Kostunica meets Milosevic

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- President Vojislav Kostunica reassured his predecessor Slobodan Milosevic that he would not be extradited to face war crime charges during a meeting between the two, a report says.

Kostunica met with Milosevic for the first time since the previous leader was ousted on October 6 and told him that Yugoslavia would not extradite him, or other war crimes suspects, saying it would be illegal.

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Yugoslavia's constitution "does not allow extradition of Yugoslav citizens to a foreign court, so any talk about possible extraditions is not legally founded," Kostunica said in remarks published on Saturday in the Belgrade daily newspaper Glas Javnosti.

Milosevic has been indicted by the international tribunal in The Hague for war crimes alleged to have taken place during the Balkan wars.

The comment was the latest in a series of conflicting signals from Yugoslavia's new pro-democracy leadership on the sensitive issue.

It was contradicted by the country's justice minister, who said the extradition ban does not apply because the international tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, is a U.N. body.

The remarks were published as Kostunica and Milosevic met to discuss the situation in the country, particularly in Kosovo, and troubled relations between the two Yugoslav republics -- Serbia and Montenegro -- the state-run Tanjug news agency reported.

Kostunica told the newspaper Glas Javnosti he wanted to clarify his position amid recent speculation that the re-opening of a liaison office of the Netherlands-based tribunal in Belgrade might lead to the extradition of a number of suspects, including Milosevic.

The re-opening "does not automatically mean accepting of all demands of the court," Kostunica said. He re-iterated the possibility that the suspects could be tried in Yugoslavia.

The tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, is to visit Belgrade later this month to demand the Yugoslav Government's full co-operation, including the arrest of Milosevic and other suspects.

"We will co-operate to the extent that our laws allow and that does not insult national dignity," Kostunica said.

A law professor, Kostunica listed the arguments for and against full co-operation with the court.

He noted that Yugoslavia is a signatory to the Geneva Convention that bans war crimes, and that Milosevic pledged co-operation with the court in the 1996 Dayton peace deal for Bosnia.

But he also pointed out that the Yugoslav parliament never ratified the Dayton agreement.

Justice Minister Momcilo Grubac, meanwhile, contradicted Kostunica's statement that extraditing suspects to the court would violate the constitution.

While a Yugoslav citizen cannot be extradited to a foreign country, "the Hague tribunal is a United Nations body, which means that the constitutional ban on extradition does not apply," Grubac said.

But Kostunica sharply criticised the court. He repeated earlier accusations that the tribunal is "more a political rather than legal institution" -- echoing a widespread belief in Yugoslavia that it has an anti-Serb bias.

"We shall also exchange evidence which will help reveal crimes that were committed against our people," Kostunica said.

He said the tribunal's judges and prosecutors "define their own rules ... and change them very often."

The differing comments could point to disagreements within the pro-democracy camp over what to do with Milosevic, who was ousted as Yugoslav president in October after a decade of growing economic misery and ethnic wars that dismembered the country.

Since its establishment in 1993, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has sentenced 14 Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims to up to 45 years in prison.

Vladan Batic, a pro-democracy leader who is expected to be the justice minister in Yugoslavia's main republic of Serbia when a new government is formed, said earlier this month that Milosevic is likely to be tried in Serbia and that the charges could include war crimes.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

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