PRO-MILOSEVIC RALLY HELD IN SERBIAN CAPITAL
BBC Monitoring International Reports - June 28, 2005

Excerpt from report in English by Croatian news agency HINA

Belgrade, 28 June: The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) on Tuesday [28 June ] held a protest rally in downtown Belgrade to mark the fourth anniversary of the hand-over of its former leader Slobodan Milosevic to the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal. At the rally, party members insisted on the immediate release of Milosevic from the Scheveningen detention centre and called for ending what they called was the persecution of his family.

"We support the brave and impressive struggle of Slobodan Milosevic for the truth before a fake tribunal, where he is defending every soldier, policeman, officer and honourable citizen," SPS deputy chairman Milorad Vucelic told about 2,000 people who gathered at the rally. He added that the Serbian people cannot be identified with the crime as they, he said, had nothing to do with it.

The demonstrators carried party flags and photos of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the war-time Bosnian Serb leaders who are wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes.

There were also banners with messages against the director of the Fund for Humanitarian Law, Natasa Kandic, and another two human rights activists in Belgrade, Sonja Biserko and Borka Pavicevic.

Source: HINA news agency, Zagreb, in English 1909 gmt 28 Jun 05

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