Yugoslav Official Free but May Be Charged

The military released Serbia’s deputy prime minister Saturday, two days after detaining him on suspicion of spying for the United States, but said it still might charge him, fueling tensions between the Serbian leadership and army hard-liners left over from the era of Slobodan Milosevic.

The incident on Thursday has angered Washington, which protested the treatment of an American diplomat who was arrested with Momcilo Perisic.

Military agents snatched Perisic and the U.S. diplomat, whom they identified as John David Neighbor, on Thursday night as the two dined together in a restaurant. Perisic was held on suspicion of passing secret documents to the American.

The diplomat was held for 15 hours, at one point reportedly with a hood over his head. He was released Friday, and Perisic was freed Saturday. But controversy boiled over the detentions, which highlighted a rift between hard-line generals, backed by the Yugoslav president, and Serb leaders trying to impose civilian control on the military.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said his deputy had been “set up” and that military intelligence was “out of control.”

An advisor to the president of Montenegro, which along with Serbia makes up the Yugoslav federation, said the federal army was becoming “increasingly dangerous.”

The arrest “demonstrates that the military is not subject to any parliamentary or civilian control,” said the advisor, Blagoje Grahovac.

Perisic and two other Yugoslavs arrested with him were released without charge. But the military said Saturday that evidence pointed to “the criminal act of espionage,” and the military prosecutor’s office said it would examine the evidence to determine in the next few weeks whether to indict.

“I do not consider myself guilty,” Perisic told the independent Beta news agency after his release.

Perisic was the head of the Yugoslav military until then-President Milosevic fired him in 1998 for criticizing the army’s campaign in Kosovo. Since Milosevic’s fall in 2000, Perisic has continued his criticism, saying Yugoslavia cannot grow closer to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization until hard-line commanders from the war are sacked.