Milosevic anger at document deluge

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic complained to the UN tribunal today he is being deluged with documents filed by prosecutors in his war crimes trial.

On his second day back in The Hague court after a two week bout of flu, Milosevic said papers had piled up to overwhelming proportions during his absence. He is acting as his own defence lawyer, and has refused to allow anyone else to represent him.

“I received 40,000 pages alone while I was in my sick bed,” Milosevic said. “I don’t understand why I’m being given these documents in English, when they were originally taken in the language that I myself speak.”

Milosevic said he had now received a total of more than 300,000 pages of material and more than 1,000 hours of videotapes from prosecutors.

He faces charges of crimes against humanity, including genocide, during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

British prosecutor Geoffrey Nice said he wasn’t sure if Milosevic’s figures were accurate and gave a list of reasons why the various documents were being submitted nearly one year after the trial began.

He said the documents were in fact created in English, not Serbo-Croatian, and would be translated where necessary, although “it is clear the accused speaks and understands English.”

Presiding judge Richard May agreed with Milosevic that the new documents represented “a huge amount of material,” and asked Nice for a written explanation before deciding if anything should be done.

Milosevic’s poor health has lead to nearly two months of postponements since his trial began last February. At 61, he suffers from high blood pressure and heart problems.