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Milosevic Wants Clinton to Testify at Trial-Report December 19, 2001 10:30 am EST BELGRADE (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic will call former U.S. President Bill Clinton to testify during his U.N. war crimes trial in The Hague, a senior official of his Socialist Party was quoted as saying on Wednesday. Party official Ivica Dacic said Milosevic, accused of war crimes during the Balkan wars of the last decade, would call people he had secretly or publicly talked to as president of both Yugoslavia and its dominant republic Serbia in the 1990s. "Let's not forget that the Clinton administration had officially named Milosevic a factor of peace and stability in the Balkans," Dacic told Belgrade weekly Nedeljni Telegraf. The Clinton administration sponsored and hosted negotiations which led to the Dayton peace accord ending the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Milosevic was Serbian president at the time and signed the agreement on behalf of Bosnia's Serbs. Four years later the United States played a leading role in NATO's 1999 11-week bombing campaign to halt Serbian repression of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, allegedly orchestrated by Milosevic. Milosevic was ousted in a popular revolt in October 2000 and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia last June. He remains president of the once-mighty Socialist Party. Last week Milosevic dismissed charges at the U.N. tribunal of spearheading a Serb campaign of genocide in Bosnia. He has also been indicted for crimes against humanity and other war crimes during "ethnic cleansing" by Serb forces in Croatia in 1991-92 and during the Kosovo conflict seven years later. His trial on the Kosovo charges is due in February. Milosevic's Belgrade lawyer Dragoslav Ognjanovic said he did not know if Clinton would be called as a witness but that some people from the "political world" would be, as Milosevic considered the trial against him political. "It is certain that some people will be called to testify but we will see who and what procedure will be used for this," he told Reuters. Ognjanovic, who represents Milosevic in Yugoslavia, said the U.N. court had scheduled a pre-trial hearing on January 9 and that some names may be announced then. Milosevic does not recognize the U.N. tribunal, which he has denounced as a mere tool of the NATO military alliance which bombed Yugoslavia, and has refused to appoint defense lawyers. The Hague tribunal ruled earlier this month Milosevic would have two trials, first on the Kosovo charges and then on the Croatia and Bosnia charges, but the prosecutors pushed on Wednesday for the three indictments to be joined in one trial. http://news1.iwon.com/article/id/106889|politics|12-19-2001::10:40|reute rs.html ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
