Serbia moves on war crime suspects

Djindjic warned isolation could happen if Serbia did not cooperate

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- The Serbian government has issued arrest warrants for the extradition of four close associates of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic just hours before a U.S. deadline was due to expire, reports have said.

Serbia had been given a deadline by the United States Congress of March 31 to hand over war crimes suspects to the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.

The Associated Press news agency quoted the Serb Justice Minister Vladan Batic as saying on Sunday that the warrants had been issued.

Failure to cooperate with the Dutch court could cost the Serb regime $120 million in financial aide. It was such a warning last year that saw the arrest and eventual extradition of Milosevic who is now on trial for genocide and crimes against humanity in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia during the 1990s.

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Batic told the AP it was now up to Serbian police to follow through on the indictments by The Hague tribunal. He did not say when the police were given the warrants.

"The police will have the final word, they will decide when and how to carry out the (arrest) actions," Batic added.

The four Milosevic aides, charged with crimes against humanity on the same indictment as the former Yugoslav president, were his close associates and held top offices during the 1998-99 Kosovo war.

They are Milan Milutinovic, the current Serbian president; Nikola Sainovic, Milosevic's top security adviser and former deputy prime minister; Dragoljub Ojdanic, a former Yugoslav army commander; and Vlajko Stojiljkovic, former Serbian interior minister in charge of the police.

Bosnian Serb wartime commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, who along with Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic is the most wanted war crimes suspect indicted in The Hague, was not on the list. Mladic is widely believed to be in Serbia under the protection of the Yugoslav army, but Serbian authorities have said he is beyond their reach for the time being.

Serbian officials have tried to downplay the March 31 deadline, saying arrests are unavoidable but that the timing was "less important."

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is expected to decide by early next week whether to allow continued financial support for Yugoslavia -- in which Serbia is the dominant nation.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, the pro-Western leader who engineered Milosevic's arrest and extradition, is locked in a power struggle with his nationalist rival, Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, who considers the tribunal an illegal and unjust court.

Kostunica insists that extraditions to The Hague should not take place until a special law is passed. Defying such objections, Djindjic's Cabinet earlier this week adopted the U.N. tribunal's rules governing extraditions.

Kostunica on Saturday rejected accusations that he was obstructing Yugoslavia's cooperation with the U.N. tribunal but again called for a special law to regulate extraditions.