THE HAGUE, July 22 (Hina) - During the trial of Slobodan Milosevic by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, a former Yugoslav President, Zoran Lilic, took the witness stand on Monday. Lilic said he would be exposed to the
prosecution in Yugoslavia due to his disclosing of state secrets, if he testified in the Milosevic trial without an explicit permission of the Yugoslav Supreme Defence Council and the country's incumbent head of state Vojislav Kostunica.
THE HAGUE, July 22 (Hina) - During the trial of Slobodan Milosevic
by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, a former Yugoslav
President, Zoran Lilic, took the witness stand on Monday. Lilic
said he would be exposed to the prosecution in Yugoslavia due to his
disclosing of state secrets, if he testified in the Milosevic trial
without an explicit permission of the Yugoslav Supreme Defence
Council and the country's incumbent head of state Vojislav
Kostunica. #L#
"The Supreme Defence Council has not considered a possibility of
exempting me from the obligation to keep military and state
secrets... and only this body is competent (for such a decision),"
Lilic said before the trial chamber, describing the Belgrade
authorities' conduct as "strange".
Earlier this month the Tribunal forwarded a subpoena to Lilic
asking him to testify.
On 11 July, Lilic, who was at the helm of Yugoslavia from 1993 to
1997, flied to The Hague to testify in the trial. Upon his departure
from Belgrade, his lawyer and wife claimed that the country's
authorities forced him to go.
On Monday Lilic said he had had to forward an appeal against his
testifying before the Tribunal's trial chamber given that the said
defence council had so far made a decision only on producing some
documents to the prosecution pertaining the Milosevic case. He
appealed against the subpoena in order "to protect himself and his
family from serious consequences stipulated by the criminal code of
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY)."
Last Thursday the Yugoslav government decided to exempt several
state and police officials (including Lilic) from the obligation to
keep military and state secrets in proceedings before the Tribunal,
with an explanation that "their testimonies will not have ill
effects."
On Monday, Geoffrey Nice, the chief prosecutor in the Kosovo
indictment against Milosevic, described Lilic as a key witness
called K- 33 who should testify not only about events in Kosovo but
also in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Lilic responded that Yugoslav media "are speculating the
possibility of an indictment against him for revealing secrets."
"From Belgrade there are no concrete or clear decisions either in
the function of testifying or against it," Lilic said commenting on
the conduct of competent authorities in his country.
He added that he should have an insight in documents possessed by
the Supreme Defence Council so that he could testify in the trial.
Lilic explained his arrival at the Tribunal as "his respect for the
UN institutions" and his decision to testify at an open session
without the protection of his identity as the encouragement for
future witnesses to come before the trial chamber.
Milosevic, who was prevented by the chamber's head, Judge Richard
May, from addressing the court in this discussion, after the Judge
said this matter referred to the witness, prosecution and the
chamber, was very attentively listening to Lilic's statement.
Prior to Lilic, another witness took the stand on Monday morning
when the trial resumed after a two-day-break caused by Milosevic's
high blood pressure. The first witness this morning was a former
member of the Yugoslav army, and his identity remained protected.
This witness, named K-32, said his commander in the army ordered
them to attack Albanian civilians in Kosovo under the pretext that
the army should fight against terrorists.
The Kosovo section of the Milosevic trial will continue with the
testimony of a high-ranking official in the Serbian Interior
Ministry, Dragan Karleusa.
(hina) ms