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http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-265039,00.html THE TIMES (London) April 13, 2002 War crimes law linked to second Yugoslav suicide >From John Phillips in Belgrade SERBIAN nationalists staged angry protests around Yugoslavia yesterday after a senior aide to Slobodan Milosevic shot himself rather than stand trial as a war crimes suspect and Yugoslavia’s federal Health Secretary hanged himself in a Spanish hotel. Doctors pronounced Vlajko Stojiljkovic, a former Serbian police chief and Interior Minister, clinically dead yesterday after he had shot himself outside the Yugoslav federal parliament building on Thursday night. President Kostunica, a moderate nationalist, described the action as tragic and blamed the West for putting pressure on Serbia to hand over war crimes suspects indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The dramatic gesture was “a warning to the international community — especially one section of it — which is constantly setting conditions, bringing pressure to bear and dictating actions”, he said. “The tribunal . . . is a reality. Prejudice about Serbs is another reality, and the blaming of Serbs for practically all the ills that have happened in the region over the past years is a reality, too, however unjust this may be.” Officials of Mr Milosevic’s Serbian Socialist Party (SPS) linked the former Serb police chief’s attempted suicide to the death of Milodrag Kovac, Yugoslavia’s top health official, in Madrid. Mr Kovac, a member of the National Socialist Party of Montenegro (SNP) hanged himself in his hotel bathroom and left a note saying that he had “trusted his fellow party members too much”. The message appeared to condemn his party, made up of former Milosevic supporters, for voting in support of a law passed by the federal parliament on Thursday allowing extradition of war crimes suspects. However, embassy officials in Madrid said that Mr Kovac, 53, had left a “very personal” note. A surgeon, Mr Kovac was not a war crimes suspect, but police sources said that he had been under investigation for involvement in a pharmaceutical smuggling racket. What is clear, however, is that Mr Stojiljkovic’s death will delay extradition of other war crimes suspects from Serbia to The Hague. He was not a popular figure, but his action has enhanced the belief held by many Serbs that the war crimes tribunal is anti-Serb. The incident is also likely to reduce further the sliding popularity of Zoran Djindjic, the Serbian Prime Minister, who has been pressing for extradition of the suspects so that Belgrade can qualify for American aid tied to co-operation with the tribunal. The SPS hailed Mr Stojiljkovic as a national hero for his part in the Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian guerrillas in Kosovo in 1998 to 1999. Mr Stojiljkovic and two other senior Milosevic aides, Nikola Sainovic, a former Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister, and Dragoljub Ojdanic, the former Yugoslav Army Chief of Staff, had been expected to be extradited to The Hague within days on charges of war crimes carried out in Kosovo. This week parliament passed the special law in response to pressure from the United States, which froze a $40 million (Ł28 million) aid package to Yugoslavia after it failed to meet a March 31 deadline to co-operate with the tribunal by extraditing at least 15 indicted suspects on Yugoslav territory. As Serbia’s Interior Minister during the Kosovo conflict, Mr Stojiljkovic had been indicted for crimes against humanity, including the murders of hundreds of unarmed Kosovo Albanians and for the deportation of 740,000 people. In an angry suicide note prepared months before he shot himself, he blamed the pro-democracy coalition and the SNP for his desperate act. “Serbs pushed me to do it,” he said. He also attacked Mr Djindjic and Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, whom he described as “the greatest enemy of Serbs”. [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
