Commandos storm Milosevic home in second arrest bid

5:30 pm

BELGRADE - Black-clad masked commandos stormed into the grounds of Slobodan Milosevic's residence at 3.15 am today (1.15 pm NZT) amid shooting after an earlier attempt to arrest the former Yugoslav president apparently went wrong.

The overnight raid by the commandos wielding sub-machineguns followed hours of drama and confusion over the fate of Milosevic, blamed in the West for a decade of Balkan warfare and indicted by a UN court for crimes against humanity.

Local media, citing police sources, said police had the task of arresting Milosevic during the night. Silence from inside the compound after the storming raised the possibility of a standoff between the commandos and Milosevic's own guards.

A reporter from Serbain radio station B92 told CNN this afternoon that, according to their sources, Milosevic had been served with an arrest warrant but was refusing to recognise the authority of the present government and the Serbian police, calling them "servants of NATO".

The reporter said that with dawn approaching in Belgrade (about 5 pm today NZT) it was feared that more militant supporters would come to the official residence in Uzicka Street to help Milosevic.

He said it was also likely that those against Milosevic would also show up in greater numbers as it became light.

"It could be a mess there if [the police] do not finish it soon," he told CNN.

Earlier in the night, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Zarko Korac and a source close to the Serbian government both said Milosevic, who was ousted in a mass uprising last October, had been arrested and taken to a courthouse to face a judge.

But the convoy of jeeps with darkened windows which arrived at the courthouse in central Belgrade left again soon afterwards and Milosevic was then seen greeting a crowd of around 100 supporters gathered outside his home.

One senior Serb political source said problems with the arrest were due to different stances of the police and Yugoslav army, which guards the official residence in which Milosevic has continued to live despite his downfall.

"The army has so far prevented legal procedure," the source, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

It was just after midnight (10 am NZT), when, after the first arrest attempt, witnesses said Milosevic reappeared back at his home in an exclusive Belgrade suburb and greeted supporters.

"Ten meters away from me, Slobodan Milosevic showed up and waved twice. This all lasted about 10 seconds," Branislav Jelic, an activist from the reformist Civic Alliance party, told Reuters.

"He went inside the house and the gates closed."

Apparently talking from his house, he told a Belgrade radio station he was fine.

"At the moment I am drinking coffee with my friends here and I am very well," he told B92 radio.

Three hours later, his future hung in the balance after the arrival of the commandos at high speed in a white van and several other vehicles. Shots rang out as they took up positions inside and outside the residence.

Calm descended on the area after the commando operation and reporters had no way of knowing what was going on behind the high walls.

In Washington, a US official said: "We have received communications from the Yugoslav government that he was arrested."

The official said he had no further information on what charges Milosevic had been arrested for, nor if it was just a detention and not an actual arrest.

The reported move came on the eve of a deadline set by US legislation for President Bush to declare Yugoslavia is cooperating with the UN War Crimes Tribunal, which has indicted Milosevic, or impose economic sanctions on Belgrade.

Speculation that the former Yugoslav leader's arrest was imminent soared last night after a police van, an ambulance and several unmarked cars showed up near the former Yugoslav president's home.

Both Serbia's Justice Minister Vladan Batic, a leader in the reformist alliance which ousted the authoritarian Milosevic in a mass uprising last October, and the Socialists said no one had been arrested.

But Serbia's private BK television, citing its own sources, said a warrant for Milosevic's arrest had been issued and police were inside the house negotiating for his surrender.

Citing a police source, BK said police had tried to replace some of Milosevic's bodyguards, a move that had been resisted by both the guards and the former president.

Yugoslavia's new reformist rulers have said the former leader will not be arrested on war crimes charges before the US deadline. But they have left open the possibility that local justice authorities might order his arrest for alleged offences such as corruption.

US officials have accepted it is unlikely Milosevic himself will be handed over to the war crimes tribunal by the deadline imposed by Congress. But they have said it would boost Belgrade's chances of making the grade if Milosevic is behind bars for any offence.

"We've always said Mr. Milosevic ought to be brought to justice," President Bush said in Washington, adding that the White House was closely monitoring the latest developments.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said later on Friday that the Bush administration would not announce a decision on whether Yugoslavia has met the conditions for aid until Monday at the earliest.

A former communist functionary, Milosevic muscled his way to the top of Yugoslav politics in the power vacuum left by the 1980 death of post-World War Two Yugoslav dictator Marshal Tito.

Milosevic earned a reputation as an unscrupulous pragmatist ready to embrace war and nationalism for the sake of power during his terms as Serbian and Yugoslav president.

The Serb nationalist sentiment he stirred was one of the main sparks to ignite the wars which spread across the old Yugoslavia in the 1990s, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of people in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Western governments regarded him with disdain but were forced to involve him closely in Bosnian peace efforts. But his crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo prompted NATO's 1999 bombing campaign.

The tribunal in The Hague has charged Milosevic with crimes against humanity over atrocities allegedly committed by forces under his command against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999.

- REUTERS, HERALD ONLINE STAFF

Herald Online feature: Yugoslavia

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

Serbian Ministry of Information

Serbian Radio - Free B92

Otpor: Serbian Student Resistance Movement