U.N.: Belgrade knew of TV threat

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- The regime of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic knew NATO considered Serbian state television to be a legitimate target, the U.N. war crimes prosecutor has said.

Carla del Ponte told a lawyer for 13 of the 16 people killed in the airstrike 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.

Relatives of those who died in the attack blame both NATO and television station bosses for the deaths.

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Del Ponte's spokeswoman Florence Hartmann said a lawyer representing the families of 13 of the 16 victims of the bombing had asked if the former president's regime had known the building in Belgrade would be attacked.

"She (Del Ponte) said she had been told (this) by NATO very clearly and she will ask for evidence she can use before the court," Hartmann said.

The families are pursuing legal action against television bosses on the suspicion they knew the building was a target but kept it open.

They consider both the television bosses and NATO responsible for the deaths, and some of them have begun suing the military alliance at the European Court of Human Rights.

Lawyer Slobodan Sisic told local radio: "If there is real, written, positive evidence about this, and we have absolutely no reason to disbelieve Mme del Ponte, this completely changes the entire concept of our proceedings."

Sisic said del Ponte had told him the court did not have sufficient evidence at the moment to charge anyone from NATO over the bombing of the television building.

But he said the prosecutor told them they were in Belgrade to gather evidence, and the decision might not be final.

Meanwhile, del Ponte met relatives of Serbs missing in Kosovo ahead of talks on Wednesday with Yugoslav officials to press for the extradition of Serb atrocity suspects.

The relatives want charges brought not only against Serbs but 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.

Her meeting followed talks a day earlier with Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica which ended abruptly after an apparently heated discussion on calls for the extradition of Milosevic.

An arrest warrant for the former Yugoslav leader was re-issued ahead of her visit, but the meeting with Kostunica -- a staunch critic of the Netherlands-based war crime tribunal -- lasted just an hour.

Afterwards Del Ponte hastily walked past reporters, refusing to give a scheduled statement.

Hartmann said: "The heat was very warm". She promised Del Ponte would give a "frank" statement on Thursday at the end of her visit to Belgrade.

Kostunica also kept tight-lipped but later issued a statement confirming "deep differences" between the two sides.

The tribunal indicted Milosevic in May 1999 for alleged crimes against humanity in the crackdown he ordered on Kosovo Albanians, which ended after 78 days of NATO airstrikes.

Before the meeting, Del Ponte said she would press for Milosevic's extradition and was expecting "to discuss co-operation in detail, about how, when and what."

Kostunica, who replaced Milosevic in October following a popular uprising, has repeatedly insisted that domestic laws bar the extradition of Yugoslav nationals to foreign courts.

Del Ponte will meet Yugoslav Justice Minister Momcilo Grubac, Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic and Interior Minister Zoran Zivkovic, as well as Serbia's prime minister-designate Zoran Djindjic and future Justice Minister Vladan Batic.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.