Belgrade rebuff for war crimes chief

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- United Nations chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has met a wall of resistance to her demand that Slobodan Milosevic be extradited to face a war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

A day after her apparently heated discussion with President Vojislav Kostunica on the issue, senior government figures told Del Ponte the former leader should be tried in Yugoslavia.

And several hundred protesters, some hurling eggs, blocked her motorcade, chanting "We're not going to give you Slobo, we're not going to give anyone!".

Del Ponte is on the second day of a three-day visit to Belgrade, aimed at persuading the leadership to hand over Milosevic and other war crimes suspects.

But Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic made clear the government's preference for a trial in Yugoslavia, saying most Serbs do not trust the Netherlands-based tribunal.

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"I explained that the official position of the government was that a trial should take place on our territory," he said after meeting Del Ponte.

Even Serbian Prime Minister-designate Zoran Djindjic, Milosevic's fiercest rival in the last years of his leadership, suggested he would prefer to try him at home, although he urged "co-operation" with the tribunal.

"In a couple of months we should invite foreign institutions to assure themselves if our courts are independent and credible enough," Djindjic said, following talks with Del Ponte.

He admitted the prosecutor had been "not delighted" at the suggestion but called her expectations "unrealistic".

Kostunica himself said in an interview published on Wednesday that handing over Milosevic, who remains a free man and is still living in Belgrade, could destabilise Yugoslavia.

"If one wants to destabilise the situation in this country, one might behave the way Carla Del Ponte behaves," he was quoted as saying by the International Herald Tribune.

Del Ponte has made no public comment since arriving in Belgrade but plans to speak at a news conference on Thursday.

The tribunal believes that a total of 15 of the 27 suspects publicly indicted, but still free, remain at large in Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia's two-member federation.

While most people of Serbia have rallied behind the pro-democracy leadership which ousted Milosevic in October, feeling against the U.N tribunal remains high with the majority of Serbs considering it biased against them.

The failure of the new government to comply with the tribunal could undermine the international financial and political support is has enjoyed.

But leaders fear that meeting all the tribunal's demands would cost them popularity at home.

Ahead of her talks with senior ministers, Del Ponte met relatives of Serbs who went missing in Kosovo. They want charges to be brought against the ethnic Albanian militants they accuse of kidnapping their loved ones.

"We want freedom for the innocent people who were kidnapped," said Ranko Djinovic, head of the relatives' association.

Outside the Yugoslav foreign ministry building, several dozen Kosovo Serbs held up pictures of their kidnapped relatives and banners reading, "Do not forget us," and "Freedom for all."

Del Ponte told a lawyer for 13 of the 16 people killed in the air strike on Serbian state television that Milosevic's government had known the station's headquarters in Belgrade could be attacked.

NATO defended the action on the grounds that its broadcasts were part of Yugoslavia's war machine but Milosevic condemned the attack as an action against civilians.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.