Alleging Europe's worst human rights violations since World War II,
prosecutors outlined 61 charges against the ex-Yugoslav president in this stage
of the biggest international war crimes trial in Europe since Hitler's henchmen
were tried at Nuremberg.
Milosevic argued that Serbs simply defended themselves in the Bosnian and
Croatian conflicts and were themselves genocide victims as Western powers
engineered the breakup of Yugoslavia.
``I invested all my power in achieving peace. Serbia and myself deserve
recognition for working for peace in the area and not being a protagonist of
war,'' said Milosevic, 61.
But prosecutors, who say he masterminded a grand plan to create an
ethnically pure Greater Serbia, told the court they would present evidence
showing Milosevic was ``confronted in the strongest terms'' with atrocities by
Serbs.
``The systematic and organized way in which attacks against non-Serb
civilian populations in Croatia were carried out revealed a carefully designed
scheme and strategy within an overall plan that may be laid at the door of this
accused,'' said prosecutor Geoffrey Nice.
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia
closed their case two weeks ago on Kosovo, where Milosevic and former aides are
accused of expelling almost one third of the Albanian population from the
Serbian province.
Milosevic was Yugoslav leader during the Kosovo conflict, but experts say
convicting him for the Bosnian and Croatian conflicts, when he was Serbian
leader, will be tough.
``COUNTLESS ACTS OF ETHNIC CLEANSING''
Nice displayed a map illustrating the demographic effects of Serb ethnic
cleansing in Bosnia. ``A tidy map, bought by thousands of killings, innumerable
acts of inhumanity, and countless acts of ethnic cleansing,'' he called it.
The 43-month siege of Sarajevo, the Srebrenica massacre, killings after the
emptying of Croatia's Vukovar hospital -- prosecutors cataloged atrocities that
shocked the world during Milosevic's 1990-97 strongman reign as Serbian
president.
Though Milosevic publicly opposed the siege of Sarajevo, the Bosnian Serb
forces responsible were in the pay of a Yugoslav army over which he wielded
great influence, they said.
Milosevic was also linked to the notorious 1995 Srebrenica massacre because
of the involvement of Serbian interior ministry police there, Nice said.
The Bosnia and Croatia indictments cover 1991-5, predating the Kosovo
indictment's 1999 remit. They boast every crime on the Hague tribunal's
statute, including genocide in Bosnia.
Milosevic's opening speech repeated now familiar attacks on indictments he
called false and a court he condemned as illegal.
The first head of state ever to be indicted for such crimes while in office refused
to plead when he was sent to The Hague in 2001 and judges entered not guilty
pleas on his behalf.
Milosevic insisted Serbia simply helped Serbs in what he termed civil wars
in Yugoslavia. He said the Vatican gave Croats money for arms and asked why
that was not seen as a crime.
``As Serbs helped Serbia I am a criminal, but the Vatican helped Croats to
secede by violent means but the Pope remains the Holy Father,'' he said to
laughter from the public gallery.
NO SMOKING GUN
Prosecutor Nice warned not to expect smoking guns, or a star witness whose
evidence alone would convict Milosevic:
``All (the) witnesses will provide differing shafts of light...but it is
unlikely there will be an individual who will be able to tell the whole truth
about this man.''
Witnesses will include former members of Milosevic's inner circle, such as
ex-Yugoslav president Zoran Lilic, military commanders and international
figures, Nice said.
``Each will be able to provide a small view of the accused. It is the
composition of those views that in due course will establish the guilt of this
man.''
Milosevic operated in a ``curiously empty room,'' dealing with people on a
one-to-one basis so they would not know what was being said to others, Nice
told the three-judge bench.
``Politicians that do acts that are or are subsequently revealed as being
criminal, don't leave traces behind them. They don't leave paper trails,'' he
said.
Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte opened Thursday's proceedings by lamenting
Yugoslavia's ``fractious, difficult and unpredictable'' cooperation with the
Hague war crimes tribunal.
Del Ponte said Yugoslavia was obstructing appearances by prosecution
witnesses and denying access to archives despite ``holding the key to
irreplaceable elements of evidence.''
Prosecutors plan to call 106 witnesses on Bosnia and 71 for Croatia, versus
the 124 in open court for Kosovo. Croatian President Stjepan Mesic will testify
next week, Nice said.
Croatia is currently at loggerheads with the tribunal over an indictment for
wartime chief of staff General Janko Bobetko, whom Zagreb refuses to send to
The Hague despite U.N. calls.
The prominent witness many are awaiting is former U.S. ambassador Richard
Holbrooke. This key negotiator of the 1995 Bosnia peace accord has said he is willing
to testify but Washington has long sparred with U.N. prosecutors over whether
he will be heard in closed or open session.
In what observers read as a clear call to Washington, Del Ponte said
witnesses should be heard publicly whenever possible, since ``administration of
justice must be transparent.''