Yugoslav war crimes suspect dies in suicide

The U.N. war crimes tribunal indicted Stojiljkovic along with Milosevic in 1999.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- Vlajko Stojiljkovic, a former Serbian interior minister accused of war crimes in Kosovo, died Saturday, two days after shooting himself outside Belgrade's parliament building, state television announced.

Stojiljkovic was in charge of Serbia's special police under Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and was considered one of the top aides to Milosevic, who left office in the fall of 2000.

He shot himself Thursday night, just a few hours after the parliament approved a law paving the way for more extraditions of war crimes suspects to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

Local media speculated in recent weeks that Stojiljkovic would be among the first indictees sent to the U.N. tribunal.

After his suicide attempt, Stojiljkovic was taken to Emergency Hospital of the Clinical Center of Serbia in Belgrade, where a doctor initially said he was in critical condition. He was unable to regain consciousness after slipping into a coma.

Stojiljkovic was interior minister from April 1997 until October 2000. His ministry was in charge of the police units widely accused of atrocities against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

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The war crimes tribunal indicted Stojiljkovic, Milosevic and two other top Yugoslav officials in May 1999. He had kept a low profile since leaving office, but remained a member of the federal parliament.

The Yugoslav campaign in Kosovo prompted a three-month bombardment of Yugoslavia by NATO forces in 1999, which ended with Kosovo -- a Serbian province -- being placed under U.N. administration.

Parliament passed the extradition legislation under pressure from the United States, which froze financial aid to Yugoslavia at the start of the month and has demanded the handover of suspects as the price for allowing aid to flow again.

Alexander Vucic, a member of the Serbian parliament for the Radical party, read to reporters a statement he said had been hand-written by Stojiljkovic in which he accused Serb and Yugoslav officials of betraying Yugoslavia.

Milosevic is standing trial in The Hague, and the debate over whether to extradite other former war crimes suspects from the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s has divided Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica's government.

Stojiljkovic's suicide is unlikely to derail the extradition law, Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic said.

"It was a very tragic incident," Svilanovic said. "It might have a political impact on the process of implementation but not to the level that would postpone the implementation of this law."

-- CNN Correspondent Alessio Vinci contributed to this report.