Milosevic: End suicide watch

Milosevic: Refuses to accept the war crimes tribunal's legitimacy

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic has called for his suicide watch at The Hague to be removed.

Milosevic says there is no risk he will take his life because he wants to fight the U.N. international war crimes tribunal which he has dubbed a "farce" and "illegal."

"I would never commit suicide because I must struggle here to topple this tribunal and this farce of a trial and the masterminds using it against the people who are fighting for freedom in the world," he said during his fourth pre-trial appearance.

A date had earlier been set for Milosevic to be tried on allegations of atrocities committed in Kosovo in 1999.

But the trial may be put back if the U.N.'s chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte manages to lump together all the charges covering the three Balkan wars -- Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia.

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Del Ponte is keen to get the trials under way, but would like to tackle all three at the same time. She told the three-judge panel: "In respect of Kosovo, we are ready for trial."

She said she would need 170 days to present her case against Milosevic on five counts of murder and persecution in Kosovo in 1999, and about the same to prosecute 32 counts of war crimes in Croatia beginning in 1991. If all three indictments are tried separately, Milosevic could be in court for three years.

But del Ponte, who wants to present an indictment for alleged crimes in Bosnia next week, including the most serious crime of genocide, will request that the three trials be combined to save time.

The judge set a tentative date of February 12, 2002, on which to start the Kosovo trial, but that would be delayed by several months if the trials are held simultaneously.

Milosevic, in court to hear the proceedings, continued in his defiance shouting that it was a farce. He added that the court incited "terrorism" against Serbs.

The 60-year-old former president said: "Please go and read out the judgments you are instructed to read and don't make me listen for hours on end to texts which are at the intellectual level of a seven-year-old child.

"Or rather let me correct myself -- a retarded seven-year-old child."

Bouts of depression

Milosevic is hearing new charges related to alleged atrocities committed in Croatia as well as amended charges covering Kosovo. He has vowed to fight the tribunal despite calling it "illegal."

He has been held -- mainly under suicide watch -- in a detention cell since June.

Milosevic, both of whose parents killed themselves, threatened to shoot himself in April rather than be imprisoned on domestic corruption charges.

He has been treated for high blood pressure and is reported to have suffered bouts of depression.

"Apparently they are monitoring me so that I should not commit suicide. I would never commit suicide. I do not wish to do that to my family and my children," Milosevic said.

He continued to be unco-operative during his court appearances at The Hague, insisting it was an illegitimate, institution peddling fabricated accusations.

Milosevic refused to enter a plea to charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Croatia and Kosovo, forcing judges to enter "not guilty" pleas on his behalf.

CNN's Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour said Milosevic showed the "same kind of defiance as in his previous two appearances."