Reuters; AFP. 9 January 2002. Milosevic Expected to Call Western Leaders at Trial; UN judge wants quick Kosovo trial for still-defiant Milosevic.
THE HAGUE -- Slobodan Milosevic fired off another tirade against the U.N. war crimes tribunal Wednesday but is expected to play a new card when he goes on trial next month by calling NATO leaders as witnesses. Yawning and checking his watch frequently, the former Yugoslav leader looked nonchalant at a hearing at the court in The Hague as officials discussed the nuts and bolts of his Kosovo war crimes trial set to begin on February 12. He then sprang to life when British presiding judge Richard May gave him the floor, insisting once again that NATO -- which bombed Serbia in 1999 after a Serbian crackdown on Kosovo's Albanians -- and not Belgrade was the true villain. "An operation is under way to reverse the scene and the culprit... All this is geared toward a construed justification for the crimes committed during the NATO aggression on my nation," Milosevic, 60, said slowly but firmly in Serbian. A legal adviser to Milosevic said he expected the former president, who has not appointed a defense attorney and plans to conduct his own defense, to turn the tables on Western leaders by putting them in the witness box during the trial. "I expect when Milosevic next addresses the public he will demand that leaders of NATO countries, who are able to present the truth on Kosovo, come to testify," Belgrade-based lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic told Reuters by telephone. "Milosevic tried to say this today but he was interrupted four times (by Judge May)," added Tomanovic, speaking after he met Milosevic following the hearing. He did not say which leaders might be called but a leader in his party was quoted last month as saying former U.S. President Bill Clinton would be summoned. Media speculation has also mentioned British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Commentators believe Milosevic hopes that by calling Western leaders as witnesses he will be able to humiliate them and to show that they worked closely with him during much of the 1990s as the old Yugoslavia broke apart in bloodshed. Milosevic may also be aiming to get Western leaders to give damaging information about ethnic Albanian guerrillas, in the hope of strengthening his argument that military action in Kosovo was legitimate suppression of an insurgency. Judges have the final say on whether witnesses may be called, but if they decide someone should testify then they have the power to compel the witness to come to The Hague. At his five appearances before the tribunal -- which has held him in custody since Serb reformers sent him to the Hague in June -- Milosevic has repeatedly lambasted the court as an illegal tool of his Western foes in streams of invective before being silenced by May. He has refused even to plead to the charges, in an unprecedented display of contempt for the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. In his final broadside Wednesday before Judge May cut him off and adjourned the session, Milosevic took a fresh tack in his allegations of tribunal bias. "Look at this court. Courts should be impartial. The indictment has been raised according to what the British intelligence service has said. The judge is an Englishman. The amicus curiae is..." he said. A UN judge on Wednesday ordered prosecutors to limit the number of their witnesses when former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic goes on trial next month over war crimes committed in Kosovo, urging a short trial. Strains emerged when the prosecution presented a witness list and a general timetable for its case, prompting Presiding Judge Richard May, clearly showing his discontent, to tell prosecutors bluntly: "We have in mind a shorter case." The court cut the number of live witnesses to be called by the prosecution to 90, out of 110 it proposed. May also said he might trim the number of written statements to be admitted during the case. Well known French lawyer Jacques Verges also attended Wednesday's hearing. Verges has been hired by the former president to plead his case against his arrest, transfer and detention by the tribunal before the European court of human rights in Strasbourg. He underlined Milosevic's complaints against the legality of the UN court adding it was inadmissible that the tribunal could establish it's own rules and regulations which is contrary to the idea of a separation powers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews
