New genocide charge against Milosevic

UN prosecutors say they have filed new charges against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, including the charge of …

UN prosecutors say they have filed new charges against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, including the charge of genocide, in Bosnia.

Ms Florence Hartmann, a prosecution spokeswoman, said the Bosnia indictment was filed last week, and must be confirmed by a judge before Milosevic is summoned to the court to plead. It was the third case filed against the ousted Yugoslav leader.

So far, Milosevic has refused to cooperate with the tribunal - which he calls illegal - or to enter a plea to charges of war crimes in Kosovo and Croatia. A plea of innocent has been entered on his behalf in both cases to all charges.

Details of the Bosnia indictment were not available, but it was expected to accuse Milosevic of responsibility for the deaths of hundreds and perhaps thousands of people during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. It was delayed by several weeks to include evidence from the recent exhumations of mass graves of Bosnian civilians.

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In another development, a retired Yugoslav Navy admiral surrendered to the UN tribunal to face charges of murder and the wanton destruction of the medieval Croatian city of Dubrovnik in 1991.

Miodrag Jokic, 66, was admitted to the UN detention unit in Scheveningen, a suburb of The Hague, where Milosevic and 48 other suspected war criminals were being held.

Jokic was expected to appear before the tribunal later this week to plead to charges of responsibility for war crimes by himself and by men under his command.

The retired admiral arrived on a plane with Mirjana Markovic, Milosevic's wife, who was coming for a regular monthly visit to her husband. She was accompanied by her daughter-in-law and her grandson.

PA