Lawyer: Milosevic proud of all he did

Markovic is led back to prison after his court appearence

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- A defiant Slobodan Milosevic has said he is convinced he did the right thing for Yugoslavia, according to a Canadian lawyer who visited the former president in jail.

Milosevic, who last week was charged at a United Nations tribunal with crimes against humanity, issued a statement on Monday through the lawyer, Christopher Black, in which he said he was not suicidal and in good health and high spirits.

"I am the moral winner," Milosevic said according to Black in an Associated Press report. "I am proud of everything I did for my people and my country, and everything I did was honest."

Black spent almost two hours with Milosevic in an interview room at the U.N. detention unit, a wing of a Dutch prison in the seaside suburb of Scheveningen outside The Hague.

A guard was posted on the other side of a metal and glass door, but a U.N. translator was present throughout the conversation, even though the two men spoke in English and had asked to be alone.

Black, who has appeared as a defence lawyer before the U.N. tribunal on Rwanda, said he has not been hired to be Milosevic's lawyer. So far, Milosevic, who has a law degree, maintains he will represent himself.

Milosevic is charged by the United Nations war crimes tribunal with responsibility for the murder of more than 600 people and the displacement of 740,000 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999. His crackdown in Kosovo was brought to an end by a 78-day bombing campaign by NATO forces.

"I only exercised the right of every citizen to defend his country and that is why they arrested me," Black quoted the prisoner as saying, AP reported. "If you are looking for war criminals the right address is not Scheveningen, it is the headquarters of NATO."

The lawyer said Milosevic told him he was under 24-hour camera surveillance, and for the first five days of his detention he was unable to sleep because the lights in his cell were kept on round the clock.

After complaining, authorities agreed to keep only a bathroom light lit, "just enough to let the camera operate," Black said.

Milosevic also complained that he was still isolated from other detainees, and wanted to be integrated with them. The tribunal has said Milosevic would remain apart from the other 38 war crimes suspects for the first 30 days of his detention.

"Milosevic wants the world to know his health is fine. He's not at all suicidal," said Black.

Last week Black, who heads the legal arm of the newly formed International Committee to defend Slobodan Milosevic, said he had been contacted by the defendant's wife Mira Markovic, according to Reuters.

'Illegal instrument'

The group of 200 lawyers, writers and intellectuals argues that Milosevic is a political prisoner.

At a short, tense appearance before the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague last week, the former Yugoslav president refused to recognise its authority and rejected legal representation. He also declined to enter a plea to the charges against him.

Milosevic branded the organ an "illegal" instrument of his NATO enemies.

The presiding judge Richard May entered a not guilty plea on Milosevic's behalf.

The trial is expected to open next year. The maximum sentence he could receive if convicted is life in prison.

Milosevic, 59, was transferred from a Yugoslav prison to the U.N.'s jurisdiction in June. He is the first former head of state to be transferred to The Hague for trial.

Within hours of his extradition a donors conference in Brussels agreed to provide Yugoslavia with a $1.28 billion aid package.

Black is the first of several lawyers whom Milosevic has agreed to consult. Among them is Ramsey Clark, an attorney general under U.S. President Lyndon Johnson. Clark had campaigned against the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and has called the tribunal an illegitimate army of the Western alliance.

Milosevic's wife, Mira Markovic, also was expected to visit her husband this week after applying for a Dutch visa on Friday.