THE HAGUE, Feb 21 (Hina) - Kosovo Albanian Fehim Elshani was the second witness for the prosecution in the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the Hague war crimes tribunal, who looked the other way, turned to
the prosecution and judges, while being cross-examined by Milosevic on Thursday. Presiding judge Richard May interrupted the cross-examination several times to reiterate Milosevic's questions, which the native of the village of Nogavac in the Prizren area did not want to answer, not hiding his repulsion towards the defendant. For more than two hours Elshani was describing how at the beginning of NATO bombings Serbian forces surrounded his village and burnt the houses, forcing the villagers to flee. Those who remained were surrounded by the Serbian soldiers who held them trapped in the village by shooting in the air. In an attempt to mitigate the gravity of the situation, Milos
THE HAGUE, Feb 21 (Hina) - Kosovo Albanian Fehim Elshani was the
second witness for the prosecution in the trial of former Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic before the Hague war crimes tribunal,
who looked the other way, turned to the prosecution and judges,
while being cross-examined by Milosevic on Thursday.
Presiding judge Richard May interrupted the cross-examination
several times to reiterate Milosevic's questions, which the native
of the village of Nogavac in the Prizren area did not want to answer,
not hiding his repulsion towards the defendant.
For more than two hours Elshani was describing how at the beginning
of NATO bombings Serbian forces surrounded his village and burnt
the houses, forcing the villagers to flee. Those who remained were
surrounded by the Serbian soldiers who held them trapped in the
village by shooting in the air. In an attempt to mitigate the
gravity of the situation, Milosevic asked: "You said they fired in
the air? Nobody was hurt?"
The witness replied, "You burnt everything.. How can you say
nothing happened?"
Reverting to the part of the testimony where Elshani described how a
police officer who entered his house took out a knife and started
walking towards him with the intent of killing him first and then
the rest of his family, but did not as other police officers
arrived, Milosevic asked: "The police behaved in a friendly way?",
adding, obviously having recalled the entire testimony, "Apart
from the one who threatened you with the knife?"
Cross-examining the witness about his statement that the villagers
collected money to give it to the Serbian forces so that they let
them leave the village, Milosevic asked: "So, when you gave the
money to the police you did it with the intention of going to a safe
place?"
"They were collecting money to save their lives," the witness
replied.
The prosecution is charging Milosevic with the deportation of
hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians.
Reverting to the part of the testimony where Elshani said that the
scared Albanian farmers had heard from a Serbian officer that they
would go to Albania via Prizren, Milosevic asked the witness if it
had crossed his mind that the Serbian forces wanted to save their
lives.
"If you call that saving - how would you call something else?", said
the witness.
Like the first witness, Elshani, too, gave a rather detailed
account of the movements, number and positions of Serbian forces
around his village, but was mostly unable to say anything about the
movement of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
The trial resumes on Monday, as the tribunal is closed on Friday due
to Bayram.
Witness Halil Morina, who started testifying this afternoon,
described how Serbian forces in March 1999 shelled and then burned
his village of Landovice near Prizren and killed part of the
villagers.
(hina) sb rml