War crimes tribunal waits for Serbia to deliver Milutinovic

A woman steps into the shoes of an alleged war criminal today when Natasa Micic becomes Serbia's first woman president – at least for a while.

The presidential term of Milan Milutinovic finished yesterday, ending his immunity and increasing political pressure for him to be handed over to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Ms Micic, the 37-year-old parliamentary speaker, is taking over as caretaker president for the next few months, until Serbs manage to elect a new president after two dismal attempts failed to reach the necessary voter turn-out.

The United Nations hopes Mr Milutinovic will voluntarily join his predecessor, Slobodan Milosevic, in The Hague without waiting to be extradited. Both men share indictments for war crimes committed in Kosovo during Serbia's crackdown against the ethnic Albanian majority. Serbian authorities are hesitating about handing over Mr Milutinovic to the tribunal at a time of New Year celebrations and the Orthodox Christmas on 7 January.

"If someone wants to go voluntarily, why should he not be allowed to say goodbye to his family, to visit the doctor, dentist?" Nebojsa Sarkic, the deputy justice minister, was quoted as saying yesterday.

The Serbian government had argued that it would degrade the office of President to detain a serving head of state. But the government no longer has that excuse, and the tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, has demanded that Mr Milutinovic be extradited once his term ended.

Zoran Djindjic, the Serbian Prime Minister and the man seen as responsible for Mr Milosevic's extradition, has said Mr Milutinovic will end up at the tribunal one way or another next month. Mr Djindjic recently urged him to turn himself in. "The tribunal cannot be avoided. "The only question is whether it will be the hard way [arrest] or voluntarily."

Belgrade has been under pressure to co-operate fully with the tribunal, which complained that Yugoslavia had not given it free access to requested documents or arrested all fugitives sought by the court. On Friday, Yugoslavia's Supreme Defence Council declassified some documents sought by the tribunal.

Goran Svilanovic, the Yugoslav Foreign Minister, said a few days ago that "all the indicted must be extradited because we cannot be accepted as members of the international community if we don't respect international obligations".

The tall, red-haired Ms Micic, a lawyer from Uzice, is an unusual figure in male-dominated Serbian political life. known as "the Serbian Nicole Kidman", she is usually dressed in a miniskirt. But she is undaunted by the fact that she is following such figures as Messrs Milosevic and Milutinovic. "I will certainly try to be better than my predecessors," she said in a recent interview.

* The Serbian government is buying back a 29 per cent stake in its mobile phone company from Telecom Italia, which wants to pull out of a controversial deal agreed with Mr Milosevic's regime, the Yugoslav Prime Minister said yesterday. Telecom Italia is trying to clear itself of allegations that the Milosevic-era deal involved millions of dollars in kickbacks.