Testimony: Milosevic Got Atrocity Reports by E-Mail

[Ivo Skoric]

ok - now no self-respecting dictator reads his public e-mail - he 
knows he'd be spammed by alphabet soup of organizations like 
HRW. on not being the first hand witness - well, Fred was not 
exactly shot and thrown in a mass grave presumed dead, was he? 
I guess from Slobo's perspective, only that would qualify him as a 
witness. On the other hand, Fred did work for ICTY, but then he is 
a witness for the prosecution, so it doesn't really disqualify him.
ivo


Date sent:      	Mon, 3 Jun 2002 15:19:39 -0400
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From:           	Andras Riedlmayer <riedlmay at FAS.HARVARD.EDU>
Subject:        	Testimony: Milosevic Got Atrocity Reports by E-Mail
To:             	JUSTWATCH-L at LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

(cross-posting of comments only permitted)

For security reasons, Slobodan Milosevic currently has no internet access
from Scheveningen, but back when he was in charge in Belgrade, his e-mail
address <slobodan.milosevic at gov.yu> was on the distribution list for HRW's
reports on human rights abuses in Kosovo.  Those reports were also sent to
him by fax and regular mail, according to testimony from HRW investigator
Fred Abrahams.  If the defendant failed to take steps to halt or prevent
those abuses, it was not because he was unaware of them.

Andras Riedlmayer
=========================================================================
Reuters
June 3, 2002

Testimony: Milosevic Got Atrocity Reports by E-Mail

By Abigail Levene

   THE HAGUE, June 3 (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic was sent reports
cataloguing Serb human rights abuses against Kosovo Albanians by post,
fax and e-mail, the ex-Yugoslav president's trial heard Monday.

   As U.N. prosecutors sought to show Milosevic had known or must have
known of crimes that his forces committed in the south Serbian province,
a human rights activist told of the horrors he witnessed in Kosovo and
the reports he helped compile on them.

   "I know for a fact that all our reports were sent to the accused ...
I personally remember adding his e-mail address to the e-mail list:
slobodan.milosevic at gov.yu," said Fred Abrahams, a former researcher for
Human Rights Watch (HRW).

   Abrahams said reports by HRW, a non-governmental organization
that documents human rights violations around the world, were always
made public as well as being sent to government officials and alleged
perpetrators.

   To convict Milosevic over Kosovo -- one of three indictments he faces
at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague -- prosecutors must prove
not only that atrocities were committed against ethnic Albanians, but
also that he knew or should have known and did nothing to prevent them
or punish the perpetrators.

   Abrahams's appearance followed a bizarre setback for the prosecution
early in the day, when a Serbian witness expected to give important
evidence abruptly refused to testify.

   The protected witness, known only as K12, said he had been a driver
during his 1988-89 Yugoslav army military service and had then worked
for years as a truck driver, but then broke down and said he could not
give evidence, without elaborating.

   "You're here to tell the truth," presiding Judge Richard May
admonished, prompting K12 to retort: "The truth is that I cannot testify
and there is no other truth than that."

WITNESS "WROTE THE INDICTMENT"

   Abrahams told the court of Serb-inflicted murder, rape, torture
and destruction of Kosovo Albanians' mosques and homes, as well as
of humanitarian violations by NATO and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
guerrillas.

   NATO launched a 78-day bombing campaign in March 1999 to curb a
violent Serb crackdown on Kosovo which HRW also investigated along with
KLA atrocities.

   Milosevic objected bitterly to Abrahams as a witness, saying the fact
he had worked briefly as a research analyst for prosecutors meant he
"wrote the indictment" against Milosevic.

   The ex-Serb strongman is accused of crimes against humanity and
genocide in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia during the break-up of Yugoslavia
in the 1990s.  He has refused to plead, prompting judges to enter a not
guilty plea, and is defending himself.

   Abrahams insisted on HRW's impartiality, saying it had criticized
all sides in the Balkan conflicts.  But Milosevic cast doubt on that,
speaking of HRW's "role to provide alibis for the interference of
international organizations in other countries."

   His suggestion during cross-examination that Abrahams had seen nothing
first-hand drew an impassioned response.

  Abrahams recounted his experience investigating the September 1998
murders of 21 civilians of the same family in Gornje Obrinje in Kosovo's
Drenica valley.

   "I was present in that forest and I will never in my life forget
the smell of the bodies that I saw," he said.

   Abrahams followed K12 in the witness box. The court was in closed
session for most of K12's half-hour in the stand and went into open
session only briefly before his abrupt exit.

   Pressed by judges on why he could not testify, K12 said it could
"jeopardize other people."  Judges asked to look at a magazine that had
apparently been mentioned in closed session.

   Further details of K12's identity were not clear. But a story last year
in the Belgrade weekly Vreme quoted a Serbian truck driver who said he
was drafted in February 1999 to drive a sealed refrigerator truck back
and forth from Serbia to Kosovo.

   The story was published in June 2001, just after Serb police discovered
mass grave sites near Belgrade and said they were believed to contain
bodies of dead Kosovo Albanians.

   After driving a dozen such lorries, the driver known in Vreme under
the false name "Nikola" said he had unsealed the truck to find corpses,
mainly of civilians, piled up inside.