Kosovo Six trial brings up media issue

Kosovo Six trial brings up media issue

John Ackermann, defending Nebojša Pavković, one of the six Serbian officials charged with the crimes in Kosovo, hinted at the unreliability of the Ball’s report. Ball’s report excludes the possibility that NATO and KLA activities were the cause of the population movements and killings of civilians in the Kosovo war in 1999.

The witness said that he based his report on the data on NATO and KLA activities obtained from the official announcements of the then Yugoslav authorities and in part from the OTP (Office of the Prosecutor).

The defense counsel claims that the data obtained in this way are unreliable as their source was neither NATO nor the KLA, whose activities were analyzed in the study.

The witness testified that some of the data he had used may have been incorrect but refused to admit that their number could undermine the final results of his analysis.

When Pavković's defense counsel said that Kosovo Albanians fled because of "the rumors and fear spread by the Kosovo media", the witness reminded him of the fact that the period of the most extensive population movements coincided with the largest number of killings. In the witness’s opinion, hat could not have been a result of a media campaign.

The defense counsel for the six accused pointed to Ball's incorrect estimate of the number of Albanian civilians who had been killed, asking him to state if that could have influenced his findings.

In his report, Ball estimates the possible number of people killed at 10,000 persons, while the defense counsel claim that the correct number should not exceed 4,300. The witness replied that his final results could not have been skewed by an incorrect estimate, as long as the time and geographical distribution of the killings remained the same.