HAGUE,
Feb. 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies)- The prosecution in the trial of
Slobodan Milosevic has accused the former Yugoslav president of being
"responsible for the worst crimes known to humankind", news agencies
reported.
“Some
of the incidents revealed an almost medieval savagery and a calculated cruelty
that went far beyond the bounds of legitimate warfare,'' Del Ponte told the
court's three scarlet and black-robed judges and a packed press and public
gallery.
“Beyond
the nationalist pretext and the horror of ethnic cleansing, behind the
grandiloquent rhetoric and the hackneyed phrases the search for power is what
motivated Slobodan Milosevic,'' News agencies quoted Chief Prosecutor Carla Del
Ponte telling the court.
Milosevic,
charged with genocide in the 1992-95 Bosnian war and crimes against humanity in
Croatia in 1991-92 and in Kosovo in 1999. He inflicted unspeakable suffering on
those who got in the way of his relentless pursuit of power, she said.
During
the first day of the landmark trial, which is expected to last at least two
years, Milosevic sat impassively, glaring across the courtroom at chief
prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and her leading prosecutor, Geoffrey Nice QC.
"From
the first to the last, he wanted as much as he could get away with and as much
as he could keep," Nice said told the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. BBC reported.
Slobodan
Milosevic inflicted ''medieval savagery'' on the Balkans in the 1990s,
prosecutors said Tuesday. This was the start of the biggest war crimes trial
since Hitler's henchmen were tried at Nuremberg.
“He
(Milosevic) controlled events because he controlled the people who constituted
the bodies that...did evil,'' Nice said.
The
British lawyer outlined at length what he said had been a grand plan by
Milosevic to carve a “Greater Serbia'' out of the wreckage of communist
federal Yugoslavia.
That
required the forcible removal, or “ethnic cleansing,'' of non-Serbs from areas
of Croatia and Bosnia, he explained.
''The
chamber will receive testimony from high-ranking military figures, diplomats,
government representatives and other persons of rank and function, who for
different reasons the chamber will understand cannot be named today,'' Del Ponte
said.
Del
Ponte describes the events that Milosevic was accused of as “notorious” BBC
reported.
Prosecutors
have said they will call up to 30 political insiders to give evidence linking
Milosevic to the atrocities of the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
Milosevic's
case, Ms Del Ponte said, would be a powerful demonstration that "no-one is
above the law".
"Mr.
Milosevic pursued his ambition at the price of unspeakable suffering to those
who opposed him," accusing him of doing everything "in the service of
his quest for power," she added
At
the same time, Ms Del Ponte insisted that no state was on trial - a reference to
Serbia, BBC said .
Milosevic
has dismissed the charges as a conspiracy by the West to tarnish the memory of
his 13-year rule and to overshadow its meddling in the region at the end of the
Cold War.
Milosevic
has refused to recognize the court or to appoint defense counsel, prompting
judges to enter not guilty pleas on his behalf and appoint three international
lawyers as “amici curiae” or “friends of the court'' to ensure he has a
fair trial.
One
of his legal advisers, Zdenko Tomanovic, said Milosevic had made contact with
the “amici curiae'' for the first time on Tuesday, after previously refusing
even to acknowledge them, news agencies said.
After
the morning prosecution statements, Milosevic asked the amici: “Do you hear
this rubbish? How can you not react?'' Tomanovic said, adding that the contact
was “friendly''.
Meanwhile,
a crowd of Kosovo Albanians, who gathered to watch the trial in a mosque, said
the 60-year-old former Serb strongman was responsible for shocking atrocities.
“Finally
the main criminal, the main butcher of the Balkans, is facing trial,'' said
Tefik Halili, 34, whose cousin was shot by Serb forces three years ago in an
attack on the village of Racak..
In
Belgrade, Milosevic's former seat of power, the start of the trial was greeted
by apathy rather than outrage or shame.
“He
did us so little good they could have thrown him to the wolves for all I care,''
said Katarina, an unemployed mother towing along her three-year-old daughter in
central Belgrade, news agencies reported.
“I
couldn't care less what happens to Milosevic now. As if he cared how we fared
during all the years he was in power!'' said Jelena, a 50-year-old language
teacher
Supporters
for Milosevic demonstrated outside the Hague court building. They called the
prosecution a “lynching,'' news agencies said.
For
his defenders, it is an exercise in Western hypocrisy.
Supporters
of Milosevic accuse the West of turning on him as a scapegoat after using him as
a “peacemaker'' in the mid-1990s and his legal advisers say he will name
international figures who were “involved in the Yugoslav crisis'' such as
former U.S. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, news
agencies said.
The
Kosovo indictment, issued in 1999, accuses him of responsibility, along with
four other senior Serbs still at large, for the murder of 900 Kosovo Albanians
and expulsion of 800,000 civilians from their homes.
The
Croatia indictment, which came last year, accuses him of responsibility for the
deaths of hundreds of Croats and other non-Serbs between August 1991-92 and the
deportation of 170,000.
Also
last year Milosevic was accused of responsibility in Bosnia for the Srebrenica
massacre of several thousand Bosnian Muslim men and boys, the siege of Sarajevo
and the deportation or imprisonment of over a quarter of a million.
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Bosnian
women, survivors of the 1995 massacre of up to 8,000 Muslims |
About
8,000 Muslim men were killed in Srebrenica in Bosnia
However,
one of his legal advisers said he expected Milosevic to make a statement.
"He
is not recognizing the court but... he is going to have his statement or
preliminary words," said Belgrade lawyer Dragoslav Ognjanovic told BBC, who
met the former president for three hours on Monday.
The
former president faces a total of 66 counts of crimes against humanity,
violating the laws and regulations of war, and genocide.
If
found guilty, he could face life imprisonment.
