Deposed Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic must be tried on war crimes charges at The Hague and not on home territory as suggested by Yugoslavia's foreign minister, the chief prosecutor at the international war crimes tribunal here insisted on Friday.
"It is impossible to have a trial in Belgrade because it is not a neutral place and it is impossible to imagine that victims could come to testify," a spokeswoman for Carla del Ponte said.
Del Ponte was reacting to Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic's suggestion that Milosevic could be tried on war crimes charges as long as the court convened in Yugoslavia.
"The trial must be held in The Hague," spokeswoman Florence Hartmann told journalists: "The prosecutor insists that high-ranking officials and people on charges of grave crimes must be tried in The Hague."
The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has indicted Milosevic, deposed in an October uprising, along with four top allies for alleged war crimes committed in Kosovo during the 1998 ethnic cleansing campaign.
"Other high-ranking people have been tried in The Hague," the official recalled. "Why some here and Mr. Milosevic in Belgrade?"
Svilanovic said during a Washington visit that Belgrade, which has balked at extraditing Milosevic to the ICTY, could accept an international component in a trial taking place within Yugoslav borders.
But the prosecution spokeswoman said here: "Yugoslavia has to comply with all the requests and all the warrants from the tribunal, and not the opposite.
"It is Yugoslavia that has to cooperate with the ICTY and not the ICTY with Yugoslavia."
She said del Ponte was aware of local opinion in Yugoslavia. "She is prepared to talk about the possibility of hearings in Belgrade," she added.
Yugoslav officials have for several weeks been floating the possibility of trying Milosevic in Serb courts on Serb soil, but none have gone as far as Svilanovic who appeared willing to seek compromises on the matter that could satisfy international concerns.
But Belgrade's new authorities, led by Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, have insisted that Milosevic be tried at home, citing constitutional obstacles for his extradition to the Hague -- THE HAGUE (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
