MILOSEVIC TRIAL: Criticising the judicial approach at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic currently taking place in The Hague, a Dutch historian told a conference at Trinity College Dublin there was "no concrete evidence" linking the former Yugoslav president with the July 1995 massacre at Srebrenica in which an estimated 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed.

Prof Bob de Graaff, who co-authored a report on Srebrenica which brought down the Dutch government in 2002, was addressing a conference on crimes against humanitarian law.

Analysing the role of Mr Milosevic in the events leading up to Srebrenica, Prof de Graaff, who is attached to the University of Utrecht, compared the former leader to "the sorcerer's apprentice who had started a process that he could not stop".

Mr Milosevic, he argued, had no "de jure" control over the Bosnian Serb forces which carried out the massacre.

He was familiar with their intent, but the professor questioned whether he shared it.