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Relatives of some of the Srebrenica massacre victims cry in front of the 610 coffins containing the remains of their family members at a memorial site. Photograph: Marco Di Lauro/Getty
Relatives of some of the Srebrenica massacre victims cry in front of the 610 coffins containing the remains of their family members at a memorial site. Photograph: Marco Di Lauro/Getty
Relatives of some of the Srebrenica massacre victims cry in front of the 610 coffins containing the remains of their family members at a memorial site. Photograph: Marco Di Lauro/Getty

The charges against Milosevic

This article is more than 18 years old

Slobodan Milosevic was the main defendant in the most important war crimes case since the trial of the Nazis at Nuremberg.

The former president of Yugoslavia was accused of being responsible for the war crimes and genocide that occurred during the bloody Balkan wars in the early 1990s.

The case, being held at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, is the first attempt to prosecute for war crimes since the end of the second world war.

Milosevic faced three count of crimes against humanity and one charge of violating the laws or customs of war. The most serious indictment against him related to genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Milosevic was accused of being behind the killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, including the infamous massacre of civilians at Srebrenica in 1995.

There were two charges of crimes against humanity relating to atrocities carried out in Kosovo in 1999 and in Croatia in 1991 and 1992. Serbian troops were described in court as committing acts of "almost medieval savagery and a calculated cruelty that went far beyond the bounds of legitimate warfare".

It was not in dispute that Serbian troops were involved in ethnic cleansing and killing civilians indiscriminately. The court was trying to decide whether Milosevic knew about these atrocities and ordered them or had failed to stop them. Had Milosevic been found guilty he would have faced life imprisonment, the maximum sentence available to the court.

He was arrested in April 2001 and delivered to the court in a blacked-out helicopter. The trial started on February 12 2002.

Milosevic was defiant from the moment he entered the dock. The one-time law student defended himself and refused to deal with the defence lawyers offered to him. He also refused to enter a plea, describing the court as "illegal" and a "victors' court". Milosevic claimed he was the victim of an "ocean of lies" and that the entire Serbian nation was on trial.

The man who led his country into four wars painted himself as a peacemaker and Nato as the aggressors, with Serbs the victims of an international conspiracy. "The accusations against me are unscrupulous lies and also a treacherous distortion of history," he said. He even demanded to be released from custody.

Court officials switched off Milosevic's microphone when he accused the court of trying to justify what he called "Nato war crimes committed in Yugoslavia". At one point an infuriated judge told Milosevic his objections were "completely irrelevant". Milosevic remained unrepentant as Kosovans took the stand to describe how Serbian troops ravaged their villages.

But the trial was dogged by Milosevic's ill health. In July 2002 doctors told Milosevic to rest because of the strain on his heart and the case was suspended in Nov 2002 after he fell ill. In Sept 2003 the court cut hearings from four a week to three due to the defendant's high blood pressure and exhaustion.

The trial process is excruciatingly slow: the prosecution finished their case in February 2004 but Milosevic did not begin his defence until August 2004. He started his defence with a five-hour speech then tried to obstruct the court by refusing to meet his lawyers.

The tribunal is a huge undertaking: it has 1,062 staff members from 79 countries and the budget for 2004-2005 alone was £157m. So far 56 people have been judged and another 59 are awaiting trial.
Sean Kenny is a Press Association reporter

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