Former Yugoslav president Mr Slobodan Milosevic played for time today as the Yugoslav Constitutional Court said it would meet tomorrow to discuss a request to suspend a decree paving the way for his transfer to the United Nations war crimes tribunal.
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Former Yugoslav president Mr Slobodan Milosevic
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Mr Milosevic rebuffed attempts by an investigative judge to move to the next stage of the process outlined in the decree - a hearing to confirm his personal details and ask for a plea on the tribunal's charge of crimes against humanity.
Instead, his lawyers effectively blocked the hearing by applying to have several local justice officials including the investigating judge removed from the case.
"We shall get a reply possibly today or tomorrow", Mr Veselin Cerovic, a member of Mr Milosevic's defence team, said.
The lawyers' move appeared likely only to delay the process. But the court could decide at its session tomorrow to freeze the decree controversially pushed through by reformist ministers at the weekend.
The ministers passed the measure under heavy Western pressure to show they will cooperate fully with the tribunal in The Hague ahead of a donors' conference at which they hope to raise nearly $1.3 billion in urgently needed aid and investment.
Lawyers for Mr Milosevic, the central figure in a decade of Balkan wars currently in prison as part of a domestic corruption investigation, have asked the court to suspend the decree while it decides if the measure violates the constitution.
Yugoslav President Mr Vojislav Kostunica, who took office after a mass uprising last October forced Mr Milosevic to accept election defeat, acknowledged the Constitutional Court would have the last word on whether the decree was legal.
The president said at a meeting with leaders of Mr Milosevic's Socialist Party that a legal framework was essential to regulate cooperation with the Dutch-based UN tribunal.
Without that framework, lawlessness might start ruling, a statement from the president's office said.
Not for the first time, the president's stance appeared at odds with the views of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who has stated that Mr Milosevic's transfer can go ahead even if the Constitutional Court strikes down the decree.
Mr Djindjic, a more energetic character with a willingness to cut corners to get things done, has said Mr Milosevic could be in The Hague by as early as Friday. Mr Kostunica has said this would not be possible under the procedure outlined in the decree.
Mr Milosevic's lawyers argue the decree is illegal as the extradition of Yugoslav citizens is banned by the constitution. Reformers argue a transfer does not amount to an extradition as the tribunal is a UN institution, not a foreign state.
The tribunal indicted Mr Milosevic in May 1999, accusing him of responsibility for the mass killings and expulsions of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo province. Prosecutors also plan to charge him with war crimes committed in Bosnia and Croatia.