Sick Slobo's Trial Delayed

Slobodan Milosevic's legal adviser said Wednesday that the former Yugoslav president's influenza is getting worse, meaning it was unlikely his trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal would continue this week.

"His health is getting worse. He can hardly talk," said lawyer Dragoljub Ognjanovic.

The proceedings at the court in The Hague, Netherlands, were delayed Monday after Milosevic caught the flu. He was seen by a doctor, and the tribunal's press office said a follow-up appointment would take place Wednesday.

The court was initially to reconvene Thursday, unless Milosevic was still ill.

Ognjanovic, in Belgrade after spending the past two weeks at The Hague following the trial, said he spoke on the phone with Milosevic who told him that he was still "feeling unwell, with a high fever."

Ognjanovic also backed a demand by a team of Milosevic's supporters that physicians from Serbia be allowed to travel to the Netherlands to examine the former president in his cell at the seaside Scheveningen detention facility.

At his last appearance in court Friday, Milosevic had complained that the air conditioning system in his cell had broken down, and that the tribunal was "depriving him of fresh air."

Milosevic, on trial for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide during the wars accompanying Yugoslavia's breakup in the 1990s, has refused to appoint an attorney. His trial opened Feb. 12 and is projected to last for two years.

Because he defends himself and cross-examines witnesses on his own, the trial cannot continue without Milosevic present in court.