Defense: Milutinović's conscience clear

Defense: Milutinović's conscience clear

The defense claims that constitutionally, the Yugoslav Army (VJ) and the Serbian Interior Ministry (MUP) had been under the command of the federal organs—the Government and the Former Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) President Slobodan Milošević, rather than the Serbian president Milutinović.

As for the Supreme Defense Counsel—Milutinović was a member—the defense counsel said it had been merely an "advisory body."

Challenging the prosecution's allegations of Milutinović's participation in a joint criminal enterprise designed to expel Albanians from Kosovo, the defense claims Milutinović was a peace-maker, also claiming that the 1998-1999 military conflict was legitimate because the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was a “terrorist organization.”

The defense counsel compared the KLA with al-Qaeda, saying that the Albanian terrorists' activities were no different from the attacks in New York, London, Madrid and the recent siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad.

In an effort to prove his client's "peace-making policy", the defense counsel said that before the NATO air strikes, Milutinović had been ready to talk “even with the terrorist KLA."

Concluding his opening statement, O'Sullivan said that Milutinović's conscience was clear and that his conduct while in office clearly showed that he was a person "unable to commit the crimes the prosecutor has charged him with."

After the opening statement, Milutinović's defense called the first witness, Ratko Marković, a professor at the Belgrade Law School and one of the drafters of the constitutions of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

He said that under the Serbian Constitution the president of the Republic did not have executive power, but was "the organ performing a non-operative executive function."

Although the Serbian Constitution decreed that the president had command over the armed forces, Marković explained, the provision was suspended in April 1992 when the FRY Constitution was promulgated, transferring the authority over the military to the federal authorities.

Ratko Marković’s testimony will take at least three court days and will be followed by two brief testimonies.

The defense's next witnesses will be Života Ćosić, former Serbian minister of energy and Government commissioner for Kosovo, and Jovan Kojić, an official who served in Milutinović's cabinet.