Milosevic Attends Hearing

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic appeared before war crimes judges Wednesday, a month before he goes on trial for alleged atrocities in Kosovo.

The ousted leader has been charged with five counts of war crimes for the 1998-99 Serbian crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, the main Yugoslav republic. Prosecutors will open their case Feb. 12.

Milosevic has said he will represent himself in court.

The biggest challenge for prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia will be to link the widespread persecution and killing of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to Milosevic and his policies. They will call dozens of witnesses, including former Serbian officials awaiting trial in The Hague.

It was Milosevic’s fifth appearance at the United Nations tribunal since he was transferred to the Netherlands in June. He has refused to cooperate with the court or to appoint a lawyer.

The court has entered innocent pleas on his behalf to all counts.

In the Kosovo case, Milosevic is charged in the deaths of nearly 900 Kosovo Albanians, the deportation of 800,000 people and sexual assault by Yugoslav army troops under his command.

He also faces charges of genocide for alleged crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia between 1992 and 1995, including the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica. Those charges will be heard at a second trial.