Today 23 years ago, The Hague tribunal charges Slobodan Milosevic

Chief prosecutor Louise Arbor said a judge had accepted her request, accusing Milosevic and others of crimes against humanity in the expulsion of more than 700,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, and killing 340 people, mainly young.

The number of 340 civilians identified “of the indictment known to have been killed was much lower than the wider Western assessments. NATO claimed the number of those killed is around 4,500, while US Defence Secretary William S. Cohen, he talked about 100,000 deaths. Arbor said court standards are more difficult to meet than those of politicians.

In the joint indictment, the first in history against a wartime chief of state, were Serbia's president, Milan Milutinovic, Serbian Interior Minister Vlajko Stojiljkovovic, Yugoslavia's deputy prime minister and Milosevic's close deputy, Nikola Shainovic, as well as General Dragoljub Ojdanic, chief of the Yugoslav Army staff.

The Actakuz was accompanied by the order of the judge to have the assets of the five in UN and Swiss member states established.

Milosevic and the others were accused of personal responsibility for the commandment, planning, instigation, execution and assistance, and inciting persecutions, deportations and murders committed in Kosovo.

On 11 March 2006, Milosevic died in his prison cell in The Hague.