Milosevic justifies actions as 'struggle against terrorism'

Slobodan Milosevic has justified his actions in the Balkans as a "struggle against terrorism".

He says he was a victim of twisted facts and "terrible fabrication".

Milosevic, who has refused to appoint an attorney to represent him, asked the court to release him from detention so he could better prepare his case, claiming the trial was unfair.

"I only have one phone, while you have a huge apparatus behind you," he said, nodding toward the prosecution table. "You want me to swim a 100-meter race with my hands and legs tied."

He again denounced the trial as illegal. "You basically have nothing," he told the prosecutors. "You just want to invent things. This is a political trial, and this has nothing to do with the law itself."

Milosevic went on the offensive against his accusers, whom he identified as the western countries which deliberately undermined the Yugoslav federation by encouraging Bosnia to secede in 1992.

"Your bosses broke up Yugoslavia," he said. "They pushed Bosnia into a civil war. The Serbs did not start the war. It is nonsensical to accuse the wrong side."

Despite the prosecution denials, he said the case was not against him alone but against the whole Serbian people. "Our citizens stand accused, citizens who lent their massive support to me," he said. "My conduct was an expression of the will of the people."