The trial of Slobodan Milosevic

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The First Head of State to be indicted by international justice for crimes committed during the exercise of its functions, Slobodan Milosevic appears before the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) since February 12, 2002. He is charged with sixty-six counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed during the three major conflicts that divided former Yugoslavia back in the nineties. Upon almost three years of trial, a guilt conviction is still far off. Public opinion is discouraged by the complexity of the charges, the rules of procedure of the ICTY, the difficulty for the judges to find legal and fair solutions, but above all the Machiavellianism of Milosevic’ defence. This lengthy trial of the former strong man of Belgrade drags on without any perspective of a forthcoming conclusion. Meanwhile, the trial’s success is that it definitely got Milosevic out of the political scene in Serbia. – Summary AFRI-2005