Milosevic Hears Indictment, Refuses to Enter Plea

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, December 12, 2001

Milosevic Hears Indictment, Refuses to Enter Plea

Slobodan Milosevic refused to plead Tuesday to charges of genocide against Bosnian Muslims and Croats, calling the allegations absurd.

Slobodan Milosevic refused to plead Tuesday to charges of genocide against Bosnian Muslims and Croats, calling the allegations absurd.

As in previous indictments, the U.N. war crimes tribunal entered a plea of innocent on his behalf.

"This miserable text is the ultimate absurdity. I should be given credit for peace in Bosnia, not war," Milosevic said when asked if he were guilty or innocent.

For more than an hour, he sat impassively, often looking around the courtroom, as the indictment was read in his native Serbian language.

It is third and final indictment against him for his 13 years in power in the former Yugoslavia, during which he is accused of instigating and conducting a decade of ethnic war.

Milosevic has persistently rejected the legitimacy of the U.N. court and has refused to cooperate, alleging it is a political tool of the NATO alliance.

"The responsibility for the war in Bosnia lies with the (Western) powers and their agents, not in Bosnia and not with Serbs, Serb people or Serb policy," Milosevic said before presiding Judge Richard May cut him short.

The Bosnia indictment is the first to charge him with genocide, and is the most serious challenge since Serbian authorities transferred him to The Hague for trial on June 28.

Milosevic has been charged with 29 counts of genocide, complicity to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and violations of the laws or customs of war �� every crime in the tribunal's statute.

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