Legal setback for Milosevic

STRASBOURG, France -- The European Court of Human Rights has thrown out a claim by former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic that he is the victim of human rights abuses.

Milosevic had made an official complaint against the Netherlands that his transfer to the United Nations' war crimes court in The Hague last year was illegal and violated his human rights.

But the human rights court in Strasbourg said on Wednesday he had not exhausted the legal avenues of appeal available to him in the Netherlands.

It did not say whether it considered the grounds of Milosevic's action itself valid.

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Milosevic, 60, is on trial at The Hague answering war crimes charges in connection with events in Kosovo in 1999 and Croatia in 1991 and alleged genocide in Bosnia between 1992-95.

His trial was adjourned until next week at the earliest after Milosevic was diagnosed with influenza.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, the Serbian government has adopted a U.N. tribunal's rules on extraditing war crimes suspects.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and the Serb high court had opposed extraditions to The Hague, saying they were illegal.

But faced with a looming U.S. deadline set for March 31 to hand over war crimes suspects or risk losing $120 million in aid, the Serb leadership backed down.

Fifteen war crimes suspects sought by The Hague are thought to be living in Serbia.

They include former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military commander, General Ratko Mladic.

Mladic is known to be hiding in Serbia. Karadzic's whereabouts are unknown.

Both were indicted together for genocide over the 1995 massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, Bosnia, and the three-year military siege and shelling of Sarajevo.