Launching his defense against war crimes charges, Slobodan Milosevic justified his actions in the Balkans as a "struggle against terrorism," and said he was a victim of twisted facts and fabrications.
"This is an outrage against a whole nation and a whole people. This whole thing is a manipulation, a fabrication," the former Yugoslav leader said in his opening defense against 66 charges of war crimes in the Balkans in the 1990s.
Milosevic, the first head of state called to justice before an international tribunal, began with a sharp attack against the NATO bombing of Kosovo, a relentless 78-day operation in 1999 that forced Yugoslav forces to abandon the drive against ethnic Albanians rebelling against his regime.
On the third day of his trial, the former Yugoslav leader finally had a chance to respond to the prosecution's exhaustive two-day recital of horrors in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. He was accused of masterminding a ruthless campaign of murder and expulsion in the Balkans in his quest to create a "Greater Serbia."
Milosevic spoke with animation, pointing his finger and thumping his desk, in an address that appeared directed as much toward the television audience in Serbia as toward the three international judges trying him.
Milosevic went on the defensive against his accusers, whom he identified as the Western countries which deliberately undermined the Yugoslav federation by encouraging Bosnia to secede in 1992.
"Your bosses broke up Yugoslavia," he said, mocking the court, which he dismisses as an instrument of his enemies. "They pushed Bosnia into a civil war. The Serbs did not start the war. It is nonsensical to accuse the wrong side."
Despite the prosecution denials, he said the case was not against him alone but against the whole Serbian people. "Our citizens stand accused, citizens who lent their massive support to me," he said. "My conduct was an expression of the will of the people," he said.
Prosecutors say he was responsible for the deportation of millions of non-Serbs and the killing of hundreds of thousands more during the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, in a crass and brutal campaign to entrench his own personal power.
On Wednesday, Milosevic demanded that the trial judges respond to his pretrial motions that the court is illegal and that his extradition to The Hague last June was contrary to the Yugoslav constitution.
"I challenge the legality of this court because it is not established on the basis of law," he said.
"Your views about the tribunal are now completely irrelevant, as far as these proceedings are concerned," snapped Judge Richard May. The court had already rejected his motions, "as you would know if you had taken the trouble to read our decisions."
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