Milosevic trial resumes

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was back in court today at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague after a month’s summer break.

Prosecutors in the Netherlands said they will call at least 26 more witnesses to wrap up the first part of the trial dealing with alleged atrocities in Kosovo.

They include several political insiders such as Milosevic’s predecessor as Yugoslav President, Zoran Lilic.

The scheduled summer recess was a much needed break for Milosevic.

In July, medical experts warned that the former president, who has taken heart medication for years, was at serious risk of heart failure.

Hearings have been delayed several times because of his ailments.

Milosevic has led his own defence since the start of his trial in February. He refuses to appoint a lawyer to assist him and asserts that the tribunal is illegal and biased.

Prosecutors have until September 13 to conclude their case on Kosovo. After a two-week adjournment, hearings will then turn to the wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

Charges against Milosevic during the wars in 1991-1995 include genocide for the slaughter of thousands of Muslims in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica and 60 other counts of war crimes.

Prosecutors have been negotiating the conditions under which several US officials can testify in the landmark trial, but have not yet agreed to the exact terms.

Among the key witnesses they hope to call during the public hearings is Richard Holbrooke, the former US ambassador to the United Nations and the Clinton administration’s special envoy to Yugoslavia.

The US government is concerned that issues of national security could be revealed and had indicated they would only allow former government representatives to appear in closed session.

Hearings also reopened today in several other war crimes trials in The Hague, including the genocide trial of Bosnian Serbs General Momir Talic and Radoslav Brdjanin, accused of the persecution and expulsion of more than 100,000 people in Bosnia.