Milosevic back in court a month before his trial
Slobodan Milosevic is appearing before war crimes judges, a month before he goes on trial for alleged atrocities in Kosovo.
The ousted Yugoslav leader has been charged with five counts of war crimes during the Serb crackdown on Kosovar Albanians in 1998-1999.
Prosecutors will open their case on February 12 at the start of the trial.
Milosevic has said he will represent himself in the UN war crimes court in The Hague.
The biggest challenge for prosecutors will be to link the widespread persecution and murder of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to Milosevic and his policies. They will call dozens of witnesses, including former Serb government officials awaiting their trials in The Hague, to connect his government to the crimes.
It is Milosevic's fifth appearance in the court since he was transferred to the Netherlands last June.
During six months of detention he has refused to cooperate with the court or to appoint a lawyer.
The court has entered not guilty pleas on his behalf to all counts.
In Kosovo, Milosevic is charged in the deaths of nearly 900 Kosovar Albanians, the deportations of 800,000 people and sexual assault by Yugoslav army troops under his command.
He also faces charges of genocide for alleged crimes in Bosnia and Croatia between 1992 and 1995, including the mass murder of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica. Those crimes will be heard at a second trial for which no date has been set.
Milosevic claims the tribunal is illegal and has filed proceedings at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to contest the tribunal's jurisdiction. He argues that his arrest and detention have violated the European Convention on Human Rights and requests that his case be dismissed.
