World

Hague Offers Milosevic Compromise

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 7, 2001 / 12:53 PM EST / CBS

In a compromise that could lead to the eventual trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, the United Nations war crimes tribunal on Wednesday said it would be willing to hold part of Milosevic's trial in Belgrade.

"I'm a great supporter of trials being held in former Yugoslavia. We are too remote in The Hague," Deputy prosecutor Graham Blewitt told a seminar at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "We couldn't hold the entire trial in Serbia because some witnesses would not want to come to Belgrade, but I see part of the trial taking place in Belgrade for Milosevic."

Blewitt, speaking in London, also said new indictments charging Milosevic for the first time with responsibility for alleged war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia would be issued soon from the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, adding to an existing 1999 indictment over the war in Kosovo.

And another sign that the effort to prosecute Milosevic is gaining steam, a poll published Wednesday in Belgrade shows a majority of Serbs are in favor of Milosevic's extradition to the Hague tribunal.

The survey, published by the independent Medium polling agency, indicates a major shift of opinion toward the tribunal among the Serbs who have long considered the tribunal biased.

The polling of 1,050 Serbs, conducted between Feb. 19-26 this year, revealed that 30.4 percent are for unconditional surrender of Milosevic to the U.N. court, and another 22.3 percent believe this should be done if it is a condition for getting Western economic aid.

U.S. Troops Fire On Rebels

U.S. soldiers in Kosovo opened fire on gunmen near the Macedonian border, where American troops have been working to contain an ethnic Albanian insurgency. The U.S. military said two of the armed militants were wounded; no U.S. soldiers were wounded.

The United States has given Serbia a March 31 deadline to start cooperating with the tribunal, or risk $100 million in economic aid and membership in international financial institutions.

About 39 percent of those polled were against Milosevic's extradition, while the rest did not have an answer. No margin of error was given.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, who ousted Mlosevic in a popular uprising last October after a rigged presidential election, has adamantly refused to hand his predecessor over to the tribunal, which he has denounced as a political court.

Blewitt said the idea of holding part of an international trial in Belgrade had been raised with members of the new reformist government that ousted Milosevic's hardline nationalist regime but not fully discussed.

He said it would be legitimate for Serbia to try Milosevic for financial fraud before he faced the international tribunal for war crimes, if the Serbian prosecution were ready first. But Belgrade would first have to surrender Milosevic to The Hague, and he could be returned to face a domestic trial.

Blewitt appeared eager to smooth over an escalating war of words between chief war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte and Kostunica, a former law professor and democratic opposition leader.

In a weekend radio interview, Del Ponte branded Kostunica a man of the past and said she had been disappointed by his "incredible nationalism." She also said she saw scant chance that police would arrest Milosevic, or that the Serbian parliament would agree to hand him over to the U.N. tribunal.

But Blewitt, an Australian, called his Swiss boss impatient and predicted that Serbia would come around to surrendering Milosevic.

Referring to an icy meeting between Del Ponte and Kostunica in Belgrade in January, the deputy prosecutor said: "We were there on the day the government was being formed and here we were demanding instant cooperation. I think we were frankly being unrealistic in the demands we were setting."