Defiant Milosevic launches defence at trial

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic launched his long-delayed defence yesterday, branding his war crimes trial a "distortion of history" and blaming the West for fuelling Yugoslavia's collapse.

Mr Milosevic opened his defence against charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s with characteristic defiance, months later than planned due to his heart condition and high blood pressure.

The former Serb strongman, 63, seized the opening day of his defence to accuse the West, Nato, Kosovo Albanian drug gangs, Islamic militants and the Vatican of contributing to the break-up of a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

"Accusations levelled against me are an unscrupulous lie and also a tireless distortion of history," he told the UN court in The Hague. "Everything has been presented in a lopsided manner in order to protect those who are truly responsible."

Two-and-a-half years into a trial widely regarded as Europe's most significant war crimes proceedings since Hitler's henchmen were tried after World War Two, Mr Milosevic made a sweeping opening statement peppered with historical details.

Mr Milosevic, who wants to call more than 1,000 witnesses, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former US President Bill Clinton in the 150 days allocated to him, stabbed the air with his glasses, dismissing the tribunal as illegal.

He accused the Clinton administration of supporting the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), describing them as "Islamist terrorists" and saying that support laid the foundations for the September 11, 2001 attacks on US cities.

"The Clinton administration throughout its time in office applied these double standards which has turned very aggressively against themselves which can be seen by what happened on September 11," he said, speaking through an interpreter.

Mr Milosevic, a Belgrade law school graduate, tackled the Austro-Hungarian Empire, World War One, Nazi Germany's occupation of countries in the Balkans, US foreign policy and the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 in his opening statement. "It is questionable whether a lot of what you are saying is relevant to the case," presiding judge Patrick Robinson told him, adding that while the broad historical sweep of his statement was permissible, Mr Milosevic's time was limited.

Looking relaxed and leaning back in his chair, Mr Milosevic blamed separatist forces at home and abroad for what he called "the violent destruction" of Yugoslavia, portraying Serbs as victims rather than perpetrators of ethnic cleansing.