Milosevic fails to intimidate Irish witness

FORMER Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's bullying tactics may have terrorised opponents in the past but he was no match for a high-ranking Irish army officer at the UN War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague yesterday.

Colonel Colm Doyle, 56, who led the EU monitoring mission in Bosnia in 1991 and 1992, came under heavy cross-examination from Milosevic on the circumstances of a meeting that took place between them as Serbian plans for mass ethnic cleansing were under way.

It was clear Milosovic was trying to use him as a conduit to give his views to the Bosnian peace conference, Col Doyle told judges.

The former president, who has been on trial since February 2001 for crimes arising from the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, had told him during their private meeting that he believed Sarajevo was predominantly a Muslim city and should not be divided, Col Doyle recalled. But yesterday, the defiant Butcher of the Balkans denied he had ever said any such thing.

"Everybody knows that Sarajevo is a multi-ethnic city," he sneered, before going on to quote from UN reports seemingly at odds with those filed by Col Doyle regarding the mood leading up to the fall of Sarajevo.

Milosevic, 62, has been eye-balling prosecution witnesses and stonewalling procedural questions. But, under his cross-examination, Col Doyle remained calm, polite and businesslike.

Repeatedly, Judge Richard May ordered Milosevic to stick to the point and ask the witness specific questions. Milosevic is charged on over 60 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the Balkans bloodshed. For the conflict in Bosnia that left over 200,000 dead, he faces a separate charge of genocide.