U.N. Warrant to Be Served on Milosevic

The U.N. war crimes tribunal said Friday that Yugoslavia had promised to serve its warrant against former President Slobodan Milosevic despite Belgrade’s demand that Kosovo Albanians also be indicted.

“I handed over the indictment and the warrant of arrest, and [Yugoslav Justice Minister Momcilo] Grubac promised to have it served on Mr. Milosevic. . . . It was a very promising visit,” tribunal registrar Hans Holthuis said after meeting with Grubac.

Milosevic, who was ousted in October, was arrested Sunday.

The U.N. tribunal indicted him in May 1999 on war crimes charges stemming from a deadly “ethnic cleansing” campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic. The panel, based in The Hague, sent a delegation to Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, this week to deliver the warrant.

A Yugoslav government statement confirmed that Grubac had accepted the warrant but said he was “particularly interested” to hear about tribunal inquiries into killings of minority Serbs in Kosovo by ethnic Albanian extremists.

Vladan Batic, Serbia’s justice minister, wrote to the tribunal this week to press for indictments of former Kosovo Albanian guerrillas.

Belgrade’s reformist coalition has ruled out turning over Milosevic to the tribunal soon, saying he must be called to account in Yugoslavia first for plundering public coffers.