Milosevic decides attack is best defence

In fierce cross examination today, Slobodan Milosevic accused his accuser of founding a Kosovo terror group and being related to leading drug dealers.

The former Yugoslav president decided that attack was the best form of defence at his war crimes trial in The Hague.

He interrogated Halit Barani, a Kosovo opposition figure who had disclosed in prosecution evidence an execution list of ethnic Albanians. Milosevic accused him of kidnapping and murder and of creating a unit of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army that carried out ‘‘terrorist attacks’’ against Serbs.

Milosevic said he will seek to ‘‘contest anything this witness is saying.’’

‘‘Here in this court we are hearing extreme untruths,’’ he said, referring to Barani’s testimony about Serb atrocities in 1998-1999 during a crackdown in the province.

During several hours of questioning, Milosevic confronted Barani with details of dozens of attacks, naming dates and places where he said KLA terrorists had murdered civilians, and said Barani’s name was linked with several of those attacks.

Milosevic could face life imprisonment if convicted of any of 66 charges against him of alleged war crimes in Kosovo, Croatia or Bosnia.

Prosecutors contend that Serb forces, formally under Milosevic’s command, murdered thousands of ethnic Albanians and deported 800,000 in Kosovo, prompting the Nato air war against Yugoslavia.