," but in fact based
its decision to impose counsel was grounded solely on expediency, at
the expense of fairness. It should also be remembered that the bench in
the Milosevic trial permitted the prosecution to ramble on for months
with irrelevant "expert" testimony consuming sessions far beyond its
original allotted time while the prosecutors tried to induce someone -
anyone - from Serbia, to plead direct incrimination of Milosevic - all
without success.
Even by the appalling standards of the ICTY, the one-sidedness of this
decision to impose defence counsel (after reducing the time available
to the defendant's case to about half that granted to the prosecution)
is shocking.
By going against all its own previous rulings on the matter, the
Tribunal's decision is a pure example of arbitrary rule. As such, the
ICTY has demonstrated itself to be in contempt of the rule of law. It
suggests that achieving a verdict is the overriding concern of the
Tribunal and given that it was the Prosecution which demanded the
imposition of counsel on Mr. Milosevic, it is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that conviction at all costs has become the guiding
principle of the Tribunal.
[1] http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/010703IA.htm, page 1
[2] http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/010830SC.htm, page 7
[3] http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/010830SC.htm, page 17
[4] http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/010830SC.htm, page 18
[5] http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/011211MH.htm, page 149
[6] http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/trialc/decision-e/040403.htm
paragraph 18
[7] Croissant v. Germany, European Court of Human Rights ("ECHR"), Case
No. 62/1001/314/385, Judgement, 25 September 1992 ("Croissant v.
Germany").
[8] http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/trialc/order-e/040910.htm
=== 2 ===
INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER (IAC)
Milosevic denied universal right of self-defense
U.S.-Created Court Gags Yugoslav President
By Sara Flounders
In the most drastic maneuver yet to silence the truth of the U.S./NATO
war on Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Sept. 2 denied former President Slobodan Milosevic
of Yugoslavia the internationally recognized right to defend himself in
court. This comes after the prosecution took two years presenting its
side of the case. The
ruling came on the very day Milosevic was finally to begin calling
witnesses in his own defense.
President Milosevic vigorously presented his opening statement of his
own defense in person for two days on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, immediately
before the Trial Chamber decided he "is not fit enough to represent
himself." He was apparently "fit enough" to perform that task.
The former president's introductory remarks set the tone for a strong
indictment of the U.S., Germany and other NATO powers for their 10-year
war of aggression against Yugoslavia. His defense case was expected to
continue in the same manner, exposing the crimes of the imperialist
powers in the Balkans.
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general and co-chair of the
International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic (ICDSM), stated in
a letter to the court: "Under International Law, every person accused
of a crime has the right to represent himself in person in the court.
"The appearance of President Milosevic representing himself alone
during the prosecution case for over two years, nearly 300 trial days,
cross examining nearly 300 prosecution witnesses, coping with 500,000
documents, and 30,000 pages of trial transcript, then at the very
beginning of his presentation of his own defense being silenced and
lawyers he rejects placed in charge of his destiny, speaks of
injustice."
Canadian attorney and international law expert Tiphaine Dickson, who is
assisting Milosevic's supporters, said: "The prosecutor is attempting,
yet again, to force President Milosevic to accept legal counsel to
represent him, using his poor health as an excuse. President Milosevic
has insisted that he represent himself from the onset. Within the U.S.,
the Supreme Court has recognized this as a right under the Sixth
Amendment to the Constitution. To refuse to allow him this right would
turn the already illegal ICTY hearings into a star-chamber proceeding."
Historically, even in past stage-managed trials where the prosecution
held total control and a guilty verdict was assured beforehand, many
defendants have had the right to represent themselves. Nelson Mandela
facing a racist apartheid court in South Africa, Fidel Castro brought
before the court of the Bastita dictatorship, or Georgi Dimirov before
the Nazi court in the 1930s could speak in their defense.
Over 100 legal experts, lawyers and jurists from 17 countries signed a
letter entitled, "Imposition of Counsel on Slobodan Milosevic Threatens
the Future of International Law and the Life of the Defendant." This
letter urges the United Nations to allow Milosevic to continue
defending himself against war crimes charges.
The internationally circulated letter warns that imposing a defense
lawyer against Milosevic's wishes would violate international law. It
is illegal even under the statute of the Yugoslav tribunal and also
under the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights.
IMPOSING COURT-APPOINTED LAWYERS
Tiphaine Dickson, who drafted the petition, said the UN tribunal
prosecuting Milosevic is trying to impose a defense counsel to strip
him of a defense "that may be embarrassing" to the court.
Ramsey Clark's letter also points out that "The very lawyers appointed
by the Trial Chamber have a direct conflict of interest. They have
served by appointment of the court as 'friends of the Court.' You
cannot serve two masters. Having served as friend of the Court, that
same counsel selected by the Court to represent President Milosevic
cannot ethically serve as his counsel."
The two lawyers who have been appointed as defense council against
Milosevic's express wishes are Stephen Kay and his daughter Gilian Kay
Higgins. The two were appointed Amicus Curiae (friends of the court)
against Milosevic's wishes in the prosecution part of the trial. In
that appointed position, Stephen Kay was made very much aware of
Milosevic's insistence on his legal right to conduct his own defense.
Stephan Kay has long played a highly dubious role as appointed council
in earlier trials of both the Yugoslav and the Rwanda Tribunals. Where
he was appointed there were convictions in the trials. His appointment
also allowed the courts to establish dangerous legal precedents for
other trials.
Many outrageous judicial abuses have been legitimized by the ICTY over
the past 10 years. The court accepts the use of hearsay evidence,
offers reduced sentences in exchange for testimony, and allows the use
of anonymous witnesses and closed sessions.
ICTY transcripts show pages and pages blanked out because sensitive
issues have been discussed in court. "Sensitive" issues means those
relating to the U.S. role.
In December 2003, when the former supreme commander of NATO, Wesley
Clark, testified in the Milosevic trial, the court agreed to let the
Pentagon censor its proceedings. The transcripts were not released
until Washington had given its approval.
A COURT TO JUSTIFY OCCUPATION
U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright was behind this court's
creation in 1993. Since then, it has been financed and organized by
funds from the U.S. and Britain. Its 1,300 personnel are also
overwhelmingly from Britain and the U.S.
From the very beginning the court has functioned to justify the U.S.,
British and NATO role in the break-up of the Yugoslav Federation.
The decision to charge President Milosevic with war crimes was made
toward the end of the 78-day U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. By
charging the elected Yugoslav president, the U.S./NATO forces placed
increased pressure on him to capitulate rather than participate in the
cease-fire negotiations or oppose the long-term U.S./NATO occupation of
Kosovo.
The entire 1999 U.S. war against defenseless Yugoslavia, the bombing of
every major city, the destruction of 480 schools and 33 hospitals,
along with bridges, roads and the entire industrial infrastructure, was
all presented by the imperialist propaganda machine as necessary to
stop an alleged genocide in the Serbian province of Kosovo.
NATO officials constantly referred to "mountains of corpses" and
"killing fields." In April 1999, the U.S. State Department claimed that
500,000 Kosovo Albanians had been rounded up and killed by Serbs. Other
reports used the number of 100,000 feared dead.
NO MASS GRAVES
Just as the weapons of mass destruction have never been found in Iraq,
the charge of massacres, mass graves, ethnic cleansing and genocide
proved to be an utter fabrication in Kosovo.
Immediately after the war, 20 forensic teams were sent to Kosovo by the
International Criminal Court at The Hague from 15 NATO countries,
including the U.S.. They dug all summer of 1999 at the very sites where
supposed witnesses had reported mass graves.
By October 1999 they reported back to Chief Prosecutor for the Tribunal
Carla Del Ponte that they had been unable to find any mass graves in
Kosovo at all. They had found a total of 2,108 corpses in individual
graves. How many of that number may have been killed by the NATO
bombing they did not speculate.
All of this material, including the reports of NATO destruction of
Yugoslav cities and the Tribunal's own forensic teams' inability to
find mass graves, was to be part of Milosevic's rebuttal. The attempt
to remove Milosevic as his own attorney is an admission that President
Milosevic is not guilty of the war-crimes charges. It adds to the U.S.
and NATO guilt in planning,
executing and carrying out a 10-year war that broke up a strong and
successful Yugoslav Federation into a half- dozen weak colonies and
neo-colonies subservient to U.S. and Western European imperialism.
The breakup of the Yugoslav Federation meant that the many industries
of Yugoslavia, including steel, auto, pharmaceuticals, chemical plants,
railroads, mines, refining and processing, that had previously been
owned by the whole population or by the workers in those plants have
been forcibly
privatized. U.S., British and German corporations now own them. Social
programs, pension funds, free education and free health care have been
decimated. It is this history of the crime of occupation that NATO's
court is trying to silence by depriving Yugoslav President Milosevic of
his right to present his own defense.
---
Flounders is co-director of the International Action Center. She was
scheduled to testify in the opening phase of former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic's defense at the International Criminal Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague, Netherlands. Flounders had met with
President Milosevic in Scheveningen Prison at The Hague for six hours
on June 28 to help prepare testimony for the defense. Milosevic has
been held for three years at the prison. Material from a book published
by the International Action Center in 2002, Hidden Agenda: U.S./NATO
Takeover of Yugoslavia, edited by Flounders and John Catalinotto, was
to be the basis of her testimony at the trial.
posted: September 10, 2004
International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
email: iacenter@action-mail. org
En Espanol: iac-cai@action-mail. org
web: http://www.iacenter.org
=== 3 ===
http://www.seeurope.net/en/Story.php?StoryID=53101&LangID=1
Seeurope.net
September 9, 2004
Bosnia Helped Give Birth to Terrorist Network, Expert
Says
A former U.S. policy analyst, testifying for the
defense at Slobodan Milosevic's war-crimes trial
yesterday, said part of the groundwork for what became
the al Qaeda terrorist network was laid during the
Bosnian war in the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia.
The testimony of analyst James Jatras appeared to be
aimed at showing that the U.S. government probably
knew that Islamic fundamentalists were fighting in
Bosnia during the 1992-95 war and in the Serbian
province of Kosovo in the 1990s.
Milosevic has claimed that the Serbs in Kosovo and the
former Yugoslav republics were fighting wars of
self-defense against what he described as persecution
by Croats and Muslims. In his opening statement last
week, he accused the United States of being part of an
anti-Serb conspiracy that also included Germany, NATO,
Islamic countries and the Vatican.
....
Jatras, testifying at Milosevic's resumed trial, had
compiled several reports on Yugoslavia when he worked
for the Senate Republican Policy Committee from 1985-
2000.
Reinforcing his earlier conclusions, Jatras said the
U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks on the United States had found that the
"groundwork for a true terrorist network was being
laid" in 1990s Bosnia.
He called it "a small footprint movement" that later
became recognized as al Qaeda.
Jatras was questioned by Steven Kay, a lawyer assigned
last week as Milosevic's defense counsel over the
defendant's angry objections. The former Serb leader
conducted his own defense for two years until doctors
ruled that he was in danger of a heart attack if he
continued.
---
http://www.b92.net/english/news/
index.php?&nav_category=2&nav_id=29798&order=priority&style=headlines
B92 (Serbia and Montenegro)
September 9, 2004
Racak “excuse” for NATO bombing
THE HAGUE – A defence witness for Slobodan Milosevic
has told the Hague Tribunal that former US president
Bill Clinton had decided to bomb Serbia in August
1998.
James Jatras, who was a senior foreign policy analyst
in the Republican party at the time, said that the
claim of a massacre of Albanian civilians in the
village of Racak in January 1990 provided a pretext
for the attacks to begin.
Jatras told the court that this meant that the
decision to attack Yugoslavia had been taken two
months before the date on which the Hague indictment
claims that Milosevic had begun to conduct his “joint
criminal enterprise” against Kosovo Albanians.
=== 4 ===
http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=27294
Agence France-Presse
September 15, 2004
Milosevic Trial Suspended As Lawyers Grapple With
Unwilling Witnesses
THE HAGUE - The UN court here has suspended the trial
of Slobodan Milosevic until October 12 to allow the
defence lawyers assigned to the former Yugoslav
president more time to prepare their case, the judges
said.
Presiding judge Patrick Robinson said he was giving
British lawyer Steven Kay and his co-counsel more time
to get "an overview of the witness situation."
Kay had earlier said he would need more time and
resources to deal with the witness list as Milosevic
was not cooperating with his defence counsel.
He said the delay would enable him to get to grips
with Milosevic's original witness list of 1,631 names
and see who should be called first.
Kay earlier complained that many witnesses scheduled
to appear in the defence case had refused to come
because Milosevic is no longer conducting his own
defense.
"Of the 23 witnesses we have been able to contact, 20
have refused to testify ... We have got senior people
from foreign governments refusing to cooperate,
ambassadors," Kay said.
Milosevic insisted that he had nothing to do with the
witnesses refusal to show up.
"It is up to the witnesses. I do not want to influence
the witnesses in any way," he said.
To show why people were unwilling to take the stand he
quoted from a letter of the former Canadian ambassador
to Yugoslavia from 1990 to 1992, James Bissett, who
called the proceedings in The Hague "a Stalinist show
trial".
"I do not want to be part of this travesty of
justice," Milosevic quoted Bissett as saying.
Russian parliamentarian Nikolai Ryzhkov publically
announced he had refused to testify last week. A group
of five French witness also announced they would not
come if they were questioned by the imposed lawyers.
A group of thirty defence witnesses from
Serbia-Montenegro also said they would not testify at
the trial in protest at the decision to impose a
lawyer, the Beta news agency reported on Tuesday.
Among the thirty - mostly Milosevic's one-time allies
- were former Montenegrin president Momir Bulatovic,
historians Slavenko Terzic and Vasilije Krestic,
writer Momo Kapor and ex-Croatian Serb leader Borislav
Mikelic, Beta reported.
Kay had asked the court on Wednesday to allow
Milosevic to question his witnesses first, followed by
questioning by the assigned counsel. The lawyer said
he believed the witnesses would appear if Milosevic
was the one examining them.
The defence team also demanded new medical tests to
determine if Milosevic was fit enough to represent
himself but both motions were rejected.
Kay has also said he would ask for the trial to be
suspended pending an appeal against his assignment.
The court explicitly refused to grant suspension on
those grounds but nonetheless said that it was likely
that within the adjournment they approved to give Kay
more time the appeal will be decided as well.
Milosevic on Wednesday again blasted the court and his
imposed lawyer.
"I insist you give me back my right to defend myself,
to call my witnesses," he said.
When the judges told him that they forced him to take
counsel because medical reports showed he was too ill
to continue to act as his own lawyer Milosevic blamed
the court for his health problems. ....
"Imposing work and deadlines on me while I was ill ...
led to a serious deterioration of my health,"
Milosevic told the court. ....
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
c/o GAMADI, Via L. Da Vinci 27
00043 Ciampino (Roma)
tel/fax +39-06-4828957
email: icdsm-italia @ libero.it
Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC
sito internet:
http://www.pasti.org/linkmilo.htm
Data: Mar 28 Set 2004 15:29:14 Europe/Rome
A: icdsm-italia@ yahoogroups. com
Oggetto: [icdsm-italia] Milosevic denied universal right of self-defense
Milosevic denied universal right of self-defense
1. International Tribunal or Star Chamber? On the ICTY's decision to
impose counsel on Slobodan Milosevic
(BRITISH HELSINKI HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP)
2. Milosevic denied universal right of self-defense: U.S.-Created Court
Gags Yugoslav President
(Sara Flounders / INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER)
3. US Policy Analyst James Jatras: 'Groundwork For Terrorist Network'
Laid In Bosnia In 1990s, US Planned War On Yugoslavia In August 1998
4. Milosevic Trial Suspended As Lawyers Grapple With
Unwilling Witnesses
=== 1 ===
International Tribunal or Star Chamber?
BRITISH HELSINKI HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP
http://www.bhhrg.org/LatestNews.asp?ArticleID=47
http://www.artel.co.yu/en/izbor/jugoslavija/2004-09-18.html
Date: 13 September 2004
On 10th September 2004, the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia imposed defence counsel on its most famous defendant,
Slobodan Milosevic. This decision overturned previous rulings: the
Prosecution had tried, at the beginning of the trial, to force a lawyer
on Milosevic, and the judges had addressed the issue several times
during the hearings.
On 3rd July 2001, the very first day of the trial, the presiding judge,
the late Sir Richard May, said, "Mr. Milosevic, I see that you're not
represented by counsel today. We understand that this is of your own
choice. You do have the right, of course, to defend yourself."[1]
On 30th August, Judge May again said, "The accused is entitled to
represent himself."[2] The judge announced that amici curiae would be
appointed in order to ensure that the trial was fair. May emphasised
that the role of the amici would not be to represent the accused.
Despite these clear statements, the Prosecution again argued that
counsel should be imposed. Although Judge May had already ruled on
this, Judge Patrick Robinson intervened and made the following
statement:
"Mr. Ryneveld, I have heard your submission. However, I do not consider
it appropriate for the Chamber to impose counsel upon the accused. We
have to act in accordance with the Statute and our Rules which, in any
event, reflect the position under customary international law, which is
that the accused has a right to counsel, but he also has a right not to
have counsel. He has a right to defend himself, and it is quite clear
that he has chosen to defend himself. He has made that abundantly
clear. The strategy that the Chamber has employed of appointing an
amicus curiae will take care of the problems that you have outlined,
but I stress that it would be wrong for the Chamber to impose counsel
on the accused, because that would be in breach of the position under
customary international law."[3]
(Judge Robinson has since become the presiding judge, following the
death of Judge May.) After Robinson had made his intervention, May
returned to the subject a third time, saying "Let me add this, Mr
Ryneveld: Yes, that is the view of the Trial Chamber, that it would not
be practical to impose counsel on an accused who wishes to defend
himself."[4]
As if this were all not enough, Judge May returned to the subject again
on 11th December. "Mr. Milosevic," he said, "there's one matter we want
to raise with you. It's this: You haven't appointed counsel to defend
you. As you know, it's your right to defend yourself if you wish,
although you may wish to reconsider that in the light of the complexity
and seriousness of these charges. But that's a matter for you."[5]
The reason why the judges kept to this position is indeed that the
right of a accused person to defend himself is indeed enshrined in the
statute of the International Criminal Tribunal. Article 21.4.d states,
"The accused shall be entitled . to defend himself in person." No
qualification or exceptions are laid out here. Although the same
article also says that the accused is entitled "to have legal
assistance assigned to him, in any case where the interests of justice
so require, and without payment by him in any such case if he does not
have sufficient means to pay for it," it is quite clear that this
article does not mean the court has right to impose counsel, but
instead that the accused has the right to a lawyer if he needs one.
This interpretation is itself used by the ICTY's own "Directive on the
Assignment of Defence Counsel," dated 28th July 2004, which reaffirms
the right of an accused to defend himself (Article 5). This Directive
makes it clear that the assignment of counsel is a right enjoyed by the
accused, not a right of the court to assign one if the accused wishes
to defend himself.
The right to defend oneself is enshrined in other documents too. Using
the very words which have since been integrated into the ICTY's own
statute, Article 6.3.c of the European Convention on Human Rights
states: "Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following
minimum rights: . to defend himself in person." As with the ICTY
statute, no exceptions or derogations from this are provided for.
Perhaps the ICTY, being a UN body, does not think it is bound by the
European Convention even though it has direct legal force in many
European states. But even the United Nations' own documents also
provide for this right. Article 14.3.d. of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights also uses the same language: "In the
determination of any criminal charge against him, everyone shall be
entitled to the following minimum guarantees, in full equality: . to
defend himself in person". No exceptions or derogations are provided:
indeed the right to defend oneself in person is a "minimum guarantee".
It is a core right.
In spite of this, on 8th November 2002, the Prosecution again applied
for defence counsel to be imposed. It argued that the defendant should
have counsel imposed for health reasons. Again, the Trial Chamber
rejected this, in an oral ruling on 18th December 2002. On 4th April
2003, the Trial Chamber issued a long document laying out its reasons
for refusing to impose counsel.[6] It reviewed the ICTY's own statute
and concluded rapidly that "A plain reading of this provision [Article
21.4.d] indicates that there is a right to defend oneself in person and
the Trial Chamber is unable to accept the Prosecution's proposition
that it would allow for the assignment of defence counsel for the
Accused against his wishes in the present circumstances."
The Trial Chamber then launched into a long discussion of the relevant
law, drawing on cases from around the world. It argued that the
imposition of counsel was a feature only of inquisitorial systems, not
of the adversarial systems used by the ICTY. In support of its view
that the imposition of counsel was inadmissible, the Trial Chamber
quoted the US Supreme Court case Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806
(1975), which states, "We confront here a nearly universal conviction,
on the part of our people as well as our courts, that forcing a lawyer
upon an unwilling defendant is contrary to his basic right to defend
himself if he truly wants to do so." The Supreme Court held that
imposition of counsel would violate the spirit of the 6th amendment.
The ICTY Trial Chamber commented:
"It [i.e. the Supreme Court] pointed out that only the sixteenth
century Star Chamber in the long history of English legal history
adopted a practice of forcing counsel upon an unwilling defendant in
criminal proceedings, and recounted Stephen's comment on this
procedure: 'There is something specially repugnant to justice in using
rules of practice in such a manner as to debar a prisoner from
defending himself, especially when the professed object of the rules so
used is to provide for his defence.' "
The ICTY Trial Chamber went on, "There is a further practical reason
for the right to self-representation in common law. While it may be the
case that in civil law systems it is appropriate to appoint defence
counsel for an accused who wishes to represent himself, in such systems
the court is fulfilling a more investigative role in an attempt to
establish the truth.
In the adversarial systems, it is the responsibility of the parties to
put forward the case and not for the court, whose function it is to
judge. Therefore, in an adversarial system, the imposition of defence
counsel on an unwilling accused would effectively deprive that accused
of the possibility of putting forward a defence." [emphasis added]. It
also concluded that, "The obligation of 'putting a case,' i.e. putting
forward the defence version of events if it differs from that put
forward by a witness, is reflected in Rule 90 (H) of the Rules. As the
Amici Curiae note, such an obligation cannot be fulfilled by counsel
who is not instructed by an accused as to the defence to put forward."
The Trial Chamber then reviewed some of the other international
documents which uphold the right of a defendant to defend himself,
including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
mentioned above, the
American Convention on Human Rights (Article 8.2.d), the European
Convention on Human Rights (mentioned aboive), and the Statute of the
new International Criminal Court. (Article 67.1.d) In this statute, the
right to defend oneself is limited only when the defendant behaves in a
disruptive manner in the court room. (The Rwanda tribunal, indeed, has
imposed counsel on a defendant for this very reason.) The Trial Chamber
discussed the imposition of counsel in a case in Germany, a case which
went to the European Court of Human Rights,[7] but rightly found this
case to be irrelevant to the
Milosevic case because the defendant was not defending himself.
Discussing other cases too, the Trial Chamber concluded that the only
relevant case did not allow for exceptions to the general right to
defend oneself (paragraph
36). "The international and regional conventions (in similar language)
plainly articulate a right to defend oneself in person . In the Trial
Chamber's view, it is appropriate to be guided by the ICCPR and the
Human Rights Committee's interpretation of it, which confirms the right
to self-defence and rejects the imposition of defence counsel on an
unwilling accused." (paragraph 37)
The Trial Chamber then turned to practicalities and concluded that
imposition of counsel could simply not work because the defendant would
refuse to instruct counsel (paragraph 38). Winding up its discussion,
it says that the imposition of counsel can occur only when the
defendant behaves in such a disruptive manner that he has to be removed
from the courtroom (paragraph 40) and concludes (paragraph 41) that
although the Trial Chamber has the duty to ensure an expeditious trial,
it may do this only by respecting the rights of the accused as laid out
in Article 21 of its own statute, i.e. by respecting the right of a
defendant to defend himself.
All the main points of this reasoning were summarily thrown out of the
window when Milosevic's defence started. On 10th September 2004, the
Trial Chamber ruled that counsel would be imposed.[8] The reasons given
for this astonishing volte-face are simply disingenuous. Referring to
the 4th April 2003 ruling, Judge Robinson said, "the Trial Chamber,
while holding that the accused had a right to defend himself also held
in paragraph 40 that the right to defend oneself in person is not
absolute." This is disingenuous because the Trial Chamber explicitly
laid down the circumstances in which the right might be limited
(disruptive behaviour leading to expulsion from the court room). Even
though Milosevic's health had been an issue ever since the trial
started in early 2002, the Trial Chamber made no mention of this as a
possible reason for imposing counsel on 4th April 2003.
In September 2004, the Trial Chamber suddenly adopted the Prosecution's
argument that Milosevic had not been taking his medicine as prescribed,
but it seemed not to care that it is obviously a basic human right to
take medication as one sees fit - unless the defendant is mentally
incompetent either to stand trial or regulate his medicinal intake.
Crucially, the Trial Chamber offered no legal argument, i.e. by quoting
precedent or law, for using the health of the accused as a reason for
imposing counsel. It simply rescinded all its earlier decisions, which
had been grounded in law and precedent; it stated that international
and domestic law provided precedents for imposing counsel, without
quoting a single one; and it said that it was "in the interests of
justice" to impose counsel. No definition was given of these interests.
The Trial Chamber concluded, "The fundamental duty of the Trial Chamber
is to ensure that the trial is fair and expeditious," but in fact based
its decision to impose counsel was grounded solely on expediency, at
the expense of fairness. It should also be remembered that the bench in
the Milosevic trial permitted the prosecution to ramble on for months
with irrelevant "expert" testimony consuming sessions far beyond its
original allotted time while the prosecutors tried to induce someone -
anyone - from Serbia, to plead direct incrimination of Milosevic - all
without success.
Even by the appalling standards of the ICTY, the one-sidedness of this
decision to impose defence counsel (after reducing the time available
to the defendant's case to about half that granted to the prosecution)
is shocking.
By going against all its own previous rulings on the matter, the
Tribunal's decision is a pure example of arbitrary rule. As such, the
ICTY has demonstrated itself to be in contempt of the rule of law. It
suggests that achieving a verdict is the overriding concern of the
Tribunal and given that it was the Prosecution which demanded the
imposition of counsel on Mr. Milosevic, it is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that conviction at all costs has become the guiding
principle of the Tribunal.
[1] http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/010703IA.htm, page 1
[2] http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/010830SC.htm, page 7
[3] http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/010830SC.htm, page 17
[4] http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/010830SC.htm, page 18
[5] http://www.un.org/icty/transe54/011211MH.htm, page 149
[6] http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/trialc/decision-e/040403.htm
paragraph 18
[7] Croissant v. Germany, European Court of Human Rights ("ECHR"), Case
No. 62/1001/314/385, Judgement, 25 September 1992 ("Croissant v.
Germany").
[8] http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/trialc/order-e/040910.htm
=== 2 ===
INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER (IAC)
Milosevic denied universal right of self-defense
U.S.-Created Court Gags Yugoslav President
By Sara Flounders
In the most drastic maneuver yet to silence the truth of the U.S./NATO
war on Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Sept. 2 denied former President Slobodan Milosevic
of Yugoslavia the internationally recognized right to defend himself in
court. This comes after the prosecution took two years presenting its
side of the case. The
ruling came on the very day Milosevic was finally to begin calling
witnesses in his own defense.
President Milosevic vigorously presented his opening statement of his
own defense in person for two days on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, immediately
before the Trial Chamber decided he "is not fit enough to represent
himself." He was apparently "fit enough" to perform that task.
The former president's introductory remarks set the tone for a strong
indictment of the U.S., Germany and other NATO powers for their 10-year
war of aggression against Yugoslavia. His defense case was expected to
continue in the same manner, exposing the crimes of the imperialist
powers in the Balkans.
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general and co-chair of the
International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic (ICDSM), stated in
a letter to the court: "Under International Law, every person accused
of a crime has the right to represent himself in person in the court.
"The appearance of President Milosevic representing himself alone
during the prosecution case for over two years, nearly 300 trial days,
cross examining nearly 300 prosecution witnesses, coping with 500,000
documents, and 30,000 pages of trial transcript, then at the very
beginning of his presentation of his own defense being silenced and
lawyers he rejects placed in charge of his destiny, speaks of
injustice."
Canadian attorney and international law expert Tiphaine Dickson, who is
assisting Milosevic's supporters, said: "The prosecutor is attempting,
yet again, to force President Milosevic to accept legal counsel to
represent him, using his poor health as an excuse. President Milosevic
has insisted that he represent himself from the onset. Within the U.S.,
the Supreme Court has recognized this as a right under the Sixth
Amendment to the Constitution. To refuse to allow him this right would
turn the already illegal ICTY hearings into a star-chamber proceeding."
Historically, even in past stage-managed trials where the prosecution
held total control and a guilty verdict was assured beforehand, many
defendants have had the right to represent themselves. Nelson Mandela
facing a racist apartheid court in South Africa, Fidel Castro brought
before the court of the Bastita dictatorship, or Georgi Dimirov before
the Nazi court in the 1930s could speak in their defense.
Over 100 legal experts, lawyers and jurists from 17 countries signed a
letter entitled, "Imposition of Counsel on Slobodan Milosevic Threatens
the Future of International Law and the Life of the Defendant." This
letter urges the United Nations to allow Milosevic to continue
defending himself against war crimes charges.
The internationally circulated letter warns that imposing a defense
lawyer against Milosevic's wishes would violate international law. It
is illegal even under the statute of the Yugoslav tribunal and also
under the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights.
IMPOSING COURT-APPOINTED LAWYERS
Tiphaine Dickson, who drafted the petition, said the UN tribunal
prosecuting Milosevic is trying to impose a defense counsel to strip
him of a defense "that may be embarrassing" to the court.
Ramsey Clark's letter also points out that "The very lawyers appointed
by the Trial Chamber have a direct conflict of interest. They have
served by appointment of the court as 'friends of the Court.' You
cannot serve two masters. Having served as friend of the Court, that
same counsel selected by the Court to represent President Milosevic
cannot ethically serve as his counsel."
The two lawyers who have been appointed as defense council against
Milosevic's express wishes are Stephen Kay and his daughter Gilian Kay
Higgins. The two were appointed Amicus Curiae (friends of the court)
against Milosevic's wishes in the prosecution part of the trial. In
that appointed position, Stephen Kay was made very much aware of
Milosevic's insistence on his legal right to conduct his own defense.
Stephan Kay has long played a highly dubious role as appointed council
in earlier trials of both the Yugoslav and the Rwanda Tribunals. Where
he was appointed there were convictions in the trials. His appointment
also allowed the courts to establish dangerous legal precedents for
other trials.
Many outrageous judicial abuses have been legitimized by the ICTY over
the past 10 years. The court accepts the use of hearsay evidence,
offers reduced sentences in exchange for testimony, and allows the use
of anonymous witnesses and closed sessions.
ICTY transcripts show pages and pages blanked out because sensitive
issues have been discussed in court. "Sensitive" issues means those
relating to the U.S. role.
In December 2003, when the former supreme commander of NATO, Wesley
Clark, testified in the Milosevic trial, the court agreed to let the
Pentagon censor its proceedings. The transcripts were not released
until Washington had given its approval.
A COURT TO JUSTIFY OCCUPATION
U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright was behind this court's
creation in 1993. Since then, it has been financed and organized by
funds from the U.S. and Britain. Its 1,300 personnel are also
overwhelmingly from Britain and the U.S.
From the very beginning the court has functioned to justify the U.S.,
British and NATO role in the break-up of the Yugoslav Federation.
The decision to charge President Milosevic with war crimes was made
toward the end of the 78-day U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. By
charging the elected Yugoslav president, the U.S./NATO forces placed
increased pressure on him to capitulate rather than participate in the
cease-fire negotiations or oppose the long-term U.S./NATO occupation of
Kosovo.
The entire 1999 U.S. war against defenseless Yugoslavia, the bombing of
every major city, the destruction of 480 schools and 33 hospitals,
along with bridges, roads and the entire industrial infrastructure, was
all presented by the imperialist propaganda machine as necessary to
stop an alleged genocide in the Serbian province of Kosovo.
NATO officials constantly referred to "mountains of corpses" and
"killing fields." In April 1999, the U.S. State Department claimed that
500,000 Kosovo Albanians had been rounded up and killed by Serbs. Other
reports used the number of 100,000 feared dead.
NO MASS GRAVES
Just as the weapons of mass destruction have never been found in Iraq,
the charge of massacres, mass graves, ethnic cleansing and genocide
proved to be an utter fabrication in Kosovo.
Immediately after the war, 20 forensic teams were sent to Kosovo by the
International Criminal Court at The Hague from 15 NATO countries,
including the U.S.. They dug all summer of 1999 at the very sites where
supposed witnesses had reported mass graves.
By October 1999 they reported back to Chief Prosecutor for the Tribunal
Carla Del Ponte that they had been unable to find any mass graves in
Kosovo at all. They had found a total of 2,108 corpses in individual
graves. How many of that number may have been killed by the NATO
bombing they did not speculate.
All of this material, including the reports of NATO destruction of
Yugoslav cities and the Tribunal's own forensic teams' inability to
find mass graves, was to be part of Milosevic's rebuttal. The attempt
to remove Milosevic as his own attorney is an admission that President
Milosevic is not guilty of the war-crimes charges. It adds to the U.S.
and NATO guilt in planning,
executing and carrying out a 10-year war that broke up a strong and
successful Yugoslav Federation into a half- dozen weak colonies and
neo-colonies subservient to U.S. and Western European imperialism.
The breakup of the Yugoslav Federation meant that the many industries
of Yugoslavia, including steel, auto, pharmaceuticals, chemical plants,
railroads, mines, refining and processing, that had previously been
owned by the whole population or by the workers in those plants have
been forcibly
privatized. U.S., British and German corporations now own them. Social
programs, pension funds, free education and free health care have been
decimated. It is this history of the crime of occupation that NATO's
court is trying to silence by depriving Yugoslav President Milosevic of
his right to present his own defense.
---
Flounders is co-director of the International Action Center. She was
scheduled to testify in the opening phase of former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic's defense at the International Criminal Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague, Netherlands. Flounders had met with
President Milosevic in Scheveningen Prison at The Hague for six hours
on June 28 to help prepare testimony for the defense. Milosevic has
been held for three years at the prison. Material from a book published
by the International Action Center in 2002, Hidden Agenda: U.S./NATO
Takeover of Yugoslavia, edited by Flounders and John Catalinotto, was
to be the basis of her testimony at the trial.
posted: September 10, 2004
International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
email: iacenter@action-mail. org
En Espanol: iac-cai@action-mail. org
web: http://www.iacenter.org
=== 3 ===
http://www.seeurope.net/en/Story.php?StoryID=53101&LangID=1
Seeurope.net
September 9, 2004
Bosnia Helped Give Birth to Terrorist Network, Expert
Says
A former U.S. policy analyst, testifying for the
defense at Slobodan Milosevic's war-crimes trial
yesterday, said part of the groundwork for what became
the al Qaeda terrorist network was laid during the
Bosnian war in the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia.
The testimony of analyst James Jatras appeared to be
aimed at showing that the U.S. government probably
knew that Islamic fundamentalists were fighting in
Bosnia during the 1992-95 war and in the Serbian
province of Kosovo in the 1990s.
Milosevic has claimed that the Serbs in Kosovo and the
former Yugoslav republics were fighting wars of
self-defense against what he described as persecution
by Croats and Muslims. In his opening statement last
week, he accused the United States of being part of an
anti-Serb conspiracy that also included Germany, NATO,
Islamic countries and the Vatican.
....
Jatras, testifying at Milosevic's resumed trial, had
compiled several reports on Yugoslavia when he worked
for the Senate Republican Policy Committee from 1985-
2000.
Reinforcing his earlier conclusions, Jatras said the
U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks on the United States had found that the
"groundwork for a true terrorist network was being
laid" in 1990s Bosnia.
He called it "a small footprint movement" that later
became recognized as al Qaeda.
Jatras was questioned by Steven Kay, a lawyer assigned
last week as Milosevic's defense counsel over the
defendant's angry objections. The former Serb leader
conducted his own defense for two years until doctors
ruled that he was in danger of a heart attack if he
continued.
---
http://www.b92.net/english/news/
index.php?&nav_category=2&nav_id=29798&order=priority&style=headlines
B92 (Serbia and Montenegro)
September 9, 2004
Racak “excuse” for NATO bombing
THE HAGUE – A defence witness for Slobodan Milosevic
has told the Hague Tribunal that former US president
Bill Clinton had decided to bomb Serbia in August
1998.
James Jatras, who was a senior foreign policy analyst
in the Republican party at the time, said that the
claim of a massacre of Albanian civilians in the
village of Racak in January 1990 provided a pretext
for the attacks to begin.
Jatras told the court that this meant that the
decision to attack Yugoslavia had been taken two
months before the date on which the Hague indictment
claims that Milosevic had begun to conduct his “joint
criminal enterprise” against Kosovo Albanians.
=== 4 ===
http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=27294
Agence France-Presse
September 15, 2004
Milosevic Trial Suspended As Lawyers Grapple With
Unwilling Witnesses
THE HAGUE - The UN court here has suspended the trial
of Slobodan Milosevic until October 12 to allow the
defence lawyers assigned to the former Yugoslav
president more time to prepare their case, the judges
said.
Presiding judge Patrick Robinson said he was giving
British lawyer Steven Kay and his co-counsel more time
to get "an overview of the witness situation."
Kay had earlier said he would need more time and
resources to deal with the witness list as Milosevic
was not cooperating with his defence counsel.
He said the delay would enable him to get to grips
with Milosevic's original witness list of 1,631 names
and see who should be called first.
Kay earlier complained that many witnesses scheduled
to appear in the defence case had refused to come
because Milosevic is no longer conducting his own
defense.
"Of the 23 witnesses we have been able to contact, 20
have refused to testify ... We have got senior people
from foreign governments refusing to cooperate,
ambassadors," Kay said.
Milosevic insisted that he had nothing to do with the
witnesses refusal to show up.
"It is up to the witnesses. I do not want to influence
the witnesses in any way," he said.
To show why people were unwilling to take the stand he
quoted from a letter of the former Canadian ambassador
to Yugoslavia from 1990 to 1992, James Bissett, who
called the proceedings in The Hague "a Stalinist show
trial".
"I do not want to be part of this travesty of
justice," Milosevic quoted Bissett as saying.
Russian parliamentarian Nikolai Ryzhkov publically
announced he had refused to testify last week. A group
of five French witness also announced they would not
come if they were questioned by the imposed lawyers.
A group of thirty defence witnesses from
Serbia-Montenegro also said they would not testify at
the trial in protest at the decision to impose a
lawyer, the Beta news agency reported on Tuesday.
Among the thirty - mostly Milosevic's one-time allies
- were former Montenegrin president Momir Bulatovic,
historians Slavenko Terzic and Vasilije Krestic,
writer Momo Kapor and ex-Croatian Serb leader Borislav
Mikelic, Beta reported.
Kay had asked the court on Wednesday to allow
Milosevic to question his witnesses first, followed by
questioning by the assigned counsel. The lawyer said
he believed the witnesses would appear if Milosevic
was the one examining them.
The defence team also demanded new medical tests to
determine if Milosevic was fit enough to represent
himself but both motions were rejected.
Kay has also said he would ask for the trial to be
suspended pending an appeal against his assignment.
The court explicitly refused to grant suspension on
those grounds but nonetheless said that it was likely
that within the adjournment they approved to give Kay
more time the appeal will be decided as well.
Milosevic on Wednesday again blasted the court and his
imposed lawyer.
"I insist you give me back my right to defend myself,
to call my witnesses," he said.
When the judges told him that they forced him to take
counsel because medical reports showed he was too ill
to continue to act as his own lawyer Milosevic blamed
the court for his health problems. ....
"Imposing work and deadlines on me while I was ill ...
led to a serious deterioration of my health,"
Milosevic told the court. ....
==========================
ICDSM - Sezione Italiana
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Conto Corrente Postale numero 86557006
intestato ad Adolfo Amoroso, ROMA
causale: DIFESA MILOSEVIC
sito internet:
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