THE HAGUE: Mr Slobodan Milosevic has poured scorn on his prosecutors, describing war crimes allegations as "an ocean of lies" and accusing the west of provoking the Balkan wars. Opening his defence at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, the former Yugoslav leader showed photographs and video footage to support his claim that NATO was guilty of war crimes during its bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999. Denis Staunton reports
"Civilian targets were NATO's main targets. They hit many more hospitals than they did tanks. They hit many more schools than they did tanks," he said.
Addressing the tribunal's three judges from behind a screen of bullet-proof glass, Mr Milosevic appeared relaxed and confident as he ridiculed the prosecution case against him. He dismissed as absurd the idea that, as Yugoslavia's president, he was responsible for atrocities committed in Bosnia and Kosovo, sneering that prosecutors credited him with "god-like, magical powers".
He claimed that western powers provoked the Balkan wars by encouraging the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and claimed that western leaders were fully aware of all he was doing. He indicated that President Jacques Chirac of France will be among the witnesses he will seek to call.
"Your bosses broke up Yugoslavia. They pushed Bosnia into a civil war. The Serbs did not start the war. It is nonsensical to accuse the wrong side," he said.
Mr Milosevic is charged with 66 war crimes, including genocide and prosecutors claim that atrocities in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo formed part of his plan to create a Greater Serbia.
He claimed yesterday that a massacre at Racak in Kosovo, which helped to persuade NATO to attack Serbia, was faked. And he said that, in suppressing Kosovo Albanian rebels, he was fighting terrorism within his own borders.
"America crosses the globe to fight against terrorism, in Afghanistan, a case in point. Right on the other side of the world, and that is considered to be logical and normal. Whereas here the struggle against terrorism in the heart of one's own country, one's own home, is considered to be a crime," he said.
Mr Milosevic was unable to deny that some atrocities took place but he claimed that prison camps such as that at Trnopolje, where inmates were tortured, starved and sexually assaulted, were prisoner of war camps.
He insisted that any ill-treatment of prisoners was entirely outside the Serb tradition of conducting war.
"I am not trying to say that this had not been committed by some individuals, or by some groups, but this was not done by the army or the police. The army and police defended their own country with honour and chivalry," he said.
Mr Milosevic, who will continue his opening statement today, repeated his accusation that his trial was political.