Ms Mira Markovic, wife of Mr Slobodan Milosevic, has indicated that she wants to travel to The Hague to lend her husband support during his trial. She has asked the UN war crimes tribunal to intervene to enable her to come to The Hague despite an EU travel ban, a tribunal spokesman, Mr Christian Chartier, said yesterday.
She reportedly wants to rent an apartment in The Hague for the duration of her husband's trial.
EU sanctions - though largely lifted after Mr Milosevic's removal last year - still prevent members of his immediate family from travelling to EU countries. Mr Milosevic and Ms Markovic met in high school in the small town of Pozarevac, Serbia, and have been inseparable ever since. The head of the left-wing JUL party in Yugoslavia, Ms Markovic is the most influential woman in the history of Serb politics, the couple's biographer says.
But in an interview seven years ago, Ms Markovic said she dreamed about a leisurely retirement with Mr Milosevic.
"When I turn 60 in 2002, I want my husband to leave politics. I see us on foreign holidays, maybe somewhere in Switzerland," she said. Mr Milosevic's trial is, however, expected to take more than two years.
Ms Markovic will have to meet Mr Milosevic in the ICTY detention centre in Scheveningen, a northern suburb of The Hague. The facility is equipped with a special "family room" where detainees and their partners can enjoy conjugal visits.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry confirmed it had received a request to waive the travel ban for Mr Milosevic's wife and at least one other family member and was looking into it.
A spokesman said the ministry had received a request by the tribunal to "respond positively if Ms Markovic applies for a visa" to the Netherlands.
Isabel Conway writes from The Hague: When Mr Milosevic arrived back inside the walls of his prison after his short and dramatic courtroom appearance where he was indicted for horrific war crimes, yesterday, a mild mannered Irishman who is his chief jailer awaited him.
A former high ranking member of the Army, retired Cmdt Tim McFadden (47) from Dublin, is director of the United Nations Detention Unit where the dictator has reportedly been on 24-hour suicide watch.
The officer caused initial consternation among detainees and surprise among UN war crimes investigators here by abolishing segregation among the 38 or so Serb, Croat and Muslim inmates on taking over the difficult job in late 1997.
Cmdt McFadden served as a high ranking member of the UN peacekeeping force in the Lebanon. Asked how Mr Milosevic was behaving himself in his prison Cmdt McFadden said: "He shows great respect for staff and management and indeed for myself. He is anxious to comply [with our regulations]".
The Bosnian Serb government yesterday approved a long-delayed draft law on co-operation with the UN war crimes tribunal, prompted by growing pressure following the handover of Mr Milosevic. The Bosnian Serb Prime Minister, Mr Mladen Ivanic, said he would travel to The Hague today to discuss the law with tribunal officials. --(Reuters)