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Milosevic to Be Extradited Soon, Media and Lawyer Claim - International Justice - Global Policy Forum Milosevic to Be Extradited Soon,
Media and Lawyer Claim
The Associated Press
June 21, 2001Slobodan Milosevic's lawyers and media claimed Thursday that the former Yugoslav president will be handed over to the U.N. war crimes tribunal soon after a new law allowing his extradition is adopted. Milosevic was arrested April 1 at his Belgrade villa. He has since been in detention in Belgrade's Central Prison, pending a local investigation into allegations of corruption and abuse of power during his 13-year rule. But a tribunal based in The Hague, Netherlands, wants him tried for alleged war crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999.
A parliament session planned Thursday to discuss a law outlining cooperation with The Hague, including a clause that would allow Milosevic's extradition. But it has been postponed for a day to give time for a compromise between Serbia's pro-democracy forces and the former president's Montenegrin allies who are opposed to the bill.
The Vecernje Novosti newspaper, which is close to the pro-democracy coalition, said Thursday that its officials have agreed to hand Milosevic over to the Hague "urgently" after the law is passed. Zdenko Tomovic, one of Milosevic's lawyers, claimed that a helicopter was ready to transport Milosevic out of his jail and hand him over to the tribunal authorities. "The helicopter is ready to stop by the Central Prison and then proceed to The Hague in a few days," Tomovic told reporters. Parliament speaker Dragoljub Micunovic said the crisis talks late Wednesday between the Serb and Montenegrin lawmakers produced no results. The talks continued Thursday.
"We were heading for a compromise, but things later fell through," Micunovic said, saying the extradition clause was the sticking point. Lawmakers from Montenegro, the small republic that with Serbia forms Yugoslavia, have pledged to block the overall bill in the federal parliament. Without them, the Serb faction has no majority in the federal parliament. The Montenegrins, fearing they could also end up being extradited to The Hague because of their leading positions during Croatian and Bosnian wars, oppose handing Yugoslav war crime suspects over to "foreign courts."
The U.N. tribunal said such legislation was unnecessary, since Milosevic would be handed over to a U.N. body and not a foreign government.
President Vojislav Kostunica said Wednesday such a law was needed and said he wants to get it passed before the end of June. An international donors conference is scheduled for June 29 in Brussels, Belgium, and the United States has conditioned its participation on Yugoslavia's cooperation with the tribunal. To bypass such opposition, Kostunica said that the bill would be removed from consideration in the federal legislature and instead be discussed in the separate Serb parliament, where his pro-democracy forces have an overwhelming majority.
Other Serbian officials said this solution would not work as Serbian President Milan Milutinovic would have to sign any bill passed by the Serbian parliament. He is charged along with Milosevic by the war crimes court.
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