U.N. Prosecutors Open Milosevic’s War Crimes Trial

The trial of Slobodan Milosevic, the first head of state to be put in the dock for crimes against humanity, began here Tuesday with prosecutors accusing the former Yugoslav president of masterminding the slaughter of thousands of people and the abuse of hundreds of thousands more during a bloody decade in power.

The first day of the long-awaited proceedings at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was a watershed in the annals of international law. The opening statements paid tribute to the historical weight of the moment and evoked the carnage in the Balkans in the 1990s.

Milosevic’s mere presence at the defendant’s table was a victory for a 9-year-old U.N. court that has struggled with a legally cumbersome and politically treacherous mission, chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte told the three-judge panel.

“Today, as never before, we see international justice in action,” said Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney general known for locking up international gangsters and corrupt politicians. “Let us take a moment to reflect upon the establishment of this tribunal and its purpose. . . . Our unique contribution is to bring to justice the persons responsible for the worst crimes known to humankind.”

Del Ponte said the “medieval savagery” of Milosevic’s military campaigns resulted in the charges against him of genocide, crimes against humanity, violations of the Geneva Conventions and other offenses. The trial will encompass three separate indictments for wars of “ethnic cleansing” in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the province of Kosovo in Serbia, Yugoslavia’s dominant republic, where Milosevic was president from 1989 to 1997. The Kosovo conflict provoked a 1999 air campaign against his regime by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and hastened his downfall and arrest last year.

The trial has been described as Europe’s most significant war crimes prosecution since the judgment of Nazis at Nuremberg. It is expected to last two years, and it features a defendant who will act as his own lawyer but refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the proceedings.

In political diatribes during pretrial hearings, Milosevic portrayed himself as a persecuted martyr and jousted with the judges, who entered a not guilty plea for him. The judicial panel--made up of jurists from Britain, Jamaica and South Korea--has appointed a distinguished legal team to ensure that Milosevic gets an adequate defense and a trial that will be both fair and regarded as fair.

Milosevic, 60, wore a blue suit Tuesday and sat between two uniformed guards. His jaw raised pugnaciously, an occasional half-smile coming to his lips, he took notes as prosecutors got down to the complex carpentry of building a case based on hundreds of witnesses and thousands of exhibits.

The central premise of the accusations laid out by prosecutor Geoffrey Nice: Milosevic led a continuing criminal enterprise whose ruthless goal was the creation of a “Greater Serbia” and the annihilation of Bosnian Muslims, Croatians and other ethnic enemies.

Nice reviewed the indictments’ catalog of horrors: at least 4,000 dead in Kosovo and more than 800,000 ethnic Albanians forcibly deported from the province. More than 7,000 massacred in the town of Srebrenica alone during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia. Entire regions where Croatian civilians were killed or forcibly removed in 1991.

Nice argued that Milosevic’s direct and indirect control of an array of military, police and paramilitary forces in the Balkans made him personally responsible for systematic atrocities--torture, rape, destruction of villages--even if they happened hundreds of miles away. Using video clips, the prosecutor reviewed Milosevic’s transformation from Cold War-era Communist Party boss to fervent Serbian nationalist and his rapid, destructive rise to power.

Genocide Hard to Prove, Rights Activist Says

“He did not personally confront his victims,” said Nice, a British attorney with a brooding, understated courtroom manner. “He could view what was happening from the distance of high political office. . . . This trial is about the climb of the accused to power. A power exercised without accountability, responsibility or morality.”

In order to convict Milosevic of genocide, the prosecution will have to prove that he set out to eliminate an ethnic group or nationality in whole or in part.

“It’s an exceedingly difficult charge to prove,” said Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch, an international watchdog group that has compiled several investigative reports on atrocities in the Balkans. “You have to show specific intent.”

Moreover, Milosevic was not technically head of state at the time of the alleged genocide in Bosnia, though he allegedly controlled the Yugoslav government while president of Serbia. He became president of Yugoslavia in 1997.

Key evidence, judging from the prosecution’s opening argument, will come from political insiders once close to Milosevic as well as officials from Western governments. If past trials here are any guide, the most sensitive witnesses are likely to testify in closed session and their identities will be known only to prosecutors, the defense and the judges.

Nice also offered a preview of evidence from intelligence intercepts of Milosevic’s telephone conversations with subordinates. He displayed organizational charts tying Milosevic to alleged death squad leaders such as Zeljko “Arkan” Raznatovic, a slain paramilitary chieftain notorious for his viciousness.

In a modern courtroom filled with journalists from around the world, Milosevic will finally face his victims and their ghosts. Survivors will testify about excruciating allegations, such as one from Bosnia recounted by Nice. The attorney described how paramilitary fighters locked a mother, her newborn baby and 45 members of an extended family in a house, doused it with gasoline and set it on fire.

“They were burned alive,” Nice said quietly. “And the baby’s screams were heard for some two hours before it, too, succumbed. That’s one representative crime for well over 7,000 deaths.”

Milosevic listened tight-lipped. The former dictator’s most expressive moment of the day came after the showing of a video clip from 1989 depicting a decisive moment in his political career. In the footage, a stern, noticeably thinner and more youthful Milosevic addressed Serbs enraged at ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. His words to the crowd that day become a kind of nationalist war cry: “No one will ever beat you again.”

When the clip ended, Milosevic seemed momentarily lost in contemplation of the scene from his glory days. Realizing that the attention of the courtroom had returned to him, he shook his head with a wry, surprised smile that brought a burst of laughter from spectators.

Major outbursts are expected from the defendant today, when he will have an opportunity to deliver an opening statement. If Milosevic’s comments and those of his advisors are any indication, he will unleash an attack on his attackers with all the bombast and fury of an accomplished politician.

He and his advocates say the prosecution is hypocritical. They accuse the U.S. and European powers of treating him as a valued negotiating partner throughout much of the 1990s, then turning on him and committing war crimes of their own during the aerial bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999.

Milosevic also appears obsessed with his legacy in Serbia, so he is likely to portray himself with gloomy fatalism as a patriot whose only crime was to stand up to Islamic terrorists and other enemies.

U.S. Lawyer in Defense Team

Even though he claims to reject the proceedings, Milosevic has been building a defense in recent jailhouse strategy sessions with an assortment of informal advisors. They include former U.S. Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark, now an outspoken leftist critic of the U.S. government, and Jacques Verges, a French criminal defense lawyer who specializes in notorious clients, including French Gestapo chieftain Klaus Barbie and Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal.

In comments to reporters during a break Tuesday, Verges scoffed at the prosecution’s case thus far.

“I haven’t seen any proof yet,” he said. “This is a fake tribunal, and Mr. Milosevic should keep calling it a fake tribunal.”

Despite the criticism, the international court has done more than many observers expected in its early years. The trial of Milosevic is a triumph for those who say justice must globalize along with economics.

“The international justice phenomenon is in its infancy,” Dicker said. “The signal that this trial sends is the important role of international criminal courts where national courts are unable to do the job. The guy who was the architect of the policies that wrought hell in the Balkans will be brought to trial using the highest standards of international law.”

Meanwhile, half a dozen of Milosevic’s accused co-conspirators remain at large. Among them are Milan Milutinovic, the current Serbian president, and the Bosnian Serbs’ wartime leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Key Figures in the Trial

The Defendant

Slobodan Milosevic: Born Aug. 20, 1941, in Pozarevac, Serbia. He ruled Yugoslavia for 13 years after seizing control of the Serbian Communist Party. He served as president of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, then became president of Yugoslavia in July 1997. Milosevic inspired fanatical devotion among Serbian nationalists and led his country through three wars from 1991 to 1999 in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. He stands accused of war crimes in all three conflicts.

The Prosecutors

Chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte: Born Feb. 9, 1947, in Lugano, Switzerland. She joined the tribunal in September 1999, replacing Louise Arbour of Canada. Previously she was best known for her cases against drug traffickers and the Italian Mafia. She has been protected by bodyguards since learning that the Mafia had taken out a contract on her life a decade ago. She gained new enemies in the 1980s and ears90s as she hunted for high-profile money launderers, arms dealers and hidden bank accounts of ousted dictators.

Principal trial attorney Geoffrey Nice: Born Oct. 21, 1945, in London. He has led several key tribunal cases, including the genocide trial of Goran Jelisic, known as the residentresidentSerb Adolf.earsears

Senior trial attorney Dirk Ryneveld: Born in 1946 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He gained experience in Canada prosecuting dozens of murder cases.

The Judges

Presiding Judge Richard May: Born Nov. 12, 1938, in London. He joined the tribunal in November 1998. He once had political ambitions and ran against former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher before embarking on a long career on the English district court circuit. He has presided over the five pretrial hearings since Milosevic was transferred to The Hague in June, repeatedly turning off Milosevicearss microphone to cut off his political speeches.

Judge Patrick Lipton Robinson: Born Jan. 29, 1944, in Jamaica. He has an extensive background in the Jamaican prosecutorearss office and the attorney generalearss office.

Judge O-Gon Kwon: Born Sept. 2, 1953, in South Korea. He joined the tribunal in November.

Source: Associated Press