Milosevic 'savagery' on trial as thousands alleged killed

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Slobodan Milosevic orchestrated the murders of thousands of people in a campaign of "savagery" with the sole goal of satisfying his all-consuming thirst for power, a prosecutor said Tuesday, opening the former Yugoslav president's trial for war crimes.

Milosevic, the first head of state to face an international tribunal, listened impassively, occasionally jotting notes, as United Nations attorneys sketched a complex case spanning nearly a decade of horror in three Balkan countries.

The prosecution gave a first glimpse of a litany of agony -- rape, torture, looting, expulsion and almost gleeful killing -- that survivors will recount during a trial expected to last two years.

The trial is the biggest war crimes case since Hitler's henchmen were brought before a military tribunal after World War II.

Milosevic, 60, faces a total of 66 counts of genocide and other war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo that killed thousands of people and displaced more than a million others. Each count carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Baby's screams

In one massacre in Bosnia, said prosecutor Geoffrey Nice, Serb forces promised safety to 45 family members in a Red Cross vehicle, and instead locked them in a house and set it ablaze. "They were burnt alive, and the baby's screams were heard for two hours before it, too, succumbed," he said.

Milosevic is expected to give a spirited response Wednesday to the prosecution's six-hour statement. He has refused to recognize the tribunal or appoint a lawyer, and has launched separate proceedings to fight his detention.

Millions of people across the Balkans watched the opening day on television. For some, like Munira Subasic, 63, in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, a trial in the immaculate confines of the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands fell short of expectations. "The Hague is too good for him," said Subasic, who lost her only son, her husband and several other relatives in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Opening a case that took years to prepare, chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Milosevic was consumed by his thirst for power.

"An excellent tactician, a mediocre strategist, Milosevic did nothing but pursue his ambition at the cost of unspeakable suffering inflicted on those who opposed him or represented a threat for his personal strategy of power," she told the three robed judges.

All his actions were "in the service of his quest for power," the Swiss prosecutor said, speaking a combination of French and English. Now and then Milosevic glanced and nodded at supporters among the packed public gallery behind a wall of bulletproof glass.

Loudspeaker

In previous court appearances, he refused to wear headphones providing him with the translation of proceedings into his native Serbian language. On Tuesday, a loudspeaker set up in front of his desk gave him no choice but to listen.

Milosevic's actions introduced the phrase "ethnic cleansing" into common use. "Some of the incidents reveal an almost medieval savagery and a calculated cruelty that went far beyond the bounds of legitimate warfare," she said in a 30-minute opening statement.