WELCOME TO IWPRS ICTY - TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 579, November 28, 2008 TRANSCRIPTS OF MILOSEVIC CONVERSATIONS AUCTIONED Controversial documents are sold on Serbian internet auction site. By Zoran Glavonjic in Belgrade
COURTSIDE: COURT HEARS OF ALLEGED BID TO DISCREDIT SESELJ Witness says the late Zoran Djindjic instructed him to give statement against accused to tribunal prosecutors. By Simon Jennings in The Hague WITNESS SAYS BELGRADE SENT ARMY TO SARAJEVO He claims special unit came to capital to transport bodies of dead Yugoslav army soldiers home. By Rachel Irwin in The Hague GOTOVINA LINK TO MILITARY POLICE EXAMINED Defence contest report by expert witness that general was in charge of force supposed to act on reports of atrocities. By Katharina Goetze in London BRIEFLY NOTED: HAGUE PROSECUTOR REPORTEDLY SET TO PRAISE BELGRADE Belgrade media say leaked report commends Serbia for substantial progress in cooperation with tribunal. By Aleksandar Roknic in Belgrade **** IWPR RESOURCES ****************************************************************** 2008 WINNERS OF THE KURT SCHORK AWARDS ANNOUNCED: http://iwpr.net/kurtschork INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE/ICTY PROGRAMME HOME: http://iwpr.net/icty IWPR COMMENT: http://iwpr.net/comment **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** TRIBUNAL UPDATE RSS: http://www.iwpr.net/en/tri/rss.xml RECEIVE FROM IWPR: Readers are urged to subscribe to IWPR's full range of free electronic publications at: http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=henh&s=s&m=p GIVE TO IWPR: IWPR is wholly dependent upon grants and donations. For more information about how you can support IWPR go to: http://www.iwpr.net/donate.html **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** TRANSCRIPTS OF MILOSEVIC CONVERSATIONS AUCTIONED Controversial documents are sold on Serbian internet auction site. By Zoran Glavonjic in Belgrade Transcripts of phone calls allegedly made by late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic were sold in an internet auction for around 200 euro this month, despite questions over their authenticity. The phone conversations appear to have been recorded between 1995 and 1997, and if genuine, include accounts of conversations between Milosevic and his circle, as well as with world leaders. The transcripts were offered on Serbian website Limundo with a starting price of 500 dinars (about six euro) from a seller identified as Aleksandra Muric. The seller, who received over 50 offers in the few days of the auction, was reluctant to talk to journalists. The seller was not willing to tell journalists how she came to be in possession of the transcripts. All she would say is that they were of authentic phone conversations recorded by the Croatian intelligence services while Milosevic was staying in his hunting lodge in the town of Karadjordjevo, close to the Croatian border. >From the end of 1995 to May 1998, the Croats reportedly tapped the phone of >Milosevic, recording more than 700 telephone conversations that he made during >his stay in the northern Serbian town. He was apparently unaware that all of >his phone conversations were being recorded. In 2002, alleged excerpts of these were sensationally revealed in Zagreb weekly Globus. The day they were published, Croatia's Office for National Security demanded an investigation into how the tapes were leaked and who removed the top secret tag from the material. (More details on the transcripts can be found in IWPR report from February 2002, Milosevics Personality Disorder http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=hen&s=o&o=p=bcr&l=EN&s=f&o=250605.) Jelena Smiljkovic, administrator of the Limundo website on which the latest documents were sold, said that significant numbers of people expressed interest in them. People wanted to see what this was about, she said. One of the transcripts was apparently of Milosevic's conversation with Serbian officials in which he gave clear instructions on how they should act against certain opposition figures in Serbia. Smiljkovic said that while she had not checked their authenticity, she believed them to be genuine copies of the original documents. Milos Vasic, a reporter with Belgrade weekly Vreme, which has already published parts of the leaked Karadjordjevo conversations, also told IWPR he believed this to be the case. He said that despite warnings issued by his security advisers, Milosevic regularly used an unprotected phone line in the lodge when talking to his associates and family members. According to Vasic, that was not very smart, since Karadjordjevo is just 15 kilometres from the Croatian border, where a station with a high-tech US-made device for intercepting phone calls was set up by the Croatian secret services. Of course, they intercepted and recorded all Milosevics phone conversations. I had an opportunity to hear several of those recordings and the audio quality was perfect, said Vasic, who did not reveal how he came into possession of these. Its quite possible that one of the persons manning that station kept a copy of these conversations for himself with the intention of selling them one day. I believe the transcripts that were auctioned are authentic, he said. Among those people said to be featured in the recently sold documents are members of Milosevics family, and his party colleagues Milan Milutinovic, Goran Milinovic, Zoran Lilic, Zivadin Jovanovic and Uros Suvakovic. Hadzi Dragan Antic, former editor of the important pro-Milosevic daily Politika and a close friend of the Milosevic family, who apparently featured in a transcript, was dismissive of them. Im not worried. As far as I'm concerned, they can publish it all, he told IWPR. We dont even know whether the transcripts are authentic, although, personally, I have no problem with that. I just dont understand what the purpose of auctioning these transcripts was. Prominent Belgrade lawyer Rajko Danilovic said the contents of the transcripts with titles such as Troubles over Radovan Karadzic, Serbs are not Kurds, and Plot against Serbia did not interest him at all. That is not even history any more, nobody's interested in that. These transcripts have been so over-used that theyve lost all their value and are now being sold for peanuts, he said. Zoran Glavonjic is an RFE reporter and IWPR contributor in Belgrade. COURTSIDE: COURT HEARS OF ALLEGED BID TO DISCREDIT SESELJ Witness says the late Zoran Djindjic instructed him to give statement against accused to tribunal prosecutors. By Simon Jennings in The Hague A witness testified that he gave a false statement to Hague tribunal investigators after he was told by then Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic to undermine Vojislav Seselj politically. Aleksandar Stefanovic told the Hague tribunal this week that Djindjic told him to compromise the leader of the Serbian Radical Party, SRS, by giving a statement to the Office of the Prosecution, OTP, in 2003. [Djindjic] said go and discredit him politically, former SRS member Stefanovic told judges via video link from the OTP, premises in Belgrade. That was a task assigned to me that I should say something bad about [Seselj]. Seselj is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for murders, persecutions and torture carried out between August 1991 and September 1993 in an effort to expel the non-Serb population from parts of Croatia and Bosnia. According to the indictment, Seseljs bid to create a Greater Serbia was part of a joint criminal enterprise which involved senior figures in the Serbian regime, including late president Slobodan Milosevic. But Stefanovic who helped set up the SRS in the early 1990s and served as its secretary-general before parting company with Seselj in 1996 this week described the defendant as a very decent man, telling judges that he did not commit any crimes. Stefanovic came to testify following a summons by judges to appear as a witness before the court. He explained how he was allegedly approached by Djindjic, who came to power in January 2001 and was assassinated in Belgrade two years later. [Djindjic] kept saying the Serbian Radical Party was upsetting the fledgling democracy in Serbia, said Stefanovic, adding that the order to give a statement to undermine Seselj had also come from then chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte. He said that he was assured by both Djindjic and Del Ponte that he would never have to testify in The Hague itself so as not to threaten his own political career. Seselj has claimed previously that his Hague trial is politically motivated, basing his argument on an extract from a book published by Del Ponte in April this year. This describes how in February 2003, Djindjic reportedly told the former chief prosecutor to take Seselj to The Hague and not allow him to return. However, prosecutors have shown that the indictment against Seselj which is dated February 14, 2003 was confirmed at the tribunal before any such conversation took place. Stefanovic said this week that he knew that Seselj was wanted in The Hague as far back as 2002. The witness also claimed under oath that he disagreed with much of the statement he gave in February 2003 and confirmed in 2006. This had supported many of the prosecutions allegations, in particular that the SRS had started recruiting volunteers in May 1991 in order to send them to the front line on behalf of the Belgrade-controlled Yugoslav army, JNA. The prosecution alleges that, as leader of the SRS, Seselj actively recruited volunteers who went on to commit the persecutions and killings of non-Serbs with which he is now charged. The witness had also described Seselj as a greedy man who was more interested in money than politics or even his own family. However, in his testimony this week, Stefanovic went back on those allegations. There was no recruitment [of volunteers] by the Serbian Radical Party and I say that with full responsibility, he said. Stefanovic also said this week that the SRS war staff was in fact a humanitarian organisation which helped refugees caught up in the war. It was called the war staff, but its function was not that, he said. It was to feed people, to lodge people. The prosecution alleges that the volunteers viewed Seselj as their supreme commander and that it was under his direction that they fought to extend Serbian territory into Croatia and Bosnia and committed crimes while doing so. However, Stefanovic said the SRS was only assisting volunteers who wanted to help fellow Serbs on the front line. Seselj did not influence anybody and prevail upon them to go to the front, he told judges. The party would transport these people to the JNA barracks. The partys role over them probably ceased at that point. [Volunteers] were mostly under the control of the army. The witness also said that the volunteers did not commit any crimes. During Seseljs cross-examination, Stefanovic further contradicted his original statements. Stefanovic denied that as president of the SRS, Seselj was motivated by money. I always said how reticent you were and how you did not like spending money, he said. After these apparent contradictions, Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti warned the witness that he could be charged with perjury if he was not telling the truth. The trial has already seen one witness convicted of contempt of court for refusing to testify. Prosecutors have also tried to bring contempt proceedings against Seselj for allegedly revealing the names of protected witnesses a charge the accused rejects. Stefanovic went on to deny that Seselj had excellent relations with Slobodan Milosevic. The prosecution alleges that Seselj cooperated with Milosevic from August 1991, but Stefanovic said he thought Seselj only met Milosevic for the first time in April 1992. Asked by Judge Antonetti to be more specific, Stefanovic referred to his own meeting with Milosevic in June 1992 and said Seselj had already met him several months before. Not for the first time during the trial, Seselj sought to distance himself from Milosevic, claiming that he had been in prison three times under his presidency. Although judges were undecided as to whether to admit Stefanovics original statement into evidence this week, they asked for it to be filed by the court pending their decision at the end of the trial. Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague. WITNESS SAYS BELGRADE SENT ARMY TO SARAJEVO He claims special unit came to capital to transport bodies of dead Yugoslav army soldiers home. By Rachel Irwin in The Hague A former senior officer in the Yugoslav Army, VJ, testified this week that orders sending him to Sarajevo during the Bosnian war could only have come from the defendant, ex-Yugoslav army chief Momcilo Perisic. The witness, General Borivoje Tesic, told the Hague tribunal that his unit had pushed into a suburb of Sarajevo in December 1993 following orders passed on from his commander Miodrag Panic. After wondering aloud whether Panic would have had the authority to send VJ troops into independent Bosnia, prosecutor Ann Sutherland asked Tesic specifically who would have issued the original order. I suppose it would have come from the general staff, replied Tesic. And who was the highest-ranking officer? asked Sutherland. The chief of the general staff was General Perisic, said the witness. Tesics testimony supported the prosecutions assertion that the VJ headed by Perisic was active in Sarajevo during the 44-month siege of the city. Prosecutors allege that the accused secretly provided officers, weapons, fuel and logistical assistance to Bosnian Serb forces during relentless shelling and sniper attacks that killed thousands of civilians. Perisic, head of the VJ from 1993 to 1998, is charged with 13 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war, including the aiding and abetting of murder and inhumane attacks against civilians from 1993 to 1995 during the siege of Sarajevo and shelling of Zagreb, and in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. According to the indictment, Perisic allegedly acted in secret, since VJ military involvement in the Bosnian and Croatian conflicts was in breach of United Nations Security Council resolutions, and because such assistance was being used in the commission of crimes on civilians. The defendant is also accused of setting up special personnel centres to disguise the provision and payment of VJ officers stationed in Bosnia and Croatia. Tesic was an operations officer in the VJ Guards Brigade special unit at the end of 1993, when Sarajevo was under siege by the Bosnian Serbs. He told the Hague tribunal that the purpose of the December 30, 1993, mission to the Sarajevo suburb of Vogosca was to help pull out the 72nd special brigade of the VJ from the area and transport eight dead soldiers back to Belgrade. The prosecutor questioned Tesic about the war diary kept by the Guards Brigade and any contact the unit had with VJ headquarters in Belgrade during the Vogosca mission. We sent daily reports [to Belgrade] in the morning hours and evening hours, said Tesic. He added that the unit was duty bound to record all operations minute by minute in the war diary, and that he contributed to the documentation himself. Was it protocol for this information to be passed further up the chain of command? asked Sutherland. I suppose so, yes, said Tesic, who appeared calm and solemn during questioning. In the course of his testimony, he also confirmed the existence of snipers in his unit at the time of the Vogosca mission, and said that his unit probably trained them. Sutherland wondered if it was normal for a short mission to employ 120 men and an abundance of heavy, armoured equipment. We found [the tanks] there [in Vogosca], answered Tesic. The rest of the weaponry was normally in possession of the army. He also said that all of the VJ soldiers wore their own uniforms during the mission, and claimed he never heard of any orders to the contrary. Were you ordered to remove the insignia of the VJ? asked Sutherland. I dont know, replied Tesic. I dont remember if I even wore insignia. Nearly all of the witnesss testimony for the prosecution and defence was given in closed session, due to the confidential nature of the various documents discussed. The trial continues next week. Rachel Irwin is an IWPR reporter in The Hague. GOTOVINA LINK TO MILITARY POLICE EXAMINED Defence contest report by expert witness that general was in charge of force supposed to act on reports of atrocities. By Katharina Goetze in London Lawyers for Ante Gotovina this week denied that military police tasked with preventing and investigating war crimes were under the generals command during a Croatian military offensive in the summer of 1995. Defence counsel Luka Misetic was contesting a report written by Belgian military expert Reynaud Theunens which concluded that Gotovina was in charge of military police units that were supposed to act on reports of atrocities. Prosecutors are trying to show that the accused failed to identify and punish the perpetrators of war crimes committed during Operation Storm. Gotovina commanded the Split Military District of the Croatian Army, HV, during the operation, which was launched by Croatia to take back the Serb-held Krajina region, and during which up to 200,000 Serbs were allegedly forced to flee. He is charged along with two other former senior generals, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, with orchestrating the permanent removal of Serbs from Croatia between July and September 1995. The indictment accuses the three men of presiding over deportation and forcible transfer, destruction and burning of Serb homes and businesses, plunder and looting of public or private Serb property; murder [and] other inhumane acts. According to the prosecution, Croatia's right to reintegrate Krajina within its internationally recognised borders is not disputed. But prosecutors condemn the tactics used which they have alleged left behind a scarred wasteland of destroyed villages and homes. In their cross-examination of Theunens this week, Gotovinas lawyer produced a document dated August 16 1995 to demonstrate that the military police were under the command of military police chief Mate Lausic, rather than Gotovina. The document ordered that military police units should report to the police administration overseen by Lausic, rather than the district command headed by the accused. Yet Theunens replied that this was an irregular situation in which a special arrangement had been made, and maintained that it did not affect the formal chain of command. When asked who commanded the 72nd Military Police Battalion, he said it was subordinate to both Gotovina and Lausic. However, he also emphasised that it was a unit of the Split Military District, which was commanded by Gotovina. Theunens went on to explain that Gotovina was in control of the operational chain of command and gave orders to the military police. Lausic, meanwhile, controlled the professional chain, implementing these orders. Gotovinas defence team also set out to show that the military police under the command of its chief Lausic were responsible for preventing all offences committed during the war, including war crimes. It presented the court with a statement in which Gojko Susak, the then Croatian defence minister, seemed to confirm this. Yet when questioned, Theunens replied that it was the responsibility of a military commander to enforce discipline among his troops. Only when he fails is the military police called upon, he said. The expert witness said he thought that the defence was trying to depict the role of the military police as one of a civilian police force. Obviously, if in civilian life there is a problem between people, you call the police and they solve it. In the military, it is first through the chain of command, whereby the responsibility of commanders at all command levels is to maintain discipline, he said. The defence then tried to show that Gotovina had no knowledge of war crimes and so could not have prevented them. Theunens conceded that he had not seen any documents to prove that the accused had been told about murders committed by Croatian soldiers. However, he insisted that Gotovina might have obtained such information orally. The witness also maintained that it was not only an issue of receiving the information, but also of informing himself. So your position is, if General Gotovina had notice, he should have acted, and if he didn't have notice, he should have acted? asked Misetic. My conclusion is that the commander has to be familiar with the situation in the zone of his responsibility. That does not only apply to the enemy situation, but also the situation of his own forces, replied the expert. The trial continues next week. Katharina Goetze is an IWPR reporter in London. BRIEFLY NOTED: HAGUE PROSECUTOR REPORTEDLY SET TO PRAISE BELGRADE Belgrade media say leaked report commends Serbia for substantial progress in cooperation with tribunal. By Aleksandar Roknic in Belgrade Belgrade could be a step closer to European integration next month as a result of an allegedly positive report on its cooperation with international justice said to have been leaked to Serbian media this week. In the three-page report which seems to be written by Serge Brammertz, the Hague tribunal chief prosecutor reportedly said that Serbia had made substantial progress in its cooperation with his office. Brammertz is set to present his conclusions on Belgrades cooperation to the United Nations Security Council, UNSC, on December 12. While a positive assessment from the prosecutor is crucial to Serbias hopes of one day joining the European Union, observers say the country cannot make real strides towards accession until authorities hand over the remaining two fugitives Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic. In April, Belgrade signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, SAA - the first step towards full EU membership for Serbia. However, the Netherlands, with the support of Belgium, is insisting that the fugitives be delivered before the agreement is implemented. Most other members, meanwhile, would like it to go ahead as a gesture of good will towards Serbia, even without the fugitives in the dock. According to Serbian media this week, Brammertz said that during a visit to Serbia earlier in the month, the authorities had presented serious operational plans for capturing the two men. The prosecutor allegedly stated in the report that state agencies tasked with tracking down the fugitives had increased their efforts and were currently conducting more active and widespread searches. Planning and coordination between different security services, which were problematic in the past, have improved, he is reported to have said. According to articles on the leaked report, Brammertz also wrote that Serbias National Council for Cooperation with the Tribunal had played a key role in providing documents. Some progress has also been achieved in obtaining access to state security agency archives, the Serbian media quote him as saying. In addition, the chief prosecutor is reported to have said there was serious concern about alleged threats being made to witnesses, some of whom had cancelled their testimony. The Belgrade press says Brammertz wants the Serbian authorities to create an atmosphere that would facilitate the appearance of witnesses in ongoing and future trials. This week, Olga Kavran, spokeswoman for the tribunals Office of the Prosecutor, OTP, could not confirm whether the alleged leaked document, reported in the Serbian media, was authentic. She told IWPR that Brammertzs report had been sent to the UN and it was up to them to decide when to release it. She added that she expected this to happen in the next two weeks, ahead of Brammertzs trip to New York. Aleksandar Roknic is an IWPR-trained reporter in Belgrade. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** ICTY - TRIBUNAL UPDATE, which has been running since 1996, details events and issues at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, in The Hague. These weekly reports, produced by IWPR's human rights and media training project, seek to contribute to regional and international understanding of the war crimes prosecution process. The opinions expressed in ICTY - Tribunal Update are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of IWPR. ICTY - Tribunal Update is supported by the European Commission, the Dutch Ministry for Development and Cooperation, the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and other funders. IWPR also acknowledges general support from the Ford Foundation. ICTY - TRIBUNAL UPDATE: Editor-in-Chief: Anthony Borden; Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan; Senior Editor: John MacLeod; Editor: Caroline Tosh; Project Manager: Merdijana Sadovic; Translation: Predrag Brebanovic, and others. IWPR PROJECT DEVELOPMENT AND SUPPORT: Executive Director: Anthony Borden; Strategy & Assessment Director: Alan Davis; Chief Programme Officer: Mike Day. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** IWPR is an international network of four organisations which are governed by boards of senior journalists, peace-building experts, regional specialists and business professionals. IWPR builds democracy at the frontlines of conflict and change through the power of professional journalism. IWPR programmes provide intensive hands-on training, extensive reporting and publishing, and ambitious initiatives to build the capacity of local media. Supporting peace-building, development and the rule of law, IWPR gives responsible local media a voice. IWPR - Africa, P.O. Box 3317, Johannesburg 2121 Tel: +2 711 268 6077 IWPR - Europe, 48 Grays Inn Road, London WC1X 8LT, UK Tel: +44 20 7831 1030 IWPR United States, 1616 H. Street, Washington, DC 20006, United States Tel: +1 202 449 7663 Stichting IWPR Nederland, Eisenhowerlaan 77 K, 2517 KK Den Haag, The Netherlands Tel: +31 70 338 9016 For further details on this project and other information services and media programmes, go to: www.iwpr.net ISSN 1477-7940 Copyright © 2008 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** If you wish to change your subscription details or unsubscribe please go to: http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=henh&s=s&m=p
