AUTHOR OF BOOK ABOUT MILOSEVIC REFUTES SUNDAY TIMES ARTICLE

BELGRADE, July 2 (Hina) - The author of an upcoming book about Slobodan Milosevic has refuted allegations in London's Sunday Times saying that Yugoslavia's former President had ordered incumbent military chief-of-staff Nebojsa Pavkovic to kill the British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the time of his visit to Macedonia in May 1999. Talking to the Belgrade daily Vecernje novosti of Monday, journalist Dejan Lukic, the author of "Milosevic: the Rule and Fall" and Vecernje novosti's London correspondent, said he had given the Sunday Times excerpts from the book he is working on, but that the British newspaper "gave its own interpretation, which is incorrect and too strong." General Pavkovic, who in May 1999 was commander of the Pristina Corps, told Lukic in an interview that will appear in the book that he had been given a "political decision" to strike at all outside targets that attacked the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia at the time of NATO air raids, namely Macedonia and Albania. "Tony Blair could certainly have been a target as part of that," Lukic told Vecernje novosti. He added Pavkovic showed him exact data on military losses and the conduct of the police who he said had got out of hand. Pavkovic also told Lukic that an attack on heliports in Albania had also been prepared to commence with the arrival of U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters. (hina) ha