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Serb backlash at Milosevic extradition

Vesna Peric Zimonjic,Stephen Castle
Saturday 30 June 2001 00:00 BST
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The extradition of Slobodan Milosevic threw Yugoslavia into political chaos yesterday, after the federal government resigned in protest and thousands of pro-Milosevic demonstrators took to the streets of Belgrade.

Mr Milosevic has been indicted for crimes against humanity and violations of the wars or customs of war and already faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Britain reiterated yesterday there was "a distinct possibility" that Mr Milosevic, if convicted, could serve his sentence in this country, one of eight that have agreed to take prisoners from The Hague.

In Belgrade, the federal Prime Minister, Zoran Zizic, quit, blaming what he called the "hasty and tactless decision" of the government of Serbia (one of two republics in the federation) to extradite Mr Milosevic. The resignation triggered the collapse of the cabinet, made up of reformists from the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) and ministers from Montenegro, Serbia's partner in the federation. The coalition has been in place since last September's federal elections.

The Yugoslav President, Vojislav Kostunica, will try to form a new government after consultations with parties when parliament meets on Monday.

At the same time, some 10,000 supporters of Mr Milosevic, many of them members of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party led by Vojislav Seselj, massed in central Belgrade to denounce the extradition. Last night they appeared to be dispersing peacefully.

The political drama raised fears of a feud emerging between President Kostunica, who has always opposed the Hague tribunal, and Serbia's pro-Western Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic, who engineered Mr Milosevic's surprise removal to the Netherlands.

The crisis came as war crimes prosecutors in The Hague lodged fresh charges against Mr Milosevic for the Serbian police's reign of terror in Kosovo in 1999.

The arrival of the former president of Yugoslavia delighted the UN war crimes tribunal, where officials argued that the net was now tightening around other suspected war criminals, including Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, and his military leader, General Ratko Mladic. Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal's chief prosecutor, pledged to devote "renewed energy to the task of arresting those fugitives still at liberty".

The transfer of Mr Milosevic was "a turning point that all authorities throughout the former Yugoslavia must now recognise", Ms Del Ponte said, adding that it was "scandalous" that Mr Karadzic and Mr Mladic remained at large six years after they were indicted.

Judge Claude Jorda, president of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, described the arrival of Mr Milosevic at The Hague as a "new era" for international justice.

Yesterday Ms Del Ponte enlarged the war crimes indictment to take account of allegations of atrocities committed by his forces in Kosovo before Nato troops took over the province, but stopped short of upgrading the charges to genocide. She promised more charges relating to atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia. "We are only at the start of the case against Slobodan Milosevic, not the end," she said. Neither the Serbian people nor their history were in the dock, she added.

Mr Milosevic will make his first appearance on Tuesday morning when he will be asked to enter a formal plea, although the case is unlikely to start until next year.

At the international conference to rebuild war-devastated Yugoslavia yesterday, donors signalled their approval of the extradition by committing $1.28bn (£900m) in aid. "We did it. Now it's your turn," Yugoslavia's Deputy Prime Minister, Miroljub Labus, told the conference in Brussels.

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