The defense is trying to show that the Serbian security forces had access to the Radonjic lake even before 8 September 1998, when the bodies were discovered there. In another tack, the defense is also trying to cast doubt on the prosecution evidence by emphasizing that police generals Vlastimir Djordjevic and Obrad Stevanovic were the first to arrive at the site where the bodies were found


One of the crucial issues at the trial of Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj is whether the Serbian security forces had access to the area around the Radonjic Lake in the summer of 1998. The remains of thirty-nine bodies – Albanian, Serbian and Roma – were found there in September 1998. The prosecution claims those persons were killed by the KLA. The defense contests this allegation, noting that the bodies of the victims could have been ‘planted’ there by the Serbian police to shift the blame on the KLA.

The court heard today a protected witness, who testified under the pseudonym 69. He worked in the Ministry of the Interior in Djakovica in 1998. He confirmed today that his statement to the OTP was true. In it, he described the situation in the Djakovica and Decani area in 1998 and the escalation of the conflict between the Serbian security forces and the ‘sabotage terrorist group’ – the KLA. By mid-1998, the KLA had established control over a wide area around the Radonjic Lake and the Serbian police could no longer access the zone except in operations where it had military support.

In his cross-examination, Haradinaj’s defense counsel confronted the witness with a document attached to his statement mentioning that on 9 August 1998 a police patrol was attacked by ‘a sabotage terrorist group’ in the area the witness designated as a no-go area for the police. The witness confirmed that police did periodically attempt to patrol the area between July and September 1998, but he was not able to specify how often.

The defense is trying to prove that the Serbian security forces had access to the Radonjic lake before 8 September 1998, when the bodies were found after the KLA was pushed back. In another tack, it is also trying to cast doubt on the prosecution evidence by stressing that police generals Vlastimir Djordjevic and Obrad Stevanovic were among the first to arrive at the site where bodies were discovered. When the defense counsel asked if it was normal for such high-ranking officials to participate in a search operation, the witness answered that the information obtained from the captured KLA members was ‘considered highly important and everybody joined in and went to the crime scene’.

The defense believes that insisting on their presence at the scene might create reasonable doubt among the judges about the accuracy of the picture painted by the prosecution. Vlastimir Djordjevic is currently in the UN Detention Unit, awaiting trial for Kosovo crimes. According to the indictment against him, he was one of the main players in the secret transfer of the dead bodies of Kosovo Albanians to Serbia and their re-burial in the mass graves at the Ministry of Interior training grounds. General Obrad Stevanovic was his deputy. He testified as Slobodan Milosevic’s defense witness. At the meeting with the president in the spring of 1998 he wrote down in his notebook the president’s instruction: ‘No bodies, no crimes’.

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