MILOSEVIC TO ENTER PLEA ON GENOCIDE CHARGES ON TUESDAY

THE HAGUE, Dec 10 (Hina) - On Tuesday, for the third times since his arrest, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic will have the chance to enter his plea in front of the Hague war crimes tribunal in connection with the gravest indictment against him to date, namely for genocide in Bosnia. With this indictment, the prosecutor's office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) rounded up its investigation of Milosevic, placing him on the list of ten people accused for genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina thus far. The Hague tribunal has charged Milosevic also with crimes against humanity committed during the 1990s war in Croatia and in Kosovo two years ago. The prosecutor's office demands combining the three trials against Milosevic, maintaining the crimes committed in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo are part of one and the same joint criminal endeavour which was aimed at establishing a Greater Serbia through the annexation of parts of Bosnia and Croatia and the expulsion of non- Serbs. The former Yugoslav head of state has been in the Tribunal's custody since June 29, when Serbian authorities turned him over. As regards the accusations for Croatia and Kosovo, Milosevic has refused to enter a plea, saying he considers the Tribunal an illegitimate institution the aim of which was turning the Serb people from victim into aggressor. When the indictments for Croatia and Kosovo were read in late October, a visibly unnerved Milosevic said the Tribunal was boring him with the marathon reading of papers written on the level of a retarded seven-year-old. (hina) ha sb