The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

Securing Verdicts: The Misuse of Witness Testimony at The Hague
command authority was dismissed for being no more than evidence of
the respect in which Limaj was held. “The notion of ‘commander’ itself
may have been understood loosely by some KLA personnel at the time
as some purport to have used the term merely as a mark of respect or to
acknowledge influence.” 44 Prosecution witness L96 was dismissed as a
“Serbian collaborator”: “The Chamber notes that L96 may have been
motivated by a desire to protect himself and his family by maintaining
that he did not willingly provide information to the Serbian authorities.
Nevertheless, the Chamber is left with the distinct impression that L96
did indeed give false testimony on this issue. His willingness to do so instills
in the Chamber a general distrust of the credibility of this witness.”
45 Witness L64 was dismissed because his “prior criminal record,
criminal conduct and history of personal drug use, weigh very negatively
in an assessment of [his] trustworthiness.” 46 Prosecution witness
Policeman Dragan Jasovic was dismissed because of “allegations of detention,
interrogation, mistreatment and torture at the police station
where [he] served.” 47 Interestingly, one of the allegations concerned the
supposed presence of “baseball bats” in the police station, even though
baseball had not hitherto been known as a popular pastime in the former
Yugoslavia.
As in its acquittal of Halilovic, the ICTY trial chamber, having satisfied
itself that sufficient evidence was lacking to prove that Limaj was
in overall command of the area that contained the prison camp, did not
bother to address the issue of whether Limaj, as a senior KLA official,
ever called for an investigation of what went on at Lapusnik or ever
sought to punish the perpetrators of the crimes at Lapusnik. The conclusion
is inescapable that, in putting on trial non-Serbs, especially leaders
of NATO-sanctioned victims like Bosnian Muslims or Kosovo
Albanians, the ICTY is merely going through a public relations charade,
chiefly for the purpose of demonstrating even-handedness, even as
it applies wholly different standards of forensic reliability and criminal
liability.
All Prosecution, All the Time
The ICTY’s uniquely successful conviction rate (for Serb defendants)
is obviously bound up with its being trial court, appellate court, judge,
jury, prosecutor, defense counsel, amicus curiae and court of last resort
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