Moscow mayor critical of European court's handling of Milosevic case
BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union. London: Jan 21, 2006. pg. 1

Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 21 January: Moscow will be very glad and eager to receive Slobodan Milosevic for treatment. [Moscow mayor] Yuriy Luzhkov today told journalists that, should the Russian authorities take a relevant decision, Moscow "will be very glad and eager to receive Milosevic and create all conditions for his treatment".

Luzhkov also pointed out that the Milosevic situation "is a disgrace for the European court which groundlessly prosecuted Milosevic and held him in detention for several years and now does not know what to do to him".

"All their charges have fallen apart, and they are trying to put on a brave face," Luzhkov said and added that "they do not want to apologize to Milosevic for his wasted years".

According to the mayor, "there should be a procedure in the judicial system whereby judges who have made a mistake should spend the same term behind bars as the person whom they imprisoned groundlessly".

The Russian side earlier declared its readiness to receive Slobodan Milosevic for treatment. "The Russian Foreign Ministry has sent documents to the International Tribunal on the strength of which a decision should be taken on temporarily releasing Milosevic and allowing him to go to Russia for treatment," the ministry spokesman, Mikhail Kamynin, said. According to Kamynin, the Yugoslav ex-president "for his part has also issued guarantees to the tribunal that, upon completion of a course of treatment, he will return to the Hague".

The Bakulev cardiovascular surgery centre of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences said they were ready to receive the former leader of Yugoslavia.

Credit: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0951 21 Jan 06

ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0951 21 Jan 06/BBCMonitoring/(c) BBC

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