Five years on, Milosevic is still in the dock

[Clara T]

Five years on, Milosevic is still in the dock
By Vesna Peric Zimonjic in Belgrade
Published: 13 February 2006

The trial of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, the first sitting head of state to be indicted for war crimes, enters its fifth year this week amid expectations that a verdict will be pronounced by the end of the year.

Mr Milosevic, 64, faces 66 charges stemming from the Balkan wars of the 1990s. He is accused of genocide against Muslims in Bosnia, war crimes and grave breaches of international conventions in the military offensives that led his forces into Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

More than 300 witnesses have taken the stand, including Western politicians and the leaders of the former Yugoslav states torn apart by the war. Yet far from undermining Mr Milosevic's reputation in Serbia, the trial has provided the former leader with a new propaganda tool.

"The indictment against Mr Milosevic is the most serious one laid by the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague," said human rights activist Biljana Kovacevic Vuco. But "media coverage should deal more with the indictment itself, rather than with the comments of Mr Milosevic and his witnesses."
The live broadcasts of the trial and some media reporting have had a counter-productive effect on the public, which is still deeply divided as to what really happened in the conflict.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article345085.ece

[WhiteTara]

1. I'm glad. All war criminals should

be "in the dock" forever...and after the dock...prison.