By
The Associated Press
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - A Belgrade court found President Clinton and other world leaders guilty of war crimes and sentenced them - in absentia - to 20 years in prison for NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.
The four-day trial was held in an attempt to resurrect anti-NATO sentiment here and win votes for President Slobodan Milosevic ahead of Sunday's elections.
Belgrade's district court pronounced Clinton and 13 other leaders and NATO officials "guilty as charged" and ordered warrants be issued immediately for their arrest.
Court-appointed lawyers were hired to represent the defendants. As each 20-year sentence was read out separately, the crowd behind a row of 14 empty chairs bearing nameplates of the accused, stood and applauded.
"The accused were fully conscious of their actions, they perpetrated the socially most dangerous acts," presiding judge Veroljub Raketic told some 100 spectators and media present at the sentencing.
Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, as well as NATO former Secretary-general Javier Solana and retired commander Gen. Wesley Clark, were all accused last month of war crimes connected with the 78-day 1999 bombing campaign.
"The accused had been notified and summoned to this trial through their attorneys but they have ignored this court, either because they were afraid of it or they were fully aware of their guilt," Raketic concluded.
The Belgrade judge also ordered the defendants to pay the cost of the trial and pronounced NATO guilty of the deaths of 546 Yugoslav army soldiers, 138 Serbian policemen and 504 civilians - 88 of them children.
Yugoslavia suffered heavily in the bombing, launched last year to halt Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Milosevic has campaigned on a mixture of anti-NATO slogans and self-awarded kudos for leading the country's "heroic reconstruction" after the bombing, apparently in the hope this will translate into votes on Sunday.
The Belgrade prosecutor said there is no expiration date for the crimes, and should any of the guilty parties come to Yugoslavia at any time in the future, they would be arrested on the spot.
The charges, listed in a 120-page indictment, included "inciting an aggressive war and committing war crimes against a civilian population," as well as use of illegal means of warfare, attempted murder and "violation of the territorial integrity" of Yugoslavia.
During the trial, footage of the NATO bombing was shown, but no witnesses testified, since the list of plaintiffs included "all citizens of Yugoslavia and no courtroom was big enough to hold all witnesses," Raketic said.
