Belgrade appeals to war suspects

Wanted: Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic is on the list of 23

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- The Yugoslav government has given 23 war crimes suspects 72 hours to surrender to The Hague tribunal.

Justice Minister Savo Markovic published a list on Wednesday of the most-wanted suspects and gave them three days to surrender.

The list was announced days after the Belgrade government passed a controversial law pledging co-operation with the U.N. tribunal.

Ten of the 23 are Yugoslav citizens. The rest are from Croatia or Bosnia.

They include three former close associates of former president Slobodan Milosevic, indicted with him for crimes against humanity relating to the mass killings and expulsions of Kosovo Albanians in 1999.

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They are Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, former Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic ex-army chief of staff General Dragoljub Ojdanic and Nikola Sainovic, deputy prime minister under Milosevic.

Also named are two of the world's most wanted men, Bosnian Serb war-time leader Radovan Karadzic and his former military chief Ratko Mladic.

Neither has shown any readiness to surrender and their whereabouts are not publicly known.

"The government calls on people (accused by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia) to surrender voluntarily," the official statement said.

It added that suspects should agree on a "way of voluntary surrender" within three days.

On Thursday, the U.N.'s chief tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte arrived in Belgrade where she was expected to ask that Mladic be arrested.

"We know where he is and we know who is protecting him," Del Ponte said, adding that Karadzic would be in custody by October, but refusing to say why.

Yugoslav government officials said they published the list to give those on it the opportunity of giving up voluntarily.

Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic suggested all on the list would be hunted down if they do not surrender.

But the Socialist Party -- once led by Milosevic -- condemned Markovic's move.

Party official Zarko Obradovic denounced the list as "a scandalous campaign against innocent people."

Wanted: Gen Ojdanic said he will give himself up to the tribunal

He said: "Obviously it was the intention of the minister to mount a campaign against people who have been indicted, completely disregarding the simple fact of whether they are guilty or not."

Belgrade passed its cooperation law after the United States froze around $40 million worth of aid and suspended support for international loans to Yugoslavia.

Within hours of the law being passed, former Serbian Interior Minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic -- also wanted for Kosovo war crimes -- shot himself in the head on the steps of the parliament building. He died from his injuries last Saturday.

Mladic is accused, among other crimes of genocide, for his role in the 1995 massacre of around 7,500 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica.

Milosevic, who was extradited last June in a handover that his allies called illegal, has been indicted on 66 counts of war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, including a count of genocide for Srebrenica.