TRIBUNAL HAD A MOTIVE FOR MILOSEVIC'S MURDER http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smfc041106.htm
Slobodan Milosevic Freedom Center – April 11, 2006 Written by: Mr. N.M.P. Steijnen Even if it is proven beyond reasonable doubt that Slobodan Milosevic was not murdered as the result of direct violence that still does not morally or legally absolve The Hague Tribunal, or its officers, of direct responsibility for his death. Since the beginning of his trial Milosevic suffered from severe health problems. Therefore, it would not be difficult for malicious interests within the Tribunal to forecast that he could be liquidated without making a direct attack on his life, which could bring with it the risk of leaving forensic evidence. A series of actions intended to undermine his health would be sufficient to ensure that he would die sooner or later. These actions combined with medical negligence and the extreme stress put upon him by the working conditions imposed by the Tribunal would be a certain recipe for his demise. Therefore, in the Tribunal’s interests, this approach would be far preferable to a blunt direct liquidation. Convincing Evidence that Milosevic's Health was Deliberately Undermined At this moment there is no evidence that Milosevic was murdered directly, but there is substantial evidence that he was killed indirectly. The history of medical negligence is already well documented, just like the enormous pressure imposed upon him by the Tribunal’s working conditions. These subjects require a separate discussion. This article will focus on evidence which indicates that Milosevic’s health was deliberately undermined by a series of direct covert actions throughout his trial. A trial in which there were persistent efforts made to silence him by imposing counsel. Upon closer examination it will emerge that a number of very suspicious actions were undertaken at precisely the moments when the tribunal was trying the hardest to silence Milosevic. For NATO Failure was a Threat In a climate where special interest groups, such as IWPR, CIJ, and SENSE, which are directly financed by NATO governments or by the Tribunal itself, dominate the reporting on Milosevic’s trial in Western media, it is no wonder that an image has been created that is completely alien to the reality. As the result of this propaganda, the Western public's perception is that the evidence against Milosevic was overwhelming, and that he was a man who felt the ground sinking under his feet and was ripe for some desperate act such as suicide or an escape attempt. The reality of the Milosevic trial was the direct opposite of the reports in the Western media. Anybody who takes the time to read the trial transcripts can verify this fact for themselves. It is an uncontestable fact that the Tribunal failed to prove its case against Milosevic. When the Prosecution rested in February 2004 several prominent Dutch newspapers, such as the Volkskrant had headlines reading “No conclusive evidence against Slobodan Milosevic” [de Volkskrant 26 February 2004], and the NRC Handelsblad headline read: “Case against Milosevic 'falls apart’” [NRC Handelsblad 28 February 2004]. In spite of the Prosecution’s failure to prove the charges against Milosevic, most of the Western media persisted in their assertions that he was guilty, even though they had no evidence to substantiate their claims. The prosecution took two years to present its case, it called 296 witnesses, and introduced nearly 1 million pages into evidence, but still they could not make a sound case against Milosevic. Things went from bad to worse for the Tribunal when Milosevic began presenting his defense case. What the Tribunal’s advocates hid from the Western public was the fact that, through his witnesses, Milosevic was demolishing the most fundamental pillars of the Western narrative on the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. What he was able to prove over the past sixteen months, which to a great extent relied on Western witnesses, was not only catastrophic for the Prosecution, but also for the NATO Governments whose role he was exposing. Just as the Western public was misled and manipulated by a common front of politicians and media regarding the alleged "Iraqi weapons of mass destruction", so too were we misled about the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Slobodan Milosevic was using his trial as a vehicle to expose these lies and set the record straight. Allegations of Pursuing the Creation of “Greater Serbia” Dropped In August 2005 prosecutor Geoffrey Nice was compelled to announce that Milosevic was not being accused of the central thesis of the indictments, namely that he sought to create a Greater Serbia through violence. This admission brought down the entire infrastructure behind the charges against him. The indictments were based on the thesis that Milosevic was the leader of a massive criminal conspiracy aimed at the establishment a Greater Serbia. During a motion hearing on 29 November 2005, according to the transcript, Milosevic reacted to the prosecution's admission as follows: "What is the fate of these proceedings that have been going on for over three years where you and I, and probably the other side, thought that I was being tried for a Greater Serbia, which was the objective of some kind of alleged joint criminal enterprise. So that was what we tried to deal with when putting questions to the witnesses and in dealing with all the evidence, because that is what Mr. Nice was alleging through his witnesses." "So, then, what is the legal validity of that part of the proceedings, when we were all being deluded into believing that this was the main objective of the Prosecution? So what's the point of all these witnesses who talked about a Greater Serbia as my primary goal here? Are you going to take that out of the evidence, the body of evidence, or are you going to let me examine them further? Also, what about this joint criminal enterprise? And what would its objective be after this change? And what is this phantom of a joint criminal enterprise that is being discussed here? And what is it that is exactly being alleged? People who are sitting here, including me, including you, on the one hand, simply cannot know all the things that are referred to in all these documents that Mr. Nice served - a million pages, no less - and no one knows what the Prosecutor is prosecuting, including the Prosecutor herself. She doesn't know it either. I think that even Franz Kafka would feel that he did not have great imagination compared to this." Further Havoc to NATO's Carefully Spun Positions The damage that the Milosevic trial was inflicting upon the Tribunal was immense. His trial had turned against his Western accusers like a boomerang. Milosevic, through predominantly Western witnesses, presented strong evidence showing that the NATO attack on Yugoslavia actually caused the humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo in 1999. These same witnesses testified that no humanitarian catastrophe existed in Kosovo prior to the NATO aggression. On the contrary, his defense case showed that the KLA was conducting a large-scale terrorist insurgency backed by Arab Mujahedeen who had been recruited by American defense contractors such as MPRI. He used Western witnesses to present evidence showing that Al-Qaeda was well rooted in the Bosnian-Muslim armed forces, and that several of the 9/11 hijackers including Mohammed Atta and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed had served in the Bosnian-Muslim forces. Shortly before his death Milosevic presented evidence showing that the Bosnian-Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic had received Osama bin Laden in his office as recently as November 1994. The instant reflex of the judges was to always dismiss such testimony as "irrelevant". Clearly, their intention was to keep a lid on such explosive information. As if this had not been incriminating enough for the Tribunal, Milosevic's witnesses gave evidence that the Albanians did not flee Kosovo as the result of the Serbian army, but mostly as a result of intensive NATO bombing and intimidation from the KLA. For that reason there was proportionally more Kosovo-Serbs among the refugees than Kosovo-Albanians during the 1999 war. Shortly after British MP Alice Mahon, who was a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly during the Kosovo war, testified that “the [NATO] bombing was the main reason for the [Kosovo] exodus.” Milosevic was found dead in his cell before he could call another witness. Who Had the Motive for Milosevic’s Death? Milosevic did not have a reason to commit suicide, but NATO did have a motive to silence him permanently. And let there be no misunderstanding that the Hague Tribunal is swarming with NATO spies. When Graham Blewitt, the former deputy chief prosecutor of the tribunal, stepped-down from his post in 2004 he told the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad that several members of the Prosecution staff spent as much time at the American Embassy as they did in the Tribunal’s offices. The trial was getting totally out of hand for the same NATO countries who, as Jamie Shea explained at a May 17, 1999 press conference, “provided the finance to set up the Tribunal, and are amongst it's majority financiers.” Attempts to silence Milosevic by imposing a defense attorney on him against his will failed. The tribunal could not control the mass-refusal of witnesses to testify. Unable to continue the trial, the Tribunal was on the verge of disintegrating. They were forced to retreat and allowed him to continue his defense. It is clear that enormous interests are at stake. After the notorious incidents at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the Western public is far less trusting of their Government’s rhetoric about human rights than they used to be. Milosevic's Determination I am one of the few Dutchmen who have spoken candidly with Milosevic. As his attorney before the Dutch courts, I had the chance to visit with him and get to know him personally. I can say that I have seldom met anybody who was so thoroughly convinced of his case, and his ability to prove it. He had a mission and he stood behind it, without reservation. He would never commit suicide or deliberately damage his health. Steven Kay, the attorney that the Tribunal imposed on Milosevic, told BBC World on 11 March 2006 that he could not imagine that Milosevic would undertake any suicidal action. In his opinion, Milosevic was determined to fight. Everyone who was in close contact with Milosevic shares this opinion that he was firmly determined to finish his job. The next witness who had been scheduled to testify was the former Montenegrin president Momir Bulatovic. He told a news conference that Milosevic was “strongly and deeply" convinced that he was being poisoned by the tribunal. Bulatovic stipulated: "The crown proof that Milosevic was poisoned is the Hague tribunal's indifference - the tribunal did nothing - although the medication was found in his bloodstream on 12 January, while the results of tests were given to Milosevic only on 9 March." He also stated: "On 9 March, Milosevic spoke to the assistant of the imposed defense lawyer, Gillian Higgins and asked her to refer to the court council his request that an independent medical commission establish whether he was being poisoned." And H.E. James Bissett, Canada's Ambassador to Yugoslavia between 1990 and 1992, who testified as a witness on February 23-24 said in an interview with CKUK's program “Monday's Encounter”: "When I went to see him at the penitentiary in The Hague, Milosevic was dressed very casually. [...] He looked good. He had good color. He was relaxed. He had a sense of humor. He was obviously busy trying to prepare for my testimony and he struck me as being reasonably content with the way the trial was going." And: "The following day, however, it was in the afternoon around five o'clock after two or three hours with him, he suddenly became flushed in the face and clasped his hands to his head. I was startled and asked if he was all right. He answered that he was O.K. and explained that he suffered from a loud ringing sound in his ears that seemed as though he was speaking in an empty pail. He told me that although his blood pressure was under control he had this constant ringing and echoing sounds in his head." And, finally, Milorad Vucelic, a Socialist Party official recounted a telephone conversation that he had with Milosevic the day before his death, "He told me, ‘Don't worry, they will not destroy me or break me; I shall defeat them all.’" More than 200 Pages of Appeals Asking the Tribunal to Stop Endangering Milosevic’s Life If the Tribunal did not murder Milosevic directly, which they had every opportunity to do while he was in their prison, then they certainly caused him to die. Various organizations that were sympathetic to Milosevic’s cause had generated more than 200 pages of appeals and supplications asking the tribunal to heed his doctors’ medical advice and stop endangering his life. Not Only Medical Negligence There are strong indications that there was not only medical negligence, but strong indications also exist that his health was deliberately undermined during some crucial points during his trial. By early 2006 it was clear that it was not possible to stop Milosevic from using his defense case to present facts that were extremely compromising for NATO. In January 2006, Rifampicin, a drug used to treat leprosy and tuberculosis, which interfered with medicines Milosevic was taking for high blood pressure and vascular disease was found in his blood, but this information was never disclosed until shortly before his death. According to an official statement issued by the ICTY registrar’s office, neither the tribunal nor Milosevic had been informed of the results of the blood tests until 7 March 2006. The fact that he was not told of the results raises suspicion. Normally Milosevic received all medical reports concerning his health as soon as they were available. Urgent Questions The most pressing question is why did it take two months to inform Milosevic that this drug had been found in his blood? And who made the decision to conceal this information from him? These questions are all the more urgent because there is no doubt that this drug was extremely dangerous and put him in acute mortal danger. So who decided to keep him in this state of mortal danger for so long? Those who concealed the results of the blood test must have known that the drug placed his life in jeopardy. Were they the same people who administered the drug to him? Clearly, this drug was damaging his health, yet the trial chamber took no measures to safeguard his health, in spite of the fact that his health was clearly declining. On February 22, 2006 Milosevic flat-out told the Tribunal, “Mr. Robinson, I cannot continue with the examination of this witness. I really don't feel well.” The trial chamber ignored him and continued the hearing. The very next day Milosevic told the trial chamber, “Mr. Robinson, I told you yesterday that I didn't feel well, and you refused to accept that. Let me repeat: I do not feel well.” Again the trial chamber ignored him and continued the trial. Later on that same day the trial chamber handed down its ruling denying Milosevic's request to receive heart surgery at the Bakoulev medical center in Moscow. The forces that kept the results of the blood tests secret waited until after the ruling on medical treatment in Russia was handed down. If the trial chamber had openly been informed about the results of the blood tests before handing down its ruling, then the only conclusion that could be reached was that the judges were part of the plot to kill Milosevic. Obviously, if it had it been known that the Judges were aware of the harmful drugs, yet took no action, that would be the only conclusion that could be reached. Even if the Trial Chamber didn’t know about the drugs, serious questions still remain. The most urgent question which remains is why the judges did not insist on getting acquainted with the content of this report as soon as possible and why they accepted that the release of this report remained forthcoming? Was this simply because the trial chamber was not interested in the health of Milosevic? Or was there something more behind it? Was it, perhaps, more convenient for the judges “to be not wiser” and was it, consequently, a matter of tactics for the Trial Chamber to abstain from insisting upon the release of the report so that they would have a free hand to dismiss Milosevic's request for medical treatment in Moscow? Or were they secretly tipped-off about the report and was this why they did not insist upon a timely release of the forthcoming report? Bad Faith by the Trial Chamber It is a matter of fact that the trial chamber did not take any action to obtain the content of the pending medical report for their deliberations on Milosevic's request for heart surgery in Moscow. This alone is evidence of their bad faith. Refusal to Allow Treatment in Moscow Further evidence of their bad faith with respect to Milosevic follows from the reasoning of their February 23rd ruling, which states: "The Chamber notes that the Accused is currently in the latter stages of a very lengthy trial, in which he is charges with many serious crimes, and at the end of which, if convicted, he may face the possibility of life imprisonment. In these circumstances, and notwithstanding the guarantees of the Russian Federation and the personal undertaking of the Accused, the Trial Chamber is not satisfied that the first prong of the test has been met - that is, that it is the more likely than not that the Accused, if released, would return for continuation of his trial." On February 24, 2006 Andy Wilcoxson, a member of the Slobodan Milosevic Freedom Center, wrote an article stating that: "What the tribunal is saying here is that the Russian Government can not be trusted to apprehend a 64-year-old man with a hart condition if he tried to escape. For all its empty rhetoric about human rights, what the Hague Tribunal has shown by its decision is that it is perfectly happy to imperil a man's life just for the sake of politics." Mr. Wilcoxson went on to write, “Denying Milosevic the medical treatment he needs could kill him.” This is what Andy Wilcoxson wrote not realizing that he was actually forecasting Milosevic’s death only two weeks later. Recently the Tribunal has allowed other inmates to travel to Kosovo and Montenegro for medical care. Why the Trial Chamber has more trust in the Government of Montenegro or the “interim administration” in Kosovo than it has in the Russian Federation is not explained. But the insult to a permanent member of the UN Security Counsel is inescapable. The day after Milosevic’s death a statement posted on the official website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated: "Russian doctors were ready to offer him due assistance and the Russian authorities guaranteed the fulfillment of all related ICTY requirements. Unfortunately, despite our guarantees the tribunal refused to give Milosevic a chance to get treatment in Russia." On March 15, 2006, Dr. Leo Bokeria the head of the Russian medical team, which had offered to treat Milosevic in Moscow, told a press conference in The Hague: "Ïf Milosevic was taken to any specialised Russian hospital, the more so to such a stationary medical institution as ours, he would have been subjected to coronary examination, two stents would be made, and he would have lived for many long years to come. A person has died in our contemporary epoch, when all the methods to treat him were available and the proposals of our country and the reputation of our medicine were ignored." He went on to state: "It’s a great regret that they did not heed our numerous appeals during examination. The point is that a man who had suffered from a complex illness and the heart and vascular system was not examined adequately, and thus naturally he could not be cured. If he had had a coronary arteriography...then of course he would have undergone surgery or a bypass and he would be alive". Dr. Bokeria is the one of the most renowned heart specialists in the world. His statement that Milosevic would have lived had he been given proper medical treatment are damning for the Tribunal. Deliberate Suppression of the Medical Report - More Questions If the Trial Chamber really didn't know about the results of the blood tests, then it must be concluded that the malicious forces that sought Milosevic’s death deliberately delayed the release of the medical report in order to prevent positive knowledge that Milosevic's life was in serious danger. There is no denying that the results of the blood tests were concealed for two months. And, considering their highly alarming results, which dealt with a life-threatening situation for Milosevic, it can only be concluded that this information was deliberately suppressed. According to the Tribunal's Registrar the Trial Chamber received the medical report on March 7, 2006, but did not take any action. Which begs the question: why not? If the judges had been acting in good faith, then they would have taken action immediately. Especially since Milosevic had repeatedly told them in no uncertain terms “I do not feel well.” But there was no alarm. The Trial Chamber took no action even after they received the report. They had four days before he died in which they could have ordered medical tests to ascertain whether Milosevic was still being drugged; they could have ordered an investigation to see where the drugs were coming from. They had four days -- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday -- yet they did absolutely nothing. Milosevic Revealed the Contents of the Medical Report, not the Tribunal It must be stressed that it was not the Tribunal who revealed the contents of this highly disturbing medical report. Milosevic revealed the contents of the medical report through a March 8th letter that he wrote to the Russian government, which became public only after his death when his legal associate Zdenko Tomanovic, showed a copy of the letter to the media. This letter stated, as far as relevant: “I think that the persistence, with which the medical treatment in Russia was denied, in the first place is motivated by the fear that through careful examination it would be discovered that there were active, willful steps taken, to destroy my health throughout the proceedings of the trial, which could not be hidden from Russian specialists. “ “In order to verify my allegations, I’m presenting you a simple example which you can find in the attachment. This document, which I received on March 7, shows, that on January 12th (i.e. two months ago), an extremely strong drug was found in my blood, which is used, as they themselves say, for the treatment of tuberculosis and leprosy, although I never used any kind of antibiotic during this 5 years that I’m in their prison.” […] "Also the fact that doctors needed 2 MONTHS (to report to me) can’t have any other explanation than we are facing manipulation. (Emphasis added by the author). In any case, those who foist on me a drug against leprosy can’t treat my illness; likewise those from which I defended my country in times of war and who have an interest to silence me.” Autopsy Results Don't Prove that Milosevic Wasn't Deliberately Killed The autopsy performed by the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) established that Milosevic died as a result of a heart attack and that there were no traces of non-prescribed drugs in his blood when he died. However, as far as the results of this autopsy are reliable, this only proves that he was not directly poisoned on the eve of his death. This outcome in no way establishes that there was not, at an earlier stage, deliberate steps taken to undermine his health in order to imperil, step by step, his life. Alarming Signals in November 2002 Already in 2002 there had been alarming signals that Milosevic was deliberately being given drugs which were damaging his fragile health. On 23 November 2002 the leading Dutch Newspaper NRC Handelsblad wrote an article headlined “Milosevic got wrong medicine”. This article is quoted as far as relevant here: “In the Scheveningen prison Slobodan Milosevic was given the wrong medicine, causing his blood pressure to rise very quickly. This was why at the beginning of this month the trial against the former president of Yugoslavia was suspended. Sources within the tribunal have confirmed this. However a spokesman for the Tribunal denies that mistakes were made. He refuses to discuss the issue further on grounds that “This is about the privacy of the defendant.” On 18 November 2002 a cardiological report was handed over to Milosevic, resulting from a medical examination on November 15th, which stated inter-alia: “PATIENT HISTORY - In recent weeks during trial again steep blood pressure up to around 220/120 to 130 mmHg. The patient had no other complains related to this. I am now asked to make a prognosis regarding Mr. MILOSEVIC´s blood pressure and determine whether the patient is still fit to stand trial.” […] “DISCUSSION - During the trial again strong increase in blood pressure. Most likely a combination of an existing tendency to hypertension and the mental pressure of the trial.” This all was going on exactly during a time period when the prosecutor was making fresh attempts to convince the Trial Chamber to force Milosevic to accept legal counsel, which would usurp his right to defend himself and effectively silence him. With the prosecutor’s objective in mind, at that precise moment, there was a motive to deteriorate his health and cause a situation where his blood pressure got persistently out of hand. In order to bring him to a state of health where it would be impossible for to him to conduct his own defense. Alarming Signals in August 2004 Two years later, the prosecution was again doing its utmost to prevent Milosevic from presenting his own defense. It was at this moment that the Tribunal imposed Steven Kay as his attorney – a move which was vehemently opposed by Milosevic. During an impassioned plea against these attempts to silence him. On September 1, 2004, Milosevic stipulated that he was fit enough to continue his own defense and, subsequently, stressed the incident mentioned hereafter: “Therefore I wish to reiterate: My right to defend myself is something that I will neither accept having diminished nor will I ever waive it. Please bear that in mind. And you can reach your own decisions, but I receive the medicaments given to me by your people, your employees. What is happening here, I don't know, but I can bring the whole floor of the Detention Unit here to testify to what happened when the food I had was exchanged with the food of the person across the passageway, and there was a big to-do about setting things right, although the food apparently was the same. It appeared to be the same. And I did not raise the issue. I don't know what was going on. But please be kind enough to bear in mind that when, for three years, they have been saying one thing and now suddenly they turn around and say something else, I am right in having suspicions. My suspicions may or may not be justified, but they are well grounded." The last remark was regarding his doctors, who had always stated, until that moment, that he was enough fit to defend himself, but had suddenly taken the opposite opinion. Again the specific time of the incident was a crucial one in the attempts of the prosecutor to silence Milosevic’s defense. And this time the prosecution succeeded: Kay was imposed as Milosevic’s defense counsel. But even this attempt collapsed, because, as already noted, the trial was derailed because the witnesses boycotted the proceedings, which ultimately forced the tribunal to back down. Grinding their teeth, the Tribunal was forced to re-establish Milosevic's right to conduct his own defense. After such a defeat the Tribunal knew that there was only one way to silence Milosevic -- one ultimate and definitive way. Legal Steps Against the Tribunal's Officials In recent years I have repeatedly represented Milosevic in legal proceedings to defend his fundamental human rights within the Dutch legal system. In that context, he gave me authorization to take whatever steps were necessary at a given moment. That was the case in the trial against the Government of The Netherlands regarding his kidnapping to The Hague, in the legal proceedings against the amicus-curiae Wladimiroff, and in the legal proceedings against Steven Kay, who threatened to usurp his defense. Through the authorization vested in me by Slobodan Milosevic, I will be bringing legal action against the relevant officers of The Hague Tribunal, including its judges and its prosecutors. This legal action will be brought before the Dutch courts in the context of the "Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment". I intend to argue that the Tribunal subjected Milosevic to cruel and inhuman treatment by denying him, a sick man whose life was in danger for years, the medical care he needed. And by not giving him the support that was necessary, as was evident by the state of his health for years. The tribunal's officials rely on diplomatic immunity to protect themselves from Dutch criminal prosecution, but immunity does not apply when acts contrary to the Convention against Torture are committed. http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smfc041106.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. N.M.P. Steijnen is a board member of The Slobodan Milosevic Freedom Center. He is Slobodan Milosevic’s attorney before the Dutch and International Courts. 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