MILOSEVIC CONTINUES PRESENTING EVIDENCE OF "NATO CRIME"

THE HAGUE, 15 Feb (Hina) - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Friday continued presenting data and photos of destruction during the 1999 NATO air attacks on Serbia to show the public the dimensions of the "NATO crime". Speaking in a slightly hoarser voice, Milosevic reiterated that the western powers had intentionally bombed Albanian civilians in Kosovo in order to trigger their exodus and use the subsequent humanitarian catastrophe to justify NATO attacks on Serbia. Milosevic said he would corroborate his claim with a recording of a conversation between a NATO pilot and the control centre in which the pilot tells his base he sees a column of civilians and not soldiers and is then told to carry out his order. Milosevic's presentation of defence, which was not interrupted by the trial chamber, started in the morning before an almost empty court gallery because the security services admitted reporters, who were waiting in a long queue in front of the court building, very slowly. Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte was not in the court room for the first time since the beginning of the trial because she is on a visit to Banja Luka. The judges and prosecutors followed Milosevic's presentation impassively. The former Yugoslav leader reiterated that the Kosovo Liberation Army had exerted strong pressure on Kosovo Albanians to leave their homes and move to the border with Albania, where "cameras were waiting to film their statements." Milosevic showed footage of killed civilians and damaged buildings which he said were the result of attacks with forbidden cluster bombs. He said that the bombings, which were headed by the United States, were so fierce that "even boars from Mt. Cicavica swam across the river Sitnica and came to the valley, which never happened before." Milosevic also responded to the prosecution's claim that by sending Croatian Serb refugees to Kosovo he had wanted to change the province's demographic structure. Refugees accounted for the smallest part of the Kosovo population, because they did not want to go there and no one forced them to go, Milosevic said. He accused the US forces of intentionally bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7, 1999, adding that "it is evident that Clinton wanted to be remembered as the first president to bomb Chinese territory by bombing a Chinese embassy." After Milosevic completes the presentation of his defence, which he is expected to do by the end of the day, the prosecutors will start calling witnesses. Milosevic told the judges before the first morning break today that he had presented the first half of his statement and presiding judge Richard May warned him that he should complete it by the end of the day because the prosecution had been given two days for their opening statement as well. According to the main prosecutor in the case, Geoffrey Nice, the first witness to testify in the trial should be a senior Albanian negotiator who met with the Serbian leadership, including Milosevic. The witness will first be questioned by the prosecution, then by the indictee and at the end by three attorneys (so-called friends of the court), appointed by the tribunal to protect Milosevic's rights after he waived his right to appoint legal counsel. Once the witnesses are questioned in this order, the prosecution will have the right to ask additional questions. Both the prosecution and defence are granted the same amount of time to question witnesses. Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova has confirmed that he will testify at Milosevic's trial and US negotiator Richard Holbrooke told the BBC he was ready to testify. The foreign media previously reported that a former NATO commander, General Wesley Clark, and a member of the former Yugoslav state presidency, Branko Kostic, would testify as well. (hina) rml ,