THE HAGUE, Feb 19 (Hina) - The cross-examination of the first witness in the trial against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic at the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague ended on Tuesday after three and a half hours of
questions and answers which boiled down to a political debate between the irreconcilable stances of the defendant and Albanian politician Ahmut Bakalli. The last part of the cross-examination consisted of the repetition, in various forms, of the question if Kosovo Albanians see their future in Yugoslavia, if Bakalli and Kosovo Albanians view Kosovo as Serbia, and if the residents of Kosovo feel as citizens of Serbia or citizens of an independent Kosovo. After the first hour, the cross-examination turned into a testing ground for mutual accusations, for example Bakalli's claim that the people in Kosovo fled from the Serb police and army, while Milosevic claimed the people were at the same time
THE HAGUE, Feb 19 (Hina) - The cross-examination of the first
witness in the trial against former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic at the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague ended on
Tuesday after three and a half hours of questions and answers which
boiled down to a political debate between the irreconcilable
stances of the defendant and Albanian politician Ahmut Bakalli.
The last part of the cross-examination consisted of the repetition,
in various forms, of the question if Kosovo Albanians see their
future in Yugoslavia, if Bakalli and Kosovo Albanians view Kosovo
as Serbia, and if the residents of Kosovo feel as citizens of Serbia
or citizens of an independent Kosovo.
After the first hour, the cross-examination turned into a testing
ground for mutual accusations, for example Bakalli's claim that the
people in Kosovo fled from the Serb police and army, while Milosevic
claimed the people were at the same time fleeing from NATO bombs and
"Albanian terrorists."
One of Milosevic's last questions to Bakalli, "Are you a convinced
communist?", showed how much the cross-examination had steered
from the indictment against Milosevic, as well as from the tenets of
his defence.
Towards the end of the cross-examination, presiding Judge Richard
May started intervening with increasing frequency, interrupting
answers and steering the case to new areas.
Milosevic kept on speaking about the Albanian counter-revolution
and Irredenta, terrorism and separatism, while Bakalli insisted
that Albanians wanted independence for Kosovo, to be achieved
through political negotiations and by ensuring harmonious inter-
ethnic relations and respect for the rights of other peoples.
Answering questions about the Albanians' position, Bakalli
mentioned a referendum at which Kosovo Albanians had opted for
independence. He responded to Milosevic's questions about the
suffering and persecution of Serbs from Kosovo by saying he knew
nothing about it and that "if it did happen, then the crimes must be
prosecuted."
During the cross-examination, Milosevic referred to legal acts of
the last decade which, he said, had not violated even one right of
the Albanian minority in Kosovo, while Bakalli answered those acts
were a formal screen behind which rights were violated in all
areas.
Milosevic also quoted many of Bakalli's statements, some 20 years
old, to show that he was not doing the defence all by himself.
In Bakalli's case the trial chamber did not enforce the rule whereby
both sides in the proceedings have equal time to put questions to
the witness, with Milosevic ending up interrogating Bakalli for
more than three and a half hours.
The next witness is chief investigator Kevin Curtis, whose
testimony starts on Wednesday. He will be followed by another
investigator.
(hina) ha sb