Posted on 06/19/2002 9:44:01 PM PDT by duckln
Jun. 19, 01:17 EDT Serbs promise crucial evidence against Milosevic Document purportedly put security services under Yugoslav leader's control BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) — Yugoslavia's western-backed government will unseal a secret document from Slobodan Milosevic's era that reportedly placed his country's security troops directly under the former president's command, the justice minister said today.
Once unsealed, the document will be handed over to the UN tribunal prosecutors at The Hague, Netherlands, Savo Markovic said.
For the UN court, now trying Milosevic on charges of war crimes and genocide in the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, the document could be key in its attempts to prove that the former president had command responsibility over forces who committed some of the alleged atrocities to which he is linked.
"I expect the government will remove the top secret stamp from the document," Markovic said, adding this was likely to take place at the government session Thursday.
The document, according to statements by Belgrade officials, involves a 1997 order in which Milosevic separates the state security troops from the regular police force and places those troops under his own command. This would have also allowed for their special and separate financing.
The former Yugoslav president launched a crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic-Albanians in response to a guerrilla war in 1998. Thousands were killed and some 800,000 ethnic-Albanians fled their homes in the southern Serbian province. NATO launched an air war in 1999 to end the crackdown, forcing Milosevic's forces to withdraw.
Milosevic's legal adviser, Zdenko Tomanovic, described the secret document was "irrelevant" to the former president's indictment before The Hague tribunal.
"If it attempts to prove Milosevic commanded the security troops, then that would be an unbelievable construction, fabricated in Milosevic's absence," Tomanovic told Belgrade's B-92 radio.
Despite suggesting that the document showed Milosevic in direct command of the special forces, Markovic also downplayed its significance, saying it had "no particular legal weight," but did not elaborate.
"I've had this document in my hands and saw nothing especially new or spectacular about it," Markovic said. "I guess they (UN prosecutors) want to prove Milosevic had direct command over the troops."
Tomanovic said he suspected the "uproar over the document was meant to prod eventual insiders to come to The Hague to testify."
Insiders is a term for potential witnesses who were members of Milosevic's power pyramid and had first-hand knowledge of his decisions and policy-making.
Rade Markovic, who headed the secret police during the Kosovo war, is now jailed in Serbia, awaiting trial in a case linking him to the assassination of some of Milosevic's foes.
When visited last month at his Belgrade prison cell by The Hague prosecutors, Markovic was told he can expect to testify at the Milosevic trial, according Dusan Masic, the former security chief's lawyer.
The UN tribunal may subpoena witnesses but cannot force them to testify. Markovic in the past has said he would not appear as a witness.
It is as if someone wanted to make a big case.....
surprise, surprise sercret revelation that GWB has direct control over the FBI
their show trial is proving to be a fiasco, and now the HumWarriors are grasping at straws.
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