Lessons learned from Milosevic trial: Rights group

NEW YORK, Dec 14: International courts tackling war crimes should focus on the most serious allegations and only allow accused to represent themselves if they can fulfill the role, US-based Human Rights Watch said.

A 76-page report by the group that examined the trial of Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic also recommends that there should be adequate pretrial preparation and courts should resist public pressure to start a trial before it is ready.

''Starting (Milosevic's) trial 11 days after the decision to combine charges on Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia in a single case had a very negative effect,'' Sara Darehshori of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program said in a statement yesterday.

Milosevic -- the first former head of state to face a war crimes trial -- was charged with 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in complex indictments covering the Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo conflicts in the 1990s.

But the former Yugoslav president died in prison in March, just months before an expected verdict in his four-year trial at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

''The Milosevic trial also shows how to manage -- or not -- future prosecutions of high-ranking officials for crimes of huge magnitude,'' Darehshori said.

The report, ''Weighing the Evidence: Lessons of the Slobodan Milosevic trial,'' also suggests assigning counsel as amici curiae -- to offer information -- to defendants who represent themselves to ensure their rights are protected.

The Yugoslavia tribunal has said the main reason the Milosevic trial took so long was because the court had allowed him to defend himself, despite the risk to his health, and had worked only three days a week to give him more time to rest.

The UN court had tried to simplify and speed Milosevic's proceedings late last year when it considered coming to a verdict first on the Kosovo indictment. But it dropped the idea after opposition from both Milosevic and the prosecution.

Other recommendations by the Human Rights Watch report include a single trial for a series of alleged crimes sufficiently linked to ensure a complete picture of the individual's overall role is presented.

It also said strict time limits should be imposed as incentive to present an efficient case and that an efficient prosecution would help create a high-quality documentation of events and historical record.

''Although Milosevic was never convicted, evidence exposed at his trial showed how Belgrade orchestrated the vicious wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo,'' Darehshori said.

REUTERS