Zoran Stanković witness in Ratko Mladić's trial

After a month and a half the trial of Ratko Mladic continued today with the evidence of Dr. Zoran Stankovic, a forensic expert from Belgrade. Stankovic was asked by the defense to analyze the expert report written by British pathologist John Clark on the post mortem examination of the bodies exhumed from the Tomasica mass grave near Prijedor. The defense also asked Stankovic to review and interpret the report drafted by the late Dr. Dusan Dunjic on the exhumations carried out in the Srebrenica area and other locations listed in the indictment against Mladic.

Dr. Stankovic ‘couldn’t understand’ how in his evidence for the prosecution Dr. Clark could describe his role in the Tomasica exhumations and post mortems as ‘informal'. If that was the case, the defense expert noted, ‘any passer-by’ could go to Tomasica and say that he wanted to take part in post mortems. In Dr. Stankovic’s opinion, Clark’s report is ‘inadmissible’ and ‘cannot be used as evidence in court proceedings’. Stankovic was at a loss to understand how a pathologist of Clark’s standing ‘could stoop so low’ as to take photos of post mortems – instead of letting crime technicians to do that. Commenting on Clark’s statement that he was ‘a sort of a guest’ of the Bosnian pathologists who were actually conducting the post mortems, Stankovic said that he ‘can’t believe’ that the British pathologist could have said something like that. According to Dr. Stankovic, the only thing that the prosecution expert could do was to withdraw his report.

Stankovic went on to note that there were ‘inconsistencies’ between the post mortem findings presented by Dr. Clark and by the two Bosnian experts, Dr. Durmisevic and Dr. Sarajlic. In his report, Stankovic listed 10 ‘typical examples’ of the inconsistencies.Judge Orie wanted the witness to be more specific and to state the exact number of inconsistencies. Stankovic replied that he had compared about 100 post mortem results, noting inconsistencies in 20 cases. When Judge Orie pressed the issue, the defense expert promised he would identify more inconsistencies in the findings of the British and Bosnian pathologists by tomorrow.

Discussing the Srebrenica exhumations report, Stankovic said that Dr. Dunjic’s findings were ‘for the most part correct, well-explained and precise’. Some parts, however, ‘are misleading’ because they were written ‘in bold’ or ‘capital letters’ with too many exclamation and question marks, Stankovic said. It seemed as if Dr. Dunjic was ‘overwhelmed by emotions’ when he was writing parts of the report. This fact did not lessen the weight of Dr. Dunjic’s expert report, Dr. Stankovic was quick to add. In his opinion, Dr. Dunjic’s analysis had all the hallmarks of being written by an ‘experienced, professional, educated and responsible expert’ who had made an effort to highlight the inconsistencies in the prosecution experts’ reports. The prosecution experts should speak about that before the Trial Chamber and it was up to the Trial Chamber to decide which reports to admit, Dr. Stankovic specified.

Dr. Zoran Stankovic will continue his evidence tomorrow.

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