UN: Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic blasted a decision to impose defence lawyers on him as "legal fiction" yesterday as his first witness testified at his war crimes trial.
With Mr Milosevic at loggerheads with UN judges over their decision last week to compel him to accept defence counsel to speed up proceedings delayed by his ill-health, a retired Belgrade law professor became the trial's first defence witness.
Mr Milosevic launched a blistering attack on The Hague war crimes tribunal's decision to ask two British lawyers to run his defence, before the court called Prof Smilja Avramov to start testifying. "Defence through an imposed lawyer is a simple legal fiction. I insist that you give me back my right to defence," said Mr Milosevic, whose high blood pressure and heart condition have repeatedly delayed proceedings.
Prof Avramov described Milosevic as a moderate who had tried to prevent the break-up of the former Yugoslavia by peaceful means. "Was there any question of the expulsion of people that you know of within his policy?" Mr Milosevic's lawyer Mr Steven Kay asked the witness, referring to 1991. "Never, gentlemen," she told the trial's three judges.