Svetlana Radovanovic, witness at the Ratko Mladic trial

Demography expert Dr. Svetlana Radovanovic continued her evidence today at the trial of Ratko Mladic. Through Radovanovic’s testimony the defense will try to contest the findings of the prosecution expert, Dr. Ewa Tabeau on the Tomasica mass grave near Prijedor. Today, in the final part of her examination-in-chief, Dr. Radovanovic extended her list of complaints against the prosecution expert, describing her report as ‘pure manipulation’, ‘deliberate concealment’ and ‘statistical exhibitionism’.

Dr. Radovanovic told Mladic’s defense counsel Dragan Ivetic that Dr. Tabeau had ‘toyed’ with him when he cross-examined her, exploiting Ivetic’s ignorance of demography to avoid answering his questions. Dr. Tabeau also ‘deliberately concealed’ the criteria she used to match the remains of Tomasica victims and presented her data in a manner calculated to ‘confuse’ those ignorant of statistics and demography. Furthermore, Dr. Tabeau ‘counted the bullets’ recovered from the bodies of victims, and that, in Dr. Radovanovic’s opinion, was ‘pure statistical exhibitionism’.

Dr. Radovanovic was cross-examined by prosecutor Jason File. The defense expert said that ‘from the perspective of scientific demography’ she was compelled to dismiss each and every partof Dr. Tabeau’s Tomasica expert report When the prosecutor asked her to substantiate her opinion of the prosecution expert’s work, Dr. Radovanovic invoked ‘international standards’. This prompted Judge Moloto to ask Dr. Radovanovic if she had listed the standards in her expert analysis. The defense expert replied that she had not.

Prosecutor File noted that Dr. Radovanovic ‘had taken out of context’ some parts of the prosecution expert’s report and unjustly accused Dr. Tabeau of failing to reveal the matching criteria: in fact, Dr. Tabeau specified the criteria that were used in the process of matching the remains of the Tomasica victims in the annex to her report. The defense expert maintains that the explanation does not meet the standards of scientific demography.

Dr. Radovanovic will continue her testimony tomorrow.

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