The UN war crimes tribunal has formally indicted former Yugoslav president Mr Slobodan Milosevic for atrocities committed during the 1991-1995 war in Croatia, a prosecution spokeswoman said today.
Th indictment charges him with war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the war. It says Mr Milosevic participated in a "joint criminal enterprise" from August 1991 until at least June 1992.
The purpose of the enterprise was "the forcible removal majority of the Croat and other non-Serb population from the approximately one-third of the territory of the republic of Croatia that he planned to become part of a new Serb-dominated state".
Mr Milosevic, in custody in The Hague since June, is already on trial charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in 1999 in Kosovo, the majority ethnic Albanian province in Serbia.
Ms Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), is also working on a third indictment for genocide, the most serious war crime, alleged to have been committed during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia.
There are 10 charges of crimes against humanity against the former president, including persecution on political, racial or religious grounds; extermination; murder; imprisonment; torture; deportation and inhumane acts.
He is also charged with violations of the laws and customs of war and violations of the 1949 Geneva convention on the treatment of civilians during war.
The prosecution plans to file a motion to link the different indictments and have one big trial for the Milosevic case. Proceedings on the Kosovo indictment are due to start sometime next year.
AFP