Aldo Bernardini, ordinario di Diritto Internazionale all'Universita' di Teramo, ha inviato la seguente durissima lettera di protesta al "Tribunale" dell'Aia, sulla imposizione di un avvocato d'ufficio a Milosevic proprio nel momento in cui doveva incominciare la sua autodifesa.

Rome, 3 September 2004

As a modest scholar of international law I am totally horrified in front of the last steps by the Hague "Tribunal" (Judges and Prosecution) in re Milosevic.

The imposition of a counsel on President Slobodan Milosevic is an act of brutal violence which demonstrates only the "Tribunal's" disarray and impossibility to counter Slobodan Milosevic's arguments. The way to continue and conclude its "job" with the preordained conviction is to silence President Milosevic.

An illegal "Tribunal", created by U.N. Security Council with an arbitrary and dictatorial interpretation of the Charter; a monstrous indictment founded on an artificial construction aberrantly basing on presumption outside the provisions of the ICTY Statute and contrary to the fundamental principle nullum crimen sine lege, to general principles of criminal law in every country, to human rights in the matter and to the rule of strict interpretation in criminal law: honourable "judges" in such a context should at least abide by "their" Statute, the ICTY Statute. They should know that no analogy or more than broad interpretation is allowed: in claris non fit interpretatio, no (own) interpretation is permitted where the letter of the law is clear. Art. 21, par. 4, of the ICTY Statute expressly declares that the accused "shall be entitled to the following minimum guarantees. d) to be tried in his presence, and to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choice". This formulation is clear and does not allow any deviation or exception. The "Tribunal" may not substitute for the accused neither in choosing between "defence by himself" or defence through legal assistants nor in choosing such assistants.

The imposition by ICTY is the utmost aberration and the conclusive evidence of the political and arbitrary character of the ICTY and of the whole Milosevic trial (and of the other trials too).

No honourable lawyers should cooperate with that enormity. U.N. Security Council should condemn the operation but best of all do away with the "Hague Tribunal".

I protest with my full strength against this perversion of every juridical concept, of every sound idea of the rule of law, of the most fundamental human rights of President Milosevic. History will judge ICTY and its operations through continually judge-made law in the same manner as the perverted legal conception of the Nazis.

Aldo Bernardini