Milosevic Denounces West in Hague Trial Defense

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, February 15, 2002

Milosevic Denounces West in Hague Trial Defense

Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic accused the West of plotting the destruction of Yugoslavia, at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in The Hague on Thursday.

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Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic accused the West of plotting the destruction of Yugoslavia, at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in The Hague on Thursday.

On the third day of the historical trial, the former head of state took the offensive against prosecutors who had accused him of masterminding atrocities in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. He denounced his trial as political and lambasted NATO for the 78-day air strikes on Yugoslavia in 1999.

"It was obviously the goal and objective to terrorize and break down the whole Yugoslav nation. The goal in practical terms was the nation as a whole," Milosevic, who was conducting his own defense, told the court.

Milosevic also ridiculed the court as an instrument of the United States foreign policy designed to humiliate, isolate and silence him for defending Serbia against Western aggression in the Balkans.

Through the courtroom's equipment, he showed a German documentary critical of NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia and photographs of severed heads, charred bodies and blasted buildings, which he said were the consequences of NATO's strikes.

"The bombing of civilian targets was merciless. That was the big characteristic. The more suffering, the more civilians (killed) the better," he said of the NATO bombing.

Milosevic also said, "The prosecution has a huge legal and media machine on its side. What do I have on my side? I only have a public telephone in my prison. That is all I have to fight a terrible libel against my country, my people and myself," he told the court.

The 60-year-old former Yugoslav leader is being advised by a team of Belgrade lawyers and a group of legal advisers from various countries.

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