The Hague, Netherlands ? Slobodan Milosevic, finally allowed to speak in court, defended his actions during the Balkan wars and accused the U.N. war crimes tribunal Wednesday of an “evil and hostile attack” against him.

The former Yugoslav leader asked the tribunal to free him immediately, but said he would return to face trial. “This is a battle I will not miss,” he said.

Often waving and pointing his finger at the prosecutors and judges, Milosevic spoke for nearly the full 30 minutes allocated to the defense during a hearing on whether the three indictments against him should be joined in one trial.

During five earlier appearances before a three-judge trial court, Milosevic was silenced every time he sought to give a statement. Judge Richard May repeatedly turned off his microphone when the defendant refused to be quiet, saying the pretrial hearings were not the place for political speeches.

But Judge Claude Jorda, heading Wednesday’s five-man appellate panel, ruled Milosevic should be allowed to speak.

Milosevic, whose first trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 12, did not address the motion, but used the opportunity to give his view of the decade of turmoil in the former Yugoslavia.

He called the long list of charges against him “abnormal and nonsensical,” and said his goal was to protect Serbs and bring peace to the troubled republics of Yugoslavia.

“I would call this an evil and hostile attack aimed at justifying the crimes committed against my country,” he said of the indictments against him. Putting him, he said, on trial was “an attempt to turn the victim into the culprit.”