Protected witness defies Milosevic court

A Serb driver called as a prosecution witness today refused to testify against Slobodan Milosevic, changing his mind about cooperating in the former Yugoslav president’s trial on war crimes charges in Kosovo.

In an apparent setback for prosecutors, the driver, whose image was blurred on the courtroom monitors, was excused after only a few minutes of stumbling and nervous testimony.

‘‘I cannot testify any more and that is the truth,’’ said the witness after a few seemingly innocuous questions from British prosecutor Geoffrey Nice.

When Nice asked whether ‘‘some men came into your home in 1999 and demanded you to do something,’’ the witness faltered, his voice broke and he said he could not answer.

‘‘Why are you so stubborn? Don’t you understand I don’t want to cooperate?,’’ said the witness, identified in court records only as K-12.

In open session, he told the court he had completed military service and was a driver, but he then refused to answer further questions.

Serb media had said prosecutors intended to call a driver involved in the exhumation and removal of bodies of ethnic Albanians from mass graves in Kosovo in an attempt to cover up evidence of atrocities by Milosevic’s troops before they were forced to withdraw under Nato bombing.

Milosevic is accused of pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing against the majority Albanian population in Kosovo in 1999, driving nearly 800,000 from their homes. The trial, which is expected to last for at least two years, opened in February.

Milosevic does not recognize the court and has refused to plead to the charges, prompting judges to enter not guilty pleas on his behalf. He faces life in jail if convicted of any one of more than 60 counts of war crimes.