Milosevic trial witness denies massacre

AMSTERDAM - A defence witness at the war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic denied on Monday that Bosnian Serb forces slaughtered 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica 10 years ago.

Bozidar Delic, a retired Yugoslav army general, has been on the stand for several weeks testifying in Milosevic's defence about the Kosovo war in 1999, when he was an army commander.

However, UN prosecutor Geoffrey Nice switched the focus of his questioning to Srebrenica on Monday, asking Delic whether he believed that thousands of Muslims had been killed in Srebrenica 10 years ago this week.

"That's your observation. I do not accept that," Delic told the court. "I accept that two to three thousand Serbs were killed in the Srebrenica area and several thousand Muslims, but most of them were killed in fighting." Milosevic, who is charged with genocide over the Srebrenica massacre but says he had nothing to do with the killings, objected to Nice's line of questioning and said the prosecutor was playing to the media gallery.

However, Judge Patrick Robinson allowed Nice to continue, saying the questions were relevant to the credibility of the witness.

The prosecutor asked Delic to respond to polls which he said showed most Serbs still denied the Srebrenica massacre.

"There is a one-sided approach because everybody is talking about the victims of one people," Delic said, adding that nobody mentioned that dozens of Serb villages near Srebrenica had been destroyed in the fighting.

Milosevic was handed over to the UN tribunal in The Hague four years ago and the court is expected to complete his marathon trial next year.

The most senior figure convicted for the Srebrenica massacre by the tribunal so far is Bosnian Serb commander Radislav Krstic, sentenced on appeal in 2004 to 35 years in jail for aiding and abetting genocide.

However, Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic and his army commander Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide over Srebrenica a decade ago, are still on the run.

- REUTERS