THE HAGUE WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL: Refusing to be taken alive, one of the top Serbian candidates for transfer to The Hague war crimes tribunal tried to kill himself yesterday, accusing reformist politicians of having sold him out.
Former Serbian Interior Minister Mr Vlajko Stojiljkovic, was in a critical condition in hospital after he shot himself in the head outside the Yugoslav parliament in Belgrade which had just approved legislation that would likely have seen him handed over in the next few days to the UN war crimes tribunal.
Parliament passed the legislation under pressure from the United States, which froze financial aid to Yugoslavia at the start of this month and has demanded handovers of suspects as the price for letting the money flow again. Mr Stojiljkovic had written a suicide note which made his motives clear.
"By this act I, as a deputy of the federal parliament, express my protest against all members of the puppet authorities . . ." said the note, read out by Radical Party deputy Mr Aleksandar Vucic in front of the federal parliament.
"For my death I hold responsible and directly accuse [Serbian Prime Minister] Zoran Djinjdic, [Yugoslav President] Vojislav Kostunica . . ." the note said.
It also named the Serbian Interior, Justice, and Yugoslav deputy prime ministers. "Patriotic citizens of this country will know how to avenge me," Mr Stojiljkovic wrote. A fellow Serbian Socialist politician, Mr Ivica Dacic, told Belgrade local television the ex-minister "said a long time ago he would not surrender to the tribunal alive. All this is a consequence of adoption of this law".
Mr Stojiljkovic was Interior Minister from April 1997 until October 2000. His ministry was in charge of the police units widely accused of committing atrocities in Kosovo, as Serbian army and police units fought to crush an ethnic Albanian insurgency with what the West said was disproportionate force. The lower house of the Yugoslav parliament passed the Bill, a compromise hammered out between the partners in the ruling coalition, with 80 votes in favour and 39 against, speaker Dragoljub Micunovic said in parliament. The upper chamber approved the Bill on Wednesday.
The law seeks to end a crisis over Belgrade's failure to meet a March 31st deadline set by Washington to send more suspects to the UN court. That led the US to suspend about $40 million in sorely needed aid. The legislation allows the transfer only of suspects the tribunal has indicted already, and government ministers have said handovers could take place within about two weeks.