Rome, 16th February 2004
To: Mr. Theodor Meron, President,
ICTY, The Hague, The Netherlands
Fax 00 3170 512 8637
Cc: H.E. Kofi Annan,
Secretary General,
UN, New York, USA
Fax 00 1212 963 4475
STATEMENT BY PROF. ALDO BERNARDINI
International Law, University of Teramo (Italy)
Since June 2001 President Slobodan Milosevic is a political prisoner in Scheveningen. His transfer from the Belgrade jail has been tantamount to a kidnapping without the legal guarantees which are usual in cases of extradition (that was in any case forbidden by Serbian and Yugoslav Constitutions, as confirmed by Federal Constitutional Court). Money has been paid, or rather promised, to a quisling regime. An unprecedented treatment for a former Head of State, illegitimately indicted when he was in office (see International Court of Justice – Case concerning the arrest warrant of 11 April 2000 – Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Belgium, 14 February 2002), whose only fault had been in the past his effort to avoid Yugoslavia being blotted out by Western diplomatic trickeries and by ethnicist secessions and later to keep together so much as possible of former Yugoslavia. The 1992 Constitution of the Federation of Yugoslavia bears witness to this in the articles, strongly advocated by President Milosevic against nationalistic trends, by which Yugoslav citizenship and equality of rights were founded on residence instead of ethnical grounds such as in the Constitutions of other former Yugoslav Republics.
According to the Prosecution in the Hague trial, President Milosevic, the father of such a Constitution, could – or rather, should – be the man guilty of genocide and other crimes against mankind. After almost three years it is clear to every unbiased person that nothing has been proved. There is no evidence that such horrible crimes were committed or, when committed, that President Milosevic was in any way involved therein. The strenuous attitude of Slobodan Milosevic has been successful in countering and rebutting all charges by Prosecution and allegations by so-called witnesses. So much so that now it is absolutely obvious that a political trial is going on in the Hague and that therefore Milosevic must be declared guilty in order to acquit NATO aggressors, whose crimes the illegal Hague Tribunal has refused even only to skim over. This has been from the very beginning the real task of a Tribunal which Security Council had no power to legitimately constitute and whose financing and means of action testify to which interests it is subservient.
But this Tribunal is passed off as being an organ, a subsidiary organ, of United Nations. It is therefore strictly bound by all U.N. rules and principles particularly on human rights, even by such rules that are not binding on Member States, for ex. by General Assembly resolutions.
Generally recognised procedural rights and human rights of President Milosevic have been violated from the very beginning. An impressive list of such violations has been submitted by Sloboda Association of Belgrade and I wholly subscribe to it (Measures taken only against Slobodan Milosevic in the Scheveningen prison and at the Hague Tribunal in contravention of their own rules, guarantees and rights).
I underline in particular in the last time the decision to allot him only three months for the preparation of his defence in comparison with three or four years given to the Prosecution and, lastly, the order for prolongation also in afternoon hours of the last hearings to end the Prosecution case. These are shameful decisions which infringe upon the health conditions of President Milosevic (his life is in real danger) and his possibility to prepare his own defence: they exclude equality of arms between Prosecution and defence and point out the political and persecutory character of such a barbaric trial.
During the elections campaign in Serbia, President Milosevic has been prevented from actively participate in it. In the light of the presumption of innocence and the abnormal feature and lengthiness of the trial, we must pose the question whether his political rights have been violated. Serbian people by electing him have given a beating answer.
Among the generally recognised procedural and human rights principles which have been completely infringed upon, I mention, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, article 9, par. 4 (“Anyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings before a court, in order that that court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his detention and order his release if the detention is not lawful”); article 14, par. 2 (presumption of innocence); and article 25 (participation in the political life). We must not forget the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, approved by the Economic and Social Council of the U.N. with res. 663 C (XXIV) of 31 July 1957 and 2076 (LXII) of 13 May 1977, particularly rule 37 (communications and visits); the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, adopted by U.N. General Assembly res. 45/111 of 14 December 1990, par. 5 (prisoners shall retain human rights and fundamental freedoms set out in the international instruments); and theBody of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, adopted by U.N. General Assembly res. 43/173 of 9 December 1988, particularly principles 11 and 32 (review of continuance of detention by a judicial authority), principles 15 and 19 (communication of prisoners with the outside world and visits). It is clear that the review of detention by a judicial authority refers to such an authority which is independent of the Hague Tribunal; and it is also clear that violations of rights depend also on the set of rules governing the Hague Tribunal.
President Slobodan Milosevic must be immediately released.
The arbitrary trial must be stopped.
The illegitimate Hague Tribunal must be done away with.
Prof. Aldo Bernardini
