Milosevic bounces back for final days of prosecution

A rejuvenated Slobodan Milosevic returned to court today and clashed with a former Voice of America reporter as UN prosecutors enter the final weeks of their attempt to prove the Serb leader committed war crimes.

The first witness after a three week holiday recess at the Yugoslav tribunal was reporter Nenad Zafirovic, whose testimony was intended to help link Milosevic to the Bosnian Serb leadership that ordered the massacre of over 7,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in 1995.

Milosevic, ousted as president of Serbia by a popular uprising in 2000, was elected to the Serbian parliament last month, but will not receive a seat because he is in United Nations detention for the duration of his trial.

After two years of hearings in The Hague, prosecutors have 17 days of hearings left to finish their case against Milosevic, accused of 66 counts of war crimes, including genocide, allegedly committed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. A three month break will follow the prosecution’s case during which Milosevic is to prepare his defence.

Milosevic, who suffers heart trouble and high blood pressure, is defending himself and his trial has been delayed several times while he was sick. But he appeared fresh and combative today, grinning widely at one point after the presiding judge, Briton Richard May, accused him of “making speeches.”

Milosevic complained that his time for cross examination is being limited because prosecutors are “aware their time is running out and trying to push through witnesses with masses of accompanying material in great haste, topsy-turvy.”

“They’ve been wasting their time for two years, and now they’re under pressure,” Milosevic said.

In order to convict Milosevic of genocide in Bosnia, prosecutors must show that he had ultimate control over troops there, and failed to stop them from committing atrocities or punish them afterward. Milosevic denies having had power outside Serbia’s borders.

Zafirovic was a long-time anchor for Voice of America’s Serbian news service and recently worked for the BBC in Washington. During the early stages of the Balkan Wars, he was an employee of Belgrade-based radio station B-92.

Zafirovic attended peace negotiations in Geneva in 1993 and said he was interviewing Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic when Milosevic telephoned Karadzic.

“Officially, on the record, they would address him as Mr. President,” Zafirovic said of Milosevic. “In informal conversations he was referred to as the Big Boss, or Big Daddy.”

Zafirovic also recounted a closed session of the parliament of the breakaway Serb Republic in Bosnia he attended in 1993. He said Milosevic said “we, not you,” while addressing the Bosnian Serbs, indicating his close ties to leaders who oversaw the Srebrenica killings.

Zafirovic said that was noteworthy because in public Milosevic always maintained a distinction between Serbs in Bosnia and Serbia, “claiming that Serbia not involved in the war.”

Milosevic responded scornfully, “Oh great. Thank you very much for putting it this way. Since I’m a Serb, of course I sometimes say we, and when I criticise certain positions, of course I say you.”

Milosevic could be sentenced to up to life in prison if convicted of a single count.