Press urges fair trial for Milosevic

LONDON, England -- European newspapers have urged the West to ensure the trial of suspected war criminal Slobodan Milosevic is fair.

Milosevic faces four charges of crimes against humanity before the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague.

A plea of not guilty was entered to him after he refused to plead at his first court appearance on Tuesday.

Some media said the West's own past deeds could also highlighted during the trial as events during Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo are examined.

GALLERY Slobodan Milosevic appears in court

The charges relate to actions carried out by the Yugoslav Army in Kosovo before NATO's 1999 air campaign, including murder, deportation and persecution of people on political, racial and ethnic grounds.

The press pointed out that for years Western leaders negotiated with Milosevic and still deal politely with politicians involved in other conflicts.

"A trial that is seen as 'victor's justice' serves neither the case of humanity nor that of political catharsis for Serbia," wrote The Times of London.

The paper said the victors would determine the framework of the proceedings at the U.N. war crimes tribunal, as the allies did at Nuremberg after World War II.

"But the validity of these hearings depends, crucially, on the court allowing Mr. Milosevic the representation, transparency and opportunity to challenge the evidence which he and the Nuremberg defendants denied their victims," the Times said.

Britain's Daily Mail, in a commentary entitled "The West on trial," said that having spent millions bringing Milosevic to court, the West must not fail now.

"The tribunal is as much on trial as Milosevic himself ... The chorus of self-congratulation which greeted the news of his extradition last week will ring hollow indeed if, at the end of it all, justice is not seen to be done," it commented.

Milosevic will appear in court again in August but a trial is not expected before next year.

Vecer newspaper in Slovenia, the republic that escaped most easily from former Yugoslavia 10 years ago, said that instead of keeping defiantly silent, Milosevic should use his grandstand to show how Western leaders went along with him for so long.

"He will waste probably his last chance for sharing at least part of the responsibility with those who assisted his fatal policy, either by doing nothing or with their unreadiness to intervene when necessary," its editorial said.

"There is no cause for smug words about a victory of justice," wrote Germany's Berliner Zeitung.

"It will quickly be shown that the trial against Milosevic will not only confront the Serbs with their recent past, but also show that politicians in the West have to face their responsibility ... They will have to answer many questions."

Britain's Independent said the proceedings sent a clear message to the world's despots that "a crime is a crime, whoever it is committed by."

Both French and Greek newspapers questioned why the West still dealt lightly with other leaders.

"The sight of (Milosevic in court) should prompt European authorities to show more decency and firmness in their relations with regimes which, like that of (Russian President) Vladimir Putin in Chechnya, use barbaric methods against civilians," wrote a Le Monde columnist.

The Paris newspaper's front-page cartoon showed a blood-drenched Milosevic wearing a butcher's apron, carrying a cleaver and saying "not guilty."

Newspapers in Russia, whose leaders backed Milosevic after the West turned against him, gave scant coverage to the trial.

Izvestia said the exchanges between Milosevic and court chairman Richard May sounded like a "dialogue of the deaf."