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Serbian Minister Says No Extradition of Kovacevic to the US, on Kosovo Asks UN Court Ruling

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, August 15 -- Serbia's foreign minister Vuk Jeremic on Friday said that basketball player Miladin Kovacevic, who beat a University of Binghamton student into the coma in May and fled to Belgrade with the help of the Serbian consulate in New York, has a right under the Serbian constitution to refuse to return to face trial. "We are aware of the fact that officials of the the Serbian government have wronged," he said, adding that the vice-consul and the consul-general have both been fired and now face prosecution. But Kovacevic will not be extradited back to the United States to face trial.

  Moves are afoot in the U.S. Senate to cut all U.S. aid to Serbia unless Kovacevic returns to face justice. Jeremic said that his government has "advised" Kovacevic to return, telling him that as a basketball player who wants an international career, not being able to travel in light of an Interpol warrant will not be helpful. "But so far," Jeremic said, Kovacevic does not want to return.

   Inner City Press asked Jeremic for his government's response to the request that Kovacevic come back and face trial in the United States. Jeremic said that no formal request for extradition has yet been made, but that if and when one is, Serbia will "proceed according to our law" which will have the "effect of starting proceedings against him in front of a Serbian court for the thing that happened."

  The "things" was the beating into a coma of Bryan Steinhauer in a bar in Binghamton on May 4. Kovacevic was arrested, then released after he surrendered his passport and $100,000 dollars bail was posted. The Serbian vice consul then issued him an emergency passport and signed travel documents, allowing him to flee to Serbia, where he remains.


Vuk Jeremic at the UN, fugative Serbian basketball player not shown

    Jeremic was in New York at the United Nations to introduce a resolution, to be voted on by the UN General Assembly at its meeting that starts September 23, seeking an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice whether the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo, declared earlier this year, was legal. 

   Inner City Press asked Jeremic about the UN dismantling its mission in Kosovo -- on Monday, the mission will begin laying off 70% of its staff -- and about  the mission ceasing printing travel documents for those who live in Kosovo, despite the fact that many countries do not accept Kosovo passports. Jeremic said that his government will only accept a "reconfiguration" of the UN presence if it respects the "terrirorial integrity of our province of Kosovo." While that, too, is viewed by many to be a dubious legal argument, the apparently final decision by Serbia not to seek to extradite Kovacevic triggered a four minute answer from Jeremic, which will be available online here.

Footenote: After bragging about his government's recent arrest of Radovan Karadvic, who fled from war crimes charges in The Hague for more than a decade, Jeremic told Inner City Press that "the basketball player" Kovacevic could only be extradited to an international court. So will International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, himself embroiled in charges of rape or sexual impropriety in South Africa, consider using his court's jurisdiction to get Kovacevic to face justice?

Watch this site. And this (on South Ossetia), and this --


   

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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