HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------Yugo military pounces on U.S. envoy and ex-army boss
By Will Hardie
BELGRADE, March 15 (Reuters) - Yugoslav military police arrested a U.S. diplomat and Milosevic-era army chief-of-staff Momcilo Perisic as they met in a Belgrade restaurant on Thursday night, U.S. officials said on Friday.
Local media said Perisic, now a Serbian deputy prime minister, was accused of trying to hand over state secrets.
A U.S. State Department official protested that the diplomat was mistreated in the swoop.
"We're mad about it," the official said in Washington. "The military burst in and our guy got roughed up."
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and a military court were expected to give statements later. Radio B-92 reported Perisic had been brought to the Serbian government building "dressed like a detainee" with the laces removed from his shoes.
U.S. embassy spokesman Paul Denig said the diplomat had been "arbitrarily arrested and held incomunicado for 15 hours."
"He has been released to the embassy and the embassy is protesting the fact that he was arrested and detained," Denig said. He declined to give further details. A strong formal protest from Washington was expected later.
The incident is likely to exacerbate tension between the government of Serbian premier Zoran Djindjic, which reportedly knew little of the arrest, and moderate nationalist Yugoslav President Kostunica, who commands the army.
Relations between the U.S. and Belgrade have been repaired since U.S. warplanes led the airstrikes in 1999 that forced Serb forces out of the majority ethnic Albanian province of Kosovo. But this diplomatic incident will complicate ties.
FORMER MILOSEVIC ALLY
Perisic was army chief of staff until November 1998 when Slobodan Milosevic fired him after he criticised the then president's policies in Kosovo. Slobodan Milosevic is facing war crimes charges in The Hague.
"The army security service arrested General Momcilo Perisic some time last night and he is still detained," Nebojsa Mandic, the head of Perisic's office, told Reuters by telephone. He did not say why Perisic had been taken into custody.
Perisic told Reuters in 1999 he had warned Milosevic that he should avoid a war with NATO that the army could not win. Milosevic disagreed and fired him shortly before NATO launched its air war.
Perisic later founded his own party, the Movement for Democratic Serbia, joined the DOS coalition that toppled Milosevic in 2000 and in January 2001 became a deputy prime minister in the Serbian government.
Croatia has indicted Perisic for war crimes and tried him in absentia for shelling the Adriatic city of Zadar, where he was a Yugoslav army commander in 1991 at the start of the Croatian war.
He was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1996. Croatia wants him removed from power and says his continued presence hinders a thawing in relations between the former foes.
The U.N. war crimes court in The Hague has not published any charges against Perisic.
12:15 03-15-02
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