THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 26 (Hina) - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday once again urged the trial chamber prosecuting him at the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague to release him so that he could prepare for his
defence. "I demand again to be released as I am entitled to equality as regards means and defence," said Milosevic, reproaching the trial chamber for denying him the use of the telephone yesterday which, he said, had brought him in an unequal position in relation to the prosecution, which he said was backed by a huge machinery. "The only means at my disposal is the telephone, and even that telephone is out of order," said Milosevic. The telephone is apparently a very important for his defence, as evidenced by the questions he puts to witnesses. Milosevic's told the last witness, Agron Berisha, a Kosovo Albanian from Suva Reka who said he had seen from a window of his house a Serb policeman
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 26 (Hina) - Former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday once again urged the trial chamber
prosecuting him at the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague to
release him so that he could prepare for his defence.
"I demand again to be released as I am entitled to equality as
regards means and defence," said Milosevic, reproaching the trial
chamber for denying him the use of the telephone yesterday which, he
said, had brought him in an unequal position in relation to the
prosecution, which he said was backed by a huge machinery.
"The only means at my disposal is the telephone, and even that
telephone is out of order," said Milosevic.
The telephone is apparently a very important for his defence, as
evidenced by the questions he puts to witnesses.
Milosevic's told the last witness, Agron Berisha, a Kosovo Albanian
from Suva Reka who said he had seen from a window of his house a Serb
policeman follow the blood trail of a wounded Albanian by a nearby
bus station, "I have been informed that you cannot see the bus
station from your house in Suva Reka."
To show how quick his team was working and what sources it was using,
Milosevic, cross-examining Berisha, asked if Naim Berisha, the
chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), was a close cousin.
As for the previous witness, a farmer from Landovica who said he had
been fired from a municipal office because he is Albanian,
Milosevic produced data showing the man had retired after
completing his years of service.
On many occasions Milosevic accused all previous witnesses of
perjury, saying they wanted to hide the truth about the Kosovo
events of 1999, which he said was that the suffering of the local
population had been the result of the NATO bombings and KLA's
terrorism.
In his testimony today, Agron Berisha described how in March 1999
from his house he had watched Serb police plunder his cousins,
remove their belongings and return the next day to kill six of them
and set them and their house on fire. After those events, Berisha
fled with his family to Albania.
(hina) ha