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First
Massacre Witness Testifies in Trial Against Milosevic
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Milosevic faces victims |
THE
HAGUE, 28 May (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The first witness to
testify about the Kosovo massacre that set off NATO's air war on
Yugoslavia gave evidence at Slobodan Milosevic's trial Tuesday.
Drita
Emini is one of five people called to testify against the former
Yugoslav president, on trial for genocide and war crimes, specifically
over the January 1999 slaughter in Racak and the 1995 massacre in
Srebrenica that saw over 2,000, and as many as 7,000, Muslims killed
in an ethnic cleansing sweep.
Her
testimony was taken into evidence without being presented in court,
which heard only a short prosecution summary before she was
cross-examined by Milosevic, who is defending himself.
The
24-year-old was sometimes flustered by Milosevic's questioning but
maintained that she was in Racak on January 15 that year, when 45
ethnic Albanians, many of Muslim descent, were killed.
"January
15th is the day the Serb army and police committed the massacre,"
she told the court.
She
said she hid in the basement of her uncle's house when she heard
shooting coming from the surrounding hills, some she could see through
a hole in the basement wall.
Emini
said that Serb forces later came and ordered people out of the shelter
and separated the men from the women and children.
The
following day, she said, she saw a pile of bodies and identified 36 of
them for investigators at the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
The
Hague court is trying Milosevic over atrocities committed during the
1990s wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
He
has repeatedly accused NATO of committing war crimes itself in the
1999 bombardment of Yugoslavia which ended the Kosovo war, and accused
Albanian KLA activists of staging the massacre.
The
NATO intervention was finally set off by the Racak massacre, which is
a key part of the tribunal's indictment of Milosevic over Kosovo.
On
Wednesday the court at The Hague will hear the testimony of Canadian
General Michel Maisonneuve, who worked for the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and went to Racak after the
killings.
Meanwhile,
several hundred die-hard supporters of Milosevic protested in Belgrade
on Tuesday against his trial before the U.N. war crimes tribunal and
demanded his release, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported
The
protestors, organized by the group "Sloboda" (Freedom),
walked to the British and U.S. embassy in central Belgrade and handed
over written requests for Milosevic's release.
They
also condemned Belgrade authorities for handing over Milosevic to the
Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) last June.
They
said they were "supporting Slobodan Milosevic for his justified
fight for the freedom of all people in the world against the monstrous
and criminal court in The Hague".
"Serbia
is in the darkness and the authorities can only be ashamed for their
deeds after our slavery passes," one of the protestors said.
Some
of the protestors carried photos of Bosnian Serb wartime leaders
Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, who are wanted by the ICTY for war
crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
No
incidents were reported during the protest, which lasted more than an
hour.
Milosevic
faces more than 60 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against
humanity for his involvement in the conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia and
Kosovo in the 1990s. He faces life imprisonment if convicted.
His
trial, which opened on February 12, is currently dealing with the
Kosovo indictment but will later this year move on to charges for
crimes he is accused of committing in Bosnia and Croatia.
Meanwhile,
Bosnian Serb Lieutenant Colonel Dragan Jokic, indicted over his role
in 1995 Srebrenica massacre, arrived Banja Luka, in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Tuesday after being provisionally released by the U.N. war crimes
court pending his trial.
His
lawyer Miodrag Stojanovic told reporters that the court announced its
decision to release Jokic on provisional bail on Monday. He also said
that his trial is expected to begin in December, AFP reported.
According
to his lawyer, the government of the Serb-run entity of Republika
Srpska guaranteed that Jokic, who will be at his home in the
north-eastern town of Zvornik, will return to prison at the latest one
month before the trial starts.
Jokic
voluntarily turned himself in to the ICTY at a NATO base in Bosnia in
August and has pleaded not guilty. He is accused of war crimes
committed in Srebrenica where he served as a chief of engineering in
the Zvornik brigade, one of the units, which led the Bosnian Serb
assaults on the Muslims in the region.
He
is the first detainee indicted over Srebrenica to be released from The
Hague on provisional bail.
More
than 7,000 Muslims are believed to have been executed by Serb forces
following the fall of the U.N.-protected safe zone of Srebrenica in
July 1995, the worst atrocity of the 1992-95 war..
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