Kostunica: Milosevic will not go to the Hague

BELGRADE, Tuesday -- Opposition presidential candidate Vojislav Kostunica said today that if he were elected he would not permit Slobodan Milosevic to be extradited to the Hague.

Kostunica, speaking in Valjevo, said that the Hague Tribunal had become a political rather than a legal institution and had thus lost its legitimacy. He described the Hague indictment of the Yugoslav president as being as pointless as last year's NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. The fact that the Russian Federation had never been involved in the court's activities further lowered its status, he said.

Commenting on criticism that he had not raised his voice against the bombing of Yugoslavia, Kostunica replied that he had been in Belgrade throughout the bombing and had condemned NATO's crimes every day. This, he said, had been reported regularly by state television which was now criticising him for being silent.

Source: B92

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