Milosevic Trial Begins With Tough Comments

ByABC News
February 12, 2002, 3:56 AM

Feb. 12 -- The biggest war crimes trial since the Nuremburg proceedings against Nazi leaders began today, with the lead prosecutor accusing the defendant of "medieval savagery" that affected over a million people, and left thousands dead.

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic appeared calm as he was called in front of the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague today.

The 60-year-old former Balkan strongman is charged with crimes against humanity arising from the wars in Kosovo in 1999 and Croatia in 1991. He is also accused of genocide from the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1992-95.

The prosecution said more than a million people were imprisoned or forced from their homes and tens of thousands were killed or maimed during the conflicts. The landscape was left devastated, and the population ruined.

"The events themselves were notorious and a new term, 'ethnic cleansing,' came into common use in our language," said U.N. prosecutor Carla Del Ponte.

"Some of the incidents revealed an almost medieval savagery and a calculated cruelty that went far beyond the bounds of legitimate warfare."

She said the one of the causes of the wars was Milosevic's desire to create a "Greater Serbia" from Yugoslavia as it crumbled away from communism.

But she said as Milosevic appealed to Serb nationalism, he also had a cynical goal of amassing power for himself.

"Beyond the nationalist pretext and the horror of ethnic cleansing, behind the grandiloquent rhetoric and the hackneyed phrases, the search for power is what motivated Slobodan Milosevic," Del Ponte said.

Milosevic is the first head of state indicted for war crimes while in office. He could be sentenced to life imprisonment if convicted of any of the 66 specific charges contained in three indictments, one each for the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Pre-emptive Strikes

As part of its opening statement, the prosecution screened archive footage of Milosevic's impassioned speeches designed to stir up Serb nationalism and direct its anger against other groups.