"Hague Judge Silences Bin Laden Bosnia Testimony, as NATO’s Claims Questioned," CDelsio, BalkanAnalysis.com, February 8, 2006 

To reproduce the opening three paragraphs of this report:

  Judge Patrick Robinson immediately shut down a Western journalist on the Hague Tribunal witness stand last week, when she disclosed having seen Osama bin Laden waltz into the office of late Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic in November 1994.
  Just as veteran British journalist Eve-Ann Prentice, who covered the Yugoslav conflicts for the Guardian and the Times told of the famous OBL, Prosecutor Geoffrey Nice objected, and the judge “…cut off the testimony immediately declaring it ‘irrelevant,’” according to the defense’s recap of a devastating day of testimony.
  However, considering that the defendant, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was trying to make a case that the Bosnian Serbs were fighting because Izetbegovic wanted to create an Islamic state that would not be particularly tolerant of Serbs, it would seem that this “explosive” mention of his connection with the world’s most wanted man would in fact be quite relevant.

Eve-Ann Prentice gave her testimony in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic (IT-02-54) on Friday, February 3---eight days ago.  (Unfortunately, no Transcript has been made available yet.  And by the looks of the time-lag involved---nothing dated 2006 has yet to be posted---won't be for quite some time.)

And so I've turned to other possible sources to find out more about this indisputably explosive claim linking the "World's Most Wanted Man" with the late, former, and indeed founding President of the independent state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Okay.  Within the establishment, English-language print sources, all that I've been able to find is a BBC Worldwide Monitoring translation of a February 3 HINA news agency report out of Zagreb.  (Reproduced in full at bottom.)

This particular HINA report included the following explosive claim ("UK journalist testifies at former Serbian leader's war crimes trial," Feb. 3):

  Prentice, who testified for the defence, reported about the war in Kosovo for The Sunday Times as the daily's correspondent from Belgrade. She frequently visited Kosovo in 1998/99, and her longest stay there was in May and June 1999, at the end of NATO's 11-week air campaign. 
  She said that Albanian civilians had told her that the KLA was calling on them to leave the province in large numbers in the interests of the Albanian cause and to use the opportunity to make Kosovo part of Albania. 

But nothing else in print. 

I also checked a lot of the electronic stuff.  Namely, posts to the relevant webpages of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (i.e., Balkan Insight), the Bosnian Institute (i.e., News & Analysis) the Coalition for International Justice (i.e., its ICTY webpage), the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (i.e., the IWPR Tribunal Project), and, last but not least, the Slobodan Milosevic Freedom Center.

Of these five possible sources, neither BIRN, the Bosnian Institute, the Coalition for International Justice, nor IWPR have reported one word that relates the testimony by Eve-Ann Prentice that she saw Osama bin Laden with her own eyes in or around the office of Alija Izetbegovic some time in 1994.

(Quick aside.  At least the IWPR's Michael Farquhar reported another important part of Prentice's testimony: "The witness recalled that fear of NATO bombing and pressure from the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, were in fact by far the most common explanations offered by Albanians for their decision to flee the region. Only one refugee ever told her that he was leaving because he feared the Serbian authorities, she recalled.  The Albanians in question had reportedly been told by the KLA that it was their “patriotic duty” to leave their homes, in order that the world might see how they suffered under Belgrade’s yoke. The KLA leadership apparently argued that, with NATO waiting in the wings, this was a golden opportunity to move a step closer to breaking away from Serbia and uniting with Albania." "Kosovo Through the Looking Glass," Feb. 5, 2006.---Though by this choice of titles, with its emphasis on the factually distorted and inverted nature of Prentice's testimony, shows us what the Institute for War and Peace Reporting thinks about her testimony.)

In fact, the only one of these five electronic sources that did report the Osama bin Laden part of Eve-Ann Prentice's February 3 testimony, and reported it in the quasi-stenographic fashion that makes this work invaluable, was by Andy Wilcoxson---a gentleman who has been painstakingly posting this and so many other similar items straight from the trial chambers of the Tribunal for so long, I lost count long ago.

Here's the relevant passage from Andy Wilcoxson's very professional report ("British Journalist Witnessed Osama bin Laden Entering Ilija Izetbegovic's Office in Sarajevo," Feb. 3):

  The most explosive part of [Eve-Ann Prentice's] testimony dealt with an interview that she scheduled with Alija Izetbegovic in November 1994. While she was waiting in Izetbegovic's foyer both she, and a journalist from Der Speigel, saw Osama bin Laden being escorted into Izetbegovic’s office. Yes *that* Osama bin Laden -- the same Osama bin Laden who masterminded the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
  Needless to say this evidence did not sit well with the tribunal. Mr. Nice immediately objected and Judge Robinson cut off the testimony immediately declaring it “irrelevant.”
  Milosevic tried to explain that the involvement of Islamic terrorists with the highest level of the Bosnian Muslim government shows that the Bosnian Serbs were fighting a war for self-preservation, not a war for some made-up “greater Serbia” conspiracy. Unfortunately the Judges wouldn’t have any of it so he was forced to move on.

Now.  One may have thought that an allegation by a credible source, delivering this allegation under oath, no less, that places the "World's Most Wanted Man" in the Sarajevo office of the former President of the then-hotly contested territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina would carry a certain inherent newsworthiness along with it.  Particularly given world events since 9-11.  Given the Americans' obsessions.  Given the Americans' wars.  And given the Americans' power to make their obsessions and their wars not just theirs but the entire planet's.  Still.  Not one word about Eve-Ann Prentice's testimony has turned up in the English-language print sources that I've been able to search.  (A substantial number.)  Not even one word about it in the major British newspapers in which she's published her work on the former Yugoslavia over the years---The Times, say, and The Guardian.  But---nothing.   

And it's not as if Eve-Ann Prentice has zero credibility within establishment circles.  After all, The Guardian selected Prentice to write its obituary commemorating the life of Ibrahim Rugova following his recent death.  ("Ibrahim Rugova: President of Kosovo devoted to the cause of peaceful resistance," Jan. 23, 2006.) 

Counter-factually, imagine a case in which a credible source testifying for the prosecution at the Milosevic trial some time in 2002 or 2003 had alleged that, in 1994, she saw Osama bin Laden at Milosevic's office in Belgrade. 

Can you imagine the English-language print media in toto neglecting to publish her allegations?  

The Trial of Slobodan Milosevic: Kosovo, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina (IT-02-54), International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
Transcripts (IT-02-54)  

The New York Times on the Yugoslavia Tribunal: A Study in Total Propaganda Service, Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, ColdType, 2004

Slobodan Milosevic Freedom Center (i.e., best place to follow Andy Wilcoxson's reporting)
BalkanAnalysis.com (Homepage)
ElectricPolitics.com (Homepage)

"British Journalist Witnessed Osama bin Laden Entering Ilija Izetbegovic's Office in Sarajevo," Andy Wilcoxson, www.slobodan-milosevic.org, February 3, 2006
"Kosovo Through the Looking Glass," Michael Farquhar , Institute for War and Peace Reporting, February 5, 2006
"Hague Judge Silences Bin Laden Bosnia Testimony, as NATO’s Claims Questioned," CDelsio, BalkanAnalysis.com, February 8, 2006 

"The Milosevic Trial I," ZNet, August 31, 2004
"The Milosevic Trial II," ZNet, September 8, 2004
"The Milosevic Trial III," ZNet, September 9, 2004
"The Milosevic Trial IV," ZNet, September 9, 2004
"The Milosevic Trial V," ZNet, September 10, 2004
"The Milosevic Trial VI," ZNet, February 11, 2006

FYA ("For your archives"): Am reproducing here the BBC Worldwide Monitoring's translation of the HINA news agency (Zagreb) report mentioned above.---Should anyone come across an English-langauge report so much as mentioning Eve-Ann Prentice's February 3 testimony, specificallty her allegation about having seen Osama bin Laden at Alija Izetbegovic's offices some time in 1994, please call it to my attention. 

Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring
February 3, 2006 Friday
HEADLINE: UK journalist testifies at former Serbian leader's war crimes trial

Text of report in English by Croatian news agency HINA

Zagreb, 3 February: British journalist Eve Ann Prentice said at the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic on Friday that Kosovo Albanians were fleeing Kosovo in large numbers in 1999 due to pressure from the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), fighters from Albania and the NATO shelling.

Prentice, who testified for the defence, reported about the war in Kosovo for The Sunday Times as the daily's correspondent from Belgrade. She frequently visited Kosovo in 1998/99, and her longest stay there was in May and June 1999, at the end of NATO's 11-week air campaign.

She said that Albanian civilians had told her that the KLA was calling on them to leave the province in large numbers in the interests of the Albanian cause and to use the opportunity to make Kosovo part of Albania.

The journalist also testified about the NATO shelling, including an incident on 30 May 1999, when she and three other foreign reporters were victims of an attack by two NATO planes bombing the Prizren-Djakovica road. The witness said that the man who drove the reporters was killed in the attack and that she, the other three reporters and their interpreters were injured.

Prentice said that they were helped by Yugoslav army soldiers who took them to their field medical station.

NATO told a news briefing in Brussels that there had been no attacks in that area and that the reporters were probably attacked by Serbian forces, which was broadcast by the BBC, she said.

We clearly saw NATO planes at the height of some 500-600 metres. The Portuguese reporter filmed them and the Portuguese television showed the footage, she said.

Based on this and other examples, Milosevic asked the witness if there had been an anti-Serb propaganda campaign in the West at the time.

Prentice said that since the start of the 1990s the West had a one-sided approach, with the Serbs being the main culprits attacking innocent victims.

The anti-Serb campaign was headed by politicians and generals, who were helped by too many reporters, she said, adding that many of them painted a black-and-white picture of the conflicts in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo, with the Serbs being the only ones who killed and others being unarmed.

She added that some Western politicians spoke about 100,000 Albanians killed in Kosovo, which they described as genocide, while in reality the total number of victims was 2,800, of which many were victims of NATO.

The judges conducting the trial objected to the relevance of such questions, but Milosevic's court-appointed attorney Steven Kay said that Milosevic had the right to put them because the prosecution had introduced witnesses such as Gen Wesley Clark, commander of NATO forces in 1999, who justified actions in which they had taken part.

Prentice also spoke about seeing numerous civilian victims of the NATO bombing, particularly in housing facilities located close to military targets.

Source: HINA news agency, Zagreb, in English 1341 gmt 3 Feb 06

 

Postscript (March 5, 2006): Two other important items on what we like to call the strategic silence when it comes to (not) reporting the defense side of the Milosevic trial: Namely, (a) the March 1 testimony of the British Labour Party MP Alice Mahon (after which the trial was suspended until March 14), during which Mahon accused William Walker of having admitted to the stage-managing of the Racak incident, as well as stated her belief that the purpose of the war over Kosovo was the “spread of US influence in the region.”  And (b) some comments delivered on February 24 at a Trinity College (Dublin) conference, Crimes against Humanitarian Law: International Trials in Perspective, by the University of Utrecht historian Bob de Graaff, to the effect that “there was ‘no concrete evidence’ linking the former Yugoslav president with the July 1995 massacre at Srebrenica...” (here quoting a blurb in the Feb. 27 Irish Times).   (See below.) Once again, we have to turn to the invaluable work of Andy Wilcoxson to find something in English on the Mahon testimony.