Milosevic lawyers want the sack

UN judges today allowed Slobodan Milosevic’s court-appointed British lawyers permission to ask an appeals court to remove them from the case and allow the former Yugoslav president to represent himself again.

Milosevic has refused to cooperate or even speak to the two barristers assigned last week to defend him, demanding that he be returned his right to defend himself.

Acting on their reluctant client’s behalf, Steven Kay and Gillian Higgins applied to the court in The Hague for the right to appeal their own appointment.

The three-judge panel agreed to the motion today, saying their decision to impose the lawyers over Milosevic’s objections “affects fundamentally the conduct of the case,” and should be decided by an appellate tribunal immediately rather than at the end of the trial.

The lawyers were appointed after doctors said Milosevic’s chronic high blood pressure put him at risk of a heart attack if he continued to defend himself. The trial has repeatedly been delayed due to his illnesses.

The ruling came after several defence witnesses refused to testify in protest at Milosevic’s removal as his own defence counsel.

Milosevic, 63, has refused offers by the judges to question witnesses after they are examined by his British, insisting he wants to lead the case and not act as his lawyers’ assistant.

He has been on trial since February 2002 on 66 counts of war crimes allegedly committed during the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990 and faces a maximum life imprisonment if convicted on any count.