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Date Posted: 10:50:14 12/01/01 Sat
Author: Nikolai von Kreitor
Subject: Kostunica Won't Hang Serbian Patriots
In reply to: Nikolai von Kreitor 's message, "Carla US Putana del Ponte Ready for New Crimes" on 10:43:17 12/01/01 Sat

Kostunica reluctant to hand over war criminals, denies sheltering Mladic




Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica signalled he was unwilling to hand over alleged war criminals to The Hague international war crimes tribunal, saying that he was against "selective justice".
Speaking in London, Kostunica also denied that indicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic was living in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and also spoke out against independence for Kosovo.
UN warcrimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte on Tuesday accused the Yugoslav army of sheltering Mladic, and said she knew he was living in Belgrade.
But Kostunica, who arrived Wednesday on his first official visit to Britain, told the BBC: "To my knowledge he (Mladic) is not in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."
Del Ponte had told a public meeting of the UN Security Council: "As an officer of the Yugoslav Army, General Mladic is said to enjoy military immunity and he is being shielded from both national and international justice."
She later told reporters that because of his military status, Mladic "depends directly and only on the president of the federation of Yugoslavia."
Asked whether he would hand over indicted war criminals, Kostunica told the BBC: "Some of them are not in Yugoslavia."
He added: "I want a sign on the part of the international community ... and The Hague tribunal that they are dealing equally in similar cases with the Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Albanians.
"When I see that the first of the Albanian leaders is indicted before the war crimes tribunal ... when I see that change, that sort of balance, something that looks like justice, then we will think in terms of handing anyone to The Hague tribunal."
Kostunica added: "There were war crimes, but they have been committed in all the former Yugoslav republics, that means in Croatia, Bosnia Hercegovina, and in Yugoslavia, and in Kosovo, by some Albanian leaders, by some Albanians now leading political parties in Kosovo.
"What we need is something contrary to selective justice, that is genuine justice.
"The way The Hague tribunal was working up to now there was a lot of selective justice."
Asked if he saw any future for Kosovo inside the Yugoslav republic after a pro-independence party was recently elected there, he said: "For many years to come I see that not a single frontier in the Balkans should be changed because that would provoke changes in many borders."
Kostunica also said that the West had a moral obligation to make up the difference between what Yugoslavia had been offered for reconstruction, one-and-a-half billion dollars according to the BBC, and the 27 billion dollars damage estimated to have been caused by the NATO bombing campaign against the regime of former president and Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
"I really do think that the West has that sort of obligation", Kostunica said.
The president is on a two two-day trip to Britain, during which he hopes to convince London of Belgrade's commitment to economic and political reforms.
He is to meet with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and is scheduled to have an audience with Queen Elizabeth II.
Kostunica's visit, the first to Britain by a democratically-elected Yugoslav president, comes one year after the fall of the regime of Milosevic as Belgrade seeks to break with the past and chart a course toward eventual EU membership.

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