Russia won't extradite Milosevics

2012-01-19 18:13

Belgrade - Moscow apparently has no intention of extraditing Slobodan Milosevic's widow and his son, both wanted by Serbia, who received political asylum in Russia in 2008, a top prosecutor said on Thursday.

"I have the impression that Russia has taken a permanent decision to offer refuge to Slobodan Milosevic's family," Serbia's attorney general Zagorka Dolovac told Blic newspaper after her visit to Moscow last week.

She implied that the continuing shelter for Milosevic's widow Mira Markovic and son Marko Milosevic was part of a deal made with the former Serb strongman himself right after a massive demonstrations in October 2000 led him to step down.

"At that time bloodshed was avoided and Slobodan Milosevic accepted the results of democratic elections and left power," Dolovac explained.

Markovic and her son left Serbia in 2003, and finally were granted political asylum in Russia in 2008.

Markovic has been charged with abuse of power in Serbia for allegedly handing out a government-subsidised apartment to an associate. She has also been named as a suspect in the mysterious assassination of former Serbian president Ivan Stambolic in August 2000.

In 2007 Serbia issued an international arrest warrant for her and her son linking them to a cigarette smuggling network.

Slobodan Milosevic died in March 2006 in a prison cell while on trial for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity before the UN war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague for his key role in the 1990s wars that tore apart the Balkans.

- AFP