[Yugoslavia has begun legal procedures to transfer former President Slobodan Milosevic to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague].


BELGRADE (Islamweb & Agencies) - Yugoslavia moved closer Monday to handing over former President Slobodan Milosevic for an international trial on Kosovo war crimes charges, taking the first legal step required for his transfer to the U.N. court in The Hague.
Yugoslav Justice Minister Momcilo Grubac forwarded to a local court the U.N. tribunal's request for the Milosevic's transfer, as he is required to do under a decree passed Saturday by the Yugoslav government, an official statement said.
But lawyers representing the former president, ousted in October and arrested in April on suspicion of abuse of power, vowed to try to prevent the country's new reformist authorities from sending him to the Dutch-based tribunal.
The decree, passed less than a week before a donors' meeting at which cash-strapped Yugoslavia hopes to raise nearly 1.3 billion, states the court must inform the Justice Ministry within three days of the result of the tribunal's request.
The United States said Monday it had still not decided whether to attend the donors' conference.
The decree sets out an appeals procedure for those indicted who are already subject to criminal proceedings in Yugoslavia, in theory lasting up to 23 more days.
Yugoslav leaders have said that Milosevic and other suspects could be transferred within two to three weeks.
The statement from the government of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, said the justice minister's request means ''concrete cooperation'' with the U.N. tribunal had been launched in line with the federal decree.
EU SAYS CONFERENCE TO GO AHEAD
In Luxembourg, the European Union said the June 29 donors' conference in Brussels would go ahead as planned following the government's adoption of the decree.
But a U.S.-based rights group said there was little concrete evidence of Belgrade's cooperation and that the decree had loopholes.
Lawyers for Milosevic Monday lodged an appeal against the decree with Yugoslavia's Constitutional Court, saying it violates a constitutional ban on extraditing Yugoslav citizens.
Milosevic's once-ruling Socialist Party said it would hold a protest rally against the decree in Belgrade Tuesday evening.
The reformers who ousted Milosevic say handing a suspect over to the tribunal does not amount to an extradition as it is a U.N. institution, not a foreign state.
If upheld, the decree paves the way for a high-profile trial of the man who led Serbia and Yugoslavia for more than a decade on charges of crimes against humanity linked to mass killings and expulsions in the Kosovo conflict in 1999.
Reformers had spoken out against sending Milosevic to the tribunal, which many Serbs have considered biased against them.
But government officials appeared over the past few weeks to have been preparing public opinion, revealing news of mass graves and offering alleged evidence of a war crimes cover-up ordered by Milosevic.