A judge urged former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to inject more focus into his war crimes trial defence today, comparing his questioning of a witness to "a conversation over a cup of tea on a veranda".
Presiding judge Patrick Robinson called on Milosevic - who is conducting his own defence - to ensure evidence went beyond generalities to the heart of the case as his trial resumed at the UN war crime tribunal in The Hague after a 3-week break.
"Much of it comes across like a conversation over a cup of tea on a veranda and I don't find it very helpful," the judge said after Milosevic questioned a French aid worker and nurse about her work in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s.
With the trial entering its fourth year, the clock is ticking for Milosevic to wrap up his defence by the end of 2005 in Europe's most significant war crimes trial since top Nazis were tried at Nuremberg after World War Two.
"The media did not see anything of the suffering endured by the Serbs. It was absolute silence," witness Ms Eve Crepin told the court when asked by Milosevic about Western media reports about the Balkan wars.
"We're not particularly concerned with general impressions and so I'd like you to try to focus the witness, if it is possible, on something which is beyond general impressions," Mr Robinson said in a webcast of the proceedings.
Milosevic, charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, has so far called 15 witnesses, including former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and former Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov.