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Diplomat Accused Of Espionage Tied To Milosevic Trial
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 16, 2002; Page A01
BERLIN, March 15 -- The Yugoslav military arrested a U.S. diplomat and a
former Yugoslav general at a restaurant just outside Belgrade, the Yugoslav
capital, Thursday evening and charged them with espionage, according to Yugoslav
and Western officials. The detentions, in which the American reported being bundled into a police
wagon with a jacket over his head, roughed up and held incommunicado for 15
hours, have triggered a furious diplomatic row with the United States and
Western allegations that the military is trying to destabilize democratic
institutions. According to reports in the Yugoslav media, officials in Belgrade contend
that the former general, Momcilo Perisic, had given the American secret
documents that could help in the United Nations' war crimes prosecution against
former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic that is underway in the
Netherlands. Western officials rejected that charge and said the Yugoslav army planted
military documents labeled "top secret" in the diplomat's bag. Western officials
also said military police ransacked the home and office of Perisic, who was
commanding general of the Yugoslav army until Milosevic fired him in 1999. The U.S. official was released after he was brought before a military court.
The Yugoslav military identified him as John David Neighbor but gave no other
details, the Associated Press reported. Perisic, 58 -- now a leading member of the government of Serbia, the dominant
republic in Yugoslavia -- remains in detention and is being held like a common
criminal with the laces removed from his shoes, according to local reports. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said today that "the United States
is outraged by this unwarranted detention of a U.S. diplomat. We're forcefully
protesting these actions by the Yugoslav military to the Yugoslav civilian
authorities, including the president." Western officials said the incident suggests that the Yugoslav army, which is
still led by a Milosevic appointee, is seeking to challenge the fragile
democratic leadership of Serbia. Since Milosevic was toppled in 2000, the
Serbian government has steadily improved relations with the United States,
partly by turning over war crimes suspects such as Milosevic to the U.N.
tribunal in The Hague. But the army falls under the political control of Yugoslav President Vojislav
Kostunica, who has derided the tribunal as victor's justice and has ignored
Western entreaties to purge the army of Milosevic appointees. The army is commanded by Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, who was put in the job by
Milosevic and was in charge during the 1999 war with NATO over the Serbian
province of Kosovo. Pavkovic said Thursday that he planned to step down at the
end of the month, for reasons that remain unclear. Relations between Kostunica and Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic have
steadily deteriorated in recent months. And the United States has become
increasingly disillusioned with Kostunica. Djindjic said tonight that the arrests were a "first-rate scandal" and "a
blow to the country's international credibility." Belgrade radio station B-92, citing anonymous sources, said the documents
that were purportedly passed between the two arrested men concerned the role of
Milosevic in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. The report also said the diplomat
was responsible for the U.S. mission's relations with the U.N. war crimes
tribunal. One of the major tasks facing the tribunal's prosecutors is to link Milosevic
through documents or testimony to the atrocities carried out in Bosnia and
Kosovo. According to Western sources, a steady stream of information about
Milosevic's role has been reaching The Hague from Belgrade. As a former commanding general, Perisic would have had access to sensitive
military documents, particularly from the wars in Bosnia and Croatia in the
early- to mid-1990s. Croatia indicted Perisic for war crimes and tried him in
absentia for shelling the Croatian city of Zadar, where he was a Yugoslav army
commander in 1991. Perisic was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in
prisonbut has never been jailed, and many Serbians view that ruling as having no
validity. The U.N. war crimes tribunal issues some indictments in public but keeps
others secret until the suspect is apprehended. Perisic's name is not on the
public list. In the weeks leading up to NATO's 1999 bombardment of Yugoslavia, Perisic
feuded with Milosevic, advising against going to war with the powerful Western
alliance, and was removed from his post. After his dismissal, Perisic formed the opposition Movement for Democratic
Serbia, which played a major role in Milosevic's ouster in October 2000. Perisic
became Serbia's deputy prime minister, responsible for security and defense
issues, and in that role he has repeatedly criticized the country's military
leadership. According to Western sources, Thursday's incident began when Perisic invited
the U.S. official to dinner at a restaurant just south of Belgrade. Perisic, the
national security adviser in the Serbian government, has met regularly with U.S.
diplomats, the sources said. About 15 minutes after the two men sat down in the roadside restaurant, four
armed men in civilian clothes burst into the room and declared them under
arrest. "They rather roughly manhandled these folks," said a Western
diplomat. The arrested American said he was taken to a place that appeared to be a
military facility, and there, sources said, he was placed in a cell. The
diplomat was not certain of his location because he was forced to hunch over and
keep his jacket over his head as he was being transported. The diplomat identified himself as an accredited U.S. official and produced
his diplomatic identification, but his captors refused to tell him why he was
being arrested, sources said. He was not allowed to contact the U.S.
Embassy. When military officials started to question the diplomat they produced a
briefcase that they had taken from him and pulled documents labeled "top secret"
from it, a Western diplomat said. The American was then taken before a military
court, where he was shown an even larger "stack of documents" he allegedly
received from Perisic. He was charged with espionage, a Western diplomat
said.
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