Archives

THE HAGUE, Friday (AFP) Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic said he will ask French President Jacques Chirac to testify at his war crimes trial on the 1999 NATO bombing campaign on Yugoslavia.

Speaking in his defense, Milosevic said Chirac had acknowledged in a television interview that France had vetoed NATO plans to bomb bridges in Belgrade during the air war.

"That showed that heads of states decided on the targets," he said.

"When he comes here and as you know I have the right to question witnesses, I will have to ask him why he did not veto the destruction of a small mining town" and other targets, he said.

Chirac's spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said Milosevic's comments proved the major role France played in bringing a peaceful conclusion to the Balkans conflict.

"It's clear that in choosing France, Milosevic is underlining the driving role it played in bringing peace and democracy to the Balkans," she said, speaking for Chirac, who is running for re-election in May.

Milosevic's legal advisers have said that he plans to call western leaders such as former US president Bill Clinton and former NATO chief Javier Solana to testify during his trial.

Earlier Milosevic went on the counter-attack at his historic war crimes trial using grisly images of dead civilians to charge NATO and the West were criminals who belonged in the dock instead.

In a rambling but confident statement that aimed to speak to world opinion as much as the international court trying him for genocide, Milosevic accused the West of fabricating an "ocean of lies" to turn the world against him.

"You basically have nothing," he taunted prosecutors, who have said they will prove the former Yugoslav president was personally responsible for mass murder, deportation and other atrocities in the 1990s wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

"This is a crime against the truth," he said. "The whole world knows that this is a political trial that has nothing to do with the law whatsoever."

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager