Milosevic faces fresh U.N. charge

Milosevic has been held in a detention centre in The Hague since June

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- The U.N. war crimes tribunal has confirmed it is bringing a new indictment against Slobodan Milosevic.

In addition to the charges he faces in relation to Kosovo, the former Yugoslav President has now been charged with forcibly removing non-Serb populations from Croatia in 1991-1992.

Prosecutors said in late September the indictment had been signed, but it was announced on Tuesday that a judge has approved it and the full text has been released.

The Croatia indictment charges Milosevic -- who was handed over to the tribunal in June and is in the U.N. detention centre in The Hague -- with crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and violations of the laws or customs of war.

The war in Croatia erupted when the country's Serbs, backed by the Yugoslav army, rebelled against Croatia's 1991 secession from the former Yugoslavia.

Tribunal prosecutors have been investigating the deaths of hundreds of Serbs following Zagreb's 1995 offensive to recapture lands seized by Serb rebels during 1991.

Similar investigations have been carried out into alleged atrocities carried out by Serb forces.

Serb forces killed hundreds of non-Serb civilians, including women and old people, during the deportations from Croatia, the new indictment said.

"Slobodan Milosevic was president of the Republic of Serbia and as such exercised effective control or substantial influence over the participants in the joint criminal enterprise," a tribunal statement said.

It reads: "Serb forces established a regime or persecutions designed to drive the Croat and other non-Serb civilian population from these territories.

"This regime included the extremination, wilful killing or murder of hundreds of Croat and other non-Serb civilians, including women and elderly persons, the deportation or forcible transfer of at least 17,000 Croat and other non-Serb civilians."

The new indictment does not include the tribunal's gravest charge of genocide, but U.N. Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has said the earlier indictment will charge Milosevic with that crime.

Milosevic was sent to The Hague in June to stand trial for alleged atrocities in Kosovo during the Serb crackdown on ethnic Kosovar Albanians in 1999, which was brought to an end by a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

He has so far made two confrontational appearances before the tribunal since his transfer to The Hague and refuses to recognise its legitimacy.