Slobodan Milosevic has rejected evidence at his war crimes trial in The Hague that the systematic killing by Serb forces in Kosovo in 1999 led to a mass exodus of ethnic Albanians from the province.

Milosevic maintains that they left because of NATO’s bombing campaign.

But new analysis provided by US statistician Patrick Ball shows that Albanians were forced to flee the war-torn province due to a Serb crackdown and not because of NATO bombing.

Called to testify by the the prosecutorial team led by chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte, Ball referred to technical charts during his testimony and testified that "the evidence we have found is consistent with the Yugoslav forces as the cause of the observed patterns."

Milosevic, defending himself despite offers by the court to provide an attorney, vigorously cross-examined the statistician.

"Do you think it is a considerable simplification or one-sided approach to boil it down to a statistical representation related to Kosovo Albanian refugees?" the former Serb leader said.

Questioning Ball’s independence in compiling data, Milosevic discredited his report by saying: "the greatest statisticians of the world can prove anything by statistics, and this is done to serve the purposes of American politics aimed at enslavement."

First western politician to testify

The next witness expected to take the stand is international Balkans envoy Paddy Ashdown, the first major prominent political figure called to testify against Milosevic.

Ashdown is due to take over soon as the international community's High Representative in Bosnia.

He has met prosecutors at the United Nations' International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, but it was not clear when he would be called into court, said prosecution spokeswoman Florence Hartmann.

Ashdown visited the region often during the conflict and witnessed the destruction of Kosovo Albanian villages in 1998.

At the time he said: "I have absolutely no doubt individuals in command and the politicians that have allowed it on the Serb side could be indicted as war criminals."

He was talking about the man against whom he now appears ready to testify.