Milosevic

Judges in the war crimes trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic this week continued to hear evidence from a Serb police chief whose men took part in a now infamous operation in the Kosovo village of Racak in January 1999.

The offensive is alleged to have resulted in the deaths of some 45 Kosovo Albanians, including 25 men who were apparently taken from a building where they had been hiding and were beaten before being killed.

The episode caused an outcry at the time and helped set in motion the chain of events which eventually culminated in NATO air strikes just a few months later.

Prosecutors see the alleged massacre as an important example of abuse dolled out to Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian population by Belgrade security forces and the Yugoslav Army, VJ, in the run-up to the bombing.

And a recent request to re-open the prosecution case against Milosevic was motivated partly by a desire to introduce fresh evidence about the VJ’s alleged involvement in the operation.

The accused, for his part, views Racak as an important element in the international conspiracy to bring about his downfall. He has spent a significant proportion of his defence case so far seeking to prove that the crime was faked.

But for all its importance, Racak is just one of more than a dozen massacres listed in the Kosovo indictment against Milosevic. And with over 60 per cent of the time allotted to his defence already used up, he must also defend himself against charges relating to the wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

As Bogoljub Janicevic – chief of police in the Urosevac area of Kosovo – continued his testimony this week, the chamber repeatedly urged Milosevic to avoid wasting too much time ploughing over old ground.

Milosevic has already called several witnesses in relation to the Racak affair. They include another local policeman, Dragan Jasovic, and two people involved in Belgrade’s own investigation into the incident – investigative judge Danica Marinkovic and the government’s top pathologist in Kosovo Slavisa Dobricanin.

But prosecutors have effectively questioned the witnesses’ credibility in cross-examination, attacking techniques used in the official investigation and bringing evidence to suggest that Jasovic’s approach to policing included administering electric shocks to interviewees.

Clearly determined to get his account of the Racak events to stick this week, Milosevic hailed Janicevic as being in a position to give supremely relevant evidence on the matter.

Dipping in and out of dozens of police documents from the time, Janicevic told the judges that the 161st Brigade of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, maintained a local headquarters and a permanent contingent of some 80 men in the village of Racak.

In the months leading up to the January 15 police operation, he said, these forces “cruised the area and attacked police patrols, military patrols [and] civilians”.

Janicevic insisted that the operation to drive the KLA “terrorists” from Racak was carried out by the book, and that three teams from the OSCE’s Kosovo Verification Mission monitored the events from positions close by.

“I can say with full responsibility that the verifiers observed the entire course of this operation,” he told the court. “There was not a single point in Racak that they couldn’t see.”

Also present, he said, were camera crews from Reuters and the Associated Press.

Janicevic admitted that a VJ unit had been stationed near to Racak and had been informed about the planned operation the previous evening. But he insisted that “not a single soldier” was involved in the assault on the village.

In response to claims by prosecution witnesses that troops provided artillery support for the attack, Janicevic snorted, “What kind of a fool would shell a village where the police were engaged?”

The only shelling, he said, had been carried out by KLA forces, who were in possession of mortars, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns.

Janicevic also acknowledged that a limited number of civilians were present in Racak when the attack took place. But they stayed in their homes, he insisted, and the police had no reason to shoot at them.

Such was the overlap between Janicevic’s testimony and that given by previous defence witnesses that many of the documents used by Milosevic to question him turned out already to have been admitted into evidence.

And comments by Judge Iain Bonomy clearly reflected frustration at being faced with yet another witness who wasn’t actually present in Racak on the day of the assault. Janicevic said he had monitored the unfolding events on a radio in the nearby town of Stimlje.

Also this week, the chamber finished hearing testimony from former Yugoslav army general Bozidar Delic.

Delic continued to attack evidence given by British politician Lord Paddy Ashdown during the prosecution stage of the trial. During his time in the witness stand, Lord Ashdown recalled standing at raised points along the Albanian border with Kosovo in 1998 and seeing villages coming under fire in an area where Delic’s troops were stationed.

Delic has claimed Lord Ashdown was clearly lying, partly because the layout of the land would have prevented him from viewing the areas he claimed to have seen from the points where he said he was standing.

The chamber this week heard a deluge of additional evidence on the matter from both parties – including maps, computer-generated diagrams, further statements from Lord Ashdown and even a video made by a prosecution investigator dispatched to the Kosovo-Albania border in an effort to settle the controversy.

But both sides stubbornly refused to back down on the matter, which has been a point of dispute in the courtroom since before the tribunal went on it summer recess at the end of July.

Delic brought his testimony to a close by declaring his willingness to travel to the area in question to prove his point. Prosecutor Geoffrey Nice in turn announced that Lord Ashdown was happy to return to the courtroom to clear up the matter. Presiding Judge Patrick Robinson even wondered out loud whether an on-site visit by judges might be a solution.

Milosevic will continue to question Janicevic when the trial resumes on October 3.

Michael Farquhar is an IWPR reporter in London.