MEASURES TAKEN ONLY AGAINST SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC IN THE SCHEVENINGEN PRISON AND AT THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL, IN CONTRAVENTION OF THEIR OWN RULES, GUARANTEES AND RIGHTS

Obstructing and avoiding visits of physicians.

Banning the physicians from publishing their findings on his health condition and on the causes of its deterioration.

Preventing the family from visiting in the duration allowed to all other detainees (between 7 and 15 days a month) and reducing it to 3 days a month.

Refusing almost all visits of the world public figures, acquaintances, friends, politicians etc.

Censoring and restricting visits from Yugoslavia – of friends, Party colleagues, SLOBODA National Committee members engaged in defending Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia.

Preventing the members of ten different national committees for the defence of Slobodan Milosevic that have been established in the world, as well as the members and the leadership of the International Committee for his defence from contacting and visiting

Preventing the family from being alone with him, which is not otherwise a practice when other detainees are concerned.

Banning the family from visiting at the time of the Serbian elections.

Banning all telephone communications before, during and after the Serbian elections, except with the family.

Obstructing contacts and the work with lawyers.

Listening in to conversations with the lawyer.

Deliberately keeping him for many hours within the court building with the explanation that “the transportation was being late”.

Unannounced alterations in the sequence of witnesses.

Closing the proceedings for the public during the examination of witnesses who might compromise NATO and the Tribunal.

For nearly two years the trial is being held day in and day out. Such a practice has never been recorded in the history of the judiciary since it came into existence. Only as of a month ago the trial was being held for three days a week, after the physicians had emphasized that he cannot withstand it, but he is hardly withstanding even that effort, because his health has been severely damaged in prison.

On account of the whole-day sojourn at the court, he has no time at all to rest during the trial days, nor to go out and have some fresh air and walk (exercise), nor to have regular meals.

He has no conditions for work and trial preparations either. His cell has been swamped with trial materials, often received in the evening, on the eve of a trial day. This excludes the possibility of a timely and proper preparation for the trial. At the same time, such practice is in contravention of the Tribunal’s rules.

He has been often given materials in English, although according to their own rules each detainee has to be given materials required for his defence in his mother tongue.

The trial materials are of such volume that he would need another 50 years to make a full use of it.

Preventing the Defence from preparing, as compared to the preparation of the Prosecution. The preparation of the Prosecution lasted at least 4 years, he was allotted 3 months to prepare! In addition to this, the Prosecution was being prepared by several hundreds of people, and him alone is to prepare the Defence.

Moreover, he has been brought to The Hague by force, illegally and in contravention of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The materials had been handed over to him, requiring by its volume a multi-year labour of a large expert team, as was the case with the Prosecution, prepared for at least 4 years with the logistic, financial, organizational and personnel support of the governments of NATO member states. The Prosecution’s case has been prolonged several times, and he was allotted three months to prepare his defence alone, in prison, without personal and telephone contacts and with no time nor conditions for medical treatment. A large number of witnesses were employees of the Prosecution, which is in contravention of their own rules. Even larger number of witnesses was bribed or blackmailed people. Without adjudication, the Tribunal reached a decision to prevent his Party from contacting him at the time of the elections, which is a direct interference of an institution otherwise illegitimate with the politics and the internal affairs of a sovereign state and in this case with its citizens’ will. Visits and contacts assessed as unsuitable by the Tribunal are banned with no explanation, again in contravention of their own rules. Slobodan Milosevic has been brought to The Hague with poor health condition, and in the Scheveningen prison it has been ignored, inadequately treated and drastically deteriorated under the inhuman treatment (for several months, cameras and spotlights had been constantly on in his cell) and by the lack of medical treatment during his stay there. Nothing has been done to improve his health condition, quite the contrary. The Tribunal banned all the physicians, the Yugoslav as well as the Dutch ones, from publishing their reports on his condition.  Only after the physicians’ warning that his life has been directly threatened the workload at the Tribunal itself was reduced. For what reason such savage and inhuman measures were taken consciously and deliberately under the auspices and in the name of the United Nations?

For what reason his defence has been prevented so obviously and brutally? Why ONLY he has the right to visits for just three days a month when all other detainees at The Hague have 15 days each month?  Why the Tribunal officials have to be present ONLY at his visits? Has the United Nations given the mandate to the Tribunal and entitled it to interfere also with the internal Yugoslav politics and even with the election? If The Hague Tribunal is a UN institution, is this organization aware of the treatment given in its name to a human being, a sick man, a former head of state? As a founder of The Hague Tribunal, the Organization of the United Nations is directly responsible for the operations, operating procedures and methods applied by its institution. Therefore, it bears responsibility also for any wrong done and harm caused by its institution to any one man and people in general. The Organization of the United Nation is obliged to provide public answers to these questions.

The UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva has not done much for the protection of human rights over the past years, but while “protecting” this heritage it has caused a lot of misfortune throughout the world. We demand for this institution to speak out now in relation to the illegal, inhuman treatment of Slobodan Milosevic in their own institution.  How is justice being defended by the United Nations with publishing every word presented by the Prosecution and its collaborators and at the same time hiding and censoring everything coming from the Defence? Complete testimonies of the witnesses for the Prosecution have been published, blackmailed and corrupt as a rule and mainly untruthful individuals, and the public has been denied the expounding of Slobodan Milosevic, a brilliant defence admired by anyone who heard it. On this occasion we are not raising a question of the rationale and legitimacy of The Hague Tribunal, because it has no legitimacy, its rationale is nowadays already clear to everybody and it will go into history as black as it is, together with all its protagonists. We demand for the UN and the UN Commission for Human Rights, as well as all international organizations for the protection of human rights to react to a crime that was being perpetrated against Slobodan Milosevic in its most brutal form, unknown to modern civilization.

In Belgrade, 09 February 2004