Allies to welcome Milosevic remains

Slobodan Milosevic’s body may be put on public display ahead of a funeral later this week, a top ally of the late Serb leader said today, and a family confidante said he could be buried in his hometown.

Milorad Vucelic, vice president of Milosevic’s Socialist Party, said he and other party officials would welcome the former president’s remains at the Belgrade airport at around 3pm (2pm Irish Time) today.

The body will be flown to Belgrade from the Netherlands, where Milosevic died on Saturday while in UN detention.

“All other arrangements will be made later today,” Vucelic said.

It was not immediately clear when the funeral will be held.

Vucelic said that Milosevic’s Socialist Party has formed a “funeral committee” which will make all the preparations, including the possible display of Milosevic’s body at party headquarters in Belgrade.

Relatives of Milosevic in his hometown of Pozarevac, about 30 miles east of Belgrade, said today that Milosevic could be buried there and that his body might be displayed at a memorial hall close to the family home.

The announcement that Milosevic’s funeral would be in Serbia followed several days of speculation about the venue, including the possibility that Milosevic could be buried in Moscow, where his widow, Mirjana Markovic, and son, Marko, live in self-imposed exile.

Marko Milosevic went to the Netherlands yesterday to claim his father’s remains. He will see the body off to Belgrade from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport today before returning to Moscow, Vucelic said.

Vucelic could not say if the two would attend, but Sergei Baburin, a Russian nationalist MP, said in Moscow that Markovic would not come to Belgrade for the funeral because security guarantees by Serbia’s authorities were “insufficient.”

There was no immediate comment from Markovic, who fled to Russia in 2003.

A Belgrade court yesterday suspended a warrant for Mirjana Markovic’s arrest - but ordered her passport to be seized upon arrival, which would prevent her from leaving the country immediately after the burial.

It was also not immediately clear where exactly Milosevic will be laid to rest.

The Socialists have demanded a funeral with state honours at a graveyard reserved for prominent Serbs, but this demand was rejected by the authorities, reflecting the ongoing controversy about the former president’s legacy.

Vucelic said the idea about the funeral at the so-called “Alley of the Greats” was rejected by President Boris Tadic’s Democratic Party, which controls the Belgrade city government. Vucelic refused to disclose the other possible location for Milosevic’s grave.

There are fears that nationalists could use the funeral to try win back power.

In pressing for a Belgrade funeral, the Socialists threatened to topple the minority government if Milosevic were to be denied a funeral in Serbia and his wife was not allowed to mourn him at home.