MILOSEVIC WRITES LETTER DENYING INVOLVEMENT IN ASSASSINATIONS

BELGRADE, Aug 24 (Hina) - In an "exclusive letter" Belgrade's Vecernje novosti newspaper published on Sunday, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic denies his involvement in political assassinations which occurred when he was in office or his connections with organised crime. #L# Milosevic, who is standing trial at the Hague-based war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, claims he was not involved in the slaying of former Serbian President Ivan Stambolic, who went missing in August 2000 and whose body was found this March. Milosevic also denies involvement in the June 2000 attempted assassination of Vuk Draskovic, then president of Serbia's strongest opposition party. He claims Draskovic staged his own assassination but fails to mention another attempt at Draskovic's life in 1999, when four senior officials of his party were killed. The former Yugoslav leader also denies involvement in cigarette smuggling on a state level, and says he first spoke to Milorad Lukovic aka Legija, the prime suspect in the March 2003 slaying of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, on 31 March 2001 when Legija came to arrest him. Milosevic says he was prompted to write the letter after investigators from Belgrade who recently visited him in prison at The Hague refused to tape his testimony about the crimes he is accused of and present it to the Serbian public. Milosevic says he was accused of invented crimes in March 2001 only in order to be extradited to The Hague. He goes on to say that the latest accusations are an attempt to downplay the "evident fiasco of the fake Tribunal, which serves as a means of war against our country and people," and claims that his wife and son are being criminally persecuted because of the battle he is fighting before the U.N. court. (hina) ha