Milosevic clashes with BBC journalist

Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, clashed with a TV reporter yesterday over claims that Serb forces in Kosovo perpetrated a massacre at a prison.

The decision of Jacky Rowland, the BBC's former Belgrade correspondent, to testify against Mr Milosevic at his war crime trial has provoked a vigorous debate over whether journalists' lives will be more at risk in war zones if they are regarded as potential witnesses.

Ms Rowland's evidence appeared to back claims that Serb prison guards had used a Nato bombing raid as cover for the massacre of 153 ethnic Albanians. She told of two visits to Dubrava Prison in May 1999, where she saw corpses which, she was told, were victims of the Nato air raids. "I have strong doubts that all those prisoners were killed as a direct result of the Nato bombing," Ms Rowland told the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Ms Rowland said she spoke to people from all walks of life for her work and conducted "balanced, impartial, fair reporting", stressing the BBC's objectivity and impartiality. Mr Milosevic retorted: "A Serbian proverb says 'One swallow does not make a spring', so please do not generalise regarding this one objective report about the reporting of the BBC in general."