Former Yugoslav president Mr Slobodan Milosevic defied the UN war crimes tribunal this afternoon.
He refused to answer to charges of genocide for atrocities in the Bosnian war and dismissing the indictment as outrageous.
"This tragic text is a supreme absurdity," Mr Milosevic said after presiding judge Richard May asked him to enter a plea to charges read out in court.
|
|
Mr Slobodan Milosevic
|
"I should be credited with peace in Bosnia, not for war," he said.
"The responsibility for the war in Bosnia is with the forces that broke up Yugoslavia and their agents in Yugoslavia, not with the Serbs."
Judge May entered a plea of not guilty on all counts in the indictment on behalf of Mr Milosevic, the first former head of state to be charged with genocide - the most serious of war crimes - by an international tribunal.
The indictment charges Milosevic with 29 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Bosnia during the 1992-1995 war, including genocide for his part in the Srebrenica massacre and the three-year siege of Sarajevo.
The indictment holds Milosevic responsible for the killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the war that left 200,000 dead and one million refugees.
Milosevic also refused to enter pleas on the other two indictments against him - for his role in the 1991-95 Croatian war and the conflict in the Serbian province of Kosovo in 1998-99. The court entered pleas of not guilty on his behalf.
The indictment for Bosnia cites Milosevic in connection with the siege of Sarajevo, the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, and the shelling of civilians in Sarajevo among other atrocities.
AFP