Milosevic's daughter fired shots before arrest

Slobodan Milosevic's daughter is understood to have fired "four or five" shot inside the villa she was holed up with her father just before his arrest.

Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said 32-year-old Marija "was in a state of distress" when the former Yugoslav president was taken away.

He did not say if anyone was injured in the shooting.

Following his arrest after a 26-hour armed stand-off, Milosevic was whisked away to prison to face a judge on charges stemming from a decade of repressive rule.

The government and the police said Milosevic was arrested without force.

Yugoslav television showed footage of the car carrying Milosevic entering Belgrade's Central Prison and the iron gates closing behind it.

Officials had negotiated through the night to persuade Milosevic to surrender peacefully and avoid a bloody confrontation.

He had barricaded himself in the villa along with at least two dozen heavily armed personal guards, and an official said that at one point he had declared he would rather die than surrender.

Just before his surrender, about 60 special police, some wearing woolen masks over their heads and toting machine guns and pistols, had been seen gathering close to one gate of the sprawling villa in an upscale neighborhood of Belgrade.

Since he fell from power, Milosevic has lived under police surveillance in the villa built for former communist dictator Josip Broz Tito in 1978. It is said to contain secret underground passages, as well as underground vaults containing jewellery - gifts to Tito during his 36-year rule.