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CNN Live Saturday

Yugoslavia Moves Towards Extraditing Milosevic

Aired June 23, 2001 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: With up to $1 billion of international aid on the line, and billions more in debt relief, Yugoslavia is moving to extradite its former president to The Hague. The United Nations has been demanding that Slobodan Milosevic stand trial before a tribunal, for alleged war crimes by Serb forces in Kosovo. Today the Yugoslav Cabinet, with nearly half of its members boycotting the session, approved a decree that paves the way for Milosevic's extradition.

For more details about this, we talked by videophone just a couple of minutes ago with CNN's Alessio Vinci in Belgrade.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN BELGRADE BUREAU CHIEF: With the adoption of this decree, the Yugoslav government has basically set the terms for Yugoslavia's cooperation with U.N. War Crimes Tribunal and basically paving the way for the extradition of war crimes suspects to that tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

Among those war suspects, war criminal suspects is also the former Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic. The Yugoslav deputy prime minister, Miroljub Labus, said in a press conference that Mr. Milosevic could be extradited to the UN War Crimes Tribunal by -- in a matter of days. Mr. Labus said the decree has already been signed and as soon as the decree gets into post tomorrow, Sunday, the officials in Belgrade will begin the process to extradite Mr. Milosevic, again, in a matter of couple of days.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE) under tremendous pressure to cooperate with that Tribunal. Millions of dollars in economic aid are at stake there. United States has said that a conference, a donors' conference set to take place in Brussels, Belgium next week. Their participation is dependent on whether Yugoslavia extradites war crimes suspects, including Mr. Milosevic. And therefore the Belgrade officials here had been under tremendous pressure to extradite war crime suspects.

Mr. Labus also said that this decree is not the response to the pressure of international community. That it is a clear indication that Yugoslav government wants to cooperate with the UN War Crimes Tribunal. And therefore, this decree is just a good indication that Belgrade is making steps in the direction to cooperation with the Tribunal. Back to you. KELLEY: And Alessio, you mentioned too though that this is controversial, that seven Cabinet members boycotted this meeting. Can you tell us how most Yugoslavians feel about the extradition?

VINCI: Well, in recent days and weeks, indeed, many Yugoslav people in the streets of Belgrade and throughout the country are supporting the -- or increasingly supporting the idea of an extradition of Mr. Milosevic. He has been in a Belgrade jail here for almost two months here. And the prosecutors here have so far failed to bring charges against him.

They are accusing him of bribery and abuse of power. But so far, they have not brought charges, leading some analysts to believe that perhaps the Yugoslav authorities here do not have enough evidence to charge him with serious crimes, such as war crimes. Although in recent weeks, mass graves have been uncovered in Serbia, indeed here, also in Belgrade, mass graves with bodies are believed ethnic Albanians. Prosecutors here have linked Mr. Milosevic to those bodies of the ethnic Albanians, saying that he had the order to cover up operations -- his people to cover up the evidence of the atrocities committed by the Yugoslav Security Forces in Kosovo before NATO went there.

But certainly, there is growing support here in this country for the extradition of Mr. Milosevic. And the people here seem to be pretty much ready to accept that eventually Mr. Milosevic will end up in The Hague.

KELLEY: You mentioned the millions of dollars of aid involved, too, Alessio. What about Mr. Milosevic? Before he said that he wouldn't even be arrested without a fight. Do you think he could put up a fight over the extradition?

VINCI: Well, his lawyers certainly will try to prevent any extradition. But with this government decree, it appears that they can do very little to prevent the extradition to The Hague.

Again, the deputy prime minister of the Yugoslav Federation said that now the decree -- once the decree is set in force tomorrow, Sunday, it will be just a matter of days. So I believe that right now, everybody here seems to pretty much understand that eventually Mr. Milosevic in the coming days will end up in The Hague.

KELLEY: From Belgrade, our Alessio Vinci. Thank you for the information.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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