Hague tribunal reports Serbia to UN Security Council for failing to co-operate

24/06/2008

THE HAGUE, The Netherlands -- The UN war crimes tribunal announced on Monday (June 23rd) that it reported Serbia to the UN Security Council over its alleged failure to co-operate in a case against former Serbian President Milan Milutinovic. Tribunal President Fausto Pocar wrote to Security Council President Zalmay Khalilzad last week, charging that Serbia has not sent Aleksander Dimitrijevic, former head of the Yugoslav army's Security Administration, to testify in the Milutinovic case. "As Dimitrijevic's address in Serbia was unavailable ... the Trial Chamber, and subsequently the president on a number of occasions, urged Minister Rasim Ljajic, the head of Serbia's National Council for Co-operation, to ensure the delivery of the letter inviting the general to testify before the chamber, as well as the subsequent subpoena," Pocar wrote. He added that Serbia's response was "often delayed and incomplete". Milutinovic and five other defendants, known as the "Kosovo six", are on trial for the deportation, murder and persecution of an estimated 800,000 Kosovo Albanians in the first half of 1999. (Reuters, UN website B92, Jurist - 23/06/08)