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FREEDOM ASSOCIATION SPECIAL BULLETIN
No.7
May 21, 2002
Tanic Has Discredited The Prosecution With the cross-examination of Ratomir Tanic, one of the
key witnesses to the prosecution, Slobodan Milosevic has publicly exposed the
whole Hague indictment against him as a politically constructed one. Today’s
final examination of this witness has shown that Tanic is not only inventing
things or talking as alleged participant of events he had found out in the
press, but also that he is a man once sentenced for robbery and a crook whose
statements are being publicly denied by almost everyone whose alleged associate
he had been. Witness Tanic has only shown a capacity to construct
stories so that, when cornered with no valid reply, he calls upon his own
general evaluations, print errors or translation mistakes, etc. For instance,
when Milosevic reminded him that in his written statement he had mentioned that
round-tables were just fronts for real discussions (he meant Milosevic’s
policies on Kosovo, off-course), Tanic without hesitation responded that this
was the “role of round-tables everywhere in the World”. A few times Tanic got into dead-end situations, when he
was forced to assert that his bosses were lying. He did that when Milosevic ran
a video tape, in which the president of New Democracy and current Interior
Minister of Serbia, Dusan Mihajlovic, said live on TV: “Tanic had never
participated in making decisions or implementing them, but could have been only
an observer, as any other citizen”. We remind that Tanic almost always called upon his party
leader Mihajlovic, with whom he had allegedly directly participated in all
events regarding Kosovo and Metohia, since New Democracy has at the time been a
member of the ruling coalition. At a direct Milosevic’s question regarding
Mihajlovic’s statement mentioned above, Tanic replied that “Mihajlovic is not
telling the truth now”. The same pattern applied to former Serbian
Vice-Prime-minister Ratko Markovic’s or Serbian Renewal Movement leader Vuk
Draskovic’s denials of his affirmations. He finally complained that “it seems
everyone has left him”. How reliable a witness Tanic may be before any legal
institution has been clearly put in evidence today, after Milosevic had
presented a certificate of the Belgrade District Court from May 17 of this year,
by which Ratomir Tanic was declared guilty on March 7, 1977 for hard robbery and
sentenced to a year and two months of imprisonment. On November 1 of the same
year the Serbian Supreme Court had this sentence changed to a 7 months
reclusion, and that one was final. At a direct question on that episode of his
life, Tanic tried to avoid answering directly, but after Milosevic insisted, he
admitted “not recalling since it happened a long time ago”. At a later question
by one of the Amici Curiae, Tanic replied there had been a minor punishment and
that he was young at the time. He also claimed not remembering what kind of
felony it had been. For several times Tanic’s examination showed he had been
collaborator of a few Western intelligence services and that he had obviously
prepared his testimonial together with them. New Democracy’s vice-president,
Nebojsa Lekovic, confirms this, by stating that “Tanic had never in any way
participated in negotiations with the Kosovo and Metohia Albanians and that he
had left the country because of having enormous unpaid debts, while he had now
accepted to testify for the money”. Besides, the book Tanic had not
finished writing yet is financed by the British Intelligence Service, something
he himself confirmed after being asked by the Amici Curiae. He has as well
confirmed that he was receiving cash from these services with no written record,
and that the content of the book is exclusively about charges against Slobodan
Milosevic. Today has started the testimonial of the forensic expert Erich Packard, and it will be resumed tomorrow.
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) |
