THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 21 (Hina) - In continuation of the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before The Hague-based U.N. war crimes tribunal on Friday, witness Dragan Vasiljkovic - known as Captain Dragan - ended his
contradictory testimony.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 21 (Hina) - In continuation of the trial of
former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before The Hague-
based U.N. war crimes tribunal on Friday, witness Dragan
Vasiljkovic - known as Captain Dragan - ended his contradictory
testimony. #L#
After he testified that the leadership of the Serbian police and
intelligence service (SDB) had a key role in forming and training
Serb paramilitary forces and in their operations in the war in
Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Vasiljkovic claimed during the
cross-examination that he in fact had been referring to the police,
intelligence and the army of the so-called Republic of Srpska
Krajina (Croatia) and Republika Srpska (Bosnia-Herzegovina).
Although he identified by name the SDB officials who he said had
orchestrated all key events in the formerly Serb-held parts of
Croatia, he later claimed that these people in fact had only
collected data and that the war path of the SDB unit known as the
'Red Berets' in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina had been
exaggerated.
On Friday, too, Vasiljkovic readily confirmed Milosevic's claims
about the SDB "having dissuaded him from going to Knin", about
Croatian civilians in occupied areas being offered protection and
crimes being committed by individuals rather than being part of a
policy, about Milan Babic having more authority than Milosevic in
the area, and so on. Vasiljkovic's responses to Milosevic's cross-
examination rather stunned the prosecution and judges.
The most important pieces of evidence backing Vasiljkovic's
testimony, a video recording of Milosevic'a visit to the SDB's
special operations unit and the archives taken from "Captain
Dragan's Foundation", were left for the finale of the cross-
examination, when Milosevic attempted to diminish their
significance.
Speaking about the secretly taped recording of an event marking the
sixth anniversary of the 'Red Berets' on May 4, 1997, which showed
the unit's founder Franko Simatovic speaking before Milosevic and
the entire SDB leadership about the unit's war path in Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina and its role in the liberation of "Serbian
territory", the witness said the film was being taken too
seriously. He confirmed the defendant's argument that the
recording - which attracted great public interest in Serbia, showed
mostly veteran forces from formerly Serb-controlled parts of
Croatia and Bosnia, who after the war joined the "Red Berets".
The only statement by Milosevic that Vasiljkovic did not
corroborate was that the unit had been formed in 1995 or 1996 seeing
that the 1997 recording showed the celebration of the unit's sixth
anniversary.
As regards thousands of files that were taken from his humanitarian
foundation and introduced as evidence, Vasiljkovic agreed with
Milosevic that they were insignificant even though they included
data about Serb volunteer units in Croatia and Bosnia and
information on locations where their members were wounded.
This prompted the prosecutor to request that he cross-examine the
witness in order to clarify the contradictions, but the request was
overruled as it violated court procedure.
The prosecutor then proved that a number of statements from
Milosevic's cross-examination were false. The witness admitted
that he had received several threats since he had agreed to testify
at the ICTY and that following the first day of his testimony he
contacted Simatovic.
The questionable validity of the witness's testimony was best
described by amicus Steven Kay who told the prosecutor that he was
summoning witnesses at his own risk.
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