PRISTINA, Feb 20 (Hina) - The testimony of the first witness at the trial against former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague is being covered by all Kosovo media. A former Yugoslav official from Kosovo said the
testimony was "pale" and made Milosevic's guilt relative. Kosovo Television is directly airing the trial against Milosevic, indicted of genocide in Bosnia and crimes against humanity in Croatia and Kosovo. The first witness, a Kosovo MP and former Kosovo official, Mahmut Bakalli, was on Tuesday cross-examined by Milosevic. Pristina's daily in Albanian "Zeri" on Wednesday writes about "fierce duels" between Bakalli and Milosevic who it described as "the Balkan's chief criminal". According to Zeri, Milosevic managed to fog up the testimony of the Albanian who spoke "about the harshest crimes after World War Two". In a commentary entitled "Trial or Political Debate?", Zeri suggests that Albanian witnesses have
PRISTINA, Feb 20 (Hina) - The testimony of the first witness at the
trial against former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in The
Hague is being covered by all Kosovo media. A former Yugoslav
official from Kosovo said the testimony was "pale" and made
Milosevic's guilt relative.
Kosovo Television is directly airing the trial against Milosevic,
indicted of genocide in Bosnia and crimes against humanity in
Croatia and Kosovo.
The first witness, a Kosovo MP and former Kosovo official, Mahmut
Bakalli, was on Tuesday cross-examined by Milosevic.
Pristina's daily in Albanian "Zeri" on Wednesday writes about
"fierce duels" between Bakalli and Milosevic who it described as
"the Balkan's chief criminal". According to Zeri, Milosevic
managed to fog up the testimony of the Albanian who spoke "about the
harshest crimes after World War Two".
In a commentary entitled "Trial or Political Debate?", Zeri
suggests that Albanian witnesses have nothing to discuss with
Milosevic, since he "is no longer a negotiator, nor the chief and
responsible man in Serb politics". "He is a criminal," Zeri writes,
"a leader of a regime who, after the fall of the former Yugoslavia in
1991, forcefully retained Kosovo as a part of his state," and left
Kosovo by force in June 1999.
A Kosovo attorney and former Kosovo Yugoslav politician, Azem
Vllasi, expressed dissatisfaction with Bakalli's testimony.
According to him, Bakalli was "pale and relativitised Milosevic's
guilt".
The first Hague witnesses mixed up dates of events, Vllasi said,
adding Bakalli "forgot many important events, such as the miners'
protest in 1998 or mass protests against constitutional changes in
1989".
The constitutional changes lost Kosovo its autonomy which it had
been secured ion Yugoslavia's Constitution of 1974.
Vllasi said he still believed there was sufficient evidence for
Milosevic to get "the punishment he deserves".
(hina) lml