Slobodan Milosevic at his trial today accused separatist Kosovo Albanian guerrillas of fabricating an alleged atrocity by Serb forces in 1999 in a bid to spur a shocked West into attacking Yugoslavia.
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Slobodan Milosevic
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The killing of about 45 ethnic Albanians in Racak in January 1999 shocked the outside world and was widely credited with stiffening NATO's resolve to launch its 11-week campaign of air strikes against Yugoslavia two months later.
The former Serb strongman, accused of genocide and crimes against humanity in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, could face life behind bars if convicted at the end of Europe's biggest international war crimes trial since World War Two.
The Hague tribunal heard last week from a Western observer that dozens of unarmed men dressed in slippers and rubber boots were found shot in the head at Racak in 1999 after Serb forces entered the village. Milosevic disputed the testimony.
Milosevic told the war crimes court that ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas shifted corpses around Racak to an open mass grave as part of a ruse to convince Western observers that Serb forces had butchered villagers. He said Serb forces had only killed KLA guerrillas in gun battles.
It may be, as Serb authorities claim, and many Europeans tended to believe, that the victims were in fact killed in the shoot-out reported by police and then aligned to give the appearance of a massacre, Milosevic said quoting from an Italian press report.