Another secret witness testified today at the Hague Tribunal. B-1054 a Muslim woman from a village near Visegrad testified that she was taken to a house in Visegrad along with 70 other Muslims. According to this woman, Serb civilians from Visegrad attempted to burn them all alive in that house.

For the sake of argument, we will start by assuming that she was telling the truth. Even if this happened, and even if it happened exactly in the way that she said it did; it proves nothing. This woman did not allege that anybody from Serbia, or anybody from the JNA even took part in this alleged crime. It is therefore clear that Slobodan Milosevic could not have had anything at all to do with this.

Her two written statements, her previous testimony from another trial, and the testimony that she gave today did not all fit together very well. There were a number of discrepancies.

For example, she claimed to have been laid-up in the hospital for 22 days, but her medical report revealed that she was only in the Hospital for 10 days. She had exaggerated her time in the hospital by more than double.

She was inconsistent again as to how the alleged fire started in the House. One time she said it was a bomb that ignited the fire, and another time she said that somebody had just lit a match.

In her second statement she spoke of an alleged massacre that "a band of Chetniks" was committing on the river. According to this witness "the slaughter was so horrible that it made the river run red with blood." However, in her first statement she neglects to mention that minor detail. When asked how come she didn't mention it in her first statement her excuse was that it "was just too horrible to speak of."

She has no problem speaking in her first statement about other horrible things. She spoke all about how she lay wounded in a sewage ditch near to the allegedly burning house listening to the screams of people who were allegedly being burned alive, and that wasn't "too horrible to speak of," but apparently seeing some corpses in a river was.

Her statements were also inconsistent with respect to the names of people that she claimed to have seen at certain places.

Another problem with her testimony was that she claimed that everybody had died in that house, by either being burned in the fire, or shot while trying to flee. She even said that she thought that her own son had died. However, she later said that she found her son alive and well 5 years later on. So how could she know that everybody else died? She thought that her own son was dead for 5 years, but he wasn't.

An entertaining moment came when the Amicus Curiae, Mr. Tapuskovic and the so-called "judge" May got into a fight. "Judge" May became quite indignant when Mr. Tapuskovic dared to peruse a line of questioning that called the truthfulness of this witness's testimony into question.

Tapuskovic was asking questions about inconsistencies in the witness's evidence. The witness responded by getting indignant. For example, when Tapusokvic asked her how she could know that everybody was killed when her own son was even able to flee without her knowledge. She responded indignantly by saying, "So you say that my son should have been killed too! Is that it?"

After this little exchange Tapuskovic and Milosevic both gave the so-called "judge" a lesson in law. During his fight with Mr. Tapuskovic, the so-called "judge" claimed that "the accused hasn't even challenged this evidence" (even though he had), and so President Milosevic had to explain to this so-called "judge" that he had no way of knowing if the event in questioned had happened or not, but it wasn't him, as the accused, who had the burden of proving that it didn't happen -- rather it was the prosecution who had the burden of proving that it did happen.

After President Milosevic had explained, to this pathetic excuse of a "judge," the concept of "innocent until proven guilty," which appears to be completely foreign to "Dick" May. Mr. Tapuskovic had to explain to this idiot what his job was in the first place. Mr. Tapuskovic explained to that crimson robe-wearing fool that as a judge his job is to sit and listen to the evidence and then decide, after hearing all of the evidence, if the witness is telling the truth or not.

Mr. Tapuskovic was clearly astonished that "judge" May considered it inappropriate to ask questions that challenged a witness's credibility. What is the point of cross-examination if not to challenge the witness? Tapuskovic explained that he had been a lawyer for 40 years, and had never seen a judge that would prevent these sorts of questions.

After Mr. Tapuskovic finished his cross-examination, the so-called "judge," who clearly had no other motive than just a desire to be a smart-ass, said to the witness, "It has been suggested that you may not be telling the truth. Have you been lying to us?" and the witness surprised everybody by saying, "Of course I have been telling the truth." At that point "judge" May let the witness go.

The next witness was Josip Jocipovic. Mr. Jocipovic had been examined by prosecutor Bauer the day before, and so President Milosevic went directly into cross-examination.

Like so many other witnesses this witness's testimony had nothing to do with President Milosevic. The closest he came was when he said that two men, who he couldn't identify, allegedly told him that they had been fighting in Vukovar and that they were from Serbia.

Other than that he testified about a couple of men from the Krajina police who committed some crimes. However, after they had committed the crimes they were removed by Milan Martic.

He did however give some useful testimony. He was a member of the ZNG, and to the dismay of Ms. Bauer, he testified that the local ZNG commander in Hrvatska Dubica was a criminal and a thief.

He testified that the ZNG was formed in 1990 right after the elections and that it was precisely then that the tensions increased. He admitted that the JNA and T.O. forces were the only legal armed forces in the SFRY (of which Croatia was a part in 1990). However he denied that the ZNG was a paramilitary organization, in spite of the fact that being an illegal armed force operating in the SFRY made it the very definition of a paramilitary. He also testified that the JNA brought order and that it fought against both Serb and Croatian paramilitaries in order to stop killings and looting from taking place.

After Mr. Jocipovic finished, another secret witness called "B-1505" was called. I'm not sure who exactly this guy was. He is either somebody who is pretending to be somebody else, which is possible with all secret witnesses, or he is somebody who was either a member of the JNA, or was in some other way privy to internal JNA matters.

At any rate he claimed to be a Muslim from Visegrad who saw the JNA planning to "cleanse Visegrad" of its Muslim population.

The prosecution is expected to finish with him on Monday, and after that President Milosevic will cross-examine him.