'Make or break' for Milosevic trial as key witnesses prepare to testify

Evidence from three key witnesses scheduled to appear before the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague this week, could make or break the prosecution case against the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.

Zoran Lilic, Mr Milosevic's predecessor as Yugoslav President until 1997, Rade Markovic, the former head of the Serbian secret service, and Dragan Karleusa, a senior figure in the Serb police force, are already in the Netherlands to attend the trial. Mr Lilic and Mr Markovic are expected to give evidence about how Kosovo was run under Mr Milosevic. The testimonies of all three could provide the chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, with the evidence she needs to convince the court that Mr Milosevic was aware of war crimes committed in Kosovo.

Their statements could also show that he had control over those responsible for repression in the province and did nothing to prevent or punish war crimes.

Mr Lilic was was considered to be a puppet president and is thought know much about the chain of command and decision-making processes Mr Milosevic initiated.

The prosecution expects Mr Lilic to provide the trial with crucial evidence on the wars in Croatia and Bosnia as well as the campaign of repression against Kosovo.

Rade Markovic is believed to have direct knowledge of how Serbian security forces, including paramilitary units, operated in Kosovo.

Mr Markovic was transferred from detention in Belgrade last week to a unit in The Hague. He is being tried in Serbia for attempting to murder an opposition politician in 1999.

Dragan Karleusa never had contacts with Mr Milosevic and has said he will not testify against the former president. But he investigated the dark secrets of the Serbian police after Mr Milosevic's fall from power in 2000. He is expected to testify about an investigation he led into the freezer trucks that transported bodies of massacred ethnic Albanians from Kosovo into Serbia in 1999.

The order for the removal of bodies from Kosovo was given at a meeting in Mr Milosevic's office in March 1999, when air raids against Serbia began.