[Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: Miroslav Antic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: NATO <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; NSP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Sorabia@Yahoogroups. Com <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; SNN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; BALKAN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; YAHOO <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 12:49 AM Subject: Milosevic lawyer, communist allies assail extradition decree [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Milosevic lawyer, communist allies assail extradition decree By KATARINA KRATOVAC The Associated Press 6/24/01 3:19 PM BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Slobodan Milosevic huddled in jail with his lawyer Sunday, plotting a challenge to a decree that allows Yugoslav authorities to extradite the former president to face trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal. Top Milosevic attorney Toma Fila derided the government decree -- pushed through a day earlier by pro-democracy leaders eager for Western approval and aid money -- as "legal piracy." He said he would ask Yugoslavia's constitutional court to throw it out. Fila called the decree a "political decision" and said Yugoslavia's laws were "helpless against such bullying methods." The decree overrides existing law and allows district courts to order the extradition of suspects indicted by the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. The decree took effect Sunday. Fila, who heads Milosevic's 10-member defense team, said the former president gave him instructions for subsequent moves, but declined to divulge any details. Mirjana Markovic, Milosevic's wife and head of the communist Yugoslav Left party, was also seen entering Belgrade's Central Prison, accompanied by their daughter-in-law. Her party condemned the decree as "amoral, anti-constitutional, illegal and anti-Serb" and said it makes the country into a "NATO colony." 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 by the court handling his case. That had not yet happened. Long awaited by the United States and other nations, the decree came two years after the U.N. tribunal indicted Milosevic for crimes against humanity during his crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The crackdown 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 much smaller Montenegro. 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. The court, established in 1993, has tried dozens of suspects for alleged crimes during the wars that accompanied the breakup of the larger, six-republic Yugoslavia during the 1990s. But major suspects -- including Milosevic, wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic -- have so far escaped its grasp. Ousted in October, Milosevic has been in jail since April 1 while an investigation is under way into allegations of corruption and abuse of power during his tenure. The probes have recently widened to encompass allegations that he covered up Kosovo atrocities. Pro-democracy Cabinet ministers from Serbia used their dominant position in the government to adopt the decree after abandoning plans to push a law allowing for the extradition of Yugoslav citizens through parliament, where they lacked sufficient support. After the decree was adopted, Montenegrin ministers who opposed it offered to resign their Cabinet posts, a move that may ultimately lead to a government collapse and call for new federal elections. Miroslav Antic, http://www.antic.org/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
