HAGUE PROSECUTION HORRIFIED AT MILOSEVIC'S BEHAVIOUR

THE HAGUE, Oct 10 (Hina) - The chief prosecutor in the Slobodan Milosevic trial before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Geoffrey Nice, on Thursday relayed the prosecution's shock at the behaviour of the former Yugoslav president towards witness Nikola Samardzic. #L# Let the record show that all members of the prosecution denounce the last question by the accused, which plunged to the lowest depths of distaste, lower even, Nice said after a regular pause in Milosevic's trial. Milosevic's cross-examination of witness Nikola Samardzic, a former Montenegrin foreign minister who had lost both his legs, ended on Thursday morning with Milosevic asking him, "Mr. Samardzic, do you know the old Serbian saying 'one who lies has short legs'?" The president of the trial chamber, Richard May, said the trial chamber treated the question as a vulgar abuse of the proceedings. Milosevic followed the discussion without any reaction, and judge May prevented his every attempt to say something. In the last round of examining Samardzic, prosecutor Nice showed a video recording of Momir Bulatovic saying that, after he had agreed with Lord Carrington's plan in 1991, he had been exposed to telephone calls "from the top" and threats. At the beginning of his testimony, Samardzic said Milosevic had, through Yugoslav Presidency members Borisav Jovic and Branko Kostic, threatened and made Bulatovic withdraw his signature from the plan. On Wednesday, a day after the testimony, Milosevic read a statement by Momir Bulatovic refuting Samardzic's testimony. The prosecution then called a new witness -- a Belgrade reporter Dejan Anastasijevic, who had reported from front lines in Croatia. He began his testimony with a description of the Serb occupation of Vukovar carried out by the then Yugoslav People's Army and Serb troops, as well as the destruction of nearby villages. What he saw, Anastasijevic said, was completely in contrast to reports about the destruction of Serb villages he had heard in Serbia. (hina) lml sb