Former Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, a close ally of late Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, went on trial in The Hague today with five others also accused of war crimes in Kosovo in 1999.
Milutinovic (63) and his co-accused are charged with the persecution of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, the forcible deportation of about 800,000 civilians and the murder of hundreds of civilians by Serb forces.
"The evidence in this case will show that these six accused ... were co-participants with Slobodan Milosevic and other Serbian political, military and police officials in a joint criminal enterprise," prosecutor Thomas Hannis said in court.
"They burned or destroyed villages, so there was nothing left to return to," he said, adding Serb forces wanted to alter the ethnic balance in Kosovo, which was largely populated by Kosovo-Albanians, to perpetuate Serb control. Milutinovic succeeded Milosevic as president of Serbia in 1997.
Milosevic died of a heart attack in a UN cell in The Hague on March 11th, just months before a verdict was expected in his marathon war crimes trial.
Ethnic Albanians were dismayed that Milosevic's death robbed them of a verdict on the crimes he was accused of in Kosovo. They hope that the trial of Milutinovic and his co-accused will help provide justice for victims of war crimes in the province. Hannis said Kosovo was key to Milosevic's rise to power.
In a speech defending Serb interests in 1989, he said Milosevic foreshadowed armed conflict in the province a decade later.
Milutinovic listened to the prosecutor's statement with no signs of emotion. His co-accused are former Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic, former army chief and defence minister Dragoljub Ojdanic, security chief Sreten Lukic and army commanders Vladimir Lazarevic and Nebojsa Pavkovic.