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Edging Towards Compromise On Milosevic Trial
BELGRADE, April 4 (News Agencies) - Belgrade and the West edged toward compromise on a trial of Slobodan Milosevic Wednesday, as British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said the former Yugoslav president could face a Serbian court before being delivered to a U.N. war crimes tribunal.
His comments appeared to chip away at the deadlock that has arisen over Belgrade's refusal to extradite Milosevic to The Hague-based court, insisting instead that he should face trial at home, where he was jailed Sunday on charges of corruption and abuse of power.
Meanwhile, however, U.N. court officials dug in their heels, demanding immediate extradition of the man once decried in the West as the "Butcher of the Balkans".
The order for the transfer of Milosevic "is the result of a very clear non-negotiable international obligation and should occur immediately," said Jean-Jacques Joris, an adviser to Carla del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Joris said Yugoslav authorities could continue investigating Milosevic on domestic charges after he is sent to The Hague but that nothing should delay his handover to the U.N. tribunal.
Cook suggested a compromise after meeting in Belgrade with his Yugoslav counterpart Goran Svilanovic, saying Milosevic could face the domestic charges before a Belgrade court, and then be extradited to The Hague.
"I welcome the fact that the people of Yugoslavia will now have the opportunity to hear in court the crimes committed by president Milosevic against the people of Serbia, how he made himself rich, while he made the people poor," Cook said.
"Mr. Milosevic was not a great Serb nationalist, Mr. Milosevic was a great enemy of the Serb people," he insisted.
"But at the end of that process, he must also stand trial for the offences he has committed against other people in the region," said Cook, on a one-day visit to Belgrade before heading for Macedonia.
"I must be quite clear that this process can only be satisfactory for all when Mr. Milosevic stands trial before The Hague tribunal," which has indicted him for war crimes allegedly committed in Kosovo, he said.
Svilanovic also appeared in a conciliatory mood, although he stressed that desperately needed aid for democratic reformers who took power six months ago should not be tied to Milosevic's extradition.
"I think we should not put all these things together, but we are all keeping in mind what are our international obligations and what are our needs," he said, adding that, "our international obligations include full cooperation with The Hague tribunal."
Yugoslavia's most outspoken opponent of the ICTY, President Vojislav Kostunica, reiterated his objections Tuesday to extradition, saying, "National dignity is above a handful of dollars," a reference to U.S. threats to cut off aid if Milosevic was not handed over.
Cook met Kostunica earlier in the day, and welcomed the Yugoslav president's comments made during the weekend police siege at Milosevic's villa that no one was "untouchable" before the law.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana had hinted at a softening in the international line late Tuesday in Athens, when he said: "We must trust [the Belgrade authorities] because they know what they're doing."
"We do not intend to put pressure on them" to deliver Milosevic to the ICTY, he said.
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who cultivates ties to the West, said the same day that Milosevic "will be tried first in Serbia. If meanwhile or after his trial new evidence is brought against him for crimes against humanity, it is possible to widen the charges."
"The laws in Serbia are very severe" for those kinds of crimes, he added.
Officials said Milosevic could ultimately face the death penalty if tried under Serbian law for war crimes.
Yugoslav Justice Minister Momcilo Grubac said Wednesday that a draft law on cooperation with the ICTY was already complete, but would still have to pass before the federal parliament.
Grubac said that "before the law is adopted, no citizens of Yugoslavia will be handed over" to the ICTY.
The clerk of the ICTY, Hans Holthuis, began a visit to Belgrade Wednesday to explain the process for cooperation with the tribunal to Yugoslav authorities and to produce once again the arrest warrant for Milosevic and the charges against him.
Kostunica has called the U.N. court biased and "anti-Serb", but Tuesday appeared to distance himself from the whole process, saying extradition was not in the federal president's remit.
Milosevic is locked up in a windowless cell in Belgrade's central jail. His appeal against a 30-day investigative custody was rejected Tuesday.
The appeal argued that the missing state money he is accused of embezzling was used to arm Serb paramilitaries in republics splitting off from the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
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