From trial transcripts:
MILOSEVIC: Please bear in mind the following: For three years, the same doctors have considered me fit from the point of view of health to function, and you yourselves have been able to see that. Even Mr. Nice, in support of his motion that I be given as little time as possible, put forward the argument that I have been functioning very efficiently. So for three years the same doctors have considered me fit to function. Then an independent doctor turns up from Belgium, the country which is the seat of the NATO pact, and he says I'm unfit and then the doctors here agree with him.
Allow me to bring into question this kind of deduction of medical evidence. Please consider my motion and let the experts evaluate the situation, but I ask for an expert from Russia, from Serbia, from Greece, and then you can add two of your own, if you like, whom you will appoint, to see what this is about. Things are being mystified here when in fact they are very simple.
I see this as a manipulation aimed at depriving me of my right to speak here and to speak the truth. That is the essence of it all. Mr. Nice says in support of his argument that a lawyer should be imposed on me, counsel should be imposed on me, that I am too involved and am unable to be dispassionate. However, I feel that the other side is too dispassionate when it comes to the truth. I cannot, of course, interfere in how the other side do their job, but they cannot interfere in the way I exercise my rights. That too is a question of principle. Therefore I wish to reiterate: My right to defend myself is something that I will neither accept having diminished nor will I ever waive it. Please bear that in mind. And you can reach your own decisions, but I receive the medicaments given to me by your people, your employees. What is happening here, I don't know, but I can bring the whole floor of the Detention Unit here to testify to what happened when the food I had was exchanged with the food of the person across the passageway, and there was a big to-do about setting things right, although the food apparently was the same. It appeared to be the same. And I did not raise the issue. I don't know what was going on. But please be kind enough to bear in mind that when, for three years, they have been saying one thing and now suddenly they turn around and say something else, I am right in having suspicions. My suspicions may or may not be justified, but they are well grounded--
[Cut off by Judges as Trial Chamber Confers]
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