Milosevic finance minister held

Several of Milosevic's ministers now under investigation

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- The former finance minister in ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's administration has been arrested

Serb police said Borislav Milacic was arrested on suspicion of diverting $2.5 million in state funds to buy equipment for television stations loyal to Milosevic's Socialists.

The deputy head of Serbia's criminal police, Lieutenant Colonel Miodrag Vukovic, said Milacic was handed over to an investigative judge

Milacic is the latest senior figure from Milosevic's administration now in custody or under criminal investigation -- a list which includes the former Yugoslav president himself.

Milacic was Serbia's finance minister from July 1997 until October 5 last year, when Milosevic was ousted in a popular uprising after having lost a presidential election.

Vukovic said that former Yugoslav deputy prime minister Nikola Sainovic and the former head of the Politika newspaper Hadzi-Dragan Antic were also accused in the same investigation.

They were all accused of having abused power in 1999 and 2000 to purchase equipment for eight local television stations set up by Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia. The money for the equipment was taken from the Serbian budget.

The three additionally damaged the state by not paying six million dinars -- worth around $120,000 at today's rates, but considerably more at the time of the alleged offences -- in customs duties, Vukovic said.

Former deputy premier Sainovic also faces accusations of siphoning off state funds in a separate investigation which has put Milosevic behind bars in investigative custody.

The U.N. war crimes tribunal has indicted Milosevic, Sainovic and three other associates on charges of crimes against humanity for atrocities blamed on Serb forces in Kosovo in 1999.

Reformers who ousted Milosevic in October last year have said the former president should be tried at home and want him to face the corruption charges before any war crimes trial.