Posted on 01/28/2003 7:09:06 PM PST by Destro
Milosevic anger at document deluge
28/01/2003 - 16:28:53
Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic complained to the UN tribunal today he is being deluged with documents filed by prosecutors in his war crimes trial.
On his second day back in The Hague court after a two week bout of flu, Milosevic said papers had piled up to overwhelming proportions during his absence. He is acting as his own defence lawyer, and has refused to allow anyone else to represent him.
“I received 40,000 pages alone while I was in my sick bed,” Milosevic said. “I don’t understand why I’m being given these documents in English, when they were originally taken in the language that I myself speak.”
Milosevic said he had now received a total of more than 300,000 pages of material and more than 1,000 hours of videotapes from prosecutors.
He faces charges of crimes against humanity, including genocide, during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
British prosecutor Geoffrey Nice said he wasn’t sure if Milosevic’s figures were accurate and gave a list of reasons why the various documents were being submitted nearly one year after the trial began.
He said the documents were in fact created in English, not Serbo-Croatian, and would be translated where necessary, although “it is clear the accused speaks and understands English.”
Presiding judge Richard May agreed with Milosevic that the new documents represented “a huge amount of material,” and asked Nice for a written explanation before deciding if anything should be done.
Milosevic’s poor health has lead to nearly two months of postponements since his trial began last February. At 61, he suffers from high blood pressure and heart problems.
"That's the trouble with being a genocidal maniac like Milosevic, it makes so much paperwork."
I have a keen desire to see this international tribunal ground into the dirt and it has nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of Slobodan Milosovic. I've thought from the outset that the possibility of having our citizens arrested while abroad and brought before what, in reality, amounts to a Communist kangaroo court is a frightening prospect. I think that it should be a particularly disconcerting prospect for members of our military.
I would hope that if that ever happens to a member of our military services that our government would at first issue an ultimatum demanding his or her release and that that demand would be followed shortly by military action.
Of course, an acid test of the validity of this kangaroo court ( my view) would be to ask this. If this man is being rightfully tried, then where are the screaming hypocrites who are defending the right of Saddam Hussein to do what he is doing.?
No, it is all too convenient to wallow in platitudes. Those flabby rotters in the so-called World Court, know how to pick their targets. Free Milosevic -and while they are at it, try to get corrupt Noriega, back where he belongs. The man could not be the worst to have offended international justice. He has paid his dues.
Perhaps we could just drop all the documents on him, a sort of poetic justice?
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