Serbia: A Serbian court reissued an arrest warrant yesterday for Mira Markovic, the widow of Slobodan Milosevic, after she failed to turn up to a Belgrade hearing on corruption charges.
The obligation to attend the court session or face arrest kept Ms Markovic away from her husband's funeral last Saturday.
The court suspended the warrant to allow her to return from Moscow for the funeral, but reinstated the arrest order yesterday and kept €15,000 bail lodged by the Socialist party that Mr Milosevic led in the 1990s.
Ms Markovic is accused of giving a state-owned luxury flat to her grandson's nanny, but may also have faced questions over the murder of Ivan Stambolic, the former Serb president who was best man at the couple's wedding.
A mentor-turned-rival of Mr Milosevic, Mr Stambolic was murdered while jogging in a Belgrade park in August 2000, two months before Mr Milosevic was ousted. He was later charged with involvement in the murder while facing war crimes allegations at the UN court in The Hague, where he died on March 11th of a heart attack.
His funeral was arranged from Moscow by his widow and son Marko, a notorious figure who fled Belgrade in fear of his life when his father was ousted.
Mr Milosevic's daughter, Marija, boycotted the funeral, complaining that she wanted a church service and a burial in the family's ancestral home in Montenegro, where she fled after firing shots at police when her father was arrested in 2001.
The Socialists and the more powerful, ultranationalist Radical Party oppose co-operation with The Hague tribunal, which will urge the EU to suspend talks with Belgrade unless alleged war criminal Ratko Mladic is caught by April 5th.
Serbian president Boris Tadic said yesterday he had asked for an extension to the deadline but reaction to that was not favourable.
