THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, March 31 (Hina) - The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague resumed on Monday after a two-week break called due to his problems with high blood
pressure.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, March 31 (Hina) - The trial of former Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic before the U.N. war crimes tribunal in
The Hague resumed on Monday after a two-week break called due to his
problems with high blood pressure. #L#
Milosevic requested the trial chamber to enable him to hold a
"public hearing in connection with the media campaign" he said was
being waged in Serbia against his wife and him over the "Stambolic
case". He accused the prosecution of "orchestrating that campaign
and producing untruths", and complained that the lack of his wife's
support was detrimental to his health.
The president of the trial chamber, Judge Richard May, refused the
defendant's request, saying the tribunal dealt only with facts
related to the trial.
Milosevic and his wife Mira Markovic are suspected of involvement
in the abduction and assassination of former Serbian President Ivan
Stambolic, whose remains were found at Fruska gora last Friday.
In the closed part of today's hearing, a protected female witness
for the prosecution testified as part of the introduction of
evidence in connection with crimes committed in Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
Although the part of the trial for crimes committed in Croatia is
still underway, prosecutor Geoffrey Nice said several witnesses
from Bosnia would testify this week about events in Bijeljina and
Bratunac.
The closed-door testimony of the protected female witness was
followed by that of Alija Gusalic, a Bosnian Muslim from Bijeljina
who took part in the first conflicts between Serbs and Muslims in
that northern Bosnian town in the spring of 1992.
The witness said the ex-Yugoslav federal army (JNA), the
Territorial Defence, and Vojislav Seselj's Serbian Radical Party
had helped in supplying Bijeljina Serbs with arms.
Gusalic also spoke of a training camp set up near Amajlija not far
from Bijeljina for Seselj's and Zeljko Raznatovic aka Arkan's
paramilitary troops. Muslims abducted in Bijeljina were later
killed there.
Gusalic resumes his testimony tomorrow.
(hina) ha sb