Milosevic a warmonger, Croat leader tells court

CROATIA’s president told Slobodan Milosevic's genocide trial yesterday the former Serbian leader was a warmonger responsible for Yugoslavia's demise.

Stipe Mesic gave evidence for nearly four hours as a prosecution witness at the UN tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Legal experts said his testimony gave the clearest snapshot yet of how the former Serb leader took control of the federal army, the budget and the presidency, and turned them into Serb entities aimed at promoting a ‘greater Serbian’ nation.

Mr Mesic told the court he wrote to the UN Security Council in October 1991 warning he had no control over the Yugoslav forces and feared all out war. He was the last chairman of the rotating presidency in the former Yugoslavia.

“The army has become exclusively Serb and Milosevic is tearing down the Yugoslav Federation,” Mr Mesic wrote in his plea for UN intervention.

Prosecutors allege that Serb forces loyal to Milosevic were instructed to expel non-Serbs from large portions of Croatia and Bosnia to create a pure Serb nation.

Today, Milosevic will cross-examine Mr Mesic, the first head of state to testify before the international court.

Milosevic, 61, faces 66 counts of war crimes from the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, 61 of them for the wars in Croatia and Bosnia for which he is now on trial. Prosecutors finished their case about the 1998-1999 Kosovo conflict on September 11.