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Image header Agence Europe
Europe Daily Bulletin No. 7997
Contents Publication in full By article 23 / 53
GENERAL NEWS / (eu) ep/session

Start of plenary session

Strasbourg, 02/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The opening of the European Parliament's plenary session was disrupted by the Greek Communist MEP Efstratios Korakas (KKE) who slammed the "kidnapping" of Mr Milosevic to make him stand trial in what he described as a "political tribunal" set up under the pressure of the United States. He said that this type of practice could not be accepted since it did not respect the sovereignty of another country. The French President of the Unified Left group, Francis Wurtz said he was "astonished" that a member of his group could defend Mr Milosevic in this way, even though it was a country which did not subscribe to the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal (the United States) that had applied the strongest pressure for Mr Milosevic to be handed over to the Tribunal in The Hague. Mr Wurtz won loud applause for saying that his group had always defended the European Parliament's efforts to defend political prisoners and stressed that people who had been supported by the EP when they were unjustly imprisoned included Nelson Mandela and, nowadays, Leyla Zana. He added that the values they had fought for are the exact opposite of the aims pursued by the former Belgrade strong man.

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