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Defence witness submits SANU memorandum as evidence at Milosevic trial

THE HAGUE, Dec 17 (Hina) - Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU)member Kosta Mihajlovic, a witness for the defence in the trial offormer Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague war crimestribunal, submitted to the tribunal on Friday an expert report on theeconomic development of the former Yugoslavia citing word by wordparts of the 1986 SANU Memorandum which the prosecution considers tobe the document which the 1990s Serbian leadership used as anideological pattern for the violent break-up of the former federationand territorial conquest with the aim of establishing a united Serbstate.
THE HAGUE, Dec 17 (Hina) - Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU) member Kosta Mihajlovic, a witness for the defence in the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague war crimes tribunal, submitted to the tribunal on Friday an expert report on the economic development of the former Yugoslavia citing word by word parts of the 1986 SANU Memorandum which the prosecution considers to be the document which the 1990s Serbian leadership used as an ideological pattern for the violent break-up of the former federation and territorial conquest with the aim of establishing a united Serb state.

Parts of the SANU Memorandum are quoted word by word in the report which the witness submitted as evidence, prosecutor Geoffrey Nice warned the panel of judges during the cross-examination.

"That's possible. I wrote both the Memorandum and the report. I don't have two brains and two opinions," Mihajlovic said.

During the cross-examination, Mihajlovic denied that the memorandum was a nationalist, greater Serbian programme, claiming that the sole purpose of the document was to warn about Serbia's political and economic inequality in relation to other republics.

Asked by Milosevic to comment on claims that the Memorandum was a nationalist platform which caused the wars in the former Yugoslavia, Mihajlovic said: "On the contrary, it condemned nationalism as one of the causes of the crisis".

Asked if the document overemphasised Serbia's undeveloped economy, Mihajlovic said that there was no need to overemphasise it, because Serbia was lagging behind in all aspects as evidenced by concrete data.

"This was not a programme, but a document of warning drawn up on the basis of scientific analysis. Its purpose was to motivate the political leadership," the witness said.

Prosecutor Nice cited the late Serbian politician Ivan Stambolic as saying in October 1986 that the Memorandum was Yugoslavia's death certificate and a political insinuation which would cause "blood, darkness and evil".

The testimony of the 90-year-old witness ended the last day of the Milosevic trial for this year. The trial will continue after the Christmas and New Year holidays on January 11.

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