NP Ramsey Clark: Milosevic To Defend Himself With Legal Help

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Ramsey Clark: Milosevic To Defend Himself With Legal Help 

THE HAGUE, August 2, 2001 (Reuters) - 

Slobodan Milosevic will mount his own ''very powerful defense'' against war 
crimes charges in The Hague but wants lawyers to assist him in court, former 
U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark said on Wednesday. 

``He is a person who is used to speaking for himself and he will speak for 
himself, but he wants to have the assistance of counsel, Clark said after 
visiting the detained former Yugoslav president for a third consecutive day 
in The Hague. 

Milosevic, in a show of contempt for a court he has branded an ``illegal 
instrument of his NATO enemies, made his first appearance in court last month 
alone after opting not to appoint a defense lawyer. 

Milosevic's unorthodox wish to have lawyers assisting him both in court and 
in the U.N. detention unit while declining to follow the standard practice of 
granting power of attorney has proved a headache for tribunal officials. 

``There is no precedence for this. Any proposals like that would have to be 
looked at by the judges and the court registry, U.N. tribunal spokesman Jim 
Landale said. 

If he indeed represents himself during the trial, expected to start next 
year, he would be the first defendant at The Hague tribunal to do so. Legal 
experts have suggested such a strategy would be foolish. 

But lawyers supporting Milosevic, including Clark, have said he wants to seek 
expert legal advice without actually granting power of attorney. 

``He will not be represented...He will have the advice of counsel on a whole 
range of things...He is going to mount a very powerful defense, said Clark, a 
member of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic. 

Milosevic, accused of atrocities in Kosovo in 1999, was whisked out of Serbia 
in late June to face war crimes charges at the U.N. International Criminal 
Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. 

Milosevic is being held in isolation from The Hague's other 39 detainees. The 
U.N. court said the former leader wanted to be kept apart from other 
detainees, but Clark said Milosevic did want to mix with other detainees. 

Clark, 73, a campaigner for causes often at odds with U.S. authorities, 
served as attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson in the late 1960s. 
He condemned the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the conflict over 
Kosovo.
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