Witness at the Process Against Slobodan Milosevic Accuses the Hague Tribunal of Defending Criminals

Dragan Vasilkovic, known in Serbia as captain Dragan, a witness at the process of the Hague Tribunal examining the case of the former President of Yugoslavia, has made a number of accusations against the Hague Tribunal upon his return home calling the tribunal the defender of criminals, thieves and criminal elements.

According to him, the tribunal's prosecution defends war criminals. I am convinced that all of them know everything but this is a sort of a machine, Vasilkovic said. He believes that if they wanted to expose all war crimes, they could have done that within one month. However, they have a different aim - to involve the accused persons as witnesses against Milosevic and, as a reward for that, to relieve them of accusations, Vasilkovic said in an interview with the Belgrade newspaper Blic (Blitz)on Monday.

Captain Dragan acted last week as a witness for the prosecution at the process against Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague Tribunal. After his testimonies, which the tribunal came to dislike, the prosecution said that it would seek to proclaim him a hostile witness.

According to the statement by Vasilkovic, he was not paid in full travelling expenses that were due to him. In particular, when after the tribunal's sitting the witness requested the tribunal to buy him an air ticket to Belgrade, judge Geoffrey Nice answered that from that moment the prosecution did not want to have any contacts with him.

The former witness denied that he had changed his testimony in the court as compared to those given to the prosecution. As Vasilkovic explained, witnessing at the process under an oath of allegiance was simply more detailed.