Global Policy Forum

By Paul Gallagher

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has pledged to fight "the most terrible accusations" when he opens his defence against war crimes charges in the Balkans at The Hague tribunal next month. Milosevic, charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, opens his defence on July 5 in Europe's most significant war crimes trial since Hitler's henchmen were tried after World War Two.

The former Serb strongman vigorously dismissed dozens of counts against him as "false" at the U.N's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) during a pre-defence conference to pave the way for the next stage of his trial. "I should like here before the public to prove that these are all false indictments, false accusations against Serbia, against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and against myself personally," Milosevic told the court on Thursday. "The point of everything that I wish to do here is this: It is to present the truth and you know full well the most terrible accusations have been uttered here," the 62-year-old, dressed in a dark suit and red tie, said.

Milosevic, who wants British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former U.S. President Bill Clinton to be called as witnesses at his trial, told judges he wanted to call close to 1,400 witnesses although he has only 150 working days to present his case. Prosecutors abruptly rested their case in February after calling around 290 witnesses over two years. Milosevic has conducted his own defence since the trial opened in 2002 but has suffered bouts of high blood pressure, flu and exhaustion. Milosevic, who has described himself as a peacemaker in the Balkans and does not recognise the U.N. court, has dismissed the charges as politically motivated "lies" and declined to enter a plea. Pleas of not guilty were entered on his behalf.

The trial has heard evidence from the prosecution on the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces in the 1992-95 Bosnian war, of fighting in Croatia in 1991 and accounts of atrocities in Kosovo in 1999. Former NATO commander Wesley Clark, British Balkans envoy Paddy Ashdown, former rebel Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, former Kosovo Albanian refugees and an ex-secretary at the offices of notorious Serb warlord Arkan have testified.

While the trial's three judges did not impose any limit on the number of witnesses Milosevic can call in his defence, they stressed that his court time would be limited and that evidence would be admitted only if it was relevant. The former Serbian president has complained that he has not been given enough time to prepare his defence from behind bars at the tribunal's detention centre in The Hague.

Milosevic was told witnesses would have to be introduced in an orderly fashion and that he would have to tackle the case indictment by indictment. It was up to him to decide which indictment to tackle first. He faces three indictments dealing with Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Both the prosecution and the defence will sum up at the end of the trial, in a court which currently sits only three days a week because of Milosevic's health problems.