THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, May 21 (Hina) - A former Slovenian president, Milan Kucan, on Wednesday morning began testifying at the Slobodan Milosevic trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The
Hague.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, May 21 (Hina) - A former Slovenian president,
Milan Kucan, on Wednesday morning began testifying at the Slobodan
Milosevic trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. #L#
Kucan is the first Slovenian statesman and third high-ranking
politician from the area of the former Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (SFRY) to take the witness stand in the Milosevic
trial as a witness of the prosecution. Milosevic, an ex-president
of Serbia and Yugoslavia, is indicted for genocide and war crimes in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo.
The main prosecutor in this process, Geoffrey Nice, on Wednesday
morning began the questioning of the witness Kucan with inquires
about the 1989 major political events in the then SFRY such as
rallies of Serb nationalists which led to the ouster of the
political leaderships of Vojvodina and Montenegro, and sessions of
the Alliance of Communists (i.e. the party's Central Committee
known as CK SKJ) at which the indictee had announced that the
changes demanded by Serb leaders, would be made no matter which
means should be applied i.e. "within institutions or outside them
and with the compliance of the Constitution or without it".
On Tuesday, before departing to The Hague, Kucan told Slovenian
reporters that he saw the testimony as a chance of explaining
reasons for Slovenia's embarking on the path towards independence
in those years.
(hina) ms