SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC HAS FIRST MEETING WITH DEFENCE ATTORNEY

THE HAGUE, July 2 (Hina) - Slobodan Milosevic had a first meeting in his prison in The Hague on Monday with a Yugoslav lawyer to prepare his defence on charges for war crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) spokesman Jim Landale said. UN war crimes charges. The ousted president is to face his accusers for the first time at 10AM Tuesday. Belgrade attorney Zdenko Tomanovic will spend several hours talking to Milosevic at the UN's Scheveningen remand centre, Tomanovic's colleague Dragan Krgovic said. Tomanovic and Krgovic flew in from Belgrade early in the morning and spent all day waiting to hold talks with Milosevic, who is being held in isolation from 38 other war crimes suspects and had no previous visitors since being surrendered to the United Nations last Thursday. Landale told Hina Krgovic cannot be Milosevic's attorney considering he is already defending indicted Bosnian Serbs in the Bosanski Samac case. The two Belgrade lawyer said earlier today the ousted Yugoslav President had asked them to defend him. The lawyers were carrying packages from Milosevic's family, believed to be books, clothes and money he had requested. A Western diplomatic source told Reuters his strong-willed wife, Mira Markovic, who has reportedly been playing a lead role in organising his defence, could also receive a Dutch visa to visit him, despite being on a blacklist imposed by the EU. The first head of state ever indicted for war crimes while in office is expected to reject all the charges of crimes against humanity over Serb ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in 1999. (hina) it