Slobodan Milosevic will face a single trial starting later this month on charges of committing war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, the UN tribunal in The Hague said today.
The Hague court originally planned to try him first for crimes against humanity in Kosovo in 1999, followed by a second trial on charges of crimes against humanity in Croatia in 1991 and genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
But tribunal appeals judges overturned a lower chamber's decision last year to stage two trials after prosecutors successfully argued at a hearing on Wednesday that a single trial made more sense, a court spokesman said.
Prosecutors say the three conflicts are inextricably linked and that Milosevic masterminded the expulsion and killing of non-Serbs from large parts of Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo as part of a plan to create a Greater Serbia.
The trial is set to begin on February 12th.