Milosevic: [Clinton] Was Ally of Al Qaeda in Kosovo

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) told his war crimes trial on Friday "genocidal" U.S. forces had been the unwitting ally of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) in Kosovo, and demanded Bill Clinton and other Western leaders come to testify.

Bin Laden's al Qaeda was "one of the fundamentalist groups which sent a unit to fight in Kosovo" alongside Muslim Kosovo Albanians aided by the United States against Serb forces in 1998-9, the fallen Yugoslav leader told The Hague (news - web sites) tribunal.

"The attacks on New York and Washington show what the terrorism you sponsored looks like when it turns against you," he said in a speech that ranged across centuries of history and much of the globe, and exhausted court interpreters.

Milosevic, 60, was extradited from Belgrade seven months ago to a jail cell in The Hague. On Tuesday his trial began for crimes against humanity in Kosovo in 1999 and in Croatia in 1991-2, and for genocide in the 1992-5 Bosnian war.

Prosecutors have this week portrayed him as prime mover in a decade of massacres, torture, mass rape and expulsions by Serbs.

In a second day of reply to prosecutors' opening addresses, he blamed the carnage entirely on his Balkan enemies and NATO (news - web sites). Echoing the language of his indictment, he said the West itself had committed "genocide and crimes against humanity."

"I'm asking what kind of tribunal this is, if you refuse to try people for these crimes by the leaders and armies of NATO countries," a coolly pugnacious Milosevic told judges.

On the fourth day of what is forecast to be a marathon case, he insisted the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians who fled Kosovo in 1999 during the NATO air war against Yugoslavia had been driven out not by Serbs but by their fellow Albanians.

The guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) "referred to all Albanians who did not flee Kosovo as traitors," he said, creating an "illusion of exodus." "There were hundreds of cameras waiting at the borders to show alleged Serb misdeeds."

The motive was to justify NATO's attack, said Milosevic, showing the court pictures of carbonized bodies of civilians killed by NATO bombs in Kosovo and the rest of Serbia in 1999.

NATO missiles destroyed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, in what Washington insisted was a mistake by Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) target planners using an outdated map.

"It is quite clear that (former U.S. president) Clinton wanted to go down in history as the first man to bomb Chinese territory by bombing the Chinese embassy," Milosevic said. "This was no accident."

Milosevic accused Germany of setting out to destroy old communist Yugoslavia by its support for Slovenian and Croatian independence, and by secret backing of Albanian "terrorists."

"The German intelligence service rallied up criminals from all over Europe. They were pushed to Kosovo," he said.

Bin Laden, meanwhile, used anarchic Albania as a launchpad for violence in the Balkans and elsewhere in Europe, he said.

Some Muslim "terrorists" in Kosovo, had they not been jailed by Serbia, would now be "going in chains to Guantanamo Bay" from Afghanistan (news - web sites) instead, the white-haired Milosevic insisted.

"While Americans transport al Qaeda terrorists to Guantanamo...at the same time they demand all Albanian terrorists be freed from prisons in Yugoslavia," he added.

The involvement in the Balkans of Mujahideen guerrillas from Arab states and Afghanistan is well-documented, and U.S. agents followed the trail of bin Laden and his followers in Albania and Kosovo itself, before the September 11 attacks.

Accusing NATO of the use of especially lethal cluster bombs, he showed the court a photograph of a Serb woman killed while plowing her field and corpses of children in pajamas.

"This is an example of bestiality, targeting people in this way," he said, adding NATO bombed at night to maximize deaths among sleeping civilians. He showed pictures of shattered hospitals, an old people's home, buses, houses and workplaces, some strewn with charred and bloodied bodies.

After NATO occupied Kosovo in June 1999, they allowed Serbs to be killed or forced out by Albanian "terrorists" and "savages." More than 100 Serb Orthodox churches were razed in a campaign he likened to Taliban destruction of Buddhist statues.

Kosovo, seen by Serbs as a historic heartland, was now run by an "Albanian drug mafia" and the sex-slave trade, he said.

"I am going to call witnesses here and I want it to be possible to question Clinton and Albright and Kinkel and Schroeder and Kohl and Dini... Kofi Annan (news - web sites)... Blair," he said, listing Western and U.N. leaders involved in Balkan peace talks.

Milosevic wants them to testify that the West used him as a peacemaker in the Bosnian war before turning against him.

Under the tribunal's procedures Milosevic is expected to produce a list of witnesses he wants called. The three judges have the final say on whether witnesses are subpoenaed.

The reformist Yugoslav government, which handed Milosevic to The Hague, on Friday called his testimony "disgusting." But the Russian parliament branded the tribunal a "political" court which had failed to charge NATO states for atrocities.

During his afternoon speech, Milosevic compared Clinton's strategy in fighting the Kosovo war to that of Adolf Hitler's: to establish a strategic base from which to attack Russia. He described the policy the Austro-Hungarian empire had adopted toward the territories of the crumbling Ottoman empire in the 19th and 20th centuries, that of keeping Serbia weak and the Balkans divided, he said. Presiding Judge Richard May urged Milosevic to slow down so interpreters could keep up.

Dressed in a navy suit and a tie in the red, blue and white Serbian colors, Milosevic sits flanked by seated guards in a courtroom sealed off from the public gallery by a bullet-proof glass wall and equipped with computer screens and cameras.

Milosevic is conducting his own defense, after refusing to appoint counsel or enter a formal plea on the grounds the court has no right to judge him, but is advised by Belgrade lawyers.

Judges have entered not guilty pleas on his behalf and appointed three lawyers as "friends of the court" to ensure he gets a fair trial. The "friends" on Friday appealed for judges to give him leeway in the length of his address, and he was allowed to continue on Monday until 1 p.m.

Milosevic could face life in prison if convicted at the end of an epic trial some expect to last at least two years.

Here is one of the emails. I'd like you're imput because I have been reading a lot of your posts on the matter and have respect for your opinions. Also, he says he is a young treeing doctor. He meant training.
THE ARROGANCE IN KOSOVO I am writing you in the light of newly situation about war on Balkan. I am a young treeing doctor who thought that after 18 years of studying (primary and secondary school, and medical faculty) would never be in situation to hide from bombs, to look destruction of civilization in my own country, to watch wounded and dead people all over the country, to watch ruined houses and bridges and pray for mercy and justice for all people who living here. I am looking the greatest humanitary catastrophe since World War II in Yugoslavia, but nobody talk about that. NATO do everything to start time delayed killing of ten millions peoples in the Yugoslavia. Bombing of civilians, bridges, factories and cars on roads is only top of the iceberg. I don't want to think about effects of depleted uranium missles and bullets on health of Kosovo and Serb population. But under the water is the powerful anti Serbs campaign and one of the most horror plans ever seen. This is action for destruction of all Yugoslav agricultural industry and petrol reserves with stopping of all petrol supply from outside even those for humanitarian reasons. It is the main aim of NATO to prevent Yugoslav peasants to seed crops. In the recent future European will see ten millions of desperate and hungry people with any hope for their future. What will happen then? Do West politicians risk their moral dignity and economies to feed them and keep them alive? Don't worry. NATO planers do their job and they will serve some extraordinary lies to keep western people to believe in their good intentions to solve Balkan problem. What would it be? Maybe already seen in Bosnia and Croatia, where Serbs were cleaned from their homes with lies such as “Serbs are murders, they rape women, they use chemical weapons, they use forbidden ammunition, they makes camps, they are like animals, etc.”. After that NATO would probably say if Serbs were such animals they deserve to suffer and die. So don't worry be happy! World goes around but how long after that. God has a strict rules equal for all. Don't do anything wrong to another people what you would not like to be done to you. I am deeply sure that every lie and unjust act against Serbs, Albanians, Montenegrins, innocent children, women, and men who live here will return to sender like boomerang. I just know that we had no refugees and no humanitary catastrophe, before NATO came to save us. After all I only hope that NATO would not destroy world order and UN. I pray for health, peace, happy and good life for all people around the world. I pray that truth and justice win, and I call people of good will to rise up their voices and stop the war. Let judge and punish murders and lie makers whatever they are (Albanians, NATO, Serbs, Montenegrins). Don't we allow that warlords kill people in the name of humanity. War can only induce other war and killing of thousands and suffering of millions. God bless you Boris Djindjic Medical faculty Brace Taskovic 81 18000 Nis Yugoslavia

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