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 the Body 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