NETHERLANDS: SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC DISMISSES HAGUE WAR CRIMES TRIAL AS "LYNCH PROCESS" .

Record ID: 550152

  • Title: NETHERLANDS: SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC DISMISSES HAGUE WAR CRIMES TRIAL AS "LYNCH PROCESS" .
  • Date: 13th February 2002
  • Summary: THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS (FEBRUARY 13, 2002) (REUTERS) GV: EXTERIOR WIDE VIEW THE HAGUE
  • Embargoed: 28th February 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS
  • Country: Netherlands
  • Topics: Conflict,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA8BN8RGOE7W30LFRX5MM3619UM
  • Story Text: Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic has dismissed the war crimes trial in the Hague as a "lynch process" in first words to the court. His comments followed two days of statements by prosecutors, accusing Milosevic of masterminding massacre, persecution and mass deportation in the Balkans in the 1990's. Milosevic also challenged the "legality of the tribunal"
    and what he called his "illegal arrest" when he was given an opportunity to address the court.
    Slobodan Milosevic masterminded "unrelenting violence"
    not seen since World War Two, complete with massacres, sieges, mass graves and camps, prosecutors told his landmark war crimes trial on Wednesday (February 13).
    Arguing that the ex-Yugoslav leader was part of a grand plan to carve an ethnically pure "Greater Serbia" from the ruins of Yugoslavia, prosecutors evoked the notorious 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the gruelling Sarajevo siege and a brutal Bosnia camp.
    Footage of emaciated prisoners behind barbed wire at the Trnopolje detention camp in northwest Bosnia was presented to the court. Prosecutors say more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslims, Croats and other non-Serbs were held at such camps in May-August 1992.
    Prosecutor Dirk Ryneveld proceeded to show footage that was apparently filmed by an Albanian doctor before making its way into the hands of NATO in 1999 and released at a NATO briefing.
    "Images from that video forms part of the evidence the prosecution intends to enter at this trial. At this time we proposed to show you brief excerpts of that video to provide insight into what occurred," said Ryneveld.
    The archive footage showed a number of Kosovo Albanians alleged to have been killed by Serb forces shortly before the NATO bombing in 1999.
    Talking over the archive footage as it was being shown to court, Ryneveld said,
    "We have edited this video to remove most of the most gruesome parts of it, however still caution the viewers that this is a horrific scene. At the end you will see a close up of an elderly man with crutches".
    After listening to prosecutors making their opening arguments on the first two days of the trial, Milosevic said he would make his formal opening statement on Thursday (February 14) morning but wanted to reiterate his pre-trial challenge to the legality of the court.
    "I wanted to add I challenge the very legality of this tribunal because it was not set up on the basis of the law.
    The security council could not transfer the right that it does not have to this tribunal and therefore this tribunal does not have the competence to try," said Milosevic.
    The second point Milosevic wished to raise was what he called his "illegal arrest".
    "I raised the question of my illegal arrest and the representative of the tribunal had a part in that. It took place in Belgrade, it violated the constitution of Serbia and the constitution of Yugoslavia and the federal government tabled its resignation because of that and criminal law suits have been the result in Yugoslavia," said Milosevic.
    Before the court adjourned Milosevic said the trial was far from impartial and blamed the prosecution for waging a media campaign in an attempt to seal his fate.
    "From everything that we have heard here so far, we have become more than convinced that not only is it partial, but your prosecutor has proclaimed my sentence and judgement and the prosecution has orchestrated a media campaign that has been waged and organised," said Milosevic.
    "It is a parallel trial through the media which along with this unlawful tribunal are there to play the role of a parallel lynch process," added Milosevic.
    Milosevic, who does not recognise the court and spurned advice by its judges to appoint a defence counsel, could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted by the court at the end of a trial expected to last at least two years.
    Milosevic is charged with crimes against humanity in Croatia in 1991-92, genocide in the 1992-95 Bosnian war and crimes against humanity in Kosovo in 1999.
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