Milosevic takes first victory in war crimes trial

Slobodan Milosevic won his first victory in The Hague today as the UN war crimes tribunal barred the prosecution’s senior investigator from giving evidence, saying it was based on hearsay.

But in a personal setback, the former Yugoslav president said his wife had been denied a visa for a weekend visit.

Kevin Curtis, who visited Kosovo for the prosecution, was due to testify about one of the sites where large numbers of Kosovar Albanians were allegedly killed by Serb forces.

But the judges ruled his testimony would be irrelevant, since he was repeating stories he had heard from others.

Milosevic chided the prosecution for preparing what he said were hundreds more such statements, but British judge Richard May cut him short: ‘‘Mr Milosevic, we are with you. We are going to exclude it.’’

Curtis and Steve Spargo, the prosecution’s intelligence analyst, were summoned as witnesses to outline Milosevic’s alleged plan to ethnically cleanse large parts of former Yugoslavia to form a ‘‘greater Serbia.’’

The Dutch Foreign Ministry confirmed a visa application by Milosevic’s wife, Mira Markovic, had been denied, saying she had applied too late. Milosevic had asked the court to adjourn early this week, anticipating a long weekend with his wife.

He pleaded with the court to ‘‘do all you can’’ to overturn the decision. ‘‘I consider this to be part of my physical mistreatment,’’ he said.

In another exchange with the judges, Milosevic challenged the court’s right to convict him for ‘‘command responsibility’’ for crimes committed by his subordinates even if they were not acting under his orders.

‘‘You can call me accountable only if you have direct evidence I really ordered them, or I was at the sites where the killings took place,’’ he said.

Milosevic, the first former head of state to be charged with war crimes while in office, is accused of crimes against humanity in Kosovo and Croatia, and of genocide in Bosnia during the 1991-1999 Balkan wars. He faces life imprisonment if convicted on any one of 66 counts.