US embassy cable - 04THEHAGUE3255

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 THE HAGUE 003255 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR S/WCI - PROSPER/RICHARD, EUR - STEPHENS, 
EUR/SCE - GAUDIOSI/GREGORIAN/MITCHELL, L/EUR - KJOHNSON, 
L/AF - GTAFT. INR/WCAD - SEIDENSTRICKER/MORIN; USUN FOR 
ROSTOW/WILLSON 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: FIVE YEARS AFTER ICTY CLOSURE 
TAGS: BK, HR, KAWC, NL, PHUM, PREL, SR, ICTY 
SUBJECT: ICTY - MILOSEVIC WITNESSES ADVANCE POLITICAL CASE 
 
 
Classified By: Clifton M. Johnson, Legal Counselor, Reason 1.5(b)-(d). 
 
1. (SBU) Summary. Having regained control of his defense case 
before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former 
Yugoslavia (ICTY), Slobodan Milosevic questioned a string of 
Russian witnesses and a former Yugoslav official over the 
past two weeks, focusing much of their testimony on 
corroboration of Milosevic,s version of Yugoslavia,s 
history.  Several of Milosevic,s witnesses testified that 
the West had a plan to invade Kosovo rather than to pursue a 
political solution, and each addressed the issue of Greater 
Serbia, the concept the prosecution has said Milosevic used 
to inspire nationalism and justify his aggressions in the 
former Yugoslavia. The trial chamber sought documentary 
evidence from the witnesses and, at one point, in light of 
the absence of such evidence, Presiding Judge Patrick 
Robinson commented that the testimony would carry less weight 
as a result. Separately, the trial chamber rejected defense 
counsel,s outstanding request to withdraw from the case on 
ethical grounds.  End summary. 
 
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Defense Counsel Must Stay 
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2. (SBU) On December 7, the trial chamber issued its denial 
of defense counsel,s application to withdraw from the case. 
The decision reiterated the trial chamber,s right to assign 
counsel to an unwilling accused and rejected concerns that 
noncooperation by the accused creates an ethical obligation 
for assigned counsel to withdraw. The Chamber ruled that 
given that it can assign counsel in this circumstance - a 
power affirmed by the appeals chamber in its recent ruling in 
this case - allowing counsel to withdraw based on 
noncooperation would eviscerate this power. Further, getting 
to the crux of defense counsel Kay,s and Higgins, 
application to withdraw, the Chamber held that noncooperation 
does not mean that counsel is not meeting its obligation to 
act in the accused,s best interests. 
 
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The Accused,s Witnesses 
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3. (SBU) Former Soviet prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, who 
was a member of the Duma during the Kosovo conflict, 
testified that NATO planned as early as 1998 to invade Kosovo 
and that such invasion was an act of aggression on a 
sovereign state. For the latter propositions, in which he 
invoked the term  genocide,, he cited Duma resolutions from 
1998 and 1999, which Judge Robinson pointed out were not, as 
the opinions of a national parliament, helpful to the trial 
chamber. Ryzhkov also asserted that Kosovo Albanian 
separatists were terrorists financed by European and Middle 
Eastern countries, as well as drug smuggling, and that there 
were 800,000 mercenaries among them. He offered no documents 
to substantiate this claim. With respect to the Greater 
Serbia issue, Ryzhkov stated that he had never discussed the 
issue with Milosevic or any Serbian officials. 
 
4. (SBU) Milosevic,s next defense witness, Leonid Ivashov, 
made a variety of accusations concerning a purported U.S. and 
NATO plan to attack and dissolve Yugoslavia. At the time of 
the NATO intervention in Kosovo, Ivashov presided over a 
directorate at the Ministry of Defense within which was a 
special section studying the situation in Kosovo, 
particularly the &terrorist organization KLA.8 Pressed by 
the judges on numerous occasions for the bases of his 
conclusions, Ivashov cited information from the Russian 
embassy, daily contact with high-level NATO and member state 
representatives, contacts in other states, and open sources, 
but offered no documents into evidence. The thrust of the 
assertions, provided usually by Milosevic himself in a series 
of leading questions, was that Rambouillet was a farce, in 
spite of Milosevic,s interest in a political solution, 
because the West had long since decided it was going to 
invade Kosovo. For this proposition, Ivashov cited the 
&media warfare8 begun by propaganda aircraft deployed in 
Macedonia, a U.S. Army document exposed later by lead 
prosecutor Geoffrey Nice as a decades-old policy paper, the 
military alliance between NATO and the KLA begun in 1998, the 
upgrade of military infrastructure near the Yugoslav borders 
in 1998, and a U.K. regiment transferred to Macedonia with 80 
intelligence units for radio surveillance. 
 
5. (SBU) Former Russian Federation prime minister Yevgeny 
Primakov similarly described the NATO invasion as a fait 
accompli. He described the civil war as one influenced by 
"external intervention," meaning a Western intention to 
expand the NATO sphere of influence, and the Kosovo conflict 
as one instigated by Albanian separatists and prolonged 
because of NATO,s longstanding plan to invade rather than 
use diplomatic means to end the conflict. Primakov, who 
headed Russia,s intelligence service during the years at 
issue, said his government determined that NATO, and 
particularly the United States, was "persistent and insistent 
in following the course of weakening Serbia." He also cited 
Milosevic,s commitment to the Vance-Owen Plan and the 
subsequent embargo Milosevic placed on Republika Srpska, 
though this was undercut by Nice,s quotation of Milosevic on 
another occasion saying the embargo was a formality and aid 
went across the border regularly. Much was made of 
Primakov,s assertion that Milosevic told him that Greater 
Serbia was not an option because it would require bloodshed, 
something Milosevic did not want. In cross-examination based 
on passages from Primakov,s book, prosecutor Nice showed 
that Primakov actually made these statements himself, to 
which Milosevic apparently acquiesced, but Primakov in his 
testimony did not admit to seeing a difference between the 
words being his or Milosevic,s. Nice went further on the 
Greater Serbia issue, citing conversations to which Primakov 
was not a party in which Milosevic indeed did make comments 
about uniting the Serb population in one nationality, of 
which Primakov acceded that he was unaware. 
 
6. (SBU) Finishing off set of witnesses, Milosevic questioned 
Vukasin Jokanovic, former speaker of the Kosovo Assembly and 
an ally of Milosevic from his time in the Yugoslav 
government. Jokanovic testified that the Albanian separatist 
protests of 1981 were not suppressed by Serb forces, but 
rather federal forces under Slovene command, and that the 
1989 legislation limiting Kosovo,s autonomy was endorsed by 
many Albanians in the regional assembly. Jokanovic testified 
that this change to the Serbian Constitution was begun under 
Milosevic,s predecessor, and it had the support of officials 
from several republics, a statement for which Milosevic 
offered supporting documents from a meeting of the Yugoslav 
League of Communists. Intended to refute the prosecution,s 
testimony from Ibrahim Rugova, which asserted that Albanian 
representatives were pressured to accept the legislation, 
Jokanovic,s testimony claimed that the vote - far from being 
held in the hostile circumstances Rugova described - was held 
in a "solemn and democratic atmosphere" and denied knowledge 
that it was being challenged before the Constitutional Court 
of Kosovo. 
 
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Comment 
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7. (C) The accused is clearly now in control of his case:  he 
selects the themes, questions the witnesses, responds to the 
chamber, and sets the tone for each day,s proceedings.  All 
of this, though, is by no means in the Accused,s own best 
interests.  While Milosevic,s latest tranche of witnesses 
advanced his political case by delivering a version of events 
that tracked his worldview, they did very little to advance 
his legal case by countering the specific allegations 
against.  Meanwhile, assigned defense counsel sat quietly in 
the background, a shadow of their previous roles as amici 
curiae (friends of the court) and, briefly, as frustrated 
lead defense counsel.  Their continued presence has now been 
mandated by the trial chamber, and we expect that they will 
remain quiet until Milosevic,s health takes its inevitable 
downturn.  At that point the real test will be whether they 
are capable of picking up where Milosevic leaves off and the 
amount of cooperation provided by the accused.  Given the 
trial chamber,s resolve to hold Milosevic to the days 
allocated for his defense, and the presence of assigned 
counsel, we expect that the trial chamber would have no 
tolerance for any delays caused by health reasons.  If 
Milosevic, through non-cooperation, fails to make use 
effectively of what has now become, in practice if not 
formally, stand-by counsel, we expect the Chamber to simply 
count that time against Milosevic and not extend the defense. 
RUSSEL