OXFORD, England (CNS): Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic could be ‘turned into a martyr’ if tried for genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal, said the head of Serbia’s Jesuit community.
Jesuit Father Lorant Kilbertus, who has headed the Yugoslav republic of Serbia’s small Jesuit community since 1991, told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview from Yugoslavia, ‘It’s in people’s mentality here to create as many martyrs as possible’.
‘When Milosevic appeared before the tribunal, he spoke very clearly, without exaggerated emotions, as someone 100 per cent certain of his own rightness. This has inspired people to rally around him again,’ Fr Kilbertus said.
The priest spoke as preparations continued in The Hague, Netherlands, for Milosevic’s trial for inciting the mass murder of Albanians in Kosovo.
Meanwhile, a Croatian bishop has warned against viewing the extradition of two generals to the tribunal as proof of ‘moral equivalence’ between the region’s former warring nations.
