STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Get a low APR NextCard Visa in 30 seconds! 1. Fill in the brief application 2. Receive approval decision within 30 seconds 3. Get rates as low as 2.99% Intro or 9.99% Ongoing APR and no annual fee! Apply NOW! http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/NextCard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [Please screen out the government-dictated bias from the following Associated Press report, in which a legally-elected president who ruled with the support of a multi-party parliamentary coalition can be referred to as a strongman, but the bought agents of foreign, hostile powers who defy their own nation's parliamentary majority and its constitution are "pro-democratic leaders." That the latter traitors to both their own people and humanity are doing what they are to line their own pockets and earn their pay from their masters in Brussels is even more despicable, but quite in line with how NATO defines "democracy."] June 24, 2001 Milosevic's Lawyer Denounces Decree by KATARINA KRATOVAC Associated Press Writer BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- A lawyer for Slobodan Milosevic said the former Yugoslav strongman would challenge a decree allowing for his extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal, calling it politically motivated bullying that thwarts the rule of law. Toma Fila, the head of Milosevic's 10-member defense team, met with the former president at the Belgrade Central Prison on Sunday, as the government decree adopted a day earlier went into effect. He said he would challenge the measure in Yugoslavia's constitutional court. ''This was a political decision and it renders the law helpless against such bullying methods,'' Fila said. He has also derided the decree as ''legal piracy,'' saying cooperation with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, can regulated only by law and not by government decree. Mirjana Markovic, Milosevic's wife and head of the communist Yugoslav Left party, also visited the prison. In a statement Sunday, her party condemned the decree as an ''amoral, anti-constitutional, illegal and anti-Serb'' measure that transforms the country into a ''NATO colony.'' The decree, adopted by the Yugoslav government in a session boycotted by several Cabinet ministers who opposed it, cleared the way for the former president and other Yugoslav suspects to be sent to the U.N. tribunal by overriding legislation banning the extradition of Yugoslav citizens. Long awaited by the United States and other nations, it came two years after the U.N tribunal indicted Milosevic for crimes against humanity during his crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, which ended after a NATO bombing campaign in 1999. The West says disbursement of billions of dollars of aid for Yugoslavia, impoverished during Milosevic's 13-year rule, is contingent on cooperation by its new, pro-democratic leaders with the war crimes court. The country now consists of two republics: Serbia and Montenegro If extradited, Milosevic will be the only head of state indicted while in office to be brought before the court, which has tried dozens of suspects for alleged crimes during the wars that accompanied the breakup of the larger, six-republic Yugoslavia during the 1990s. ''I know no country on the face of the earth that would agree to extradite a person who was once its elected president,'' Fila said. He said he hopes Milosevic will not be extradited before the constitutional court rules on the validity of the decree. Ousted in October, Milosevic has been in Belgrade's Central Prison since April 1 during an investigation into allegations of corruption and abuse of power during his tenure. The probes have recently widened to encompass allegations he covered up Kosovo atrocities. Although some Yugoslav officials said Milosevic could be sent to The Hague in days, the text of the decree allows for an appeal process that could take about three weeks once his extradition is ordered. Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said Saturday that Milosevic might be extradited in 15 to 20 days. The Yugoslav government's efforts to create a legal framework for the extradition of Milosevic and other indicted suspects gathered steam with the approach of an international donors conference scheduled for Friday in Brussels, Belgium. Federal government ministers from Serbia, the larger Yugoslav republic, had initially hoped to pass a law allowing for the extradition Yugoslav citizens, but dropped that in the face of opposition from Montenegrin and pro-Milosevic Serbian legislators in the federal parliament. Instead, the Serbian ministers used their dominant position in the federal government to adopt the decree, which overrides existing law and allows district courts to order the extradition of suspects indicted by the tribunal. Defense lawyers have eight days to appeal an extradition decision to the supreme court of Serbia or Montenegro -- depending on where the suspect is from -- and the court has 15 days to rule on the appeal. The measure permits the governments of Serbia or Montenegro to object to a particular extradition case, although the final authority rests with the federal justice ministry. After the decree was adopted, Montenegrin ministers offered to resign their Cabinet posts, a move that may ultimately lead to a government collapse and call for new federal elections. � __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! 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