In the shadow of the October XNUMXth changes, one of the most unusual trials in Serbia, of an international character, remained.
On September 21, 2000, in the crowded hall of the Belgrade Palace of Justice, on behalf of the people, the leaders of the most powerful NATO countries were sentenced to 20 years in prison for, as stated in the verdict, "war crimes committed during the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999".
Since they were tried in absentia, on the defendant's chairs there were signs with the names of US President William Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the foreign ministers and defense ministers of these three countries, as well as Javier Solana, former Secretary General of NATO and Wesli Clark, NATO Commander for Europe.
The world media also reported on this, such as with the BBCand CNN, the indictments were translated and traveled through diplomatic channels, but the defendants' reactions were largely absent.
None of the Western leaders who have been indicted responded to a request for comment.
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"Displaced"
Just like today, it was unusual then to accuse the leaders of the largest countries and the generals of the NATO pact as participants in aggression, says Dragomir Milojević, a judge with decades of experience.
"It is unusual to sue the president of America, because even the countries where there was aggression did not engage in such work, in a way it seems frivolous how to bring him to justice, especially since there are increasingly European and international law standards to try in person.
"In the final result, it was misplaced, except for the good analysis that was done," Milojević told the BBC in Serbian.
The 250-page judgment contains many details about the use of depleted uranium, cluster bombs and all other actions of the NATO alliance during the 78 days of bombing.
"The verdict was done excellently from the legal side, it was stated what percentage of the country was irradiated, how many were wounded with names and surnames, how many were killed, for a time it was said that every citizen should have this to know the consequences of all that." , says Milojević, recently president of the Supreme Court of Cassation.
The verdict was annulled in the Supreme Court, of which Milivojević was then a reporter.
And while the verdict was formally in force, as were the arrest warrants, one of the convicts was visiting Belgrade.
Iber Vedrin, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, did not experience any inconvenience at the time.
Not long after the verdict, the political climate in Serbia changed.
Just three days later, elections were held on September 24, in which the then president of the FR Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milošević, lost, and after protests caused by the non-recognition of the results, the regime was overthrown on October 5.
That's how the trial of the NATO leaders fell into oblivion and the competent authorities.
The criminal prosecution was abandoned, and the warrants and arrest warrants were abolished, and many of the convicts visited Serbia after that.
How was the trial?
Everything happened in the last week before the presidential elections on September 24, when the opposition candidate Vojislav Koštunica won the first round of the undisputed leader Slobodan Milošević.
Belgrade prosecutor Andrija Milutinović needed three hours to read the 183-page indictment, and then the names of 890 alleged victims of NATO bombing - 503 civilians, 240 soldiers and 147 Serbian policemen.
In the large hall of the Palace of Justice above the court panel stood a framed picture of President Slobodan Milosevic.
Each of the 14 defendants had an ex officio defense attorney, who were lawyers from different cities in Serbia.
On the brown leather chairs instead of the accused, there were sticky notes with names in Cyrillic and English.
The trial, which some compared to the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis, and others called a farce, lasted several working days.
The audience included lawyers, students, and pensioners.
The participants tried to make everything look like a serious court process.
"At the beginning of the trial, which was 40 minutes late, the president of the panel (Veroljub Raketić) said that the injured parties and witnesses were not invited to the hearing, because almost all citizens of Serbia and the FRY could be heard, which would require an 'unpredictably larger' courtroom." , reminds Truth meter.
Dragoljub Janković, then Minister of Justice, also expected that some of the accused would be handed over to the Yugoslav judicial authorities.
"As the attitude of the international public about our country changes, I expect that at least some of them will be extradited," he said.
It was done quickly, for the dynamics of modern trials in Serbia, so the closing arguments were presented the same week.
The largest courtroom in the building was full of audience, there were also foreign observers, but not representatives of the political top of FRY.
A member of the court guard stood next to the defenders of the accused, probably to prevent a possible incident, he wrote at the time The voice of the public.
Defense attorneys asked for acquittals for all clients except Clinton, whose attorney cited extenuating circumstances.
"Mr. Clinton comes from an incomplete family, he lived with his stepfather and that probably left a mark on his overall behavior," said his lawyer Tomislav Vojnović, among other things.
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They were convicted of "incitement to an aggressive war, war crimes against the civilian population, use of illegal means of combat, attempt to kill representatives of the highest state authorities, as well as violation of the country's territorial sovereignty," according to the verdict, which the BBC had access to.
When the guilty verdicts were read, applause broke out in the courtroom, especially when the name of the convicted Clinton was read, journalists noted. The voice of the public.
The president of the court panel, Veroljub Raketić, said that a warrant has already been issued against the accused, that they have been detained and that their sentence will be counted from the day they are arrested.
In a brief explanation of the verdict, the president of the court panel said that the accused violated the United Nations charter by aggressing against FRY and that at that time they were the most responsible in NATO.
"The defendants were afraid to come before the court or they were afraid to face the truth and their own conscience," said Raketić and stated that the verdicts and decisions on detention will be sent to the defendants.
District Public Prosecutor Andrija Milutinović pointed out that the sentence "was expected", but that "the most innocent among them deserve much higher sentences".
Who was convicted and what functions did he perform then?
- William Clinton, US President
- Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State
- William Cohen, US Secretary of Defense
- Anthony Blair, Prime Minister of Great Britain
- Robin Cook, British Foreign Secretary
- George Robertson, Secretary of Defense of Great Britain
- Jacques Chirac, President of France
- Iber Vedrin, French Foreign Minister
- Alain Richard, Minister of Defense of France
- Gerhard Schroeder, Chancellor of Germany
- Joseph Fischer, German Minister of Foreign Affairs
- Rudolf Scharping, German Minister of Defense
- Javier Solana, former Secretary General of NATO
- Wesley Clark, NATO Commander for Europe
"It's not a farce"
Žak Širak's defense attorney, Kragujevac lawyer Slaviša Mrdaković, was at the head of the team of "French defense attorneys" during the proceedings.
"Unfortunately, it is our tragedy, but I am proud of how the court processed the evidence and how the entire procedure was conducted and how they let the lawyers, whose head I was, to do the defense freely," Mrdaković told the BBC.
He reminds that the trial was only one year after the bombing, at a time when the power of Slobodan Milošević was very shaky.
He is convinced that the then government or state security authorities monitored the work of the lawyers, but "let them work".
Mrdaković, he says, prepared the case by frequent trips to the French embassy, but no one prevented him from doing so.
"What would have happened if they had banned us or killed us or imprisoned us, and they could have come to apply pressure, I guarantee that no lawyer was under pressure."
"When we asked for an acquittal, it was a boom for the whole world and we got the Supreme Court to cancel the verdict," says the lawyer.
Studying the case, his colleagues and he came to the common conclusion that there is no evidence that criminal proceedings are being conducted against any statesman and official, except "against Clinton".
Although the trial was followed by comments that it was a staged trial, Mrdaković claims that it was not so.
"It was during Milosevic's time when he was most vulnerable, the lawyers demanded that the proceedings be carried out strictly according to the law, and that's how it was carried out, and they demanded acquittals for everyone, except for Clinton.
"(...)If it was a farce, we would have remained silent or asked for small fines, and we, as lawyers, objected and filed appeals against the verdicts," says Mrdaković.
He adds that no one has ever objected to the collected evidence and "three volumes of documentation".
Verdict - war diary
Goran Petronijević was also a professional member of the judicial panel of the District Court that passed the guilty verdict.
Petronijević, then a judge and now a lawyer, says that the proceedings were "a bit unusual, because the trial was held in absentia, but the procedural conditions for it to be held were met".
"Invitations were sent through the embassies and ministries of foreign affairs of the defendant countries, they refused to receive them, but this could be considered service and the conditions for a trial in absentia were met.
"The verdict itself is a diary of the war and that is its greatest value, everything else turned out to be relative, including the sentence," Petronijević told the BBC in Serbian.
The preparation for the trial lasted for months and more than 30 people worked as a team in the prosecution and the courts to systematize the material and "tons of material", he adds.
There are logs, videos, photos and thousands of pages of documentation.
"That verdict stated every day of the war what happened, what was targeted, who was killed or injured by civilians and soldiers and policemen, which civilian and military facilities were destroyed.
"It is a diary of those 78 days with all the evidence, reports on the investigation, expert reports, ballistics and others," says Petronijević.
Particularly interesting, he notes, is the area of environmental pollution and the targeting of chemical plants such as Petrohemia in Pančevo and oil plants, as well as the dumping of depleted uranium, which was a prohibited type of combat equipment.
"At that time, Professor Čikarić spoke about the fact that in 15 to 20 years there will be an epidemic of cancerous diseases in the area where everything was broadcast, and you can see what has been happening in the last five years," says Petronijević.
NATO representatives are in the United Nations confirmed that depleted uranium was used during the war in Kosovo.
However, as the NATO spokesman said in 2019 Piers Cazalet for the BBC in Serbian several United Nations reports "found that the use of depleted uranium during the conflict in Kosovo did not cause lasting health consequences".
Žanka Stojanović, the mother of one of the 16 RTS workers killed in the bombing, was not comforted by the verdict.
"Judging someone who is not present is nothing but a mockery of the court.
"We want NATO leaders and everyone who participated in the killing of our children to be tried, but only if the accused are present," she told CNN 2000. years.
Since one of the crimes was under the jurisdiction of a military court, according to the laws of the time, they should have been tried in a military, not a civilian court.
"That's why it wasn't a big problem to cancel that decision, because it was an incompetent court," says Dragomir Milojević, the Supreme Court judge at the time who June 19, 2001. revoked the verdict and sent it back to the first instance court for decision.
The following year, the prosecutor dropped the criminal prosecution.
"The proceedings against William Clinton were suspended on September 12, 2001, and against all the others on September 15, 2001, by the decision of the District Court in Belgrade, since the competent prosecutor's office gave up further criminal prosecution, i.e., the accusation," announced the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade. for the BBC in Serbian.
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