Milosevic Tribunal judge to resign

Judge Richard May, who has presided over Slobodan Milosevic’s war crimes trial for two years, is to resign due to illness, the UN tribunal said.

The British judge’s unexpected departure midway through the case poses the risk of further setbacks in the landmark trial, already seriously delayed by Milosevic’s own health problems.

A new judge will have to wade through two years of testimony and thousands of documents to catch up, and it may prove difficult to find a replacement capable of managing the Yugoslav tribunal’s most important and complex case.

Milosevic, 61, faces 66 war crimes allegations related to a decade of Balkans wars in the 1990s.

Legal scholars consider his trial the most significant since Nazi leaders faced justice after the Second World War.

The nature of the 65-year-old judge’s illness was not disclosed. Until his absence from the last three sessions, he had not shown any indication of fragile health.

“I am confident that Judge May’s resignation will not have an unduly disruptive effect on any proceedings before the tribunal,” said the tribunal president, Theodor Meron, announcing May’s resignation.

The judge leaves on May 31, a critical point in the hearings as the former Yugoslav president opens his defence. The prosecution is due to rest its case this week.

May established a reputation for firmness and for setting strict courtroom discipline on Milosevic, who is representing himself.

May frequently turned off the defendant’s microphone when he launched into political diatribes, or scolded him for badgering witnesses.

He has been a UN judge since 1998 and sat on the bench in several high-profile cases in The Hague.

In a letter to Meron, May said his recent illness “will make it increasingly difficult for him to continue the performance of his duties,” said the statement.

Under the court’s rules, a presiding judge can miss only five consecutive sessions before he is replaced.

Milosevic has the right to challenge any replacement, and could even seek a retrial.

It will be up to the other two judges hearing the case, Patrick Robinson of Jamaica and O-Gon Kwon from South Korea, to decide how to proceed.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan would appoint the successor, who would most likely also be from Britain.