Thursday, 09-Mar-2000 10:20AM

NIS, Yugoslavia, March 9 (AFP) - A Kosovar student leader refused to defend himself before a Serb court Thursday and accused Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's regime of "fascism" as his trial on terrorism charges began. As leader of the Kosovo Albanians Independent Student Union, Albin Kurti led street protests against Serbian rule in his home province in 1997 and 1998.

He was arrested by Serbian police during NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia last year and if convicted faces up to 20 years in jail for joining a "terrorist group," the term used in Belgrade for the separatist guerrilla movement, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Kurti, who worked as an assistant to KLA spokesman Adem Demaci, made a defiant statement as the trial opened in a courthouse in Nis, but refused to mount a defence or respond to prosecution questions, saying he did not recognise the legitimacy of the court.

"This court has nothing to do with truth and justice, it serves the policies of Milosevic's regime which has kept Kosovo under occupation," he said.

"Our Union was against the Serbian regime, which, with its military and police forces, has committed terror and systematic repression against the Albanian people," Kurti said in Albanian, his words translated into Serbian by an interpreter.

As Demaci's assistant, Kurti said he had tried "to present, as best as possible, the KLA and its liberation war."

"The KLA liberation war is a justified struggle which has a holy goal -- the independence of the republic of Kosovo and liberation of the Albanian people from Milosevic's fascist regime," he said. "I have no reason to defend myself or to respond to anyone and any charges," Kurti said, adding that he would not answer any questions by the prosecutor or judge.

At the end of his speech to the court, he said: "It is not important for me whether you sentence me or for how long."

"Everything I did, I did voluntarily, with dignity and I am proud of it and would do it again," Kurti said.

The trial, attended by the representatives of the UN Human Rights office in Belgrade, Human Rights Watch and Belgrade non-government groups Humanitarian Law Center and Committee of Jurists, is to resume on March 13.

Kurti is among some 1,300 Kosovo Albanians who are still being held in Serbia on terrorism charges, according to the Humanitarian Law Center.

In December, ethnic Albanian human rights activist Flora Brovina was sentenced to 12 years in prison for "terrorist activities" in a trial condemned by the United States and international human rights groups.

More than 230 Albanians have been released since mid-June, when Belgrade transferred roughly 2,050 prisoners from Kosovo when it was forced by NATO air attacks to withdraw its forces from the southern Serbian province, the centre said.