The decision by Slobodan Milosevic last week to call British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a defense witness in his genocide trial in The Hague is creating a crisis in the already troubled war crimes machine.
Blair is one of 1,631 witnesses that the former Yugoslav president insists he needs to prove his innocence in a case that, after two years, is not yet at the halfway stage.
Blair was one of the leaders of the 78-day NATO air war against Yugoslavia in 1999, which ended with Milosevic reversing the ethnic cleansing in which more than 800,000 Albanians were deported from Kosovo.
Superficially, the request for him to be a witness is bizarre. First, Blair will have little to say about the war crimes Milosevic is accused of masterminding. Second, if he did turn up, he would be likely to bury, rather than praise, the former strongman and back prosecution claims that Milosevic is guilty of ethnic cleansing and widespread atrocities during the Kosovo war.
Behind Milosevic's request is almost certainly a realization that he has lost the legal battle and a determination to fight the case on a political platform.
The prosecutors appear to have proved war crimes were committed in the Balkans and that Milosevic gave the orders. He is expected to get a life sentence when the trial finally ends, possibly in 2007.
His list of witnesses, including former US president Bill Clinton and the former UK foreign secretary, Robin Cook.
Milosevic is always playing to the gallery, said Tim Judah, a Balkans expert and author of The Serbs.
"If there were decisions made to ethnically cleanse Kosovo they were not made in front of Mr Blair. Of course, it's a political thing," Judah said.
Blair faces a difficult choice. Attending would mean enduring hours of political haranguing, Milosevic's standard tactic in the trial so far. Refusing to go, a choice open to him because he is a state witness, would expose Britain to criticism that it is afraid to put its leader on the stand.
The judges have a different problem. There is time in the 150 trial days that Milosevic has been allotted to hear perhaps 10 percent of the 1,631 witnesses he wants, but any attempt to cut the list will lead to accusations of an unfair trial.
Since the hearing began in February 2002, nearly three months of court time has been lost after Milosevic fell ill. His decision to defend himself, rather than use a court-appointed lawyer, has further slowed proceedings.
The prosecutors said earlier this month that they had spent nearly ?1 million (US$1.8 million) on tracing and copying 440,000 pages of exculpatory material Milosevic must somehow trawl through by the time the trial resumes on June 8.
To run his defense, Milosevic's cell at The Hague's jail on the North Sea coast has already been turned into a miniature office equipped with a fax machine, computer and satellite television.
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