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CNN Live At Daybreak

Milosevic to Face First Court Appearance Tuesday

Aired June 29, 2001 - 07:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Supporters of the move are calling it a milestone in global criminal justice. Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has been taken to a jail cell at the international war crimes tribunal, where he is going to stand trial for crimes against humanity.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour is covering the story in The Hague -- Christiane.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Carol, indeed.

Here, officials of the tribunal in the courthouse behind me say that they are deeply satisfied. One even said that they were elated that their most wanted suspect on these serious crimes under international law is now fully in their custody.

Slobodan Milosevic, we have been told, will face his first appearance in court on Tuesday morning, where he will be read his -- he will be read the formal indictment and he will be given the opportunity to enter his plea: guilty or not guilty.

In the meantime, he arrived here under cover of night in the early hours of this morning. He was taken to the prison, which is not far from here. Really, it's a detention center more than a formal jail. And he was taken in. You could see clearly from some pictures that were taken from quite far away the former Yugoslav president being marched into the detention center with a guard on each arm.

So what we've been told is that this morning he is familiarizing himself with what we've been told are the rules and regulations of the detention center. We've been told he's also focusing on that appearance on Tuesday and trying to gather a defense team to represent him in court on Tuesday -- Carol.

LIN: Christiane, you say he's going to be in court on Tuesday. Is that the official start of the trial? And once it does begin, what is that trial going to look like?

AMANPOUR: It's not the official start of the trial. It's when he makes his first appearance. He is asked, in his own language, whether he understands the charges against him. And he will then enter his plea. Then there will be many months, maybe even a year or so, of what we call pretrial maneuvers and pretrial investigations, evidence-gathering by his own defense team.

That, as I say, could take as much as a year, they're saying here at the tribunal. Thereafter, he will be sitting in the dark here at the war crimes tribunal. And the trial will be presided over by three judges. At the end of the trial, the judges will deliberate -- there is no jury -- and they will come back with their verdict. And if they find a guilty verdict, the maximum sentence that he could face is life in prison.

LIN: All right, thank you very much, Christiane Amanpour, reporting live from The Hague.

Christiane is going to be joining us in just a few minutes with an expanded piece on exactly what Slobodan Milosevic is charged with.

In the meantime, Mr. Milosevic has been delivered to The Hague. Obviously, the question in Brussels is: Where is the money? A meeting under way there could mean as much as $1 billion toward reconstruction in Yugoslavia. Thirty nations are represented at the European International Donor's Conference.

So are Yugoslavia officials pressing their case for financial aid? Donor nations have threatened to withhold money if Milosevic was not turned over to the tribunal. Yugoslavia says it needs an estimated $4 billion to restructure its economy.

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