ICTY: Delay is speed, freedom is slavery

[Ivo Skoric]

Tragically, ICTY seems to be losing its case against Milosevic...
...now if the trial was held in Sarajevo, Zagreb, or Belgrade, I bet 
it would already be over, and Slobo housed already in some old 
Ottoman-built dungeon...
ivo

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1095334
351278000.xml The Cleveland Plain Dealer Thursday, September 16, 2004

Milosevic trial adjourns - Western backers refuse to testify

Anthony Deutsch
Associated Press

The Hague, Netherlands -- Just two weeks after resuming Slobodan
Milosevic's much-delayed trial, the U.N. war crimes tribunal 
adjourned for a month Wednesday to allow his frustrated court-
appointed lawyer to prepare a case stymied by reluctant witnesses and 
an uncooperative defendant.

Steven Kay, who was assigned to lead the defense over Milosevic's
angry objections, told the three judges that 20 defense witnesses 
have refused to appear in court - among them ambassadors, politicians 
and professors from the United States and elsewhere.  Many have 
refused to testify unless the ousted Serb leader takes charge of his 
own case.

"Groups of witnesses have banded together and have stated they are 
not prepared, under the conditions of the assignment of counsel, to 
come to the tribunal and testify," Kay told the panel.

"At the moment, we've got the worst possible of all worlds," Kay 
said.
"We are in a position of trying to make it work and we are very
concerned about the presentation of the defense case with out
cooperation and, in fact, in circumstances of hostility."

Kay has appealed to the court to let Milosevic, 63, resume his
defense, but the judges stood by an earlier ruling that he is
medically unfit to conduct his own case, as he has done since the
trial opened more than two years ago.

Milosevic has refused to meet Kay or his assistant, Gillian Higgins,
or give them instructions. He denied encouraging his supporters to
stay away, and said they had reached their decisions independently.

In court, Milosevic read a letter from James Bissett, the Canadian
ambassador to Yugoslavia when the Balkan wars erupted in the early
1990s, saying the trial "had taken on all the characteristics of a
Stalinist show trial."

"I do not wish to appear," Bissett wrote in the letter. "I have from
the outset had serious misgivings about the legitimacy of the
tribunal." He wrote that the tribunal, created by the U.N. Security
Council in 1993, "is a political court rather than a judicial body
operating in the interests of truth and justice."

Milosevic also read from a letter he said was written by another
potential witness, former U.S. diplomat George Kenney, that he would
appear at The Hague only if Milosevic is allowed to present his own
defense case.

"I believed then, as I believe now, that you are innocent of the
charges in the indictment," Milosevic quoted Kenney as having 
written.
The letter from Kenney, who resigned in 1992 as head of the State
Department's Yugoslavia desk, called the hearings "inherently unfair,
amounting to little more than a political show trial."

Milosevic faces 66 counts of war crimes for his alleged criminal role
in atrocities committed during the violent breakup of the former
Yugoslavia in the 1990s.  His defense is based on the argument that
Serbs were defending themselves against rebels and terrorists in
Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.  He could be sentenced to life if
convicted on any count.
---------------------------------------------------------
Ivo Skoric
19 Baxter Street
Rutland VT 05701
802.775.7257
ivo at balkansnet.org
balkansnet.org