Belgrade vows war crime crackdown

Del Ponte has been in Belgrade

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic has said he believes his country will soon begin handing over suspects to the United Nations war crimes tribunal.

Yugoslavia passed a law last week regulating cooperation with the tribunal and setting out a procedure for the handover of suspects.

U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said on Thursday she now wanted results.

She was speaking during a visit to Belgrade after the government published a list of 23 suspects -- 10 Yugoslav citizens, the rest are from Croatia or Bosnia -- wanted by the tribunal.

It includes two of the world's most wanted men, Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic. All 23 were on Wednesday given 72 hours to surrender to The Hague tribunal.

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Svilanovic said: "The law has been passed, the law is in force and I believe that in the coming weeks the law is going to be implemented."

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.

Meanwhile, del Ponte announced on Friday that the war crimes tribunal is expected to issue its first indictments against former ethnic Albanian rebels for atrocities committed in Kosovo this year.

Del Ponte said her investigators in the province were close to concluding investigations into three cases involving suspects from the Kosovo Liberation Army.

"I'm sure that this year we will issue the first indictment," she said.

Kosovo's Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi said: "We have said before that no one stands above the law."

In the past, the U.N. war crimes tribunal has been criticised for alleged bias against Serbs.

Most of those indicted for crimes in the Croatian, Bosnian and Kosovo wars are Serbs. No ethnic Albanian has been publicly indicted for atrocities committed during the Kosovo conflict.