James Rubin, deputy to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, on 3 August 1998 announced US plans to bomb the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Since America has absolute power over NATO, an excuse was all that was needed, Mahon said.
The witness said that a staged slaughter of 40 ethnic Albanian civilians in the Kosovo village of Racak on 15 January 1999 and the Rambouillet peace agreement were used as an excuse for the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which comprised Serbia and Montenegro.
Mahon was opposed to the NATO armed intervention and frequently visited the region at the helm of the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, which was established in Britain in 1993.
She accused the US Central Intelligence Agency of arming and training the Kosovo Liberation Army and infiltrating the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Verification Mission, which investigated the Racak massacre.
Mahon said that Washington had achieved its goal and that now it had its base in Kosovo where it would stay.
The witness insisted that during "the civil war" Milosevic tried to preserve Yugoslavia and that the Yugoslav People's Army was legitimately defending the country's integrity. She said that her committee was opposed to the international intervention in the 1991-1995 wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and that it advocated lifting sanctions against Serbia and sending humanitarian aid.
Prosecutor Geoffrey Nice challenged the credibility of Mahon's testimony, saying that she had lobbied for the Serb cause.
Milosevic is charged with genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and crimes against humanity in Croatia and Kosovo.