Yugoslavia will soon issue war crimes indictments against its own citizens because it is ready to face up to atrocities committed by Serbs, the Serbian justice minister said today.
"Individual responsibility has to be determined for those who have committed war crimes in the name of the Serb people... and we will very soon be ready to issue indictments against our citizens for war crimes," Mr Vladan Batic told reporters.
Mr Batic, a leading figure in the DOS pro-democracy alliance which last year ousted authoritarian nationalist president Slobodan Milosevic, did not say who the authorities may accuse of war crimes.
But he was speaking about a case involving a freezer truck full of bodies recovered from the River Danube more than two years ago. The bodies are thought to be Kosovo Albanians.
Police investigating the case accused Milosevic, arrested on April 1 suspected of abuse of power, and his closest aides last month of covering up evidence of possible war crimes in Kosovo.
It was the first time new authorities had linked him to crimes in Kosovo for which the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague has indicted him, suggesting that they plan to widen the domestic charges.
"The discovery and exhumation of bodies from the refrigerator truck best shows that some of our compatriots have in the name of the Serb people allowed themselves to commit war crimes," Mr Batic said.