Milutinovic, Milosevic, Mladic Vs. NATO and Hague 

Milan Milutinovic is going to stand trial at the Hague today 

Milan Milutinovic, the former President of Serbia, will appear in the
court room of the Hague Tribunal today, January 27th, at 3 p.m. local
time. This will be Milutinovic's first appearance at the Hague Tribunal.
Prosecutors affirm that the former president of Serbia is implicated in
ethnic cleanings in 1999 in Kosovo. Milan Milutinovic stated on his part
before that he had no real power during his stay on the position of the
Serbian president. If Milutinovic is going to state today that he is not
guilty of war charges, the trial is to take place in the second half of
the current year. 

Former President of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic's trial is to
continue today at the Hague too. The two week break happened over
Milosevic's poor health. Milosevic's trial has been broken about six
times for the same reason. A group of specialists from Belgrade military
and Medical Academy visited Slobodan Milosevic on his own request on
Friday. 

Tribunal emissary in Sarajevo, Vanessa Le Roa, stated that the defendant
was feeling all right at the moment. She said that Milosevic does not
complain of anything. "The Hague has done its best in order to finish
the trial of the former Yugoslav leader as soon as possible," chief
judge Richard May said. However, a spokesman for the press service of
the Socialist Party of Serbia said to an independent observer at the
Hague trial that Slobodan Milosevic was not ready to appear in the court
room on account of his severe psychological state. 

As far as another war crimes suspect, General Ratko Mladic, is concerned
Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia Goran Svilanovic said that there were a
lot of problems to arrest the general. As the minister said, the biggest
problem was to find out the general's whereabouts. Svilanovic believes
that Mladic's arrest is beyond the opportunities of Yugoslav special
services, if Ratko Mladic is on Yugoslavia's territory, of course.
"Everyone is supposed to understand that, including the ones, who wish
to help us," added Goran Svilanovic. 

And another thing that is worth mentioning. It has recently become known
that the Croatian government officially demanded Belgrade should pay 15
million dollars to Zagreb (Croatia's capital) as a compensation for the
damage that was caused to Zagreb during the war between Serbia and
Croatia. The government of Croatia is going to address to the European
Union with a requirement to make Belgrade pay the claimed money.
However, Croatia's righteous ardor becomes nothing, when it goes about
sanctions against Croatia itself. For instance, the Croatian government
has not delivered war crimes suspect Janko Bobetko to the Hague yet.
General Bobetko is currently staying at a Croatian health center.
Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan personally guaranteed Bobetko that
no indictment would be handed over to the general during his treatment
at the health center. 

On the photo: NATO's attack on Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. Photo
taken from Srpskapolitika.com 
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2003/01/27/42574.html

Sergey Stefanov 
PRAVDA.Ru 






                                   Serbian News Network - SNN

                                        [EMAIL PROTECTED]

                                    http://www.antic.org/

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