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CNN Live At Daybreak

Former Yugoslav President Milosevic Denies Tribunal's Legitimacy in Court

Aired July 03, 2001 - 08:13   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.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: A brief but dramatic court appearance for former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. He had some sharp words when he appeared, this morning, before the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal.

CNN's international correspondent Christiane Amanpour has details for us now, live from The Hague -- Christiane.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Colleen, this was a time when Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia and Serbia, used to make his political point. He had called this tribunal politically motivated, biased and unjustified, and refuses to recognize its jurisdiction.

So when he went into court, he did so without a lawyer. He called this tribunal illegal. He said the inditements were false. He said he had no need to appoint a counsel to what he called this illegal organ.

Nonetheless, the presiding judges proceeded with the morning's event, and that was, in order to read him the indictment, to ask whether he understood it, and to have him enter a plea.

Mr. Milosevic was asked, Do you want the indictment read to you?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you want to have the indictment read out or not?

SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC, FORMER PRESIDENT OF YUGOSLAVIA: That's your problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he refuses to cooperate, he does so at his own peril. He's in the tribunal. He's subject to the tribunal's jurisdiction. He has the right to defend himself, and he should do so with vigor. But if he refuses to do so, the trial will proceed, and a judgment will be entered. It's as simple as that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Now, because he did not enter a plea, the judge said that he had waived that right, and therefore, it was the presiding judge who entered one on his behalf. He entered a plea of not guilty on all the counts with which Milosevic is indicted, counts of crimes against humanity that include deportation, murder, and the persecution of ethnic Albanian civilians along racial, political, and religious lines -- Colleen.

MCEDWARDS: Christiane, what kind of evidence is going to have to be presented as this plays out, in order for the tribunal to secure a conviction?

AMANPOUR: Well, it's going to be, in the words of these prosecutors here and, in fact, the American attorneys who helped write the original indictment, a long, challenging and complex trial -- that they will have to painstakingly seek the evidence and put it in the dark here to mount their case.

But they say they do believe that they will be able to succeed. They'll have witnesses. They'll have documentation, they say. And already, some of the most damning evidence is coming out of Serbia itself uncovered by the authorities in Belgrade: mass graves that have been directly linked to Slobodan Milosevic, the authorities in Belgrade saying that he had civilian bodies removed from Kosovo to avoid a war crimes investigation -- Colleen.

MCEDWARDS: Thanks, CNN's Christiane Amanpour for us at The Hague.

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