Milosevic Found Dead in his Cell (R)

Q.E.D....in a world that has expectations of lawful, democratic life and living, it's always better to have due process...always.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/03/13/milosovic/index.html

Well the situation gets a bit more interesting.

 

Yet no matter what you do, it will always be derided as "victor's justice" or a "show trial". That has been the critique of many commentators of Neuremburg and Milo's trial.

Hussein is getting a fairer trial than he ever gave one of his political opponents (Hussein once on national t.v. had opponents within the Baath Party dragged out of a room, declared guilty after a 1 minute trial and executed). Yet his trial is called victors justice and a show trial.

So no matter what you do, it will be called a show trial.

Granted, I prefer Neuremburg to Stalin's trials or Hitler's trial of the participants in the General's plot. But Milosovich dragged this thing on for something like 5 years, with no end in sight.

And in any event, did any silly Euro supports unfurl an RIP banner this weekend (like the Lazio[?] supporters did for that Serbian leader killed by I-FOR?)

That's interesting considering that another Serb leader recently committed suicide in his cell.

 

Not really.

This will deny the victims the verdict, and will only strengthen ethno nationalism in Serbia. If that is still possible.

 

I think you mean arkan . He was killed in Belgrade, not by nato-forces.

The then Lazio player Mihajlović gave them the idea for the “tribute”

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11806794/
an expensive proposition: "the proceedings ... cost an estimated $200 million" that won't convince Slobo's family & supporters of his guilt. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11792222/ "I am sure he will take his place in the history of the Serb people. A worthy place. He is one of the outstanding personalities of the nation. An outstanding statesman. His struggle was cut short by his death. Even if he wasn’t victorious in that struggle, he was not defeated either."

 

The UN has announced an autopsy to begin in about 1 week. It is expected to be complete by 2008.

 

In the same light, the trial itself will be completed shortly after that in 2080.

 

Has there been any articles about how the $200 million was spent? How much are the judges & lawyers getting paid? Investigators? Hotels? etc.

 

You don't believe in democracy and bringing people to justice and all that then? On that note, isn't the trial of one Sadam quite expensive as well?

I find it a shame that Slobo died before he was brought to justice. And I feel sorry for all his victims that they didn't get a chance to see him sentenced.

 

I understand what you are saying, I also think that this was his fate anyway to die one way or the other. Perhaps he is now having to face those he had killed?

 

The assumption here in Holland was that he was trying to make himself just that little bit sicker to get Dutch doctors to agree his transferral to a Moscow hospital. Which they had always denied him.

 

Well hopefully. But it's a shame that his name won't end up in the Serbian history books as "Found guilty and sentenced for life by the international war tribunal". Now some idiot can always claim that he was never found guilty, and that therefore he must be innocent.

 

This is true.

 

That wasn’t going to happen anyway.

The Hague tribunal is a product of a Vatican-masonry-gay lobby conspiracy.

 

Slobo's supporters would deny the legitimacy of the court & the verdict even had he been convicted.

 

Unless he was found not guilty.

 

Johnnie Cochran predeceased him.

 

Who cares about what his supporters think?

Again I don't understand your problem with this case. What are you against, exactly? That a war criminal is taken to court?

 

Exactly.

 

Most Serbs don’t care and haven’t cared about Milosevic for a long time. The problem is they gave up on him because he failed to deliver a greater Serbia, not because they think the whole idea of ethno nationalism and expansionism was wrong.

That’s why the Radical party(more aggressively nationalist than Milošević was) gets 40% of the vote. Not to mention that the governing politicians like Koštunica and Drašković would be considered far right nationalists anywhere in western Europe as well.

 

Others have posted that they felt the need for a trial & guilty verdict to convince his followers that Slobo was a war criminal. I don't care what his supporters think. IMO, it's been a waste of $200 million for this interminable trial. I would have prefered a speedy tribunal. I'm sure that this circus has provided lots of jobs in the Netherlands.

 

And how do you envisage a speedy tribunal in a democratic system then? I mean considering that a murderer spends at least 10 years on death row before he gets killed off in some states in the US, that interests me. I'm also pretty certain that the privatised, commercial prison system in the US provides far more jobs than a war tribunal can ever do, but that's a different subject I guess. Are you implying that the war tribunal was established to provide employment for the Dutch?

 

A quick trial is 6 months for both sides to gather data, which is then exchanged, 3 months to review the other sides documents & reply, 100 hours for each side to present or cross-examine witnesses, 6 hours for summations, then the judges deliberate & decide at their own pace. The length of appeals after US verdicts has nothing to do with the length of trials. Where are the convicted war criminals housed? Who is paid to guard them? The tribunal certainly spends a lot of money in Holland.
P.S. Perhaps Slobo has fewer supporters than we all thought: http://www.optonline.net/News/Article/Feeds?CID=type=xml&channel=32&article=17637916