Lawyers for former Yugoslav leader Mr Slobodan Milosevic went to a Dutch district court today to begin a challenge to his detention by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
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Mr Slobodan Milosevic at his recent
appearance before the UN war crimes tribunal |
Canadian attorney Mr Christopher Black said earlier this week the challenge could take years. There is probably no chance of him getting provisional release, he said.
Mr Milosevic's lawyers have said his transfer to The Hague in June by the Belgrade reformists who defeated him in elections last year breached the Yugoslav and Serbian constitutions.
They have also said the tribunal, established by the UN Security Council in May, 1993, is illegal and does not have jurisdiction over Mr Milosevic, who is charged with war crimes centred on the killing of ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo in 1995.
If their district court motion fails, they plan to appeal in a higher Dutch court and even go to the European Court of Human Rights to try to secure his release.
Today's hearing was expected to last until early afternoon. It was being presided over by one judge, who was expected to set a date for a ruling after the court session.
Dozens of war crimes suspects have been put on trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Earlier this month it jailed former Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic for the 1995 Sreberenica massacre.
Governments are obliged to co-operate with the tribunal and surrender people ordered to stand trial under Resolution 827 of the United Nations Security Council.
The district court hearing was taking place a week before Mr Milosevic's second scheduled appearance before the UN tribunal, which will examine progress in preparing his trial, expected to start next year.
The Yugoslav government pushed through a decree paving the way for Mr Milosevic's transfer to The Hague on June 23rd, but the Constitutional Court barred his transfer pending its ruling on the legality of the government decree.
Mr Milosevic was spirited out of Belgrade into UN custody before the court's decision had come into effect.
An international Milosevic support group, including former US attorney general Ramsey Clark, has said the Netherlands is violating Mr Milosevic's human rights by allowing the United Nations to detain and try him on war crimes charges.