Tough search for a paper trail leading to the man who never signed anything

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Milosevic refuses to enter plea as Hague trial opens

Even as prosecutors at the United Nations war crimes tribunal savour their moment of victory over Slobodan Milosevic today, the hard work remains; proving their case against him. The man who presided over a decade of wars and ethnic cleansing was a master of hiding his fingerprints. The bodies of Albanians murdered in Kosovo only now emerging from mass graves near Belgrade, are evidence of that. They were taken from Kosovo and hidden here on Mr Milosevic's personal orders.

But the former Yugoslav president will face no indictment for the massacres of the Bosnian and Croatian wars at today's hearing. The tribunal says it is considering a later indictment for crimes in those wars. The reason for the delay can only be the search for evidence. The former President is charged with the murder of only around 600 named Albanians in Kosovo, not the 10,000 who died, show the tribunal's own figures.

No one doubts that Mr Milosevic whipped up the nationalist storm that tore the former Yugoslavia apart, nor that he was behind the brutal crackdown in Kosovo. But for The Hague tribunal to have any kind of legitimacy, its prosecutors must prove his direct responsibility to the exacting standards of a law court. The US and European countries are reported to have made $1.28bn of aid promised to Yugoslavia at a donors' conference last week conditional on the handover of government files. The Serbian and Yugoslav Justice Ministers Vladan Batic and Momcilo Grubac went to The Hague earlier this year and handed over whatever was at their disposal.

Like Adolf Hitler, Mr Milosevic seldom signed anything. He preferred to issue his orders by word of mouth, face to face. Crucial documents may have been destroyed – and not only government files. Evidence painstakingly assembled by human rights activists over years went up in smoke when the Nato air strikes began in 1999. One activist says she was so scared of Mr Milsoevic's security forces that she burnt everything incriminating she had.

Mr Milosevic's lawyers say he will claim he played no part in the war in Bosnia after it was recognized as an independent country in 1991. Here, though, Mr Milosevic has provided the prosecutors with rare, autographed evidence. In his appeal against his arrest in Serbia earlier this year, he admitted he used state funds to fund Serb war efforts in Bosnia and the Croatian region of the Krajina.

In Kosovo, prosecutors can point to his ultimate responsibility as head of state. But during the Bosnian and Croatian, Mr Milosevic held no formal federal post, but was President only of the Serbian republic and had no official responsibility for the army, though in practice his word was law at every level.

Some evidence may come from Western intelligence services and their covert monitoring of telephone calls and the like. But the best sources will probably be witnesses who can testify that Mr Milosevic ordered war crimes.

Already, Belgrade is buzzing with rumours that Milan Milutonovic, another indictee, wants to strike a deal with the tribunal in return for testifying against his old boss.