Yugoslavia’s former dictator, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, has met his lawyers on the eve of his war crimes trial in the Hague tomorrow.
He reportedly told them he would cite the "words and deeds" of Western leaders during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s as his defence during the trial, which is expected to last up to two years.
It will be the biggest European war crimes prosecution since Hitler's henchmen were tried at Nuremberg after World War Two.
Mr Milosevic has refused to recognize the validity of the tribunal, which will try him for alleged crimes against humanity in Croatia in 1991-92, genocide in the 1992-95 Bosnian war and crimes against humanity in Kosovo in 1999.
Serb legal adviser Mr Dragoslav Ognjanovic said Mr Milosevic, who has refused to formally appoint a counsel, would name international figures who had been "involved in the Yugoslav crisis."
"For example, Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, people from Europe," Mr Ognjanovic said. "He is going to use this courtroom to tell the world public the truth."
The prosecution says it will bring some 300 witnesses to atrocities in the Balkan wars, from victims to insiders, face-to-face with the man many consider the supreme architect of those events.
The tribunal has entered "not guilty" pleas on behalf of Mr Milosevic to all three indictments and appointed three prominent international lawyers to ensure he has a fair trial.
More than one million people were imprisoned or forced from their homes and thousands were killed, maimed and wounded during the three conflicts.
The Kosovo indictment, issued in 1999, accuses Mr Milosevic of responsibility, along with four other senior Serbs, for the murder of 900 Kosovo Albanians and expulsion of 800,000 civilians from their homes.
The Croatia indictment, which came last year, accuses him of responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of Croats and other non-Serbs between August 1991-92 and the deportation of 170,000.
He is also accused of responsibility for the Srebrenica massacre of several thousand Bosnian Muslim men and boys, the siege of Sarajevo and the deportation or imprisonment of over a quarter of a million.
