Monday July 23, 11:15 PM
Milosevic in good health, still refuses lawyer: wife
BELGRADE, July 23 (AFP) -
Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic is in "good health" but
still refuses to hire a lawyer to represent him before the UN war crimes
tribunal, his wife Mira Markovic was quoted as saying Monday.
Markovic, who returned home to Belgrade on Saturday after visiting her
husband in The Hague, where he is in custody awaiting trial on war
crimes charges before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY), said nevertheless that Milosevic "is in daily contact
with lawyers who assist him."
"He has maintained his decision not to engage a lawyer, but there are
attorneys who will help him prepare the statements" to be delivered
before the ICTY, Beta news agency quoted Markovic as saying.
The "strategy" of Milosevic's defense "is already known," Markovic said,
but refused to give any further details.
Milosevic is being held at the ICTY detention centre on charges of war
crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1998-99 Serbian
crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Markovic arrived in the Netherlands on Thursday on a special three-day
visa, under strict conditions.
She said Milosevic's "state of mind is superior as always."
"I saw that he looks beautiful. He looked beautiful when he was here (in
a Belgrade prison), but he was sick, and now he is still beautiful and
less sick," Markovic said.
Markovic, who saw her husband three times during her stay in The Hague,
said he was "in better health than while he was in central prison in
Belgrade."
The prison conditions in the Netherlands "are more urban and more
civilized than in Belgrade", where Milosevic was jailed for two months
on domestic charges of abuse of power and financial misdealings.
But she noted that "lights are on round the clock" where Milosevic has
been detained during the "isolation period," insisting this was "a type
of pressure on him."
"We saw each other through a glass every day ... and we spoke through a
microphone. Mine was broken and he could not hear me, while I could hear
him well," she said.
Markovic said she would again ask for a visa to again visit her husband,
insisting she would not "make an issue over a rigid attitude" towards
herself and her family.
Milosevic's immediate family is banned from travelling to EU countries
under a sanctions regime targeting the allies of the former president.
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
