A lawyer representing Slobodan Milosevic has filed a suit against the Serbian government for transferring the former strongman to the UN war crimes tribunal, Tanjug news agency reported Monday.
Momo Raicevic, one of the lawyers defending Milosevic against charges of financial misdealing, accused Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and 13 members of his cabinet of "abusing the power and being accomplices in the kidnapping of the former Yugoslav president."
Milosevic was transferred to The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on June 28 from the Belgrade prison, where he had been detained since April 1 for abuse of power and embezzlement.
Djindjic's government agreed to hand over Milosevic, indicted by the ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the 1998-99 Kosovo war, after Yugoslav authorities had vetoed his transfer.
The handover has sparked a crisis in Yugoslavia, with Milosevic's successor President Vojislav Kostunica denouncing the transfer as an "illegal act."
Milosevic has refused a lawyer since his arrest, preferring to defend himself before the UN war crimes tribunal.
Raicevic said he had filed two suits against the Serbian government, one in his name and the other in the name of a newly-formed non-governmental group "Freedom for the world of the free and equal."
The group said it would meet every day in front of the US embassy in Belgrade and collect signatures for a petition demanding the release of Milosevic and shutting down the ICTY -- BELGRADE (AFP)
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