BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — Nothing will be allowed to block the imminent transfer of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said Tuesday.
Even if Yugoslavia's Constitutional Court rules in favor of Milosevic and declares that a new decree aimed at providing a legal basis for such a hand-over is unconstitutional, authorities will fulfill an obligation under international law to turn him over to the tribunal, Djindjic said.
As the head of government in Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, Djindjic is widely seen as the most powerful political leader in the country and one who has the ability to simply send Milosevic to the tribunal if he chooses to issue that order.
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica--a rival to Djindjic within the ruling democratic coalition that took power after Milosevic's ouster in October--said at a news conference Tuesday that the decree on cooperation with The Hague, issued by the Yugoslav Cabinet on Saturday, is not the best solution but is better than nothing.
"Even that decree, which constitutes some sort of legality, still has an advantage over a situation of lawlessness," Kostunica said, adding that he does not have the power to block its implementation. The decree was issued after pro-democracy forces failed to win enough support in the Yugoslav parliament to pass a law on cooperation with the tribunal.
Both Djindjic and lawyers for Milosevic indicated Tuesday that it seems likely the former president will be sent to The Hague next week.
Milosevic's legal team has filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court seeking an immediate order banning enforcement of the decree and a subsequent ruling to declare it unconstitutional.
The country's constitution bans extradition of Yugoslav citizens, but Western governments and officials at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia argue that, because the U.N. court is not a country, sending suspects to it does not constitute extradition. They also argue that U.N. membership creates an obligation to cooperate with the tribunal. Djindjic's statement Tuesday basically amounted to agreement with this position.
Milosevic, who was indicted by the tribunal in 1999 for crimes against humanity in connection with his troops' brutal treatment of ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo, is being held in a Belgrade prison on domestic charges of corruption and abuse of power.
