THE HAGUE, Oct 9 (Hina) - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday branded the entire testimony of the prosecution's witness Nikola Samardzic as "a brazen lie".
THE HAGUE, Oct 9 (Hina) - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic on Wednesday branded the entire testimony of the
prosecution's witness Nikola Samardzic as "a brazen lie". #L#
In a bid to corroborate his assessment, Milosevic, who is being
tried by the UN war crimes tribunal, read out a statement of a former
Montenegrin President, Momir Bulatovic, in which Bulatovic refuted
Samardzic's testimony claiming that it "was not based on any real
event."
The defendant Milosevic relayed that Bulatovic was willing to
testify as a defence witness.
"Very well," responded a judge who several times asked Milosevic,
wile he as reading out the statement, to call Bulatovic as a
witness, given that his written statement was of no relevance for
the tribunal.
On Tuesday Samardzic expounded how in 1991 Milosevic, the then
Serbian president, controlled the Montenegrin leadership and how
the then Montenegrin officials spread allegations about a Croatian
attack on the Montenegrin sea and coastline to use them as the
pretext for the attacks of the JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) on
Dubrovnik.
On Wednesday Milosevic used the cross-examination to read out long
excerpts from his speeches in 1991 and 1992 in which he advocated a
peaceful solution to the Yugoslav crisis.
The witness Samardzic labelled Milosevic's speeches as "absolute
hypocrisy".
"How can you say that you recognise the right of peoples to
secession, when you had already had one third of the Croatian
territory occupied," the witness commented on one of such
excerpts.
He told Milosevic that his policy of the creation of the Yugoslav
Federation (FRY) had only one aim: his wish to remain in power and
the witness described the referendum of Montenegrins at which they
voted for Montenegro's entry in the Yugoslav federation as
illegal.
At the very start of the cross-examination Milosevic tried to
discredit the witness claiming that Samardzic fled to Australia
with 400,000 dollars he embezzled from the shipping company "Jugo-
oceania" whose director he had been, but Samardzic responded that
this claim was the fabrication of Milosevic's secret police.
Asked by Milosevic which passport he had on himself when he escaped
from the country, Samardzic said "Red passport" (i.e. this was a
passport issued by the former Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia).
Milosevic asked the witness what was promised to be given to him in
return for his false testimony.
"Are you buying a certificate of citizenship in Croatia or what?"
Milosevic asked and Samardzic refuted this as "nonsense".
(hina) ms sb