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Podujevo 1999 – Beyond Reasonable Doubtthat the two inspectors had not attended the questioning of the defendantby the investigative judge, have been accepted in full. Certain discrepanciesin the statements of these witnesses are logical as the event happenedalmost five years ago, and that was the first and the only time the two inspectorshad been working together, so that their memories concerningdifferent details are different. However, during the proceedings the statementthe defendant had given to these inspectors of the Secretariat of theInterior had been removed from the case files so that it is not the subject ofevaluation in the criminal proceedings.In view of the fact that it has been determined that the defendant, on 24May 1999, before the investigative judge, has been questioned in the presenceof attorney Dragutin Stanković, in the absence of any other personsand without application of any illegal means, and the very contents of thedefendant’s defence agree with evidence presented before the court, thecourt has accepted this defence as true. Later changes of the defence areobviously intended to avoid criminal responsibility - both his own and thatof other persons mentioned by the defendant in his initial statement - whichis the reason why the court has not accepted these changes as true.The court has not accepted the claim of the defence that it has not beendetermined that defendant Saša Cvjetan shot at the civilians. On the basisof the evidence presented, it has doubtlessly been determined that thedefendant, together and simultaneously with other persons, had shot at agroup of civilians - women and children in the courtyard of the Gashi familyhouse - and that the defendant himself had confessed this in his statementgiven to the investigative judge of the district court in Prokuplje on24 May 1999. On the basis of the evidence presented to the court, the exactnumber of persons whose lives had been taken on the occasion was determined,as well as of those who had survived. The defence of the defendanthas disputed the regularity of application of international conventionsand the legal qualification of the crime. The court has determined that, irrespectiveof the nature of KLA organisation and their manner of fighting,the conflicts between members of KLA and the armed forces of the Policeand the Army of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in accordance withthe generally accepted characteristics, represent an armed conflict of internationalcharacter. The fact that KLA is not a military organisation understate control, as pointed out by the defence of the defendant, is what329