Protests mar war crimes meeting

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- United Nations war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte has met Yugoslav ministers amid anti-tribunal protests.

Her visit was marked by several hundred anti-tribunal protesters blocking a road outside the foreign ministry as she met with Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic.

The protest came a day after del Ponte's meeting with President Vojislav Kostunica ended abruptly due to disagreement on whether to extradite former president Slobodan Milosevic.

The demonstrators denounced the tribunal, based in The Hague, as anti-Serb and chanted their opposition to del Ponte's demand that Milosevic be handed over to face charges that his forces committed atrocities in Kosovo.

Kostunica himself said in an interview published on Wednesday that handing over Milosevic, who remains a free man and is still living in Belgrade, could destabilise Yugoslavia.

"If one wants to destabilise the situation in this country, one might behave the way Carla del Ponte behaves," he was quoted as saying by the International Herald Tribune.

The protesters, some of whom carried communist-era Yugoslav and Serbian flags, shouted: "We're not going to give you Slobo, we're not going to give anyone!"

"Long live the Serbian people, long live Slobodan Milosevic," read one banner.

Some protesters threw eggs at del Ponte's car while she was inside the building.

Del Ponte's spokeswoman said she planned to hand over an arrest warrant, believed to be linked to a secret or "sealed" indictment, to Justice Minister Momcilo Grubac.

The reformers in the 18-party alliance in power since Milosevic was toppled in a popular uprising in October have differed on the extent of co-operation they will offer the tribunal, including whether suspects should be surrendered.

Del Ponte's team saw the warrant she was carrying as an early test of whether Belgrade will match their words with action.

During their meeting on Tuesday, Kostunica described the court's work as politicised, criticised its practice of issuing secret indictments and said the fact that most indictees were Serbs could be seen as selective justice.

Del Ponte has made no public comment since arriving in Belgrade but plans to speak at a news conference on Thursday.

The tribunal believes that a total of 15 of the 27 suspects publicly indicted by the tribunal but still free remain at large in Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia's two-member federation.

Ahead of talks with senior ministers, del Ponte met with relatives of Serbs who went missing in Kosovo who are demanding charges be brought against the ethnic Albanian militants they accuse of kidnapping their loved ones.

"We want freedom for the innocent people who were kidnapped," said Ranko Djinovic, head of the relatives' association.

Outside the Yugoslav foreign ministry building, several dozen Kosovo Serbs held up pictures of their kidnapped relatives and banners reading, "Do not forget us," and "Freedom for all."

Del Ponte told a lawyer for 13 of the 16 people killed in the airstrike on Serbian state television that Milosevic's government had known the station's headquarters in Belgrade could be attacked.

NATO defended the action on the grounds that its broadcasts were part of Yugoslavia's war machine but Milosevic condemned the attack as an action against civilians.

Relatives of those who died in the attack blame both NATO and television station bosses for the deaths.

Del Ponte's spokeswoman Florence Hartmann said a lawyer representing the families of 13 of the 16 victims of the bombing had asked if the former president's regime had known the building in Belgrade would be attacked.

"She (Del Ponte) said she had been told (this) by NATO very clearly and she will ask for evidence she can use before the court," Hartmann said.

The families are pursuing legal action against television bosses on the suspicion they knew the building was a target but kept it open.

They consider both the television bosses and NATO responsible for the deaths, and some of them have begun suing the military alliance at the European Court of Human Rights.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Abrupt end to Milosevic extradition talks
January 23, 2001
Arrest warrant re-issued for Milosevic
January 23, 2001
Milosevic faces crackdown
January 21, 2001
Kostunica to meet war crimes head
January 18, 2001
Kostunica snubs war crimes head
January 16, 2001
Kostunica to reject war crimes meeting
January 16, 2001
Croats sought for war crimes talks
January 15, 2001
Kostunica meets Milosevic
January 13, 2001

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