The Journalist and the Dictator

Jacky Rowland, who reported for the BBC from Belgrade for several years, did not see Slobodan Milosevic in the flesh until this week, when she testified against him at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Hague. It was an intriguing encounter that she writes about in today’s Guardian. Amusingly, when Rowland visited, before her court appearance, the prosecutor of the case, Geoffrey Nice, she noticed a comedy show on his television, and when she asked what to expect from Milosevic’s cross-examination, Nice told her not to worry. “Oh, old Grumpy Paws will probably want to ask you a few questions,” he said.

Old Grumpy Paws?

Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.