[A plan to meet Milosevic at noon (1000 GMT) was disrupted when baggage [the
defence team] had been bringing in for him from Belgrade was found to be
missing after their JAT Yugoslav airlines flight from Belgrade arrived at
Schipol airport near The Hague. "We were waiting at the airport for one and
a
half hours to get luggage for Mr Milosevic. His personal things have
disappeared," Tomanovic told Reuters. They had not been found. Yugoslavia's
Tanjug news agency later quoted him as saying the lost suitcase contained
materials needed for the hearing.]
Lawyers in Hague to defend Milosevic
By Paul Gallagher
THE HAGUE, July 2 (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic's lawyers flew in from
Belgrade on Monday to prepare his defence on war crimes charges at The Hague
-- but hit a snag when luggage for the detained former Yugoslav president
went missing in transit.
Five days after being handed over to the United Nations, Milosevic face his
accusers for the first time on Tuesday. He is expected to plead not guilty
in
court to charges of crimes against humanity for Serb ethnic cleansing in
Kosovo in 1999.
The lawyers said they expected to spend several hours at the U.N. remand
centre in The Hague where Milosevic has been held in isolation since being
surrendered last Thursday in a stealthy manoeuvre by the reformist opponents
who toppled him in October.
Attorneys Zdenko Tomanovic and Dragan Krgovic will discuss Tuesday morning's
brief arraignment hearing. They met officials at the International Criminal
Tribunal building to begin the process of registering themselves formally as
defence counsel.
A plan to meet Milosevic at noon (1000 GMT) was disrupted when baggage they
had been bringing in for him from Belgrade was found to be missing after
their JAT Yugoslav airlines flight from Belgrade arrived at Schipol airport
near The Hague.
"We were waiting at the airport for one and a half hours to get luggage for
Mr Milosevic. His personal things have disappeared," Tomanovic told Reuters.
They had not been found.
Yugoslavia's Tanjug news agency later quoted him as saying the lost suitcase
contained materials needed for the hearing.
Asked by Reuters how his client would plead, Tomanovic said: "We will see
(about) that when we meet Milosevic."
A trial is not expected to start until next year.
DEFIANT DEFENCE
It will be the first visit Milosevic has received at the Scheveningen
detention centre and his first face-to-face discussion in The Hague with the
legal team, reported to have been picked by his strong-willed wife, Mira
Markovic.
Tomanovic has been on an eight-strong team defending Milosevic since his
arrest in April on corruption charges.
The lawyers were carrying packages from Milosevic's family, believed to be
books, clothes and money he had requested.
Milosevic has refused to recognise the authority of the court, which he sees
as a tool of the Western NATO forces which bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 during
the Kosovo war.
"In his telephone conversation with Mrs Markovic, he said he wanted his
defence to be political as he considers all the accusations against him to
be
political," one legal source privy to the discussions with the family in
Belgrade told Reuters.
"He said the real war criminals were the leaders of NATO and that they
should
be tried and not him."
Such defiance is unlikely to cut much ice in The Hague but is typical of a
man who, insiders say, has lost touch with reality after 13 years at the
pinnacle of power in the Balkans.
Yet lawyers familiar with the case said chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte
would also have her work cut out making the charges stick and proving
Milosevic was personally responsible.
"I think we cannot underestimate the case," Nancy Paterson, an American
lawyer who has just left the tribunal's prosecutor's office, told the New
York Times on Monday.
"There are pieces missing," said Paterson, who helped draw up the indictment
in 1999 that made Milosevic the first head of state ever to be charged with
war crimes while in office.
"You need to establish what the real chain of command was."
It remains to be seen whether further evidence against the former strongman
will be delivered by the new authorities in Belgrade, who are struggling to
defuse a political crisis sparked by nationalist opposition to handing
Milosevic over.
HISTORIC TRIAL
With the final composition of the defence team far from settled, Belgrade
newspapers said on Monday that Milosevic and his wife were considering
hiring
foreign attorneys.
Vecerne Novosti said former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsay Clark, who served
under U.S. President Jimmy Carter and is sympathetic to Serb hardliners, was
being considered. The challenge of defending him would attract many lawyers.
"Milosevic is dead as a politician but he is a part of history. He is a
historical figure," a legal source said.
But Milosevic and his wife were far from easy clients: "It will be difficult
to defend a person who sees himself in a special way and as a historic
figure
and who himself, together with his wife, interferes in defence deciding on
the 'best strategy'," one Belgrade lawyer said.
Another attorney who has worked on the defence has said Milosevic did not
accept the reality that he faced life in jail.
In Belgrade, internal ructions from the Serbian government's lightning
covert
move to hand the ousted strongman over to the UN tribunal continue, with the
future of Serbia's links to little Montenegro in the rump Yugoslav
federation
under threat.
But in a newspaper interview Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic stressed
the benefits of the handover in terms of Western aid pledges of over $1
billion that came in on Friday.
07:25 07-02-01
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
