Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's villa is surrounded by police as the Serbian government attempts to negotiate an end to a tense standoff.
Published:
31 March 2001 y., Saturday
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said negotiations with Milosevic were underway, and he believed an end to the stand-off could be negotiated. But as Milosevic remained inside, new charges were brought against him for inciting an uprising and resisting arrest.
The developments came on the eve of a U.S. deadline calling for Belgrade to cooperate with the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, which has indicted Milosevic, or face a cutoff of about $50 million in U.S. aid.
As hundreds of demonstrators, most of them Milosevic supporters, gathered outside the property near Belgrade, Ministry of the Interior police reinforced their positions on Saturday. Hours earlier dozens of masked police gunmen stormed the compound surrounding the villa amid a flurry of flash grenades and gunfire.
At one stage they made an unsuccessful attempt to break through the compound's gates by ramming them with a van. The police were attempting to arrest Milosevic on local charges of corruption and abuse of power. Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica has insisted it would be unconstitutional to extradite Milosevic to The Hague. The Hague tribunal formally indicted then-Yugoslav President Milosevic for alleged war crimes in May 1999.
Šaltinis:
cnn.com
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
You can now access books, journals, films, maps etc from across Europe via the EU's online library, Europeana.
more »
Late night chat turned serious when comedian David Letterman admitted he had sex with female employees and was being blackmailed for $2-million (USD) over the affairs.
more »
Last Thursday (1 October) saw an agreement that will lead to the introduction of more efficient tyres for cars and lorries that will cut fuel bills and CO2 emissions.
more »
The European Job Days are taking place around the EU over the next fortnight, with a centrepiece event in Brussels on 3 October.
more »
Women, especially migrant and/or poor women, have been harder hit by the financial crisis than men, MEPs heard on Wednesday.
more »
New EU plan to make local transport efficient and sustainable.
more »
Hollywood heavyweights and European cultural figures are rallying behind jailed film director Roman Polanski.
more »
By the time of his death in the Moscow winter 20 years ago, Andrei Sakharov had built an international reputation as a nuclear physicist, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner His fears over the implications of his work led him to call for peaceful coexistence and later for human rights in the USSR.
more »
The ten nominations for this year's Sakharov Prize, the EP's prize for defenders of human rights and democracy, have now been put forward and will be officially presented at the end of the month.
more »
President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė attended a meeting hosted by the President of Liberia Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and the President of Finland Tarja Halonen on Peace and Security through Women's Leadership.
more »