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Milosevic Investigation Into Corruption Completed
BELGRADE, June 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Belgrade district court has ended its investigation into former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, suspected of abuse of power and corruption, the court said Monday in a statement.
"Following the end of the investigation, a magistrate sent today (Monday) the file to the public prosecutor," the statement, carried by Beta news agency, said.
A probe into three of Milosevic's closest allies: ex-Yugoslav deputy prime ministers Jovan Zebic and Nikola Sainovic and former chief of Yugoslav customs Mihalj Kertes also ended, the statement said.
The prosecutor now has to decide whether to bring formal charges against the four.
According to news agencies, Milosevic's lawyers said last week that no incriminating evidence had resulted from the investigation, and that the prosecutor would have to decide within 15 days to either indict Milosevic, drop the case or request more time for investigation.
Milosevic, arrested on April 1 after a spectacular standoff alongside his supporters, has been detained in Belgrade Central Prison, pending charges. He was suspected of abusing public funds to finance his Socialist party, and has denied all charges against him.
The former president and four of his close collaborators have also been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which is based in The Hague, for atrocities and crimes against humanity allegedly committed by Yugoslav troops in Kosovo in 1999.
Milosevic and his top aides have also been linked to new evidence of a war crimes cover-up during the recent exhumation of bodies from a mass grave. Ethnic Albanian bodies were found in a freezer truck recovered from the Danube River where it had been buried, news agencies reported.
Serbia's new leaders have declined the ICTY's demand that Milosevic be handed over, in order to first try him within Serbia, news agencies said.
Another of Serbia's former leaders who was indicted by the tribunal alongside Milosevic, Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, does not fear his extradition to The Hague, the Beta news agency reported Sunday.
"Personally I am not afraid because I don't feel guilty and I think it's a mistake," Milutinovic said in an interview, quoted by Beta. "If someone else had been president of Serbia, he too would probably have been indicted."
But Milutinovic said he had "never heard of certain villages and names" cited in the indictment.
He also claimed he was "not up to date" on events that were taking place at the time in the southern Serbian province, as he was busy preparing the country's defense against NATO's air war in 1999.
The two houses of Yugoslavia's federal parliament will hold separate sessions on Thursday to debate a controversial draft law on cooperation with the ICTY, which would allow the extradition of Yugoslav citizens to the UN court.
The bill was adopted by a deeply divided government on Thursday, backed by ministers from Serbia's ruling reformist coalition, the DOS, but was opposed by the Montenegrin Socialist People's Party (SNP), a one-time ally of Milosevic.
SNP ministers voted against the bill and warned on Friday that the party's representatives in the federal parliament would not back the legislation if it included provisions allowing for the extradition of Yugoslav citizens to the ICTY.
Unless the Montenegrin party - which supported Milosevic until his ouster last October - gives its support, the DOS will be unable to obtain a majority of votes in the two-chamber parliament.
Yugoslavia is under intense international pressure, particularly from the United States, to adopt the law before the donors' conference, which is to clear the way for much-needed financial aid, is held on June 29.
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