By
The Associated Press
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Yugoslav authorities ordered a haggard Slobodan Milosevic held for 30 days as they considered the evidence behind charges of corruption and abuse of power stemming from his ruinous 13-year rule.
The former president surrendered before dawn yesterday, ending a chaotic 26-hour armed standoff during which he reportedly brandished a pistol and threatened to kill himself and members of his family.
Milosevic pleaded innocent and was appealing the detention order, said his lawyer, Toma Fila. "He decided to defend himself. He will speak up and tell the truth," Fila said.
Despite months of international pressure to have him extradited to the U.N. war crimes tribunal, which indicted him for crimes against humanity after his brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999, officials insisted he first would be tried at home for ruining the country. But they held out the possibility of a later trial by the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
"We are expecting him soon. It will be Milosevic in The Hague in 2001," tribunal spokeswoman Florence Hartmann said yesterday. Another spokesman, Jim Landale, said Yugoslavia had a "binding obligation" to turn him over.
Bundled into a police car, Milosevic was brought to Belgrade's Central Prison early yesterday. Local television showed the iron gates sliding shut behind him.
During the preceding standoff, Milosevic's loyal bodyguards - who barricaded themselves in his luxury villa - had sprayed gunfire at police charging the compound Saturday. Police regrouped and the government sent in negotiators to persuade Milosevic to give himself up and avoid a bloody confrontation. Outside, hundreds of his supporters gathered to taunt police with screams of "Slobo! Slobo!"
As police pulled on woolen masks early yesterday in an apparent preparation for a second assault, a convoy of vehicles suddenly sped through the villa gates. Word came soon after that Milosevic had surrendered - but not before displaying a gun during the nightlong negotiations and pledging at one point to die rather than be taken, according to an account by the Serbian interior minister, Dusan Mihajlovic.
Just before he was whisked away, his 32-year-old daughter, Marija, fired several gunshots. A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said she was apparently aiming at a government negotiator. There were no injuries.
Justice officials said Milosevic - who as president enjoyed unrivaled deference and luxury - would be treated no better than any other prisoner.
"He has his own room," said Vladan Batic, justice minister of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic. "He will be given food, allowed visitors, to have his own clothes and footwear, money, books, newspapers. He will not be subjected to any kind of physical harassment, no psychological pressure."
But Fila said his client, sedated and exhausted after his ordeal, would have to adjust to life behind bars.
"This is no five-star hotel," he told reporters, pointing to the huge, gray, communist-era building behind him. "This is a Balkan prison. ... Some cells are better, which means he has hot and cold water, but no TV or radio, or a gym or a swimming pool."
Describing Milosevic as a "reasonable man who did not want any more Serb blood to be spilled," Fila blamed authorities for provoking the violence that preceded the arrest by sending riot police to storm the residence.
Authorities interrogated Milosevic yesterday in connection with alleged abuse of power and corruption. The charges, which carry a maximum of five years in prison on conviction, include allegations that as president of Serbia and later Yugoslavia, Milosevic conspired with four top aides to steal about $390 million in Yugoslav dinars and German marks from the country's treasury.
More serious charges could be raised over the months ahead, possibly including involvement in a series of political assassinations. The questioning was to resume tomorrow.
Milosevic's arrest followed a Saturday deadline on U.S. threats to suspend $50 million in economic aid if President Vojislav Kostunica's government did not show willingness to cooperate with the war crimes tribunal. But government officials said the detention was not linked to the deadline.
Kostunica has refused to extradite Milosevic to The Hague, insisting he should be tried at home for corruption and other alleged crimes. However, Yugoslav authorities clearly hope the arrest will lead to certification that they have met conditions for the aid.
Batic, the justice minister, said the arrest had "at this moment" no link to extradition demands by The Hague court. His choice of words suggested that authorities might consider handing the former president over to the U.N. court once he is tried domestically, and if parliament lifts a current ban on extraditing Yugoslav citizens.
With sentiment at home overwhelmingly anti-Milosevic, some in the leadership might be hoping that lingering opposition to extradition will erode if he is found guilty of significant criminal wrongdoing at home.
"Until we have the law ... none of our citizens can be handed over," Batic told reporters. He said preliminary legal proceedings could last "for 10 days or six months."
"At this moment, The Hague is out of question," Fila added.
Since his ouster from power last fall, Milosevic has lived under police surveillance in the cavernous villa built for former communist dictator Josip Broz Tito.
After gaining power during the waning years of communist rule in Europe, he triggered the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia in 1991, sending his army into losing wars against the pro-independence republics of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia.
His brutal attempts to put down an ethnic Albanian rebellion in Serbia's province of Kosovo provoked NATO airstrikes that pushed his forces out of the province in 1999.
When Milosevic refused to accept electoral defeat, opposition supporters rioted. He conceded defeat Oct. 6, but remained politically active.
