Not just fade away
Slobodan Milosevic: In the dock
Slobodan Milosevic (1941-2006) was Serbia's Communist party leader from 1987 and president of Serbia from 1989 to 1997.
After serving the maximum two terms as president of Serbia, Milosevic retained power by having the federal parliament elect him president of Yugoslavia in 1997. This had the unforeseen result, however, of exposing him to indictment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague in the Netherlands. As president of Yugoslavia, Milosevic was also commander-in-chief of the federal armed forces and deemed responsible for any offences against international law committed during the Kosovo conflict.
Arrested in rather farcical circumstances (see ‘Milosevic behind bars’ below) on April Fools' Day 2001, Milosevic was turned over to the court on charges of war crimes and genocide. He refused to enter a plea and rejected the legitimacy of the court, declining to appoint defence counsel and ignoring those appointed for him.
Milosevic was held in isolation at the Scheveningen detention centre in The Hague. He complained that visits by his family were closely monitored and that he was denied access to lawyers (other than those appointed by the court).
Milosevic, who had a law degree, conducted his own defence, and some observers, impressed by his skill in cross-examination, suggested that he could have had a successful career on the other side of the witness box. But the possibility of an alternative profession ended on 11 March 2006, when Milosevic died of heart failure, well before any verdict on his crimes had been reached.
Find out more
Q&A: Milosevic trial
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1403054.stm
Background to the trial, plus links to further information on the BBC website.
Milosevic behind bars: anatomy of an arrest
www.janes.com/security/international_security/
news/jir/jir010402_1_n.shtml
'The Milosevic story, which started as a great national and patriotic
epic, is ending as a farce.' From Jane's Intelligence Review.
