THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 23 (Hina) - The trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague has again been postponed because of the ill health of the accused, the tribunal said on
Monday.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 23 (Hina) - The trial of former Yugoslav
president Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war crimes tribunal in The
Hague has again been postponed because of the ill health of the
accused, the tribunal said on Monday.#L#
The prosecution was to have completed the presentation of evidence
last week, but Milosevic failed to appear in courtroom because of
heart problems, unofficial sources said.
The prosecutors have two working days left to complete the
presentation of evidence against Milosevic, who is charged with 66
counts of genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and crimes against humanity
in Croatia and Kosovo in the 1990s.
After the prosecutors present their evidence, there will be a
three-month break in the trial to give Milosevic time to prepare for
the presentation of witnesses and evidence of the defence. Milosevic
decided to defend himself on his own.
The trial is scheduled to resume on May 19.
A new element in the trial is the resignation of Judge Richard May as
presiding judge in the case. May has resigned for health reasons and
his resignation takes effect on May 31.
Tribunal president Theodor Meron has said in a statement that he
forwarded May's resignation to the UN secretary general and that he
expected that the secretary general would soon appoint a successor to
the British judge.
Lawyers at the tribunal believe that the appointment of a new judge
will result in new delays of the trial because the successor judge
will have to get acquainted with the case and examine transcripts from
300 hearings, statements by nearly as many witnesses and the evidence
file containing hundreds of thousands of documents and audio and video
tapes.
One of the main concerns is the possibility of Milosevic not agreeing
to the continuation of the trial with a new judge and requesting a
repeat of the examination-in-chief as provided for by Rule 15 bis (C)
of the tribunal's Rules of Procedure and Evidence.
This rule, however, also provides for an exemption in paragraph D,
which says that the rest of the judges may decide to carry on with a
trial with a new judge and without the consent of the accused if they
unanimously decide that it is in the interests of justice.
The most important war crimes trial in Europe since the Nuremberg
trials and the first international war crimes trial of a head of state
started on February 12, 2002. If Milosevic is given two years to
present his evidence as the prosecutors have been, the trial can be
expected to end in late 2006 or early 2007.
(Hina) vm sb