Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic won back the right to lead his own trial defence after appeals judges ruled his central role in the trial should be restored as long as he remains healthy.
Appeals judges in the UN court of human rights in The Hague ruled that although two court-assigned defence lawyers would remain involved in the case, Mr Milosevic would be given far greater scope to run his defence by choosing which witnesses to call and questioning them first in court.
"In practice, if all goes well, the trial should continue much as it did when Milosevic was healthy. To a lay observer, who will see Milosevic playing the principal courtroom role at the hearings, the difference may well be imperceptible," the appeals judges said in their nine-page ruling.
"When he is physically capable of doing so, Milosevic will take the lead in presenting his case," they said, but added that "myriad health-related difficulties" could arise in the future.
The restoration of Mr Milosevic to a more central role in the trial, which has been repeatedly delayed by his ill health and disrupted by defence witnesses refusing to testify, has been one of his central demands since the defence opened in August.
Mr Milosevic (63), vigorously rejected a decision by judges in September to appoint two British lawyers to manage his defence to avoid trial delays due to his ill health, sparking an appeal that resulted in today's ruling.
He conducted his own defence for the first 30 months of his trial. Judges appointed the two lawyers to represent him because of a heart condition and high blood pressure.
Mr Milosevic is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s in what is regarded as Europe's most significant war crimes trial since top Nazis were tried at Nuremberg after World War Two.
Dozens of defence witnesses have said they would not testify unless the tribunal dropped the court-imposed lawyers and allowed the former Serb strongman to resume running his own defence case, which opened at the end of August.