Hello you're listening to the witness podcast with me Louise Adago.

History is told by the people who were there.

Today I'm taking you back to February 2002 and the start of the largest war crimes trial in

history of the former Serbian

president Slobadan Miloshevich. He said accused of war crimes during the

conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. The prosecution case alone took two years and Mr Milosovich would die in custody before the trial in the Hague was over.

I've been talking to two lawyers, one Serbian, one British, who helped the man some called the Butcher of the Balkans to defend himself.

Good morning, your honors. Case number IT 0-54T, the prosecutor versus Slobodan Milosevich.

He did not confront his victims.

He was able to view what was happening from the distance of high political office.

And if the prosecution's case is right, he had these crimes committed for him.

I consider this tribunal, tribunal an indictments false

indictments it is illegal being not appointed by UN General Assembly

so I have no need to appoint counsel to illegal organ.

At the start there were no relations between us at all, to have acknowledged us, in his mind, would have acknowledged

the legitimacy of the proceedings, which was a strategy he wanted to avoid at all cost. Though he wouldn't accept it, the court insisted Meloshevich have a lawyer to help defend himself.

The man it chose was Stephen KQC, a British criminal lawyer who defended the first person from the former Yugoslavia to stand trial at the Hague

and a Rwandan factory boss accused of genocide.

I had sworn I would never do another international case again having done the other two cases, particularly the Rwanda case.

But this tempted me out of retirement.

Just Kosovo was the biggest case in modern times in the world.

We're talking about a NATO conflict with all the political background to that.

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