Ex-Serbian interior minister dies in suicide

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- An associate of ex-President Slobodan Milosevic died Saturday, two days after shooting himself in the head to protest passage of a law that would have allowed his arrest and extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

Vlajko Stojiljkovic, 65, Serbia's interior minister in charge of police under Milosevic, had been indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Stojiljkovic shot himself Thursday in front of the federal parliament hours after passage of an extradition bill for suspects sought by the court.

Stojiljkovic never recovered from a deep coma and died at 9:30 p.m. despite intensive reanimation measures, said Branko Djurovic, head of the Belgrade hospital emergency ward.

The Hague court indicted Stojiljkovic for alleged crimes against humanity during the 1999 Kosovo war, when about 800,000 Kosovo Albanians were driven from their homes and hundreds were killed by Serbian security forces. He is one of about 20 suspects believed to be in Yugoslavia.

Stojiljkovic walked out of the parliament building Thursday evening, pulled out a gun and shot himself in the temple.

The new law removed legal obstacles for the arrest and extradition of Stojiljkovic and the other suspects, including several top associates of Milosevic.

The United States has conditioned financial aid to Yugoslavia, struggling after a decade of wars and economic decline, on its cooperation with the U.N. tribunal. The court was established to prosecute those accused of responsibility for the Balkan bloodletting of the past decade.

In a suicide note, Stojiljkovic denounced the pro-democracy leaders who pushed the law through parliament as a "puppet regime," accusing them of bowing to U.S. pressure by deciding to hand over "patriots" to the U.N. tribunal.

Yugoslav authorities have vowed the suicide would not hinder extradition efforts, but some of the other top war crimes suspects have indicated they would not allow themselves to be taken alive to be sent to The Hague.

Stojiljkovic's act deepened tensions in Yugoslavia.

Milosevic's Socialist Party, in which Stojiljkovic was a ranking member, called him "the first victim" of a law that "legalizes the hunt for Serb patriots and heroes of the war against NATO aggressors."