Fourth Defence Witness Testifies About Kosovo

A German journalist 'embedded' with the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) during the Kosovo War testified as the fourth witness in the defence of Slobodan Milosevic. Twice he pointed out that he was not testifying for either side, however, but as an independent observer of events in Kosovo. Indeed, his testimony did not entirely favor or disfavor either party. However, his attempt to be objective led him to contradict himself on occasion.

Franz-Josef Hutsch, veteran of a 14 year military career, went to Kosovo as a journalist in September 1998. With occasional trips into Macedonia, he remained there through the war and its aftermath, mostly located in the south.

Between summer 1998 and spring 1999 when NATO bombing began, the KLA became a well-organized armed force with new weapons and thousands of recruits flooding into the province, he testified. He also said the US military contractor, MPRI, recruited and trained between 80 and 100 'Arab' officers from the mujahedin brigade that fought in the Bosnian Army. (In cross examination, however, he identified their nationalities as Bosnian Muslim, Algerian, Egyptian, Moroccan and Saudi Arabian.) Each KLA brigade was assigned one officer who was to direct forward air control (apparently in anticipation of a NATO offensive).

Hutsch faulted the KLA for 'provoking' Serb attacks against villages and civilian targets. KLA fighters, he said, would ambush a Serb patrol, then melt back into the forests and mountains. With no KLA target, Serb forces attacked villages and did so out of all proportion. (One wonders what a proportionate attack on a civilian population is.) The witness likened the KLA tactic to throwing a pebble into water, causing widening circles to radiate out from the center. The purpose, he suggested, was to create public sympathy for the Kosovo Albanians. He also testified that the KLA raised fear among the population, then told them to leave their villages to avoid a Serbian attack. When they sought to return, the KLA prevented them so that Western journalists could document a 'refugee crisis'. Hutsch called this a 'staged war.'

On the other hand, the journalist described a Serb pattern for emptying villages by surrounding them in two concentric circles (in his pebble analogy), the inner one consisting of Serbian Police (MUP) and the outer one of the Yugoslav Army (VJ). Snipers fired into a village, followed by loudspeakers telling villagers to leave. He told the Court that he did not view this as a threat to attack if villagers didn't leave. After an hour, however, Serb forces started attacking with 'a degree of hardness and escalation.'

While Hutsch believed that villagers fled or were driven from villages in the area in which he was located by Serb and KLA forces in about equal measure, he acknowledged that his view was limited. He compared his perspective to that of a small frog looking at a huge dung heap.

KLA provocations increased in 'perfidy' on the run up to and during the Rambouillet negotiations, Hutsch testified. At the same time, they increased military supplies coming from outside, distributed their troops, occupied strategic positions and reorganized structures. The flow of KLA recruits through Albania and Macedonia was 'immense' at this time. It was clear, he said, the KLA were expecting a major offensive.

At the same time, Serb forces were conducting 'winter exercises,' with artillery, armored and infantry units. All VJ leave was canceled. Tanks and troops were coming into Kosovska Mitrovica by train. Hutsch corrected the prosecutor's suggestion that these were 'exercises,' stating it was a winter offensive in which people died. They were soldiers, killed in fighting, he responded to the prosecutor's description of the VJ engaging troops in a heavy-handed way, but then added, there were also attacks on civilians. Nevertheless, he insisted Serb forces were not preparing for a broader conflict. They had given up their position of strength (apparently, he refers here to the October agreement between Milosevic and Holbrooke to forestall NATO attacks at that time) and were merely reclaiming it. Though he didn't say so, it violated the October agreement, to which the KLA were not a party.

Under cross examination, Hutsch agreed with Nice that Serbian MUP forces systematically collected and destroyed identification from Kosovar Albanian refugees and that police could not have done that without orders. He witnessed violations of Albanian civil rights by Serbian police, particularly at checkpoints. He also admitted seeing a convoy of 5000 refugees from Orahovac being shepherded by Serbian forces. Though he didn't know the reason for their flight or displacement, he witnessed Serb civilians throw tomatoes and insults at them. On several occasions he witnessed looting by Serbian forces, as well as seeing houses and villages burning.

On direct examination, he spoke of interviewing Kosovo Albanian refugees in Macedonia. While testifying that people had 'seen unthinkable things' and endured 'unspeakable suffering,' he also said it was a different situation than Bosnia. The only example he provided was of women volunteering and selling stories of rape to journalists in Macedonia, while women were reluctant to speak of rape at all in Bosnia. He did not say whether anyone directly approached him with such a proposal.

On cross examination, Nice asked if he would make a distinction between the rigorous interviews conducted by the OSCE and Human Rights Watch of thousands of refugees and his own selective interviews of a few. In response, Hutsch sought to prove he was not biased. 'I have to clarify one point. On question from defence counsel, I described Velika Krusa (under attack by paramilitaries). I could smell the blood. I saw skulls. I saw children which [sic] had been cut up and hung up, I saw burned remains of bodies in almost every house. I emphasize again I am not an instrument of one party.' When asked about the incident on direct examination, he described none of this.

Hutsch also testified about visiting Racak the day after the killings of 45 Kosovo Albanians. He accompanied Ambassador William Walker, Kosovo Verification Mission monitors and journalists, arriving about noon on Saturday, January 16, 1999. While he described seeing bodies, some horribly mutilated, strewn along a dry river bed, he also criticized Walker for not taking action to protect the crime scene. Journalists moved bodies without protest from Walker. He also criticized Walker's characterization of the scene as a massacre without waiting for further investigation, though he himself described some of the bodies as dreadfully mutilated, including that of an older Albanian man wearing a traditional hat who had the front of his head shot away, causing the back of it to explode. The men were in their late forties and early fifties, clearly not KLA recruits, he said. They wore no military clothing or insignia. Under cross examination, he agreed that bullet wounds in the bodies matched holes in the clothing. He also agreed that the attack could have followed the concentric circle pattern used by Serb forces that he described earlier. He was surprised to find so few spent cartridges, but also said that some journalists took them as souvenirs.

The final piece of testimony Hutsch provided came from his March 1996 interview with Bosnian Serb Army General Ratko Mladic. When defence counsel Steven Kay asked where the interview took place, the witness rather surprisingly responded, 'In Sarajevo, where he is today.' Unfortunately, Kay did not ask for more information.

In response to Hutsch's question about Srebrenica, Mladic said the Eastern Bosnian enclaves had to fall to enable a peace plan for Bosnia. He apparently didn't explain further that this was necessary for the Bosnian Serbs to have uninterrupted contiguous territory. When asked to what extent he might have had instructions from Belgrade, Mladic replied he had not received orders from Belgrade. His contact was (Radovan) Karadzic. He went on to say he would not accept any orders from Belgrade. On cross examination, Hutsch said he had not asked Mladic about whether he had had contacts with Milosevic.

The Accused sat quietly and attentively through Hutsch's testimony, interrupting only a few times to complain about Kay's cross examination (which he said justified his right to represent himself) or the witness's testimony. Presiding Judge Patrick Robinson once again advised him that he could put supplementary questions to the witness, following defence counsel. When he objected that all he wanted was to present arguments, Judge Robinson admonished that he could ask questions, not present arguments. 'I don't wish to use scraps of my rights,' Milsoevic protested. At which point, the Judge turned to Nice for cross examination.

Nice will complete cross examination tomorrow.