Endless Questioning About Boring Details? Yet documents show Milosevic support for Croatian Serbs

Trial watchers would be well-advised to stay alert through what seems to be endless questioning about boring details. As promised by lead prosecutor Geoffrey Nice in his opening statement, the case against Slobodan Milosevic will be built piece by deceptively obscure piece. While everyone anticipated the appearance of President Stjepan Mesic of Croatia on Tuesday, prosecutor Hildegard Uertz-Retzlaff meticulously led protected witness C-037, a former Croatian Serb politician, through a stack of documents which she offered into evidence.

Perhaps because the documents were tediously yet briefly described and because they were introduced through a witness who was not the author, their importance could easily have been missed. What several purported to show was Milosevic's connection with and support for Croatian Serb military activities, over which he claims to have had no control. For example, a series of three letters included one from Goran Hadzic, President of the Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK), to the President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, concerning staffing needs of the RSK army and two from the Commander of the RSK army to the FRY Minister of Defense outlining military equipment and other needs. The contents of these documents were merely touched on and, therefore, their impact cannot be fully assessed at this time. If they are what they appear to be, however, they provide an important if insufficient link between the Croatian Serb military actions and the accused, then-president of Serbia.

Milosevic objected when the witness was unable to recognize some of the documents, asserting that they should not be admitted into evidence since the witness was neither the author nor had the documents been authenticated by a court. Judge May explained that Tribunal rules allow the court to accept documents without meeting the older common law requirements that Milosevic referred to. 'As for official documents, they're admissible for what they're worth. They don't necessarily prove what happened happened.' Unless they are challenged on a specific ground, such as their fabrication, the Court will accept them and weigh them in much the way it does hearsay, i.e. a witness's testimony about what someone else said outside the courtroom.

With perhaps some amusement, Judge Robinson remarked that Milosevic's objection 'sounded so much like a lawyer from a common law jurisdiction. . . . Here, we have the very flexible practice which is closer to the system from which you come, the civil law system.' The Judge pointed out that even the common law system has overthrown its stricter rule. Obviously, Milosevic was not drawing on his own decades-old legal training. Whoever advised him on this point might also need to brush up on legal developments, at least as evidentiary rules are applied by the ICTY.

In addition to the documents, witness C-037 testified from his own knowledge about early JNA (Yugoslav Army) financial support for the local Croatian Serb territorial defense units and the police. He also noted that the JNA left military equipment with the territorial defense units when it withdrew from Croatia and that a JNA colonel remilitarized the police in Western Slavonia after local politicians demilitarized it under UN direction.

The prosecutor gave intriguing hints of testimony as she requested and was granted permission to go into private session eight times -- to protect the identity of the witness and perhaps others. On one occasion it was to discuss a meeting of the Supreme Defense Counsel. Another concerned a 1990 meeting of Croatian Serbs with Milosevic and Borisav Jovic, member of the SFRY presidency whose diary is likely to figure prominently in the trial. At least two private sessions involved intercepted telephone conversations. One addressed a matter between the witness and Vojislav Seselj, whose paramilitary units were active in the Croatia campaign.

While intriguing, this evidence remains off limits. There is no way to know how damning it was to Milosevic or whether it met the prosecution's expectations. Aside from it, however, witness C-037 gave the prosecution some of the pieces it needs to eventually draw a convincing picture of Milosevic's guilt. Though the pieces provide but a vague outline at present, it's important to remember them as the prosecution slowly, methodically adds detail and dimension to what they promise will be a complete picture of Milosevic's guilt.