Milosevic defence delayed

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic will start his defence against war crimes charges at the UN court two weeks late, in part due to his ill health.

The trial in The Hague, which began in early 2002, has already been delayed by 65 days because Milosevic was repeatedly ill with the flu and the effects of high blood pressure.

Prosecutors rested their case in February after calling around 300 witnesses.

In reaching their decision to further delay the hearings, the judges considered Milosevic’s “present bad health and his doctor’s advice to rest,” a statement said.

Milosevic will defend himself against 66 counts of war crimes, including genocide, allegedly committed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. His defence will now begin on June 22, instead of June 8.

Other reasons for delaying the hearings were that Milosevic’s witness list - which reportedly contains 1,631 names – needs to be reviewed and translated, the statement said.

Milosevic’s lawyers say he hopes to call former President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke to the stand.

Last month, Scottish judge Lord Bonomy was named to join the three-judge panel hearing Milosevic’s case after the senior judge, Briton Richard May, resigned due to ill health.