MILOSEVIC TRIAL: ANOTHER WITNESS CONFIRMS KEY EVIDENCE

THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Sept 9 (Hina) - An employee of the Serbian State Security Service, Olivera Antonic-Simic, who on Monday took the witness stand in the UN war crimes tribunal's trial against Slobodan Milosevic, described how a former chief of that service, Rade Markovic, had given a statement on Milosevic's order to remove traces of crime in Kosovo. #L# This order is considered as one of the most important pieces of evidence for the tribunal's prosecution. In June 2001, in the Belgrade prison Markovic told an investigator of the State Security Service, Zoran Stijovic, that at the meeting with his closest aides in March 1999 the then Yugoslav president Milosevic had ordered the removal of the traces of crimes in Kosovo. However, a year later, Markovic claimed that he had not said anything like that but that it was Stijovic's free interpretation of his words and that a statement he signed did not contain formulations he had made during the talks with Stijovic. Antonic-Simic told the trial chamber that she had typed what Markovic and Stijovic had been dictating. The statement was then printed. Markovic read it, made some corrections and after that the final draft was printed which Markovic signed, the witness said. Last week, Stijovic, as a witness before the Tribunal, confirmed the authenticity of the contentious statement. On Monday, the trial chamber in this process accepted as evidence letters which the Tribunal's former chief prosecutor, Louise Arbor, sent to the then government in Belgrade and Milosevic warning about the crimes in Kosovo and about their duty to punish perpetrators. Milosevic is indicted for crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo in 1999. This week, the prosecution should wrap up the presentation of evidence pertaining to the Kosovo section of the indictment. After a two-week break, the trial will resume with the presentation of evidence on Milosevic's crimes in Croatia and Bosnia- Herzegovina. (hina) ms