Mr. Claude Jorda,
President
ICTY
The Hague
The Netherlands
Esteemed Mr. Jorda,
We have received with great dissatisfaction and embitterment your reply to
our October 13 letter. With regret we note your apparent unwillingness to
see the seriousness of the problem we have drawn your attention to. That way
you may become accomplice in the crime being committed against President
Milosevic under the auspices of the tribunal you preside. We hope we
shouldn't remind you that as President, you are the most responsible for the
legality of the ICTY works.
The basic principle of the criminal law endorses that an ill man can not be
put on trial. President Milosevic is having a serious heart condition and
his state of health is being ruined on a daily basis by the way the process
is being conducted, with hundreds of thousands pages of documents and more
than a thousand of tapes submitted by the prosecution, with no condition to
prepare for facing hundreds of irrelevant or false witnesses sent by the
prosecution. With the lack of basic living conditions, such as the
possibility to breathe fresh air, to have regular meals and regular and
sufficient sleep, it becomes completely clear which factors cause the
deterioration of the President Milosevic's health.
Regarding your reference to the Trial Chamber III March 6 decision on
provisional release, implying perhaps that the issue can not be discussed
again, we are obliged to underline again that President Milosevic's state of
health seriously deteriorated exactly since that time. For the reason of his
illness the proceedings had to be suspended several times. These are the
facts that must be taken into consideration.
We are also obliged to point the untruthfulness of your claim that President
Slobodan Milosevic receives "close medical attention of a high quality". As
a matter of fact, the truth is quite the opposite - he receives practically
no medical care, especially not of the high quality, unless you consider
appropriate for a person with serious heart condition to be seen only once
in a week, and not by a cardiologist, but by an ordinary doctor, who only
checks his blood pressure. In that sense we recall once again the First
Principle of Medical Ethics from the UN General Assembly Resolution No.
37/194 of December 18, 1982, which says: "Health personnel, particularly
physicians, charged with the medical care of prisoners and detainees, have a
duty to provide them with protection of their physical and mental health and
treatment of disease of the same quality and standard as is afforded to
those who are not imprisoned or detained." The same is stipulated by the
Article 6 of the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (UN General
Assembly Resolution 34/169 of December 17, 1979) provisions of which
established the obligations for you as President of ICTY. Besides, the
provisions of the World Medical Association Declaration on the Rights of the
Patient (Lisbon, 1981; Bali, 1995) guarantee the right of every person
without discrimination to "choose freely and change his/her physician and
hospital or health service institution" (Principle 2). The will of President
Slobodan Milosevic is to be treated by Yugoslav doctors and institutions, so
you are obliged to enable with that by deciding that he has to be cured in
Yugoslavia.
We request once again your immediate decision that President Slobodan
Milosevic has to be cured in Yugoslavia. Any other decision will bear direct
responsibility for imperiling his life.
If there wouldn't be appropriate decision of your side in the following
days, we will be, with regret, forced to make further moves, but this time
towards the international and French bodies in charge of human rights
protection and lawyers' ethics. This will be followed by activating all
legal means to stop the crime and protect rights of President Milosevic.
Belgrade, December 12, 2002
On behalf of the Freedom Association
Bogoljub Bjelica, President
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)
icdsm temporary address:
http://emperor.vwh.net/icdsm/index.htm
for your donations:
http://emperor.vwh.net/icdsm/donations.htm
Serbian News Network - SNN
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