Milosevic to Summon Leaders to the Stand

Heatedly rejecting charges of mass murder and deportations, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic said Friday that he will call former President Clinton and a host of world leaders to testify that he brought peace to the Balkans.

After an exhaustive two-day narrative to the U.N. war crimes tribunal, the lines of Milosevic’s defense were clear: He is the victim, not the villain, and his judges and Western governments are conspirators in crimes against Serbs.

Milosevic said that those he intends to summon include Clinton, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and leaders from Germany and Italy.

“I am going to use my right to request the examination and cross-examination of witnesses who were direct actors in all the events,” Milosevic said, referring to his meetings with Western leaders during the 1991-99 wars in the Balkans.

The court said Milosevic has the right to call witnesses in his defense against the charges of genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and crimes against humanity in Croatia and Kosovo. But he must convince the court that they are relevant before it will issue the subpoenas.

Milosevic, 60, could face life imprisonment if convicted of any of 66 charges against him in one of the most important war crimes trial since World War II. He is the first head of state to be charged with war crimes while in power.

Milosevic noted that he was praised as a peacemaker when he signed--under Clinton’s pressure--the 1995 Dayton, Ohio, accord, which ended the Bosnian war. Four years later, he was indicted for war crimes for his bloody crackdown against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic. The crackdown prompted an 11-week air war by North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“How is it that I had overall support in ‘95, ’96 and ’97 and now, a whole decade later, I become the object of charges none other than genocide?” Milosevic asked.