Tuesday, 29 November 2005
[Motion Hearing]
[Open session]
— Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.
JUDGE ROBINSON: The Chamber scheduled a hearing this morning to hear submissions from the parties on the question of severing the Kosovo indictment and concluding that part of the trial. We’ll hear first from the Prosecutor.
MR. NICE: We filed a paper late yesterday afternoon. I don’t know if the Chamber has had an opportunity to consider it. (…)
JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay.
[Trial Chamber confers]
JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay, we’ll hear from the accused before you.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] I shall take up far less time than Mr. Nice did.
I addressed you two weeks ago with a request that you respect the position of the team of doctors from Russia, France, and Serbia to allow me a period of rest, because that was observed on the basis of their findings that my health had not been stabilised, that the possibility of complications existed, and that a period of rest was indicated for at least a period of six weeks.
You asked to hear the views of the Dutch physicians in that regard, and now what is the state of that? What have they found? You have that in the report. Dr. van Dijkman, who is a cardiologist, a specialist, one that you selected here, in his report, wrote, among other things, the following: “[In English] I strongly advise provision for sufficient rest.”
[Interpretation] And he added: “[In English] And it seemed to me that the six-week rest period is somewhat too much.” [Interpretation] So the cardiologist selected by you has confirmed the need for rest. The only question is whether six weeks is somewhat too much. So that is one fact and one point I wish to address.
Not a single one of the doctors who considered the report that you supplied them with questioned the findings of the consilium of physicians from Russia, France, and Serbia.
Otherwise, on the 15th of November — and Mr. Nice here noted that I strolled in, and he said that I wasn’t able to work. I know exactly what I said: I said that I wasn’t feeling well, and that was the first time that I did so in the past four years, the first time I said that in a four-year period, the first time I asked the session to be interrupted because I really didn’t feel well. And even then this request of mine was met on your part by keeping me in that small room on this floor an hour and a half while your physician examined me.
Now, all the time that you have been questioning the positions taken by the consilium, which has now been confirmed by your own doctors, the doctor at the prison forbid me to come into court, first of all on the 12th of November and then on a second occasion on the 21st of November. I had prepared myself to come in here to court. I had put on my shirt and tie, and then I was told there would be no transport and I wasn’t able to come. So when Mr. Bonomy says that I didn’t come, I didn’t come because it was your own doctor who forbid me to come. I would like to make that quite clear.
Now, finally, this question that I complained about on the 15th and waited patiently for two months, with growing problems, health problems, that needed to be addressed, the question of my very serious symptoms, very high pressure that I feel in my ears and oversensitivity to sound in general, at the medical centre of the Leiden University, Dr. Dalal examined me fully and wrote an objective finding. When I say “objective,” I’m referring to the finding that was written without the active part of the patient, so it was only the passive participation of the patient, since the findings are based on long-term electronic examination, and he told me that those objective findings of his fully confirmed the symptoms that I complain of and the problems — health problems that I complain of.
Therefore, the physicians of my own choice who came here because my state had not improved at all during those two months, and also the doctors you selected yourselves, have come to the same conclusions, to all intents and purposes. Your prison doctor told me that, over the past few days, he supposed that I had managed to amass enough energy to deal with the pressure that I have in my ears because he told me that Dr. Dalal, who is a very highly placed professional in the area, is preparing some sort of solution which will make it easier for me to deal with my health situation or do away with the symptoms at all. So that is a very interesting standpoint from the medical point of view, but I’m not going to comment on it now.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, we have not had the benefit of seeing Dr. Dalal’s report. You have been referring to it, so I just wanted you to know that.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I have not seen it myself either, but I do know what he told me, after having examined me. I was at the medical center of the university in Leiden, I underwent a lengthy examination there. It was with the help of electronic instruments. It lasts a long time. The patient has to lie down. There are no questions and answers or anything of that kind. It is electronic sounding, using electronic instruments. And then he told me after that examination that his objective findings confirmed the symptoms that I complain of. That’s what he told me, and I assume he wrote that in his report.
Dr. Falke came and told me that he has good news for me, that Dr. Dalal considers that he’s going to be able to mitigate those symptoms or put them right. I asked him a logical question: When? And he said, Well, in the next few days. We’ll do our best to hurry up. So how am I expected to work in the meantime? Well, I — he said, well, I assume you have accumulated enough strength to persevere, you’ve lasted that long, and things along those lines. I was in Bronovo Hospital in September for the magnetic resonance test, and before that an ENT specialist saw me. That’s been going on for months, for three months, and the situation became worse and worse as time progressed.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I just wanted to clarify that we did not have the report to which you have been referring. Proceed with your submissions on the question —
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] I don’t have it either. Yes, I’ll get to that, but it’s all linked up. As I was saying, I assume you do have the Dr. van Dijkman’s report, do you?
JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, we have Dr. van Dijkman’s report.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] And it says here — very well. “[In English] We strongly advise provision for sufficient rest.” [Interpretation] That’s what it says in his report.
JUDGE ROBINSON: But as you noted, he went on to say that he did not consider a period of six weeks to be required.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: “Somewhat too much.” [Interpretation] That’s what he said.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] And I pointed that out. I didn’t want to quote it one-sidedly, quote what he said one-sidedly. Therefore, gentlemen, it is my right to demand of you to enable me to have the right to protect my own health, and I think it is your duty to protect that right and support it. And that right is over and above all the other preoccupations for which you have convened these proceedings here this morning. So my request is this – I hope it is sufficiently clear – and I request that you enable me to have a pause, that is to say, a period of rest in which to recuperate. I understand that your basic preoccupation …
[Trial Chamber confers]
JUDGE ROBINSON: Proceed, Mr. Milosevic.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, I was waiting for you to finish your discussion.
Mr. Nice, among other things, mentioned the question of whether I was taking my medicaments or not. That can only be said by somebody who doesn’t know what prison procedure is like. You have to take your pills in front of the guards in prison. That does not only apply to me, it applies to everyone. And then the time at which you took your medications is recorded into a log book.
I myself requested Falke to carry out a laboratory analysis to see how my medicines were working, within the context of all my general efforts to help myself. And I should like to mention the doctors that I invited came more than two months after I put in a request to Falke and from the time they sent me for my first examination. So all this was organised without upsetting any of your plans.
So let’s make each other understood there, let’s be clear on that point. I don’t want to hear any more of the nonsensical kinds of things that Mr. Nice has been saying.
Gentlemen, your principal preoccupation is time, and you have been devoting such great effort to the question of time that when you speak of my health state, you are looking at it exclusively, as it says in paragraph 6 of your guidelines, the state of factors that upset these proceedings, the time factors upsetting these proceedings, in your order. So that I think that the protection of health and the measure to which this megalomaniac procedure, with your permission, has been pursued by the opposite side is upsetting my health, that, judging by all factors, doesn’t seem to be important to you.
I would like to remind you gentlemen of the following: In paragraph 4 of your order, which we have here before us on the table, you put forward the chronology of your efforts to ensure expediency of this trial. I’m not going to quote those passages because you have them in front of you. However, it is interesting to note, and also indicative, that that chronology of events – that is to say, that enormous wish to have expediency – begins in July 2004, and that is what your chronology shows, which is a point in time when it is up to me to present my Defence case. And the time I was given by you was 150 days, and you said that that was the same as the 300 days allocated to the other side. Several weeks ago, I mentioned here that the number of hours which I was given by the opposite side shows the sum of — which is lacking in 72 days. You didn’t allow me to continue along those lines, so I stopped, and I’m not going to talk about that now either, but I’d just like to say that that remains as a fact.
So your concerns over expediency and efficiency started when my half time began, and to my detriment. And the speed at which the proceedings have been evolving became important when it came to my presentation of facts, and took precedence over those facts and precedence over my state of health as well.
Now, had you expressed such concern over expediency during the time of Nice’s and Del Ponte’s Prosecution case, then you would not have allowed different witnesses to appear. Mr. Robinson, Mr. Kwon, you will remember full well that we had witnesses here such some institute established in haste in the space of a few days, right near here in Amsterdam, and they held a report about genocide against the Armenians in Turkey and the genocide in Rwanda and some other third place, I can’t remember which now, and that Dutchman talked about that at length, and you would never have allowed things like that even to be presented here at a place like this, including many other irrelevant witnesses. So we heard about the Armenians, but we didn’t hear about examples which the Dutch institute and the only Dutch word that everybody knows in the world, the word “apartheid,” how that came into being. They didn’t deal with the question of apartheid, but they did deal with the Armenians in Turkey and Turks. So that was part of his procedure, let alone other witnesses who came to waste time here and talk about minor issues.
So you showed an enormous amount of understanding for the megalomaniac ambitions of the opposite side to — Yes, Mr. Robinson.
JUDGE ROBINSON: You are now wasting our time. We are here to consider two issues: The question of severance and the medical — and your medical condition. Confine your submissions to those two issues.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Robinson, you did not interrupt Mr. Nice when he was making the most absurd claims here, and I think that these absurd claims of his can be responded to —
JUDGE ROBINSON: If you’re going to continue like this, I will stop.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] All right.
JUDGE ROBINSON: You told us you wish to make submissions. If I did not interrupt Mr. Nice, it was because there was no reason to interrupt him. Let us proceed.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Let us proceed. I’m referring to what it says here in your own decision concerning the order that we’re discussing today. So the time lost, you say, due to my health, in the period when you started expressing this intense interest in the expeditiousness of the trial.
I want to draw your attention to the fact that this time that you call lost or wasted is much shorter than time wasted due to another matter, and that is when you unlawfully took away my right to self-representation last year. Because of what you did, some of the deadlines that you had set yourselves and that you mention in this chronology were simply not met at the moment when my Defence case finally started after the decision made by that Appeals Chamber of yours. So, gentlemen, do not blame my health – and I’m not to be blamed for the state of my health – for time wasted, when you’re the ones who wasted the time. As for all the time that’s been taken up, and in terms of my health, the other side there is also to be blamed, because of the torture that they have been exposing me to due to their megalomaniac designs. And you never oppose that.
In paragraph 5 from the end of your order, your scheduling order for this hearing, today’s hearing, you deal with the positions taken by the Appeals Chamber. I think that, due to the importance of what you note here, it is necessary to see what it says there in paragraph 26. It says that: “[In English] If the prosecution fails to discharge this responsibility, the Trial Chamber has sufficient powers under the Rules of Procedure and Evidence to order the prosecution to reduce its list of witnesses to ensure that the trial remains as manageable as possible.
Finally, if with the benefit of hindsight it becomes apparent to the Trial Chamber that the trial has developed in such a way as to become unmanageable – especially if, for example, the prosecution is either incapable or unwilling to exercise the responsibility which it bears to exercise restraint in relation to the evidence it produces – it will still be open to the Trial Chamber at that stage -” [Interpretation] I emphasise that – “at that stage,” just like I pointed out the Prosecution a moment ago – “[In English] to order a severance of the charges arising out of one or more of the three areas in the former Yugoslavia.”
[Interpretation] So what is referred to here are the resources that you have available if the other side, and that is what is emphasised, does not act in accordance with its obligation in paragraph 25, where it says that the Prosecution has a great responsibility to prevent the trial from being unmanageable due to an overabundance of material, et cetera, et cetera. So your very own Chamber here says that: “The prosecution will bear a heavy responsibility to ensure that the single trial …” et cetera, et cetera, that the trial is manageable.
It’s not only that example, but also the systematic interpretation of what the Appeals Chamber said in the context where the severance of trials is discussed. Obviously, they took into account the situation that came to pass a long time ago because of the megalomaniac ambitions of the Prosecution in these proceedings that you call a trial.
I also want to note here that the Appeals Chamber did not look at my health at all, and I don’t think that they needed to look at it at all, at that time, that is. But not even bearing that in mind, they emphasised need to rest. Please, in paragraph 27, it says: “[In English] As has been shown to be necessary in all long trials before this Tribunal, the Trial Chamber will from time to time have to take a break in the hearing of evidence to enable the parties to marshal their forces and, if need be, for the unrepresented accused to rest from the work involved.”
[Interpretation] So, gentlemen, the only effect that my health can have on these proceedings is the fact that breaks are taken if my health gets worse, or, with any luck, to have proper short rest periods so that any worsening of my health is prevented. However, I am quoting your own decision when you say that these are factors that constantly impede the trial. And I have read out paragraph 26 to you, and you say — you quote paragraph 26 when you say that the trial becomes unmanageable, but it is the other way around. I have quoted paragraph 26 to you, and the Appeals Chamber has instructed you how to make the trial more manageable: To give breaks from time to time, and so on and so forth.
Now, gentlemen, do you really think that somebody would be crazy enough to believe that the Appeals Chamber would, in paragraph 26, instruct measures to be taken that would be in contravention of paragraph 26 of their own decision? Do you think that your colleagues are that unreasonable that they call for pauses in the trial, breaks in the trial, and that that is counter-productive? That’s the way it should be, according to what Mr. Nice said here too. Of course, that’s wrong. The right way of interpreting it is that by severing the trial, you are actually acting against the decision of the Appeals Chamber and you are incorrectly interpreting their words. So that would be an abuse of a document in order to violate that same document, which is quite unbelievable. It is illogical and unlawful acrobatics. Also, for years, you have been violating —
JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Milosevic, what you ignore entirely in that submission is that these words of the Appeal Chamber were pronounced when this trial could sit five days a week, and elaborate arrangements have been made to give you rest throughout the period since 2003.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] When was it that you gave me a break, a rest? Just remind me, please.
JUDGE BONOMY: Every week you get a rest, because you can only do three days a week.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] No one works five days a week here, especially for such a long period of time, so please don’t count on me — please, in Dr. Van Dijkman’s report, in a part that I did not quote, in the paragraph that precedes the one that I quoted, it says: “In view of the current work schedule [In English] it is understandable — In view of the current work schedule, it is understandable that the patient feels fatigued. He has three court sessions per week and spends the rest of the time preparing for them, including interviewing witnesses.”
[Interpretation] So how is it that you think that I can interview witnesses during these remaining days if I’m supposed to get some rest then?
JUDGE ROBINSON: You can get the rest — you could get the rest if you utilised the services that are available to you. You do not have to interview witnesses. That could be done by assigned counsel. You have chosen to do that.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] I have seen how the assigned counsel work with witnesses when you made it possible for them to question witnesses, by force, and I concluded that it was absolutely inadequate.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, what comes to mind — what comes to my mind are the words of Marc Antony in his funeral oration for Julius Caesar: “Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms …” You are an ingrate in relation to the work of the assigned counsel and the help they have given you. It does you no credit for taking that approach to assigned counsel. Continue.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] I do not wish to insult Ms. Higgins or Mr. Kay, not in the least bit. But they know full well that they know very little about the situation in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, especially regarding issues that I am being indicted for here by Mr. Nice and this entire side that he represents. Mr. Nice made absurd assertions here, allegations regarding my alleged participation in various things in Bosnia, and during the presentation of his case, he did not give a shred of evidence about my alleged crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He talked about events that occurred in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But, on the other hand, there is ample evidence that my greatest efforts over all those years was to attain peace, and I was given credit for that by all sorts of Western leaders as the person who gave the greatest contribution to that and —
JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I have stopped you. I want submissions on the two issues before us: Severance and, to the extent relevant, your health. We’ll take an adjournment for 20 minutes.
— Recess taken at 10.39 a.m.
— On resuming at 11.07 a.m.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Just to make sure that the transcript is correct in relation to my reference to Marc Antony, it’s: “Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms …” You can at least get it correct in the English.
Mr. Milosevic, there’s a matter in which I think you can help us. You have 37 or 45 witnesses outstanding for Kosovo. How, in the light of the remaining days left for your case, do you plan to manage your case so as to complete Kosovo as well as Bosnia and Croatia? And, please, I don’t want to hear the refrain that this merely shows how little time or how inadequate is the time that has been allocated to you.
THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] The microphone wasn’t switched on. What I was saying was this: Mr. Robinson, the question of time you seem to be placing in first place, so I assume you won’t have anything against me having comments to make with respect to that issue.
I should like to remind you, Mr. Robinson, that a certain amount of time ago, I did indicate the need to give me adequate time. Had you personally — and that you personally said at the time that it was too early to discuss the matter, that is to say, to give me adequate time. Now, to carry on from where you interrupted with your comment that I should use imposed counsel, let me present my position and you do with it what you will and make your own conclusions as you desire. But I don’t think you’ll be able to topple that position.
It is my right to represent myself, and that right emanates from international law and is contained in your Statute as well. Therefore, you are duty-bound to enable me to make effective use of that right. That right cannot be made up for by some sort of assigned or imposed counsel.
It is my right to be able to present my own Defence, and it is grounded in the documents that are well known to you all. So it is your duty to enable me to use that right effectively and not some fictitious right which is accorded me in formal terms whereas it is withheld in realistic terms. If I have that right, then you must enable me to use it effectively and to avail myself of that right.
And the comment that I don’t have to proof witnesses myself is the same as saying that I don’t have to avail myself of the right accorded me and that I have chosen to use my right to my own detriment. So the substance of the matter is that I should be allowed to use that right effectively.
Now, with regard to the question of time, once again, Mr. Nice quoted different documents and so you’ll allow me to do the same, to quote from various documents. And I have sufficient examples for you, although in Serbian because it is a Serbian translation, it is a statement by a group of members of the Russian Association of International Law for Monitoring the Process of the Prosecutor versus Slobodan Milosevic in the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which a few days ago was published by the Moscow Journal of International Law and it was translated from that Moscow Journal. It is the largest and most important forum of that nature in Russia, and the most important journal for international law in Russia as well.
Among others, in point 1, which they discuss, it is the right of the accused to have sufficient time. Now, this term “sufficient time” means for the preparation of his Defence. That has been extracted from “international documents,” and this is what it says:
“After the signing of the first indictment raised against S. Milosevic by the Prosecutor up until the start of the Prosecution case, two years elapsed and eight months. Throughout that time, time was used to prepare the indictment. Preparations of the indictment went on eight months after the accused was in prison. Now, for the preparation of the Defence case, Slobodan Milosevic was given three months.”
And then they go on to quote your order concerning the preparation and presentation of the Defence case of September 17th, 2003. “After an extension of the time limit with respect to the accused’s health, the Defence case, as a whole, amounted to six months, but that extended time was not used to prepare the Defence because the Registry of the Tribunal denied Milosevic the right to meet with witnesses in connection with his health. It is quite clear that the time for the preparation of the Defence case in the most complex international crimes contained in 66 charges and 1.000 events in prison conditions is inadequate. In keeping with the principle of fair play and equality of arms, the accused must be accorded at least as much time for his Defence case as the Prosecution had for the Prosecution case from the time the indictment was signed until the case went to trial. In conformity with giving the accused sufficient time for preparation of his Defence case, and taking into consideration the complexity of the case itself, S. Milosevic must be given adequate time, and six months cannot be termed adequate time. The request by the accused to be granted more time was turned down by the Appeals Chamber as well, who said that, ‘choosing to represent himself, the accused has given up the right of enjoying the benefits of the Defence team set up for him,’ and that he himself, ‘will bear the brunt of not accepting the services of assigned counsel.'”
That is the decision of January 2004. In this connection, the Appeals Chamber referred to four decisions made by national courts, but it forgot to refer to the norms of international law which are in force, and the most senior Chamber of the Tribunal, which was duty-bound to protect the rights of the accused, confirmed the unlawful decision by the Trial Chamber to the detriment of the accused for having opted to represent himself without providing legal arguments in sufficient scope.
“Apart from that, this right is part of the rights that do not have a time limit,” and it says, “see Article 3 of international — covenant of international laws where everybody has the right, as a minimum, to the following guarantees and conditions.” And the conclusion is, of this group, that is to say, the group of the Russian International Law Association, is that: “The Tribunal has violated the rights of the accused to be given sufficient time to prepare his defence case.”
I won’t continue quoting. I will ask you to take up this decision, and I’m sure your translators will be able to translate it into English for you. They contain many other points, but I think it would be beneficial for you to read it.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Did I understand you correctly to read from the Journal of International Lawyers that this right is part of the rights that do not have a time limit? Is that what you read?
THE INTERPRETER: Statute of limitations, interpreter’s note.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] I read what it says exactly in that statement. I’ll go back to that. Let me just see.
JUDGE ROBINSON: What right are they referring to? Is it the right to a defence? Is it the right of an accused to put up his defence?
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] The right of the accused, and then they quote “to have sufficient time and possibility for preparation of his defence.” That is point 1, which I quoted.
JUDGE ROBINSON: And is that the right which they say is without a time limit? I’m trying to understand what you just read.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Robinson, they don’t say that it has a time limit. What they say is, the amount of time that was necessary and accorded to the opposite side for writing the indictment, and claim that I must be given that same amount of time. And they quoted exactly when the indictment was signed and how long it took them to prepare for the Prosecution case to go ahead with the trial. So it’s no fluid category that we’re dealing with here, without boundaries. They are talking and comparing the time that the other side had at its disposal and the time accorded to me by you. And those six months, or barely six months, cannot be compared to a period of three years, let alone compared to the fact that I am managing my Defence myself, whereas Del Ponte and Nice have an enormous machinery at their disposal, including all their services and experts and so on and so forth.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] And when I mentioned — Mr. Robinson, when I mentioned the NATO pact officers, let me remind you, since Mr. Nice is talking about proof and evidence, I would like to remind you that their military expert, Mr. Theunens, said here on behalf of the whole group working on the subject matter, that they studied thousands of documents, and I asked him here, “Do you have any document of mine?” if you remember, Mr. Robinson, and he said, “Yes, I do.” And I asked him to place it on the overhead projector.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic —
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Do you remember that?
JUDGE ROBINSON: — I can understand the submission that an accused person is entitled to sufficient time, but I do not accept a submission that there is no time limit for putting a defence. You’re entitled to a reasonable time. If your Russian association of lawyers said that there is no time limit in putting a defence, and if by that they meant that an accused person would be entitled to put a defence ad infinitum, I utterly reject that. You’re entitled to a reasonable time to put your Defence. Continue.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, in responding to your question, I precisely said that that is not what they claim, that the accused has limitless rights. All they claim is that the accused must be given the same amount of time as given to the Prosecution for preparing the indictment. And they were able to establish that time in quite exact terms by comparing the date in which the indictment was raised and the date when the trial started here, and that was a period of time that was exactly established, let alone the fact that before they actually wrote the indictment, they had to have done some preparatory work as well.
So you did not understand the explanation and quotation that I read out to you properly, so I suggest that you take this report and read it for yourself, because I think that they are leading international lawyers who took part in writing it, and I wish to add to this that we are not only speaking — although this is a statement by the International Russian Federation legal minds, but of course there is a series of broad circles of experts for international law from other countries, including those countries who wrote the petition to Kofi Annan with respect to your conduct towards me from some 30-odd countries that signed it and went to visit the Secretary-General of the Security Council. So this is a position that is widespread in the world, and it would suffice, if I were in your place, if I were to read this position elaborated by the experts from the Russian Federation that rank among the top professionals in the world in their field. As I was saying – let me continue – the present situation is the direct result of a megalomaniac ambition by the other side and most probably by the desire to have the quantity of material replace any serious proof and evidence against me. Quantity over quality. Because you cannot have evidence and valid proof for untruths. And you have supported the other side through your tolerant relationship with them, and asking them to be limited in their scope.
I am the main victim of having been bombed by various documents, material witnesses, and so on, that the opposite side has been allowed to present with the go-ahead from you. I think that this is a form of torture and a form of cynicism to put that burden of responsibility upon me, all the more so if this is linked to my health situation, which has been significantly impaired because of the torture I have been exposed to.
And I would like to remind you that when General Stevanovic testified here, in some context or other – it’s not important now; we can look at the transcript if we want to see the exact context – I said that the opposite side served over a million pages of material on me. Mr. Nice intervened at that point and said it was only 600.000, and with respect to the others it was copies supplied twice.
Now, without entering into whether I was served double copies, and would have to read through all the material to see whether that was true, and there’s no justification for that either, but nonetheless it’s an enormous amount of material. And that every participant in this trial had to read 500 to 1.000 pages per day every day over the space of three and a half years, without exception and without all their other obligations. And a normal human being is quite certainly not able to read even a small portion of that. And as I believe that nobody could claim to be a superpowerful human in any sense here, then we come to the conclusion that the situation is quite unrealistic and in this hall for three and a half years we have had a group of people taking part in something that we can call or is called a trial, whereas none of the participants in the proceedings knows what it says in the files on the basis of which the discussions are being held here.
Please, to a certain extent, it is not only that that people don’t know about; they don’t know what the other side is prosecuting me for. I would particularly like to highlight the issue of a Greater Serbia in that context. This was represented by the other side four years ago when they asked for a joinder of trials, that that was the red thread bringing all parts of the case together, and the Trial Chamber agreed to that. So then you cannot talk about severing the case without dealing with the destiny of that particular issue.
On the 25th of August this year, Mr. Nice, after three and a half years of trial, said that he was not prosecuting me on account of a Greater Serbia, and he ascribed that idea to me from the very outset, from his introductory remarks and then through the testimony of almost half or even more than half of his witnesses who — his witnesses, who spoke of a Greater Serbia as my objective and answered questions put by him to them in that context.
So how can you talk about severance, then, before giving answers to certain questions? What is the fate of these proceedings that have been going on for over three years where you and I, and probably the other side, thought that I was being tried for a Greater Serbia, which was the objective of some kind of alleged joint criminal enterprise. So that was what we tried to deal with when putting questions to the witnesses and in dealing with all the evidence, because that is what Mr. Nice was alleging through his witnesses.
So, then, what is the legal validity of that part of the proceedings, when we were all being deluded into believing that this was the main objective of the Prosecution? So what’s the point of all these witnesses who talked about a Greater Serbia as my primary goal here? Are you going to take that out of the evidence, the body of evidence, or are you going to let me examine them further?
Also, what about this joint criminal enterprise? And what would its objective be after this change? And what is this phantom of a joint criminal enterprise that is being discussed here? And what is it that is exactly being alleged? People who are sitting here, including me, including you, on the one hand, simply cannot know all the things that are referred to in all these documents that Mr. Nice served – a million pages, no less – and no one knows what the Prosecutor is prosecuting, including the Prosecutor herself. She doesn’t know it either. I think that even Franz Kafka would feel that he did not have great imagination compared to this.
So now, gentlemen, after almost four years of a joined trial, after omitting to exercise your own responsibilities and duties and to bridle the other side, as instructed by the Appeals Chamber, so perhaps you could have even severed the trial at some point earlier on, but now you want to do it four years later. Four years later. And during those four years, this was a whole, an entity, not only from the point of view of process, but also from the material point of view, where the other side presented its own body of evidence as a whole and then I based my Defence case on that single entity.
And since there is this time pressure that you’ve been insisting upon all the time, the crossover that you say, witnesses that testify about Kosovo and Bosnia and Croatia, now I have to make a selection, it appears, with a great deal of effort, I must say.
Immediately, there is another question that comes to mind: As for these witnesses that, for the most part, pertain to Kosovo, but some of them also have to do with Bosnia and Croatia, include witnesses that I asked you to call: Clinton, Clark. And during his testimony here, you did not allow me to put questions in relation to the war that he commanded and the book that he wrote about it. And these are key witnesses. For over a year, you’ve been in correspondence with them. It is high time for you to understand that they will not come here without your order.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, that, again, is a matter in relation to which you owe a great debt of gratitude to assigned counsel. Through their action, through their professionalism, we are considering now a motion to subpoena certain witnesses, and without their intervention, without their help, we would not have been considering this.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, I know about that. I know about that, Mr. Robinson.
So severance would create the following situation: That they prosecute me for one thing, and halfway, I start defending myself from other things that I’m being accused of. I have to defend myself a bit from one and a bit from the other, and then what I do here, when presenting the truth, is being sabotaged in practical terms; it is being truncated. And the effect of the fact that Mr. Nice changes his position with regard to a Greater Serbia halfway multiplies the effort involved.
What he said is true, that, as regards Kosovo, then, you would be in a position to decide, under the impression of many years of having heard senseless and totally baseless accusations related to Bosnia and Croatia. He talks about victims here. Let me see one single victim of mine here. He never established any link whatsoever between what he presented and the charges that he’s bringing against me. These victims do not deserve this. They do not deserve having the wrong people being accused of things done against them.
Mr. Nice mentioned Annex B. I don’t have time to read it, but let’s have a look at it. The first witness here, Stjepan Mesic, the current president of Croatia, who testified here, the first person mentioned in Annex B, the famous Stjepan Mesic, who did his very best to break up Yugoslavia, who stated himself that he carried out his job, that Yugoslavia was no more. And he says here “[In English] … where he said …” [Interpretation] and so on and so forth, and so on and so forth.
Nonsense, sheer nonsense. And this Mesic got that from this distorted and forged BBC TV show which seems to be Mr. Nice’s lodestar.
Indictments should be based on facts, not on comic books, TV shows, what have you not. So this is kitsch, really, the entire Prosecution case, both in terms of the vehicles used and the witnesses called. Kitsch.
So now, if you wanted to check this, it would be as if somebody were playing a game of football for 50 minutes, and then in the second half he starts playing basketball. It’s even worse, because the adverse effects are only on my side. It is only the Defence that has to deal with the negative effects. So it becomes even more senseless because the change of the terms and conditions is only to my detriment.
And I wish to say —
JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute, Mr. Milosevic.
[Trial Chamber confers]
JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] So the proposal to sever the trial is so pointless, but I think that you yourselves show the senselessness through your own words: “[In English] … for the Trial Chamber to sever the Kosovo Indictment, conclude that part of the trial and render its Judgement thereon …”
Gentlemen, “part of the trial” are the words that you clearly use here, so the objective should be to conclude part of the trial. But parts of the trial cannot be concluded. Parts cannot be concluded. Parts of the trial cannot be concluded. Trials have a Prosecution case and a Defence case and then they can be concluded, but to conclude part of a trial is basically an abuse of trial. Or what would that mean, to conclude part of a trial? [In English] A mistrial.
[Interpretation] I think that this Kafkaesque situation that I just described, if there were to be a severance, would make the entire situation even more absurd and more incredible. Of course, again, you’re going to decide as you wish, and then you won’t understand why, throughout the world, this trial of yours is being treated as an ordinary farce.
So, gentlemen, I’m opposed to your order, and the first thing I ask you to do is to return to me my right to health, to make it possible for me to have a break to recuperate.
And in relation to what Mr. Bonomy said when he expressed his astonishment when Mr. Nice was referring to what the public was talking about, I wish to remind you of the following: In all the paragraphs of the Kosovo indictment where alleged crimes are referred to over the allegedly unarmed Albanians, it says: “The forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia” did such and such a thing. In all paragraphs, without exception. All of Serbia, and everyone in the international public knows that the forces of the FRY of Serbia were protecting, defending the country from terrorism and foreign aggression.
That is what is perfectly clear.
Now, this phrase which is used in every paragraph pertaining to the alleged crimes, “the forces of the FRY and Serbia,” you are supposed to make a judgement, when lo and behold, the negotiations on the final status of Kosovo and Metohija are about to start, not to mention the fact that as a precondition for bringing the war to an end, we got the firmest possible international guarantees for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country. So what a coincidence. Is there anyone that you can dissuade that that is not the aim of those that you receive orders from, that it is the forces of the FRY and Serbia that have to be found guilty for defending their own territory so that those who really did this would not stand accused but rather achieve their geopolitical objectives.
So that is quite clearly present in the public opinion. And this is a coincidence that everybody noticed immediately. It was not necessary for anyone to explain it to them.
JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Milosevic, I wonder if you can help me and tell me how these instructions are conveyed to me, because I’m obviously missing some part of the information that you seem to consider as essential to my judgement of this matter. How is it I get my orders? Where do they come from? You who so proudly denies the allegations against you about conveying orders to others on the basis of no information, on no evidence, what is the evidence you suggest indicates that I receive orders from somewhere?
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, this entire Court was envisaged as an instrument of war against my country. It was founded illegally on the basis of an illegal decision and carried through by the forces that waged war against my country. There is just one thing that is true here: It is true that there is a joint criminal enterprise, but not in Belgrade, not in Yugoslavia as its center, but those, who, in a war that was waged in Yugoslavia from 1991 onwards, destroyed Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia did not disintegrate by —
JUDGE BONOMY: You fail to answer my question. Please answer the question rather than embark on a political diatribe.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson — or, rather, Mr. Bonomy, I’m not making political speeches here at all. I think that you are in the service of those who committed crimes against my country and against my people, and you’re receiving a salary from them.
JUDGE BONOMY: You’re refusing to answer the question, are you?
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] No, no, I’m not refusing. Do you want to tell me who pays your salary? Do you wish to claim that you receive a salary from the United Nations? Who finances this Court, Mr. Bonomy? Who established this Court, Mr. Bonomy? Who effected an aggression against my country, Mr. Bonomy? Your country. And who am I asking to come in to testify? Your presidents and Prime Ministers.
JUDGE BONOMY: Are you suggesting I am not paid by the United Nations?
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] I claim that, Mr. Bonomy, because the United Nations are — finance this illegal Tribunal of yours. It’s financed from all manner of sources. I have enumerated some of them.
Now, whether you, in formal terms, whether you, in formal terms, receive a salary via this institution which calls itself a United Nations Tribunal is quite immaterial as far as I’m concerned.
JUDGE BONOMY: Well, now you move on to another issue when you’re proved to be wrong. So let’s concentrate on the issue that you’re addressing; the question of severance.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Therefore, gentlemen, as I’ve already told you, I am opposed to severance because I would say that was — that was a war, it was one war. I said Yugoslavia did not disintegrate or disappear in some manner, but it was destroyed in a planned manner, forcefully, through a war, and that war is still being waged, is still going on. And one of the instruments of this war is your illegal Tribunal.
Let me say straight away, as far as your judgements are concerned and rulings in joinders or not joinders, I’m not afraid of them at all, because if you judge according to the law and the truth, then there would never have been this trial in the first place. But as we do have a trial, it can end only in one way: A decision on the non-existence of culpability. And if you don’t rule based on justice and truth, then your ruling will disintegrate and will burst like a bubble of soap, because the court of the world and the court of justice and the truth is stronger than any other court. It is up to each one of us, and each one of you gentlemen, to opt and choose what place we’re going to have before that court of history, and what its decision will be. So don’t harbour any illusions on that score.
Therefore, as I said, I am opposed to severance. I demand that I be given a rest period to recuperate. I stress that today, too, I came in in a very poor state of health, extremely poor, but I did come in so that we can continue the proceedings. Therefore, I demand that you consider my request to give me a break, a period of rest. And as for severance or non-severance, I’ve stated my views on that matter, too.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Milosevic. (…)
JUDGE ROBINSON: There are several issues arising from the matters that we have considered today. I wish to note — Mr. Milosevic.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Will I get an opportunity to say a few words with regard to these questions that Mr. Nice raised?
JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, you’ve already spoken, and we have heard you. Do you have something that could be said very briefly?
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] We heard him before me and now he spoke, well, for a considerable amount of time yet again.
JUDGE ROBINSON: That was a response to you. That’s traditional in these matters. If you have something to say, I’ll hear it, briefly.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Before I speak in connection with what Mr. Nice said, and he repeated lots of nonsense that we have occasion to hear from him here, I just wish to provide a piece of information to Mr. Bonomy because he asked me about this.
So, Mr. Bonomy, in relation to the financing of this illegal Tribunal of yours, according to your own Article 32 of your own Statute, the expenses are covered from the regular budget of the UN. However, they arrive from very murky sources; the Soros Foundation, various foundations from the Islamic countries, with NATO being the major financier.
On the 17th of May, 1999, Jamie Shea, the spokesperson of NATO, said: “NATO countries are those [In English] … the finest to set up Tribunal. We are amongst the majority financiers. We want to see war criminals brought to justice. I’m certain that when Justice Arbour goes to Kosovo and looks at the facts, she will be indicting people of Yugoslavian nationality, and I don’t anticipate any others at this stage.”
[Interpretation] So the main financier is NATO, and the others are the Soros Foundation and foundations from Islamic countries, and so on and so forth. So that is perfectly clear.
And on page 35550 from these proceedings here, I’m just going to quote Mr. Nice, who talks about a witness, and says: “[In English] If we go to page 2 of 11, halfway down the page we can see that this is by no means written by people who are friends of the ICTY or any Western conspiracy, because the author describes NATO’s intervention as the recent ‘brutal, illegal, and illegitimate intervention of the NATO forces against the country.’
“So you would accept that this is a Serb without any particular leaning towards the forces and powers that established this Tribunal …” et cetera.
[Interpretation] So, Mr. Bonomy, for Mr. Nice, obviously there is no dilemma, the kind of dilemma you have. So you can clarify it with him, what he meant to say then. Since you say that you don’t know about this, I hereby inform you of this. And I believe that, as an honourable man, once you’ve found out, and I can give you further evidence, you can leave this story that you got into without realising what you got yourself into. And now as for Mr. Nice and what he said, he said the most senseless thing possible about a Greater Serbia —
JUDGE BONOMY: I have to say I haven’t the remotest idea what you’re talking about now in relation to this. In fact, the more I read it, the less comprehensible it becomes.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I have to say to you that you are not at large here. I am giving you a chance to comment on some issues if you consider them to be issues of importance. Although the Prosecutor did not file a motion, I asked the Prosecutor to begin. So in accordance with the tradition in adversarial systems, I allowed him to reply. In these circumstances, I don’t see you as having any right to reply, but you obviously have an interest, a fundamental interest, in the outcome of these matters, and it is for that reason that I’m allowing you to say something at this stage. But please don’t abuse it.
Proceed, bearing in mind that we are now almost seven minutes to two.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] As for what Mr. Nice said that pertains to one of the key issues, as for Greater Serbia, he explained just now that I did not utter that word, but I assume that he’s trying to say that there is something that was done. I also think that deeds have to be looked into first and foremost, and the deed is the following, Mr. Robinson and gentlemen: In this entire period, from 1991 onwards, no one was expelled from Serbia on account of ethnic affiliation. There was no discrimination whatsoever. No one from Serbia and no one from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was discriminated against on account of his religion, race, or beliefs. That is a fact, gentlemen. And at that time that you are interested in, I was president of Serbia and president of Yugoslavia, and no one was ever expelled from there. That is a fact.
Now, what Mr. Nice is trying to ascribe to me —
JUDGE ROBINSON: [B/C/S spoken on English channel] I want to make it clear I’m not interested in this. I’m interested in the question of severance. I am not clear. We are back to English now. Did you hear what I said? I said I’m not interested in a general discussion on Greater Serbia. If you have something to say about Greater Serbia because it impacts on the question of severance, then I’ll allow you to say it. But don’t regurgitate the arguments which we’ve heard ad nauseam about this issue.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, the question of time is being raised here, and Mr. Nice devoted due attention to that in the speech he just made. According to Mr. Nice, the best thing would be not to have anyone testify in public but to do all of it in writing, and Mr. Nice is explaining to you how they abided by that, that they were very economical, very expeditious. And in spite of all these heaps of paper and all these 92 bis and 89(F) testimonies, he used up 300 days. So please do not take into account these things that are in contravention of pure mathematics.
I was not saying that no one worked for five days. I was just trying to say that no one sat for five days. Of course I work for more than five days, although we sit here only for three days. And after all, Dr. van Dijkman wrote that three days is what I do here, and as for the rest of my time, I have to prepare myself for here, including the proofing of witnesses. And that is what he knows full well and that is what you know full well, so that is an argument that cannot be used at all.
Mr. Nice’s advice is that I collect written statements from witnesses. The basic aim of public testimony is to hear the truth, because if we were to stop at what Mr. Nice wrote, together with his associates, that would be a monstrous lie. So in order to have the truth heard, there is a great interest involved, a historical interest, I should say, of my people, of my country. But not only of my people and of my country, of mankind in general and of the times in general. Let us hear what the truth is, and let the actual perpetrators of what happened in Yugoslavia actually be exposed, although you said yourself, Mr. Robinson, at one point in time, that you are not in charge of trying NATO for what they did, although you know what they did and you know that the basic tenet of any law in the world is that the law that does not apply to one and all is not law at all.
Therefore, I ask for adequate time to be given to me.
JUDGE BONOMY: I, again, have to say I don’t understand this submission. Because something is in writing does not mean it is not in public. Everything in writing here, submitted in writing that’s not confidential, becomes public. And at this stage, it’s not, as you would see it, lies that we’re suggesting ought to be presented in writing, it’s what you claim to be the truth, because it is you that would be presenting the written material, and you turn the argument on its head and undermine your whole case. It is the way forward if you want to submit material in addition to the period that’s been allocated to you to complete the case.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] I think, Mr. Bonomy, that you’re the one who’s turned things upside down.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Are you finished now, Mr. Milosevic?
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. Nice presented a great many other things here too, that this will show how I systematically did not observe any laws, which is a lie. He has not presented a shred of evidence to that effect. That my role with the paramilitaries will be shown. My only role with the paramilitaries was to have them arrested.
There was no other evidence to that effect. So he is manipulating here —
JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, all of this — this is irrelevant to the issue. If you do not have anything more to say on the question of severance, we’ll stop now. We are 15 minutes beyond —
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] I’m talking about what he talked about.
JUDGE ROBINSON: And you don’t have a right to do that. I explained to you the circumstances in which I have allowed you to speak, and I explained why Mr. Nice had a right to reply, because he started. Do you have anything that is pertinent to say, anything more? I’m not interested in general issues. If you don’t, I’m going to adjourn.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] I have presented what I consider to be relevant.
JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Milosevic.
I want to say that many issues arise for consideration and decision by the Trial Chamber in relation to this matter. We still have outstanding a report which we expect today from Dr. Dalal, and also there is to be an examination and a report by a neuroradiologist. The Chamber would like to have all these reports before it before it makes a decision on these matters. So we’ll give a decision once we have all the reports before us.
