Flu prompts Milosevic adjournment

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial in The Hague has been adjourned for several days because the former Yugoslav leader has flu, the tribunal says.

Jim Landale, spokesman for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, said: "He's got a bout of the flu. He'll get a few days to recuperate and when he's better we'll resume the trial."

Milosevic has been charged with five counts of murder, deportation and persecution in the Serbian province in 1999. The former Yugoslav leader also faces another 61 counts of war crimes, including genocide, stemming from the Croatian and Bosnian wars between 1991 and 1995.

Milosevic has refused to enter a plea, forcing the court to enter a not guilty plea on his behalf. He is defending himself at the trial, which is regarded as the most important war crimes trial since the aftermath of World War Two.

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The tribunal said there would be no proceedings for the next three to seven days. The trial began on February 12.

On Thursday it will be decided whether Milosevic has recovered sufficiently to resume proceedings, Landale said.

Monday's hearing had been due to be held in closed session as the trial heard testimony from protected witnesses. The trial is currently hearing evidence on the Kosovo conflict and will then move on to indictments for Croatia and Bosnia.

Milosevic has been treated in the past for high blood pressure and is reported to have suffered bouts of depression.

Last week a former British envoy to the Balkans, Paddy Ashdown, told the court how he personally warned Milosevic in 1998 to stop his terror campaign in Kosovo or face an indictment for war crimes.

Ashdown said he met the then-Yugoslav president face-to-face in Belgrade in September 1998, the day after he had witnessed a Yugoslav army offensive in Kosovo's Suva Reka Valley.

During his second day in the witness box, Ashdown said: "I said to him what I'd witnessed could only be described as indiscriminate, punitive and designed to drive innocent civilians out."

He said he told Milosevic that "if he continued with these gross, flagrant violations of international law, he would make himself indictable for war crimes."

Ashdown, who is now the U.N. High Representative in Bosnia, is the first Western politician to appear in the trial.