Tanić testifies in Kosovo Six trial

Tanić testifies in Kosovo Six trial

Ratomir Tanić, former Serbian politician and collaborator of two secret services – Serbian and British, was today cross-examined aggressively and in detail by U.S. lawyer John Ackerman, representing General Nebojša Pavković.

Quoting one by one the thirty paragraphs in the statement Tanić gave the investigators, Ackerman asked the witness to identify the sources of the information contained therein. In his statement, Tanić says what he learned about Milošević's policies and actions in Kosovo between 1995 and 1999 from his "contacts" in the Serbian State Security Service (SDB).

Some of the paragraphs relay the SDB assessments of General Pavković and his alleged willingness to accommodate all demands made by Milošević or Šainović to deploy the military bypassing the legal chain of command. For each of the quotes, Tanić reluctantly replied that the source was “persons whose names are in the statement" and/or "persons whose names I mentioned in closed session". SDB officials Jovica Stanišić and Zoran Mijatović are listed in Tanić's statement as persons he had been in contact with. In closed session, Tanić identified two SDB "operatives" he had been collaborating with.

Tanić claims he learned some of the information contained in his statement in several long conversations with Momčilo Perišić, former Chief of General Staff, in the spring of 1999. Milošević sacked Perišić in the fall of 1998. Of particular relevance for the accused Pavković is Tanić's allegation that Perišić had told him that Milošević had been issuing orders for military operations to be launched "through Pavković, who commanded the 3rd Army" in mid-1998, despite a written order that no actions in Kosovo should be carried out without Perišić's approval. To challenge that allegation, Ackerman presented documents showing that Pavković had been appointed the commander of the 3rd Army in December 1998, and had taken over command in mid-January 1999.

When Ackerman asked Tanić whether he had invented this or whether Perišić had made a mistake, the witness allowed that he might have been mistaken. He noted, though, that in the period Perišić was talking about, Pavković was the commander of the Priština Corps. As such, he was in a position to accommodate Milošević's wishes too.

Unlike other Trial Chambers which use a stopwatch to measure the time spent in the examination of witnesses, the Chamber hearing the Kosovo Six case allowed the defense to cross-examine Tanić longer than the prosecution took to examine him. In light of the fact that only two of the six defense teams had completed their cross-examination, and the third had yet to do so, Presiding Judge Bonomy said at the end of the session today that the Chamber would "have to start controlling the length of the cross-examination, or else the trial would never end".

The judge also hinted to the defense counsel that they were expending too much energy and time in efforts to discredit the witness, instead of focusing on the facts he presented in his evidence. By doing so, they were perhaps giving him greater consequence than he actually has or deserves.