MOSCOW. Aug 31 (Interfax-AVN) - Vice president of the Geopolitical Sciences Academy Leonid Ivashov will speak in defense of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
"I am ready to deliver the truth about the events in Yugoslavia and around it to the Hague court. I will defend the Yugoslav party, including its leaders, as victims of provocation and aggression," Ivashov told Interfax-Military News Agency on Tuesday.
Milosevic invited Ivashov, who earlier headed the Russian Defense Ministry's international cooperation directorate, to speak in his defense at the ICTY.
Ivashov said that he obtained his foreign passport on Tuesday for the first time since his retirement from the Armed Forces in 2002. "Before that, the military leadership as represented by former Armed Forces chief-of-staff Anatoly Kvashnin would not sanction my foreign trips. Now all the obstacles have been removed, and I am ready to arrive in The Hague," he stressed.
Among the witnesses Milosevic is planning to invite in his defense are the former prime ministers of Greece, Yugoslavia and Russia, these being Constantinos Mitsotakis, Momir Bulatovic and Yevgeny Primakov.
In addition, the list of witnesses in Milosevic's defense includes several foreign generals and secret service agents, such as retired French general Pierre-Marie Gallois, German Admiral Elmar Schmaehling, and former chief of France's secret police Yves Bonnet. The list was made public by Milosevic's legal adviser Zdenko Tomanovic on Tuesday.
The former Yugoslav president started delivering a speech in his defense at the ICTY on Tuesday.
Milosevic's trial at the ICTY has resumed after several postponements in June and July due to the defendant's health problems.
The ICTY charged Milosevic with war crimes and crimes against humanity during conflicts on the territory of the former Yugoslavia and during the ethnic conflict in the Serb province of Kosovo.