The TRIBUNAL (3 page)

    

    

    “Rupert Schmidt, please.”

    Kevin stood inside the guardhouse at the entrance to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. He had repeatedly tried from home in California to reach Schmidt by e-mail, fax and phone – to no avail. The Tribunal official was obviously going to great lengths to avoid him. “Who may I say is here to see Mr. Schmidt?” asked a young guard wearing the sky-blue United Nations uniform.

    Peering into the guard’s booth through the glass, Kevin saw control panels, closed circuit television monitors, and an automatic rifle hanging conspicuously from a rack.

    “I’m Kevin Anderson from the United States. Mr. Schmidt hired me to work as a prosecutor.”

    The clean-cut guard’s face broke into a friendly smile. “Welcome to the Tribunal, sir.” He picked up a phone and punched in some buttons.

    Kevin hoped his name wasn’t on a list of people who had been
unhired
. He looked around the small guardhouse, spying a metal detector, X-ray machine, and some lockers. Another blue-uniformed guard stood near the metal detector.

    After a minute, the guard put down the phone and motioned Kevin closer to the glass. “I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Schmidt is not in at the moment. He’s expected back soon. Why don’t I give you a visitor’s pass and you can sit in on the court this morning? When Mr. Schmidt arrives, I’ll tell him where you are.”

    “That sounds good.”

    Kevin was relieved that he was finally getting closer to the elusive Mr. Schmidt, to whom he planned to make a personal appeal. He was also anxious to see the inside of a courtroom at the Tribunal.

    Kevin collected the pink visitor’s ticket that the guard passed through the slot in the glass, and then walked through the metal detector. He headed out the door of the small guardhouse, toward a large triangle-shaped building some thirty feet away. The three-story building had large brown pillars and was surrounded by a high steel fence. It looked to cover half a city block.

    He entered the Tribunal building and found himself in a small lobby. To his right and left were glass doors marked “Employees Only.” Straight ahead was a white marble staircase with another metal detector and security guard.

    Kevin approached the guard and showed his ticket. When the metal detector beeped, he was ordered to stand with his feet spread apart and hands outstretched. The guard ran a wand over Kevin’s body. The sensitive machine had picked up the metal in Kevin’s rubber jogging watch.

    Kevin was then directed to the top of the stairs, where yet another guard greeted him. Next to her was a fresh-faced man in his early thirties carrying a reporter’s notebook.

    “Follow me,” the guard said. “We’re going to Courtroom 2.”

    She led Kevin and the other man down a maze of corridors. Finally, she stopped, pulled up an industrial-size set of keys hanging from her belt, and opened a large metal door on the left. Kevin followed the other man into a tiny glass booth, with four chairs, perched in a corner of a surprisingly small courtroom with a low ceiling. The door closed behind him and he heard the key turn in the lock.

    On each seat was an electronic translator – the size of a small cellular phone – connected to a headset. Following the lead of the other man, who seemed like he had done this before, Kevin picked up a headset and put it on. He sat down, and then looked out into the courtroom. Kevin felt very conspicuous sitting in the glass cage.

    “This must be what monkeys in a zoo feel like,” he said softly.

    The man smiled kindly.

    On the other side of the glass, Kevin saw his first war criminal. The accused man sat to Kevin’s left. He was an older, gray-haired man wearing a worn suit. He was flanked by two large U.N. guards. In front of him were his lawyers, two tall men wearing black robes. Kevin leaned forward to get a look to his far right and saw the prosecutors, a man and a woman. In the center of the courtroom were the court clerks and ushers, also dressed in black robes.

    Kevin rose quickly when he heard the usher announce the arrival of the judges. Three judges strode into the courtroom, wearing snazzy black robes with red satin. As he listened and watched, Kevin was fascinated by the various nationalities that appeared to be working in the glass courtroom. Of the three judges, one was an African woman, another a Caucasian man with an Australian accent, and the third an Asian man. The clerk spoke in French, the prosecutor in English, and the defense lawyers in BCS – the acronym for the Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian language.

    Kevin guessed that the African woman sitting in the middle was the President of the trial chamber. She turned toward the defense attorney. “You may begin, Mr. Krasnic.”

    A distinguished, silver-haired man stood up and began speaking in BCS. The witness, who Kevin could not see from the visitors’ gallery, answered in that language as well.

    Listening to the English translation on his headset, Kevin soon gleaned that this case was a prosecution of a Bosnian Serb general whose troops had participated in the invasion of the Bosnian city of Srebrenica. Near the end of the war in Bosnia, the Bosnian Serb Army had entered the U.N. protected area of Srebrenica and rounded up the Muslim men, killing some 7,000 of them.

    The witness had been called by the defense, so Kevin assumed that the prosecution had finished presenting its evidence. The defense lawyer asked the witness a series of questions apparently based upon a detailed statement that the witness had already given.

    The witness was a Muslim. During the war, he had been a city official in Zepa, another U.N. safe area. He testified that the General had been involved in negotiations at Zepa when the Srebrenica massacre occurred, and had treated the Muslims in Zepa fairly.

    Kevin scanned the tiny visitors’ gallery. He was locked in the room with the other man, who was taking notes. He wondered what would happen if either of them needed to use the bathroom. Kevin was sorry he’d had a second cup of coffee after breakfast.

    When the defense lawyer finished questioning the witness, the presiding judge turned to the prosecutor. “You may begin your cross-examination, Mr. Stone.”

    A ramrod-straight man with short black hair stood up and approached the podium.

    “May it please the Court,” Stone began, with a clipped British accent that suggested aristocracy. He turned toward the witness, peering over small, rectangular wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his sharp nose. He appeared to study the man in the witness stand as if judging a type of fowl or perhaps selecting a cut of roast beef.

    “How many times have you rehearsed this rather tawdry performance with the defense lawyers?” the Englishman finally asked.

    Kevin was shocked at the confrontational nature of the question. He waited for an objection from the defense, but none was made.

    “What do you mean?” the witness sputtered.

    “You are here to answer questions, sir. Not to ask them.”

    Kevin looked at the defense lawyers, expecting an objection for badgering the witness.

    The lawyers, however, made no effort to intervene.

    The prosecutor marched on. “The defense lawyers prepared your statement for you, did they not?”

    “No.”

    “You mean to tell us that you sat down entirely on your own and typed out this fifteen page statement covering all of the events that are relevant to this trial?” The prosecutor took off his glasses and leaned forward, challenging the witness.

    “Yes, sir, I did.”

    The prosecutor threw the glasses down. “I don’t believe that for a moment.”

    Kevin eyes widened in surprise. A lawyer couldn’t express his personal opinion that a witness was lying! He knew if he ever tried that in federal court, there would be a thunderous objection from the defense, followed by a stern rebuke from the judge.

    In Courtroom 2, neither the defense lawyers nor the judges said a word.

    The prosecutor continued: “What do you think of what the Serbs did to your people in Srebrenica?”

    “Well, um, I don’t know. I didn’t personally see anything happen.”

    “Sir, you were a collaborator with the Serbs, weren’t you? A traitor to your people.” The glasses were back on the prosecutor’s nose but he seemed never to be looking through them as much as he was using them as a prop.

    Kevin shifted in his seat. This prosecutor was pissing him off, and he was about ready to stand up and object himself.

    The other man in the visitors’ booth was calmly taking notes.

    The witness now sounded as if the prosecutor was getting under his skin. “I was
not
a traitor, sir,” he said emphatically. “That is a very unfair thing to say.”

    The prosecutor continued undeterred. “Several people we’ve interviewed say you were particularly cruel to your own people.”

    Kevin shifted in his chair. “I can’t believe this guy,” he said under his breath. It was improper to ask a witness to comment on what someone had said out of court, let alone face anonymous accusations. Still, there was no objection from the defense.

    When the judge mercifully called for the regular morning recess, Kevin and the other man waited in the visitors’ booth until the accused was taken out of the courtroom. Then, the door was unlocked, and a guard told Kevin and the other man that they needed to go back to the lobby to wait out the recess.

    Kevin sat on a bench, hoping that he might be summoned to Rupert Schmidt’s office. The lobby was empty except for Kevin and his fellow observer from Courtroom 2. Kevin decided to talk to the man, who was standing by the coffee machine.

    “I’m Kevin Anderson,” he said extending his hand.

    The man shook Kevin’s hand. “I’m Nihudian.”

    “I’m a lawyer from the United States. This is sure a lot different than the courts in America.”

    “Yes, I imagine so,” Nihudian replied haltingly.

    Kevin suspected Nihudian’s reserve was due in large part to a language barrier. He decided to forge ahead anyway. “Are you a reporter?”

    Nihudian shook his head. “No. I am from Bosnia. I am a teacher there. This summer I work for the Bosnian embassy. Every day, I come here to watch this case.”

    “What do you think of the case, so far?”

    Nihudian was silent for a long time. He was a handsome, dark-eyed man with a fresh, boyish look. He could have passed for a law clerk or young lawyer. “I think the prosecution is going to win,” he said finally. “They have a very strong case.”

    Kevin decided not to comment on how unfair he thought the prosecutor had been. After all, Mr. Stone was a future colleague. “What did you do during the war, if you don’t mind my asking?”

    “I was a policeman and a soldier. But now I am back to teaching high school.”

    Just then, a guard approached Kevin. “Come with me,” he directed.

    “I have never spoken English for so long,” Nihudian said, “Thank you for the opportunity.”

    “Your English is excellent. I’m sorry that I don’t know your language. Maybe I’ll see you around here again.”

    The guard led Kevin through the side doors leading to the Tribunal offices. After walking down a bare corridor, he pointed to an office and said, “Right in there, sir.”

    Kevin entered the office. There were three people inside, each working behind a desk. The man behind the desk farthest from the door rose and said in English with a heavy German accent, “Mr. Anderson, I am Rupert Schmidt. What can I do for you?”

    As he looked at the short, wiry, balding man in front of him, Kevin immediately sensed that Rupert Schmidt was going to be dismissive. So, he walked the length of the room to the man’s desk and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Schmidt.”

    Rupert Schmidt’s return handshake was limp.

    Without waiting to be asked, Kevin sat down on one of the chairs in front of the desk. When he saw Kevin making himself comfortable, Schmidt reluctantly sat down.

    “Mr. Schmidt, you hired me as a prosecutor. I’m ready to go to work.”

    “But your position was not funded, Mr. Anderson. Weren’t you notified?”

    “Yes, I was notified – the night before I left. By then, it was too late. I had already quit my job, rented out my house, leased a place in Holland for a year and enrolled my daughter in school here.”

    Rupert Schmidt appeared unmoved. “I’m sorry, but what can I do? We don’t have the money to pay you. The United Nations froze our budget.” He paused and added somewhat peevishly, “Perhaps if your country paid the back dues that it owes to the United Nations, we would have the money for more prosecutors.”

    Kevin wasn’t going to take the bait.

    “Mr. Schmidt,” he said, leaning over the man’s desk, “I have nothing to do with that. I was promised a job here as a prosecutor. The Tribunal should honor its commitment to me.”

    “I’m afraid there is nothing I can do at the moment,” Schmidt said, avoiding eye contact. “However, I can take your phone number and if something develops, we will call you straight away. Meanwhile, you can check with my office again in a week.”

    Kevin didn’t know what to say. There was no point arguing with this by-the-numbers bureaucrat. He would use the week to get his family settled.

    “Mrs. Kelly will see you out,” Schmidt said briskly as he rose from his desk, signaling that the meeting was over. “You can give her your phone number here in The Netherlands.”

    Kevin saw someone get up from one of the other desks in the room. “Right this way, sir,” said a gray-haired, plump woman, who Kevin took to be Mrs. Kelly.

    Kevin followed the woman out into the corridor. She had a notebook in her hand, and she took down his phone number.