BELGRADE, April 11 (Hina) - After a 15-month crisis in the ruling DOS coalition on the federal level, the Yugoslav parliamentary Council of Citizens on Thursday adopted a law on cooperation with the Hague-based U.N. war crimes
tribunal with 80 votes for and 39 against.
BELGRADE, April 11 (Hina) - After a 15-month crisis in the ruling
DOS coalition on the federal level, the Yugoslav parliamentary
Council of Citizens on Thursday adopted a law on cooperation with
the Hague-based U.N. war crimes tribunal with 80 votes for and 39
against. #L#
The Council of Republics, the parliament's upper house, adopted the
law a day earlier. The law envisages the hand-over of Yugoslav
citizens who will have been indicted by the Tribunal by the law's
going into force, as well as all other indictees who are not
Yugoslav citizens but are caught on Yugoslav territory.
The law was rejected by opposition deputies from the Socialist
Party of Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav Left of Mirjana Markovic
and the Serb Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj. They described the
adoption of the law as "treason".
Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus dismissed the
Opposition's objections about the illegitimacy of the Hague
tribunal and objections that those who support the law are not
patriots and insult the nation's dignity.
"I agree with you that this insults the nation's dignity, but we
have to be fair and honest to ourselves. Had we done this on time, no
one else would have had to do it in our stead," Labus said.
Commenting on the criticism from the Opposition, the head of DOS
deputies at the Council of Citizens and Serbian Justice Minister,
Vladan Batic, said that the law was opposed exactly by those who
once wielded power and were "responsible for hundreds of thousands
of refugees and tens of thousands of casualties", and who he said
were "a disgrace to the nation and committed treason".
Interior Minister Zoran Zivkovic said that the law would take
effect on Saturday, a day after its publication in the National
Gazette.
The interior ministries of Serbia and Montenegro are in charge of
implementing the law, while the federal justice minister is
responsible for making decisions on the hand-over of indictees.
Under the law, the time between the delivery of the indictment to
the indictee and his hand-over is ten days. According to a previous
statement by Interior Minister Zivkovic, the hand-over of first
indictees can be expected in late April.
(hina) sb rml