Milosevic's accuser unmasked in court Â

Judges at the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic took the unprecedented step yesterday of revealing the identity of an important witness testifying against the former Yugoslav president.

The witness, a former rebel Croatian Serb leader, Milan Babic, was a central figure in the breakaway Krajina Serb republic (RSK) in the Nineties as the collapse of the former Yugoslavia spurred Serb nationalists to fight for territory in Croatia and Bosnia.

Mr Babic, who testified until yesterday behind a screen, is one of the most high-profile witnesses so far at Europe's biggest international war crimes trial since the Second World War. "This morning the presiding judge said henceforth the witness will be addressed by his full name and that protective measures have been lifted," a spokesman for the tribunal said.

Mr Babic's lawyer told the court his client had wanted to reveal his identity to openly counter allegations made by Mr Milosevic and aid reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia.

He said that, as a result of media reports in the Balkans, his identity was already widely known. Mr Babic's family had been threatened and he had sought the tribunal's continued protection for them, he said. Mr Babic, a burly dentist whose posts in the RSK included that of "foreign minister" before the enclave was recaptured in 1995, has been testifying at Mr Milosevic's trial since last month.

He was named by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as a suspected member of a "joint criminal enterprise" led by Mr Milosevic, although he has not been formally indicted by the court.

Mr Babic crossed swords yesterday with Mr Milosevic during cross-examination. His image had previously been scrambled on closed-circuit television monitors. Mr Milosevic has been on trial since February in The Hague, charged with ethnic cleansing in the Balkans in the Nineties.