Yugoslavia's former president Slobodan Milosevic has asked the UN war crimes tribunal to temporarily release him, saying he would gladly return to The Hague to wage "battle" to prove his innocence.
"It would be logical and just to let me go. I will not flee," Mr Milosevic told presiding judge Mr Claude Jorda.
"I am fully prepared to come to any hearing because this is not a battle I will miss," he argued.
The court is hearing an appeal by the prosecution, which is challenging a decision to hold two separate Milosevic trials on charges of war crimes in Kosovo and on genocide and war crimes in Bosnia and Croatia.
Mr Jorda asked Mr Milosevic whether he preferred two trials or just one.
Mr Milosevic did not answer the question, telling the judge: "By adding up three lies you will not get to the truth, you will enlarge the lie".
He then charged that NATO had committed crimes against Yugoslavia during its 1999 air war and argued that he had worked to end the war in Bosnia after UN peacekeepers were taken hostage there.
"How many of your hostages did we save?" he asked the court.
"We saved your pilots, we saved your soldiers", he said.
AFP