Milosevic Faces Court Battle

Yugoslavia moved closer Monday to handing over Slobodan Milosevic for an international trial on Kosovo war crimes charges, taking the first legal step required for his transfer to the U.N. court in The Hague.

Yugoslav Justice Minister Momcilo Grubac forwarded to a local court the U.N. tribunal's request for the former president's transfer, as he is required to do under a decree passed Saturday by the Yugoslav government, an official statement said.

Milosevic's lawyer filed a challenge earlier Monday with Yugoslavia's Constitutional Court, asserting that the extradition decree is unconstitutional.

Toma Fila, the head of Milosevic's 10-member defense team, said his lawyers were demanding the court block enforcement of the decree until it decides whether the measure was illegal. The judges will convene a council to decide whether the challenge has a legal basis.

The U.N. war crimes court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, is seeking the ex-president for alleged war crimes committed in Kosovo during the 1998-99 war.

The United States and its allies have hailed the Yugoslav government's decision over the weekend to clear legal obstacles for the extradition of Milosevic and more then one dozen other war crimes suspects sought by The Hague court.

"Milosevic needs to have international justice and that's what we are waiting to see — how they intend to go about that," a State Department official said in Washington.

Yugoslavia risks losing billions of dollars in foreign money if its fails to cooperate with The Hague court. Efforts at improving ties with the U.N. tribunal have intensified ahead of a donors conference scheduled for Friday in Brussels, Belgium.

The decree is the work of federal government ministers from Serbia, the larger of the two Yugoslav republics. Ministers from the sister republic, Montenegro, oppose the extradition of Yugoslav citizens but are outnumbered in the Cabinet.

The Montenegrin ministers offered to resign their Cabinet posts — a move that may ultimately lead to a government collapse and call for new federal elections.

The decree states the court must inform the justice ministry within three days of the result of the tribunal's request. It also sets out an appeals procedure for those indicted who are already subject to criminal proceedings in Yugoslavia.

The decree allows an eight-day period for the indicted person to appeal against a decision to defer to the tribunal. The Serbian Supreme Court would then have up to 15 days to rule on the appeal, according to the text of the decree.

Yugoslav leaders said at the weekend that Milosevic and other suspects could be transferred within two to three weeks. But some Serbian officials have suggested that the appeals process could delay any extradition for more than two weeks.

Milosevic has been in Belgrade's Central Prison since April 1 pending an investigation into allegations of corruption and abuse of power during his tenure, and investigations have recently widened to encompass allegations he covered up Kosovo atrocities.

If extradited, Milosevic would be the first former head of state to face a war crimes trial in front of the U.N. court, established in 1992.

Fila, Milosevic's lawyer, assailed the extradition measure as illegal because nearly half of the ministers in the Yugoslav Cabinet were absent when it was agreed on.

But the reformers who ousted Milosevic last October say handing a suspect over to The Hague court does not amount to an extradition as it is a U.N. institution, not a foreign state.

Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus nevertheless expressed alarm at news of the appeal, saying the Constitutional Court was filled with people appointed by Milosevic and lacked legitimacy and credibility.

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