On Tuesday 30th September 2003 The Hague Tribunal heard a submission from the Prosecution that if accepted would mean the imposition of Defence Counsel on President Milosevic against his will, and would enable the trial to proceed without the presence of the accused.

This basic denial of the right of the accused to conduct his own defence is yet further proof of the political nature of the ICTY.

The arguments for the Prosecution, presented by Mr Nice, would be comical if they were not so tragic. To an outbreak of derisory laughter from the public gallery, Nice tried to suggest that the President’s health problems would be eliminated if he gave up smoking cigarettes! He further proposed that on his ‘rest days’ Mr Milosevic could study Court documents and watch hours of witness videos to save time and expedite the trial proceedings. Moreover, according to Mr Nice, the accused brought his ill health upon himself because he would insist on cross-examining the Prosecution’s witnesses. How very inconsiderate of Mr Milosevic!

In contrast to the Prosecution’s absurd arguments, which follow the equally absurd ruling that Mr Milosevic provide the Court and the Prosecution with his defence details and list of defence witnesses within six weeks, Mr Milosevic has proposed that their be a two-year recess in the trial in order to prepare his defence and that he be released from custody where his medical condition can be treated by doctors of his own choice.

It was these two key demands that gained an interest from journalists at Tuesday’s hearing when members and supporters of the ICDSM distributed their Press Release and gave interviews outside the Tribunal building. Such was the impact of the ICDSM intervention that the Tribunal’s security staff felt obliged to harass the journalists and demand to see their passports and credentials. It was to the credit of the ICDSM supporters that all copies of the Committee’s literature were distributed even in the face of such intimidation.

The only ruling given by the Court on the day was that from next Monday (6th October), following the advice of the Court appointed doctors, Mr Milosevic should attend trial for three days and rest for the next four.

A decision regarding the Prosecution’s latest submission would be announced shortly, though it is worth noting that to accept this submission would mean yet a further rewriting of the Tribunal’s existing rules.

Objective observers of the ‘trial’ cannot fail to note the sheer desperation of both the Court and Prosecution at their inability to break the resistance of President Milosevic and their inability to prevent the development and growth of his Defence Committee.

ICDSM. The Hague. 30th September 2003.

Copy of Press Release below.

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The International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic

The Hague, September 30, 2003, 11 a.m. PRESS RELEASE

TWO YEARS FREEDOM FOR SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC

TO PROTECT HIS LIFE, HISTORICAL TRUTH AND JUSTICE FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE BALKANS!

· ICTY JUDGES AS NATO DEFENSE COUNSELS!

ICTY put the life of President Milosevic at stake. Why?

Already at the beginning of the Hague process, President Milosevic announced that he will demand that people such as Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Wesley Clark appear as witnesses.

The logical and legitimate course of his presentation is to prove the guilt of those who were killing Yugoslavia and its people by endorsing separatists, terrorists, paramilitaries and traffickers, by imposing genocidal sanctions, by bombings, by regime change and finally by imposing a pro-NATO dictatorship which is associated with the mafia. If their obvious guilt is shown, Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbian people are innocent!

After the Prosecution failed to prove the NATO propaganda fabrications, due to President Milosevic’s magnificent struggle, the ICTY Judges have appeared and are assisting NATO.

They decided that the ill and imprisoned President Milosevic should provide them and the Prosecution (!) with all details of his defense within six weeks! After that the Judges will decide what can and what cannot be included! Certainly not Bill Clinton and his buddy Wesley Clark. Certainly not the children that died under the bombs. Apparently they are irrelevant!

This way, after being deprived of medical care, President Milosevic is deprived of his right to defense.

As an additional guarantee that the truth will be silenced, torture is being used against President Milosevic. He cannot meet his family. He cannot meet his friends. Hundreds of thousands of members of the Socialist Party of Serbia and of Freedom Association are banned from visiting their president. He cannot meet his doctors from Belgrade. Furthermore, even the ICTY doctors admitted that the magnitude of the proceedings and the prison conditions threaten his life. Confined in his prison cell he has to confront everything that took the whole tribunal apparatus ten years to elaborate. (Only in the “Milosevic trial” does the tribunal put everything!) With its 1248 employees and a UN budget of 694828400 dollars, the ICTY has spent 75% of that sum, half a billion dollars, in the last five years alone, since the NATO aggression and the first indictment against President Milosevic. Moreover they have been assisted by Western governments and their secret services, and recently by the Belgrade puppets as well. In contrast to that, to prepare his defense President Milosevic will have only three months, or more precisely six weeks, in his prison cell, assisted only by a small group of volunteers, with no funds, no infrastructure and no access to the state archives. Is this a way to treat a person in a life-threatening situation? Yes, if he is a leader of the people that opposed NATO.

The ICDSM accuses ICTY of criminal misconduct and criminal compliance with NATO.

Today’s attempt to impose a counsel for President Milosevic against his will and to conduct the trial in the absence of the ill President is further proof of that. The ICTY violates international norms of judiciary and of human rights protection. The ICTY violates its own Statute.

Two years in freedom, requested by President Milosevic, is a minimum guarantee that his life will be protected and that the truth will be heard. It is a generous, gentleman’s proposal. The response of the ICTY is an outrage.

The Russian Duma requested action from the Russian Government to protect International Law and to prevent this outrage and crime.

Ten medical doctors from Germany have sent a petition to the ICTY stating that President Milosevic’s illness requires his release. The ICDSM is receiving support from doctors of other countries, who condemn the treatment of President Milosevic and express their readiness to take part in his examination and therapy.

President Milosevic has to be released immediately!

Many parties and organizations from different countries endorse our position. The ICDSM and its national branches in Russia, USA, Germany, Canada, Italy, Britain, Ireland and other countries have launched a campaign aimed towards responsible UN bodies and member states governments in order to stop the dangerous farce at The Hague. The international demonstrations on November 8, called by a committee of Diaspora Serbs and endorsed by the ICDSM shall be a peak of the campaign.

The International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic

The Hague, September 30, 2003, 11 a.m. PRESS RELEASE
DELIVERED BY Mr. IAN JOHNSON,

Member of the Board of ICDSM and Coordinator of the British Section of ICDSM

After delivery, Mr. Johnson will answer questions from the press.

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