Irrelevant Cross Examination Lengthens Trial, Harms Accused

Between the Prosecution’s time-saving use of written statements in lieu of oral evidence and Slobodan Milosevic’s often irrelevant cross examination, voices of survivors and victims are becoming muted if not altogether lost in this war crimes trial. Granted, the Prosecution’s main focus must be on the acts and conduct of the Accused, producing evidence to enable the court to decide whether his acts constituted war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Granted also that the trial cannot go on forever and, though some crime base evidence must be presented, the vast majority of such evidence will never make its way into the courtroom due to time limitations and the nature of this war crimes trial, where a head of state is being tried for the crimes his policies allegedly wrought in three wars over a decade. Granted also that the Accused is representing himself and has not been trained in what is sometimes called “the art of cross examination.” Despite all these realities, or perhaps because of them, the public has only superficial access to the voices of the victims, whose suffering is the reason for the Tribunal’s existence.

The testimony of witness B-1115, a retired police officer from Doboj, provides a poignant illustration. His testimony was given under Rule 92 bis, which allows cumulative evidence to be submitted in the form of a sworn written statement. In court, the witness takes an oath to tell the truth, the Prosecutor reads a brief five minute summary of his statement, and the Accused is given an hour to cross examine him. In this process, very little of the reality of the witness’s experience comes through.

After B-1115 took the oath, Prosecutor Camille Bibles summarized his statement as follows. In early May 1992, Bosnian Serb forces assisted by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) took control of the municipality of Doboj and cut off communication to the outside. By May 9, villagers in Gornja Grapska realized they were going to be attacked. An effort was made to evacuate women, children and the elderly, but the villagers were turned back by neighbors in a Serb village. On May 10, soldiers wearing JNA camouflage and armed with professional JNA weapons attacked the village. Thirty-four civilians, including women and children, were killed in the shelling that lasted throughout the day. When the infantry attacked at 5 p.m., it met little resistance from the Muslim villagers. After the villagers were forcibly removed, men were separated from the women and children. The men were taken to detention facilities.

B-1115 was detained with other Muslim men in a warehouse in Bare for a week. The men were treated like cattle, kicked and beaten. Conditions in the five hangars, where 1200 men were kept, were cruel. On May 18, the witness and 27 other Muslim men were taken to Spreca prison in Doboj where he stayed until February 9, 1993. They were told they were in a Serbian state and could be treated any way their captors wanted. They were beaten, humiliated, and killed. About 5000 men passed through the Spreca prison, coming and going daily, in the time B-1115 was there. Prisoners were taken out at night and never seen again. The worst part for the witness was the psychological anxiety, wondering whether he would be next. B-1115 also engaged in forced labor, including burying bodies and pillaging houses in villages from which residents had been forced out. In these villages, he saw the corpses of mostly elderly people and those who could not run away.

While performing forced labor at the army barracks in Doboj, the witness recognized the commander as a regular JNA officer. Among the paramilitaries were White Eagles, Kninjas, and Martic’s police. He saw 300 local Serbs being trained by Montenegrin Red Berets. When units returned from an unsuccessful battle, they beat the detainees. As he was cleaning areas where detainees were held, he found blood and teeth. Officers witnessed and allowed the beatings.

B-1115 was transferred to Banja Luka and told he was being taken to be judged. There, he was interrogated about his politics, forced to stand 12 hours at a time without speaking. On May 16, 1993 he was transferred to Doboj prison where he worked at a local factory. On October 1, he was exchanged. During his detention, he lost 25 kilos and he still suffers from the physical consequences.

The above is not a verbatim rendering of the Prosecutor’s summary, but follows the general outline. Milosevic’s cross examination did not help much to flesh out the witness’s experiences. [See companion article on problems with Milosevic’s cross examination] B-1115’s written statement, however, provides an emotionally nuanced description of his experiences. It is the story the public should hear. While it is too lengthy to reproduce here, the following selection shows what the public misses in the courtroom.

Relating what happened after Serb forces took over his village:
“That evening when I was taken out of my house, I saw the body of a 5 year old child, with his eyes still open. That was very difficult for me. 24 persons remained in the village. They were mainly the disabled, the old, and people who could not walk. I heard that these people were made to collect the dead bodies and to bury them. When I was in Prison, I was told by a Serb . . . . that about one month after the attack, these 24 people were later lined up in front of a coffee bar, and they were all shot and killed . . . .”

At his first place of detention in the military hangars:
“A new concrete floor had been laid, which we had to sleep on. We slept sitting down as it was May, and very cold. We were never given any blankets. For the first three days we were given nothing to eat, and virtually no water. After those first three days we were given one piece of bread with a small amount of marmalade on it. That would be our meal for the next 24 hours. When they gave this to us they would abuse us verbally. Conditions there were very cruel. We had one bucket to use as a toilet amongst the 300 men in the hanger [sic]. Men were so hungry that they ate the leaves off a tree when we were allowed to go out. We were let out no more than twice in the time I was there.”

Telling of his experience at Spreca Prison:
“Most prisoners were taken out during the night. They would take 2 or 3 prisoners from a cell. After that you would never see those people again, and you never heard what happened to them. . . . Whenever people were taken away, you would wonder if the next night it would be you, who was taken away. I later spoke with a local gypsy. . . . He told me that on several occasions, JORGIC came to his house which was beside the river Bosna, and would order him to go down by the river, and push dead bodies into the river. This is what he did. He had no choice.”

The witness describes being taken with other prisoners to pillage villages that had been taken by Serb forces and cleansed. The stolen goods, which included cars, washing machines and refrigerators, were stored in a warehouse to which Serb soldiers and officers had access for their personal use.
“The villages we went to were those which had been attacked and cleansed. At those villages I saw a lot of civilian people who had been killed. Most of them were older women, and people who could not run away. On one occasion, in the village of Garevac, a Croat village, I entered one house and saw an old man with a white beard sitting on a chair. I thought this person was drunk. When I walked to him, I saw that he had been slaughtered. His throat had been cut. I saw many people who had been killed in these villages.”

B-1115 and other prisoners were taken to bury dead bodies. He describes one occasion when two men in a white Golf car stopped when they were burying the last person.
“Two men came over to us, playing with their pistols. They asked our guard if we were Balijas [derogatory term for Muslims] or Croats. He didn’t answer. They came over to me and Pejo . . ., a Croat. One of them asked Pejo where he was from and Pejo told him he was from Odzak. They then asked him his name, and when he told them, one of these men then shot him in the forehead. Pejo died immediately. They then ordered us to pour some petrol on Pejo and the body of the person we were burying. We had to stand there and watch their bodies burn.”

B-1115’s story is just one of millions. It is one of thousands in his municipality alone. Obviously, all the stories cannot be told in a trial. The prosecutor must select a representative sample of crime sites and then a few individual stories which corroborate one another and reflect the other, untold stories. Time constraints have reduced the number of crime sites and the number of victims the court will hear from. The view the public has access to is even more limited.

Perhaps it is the nature of war crimes trials of this magnitude, where the focus is on those with command responsibility rather than on the killers and torturers they set loose. Whatever the reason, it is important to keep in mind that one criminal trial cannot tell the whole story of a war. Nor is it an adequate forum for all those who have been victimized (as much as it may be a necessary one). And, in the Milosevic trial, what the public sees is not a complete picture of what is presented to the Court.