“The trial of Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes in Kosovo is on the verge of collapse because former aides have refused to testify against him,” Vesna Peric Zimonjic reports for The Independent. “The case hinges on evidence collected by Western intelligence officers rather than the UN’s own investigators, and some of the 90 witnesses who provided testimony against the former Yugoslav president have died.”

Three weeks before it is due to open, Europe’s most important war crimes trial since Nuremberg is reported to be in such disarray that prosecutors travelled to Belgrade earlier this week to try to shore up the case. But despite visiting several of Mr Milosevic’s allies in their jail cells and homes, the team led by the British barrister Geoffrey Nice came away empty-handed, according to sources in Belgrade.

[…]Mr Milosevic is accused of the murder of 900 Kosovo Albanians and the forced eviction of 800,000 civilians from their homes in 1999.

[…]The UN tribunal was adamant yesterday that it was “ready” to try Mr Milosevic for crimes against humanity in Kosovo. But Florence Hartmann, a spokeswoman for the UN chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, said the court may decide next week to postpone the case, which is due to begin on 12 February.

…And there are folks in this country who still think a U.N.-spearheaded criminal prosecution is the way to handle Bin Laden and his jihad-happy cronies… Tsk. Tsk.

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