Serbs to put Milosevic on trial for murders

THE trial in Serbia of Slobodan Milosevic on charges of ordering the killing of two political rivals will probably begin within two months, a judge said yesterday.

Ivan Stambolic, Serbia’s former president and Milosevic’s political mentor, was abducted and killed in 2000, the same year that opposition leader Vuk Draskovic was targeted in a failed assassination attempt.

Milosevic, who served both as president of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav republic of Serbia for a decade, will be tried in his absence for allegedly masterminding those two crimes.

He is now on trial at the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague for genocide committed during the Balkan wars.

Belgrade judge Maja Kovacevic said the newly established special court that would try Milosevic and his allies received the indictment yesterday but gave no details on specific charges.

“The law requires that the trial begins two months after the indictment is filed,” the judge said.

Whereas Milosevic has used the proceedings at The Hague in a campaign to depict himself as a defender of Serbs, a trial at home on charges that he ordered the killings of political rivals is expected to badly damage his image.

A special prosecutor named the co-defendants as Radomir Markovic, Milosevic’s former head of security, General Nebojsa Pavkovic, the armed forces’ former chief of staff, and former paramilitary commander Milorad Lukovic.

The prosecutor said Lukovic and five of his men killed Stambolic and that he was also behind the failed attempt to kill Draskovic, all on Milosevic’s orders.

Stambolic disappeared in 2000 while jogging in a Belgrade park, shortly after he had indicated he might challenge Milosevic in the presidential election. Police have said that he was abducted by the paramilitaries, taken to northern Serbia, shot in the head and buried.

Stambolic was Milosevic’s mentor in the Serbian Communist Party in the 1980s. But Milosevic later turned against his friend, ousting him as head of the party in 1987 before launching major purges and turning to nationalism.

In a letter from his Dutch prison cell, Milosevic has denied that he was responsible for Stambolic’s death and the attack on Draskovic.

The former president said the allegations were part of a plot against him and his family.