Jon Silverman (BBC): Worst outcome for Milosevic tribunal

[Jack Rabbit]

From the BBC Online
Dated Sunday March 12

Worst outcome for Milosevic tribunal
By Jon Silverman
Legal affairs analyst

It has been a black week for the UN tribunal authorities in the Hague.

On 5 March, the Serb nationalist war criminal, Milan Babic, was found dead in his prison cell. He is presumed to have committed suicide.

Now, the man against whom Babic testified in 2002, Slobodan Milosevic, is himself dead.

It raises questions which may tarnish the reputation of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and undermine confidence in war crimes justice generally.

Read more.

Comment by JR:

For those of us seeking to put Bush and members of his junta on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, this could have serious implications.

It is important that war crimes suspects get a fair trial once charged. That is as true for Saddam and Bush as for Milosevic and Mladic. We can afford neither to have these courts viewed as no more just than Bush's military tribunals in Guantánamo nor the security in the UN prisons thought so lax as to allow suicides or assassinations.

It is most likely that Milosevic died of natural causes. However, he did express fears of being poisoned. While this was no doubt a paranoid delusion, we can expect it to be used by not only Milosevic's friends but the potential future defendants of war crimes trials to question the ability of international tribunals to dispense justice.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Well, some people will reach the conclusion that justice has been served.

However, I'm one who believes Milosevic was probably poisoned. Wasn't he about to start subpoening ex-world leaders?

[Jack Rabbit]

3. If Milosevic was poisoned by some ex-world leader, we have a problem

It would show that security in the prison is lax. The court is responsible for security. Therefore, it would reflect badly on the court.

The tribunal itself had no interest in killing Milosevic. There is little doubt that he would have been convicted on a number of charges and spent the rest of his life in prison in The Hague.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Oh, foolish me. Ex-leaders of the world and the organizations that

served them would never stoop so low as to contract for a hit. It's not like anybody has any secrets to hide in this world.

Check back with me after the autopsy results.

[Jack Rabbit]

8. I didn't say it was a foolish thought

I said that if you are right, it reflects poorly on the security of the UN prison in The Hague.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. 'Probably poisioned'?

Maybe waiting for the autopsy results would be a good idea, as you later suggest. We know he was in bad health - the trial had been delayed for that before. The recent target of his subpoena was Bill Clinton - see Google News. No, I don't think Clinton would order an assassination of Milosevic. With subpoenas of Blair and Schröder having already been rejected by the court, I doubt there was even much chance that Clinton would have had to appear if he didn't want to.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. My you stretched for that.

How do you know Clinton didn't have information that would have pointed to someone else? I find it highly unlikely that he collaborated with Milosevic, but I am curious as hell to find out what Milosevic was going to ask him.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. *I'm* stretching?

:rofl: You're the one who seems to have made up their mind before any autopsy results. You constructed a theory about world leaders being subpoenaed, and it turns out that the ones Milosevic wanted are Clinton and Wesley Clark. Now you're hypothesising Clinton could have had information about "someone else" - but you have no evidence for that at all; and who do you think Clinton would have information about, that Clinton has covered up for all these years? Clinton was the US president for the relevant years - it's not as if he was in fear of someone.

Clinton wouldn't have been accused of collaborating with him - Milosevic wanted to ask about the evidence Clinton and other western leaders had about what Milosevic had actually done, and accuse him of bias against Milosevic and the Serbs. See eg http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/08/26/serbia9273.htm (paragraph 10).

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Well, your laughter certainly seems warranted, but there's still

something not adding up. If it's a world tribunal, wouldn't Milosevic already know what evidence and accusations he was facing? Why would he need to go to Clinton to find out what already should have been provided? And why Clinton? What did he hope to know that he already didn't know?

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Maybe not for Milosevic to know, but for Clinton etc. to say it in public

Or at least for Milosevic to be able to accuse Clinton, Blair etc. to their faces; he wanted to put them on the defensive, to try to justify his own actions. The more he could have cast doubt on the correctness of their actions, the less his guilt seems. If he had got them being evasive on, say, the bombing of Belgrade, he might have helped his case - or at least helped his reputation amongst some Serbs. He was a very proud man, and even if he thought he was certain to be imprisoned, I think he still wanted to be respected by Serbs.

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. Well, thanks for that explanation.

In lieu of that information, I don't think he had a chance. Not judging by the old archived videos of mutiliated bodies that were shown on CNN the day that Milosevic died. That day I was dragged to the "Y" by a friend who wanted company to exercise. I reluctantly sat on a recliner bicycle and tried to discern what was being said on the news because you had to bring your own ear-plugs to listen and I didn't have any. CNN was showing about half an hour of the slaughtering that took place under Milosevic's reign. Even without sound, it was pretty gruesome.

Made me wonder what would happen to Bush if he was ever tried based on the photos of Iraq.

[global1]

2. Discredit The International Criminal Tribunal - So That *Co Can .....

skate again.

[scarletwoman]

9. Bingo! Goes to motive.

As to means; read this:

Drug traces "found in Milosevic's blood before death"

AMSTERDAM, March 12 (Reuters) - A blood sample taken from Slobodan Milosevic some time between November and January contained unusual substances, Dutch public television NOS reported on Sunday, citing unidentified sources.

NOS said on its Web site that doctors had been trying to determine why drugs Milosevic was receiving for high blood pressure and a heart condition did not work.

In his blood they found traces of drugs often used by patients being treated for leprosy or tuberculosis, NOS reported. Those drugs neutralised the medicine Milosevic was given against high blood pressure and heart problems, it said.

Milosevic had claimed on Friday, a day before he was found dead, in a letter to Russia that he feared he was being poisoned, according to his lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic.

Milosevic's letter said he had been given the wrong drugs -- including drugs for leprosy -- in an attempt to silence him, said Tomanovic.

The 64-year-old was found dead in his cell on Saturday, only months before a verdict was due in his trial on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the 1990s.

Opportunity? How hard would it have been to insert an operative somewhere along the conduit through which Milosevic's legitimate medication traveled from the medical provider to his jail cell? Certainly within the capabilities of any number of intelligence/security entities, one might well presume.

Alternately, we are being asked to believe that the Powerful of the World are so devoted to high ethical standards that not one of them would stoop to permanently silencing an enemy.

Which seems more likely?

sw

[Wilms]

5. kick