THE HAGUE: Mercenaries directed by Bosnia's Muslim leaders and French spies orchestrated the "insane" 1995 Srebrenica massacre in a plot to bring world wrath on the Serbs, Mr Slobodan Milosevic claimed yesterday.
The former Serbian president is on trial for genocide and one count relates to Srebrenica, Europe's worst atrocity since the second World War in which up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed after Serb forces overran the UN "safe area" in Bosnia.
In opening arguments of his landmark war crimes trial, Mr Milosevic claimed Serb authorities were simply scapegoats and not to blame.
"I want the truth to be revealed for this insane crime - in the interest of justice it has to be explained before the world public," declared Mr Milosevic, who became Yugoslav president in 1997 after seven years as Serbian leader. "As a pretext for military engagement, genocide carried out by Serbs will be made up by making it appear a genocide was carried out, an anathema will be placed on the heads of Serbs and measures will be carried out," was how Mr Milosevic summarised the thinking behind Srebrenica.
Mr Milosevic, accused of genocide in Bosnia and crimes against humanity in Croatia in a scheme to create an ethnically pure Greater Serbia, said Bosnian Muslim government members colluded on Srebrenica with a mercenary unit he said was within the Bosnian Serb army but answered to French intelligence services. "They agreed to have this crime committed - to abandon Srebrenica and to carry out this slaughter." - (Reuters)