SHOWING FILM OF ôTERRORISTSö WAS IN THE INTEREST OF BELGRADERS

23 June 2000

The evidence presentation process in the trial of five ethnic Albanian students of Belgrade University who are charged with terrorism and seditous conspiracy was concluded before the Belgrade District Courton 23 June. The court made a precedent in Serbian judicial practice by admitting the defendantsÆ filmed confessions as evidence against them. The defense urged the members of the panel presided by Judge Dragisa Slijepcevic to disregard the statements when considering their decision since they were extracted by torture. After hearing the closing arguments of the prosecution and defense, the court will on 6 July hand down the verdict, which will show whether it upheld the principle that judicial decisions may not be based on forced confessions. Serbian Broadcasting Organization (RTS) reporter Vladimir Nikolic gave testimony in connection with the disputed evidence. Nikolic made the feature on the student ôterroristsö in which three of them, Petrit and Driton Berisha and Driton Meqa, stated that they had o

rganized and prepared acts of terrorism to be carried out in Belgrade. The feature was shown on an RTS current affairs program in May 1999. Nikoli? told the court he was informed in early May of the arrest of members of an ethnic Albanian terrorist group and told by police that they had agreed to make statements, and that he was assigned to do the feature. He said he could not recall the exact date or place where he filmed the students. Nikolic, his cameraman and soundman were taken to a room into which some men he believed were plainclothes police officers brought the accused one by one. They made their statements in front of the camera and of their free will, he said, adding that he had not noticed any signs of physical abuse on any of them. Plainclothes officers were present during the filming and on several occasions warned the accused not to make pauses. Nikoli? said he had not introduced himself to the students as a reporter or told them the film would be shown on television because he assumed th

ey already knew since both his superiors and the police had informed him the students were making the statements voluntarily.

Asked by the defense whether he considered that filming and broadcasting statements extracted under torture by police and without the consent of the parties concerned, and labelling them terrorists was a violation of journalistic ethics, Nikolic said his information came exclusively from the arrested students, that he did not know whether or not their statements had been forcibly obtained by police. He said he had not tried and convicted the defendants in his feature but considered that during the NATO bombing, the people had the right to know of the existence of a terrorist group which planned to plant bombs in public

places that could have claimed many civilian lives. When the defense noted that his name did not appear on the credits and said this indicated that the film was made by the police and passed to the RTS, Nikolic said no RTS features or shows had credit lists at the time because the necessary equipment was destroyed in the NATO bombing of the RTS building two weeks previously.

The court denied a defense motion to call two witnesses from Kosovo on the grounds that they had already given statements to the investigating judge, and the prosecutorÆs motion for the admission of statements made by the defendants to the police. Petrit and Driton Berisha, Driton Meqa, Shkodran Derguti and Isam

Abdulahu, all students at Belgrade University, have been in custody since their arrest in Belgrade in mid-May last year.