Milosevic faces accusers on Bosnia, Croatia atrocities

By ABIGAIL LEVENE in THE HAGUE

The Slobodan Milosevic trial enters a key phase today with the launching by United Nations prosecutors of the Croatian and Bosnian cases that accuse the former Yugoslav leader of Europe's worst human rights violations since World War II.

Genocide is the gravest of 61 charges the prosecution has laid against Milosevic at Europe's biggest international war crimes hearing, resuming after a two-week break, since Hitler's henchmen were tried at Nuremberg.

The siege of Sarajevo, the Srebrenica massacre, detention camps at Trnopolje and Omarska: the Bosnia and Croatia indictments catalogue atrocities that shocked the world during Milosevic's strongman reign as Serbian President from 1990-97.

Prosecutors closed their case two weeks ago on Kosovo, where Milosevic, 61, and former aides are accused of expelling about 800,000 Albanians from the southern Serbian province - almost one-third of the Kosovo Albanian population.

Murder, torture and deportation are among the charges Milosevic faces in the indictments for ethnic cleansing in Croatia and Bosnia in the early 1990s.

Tribunal judges have entered not guilty pleas for Milosevic, the first head of state to be indicted for such crimes while in office. He refused to plead when he was sent to The Hague last year.

Prosecutors will call 177 witnesses - 106 on Bosnia and 71 for Croatia, spokeswoman Florence Hartmann said yesterday. They had wanted to call 250 but judges made them cut back.

Croatian President Stjepan Mesic would testify on Croatia, Hartmann said.

The witness many are awaiting is former US ambassador Richard Holbrooke. This key negotiator of the 1995 Bosnia peace accord has said he is willing to testify.

Alleged crimes include the 43-month throttling of Sarajevo, the longest 20th-century siege in Europe, during which snipers' targets included children, funeral processions and street markets.

Prosecutors also blame Milosevic for grim detention camps where more than 7000 Bosnian Muslims, Croats and other non-Serbs were held and many were killed or tortured.

Also on the charge sheet is the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where Serbs are blamed for killing up to 8000 Muslim men and boys.

- REUTERS

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Feature: Yugoslavia

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