Mira Markovic, Wife of Slobodan Milosevic HARDtalk

Now on BBC News it's time for HARDtalk.

Slobdan Milosevic is in The Hague, facing the most serious charge

on the planet, genocide.

Here in Belgrade, his wife protests his innocence.

Who does she think was responsible for the thousands of forced

deportations and the mass murders, and does she expect her husband one

day to come home?

Mira Markovic, welcome to the programme.

When you saw your husband recently, in the Hague,

and you celebrated his birthday, did you tell him that everything

was going to be OK in the end?

What did you tell him?

Has he accepted his fate?

Whatever the international criminal court decides it to be,

will he accept it?

But he is going to be tried by the tribunal, isn't he?

Whatever public opinion has to say about it.

But you would accept that the court has been set up with the authority

of the UN Security Council, and your husband accepted that under

the Dayton Agreement, which he signed in 1995.

Why does he now say that the court is illegal?

Mrs Markovic, why is that a lie?

What he actually signed up to, which is in the Dayton Agreement,

is that the parties agreed to co-operate fully with all

entities, including those authorised by the UN Security Council,

in investigating and prosecuting war crimes and other violations

of international humanitarian law.

He signed a document which included that provision.

So why is the court, I ask you, illegal?

I am puzzled by your answers.

I am puzzled by your answers.

I understood that you wanted to do this interview and you wished

to reply to the questions that we, in the name of the BBC,

are putting towards you, am I not right in that understanding?

Can we go back to the time in March, when your husband was arrested.

How worried were you for his safety when he was arrested?

He had a gun with him at the time, were you afraid that he would use

it on himself?

And he's quoted as saying things like, "You will think differently

of me after I'm gone".

There was no danger that he was going to commit suicide?

How much did you influence your husband politically?

Dusan Mitevic said that you were the one with ambition,

you inspired him, he only wanted to be great in your eyes,

is that true?

It's not true at all?

No, but these are friends.

General Stefan Markovic, he said that you write the speeches,

and that your husband memorises and repeats them.

Is that true or not?

Let me ask you about a quote that was attributed

to you in the magazine Globus, saying you were angry

with your husband at the elections - he should have asked

for guarantees of safety.

Slobodan didn't ask for anything, it seems.

Did you say that, were you angry with him that he didn't ask

for guarantees after the election?

This is a quote in Globus magazine, attributed to you.

So you don't recognise any of these statements at all?

Tell me, Mrs Markovic, was your husband under

the impression that he had made a deal with Richard Holbrooke,

he would not be prosecuted by the international tribunal?

And he never shared his impressions of any of these statesmen with you?

Not even when he met Clinton, at the signing of the Dayton

Agreement?

Did he always believe that it was possible to make a deal

with western countries, and avoid the bombing of Yugoslavia?

Not his policy of having a greater Serbia at any cost,

which is what the west says about him?

That is how his policy was seen in the West, wasn't it?

But he started off by supporting Radovan Karadzic

and Ratko Mladic, didn't he?

He supported them and he helped them with funds.

He has admitted to that.

So why did he fall out with Karadzic and Mladic?

Why did he stop supporting them?

Mrs Markovic, what do you say to those people who don't

accept your truth?

Who look at the trail of blood across the Balkans over the last few

years, look at the mass murders, the forced deportations,

the rape, the torture and don't believe you,

what do you say to those people who don't believe you?

The West is responsible for all the bodies, Mrs Markovic -

no, isn't the west responsible?

Mrs Markovic, don't you accept any responsibility?

Mrs Markovic, don't you accept any responsibility?

So the west is responsible for the mass graves,

the the west is responsible for the places of internment

and torture, the west is responsible for the rape,

the west is responsible for the forced deportations of tens

of thousands of people across the Balkans?

People are not going to believe you, Mrs Markovic.

People are not going to believe you.

They have seen the pictures.

They have seen the forced deportations of people,

for the first time since the Second World War.

Didn't those pictures touch you, as a human being?

Did they touch you?

Serbian investigators themselves are talking about the discovery

of more than a thousand bodies shipped to Serbia in refrigerated

trucks, from Kosovo.

These are not bodies that go back a long way.

These are fresh bodies, victims of the war in Kosovo,

whose existence was meant to be covered up.

These are being investigated now, by Serbian investigators.

So why are mass graves turning up in Batajnica,

a suburb of Belgrade, of Petrovo Selo in eastern Serbia?

If this is all manufactured, why are these graves

turning up here now?

Mrs Milosevic, these are vital questions.

Even the President says he is ashamed of some of the things

that Serbs have done.

You don't share his shame?

Your husband...

Mrs Markovic...

Your husband, Mrs Milosevic, faces some of the most serious

charges on the planet, the charges of genocide.

Why are there no members of the United Nations

who are protesting at these charges, no members of the Security Council,

Russia is not protesting, nobody is protesting

that he is held illegally?

Only you and your husband.

Why is that?

The Serbian Prime Minister, Mrs Markovic, says that you too

are under investigation, and it is possible that you may be

arrested at some point.

What would you say to that?

Some people are suggesting that instead of denying everything,

history would look more kindly on your husband if he was to accept

some responsibility for the trail of blood that started

across the Balkans, the trail of blood that left hundreds

of thousands of people without their homes, left people

raped and tortured and murdered, that history would look more kindly,

if he accepted at least some responsibility for that.

What would you say to those people?

You think he'll prove his innocence at the Hague?

Do you not also realise that he is regarded as evil by many,

many people around the world, who blame him for the trail of blood

that led across the Balkans?

Are you not aware of that?

People who have seen the pictures of the forced deportations,

of the mass murders and the rapes.

These people are not going to believe what you say.

Do you believe he will come home from the Hague one day?

Why not?

Thank you very much indeed for being with us on the programme.

No, I'm asking questions that are of interest to the public.

Hello there.

Good morning.

We saw some big contrast across the UK on Sunday.

The southern half of the UK has seen some cloud and some rain.

This is the view from one of our Weather Watchers