Milosevic's wife complains at jail visiting conditions
( 2001-08-26 12:06 ) (7 )

The wife of former Yugoslav president and "war crimes" indictee Slobodan Milosevic criticised the way she was treated when visiting the hardliner in his cell in The Hague, in an interview with Dutch television on Saturday.

"It was very traumatic. The possibilities for contact were very limited," she said in the interview with Dutch NOS television, adding that her first visit to the jail of the UN war crimes tribunal last month was "too short."

Mira Markovic has complained before that she was only allowed to speak to her husband separated by glass and speaking through telephones when visiting him at his detention cell at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

She told the television station that her second visit early this week was better, but there were still "many restrictions." She also complained that the light in Milosevic's cell "is on 24 hours a day, even when he sleeps."

The former Yugoslav leader is currently jailed in The Hague awaiting trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Belgrade's clampdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1998-99.

Markovic also criticised the charges against her husband, saying "no Serbs committed crimes in Kosovo."

"If individual soldiers and police men have committed crimes you shouldn't punish their superiors and least of all the head of state," she told NOS television.

Markovic's comments come two days after her husband lashed out at the war crimes charges against him from his cell in The Hague.

In an illicit telephone interview with US Fox news on Thursday, Milosevic, criticised the charges saying that he had never directed his troops to kill civilians in Kosovo.

Extrajudicial killings had occurred, but the perpetrators had been punished, he continued.

Under ICTY rules, inmates are not allowed to speak to the media, prompting court spokesman Jim Landale to call the interview "a regrettable incident" adding that Milosevic was warned that his privileges could be revoked or restricted.

Milosevic told tribunal officials he was unaware that he was speaking to the press and promised not to do it again, Landale said.

Milosevic was transferred to the UN jail on June 28.