Milosevic Had Notice of Crimes in Kosovo: Eight witnesses testify to informing the Accused of crimes

Despite limited and troublesome insider witnesses, the prosecution continues to build its case against Slobodan Milosevic piece by painful piece. A former senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, Fred Abrahams, strengthened a key piece when he testified about putting Milosevic and other government officials on notice of human rights abuses and violations of humanitarian law in Kosovo, from 1996 to 2000.

During that period, Mr. Abrahams documented serious and widespread human rights abuses in Kosovo, mainly committed by Serbian and Yugoslav forces against ethnic Albanian civilians. Reports of these findings were sent to Yugoslav and Serbian authorities, including directly to the accused--by post, fax and email. In addition, at least one report, 'A Week of Terror in Drenica,' was widely reported in the media, including the Serbian press. Mr. Abrahams testified that he made numerous attempts to meet with government officials, as well as sending them personal correspondence. In all but one or two instances, neither Human Rights Watch nor Mr. Abrahams received any response.

Nevertheless, the widespread distribution of at least a half dozen detailed and well-documented reports, supports the prosecution's claim that, at a minimum, Milosevic knew about humanitarian law violations and human rights abuses against Kosovo Albanians over a period of years, yet did nothing to investigate or stop it. Under the prosecution's theory of command responsibility, 'A superior is responsible for the criminal acts of his subordinates if he knew or had reason to know that his subordinates were about to commit such acts or had done so, and the superior failed to take the necessary and reasonable measures to prevent such acts or to punish the perpetrators.' (Article 7(3) of the Statute of the Tribunal; paragraph 19 of the Second Amended Indictment)

Mr. Abrahams' testimony on this point is added to that of Lord Paddy Ashdown, Ibrahim Rugova, Baton Haxhiu, Ratomir Tanic, Colonel Richard Ciaglinski and General Karol Drewienskiewicz. Lord Ashdown's testimony was the strongest so far, as he testified to personal conversations he had with the accused in which he apprised him of human rights violations as well as warned him of his responsibility to stop them. While there is no proof that Milosevic read or knew about any of the half dozen or so Human Rights Watch reports, that they were sent to him and his subordinates via mail, fax and email and the broad publicity at least one of them received raises a strong (albeit nonlegal) presumption that government officials, including Milosevic, did in fact receive them and were at least generally aware of their content.

Without a high-level insider witness, the prosecution must painstakingly build its case from evidence that tends to show the accused must have known of wide scale civilian property destruction, beatings, killings and deportations and that any other conception is not believable. The other avenue of proving Milosevic's responsibility allowed by Tribunal rules is to show a pattern of such crimes that leads one inexorably to the conclusion that they had to be part of an overall strategy and plan. Though lacking the drama of an insider who can say, 'Yes, we knew about the abuses; they were part of our strategy to cleanse Kosovo of Albanians; I was present with Milosevic when he gave the orders,' substantial evidence which leads to no other logical conclusion will also sustain a conviction.