The Serbian parliament on Tuesday adopted legislation under which taxpayers will pay compensation to former president Slobodan Milosevic and other war crimes suspects for as long as they are on trial at the UN tribunal in The Hague.
The new law calls for all those indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to be paid monthly compensation for lost salaries and legal fees.
It also provides financial help to family members to cover travel expenses, hotel costs and phone bills.
The law was adopted by a majority of votes from Milosevic's Socialist Party, the ultranationalist Radical Party and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia, which control parliament.
But Vuk Draskovic, the head of the Serbian Renewal Movement, a member of Kostunica's coalition, blasted the law as "scandalous."
"Crime and criminals are more respected in Serbia today that during the time of Slobodan Milosevic," he said.
"We openly celebrate criminals ... The absence of values that ruled in the country from 1990 to 2000 has returned," said Draskovic, who was the leading opposition figure to Milosevic when the former president was in office.
The law was passed on the same day that a senior US diplomat was in Belgrade to discuss Serbia's cooperation with the ICTY on the eve of a Washington-set deadline for the republic to cooperate with the court or face suspension of much-needed aid.
US Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman said after his meetings in Belgrade he was glad Kostunica "recognized the importance in that regard of Serbia and Montenegro meeting its international commitments including to the ICTY."
"I got the strong sense that they [Belgrade officials] wish to meet those responsibilities. How they do that is obviously up to them, but I said this was an area in which the cooperation with the United States is certainly possible," Grossman said before departing for Washington.
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