Milosevic pair face inquiry

SERBIA:The widow and son of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic are to be investigated for allegedly leading a smuggling racket that netted them tens of millions of euros.

"They will be treated as the organisers of a criminal group dealing in the illegal trade of tobacco," said Serbia's organised crime prosecutor Slobodan Radovanovic.

"The prosecution will request all their property in Serbia to be frozen, as well as their accounts abroad," he said, adding that an international arrest warrant for the pair would be issued once it was shown that they could not be apprehended by the Serb authorities. Mira Markovic left Serbia in 2003 and her son, Marko Milosevic, fled the country in October 2000 when his father was ousted. Neither returned to Serbia for his burial last year.

Both are believed to be in Moscow, and a warrant for their arrest could discomfit Russian prosecutors who are under pressure to extradite to Britain a suspect in the murder of former security service agent and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko.

Belgrade has pledged to crack down on organised crime and catch fugitive war crimes suspects in return for restarting talks on closer ties with the European Union. It is also engaged in tough diplomacy over its southern region of Kosovo, which Washington and major European nations want to see granted independence - a move fiercely opposed by Belgrade with backing from Moscow.

Prime minister Vojislav Kostunica said yesterday that Serbs were "disgusted" by President Bush's pledge of support for an independent Kosovo at the weekend. "The US has a right to support certain states and peoples in accordance with its interests, but not by making them a present of something which doesn't belong to it," he said.