The Institute for War & Peace Reporting Tribunal Update No. 378

WELCOME TO IWPR'S TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 378, October 22, 2004

MILOSEVIC FIGHTS FOR RIGHT TO REPRESENT HIMSELF Tribunal appeals chamber
hears arguments for and against allowing former Yugoslav president to
present his own defence. By Ana Uzelac in The Hague

KRAJISNIK WITNESS' HARROWING TESTIMONY Young witness describes traumatic
events that led to the deaths of his father and uncle in Serb massacre. By
Merdijana Sadovic in The Hague

HADZIHASANOVIC LAWYERS VOICE SCAPEGOAT CONCERNS Court told that former
Third Corps commander should not pay for alleged crimes of mujahedin. By
Michael Farquhar in The Hague

"NO JUSTIFICATION" FOR ORIC ATTACKS Prosecution attempting to prove that
Oric's troops led ruthless attacks on a weak Serbian peasantry. By Lauren
Etter in The Hague

BRIEFLY NOTED Compiled by the IWPR staff in The Hague

****************** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net ***************

IWPR'S NEW AFGHAN PRESS MONITOR was launched on August 31 2004 and is a
daily survey of the main stories in Afghanistan's newspapers. To access the
Afghan Press Monitor on the web, please go to:
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?afghan_apm_index.html

IWPR AFRICA REPORTS. IWPR's pilot issue of Africa Reports will be coming out
soon, focusing on human rights and good governance issues. To subscribe
visit: http://www.iwpr.net/sub_form.html

VACANCIES. IWPR is currently looking for a Financial, Business and Systems
Manager, to be based In Kabul, Afghanistan, and also a dedicated
trainer-editor to increase objective coverage of women's rights and issues
across Central Asia, the Caucasus & Afghanistan. Visit
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?top_vacancies.html for more information

TRIBUNAL LAW MADE SIMPLE. Read IWPR editor Rachel S. Taylor's informative
guide to the history and workings of the International Criminal Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia here:
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?tribunal_guide_04.html

FREE SUBSCRIPTION. Readers are urged to subscribe to IWPR's full range of
electronic publications at: http://www.iwpr.net/sub_form.html

****************** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net ***************

MILOSEVIC FIGHTS FOR RIGHT TO REPRESENT HIMSELF

Tribunal appeals chamber hears arguments for and against allowing former
Yugoslav president to present his own defence.

By Ana Uzelac in The Hague

Slobodan Milosevic made a last-ditch attempt to regain the right to defend
himself against war crimes charges at a hearing in the tribunal's appeals
chamber this week.

Meanwhile, the tribunal announced on October 22 that its highest-profile
trial would be adjourned until November 9 due to a lack of witnesses. Many
people who had agreed to testify on behalf of the former Yugoslav president
have since refused to travel to The Hague in protest at the court's decision
to appoint a lawyer against the defendant's will.

In a heated debate in front of an appeal chamber panel of five senior
judges, headed by tribunal president Theodor Meron on October 21, Milosevic
and his court-assigned counsel asked for the restoration of the defendant's
right to self-representation, invoking the fairness of trial as their
crucial argument.

But the prosecutors asked the court not to bow under the pressure of the
"irrational" defendant and advised the judges against allowing Milosevic to
set the rules under which his trial would be conducted.

"The only solution, the only one I see as just, fair, logical and reasonable
is to give me back my right to represent myself, to call witnesses, to
examine them and to lead evidence in my defence case," Milosevic told the
panel, which has the ultimate authority to rule over the manner in which his
defence would be conducted.

Opening the hearings, Milosevic's court-assigned counsel Steven Kay told the
court that he was effectively unable to properly defend his uncooperative
client. At moments, it seemed as if Kay stopped just one step short of
proposing to withdraw from the case - a move that could have potentially
disastrous consequences for the already troubled trial.

Kay also criticised the trial chamber judges for choosing to assign a lawyer
to the Milosevic case, as he said this prevented it from being conducted
properly.

The judges - whose decision was made in September - say the move was
necessitated by Milosevic's worsening health, which had slowed down the
trial and, in their view, had rendered him unable to defend himself.

The judges also expressed fear that should the trial continue in this way,
it may in fact never be concluded.

The role of the assigned counsel was offered to the then-amicus Steven Kay,
who accepted it despite his strong criticism of the judge's move. The
defendant reacted by refusing to meet with his new lawyer or discuss the
case with him in any way. As a result, Kay has been running the defence
phase of the trial with only Milosevic's opening speeches and a list of
proposed witnesses as a guide.

In the meantime, hundreds of these proposed witnesses have now refused to
testify, in protest at the chamber's decision, significantly slowing down
the trial. "We have driven ourselves into the sand," Kay told the appeal
judges on October 21, and warned them that the responsibility placed on his
shoulders has put him in an "ethically difficult position".

Kay explained that at the time when he took upon himself to defend
Milosevic, their once "cordial" relations had turned into antagonism so deep
as to make his work impossible. "I feel there is such a conflict that we are
ineffective in this trial," he said. "We are unable to say we are serving
the interests of justice."

Addressing the judges, Kay listed all the hurdles he and his legal team have
faced since taking over the case. These, he said, made it impossible for him
to put up a proper defence, thus endangering the general fairness of the
trial.

Ending an impassioned presentation, Kay warned that if the right to
represent himself was not restored to Milosevic, the trial could end up
being viewed as unfair by future generations, "They will say 'It was not his
defence. It came from a defence counsel. We haven't heard it from him'."

Milosevic is standing trial on three separate indictments, each covering the
alleged crimes committed in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during the wars in
former Yugoslavia in the Nineties. He is facing more than 60 counts of war
crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. It has taken the prosecution
two years to present the evidence in all three cases.

Ever since his arrest he has been maintaining that his trial is a political
one, aimed at covering up a western conspiracy to destroy former Yugoslavia.
His opening speech presented in August indicated that this would also be the
main line of his defence.



Throughout the hearing, the prosecution remained firm in its view that a
professional lawyer should be in charge of conducting the defence.

Prosecutors also called on appeal judges to not only uphold the trial
chamber's decision, but also to ground it on a wider basis than just
Milosevic's health problems, and include allegations of obstructionist
behaviour and health-related manipulation - arguments which the trial
chamber has not used.

The prosecutors based their claims on doctors' reports which claim that
Milosevic is not adhering to his prescribed therapy, which has been
interpreted by prosecutors as "manipulation" of his health problems in order
to stall the trial when it suits him.

They also maintained that it was up to the accused whether he would get fair
trial or not - and stressed he always could choose to cooperate with his
counsel and "air his case".

"It is entirely up to him," lead prosecutor Geoffrey Nice said. "If the
accused does not wish to call any more evidence, he doesn't have to. [In
such case there would be] no more public appearances. The case ends.

"We are effectively being threatened by this accused. To start making
particular allowances for [his] extraordinary reactions ...is to continue
what may have been an unperceived process of handing some of the authority
from the bench to [him]."

Milosevic - visibly angered, but noticeably more respectful towards the
court than usual - rebutted these claims. "The issue is not who is running
this court," he said. "The issue is: who is running my defence: me or Mr
Nice?"

The appeals chamber has said it would consider issuing orders to both sides
to supply it with additional written submissions arguing their positions,
but did not say when it planned to deliver its judgment.

During the regular Milosevic trial hearings that continued this week, the
judges heard the testimony of a Greek parliamentarian and journalist
relating to the events described in the Kosovo indictment.

Liana Kanelli, 50, was visiting Serbia during the NATO bombardment in April
1999 in her capacity as a journalist. She told the court that she had been
in the town of Aleksinac at the time when a stray NATO bomb hit a
residential area. Kanelli insisted she saw no military targets in the area
where the bomb struck.

At the time, even the official Yugoslav press agency, Tanjug, reported that
the target of the NATO attacks was local military barracks. NATO
acknowledged that one of its bombs had missed its target and caused civilian
casualties. Human Rights Watch reported at the time that 12 civilians were
killed in this incident.

Kay explained that the witness could bolster Milosevic's line of defence
presented in his opening statement in August, when the former Serb leader
claimed that Yugoslavia acted in self-defence against the NATO bombardment.

But Kanelli's testimony had little to do with the events that were unfolding
several hundred kilometres to the south, in Kosovo, which she said she never
visited.

The witness, who is a Greek parliamentarian allied with the Communist Party
and a vice-president of the International Committee for Defence of Slobodan
Milosevic, did not hide her criticism of the Hague tribunal, calling it a
"political court" and "an instrument of genocide and satanisation".

Kanelli was the only witness to testify this week, since Kay said he had to
withdraw the second witness scheduled on instructions "transmitted through
the liaison officer", whom the trial chamber has designated last summer to
ease the communication between Milosevic's legal advisors and the court.

It was the first time that Kay has spoken of any contact, however indirect,
between him and the accused.

The trial was adjourned on the morning of October 19, one and a half a days
before it was scheduled to.

Ana Uzelac is IWPR project manager in The Hague.


KRAJISNIK WITNESS' HARROWING TESTIMONY

Young witness describes traumatic events that led to the deaths of his
father and uncle in Serb massacre.

By Merdijana Sadovic in The Hague

The trial of former Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik has continued
with the emotional testimony of a young man who narrowly avoided getting
caught up in one of the biggest massacres listed in the indictment.

Elvedin Pasic told the court this week how the northern Bosnian village
where he lived was razed to the ground by Serb artillery, and described how
he was later captured by Serb soldiers while trying to flee the area with a
group of 200 Muslim and Croat fighters.

The men with him - including his father - were apparently later executed.

The massacre is one of a series of atrocities listed in the indictment
against Krajisnik, who is accused of being a driving force behind a "joint
criminal enterprise" to expel Bosnian Muslims and Croats from northwest
Bosnia.

With his highlighted hair, fashionable glasses and goatee beard, 26-year-old
Elvedin - who now lives in the United States - looked out of place in an
international criminal court. But he has already given evidence in the trial
of former Bosnian Serb leader Radoslav Brdjanin, who was recently sentenced
to 32 years in prison for crimes associated with ethnic cleansing.

When the Bosnian war erupted in the spring of 1992, the 14-year-old Elvedin
lived with his family in the prosperous Muslim village of Hrvacani in the
Kotor Varos municipality. The conflict to him seemed like a very distant
affair, unlikely to disrupt his life or the lives of his family. But during
a school break in May 1992, he and his friends saw a column of military
vehicles full of soldiers passing through the village, and sensed that
something was wrong.

"We asked our teachers what was going on, and they told us it was just a
military exercise. But military exercises I'd seen before were fun, more
like a game. This time, it was totally different," Elvedin told the court.

On June 12, two tanks and some 30 to 50 Serb soldiers positioned themselves
on a hill above Hrvacani. And that night, without any warning, the shelling
began. By dawn the whole village had been destroyed.

Elvedin and his family survived, but knew they had to leave the area before
the Serb infantry arrived.

They escaped and Elvedin's father and older brother signed up to join the
Bosnian Muslim forces fighting the Serbs, while Elvedin and his mother spent
several months travelling from one village to another, seeking shelter and
food.

In early November 1992 the last local pocket of Muslim-Croat resistance, the
village of Vecici, looked set to fall to the Serbs. And Elvedin's family
decided to try to escape to territory held by the Bosnian army in the centre
of the country.

Elvedin's mother left in a civilian convoy but his father feared that
Elvedin, who was not far off fighting age, might be picked out of a column
of refugees by Serb soldiers. So he took the boy with him and they joined
his uncle and 500 other fighters who were hoping to find a safer route
through the woods.

But the group was soon ambushed by Serb forces. In the chaos that ensued it
split in two and Elvedin and his father were left with some 200 fighters and
a dozen civilians, including five boys his age. Still under fire, they made
their way down a hill towards a river before running into a minefield.

"The leader of our group stepped on a mine and had both his legs blown off,"
Elvedin told the court, his voice shaking.

He remembers it was raining that night and his huge coat was soaked with
water. He could hardly walk, but his father kept urging him to hurry up.
Finally, Elvedin's group ran into a second ambush. This time they had no
choice but to surrender.

"We were forced to lie in the mud, face down, for two hours. Serb soldiers
were randomly picking up people and beating them. My father was lying next
to me, and they beat him too," Elvedin said.

Trucks arrived, and the women and boys from the group were ordered to stand
up and walk towards them.

"I didn't want to go, but my uncle insisted," Elvedin told the court.
"'That's the only way you'll survive,' he said. 'And don't turn back, or
they'll shoot you'."

The terrified boy took his advice. He never saw his father or uncle again.

The women and young boys were taken to a school in the Serb village of
Grabovci, where they were supposed to spend the night before joining a
convoy of Muslim and Croat refugees leaving for central Bosnia the next day.
That night Elvedin saw trucks arriving, full of men from his father's group.
They were taken to a classroom upstairs, but he was too afraid to check
whether his father and uncle were amongst them.

He said he was never able to establish exactly what had happened to them.
But a Bosnian Serb army combat report presented by the prosecution said that
a group of 200 Muslim fighters captured at Grabovci at the same day was
"brutally massacred" in revenge for the death of a Serb soldier and the
wounding of four others.

The next morning, Elvedin and others were allowed to get on a bus to take
them to Bosnian-held territory. But they first had to walk through a
corridor of local Serb civilians - "slowly, so that they could beat us with
wooden sticks and throw stones at us," Elvedin told the court, tears running
down his face.

"I was the last one to go. They beat me hard on the back and when I finally
reached the bus, a Serb woman all dressed in black grabbed a knife and said
she would kill me. I was petrified. A soldier pushed her away and threw me
into the bus."

At that point, Elvedin began to sob uncontrollably while the judges,
prosecutors and defence team stared on, visibly moved.

Finally, Judge Alphons Orie thanked the witness and wished him a safe trip
home.

"I also wish you a lot of strength, because to live with what you've been
through, you will need that strength in the future," he said.

Two more witnesses testified at the trial of Momcilo Krajisnik this week
about events in the towns of Trnovo and Kotor Varos before and after their
capture by Serb forces in 1992.

Both towns are listed among 37 Bosnian municipalities in Krajisnik's
indictment where Muslims and other non-Serbs were subject to persecution and
systematic killings, allegedly planned and commissioned by Krajisnik and
other top Bosnian Serb politicians.

Bosnian Muslim Omer Vatric testified about the heavy shelling of Trnovo,
some 20 kilometres southeast of Sarajevo, which resulted in a mass exodus of
its Muslim population in May 1992. Vatric said that on the eve of the attack
all Serbs from Trnovo suddenly left the town, only to return a few days
later after the Muslims had fled.

According to Vatric's testimony, the attack was carefully planned and its
aim was to expel the Muslims from the area.

Protected witness 144 told the court how Muslims and Croats were forced to
leave the northern Bosnian town of Kotor Varos after June 11, 1992, when
Serb forces took control of the municipality.

At that time, the witness was a member of the municipal defence council and
the Bosnian Muslim party, the SDA. He told the story of how, at one of the
council's meetings in 1992, a Croat representative suggested that members of
his community were ready to leave the town and take their belongings with
them - but asked for compensation for the houses they were planning to
leave.

The witness said this proposal angered the local president of Krajisnik's
Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, Nedeljko Djukanovic, who told the man, "You
will not be leaving when you see it fit, but when and how we [Serbs]
decide."

The witness was arrested by Serb forces in July 1992 and detained in the
Kotor Varos elementary school and later in the local prison. There he was
interrogated, beaten and tortured by members of the Bosnian Serb special
forces, before being exchanged months later.

The trial will continue next week.

Merdijana Sadovic is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.


HADZIHASANOVIC LAWYERS VOICE SCAPEGOAT CONCERNS

Court told that former Third Corps commander should not pay for alleged
crimes of mujahedin.

By Michael Farquhar in The Hague

Lawyers representing former Bosnian army general Enver Hadzihasanovic
launched their defence this week by warning that their client should not be
turned into a scapegoat.

They also presented their first witness, who discussed the Bosnian army's
command structure and spoke of the accused's attempts to maintain discipline
amongst his troops.

Hadzihasanovic and his former subordinate Amir Kubura are charged with
failing to take measures to prevent or punish war crimes committed by men
under their command during clashes with Croat forces in Central Bosnia in
1993.

It is the first case to be tried at the tribunal that is based entirely on
the notion of "command responsibility" - the idea that in wars commanders
can be held personally responsible for the crimes committed by their
subordinates, even if they did not order them.

But in his opening statement on October 18, defence counsel Stephane Bourgon
said Hadzihasanovic in fact battled in "impossible" circumstances to fulfil
his responsibilities as a general and ensure that his men acted within the
law.

The incidents listed in the indictment against Hadzihasanovic and Kubura
include the alleged murder and mistreatment of non-Muslim civilians and
fighters, and looting and destruction of homes. Hadzihasanovic is also
charged with responsibility for damage done to two Croat churches.

One key prosecution allegation is that in 1993 the two accused were in
charge of a significant number of "mujahedin" - foreign volunteers who
travelled to Bosnia to help defend the country's Muslim population. These
mujahedin are named as having been involved in a series of crimes listed in
the indictment, including severe beatings of detainees.

But Bourgon painted a different picture of the relationship between the
mujahedin and the Bosnian army from that offered by prosecutors. He claimed
the radicalised fighters, far from being an integrated part of
Hadzihasanovic's Third Corps, actually "had no links to the army" and that
their behaviour had caused problems for the defendant.

"Hadzihasanovic shouldn't pay for what the mujahedin did, simply because he
was in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the same time as [they] were," he said.

Bourgon also said the prosecution, in mounting their case against his
client, had tried to draw attention away from the context in which he was
forced to act during his time as commander of the Third Corps.

He pointed out that Bosnia was unprepared for the war that broke out in 1992
and "an army was set up with all the pitfalls and difficulties one can
imagine", including a lack of qualified personnel and a severe shortage of
weapons caused by a United Nations arms embargo.

Under the circumstances, he said, Hadzihasanovic had been working 20 hours a
day every day of the week and had "almost died of exhaustion" towards the
end of the summer of 1993.

Defence counsel attacked prosecution claims that such factors are irrelevant
to the case, saying they would have had a significant effect on the everyday
life of a commander involved in the war.

"The prosecution tried to close the debate," he said. "We will try to open
it."

Bourgon also used his opening statement to list the charges against his
client and outline how he will respond to each one individually. He plans to
show that some alleged crimes did not happen, that the perpetrators of
others were not Hadzihasanovic's subordinates, and that in some cases the
defendant simply was not aware of what had happened.

He also said he will show that in many cases either Hadzihasanovic or others
further down the command chain did in fact take measures to punish those who
had violated international law.

Proceedings on October 19 and 20 were taken up with the first witness to be
called by the defence in an effort to back up the claims made by Bourgon in
his opening statement. The first member of the Third Corps to testify before
the chamber was Zijad Caber, who led a brigade under Hadzihasanovic's
command, during the time period in question.

He told judges about the problems faced by his brigade in 1993, including a
lack of weapons and food, and friction with local Croat forces, which they
had hoped would be an ally against the Serb enemy.

The witness told the court that he had insisted that troops under his
command respected the lives and property of civilians. He said his troops
had prevented looting in villages abandoned by their Bosnian Croat
inhabitants and that "measures were taken in order to prevent anything being
done that might be a violation of the Geneva conventions".

But the witness admitted that he couldn't remember if he had received orders
relating specifically to the Geneva conventions and international law,
although he said he thought he "must have received something to that
effect".

Caber also discussed a number of documents presented to him by the defence
counsel, including orders from the Third Corps command relating to
discipline in the ranks.

When asked about the mujahedin, Caber said none had been present in his own
zone of command but recalled discussing the subject with former Third Corps'
head General Mehmed Alagic, who was originally indicted along with
Hadzihasanovic but died before the case came to trial.

He said the foreign fighters had refused to be put under Alagic's command
and recalled that the general had said they were problematic and worked by
their own rules. Caber himself described them as "a cancer that was present
in [Alagic's] zone of operations".

On October 19, judges announced their decision to allow defence counsel to
press on with part of an appeal against their decision not to acquit
Hadzihasanovic and Kubura on all charges after the prosecution closed its
case.

The judges dismissed a number of arguments in the original appeal -
including that they had failed to consider evidence favourable to the
defence and that three of the charges listed in the indictment are
ambiguously worded and invalid.

But they said Bourgon and his colleagues are free to go to the appeals
chamber with concerns that the same three charges do not come under the
jurisdiction of the tribunal. In the meantime, the defence will continue to
call witnesses.

Michael Farquhar is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.


"NO JUSTIFICATION" FOR ORIC ATTACKS

Prosecution attempting to prove that Oric's troops led ruthless attacks on a
weak Serbian peasantry.

By Lauren Etter in The Hague

Judges trying Naser Oric, the former commander of Bosnian Muslim forces in
Srebrenica, heard testimonies about two separate attacks on Serb villages in
the area, and of the conditions in detention areas allegedly run by Oric's
subordinates.

Their testimonies, which started on October 15 and continued throughout this
week, have been the first opportunity for the prosecution to start
presenting the facts of their case.

Prosecutors spent the first days of the trial trying to dispel claims by the
defence that the documents they submitted for this case were false, often
forged. (See: Doubts Cast on Oric Evidence, TU No 377, 15-Oct-04).

Oric, 37, is charged in connection with crimes allegedly committed against
Serbs by him and by soldiers under his command, and for the alleged
mistreatment and murder by his subordinates in 1992 and 1993, before
Srebrenica became a United Nations-protected safe area.

In the summer of 1995 - more than two years after the alleged crimes took
place - Bosnian Serb forces attacked the enclave, killing some 7,000 of its
Muslim men and boys in the biggest war crime on European soil since the
Second World War.

This week, the judges heard witnesses Dragan Duric and Miladin Simic talking
of Muslim attacks on the Serb village of Jezestica and nearby Kravica.

According to Duric, on August 8, 1992, men dressed in green camouflage
uniforms descended from the hills surrounding the Jezestica hamlet amidst
gunfire, driving out its Serb villagers and burning their houses.

"The people who managed to get out survived; those who stayed behind were
killed," said Duric, who testified in a live video link which distorted his
appearance.

The attack on the village of Kravica came on the morning of January 7, 1993
- Serbian Orthodox Christmas. This time the attackers were wearing white,
rather than green, uniforms to blend with the snowfall, another witness
said. But their tactics - as he described them - were similar to those
applied in Jezestica.

"There was shooting all over the place," said Miladin Simic, a small-framed
elderly man in corduroy trousers. His face remained expressionless for most
of his testimony, except for a brief moment when he cried, "They were
coming down from the hill. Those in white were walking in front."

After raining the village with gunfire the attackers proceeded to steal food
from the homes that were preparing a traditional feast for the holiday, the
witness said. He described how the Muslim women who came with the soldiers
carried goods out of the houses and away on their backs. They also noted
that Muslim soldiers stole and slaughtered their livestock.

By summoning these two villagers, the prosecution attempted to prove that
Oric's troops led ruthless attacks on a weak Serbian peasantry - at best a
rag-tag of elderly guardsmen armed with mere hunting rifles, and not members
of the Bosnian Serb armed forces or any other military and paramilitary
group, as the defence claims.

The prosecution hopes to prove that there was no military presence in these
villages, removing any military justification for the attacks Oric is
accused of.

But the defence maintains that the villagers were part of local Serb
territorial defence units, and that many were on the payroll of the Bosnian
Serb army brigade, with headquarters in the nearby township of Bratunac.

Oric's lawyer John Jones presented the trial chamber with names of those who
were conscripted and who received salaries from the military - including
Duric, who eventually conceded under cross-examination that he was indeed a
member of Serb armed forces.

The portrayal of the Serb villagers as helpless people besieged by the
Muslim army will have to be squared with the case of Miroslav Deronjic, a
Bosnian Serb official from the Bratunac municipality, who recently pleaded
guilty to cleansing the predominantly Muslim village of Glogova in April
1992.

Deronjic confirmed that Bosnian Serbs at the time were well-armed and
enjoyed the support of the Yugoslav army and of volunteer units from
neighbouring Serbia. This statement was invoked during the defence team's
cross-examination.

"This tribunal sentenced Deronjic . for attacks, burning and forcibly
displacing Muslims in Glogova. That is across the road from you. Are you
saying you didn't see tanks and artillery being moved along the road?" Jones
asked Duric, who staunchly denied any knowledge of official military
actions. "Were you not aware of intimidation and killing of Muslims in your
very municipality?"

The testimonies of the first two witnesses - especially the part about the
women grabbing the food from the Serb houses - may paradoxically play into
the hand of the defence, which is trying to show that the Muslim attacks
were legitimate and necessary to prevent the Bosnian Serb forces from
starving and shooting Srebrenica civilians to death, what they described as
"slow-motion genocide".

The defence does not deny that the attacks on the villages occurred, but
suggested they were necessitated by the mass hunger in the beleaguered
enclave. "While the Serbs were preparing a [Christmas] feast, as is their
custom, the Muslims were starving," Jones said.

Oric's defence argues that any destruction that may have been caused in
these attacks was collateral damage rather than a war crime, and deny that
the defendant had effective control over those who staged the attacks.

Aside from attacking and plundering the villages around the enclave, the
prosecution has charged Oric for his subordinates alleged cruel treatment
and murders of prisoners taken in these attacks.

On October 21, the trial chamber heard from Milenja Mitrovic, a 55-year-old
woman who was captured by Muslim troops and kept in a cell in Srebrenica for
three weeks until she was exchanged for dead Muslim soldiers. She described
her cell as cold and without electricity, noting that she "sat in the corner
petrified and crying". In spite of this, she said that the guards had
treated her well.

When she was released, her Muslim captors told her "to send greetings to her
people", she recalled.

"They told me to tell them that Srebrenica would once again be a mixed
municipality as it once had been and that they would have given us more food
had it been available."

Lauren Etter is an IWPR intern in The Hague.


BRIEFLY NOTED

Compiled by the IWPR staff in The Hague

Hague tribunal prosecutors have appealed the court's controversial July
decision to grant provisional release to the former head of Serbian security
services Jovica Stanisic and the chief of the country's notorious Red Berets
special forces, Franko "Frenki" Simatovic.

The July decision - which came amidst speculation that there was a deal
struck to negotiate the surrender of former Bosnian Serb general Ratko
Mladic to the Hague tribunal - has caused an uproar among liberals in
Serbia, who stressed that the two still wielded lots of influence back home
and could seriously interfere with the course of justice.

In the appeal, the prosecution chiefly argues that the trial chamber wrongly
found that the two would reappear for trial after their release, saying that
they never actually cooperated with the prosecution as the trial chamber
said.

The trial chamber also undervalued the seriousness of the crimes the are
alleged to have committed, which included "some of the most serious crimes
against humanity", according to the appeal.

The prosecution also says that the trial chamber may have placed too much
weight on guarantees given by the authorities in Serbia and Montenegro that
the two would appear for trial when summoned. The appeal says that Serbia
and Montenegro have "persistently failed to cooperate with the International
Tribunal for many years".

Neither can the suspects be trusted outside of their cells, say the
prosecution, noting that the trial chamber minimised the danger they may
pose to victims and witnesses. Contrary to the trial chamber's findings,
the prosecutors say that Simatovic unlawfully influenced the testimony of a
witness in the Milosevic trial.

***

Judge Theodor Meron, president of the Hague tribunal, has appointed judges
to decide whether former Bosnian Serb soldier Radovan Stankovic should be
transferred to Bosnia and Herzegovina for trial.

This is the third tribunal case to be officially considered for referral to
local courts in former Yugoslavia.

He announced that judges Alphons Orie, O-Gon Kwon and Kevin Parker will be
tasked with determining whether Stankovic should appear before a specialist
war crimes court due to be up and running in Sarajevo by January 1995.

Stankovic, who was arrested in July 2002, is charged in connection with a
Serb attack on the town of Foca and its surrounding villages in 1992.

It is alleged that following the assault on the town, homes were burnt and
many local Muslims detained. Prosecutors say female detainees were
repeatedly raped and some forced to cook and clean in Serb soldiers' houses
while being subjected to regular sexual assaults.

Stankovic is charged with four counts of violations of the laws or customs
of war and four counts of crimes against humanity, including rape and
enslavement.

Referring defendants to courts in the Balkans is a crucial part of plans to
wind down the Hague tribunal over coming years. Judges are already
considering whether to send four other Bosnian Serbs - Zeljko Mejakic,
Momcilo Gruban, Dusan Fustar and Dusko Knezevic - for trial in Sarajevo, and
whether the case of Croatian army commanders Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac
should be transferred to Zagreb.

***

The upper house of the Bosnian parliament has passed a package of laws which
will pave the way for senior war crimes trials to be carried out in the
country's domestic justice system.

A specialist war crimes court is due to begin holding trials in Sarajevo in
January 2005.

Besides amendments to the law defining how this court will function, the new
package includes provision for the transfer of cases there from the Hague
tribunal and the use of evidence from tribunal proceedings in domestic
trials. (see: Bosnia: War Crimes Trials Process Stalled, TU No 376, October
8, 2004)

The proposals were rejected by upper house representatives in late September
but have since been amended.

The amended package has also been deemed acceptable by the high
representative of international community in Bosnia.

****************** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net ****************

These weekly reports, produced since 1996, detail events and issues at the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, at The
Hague.

Tribunal Update, produced by IWPR's human rights and media training project,
seeks to contribute to regional and international understanding of the war
crimes prosecution process.

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.

The Institute for War & Peace Reporting is a London-based independent
non-profit organisation supporting regional media and democratic change.

Lancaster House, 33 Islington High Street, London N1 9LH, United Kingdom.
Tel: +44 (0)20 7713 7130 Fax: +44 (0)20 7713 7140 E-mail: info@iwpr.net

For further information on this project and other reporting services and
media programmes, visit IWPR's website: www.iwpr.net

All our reporting services are available free of charge online and via
e-mail subscription. To subscribe visit: http://www.iwpr.net/sub_form.html

To comment on output, write to letters@iwpr.net. Please include the
article(s) you are referring to and name of your organisation (if
applicable).

Editor-in-Chief: Anthony Borden; Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan; Senior
Editor: John MacLeod; Editor: Alison Freebairn; Hague Project Manager: Ana
Uzelac; Translation: Djordje Tomic, Predrag Brebanovic, and others.

The opinions expressed in Tribunal Update are those of the authors and do
not necessarily represent those of the publication or of IWPR.

ISSN 1477-7940 Copyright C 2004 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting

TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 378