Dutch grant Milosevic's wife visa

Mira Markovic finds her husband 'very cute and likeable'

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands -- Slobodan Milosevic's wife has been granted a visa to visit him in custody as he prepares to face war crime charges in a United Nations court.

A Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman told Reuters on Friday: "The Netherlands government has decided to grant under strict conditions the visa for the spouse (Mira) Markovic and the daughter-in-law (Milica) Gajic ... in order to visit him in the prison of Scheveningen."

The visas were issued as about 5,000 pro-Milosevic supporters marched through the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade.

The rally was the fourth since Milosevic's extradition on June 28, but the crowds were tiny compared to the number that took to the streets last year to topple Milosevic.

The visas had been granted at the special request of the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. but the ministry declined to disclose the conditions for the visas.

It is not clear when Milosevic's wife will arrive in the Netherlands to visit her husband at the U.N. Scheveningen detention centre on the outskirts of The Hague.

"When we know we can start to make arrangements," a U.N. tribunal spokesman said. "We are happy to let the visit take place."

Mira Markovic, a teenage sweetheart of the ousted Yugoslav leader, has been on an EU blacklist that officially bars her from entering the Netherlands.

Under U.N. law, all family members are permitted to visit suspects at the International War Crimes tribunal.

Markovic had been expected to appeal against her EU travel ban -- introduced during the Serb clampdown in Kosovo two years ago -- which covered hundreds of Serbian and Yugoslav officials.

The list has been progressively reduced since the fall of Milosevic in October 2000 and now numbers just a handful of close relatives and associates of the former president.

Markovic and Milosevic married in 1965. She is widely regarded as the driving force behind his career.

They have two children, daughter Mira and son Marko, both of whom have made fortunes on the back of their father's political career.

She was a regular visit to the prison he was held in in Belgrade after his arrest in April.

But after his handover to the war crime authorities in The Hague she said she felt lost without him.

"I cannot do anything on my own, without him. He has always been around in my life and now I have to look after everything," Mira Markovic said in remarks reported by Croatian weekly Globus earlier this month.

"I still find him very cute and likeable. What can I say? He is my hero," she said.

She has been referred to as the "Red Witch" because of her neo-communist beliefs and passion for mysticism -- and "Lady MacBeth" for doing everything she can for her husband and his career.

Serbian newspapers have said Markovic may be planning to rent or buy an apartment in The Hague.

Dutch officials say that would be legally impossible if she had only a short-stay entry permit.