The former Yugoslav president, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, has launched an attempt at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to secure his release from the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Mr Milosevic, held by the UN tribunal since June on charges of spearheading Serb "ethnic cleansing" in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, said his detention violated the European Convention on Human Rights, the Strasbourg court said yesterday.
"His complaints are directed against his arrest and detention and the proceedings currently conducted against him in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia," the human rights court said.
Mr Milosevic (60) was seeking to secure his freedom and financial damages in the legal action against the Netherlands, which hosts the UN tribunal, his Dutch lawyer, Mr Nico Steijnen, said. Mr Miloseivc was being wrongfully deprived of his liberty, freedom of expression and discriminated against, Mr Steijnen said. "The (UN) court itself is a discriminatory court," he said.
Last August a Dutch court threw out a challenge by Mr Milosevic against his detention by the tribunal - established by a Security Council resolution in 1993. "The plaintiff claimed the tribunal was not independent and impartial . . . but the European Court of Human Rights already ruled that the court provides all protection of the rights of suspects, including impartiality and independence," the Dutch court said.
Mr Milosevic has dismissed the war crimes charges against him as "monstrous", branded his hand-over by Belgrade reformers to the tribunal as "kidnapping" and accused the UN tribunal of persecuting him.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has to decide first if it can accept the complaint. If accepted, the court would rule later on the merits of the case.
Mr Milosevic, who was defeated by reformists in elections last year after 13 years in power, has refused to enter pleas to charges of genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war and crimes against humanity in Croatia in 1991-92 and Kosovo in 1999.
He is set to be tried first on charges of responsibility for murder and mass deportation of Kosovo Albanians during a Serb crackdown in 1999. The trial is to begin in February. It is due to be followed by a second trial on Croatia and Bosnia.