The Trial Chamber allows a suspension of the trial in the duration of four weeks based on the request of defence counsel who asked to be given more time to prepare the defence case, presiding judge Patrick Robinson said and added that the trial would resume on October 12.
Court-assigned defence attorney Steven Kay had told the tribunal that he was faced with mass rejections from defence witnesses to testify because Milosevic had been stripped of his right to defend himself. Potential defence witnesses have expressed solidarity with Milosevic's call to be allowed to continue defending himself.
Kay admitted yesterday that the defence managed to get only two witness to take the stand this and next week.
"Groups of witnesses have said they are not prepared to testify," Kay said. "We've had the refusal, as I told the court, of about 20 witnesses," he added.
Milosevic, charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, ran
his own defence for the first 2.5 years of the trial but his ill health sparked around a dozen delays in proceedings.
Before adopting the decision to suspend the trial until October 12, the Trial Chamber did not grant the request to defence counsel that Milosevic be re-examined by doctors and allowed to cross-examine his own witnesses.
Kay and Gillian Higgins were assigned to run Milosevic's defence on September 2 to avoid further disruptions in a trial dogged by Milosevic's ill health since it opened in early 2002. Milosevic harshly opposed the decision to impose defence counsel on him.