8 hours agoWhen Palestinians invited Milosevic to Jerusalem, Israel's government threatened to arrest Kasap of the Balkans
Periskopi(5 years ago)
(5 years ago)It was the end of 1999. The brutal war in Kosovo had ended for a few months, while Palestine invited then president of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic to go to celebrate Orthodox Christmas with them in Bethlehem in January 2000, though he was accused of then macabre war crimes. On the other hand, Government [...]
On the other hand, the then Israeli government threatened that the Balkan Casap would be arrested if it landed there. So states a December 2, 1999, script published by the American newspaper, SFGATE.
I think if he lands here, he'll be arrested. I think this would be done in most countries around the world”, said Aviv Shiron, a spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I think this is a diplomatic error. He speaks for himself”, he stressed.
A senior Palestinian official said he would not expect Milosevic to accept the invitation. But Greek Orthodox officials were not sure.
“Yeah, he's invited, but I don't know if he's coming, said Maria Margetti, a secretary at the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem who said he was looking at a list of all the countries whose heads were invited to the festival that was organised. “Ende have no response”
In May, during the war in Kosovo, Milosevic was charged by the UN International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague with persecution, deportation and murder of Kosovo Albanians. All members of the United Nations were legally obliged to arrest Milosevic if he violated their territory.
When told of the invitation, an investigator at The Hague tribunal said under anonymity: “I would say that Mr. Arafat is taking a lot of trouble if he does that. Second, he would be under obligation to do something in our name to stop him from going to Bethlehem. Any country that helps and supports a war criminal, the world would have a rather dim view of him”.
