[A-List] Fw: Message from Chris Black

["Christopher Black" <bar@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

 

----- Original Message -----

From: CDSM

To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;

Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 5:03 PM

Subject: Message from Chris Black

Message from Chris Black

 

The BBC interviewed me tonight about Mira Markovic. They said they were going to give me three minutes. But they cut me off abruptly after one minute. I guess they didn't like what I had to say.

 

Basically they tried to suggest to me that the security operation on Serbia was justified to rid the country of criminal gangs and therefore it was ok to arrest her. I countered that it was absurd to connect her with criminal gangs and was part of a campaign to discredit the left in Serbia, to put the squeeze on Milosevic and was being done under an unjustified state of martial law prompted by the murder of  a single man whose death could only benefit one group and their external backers. They then tried to get me to admit that the Stambolic murder was linked to our friend and Mira and I countered that such an idea was absurd as Stambolic wasn't even involved in politics at the time he disappeared.

 

They got angrier and asked' "so you think she will resist the attempt to extradite her" and I replied that it was necessary under all extradition treaties that the requesting state present a prima facie case to the state in which the suspect is found before extradition can take place and so far the regime in Belgrade has presented no evidence of anything to anybody and no doubt becuase there isn't any. I then started to state that the imposition of a state of emergency was unjustified for various reasons when they just cut me off.

 

The interview was live and being broadcast into Serbia for the breakfast news on the World Sservice which is probably why they cut me off in mid-sentence.

 

Chris