Yugoslavia moves closer to extraditing Milosevic

The Yugoslavian Government has adopted a draft law enabling the extradition of former President Slobodan Milosevic to the UN war crimes court.

The measure will now be forwarded to the federal parliament, which could consider it as early as next week. The parliament would have to approve the draft legislation in order for Milosevic to be extradited.

Yugoslavia's President Vojislav Kostunica announced the move on television after the Cabinet meeting.

The prime minister of Yugoslavia's dominant republic, Serbia, said the country must cooperate with the tribunal or face the loss of a massive influx of foreign investment from the US and Western financial institutions.

"The sky will fall on our heads if we fail to write off at least 65% of our foreign debt - estimated at dozens of billions of dollars - by the end of June," Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic told state television. "Any other solution is a suicide."

Milosevic, who is in a Belgrade prison pending an investigation into allegations of corruption and abuse of power during his 13 year rule, has hired 10 more lawyers to prove that he was jailed without sufficient evidence and to work on his release pending trial, said defence lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic.