Milosevic is not getting a fair trial

The fact that the chief prosecutor at the international penal court at The Hague has already declared Slobodan Milosevic guilty before his trial, the fact that the western media are airing programmes about alleged atrocities while the trial is going on and the fact that the ex-President of Yugoslavia arrived at the Court through an illegal act of kidnapping render the case void under international legal procedure.

It is an internationally accepted norm that a person is innocent until proven guilty so how it is possible for a chief prosecutor to make statements as to the defendant’s culpability, in public, defies legal logic and ethics, something which Carla del Ponte appears not to have.

How a state television station can air programmes such as “Exposed”, at 17.00 MSK on Monday 18th February, during the trial is also inexplicable. In this programme, BBC World broadcast what the programme claims to be “evidence” of massacres in Kosovo. While no clear accusation is made against Mr. Milosevic, the fact remains that the stage is set for public opinion to be trained against the former President.

Slobodan Milosevic was spirited out of Serbia and taken to The Hague in an act of kidnapping, which was illegal under the Serbian and Yugoslav constitutions. How this fact can be ignored by this so-called Court is equally impossible to explain.

One would encourage Ms. Del Ponte to investigate the claims against the banks in her own country, Switzerland, that they gained their wealth from gold stolen from the coffers, and teeth, of Jews by the Nazis and greedily accepted by the now famous Swiss banks. It would appear she is as scrupulous as they are.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru