Milosevic's family run out of town

POZAREVAC - Former opposition activists have run the wife and daughter of Yugoslavia's arrested ex-President Slobodan Milosevic out of the family's home town.

One of the former activists, Momcilo Veljkovic, said yesterday: "We have expelled Mirjana Markovic and her daughter Marija from Pozarevac because the entire family is unwelcome in our town."

Veljkovic is a member of the student-based Otpor movement in the eastern Serbian community.

Marija Milosevic is under criminal investigation for firing shots with a pistol as her father was being driven away from his Belgrade villa to prison on April 1.

She arrived in Pozarevac last week in a black BMW escorted by other vehicles.

After Mirjana Markovic's arrival at the family's Pozarevac mansion on Friday, Veljkovic told security guards that Otpor would stage protests if she did not leave.

Witnesses said the two women left town half an hour later.

They were believed to be back in Belgrade, where Milosevic is in jail as Serbian justice authorities pursue an investigation against him for corruption and abuse of office.

Before the two women left Pozarevac, reporters saw plainclothes police guarding the mansion, while uniformed colleagues barred all approaches.

The police ordered reporters to leave and refused to say who was in the house.

Belgrade's governing DOS reform coalition said during negotiations on terms for the surrender of the defiant Milosevic that it would guarantee the safety of his family and property.

Milosevic's wife and daughter remained in Serbia after the popular revolt that ousted him last October, but his businessman son Marko fled the country and his property, both in Pozarevac and Belgrade, was destroyed by angry protesters.

Marko, who had lived mainly in Pozarevac, was supposed to be a witness at a trial charging Veljkovic with the attempted murder of a friend of the former President's son.

Veljkovic's trial has been postponed several times with no new date scheduled. He was among three men beaten by Marko's friends last year outside a Pozarevac cafe owned by one of them.

DOS has weeded Milosevic loyalists out of the courts to help establish a credible, independent Judiciary but it says the process will take considerable time.

Marko's whereabouts are unknown but Serbian and Western media have said he has been hiding in Russia, where his uncle Borislav Milosevic used to be Yugoslav Ambassador. Serbian media say Borislav still lives in Moscow.

Russia and some other countries mentioned as possible destinations for Marko after he left Belgrade on a false passport have denied he sought shelter on their territory.

- REUTERS

Herald Online feature: Yugoslavia

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

Serbian Ministry of Information

Serbian Radio - Free B92

Otpor: Serbian Student Resistance Movement

Macedonian Defence Ministry

Albanians in Macedonia Crisis Centre

Kosovo information page